Reflections On My Current Life

Tomorrow I go back to school for the final push before Christmas break. The Thanksgiving holiday this year was both good and hard. Not being able to come home much this year has made me appreciate home ever so much more. Not having Alise in town has forced me to stick around home a little more when I am here and spend more time with my family. (There's a silver lining in every cloud, right?!) I enjoyed every second of baking pies, playing board games with the people I love, coloring and cooking and laughing with the kiddos, shopping with my Mom, and working outside with my Dad.

On Thanksgiving morning though, the phone rang at 6:30 am. Jerry (Dick's dad) had died and Mom went down to stay with the kids so Dick and Christina could go over there. We all knew this was coming. He had been sick for so long and for the last week he had been completely unresponsive, so we knew the end was near. But I don't think that anything could prepare a person for that shock. It was so hard seeing my brother and sister in so much pain. Christina's grief was much more open than Dick's was, but it was easy to see the pain etched all over even my normally very non-emotional brother's face. They came over to Thanksgiving dinner, but Dick was even quieter than usual and spent most of the time sitting in the recliner. I never know what to do or say in situations like these, especially with someone like Dick. He's so quiet and reserved, that I'm not sure if he would rather avoid the topic or if he needed to be told how sorry I was. My sister is a little easier, because she cries a lot and I can easily hug her and tell her how much I love her.

So overall, Thanksgiving was not a happy day, but it was still a blessing to spend it with my family. I keep being reminded though, of Romans 8:28, "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." For quite a few months now, as I've been praying for Dick, I keep getting the feeling that God is at work in his life, and that there could be a spiritual breakthrough coming. My prayer for Dick right now, is that his dad's death will cause him (as well as his brothers and sister) to think about the important things of life. Maybe this will be the stimulus that will prod Dick to start asking the hard questions and to start seeking the Lord in his own life.

I'm dreading going back to Oregon tomorrow. If I had my way, I'd hole up in Lewis County and very rarely leave. But there's only three weeks until Christmas break, and I need to finish this semester out strong. My heart is here though. I love this place, I love these people, I love my life here. I really enjoy traveling, but this is the place I want to come home to. This is where I want to live out my life, minister, raise my kids, and grow old and die.

It's funny how life changes. I realized something tonight, and I sent Alise this text. "A year ago this week, we were all together. You, me, Anthony, Ben, and Jordon. Watching "Kingdom of Heaven" at Ben's house and sitting in Gee Cees until 2am. Remember that?" It was the first time we'd all been together in over a year because of Ben and I and Jordon going off to school and Anthony being deployed to Asia and Alise being in the Middle East for three months. Now, it's a year later and the idea of all of us being together again isn't even in the foreseeable future. Tony is married and splitting his time between San Diego with his wife, and Bremerton with his ship. Alise is living in California. Ben and I are still in Oregon. Jordon will probably be married by next summer. Another night like that one at the Martin's house a year ago will probably never happen again. October in San Diego was close to a reunion . . . four out of the five of us in one place, but it wasn't quite complete without Jordon. In the words of Alise, "I miss us."

Speaking of the future, my parents have been dropping ridiculous hints about me getting married. On Wednesday they were talking about car insurance and informed that if I get married by the time I'm 21, my insurance premiums will go down. "We were hoping you'd come home with some big news at Thanksgiving, so you'd better get on that!" I think they were only partially joking.

Then this morning, my mom and I were shopping for Christmas presents and we found the cutest little Carhartt sweatshirt that we wanted to buy for Ryan. I was lamenting that Ryan was the last little boy that I could buy flannel and camouflage for, and my mom gave me a knowing look and said, "Oh no, I'm sure he won't be the last, you'll contribute to the grandchildren soon!" Great. Now Mom is just waiting for me to add to the grandchild population. Do they realize that no guy is even interested in me? Well, I'm pretty sure they think I'm dating someone and just haven't told them, but that's another story altogether. Sorry Mom and Dad, I'm working on the getting married and having babies business, but it's a process that just can't be rushed.

Mood: A bit random
Music: "Mother Gigogne and the Clowns" from The Nutcracker

The Giving of Thanks

Over the past six to nine months, God has been teaching and re-teaching me to focus on His blessings to me and thank Him continually for all He has done in my life. So since today is Thanksgiving, I thought I'd write down a few of the many people and things for which I am so grateful.

• My Parents: Despite all the heck I've put them through being the VERY non-traditional and black sheep daughter, they still love me so much. Though in some situations it has taken longer than in others, they've supported me in all my decisions, even though they don't really understand why I do some of the things I do. My Mom is the one who laid deep spiritual foundations in my life and modeled for me what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus. My Daddy is the smartest and most trustworthy man I have ever met, completely devoted to his family and never gives up. I love you guys, and God couldn't have given me better parents than you!
• Christina & Dick: I am so blessed to be able to say that my sister is also one of my best friends. Who would have thought that with 15 years between us, that kind of relationships would even be possible? But it's true, and I can't imagine life without her and her husband and her crazy kiddos. Dick is truly my brother, since I really can't remember much of life before he was a part of it. He worries about me and fixes my car for me and is so good to my sister. What more could I ask for?
• Joe & Carol: The things my brother and I have in common are kind of an odd smorgasbord of seemingly unrelated interests, but there's few people in the world that share my love of hiking and Apple computers like Joe does. He has always been my big brother and my hero; I always wanted to be like him. God has given him the gift of compassion and an ability to help people in pain, both medically and mentally, and I marvel at what an amazing doctor he is. Like my dad, he is a wonderful husband and father, and I hope and pray that someday my husband will be as good and loving to his kids as Joe is. I couldn't have asked for a better sister-in-law than Carol. She fits so seamlessly into our family, you'd never know she's only been here for eight years.
• Danny & Sean: Yes, I have an amazing family, but the Lord knew that I needed a second family as well. In the areas where Mom and Dad kind of scratch their heads about me, Danny and Sean understand my passion and my dreams and my vision and cheer me on even when it seems like no one else is there. In the areas where my family lacks communication, they are the ones I can talk to. When a guy shows up in my life and wants to date me, Danny is the one he'll have to talk to.
• Alise: I don't even know where to start with this girl. She understands me like no one else does. She's the person that I can talk to when even I don't quite understand what I'm thinking, and she'll help me piece it together. I can talk to her about everything from where I'm struggling in my walk with the Lord to the ridiculous talk about boys. I know that no matter how far away we are on the map, and no matter what the future holds, we will always be friends . . . that's just how it is. She can't get rid of me very easily!
• Ben: My friendship with this guy has survived some interesting hurdles, but it has definitely come out stronger because of them. He's easily one of the only people that I would even attempt a San Diego road trip with (there and back in one weekend) and the fact that after 36 hours in the car together we don't hate each other, is a miracle in itself! No matter what the future holds, Ben will always have a special place in my heart, and he is a tremendous blessing in my life.
• Danielle: She started out as my high school English teacher, and now I am blessed to consider her a true kindred spirit and friend! She is one of the easiest people I know to talk to, and just being with her makes me feel warm and comfortable. She is such a talented young woman with so much to offer, and I wait in joyful anticipation to see where God will lead her. No matter how long it's been since I last saw her, I feel like I can always sit down with Dani and pick up right where we left off!
• My RA Team: Kristy, Madi, Brenna, Michelle, and Amanda have become probably my closest friends at school this year. As RAs, we experience college life in a way that other students do not, and the six of us share many joys and sorrows. I love each one of them so dearly and I'm honored to serve the Balyo girls alongside them. Vince, Steve, Brady, and Joel, my brother dorm RAs, have blessed my life so much this year as well. It is such a joy to see these guys serving the Lord and serving their peers with such joyful hearts. They continually remind me that yes, there ARE amazing Godly young men still out there, and encourage me to keep my standards set high!

I could literally go on and on and on. But . . . It's 1:30AM now, and I'm getting up in 2 1/2 hours to go Black Friday shopping with Mom. So this may or may not be continued at a later date. But as I look over this list again, my heart sings praise because the Lord has indeed blessed me so abundantly. And this list is only the beginning of the people He's blessed me with . . . I haven't even touched on things like the blessing of my school, my job, my ministry as an RA, my church, and living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Sometimes the sheer immensity of it all threatens to overwhelm me, and all I can say is, "Thank You Jesus."

Mood: Grateful

Music: Nutcracker music

Tears

There is a crying party going on in my room right now. Girls are sitting on my couch holding each other and bawling. Lots of kleenex are involved.

I feel like this is a phenomenon that I will never fully understand. I don't like to cry in front of people. In fact, I will go to great lengths to make sure that people do not see me cry.  But when I do, I try my best to be alone when the tears flow.  And when those times come, I bawl and sob and sniff and wail, but I do it by myself.

So maybe it's just my personality? Maybe it's because I'm not much of a girly-girl? But whatever the reason, I don't understand crying parties. Why on earth one would want to be in a room with a bunch of people, multiple boxes of kleenex, and millions of tears is beyond me.

Mood: Contemplative
Music: Rain outside

Thoughts From Tonight

I'm sitting in my room with my feet propped up on my desk listening to a hum-dinger of a wind/rain storm howl outside my window. In my current position, my feet and my gluteus maximus will "fall asleep" in approximately 5-10 minutes, but that's ok. Right now I am oh-so-comfortable.

Today as I was meeting with Dr. Baker to schedule my spring semester classes, he mentioned that we'll be filling out my graduation application soon. Talk about a rather frightening moment. Eighteen months from now, Lord willing, I'll walk out of this institution with a Bachelors degree in Student and Family Ministry, about $45,000 in debt, and from my current point of view, no clue what to do with that piece of paper I spent so much time and money acquiring. I am a female, Southern Baptist, ministry major who is basically expected to use that degree to be a really good volunteer Sunday School teacher. Now trust me, I don't have anything against being a Sunday School teacher; I think that those men and women are some of the most influential and wonderful people in a kid's life, and I'm sure I will spend a lot of time doing just that, no matter what my career plans end up looking like, and that will be an incredible honor, but I feel like God has called me to something else too.

I did quite a bit of research on seminary graduate programs tonight, and I was left feeling a bit perplexed. Why do I even want to go to seminary? Spending that much more money on ministry education will definitely not be worth it financially. However, I do love school, I really do. I like learning new things, I like reading, and yes, I even like writing papers. (Which is what I should be doing right now, but that's another story!) The only practical reason for me to get my MDiv would be so that I could be a college professor. And is that what I want to do? Not necessarily, but I wouldn't rule it out. I love writing, and one of my favorite classes so far has been my Curriculum Development class where I wrote a Bible Study. I could write?

So these thoughts don't make a lot of sense, but oh well. That's all for tonight, I need to finish writing my exegetical now.

Mood: Contemplative
Music: The rain outside :)

Layers

Tonight in our RA meeting we talked about layers and we made these little "Layer Jars." You know, those things you used to make in elementary school where you take a clear jar and pour the layers of sand into it to create a cool design. There are a lot of parallels that one can draw from our little object lesson, and we talked about several different aspect of layers - good and bad reasons that people layer their lives, layers in our own lives, layers in the lives of girls in our halls, how to dig into those layers, etc. The point that stuck out to me though was the idea of layers in my own life, and an off-hand comment that Pam made about the colors we chose for the layers in our jars.



These are pictures of the layer jar I made. As we were all sitting there looking at each other's jars, Pam made some funny comments about them and about the colors we'd ended with. Kristy's was yellow like the bright, happy, sunshine-y person that she is; Madi's was orange, a deeper, rich and slightly less in-your-face joy, etc. Inadvertently, I realized, each one of us had chose an ending color that in some way really did describe that outer layer of ourselves - the one that most of the world sees and the one that tends to define us.

Mine was brown. It's a really normal color, it's not bright and flashy, it's the color of the everyday things we see all around us. It's dirt, it's tree trunks, it's rocks, and it's a river at flood stage. It's a little dull, it's not the first thing people notice. Way too often I realize that I'm comparing myself to the sunshine people and the and the rainbow people and the blue sky people, and I always come up short. I'm not a super gifted teacher or speaker; I'm not the one that the kids always gravitate towards; I'm not outgoing or dynamic like all the good youth leaders I know; I don't have a unified, fun-loving hall like the other RA on my floor; I screw up so often, and it always seems like I'm surrounded by people who have it all together. Gosh, I admit it, a lot of times I do feel like dirt - ordinary, unimportant, and altogether substandard when compared to the things around me. But I forget that dirt has its place too. How would flowers grow without the dirt? How could little kids make mud pies without dirt? How could people make adobe bricks without dirt? It's not flashy and it's not dynamic, but it has its place and it serves a purpose. God has made me EXACTLY who He wanted me to be. At this particular point in my life, I'm not supposed to be the "sunshine girl" who is dynamic and outgoing, or the "blue sky girl" who the little kids all love and cling to, or the "rainbow girl" who always has the right words to say at just the right times. God will grow me and stretch me in the ways that He needs me to be grown and stretched in order to fit His purposes in His timing. Yes, I think that He's called me to youth ministry, and in these moments where I'm being honest and vulnerable, that scares me out of my mind. When I look at myself, I don't see someone who is a good candidate for leading teenagers. I see dirt and rocks and tree trunks and muddy rivers. But God sees who I can become if I'll just submit all my "brown-ness" to Him and let him mold me into something He can use. Because hey, clay is brown too, and the good thing about clay is that it's easily moldable. Oh Jesus, please let me be brown clay that You can make into something useable.

The second thing I thought about as we were making our jars, was about those layers beneath the brown. Getting to those other colors requires some digging, some time, and some effort before someone can really see what's under the initial brown on top. I started wondering: Do I really have people in my life who even know that there's greens and blues down there? Do I have people in my life who know that there are even more brown patches beneath the surface? As I thought about it, a couple people came immediately to mind - Alise and Sean and Danny - but there's definitely no one in my life here in Salem that knows my deeper layers. Those three people that I already mentioned mean the world to me, and it's a comfort to know that they are always only a phone call away and they would do anything in their power for me if I needed it, but at the same time, they're not HERE. They're in CR and SoCal and they're not walking through everyday life with me during this season. That's definitely not their faults, or anyone else's; it's just how life is. But I am lonely. It's funny how I can live in a building with 90 other young women and still feel so utterly alone sometimes. There's no one here who really knows me, who knows what makes me "tick," who knows what I'm passionate about, who knows what I struggle with, who knows ME at my core. And that, my friend, really sucks. If there's anything I re-realized in these past few days, it's how much I value relationships. I desperately want to know people and be known by others. I want to really live in community and share my life with others. I need to be held accountable and be spurred on in my walk with the Lord. I want to be known. But that seems like an overwhelming request. How do I go about that? How can I have that sort of relationship with someone here, at school, in the insanity that is my life?

So many questions. But questions are good. You can't find answers until you first ask the questions.

Mood: Contemplative

Music: None