January is over for 11 months on Wednesday.

Thank God.

I don't want to think about January anymore. I was foolish to think that everything would be resolved if I pretended that everything was fine. So much to relearn. We may be good, but I am not fine. Fine doesn't give you a hollow sensation. Fine doesn't find me staring off into space. Fine doesn't wig out. Fine doesn't have to seek out peace. Fine does not ache so intensely. Fine does not struggle to hand things over to God and time and the unknown. My heart is not fine. Is it better to know? Is it better to not know? Is it better to fight? Or is it better to lay back and float? Do you cling to the past or run so fast into the future that all vestigaes of past wrongs are flung away from you? What am I to do? Talking isn't an option, but silence make my heart scream. Some days I can wake up and stoic-ly focus on hope and good things and ignore how fucked up this situation is and ignore how I do not know what to do. But tonight the night is crashing in around me and in the darkness of the multitudes of uncertainties that surround me I would like to have a single ray of hope...and I am without a match to light the damp wick. I am without anyone to blame (my regular fallback seems too likely a choice) and I am groping for a hand to hold. My ray of hope is found in that there has only ever been one hand to grope for. And groping is unneccessary, in my blindness I cannot see that it is extended before me. I may not be fine...but I am learning to heal, and healing is about pain sometimes.

From "Goodbye My Lover" -- James Blunt
I am a dreamer but when I wake,
You can't break my spirit - it's my dreams you take.
And as you move on, remember me,
Remember us and all we used to be
I've seen you cry, I've seen you smile.
I've watched you sleeping for a while.
I'd be the father of your child.
I'd spend a lifetime with you.
I know your fears and you know mine.
We've had our doubts but now we're fine,
And I love you, I swear that's true.
I cannot live without you.

Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.

And I still hold your hand in mine.
In mine when I'm asleep.
And I will bear my soul in time,
When I'm kneeling at your feet.
Goodbye my lover.
Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one.
You have been the one for me.
I'm so hollow, baby, I'm so hollow.
I'm so, I'm so, I'm so hollow.

20 January 2006

This time in May I will be one week from graduating. People keep asking if I'm ready, or if I'm scared yet...and I've honestly been able to answer (thus far) that I feel like I'm ready, and no I'm not scared yet. All of that stands to change in the next few weeks. As I get ready to send out my resume and apply for jobs -- I am putting myself on the line. What a stretch, I hate putting things at risk, and growing up puts everything at risk. Not everything will change, but enough will. My fears are not whether or not I will find a good job, or the right job or have a place to live and work. All of this is out of my hands, and my back up options are not so horrible. If I have to work for ACR for a year or more until something in youth ministry comes along, then that is what I will have to do. I think that what makes this time in my life so frightening is that for the first time, I will have to go this alone.

When I started college, all of my close friends from highschool were too and it wasn't a big deal. For every major decision or advent in life, there has always been someone there, whether it be friends or family or church or what have you. I know that God is with me, I'm not attempting to suggest that I have to go this solely alone...certainly God is on my side, certainly God is standing for me and on that I have placed my faith. But it's going to be just me and God. There is no boyfriend or spouse or partner in ministry that is going to be making this trek with me and doing some of the work for me. I have to grow up. I'm smiling because as I type this I hear the devil's advocate in my head (strangely enough I recognize his voice too) and I know that my friend makes good points. But I also know that this friend has not gone through this yet and as such cannot fully understand what is going on in my head and heart now. Timing is more important now than it ever was before. The need to save money is more important...The need for me to remember to smile and enjoy life now and invest in friendships today is at it's most important thus far.

What these next five months will hold will be the end of a glorious era and the beginning of a new life. With spring brings renewal, new life and fresh beginnings. There are many times of falling down, tripping, growing too big and too fast...but ultimately spring sets one up for the steady growth that summer holds. Oh what this winterseason may still bring for me, that I may see and embrace it.

Side note: covenant church hiring in new hampshire, looks amazing.

Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part One: Life

XXXII

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 5
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I ’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea; 10
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
---
It must be an enormous thing that creeps up when I'm not paying attention and clamps it's silent fist around the little bird's beak. What is it that keeps the bird from giving into dispair? What is it that stays it's hand...that figts the gale to keep a candle lit? The feathers are molting. I hope and pray that my bird is a pheonix...and while this time may be bleak...from the ashes will arise something new. As for now, I strain to hear that soft tune, I fight to keep the fist of dispair away. Oh hope...renew.

Do I fill my life with business to crowd out the overwhelming, roaring silence? Or is the silence something that I crave and the business competes with it? I just know that I sit here, exhausted from Campus Outreach Day work and workwork...knowing that I have to be back at Lydia Ave at 6 tomorrow morning...yet here I sit.
I was struggling today with the imposition of COD. I know that it's not very charitable, or even very kind to resent the imposition. Donna cannot help that she got called for jury duty. Donna cannot help that she possibly got the flu and called me today in tears to take Treveon to daycare. But something seems almost unfair. I can't take Trev to daycare -- I was at work until 9. I shouldn't have HAD to come in today -- but I kept dreaming about COD so I did. I haven't had a chance to unpack yet. Aside from chapel yesterday and a much needed talk with Deanna upon my arrival...I haven't seen my friends since I've returned. Who have I been able to invest in? Not my friends. My youth group kids, perhaps. My coworkers, maybe. I haven't seen Amy except for 10 minutes the other night. And I walked in to my apartment with a dead phone and groceries only to be hit with the putrid stench of shit throughout my apartment. Can't I catch a break? Can't my roommate take out the trash or empty the dishwasher?
I know that in light of many others that my cross to bear is quite light. That I can bend over backwards for a week, it's not as if others have not done the same for me. It's not as if Jesus didn't grit his teeth and bear parts of his own life. It's not even as if I have lost my focus or purpose. Many, many things have been wanting me to lost my focus today -- with this and other insecurities. I'm not falling for tricks. I'm not going to kiss that idol's feet again today. I know that my actions are their own rewards and by this time tomorrow I will joyfully look back at COD. But every now and then...I need to refocus.

"Pan left...close on the steeple of the church..." RENT