Of Weddings (and wanting to have one myself)

Yesterday a friend of mine was married. To a really great guy. Her entire courtship, engagement, and wedding seemed to kind of “hit home” to me more than I thought they would. She is only a few years older than me. I have known her ever since we were little. The guy came from a good family who was friends with her family long before the courtship. My friend had placed her love story in God’s hands, knowing that if she was to be married, the right man would come along and ask her. And he did. All of this made me realize that perhaps marriage isn’t just a dream of mine that will never come true because it is just too wonderful. My friend’s wedding seemed so real for me. Weddings are no longer what “older people have.” It is hard to describe this feeling, but I am sure that at least Lizzie knows how I feel. ;)

The first eleven or so years of my life, I just accepted that one day I would get married to a man. Not a boy, a man. Surely much like my dad (I still hold that ideal, thank you very much). When I turned 12...yeah, you’ve heard that story before. What can I say? I’m only 18 ½, so I only have that many years to draw stories from. But anyway, I started “liking” boys, and thought that the first boy I liked and I would start dating once I told him that I liked him, and then when I graduated from high school we would get married. He was four or five years older than me, and I was a foolish little girl, but that is alright now. A little bit later, around 13 and 14, I was so boy crazy that I didn’t care to see the end of anything. I wanted them to love me, possibly date them, and hope for the best. I didn’t listen to my parents, who were attempting to teach me the “I Kissed Dating Goodbye”-ish approach. At least they had the power to say that I could not go on dates, and at least they kept me in their eyesight most of the time. So, yes. That story again. All of it to say that ever since I turned 17, I reverted back to “someday I am going to be married to a man.” Of course, I have had a few ideas of men or almost-men for God to destine for me. And every time I suggest someone he says, “Oh, yes, yes, that is nice,” nods absentmindedly, and gets on with HIS ideas. Like a writer who doesn’t want to take suggestions from his non-writer friends who don’t know how to write stories (I am not pointing any fingers, really!).

But along with the “someday” feelings, I have also felt an urgency to get married now. Have children now. I know, it is my biological clock, but it is a sometimes intolerable longing. It was worry...what if I never get married? What if I need to help God along and go hang out with some nice guys so I can have plenty of future husband options (I can’t decide if that is the stupidest idea I have ever had or not)? Everything was worry, anxiousness, not trusting God at all. I thought I was, but I wasn’t.

However, one night after a Radical Wednesday prayer meeting, some of us went out for subs afterwards, as the curse of being teenagers, athletes, and swimmers on top of that, is a triple-high metabolism than your average Joe (in other words, we are ALWAYS hungry, it seems). Kara and I, after food and drink, were much rejuvenated, so towards the time when we were about to leave, we started carrying on a conversation about life, as we often do. I won’t give you all the details of the conversation, but what I walked away with was her advice, straight from the Bible – “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” She added, “Sometimes, though, by delighting yourself in the Lord, your desires will change. But that is good, because your desires become HIS desires. And if you desire what the Lord wants for you, he WILL give you the desires of your heart!” Light bulb moment.

Since then, day-by-day I have delighted myself more and more in the Lord. He has shown me how to be content with what I am doing, instead of longing for something in the future. There is so much to do NOW, how could I not see it before?

God has not taken away my desire to get married. But he has carefully led me to a place where I know that marriage, for me, is for another time in my life. Soon, but not right now. Not till it is staring me right in the face, in fact. God showed me how to take the desire, put it aside, and focus on what IS in front of me. Working for my dad, helping my mom, writing, music, learning, being with friends, swimming, thinking, EVERYTHING I have at my fingertips right now. Marriage will be at my fingertips when the time comes. And I will know when the time comes, because, like all the things in my life now, I won’t have to seek it out. God will show me. It’s not like I am being lazy, saying “I am just going to sit here and be a religious couch potato till God’s will is right here in front of me.” But I understand that God’s will is something he reveals to me as I keep getting to know him more and more. I will seek his face, and everything else will follow. He wants me to trust him fully, not trust myself and my finding-out-what-life-is-for-on-my-own skills (which, I have discovered, are severely lacking). Every time I try to do something myself, I fail. I mean, it’s not like God cleans my room for me now or something. I do stuff here on earth. But I do it because I am supposed to; because God has made his will clear to me. I’m no prophet, though, of course. I don’t always get it right, and I mess up time and time again. It is so hard to describe this sensation. When I fall back on God, everything is clear and I know instinctively what to do.

It just IS. Does that make any sense?

Proverbs 3:5, 6 – “Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

~Jessica

Residing

Music and lyrics by Jessica

(Verse One)
Carry me home
Where is home to me anyway
A lonely old house
Surrounded by new buildings

The world is
At a beginning but at an end
I do not know
Will you show me the way

(Channel)
Confiding, residing
But washed away with tears
I know that you know
I’m losing all I hold dear

(Chorus)
Where will I go
Now that I know
Somebody loves me

How will I find
Someone who’s mine
Lives up to the way

(Verse Two)
Am I done here
But is here really here at all
A river of thoughts
Watch as it’s drained away

(Channel Two)
Losing, choosing
Memories carried away
You know that I know
It’s not safe, I can’t stay

(Chorus)

(Channel Three)
Abiding, Confiding
But blown away by the breeze
Oh no, don’t you go
I’m asking begging you please

(Bridge)
I’ll sail away
Will you follow me
As I’m leaving you
Nothing to say
Can’t you just agree
There’s nothing for us to do
But let it go…

Against Solitude

You may be wondering..."if there is a part one to 'On Optimism', surely there must be a part two, but then again, Jessica is apt to defy logic on a regular basis."  First of all, HUMPH!!  Second of all, yes, there will be a part two.  I just actually have to sit down and write it, which I haven't done.  This next entry is a small writing assignment I completed over breakfast last Tuesday morning.

Before now I have greatly commended solitude as something which I enjoy enjoying.  But there is a downside.  There is probably a downside to everything, but most of those downsides I would rather not think about.  I will acknowledge that it is good to be honest and realistic on some downsides, especially if in doing so I am kept or keep someone else from harm, one way or another.  

So it is with solitude.  I can tell myself, "Oh, yes, I can live alone in the middle of nowhere.  I would enjoy it; I don't need people."  But, for one thing, I would have no idea whether I was being true to myself by saying that.  I have never tried living completely alone.  It might be nice for a while, but surely I would get lonely.  A second point is that even if I don't need people...what if people need me?  Not to think of myself in such a great light or anything.  The thing is that nobody may actually be aware that they need me, but they still do, somehow.  If it isn't my direct help, then it may be at least some subtle influence or another.  My goal is to lead as many people to Christ as possible while on this earth.  That is really what life is all about; everything else is about having fun and/or surviving, and then surviving only to have fun, or to hang on to life for some odd reason.  Some do, however, strive for their own lives so they may continue to keep their children alive and protect their wives and things like that.  

But what is the point of living if, when you die, you go to heaven?  Why do even Christians value their earthly lives?  Why do we do things like eat healthily and organically and avoid other things that don't severely hinder our life's course if we are going to die anyways, and when we die we have eternal life in Christ?  Without the answer, it all seemed so pointless.  I guess if you don't believe in God or heaven, and you believe that your only life here is on this earth, and when you die you go nowhere, then it makes sense.  To hold on to your life here as much as possible.

But what about Christians?  And the only answer that has satisfied me is this: life is all about using where God has placed you, using the tools and gifts he has blessed you with to lead everyone possible to him.  To spread the Gospel; to give everyone the hope of eternal life, and the chance to live in their own heaven-on-earth.  

Now I get it!  That is why I have always been hearing things like "Do EVERYTHING to the glory of God!"  It's not some cheesy Christian saying that Christians say.  It is absoltely true.  

Thus, here is my argument: what good is solitute if it goes agains the meaning of life?  Even if it's solitude with only one's family, what is the point of living in isolation?  If it is to hide from economic crisis and an extremely overbearing and nigh evil government...why?  To grow one's own food that is without the poisons that the FDA requires to be in all they approve?  Good enough reasons, except...for what?  Why?  What is the point of trying so hard to survive, if you have no opportunity to preach the Good News?  It is selfish, really.  Why did I want it?  I wanted it for me, and no one else. 

Sure, I could justify it by saying, "Well, while I live out in the middle of nowhere all by myself, I will write books, and those can lead people to Christ."  And that may very well be.  And there is nothing wrong with a little solitude.  Personally I would love to have a little country cottage on rolling hills with giant oak trees sprinkled here and there.  But I would want it nearby to a community.  I may be introverted, but I need people just as much as anybody else.  God created us as social beings.  He knew Adam could not just live on earth by himself.  Adam needed Eve not just to be "fruitful" with, but also (and more importantly) as a companion on earth.

Therefore I am against solitude with all my heart.  Being alone occasionally and in small doses is fine, but isolation?  No.  We were not created for isolation.       

On Optimism, Part One

I have wondered, this past week or so, why I always seem to automatically look at the bright side of things.  It wasn't as if a year or two or however long ago I said to myself, "In order to be happier and improve my outlook on life, from now on I will always look at the bright side of any given situation."  It just happens; I just do.  And I have begun to think that the reason is some combination of events in my life thus far.  Vague, huh?  Let me try and explain...

When I was very young I would often go to my Grammy and Papa's (and then, Aunt Sue-Sue's) house.  Okay, I still do that, but for some reason it seems like I did it more a long time ago.  Anyways....whatever the occasion, other relatives would often stop by.  They would talk, and I would listen (I wouldn't look like I was listening, but I was, indeed).  I picked up on a lot of stuff, but one thing remains most prominent.  It was some celebration in the summer, 4th of July or thereabouts, and I was probably five or six.  Some guy-cousin or uncle, I can't remember, was explaining some long story to my Grammy as I had come inside the kitchen to cool off for a bit.  I can't remember what the story was, exactly, but I remember it being interesting.  After he finished telling the story, what my Grammy said next, while I filled up a glass of water at the refrigerator, was what has stuck for the past 13 or 14 years: "Wow...isn't it amazing how God always has a plan to eventually work out even the bad stuff for good?"  I meditated on this as I trumped back outside.  What if God really did?  I might have to wait a long time to find out!

It was a year or two later that I found out that this was a Bible verse (Thanks to Hide Him in Your Heart!), and like I said, it stuck with me.  I began noticing little child-like/childish things after a while.  Nothing huge, of course.  But I was always of the opinion that it was the coolest thing ever! (besides Beanie Babies and Juicy Juice, of course).  

I appeared to abandon the idea, however, as I took the rough ride into teenager-hood.  From ages 11 1/2 to almost 16, hormones started off on a bad nerve with me.  And if life seemed full of despair and desperation for me, I am a thousand percent sure that I made life complete hell for my parents.  At about age 14, I distinctly remember taking great pride in my decisive pessimism.  I was a pessimist!  I got angry about everything!  I really did, I am sure of it.  After all, I had to walk and talk the talk of my half punk/half grunge-goth "identity."  I thought I liked who I was, but in all honesty I have no memories of ever being truly happy and joyful at that time.  Every journal entry was mad at somebody because I wasn't allowed to do something, and contained many schemes for rebelling and plans for all I would "accomplish" once I turned 18.  

All of that to say firstly that I was horribly discontent and pessimistic, and secondly to apologize to everyone who was close to me during that stage.  I am surprised you all stuck it through, and commend you for it!  

But I suppose that, by the time I entered my Junior year, I had worn out most all of any pessimism I had been programmed with, besides the little healthy dosage left to make sure my life became dramatic at some points here and there so it remained "interesting."  I was far from through being resurrected from the depths of despair, but it was at that time that I joined my current improv group, and made some really good friends on swim team (before that, everyone I knew on the team was just a casual friend).  These two amazing groups of Godly people, along with the people I was already friends with at that time (those who stuck it through or stayed anyways, despite my entire existence being flawed at the time), and my wonderful family, dug me out of the hole I was in - by hand - and held me up to towards the Light; towards my heavenly Father.  Slowly, but surely, I have been changing for the better, with the help of them.  MOST importantly my parents, who never gave up on me and NEVER let me stray off completely to sell my soul to the world.  

Now I can see, though, that even as I completely and utterly regret those cursed year, wishing they had never happened, I can see that there are so many things that would not have happened and so many mistakes made later, were my wish to come true.  The consequences might be something as horrible as death or causing great shame to my family.  I may have gone off to college and fallen too far, without the desire for the help of godly friends or parental influence.  I might have never had the amazing opportunity of joining the Unintentionals.  Had I not been SO depressed at one point that my mother insist I join the homeschool swim team and swim all my frustrations out, I would not have the greatest group of friends on the entire planet.  And so much more!  

In other words, where would I be???  The outcome is unimaginable, even for me.  

So that, my dear friends (old friends, swim team friends, improv friends, and new friends....I love you all!), is one grand reason I am so entirely optimist all the time.  Even though something looks hopeless, I can almost guarantee it is NOT.  I wasn't hopeless, was I?  I might as well have seemed very much so; the 13-year-old  kid who dresses as grungily as she can and looks as angry as possible for her first therapy session in order to attempt to scare the psychologist off?  Yup, that is bad.  But now I am pretty sure my happiness level is consistently at about 98.5%, nearly all the time.  If I am not a miracle (not to sound full of it or anything) then I don't know what is.  Thanks so much, everyone, for everything!

~Jessica          

This Morning

The clouds are still grey with a hint of blue in them.  The fresh dogwood blooms are dampened by the early morning rain, and are dripping and drooping towards the lush, wet grass.  Sparrows call and finches chirp, calling the sun out from the shadows where it sleeps.  The softest breeze kisses the pine branches enough to induce droplets to tumble down, and the maple branches dance as the horizon grows brighter and brighter with every call of the waxwing.  The colors of Springtime are now illuminated fully as the orange rays spill over the grass.  Yet the sun shrinks back.  A tossing wind stirs the branches now, and then stops again.  

I smell the wetness of the yard through my window as the sun attempts to show its face again.  But alas, it is for a mere second before it seems I only imagined the rays.  And then...light!  Beautiful sunshine!  Here to stay...but gone again.  

It is fascinating how every day seems to be the same, but then it is different also.  Each day something happens, and the next day I think differently of everything than I did the day before, after my dreams cultivate in my brain.  My opinions don't change much, for I am not some wet blanket or another.  But even one mild event in one day can change an entire outlook in the next.  A friend and I long for childhood again, dress up in long skirts, and go take a midnight walk, stopping only to lay in a hammok to gaze longingly at the stars.  We talk of the future, of hopes and desires, and we make promises to each other all over again.  Another friend writes and reminds me of the life ahead of me; how the key to it is to simply walk through the open door, no matter how daunting the doorway is.  A book I chanced upon finally makes it all clear, that my idleness and idolatry are in vain.  My family is proof that there really is no place like home.

The direction does not have to be 100% clear.  The end does not have to be visable.  Then how am I supposed to know what is right?  Instinct is as trustworthy as stranger's casual opinion.  But God is good, and he has blessed me thus far.  Just because I cannot see does not mean I am walking blindly.  It would be better to lose my sight altogether; it would make me more fully rely on my Father, and acknowledge that he is the only one who really has the true ability to see anything.  

Outside it has grown dark again, with only a hint of what brightness kept peeping out.  But perhaps today is a day for clouds, and tomorrow the sun with shine.  

~Jessica

WARNING: This post shall contain absolutely no philosophy.

My, my, my.....

"Your what?"

*ahem* *starts over again* My, my, my, I think too much and blog too little.  All my thoughts go straight to my head, and hardly any go on paper, or screen, or whatever.  I was just thinking today how I love blogging, but blogging these days is going rather slow.  Some people have completely converted to Facebook.  I just simply re-post my blog posts on Facebook so that everyone is all happy (I have no idea if anyone actually reads them, but I can imagine that somebody along the way is happy).  I think the thing is that Facebook statuses are like really short blog entries, where I can say one thing and it starts an entire controversy.  It is really quite fascinating....5 seconds as opposed to 30 minutes to an hour of writing to create the same sort of response.  

Anyways, I will move on to other things, as each entry these days seems to start off with a long and annoying disclaimer about how I have not written in a long time.  At this moment, I am sitting in the kitchen, waiting for the chickens to reach 180 degrees inside and listening to the classical station on the radio.  I was listening to Relient K as I have been in a Relient K mood all day for some odd reason.  For the record, the album was "Five Score and Seven Years Ago", which I never really liked when it first came out because all the songs sounded the same and like all their other songs on their other CDs, thus driving me clinically insane and causing me not to endear myself to it at all, with the exception of "Must Have Done Something Right", or whatever it is.  But after wanting to listen to that song in the first place, and having done so, deciding to listen to the entire album all the way through while stuffing things up chickens, and I don't mind it as much as I did.  I can appreciate it lyrically.  Yes, so I was listening to that, and then it ended, and I was too lazy to walk the 30 feet to my bedroom and get a new CD, so I turned on the classical station. 

Have you ever noticed how chickens and Dickens rhyme?  It's pretty cool.

Yesterday I went to a square dance and....guess what.....?  I met some bloggy people and had TONS of fun!  I love dancing SO much....I can't even explain the passion that burns uncontrollably through my being, to be poetic-ish about it.  

I am getting a little tired of the people on the classical station asking for money.  OKAY!  It's back to music.  You know, it's funny how I walked back to my room to get my computer but didn't get any music.  

So I met Johnathan, AKA "Jos" in the blog world, and danced with him; I met Neil AKA Enil in the blog world and danced with him; and I met Abigail aka Abigail in the blog world, but did not dance with her, since she is a girl and all.  :)  Abigail is just as sweet as she is online, Johnathan has a REAL British accent!! and Neil is ever so Mr. Charming.  After the square dance, Lizzie, Allison, Sarah, and I went back to Lizzie and Sarah's house, made food, frolicked in the meadow, (well, just the front yard), and then ate the food and watched "Pride and Prejudice."  The new one.  I like that one best, but the entire time all my comrades could talk about was how Colin Firth is so much better and better looking.  Frankly I don't think that Colin Firth is any bit good-looking at all.  The new Mr. Darcy is better and better looking.  As usual, mine is an opinion that only the minority holds.  

Ah!  The chickens have completed their long journey in the oven.  

Keeping in the theme of the title of this post........um......I cannot philosophize about anything.  I am so incredibly boring that I cannot come up with anything else to write about.  Okay, that is NOT TRUE.  I hope.  Actually, my mind is preoccupied with visions of chickens dancing in my head, so I think I must leave you now to tend to them (they are sitting and steaming or something now...I'm just following the directions like the Doughnut Man said to do).   So long all mine faithful readers!

~Jessica 

Poetic License

As I have said many times before, this is my blog and I may do on it what I please.  Hence I present to you a fairly long sort of "poem", which has absolutely no structure whatsoever, and while writing it I couldn't seem to draw any nice, poetic words or phrases out of myself, so it sounds like plain English to me.  I also cannot think of anything to call it, so I am leaving it untitled:

Are you forever distant?

Have we become strangers?

Once so close...

But what is it that I long for?

I long for the closeness

Of one heart to another

Of two lives entwined

The deepest intimacy imagined

But do I really want it from you?

I think it is because we really were

Each other's exclusive sharers of life

That I cannot let what could have been go

Even if I know we aren't going the same way.

I wonder if I could ever love any

As much as I cared for you

When I was sure we wouldn't separate

And all my dreams would come true.

Why is it that I hold onto that emotion?

I thought I had lost it.  

I am better without it.

You waltz in and I can't get you to go out

You are at my side for a moment

But I clasp onto you and you stay there for weeks

On my heart which seemed complete beforehand.

So now - how will I know whom I really love

And whom I only want to love?

Are our paths in life perpendicular?

Meeting you was only our lives intersecting

I must continue on; I cannot go back

You cannot go back

If we go back, we get nowhere

And I refuse to live my life going around a traffic circle!

You go your way, I'll go mine

We'll drift further away

I never held your hand nor your heart

Yet something is hard to let go.

And how could you have been holding some part of me

All the while I didn't know?

Seeing the bright, beaming light of matrimony

Staring me straight in my face

I often to do not remember my present youth.

Yet even in the short time of our acquaintance

I have changed and grown so much.

There is something about the time

Since the day I first saw you

That brought magic in my life

And I saw in front of my dreams-

Both those entertained and whose which entertained-

Reality bestowed upon me things I believed

Were to forever remain my fantasies.

Also my cold and blind heart has warmed

And I can see now, though not as clearly as I might.

Are you the influence? Or merely an association

Only along for a ride as I stand in the meadow

And let the strong breeze of disestablishment 

Conquer me?

You are there, and you are gone.

Someday someone will be there and he will never leave.

He is not you, as I had naively hoped so intensely.

Hope can be so repulsive.

Have I not yet learned it must be avoided at all costs?