The Bed Is In The Bathroom

I've lived under an assumption for three and a half years now, an assumption that I eventually "claimed" as truth, simply because I honestly thought it was truth. And now, here I am, further down the road, seemingly removed from the situation and I find out that the assumption is completely backwards. What do you do with that? I cannot even begin to wrap my head around it.

I can only describe it like this: Imagine you've lived in a house for three or four years and you've always had the furniture the same exact way. You've never even moved a lamp. And suddenly, after four long years, you come home and unexpectedly, your bed is in the bathroom, your couches are turned upside down, and everything is not like it was when you left for work that morning. Where do you sleep? You could maybe move the furniture back to the way it was, but there is other furniture in its place now. Maybe you just have to adapt and change your way of doing things. That's so hard.

I've been wrestling with this all week. What do I do now? My world feels like it's been turned on its head and I can't even figure out when it happened, much less how to deal with it. Needless to say, with a new semester of classes, leadership, CA-ing, and two surgeries in the near future, this ought to go on the back burner. Problem is, I don't think that's possible. I'm frustrated and confused, angry and reeling from the shock of it all.

Today, on leadership retreat, during quiet time, I was reading 2 Corinthians. I read parts of a few Psalms yesterday, but today I jumped to the NT.



Paul writes: For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (2 Cor. 1:8-10)

and later...

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Cor. 4:8-9)



Somewhere deep down, I know that God has delivered me and will do so, just like Paul says. But it's hard to feel that when you've journeyed so far in three years, only to have it all unravel so quickly and unexpectedly. But God is good and I know that with time I will look back on this period and be able to see God's redemptive power at work. And that right now, I have to both surrender this to God and trust that He will see it through. David Mallard talked about how those two (SURRENDER and TRUST) go together, and one without the other is worthless. Surrender without trust leads to depression, confusion. Trust without surrender is self-trust and a reliance on self, which will ultimately fail. God will see this through. God will see me through.

i have decided i'm going to set out to lobby to change a north carolina statute. in other words, i'm going to set out to change a law that is in place, because i think that a particular part of the nc statute is completely arbitrary (and that statement could apply to most, if not all, laws) and could easily be changed to allow for more justice.

and that is, what the laws, court system and larger society ought to be about, after all, right?

and so today, january 15, 2008, i'm setting out to change something, do something seemingly meaningful, even if it might be three years and four months late.

Somewhere in the middle...

I've spent most of break in the residence hall, working for HRL. They needed a CA over break and I willingly volunteered. It's been a fairly lonely way to exist, simply because most people go home for break, so those left in the 'boro are few and far between. It did, however, give me some good quality time with a handful of people and some serious rest time, which I realize now I needed badly. I've gotten to read, go for walks (shhh... don't tell my doctor), listen to music and enjoy the peace and quiet, without stress or to-do lists. My birthday (yay! I'm no longer a teenager. Why I am so ready to get on with growing up, I don't know, because most of the time I wish time could just stop momentarily so I could thoroughly soak up everything that is going on.), Christmas and New Years were all wonderful.

Tomorrow morning, I'm leaving for Pennsylvania. I'm going to visit Laura Jo and her family for a few days. I'm very excited and I've been looking forward to this trip for almost a month. I'm sure there will be many a post about the trip once I return. However, once I return to the 'boro, I will spend four or five days in CA Spring Training, and then I will have surgery on Friday, January 11, and classes resume on January 14. Nothing like hitting the ground running, huh? Anyway, so I just thought I'd give you that update.

Casting Crowns' new CD is wonderful, by the way. I really am enjoying it more each time I listen to it. But one song in particular has really touched me: Somewhere in the Middle. Here's the chorus:

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender
Without losing all control?
Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
Wreckless abandon wrapped in common sense.
Deep-water faith in the shallow end,
And we are caught in the middle.
With eyes wide open to the differences,
The God we want and the God who is.
But will we trade our dreams for His,
Or are we caught in the middle?

I think that there's a certain despair and frustration with feeling like there's a standard that I haven't reached yet... but it's mixed, certainly, with a complacency that comes from our society today and from my own brokenness.

Revelation 2:4-5
Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first.