One Way To Break A Habit

So, about one week after Roommate #1 contracted mononucleosis and went home, Roommate #2 caught it from her…and is staying in the apartment.  This required me to take extreme measures in order to avoid dangerous germs.

monofingers

Suprisingly enough, this method has also kept me from biting my fingernails.  If you know me very well, you know that biting my nails has been a very bad, and very permanent, habit of mine ever since, oh, I don’t know, infancy?  My mom tried everything from that store-bought paint-on clear goo that tasted like fermented ragweek (for which I quickly developed an affinity) to paying ten cents per undamaged nail every week (pah…buying off natural instincts never works) to memorizing Romans 6 (Gothard had no idea how bullheaded I was am).

And to think all it took was a threat to my vacation/job at Summit next month….*sigh*

Why Follow Christ?

At the Wesley Foundation Bible Study tonight we talked about why we follow Christ. This conversation was more of a “prep-talk” before we watched the Rob Bell Nooma video called “Dust”. This discourse in part produced such a sense of shame in my soul because of my reluctance and utter inability to express my opinion, just because it might have been viewed as “controversial” or even “splitting hairs”. At a Christian Bible Study, no less!! I feel ashamed to call myself a Summit Alumni, especially with my being on Staff for the second half of the summer. If I can’t be a good example of an ambassador for Christ in my immediate sphere of influence, how can I expect to teach these kids anything?

The point of contention was as follows:

The leader was asking the general question, Why Do You Follow Christ? Some of the answers included (Note – these are replicated as close as I remember, but still paraphrases):

1. II Corinthians 5:21 – We are no longer slaves to sin, but slaves to righteousness. Following Jesus frees me from having to sin and makes me instead a slave to goodness.

2. I have peace, even when I have to make difficult decisions and go through difficult things.

3. I follow Him because I believe in Him.

4. Luke 9:23 – Jesus commands us to.

5. Jesus gives me true, pure joy.

What do all these reasons have in common? They all are based on the assumption that this Jesus Christ figure and all the things written about Him in the Bible are TRUE!

All of these reasons are based on the TRUTH of Christ! You can believe in many other things. Other things can bring joy and peace. But if they are not based on truth, the previous five reasons are moot – they mean nothing. It is vanity. It is like any other flippant superstitious ritual.

So, why do I follow Christ? Because He is the Truth. He is the Answer and the Fulfillment of the questions that have plagued mankind from its birth. The Question of Origins. The Question or Purpose. The Question of Worth. Why do I follow Him? Because there is no one else TO follow, and I don’t mean that Jesus was the last resort that I turned to after all other paths proved fruitless.

Or do I? How many times have I fallen away, being trapped by the wiles of the world, only to come crawling back to the feet of the Saviour, bleeding and torn? How many times have I decided to try the ways of the world apart from Christ “just this once”, to see if it would work out better this way, only to be proven dumb and blind once again?

The answer is, of course, too many to count, but always one less than the Lord is willing to forgive. And you know what makes His mercy completely redeeming and sanctifying? The fact that His redemption and sanctification are not based on fiction. They are not based on feelings. And they are not based on folklore.

These are the facts, ladies and gentlemen, pure and simple.

Reconciliation

One of the most valuable feelings two people can share is that of complete reconciliation. I recently experienced this truth yet again in a relationship very dear to me.

The fault was all mine. Initiating the plea for forgiveness nearly drove me mad. But in the end I came out of it with a bit more maturity and a lot more humbleness.

Throughout this adventure known as “Our Long Distance Relationship”, the one thing that has continued to rank number one as essential for our success is Communication. And it goes beyond simply disclosing my feelings and thoughts through secondary and ultimately inadequate technological means. Communication also includes being able to truthfully admit when I don’t want to talk right now, and him being okay with that.  And vice versa, of course…but I seem to need this admission more than him.  :)

Communicating also means I should never think that I am the only one affected by my attitudes, emotions, and decisions. While it is good to learn that no one is the center of the universe, it never really hits home until your life is so intimately entangled with a person that you have only just met a couple short years ago.

I really hope and pray that we will be able to use our experiences and struggle together to help other LDR’s in the future.  To save even one couple from the unnecessary stresses and strains and misunderstandings and tears would make this whole thing so that much more gloriously providential.

Sunday Is A Yuppie Word

The day started very slowly for me this morning. I got drunk on good food and the subsequent spike in my blood sugar resulted in me unable to sleep ’till after three a.m. Combine that with having to wake up and go to church with a killer calorie hangover, and Sunday is no longer my favorite day of the work week.

Of course, with any Sunday it is hard to keep it high on my list when I’m in Starkville. I try to remain positive and see the good in my summer situation, but it’s hard when I know that if I were back in Memphis I’d be playing four hours of indoor soccer with good buddies every Friday night, sitting amongst incredible teaching and an amazing college & career group every Sunday morning, playing outdoor soccer with more good buddies in the afternoon, and chillin’ again with my siblings in Christ at night surrounded by good food and even better extreme sports.

Here, it’s quite different. I’m not a resident. I’m a college student. I am a fading, changing figure that people might remember having seen in service or in Wal-Mart before, but have never really considered a part of their permanent congregation. I don’t hold this against them. There is no bitterness towards the people here. It’s more of a bitterness towards the absence of people that I wish were here. Or better yet, towards my absence from the places I wish I could be.

My Chronic Disease – Part I

I feel like I will not be able to function until I straighten out what is going on in my own head. I should not be allowed to function. How many times have I convinced myself that I have beaten this personality flaw? This Chronic Disease? I cannot even come up with a scientific name for this problem. It oscillates somewhere between a lack of self-esteem and an eating disorder. No, I am not an official anorexic or bulimic. I do not starve myself for days or weeks on end. And I know enough of the science behind bulimia not to participate. My Disease has a lack of structure that makes it hard to quantify, much less explain on some blog post, but who knows, maybe it will help me find a Cure.

I have heard all the facts. I have gone to the talks, read the articles and the books. I have talked to all the right people. I’ve heard all the right phrases: “You are made in the image of God.” “You shouldn’t be worrying so much about what you look on the outside, but what you are becoming on the inside.” But then, on the other hand I hear: “Christians should present themselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel.” “Christians should be clean and respectable, take care of their bodies and their opportunities, in order to make the Gospel as attractive as possible.” “We should be responsible with our money, our time, our job (or schoolwork), and our corrupted temples that God has gifted to us.” Every time I look at my figure in the mirror, I feel like I am letting down my Creator in some way. That by not having a 24″ waist and a flat tummy, I have wasted my life and the gift of a healthy body somehow.

I know I am not obese in the clinical sense of the word. I may be overweight according to the age vs. weight chart, but I’ve given up on that cause long ago. Not to seem cocky or self-glorifying, but I have too much muscle mass to weigh 120 pounds. I’ve even had doctors tell me that even though I weight upwards of 145, they don’t know where I put it all. I’m fine with that, I really am. But some days, I count calories obsessively, and freak out if I go above 1000 per day. Other days, I say screw it all (these usually occur around free food or a time of month) and eat the food that college kids are known for. I think: “I am on the Club Soccer Team! I practice twice a week and play pick-ups at least one other time a week! I run every freakin’ day unless its sleeting or below 45 degrees! I live off of rice, yogurt, and canned fruit, for pete’s sake! I should not have to count my calories, obsessing over nutritional labels and grams of fiber and sugar and fat and Niacin! This is not the way to live!

You know all those sappy chick movies like The Wedding Planner, 50 First Dates, The Wickerman, Sleepless in Seattle, movies like that? There is always the part where either the woman or the man of the story curls up on the coach, crouches on the stairs, or slides down a wall and melts onto the floor in tears. There are so many times I wish I could do that over, and over, and over. Just so it would feel like I actually have a serious problem, because I know I have one, but I am too intellectual and reasoned to realize this. I am too intelligent. My life is too perfect. I have it all under control. This is just a bad day, a bad week. Well, how about a bad year since 2000?

I don’t have a problem! I have a loving family, a wonderful beau. I have friends who seek me out in order to hang out with me and get advice. I have money and a fun job. I’m attending a University on a full-ride scholarship and have every reason to expect an invitation to be in a DVM Class of 2013 in at least one school of Veterinary Medicine. I play the best sport in the world, and I have the legs and the lack of disease and genetic disorders to allow me to play soccer, and run every day, and snowboard, and do whatever other crazy things I love to do! I even have a Saviour who loves me more than the foundations of the Earth and sacrificed everything for my salvation and His glory! What have I to be pathetic and angsty about?

I was hoping writing this all out would help me find some semblance of reason in it all. I guess my cure will have to wait, as all I feel like doing now is curling up on my bed with my Pride and Prejudice DVD and watering my pillow.

Self-Sufficient

I have always prided myself on not needing the motivation of others to accomplish my goals. (Unfortunately, this is different from my struggle with being accepted/liked by those I respect, of which I do not concern myself in this post.) Continuing. I suppose it pertains to the competitive and self-sufficient spirit I inherited from my father. We both seem to have the knack for perhaps sounding affrontive and asserting, which in turn tends to drive the masses away from us, and finally concluding in our being left with very few friends. But the friends we do take the time to develop ties with, are friendships that will last, friendships that stand on truth and love, morality and accountability. I digress yet again: this year of school has seemed the hardest for me. And I think I know why now, or at least have an idea:

I am looking for approval, for that pat on the back, for that voice saying how smart and amazing I am to have gotten this far in my schooling. My distraction has proven almost deadly. Through several events these past few days, I have realized my mistake and have returned to diligence. Yet, not quite, to self-sufficiency. Now, I am filled with doubts, with fears, with expectations. I can handle the courseload, the business of my life. What I cannot handle so well is the exposing of my having dropped the ball on something or my failing to sufficiently complete a task.

All this to say, I feel the need for support, for encouragement. I don’t need failing attempts at shallow sympathies (see below). God, I need a Barnabas…this seems selfish…I know…but after I get this all out, I will be empty and will be able to get back to my cocoon of blissful, emotionless existence that keeps me very introverted, very sullen , and very productive.

e.g. “I don’t know how you feel…but let me tirade about how I think my life could be as tiring as yours.”
I don’t need to know that someone else’s life is going up in smoke. I need to know that Christ is faithful and true. That He is my Support and my Shield. There is nothing less assuring than hearing someone trying to make you feel better by making you feel worse about how their day was cruddier than yours.

e.g. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
I HATE this response. For me, it not only communicates mindlessness, but also a lack of even caring. I rarely bare my soul completely concerning how I’m feeling about the direction my life is going. But when I do, there is nothing more discouraging than those words. They caution me to not even bother wasting oxygen expressing my problems and discouragments. What’s the point? If I wanted to rant without receiving any help or comfort, I would do that to a wall. Geez, even making something up is better than that. It goes back to that need that many people feel, especially at the big decisions in their life. They need someone to tell them “I believe you can do it” “You got this, no problem” “Give it all you got, and God’s got the rest” “Aw, don’t say you don’t think you can do it/deserve it/whatever!” “Just think of what it’ll feel like when you’ve beaten this thing into the floor!” I could go on and on. It’s called imagination, guys….use it. Win your girl’s heart.

I know that if I hadn’t had so many amazing people encouraging me to try out for the State team, I probably would never have stayed as diligent in working out. They really believed I could do it. And even if some of them didn’t, I couldn’t tell. Yeah, when I didn’t make the team, I was miffed for awhile, because I thought that they had been leading me on, just so they wouldn’t have had to wound me with the truth. I see now, that even if that had been their motive, I wouldn’t have cared. Their support fed my passion, my initiative, my diligence to go after that spot on the team with everything I had. Being rejected was one of the most painful experiences in my life, but it is a day I will never forget. It really is true that deep pain adds that last piece of flavour, of sweetness, to life that makes it beyond delectable.

That being said, there is one pain I never want to experience: being reject from veterinary school. That will not happen, whether I receive outward encouragement from my peers or not.

Warrior_Bryde

P.S. All of this, of course, excludes my parents, who have ever been my support and constant encouragers in everything good I have ever set my sights on.

Contemplation: a Dangerous Gift

Sometimes I imagine horrible things happening to those I love. Not because I desire such things to happen to them, but to gauge the effect it would have on my personal state. A rather selfish endevour, but also a terrifying one as well. Some mornings I will wake up drenched in sweat, and not remember why, only that I desire above all else to instantly be connected with every person I care about and assure myself that something dreadful has not happened while I slept. I imagine turning on Fox news and seeing a news flash of a FedEx airbus having gone down, piloted by First Officer Randall Emerson Beck. He is training for the airbus right now. He is starting test flights soon. Things go wrong on test flights with learning pilots. I can stifle such thoughts, and I have slowly gotten better at it, but most of the time it sparks in me a need for such fervent prayer that I hear nothing else around me. This happens in class often, especially those classes where my mind is given leisure to wander. Then I wander beyond the death of loved ones, to what a psychiatrist might call “deeper things”. The thread of life is so frail, so slender; it could snap so easily. The human life is extremely susceptible to calamity. We have not the means of survival as most wild things do. Then, I think of the thread of life in a different facet. So many times, we as humans strive to kill ourselves, to tear our own life-thread to pieces. But more times than nought, we can not do it. Attempted suicides are rampant in the world, but a much smaller group actually have enough desperation to finish the act. Even then, how many wonder as they slowly bleed to death, was this really the right thing to do? There is something stronger running through the thread of all souls: it keeps us firmly grasping to life, even with all its tribulations and constant pain. As the song goes:

There’s something deep inside
That keeps my faith alive
When all you can do
Is hide from the fear
That’s deep inside of you
Something, something, something,
Something, something, something,
To hold me close when I don’t know