Morning

A couple days ago I volunteered to drive my pastor's wife to the airport in Omaha at 3:30 in the morning.  It's not a long drive, and the round trip usually ends up being somewhere around 2 hours.  But this morning there was an ungodly amount of fog everywhere.  Driving there was worse because it was dark, and there wasn't much traffic.  But as I explained to Karen, I love driving early in the morning - I don't care where I am or what it's like (as long as it's not blizzarding, hailing, or pouring rain), I love driving in the early morning.  I love being awake early in the morning.  

On my way back to Lincoln, it began to get brighter, and something magnificent happened to the fog.  It became the same color as the sky (which, I suppose, isn't really that amazing).  The reason it looked so cool was because I was suddenly surrounded by blue everywhere - in every direction.  It was like driving through the ocean - with slight traffic and some construction.  Seriously.  It was really cool.

I think the most tragic part of my sleeping difficulties is that I am never waking up in the morning.  If I see the sunrise, it's usually because someone has dragged me out of bed or because I haven't gone to sleep.  This morning it was because I hadn't slept.  It wasn't a huge sacrifice to drive Karen to the airport in the middle of the night/early morning.  The real problem was an appointment I spaced at 10 AM, so there was little chance I'd make it if I slept.  So, here I am, blogging (and probably not doing a very good job of it) at 6:30 in the morning.  But, I'm not really complaining, because this is probably the only morning I'll see for a while...

Sleeping is a curse

I can only feel so bad about missing everything. Missing church, though tragic, is not as bad in my mind as missing a test. But I wish anyway that I hadn't missed anything. I hate that sinking feeling that I get when I wake up and the clock tells me that I've been sleeping a lot longer than I should have. And no one can tell me why my alarm can go off for hours and I don't hear it. The longer this goes on, the less I believe anyone cares.

Who would have ever guessed...

that when I walked into the Keyzer male establishment I would be greeted in such a way. First, I was nervous because a guy was there that, when I had last seen him, told me he hated me, because I hadn't returned any of his phone calls. That was during a time when the only people I talked to on the phone were Gunter, Beca, and Ember. But, he was incredibly friendly, and even suggested we "catch up". Finally, the opportunity to apologize, right? Then, Matt, who let me just say was beyond drunk, told me, "Becca, you're a good person. I hope you know that I mean that." If you know my history with Matt, this is probably the last thing I would ever expect him to say to me, but, hey, he totally did. And then there was the cuddling with David (who, I think, was also kind of drunk, but whatever). It was kind of like the old days, before all that other crap.
One thing I know about those two boys, whom I love like brothers (though I'm not really sure what it would be like to have a brother since I don't have any), is that they are both collapsing deep down. I feel like a cliche saying this, but they both want Jesus so badly, and I think they both know it deep down but won't accept it. And that kills me.
They both called me a recluse tonight. I take some satisfaction in that, since it was their fault I kind of hid out in my apartment. I don't mind it now, being alone I mean, but they don't know me like that. The Becca they know is super dependent and outgoing. So I can see how it would be hard for them to fathom a "reclusive" Becca. That's alright with me.
I would love to say that I'm "over" what happened last year - losing them in such a dramatic and let me just say stupid way - but I know that I'm not really. I mean, I don't hold it against them anymore. I really don't. But I don't trust anyone in that family now. I know that's sad, but I think that's fair too. I put so much trust in them (I never knew people like them), only to feel totally betrayed. When I look at those months now, I know that it was completely a blessing in disguise, but it was one of the most difficult trials I have ever faced - I could barely get of bed - and I don't want to suffer like that ever again.
How do you learn to trust people? I've never been very good at it. I think most of the time I chose to trust them on a surface level but never trusted them on that deeper more spiritual end. If I can't learn to trust them or even my own family, how will I ever learn to trust a man enough to marry him? That's not my "goal" in life, but I want that kind of relationship someday, you know? I want that "forever" kind of thing. But I'm not sure that I am the kind of person that gets the "forever". Luckily, Rob Bell points out, God can fill that hole too. Whatever. I felt that those last few hours of my evening were worth documenting. They were super drunk and won't remember what they said to me, and they'll also never know how important it was for me to hear them speaking the truth finally - and find out, on top of that - that I actually still matter to them, and they feel the loss of me. It's always nice to know you're missed, you know? Especially by people who betrayed you.

Songwriter Power Ranger

This is the flier I made for Ember's new deal at the Box Awesome.

More New Designs

Bethany and I worked on some designs tonight.  The top one is a t-shirt design, middle one is a "logo" of sorts, and the bottom one is a business card I designed for Andrea, one of the people I'm living with.  She designs purses, by the way, and they're awesome. Anyway, I'm pretty proud of these.

Daylight

Anyone who knows me may have guessed that it has been...probably close to months since I saw a sunrise.  Today is the first time in a really, really long time, and I'll be honest, it made me feel kind of sad.  As of now, there are no new discoveries regarding my sleeping problems, and my future feels kind of dark.  Not dark like I have no future.  No, I mean dark in regards to the lack of daylight I seem to see.  I remember a month when I was going to Dordt back...four years ago when I saw sunsets and sunrises but nothing inbetween.  That was a difficult time.  I need the sun.

I just spent several hours with Spanky discussing some of the problems associated with our worship team.  The problems are too long to list, so I won't even try.  What is so difficult about all of that mess is that I am no longer a functioning member of the worship team.  I substitute here and there, but I do not consider myself part of the team (my choice, not theirs), so some of this stuff has nothing to do with me.  On the other hand, I still feel a strong link to the team, and I can feel the tension growing and feel completely helpless as far as stopping it.  It isn't my job or my place to tell anyone what to do, but I think I can say, at least, that the team needs to be communicating.  And they aren't.

That seems to be an incredibly huge problem.  No one can communicate effectively with other people (me included, thus the blog).  I see it with the couple I live with; I see it in the worship team; I see it in my friendships; I can even see it in the classroom.  Why did this happen?  What happened to the human ability to communicate with one another? 

I can't help recalling a message I heard (yes, Mars Hill) a couple years ago, that I have listened to a few hundred times since, called "When You Can't Go On".  The speaker was a man named Brad Gray, and he began talking about the pain of suffering through trials and losses, and also about how incapable people are with communicating during difficult circumstances.  Rob Bell also talked about this during one of his Lamentations messages (about two months ago).  The idea is this:  If we haven't learned to deal with our own pain, how can we sympathize with someone else's pain?  Brad Gray mentioned a statistic in his message.  The average person asks two meaningful questions per conversation.  That's how things are.  All of us are holding something in, especially me.  And it's tearing everything up.

Sunrises are supposed to be symbols of new beginnings.  That's what I'm told.  But what I feel even more is that my future, dark or whatever, isn't going to be hopeless.  I still get to see the sunrise every so often.  And those times are worth the wait sometimes.

My best design yet.

The next step is to get this on a t-shirt.  Wouldn't it look awesome?

Starla Dear Graphic

This is one of a few designs I made when I was doing a lot of SD stuff awhile back.

My future decided...

How nice would it be if I could plan a life for myself?  I crave that.  It might sound silly, but I really wish that I could look at my future and say, "This is what I am going to do when I'm 25, 30, 50, 100." I realize that the day I decided to let Jesus be in charge I gave up my rights to planning my life.  At the time, I was glad to hand over that responsibility.  If I hadn't, I'm sure I wouldn't have made it this far.  Still...it is nice to have a plan, especially when you have thousands of dollars worth of debt under your belt and no prospects for a job paying more than $10 per hour. 

I'm leading a small group at my church, and right now we're working our way through a bible study I did with my cousin last year, To Walk and Not Grow Weary.  I found it to be a really, really good study for people going through really difficult circumstances.  Since I've started the group, it has grown to about 13 people.  We don't fit in the center room anymore (and I've told Jeff, but he just grins and says that I have to deal with it, so I end up standing off in a corner talking over everyone's heads).  What is really unique about my group is that I am one of the youngest people there, and I'm leading it.  That in itself has been important to me.  The people in my group have offered me a lot of unique experience.  The reason I mention them is because this last Sunday we were talking about Solomon and Ecclesiastes, "Life is meaningless."  Someone said, "I don't think my life had any meaning before Christ."  And that's my whole point.

Later that night, I was listening to John Mayer as I tried to fall asleep, and one of his songs New Deep has the lyrics, "Ever since I tried, trying not to find every little meaning in my life, it's been fine, I've been cool with my new golden rule."  And I realized that my life has no meaning without Jesus.  Why should I care about anyone else?  I can't find a reason to be the kind of person I dream of becoming if Jesus wasn't fueling some kind of fire in me.  

All of this coupled with a few Hillsong United songs, My Future Decided and All I Need Is You in particular, I feel like I could do just about anything.

I'm terrified that all of the good things that have happened with Philadelphia are going to just disappear.  Really, really terrified.  I mean, every time something cool has happened in the last few years, I feel like it has just been crushed by life.  I've kind of come to grips with the fact that, since I can be kind of persistent, that is God's only way of getting my attention.  Still...

My Future Decided - Hillsong United

All I Need Is You - Hillsong United

What an amazing song

All I Need Is You - Hillsong United

Left my fear by the side of the road / Hear You speak / Won't let go / Fall to my knees as I lift my hands to pray / Got every reason to be here again / Father's love that draws me in / And all my eyes wanna see is a glimpse of You

All I need is You / All I need is You Lord / Is You Lord

One more day and it's not the same / Your Spirit calls my heart to sing / Drawn to the voice of my Saviour once again / Where would my soul be without Your Son / Gave His life to save the earth / Rest in the thought that You're watching over me

All I need is You / All I need is You Lord / Is You Lord

You hold the universe / You hold everyone on earth / You hold the universe

* I've listened to a lot of their songs before, because I have the With Hearts As One I & II albums, but I was kind of selective. Tonight I heard this one, and it really got to me. Thought I would share that.

The Power of the Lament

The power of the lament is to speak those words that your culture, your family system, your environment would naturally suppress, repress, and shove to the edges... We must reclaim how to grieve, the power of the lament, because if we don't, whatever that pain is, it will go somewhere and it will express itself somehow… Your ability to listen to the pain of another and to be able to sit with the incoherent ramblings of another is directly proportional to how thoroughly you have faced your own pain… Your ability to join them in that and to simply listen…is directly proportional to how well you have dealt with your own pain… Until we as a country listen to some of the most painful elements of the founding of our country…until we face that pain and what our father’s father’s mother’s mother’s father’s father’s were a part of, no wonder we have a hard time listening to what I would argue is just a modern lament with really, really loud bass.
- Rob Bell, Learning to Lament in a Culture of Denial March 1, 2009

(To obtain this particular message, visit Mars Hill's website and go to teachings)

So, what does this mean for someone like me? I lived in "lament" for years, and everyone kept telling me that I needed to learn to let it go. But, in those years of recovery and grief, I felt that I had a clearer idea of what it means to cling to Jesus. Now, as I find myself becoming unhealthily reclusive, I've become a pro at repressing my own pain, because even in the midst of "the lament" I never got through the grief; instead I seemed to dwell in it. There has to be a resolution to lamenting the past and the trauma. So why have I never reached it?

For the record...

I've had this blog for...7 years. And I took off all the old super depressing posts from high school. So, it looks like I don't blog ever, but I used to all the time. That was all pre-myspace and pre-facebook. Maybe I should put the old blogs up, though, so people can get to know me. Eh. Whatever.

My Lament

There's a Motion City Soundtrack song called "Even If It Kills Me", and it has been my anthem for about a month. "I'm not saying that I'm giving up, I'm just trying not to think as much as I used to, cause 'never' is a lonely little messed up word. Maybe I'll get it right someday. For the first time in a long time, I can say that I want to try. I feel helpless for the most part, but I'm ready to open my eyes. And the sad truth of the matter is I'll never get over it but I'm going to try to get better and overcome each moment in my own way. I sure want to get back on track, and I'll do whatever it takes even if it kills me."
Since the moment I clicked on that button that says "Drop" on enRoll, and watched my classes just melt away, I have felt uncomfortably free. The only things that weigh me down are student loans. But that's it. Student loans to a college drop out are like getting kicked while you're down. Just thinking about how much I have in debt makes me feel like I'm being crushed. I've already decided not to go back next semester, because I don't care how many pills they give me, I don't believe they're going to fix the fact that I'm a terrible student (I love school, but I really am a less than ideal college student).
What has been so awful, though, is this jarring realization that tends to interrupt my "planning" moments. I'll be thinking about something, then realize I can't do that thing because I can't afford it, or I'll be thinking about a job that I would love, and then I realize, "They won't hire me...I don't have a degree." Then add in the whole narcolepsy thing, and I'm basically looking at being a comments operator for the rest of my life.
Here is where the hope is, because there has always been hope in that tiny fraction of my heart that Jesus lives in. The life I've dreamed of having, the one where I have nothing and live everywhere, is going to happen.
I told Ben that I wanted to become an apostle. His response, of course, was that I can't be an apostle because I'm a woman, followed by his funny snicker. My response, "Screw that. I love Jesus." But if I didn't tell you, grab you and shake you with my excitement, I am doing it. I'm leaving (temporarily). This is the beginning of my life, and the life I'm starting looks completely awesome. Brilliant, really.
So, you may be reading this thinking, "You're young. You have plenty of time to do school and all of that stuff." And you're right. I forget how "young" I actually am, and I think part of that is because the last...oh, I don't know...7 years have been really difficult. They have aged me in so many ways that sometimes I can't help thinking that reaching 30 will really be an accomplishment, and if I do live to be 30, then I'm sure I'll be nuts. Whatever. We'll see, I guess.
I'm going to start giving my stuff away (except the computer and the PS2...and maybe some of my books). Take it. That's my new anthem.

Throwing My Life Away

I don't remember where I heard someone say that they were throwing their lives away to follow Jesus.  Maybe it was a Misty Edwards song...probably.  Whatever.  Today has been one of those days when I re-evaluated my priorities.  

I have to blame a stranger in Pennsylvania (you don't get to say stuff like that EVER).  And I'm blaming him because he said, "Hey, you should just move here."  Contextually, that makes a ton more sense, but I'm not going to get into it.  What it made me do, though, was think, "What really matters to me?"  This is what I've discovered: Nothing is more important to me than doing something I feel God is calling me to do.  Now, don't misunderstand me.  I realize that my comment sounds kind of like I'm SUPER connected to God's will or something, but that's not what I mean.  What I mean is that I'm miserable when I'm outside of God's will, and so, not out of fear but respect, I don't want to stray too far from that.  I want to do what he wants, because I want to have a full life.  Whatever that means.

I think I'm going to Pennsylvania - Philadelphia to be more precise.  And I was so excited I could barely keep it in.  Molly thought I was nuts when I called her - since I didn't want to tell her over the phone.  But like I told her, everything has been so BAD for the last few months that finally something great is happening - something that gives my life a direction, even if it's only for a couple of months.

Jeff H. is opposed to me moving away - he wants me to stay and work at the NL, but dude...Philadelphia.

It all came together so easily.  There's got to be a reason behind it.