knowing and loving

it is mind-boggling to me how much the acts of knowing someone and loving someone has changed in recent decades.

in this age of internet, facebook, blogging, twitter, etc. we have reached a point where i can converse with someone, share photos, share stories, share secrets, and yet never see them face to face.

even still, there are people half way around the world whom i have looked straight in the eye, and yet never exchanged a word.

what does it mean to know someone? is it accumulating facts and figures about someone, being able to note how they drink their coffee? is it simply seeing someone, for who they are, where they are? or is it some combination of both?

and to take it a step further, which of these types of knowledge can lead to love? these people i've seen and never known may hold just as much of my heart as the people that i know but don't see.

and with these different types of knowledge and love, my heart and my mind have started to form this web across the world, linking me with people and places half a world away...

more to come.

take the world upon your shoulders, and burn, burn, burn, burn, burn

guess who's having red mill for lunch today. oh yeah, that's me. so excited!


so seasons are changing. i mean that literally and metaphorically. i absolutely love seeing seattle in the fall. autumn is my favorite. the colors change on the trees, the leaves fall to the ground...i fear there wont be much crunching of the leaves due to the massive amounts of rain in this region, but oh well.

metaphorically speaking, i begin a new chapter of my life next week. the weight and significance of this has not hit me yet. i am about to embark on the first step of actually realizing the vision that i have for my life. for those who haven't heard, next week i start my new job as on-call residential counselor at ryther child center. this will entail working in several different residential programs that ryther offers, mainly with kids who are warrants of the state whose parents have little to no rights, and who also have severe behavioral/boundary issues, and possibly with kids who are in treatment for chemical dependency. this is going to be a really intense transition, because i have not worked in this kind of environment before. i am lucky, because so far, my plan is to keep my current job at the bank temporarily and on an intermittent basis. that means that while i'm learning the ropes and adjusting to the environment at my new job, i can have the bank as a back-up. not as a chance to keep it available to me if it gets too difficult, because i do not want to back away from this challenge. more as a confidence builder, that at least sometimes i'll be doing something that i know i'm good at. and also as a release, a chance to take a break from new stressful challenges, while still making the money that i need.




now for why i am so excited for this job, and the real reason for this blog. it has been a long and eventful journey to get me here. it started out at urbana '06. i read isaiah 6 and felt a deep connection to the passage. the man i heard speak about it talked about how isaiah was given his vision by God. first, isaiah was given a glimpse of the holiness of God, an image of who God is. next, isaiah was shown the areas of his life that needed cleansing, or work, or where he was sinful. and finally, isaiah was given a calling from God. God had a task that isaiah was to fulfill and isaiah stepped up to the plate. when i read this passage, i was overwhelmed with the feeling that this is what my journey would be like.

sure enough, i saw the first part of this prophecy start to take shape. it wasn't necessarily as linear as isaiah's experience, but had all the same steps none-the-less. first i was given a vision of the holiness of God. i was overwhelmed with the realization of who God is, how great and big and loving he is. this experience was both a literal vision that i had in a dream, as well as the longer process of reading scripture and learning about the nature of God. next, God showed me who i am. i had to look at the essence of what makes me who i am. i looked at my flaws, my sins, and areas where i could grow as a person. and i also looked at things about myself that are good, beautiful and worthy of love (you might not think so, but both were equally difficult for me, since up until this point i had deemed myself unlovable). this process took an even longer period of time, finally culminating in finding peace and safety in the promises God makes about himself and his relationship with me. so for about the last year, i have been basking in how amazing it feels to know who God is, and know who i am, and how God and i relate to each other.

moving to seattle was a big step in my journey as well, because it has allowed me to take a step out of the comfortable life that i've known for 21 years and see if i could fare as an adult on my own. so far its been good. since i've been here, learning how to function without the system i'd had around me til now, and learning to build my own relationships and support, i've had a chance to take a look at my life, what i'm doing to make it better, how i'm growing and what i'm doing to aid in making progress. i decided i wasn't really doing anything. i took a job in banking, which i desperately wanted to get out of when i moved here, and had started to settle into familiar routines, just in a different place. so i started taking steps to better myself. i have had a desire in my heart for travel for a long time, and have in the past few years felt like i was being led in a missionary direction, but i haven't been sure what that will look like. so, in an effort to facilitate growing towards figuring that out, i decided to work on becoming more globally minded. in this process, i have been given a vision for my life. not just a vague idea like possibly being a missionary somewhere in the world doing who knows what. i have a more specific idea of where i want to end up:

i have developed a big heart for africa. namely people who are refugees from their country, people who have been affected by the civil wars that rage on that continent, and families that have been torn apart by the AIDS pandemic. it is my desire to go to africa, most likely southern africa, and start/work in an orphanage. i want to provide a home and love to children who's parents have died of aids, or who were forced out of their country due to civil war, or have other needs. i don't have a timeline on this, though. its tough to say whether i will be in africa in the next 5 years, or if it will take me 15-20 years to complete this goal. but that's what i want to be the icing on the cake of my life. its where i want to end up.

so this job at ryther will be the first step toward achieving that. it will challenge me in ways that i'm not used to, and i will be able to begin pouring into the lives of children who need it the most. i will have the chance to provide hope to kids who have lost it, and love to kids who have forgotten what that feels like. so i'm excited!



this blog has turned out to be way longer than anticipated, but i'm okay with that. kudos to you if you actually read the whole thing!!

with love,
car

we've got the roots in music my rock

normally, i am accepting of the fact that i think a lot. generally, i do a lot of introspection. today it is unwelcome. i feel like if i embrace the directions my mind wants to go, i will end up feeling thoroughly in the dumps. and i don't want to feel that way.

but yeah. i feel concerned. for a friend. and potential decisions. that's all i'll say.

this last weekend was awesome. i got to celebrate my best friend's birthday!! we went camping, had some really good times, and then went to bumbershoot on monday. we only saw paramore and bedouin soundclash perform, but man, they were both so great, it was worth it. i have a renewed love for bedouin soundclash. good times. great friends.

love all around.

remember abby morgan? wait, is she not funny yet?

i love people.

i am nothing without the people around me. though they may change from time to time, and some are closer than others, i wouldn't be who i am today without the relationships i've been in: good, bad and everything in-between.

with what a powerful impact relationships can have on a person, i have a distinct goal with my relationships. i have an image in my head of the kind of friend that i want to be, and the kind of relationships i want to have.

i want to be intentional: making and continuing to make an effort to maintain relationships with people, even when distance or busy lifestyles keep us apart.

i want to be real: authentic (truefaced, if you will), honest, open with who i am, while at the same time allowing for an environment for other people to be just as real, authentic and honest with me.

i want to be loving: encouraging, uplifting, supportive in order to build people up.

i want to challenge: challenge those around me to be the best that they can be, not settle for complacency, but achieve goals that they have for themselves, and continuously grow as human beings.

i love MY people.

do you ever have one of those days?

I woke up this morning in a funk. I was jolted awake around 6 am with a terrible tummy ache. I hadn't had anything to eat since dinner at 5pm or so, but I felt incredibly nauseous. So I lay there until 7:30, in complete terror that I would start dry heaving at any moment. No fun.

I couldn't shake it all morning. I got to work and realized that I was late for the meeting that I was told about, but completely forgot. It quickly became one of those days that you just really don't want to be at work.

Add to this the fact that its July, and quite overcast and rainy today in Seattle, and the funk becomes even harder to maneuver out of. It is my philosophy though, that life is a choice. So much so that its tattooed on my arm. Here's what I mean by that.

To an extent, everyone has circumstances that are out of their control, a hand that they are dealt. This is where i think a lot of people give up. The next step in this is that we have a choice!!! We can choose how we react and deal with whatever we are given. The same thing goes with love, self-esteem, etc. Its all a choice. And its a choice that you have to keep on making, not a choice that you can make once and be done with it. Its a daily or even moment to moment thing.

So today my choice is to not stay in this funk. I'm making the choice to get over it. No matter what. Anyone else want to get out of this funk??


*******


On a separate, unrelated note: I thoroughly enjoy it when people compliment me on my cash counting skills/speed.

live your hopes, not your fears

I am in need of a new creative outlet.  In honor of several new friends that keep a blog, I've chosen this form of expression.  It's much cheaper than painting.

I spent the weekend in Oregon, for my new friends' - Elise and Matt - wedding.  It was absolutely gorgeous there.  Generally speaking, I like having something on the horizon; buildings, mountains, trees, etc.  The house where the wedding was at was in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by fields, no town for miles.  There were mountains in the distance, all around, but far away.  I loved it.  The view was fantastic, the atmosphere loving and exciting.

A few months ago, 5 to be exact, I moved to Seattle.  It was difficult, duh.  I was beyond excited to get out of Elk Grove, and was prepared for what was to come, but actually experiencing it was a whole other story.  It has been a complete blessing and challenge to be here with my best friend.  We have added a new dynamic to our friendship: being roommates.  I like it.

We have gotten jobs, made new friends, started cultivating lives for ourselves in this new place.  We have little things here and there that are the same, like our mutual love of road trips, that help to keep us going when the new environment gets tough.  But most of all, every day is exciting!

I can honestly say that I am completely in love with living in Seattle.  I love being here and sharing it with my best friend.  I love the amazing new people that we've met and had the pleasure to get to know lately.  The Fab Four, as we like to call ourselves, are pretty much the most amazing group of people you'll ever know.  I love that there's always somewhere to go when you want something new, and I love that there's already the tried and true places that have become routine stomping ground.  I love getting up everyday and thinking about how much I love this city.  I love coming around the hill and seeing the Seattle skyline and feeling like I'm home.  I love that its still full of unlimited possibility.  And I love that I don't feel stuck here.

I can't wait for each new day.  And that's a good feeling.