Things to look forward to

Life has been keeping very busy lately. It seems there are many things to be excited about. Here are a couple of those things:

• Over the Rhine is playing at the Dame on September 1. For those of you who know, I have seen OTR play more than enough times to satisfy most any other person but I honestly can't get enough of Karin and Linford. Trumpet Child recently came out and it's been playing in my car ever since. It's jazzy and creative and Linford raps a little too. Can't beat that!

• Peter and I have tickets to see Wilco in Louisville later in September. They're playing at the stadium that the Louisville Cardinals play in. This should be better than seeing them at Tallstacks and having a crowd-surfer fall on my head.

• God is doing a new thing in our neighborhood. We got together with some other folks who are currently living close to our church or who plan to move close to our church with the intentions of creating a deeper sense of community. I'll throw out my cheesy sometimes meaningless seminary word there. It's really too bad that most of the time I hear talk about community it seems devoid of meaning but at this particular meeting, I was enthralled and felt that longing and grasping for something never quite achieved before. We want to start something with a little bit of structure among the people doing ministry in the neighborhood. We are having dinner together tomorrow night to start getting to know each other a little better. A retreat is in the works for us to answer some questions of what "doing life and ministry together" will look like for us.

• There is a real possibility I will be moving off of the overnight shift within a couple of months! Hooray!
  

Late Night Ramblings

I've been kind of living in survival mode lately. Have you ever felt like you are reacting to things more than acting on your own? I feel as if I've been operating on an external locus of control rather than an internal one. I picture this ship sailing on a turbulent sea with no real course of travel just going where the wind and waves blow it. This is me. Whatever the wind and waves may be (work, appetite, need for attention, etc.) that is what I'm being driven by. I have been having a general feeling of apathy regarding many things lately. I can't point to one specific area of life or any specific problem. I've just been apathetic.

And you know what it is? It's two different things.

(1) I think I've lost my bearings a bit. Instead of having my sights set on worshiping and glorifying God, I've been more focused on meeting my own needs. It really sounds cliche and cheesy but it's true. There's a lot of distance between me and Him right now. I have basically told God "That's okay, I think I can handle it on my own." When things were a bit crazier in my life, it was a lot easier to rely on His strength in me to get me through. But now that Mom is back home and doing fine, I'm out of school, the wedding planning is behind me, the identity theft stuff is mostly under control, I've got a steady source of income, and we're settled into our new home it seems a little harder to remind myself that I still need God. I still need God. I still need God.

(2) In my new job I've noticed my tendency to measure or compare myself to my clients. I can look at them and say "Wow, at least I'm not that messed up!" That's awful for me to say but it is true! This is obviously not the right measuring stick to be using in gaging my quality of life. It makes me feel okay about the junk in my life. It gives me a reason to take my own life, action, and thoughts out from under the microscope. Just because I don't cut myself, use drugs, or beat people up doesn't mean my coping skills are completely healthy, right?

There's a real emotive difference between surviving and thriving. Deep down we all know which one we are doing.