Ups and downs

Recently, my History professor talked to us about the interruptions to our lives that God gives us. We may think that they are inconvenient, but God certainly isn't worried about that. God's plans may or may not coincide with our own. It seems that I've been seeing a lot of the disruptions and fewer of the agreements with what my friends and I have had in mind lately.

One friend was given the opportunity to preach for the school and found out after she had started planning the service that the things that she wanted were not going to happen. The location changed. A friend died. She had mourning to deal with (which surprised her in its intensity). A lot. The sermon and the service were beautiful and many people were touched by it. I laughed and cried, which seem to me to be signs of a great sermon.

On Tuesday, I finished my taxes. I'm getting a big refund, which was nice and completely unexpected. I realized that I had really been worrying about money and future income. I'm glad that this coming check has alleviated that for a bit.

On Wednesday, I had a massage, one of the luxuries that I allow myself. I think a lot during massages and in the shower. While I try to be environmentally conscious, it's really hard for me to take short showers, because it's an important time for me to think through things during them. Anyway, while showering after the massage, I had an awakening that was like I'd been living in a fog. I realized that I've been moody, perhaps even depressed for a while. I felt like all of a sudden the sun broke through and I could see again, where everything had been completely obscured before.

I was so excited that I started calling people to tell them. I don't know if people had realized that I wasn't all that happy before, though, so I'm not sure how they took my news that I was now feeling much more alive again.

I met up with a friend who is a Christian Science Practitioner, Lecturer and Teacher for dinner. I remembered that I had met him on 9/11/2001. Someone from the Mother Church had called another friend early in the afternoon that day. He was a member of the Christian Science Organization at UC Berkeley. They asked if we wanted to host a lecture that evening. We were able to get a few dozen people together and we had a prayer workshop, basically, helping us to look for ways to grow and learn from the experience. It was really powerful. I was so grateful that the Lecturer was able and willing to come on such short notice and pray with us that evening.

I was glad to re-connect with this CS Teacher and Lecturer (jobs that I aspire to) and talk about seminary. We went to church afterwards. It was really great. The lesson-sermon was really in-depth about God's laws and there were lots of great testimonies. (Speaking of interruptions, though, the service started late because the organist never showed up. One of the members agreed to play the hymns with one note for the melody line, all that she could do. So, everyone sang loudly. It was almost an a capella sound and it was beautiful, adding to the feeling of intimacy in the service.) People spoke of healings that they had had of relationships in their workplaces and physical healings. (I'll have to write up my healing about my broken foot sometime, but I haven't done it yet.) I really appreciated one woman who spoke about concerns that she had had with trying to share CS with her family, including a sister and brother-in-law where he's a physician. One of her friends pointed out to her that it was not her responsibility to change his understanding about CS. God would take care of that. I needed to hear that. I sometimes feel like I am personally responsible for helping everyone learn about CS. God wants me to help teach people, but God does all the work. It's not my problem to change how anyone thinks. Also, I can't mess it up, either. I do my best, no more and no less and God works with us with whatever we bring.

My friend who was preaching in chapel later commented about her feeling of emptiness, of having nothing to give, except a willingness to show up. (I feel that she was selling herself short, but that's where she was mentally.) I used to be dismissive of the concept that showing up is the most important part. Now, I realize that sometimes that's very literally all that we can do. For whatever reasons, we sometimes don't have more (or don't think that we do), but a willingness to be vessels for God's use is important. It is not nothing, but something that some people are wholly unable or unwilling to give. Also, sometimes it's very hard to show up. I've been working hard at the showing up part.

Yesterday, I found out that the internship (which I hadn't exactly been looking forward to, but which I was resigned to) is not going to work. I had been working hard at getting myself excited about doing it and I was disappointed and angry that it fell through. A class that I needed to do as an introduction to the work was canceled. They don't know when the next one is going to be, either. Then, I decided to look into a summer intensive archeological dig in Jordan through PSR (the Pacific School of Religion, one of the sister schools in our consortium with SFTS) that I had also been considering, but had not decided on, because I didn't know when this summer course for the internship was going to be offered. For whatever reason, the summer intensive in Jordan fell through, too. Instead of being in Jordan in early August, it is now going to be in Israel in late July. The timing doesn't work in July for me and I really don't have an interest in going back to Israel. While it's only a few miles (or a few dozen miles, depending on where it is in the tiny country) from Jordan, it's a totally different place. I much prefer Jordan.

So, after having been really happy earlier in the week, I found myself very grumpy and frustrated yesterday afternoon. After having been excited about going to a birthday party, all of a sudden I really didn't want to go. I went to dinner with some other friends, got my frustrations off of my chest and went to the party. We all had a blast, lots of laughing and light-heartedness. Then, I went to a professor's house, where she was hosting a bunch of first year students, since the birthday party ended early. While I was sort of tired, I really felt that I needed to go, even though I hadn't been invited. That's rather unusual for me. In the end, it was about the showing up. Someone who did not know anything about CS was there and had a lot of questions after I had a question about why I don't drink from an acquaintance who only knows a tiny bit about CS. I was happy to teach them both about it. Occasionally I find such questions exhausting, but not last night. I was very happy that I had listened and showed up. We can never really plan out how God's going to use us, but if we're willing, God does use us, I believe. Sometimes we just have to show up.