Honey From The Rock

My bank account dwindles and my bucket list grows. I am graduated without a job. To do 1. Ride a roller coaster 2. Drive a train 3. Go to a music festival 4. Open a breakfast place 5. Publish an essay 6. Live on an island 7. Own a kayak 8. Drive a car from the East coast to the West and stop whenever I want 9. Throw pottery 10. Brew beer

So lately life's been a little uncertain, a little rocky, a little too much self-pity. Well today it's sunny after storming all weekend and we had a party last night with pancakes and candles and friends. It was bittersweet because it was a goodbye party as we're almost all seniors graduating in six days (holy freakin toledo). And today is for thankfulness. I am grateful to my good Lord Jesus for being almost finished with grading essays and student teaching,  for the phsyical-felt sunshine that somehow brings invisible hope, for roommates who laugh a lot, for the good friends who are in this season and also in the next, for forgiveness and the power of the Spirit,  for the faithfulness of my Lord who has not left me an orphan. Amen. My Lord is faithful; praise the Lord.

Life recently has been bits of surreal strung together by moments of clarity with sudden falls into overwhelming panic that then recede into uneasy oblivion. The sunshine helps to blend the surreal with the oblivion and a good enough dose of clarity that I feel okay. The to do list grows and grows and all that my heart really desires is to do art. I want to write. I want to create something. I think my other life, the one that I visualize after college, will need some activity that is complete construction. Pottery or wood working or something gritty that I need my hands and my focus. And I will also need to write. I am realizing how non-negotiable that area is. Writing can't go.

I have the most awesome family. Today Ezekiel Jubal Freel is getting on a plane headed for Europe where he will visit like seven countries and live out of a big orange backpack. Isaac Sean Freel is in Afghanistan as we speak, giving orders and being the world's best boss. Colin Paul Freel is trucking today and thank the good Lord, coming through Chattanooga, TN, for dinner. And Esther Freel is praying, as always, anchoring us and keeping us sane (and going to start a blueberry and raspberry farm this summer). My family is crazy, abnormal, and wonderful.

I'm sure I've probably posted this before, but here it is again. It's good. And when I say good, I mean good as in speaking of hard grace, hard-won forgiveness.

This week has been all work and newness and first days. I hate first days. I don't sleep well the night before and my shoulders stay in knots and I can't relax to save my life. I've gotten better at faking how much I hate first days but I realize its really just cramming this introvert body into the expectations of an extrovert. I like people and I even like meeting them, but it wears me out to do it all day in a new place. And I'm okay with that reality. I wish I was an extrovert, but I'm not. It's like tomatoes. I wish I liked them, could wander out to the garden and pluck a sun-warmed fresh tomato off the vine like every other person in my family, but I can't. I hate tomatoes. I'm on my second cup of coffee and I've taken it slow because I'm doing it solo this morning. Roommates scattered and friends are all on spring break (I'm seriously really jealous.) But along with all this coffee, I've been reading my Bible and examining some s...

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. And today is my first attempt at Lent, ever. I thought about what to do for this season (because I firmly believe that there is a season for everything and knowing what is fitting is close to wisdom). If Lent is about learning discipline, about training towards godliness, seeing grace and dwelling in mercy as our physicality falls shorts, as we see our own humanity, our mortality, then perhaps I must work towards something that I consistently fall very far short in. Prayer. I don't pray well. I think a lot. but prayer? what exactly does that look, sound, feel like? So here's my Lent-ing. My giving up in order to take in. How I will fast and pray. It's simple. I will not eat sweets and I will pray. I will give up sugar and sugary things because I want to remind myself of what I need compared to what I only want. I need food right now but I need real food. Protein and fiber and carbs and vitamins and minerals. I want only what I need. I also n...

Q.  What is your only comfort in life and in death? A.  That I am not my own, but belong— body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Tonight is for Beyonce, and forgetting in dancing. To cha cha in public, to rap the little bits of Jay-z floating in your head. To think of making your middle schoolers proud as you blare Beyonce and Usher and laughing knowing their reactions at the Jbeib's mixed in there. In the words of the growing legend, Kid President, make the world a better place by dancing. And tonight I'm tired of the heavy, the serious, somber. Now is a time for freedom. Part of the industrial revolution and the cultural changes leading up to it was the growing use cotton for clothing. Social freedom grew as people began to wear cotton underwear - they could feel the fresh air over their skin and it was liberating. Today was warm, the smell of mud and warmth. Liberating. That's how Beyonce and Bieber make me feel- like wearing cotton underwear after hundreds of centuries without it. It's time to dance. dance like Beyonce in your underwear.

I am weary of being here. And I know that I am actually saying I am weary of my sin and of my life being hard and getting up early in the morning. But there are moments, and sometimes days, when I crave something different. Slower and fuller. Maybe idealized perfect. But still, not this crazy chaotic immobilizing apathetic strange place. I want pine trees and hardwoods. I want snow. I want a little more time to read and to sleep. I want to bake. I want to write. I want to go for walks in the evenings and the mornings. I want to know when the sunsets are beautiful and I want to hear birds crying and calling and singing. I want to be on a lake and I want to smell the mud. I want to be home. The echoes of home here are good coffee. Laughing roommates. This big blue soft blanket. The window, poorly insulated and letting in drafts of coldcold air, by my bed that lets me see the fog weaving through wet tree trunks. The Old Testament prophets speaking hard condemnation and sweet salva...

Gratefulness leads to thankfulness that burgeons into praise. Father God, Thank you, for cookie dough. for tea. for roommates when we scream out laughter until the tears come. for learning hardhardhard things even though I don't actually want to. for Your love that never fails, never gives up, never runs out on me. You are always enough. To embrace this means not to give up hope, it means to hold on. Amen. My Lord is faithful. Praise the Lord.

The sweetest music for today, believeyoume. Perfect for this gloomy Saturday afternoon in a coffeeshop with navy blue plaster and brick walls.