What Not to Read

I've read a lot of fanfiction since I first started posting it online way back in 2002. I actually have written it for many years longer than that. For instance, some of my fondest childhood memories involve writing X-Files fanfiction with my brother, except we just called it "writing X-Files stories" because this was so long ago that shipping was known by its original term, relationshipping, and you can see why that got shortened, can't you? Anyway, ask to read one of those stories sometime when you want to be mind-numbingly bored (but don't ask for the Christmas one for boredom, because that one turned out hilarious).

The point is, I've been around. I can save you from a lot of atrocious fics (we fanfic types don't always have time for full words) by a handy reference guide to the most common warning signs.

Many of these warning signs can be found right in the summary:

• AU: Let's establish right now...in general, I don't do Alternate Universe. There are very rare exceptions, such as the time after Star Trek: Generations came out that I wrote a story (pre-fanfiction days then, too) about how Picard, having an infinite range of choices available to him, made the wrong one by coming out of the Nexus five minutes before things blow up. Unless I can see that it's a parody or a version of what should have happened when the writers of the actual book or show just completely dropped the ball (*cough*seasonfinaleofSmallville*cough*), I won't mess with AU.
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• OC: This stands for Original Character but often means Mary Sue, a fanfic term for a character who is the author's stand-in. She is usually shockingly beautiful and/or talented, has a strange name, and is irresistible to the male character the author thinks is the biggest hottie. (The male version is called the Gary Stu, but the ratio of Mary Sues to Gary Stus is approximately 100:1, which from what I've heard may be due to the fact that most men don't fantasize in writing.) Avoid the OC, especially if the summary says something like, "My OC Izabell and Remy LeBeau have their first date. Fluff!"
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• Bizarre pairing: Even those who don't write themselves into the story as an OC might have bizarre notions about who on the show or in the book is attracted to whom. In the Harry Potter fandom, for instance, just about every possible combination has been explored, not excepting animals. One of the most squicky (that's "icky," but in a nerdy fanfic way of saying it) pairings: Snape and Hermione. *shudder* Pairings are often represented with a slash mark (Van/Hitomi) or a combination name (Clois). Knowing your combination names can save you from reading fics you don't want to read, and be careful...despite the difference of only one letter in the summary, there is a big difference between Clex and Chlex.
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• Too many exclamation marks: If I read your summary and it looks like you OD'd ("overdosed," but you already knew that one) on caffeine before starting to write it, I will skip you so fast and nimbly that if you were a flat pebble you could cross the ocean.
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• Grammar and punctuation errors galore: See above, substitute "not caring" for "caffeine."
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• "My first ever": Why would you mention this unless you're hedging yourself for failure? And speaking of failure....
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• "I suck at summaries": Really? Now you've made me afraid that you suck at writing in general. You might as well just come out and say....
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• "Not very good": Dude, or more probably little 14-year-old girl, you have just flunked Salesmanship 101. I'm moving on.

Now, there are times the summary is deceptively interesting, or you are feeling charitable and think that maybe that author sucks at summaries on the outside but is Tolstoy on the inside (did Tolstoy write the copy for his book jackets? I submit that he did not).

Here, then, are the most common interior signs of a fic you can drop before finishing:

• Bolded words (yes, I see the irony, but this is a semi-comedic essay, not a fic): Italics are okay. Bolded words are over the top. And even italics should be used sparingly. If you don't wince a little when making the italics choice, you're probably taking it too lightly.
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• Excessive attention to detail: We're not talking descriptions of mountain ranges and ocean views, we're talking what the heroine is wearing and how cute she looks in it, or (worse) what color her eyes are as compared to a food. For instance, if "Suzanne's chocolate brown eyes darkened as she wondered whatever happened to that pair of pink jellies, not the first pair that she wore out because she loved them so much but the second pair, because they went really well with her pink dress with the puffed sleeves and the white polka dots, the dress that sort of made her feel like a princess" looks sparse in the sartorial description arena, you're pretty safe in leaving the fic. (Also, I've said it before and will repeat it again and again, comparing eyes to food is gross and unromantic.)
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• Out-of-place four-letter words: If you're cruising along through a fic of The Office and Pam starts dropping F-bombs, it takes you out of the moment.
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• Cut-and-paste descriptions of kissing: Seriously, do you want to go there? Because it'll involve phrases like "tongues tangling" and words like "moaning" and it just gets creepier from that point. Ah, little 14-year-old girl, you have not yet learned of the romance of mystery and half-spoken-of things. And I really have seen so many of these descriptions that look like they've been lifted straight from some other poorly-written scene where physicality is a substitute for connection instead of a means towards it. See it in a fic, skip the rest of the fic.

Those are most of my cues as to What Not to Read when it comes to fanfiction. Ignore them at your own risk.

Rewrite This Tragedy

Peter is with the other disciples after Jesus' resurrection, in the group that follows Him, but he must not really feel like one of them. How could he? Three times he had denied that he even knew Jesus.

Then one day, Jesus asks Peter if he loves Him. Peter responds that he does.

Jesus asks again. Peter responds in the same way, and you have to wonder if he thinks that maybe Jesus just wasn't paying attention the first time, but by the third time Peter catches on, that it's three times, and he remembers another instance he's affirmed something about Jesus three times, and he's grieved by the memory, but then there's this: Jesus has just rewritten Peter's life. Three times the denial, yes, but now three times the affirmation, three times the commission to care for God's people.

"Follow me," Jesus says, for the second time, and Peter takes up this second call with an energy that flows from the magnitude of his forgiveness.

We catch it easily because it happens so quickly, less than a month between the denial and the forgiveness, but this is God's pattern on broader scales, too.

The first woman meets the serpent. She's new to this world, so maybe it doesn't surprise her that he starts talking to her, questioning her, and she can't quite remember just what God said, can't quite convince herself it was worth following through on, and the man beside her is no help at all and the world changes. She is the first to see sin.

And you could blame the woman for this, and you could persecute her and her daughters for being more wicked than men, more prone to error, but there was a promise, a promise quick to follow the disobedience, a promise that one born of a woman would crush the power of the serpent.

Years later, when the angel of God speaks His words to a young woman, they are strange and wildly different from anything she would have expected and instead of questioning whether God really said it or meant it she says "I am the Lord's servant." She is the first to know the Messiah's long-awaited coming will be soon.

Years after that, when the tomb is sealed and the disciples are in hiding, another woman will risk her life to be identified with the man executed as an insurrectionist. She is the first to see Jesus after His resurrection.

In a breath-taking display of the sweeping arc of God's storyline, she thinks He is the gardener.

And the band plays on....

I have always been fascinated by the story of the Titanic. As a young girl I devoured books and documentaries on the subject. Now, years later, the part of the story that still stands out most starkly to me is the choice to course-correct. Had the iceberg been hit full on, the ship might have stayed floating. Instead, several of the many watertight compartments were breached at the same time, and the ship couldn't hold together.

Our brains work a bit like that. Pain will come, but maybe we're meant to face things head-on, to be breached one part at a time, to seal off one compartment so the others can keep us floating. It doesn't help to turn aside as though the iceberg you can see is all the iceberg there is.

We all of us, no matter how shiny on the top deck, hide hull breaches beneath the surface. Eventually, we need to go below decks and deal with them. But sometimes, we need to be sure we've cleared the iceberg first.

Character Growth

once Juliet

loathe to find you for fear of losing you

Penelope now

constancy second only to God's

if you're out there, I promise you this:

after you've found me, nothing you do or fail to do

will ever lose me

"Now I know I have a heart, because it's breaking."

Some things I need to hear....

The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.--Deuteronomy 31:8

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.--Psalm 90:1

I lift up my eyes to the hills--

From where does my help come?

My help comes from the Lord,

who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;

the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,

nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;

he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in

from this time forth and forevermore.

--Psalm 121

You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth,

and called from its remotest parts

and said to you, 'You are my servant,

I have chosen you and not rejected you.

Do not fear, for I am with you;

do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you, surely I will help you;

surely I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.'

--Isaiah 41:9-10

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.--Jeremiah 31:3

And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.--Matthew 28:20b

Me again, God.

I've asked you for a lot. Wisdom, and patience, and courage in new things. I've asked you most recently to take my armor and give me yours, and it's left me raw and closer to the surface and safer than I expected.

It's sinking in deeper and deeper, this knowing that to ask is to receive, and I come more boldly than I used to come. So today I come again, and I'm not ashamed of coming with my hands open, not ashamed of needing something from you, not ashamed that "need" isn't a strong enough word.

Give me peace over your timing, to sit and wait until I know it is time to act, and then to act, not out of grasping, selfish ambition but out of a quiet sense of the rightness of it, that this is the time to speak and these are the words I need to say.

Grant that I not wound you or others, and that any wounds I have already inflicted may heal and not fester.

Send me the broken, neglected, abused, hopeless children. Send me the ignored, the written-off, the "problem" children. Give me a heart to hold them, a double portion of your spirit that it may overflow over their lives, cascading and cleansing and freeing, because I was an outcast and you called me yours.

The kingdom is not noise, but power. God mighty to save, God who hears and answers, God who works out all the details...I leave these requests in your hands.

I look forward to seeing what you will do with them.

I like my job.

There will be tricky bits. There will be awkward training points. There will be lunch and shoe confusion (not confusing them with each other, just that lunch and shoes are my biggest office woes just now). There will be (dare I say it) the odd mistake.

But there will be steady work (STEADY WORK...as in not enough time to sigh over what I could be doing someplace else). There will be new challenges, and new systems to organize and refine, and new people, and my own office space (door and all) to decorate, and a sense that I'm working to further something I believe in (making a place for kids others have given up on) instead of just something that brings me money. Oh, and summers off. And snow days.

I think we're going to be good together.

Now I'm going to sleep. (Turns out being back to full-time work after five months off takes quite a toll.)

Pondering Point for the Day

Why does India, edged by unpleasant neighbors and still prone to some pretty intense squalor and discrimination, produce so much music that makes a person want to dance?

Why does America, wealthy and free as it is, produce so much music about not feeling complete, or about only being complete with another person (please don't ever leave ever no pressure but you're all I have that keeps me living no pressure)?

Is it just that I don't speak Hindi? Are they maybe cheerful sounds about suicide?

*phew*

Today was difficult and exhausting on many levels. (Blessed be the name of the Lord.)

On to the next day.

Now Entering Phase Four

Phase One: I enter this phase crying. I spend most of the next 18 years at home with my family.

Phase Two: I enter this phase crying. I spend most of the next 4 years at college with people who teach or attend there.

Phase Three: I enter this phase without crying. I spend most of the next 8 years at work with my co-workers.

Phase Four: I enter this phase crying. I spend most of the next ?? year(s) at work with co-workers and students (and maybe ???).

Must have been that the only reason I didn't cry for Phase Three was that at the time I didn't realize the momentousness of it.

I've been half-joking with my young friends who are heading off for their freshman year of college, telling them that even though there will be people here they'll miss, there are people ahead who have had a Heather/Andrew/Janessa-shaped hole in their lives and not even known it. Now I realize that it's true for me, too...in the weeks ahead I'll be meeting some people I've been destined to know. Pretty amazing, really. Our whole lives have led to the moment when we meet. (They'll lead on from it, too, but it's the convergence that amazes me most.)

I should maybe check on my outfit for tomorrow and make sure I have all my stuff together, but my brain just Blue Screened and I have to shut it down for the night.

Timmy from Shaun the Sheep

I can't believe I didn't find out about the Shaun the Sheep series until this year.

Pulling Away from Planet "Look at Me, Look at Me!"

Almost every summer a lot of people from my church go out to OPC Family Camp, which is a camping experience for members of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church...and probably their friends...and, um....

Okay, seriously, I don't know the Family Camp rules. I've never gone. It seems to me that it would be a week full of things that make me uncomfortable: bugs, sunscreen, dirt, camping, sleeping on hard surfaces and/or with lots of noise around, barely sanitary bathrooms, and large groups of people who've known each other for all their lives.

It's hard to feel fully at home in a group of people who are talking about all their shared history. Not that I want people to pretend their lives didn't start until they met me, but there are two main ways to tell a nostalgic story. One way brings the "newbie" listeners into the experience ("One time when we went to the beach, she and I were so tired we kept taking turns knocking each other down to give ourselves an excuse to stop walking"), and one way excludes them ("It's like that time at the beach." "With the dunes?" "Yeah." "Oh, my word, that was so funny....").

It's hard not to practice exclusionary bonding with people you've known for a while. It's hard to open up your circle to newcomers. I know this. It's also hard to be the person who feels, after years of knowing you, that she'll never quite make it into your inner circle because of the sheer fact that she hasn't known you since you were eight years old, or worked with you, or gone to college with you, or whatever the secret criteria is.

I don't always feel like this, but I do sometimes. And I know it's not very mature, and I've made progress so I don't go into meltdown over it as often as I used to, but I haven't arrived yet. Sometimes I still expect the world to revolve around me, and when people slip out of my orbit it can still frustrate me.

I'm glad the world doesn't really revolve around me. I'm glad my friends have more friends than just me, that I am not the one thing that gives their lives meaning. I'm glad that God has brought so many people into my life and that I can't sabotage any relationship He wants me to have, no matter on what level it is.

The dying part of me wants to be everybody's favorite, no matter when I came on the scene of their lives. The part that is coming increasingly alive knows that real love is bigger and wider and more mysteriously amazing than favorites or timelines. (The more I love, the larger my capacity for love grows.)

Someday I won't avoid anybody because I don't like being second or third or fourth tier. Maybe someday soon.

"For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."--Philippians 2:13

Time Lessons from a Time of Unemployment

• Life moves quickly. I was laid off in March, and now I'm thinking "Good grief, I'll be at work in less than two weeks!" Five months gone just like that.
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• No matter how much time you have, you find a way to fill it.
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• I am not more productive with more time. I am actually less productive.
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• Deadlines and schedules motivate me. (I am going to be working for a charter school. Helllooooo, structured school time! I've missed you so....)
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• The discomfort of procrastination lies largely in the denial of the voice in your head reminding you you had better plans for the day than surfing the internet or watching TV.
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• Even though I feel excellent about myself when I'm productive, I often choose to procrastinate instead.
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• You don't really avoid doing things because you don't have time. You avoid doing things because on some level you don't want to do them. Dig down and find your real reasons (if you want), but don't blame lack of time.
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• I have been blessed with a lot of high-quality people in my life. I'm glad to have gotten the chance to see so many of them during the days over the past few months. The ability to call someone at random and ask "can I come over this afternoon?" is what I will miss most when I'm back to work. That and being able to visit with my family for long periods.
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• All times and seasons eventually end. "It always seems soon...afterward."
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Boy Saints and Last Sundays

This morning I asked my first graders if anybody knew what a saint was.

"Someone good?" offered William.

"Not exactly," I said. "I'm looking for another answer."

"Oooo, I know!" Timmy exclaimed. "Girls?"

Now, I try to maintain a straight face when the kids answer questions because I don't want to embarrass them, but I couldn't help myself. The answer caught me so off guard that I burst out laughing.

I was glad to have the opportunity to tell them that the Bible defines saint as anyone who has placed their trust in God, who loves Him and wants to serve Him. God makes saints, and it isn't primarily based in your goodness or your gender. "Boys can definitely be saints," I said.

I have spent far too much of my life striving for female supremacy (actually personal supremacy). At times I have used the otherness of boys and men as an excuse to knock them down--trying to shred egos, trying to wound, and though I hope I have never succeeded to the point I was trying for, it certainly wasn't helping. I still remember the time I complimented a young man I had known for years and he said, "That's the first time you ever said you were proud of me." Ouch. It shouldn't have been.

What I want now, with all the boys I interact with, is to help grow men. To let them know that I love them; that they aren't perfect but neither is anyone else and that's why Jesus came; that I am proud of them when they answer questions, and when they fight against sin in their lives (a 7-year-old apologized to me tonight for his inattentiveness in many Sunday School classes...so, so proud of him and grateful to God for working in his young heart). I've been encouraged so much to see their hearts, and the way they're thinking, and I pray they will be a powerful force for the kingdom.

I want that for the men I interact with, too. To be more supportive than sarcastic (unless it's supportively sarcastic...I don't rule that out as an option), more respectful than resentful, more encouraging than ego-shredding, less and less self-protecting and self-aggrandizing. I'm not very good at it, but sanctification is real and I know that this is a desire of the heart that God will grant as I trust in Him.

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Today was the last Sunday for this first grade class. We have the month of August off, and then the next time I teach first grade it will be for a new group of kids. One of the girls told her mom this morning that she missed me already...and when her mom told me that, I almost cried, because I miss them, too.

I don't remember my Sunday School teachers from when I was growing up, so I don't expect that many of these kids will remember for long that I was their teacher. But I hope that some of the truths we discussed stick with them. I hope that I encouraged them to think deeper, and to apply what they learn to their lives. I don't care if they forget me, but I hope they caught at least a glimpse of Jesus and never forget that.

Fasting in a Major Key

The elders of my church congregation have called for a fast tomorrow, focusing on prayer for some people facing major health issues. I did a word search on BibleGateway.com for the words "fast" and "pray" in the same verse, and these were some reasons I found for prayer and fasting:

• The state of Jerusalem and the temple (the city of God and the house of God).
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• Confession of grievous sin and petition for the grace of God.
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• The work of God's church.
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• Petition for protection in times of dire need (as in the book of Esther when the Jews were faced with an imminent attack). 
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• Deliverance from accusers and enemies.
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• Guidance and wisdom.
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• Mourning.
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• Preparation for ministry.
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• Healing of the illnesses of others, in one case specifically for enemies, in another case for an illness brought about as a result of the petitioner's sin.

We have a shallow view of prayer and fasting. How often do we progress beyond the Sunday School prayer requests of children, the requests like "I have a lot of mosquito bites and I don't ever want any more again" that boil down to "I'm being annoyed right now and I want it to stop"?

Is it wrong to be annoyed by mosquito bites, or frustrated by bigger things like chronic illness, and wish they would go away? Probably depends on how you're handling the situation, but it isn't necessarily true that the existence of pain means that you have done or are doing something wrong. And there certainly isn't anything wrong with acknowledging the physical needs of the church. 

This is where I come up short: we're praying to the God who created the heavens and the earth, the God who has promised to give us anything we ask for in faith, the God who has vanquished sin and death, and we're praying that we don't get any more mosquito bites.

I confess, I don't pray well. I don't often act like spending time with God is a top priority. Sometimes I can go whole days without even talking about him or what he has done, yet how many times have I been infatuated with people who have loved me far less and not been able to stop talking about even their most insignificant actions? (Harder maybe to talk about the real things.) How many days have I spent more time imagining what I would say to someone who isn't anywhere near me than I have spent speaking to someone who is always near me?

I'm not going to work myself into a lather of guilt over this, Satan, which I know is disappointing to you (good). My guilt has been taken care of on the cross. But here's what I'm trying to pass on, information you don't want sinking into anybody's head: prayer and fasting can thwart the devil himself. I'd trade a ton more mosquito bites for that.

Pray past the now.

Cold Day in July

I know a lot of people are sad on days like these, mid-July with very little sunshine, but I am not one of them. 

When it is chilly I can turn off my air conditioning, which not only saves me money but drops the ambient noise level in my apartment by about 50 decibels. I can wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants. Isn't it nice switching back and forth between seasonal wardrobes? ("Oh, turtleneck shirt! I haven't worn you in so long!") And isn't it nice cuddling up in blankets, no matter when it is? 

When it is dreary outside, everything slows down inside, too. It feels okay to be lazy, to leave things for tomorrow. Tiredness doesn't feel as oppressive on a dreary day as it does on a sunny day. The sun likes to guilt you out if you're sleeping in or watching TV instead of going on walks or bike rides, even though the sun knows perfectly well I am afraid of burning and I really really have to motivate myself to leave the apartment solo with no mission.

It feels like such a lovely, stretchy long day. 

Late night/Early morning ramblings

• Technically it is early morning, but in my vocabulary it isn't morning unless I've slept, so it is still late night for me.
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• I got a job as an office manager for a local charter school. For this job, which was really interesting. I start August 17. The next five weeks are vacation now, not unemployment. Nice.
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• What is it about driving my area of I-196 after dark that makes me forget I'm on an expressway? I have often glanced at the speedometer and seen I am waaaayyyy under posted speed limits. And I'm not the only one.
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• Sometimes people leave reviews on my fanfiction like this one--"Interesting. I wondered if Jacob was there. If so, wouldn't that be a twist?! I liked the story, though"--that make me wonder if they understand what the word "though" means. 
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• I think if you like a fanfiction enough to favorite it so you can check it out again later or recommend it to anyone who sees your profile, you like it enough that you can spend half a minute writing a review. Even just to say "This is going in my favorites." Writers like acknowledgment.
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• Went to a concert last night and one of the singers reminded me of Michael Emerson. High forehead, mostly. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I like high foreheads for physiognomic reasons--they're associated with intelligence. Which is very attractive.
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• Watching so much NCIS lately that tonight I caught myself making a gesture that belongs to one of the characters.
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• I noticed recently that I have a lot of songs on my iPod about men in love with difficult women.
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• I've been with my parents for 20 days out of the last four weeks. I have slept in my own bed 0 days out of that same time...the sofa bed in the room with the air conditioner is getting a lot of use. Speaking of which....
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• Good night.

Imagining and Knowing

Tonight my heart is light and I think it's because yesterday I talked about him and tonight I talked about him and both times I talked not about what I imagined he might be up to or how I see myself in this fraction of time, but about what I knew he had already done, and who he is, past and present and future.

In Sunday School yesterday, someone had a prayer request that mirrored a prayer request I have been keeping to myself, and I comforted her aloud with the truth I know, and in so doing received comfort. (God sends us people broken as we are so we can offer the comfort with which we have been comforted.) 

"Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee," another girl read from Matthew 28:10 during the lesson, and a boy asked in astonishment, "Jesus had brothers?" and it swept over me that yes, Jesus has brothers, and sisters, present and ever after tense, and I am one of them and it is awe-inspiring.

How can I be a sister of Christ? Because he didn't just die on the cross (others had done that), he rose from the grave. He didn't just rise from the grave (others had done that), he rose on his own power. And because only God could do that, then Jesus is who he said he was, and spoke the truth. And because his words can be trusted, we can know that his promises are true, and he promised to reconcile those who believed to God. More than that, he made us fellow children of God, co-heirs of all the blessings and riches of God (Romans 8:15-17). And that, as I told the kids, is why it is important that Jesus rose from the dead.

Tonight I spoke with a friend of deep matters, dark things of the heart, the thoughts and beliefs that entrench themselves. We talked of him then, too, about how he is not the one fighting to increase the hold these things have on me, but the one who fought once for all to release me from the chains I keep helping that other to wrap around my neck again, shadow chains with no power when I walk in the light.

"Do you know why I can't remember very well?" a boy asked me yesterday morning. "Because I forget really easily."

So do I, my young friend. Let's keep reminding each other about the important things.

Whatever He Commands

Maybe I'm the only one who has this problem, but the most draining issues in my life come up with obnoxious regularity. I'll get past something, move on a few years, encounter a similar scenario, try to relate better in it and think of myself less and of God and others more, and eventually crash and burn. Again. I'll see positive changes, but they often seem microscopic, to the point that when I recognize a scenario I practically hear the ticking time-bomb.

What do you want me to learn from this, God? What do I have to change to move past it and deal with something else? Why does it keep happening? Why do my best efforts keep ending in failure even when it seems like I'm trusting in you?

I'm reading Job now, which is pretty appropriate in some ways. On the one hand, I haven't had that level of suffering. On the other hand, I have definitely had the "Would somebody please tell me what on earth is going on" feeling. Yesterday I came across this passage: "Also with moisture he loads the thick cloud; he disperses the cloud of his lightning. It changes direction, turning around by his guidance, that it may do whatever he commands it on the face of the inhabited earth. Whether for correction, or for his world, or for lovingkindness, he causes it to happen" (Job 37:12-13).

You know what that passage doesn't say is one of God's goals for doing what he does? "To screw with your mind. To make you feel like a total failure and a waste of space in God's kingdom." (Come to think of it, I know who does have those goals.)

Job was tormented by Satan, and so was Paul. Paul begged three times for that torment to leave (and from my own experience I wonder if it was that whatever it was flared up three different times), and received this for an answer: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9a).

God, I am tired of this. I don't know what it is for, or what to do with it. This is what I know: Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead and completed his work, and because of that I will not stand ashamed before you on the last day. Keep me from stumbling today. And tomorrow. And the next time.

Help me to remember that even though it seems that life drones on repetitively, drastic change only needs to happen once.

Casting Director

When I sit in group interviews I find myself more interested in evaluating everyone else than in coming up with my own presentation. I think I would like to be an interviewer, or casting director...I'm not great on the other side of the desk. 

Today after the opening "about me" statements, I kind of wished I had been sent home. One of the three of us had a great background in and love of the sort of work in question. My casting director side said, "They'd be stupid if they didn't pick her." Hearing her and the two women who were interviewing us almost made me cry--I so long to be doing something I feel that strongly about, but have trouble believing that is possible. Or if I should be using the energy to try to believe. And then I feel stupid for being so overwrought and melodramatic. (It's complicated up in my head. Sometimes it feels way too crowded up there.)

I'm heartsick.