Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Flora and Fondness

Green! It's green outside! And floral! There is not enough flora in the world to satiate my love. If it were possible for me to wander the earth in a bouquet fog, trust me, I would. One of my many things I get teased about by my not-so-fashion-savvy male co-workers is the fact that I wear flowers on my outfit four out of five days a week. However, I digress. 

I am coming on my adult-iversary. I have been graduated for almost an entire year. Which, because of that landmark and because I am myself, I have been looking for stakes of progress. They haven't been difficult to find. Transitions alight this. Choices must be made. Fears are realized and subsequently have to grow or dissipate. Independence flexes itself and pride closely follows, followed by loneliness, followed by a sense of freedom, followed by pride in a big game of Ring Around the Rosey.

And I guess in my illumination of this year, I find myself completely in joy. 

I have been provided with a job I am fondly in love with. Only God knew that I would find contentment and as a Client Care Representative for a third party logistics company. My introverted, non-conflictive nature has flourished, finding it an outlet to love people well and seek justice with compassion for all parties involved. It has challenged me in being busy and managing stress well and emotions that accompany that, fostered in me a sense of duty to work hard and devoid myself of cherry picking easy things. I am surrounded by faithful friends who not only look out for my best good, but have instilled in me a small ounce of confidence that I may possibly be not so bad after all....even though they call me a hippie.

Membership at Redeemer is another thing that has happened this year....or is happening rather. If my job is a grace for fostering happiness and passion, this is a joy for pushing me outside of my comfort zone. I have to be honest. It all scares me. Committing to a 9-week course with 150 strangers. Having to approach someone to sponsor me into membership. Writing my faith story. Sitting in an interview with my sponsor and an elder. Each of these things is jarringly scary to me. And I mean that. I have to coach myself to go to DNA every week. I had to pray for the first seven weeks of class before I could work up the courage to ask my best friends mom to sponsor me (virtually my second momma). It also took so long for me to actually write five hundred words about my life concerning Christ. And don't get me started on the interview, that's another sixty-foot tall hurdle that I'm currently gaping at.

All of that to say, it hasn't been easy, but it has been comforting. It's been comforting to see God be bigger than my fear. To ask him to come into my anxiety and help me push through. He's given me bravery and courage that I don't have. I'm the girl who hides from acquaintances because I am afraid of running out of things to say. I am the girl who only makes it halfway through most projects because I cannot bring myself to push through boredom or contrariwise, hardness. And I am chief of fearing people being critical of my process and feeling misunderstood.

It's been slow for me. I signed up for DNA originally in the fall, drove all the way to the church the first night of class and kept on driving right past. Take two has gone much smoother, it has been helpful for my best friends to do it with me. But they aren't what has healed it. Jesus has. He has decidedly shown me that He is going to be enough, and the only thing that is enough forever. Hyperventilation is not going to save me. Avoidance can only last so long. The closer I get to Him, the quicker I discover that everything natural in me is skewed. It all is bent the wrong way, glorifying things that don't benefit me and undervaluing things that feed my soul. No manner of discipline or self-monitoring can change that, I am always going to head that direction. He is all things good. I am all things broken. 

And in that the Great Redemption happened. When He broke all of the rules, and insisted on Salvation not being an immediate and physical thing only, but insisting on it being about our souls. And would we not rather that? Our bodies, while wonderful and utterly diverse temples, are not the whole thing. C.S. Lewis says, "you don't have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body". What makes Person is our idiosyncrasies and development and perceptions, physical nature is often times just an outlet for it. I would choose to have my soul saved over my physical body. I am willing to lose that to see my Nature perfected. Not that I really have a choice...

So all of that to say, this is where I find myself eleven months from college. I know my former self was wondering and my future self will need something to smile upon fondly. Because I'll be honest, I'm very fond of this stage of life.