News Flash 2005: Hannah has a job -- an editing job, which means she'll actually be working in her field. It's the one question everyone asks when they see me, so I thought I'd start this post off giving them the information they want to hear most. The human resources representative who called to give me the good news said my last employer couldn't say enough good things about me. That was nice. :) Anyway, I start November 14. Thanks, Jill, for paving the way for me to interview. I look forward to working with you.
In other news, Focus on the Family's Brio magazine published the article I sold them fifteen months ago. I don't know which print issue it's in though. I think maybe September's, but I need to get my hands on some of the latest issues and find out. You can find it online here: http://www.briomag.com/briomagazine/spiritualhealth/a0006430.html
In still other news, Sunday was my birthday and now I'm old and 23. Someone asked me if I ever still felt like a kid since I was only a few years past my teens years. Yes, sometimes, but unfortunately the being married and graduated from college parts (not to mention paying for my own health insurance) keep reminding me I'm very much an adult. Not that it's bad or anything...just scary sometimes. I'm looking at buying a car and moving to another city (possibly buying instead of renting a home), and all of that is really scary grown-up stuff.
Anyway, that's all. I have some Halloween thoughts but will have to share them later. Tonight's Dwelling Place at church -- yay for that!
"But when I look at the stars I see someone else/ When I look at the stars I feel like myself..." --"Stars," by Switchfoot
I'm struggling with confidence again. Part of me feels so bound by invisible weights holding me back, faceless voices telling me I just can't, I'm just not good enough, I'm just not enough.
"It's not true," I scream back, listing in my mind the things I can do, the reasons why I am good enough, the people who do love me and think I'm valuable. But somewhere along the line, I give in and say, "Okay, fine, you're right. I can't fight it anymore." And I hate that. And I'm not looking for pity here, just saying...
I long to walk in confidence.
I want to wear skirts without nylons and not fear people will think badly of my white legs. I want to try new things I know (or think) I won't be good at and not fear the inevitable failure at first. I want to feel I can speak up when I have something to say without fearing I won't make sense or people will laugh at what I've said or disregard it without a single thought. I want to be quiet and observant, a listener, without feeling people will think I'm antisocial or one-dimensional and boring because I'm not chattering along like everyone else. I want to be able to minister out of my home, playing the role of encourager and counselor and friend without my church thinking I'm just a "Sunday morning Christian" because I haven't filled my week with church-sponsored activities and outreaches. I want to confidently say God honors my offerings without caring if man thinks they're worthwhile or not. I want to be confident in my writing ability, my ability to work well as an employee of wherever I end up working, my ability to make good decisions without second-guessing them.
And sometimes I have such confidence. Sometimes I feel good in the place where I'm at, the person I am, the abilities I possess. But not always. Often the chains are there below the surface, not bothering me until I try to move far beyond their bounds. And I just want to be free...free to be me and be happy with it, free to grow and try new things and be happy with that, free to mess up and be okay with it. Just free.
I’ve sat down several times with a blank page in Word and the task of writing something beautiful about my wedding and married life as I’ve known it. The truth is, I don’t really want to write about my wedding, and you probably don’t want to hear about it, and I have other things I do want to write about but haven’t been because I’ve felt like I should have this update about the happiest day of my life or something first. Can I just say it was beautiful…perfect…and I’m so thankful for everyone who took part in it? I felt overwhelmingly blessed by the presence of so many friends and family members, by their gifts, their time, their help, their love. The day was amazing. I felt like a princess, my hair was all pretty and elegant because Caleb’s sisters took over and made it their project, our music was perfect despite having to find another pianist at the last minute, the food was delicious even though I only got to eat four or five bites of it, our pictures turned out wonderfully as you might have already seen.
Anyway, that’s that… We’ve now lived in our apartment for three weeks and two days, and we’ve already had a good twenty people or more over for meals in that time. The place is perfect, and it’s our very own, which is super cool. I’m looking for a job, trusting God, hanging out, and adjusting into my new role as wife. I’m learning all about grace, both in giving and receiving it, like never before. But it’s been great -- challenging yes, but also very much worth the challenge.
Meanwhile, God's been showing me a lot of things lately...some of which I'll share in posts to come. Love you guys!
Let's start with pictures. A lot of you have already seen these, but some of you haven't, so here are the famed wedding pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/peasantqueen/
The nervousness is starting to set in. This is a really big deal, this getting married thing. Will I be a good wife? Will I know what to do, how to be, how not to be? I have to keep reminding myself that there's grace enough for the many mistakes I'll make and times I'll fail.
I'm slightly anxious about other things too -- spending my life with someone and being around him all the time, passion fading, really being out on my own away from my parents and their provisions, physical stuff, financial stuff, in-law stuff, and even wedding stuff for now. It's all a little overwhelming in the way that a big wave building up behind you is overwhelming when you've been floating along fairly well and then suddenly realize you're about to get really wet and maybe the air knocked out of you a bit any moment now.
I just read author Lisa Samson's post on being an Independent, which reminded me how I've wanted to share my very similar view on this for a while now. I know, you're all surprised that I'm going to pipe up with political talk, but at least I'm giving you fair warning so you can back out now and pretend you never saw a post dated July 24th here.
Anyway...
More and more I'm finding myself leaning away from the conservative stance I've always held, always been taught to hold. Sure, if asked to choose between Democrat and Republican, I'd have to say Republican because I shudder at the thought of dismissing unborn children as mere fetuses disposable for any reason. Yet, as strong as this position is in my mind, I've come to realize over the past two years or so that there are other issues weighing in the political and social realm...and maybe they are just as important. And maybe the conservatives aren’t really handling them all that well.
For one, there's the issue of poverty and homelessness. I was always taught not to look down on people who have nothing, who hold signs in front of grocery stores and beg for dollar bills, who live down by the river and wear the same clothes every day. I was taught to give, to pray for them and support church projects that reached out with compassion ministries. And all of that was well and good. I knew Jesus had compassion on the poor, that He took care of them and valued them (sometimes more so than He did those who had plenty). But I don't think I grasped that compassion until I went away to school in a not-so-nice area two years ago and started spending time with a homeless couple on a regular basis.
In many ways, it was through ministering to this couple and learning the lessons God taught us through it that Caleb and I grew closer to each other that first semester. He took an immediate interest in the lives of these people, and watching from a distance I saw a passion forming in him beyond his offer of home-cooked meals to them each evening. It intrigued me. He made a point to talk to them, and LISTEN to them -- something people really hadn't done much of, we came to realize. He verbally shared Jesus with them, but he also talked to them about the things they held dearest to their hearts. He shared Scripture with them, but he also played checkers and watched reruns of Judge Judy with them. He shared food with them, but he also helped them move items from their storage area, paved the way for one of them to get a job, and spent time and money fixing little problems on their car. They became friends, not just ministry.
The point here isn’t to brag about my guy, but to share how his actions pushed me out of my mental world of ideals and into something concrete where I had to really live what I believed was true, and maybe shift a little of what I believed to fit the new experiences I had. I don’t really want to admit to living a sheltered and privileged life, especially since my family lived right around the poverty level for most of my growing up years. But really I was pretty sheltered and definitely very privileged. I have by no means now immersed myself in the world of true poverty, but I’ve opened my eyes to it, touched it a few times, and finally begun to realize God’s heart on the issue.
Being at APU helped too. If you want to see privileged and sheltered, APU is a great place to look. Often it made me sick to think about the kind of money most of my peers there had and wasted – and the administration was often worse! Still, a few of the profs and chapel speakers challenged me out of the bubble, so to speak, and reminded me of the forgotten groups of people and Scripture’s take on their situation.
Like Lisa Samson mentioned, I too found that more than 2,000 verses in the Bible speak of poverty. More than two thousand. Jesus concerned Himself with the women and children, the beggars and invalids – in other words, the people who couldn’t make it on their own in the society of their time. These were the people Scripture had always said to care for and protect. I studied the prophets and found many of the prophecies condemned cities for oppressing the poor. I studied Exodus and Deuteronomy and found the year of jubilation meant that all debts were forgiven, all slaves freed, all land given back to its original family, and everyone allowed again the chance to provide for themselves on a level playing field every 49 years. Couple all this together with the familiar passage of the sheep and goats questioned by Jesus concerning their actions to their brothers in need, and I had to come to terms with God’s clear expectations that we take care of the poor.
It’s not that the conservative view doesn’t care about the poor, but there does seem to be this attitude that what I’ve worked for I deserve, that privilege comes through my own hard work and wise decisions and doesn’t need to be shared with someone who hasn’t worked as hard or been as wise as I have. It’s not my problem, right? I’ll give a few dollars, pray for them, and be compassionate when I’m around them, but it’s not really my job to take care of them…right? But I can’t accept that line of reasoning anymore. It is my job. To some extent, I am my brother’s keeper – and I’m a little terrified of what that means.
And so here I am, hanging a little between two major parties and a myriad of views along the continuum. I’ve never voted all for a party anyway, but even much of the waters that were once clear have turned rather muddy since I’ve stirred things up in my mind. Many evangelicals joke that God is a Republican, and while that can be funny, I think too many really believe it to some degree. I’m sure some are convinced God’s a Democrat too. In truth, both sides reflect a little of God’s heart and probably a lot that’s not. I guess it’s all in the individual issues at hand.
Of course, politics isn’t really where it’s at anyway. That’s just where it’s often left. To be honest, I don’t care if I’m conservative or liberal or whatever else. What matters is that I’m actually living and doing what I believe really matters – whatever that is and whoever else happens to support it. Ah yes, that’s the hard part.
I love working in an office where I’m lauded as the great computer genius. It’s not like I’m an expert in technology, but I might as well be since I know Word and Excel pretty well and can figure out how to get documents from one computer to another without using e-mail, a floppy disk or a CD (ah yes, USB keys are quite marvelous, aren’t they?). I also know how to save PowerPoint presentations to a disk. Amazing, I know. They keep saying I can’t leave them when I get married because then they won’t have anyone to do all this computer stuff for them. Then they thank me over and over again for figuring out their dilemmas. I assure them it’s not that hard, but they don’t believe me. Oh well. It’s good job security for as long as I need it, I guess.
