After our zoom class, I would say almost a lightning bolt struck but not exactly. But after Dr. Zamora’s talk (which was super helpful) it gave me some more insight of the type of direction I should aim towards. Immediately after class I got to writing. I decided first that I want to draft up a couple of different essays on the exploration of womanhood and what it means to me. But also including things I have gone through being a woman. I know all woman have a story (trigger warning ahead), here are some of the essays I want to touch base upon and write before I center around my thesis;

1. The first time I was touched/ groped
2. The man who plotted to rape me
3. The man who stalked me
4. The man who called me a slut
5. The time my mother said it was my fault based on my outfit

Those are a couple essays I want to draft up first as I share my experiences in intimate stories. Then I will most likely need another brainstorming session with Dr. Zamora. But for now I do have a good start of where I want to get this thesis going. I am looking forward to the workshop next Tuesday as I can get guided a bit more and know where exactly where to start my research.

For the meantime, here is a sample essay I wrote to kick off the creative process and get in a zone:

The First Man To Disappoint Me 

If any man in my past thought they did damage to me, they have not. My father was the first man to disappoint me. 

I remember being a kid, sitting on the floor of the living room next to my mom who was sitting on the couch. I can remember her praying out loud “please don’t let him come home drunk. Please God protect him on his way home.” I silently put my head down as I pray in my head alongside my mother. Silently in my head I asked God, “Please God, don’t let him come home drunk today, please don’t let them fight today.” When I was a kid God didn’t seem to be too real because I thought when you pray he was supposed to make your prayers come true. But prayers are not wishes. 

My parents fought badly when I was growing up. From microwaves being thrown out the window, to my dad leaving to look for a new place only to come back at night. I took on a role for my mother. To be her support system, and when she couldn’t be a mother, I tried my best to be one. 

Growing up all I ever heard was “wow, you’re so mature for your age” or “you have such an old soul.” But these kinds of comments are normal for women, it’s almost an expectation to be more mature compared to boys. But the thing is, I wasn’t a woman. I was only a child. The “compliments” are not really compliments at the end of the day when all you want to do is be a kid. Not one that is dragged between every fight your parents have or every mental breakdown your mother has where all she can talk about is committing suicide. Trying to take on every role but the only real role I had was just to be a kid. But I failed at that one. 

I say my father was the first man to disappoint me because it was hard to find that thin line. All I could see was the damage he was causing my mom, I resented him for it. While I never showed it and outsiders thought I was a daddy’s girl, I had a few moments where I strongly hated him and wished he never existed.

After our zoom class, I would say almost a lightning bolt struck but not exactly. But after Dr. Zamora’s talk (which was super helpful) it gave me some more insight of the type of direction I should aim towards. Immediately after class I got to writing. I decided first that I want to draft up a couple of different essays on the exploration of womanhood and what it means to me. But also including things I have gone through being a woman. I know all woman have a story (trigger warning ahead), here are some of the essays I want to touch base upon and write before I center around my thesis;

1. The first time I was touched/ groped
2. The man who plotted to rape me
3. The man who stalked me
4. The man who called me a slut
5. The time my mother said it was my fault based on my outfit

Those are a couple essays I want to draft up first as I share my experiences in intimate stories. Then I will most likely need another brainstorming session with Dr. Zamora. But for now I do have a good start of where I want to get this thesis going. I am looking forward to the workshop next Tuesday as I can get guided a bit more and know where exactly where to start my research.

As last semester ended and we began picking our classes for next semester I was pretty intimidated that I was already at the point to take the oh so feared Thesis class to start my own thesis journey. All summer in stayed in the back of my mind and it was quite odd because typically I can’t even remember the names of classes until the semester starts, but I knew this was going and I wanted to be overly prepared.

Instead of being overly prepared I feel as though I have over thought myself into a place where all of my ideas seem less important for this particular assignment. I can also see how getting other to care about my topic, or see it in a new way plays a major in this process as well. Sometimes we need to show people what is important so they can take interest.

I have been slightly able to narrow down my vast ideas into short phrases that I feel best satisfy what I am looking to bring forth out of my thesis. I want it to be useful beyond my Masters classroom, so I am able to look back and reflect this for years to come with endeavors and business I have planned for the future. I want to bring out something that others may not have thought when looking from a business or learning perspective. I want to create a proposal of some sort ( have a few topics in mind that pertain to areas I am looking to grow in society). Being open to truly exploring and gaining new knowledge from the topic I choose.

My areas of focus that I am looking to presume would either be education, school business outline/ plan, social media aspects, podcasting, or even combining both education and social media which are two very sensitive topics when talked about together.

I plan to make this moment in time meaningful so it is something I can look at for years to come and use it in same way or aspect of my life at that point. With the amount of time we will spend developing this thesis is it important to leave a lasting impression and be able to truly make the most of this final piece.

I am very anxious, yet excited. I know the hardest part of this whole process for me will actually be narrowing down my topic and starting to research and making sure that that topic is something that I can stand behind after this moment in time.

I recently began reading President Jimmy Carter’s Faith: A Journey for All. Though I’m not very far into it yet (I’ve only finished the introduction and the first chapter), there’s been a great deal of one thought going through my mind as a response to how he presents these snapshots of his life. Why can’t anything be that simple today?

The thought comes despite Carter being among the first presidents to have the pressures of preventing nuclear war rest on his shoulders. So maybe it wasn’t so simple after all.

What I mean by simple though is this rare-yet-normal ability to just be present. Carter says of his upbringing:

It was a simple, family-centered, deeply religious, working existence, with interracial labor and play on the farm with my black neighbors. All the framework was done by humans or mules, and we grew corn as the common fuel for both.

…

I knew the Great Depression years to be a time of hope, when the economic situation in America was so bad that everyone believed it could only improve; when things became plentiful, we tended to want not only what we already had but also what everyone else had.

Faith: A journey for all, Jimmy Carter (p.13 & 16)

It’s an existence where we don’t constantly long for more and instead choose to find the blessing in what we presently have– to invest what we have now in the things that matter now, not just what will matter some number of years from now.

I admit that I’m quite guilty of not living this way. I wish it were as easy as it sounds to take the one talent and invest it not because I think the One I’m keeping it for might give me something, but simply because I want to do well by Him. Searching for a full time job has made this especially hard as of recently because bills do need to get paid somehow. I worry that I might not be able to in a few months time with my several part-times and the meager checks I’m able to earn of them. I worry that I may not be liked enough at one that I would be the first one to cut if they need to cut someone. I struggle to find joy in doing the work the Lord has presently called me to at another. I worry that I will not find another to replace the one that was only meant for a season anyway. I’m planning things out and excited for another, but it still does not begin for another few months. I’m up to my eyeballs in anxiety over these things; of course, while acknowledging these issues remains imperative moving forward, when these are the center of my attention I have no reason to wonder why the Lord has taken my peace. He has not taken His perfect peace or His presence from me, it’s I robbing myself of these things and throwing them away. How could I blame Him for my own wandering gaze? How could I blame Him for my own lack of faith?

And it’s because of this revelation about myself as of late that I begin to think of the log in my eye. I feel as though, over the process of the past few weeks of writing these blogs, I haven’t truly given full disclosure that these were not mere revelations to me– they were revelations about me. And maybe I have mentioned it, but I feel as if I didn’t quite make it clear enough that even as the author of these commentaries on the Lord’s revelation of wisdom to me, I do not stand on some moral or spiritual high-ground. Even as the author of these short excerpts of my somewhat scattered brain, I am not the Author. I would never claim to be.

I don’t think I could ever handle that much pressure. Full disclosure, I often feel as though I can barely handle the pressure of authoring my own work (or rather, the work He has trusted me to author well, going along with Madeline L’Engle’s reflections on art). Knowing how angry, hurt, and full of angst my work used to be… how little care, practice, or thought there was to it… the lack of intentional sitting and legitimately dealing with the darkest, most regrettable parts of my life… I look back at those pieces and pity them for the emotional upchuck they are.

And that’s why I often sit and simply be by being active in my being. I rest by meditatively working. I don’t sit idle. I don’t ride bikes, but the image came into my mind: is one able to easily balance on a bike that is not moving without engaging some sort of muscle? Whether that means peddling the bike and getting it moving, putting one’s feet on the ground, or having some insanely good core strength and balance, the bike and its rider only stay up when muscles are engaged. Only then do we somehow get to the top of the hill, then able to coast down for a bit before the next one.

A few weeks ago, (maybe about when I started posting here more regularly again), I’d started reading through Zechariah. I admit, I have not been as consistent with it as I’d like, but the Lord has still used that to highlight the right things about this book for me at the right times. Among those was the verse now in my Instagram bio:

For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for beast, neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in, for I set every man against his neighbor. But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the Lord of hosts. For there shall be a sowing of peace. The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their dew. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things. As you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, I house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.

Zechariah 8:10-13, ESV

See, I don’t think that last part would have hit me quite as hard had I not looked into the historical contexts in which Zechariah lived and wrote this book from. In the days of the prophet Zechariah, Jerusalem was still in ruins. He speaks literally to the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, but also through this book looks forward to the New Jerusalem. Zechariah was encouraging the people of Judah as they’d been freed from Babylonian captivity about fifteen years prior, and were losing hope and motivation to rebuild Jerusalem, let alone the temple that was destroyed.

Fifteen years they were waiting, trying what they thought they could, and still seeming to lose traction around every corner. No wonder they needed some encouragement– a kick in the pants, if you will.

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They were waiting for a specific calling that they forgot to work with what they already had. They were looking back to the “glory days” of the temple so much, that they forgot they could presently have a hand in the glory days to come. I’ve been stuck there– am somewhat stuck there– and it’s been difficult to get back to the simplicity of the “simple, family-centered, deeply religious, working existence” that was much easier to enjoy as a kid before things started to get hard for me– whether that be how addictions tore rifts in the family, mean kids at school, or just feeling shoved off to the side most of my life.

But that being “shoved off,” I’ve learned, is an indispensable source of wisdom when you use it as an opportunity to observe. Being able to observe so deeply and often be undisturbed in doing so regardless of how crowded the space has played a heavy role in both the extortion and encouragement I’ve tried to apply to my life and pour out to others. Where there used to be nothing but social anxiety (which is still often present, might I add; it doesn’t typically just disappear), there is now an appreciation for the fear– that it reminds me I’m being given an opportunity to get to know people before getting to know people, to notice things going sideways before they actually do and (when the situation is safe enough and warrants it) being able to sometimes help keep things from going awry.

The rifts that certain addictions have caused in my family have ultimately brought me closer to my parents, and provided me with a deeper gratitude and understanding that even as it seemed my younger self was pushed to the side for the sake of my brother, I get it now that they would do it all over again for me too if I ever made the same mistakes. I get it now that they do that for me, and they always have, even through all the mistakes I have made. They continue to love him now, even when it seems impossible to do so from the outside looking in. And I know the same is true for me because, Lord knows I’ve not been the perfect daughter either.

The bullies when I was younger eventually taught me the importance of guarding your heart (think Proverbs 4:23). It was a long and personally grueling process; various mental health struggles arose, and I didn’t trust other people enough for a while to even go to a therapist, let alone God. I still don’t go to therapy, and I still struggle to swallow my pride at times and go to God, but I do. I go to God and only then am I ever able to get through my issues, regardless of whether or not they are solved. Do I still have the occasional panic attack? Yes. Do I still sometimes have flashbacks? Also yes. Is anxiety still an overwhelming weight sometimes? Yes, yes, and yes. But God.

It’s because I used to worry so much about ‘what if someone sees me cry‘ or ‘what if someone thinks I belong in a mental hospital should certain triggers arise,’ that I was unable to be present. That’s often why people have panic attacks in the first place anyway– an unclear or non-existent grounding in present reality. And it’s because I now have a foundation in a reality greater than the reality this world could ever offer me that I can face triggers and anxiety and still be present in the moment, knowing that I am safe in and loved by our Heavenly Father, who is there for those who earnestly cry out in their trouble and protects those He loves. And all this remains true regardless of circumstance or triggers or the highs and lows of emotion.

And it’s in the simplicity of this truth that I am able to continue my work– to let my hands be strong– and not fear, even when I am afraid. It’s because of this that I do not have to fear getting my hands dirty (as they often do, I love caring for flowers and painting and just about any artistic feat that I can afford).

And this reminds me of another part of President Carter’s book, in which he recalls a dinner he had with a pastor not long after he announced his running for state senate. I sent this to a friend who similarly has been running for public office, as I figured it might be a good reminder to go back to, so I figured I should put it here. Regardless of our professions, I think we all need this witty reminder that Carter quickly gave this pastor when he asked:

“How can you, as a Christian, a deacon, and a Sunday school teacher, become involved in the dirty business of politics?” Without thinking, I gave him a smart aleck response: “I will have 75,000 people in my senate district. How would you like to have a congregation that big?”

Faith: A journey for all, Jimmy Carter (p. )

I found this to be reminiscent of Peter’s vision in Acts 10. Do not call common what [God has] called clean.

It’s because I used to worry so much about ‘what if someone sees me cry‘ or ‘what if someone thinks I belong in a mental hospital should certain triggers arise,’ that I was unable to be present. That’s often why people have panic attacks in the first place anyway– an unclear or non-existent grounding in present reality. And it’s because I now have a foundation in a reality greater than the reality this world could ever offer me that I can face triggers and anxiety and still be present in the moment, knowing that I am safe in and loved by our Heavenly Father, who is there for those who earnestly cry out in their trouble and protects those He loves. And all this remains true regardless of circumstance or triggers or the highs and lows of emotion.

And it’s in the simplicity of this truth that I am able to continue my work– to let my hands be strong– and not fear, even when I am afraid. It’s because of this that I do not have to fear getting my hands dirty (as they often do, I love caring for flowers and painting and just about any artistic feat that I can afford).

And this reminds me of another part of President Carter’s book, in which he recalls a dinner he had with a pastor not long after he announced his running for state senate. I sent this to a friend who similarly has been running for public office, as I figured it might be a good reminder to go back to, so I figured I should put it here. Regardless of our professions, I think we all need this witty reminder that Carter quickly gave this pastor when he asked:

“How can you, as a Christian, a deacon, and a Sunday school teacher, become involved in the dirty business of politics?” Without thinking, I gave him a smart aleck response: “I will have 75,000 people in my senate district. How would you like to have a congregation that big?”

Faith: A journey for all, Jimmy Carter (p. )

I found this to be reminiscent of Peter’s vision in Acts 10. Do not call common what [God has] called clean.

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I wrote some about this in my first post after going to Bermuda earlier this year. Whether that means you look at your mistakes entirely with regret, guilt, and shame, or if it means you refuse to go into a career or an environment that “isn’t Christian enough” for you, do not doubt that God can and will use it all for the good of all to His glory. Getting to Bermuda was an amazing experience, as cruise ships tend to be for most who don’t have their trips ruined by seasickness, but for me it was just a lot. There was a lot going on, few quiet spots to escape to, and the constant lurking temptation of alcohol everywhere. But still, I had my parents there to hold me accountable, there were a few people I got to briefly meet and be a light to, some of the shows– however “non-Christian” they may be considered– inspired parts of my faith that needed a little reviving. On top of that, I didn’t expect a beautiful vacation destination to be so rich with church history or densely packed with churches of nearly all denominations.

So, circumstance. I feel compelled at this point to wrap up what I’m saying with a bit more of my English-nerd fascination with etymology (and by that, I mean I Googled the etymology of the word “circumstance” because I seem to be circumventing idea a lot here).

• circum– : word-forming element meaning “around, round about, all around, on all sides,” from Latin adverb and preposition circum “around, round about,” literally “in a circle”
• -sta : Proto-Indo-European root meaning “to stand, set down, make or be firm,” with derivatives meaning “place or thing that is standing.”
• root definitions quoted from www.etymonline.com

I guess what I want to ask, given this information, is two things:

1. Regardless of your circumstance, where are you standing? What do you firmly believe will never change? Is that what you stand on? Why or why not?
2. Are you aware of all your circumstances? Yes, circumstances in this physical realm, but are you also aware of the deeper eternal reality that this physical word is temporarily coexisting with? Which of these circumstances hold greater weight in your life? Which of these sets of circumstances drive more of your decisions, take up more brain capacity, and/or spend more of your energy each day? Why?

It is clear, I’m in a creative funk (well maybe just an overall funk). This whole summer prior to the beginning of the semester all I could think about was this damn thesis. It was something I even told my mom about countless times because I wasn’t sure if she was getting how big of a deal it was to me and how anxious I was about it. I think she somewhat gets it now. Point is, I don’t even know where to start. So what I do when I am unsure about anything, I went straight to google. I googled “MA Thesis Ideas for English Majors.” I didn’t do this with intention to take ideas but in hopes to get inspired. This is what I found;

• Religion and Politics throughout the Ages of Literature
• Gender role Differences
• How Accurate Is History in Historical Novels
• The Function of Animals in Children’s Literature
• What Are the Origins of a Chosen Novel
• Twentieth Century and Middle Ages Morality Play
• Modernism vs. Realism: the Differences
• First World War Poetry Analysis
• The Most Important Piece of Work Written by William Shakespeare
• What Are Female Masculinities in Old English Literature
• Was Literature Influenced During the Renaissance Era?
• How Quantum Physics Is Applied in Literature
• Nineteenth-Century Poetic Imagination with Astronomy

Not quite helpful, but one did stick out to me; gender role differences. From there my mind started to go down a loophole of ideas, well maybe just one idea. For my thesis I want it to center around the idea of womanhood/ femininity. Yes, I am aware there are tons of research on it, but I want to center somewhere around that idea and along the idea of “buying our womanhood back.” The idea is still a work in progress and it might be changed but I like the idea of writing about women and what it means to be a woman from what we wear, to what we do, to even who we date. But like I said, I would have to further look more into this because I know countless things have been done about this already. But I would like to center my thesis around the idea of women.

So far this is what I got. I am going to continue to brainstorm and see just what exactly excites me and moves me. In the meantime I am going to work on pushing through this funk and read more and take care of myself more to be able to generate more ideas.

Hello All !

Super excited to be starting my 2nd to last semester of this Master’s Program. Also very anxious as usual during the fall semester. So many new things to talk in and unlike the spring semester where we have a few weeks off to recharge and jump back in, the fall semester we come in from having months off and doing other things in our lives. Keeping ourselves busy, and now we add on some new things with this start.

Although I do have some anxious feelings I am also very relaxed at the start of the semester because it is a feeling of being refreshed and bringing a new energy into new surrounding, or some already familiar knowing my classmates and some professors as well. This gives us a new way or perspective to come into this semester and make the absolute most out of it.

I have personally been thinking of this Master Thesis since the start of Grad school, as I have heard the stories of many who have graduated before me, and how it totally consumed them, but I just noticed the positive of how they all made it happen. Now that I am thrown into the mix I am feeling a bit pressured, but nothing more than I can handle.

The fall brings forth such a crisp refreshing air that trickles into my life slowly but surely, and my whole presence becomes calmed in a way daily. This is the perfect time for e to be starting such a big moment in my this part of my life as well, almost makes it a significant point to be aware of.

I am going into this thesis process with an open mind and an open spirit to truly allow my creative and logical juices to flow and produce an awesome thesis. I also want my thesis to be something I use for the next few years of my life if possible, or something that can help in the long term. The research and time I plan to put into this thesis and knowing what is expected makes me want to be able to use this as a stepping stone for something coming in my future.

I’m not a huge stickler about English etymology, but it does fascinate me. Understanding the value of our words is much more surface-level than I think we often realize without knowing the roots of the words we say, even regardless of intention sometimes.

Among these roots, I would say the most interesting etymology of a word that I’ve seen is actually quite a simple word that we probably all know. In today’s English vernacular, though I admit I’ve not heard it as often as I used to (for potential reasons I will soon elaborate on), we tend to use this word in response to a retelling of something tragic that happened. We (more often) use this word to describe pungent smells and sensations. The word?

“Awful” is a fairly simple word. We associate it with tragedy, obscenity, and unpleasantness; but hardly had I ever considered the third definition above before learning the etymology of the word during my time in college. Given the two roots of the word taken individually, that definition makes so much more sense.

However, I do believe that the world has largely forgotten that healthy fear exists. Fear can sometimes be one of the greatest educators. Fear does not always send us into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, nor should it. That, I believe, is why this “archaic” definition of the word awful is specified as something that elicits reverential fear. It’s the kind of fear that reminds us to pray, to worship, to trust and not to worry about our circumstances because there is a greater power presiding over said circumstances than we could ever fully grasp. That greater power being the Christian three-in-one God– Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So here’s the list of things that were going through my mind at this point:

• How did the definition of awful do a full 180?
• Why is awe somehow considered bad?
• Do we consider God, who is perfectly good, to be awful by the root definition, or by the culturally adapted modern definition?

My mind froze at that last question. I know I’ve been convicted of a thought like that before. I know that for whenever I should start drifting or for any of you that may need that conviction, that question just needed to be written down.

There’s this imagery that Jeremiah uses that I believe to be so applicable to this question:

Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
    and makes flesh his strength,
    whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
    and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
    in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
    whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
    that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
    for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
    for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Jeremiah 17:5-8 (ESV)

See, we use words today in such a way that doesn’t care for the roots. Sometimes that means pruning our vocabulary from cussing and other vulgar language. Sometimes that means fertilizing it by reading books that challenge and stretch our vocabulary (see this post for more on that). Sometimes that means watering it– by experiencing the rainfall, the river’s currents, or the ocean’s vast and wavy expanse in all its beauty, tumultuousness, justice, and mercy all at once.

As great as it may seem to experience any and all of these things when reading it off of some rando’s Jesus blog, it is not easy by any means. It’s not a graceful, effortless process by any means because we do not presently live in a world that makes following God easy. In fact, Jesus echoes the promise of trouble in doing right by His name in John 16:33 from Genesis 3:16-19. But there’s another verse that I use a lot as a swim coach:

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Hebrews 12:11 (ESV)

Pruning back a dahlia stem with a single flower and three buds is hard– you think waiting for the other three buds to bloom is more worth your while. But dahlias love to be pruned back pretty far. Cut back the dahlia [or really, cut the garbage out of the vocabulary you use and say things more kindly and intentionally] and instead of three more flowers before the plant says its done, you’ll end up with several more shoots with even more flowers and buds.

It seems awful by our modern standards, to cut back such a beautiful stem and the potential for it to flower more, but I’d argue that it’s archaically awful. It scares you for a moment whether or not you’ll get more stems from the one you just cut, but when those new stems grow and flower in a few weeks, there’s a sense of wonder– awe, even– to the beauty and resilience God gave even just this one plant.

There are different types of fertilizer for different types of plants, and I don’t know which type of fertilizer my dad used for the marigolds we grew this year to try and raise money for my church’s annual West Virginia Missions trip, but it worked. We only sold about half of the marigolds we seeded, and they were already much taller than expected and badly root-bound in their plastic flats. We planted what was left in a hurry since we had a cruise to Bermuda coming up, so in some cases we put up to ten in one big hole and hoped for the best. Currently, the average height of the marigolds is nearly 5’2″ (and I’m estimating based on my own height of about 5’4″). My dad claims he didn’t use a ton of fertilizer on these plants, but I guess a little bit goes a very long way.

But also with the marigolds while they were in the flats, there was the issue of water. There wasn’t a whole ton of space for dirt that would hold some moisture for the roots to soak up in those tiny black squares– because the roots took up so much room! A huge reason these flowers thrived more than your typical marigolds from Lowe’s or Home Depot was that the roots were so strong and mature and begging to reach for more water and nutrients when they were planted.

So much like I’ve asked you to consider the roots of this simple word “awful,” I want you to consider your own roots in this same sense. Are you parched for a drink from the Well? Are you desperate to dig your roots deeper into the place where it all comes from– your entire existence? Or are you the shrub? Will you waste your words? Fail to nurture them with the words you take in? Fail to put life-giving words into you and speak life-giving words over yourself and others?

Will you be awful in the modern sense?

Or will you be awful in the sense that God is because He lives, breathes, and shines in and through you?

There’s this thing called sensory adaptation that I think is a really important psychological concept to understand as Christ-followers (if you are one). This phenomenon has a lot to do with one’s threshold to a certain stimuli.

AP Psychology was one of my favorite classes in high school, and for the purposes of faith and pondering how to deepen my faith, one of my favorite lessons [in hindsight] was on the related concept of the threshold effect. What we did to demonstrate this effect is hand someone an empty canvas bag and ask them to hold it out over the four fingers of one hand, palm-up, and with the arm straight out in front. This someone (which I’ll refer to as the subject for the rest of this little opening blurb), would keep his/her arm straight out and close his/her eyes or be blindfolded by someone else. The subject is then asked to note when there is a change in the weight of the bag by speaking up.

The way the subject was set to hold the bag left it open and made it pretty easy to put things in. We started with unsharpened pencils, one by one, very meticulously placing them in the bag as not to disturb it. The subject said nothing almost two boxes of pencils in.

Then we had a rock.

Theoretically, if you placed the rock in slowly and carefully enough, you could get it in the bag without the subject noticing the weight change, but if the subject wears a shirt or blouse with anything fluffed or hanging from it that (upon contact with the subject’s side) would alert him/her to his/her arm having moved, the change in stimuli will register in the brain— both the unrealized movement of the arm, and the added weight to the previously empty bag.

I think prayer is a lot like this for us. The pencils are the things we ask for, meanwhile the rocks and bricks and heavier things are the praise and worship we bring. When you hesitate to put the heavier things in, the results will hesitate to occur or be realized. When you throw all you have into that bag, you’ll see a lot more a lot quicker what God has already blessed you with and how to glorify Him in that blessing.

And this isn’t to say that the metaphorical pencil cannot do the same. For most, throwing a pencil rather than painstakingly placing it into the bag won’t cause one’s arm to be yanked to their side, but the brain will recognize that there is now something in the bag even without seeing what it is. All has its own affect. What the affect is [whether it feels more like a pencil or a stone] is more a matter of the heart behind the prayer and/or the recipient of God’s subsequent action.

But here’s where my mention of sensory adaptation comes in: a consistent stimulus will, to the brain, become like white noise if we do not intentionally call attention to it. Likewise, prayer and its impact becomes like white noise after a while when we do it just to rant to God, when we do it just because we should do it every day, or when we fail to intentionally recognize that as much as prayer is for you, it’s also not about you. I mean think about it, God already knows everything… He literally just wants to hear it from you and engage with you. He doesn’t need to know it, but you need to spend time conversing with Him to truly get to know Him. He won’t force you to engage, but He freely gave us easy access into this conversation with Him through prayer.

So when we are selfishly asking for things we want, that’s us trying to mask the weight of the pencil. When you sing your heart out in “worship” because you think you sound good, you’re masking the weight of that stone. When we are “half-in” for Jesus or not “in” at all, we are putting on a facade; we deny ourselves by what the world considers to be “accepting” ourselves.

But to boldly throw all these things into “the bag” (which I hope is kind of clear by now is metaphor for the foot of the cross), we see the impact. There is no doubt of God’s working even in the midst of our doubt when it’s all boldly thrown at the foot of the cross.

I often wonder how many people needed healing in the days of Jesus’s earthly ministry and yet passed up the opportunity to ask Jesus for help because they doubted He could do what so many had seen Him do. How many doubted His intentions in performing all these miracles? How many didn’t honestly say to Him, “I’m not sure You can, but I’m at my end”? How many didn’t admit “I believe, but help my unbelief”?

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There’s something else about prayer though that I haven’t heard said enough. Most people (especially people of different or no faith) tend think of prayer as placing oneself in a different world that may or may not exist to talk to some distant, far-off creature that we just decided one day was our source for everything we have and need in this world. Even Christians too often seem to think prayer is this set time we try to carve out of our reality to talk at God.

If either of these are the case for you, it would be remiss of me not to tell you that you’re getting it all wrong.

In its broadest secular meanings and also in a more specific reference to religious life, the word “faith” is profoundly important to all of us… It is obvious that my having kept faith with the citizens when I was in office and the faith that I have in my Creator and moral values are not the same.

Faith: A journey for all, Jimmy Carter

See, we were created to live in constant communion with God. Go back to Eden before the fall and you’ll find this to be true of Adam and Eve’s lives until they decided to step outside of that relationship. God walked among them in the garden, no matter where in the garden they went. That’s reality— the world we were created to live and abide in— but we were born into a world that does not have this as a result of the fall.

Our “reality” is this sin-ridden world and although God is still omnipresent, He doesn’t quite walk among us in the same way He once did, except for the 33 years of Jesus’s life. Our “reality” is that life ends. Our “reality” is that we need to go to school, have a job, a solid career, and a lot of money to be successful. Our “reality” is that Jesus is some guy the lived about 2000 years ago and for whatever reason flipped the years from B.C. to A.D. (or B.C.E. to C.E. if you use more recent textbooks that attempt to push Christ out of the picture).

One of the great sorrows which came to human beings when Adam and Eve left the Garden was the loss of memory, memory of all that God’s children are meant to be.

Walking on Water: Reflections on faith & art, Madeline L’Engle

But prayer grounds us in the reality that God may not walk among us as He did in Eden right now, but He will in heaven and in the new earth when we hear “well done, good and faithful servant.” Prayer reminds us of the reality that yes this life ends, but with Jesus that’s not the end of the sentence. Prayer grounds us in the reality that we need Jesus above everything else to not only have success in any sense of the word (not just monetary or career success) but have joy in the midst of it. Prayer is a chance for us to reflect on the fact that yes, Jesus physically lived 2000 years ago, but He lives on today having changed the course of history and the eternity of countless souls that He doesn’t need but loves anyway.

Prayer is not an escape from reality, but rather an escape into it. As real as everything we see and feel and experience right now is, it isn’t steadfast or eternally true. It’s nothing to build a house on. Prayer is our active diving into the reality of God— that He is our home and our eternal foundation and our peace and our comfort… nothing else that may beg for those titles in our lives could ever live up to that.

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This all said, what we pray is not indicative of who we are or what believe, no matter how pure and holy it may sound. What matters is the heart.

I admit, I wanted to tie this whole thing together with a pretty little bow, maybe try to make this whole thing come full circle to the whole psychology lesson I just dished out, but I couldn’t. I spent some time in prayer that didn’t include writing and found this clip that I think really sums up the distinction between prayer as a moment cut out of our days and prayer as a lifestyle and a mindset we have that helps us better live by the reality it helps us access.

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A post shared by Colby Schnacky (@colbyschnacky)

Colby had me thinking of the moment I would go back to and say “that’s the moment I was saved.” I confessed in tears among a sea of then-strangers, without a word or a specifically formatted prayer. I’d almost lean towards saying that momentary rush of tears was the beginning of my prayer that hasn’t ended– the beginning of my recognizing and being reminded “the control isn’t mine anyway, so whom else have I to trust but You?” Has that perfectly been the case? Of course not. I am no less human than any of you. I have also had moments or entire seasons where I did not take the time to simply be. Prayer is a conversation, after all, and we are given the wisdom in James 1 of the value in not simply speaking (as Proverbs 18:21 reminds us) but of listening– or as Madeline L’Engle puts it:

When I am constantly running there is no time for being. When there is no time for being there is no time for listening. I will never understand the dying of the green pie-apple tree if I do not slow down and listen to what the Spirit is telling me…

Walking on Water: Reflections on faith & art, Madeline L’Engle

When we are busiest, we tend to find it much harder to truly spend time with God.

I do this thing a lot when I go out with friends late in the day where I check my watch a lot. My reasons aren’t that I don’t want to spend time with them– of course I do– but rather that I don’t want to get home so late that I might wake up my parents once they go to bed. While my reasons aren’t bad, sometimes I start to wonder whether or not I’m really spending time with my friends at that point or not. Even though the issue has become progressively less pressing as of late, on occasion I still scratch my head over it.

Spending time with God should not be us checking a watch every few minutes asking ourselves when is this going to end? Even though in my example above this doesn’t exactly fit, we should be able to simply bask in His presence, hear Him out, and bring Him along for the journey of whatever He directs us to. Prayer is giving God our input, but listening and trusting His action and guidance despite our own confirmation biases. It’s interacting and paying attention because you care enough about the One who cares for you beyond measure.

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So what is reality, really?

It’s God.

It’s His presence.

It’s abiding in Him. That’s the reality we were separated from when sin came into our human condition.

Reality is that that does not have to be the end of the story.

Reality is that the bridge between us right now and eternity with God has been built by the blood of Jesus, and it’s a narrow road.

Reality is that as long as you’re breathing, you are loved more than enough and given abundant grace for all of your mistakes and percieved imperfections because you’re therefore given another moment to realize His mercy and love for you along with all the other parts of who He is.

Reality is that when you live a life saturated in prayer and true conversation with God, when you act according to what He’s said, He transforms you from what either you think you made yourself to be, or what you think others have made you out to be.

Reality is that this conversation with God to the earnestly believing heart, though you cannot see Him, brings more Truth to one’s life than anything we consider “reality” here on earth. Though God can certainly use things in this world to speak to us, the things He uses are not Him, nor will the things He says to us through them ever go against His Word.

So yes, carve out that time just for prayer, but don’t limit your prayers to that. Make prayer all that you do.

I’m very much the type to look forward to the future. It’s not a bad thing to look forward to the next seasons of life or the next step in a business plan… until it is. I often have to check myself and whether I’m living right now or stuck in the future I’ve idealized.

I know I want a man in my life that pursues– if he wants to, he will, after all (something I learned the hard way and still fight myself often not to take on that role myself).

I know I want a family of three or four kids. I’d love to have at least two be my own, Lord willing, and to adopt at least one.

I know I want to be a published author of a full-length memoir or collection one day, and to maybe even have my own business somehow that somehow combines two of my favorite things– growing flowers and making art of all mediums.

I know I want…

The list goes on, but the list is not the point.

The point is that all these things start right now.

This morning (as I’m writing this, at least) I was talking with a couple of friends, and somehow the conversation shifted to how many kids they wanted. One gets to occasionally take care of her nephew, and the other (her cousin) joked about his nervousness about holding and handling such a delicate, small human being. I didn’t think too much of it in the moment, but tonight on my drive home I was thinking about it for some reason. I posed the question to the Lord in my mind, and immediately He reminded me of my biggest fear.

My biggest fear is ironically my biggest dream on this side of eternity: to be a mother. My response? Though I’m certainly not perfect in doing so, I often hold that lower part of my stomach during worship where my womb is. It wasn’t a conscious decision I made, or something I realized I did much of until recently. I think someone asked me why a few weeks ago and I just… didn’t have an answer. I wanted to know that answer. Why do I do this?

It starts now, that’s why.

Abraham and Sarah did not have Issac until they were so old there was no other reason but God that they were able to conceive. Noah did not build the ark in a day. King David did not become a man after God’s own heart in one day. Jesus did not die on the cross the same day He was born.

The same is true of the seasons we long for. Living in the idealized versions of these seasons right now does not get you to the actual season ahead. Listing out the kind of decor I want for my wedding will not get me out there to meet my future husband. It will not exercise the wisdom and discernment of the dating process for me.

What will get me there is the very command from God that has stuck with me in my recent study of Zechariah:

Just as you, Judah and Israel, have been a curse among the nations, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing. Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.”

Zechariah 8:13 (NIV)

There’s also so much wisdom in Proverbs 31, and nowhere in it does it say or suggest that the “Proverbs 31 woman” is merely a daydreamer. In fact, one of the few things this proverb tells us this woman does not do is “eat the bread of idleness” (31:27). The proverb does not say when this active lifestyle starts, but simply states she is active by the repeated simple sentence structures of “She [insert present tense verb] …”

And I think some part of me has know this since the moment I recalled in this short personal essay. I knew that regardless of whether or not there was a little human growing in me (though I doubt there was, the possibility still haunts me), God’s promise was and is as good as done. Who He says I am is who I am, even if I’m not presently being that. Just like Jesus is coming back to claim His bride– that is Truth, and there is no changing the fact that He will come back no matter what else happens.

And by no means am I saying that any desire placed in you is of God. Of course the heart is deceitful above all things, but we should also remember that God does plant desires in our hearts (or allow them) for a reason. So with every desire or goal or aspiration I have now, I’m learning to ask first and foremost, “How will this bring glory to Him?“

Rather, what I’m getting at is that desire my be fulfilled in ways you wouldn’t have previously imagined. There are men out there who long to be fathers, but are not biologically fathers. Those that have regardless decided to prepare themselves for the possibility of one day being so often become some of the greatest father figures in youth groups and children’s ministries. There are women out there who are barren, and yet have devoted themselves to maintaining motherly disciplines and have thus prepared themselves for an arguably greater love of taking other children in as her own through adoption or fostering.

So if what you want is to be a parent one day, start now.

If what you want is to get married one day, be that person’s suppose now, even if you don’t know who your spouse might be yet.

If you want to start that business, do the research– start now– even if that means finding a full-time night shift at Walmart to save up the money to start it.

I don’t say this as someone who’s applied all of this perfectly to my life. Quite the contrary, actually. I write this as someone who is wholly convicted, who is probably just as scared to handle a small child on my own as my friend I mentioned. I write this as someone who is praying for some accountability on these things as I navigate how to apply this to my life– navigate how do I be that wife, that mother, that writer, that business owner now without tangibly being those things just yet. I write this as someone praying this reaches the right eyes in need of such a message as I needed tonight, because Lord knows I am far from the only one.

So again I ask myself, and I invite you to ask yourself too:

How can you start glorifying God in your dreams, goals, passions, and desires today?