Rhonda’s Ramblings

20 things about me that might surprise you. (then again…they might not)

1. I have never attended a public school. (Wait, I did take one college course at a junior college)
2. I am quite messy.
3. I don’t own any make-up.
4. I own and wear lots of skirts.
5. I (and my family) were homeless on more than one occasion when I was a child.
6. I have “internet friends” Okay, that doesn’t suprise you, since if you are reading this, you probably are an internet friend. Maybe it’s more suprising that I have real life friends.
7. I have a kajillion fillings. Maybe not a kajillion. But I’ve got a mouth full of metal. Horrible teeth, yet I think my best feature is my smile.
8. I’m not a very good manager because I am not very good at telling people what to do. I guess I feel like they have all worked there long enough that they should know what to do without me telling them. (But I was such a bossy kid.)
9. I have never kissed a guy.
10. I am in love.
11. I have been naked in public.
12. I am kind of a picky eater.
13. I don’t have my ears pierced.
14. I have read Shadow of the Almighty at least 20 times.
15. I don’t have a best friend.
16. I have 5 goldfish and half of a cat.
17. The only t.v. in my house is a 10″ black and white set that my friend got for free on the side of the road.
18. My family life growing up was “highly dysfunctional”
19. I listen to country music quite a bit.
20. My kitchen is decorated with strawberries.

Wow. That was harder than I thought it would be. I haven’t hidden much from my internet friends, apparently. I am an open book.

So, did any of that surprise you?

One thing in that list is not true. Which do you think it is?

I could tell you all the details of the last few days. (I got my hair cut, I made zucchini bread, I made some new Russian friends.) But instead, I’m gonna talk about singleness again. know, I know. I talk way too much about singleness. But I’m single. If I were married, I’d probably blog about marriage. But after all, I am the poster child for perpetual singleness.

As my new friend Oksana and I were in the car together for a couple of hours, we got to know each other, and asked the usual questions. She asked me what I really wanted to do in life. (Because she just guessed that I didn’t want to work at the Northridge forever.) And what was my answer? Well, there are SO many things that I would like to do. Too many to list. But at the top of my list is being a wife and a mom. That’s what I’d really like to do. She kind of looked at me with a confused look…expecting me to add some other important thing, like being the high ranking employee in the corporate world or something like that. She gave the common response, a version of “Is that all?”. And no, that’s not all. I would love to do so many things, like start a garden classroom and get my Master’s. But I really want to be a wife and mom. I don’t think it’s that crazy of a goal.

The thing is how I approach it.

I am a goal setter in general. I don’t reach a lot of my goals. But I do reach a good number of them. I achieved most of the things on my “Things to do before I’m 25″ list. I’m the type of person who really thinks that I can accomplish most things if I just apply myself enough and have enough discipline. Of course, I am often not disciplined enough. But if I want something badly enough to be disciplined, I can achieve that goal.

But I don’t think that way about getting married. I think of it as something that I don’t really have much control over. It’s not a goal that I can set, and can make a list of the things I need to do to accomplish that goal. It’s something that is very dependent on other outside factors. Like the guy. So, maybe I need to change my mindset. Or maybe I need to think about it a lot less. Or maybe it’s just a different type of goal. One that I don’t have much control over.

Yesterday I went to the river with Colleen and her two boys. A river day with them has been long overdue…with the crazyness in both of our lives. (Her house recently burnt down, and she has an almost 3 year old, a 10 month old and another on the way.) It was great to catch up with her and play with her adorable kids.

So, after leaving her house, I decided to stop by the Salvation Army on the way home. (I love thrift stores.) And guess who I ran into? My mom. Which is more random than it may seem. I rarely see her, since I work evenings and she works days and we live in totally different towns. So, after we both completed our shopping, we went out to dinner together. (I got a dress and some overalls, and some red boots??…at the thrift store, not for dinner.) And I think I got a love for thrift stores from my mom.

We had a wonderful time at dinner discussing our struggles in life and jobs and love and guys and beating them up. Okay, maybe we didn’t talk about beating them up, but we did talk about giving them a good talking to. And my perpetual singleness. Which seems to be a hot topic lately. At work and on the board and at dinner with my mom.

And if you think you might know the/a reason why I am still single, then tell me (I mean something that is “wrong” with me, not “because it’s God’s will”). Seriously. I want to know what my glaring flaws are. Because I really am baffled that I’ve never been on a date. (This is not a “I suck, I’m single, and life is horrible” statement. It’s just curiosity.) I like to ask for trouble.

I read The Third Summer of the Sisterhood today. And I was trying to decide which character I most relate to. And I decided there are pieces of all them that resonate with me.

But a couple of quotes really stood out to me and hit me where I’m at, thatI immediately related to situations in my life.

She’d (Bridget) rather go through her life doubting that such a thing was possible than knowing it was real and she couldn’t have it.
What a pitiful waste she was. She was willing to give away, to throw away, the very best she had. It was one thing to sacrifice yourself for a great cause. It was another to destroy yourself for a person who didn’t even want you. It was an act of self-immolation, a sacrifice nobody wanted, that did nobody any good. What could be more tragic than that?

She thought she was independent and strong, but she got one small taste of love and she was hungrier than anyone. She was ravenous.

And another one from Bridget;

I didn’t know if it (friendship) would be possible after what we did two summers ago, but then it happened. I was happy. I loved being your friend. I admit I may have had some other thought too, but they didn’t matter to me nearly as much as being your friend. I was happy to be close to you on any terms.

And I relate this one to the same situation.

She (Lena) was still waiting for him to come back to her, even though he wasn’t going to. She was still holding out for something that wasn’t going to happen. She was good at waiting. That seemed like a sad thing to be good at.

Release me, she begged silently.

She needed to be free of him. She needed to get on with her life. Maybe even to fall in love again. She had a candidate in mind

(except I don’t have a candidate in mind)

:sigh: Yeah.

But this one isn’t deep at all. It just made me laugh.

Carmen made attempts to clean her room while she waited. In truth, she did that spasmodic, surface rearranging, like putting the random AA battery into her sock drawer to get it out of sight, that would only make the job bigger when she got down to real cleaning.

For the record, I really love these books. They are very real, and even though they are about teenage girls, I still really relate to them. Maybe that says something about my maturity level.

I read this on Sarah’s blog today

My mom admonished me a while ago (maybe freshman year of college) not to just “lap up the crumbs from _____’s table” - sort of taking what I could get, really “lapping up” every single tiny bit of encouragement or flattery or “maybe he likes me” bit of possibility from the guy I liked, instead of looking realistically and seeing that all I was getting from this guy (and, when I look back on it, from the guy I liked in high school) was “crumbs” (in a sense).

Oh my gosh. I have been so guilty of this. Being content just with getting crumbs from under the table. And taking those crumbs and hoping and believing that they mean something, instead of just moving on. This is a quote from one of my journals.

And I can’t believe I’m letting myself be the girl on the side. I have so turned into the girl I never wanted to be. I like him a lot, so I’m willing to sit under the table and take whatever dregs he is willing to give me. How dumb is that of me? I deserve better than that. Crumbs are what I’m willing to get..if it’s all I can get.

Will I ever learn? I hope so. I have settled for crumbs with a couple of different guys. But I don’t deserve crumbs and I don’t want to settle for that. I want to sit at the table with them. I want to be the main dish. I don’t want to constantly be looking for little things to convince myself that I’m important to him. Sarah’s mom gave her wise advice.

Just a few random thoughts.

You’re softer than a cannon blast
But your effects much longer last
And I want you just like a hole in my head
But I need you like a meal and a bed

And you say, come on
I’m not what you’re after
But I know, you’re not just anyone, anyone

‘Cause I’m not what you want
No, I’m not anyone
But if you needed me
I could be someone

You’re an army in a horse
And you have taken me by force
All the freedom in this world could not resist
The sweet temptation of your sweet elusiveness

So I say, come on
As the gate swings open
‘Cause I know you’re not just anyone, anyone

But the lie’s always cheaper than the truth
And the lie’s all I’ve never known of you
So maybe none of this is true

~Derek Webb

This song just gets me lately.

This week, I really let go of something that I have been holding on to tightly for far too long. God gives me gifts and I hold on to them so tightly, afraid that if I don’t he might snatch them right back.

Often, I hold onto things too tightly. I have all of these hopes and dreams that I cling to. Not that it is bad to dream and hope and desire certain things. But for me, there are certain things that I need to surrender to God. But instead, I grab onto them and wrap my fist around them and hold on tight, afraid that if I let go of them and give them to God, that he won’t let me have them. But this week I decided to let go. To open my hand and let God do what he will. Whether he takes them away from me completely or gives them back, I am holding them with my palm upturned. I am holding on to these hopes with an open hand rather than holding on tightly.

And you know what, it’s amazing what freedom that brings. It’s not my job to connive and scheme to try to fulfill my hopes and dreams. It is God’s job to take care of me. And I think I know what’s best. But the fact is, God really knows what’s best for me. He created me. Who better to know what my hopes and desires are and how best to fulfill them?

Not that it has been easy to give up these things, not knowing whether or not God will give them back to me. I have cried many tears this week. My heart is broken. But I need to give them up without expecting that he will give them back to me. I need to trust that his plan is perfect. And though my heart is broken, I am resting in the freedom of the knowledge that God holds me in his hand.

I am currently reading Myth of the Welfare Queen: A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist’s Portrait of Women on the Line. I saw it while perusing books at the library…and the title jumped out at me and I had to pick it up. I am not finished with it, but basically, it paints a portrait of real life families living on welfare in the 1990’s, when welfare reform was a hot political topic. Though the families it followed lived in inner city of North Philadelphia, much of it hit home with me.

I think there is a prevailing thought in America that people on welfare are just trying to work the system and are taking advantage of other people’s money. While I know that happens, I don’t think the majority of people that are on welfare are happy about it.

I remember well the waiting room in our counties’ welfare office. It seems we went there quite often when I was a kid. I’m not really sure what exactly these trips to the welfare office were for. I assume to discuss the details of the forms that my mom had to fill out regularly. She had to report every bit of income that came in.

My mom didn’t just sit around and wait for the welfare check to come every month. She cleaned houses. She went to school. At Christmas time she would make wreaths and centerpieces and we would sit in front of the grocery store selling them for extra money.

My mom did not want to be on welfare, but the circumstances of life led her there. She had three children, no specific education, and a husband who didn’t have a job and who was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and at three or four different times, she didn’t have a home for this family. There weren’t many options.

But we were not necessarily your typical welfare family (whatever that is). All 3 of us kids attended private Christian schools. But we didn’t take advantage of the government to pay for our private education. My brother’s tuition was paid by an “anonymous” donor. And for my and my sister’s tuition, all of us kids and my mom worked after school a few days a week cleaning the bathrooms and the classrooms. Which, I must say is kind of embarrassing for a kid. But I think it taught me a good work ethic…and it led to all 3 of us paying our own way through high school.

We were these really poor kids who didn’t find dumpster diving all that foreign, yet we went to school with a lot of kids who had money. Kind of a strange dynamic. I remember being a bit ashamed that we were on welfare and that we had to use food stamps. But looking back on it now, I realize that we did not just get a handout. We definitely got a hand up. My mom was able to attend the community college while on welfare, and from her work study job she worked her way up to different jobs at the community college, and has now been working there full time for many years. My mom was able to buy a house a few years ago, which I’m sure was only a distant dream in those times of homelessness. Her 3 children all have bachelor’s degrees. (Well, Rebecca will have hers in a few months.) We are a welfare success story.

But, more importantly than that, we are also a story about the grace of God. His amazing grace

“All I Ever Have To Be”

When the weight of all my dreams
Is resting heavy on my head
And the thoughtful words of help and hope
Have all been nicely said
But I’m still hurting, wondering if I’ll ever be the one
I think I am - I think I am

Then you gently re-remind me
That You’ve made me from the first
And the more I try to be the best
The more I get the worst
And I realize the good in me is only there because of who You are
Who You are…

And all I ever have to be is what You’ve made me
Any more or less would be a step out of Your plan
As you daily recreate me help me always keep in mind
That I only have to do what I can find
And all I ever have to be
All I have to be
All I ever have to be is what You’ve made me

(Gary Chapman)

As I was driving to work this afternoon, I started singing this song for some reason. I haven’t listened to this tape in forever, but it is a song that I have loved ever since I first got Amy Grant’s Collection , and listened to it over and over since it was the only tape that I had. I’m sure that this song is full of theological holes, but it is encouraging to me.

I don’t think that I realized “the weight of all my dreams” when I was 10. But I think that I’m starting to feel the weight of those dreams now. I have lots of dreams…and sometimes the weight of them does feel quite heavy. I’ve been very blessed in being able to live out so many of my dreams…but there are so many more. I want marriage and a family and to live a life of purpose and to use my gifts and talents, not to mention the expectations that others have of me. And all the encouragements and “Don’t worry, God has a plan” have been given.

But lately, I have been wondering if I am the person that I always wanted to be. Is this who I dreamed of becoming? Not so much. It’s not just my outward circumstances, but my inward attitude and fears and ways of thinking, as well. Who have I become? “Will I ever be the one I think I am?” I don’t know.

But you know what, it doesn’t really matter if I am the person that I wanted to become, or the person that others want me to be. What really matters is who God wants me to be. That is who I really want to become. And that is what he is refining me to be, I hope.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to shamelessly belt out vintage Amy Grant songs on my way to work.

~Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved. Psalm 55:22

~In times of trouble, remember that God is too kind to be cruel, too wise to make a mistake, and too deep to explain himself.

~Heart shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice. Psalm 51:17 (msg)

You saw my mistakes and watched my heart break
Heard when I swore I’d never love again
And when I was weak, unable to speak
Still I could call you by name
And I said, Heartache Healer, Secret Keeper,
Be my best friend
And You said, I Am.
-Nichole Nordeman–I Am

Today’s high: laughing with Chelsea (my co-worker) at Carlos when he called me a “wiss”. You may wonder what a “wiss” is. I’m pretty sure he was trying to say wuss, a word which I had earlier called him.

Today’s low: my still aching calves

My sister had to do an assignment about divorce for one of her classes, so she interviewed me, since our parents were divorced. It was interesting discussing it with her. We have talked about our feelings and thoughts on the divorce before. She had a list of questions that I was supposed to answer, but it was a bit different because she wasn’t interviewing a stranger. She was interviewing somebody who was involved in the same situation she was.

One of the questions that she asked is something that I have thought about a lot before.

Divorce can definitely become a generational pattern. My parents were divorced. My mom’s parents were divorced. And “they” say that children from stable two parent homes are more likely to have successful marriages, while children from broken homes are more likely to have marriages that end in divorce.

In the Christian circles that I have been involved in, I have often heard things such as “You should look to marry someone that has grown up in a stable two parent home, because they are more likely to stay together in their marriages.” That’s probably true.

So, my sister asked me something along the lines of whether I would rather marry someone whose parents are divorced or still married. And of course I would rather marry someone who doesn’t come from a broken home. My family is dysfunctional enough for us all. The more things that we have stacked in our favor the better. The less emotional baggage we have, the better.

But it is kind of a double standard. I don’t want guys to hold me to that standard. I don’t think that I am destined to fail in marriage just because my parents’ marriage failed. Though I come from a family with a pattern of divorce, I am determined, with God’s help, to break those patterns. Divorce will not be an option for me.

(As a disclaimer, it doesn’t really matter. This is not gonna make or break a relationship…if I fall in love with someone, and feel like God has led us together, it won’t matter what their family is like..)

I’m sure google will enjoy this post title and will send lots of peple to my blog who aren’t gonna find what they are looking for, but oh well.

I have been looking through photo albums. And am reminded lately how much I miss my friend. If ever I have had a bosom friend it would be Avril. And like Anne and Diana, we are very different. (If you didn’t get that reference, you are probably a boy.)

Avril is a romantic. I am a realist. She is what might be called loud and loves to be the center of attention, and I am generally more quiet and like to sit back and watch what is going on. She is a dreamer. I tend to be more logical. I am much more of a rule follower than she is.

I think when I first realized how opposite we were was when we were in a lecture about learning styles. We took a test on “types of intelligence”. There were 7 possible types of intelligence or ways we learn best. Linguistics and Logic were at the very top of my list and the very bottom of hers. Our whole lists were exactly opposite. So, we think and interact quite differently. But we sure managed to get past those differences and become fast friends.

I met Avril when we were in Australia attending a 6 month DTS (Disipleship Training School). (Someday I will blog about that…an amazing time in my life.) She and I lived in the same house along with 16 other girls. And she thought that I didn’t really like her at first. One thing about a DTS is that you tend to become close to people very quickly. God is doing so much in your lives that you share a lot of stuff on a deep emotional level and plus you live together, and spend so much time together that bonds are formed right away.

So many memories of our times in Australia. Swimming. Sitting together in lectures, and getting dirty looks for talking too much. Laughing together, crying together, praying together. Falling for the same guy. Oops. (more on that later) Interpretive Dance. Planning trips around the world. And making hand signals for the name of our trip. (Around the world 4 Him) Camping in the rain in my tiny $20 tent.

One thing we do have in common is that we are both super competitive. One of my favorite stories is when we became “the dirty girls”. For some reason, in response to some sort of challenge by our guy friends, 5 of us girls decided to see who could go the longest without washing our hair. Thankfully, we could only go two weeks, because we were leaving for ministry outreach and we had to wash our hair before going. But this became quite the competition. The guys were determined to force us to wash our hair, so they did things like put sugar and flour and dishsoap in our hair. But we remained strong. And maybe fought back a little by putting butter in their hair. So, they decided to smear onion dip in my hair, which they thought would force me to wash my hair. But they were wrong. I, for some strange reason (pride) still refused, even though I had to wear a hat when I slept because it smelled so bad. I also sprayed a lot of country apple body spray on my hair. But, thanks to the onion dip, I won the contest and was declared “Dirty Girl #1″. Something to be proud of. Avril came in second, and the competitive nature of our friendship is locked in. It was a really dumb thing to do, but really fun. And the guys bought us Dirty Girl t-shirts in the deal with the motto that they made up for us “Total Pride, No Shame”.

OK…this is getting long and I have only touched on the first couple of months of our friendship. I guess I will be like Kari and spread this out over a few posts.

Here is a picture of Avril and I (with clean hair) and with our boys who remained our friends despite our dirty girl status.

I am a part of the “J.F.” club, also known as a JF-er. “What is a JF-er?”, you may ask. Thanks for asking.

One time when I was in Australia, a few of my girl friends and I were sitting on a bed lamenting the fact that we are the kind the girls that guys love to have as friends, but nothing more. We are treated as “one of they guys”, but never seen as potential romantic interests. So, to celebrate our solidarity, we formed a club, the aforementioned “JF-ers”.

Now, many girls think that they are JFers, but aren’t really. Most true JFers have never really dated much. They usually have at least one guy friend that they are very close to. A true JFer is not dating someone, and guys do not often express interest in dating them. They have had guys tell them on multiple occasions, “You are a great girl and will someday make some guy very happy, but I just want to be friends.”

Just Friends.

Just Friends.

Just Friends.

Just Friends

It echoes in our ears.

J.ust F.riends: J.F.ers

Most of the time, we are okay with this, but not always. All we ask is that just once, some guy will see past the “just friends” label and realize that we are girls who not only are great friends, but can be great girlfriends and great wives. And guys, please read this next sentence carefully. JFers will make wonderful wives.

There are definitely benefits to being a JFer. You end up having amazing friends. I love having guy friends, and in looking back on my life I realize that there is rarely a time where I haven’t had a close guy friend. I love having guy friends, because you get a different perspective on life. And they aren’t as catty and spiteful as a lot of girls.

A quick recap of my close guy friends.

High School: Brian-
We forged an unlikely friendship on our hour long school bus rides. These long bus rides gave us time to talk about everything from arm wrestling (he loved the movie “Over the Top” with Sylvester Stallone) to algebra to relationships to Jesus to “the popular exclusive group” (which he claimed I was in and he wasn’t) and beyond. I graduated a year before he did, but we wrote letters to each other regularly while I was away at college. That is until he decided that I talked about Jesus too much, and stopped writing.

1st year of college: Sam-
…and his roommates The 3 girls that I hung out with all lived in the same room, and the four of us would always hang out with Sam’s room. Before we did anything, we would call their room to ask if they wanted to come. We never went to the cafeteria or walked to the campus post office or went to class without calling them first. We even all went to the spring formal together. Sam and I really became much better friends through writing notes to each other during our theology classes. We would spend the entire time filling pages of paper with discussion, both meaningful and mundane. Sam got married that summer, and didn’t come back to school the next year, and we gradually lost touch.

Junior and Senior year of college: Eric-
Another very unlikely friend. We disagreed on a lot of things, but really challenged each others ways of thinking. We started to become close friends when we had geography class together. We were both very competitive and couldn’t stand if the other one got a better grade. He always beat me, but I blame that on the fact that he has lived all over the world. We became even better friends the next semester when we had every class together. And we got reprimanded often for talking too much or messing around in class. We also connected a lot outside of class, and had great conversations about everything. When his fiance broke up with him and gave him back the ring, he came to my house to cry. (I promptly handed him a tub of ice cream [that's how girls cope :)] and told him that it was not a good idea tocome to his best girl friend’s house when his fiance breaks up with him…she probably wouldn’t be so happy with that]. They eventually did get married and he asked her if I could be in the wedding, and she said, “no way!”. Sadly, his marriage was the death knell for our friendship. We have talked a couple of times since graduation 6 years ago. It is probably the friendship that I miss the most. Well, almost. It ranks #2.

Post-college: Andy
We met while we were in Australia doing a DTS (Discipleship Training School). Kind of an unlikely friendship. He was an 18 year old reserved British boy and I was a 23 year old American not really interested in making close friends, especially guy friends. But somehow, through discussion of sociology, and God working in our lives, and going on outreach to Thailand together we formed a deep friendship that has continued for the last 4 years, despite the fact that we are always living on opposite sides of the world. Andy probably knows more about me and my insecurities than a lot of people. We have lots of fun together and have pulled a great prank (convincing all our friends that we were engaged :)). I got to spend a week with him on my way home from Kenya a couple of months ago. We have had our ups and downs and times where we have been closer than others, but we are still friends. Neither of us have gotten married, maybe that’s why. But I have hopes that this friendship will survive if either of us get married.

And if I can count people that I’ve never met in person, then I’d have to add Luke to that list. We have talked on the phone on a pretty regular basis for about the last year and a half. And I consider him a good friend.

But can guys and girls really be just friends and have the friendship last? I guess I don’t have time to address my thoughts on this question in this post. So, I will save those thoughts for another day.

*For the record, this is not necessarily a list of guys that I have been interested in. This is just a list of my closest guy friends through the years.

Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter?

Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea?

Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?

-Eugene O’neill

I like to think of myself as a risk taker.

I made the decision to move to Honduras only two weeks before I had to move. I only heard about the school 3 days prior to deciding to move. So I committed a year of my life to teach at this school in another country without even knowing much about it. I guess that’s kind of risky. But it’s not like I jumped out of a plane or anything.

Most of the risks I take involve traveling, which isn’t too risky in my mind. There was that one time in Honduras that my roommate Tasha and I ended up as the only passengers on a bus. The only other people on the bus were the bus driver and the money taker. Two Honduran men who didn’t really understand our Spanish. We really started to get worried when they passed up all the bus stops even though people kept trying to flag them down. They finally did stop at one stop to pick up their friend, a man who happened to have a very large gun. It was then that we began to be a bit frightened. Two 21 year old white girls at the mercy of 3 men who didn’t speak our language and had a gun. In the end, they were all very nice and took us to where we requested. I don’t know if that whole fiasco can be described as risky or just stupid…or adventurous.

But though I think of myself as a risk taker, I have come to the conclusion that I’m not really. In general, I like to play it safe. I tend to be involved in things and do things that I know I will be able to do. And this probably is a result of fear. I am afraid to dance. If I don’t know how to do something, I am somewhat afraid of trying. I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to look stupid. I care too much about what others think. Which I guess all comes back to pride. Not surprising. Everything in my life comes back to the pride issue.

But the one area where I really have a hard time taking risks is in matters of the heart. Opening my heart is not easy. This comes from fear, too. Fear of getting hurt. Fear of rejection. Afraid that if f I really let myself love someone, they won’t love me in return.

So, should I take more risks? I don’t know that taking risks is the answer. It just reinforces the fears. I take a risk and I fail, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place. I open my heart and I get hurt, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place. I take a risk and I look stupid, which is what I wanted to avoid in the first place.

But, I will continue to take risks. It makes life interesting and fun. And keeps teaching me lessons.

If you try you risk failure, if you don’t try, you ensure it.

Some decisions that we have to make in life are very cut and dry. We know what the right choice is and that we should choose that path. Some aren’t so black and white.

So, in those choices where the path is not so clear, what are we to do? Ask our friends’ advice? Pray about it? Go with our gut instinct? Search the Proverbs for wisdom?

At this point, I have a dilemma that doesn’t seem to have any easy answers. I have asked the advice of my friends, and they all tell me, “Oh, I don’t know what I’d do in that situation…that’s a hard one. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer.” Which is their nice way of saying, “I don’t want to give you the wrong advice and be held accountable for it later.”

I do have one friend who has been VERY blunt in his advice. There is no question in my mind on where he stands. And he thinks I have made a very stupid decision.

And I have prayed about it A LOT…and have felt no clear direction from God.

As for my gut….that’s what I’m going with, but I know that it can’t always be trusted. It doesn’t usually factor in logic like it should.

I should say that the decision I am making is one that I would have probably judged others for making in the past. But somehow, when I am the one involved, it’s not so easy to see. And as I have learned, we become what we make fun of.

I really, really, really want to make a wise choice, but I don’t know which one is wiser. So, I guess I will just roll the dice or play roshambo (I have no idea how to spell that), and trust that God is in control.

How do you know when you are making the right decision?

p.s. I just typed the title for this post and not 5 seconds later, the song “Check Yes or No” came on the radio. Weird.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. -Martin Luther King

I have a problem. It is not your normal problem, I don’t think. My problem is that I hold on to hope. At first glance, this doesn’t seem like much of a problem, but I assure you that at times it can be.

Some examples of me holding on to hope:

Guys: This is the primary example of it being a problem. Over the past year I have been involved in what has been referred to as a “non-relationship relationship…friendship…non-friendship sometime-friendship but only when we’re a non-relationship.“. If you know what that means, let me know. But my main problem in this situation was that I held onto hope much longer than I should have. I chose to interpret things that he did and said as reasons to hope, but they weren’t. But I couldn’t give up those shreds of hope. I wanted to believe that he was interested in me. I didn’t want to give up hope, and still don’t, but have had to make a very conscious decision to let go of that hope, because it has been made clear that there is really no reason to hope. (As proof that I hold onto hope longer than I should, I present my blog entry from over 4 months ago.) I thought I was giving up hope then, but 4 months later, I still held onto those last slivers of hope.
I did the same thing with the only other guy that I have really been interested in. I told myself that there was hope even when he started dating my best friend. I gave up the hope when they got engaged, but I should have given it up long before that. Maybe I am just in denial.

Dad: My dad was an alcoholic/drug addict for most of his life, and pretty much all of mine. But as a kid I prayed faithfully for him, and held onto hope that he would someday change. And I held onto that hope into adulthood. I hoped that God would get ahold of him and that he would come to the Lord and turn his life around. And that he would grow old and be a grandfather to my kids. This hope ended when he was killed in a car crash a few years ago, still in the midst of his addictions. This one obviously not a bad hope to hold onto, and I don’t regret holding on to that hope at all.

College friend: This friend was definitely manic-depressive and when she was on the mountain, she was very high (metaphorically), and when she was in a valley, she was so depressed that she would be in the fetal position on the bed. She also had a lot of unhealthy habits when she was in the valleys (drugs, sex, rock & roll…lying). For years, I held on to hope that she would change, and I supported her and tried to keep her accountable (at her request). I was a very faithful friend all through college, but despite my hope she never changed, and she still continues the same cycle to this day. Obviously, I still hope that she changes, but I dealing with her all the time was just very emotionally draining.

Benefits of hope Of course, holding on to hope can has also been a catalyst for good in my life. I don’t think I would have had much opportunity to travel the world if I hadn’t held on to the hope that a poor little white trash girl could explore the nations. If I could dream it, I could do it. If somebody in a book did it, then I could too, right? And I think having a hopeful personality helped get me through college. How was some girl who grew up on welfare gonna be able to afford to go to a private Christian college? (Well, I’m still paying for that :))

Despite choosing to give up hope in this recent situation, I will not give up on hope altogether, though often what I hope for doesn’t come to pass. I will still hold on the many hopes and dreams that I have. And some will come true and some won’t. But that’s life.

And ultimately I can only hope in God.

Psalm 33:18
But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love

Psalm:5-6
Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

Since I have decided that I am going to blog regulary, I guess I should write something. I have lots of thoughts rattling around in my head, but I don’t have the energy to coherently put them on paper (or a computer screen).

You know, our minds are very interesting. A profound thought, huh? Last night I went over to my mom’s house for dinner. I have driven the road to my mom’s house probably a kajillion times in my lifetime. And I have passed a particular tree hundreds of times. But since 1998, I have not been able to pass the tree without noticing it. My dad died when he crashed his van into this particular tree. I know…this post has become very depressing. I didn’t really plan on it going down this path.

No matter what, I always think about it when I pass the tree. I could be in a car full of people in the midst of conversation, or just driving alone with music on.

The interesting thing to me is that it’s not always a sad thought when I pass the tree. It’s often more of just a mental note of “There is the tree”. Obviously sometimes this leads to more introspection and reflection on my dad’s life.

Yeah, I don’t really know where I’m going with this. I guess some things are just burned in your mind. It has been 6 years and hundreds of times that I’ve passed the tree, and I still can’t drive by it without remembering. And I’m sure in 20 years, it will be the same.

Of course, there are things that always trigger happy responses in my mind. I will try to think of some.

We long to be known and we fear it like nothing else. ~John Eldredge

I think Micheal W. Smith lied.

I talked to my former best friend this week for the first time in probably over a year. (How horrible is it to call somebody my “former best friend”?) But that is what she is. We were once SO close. She knew me better than probably anyone else ever has (except perhaps my siblings). And still loved me. But due to some difficult situations and circumstances that occurred, I made the extremely difficult and painful decision to give up her and her husband’s friendship. It was one of the harder decisions I’ve made in my life. Who wants to lose their best friend? But at the time, I really felt like it was the wisest decision. And in retrospect, I still think it was the right decision, even though it was extremely hard for both of us. That was 2 years ago, and we have just recently begun to rebuild our friendship. I’m really glad, and though I know things will never be quite the same, it was SO good to talk with her.

But that is just one example of my failure at friendships. I don’t regularly keep in touch with any of my college friends. In fact the girls that I was closest to in college weren’t even really speaking to me on graduation day …and I still don’t really know what happened even though we have all talked about it since then. My best guy friend felt like God told him to give up our friendship. I don’t really keep in touch with any of my childhood or high school friends. And of course, I lose all of my good guy friends when they get married. And today I had a conversation that I fear will probably lead to the end of another good friendship.

Someone once told me “God gives us friends for a reason, a season, or a lifetime”. I definitely see the reason in many of these friendships that didn’t last. God taught me a lot. The biggest lessons were probably teaching me to trust God and to know that God is the only one who is completely faithful. And obviously some friendships just fade and are only there for a season. But I really desire is lifetime friends. Friends that are around through all the ups and downs of life. Friends that knew me way back when and have been with me through the changes that God has brought. And friends that will be there in 30 years at my (hypothetical) kids weddings amd will be reminscing about when the kids were born.

These past couple of weeks my insecurities have been coming out a lot. I am afraid that if my friends really knew me they wouldn’t really like the person that I am. Maybe that insecurity comes out of the friendships that haven’t worked. Or maybe they haven’t worked because of that insecurity. I don’t know.

I do have some really great friends and I am SO thankful for them. I just don’t understand why so many of my friendships don’t last. I think I’m a pretty good friend…loyal, encouraging, fun, supportive. I try to be a good listener, and also keep them accountable.

Why is friendship so hard? And why do I suck at them? I know…it usually all comes back to God teaching me lessons. But sometimes I get tired of having to learn lessons. But I guess “Some people gotta learn the hard way”. Maybe if I really learned the lesson, then God wouldn’t have to keep teaching me to trust him.

(MWS and DC Talk references in one post….no wonder my friendships don’t last. )

Have you ever fallen asleep during a sermon? Or during class? Yesterday, I didn’t fall asleep, but it’s only by the grace of God, or maybe because I was sitting on a tiny uncomfortable bench.

Yesterday, Paula (one of my teammates) and I went to a distant Maasai village to do a teaching on HIV and AIDS. We went with a missionary and a Kenyan man who was from this village and set up the appointment. When we arrived, we were asked to pay 100 shillings to enter the meeting, (apparently it was a conference that was lasting 10 days) and then were led to a bench in the front row. This is where we remained through the next 4 sermons. Sermons which were in the Kimaasai language and translated into Kiswahili, but not into English. Sometimes I have a hard enough time paying attention to an English sermon, but 4 hours of sermons in other languages…it’s a little much. Since we were in the front row, I couldn’t even observe all of the villagers with their colorful outfits and beads. But thankfully, there were some diversions. Such as the flies that landed on me constantly…some of them even mating while landing on me. There was a little tiny moth flying around and exploring that I watched for a while, but that got boring. They did have an altar call where many of the people came up to be prayed for, and it was at this point that I almost burst out laughing, which I’m sure would have been completely inappropriate. But as they were praying for these people, many of the ladies were being “slain in the Spirit” (I’m not sure why the men weren’t). Now, I grew up in a charismatic church, so this is nothing new to me. But whenever I’ve seen people being slain in the spirit, their whole body has remained stiff as they fall. These women were falling in the sitting position, and they were falling all over on top of each other, and I thought it was amazing that nobody got hurt. It was just a tangled mess of people, which for some reason was really funny to me.

I also had lots of time to think and ponder deep questions. Can one have faith without hope? If I have given up hope in a certain situation, can I still have faith that the end result will be what I had previously hoped for? I don’t really think they can be mutually exclusive. If I don’t have hope for something, how can I have faith that it will happen? I don’t know. I just felt that God encouraged me to have faith in a certain situation that I had previously felt he had led to me give up hope in. Maybe my problem is that I let emotion get in the way too much. Or maybe my problem is that I think about these things while Kenyan women are playing Twister with God right in front of me.

Whenever a new person got up to talk, we expected to be introduced and do our teaching, but that wasn’t happening…and we had no idea what was happening, since we couldn’t understand anything. After 4 hours, when it was past time for us to be going home, they told us that they weren’t planning on having us speak. This is something they had decided before we came, but decided not to tell us until 4 hours after we got there. It was a little frustrating to say the least. We had driven a couple of hours, 30 minutes of it on a dirt road full of ruts…well more like a dirt path. We sat there for 4 hours…and then drove back home, hoping to arrive in the city before dark. Such is life…especially in Africa.