The Strength Of Men

I love that God made men. I also love that I am not one. Sometimes, I think it is easier to appreciate something from the outside, easier to recognize something that is different.

This week, I saw the movie Lone Survivor. It was excellent... difficult to watch[i], but I still loved it. For those of you who haven't seen it, I won't explain the entire plot, but will simply say that it is based on a true story of SEAL team 10 serving in Afghanistan in 2005, and that the title speaks for itself. Watching the movie was painful and involved a lot of wincing and mentally trying to keep myself together, but it also moved me deeply. And it kept me awake that night thinking.

There was a point in the movie, during which the team was literally tumbling down a mountain and I was feeling ALL the conflicting emotions, when I thought to myself, "There is something about men that I love." At the moment, I couldn't put that 'something' into words (because, really, too many feels at once), but as I thought about it later, the word that came to mind was "strength." It wasn't just the physical strength that the men displayed, but the strength of mind and character as they lived and died during their last day on this earth with courage and honor.

As I watched them, they seemed very... other. Very different from me. I could not have done what they did, and it made me appreciate that they could. And yes, I know that I have not been trained to be a Navy SEAL. But the difference seemed deeper, more qualitative. I too, have been made for war, but not for that part of war. My heart yearns to fight, but it is a fight to rebuild, to restore, to redeem, and to rescue. I want to be on the front lines of battle, but it is a different part of the battle, and fighting looks different where I want to be.

And so, as I lay awake and reflected on their fight, I rejoiced that God has equipped and prepared men to fight in some wars that I am not called to. I rejoiced that he has given them the strength they need for their battles, which frees me and inspires me to use the strength he gives me for my own battles. The strength of those men I have never met inspire me, but they are not the only ones who do so. I am inspired by men of strength who wage a Relentless Fight against pervasive sin and equip others to fight with them. I am inspired by men of courage who fight to be a father to the fatherless. I am inspired by men of honor who take a stand against sexual violence.

Although my heart is moved by the strength of all these men, they only dimly reflect the strength of one man. A man who, though innocent, was beaten until he was marred beyond human likeness. After this beating, which had killed others before him, he hauled a slab of wood on his bleeding back up a hill so that he could be nailed to it. And although he could have called down legions of warriors to help him, he allowed himself to be crucified while bearing the weight of every sin ever committed and experiencing a soul crushing separation from the person he loved most. The strength of other men inspires me, but it is the strength of this man, Jesus Christ, that empowers me.

P.S. It was an intense movie. Cats just didn't quite fit. But of course there are some pretty cool cats serving on the front lines, too. So enjoy some wartime cats.

P.P.S. In case that wasn't enough cats for you, there are also cats in the Middle East who deserve some love.

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[i] Side note for gents who want to care for the ladies in their lives... war movies like this usually leave us with deep feelings, and we have some hefty emotional processing to do even though the movie is over. As such, although watching a war movie might make you want to immediately play Call of Duty, doing that will make us want to cry. We sort of want to cry already, so its helpful if you just give us some processing time to pull ourselves together. (And this might not be true of all ladies, but its true for me and the girlfriends I've discussed this with.)

The View From Seven Months

I have been, admittedly, rather sparse with the life details. Part of that was that there was nothing exciting to tell. Part of that was that there was too much to tell. Although I am a sharer, I like to develop some trust before I spill my guts, and there is no way to do that with the entire interwebs. So rather than a blow-by-blow of life, which would be aptly titled “Four Weddings and A Funeral,” I will give you a current update:

What does seven months out of school look like?

1. It looks like paying student loans. Those pesky things come due six months out of school, and by the grace of God, I can pay mine. This is seriously worth being happy about, and I look forward to owing a little less money each month when I successfully make a payment.

2. It looks like working part time jobs to pay said loans. I am working at a wedding venue, which has prepared me fairly well for this recent wedding season (my friends are odd and mostly got married in the winter instead of the summer). I have been working at Bath & Body Works for the holidays, and something about good-smelling things being perfectly arranged in rows makes it a rather enjoyable place to work. I also have been working for a medical billing company dealing with insurance companies. This has been instructional, and also cemented the fact that I never want to work for an insurance company.

Earlier in life, I wanted to be a cat farmer
...but seriously.

3. It looks like endless (and perseverant! I am an optimist!) job searches. I have a few leads in this area that I am really hoping to hear back from in the next few weeks. Hopefully, someone in the near future will pay me to do science! I’m keeping the dream alive. When things are not going according to plan, it is a good opportunity to re-examine your calling and decide if you’re sure that’s where you are being called. If I didn’t feel led to pursue this whole PhD clinical psych thing, it would be stupid of me not to do something more reasonable. But, after some thought, I am still being called to unreasonableness :)

4. It looks like slow and sometimes faltering efforts to settle here and make friends. I have found it difficult to commit to—and succeed at—the effort of making post-grad friends, but I am not the only one. From friends with set timelines (“My grad program is half over and I’m only here for a year total”) to others who really want to make new friends but find the process slow compared to making friends in college, it seems to be a struggle shared by most of my friends who graduated with me or the year before. Its hard to get lunch with people when you both work different jobs, its hard to get together regularly when you live twenty minutes apart by car instead of three minutes on foot, and its hard to be new in town without an incoming class of people who are in the same boat.  But I did have coffee (figuratively speaking) with a girl this week, and it was delightful to have life chats. Yes, I had life chats this week with someone that I met since graduation. It was magical.

I’m not necessarily telling you to prepare for these things if you will be graduating in 2014, nor do I expect the graduated among you to have had the exact same experience as I am having (although if you are, you and I should definitely have life chats sometime). This is just where I am right now. Sometimes I am content, other times I am not. Sometimes I am happy, other times I am not. Sometimes I am busy, other times I wear my ugly sweater all day and no one is around to judge me. Sometimes I snuggle with cats, other times my cats refuse to snuggle. I am trying to “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

(This was a snuggle time)

P.S. Also, after reading this blog written by a pretty wise man I know, I decided to read the bible as fast as I can starting January 1^st. I have never read straight through from Genesis to Revelation in order before,  so this should be an adventure. Thus, technically, seven months out of school also looks like Genesis… but hopefully Exodus soon. I’ll let you know.

P.P.S. For those of you who also feel like your attempts to accomplish something are like this little lizard hunter's, here are some cats who didn't make it through 2013 quite the way they planned... 

Celebrating Baby Jesus' Birthday

I compartmentalize both mentally and emotionally like a pro[i]. In many ways, I find this to be helpful, such as when action needs to be taken and I don’t have time to feel all the feels. However, it also has some pitfalls, like when I file something away in the ‘later’ box and forget to take it back out… or when it is Christmas.

There are enough people who talk about the ‘real meaning of Christmas’ that it should be easy to remember what Christmas is all about. And with all of the Christmas movies that my mother forces me to watch that I enjoy watching with my mom, I get frequent reminders of the reason for the season. In fact, Linus tells me several times through the month of December.

And yet, although I am definitely improved in my ability to remember that Christmas is about Christ while also doing the things that are done at this time of year, I simply don’t get excited about Christmas the way I do about Easter. I love Easter, the whole Easter season (you can ask me why, I know just the reason). And while I get excited all through lent, cry on Good Friday, and cheer Easter morning, Christmas feels like the necessary prequel, the sponsor of Easter (“This holiday made possible by…”). I enjoy putting up my crèche and reading the nativity story, but Christmas doesn’t touch my heart quite like Easter does.

But I put my finger on why it does that this year. I have identified the problem (and that always seems to be the first step toward recovery). I have been compartmentalizing Jesus[ii]. I have been celebrating Baby Jesus’ birthday instead of celebrating the King of Kings coming down to earth as the God-man.

In absence of conscious effort, Christmas in my mind is a fairly quaint affair. Sure, it was definitely a bit grittier in real life than in the storybook versions (1. Have you ever smelled a place where animals live? 2. Culturally, Mary was up to nine years younger than me… I can’t imagine anyone trusting me with a baby at that age, much less one who is also the savior of the world. 3. The reigning King is actually a baby killer.) Still, I take for granted that God is doing cool things with the stars, sending angels around to appear to regular people, likely ramping up spiritual warfare against Satan’s attacks, and incarnating himself… and I end up just focusing on a snuggly baby.

Don’t get me wrong. I love babies. Snuggling with them is the best (even better than kittens). It’s awesome that God chose to come as an approachable, snuggle-able little one rather than coming in glory and being terrifying. His coming as a baby and submitting himself to our messy existence definitely reveals an aspect of his character that is awesome and makes me love him. But sometimes, I get stuck on Baby Jesus and I forget about Jesus with tattoos on his leg and eyes like fire in Revelation 19. It makes perfect sense on someone’s 50^th birthday to look at their whole life and the person they have become, not just the story of their birth. That sort of slipped my mind on the celebration of Christ’s 2013^th birthday. Hopefully, I will do better for his 2014^th.

Speaking of cats and Christmas... I think 1:30 and 2:00 might be my favorites,  but then there is every other part, and those might be my favorites, too. 

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[i] For a woman, anyway. To be fair, women and men’s brains are wired a bit differently, and thanks to our thicker corpus callosum, women generally tend to be better at multitasking but not quite as good at compartmentalizing. There are admittedly times when I wish I could put unimportant things away in a box but just can’t. Thanks, brain chemistry.

[ii] This isn’t exactly big news for me. I struggle with compartmentalizing God all the time. I think if I could manage to simultaneously recall and coalesce all of the aspects of God that I (only partially) understand to date, my brain would explode. He’s just so big that if I can keep two or three characteristics in my head at once (powerful enough to create ALL the things, loving father, perfectly just, etc.), I’m making progress.