I shouldn't feel this despondent about it yet.
I shouldn't be this jealous.
I shouldn't be this angry.
I shouldn't be hurt by it.
I shouldn't resent them.
I shouldn't waste what I have now.
I shouldn't want it yet.
I shouldn't feel so... alone and empty.

But I do.

I had no idea I wanted this so deeply.

Theology in a windy stairwell

I have spent the better part of the last few years attending a school that spouts a motto of "In all things Christ pre-eminent."

This motto could be the proponent of some of the biggest misconceptions people have about that place.

People look at that motto and think of happy little conservative Christian homes. They think of modest girls training to be homemakers and of preppy boys who'll grow up to be businessmen or pastors. They don't think of things like grief or sexual abuse or addictions or divorce. These are not the images that are conjured up by that phrase.

But that is the reality. The beautiful reality of that phrase is that Jesus is not in some preppy little homeschooled Christian box. He's out there in the brokenness. And his people are broken. We fail. We have sex before marriage. We lie. We envy each other and we gossip. We get drunk sometimes. We fail to be loving. Sometimes we're bitchy. We come from broken backgrounds where things like abuse, porn, divorce, and filth are formative in our lives. And Jesus is there. He doesn't wait for us to clean up before he comes to us. He meets us where we are. Because the reality of that phrase is not found in a church. The reality of the meaning of that phrase is the first bit- the ALL. Jesus isn't something to be relegated to the corner shelf so we can get at him when we feel bad and we need him. He's there to comfort us when the pain from our brokenness and our shame overwhelms us. He's there to encourage us when we're struggling to break our addictions- and he's there accepting you still when you falter back into them. The reality of that phrase is that when he's part of your life, he's pervasive. There is no stone left unturned. He's part of your eating, your abstaining, your imbibing, your conversation, your writing, your sex, your sinfulness, and your sanctity. He's there in ALL of it. And he's not going anywhere.

The reality of Christ's pre-eminence is in all of the times that you got looked down on or punished or beaten up or abused- because all of those things happened to him. The reality of his presence is there in every humbling experience and in every time you're inadequate. His reality is there no matter how dirty the world gets. And no matter how much we pretend to have been polishing it, he's still there under all the grime. And that's the Jesus I want to follow.

Why I love my husband

he brought me Milo's
and Chicken & Stars
and doughnuts.

And he loves me enough to be awake with me for hours in the middle of the night because I'm not feeling well and he's worried.

I don't deserve his kind of love.

Validation.

I think I'm beginning to gain a small amount of self-confidence.

Husband and I realized the other day that we both had always felt like we were just being tolerated by a group of friends- like the fringe member of the group. Not that we didn't know our friends didn't love us, but well...

We're both the kind of people that floats between several social groups. This is nice because there's always someone to hang out with, always something going on. But you don't really have a home-base of friends. And it's really just a clever way of never having to be alone.

Well, recently we've found out (by being dumb people and bad friends and holing up for several months after our wedding) that there are people who actually genuinely miss being with/around us. And that they want to fit in with us. This makes me feel loved. And dumb for not realizing this sooner.

I blame it on being an extroverted introvert (husband is an introverted extrovert). I'm extroverted enough to talk to strangers, start conversations, and make friends, but introverted to the point of sometimes spending several days completely alone and not realizing that I've done it.

Also, I blame it on being a middle child.
But it still makes me feel dumb.

Why I didn't answer the phone.

Ok, so I just had the weirdest dream with the scariest awakening I've had in a long time.

Starts out as a road trip. Noah, three of his siblings, and I are going to see Isaac at Basic Training. AND Renee. Also at Basic Training. With Ike. So we go to the training facility, which is down the road from Covenant. It looks like Three Springs' entrance. We go inside (I'm carrying a laundry basket full of stuff) and are taken to where they are. The woman who takes us there seems very capable, but looks like an overgrown Barbie.

We come into the visiting room. This is also the shooting range. People are shooting at targets around the outside of the large, almost square rectangle of a room. There are tables all throughout the room, I think it was the mess hall too. So we're talking to them and then another woman (also Barbie-like) comes into the room and barks an instruction. She starts walking around the room and the people are aiming their guns at her and not firing. Until one guy does accidentally fire. It sends a shoot of light out and burns a hole in the wall. But. Doesn't. Even. Phase. Her. It shot right through her. And it was like a fake lightsaber. The light cut through her but didn't hurt her. At first I wondered if she was a hologram, then she took his gun and unloaded the other bullets in it into the wall because he was such an idiot. She gets to us and immediately sends all of the Army people out. (Save Ike and Renee) We are taken to the middle of the room and told to wait there. There are now no more tables. Then they come in and tell us that visiting time is over, besides, Renee has to go for her breast exam anyway (WTF?). So everyone else says goodbye while I'm packing everything up. I'm putting things in the basket, and I realize that this basket is full of everything we weren't supposed to send him. And I wonder if they'll ever let me out. Then I say goodbye and... Barbie woman wants a hug goodbye too?? I am now officially creeped out.

SO I'm rushing back to the parking lot and get there WAY before anyone else does. I can't find the car. It's raining. Hard. They finally get there and show me that the car is right behind the big column that I didn't look around. And Elnat (who is not like the real Elnat, but is someone my age with no beard and who acts pretty much like... Oh my gosh- he was a Catacombian... Odd.) asks me how I feel about cooking. I tell him he's dumb, I can't cook outside with 1)no pots and pans, 2)in the RAIN, 3)no food, and 4)DID I MENTION IN THE RAAAAIIIIN???!!!?? And then I realize that the dream facility is right next to Covenant. Which means it is right next to our house. Where it is not raining. So I say sure.

So we go to our house, which in the dream is a trailer that looks like it was built/updated in the seventies. (it is NOT like that in real life) And our front door is flapping open. (It's sunny here- I told you- it doesn't rain at our house in my dreams...) We go in and I go to the kitchen. Our fridge is unplugged, there's a panel off the wall, our fridge is open and "defrosting" even though it's stuffed with food. There is no sink and it looks like a construction zone. I turn around to tell Noah that someone's destroyed our kitchen and it must have been....

Steph H. pops around the corner to claim her handiwork. She says she was just visiting and because it was raining and she had walked over, she tried the door handle when there was no answer. You see, (here she speeds up and I was still looking around my ridiculous kitchen so I don't know if her explanation was that her Father had designed the wiring in the house or that they'd lived there before us and she knew a little about it. It might've been both). So she decided to take a look around.

When she got to the kitchen she knew why she must've come. Someone dumb had changed everything. So she was going to put it right. There had been a panel installed over a closet and a full-sized Ironing board that came down from the ceiling. Also there were all sorts of things in there- like a picnic basket, a costume, a bunch of wooden Tupperware, etc. However, the outlet for the frige was on this wall panel, and in taking it off she'd damaged the plug. Instead of having three metal prongs. it now had four wires coming out. Three of the four were covered in this spongy goop and the other was naked. One of the goopy wires was sticking out of the end. She tells me that the outlet the plug is supposed to plug into is under the counter, not on the opposite wall like we'd had it. So all I had to do was climb under and plug it in. But be sure to plug in the right parts or I'll die.

So I climb under and yes, the outlet does only have three openings. And I can't decide. I contemplate trying various combinations until I figure it out, but that seems too much like not knowing which wire to cut to stop a bomb. So I'm about to plug in the goopy ones. And then, I look at them and the one exposed wire and the one partially exposed wire are going to connect!!! I can't stop it!!! IT ELECTROCUTES ME!!! And wakes me up. Because the buzzing is actually my cell phone on vibrate on the bedside table. I thought I was dead.