School is hard right now. I haven't slept much lately and it's pretty much all I do. The countdown to the end of summer session and the end of nursing school boot camp has begun. I've been in a bit of a funk lately, surely related to my constantly stressed out state and lack of sleep and I am fighting to regain the positive attitude that is my usual state. Today is much better than yesterday and yesterday that the day before so I thing we're on a good path as far as that's concerned.
But really, even though school is my life right now and sucking away all of my energy, my mind seems to have something of its own going on and my thoughts just never seem to stop. I can't even seem to turn it off when I lay down at night, which isn't something common for me. I am usually out at horizantal. It's like I'm on the edge of something great, some big realization about my life and my purpose but I'm not quite there yet. I'm fighting with all of these ethical debates lately in my head and trying not to get disgusted with America and the way we spend our time and our money. I feel like the needs of the downtrodden, here and around the world are overwhelming me and all I see is Americans throwing there money away on status symbols, toys, and other things of the material nature that they just don't need. I grew up the 'princess' in my family, but over the course of the last few months I've realized luxury is rarely worth the cost. I can't pinpoint exactly where it all began because it seems like all of the many things I've seen, experienced, read in the last few months are guiding me to a totally different kind of existence. I like being poor. I like being with other poor people. I have a friend who lives in a town outside of Philly that's considered pretty ghetto. Essentially, it's poorer, more dangerous, more diverse. But I go there and I feel like it's so much more real than the plastic smile feeling of new track housing developments. Poeple are suffering in both areas, from very different problems, but I love the genuity that having to rely on other people brings and I guess I feel like suburbia has isolated so many of us from our neighbors. I want community. And I'll take the good with the bad, the danger with the chance to really become involved in lives and make ugly places beautiful, the poverty with the richness that comes from knowing I'm really living like Jesus. I used to think that really becoming a good Christian, really figuring out how to live took constant study, but I don't really think that anymore. Of course I still love to read the great theologians because it's challenging, historical, motivating and a myriad of other things, but it's not the way I'm going to become a good Christian. That's back to being like Jesus. And his recipe is simple. Love God, love people, live like Me. Wicked hard to actually do, but no amount of reading books is going to be what makes me more like Him. I'm the one living my life. Yes, I need the Bible to hear God's words for me and know him more, and to let him work in me and through me, but living a life of love doesn't require that I know everything. I learned what love was the day I was born, more when I met God and even more each time I experience it. I'd say that's enough of a knowledge base to begin devoting my life to it.
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2 comments:
WOW! I want to grow up to be like you. Your words show you should continue your quest, and continue to write so that all of us can be encouraged to grow in the Lord like you are obviously doing. Love and miss you.
Well, to whoever wrote the previous comment, thanks. I rarely feel like I'm doing it right, but He definitely keeps working in me.
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