Screaming alongside us

Eli, Eli

My God, my God,

why do I forsake you

while I hang on the cross

of my screw-you, my hell-no,

my let's-just-get-this-over-with,

my it-couldn’t-get-worse-than-this,

my lies, my leanings and inclinations

toward the better-for-me-worse-for-you?

You’re the only one who gets it.

You scream alongside me—

but I can’t hear you.

--

"Isn't it wonderful? It makes all the difference to know there's someone else screaming alongside you -- and that's the point of the incarnation. I can see that so clearly now. God came into the world and screamed alongside us." -- Drops Like Stars, p. 68

Poetry as Therapy pt. I

I'm working on a blog post for Scriptwriting about poetry as a form of therapy, which will go up this weekend, but for right now I thought I'd post an example of that. I hate that Dr. King and IWU students are reading this on their RSS feeds, because of the content of the following poem. (Consider this your warning.) But, remember that first and foremost this is my blog, not my IWU-affiliated Scriptwriting blog. If it offends--sorry. Maybe if you get offended easily, you should stop reading: HERE.

--

Questions

god, is this how it works—

you’ll speak to me only if

I’m a youth-pastor-to-be,

with a microphone and

microscopic wit, whose words

are amplified even larger

than yours?

Do I have to have

a faux hawk and f---ing

skinny jeans and a

Wesleyan theology

to carol your name

like angels?

Do you even listen

to skanks who sell their

self-esteem for sex

or addicts who always,

always, always, always

give in?

Doesn’t it seem like you’re

spending too much time

with those who are good

at looking good

but not with those who

aren’t?

Aren’t you impressed

by how well I’m

recovering,

though I’m not

(even kind of, even sort of,

really) repenting?

Aren’t you tired

of being deaf

and mute?

Aren’t you sick

of being so

aloof?

God, relationships, and an overuse of the word 'suck'

Alright. Well. Here's the deal:

My favorite image of God is that of the Great Romancer - my husband. As a romantic, I have viewed Him this way even as a young girl. But, as we all know, relationships are tough. They even suck at times.

Friendships suck. Boyfriend-girlfriend relationships suck. Marriages suck. They're hard sometimes, and they really, really suck.

Anyway, I was thinking about God as my Husband today, and it kind of pissed me off.

I'm coming out of this really low spiritual valley. Translation: I've felt far from God; I've felt far from the Church; I've felt like I've been asleep the whole time. I'm finally getting back to where I know I should be. I let God off the couch; I'm letting him back in bed. But I feel like it's not enough.

Why? Well, a relationship is never one-sided. Sometimes I feel like my relationships with others are easier than my relationship with God because with them, I can tell if they're putting in effort. I can see them trying. I can see someone keep his mouth shut when he usually yells. I can see her clean up her side of the room.

But God? Geez, I can't tell if He's even trying.

I pray to Him. I read about Him. I sing to Him. I tell Him everything I'm feeling -- and still nothing. God, do you even hear me?

I feel like I'm holding up my end of the deal, but He is not.

I say, "God, I think we need to work through this." And what is He doing? He says He agrees, but does nothing.

It's funny because yesterday at church I filled out a spiritual inventory. It's supposed to tell me how I'm doing spiritually. I keep thinking about my results. It sure looks like I'm a Christian. It sure looks like I'm doing all the right things. But it's going to say that I'm not doing enough. It's going to say that I'm acting like a baby Christian all over again.

I read my Bible. I pray. I fast. I go to church.

That inventory is going to say that I'm doing alright, but I need to tithe and help out at the church. It's going to tell me that my faith isn't very deep -- it's surface level -- and they're going to invite me to go deeper. They're going to tell me to get into a small group or find a mentor or go through some membership class.

They're going to think of me as a little kid, someone who hasn't seen the rough side of faith -- as if this is the first faith crisis I've seen.

Well, it isn't.

I've been "married" to God for some time now. We've had some good times and some bad times. We aren't newlyweds. We're not in the honeymoon phase.

I'm doing everything I know how to do to get out of this phase.
But still it feels like God's not holding up His end of the deal.



O Lord, you have examined my heart
and know everything about me.
You know when I sit down or stand up.
You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.
You see me when I travel
and when I rest at home.
You know everything I do.
You know what I am going to say
even before I say it, Lord.
Ps. 139:1-4, NLT

Holy the Firm, pp. 60-62

His disciples asked Christ about a roadside beggar who had been blind from birth, "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" And Christ, who spat on the ground, made a mud of his spittle and clay, plastered the mud over the man's eyes, and gave him sight, answered, "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be manifest in him."


Really? If we take this answer to refer to the affliction itself--and not the subsequent cure--as "God's works made manifest," then we have, along with "Not as the world gives do I give unto you," two meager, baffling, and infuriating answer to one of the few questions worth asking, to wit, What in the Sam Hill is going on here?

The works of God made manifest? Do we really need more victims to remind us that we're victims? Is this some sort of parade for which a conquering army shines up its terrible guns and rolls them up and down the streets for people to see? Do we need blind men stumbling about, and little flamefaced children, to remind us what God can--and will--do? ...

Yes, in fact, we do. We do need reminding, not of what God can do, but what he cannot do, or will not, which is to catch time in its free fall and stick a nickel's worth of sense into our days. And we need reminding of what time can do, must only do; churn out enormity at random and beat it, with God's blessing, into our heads: that we are created, created, sojourners in a land we did not make, a land with no meaning of itself and no meaning we can make for it alone. 

Who are we do demand explanations of God? (And what monsters of perfection should we be if we did not?) ...

--

I think I finally get it, Annie.

Grace grows in winter

Grace doesn't grow in the springtime. Grace grows in the winter, when everything's dead, when life is the brown sludge beneath your rubber boots.

It comes as a surprise.

We talk about life as having seasons. In the spring, life is born. In summer, it's sustained. In fall, it starts dying and by winter, it's dead.

But what if that's not how it works at all? Maybe life is always about dying. Maybe it's about repeatedly dying to our worldviews, our theories, our ways of doing things, our attitudes, our agendas, our impatience, our sins.

I think the seasons of life take place between October and December. In October, we start dying, but not to the right stuff. We die to the good we've always known. In October, we sin.

Then by November, we've killed God. We have sinned enough to shut him out, to no longer care. We've let sin creep in, settle on our sofas and stay awhile.

In November we think we're screwed.

So we started messing around in October, now we're deep into this new way of living. It's easy to be short-tempered; it's easy to walk past you. We've become different people. We used to be, by the grace of God, patient people. Now look who we are.

Hope: it's gone. The trees stay green forever.

But in December, Grace grows unexpectedly. Up from the ground, under your feet, through the snow, through the dirt, through the frozen ground, Grace grows.

Thank God.

You don't need Grace in the summer when all is well. You need Grace when things couldn't possibly get any worse.

--

I wrote Late October first, while reflecting on sin -- my own sin -- and how it seemed unconquerable. A week or so after, I wrote Late November and Late December while plotting a way out of sin. I want a way out. I'm close.

It's been fall for a long time; now it's winter, and I've seen sprouts of Grace.

In the past week or so I've posted two of the three poems in this series. Here's the complete collection including Late December, my poem on Grace.

--

Late October

Late October

and the Norway maple hasn’t turned

red or orange or whatever color

Norway maples turn.

Today

and tomorrow:

an endless cycle of green

and green and green

and green and green.

Through the window

the masochists

slit their wrists,

crying but with bliss.

Late November

Late November

and God is dead

like the maple trees and the leaves

falling out of them.

I did it

with a handful of the

foliage of God, yanking leaves

one by one by one by one

—just so I know he’s gone:

he’s dead.

God haunts still,

like apparitions, and

he howls through crooked

branches, waving:

Hi, I miss you.

Do you miss me?

Late December

Late December

and grace grows

like heaths. It is the

dead of winter,

yet grace grows in the dead

leaves crushed to the ground

and stomped upon,

with booted feet,

crushed into snow

and slush: grey, black,

brown.

one by one by one by one

3.
Late November
and God is dead
like the maple trees
and the leaves falling
out of them.

You did it
with a handful of the
foliage of God, yanking leaves
one by one by one by one
—just so you know he’s gone:
he’s dead.

God haunts still,
like apparitions, and
he howls through crooked
branches, waving:
Hi, I miss you.
Do you miss me?

Goforth

Hi, friends, from Sulaymaniyah.

As you know from my last two posts, I started my Preemptive Love Coalition internship a few days late. (Thanks, Delta.) Tuesday was my first day; Wednesday was my first day in the office.

I love it.

--

Last semester in Dr. Allison's World Lit. class, we read excerpts from 1001 Nights. The overarching story is about King Shahryar, who after he learns that his wife has been cheating on him and his sister-in-law has been cheating on his brother, decides to marry a new woman every night, sleep with her, then kill her in the morning. That way no woman could deceive him.

The daughter of Shahryar's vizier, Shaherazade, devises a plan in order to save the women of her village. She asks to marry the king, but before the king falls asleep, she tells him a story. Each story has a hidden message, about mercy - what the king was unwilling to show his virgin wives.

As dawn approaches, Shaherazade ends with a cliffhanger, enticing enough to keep her alive until she can finish the story. Every night this happens; Shaherazade tells stories within stories within stories to keep the king's interest.

And through this she wins King Shahryar's trust and keeps herself alive.

Jeremy told this story the first day in the office, comparing Shaherazade to us.

As Preemptive Love interns, as marketers, storytellers, representatives, etc. we need to tell a story that's going to keep our audience enticed, like King Shahryar. We're not meant to throw a message at someone and expect them to be instantly moved with compassion. We aren't an infomercial offering something people don't want.

We need to "get permission" first. We need to build relationships; we need to tells stories.

I want to invite you all on this journey with me. I want you to fall in love with Preemptive Love, just like me, but I don't want to shove it in your faces. Come along with me. Read my stories. Look at pictures. Read stories on the PLC blog.

And maybe like Shahryar these stories will change your heart and you'll be filled with compassion. Maybe you'll want to donate money or your time or resources to this organization.

I hope so.

--

I'm trying to figure out why I'm here.

I know I fell in love with Preemptive Love's mission statement in the middle of Dr. Perry's radio production class, during a "break up" with a previous ambition, at the brink of a season of doubt.

But I never felt "called" here ... not in the way I thought people should be called. I remember talking to my roommate Lindsey in January, telling her about this internship and how Mom wasn't cool about it, but how I wanted to do it anyway, and that I wasn't getting a "clear sign" from God.

And then I stopped believing that God calls people the way he had in I Samuel, or in the rest of the Bible. He doesn't speak audibly. He isn't so blatantly obvious about anything.

I never felt called here, but I feel at home. I think of Wendell Berry's character who says, "Often I have not known where I was going until I was already there." I was led, but not in the way I wanted to be led.

Back in December when I read about Preemptive Love Coalition, nothing magically fell into place. It wasn't easy getting my mom on board. It wasn't easy to get my sister and my dad on board either. It was hard figuring out how to apply for a loan, and to write an internship proposal to Dr. Turcott, and fill out my internship app. with PLC.

I spent most of second semester nervous and sick to my stomach and crying all over Mollykins.

Good stories must be fought for. They don't just come. At least, not usually.

"I am a pilgrim, but my pilgrimage has been wandering and unmarked. ... I have had my share of desires and goals, but my life has come to me or I have gone to it mainly by the way of mistakes and surprises. Often I have received better than I have deserved. Often my fairest hopes have rested on bad mistakes. I am an ignorant pilgrim, crossing a dark valley. And yet for a long time, looking back, I have been unable to shake off the feeling that I have been led - make of that what you will." Jayber Crow, p. 133

--

Last night the interns and I went to a party for an ESL class Claire and Preston will start teaching. (Thursdays are Friday nights in Kurdistan; Friday, not Sunday, is the Muslim holy day.)

On the way there, our taxi dropped half of us off at the wrong location. Preston, Alex, Sophie and I wandered around downtown Suly looking for the Life Center, unsuccessfully. We ended up hailing another taxi and driving across town to the right location. Total cost: 7,000 dinar for two taxis on the way there. The first guy over charged us.

At the Life Center, the room was filled with both Americans and Kurds. Sophie and I pulled a chair up next to Lydia, Claire and the two couples they were talking to.

We learned that Zeba and her husband are kitchen interior designers and the other two were both teachers. We talked two Zeba about how she met her husband (he taught her how to rock climb) and how he asked Zeba's mother permission to marry her.

Zeba's going to do our makeup and bake us cake.

We met Van, a university student who's my age. She's spoken English her whole life, and her brother Ahmad is in Claire's class.

After talking and eating Kurdish food - they wrap rice in pickled leaves, weird! - we danced. I like Kurdish dancing because I cannot dance otherwise. Not very well, anyway. Elise, one of the Americans, told us that the key to Kurdish dancing is moving your shoulders. I can do that. You hold hands and do a foot-shuffle thing in a circle.

After the party, we went home and six of us interns stayed up until 1 a.m. playing Scrabble (Go Team Gingers!). Then bed. Then we slept in.


Lauren

Stay connected with PLC on Facebook. (The interns are posting lots of pictures!!)

Georgia peach

"We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God." Annie Dillard

--

I am supposed to be in Istanbul right now. So for those of you wanting a recap of my past day (and a look into my next few days) here it is.

--

My flight from Indianapolis was delayed because of storms in Atlanta, but I board the flight only 45 minutes later than scheduled and all was well. My window seat is nice. I get to look out on the Neighborhood of Make Believe, or what seemed to be, with the tiny cars and all. And I read.

“That’s a great book,” says the woman next to me, who looks like Diane Keaton.

Jayber Crow. “Yeah! I’ve read half of it already, but it’s been a while so I thought I’d start from the beginning.” For some reason I tell strangers more than they need to know, or care to know. I spend the rest of the flight trying to guess her profession. (English education.)

When we approach Atlanta, the captain announces that the storms would keep us from landing. We hover over the airport for a while (I don’t know if planes really hover; I just imagine it like that) then fly 180 miles west to Huntsville, Alabama where we sit. On the plane. For over an hour.

Meanwhile I'm sending text messages to Daniel, another intern, who's at the Atlanta airport waiting for our flight. He keeps me updated on delays. I tell him I think I'll make it back just in time; he tells me the captain announced that they're waiting for our plane to get in before taking off.

We make it to Atlanta by about 5:00. The captain on my plane asks for only those who needed to catch flights to get up and get off. Everyone gets up and gets off. I’m in the back of the plane. I squeeze in front of Diane Keaton and shuffle off the plane and begin looking for Gate T3. Other side of the airport? Awesome. I run. (Power walk.) I huff and puff all the way across Atlanta's airport only to find out that I just missed the flight.

Breathe, girl. In and out. In and out.

I wait in line to get my flight changed. Turns out the next flight isn't until 4:20 p.m. the next day.

[I'll fast forward through my minor freak out, eating dinner, paying $10 for Internet access and getting a call from Jessica who asks me to fly in a day later even so I can arrive with Lydia, another intern.]

I wait in that long line again to talk to Draga, the Delta exec. I talked to the first time I was in this line. The one who told me that I couldn't get on a flight until Saturday evening.

Me: Is it okay if I fly in a day later?

Draga: No, we can't do that.

Me: But the people I'm meeting can't pick me up any earlier.

Draga: Sigh. Talk to her. (Points to woman next to her.)

After this woman finishes talking to the most adorable elderly couple, who speak only Italian, I ask if I can move my flights back a day.

Woman: Of course you can. (Click-click-click of her computer.)

Me: And can I get a hotel for tonight?

Woman: Yes. It will be free for tonight, but will cost you tomorrow. You'll have to ride back on the shuttle to get another voucher.

Me: Okay. Thank you. And how do I get to the shuttle?

Woman: I'll take you there myself.

Nicest woman ever. At least compared to Draga.

I wait outside for my shuttle. Finally it hits me that I'm in Georgia - what a pretty state. I remember thinking that as we flew above it a few hours before. The sky is a pinkish blue color now; the weather is 70 degrees and breezy. I get into my shuttle and daydream about perusing the town for a cute coffee shop.

The driver asks where I'm headed - Days Inn. He calls me Days Inn Girl the rest of the trip. I tip him two dollars because I like my new nickname.

--

I spend the rest of the night either laughing on the phone with Molly or sobbing on the phone with my mom. I am one emotional cookie. We were having issues changing my flight out of Istanbul. But $600 later, we get it figured out.

--

Earlier this week I was thinking about the book of Job and how maybe we try to find hidden truths within it, truths that aren't really there. We take verses out of context; we try to figure out what God means about this and if it justifies that. But if we look too deep, if we look too hard at the details, we might miss the big picture.

It's a simple story: Job has it rough, but things end up okay.

Maybe the conversation between Satan and God was metaphorical. Maybe Satan didn't do the taking away; maybe life happened. And maybe Job thought he had everything under control and he realized he didn't. Maybe God needed to talk some sense into Job in the end, to call him out in the middle of the storm - in the middle of the chaos - to say, "Job. You're not a god. You can't control everything. Let go and trust me."

I'm not saying that the story isn't literal - I don't want to cause a theological debate. But if we look at the story of Job in its purest form, we see a guy who's met conflict, didn't handle it right, but still made it through in the end.

I see myself like him.

What happens to Job will happen to me. I have experienced conflict, yes. I've handled it wrong too. But I'm going to be okay.

So far, so good.

Iraq, here I come. 

(Just later than expected.)

Lauren

O Me of Little Faith

A review and commentary on Jason Boyett's new book.

--

Context: I've been embracing this thing called doubt since last November. I could tell you the specific date, if I looked it up. It was that Saturday Jacque came to visit me at school, the first time we hung out since she stopped believing in God.

I didn't talk to her about it; I wonder if she even knows about my doubt.

--

Jason Boyett makes me feel a little better about myself. Doubt is still very new to me. Like I said: November. For someone who's been annoyingly sure about everything pertaining to faith, a few months is not a long time.

Jason starts his book by saying: "I am a Christian." (Me too.) "I have been a Christian most of my life." (Me too.) "But there are times--a growing number of times, to be honest--when I'm not entirely sure I believe in God."

Me too.

I didn't have to face my doubt back in November, because I was crushing on a boy, and when you're crushing on a boy, there are more important things to worry about than your faith, like whether or not that boy likes you back. He didn't like me back. In December I had to face my doubt.

Jason says that doubt is something we need to walk alongside. (Hey, Doubt, can we be friends?) It's not to be pushed down or reasoned away. It's something you need to live out.  He says it's okay to ask questions because John the Baptist doubted ("Are you the One who was to come?") and so did Thomas ("Unless I see ... I will not believe it."). He needed proof.

I feel like Gideon, who even after God made the fleece wet with dew and the ground dry, I ask him to make the fleece dry instead. Prove yourself to me, God, I say. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he seems vague and aloof.

In December, when the crush was gone and all I had was myself and my doubt, I wrote a creative essay about how the God I believed in was dead. It ended with a stream of cusswords I'd never say in real life. It made me feel better, though, to get it out in the open. In the same way, doubt is better dealt with in community. It's not something that we should hide. We shouldn't be afraid to expose our weaknesses.

Jason writes:

My impulse here is to write "Owning your doubt means refusing to pretend." Don't pretend to be better than you are. Don't pretend to be smarter than you are. Don't pretend to be more spiritual than you are. Don't pretend to have it together when you don't. Don't pretend to have all the answers when you don't. Don't pretend to worship when you don't feel like it. Don't pretend.

But I can't write that in good conscience, because I still pretend. A lot. Too much. (pp. 157-158) 

The few months I've wrestled with doubt have been marked with isolation and cynicism - especially at a Christian school. I still talked to my friends about my doubts, but I didn't feel like they really got it. I felt like they just saw me as one of those baby Christians who's just figuring things out.

For me, writing it out helps, like with my creative essay. Talking it out helps too, but it's harder. It's hard admitting to others your doubts. I remember Jacque was afraid to tell me when she started doubting God, because she thought I'd try to Four-Spiritual-Laws her back to salvation. (I didn't.)

--

Doubt isn't very fun to talk about. It isn't much fun to read about either - not typically. But Jason keeps his book light and humorous. He gets into the deep stuff (he quotes a lot of Latin phrases) but he adds his signature subtle humor by frequent use of footnotes.*

And if this were a style critique, I'd say Jason effectively uses rhetorical questions to bolster his theme of doubt. This also keeps the writer (Jason) from sounding elitist or arrogant. The reader thinks hey, this guy's got a lot of questions too! I can trust him!

If this were my Sojourn column, I'd tell you that you should buy the book just because Jason is a stellar human being. If this were a cannarf review, I'd give it a +5. If this were my blog - and it is - I'd direct you to Jason's blog because he does a better job of promoting himself than I.

Also, you should go buy his book.

* footnote. Yeah, I know, I'm clever with this whole footnote thing. Right after I tell you about Jason's use of footnotes, I add my own. 

But one thing that's really attractive about this book is its size. I'm not the first one to comment on this either (ahem, Katie McCollister). It's small enough to keep your hands from cramping, but the print is still large enough to read without squinting. Kudos to Zondervan on this one.

Lauren

only by prayer and fasting

"But if God is so good as you represent Him, and if He knows all that we need, and better far than we do ourselves, why should it be necessary to ask Him for anything?" I answer, What if He knows Prayer to be the thing we need first and most?

--

I never share prayer requests. I don't like to. When Dr. Huckins asks for ours in Practicum, I never make eye contact. I think it's because in youth group everyone tried to one-up each other. Your mom's sick? Well, mine just died - beat that! And I don't want you prying into my personal space.

--

This season has been filled with doubt. I don't know what I believe. I know some things, and those things I hang my faith on like a hat. Others, like prayer, I don't know what to make of.

But I'm going to live them out, like Jayber. This blog will testify to that.

--

I want to intern at Preemptive Love Coalition. I've wanted to since December. I thought God was finally going to give me a break - let me have a big story to live out. RELEVANT died. This was it.

Then, Mom said no. 

She said no in December, but I applied for the internship anyway.

She said no in February when I bought my passport.

She said no in mid-March when I got the internship.

She said sigh maybe in late March when I begged and pleaded and cried and came up with logical reasons why I should get to work with PLC in Kurdistan.

(I'm realizing how persistent I can be - to my own demise.)

So I prayed. Reluctantly. I didn't have anyone else pray except Molly, Lindsey and my college group at home. I didn't ask Dr. Huckins to pray. I didn't ask Dr. Bence to pray. I think I asked Dr. Perry to pray, but that's it. 

I didn't ask people to pray because I didn't believe in prayer.

(And maybe I still don't.)

Then Mom said that she would think about it, that she might consider letting me take the internship. She started asking me questions like how I could pay for it and how long I'd be gone. I was hopeful; I asked more people to pray.

Maybe God did have a hand in this after all.

I asked Molly to pray, of course, and Lindsey. I asked my dear friend Jason to pray and Austin and Matt. I asked the other PLC interns and the president, Jeremy, to pray. People on Twitter told me that they were praying for me and for my mom. 

I prayed for the dead saints to pray for me because that seemed like a very Catholic thing to do, even though I'm not Catholic.

And God has moved. 

--

I don't think God's only moving because we're praying. I don't think that's what Jesus meant when he said, "Where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them." I think that Jesus shows up when I'm alone too.

I think that praying for others and asking others to pray for you is a humbling experience.

I think it transforms you more than it spurs God to answer in your favor.

--

We must ask that we may receive: but that we should receive what we ask in respect of our lower needs, is not God's end in making us pray, for He could give us everything without that: to bring His child to his knee, God withholds that man may ask.

--

Maybe that's the point. Maybe the ask-not-because-you-have-not is God's way of getting us to talk with him. Not only that, maybe it's his way of making us rely on others, to think outside ourselves. I can't ask people to pray for me out of pride. I can't do it. I have a huge pride issue, but if you're going to pray for me, it's got to be for a legitimate reason.

I need to need you.

And praying to the saints? Maybe I should save this for another blog post, but I think there's something - uhh - transcendental about asking saints to pray for you, to intercede. Not because Christ can't do it. But because you can't do it on your own. You need help. You need the saints. Dead and alive ones.

I say this again: it's humbling. Especially for someone who doesn't like sharing prayer requests, to know that David, a follower on Twitter, is praying for me is humbling. He owes me nothing. He has no ties with me. He doesn't know my age or hair color. He just knows my situation and we share the same God.

--

I fast a meal a week. I don't like talking about that either because I'm afraid that sounds like I'm bragging. To help: this was Lindsey's idea.

Every Wednesday at noon I pray instead of eating. Sometimes I stay in my room; sometimes I go into the NHC chapel or sit outside; sometimes I drive to Tree of Life. Sometimes I can stay focused, sometimes I can't at all.

But I'm not eating during this time. It's just me, my "worship music" playlist, my Bible, my notebook ... (wow, this list is long) ... and God. Just us. Hungry.

Maybe this works. Maybe it's like prayer and it's more about the communion, less about the results. Who knows. I do know that when Matt texted me one Wednesday, right as I entered the chapel to tell me that he was fasting with me, I felt loved and cared for and humbled.

--

Mom's going to tell me Monday if I can go to Kurdistan with PLC. I'm confident that she'll say yes, but I don't know for sure. I also don't know if Dr. T is going to approve it as an internship so I can get loans to pay for it. I don't even know if CitiBank will pay for it.

So pray.

Please.

If for nothing else, for the support system it's bringing me and my family and the other interns.

love,

ezekiel

Jayber Crow, p. 54

I said, "Well," for now I was ashamed, "I had this feeling maybe I had been called."

"And you may have been right. But not to what you thought. Not to what you think. You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time."

"And how long is that going to take?"

"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."

"That could be a long time."

"I will tell you a further mystery," he said. "It may take longer."