All The Single Ladies

I remember having a conversation a few years ago with a really wise woman I know. We were talking about her experiences as a single lady. At time time, all of my friends had recently-ish started relationships (okay, not all of them... only seven) and I anticipated that many of these friends were soon to become 'my married friends' (I was right). I wanted to know: how did she handle this transition? What did it look like? How did her friendships change?

She gently said many wise and helpful things, and I won't repeat them all now. One that stood out to me was that although I wasn't going to lose my friends once they got married, I would need to acquire some new single friends. Since she has been single for quite a while, she laughingly told me that this was a process that she has had to repeat multiple times as her recently acquired single friends became married friends.

To be honest, I wasn't super keen on this idea. First of all, I was quite attached to the friends that I already had, and I didn't like the idea that I would need any more. Was our relationship really going to change so much that I would need new friends to fill holes my married friends had left? Secondly, in the depths of my often selfish and unreasonable heart, I did not want to make long-term, sustainable plans for being single. My heart has a number of complaints about singleness, and the idea that as my friends got married I would have to make new friends seemed like another point in favor of moving out of this season quickly.

However, I am clearly not in charge of the seasons of my life. That responsibility goes to God, and I can only assume that He is doing a much better job than I would. So, four years after that conversation, what conclusions have I reached with regards to the friendship advice?

Friendships change, and they stay the same. This is true of both my married friends and my single friends. To my relief, my friends who have gotten married are still the same delightful people, they still know my heart, and they still love me. They are still a source of joy and encouragement, even though our friendships have practically changed. However, having single friends is a huge blessing, and in the moments when I need them, I am very grateful for my single friends.

Lady M and Elizabeth are both single, and they
seem to be doing just fine. Of course, they have
a single friend for when they need snuggles.

It's not that my married friends are too busy, too different, or too far removed from the #singlelife. There is just a sweetness in sharing what is unique about the season of life you are currently in with others who are there with you. It's nice to have single friends because:

-You have someone listen to you recount the number of times in 3 days that people have talked to you about your future children, men they have considered setting you up with, and men they anticipate you marrying, so your friend can tell you that you're not crazy or neurotic. Without a friend, I wouldn't know when I am actually being crazy or neurotic.
-You have someone to joke with when another engagement is announced on Facebook because, "surprise, it's happened again ;)" Left to my own devices, I might dwell on others' engagements for longer than is helpful, then feel guilty for dwelling. With a friend, we can have a moment to chuckle, eye-roll when necessary, and then we move on with our days.
-You have someone to sit with at weddings. Because it's true... at least some of the single friends you make are going to quickly turn into married friends, and they might not know where to seat you. Luckily, if you need someone who loves weddings to remind you all of the reasons why this is going to be incredibly fun, I can be that person for you because weddings are my favorite!
-You (sometimes) will have the blessing of a friend who loves the season of life they are in and can open your eyes to the joys you are missing. They can encourage you to rejoice in what is good about life instead of joining you in your pity party. But since they also experience the hardships of being single, they are tender to your struggles. If you are very lucky, they will remind you that it is unfair to compare the joys of someone else's season to the struggles of your own season.

So to my single friends out there, particularly the ones who are about to enjoy their first wedding season full of their own close friends: it's going to be fine. Your friends will still love you once they are married. It may be more difficult to have sleepovers with them and plan things spontaneously, though, so its worth the effort to make some new friends who are also single. Not because you need to, but because you will be grateful for those relationships when you take the time to think back. 

Summer Summary

Summer was fabulous, although not particularly glamorous. But it was warm, days were long, and I felt (dare I say it?!) rather content. Summer is my favorite time to be alive, and I spent time doing everything but blogging. Here is a smattering of summer updates:

-In June, I went with some college friends-and my Mother-to see Josh Garrels perform in DC, and it was so much fun! This is the third time I've seen him live (aka every time he tours on the East Coast, I am sooo there) and every show has been quite different, depending on instrumentation and setting, but equally wonderful. We got to do a Q&A before the show, and Gene and I were sad for a hot second that we didn't get to ask our questions... Except then Josh hung out for awhile afterward and we got to go talk to him and ask our questions directly. Not only does his music move my soul, I am now more certain than ever that Josh Garrels is an awesome guy and I wish we could be friends in real life. Also, that night got an A+ for getting to spend time with friends I don't get to see as much as I'd like.

Is this real life moment #1: My mother hangs out with me and my friends kind of often, and somehow it's not weird.

Is this real life moment #2: Josh Garrels makes a lot of eye contact when he talks to people... like, intense amounts of eye contact. I'm not sure how he can think about his responses to questions and make that much eye contact at the same time.

-I took the GREs at the end of June, which means that I spent most of May/June either studying or trying to convince myself that I should be studying. That quantitative score was not as high as I had hoped, so I studied like mad for the next 2 months and took it again at the end of August. Success! Good thing, since I don't think I have ever studied that much for a test ever. Also, working full time and studying 15-20 hours a week (hello, August!) is a serious impediment to having a life. So I didn't do too many exciting things, unless you find watching New Girl with your Mom exciting. On the other hand, I am really excited (aka equal parts exhilarated and terrified) about applying to grad school, so at least I am looking forward to the loads of work in my future :)

(This is how we study)

Is this real life moment #3: One of my family members told me that if I was serious about 'this grad school thing' and was going to go to school till I'm 30 or something, that I should consider freezing my eggs for when I want to have children because, "They're best now." I repeat: this is an actual thing that happened to me. I think my response was hysterical laughter but it was such an uncomfortable experience I can't remember exactly.

-Another June happening... one of my dear Gettysburg friends came to visit. It was truly a delight to spend time with Allison after much too long apart, and many chats occurred (basically non-stop) for the next 24 hours. There was also a happy mix of singing, snuggles, and Sovereign Grace time. I love going to church with friends; after 4 years of carpooling from Gettysburg to Hanover for church, I'm still adapting to walking in the door without an entourage, and its always nice to bring friends to a place I enjoy so much!

Is this real life moment #4: I took Allison with me to go shooting Sunday afternoon, because that's what you do when you have a farm and its a sunny summer afternoon. It was her first time shooting (she did great!) and I was reminded of how lucky I am to have grown up in a place with so much space for activities.

-Unusual amounts of paddling through water happened on Labor Day Weekend (although it wasn't the only time this summer). I went white water rafting on the lower Youghiogheny River with my family Saturday, mostly because my 'baby' cousins were coming from WVU and I wanted to see them. I did a bit of white water kayaking on the Potomac on Monday with my best friend's mother (aka my second Mom) and some of her clan. By then, when every muscle was sore, this seemed like a bad idea, but with the river low for kayaking, our trip down the river was much easier than it was the year before with my college roommate (still sorry, Elle!). So both days ended with everyone alive, and I learned a few more things about good life choices on the river.

Is this real life moment #5: One such life choice is to not encourage people who don't like adventure sports to come on adventures with you. As I was sailing out of our raft in the middle of some rapids, calmly considering whether I could say in front of the boat or had to go under and wait for it to pass over me, I could hear my Mom panicking. When I had been pulled back in and received a pat on the back from my father for hanging onto my paddle, she was still panicking. Why were my adrenaline-seeking father and adrenaline-avoiding mother both in a raft together? Because someone had not thought this through properly.

-My favorite Sovereign Grace moment this summer was probably our care group retreat to the mountains of West Virginia. I spent a wonderful weekend on the most idyllic farm with awesome people, and it was so great to just... be... for an entire weekend. Apart from going to the middle of beautiful nowhere, we shot guns, set off fireworks, lit lanterns, laid in the grass, hung out around a campfire on the side of a hill, and talked. And talked. And talked. I think there was even more talking than there was fire, and both were in ample supply to make me the happiest girl.

Is this real life moment #6: Pretty much everything about the weekend was surreal, especially since I left the day I took my GRE's and had a perfectly abrupt change in my schedule. No time for anything and then all this time and beauty and friend chats? It was delightful.

So, in summary, it is sometimes hard to believe that this is real life, because life is crazy and joyful and unexpected... just the way I like it. As fall comes, and it gets harder to get up in the dark every morning, I try to hold on to feelings of sunshine, fields, and friends that made the summer so lovely and remember that God is good...and that this season will come back again, just like it always does.

Adventure Is Out There

I love traveling. I love road trips. I love adventures. So going to Ireland was pretty much the best thing ever, a much needed break from the mundane and a chance to go explore the beautiful unknown.

In case you haven't already been subjected to regaled with tales from my Ireland trip, one of my good friends is completing a Master's degree at Queens University in Belfast this year. I have decided to implement the rule "When your friend is living abroad, you go and visit" in my life as much as is possible, so I went to Ireland this April while Bobby was on Easter Break. I flew in to Belfast, and we rented a car for a week so we could road-trip around the country, which was the best idea. Besides having a grand time driving on the left and not killing anyone, we saw so much of the country (mostly along the coast) and every bit was beautiful. After we made it back to Belfast, I got to hang out in the city for a few days, meet some of Bobby’s friends, and relax. Everything was wonderful, but I have way too many thoughts to tell you about everything, so here were 8 of my favorite things:

1)      Every single castle. We purposefully visited some, and happened across others on the way, (“We sees, we stops!”) but I loved every single one, from the ruins to the lavish restorations. I wanted to live in all of them, especially the ruins.

Dunluce Castle

(Seriously, I'm going to live in Dunluce)

Dunguaire Castle

Bunratty Castle

The top tower of Bunratty

Dún na Séad (Baltimore) Castle est. 1215

Blarney Castle

Kilkenny Castle

2)      The Cliffs of Moher. When people ask, I say this was my favorite place (although who could pick a favorite??). On the west coast, green rolling hills end in staggeringly high cliffs with crazy waves and fantastic views. The angle of the sun when we were there made it hard to get pictures that do it justice, but the walk along the edge of the cliffs was breathtaking (a small part of that might have been the fact that there was nothing between you and the edge… I joked that the fence-less path would never be allowed in the States and that I like Ireland better.)

Yes, those little things at the top of the leftmost cliff are people

Just winding along this little path here... don't worry, we clearly survived.

3)      The company. Surprise, neither of us wanted to kill the other person! Those who know the two of us also know that a week and a half of being together all the time could have resulted in amicicide ;) Instead, I had a fabulous visit with my friend, and it was delightful to sing duets from A Very Potter Musical in the car, take a ton of selfies that “weren’t pretty” (according to our mothers), make jokes about our personality quirks, and all those things you do with a friend you’ve known since you were 11.

4)      Newgrange. This place was so fascinating and mysterious. Built around 3,200 BC (before Stonehenge and the Pyramids at Giza) its purpose is not fully understood… is it a tomb? A temple? It’s also impossible to say for sure what the carvings on the huge stones ringing the mound mean. What can be said for certain is that on the winter solstice, the sun shines directly in the roof-box window built above the passage to the center of the mound so that sunlight streams into the center chamber. The space in the chamber felt sacred somehow, and it made me look forward to the day when we can ask God questions about the people who came before us and what they were thinking when they built Newgrange.

5)      Trad sessions in pubs. Have I mentioned that Bobby is even more into Celtic music than I am? As in, he is so obsessed with Celtic Woman that I can make fun of him despite being a fan myself. Also, he plays the bodhran (like, actually well), and the fiddle (who just decides to pick that up after college?) and several whistles (which he threatened to play while I was driving the car but ultimately didn’t because he was too busy screaming and trying to find something to hold onto). All that to say, we experienced a LOT of Celtic music while I was there, but my favorite was when I was ensconced in a corner of a pub with a strawberry-lime cider and my copy of A Game of Thrones while Bobby played in a trad (traditional music) session with a bunch of drunk friendly Irish musicians.

Alas, in this kind of light I got no
decent photos of music sessions anywhere we went

6)      Corcomroe Abbey. I confess, I do not get excited about visiting cathedrals (which we did several times thanks to my more enthusiastic traveling companion) but the ruins of Corcomroe Abbey were captivating. Surrounded by rolling hills with stone-walled sheep pastures, the ruins stood stretching up until they met the deep blue sky (the roofs were long gone, but the stone walls remain). A graveyard surrounds the abbey with graves from the 1700’s up until 2014, and even inside, the ground was covered with gravestones and memorial stones. I loved the phrasing on the very old stones, things like, “Lord have mercy on the soul of            who departed this mortal life on           .” There were no people anywhere, so it was just Bobby and I with the dead below us and the heavens above.  

This tombstone in the entranceway was for a Ryan
McCann who died in the 1800's.

"Pray for the soul of Martin Burke and Posterity. 1775"

7)      Carrick-A-Rede. Also known as the rope bridge that I made it across without losing my wallet (although it was a close call) and the island that I almost blew off (thanks for saving me, Bobby). Although not part of the original bridge, someone was considerate enough to add a second handrail so you could hold on to both sides, thus losing a bit of the charm but also saving tourists from being blown off by the wind. The beauty was totally worth the slight terror.

 

I'm not that bad at standing, it was just really windy. Here comes the storm!

8)      Late night chats with Bobby’s (quite smart) friends. Who turns down an opportunity to hang out with cool people and discuss politics, gene by environment interactions, social justice, education systems, body language, church culture, and college ministry? The correct answer is: not this girl. While on the subject of things we did in Belfast, I also LOVED the C.S. Lewis reading room in the University Library (I want one just like it in my house, which will hopefully also be a castle), and as always while abroad, I thoroughly enjoyed grocery shopping. Alas, I took no pictures during any of these adventures. 

It was a wonderful trip, and I feel so blessed to have been able to go. I think I could have stayed for another week (or month) and still not been ready to leave.

When Life Gives You Snow, Go To Snowball

Last weekend, I went up to Gettysburg for Snowball, because I only live an hour away and there were friends and a big band and swing music, so really why not?

Except I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I try not to go to Gettysburg when I am feeling particularly sad or discontent with life, because college was great but I'm not a student anymore, and I don't want to try (in vain) to hold on to something that God gave and took away at the proper time. Also, I like be able to pour into friends I visit when I am there, to listen to them and encourage them. I don't want my Gburg visits to consist of me lounging around complaining about my life.

And let's be real... sad, discontent, and lounging around all describe this winter very well. I have always disliked winter, but I have never been so consistently depressed (for lack of a better word that doesn't connote clinical diagnosis) as I have this year. Its wearing me down. I don't like being sad and unmotivated all the time. I really want to care about life again.

But anyway, I went to Gettysburg. And it was the most delightful thing! I got to catch up with dear friends, put on a fancy dress, get my hair done (oh, the joy of friends to fix your hair), and went swing dancing. And then, because that wasn't glorious enough, the next morning I went to Hanover Valley Presbyterian Church for the first time since graduation, enjoyed a wonderful service, hugged more dear friends, met precious friends' new children, and got more life-giving people time. It was so encouraging to hear what God is doing on campus and in the hearts of people I love there. It was so encouraging to be reunited with church family and worship God together. It was so encouraging to wear heels and dance for hours. Why had I stayed away from Gettysburg for so long?

Sometimes, my pride in thinking I know what is best for me might get in the way of what is actually best for me. 

This morning in church, we were singing this lovely song, Good Good Father, (I'm just waiting for warm weather and a guitar player so we can sit outside and sing this with delightful harmonies all the time) and this line stuck out to me:

"You know just what we need before we say a word"

Of course I know this is true, but what if this is actually true?!? What if God really knows what I need before I tell him... What if God knows what I need regardless of whether or not I know what I need?

What if he knows that there is something I need more than sunshine and warmth? What if he knows that I have a much more desperate need, and he is fulfilling it without me even asking like the good Father he is? I need His presence daily. I need to be brought to a place where I recognize my need for Him. I need my heart to know that He quenches my thirst and learn to go to Him. I need to be striped of my pride and given a heart full of compassion.

I need a living hope even more than I need springtime. (And as I walked to my car, contemplating these things after the service... the sunshine kissed my face, and a gentle breeze brought a slight scent of spring, even in the midst of all this snow. He's a good, good father.)

Summer Doesn't Come Quickly

I need some sunshine in my life desperately. I can feel it building up, the weight of winter bearing down on me. Tuesday I got to experience sunshine for more than 10 minutes! The last time that happened on a week day was probably... three weeks ago? Don't get me wrong, it was glorious, and I was VERY happy to be shoveling snow surrounded by natural light when I should have been at work. I just need more light than this. I am craving bright colors like other people crave their favorite food. Basically, I am not made for winter.

"Oh, the ennui. How will we survive?"          -Proverb

I could go on with the complaints: I don't want to eat, I can't seem to drink enough water, I'm tired and cold all the time, I can't seem to get excited about anything, don't get me started on my hair... but that stuff isn't helpful. I don't need to convince you that winter is dreadful and I can't wait for spring.

A smart woman making a metaphor once said that "summer doesn't come quickly," and the literal truth of that stood out to me. Spring will come. It always does. The days will get longer and green growing things will poke out of the ground and then flowers will come and everything I'm dreaming of will be a reality. But this is going to take some time for that to happen, and I can't just hibernate until it does.

So how do you make winter bearable? What can you do to remind yourself that life is worth living during all four seasons, even if this one is dark and cold? Here are a few things I am using to get through the winter:

1. Music. Listening to it, singing it... both are so helpful. Listening to the right music gives me energy or improves my mood. Other times, I just cocoon happily in my dark car on the way to/from work, but at least it keeps me awake. I love getting together with friends on a dark winter night, having a nice glass of wine, and improv-ing our way through whatever Broadway musicals/Celtic music/ worship songs/bad pop we have on hand.

2. Friends. Related to my first point, friends make life better. Go on an adventure with them, plan an adventure, at least hang out around them. Some people like to be around lots of people, others like just a buddy or two, and some (like me) are happiest in small groups. I confess that when I am low on energy, I don't want to make plans and spend time with people... but if I go too long without being with people, it really drains my energy. This self-perpetuating cycle is the worst and so I try to force myself out of it (with mixed success depending on the day).

3. Bright Colors. I get as much of these as possible from artwork, photographs, screensavers, desktop images, and even from clothes. If I have to endure coat-wearing temperatures, that coat will be red. My scarves will be vibrant. My cardigan will be fuchsia (as long as you can't see it and the red coat at the same time). Right now, I am feeling a strong desire for more floral print in my life, at least until actual flowers come back. Oh, and never underestimate the power of strawberries in the dead of winter. If I can find ripe ones, I love to bring strawberries as a snack when people get together.

4. Winter dresses. They have long sleeves, they are winter colors, they look great with leggings and boots. Now is the time to rock them, and somehow this brings me joy despite the fact that they are not really warm (compared to actual winter clothes). The long sleeves are mostly just for show, but they do prove that some pretty things exist uniquely in the winter. I would tentatively add boots, scarves, and sweaters to this point as well, except that I personally get enough wear out of these in the fall that by winter it isn't exciting anymore. Dresses though... they still get me out of my warm bed on Sunday mornings.

5. Cat Snuggles. I can't say that these make me want to get up and go (quite the opposite, actually), but they certainly make me happier. And since Elizabeth doesn't like the cold either, she uses me for body heat in the winter and I am perfectly fine with that.

I promise I was about to get up off the couch until
Lizzy decided to foil my plans.

6. Winter sports AKA books and crafts ;) I used to LOVE skiing, but my knee and my budget don't allow for it anymore. I currently get much more enjoyment out of reading, knitting, quilting, and all those crafts that are the most fun in your warm cozy house, preferably near a fireplace. At the moment, I am giving Sense & Sensibility another shot, reading a psychology textbook about attachment, re-reading Disciplines of Grace (I swear I'm going to finish it this time) and finishing a scrapbook that should have been completed years ago. Besides, of course, knitting ALL the things, as is appropriate.

7. Hypervigilance about daylight. Starting on Dec 21st, the days are getting longer. Only by minuscule amounts, but if you are motivated enough to pay attention, it is noticeable. Since I am (unfortunately, since it's not really adaptive) already hypervigilant about the days getting shorter in the fall, the least my non-superpower can do for me is pay attention through the rest of the winter as sunrise comes earlier and sunset comes later. Look, there is hope! Spring is coming.

I'm sure this is incomplete, but it's long enough. What did I miss here? What gets you through the winter? I'm quite interested in your thoughts, especially if they will make survival till spring a little more pleasant.

Sweetums doesn't care at all, but if he did, his suggestion would be to grow
more fur for the winter. He's got 99 problems but the cold ain't one.

That Time When Graduation Was A Year Ago

Yesterday was graduation day for the class of 2014 at Gettysburg. Even before my newsfeed was awash with orange and blue and sentimental statuses, I was feeling nostalgic. Today marks exactly one year since I graduated, and it feels like it was only yesterday, just a world away. How could a year possibly have passed? How could it have not?

I confess that my overwhelming feeling upon realizing that it had been a year since graduation was a sense of disappointment. Shouldn't I have accomplished more a year out of college? I can't say "I just graduated in May" anymore, so shouldn't I have done more? Shouldn't I have made a bunch of friends with people where I live? Shouldn't I have completed things? Shouldn't I miss Gettysburg less? But here I am, living at home, mostly hanging out with my family when I'm not working. I don't have a high powered, exciting job where I am changing the world and/or making lots of money. I haven't fallen in love and I am not substantially closer to being a clinical psychologist or a mom.

And that thinking is so easy to fall into, because I have been trained so well. Make goals. Execute them. Do at least as well as your peers, preferably better. Do great work. I loved the Gettysburg atmosphere, and I thrived in that performance driven, high octane setting (if you consider the level of stress I could sustain for weeks at a time thriving). But the dark side of that is that I can instinctinvely think critically without acting compassionately. My mind twists the truth and throws in some half-truths and little lies until I look at the last year and feel like I have failed.

That is probably stupid and definitely inaccurate. My plan was to move home, find a research position to get the experience I need to get into grad school, and pay off student loans as quickly as possible. I did, in fact, find a research position that I can commute to from home... thanks, God! And its not high powered or a high salary, but someone is paying me to do research, which is exactly what I was looking for. I am paying off my student loans while admittedly mooching some groceries, wifi, and below market rent from my mother. But since I am rather fond of my mother, this is kind of a win-win situation. And why should I feel lame about having out with my family? I love them, and I won't always get to spend time with them like this. My baby cousins (read: every cousin who is younger than me, even if they are 6'2'') will grow up and move away one day. When I go to grad school, I will not be able to take my Mam-maw shopping on Sunday afternoons, and will she be around to take shopping when I am finished grad school? Speaking of school, if I were to hypothetically be either a clinical psychologist or a mom before I finished grad school, that would be absolutely terrifying (in the first scenario) or mildly terrifying and poor planning (in the second scenario). Seeing patients before getting the education/licensing to practice or having a baby while attaining said licensing are so not high on my list of things to do, and thus if I were substantially closer to these things one year out of college, it might actually not be a great sign.

Melissa and this kitten were both at
Focus this year... don't you wish you
were there, too? I know I do.

And yes, I do miss Gettysburg. I wish that I still had shenanigans every Wednesday at 10, that I still lived with 5 of my best friends, and that anytime I wanted to hang out with someone we could just get a meal together because we ate at all the same places. I wish that I had just gotten home from Focus, and that I was energized and sleep deprived and so excited about being on mission with the church. I wish the friends I have here (because I do have some, my heart just believes lies sometimes) knew me as deeply, encouraged and challenged me as frequently, and pointed me to Christ as well as my friends from Gettysburg. But this is what its like to have good friends. You miss them when you haven't seen them for a day, and you miss them when you haven't seen them for months and months. It takes a long time to build new friendships that are as strong.

I think it is okay to miss college, even though it makes me feel a bit like I am doing something wrong. I don't want college to be the best years of my life. But it would be okay if college accounted for some of the best years of my life. I think that is the tension I am feeling as I compare this first year out of college to the four years that came before. Its true that this past year was hard in different ways than before and that it was lacking some things that my heart tells me it wants again in future years. But it was another year of life, and I enjoy having those :) It was filled with blessings and things to be thankful for, and it was not a waste of time.

So here are a few highlights from my first year as a post-bacc:
-Seven of my friends got married, and every wedding was a delight. I loved each individual wedding ceremony, and getting to share in their joy, and also all those built-in reunions.
-For months I got as much sleep as my body actually needed (talk about seasons of life... this one is definitely fleeting). It was glorious. And now I might get up earlier every morning than I have in my life, but at least I don't do homework till at least midnight every night.
-I got a job offer totally out of the blue months after I had submitted an application and pursued other institutes and researchers with no success. Yep, it was totally not my fault that I got this job.

"I am not afraid.
I was born to do this."
-Jeanne d'Arc

-I found a church that I absolutely love. I get to live in a place with a bible-preaching church that loves to worship God with a gospel-centered community who want to grow and become more like Jesus? Is this real life?
-When my brain isn't consumed with exams, papers, and research reports, there is room for creativity to come out and play. I've been playing the piano again and making artwork and creating things. And none of them are masterpieces (although I am quite proud of the sweater and the quilt), but it feels good to create just because I can.
-God has used this time to soften my heart to the idea of adoption, to help me see the value of intervention at every stage for every person, and to understand how attachment (you know, that field of psychology I would be happy spending my whole life in) relates to God's character and redemptive plan. It was so good (and wise, probably) of him to do this when I am exactly where I am now. If He had done this later in life when I wasn't young, broke, and single, I probably would have freaked out about life and thought that He was telling me to do something I didn't want to do. Instead I see little hints of changing desires and and awareness of how much more growing I have to do. And how much more I need Jesus than I realized.
-I've been growing. Slowly. Sometimes it feels agonizingly slow, and I am not content with the pace. But the lessons I am being taught seem to take a lot of time. Perhaps it is the nature of these lessons, perhaps I'm a slow learner. But God is at work in my life, and I am grateful for it.

Springtime And The Feels

There are people in my life who I would describe as “intense feelers.” While my typical feelings range on a scale between 30 to 70 (assuming that 0 is the most negative and 100 is the most positive you can feel), they tend to live much of life in the 0-30 and 70-100 zones where I only venture on occasion. And while I love these people, I struggle to connect with them sometimes because I don’t understand them[i]. I believe it’s difficult for me to empathize with them because it’s not only my reactions to a situation that are different, but my overall experience of the situation.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a feeler. At least, according to the Myers-Briggs, (which I have decidedly mixed feelings about that I won’t rant about expound upon right now[ii]) I fall substantially on the feeling side. I have to assume, though, that the thinking and feeling parts of my brain get along decently well, because I seem to do both of them concurrently most of the time. So in circumstances that cause elation or great distress in my intensely feeling friends, I can’t always relate to how they got there emotionally. If I was in their situation and started feeling that way, the rational side of my brain would give me a good mental shake and say, “You are being unreasonable. Stop now.”

"I just want to looooove you..."

It would obviously not be loving to actually say that to people when they are experiencing the strongest of feels. Even in cases where I may need to gently rebuke a friend for how they are responding to a situation, I don’t think an emotional response is the same as a behavioral response. What you do with the fear, anger, elation, etc is what is right or wrong, not how strongly you feel those emotions. (I am reminded of Psalm 4:4, where it says, “In your anger, do not sin.”) So I am right back where I started: my friends who are more emotional than I am are not doing anything wrong—the same goes for people who are less emotional that I am—but I have difficulty relating and caring for them sometimes because life affects me differently.

I don’t have the answers for how to care for them better, so if you were looking for some insight there, sorry to disappoint. I'm guessing that growing in love and humility would help, and if you have any practical tips, be sure to let me know. However, I feel as if the advent of springtime has given me an opportunity to empathize in a new way with all the intense feelers out there.

Spring is finally here. And it may not come as a surprise, but I am unreasonably happy about it. It seems perfectly reasonable to be happy after the long winter we have had, but maybe not quite as happy as I am. I am happy basically anytime I go outside, look out the window, feel warm, or see any plant anywhere. Combined, that is a large chunk of the day. And we're talking unusually happy... like, when a smile breaks out, unbidden, across your face so wide that all your teeth are showing because the weeds in the field are blooming and the yellow flowers scattered through the green just make you happy. That has been happening pretty much every day for a month and a half. I'm happy when it's pouring down rain. I'm even happy in the midst of the worst seasonal allergies I've ever experienced (there's some irony mixed in there there somewhere...).

The rational part of me wants to get all introspective over this discrepancy between valence of emotional response and emotional stimulus, but most of me says, "It's spring, just go with it. Be happy." I can't explain why I feel this strongly and I don't care. Is this what it feels like?!?! Even if its totally not and I still can't empathize with all you intense feelers, I still love you. And the springtime.

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[i] Speaking of not understanding things, this cat doesn't understand the rules of ping pong, which is just relevant enough to link you to this adorable video. 

[ii] Unless you want to Myers-Briggs type your cats, which I should theoretically have the same qualms with but mysteriously don’t.