Fact#55

Nothavingaspacebarsucks.


Lotsofupdates,can'twaittotellyou,gettinganewkeyboardtohookuptomylaptoponSunday.

Goshthisisannoying.

Fact #54

Proactive preparation actually does work.


It's unfortunate, because I am just realizing this now.

Currently, I have just responsibly completed one of the assignments I have due before my J-term class, "Practices of the Minister."  This is not what Other Ashley would do.  We'll call Other Ashley....Darla.  Darla is a brat.  Darla always gets her way.  Darla lives by Ecclesiastes 3:9, without the context.  Darla tells me that Ashley will get the homework done in time, that she's responsible and honest, but for now, doesn't watching Toddlers and Tiaras with Darla sound more fun?  And she always wins.

But not this time!  I have prevailed!  I am on top of things!

Minus Christmas preparation.

Shit.

Fact #53

Writer's block on finals week is directly proportional to the length of the ABC Harry Potter marathon.


Having a really, really hard time concentrating on my final papers tonight.  I have been having a great deal of difficulty concentrating on anything, really.

To know me, and mean truly, deeply know me, is to know that I love stories.  A well-crafted story, real or imagined, captures me more than anything, especially lately, in an environment that appears to find them senseless...a waste of time.  Sometimes I have to write something down that happened that day, because it felt like it happened so perfectly, it was scripted.

The beginning of mine and Allen's friendship, for example.  I left our dorm around 2 am to meet up with a boy, a member of my drama team, who I was concerned about getting along with.  We were both very stubborn.  Before I left, Bethany asked me if it was wise of me to go, to meet with a boy, let alone a boy I didn't very much like, at so late an hour on a campus notorious for gossip.  I shrugged.  "It feels like a God thing.  Like we'll be friends for a long time after this."  The rest, for lack of better phrase, is history.

I feel like I'm drying up in a world that lacks a sense of whimsy.  Or adventure, for that matter.  I'm not promoting recklessness or a childish response to reality.  Maturity is important, absolutely.  But I don't think adulthood and maturity are synonymous with one another.  In fact, I'm beginning to believe adulthood is a fallacy, created by society to trick us into believing an age bracket makes us mature and gives us certain liberties.  Suddenly, potentially harmful activities are for "adults only."  Adult language, adult beverages, adult stores...why is any of it necessary?

So I return to my stories, where morals are clear and friendship is lasting.  And I bolster myself to create my own, regardless of the skeptical looks and rolled eyes and shaking heads.

Where do you see God working?

I feel like he is altering my perspective on the world.  Thing that were important, are suddenly nauseating to think about.

What do you hear God saying?

"You're a spark.  Don't lose your light."

How do you see God working?

Unsure again.  Sometimes I feel him prompting to speak out on certain things, or in specific situations.  When I do, I meet resistance.  Usually propelled by fear.  When I don't, I leave frustrated regardless.  I feel stuck in the mud.

Fact #52

There is something incredibly satisfying about making a meal out of whatever you have. 


Money seems to be a huge concern lately.  I feel like God's highlighting it specifically this week, like He's saying, "Still trust me? Now? Now? Do you?"                                       
It has been increasingly frustrating, however, having to watch friend after friend after friend get engaged. We had planned on being engaged by now, but had to put our dreams on hold when Allen's dad passed.  It's understandable, it would have been a huge insult to go ahead with it regardless of the tragedy.  But now the financial end of that trial is whipping Allen as if he's never been on top of his finances (this is sarcasm, Allen is a bigger workaholic than I am).  It's even more frustrating when they started dating after Allen and I, infidelity is known, or they've been on and off for years.  Judgmental.  I know.  But it's really hard not to become increasingly discouraged with each engagement.  My best friend just texted me after reading about two others' engagements to tell me that her and her boyfriend are recently planning on being married next fall.  When Allen and I were planning on getting married.  And they've been dating seven months less than we have.

Again, I get it.  Length of said relationship does not dictate the severity and strength of said relationship.  It cannot testify to what one is feeling called to do.  But I'd be misrepresenting my spiritual boot camp here if I didn't say that I called Allen crying after I received the text.  It hurt.  I was mad at her, mad at God, mad at everything and everyone.  I was also on my period, which I now refer to as "Shark Week" (see link).  

It's stretching me, it's growing me, but is also exhausting me.  Allen finally ceded to the idea of getting my engagement ring at an estate sale or pawn shop.  We argued for a long time about it; he was worried it wouldn't be good enough for my parents, or that some day I'd be embarrassed to wear it.  He now understands that I am just not a fan of the rings being produced in popular jewelry stores, they're not my style, nor do they go with anything I own, and I like things that have a story.  He admitted that buying an expensive ring for me was a pride issue.  I admitted that wanting a cheap ring was to rush the process of getting into his pants.  We compromised, him agreeing to look through pawn shops, antique stores, and estate sales, and me allowing him to make the final search, decision, and purchase.  All is well.

Still, I feel it gnawing on the back of my mind.  I feel like an adult in a child-sized relationship.  We have a home, we have jobs, we have simplistic but sufficient security (food, clothing, utilities)...the only thing we lack is the ability to pay for some societal baubles and a ceremony.  

When I get angry lately, I have to cook something.  I don't always eat it.  A lot of the time I store it for lunch for work the next day.  But I feel the need to prepare something, anything.  Use my resources in a productive way.  This waiting for something I can't fix makes me feel like I'm not a good enough Christian woman.  I feel like every other unmarried Christian woman I've met is constantly saying, "Oh, some day.  I'm content in the waiting.  Resting in God is so very satisfying."  All I want to respond with is, "Allow me to call you on your bullshit."  

I don't think I can chop these onions any smaller.

Where do you see God working?

Patience.  Always patience.

What do you hear God saying?

"You're out of onions.  Now what?"

How do you see God working?

Giving us alternatives, prompting people to give Allen extra work.

Fact #51

Expectation will distract you into over-thinking, which paralyzes you.

One day, an ant asked a centipede how he always knew which leg he had to move next.  The centipede, perplexed by the question, responded, "Oh...I don't know.  I just always did it."  Afterward, the centipede began thinking so hard about the question, he couldn't walk anymore.

This was a little fable included in Wiersbe's book (On Being a Servant of God, in case you forgot) that gave me pause.  I am that centipede.  And that makes me squirm, because I hate centipedes.

When I was a kid, I thought the only thing you could die from was old age.  I was watching the news at my babysitter's house; I liked to play "grown up," thinking all grown ups carried briefcases and watched the news, and that was the extent of their day.  That night, one of the top stories was a shooting that happened in Green Bay, and a child died having stumbled into it.  In my five year old world, the only violence I understood was the acrobatics the Power Rangers used, or what gravity inflicts when tree climbing.  "Kimmy...the news is lying.  Kids don't die.  It's not their time yet."

Her face went grim.  "Ashley, honey, unfortunately kids do die sometimes.  Bad people do bad things.  That man shot those people."  I frowned hard at this.  "But that's dumb.  People shouldn't shoot people."  And then Kimmy said something that may have been too difficult for a five year old to reason with.  "Well, he was a very angry man.  But sometimes people have to do it for protection.  Your dad's a cop, and he has to shoot people sometimes."

The a lens on my rose-colored glasses cracked.  Daddy shoots people but he protects people but why do other people have to get shot to protect those people because sometimes people make mistakes and maybe if you just put them in a time out they won't do it again but does daddy need to go in a time out for doing his job?


My mind was reeling with this new understanding (or lack thereof).  It wasn't fair, in any sense, and I refused to change my mind.  I started getting angry when the news was on because I didn't want to have to see more death.  The majority of men in my family have served in the armed forces, and I suddenly couldn't trust them.  "What would you do," challenged by dad and my grandfather over dinner one night, "if someone was going to stab you to death, but you had a gun.  And you could shoot them and get away safely?"  I shook my head rapidly (I was around eight at this point), "No.  I can't.  They're still a person.  I don't know why they were going to stab me."  They began listing off a few things that could happen, but I couldn't let myself budge.  "No.  Not fair.  I can't.  They might change."

Of course, as aging occurs, you become more jaded and frustrated.  Thing's aren't so black and white.  Lately, though, I feel like being at seminary is forcing me to "re-grow up," almost as if my childhood didn't cover basic understandings of life.  Well, except sex.  Being in the U.S., I could have been born blind and deaf and still known what sex was.

Through all this re-growth, I am still head butting the same issue: anger and violence.  I feel like my understanding of things always fails to penetrate those concepts.  I'm meeting people who won't hunt, because it's "violent to the Earth," and feel it is a step back from the stewardship we are called as Christians to do.  Conversely, I also go to class with an ex-Marine, who is very much into justice and protection.  Heck, Allen just inherited all of his dad's guns (which still make me jump when they make that sharp clacky sound when he opens and closes them, whatever that's called) and wants to teach me how to shoot.

When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was love people and be friends with everyone.  I also wanted to be a detective, but that was just because I really liked puzzles, not necessarily for the Dick Tracy-esque action attached.  Then, however, I expected everyone to reciprocate.  I conducted myself in a particular way to emote a preconceived response.  I was kid, my understanding didn't go any deeper.  But now that's the trouble.  I know that I should love unconditionally and act accordingly regardless of that, but I still want people to do exactly what I expect them to.  When they don't, I become increasingly frustrated.

This week I've been realizing that I have no problem loving people I don't know.  It's the people I have relationships with that I have the hardest time serving.  If figure that, because they know me, or should, at least, than they should know how to treat me.  Especially if I know them to be Christians.  It's almost like there are levels to my expectation: the more you claim, the more I expect.  But I'm beginning to think that grace cannot function where earthly expectation dwells.  And that really bites, because essentially this means I am not as graceful of a person as I thought I was.

Where do you see God working?

In my head, sorting my thoughts.

What do you hear God saying?

"Thank you for making time this morning.  Let's do it again.  Soon."

How do you see God working?

Calmingly feeding me understanding, bit by bit.

Fact #50

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” -Thoreau
                                             
A Thoreau quote seemed fitting for the setting I am in currently.  I'm sitting in the dining room, comforted by the quiet company of Cassy and Allen, Gregory Alan Isakov playing faintly in the background.  Nothing exciting happened today, nothing adventurous planned for tonight.  Just homework and cocoa.
  
I think, when we look forward, we often expect the future to be epic and romanticized; if it's not, we've somehow failed God's "purpose" for us.  We become wrapped up in our imagination so much that we begin rejecting reality.  Reality becomes the enemy, rather than a realm in which we see God work.           
But right now, in this moment, I'm incredibly content.  It's relieving.          
          
Where do you see God working?

Comforting me in this moment.

What do you hear God saying?

"You're going to be okay."

How do you see God working?

Unsure yet.  He seems to simply be allowing me to savor this moment.

Fact #49

Apology gifts should, in my opinion, be based on inside jokes.


I bought Allen a calendar.  He received the brunt of my frustration on Friday where is was not completely deserved (though he has conceded to having contributed to a portion of the problem).  Regardless, The Oatmeal created a 2012 calendar entitled 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (And Other Useful Guides) and I knew it had to be his.

Next, I wrapped it in giant coloring pages, mainly because coloring is therapeutic, but also because I am finding fewer and fewer places to store a Princess and the Frog coloring book the size of a refrigerator door.

When he arrived at the apartment, true to form, he had presents of his own (chocolate and a Quillow his aunt made for me).  He loved the calendar, though his first response to the coloring page-wrapping paper was, "But we're not black."  And it was with those words that I knew everything was back to normal.

I apologize that these are short; I haven't been feeling very deeply introspective as of late.  I feel like God's been simplifying my life a lot, almost so the things I have to concern myself with are the things that are immediately in front of me.  As tense and exhausting as the past week has been, it's kind of relieving.

Where do you see God working?

In our relationship, re-stabilizing. 

What do you hear God saying?

"Not all is lost."

How do you see God working?

Reminding me that, even when I screw up, it doesn't mean he'll take what he's given me away as punishment.

Fact #48

10% of conflicts are due to difference of opinion and 90% are due to wrong tone of voice.


I've decided I have anger issues.  I panic easily, and within that panic, I respond in anger.

I really don't even feel like re-hashing what happened.  It's been talked about, resolved...about four times now.  Essentially, all you need to know is that I screwed up, and now I'm on the lookout for a good psychologist.  I think I inherited a lot of bad habits our family got into.  What I know is this: I do not want to be dragging those things into my future.  It's too precious to me.

Where do you see God working?

In my heart.

What do you hear God saying?

"Enough."

How do you see God working?

Bringing to sharp relief things I'm falling short on.  Anger is my iniquity.