in which i find myself homeless

today i realized something: i'm only funny in small snippets, about the length of a twitter post. for a moment i thought about limiting my blog posts to that length and then i realized that's what twitter is for. HAH.

anyway, as usual, the cooler breezes put me into a thoughtful sort of mood and i've been thinking about jesus and church and my life. a few facts about right now:

- we are church homeless. sort of.

- i've been wandering around near jesus, but staying just far enough away so as to avoid actual growth. i think he would call that lukewarm and i ought to be cast into the fires of hell. um. hm. as i type this, i find myself imagining the agents of god's wrath (they look sort of like FBI agents) arriving at my doorstep with a notice that reads "you are hearby declared lukewarm and summoned for deportation to the FiresOfHell." of course i know that's not reality, and that god's grace abounds in my life, and he says my sin is as far away from me as the east is from the west, but i know in my heart that until this moment, i've been okay with my floating, and that i truly deserve to be deported.

- such a realization really makes all my other issues i have with finding a church and dealing with the dissolution of our old one pale in comparison. (although truthfully, i think i have very few issues with finding a new church, since that's something i've done about every 4 years for my whole life... my issues really lie in what happened at our old church)

that's about it.

maybe i'm going somewhere.

I DID IT.

now, unemployed, i sort of feel like i'm out of control, but i am just so relaxed about it. as mama described it today on the phone, "yeah, lindsay, on paper, you and andrew really look like you're in bad shape, you know, you just quit your high-paying job for nothing and andrew never finished college.... but i know you're just doing what god called you to do, and you're happy, so it's okay."

mama always has a way of saying things that almost comes off like an insult, but i know she really means what she says in the best way. she loves me.

i'm just learning so much right now, like how living comfortably just really doesn't mean shit. in fact, i am so much happier now that i'm drying all our clothes on our porch and thinking of ways to make beans and rice appetizing twice, maybe three times a week. it's amazing how obedience, something i once thought would enslave me to poverty, has set me free!

i was living in such a toxic environment in my work. being a nanny is a wonderful job, but the stress of working for the parents i worked for was just choking my spirit. i miss the baby already, but i know 2 things:

1. god called me out of that season of my life, after many months of begging on my part, and I CAME OUT WHEN HE CALLED!
2. he is a good god and he will take care of the baby better than i ever could.

i've been thinking a lot about what to do with this opportunity god gave me. i've come up with a few goals. number one. vacuum the house once a day. (overkill this is not. the people who lived here before were truly disgusting and the amount of dust is insane) number two. write more. in my journal. on this blog. on pieces of paper i find in my purse. i just want to remember that i am a creative person, and that my spirit was pressed, but I AM NOT CRUSHED!

anyway, the bottom line is that from the surface, my life looks like it is in shambles, but i feel victorious, because god is so so so good to me.

here is a picture from one of the happiest days of my life (i'm sure there are more happiest days to come, which is why i can't say THE HAPPIEST.... man sometimes i get too specific with thingsDARN. but you know, what about when i have babies? don't you think that will be right up there with when i married andrew? or when i get a puppy? HAHA.)

possibly inappropriate.

well, 2 days ago, i turned in my resignation from my job.

now, you may be thinking, "lindsay, WHY? you had a great job and the job market sucks! how stupid are you??" well, i'm pretty stupid sometimes, but this is not one of those times. here's how i know. i was praying about quitting, for like... months (very long story, probably inappropriate for the world wide web.) and then, i reached a turning point, and god just said, "i will provide. trust me." so, i took the plunge. into unemployment.

scary, right?

well, yes.

but, god is faithful! and i am learning how great it is to trust him, because... he does provide! if i hadn't trusted him to provide for us, i would still be back there, wondering if i was ever going to have a different job, instead of here, where i am, looking at the possibilities for my future and being so excited about all the things i can choose to do. it eventually came down to this choice: "lindsay, you can either keep working there because you think you can't leave for whatever reason (money, job security, etc) or you can leave, be happy, and trust me to provide for you."

after some days (okay weeks) of wrestling with that, i came to the point where i felt like there really was no choice. it was trust god, or nothing. i always have had to be that girl to wait until i'm pushed into a corner before i'll trust someone. it's a problem. good thing god has never-ending grace he gives me even though i'm all, "HAHAHAHAHA I CAN DO IT MYSELF!!!" and he's all, "oh man, here we go again."

anyway, god is good, and instead of oozing down into a tunnel of depression, i am actually really excited to see what happens next. i have no idea what will happen, and maybe 3 weeks from now i'm gonna be panicking, but right now, god's power and peace are just overwhelming me. he is good!

a few things

1. we successfully moved into our new apartment. in fact, i feel it was the most successful moving day ever, since my parents and andrew's parents came to help. we ended the festivities with pizza, dragonball Z (on the only channel we can get on our tv, lolz), and a dramatic poetry reading.

2. andrew got promoted at work, and is now a big, bad supervisor. HAHA! that is a happy, triumphant haha, not a "haha i am laughing at you," haha.

3. in one of my less wonderful moments, i poured water all over my computer and then let it sit in a puddle for over an hour, so it broke. obviously. electronic parts don't take to swimming in a pool of my leaky water bottle's making. andrew, being the kind and benevolent husband that he is, bought me a new computer. i'm typing on it. feeling guilty with each keystroke.

4. i'm having a major desire to sit and knit for a few hours, and i have about 20 projects i want to start, but i've been working on 2 blankets for the last month/months and i need to finish them before beginning something new. sigh.

5. a while back, i learned about god's mercy, when i found myself at the end of a conversation, having said only graceful and wise words. shortly after it ended, however, i was filled with RAGE!! god's mercy, while bottomless and bountiful, is apparently only given to me in situations where he knows i can't control myself, and that i absolutely need to. it was really miraculous, and i have been thanking him for it ever since. i think the level of rage that filled me afterward is a testimony to how that conversation could have gone, had god not been there in a miraculous way. since then, i've been asking for self-control and mercy.

the end.

sparrows and snow days and my family emergency.

i had a breakdown of huge proportions the other day. it was at night, so of course, the next morning, i woke up looking like a family emergency had happened to me (basically, i looked like someone took my face, turned it into old playdough, and then put in the microwave for a few minutes). thankfully, it was a snow day; god's gift to me, on one of the worse days in my life. it's not like anything truly terrible happened to me, i had just sobbed for an hour or so the night before, wiping my snotty nose on my loving husband's shirt, and trying not to get too hysterical. i was sobbing because i was coming to the realization that i had walked so far from god, and had just sat down on a lonely street corner, refusing to look for a way back home.

it was a self-imposed misery. it was brought on by laziness, selfishness, stupidity, and bad time-management. or, as could be summed up so succinctly by jesus: "oh you of little faith! why did you doubt?" i have this verse written on a post-it note beside my bed, so i see it every day, and yet, it is a concept that always escapes me, every few years.

a lot of times, i find myself sitting in church thinking to myself, "i wonder if they know i'm an imposter." and, shamefully, "what am i doing here? what is the point of all this?" i know it's not a waste of time, but i'm just not sure why not.

i am a woman of little faith. sometimes, i don't remember why i am a christian. i go through my life not acknowledging god's work in me - god's work in everything around me! that is my confession to you. i struggled to admit it to myself, but once i did, i realized that i had to go public with it, because it's not real till other people know. i can always pretend it never happened if no one else ever knew.

life for me right now is not the future i imagined for myself when i was still in college. things turned out differently, and while i do love some things about how things are, i am struggling to accept the things that i wish were different. being at this point in my life has forced me to realize that i really can't handle things without god's help, though. here's a short list of things i love about my life, because making lists helps me cope.

- andrew, my loving husband
- leah, my best friend since we were 11.
- my parents
- my cute, tiny apartment, with the wall of windows
- knitting, and teaching others how to knit
- making new friends in my new home.

i don't know what i'm doing with myself. i feel so weird about this whole thing because i've been a christian for so long, but i just feel like i'm back at square one. i don't know a damn thing. fasting? what's that? praying? oh, i do that sometimes when i'm about to cry.

but, you know, the truth of the matter is that i do know, deep down inside of me, that all hope is not lost. i have to dig real deep in there, but i can find it, and when i do find it, i know things will be okay. i'm not a lost cause, and i do know what jesus said about how he leads his people. "i will never leave you.... as the father knows when a sparrow falls, how much more do you think he watches over you, his children?"

so, where, from here?

relevance and old hags

i was thinking today, as i drove home from the mechanic, who is now richer than he was before, about relevance, and the difference between being single and being a couple. in college, there was all this discussion amongst the girls about how the girls with fiances or boyfriends or husbands just can't understand what it's like for a single girl in the world, and how they just aren't relevant to the conversation that's happening between all the single girls.

i think that's a load of crap.

maybe some girls choose not to remember or lend a sympathetic ear to the girls who don't have a man, but that doesn't mean that once you slip that wedding ring on, you just become an old hag, destined to discuss curtain colors and the differences between pampers and huggies with similar old hags who have lost their ability to shave.

(ironically, i'm sitting on my unmade bed, wearing a really non-sexy bathrobe/3 shirts/saggy sweatpants/pompom hat/slippers ensemble, having not shaved for at least a week. so remember: i am that hypocritical girl who thinks she's still relevant, but has all the appearances of having become an old hag already, after a month or so of marriage.)

i was listening to a taylor swift song today, and remembering how it feels to be in love with someone who doesn't even know you exist, and how that feeling is like ... the worst feeling in the world ... but also one of the most precious, because it's just so hopeful and hopeless at the same time, and it's an enigma, and after a while, you never feel it again. so that made me think that i do still know what it's like to be single, and i do know what it's like to be on your own.

i think the worst thing about all this thinking, though, is that i do know it, but i bet my single friends would never believe me, and now i'm out of the club because i'm married. just like i was out of the married club until now. i still identify with the single club more though, because the married people are all about children.... and i don't have children, or even want them at this point.

anyway, i say all this to say that i wish it wasn't about married or single. i've lived on my own, and it is lonely! i remember! but sometimes, even after marriage, even marriage to my best friend, the sort of marriage where i can't think of a single reason why i would want to go back, i'm still lonely sometimes. being married doesn't fix everything. i'm not sure loneliness is even something that can be fixed. the older i get, the more i think that being lonely is just a part of life. like maybe god gave us this feeling of being too alone because he wants us to be motivated to get up and do something. or get up and say a few words to him.

"hey, god. i miss you. i miss everyone. i feel kind of alone, and lost. thanks for andrew and for leah and for my family. i have a good life and i know you've always been right here, providing for me. thanks."

holding on.

sometimes, i feel like my whole life spirals down all at one time, and i should just give up on the american dream and plant a garden so i can eat.

i hate emo blog posts. like everyone has nothing better to do than read your sad, sad little story about how your life sucks. mine doesn't really suck. i know god will provide all the things i need. (of course, the internet will be the first to go, in the event of a financial disaster.) but right now, in this moment, i feel like rolling over and letting it wash over me, with no resistance.

i knew the economic downturn would affect me eventually. i had just hoped it would be further down the road, and not on the heels of a car accident, right before my wedding day. i had hoped to be able to blame someone far away, like president obama, or an oil embargo. but, as these things usually happen, i can't really blame anyone, and i won't try to. life is hard, and i really do believe that all we can do is hold on to those we love, and work our hardest to rise above our circumstances.

so, that's what i plan to do.