The darkness cannot disarm us

Lately I've been pretty obsessed with Audrey Assad. I'm not sure how I made it all this time without ever hearing one of her songs, but let's just say, I'm definitely making up for lost time. Haha. Anyway, toady as I was driving into my grandma's house, "Even the Winter" came on. If you haven't listened to it, you need to. Or at least read the lyrics:

What if we find ourselves beneath the snow, 
Our warmest words all frozen in our throats 
And all we feel is left out in the cold, 
You & I? 

What if the ice we tread is just too thin? 
What if we can't escape the squall we're in? 
What if our hearts of stone are permanent, 
You & I? 

Even the winter won't last forever... 
We'll see the morning, we'll feel the sun 
We'll wake up in April, ready & able 
Sowing the seeds in the soil 
Of love 
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/audrey+assad/even+the+winter_21001017.html ] 
What if the days grow short & lose their light? 
What if the coals burn black & the embers die 
& we can't find each other in the night? 
You and I... 

What if the spring comes soon 
& we're surprised? 
What if the seasons help us realize, 
Some things are only proven over time? 

Even the winter won't last forever 
We'll see the morning, we'll feel the sun Even the darkness cannot disarm us 
We'll break up the earth, because we know 
That it's worth it 
Sowing the seeds in the soil of our love.

I highlighted two of the verses that really stuck out to me. As you may have picked up for my recent posts, I've been in a bit of a funk for a couple weeks. I've been sleeping way too much; I've been overly emotional for no discernible reason (case in point--I watched Brother Bear and had to put the subtitles on because I was crying too hard to hear the dialogue. :/ ); I haven't wanted to talk to anyone; and I'm just feeling a little purposeless right now. I know I should be taking this time that God's blessed me with to relax, work on my relationship with Him, see my friends, read a good book, and meet new blogging friends, but I just can't appreciate the time like I want to with the pressure I've been feeling from my family concerning the seriousness with which I'm approaching this internship. Okay, let me back up because I'm not sure how much I've actually explained in past posts and if I were reading this, I would have lost myself. Haha. 

So, I graduated this past May after changing my major senior year. A bit late in the game, I know. The switch meant I had to stay in school an extra year (which turned out to be a huge blessing but we'll have to talk about that later). Due to the extended stay, a mission trip, and my lack of experience in accounting, I had a really difficult time finding a job. I ended up getting an internship at an accounting firm near home because I knew almost all of the employees from one thing or another. However, said internship didn't start until the second week of January so after I got back from the mission trip in late July, I had months of time on my hand. Even before I got the internship, I wasn't convinced that accounting was the right fit for me, but I wanted to give it a try before I completely gave up on it. So the internship was a perfect fit because it only lasts 4 months but will give me a lot of hands-on experience. Well, apparently not everyone in the family agrees with my logic. I'm sure they all have good intentions, but I'm just tired of having to explain my reasons to everyone. And if one more person suggests taking the CPA and finding a full time position in place of the internship, or makes mention of my student loans, I may stop speaking to them altogether (probably not, but still!) I just want them to support the decision I made since there's not really much I can do now until after April.  I don't know if that really explains everything, but a lot of it is backstory and complaining. Hopefully I said enough that you get the gist of where I'm coming from. 

And here's where the song comes in (specifically the lines I highlighted). I won't feel like this forever. I'll get my energy back. I'll want to talk to my friends again. I'll be able to watch a movie or commercial without tearing up. I'll figure out the whole job situation. The darkness can't disarm me because I've got God on my side. And as long as I put my faith in Him, I'll make it out of this funk. That's what He's asking me to do right now--trust Him. Realize that I can't do anything without Him. And I'm working on it. Some things just take time. But this, too, shall pass. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow. But the sun will come up tomorrow, and with it, a new day will give me the opportunity to praise Him for all the things that are going well in my life.

source

Quick Takes (9)

Time to jump on the bandwagon and join the rest of you over at Jen's for another round of "Friday again already, ay?"

1. Every year, my family does a Christmas exchange. After opening gifts on Christmas, we pick names out of a hat for the following year. I think the idea is to buy things for your person throughout the year so it doesn't feel like you're spending a lot of money all at once. When did I start you ask? Monday. Nothing like 11 months of procrastination!

2. Do you ever feel like God is just whacking you over the head with a certain virtue despite the fact that you're not even praying to grow in that one? Haha well it's been happening to me lately! And apparently I'm supposed to be working on humility because He's been gracious enough to give me muuuultiple opportunities to practice it. Example 1--I helped out at a retreat expecting to connect with at least a couple of the kids and maybe even say something that would really get them thinking about how awesome our faith is. What actually happened? They all stared blankly at me whenever I posed a question and I'm not so sure they even learned my name. Example 2--I had the opportunity to be in charge of my CCD class last week because the head teacher was on vacation. I thought I had a really good activity planned, was excited to present it to the kids, and thought they'd really enjoy it. What actually happened? None of them wanted to do it. Womp womp. Okay, Lord, I get it.

3. My soon-to-be manager signed me up for a tax class in order to prepare me for what I'll be doing come January. She said they sent their last batch of hire-ees there and they got a lot out of it. Well, let me just tell you, 8 hours of tax class is 8 hours too many, especially when I couldn't understand a word they were saying despite the fact that I'm preeeeeetty sure they were speaking English. I can't be sure though. I couldn't have been more lost. And don't tell my manager, but I spent the last hour doodling in the workbook they gave us. And I'm an awful doodler. Hahaha.

4. On the plus side, the class was in Champaign! So I got to spend time with good friends, like this girl, and it was fabulous. Who doesn't love a girls' night complete with pizza, career aptitude tests (which always tell me I should be an accountant so maybe the tax class experience was just a fluke!), and the phrase "I miss laughing."

5. During said girls' night, we got to talking about jobs and what we're all going to do once our current (or nearly current) jobs are over. The longest any of us are guaranteed to be doing the same thing we're doing right now is a year and a half, but most of us will be looking for something new come May. Honestly, I have no idea what the next step will be, mostly because I have no idea what I even want to be doing. As we were sitting there, two of my friends asked me what my dream job would be, and I couldn't come up with a single thing. I have no idea what I would enjoy doing, and I don't like that feeling. I like knowing things, but I guess this is as good a time as any to work on trusting in God's plan for me.

6. One of my friends is leading the Koinonia retreat in March at U of I and decided to make a video to entice other students to apply for team. It's pretty awesome and contains way more creativity than I could muster in a decade.

7. Hooray for zoo lights! (not quite sure why they seem so seizure-like now...) but I hope you can still enjoy them!

To comment or not to comment

Like Morgan, I’ve been meaning to write a number of different posts for awhile now, but for various reasons, I just haven’t. Various reasons include laziness, Parenthood, eating, and inability to put two thoughts together. Unfortunately for all of you, my ideas aren’t quite as motivating/prayerful/holy/awesome as hers…see vulnerability and patience. But it’s Monday night and I’m sitting here watching a super old rerun of Criminal Minds that I’ve probably seen 10 times, so I figured I’d try and knock one out. Plus it came to mind as I was reading through all the posts I’ve missed in the past couple of days. And now that I've got you on the edge of your seats waiting for me to reveal this elusive topic, I’ll drone on for a few more sentences and really get you excited. :) Hahah juuust kidding. Here.we.go.

What the heck is the proper etiquette for commenting on someone’s blog for the first time, especially if you’ve been following them for a few months without saying anything? Wow, that came out MUCH creepier than I intended. Hahaha let's ignore those paparazzi-like images popping up and just move right along before I do an even more splendid job of making myself sound like a real creep! But seriously…so many questions come up—

·      Should you put your own blog after your name to encourage them to check out the truly enlightening things you share or is that being too forward?

·      Do you have to let them know how you found their blog? And what if you don’t remember anymore?

·      How long can you continue to follow someone’s blog without commenting before you’ve just lost all opportunity to say anything without revealing that you’ve basically been stalking them due to references you make to posts from 5 months earlier?

·      Should you tell them it was nice to “meet” them at the end so that they know this isn't just a one time deal?

·      And finally, how many times do you have to comment on someone’s blog before you can start referring to them as a friend in everyday conversation?

So there you have it. These are the kinds of thoughts that keep me up at night… or at least keep me from commenting on your blog ;) Because we all know how annoyed we get when someone new comments on our blogs, right? That’s just the worst! Much worse than pickle juice in your eye. (The reference is somewhere in this clip…hahaha but it’s all funny so if you’ve got the time, you should just watch the whole thing!) So you can understand where all of these questions are coming from. You can’t just walk into these things blindly! (now would be a good time for someone to invent a sarcasm font. Hahaha).

Well I think I've done a fair job of filling my random-thought quota for the week so I'm off to rot my brain with TV and my teeth with ice cream. :)

Belated Quick Takes (8)

Joining the rest of you, albeit a couple days late, for another round of takes with Jen. Better late than never? You'll find out soon enough.

1. I watched the first season of Parenthood this week. I don’t want to use the word ‘obsessed’ buuuuut when it only takes 2 or 3 days to finish all the episodes and you go to three different stores looking for the DVDs so you can continue watching, I think that word may be fitting…now I just have to get my hands on the next season!

2. I think I’ve become addicted to sleep this week. I mentioned it a bit in my last post, but I keep pushing my bedtime up earlier and earlier. And then there’s the battle with my alarm clock in the morning. I think I may need to employ my friend’s method of waking up—put your alarm clock all the way across your room and have it blast a Spanish radio station so you’re forced to actually get out of bed to shut it off. I slept over at her house one time, and I’ve never jumped out of bed faster than I did that morning! Goal for this coming week—get the recommended 8 hours of sleep each night and don’t hit the snooze button.

3. I finally made my Christmas list. And now that I’m not asking for the latest Gameboy games or clothes for my American Girl doll (Molly of course), I had a hard time completing a list for Santa. That’s how it ended up with items like a lamp for my bedside table and socks. Who actually asks for socks? Isn’t that just something our parents try to pass off as a stocking stuffer because they don’t want the entire thing to be filled with candy?

4.  Pomegranates are back in season! I love those tasty little seeds, but if it were any harder to get them out, it wouldn’t be worth the effort. I think I spend more time extracting them than I do eating them!

5. One of my friends is studying abroad in Hong Kong this semester. She sent out this email earlier today, “Please urgently pray for a young woman I just met here in Hong Kong.  Her name is Grace. Please pray for all students during this exam period but especially for the students of Hong Kong-UST, too many of whom have committed suicide this semester.” I don’t have any other information, but I know she’d really appreciate any extra prayers you could offer up.

6. I helped out at an 8^th grade confirmation retreat this weekend and met two amazing seminarians! They both did Totus Tuus this summer and know a lot of my friends. So that was a really nice surprise! They were hilarious, and if it were up to me, I would have spent the whole weekend talking to them instead of trying to wipe the blank stares off the kids’ faces anytime I asked them how the retreat was going or what they were learning.

7. I was a little taken aback by some of the things the kids didn’t know over the weekend… Most of them didn’t know it was a sin to miss mass on Sunday, and none of them seemed to realize they were supposed to fast for an hour before receiving Communion. A few of them didn’t know that Jesus was fully God and fully man. And the idea of being silent during our 5-minute silent reflection period in the church was completely foreign to them. But maybe I went into the experience expecting too much out of them or maybe I’m just used to talking to people my own age!

Just Call Me Sleepy the Dwarf

I can’t seem to put two thoughts together this week, hence the almost complete lack of posts. Every time I try and think of a subject to talk about, my brain goes on scatter mode and refuses to stay on one thought for more than 7 seconds which makes it pretty hard to write about something without it sounding like this:

“I really need to think about the testimony I have to give for the kids tomorrow. What can I possibly have to talk about that they’d be interested in? Why do my eyes hurt so much? I’ve gotten 10 hours of sleep every night this week so there’s no way I can be tired. Is there such a thing as too much sleep? I really need to call H back but there’s no signal in my house. Why do we pay so much for our phones if we can’t even talk at home? I can hear Tubby snoring over the sound of the TV…she might want to get that checked out. Would a vet even do anything for a snoring animal? Wait, does anyone actually take their pet to the vet for that? I need to clean out that bowl from my pomegranates. How am I tired at 10:28…? I wonder if I could get out of sharing some sort of personal story at the retreat tomorrow. I really don’t like talking in front of groups. This Spongebob voice doesn’t sound like the normal one. What the heck am I going to write about?”

I’m sure you can guess why I wanted to spare you from that utter chaos. And since every problem needs to be blamed on something, I’ve chosen to attribute this particular conundrum to excess sleep. Last time I checked, I'm not an infant working on tripling my height and weight every few months, so my job shouldn't consist of alternating between sleeping and eating day in and day out, as much as I think I'd enjoy (and excel at!) that lifestyle. So why is it that all I want to do is sleep? I’m a little ashamed to say that I’ve been hopping into bed around 8 9 each night and catching some zzz’s until 7:24. Some days I’ve even napped… :/ I don’t feeeeeel sick, but this just doesn’t seem normal. Yesterday I finally made an effort to beat my 6^th grade bedtime by a full 2 hours and my eyes mutinied. They’ve been threatening to pop out of their sockets if I force them to stay open much longer. I can’t even blame the sleepiness on over-exerting myself throughout the day. If anything, I’m under-exerting myself. Maybe my body is just in Snorlax mode due to my embarrassingly long exercise fast. I don’t know what it is, but I just thought I owed you all an explanation for my absence. Fortunately none of you have disappointed so I’ve been able to get my blog fix by commenting on your lovely thoughts :) I’ll try and do better next week.

Challenge Accepted

I’ve always enjoyed a good challenge. When I was in 5^th grade, I competed in the Spelling Bee, even though I was up against 6^th graders, and I won! In high school, I broke the season rebounding record my junior year and had an article written about it in the newspaper. The journalist congratulated me and said I’d certainly end up in the top 5 for career rebounds but that I’d wind up well short of the all-time leader.  I worked hard all season and wound up not only beating the previous season record I had set the year before, but also seizing the career record. It was pretty amazing. So when I read my friend’s semi-recent post listing 100 things she’s thankful for and saw her challenge at the end of it, I knew I needed to sit down and do it, too. Oh, Thanksgiving was last week you say? Well, I guess I didn’t want to jump off the same bridge everyone else was ;)

Here we go! *in no particular order other than the order they came to mind*

1. God/Jesus/Holy Spirit (I thought it would be cheating to list them as 3 separate numbers…)

2. Friends.

3. Family.

4. My house.

5. Having enough food to eat.

6. My upcoming internship.

7. Access to medicine.

8. Snail mail.

9. Laughter.

10. Babies.

11. Catching up with good friends.

12. Travelling.

13. Having enough money to live comfortably.

14. Finding new friends via blogging.

15. Prayer.

16. Changing seasons.

17. My car.

18. Peace of mind.

19. Joy.

20. Hope.

21. Coffee.

22. Ice cream!

23. My health.

24. Daily mass.

25. The Bible.

26. Warm clothes.

27. The sound of the furnace turning on.

28. Bible study.

29. Good books.

30. Television.

31. Musicals.

32. Having friends who can sing!

33. Catholicism.

34. Email/Skype/Facebook/etc.

35. Library cards.

36. My glasses.

37. Courage

38. Others’ perspectives.

39. Free time.

40. Memories.

41. The mission trip to the Philippines.

42. Vacations I’ve taken to Europe.

43. The smell of homemade bread.

44. Beauty.

45. Truth.

46. My five senses.

47. Spending time with friends’ families.

48. Sunsets.

49. Trees during autumn.

50. Love.

51. Momma Mary.

52. Church traditions.

53. Recycling.

54. Blood donations.

55. Flowers.

56. The Sacraments.

57. TV show season premieres.

58. Music, live and on the radio.

59. My iPod.

60. Hot cocoa.

61. Silence.

62. Hair products.

63. Finding a good quote.

64. The saints!

65. Hugs.

66. Wine tasting.

67. Bringing joy to others.

68. Teeth.

69. Pita chips.

70. Pictures.

71. Popsicles.

72. Nature.

73. Jokes.

74. Disney movies.

75. Getting invited to things.

76. Easter Vigil.

77. GPS.

78. Fresh fruit.

79. Miracles.

80. Finding the good in the bad.

81. Learning new things.

82. Forgiveness.

83. Having the perfect example to follow.

84. Smiles.

85. Doctors and nurses.

86. Second chances.

87. Having wisdom imparted on me.

88. Christmas concerts.

89. Veterans.

90. People who chew with their mouths closed.

91. Low interest rates on loans.

92. Snow plows.

93. My phone.

94. Online banking.

95. Baby laughter.

96. Candles that smell like real Christmas trees.

97. Stars in the sky.

98. My laptop.

99. TV on DVD.

100. All of you wonderful people who read my extremely random blog.

That may quite possibly be the most random list of items I’ve ever compiled. Who knew I had so many things to be thankful for :)