“A reminder that assessments will be done in Applied Lab this week. You will be completing the NEO-PI-R and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

You are also asked to request that someone who knows you very well complete the NEO-PI on your behalf, i.e., this person (spouse, parent, sibling, friend) will respond to the items about you from their point of view. Inform him/her that their responses will not be read by you: His/her answers will be compiled by someone unknown to you or him/her. You will be given feedback from his/her collective responses in profile form (essentially a graph) at a later time. Please respond to this e-mail with the name of that person (and their relationship to you) by 5:00 Monday, January 25, so that a list of authorized names can be prepared.”

This is an email I received today from a professor who is quickly becoming the bane of my existence. In general I think things like this serve little purpose are just plain stupid. Not only that, we were given less than 24 hours to find someone. Poor planning and execution are becoming a very common part of the Richmont experience. The biggest thing that I don’t like about this though, is that this is just the very thing I was talking about in my last post. I can’t think of anyone within 300 miles of here that would even crack the top 10 of people who know me very well. Most people here in Atlanta don’t even know that I was an mk, my parents are divorced, or my brother is deaf. And I would consider all those things very surface, 1st level stuff. Not anywhere close to deep intimate knowledge of my personality. I’m not mad at the people around me here and I’m not really mad at myself because of that fact, I’m just mad at the whole situation.

Everything is different

Ever since I graduated from Cedarville, life has been different. I went through a period in my life where I seriously questioned the existence of God. I think really I was just mad at him. I was struggling with a lot of theoretical and philosophical questions about God. I’ like to think I’ve since comes to terms with them though. Although, I’m not confident in them nor have I been confident about anything since graduation. But now ever since I’ve moved to Atlanta things have been significantly bleaker.

Nothing makes sense anymore. Things that used to make sense don’t make sense anymore. I used to have goals, things I wanted out of life. I used to want a family, a farm house, and a ministry. I wanted to be involved with a church, provide service and put down roots. But now all those things seem very distant, unobtainable almost. Its more than that though. They seem ‘out of my scope’. Like they were some sort of dream that I woke up from can just remember bits and pieces of. They are far off and at this juncture I am contemplating if they are worth journeying to. Seems like the longest time I had been walking towards them and they had been getting closer but now they have tucked themselves off behind some distant mountain somewhere that I can’t find. See what I mean? Doesn’t make sense.

I used to thrive on connection. My heart used to be greatly encouraged by walks about the lake with Lizzy or long conversations in the dorm with Strawz and Pelz. At least I think it was, I’ve having a hard time remembering those days. At this late hour they all seem so hazy. Everything is oh so different. I used to get almost giddy at the prospect of just going to class and seeing people, connecting with them. I haven’t felt that way in a long while. I’ve met a lot of great people here but something is different. No connection. I kind of get the feeling that they all don’t really understand me and I don’t have any real interest to explain myself to them. And I feel like I don’t understand the people around me anymore. We’re all so different. I feel like I’m on a different page then everyone else. They are already in the middle somewhere reaching the turning point and I’m stuck in the beginning somewhere. No, it’s like I’m not even reading the same book.

I think I’m just lonely, I’m lost. But I don’t think I want to be found. All this stuff has made me ashamed and cynical. I don’t want to be known anymore. It’s very cyclical. Feeling lost leads me into greater cynicism which leads to greater separation. This is all making me hate myself very much. I don’t like what I’ve become.

I want some joy to come rescues me from this. To lift me out of this. Something that is not me, that is outside of myself. I used to think that God did this, at least that’s what I always told people. But the more reading, studying, and praying I do the more it seems I’m having a conversation with the walls in my apartment. See for me the question is not ‘does God exist?’ but ‘what does life mean?’. The first question has no meaning if the second one goes unanswered.

I guess I want what we all want; answers. I want to start making progress on the questions that I’m asking. I want to feel like I’m arriving somewhere. Like this all has meaning. That’s it, I’m searching for meaning.

2 Corinthians 12:9

"Your grace is sufficient for me
Your strength is made perfect
When I am weak
And all that I cling to
I lay at Your feet
Your grace is sufficient for me"

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.


Amen.

A wedding and a funeral

I want to start out by saying that I’ve never had anyone close to me die, knock on wood. When I was in junior high my granny died. I do remember being moved by her death, but honestly, she had lived a good life. Her husband had passed a good while previous and I remember thinking it was her time to go. I hope that doesn’t sound cold, I don’t mean it to, it’s just sometimes I think death can be a good thing. I’ve never had a friend die or anyone I was close to really. So maybe I don’t understand. And I freely admit that I don’t know what its like, how it feels, and I don’t mean to make light of death. This is just something that came into my mind as I was talking with a friend, and it’s been rolling around in my head ever since.

As I said, I was talking to a friend recently. We were asking the obligatory questions that friends ask after a long absence from seeing each other. I asked him how his break was and he responded that it was both good and bad. He had gone to a wedding of a good friend and had taken part in the joy that weddings bring. He also said he attended the funeral of a good friend who had tragically and suddenly died.

After the initial shock that comes with news like that, I found myself waxing philosophically in my mind about wedding and funerals. The rest of the night and into the next week my mind kept returning to a wedding and a funeral.

I have never been married so I can’t say what exactly what it feels like to actually get married. But I have attended many weddings of friends and family. I must say, I quite enjoy weddings. Especially if I know the bride and groom really well. I can live vicariously through their joy and excitement. And weddings mean that stupid ‘one hop, two hop’ song is sure to be played. Everybody likes that song, I can’t even dance but I can do that one. As long as there is somebody telling me what to do I’m good. When I am left to my own imagination and my two left feet is when things go tragically wrong. Trust me, there are pictures out there somewhere.

But the excitement is the part that I really like. I can imagine the joy the bride and groom must feel. Think about it, you go through your whole life a lone waiting, searching, hoping, for that one person who completes you. When the bride and groom come to this realization much planning and thought goes into the culmination of these feeling and experiences, the wedding. The day finally comes, the reward for each other’s faithfulness up to this point, but also symbolizing the faithfulness that is to follow the rest of their lives together. In some ways the wedding is the apex of the relationship. Everything has been building up until this important day. But it does not stop there. Though it is the culmination of their individual search for each other, the wedding symbolizes a new journey. A journey that is lived intimately and in mutual enjoyment with each other. Life from then on is spent exploring the depths of each other in a way that cannot be done until marriage. Weddings are happy events, maybe the most joyous events we will partake in outside of heaven.

Funerals by contrast are not as happy. In fact, usually funerals mean a whole lot of sadness for those involved. A marriage is something to look forward to, but a funeral is something we all hope we never have to attend. Funerals symbolize remembering. Remembering a person and a life that was meaningful. The person who has died is no longer with us, no longer alive. I think most of the time we are not sad for the person who had died, we are sad for the people who are left behind. This might change a little if the person was young and in the prime of their lives, but for the most part we aren’t sad for the person. Funerals symbolize the ending of a journey, the last page in the story. It’s the end.

But I am struck by how similar weddings and funerals are. This is especially if the person who dies knows the Lord. We tend to think of weddings as celebrations and funerals as tragedies. But I don’t think that is true, both events are celebrations. When a person dies their life on earth ends, but they are united with Christ! I can just picture it. Jesus waiting for us in heaven. Then there is the dramatic scene of the chapel doors flinging open as the bride walks down the aisle to be united with her beloved. Friends and family members who have gone before us are there waiting, cheering us on at our real ‘wedding’. After the wedding we have a huge party in which all of heaven is invited. Maybe they will play that stupid hop song too. From here on out the bride and the bride groom live forever together in mutual delight of one another. In this way, funereal are also the final culmination of our lives where in we shouldn’t think about what was lost, but about what was gained.

So maybe funerals are a lot like weddings.

Failure

I’ve been thinking a lot about failure in the past few months, or I should say, the last few years. It is no secret that I fight thoughts of failure on a daily basis. I think those thoughts are universal maybe, but I particularly struggle with them in light of my self esteem issues. But lately, the topic of failure has come up a lot as I have talked to various friends.

You know, I often hear that Christ is able to sympathize with me as a person. Something akin to Hebrews 4:15. This is supposed to provide me, a sinner, comfort because Jesus, perfect, was also tempted “just like I am”. But it’s not the same. Temptation is not the issue sin is. I sin, Jesus did not. This often leads me to wonder how failure fits into the whole picture. Because Jesus did not fail. My whole faith is predicated on the truth that Jesus did not fail. He never let himself down. He never let his father down. He did not let those around him down (well, he actually did, but it’s like comparing apples to oranges). I do fail, I do let people down. But do I let God down? Hmmm…

I wonder if my fear of failure, the fear of failing myself and others gets projected on to God. What I mean is when I fail, in whatever way, I let myself down. In my distress I attribute those feels to God. So my feeling of inadequacy leads me to believe that God now views me as a failure. All too often I think I end up coming to this conclusion. I live in my failure.

The problem with that conclusion is that it’s just simply not true. It is precisely because Jesus did not fail that I do not have to live in my failures. I am not the sum total of my faults. His righteousness is imputed to me so that I may live in freedom from my failings.

So how does this work out practically? I am tempted, I fail, and now what? What is the very next thing that should happen? I confess, repent, and remember that Jesus has already bought my sins. Through His great mercy, he has allowed me to no longer be defined my failings. So I’ll end with a few words from a song that Just came up on Pandora, thank you Jesus.

“Without Thy sweet mercy, I could not live here.
Sin would reduce me to utter despair,
But through Thy free goodness, my spirit's revived
And He that first made me still keeps me alive.”

Old Memories

I like the feeling that you get when you are alone sitting by yourself and you remember something that you had forgotten about. I’m not talking about anything like forgetting to put the toilet seat down or realizing that your fly is unzipped. I mean memories. The things that you once did that brought joy to your heart. I like to think of it memories like millions of little bubbles that swirl around me as they are being blown from a wand. Every once in a while one of those bubbles lands on your hand and you remember. I think it’s a special moment when, for whatever reason, you just remember. The other day I remembered a driving over to Wheaton to see my friend Jody who was an RA. She invited me into her dorm to see her room. I remembered being nervous because I knew at a Christian school the dorms were not co-ed. I didn’t want to come up and see a girl in a towel or something like that you would see in a cheesy movie from the 80’s. Jody informed me that girls don’t do that. I didn’t know. Nakedness in guys dorms is pretty standard really, or at least in all the dorms I had ever been to. Anyway, she brought me up and I remember feeling like I was important because I had the ratio in my favor. She let me stay in her room until she got done doing some RA-type stuff and then we went down town. We ate lunch at this little breakfast whole in the wall place. I remember being able to hear the train. We ate our lunch and reminisced probably about high school, grace, things in our past lives.

See, that was a great memory to me. It wasn’t particularly interesting or exciting, but it was comforting. Like a warm glass of coco on a hot day. It brought me back so to speak. It reminded me of days gone by. Friendships and places that were once strong connections in my like that are now no longer as strong. But for that moment, in that memory, I’m there again. Those things are real again. I can get lost in them. Because I think we do get lost when we remember. Have you ever had a memory so strong that you almost think it is real? I have. And maybe ‘real’ isn’t the right word. Memories that are so present that you forget that they are in the past? No, I don’t think that is right either. Hmmm….memories that they bring the past feeling and experiences into the present. I think that is more of what happens.

I think it’s a gift to remember things like that. Sometimes when I have little moments like that I feel special because it’s like God reached out his hand and gave it to me. Like little blessings from above. It makes me appreciate the Omniscience of God. I don’t think he has any memories. Well maybe he has memories, I don’t want to be theological about it, but I know for sure He doesn’t forget. Forgetting in the sense of then having to remember. Anything that is forgotten with God is gone I think. I think He’s outside of time and able to see the scope of it all. I don’t think he needs to remember because he knows all.

While it is a gift to remember, remembering makes me sad in some ways. I can’t help but wonder where all the memories go that are unremembered. If I don’t remember something, if no one remembers it, did it really happen? It probably did still happen I guess, but what value do things unremembered earn? I can’t think of the things I can’t remember but I’d be a fool to think that I remember everything. Are not those things that I can’t remember also important? How important are they if I cannot remember them? Maybe the memories are not important but those things that the memories are about were important. So I guess unremembered memories do mean something.