May Photo A Day, Day 5: Paper

Today's Photo A Day prompt was "paper." I photographed my Bible turned to the scripture reading from this morning's worship service. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul addresses one of the central paradoxes of the Christian faith. Because of the grace of Jesus, we are justified--atoned, made one with God. We don't have to be "good enough." We are loved in spite of ourselves. We don't have to do anything. And yet, if we don't do anything, we have missed the point. We are already justified, but the process of sanctification is ongoing, and it takes work. Trying to be like Jesus--acting like a "citizen of heaven" is not easy. I am thankful that Christ freed me from the requirement of perfection. But that thankfulness is the very reason I want to strive for perfection. As Rob Bell put it in Velvet Elvis, "There is this person who we already are in God's eyes. And we are learning to live like it is true."

Lord Jesus, please help us to live up to what we have already attained. Amen.

Ash Wednesday

Remember when I shared photos from the Ocean Springs Mardi Gras parade last year? Well, I upped my game this year. The husband and I went to TWO New Orleans Mardi Gras parades over the weekend, and it was definitely an experience! These floats are amazing! Here are some of the shots I took of Muses on Thursday:

And some more from Endymion on Saturday:

New Orleans really does know how to laissez les bon temps rouler! It was a good time, indeed.

But of course, it's Ash Wednesday, so everything has changed. I've traded in celebration for sacrifice, the excessive plastic beads for a cross made of ashes on my forehead. Today I remember that I am fallen. That without Jesus, I am just dust, just ashes. Just... dead.

"For dust you are, and to dust you shall return..." (Genesis 3:19)

sunset, unedited

I want to share a few shots from yesterday's evening walk at the beach. I skipped out on my typical viewing of Jeopardy! in favor of the sunset, and I think it was a good choice. Normally I don't share photos that I haven't edited yet, but sometimes you just can't improve on nature.

"The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands."

Psalm 91:1

We all have feelings!

Weird things are going on at work. For one, I went from doing work only with adults (mostly individual therapy) to working with a group of kids for 30+ hours a week. It's a little nuts, but I'm trying to find the good. Exhibit A is this kid-created sign in my new classroom.

So basic, but so profoundly true, and so often NOT acknowledged. Leave it to kids with mental health issues to speak truth into this world.

Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3

21 Day Photo Challenge, Day 9: Grass

At first, I was a little uninspired by today's challenge theme (grass.) My husband suggested I find a picture of grass in a book and photograph it in the yard. I started searching but then realized I already know a good book with some serious grass-related wisdom. Isaiah says that grass withers while the word of God stands forever, so I photographed the two of them together. How's that for contrast and symbolism? 

Plus, I now have "Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise" in my head, so it's pretty impossible to remain uninspired.

Lord, help us to see 'tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.

hope in the sky

"When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant
between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” 

Genesis 9:16

Spring has sprung!

I've recovered from my exhausting week, I think, but nonetheless, Spring Break could not have come at a better time. And now that I don't have to be trapped in a building all day, I can appreciate how beautiful the world outside has become! Spring has sprung, indeed!

"See! The winter is past;

the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

the season of singing has come..."

-Song of Songs 2:11-12

strength

I just sold a print of this photo (called "Southern Strength") to a fellow etsian who shared with me that it reminded her of a friend who is currently going through a divorce. After giving the photo to her friend, the buyer wrote to me again to let me know that her friend was very encouraged by the picture. The buyer also shared that her friend is a fellow Christian who "knows where that strength comes from." I feel so humbled, so blessed to get to participate in the experience of giving and encouragement between friends in difficult times....even when they are people I don't know. It is so beautiful that this easy, fun hobby of mine can produce fruit that can bring a glimmer of hope into someone's life in the midst of pain. And Nehemiah 8:10 is true... the joy of the Lord is her strength. And mine, too. Thanks be to God.

being transformed

After a hiatus of more than two years, I spontaneously returned to my collage-making hobby. It was a strange sort of impulse which I couldn't quite make sense of at first. Being the existentialist that I am, I have tried to find some meaning in this seemingly random event. Here is what I came up with. The last time I made a bunch of collages was when I first started to feel better after (or at the end of) my battle with hyperthyroidism. I was starting to feel hopeful, starting to look ahead and see something better than my (then) current state. I didn't think about this at that time, but since then I have thought that there was some metaphor to my creative activity: I put lots of little, insignificant, disparate pieces of paper together and tried to make them into something that made sense, and that was exactly what I wanted to do with myself. I wanted to put myself back together and make sense again. Each collage was a microcosm of me--if I could make something with pieces of paper, maybe there was hope for the pieces of me.

In a way, I'm in the same boat now. I'm not sick anymore (I continue to praise God for this), but I'm preparing to try to make something new out my life, which currently feels disjointed. There are a lot of good things my life, but none of them are matched up neatly right now. I constantly have one foot in Ocean Springs and one foot in Hattiesburg, so I feel like I'm not fully a part of either one. Alex and I are growing closer (and happier, and better at working together), but I'm still an hour and a half away and see him only on weekends. I'm a member of a new church (more on this later), but I can't be there regularly. I'm planning (ok, helping to plan) a wedding and a move, but I still haven't guaranteed an internship that is close to the place I'm moving to. I'm trying to maintain relationships with happily unattached friends whom I can identify with less and less but whom I love and want to relate to. I'm jumping through the hoops of grad school even though my mind is not usually in the game. I'm struggling to complete a research project that I care very little about while wanting to focus more on my clients whom I care very much about. All these pieces are just not creating the whole, singular, beautiful, unified picture that my heart longs to be. That is why I have come back to finding solace in putting paper pieces together again--it reassures me that I will be put together too, soon enough.

Here is one of my new creations:


It's my favorite Bible verse, Romans 12:2. I love these words because they speak to a part of faith that many people seem to overlook (or miss out on) but that has been powerfully and beautifully real to me. Christianity, too often for my taste, is characterized chiefly by "touchy-feely," emotional things or by outward, behavioral events. Too often, faith in Christ is seen as something that disagrees with intellect. This may be true in some cases at some times, but I have found that my richest and clearest experiences with God have been when I think--question, wrestle, wonder, study, try to figure it out. I recognize that I will never "arrive" (at least not in this earthly life), but I cannot imagine missing out on this journey.

Lord Jesus, please let Lent be a time of renewal despite the countless distractions; please restore my faith in your perfect will. Amen.

frustrated grad student haiku

academia
is the epitome of
ridiculousness.

ecclesiastes
sums up how I feel right now:
this is meaningless!

beauty in ruins

my beloved found
beauty in my ruins
and we danced

"You have turned my mourning into dancing..."
Psalm 30:11

lessons learned (1-5)

In that message from futureme that I just wrote about, my past self asked me if I had learned from the struggles I've had with Graves' disease and the consequences of it. In my post, I wrote that I have. I throw around that idea a lot, referring to the ordeal as a "learning experience" to lots of people I talk to, but it's time to be specific. What exactly have I learned? I haven't tackled this because it's just too much, too vast. I will never be able to articulate all of it; it will never be complete. It can't be clearly quantified, but I nonetheless feel like it's time to compose a list. Here is the first installment.

1. I learned that the stigma associated with mental illness is still around and that it even affects people who know better. Educated people. Insightful and compassionate people. Clinical psychology majors, for goodness sake. I thought I understood that people with mood disorders like depression weren't to blame--that it wasn't their fault, that they needed help and shouldn't be ashamed of getting it. I thought I viewed mental illness the same way I viewed physical illness. I didn't think I judged or looked down on people with depression... but then I became one of them. And I denied it, and I hid from it, and I ran away from it, and I denied it some more, just for good measure. I thought, depression happens, but it can't happen to me! What on earth will people think?! Etc. I know this doesn't sound like a very hopeful or helpful thing to learn, but it is. Understanding my own bias has informed my understanding of this stigma in general, which will make me a better therapist on a few levels. This inside information, complete with messy emotions, will, I hope, help me to know better what I can do to help eliminate stigma, as well as how to relate to clients who are resistant to therapy (or medication) at first. I'll know how hard it was for them to show up and say, "I'm depressed," because I had to do it myself. I'll get it, because I was there once too. I'll be able to say "I understand" and mean it.

2. More generally, I learned what depression feels like. I already knew the DSM criteria, but now I get it. This first-hand understanding will help me to have a level of empathy with depressed people (clients or otherwise) that I wouldn't have had before. A few years ago, I wouldn't have a really hard time processing a statement like, "I can't make myself get out of bed and take a shower." I still have thoughts along the lines of "How can that be?" but I nonetheless know that it can be. Because it was.

3. My diagnosing skills have also been greatly informed by my personal experience. Most notably, I know the importance of a little criterion we like to call "rule out GMC." Practically every diagnosis has this criterion--a message to the diagnositician that if these symptoms you've checked off are the result of a physical illness, then you don't make this mental health diagnosis. The doctor I first went to didn't follow this rule. He wrote me a prescription for antidepressants before he even took my vitals. If the nurse hadn't taken my heart rate and blood pressure (and noticed that "big thing" on my neck," I would've suffered for a lot longer, because a general medical condition was the reason for my symptoms. "Rule out GMC" is usually an afterthought, both in the classroom and in the doctor's office, but it probably saved my life. In therapy, I will never treat someone for depression without strongly encouraging them (because, you know, coercion is kind of frowned upon by APA) to get their thyroid checked. Mark my words.

4. Along the same lines, I've learned a lot about the mind-body relationship, which plays a central role in psychopathology and psychotherapy. The book of Proverbs tells us, "A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones"(17:22) and "A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones" (14:30). Physical health and mental health are inextricably linked. The affect each other bidirectionally. Though I have my hunches, it really is impossible to say which came first (my depression or my thyroid disease) , but the point is that each of them made the other worse. The two couldn't be separated, and they both had to be treated. My understanding of this connection will surely inform my work as a clinician.

5. Obviously, I've learned a lot about the thyroid and Graves' disease itself. This education has enabled me to help people with thyroid disease--to offer advice and information as well as encouragement. Just a few days ago, I got an email from a fellow Graves' patient who stumbled upon my blog. I was thrilled to have an opportunity to be a resource for her--and hopefully a source of hope, too. I hope to have more of these opportunities.

(more to come...)

time travel

A few days ago, I received a message from my past self via FutureMe, and I must say, it was one of the coolest experiences ever. Here's what I wrote [with one omitted paragraph that I don't feel the need to share]:

Dear FutureMe,

This is past me. It's May 2007, and I am in the process of trying to recover from Graves' disease and the depression that has come along with it. I've just medically withdrawn from school and am about to move back home. I'm scared, and I feel like a failure. I just want to feel better and have everything go back to normal.

I hope that you feel better. I hope you learned something from all this illness and pain. I hope you kept fighting, kept going, kept praying, kept trying, and I hope it came to fruition. I hope you feel like the same passionate, creative, intelligent, loving, vibrant person you were before this illness took over. I hope you understand a little bit of why this happened. I hope you've learned something, gained something. I hope you're better. Stronger.

I hope you're doing something with your life again. You might have gone back to school in the fall of 2007, but I doubt it. Maybe you're getting ready to go back next fall. Maybe you just found out you got in. I hope you're excited. I hope you're refreshed and ready to get back to learning, which you love more than pretty much anything in the world. Or at least you did before Graves' disease. I hope you aren't letting anyone make you feel like you've wasted time, lost time, because of the time you spent at home. It was what you had to do, and you're strong for admitting you had to do it. I hope you aren't looking around at all the people whose lives were more perfect, more on track, more efficient. Screw them. They aren't you. You are still young, and you have plenty of time to get to where you're going. You'll get there, and you'll be awesome.

I hope you've allowed the Lord to work on you. I hope you've let him do big things, and I hope that even if everything isn't ok yet, that you know that it will be. Because it will be the way God planned it. Which is, by definition, amazing.

Love,
me

It's hard to put into words what it felt like to read that. I smiled, and I nodded a lot. Yes, I'm better. Yes, I kept fighting and got through it. Yes, I know that I did what I had to do. Yes, I know I'm not a failure. Yes, I know I'm strong. Yes, I feel like myself again. Yes, I'm doing something with my life again. Yes, I'm going back to school. Yes, I'm excited about learning again. Yes, I am alive...and ok... and happy. Yes, life is good.

"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "yes" in Christ." (1 Corinthians 1:20)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!

When I went to bed the night I got this message, I dreamed about time travel. Somehow, I ended up in the past, but I was still working at the crisis unit. A lot of our regular clients (frequent fliers, if you will) were there, but they were a lot younger. I wanted to tell them how good they looked, but I couldn't, because they didn't realize I was from the future, so it would make no sense for me to know what they would look like then. This made me very frustrated, and after a little while, I started to feel very uncomfortable about being in the past. I felt a little trapped, a little paralyzed. I needed to get out. I needed to move on.

And that's how I feel in my life right now. I feel anxious about getting out of here. Out of this place, out of this phase of my life. I feel as if my brain is already in Mississippi, and it's making it a little difficult to live in the present, to continue doing the things I have to do here. At this point, I have one thing to say to the future: BRING IT ON. :)

MS

When I heard the news, I changed my facebook status to "Sara is getting an M.S. in MS!" Much to my amusement, my friend Krista's immediate thought was that I was currently in McGlothlin-Street Hall (on Emory's campus) contracting Multiple Sclerosis. Not quite. In reality, I was announcing that I'll be getting a Master's degree in Mississippi. And now that I think about it, the real story might not be any less random and unexpected than Krista's fictionalized account. I never, ever thought I would be moving to Mississippi.

Of course, this didn't happen all at once. All winter, I worked on applications to Ph.D. programs. My hopes were high, but I never really felt like it was going to work out. In the back of my mind was the idea that later, I would have to apply to Master's programs as a back-up, but my ego kept persuading me to put it off. Then I got this phone call from my boyfriend who was in Mississippi interviewing for a job he originally didn't think he wanted but was now quite excited about. He was in the car and had just driven by a (not the, we now know) campus of the University of Southern Mississippi. He was frantic, beseeching me to investigate this school immediately and find out if they had a program for me to apply to. I obliged him, and found that they do have a clinical psychology Ph.D. program... but the deadline had passed. They also have a counseling psychology Ph.D. program... but the deadline had passed. The deadline that wasn't passed was for the Master's program in counseling psychology. No. No, no, no. That's not what I want. At first, I didn't even want to consider applying. But I did consider it. And I prayed, and I thought, and I analyzed, and I over-analyzed, and I listened.... and I applied.

Alexander decided he wanted the job, and he got it. My brain was reeling for a long time, trying to figure out what I wanted. I was afraid of being away from him, afraid of losing him, but it was so unlike me to make a major life decision based on a guy. I couldn't even believe I was thinking that way. I didn't want to admit that I was. But I was. And I was ok with that. And that freaked me out. I never said it out loud, but at some point I realized that I want to be with him more than I want a Ph.D. And certainly more than I want a Ph.D. right now. But still, could I possibly turn down an offer to start a Ph.D. program? Even if I did, nobody would approve, and could I really blame them? So I prayed that that wouldn't happen--that there would be no decision to make. I prayed that if God wanted me in Mississippi, He wouldn't let me get in to a Ph.D. program. And much to the understandable chagrin of my parents, I decided not to apply to any other Master's programs. I prayed for discernment, and while I didn't get any audible answers from God, I kept feeling more and more at peace with my desire to go to Mississippi. I went. I interviewed. I loved it. I felt like I was clearly the best candidate. It was a done deal.

Except that I didn't get in. I got an email telling me I was an alternate. I was devastated. And so, so confused. I decided that it had to be because of my withdrawal from school, and I started getting very angry (again) about Graves' disease. Hadn't it already screwed up my life enough? Was I never going to be able to get past it? I didn't get along very well with God for a few days, but I tried to think that things would work out. I got a lot of love and support and prayer, and Dr. Qualls made a phone call for me which I think might have changed everything. Eventually, obviously, I got in. And I'm going! I'm going to live with Missy, a fellow Christian, fellow nerd, fellow grammarian who I bonded with at our interview day. I'll be about 80 miles from Alex, who will be in Ocean Springs, right on the gulf coast. I could not possibly be more excited. It's perfect. Completely perfect. And completely crazy.

I never thought I would get a degree in counseling psychology. I never thought I would move to Mississippi. But here's the thing: I never thought I would get sick and have a part of my body radioactively destroyed; I never thought I would leave school; I never thought I would live with my parents post-college; I never thought I would work at Pathways again; I never thought I would be a youth leader; I never thought I would sell art; I never thought I would fall in love with my friend's brother-in-law.

But here I am.

Paradoxically, it's actually quite comforting to be doing something so unlike what I ever predicted. It is because it's so crazy that I know it's God. It's nothing close to what I ever planned for myself, so it must be His plan. How else could I have ended up here? One of my favorite scriptures for a long time has been Matthew 10:39, in which Jesus says, "Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." I've had lots of discussions about what exactly this means, and I think there are a lot of interpretations, all of which are probably valid. I used to think of it as a dichotomy: two sets of people. Finders of life, losers of life. Finders get lost, losers get found. But what I've found, it seems, is that I'm both. Or rather, I was one, and then I became the other. I did try to "find" my life. Though I certainly tried, I really can't say that I was ever able to completely surrender my life to Christ. I said I did, and sometimes I even thought I did, but really, in the back of my head, there were certain expectations I had--things I expected God to include in His plan because I wanted them. I wouldn't (couldn't?) totally "lose" my life, my plan. But then... well, I did lose it. This is where my understanding of the scripture has changed. I always thought this "losing" had to be a willful, purposeful surrender. For some people, of course, it is. Those people are stronger than me. My "loss" of life was something that happened to me, not something I chose. But who's to say that that means it wasn't lost "for Christ's sake," as in the scripture? I'm an imperfect, flawed, tremendously proud person, not righteous enough to hand over my whole life. But God, in his infinite, miraculous grace, took it from me anyway. Because he loves me so very much, he redirected my life, helped me find my life again--my real life, the one I'm meant for.

What a beautiful thing.

But what a long journey it has been to this point where I finally feel like I know at least a little bit of what God is doing. In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote these words:

"God does not tell you what He is doing. He reveals to you Who He is."

I have found that to be so true. Through this whole process, I have felt so clueless as to what would happen, and yet God has shown me so much of his nature. One of the most poignant examples happened while I was in Mississippi for my interview. Late at night after the day of my interview, I was sitting outside our motel room, where I had been talking to Alexander on the phone. Even though I was optimistic about my qualifications, I was feeling very anxious about getting in to USM. We had had a wonderful conversation that only strengthened my desire to be in Mississippi--my desire to be with him. I'm going to sound like one of my borderline clients when I say this, but I was feeling downright desperate. So I started praying right there on the sidewalk. It went something like this: "God, please please please let me get in. I just want to be with him so badly. So badly, God. Do you understand me? That's what I want. Nothing else seems important. It's like I don't care about anything else except being with him. Even if I hated this place and hated this program and hated everyone here, I wouldn't care because I'd get to be with him. I just want to be with him so badly..." I was being illogical and emotional and yes, slightly ridiculous, but it was how I felt, and I kept going and going because I didn't think God understood. I didn't think he knew what this passionate, desperate feeling was like because, you know, he had never been in love. But then a funny thing happened: God laughed at me. Now, he wasn't laughing at my feelings, of course. He was laughing at the idea that I had to keep going on and on explaining things to Him as if he didn't know. I didn't realize this at first, though, and I just paused, confused about the distinctive sense I had that God was chuckling. Once I let my mind get quiet, I'm pretty sure what He said to me was, "Now you know how I feel."

It wasn't any sort of intellectual, theological idea, but it was as if I suddenly understood God's love in a whole new way. God didn't send Christ to die for us because of some sort of corporate love. It wasn't because it was "the right thing to do." It wasn't because God is "good" and he wants "what's best for us." These things are true, of course, but what God seemed to be telling me was that His love is romantic--erotic. Christ died because he wanted to be with us so badly. He was desperate. He was passionate. He was in love.

I am so thankful that he lets us participate in that love, to share it with each other in our measly little human way. After all, 1 John 4:19 tells us that "We love because He first loved us." All the love in my life--and yours--originated with Christ and is rooted in Him. The Lord has never ceased to amaze me. And if I've learned anything, it's that He never will.

questions and answers

I have so many questions. But what I'm learning is that even though it seems like the goal is to get to the answers, the growth lies in the asking itself.

This week at work, I started doing individual therapy sessions with clients all by myself, and it's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. Mostly what I do is ask a lot of open-ended questions: How do you feel? What are you thinking? Where did you learn that? How is that working for you? What could you try instead? Why do you think you feel this way? And on the surface, it looks like the point is that the client is supposed to tell me the answers--the correct answers--to the questions. But that's not really it at all. The therapy lies in the client simply acknowledging that the questions exist--asking themselves the questions. Maybe they don't tell me the answers. Maybe they don't know the answers. But the answers aren't what's going to help clients get better. What helps them get better is struggling with, wrestling with, living with the questions.

I'm still talking about parables in my Sunday School class, so I've been thinking a lot about why Jesus spoke in parables. In some ways, it may be because it made things easier to understand, but I don't think that was always the case. In Matthew, we're told very clearly that the disciples didn't understand the parable of the weeds (which I covered last week.) When they're alone with Jesus later, they ask him to explain, which he does. So why didn't he just say it that way the first time? Did he make a mistake? Did he not know what sort of communication the disciples needed? Of course he knew. He knew exactly what his followers needed. And, apparently, as much as they may have wanted clarity, answers, Christ knew that they needed, first, curiosity. They needed to wonder. They needed to ask.

And so do we.

a new thing (or 5)

"See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?"
(Isaiah 43:19)

I perceive it, all right.

Where do I start? Why haven't I written in so long?

Big deep breath. Here goes.

Homecoming weekend at Emory was fantastic. I finally contacted my favorite professor/friend/hero, Dr. Qualls, which I had been needing to do for ages. I hadn't told him anything about what has been going on in my life. It turns out that he already knew about my Graves' disease and medical withdrawal from school, but he nonetheless deserved to hear it from me. I'm not sure why it took me so long to tell him; I think I was afraid of disappointing him. Which was ridiculous, and I knew it. But still the mere thought of him--of all people--not being proud of me was so scary that I just hadn't been able to face the risk. But it had really been weighing on my heart, so at long last, I emailed him and arranged a time to meet with him. It was good for my soul to see and talk to him. He has taught me more than anyone else--about life, about people, about myself. I don't know who I would be if I didn't know him. It was a blessed reunion. He gave me a lot of helpful advice about the grad school application process, but also shared a lot of encouraging words about God's providence... and about the gifts I have and the clinician I'm going to become. Or am becoming. It was very uplifting, but also sad, because of our relflection on my senior year at Emory. I knew that he knew I was hurting then, but I didn't know until now how much it was hurting him. I should have listened when he told me I needed help. We both know that, but still, he didn't scold me. He didn't say he told me so. He just smiled through his almost-tears and said "Welcome back." I feel like he restored peace into my soul, sewed up the faint but still present wound of my feelings of failure and doubt, reintroduced me to myself.

Another joyous homecoming reunion: Dallas and Emory, together again at last. Having my best friend in my favorite place--and the place where we became friends--was tremendously exciting. It felt like the culmination of our semi-parallel healing processes. We took our typical Sara/Dallas middle-of-the-night walk aroud campus, ending at our typical spot by the duck pond for our typical discussion about the intricacies of life. So much has happened since the last time we did that. We are different. Our friendship is different. Everything is different. And yet, everything is exactly, mysteriously, wonderfully, the same.

All in all, it was a weekend of coming full circle.

The next weekend was also an exciting one. Joe and I headed to Boston to visit Jenny and Katie&Nathan. It was SO good to see them. Good friends are such a blessing, and the further away I am from mine, the more I appreciate them. We had a wonderfully fun visit. And I'm quite fond of Boston, I think. The highlight, however, was our trip to Walden Pond. I am a huge fan of Thoreau (and a general literature nerd), and it really was magical to be in the very place where Walden was inspiried and written. I don't see how anyone could behold its beauty and not be transformed into a transcendentalist.




Having experienced the real thing, I want to read Thoreau's masterpiece again. Except I think my obsessive reading habit is going to have to come to a tragic end, as my day-to-day life is about to get really busy. For a few reasons.

First, my job is finally about to start. I've had my first day of computer training, and I have three more this week, after which I will start working for real. I'm still fairly unclear about exactly what goes on at the crisis unit, but it sounds as if I'll actually be doing something that requires specific diagnostic and therapeutic skills that (I think) I have. Which is exciting.

Second, I'm exponentially increasing my church involvement. Ever since I started feelinig healthy again, I've been feeling a desire/need to serve in some capacity, but I really didn't know where to begin. I prayed that an opporunity would present itself, and sure enough, one did. Jo, a lovely woman who I dearly love, asked me to take over her role as senior high Sunday School teacher, which she has filled for something like 12 years. I regarded this request as a direct answer to my prayers and enthusiastically accepted. My plan is that we'll be reading and discussing parables indefinitely. This past Sunday was my first time teaching, and I think it went well. We talked generally about what and where parables are and then examined the parables of the mustard seed and the yeast (Matthew 13:31-35, Mark 4:30-34, Luke 13:18-21.) I figured it was a good one to start with since it's the only one that appears in all 3 of the gospels that contain parables. The kids seem to like me despite my demonstrating my nerdiness by coining the words "micro-kingdom" and "macro-kingdom" in my attempt to offer my interpretation of that oft-compared but never-defined "kingdom of heaven." I'm very excited about what's to come.

The thing is, I thought God was finished answering that prayer about service opportunities. I thought Sunday School was it. I checked "find a way to serve" off the list. But it seems that Sunday School was only the beginning. Another (bigger?) opportunity came along after church on Sunday, in the form of a message from my pastor, Gene, asking me to call him. I did. With what could only be understood as desperation in his voice, he asked me if I had any interest in leading the youth group. (Our youth director has just been fired, which I won't go into, because I don't really know anything anyway.) I told him that I'm getting ready to start a full-time job and the grad school application process and teaching a Sunday School class, and that I would be happy to help someone, but that I don't have time to be in charge. Trying to be polite, but clearly frustrated at my lack of understanding of the gravity of the situation, he explained that it's nice that I'll help, but he has no idea who I'd be helping. In other words, I'm the only hope. I'm really not sure how that happened, but I, too, am having trouble coming up with people who I think would want to take this (volunteer) job on. But, why me? Gene came over this afternoon to talk to me about it, and basically, the conclusion was.... I'm going to do it. Because I love youth. Because I love this church. Because I know how upset they are about their leaders leaving. Because I know how much some of them need a mentor and a listener. Because I don't want the youth program to die after we've worked at rebuilding it. I'm still very unsure about how I'm going to go about this, and I hope I can find someone to help me. I don't know how I fell into this position, but all signs seem to be pointing to me doing this. Except that I don't know if I'll have time. Or energy. But still, the idea is exciting. I'm still trying to sort it all out. I'm not sure if the take-home point is (a) I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13) or (b) Be careful what you pray for. Maybe a little of both.

So, that pretty much sums up what's been going on with me. Except that somehow, accidentally, in the midst of all this, I fell in love.

God, the Tao, and me

I just finished reading the Tao Te Ching in its entirety for the first time. I'm still not sure I understand the concept of the Tao (and perhaps its essence lies in its elusiveness?), but I think the poetry is beautifully revelatory. Chapter eleven especially resonated with me:

Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness comes from what is not there.

How very true, even for my Western, Christian self. God uses me not in spite of, but because of my insufficiencies--my open spaces, my holes. For it is only when I acknowledge the extent of my inability, my "what is not there," that I can truly and fully invoke the power of the Holy Spirit, who can do all things. If I rely on "what is there"--on what I can do by myself--I may profit, but I will not be useful. The climax of my Graves' disease story was the moment of surrender--the "I can't." It was the beginning of the long healing process that brought me to this point, where I am able, again, to be a servant...an offering... used.

"...power is made perfect in weakness.... For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Thank you, Lord, for making me inadequate.

lost and found

on my broken journey
across mountains of blue unknowns
I am lost
and yet
in You
I am found

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." -Matthew 10:39

living in my head

"...my groans are many and my heart is faint." -Lamentations 1:22

I'm frustrated with life right now. I'm very mad at one of my best friends and I can't imagine a way of becoming un-mad. Another of my best friends seems to be very unhappy and I can't figure out why or devise a way of making it better. I got lectured today about the ungrateful child that I apparently am, and I feel guilty all over again for what I've put my parents through but also annoyed by the nature of said lecture. I think I'm categorically different from the rest of my family--much less practical, which is probably a bad thing. In the words of my beloved Augusten Burroughs, "I live in my head." There's so much to do in there (I've come to the conclusion that my brain contains much more of my favorite neurotransmitter, dopamine, than most people's), and the outside world is infinitely less interesting. The real world--the world where the most important thing is whether or not my car is clean--is an awful bore. Why should I bother with washing my car when there are poems to be read, dreams to be interpreted, theological issues to be pondered? I'm ridiculous, probably, but if so, I'm not so much frustrated with how ridiculous I am as with the fact that everyone else isn't ridiculous too.

Yet another wedding weekend has come and gone. It seems like all I've done this summer is watch my friends get married, and it's obviously very exciting, but it's pretty weird, too. I think my current circumstances make it especially bittersweet, because while I'm very happy for all my friends who are moving on to bigger and better things in life, these celebrations are also powerful reminders of the fact that I'm not moving on to anything bigger or better, or anything at all, really. It's like I'm standing still on the side of the highway because my car (you know, the dirty one) broke down, and I have to wait for someone to come and fix it, and in the meantime, I just get to watch everyone else pass me by. Sometimes I just want to whine about it, to utter those terribly immature words: "it's not fair."

Similarly, I've become increasingly frustrated with our society's tendency to define people based on what they do rather than who they are. This issue is one that has bothered me for a long time, but its destuctiveness has taken on a new level of clarity for me recently, because now, when I'm defined by what I do, I'm being defined, essentially, by nothing, because that's what I'm doing with my life right now. In the past week, I've visited with two different sets of family members who are/were visiting from out of town, and it has been quite awkward. Normally, they'd ask me about school, but since I'm not in school for right now, there's really nothing to talk about. My great aunt and uncle spent about an hour talking to my brother about his engineering classes and his medical school plans while I just sat there, feeling invisible. I can't blame them, really, because they really don't know me, but it was difficult nonetheless. Yes, I am taking a necessary break from being a student, but I am not, for the record, taking a break from being a human being with worthwhile thoughts. And to make this whole exchange worse, one of my most-loved family members (maybe the nicest person I know, really) said something that really hurt my feelings. While my aunt and uncle were talking to my brother about how he might end up as a hugely successful physician in Houston (where they live), she threw in, "If Sara ever finishes, maybe she can work on their minds!" If I ever finish. I hadn't realized that there was any question in my family's mind that I will finish, that I will do what I have planned to do. I know she didn't mean it how it came out, but it left me feeling like she has very little faith in me; it left me feeling (as if I didn't already) like the Black Sheep of the family: Alex will be a doctor, and maybe someday Sara might be a therapist. I am going to be a therapist someday, and I'm going to be a damn good one. It is not a possibility or a maybe. I know this. But still, that "if" has been echoing in my head over and over, and I need it to stop.

saturday in the park...

I have a vague sense that I have a lot to say, but my mind feels a little...nebulous? So this post will probably be a bit disjointed.

Yet another wedding weekend has come and gone. My friend/academic hero, Scott, got married on Saturday, and it was a very beautiful wedding. It was fun to see several people who I hadn't seen in a while, particularly Dustin, another Emory psychology buddy, who I hadn't talked to for probably a year, and had missed a lot more than I realized. I also was quite blessed by some encouraging words from Kevin, which made me feel good about myself. He's such a sweetheart. Sadly, Sarah, Jodie, and I had to leave the reception much earlier than we would've liked because we (mostly Sarah) had such a long drive ahead of us, and from what I've heard, we missed out on a great deal of fun. Still, it was a great time, and I'm really glad I got to go. It was wonderful to spend time with Jodie and Sarah too. They're both M.Div. students, and I love getting to hear their conversations about theology. I feel like I'm constantly trying to latch onto their ideas and insights, which is exciting and challenging and fun, not to mention helpful, what with the spiritual rut I've been in. It's wonderful to be around people who are both passionate and deeply thoughtful about their faith, and such interaction has been a rarity for me as of late, it seems. It was also very fun (and weird, I must admit) to hear Jodie talk about married life. It's still seems crazy to me that I have friends who are married, and spending the night with them was especially surreal. I ended the weekeend by worshipping at Duke Chapel, which was an absolutely wonderful experience. I've been to cathedrals all over Europe, but I had never acutally been to a church service in one, and it was utterly thrilling. The huge size of it was such a powerful reminder of the sheer big-ness of the Almighty God.

"...how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ." (Ephesians 3:18)

It's kind of strange coming home after these little trips. When I'm with my friends, I feel like I'm part of the world they live in, and they are real, live, adults, so I fee like I am too, until I get in the car to drive home... to my parents' house...where I live...which makes me feel like a child. I'm just in a strange place in my life, I guess, mostly because my current situation doesn't fit neatly into any sort of defined and agreed-upon category. There just isn't a label for a 20-something, intelligent, college-graduate who temporarily lives with her parents and (also temporarily) doesn't have a job, so I feel like I'm floating around somewhere between the shores of adult and child. I never liked labels anyway.

My dreams have been interesting lately. A certain someone who I thought I had finally stopped dreaming about has started showing up again, and it's kind of pissing me off. Also, not long ago, a celebrity was featured in one of my dreams for the first time, and it's been happening fairly frequently ever since. Last night, Morgan Freeman and Miley Cyrus. I don't know what that's about, but it's rather amusing.

I think I had more to talk about, but my brain is tired. Happy [...I think it was the] 4th of July.