confessions of a busy-body

confession: i’ve never been good at rest.

now, don’t get me wrong. i’ve had my fair share of lazy days. i’ve gotten really good at laziness in the past. ooh, and waiting periods. yeah, i’ve had those. they’ve got my legs restless and my feet itching more than that one time i took a nap in an ant hill after girl scouts when i was a wee-one.

but one thing i have never mastered is rest. to be honest, aside from in the sleeping sense, i’m not altogether sure what it even means.

i went camping friday night about 2 hours out of town in a place of serenity where even the cicadas didn’t dare venture. i could’ve spent all the time in the world there, but i was still itching to get everything done, and NOW! you see, that’s how i function. i’ll admit, i will rush my way through anything. i don’t take time to stop and smell the roses; because how inefficient is that?! because of that, i am faulted at being a little careless at times. okay, most times. typos, spelling errors, missed details, you name it. and i’m okay with it. it’s how i do things, and for me, its the best, most time-efficient, way of getting things done.

but, you don’t go camping to get things done.

i found myself having a hard time resting. okay, let’s go! okay, let’s hike! okay, let’s set up the tent, start a fire, and cook dinner! s’mores, now! let’s go to the waterfall! sunset! okay, bed time! is that the sun?! alright! let’s get up, tear down camp, and go hiking and climbing! ugh, i’m sitting too long; i’m going for a walk!

i got back on saturday evening, and sat down to read a book. that is how most people rest and relax right? i finished the book in one sitting. efficiency. who needs to spread it out over days and weeks?! i’m wondering if this is why i have a hard time finishing books in the first place... hmm, i might be onto something. or maybe, it requires you sitting still, in one place, with solely one focus for a pretty significant amount of time. yeah, i’m not very good at that. there are other things that need to be done.

i wish i could find the pause button-- heck, slow motion would be okay even. but instead, i’m a multi-tasker, a doer with a to-do list (or 5; yes, i just checked wunderlist on my iphone to be certain) 9 miles long. i’ve been known to shave (yes, SHAVE!) while driving, clean while cooking, or set up (or push back) my errands so they are most conveniently aligned with something else in that part of town. i like to make the most of my time. i don’t know if that is driven out of my habit of procrastination (read: there is literally no time left, so i’ve got to make double-time) or if it is truly like the planning portion of my mind works like a nintendo-geek playing tetris and just waiting for those 4-block-long pieces to fall and knock out 4 lines in a row.

whatever it need be, i think this season is going to be about learning how to downsize in my brain. to relearn how to take my time. to be precise when i cut and sew my curtains (the fabric is staring me down for the dining room table as we speak). to make time to blog, and sift through the changes my heart and life has endured in the past year. to not get frustrated when it takes me an hour to prepare dinner due to our limited counter space and lack of a dishwasher. to enjoy waking up in the morning, not rushed, but not overly-lazy. to finding a balance between forcing myself to the gym, pool, store, etc. and knowing that i don’t have to get it all done in the same day, everyday. to understand that this period is a well-needed, well-deserved break separating a year finished and a year beginning. if i don’t decompress, i will go in already run-down from last year’s class, with a whole fresh new group of kiddos.

summer vacation starts now.

rest on the other hand....

you may not know it now...

i stopped and stared at the gray walls as more color, life, and hot glue was stripped away.

“you’re gunna miss this. you’re gunna want this back...”

it seemed like just yesterday i was frantically trying to beat the clock on turn this sterile prison cell into an inviting and engaging kindergarten days. and there i was, standing full circle, deconstructing what remains after what seemed to be the longest, fastest year of my life. this past week has been so crazy that i have just wanted it to end; yet the amount of work to be done by Friday seems so insurmountable, that I’d rather time slow to a crawl so i can get every square inch accounted for.

“... you’re gunna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast...”

the song on pandora caught my attention as i frantically ran across my classroom, doing 40 things at once; finding things in far corners of the room and cataloging my to-do’s in far corners of my brain. but i paused and listened to the lyrics, a gentle reminder that even in this chaos, i should not wish the days away. this is my first year, this was my first year. that is something i will never have again. in the past week i’ve chalked up to disaster, i have failed to stop and look around and breathe. instead, my mantra has been “swim as fast as you can and pray you don’t drown.” but God didn’t create this moment for me to blast past it. i will never again know what it feels to be in the midst of the end of my first year. sure, i will end frustrating and difficult years in the future. i will be so swamped i don’t know if i’m coming or going. but i will never experience it with such an innocence and naivety of my first go-round. everyone calls your first year of teaching a “survival year,” but i wish i would’ve thought sooner to make it more of a “surveyor year,” in which i make it more of a practice to sit back, and breath in the sights and sounds and smells and germy germs of kindergarten.

“these are some good times; so take a good look around. you may not know it now. but you’re gunna miss this.”

as the song progressed, i stood in the doorway holding back tears. i am going to miss this. i am going to want this back. this year has flown, and i hadn’t had a chance to catch up to it or grab ahold. i’m going to wish it didn’t fly so fast; that in 10 years, that i would still be in my first novice years of teaching. that i had this young heart and vibrant passion. i stood and looked at the mess strewn about and agreed. i’m gunna miss this. so i closed my eyes and breathed in deep. i want to remember this feeling of overwhelming anxiety. i want to feel the pressure mount as the time quickly ticks, ticks away. i spent just a minute taking it in, etching a snapshot in my brain that so paralleled and coupled my wonder-working weekend in august; and then i exhaled, and got back to work. afterall, its the end of the year, and there’s too much to be done to just stand around lamenting.

nothing here worth talking about

okay friends, as shallow as this may be: this is my first inspiration board. trying to find a theme centered around this dresser for my new room. if you know me, you know i am a HUGE fan of navy and white, especially in the summer. nautical stripes are staple in my wardrobe. but then, that mustard gold color with navy? ahh, yes please. or the orange pictured here? And part of me wants to revert to my florida roots, shun the navy dresser, and just go shabby chic tourquoise and white and burlap, a la beach cottage.

what do you think? what style goes best with the dresser? or should i be beach bound??

starburst

this post could go in a plethora of directions. fortunately for you, its after 10 p.m. so i can only take it one direction, and that is one, straight road to bed.

tonight, in typical jesus fashion of cosmic alignment, i went to an event held by safeworldnexus to benefit heartline ministries in port-au-prince, held here in franklin, tn. essentially, at the heart of heartline ministries is are the livesay's, a missionary family from texas that i feel like i know personally, although they might think that was creepy seeing as how they haven't a clue i exist or blog-stalk them daily. irrelevant. since getting back from haiti last year, i have tried my best to stay as connected to haiti as possible: by praying for the nations, talking to friends that served with me or are still on the ground there, reading news about haiti, referring to haiti in about 95% of my conversations (sorry 'bout it), practicing french/creole with my haitian custodian, and reading blogs of missionary families in haiti to keep fresh the personal, relational side of what is happening in that country. which lead me to the livesay family, sometime in november.

fast forward to just a few months ago, and i began following this matt chambers guy on twitter. he was someone that the livesay's often tweeted to, and i wanna say that maybe photog icon, jeremy cowart has RTed a time or two. anyways, i saw about a month ago that he tweeted about an event. for haiti. in nashville. for HEARTLINE. ummm, sign me up! i love when small worlds collide. and that, my friends, would have been the theme of the evening!

so i sign up to go, and honestly don't know a soul going. which is okay; that's not what it is about.

yeah, until i get there. ever heard of fashionably early? yeah, me neither. that's because it doesn't exist. i'm literally the second person there (the people working the door weren't even there yet). awesome. so i check out the entirety of the displays before practically anyone arrives. by the time everyone else is finally making their rounds to see the pictures and read the stories, i've already circled three times, creepily by myself and had a glass of chardonnay. coupled with the fact i'm flying solo, this makes the entire socializing thing ridiculously awkward for someone that typically doesn't get awkward in new situations.

finding a table, i sat down. like a loser, by myself. tried to make chit-chat with two folks near me, but they weren't having it and got up to walk about. seriously, in my head i was conversing with Jesus, asking Him why this was so strangely uncomfortable; i hadn't expected that from such an event. feeling conviction i felt as if he was like "oh, so this event is about you?" boom. roasted. how easy it is for us to think that we deserve to be comfortable; that everything should be easy.

however, fortunately, a lovely roommate of a girl in my circle of friends recognized me and saved me from dire embarrassment of spending the entire evening as a stranger to this roomful of people. (i know; woe is me, right? psh. whatevs. thanks for listening to me whine!) she introduced me to a handful of people she knew, and as small-world-fate would have it (and i would realize after i left), one of the girls is actually a local photographer in which whom's blog i follow, and had even recommended to a friend for her wedding. (okay, now i just sound like a creepy online lurker; i swear it's not true! i'm not creepy! just well informed!)

anyways, we get seated and the speakers begin. along with matt, speakers included the producer and the exec vp for the dave ramsey radio show here in nashville, and christian blogger/author of "stuff Christians like" john acuff. sitting in a room full of strangers, and hearing each speaker point to the hand of God as He is illustrating miracles in the lives of those speaking and Haitians alike, i can only liken it to a moment of revelation i had in 2008, sitting in a small room of complete strangers, coming together for something bigger than ourselves. volunteering with mocha club for "ellie's run for africa," God spoke to me in a way i've only experienced a handful of times. He removed blinders from the sides of my eyes, and allowed me to see the whole picture. it was bigger than i had imagined. it was beyond just teaching, He told me. it wasn't teaching in the sense i expected. it was in this realm of ministry, and missions, and serving. it would have bigger implications. it dealt with international education.

as the Lord revealed that to me in that small meeting room in 12th South, my plans to return to florida for grad school were put on hold. i wound up in africa just a short time after, and returned to nashville to enroll in lipscomb's MALT program for grad school-- writing my thesis on literacy for empowerment in developing nations, and further developing a heart for the impoverished. little did i know, that God would further give me a desire to lead those that are leading in those nations, and dreams of one day partnering with teachers in these nations to help train and arm those that haven't had the luxury of proper schooling. furthermore, i never dreamed that God would send me to haiti to give me experience in the very situations i hope to one day help advise.

so i found myself in this room feeling this very same feeling: there is something much bigger at work here. i kept asking God to reveal it to me, but I didn't hear Him speaking; just the nudging of the Holy Spirit reminding me of that moment just a few years ago, and how it opened my eyes to much greater than i could've imagined.

acuff, whom i also follow on twitter and had no idea he was speaking, did a fantastic job speaking. one thing that really stood out from me, that will be the focus of the remainder of this post, is something blake thompson, producer for the dave ramsey show, said amidst his discussion of what missions has meant to him in his life. it's funny. i've thought the same thing before, often. i came back with the same emotions, the same longing for the Christ i met intimately while in Haiti. so i paraphrase the following loosely; a mix of what he said, and what i heard. because the holy spirit uses the same words to pierce so differently at times.

i used to think God was here, and not there. i mean, we know that that is not true; that He is everywhere. but to see how they live, and then see what happened to them, i wondered "why them? why, when they already have so little?" but then i went. and i saw their faith. and i've come back wondering why God is there, and not here. you see, we get so distracted by all the things in our lives in front of God. but they have nothing there. it is them, and then it is God. i used to think they were the ones missing out. turns out, we are. what is different is me. it's how close God is when you remove everything else.

i used to wonder why we don't see miracles anymore. and then i went to Haiti. and i saw miracles every day, just even in how God used me and worked through me. there's no way i, as unable as i am, could've done any of that on my own.

i also thought missions was something you were either called into, or not. but we are all called to serve, in one capacity or another. to do what we can. i get to work a job that i love, and get to touch the lives of many every day. this is my mission field. this is what i can do. (i'm not quite sure this part was blake's story; but for the sake of the purpose, we'll just go with it).

to be honest, i've struggled with this a lot since returning last year. there are times i feel so distant to God, and i wonder how i ever felt as close to him as i was when i was serving his heart in haiti. i'm glad i'm not alone in that. i'm glad we all ache for the intimacy of Christ when we have been removed--- removed ourselves, via distractions, etc.-- from it. that's good. it's supposed to hurt. i've wondered the same about miracles; how i've witnessed them in majestic ways, but rarely in day-to-day, average USA life. why is that? (i've got an inkling that it has to deal with radical faith, and that's an entire different post). and questioning our mission field? uncertain about our call? umm, yes. everyday. i forget that i am blessed to be serving in a mission field that is ripe ripe RIPE with those that need the love of Christ as an example before them every day. to be honest, i'm no so certain i am the best example of that Love that i can be, but i too, am a work in progress.

for the sake of brevity (ha! who's kidding, i've been writing/getting distracted for over an hour now), i will leave you with an image acuff began his speech with: looking through a book about weather, his 5 year old daughter saw a picture of a famished child under the section about droughts. with hesitation, she asked "what's that daddy?" and he explained to her that the young boy was dying of starvation, due to not having enough food to eat. with her innocence poignant as any profound words might find, she asks "but that's pretend, right?" her words, young and naive, brought great conviction: certainly, this can't be true. certainly, you can't be okay with this. daddy, what are you doing to make sure this isn't real life.

certainly, we-- a culture saturated with consumption beyond even three meager meals a day-- can't be okay with this. certainly, we are doing something about this. aren't we?

april showers bring...

okay, so its May. i'm not exactly sure when that happened.

aside from the obvious answer, "ummm, rhi, like... last week, maybe?" i feel like this year has FLOWN; at least in hindsight. recounting the first days/weeks/months of teaching, i remember feeling desperately stressed and like i would never make it through that time, but alas, here i am just three weeks shy of putting my first year of teaching in the books.

in addition to finishing my first year of teaching, i will also be moving. a bittersweet depart from the lovely condo i've been able to call home for almost the past three years.

as i prepare for the stress and sheer inconvenience of transporting my entire life just a few miles away, i feel an odd sense of completion of this chapter upon me. truth be told, i always figured the next house i moved to would be one with my husband, and not a new roommate, but not much about what i've "figured" about life has ever turned out to be that way. with the school year wrapping up, my besties becoming wives, and our first real stint of "life after college" coming to a close, i almost feel as if i am leaving one chapter with one set of keys, and crossing the threshold of an entirely new one. which is bizarre to me, because it is mainly just circumstances changing more than anything else, but c'est la vie.

maybe the nostalgia is stirred up with the dust as i pack, or maybe there is more on the horizon just too far yet to be seen; i don't know. but here i stand, at an odd ending place. one i didn't feel coming until it was upon me.

praying for peace and guidance as i (hopefully) move on to bigger and better.

i guess, this is adulthood.

because He lives

walking into church, still mostly embittered from friday and exhausted from saturday, i couldn't help but find comfort in this long-loved truth-teller:

because He lives

i can face tomorrow

because He lives

all fear is gone.

because i know

who holds the future

and life is worth the living

just because he lives.

i may not know where i'm living, or how i'm going to afford it. i may not know where i'm working after this month is over. i may not know how i'm going to fit all the things i need to do into this month; but fear thee not. because of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, one thing is for certain: my life is in His hands. i have entrusted Him to protect and provide; and my worrying about it is not doing either of us a lick of good. (that doesn't mean i won't worry, or that i am all of the sudden fearless; just trying to walk in that direction).

although i still don't fully understand why everything always seems to pile up at once, i do understand that because of Christ we do not have to live in fear of the unknown. while obstacles and distractions and frustrations and discouragement often bring us down, as long as they drive us to jesus, they are part of that whole "all things work together for our good," thing that the apostle Paul was adamant about.

"be aware that when you go to Jesus for help, you will always give to, and get from, far more than you bargained for," warns Tim Keller, in his book King's Cross (as quoted by Pastor Jim in today's message).

which reminds me of a few details from friday that i not-so-humbly decided to leave out (actually, i couldn't find where they would fit, so i gave them the boot; only to find them back here in part deux).

as i was driving somewhere in between bellevue and the 1st or 5th stop i made friday evening, i began to really worry about my car and its new noisy shake. i began to pray, "please Lord, please don't let my car fail me. preserve this car; i can't afford to lose it. i don't know what i would do if it quit on me."

at that moment, it almost felt like discipline. "this car doesn't belong to you; you know that, right?"

i humble agreed. "i know, Lord. you give and you can take away." regardless of the (impaired) state of the car, that stung. think what it would be like to be car-less; we've become so reliant, could you imagine what it would be like to have to go without? it made me sick just thinking about it; but as much as i didn't want to hear it, i knew He was right.

so two seconds after i fell up the stairs (i am just that talented and graceful) (remember, the first second was dump truck deja-vu), i immediately felt Him say, "you're phone, too. you've gotta be prepared to give these up. don't put your trust in your things." ugh. strike two, but again, He's right.

discipline and rebuke are never fun; but its in those moments that we really have no footing to argue with God, and He is able to really point out areas that need work in a way that we will recognize them and just leave our foot in our mouth.

remember those words of Tim Keller. be prepared to hand over more to Jesus than you expect. and if at all possible, do so gracefully and joyfully. i imagine that would be a lot less painful.

shattered

friday was one of those days. one of those days that it takes me 48 hours to even have the courage and boldness before i can blog about it, because i know the sheer recounting of details is only going to drive that dagger deeper and deeper into my heart. and i apologize in advance (actually, i'm writing this after i've already written this post; more as a disclaimer) for the disjointedness of it all. c'est la vie.

***

i was slumped against the refrigerator door, sitting on our old, dirty hardwoods and crying. more like sobbing, but i've got to save face somewhere in this post. i felt so dumb for even crying; nothing that had happened that day was monumentally life-altering, but beneath my skin, my frustrations welled and swelled, and finally burst forth as tears; uncontrollable tears. (hey, it's better than the other option: screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs in my car (which i was half a breath from doing sitting in the kroger parking lot just an hour earlier). more on that later).

this had been the last straw; the final push over the edge for the day. it wasn't even the fact that i had fallen walking up the stone stairs to our doorway, or even the fact my over-priced, overly capable iphone 4 was shattered and losing glass shards in my ear; no. it was the fact that i had just got done telling God how angry and stressed and frustrated i was, and how i needed Him so intensely needed Him, to be right there with me as i was walking sebastian. it was the fact that i just stood there in the dusk, behind that wall, (hopefully by myself), and expressed all my fears and the chaos that had surrounded that day; that i had just said, "God, i can not take this anymore. i don't know what to do, or how to make any of this work. i can't deal with one more thing." it was the fact that i was already drying my tears to walk into my house and pretend that all was well as i baked and prepared things for my roommates bridal shower. that i had tried so hard all day to just keep up and not feel like i was getting sucked under this funnel cloud of bitterness; but it was too late. i was already there.

the second i hit the concrete, i felt an all-too-familiar feeling. i hadn't felt it in a while, but i knew exactly what it was as if it were yesterday.

i had been sitting there, on the side of that dump truck, bouncing along Rue Mauripas to the park for our prayer walk. frustrated, discouraged, and exhausted, i said to the Lord (in my head): "if this side were to fall, that would just be the last straw, God. i'd be on the next plane home." except, I didn't even get to finish that thought-- the side of the dump truck came unhitched, and over the side it went. safe from harm as i had been grasping hold of a handle on the side of the cab, i was so angry that all i wanted to do was scream and cry. i had just told God how angry and frustrated i was; and He let's something like this happen to me?!

i dust off my hands, and see the shattered face of my phone, but it wasn't the pebbles in my palms nor the shards of glass in my phone that put me over the edge into hysteria. but it was the rush of emotion that i had felt in haiti when hell seemed to get hotter.

i sat there against the fridge, crying and complaining about everything i was worried about or felt jaded by. looking for a new house, potentially a new job. the new sounds and shaking of my car that leads me to believe mile 170,000 just might be its last leg. the jerk that didn't show up for our meeting at the rental house, and his inconsiderate way of not letting me know. driving to Nashville West in said shaky-car to go to Bed Bath and Beyond . . . only to discover my memory failed me (again) and there is no Bed Bath and Beyond in Nashville West. Spending an hour to finally wind up in Bellevue. the panic attack i had sitting in the parking lot of kroger trying to decide the best way to make dessert for 25 people: tortes? souffles? mousse? bouchons? and then reading the email from said jerk about the house i was supposed to see in which he paid no attention to anything he himself had asked me to do. feeling like i wanted to do nothing more than scream at the top of my lungs a few choice words, thankfully right as Colt pulled up to help save the day in the parking lot. (okay, i admit, i chickened way out on this one; i just couldn't muster up the courage to actually say any of them). the amount of money i had spent on this weekend . . . and now the thought of having to have to pay to repair my car and replace my phone, while paying last months rent here, and a deposit and first month's rent at a new place. the thoughts of my mama spending her birthday in fear and hysterics after experiencing a home intruder while they were sleeping the night before, and still feeling shaky myself after losing sleep all night from feeling so sickened by it all.

but on top of all that, i was so upset with myself for ... being upset about all of that. and that just added another dynamic to the emotional exhaustion. i was so mad at myself for being so stressed and upset and frustrated over such paltry things. there are millions of people starving to death. millions of orphaned children. 300 families were in mourning over the loss of loved ones, and hundreds of thousands were left completely devastated by the tornadoes in alabama that we were so graciously spared by. there are riots in Uganda, suicide bombers in Morocco, more and more cases of cholera in Haiti. Japan is still trying to deal with nuclear meltdowns long after their devastating earthquake and tsunami. and here am i, crying over the bad day i had. so on top of already feeling angry and frustrated over this day, i was feeling disgusted with myself for feeling that way! ugh! there is NO winning here!

i don't know why i tell you all this.

it's certainly not for pity. i don't want it nor deserve it. i'm disgusted with my anger and frustration with things that are both out of my control, and in the scheme of things, not a big deal. i know that. i get that. but for some reason, it doesn't make it all hurt less. slumped up in my kitchen, i knew that i had it so much better than so many, but that doesn't mean the hurt and stress i was feeling from this week was any less real to me; or that it didn't matter.

i know that the Lord longs to heal our hearts. i know that he desires for us to draw near to Him, and stay near, and seek Him on all things. maybe i write this because i am frustrated that in laying it down at His feet, i felt just like i felt that day in haiti in the back of the truck: why God? why in the midst of calling out to you, do i feel like i've been kicked while i am down?

so rather than tie in a spiritual moral i've learned or some profound metaphor that was spoke to me through an instance of nature, i suppose i leave you with just the vulnerability of knowing that i don't have all the answers most of the time.and maybe its okay to feel hurt, even if it is trivial compared to the needs and cries of others.