A Bit of Musings From Me to You

Hello! Did you miss me? Should I dare ask that question? Partly because I feel like my little corner has been forgotten about because it’s been left vacant for too long. I’ve tried to sit down and write something deep and thoughtful, but honestly? I feel like every thought that I try to spill out onto this blank white sheet of computer space doesn’t sound right. I feel like everything I write is just a bunch of empty, scattered words.

Summer break has come to a sad goodbye because school has finally begun. Funny how three months feels like a long stretch of time but once it’s over with you wonder where summer went and why didn’t you enjoy it more? I spent my last couple weeks of break in Colorado. My entire summer I felt had been centered around going to Summit, a Christian worldview conference in Manitou Springs. When the day finally arrived to go…I honestly didn’t want to. Maybe my nerves were getting to me. I mean, seriously, I’m the type of person who needs motivation just to get out of her PJs in the morning or anything that has socializing involved.

I arrived at Summit and knew absolutely no one. I looked at the heavy schedule they placed in front of us and felt like two weeks was going to be an eternity before I could go back home. Because home is familiar. I know what to do and where to go and who my people are. Mealtime was especially stressful since you had to pick a table to sit at and you didn’t know the people sitting there. My introverted side was getting the best of me, but then I got to know my roommates. Suddenly the people in the cafeteria became my classmates. We were all here for one thing and that was to grow in Christ. I never before have been surrounded by such brilliant minded students, speakers and staff. By graduation, I didn’t want to leave the old hotel in Manitou. Even now, it seems like an entirely different world, a small corner where you can just feel Jesus in every corner and crevice of it’s old structure.

I know it sounds a little cheesy to say this…but I felt like I lost myself over the course of two years. I graduated high school and started college; I went from one major to the next; tried all sorts of different classes; landed new jobs…I forgot who I was in Christ.

It’s such a terrible thing to be lost…but it’s so-so sweet to be found.

It’s not about the majors, the jobs…goodness, it’s not even about yourself. Life is such a generalized series of events. We grow up, we graduate high school, we choose a major, we graduate college, we get a job that we kind of sorta like, have a family, retire…then die.

At least that was the conversation I overheard by two students today while waiting for class to start. “Who cares how long your in college, heck, people go and get there masters and then change their minds. You might as well stay in college as long as you can because then after that you have to start real life, get a job and then die.”

Ah, how wrong is this person behind me? I thought. How pointless. How dumb. Why on earth are we here if we are just meant to die and turn to dust?

The sad fact is, I fell into this lie. It’s a strange thing, we pay all this money to go to college and get a bachelors, then a masters, and keep extending our time in college to avoid “real life”, as if college is a safety net that we cling to before we are forced to fall into reality. I fell into the lie that life is about these series of events where death is the ultimate outcome. I look back on my life and it isn’t so simple, it never was intended to be, nor will it ever be.

Death is the ultimate outcome.

But it’s not our eternity.

My eternity is in Heaven. What I do on this earth should be a reflection of Christ; my entire mindset should be only to glorify Him in all that I do. Sadly though, I get blinded by my own desires and personal gain. I kept choosing majors that I hoped would give me security and stability. Why do I seek comfort from this world when it only greets me with empty words and promises? Here is the finer things in life, where all of your troubles will be solved. But I find that the higher I step on the ladder, it gives me more burdens then the previous steps.

But then I went to Summit. I realized that I don’t want stability and comfort that the world has to offer, but that I want the stability and comfort that can only be found in Christ.

I want truth.

I want Jesus.

I have this unsatisfied curiosity now that I don’t know how, nor do I want, to quench, thanks to Summit.

Someone once told me that there is no point in trying to change the world because people don’t change.

But then, what is the point in anything? What is the point in healing the sick when we are just going to die? What is the point in fixing anything when it’s inevitably going to break again?

What I’m saying is this…

Death is not our eternity (which I stated earlier).

That is why we should care…we should care about the souls inside the bodies. The sick, the poor, the world and all of the souls it contains. We should fight for the lives of the innocent. We should stand up against controversial issues and laws made that go against our Christian morals and beliefs.

As Christians we are called to be the light in the dark, and to lead others to Christ. In the end, it does matter.

Ah, to my fellow student, who will sit behind me in class for this entire semester, who thinks that death is nothing but an end.

Let me tell you, it’s only the beginning.

Maybe, It’s Me.

My mind keeps wondering so many places, that I can’t concentrate.

Sometimes I feel so in control, like everything is in my hands and I know exactly where I can place everything and then suddenly everything just falls to the floor, and I’m forced to pick up the pieces again.

My heart just wants to wonder everywhere…and it feels like it’s caught on something. No matter how hard I yank and pull, I can never be completely free.

And maybe that’s my problem.

I keep thinking about wiping the dirt of this crummy old town off my feet, that I forget that I can’t wipe away who I am deep down.

I can’t wipe away all my insecurities and doubts; I can’t pass the blame onto everyone and everything else.

I can run, but I can’t hide away from myself.

If I’m so dissatisfied with my life, maybe it’s not the scenery or the major or the friends or enemies that I need to change or runaway from…maybe it’s me.

I don’t like the scene I’m living in, but that’s just the now, not forever.

I’ve changed my college major so many times I’ve lost count, and I’ve found that each one holds it’s own set of doubts. I’m not afraid of trying; I’m afraid of the aftermath of failing.

I’ve disassociated myself from certain people but I’ve found that they weren’t the root of my unhappiness. Granted, some of these people are better off not being in my life, but if I can’t forgive, then that is another form of my own unhappiness.

I could blame my unhappiness on lack of relationships and the age old saying that “nobody cares about little old me”.

But I’m the one who makes my bed and has to lie in it each night.

It’s like blaming the sky for bringing rain and soaking me wet, but when it boils down to it, I’m the one who didn’t bring an umbrella.

At the beginning of this year, I said the only person I can change is myself.

This is how I feel about life right now, I’m so busy fighting off the weeds in my garden, that I don’t even notice the flowers in my life.

And that’s sad.

Because the entire point I made about last year is that I spent too much time picking weeds and trying to be more “successful”, that I forgot to have any moments. I didn’t stop and smell the roses is what I’m trying to say.

And I’m tired of the circle I keep going round-n-round in.

It’s like, I’m picking this weed and that weed and I’m going to get through college, and I’m going to move out and I’m going to get an amazing job and explore the world and oh, then I’ll be satisfied and happy with my life.

And that’s not how life should be.

Clearly, satisfaction doesn’t exist. The world has made success so distorted that we don’t even know when to be satisfied or if we should be.

Happiness is like candy, you eat it and then it’s gone.

So I’m just going to enjoy life. I’m going to sing at the top of my lungs to the radio while sitting at stop lights, maybe I’ll roll the windows down. Because who cares what people think.

I’m going to finish college, but I’m going to enjoy it while it’s here.

I’m going to live at home with my parents, and yeah, that sounds so completely uncool, but life is just like that right now. It’s not always going to be this way. So I’m going to enjoy the evenings I spend talking to my parents about my day and hearing about theirs. I’m going to enjoy how loud the house is when Ru is on the a rampage while I’m trying to study, because someday it’s going to be quiet, and I know I’m going to miss it.

It’s not complete satisfaction, because the kind I’m searching for doesn’t exist until I get to Heaven, but it’s a content kind of satisfaction none the less; to have a family that is there when you get home, who heats up the leftovers for you when you’ve worked on Christmas Eve, and who will always have a light on for you no matter how far you’ve gone or how long you stayed away.

~ Tru

Crumbs.

Sometimes I feel like I’m a crumb still sticking to the cake pan, or the leftover soup that couldn’t quite make it into the ladle. I’m always on my own. I’m in the “average and that is all I can be” crowd of people…which is desperately lonely sometimes. I’m nothing special other then the fact that there is only one of me in this big world and yet that means…everyone is special then…so I guess I’m still average.

I realize that maybe everyone feels like they are left out or whatever. But why is that when we are left out we feel sad…but uncomfortable when pulled in?

Why is it that everyone wants to live the word of greatness but only a selected few actually get to do this?

Is it born into circumstances or is it some sort of messed up fate?

Because when I think about my life so far…it’s nothing great. It’s just average. Even my life goals fall into the average because I’m lazy.

I’m just trying to figure this whole thing out…why is it that sometimes life just works out for certain people in the best possible way and then there is us?

We have to work through school and pay off our college debt as we work and work and work. We don’t ever get to go anywhere. We are cemented to the ground…

But it’s not like the cement was always there…somehow it poured on our feet, which were once standing on green grass soaked in possibilities.

I begin to wonder if maybe the reason we are the crumbs still sticking to the cake pane isn’t because our fate made it impossible for us to form onto the lovely cake with all the special people….but because we simply can’t let go and fall off when the cake forms.

If you understand what I’m saying…

Maybe the reason we are held back is because we are ones holding ourselves back.

You want something? Go out and get it. I’m not saying that it’s a meant to be. Only God knows that. If you are meant to live out greatness (which I’m sure all of us are), then you will. I don’t think any life has no purpose. But sometimes greatness can only be seen by small numbers, and oh my, when will we realize that affirmation from others is pointless?

And when will we realize that greatness is not the point?

The point is Love. Loving Jesus and others and doing works that will give God the glory, not ourselves.

I feel like I harp on this subject way too often, and maybe that is because I haven’t been able to get it into my thick skull yet that it doesn’t matter if I aspire to be all that I can be, because what I need to become is a servant.

A servant you say? My goodness, you must think I’m crazy.

You thought we were reaching for greatness?

No, we aren’t reaching for greatness. We are reaching for humbleness, servitude, grace, mercy, and forgiveness.

And yes, I know that this post has become a jumble of words and incomplete thoughts…

But maybe I can save it somehow, huh? Maybe I can get a well rounded thought out of this head of mine.

If we are all so lonely, aren’t we together in our loneliness? If you get what I’m saying. If we all feel the same, then we really aren’t so alone in our feelings.

I’m pretty sure all of us feel like crumbs once in a while…

We are always last. We are always waiting to be pulled in.

But we shouldn’t have to wait to be pulled in, because we are already pulled in close to a loving Savior, who knows all our dreams and hopes for the future. Who forgives us and consistently humbles us when we let the so called worldly greatness and popularity get to our heads, where we take all the glory and keep it to ourselves.

You can look down the road of has beens. The ones with all the awards. The ones with all the magazine covers. The ones that large and loud crowds boast of their greatness.

And then there is you. The precious gem that wakes up day to day and goes to school full time and works, who is known by name by a very small island of people.

Maybe you won’t make a gigantic leap in the world of sparkling photographers who wanted to know what you ate for lunch…

It’s not about being special. It’s not about being born into a certain circumstance where you are automatically “great” or whatever.

It’s about the ones that don’t have much and yet still don’t think of themselves. It’s about the ones that can wake up day to day and crack the cement around their feet and go out and chase the “average” and sometimes reach above it.

We aren’t reaching for greatness.

We are reaching for Jesus and with that we achieve the greatest of all greatness.

~ Tru

Back To School. Again.

Here we go again. The shuffling of papers, the “oh my goodness, do I have a test today?” moments of panic.

The awkward silences with your classmates, where your inner Jim wants to come out and stare at the camera that is documenting your oh so boring life…

The countless hours of teachers lecturing you on things you don’t really care about…

You will go into self denial after every test, saying “if only I had enough time to study.”

Oh please…we all know you were watching Netflix.

At the beginning of finals you will overeat because of anxiety…

and then at the end you will eat for comfort…

Everyday you will wonder why you are doing this to yourself.

Until of course, you get an A on that test and then you get all like…

But then midterms come around…

But you know what? When your sitting in class day dreaming about throwing that one hundred dollar looseleaf textbook against that dry erase board with the teacher’s almost non-legible handwriting …

Just remember to hold it together until after finals.

But don’t forget…

My Anne of Green Gables Obsession

The books on the shelf are worn and thumbed through. I can’t say how many times I’ve read them or how many times I’ve watched the movies. It’s not an obsession, but more like an old friend that I have to see every once in a great while. I don’t even remember enjoying the books half as much as I do now back when I first read them. Something about growing up made me understand them more.

Anne of Green Gables has been a dear old friend.

Don’t you love finding books that grow with you? Instead of leaving them in the past with your childhood.

I don’t know who hasn’t read Anne of Green Gables and not liked it, but I tend to take things to extremes and dwell in them for a time before dropping them and never thinking about them again. To say the least, my obsessions don’t really go away, but rather resurface once in a while. I get all sentimental about them to be honest. Especially this one.

But I won’t cry! I think I’ve gotten sentimental enough on this dear old WordPress. It’s time to lighten the mood a little!

So why should everyone love Anne of Green Gables?

Anne of course! Her odd little ways, her big words, and oh so many quotable quotes. But really, all credit must go to the writer L.M. Montgomery. I find it amazing that one can create an entire world of characters and places and events all in their imagination and put it down onto paper. I have a good imagination, but words…oh my! I have lost count of how many times I decided to become a novelist and write a book and then give up after a couple pages because it no longer made sense anymore…or it does make sense, but not to anyone else.

It’s hard writing a story, especially when you want to get to all the exciting parts. Like when the boy says he loves the girl, or the hero of the story finally becomes the hero. So is life I suppose…you have to get through all the boring parts before you get to the exciting parts because the exciting parts wont be exciting if you don’t to go through some sort of trial in order to get to them.

Hmm…where was I?

Oh yes, Anne with an E.

And then there is Gilbert.

Forget Darcy.

“Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps. . . perhaps. . .love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.” – Anne of Avonlea

So poetic *sigh*

I could quote these books to death…but I won’t. Maybe I’ve made you want to pick them up again and thumb through them like I do on occasion. Maybe you haven’t read them…and I have to say, I envy you. Being able to read a book for the first time is something you can’t do again.

So here is a fanvid that I’m in love with on the two movies that I’ve watched oh so many times (and yes, fanvids are another obsession of mine, but more on that later…or never).

Okay is Okay

I’ve been so busy, that I feel as if my life has become a metronome. Bouncing back and forth in a steady, fast pace. I’m trying to match the rhythm, but I’m not very good at it. It’s boring to be honest and life has been going by too fast. I’m so busy focusing on the rhythm of the metronome that I don’t have time to enjoy the music.

I’m so busy going back and forth I can’t move forward. Time just passes so quick that it’s impossible to step outside the rhythm.

But there are days that step outside the metronome. The high notes interacting with the low ones. The bright sunny days that make you feel as if the world is okay. The days when you accomplish more then you expected. That A on a test that proves to you that you’re smarter then you think. Those moments of unexplainable joy that shout out into the void of monthly payments, minimum wage jobs and piles upon piles of homework, saying “life is more then a constant struggle.” because honestly, it feels that it is sometimes…the constant struggle to be better, think harder, and to be more then you can possibly be.

As sad as I am sometimes, life really isn’t so bad. I didn’t say it was good but its okay. Maybe okay is enough, maybe to be just okay is our whim of hope, maybe it’s our fate. Okay may be all that we are and ever will be. I think it’s alright is we just settle for okay. I know, why not try to settle for wonderful or even plain old good. But let’s be honest, this is a sad world, full of sad people. Being okay is fine. We don’t need to be anything other then that. I think we get so caught up in the act of finding complete and flawless happiness that we don’t realize the tiny bits of it that happen each day. We cry, we laugh, we go through the motions. One day is going to really tick you off and the next day is going to be sunshine and rainbows…and you know what? That’s okay. It’s like I said before, life isn’t perfect but it wasn’t meant to be. God created Adam and Eve and knew they would sin. He knew that He would have to send His ONLY SON to die for us.

Though life at the moment may be a metronome, it’s a grand sweet song. It may not be a number one hit on the Billboard Top 100 but that’s okay. My song is the sighs of a classroom; the clicking of the register at work; the sound of the coffee pot dripping in the morning; my car that makes strange noises, and the silence in the house as I go to sleep. It’s not amazing, nor wonderful…and I know it could be better, but right now it is what it is, and I’m okay with that.

Heartbreak and Triumph: The Olympics

Let’s be honest with ourselves. As we watched Shaun White take his final run on the half-pipe, whether we were rooting for him or not, we all held our breath.

When Shaun White finished his final run and held his hands up, you could see the tears welling up in his eyes, and yes, maybe a few tears came to my own as I watched the TV screen, because expectation takes it’s toll on even the very best and sometimes being the underdog is better. Shaun White, who everyone expected to win or least get silver or bronze, ended his final run in fourth and came away from the Olympics for the first time ever with no gold, and even more shockingly, no medal at all.

Patrick Chan, the Canadian three-time World Champion, who has been dominating Men’s Figure Skating for the last four years leading up to the Sochi Olympics was the favorite to win gold. When Yuzuru Hanyu left the door wide open in his free skate with not one but two falls, everyone watched as Patrick Chan slowly closed the door on himself with a couple stumbles and landed himself in second. Second is good…but sometimes it’s just not good enough.

Shani Davis won two gold medals in the 1000 meter in Speed Skating and was looking to make another gold at his third Olympics. When he took to the ice and couldn’t get up to speed and ended up in 8th place, he blamed his suit…which, maybe would have shaved a second or two off his time, but certainly wouldn’t have gotten him on the podium. Maybe Shaun White and Shani Davis should have quit while they were still wanted. Like a well-loved television series that says goodbye when they know they will be missed.

Because it just wasn’t meant to be. Shani Davis and Shaun White were not meant to become three-time gold medalist. Patrick Chan was not meant to get his gold (still torn up about that one to be honest).

When Kim Yuna took to the ice for her final competitive skate in the Women’s Free Skate, the pressure and weight of South Korea was on her shoulders…though you could barely tell with her flawless performance. After all, she led in the short program, and maybe skated better then she did four years ago when she won gold. She should have won gold in Sochi, but instead placed second after an under the radar Adelina Sotnikova placed herself in first. Kim Yuna announced her retirement right afterwards and like in everything, she gracefully bowed out.

When Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue placed second in Ice Dancing, failing to win back to back gold medals.

dynamic_resize — They are beautiful together. They should just get married for pete’s sake.

It’s heartbreaking and sometimes it’s not fair, but maybe the Olympics aren’t about fairness, maybe it’s more about acceptance and learning the lesson again and again that life just isn’t fair, no matter how hard you work for what you want, no matter how much you want it, sometimes you just don’t get it.

But through all the heartbreak, there is also triumph.

When the US beat Russia in a shootout after the eighth round in Ice Hockey.

When Noelle Pikus-Pace won silver in Women’s Skeleton after having two children and retiring from the sport.

When three fine American men swept the podium in gold, silver, and bronze in Ski Slopstyle.

1392289346000-USP-Olympics-Freestyle-Skiing-Men-s-Ski-Slopestyl-011 — We grow em’ right, don’t we?

When David Wise, a 23 year old husband and father, won his first Olympic gold in freestyle skiing.

Fact: David Wise is a Christian and wants to become a pastor.

When Charlie White and Meryl Davis won the first Olympics gold for the United States in Ice Dancing.

Why do we love the Olympics so much? Because it’s the most dramatic two weeks out of every two years. Sports are the rawest reality we will ever watch on TV to be honest.

The next time the Winter Olympics will be on, I’ll be 22 year old. Who knows where I’ll be in the next four years. Four years ago, I never would have thought I would be where I am today.

Who knows where the next four years will take these athletes, but for some it’s time to say a sad goodbye. Goodbye to the athletes like Kim Yuna and Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue…who gave us performances we will re-watch on Youtube and in ten years tell our kids about, just like our parents do when they talk about the Miracle on Ice, or Sergei Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva.

So goodbye to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. See you in South Korea in four years, where we will watch old record be broken, new faces emerge, and veterans return.

Back to School.

School starts tomorrow. In a way it feels like it’s time to go back. Time to stay up till 2 AM studying for tests. Time to write useless papers that you will probably hide under the stacks of textbooks that will never be opened again, and the notebooks full of scribbles and words that don’t make sense anymore but at one time did.

Long story short, it’s time to go back to stuffing our faces with food and sitting for long periods of time.

Who am I kidding. I do that everyday.

But it will all be just fine.

Because you can’t replace that good old feeling of accomplishment and exhaustion after each semester.

~ Trudi