Sing it, Bowie.

Wow, I can't believe it's only been four days since I posted "Doubting Thomas?" This whole blogging thing really does put a new perspective on time. I'm pretty excited about time right now, though. This is because this time right now is a good time. Switching schools has had its ups and downs, but whenever I reflect on what's going on in my life overall in the big picture, I can't help but smile. Despite the pre-orientation mess I'm having to motivate myself to get through and the scheduling of CPR training and physicals and blah blah... and the impending surgery... and officially moving away from home... and actually having to rely on my own income, despite how much everything is changing, it is all so right. And I am finally convinced that this is because God is right there where He says He is: with me, in me, through me, to me. And really, this makes so much sense to me. I suppose posting a spiel about what I retrospectively think about the most intense parts of my doubting would make sense in filling up this post, but I feel like those sentiments will slip their way in when necessary. I've done enough dwelling for now. I do thank those of you who read my thoughts and shared your own, though. :) Oh and if you don't know, the switching schools thing I'm referring to is me leaving the University of Mary Washington and going to Riverside School of Health Careers to complete their 11-month Surgical Technology program. I found out yesterday that I don't have to wear one of those incredibly dorky uniforms the nurses and radiologic tech people have to wear. Since I'm gonna be a scrub, I get to just wear the hospital's scrubs when I'm shadowing. Sweeeeet. I really can't get over how incredibly awesome this program, and ultimately this job, seems to be. I almost feel like I'm setting myself up for disappointment by being this excited. I keep researching it as if I can possibly find anything else about the profession that I haven't already found, thinking I'll find something that finally points out a huge flaw in this perfect career choice. I know I'll start getting a sense of the reality of the job once I start my classes and start shadowing, so I guess I'll just exhibit a bit more patience and keep taking this whole thing one step at a time. My sister and I are trying to move to Newport News (where the school is) so that I don't have to commute an hour to Newport News everyday. Rebecca, my sister, just graduated from Liberty University, and she's been looking for jobs over there since before I made this career choice. She's got herself hooked up with an employment agency, so things are looking promising. We checked out a duplex on Mercury Blvd the other day. It is very reasonably priced and the pros definitely outweigh the cons. The thing is we can't really commit until Rebecca lands a job, so we've just been praying about that and trusting that we'll end up where we're supposed to. Oh, and if you happen to know anyone who lives in or near Newport News and desperately wants to temporarily house two young low-maintenance women starting in September, just let me know.

Apple??? It's good!!!

During a conversation I had with a friend yesterday over lunch, my friend told me about his former roommate's belief that nothing really exists. According to roommate, all "reality" is simply perceived... he went into weird stuff about photons bouncing off stuff, but my friend told him that photons have to bounce off something real and tangible. Honestly, it was all too weird and twisted for me to fully understand and relay here to this blog, but what I'm getting at is something I knew but needed to address directly: You can believe whatever you want. I've heard from more than one of my non-Christian friends that religion is a construct for coping and nothing more. Now, I agree with this statement. Coping has negative connotations, but all it really means is dealing with a situation to bring about success (whatever that is). So, to me, saying that religion is a coping mechanism is kind of a moot point. Life is coping. Once you start throwing subjective terms around, the foundation of the argument turns to sand and no real point is being made. So yeah, you can believe whatever you want or believe in not believing, as some like to pretend is a possibility. As my last post pretty well portrays, I've been struggling with belief. But what gets me is that belief is real. The fact that we actually *can* believe. Nuts. This is just a small part of what has me pretty well convinced that God exists. According to C.S. Lewis, I at least have "Faith A" down, meaning I believe in the existence of a god. "Faith B," having faith in the God of the Bible -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- is where more people have hangups. No, I can't construct a perfect logical argument for Faith B like I so desire, but I've not been so bothered by my lack of flawless argument for Faith A. Clearly, you can't argue faith. Duh. I'm just saying I don't understand why I let that bother me in one case of faith and not in another. I've built up a lot of mostly lame excuses for trying to abandon the God I've been worshiping for so long, but I think I'm finally running out of steam. This (of course) brings me back to Ecclesiastes: "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." -Eccl. 1:9 These thoughts and doubts I've been having are not new. People have been doubting forever, and I'm sure many, like me, have run out of steam. All the reasons I make up for not finding belief in God necessary crumble, including the reasons that revolve solely around my own "success." I don't know how much longer I'm going to let Satan dangle this tempting yet unreachable fruit in front of my face, but I'm exhausted from running after it. Not to mention, I am completely lacking nourishment as a result. And again, thank God, there's no conclusion. Just a continuation.

Doubting Thomas?

So. It's really weird to look back on my Ecclesiastes blog and then read some of the things I've been writing recently (obviously, these recent things are not on my blog). I've been going through a bit of a spiritual detox that I have a lot of trouble articulating to anyone, including myself. Plus, I'm terrified to articulate these thoughts because they're not exactly Biblically-sound. I've been reading An Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose. The book is about Kevin, an undergrad student at Brown University, attending Liberty University for one semester as a sort of "study abroad" experience. He was raised a Quaker pacifist, so what brought him to Liberty was intellectual intrigue... and he is an aspiring journalist, so he made his experience into a sort of anthropological ethnographic endeavor. As an undercover Christian, he discovers a lot of interesting things about evangelical Christians and also, inevitably, about himself. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book, so I'm not sure where Kevin ends up spiritually. He touches on a lot of things about Christians that have been baffling me as well. I'll pull a snippet from my recent journaling that gives a bit of an overall picture to the state of my soul: "I figure if this Christian God is real and he loves me and his love can never let me go as Paul says in Romans, then so be it. I’m in no real danger, right? “No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand.” So really, I have nothing to lose being where I am, and this does bring me some solace in the midst of my inner turmoil. Eh, it’s not really turmoil. I’m just being dramatic at this point. 21 is definitely the age for identity crisis and confusion, so I’m just following the typical life strokes I suppose. In any case, it’s been an enlightening experience, and I don’t see an end to it all just yet. Perhaps an ending isn’t what I’m looking for." I've confided a lot in a couple of people and a little bit in one or two others. One of the things that stood out in Roose's book was when he discussed a debate that went on between one of Liberty's professors and a group of atheists. The atheists basically destroyed the Liberty professor in the debate, and Roose noticed it shook some of the students' faith. He almost expected the whole student body to slowly drop this whole God thing, but when everything seemed to be rolling along back to normal very soon after the debate he figured it could have something to do with the inconvenience of dropping out of faith in God. And I believe he's right about that. I've definitely thought about repercussions that could result from my period of weakened faith, and for the most part it terrifies me. I was kinda born into the mindset I've possessed for the first 20 years of my life. Thinking about going back to UMW with my thoughts had my stomach in knots. I've integrated myself so much into the Christian community, and while I know my friends wouldn't abandon me because of where I stand spiritually I would still be suffering a serious disconnect with all of them now that my relationships wouldn't be so strongly "built on Christ's love." I was thinking about leaving UMW for health school before my questioning even began in order to follow the dreams I had before coming to college. While my fear didn't have anything to do with my decision to transfer out of UMW, I have to admit it's a huge relief not to have to face a lot of discomfort I may have been heading toward. That isn't to say I won't miss my friends intensely, because I definitely will. I plan on continuing to build the relationships I've developed. And so there's really no conclusion to all of this rambling. I haven't dismissed the Christian God as improbable, and I haven't dismissed the general notion of God whatsoever. I told one Christian friend this: "I've gone through and am still going through a lot of pretty serious doubting, but I have a hard time really explaining it. It's not so much of an abandoning my faith sort of doubting as it is a stripping my faith to its raw core sort of doubting." And I still stand by that assessment. Uh, inconclusive conclusion, but I should stop myself before I head toward another invisible resolution.

My, how the mighty have fallen...

I've been wrestling with the idea of picking back up on regular blogging. At the moment, I'm thinking I'll just write this and let things go as they may. I blogged in high school, and that blog still resides somewhere in the depths of the internets. So anyway, I've been thinking lately about how people long to time travel back to the sweet sweet days of childhood. I assume the common purpose for such a longing is to be free of obligations, stress, what-have-you -- basically some obscure idea of freedom. I can understand this longing, but my longing for the past is a bit different and only serves to make me feel even older. What I want is to be effortlessly healthy again. I remember skipping into doctors' offices, playing with toys while mother happily checked the "No" option next to all of the "Do you have tuberculosis?"-like questions. I'd go through a check-up and everything would be just fine. I was free to go back home and run around outside. Those were some good days, but my-oh-my how the mighty have fallen. Exactly a year ago, I was training to be a wilderness counselor at an adventure camp. I got to do all but swing through trees. It was amazing. Each day of training was a new adventure: jumping off a platform 30 feet off the ground, caving, white water rafting, team-building activities, etc. Of course it couldn't continue to be so perfect, so at the staff party night, I was playing basketball with a bunch of guys and one of the guys jacked up my right knee. I'd never had any sort of knee problem in the past, so I didn't think much of it. I iced it and hobbled around until bedtime. Waking up the next morning, I moved my legs to step out of bed only to feel a seering pain in my right knee. I couldn't bend it. At all. And it was really really swollen. And so to keep this story short and not too tragic, I'll just say this knee injury put some constraints on my experience as a wilderness counselor but I stuck it out and still had an amazing summer. After plenty of physical therapy, I figured I was getting close to being as good as new. However, winter break brought it's own bit of debilitating sorrow. I started having back problems caused by the knee injury and had to get some more physical therapy, which helped and I started feeling better. And then spring break came with another foul blow to my once spry form. My left knee somehow (I really do not know how) gave out the same way the right knee had given out before while I was playing basketball on a mission trip. Fantastic. Really. I decided to do my own self-prescribed physical therapy for this one and have been doing alright thus far. So that would be the end of my body-breaking woes, but just a few nights ago after watching two wonderful hours of Bones on TNT I got some pains in the right and left sides of my abdomen. Slowly the pain concentrated more on my lower right side and got much stronger within the hour -- so strong I started to writhe on the floor, crying uncontrollably. This was when mother decided to call the doctor and 20 minutes later, I was throwing up and still writhing in pain in the ER waiting room. Ridiculous, I know, but that is what happened. It took forever for any painkillers to get into my system, but after some tests and scans and what-not, I was out of there with four prescriptions to fill. It was 3:00 am. They told me my kidney was infected but my regular doctor thinks my kidney is not infected, but instead I have a kidney stone I've yet to pass. I'm seeing her tomorrow. And then I'll be seeing a urologist soon. And then an orthopedist. So where are my sweet youthful days? I'd say they're a year in my past at this point. June 6th was the anniversary of my right knee injury. I'm not so much bitter as I am humbled as to how fragile my existence in this world really is. It's pretty obvious that our bodies fail us at some point, so I'm looking forward to my new 100% knee-injury-proof, infection-proof, back-pain-proof body to come.

About Ecclesiastes

I didn't pursue Christ-centered relationships in high school. The word "pursue" to explain my former situation makes me feel a little weird, but I think the word is adequate; I did not desire to have God in the center of my life. I'm a little confused over the balance of Christians trying to love Christ more and actually loving him more. Anyway, the point I want to get at is that my relationships have been superficial for the greater part of my life. I should probably explain my terms here. At this point, I'd say the superficial relationships in which I engaged were superficial simply because they led to no end besides the pleasure of company. I had one friend Michael who was very openly Christian. He appeared, to me, to have a sincere desire to love Christ and follow His lead. I didn't talk to Michael much about his faith or my faith. A day came when I was pretty stressed about a particular situation and Michael caught wind of my situation. He came up to me at lunch that day and told me he went through a tough time once and his youth pastor suggested he read Ecclesiastes. Michael made the same suggestion to me. I was a little shocked to hear advice from one of my peers suggesting I turn to God during my times of trouble. I had endured many eye-rolling sessions of listening to my mother's suggestions of prayer and reading the Bible when I'd gone through "difficult" times, but this boy my own age saying the same thing? I was not opposed to God. I acted like I sincerely loved Him and lived for Him, but my heart was not all there. I would pray whenever I felt it was necessary and I'd read my Bible whenever I felt guilty about not doing it. So really, I was genuinely touched that Michael had made such a suggestion. After school I pulled out my Bible and flipped the pages to Ecclesiastes, which I'd never actually read before. It kicks off with these word of encouragement: "The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem: 'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher. 'Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'" Perhaps my reaction at this point should have been, "Umm, what? How is this encouraging at all?" But quite to the contrary, I felt a sudden calm and increased desire to continue absorbing the words of Solomon. And continue I did. I read about Solomon's impassioned search for truth and purpose and happiness in life. He attained riches and wisdom through years and years of toil. He wanted it all and he got it all. Basically, he strove for the exact idealistic lifestyle our world is reaching for today. When he found himself unfulfilled and unhappy, he concluded that all of it was completely worthless in the end, making points such as: "I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun." (2:18-19) So basically what I get out of reading Ecclesiastes is that life is a vicious cycle of pointlessness... unless you are not living for yourself. Solomon made it pretty clear that we are here to fulfill God's purpose and not our own. I recommend you read Ecclesiastes to see this for yourself. God changed me with this book. I was raised under the preaching of my father, but my stubborn head would not let me find pleasure toiling in this sin-infested world until God used Solomon's words to finally convince me of the Truth. I am not here for me. I am not here for this world. I am here for God and God alone. How strange to apply such an idea, though. It's been a pretty big mystery to me, but God is good at directing me even when I have no idea what's going on. I worked at Ligonier Camp and Conference Center this past summer, feeling led there by what I believe to have been a providential pull. I loved telling 13-year-old girls the story of Solomon in Ecclesiastes. I told them about life and purpose. I got to talk to them about Jesus. I got to sit down with one girl and tell her the gospel message. I got to tell her the good news. God blessed me so much this past summer, and I lived every moment in awe of his work. So life is hard. It'd be really easy for me to get emo about it and cry myself to sleep at night, but I know there is a hope and a joy to be found in living. God has graciously granted me a salvation that I will never lose. I don't deserve it, but I have it. What better incentive should I have to live for God?