overexposure

I really hate that I only use this blog when I'm just too filled with yuck to know what else to do.

This is a time when every force in my life is begging for a deeper committment. Relationships, mostly.

Part of the draw of one of these forces will require me to- yet again- give my testimony.

And honestly, I don't know that I have it in me right now.

Is that bad?

I feel as though I've been an opened door for so long. I've been everso forth coming with my past and my vulnerabilities that I've exposed to what ever enemies are out there just exactly where to stick the knife. My Achilles heels are too prevelant and prominant.

I do not remember the last time I've wanted to be more of a recluse.

Sometimes, I get really down on myself that I just can't snap my fingers and be someone different. Someone who doesn't take things too personally. Someone who doesn't expect the worst. Someone who doesn't get so wounded and refuses to heal. Someone who I would consider more valuable.

Someone less awkward.

I often feel that I never aged past 15. Adolescence was more of something I failed at than lived through, so it seems. The insecurities. The cluelessness of how to have friends. The sting of rejection. And all has become so much more difficult to wade through as the years have passed.

I so wish that everything I wrote was inspirational. That I was inspirational. For the good.

And it's not that I'm not happy. Because I am. And grateful and thankful.

It's not so much that I want life to be different. It's me I want to change.

Let's not talk about this.

a movie about my life that didn't star me (they'd probably cast me as a hasbeen)

So, I'm using this space instead of my usual because I'm about to go all wordy and deep, and I'd like to avoid that one reader who--even after being told it's probably not appropriate for him to keep reading my blog--still insists on doing it.

And he'll probably find me here, too. And that comment is probably going to get me into trouble...

But this entry isn't going to be about anything to do with him.

It's actually about a movie.

Jon and I just got back from seeing 500 Days of Summer. We saw this instead of seeing Away We Go because I'm pregnant and could probably not have made it through a movie that started at 9:00 pm even if it was all for John Krasinski.

I may end up spoiling it for you, but it's not my intent. Nor am I setting out to review this film... It's more to confess some junk that this movie has evoked in me.

In the first minute of the movie, you discover that even though it's being tagged as somewhat of a romantic comedy, this flick will not end happily. Or at least, not for one of the characters.

Before any image appears on the screen, the watcher has some reading to do...

It's one of those typical disclaimers about how the story is fiction, and none of the characters resemble anyone in real life on purpose.

But then, there's an additional line which sets up the entire movie. It reads:

"Unless your name is Jenny Beckman. Bitch."

Who is Jenny Beckman? The audience is left to wonder...

I soon found out who she is.

She is me.

The general plot of this story is boy meets girl. The twist is that the boy believes in true love, fate, and happy endings. The girl believes in living for the day and having fun.

The boy- Tom- is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who forever to me will be Josh Wilson's look-a-like) and is who you are supposed to be rooting for. He's a gretting card writer because he couldn't cut it as an architect (I didn't see the parallel either). He's a romantic. Brooding. Angst-filled. And only made more adorable because he's the victim.

Summer (Zooey Deschanel) is aggressive and adament about not wanting a relationship with Tom, so they are in a very intense one together that she pretends is just them being friends.

For 450 of the 500 days of Summer, Tom is on a roller coaster of highs and lows, agonizing over what the right thing to say or do might be to secure himself in Summer's life. And each day, it's enough for him just to be hanging by a thread.

And then she dumps him.

Summer's whole reasoning behind her ways was that decided that after her parents' divorce that no emotions were permanent. It was better to just enjoy people while the good feelings lasted. And so that was what she did with Tom.

And when it was over, she was done. And she expected him to be her friend.

As I sat in my seat, hating this girl for reducing this boy to weeks in his bathrobe with a bottle of Jack Daniels and countless Hostess Twinkies, I suddenly recognized her very clearly.

So much, it actually startled me.

Granted--Zooey Deschanel is prettier, and her character dressed better and had a way cooler apartment and sense of independence than I ever did... But still, I knew her.

Because I was her. And I did what she did.

When I was young--very young, like a child even... I dreamed of being beautiful. I wondered what it would be like to be the "love of someone's life." I always wondered if anyone would ever have retrospective montages of me in their mind and refer to me as "the one that got away."

I romanticized that idea because I wanted to matter. I wanted to leave an impact by these silly, imaginary standards. The idea of someone being alone in their 30s because I had ruined them for all other women somehow made me feel important. Special. Valuable.

And although these fantasies never became actual intentions, the reality of the damage I caused in many of my relationships is pretty much indisputable.

Ironically, a lot of times it was because I really didn't think that anyone could really care for me so deeply as to be wrecked if our relationship ended. I used and believed that excuse very often.

But I know that this justification doesn't detract from how much real pain I inflicted with my actions.

I can hardly even believe that that girl was me. I did some very horrible things.

To people who loved me.

Once I saw myself in Summer, it was hard for me to villainize her. So many times my heart changed on a dime. And there was always someone next in line to turn my attentions to as not to have to deal with my responsibility.

She had to have some redemption, right?

I know I did.

Hers she met while reading The Picture of Dorian Gray in a coffee shop. She married him just months later. And while she was explaining all of this to Tom, she illustrated to him how he'd been right about love the whole time. There is something bigger than us, directing the chances of meetings and chemistry. She thanked him for teaching her that there was something out there bigger than what she felt for him.

She found what he felt for her with someone else.

My redemption I met in a parking lot while moving into an apartment. He happened by and helped me carry up a box. I was in a casual relationship at the time with a boy who loved me very much. And I married Jon just months later.

Now, my ego isn't so big that I think there are boys from my past still pining away for me in darkened apartments where the refrigerator contents are ketchup and baking soda...

But I'm also not so obvlivious to know that I cruelly caused many a heartache in my past. Selfishly. Unfairly.

Not that I don't believe that Jon and I are meant to be. As he put it the other night--He's my lobster.

And I can't belive that I'm actually going to use this reference, but I have to.

I watch the Duggar's Bajillion Kids and Counting because theirs is an alternative lifestyle that fascinates me. Among one of their beliefs is that dating shouldn't transpire between individuals who aren't courting for marriage. The line that they each blindly (a word I see both positives and negatives to using, but see truth in both) repeat about the reasons for this is--When people date, they are giving little bits of their heart away. God wants us to save our whole heart for that one person we marry.

As cornball as this after-school-special-pick-up-line is... I am proof that it is completely true.

The romantic part of this movie made me swoon. Watching Tom hold hands with Summer for the first time... their first kiss... it all gave me butterflies. The newness of a relationship is a feeling by which this world goes around. Every love song is written about experiencing it or losing it. It's basically an industry.

I have had many of those times. With many, many boys.

But except for Jon, they all ended the same way.

With a lot of pain. Anger. Hurt. Bitterness.

And those feelings cloud the retrospective.

And the good memories? If I enjoy them, I feel guilty for indulging in the memories that aren't of my husband. I have given pieces of my heart to a whole lot of people, and I reserved just what was left for the one I will spend forever with.

How ideal to have only the memories of new love with just one person. The one who I will always be with, and the memories won't be clouded by the pain of the relationship's end. If only someone had planned it all that way from the very beginning...

Now, I know I'm not Jenny Beckman.

But she's out there somewhere. And I wonder if she has ever drawn the same conclusions that I have. I wonder if it took this movie to show her the hurt she caused.

I wonder how many there are of us.

And I totally am feeling grateful that I never dated and scorned any up-and-coming filmmakers.

That's definitely not the impact I want to leave on this world.

lessons learned from the WB

Now that I'm done with One Tree Hill, I'm going to have to start wasting my life away again in reruns of Capeside.

But seriously, there was one episode of Dawson's Creek where Joey gets an assignment from school which forces her to choose the one person who knows her best, and that person has to write an essay about her.

I think about that assignment a lot.

Hands down, my husband knows me best. Now.

But aside from him, I'd be absolutely terrified to read what anyone else would write.

Is that normal?

I am still in the Three Kings mindset... "no one knows their own heart."

Does that mean that our only inklings into who we really are lie in our interactions with others? Or, does it mean that our true identities are simply a mystery on earth and will be revealed in heaven?

If I don't know who I am, how can I change it?

I should stop trying to philosophize teen soaps.

But I could totally rock out on an essay about Pacey.

i don't recognize her

I've heard it said that all of us look at the past wearing rose-colored glasses.

I didn't think that was true for me. I'm a realist, after all.

But, I think maybe a defense mechanism or two have kicked in since the good ol' teenage years. Or maybe it's just that I now have enough distance between myself and who I used to be, and I can finally see just how I used to be.

I wish that there were spot on the space-time continuum where all of my selves could just meet up. Although, I'm not sure what sort of preemptive measures I would have even known to take.

All this angst is stemming from the pages of a diary I wrote during my high school years. I recently found it in a box in the basement of my mother's house. And I hope to heaven she never read it, because I'm sure it would have broken her heart if she had.

It broke mine.

From cover to cover, I repeat the same mistakes. I'm horrible in what I say about myself. And I don't think I ever mention being happy about anything. Not even once.

Instead, I'm boy FANATICAL. I'm self-disparaging. I'm abused by "friends." I'm horribly mean to people. I'm angry. I'm scared. I'm trying to prove myself. And I am constantly giving pieces of myself away to anyone who will take them, and the result is an empty, sad mess.

I agree that most teenagers are probably melodramatic at best in their journals, but for some reason, I guess I'd always thought while I went through my share of junk in my youth, I somehow rose above the remnants graciously.

Instead, I know recognize just how incredibly out of control I was.

I think that the worst part of everything I read was just how cluelessly I spoke about God. And actually, what's most surprising is that I've come as far as I have despite who I thought God was back then.

I think that this is the first time that I don't feel 17. I feel like that girl I was then is a stranger, and I am actually a grown-up.

And you know what? The context of those pages are probably no different than how most teenage girls are nowadays. It's obvious what approval I was seeking. It's obvious the things that I valued. It's obvious I was lost and lonely.

There are hints that the author is a part of the me I know today, and those similarities are frightening. While I've come a long way since 14, I'm still struggling with confidence in any and everything I do. I feel as though I'm mostly a coward. And I've never learned how not to expect the worst.

And my biggest fear? That history will repeat itself. I don't kid myself that my daughter will be exempt from the trials of coming of age... But, if her teenage diary is anything like mine, I won't be able to help feeling like a failure as a mother.

My mother would agree that I know better than she did. My mother was an very young mother with lots of odds stacked against her that I don't have.

I'm not asking for a gaurantee about anything. But is it too much to ask to change history a little?

I know that the knee-jerk reaction to all this is to just tell me to be grateful for the victories in my past. To know that I am who I am because of where I've been. There is value in that, I know... but is it wrong for me to just want to NOT have been who I was?

I didn't know I was still this fragile.

Saul, David, Absalom

In light of reading A Tale of Three Kings, my heart is heavy.

If all authority comes from God, then when is it proper to challenge the authority?

When the authority contradicts God’s?

Am I supposed to have that sort of discernment?

How does democracy play into this?

What is the definition of authority in this context?

Is it every right for authority to be overthrown?

Who makes that decision?

What about Hitler?

At the same time, what about Jesus Christ?

Why is it that I read books to get answers, and I only end up with more questions at the end?

“…authority from God is not afraid of challengers, makes no defense, and cares not one whit if it must be dethroned.”  I feel that in small ways, I’m learning this.

“A man cannot know his own heart. “ This is both terrifying and comforting to me. It also makes me feel like I’m a stranger to my own self, but it reaffirms why we need community, people to speak into our lives.

Evidently, to understand the bible to the degree I desire, I must go to seminary, get a Master’s in history, learn Koine Greek and Aramaic, and discover the Ark of the Covenant.

Or maybe I should start by just praying for wisdom.

silence

It's times like these I really wish I had a private blog.

Well, I suppose not... because if that were true, I'd be writing everything down in a journal that only my eyes could see.

Instead, I wish I had a blog where I could freely write everything going on in my head and in my heart. But, circumstances what they are... It's just not possible.

I always liked the idea of anonymity as a writer. The idea, but never the reality. I mean, I write because I have something to say, and if I'm going to say it, then I need to own up to it.

Maybe I just keep hoping for that wise reader who stumbles upon my blog and from their non-place in my life can speak into my struggles such truths that I cannot deny the Divine Intervention.

But, nevertheless, I know that it all ends well.

And not speaking is giving me a chance to listen.

babble on

There have been only a handful of times in my life where I have felt the Holy Spirit.

I don't even know if that makes sense to any of you... or me actually. But, having felt what I have felt, and having the vocabulary that I have... that's the only way I know to describe the happening that sometimes takes place when I am in prayer.

Yesterday, sharing a devotion with one of the staff, that is what happened.

I felt completely filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit. And, like every other time in my life when this is happpened, a huge part of me panics.

It is so overwhelming. I can't tell if I'm going to float, going to fly, going to melt, or going to disappear... but I feel like something is trying to happen.

And I just don't let it.

I've never invited this to happen successfully. There isn't a trend to my prayers which evokes it. It's not something I have control over happening or not happening. It's up to God.

And yesterday, as I was praying... I felt so strongly that God was trying to pull something out of my mouth. Physically. I felt as though I were on the verge of speaking something that I had no idea meant. I felt like I didn't have control over my own mouth... but that God did.

But I didn't surrender to it.

I have never spoken in tongues. I have heard it once, and I totally believe that it's a legitimate form of worship and is from God.

I just never believed it was something I would do. Or could do. Or that God would choose to do through me.

Oh, me of little faith.

And so, whatever message was supposed to come out yesterday, I didn't allow it to.

This was awesome and terrifying at the same time.

And PS- I'm not crazy. But I guess that doesn't matter either because some people will crucify me for saying this anyway.

to the pain

Last weekend our pastor gave a sermon about this clip from The Princess Bride... and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.




To the pain.

A unique turn of phrase. We've all heard of the Prince's counter, "to the death" or "till death do us part." One in every three love songs is about a love worth dying for. Hollywood cashes in on the concept of death being the epitome of sacrifice from one person to the other (Titanic comes to mind... why didn't they just SHARE that stupid door Rose was floating on?).

But..."to the pain" is different.

Prince Humperdink is prepared to give his life in the duel; however, he is not prepared to fight to the pain... to suffer, to be disfigured, to be an outcast.

Death is an end. It's a scary end, most of the time... but still, if he dies, there is no further earthly consequence. It's his out.

But to the pain... that's terrifying.

And I feel like that's how a lot of us live our lives...

Marriage... Our vows say "till death" but we really mean until the death of the marriage... until it gets tough... until it's "to the pain..." Then we want out.

Children...same deal. We want babies... but somewhere along the line, when parenting becomes "to the pain"... we give up on them. Teachers do this, too. A lot of teachers do this especially. I know that as a high school teacher, a lot of times, it was easy to only stick with kids to the death and write them off before to the pain.

Relationships... I've lost lots of valuable friendships to the pain. Pride, fear, and insecurity kept me from pushing through the hard times and misunderstandings.

I don't want to live like that anymore.

I want to live life "to the pain."

I want to value people enough to not write them off. I want to persevere through the rough patches in marriage. I want Lilah to know that NO. MATTER. WHAT. her mother is in her corner... fighting with her to the pain.

Jesus lived this way.

Literally.

He still does.

My brain hurts from how much this makes me think.

confessions

The further I walk in my faith, the longer the road seems to be.

And I find comfort in this... in the size of God, and the room I have to grow in him.

What discourages me though, is how often I feel myself walking backwards.

I have such little confidence in myself. I have such doubt in my ability to execute my callings.

Rejection paralyzes me.

I struggle with pride.

I take things way too personally.

These admissions don't release me, but instead I fear that they label me.

And I hide behind them.

Because when it all comes down to it, I'm the biggest bully myself has ever known.

And if I can't stand up to my own persecution, I don't have a chance against the world's.

Sigh.

to suffer

Today I heard an interview with an author of a new book that discusses the idea of suffering vs. a benevolent God.

I listened to him talk about his life in the Catholic church and his life removed from Catholicism as a believer. And then I listened as he discussed that through becoming a biblical historian, he came to believe that there is no God.

To him, the accounts of the gospels are contradictions. He stated that to see them any other way is to take away from the perspective of each of the writers of them.

Also, through his research of the history of the world, he concluded that the amount of suffering that has existed since the beginning of time completely negates the proposition that there could be a God.

I heard all of this immediately after sharing a conversation with a woman at work about the very same subject.

This woman was talking about a book she was reading written by a Christian in communist Romania. The author's faith was only strengthened by the horrors he endured and the peace he felt in the midst of it. He wrote this book in three days, the first three days after he had been released from prison, only after he had sought out his torturer to forgive him face-to-face.

This woman shared with me conversations she had had with missionaries in Communist countries, places where the belief in God is forbidden. She talked about the eyes of the people, how empty they are, and what a joyless culture it is.

So... in my mind... I recapped...

One man, who presumably didn't suffer because of his faith but rather enjoyed the freedom of studying it at the greatest of lengths, concludes that because of the suffering he that he has read accounts of (and possibly seen first hand, I'm not sure), there is no God.

The other man suffered horrible atrocities for his faith in God for years, day in and day out. He also had an eye-witnessed account to others suffering as well, many who did not survive. And what he took away from the experience was an unbreakable faith.

What's the difference? How can two people draw such opposite conclusions about the same God? How can one man, who many of us would not blame for denying God, choose him, while the other with no tangible reason to do so reject him?

Something tells me that the answer is something more simple than I'd think possible.

It's experience.

The first author was a very knowledgable man. I'm sure he knows more about the bible than someone like myself. He probably has every last detail memorized, especially the ones needed to back his position on his faith (or lack there of). But, in his entire interview, I didn't hear him mention anything about experiencing God. About being tested. About God being tested in his life and failing. It just seemed like he did a lot of reading and reasoning within himself, and then he concluded what he did based on thought.

The second author may or may not be a biblical scholar. I don't know. But he lived under conditions which I couldn't be able to comprehend. He absolutely had to rely on God for every breath that he took, for his sanity, and for the ability to forgive his torturer. I'm sure throughout the years it wasn't ever easy to believe in an all loving God in heaven, but something sustained it in him. And does it make sense? Is it rational to think that through suffering unspeakable atrocities day after day for years that there is a Creator out there who truly loves you? No, it's not logical at all.

But this man still believed. He still loved after all that.

He had to have experienced something beyond himself, his own thoughts, while in that prison.

He had to have experienced God.

I'd like to think that I'm a seasoned Christian, but really, I'm not. This faith is so grand that I feel as though I'm only beginning the babysteps of the journey. And the more my understanding grows, the longer than path seems to be.

But here's something I've learned.

When I truly seek God out, the real God, not the one I make him to be (you know, the one who is supposed to answer all my prayers, give me what I want, and not expect me to pursue His will for my life, and not let me suffer at all) I find Him. I feel Him. I hear His quiet voice. He speaks to me through trusted friends. I am confirmed.

When I make demands of Him, when I ask Him to change others, when I expect Him to connect to me when I refuse to read His word, fill my mind with junk, abstain from relationships with other believers who will hold me accountable, ignore His convictions, I can't find Him. Because that god- the god of my demands- doesn't exist.

And those times that I experience Him the most are also those times when I'm suffering the most.

I guess then, when left alone with my own thoughts, I reconcile suffering as almost a necessary component for us humans to get to know God. For without it, many of us wouldn't ever reach out to Him.

We'd never have the opportunity to experience Him.

radical

What does it mean to live simply?

To go without?

To sacrifice?

What does it look like, today, for a middle-class family in the suburbs of a suffering city, to be obedient?

Where is the line between protecting my family, and loving others as Jesus called me to?

What does it actually mean to love like Jesus does? Even those who hate me. Especially those who reject it.

What is the currency rate for time? How can I equate these commodities to the best of my ability?

How do I attain the confidence to go and do?

Am I just making this harder than it has to be?

punctuation marks from hell

Sometimes, I like to blame things on my period.

It's easier that admitting that sometimes I just want what I want and then folding my arms, sticking out my bottom lip, and pouting in the corner.

My mom was supposed to come up this weekend for the first time since Lilah was born. Instead, she's going three hours further away from me to see my nephew be born.

Knowing she isn't going to be here, and knowing that I'm not going to be with my sister makes me cry like a baby.

It will never stop hurting that I don't get to live near my family. No matter if I understand it or not.

sometimes it makes sense

Four and a half years ago when I moved to Metro Detroit, it was very begrudgingly.

I made a deal with God that Jon and I would move back to Indiana in one year, at most.

I didn't even change my cell phone number.

Year one came and went, and the opportunity to return home didn't present itself. No matter how hard we tried to force it.

By the end of year two, we had Lilah, and we were still fighting tooth-and-nail to get back to the Hoosier state. Jon had three companies interview him, fall in love with him, promise him the world, and then slowly disappear from the radar. It was almost science fiction the way that each company independent of one another simply cut off all conversations with us, one even after paying Jon close to five hundred dollars in traveling expenses.

We (I) reluctantly (kicking, screaming, and cursing) gave up and made our home here.

But Jon wasn't happy with his job. It constantly took him away from Lilah and me, sometimes a month at a time. He kept talking with his company about transferring departments, but there was no place for him to go.

Two years later...

Elkhart, the place we were trying so hard to return to, has the highest unemployment rate in the country. It is the RV capital of the entire world, and for a trillion reasons, no one is buying mobile homes at the moment. The scene in my home town is pretty dismal. Obama has been there twice in mere months to address its economy.

Also...

Jon, although in the auto industry, has been mostly spared from all of the fallout in recent months. He was promoted from his former position and placed into a new one... One which as of a few weeks ago has absorbed so much work into it that they will have to hire more help.

At the same time...

We have always rented apartments since we got married. We talked about buying a condo a few years ago, but we wanted to mobility if ever we got to go back to Indiana. When our lease is up this year, we will have enough to put down on a house. A house, which thanks to the current financial situation in America, we could have never afforded before.

I don't know why we have been spared extreme hardship during this bleak time. It is most certainly not because we have deserved it, earned it, or been faithful enough to "achieve" it.

It is so completely fall-on-my-knees humbling though, that most times, I can hardly take it.

I think back to all those tearful nights when I poured my heart out to God about why I didn't understand why he wouldn't let me go back home. I remember the pain, the mourning I went through (and still do to some extent) in being away from my family, my home.

And all that time, I couldn't hear God's small voice telling me to trust Him. That His plan was better than mine. That someday, I might see that he was protecting my new little family from great hardship.

Not that hardship is only a consequence of disobedience - no! I would say, more often, it's a natural wordly consequence of being obedient. But in this case, when I reflect upon all that has transpired in the past few years... I see God's fingerprints all over all of it.

And I just simply couldn't have before. I knew they were there, but I couldn't see them amidst all of my anger, pain, and sadness.

I know that many people are currently in the thick of where we were a few years ago. I hope that my little story might encourage them to be faithful in these times.

He knows what He's doing.

the idea of empire

I finished reading Rob Bell's Jesus Wants to Save Christians, and I'm pretty sure I read it too fast and too much of it went over my head. That's my disclaimer if you have also read this and think I missed the point.

The missing of points is also a theme in the book. Evidently, lots of Christians do this all the time, so at least I'm in good company being off the mark.

But this is what I've taken away from the book...

Part of the book discusses pre-exodus Egypt in a frighteningly familiar way. I know I'm going to over-simplify the already overly simplified story of the Jews exodus from Egypt, so if you are a biblical scholar, forgive me.

The Jews were oppressed in slavery in Egypt, and they cried out to God. God heard these cries and freed them from their oppression. Almost immediately afterwards, they forget who has freed them and begin worshipping idols. God shakes them up with the Ten Commandments. He makes a covenant with them about the importance of not being oppressors and stock-piling weapons and becoming an agressive military state. Then He sends them on their way to the promise land, where a few generations later, they (under Solomon) are a huge military power with lots of weapons and are using slaves to build- get this - the temple.

Slaves are building the church.

I can't help but think back to my elementary school history books. About the Pilgrims setting off to a new land to obtain freedom from the oppression of England. And about how in the process, we inflicted a genocide on the native people already living in that new land.

But wait... that isn't how the history books told it, was it?

We were the good guys. We were the ones conquering the enemy. Fighting in retaliation against a godless, aggressive people.

Right?

And we've been the good guys, every time since. Our intentions have always been pure. We've never invaded or attacked out of selfish motives.

Right?

When September 11th happened, I couldn't believe that anyone in the world would want to hurt innocent people... Innocent Americans in that way.

I couldn't believe it because I always got As in my history classes.

I feel like I've spent much of my adult life unlearning what I was taught in my youth.

I have a feeling I concluded a lot of what Bell was leading me to conclude with his book. America is the new Egypt. We are also the new Solomon's Kingdom. And as history continues to repeat itself, so goes America.

I just don't know what I'm supposed to do about it.

How do we break the cycle? Is it too late for us?

Are fear and greed to powerful a force for even a "Christian" nation to avoid their pitfalls?

This book is not a doomsday novel. It's not a discussion of the end times. It's a "manifesto for a church in exile." And for that purpose, I think it's an excellent read. I need to read it again.

I just wish it had a happy ending.

new year renewal

Over the holiday break, I spent a lot of time reading.

First, I polished off Stuff White People Like. I have yet to take the quiz, but I have found that as far as Caucasians go, I'm pretty honky.

Next, I read 20 and Counting which is the how-to/memoir published by the Duggar family who just welcomed their 18th child on December 18th.

And finally, I'm about 25 pages away from finishing Rob Bell's Jesus Wants to Save Christians.

You may look at these three titles and think that they are in no way connected, but they are.

Or maybe they aren't, but the messages I'm suppose to be taking away from them are.

This new year brings with it lots of forks in the road for my little family, and perhaps it's those issues that are already weighing on my mind as I go into reading that end up highlighting the same conclusions.

I definitely need to process each of these books separately if I'm going to be fair in reviewing them. However, as a result of all three in combo with what's coming up in life... here's what I'm thinking about.

1.) As much as I don't want to live in Elkhart, I had a hard time leaving. I can't help but whine about the unfairness of living so far from my family while at the same time understanding it. With so many people leaving Detroit these days, many of whom are going against their will, God continues to reaffirm that we are to be here.

2.) I'm dealing with a lot of conviction in the amount of quality time I spend with my family. This is going to mean less blogging. I'm okay with that.

3.) We need to be more intentional about every single dollar we spend this year. We need to save while at the same time helping those who need it. This will require some lifestyle changes which I'm prayerfully preparing for. That doesn't mean it's not going to be rough.

4.) This fall will probably mean a move for us. We have a lot to learn about housing between now and then. Discernment will be key.

5.) There are relationships in my life which are toxic and I need to gracefully bow out of them while not letting the remaining scar tissue prevent me from being open to new friendships.

6.) My eyes and ears are opened to new opportunities. In lots of areas. I don't have any clue what this preludes, but I feel strongly that it's something significant.

These are not really resolutions because they aren't goals I'm trying to accomplish. These are more like new mandates that have arisen as a result of what we believe is meant for the next season of our lives.

Endings are difficult for me. And so are beginnings. Probably because endings are usually follwed by beginnings.

I'm good with being in the middle somewhere. Hopefully I've got some more clarity by March.