I do dread other people's remarks...

The following post may seem disjointed and possibly slightly bipolar...for that I am sorry. 


I didn't get the job at the car dealership. Even though I wasn't fired and was just not hired, it feels like I was fired because I wasn't hired for the job I have been doing (and doing well) all week. The worst part of the whole thing is that I'm still going to work on Saturdays and I'm going to be training the lady they hired on Monday.

It would be a lie to say that I didn't cry in Brian's office, I did. Not an ugly cry or anything, just watering eyes and a red face. I am grateful that I was able to hold in the sobs until later. Normally I can keep myself pretty well put together for this sort of thing...it's just a bad week, though.

When I come to work on Monday people are going to ask if I've heard about the job yet...and I'm going to have to tell them that I'm training the new lady. And I want to tell them so much more. I want to tell them to treat with the same kindness and courtesy that they treat me. The Service people really liked me and told me over and over again that they wanted me to be hired.

God and I... we're still working on this issue of trust. I thought I was finally understanding, but apparently not. While I was talking to Brian about the job situation he told me that everything happens for a reason, and then asked me if I was a faithful person. He told me about his life story, and that just about made me want to cry more. He's a devout Catholic, and while I don't agree with everything about their denomination I could see the light of Christ in him. Yet another reminder from God that He is in everything, and that He has something better for me.

Brian told me that he really does believe that everything happens for a reason. So do I, so do I feel the Divine Hand at work.

There have been people in my life recently trying to force this on me. It's not that I don't know it, but I don't always need to hear it. For some reason Brian's adamant confession didn't bother me as much as someone telling me to be content with where I am. Honestly, with all do respect, I know that I should be content with whatever phase of life, but this one is so incredibly hard. I'm doing everything I can to try and stay positive, but a year of rejection is hard to swallow. It's hard to get past the disappointed hope. It's hard, so don't tell me to be content, tell me you understand.

I'm reading some great literature right now that is really helping me to embrace this God-lesson of trust. Ann Voskamp, you should follow her blog, wrote a wonderful book called "One Thousand Gifts." You should find it and read it if you're struggling with anything remotely like this or any kind of disappointment. She understands how hard life can be and how hard it can be to be content.

There was so much anger built up inside last night that it kept leaking out of my eyes and my face was so tired from the salt-drenching. When it came time to actually go to bed, I couldn't do it. I couldn't close my eyes because I didn't want to face today. But here I am, sitting at the desk that I will have to abdicate come Monday. And I'm smiling the best that I can.

Never would I ever...

I've been struck by the irony in my life this year. Everywhere I turn, and every time I think I've finally turned the bend to leave it behind, irony is right there. And I must admit, we're not really friends. When I'm reading or watching a movie or tv show I don't mind the situational irony because it's funny. That's the thing about irony, it's funny when it isn't you.

Now, I don't want to rehash all of it, but if you read my post about February you have an idea of the kind of thing I'm talking about. I think it's even more frustrating to realize the irony because then you dwell on it...  Sometimes I wonder if God finds irony amusing.

Last semester, Claire and I started regularly attending the local E-Free church, I've mentioned this before. One of the congregation members really likes working with the college group, and so she hosts these meals once a month after the second service. The food she provides is always delicious, and it's just a good ministry to us--the poor and hungry college students.

It is kind of a wonder I ever went back though. The first time meeting these people, and the lady that helps Dawn asked us what we were majoring in. A standard question, easy to answer. When I told her I was an English major with a Creative Writing emphasis, she asked me second question, "What do you plan to do with that?" I explained to her my graduate school plans and that I want to be a professor. She actually, and I kid you not, scoffed and said, "Yeah, that's what my daughter said, she put all her eggs in on basket, and now she works at a car dealership. What a waste."

....

I was shocked and offended and just said that I wasn't going to do that. Wasn't going to do that.

Here I sit this morning, at one of the largest car dealerships in my town, waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for the phone to ring and praying that I get the full time position.

Maybe this is at the root of my frustration with not getting into graduate school. I'm afraid of getting stuck here, afraid of losing my will to go back to school. Then I remember that there's nothing wrong with this part of life. There's nothing wrong with taking some time to stretch your wings and allow some things to heal--the wounds that can only come from academia and dorm life and loans.

It's not a sin to work at a car dealership, like this lady made it sound. The people here are nice. The days are always interesting. The customers sometimes bring their kids, and they are adorable. I see people here. I talk to people. For once I feel like a semi-normal person. (Usually I say that normalcy is overrated, but it's really not.)

So, here's to a standard job. And irony.

"Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding." [Agnes Repplier]

You saw me mourning my love for you...

I've had a lot of thoughts tumbling around in my head these last few weeks, and they haven't settled into any kind of order. Normally I wait for something to settle into place before picking it up and putting out there for people (you people) to read, but this is just getting ridiculous. I promised to post more, and if I wait around for something to finally come together than this blog will die (a second death, I suppose). I don't really want that to happen, so I'm just going to start writing regardless of the confusing thoughts rolling around inside this fragile mind.

My family and I went to Colorado last weekend, and it was great to see the school my brother plans to attend and the apartment he may live in. The mountains left me in awe and slack-jawed. I've seen them before but I hadn't necessarily noticed the way the sky swooped low to kiss the frosty tips.

We spent some time walking around an outdoor mall/shopping area in Loveland one evening. I spent all too much time in the Barnes and Noble--the largest I had ever seen. It was like a piece of heaven for this new graduate, and proud holder of a B.A. in English. Drifting through the aisles filled with story after story of hope and loss and pain and love and want and anything you want, I felt the overwhelming feeling to just sit down and absorb the words. Stories have always held my love and my profound need for returned love--unfortunately books are incapable of reciprocating the feeling.

One of the courtyards of this shopping area housed sculptures of animals for children to play on. The statue that stood out to me was the frog. I've known the story of the princess and the frog for as long as I can remember.

Josef snapped a picture of my sitting on the broad-back of the frog, smiling. It's a running joke in the family, and this is not the first picture I have with a stone frog.

My first summer in my newly finished basement room was riddled with nights of little sleep. It took me a while to discover that the noise that was keeping me up was the sound of frogs trying, desperately, to batter their way into my room. Soft white breasts would beat against the glass, searching for the light that came from my demonic lamp. (It's touch sensitive, and turns itself on or off whenever it chooses.) It didn't take long for my dad and brother to nickname the frogs my boyfriends. We laugh that all I have to do is kiss one and I will magically have a boyfriend.

This notion prompts these pictures with stone frogs.

A stone frog seems to have a special kind of curse, don't you think? It must be a truly powerful magic or love to break that spell--to turn a stone frog into a living, breathing prince. And this is when I wish I lived in those places of fantasy and fairytale, because love is enough to wake the sleeper from the Sleep, and the breath of a Lion can bring the stone to life.

A jolt of realization reminds me that a perfect Love has woken the sleeping soul in me, and that the Lion that breathed the stone to life in Narnia is not so unlike the breath of God breathing life into the dust that became Adam. The Love and Breath that saved and created me exists in a world where frogs don't magically become princes...but the sinners become saints, and the wicked are made new.

"This is not a dream that I'm living, this is just a world of Your own." [Rebecca St. James, Lion]

Komm, Herr Jesu, sei Du unser Gast

I remember the day Daddy came into the kitchen when I was maybe five years old. There is fuzz around the edges of the memory, but it's there--standing out proudly as one of landmarks in my childhood, a moment that would change the way I prayed every day. It was lunch time and Mommy had set the table when Daddy came to take his seat. He folded his hands and said, "We're going to learn a new prayer today." Gently, patiently, he taught his small children how to say The Common Table Prayer in German. A tradition that would shape every meal to come.

The only time I didn't utter the words vocally in the following years was when we would eat at other people's homes and school cafeterias. But always with my family it was those words that had become an integral part of home. If home is where the heart is, then my home is laced with German prayers.

College was a place where you prayed silently before each meal--words internalized, but no less real. One of the things I would miss most from Pfeifenhof (the name of our home, meaning whistle home) was the fellowship in praying simultaneously in German with three other people. Each time summer would roll around I would become eager to sit around the table and offer up blessings.

I did not expect to feel Home during Dead Week and Finals Weeks my last semester of school. There it was though, amongst everything I had never dreamed of.

We sat, two nervous individuals, at a public restaurant with steaming food before us. I hadn't thought of the prayer in my preparations for the meal, but there it was when he asked,

"Do you pray before you eat?"  

Yes.

"Is the Common Table Prayer okay? That's what we normally do."  

Yes, you go ahead and pray, we normally say it in German, so I'll just listen. I don't know what made me say that, normally I just go with the flow.

"Oh, you mean, Komm, Herr Jesu, sei Du..."  

...Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. And I can hardly find the words.

"Well, we can pray in German. You had better lead though, because I don't know if I remember the last part."

And I can't believe that we're praying together over our food in German, and part of my heart is singing at how homey it all feels. It's a good thing the German comes as second nature because I don't know if English would have come so easily in that moment.

Less than a week later we're sitting at a different table, with different food, but a look passes between us and he bows his head and starts saying the words. My Daddy's words, and the words of past years long gone. He's leading this time, confidant and sure. And as we pray for Christ's blessings on our food I'm praying a silent prayer that His blessings be on this, whatever this is.

And that second prayer continues to grow.

"Komm, Herr Jesu, sei Du unser Gast, und segna, was Du uns bescheret hast. Amen."