Let's call it, the Procrastination Photo Essay

This week, I have come to the realization - shocking after all this time, I know - that so long as I am teaching, my life will never be free of this:


Which might explain why I filled my weekend with this:

And...


...and...


Of course, this...


And Nicole and I greatly enjoyed finishing off season 5 of 24, with our friend Jack Bauer, who we decided is quite a lot like God, since one of the characters explained about him, "I know him. I don't always agree with his methods, but I trust him." :)

"Warning: Your System Might Be at Risk"

This is the message that keeps popping up in the bottom right-hand corner of my screen, telling me that some part of my computer system is not correctly updated and might be vunerable.

Similarly, I think my body has been trying to give me the same message this week - "warning: system at risk!" Since getting back from the US last Tuesday, I have been awake past 3 a.m. at least three different nights. My mind starts racing, I stumble out of bed to pray, or check email, or plan lessons, and then inevitably end up taking a sleeping pill to try and eek out some few precious hours of sleep before heading to work. I think insomnia is a blinking warning sign in my psyche that there are some undealt-with issues that need my attention.

This week I have over 200 assignments to grade - everything from journals to research papers to random late assignments, etc. It's hard not to think I should just crawl in a hole, pull the gigantic stack of papers over my head and hibernate until spring! More seriously, though, I have been feeling such enormous stress and anxiety about all the things I am supposed to do on a daily basis (does this sound familiar? Haven't I written about this before?!), that I know I need to relinquish some of this load to the Lord. Relationships that are stagnant, ministry opportunities that are overlooked, correspondence I want to keep up, teaching well, eating well, exercising, laundry... That old phrase, too busy not to pray, came to mind, and I remembered that, once upon a time, I was able to look at my work as worship to God. I've even stuck post-it-notes reading, "I'm grading papers for the Glory of God," to my notebooks! I need to remember this again.

Why is it so easy to get out of balance? Why is it so easy for me to think that I am capable of doing everything that's asked of me? - I'm not. It's an illusion that I can ever possibly have everything taken care of, functioning well. And that isn't what God calls me to do. He calls me to submit to Him. But I wiggle and squirm and wrestle with Him instead. And so I end up awake at 3 in the morning, hearing God asking me to talk to Him.

I've been debating all week about whether to post what's below. It's a bit rawer than what's been up here lately, but since I've been such a slacker at posting here as much as I once did, I thought I'd go ahead and do it. Forgive me if it sounds doubtful or negative or fed up or angry. We feel this way sometimes, don't we? Consider it an insomnia-Psalm.

"Consumed by either fire or fire"

I cannot sleep.

And God is battering away at my heart.

“When the lamp is lit, who looks at the wick?”

This is Annie Dillard’s phrase for what it means to be an artist, to a person surrendered to the fires of God. What is meant by being a living sacrifice, to be “on fire for God,” to have the flame-tongue of the Holy Spirit licking away at your scalp.

Crouched over in prayer on my floor at 3 a.m. this morning, I asked God for a vision, for a picture that would sustain me through the battles I am facing, and this was what came to mind. This image of a flame of fire on top my head, walking around like those flannel-graph stories from Sunday school, when the bath-robed apostles are bestowed squiqqly-orange cut-outs of fire, jutting out from their foreheads like plumes of a hat.

When the lamp is lit, who looks at the wick?

So many times at home in the States this past week I have had friends tell me how much they admire me, how much they are impressed by what I’m doing. A mentor said to me, “you lead such a rich life.”

But who can notice or care when sometimes it feels like I’m being burnt alive? And the image that I received in my cries of prayer was this image of flame, and a wick giving light to a room. People are looking at your life and seeing me, Jesus said. I nodded, and shook with belief.

But meanwhile, my flesh and my heart are burning up, “for the Lord’s great love we are not consumed.” I am a living sacrifice, the flame of the Spirit never consumes me whole, so I’m constantly burning and burning. And so how is this everlasting fire of witness not just the same as the fires of hell?

Are you willing to be this witness?

This is the question, again and again. To which I must continue to learn to say yes. “I am the handmaiden of the Lord; let it be to me as you have said.”

But how this burning, this giving light, this perpetual sacrifice of hope and heart and life? – without burning up or dying, without being fully consumed. It would be easier simply to die – and that is part of this agony, that something is dying a death. Some things for death, and some for resurrection.

To be called out, called upon is to be called into fire – the fire of presence, of refining, of sacrifice, and of renunciation.

“Where else can we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.”

Me with the happy couple, Joel and Olivia Stewart, Saturday, November 4th, 2006.

Around the world in 11 days...

First things first, pictures of the wedding are up! (Family - I covet any you have.)

Now, for a brief rundown of the last 11 days. I feel like I've been gone from Lithuania for a month, at least, and I'm not sure my brain has fully arrived here yet. I was back at school today, having canceled Monday and then delaying my return on Tuesday due to SAS overbooking (no worries, though, the result was some lucrative flight vouchers and a FANTASTIC upgrade to business class on my international flight. I'm spoiled forever.)

Highlights, in no particular order:

The aforementioned Business class flight from DC to Copenhagen.

My little brother Joel's wedding to Olivia Alber. (Duh, the whole reason for the trip).

Enjoying my parents' new hottub/spa with friends on Monday night, watching the sunset.

A gorgeous day in Estes Park (beloved Rockies!) with Kelli, trying to connect with the Lithuanian-speaker who works at a cafe there. (No luck, but I'll try next time I'm in town).

A long, frosty walk with Marcie, full of honesty, heartache, and the Holy Spirit.

A traditional catch-up session over ciders at Coopersmith's pub in Ft. Collins.

My annual, six-month haircut! And finding out that my hairdresser's stepdaughter is planning to come to LCC next fall.

The traditional, post-wedding party crash at my aunt & uncle's house in White Bear Lake. Shoes came off, leftovers (cake, rehearsal dinner Mexican food) were consumed, wedding video awed over.

Adorable, scene-stealing, little cousin Amelie dancing and running around at the reception. Hard to believe she didn't even exist the last time one of us got married!

My grandpa's wedding blessing prayer (a family tradition) during the wedding ceremony that reduced every single female family member (and many of the guys) to weeping!

Encouraging conversations with friend Mandy, and cousin Jessica.

Finding out that my entire bill for Urbana has been covered by anonymous donations through my church. Hallelujah!

Spending a day visiting and talking with professors at Bethel, also encouraging and inspiring in the professional sense.

Lastly, a morning visit to Copenhagen on Monday, on a layover before coming back to Palanga, Lithuania. I got to walk around, take pictures, go inside churches, and count it as the 28th country I've visited, keeping me on track to have visited one country for every year I've been alive. :)