journalish - long but cathartic
Yesterday, Sunday the 22nd.
My alarm woke me up at 6:00 a.m. I reached for the windowsill beside my bed and hit snooze, my head and body remaining sunken in pillow and sheets. Gravity always seems to have such a brutal pull in the early mornings. I hit the snooze several times, so fogged with sleep, so full of the desire and partial need to continue to rest. It was after 6:30 when I finally got up, slowly, and then with a quick spring to tell myself that this was it, I was really up, I had to be.
I left the house around 7:00 a.m., wearing a pink skirt with thin white stripes and embroidered flowers, a white t-shirt and tan suede boots. The list of things I needed to do ran around my mind: get boxes from the church office, walmart run, set up the corners, help with the Uganda table, and as always, be in the nursery.
I stopped by the church office first. I punched in the code, turned off the alarm, and ran through the building to Kyle's office, where I found that the boxes where light and I could stack three and carry them to my car without much trouble. I finished that errand, locked up, and headed to walmart.
"Coffee, bagels, cream cheese, bananas, milk, orange juice, water, creamer, pita bread ..." I checked off each item in my mental list. I loaded my car and in two minutes I was at the theater, the morning location of my church, terranova. I parked outside the front and hauled the purchases and boxes inside, where people where setting up tables for coffee and donuts, books and audio, different ministries, and the table for the Uganda fundraising dinner that I would be manning later.
I felt scattered. I moved my car to an actual parking space and headed inside, a red metal basket of paperthings and Uganda information on one arm, my backpack with my computer and the locked church money back on my shoulder. I set these in the nursery area, where I'd be from 8:30 to 11:30, then went to the back storage area to begin getting things for the corners and worship stations.
I wonder how many times I walked the movie theater hall from the storage closet to the party room where we set up the nursery to various other theater screen areas. I always sweat on Sunday morning and it's very annoying. Theaters are supposed to be known for being cold, but I guess that with walking back and forth carrying anything from candles, rugs, pillows, jars of sand and pebbles, and all the nursery items such as a table and chairs, toy box, and two pack-and-plays filled with blankets and a number of baby swings and bouncy seats, the temperature in the theater won't do much to change the temperature in my body from all the early exercise.
A guest band in playing today to fill in for the worship leaders who are on spring break. They practice in the area of floor below the movie screen, tech people work on getting things right with sound and media at the very top of the theater, and I set up in the middle area of floor, laying down two rugs and setting up places to kneel and pray, write, light candles, draw in sand, and take communion. I don't regularly do this, though I like it. Carly is on spring break, so I'm filling in for her. I'm filling in with doing the walmart run as well.
It's nice to be in a place where I know almost everyone. It's comfortable, homey. I'm in my element here, talking to people, setting up, knowing how things go. I tease Shorty: last week he was pushing a large cart loaded with items to be put away in the storage closet and he didn't see me and ran into me. I wasn't hurt, just taken off guard, so when I saw him I asked if he was going to run me over again. "Way to let it go," he answered, matching my teasing smile. He's like a brother: we can tease each other and know it's all in fun but we can also trust each other. When Erin called me, from his phone, to tell me they were engaged, I was flying with happiness for two people who mean alot to me. Empathy for good and sad is easy for me. I think it's a gift? More on that another time.
I was setting up the Uganda table, laying out the dinner tickets and sign up sheets I had made the other day, when David and Shorty began to talk about the trip and David said he wasn't sure if he would be able to go. "I'm booking the tickets tomorrow," Shorty said, and slowly David shook his head, smiling sadly. "I can't go. I'm sorry." My heart fell. I was so excited about him going. Kyle came on the mission trip to Peru and I counted that as a great experience: being able to go with my pastor and evangelize and serve alongside him. I had purposefully gone to David and said:"I have two reasons why you should go to Uganda with us: One, Shorty needs another guy to go, and two, Kyle went to Peru and you, as associate pastor, should follow in his footsteps and go on this mission trip." David liked my reasons, and had another of his own to say yes; the child he sponors through Compassion International lives in Uganda.
The fact of him not coming cast a small shadow on the day. But only a small one: the time in the nursery went by smoothly this morning. I chatted with Jen and Shelley about their spring break trip to Colorado. Shorty, monitoring the halls and counting attendance, stopped in to check on things and talked with us for awhile. Somehow Jen mentioned that she doesn't like fruit, the texture of it, and that grapes in particular freak her out. "That's interesting," Shorty said, and in a little bit added, "And by interesting, I mean weird." A little later Shorty said 'interesting' about something else, and I asked, "So how do you really feel about that?" and he confessed that "interesting" was his blanket word and that yes, he usually meant something else and little stronger and more direct. I knew I could use this information as a tool for teasing him in the future.
David stopped by the nursery later on and I asked if he needed help with the youth weekend coming up, if he needed more chaperones. I ended up volunteering to stay at his house and watch his two little girls, whom I babysat each Thursday and in the nursery each Sunday. He was excited about that, since that would allow Breann to be with him and help.
I went to lunch with Erin, Shorty, Leslie and Brad. We went to Chili's, and it was good but different, since everyone seemed to have something they were stressed with or dealing with. I was worried about not making enough off of the fundraising dinner, and sad about David not coming to Uganda. I hoped to speak to him about that later.
I stopped by the church office on my way home, and took longer checking my email and copier pictures from the Peru mission trip in 2008 to a CD than I had planned. I don't have wireless at my apartment. I went to the store next and bought chips for the 4-year-old's birthday party I was attending later on, and some drinks and snacks for the youth group. I was excited about getting prints of the Peru pictures, and then disappointed when the store photo kiask showed no images. It told me that the pictures had been copied incorrectly.
Back home I began to cut cantelope and apples and arrange them and grapes on a plate to bring to the party in place of chips. When I remembered all the fruit I had at home I texted Kendall to ask what she'd prefer I bring. I rumaged in my fridge to see if I had anything I could use to make fruit dip. I came up with cream cheese and strawberry yogurt. I mixed this together with a little powdered sugar and concocted a tasty dip.
I watched an episode of "Arrested Development" while I fixed the fruit tray. Huck gave me the first season to borrow and I love it. By 5:00 I had put the fruit in the fridge and headed out to go to the church. Brian arrived at the same time I did, which was good since I don't have a key. I set the paperthingys, pita bread for communion, and two boxes of DVD's for Easter inside, then talked to Brian a little bit about his trip to Colorado over spring break, while he began to set up the media shout and recording equipment.
Back at my car I unloaded a case of water bottles, two cases of soft drinks and a bag of string cheese, and, balancing this load carefully in both arms, turned to walk across the parking lot to the house where youth group met each Sunday at 5:30. I hadn't gone far when Andrew, one of the youth leaders, ran over to me and split the load. We walked to the house and set everything down in the shade, where he was waiting for Kyle's daughter Sarah, who had the key, and the rest of the youth group. David was going to be late today. We talked for awhile, about youth and spring break, the most we had ever conversed, and when I left i smiled over the unexpected and pleasant conversations I had in the past thirty minutes.
I stopped by my place, grabbed the fruit, and in five minutes I was a Kendall and Donnie's house. Lesson was already there, Noel excited telling her about being 4 years old now and showing her the princess birthday balloon tied to her chair. Donnie began to cook burgers outside and us girls, including Brian's sister Amanda and mom Michele, talked and snacked on fruit. The dip was a success.
I left at 7:00 to go to church. Five minutes before I had missed a call from Lindsey. Her message simply asked me to call her back, and I knew something was wrong. I called her twice and no answer. When I got to church she was in the parking lot talking to Stephanie, Kyle's wife. I slowly approached. Lindsey was crying. She had come to the breaking point with everything she was going through with the tradegy that had befallen her mother-in-law and had forced her to move in with Lindsey and her husband. I had spent half of Saturday with Lindsey, finally getting her to vent and talk things out, as I hadn't realized before then that she deeply needed to do. She likes to fix things, like me: we don't like to show when things are hard for ourselves because we like to focus on helping other people.
Before Stephanie left I asked if we could pray for Lindsey. We clasped hands and prayed, then embraced. I ended up staying in the parking lot with Lindsey through the entire church service, but it was where I needed to be. She had come there looking for me, had talked to Kyle briefly before he had to go preach, then began to talk to Steph as I drove up. She went back home, feeling a little better having been able to cry in front of people who cared and having recieved support, love and prayer.
I entered the church as Kyle was closing the sermon in prayer. I knelt in the back at on the worship stations during the music. I prayed, eyes closed, and once cupping my hands around a candle in front of me, the gentle flames being soothing and hypnotizing.
When the music ended and people started to leave I sought out David. I said, "Can I talk to you about something?" and he said sure, smiling and facing me.
"I just want to hear from you why you can't go on the Peru mission trip, and hear me on this: If you feel like you really want to go but it's not the right time, right now it's not God's will, then I completely respect that. But if you are worried about the cost, about raising enough, or about getting your passport ob time, I'll help with anything I can."
"You're so sweet," he replied. "But really the thing is, I'm going to be gone from my family a whole week for youth week just two weeks after the trip, so there's that and I just feel really pressured and busy with everything right now and pulled in a lot of directions, so when I said no I just felt a load lift off me, not worrying about that and being able to focus on all the other things I need to be doing."
"Yes, I can understand that, especially about being away from your family, that's hard. I just wanted to make sure ... because if there is anything I could help with I would. If it was the fundraising ..."
"Thank you. Yeah with the letter you sent out that really helped, you basically laid out a templet for anyone to use, but it's just a lot of other things right now. I DO really, really want to go ..."
"Oh yes, definitely, your girl that you sponsor is there! But if it's not the right time then I respect that. I'm not even sure how I'd help: you email me your letter and I'd print it out and send it, I don't know!"
"You are sweet, thank you." David hugged me, which surprised me. He grasped me quickly but tightly, and my heart was warmed by his genuine embrace. I was glad that I had talked to him, for now I was at peace about him not going. It was still sad to me, and I expressed to him how excited I had been about his coming because I felt that we had a really great team going to Uganda, but that I truly understood that you had to feel called, and glad that he felt a relief at not going and not a bitter disappointment.
I loaded the sermon audio file onto my jump drive, to trim and upload to the website on Monday. I sent out an email about the connect cards and then went home. It was a long day, full, tiring, but still good. So, goodnight.
My alarm woke me up at 6:00 a.m. I reached for the windowsill beside my bed and hit snooze, my head and body remaining sunken in pillow and sheets. Gravity always seems to have such a brutal pull in the early mornings. I hit the snooze several times, so fogged with sleep, so full of the desire and partial need to continue to rest. It was after 6:30 when I finally got up, slowly, and then with a quick spring to tell myself that this was it, I was really up, I had to be.
I left the house around 7:00 a.m., wearing a pink skirt with thin white stripes and embroidered flowers, a white t-shirt and tan suede boots. The list of things I needed to do ran around my mind: get boxes from the church office, walmart run, set up the corners, help with the Uganda table, and as always, be in the nursery.
I stopped by the church office first. I punched in the code, turned off the alarm, and ran through the building to Kyle's office, where I found that the boxes where light and I could stack three and carry them to my car without much trouble. I finished that errand, locked up, and headed to walmart.
"Coffee, bagels, cream cheese, bananas, milk, orange juice, water, creamer, pita bread ..." I checked off each item in my mental list. I loaded my car and in two minutes I was at the theater, the morning location of my church, terranova. I parked outside the front and hauled the purchases and boxes inside, where people where setting up tables for coffee and donuts, books and audio, different ministries, and the table for the Uganda fundraising dinner that I would be manning later.
I felt scattered. I moved my car to an actual parking space and headed inside, a red metal basket of paperthings and Uganda information on one arm, my backpack with my computer and the locked church money back on my shoulder. I set these in the nursery area, where I'd be from 8:30 to 11:30, then went to the back storage area to begin getting things for the corners and worship stations.
I wonder how many times I walked the movie theater hall from the storage closet to the party room where we set up the nursery to various other theater screen areas. I always sweat on Sunday morning and it's very annoying. Theaters are supposed to be known for being cold, but I guess that with walking back and forth carrying anything from candles, rugs, pillows, jars of sand and pebbles, and all the nursery items such as a table and chairs, toy box, and two pack-and-plays filled with blankets and a number of baby swings and bouncy seats, the temperature in the theater won't do much to change the temperature in my body from all the early exercise.
A guest band in playing today to fill in for the worship leaders who are on spring break. They practice in the area of floor below the movie screen, tech people work on getting things right with sound and media at the very top of the theater, and I set up in the middle area of floor, laying down two rugs and setting up places to kneel and pray, write, light candles, draw in sand, and take communion. I don't regularly do this, though I like it. Carly is on spring break, so I'm filling in for her. I'm filling in with doing the walmart run as well.
It's nice to be in a place where I know almost everyone. It's comfortable, homey. I'm in my element here, talking to people, setting up, knowing how things go. I tease Shorty: last week he was pushing a large cart loaded with items to be put away in the storage closet and he didn't see me and ran into me. I wasn't hurt, just taken off guard, so when I saw him I asked if he was going to run me over again. "Way to let it go," he answered, matching my teasing smile. He's like a brother: we can tease each other and know it's all in fun but we can also trust each other. When Erin called me, from his phone, to tell me they were engaged, I was flying with happiness for two people who mean alot to me. Empathy for good and sad is easy for me. I think it's a gift? More on that another time.
I was setting up the Uganda table, laying out the dinner tickets and sign up sheets I had made the other day, when David and Shorty began to talk about the trip and David said he wasn't sure if he would be able to go. "I'm booking the tickets tomorrow," Shorty said, and slowly David shook his head, smiling sadly. "I can't go. I'm sorry." My heart fell. I was so excited about him going. Kyle came on the mission trip to Peru and I counted that as a great experience: being able to go with my pastor and evangelize and serve alongside him. I had purposefully gone to David and said:"I have two reasons why you should go to Uganda with us: One, Shorty needs another guy to go, and two, Kyle went to Peru and you, as associate pastor, should follow in his footsteps and go on this mission trip." David liked my reasons, and had another of his own to say yes; the child he sponors through Compassion International lives in Uganda.
The fact of him not coming cast a small shadow on the day. But only a small one: the time in the nursery went by smoothly this morning. I chatted with Jen and Shelley about their spring break trip to Colorado. Shorty, monitoring the halls and counting attendance, stopped in to check on things and talked with us for awhile. Somehow Jen mentioned that she doesn't like fruit, the texture of it, and that grapes in particular freak her out. "That's interesting," Shorty said, and in a little bit added, "And by interesting, I mean weird." A little later Shorty said 'interesting' about something else, and I asked, "So how do you really feel about that?" and he confessed that "interesting" was his blanket word and that yes, he usually meant something else and little stronger and more direct. I knew I could use this information as a tool for teasing him in the future.
David stopped by the nursery later on and I asked if he needed help with the youth weekend coming up, if he needed more chaperones. I ended up volunteering to stay at his house and watch his two little girls, whom I babysat each Thursday and in the nursery each Sunday. He was excited about that, since that would allow Breann to be with him and help.
I went to lunch with Erin, Shorty, Leslie and Brad. We went to Chili's, and it was good but different, since everyone seemed to have something they were stressed with or dealing with. I was worried about not making enough off of the fundraising dinner, and sad about David not coming to Uganda. I hoped to speak to him about that later.
I stopped by the church office on my way home, and took longer checking my email and copier pictures from the Peru mission trip in 2008 to a CD than I had planned. I don't have wireless at my apartment. I went to the store next and bought chips for the 4-year-old's birthday party I was attending later on, and some drinks and snacks for the youth group. I was excited about getting prints of the Peru pictures, and then disappointed when the store photo kiask showed no images. It told me that the pictures had been copied incorrectly.
Back home I began to cut cantelope and apples and arrange them and grapes on a plate to bring to the party in place of chips. When I remembered all the fruit I had at home I texted Kendall to ask what she'd prefer I bring. I rumaged in my fridge to see if I had anything I could use to make fruit dip. I came up with cream cheese and strawberry yogurt. I mixed this together with a little powdered sugar and concocted a tasty dip.
I watched an episode of "Arrested Development" while I fixed the fruit tray. Huck gave me the first season to borrow and I love it. By 5:00 I had put the fruit in the fridge and headed out to go to the church. Brian arrived at the same time I did, which was good since I don't have a key. I set the paperthingys, pita bread for communion, and two boxes of DVD's for Easter inside, then talked to Brian a little bit about his trip to Colorado over spring break, while he began to set up the media shout and recording equipment.
Back at my car I unloaded a case of water bottles, two cases of soft drinks and a bag of string cheese, and, balancing this load carefully in both arms, turned to walk across the parking lot to the house where youth group met each Sunday at 5:30. I hadn't gone far when Andrew, one of the youth leaders, ran over to me and split the load. We walked to the house and set everything down in the shade, where he was waiting for Kyle's daughter Sarah, who had the key, and the rest of the youth group. David was going to be late today. We talked for awhile, about youth and spring break, the most we had ever conversed, and when I left i smiled over the unexpected and pleasant conversations I had in the past thirty minutes.
I stopped by my place, grabbed the fruit, and in five minutes I was a Kendall and Donnie's house. Lesson was already there, Noel excited telling her about being 4 years old now and showing her the princess birthday balloon tied to her chair. Donnie began to cook burgers outside and us girls, including Brian's sister Amanda and mom Michele, talked and snacked on fruit. The dip was a success.
I left at 7:00 to go to church. Five minutes before I had missed a call from Lindsey. Her message simply asked me to call her back, and I knew something was wrong. I called her twice and no answer. When I got to church she was in the parking lot talking to Stephanie, Kyle's wife. I slowly approached. Lindsey was crying. She had come to the breaking point with everything she was going through with the tradegy that had befallen her mother-in-law and had forced her to move in with Lindsey and her husband. I had spent half of Saturday with Lindsey, finally getting her to vent and talk things out, as I hadn't realized before then that she deeply needed to do. She likes to fix things, like me: we don't like to show when things are hard for ourselves because we like to focus on helping other people.
Before Stephanie left I asked if we could pray for Lindsey. We clasped hands and prayed, then embraced. I ended up staying in the parking lot with Lindsey through the entire church service, but it was where I needed to be. She had come there looking for me, had talked to Kyle briefly before he had to go preach, then began to talk to Steph as I drove up. She went back home, feeling a little better having been able to cry in front of people who cared and having recieved support, love and prayer.
I entered the church as Kyle was closing the sermon in prayer. I knelt in the back at on the worship stations during the music. I prayed, eyes closed, and once cupping my hands around a candle in front of me, the gentle flames being soothing and hypnotizing.
When the music ended and people started to leave I sought out David. I said, "Can I talk to you about something?" and he said sure, smiling and facing me.
"I just want to hear from you why you can't go on the Peru mission trip, and hear me on this: If you feel like you really want to go but it's not the right time, right now it's not God's will, then I completely respect that. But if you are worried about the cost, about raising enough, or about getting your passport ob time, I'll help with anything I can."
"You're so sweet," he replied. "But really the thing is, I'm going to be gone from my family a whole week for youth week just two weeks after the trip, so there's that and I just feel really pressured and busy with everything right now and pulled in a lot of directions, so when I said no I just felt a load lift off me, not worrying about that and being able to focus on all the other things I need to be doing."
"Yes, I can understand that, especially about being away from your family, that's hard. I just wanted to make sure ... because if there is anything I could help with I would. If it was the fundraising ..."
"Thank you. Yeah with the letter you sent out that really helped, you basically laid out a templet for anyone to use, but it's just a lot of other things right now. I DO really, really want to go ..."
"Oh yes, definitely, your girl that you sponsor is there! But if it's not the right time then I respect that. I'm not even sure how I'd help: you email me your letter and I'd print it out and send it, I don't know!"
"You are sweet, thank you." David hugged me, which surprised me. He grasped me quickly but tightly, and my heart was warmed by his genuine embrace. I was glad that I had talked to him, for now I was at peace about him not going. It was still sad to me, and I expressed to him how excited I had been about his coming because I felt that we had a really great team going to Uganda, but that I truly understood that you had to feel called, and glad that he felt a relief at not going and not a bitter disappointment.
I loaded the sermon audio file onto my jump drive, to trim and upload to the website on Monday. I sent out an email about the connect cards and then went home. It was a long day, full, tiring, but still good. So, goodnight.
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