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Happy New Year Everyone! I hope you each have a special way of saying good-bye to 2008 and welcoming 2009 :)

far as the curse is found

In my last post, I mentioned that I hadn't gotten sick at all this past semester. I probably spoke too soon, because now I'm sick today, some sort of cold with a minor fever. Great, on the Eve of Christmas Eve, which means that I'll likely be feeling somewhat icky during all my family's Christmas celebrations :( For some of these family members, especially on my dad's side, this is the only time of the year when I see them, so I pray that I have the energy to enjoy their company and keep up with conversations. I've been sucking down the Cold-eeze, and will probably head to bed early, as soon as the TCU bowl game is over. Could be worse. I could be jet lagged.

I've been enjoying a lot of Christmas music lately, and even when caroling around my neighborhood about a week ago. It's a neat experience, and if you haven't done it recently, I highly recommend gathering some friends and family, printing out song lyrics, wearing warm clothes (or t-shirts, if Texas is being fickle like it has been these past couple of weeks), and harassing your neighbors with your attempts at singing. They might even pity you enough to give you cookies or candy canes - our neighbors sure did.

I remember listening to "Joy to the World" back in June or July because it was on a Tom Conlon CD called "Eight Roads Home" that I had purchased after seeing him live. He performed this song, stating that it shouldn't just be a Christmas song, that we should sing it all year round, and I think he's right. As with a lot of Christmas songs, it sounds like "Joy" could be describing both the first incarnation of our Savior, and his return as king. Verses describing fields, floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeating the joy of men do remind me more of the second coming, as the rocks haven't yet shouted out their audible praises. I truly love the third verse, one that I hadn't heard very often until listening to the Tom Conlong version.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

This Christmas season, as I've heard more versions of this song, I keep getting the "far as the curse is found" part stuck in my head. Even when this verse isn't sung, I find myself hearing those words, "far as the curse is found," and I imagine every part of creation where the curse could be found, where sin and sorrow, death and destruction, are hiding in darkness. I visualize the blessings of Christ, His powerful victory of sin and death, salvation, redemption, flowing like a river over all the earth, into ever crack and crevice where the curse could be hiding and bringing light, goodness, holiness, justice, mercy, joy, forgiveness, freedom, beauty, and restoration. This is the hope that I celebrate this Christmas season.

Merry Christmas, brothers and sisters, dear friends :) I hope that this hope encourages you this season and is realized fully in your life. I love you and am thankful for you.

'tis the season for giving

I am proud of myself for having completed ALL of my Christmas gift shopping in a 24 hour period.

This was easily accomplished by the fact that I decided to only give physical, store-bought, traditionally wrapped Christmas gifts to my family members. Given my family make-up, this consists of my parents, step-parents, and stepsister and her son. I don't usually buy Christmas gifts for my stepsister or her three year old son, but she's going through some hard times these days, and he's my only nephew even though he's a step-nephew and we're not blood related, so I decided that I could buy some books for her to read to him :)

I'm very pleased with my decision to drastically cut back on my Christmas shopping. It was a hard decision, because I absolutely love giving and receiving gifts, but it wasn't such a hard decision because I don't really enjoy Christmas shopping. This seems like a contradiction, but it's not when you you think about. I love giving birthday gifts, having one special friend or family member to think about, brainstorming about what they would love, what would show that I cared, what gift would just delight and thrill her or him. It's a fun process, and I find it fulfilling to give a meaningful gift.

But multiply that one special someone by about 15, add the stress of finals into the mix, subtract funds because I'm a graduate student and most of my friends have real jobs and salaries 2/3/4 times mine, and add the crowds of the malls into the mix, and suddenly, gift-giving isn't so fun. When it comes time to buy Christmas gifts, I usually wait until after finals, and am then rushing to try to buy something for about 15 different people, and when there's that many people to consider, it's overwhelming to really spend time to decide on a meaningful gift for each one of them. I try my best, but usually wind up buying whatever strikes me for some of these folks. For the past few years, Christmas gift giving has become more stressful than it should be, and not the meaningful gift-giving that I would like it to be. I really, really like giving Christmas gifts to my friends, but it's the shopping for them that I don't enjoy.

An out presented itself when one of my high school friends (who I often shop for) suggested that instead of giving gifts to one another, we buy polo t-shirts for the poor students at her school where she teaches who's families cannot afford more than 2-3 uniforms for them. We all decided that this was a swell idea, and in addition to bringing food and drink and games to my annual New Year's Party, my friends are also bringing shirts to donate to her school. I think that this is a terrific idea that gives to others while relieves us of the stress of buying gifts for one another!

I still am trying to stay in the giving spirit toward those that I love. My mom and I have baked candies that I've given to some of my friends already, I'm spending time with them, enjoying their, helping them make Christmas gifts for their loved ones, helping them make dinner, trying on bridesmaids dresses with them, throwing them a wonderful New Year's Eve party. Even if I'm not giving them the traditional Christmas gift this year, I believe that I'm giving a lot of love, and a lot of myself to these dear ones. More than the funds, it's the time from not shopping that I feel most relieved to have back. My time is very loose these days, and that's rare for me, so I feel free to spend time with my family, my friends, and for myself, planning my upcoming trip to Europe, reading, and relaxing. This gift of time, for others and for myself, has been invaluable this Christmas season. I don't think that Christ ever intended us to stress ourselves out and empty our wallets to buy things that we really don't need when the word became flesh and made its dwelling among us. I'm sure I could be doing more this advent season to honor Christ and serve and love those around me, but, well, there's no but, there's no sense in wasting words to justify myself.

I've settled in quite well to the slower pace of this year's Christmas break. Wake up around 9 or 10. Pray and read my Bible. Check my email. Eat some breakfast. Maybe take a shower around noon, unless I somewhere to be earlier than that. Spend the afternoon with a friend, or my mom, planning my trip, or running errands like getting a hair cut or my car fixed. Come home. Eat dinner. Make candy, attend a church event with my mom, eat dinner with my dad, watch a movie, or simply relax together with my family. Stay up too late on the internet, and go to bed. It's a much slower pace than I'm used to, and I'd prefer to do more social things in the evenings, but I've decided to enjoy this time for what it is. It's rare that I actually have time to be bored, so I figure I should embrace it, boredom and loneliness and all, and it's really not as boring or lonely as I first expected. I do have some school-related things that I'm currently procrastinating, and next week is Christmas, the following week is New Year's, and then I'm flying across the ocean, so things will be hopping soon enough.

I've made most of my major purchases that I will be packing to prepare for the winter winds in Europe - the biggest one being a long, past my knees, black, poofy, down-filled, coat, and others being fake ugg boots, gloves, hat, thermal underwear, and a lovely black sweater dress with purple, black, and grey argyle tights that I plan to wear Christmas Eve, to the opera in Berlin, and probably back home seeing clients. I've got a few more random purchases at the the grocery to make, and I think the woman who is hosting me in Berlin wants some things from the US, but clothing-wise, I should be nice and warm. Texas weather has kindly dropped down to temperatures colder than Europe to help prepare me for the chill that I will soon face. It's not going to be an unbearable cold, but as I'll be spending a lot of my time wandering around outside, it's good to be bundled up and prepared. That is, as prepared as one can be for an adventure that is not yet written, an adventure that makes me feel excited and a little nervous but mostly thrilled to be a participant of.

home?

I've been "home" for about twenty-four hours now. It's strange, yesterday I packed up to leave my home to drive home. After 16 months in Bryan/College Station, I am now happy to say that I consider it my home, but that doesn't negate Keller/Fort Worth from also being my home. I guess it's ok for me to have two homes. There's not a rule against that, right? Who says that you must only have one home?

Leaving home to come home is bittersweet. I'm relieved to be done with this past semester (as incredible as it was, maybe a reflection post is due), and I'm thrilled about spending three weeks in this home with family and friends and then two weeks in Europe, but part of me is really going to miss my other home during this time. This past Sunday at church, as we continued to celebrate advent, as my comgroup leaders announced a Christmas party they were hosting, as one of our pastors urged students staying over the holidays to find church members to spend the holidays with, "Don't be lonely, we are here for you, so you don't have to be lonely over the holidays," I found myself wishing that I could be with this community, this church that I am a covenant member of, to celebrate the advent and Christmas season. It was hard to realize that I will be missing 5 Sundays with them. Since I started attending this church, this is probably the longest that I've been away from it. I mentioned this to one of my fellow church members, and she replied, "You can always come back and visit."

I'm not seriously planning on going back to visit during the break, but this internal desire to be back demonstrated itself as stronger that I realized today. This morning, I realized that I forgot my allergy serum at my house, and honestly was looking forward to making a trip back down there to go get it. Of course, I'd go on a Sunday, go to church, spend the night, and drive back Monday morning or afternoon. Unfortunately, my plans were spoiled when my mom asked if there were any friends still in town that were headed up to DFW anytime soon. Naturally, I soon found a friend who picked up my serum today, and we're going to meet up sometime in the next few days.

There was also a part of my spirit that cringed when I heard my pastor say, "You don't have to be lonely because we're here." I wished that he had said this at the beginning of the summer break. This past summer was one of the loneliest seasons in my life, and I wish someone could have prevented that loneliness. My church was there for me, and I certainly spent time with church members, but I still spent a lot of time alone, and I often felt lonely and left out, and I cried many tears just out of pure loneliness, and wished that people would have reached out to me more. I don't know, what happened happened, and one of the church members even encouraged me to spend time alone, and to spend time alone with God, and to be ok with being alone, and I think I learned a lot from that, and maybe would have grown more if I'd just accepted the loneliness instead of trying to fight it kicking and screaming.

And now I'm crying unexpected tears as I write this, and trying to figure out why. Last summer was really hard, and I wish that it had been different, and I wish that I didn't ever have to feel lonely again, but damnit, it seems like loneliness is just part of life, and I hate that. And I hate hearing my pastor say, "You don't have to be lonely," when that feels like a lie, and it feels like something that shouldn't be promised. And now I'm in a different home, and the relationships I have here are more deeply-rooted and older and more mature, but that also makes them more emotionally intense, and perhaps more exhausting, as there are more expectations from old friendships than from new friendships. Maybe it's just been an emotional day on a different front, and the tears are just coming out when I gave them the first opportunity.

I'm excited about these three weeks at home, but also partly nervous. I'm just not sure what to expect, especially with all this time on my hands. Most of my friends who live here work full time now, so what am I going to with my time during the day before Christmas? I brought home at least a dozen books that I may or may not read, books on therapy, books on Christianity, and fiction books that could be really enriching. I have a little bit of schoolwork to accomplish. I will have lots of time with my mom, shopping, and cooking, and seeing movies. I will possibly blog more. I will finalize my plans for my Europe trip. I will upload pictures. I will prepare for my New Year's Party I'm hosting. When I think about it, I suppose that's more than enough to do when I'm not doing scheduled things with friends and family. I suppose I should just soak it up and enjoy it too, because once it's over, it's going to be a while before I get a break like this again.

This isn't at all the post that I thought I would write when I first started writing it, but that's ok. I like it when the words just start flowing and what I'm writing just takes over, as if my fingers are just conduits for whatever should come through me.

I'm home again, but I'm away from home.

weighing me down

I'd like to be Europe right now. Or the mountains. Or somewhere warm. Warm European mountains, maybe? They probably don't exist, at least not right now. Maybe Chile or Argentina has warm mountains right now, hmm.

It's that time of the semester again when I'm stressed. Stressed about finishing assignments, stressed about family, stressed about money, stressed about not having enough direction, stressed about not be able get into all my spring classes yet, stressed about not having enough sleep. Basically, I'm just letting it all get to me, once I get stressed about one thing, then everything piles on top of me. I need to say no to this pattern. I need to get a massage that I still have a gift certificate for.

Thanksgiving and Christmas stress me out right now. I'm looking forward to having a nice long break in just another few weeks, I guess. Advent begins soon. This will be good, I need to remember what I'm hoping for, and the hope and salvation and kingdom that already exists now and is coming.

I'm going to go eat some sushi. And study the WAIS-IV. And read some words of hope. And sleep for a solid 8 hours.

Europe still sounds really nice.

decongestant, vitamin c, zinc, advil, antibiotics, coldeeze . . .

After spending a week denying that my coughing and congestion were no more than a bad case of allergies, yesterday I found myself feeling light-headed, exhausted, and extremely cold, and returned home to discover that I had a 100 degree fever. Joy. For the first time in over a week, I'm finally just relaxing - still in my pj's, sitting on the couch, letting my mom give me pills and feed me waffles. I'd like to read one of the books that I got for Christmas, but I'm not sure that I could concentrate on anything longer than a paragraph, so instead I'm catching up on my blogs.

It's shaped up to have been a pretty good Christmas break for me. I'm surprised, because it was off to a rough start, but since Christmas Eve things have been mostly nice. I've seen almost all of my extended family - grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - and have really enjoyed their company. This Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were some of the most pleasant in my recent memory. I've enjoyed the company of old and new friends, had some great conversations with folks, and threw a kick ass New Year's Eve party. I flew to Houston for the Texas Bowl with an old friend and made some new friends. I rode the Titan at Six Flags. I got some great gifts, and have had some successful shopping experiences, expanding my professional wardrobe which I'll begin wearing in a few weeks. I've seen some good films, and have started to read some good books. I went to Mexico and played with kids who I'd love to adopt. I've watched the friendship between my old and new cat develop from hissing and avoidance to playful chasing and tolerant enjoyment. I've been complimented. I've felt loved and cherished. Thanks.

Still, I've felt lonely, disappointed, and confused, and cried more than once these past few weeks. But the love that I've experienced certainly outweighs those negative emotions. I really didn't think that it would be, but this has been a pretty good break.

Ok, I've spent enough mental energy for now. Let's go watch some LOST and get excited about January 31st.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I hope that each of you have had a lovely time celebrating Christ's birth, enjoying family and friends, eating good food, listening to reindeer hooves, and opening presents :) I made this little quiz for some holiday fun, and I invite all of my blog friends to participate - Laura, Cara, Britt, Martha, Ben, RC, Anton, and Sheri! Feel free to add any other questions.

Four Favorite Christmas Songs:
1. O Holy Night - but only when it's sung well. A lady at our church always used to sing it in this horribly warbled operatic style, no thank you.
2. Silent Night
3. Happy Christmas (War is Over) - This song really captures the bittersweet emotions I feel during this season, reflecting on the past, and looking forward to the future.
4. Sleigh Ride - I used to gallop around the house singing and dancing to this song while decorating the tree :)

Christmas Songs I Could Do Without Hearing Next Year:
1. Baby, it's Cold Outside - I know it's supposed to be cute and flirty, but listening to 3 1/2 minutes of a woman saying no to a man pressuring her to spend the night just makes my stomach churn. "No" means "NO!" gentlemen!
2. Miss You Most (At Christmastime) by Mariah Carey - because Christmas is all about moping over your lost loves, right?
3. Christmas Don't Be Late by Alvin and the Chipmunks *cringe*

Four Favorite Christmas Movies:
1. Love Actually - Ok, I suppose I can allow a little romance into the Christmas season, just because this is one of my favorite films
2. It's a Wonderful Life
3. A Christmas Story
4. Elf

Four Foods I Eat Each Christmas:
1. Chicken Spaghetti
2. Waffles
3. Brie cheese rounds with cranberries an pears
4. Homemade Fudge!

Four Christmas Traditions I Enjoy:
1. Christmas Eve candle light church service
2. Christmas Eve dinner at the Caver Clubhouse with my huge family
3. Hitching a ride to my grandma's nursing home
4. Singing Christmas carols with my aunts and cousins at my grandma's nursing home

Four Things I got for Christmas this year:
1. Stylish pants and shoes for my practicum
2. Once and Memento on DVD
3. 2 Books: one of Ray Bradbury stories and one about psychodynamic therapy
4. Pink bunny rabbit pajamas. I kid you not, and I'm wearing them on New Year's baby!

Alright, I look forward to reading your responses :)