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]

Needy

“Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

It’s weird – the school year can get so busy, as in do-I-have-time-to-eat-supper-or-should-I-grade-more-papers busy. I can grow weary teaching, but I’m occupied, so if there is something that requires much introspection, I don’t have to face it. In fact, if I have 110 students to consider, that is much simpler than dealing with my own heart.

The school year is finished; it has been for a month, and I’m enjoying summer. I had hopes for summer. Enjoy being outside. Visit friends and family. Write. Read. Make up all those devotions I skim over in the school year. Work some in the classroom. Make next year better.

And what have I been doing? Praying…constantly. Battling. Searching for God’s holiness. Being inefficient. Recognizing that sometimes I blame others for things that I need to carry over to the Lord. Realizing what makes me so stubborn and independent, and that as much as these qualities have helped, they have also hurt me. Learning that God uses advocates like co-workers and friends and a perceptive sister to show me I am not alone. Not in the physical sense…because I go home and so do they, and we all become our alone selves and battle different things…but in the spiritual sense.

I’m not as independent as I thought. Nor do I want to be. I mean. I want to be able to sustain myself, but that desire has built the largest of brick walls between me and Jesus. Independence helped me fearlessly head to college, take out loans, go to Alaska and New Mexico and accept a job in an Indiana town without knowing anyone. But it also has wounded my perception of myself and others. I know that Christ offers redeeming grace for these sins and a promise. I don’t have to carry the weight of my own failures and successes.  

There is a basic fear among us, I think - anticipation of loneliness. Of separation. Whether we are currently alone or not makes no difference. The unknown future can make us stir crazy. Or maybe we’re surrounded by people or have kids or a husband (even a supportive one at that) or lots of family. Wherever we are currently, we can always be just a little unsettled. A 2 AM writing session unsettled. An I’m-aggravated-so-I’ll-snap-at-you unsettled. An I’m-going-to-make-this-perfect unsettled. A like-and-comment-but-what-now? unsettled.

I used to believe the root to my anxious heart was because of my ability to be alone. Or should I say tendency to be alone? Because it’s not that I always want it to be that way. In fact, I often consider whether moving to a small town and making mostly married friends was a good choice. Naturally, I can’t call a friend up to go hiking for the day on a whim. They have children to always think of. And I’m not in their position. So they may feel the same toward me. “What can we do with her that would be fun for the family, too?” I like to say that I choose to be alone, but that is not the case. I guess I think it makes me look strong.

Anyway, it has made me believe that these anxieties would go away if someone else were just there. Though I know it would help in some situations, I don’t think it would heal my anxious heart completely. I can’t blame it on differing lifestyles among my friends and me. I can’t blame it on others.

Even now…even at two in the morning…I feel the need to interrupt this time writing with a quick Facebook check, like someone may have sent me something since mid-night.

Out in public we look around when we leave our cars in case someone knows us to keep up appearances. We fixate on what others think we are. We probably have triple-checked our outfits before we left, and still we glance in whatever reflects to make sure we look okay.

We demand people see us.

[rough transition that I don’t know how to fix]

I’ve been taking care of this dog. I could include a couple expletives before the “dog” in that sentence, but I’ll refrain. My friends think she was abused in earlier years. She snaps if you touch her paws or her face, and when you feed her she downs her supper in three bites flat. She whines all through the night (she is just now sleeping of course), she can’t see so she sometimes barks into the void of a dark room. She can’t hear well so it’s impossible to scold her via vocals. She follows you everywhere and can find you in a flash because her nose is still working quite well. And she sits way, waaaaay too close if you’re on the couch. She is clingy.

A long time ago I had a clingy friend I didn’t handle well as I hid in the jungle gym until she moved away. Likewise, my mom used to request daily hugs. I’d bring up one hand and pat her back and retreat to my room. I don’t always handle affection well.

I like my own space. Sometimes it’s really true. I’m in my own zone, and I need time to think, or I’m around hundreds of people in the day and need, just, a two-foot radius. On the other hand, sometimes I pull out these qualities to explain why I am ever involuntarily alone.

I have a feeling, though, that I’ve developed this (I begrudgingly say it) clinginess. I suck so I pray. I feel alone, so I check messages. I’m hungry, so I eat pie (not whole pies. At this point in my life, it’s still just slices). I have something to say so I Tweet it. I want to not be noticed so I sulk and watch Netflix. I see a huge gap of time to fill so I wile it away. I go to church and realize striking up conversation is uncomfortable. As I walk away to my car I think, “But I don’t want to spend my Sunday afternoon alone.”

We are needy, needy people. We NEED Jesus. We need grace. It’s not something we can give ourselves.

I’m finding that my friend’s dog is on her best behavior when I just let her follow me or lay by me, or even – yes – when I pat her back as I lay in bed and she whimpers at 2 AM. She’s breaking down my bubble. Jesus had to bear hell for us – all of humanity – and I can barely humble myself for a dog. But I expect everything from Christ. And I take. I willfully sin in the midst of his grace. I follow him when I want or when I need to be calm. I do these things. At some points I walk with him, but most of the time I take and still remain very worried about how life will be. 

This verse found me as soon as I thought to write tonight: “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.”

An anxious heart is an ongoing thing. So is a relationship with Jesus.

I’m happy to have had the time to discover this message this summer. Teachers really do need summer you guys, and I promise that in a psychological sense these days are no better than school days. Don’t become a teacher for the summers – just don’t.

Good night, all.

The Fall

The Fall

They met - she saw - he might've been real

In moments she stroked his cheek

Wrapped arms around him

Told him thoughts and waited for his

That never came

Alone alone alone she was

In his company

He who scribbled those cards

To her for her 

But he never with her

Wouldn't kiss her

Just a prize, her

Three years time, her

Twenties gone and gone, her

And in them never loved her

And here she's 

Colored in the fall, 

And sad,

But fine

And fine.

What We Love

Jeremiah 5: 30-31

"A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophecy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?"

I'm still in Jeremaiah and not much further than I was the last time I wrote. I keep rereading it, because as I said last time it reveals much about who God is. He is holy and deeply saddened that his chosen people whom he loved and saved do not choose him. Their hearts and souls cried out to him at one point and now they don't. 

I can remember days as a pre-teen where I would plot out chapters of the Bible to read and which days I would read them. Then I'd tape it to my wall and check off when I read them. However, I was a girl of many passions and the very next day would be working avidly on a deck of cards tower instead, or was it the plot to a book I wanted to write about a girl who was controlled by her Gigapet? Either way, my passions were many. 

I was inefficient. Passionate, but ineffective. And not much has changed except the plot to that book, which now involves various forms of social media (and which I still have not completed). I have loved many things - teaching, writing, story telling, getting to know people, asking questions, hiking, viewing sunsets, reading, crocheting, being super active, being super lazy, visiting family, talking with my sister - and it could be easy to believe that Christ is no real part of any of that. That I built my own world, scraped up from the cards I've been given (see what I did there?). Because in the things I love hide my sins. My most predominant sin? Believing God is not part of what I love. That I have to hide myself from him in order for him to love me. And so, not of God's choice, but of my own, I separated him from the things I love, and it know this is vague, but when things I love turned to shit, it only did so because I was trying to make it good. Only me. 

With God as a convenient umbrella. 

When I needed him. 

Or to make myself look good.

In his novel 1984, George Orwell says that what we hate will destroy us...that some extrinsic force like a corrupt government will be our demise. I agree to an extent, and though we must be wary of others, we must also be wary of ourselves. Alduous Huxley, author of Brave New World, which is also about a corrupt alternate society, says that if something were to destroy us, it would be what we love. We fix ourselves on "soma" pills (that is, anything we divulge in not to face our sin). I agree with him. Destruction comes from our own hearts. 

We blame the world for our problems but rarely look at our own hearts. Examine your heart.

Don't love apart from God. 

Romans 5:8

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

1 Corinthians 13: 6

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Jealous for You

A very perceptive student planned devotions one day and talked about a movie based on the boy who had a glimpse of heaven, called Heaven is for Real. He talked about how the desire to know God and the truth of scriptures is common. There is mass hype over a story like this because people want to see evidence of God. But then my student said something quite important: if you want to know God, read scripture. 

You may know the outline of the Bible and think that's enough because you can talk about God for an extended period of time or at least enough to [fill in desired outcome here]. But do you want to know God? 

What I learned about God in Jeremiah chapter 2 this morning is how he is zealous for us. 

First God calls uncertain Jeremiah to send a very important message and reassures him. "'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.'" And then God tells Jeremiah to prepare for impending calamity because of how corrupt the kings of the time had become, and he says that Jeremiah will be an iron pillar. "'They will fight you but will not overcome you, for I am with you and will rescue you.'" 

It is clear God cares about Jeremiah, but then as Jeremiah deliveries the Lord's words to Israel, you see how much he desires them, too. Think of the Israelites as nominalized God-followers now.

"I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through a desert...What fault did your fathers find in me that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves...You made my inheritance detestable." 

There is this yearning for his people to choose him. And they don't (we don't) because they are easily disillusioned. And since he is just, he tells them of the consequence. "'Be appalled at this...and shudder with great horror.'" "'Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me.'"

At this point, I imagine his arms out, desperation in his voice and on his face, and so, so betrayed. 

What I learned about God this morning is how jealous he is for me, how much he desires me. And am  I giving him very much at all? 

Can't Sleep

Can't sleep. 

This happens from time to time mostly as a result of my mind going absolutely berserk with ideas and checklists of things. 

This morning I took some DayQuil to alleviate this cough so I could teach, but it fogged my brain and made me want to eat cupcakes. Not a pretty sight. Plus there were, like, twenty Greek god and mortal names I had to pronounce while we read Antigone and that wasn't so great. 

I'm much better in writing. 

Also, Tera and I stick to this theory that kids go crazy on the full moon. 

Mine weren't crazy but if they were I wouldn't have known. I think DayQuil flips my system upside down. Never again. I'm just going to bear the cough. 

Dah. Adulthood!

Notes on Winter

My grandpa used to take notes on birds and other nature patterns in Yellowstone through the heavy winters. Though less nature is involved here in my apartment, I decided to take some notes whilst living alone in a fourplex all winter. What follows was not engraved upon my bed post, chiseled in the wall, or even scribed on paper. It was, however, just thought up right now and typed on my iPad. 

Notes on Winter

April 2014

You know how balloons are really dark - almost black - before you blow them up, and then once you do they become the color you ordered? That's what happened to my body. Semi-tanned in summer, a certain size, too. And then I got blown up and my skin grew pale.

Netflix was a good companion. Except for when the screen went blank while loading. That mirror is unforgiving.

At least once a day I considered buying a dog. (If I add "for company" to the end of that sentence, would you judge it?)

February used to be my least favorite month. Now it is tied with March. We covered the lion end of the month. Where's the lamb, March? Where's the lamb?

It's a good thing boots are in style. Cold calves are unbearable. (Not really. But with socks, jeans, and boots, one would think we can't stand a cold calf).

I pretended it wasn't cold one day, and that was gratifying because it was a snow day and I could stay inside. I wore shorts and read a magazine while my toe-nail paint dried.

Because I own as many underwear and pairs of socks, I can wait three weeks to bring items to the laundromat. Not a bad deal, though. Free TV. Deal breaker, though. Staring children.

Luckily I didn't have to find and kill my own meat. I did, however, have to defrost it (a long and tedious wait), which is a difficult thing for a last-minute meal planner, which makes me a wolf, not a beaver.

If without a car scraper, a library card works very well. I broke down and bought a scraper in February, the day before I found my old one of course. 

Candy cane hot chocolate is only festive for so long. I'm a candy freak, so this has never happened, but I threw away half a bag of peppermints in March. 

Both indoor plants are still living so [dusts off shoulder].

It's been a long and cold one, but that's okay. Or at least that's what we have to say when we have a long, cold winter to make ourselves appear content and well-adjusted. What we really mean is "...but I'm done with it now because it should be spring and I'm sick of too-warm calves."

I crocheted a number of items. My favorite are the mittens and cabbage patch wig.

And this is dedicated to Grandpa, the best winter keeper.