Return, O Sleep

Return, O Sleep
Where have you gone?
You once were my dear friend
But now you toss me back and forth
Eluding deep, true Rest
You once were dear
And called me true
To fellowship with you
But now you leave me wondering
where wee morn hours hath gone

Return, O Sleep
I hear you beckoning
I dearly want to come
To sit a while in fellowship
As Rest wraps secure its arms
To find my hours of no memory
Have brought with them a dawn
A dawn of hope and blissful dreams
Of no more tossing waves
Of energy renewed

Return, O Sleep
Please be my friend
Of kindred hearts combined
To hold me sweetly, tenderly
As Nights come passing by
Protect me from the looming dark
Where Rest is swallowed whole
By Monster come from Neath-the-bed
Valiantly severe body from head
Return to me sweet Rest

If only every day was Saturday...

Yes, for some reason the weekend seems to just fly by. You can't make time move quick enough during the week, but your weekend you would love to enjoy and relax during just passes on by with a wink and whistle, thank you very much. I imagine a conversation with the Weekend going something like this:

"Oh I'm so glad you have come for a visit, Weekend!"

"Are you? I'm not here long. I've come to tease you."

"Come to tea..."

"Toodle loo."

And off it jaunters only to leave with the week ahead of you ready to be stumbled through. You don't have a choice but to tumble your way through it. It doesn't care if you didn't find all the rest you needed. Nor does it worry about how excitedly anxious you are for your wedding. It just keeps on trudging through the hours, minutes, and seconds. You begin to think seconds are minutes and minutes hours and hours days until your Monday becomes your Tuesday and your Wednesday your Friday. And yet by the time your Friday seems to be coming to an end, you feel as though those hours, which have become days, are really weeks.

Even worse is the speed your weekend always maintains so that days are seconds quicker than a blink and the begrudgingly slow week-month is ready to haunt before you can even begin to subconciously think of stopping the Weekend from leaving.

Thus it feels as though October is being pushed further and further away until you can watch it being sucked in by a black hole, never to return, always out of reach. I know it will come, but I am not feeling the "blink" everyone says it will be here in. I am feeling the week-month slowly turn into an entire year causing months upon years of waiting (thank goodness we weren't having to have a longer engagement than what is already planned).

A Love-Hate Relationship

Yes. That is exactly what it is: a love-hate relationship. Would you like me to expound? Well, I feel like it so I guess you are about to find out.

I am currently sitting in the ceramics building with Ben for who knows which # time, for I have lost the count. I am unsure of how many more times we will frequent this building; I know he will be here much more than I with our different schedules. Yet, it still seems I am here with him most every day, once off of work.

As I was talking with my mom earlier this afternoon, I was ending our conversation when I blurted: "You know...it's just a love hate relationship. It can be so frustrating that the majority of my time with him right now is spent just being with him while he works on ceramics. But I know once it's said and done, we grow comfortable in our normal day-to-day with jobs, activities, exercise, etc., there will be times I will miss this phase of our relationship." As often as we do it, it can grow very dull for I often feel extremely useless. However, I also know it does mean a lot to him that I would spend my free time to just be with him.

It is fun to watch him intently working on a project a majority of the time. Something about his relationship with the clay, the purpose in his gaze, the gentle, yet firm, movement of his hands. The artist with his masterpiece. It is equivalent, to me, of listening to someone work on music. The art of building the masterpiece, of which most people do not understand the depth of emotion and length of time put into it.

There is also the knowledge of the support I am giving. I might not say much. I may not even be doing something or saying anything related to his work. But somehow, just being there says more to him than if I didn't go with him at all and were to later tell him it looks amazing (which his work often does).

But sometimes, I can't stand to do the same thing every day. I don't want to go with him to ceramics. I want to be free of anything that has been assigned as work, even though it is not mine to do. There really are some days I absolutely hate to be near that building.

Thus my love-hate relationship. It will end come May, when Ben proudly walks for two diplomas he has spent 5 1/2 years of his life working towards. And I will be extremely proud of him (I already am) for his accomplishment. And although I know I will initially be excited to be rid of this building, there is a part of me that, after some times has passed, will miss the time, memories, and normalcy found here.

My Prince Charming

Yes, he is completely 100% MY Prince Charming. He didn't come with perfection, but I love him just the same with all his imperfections. I know in my last post I hopped on my soap box with tiring of etiquette and what people think of it. I love the comment my sister left. And I completely agree (thanks, Linds)!

And with that, Benjamin and I have completely enjoyed planning this past week. We have weeded through several different tunes, some of which I don't even know why people would use as a reception song. It was a lot of fun just listening to the crappy, fun, "why on earth do you want a song talking about this at your wedding" tunes. It was a great stress reliever and, although I had yet to read my sis' comment, a great reminder of this is OUR wedding. And whether or not someone else would do exactly what we have planned, it is what we want to do to celebrate the beginning of the rest of our lives together.

We also have ordered the invitations.....and I am SOOOOO excited about them! First of all, I was able to get something I really, really liked, which was not originally how I was going to pick. Price ruled my thoughts, thus I wouldn't even allow myself to look at something if it was overbudgeted. Then I realized, along with Benjamin, we were not going to have to order as many invitations as we thought originally. With that in mind, Laura, our wedding coordinator, told us to start from the beginning. "I don't think you picked any of these because you just loved them," she said, "Let's go through this again. You shouldn't have to think about whether you like it. This is a flip through because you're supposed to love it right when you see it."

So we started glancing at the invite samples as Laura quickly flipped through pages. There were a couple we like but they were waaay too expensive, and she agreed. So we kept flipping. We made it through one book without really just loving anything out of it. So she pulled out another and began flipping through that. About half-way through, she had barely flipped a page when we all made a statement about it at the same time: "OH WOW! I really like that one!" I said, "Hey, what about that one?" Ben said, and Laura, with her fingering pointing at the design said, "This is really pretty. Oh and look at the way the worded the invite to the reception." Needless to say, those are the invites she sent the order out for yesterday.

I'm just loving how everything is falling into place and am so excited and building with anticipation as the day is drawing near. I just am enthralled that I am going to be spending the rest of my life with my best friend. I know I'm currently on cloud nine with my realization of doing what we want for the wedding and the idea of being with him every day, but I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I am not disillusioned into thinking we will never fight, we won't have our hard moments, its going to be "happily, ever after". Trust me, we've already had a couple nasty fights and had to come together to work through them. But as awful as I feel after, and I know he's apologized and told me he feels the same way, there is always this feeling of, "Wow! To work through this disagreement has only brought us closer together." I'm not saying, by any means, I want us to fight more so we can grow; I think we can grow together without it as well. I just know that being committed to each other no matter what may happen in our lives or what we may argue about makes me enjoy the rainbow after the storm.

And right at this moment, I just was thinking about us but more so him because I know that no matter what it takes, he is always going to do everything he can to take care of me. His dad is currently replacing my brakes, and of course Benjamin is along side him working as well. Well, when Dad #2 (that's what I will refer to my father-in-law as) popped my hood, we discovered that more acid had built up on both my + and - receptors on the battery. he said he would clean it and then started telling me about these felt pads you can place on the battery which help with build up because of some chemical in them. Of course I figured I would just get them later, however, my Benjamin just walked in the room and told me he had put some of those pads on the battery. I then said, "Oh, you guys had some here." "No," he replied, "I went to go purchase them so it would stay clean."

No, not perfect, but DEFINITELY my Prince Charming!

Not all Kicks & Giggles

Wedding planning is hard. It is quite overwhelming as well. I know most people say I've got it together because within just a months time several of my large to-do's were either set in stone or well on there way to being done.

I guess my struggle isn't with what to pick, trust me: I'm OCD and picky picky picky. I know what I want, how I want it, and why I want it that way. I also know a lot of what I want is extremely different from the norm and tradition. I have had so many different people tell me "You can't do it that way", "That's not right, you have to do it this way", "It would look much better if you did it this way", "That doesn't follow etiquette", etc. The thing is, I'm not really looking for someone's approval on following etiquette nor am I truly worried if everyone else "just loves it". If it's what I want and Ben likes it too (yes, I have been blessed with a man who actually cares about what to pick and what things look like, although I'm not 100% sure of the blessing yet :P), then it is what I want to have.

I just am not in a mindset of being able to completely understand why etiquette must be followed. I'm sure there are some areas of etiquette I will actually be following, only because it's what I like. However, I just have never quite understood it fully. I'm sure some situations call for it, and maybe in those I must conform. Part of my misunderstanding lies in who on earth set it up and decided everyone must follow? I guess I should do some research in that area. I am open to at least learning about it, although I can guarantee it will not change the choices I have already made in regards to my wedding.

I know I am completely rambling. I guess I have just been extremely frustrated with some of my plans and started thinking about etiquette and where it came from. That's pretty much my existence right now.

How to Get the Swine Flu

So I have learned one very important lesson: in this time where everyone is freaking out about swine flu, no patient uses a mask when they go to a clinic filled with hundreds of people just waiting to be contaminated. So then why are you freaking out about it, I ask? Because no one cares if they spread it!

Last Wednesday, as I stood in line waiting to get a flu swab (aka pap smear of the nose -thanks linds!) with my mask on, I watched several patients, who all appeared to have the same problem I did, walk through the clinic as though they were not contagious. HA! My body readily received the swine flu from some patient, either on Monday or Tuesday, who was just as inconsiderate. I can only imagine the infestation in that place as hundreds of people walk in and out of the clinic sneezing, coughing, and blowing their noses on everyone and everything. I'm sure if we had special lenses to detect the swine flu, you could walk into my place of employment and the words swine flu would be smeared across almost everything in the building and bobbing ominously atop most everyone's head!

No, swine flu doesn't kill most people, in fact other forms of influenza kill more people than swine flu appears to be doing at this moment, but it is sure lurking around every corner. And most people are susceptible, even if healthy, because no one has an immunity to the virus.

Needless to say, if you would like to obtain swine flu, free of charge, just walk into the Baton Rouge Clinic. I'm sure you will bump into someone there, happily giving everyone the disease because they can't suck it up and wear a mask around the clinic! It will be the longest days of ailed sleeping you will ever know in your life! And while the Tamiflu is ridding you of all your symptoms, it will knock you back on your butt because of the fatigue, nausea, and possible vomiting it is likely to induce.

It really is that easy. I work in Dermatology: usually the contagious diseases we see are rashes, yet I managed to get the swine flu.

Relationships: The Foundation of Meaning in Life

Life changes, inevitably. Choices change us, events happen that we cannot avoid, time moves forward without asking. Sometimes I wonder how well I am really using what I am given:

Relationships are the building blocks in life. Everything revolves around relationships: home, work, vacation, grocery shopping, etc. There isn't anything that does not effect the people around you. Even taking time for yourself effects those you love because you isolate yourself from them: you can destroy or build up relationships based on what you do with time by yourself. People die from a lack of influential and significant relationships. There is a lot that stands on the foundation of relationships.

I guess I began thinking about this as I was reading my bible. As I lay down, I started thinking about how while growing up, adults, who mean well, teach us multiple reasons as to why we are to read the bible. And although many of them are true, many impressionable youth are left with multiple reasons fighting for the logic of why they are to read the bible. Usually, somewhere among the plethera of reasons, the relationship with Christ bridging our relationship with God is taught, but it isn't always grasped as the sole reason for reading scripture.

I say all this because for one reason or another, growing up, I always felt I was to gain some new insight, some new meaning, some life-altering truth every time I spent time reading the bible. Every time I didn't, which seemed to make up a majority of the time, I felt I had failed somehow and God was no longer near me, I was being punished. I might not have even done anything wrong in that moment, but I was still a failure, thus I learned nothing and God could not find favor with me. Even now I still find myself feeling this way. As much as I knew in my head it wasn't true, I found lies pelting me like a cold, hard rain. They were needles driving their way into my flesh I could not rid myself of.

However, my eyes were open today, while discussing with God the way I feel about how I struggle with reading the bible because of how many times I feel as though I'm staring into an abyss. It's all about my relationship with Him. My desire to spend time with Him. Like every relationship, to grow you must spend time with one another. It will die if you don't. You may not always feel like you're getting anywhere with it. You are bound to feel like a huge wall has been dropped between you and the other person at times. Yet, all He truly wants from me is my heart and for me to take time to spend with Him, solely Him.

I don't know why it's taken me so long to realize that. I'm sure I've only heard it a jillion times from other people, too, but for some reason it didn't begin to take root until today. I'm bound to need to be told this simple truth again. I'm human and bound to fail. But His grace is bound to pull me back up and give me a second chance.

Along with this realization came the insight of how important my relationships with everyone I come in contact with are. The man who stands in front of me at the grocery store, the patients I encounter on a daily basis at work, my co-workers, everyone with whom I have contact. Do I seize all opportunities I am given? I'm sure not, but I would at least like to die knowing I tried my hardest to build meaningful relationships with everyone I am given the opportunity.

I know my thought process on this is not complete and very raw, but I had to begin to flesh it out. If you have any thoughts, feel free to comment.

Visiting My Family

I have to say my internal timing mechanism has been thrown off with this small vacation I have had. Yesterday I thought it was Saturday. Thursday I couldn't remember what day it was. Today I feel like I should be getting back home and preparing for another week.

Fortunately, I'm still quite relaxed (as relaxed as you can be with a 2-week-old baby in the home). Spending time with Lindsey and Drew and getting to meet my new born nephew, Brayden, has been great. Although I don't feel like expounding all I'm thinking on here, there are quite a few things having time off has caused to reel in my head.

As much as I don't miss the homework, having the time off during Christmas or Spring break was a nice component of school. I find it harder to make time for myself to relax in the manner I could during those times. And much of the time I don't have the ability to make that kind of time for myself. I guess vacation time, once I can use it, will come in handy. I can see myself using time to just to have off if I have an excess of time.

Anyway, I am enjoying my nephew. Not that he can do much, but I am glad I was able to see him in his early stage. He is growing quickly and the next time I see him I'm sure he will be able to hold his head up, smile, maybe giggle. All the stages of life I will miss because of being far away will be hard, but it makes these times I get to see him that much more sweet.

Will I Grasp What You Want to Teach Me?

I have SO much to ponder. SOOOO much! I really want to get away for a weekend all on my own, maybe go pitch a tent out somewhere. Then I just want to be.

be

be alone but not alone

exist

soak in water like a sponge

quiet

listen for His still, small voice

I am learning and have much to learn.

Where there is freedom, there is bondage.

Where there is love, there is pain.

Where there is sacrifice, there is new life.

Though suffering, you may have done nothing wrong.

No matter what the cause of the suffering, there is always the opportunity for healing.

What we are taught is the ending, is only the beginning.

Where there is a box to define, there are limitless definitions.

Where there are limitless definitions, there is a box to define.

Where irony abounds, the congruous adhesive of Life abound even more.

Where there is healing, there is hurt.

Though all I have just said is able to be twisted in every shape, form, and fashion, it is only understandable through one sense. And in that one sense, many senses abound.

OH THE IRONY OF IT ALL! HAHAHAHA....I am SO freed in body, mind, soul, spirit at this moment. May it continue ever more! Although I'm very new in all of what I'm experiencing, I am more than willing to share. Be forewarned it is deep and I may barely be able to form words to explain. It is all by the power of the Cross that I am seeing all my eyes are beholding.

I am learning new and glorious parts of life daily. There is so much for me to be unsure of. So much that can be debated. So much that is nothing as anyone has painted it as. Who is to say that there is one Way, but belief in the Way is not a simple matter by which simple definitions for Him are reached? I whole heartedly believe in the Way, but I cannot say that His Way is reached by a single, particular definition. I will not say it is reached by one single, particular definition.

In fact, there is so much I'm unsure of, but I am sure willing to learn. To dare. To be moved. To fight against the grain.

I am on a continual journey. I just hope I learn all from everything, everyone around me I can, as that is where He has placed me.

How much have we thought we know for sure, but it can be debated? All I know is I am but a sinner and His grace is my only hope!

It's Been a While

Wow! It's been a while since I've been able to take the time to sit and write. That makes me sad.

First of all, I haven't taken the time to write. Secondly, my computer crashed so I couldn't (and my roommates extra computer busted at the same time...HA!). Bummer. Now I have access to a comuter because my roomie was given a computer that someone had extra!

So....

Looking back I am realizing how much has happened in the past few months.

1) I have started my job as a medical assistant. I absolutely love my job! It makes me sooo sure of my desire and calling to be a nurse I'm fidgeting just to get there (and I'm sure I will complain when the homework starts to unfold on my desk). I have actually been pulled to Pediatrics for a day too and loved that! YAY! haha...I still have my days of not wanting to go to work from sheer laziness but I consider myself fortunate to find a job I love and enjoying work (for the most part).

2) My parents are going through one of the roughest times I have ever witnessed in my life. If you think about them PLEASE be praying. There is a lot of mayhem going on with the house they were building and it really hurts to watch them go through this. I know that whether or not the outcome is how we want it, God is in control and will make this all right (even if it means they have to wait until the other side of Heaven).

3) The new year has come and we're almost through 2 months of it! Crazy...I just can't believe how quickly time passes us. I wish I would catch up with that knowledge and truly live every day as though it were my last. Why can't we always take everything we know to heart? I think a lot of us would be very different if we really followed all that we know.

4) My sister, Lindsey, is 7 months pregnant!! I am extatic about being an aunt! Little Brayden Thomas March is growing healthily and is measuring larger than how far a long my sister is. Soon enough I'm going to actually be driving up there to see the new fam :) I don't think I could be any happier (ok...well I would be if they lived in the same city but that's just pulling my luck)!

5) I was able to visit with my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins when they were down here. I really enjoy seeing them because we are really close with them and don't get to see them too often.

6) I have somehow managed to get TWO babies from two kingcakes (and of all the people to get it again: my second baby came out of a HUGE kingcake...I mean big enough for at least 25+ people). For all you who are not knowledgable on king cakes: the person who gets the baby, which is hidden inside the cake, must buy the next one. Go me!

That's about it...I have had some pretty hilarious stories since I've become a medical assistant but I don't feel like typing them all out right now.