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| Occasionally, during tropical storm season, Indiana is lucky enough to be graced with some of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen in a land-locked land. I noticed this tropical storm = breathtaking sunset correlation in college when we paused to take a picture for my roommate's birthday just before she left for a Jimmy Eat World concert. For whatever reason, when the southeastern states are through being pummeled by some tropical bands of rain and wind, a few days later, Indiana has a sunset that literally stops me and steals my breath. I love it. So here are a few pics I snapped tonight while my neighbors probably thought I was being a creeper, traipsing around the grounds, flip-flop-less, in my pink, polka-dotted cropped pajama pants and a backwards brown tank from Old Navy, trying to be unobtrusive. 
love,
(dot) | | |
| I met the cutest 4-year old girl at the grocery store on Tuesday night. I was picking up some green bell peppers when this adorable, little, blonde girl sitting in the front of her mom’s shopping cart said loudly to me, “Hi! What’s your name?” Knowing that young children often have difficultly understanding my name, I replied simply, “Dot. What’s yours?” She said, “Amelia,” followed by a very enthusiastic, “Do you have kids?” to which I replied, “No,” and oddly added, “but I have a sister!” (Because the two are similar? Not. I just couldn’t really think of another response.) We then proceeded to talk about a million different things as her mother and I shopped for fruits and vegetables. Here are some highlights of our conversation: Amelia: How old is your sister? Me: 28 Amelia: (confused) How old are you? Me: 25 Amelia: Oh. My mom’s older than that. She’s older than me. So is my dad. Me: Really? My parents are older than me, too! J Amelia: Do they live near here? Are they here with you? Me: No. They live in Washington, DC. Amelia: How far is that? Me: About 10 hours Amelia: WOW! That’s far! Do they come here to see you? Me: No, usually I go out there to see them. Amelia: Oh, that’s nice. Amelia’s Mom: Are you a teacher? Me: No, not really. Amelia’s Mom: Oh, you just seem like a teacher. Me: Well, actually, I guess I am. I’ll be teaching a course at IUPUI next month, but I guess that’s different. Amelia’s Mom: Yeah, I would guess your students would be a bit older than Amelia. J Amelia’s Mom to Amelia: Well, it’s time to go. Say, “Bye,” Amelia. Amelia: Bye, Dot! See you later! Me: Bye, Amelia! Have a great rest of your evening!
And then we parted ways.
Amelia had these plastic braces on her legs, and as I left the store, I wondered what they’re for. Does she have to wear them for a while now, as she grows, to make sure her bones grow straight? Will she have to wear them forever? She was just absolutely adorable, and I don’t normally say that about kids. (Hah.) I kind of hope I run into her again sometime. She was so precious. And I just wanted to share that with you all. (dot) | | |
| Last night, I was searching my computer files for something, and I found a testimony I'd written for something a few years back. Thought I'd post it here. Enjoy... When I was 11, I made the decision to pursue a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. A year before I decided to follow Christ, my grandfather committed suicide, and I began to see the various members of my family look for comfort in each other, always coming up short. As I wrestled with questions of life and death and ultimate healing and peace, I realized that the only thing that made sense was Jesus. After my grandfather’s death, the Lord relentlessly pursued me, and the only way I knew to answer His call was to submit my life to Him and to ask Him to fill my heart with His Spirit. My personal journey of faith has included its share of walking in the valley and wandering through the desert, so to speak; but through it all, God has been more faithful than I could ever deserve. I attended a secular high school, where I would consider myself to have been a Christian activist, never one to shy away from admitting my love for my Savior. My time there was very precious to me, as the Lord used it to soften my heart and prepare me to reach His people. I chose to do my undergraduate work at a Christian university because I felt that I needed to be solidly grounded in my faith—in word, in deed, in doctrine, and in intellect. Surprisingly, while at Indiana Wesleyan University, I experienced the strongest period of doubt that I had ever known personally. I did not doubt God’s existence or His sometimes-incomprehensible love for me; rather, I was dumbfounded at my understanding of Him and my inability to fully intellectualize His attributes. Concepts like sovereignty, omnipotence, omniscience, and eternity were difficult for me to wrap my mind around, and it seemed the more I thought about it, the more lost I became. I started to question my core motivation—what was more important to me: being able to make absolute sense of a perfect God or reaching out in faith and trusting that He is who He says He is? God used Hebrews 10:22-23 to speak to me, saying, “[L]et us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” In fragile moments, my human mind is sometimes unwilling to believe what I know in my heart to be true. This is where I lean on the “full assurance” of my faith, unswervingly trusting in the infallibility of my Redeemer and Creator. Before teaching me to rest in this assurance, my confusion led me not only to a crisis of faith, but also a crisis of vocation. As long as I’ve been a Christian, I’ve known that the purpose of my life is to bring glory and honor to the name of Christ. During my season of doubt, God taught me how to reconcile being a writer—someone devoted to the love of words and the art of writing—and a believer—someone devoted in mind, body, and spirit to the cause of Christ. In my confusion, I thought I had to be one or the other, that one passion would suffer if I divided myself between the two. What God revealed to me was that I can be both; I must be both. In Walking on Water: Some Reflections of Faith and Art, Madeleine L’Engle writes, “The important thing is to recognize that our gift, no matter what the size, is indeed something given us, for which we can take no credit, but which we may humbly serve, and in serving, learn more wholeness, be offered wondrous newness” (195-6). I now see my passion for the written word as a gift that I can use to serve God and bring others into His Kingdom, even when I can’t always make sense of it. (lovedots) | | |
| "Falling Slowly" by Glen Hansard I don't know you
But I want you
All the more for that
Words fall through me
And always fool me
And I can't react
And games that never amount
To more than they're meant
Will play themselves out
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice; you have a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice; you had a choice
You've made it now
Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now
Falling slowly sing your melody
I'll sing along --- If you haven't listened to this song or seen the movie "Once" yet, you should. | | |
| Friends- This weekend was the 2nd Annual High School Girls' Purity Retreat at my home church, E91. This year's theme was "Allure," marked by Hosea 2:14: "Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her." I was able to lead a small group of girls and be a room chaperone, which was awesome. I was also blessed with the opportunity to deliver Sunday morning's sermon during our service. I was nervous as all get out, but I think the Lord was still able to use me, so for that I am thankful. Many of you know that purity is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, for a lot of random and possibly contradictory reasons. That being said, I was struggling all weekend (as I prepared my so-called sermon) to find the appropriate balance between sharing enough of my past struggles so as to inform my current decisions and not being overly vulnerable with a room full of 50 high school girls, some of whom had just met me or barely knew me. I prayed all weekend for the Lord to give me the words to speak and to encourage me to bold when necessary and to be still and hold my tongue when appropriate. I feel like He did that, but I also feel like I should have painted myself in a less desireable light during my sermon. What I mean by that is that I think some of the girls walked away from my talk, feeling like their story could in no way be like mine b/c they are already in places in their lives that are so far from where I painted myself to be. What I think I failed to show them is that I've been in the dark places they're in now; I've felt the same self-hatred they feel now; I've wanted to 'curse God and die' like some of them do now. Instead of coming across like that, I think I came across as puritanical, with my whole having-dated-only-one-guy and not-kissing-until-I'm-engaged extreme physical boundary thing. That wasn't the focus of my talk--so hopefully they were able to latch onto other points--but I'm just not sure I made some things clear enough. It just didn't seem to be the appropriate venue to bare my soul, so to speak, especially with high school girls who, while they may be more 'experienced' than I am, they are still not the best audience for me to reveal all the skeletons who've ever been in my closet. So maybe I held back too much; maybe I shared too much. Maybe I revealed more good things about myself than honest bad things. Either way, I just pray that the Lord will open opportunities for me to continue ministering to these girls. I love them so much, and I want them to be able to see themselves as beautiful and worthy, awesome creations of God. Mostly, I want to help them avoid so many of the pitfalls I fell into in high school and college. I want to help them renew their minds and find their beauty and identity in God, not in guys or lies that the world feeds them. So that's that. And then I found five dollars. Or how about this new one Ashley and I came up with tonight: And that's when I decided to join the convent... love (dot) | | |
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