Holy Dissatisfaction

We are all very good at fixing lives. Even when our own lives are in chaos, it's inspiring to see how ready we are to help others by telling them what is wrong in what they are doing/saying/thinking.

Christians are perhaps better at this than others, because we know Who to talk about. Your problems? No worries! I have an answer for you, and you've known it since Sunday School: God.

My first impulse on hearing a fellow Christian (or myself) express dissatisfaction with their life has long been to rush in and fix it for them. Why should they be sad? They have a Savior. And besides, lots of people have it worse. Cast all your cares, and all that. Buck up.

I don't know about you, but nothing hit my fix-it attitude harder than a bout with depression. A year and a half or so of nothing seeming certain except for God. Yeah, sometimes it seemed He was certain in the death and taxes sort of way, but He was there, there, beautifully and terrifyingly and inescapably THERE. 

Now, on the other side of that experience, I hesitate a lot more to jump in and fix things. Part of this is because I take the cautions of the book of Job much more seriously (the friends who kept attacking windy words and the God who rebuked them for assuming too much). Part of this is because I know how much God did for me in that time. I can look back and see relationships I thought I had destroyed, and I wasn't strong enough to destroy them because God wanted them around and I can't outwit God. Further back, the horrible relationship I had with a college friend who suffered from depression becomes a gift, as I knew He had brought her safe through it and I clung to that promise for myself. I see all I had been repressing, denying, that finally came to a head and exploded because I wasn't being honest with myself or with Him. I see my (still present) desire for control and see the pain that comes from chasing after that desire and the freedom that comes from giving up if you're giving it up into the hands of God.

We don't want to suffer. Speaking for me if nobody else: I don't want to suffer. And nothing makes me suffer quite like uncertainty (uncertainty, which starves my idol of control and makes it vicious).

But at the same time, in the crazy simultaneous way that life works for those of us on the conviction side of the cross, I relish my current uncertainty, and all of the emotions it's pulling out of me (REpression didn't end with the breaking of DEpression). 

I don't want to rush out of it. I don't want to push it under the rug. I don't want to pretend that it's all okay, when it will never be all okay. Not here, not yet.

I want to sit here, wondering where my life is going and what I am to do with it (keeping in mind I am investing it for a Master Who expects returns on His investment), and I want to wait for God to answer. And I want to listen to what He tells me to do. And I don't want to be afraid. He has brought me through worse...and Jesus brought me through the worst of all long before I was even born.

Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.

"My life is a furious ball of nothing." -- Dilbert

In recent news, someone (or some people) I know:

* Entered into a serious relationship.

* Got engaged.

* Got married.

* Are expecting their first child.

[DISCLAIMER: Each of the above happened to different sets of people. This is not all just the same couple over, say, the past two years.]

* Appeared on the front cover of our alumni magazine.

In personal news:

* I bought a Mac.

* Sims Castaway Stories will run on it.

* ...um....

I am a master at creating hierarchies. This is more important than that which is more important than these things, usually but not always adding up to "Their problems/joys are more important than mine." It's a lousy excuse for actual selflessness, but at least I catch myself at it now. And it isn't always exactly jealously, it's just feeling...like maybe I'm doing something wrong. Or maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm too easily satisfied, or too good at repressing what I really want out of life.

But then there's the part of me that says that really, past all the drama I add to my life, I'm sincerely happy for everybody with BIG news.

I think that's the part of me that is also geeked about that computer game. The part that reminds me that I may be a nerd queen with no actual life, but I'm (mostly) happy with that.

Then there's my dad's voice speaking from about 11 years ago, before I went off to college: "If you want something and don't go after it, it's your fault if you don't get it."

I guess he's still right, too.

Buying stuff is hard....

I hate buying...well, I hate buying pretty much anything, if it comes down to it, but I especially hate buying big ticket items. The unknown potential consequences of the decision coupled with the known expenditure are a bit too much for the tight-fisted control freak in me.

I want to buy a new computer. My current model is about four years old, which sounds young to me because I had my previous computer for almost ten years. Of course, I was mostly using that for writing papers in college. The digital revolution passed my current desktop's 40 GB hard drive and 256 MB of RAM a while back. Also, my monitor is even older than four years and has begun flickering in the lower left corner. Also, I've been getting the Blue Screens of Death that I was ignoring all too often on my old computer, right up until it melted down and forgot where to look for its hard drive. So as far as new computers go, maybe it's about time.

I was pretty much sold on a Mac, thanks to both of my major computer geek friends being hardcore Mac devotees, and then today I talked to some friends who were bringing up objections that had been lurking in the back of my mind, too. Things like price, and compatibility, and familiarity, and ease of use due to said compatibility and familiarity. So now I'm all thrown off again. Maybe I could win a computer somehow. That would solve my dilemma. I wonder if somebody would give me a Mac in exchange for writing fanfiction...that's how I got my iPod....

Anyway, as I was saying, I have difficulty with making luxury purchases. The perfect example of how ingrained this is dates back to when I was around 8 years old, and was ogling dollhouses everywhere. I loved the little furniture and other miniatures involved in dollhouse decorating, and I wanted to try my hand at it. My dad made a deal with me. If I would save a certain amount of money, he would match it, and then we could go buy that dollhouse.

At the time, I was pulling in a small allowance from my parents. This, plus birthday and Christmas money, was the total of my income. But I squirreled that money away diligently and made it up to the established savings mark.

We went to The Doll Hospital & Toy Soldier Shop, an excellent toy store on the east side of the state. With my money figuratively grasped in my hot little hands and probably literally in my dad's pocket, I began hunting for the perfect dollhouse.

There were a lot of dollhouses.

A lot.

And the more I looked at them, the more I realized that even if I could come to a decision, I would still have to make similar decisions later, and spend even more money, because the dollhouse would need to be furnished.

I left with double the savings I had when my dad first made the deal with me.

(A few years later, my poor mom would stand in an aisle at Toys 'R Us for approximately an hour while I vacillated amongst three different Barbie dolls that each had a distinctly different hair and swimsuit color.)

I love it when a plan comes together

Apparently this costume was exactly right for the role. I walked onstage and the audience erupted...which was definitely a lot of fun. Somebody told me this morning that I was an "eerily accurate Alice." Sweet.

Barring a few things like microphone problems, the show went quite well last night. The teens did a great job with waiting tables and with their performances, and the audience was rewarding them with lots of justly deserved laughter and applause. I was proud of "my" kids. My main regret is that video can't ever capture the fun of a live performance. But then, I guess that's the beauty of the live performance....

Many people came up to me today to say they had a great time. One of them said she couldn't remember the last time she laughed so hard. She proceeded to tell a friend standing nearby about the evening's final skit (American Idol, featuring myself, two youth group leaders, and three really good sports we called out of the audience to be our contestants, and who all jumped right in to the improvised bit), and then she put her hand on my shoulder and said "Paula did most of the organizing."

And I took that confusion of names as a compliment.

When it comes down to it

The weekend of the banquet arrives.

There have been months of planning, and of telling my friends sorry but I'm busy that night, and of rehearsals that don't happen in the right space, and of staying up late planning or thinking about planning, and of performers who haven't started practicing just yet two weeks before the performance date, and of actors who don't know their lines the night before said date, and of people not understanding what this all means to me....

And then acts start clicking, and I'm laughing out loud and bouncing on my toes, and two people are asked to repeat their thanks because I didn't hear them the first time (always a little awkward), and one says I seem stressed and I reply that most of my seeming stressed at this point is really just shifting into high-intensity performance mode (on the jazz as the plan comes together), and Janessa says "You get more patient with us every year." And I say "That's God."

Sometimes the things I get the craziest about are also the things I love the most.

Fighting a Winning Battle

"When you live alone, you become more and more like yourself," Pastor Dale said, several years ago. My brother was with me, and we exchanged amused glances, as I had only within the past year or two embarked on my solo living experience.

It's not as funny anymore now that I know what it means.

It isn't just becoming more set in little preferences: more sure that the toilet paper should come over the TOP and the toothpaste tube should be squeezed from the BOTTOM and the bath mat should be laid pattern side UP and why aren't all of those things obvious?

It isn't really about becoming more set in my beliefs and opinions. I sometimes feel as though they've become more unsettled in the past few years than anything else, which is probably good because before I probably clung too tightly to too many opinions just because they were the ones I was used to having.

I think the worst part about living alone is that you have a lot of time to notice yourself, and to see yourself as you see you. It's also the best part, because as much as I'd rather not see my own failings, I am confident that the ability to see them comes from the Spirit. And if the Spirit is poking around down there in the dusty darkness of my inner self, it's bound to get cleaner.

Sometimes I feel as though that the Spirit is working on an especially dirty room, one that I've been shoving more and more things into and trying to ignore. A few years ago there was a cleaning out of the room that was chock full of knowing-it-all.

This year, I think the Spirit's working on a few rooms at once. The one getting the most focus tonight seems to be the distrustful control freak room. The one that holds all my long beloved and nurtured beliefs that nobody looks out for me except for me, that nobody wants to help me, that nobody can help me, and that everybody, everytime, everywhere, will always let me down.

This year's broom so far: the Harvest Youth Group Spring Banquet.

You know how sometimes God lets you do things the way you think they should be done as a discipline tool? Letting you try things your way so you can see how your way is wrong? Well, this year I launched into the banquet with my usual preconceived notions that I must do everything myself. I delegated nothing. I said, "Don't worry, I'll do that." I sighed melodramatically to myself when somebody forgot what I had told him or her at least fifteen times already.

Tonight, after telling a large number of teenagers to meet me at church to practice at 8:30, I arrived and found that there was a prayer shower going on in the gym, where I had planned to rehearse. About 20 women were sitting around eating cookies and cooing over four new babies, and I almost cried. And then I almost exploded because that's less embarrassing than crying. And I was rude to several sympathetic women and also to some who sort of laughed off my distress.

Strangely, I haven't been really worried about the banquet this year. I'm still not, deep down. I know it will all come together. And on some ego-crushing level, I don't think anybody really cares how much effort we put into it, anyway. It's a church fundraiser, not Broadway.

But it could have been better if I had gotten over myself and asked for help back in the beginning. That's what's really killing me. Or, hopefully, just the part of me that wants to hang on to control with both fists even if it comes with a semi-annual nervous breakdown.

Every time something goes wrong, I hear a voice saying, "See? This is what you knew would happen. You can't rely on anybody!"

This year, God has given me grace to counter that voice with specifics. Janessa. Andrew, David, and Emily. Chelsea. Matthew. Michele. (That's for starters.) Every friend who has said "It will be okay," or hugged me just a little bit longer, or asked if she could do anything for me. And then there's the grace I've been given in that I've not been angry at the kids this year. For as much as this has been the worst year for rehearsal, and for my organization, I have loved the kids more this year than any other, and that's from God, too, because my frustration with the situation hasn't spilled over onto them as often as it has in previous years.

The Father loves me.

Christ lived, died, and rose for me.

The Spirit is at work in me to make me more and more like Christ, not more and more like myself. And the Spirit (praise God) is far, far stronger than I am.

This kingdom's coming.

And it's okay if I cry while I wait.

Family Time

Tonight I went to the home of my pastor and his family for choir practice. I ended up staying around for at least a half hour afterwards, just sitting with the family and holding one of the infant daughters of my associate pastor and his wife (they're neighbors and the VanDykes babysit a lot).

Usually infants make me a little nervous, but tonight that closeness and warmth was just what I needed. Actually, I was physically close to people all evening (crowding into a living room with the whole choir, squishing on a love seat between Sandra and Bethany, holding Emma) . This might not seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but it was a big deal for me. It's been a confusing life on a lot of levels lately, and I've been aching for family, and for people just to be close to me. It's nice to be tangibly reminded that I'm not alone.

I went to the VanDykes for choir practice, and I got family thrown in.

Thank you, God.

A Very Short Post

One visit down, one banquet to go.
The momentous insanity of March lumbers on.
Someday I will learn how
to ask for the help I want.
For now, to bed (hopefully
to sleep without needing NyQuil).
Longer post to come...
in about 10 days.
It
will be
all
right.