Thursday, December 19, 2013

Thirsty Thursday (A coffee shop blog)

Back to unserious posting (Maybe). :) Here we are, 22 hours from THE END OH MY GOODNESS I'M ALMOST DONE!!!!

My so far tragedy of the day is that I'm out of the bananas and cream oat meal packets and thus only have maple and brown sugar. I realllly hate oatmeal in general, so I'm not sure what I was thinking when I got the oatmeal other than, "It's quick, it's healthy, and I can save money on breakfast by only eating oatmeal or skipping breakfast when I can't handle it."

...My oatmeal reminds me of brains this morning.. this is going to be difficult. 

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My roommate suggested putting chocolate chips in the oatmeal... brilliance. Truly. It made that experience a little bit less painful. 

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Cafe Crema, guys. It's the best! I found this place a year ago this time... just before finals, and well.... my life has been greatly improved by its existence. I'm also making GREAT progress on my studies. 

Seriously, live human beings help so much. 

I have one sitting in until noon, and then I have one to cover noon til 1pm.. and then I have 2-3 covered (kind of) and then! Another human is coming to exist in my presence at 3pm. What great friends I have! (yes, for those of you who are asking "Wait..you have friends??" Yes I do. The best kinds, too.)

Also! I mixed my Christmas playlist with my Time Alone with God playlist... :) Happppy happy happy joy in my heart, it's so great! Like.. Christmas married Jesus and it's the most amazing thing ever. I mean.. Jesus is Christmas. 

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I broke for lunch, came back to the coffee shop.. and BOOM! Friends! Everywhere friends! 6 of them scattered through out. Whattttttt! What is this! AND I have more coming. YAY!!!

Also, fun facts about Fern... the combination of only having one kidney and drinking too much caffeine without water makes Fern turn pink. Well... red..splotchy...looks-like-hives-but-isnt. (Where the Red Fern Grows lol! Ya...so much jokes about that..) I mean.... I don't know why. But... Fern's need water. That's my only conclusion. 

Coffee... water... :/ Fern's like coffee better. 

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Here's a thought! To the guy who is wearing red plaid and green pants... because it is Christmas, that's okay. IF it weren't Christmas... it's probably still okay.. but only kind of okay. Just a tiny bit. I mean.. it's okay. I guess. 

Why'd I put in my contacts this morning? I haven't worn them much since before Thanksgiving... BECAUSE THEY STICK TO MY EYEBALLS. I thought they were supposed to help me see... well.. whatever. Glasses are so hipster these days. Not that I'm hipster. Not on purpose anyways. I was home-schooled.. so I'm terrible at fashion basically all the time.. and sometimes people say things to me like, "Fern! What a great outfit! I love that you push things just a little.. you always push it a little but somehow make it work..." ...uhm..thanks? I mean.. I wasn't trying to push anything.. but I guess I'm just a little bit weird. Whatever. Normal is overrated anyways. Besides... with a name like Fern.. people assume you're a hippie anyways. They probably assume I hug trees and recycle and eat organic. Truthfully, I only hug trees long enough to carry the stack of them to the wood stove before I burn them.  Recycling?? I mean...I'm all about freedom and liberation of the carbons. LET THE FREE I SAY! Burn the plastics and release them to be free like the rest of them. 
So... all that is to say... non-hippie Fern can wear glasses and not feel to weird about it. I just don't like that they fog up when I come in from outside. 


Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Let's Be Honest

" You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. " Jeremiah 29:13

There was a lot leading up to this point of my life, but when I sat down on the couch with my coffee this morning and pulled out my Bible, I had a lot on my mind.
 One reason I hate finals week so much is that I feel guilty for spending time in the Word over spending time studying my textbooks. However, I've been terrible at being consistent in my quiet times all semester, so I can't even be mad at finals week because it's not like it's making me break a routine. 

Phew. *Take deep breath* Where to even start, Lord? I'm here. Nothing to offer you, but I'm at least sitting still on my couch and making a little effort to spend some time with you. 

I wasn't sitting there very long ( hadn't even cracked open my Bible) when that phrase was whispered in the stillness of my heart. "If you seek me, you will find me. If you seek me with all of my heart." That's how I heard it anyways.. I realize it's worded differently than the translation I learned the verse in.. but I mean, I'm pretty sure the Lord was just being specific to my heart at the time. 
Thus I determined that, this morning, I was going to hunt for God. 

Not that He has been hiding or anything, but I've definitely lost sight of Him lately.. mostly because of me, obviously. Because I burnt out and gave up and have literally been ducking out in a foxhole the last long while. And honestly, I haven't even wanted to seek the Lord because I'm pretty sure it would mean crawling out of my foxhole and getting going back at that whole Christian life thing, and I just... I just can't. 

I think I've had this idea that maybe I've just been a sulking child over the tragedy that has been my competence as a leader and follower this semester and while I gave in to giving up, no one else did and I imagine that the Lord saw me quit and said, "Leave her. She can re-join us when she gets over herself. Everyone else keep doing what you're doing."

Which, come to think of it, doesn't really sound like the Lord, but I mean.. I gave up when the going was toughest, which was probably the point I was needed most, and... well... it wasn't one of my proudest moments. I guess I just feel like I disappointed the Lord. And people. Lots of people. I'm sorry, guys.. I can't be Jesus for you. I'm a terrible Jesus. I'm the worst. 

Or maybe it's not even that the Lord didn't bother to come over and pick me up so much as I decided to run when I realized I was failing in every aspect of everything. 

This morning, before making any attempts at sitting down for a quiet time, I had flipped open my Bible to 1 Corinthians chapter one and noticed a verse I'd highlighted that said, "He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ," next to which I had written "No burn out :)" in the margin. That's when I started thinking, "geez I must have a talent for doing things wrong because I'm at the end and my strength was gone months ago."

So, the Lord told me to seek Him and I agreed. As if He had called out from some great distance away and challenged me to at least give it a go... if worse comes to worst, I'd simply be in the same place I'd started in. 


Funny though, I realized I have a great fear of coming up empty. By that I mean, when I make a plan to meet someone, and I show up and they don't. Or at least they don't for like 15, 20, 25 minutes. I hate that. Like... there are some serious shards of broken hopes in the depths of my heart from not being worth showing up for. I'm not mad at everyone who has said they would come and didn't. At least I hope I've forgiven them. I just am not very good at forgiving myself. For not being valuable enough to even want to spend with me the 15, 20, 30 minutes that was lost in simply not coming til later. 

And I know that's not true. Of course it's not. I'm late to things too sometimes and it's not because I don't think my friends are worth it, I'm just a poor time manager, or things take longer than expected. I get it. It's okay. 

However, it makes me a little nervous about trusting God. Crazy, right? Of course you can trust God. He never lies. Well... I'm me. And trusting God is hard sometimes. 

So, I pulled out my pen and my prayer journal and some Bibles (yes plural) and I told the Lord, "Okay.. I'm coming. Just be there when I get there. Oh my goodness, please be there." 

Where does one even start? Gosh I don't know. I mean, I start all over again all the time, but I'm still bad at it. Well, let's start by finding that verse that I heard whispered to my heart this morning, shall we? Where is that verse even? New Testament? I'm pretty sure it's in the Gospels... John maybe? Didn't Jesus say that? Seek and find? Sounds Jesus-y to me. 

Thank God for google. Old testament prophet, right after the well quoted "I know the plans for you" verse. Right.. I should have known that... 

I love what I found in the verse after the one that the Lord had spoken to me..
"I will be found by you, declares the Lordand I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."

"I will be found by you." What a relief! He'll be there! Oh thank God. When ever I get there, He'll be there. That is a serious comfort to my shredded-to-pieces heart right now. 
What's more, than that, is I realized the whole entire reason I've come to this point of "burn out" is the whole battle against worth and being "good enough."

I wrote, seriously 11 months ago, a whole entire blog about being Worth it. A whole blog about how the Lord fights for our worth even though Satan would seek to tell us that we are not worth it and we are not good enough. Well,  LOL ...I'm about as far from perfect as anyone could get and it turns out I'm basically bad at believing the Truth a lot of times. I'm not a great Christian at all. 

Me.. I'm just...I'm not. That's me. Not. 

And God.. well, after I rant about how much I'm not, he's like, " I am! *wink*" "I am enough. I am your worth it. I am here. I am waiting. I am.. I just am." 

I'll spare you the great many details of everything in my life that would point to me coming back to this way too familiar battle for worth, but it's been a struggle. And like I said, I gave up fighting for myself months ago. And everything after that has just hammered the concept home. 

But, oddly enough, the battle is still taking place, even though I'm not participating. Someone is fighting for me even when I don't see the point of it. Somehow, deep down, I know my worth has nothing to do with my external capabilities (or lack there of). I mean, I know God loves me. Cliche? Yes. But true.

There's a little quote from a Shirley Temple movie where she says, "I'm going home to my mother. She loves me!" That's how I feel. I mean, if nothing else, The Lord will love me for no other reason than He is really great and doesn't care that I fail at life.

I love *that*. I love that he is just waiting for me to come home. Not even just waiting, but he came for me before I even made a move towards him. Not that I'm even crawled out of my fox hole yet.. I'm not.  Nope.. I'm not. But he's there. And that will be enough. 

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Twas the 2nd

Here we go.. my 3rd final of the grand finale. It's in 7 hrs. :/ So this post will be short and sweet due to the time urgency to learn completely thoroughly, all the chapters in the ENTIRE TEXTBOOK!! Oh no worries, it's just 16 chapters. Which is only 380 pages. No big deal. 

Okay.. yes. It is. 

I went to bed a little after 9 last night because I was quite tired and kept finding myself on facebook, so I removed all electronic devices from myself and simply went to bed. I slept well, apart from my heat blanket being turned up too high, but I didn't bother to turn it down. So, basically all night, I would push off my covers, but my room is like 60 degrees, so then I would be really cold, and pull them back on ... and be really hot again. *sigh* 

Also.. you know you're in a semi-sketchy neighborhood when you wake up because of a vehical with flashing lights causing the flashings to flash on your wall via the crack between your curtain rod and the top of the window. 

I just assumed it was my neighbor getting arrested (Again). It's fairly common, anyways.. like it's happened 3 times already this semester. However, it was just the school bus picking up the kiddos. 
A little less exciting than a good ol' neighborhood arrest... but I mean, that's probably good. I like the illusion of being safe which is what I believe when my neighbors aren't getting arrested. 

And also.. instant coffee. It's not even legit. But it's better than nothing. For Christmas, coffee. I should just request coffee. I love coffee. I love it so much. (If you guys know my friend Xavior... I just typed that in the accent he'd say he loves chicken in). 

Speaking of Xavior. He is the best. He's an international student and basically just a panda bear. The last thing he said to me was, "Fern!!! I Love your look! Your hair is gorgeous and your dress is gorgeous and you are gorgeous! I just love it so much!" :) Teehee, what a gem. 

Alrighty.. obviously tangenting. Need to study more. Good luck on life today, friendzies! For those of you who don't have finals (at all) I hope you are counting your blessings. There is one life stressor that I have that you don't have. I hope you feel free. I hope you feel blessed. I hope you feel like you have reasons to be thankful. I hope you don't complain about anything today. Because... life. Don't complain about life. The stressful things make you thankful for the non-stressful things. Eerrr body needs a good contrast every now and again. Errr body needs to be able to see white against black. It's good for you. Right? Right. Okay. Viva la hope. 

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Every good post can be extended, right? It's been three hours of studying. I'm running out of every mental strength I have. And my anxiety levels are starting to increase basically a lot. 

Plus.. when I'm anxious ( this is weird) my left wrist that I broke in a lot of places one time.. it stiffens all up and doesn't rotate so good. Which is no good for studying and typing and writing because.. it just doesn't function. It makes me more anxious too because, somehow, it makes me feel claustrophobic. 
Somehow. If that even makes sense. But I realllllly dislike any feeling of being put in a box or being limited in any way shape or form. That goes for mental feelings, emotional feelings, physical.. all of it. So even having a wrist that can only rotate 40degrees makes me anxious. 

And I'm trying not to feel anxious. But I totally am. I'm isolated from humans again and that makes me anxious. I need humans. Wahhh! Okay... I'ma leave and study by humans.. 

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2 hours before the final. Studying by humans is helping but... I just want to faint. Really. If I pass out, can I just take an A on the final and walk away? Too bad this final is worth almost 50% of my grade. 
50%!!! Who does that??? I want to shoot myself in the foot. 

I mean.. not to sound like I'm complaining. I'm not. I'm just freaking out. That's different, right? Freaking out is different than complaining. Someone put me out of my misery. 

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You know what's really distracting? When a couple goes on a date.. and sits down at the same table you're studying at. I mean.. yes, I have the long table.. sure, sit down. But....you certainly pick interesting topics for a date...

Oh buddy... Maybe you should stop going on about Thor and let the girl talk.. she keeps saying "uh--". 

Hmm... the "one season of the third season".. that doesn't even make sense... you must be talking about game of thrones now? You guys are nerds...

Girl-"Technically I'm excited to do origami, but if you want to go on a walk, we can do that instead"
Guy- "The plan was to walk."
Girl-"Let's walk"

LOL! Thanks for leaving. Enjoy your walk and your origami..

Monday, December 16, 2013

Twas Day One


Shall we play this game again? The part where I post of my insanity every day of finals week?
Heh... that'll be obnoxious, probably... but it IS my final week of finals. Yay!! 

You know when you wake up feeling like you've been hit by a truck? I mean.. not that I've been hit by trucks very often in my life..or ever. But, days like this morning... I tell you what, rough stuff. 

Perhaps, though, if I wouldn't cry whenst feeling so incredibly overwhelmed I wouldn't wake up feeling like death since it usually works out better to go to sleep fully hydrated rather than drained and exhausted from crying for a good one or two hours right before sleeping. However, every new day is one step closer and there is always new hopes in the morning. :)

I'm half-way done, though. I've taken two finals already. And! If you want to know, both of them were essay format exams and the first one, I had to write, basically an 8 paged paper by hand in an hour and 15 minutes whilst citing journal articles and vomiting all information I knew into an organized, cohesive mass of words. Fortunately for me, I have a friend that served as an excellent anecdote and I was able to fill one full page with the information he'd shared with me and some minor embellishments to fill space. So, 75 minutes of writing wasn't so painful.. apart from writers cramp from holding my pencil too tightly while fervorishly writing and organizing and fitting all my information in as fast as I could go.  
The beast came on Friday when I entered the computer lab at 10:30 and began my essay final and wrote and wrote and wrote and finished at 2:50 in the afternoon. 4 1/2 hours :/ My brain was oatmeal soup after that. 

Now I'm hunkering down on memory. How do you memorize how memory works? Oh mah goodness, this class SHOULD have been about all the tricks to memorizing information well and reproducing it on exams. That would have been practical. Oh well. Practical is for the simple-minded, I guess.

*sigh* I keep drinking all my coffee. :( Like I pour myself a cup, and it's wonderful.. and then I drink it. And then I go to raise the mug to my lips and it's empty. That's happened twice now. I want to drink more.. but my brain is telling me that I should be nice to my kidney this week and maybs drink some water or something.  

It snowed the most beautiful big snow flakes last night! SO pretty. And no wind either... just falling angel kisses. I loved it. I should have loved to stand in it for hours and reflect on life and all things deep, but... that sort of freedom will come later. Too much later. 

Also... I'd just like to say that you know that everyone is going insane over finals week when your brothers are fighting over who gets to play Mary in the family Christmas play over break. Not that family Christmas play is even a thing that we do, but since my little cousins didn't get to perform for their grandparents, they're reinacting their reinactment and we older cousins have to fill in and help reinact the reinactment of the reinactment and mom gave us the option of choosing which christmas play character we wanted to be. 

I volunteered to be Baby Jesus. No one else has requested that part yet, so I think I get it. The brothers will have to audition for Mary, though. Eva gets to be Joseph. 

I'm at my favorite coffee shop now. :) I've been studying memory retrieval. So complicated. But the customer service here is excellent. They even re-heat cornbags for you if you ask them nicely. :) 

I'm border-lining panic attack for tomorrow's exam. I thought I would have done really well on that obnoxious ten-paged paper I wrote, but it wins for lowest paper grade received in college thus far, knocking the previously held record of low paper grade from 'B+' to "C'.  How does that even happen? I don't know. It did though. Miserable me. Now I have to get an amazing grade on tomorrow's exam. Not that I will... I hope I do.. But I stink at memory in every sense of the word. I may as well be diagnosed with memory loss right now. I can't even remember how to life half the time. 

I like the snow outside, though. I'm going insane. But the snow is pretty. I mean.. It's dirty too, though. Kinda like me. Cleansed by the Lord but perpetually covered in dirt. Or getting dirt thrown on me. Or just.. idk. Me. Dirt. Samezies. 

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it's 8:11pm now..........


My brain is shot and I've only actually put in 8 hours of studying :( :( I need to stay up til 11pm some how. Cramming more information into my poor little brain that barely has enough room for the important stuff as it is. 

We're 19 hours away from exam time. Really I should be up all night with it. But my brain wasn't even built for the capacity of retaining new information past 11pm or even making sense after 11pm. 

Everything was really funny to me about 20 minutes ago... now I just wanna go to bed. For real. I could fall asleep right now. I COULD drink coffee, I guess... but I'm down to just enough grounds for ONE LAST POT of coffee. I'm savoring those grounds with everything I've got. I need them. 

What if I took a nap? Would that be bad? I wouldn't sleep all night probably then. I need to push myself to study for 2 more hours... :/ 

Also! This is completely unrelated to anything.. but.. I just really want to be a worth something. I don't know what that means or what that would even look like.. but that's a dream I have. And I don't say that because I feel worthless... nope. I don't. I feel like God loves me and wants me and finds me valuable. But.. to people.. I want to be worth keeping. You know? Like.. a friend that frees people to not be weighed down. I mean.. Like I don't want to be a burden or anything like that.. or even a friend that people have be association of my other friends or someone you invite around out of pity. 
No one makes me feel like that, really. I mean I don't think that that's why people invite me to things.. I hope that's not why. I just don't want people to be weighed down by me. I want to be someone who improves the lives of my friends. I want to be a friend worth having. 

I just feel like I could improve that. Not really sure how exactly.. but I'd like to improve that. My friend abilities that is. 

And like I said.. that's just a random dream/life goal I have. I'm only thinking about it because I have to study and every suppressed thought I ever had surfaces like a beach ball when I try to focus all my energies on one single task. I'm not very good at that life stuff. 

Life. I always think it's out to kill me during finals week. Finals is the death of an extrovert. Extroverts like me can't handle this isolation and studying concept that is so demanded of getting good grades. I'd rather be with people who live and breathe and say words. 


Thursday, December 12, 2013

In The Computer Lab...

*Sigh* It's only 1:10pm. I've been on campus since 10:30am and will continue in being here til 5ish.
I failed to bring my lunch today. I basically always fail to do that. Fortunately I had a packet of dry oatmeal as well as the last little bits of my dry apple chips in my book bag.

I decided with it being as cold as it is out there, I'm not leaving the building I have class in until I get to go home. So basically I'm holed up in a computer lab reading my Marriage and Family textbook and catching up on all the quizes I didn't take through out the semester. It was terribly nice of my professor to re-open all the ones I'd missed on account he "Liked having the power to make me smile." Shucks, Prof, you're great.

I'm taking a final tomorrow morning as well! YAY! Only because it's a take home final and one of my classmates texted me to inform me that he'd missed way too many classes to know how to answer the questions and so he asked for my help. Not that I mean to support someone sherking class all semester and then using good ol' responsible me for a good grade, but I really do appreciate someone offering to do my extroverted self a favor by keeping me company in exchange for the answers to the exam. It's a win/win situation, basically.

I epically bruised the whole top of my right hand on Monday night. My transmission was acting kind of sketchy and I wasn't about to take ANY chances with my new car. So I promptly took my car to Walmart and invested in some Seafoam product. (I highly recommend your use of this car-internal-system-saving-wonder as the owner of this magical fluid has an incredible passion for the Lord and basically most of the profit goes to the support of missions.) The problem with having a new car, I haven't had has much need to peek under my hood after having done the usual fluid checks when I first got it. However, in October I had noticed the transmission fluid a little on the low end and have been meaning to add some juice to it but I kept forgetting.

So! Knowing that my fluid HAD been low, when my car hesitated ever so slightly when shifting gears my heart basically started hesitating beating. (OH EM GEE NOT MY TRANSMISSION AGAIN!)
 So, product in hand, I pulled the hood popper inside my car and then began the task of feeling around on the hood to try and find the little lever thing you pull to unlatch the rest of the hood. Well, the more I felt around, the numb-er my hands got. And 15 minutes later, after 5 men boys had walked by and stared but not offered assistance, I got it. Then I remembered that it normally takes wearing a dress and having the hood already popped that guys tend to flock to my vehicle. I'll keep that in mind for the next time I have trouble in -20degree windchill weather.

So, my car is fine. My hand is not. Once it thawed out at home I noticed the epic purple bruise forming. I woke up the next morning with it being even bigger and quite swollen. Today it is  dark green, but a little less swollen. Ah me. If I ever have money and spare time, I'm going to take a mechanics class and be well informed of the car world. 


*sigh* Anyways...  You will probably be reading a lot more insane rants of a college student in the next week. O_O only one week.... is this even real life??






Wednesday, December 11, 2013

25 Things About College

Twas the week before finals and all through the house
not a creature was resting, no, not in this house.
With stress baring down and not a brain cell to spare
With textbooks and note books strewn every where

We're all cramming knowledge into our heads
But wishing we could be snug in our beds

...... I could keep going, but you get the point. 

I have a final tomorrow at 11am. Yay!! I need to study. :/ I have terrrrrible motivation for studying. Studying is the bane of my existence. I hate studying...always. 
Thank goodness this is the last of it. 

I braved the snow storm on Sunday to make to the bookstore 20 minutes before closing so that I could buy a tassel for my graduation hat. It was the last day to buy one and I totally regretted that decision as I skidded and fishtailed my way across town in the snow. No worries, I made it there and back in one piece AND I procured a tassel. Yay!

So... here we are! My LAST WEEK of undergrad classes!!! PRAISE THE LORD I MADE IT!!! 
I feel like college is a bit like being stuck in a rock tumbler for 4 years. And then you just pop out all shiny and polished after having been knocked around for a good long while. GRANTED, there's a lot more polishing to go as far my life is concerned, but I learned a few things along the way. 

Mostly, I learned some pretty deep life lessons that everyone else must come to learn on their own..so... spoilers! I'm not going to tell you. ;) BUT!

I learned some important things too... which might be helpful for YOU to know ahead of time.

1) Free Laundry is basically one of the best things known to man. 

2) Stolen....err BORROWED dinner trays from the dining hall make EXCELLENT sledding material. 

3) Loose change is wealth and value and hot commodity when it comes to parking down town. Treasure it and guard it with all your being.

4) If someone wears a Buddy the Elf costume to a snowball fight, throw all your snow at him. 

5) If you walk in the rain with pants that have hems that touch the ground kind of, you WILL be soaked up to your knees within 10 minutes. 

6) If one day, you are sitting alone under a tree and a friend walks by and invites you to come join a fraternity with him, do it. While you may end up getting blind-folded and taken somewhere else and then find yourself in an dark room where strangers are standing with candles and reading out of some rituals book and asking you to swear an oath of loyalty and secrecy, and then you have to stand in a circle holding hands and singing songs of the brotherhood... you may end up, actually, laughing to tears once escaping from such an adventure. Plus they give you a sweet little pin as a token of your membership. (BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE OMG!)

7) If you accidently get vammoozled into joining a fraternity and don't attend the meetings and they ask you to maybe give the little pin back, keep it. You went through a whole satanic induction for that thing. PLUS, how will people ever believe you if you don't have it?? It'll be a conversation piece for years to come.

8) Showers were overrated in high school. 

9) One can of black beans is only 68 cents and you can TOTALLY get 2 meals out of it AT LEAST. 

10) If you find that you have managed to consume 16lbs of peanut butter in 6 weeks, you probably should maybe consider eating more than just peanut butter for every. single. meal. 

11) Socks can get crunchy if you are choosing to forgo your showering and thus not even taking off your socks for a couple days... Don't do that. Change your socks. 

12) If you are missing your socks, they're in your bed. 

13) If you have a headache at 2 in the afternoon, you didn't drink enough coffee that morning. 

14) Finger painting is one of the best evening activities when you are stressed

15) If you only have one kidney, you should probably try to keep your coffee consumption under 8 cups a day. (Water is a healthy alternative)

16) Try to take out your contacts at LEAST once a month. When they start stickin' to your eyeballs is a good indication you're a little over due for that

17) If you think your professor's hair looks like a mad scientist exploded something and then stood in front of a high powered fan... write it on his evaluation. I'm sure he'd like it. 

18) You can fit at least 8 people in a 5 passenger Buick if you utilize the spaciousness of the trunk. 

19) If you play Candy Crush while your classmates give a boring presentation, you might miss the part where they start convulsing into a seizure while everyone else freaks out.

20) Sit by strangers. You can collect new friends that way. 

21) If you make it a habit of introducing yourself to the classmate next to you and then asking them how their day has been, your classmates might become a little competitive for the seat next to you. :D Again with the friend collecting...easy peasy. 

22) Even if it *is* easier to just hold the onion or the apple or the tomato in one hand and cut it up with the knife in the other, your left hand isn't as solid and un-cut-able as a cutting board, don't use it like one. 

23) Super glue will fix any thing, even cuts from using your hand as a cutting board.

24) If you are in a really introverted mood and plan on taking an outdoor elevator to avoid a large hill and then happen to see a professor lookin' 30 year old guy headed towards the same elevator, if you walk a little bit faster and happen to make it there first and you turn around to hit the "Shut door" button, you may be amused to see him slipping through the snow whilst trying to run to catch that very elevator. And there is something to be said about the evil satisfaction of the door shutting just in time for you to make eye contact for 2 seconds. (actually, that probably wouldn't be very nice of you.. don't do that. Share the elevator with the creepy long-haired professor/TA lookin' guy... he probs hates trudging up hills in the freezing cold as much as you do..)

25) If it says, "Keep out," there's probably a lot of adventure to be had just beyond that sign... :D 

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I've learned more things than that. But those are some of the more profound ones to share. Happy studying, friends!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Home is Where the Heart is

If I could somehow insert some sort of pause that showed how stunned and in awe I am at the Lord, I would put it right here. I almost don't have words, but I don't want to forget it, so I will write it down. 

The Lord is so incredibly faithful. 

If you have followed my blog for any of the last 10 months, then I don't have to tell you how much my heart has become so attached to the little town that is Kalona. Not the town, exactly. But the landscape of farms and hills and sunsets and beauty, and the people! My goodness the people. I hate them for stealing my heart, but I love them. When I go to their church functions or gatherings or even just hangout nights with my friends, it's as if my heart has come home. 

I have, for some time now, been playing with the idea of requesting a mentor or discipler or just some sweet lady from that community to teach me how to be a godly woman of peace and gentleness. The idea first popped into my head almost a year ago to the day. I had yet to meet the most of my Kalona friends at that point, but it was just a few days after a fellow and I had agreed to take a break from our relationship in hopes of its future revival that I found myself sitting in a cute little coffee shop off of the Coralville strip, burying myself in psychology notes and drinking coffees and distracting myself as best as I could from my broken heart. 

I found myself studying at a table that was right next to a girl, whom I had seen at Salt before, and her parents. I didn't know them very well at all..not even her name, I just recognized her. I said "hi" and she sweetly greeted me back and asked me how I was doing. She knew my name, of course, (how does this always happen??) and we made some small talk briefly before my returning to my studies and she to her... uhm.. idk what she was doing... knitting maybe? My head wasn't all there... I had spent too much time crying and drinking coffee and cramming pysch facts into whatever part of my brain still functioned half decently. 

In the midst of our exchangings of pleasantries, her mom asked,"How do you know Hannah?" Ah yes, her name is Hannah.. I love it when people drop the names that I don't remember.. "We go to the same church group at school,"I responded. "Oh! That's wonderful!" is what her mom said. I think Hannah mentioned something about me leading See You At the Pole and her mom smiled ever so sweetly. 

However small or insignificant that interaction may have seemed to them... it meant the world to me. It meant everything for someone to smile at me because, to me, it was a way that God was telling me that I was loved. Yes, the Lord loves me through random people. (ALL THE TIME!). Hannah left shortly there after but her parents stayed sitting doing whatever they were doing.  Perhaps it was an hour or two later that I was still sitting their cramming and numbing my mind when Hannah's mom gathered her things to leave and leaned back over towards me to tell me how glad she was to have met me and that I was welcome out to their farm when ever I should like. 

0_0 And by the way, Fern, God really loves you a lot. In case you didn't pick up on that yet, you are incredibly loved. 

Be still my heart. I LOVE a farm. I grew up on a farm. I love anything away from the city. And even the thought of someone who barely knew me at all inviting to their farm and even stating that I was welcome in their home ministered to me in the deepest places of my heart. 

I have yet to make it out to that farm. But I encountered them several more times at the coffee shop and Hannah has been an incredible blessing as I've met with her for coffee once or twice and have had sweet interactions with her at prayer events and Salt. She's just great! 

But, it was the moment where this sweet Mennonite (Kinda sorta) family just opened their arms to me (OUT OF NO WHERE) that spoke volumes to me and I thought to myself, "I need to be in the presence of sweet ladies like that who are just welcoming to people. I need learn that and be like that." And while I've been terrible at pursuing that, I've still had that desire in my heart these last 12 months. 

Fast forward a little, I survived finals and took my broken heart home and spent most of my break resting in the knowledge of God's love. I then returned to school and continued the waiting game to see if the relationship break would bring about some sort of rekindling or if we were just stirring around a pile of ashes and nothing more. The Lord gave me strength one day at a time, no more than needed, just enough for a day and time continued to pass. 

As Valentines day approached, I could hardly take it any more and spent my afternoon praying and asking the Lord to give me some clarity and relief. I had no sooner said "amen" than my phone buzzed a text message from the fellow and it was clear enough that we had ashes without embers.  
Geez, Lord, did my heart really have to break twice? 

Sneaky Jesus, though. How could He have timed it better? The day after the DTR (Discontinuing of The Relationship) a friend I had not seen in WELL OVER A YEAR popped up and invited me to a Mennonite Valentine thing at his church. (I've blogged all about the Lord's faithfulness there and you are free to go back and read all of that business). And the ladies there were SO sweet and SO welcoming that again I thought, "aww.. if only I had one to pour into me and teach me to how to walk in godliness. "

I just like how they are. Simple, sweet, welcoming, loving, soft spoken, submissive... kind. And seriously, I mean, my friends from Kalona are SO GREAT! Their moms must be rock stars because they did such a great job. So... I've been contemplating how on earth I could coax one of them into taking me under their wing. Mostly I don't actually know any of them and I'm much too shy when it comes to these sorts of things to have the boldness to ask such a huge favor. 

It has been a desire of my heart, though, and I made some progress at the end of the summer when I was invited on a hayride and managed to procure the phone number of one of the sweet ladies who offered me to use her bonfire pit and backyard for all my friends whenever I so desired (She even said she'd put the fire in it for me ahead of time). HOW ARE PEOPLE THIS NICE??? I've asked the advice of some friends and some siblings, "What do you think guys, should I ask one to disciple me?" "well, it's up to you." ...Thanks guys. I mean.. It's a nice idea. I still didn't pursue it, exactly. 

So here I am. One year later having survived an other semester. This time it's not a relationship with a man that seems to be burning out but my very own heart. I've poured out the best I have and that's all I got. I've been meeting with various adults for the last 2 or 3 months, seeking help and encouragement and wisdom on what to do next. While I have an army backing me with prayer, my heart is drying out. More than ever I've been thinking how sweet it'd be to have someone to show me how to do this whole Christianity thing. I've been learning from my peers for 5 years now. I need more. 

A week ago I met with one of our staff to seek some wisdom and she put me in contact with a sweet lady who has been wanting to minister to girls who need it through prayer and encouragement. Well, it's a start at least. Even if not one of those sweet ladies from Kalona, if she loves Jesus, I'll take her. 

:) 

We met over the phone today and she is as sweet as sweet can be. 

"I'm in Iowa City once a week, but I live a little south of there, do you know of Iowa Mennonite School?"

o_o Yes!

"Yeah, well I teach for this homeschool/public school called Mid Prairie in the Kalona area"

Oh you don't say.. 

Well, Lord, aren't you the funniest? You're funny. What a sense of humor laced with every kind of love. Be still my heart. 

How is the Lord this perfect? Or my life even that important that the details would be so exact. Why does the Lord even care to touch me with the things that make my heart so happy?

I mean, how odd and strange of me to be so... obsessed with Kalona. People probably think I'm psycho..that or they ask me which Mennonite boy I'm so in love with that I get so giddy about Kalona. But they don't even know how much my Jesus has touched my heart via the people. I go back because Jesus is there and He loves me. 

My Jesus. I am home with Him. 

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Lost my ID

Nine. That's how many posts I've drafted and not shared in the recent past. Mostly because they are incomplete...I can't even promise I'll get around to posting this one. 

I've been lost lately. That's been the main theme of the posts that weren't posted. I'm lost and have no idea who I am or what I am or where I'm going. I've been in a valley a lot longer than I've cared to allow myself to realize. Mostly because it looks so drastically different from the last valley I walked in, I hardly can bring myself to admit that even with a life as blessed and "unbroken" as I have *right* now... it's still a valley. I suppose I imagined that all valleys must have a steep incline going into them, a complete cloud cover of darkness, slimy mud at the bottom, the worst torments on all sides, and a greater incline coming out. 

That is not my valley now. My valley, though dark and hazy, was not steep nor was it too deep to see any light at all. Perhaps it's been an uphill battle and that is why I didn't notice a valley. An uphill battle with more burdens and weight than I ever had the strength to carry in the first place. And now, as things begin to close, I realize I've become entirely weakened by everything and am in want for motivation to go much further. 

"You failed, " is what most often plays through my head. Though, I know the voice of my savior and those words are not His. I can't help but think there is some inkling of truth to this lie. I've never been one to consider quitting ministry. Ministry is my whole heart and passion and all I ever want to do with my life. However, I can't help but think I'm not cut out for it any more. Maybe at one point, I had some sort of gift in leadership, maybe.. but I think maybe I lost it? Or dropped it. Or failed to foster growth in it and it died? Perhaps this is why I feel most lost.... because the most of my identity has been wrapped in leadership and ministry for so many years and now I feel unsuited for it. I just don't know who I am. 

I don't know where I'm going. Part of me doesn't want to know. Most of me doesn't. I've dreamed of my future before and the broken glass pieces of those shattered dreams are more damaging than the joy that brought them to existence. But that makes me lost, too, because I have no structure or guidance or goals to move me forward. I don't know what I'll do if not ministry. But perhaps it is that I just need to be refueled, refilled, replenished before taking up that cross once more. I'd hate to think that now is when I bury it forever. But then again, if it's not my gift any more, than maybe I'm in the wrong for not letting it go. 

I just don't know. 

Someone asked me how my life was yesterday. All I could do was repeat "I don't know" over and over. Because I don't. I mean, in my mind it's good. It's great. It's more ideal than I could ever imagine. But in my heart, all I can think is that I'm not okay any more. There is something wrong, something off, something broken, something empty, something missing, something something something causing me to feel like life is way too overrated. Not in a suicidal way, of course, but I just feel... over it. I don't know.

I'm too much of a people pleaser too. I've known this a while. But, I mean, I can't win. I can't, and I'm accepting defeat. Here's my white flag, guys, and my pink slip too while I'm at it. 

One time, I made a cake and it was supposed to be tall and stacked. But it was really moist and when I put the frosting on it, the frosting collecting crumbs and chunks of the cake and rather than having a nicely stacked and smoothly frosted cake, I had a mass of chunky icing on a cake so heavy that it began to fall over and crumble apart. I reached out my hand to save the cake and supported it with my hand, keeping it from falling whilst trying to come up with a plan for its salvation. It *looked* like the shape of cake I wanted with my hands there, but I knew that as soon as I took my hands away, the cake was going to fall splat on the counter. I thought and debated and tried to figure out a way to support it and get it to stay without my hands.... there was no way. My hands removed, the cake surely did fall splat. 

That's how I feel like my area of ministry has been this semester. With my hands holding together a messy crumbling structure that never had much hope of standing in the first place. I've decided to take my hands away and step away kinda sorta. I feel cruel, like I'm abandoning my sinking ship before it has totally sunk. You know, you feel guilty getting out alive when maybe there was ONE LAST Thing that could have been done before you took to the life boat. 

At the same time, there is no denying that it seems to have been something of a bottle rocket that whistled at take off but never made the popping sound at the end. A dud, I guess. But it was my responsibility. It was my duty and assignment. It was what was asked of me and I came up short. 

It goes to show that I am way too proud. Way to confident in my competence even. And I know that it wasn't a fail altogether, because I have learned and have been stretched and will eventually grow into what the Lord has desired to strengthen in me. But I'm sorry for those that had to live through my learning. Because I will not have been able to minister to them in the way I will have learned to minister because of them. I'm sorry I was not competent when they needed me to be. I'm sorry that they were the trial and error in that area of my faith. I know *I* benefited from it, but I can't help but feel guilty because they were left high and dry as a result. 

Home for Thanksgiving was too good. It's like a break from reality. I always lose my phone on the first day and have no need for it until I pack up and leave because there isn't actually anyone who'd wish to contact me via phone that wasn't already present (Apart from a roommate, maybe). No stress for having to be anywhere, please anyone, or even witness to anyone. I mean, of course you should be Jesus to your family, but I at least have the blessing of not having to feel like I need to be the perfect Christ-model when I'm home because my family knows all my crap anyways and they'll call me out on it faster than anyone else I know. 

Just accepted for no reason. I like that. The real world isn't like home. Once you make up who you are, you have to keep being you in your unique little way so that people will want to keep you. If you have a unique sort of gift or quirk or mannerism, you have to emphasize it and own it and hone in on it for the sake of individuality. At home we're all naturally different so we don't have to exhaust ourselves trying to be different. Not that people are all fake, their unique difference are just over-emphasized while we air brush everything else. Or maybe I'm the only one else that does that. I don't think I am, but I'm not above owning it, even if it is just me. 

So what next? I hardly know. I'm still holding  out on deciding one way or another. I wasn't planning to walk away from ministry just yet. I have one or two more matches to strike before the fire is completely snuffed out. I need people, basically. I need people who love Jesus to tell me how to love Jesus better. I'm obviously not figuring it out on my own very well. I need Jesus too. Really really really badly I do. I need the real Jesus. One with Truth along with grace who will give my life some structure and direction and can make it stand up when it brinks collapsing. 

I need to know who I am. 

“We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.” 
― C.S. Lewis