viewing home through mud-tinted glasses

Last Friday I made the 8.5 hour drive from Cleveland, TN to Akron, OH to spend two weeks with my family and friends back home. Since I've been here I've spent every single day with my 8 year-old sister. Now, I love my sister. Really, I do. But I'm exhausted and need to spend time with real adults. Not pint-sized ones with unusually large vocabularies.

I guess I forgot that I abandoned my life here to begin a new one in Tennessee. Result: I don't have many friends here that I would hang out with regularly and the ones I do have are married. Bonk. I've spent the last few years seeing this place as being one of great memories and the place I escaped from. I was never looking back because there was no future there.

Now I'm seeing that I might've been wrong.

Which made me realize that coming home after graduation is the same as going anywhere. I'll be starting over. I'll have to make new friends again. Ones that share interests that I've developed in college. I'll have to meet new guys. Ones that share my values and faith (instead of the ones that are just a bunch of trouble/baggage). I thought coming home would be taking steps backward but in reality it's up to me which direction I want to take.

Home isn't the exciting and fun place that it was when I was in high school. I'm not overloaded with school/sports/music and thus I have way too much free time on my hands. The best part is this is something I would've faced anywhere. I'm not saying I'm committing to coming home after graduation in december. But i'm no longer going to consider ohio "home" because in actuality it isn't. Tennessee has become home and Ohio is just somewhere I grew up. If ohio wins out on the pros/cons list I may find myself here in a few months. And if it doesn't I'll be okay with that. I know who I am and I know that wherever I go, I won't be settling for the easy way out. And now I realize that ohio isn't necessarily the easy solution. In fact it may be tougher than others because I no longer fit in a place that I used to own.

On the plus side, I'm visiting some friends tomorrow afternoon and thursday night, and I'm spending time with one of my besties and her husband on friday. things are looking up for this bored chick.

Bleached socks

Today I was reminded of a father's love.

I look to my dad every time I have a problem. The other day while doing laundry I realized my socks looked disgusting. So I decided to bleach them. One problem: I've never bleached anything. In my life. (Well besides my white Nikes... but you know a girl ain't tryin to scuff up her white shoes right?) So naturally, I called Dad. The next day, he texted to check up on how my socks turned out.

I read Jonathan and Melissa Helser's blog entitled "Your thoughts define me" and the story he told about his little girl completely touched my heart. They're in my follow list. Check it out. I was literally moved to tears. A pretty inconvenient situation to be in while sitting at a secretary desk at my job.

This blog made me examine my relationship with my Dad. Or as I prefer to call him, my "Padre."

First off, the man let's me call him Padre. I mean really? A lot of kids have nicknames for their dad. Unfortunately for mine, he didn't get this nickname until I was 16. So now he gets to have it forever. I'll never outgrow it :)

I met my Dad when I was 6 years old. That's when my mom finally introduced us to her boyfriend, Duke. Even after they'd married, I refused to call "Duke" my dad. It literally took years before he gained my trust. You see, I'd been hurt by men who pretended to be father figures in the past. They'd come into our life and then just disappear from it. So I began to immediately reject them before they could reject me. My dad though, he refused to reject me. I would hate him and he would just love me.

Not only did he love me when I turned from him, but he encouraged me in everything I wanted to do. And I wanted to do everything. He let me practice my violin for hours and to this day swears I didn't sound terrible. (I'm not buying it) He played catch with me for hours in the middle of our street when I was learning to play softball. He convinced me I could do anything I wanted, despite what others said. I had coaches who said I would never be good enough to start a game. My dad helped me prove them wrong. And yet, I would curse him and hate him when I got upset.

And yet, despite how much I could despise him sometimes, I still looked to him before anyone else for affirmation. My dad was the one with whom I wanted to share my accomplishments first. My dad was the one who would brag on me and my siblings anytime we did anything right. Even better than that, my dad has never talked bad about us to others. I would make a huge mistake and disappoint him so much, yet I never heard him talk bad about me or my siblings. While others would focus on my sister's weight, or my brother's drug use, my dad would tell them about my sister's willingness to do anything for anyone and my brother's hilarious sense of humor.

My dad amazes me. And he swears I amaze him. My dad encourages me. He says his kids are the encouragement for him. My dad affirms me. He gets embarrassed when we tell him how great he is.

Living 600 miles from home I sometimes feel forgotten. I have this need to be needed. Anytime I do something good, I immediately call Dad to tell him. I need to hear him say how good I've been. At 22, I still need my dad to tell me that I'm doing good and that he's proud. It's funny that I feel this way considering how I outright rejected him 14 years ago.

And yet, my Dad is 100% human. He makes huge mistakes. He disappoints me sometimes. He loses his temper.

As I sit here and think about it, I'm struck with a really awesome realization. I guess I never really thought about it, but I'm confident it was my earthly father's love that made accepting God's love easy.

My Dad never required me to change in order for him to accept me. God accepted me when I rejected him and avoided him for years. My dad was an example of God's love and was placed in my life so that when I finally accepted salvation, I would be able to trust God to love me unconditionally.

Similar to my relationship with Padre, I keep finding myself running to God for affirmation when I do something good. When I read a book that challenges me spiritually or spend time in the Word, I don't outright say it but I feel this unconscious "look" to God asking " Do you see how much I love you, God? Am I pretty Father? Did I do good, Abba? "

For too long, I’ve been trying to make everyone happy without being true to the desires God has placed in my heart. God deserves for me to be the girl he is making me into. He gave everything so that I may have eternal life. He sacrificed his only son. I can't even sacrifice my favorite stuffed animal, yet God gave me the life of his son so that some day I can walk the streets of heaven with him. He loved me that much. I want God to look at me and say that I'm beautiful. That I've done good. That he knows how much I love him. Because I KNOW he's looking at my heart.

As for the rest of the world, I'm done caring what you all think. Some may think I'm a "bible-thumper" while others will think I'm too liberal to be a good Christian. Well I could care less. I'm done hiding from my faith and the person that I'm meant to be. I've been blessed with an earthly father that supports me in everything I do and a Heavenly Father who is blessing everything I touch. And I will praise him, even when it forces me out of the places that are comfortable and into unknown territory.

I'm ready Lord. Send me.

Okay, maybe I’m not completely ready… but I’m working on it :)

Love you Abba. You too Padre.

Puzzles and Struggles

Somedays it feels like everything in life is falling apart.

Today is not one of those days.

If I could create a picture of how I'd like most ordinary days to look, it would look like today.

I woke up around 10 am after getting about 8 or 9 hours of sleep. Read some of the novel I've been reading (it's not sophisticated so I'm opting out of listing it here), showered, and took my time getting ready for work at 1. At work I was actually really productive and accomplished some things I've been putting off. After work, I finished the novel mentioned earlier (and it wasn't terrible, in fact, it had a few lessons I really needed to hear), went for a run, and made myself pasta for dinner. I watched Gilmore Girls, Glee, and the HBO mini-series on John Adams for the rest of the evening. Okay maybe I snuck in some World Cup analysis action, and caught up on Baseball tonight. A girl's gotta have her sports fix, right?

There was absolutely nothing eventful or exciting about today. I didn't bungee jump, go whitewater rafting, ride a jet ski... All things I love to do. Instead, I was ordinary. And I was content.

Now, don't worry Christin... (as I'm sure you're the only one who reads my blog, but I'm totally okay with that, consider this a book...minus details of my emotional instability)

UGH. I digress. Don't worry, I'm not ready to settle into an ordinary and decidedly dull life. As if I could avoid life-threatening adventures.

However, it really was nice to just have a normal day. No texts full of drama or confusion to offset my contentment. No monetary crises. No one to barge in and make a request of me last minute. It was glorious.

Now, to relate this to one of the lessons my book taught me.

I've spent a lot of time the last couple years trying to make pieces of puzzles fit together that don't. No matter how many times God would put a roadblock there to give me time to see the bigger picture, I would sidestep said obstacle and dig my own path to what I thought was right for me. Man, was I so wrong and so blind.

God has something out there for me that's way bigger than anything I could imagine. How do I know this? Because every time I abandon my plan and follow His I am blessed way more than I had been while I was being stubborn. Now for examples because I like examples...deal with it

- College: I was going to Ohio State. No question. I decided I would since I was a freshman in high school. However, when those housing papers came from OSU in May 2006 I didn't have peace and next thing I know I'm applying to Lee University in Cleveland, TN- a place I've never heard of or seen.

- Boyfriend 1: We dated for 2.5 years starting my senior year of high school. I knew after about a year and a half we weren't good for each other but I chose to remain in the relationship in spit of God telling me to let go. Result- I ended up heartbroken and leaning on the only One who never left me.

- Being single: gosh, this just sucks after having a boyfriend for almost three years. How do you even go back to this. (confession: i still haven't mastered the whole flirting thing again... I still treat guys like besties...but it's whatever. I've always wanted to marry my best friend)

- Dean: yes, that's a code name for a boy. Despite how much I wanted us to be perfect for each other, I knew we weren't and I knew he was not a good guy for me. Of course, I ignored the still small voice and did what i wanted. Result- confusion. heartache. loneliness. desperation. 2nd result- strength. worth. confidence. love for myself.

PS- Thanks, Dean for sucking at life so I could find myself again.

Loneliness is easily the worst feeling I've ever faced. After Boyfriend 1 and I broke up I lived in this emotion. A song that got me through this time had this lyric and I go back to it every time I start to feel alone:

"I will love you unconditionally.

I'll wrap my arms around you when you can't sleep

and I'll hold your hand while you weep and weep.

Daughter, I love you unconditionally"

It was during this difficult time that I realized God's unconditional love for me. His promise to always love me and His consistency when everything is inconsistent on earth. He has never left me feeling abandoned and every time I start to doubt Him the Holy Spirit whispers those lyrics in my heart and I'm reminded of His love for me.

I am still struggling to see the entire puzzle and it's because I'm not supposed to. At this point I have some of the border finished but there's no telling where the pieces in the middle go. Instead I'm having to rely on God to direct my steps. Too bad I have all these ideas but no clue which is the right direction to go. It's pretty exciting to examine all the possibilities and be open to all of them at once.

I think what's more exciting is I haven't decided which one is the one. Nope, I don't have the slightest idea what I want to do or where I want to go. Instead, I'm living in this ordinary day and loving how often I talk to and hear from my Savior. I know that whatever path I choose will be the one He chose before I was created.

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. -Jeremiah 29:13