freindships

My relationships are going through a very strange time. There have been several times in the past few months when I've wanted to entirely give up on friendship in general with most people. I guess I've been frustrated. For a very long time. And I'm tired of trying and trying to be friends with people and feeling like I'm banging my poor little heart against a smiling stone wall.

I have been angry lately and have quit caring little by little over the past four or five months. Totally frustrated with trying. Strangely, my relationships seem to be getting better. It's kinda bizarre. I get frustrated and decide to stop caring and quit trying to be friends and as a result, a lot of my relationships improve. I've also made a few new friends this winter. I wouldn't have guessed it.

I think one of the reasons why things are going better is that, for the most part, I've stopped groveling for friendship. In the recent past I wanted so desperately to be popular. However, popularity is a trap. It's something you have to stay on top of and hold onto. It also isolates people.

I personally have never been popular, but my sister Jacque was known and liked by tons of people at the Honor Academy. She said having so many friends spread her too thin and she ended up having a lot of shallow relationships. (Aside from her accountability group.) That seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Popularity makes it easy to hide behind many shallow relationships. I guess this is why popular people are so lonely. Popularity is a trap in a lot of ways. Maybe I'm just angry, but lately something in me wants to be unpopular and do things because I want to and not give a care if it makes me uncool or rubs people wrong.

I think what I'm going through is okay. Yea, I'm angry and generally this is not the emotion of choice for good little Christian girls, but I think I'm learning important things about confidence, relationships, and popularity and such.

It's been a strange ride lately....

experement

Marie and I did an experement today. It was inspired by Jacquie's day as a Muslim girl in Nebraska. My sister did not get a very good response from the general populace of her small town. You can read about her day here.

Marie and I went shopping in Denver and decided to try it. We're both olive skinned with dark brown eyes and hair. Perfect. We knew going into it that in Denver we'd probably would not get much of a response at all. This turned out to be true, aside from the fun and novelty of going out dressed as Muslim girls, (and getting to see what it feels like to go around veiled) nothing really happened. Everyone acted normal.

The only weird look we got was when we were in Borders and bought postmodern christian books. I suppose that is a bit unusual. We also attracted the attention of a Turkish guy who thought we were Turkish girls. (Oops.) And got into an interesting discussion with an Israeli girl who had moved to America to escape the violence in the Middle East.

Anyway, it's good to see that not everyone in America is weird about race; we've still got a ways to go, but there's hope for us.

new friend

I just got back from eating crepes (made by real francophone's, I got to speak French) in Breckenridge with a girl who's half Italian, half polish, and her parents were converts to Hinduism. So her name is Menache, like the Hindu goddess. She's very interesting.

The funny thing is, despite our different religious backgrounds we have a lot in common. Her parents, being converts to Hinduism were very Hindu. It's the same as when Christians convert at an older age, everything becomes all about the new religion and getting out of the world. I've noticed second-generation Christians tend to put more focus on being just as genuinely spiritual but try to find a less religious way to go about it all. Anyway, as a result of her parents' conversion Mena was homeschooled, like I was mostly until 10Th grade.

I had a great time eating crepes with her. We talked about the strangeness of homeschooling, not really fitting in to our homeschooling groups, being allowed to travel the world without our parents at a young age, finding our way in college, religion, being sheltered, cultural sensitivity, learning languages, and the movie Mean Girls that we understand since it is about, you guessed it, a homeschooler who has to survive a public high school.

Sadly Mena is in Physician's Assistant school and is only here on rotation for a few weeks. Luckily we were born into the age of the Internet. ;)

beads & new shoes

I finally got a much needed new pair of new running shoes. I think I used my old ones about twice as long as you're supposed to and they were falling apart inside. This makes for very uncomfortable running. Tonight was my first run in awhile.

Then Marie and I spent the evening with the house to ourselves making earrings and talking. Our friendship has had a rough couple of years. A few months ago though things were getting better, we decided to just kinda back off from eachother. Somehow that time took the pressure off and now we're closer than we ever were in the past.

Seems like we hang out all the time and never get tired of eachother. We're both in one of those slightly confusing times when you grow and change a lot. The great thing is that God's teaching us simmilar things lately which is cool because we can talk any time and usually we're completly on the same page. It's lovely that God's letting us grow together like this. I wonder if our friendship is a little bit of what community is supposed to be like.

new side of grace

I think I've learned a lot about grace these last few months. A few months ago I said I was frustrated with it. Possibly part of my frustration was because I saw grace as the means to become perfect. If a person is not clearly on the path to becoming perfect than that is a sign grace is not operating in their life.

While I still believe that grace helps us grow, I'm seeing a new side of it. Grace is also the strength to live with your weaknesses without being stresses over perfection. It's what keeps you from discouragement when you don't seem to be growing. (Hey, who feels like their growing all the time?) It's knowing God loves you and accepts you where you are. It's the ability to be merciful towards yourself when you fail.

I really feel like I'm just beginning to come to grips with this. It's okay to struggle, I don't have to be super-christian, have all the answers, or be on everyone's good side. I'm allowed to have bad days - even be depressed and I don't have to get all bent out of shape over it. God won't stop loving me, but in order for me to realize that I have to be gracious towards myself just like He is. This has been finally hitting home this last few weeks and it's like I can breathe. I'm hoping this lesson sticks.

till we have faces

I finished reading Till We Have Faces today. For the fourth time. It’s that good. It was C.S. Lewis’ favorite of all the books he wrote. I completely agree. (Agreeing with people as smart as him is a sign of smartness I think.) Like a lot of his fiction, this is a book that gives something new with every read.

I tend to read this book when I’m getting bitter and depressed. Yea, that’s been the story for about a month or more now. However, I don’t think it’s all bad. I’ve been very introspective and God has been teaching me a lot. As for the bitterness, well sometimes you have to admit (let yourself be real) that you are upset before you can do anything about it. But that’s another post entirely.

Back to the subject at hand. I read this book because the main character, Oral is very hurt and bitter. With the exception of her sharp temper, the two of us are a lot alike. We both respond to hurts by building walls around our hearts and making resolutions not to let anyone in, but pretend to be okay. She is also ugly and unwanted. Though I am physically pretty I tend to feel the same as her on the inside. Unlikable and unwanted. However, Oral becomes a very good queen and is loved by her people. She pretends to love back but is so consumed with feeling unloved that she can never really allow herself to be loved. Then at the end of her life she discovered that all the things that had made her bitter had been exactly what she would’ve asked for if she had been able to see things from the perspective of the gods with whom she was angry.

I felt like I understood the end of the book this time, and it made me cry for the first time, sob really. She spent so much of her life desperate for love yet completely unable to give or receive it. In her desperation to be loved she describes herself as a huge spider devouring everyone around her. I feel the same desperation in me, though I am too timid to assert myself like her when I feel rejected. I’ve also been seeing lately how the hard stuff that happened in my life a few years ago has been good. I’ve learned things and been freed in ways through it that would’ve taken years and years to do otherwise. Maybe some of the change never would’ve happened at all. Another commonality with Oral, except I get to learn it a lot younger.