The Silverware Anniversay

While packing my room getting ready to move for the umpteenth time my life, I came across some of my old journals. I flipped through them, one journal was from this time last year, one was from 2002 and one chronicled the beginning weeks of my new life in Salt Lake City. I found it appropriate to spend a little time this afternoon strolling down memory lane, since today is my five year anniversary of moving to Salt Lake City.

Looking over these journals, I was surprised by how much I have not changed. (Get ready, here comes a tangent ...) My handwriting has not though, which I find quite curious, I didn't think handwriting was actually supposed to change. And I don't mean it's gotten neater, or more like a grown-up's writing, I mean literally, the way in which I form letters has changed. Weird.

My prayers aren't all that different now from what they were five years ago, or three years ago, or even last year. I still spend a lot of time languishing over boys like a twelve year old girl. I'm still begging God to take over my whole entire heart. I'm still praying to be used effectively by him. And I'm still waiting.

I'm still waiting for a nice boy to come along and realize how bad ass I really am - in a Christian sort of way. (No one will ever be able to accuse me of having low self-esteem, that much is true.) I'm still waiting for God to take over my whole heart, because the further along this road I walk with him, the more I recognize the nastiness of my flesh. I'm still waiting to be used effectively by God, because there is so much work to be done.

Does that mean God hasn't answered any of these prayers? At first, after glancing over these journals, I thought maybe it did, but that's just my current dissatisfaction with life affecting my perception of the truth.

The boy thing? Well, that's sort of it's own punchline between me and God (and my closest friends) at this point in time. I can't guard my heart worth a damn, but I certainly can sit on my hands.

In regard to the last two issues, the ones that really are more important than whether or not I ever get married, I think it comes down to this: Yes, I am depressed. Yes, I am disappointed in my current state of affairs. Yes, I am disenchanted with God. All of that is true, and I don't think there is a single shred of harm in admitting it.

Because I have admitted it, and owned up my frustrations, I find myself in a bizarre place with God, somewhere our relationship has never gone before. Simultaneously, I feel that Jesus Christ is both my only hope for anything good to come out of my life and the only person in whom I can put all of my trust in as well as my greatest adversary. (I understand theologically that he is not, I'm just be honest right now.) The very fact that I can tell God that I'm frustrated with Him and what He is doing in my life, but continue to seek His face, continue to follow His word, and continue to desire him, well that has to count for something, right?

Right?

How Long?

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again.
How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.
How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow.
How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
How long? Not long, because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword. His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpets that shall never call retreat. He is lifting up the hearts of men before His judgement seat. Oh, be swift, my soul to answer Him. Be jubilant, my feet. Our God is marching on.

-Martin Luther King, Jr speaking after a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama

Crush of the Week

The first real crush I can remember was on Luke Skywalker. No kidding. I'm more of a Han Solo girl these days, but I can recall the exact place I was seated in my parents living room (on top of the heating vent at my father's feet) the first time I thought "That boy is cute." I could have been no older than four sitting there watching Luke Skywalker crash his X-wing in the into the snow during the opening battle of "The Empire Strikes Back."


The crushes have never really stopped since then ...


I think of a crush as overwhelming feelings of adoration for a person, place or thing, whom for a brief period of time you wonder how on earth you ever lived and breathed without experiencing their presence, and in whom you develop a persistant desire to unfolded every aspect of their being. And then, you get over it.


With this definition in mind, I've had a lot of crushes over the years, and they don't always relate to people.


Here's a list of my current crushes:

• Doug Fabrizio, host of Radio West on KUER. I have no idea what he looks like, nor do I enjoy his show all that much, but each morning when he chimes in during the local news report, I find his voice riveting.
• Coretta Scott King, I'm just shy of finishing a biography of Martin Luther King, Jr and over and over again he explains that his wife and the support she gave him are what allowed him to be the man he was and lean the peaceful revolution that he did. I want to know more about her, and how to be a wife of a man like that.
• Body for Life (I never said it had to be a human being). Um, I never really thought that I would publically admit that I enjoy excerise, but seriously, I've only been doing this program for a week and I can't get enough of it.
• Hazelnut Gelato. Reason alone to go to Provo.

R&R

There's a rainbow and a river outside my door, and the sky is the color I fancy it will be when Jesus comes back. The clouds cover the blue and are so dark they are nearly purple, the living breathing definition of grouchy. But there's light too, coming from somewhere that I can't see, and it's like it's trapped underneath those heavy heavy clouds an it just keeps bouncing and fracturing and shining.

Light never dies, it just goes somewhere else for the time being.

There's a rainbow and river outside my door, and I'm wondering why things are the way they are and why I always wonder why things are the way they are.

We just tried to send my roommates weinerdog down the raging gutter river like baby Moses, but she resisted and flipped us off. It's true, I saw it happen. Then we raced pine cones in the raging gutter river, while our elderly across the street neighbor scowled at us standing at his door in only his short shorts. I waved and he smiled. Sometimes old men aren't angry, their faces just make them look that way. Matt Miller won the pine cone race. Of course.

Mostly, when I think too much or try to withdraw the spiritual symbolism of of standing at my doorstep gazing at a rainbow and a raging river and I remember that God gave Noah a rainbow to show him that He would keep all of His promises after destroying the world, the best thing to do is go run around outside and yell.

Yelling always makes me feel better.