1. Caribou Coffee is located right across the street from my new job. I have a new job that puts money into my bank account again. I have been deprived of living near Caribou for an extended time for a few years now. I now go to Caribou almost daily and suddenly have an empty bank account again. It’s a weird phenomenon I wish I knew how to fix.
The good news is that my Caribou problem is motivating me to actually create a budget… to find out how many times I can afford going to Caribou each week. Yes, that’s the only reason I’m doing something responsible, not even joking.
On a more serious note,
2. I don’t know how to accurately describe how much I thrived AND hurt in Prague. For those who don’t know, I spent 9 weeks this fall student teaching in an international school in Prague, Czech Republic. I’ve had a hard time talking about my travels because I don’t know how to put all the deep life lessons I learned into words for casual conversation.
I loved decorating my own room in the attic with a gorgeous view of the city, but I hated eating dinner alone every night. I so enjoyed exploring the city on my own and getting to spend all day in art galleries, but I couldn’t help feeling like a goldfish inside a glass bowl of loneliness watching other tourists enjoy the same places with their friends. I found instant friends full of Jesus and laughter in some places, and had to make mountains full of effort to even carry on a conversation in other places.
When I say Prague was amazing, I mean that it hurt so much that I had to rely on God completely to keep from being a constant mess of tears. God never left me alone even for a second, and he blessed me with a new confidence that could only come from heaven.
3. I dislike how my community involvement in my hometown has looked in the past, so I’m trying to do everything differently. It’s exhausting, and I’m not very good at it yet. I found a beautiful picture of community on my college campus where I first learned how to allow others to invest in me and then learned how to invest in others. Then, I went to Prague and found another beautiful community where I learned how celebrating the family of God can lead to fast friends that warm your soul.
Allow me to share a fact about myself that I am not proud of. I have failed miserably at building meaningful relationships in Minnesota because I have never truly opened up and shared myself. There are so many reasons as to why. Yes, sometimes I shrink away from talking to someone because they have hurt me. Sometimes I am intimidated. Most of the time I am just afraid of being uncomfortable, and I want my home-life in the land of 11,842 lakes to be comfortable.
I have been so incredibly selfish and fearful, but I’m done letting those feelings guide my actions. Rebuilding requires a lot of conversation, time, and energy that cause my poor introverted heart to be so tired at the end of the day. Yet, it’s all so very worth it.
4. I am embarrassed to let myself rest even when almost everything in my life is changing. In the course of a week I finished student teaching, flew back to America, graduated, moved home, interviewed for a new job and started working, started fundraising for the World Race, and did I mention all of this was happening during the holiday season?
I would sit down to write a blog post or my support letter, and then three hours later I’d still be sitting. Nothing was getting done and I started to worry. Worry turned into panic. Panic turned into fear. Fear turned into doubt.
Sure, I knew I needed to rest. But, rest didn’t quite feel like the right term. During a daily cry session with Jesus, he placed a word in my head: mourn. Mourn? Really, Jesus? Mourning seems so dramatic for my situation, but what the hay. So, I took a week off from looking at my to-do list, and I mourned the end of all the adventures that my college years held for me. I gained nothing profound from the week. I didn’t really even do anything specific. Just telling myself that I am mourning the end of a season of life has been healing in the most simple way.
Ooof, it feels so good to have all that off my chest. Now to go send you all some letters!
