A year in waiting

Hello friends,

Well, we're one week into the new year. I don't think any new year has brought quite so much reflection for me as this year has. Maybe it's because I'm less busy than I've ever been, but I've found myself thinking about everything that's happened in the past year, and to be honest, it has been really hard.

If I had to pick one word to describe the year, it would be waiting.

I started 2010 at Urbana, where I made a commitment to do some sort of short term missions work that year. I lived in a homeless shelter... does that count? I think so, but when I filled in that commitment card, I meant something different. I had different plans. And I didn't know what those were, but my answer to so many questions that I faced throughout the year was, "I'm still waiting to hear from..." or, "I'm just waiting to find out...." I'm struggling with the feeling that the last 6 months of my life has been wasted. I know it hasn't been, but it feels that way. Because I was working toward something that never happened. And now the things that I should be doing (according to the world, according to my parents) I'm not prepared to do because I was so singularly focused on the one thing that I thought God wanted me to do.

Here I am, at the beginning of 2011, and I am tired of waiting. I'm ready for an answer. I feel desperate. I feel tired of not liking my own answers to questions that I hear constantly. But then, there's something so humbling about being where I am.

Loose ends are humbling. They remind me that I don't have it all together. No matter how on top of things I would have been in college, no matter how many career fairs I could have gone to, no matter how many internships I could have had, none of that would have guaranteed me a career, or an apartment, or security. God can provide all those things, or he can withhold them. I can trust that He has my best interests in mind, or I can try to trust in my own abilities. I wonder which way would work best...

I don't have answers. I don't have a solution. I'm resolving to keep learning how to wait better. Because Lord knows I'll at least have to wait till Monday for the next answer, and who knows what kind of waiting that one could lead to.

Love.

PS. I'd like to distinguish between waiting and anticipation. I loathe waiting to hear about a job, or a placement, or whatever. I love anticipation, which is what I feel about Elisa's suggestion! A Beady Beady getaway? Sounds like something worth waiting for :)

A beady revolution...I mean reunion...or do I?

Hey ladies,

So Heather's dream for a dance party got me thinking. There was a time when one of us said something like this: "We should get together every Christmas and go away together so we can go to Indian Lake (which is love!) where there are flowers and music and dance parties and ponies! We will be together forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever..."

Flash forward to reality. TWO Christmases have gone by and this has not happened. Our annual trip has happened exactly one time, making it annual nonetheless, but also biannual, triannual, and a number of other "ual's," like never actUALly happening again, and intellectUALly puzzling since we're all such good friends.

I'm not sure what our excuse was in 2009, but after the 2010 Christmas of insanity for me and traveling for Hannah and limited time for Heather and being-the-only-stable-one for Kate, I think we can pretty much push meeting every Christmas as a foursome out of the picture.

Don't let this grim outlook get you down, though. The backdrop of this sisterhood is much more vibrant than the puce-y Cleveland skies. Especially since I just so happen to be a inferno for blazing ideas right now.

Here's my thought. Since Christmas gets crazy with two married beadies trying to appease families and all the other hullabaloo, and since it's kind of rude to Jesus, not to mention tacky, for us to schedule our own separate party on HIS birthday, I'm thinking we need to invent another holiday. Yep. Beady Beady day, or Beady Beaday for short.

I'm thinking that this new national (and by national I mean secret to essentially everyone but us) holiday could be used annually for us to actUALly get together. AnnUALly.

Beady Beaday doesn't have to stay the same date every year, it could float around like Easter (even though frankly I still don't understand why the most important day in the Christian year has yet to find a home). But whatever qualities we choose to attribute to this day, I think it would be wise of us to somehow squeeze into our lives a special time each year to spend a weekend together. Maybe I've just heard too many fantastical stories of best friends meeting up every year for the rest of their lives, but regardless, I say we go for it. Otherwise, who knows where the wiles of life will pull us? I know we can't know that no matter what, but I'd like to at least be able to be certain of our enduring friendship.

So for now, I don't really have a suggested date, place, or anything else detail-y about this. (Let's be honest, Kite is the details lady.) But my thoughts and my longings for dance parties and sisters had a baby, and this is what came out. Wow. I need to not write any more.

Thoughts?

.e.l.i.s.a.