Getting to Know Nora

In the last month I have been reading a lot about and by Nora Ephron. I was saddened to hear that she passed away on June 17th of this year. I am a huge fan of her movies (When Harry Met Sally, Hanging Up, Sleepless in Seattle, You've Got Mail, and Julie and Julia). Unlike many of today's romantic comedies I believe that she wrote about relateable experiences in real life dialogue. And she created characters who had depth and brains unlike many of the movies today that are far too screwball comedy for you to ever believe that the people in the lead roles should ever be together. But Nora's movies were genius. I especially love When Harry Met Sally and the dialogue about love, life, and ordering on the side that Harry and Sally share.

But since Nora's passing I have been looking up essays that she wrote and have also read some of her items that have been reprinted in her honor. She was so funny and relatable and I find myself laughing out loud as if I am having a really great conversation with a really old friend. She just got it so much. She understood the things that we care about that in the end don't really matter like having seasonal purses or pretending not to want dessert when everyone else declines it at the table. I read several of her essays and then promptly but a hold on several of her books at my local library. I really enjoy reading her essays and I really like the fact that they jump right in to the subject matter at hand as if you and Nora are already in a conversation. There's no formality or tidy ending but just observation and wit and then on to the next thing.

I don't think that I would have been in Nora's circle because politically and socially we were on opposite ends of the totem pole but I would have loved to overhear conversation at her dinner parties or her take on new cuisine in NYC's culinary social scene. Or just what she thought in general about this, that, or the other. I'm sad she's gone because I think she was one of those once in a generation, once in a lifetime kind of personalities. But I'm happy for what she's left behind for us to remember her by.

Staycation

The last two weeks were a welcomed respite of solitude and quiet. My mom left town to go on vacation with my dad and I was left here. I rather wish that my staycation could have been somewhere more exciting like NYC or Savannah. But nonetheless it has been much enjoyed and needed. I am often by myself but only for a few hours at a time. I don't have days on end to be by myself and set my own pace and schedule. I also enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to share my space. Although I am quiet grateful to have a place to live it is quite uncomfortable knowing that I am in someonelse's home and space and not my own. So it was nice, even though it's still not my home, to have some space to myself. I enjoyed it very much and it gave me time to rest and relax and enjoy my time. I worked quite a bit this week which I enjoyed too. I'm having fun at my new job and learning to become part of the team and learning the tools of the trade. So it's been a really good week this week. The weather also has been much better and that has helped too. Last week we had a record breaking heat wave of temperatures in the high 90s and low 100s, needless to say the high seventies and mid eighties are much welcomed.

So tonight is the end of my staycation and although I am somewhat sad to see it go I am glad to get back, somewhat, to the routine of things. I am in pursuit of a full time job and moving forward with my life and there are things that I need to do in order to accomplish both of those things. So there will be things to come in the next two months that hopefully will help me to get to the point of achieving both of those goals.

Hopefully my next -cation will be a vacation and I will get a chance to go off on my own sometime to a place that I enjoy. I'm really looking forward to that!

Feeling Down Over Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey is my new favorite thing to watch. I know I missed the initial craze over the show but I am now fully on board. It all started one Friday evening when my mother and I rented it from our nearest Redbox. I wasn't even sure that we would like it but thought it was a better choice than the movies that were available. Little did I know that we would embark on an all night Downton Marathon in which we watched all but one episode of the first season. We were immediately hooked.

Fast forward a few weeks and I decided that I would buy the second season of Downton and then sell it back once we had exhausted ourselves of it. So last night I went out to sell my Downton for what I hoped would be most or all of my money back. Instead I got $7 for it, hardly worth the selling. What is bothering my today is that I took the $7 and didn't just take back my DVD. It was certainly worth more than that to me and although I desperately need the money because I don't have my sub checks coming in regularly anymore, Downton was certainly worth keeping. But I think what is bothering me more is that I just accepted the deal rather than either fighting for more or just taking my goods back. I should have had more value in myself and my product than to settle for such a low amount. Of course I would like to still have Downton because I like watching the show but I was also hopeful that I would have a few extra dollars to work with as well since I have some needs that I can't meet right now and still can't meet because of the amount I got for the DVDs.

I think that this is just one of those life lessons that unless you're really comfortable with the decision you're about to make or the options that someone gives you it's best to hold off. I wasn't being pressured by the sales person to commit to what they were giving me and I definitely had to take a pause to think about whether I wanted to settle for the amount they quoted. The choices in my mind at the time were either the money or the store credit. I completely overlooked the fact that I had the choice of not selling. I didn't give voice to what I could or in hindsight should have done. I quieted my own chance to choose for myself and not allow myself to have an offer worth taking. I think that's what's bothering me today more than the $7 bucks I got for a two-week-old-never-been-used-by-anyone-but-me DVD set.

So what did I learn from this little exercise in decision making: weigh the options carefully and don't always take the obvious options because there just might be one more you haven't considered that would make you happier.

Remembering Michael

Three years ago about this time I got a text message from a friend of mine. I had just gotten home from a long day of serving coffee and standing on my feet. In the text she sent she said that prayers were going out to the family of Michael Jackson. I thought that it was a hoax and that surely it couldn't be true. I flipped over to the news from what I was watching and they weren't talking about it. So I flipped back to what I was watching and then I decided to check the last few minutes of the news and there it was as big as day that Michael Jackson was indeed dead. I couldn't believe it. I immediately called my best friend, my mom, my dad and my grandma. It was just completely shocking to me that he was gone.

It's hard to believe that that was three years ago today. The loss is still really profound because Michael was such an integral part of music for four decades. His Thriller album is the best selling album of all time with an estimated 65-100 million copies sold world wide. Amazing! And don't even get me started about the dancing. Michael was able to somehow enmesh music in his movements. As Berry Gordy said at his funeral, "He was quite simply the greatest entertainer of all time." Michael had immense gifts and talents and was here for only a short time before his disappearance. But we still have the music and the memories he left behind.

I feel really sad when I hear some Michael Jackson songs because I feel like he was always searching for something that he never quite found. I think he was always wanting to outdo or top himself but he never realized that he had already made it. He had already inked his name in the annals of history as one of the greats, a legend in his own time. I also feel like Michael quite simply needed Jesus. He needed to know that in spite of a bad childhood and rumours and speculations that there was someone who cared for him just for him and not the money or the fame. I really wish he had found that while he was here because I think it would have made a profound difference in his life.

I woke up today and I saw the date June 25 and I couldn't quite remember why this date was significant but I felt for some reason that is was. At first I thought it might be a family member's birthday. But then I saw a small link on the MSN homepage that was talking about it and I remembered why this date was significant.

Michael Jackson will always be special for so many reasons but I think above all else he cared about people and connecting with them. I think he had a really great insight into the human condition and great empathy for people around the world in need. Listen to songs like Earth Song, Will You Be There or Man in the Mirror and it's easy to see that he was a person who loved people.

God's Love

I really liked Dory in the movie Finding Nemo and I am finding this cartoon fish's advice to be very useful at this time in my life. I just have to keep swimming. My last post was about the valley of humiliation and the desert of anonymity and obscurity. I am still there at least presently, and I am hopefully moving out of them gradually or perhaps even quickly. I have been struggling the last week because I have been feeling out of place since school is over. I used to have all the free time in the world and wished for something to do. Then I found something to do and had very little free time but I felt purposeful. Now I am back to having very little to do and I don't like it. But it has made me question things on a much grander scale. What am I supposed to be doing with my life? I like working as a substitute especially for the preschool program but that is not what I want to do with my life. I don't feel called to do that. And I keep wondering what the vision for my life is. Was the vision DC but I had to go away to become who I really was before I could return? Or is the vision something totally different that is unimaginable to me at this moment? I have no idea and I don't like that. I would like to be able to have a plan. But it seems like anytime I make a plan it falls through. Does that mean that I am not supposed to be planning anything? Does it mean that I am just supposed to do the things where the doors are open for me right now and then wait for the rest of it to fall into place? It's very confusing, frustrating, and troubling. Yesterday Pastor Gool was preaching about why we need the Word. And he was talking about how we use the Word to build our faith. He was saying that a lot of us are not seeing our faith work because it [our faith] isn't rooted in God's love for us. We think that if we're good and we do things that are good that God will reward us for being good and our good deeds. But Pastor Gool was emphasizing that God's goodness toward us is not based on anything that we can do on our own but based on everything that Jesus has already done for us through the cross. We are righteous in Jesus which gives us the ability to come before God's throne boldly and ask for what we need. Another revelation that Pastor Gool taught was that God loves us just as much, no more no less, as Jesus. That's a little overwhelming to think about, feel and know. But I believe it's true. Last month I was reading My Utmost for His Highest and Oswald Chambers said, "Never let cares or circumstances separate you from the fact that God loves you." I have been trying to embrace this fact ever since then. But it is very hard to feel loved when it seems like everything is going wrong. My whole life crashed down around me and it seems like it is taking forever to get back up. Every full time position I've applied for in the last five years I've been rejected from. I had only a temporary contract job in both 2010 and 2011. And then this year I worked for a few months as a substitute teacher but it's not permanent and sometimes there aren't jobs available everyday. Not to mention the fact that I have been living with my parents for the last two and a half years. It is very hard to feel that God loves me in the midst of all of that. I have also been struggling with comparisons as well. Sometimes I look at the lives of friends or people I know who don't have a relationship with God and others who even have chosen not to have a relationship with God and they are successful, they have homes, jobs, families, and financial security. I don't begrudge them any of it but I am perplexed why people who fail to acknowledge God and have lived however they have wanted are doing so much better than I am. Not that I feel like I am better than them but I feel like if God is on my side why am I faring so poorly. No job, no family, no home, and struggling for everything. That is the big question : Why? I just don't understand and it does make me feel at times unloved, rejected, forgotten, and like I'm being punished. It sometimes feels like if I could only know what I did that was wrong I could make it right. But I don't know that that is realistic or true. Yesterday at church Mrs. Gool was singing a word from the Lord about this very thing. She was saying that God sees your tears, knows your needs, but isn't worried about how to get you where you're going. He understands that you have a lot of questions because you don't understand what's going on. And if I remember correctly she was saying that your breakthrough was coming or the thing that you needed was coming. I remember thinking I hope that word is for me. I've been in a lot of services and heard words about changes and breakthroughs and hoped that they were for me but then there were not noticeable changes that I could see or went through and I just assumed those words weren't for me. And thinking back they could have been for me but maybe they just haven't occurred as quickly as I thought that they would have. But I feel pressured. I'm 30 and I need a full time job and my own home. Just several weeks ago I wasn't even sure I would have a job for the summer and then I did have one and I was really thankful for it but now I am feeling pressured because my first two weeks on the job I haven't been working enough. I really long to get to a point where I have control over my own life. At least as far as decisions and day to day planning goes. I feel tossed around and controlled by what other people do and I have felt that way for the last two and half years. I really want a job that's my own that I really love, my own home that I can feel comfortable in because it's mine, and I really want to know where I belong. I am still struggling with the fact that I feel so disconnected here and it's not really my ideal place to live. That would be New York. I really want a lot of things to change, very very badly and I know that at this point that it has to be a God thing to get those changes because in and of myself those changes won't happen. I know that God loves me and I know He has a good plan for my life, I just wish I could know when that good plan was to go into effect. But I guess the most important thing is just knowing God's love for me and knowing that He doesn't want me struggling and in need forever and always. And that this is just a season of my life, it won't last always, but believe me it has lasted long enough. I am tired of being in constant need and tired of not getting the call back or the positive answer. I want to win. Yesterday I went to a museum here and saw two really great exhibitions. And I was just more than sure of the fact that museum work is what I want to do. I love museums, I love culture and people, and I want to have a job that allows for me to educate, inform and entertain all at the same time and to me that is what exhibitions can do. I feel like that is my calling but I am just not sure how to get there because all the ways that I have tried have not worked. So I am just going to have to rely on the Lord to open doors and make a way for me to get to that point of being able to do the work that I would like to do.

A Valley of Humiliation and a Desert of Anonymity and Obscurity

Last night I was journaling and came across an Oswald Chambers devotion in My Utmost for His Highest (July 6) in which Chambers talks about how we often get a glimpse of the vision that God has for our lives and then we are taken down into the valley of humiliation to be shaped and molded into who we are supposed to be in order to get to the vision. Then this morning I was reading Christine Caine's blog and she was talking about the same thing but she referred to it as a desert of anonymity and obscurity. When I was journaling last night I was thinking about two things that had happened that had made me feel like I was in a valley of humiliation and a desert of anonymity and obscurity. The first thing was attending my younger first cousin's graduation this past weekend. He is 17 and going to college in the fall and I am excited for him to accomplish this chapter of his life and begin the next chapter of his life. But I couldn't help but think of when I graduated from college 12 years ago and all the things that I hoped and dreamed at the time. When I graduated I wanted to major in history and I wanted to work for the State Department and travel the world. Then I got to college and found out that what I really wanted to do was work in a museum. When I was a high school student and getting ready for starting my life I never saw or imagined the twists and turns that my life might take and I never imagined any detours. Looking back now high school and that time right after are almost magical because there is so much to be optimistic about you haven't, most students anyway, realized that life sometimes can be extremely unpredictable. The second thing that happened is that someone I used to be very good friends with but then fell out of contact with recently contacted me. I really never imagined that this person would contact me again, I felt and thought that the friendship was completely over. But they contacted me to my surprise. We haven't really spoken to one another, except for birthday wishes on Facebook, in two years and so much has changed for them for the better and so much has not changed for me. They asked me how I was doing and I was hesitant to respond and have actually not responded back as of right now because I am not sure how to answer. Part of me feels that because this person and I are not as close of friends as we used to be that I need to be as little forthcoming with details as possible because I would not like to feel like I could unload or divulge the things that have happened over the past two years to someone who really was just asking to be polite and didn't really care about all that has been going on in my life. Then something else occurred to me too which should have probably been obvious at the very beginning. The primary reason I don't want to tell this person about how I am doing is because I am ashamed of how I am doing. This person has accomplished some social milestones that I have not and they are doing very well. But I have not progressed near as much as I would have liked to in the time that we have been apart and there I am humiliated and ashamed of where I am. Last night I was okay with these feelings but today has been very difficult for me dealing with all of those emotions. And I am not in anyway charging this person with bringing up these feelings that I have. Those feelings have been there all along they are just below the surface and not generally paraded around for the world to see. But I was feeling this way this past weekend as well when I was with my family. I was at the graduation of one cousin, then another cousin just moved and got a great new job, another cousin has gotten married and had a child and another cousin is working and raising there child as well. With all that amongst my first cousins it can feel a little intimidating not having anything to bring to the table. I don't have a full time job right now, I live with my mother and I am 30, I am not dating, married or have any children. Socially that is a little depressing when I look at other people's lives and then compare my own. I know that everyone travels at there own pace and some people get to certain points in their lives before others but I guess I always thought of myself as one of the people that would be lumped in with the crowd instead of lagging behind trying to catch up. I get what Oswald and Christine are saying, I really do. And most of the time I try not to think about what all these other people are accomplishing that I have not accomplished. Just last week I was trying to think of the things that I had done that some of these other people had not done but in comparison it just didn't feel like much. But that's where I am, in the valley, on the Potter's wheel, and it has been a long time spinning. I constantly am wondering if I am there yet or will I even get there because it seems like this season has been so long. It feels unending because I can't see what's next. I also was thinking about in light of what Oswald Chambers wrote and then what Christine wrote have I even seen a glimpse of what God has for my future? I remember in 2011 Prophet Phil Cappucio came to LOJ, my church in Jersey. He said that you needed to have a vision for your life of where God is leading you and what He is calling you to do. In Oswald and Christine's writings they too were saying that God gives us a glimpse of the vision and then sometimes takes us away from it and then molds us into who we need to be in order to be able accomplish that vision. At one time I would have said that the vision for my life was to work in a museum and live in DC. That was what I believed the Lord had called me to do. And sometimes I have wondered if I would ever be able to go back to DC. I've wondered if living in DC for the short time that I was there was a taste of what could be. And I have also wondered if DC was just my vision/dream and not what God wanted for me to do and that is why it didn't work out. Even when I was living in DC I wondered if God was giving me a little taste of the dream I had because I wouldn't be staying in that vision in the future. Then when I got to New Jersey I thought that that was where I was supposed to be. I thought that eventually I would get a job in New York or in Jersey and move out of my dad's apartment and get my own place but that didn't happen either. And two things are important to note. In DC I never found the right church for me. There was work that I did that I loved but I never clicked with a church there which I have now come to see is very important. In Jersey I LOVED my church but I couldn't find work. I came to a point of realizing that anywhere that I would live in the future would have to have the right combination of both the right church and the right work, so those were two lessons that I learned from those experiences. After Jersey I unintentionally moved to North Carolina. I basically came to help my mom but ended up staying when a job opportunity arose. Then I started with the substitute teaching and even though I liked working with the preschool kids and I like working at the school I was at the majority of the time I don't feel like that is what I absolutely want to do with my life or like I am called to do that work with my life. So I am at a point now where I feel like I just don't know what the vision for my life is. There have been a few details that I have received from the Lord through people who have prayed for me and who I have shared my story with. But I don't feel like I know exactly where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing when I get there. If I could create a vision for my life I would say it would be that I would live in Brooklyn, NY and work at a social history museum in either Brooklyn, Manhattan or Queens. There are several that I can think of and I would want to be at the one that would be the best for me. Also living in Brooklyn would put me in close enough proximity to Jersey so that I could still make it to my church. But that dream seems really far away and near impossible. But how do I know if that dream is something that God has laid on my heart and can happen versus something that I just dreamed up because I like New York and I like museums? I am believing for a revelation of what the vision of my life is and where God is leading me and guiding me. Christine referred to finding your calling or seeing the vision for your life as an adventure. It was funny because I thought to myself, "Doesn't God know me well enough to know that adventure is not my style? I like a plan and I like to stick to not deviate from the plan." But I guess if I had a plan and God just wound me up and sent me on the plan in a straight line then there would be no cause to trust Him or to draw near to Him because I'd just be following along with the plan. I was thinking today that I hope at some point in the near future that I can look back on the last several years and see exactly how all the zig zags and turns that have happened in my life have led me to something better. I believe that if DC was as good as it got in my mind and God removed me from that then there must be something better that He has planned in the future and all the things that have seemed so totally random and out of place in my life will have somehow been a part of God's plan all along to moving me from good to great. I just know that I want for the valley of humiliation and the desert of anonymity and obscurity to be temporary locations for me.

"We always have visions, before a thing is made real." - Oswald Chambers

"Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation." - Oswald Chambers

"God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape." - Oswald Chambers

"With each season of obedience, different aspects of my unique life-print become more defined. I think this is one of the most exciting qualities of our individual call; it's an unfolding adventure. We have the awesome responsibility of recognizing and developing the gifts on our lives because they were given to us by God in order to impact the world around us." - Christine Caine

"Rather than appreciating every part of our life as a God-given season of preparation and molding, it can be so easy to grow impatient and dissatisfied, especially when that particular season feels mundane, difficult, frustrating, or everlasting." - Christine Caine

"We need to learn to love the season we're in while keeping a fresh and expectant attitude about all that lies ahead." - Christine Caine

"To fulfill our purpose, we must realize that it is often in the desert of anonymity and obscurity that God molds and shapes our characters, making us ready on the inside for all He has for us. Unfortunately it's also, during these times of waiting and preparation that we are most vulnerable to growing weary and giving up on having and doing God's 'all.' The enemy tries to convince us that our dreams for extraordinary living are not worth the wait, too difficult, or even impossible to achieve." - Christine Caine

"Don't allow yourself to get lost in the seasons of life, or to devalue today. God is using it to prepare you for your tomorrow!" - Christine Caine

Congratulations on Your Diamond Jubilee 1952-2012



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