Living vs. Existing

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde

It's been over 6 months since my last post. While I thoroughly enjoyed the hiatus (including the one I took from Facebook), I've developed quite a list of topics I have wanted to blog about. Also, a few southern friends requested I restart the blog so they could keep up with the family. Mom covers the chicken topic enough now, so maybe the reading will be better than before.

For the last few months I've been wrestling with the feeling that I'm just spinning my wheels. I go to work, work 8-9 hours a day at a job I enjoy, come home and try to find something creative for supper, tap out a few words of one of my current stories, and go to bed to start all over again. On the weekends, I sleep in until 7:30, read a book, eat one meal, maybe go to town, and tap out a few more words.

Maybe it's just a phase. I don't really buy into the whole "young people finding themselves" mentality, but perhaps this is just one of those life transitions where I'm finding my rhythm. Maybe.

Something with which I have always struggled is being anxious. By now anyone who has read this blog knows this. I worry too much and over-think things and second-guess myself, and I know a lot of what I'm working through is managing that aspect of my brain.  But then I sit still and try to count all the things I accomplished in 2014. It doesn't really amount to much in 10 minutes' hard consideration. Drawing it out, my life is pretty colorless. Again, maybe it's just a stage. Maybe I'm in a quiet place where all I'm supposed to be doing is sitting still and learning, listening, developing. Maybe.

I found the above quote from Mr. Wilde quite a while ago and it often comes to mind when I hit one of these contemplative moods. Much as it scares me to admit, I'm not really living my life so much as muddling through it with as little effort or involvement as possible. I'm so caught up in the personal struggle to find my place, of learning the steps, that I've sunk deeply into myself and blocked pretty much everything else out. (I'll be the first to agree that my social interaction is at a level which is undoubtedly detrimental to my health.)

And then I pop out of that shell, take one look at the world, shiver, and withdraw again. Back to the anxiety.

I know I'm here for a purpose. In my family, in this city, as the particular job I hold, in the certain church where we've found a home. In this time, these circumstances.

Another quote which I hold close is from J. R. R. Tolkien and The Fellowship of the Ring. It's more like my life quote at the moment:

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. 

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

God picked me specifically for this location so I could do something for Him. More and more I'm coming to terms with the fact that it may not be very grandiose by the world's standards or even by Christendom's standards. But it's my role. I may be that supporting character who meets one of the key players ten years down the road and has traveled just the right path to know how to nudge them back onto theirs. When I look at it that way, I can't help but get a little giddy.

It's not about finding a springboard to move one from a quiet town to a big adventure. It's about making the most out of whatever circumstances in which one finds oneself. We can't all be world explorers or geniuses or composers. Those people need the clerks and babysitters and nurses. They need the girl behind the phone whose name they can't remember who relieves one small distraction on their plate by informing them that the timeframe they need will work just fine, and who bids them good day with a smile in her voice and doesn't correct them when they get her name wrong again while saying good-bye. (It's not that I'm bitter, but "Amber" is not an unusual name. I can't count the times I've been Amanda, Amy, Andrea, Samantha, or Heather. At this point I just smile and choke down a laugh.)

It is about making what I have been given count in more ways than monetary. It's about loving sleep a little less and hanging out with a lonely friend instead, or meeting for a Bible study. We're here to interact. We're meant to touch, to see, to hear, to speak to, to sing, to guide, to hold. Not to just revel in a sunset, but to glory in Who painted it. Not just to catch our breath after wrestling with a kid, but stopping to read a Bible story and talk about it before helping them crawl into bed. Not just giving candy to an orphan, but the truth as well.

We may not live expansive, bold lives, but we are meant to live on purpose. Wherever we find ourselves, we are meant to make the most out of it for the glory of God.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. - Romans 12:1

It's reasonable, after all God has done for us, for us to surrender our lives to Him. 

So this post isn't all I had hoped for it to be. They never are. But I think I've said what I set out to. And here are some other quotes and verses which contributed to the concept:

"The fear of death follows the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time." - Mark Twain 

"Just breathing isn't living!" - Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna  

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." - George Eliot 

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength." - Corrie ten Boom, Clippings From My Notebook 

"You're not here on accident; you shouldn't live on accident." - Hugh Taylor

There and Back Again

It's taken me a few days to sit down and write this because I'm still struggling to process everything. Tonight at church most of us "Peru Trippers" had a little testimony time where we got to share about our experiences in Peru. I had such a hard time sorting through my thoughts. I kind of knew what I wanted to say, but I lost it as soon as I stood up. Thankfully, I didn't dissolve into tears. But there was so much more I couldn't find the words for. I still want to share all of that.

I'm planning on doing a series of detailed posts after this one, rather than cramming everything into one long, unorganized, rambling post. For right now, however, I'll do an overview of sorts. 

Practically everything I knew about Peru before this trip was what I saw in movies, read in books (though few fictional characters ever go to Peru), and heard from my family and others who have gone there on missions trips. I looked up Peru on Wikipedia after my trip, and I can tell you that short page doesn't even begin to describe Peru for real.

I didn't realize how little those stories would prepare me for the reality. I think we all tend to develop ideas and pictures of places we've never been based on what we're told or pictures we see. I know I do. Turns out all those images I'd subconsciously developed over the years were not even close to correct. I can't say I really had culture shock. I did wish I had dedicated myself to my Spanish studies.

We had a number of bus rides between the children's home and the city of Lima and its suburbs. During many of these, Bro. Mike, the missionary whose family founded the children's home, rode with us. He provided little educational lectures rather like a tour guide, acquainting us with Peru. I learned that Peru contains every kind of climate existing in the world, from snowy mountains (3 hours away from us they were having snow storms) to rainforests to deserts. The area with which I am now familiar is the "costal" area: rocky, arid, and among the foothills and edges of the mountains.

We arrived at the end of their winter and rainy season. "Rain" there is actually a fine mist. We rarely saw the sun and most days were cuddled up in sweatshirts. Once or twice I wished for gloves. One the warmer days, we Americanos locos went barefoot, and the nannies asked if our feet weren't freezing.

While we visited the ritzy areas of Lima on occasion, that area and class weren't our focus. We spent most of our time among the normal people, the "average" population (and I'm not sure how else to word that, but I don't mean it offensively). The houses are small and full of large families, the conditions are poor and often filthy, there are dogs every where (I mean everywhere).... But that's not what I'll remember. Almost instantly, I was impressed by the spirit of the people we met. They were happy, open, humble, friendly, kind, and even content. Yes, many talked of how they wanted their children to have better lives; but they weren't consumed with that. They work, they struggle to get by, they laugh, they love. 

Peruvians (or los Peruanos, as we learned) are proud. Not high and mighty proud. It's more like dignity. For example, they might be poor, but they dress as well as they are able.

While we were there, we got to witness their Independence Day celebrations (which we didn't even realize we'd be there for). The actual date was the 28th, which was a Sunday, but most of their celebrations took place on Saturday. Just down the street from the children's home was a parade which lasted a good four hours. It was mostly school groups, all dressed in costumes reflecting different parts and times of Peru's history and culture. You could see the patriotic pride there. 

From a tourist's standpoint, Peru might appear very religious. There are certainly plenty of churches, and I'd guess the majority of the population, at least where we were, had some sort of religious ceremony they went through. But it's not real. It is simply religion: a practice, a pattern, empty words and actions in an effort to earn one's way to Heaven. There's no relationship with God, no fellowship, not faith. That was one of the most heart-breaking things of all.

But despite that, the people were still so willing to accept our gifts of tracts and Bibles. They're hungry, and they don't deny that. Again, they're so open and so humble, willing to receive, quick to love, ready to help. The people we went to serve and to be a blessing to turned out to be an even greater blessing to us.
This is turning out to be just as confused and rambling as I feared. I'll try to work on that. Before I close, I suppose I should mention something about the plane ride.
I was strangely composed when we boarded our first plane. Referring again to things I learned from movies, I expected it to be bigger than it was. Turns out all those planes in the movies were the long-distance type, while ours, for two hours of travel, was considerably smaller. The first take off wasn't as terrifying as I anticipated. There was the initial felling of weightlessness and I clutched the seat in front of me (where, thankfully, Dad was seated) and probably went pale. Mom was laughing at me, so I guess I was a sight. But after we leveled out, I actually was able to enjoy myself. It almost felt like riding in a van or bus, until we hit turbulence (which we did while passing the Andes on our longer second flight). Turbulence still bugs me, but I'm cool with the rest.
And our 7 hour flight from Lima had personal TVs with a wide selection of movies. Though I was exhausted from a long day, I did watch one. Heather turned on Sound of Music, of all things.
So the thing I was most worried about turned out to be no big deal. Yay for me!
I'm going to go now before I make any more of a mess with this post. I'll be back soon.

A rather incoherent late night post

My mind is running in a dozen different directions. I was trying to come up with something to blog about on the way home (ah, summer hours) because I'd been too lazy to blog earlier. I spent most of my day watching movies and hanging out with siblings and a friend who were all only semi-concious as they recovered from Lock-In. I'd spent the night nibbling brownies and watching Karate Kid (the original) and getting to sleep near my normal hour (after kicking Hershey off my bed for the fifth time).

It's been a dreary week.

I need to be careful I don't make this late-night blogging a habit! Right now I'm munching on a lukewarm roast and dodging around Mom while she tends to the chicks and gets them settled for the night. She just did a head count; it's about like that scene in Robots when...the red guy voiced by Robin Williams is trying to count baddies. ("Will you all quit moving around? I think I counted one of you twice!")

Right! Focus (Daniel-San...).

I wrote a post a while ago about late night driving and the dangers of deer on the roads. And my subsequent fear of encountering said creatures on the road in the dark. (Even during the day, but especially at night...) With work, I've been doing a lot of night driving, and I'm pretty used to it. I have to turn on a radio station with junky music because I need background noise but I lose focus when songs I actually enjoy are being played.

Anywho! Due to the flooding, I'm having to take a different route home. This road is narrower and the trees are closer, making it easier for deer to hide. But I had a revelation of sorts: it's not the deer that scare me. It's the other drivers.

People driving at night are worse than during the day. Admit it. Misuse (or lack of use entirely) of blinkers seems to be a prevailing issue around here, but at night people figure they aren't necessary at all. What? And brights? I know there are deer. I'm just as concerned about them as you at. But when you are coming at me with lights equaling the intesity of the noonday sun, you need to be worried about me, because I can no longer see to make sure I'm keeping to my own lane.

However, both of these issues are things I deal with not just from other drivers, but from myself. At least, my car.

The switch with the blinker, lights, and cruise control is messed up. (And it'd over $100 to fix it.) Whenever I need to use the blinker, I have to switch it up or down and then pull it forward. And it's harder to use when it's cold outside. This problem is further compounded by the face that pulling that lever-thing forward also switched on the brights.

See where I'm going?

If a car is coming at me and their brights are just too much to bear, I'll flicker my own to kindly hint that they need to disengage theirs. However, sometimes the poor driver coming toward me is following all the rules of the road and I flash my brights at them anyway, because the blinker won't work. This happened a couple weeks ago. Said approaching driver then proceeded to display their brights as if I need reassurance that they weren't on. I almost missed my turn.

I don't have any of these problems (at least my side of them) in Mom's car. Her brights stink, to be honest. They're the equivalent of another car's regular lights. It's okay if I forget they're on and a car is approaching; they can't tell the difference. In my car, I have to be careful, because its brights are the sort that set other people to flashing theirs.

Wow. I'm rambling. This is totally not what I intended.

Like I said, I had a whole bunch of thoughts on what I could blog about. I usually hit my second wind around 11 at night, if I'm still awake. (I know. The normal person doesn't get that until 2 or 3 in the morning.) But this is as good as it's going to get. I'd better leave now before I do any more damage.

Someday, my prince will come?

My cousin is getting married tomorrow.

She's the first grandchild on Mom's side of the family to get married. It's a tinny bit bittersweet, since Grandpa died this May. That's where Mom and Wes are. They took a train! Of course, it was in the middle of the night, but still. A train! I'd take that over a plane any day.

Meanwhile, I'm home alone. Again.

Well, not entirely. Dad's here, just at work. By now, I'm pretty used to this routine. Possibly too used to it. I had Hershey pick the movie last night. And then I cried through the movie. ("Ms. Potter", if you were wondering.) And then I watched "Push", about superheroes. Well, superhumans. And ate macaroni pies. Which I made while listening to Christmas music.

I was going somewhere with this, I know it. I think it was going to be deep and thoughtful. Somehow.

Oh. Right. Weddings.

And, no, I'm not going to talk about my wedding dreams. (Oh, goodness! Last week I had another. Well, it wasn't the wedding exactly. And the guy had a face! But I digress.)

Years ago, when I was, like, twelve, I fantasized about being married by the time I was 18. Probably in part because that's when Mom got married. I've always been in favor of marrying young. (Not absurdly young, mind you.) As I got older, I waited and waited for "the ONE" to magically appear and sweep me off my feet.

Is it because I read too many fairytales? The only romances I like are the old classics, like Pride and Prejudice, where there's more to the plot than just the romance.

Anyway. Obviously, I'm even in a relationship yet. And whenever I consider the fact, I feel begrudingly grateful. I doubt I would have been ready emotionally for a relationship even 6 months ago.

Mind you, I don't agree with the whole attitude of "waiting till we're ready", because my experiences with life have proven that things never line up the way we imagine. That's life for you.

As time went on, I found more and more people and books talking about having contentment in singleness. For a while, I agreed with my mouth but not with my heart. Somehow I figured God would agree with me and toss a shiny knight into my path just because my heart said I was ready.I built all my dreams around it. I spent my time staring off into the distance, waiting for Mr. Right to crest the horizon, wondering if maybe his horse threw a shoe on the way over, and generally pining away for something I'd read and fantasized about and about which I still have no clue.

Finally, I got jogged on the head hard enough that it clicked: singleness is a stage of life, not a transition. Life doesn't run childhood-transition-marriage-happily ever after. After the big mental/emotional growth spurt, when we start realizing what life is about, is a new stage. Where I'd been spending all my time waiting for the next stage to arrive, thinking of it as being what my life was all about, I was wasting valuable time.

Singleness is an opportunity, just like every other stage. It has its own challenges, its own chances to grown and learn and do important things. It's to be embraced, not endured.

Some of you might be rolling your eyes. "Yeah, duh. Is that what you've been thinking all this time?" Give me a break. I take a while to catch on. I'd actually welcome a helpful slap every once in a while.

Here we go again. Another thought I can't quite put into words. Bother it all.

Okay, fairytales. Most of those ditzy princesses and scullery maids had one goal in mind: find the prince (or otherwise exceedingly dashing, witty, chivalrous, well-built, man) and fall in love-at-first-sight. Subconciously, I'd made my role model more like Ariel the dreamer (sorry, Jessi) and Snow White, the whistful maid singing into wells and listening to her own voice echoing obnoxiously. In fact, it's supposed to be more like Rapunzel (the Disney one): reading, painting, learning to cook and play guitar and make candles, and carrying on lengthy conversations with a sarcastic amphibian. You know, not wasting her time gazing out of windows thirty stories in the air. She wasn't even thinking about being resuced by a dashing rouge with what, frankly, I think is a ridiculous smolder.

Okay, so maybe not quite like Rapunzel, but I hope you get my meaning.

Yes, I really just wanted to try to make a comparison to Disney princesses. Then there's Belle, who sees the true man behind the hideous face.... Ah, I give up.

My point goes back to my ever-present theme of making the most of every moment; something I still fail at quite regularly. I spend my days waiting for the perfect man to come along, and all the while I'm not working to grow into the strong, spiritual, helpful, smart woman he deserves and is looking for. I have at my fingertips everything I need to grow into that person. Or - deep breath - I may never get married. (I hate considering that alternative, but this is reality.) Either way, God has a plan for my life, and He's shown me the kind of person I need to be in order to be the most effective, with a man at my side or all by my brave, adventurous self. I'm the same person either way. I know what I need to do, and instead of wasting time waiting for God to take my advice and just give me the guy and expect it all to work out beautifully despite my lack of efforts to prepare, I should be doing something. Anything, really.

It's an attitude I have to force myself to adopt every day. It's painful and itchy and two sizes too small for my silly day-dreaming heart, but it's the goal. I've been laying out all my dreams like the plot to a fairytale. Have you noticed they don't usually get far beyond "I do" and the happily-ever-after spiel?

Fact is, it's still life. It will still have its challenges, and I still have to be ready to meet them. A kiss doesn't magically solve everything.

So here I am, 18 and...more than a half, and learning to make the most of it. Or trying. And I'm starting to realize that, unfortunately, we never stop growing. Maybe growing up, yes, but not growing. Again, that's life. Why does it have to be so confusing?

What's in a Name?

Recently - I don't remember why - Jessi was talking about googling herself and people she knows, and telling me about the funny (or weird) results. I think I've tried it once or twice for myself. Out of curiosity, I googled myself yesterday. Just my first and last name.

I didn't find myself until the second page.

I did find a photographer, a couple restaurant employees, an ancestry.com page to a lady b. 1908 d. 2000, and a character for a Percy Jackson fanfiction. I enjoyed that last one.

Strange how googling myself and finding many people with the same name who are not me can make me feel so insignificant. I guess that's what middle names are for. Although one search result informed me there were only five people in the U.S. with my name. I find that hard to believe.

We were watching a TV show on Netflix the other night - one of those apocalyptic/world collapses kind of shows everyone seems so interested in - and one of the characters mentioned how she couldn't remember her dead husband's face.

Dad jumped in with a comment about how that has a scientific explination: We have a hard time remembering what the people we know most and love look like because there are so many images of them in our brains that they all jumble together, whereas we recognize people we've only seen a few times because there are only those couple images to link to them.

And here I was worrying that it was just my weak memory that made me incapable of recalling the features of a friend's or relative's face.

I did get to pondering something like this a while ago, while I was feeling especially poetic. It seems to me that for the people we love, it's less what they look like and more who they are that comes to mind when we think of them. Less physical features and more of their...essence, if you will (though I don't mean to sound creepy). I've often heard pastors talk about our bodies as just being the shell for who we actually are. When I think of my family, I think of what they mean to me, what I know and love about them, not the color of their eyes or how tall they are.

I don't know why I find this so comforting. Maybe it's the knowledge that, though I'm bound to forget the face, I won't forget the person.

At one point that was going to tie in a little better with the name thing. Something along the lines of "it's not the name, but the person", and how a name is just what someone is called by. (And that, in turn, was going to link to my dog.) Maybe I'll give it a try.

First off, my dog. Don't y'all love hearing about her? In those brief moments when I find the will to train her, I realize that one key component to her training is the fact that she doesn't answer to her name. In the training guides I found through google, they tell you to say your dog's name, and every time she (most dog training manuals always refer to the dog in question as "she") responds, "click and treat". Dogs don't answer to their name because it's their name, but because it's the word they know to  mean we want them. If that makes any sense.

In a lot of the fantasy books I read, especially Tolkien's, the characters have multiple names. They have their given name, and then sort-of-nicknames based on their characteristics, or terms of endearment, like the Elvish word for "laughter". Names are used to identify, but often the name used identifies with the true person, and it's not the name they were born with.

It's a concept I can't quite put into words, and I almost feel funny trying. I don't want to sound bizzare or anything. This isn't supposed to be deep and un-Biblically spiritual, just a thought.

That whole thing about our body just being a shell makes me think of Jesus. He was God incarnate, God in a body prepared for Him. Even His name wasn't unique. It had significance, of course, and then He was also called "Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us". All this junk about how Jesus looked makes me roll my eyes. (Especially when He's depicted as Caucasian. It's not racist to be firm in the fact that Jesus was a Jew.)

Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Because I'm having a really hard time trying to explain, and it's frustrating.

Names do have significance. They can define you, especially last names. People associate names with things. A child with a good, upright family will have more expectations put on them to be like the others who carried that last name. Names can connect people. But names and faces aren't all we are. They aren't the impression we'll leave on people. It'll be the attitude, the spirit of joy or of depression, the laughter or the temper, the hope or the sorrow, friendliness or pride, love or hate. They might never remember our name - they might not even know it at all - but there's a chance that, even for a couple hours, they'll remember who we were because of how we lived in front of them.

The Purpose of this Blog....

Before I get to the actual point of this blog:

I totally forgot to mention another thing from our trip down south: I decided that I want to learn to play the spoons. Right after I achieve ambidexterity. Then again, all my practice to become ambidextrous may be the only thing that will enable me to have the coordination necessary to play the spoons.

I'm not kidding you. We saw a hillbilly band during our touristy touring. Washtub, banjo, guitar, and spoons. Of course, I'd probably end up with bleeding hands and arms for the first two weeks of practice before the calluses developed, judging by the way the woman played those spoons. 'Twas fascinating, truly. Good thing I don't have nice, dainty hands I want to keep in flawless condition. Wonder what it would do to my fingernails, though....

Onto the real subject: I'm thinking about changing the title of my blog. Indeed. When I titled it "Breathless", I'd set out with the idea that I'd take what I saw and did in my everyday life and write about it, similar to One Magical Moment Per Day. Clearly that plan didn't turn out the way I'd expected. I'm still trying to find my blogger's voice (if you couldn't tell), because rambling on and on and recapping all the time irritates me to bits. The original idea of "Breathless" isn't quite what I'm going for any more.

I'm thinking about maybe "The Definition of Me", though that doesn't really flow. The idea behind it is that, lately, I've started "discovering myself", if you will (I know, I don't like the New Age connotations, or whatever that's related to, either, but I can't pin down the proper term). It's hard to put into words. It's all about this growing up process, and how I'm stepping away from being a child defined by the authority figures around me - my parents, especially - and changing into the person I'll be the rest of my life. I'm trying to capture the idea of that journey from child to adult, I guess. I don't know. That doesn't really make sense, even to me.

Let me try one more time. Much as I dislike the phraseology, the idea is a journey of self-discovery, in the simplest terms. It's what I've been struggling with for the last year or so: trying to figure out where I'm headed, "what I want to be when I grow up", and, deep down, the sort of person I'm becoming. The struggle with a new sort of independence and existence that kids my age face. That transition between child following parents to adult stepping out based on the guidance of those parents. If you get my meaning, and it's okay if you don't, because I hardly do.

"The Definition of Me", or "Defining Me", just sort of came to me a few days ago, along with that whole confusing concept I just failed to put into words. I don't know if it fits, but neither does "Breathless", either. Basically, the goal I have for this blog is to allow people to share in my journey by looking at the little things that define me as a person; like my love of gardening and cooking and writing, my brat dog, hopefully soon the stage of life where I start my first real job, etc. Less of me rambling about nothing in particular like I would in a private journal, talking about what I did in general, and more of a story highlighting the things that are special to me.

That's the dilemma, in a nutshell. Concision is not my strong point in writing! I'll mull over the one, but if anyone has any grand ideas, by all means, do share! "The Definition of Me" doesn't really roll of the tongue all that well, and, really thinking about it, I don't much care for it. Help?

It's not what I wanted to say, but it's better than silence

I've been avoiding this for too long. Believe me, at first I did try to write, but it ended up being a jumble of thoughts that I couldn't and didn't want to sort out, so I gave up. I'm still struggling to find something to say, though there is a lot I need to say.

But I think I'll be a cop out and not say much, because everyone who reads this pretty much knows how my life has gone lately.

I think this is one of those stages of change in life. Transition is definitely how it feels to me. School is done, I had my first job interview (I didn't get the job, though), and I'm trying to figure out just what I'm supposed to be doing.

Mom told me a while ago that this age was the worst. It's like everything is happening and yet nothing is. It's that pause between acts, when the stage goes dim and everyone is changing outfits.

Clearly I'm feeling far more mellow than normal. I can't usually manage that kind of metaphor.

I don't mean to make it sound like life hasn't been busy. We've kept moving from one thing to another. I've had plenty to occupy my mind. But I still feel like the actor who can't remember their lines or their position on the stage. I know I need to be moving, but I'm scared stiff.

At the graduation ceremony at church a couple weeks ago, I said I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grow up, but for the moment I planned to continue at our church's institute and help Mom and Dad with their missions work. That's all fine and dandy, but Institute doesn't start for what?, three months? And there isn't really very much I can do to help Mom and Dad right now. That's all just in theory at the moment.

Change. A part of me dreads it. The sane part of me likes feeling settled, knowing the routine, knowing what to expect - demanding to know what is to be expected. That illogical, hyperactive, colorful part of me screams for adventure, and adventure requires change. That part of me wants to keep moving, keep trying new things, and has very high expectations. And tends to wrestle control of my brain out of the hands of the sane portion.

I'm supposed to be looking for a job. More than that; I'm supposed to already have a job. But I've come to find out that - lately, at least - I'm the sort of person who isn't very self-motivated. Not that I'm making excuses. It's just another bad habit I need to beat. But how does one who procrastinates and lacks incentive find the willpower to tackle those two faults? That's almost irony.

Now I'm really babbling. Hopefully once I get this mess out of the way I'll be able to blog more clearly.

I suppose the struggle I'm dealing with is finding purpose. I've always had that struggle, but it's become far more evident lately that I seriously need some purpose. I'm dissatisfied with the life I'm building. I need to find something worthwhile. Don't worry; I'm not going to rush off on some sort of self-discovery type of adventure. I'm just trying to get a better perspective of life.

The sane part of me keeps urging me to settle down and get serious, to find something to do and just do it. That part of me is heavily influenced by my wise parents and my well-meaning youth pastor, who may not even realize how deeply their words hit me. However, that uncontrollably wild side of me refuses to accept that I have to choose just one path to take in life; refuses to believe that I might possibly have to accept a job I couldn't like without forcing myself; refuses to accept any responsibility for the choices I'm making. That part of me wants to believe anything is still possible, I can do whatever I want, and I have all the time in the world to do it.

How? asks the sane part. By dreaming? Unfortunately, this world requires at least a little money to fulfill dreams. And, as much as I still plan to get published, that process takes a while and I kind of need something to happen right now.

Wow. This post turned into an inner battle. Lovely. But there: there's my struggle. There's the truth to what I haven't been able to find the words to say. Maybe I'm looking for some outside support, some peer pressure, I don't know. Like I said, I don't really know what I want to say. As well as feeling panicked by this rush, this urge to change, I also feel lost in the bustle. Maybe I wrote this because I needed to, for my own sanity's sake, because I seriously need a reality check. I don't know. I can't believe I'm actually going to post it, too, but I need to so it's all out of the way and I can get back to some semblance of regularity.

So here goes.

Living with Purpose

I was going to pop on and do a quick recap of my eventful week, but something came to mind during church today and I decided to save the dull recap for another day and ramble for a bit instead. You've been warned.

Okay, where to start....

Well, we had a "guest speaker" in Teen Church today, because our youth pastor is out of town (the "guest speaker" being a man from our church who has some kids in the youth group). The speaker, Mr. Haught, likes audience participation when he preaches, or at least when he preaches to the youth group. He usually asks for a show of hands or input on whatever subject he's preaching on. Today was about serving Christ, and he started by asking some of the kids what they are thinking of doing when they grow up (and on that note, I think I'm finally figuring that out for myself!). A little while later, he asked one of the boys to give his salvation testimony. First "How old were you?" and then "Explain what you did" and then "Why did you do that?". The answer to the last question was, "Because I didn't want to go to Hell."

Bro. Haught agreed to that for his motivation to seek salvation. Thinking about it, it seems when people give their testimony, typically they say they got saved because they feared Hell.

Here's where my thoughts become a little incoherent.

I have a tendency to get distracted and start mentally wandering from the subject at hand when struck by thoughts relating to that subject. (See? Incoherent.)

Let me try that again.

Usually in church services, when something is said in passing that piques my interest, sometimes my mind wanders away from the actual subject in pursuit of that one little idea.

That happened today, and the result of that long mental amble is this blog post.

My mind went back to the day I got saved (March 28th, 2004). I can't say my motivation was a fear of Hell. Hell wasn't anywhere on my mind. I don't even know what started it, just that I had this inconsolable, indefinable fear come over me. I felt restless and nervous and completely undone. The only solution in my young mind was that I needed God.

I didn't get saved to avoid Hell (well, not just to avoid Hell). I got saved because I felt lost and alone and without hope. God was the light in that fearful darkness and I ran to Him. Often still I'm overcome with feelings of hopelessness, but now my heart has a refuge. I turn to God, and I find peace. The only way to truly know peace is through God.

Now my thoughts are a bit jumbled.

The note I scribbled in my notebook during the sermon to define this train of thought was "is it possible to get saved for a purpose outside of not going to Hell?"

I don't know why, but that thought struck me as profound. When a person is witnessing, typically they say that we need God's salvation because it saves us from Hell. And that is one of the reasons. But salvation also brings peace and hope, and it shows us what true love feels like, and it fills that gap in our souls where God belonged before sin came in. Another thing I wrote was "salvation is more than heaven". It's about more than the simple fact of where we spend eternity. It's about how we spend this life.

Okay, I'm going to jump subjects and slowly bring two thoughts together.

Mom spent three weeks in Peru, and then spent a week in Mexico with Dad with only one week between trips. A bunch of people at church teasingly ask how long they'll be home before going to another country. One man suggested with a smile that we put a curfew on them so they don't leave soon.

I passed this comment on to Dad, and he said, "I wonder if they realize that if we aren't going anywhere it means were out of God's will."

This new direction our life as a family is taking has really begun to impact me and define my vision of the future. Like I've said before, this has been a growing year for me in all aspects: mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. (Yeah, not physically. I'm now the shortest in my family.) My dreams have started to change and become more than vague images. They've started to take shape. I still can't see the road that leads to them, but I'm confident that if I keep moving forward like I know I should, I'll eventually get there.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm starting to figure out what exactly I want to do, and my parents' new ministry and helped me determine that. For a while I thought that when I stood up in front of the church at the graduation ceremony next year, I'd be saying something like "I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up." But when the question was posed to me during lunch with a friend last week, I was surprised to learn that I had a ready answer. Still a bit vague, but an answer. I've only ever been able to speculate before now.

All of a sudden it's hit me. In the past few months I've mulled over it subconsciously, and it seems like just this past week or so I was able to clearly say what I want to do. (I know. The suspense is killing you, right?)

However, like giving a description of my current writing project, it's difficult to put into words. Let's see....

Something along the lines of missions support combined with world travel. For a while missions work has been near the top of my "ways to spend my life" list, but I've also developed a passion for world travel, because I want to get to know more about the world I live in than this little corner of it. And then I also want to use my writing abilities in some way. So I have this vision of follow Mom and Dad in visiting, to begin with, the missionaries supported by our church and helping them in their work, learning about the country they live in, and using writing to help those back home get an idea for what they do.

Yeah, like I said, that whole vision of the future is still a big foggy, but I'm getting there.

Here's where those two seemingly unrelated and rather incoherent thoughts are combined.

My dreams used to be very self-centered. I considered every course of life that held some interest for me, yet they all seemed rather empty and vain. Through this year my vision has changed. I can almost look back and trace the change. It's no longer what I want to do for myself, but what I want to do for God. When I consider how He changed my life, how can I go on living as if nothing has changed?

I can just imagine people muttering that I'm wasting my gift using it for missions, or that any of the great young people I know are wasting their talents and dreams giving them to God. But how is it a waste giving my life to God, using the talents He gave me for His work? I hope people stop and wonder why I'm doing it. I want my whole life to be a testimony to the greatness of God, whether I end up across the world helping a missionary (or being a missionary myself) or live my whole life right here writing books or running a cafe or teaching kids how to ride horses. Wherever God takes me, I can have peace knowing I'm giving my all for Him and I'm right where He wants me.

On that note.... While Mom and Dad were gone, I had people frequently come up and ask me how I was doing. I don't know if I looked worse than I felt, or maybe they didn't even mean it like I took it, but a few looked at me seriously and said, "Really?" when I answered that I was doing good. Maybe I was over thinking it or reading into it too much (I tend to do that), but it seemed like they were...disappointed?...that I was feeling perfectly fine even though my parents were both gone in another country. But it didn't bother me. In light of Dad's response to that comment about giving Mom and Dad a curfew, I can agree that I wasn't at all worried because I knew in my heart they were off doing what God has led them to do. Why should I worry? I'm so thankful for the ease of mind God gave me while they were far away doing His work.

So that's almost what was on my mind today. Why is it so easy to form the thought but so difficult to get it out and make sense? Moreover, why does it take so long for me to finally get the thought out? Maybe with some practice (and a more regular blogging schedule!) I'll learn how to share what's on my heart without all of the rambling.