As referenced in my last entry, I’ve been thinking lately about renewal.

This year, I’ve experienced what I’d term renewal in several areas of my life. It has meant a return of optimism. It has meant a fresh bubbling of hope. It has meant leaving behind difficult, painful past experiences and reaching forward to new pursuits and friendships.

For me, renewal looks like this in real life. I spent two years, from summer 2006 to summer 2008, in Germany. A barrage of experiences created a wealth of memories. My mind needs only a tiny trigger to trip the hammer and fire off a blast of images, emotions, laughter, and tears. When I moved to the States and began a challenging new job last fall, I did not realize what tempest still raged inside me. For months, I cried frequently and experienced an ache and longing I’d never felt before. I longed to go back, but I knew it was not the place for me any longer. I missed the places, the language, the missionary culture. Most of all, I missed the people. Seeing a group photo of my dorm girls, much less watching one of the year-end videos my coworkers produced, could instantly prompt a fit of weeping. Part of my heart was ripped out, savagely, and the wound continued to throb and fester for a long time.

Because my departure and transition to the States was so emotional, I neglected to fully recognize what had happened. I saw only its immediate effects, like a trauma victim who is dazed, feeling only pain and seeing blurry images. Now, after many months of healing, I can look back and see the experience more clearly. I can see that I invested a lot at Black Forest Academy; very slowly, sometimes unintentionally, and then deliberately. I loved many of my dorm girls and coworkers to a great depth; I embraced them as family. No wonder, after such investment of myself, it devastated me to leave.

“Devastated” is a good word for how I felt. Although I knew life would go on, I had a hard time picturing a community or a job as fulfilling as those I found at BFA.

But after devastation came renewal. As I look backward now, not from any great height or spiritual vantage point, but still, as a more stable person, I see that God began the process as soon as I reentered the States. As I nursed my wounds and cried my tears, He began to surround me with a community of friends and family here. As I complained to Him that no one here understood what I’d been through, He showed me that there were plenty of people willing to listen to my stories. As I stumbled through the first few months and struggled in my first year of teaching, I often felt cynicism creeping close. I experienced hardship. It was difficult to see that things were getting better – but they were. I was adjusting. God was renewing me.

This fall, I’ve recognized the renewing work and seen it come to near fruition. My second year of teaching is wonderful: I love it. I’ve recently moved out on my own, with a dear friend as a roommate, and am loving the settled feeling it brings. I look around and see people to love, a community to belong to and invest in, and new opportunities to pursue. I don’t know what the future holds, or even what is around the immediate bend in the road, but I know this: that my God is a God of renewal. Restoration. Rebirth. Re-creation. He has healed wounds I once thought irreparable. He has restored hope where it was dead. He has melted away cynicism and replaced it with trust in His abundance.

“He satisfies you with goodness; your youth is renewed like the eagle” (Psalm 103:5).

“When You send Your breath, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:30).

The first verse is the promise of youth being renewed. The second talks of God renewing the face of the earth – a broader promise which reminds me of the verse in Romans 8 about all creation groaning for redemption.

An amazing concept, renewal. It means God actively intervenes to repair damage and make something new again. Someone’s heart. The entire face of the earth. That is a beautiful picture.

But what does it look like, practically? I’m pondering this. Another post forthcoming.

Once again, I’m sick.

I’m trying valiantly to have a good attitude about this. There surely is a purpose in it, but I confess I see nothing but frustration and unpleasantness and inconvenience at the moment. I’d been over my other long-lasting malady for only a week or two, when on Sunday I came down with what I thought was a “little trifling cold.” Yesterday I felt worse, but still made it to work. This morning I woke up an hour or two before my alarm and realized I shouldn’t try to teach today. My heart was hammering, I was on the verge of feeling feverish, and once again I have a sinus infection not to be described. (So, I won’t try.) What is up with this? The third time I’ve been sick this fall.

So, I finally gave in and made a dr. appointment for this afternoon. Maybe I want drugs, or maybe I just want him to tell me I don’t have some horrid disease. Either way, I hope to find some relief and start on the road to recovery.

For now, I’m stuck at home, and wondering how to make the next few hours productive. I’ve been feeling the urge to write, but the necessity of teaching and the pleasantness of cultivating friendships have eased that intention onto the back burner. Maybe I should pull it out to the front again. I guess blogging is a good beginning.

The weather is beautiful. It’s a shame I am not well enough to walk in it. However, I can still enjoy it from my six bedroom windows. (Yes, six. I am living in the light, and it’s lovely.)

So, attitude is important. Perhaps that is what I am to learn through this constantly-being-sick experience. Being sick and immobile can easily plunge me into frustration and depression, but when I stop and look at my life, I have much to cherish and enjoy. In fact, I love my life right now! I won’t let a silly virus get in the way of that realization. This, too, shall pass, and meanwhile I can use the time to reflect and write…and leave all my stresses and uncertainties in God’s capable hands.

Check out my blog post on Fresh Brew today.

More thoughts here. Later.

Hello from my new house.

I moved this week to a cute, 1950s-era, petite 2-bedroom house where I took up residence with my friend Eva. So far I am enjoying my own space + a roommate, and I feel like this is precisely the situation God has for me to grow in during this life season. I’m happy and excited, and still a little stressed, because having my life change – even if the changes are good, and long-desired – has a disordering effect on me for a period of time. Soon enough, I will settle, and I expect to be very content.

There are many other events taking place in my life; thus, I have not blogged lately even though my thoughts have not been scarce. Soon, I hope to be back in the habit of sharing some of them here. Don’t go away yet.

Autumn is gorgeous. Absolutely. Today I am traveling the hour-long distance to my grandparents’ mountain cabin for a retreat. Around fifteen young adults from my church will be there, and I’m sure we’ll have a fun time.

Last night, I had a vivid dream that I cannot adequately describe. My roomie asked me about it while we were walking this morning and I could only answer that it seemed a dream with deep meaning. I am still processing it, but now, as I listen to Brooke Fraser’s “C.S. Lewis Song,” I think my dream was a direct reflection of Lewis’s thoughts, which Fraser puts to song.

If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
I can only conclude that I was not made for here
If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary,
Then of course I’ll feel nude when to where I’m destined I’m compared

[CHORUS]
Speak to me in the light of the dawn
Mercy comes with the morning
I will sigh and with all creation groan as I wait for hope to come for me

Am I lost or just less found? On the straight or on the roundabout of the wrong way?
Is this a soul that stirs in me, is it breaking free, wanting to come alive?
‘Cause my comfort would prefer for me to be numb
And avoid the impending birth of who I was born to become

[BRIDGE]
For we, we are not long here
Our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it
And I, I was made to live, I was made to love, I was made to know you
Hope is coming for me
Hope, He’s coming

Until later, I will keep thinking, living, and waiting. God is present.

Here I am. Sick again.

It seems only a few weeks ago that I was sick. Oh, yes. It was only a few weeks ago. Alas, yesterday I came down quite suddenly with something nasty. I felt fine all day at work, and then as soon as I arrived home and found a traffic ticket awaiting me in the mail (thanks to the new-fangled traffic cameras; I just love them), my throat began to swell. By evening I had a low fever and was shivering like it was January in the Black Forest.

So I called in sick to work and spent today leisurely at home. I wrote some e-mails, read, drank many cups of orange spice tea, worked on a few writing projects, and took intermittent naps to drive away the virus. Right now I’m feeling much better. It is amazing how a fever, even a small one, can exhaust me. I mean, I’ve been inactive for the past 24 hours, never changing out of pajamas, and yet I feel like I’ve run a few miles. Perhaps fighting a virus burns calories? I can hope.

On an unrelated note, I miss pumpkin soup. It is perfect food on a sick day – or any day. I need to make some soon.

On a second unrelated note, I googled my name (what people do when they’re sick in bed with a laptop, right?) and found this article. Blast from the past. I love how the other students sound like party animals, and I sound like a straight-laced, nerdy English major. This makes me laugh because it was (is?) so true.

I’ve returned from a short weekend trip to Indiana, where I watched another friend tie the knot. Weddings are almost surreal events, I’ve noticed, even when I am present for all the lead-up to them. I watch the bridesmaids do hair and make-up, don their dresses, and help the bride adjust her veil. Food is prepared and I help to decorate the venue for a festive occasion. This time, and several other times, I even watch the rehearsal walk-through and see beforehand exactly how the event will unfold. Then, finally, I am present at the wedding ceremony and watch as my beautiful friend walks the aisle on the arm of her father, who gives her away to the smiling man worthy of her choice. Mothers and sisters cry, vows are exchanged, and the groom kisses the bride. It is lovely and real…but somehow it never seems quite real. In those few moments, with friends and family members dressed to the hilt and standing on either side, two lives change forever? It is real, and it is true, and it happens before my eyes. Still, it seems unreal. Surreal. Like a play unfolding, not real life.

Perhaps a wedding really is like a play, and real life catches up later. That does not make the event any less real, or any less beautiful. It is just, I think, that my mind cannot fathom what is occurring so quickly; I need time to readjust my paradigm. Another friend is married. Yes, it is true. It is real. I just need time to get used to the idea.

I’ve been writing articles for Ungrind Webzine for a while, and was recently asked to begin contributing to their blog, Fresh Brew. Check out the site to read my first post there. Hope you like.

(Oh, and no worries. I’m not abandoning this blog by any means. The web cannot get rid of me that easily!)

Like the seasons, our lives change. Sometimes a storm blows in, changing our circumstances in an instant. Most of the time, the changes are more gradual. One season slowly melts into the next. In the past few weeks, I’ve felt the last vestiges of summer fade into the distance while the coolness of autumn crept closer. Now autumn hovers over me, and memories of the summer, both of its weather and its plans and thoughts, are growing dim. The pages of my book are turning. Old chapters are ending and new ones are beginning.

As always, I’m excited and nostalgic at the same time. Eager to move forward but clutching at the familiar. The possible changes staring me in the face are monumental, and are both desires I have worked toward for some time. The first is moving into my own place (shared with a roommate), and the second is beginning graduate school. The first possible change became a decision yesterday, and the second is still only a possibility. Nevertheless, I am excited. Eager. A little overwhelmed. I know new seasons bring new challenges, but I am ready to learn new things. I’ve decided to embrace the changes; though I am a little reluctant to put my flip-flops in the closet, I am happy I get to wear my scarf and beret.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a 20th century theologian and Christian writer, was a huge fan of community. He wrote a book about it called Life Together in which he exposes its challenges and rewards. Bonhoeffer would be the first to insist that consistent interaction with others is essential to the life of the believer, yet he writes:

Whoever cannot be alone should beware of community. Such people will only do harm to themselves and to the community. Alone you stood before God when God called you. Alone you had to obey God’s voice. Alone you had to take up your cross, struggle, and pray, and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot avoid yourself, for it is precisely God who has singled you out. If you do not want to be alone, you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called.

Community and solitude, according to Bonhoeffer, should be held in a balance. If I’m afraid to be alone, I have a problem. If I’m afraid to be with people, I have a problem. It seems that there is an order, though. Before I can live successfully in community, I need to sit alone in God’s presence. I need to soak up wisdom from Him so I can deal with others, and I need to receive the assurance of my validity from Him so that I won’t try to find it in the affirmation of other people.

These are simple ideas. I need to be alone, and I need to be with people. I am so grateful for the community of friendships I have in my life, and today, I am grateful for the time I could spend alone in God’s presence. I need both pieces for the puzzle to be complete.