In the midst of this day/week that is essentially the most impossible of my semester, given everything I'm supposed to accomplish, I just had a $250 civil penalty cleared. At least internally, I'm ecstatic. I needed that so much...

I am continuously grateful that God sees fit that little pieces of hope and encouragement pop up just when you need it most--a random kind word from a friend, a good test grade, an extension on a deadline, $250 that you don't go further into debt...

Phew. Praise God.

once again i have demonstrated that how i think i did on a test is usually the opposite of how i actually did



(i hate complaining on here, but if you can't do it here, where can you?)

I think i've been more academically frustrated this semester than any other....i used to get picked on for being the "smart kid"....those days are long past...and i know i could try a lot harder, but these days, when i DO try hard, i still get mediocre results :/

it's funny, but now that the end of schoolwork is actually on the horizon, i loathe having to do it a HECK of a lot more than before...here's another item to go on my list for why i'm finally ready to get out of here.

It'd probably help, too, if i actually thought my classes were worth anything to me this semester. But alas, they are not turning out to be so. Quite a disappointment. Here's hoping for a good final semester...

Sleepless

I'm supposed to be resting, but once again my brain has demonstrated that it can't allow this until it has been unpacked; ergo, here I am.

The last few days I've come to the conclusion that essentially, mine has been quite a backwards conversion experience.

When I "accepted Christ," I was young, about 10 years old. There was no struggle, no guilt, no wrestling to understand; the decision was expected, in a sense, given my familial background, but it was also sincerely meant. It was simple, and entirely unemotional. To be sure, the full significance of what I had done could not have been truly felt, given my youth, but as much as any 10-year-old could have been, I was aware of what I was doing.

I remember thinking, for most of my childhood and adolescence, that I no testimony. I had always heard the extreme dark-to-light type testimonies, and thought that since mine was so much simpler and non-life-changing (*at that point), I really didn't have that much to work out or talk about. After all, I came from a Christian background, was a good kid, and my "official" (i.e., verbal) placement of trust in Christ really hadn't changed much of the way I lived, because there really was no "darkness" for me to come out of, so to speak.

Fortunately for me, that did not remain to be true. I think God has propelled my life in such a way that over the course of time, I eventually came into my own kind of darkness that I needed to allow myself to be saved from. High school brought some heady issues to the forefront of my life which were to be the backdrop for a lot of my searching later on, although I was still yet to really face anything truly difficult (or so hindsight revealed). With my entrance into college came a lot of questioning, which I welcomed as necessary; I've been very glad to actually be formulating my own opinions and beliefs rather than accepting, without challenge, everything I've been taught. Not to say I've rejected what I've been taught (although that has happened on occasion), but I've been coming into an understanding of why I believe what I believe. I imagine most thinking young adults go through this.

Coupled with this questioning mindset, my extremely introspective nature has drawn me into many realizations about myself over the past few years...realizations that have produced a lot of self-doubt, a lot of guilt, and a drop in my confidence in who I am. Warrented or not, those are still things I struggle with now; in fact, a lot of it has really surfaced this semester and come to a defining point, as I find myself fighting more than ever to see myself as God sees me.

I've never been in a place where I've doubted my salvation; the cognitive reality of God's gift of grace is something I've never had cause to question. But it's as if over a decade later, that decision I made to accept grace is just now coming to fruition, as I work out the idea of it all with fear and trembling, and as I struggle to take hold of it for myself and believe in its total redemption...It's strange, too, to know the ultimate ending of the story, and yet still be living in the midst of the irresolution of it.

It has been an intriguing, painful, humbling, and beautiful process. It continues to be so still...

a thrill of hope

I am sick but surrounded by Christmas spirit and it's loverly :)



Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt His worth

...Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born!

outlet parte dos :)

Restless is a welcome state,
if wisdom reigns
and movement's truly prized above complacency
It can wake you from a worthless slumber of complacency

Restless is a friend, a foe
I know it grows me,
though contradiction hides itself inside:
Would I skirt it if I found I could?
No doubt I'd try, in spite of what I've learned

Restless is a dull old tune
Annoying, nagging,
waiting, always waiting,
for that something new which only sometimes comes

Restless is a question mark
Sparking rich anticipation into our bones
as we grope about for light in inky dark
Who knows what light some new day dawning surely brings?

Restless is a common place
Unbiased, bonding every soul with common fate of wandering
(Go ahead, just have a thought, a single care,
and it is sure to find you there among your thorns and petals--
Dare not hope for an escape)

Restless is an angry word,
fighting for its suicide
Yet knowing life denies this,
every
single
time

*sigh*

I wish my life weren't so busy...



I really miss having more time to fellowship with friends...the time is approaching when we will go our separate ways, and I want to be able to do a better job of making the most of the remaining time.

ok i can't help but be a sap about it--sue me.

i like artistic outlets...

Your face seeking truth
so close to mine
I'd rather not lie to you
But the truth is, I don't know what I'm doing
Such undefined sense of duty,
lines shrouded in ambiguity--
It's doubtful time will remedy entirely
those potential discrepancies
between what is right and what I do
I doubt you mind, I doubt you know,
I doubt you realize I don't know
what I should be doing
But bonds are strengthening all the while,
in spite of weak grasp of duty
So I'm clambering to somehow continue
whatever it is I do that's right
So that I might have a hope of being true to you

rambling: my specialty

i just got an image in my head of what my life is like right now: me, tripping along a sea of shifting mini tectonic plates...i wish you could see what i see right now because it would probably make you laugh. But there's nary a stable step; i always have to watch where i'm going, because if i don't, i won't be standing for long. and it gets the best of me sometimes; a lot of times it doesn't; and sometimes i don't much care that things are moving out from under my feet at all and i just let myself fall down, letting the shifting ground carry me where it will.

My life works like this. I think it always will, but it is just much more pronounced at this period of my life [well, i'm sure that it's more pronounced for just about every senior on the brink of graduating from life as he or she knows it... i always forget my experience is not so very exclusive to me :)]. I learn new things every day, I change my mind all the time, unexpected things bodyslam me and knock the wind out, unexpected things plop themselves into my lap and laugh at how amazed i am by their beauty. Everything shifts, everything always changes. Thank goodness our Father is nothing if not constant, because i might go crazy if He weren't.



Grace's CameLink launched today, a ministry of sorts that puts the college students in touch with the families...since those are pretty much the two biggest groups at our church. And i am thrilled that this is finally coming about. Michelle and Mary Jane and I have been working through a lot to get this thing off the ground, and i cannot describe to you the sense of fulfillment and joy i have to see this really, actually happening. I really believe it is going to be very good for this church. Praise God!!!!!!!!!!



On a final note, I am quite confused about my role....my role in my relationships with friends, and with family. And my role in my future--what the hell am i doing? With any of this? Whoops there i go starting to write what's really in my head; i best watch out. Can't shock too many people at once. :) But back to roles--I probably should get used to uncertainty in this context, since there is sure to always be a measure of it in my life.



Lied, this is my final note: I was watching Smallville with my dad Thursday, and this Kryptonian was talking about the duplicity of humans. I remembered how i used to think, "oh, duplicity...such a lamentable vice of those non-Christians..." Now, fortunately, i don't kid myself anymore, and very much recognize how a Christian faith and duplicity are not at all mutually exclusive. I'd suggest that if all of us actually lived out our lives as we truly are internally, everyone would have a lot to be shocked about. And so, once again, I thank God for His liberal and undeserved grace that frees, not because it gives us license to do whatever we want, but because it both cleanses and allows for mistakes. If that makes any sense. It grows us. Grace is alive; it continually redeems...i suppose that's sanctification, isn't it?


I've wandered into realms in which i am unqualified to continue, at least on 3 hours' sleep. Plus: it's just time to shut up, period. This has been an unedited, stream-of-consciousness spillling of my brain, something i don't allow to reach the internet very often. If you bothered to wade in this far, I salute you (or maybe question your time management skills?...)

Goodnight.

[tonos opuestos]

Qué glorioso era ese fin de semana…¡y la cosa más gloriosa es que apenas lo ha comenzado! Es una cosa maravillosa no tener clases los viernes…pude ir a mi casa (bueno, realmente, es la casa de mis padres) en Raleigh anoche, y pasar tiempo con mi abuelita hoy…no le he visto en casi un año. Me siento como debe ser domingo por la noche…pero qué dicha, sólo es viernes :)

No sé que hacer con mi español…está disminuyendo, yo sé, por la falta de usa…esto lamento muchíííísimo. Tengo un poco de un don, me supongo, en comparación con todos los cuales que no lo hablan…pero…no soy prodigio. Sé que si continuo así, hay un posibilidad que lo perderé completamente, más o menos—he oído de eso pasando. No lo suporto…no puedo permitir que eso pase :(

¿Pero que hacer? Quizás abandonaré mis planes de pos-graduación (espera…...¡no hay! aun mejor), me mudaré a un país hispanohablante, y me casaré con un nativo…eso es mi sugestión.

tienen otros?

EEEEK

time is flying by too fast
and i feel like deadlines creep up on me almost every day now
and the room of my floor is suffocating from the junk covering it
and my bed never stops calling my name
and i don't think i've been to the gym in over a month and a half
and i must do my laundry soon before i find myself with no pants
and there are always so many places to go and things to be done


promises to keep?
miles to go before i sleep?

you could say that again (maybe...every night)




and to top it all off, i'm homesick, which i think has happened only one other time in my entire college career...good thing i'm going home tomorrow :)

Things that make you go ____________

At this moment, a dear and old friend of mine is on her way to the funeral of another good friend of hers. Her friend was killed this past Saturday morning by a hit-and-run driver coming down the wrong way on a one-way road...She was coming home from her late-night shift at the hospital where she worked.

I just found out the guy has turned himself in, which has gotten me thinking about it all again. It's so weird...They'd been friends since the fourth grade, grown up in church together, and then suddenly there's no more. I'd met her. It's difficult to wrap your brain around the idea that a person doesn't exist on Earth anymore, especially someone as young as myself, so I can hardly imagine what the people who were close to her are going through.

It's made stranger by the fact that this whole incident has called to mind a night about eight years ago, when I found out that my best friend had died from an asthma attack. That was even more surreal for me...it had been about a year since my family had moved from San Diego to Raleigh, and I was watching the Stargate movie with my parents when I got a call from a friend I hadn't talked to since we'd left...in fact, I hadn't talked to anyone since we'd left, not even Jennifer. Just silly juvenile flippancy, I guess.

But I sure didn't know how to respond then. I was only 13, and hadn't yet had those deep experiences that serve to connect your soul to someone else's, but still, I knew that she had been my best friend. And even though the cross-country move had diminished my chance of ever seeing her again, that night and that phone call blew it out of water entirely.

Everyone has those moments that are indelibly etched into their memory, those patches of time whose details are raised above the surface of every other normal day...I remember talking to my friend Anya about our other friends, and wondering if she thought badly of me for being able to change the subject from Jennifer so quickly (I mean, what is a 13-year-old supposed to do with that?). I remember wondering why I didn't cry...and I remember doing crunches later that night and suddenly bursting into tears. I remember thinking, in my little-stained 13-year-old mind, that I would be tortured for life because I would remember her every time I heard her quite-common name, or heard anything about Stargate (which in my house, was every week).

And I remember that this did not happen. Pretty quickly life went on as normal--the whole event settled into the back of my mind, not a very deeply-wounding event because of the distance (not just physically, but also temporally). But it still was surreal then, just as it always is now whenever sparked into remembrance for whatever reason.

The loss of a "loved one," as our society has labled it--something from which I have been spared thus far...though it has always, for as long as I can remember, been my greatest fear. Not heights, not spiders, not failure, not death (my own, anyway)...the thought of the loss of a person dear to my heart is about the only thing that truly saps the life out of my own. Funny though, that this has diminished with age...I guess that only makes sense.

Done reminiscing...just want to say, a mi amiga mayor de Carolina del Norte, te amo, chiquita, tengo suerte por tener tu amistad...hang in there.

LEA!

I want to read more, but more importantly, I need to read more. I have a fear that when I graduate I will feel quite inadequately educated with regard to many things.

I want to read a lot more theology and philosophy because there are so many ideas out there I've barely even tasted, as they've only been flashed at me in little spurts over the past few years. I want to be exposed to so much more, and actually have time to sift through it and try to understand it. (On my own time, though...not in a classroom.)

I want to read a lot more fiction, too, because I dearly miss the richness of the imagination that overflows from a good novel--the freedom you can bask in when the author takes your mind captive and ushers you into another world altogether. ooooo i miss it.

Sometimes I just wish I had the machine they used on the Matrix to download masses of information into your brain in no time at all...that would take care of the theology and philosophy i want to know, so that i could have all the time in the world to spend on fiction...to catch up on the classics, indulge in the frivolous, and enjoy the contemporary.

Funny how reading was the first thing i was ever passionately interested in, since kindergarten, and it's such a small part of my life now...stupid college.

it'd be nice if i don't end up just living for the weekend. here's hoping.

I got caught singing in the shower again this morning; Pocahontas this time. Why oh why do i have to live right next to the lobby?

I am sad i will be missing Switchfoot and EiSLeYyyyy this weekend, which is partly my fault, in a way, but not entirely. I will have to keep thinking about the Mae/Mutemath concert in a couple of weeks to keep this weekend's test-studying, pig-pen-aka-my-room-cleaning, brochure and website-designing, and mountains-of-clothes-laundering drudgery from getting too annoying.

I've had one really good conversation so far to kick off the weekend; it's nice to have people think outloud for you sometimes. Or, well, a lot of times. keep it coming, people.

love blinds

[it's a curious thing, the brain. amazing how many contradictory ideas it can hold at once.]


I've realized of late just how much i tend to think of my dearest friends as, for lack of a better word, perfect. As in, for some foolish reason, i'm always surprised to find that my friends do stupid things, hurt people, hurt themselves, have their priorities screwed up, are selfish, immature, etc....especially when i realize that it's nothing new; they've always been like that, to an extent.

(No, nothing particular "triggered" this. And please don't be offended. If you know me well, you know that when I am being blunt, I am the furthest from being flippant or mean-spirited. I just prefer to speak the truth as i see it, which tends to be in a much more positive light than people sometimes realize..)

Okay, no more danged disclaimers. What i mean is that, even though i know i personally do/am all the above things at one time or another, i love my friends so much and think so highly of them that i basically think they can do no wrong. Some of you know how i put people up on pedestals seen through rose-colored glasses and all that (yeah, i know you know...because i otherwise wouldn't have ever been lectured for it ;)). But the truth is, i have all of you on pedestals.

But...now that I'm realizing this about myself, i'm not coming to any bitter disappointment of any sort, not by any means. When my friends' humanity comes through, it's almost like that makes me appreciate them even more. As little sense as that makes.



But

"it was a blessed day / the day that i met you"

...pretty much expresses my reigning sentiment, if nothing else in this post makes sense.



I've a bad feeling that a number of you, if not all, won't really get what i mean with most of this. I'm really having trouble articulating what is passing through my mind tonight.

what can we do? and how do we do it?

i'm speaking in general, universal terms, really.

click on the lower right-hand link that pops up


and ptiheinnske

(you can hardly help it, anyway)

I wasn't feeling well last night, so instead of partaking in any All Hallow's Eve festivities I holed up in my room and in keeping with Reformation Day, I watched Luther. I would very much like to recommend this to everyone (watching Luther, not holing up), whether they believe in Christ or not.




To change the topic entirely, I present you with: A Breakdown of Melinda's Eve-of-Graduation Sentiments


Logical Melinda: 100% Agreement
Emotive Melinda: 35% Agreement
65% Kicking and Screaming




That is all. Thank you.

glimpses

every once in a while when i'm out and about in the world, this weird thing comes over me where i'll look at the person i'm passing, or see someone through the window of their house, or their car....or maybe i'll read a random blog of someone i rarely talk to or haven't talked to in ages, or hear a piece of a conversation as i walk by a table...and i'll wonder what's going on in their head, what hidden secrets are laying waste of their hearts, or what quiet joys they are treasuring, or if they are bored, or if they are having a pithy realization about something profound

or whatever.

i don't know why it's strange, but it is, when i remember that everyone else's life is just as detailed as mine. like the individuals outside my own immediate world just aren't very real or full to me unless i make a conscious effort to remember them as such.

i know that made very little sense at all, but that's often what comes out naturally, unlike the semi-premeditated structured cheese found in the post below. when i don't rein it in, my brain flies around illogically, irrationally, and most of all non-linearly, just to spite me sometimes, i think :) but i kinda like it like that (most times) because it keeps me entertained..


definitely going to stop the rambling now




----------EDIT-------------------------------------

ps, i've noticed my readers pretty much *suck* at commenting...does that mean i'm supposed to comment on other people's more? or just make more friends who are as stuck on blogging as myself...

On Living

"Life is hard."

I learned that from Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled, in my Ethics in Mass Media class on Monday, September 20. Just kidding...that was a part of the day's lecture, but obviously, no one needs a book to tell you life's hard--to make that observation, all anyone's got to do is live.

The thing is, I could never trade these three words. Not for the world.

An easy life, to me, speaks of a life devoid of growth--a stagnant life characterized by complacency and missed opportunities. An isolated, glassy pool, placid, calm, unrippled by wind or creature, entirely still. Imagine floating on that...no dangers, no worries, with complete and unfettered serenity.

After a while, though, I imagine we would start to get bored. After a little bit longer of a while, we would notice (or maybe we wouldn't notice it right away?) a growing feeling of weakness, muscles that give way far too easily after such a lack of use. Our brain would begin to haze in the absence of stimulation. Our heart would begin to numb over, begin to forget what it was like to feel, it hadn't been touched in so long.

Now picture yourself thrashing about in a tumultuous, storm-struck ocean. Again, your muscles seem weak beyond reason, but that's because you've been fighting just to keep your mouth and lungs from filling up with water. The waves tower, they terrify, they crash down upon your head with little reason and even less mercy. All you can think about is the shock of bright blue that you know will come soon, because you remember it; you've seen it before.

And then it finally does. Clouds part and are swiftly shattered by warm, inviting rays; that bright blue sky fills your soul with wonder and relief, and you rejoice at the amazing feeling that can only come after fighting such a storm. You're sore, maybe, and surely tired, but you know you have grown stronger for it.

And there is no lack of stimulation, here in this particular ocean. Some days you'll explore all the experiences to be had in its rolling waters; some days you'll just lie on your back and enjoy white streaks of cloud chasing each other. Some nights, awestruck by the divine beauty offered to the soul, you'll drink in glorious, otherworldly colors as they stretch across the expanse of the sky and fade into a dark, twinkling velvet. Other nights you may see in the distance a patch of sky kneading itself into a swirling mass of rain and wave.

Storm or sunset, you've never felt so alive.


Life may be hard. But that's a cop-out when unaccompanied by an admission of everything else it would offer us, should we choose to see it that way.

So maybe I would trade those three words, after all, for three more...

Life is rich.

Wow..

what a crazy weekend.

and what a great song:

Secret of the Easy Yoke
by David Bazan of Pedro the Lion

I could hear the church bells ringing
they pealed aloud Your praise
The members' faces were smiling
with their hands outstretched to shake
It's true they did not move me
my heart was hard and tired
Their perfect fire annoyed me
I could not find You anywhere

Could someone please tell me the story
Of sinners ransomed from the fall
I still have never seen You
And some days I don't love You at all

The devoted were wearing bracelets
to remind them why they came
Some concrete motivation
when the abstract could not do the same
But if all that's left is duty
I'm falling on my sword
At least then, I would not serve
an unseen distant Lord

Could someone please tell me the story
Of sinners ransomed from the fall
I still have never seen You
And some days I don't love You at all

If this is only a test,
I hope that I'm passing
'Cause I'm losing steam
And I just want to trust You

Peace be still..

Nutshell

My soul,
she looks into her mirror,
speaking words of contradiction
to herself about what she sees
She knows not what she speaks
Won't someone interpret those escaping words?
She can't understand why she'll feel what she does--

which is everything,

which is nothing

She fights it all, she fights herself,
she can't let go (but should she?)
She'll pin this thing to the ground with thought,
this "thing" of a thousand things
but her grip grows weak
because her right hand does not know her left--
Together they are called Contradict and Confuse;
apart, Sense and Self

My soul,
her steps fly in every direction,
going everywhere at once and yet getting nowhere,
seemingly gaining no ground
Years compound the complications
of so much beauty and so much pain
that she's lost which way's up
And she's tired of hurting, tired of waiting,
tired of hoping, feeling, fearing,
tired of fearing
Her back is heavy-laden with the burden of self-doubt
and distrust in her own mind;
Her guilt and foolishness bend her to the ground,
as all the while she still believes it need not be so,
that she does it to herself
Does she do it to herself?

My soul,
she won't despair, but still she sighs
and wonders how much time it takes to move
and wonders if there are words somewhere that might make sense,
that might speak clarity into being

You'll find little reason or rhyme here, because--
my soul,
her face is drawn with the absence of it