Heaven...

Sometimes I forget what this song is really about.  Love, right?  Well, most of the time I sort of felt like it was an existential statement.  Heaven, are you really out there?  Is there really a chance that things are going to get better?  Maybe that's why David loved this song so much.  This was the design I made that is based on my idea of a tattoo in his honor.
I will never forget the first time he played me this song, in his little black civic, driving through the country to Wagon train, shaking his fist in the air when Jeremy goes up an octave.
I miss you, David.

Heaven - The Fire Theft

I know it's been awhile, but...

two years and a thousand miles

Civic

 for David

The engine hasn’t turned over

since you stepped out.

Alone in the church parking lot,

I wander around its dark figure,  

admire your spray-paint stenciling

of Martin Luther King Jr.,

his left hand waving goodbye

beneath orange clouds of rust,

and the Banksy Balloon Girl,

carried away by white balloons,

each filled with a letter of FREEDOM;

she will meet with you soon.

Behind the dirty back windshield

there is a single, cake-flecked fork,

and an incomplete box of birthday candles,

twisted thin, melting in the morning sun. 

- Zack Strait

the memory of hands

*story*

It was past three in the morning.  The lights in the hospital were still blazing in the cold black wintry night, everything else bathed only in the soft orange of fluorescent street lights.  I was shivering even though I was sitting in my car.  You would think I would have the window up, but I did that sometimes, rolled the window all the way down and blasted the heater.  Hot on one side, cold on the other.  I liked the clash of temperatures on my skin.  My tears would turn into icy drops of water on my cheeks, like I was standing in a rainstorm.  I would let them roll down my skin and drip from my chin and my nose until my skin felt strange.

I had waited until I knew everyone was gone or asleep.  I couldn't be sure that I would go undetected, but I had made friends with the nurses, told them my side, and they had unanimously agreed not to bar me from the room if I did manage to make it past the waiting room without being seen.

I tossed the remainder of my cigarette onto the thick layer of ice that coated the parking lot and took a long, shaking breath.  Some part of me knew this was the last time I would be here, the last time I would dare to creep into this place at night, and I had to make it count.

I crawled out of my car, rolling the window up quickly and trying not to slip on the sheets of ice.  I was wearing tennis shoes with no traction and had already fallen several times over the last few horrifying days.  Part of me wanted to go running, sliding, careening into the blackness, feel the sharp pain of the crash, the broken bones, the tearing skin.  Blood.  I needed to feel.  Instead, all I could dredge up inside my chest was a rippling ache of fear, dulled by overwhelming exhaustion and loneliness.  I imagined all the possibilities as I hunched my shoulders and trekked across the dark parking lot.  I could almost see the looks on his sisters' faces, the glare from Dan, the sorrow in Karen.  But I had to do this, even if they were lurking somewhere in the corners of the third floor.

My body was running on the last bits of energy I could muster.  I hadn't been sleeping, but I had definitely been drinking.  A lot.  More than usual.  I could hear his voice in my head, a prophet speaking the summer before, "You know, you're becoming an alcoholic."  And my retort now was, "So what?  What are you going to do about it?  You're in a fucking hospital bed."

I felt a strange rush of anger and panic.  What if they really did stop me?  What if they found out that I had been here?  I wanted to take my fist and crush it against the nearest car window, and I stopped, contemplating this idea, like it was really a feasible option.  As I stared at the window, tinted black and ridiculously reflective, I could see my face.  Pale white in the light from the hospital windows with dark, blue shadows like bruises beneath both of my eyes.  My mouth was in a tight long line, like I was holding in my breath, and as my head began to swim, I realized that I was holding my breath.  My heart beat slowly, but each beat was like the kick of a peddle on a bass drum.  Thunk.  Thunk.  I could almost hear the beat in my ears.

I began moving again.  My feet had begun going numb, but I hadn't noticed until I nearly slipped without moving.  I hunched my shoulders against a brutal blast of cold air and ducked my head, unintentional tears spilling out from beneath my lashes, freezing onto my cheeks.  As the automatic doors slid open, I wiped my eyes roughly, feeling my cheeks burn beneath my fingers.  I looked terrible, but I would not let anyone see me cry.  That was my limit.

My knees were knocking against each other as I stood in the elevator.  I felt like my insides were quaking involuntarily from the lack of sleep and the burning alcohol in my veins.  That was something I hadn't thought about until that moment.  Would the nurses know I had been drinking?  But then, I wondered, would they care?  Didn't they understand?
When the elevator doors finally slid open, I hesitated.  The last people in the world that I wanted to see might be just down the hall.  I had planned and schemed a way around seeing them, but now that plan seemed to have flown out of my head.  I took a deep breath and stepped out into the hall before the doors closed, my heart hammering, and looked up and down the hall.

The waiting room was just down the hall from where the elevators opened, and I crept toward it, having studied its blind spots.  I knew his father had taken to sleeping in a sleeping bag in the waiting room.  He had been there for days.  When I pressed myself against the wall just beyond the windows into the room, I craned my neck carefully and looked inside.  The room was completely and totally empty.  No playing cards, no board games, and no overnighters.  Nobody.  My heart was hammering even harder.  Had something happened?

I felt my hands shaking as I stuffed them into my pockets, and I was wishing that I had a flask hidden in my coat somewhere, but I just reminded myself why I was there in the dead of night, and I turned and began walking to the end of the hallway.

He had a corner room, and I imagined it having big bay windows that looked out over the empty southern side of town.  I had tried to figure out which room was his from the parking lot, but I had never been quite sure which windows were his, and part of me didn't want to know.  Staring up at them only made me feel more alone, being outside and looking in instead of beside his bed.  As I approached the room, I could see that the door was cracked and the lights were off.  No sound came from the room except for soft beeps from the machines surrounding the bed.  I had never seen inside the room, and I had no idea what to expect when I gently pushed the door open.  I was half hoping someone would see me coming and realize that they never should have barred me in the first place.  But the room was dark and void of family and friends.  Nearly every available inch had been taken up by his long, broad shouldered body.  My chest burned, and new tears began to well in the corners of my eyes, but I sucked in a shaking breath and took two quaking steps toward the bed.

IV's and tubes encircled his face in a halo of white.  His skin looked almost translucent in the dim hallway lights, and despite the tubes in his nose and mouth, he looked peaceful, like he might only be asleep.  The half-dead part of me thought for a moment that I might wake him up if I touched his hand, but when I reached down, hands shaking so badly that I could barely control them, and took his hand in my own, his grip was slack, and his skin was cool.  Such soft hands for a boy, I thought, feeling the skin in my own rough fingers.  And in that moment, the howling desperate fear seemed to rise in me like a monster, and I had to choke back a gut-wrenching sob.

I gripped his hand like he was saving me from drowning, and I bent my head over our entwined fingers and felt the tears drop from my eyes onto skin, cold, dripping down onto the floor.  My shoulders were shaking, and I whispered, "Please, please don't die."  I couldn't think of anything else to say.  I felt rooted to the spot; I couldn't move.  I couldn't let go, because I believed for one moment that if I did he would go; he would be gone.

I didn't feel time passing me.  I didn't hear the sounds around me.  I didn't move.  I just told him everything silently with my eyes, my gaze frozen on his face.  Silence.

He found me standing there, transfixed by the darkness of the room and the light of skin and tubes.  His father, wearing a flannel shirt and sporting new bags under his eyes and lines on his face.  He touched my shoulder, and I flinched like he had burned me.  He whispered, even though his son couldn't hear anything, "Come on."

I followed without a fight.  The shreds of energy that had propelled me into his room had crumbled into dust.  I couldn't even find the strength to care if I was torn to shreds by his father.  But he didn't rip me apart.  He put a hand on my back and guided me into the hallway, passing some energy from himself to me.  I could feel the walls around my tears crumbling again, but I held my breath.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, my voice cracking and combining with a sob toward the end.  He didn't say anything.  He just nodded.

"Don't tell them," I continued, my voice shaking with tears and pain, "please, don't tell them I was here." He knew who I meant.  Don't tell his brother; don't tell his sisters; don't, oh please don't tell his friends.  I stumbled on.  I wouldn't let him send me away.  I would choose when I left, because I knew this would be the last time I would be here, and I wanted it to count.

"And don't ever tell him I was here, or that I brought you coffee, or that I made you food, or anything..."  I was shaking so hard that I thought I might fall over.

"Okay," he whispered.  The look on his face made me feel some kind of satisfaction.  Even though he knew why I was asking, he didn't like it, and he would do it under protest, even if he agreed.  But he had agreed.  And no one would ever know.

I wanted to put my arms around his neck and hug him until the pain was gone.  How many times had I hugged him that way?  But instead of moving toward him, I took a step back, never looking into his face.

"I'll...see you later," I whispered, my heart hurting so much that I glanced down at my chest just to be sure there wasn't a knife protruding from it.

My escape was a blur of lights and walls, smudged together by my tears, tears I wouldn't allow to fall until I had finally made it into the parking lot.  And as soon as that blast of frozen air smashed into my face, I ran.  I ran and ran to my car, slid inside as fast as I could, and sped away from that place as quickly as possible, into the dark, black nothingness around me.

*the end*

David died 2 weeks after this happened unexpectedly during a routine procedure from a blood clot on February 8, 2010.

my room overlooks the world, an ocean in a raging storm

now I'm caught drifting through this world alone

I have no home.

the memory of hands, held together warm and gentle,

I try to forget and fail.

The sky is dark, clouds are forming, rain is pouring,

I know you'd be dancing.

Remember the night when you turned and looked,

You smiled to me and then you were gone.

I can't stop feeling those final moments,

God forgive me.  I can't let them go.

And I cry, but I don't let it show.

Do Not Weep

I know I don't have much of a right to grieve over certain things, especially when they're one hundred percent my fault.  But there's a part of me that feels broken today, that has felt broken since yesterday.  Holding a child in my arms, imagining what it might have been like to hold my own child in such a way. What kind of person would I have become if I had had a child?  Could I have changed?  I definitely would never have met Nathan, and I would've been linked to Johnny for life.  That broken feeling, though, comes from the knowledge that I had something beautiful that I hated and then lost.  That knowledge, more than anything, makes me wish that I could go back to those days and change things.  What if I never have another chance?  


I love this poem, and tell myself to believe it will be what that child will say someday even though it makes my heart ache to think it:


Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
- Mary E. Frye

I can't review books worth a crap, but I sure do love 'em.

So, I'm in love with goodreads.com.  I love it.  And, I challenged myself to read 1,000 books this year.  Trust me, once I get on house arrest I'll really have time to read.  Fun.
Anyway, I just finished Cinder by Marissa Meyer, and I really, really loved it.  I know it's one of those things - that "Cinderella Story" thing - but I think I'm a sucker for that, which is probably why I loved it so much.  But it was a nice change after reading City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, not that that wasn't a fun book too, but it wasn't as well written as Cinder.  The crappy thing about this most recent book is that there won't be a sequel until 2013.  Trust me, even though it says "cyborg" in the summary, it's worth a read.  It's fun, sad, romantic, etc.
Anyway, I hit writer's block and cleaned the crap out of the basement.  One of the kids had shoved a bunch of toys/garbage/dishes under the futon I sleep on, so gutted it, sorted everything, and moved the furniture around.  It really looks like a bedroom now.  I set up the futon so that we can put it up when the boys want to play video games, and I can put it back down when I want to sleep.  Billy Collins said it, though.  Cleaning really does get the writing juices flowing.  I've been feeling inspired now for about an hour.  Woot.
I think listening to books is as important as reading them for me.  Sometimes my internal voice gets so jumbled up with my vision of a story that I can't think in words anymore, so when I try to write, I can see the story but I can't put it into words.  I'm not sure that makes any sense, but I know what I mean, and I'm the only one that reads these posts anyway.
I know I should sleep, but I really don't actually want to, and I'm not sure if I should.  I'm afraid that if I do, I'll lose all these words that are piling up inside of me.  I really don't want to go to church tomorrow either, and if I sleep, then it'll be morning and I'll have to go...
Anyway, enough.
Let me make one promise though.  I will never write about robots.  There are only a few people in the whole flipping world that can pull that off without making me want to vomit.  Marissa, let me just say, you are one of them.  Thanks for the story.

Providence

Is it okay for me to be annoyed with other writers?
Okay, I know it is. I feel like an ass thinking this way, but when I read a book, and I like it, I hate it when it slowly gets worse and worse until you know that they seriously pieced the thing together just to make it end the way they wanted.  I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I'll try to explain it a bit better.
I just finished reading Providence by Jamie McGuire.  I knew what to expect, and I saw the whole story line pretty much ten pages in, but I read because I like to be entertained, and because I live vicariously through other people's romance.  Disappointed isn't the right word, because it was what I expected it would be after I had started reading it.  I think I was hoping it would be better than it was.  The writing feels really juvenile, which works just fine when you're writing for juveniles.  The thing is...okay, children's authors often have to write in a very specific way to reach their audience.  They adapt and manipulate their language and story to appeal to a younger audience.  What I've discovered about a lot of YA authors is that they write YA books because they still think and feel the way they did when they were fourteen.  Writing their stories doesn't require adaptation, because this is how they write.  The immaturity of the writing just seeps through the surface of the story and all through the consciousness of the characters.  Annoyance is probably a better word for how I feel than disappointment.  Annoyance because I can tell that these writers could write better if they just spent more time on developing the story and less time on pounding out emotions and feelings.  What's more is that their male characters are almost always horribly unrealistically emotional and needy.  Men are not emotionally collapsing or emotionally distant.  There are all these other places they exist in between.  YA authors are almost always women, and they almost always depict men the way they wish they were.  No one's doing any teenage girl a favor if they do that.
Now, don't get me wrong, if one of these authors came upon this blog post and felt indignant, saying to themselves, "Let's see her do better", I'm not sure that I could.  I just know that I'm trying to do better than that.  If I wrote that way, I wouldn't let myself settle for that kind of book.  I would rip it to shreds, change it and hone my skills until it was the best that it could be.  Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist.  When it's your career, wouldn't you want it to be the best that it could be?  Trying to make it less seems lazy to me.  Sorry, Jamie, your writing makes me feel like you're being really lazy.  That expression really hits the nail on the head.
(about 20 minutes later)
My sister just got back to me about my first 4 chapters of my new book, and I find that asking for her criticism was actually really, really helpful.  I used to hate asking her for her opinion, because I couldn't explain why I was writing things the way I was, but email works well.  Plus, I guess I had to learn that if I ever want my writing to be worth anything, I'm going to need her help.  She did it for my dad, and he got published...
The world feels strange tonight.  I felt it when I woke up from my nap earlier, and I think some of that is because I was reading that stupid book, but I feel like it's early morning, not the middle of the night.  I'm also having a hard time grasping reality.  I'm sure that expression is way overused, because this inability to distinguish reality from dreams feels so completely different than that weird niggling sensation of deja vu because I dreamt something and then it happened.  This is just straight up "I don't know where I am or what time it is" for a long, long time.  Or forgetting that I'm me and not someone else.  I know, I sound like I'm on drugs.  But that's probably the biggest problem.  Whenever I've felt this way before, I would just drink until I didn't feel so off anymore.  I can't do that now, so the world won't right itself.  Weird, right?

Places I've Lived

1. Rapid City, South Dakota
2. Warsaw, Indiana
3. Tandala, D.R. of the Congo, Africa
4. Lincoln, Nebraska
5. Geneva, Nebraska
6. Lincoln, Nebraska (again)
   -  Devonshire House
   - Cuthills Ct.
7. Lulea, Sweden
   - Pilerots
   -  Ottestig's
   - Those mean doctors
   - Those super sweet Germans
8. Lincoln, Nebraska (again)
   - Cuthills Ct.
9. Sioux Center, Iowa
10. Lincoln, Nebraska
   - Cuthills Ct.
   - Husker Village at UNL
   - My awesome, but now dead mini van
   - G St. apartment
   - Beca's dad's house
   - F St. with Ember
   - Grandma Jones' basement
   - H St. apartment
   - Ben and Andrea's basement
   - Prospect apartment
   - Lisa's couch
   - Cuthills Ct.
   - Lisa's couch
   - Dennis and Bethany's basement

Total number of moves: 27 moves in 26 years.  Okay, Spanky, is that a record?

One more thing.
Everything, and I mean everything is so much more intense in those first few months of sobriety.  You forget what it is to feel when you drink all day everyday for months at a time, and you don't really get those feelings back in the short periods of sobriety between binges.  As soon as you've got a few weeks, maybe even a few months under your belt, it all crashes back on you.  I think that's the only thing that scares me right now, because I know that there are certain amounts of emotion that I can't handle, and certain people that can cause chaos and overwhelm me.  David or rather remembering him, Nathan calling, texting, speaking...existing...and a few unnamed others.
I think one other thing I need to get off my chest is that I don't think I want to stop being in love with Nathan.  Loving someone that is so completely out of reach, so completely gone from my life is so much safer than loving no one.  I know I sound like I'm quoting some kind of psychology book, but it's true, isn't it?  It's proving to be true, at least.  I still love him, though, and I don't know how not to love him anymore.  Why is it that so wrong?  Seriously.  What is wrong with that?

No one would initially guess that there are moments of peace, happiness, and occasions of raucous laughter mixed in with the tears and grief of sobriety.  You never, ever believe that at the beginning.  What they also don't tell you is that the grief feels so much deeper when you're sober, because you're not just grieving the people and things you lost; you're grieving the time you lost.  I've lost most of three years.  If I lost another three, could I wrench myself out of a muddy ditch and toss away the bottle again?  Would I even want to?
I used to be obsessed with keeping track of my memories.  In my mind, everything had to fit into a timeline.  Unfortunately, alcohol makes you forget, once there's enough of it in your system, and especially when it's always in your system.  So, now I have to make lists.  Lists and lists and lists.  I can't put things into order by time, but I can put them together that way.  And I'm constantly counting things now.  I suppose that's pointless, but if you woke up one morning with memories of dreams, believing they really happened, you'd keep lists and time lines too.
Okay, even more disturbing than those bits and pieces is how little I've changed in appearance.  I was looking through pictures on Facebook (urgh), and I look exactly the same as I did five, six years ago.  The only major differences is that I now have a few wrinkles, gray hair, and my weight has visibly fluctuated up and down over the years.  I can't really tell how fat I look now, because when I think of myself, I feel small, even if I'm not.  Thank God.  If I worried about how fat I am on top of everything else, I'd really lose it.
I shouldn't read books with sex in them.  I know this is going out into the internet, and maybe there are still a few stragglers that read it, but honestly, I don't give a shit.  I shouldn't read books with sex in them, because it makes me wish I was having sex.  Even worse than that is that I only know a couple of eligible guys, meaning ones that I could have sex with without causing anyone to cheat on anyone else.  And even if I think about them, and having sex with them, I'm pretty sure that I could never enjoy it as much as those stupid girls in those stupid books.  So, I'm stuck here wondering if there's a solution to being sexually frustrated and simultaneously sex-phobic.  I know there's an obvious solution out there that I'm not going to name because that's gross to talk about, but that's not good enough.  And as I sit here, typing this very ridiculous post, I remember being told that sex wouldn't be as big of a deal once I'd gone and finally done it.  And I laughed at this, because I wanted it to be a big deal.  I wanted it to matter when I actually went and had sex.  But it didn't matter, and I didn't love any of the guys I slept with, and the one guy I have loved I didn't sleep with.  Explain that one...actually, don't, because I already know the psychological explanation.  Knowing it doesn't fix anything, just so you know.
I read these stupid teen books, and I catch myself wishing that my life was like that, with all the drama and craziness.  What's sort of funny about that is people think my life has been ridiculously dramatic, and it has been, but it didn't seem like it at the time.  When I reminisce, I realize that it was crazy, some of the stuff that happened.  But now I sit at my computer for two days straight, living here, doing nothing else.  And I don't mind until I read these stupid books, wish I could go out and get trashed, spend money recklessly, and live a life.  Then I remember that I can't live like that, because I tried and failed.
Can you tell that this blog has been my sounding board and my wailing wall for the last ten years?  Because it has been ten years; well, nearly ten years.  A decade's worth of bits and pieces of my life, sitting out here on the internet and read by, probably 20 people at the most.  Interesting.

P.S. I didn't realize that the blog stops at 2008.  I started this back in 2002 when I lived in Sweden, when blogs were new and all the rage, before myspace, before facebook, definitely before twitter (and, so you know, I hate twitter.  I think it's the most pointless thing that ever existed).

Disgust? Nah, I'm probably just being a prude.

I've noticed recently, now that I'm not in a drunken haze for every minute of every day, that I haven't updated my music collection in probably...a really long time, I guess.  And for whatever reason, my lack of interesting and new music is really inhibiting my writing process.
One thing that I've noticed that is also bothering me - though has very little to do with my own writing - is that unique themes in young adult fiction has unfortunately taken a turn for the typical.  Dystopian themes, first person with multiple narrators, and unrealistic romance.  Now, since I personally want to join this genre of literature, I feel that pressure to conform, to write in this way.  The terrible thing about it is that I feel like a sell out at the same time that I feel that I'm writing some of my best fiction.  I think, though, that they've tricked me, those other YA authors, into thinking that writing like them is the only way to get recognized, and then to top it off, publishing companies are backing them up.
Now, I've made a point of recognizing the books I feel have managed to take this fad in YA writing and come up with something interesting and unique.  Each of the books I've read has it's own merits, but honestly the best ones to come out of it all are these:  Divergent by Veronica Roth and Across the Universe by Beth Revis.  Another couple of books that I read (well, listened to.  I cheat.  I haven't read a book in a long time) that I recommend are: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver and Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride.  As a side note, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer isn't the only part of that book that is a musical reference.  Almost every chapter has a bastardized song lyric that actually goes with the book.  I thought that was pretty awesome.
You know you've been playing the Sims way too much when you start to think that you can work out for an hour in front of your TV and immediately lose weight, or that if you sit down for so many hours, you can finish a book that will get you 1,576 Simoleons per week.  Whatever.  I catch my brain trying to trick me into thinking that I could actually publish a book if I'd just flipping finish one.  Still, I end up listening to these books, and probably over analyzing them to some degree, and I start to think that I'm crazy for ever thinking that could happen.  Then I'll listen to one that actually sucks, and I feel way better because I'm thinking, like a cocky jerk, "I write way better than that person."  Then I'm fine until I listen to another one that is amazing.  Thanks for crushing my dreams, Lauren.  Just kidding.
I found goodreads.com the other day when I was trying to find some good books to listen to, and I joined up today because it occurred to me that, since I've been checking the internet for recommendations every few days, I should just get on a website that does all the work for me.  Genius, right?  I'm such a fast learner.  Anyway, they have this other brilliant thing called book clubs.  Ha.  There are other adults that like to read teenlit?  Wow.  So, yeah, joined one of those (I am getting to my point).  Anyway, I checked out a few writer's blogs, and I found myself feeling disdain once again - I'm being so critical this evening.  Every single writer that I've been admiring lately has that same horrible answer to that same horrible question. You know which question I mean:  What is your advice to young aspiring authors?  Ugh.  Please, don't give them advice.  If they need advice, they can't be that good.  That's what I'm thinking.  On top of that, if you have to tell them not to give up even if they get 10 rejections, then there's something wrong with their writing, and they need to get better at it.
Now, I realize that it's me writing this, not someone that actually has experience getting published or anything. But when I ask for advice, as an aspiring sort of young author, I don't want them to say that.  I want them to say something like, "Try not to make all your characters' personalities just explode out at readers when you write" or "When you write in first person with multiple narrators, make sure your characters have defined personalities that come through your writing.  Don't let them all sound like you."  God, someone needed to tell some of these authors that stuff before they published.  And tell me this:  why did they get published if they can't even do that?
I know I sound really, really superior, and if you know me at all, you probably also know that I get on these kinds of rants.  Mostly I do it to make myself feel better, because, guess what, I'm suffering from an acute case of writer's block, which is totally unfair since the story is RIGHT UP THERE in my head, but I can't get it onto any freaking paper.
Add a headache and the responsibility of making dinner for a couple 12 year olds and a wonky 7 year old, and the challenge almost seems insurmountable. I'm laughing to myself at the moment, though, because I'm so ridiculous.  Here I am, totally sober and happy, unable to write because of all these little things, and yet I know that if someone tossed me a bottle of Captain, my desire to write would fly out the window, and I wouldn't even complain about it once.  Explain that.

Blog Entry dated 11/20/2010 2:44 PM

Am I going to survive this?  Probably not.

Some Old Writing

The Northern Lighthouse

When you cross the threshold of a church, there are three crucial items to locate immediately: the free coffee, the bathrooms, and the exits.  At the Northern Lighthouse, every congregant knows where to find these essentials.  Especially the exits.  There are two doors and five windows.  Two of the windows are on the walls of the stage, eliminating the possibility of a escape during the church service.  One window is in the Welcome Room, and there is another in the nursery.  The last window is the easiest to locate, and is, in my experience, the best for a timely break out; it can be found at the end of the back hall that leads to the bathrooms.  Most first-timers have considered it necessary to have these routes memorized, but in the end we’ve never really had much trouble with people breaking out of church; the real problem is with the semi-frequent break-ins.

Situated east to west on a five-acre lot, the building itself is relatively small compared to some of Lincoln’s other churches, somewhere around 2,000 square feet.  The parking lot running alongside it has two lanes of stalls and had to be expanded to accommodate our ever increasing numbers.  On the north side of the building is a circle drive, which is also becoming increasingly difficult to maneuver.  At any given time, there will be at least four vehicles parked at a variety of angles.  We have a fifteen-passenger van painted white with the church’s logo (a cartoony looking lighthouse) and the phone number.  The other van, Big Bertha, used to belong to me until I hit a deer, totaled the van, and donated it to the church.  Some guys from the church fixed it up, and occasionally it works.  The greatest space taker is the old school bus, and the fourth car—well, no one really knows who it belongs to or why it’s there.  At the crest of the circle drive sits a house that was donated to the church back when the it was just beginning; it has become the official headquarters for the powers that be on earth, otherwise known as the Northern Lighthouse Pastoral Constituency.  North of the church building is a playground built by volunteers from another church in Iowa.  Even in the middle of winter, the kids in our church successfully find their way to the wood and plastic structure.    From the road, the property scattered with beat-up cars, a playground, and our little church building may seem strange.  We used to think we would never outgrow this place, but the truth is, no matter how much space we have, we always need more.

The first thing that usually alerts me to some of the NL’s intrinsic differences is the thick atmosphere of cigarette smoke.  Despite pleas from most of the congregation, not to mention the pastors,  our favorite place to smoke is on the sidewalk right outside the main doors. There are a few octagon-shaped “smoker’s” picnic tables on the lawn between the house and the church where the bleary-eyed sit on Sunday mornings before the service begins, but if there’s mud or snow, everyone migrates to the sidewalk.  At one point, there were more smokers coming on Sunday than non-smokers.  It may still be that way.  I don’t generally count.

Traffic slows as a colorful group of church-comers pile in through the single front door.  As soon as I reach the glass doorway, we engulf each other in a  flurry of handshakes and hugs, though we try to tone it down for newcomers, satisfying ourselves with just one emphatic shake.  By the time I’ve survived the onslaught of friendliness, someone will have shoved a cream-colored bulletin into my hand, which I’ve noticed is usually used for doodling or note-passing.  But when I open it, I find columns of information littering the inside, and between the folds of the cream paper, a half-sheet of clean, white paper with the current sermon outline and room for notes.  The volunteer schedule for the nursery, offering, and soundboard duties is always printed on the back of the bulletin, tentative though it may be.  Before we grew, there was only one person per duty—hardly a schedule.

When I began attending the Northern Lighthouse, I only came because I had become friends with the Keyzer brothers through another friend named AJ.  They were always talking about their church and crazy things that seemed to happen almost every week.  Eventually I found out, their father Sam, was the senior pastor, and their brother-in-law Jeff was about to become a pastor there as well.  I couldn’t conceal my dislike for church, but after much insisting that I, at the very least, “check it out”, I joined them bright and early one Sunday morning. 

The Northern Lighthouse wasn’t anything like the churches I had been raised in.  Rather than the thousands of people and paid employees, the church functioned solely on the efforts of the Keyzer family.  Their mother Karen walked around the room with a little white basket for the offering, and if you watched her after she finished, you could see her in the back, head tilted slightly upward and a finger ticking off heads as she counted.  Sam preached, Karen counted, Jeff administrated, his wife Beth nurseried, the older son Jon youth-grouped, and the younger son David sound-boarded (and computer-administrated).  They were one big happy family, and at the time they comprised close to half of the congregation.  It made me feel comfortable, because everyone knew and liked me.

The sanctuary is usually crammed to the limit these days.  I don’t ask my pastors if we’re violating fire codes; I don’t want to know the answer because of the inevitable moral dilemma. Every Sunday, a wide clump forms around the three percolators, completely hiding the free coffee from people just coming through the door.   We’ve also begun setting up chairs all the way to the edge of the carpet, giving those that come through the door only a few feet to maneuver in the back before joining the clump for coffee or finding their way to a seat.  If I pause uncertainly at the entrance, there’s a serious risk of getting trampled. 

Directly to the left of the sanctuary is a little room that’s always been crammed full of odds and ends.  There are stacks of broken chairs, boxes of books and clothes, and folding tables resting against the wall.  Recently, this room became the Welcome Room.  During the church service, the pastors will encourage newcomers to fill out a yellow card that asks all the pertinent information, and  at the end of the service, they’re invited to drop the card off in the Welcome Room where they will also receive a free gift (a Northern Lighthouse coffee mug filled with candy).  I personally thought this was a wise use of space; the old Welcome Table was awkwardly crammed up next to the sound booth (navigation in that corner has always been something of a challenge).  The Welcome Room has solved some of these problems so that now, after shifting most of the stuff and piling it on top of itself, there is enough room to add humans to this odd assortment of junk.

The Northern Lighthouse has a few quirky and sometimes irritating physical problems.  Since the church was built outside of the city limits, all of the water is well water, which leaves a rusty, yellow-orange film on the floors, walls, toilets, sinks, and any other imaginable surface.  On occasion, someone will try to drink the water from the completely useless and regrettably deceptive drinking fountain, and six pairs of hands will reach out in an attempt to stop the poor soul.  Of course, well water won’t kill anyone, but its  sharp metallic taste sulpheric smell turns even the strongest stomach.  There have been a few unfortunate meals served at the church where the cook has accidentally used the well water, but for the most part, people know to avoid it.

Of all the frustrating physical deformities at the Northern Lighthouse, the broken stalls in the women’s restroom cause me the most annoyance.  According to legend, the psychotic high school youth group kids broke the doors several years ago.  They’ve never been able to properly shut in all the years that I’ve been going there.  The middle stall door will stay shut if I jam it up against the side, but this is not a permanent solution, since it will pop right back open if someone tries to shut any of the other doors.  Most of the time, at least one toilet is clogged, and none of the handles work correctly.  There’s also the pervasive smell--not the typical bathroom smells, though.  It’s that tangy sulfur smell from the water, and it’s especially bad when someone uses the hot water in the sink.  If I can help it, I don’t visit the restroom very often.

Across the hall from the women’s restroom is the nursery.  Church nurseries are very unique places.  Most of the toys are broken, and there are never enough baby wipes.  The same is true for the Northern Lighthouse nursery.  There are hundreds of broken or ancient toys complete with lumpy, naked dolls; deflated balls; and a vacuum popper that makes the nursery workers cringe.  There are also a few couches where you may find a volunteer sleeping before church, especially if those volunteers work third shift. It used to be that during church, there could be anywhere from one to ten children in the little room, and they could be almost any age.  We solved that problem by starting Children’s Church.  Even with the nursery and children’s church though, there are always a few kids crying, talking, and laughing during the service.  But the overarching attitude toward these kids, and toward most of our problems and quirks, is a resounding “whatever.”  In spite of all of this, the church’s carefree attitude is one of its biggest attractions.

One of the first things I noticed about the Northern Lighthouse when I began to show up on Sundays was their considerable disdain for conventional seating.  Several round tables are situated in set positions at the very front of the room.  When we began running out of table space, we moved them closer to the stage and began adding rows of folding chairs.  At some point, we got rid of a few of the tables to make room for even more rows.  But the tables are still there.  No matter how big we get, the tables remain.  It might seem sort of foolish considering our space problems, but not long ago, the pastors attempted to explain our “chair crisis.”  Our folding chairs were beginning to deteriorate, but even after praying for funding, the church could only afford sixty of the chairs one might find in other churches—the soft, comfortable chairs that make it a little easier to fall asleep during the sermon.  Combined with our old, ugly, broken-down chairs, we have around 160 seats—and we usually use all of them    So the tables have stayed.  In many ways, the mix-matched tables and chairs represent the mission of the church in total.  The idea that, though they’re out of place, we keep them around because we like them; we keep pulling them out and putting them up because they enable several separate people, often weird and habitually ostracized people, to come together and share an experience.  That’s why the Northern Lighthouse is packed with people despite the building’s size, the unappetizing water, the disintegrating bathrooms, or the cramped seating.  We’ll take anyone.

***

              I’d never been to a church where the number of inmates attending on a Sunday morning was greater than the number of those that weren’t incarcerated.  For a few years, that was how it was at the Northern Lighthouse.  A lot of people came and went in those years because of the program we had with the Community Correctional Center.  Sometimes it was chaos.  But for some reason, the pastors felt drawn to these marginalized individuals.

              The Community Correctional Center of Lincoln is a transitional center for some of Nebraska’s incarcerated men and women that are on their way to either a more secure facility or a parole hearing.  Most of the time, the inmates at CCCL are on their way out of the system and spend no more than eighteen months there.  Because it is a low security facility, the inmates are given a lot more freedom.  Someone that knows an inmate at CCCL can be approved as a sponsor, and inmates can earn a variety of privileges like four, eight, or twenty-four hour passes. They also have the opportunity to get Work Release, which enables them to work outside of the center and save money for the day when they will be out on their own again.

              Several years ago, volunteers at the Northern Lighthouse began sponsoring inmates for Sunday morning church.  Shortly thereafter, the church began the Re-Integration Program, a weekly meeting that not only utilizes the twelve-step program taught by Alcoholics Anonymous but also teaches life skills, like balancing a check book or filing taxes.  On Saturday morning, the inmates and sponsors volunteer at the church for a program called Charity Autos; behind the circle drive, a makeshift garage has been set up to do car repairs for low-income individuals in the community and the church. 

I won’t lie.  When I started coming on Sunday morning, the inmates made me a little nervous.  I worried about things like my car keys and cell phone getting stolen, so I watched them out of the corner of my eye.  Sometimes the men would flirt with me.  After awhile, I actually became a sponsor, and I began to interact with the inmates on a different level.  Every Thursday night, I drove the church van into town to pick the church’s cleaning crew—a group of women from the CCCL.  I felt ashamed of myself for being so typically suspicious.  The cleaning ladies were some of the nicest people in the world.  There were a few that would ask me about my love life.  If I was ever involved with anyone, they’d drill me for information and tease me about it all the time.  In turn, I found out when their court dates were or when they would be having parole hearings, and I’d go out there and sit with them in an attempt to be an encouraging presence.  On one occasion, I sponsored a girl for two back-to-back eight-hour passes so she could be with her mother during heart surgery, and I acted as a representative in the hospital when she wasn’t able to visit on the third day.  I also acted as a witness during custody battles and parole hearings.

              Being involved with the inmates could be really fun, but it was also hard.  Sometimes they’d be coming for months while they were out at CCCL, but when they would get paroled, they would move back to whatever town they were from, and we’d never hear from them again.  Other times, they’d get out of CCCL and disappear, then show up at church some Sunday morning, incarcerated again.  There were others, though, who changed; the pastors like to refer to this as a “transformed life.”  When they paroled, they would be right back at the church the next week.  Some of them became sponsors themselves.  And then their families would start coming, and their friends would shortly follow.  This was when the growing happened.  This was when the church’s seams began to rip open. 

***

              Not long ago, I invited Jeff Heerspink, the administrative pastor at the Northern Lighthouse, out for coffee.  He and I have been at the church for almost the same length of time, and we both agree that the church has changed us both.  Even when he began to work at the Northern Lighthouse, he wasn’t convinced being a pastor was really the path he wanted to take.  But he saw what was happening at the Northern Lighthouse--their incredible emphasis on acceptance—and soon he was hooked.  As he puts it, “Acceptance is the root of being a grace-filled, loving church.”

              The pastors are great at reminding us that Jesus was all about acceptance, partly because they mirror Him.  In a world where individualism and self-gratification tends to thwart compassion toward the less fortunate, pastors have an even harder job description:

  1. Learn to not be selfish.

 2.  Teach Christians not to be selfish.

3.  Love first, ask questions later.

4. Show people who Christ is.

5. Take care of their families.

 6. Take care of themselves. 

Maybe that’s why pastor’s lose their minds.  They become disenchanted, often exhausted, drawn, gasping for air, and begging for more time.  There are never enough hours in a day.  We hear that about a lot of jobs, but for a pastor there really aren’t—but it isn’t that they wish for more time so they can work more.  Pastors wish for more time so they can regroup.  The pastors I know could happily pray for hours or days at a time.  This life was what they dreamed of, what they worked toward.  No one told them they were going to live like an emergency-room doctor—frantically running around, stitching up cuts and giving out pain pills. 

Some of this is part of the job description.  “You have to meet everyone’s needs right away,” is what their lives begin to look like.  But I can see it on their faces when problems come up.  Whenever they have to make a difficult decision, their faces go white in a kind of panic because this decision could make or break them.  Not many people say it, but a lot of people subconsciously expect pastors to know what God is thinking.  So if something goes wrong, if someone gets hurt, both pastor and God get alienated.  The amount of responsibility we put onto one person is astounding.  There are successes, though.  Sometimes, the message hits a room like a bomb, and the silence or the tears or the glow that comes over everyone’s faces means everything. 

***

I had been raised in churches, and I had also been excommunicated by them.  I’d attended Christian school for years, most of them bitter, and in my experience, Christianity only works well when those that ascribe to that belief actually choose to believe it on their own; what’s left are the indoctrinated that give Christianity a bad name.  That might be the most striking feature about the NL.  In the whole church, there were only ten trained-from-childhood Christians.  The rest were a different breed.  They were the ones who had emerged from a drug and alcohol induced stupor to see the radiant glow of a Savior, while kids like me had only seen an overly familiar Jewish carpenter.  The difference is like night and day. 

We used to get visitors from other churches, particularly the churches in Iowa that sent us money.  They would sit in the back, looking stiff and uneasy, and they would just watch the people around them.  People wore dirty clothes, torn up jeans; some looked like gang-bangers.  Sometimes the ladies wore short skirts.  There was the chaotic struggle for coffee before the service started.  People whispered, giggled, and wrote notes during the sermon.  If I had been one of those visitors, I might have wondered what good my money was doing.   I’m even tempted to think that way now.  But sometimes, I imagine Jesus is one of those pushing and shoving for the coffee in the back, that it’s his quiet laughter during the church service.  He would have loved the people at the Northern Lighthouse.  I know because that was His crowd back in Israel when he was walking around preaching.  Jesus liked the ones that no one else wanted.  And whenever I felt some aversion to people in the congregation, whenever they made me feel indignant or irritated, I would remember that, according to Jesus, I’m no better than anyone, and He loves us all the same.

***

About a year ago, a woman broke into the Northern Lighthouse.  She was high on meth and losing her mind.  There was only one person in the world she wanted to talk to, and that was Pastor Sam.  She knew that he would listen.  She had heard that he wouldn’t judge her.  That was why she had to break into the office.  She didn’t have his phone number.  As she tore the rooms apart, she had no doubt that this was the right thing to do.  She called him from his own office.

It was the middle of the night, but he answered the phone when it rang.  She told him the truth, that she had broken into the church because she needed to find his phone number.  She was just waiting for him to yell at her or call the police.  “I’m coming to you.  Just stay there,” he told her. 

For three days, days of draining that terrible drug from her system, she clung desperately to the love Pastor Sam and Pastor Jeff offered her.  They prayed with her; they fed her; they gave her a place to sleep and clothes to wear.  To this day, she calls those days her own “three days of resurrection.”  Today she is clean and has reunited with her family.  But she’s even more than that.   She’s been transformed into a person who loves and a person who hopes. 

I look around my church, and I still notice all of its flaws.  I look at the kids making a mess in the kitchen.  I see people that society normally shuns smiling and laughing together.  I think of  the woman, sitting in Sam’s office, hoping he would love her like Christ.  And I wonder, what will next Sunday bring?

8 year anniversary

Do you want to know something crazy?  I’ve been using this blog (this particular site) for 8 years.  Eight whole years I have been writing things on blogger, telling the world about my life.  Now, granted, I never really expected anyone to read it, and so far that’s remained semi-true; no one really reads this thing anymore.  But either way, here are some memories:

I started this blog when I was an exchange student in Sweden, back in 2002.

I remember updating this thing from the computer in The Bean (the coffee shop at Dordt).

I know I vented about David pretty profusely.

So, over eight years, what’s changed?  Take a 16 year old girl stuck in a foreign country and imagine that girl becoming a 24 year old girl in Lincoln, dating an amazing guy that lives in South Dakota, with few prospects for a real future because of her own mistakes, friends that are only around half the time, and a family that’s beginning to fall apart (or fray at the edges, if you want a metaphor).  It’s been strange to think about where I was eight years ago, because it seems like forever, but in a lot of ways, I’m still stuck back there.  I’ve changed for sure, but there are so many things that are the same (personality wise) that I feel like I’m still that kid that I was when I first started this blog. 

I was looking over the stuff I used to publish, and I was literally obsessed with telling stories.  The difference now is that I like to actually live my story.  But, you know, I always thought that romance would end up being  a lot simpler than its proven to be.  Either way, I’m happy to be in love (most of the time).

Either way, December will always have a ton of significance to me, because of my story. No matter how often I tell it, my story began with Sweden and ended with Jesus.

Here is a soundtrack for my December:

Always on the Outside  :  Common Children

Entertaining Angels  :  Common Children

Even if It Kills Me  :  Motion City Soundtrack

Decode  :  Paramore

Roses  :  Tonic

Take Me As I Am  :  Tonic

Count On Me  :  Tonic

Head On Straight  :  Tonic

Ring Around Her Finger  :  Tonic

Breathe  :  Taylor Swift

Miracle  :  Paramore

We Are Broken  :  Paramore

When It Rains  :  Paramore

No Air  :  Glee Cast

Chances  :  Five For Fighting

Turn Back Around  :  Lucy Schwartz

Just a quick note.

Things have improved here dramatically, and I'm sure it's because of everyone's prayers and support. I feel as though I've really connected with the kids here, and I'm getting used to the adults. I've also made friends with some of my housemates, so it isn't quite as awkward to be staying here. In fact, I went and played ultimate frisbee tonight, which I mentioned last week, and it was incredibly fun, not to mention everyone there was great.
Well, keep praying for us. God is really using us here, and we need your continued support.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device from U.S. Cellular

Just a heads up...

I put a new song on my myspace page. It's not anything spectacular and it's definitely not well recorded, but it's there so enjoy.

Sunday and Monday

First, before I get to Monday, let me start with Sunday.

I didn't realize that I had gotten used to going to church at least once (or twice or three times...) every weekend until I unquestioningly got up for church on Sunday morning. I think that's a good sign.
I have to say that Spirit & Truth Fellowship is a church after my own heart. They're technically CRC, but sort of seem NL-ish, in that they're a very diverse crowd. The thing that stood out most dramatically to me, however, was their worship. They sang several songs that I knew, one of them being Days of Elijah. But they sang those songs like they were the only songs in the world. At one point, I could swear that they'd stopped singing and were just screaming. I LOVED it. Plus, as a bonus, we sang several songs in Spanish.

Molly, Joe and I walked down to Dunkin' Donuts, the Hunting Park version of Starbucks, and got horrible coffee - that they sweetened despite our appeals against it - argh. I'm guessing their regular coffee is alright but whatever...the stuff I had was barely drinkable. Once I had my coffee, I managed to get in 4 very important phone conversations with people back in Lincoln, and also with my sister and brother-in-law. Thus, my Sunday passed by with no real issues.

Now...it's Monday.
The first problem? The fact that I slept in until 10:30. Thankfully, the teachers and Cynthia were very forgiving. Then add 3 more kids to my class, and you have my MONDAY.
We have one new kid, who is the cutest little boy in the world, but he really has a temper. His name is Quadir (spelling?). The biggest thing you all could do, if you're reading this, is send up a prayer on his behalf. The moment I got to class, I was bombarded with kids tattling on him, telling me they didn't like him, etc. Then, he was sort of stubborn about a variety of minor things, and ended up getting so upset that he threw a few things and was hurried out of the classroom by one of the teachers. I can understand how frustrating it would be to be a new kid in a class where no one likes you, and I tried to help him as much as possible. Please pray that God will give me wisdom on how to deal with him and how to LOVE him. He really needs love - that I can see really clearly.
For the most part, I had a pretty good day, though. The kids are fun, and I've been preparing some "lessons" for them to do tomorrow (body bingo anyone?). This afternoon, I got the chance to talk to Ryan more and get to know him a little better. He's also said that he'd take me to meet Shane Claiborne (which would be cool, but whatever). Apparently, he and Shane are friends...yeah. Anyway, I can't say how good it is that I got the chance to spend some time with Ryan, talking etc. God's really doing some cool stuff in my life and around me while I'm here, and this is one of the things He's done (as small as it may seem).
Well, I need to sleep, but I'm pretty excited about this week. On Wednesday, we're going swimming all day, and then on Friday we're going bowling. Yeah!
Keep praying for us and the kids in our classes, as well as the adults we work with (that are incredibly burned out and definitely need some prayer).

Saturday adventure

In honor of having Saturday completely free, Molly, Joe, Chris, and I took the train to center city and wandered around on South Street. South Street is a pretty famous part of Philly, being a street lined with shops and restaurants for every punk, hippie, emo, and weekend adventurer that happens to find themselves there. Here's a cool picture of some of the mosaics that we saw:

The mosaics were at the western end of South street, several blocks away from some of the cooler shops. I took a picture of one in particular that I thought looked cool (from the outside):

Chris, who knows exactly where everything is in this part of town, eventually took us to St. Peter's Episcopal Church (the place he likes to go to do his devotions), and we got a quick tour of the inside, and let me just say...very cool. George Washington went to church there occassionally, and we ended up sitting in the box he would occupy while an incredibly friendly historian told us all about the church and its history. This is my favorite part:

Well, if you know anything about me at all, you probably know that I really like history, so we split up at the church. Molly and Joe went back to South Street, and Chris directed me to the historic district (about four blocks north of this church), where he and I split up. I wandered down to Penn's Landing (which is unfortunately unremarkable), and then over to the street where Ben Franklin's house used to stand, then to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell:

The alley to the site of Ben Franklin's house (which is no longer there)

Independence Hall

The Liberty Bell

Molly and Joe decided to stay downtown for some show, but Chris and I headed back. It was a long day of walking. I'm pretty exhausted from walking somewhere around 4 miles...? I'm definitely going back down there sometime before we leave. I feel like I only saw a tiny fraction of what I could see, and I'm pretty fortunate to have a few good guides in the house. Anyway, I'll talk to you soon.

Pictures!

These are some of the awesome kids I've been working with:

Red Group
Sisters
Bored on the bus ride to the parkTaking a break

Camp begins.

As you can imagine, my day started with Molly and Joe trying desperately to wake me up. But, fortunately, I managed to get up by 7:40, and we headed over to the camp just in time to see the kids arriving. We went over some basic stuff with Kate, the director, and we each picked a group that we would be with for the rest of the month. Molly is with the 2nd and 3rd graders, Joe is with the 4th and 5th graders, and I am with K-1st graders. I can't speak for Molly and Joe, but my group is totally awesome. I'm a novelty to them – a new person – so they were all hanging on me, talking to me, and whatever else. I have to say that my first day with them went really well. I was kind of worried that I had forgotten how to be patient with little kids – and it was only day one, so we'll see if that lasts. Fortunately, I handled the fighting, crying, shouting, etc. that goes along with a day with a bunch of 4-6 year olds, and I'm excited for tomorrow.
Tonight, after dinner, I joined one of the housemates, Chris on a journey to Temple University, where a group of his friends were meeting to play ultimate Frisbee. I wasn't really interested in playing so much as watching, so I sat around and watched them all run around throwing a neon yellow Frisbee. I think I should have joined in the fun, but I stuck to the sidelines, a little too shy to participate. I did tell some of them that I'd be back with Chris next week (if he goes…) and this time I would play. I want to test out my healing lungs.
I think the biggest thing I've learned today is to let words slide off your back. I had to tell a little boy in my group, after a couple of other boys said that he was a bad basketball player and that they didn't like him, that it didn't matter what those other boys thought. The only thing that matters is what God thinks. I don't usually think that way in regards to my own life; in fact, for the last few hours, I've been struggling pretty hard with some things that have been said about us and to us (Molly, Joe, and I). If I could ask everyone to pray one thing on my behalf it would be that God will draw near to me while I'm feeling nervous about all that's happening. And, on top of that, anything that you can think of. I remember Anna saying something Sunday morning about God putting a hedge around my mind – so that I wouldn't ruminate over things that were being said to or about me –and that is a prayer that I need to be said continually. Satan is trying to inch his way in over here, and it has been discouraging – but also means that something huge is going to happen. Either way, remember us when you pray.
We're going hiking tomorrow, and I can't wait. Keep us in your prayers, and keep your eyes open for some awesome pictures of our new friends.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device from U.S. Cellular