Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Twitter and I are on a break. Facebook, too. We're all on a break. Indefinitely. I've been through a few break-ups in my life (from boys, from friends, from habits, etc.) and something I've learned about most break-ups is that it is only after you have distanced yourself from whatever it is that you realize the bad things about them. At least for me, anyway.

I'm a rationalizer. If I'm in any type of relationship, I tend to rationalize away most bad things the person or object does. "It's okay that he doesn't call, he's really busy." "It's not actually taking over my life, I just really like it." "I'm not different when I'm around them, people just change sometimes." Now, at least in my case, most of my rationalizations tend to be based in some form of truth. But they become twisted truth. And there's where the problem starts.

So as Twitter and I are on a break, I've come to realize a few things about it that I tended to rationalize away while we were in our infatuation stage.

1. I have a false sense of community when I use Twitter.

As I'm reading every hour what my closest friends and furthest acquaintances are doing, I become so "involved" in their lives that I forget to ask them about it later. I can't count how many recent conversations have started out with "Hey! Did I tell you about when ______ happened to me today?" "Oh yeah. I saw that on Twitter." I have become so involved in this 140 character obsession, that I have started to digress in my relationships with people.

2. I am more tempted to complain when I use Twitter.

As I was going throughout my day, I thought of maybe 40 different Twitter updates. I was very close to sending at least 10 of them when I would remember the break-up. But what I realized today, is that every single update I thought of was a complaint. Every. Single. One. Whether it was about my schedule or my classes or my teachers or even my friends, every one was a complaint. My word!

"Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation."

Oh how quickly that is all forgotten the second I log into the world of little blue birds.

3. I take my anxiety to Twitter rather than to my Lord.

Self-explanatory. And also irrational if you think about it. Why in the world would I take my deepest worries, mask them to try and get a laugh, and broadcast them to the entire world when I could take them before my Father and have His inexplicable peace??

So, needless to say, Twitter and I have a few problems to work out before I could even think about being in a relationship again. Or maybe I should say, the Lord has many things to fix in me. Many things.

I think Twitter and I might be officially over.

This morning as I was getting ready to teach a classroom of 4th graders how to tell the difference between woodwinds and strings, I started thinking about encouraging people. And being God to people. And putting God first.

My first thought was, "How in the world am I going to do that on top of everything else?"

I could go on for days with everything I have to do this week. As I'm sure most of you know, I'm a little bit of an over-committer. Or maybe a lot of an over-committer. And of course this week is Homecoming and of course I'm in committees for both my club and the school in general. Of course, of course, of course.

But as I thought more on the subject, why would I have to "put God first" on top of everything else? That makes absolutely no sense. When God is asking me to make my life a living sacrifice, He's not asking me to do it after I've done everything else on my plate. He's asking me to do it first. To put Him first, to put His plan first, to put everything He wants for me first. Not last. Not as a last resort. And that's what I do pretty much all of the time.

This should change. It needs to change. But where do I even start?

More Lyrics

"You're my badlands
my grand canyon
my empty stream
you're my reservation
my second place consolation"

Again, same song from Lori Chaffer. Now, I need to admit that I don't know for sure what these lyrics mean to the author, but I do want to say what they mean to me.
But let me begin with a story. (You can probably actually find the original incident on my blog in July.) This summer my family went to South Dakota and part of our trip was visiting the Badlands. I have never really been afraid of heights. Yes, sometimes I have not enjoyed them (especially on video games? How weird!), but I've never been scared of them. Well when we went to the Badlands, I had an almost full-blown panic attack as I watched my cousin climb out on the "peaks" of the Badlands. And suddenly I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to fall off those enormously (or semi-enormously) high peaks. I just wanted to be in the car. Safe. And no where near the drop-off. So, needless to say, I did not enjoy my Badlands experience.
When I listened to this song for the first time, this is the line that made me actually listen to the song. The Badlands made me panic like I've never panicked before. I think that sometimes that's what God is to me. The things He asks me to do and the way He works in me make me panic beyond belief.

But the catch is that He always is there while I'm panicking. He sticks around when I think I'm going to fall off the cliff and when I do fall off the cliff, He catches me right before I hit the bottom.

So again I leave you with these lines: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Lyrics

"You will always hurt, you will always sting
Because you won't let go of everything
Until you're quiet one dark night
And you give up the fight you've fought so long
And find that trust is not a game
That naive, stupid people play in youth
And you let it rain, you let it flood
You let it wash out all the pain
Of love"

This is my song on repeat of the month. Or semester. It's by Lori Chaffer (from Waterdeep) and it speaks so loudly to me right now. I think for a few days I'll just do the different lyrics that mean the most to me. Tonight it's these lines.
And these lines: "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Be Still

I could quote Psalm 46:10 from the time I was... oh 10 or so. "Be still and know that I am God." But actually being still is so different from talking about being still.

For my voice lessons, I've been studying this technique where a large part of it is being still, like completely still, and pin-pointing the places in your body where the most tension is. It's been so helpful to my lessons, but also really helpful to my spiritual life. The book on this technique talks about how hard being still is. Just a short (well, semi-short) quote for you. "Why is it that so many people dread the idea of staying still? Why do we fidget and wiggle about all the time? ... A primary motivation for all this fidgeting is that we are attempting to get away from ourselves, away from some feeling of discomfort or agitation."
This is so true for me. Physically and spiritually. Recently, I've found that the Lord has become like a good friend I haven't talked to in awhile: I still consider Him a wonderful friend, but I don't know much about what He wants in my life and our times together have become a little awkward and forced.
I think part of the remedy for this is just being still. Just like Moses told the Israelites to stand still while the Lord fought for them. It's so hard for me. I love to be going, going, going all the time. But many times I need to just be still and let the Lord do His work.

Re-Vamp

Hello everyone!

This post is to announce the re-vamping of my blog! Very soon it will have a new name and header (once I talk to Laura). I'm in a class this semester called Old Testament Prophets that has really changed my life. I serve an amazing God that loves me enough to change me in ways I couldn't even have imagined. So, I don't really want to call this blog a devotional blog, but mainly just a place where I can allow God to speak through me. A place where I can wrestle with my Creator over the things that I just don't understand. A place where I can tell people how amazing my Lord really is, although I won't ever come close to describing that. Feel free to comment or not. Read along, discuss, laugh, cry, whatever happens.

And now the thought for the day:

Recently in my OT Prophets class we were talking about Jeremiah 29. Now, I know everyone knows Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you..." But really there's a whole other story going on in this chapter. Jeremiah is writing to the exiles in Babylon. These people have been cast from their homes and forced to live somewhere else because they refused to listen to God. My teacher said exile was defined as "when we are where we don't want to be" or "spending time with people we don't like in a place we don't like." Basically, though, chapter 29 is Jeremiah telling the exiles to "Be content." One quote in particular that our (substitute) teacher said that day was, "We spend so much of our time clawing to get to something better. Be content where you are." Man. I feel like the Lord is just telling me this over and over this year. "Be content, Karissa. Be content when you think you're going to drown in homework. Be content when you get frustrated with your club. Be content when you wish so badly that you could be graduated or married or any number of things." I honestly don't think God wants me to be wishing away my life. He has me where I am for a reason and wants me to be in the moment. My parents always tell me that whatever time of life you're in is the best time of your life. Very true. And Biblical. I don't need to be complacent, but I should be content. When I am in my own personal exile (where I don't want to be or with people I don't like in a place I don't like), I pray God allows me to be content and stop clawing just to get to something better.

Have a Marvelous Monday!

Random Picture Weekend

So I don't lead an exciting life during the summer when everyone's gone. So I might have played Settler's 2 nights this week. So I probably know more about all of my friends due to my hours of unproductive time on Facebook. So all of this leads me to have NOTHING to post about. (I know you're probably all thinking "No joke, you told us when you got a library card for heaven's sakes!) (Also, heaven's sakes?? What does that even mean??)

So I have now dubbed this weekend: RANDOM PICTURE WEEKEND! Mostly to end my boredom. Each day I'll post a picture I feel you need to see. Feel free to join in. Or not. Either way.

Ok. Here it is:

These are my wonderful roommates and myself. Maybe it was because we hadn't seen each other all summer. Maybe we were tired from moving in. I really don't know why we decided to dress up as 2 rappers and a... provocative girl and make a music video to 'Apple Bottom Jeans', but we did. And let me tell you, that music video is A-MAZING! But we swore that we would never show any males or really anyone. It's a little bit embarrassing.