"O, my man I love him so... he'll never know..."

My husband has been gone for three days.

My heart skipped a couple of beats when I thought he had come home from the youth retreat earlier than we had discussed because it looked like his car had moved spots in the parking lot... and there was an unmistakeable thud of that same heart hitting the floor disappointedly when I walked into our still empty apartment.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder, even when that heart is pretty fond in the first place.

....finding the right building pieces to go onto his nerdy Lego coffee mug
(my Christmas present to him) :) 

This extra time alone has not only made me realize that I still super-love this man that married me- but in the extended time he has been gone I have seen how much I am still 'me'.... even though I think massive parts of me have changed over the last four months.

I like me better when he's around.

"for whatever my man is... I am his... forever, more"

On being a TCK...

I can remember the very first time I read a book on TCK's... I resonated so much with the feelings described on each page!

I was in the IMB library... with a wealth of resources at my fingertips, and an assignment to prepare to go into a new country miles away from any of the many countries I grew up in. But I was swayed and drawn in by a display that was supposed to help my fellow missionary-trainees as they thought about raising their children in a culture that was not 'theirs.'

Maybe this book was so meaningful because I finally found 'my people' even in the midst of this sea of Southerners who talked about shrimp n' grits and fried chicken like it was manna from heaven. Unlike my fellow trainees who strongly identified each other by football team allegiances, I had discovered my people who were also uncomfortable with, "Where are you from?" In the pages of this book I had found that there were other people who were regarded as 'strange' because their hearts beat in rhythms that fell outside the expected US norms. Finally I fit in, had a label that stuck - I am an ATCK.

Today, I don't know what the title of the book was, but I still remember the impact it had on me!

Now, after surviving the cold-culture climate so different from the Latin warmth that I grew up in, I have also lived almost two years in that crazy "South" that was so alienating to me during training. Four years later, I have had to make an uneasy peace with myself... I now live in, and now even have a passport to that one country I find most unglamorous in the whole world.

Yet I love reading blogs like http://www.alifeoverseas.com/ ... (and come to realize that I'm a TCK of two TCKs).

I have been so blessed, and continue to be blessed in this place. So why can't I explain how much it scares me and drives me to tears to think about never living in another country again? How can I make sense of the unease I have thinking about being that rooted pastor's wife living in one place, in one house, in one country till death? I used to dream about having this sense of identity and solid predictability!!

So why is this suddenly a big deal?

Is it seeing how much richness I won't be able to give my children in this stable future? They'll never know or understand why mommy is so 'weird.' They won't long for a good doner (Turkey) or greasy ishpeshmak (Tatar) or locally made empanadas (Ecuador) or street chipa (Paraguay) all in the same day! They probably won't reach for a sip of communal mate or a tiny tulip cup of hot chai and feel the instant camaraderie that is inherent in the sharing of these teas. They won't feel empathy for the stumbling, bumbling, utterly humiliating forays into public when you don't know the local language. They will never appreciate the ridiculous humour of accidentally reading a phrase from one language in another, and understanding something completely different! They might not be able to make friends wherever their feet land. And they won't feel their heart warm when distant friends make it a priority to call, write, or communicate somehow because their friends all live next door.

Or is it just that my loving, God-following yet rooted, husband does not hear the call of the 'wilds' like I do? Even though he is the one that gets questioned most about his appearance, I am the one who fits in least here in this country.

I don't know.

But I'm thankful for a fellow TCK blogger, Marilyn Gardner- and her reminder of Psalm 84. A day in God's courts, is better than a thousand elsewhere. And even sparrows find home in the altar of the Lord. And verses 11-12....

For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
    the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
    from those who walk uprightly.
12 O Lord of hosts,
    blessed is the one who trusts in you!

It's snowing!

                                          Finally, winter has arrived in Louisville. All last year I waited for it through the humid heat of summer, and the beautiful leaves of fall... but winter never really came last year. (Though all of my friends, including one who had grown up here, swore it had come because it was "so cold."I'm not going to blame my Kenyan friend who grew up in Dubai. But seriously, the ex-roomie?!? Last winter was not deathly cold!)
And even though it is barely under freezing... there is snow on the ground from three or four days of 'under freezing.' And that makes me happy.
Oddly- it's the first time that I have gotten that nostalgic missing-Russia feeling. The first time in over two or three years!

There's just something about seeing that nighttime orange glow over a city- its lights reflecting off the snow.

There's another something wonderful about that faintly pinkish cloudy sunset over the dark bare tree branches on the horizon.

And that quick inhalation of crisp air when you first step out of the door- so invigorating and mind clearing!

For myself...

It seems that most of my friends have left the blogosphere, and I dabble so infrequently in it myself that I might as well stop writing as well. But, I have been encouraged just by reading my own few entries... and since I have a paper that is due tomorrow... I might as well warm up my fingers. 

That... and I felt like the emotions I wanted to express were not quite appropriate for Facebook general knowledge. You know? 

....those pictures and stories and status updates that are just written to make others feel jealous? Yeah, I don't want to be that girl. 

However, last night was so inexplicably wonderful that I have to try to express what I felt.

How did I get to be so blessed? 

I came home from work, and my wonderful husband had the chicken cooked and chopped, had just finished cooking the brown rice, and was in the process of carefully cutting the broccoli into little pieces. He loves cheesy rice and broccoli casserole, so he was making the components so all I had to do was put them all together with some homemade chicken-stock roux. 

Then I decided we needed some whole-wheat rolls... so I made some from scratch. :)

Then he made a fire in our fireplace... and we had a cozy dinner by the fire. 

Just the kind of romantic, wonderful, Alexis-would-barf-it-was-so-sweet kind of thing. 

So why do I feel like this is the amazing before the storm? Is it because I feel like there will be suffering around the corner and I don't want it? Is it because I know that life should be difficult, and I just want to keep the good? 

I do feel so guilty that life is so good right now, with only my circumstances at the clinic marring my absolute happiness. 

We are singing a song by John Wesley in Chorale (yes... not Charles... John), and it is so convicting... 

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,

exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

Dr. Brewton joked that all too often we want to sing every other line, "put me to doing... let me be employed... let me be full... let me have all things."  How un-jokelike is my desire for just these positives! 

Oh, but I don't want to dread the suffering, or being put aside, or brought low, or having nothing.... 

Oh God, help me to freely and heartily yield all things to Thy pleasure. 

Gratefulness

I'm married!

For a whole week and three days. So, it's funny that sometimes I can still hardly believe it. I mean... I'm married! Really, legitimately married! And I didn't just dream that day up!

Friday we changed my name with the Social Security office. Yesterday I went and got my new drivers license. Today we are changing my name on bank accounts and other important things. It's heady stuff!

Too bad I have to go back to work tomorrow...

But I also wanted to acknowledge publicly how much I love my friends. All the way from California, DC-Missouri, Tucson, Austin, and Philly. And then three that currently reside here in L-ville with me... these eight girls made my life both easier and enjoyable the whole week of my wedding! I'm still overwhelmed to tears by all the things that they did for me. Flowers, laughter and talking, distractions, ribbons, day-of-emergencies, last minute decisions, and praying for the wedding day and our marriage... I could just enjoy the day because I KNEW that they had everything handled! I'm so grateful, and wish that I could have them all in my day-to-day life, all the time, and never have to move away from them.

Jumping the gun?

My list of blog reading includes a mommy blog... don't think I'm jumping the gun. :) Don't freak out! Mostly it stems from my daycare and pediatric days, and how I still identify a whole lot more with the 'mommy' talks at church... (and spent so many years wishing I was having those talks for real instead of the 'single-girl woes' talks.) I was that single girl who had opinions on paci's, on naptimes, and cloth diapers. Belatedly, I think I may have been more judgmental than I should have been. :z 

Anyway- lately I've been finding encouragement in this mommy blog- for current life! 

I liked this one... planning for/around/beyond your meltdowns.... because they're going to happen. 

http://powerofmoms.com/2012/04/life-is-full-of-meltdowns/

Especially as I'm entering this strange new world of marriage to a man of unshakable calm (which attracted me to him initially)... He doesn't get my meltdowns, yet he has a front row seat to them. So he naturally tries to prevent them. Even though they sometimes just are unpreventable and unpredictable! ... this blog was super helpful to not make me feel like a freak of nature. 

At the same time, she doesn't permit me to wallow in the meltdown. :) 

Good stuff. With or without kids! 

The countdown

hard work

For this formerly-single-girl who very much took that singleness on as part of my identity (who knew? I didn't!) ... there are quite a few "aha" moments that I've been having the last month. Sometimes they may be less 'aha' than "doi!" slap-on-the-forehead type moments... but yeah. They've been interesting.

One... and I know this is old hat and I read it a million and a half times and never believed it... but relationships take work. WORK. Good work. Work that is sometimes quite fulfilling. Yet, wow. Sometimes I get to the end of a week and I'm tired. Just done. And I want to hang out somewhere by myself, with a big book, and perhaps a bag of tortilla chips, and a large glass of iced coffee. And stop thinking so hard!

Weird, right? This extrovert is showing quite a few introvert moments these days... and I don't want to say "I don't love you,"  which is what I feel like I'm saying in essence when I need alone time. And I definitely do not want to become an introvert. I miss my friends! ... but I need time to organize my closet. Badly. (Maybe part of this is the uncertainty in moving this week?... the chaos of boxes and getting rid of stuff and seeing how much I have accumulated in one year is fairly ridiculous!)

Then there's the interspersed .... "eeek!" moments that occur at these times when I think about potential motherhood. That awe-inspiring, also much-desired status is accumulating some dinosaur proportioned uncomfortable thoughts. All my mother-friends tell me about how they want alone time and can't find it now that they have kids... and many of these women did not have the 'alone time' need with their fiances (at least that I heard of). The intimidation factor of motherhood is rising in my opinion!

I'm going to need to figure out my introvert tendencies... and get them squared away. And figure out the balance between good dependence and destructive independence...
....and right now, stop typing and put some stuff in boxes! Cause I'm getting married in 35 days!

Why weepest thou?

                   I woke up today around 4 from the most intense nightmare I've had in a while. You know, the kind that is so vivid you still are seething with the emotions you felt during that nightmare after you wake up?

I think what made this one worse is that it was in no way fantastical. No roaring waterfalls to plummet down while rafting- no orange and green eyed monsters chasing me - no hypothetical characters from a novel that became zombies.

           No, this nightmare was about my wedding rehearsal dinner, and me getting so angry that strangers (many of Chinese decent- go figure) were seriously delaying our leaving for this dinner by offering strong opinions about my wedding the following day. Why wasn't I spending all this money on a proper dress? or "(gasp) you aren't doing 'real' flowers?!" "How couldn't you get your hair professionally done?" "Why don't we just..."  Oh man. I'm still steamed. I mean, hiding my rehearsal dinner dress so I'll listen to your opinions? And then my hair clips??

Who dreams like this?
And... more crazily... who cries after such randomness?

Oh. This girl. And I had to take it to God. And write it out. And apparently, now write it out again.

The silver lining... is that this ridiculous dream is making me rethink how important these details should be. (Not. Not important.)

And to be continually seeking Him more. Obviously, I need Him to fix my heart.
If my subconscious is worried about these silly details a month away from the wedding, I need to take a chill pill. And realize what is actually at stake.

And ask myself- what will glorify God most??
Not flowers. Not mason jars. Not lace headbands. Not the right dress. Not the perfect hairstyle.

My heart. My attitude. My thoughts. My actions.

In praying about this, here at the crack of dawn and as I dried my tears, I started singing "I need thee every hour, o gracious Lord." Then I started thinking that I was singing the wrong words, but I wasn't!! Yet the rabbit trail of looking through hymnary.org to verify the words led me to the writer's bio, which in turn led me to another of her hymns. (See Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs class paying off even before grades are posted!) And I found 'Why weepest thou?'  

And each stanza prompted me to look to Jesus- to realize that the cross is more central and the brightest detail of my life- to be comforted by these reminding words.

I think I'm going to memorize the words as soon as I can get to a piano to actually learn this simple tune properly. And obscure as it is, I think it would be a great bedtime lullaby too.

    "O believe Him; O receive Him-
     There is none like Jesus;
     He is near Thee,
     He will cheer thee--
     Only trust in Jesus."

hmmmm

It's kinda discouraging when you finally have time to catch up on your friend's blogs... and you get to your blogger page and notice that your last blog update was... what?! In January?!
Insanity.

Crazyness has ensued in my life.
And.... I'm overwhelmed with blessedness. I have not been documenting the major paradigm changes over the last few months. But they have been huge. And I'm so grateful!

For one who was getting ready to practically write a dissertation on singleness and how a strong, single woman could still contribute usefully to a complimentarian church... becoming the one preparing for a wedding in 62 days has been... ridiculous.

Finishing the school year with seminary classes and also still working my 30+ hr workweek as an RN?

Yeah.
I'm glad classes are over for now.

I'd like to catch up on blogs and reading for fun and keeping my room clean and enjoying actually being engaged (seriously. You ever want something for so long that you don't even know what to do with yourself when you get it?! That's me. I'm looking forward to the next sixty days. Just so I can let this realization sink in. I'm getting married. ME. ;) I am getting married!)

The class book list

... my good friends around me know that since my Leadership and Family Ministry class this last semester, I've been obsessed with finding out a godly, productive way to involve single, passionate women in complementarian ministry situations. At the outset of any of these rants, I always want people to know that I support (highly support!) men taking leadership in churches and in ministry and in homes.... but with this leadership in view, the focus often leaves women as wives and helpers and mothers.
You do know me. There is almost nothing I want more than to be those three things... but God in His ultimate sovereignty and goodness has not brought me there yet. So it has been so frustrating trying to find a way for me verbalize and mentalize and actualize through what my position in a church actually looks like as a passionate, yet single, girl!
How can I not be that one sitting on the fringes of a strong, Gospel-centered, complementarian-minded, and family equipping church ministry?
Thank God (truly!) for Carolyn McCulley. I discovered her while wading my way through the required reading of yet another book that assumed, because I was reading a book on leadership and family ministry that I was a guy and wanted to be a family pastor. She did not assume that! Instead, she cut to the chase and explained a brief history of feminism, and how it affected the culture we live in and the churches we serve in. She has a godly perspective, focuses on the Word, and yet SPEAKS to my single heart. She is real about the blessings. And open about the pain. And intelligent in searching the Word for God's plan and communicating what she has found. And passionate about serving God through the local body of believers.
I was hooked. So I bought her two books immediately. And tore through "Did I kiss Marriage Goodbye?" It resonated so deeply with my emotions, yet also appealed to my brain. It was unlike any other book I had read through before, because it wasn't a chit-chatty, girl-to-girl book like most other books for single Christian girls. (much as I enjoy a good chit-chat, when I'm looking for answers I don't need to be your buddy-buddy) She wasn't giving me hints on 'how to hook a guy' ... and she wasn't telling me about how to enjoy my 'gift of singleness.'
And it started me down a path of reading.... and now several of my good girl friends here (both married and single) have seriously-jokingly told me I should make a class about this subject! It's certainly an area that has been neglected here at Southern (I mean, come on... there are preaching classes that are only for guys... and then there's "Seminary Wives Institute"... yet NOTHING for single girls. It may seem like small beans if you are an aspiring pastor- or a professor who has made their research and focus some ultra-spiritual area of hermeneutical debate. But oh. There is so much hurt and ache and hope and desire that must be rerouted before it becomes bitterness and stale stagnation of the older, still-single woman in your church!)

So here's a class booklist-- in descending order of importance--

Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? Trusting God with a hope deferred - Carolyn McCulley

Who has your Heart? - Emily E. Ryan

Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World- Carolyn McCulley

Get Married: What women can do to help it happen- Candice Watters

* God's Good Design- Claire Smith

Reckless Faith: Let Go and Be Led - Beth Guckenberger

Feminine Appeal- Carolyn Mahaney

The Path of Loneliness: Finding your way through the Wilderness to God- Elizabeth Elliot

* They Were Single Too- David M. Hoffeditz

* Loves me. Loves me not- The ethics of Unrequited Love - Lara A. Smit

Secrets of an Irresistible Woman: Smart Rules for Capturing His Heart - Michelle McKinney Hammond

*I'm still working my way through these three.

My absolute favorites are still McCulley's works... when I finish with the three starred works, I will be going back and re-reading her books! McCulley also has suggestions of other resources to read (at the end of every chapter in the first book) that I am planning on looking into as well.

The next favorite, as you can see, is by Emily E. Ryan. The best part about opening up her book was her first chapter where she says,

 "...for some unexplainable reason (probably the bitterness again), once I learned that the sources of these scripturally based opinions were married, I would immediately disregard all of their pearls of wisdom. Of course they believe all that, I thought. They get to greet their husbands every night after work with a hot homemade dinner and an even hotter welcome-home kiss. It's always easy to trust God in hindsight. For a note about my own personally marital status, please don't throw this book down...! " 

But Ryan also takes a close look at an obscure woman of the bible who... ta-ta-ta-da! .... was not married! And Ryan has SUCH good advice, and words, and examples... SO GOOD. Because the focus is not on my being single. It's the attitude of my heart that needs to be realigned.

Candice Watters' book is very unfortunately titled. She has a much godlier perspective on singleness and marriage than the title implies. A few months ago I would not have been caught dead reading it, yet because I have read her articles on a website called Boundless, I was pretty sure she would not lead me astray. She didn't. It was a worthwhile book... that kept moving up the list in importance the more I read. She does speak to the conundrum of waiting that a single girl invariable feels so stuck in. The best part, though, is she helps verbalize that I'm not waiting for just a warm, male body. Watters' really gave words to qualities that I'm working on in me, and qualities that I'm looking for in a spouse.

There's more where this is coming from... but that's enough for one blog!