Time

I don't know why I'm having such an "age crisis" this week... nothing in particular prompted it that I know of... perhaps seeing part of "13 going on 30" the other night. I had a sudden realization that it's been close to 10 years since I was 13. Talking to a friend yesterday, we were appalled to realize it's been SIX years since we finished highschool!! That's longer than I was in highschool! Actually, since I don't know exactly when I entered highschool, but I graduated in 2000, it's probably twice as long as I was in highschool...All of a sudden 22 is feeling very very very old. I can't believe Marybeth turns 19 in a few weeks. I'm still 19 in my head! Someone recently pointed out to me that when I mention my siblings I am continually changing their ages... I'll say "my 14 yr old brother" one day and my "13 yearold brother" the next day... I keep everyone rather confused as to whether I have a 11 yr old brother or sister, since Hope is still 11 in my head too! I just nearly typed that I can't believe we're about to have 6 teenagers in our family, but then I realized Naomi and I are no longer teenagers! AHHH....WOW, 6/8 of the kids being teen or older?! I'm already having a crisis about Nome's birthday… since we're somehow the same age in my head, I feel like I'm turning 25 next year, and the thought is incredibly frightening. I think all the changes in the past 4 years since I first really "left home" are just now catching up with me. I have Jon-Jon's age down because of repeating it a lot in Peru, but everytime the words "my sixteen year old brother" come out of my mouth, my heart skips a beat. How did THAT happen? Someone asked me about our Christmas traditions the other day... I'm so looking forward to us all being together for Christmas again....

In a conversation about the painfulness of confronting others about sin in their lives and speaking the truth in love...risking the relationship etc...a friend who is the youngest of 5 children said to me "It's especially hard to confront when it's your family." I responded that I didn't really know since everyone was still so young and I'd never really had to do that. I realized later that the "youngness" wasn't really the issue. Considering I had my first "confrontation" experience when I was 12 and it was with another 12 yr old.... Considering by the time I was 15 I had lost numerous friends cause I was the one willing to say what no one else said... Considering 5 of my 8 siblings are all above the age of that first experience... it's not because they're "young" that they haven't "screwed up"... It's because--first--they have the same parents keeping them from screwing up that kept me from screwing up.... And--second--we are so incredibly blessed.

Anyway, I really should work... but I was just thinking about seizing the day and how quickly time passes...and how incredibly much I love my family...

Fear of the Lord

I'm doing a scripture-study on fear of the Lord. I feel like both my mind and my spirit are struggling to wrap themselves around this so often neglected concept. In the evangelical church we've reduced it to reassuring people they don't have to be afraid of God but just in "awe" of Him...whatever that means...and skimmed over the fear of the Lord references in the Bible, often even directly misinterpreting and reading fear of the Lord yet proceeding to discuss it as if it said love of the Lord. Once I had the revelation that it is God's kindness that draws us to repentance but by fear of the Lord we depart from sin, I couldn't believe it wasn't so obvious to me before...

Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD a man avoids evil.
Proverbs 16:6

The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.
Proverbs 14:27

I feel like every time I open my bible I even unintentionally find more...finding and walking fear of the Lord has become my heart's desire...

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
Psalm 86:11

The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them.
Psalm 25:14

With Psalm 86:11, I hear it used so often and misquoted... give me an undivided heart that I might "serve you" or "love you" or fill-in-the-blank with anything other than fear your name. We almost intentionally "skip" this topic!

How can we do anything else we're called to do in our Christian walk when fear of the Lord is fundamental even to our calling to share the gospel...

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
II Corinthians 5:11

This morning I found one that truly puzzles me. I tend to see God's love and God's fear-inspiring essence as somehow divided yet...

If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.
Psalm 130:4
Somehow they must be more linked than I realized. If part of our fear of Him comes out of recognizing Him for who He is even in His mercy and forgiveness!

Sometimes I feel that if I could just once really get a perspective on who God is and who I am in relation to Him, I would never again grow into complacency or sin... and yet everytime I glimpse myself through His eyes, I am so like the man James describes:

A man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

Thoughts for the day...

Monday again...

Weeks are going by so fast. Hard to believe.

Just got back from Maryland. Went home with Kristen for the weekend. I kinda got obligated to go for complicated reasons and felt it was the right thing to do. Long weekend. mainly cause I wanted to get things done but was virtually incapable. Felt like a lot of wasted time but knew I was there to invest in her.

Went to Renaissance Fair on Saturday. Interesting. Fun shows. Lots of freaky people. Way too much drinking going on so we got out of there before sundown. Relatively fun though.

Just got back shortly before class, where I am now. Way behind in work and need to zone back in...

today's ramblings...

I thought about law school this week. Tempting but finally concluded there are other things that interest me more and would be the same in terms of education level...worth the same in the world but worth more to me... It was interesting to think about it though, for the first time.

I'm so sick today I can't think or focus. Very frustrating. I'm on the second week of a fast and even though I'm keeping my nutrient levels high I guess I'm not doing well enough cause my body is shutting down. Sure it's partly loss of sleep. Need to overcome cause there is so much to do and not being able to think slows things way down.

Overheard a student in the library today complaining she had three papers due in November so she had to get started now—during her week off. School of Govnt has no fall break. She did not pull at my sympathy. I have three papers due in the next 4 days… never ceases to amaze me what people consider a heavy load... At least mine's not law school. Those students are always stressed out.

Really missing home today. Called and talked to Paul and Anna. Anna said
"Martha is in the car and mommy is in the airplane." I miss her. Was talking to a friend yesterday about my family, he was asking a lot of questions, and I started rambling about Anna… realized after about 5 minutes this was probably rather boring to listen to...especially since I know he doesn’t really like children. When I stopped I realized I was being laughed at... I guess it shows that I'm just a little crazy about Tookie =)

In class, lecture on Marxism… guess I should listen up in case there is something I haven’t heard...

Procrastination

It occurred to me tonight that I had completely forgotten about my new blog site before I even shared it with anyone. I am posting to mid-air, but figured I should give an update post before letting y'all know it exists. Hopefully the past week will not turn out to be an indication of my dedication to posting. It truly was an insane week and things shall return to a more semi-normal state now...I hope.

I finished the rough draft of my paper that night--Tues night-- and continued to revise it until I turned it in Saturday. Though I had never written a paper that far "ahead" of time, and I invested more in the paper than I have in any 5 page paper of my academic career, I was still very unhappy with the finished product. It was mediocre, not excellent, and no matter how much I worked on it I could not seem to improve it. Not sure if it was the difficulty of finding relevent research or what. I no longer want to share the paper. I'll be doing an ethical paper on the same topic in a couple weeks and I think that one will be better. I hope. In the meantime, it was such a relief to send it in Saturday knowing I had done all I could. It was an unbelievable weight. In the meantime, I wrote my other 6 project/papers and turned them in, and they were probably all rather mediocre but they did not matter nearly as much to me... and I'm sure my grades on them will be fine, while I am quite nervously awaiting the Hedberg grade.

Speaking of Hedberg, I had her class tonight and did not enjoy it at all, which is unusual. I'm not sure what we "learned" because I don't think I understood a thing going on. It was some random compilation of talk about the morality of law and the ten commandments and situational ethics and polling data and Jesus conducting polls and… well, nothing that made much sense to me. I thought it was just cause my brain is so foggy today—probably from lack of sleep—but it was confirmed by a classmate afterwards and since he is smarter than I am, the confusion was not just in my brain. The worst part was this breakout exercise because my "group" in that class consists of 3 girls who are super-spiritual and answer all class questions with “we just need to love God more” and one girl who gets so frustrated with the other three that she just pouts, and me…feeling the pressure to come up with SOMETHING to present to the Prof at the end of the breakout session. Ridiculous waste of time but oh well… I usually like that class...

I felt so relieved to have major projects over with last week that I was far to lax all weekend. Friday night we had a get-together at my friend Kristen’s house. She wanted to cook for everyone but it turned out she didn’t know how to cook, so I ghost-cooked for her… we made stuffed shells and I made refrigerator rolls (they make great bread sticks I discovered…) and cookies... It was fun... I love cooking for other ppl. We crammed about 10 friends into her tiny apt. After everyone left that night she and I talked until 3am, which was nuts since I had gotten 8 hours sleep combining the entire week up ‘til that night. I needed to invest that time in her though I think. So then Saturday I had to be up in Hampton at church (45 min drive) at 9am for dance practice since I was starting my first week on the church's dance team. It was really really cool... I like the team a lot and was very impressed. I will definitely be the worst dancer on the team and better get back my flexibility quick cause I was completely challenged at practice but that was a good thing. I love the leader… I’ll probably share more about that later. Anyway, I came back after practice and did some homework and then had social dance lessons that afternoon…which are a few Saturdays this semester. It’s really getting fun now that we are learning a little more advanced stuff and that was good. Then I went to the library to finish my paper… my friend Peter and I were both finishing ours up and emailing them in, helping eachother since most of us are learning Turabian style grammar/citation for the first time. Anyways, when we finished we went and picked out a movie and took it to Kristen’s to watch. Well, that sound simple but it was really an hour long process cause I discovered my wallet was missing and I had a free rental coupon but no blockbuster card and no ID and they wouldn't let us rent it and then he tried to open an account but the guy was a complete jerk and wouldn't let him cause he had a debit card instead of credit card so we went back to my house to look for my card but failed and then found Kristen’s other friend had a card and so we went to go meet them there and got lost in the parking lot and ...yeah, about 1.5hrs later we actually started the movie at Kristen’s…meaning it was another late night... Wow, those details sound really boring but it was truly hilarious at the time. Perhaps I was just so tired...

Late night Saturday led to having to be in Hampton for church at 7:30am to run the powerpoint… and I have to run it for both services which means being at church from 7:30am-1:30pm...if service actually gets out on time, which is rare. I came home, did some reading—fell asleep for 30 minutes accidentally—and then went to Kristen’s to watch the first half of the football game. Then we went to this bible study I've started attending for twenty-something women and then the church service for twenty-somethings. I still have a hard time thinking I fit in that category. I feel so old. It's a Baptist church but pretty good. I go mainly for the relationships, since bethel doesn’t have Sunday night services. I struggled over whether it was ok to go for relationships but then figured it was better than staying home completely on Sunday nights… This was my second week and last week was really kinda shallow mssg etc... and last night the bible study was lots of crying over being single—which I hate—but then the church sermon was actually a good message about self-sacrifice and discipline so it redeemed itself. Stayed afterwards since I had to give Kristen a ride home and she wanted to watch Hitch—they always play a movie after service. Another late night... got little done before crashing last night. So that was my exciting weekend. Lots of talking, little work. It’s been raining ALL weekend so that’s blah. First multiple days of rain since I've lived here. I’m going home with Kristen next weekend, she lives in Maryland...and we're going to spend Fri-Sat in DC and come back Monday. It should be fun.

I really need to do this assignment that’s due tonight. I'm using this as a form of procrastination that is really punishment to anyone who reads it since I'm sure its incredibly boring. I've had about 5 hours of relatively deep conversation today about everything from family dynamics to the destiny of the USA so I’m all thought-out I think...and have nothing to show for it. I should blog when I actually have something to say. I’ll try to do that in the future—I promise =)

Midnight Oil

As I write the clock has passed midnight, yet the night is young. This shall be my first all-nighter of the semester, and since I have already decided that, I am not afraid to invest a few minutes in this post. I feel as though this is "reality week" for me academically. I had a paper due last night, another due tomorrow, three more Thursday, and a final culmination with a very important paper due Saturday. It is the latter that has occupied my time and motivates my all-nighter. I have finally concluded research, more or less, and will now dive into writing, attempting to get it all done tonight so I can revise for a few days as I write my other papers. Some assignments I do to complete, others to excel. Of my seven assignments/papers of this week, this is my excel paper. My topic was prompted by a debate I had with Dr. Spann last year before the presidential election. He voted for the Constitution Party candidate on the basis that our civic duty is to vote for the best candidate, not the lesser of two evils just because one of them is bound to win the election. While I vigorously disagreed with him at the time, I have since been reexploring my political philosophy in this area, and thus decided to write this research paper on historical thought regarding whether we are ethically bound to vote for the best candidate or just for the best candidate who is "electable." I'll post my conclusions when I finish the paper. It's fascinating me, though it has been very difficult to find early American thought on this topic. My professor, Dr. Hedburg, suggested this would be a good doctoral thesis. It would not interest me to that extent, but she is right in that it seems to be a topic largely unexplored by other authors. At least my paper will be original, if not as extensive as I'd like.

I've spent nearly all of the past two days in the library. I've found myself geographically displaced in my search for a place of focus. I work in a cubicle with other GAs (graduate assistants) but for some reason my desk has become the focal point of social interaction in the office, and I have wonderful conversations there but get little accomplished. Studying at home is next-to-impossible if only because my brain is so easily distracted by other tasks and minor things that come up. The library is a half-way compromise. Some of my friends are gauranteed to provide temptation for distraction, and one of my friends, Peter, virtually lives in the library (being of the more studious type than I am) so conversations that start based upon discussing assignments often lead to extended periods when I should be studying but I often would rather discuss philosophy and politics than read and write about it. This week most of my classmates and I have shared the common purpose of this paper, and the pressure of knowing Dr. Hedburg has threatened to shock us all with low grades has kept us more focused than usual.

Coming out of an absolutely awesome weekend with God, I find I am not stressed about everything I have to do but am concerned I cannot complete it all in the level of excellence I would like. However, sometimes I am very wrong in evaluating my own work. I just back my last two assignments from Dr. Bom--one of which was a short paper which took me a week to write for some unknown reason-- from my Democracy and Development class. I thought he would be disapointed in my work because I did not feel I was really on the ball in my writing. He loved them both, however, which surprised me because he does grade me somewhat harshly because he has high expectations. He always makes me laugh with his comments that I am "comprehensive and balanced, despite strong beliefs." Interpretation: "holy cow girl, you're opinionated! But since I agree with most of your opinions, I'll call you balanced and give you a good grade..."

Really, I'm not at all balanced because I know he already KNOWs the other side of the issue and that he "gets me" when I go off about the stupidity of liberals in Latin America =) I may not be "balanced" but I'm right... which is must more important to me...

He asked to talk to me about doctorate work. Funny timing because just this weekend I felt God told me to let that go and not try and "plan" that stage at this point. I had just done all this research at work on Regent's "competitors" and in the process looked into PhD programs all over the country to see what my options were. I was left a little taken aback at the length of the programs etc... and worried about it...especially since if I were to start next fall, I'd have to apply by this December. However, I definitely feel like God wants me--at least for today--to wait on what He's going to do. Hard because I want to plan and have no idea how I would possibly ever pay for doctoral work, yet want and need to do it so... well, I know God has a plan.

I had to register today for commencement in May. Feels so strange because I still feel I just began and I'm already planning "the end." Right now it looks like I'll take another heavy credit load in the spring, walk in May, and then finish up my remaining 6 credits at Oxford next summer.

Of course, I should refrain from planning my finish until I am faithful to write this paper. I shall now return to theories and ethics of voting behavior and hopefully write a good paper. I know I need to do a more generic "how I'm doing" post for those I'm out-of-touch with, so I will...eventually.

New Beginnings

For over a month now I've gone back and forth on whether to blog and if so, on which site. I have one profile page I know my Asbury friends check...another my Regent friends check... neither of which I truly use to blog, and I have nothing to communicate just to home. I know my tendency to write as a form of procrastination, but I have finally concluded that even if I am writing things in which no one is truly interested, I need a writing outlet which only those I trust will read. The down-side of using blogger is that there is no subscription option currently. If you want me to email you when I do a new post, let me know. Otherwise, you can always check this site to find out if there is something new with me.