Journal

I am required to do 16 Journal entries per exam (3 exams) for my Spiritual Formation and Disciple Christian Education Class. So I figured what better way to reflect than to incorporate it into my blog. Blessings.

1/25/11

Psalm 6:6 "I am worn out from sobbing. All night I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears."

This was the reading for my new daily reading plan, courtesy of YouVersion and the Life Application 1 Year Devotional. I read it this evening, yet it expressed what I felt this morning. While driving to work I was praying aloud, asking Jesus questions like He was in the seat next in me - seeking His truth in the midst of the darkness. Having been a believer for my entire life, there are times where I wake up from the Christianity that I have walked in and realized that I can't remember the last time I heard His voice. Yet it is only through His voice that I was first called from the darkness, and yet I have lived fine without it. As believer I can express my heart like David did in the Psalms, but the challenge is to get up and trust that His voice is speaking and as long as I'm listening I can faith that I will not be left in my tears. This is part of the glorious salvation story we are to share with the world.

Changes in the Seasons

It has changed....

Phillip and I are no longer "Lee" undergrads pursuing a degree in Inter-cultural Studies. We are officially CAPS "online" students pursuing a Christian Studies degree with a focus in Bible, Theology, Christian Leadership and Inter-cultural Studies. We are planning/hoping to go to the Pentecostal Theological Seminary afterwards in order to get our Masters.

Just like that its all changed....

We thought about, we talked about it, we prayed about it, and then on Tuesday the paperwork was filled out, Wednesday we told Dr. Moodley, Thursday we told our bosses and as of Friday our status in the Lee System says "CAPS". Everyone has said it fits us, its good. I know it is.

But I don't want to change....

• I am not "normal", in the sense of your "typical" 21 yr old American female in college. I am poor, yet I never lack for food. I am young, yet I am a mother and a wife. I have no local friends, yet my house is constantly full of fellowship and laughter. I am mature intellectually, and now God has called me to grow up emotionally and spiritually.
• We tried to be "normal", and we were supposed to be for a season, but now that season has ended. Its so strange it has been the "easiest" transition I have ever experienced. There was no one saying "Hey, you shouldn't do that" or "What are you thinking". In fact almost everyone has said, "This seems to fit you better", "You have my blessing," or "We'll miss you but it will be better for your family".
• I guess its just strange for me because so often I felt like a 'rebel' of sorts when changing our direction, so its weirding me out that I don't have to do that this time.
• I guess my biggest is fear is that I'll be alone or rather that we won't be wanted. That now that people don't have to see us, no one will want too. Now I know this won't be the case with everyone, my family is here and I am soo blessed by their friendship, direction, and assistance with Addie. Also I have no doubt a couple of our professors will always love to see us and will ask us to keep them up to date. If you know me I don't "do" alone, and am an social-life vampire. I gain energy and focus exponentially by relationships, so alone makes me wither. Also its just weird knowing we are leaving and yet we are staying right here.

The purpose for the change is....

• Have you ever felt out of place? Phil and I have always felt out of place in Undergraduate work at Lee, and this last semester it has been amplified. We want to be in relationship with our professors, gaining relational knowledge or in the Hebrew, we want to gain YADA knowledge. The students at Lee are great and I have loved getting to know them, but for the most part there isn't a common ground between us. The responsibilities we each have our very different and socially we just don't connect deeply because of that. (Now please know I am not trying to make a pity case and say 'oh we are the only married with children couple that have ever felt this way in undergraduate work', that's really not why we have changed our focus.)
• Phil and I are sort of odd ducks together. He's grungy, I'm attempting to be bohemian grunge. Our feeling of missional identity is that we are all things to all people, which makes for a constant change of identity if we aren't in the ministry. We want to go to Grad school so we can gain knowledge that is engaging, challenging, and enriching. We also want to excel in our areas of studies so that we can feel like we have fulfilled the gift of intelligence God has given us. Lastly we want to go to Grad school so we can have legitimate foot-to-stand-on in Europe or wherever God may lead us.
• Phillip and I have spent the last since June of '08 focusing on us. While that is all well and good, we both have been feeling the affects of a self-centered world. Its time for us to get out of our shells (especially me) and reach out to this lost and dying world, before I lose my way and return to dust.

What does this all mean....

• Well first off it means lots and LOTS of school. As of this summer we will be taking classes all year round in order to graduate by 2012. I'll be 15 hours per 'normal' semester and 9-12 hours during the summers, and Phil will do the same with one or two semesters taking only 12 hours because he has more classes under his belt.
• Secondly it mean change in jobs. Until now we have worked under Federal Work-study which means our income doesn't count as income with state programs like Food Stamps and Medicaid. Its been a great blessing, however under CAPS we no longer qualify. However the upside is we can still work on campus, but just as Institutional Work-study, unfortunately my two current positions don't hire IWS, so that means job hunting. Phil may be able to keep his job, but if he can't his boss said she will really try to help him get another on-campus position.
• Freedom??? I think so. We are needing to get involved with ministry, but at the same time we want it to be organic, part of who we are, utilizing the gifts God has given us. Also we should have more freedom to come and go if other ministry opportunities open up (*hint, hint God...).
  
• Family time. Adelaide is growing up so fast and we want her to be part of our team, so what other way than have her do our schoolwork? lol she probably won't be too much of a help just yet, but who knows with that brilliant mind of hers. Seriously though, Phil has especially felt the burden to have Addie more centered in our lives. We miss seeing her wake up and playing around while watching Dora the Explorer. In addition to Addie, we are both big family people. Not having the ability to help them when we see a need has weighed on us incredibly at times. Not being bound to a specific area or exact daily time frame will give us the ability to help around the house, and be an active member of our families lives.

In closing....

Back to what I said about emotional and spiritual maturation. Being in the college environment hasn't really pushed me to "grow up", if you will. Often times I have felt like it gave me an excuse to revert back to a 'younger' age. In addition no one sees me as a leader so in response I can just slack off and try to "fit" in.

But the fact is....

• I'm a mom. This little Adelaide Devorah is never going away. She will look up to me for guidance about life, love and God. How can I lead her in the Way of Christ when I myself am not seeking Him daily?
• I'm a wife. In this relationship with my best friend and lover, we must balance between leading and following, trusting and pushing. I can't be a teenage soap star, who lives by her emotions of the moment and expect someone to trust me and to stay with me until we leave this earth.
• I am needing to fulfill my calling. Yes, I have no idea what that looks like anymore. A spouse and child were never in my dreams and plans of my "calling", and yet here they are. :) I always told God I wanted to be more. I have always struggled with this feeling of being called to greatness. As I look around what better opportunity to be 'great' in this disconnected, post-modern, pre-Christian, community(family?)-seeking generation than being the best mother, wife, revelation of Christ, example of love and family that they have ever seen?

I am still searching, but in the words of Paul:

"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Oh to be known fully, and to be aware of the fullness? The days of seeking gems in pile of dirt or the searching for diamonds in a dimly lit room - will be finished. For the gems shall be handed to us by their Maker and the room made bright by His beauty. The years of toil, will come to an end. The striving and painful search of knowledge shall be done. But it shall not be boring, because it is then the beautiful journey and dance of relationship will have just barely begun.

Shout out to Fun and Frugal

So yes it is silly to use my blog (which I haven't written in forever) to shout out to Fun and Frugal, but I want Nemo tickets! Yep, funandfrugal.com is doing a giveaway for NEMO on ICE at UTC. So check them out!

Traci

Short Thought

And so the mind wallows in a state inside itself.
Running to and fro for answers,
endlessly searching for peace and direction.

Yet the wise man sees the search
and how it is futile
for how can you answer questions
that are beyond yourself, inside yourself?

Shout Out To Fun & Frugal

Hey everyone, I'm doing a quick shout out to FunandFrugal.com. Its a great resource if you are living in Cleveland, TN. She'll guide you to this weeks deals, and show you how to take full advantage of coupons & local resources! Right now they are doing a giveaway for the Tennessee Aquarium. (Which is a blast by the way.) So check it out at funandfrugal.com!

Quotes (Think about it)

Instead of delving deep into the caves of emotions, struggles, thoughts, discernments, hurts & philosophies of my own soul, I decided to search for quotes on subjects I was already thinking and then respond to them. Enjoy.

MELANCHOLY
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
Anatole France

I am a melancholic soul. I agree that more times than not when you go through changes you go through a melancholic stage. Even when it is a change you want and love, it is still hard to move on from the past

LONG LOST LOVE
Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there.
Otomo No Yakamochi

I searched for quotes about lost long love and this is what showed up. It reminds me of the song from "Sleeping Beauty", when Aurora is singing about the Prince in her dreams. Though I am blessed to be married to my love, had I not met him I would have preferred to stay with the love in my dreams than to settle with someone less.

LONG LOST LOVE
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
G. K. Chesterton

Chesterton, I believe, was a romantic at heart. Not the kind that gushes or sings love songs, but the type of romantic that saw the world in a way no one else did. When we forget that the ones we love could be gone in a moment, or when we begin to believe that we deserve their love we lose the trueness of love.

GEORGE MACDONALD'S INSIGHT ON LIFE
“Existence was given us for action. Our worth is determined by the good deed we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel."
George MacDonald

First off, I do not think MacDonald was not talking about being saved by deeds, so don't get up in arms about this quote. This is a fine reminder for those of us who tend to live by their emotions. For myself, I tend to live by what I think or feel, while my actions lay dormant; the laziness consuming my existence & squelching any fire of a life well lived. I find myself constantly discontent, but it is not so much that I am discontent about what I am doing it is that I am discontent because of my lack of doing. When I am living life, and truly doing things, completely selflessly, only for the benefit of others, it doesn't matter what I do, I am at peace or at least more so than I am now.

HISTORY
“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death”
Robert Fulghum quotes

It is a beautiful reality, that the end of the day this quote is true. It may not come to pass in this life, but in the next I tend to follow the ideas of MacDonald, or Lewis, that the next life is a beautiful state of being in the fullness of the glimpses of beauty we have received here.

GEORGE MACDONALD'S INSIGHT ON LIFE
How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.
George MacDonald

Only recently have I begun to realize that I may die one day. I know it may be silly, but I never thought I would grow up. (I intend to write a blog dedicated to this dilemma in the future.) I still hope that Jesus will just come back and whisk us away to heaven. But what if that doesn't happen in my lifetime? What I just die? Well I hope and pray for the faith of the romantics of our faith. They had no fears of death, nor did they desire it like some, but instead the had a calm view of it. Just like the rising and setting of the sun.

Fun & Frugal

So I am just doing a quick little blog about this awesome website Fun & Frugal. It's based here in Cleveland and this woman lets us know about local deals & coupons, and even has contest from time to time. Its nice having this resource for our area, since it saves us time when we are wanting to save money. If you are in the Cleveland area you should check it out funandfrugal.com right now she is having a contest for Dollywood tickets!