So I tried Stitch Fix

Ok, this post is kind of weird for me. I usually don't write reviews, because this space has traditionally been a place for creative expression, sharing my heart, and keeping family up to date. But I just tried something fun for my birthday, and I wanted to share.

First, some background.

So, I hear these stories about girls who LOVE shopping. They go when they're stressed, and it's like therapy. They thrive on the thrill of the treasure hunt, walking around and trying things on until the store closes.

I'm not one of those girls.

It's not that I don't love wearing pretty things, but the process to obtain them is often stressful.

See, I walk in all confident, but once inside, I'm assaulted by choices. It's dizzying after about five minutes. I'm acutely aware of how little cash I have to spend, and I suddenly can't remember whether I already have blue pants and need black ones, or if the jacket I'm holding will clash with the blouse in my closet. Standing in that green-tinged dressing room, I wonder why on earth I decided to wear tennis shoes that have to be untied and tied again, and how am I supposed to tell myself whether stripes are really flattering on me or not? I usually end up leaving without buying anything.

It's better when I shop with a friend--or better yet, with my mom. She's known me for all of my 20-plus years, so she gets me. And she's refreshingly, brutally honest.

However...my best shopping mate lives almost 200 miles away, so I don't shop much.

And so I decided to try Stitch Fix. I have to admit, the idea of someone taking notes on all my preferences and finding stuff for me to wear without me searching for any of it was pretty dang attractive. And since I bet I'm not the only one getting those mint-colored ads in my junk email, I thought I'd tell you all how it went.

You start by filling out a quiz--a really detailed quiz about your sizes, your color preferences, and details like whether you like to show off your arms occasionally, often, or all the time. This part was SO fun for me. You get to rate outfits, and tell them how much you're willing to spend on tops, bottoms and accessories. Then, you give them a link to your Pinterest page, and write a note to the stylist.

You schedule your box, pay a $20 styling fee, and wait! 

I scheduled mine to arrive on my birthday last week. :)

The box arrived a day early, and was so cute...

And even cuter inside!

Every box has five items. Mine had:

1. A soft, dark gray dress
2. A white peplum blouse
3. A lace-trimmed sleeveless blouse with a bohemian vibe
4. Pretty silver earrings
5. A navy and orange poncho wrap

Nestled up against the packages was a note from my stylist about the things she'd selected. There were even pictures showing different outfit combinations using those same items.

Hubby was my very willing second opinion while I tried on each one in the bathroom. (Thanks, babe!)

1. The gray dress fit me perfectly, and I loved the soft stretch of the material. It had a high neckline (rare!), and a pretty "v" in the back whose point dipped to about an inch above my bra line. Subtle, but elegant.  
   
   
   
   
   I *almost* kept it because it felt so flattering...but it felt too form-fitting for work. In the end, I couldn't justify spending $79 for a dress I didn't plan to wear regularly.
2. The wrap looked cool in the box, but on me it looked like I'd been turned into a clothes tree for some orange and navy soccer team jerseys. I guess ponchos are just not my thing, because I even forgot to take a picture.
3. The boho blouse was so airy and delicate. I slipped it on with high hopes, but then realized that the lacy t-back would never look flattering against exposed bra straps. Plus, I'd forgotten that this style of shirt is narrow on top and wide on the bottom--great for someone with opposite proportions to mine. 
   
4. The earrings were beautiful!
   
   
   
   
   I loved them for about five minutes...right up until the moment that I realized they would cost $28. What?? I know for a fact that I can find a similar style of earrings for less than half that cost, so into the return bag they went.
5. The white blouse was the one true, amazing find that I kept and love. I mean, just look at the layered edge on those sleeves!
   
   Also the tailored, curved hemline meant that I could wear it just as prettily untucked as tucked. I kept remembering different pants, shorts, and skirts that would look great with it in different combinations. (AKA my wardrobe is expanded!!) At $58, it is by far the most expensive top I've ever bought in my life, but the $20 styling fee I'd already paid went toward its cost. Since I've been searching for a versatile, work-worthy white blouse for over a year, I happily paid the extra $38 with birthday money. 

At checkout, you go online and tell them which items you plan to keep, and why. I gave a lot of details about what I loved and didn't love, because this will help my stylist choose better things next time.

Whatever you don't want to pay for goes in a bag with pre-paid postage.

So here is my take on the whole experience.

CONS:

• I can definitely find better deals when I'm willing to spend a few hours at places like Ross, Target, or TJ Maxx. The prices in the Stitch Fix box are similar to full-priced items at a department store, which is not what I'm used to spending on clothes. 
• When it comes it a box, you only have one size to try. At the store, if you don't like how something fits, you can usually find the same item in a different size.

PROS:

• I have to say, for never having met me, they did a GREAT job of picking stuff that I would have gravitated toward naturally. The colors were great, and the styles were all very pretty. 
• Even more shocking...all of it FIT! I mean, that never happens in real-life dressing rooms. 
• I liked the chance to try things I would not normally buy (like the poncho). Even if I didn't end up keeping it, now I know. 
• I loved "shopping" without having to actually wade through a gajillion choices. It was delivered to my door, and I never left the house. 

There you have it! While it's not going to be my primary mode of shopping in the future, I have already scheduled my next box to arrive in about three months. Have any of you tried a personal shopping service? What did you think of it? 

Five Minute Friday::Glue

Today I am linking up with Five Minute Friday, a writing exercise where you set a timer for five minutes and write on a specific topic until it chimes at you to lift your fingers from the keyboard. You can join in here!

Today's word = GLUE

Yesterday was all unraveled and ragged. I flew out the door with my shoes barely on my feet and a granola bar in my hand. Seriously, God bless granola bar makers.

My house looks like a garage sale after all the good pickings have been picked over. Ever since our washing machine decided to re-create Noah's Flood two weeks ago, we've been living in a carpet-less home without baseboards or doors or basic organization. Just getting out the door is a feat of memory and agility. Where was my jacket again...? *wracks brain, bumps into furniture*

It really hasn't been too bad. Now that the thirteen rumbling red industrial fans and honking-huge dehumidifier are gone, at least I have a kitchen again. Even while the fans roared, we laughed about their white noise making it easy to sleep.

But yesterday at work my shoulders and neck creaked with painful lumps as the phone constantly rang and rang and rang and my throat grew dry from explaining. The papers piled up faster than I could sort them. My fingers clicked constantly, almost independent of my tired brain as the mental to-do list grew longer and heavier.

It felt like I was coming unglued. Can anyone relate?

I stumbled up the stairs to our homegroup meeting with only half a heart to be there. Heavy-eyed, foggy-brained from my desperate post-work nap, I willed myself to sit.

"Between the songs", they said,  "let's tell what God has been doing in our hearts". What have You been doing, Lord? I wondered. I'm so unglued and discombobulated.

As I flipped backward in the blue journal looking for scraps I'd chanced to record, I found the sweetest words. Words that had patched me together on another ragged, teary day in January.

"Cherise, you do not have less at this moment when you are exhausted and fighting a cold than you do on days when you are well-rested, healthy, and feel in control. You have Me in abundance at all times, and I am all you need."

Wonderful truth.

He is not diminished if I am depleted, and He holds even my unraveled, unglued moments together by his powerful Word.


Side note: My homegroup will notice that this journal entry wasn't what I shared last night with the group. It felt like a personal hug from Jesus for that moment, something just between the two of us for me to feel his love while I shared something else out loud. But now, in the light of a new day, it seemed  appropriate to share.  I hope someone else will feel His love in the middle of an unglued moment like mine. 

Adults Bully Too

Lately I've been researching workplace bullying. Read into that what you will.

I always thought bullies were a middle-school thing, but apparently adult bullying is pretty common. A Wikipedia search told me that almost half (49%) of all Americans reported being affected by bullying currently or in the past. Maaaan, I thought I was out of the danger zone!

The Health and Safety Executive website says that workplace bullying is "negative behavior being targeted at an individual, or individuals, repeatedly and persistently over time." Pretty broad definition, but they break it down:

• ignoring or excluding someone
• giving unachievable tasks, or "setting you up to fail"
• spreading malicious rumors or gossip
• making belittling remarks
• undermining your integrity
• not giving credit where credit is due
• withholding information purposely

The Workplace Bullying Institute says stress from being harassed or bullied can cause emotional and mental damage leading to things like depression, heart problems, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Yikes!

My research, and my own experience, have convinced me that the question is not whether it will happen to me, but when. And when it does, what is the mature, responsible response? Is the advice given to kids in middle school appropriate for an adult workplace? And as a Christian, should my behavior be different from what I could legally do?

These are genuine questions. 

As a kid, I was told, "Ignore bullies; they just want a reaction. If that doesn't work, stand up to them." But as a homeschooled kid, I had a pretty limited exposure to bullies. Not much chance to practice. 

Now I'm adult in the corporate world, and I sense a pressure to give as good as I get or get run over. Gossip is the norm, and if you don't conform, then guess what--you're the new target. "Good Americans" are confident, assertive individuals who would never allow themselves to be bullied, right?

But as a Christian, I've resisted this, struggling to know how to respond and remain obedient to Jesus. I mean, He said some pretty un-American stuff on this topic. 

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles." (Matthew 5:28-41)

A person who slaps me, steals my hoodie, and sues me. Hmm, sounds like a bully to me. And Jesus says "do not resist" this person. Instead He seems to advocate a policy of "killing with kindness", giving good for evil. 

Until this week, Jesus and Corporate America seemed totally out of sync. Then I had a revelation: perhaps "resistance" was not the same as "assertiveness."

Resistance pushes angrily back when it is shoved. It fights fire with fire, leading to an inferno. I have always known that this was a baaaaaad idea. Assertion, on the other hand, can be respectful and controlled. It speaks the truth in love. It may confront, but it never keeps grudges and it never gossips. 

I am still chewing on this new distinction. How to assert lovingly--and ensure that people know it's done without malice? How to confront people who have never known healthy conflict? How to break habits of silence and avoidance that have grown over months?

Maybe I'll do a sequel to this post as I learn more. But in the meantime, I'd appreciate prayer. I have a new appreciation for the hard life of the picked-on. 

Thanksgiving :: A Hard Discipline

Honesty time, ya'll.  Last Friday night, I had a world class emotional breakdown. (Or, as my friend would call it, an "EBD".)

Every abrasion of my heart felt like it had just received an alcohol bath, all my failures were hanging out on the line for the world to mock, my eyeliner was at clown proportions from tears, and the last thing I wanted to do was eat a cheerful Thanksgiving dinner with my homegroup. The last thing on my mind was thanks.

But I went. Mainly because I was bringing the salad. Teeth clenched, expectations nonexistent, I gripped the glass bowl and stomped out to the car.

And...of course, the pecan pie and laughter and paper football shenanigans softened my crustiness.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

Seriously--this is a hard lesson!  Can there be anything more difficult than thanksgiving when the car won't start? Does anything rub more against the natural grain when you and your hard work feel invisible and unwanted, when the card declines, when the future is murky, when your energy bottoms out and you get a paper cut on top of it all?

I'm learning that discipline can be a mercy, that the very thing that puckers my mouth may settle my stomach, that obedience is always best, even if I go kicking and flailing. Thankfulness--like love--is a choice, not a Norman Rockwell painting or giddy emotion.

I've read about a life brimming with "eucharisto thankfulness" in Anne Voskamp's book. I know that no other life is fuller, even if poverty is the discouraging reality of the bank statement, the pantry, or the social calendar. But if I'm going to stick to honesty, I have to admit I'm out of practice.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds...

So here we go: I'm going to practice this week. I'm taking the Joy Dare, and I hope it extends past Thursday.

Balloons over the Rockies

What weighs you down? 

So many things settle with undue weight into the corners of our hearts, puncturing our tank of joy and contentment with devastating precision: 

Worries about our families

Fears of an unknown, uncontrollable future

Hurts from words spoken years ago

Hurts from words that might have healed, but went unspoken

Secret shame

Insecurities that taunt us from the mirror or our GPA

Tight finances

In the desert with a complaining group of nomads, God used symbolism to seal the significance of deep truth in their hearts. Physical rituals like washing, celebrating, and sacrificing made unseen promises tangible, concrete, and less easily forgotten. 

So my life group leader got a great idea. 

We would write out the worries, fears, hurts, shames and insecurities in a letter to Jesus. Then, we would attach them to helium globes and literally release them to Him from a mountain top. 

When we found that our letters were too heavy for our little balloons, we took a marker and improvised. :)

We shared our burdens, gave them to Him as a group. As we let the plastic ribbons slip from our hands, we felt weightless in the freedom of surrender. 

We are spiritual beings, but we are also physical. These two aspects of our nature are so enmeshed that we cannot be wholly well if one is broken. Doctors and psychologists and ministers have long known that cheerful patients heal faster and that depression increases the risk of all kinds of life-threatening diseases. When we physically lift the edges of our mouths there is a corresponding glimmer of joy in our hearts. When we physically place our hands over our breast pockets and sing, we feel a soulful camaraderie with a nation of others doing the same. 

All that to say, I personally need physical reminders of spiritual truths. I need to kneel--it humbles me. I need to sing out--it reminds my heart of the reasons for singing. 

And sometimes I need to literally release my burdens to the Lord in a balloon. 

The Point of Deserts

"And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that, as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you." 

(Deuteronomy 8:2-5)

Everyone in the LT program has been using this book to study the life of Jesus this summer as our example of leadership. Even though the stories of Jesus' life have been part of my personal fiber since toddler-hood, I've found myself challenged in new ways and fascinated by details that I never saw before.

We were studying Jesus' relationship with the Holy Spirit, and I had just read about his 40-day stint in the desert without food.

In his humanness, he got hungry. He got thirsty. After 40 days, he was probably sunburned, with dry, swollen lips that cracked when he answered his tempter those three times. But what had Jesus said in the desert?  "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Huh...sounds like Deuteronomy.

And it was after that desert experience that "Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee" (Luke 4:14).    

Many Christians--me included!--have often lived for the "mountaintop experiences": the times when life feels easy and joyful, God feels closer than ever, and it's easy to trust that He is good. Oh yeah, I like those.
But deserts?  Blech.  Just like real deserts, desert times in our lives are hot, sticky and uncomfortable. They're often lonely, seem endless, or even pointless. Parts of my life feel very desert-like right now, and it's been tough, stressful, and discouraging. 


But Deuteronomy says that "God led you these forty years in the wilderness" and Jesus was "led by the Spirit" into the desert. God doesn't do pointless things. 


But why?  
"...that he might humble you...
...testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would obey his commandments..."

Ok, yeah, I do want to be humbled. I need that, Lord. But this is painful! What if my needs for friendship, acceptance, or financial provision go unmet?

"...and he let you hunger and fed you with manna...that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord."


Am I willing to feel the hunger of not having what I think I need if it means that God can feed me in His way?
Am I willing to get filled from an unexpected source, just like manna was for them?

Maybe this is the point of a desert--to learn complete dependence on the One who is the real source of life.

God, if that's what you're doing, you can keep me here as long as you need to. I trust you. After all, you went through a desert too.

P.S.
Coincidentally, this summer, hubby will be co-leading a workshop entitled "Beauty in Pain". More related posts to come, I'm sure. Oh, the irony. 

The Structure of Summer: Cabin and work

Life is not where you live. It's also not a string of tasks, one after the other. Instead, life is lived on the inside, within those structures, where personal experiences pile up and intertwine and are sorted into meaningful categories by memory.

Still, my internal life feels a tad sensitive right now, even messy. I had an EBD (emotional break-down) at lunch today, and the categories aren't clear at all. 

So I'm writing now about the external structures of where and what. Maybe later I'll get to the other stuff. 

Our Summer Home:

This is our home for the next month and a half! Isn't it cute? 

The YMCA of the Rockies was established around the turn of the LAST century--more than 100 years ago. Built in 1914, our little duplex is one of the oldest structures still standing. Every year they threaten to tear it down and build something new, but every year it somehow escapes the ax. For the tree growing up through the roof of the water closet, that's a good thing! 

We have one large room with a kitchen,

and two tiny bedrooms. The one where we sleep is just big enough for a double bed and a chest of drawers.

We haven't had an official hike yet, but because our cabin is perched so far above the main YMCA campus, I feel as if we get a mini-hike nearly every day! 

Two Very Different Hats:

As far as work is concerned, I feel as though I have my feet in two separate buckets. 

Photo credit: Google Images

In the first bucket, I don a forest green polo shirt and make my way among wet floors and clanking machinery to clean and sort trays of dirty dishes from the guest dining hall. Since hubby is considered LT staff this summer, we aren't really working for the Y, but they are kind enough to let us volunteer two morning shifts each week in exchange for all the food we can eat. :) A pretty good deal!

In the second bucket, there are no dirty dishes, but the water is murky and confusing. Suddenly, the same tasks I have been doing for our church office the last two and a half years take twice or thrice as much effort. A simple thing like checking the office email may take two hours, simply because the internet connection keeps logging me out. A question to a co-worker that would have been solved in a three-minute conversation down the hall is now a 2 day email exchange. 

Don't get me wrong--I'm thankful to be here, thankful that supervisors allowed me to come with hubby on this summer adventure, and thankful for the income.

But with deadlines looming...
and banks saying they can't give me information to do my job unless my boss is on the phone WITH me...
and the information from the office incomplete and unclear...

A growing sense of failure and frustration is tightening my throat and making me wonder what I'm doing here. Shouldn't effort equal success? But at the moment, it feels like I am dumping effort into a black hole, with no results in sight.

But now I've gone past the external structures to the rawness I promised not to share. Oh well...I guess God knew I needed to share it. Prayers are appreciated. 

Letter to Louise

Dear Louise Erdrich,

The fact that you are a living author makes it very hard to write your biography. 

Please don’t get me wrong; I want you to have a long happy life! But it’s the nature of the thing. However popular your work may be, no one knows nearly as much about your life while you’re living it as they will when you’re gone.

Fame is ironic, isn't it?

Of course, it’s better this way.  You’re a normal person who deserves your privacy. You want to choose how much of your life to reveal.

But for all of us poor college students who have to write 5-page biographies about you, could you please reveal a little more?

-That Poor College Student

[picture credit]



[I have put in about 4 addtional hours of research since originally writing this letter of mild frustration. Since then, I've found enough about her life to easily fill five pages. I was simply looking in the wrong places. 
Lesson learned: don't blame the subject if your research is bad. :) ]

I want to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a college student who felt like she was going to drown in papers and books and verb conjugations.

Her writing hand was claw-like from clutching the pen.
Her shoulders had grown together from hunching.
Her computer was overheating from research.
Her eyes were scratchy from staring.
Her clothes had wrinkled into a sitting position.

And she missed the outdoors.

Spring Break was shimmering in the future, glowing with the promise of long nights of sleep and the certainty of exercise. Sweet vacation would soon be here. Then the tension would ease, the books lie forgotten for a while.

But the college student needed rest now, or at least a substitute.
Snacks?  Nope, tried that already.
A to-do list? Those only made her knotted shoulders tighter behind her neck.
How about a nap? Too large a risk; she would sleep for a week.

Then, the student stopped still. She had felt a familiar sound. Yes, she felt more than heard, for this Sound reached beyond soundwaves and caressed her heart under the armor she wore. The sound was a Voice, and it spoke from a well of deep rest, deep comfort, and a deep knowing. It invited her to sit close. She was still clutching her pen and her books, but she sat.

The Voice said her name, and she softened, but she still held the pen and books.
"Daughter?" said the Voice. "Do you know that I loved you before you had accomplished anything that you consider worthwhile or valuable?"
The college student held her pen tighter.
"And do you know that I would love you if you completely failed?"
She shuddered at the thought.
"I am the source of your rest, my lovely one," the Voice continued. "If you try to satisfy yourself with other things, you will feel like you're drying up."
"I feel like I'm drowning," she mumbled.
The Voice laughed, warmly, and she could imagine smile creases forming around tender eyes.
"The water I offer never drowns," He said. "It quenches. And the rest I offer isn't limited to vacation. I am always with you, and I don't run out or get tired."

She sat a long time. Gradually, a little bead of realization began to trickle slowly through her thoughts. The water swelled into a sturdy stream, eroding the fears of failure and the tiredness that had crusted there. He could be trusted. He was a deep well that never ran dry. The water soaked her, and her tears of relief flavored the deluge with salt.

And she let the pen fall from her open hands.

Hopefulness

I’m wrestling with the idea of hopefulness right now.  Its definition is shifting in my mind, squeezed out of its usual place by the unusual  pressures aimed at me from within and without.

What is its usual place, you ask? Well, think of the word “hopeful”.  What comes to mind?  If you’re like me, you think of up-tilted chins sporting confident smiles.  You think of bright colors and optimistic decisions to “assume the best” of people and situations.  You think of a row of shiny glasses of water—all half full.  Hopefulness means positivity, sunshine, and dogged cheerfulness despite all odds. Right?

But at the moment, the odds are stacked higher than I’ve ever seen them.  I feel enormous pressure to perform to standards both real and imagined, but I consistently fall short of the mark. You know those days when you’ve been crying so hard that positivity and cheerfulness feel like salt rubbed in a wound?  Yeah.

I’m a self-sufficient gal…and it’s not a good thing. I’ve tried pulling myself up by my bootstraps so many times that my boots lost their straps. Sometimes I glued the straps back on and kept walking despite the blisters. But now the blisters hurt too badly. And I’m tired.

In the past, I hoped for better performance. I hoped that I could become stronger, run faster, do better, and that somehow I would attain perfection. Here, at the end of my strength and endurance, I admit that I can’t conjure up change—or hopefulness!—for myself even if I scraped the bottom of those boots. Now, I know that I just contradicted every Disney slogan I ever heard as a kid, but it’s reality.

Hope must be based on reality. 

This is where I CHOOSE to believe a different definition of hope. My emotions, as real as they are to me, are slippery and unreliable. My abilities, as great as I sometimes think they are, are NOT enough. Reality must be found in a reliable Person, one who never lies, never gets tired, and never runs out. Only God fits that bill. Here is what He says about the hope I have:

“No one who hopes in you [God] will ever be put to shame” (Psalm 25:3)

"Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." (Romans 5:3-5)


"And the God of all grace...after you have suffered for a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast." (1 Peter 5:10)

On my own, suffering produces blisters and exhaustion. But when I anchor my hopes on the truths God tells me, the same suffering produces a bouquet of good things, crowned by hope that will not put me to shame.

Gifts from Jesus

If stress is an odor, then this week reeked of it. My emotions were out of whack, the mountain of laundry loomed ever larger, and my job felt like I was trying to juggle 200lb dumbells. Wearing a blindfold. And rollarskates.

It's interesting: Jesus didn't take away the situation. I still have a to-do list longer than the Amazon. Instead, he reached down into it, purposely, thoughtfully, and left me some beautiful gifts as if to say, "I am still here. I still love you. You are known and treasured by Me. Trust me."

Gift #1: Check out the picture! I opened the mailbox earlier this week to find an envelope from my parents. Inside, was a gift card to Wally World for twenty smackeroos and instructions to buy plants for my garden. My heart craves fragrant, green, growing things, and Jesus knows it.

Gift #2: I found a beautiful $40 sweater marked down to $10. Once I used the $9.47 gift card that I had saved from Christmas, I bought it for only fifty-three cents! Jesus knows that I love to feel beautiful while saving $$.

Gift #3: It stopped raining this morning just as I mounted my bike to ride to class. Jesus cares about the fact that I forgot an umbrella.

Gift #4: My sweet husband folded clothes for me the other night. Aww....

Gift #5. My boss called to tell me that one huge source of work stress is NOT due today, as I had feared, but at the end of March! At that news, I could almost feel my nerves unknotting themselves. Jesus is my Shepherd. He gives me rest.

The Beginning of the End

I'm making myself laugh because there is something ironic about giving my first blog post a title like, "The Beginning of the End." No, I'm not having a mid-life crisis, and I'm not a goofy doomsday prophet. But when I was trying to capture my feelings about starting my last semester of college, it just seemed to fit. This was the first week of the last semester, and I'll never have a first week like that again. I'll have other firsts, but not a first day of school first, and it's nostalgic and bittersweet to think about it.

I have only three classes: Political Communication, American Lit Post-WWII, and Spanish 202.  Even though one of them is writing-intensive, so far, none of them threaten to eat my life. In fact, I was telling Jordan just yesterday that it feels...a little too easy?  Wow, I'm almost afraid to write that, as if I'm tempting them to become the hardest classes of my life! But really, I feel something like a baby bird who is almost too big for its shell. I'm 24 and married, but the students sitting around me in class have barely left their teen years. College has grown me and challenged me, but the assignments that would have felt like a two-ton weight when I was 21 no longer seem weighty at all. Maybe God wants to stretch me in other areas than academics this semester.  :) 

He's been doing that a lot lately, and to tell the truth, school is easier than this type of inner confrontation!  I entered the Christmas break with a big wad of anxiety in my gut about my future. To grad school or not to grad school? To do ministry or not? To strike out and get a job in my field or not? With graduation looming and profs nudging me toward a master's degree, it felt like an internal mandate to get my life figured out.

A month later, however, my heart is content to rest in Jesus and just wait for him to lead. And this is NOT my own doing; it's Jesus, showing me my crud-ugly pride in my own accomplishments and ability to do things on my own, showing me his power to direct and guide me, and gently but firmly bringing me to my knees.
 Here is the bald truth that I now recognize: I can't make myself a "success".  If I try, I will constantly be looking sideways, measuring myself by the women of God around me. I'll be my own harshest critic--and believe me, I'm brutal when it comes to me.

But our God is so gentle with me. He is so gentle with us.  He loves us too much to leave us to ourselves, and He knows that the things I cling to--pride, people's approval, achievements--are really poisonous to the beautiful things He wants to do in me.

Please be praying for my heart to be soft.