over the life of this blog, i haven’t been able to decide whether i want to type with proper capitalization or to stick to my comfort zone of all lowercase. there have been times where i wrote a few paragraphs in lowercase, then realized that i’d been writing with proper capitalization in past entries and went back and corrected it all. it’s quite stressful. life is hard.

school has officially begun. the first day back, i thought i was going to die. by 9pm, my whole body was aching as if i had completed an extreme workout. but no, my body was just adjusting to not being in bed 12 hours a day. having only 6 hours of sleep and standing for part of the day really took its toll on my body. life is hard.

i’m going to oil tonight for the first time in six years. i’m actually pretty excited, which i’d usually not be since retreats are not my favorite things in the world, but the primary thought running through my mind is: when will i have time for a nap? how will i make it through these services that are at least thrice as long as what my mind and body have adjusted to over the past years? my friends and i have been e-mailing back and forth about what saturday’s plans are, and i think all my contributions and ideas to our thread have included some discussion of when and where a nap could take place. we haven’t decided on a good location yet. life is hard.

first-world problems, i tell ya. make me feel like ugly-crying. much like my good friend, mr. van der beek.

I know I have made many a commitment to blog over the past years and that these commitments have ended in miserable failure. But o yes. Get ready for it. I’m doing it again. Steadfast blogging 2012, I’M DOING IT. (Or trying and feeling scared.)

I’ve learned a lot over the past semester, more than will fit into one blog entry. To summarize, I basically realized that there is a continuity in character that cannot be ignored. I cannot compartmentalize my life and think the patterns I build up in one area of life will not inevitably alter every other aspect of life. When I turned off my mind and stopped thinking a few years back, this didn’t solely color the part of my life I was trying to forget; it erased my ability to insightfully analyze, to deeply believe and feel, to understand clearly things that had been muddled before. I lost my potential for depth.

The problem with all this is that this ability to think through things and to deeply analyze is the most essential part of me. Losing this meant losing my core, and this loss debilitated all other aspects of my life. It stunted my relationships, my emotions, my work, and, most importantly, my faith. If I cannot access my mind and have difficulty sorting through the complexity of thoughts that float in and out of my mind all day, I cannot engage deeply with anyone or anything.

I used to wonder why this gap between myself and God felt ever-increasing and unable to be closed.  I’ve had brief moments of inspiration and conviction over the years, but they never lasted beyond the song or the service or the weekend. And what I’ve realized is that, until my core begins to work again and my mind is able to be engaged, it never will. Right now, my mind is completely trapped by the devil. There is no Word in me, nothing fights the sinful thoughts that arise in me, and my mind is completely out of control, relying on itself and the world to know what is right or wrong.

On Sunday Dr. Steve was saying how it is so easy to get jaded by the annual new year’s resolution hoopla. It happens every year, we fail and feel disappointed over and over, what’s really the point. Why battle our sinful urges for a mere month only to eventually quit anyway? Then he said this: “Yet there’s something about staying in the fight, isn’t there?” Why, yes. Yes, there is.

So I’m beginning 2012 wanting to fight for my freedom. And the thing is, I don’t really have a choice. If I don’t fight for freedom, it’s lost.

In defiance of tyranny.

Things started out positively.  They took my blood pressure, and the lady beamed and told me, “Your blood pressure’s perfect.  Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”  Since I indulge in a healthy lifestyle of zero exercise and frequent fast foods (Popeye’s $3 Tuesdays, helloo), I was quite happy with her suggestion and felt pretty optimistic about my wellness.

Unfortunately, after my blood tests were completed and I received my complete report in the mail, I was appalled to see what my overall wellness score was: 3.  This was closer to the wrong end of the spectrum, just 1 little point away from having to consult a physician immediately.  A new realization hit me: I am unwell.

I don’t even know why I was surprised.  It’s not like my lethargic lifestyle is a secret to anyone, and it remains a mystery to me why I’m not obese.  I deceived myself into thinking that, just because the scale didn’t (fully) display the consequences of my lifestyle, there were no consequences.  But on the inside, deep in the cholesterol-lined arteries of my heart, they’ve been growing.  Gradually over time, none of those Big Macs or Italian beefs or pan pizzas from the Hut were left unnoticed.

I think I live like this all the time, as if the choices I make–or don’t make–have no consequences, as if choosing to engage in virtually no spiritual activity bears no effect on my flickering soul.

It’s time to get well.  On all levels.

and it always starts with that, just one little idea sown into your broken self — and it’s all downhill from there.

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!
Praise the One, Risen Son of God.

When I cross over Jordan
I’m gonna sing, I’m gonna shout
I’m gonna look into your eyes and say,
You never let me down

So take me on the pathway that leads me home to you
And I will walk through the valley
If you want me to

I was in the middle of writing another entry about the power of words, but I was listening to an old Ginny Owens song (throwback to freshman year), and it moved my heart of stone to tears.  So I’ll save the other entry for a later date and document this moment when the thought of Jesus’ unconditional love actually stirs some movement in my heart.

After a supremely uncomfortable weekend that brought a lot of difficult questions to mind, I am left feeling a bit unsettled.  I am trying my best to see it as a blessing, as the bland contentment that normally characterizes my heart seems to lull my mind into thoughtlessness and provides easy stomping grounds for the devil.  So I take these moments when I see clearly that this world was never meant to be my home to remember who and what I was created for.

The times I was closest to Jesus were when I truly believed that there was something greater than this life to wish for.  There was a higher relationship to be had, a deeper love to experience, a greater country to belong in.  I could literally feel my heart aching for heaven, a real, physical ache as I prayed, feeling genuinely Homesick and acutely aware of the emptiness inside.  And I would long for Jesus.  I’d think about how I would feel when we could finally be together.  When I wouldn’t have to hate myself anymore for failing.  When I wouldn’t have to feel so chained and hopeless.  When I would stop forgetting.

Unfortunately, I’ve long since abandoned this idea that Jesus is a real, living person who continues to desire a real relationship with me.  I don’t long for him anymore, nor do I think about the day when we’ll finally be united.  Consequently, I don’t live like he matters.  I need to remember my Africa convictions and turn my thoughts heavenward in appreciation and anticipation for a God who patiently loves and waits for me, despite all my running and forgetting.

“You never let me down.”  Thank you.  Keep me coming back.  Whatever it takes.

Spring break has officially come to an end.  It is truly a depressing thought.  But I know that I only have 7 weeks of teaching left (plus one week of finals) till summer break, so I will make the most of the time I have left with the best set of kids I’ve ever had (while taking the necessary mental breaks into the future).

Going to Cancun was pretty sweet.  It was my first time at an all-inclusive resort, and having free food all the time was such an excellent luxury.  24-hour room service… best idea ever.  Unfortunately, I didn’t spf it enough, and I look like a burn victim.  My entire face peeled off (truly miserable), and now the rest of my body is following suit.  So no worries guys, don’t be too jealous of my trip.  At least your skin is still intact, and you can go out in public without feeling self-conscious about your face.

I read five novels while in Cancun, rediscovering a love for fiction.  If you have any good book recommendations, I would love it.  I hadn’t set foot in a library for so long, but going to the good ol Glenview Library with my dad to read and check out books was quite nice.  I think I will frequent the library more regularly.

I miss my old relationship with Jesus.

Nostalgia.

I am almost glad to hear that he is still a churchgoer and a communicant.  I know there are dangers in this; but anything is better than that he should realise the break he has made with the first months of his Christian life.  As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same as it was six weeks [or two years] ago.  And while he thinks that, we do not have to contend with the explicit repentance of a definite, fully recognised sin, but only with his vague, though uneasy, feeling that he hasn’t been doing very well lately.

This dim uneasiness needs careful handling.  If it gets too strong it may wake him up and spoil the whole game.  On the other hand, if you suppress it entirely — which, by the by, the Enemy will probably not allow you to do — we lose an element in the situation which can be turned to good account.  If such a feeling is allowed to live, but not allowed to become irresistible and flower into real repentance, it has one invaluable tendency.  It increases the patient’s reluctance to think about the Enemy. All humans at nearly all times have some such reluctance; but when thinking of Him involves facing and intensifying a whole vague cloud of half-conscious guilt, this reluctance is increased tenfold.  They hate every idea that suggests Him, just as men in financial embarrassment hate the very sight of a pass-book.  In this state your patient will not omit, but he will increasingly dislike, his religious duties.

As the uneasiness and his reluctance to face it cut him off more and more from all real happiness, and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity and excitement and flippancy at once less pleasant and harder to forgo, you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. …  You can make him do nothing at all for long periods of time.  You can keep him up late at night, not roistering, but staring at a dead fire in a cold room.  All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at least he may say, ‘I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.’

The Christians describe the Enemy as one ‘without whom Nothing is strong.’  And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.

You will say that these are very small sins; and doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness.  But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the Enemy.  It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one — the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

—

Good work, Wormwood.  Mission accomplished.

My sister got engaged yesterday!  I would like her ring to be mine.  In fact, I wore her ring around for a few hours before she got it.  Hehe.  I’m bad, I know.  Sometimes I feel bad for her that I’m her sister.  Sorry unnie!  Sucks to be you!  This is what you get for spinning me off chairs when we were little!  A lifetime of retribution. <3

I gave up shopping for Lent.  I’m feeling a bit empty inside, and I swear Gap is suddenly releasing millions of coupons.  Either that or I’m just so depressed that I notice it more.  I still check all my deal sites on a daily basis, just to further my misery.  I need to stop that.

I’ve been telling everybody to watch the glorious Bieber movie.  There weren’t too many takers, but I somehow convinced my parents to watch it.  They watched it in 3D together and called me immediately afterwards, raving about how glorious it was.  More Beliebers!  My mom said my dad (who falls asleep during every movie) especially enjoyed it and was super into it.  I love the parentals.

My kids this semester are the best I’ve ever had.  They really make teaching fun and enjoyable.  They do frequently tell me that I should consider alternate professions like being a prison guard or a drill sargeant though, but it’s okay, I still like them a lot.

I was thinking about my college years recently, and I realized I entered U of I almost 10 years ago.  During my freshman year, I carried around a Discman, didn’t have a cell phone, used xanga, had a camera with film, recorded live vhs footage of every JT television appearance due to the absence of youtube, and had a maximum email capacity of 15 megabytes.  Also, I looked like a boy.  Those were the dayz.