I spent a lot of time with my community today and it was such a beautiful day! Before Joe’s girlfriend (Em, who is really just lovely and wonderful) left (she came to visit for the holiday weekend), we played a bunch of board games and that was great: just being together and unplugged for a while. We played Bananagrams… which just takes me back to the hotel in Napflion where Gabbi Chee and I and other people—sorry, I can’t remember who—played Bananagrams and we ate dolmates—Gabbi is the one who got me hooked. Then, after Em left (which was sad for all of us, she’s a great part of our community), the men grilled and we ate wonderful hamburgers (with cheese and bacon inside the burger) and brats and grilled onions and peppers. Then Matt shared a giant cupcake (I thought of you, Mark) with everyone else while I ate a gf cupcake (you can buy a four pack of frozen gf cupcakes for like $6). Since they were just sharing the one big cupcake and eating it with forks, Michelle had me put my plate right next to it so I wouldn’t feel left out of the sharing.
The picture is of a cornhole set like the one we played with, except that ours has a huge "UD" written on it-- UD for U Dayton, where three of my housemates went to college, not for UDallas.
Amy led us in a wonderful community meditation and prayer; we offered up intentions, which I always think is good. After that was our meeting and then, as if we hadn’t already eaten enough, Joe made these wonderful homemade chocolate milkshakes which we enjoyed while we watched Star Wars (the 5th one?). It was just a really lovely night, filled with such great and wonderful friends. After Star Wars was over and Joe and Amy went to bed, I practiced guitar in the prayer room, which I am trying to do more often.
My guitar is getting slowly better. I can now play several songs while singing them. It’s the coordination involved in strumming, playing the right chords, and singing all at the same time that gets to me. I have the songs that Jill (a dear friend from UD) taught me down, but singing at the same time usually makes me mess up the strumming. I’m learning, though. It’s just so frustrating (and humbling) for me to be so bad at something that so many of my friends are so very good at, particularly when I’ve been doing it longer (off and on) than several of them. Plus, my older “brother” is like a guitar genius, which lessens my inclination to learn, because I love to listen to him play (alas, I can’t just have David around at all times to play the guitar when I need him!).
At any rate, there’s my day.
I’ve been reflecting on things a lot lately. I think it comes from being in a new place, a place I did not choose and am still a little uncertain of. I’m so happy here, but at the same time I’m frustrated because I know I’m not where I want to be. I’ve never been good at the seemingly passive trusting God to take me where I need to go, so my first instinct is to fight. I have this perfect idea of where I want to be… married (to some yet-to-be-identified perfect man), living on a farm, raising kids, chickens, bees, and anything else imaginable and having the perfect garden. I want to keep studying my Greek, but it’s hard to find the time and I feel that love, that passion slipping away from me. I want to be a good cook—something that has been almost completely set back by my allergies and my new schedule. There are just so many things that I want to be that I wonder if they will ever come to pass. I’m reminded of that Barlow Girl song I loved as a junior in high school—Surrender…
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"Surrender"
My hands hold safely to my dreams,
clutching tightly not one has fallen.
So many years I've shaped each one,
reflecting my heart showing who I am.
Now you're asking me to show
what I'm holding oh so tightly.
Can't open my hands can't let go.
Does it matter?
Should I show you?
Can't you let me go?
Surrender, surrender you whisper gently
You say I will be free
I know but can't you see:
my dreams are me, my dreams are me?
You say you have a plan for me,
and that you want the best for my life.
Told me the world had yet to see
what you can do with one
that's committed to Your call.
I know of course what I should do,
that I can't hold these dreams forever.
If I give them now to You,
will You take them away forever?
Or can I dream again?
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But here I am, two weeks into this new home, this new life. And I love it. Really, I do. Sure, I miss so many of my dear friends from Dallas (every day, I feel like I’m aching for them) and sure, I am still feeling extraordinarily guilty that I’m not at home with my dad, but I at least have some sort of peace in my heart because I know that this place, however unlike my imagined future from a few years ago it might be, is where God has called me to and I (am trying to) trust Him.
And so we go.
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