Vienna

I was driving up I-95 for my last fall road trip to Annapolis when the iPod shuffle landed on Billy Joel’s “Vienna Waits For You.”

Slow down you crazy child, you’re so ambitious for a juvenile.

I got to thinking of how quickly this semester happened. Impossibly fast, people. At this point, my fourth year, it’s gotten quite cliché to remark on the remarkable speed time flies by semester after semester. I’m a marathon girl. I like big picture and pace and time to laugh and cry and be alone and be together. I am notorious for liking to take my time. But this is a sprint kind of world. 6-week sermon series, your best life now, gadgets to make your life easier, television on your watch, drive-thru world. As a part of that world, it is my responsibility to learn to cope with the pace. Especially when the very reason life goes by so quickly right now is because there are grades at stake and friendships that may only be a daily presence like they are now for only a short period of time yet. Who I am to my teachers, friends, family—to everyone—is remarkably tied to how well I am able to manage this passing of time.

Part of me would love to believe I’ve gotten okay at it. But then you throw in the fact (I’m convinced it is, indeed, fact) that time really does speed up. Mom was right. So here I am, educated to a higher degree than the majority of the world at this point, with resources at my disposal, the support of a great family. This is the prime. Of socializing. Of adventure. Of health. Of intellect.

But then if you’re so smart, tell me why are you still so afraid?

Part of what scares me, I guess, is that it’s supposedly downhill from here. Or uphill. (This is both a Due Date reference and me not being able to apply this phrase well. Guess I could’ve just gone without it, but then you’d have gone without these 23 enlightening seconds of reading and I couldn’t have that.) You know what I mean. Can I tell you how many times I’ve heard “it just gets worse” in the past 3 months? No, I can’t. But it’s been a lot.

What is that?

There are so many responsibilities and unknowns coming up. I understand that this adult world thing will be an adjustment and that the time only speeds up and I can imagine that I’ll only end up feeling worse about myself and my inability to communicate well and maintain friendships from a distance. But am I really just doomed to that? And do I really have to have the plan all figured out right now?

Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about? You better cool it off before you burn it out. You’ve got so much to do and only so many hours in a day.

See, I can get myself concerned in those small moments of silence in the last minutes of day. Why don’t I have a plan? Am I just being plain irresponsible by not adding “figure the rest of you life out” to my list of things to do during this already fleeting semester? Truth is, all the worry and the stress about tomorrow is perfectly poised to burn me out today. I don’t do well without optimism, and I am convinced that the outlook really isn’t as pessimistic as it’s made out to be. But the more I remind myself to stop and enjoy the moment, the bigger I feel the beast of the future grows.

The more I don’t want to confront its supposedly daunting, unenjoyable, monotonous and unfulfilling self. I’d rather just have the joy, thankyouverymuch.

But you know that when the truth is told that you can get what you want or you can just get old, you’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through.

That’s right, I want the joy. And I just don’t believe I have to resign myself to less for the sake of getting through life. Or halfway through it before I realize I settled for the “coming down off my prime” mentality of surviving adulthood.

I’m not living to just get old here. I can get what I want. I can have the joy. That’s not just idealistic youth talking.

That’s Paul and Isaiah and David and Ruth and Esther and Jesus talking. So I’m going to listen. No. I may not have the “what I want” in terms of a husband and kids and a well-paying job and health and picture perfect. But by God I can have what I want.

By God.

If there is one thing I know I can have during all of this—as I prepare for the rest of this life I’ve got on my hands—I can have God’s will. And if that’s what I want—If I really truly can get serious about telling him that and cultivating in myself a heart that means it—it’s mine.

It’s yours. It’s ours.

So I am not about to half-heartedly pump myself up to merely getting old. I’m going to get what I want. And I am going to pray against myself that my desire would be for the life that most honors God.

Otherwise I am just getting older.

When will you realize Vienna waits for you?

Slow down you’re doing fine, you can’t be everything you want to be before your time, although it’s so romantic on the borderline tonight.

Since the semester is coming to an end, I got to thinking as I drove about how I’ll remember this one. When someone asks me about it, what will I say? I wont have the time in those passing moments to delve into it, really. But it’s worth really thinking about.

It’s the semester Noelle and Chris married.

I got to experience my family in or around Fredericksburg often enough that it felt natural for the two worlds to exist simultaneously—that was nice.

I saw a lot of good movies.

I finished up the degree requirements for my major, save for the thesis.

There were awesome freshmen—every single one of them.

I feel I got a smidgen better balanced at expending my energy—sleep and school and others.

Digital storytelling with friends and @jimgroom was fun.

But, in a twist I did not see coming, I got to have experiences that teach me what I do not want to be. The attitude I do not want to have. I’ve learned what it is to be discontent with where I am and to want something more badly enough to believe God for it.

I’m often told that I must be at least thirty, really. I truly don’t buy into the whole “years ahead of my time” theory, because I feel that I’m learning as I go like anyone else—8, 18, or 80. What I do know is that in my frustration with my own inactivity, my own place in life I wish for more. I want to be doing more, I want to feel like I’m actually making a difference or being “good enough.”

Too bad, but it’s the life you lead, you’re so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need.

Billy is right, I get ahead of myself. I tend to want the ideal more than I make a point to live in the real. No amount of hoping—even in the right thing, in the Giver of life—changes the fact that I am the age I am and I’m in the stage I’m in. God doesn’t want me wishing myself out of where I am, because He’s put me smack in the middle of it for a purpose. To get ahead of myself with how much better I could be doing or what I feel terrible that I haven’t accomplished distracts me from what I need right now, in this moment. What I need to ever be a “better” me—a better steward, a better servant—or accomplish anything of true value. What I need is a heart that breaks for what makes God mad. A heart that rejoices in what pleases him.

Not anything else, not anyone else.

Though you can see when you’re wrong, you know you can’t always see when you’re right.

See because living for what pleases me or the people around me only puts me on edge. Only makes me realize how terrible I am at the pleasing—and how prideful I am in believing that I can be pleasing, perfect for everyone. That’s just not a role God’s asked me to take on. Not on my own. Every good and perfect gift is from him. The Bible commands me as a Christian to be perfect just as the Father is perfect. The desire to be perfect is not a foreign concept to me. But perfect doesn’t mean walking on eggshells not trying to hurt any feelings and then feel myself a complete failure when someone is disappointed.

I don’t try to please people so that I can look perfect. I want to please people because I care about them and want them to feel accommodated. There is a place for that in the world, I think. It might make me look pretty near perfect, and is, I imagine, quite frustrating for those people who get close to me and realize that, oh yeah, I’m prone to failure like the next person.

The genuine desire to see the people I care for happy quickly turns into an unhealthy expectation I place on myself—thereby inviting other people to place on me—to be perfect. And before long all I see is where I fall short of that. Where I’m wrong.

The good news there is that I should live with an awareness of how short I do fall of the glory of God. Gets me on the same page with, oh, everyone and makes me relinquish the pride.

The bad news in this scenario is that I get so focused on my own inadequacy that I can’t see where God is working in me, through me, to bring about some right in all of this wrong. Before long I’ve not only relinquished a healthy amount of pride, but I’ve given up the confidence, too.

You’ve got your passion, you’ve got your pride, but don’t you know that only fools are satisfied?

So I’m learning to hang on to a little of this holy confidence, this belief that God can work with a dull knife, and let the discontent I have regarding certain areas of my life and heart fester into a passion that keeps me going past satisfied.

Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true.

God bought my right to dream and dream big with a price. He’ll bless the ones that glorify him, he wont bless those that don’t. So I can’t imagine they’ll all come true—wouldn’t want them to.

Slow down you crazy child, take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while. It’s alright, you can afford to lose a day or two.

Because you know that when the truth is told, you can get what you want or you can just get old.

Reminder

Today I sat in a restaurant with a 16 year old and was reminded.

I stood in the middle of 50 middle schoolers and was reminded.

I relaxed in a coffee shop with a friend and was reminded.

I listened to a CD in the car and was reminded.

Funny thing is I think it happened because I asked. To be reminded.

That this adventure far from home had a singular purpose from the beginning-- and that was to say at the end of all of this that if I made it through, it was only because God is who He says He is. Listening to another girl, not much younger than myself, whose position I was in 5 years ago made me remember how absolutely, simultaneously terrified and confident I was. Because I wanted to know God the way He reveals himself to those people in the Bible that go on and on about his sufficiency. I was confident He would meet me where I was-- far from home or smack in the middle of it-- but I was terrified that I didn't know Him like that before I leapt.

In the middle of a chaotic worship session during which I trotted around ready to shoot a stern look to the next rowdy, disruptive kid I remembered being one of approximately six in my own youth group and stopped to thank God for every one of the 50 there. I remember being in middle school and how ineffective every person who told us not to do something was. I think of my youth groups leaders--Tori, Yvette, Laurence, Austin, Beth, Mom, Mark, Jared, Cindy, and Luke-- and how the single best thing they ever did for any of us with so much to learn was to concern themselves more with loving God than correcting us. I was reminded that these kids don't need my eyes on them, they need my eyes on God. So I closed my eyes, stilled myself, and listened. No heart there is a disturbance. And if I am letting them disturb me from worship-- well, I just think that reflects poorly on me. I cannot expect to cattle herd them all in there and hope they know what it is to meet with God or what a privilege that really is. But they should be able to expect an example of their leaders. Right?

I held my tea latte, warm against my bare knee. November 3rd rewarded my decision to mix things up and wear a skirt on a relatively warm day by switching modes to approximately freezing 'round bout 2 p.m. So the drink was nice, especially as it was enjoyed in the comfy green chair in the presence of one of the friends I was so afraid I wouldn't have going into this whole college thing. I was reminded then the power of words. The need to use them and make them encouraging. The responsibilities friends have to each other to drop a note or a call or a conversation or maybe even a beat every now and then to say thank you or to recognize the other's hard work. How sad is it that I'll call someone a friend but then expect that oh, other people will cover the whole being positive or nice or there thing?

On shuffle, my iPod chose this lyric to play.

"I'm tempted to sit back in my overstuffed chair with a gavel in hand

and a tired-eyed stare that says I'm not surprised you messed it up again.

I'm tempted to sigh, I'm tempted to yawn if you'd only do it like I told you all along

it could be so easy

if you'd only be more like me.

But oh that's the beast that brings us down, that's the devil in a satin gown,

so don't, don't call it love.

Cause love wraps herself around the wound and weeps while she speaks truth.

So don't call this love."

Thank you very much, Christa Wells. Listening, I was reminded of what I felt again last night in the middle of a Lifeway. And that is wanting to weep for the wounds of those I've been chosen to lead. To weep for my own. You see for weeks I've been wanting to cry because why don't they get it and why can't they get it together and why do I continue to feel like a fool in this position? Basically, in Christa Wells' jolting nutshell, it would be so easy if they'd be more like me.

Shame on me.

And don't call that love.

I was reminded what it was like to stand in the middle of the store and actually pray for each person as I tried to find a resource to offer every individual. I was reminded of what it is like to want to cry to God feeling ridiculed after spending "church money." I remember having no other defense of those expenditures other than to be honestly able to say that I spent time praying each day that something of each item purchased would make some sort of difference in each life in spite of me and Matt Paxson . I remember feeling like I had God on my side because I asked Him there each day with an ernest cry for help. I remember loving my job because I loved those kids because I chose to spend time feeling loved despite myself.

So I went home and had one of those moments for one of only a handful of times this semester. I asked God to remind me of things, to show me "my first love" as the church of Ephesus forgot (Revelation 2:1-7). To remind me of why I love Him, why I should even desire His will, why He even bothers to use me at all.

Then I thought, I'm pretty sure He bothers to remind me of these things because God wants me to know that He is useful.

Not me. Not ever. Not by myself.

These interns don't need me telling them why to love God and pursue His will and what to do to be useful. They don't need me at all. The one thing they would benefit most from, though, is if I'd just do those things myself. And, you know, have something a little more constructive and a little less prideful to say other than "be more like me."

Of course that sounds ridiculous in black and white. But it's amazing how subtly that mindset creeps up in real life. I am disappointed in myself. And "shame on me" appears 5 different times in my journal from last night.

In all of these things, I have been reminded of my place. That really low place where I belong-- where the little I do have is meant to honor God. Because the little I do have is only secured by the grace He offers in the first place.

Oh, yes, I'm disappointed. Aggravated, even, with myself. But his compassion doesn't fail. And He gets the last word. He, and only He, who speaks it all into being. He who offers reminders to this heart, desperate to find them.

Through the LORDs mercies we are not consumed. Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion," says my soul. "Therefore I hope in Him!" ... Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the LORD has not commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed?

-Lamentations 3:22-24, 37-38