Worthy of the Gospel

"One of you routes a thousand because the Lord your God fights for you, just as He promised." 

Joshua 23:10

I haven't had a ton of really concrete goals since coming to college. I've had dreamy types of goals like getting a job after graduation and working for a church or going in to ministry some where. Things that I like the idea of but nothing that'll break my heart if it doesn't happen. (Okay, so job would really be nice.. my heart would probably break if I end up homeless). 

I didn't grow up going to school so I didn't grow up doing See You at The Pole. It wasn't my passion in highschool, but it was a nice idea when I came to school. Every year it gets a little bigger and students get a little more passionate and unity between campus ministries grows a little stronger. 

I'm still not passionate about See You At the Pole itself. I mean, yes. But, campus ministry unity is my passion. No words can describe what happened today. 

No picture captured it either. 

We took turns putting different campus ministries in the middle of our circle and praying over them and sending them out. We all prayed at once and the "joyful noise" of everyone praying at the same time (Korean style) was something to give you Holy Spirit goosebumps. 

By 6:45am there were at least 16 people in attendance and they kept showing up. From all different directions, on bikes, on foot, in groups and alone, it's was a beautiful army. 

We worshiped and we prayed. And the sun rose and the Son shown. 

At the very end we joined in one big massive circle of hugging and we all prayed at once for each other and all the other ministries not present. And then we all sang. 

I've sang "Oh How He Loves" a billion times. I LOVE that song. But guys, let me tell you about being arm in arm with people from different ministries as we sang "How He loves us all." No ministry greater than another. No one better or more loved or more blessed. We are loved. And we are to love. 

All I can think now are the lyrics to the song "break every Chain" by Jesus Culture. 

"There is power in the name of Jesus. And there's an army rising up 

to break every chain, to break every chain, to break every chain" 

Oh yes, Iowa, the number one party school in the US. The Lord is there and He has a plan. Whilst student come to party and fill the empty void in the center of their lives, the Lord is advancing His kingdom. All those empty hearts are the perfect place for the Lord to take up residence. 

And He is. Yes, He is. 

Expecting God

Oh my goodness, guys! I feel like a kid trying to sleep on Christmas Eve! Tomorrow morning is going be huge in SO many ways!! 

Like, you have no idea what kind of amazing is going to go down on the University of Iowa campus with THIS MANY BELIEVERS united in the Lord! We're marching to battle together tomorrow, arm in arm. The Lord is going before us and I'm excited to meet Him there in the morning. 

Iowa City is going to be rocked tomorrow. We have no idea what's gonna happen as a result but I can tell you right here and now, The Lord is going to do big things. Yes, Iowa City is reachable. 

The Lord is coming to Iowa City. And He's gonna land smack dab in the middle. God has a plan for this city and we are on the brink of something big. Give God an inch and He'll take a mile. 

Here we are, Lord. We're ready for you. 

Somethings Stay Forver

 The weather is changing again! The chill in the air and the little white cloud of my breathe when I walk out my door is an exciting reminder that we may indeed pull out our scarves and boots and drink pumpkin spice lattes to our hearts content.

For me, changes in the weather always bring a little pain. And by that I mean, physically. My senior year of high school I was horse back riding in a field in Soith Dakota on a pleasant fall afternoon. My horse followed last in line of the few of us out riding. After all the other horses stomped on a nest of ground bees, my poor horse fell victim to their anger and upon stinging the horse in the belly four times, my horse decided to throw me off where i broke my fall with my wrist and broke my wrist with my fall. The first set of X-rays showed a crack and a chip going half an inch into my ulna. The second set 4 weeks into the cast showed 5 or six cracks in all those bones in there. 8 weeks in a cast, 8 weeks in a brace and still as many hours of piano practice I could handle in a day in prep for my senior recital. Bending it and rotating it when I didn't wanna go, I didn't let it heal the way I should have. 

Either way, it is healed. But five years later, it hurts like heck before a good rain or temperature drop. I can't do anything to fix that, though.

So I realized something about our hearts the other day. Especially since my heart just randomly aches sometimes (spiritual warfare mostly) and I've wondered what else is left to forgive. But it's not like there is an unforgiven dagger or shard of glass left inside tearing me apart. I feel like I've healed from the broken times of my past, but I can't help that my heart just throbs on occasion. 

I realized that, like my wrist, something's just weren't meant to break the way they do. And while they have been made to heal, sometimes things will still just hurt with the change of season. 

I was talking to The Lord last night about bones and how they heal. I was asking Him when it was He decided He needed to come up with a plan on how a broken bone would fix itself. He quickly brought to mind how He had formed Eve from Adam's rib and told me that there was a healing that needed to take place then. 
Upon thinking on it some i asked, "so from the beginning of time, before man was created, you decided to make the insides of their bodies with ways to fight infections and heal wounds and scar cleanly?" 

"Yes."

"but we didn't need those things when all was perfect.."

"Right"

"So that means that even before you made a human you knew that there would be brokenness and rejection and pain and separation?"

He must have smiled as I began to put pieces together. He reminded that,yes, of course He knew. He knew and so he planned for it. I couldn't comprehend why He would create us even though He knew, but he simply responded with His gentle whisper of "because I love man too much to have not to."

Mind blown. 

Worth it. That's what He says about my existence. I don't know about you but I feel like I'm gonna need a personal trainer to even be half strong enough to carry the weight of that sentence.

Letters From Home

I'm sure everyone who comes home to find an envelope with a hand written message to them sitting on their kitchen table gets a little excited no matter how badly their day went. Or when you go out to collect the mail and whilst sorting through the news papers and bills and advertisements, that precious square shaped one with your name on it puts a lighter bounce in your step on the way back to the house. 

I love letters. It's such a concrete reminder that someone has thought about me and took the time to let me know, even if they don't write "I care about you", you just know. 

Guys, my heart is so alive right now. Sometimes I come to point in my walk with The Lord where I think, "could I know His love much better than this?" But then, somewhere down the road after that, He touches me in a new place and I am overwhelmed again.

Okay, so I probably walk the most imperfect walk with The Lord. Like, I'm pretty inconsisten with my Bible reading and prayer life. Seriously, there's lots of room for improvement.
I'm also a feelings person. I do a lot of things based on how I feel in the moment (don't be surprised that my major changed 3 times). So one of my bigger struggles is spending time with The Lord no matter how my heart feels. 

I mean, I can get pretty apathetic sometimes. Like when my world life gets really overwhelming and it becomes the greater reality I know and then that whole spiritual thing just seems so vague it's like, "we'll, my energy and motivation are pretty low, so I'm only gonna focus on what seems more real and more important." Which is like, the point where my whole life seems dead and boring and blah. 

But here is something, no matter how cruddy my walk with The Lord is or how my life in the world is going, the greatest reality that has never left is that I am loved. Like I said,I'm a feelings person, and sometimes I don't feel loved. Which is a big deal because I need to feel. But somewhere anchored into the core of my being is a deep Truth that I am loved and I know it even when I don't feel it. And it has been a source of joy in the darkest times because it is the most consistent thing I've ever experienced. 

So sometimes, I feel like I'm in a long distance relationship with The Lord. Sometimes I feel like He is forever away in Heaven and he wrote me th Bible as our long distance romance takes place through correspondence and I write him back in my prayer journals and some day way in the future when I die or He comes back, then we will be reunited. Then we will ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after. 

I mean, have I not been told me whole life, "wait. Someday your prince will come." Especially because it seems to me that at my age, I'm supposed to be anticipating meeting my future husband and dreaming of our future together. But it is such a distant and vague sort if future that placing Jesus in that picture of Him being my future husband or the Prince who wants to woo me and capture my heart and keep me forever, it's hard not to think of Him as something distant and vague as well.

But the thing is, I'm not waiting for my prince to come. He's already here. I chuckle to myself as I remember one of my Kalona adventures found me at a Mennonite church function (I seriously love them so much!) and whilst standing in a circle with some of the kindly adults who had, of course, noticed I wasn't a regular, one of the gentlemens remarked on a couple across from us who were holding hands. He asked me, "is there someone you like to hold hands with?" To which I responded, " oh yes! I LOVE holding hands with Jesus. He's my favorite." I don't even remember the kind man's name but I think he found my response to be funny and somewhat unserious because, after that, he promptly began scoping out the local Mennonite boys to see which one he might deviously match me with. 

I think it was then that I realized that Jesus is a present reality. It sounds silly to me now, on account I've been quite in love with him for the past several years, but I think it is easy for me to be caught up in the "someday in the future, Jesus" campaign and I forget that he's already here.  But he is here RIGHT NOW and I can hold his hand every day. And it's not that someday he will come in and carry me off into the sunset and we will live happily ever after, it's that he as already done that and I'm living my happily ever after right now.

Ive already written the words, "this world is not my home." The better I come to know The Lord, the more I feel that. Honestly, I really love the stage I'm at in my life right now. I LOVE it. What I don't love is what people tell me I should want. Like I should want to be married or I should want to find a stable job or I should want my own house and garden. I would be blessed to have those things, but I'm so overwhelmed by the blessings I have now that I don't even know if my heart could handle much more. 

Back to my feelings and my inconsistent quiet times. There was once a time that I became so religious about reading my Bible and stuff that it became dry and stale and even a little bitter to me. Because I didn't feel like it and I didn't enjoy it. So, I've learned to be okay with doing my quiet time when I feel like it just so that I learn to do it out of the motivation of love rather than duty. As it is, the Word has quite become so much more precious to me because I'm not reading a text book, I'm reading a love letter, penned from home. But it's not a long distance love letter, it's a now love letter. Words written to me because I need them now.

I was talking to the Father about that today. I told The Lord that I didn't want to feel like Home was a billion miles away in Heaven and that I could only long for death because that's when I would be home. He sweetly reminded me that, He is my home.  

He is now. I live in Him now. And I come home to Him often. Sometimes I wander off, but he is always there to come home to. He is the most comfortable place i know. He is the most peaceful and restful place I've ever found. 

And when I read the Bible, it's a letter from Home. Not from heaven magically delivered through space and time to sustain me through my time on earth, it's a letter directly from the Father now. It's living and active and precious and laced with love. 

This world is not my Home,  but I am home all the same. 

Forgiving the Moment

It is for freedom that Christ set you free.

It could only be the turmoils of my heart that could so keep me awake on such a night after so many days of exhaustion and sickness.

Hurt people hurt people.

I'll never forget the deep truth held in such a statement. People with knives and daggers and arrows left sticking out of their hearts are dangerous to be close to. Such pain nd brokenness left uncared for can only reproduce the pain and bitterness it breeds.

Forgiveness is a miracle for bringing about healing but its a wonder to me at how times one finds oneself reliving old pain. I have come to the conclusion that when Jesus told us to forgive 70 times 7 times, He meant it for one single offense. And 70 x7 for the next one after that. I'm amazed that I can forgive one person of an offense and feel whole and then somehow it comes back and hurts again and  re forgive. I've often wondered if I'm doing something wrong. If I'm failing to be genuine. But every time I really actually desire that The Lord grant me the ability to forgive and I have felt at peace every time as well.

But peace and forgiveness doesn't change the past. It doesn't erase the sleepless nights or the endless amount of tears dropped on my pillow. Peace doesn't put the pieces back together, it simply fills in the cracks. Forgiveness doesn't glue one's heart back together, it just takes out the sharp things shoved into it. 

That isn't to say one can never be whole again. Of course you can! Jesus does that part. But our perception of whole tends to be "back to normal" or "returned to the state I was before I was broken."
Such a thing cannot exist. If it did, The Lord would never break us. Afterall, what would be the point? I think the point of being shattered is so that The Lord can get out his extra clay and use the filling to make our vessels a little bigger and more unique. With every break and repair, more fabric is added and thus the size has increased.

But how is it do we remember what shattered us and not feel the pain? How do we extend grace and love and forgiveness back to that very moment of devastation? That is where I struggle most. My sleepless nights of my present seem to be echos of sleepless nights of my past. My tossings and turnings bring me back to the tossings and turnings of some of the darkest, emptiest nights of pure rejection and loneliness in the rawest form. 

And it's no longer true. What was once true of my past, being rejected, being unwanted, being broken and discarded, they are not true of me now. I am surrounded by acceptance and approval and need and encouragement. But I am still coming to learn how to embrace the truth of today and throw off the pain of chapters now closed. 

I'm not good at that part, though. Forgetting an experience. I can forget names and exam material without missing a beat. But not the darkness. Every scar has a story. No one points to a raised white line on their arm and says, "I forgot this one." People can be quick to recall, "I fell off my bike" or "I tripped in PE when I was in 1st grade." 

I don't suppose God meant for us to forget. How would we ever remember a heroic rescue without a desperate need of being saved? How would we ever know what joy or healing was without first having experienced sorrow and brokenness?

He was rejected. He still is. And when I cry on my pillow and recount to him the pain of being unwanted, He doesn't take it away. He simply puts in arm around my shoulder and says, "me too." And then like Mary and Martha, we share the moment. That part where Jesus wept? Well, He's done it lots.  He reminds me that we drink the same cup. He didn't come to give me a rosey-posey life of bliss. He came so that in my death, I would have life.

In the mean time, He takes me back to the broken times to remind me that my heart is stil tender and that I should guard that wellspring with every ounce of strength The Lord provides. He takes me back to remind me that some wounds are deeper and take more time. And until the wound heals into a scar, forgiveness must be applied generously and a bandage of peace wrapped gently over it.
He takes me back to the moments I needed Him most and makes it obvious He still wants to be there.

I hate to remember when my heart has been shredded, but, if it is the price of remembering how the Lords hand reached into the deepest places and stitched and stapled it back together, I will be thankful for how it s

Gifted

11:24am and I am already to take a nap. I was up at 6am to help take my nanny kids to school. Now that I've come to have a more "dependable" vehicle, I can do that. I arrived on time @ 6:45am and even had time enough to play a game of Sorry! with the 6 year old before shoes were put on, lunches and book  bags grabbed and all the children piled into my car for school. 

Flat tire. Story of my life.

Fortunately enough, a 24:7 intern is staying at their house and she kindly offered the keys to her vehicle and the children were turned into the office for tardy slips only 5 minutes past the first bell. *sigh*
It was then back to my stranded car to change to the spare and return home in time for class. 

Missing tire iron. Of course. The intern didn't have a tire iron either. 

With phone calls and neighbor men who came to the rescue, I had my not-entirely-inflated doughnut on by 10am and was able to drop it off at a place that can fix it. I'm quite blessed to have a roommate who didn't mind coming to my rescue and letting me take her car home in exchange for me dropping her off at class. 

Car Chronicles of Fern. In the last 12 months I've had:

Broken serpentine belt in the Kia. 
Transmission fluid leak in Kia. 

*switched out for Buick*
Broken hood latch in the buick
Broken power steering oil pump in buick
Broken windshield in buick
Stuck latch on drivers door in Buick

*Switched out for dodge caravan*

Leaking water pump
blown heat sensor fuse
broken coolent fan
Coolent leak
Transmission computer communication failure
Shot transmission altogether

*Switch for Cadillac*

Flat tire. 
Missing tire iron
Cracked Windshield
Front doors don't lock and I've already had the car ransacked.


*sigh*

Such is my life I suppose. 

I don't have much to complain about. I mean, I'm a privileged American girl with all the opportunities a person could ask for in life. I'm blessed with more than I could ever hope and so non-dependable cars shouldn't upset me too much, right? 

However, there's something about being stuck on the side of the road hundreds of miles from my brothers and father with no resources and lack of muscles that makes one feel especially helpless. 

Or maybe vulnerable is more the word. 

A good friend and I had a great talk about being single last night. The whole thing with be content in the single years. We've both found it to be quite easy for the most part, but the thing is, when a guy pops up on the radar, one isn't quite so content any more. She was asking me how one goes about being content even when there is a potential out there. Ha.. well, I don't really know about that. I was very terrible at being content in the months that there was a guy on my radar and I continued in singleness and then I was very terrible at keeping surrendered to God in the months/years that I had been in a relationship with radar guy. 

In the last few months as I have been re-adjusting to single life, I have been more content and satisfied than I ever was. But I think that more has to do with all the healing the Lord has done in my heart and also the fact that there has been no man to distract me from the satisfaction in my relationship with the Lord. 
The only times I've really been aware of being single are the times I've been stranded on the side of the road alone. And it's not that I want a man to fix my problems or anything like that, I'm quite capable of dealing with them better than more guys I know, it's more the idea that it would be nice to have someone to even care that I often have to sit in the dirt on the side of the road and wait for a man stranger to come along and offer help. But that's just personal preference I guess. 

My friend, who was asking about being content on account there might be a man pursuing her, asked also about the gift of singleness. She named one of our friends who is absolutely beautiful and, while she has been pursued by some of the most eligible men in our college ministry, still chooses to be single and devote her entire life to doing the Lord's work, especially in international ministry. She is one who is happy to stay single and would move over seas to do the Lord's work and be perfectly content to be single the rest of her life. 

I've talked with her too. It's not that she doesn't have a desire in her heart for marriage or children, she does. But right now, she is content to do what she's doing now and accept those things when the time is right. 

I think I have quite come to realize that people view the "Gift of Singleness" as something that it is not. I think in a lot of Christian circles, "The Gift of Singleness" is one having the ability to be okay being single. To be content and satisfied and without desire for a life partner. 

No. It's not that. I've quite come to learn that the gift of singleness is the precious time  you are given as a single individual. The gift of being able to serve without having to sacrifice time with your significant  other. 
The gift of being all there in the ministry and not be wishing to be somewhere else or with someone else. 
The gift of not having your day ruined because you didn't get a text asking how your day was. 
The gift of have every Friday night open for girls nights or prayer nights or sleepovers. Every weekend opened for what ever you want. It's the gift of being able to stay mingling around in your group of friends after worship ends rather than having to rush out and take a phone call or make a skype date. The gift of being able to spontaneously go hangout with your Kalona brotherhood with out having to explain it later. It's the gift of being able to have your guy friends up the street over for supper and a game night for no other reason than to enjoy their friendship. 

The gift of singleness is not a skill. It is not a skill of marriage is it? No, it's a gift of marriage. So being single is not a skill, it's a gift. (Trust me.. it doesn't take any skill to be single). As far as being satisfied being single, that's the trick of it all. After all, since singleness is a gift, one should not look sadly at the gift the Lord has placed in our own hands and look longingly at the gift the Lord placed in the hands of our non-single friends. As it is, the Lord has great plans for you with the gift he gave you. Don't insult Him by spitting on it and wishing for something different. Don't think you know what you need better than he does. Don't think that your own efforts to exchange your gift for another will be successful.

Even as I write that, the Holy Spirit has brought to mind Ephesians 1:3 " Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ"

EVERY spiritual blessing. Gifted with everything the Lord could want for us. 

So, maybe my car issues aren't always seen as blessings to me when I'm alone and covered in dirt and car grease and a couple hundred miles away from home, but, I do feel incredibly loved when one of my guy friends offers to try to fix it or does fix it. I have the gift of being loved through acts of service. I have the gift of somehow being taken care of, even a hundred miles from home. Some how or other, I always end up back home in my bed under my quilt with Bible verses printed all over it. 

So, I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the blessings the Lord has given me and I shall try to remember them when life's inconveniences try to slow me down a little. 

What's Up, Pilgrim?

"This world is not my home. This life is not my own."

The Spirit keeps bringing that to mind this morning. Not because the Lord is asking me to give something up, exactly, I just feel incredibly restless. I sense that there is a change coming on and one chapter or another will close soon. I can't place what it is, but it makes me quite un-easy. 

Perhaps it is that my friend cluster has shifted for the umpteenth time since moving here four years ago. Maybe I am afraid of it this time. While it should be so well rehearsed that the transition should go smoothly I think it has gotten rockier the more it happens. 

I once thought that when hard things in life are repeated you somehow grow calluses against them and are stronger for the next time around. Perhaps it is not the skin getting thicker, but a wound being dug deeper. Not that I feel like I am in agony or turmoil or anywhere close to broken or depressed, I just really dislike having to close out on things that were good and fun and brought joy to my life.

I think as my school chapter comes to a close, I'm a little distressed as to where I shall be brought to next. I shall, at some point, need to further my education so as to legally practice counseling. (If the Lord wills, of course.) But I also just want to serve the Lord, so perhaps I shall end up in another country spending my days loving God's children. Or maybe I shall find a church to settle into and work full time in ministry there, or maybe I shall take up a different sort of cross and enter the work world and be called to love my co-workers and authorities as the Lord stretches my heart to comprehend His love for His people more deeply. 

I can be excited for those possibilities. I AM excited. But I have been so blessed by fellowship and encouragement in my friends these last several months that I'm quite saddened to the fact that as my heart heals, things will change. 

Maybe it is that the Lord wishes me to give something up. Maybe I am being called to give up the comfort of friends who stay and don't change. Maybe I am being called to a life less constant and concrete and steady. Maybe I am too comfortable enjoying the predictable routine of the life the Lord gave me. 

I realized something the other night when I was telling some of my school friends about my Kalona adventures. I've felt some whip-lash in the interactions with the different friend groups and came to realize a little of why this is. 

With my school friends, when we get together, we ask each other about our weeks and days and exchange stories only from the recent past. With my Kalona friends, they tell stories of their childhoods and growing uppings and neighbors they've known since their earliest memory. I think my heart envies them just a little. To have such a concrete anchor in the ground, to be so constant, so steady, so sure. Life for them is one consistent timeline. I'm sure, that while they can probably divide it into chapters, all of them are in one book.

My life must be a series of books. With random scatterings and chapters more distant. I'm not complaining. I've quite enjoyed the adventures on which the Lord has taken me. And perhaps it is the thought that I have friends who will not change and will not move and will continue on in there well anchored life, I will be the one to leave them. After all, it was being a traveler that brought me to know of their existence and while I have stopped in to hear of their adventures as children and their continuing adventures now, there will come a point when I shall only have the memory of these friends rather than them in person. 

Perhaps it is that I'm realizing that I really don't know much of the childhood stories of my close friends.   I've caught bits and pieces here and there. But mostly, to each other, nothing existed before college. Our existence now consists of the daily struggle with school and peers and homework and stress. Even how our summers went are unknown to each other, unless we truly ask, which we don't. 

We don't because we don't have time. Our lives are too fast paced. We barely have time to ask each other  how the day is going and listen for the response before jumping on to the next thing or running off to the next class. 

Or maybe it is that we fail to care of others beyond how they bring happiness to our own little lives. If the question after their day is merely so you might be entertained briefly at their response, than we, as a body of believers could very well be failing at living in a community. 

Granted, it's not entirely true. I live with three women who love the Lord and have done life with me the last several years. I shall continue on doing life with them for as long as the Lord shall allow. I just hate to think that friends come in seasons and not necessarily life-time editions. 

I probably sound more depressed than I am. I'm not broken, like I said. I'm just a little off about it. But I suppose it all comes back to a point of surrender. This world is not my home, Lord. Therefore I shall go outside the camp and meet you there. After all, I have learned that my city, my place in life, is not an enduring one. No, I am looking for a city that is to come. 

A city as constant as the One who made it. Some day, I shall live in that city. It shan't be dirty and corrupt like the one in which I now live. One where people tell their full stories and we shall have all the time outside the world to listen to them. Yes, some day, I'll be livin' in a big ol' city. The Lord's city. 

Until then, I'll be obedient to the next chapter. 

Tuesday is the New Monday

Reality is a cruel thing to wake up to. 

I shouldn't complain, I suppose, my life isn't that difficult. My work load isn't too much yet, either. But my time at home was as wonderful as I could have imagined and I have returned back with boxes of fresh apples and tomatoes and onions and pumpkins, all from our lovely garden. 

I like free stuff. But it's more the idea that the life pace of my family is relaxed and patient enough to have time to plant and tend to and wait to harvest such fruits of their labor. I think I like the idea of farming as it seems to be a more patient life-style than my own. 

In the meantime, returning home was a bit of adventure yesterday. Well, nothing too out of the ordinary for us. It was anticipated and accepted with a shrug of the shoulders and an, "oh well, we'll move on." 

On account my van has decided to bow out with a little less grace than I would have liked, when I returned home I fetched a new transportation vehicle. Yesterday afternoon, with my Iowa State brothers leading the way, my sister in her car and me in my car, shipped out in three vehicles in a fun little caravan figuring we'd stay as a pod for at least 2 hours. As we drove out I received, first, a phone call from my sister saying, "All wings report in. Red-2 standing by." And then a call from my brothers saying, "This is Red leader. Red-1, do you copy?" With my delighted response of "Red Leader, this is Red-1 standing by" and their affirmation of all crafts together, our merry little party was on our way. 

Some 12ish miles down the road we stopped for gas at this nothing pump in a little town that has the "Welcome to Nemaha" on both sides of the sign. Pearl's car was steaming something feirce out of her coolent so we popped the hood to let it cool off a little. It was then that we noticed the whole engine was either steaming a lot or smoking. With a quick consult with our father we determined to keep going. We told the brotherhood that if we bowed out, just keep going. And if Pearl's car stopped, we'd just transfer everything to mine and ride back together. 

2 miles later...  the brotherhood kept going and after a 5 minute transfer of Pearl's bounty to my hopefully-dependable-ride Pearl and I left the poor smoking, dead thing on the side of the road and didn't look much back. Looks like we might be car shopping this weekend. 

Whilst driving back we both were thinking reality wasn't something we wanted to welcome back into our lives and thus devised a plan that we would only stop long enough to get pearl's stuff into her apartment and then we would run away and find paths to explore and sights to see whilst procrastinating life a little longer. As we set off for that, we were invited to Kalona for a bonfire and I think my heart did a little happy dance. 

We still explored paths and neighborhoods in Iowa City firstly, and found places we didn't even know existed. 

As it was, Kalona was beautiful and it was perfect, as usual. Upon arriving home and showering off the smokey bear smell, I procrastinated life further still by refusing to go to sleep, knowing it would only bring morning sooner. Well, that was probably a poor choice. When the alarm went off at 7:30, I was far from ready to accept it and I was just epically thankful that my roommate had refilled the ice-coffee pitcher in our refrigerator.

Now that I've gotten at least one good cup, and have already pulled out folders and caught up on paper work and appointment making and people contacting for the morning, I suppose I shall complete my acceptance of this day by getting dressed and going to class. 

*sigh* 

At least it's a shorter week. :)