Summer is the Time

It's almost over. I am sad.

Back in June, I would have never said that.

I came into this season so heartbroken. But Margaret is right. This blog is not in vain. There is photographic evidence. This summer has had its ups and downs, but it has been a good time.

Summer is the time for learning about yourself.

When Mandy left, she gave me some good things to think about. 

God wants nothing from me but to love me.

I need to have a little forgiveness for myself

and for everyone around me.

Summer is the time for learning about myself.

School learning is not here to distract me anymore

I am learning

that yes, I do need to have a little forgiveness for myself and for everyone else.

I am learning that is so much easier to say than do.

I am learning that I can be a mean, spiteful person and I do not like that

I am learning that I can do without the self-medication. I don't need it.

I am learning that there is strength in me I did not see before--and not that brute, bullheaded strength that I seem to use very well--but real strength. Strength to be honest. Strength to be vulnerable. Strength to be risky. 

I am learning that I am able to be at peace.

Tonight,

at long last, I felt it and I could blame it on the good company and coffee and music if I wanted, but I don't think that's it.

Yesterday

In church (yes, I went to church!) we took communion. I told God that I was thankful because He had honored my request at the beginning of the summer and had been patient with me. I can't change on my own, I reminded Him, but I know I can get over these hang ups. For now, please remind me to read with You often because I really believe that is part of the cure.

Summer is the time

to realize that you've been distracted

and adulterous

and silly

Summer is the time

to remember what it was that brought you here in the first place.

A Little Summer to be Had

Tonight

I took a walk to the Whittier Library to return my books/audiobooks/get exercise. 

The weather was such that it felt neither hot or cold. People were outside laughing and working in the dwindling sunlight. On the other side of the street I could see a little boy and his dad constructing a quaint little tree house.

I am reminded that there is still a little summer to be had.

Still

Today

I visited a website that made me feel as if I had intruded upon something sacred.

Dedicated to taking pictures of stillborn babies, the site is full of quiet disturbing images that make my breath catch in my lungs. It is so odd because unlike so many things, there is no wickedness connected to the gruesomeness of the subject matter.

This is just how things happen sometimes. Sometimes people die before they are born.

I do not want to open my heart to these things
I do not want to have to face my deep fears of losing a child.
I do not want to intrude on someone else's private sorrow.

But this is part of my research and it must be done. And as I said earlier, sometimes you have to see a lot of dark in order to recognize light.

This was my moment today--
Not because it was a small joy for which I was thankful
but because I am braving terrain untraveled. I went someplace I've never been before

and it will be a fair amount of effort to reenter.

Disturbed

Today

I was at work (which is at Biola on the McNally campus, Rood building, down the hall from Campus Safety field office.)

And in one of the classrooms between my office and campus safety, I could see people in uniforms, holding guns aimed at the opposite wall

And I was really disturbed

Biola--what are we doing?

Whole

Most of my friends go home to their families and bffs over the summer
I got one for two which isn't bad
but isn't good either

I miss my best friend
I feel so whole when she is here
and slightly, presistently lost when she's gone
Jeannette, no more Idaho, no more Arizona, no more Utah, no more distance

But for now, she is here and life is happy :)

Goldmine

Today/Tonight

I hung out with Lex again at her parents' place
While walking around post-dinner
We came across a goldmine of stuff on someone's curb
We took a set of drawers
two bookcases
and the most amazing collection of art books you could possibly imagine
We made out like bandits

Today it was confirmed that she is to room with Sarah and me in our new house
She is to come back to biola
fingers crossed and knees to the floor in prayer
hopefully, this will be an amazing year

Crash & Burn

Today

Dan and Rob survived a plane crash that killed their pilot. Had Rob been knocked unconscious, they would have died as well. But they are in the hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.

Dan with a broken collarbone

Rob with 6 stitches

Both with burns and cuts

The pilot left behind wife and children

The co-pilot badly injured and I do not know his current condition.

Dan and Rob are leaving Africa. They will not continue filming "Give a Damn?"

I have never screamed at God as much as I did today.

I screamed

and screamed

and screamed

I am so angry with you! I said again and again. I don't understand!

All of our hard work for the past year and a half

to be left unfinished

With the prayers of thousands of people

Still my boys were not kept safe.

God I just don't understand why you allow these things to happen

I don't get it

I don't want to believe it

My friends could have died!

They were making a film about poverty

I thought that's what You cared so much about so why wouldn't You bless them?

I cannot deal with it

Our documentary has cost someone their life

I just don't understand

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