A Box of “Junk”

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I noticed my big hat box up in my closet was starting to get full as I absentmindedly peaked inside. Surely I can get rid of some stuff in this box without having to upgrade.

I decided to open it up and rummage through it to see if something was worth keeping or throwing in the trash.

The funny thing is – this box…in a way has become somewhat of a diary.

A rusty old penny lays at the bottom; a piece of a cracker jacks box sits beside it, and a mask that lay on top is broken in pieces – if a stranger found this box they wouldn’t know what to do with it. If anything they would think someone was a pack rat, but the only person that knows what everything means is the person that put them there in the first place…which is me.

There are pieces of confetti thrown throughout because I grabbed handfuls and put them in my pockets at the end of a Big Time Rush concert back when I was a young teen. There is an old Chinese take out menu and sticky notes with ineligible handwriting scribbled on them. An assortment of movie tickets, birthday cards and notes for the sake of because. College acceptance letters and deans list notices of congratulations.

It’s not the things though – it’s what they represent. The people I was with. Or what I was doing at that moment in time.

And the funny thing is not all of the things in this box represent really “good” memories. Some of them make me a little teary eyed when I hold them in my hand. It’s a flash back. A moment that gets remembered. And then vanishes away with some relief.

Although some of the things in here are pretty cool and sentimental. It’s the things that are so ordinary and trivial in this box that are the things I hold onto the most.

Those Russian rubles? Yeah, they need to be exchanged for some actual spendable dollar bills.

That converse sneaker? My first key chain when I got my permit that proudly hung the keys to my parent’s minivan.

Notes from little campers who thought I was somewhat cool.

That name tag from my nursing assistant days.

That photo album? Yeah, I got a disposable camera for Christmas and proceeded to use up all the film in the course of one day. Lots of action packed moments in there featuring my sisters and our hamster Freddie.

This box makes me miss adolescence but it also reminds me of all the growth I have gone through and the love I received and keep receiving.

So when the need for a bigger box arises so be it. I’ll keep putting my odd little momentums inside as the years ago by…maybe I’ll upgrade to a trunk.

I do want to say though, next time you feel like you’re small and unwanted – don’t. Look inside your metaphorical box (or physical or heck start one…I don’t know) and remember all the people that care so much about you and all the blessings and love Christ has given you.

That’s all for now.

Love,

Trudi

I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On

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We don’t fully know nor understand something until we experience it for ourselves.

Not death; not heartbreak; not terminal diseases…not even something extremely anticlimactic like failing a class or hitting way below average on an exam score.

As John Keats once wrote “Nothing ever becomes real ’til it is experienced.”

But as I’m sitting here in the car…watching the clouds sit peacefully in the sky, the words keep coming to me.

“I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

Those words have been echoing in my head since I read them.

I can’t.

But I will.

Because I must.

Even though I may not be terminally ill, as my health seems to be thriving at the moment, this goes with every painful experience we face. To the terminally ill, to the depressed, to the anxiety, to the heartbreaks…we will go on. You will continue live.

As John 1:5 says, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

After reading When Breath Becomes Air, I decided to skim through Ecclesiastes again. Let me tell you, Solomon is one depressing guy.

“I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” – Ecclesiastes 1:14

Wisdom, pleasure, riches, folly, toil, and so forth are all meaningless. Solomon points us to find God-conscious joy (for more clarity I encourage you to read this article here),

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi is a beautiful and simplistic read full of raw truth.

Death is a final outcome of everything we accomplish in life. We don’t think about that though… as Paul Kalanithi said most of us live with a passivity toward it. A a neurosurgeon he actively engaged in it, consoling his patients into acceptance and rationality, but until he became a patient himself, he did not fully understand the pain in which suffering entails. He talks of his stages of grief in reverse, how he started from acceptance and moved to denial. Uncertain of how much time he had left; trying to grasp for the numbers. If he knew how much time, he would do things differently.

But as I sat in the car this afternoon, I thought of myself dying in a car crash that very second. Knowing that there is always a possible outcome of death, terminally ill or not, will I choose to live differently?

Even though Paul knew death was his fate, he refused to act as if he were dying. To choose to live and face the outcome we are all surely are going to face, that is a strength we will not know unless we experience it ourselves. As he said, even if he was dying, until he was dead, he still was living.

As Tim McGraw sings “lets live like we are dying..” why not live like we are living?

Having worked in the medical field myself for four years, I understood a sense of what Paul’s run in with terminal patients felt like. I understood the desensitized feelings. When his young doctor came in to check on him and was checking off the boxes. How many times did I do that when taking care of a patient? Many. Countless. So I could get onto the next one and clock out.

Human sympathy is a strange thing, the more it is pushed, the more apathetic we become, until we feel nothing at all.

Paul’s measure of what makes life worth living is something to learn from. Even though his manuscript went unfinished, his final written words to his daughter are this:

“When you come to one of the many moments in life when you must give an account of yourself, provide a ledger of what you have been, and done, and meant to the world, do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man’s days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my prior years, a joy that does not hunger for more and more, but rests, satisfied. In this time, right now, that is an enormous thing.”

Finding Joy in My Path

“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” – Proverbs 16:9

Today I had my last class ever at the University of Iowa. Next week, I will face finals and then I will graduate with my Bachelors in Political Science.

I’m looking at my cap and gown hanging on the wall as I write this. I’m thinking about seventeen when I graduated high school, and how fast those years went by…from community college, to becoming a certified nursing assistant, changing my major a million times, transferring to the University of Iowa, working on several campaigns, being an intern, traveling the country, and so much more.

It was a roller coaster, but I made it, and the changes to come are sweeping me away.

Away from Iowa. Away from the only place I have called home.

It’s strange how nothing changes and then everything changes all at once. Your heart tugs you different places and makes all these plans, but then God directs your steps, despite if it doesn’t make sense or it’s not what you want.

He is leading me down this path that is scary and excited at the same time and all I can do is trust Him and have patience.

I pray that I find joy in my path though.

Every decision I have made in life has been calculated, weighted, stressed over, reevaluated, back and forth, yes and no.
Don’t do this because it doesn’t make sense. Do this because it looks good. Make these decisions based on what people will think of you. Don’t do what you actually want to do because people will judge you.

Maybe it’s because I am always thinking about what others will think of me and I let let my fears and anxieties rule me, that I forget to trust Jesus…and to find joy in my path.

My path of life. My career path. My relationships.

I worry, over excessively. I make myself miserable to the point I cannot stand myself.

I woke up and I wasn’t seventeen anymore, starting college. I let these years past by stressing about money, trying to make all the right choices, working overtime while going to school full time.

I woke up at 22 realizing that I let it slip through my fingers. The joy I could have had in learning and thriving, but I didn’t. I let my joy slip through my fingers far too often. I stumped my growth to the point that when my senior year came around, I could not care less. I was tired and worn thin.

But now I’m graduating.

I don’t have all the answers in life, nor what the Lord has in store for me as I go on this new path. I just know that if I do not find joy along the way, no matter what path I’m on, I will be disheartened, miserable, and worn by the end.

So I’m trusting God as I walk this new path, that no matter what comes my way, I will face it with a spirit of grace, joy and, most importantly, peace.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” – James 1:2-4

Just A Thought.

This is probably the awkwardest picture of a jar of paint brushes you will ever see. One day, a long time ago, I thought I was going to be an artist. The dream died but I still like to look at my brushes because I think they are more pretty then my paintings. PS: Setting them on a bookshelf was suppose to be artistic. Oh and Nancy Drew for the win.

Some days everything is alright. The sun is shining; the long day’s worth of school is cut short with a sudden cancelation of your night class, and before you know it the semester will be over and you will walk out of class with the birds chirping and 60 degree weather that feels oh so good.
Life is messy most of the time but sometimes it’s okay.
You look forward to the future but sometimes you have to stop focusing on the big things. Like college graduation, finding a job, and going through all the phases of adulthood that plummet towards you as you leave the past self of term papers and tests behind.
Instead sometimes you just need to focus on today and what little bits of joy it will bring you.
When you look too long at the big picture you start worrying and fretting over how incomplete it looks.
We forget sometimes that tomorrow is just another stroke of the brush. You paint flowers in your garden and you make minor details to your clouds of possibilities.
Sometimes the colors are just completely wrong and you have to tear off the page and start again. Sometimes you make a wrong stroke and your forced to repair the mistake, and even once it’s fixed and barely noticeable, you know it’s there and it bothers you to the point that you think you have to start again when you really don’t.
To be honest, life is kind of like painting with your eyes closed sometimes. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out. You just have to trust God to keep your hand steady as you paint.
But trust me…once you open them, it will be a beautiful masterpiece.