The Burden of Choice

I am being faced with so many major decisions right now and I am pretty overwhelemed. Hardly any decision will be an easy one to make. I have so many dreams, desires, needs and wants that I want to fulfill. The problem lies in the fact that I can't possibly make every single dream work. Some of them conflict and I have to decide what is more important to me.

As I grow older these decisions seem to only grow more complicated. When I was in high school and younger, the right decision would over time become very clear to me. This doesn't mean that it was an easy decision to make, but there was at least a clear, "right" decision. The decisions I am faced with now do not and will not have a clear, "right" answer. My choice will be based on weighing my wants, desires, and needs. I have sought guidance from respected people in my life and I have endlessly prayed about these decisions, but the decision is ultimately up to me. This is such a burden to me.

There are many times when I don't think that I am responsible enough or wise enough to make decisions that will alter my life in monumental ways. Regardless though, the choices are still there and are still mine to make. I can't help but think of all of the "what if's" that will come to mind when I ultimately make the decisions. I have seldom made a decision in my life that was followed with regrets, but I have also never had such difficult decisions to make.

Ghost Town on Christmas Eve

I stepped out on the cold front porch of my apartment this morning to a brisk twenty-eight degree greeting; the only greeting I have had today. Mt bare feet carried me down the side walk to check to make sure my car is still in tack. Though it was below freezing, the lack of college students around made me think that last night might have made my car another prime target for robbers. I looked around as I walked and was caught off guard at what I found. Silence. Not a person in sight, not a car driving down the road, not a student rushing to class, not even a homeless person gathering the pecans outside my apartment. The only thing that made me realize that I was not in a surreal, deserted wasteland was the faithful sound of the bells of Pat Neff and the Science Building telling me that it was 9:00.

Why am I still in Waco on the morning of Christmas Eve? I wondered that myself as I wondered what the rest of my family was doing. I left my sister and her husband yesterday in Houston as they prepared to go to his family’s house. My mom traveled to her home in Sabinal to see her family. My dad traveled to his home in Uvalde to see his family. Where to I go? My home is here in Waco. But that’s the problem. My home is not a place. My home is the people in my life that have loved me and comforted me and that I have lived life with and those people are everywhere. Those people include my parents and my sister, but it also includes my friends in Waco from my church and my staff last year and my roommates this year and from many other places. But they all went to their homes this month. So my home here is temporary. As people graduate and as I prepare to go on to grad school the reality sets in stronger that my home here is temporary…just like the home that I grew up in was temporary. It wasn’t supposed to be, but that’s how it is. How do I deal with that? I’ve been trying to figure that out since I was a junior in high school and my family fell apart. I haven’t come up with anything yet. The only thing I know to do is go day by day and plead for God’s grace to get me through.

I wasn’t supposed to be here by myself on Christmas Eve. I was supposed to go home on Wednesday, but the weather prevented me. Not the weather on Wednesday. Though it was nasty out, I could have gone home, but I had to travel back to Waco on Friday, (today) to sing in my church’s Candlelight Christmas Eve service for Advent. Since the weather was predicted to be really bad on Friday, my mom didn’t want me to chance driving up and back on Friday. So here I am in this ghost town trying to make the most of my Christmas Eve by relaxing, enjoying myself and learning how to make the most of this life on earth. That is a pretty big challenge when I consider the fact that I was “made for another world.”

Lying Awake

I went to bed around eleven Wednesday night after a long and trying day. Around two AM I woke up. I'm not sure why. I was dead tired when I went to bed. At the point that I woke up my mind started churning. About what? Everything you could possibly imagine. It is so ridiculous. I have a lot going on in my life right now and I couldn't make my mind stop even just for eight hours so I could go to sleep. After lying in bed for two hours, wide awake and mind rolling, I gave up my futile efforts to sleep and grabbed my book. I'm going through The Lord of the Rings again because I'm taking Oxford Chrstians with Dr. Wood in the Spring. The tales of hobbits, elves, wizards, and dwarves couldn't even alter the course of my mind. I gave up after thirty minutes of that to try to write it out of my head. As I have now begun to write, I realize that the problem with blogging right now is that I don't want to spill all of these thoughts into the world wide web. I can't call anyone right now at 4:30 in the morning. So...here is my solicitation for your prayers. I am going through a lot in my life right now. Some good, some bad, some stressful and some relieving. All of it captivating my mind and wearing me out. Wouldn't life be so much simpler without any surprises? I know better than to want that though. Without surprises there is no growth or change. I pray though that I am sufficiently equipped to deal with all of life's surprises.

Let's see if I can get some sleep now.

She Left

Kelli graduated yesterday and left today. (I wrote this on Sunday.) I spent most of the weekend with her and her family. It was so nice to spend time with another family. Weird as they are, it felt so normal and comfortable. They treated me like family and took me in as one of their own. This only seemed fitting because for the past year and a half, Kelli has been more than a friend to me. She has been like a sister. I say this as the utmost compliment because my relationship with my own sister is so wonderful.

The “goodbye” seemed odd to me. It didn’t seem quite real. It was the third goodbye that I had to a friend who was leaving Baylor. I am so naïve to the changes that are about to occur. In my optimism I think that not much will change after a goodbye. Granted I won’t be able to just walk down the street to the person’s apartment and say “hi,” or meet up across 35 for some grub and to talk about the latest developments in life, but something in me still says relationships are strong enough to hold up against distance. It is more than just the physical presence of the person that held the relationship together in the first place.

Perhaps I am deceiving myself again, but I think that Kelli and I can withstand distance. She and I understand each other like no one else I know. Our friendship goes so deep through life experiences, crazy times, sad times, daring (Halloween night) times, grieving times, and joyful times. My words aren’t capturing our friendship. Like our friend Bekah, from Asbury might say, “It is the work of the Holy Spirit that builds our friendship and brings us so close. That’s it. It is as mysterious as the work of the Holy Spirit because our friendship is the work of the Holy Spirit.

So I sit on the couch, knitting a scarf, watching a movie and sipping wine thinking about our friendship. I’ll stay optimistic. I have to. Even if there is a letdown at the end, I choose to stay optimistic. Maybe we will end up as roommates at the same seminary. Maybe much longer down the line we end up working at the same church. Can’t you see her pastoring a church where my private counseling firm is? It may not be too far-fetched. :) At least I know I’ll see her spring break when I make the trek down to Greenville, SC.

I Got Nuttin'

I am one-hundred percent spent. I tried hard a few times during finals to think of something to write about but nothing came. Actually, there are plenty of things that I have thought of to write about. It is the coherence of thoughts that is not coming. The only thoughts that are somewhat coherent are anything about Modern European Philosophy, Christian Ethics, World Religions and, of course, Greek. I have absorbed and retained the information so well that I can't stop thinking about it. Strange. I am doing my best for the next couple of days to unwind myself.

On a random note, this post really isn't about anything. I just didn't want my readers to think that I have bailed on 'em. I noticed that my number of readers and page loads actually went UP during finals. Considering that most of my readers are college students, I think it is probably an accurate assumption to make that my friends were coming to my site as a means of procrastination and my lack of posting did not satisfy. Glad to know that I didn't feed your vices.

On another random note, this is my fiftieth post. :) Although you wouldn't know that by looking at my profile. It still says that I am at a measly thirty-three. Does anyone know how to change that? It also says that I only have 285 profile views for the past several months when my statcounter says otherwise. I don't really care about the profile views, but it does annoy me that my number of posts is not accurate. You know...it's the OCD perfectionist in me. I don't really know how Blogger does it's counting so is it messing up on anyone else'? Do I have to do something special when I republish my blog? I didn't have to before, but I don't know what is wrong with it.

On another random note, I'm not a tree as one commentator that I do not know said. I'm in the tree on my profile pic. It's my tree on campus. Don't worry, I'll share. I pick a favorite tree most places that I spend adequate amount of time at. I have one at my old house, both grandparents houses, Alto Frio, and some other places. Call me a tree-hugger. I can take. What can say?...I like to climb trees. This one on campus is by far my favorite. In the summer time and early fall it's leaves grow so large that some are bigger than my head. During the winter it looses every single leaf. A lot of trees can't do that. They will only loose a few, but this one goes stark naked during the winter. After it's leaves have bloomed awhile in the spring, it starts to bloom tiny white flowers. After awhile they start to fall on the ground and that is when this picture was taken. Now that you know the life of my tree and I have completely bored you, me and my fried brain are signing off.

I hope to have something better to offer you when my brain has gone through extensive rehab and healing.

Pax In My Ears

Corny title, I know. I just got back from choir practice. We are having our Christmas Choral Service this Sunday. I am very excited about it. I haven't been in a choir concert in about four years. Our director, Dr. Randall Bradley (who also teaches at Truett and Baylor) has an immense appreciation for quality music, so his choices of music are always eloquent, different, appropriate for the time or sermon....I could go on and on, but just know that they are always perfectly chosen. Needless for me to say, (but I'll say it again anyway,) I have thoroughly enjoyed the music selection for this Christmas. My favorite piece that we are doing is called Pacem. Let me say emphatically that there is very little that rings sweeter in my ears than the combination of a violin, piano and a Latin chorus. Here are the words to Pacem:

Dona nobis pacem.
Et in terra pax hominibus.

So simple in it's appearance yet so glorious in it's presentation. It means:

Grant us Peace
And in this land peace to all (men) of good will.

This is probably boring for most of you, but I get so excited about music and especially Latin choral music. I am so blessed to get to sing some beautiful pieces with an amazing choir. I hope we do more Latin songs with violin and piano again soon. It gives me chills.

Blog Makes Headlines

Check this out. As one who loves learning new words it brought me joy to see this.

It doesn't get much better than this...

I love ice cream. I know that just about anyone can make this statement, but I can eat and eat and eat it and my metabolisism doesn't argue (yet,) so I do. However, I discovered it's not just any ice cream I like. Since I don't have access to the cafe's Bluebell anymore I had to start buying my own. I made the mistake of buying HEB's Creamy Creations to try to save a few pennies. It was a nice try they made, but it is a poor substitute for Bluebell and I'll never make that mistake again. I used to only be a chocolate ice cream kind of girl. I have now discovered a great love for Cookie's and Cream or even butterfinger pieces in my ice cream. Two years ago, I discovered Birthday Cake ice cream. It is incomaparble to anything else. mmmm.... Still, my all time favorite has always been (and is in danger of always being) vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, not just poured on top like a sundae, but stirred all in until I have some glopping brown mess that looks anything but edible. But edible it is and especially when accompanied with cherries and cherry juice. ::sigh:: what glorious thoughts of food.

But wait... I didn't think that it got any better than that, until....until....well....it just got better.

Pour a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream on top and that gloppy brown sundae mess from the microwave just became heaven. Mmmm...I'm gonna go eat. :)

Christmas Songs

Since people started talking about their worst fears in Christmas music on my last post I thought I'd make it official. What are some of your favorite Christmas songs and what are those that should have never been written? My personal favorite is a Veggie Tales song. It's the Eight Polish Chrstmas Foods. I don't have time to type out the lyrics right now, since I can't find them online so I'll come back and type them later. On a more serious note, Veni Veni Emmanuel is really my favorite. (That's Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel.) I was so excited to get to sing it this past Sunday for Advent at my church. I'll be writting a post about my church a some point. It's too amazing to not share, even if it's just on a blog.

So tell me!! What are you favorite/least favorite Christmas songs?

Two Scary Things

I'm at work right now and I was listening to my radio station on Launch. I like Launch, but I get frustrated with it sometimes. It likes to broaden my musical horizons (as do I) by recommending artists for me based on what I've already rated. Sometimes it does a good job with this and I end up finding a new artist that I like. Then there are other times when it fails horribly at recommending something to me. Today was one of those days. It recommends music sometimes based on what genres of music I have rated or by recommending artists based on people who have similar musical tastes. Today a Christmas song came on because I had rated other Christmas songs from artists that I had already rated. I hadn't rated this particular artist yet though. I didn't recognize the song, but the artist sounded familiar. I thought, "That sounds just like the Wiggles." I looked at the radio window, and sure enough...it was the Wiggles. AAAHHHHHH!! That was the first scary thing. Why were they playing the Wiggles on my radio station!?!?!?! Quick!! Rate it as "Never play again," and then hit the "next" button. After a bit, I calmed down from this scary moment and the second scary thing happened. It occurred to me, that not only did I know who the Wiggles were, but I also recognized their voices and music style. This was even scarier than the first thing. I don't think I've recovered from this yet, and I'm not sure if I ever will. Maybe I should stop baby-sitting... the damage done on the psyche from kidz movies and such could be way too much to handle.

For those of you wondering who the Wiggles are, you're better off without me telling you. Just steer clear...at all costs...steer clear.