Despite the three alarms I set for myself and the fact that I was actually outside my bed on three different occasions, I did not make it awake and alive until nearly 11. Shoot. All those big plans of research and productivity went as dim as the pathetic attempt at daylight outside.
However, by noon, I was washed up and out the door with a chunk of banana bread in my hand and a Translink journey router on my phone.
DRUMROLL PLEASE
I had to take a bus and a connector and go to a different side of town and I DID NOT GET LOST. I did make friends with two bus drivers and a handful of strangers, though.
My destination was in East Belfast, across the river. I've talked about the danger of East Belfast before, but perhaps I should explain better what I mean. They aren't as much dangerous as they are paranoid. East Belfast is mainly Catholic Nationalist populace.
They're angry and bullied. Like the kid who was made fun of and beat up so much as a kid that he eventually goes crazy in a school shooting or ends up as the exec of a major business and wrecks eternal psychological damage on others forever in retribution for his own past.
They were made into who they are. It's actually pretty beautiful, their anger, in a way. The murals, their sheer passion, the fact that what they're fighting for (brutally) is a united Ireland; it's admirable.
I wasn't there for anthropology, though, I was there to help in the Vineyard church office stuffing newcomer packets.
The book I need, Stepping Stones, is only in the special collections room. I had the brilliant realization that I don't actually need to buy my school books. I get them all from the library. Then, if I really like it or need it for research, I buy it online off the American Amazon, and have it shipped to my home in Oklahoma. That way I won't have 40 pounds of books when I travel back.
Merry Christmas from Queen's!
She's got this wee blonde pixie cut, bright white teeth (a real anomaly here), and a sparkly little personality and person. Her whole self just glitters. You want to be around her.
So she asked me out to coffee. We had a very nice talk. Not so surfacey that I wanted to claw my eyes out with small talk fever and not so depthy that I felt as though I was prostituting my personal stories for the sake of conversation. A winner of a coffee date, I'd say.
Lynne also gave me this!
Holiday ice trays! The snarky packaging could not have been more dead on. I really have been craving ice. I think I've had it all of once since moving here. They just don't do ice. Her husband got them random free from his company, and she thought I'd find it funny. Didn't expect me to be so exuberant. Like the year my grandma ree gave me a sham wow for Christmas. Man, aside from the forever lazy she gave me last year, that sham wow was the best gift. Practical but whimsical.
Last but not least, I made an important life change today.
Those, ladies and gentlemen, are burn-on bracelets.
Not just any burn-on bracelets.
Bracelets I've been wearing for 8 years.
My wrist is actually slightly bent in from how long I've worn them. The time-worn tan line that's left behind is actually a little embarrassing now that I've cut them and stopped wearing a watch.
The purple one is my Staff bracelet from New Life Ranch, and the blue and green one is from my first year at NLR as a Nehemiah. Nehi was the year I met Kira (my best friend from day one) and, in many ways, the year that I really took ownership of my walk with Jesus.
NLR's motto verse is 2 Corinthians 5:17: "Behold! I am a new creation! The old has gone; the new has come!"
I wore them for so long (except for the exceptionally dramatic time when they were forcibly cut from my wrists at a swim meet and I openly wept. and later burned them back on) not just because I loved my memories of camp and meeting Kira, but they were a daily reminder of the moment my life really started to change, that I was the start of a new creation. I didn't think I'd ever take them off.
Not quite sure why today was the day, but it finally seemed like the right time. I am thankful that God used camp and Kira to shift my life toward him, but I am no longer that girl anymore. I no longer identify with who I was then, but she's been stuck to me for so long. She was absolutely wretched in so many ways and she's who the devil forces me to remember, claim, and be burdened with when I struggle, that I'll never succeed or be forgiven or whatever it is because I am ____, _____, and ____ and always will be. That is not the truth.
I started the change as a Nehi, but I needed the daily reminder because I didn't get better for a very long time. I'll always be journeying, but that person I was in high school especially and the strands of her that survived through college was a miserable and mean creature. She needed to be cut off. Literally.
So now I lay her down to sleep and free myself from her.
I am not who I was. By the grace of God, I am what I am, and, by the grace of God, I am not finished yet either.
I wake to sleep and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment