Roadtrip Chicago - Day One

Cruising down the interstate, listening to the Temper Trap, I've got this feeling inside of me that is aching for the adventure that awaits me in Chicago. Digging a little deeper, I think it's the excitement that stems from the end of one chapter of my life and the beginning of another.

In a little over a month I move to Ft. Worth, Texas. Trying to describe how I feel is like trying to comprehend how big the universe is - it's pretty impossible. I have no idea what awaits me in the coming months, but the anticipation is suiting me well for now.

In a month and a half, I will have been to Chicago for four days, New York for a week, and I will have moved to Texas to start seminary.

This is needed change. I have no problems with my life in Knoxville. It is simply time to move on.

-------

"Who wants to know? All that is gold is rusting. No one will know when seasons cease to change and.. how far we've gone how far we're going. It's the here and the now and the love for the sound of the moments that keep us moving." - Soldier On by The Temper Trap

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.2

In Loving Memory - Nancy Carol Smith // Part 1

Three days ago my aunt was killed in a car accident. That was the worst news I have ever received in my entire life. I will miss her so much.

-----

For those of you who never had the joy of meeting my aunt, she was honestly the most loving person. She never married, so she treated and loved my sister and I as if we were her own. She truly loved us more than anything in the world and took every opportunity to tell us so.

My aunt was a hard worker and had just retired from her job of 42 years at Twin Lakes Telephone Cooperative in Gainesboro, TN. She was an adored member of the Twin Lakes team and was sad to leave the people she worked with, but ready to move on into retirement. She was looking forward to some of the free time she would have - time that she hoped she would be able to spend with my sister and I. Because of her retirement, she was able and excited to come to my graduation and see me complete a large chapter of my life. I'm so glad that she was able to be there.

Nancy Carol Smith was my aunt's name, but my sister and I never called her anything other than "Chichi". When we were both little, one of our favorite things to do was to spend time with Chichi no matter what she was doing or where she was. We would see her at work and she would let us push all the buttons, we would see her at the farm and she would take us for rides out the bend with the dog, we would see her at home and she would let us watch our favorite shows until we fell asleep - she would do anything for us because she loved us that much.

Chichi, Shelley and I at the farm

I will never forget Chichi, and I doubt that a day will ever go by that I don't think about her. When someone loves a person as much as she did my sister and I, it's impossible to ever lose them completely.

I am comforted to know that she is with God and that she is now made perfect in Him and no longer has any physical or emotional ailments. She is finally at peace and that makes me so happy. I'd like to think that if their are gardens in heaven - magnificent gardens with flowers and plants that we could only dream of - that she is slowly strolling through them, watering them, enjoying them as she did her flowers at the farm and on this earth.

missing the Motherland

One of my best friends is getting ready to go back to Haiti because she knows this is where the Lord is sending her and is fully prepared to surrender to His will and spend her entire fall in Haiti serving the people there with the love of Jesus Christ. Her story of how this all played out is beautiful - you can read it here.

Between reading her story and watching a Russian film tonight, I'm reminded of the place to which I feel God has called me: Russia. For those of you who are reading my blog for the first time or just didn't know this about me, I have my undergraduate degree in Russian Area Studies (language included) and I spent all of the fall semester of 2010 in Yaroslavl, Russia. (The story of how I became to be a Russian major is very much a God-story, but I'll save that for another blog post.) While I was there, I felt God calling me to serve the people of Russia and furthermore, a more specific calling to working with children, and even more specifically, orphans.

Touching the Volga River in Yaroslavl, Russia

So far, I have no idea what that will look like. Unlike Haiti, Russia is unfortunately not a country where one can just fly in, setup camp and start doing the Lord's word - there are hurdles to be jumped over, red tape to cross, and plenty of technical/political stops along the way. The good news is that God already has that figured out - it's just a matter of time.

While God placed this country and calling on my life, for now He has opened the doors for me to go to seminary at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary so that's what I'll be doing for the next 3 years - all the while looking for every opportunity to work with orphans, Russians, and everything related. I know God is preparing me for something and the excitement that stems from knowing He has a plan to use me in Russia is what keeps me going - that, and His infinite mercy.

One of my good friends asked me tonight what I missed the most about Russia. My reply was this:

I miss how REAL life is in Russia. I (we) take for granted how easy life is here in the U.S. We do this so much that it starts to feel fake - well, at least when you have had the opportunity to find out what REAL life feels like.

Honestly, I've felt like this since I've been back in the states. I love my friends and family that I have here in the U.S. and that makes life here so worth it, and if I could take them with me everywhere, I would, but I can't. But the one thing I can take with me everywhere is the love of Christ - so that's my plan.

Well that was a lot, but I've had a great day and the Lord has used it to get my heart back on track. If you don't know Him, ask me about Him. I'd love to tell you all about Him.

it's 2am, I must be lonely

I can't fight this feeling anymore...

this feeling of being wide awake at 2am despite my attempts at sleeping. 

This is unlike me - both to be awake at this hour and to be blogging. As you can tell by the date of my last blog it's been a while, but it's honestly the only thing I could think of that would be worth while at this time at night.

This is attempt number 4, 5, maybe 6 (who knows) at starting fresh in the blogosphere and being consistent. Here's my plan:


Today at a friend's wedding before the ceremony began, I happened to be checking up on twitter and saw an interesting tweet from @TheAdaL about finally finishing her 101 in 1001 list and she just so happened to be sitting beside me so I decided to ask her about it. She said she had gotten the idea from some blogs she had been reading about this idea to make a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days.

I'm not gonna cook out a 101 in 1001 list right now - perhaps that's something I'll do one day down the road, but what I am going to do is start making some lists and working on conquering these lists and telling you about the experiences along the way, one check mark at a time. The trick here is that I'm NOT going to call them "to-do" lists - those things stress me out.

So here's my first list - a list of lists to make:

• summer reading list
• list of things to do in Knoxville before moving in August
• bucket list
• short term (within one month) goals list
• lunch list (list of peeps I want to grab some lunch with)

That should do for now. That's a lot of list making, but I think I can handle it.

Finally, I really am going to make another effort at blogging more often. No promises, but we'll see.