I'm Not Actually a Turtle, but I Do Feel Like it Sometimes

I'm getting close to the end of the week! Work is almost done! I feel like I've been robbed of my soul. It's the first time I'll have worked 40 hours (and dare I say I hope it's the only time?).

No, really it has been an awesome job and I'm so thankful to have the money. I couldn't have asked for a better situation- Mrs. Castleberry is really kind and flexible and the hours were great. And she made us lunch :) And it's four miles from my house. The work is challenging, but my skills developed enough this past week that I don't feel like a nincompoop anymore. That's always a nice feeling...non-nincompoopness...and now that I'm more or less "trained," I'm leaving :)

Yay! I'm leaving!!!!! This week I realized just how much I miss my family when I'm not home. But it's not the same kind of missing as it will be when I'm really gone. It's the kind of missing you have when you glimpse them in the morning as you're spinning out the door with your tennis shoes half tied and your breakfast half-settled and see them again in the evening only when you're so tired you don't open your mouth for fear of snapping someone's head off. (I haven't worked past 5:30, but it felt like midnight to me.)

I want my family back! I don't like seeing them but not being able to connect. I think I'll adapt better in Ukraine, where I won't see them at all and can focus on the surroundings there. Hmm. I'm sure there will be a few tears, however.

I hope this is not really all complaining. This week has been so hard, and I keep feeling like I've failed the Lord. I complained a lot and said a lot of things that I didn't need to say, and I just couldn't pull myself together to do anything but work and go to the dentist. I really want to love people and have a soft heart, but my actions don't always demonstrate that.

I feel like I've fallen into a mode of having so much to do and plan that I'm becoming passive and not doing anything. I feel so disconnected from humanity, and yet, I feel too tired and too complainy to be with people.

I skipped out of a perfectly good party tonight because I'm just too wasted to cope with social life right now. I feel like an ogre for that, too, but truth be told, I would probably have huddled in the bathroom crying if I had gone. What can I say. Maybe I need to go meditate :) (By meditate, I mean on God, bty, lest you think the Eastern poetry stuff has gotten out of hand!)

So anyway...I will not always act like a drugged turtle. If you've read to the end of this post, thank you! The sun will come up again tomorrow :)

What Pollyanna has to say to all of us...

This is an article called "Sincerely, Pollyanna", by somebody named Elisabeth Adams. When I read it, I thought, "exactly!" Possibly, I'm not a pessimist like I thought I was. Maybe I've grown up a Pollyanna and just now become acquainted with pain...

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001770.cfm

A Cheerful Heart...

(Written yesterday)

So, I’m home now. On Monday I felt like I was being ejected into the week by something large and maybe rocket propelled. Yikes.

But actually, I have a praise report. My visa application is now in the mail!! The Letter of Invitation we were waiting for arrived on Monday, just the day I hoped to send the application out. God knows His timing!

It seems like there isn’t much to write about back here in “normal” life. But I guess that will change in six weeks or so.

Today I’m at the Shelley’s staying with Nick and caring for Mrs. Flo while Mr. Shelley and Kristin are gone. Mrs. Flo is at her daycare at the moment and I’ll need to pick her up in a little while.

Been thinking about cheerfulness and joy… The verse from Proverbs keeps running over in my mind as it has ever since it popped in last week:

“A cheerful heart doeth good like a medicine.”

This verse is so true, but sometimes I feel so uncheerful and unable to fix my uncheerfulness. But God’s heart is a cheerful heart. And He lives inside me…so I don’t have to worry about it.

He told the Israelites, “You thought I was altogether like you.” But He’s not. Whether I have the blahs, the blues, or the worries, Jesus still has a cheerful heart. He is still my medicine. He is still laughing and singing and dancing—all the things that cheer me up. So I can just lift my eyes up to Him, or nestle close to Him and dwell there in His happiness.

I Stand on What I Know

We’re back at Grandma’s house now, after leaving Grandpa’s around 9 this morning. Poor guy. He’s just so frail.

We took a scenic route back to Dayton along highway 58, I think, which proved to be entertaining. I spent some time trying to catch pictures out the window with my camera of extensive Christmas tree farms, pastures of hay bales, a river, and rolling blue hills in the distance. They didn’t come out very well, but the scenery was nice.

I also listened to music and ate my special cereal. The cereal successfully prevented carsickness on the windy roads, besides the fact that Grandma was driving, and that her car is obviously more compact than the van and doesn’t swish around.

Although the cereal really does look like dog food and nobody else in my family is crazy about it, I like it because it’s mild and comforting, and it has hearts in it. They’re not cutesy hearts, either, they’re nice, sort of serious looking hearts. There are hearts in the cereal because it’s presumably “heart healthy,” but I like to think of them differently. I ate them one by one and thought sentimentally that maybe each one could signify each person I love. But then, that sounds kind of bad, since I was eating them :P

I listened to two Desperation Band Cds for a long time, hugging my pillow and eating my cereal and thinking while the Virginia countryside went by. It’s been so nice to have a change of scenery, and I realized I’ve gone a whole week without the blues. But last night they hit me full force and it really caught me off guard, like a specter of fear, isolation, and bleakness suddenly appearing. Once again, I just feared “It.”

It’s a fear of waking up to the caving in, sinking feeling, over and over, morning after morning, feeling better, then sinking again. I fear the trap of its ugly embrace; I fear clawing out of a dark well towards foggy hope. It all came back, and I felt that all I’ve said and done and written was just a mask over the black hole inside me.

I’d love to be cheerful, happy, and contagiously joyful. I’d love to be a morning person, to wake up smiling and hopeful. But that’s not how it is, most of the time.

The line from the hymn ran through my mind…”Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow…” Bright hope? I thought. What bright hope? Of course there’s bright hope, I know there’s bright hope…I don’t have any reason to think there isn’t…but my sky was overcast, and bright hope didn’t make sense at all. It always comes, and then goes again, betraying me, abandoning me, leaving me alone to face this creeping darkness.

Desperately, I opened the Bible to the Psalms, where I started reading the 140’s. Psalm after Psalm of David’s cries seemed to match mine.

“The enemy pursues me
He crushes me to the ground
He makes me dwell in darkness
Like those long dead
So my spirit grows faint within me
My heart is dismayed within me
I remember the days of long ago
I meditate on all your works
And consider what Your hands have done
I spread out my hands to You
My soul thirsts for You like a parched land
Answer me quickly, O Lord;
My spirit fails
Do not hide Your face from me
Or I will be like those who go down to the pit
Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love…”
Psalm 143:3-8a

“When I am awake, I am still with Thee…” Psalm 139:18b

I was comforted enough to go to sleep, but today I thought about it all again while I listened to Desperation. The upbeat worship music was just what I needed. I needed to hear the words of truth from young, cheerful lips. Truth, truth, truth, truth, truth. My golden thread, my way out, my ticket to freedom.

It seems to be coming down to this: What do I believe? Truth, or a lie? God, or the bleakness? I was just on the phone with Lauren yesterday, and we’d been encouraging each other about God’s Spirit living in us. I’d been upbeat and encouraged. Then suddenly… this. All this time I’ve been saying I have His Spirit in my heart, that I love Him, that I know Him, that I trust Him. Now it’s time to stand up for it. I see a black hole. But if He said He’s in me, then He is. That’s all. And there’s no room for any kind of hole!

Desperation Band sings about joy all over the place. They sing about joy, and their music is full of happy energy. This song grabbed me--

“Whatever the day, I know
You carried the cross, for my soul
You bled for my sin beginning
Life for all, hope for all, joy for all unspeakable

Whatever the day, we know
You conquered the grave, saved the world
Now that we’re free believing
What we know who we know is the truth
So here we go

I know I know I know I know
You turned the world around
Now I have found the way that can’t be shaken
I know I know I know I know
You turned it upside down
Now I have found the life that can’t be shaken

And I stand on what I know.

It’s true so I believe it
It’s true so I believe in You
It’s true so I believe it
It’s true so I believe in You”
“I know,” Desperation Band

If He said it, it’s true. He said “abide in me, and I will abide in you.” (John 15) so…I guess it’s true! He’s like, “Don’t run away from home.” When I sleep, He will not leave me. When I wake, I am still with Him. I just stand, and keep standing. Believe, and keep believing. Cling, and keep clinging. The music heals my soul. His words strengthen me.

I had a silly thought of myself stuck in a tree, and Jesus climbing up to rescue me. And I thought, “What if there were poison ivy vines on it?” And He said, “I would still climb up.” :) It’s a funny childish comfort for basic childish fears.

“Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” “Though you pass through the waters, they will not overcome you, though you pass through the fire, you will not be burned.” (From Isaiah). “God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good.” :)

A Wood Chopping Party and a Few Honest Words

I was just majorly joyified by the discovery that my dear Anna has updated her blog like, a million times since she left me. I hadn't checked in a while because she had quit updating, so it was a very pleasant surprise.

This morning I had a laugh at the gas station when I went to buy ice for our "wood chopping party." As I hopped in the truck to leave, a guy pulled up and got out of the vehicle with four little boys, all about 6 and under. They all had blond hair, and all but the youngest had it shaved in a long mohawk with a sort of possum-like tail trailing down their necks! Yes, folks, this is East Texas :) I just love little boys. (Though that bunch looked like a pack of little terrors!)

As I mentioned before, we had a wood chopping party today. Dad cut down a few sweetgum trees in our side yard that would make good fire wood- ones that were leaning too close to the house anyway, I think. He got several guys from church to help him chop it up and stack it to be used for heating for the next winter or two. We have a wood stove, and we use it to heat the house most of the winter. It's very cozy, and saves money, too.

Mom and I spent the morning makin' vittles for the lumberjacks :) She made a berry cobbler and I worked on the burgers and then made sweet tea, which I characteristically forgot to stir the second time I added sugar. It was kind of fun, even though we both woke up exhausted this morning and didn't start out with much energy. (Ok, I woke up exhausted- Mom, on the other hand, didn't wake up exhausted because I don't think she ever went to sleep.)

Preparing lunch was fine with me. I was just everlastingly grateful I didn't have to get out there and haul firewood myself. Dad seems to have a plan to keep me active out of doors, but I think he knew this would prove a little too much for all of us :)

Hmm...I'm twisting my hair now, trying to churn up something to write. All I can think of is how tired I am and how irritated I am that I'm tired for what doesn't seem like a good enough reason (1:00 a.m. isn't that late), and how my neck is so full of knots it could be mistaken for a fishing net. And how it's horrible to be blogging my complaints and I really shouldn't because nobody wants to read about my pathetic ailments but I really want to talk about it because it's been on the verge of spilling over all day and my poor mom is sick of hearing about it, or maybe I just think she's sick of it so I haven't actually been talking about but shoving it all back inside to moulder instead (and is moulder even a word? I have no idea where I got it.) If I just get it out, I think I'll be ok.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I don't have a very good appetite, which is alarming to a healthy member of this family, where we eat three generally well-rounded meals a day, regardless of how we feel...I'm really not stressed or upset about anything, but my body is acting like it is. So. It and I will have to have a talk. And I will say:

"Listen here, you body of mine! No more nocturnal dreamland travels, no more wee-morning-hour thinks, no more restless tangling up in blankets at night. No more turning your nose up at perfectly decent food when our stomach says we're hungry! In the morning, you and I are going to eat a protein-rich breakfast without complaint like a good human being, and a hearty lunch, and so forth. You are going to be active in the day time and perfectly docile at night, and quit this sneaking around behind my back to stress over random things that I've decided not to fret about!! There now. Run along and play."

And I'm sure it will be perfectly obliging. Well. I feel better already. My goal is always to write honestly on my blog, but sometimes I feel like I have to put on a happy face for it to be worth reading. I'm really going to try to just be myself though, and write what is close at hand. If it's too depressing or complainy, then, oh well. Just "love me or leave me." :)