I'm back! It's Saturday Morning, I'm full of anxiety from a big life movie, and I'm back!

Let's see...what has happened in the meantime? I moved two times, went on a big adventure to Montana summer 2016, another best friend got married, my sister had two more babies, my mom and brother moved close to Kearsen, and so I decided I should move closer, too. Oh, and I turned 30.

I said goodbye and hello to too many people to count, and even though I've broken down in tears and broken out in panic, I can count it all as a blessing.

Encouragement

Encouragement is something we all need. Not unnecessary, but real and thoughtful encouragement.

I experienced that today in talking with some former students who asked the question, "have I changed in four years?" 

"Oh yes," I said. "You have," and then I gushed for some time about their academic, spiritual, and cognitive development. 

Without going into specifics (to protect their identities) I have to say it is a special privilege to see four years of growth and to share with them my findings. And then they looked at each other and pointed out more strengths.

Sharing kind words is important. 

It's easy to keep our encouragements hidden, to tell these words to someone else, to write them in a letter of recommendation, or to toast them at someone's wedding. 

What would happen if we let others know their strengths along the road and not at some expected benchmark?

From my experience, there is only good that can come from it. People work more diligently. They know they've been noticed. They are careful not to lose that strength and take more ownership of it.

So encourage others. Prove what you say using examples. Before you know it, there will be a ripple effect. 

Had to be There

Yesterday my roommates and I went shopping and ate out at Olive Garden. After a thirty minute wait as per usual in Merrillville, our buzzer flashed and we were seated at a booth right by the kitchen. 

Our waitor came and asked if we wanted salad and bread sticks. Of course, we said. So he came back later with my roommates' soups and the salad and asked how much cheese we wanted while he shredded it over the salad. 

It's a typical experience at Olive Garten. But because it's me and my roommates, no common experience can remain. 

Waitor shreds cheese: I just think of A Goofy Movie when Max's friend says, "it's a leanin' tower of cheeseeh," which earlier had elicited a few rounds of laughter between Alison and me. 

Result: weird smiling at the waitor.

Shelley and Alison eat soup: it has dumplings in it. Earlier we had talked about shortening words like appetizers to 'apps' and deserts to 'zerts' like they do on Parks and Rec (a lot of my inspiration comes from TV/Movies, obviously). Shelley says to Alison, "How do you like your dumps?" 

Result: chaotic bursts of laughter and puns and more smiling at the waitor

And maybe this isn't all laugh-out-loud funny for other people, but I'm going say one of the most important lessons our generation needs to learn: you had to be there.

Merry Christmas, Friends!

                    

                                                 ‘Tis the Season

“I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I come to die, discover that I had not lived.”
- Thoreau

If you have been following me on one of five social websites, here is another medium to let you know I'm doing well this year. I considered sending a photo of me alone by the Christmas tree, but that doesn’t sum up what God has done this year.

Instead I have included a photo with my two roommates who both teach elementary, Shelley fifth grade and Alison first. They look and act similarly as you can see. Both are the third child with two much older brothers, and both love the Hallmark Channel, which I am still getting used to*. We moved in to Shelley's house in August. She's the real adult who organizes bills and makes lists of chores to do, I'm an adult by way of being twenty-seven, and Alison is the baby at twenty-two and definitely the loudest. We enjoy watching New Girl and eating delicious Sunday dinners with Shelley's parents.

Only a few days after New Years the storms began, propelling snow days and time to pick up old hobbies. Consider my hands equity. I crocheted Cabbage Patch Kid wigs, mittens of equal size, headbands, scarves, flippy mittens, bearded hats, etc. You name it, I could at least attempt to make it. I also baked for neighbors in my apartment complex to be more social and to clarify that we were all still alive. Just as Thoreau learned much while he traversed alone by a pond, I feel it important to share lessons that I have learned through the year. Lesson: seek whatever motivates you to change out of sweatpants.

Enthused to retreat from the long winter, I spent spring break with Jim and Cherie Rozendal in Florida, which included quiet mornings on the beach and visiting Jim at his new school. For those who don't know, I lived with them for three years in DeMotte. I think I cried when my flight took off for home again but was appeased by an elderly woman wearing a unicolor jumpsuit and satin scarf: her favorite literature were horror novels. “When you’re eighty,” she said, “something has to thrill you.” Lesson: become an 80-year-old woman who shocks people.

I chaperoned the juniors from Covenant on a service week to Kentucky. There we cleaned and repainted a house among a gamut of other services. This is an interesting time for teachers and students because we all wear jeans and we learn how each other operate, like which people have a tough work ethic and which are street savvy. For instance, I’m a clumsy person, but that never hurt anyone else until I nearly backed five students off a cliff in a fifteen passenger van. All were silent until one casually warned me we were six inches from our death. Lesson for students: if a teacher trips over desks in the classroom, she likely stumbles upon adventure elsewhere.

In May my first freshmen class graduated, which means I have begun my years of feeling old. After a series of sentimental quiet moments and after my co-worker Andrew Dunham* expressed how he had also once "had a moment," I realized that I'll always have to say goodbye to them. An optimist would say “I’ll always get to say hello.” Or would an optimist say the former? Lesson: “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices...If a man’s gift is teaching, let him teach.”

My apartment lease came up in May, so Irv and Liz Dorn invited me to live with them for the summer before I moved in with Shelley. That wasn't a hard choice. Great company, a beautiful sunroom, AND a pool? I did not refuse. Liz and I sipped coffee and conversed mid-mornings, and Irv invited me to ride on their motorcycles twice, which is the most thrilling thing. When they vacated I took care of the house and their cat BK, whom I love*. Lesson: God uses people as pillars of service.

Tyrel and Kearsen flew to Indiana in July. Set to prove it has attractions, I drove them to Lake Michigan and we spent an evening touring Chicago, eating Pop Rocks, and looking out from the Willis Tower at night. Lesson: in the midst of good company, one could enjoy any place.

In August Kearsen, my niece Brinley, and I hiked at Palisades. B and I also spent mornings playing wedding with her Disney dolls. Cinderella and Belle were wed multiple times. On that same vacation, my friends Elizabeth and Josh married. As part of the bridal party I feel it my duty to remain a keen observer of this union. Happily I report that since being married, her Twitter has barely changed proving that one does remain witty in marriage. Lesson: in the best moments, time eludes us.

I did not coach volleyball this Fall, and that is fine because teaching English is busy enough. I did, however, have time to prepare a sectional for the Christian Educators Association about blogging in the classroom. Recently, I have resumed crocheting. Two days ago I made a sweater for a snake named Monty for Covenant's annual ugly Christmas sweater day. All my family have requested crocheted things this year, so arthritis may kick in early. Lesson: “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! Let your affairs be as two or three” (Thoreau).

I look onward to Christmas with the Boman family and am thankful they will be there at the close of this year. I pray that you and your kin are well and that you serve God right where you are. Christ’s blessings are profound, so reflect on your year with thanksgiving in your hearts and praise to Him who was and is and is to come. Lesson: If you can, turn a Christmas tree selfie into an 'ussie'.

With love,

               Laurissa

“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.”
-Luke 2:11

_____________________________________________________________________________________
*Hallmark - ...except that one is indistinguishable from the next.
*Dunham - co-worker - a few years my senior. He claims to be an effective mentor. I'll be kicking myself for proving him right this time. Beware. His ego is bound to nearly triple.
*BK - ...selectively

Questions

Mom told me a while ago that I'm quite good at asking people questions. Call me a cryptic child, but I wouldn't just offer information when someone asked, "how was your day?" Like most children, I'm sure. But ask me the right question and I could give an answer that satisfied well enough. "Does Mr. C challenge you in reading?" Hmmm. I'd have to think a while, but that's always the first step to a good reply. 

I think it was stitched in me before time began. "You, daughter, will ask questions."

And I did: "Hey there, Don. How fast can your wheelchair go? When did you move into the retirement home? What if you had a standing wheel chair? Would you like that better?" I was very young when I asked a middle-aged man Don these questions and it would lead to a walk all over Churchill, Montana, and him explaining how he got in that motorcycle accident in the 70s.

And questions would lead to knowing every story about my dad and grandmother.

And to knowing that my mom had gone on 15 - 20 dates in high school, which I - a sophomore who had no idea what a date even felt like - concluded that times have just changed. I couldn't handle that many dates.

And English-teacher-turned-potato-farmer's wife knowing as easily how to ask me questions as we walked through spud fields picking out bad plants. And how that led to wondering exactly how God chose to create the world and exactly how she ended up on a potato farm.

And long conversations with my great grandmother before she died. She related what it was like in the early 30s, during the depression to move away to take care of a family and clean for them and to come back with a husband, a man orphaned as a child and very much needing a home and a family.

I have to be careful when I ask questions, however, because my adult self is not as earnest as my child self. To ask and already think you know the answer is manipulative. So I try to ask out of true curiosity, and of course to get to know people better.

Make 'Em Laugh

The year was 1994. I sat with my class in the school library while our librarian Mrs. Green explained its function - how to check out a book. Half my peers rested their heads on their hands and listened to our instructor drone on, a scene reminiscent in Charlie Brown.

I was drawing on the library table when I knocked a pencil to the ground. I took two dramatic steps toward it, picked it up, held it close in front of my eyes so that they crossed, and smiled triumphantly. A couple students giggled, which was when I realized Mrs. Green was speaking mostly to the other side of the circle. It was with this understanding (of something called a 'loophole') I discovered that not following Mrs. Green's every order was sort of fun. And it was even better to make my classmates laugh. 

Noticing I had gotten up, Mrs. Green turned and told me to sit. I did. But when she turned again to continue her lesson, I stood again and waved my hands in the air and performed as I'd seen clowns do. I waved my hands in circles then stood and pretended to fall. 

By now I had the whole class's attention. They laughed through Mrs. Green's lesson, which encouraged me to continue my antics. 

"Sit down," she said, "or you will have to see the principal." 

A bit phased, I sat, put my head down on my desk, and listened for a while when a thought occurred. I had one more trick. They had to see it.

Mrs. Green's back was again turned. I stood, walked behind her, then pretended to be punched and fell down into perfectly choreographed splits.

The class laughed and Mrs. Green kept her promise, pointing toward the door and commanding that I leave for the principal's office. 

Being quite a shy kid, however, I felt not punished but proud of myself for making people laugh. The only thing better was to hear my principal say, "I heard you caused quite a scene in the library today."

"Yes, sir," I smiled. "I did." 

Happy to Need

What follows is a discussion of my recent post “Needy” in a series of e-mails that evaluate this universal feeling. My friend is in a similar stage of life and is always a good sounding board. It is with her permission I publish this. Enjoy!

Laurissa!

I just read your recent blog posting, and it is very well-written!  I understand so much what you have written!  

I don't consider you or me to be a needy person, and yet the more I grow older, the more I realize maybe I am, or maybe more appropriately lonely.  It is a good reminder to turn it over to God.  I pray about it daily, but maybe a simple prayer is not enough.

I like how you put "there is a basic fear among us, I think - anticipation of loneliness".  I don't think there could be a more accurate description of my life right now.  Sure I have friends, and yes I have social outings, but it’s always an empty home to come home to.  

I don't even think it’s the longing to date and be married, although I do long for that as well.  That feeling is reinforced by the sister planning a wedding, a roommate planning a wedding, dates every other evening, and I fit in wherever they have time but the conversation MUST revolve around what song to walk down the aisle to, what color is best for bridesmaid dresses, are party favors necessary, etc.

So yes, that is part of it.  But I think the anticipation of loneliness goes further.  I think it is just anxiety to have friends.  To be able to go home at night without thinking there is absolutely no one to call up for dinner because they have a husband, they have children, or they have a family in town.  I'm tired of ranking second or third or fourth.  But I do take matters into my own hands...on Sunday I called up my friend's mom for a walk because I knew she goes by herself most Sundays.  Strange? Maybe yes, but so nice.  

And yet, this time of life is relaxing. It’s free time, and it’s time I will never get back when I have a family or a husband.  But I totally get what you say...what to do with an anxious heart.  It’s one of my biggest struggles.  I thought I would give you my thoughts, because I've been pondering them all day!   

God has a plan, and continual prayer is important.  With that, I'm off to eat dinner and watch Downton Abby.... I have watched two seasons in two weeks (talk about spending too much time by myself!)  

I'm not sure what else is new in my life... I just froze all sorts of zucchini, strawberries, and blueberries for the year ahead.  I hiked a mountain on Tuesday which was awesome. :) 

Take care! Let me know what else is new with you, and how the summer is going :)  

Love, Friend

*           *           *

Dear Friend,

Dah! I was so nervous about posting that blog because it revealed many of my character flaws and I assumed some people would say, "Just get together with people" - like it's that easy. I already feel like I try really hard at that. But the uneasy feeling never goes away. Annnnd that makes me conclude that it won't unless daily I'm rooted in Christ and ACTUALLY give myself to him. 

I have to admit I'm much better at talking about my relationship with Christ or writing about it than I am walking with him. 

But I need debriefing time, too. And I think a husband - the right one - could really help with that, too, you know? There is something to just having someone there. 

Then again, some people depend only on their relationship and do not let God in and it's fine for a while but eventually they may feel the same discontentment. I’m not waiting for a husband to make me okay.

I agree with you, however: "I'm tired of ranking second or third or fourth" because some of the people in my life are firsts to me in various ways. I adhere so easily to their schedules. And for them to change theirs to fit mine can be difficult for them. I was impressed, actually, by some cousins who came down for a Sunday with three kids, one very small. They went to church with me, then to coffee time, stuck around for a pizza dinner and just hung out with me and it was so much fun. It made me not feel second rate; they made an effort to come into my world. My sister and Josh are the same way. But these people are far away. And sometimes I'm by myself for days on end...mostly because I don't want to feel needy.

I think that's the struggle for you and me, we don't want to appear vulnerable. We want to appear confident and strong. But that can have opposite effects for what we want - togetherness. 

Friend, your e-mail came at the right time. I was thinking, "Great. I just expressed, like, every terrible thing about me and posted it to Facebook of all places," but you helped me see it was needed to do so. 

My summer really is going well. I am spending time with this couple who first of all are SO perceptive. They give a great listening ear, and I don't feel judged but helped. Also, they have a pool and I'm getting tan this summer. Say whaaaat!?

[I explain updates about things, how I long to hike a mountain again and such.]

Yesterday was an interesting day.

I dropped by the post office and saw my old neighbors from when I lived in the apartment all last year. I asked how they were and what their 4th plans were. They both sighed and said, "Nothing. We're both working." and they expressed how tiring it is. So I want to do something for them, but I don't know what. Maybe bake for them again. And yesterday I saw my other neighbor at the same place, and I just texted her to go on a walk today, which I never did before - I don't know why. And then a friend came over and we talked about things, and the weather was so nice. And I realized that people need me to be Christ to them. And I need others to be Christ to me. And that's the only way I see myself functioning in this world. 

What is new with you? You are one friend I wish I saw more often.

Laurissa 

*             *             *

Laurissa,

You always express yourself so well!  [Of course, I had to leave that opening line in there.]  And I couldn't agree more... people in the world do need us to be Christ to them.  It's easy to think about what I need and what I want, but I forget that everyone else is struggling with something and also just wants to feel loved.  I try to remember that, and do things like take my friend for coffee for her birthday because she doesn't have a lot of friends and it means a lot to be remembered, or have someone for dinner because their husband/wife is out of town, or invite someone out who doesn't normally come.  The next thing I want to do is make a meal for my friend who just had a baby.  She was in labor 19 hours and then had a c-section.... sometimes having kids sounds like a terrible idea.  But I still want them someday!  

[Friend explains updates about things]

That’s about all that’s new!  Oh, and I'm addicted to Downton Abbey. I hope you are doing well!  Enjoy your summer break :)  

Love, [Friend]