The list of "supposed to's" or "not supposed to's" have kind of been driving me nuts lately.
I'm at college. Therefore, I am supposed to do homework. I don't mind this one so much, as I like most of my homework. But on gorgeous days like today, where the grass is green and freshly cut, the birds are singing like there's no tomorrow, the sun is FINALLY shining and flowers are blooming, it seems rather sick and wrong to have to study inside. Yes, I COULD study outside. But there's the whole 'desperate seminarian' factor, which so far I have successfully avoided. But it means study INSIDE. Besides, if I study outside, no studying will happen. Drat it.
I'm at a Southern Baptist college, therefore I am supposed to be either Calvinist or Arminian. And IF I know what's good for me, I'll be a Calvinist. No middle-of-the-road-ness here. Yer either white or black. What, you grew up non-denominational where they don't put over-emphasis on this doctrine? Well, honey, that's why God in His sovereignty brought you here. Dang it.
It's preview weekend, and you never know when some curious potential student will go through the two heavier-than-heck-fire doors, down the looong hallway to the VERY END where my room is (it's the banished corner of the girl's dorm. NO ONE goes down there unless 1. they live there, such as myself or 2. they need to borrow a textbook or 3. they are inviting my room mate to a women's ministry major event) Therefore, we are supposed to keep our room perfectly clean for the next week. (this MIGHT be the biggest challenge of my college career)
You are supposed to write all essays in perfect compliance with the Style Manual. Which was invented by an Obsessive Compulsive Perfectionist who had way too much time on his hands, thought computers were type-writers, and thought Microsoft word would always do what it was supposed to. Microsoft Word, any version, by the way, is a direct result of the fall and proves that computers do indeed have minds of their own. Oppositional defiant minds of their own.
I, as a woman, am not supposed to venture out in ministry on my own. I am supposed to either pray really hard for Mr. Right to find me SOON or only minister to other women. Not really even teenage guys. Possibly children, but YOUNG boys if I HAVE to minister to boys.
Not that I'm pining away to be a pastor or youth minister, those are some of the LAST things I want to do. It's just the 'you can't do this 'cause your a girl' attitudes are starting to wear thin.
Just a few examples of supposed to's. I'm also supposed to turn the other cheek, respond with gentleness and patience, love the unloveable, be counter-cultural and follow what the Bible and the Lord tells me to (but be careful how you word that last part as you never know when a cessationist is going to jump out of the bushes and start sermonizing on the sufficiency of Scripture and the dangers of Charismatics or Penticostals)
And, to be honest, my very human self is throwing a fit. I would really like to throw all these 'supposed to's' out the window and be a free-spirited, non-denominational, independantly-minded Yank who grew up on a farm, opening doors for myself and fixing things and squashing bugs and not caring who saw me without makeup with my hair disheveled as I made mud-pies with my brother in the river down the road.
However, I am currently swamped with homework on a campus in the South (yes, we are in the south, people! I don't CARE if it's not as extreeme South as Alabama or Georgia, it's still the south!!) which places high value on women being southern belles and guys being the leader-gentlemen-somethings. Which is perfectly fine.
I'm just really looking forward to summer break!!!!
And then, by the end of summer break, I will most likely be really looking forward to diving back into acadamia where every comment on theology is an open-ended invitation to passionate debate, where guys feel guilty if a girl opens the door for them (unless they are moving her furniture for her), where sweet tea is a way of life and all outfits are coordinated and girls don't run around, but wear skirts and dainty flip-flops and always wear make-up. Oh, and were you fry EVERYTHING, including ice cream, cheese-cake and oreo's. Not just chicken.
BUT in the meantime, I have to finish reading my psychology book and write a report on it, finish reading my articles for Ancient Near Eastern History and write reports on THOSE, and book my plane ticket to Romania and find a camera I can afford.
And between you and me, I REALLY wish that Calvin and Armenius had stuck to Farming and left the Reformation to Luther. I really think if they just left it at the 99 thesis, we'd all be a lot happier. Well, Wycliffe did some good things too. Okay Luther and Wycliffe. But that's it!!
~Princess Ouch~
Living day to day trying to keep Christ as the focus
Friday, April 17, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Happy Easter! Or day after Easter...
Kristos Inviat! Or Hristos Anesti, or Happy Easter, or Jezus El. :-)
Well I guess it's a day late, but oh well.
The Lord really blessed me this Easter. I thought I was going to just go to Church and then go back to the dorm room and have nasty left-over dorm food (which my Mom strictly forbade me to do). But here's what happened instead:
Saturday I was kind of bummed because I'm officially an adult, and adults don't get Easter baskets. Silly, I know, but I like gifts. Well anyway, my parents sent me a really nice Easter package on Saturday, and on Sunday I woke up and a friend had left a chocolate easter bunny and some plastic eggs filled with candy, and a small card just outside my door.
My friend Angie took me to her Church, which is a African American/Black Southern Baptist Church with a rock-out Pastor who the members affectionately call "Doc".
Then I was invited to some friends house for lunch, so a girl from my hall and I went. Miss Pat's house is beeeautiful, and she is an on-fire Christian who loves missions, loves people and most importantly loves the Lord.
After I was STUFFED with delicious southern-cooking (complete with a desert that was almost bigger than the main course) and we talked and shared stories for a while. Miss Pat gave both my friend and I Easter bags filled with candy and veeeery cool little gifts like small jewlery and magnets from Korea.
Then we went back to the dorm room. I had to clean my room 'cause it was reeeeeally messy. As I was cleaning my desk, I found a newsletter from my friend who is the director of the organization that funds the orphanage I volunteered at in Romania. (whew. That was a mouthful!) They are having to cut back on funds due to the economy, and there are a lot of kids in Romania being abandoned because their families can't afford to care for them anymore. Romania is going through a recession as well. The Lord started moving on my heart a lot. I read that each child costs $50 a month to sponser (go to www.rmromania.org for more information) and that you could give a one time gift.
"Lord, I'm supposed to go on a mission trip I don't have the funding for yet AND save money for college next semester. Now is REALLY not the time to be tugging on my heart strings!"
But the Holy Spirit doesn't really listen to our human reasoning, and kept nudging me. So with a lot of prayer and sighing, I pulled out my checkbook.
'Howabout $25. $25 is enough for half a month, and someone else can do the rest. Besides, this probably won't make a difference. I can't support a child regularly, so what will this one-time gift do?"
And yet, the numbers sort of formed them selves. Big 5 and big 0 on the blank check. I signed it and decided to put it aside and pray about it more. Then I found myself filling out the response form. Then I was addressing the envalope and putting the check in it. Suddenly I was sealing the envalope and putting it in my pile of stuff to be mailed!
And a very large wave of relief and peace washed over me.
"Okay FINE. Have it YOUR way!" I breathed in submission, although perhaps not complete humility and contriteness.
Well, I ate dinner with a friend and we watched "Stargate" (not quite your traditional Easter spirit entertainment, but whatever) and then my parents called to wish me Happy Easter.
I didn't tell them anything about my struggle earlier in the day but I did mention to my Mom that my church back home hadn't gotten back to me yet about the financial support that had or had not come in yet.
"Oh, they told me this morning." she said.
Now the thing is, the other day I was praying that the Lord would have there be $500 waiting for me when the Church called me back, otherwise I didn't know where the money would come from, how I would afford to go, and I would have to seriously reconsider my plans for the summer. I need $1,000 to go (I know my support letter said $1,500 to $1,700 but by God's grace the price drastically dropped) and $750 is for a plane ticket.
"You have either $660 or $680 waiting for you here." my mom continued.
Not $500!! Over $600!! Almost $700!!!
So I am going to go ahead and buy the tickets. :-) I was so jazzed. I did a little victory dance and whooped and yelled in my dorm room and my poor mom was like, "WHAT is your PROBLEM, calm down!!" I mean she was excited too, but wasn't quite sure why I was doing THAT exhuberant of a victory dance. :-)
So that was the best Easter present of all. :-) So the plan is, tentatively, for me to fly into Budapest, go to Debrecen to get over jet-lag and meet some Baptist Missionaries I could do an intership with after I graduate, then take the bus to Oradea, see the orphanage director who is in desperate need of encouragement, after a day or two take the train to the Romanian missionaries I know and spend 3 1/2 weeks with them learning and encouraging and being encouraged and helping to minister to the Gypsies.
Anyhoo. That was my Easter. How was yours? :-)
~Princess Ouch~
Well I guess it's a day late, but oh well.
The Lord really blessed me this Easter. I thought I was going to just go to Church and then go back to the dorm room and have nasty left-over dorm food (which my Mom strictly forbade me to do). But here's what happened instead:
Saturday I was kind of bummed because I'm officially an adult, and adults don't get Easter baskets. Silly, I know, but I like gifts. Well anyway, my parents sent me a really nice Easter package on Saturday, and on Sunday I woke up and a friend had left a chocolate easter bunny and some plastic eggs filled with candy, and a small card just outside my door.
My friend Angie took me to her Church, which is a African American/Black Southern Baptist Church with a rock-out Pastor who the members affectionately call "Doc".
Then I was invited to some friends house for lunch, so a girl from my hall and I went. Miss Pat's house is beeeautiful, and she is an on-fire Christian who loves missions, loves people and most importantly loves the Lord.
After I was STUFFED with delicious southern-cooking (complete with a desert that was almost bigger than the main course) and we talked and shared stories for a while. Miss Pat gave both my friend and I Easter bags filled with candy and veeeery cool little gifts like small jewlery and magnets from Korea.
Then we went back to the dorm room. I had to clean my room 'cause it was reeeeeally messy. As I was cleaning my desk, I found a newsletter from my friend who is the director of the organization that funds the orphanage I volunteered at in Romania. (whew. That was a mouthful!) They are having to cut back on funds due to the economy, and there are a lot of kids in Romania being abandoned because their families can't afford to care for them anymore. Romania is going through a recession as well. The Lord started moving on my heart a lot. I read that each child costs $50 a month to sponser (go to www.rmromania.org for more information) and that you could give a one time gift.
"Lord, I'm supposed to go on a mission trip I don't have the funding for yet AND save money for college next semester. Now is REALLY not the time to be tugging on my heart strings!"
But the Holy Spirit doesn't really listen to our human reasoning, and kept nudging me. So with a lot of prayer and sighing, I pulled out my checkbook.
'Howabout $25. $25 is enough for half a month, and someone else can do the rest. Besides, this probably won't make a difference. I can't support a child regularly, so what will this one-time gift do?"
And yet, the numbers sort of formed them selves. Big 5 and big 0 on the blank check. I signed it and decided to put it aside and pray about it more. Then I found myself filling out the response form. Then I was addressing the envalope and putting the check in it. Suddenly I was sealing the envalope and putting it in my pile of stuff to be mailed!
And a very large wave of relief and peace washed over me.
"Okay FINE. Have it YOUR way!" I breathed in submission, although perhaps not complete humility and contriteness.
Well, I ate dinner with a friend and we watched "Stargate" (not quite your traditional Easter spirit entertainment, but whatever) and then my parents called to wish me Happy Easter.
I didn't tell them anything about my struggle earlier in the day but I did mention to my Mom that my church back home hadn't gotten back to me yet about the financial support that had or had not come in yet.
"Oh, they told me this morning." she said.
Now the thing is, the other day I was praying that the Lord would have there be $500 waiting for me when the Church called me back, otherwise I didn't know where the money would come from, how I would afford to go, and I would have to seriously reconsider my plans for the summer. I need $1,000 to go (I know my support letter said $1,500 to $1,700 but by God's grace the price drastically dropped) and $750 is for a plane ticket.
"You have either $660 or $680 waiting for you here." my mom continued.
Not $500!! Over $600!! Almost $700!!!
So I am going to go ahead and buy the tickets. :-) I was so jazzed. I did a little victory dance and whooped and yelled in my dorm room and my poor mom was like, "WHAT is your PROBLEM, calm down!!" I mean she was excited too, but wasn't quite sure why I was doing THAT exhuberant of a victory dance. :-)
So that was the best Easter present of all. :-) So the plan is, tentatively, for me to fly into Budapest, go to Debrecen to get over jet-lag and meet some Baptist Missionaries I could do an intership with after I graduate, then take the bus to Oradea, see the orphanage director who is in desperate need of encouragement, after a day or two take the train to the Romanian missionaries I know and spend 3 1/2 weeks with them learning and encouraging and being encouraged and helping to minister to the Gypsies.
Anyhoo. That was my Easter. How was yours? :-)
~Princess Ouch~
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Mozel Tov and Shalom
You are probably wondering why I'm now speaking in Yiddish. :-)
Well, that's because it sounds a whole lot better than profanity, don'tcha know. (yes, Mrs. Omanson, I realize that I put the apostrophe on the wrong word and that 'don'tcha' is bad english and I may not get through the Pearly Gates committing such sins in blithe apathy and disregard. For those of you listening in on this conversation, this week in English 2 we have been going over apostrophe's and where they go or don't go, how to use them, the deterioration of the English language, etc.)
The first phrase, "Mozel Tov" is "congratulations" and is usually reserved for when people get married. However, some sort of matrimonial inducing chemical has been tossed into the water system. Therefore, 'reserved' is becoming not 'reserved for weddings' but more 'reserved for when there ISN'T a wedding' in my life. (did that make sense? Probably not)
Okay so that didn't make sense. To clarify, everyone is getting married, so I'm throwing around "mozel tov'' quite a bit.
Shalom means peace. :-)
Myself and a few other girls in my dorm have been experiencing extreeme frustration with guy friends of ours, and not just ONE particular guy friend but we each have several guy friends who are subconsciously trying to ruin the reputation of all unmarried men under the age of 30 for us. We have decided that they need to get married to a woman who will smack them from boyhood into mature manhood. We have also decided that we are not up for nomination for that job. :-)
Hence 'Mozel Tov" and the "Shalom" comes into play in the fact that we are proactively deciding to be okay with the situations and move on with life.
Fun times.
But it's frustrating, because we're girls, and so we have been allowing emotions to complicate things. Last night after my room mate and I decided that we were going to bed (but ended up talking at each other until about 1 am with the lights off) I said in frustration,
"It's not fair! We should KNOW by now to stop letting our emotions get in the way of our thinking! I mean I know we're girls and all but I wish we would stop 'being girls about it'!! I mean you know what Mary Poppins says. "Practically perfect people never allow sentiment to muddle their thinking." And dang it, I keep letting sentiment muddle my thinking!! It needs to stop!"
My room mate, who has her moments of sheer brilliance and wisdom, rolled over so that her head hung off the top bunk so she could better look at me lying on the bottom bunk and yell at me and proceeded to emphatically announce:
"Rachel! Mary Poppins is a DISNEY CHARACTER who flies around in unfashionable clothing with an ugly carpet bag and a stupid umbrella with an obnoxious talking parrot on the wrong end so that it's always upside down, and who jumps into sidewalks and sings silly songs! So whatever wisdom she thinks she has you can just throw out the window along with her stupid umbrella! It's okay to "be a girl about it," you ARE a girl! Stop feeling guilty for having emotions and not being a perfectly rational person!"
(and yes, it was all said in one breath. She's from Texas, and we all know how Texans are about their opinions. God bless 'em)
So we laughed for a good solid minute about that and she kept muttering about how a girl of my age going to the mission field needed to let go of stupid cartoons. Good point.
I still like the quote by Mary Poppins, but I also like the quote from my room mate. :-)
In other news, Dr. Albert Mohler walked into my work last night as we were closing. It had been a long night at the coffee shop and all three of us girls who were closing were more than ready to go home. Students kept popping in even after we had shut the door asking if they could PLEASE just buy ONE more soda and we actually had to chase some out. So after ten minutes of blessed peace thinking that we would FINALLY get to leave, I saw out of the corner of my eye two guys opening the door that CLEARLY said, "We're closed now". I was ready to politely ask them if they were lost or something and could I help them find something ('something' being the door back OUT of the coffee shop) when I realized that the one gentleman's profile looked rather like Dr. Mohler's. Then I realized not only did it look like Dr. Mohler, it WAS Dr. Mohler. My boss turned around and froze and my co worker turned 360 degrees once she saw who it was.
"Hi!" he said cheerfully.
"Good evening!" I answered, suprised that it didn't come out as a squawk. My boss just nodded.
(we're not used to seeing Dr. Mohler casually stroll in as if he's no one special)
"I'm just showing my guest speaker for chapel tomorrow what the campus looks like. That allright?" he asked. My boss nodded again and I smiled and nodded. Both of us were trying to stop acting like idiots but were - obviously - not succeeding. See, the thing was it was the WORST time to show off the coffee shop. We had bagged up the trash but the bags were all over the entry way, we were cleaning out the sandwhich and salad bars so food was here, there and everywhere, the oven was being cleaned out so charcoal was all over the floor, we had all worked a 6 to 8 hour shift so we felt and looked like crap, and we weren't expecting him so weren't composed for his saintly presence.
And they had the nerve to walk up the counter to where I was cleaning, lean over, and look at the chaos that I was trying to wipe up!
"Mm. Nice coffee shop." The guest speaker said, genuinly.
"Please don't look TOO closely though, it's kind of..."
"Oh it doesn't matter." The two smiled and left.
My boss doubled over and mouthed a silent scream, blushing five shades of red and my co worker turned to me with eyes the size of saucers.
"NO!" They both said finally. I laughed.
"You guys, he's a human just like us." They both looked at me. "Okay so he's published a few... thousand more books than us and is slightly more famous. He sins too."
"Yeah! And he's only internationally FAMOUS too! And RUNS the freakin' school WE BOTH ATTEND!!" My co worker exploaded.
"Well... yeah."
"It's so messy! What must they think!" My boss exclaimed.
"Well it's not like they were visiting your house or anything."
The three of us stopped what we were doing and just looked at each other, then laughed.
So yeah. We decided that if Dr. Mohler wants to visit the coffee shop again, he needs to send a delegation ahead informing us so that we can make it look presentable and pristine. He's very down to earth, but still. Just kidding.
Alrighty well speaking of messy places, my dorm room is in disarray and I have two big papers/presentations due next week. Yipee.
Three more weeks of school! AUGH!
~Princess Ouch~
Well, that's because it sounds a whole lot better than profanity, don'tcha know. (yes, Mrs. Omanson, I realize that I put the apostrophe on the wrong word and that 'don'tcha' is bad english and I may not get through the Pearly Gates committing such sins in blithe apathy and disregard. For those of you listening in on this conversation, this week in English 2 we have been going over apostrophe's and where they go or don't go, how to use them, the deterioration of the English language, etc.)
The first phrase, "Mozel Tov" is "congratulations" and is usually reserved for when people get married. However, some sort of matrimonial inducing chemical has been tossed into the water system. Therefore, 'reserved' is becoming not 'reserved for weddings' but more 'reserved for when there ISN'T a wedding' in my life. (did that make sense? Probably not)
Okay so that didn't make sense. To clarify, everyone is getting married, so I'm throwing around "mozel tov'' quite a bit.
Shalom means peace. :-)
Myself and a few other girls in my dorm have been experiencing extreeme frustration with guy friends of ours, and not just ONE particular guy friend but we each have several guy friends who are subconsciously trying to ruin the reputation of all unmarried men under the age of 30 for us. We have decided that they need to get married to a woman who will smack them from boyhood into mature manhood. We have also decided that we are not up for nomination for that job. :-)
Hence 'Mozel Tov" and the "Shalom" comes into play in the fact that we are proactively deciding to be okay with the situations and move on with life.
Fun times.
But it's frustrating, because we're girls, and so we have been allowing emotions to complicate things. Last night after my room mate and I decided that we were going to bed (but ended up talking at each other until about 1 am with the lights off) I said in frustration,
"It's not fair! We should KNOW by now to stop letting our emotions get in the way of our thinking! I mean I know we're girls and all but I wish we would stop 'being girls about it'!! I mean you know what Mary Poppins says. "Practically perfect people never allow sentiment to muddle their thinking." And dang it, I keep letting sentiment muddle my thinking!! It needs to stop!"
My room mate, who has her moments of sheer brilliance and wisdom, rolled over so that her head hung off the top bunk so she could better look at me lying on the bottom bunk and yell at me and proceeded to emphatically announce:
"Rachel! Mary Poppins is a DISNEY CHARACTER who flies around in unfashionable clothing with an ugly carpet bag and a stupid umbrella with an obnoxious talking parrot on the wrong end so that it's always upside down, and who jumps into sidewalks and sings silly songs! So whatever wisdom she thinks she has you can just throw out the window along with her stupid umbrella! It's okay to "be a girl about it," you ARE a girl! Stop feeling guilty for having emotions and not being a perfectly rational person!"
(and yes, it was all said in one breath. She's from Texas, and we all know how Texans are about their opinions. God bless 'em)
So we laughed for a good solid minute about that and she kept muttering about how a girl of my age going to the mission field needed to let go of stupid cartoons. Good point.
I still like the quote by Mary Poppins, but I also like the quote from my room mate. :-)
In other news, Dr. Albert Mohler walked into my work last night as we were closing. It had been a long night at the coffee shop and all three of us girls who were closing were more than ready to go home. Students kept popping in even after we had shut the door asking if they could PLEASE just buy ONE more soda and we actually had to chase some out. So after ten minutes of blessed peace thinking that we would FINALLY get to leave, I saw out of the corner of my eye two guys opening the door that CLEARLY said, "We're closed now". I was ready to politely ask them if they were lost or something and could I help them find something ('something' being the door back OUT of the coffee shop) when I realized that the one gentleman's profile looked rather like Dr. Mohler's. Then I realized not only did it look like Dr. Mohler, it WAS Dr. Mohler. My boss turned around and froze and my co worker turned 360 degrees once she saw who it was.
"Hi!" he said cheerfully.
"Good evening!" I answered, suprised that it didn't come out as a squawk. My boss just nodded.
(we're not used to seeing Dr. Mohler casually stroll in as if he's no one special)
"I'm just showing my guest speaker for chapel tomorrow what the campus looks like. That allright?" he asked. My boss nodded again and I smiled and nodded. Both of us were trying to stop acting like idiots but were - obviously - not succeeding. See, the thing was it was the WORST time to show off the coffee shop. We had bagged up the trash but the bags were all over the entry way, we were cleaning out the sandwhich and salad bars so food was here, there and everywhere, the oven was being cleaned out so charcoal was all over the floor, we had all worked a 6 to 8 hour shift so we felt and looked like crap, and we weren't expecting him so weren't composed for his saintly presence.
And they had the nerve to walk up the counter to where I was cleaning, lean over, and look at the chaos that I was trying to wipe up!
"Mm. Nice coffee shop." The guest speaker said, genuinly.
"Please don't look TOO closely though, it's kind of..."
"Oh it doesn't matter." The two smiled and left.
My boss doubled over and mouthed a silent scream, blushing five shades of red and my co worker turned to me with eyes the size of saucers.
"NO!" They both said finally. I laughed.
"You guys, he's a human just like us." They both looked at me. "Okay so he's published a few... thousand more books than us and is slightly more famous. He sins too."
"Yeah! And he's only internationally FAMOUS too! And RUNS the freakin' school WE BOTH ATTEND!!" My co worker exploaded.
"Well... yeah."
"It's so messy! What must they think!" My boss exclaimed.
"Well it's not like they were visiting your house or anything."
The three of us stopped what we were doing and just looked at each other, then laughed.
So yeah. We decided that if Dr. Mohler wants to visit the coffee shop again, he needs to send a delegation ahead informing us so that we can make it look presentable and pristine. He's very down to earth, but still. Just kidding.
Alrighty well speaking of messy places, my dorm room is in disarray and I have two big papers/presentations due next week. Yipee.
Three more weeks of school! AUGH!
~Princess Ouch~
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