...Plain Upon Tablets

I. Am. Tired. This is a major truth for me these days. I am physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, socially, spiritually (every "-ally" you can find) tired. The month of May was one in which so many things took place, ending in an ultimate pain and sadness that I know will take awhile to deal with. I dealt with the end of a semester that was painful and wrong on a few levels, I dealt with my first May Seminar class, which started right as the painfully wrong semester was ending, I dealt with pressures of a personal online project I took on and that kept me stressed, and I dealt with learning that my father was gravely ill and eventually had passed. Some might wonder why I would put my dad last on this list. Surely he was more important than everything else, and this is true. But what the above is, is a culmination of pain, stress, and exhaustion that exploded with the death of my father. During May, I didn't go to church. Didn't once open my bible. And I...

Yes. It's been awhile. I've been beyond swamped with the 50-11 things I give myself to do: school, editing, writing, and many more things I'm just too tired to even bring up. I've wanted to write, really. It's been very cathartic to sit here every Monday and let words rush out of me that reveal my heart and my feelings instead of something that's purely academic. But when you write so much and spend so much time working on other projects, the thought of sitting before the laptop to write one more thing can be the breaking point. I didn't want to break. Well, I'm about three weeks away from completing my first year of doctoral work--more on that in later posts. Haven't really taken the time to sit, to reflect, to pat self on back for a job well done yet. Besides, got GRADES still to receive for this semester! Like I said above, I've been busy--with stuff. Last night at church, the pastor preached a message that struck me right in the center of m...

I have to be honest. I did NOT think I would be here on the other side. The other side of what? Victory. And it's not that I didn't trust God. I didn't trust myself. I didn't think I had the energy to read one more article, to synthesize one more book, to write one more word. To think. To anything. I just KNEW I didn't have the power. There were many times when I just said, "Forget this mess. OK, let me tuck tail and go home." But I didn't. And I don't get all the glory. I don't even get all the victory. I know for a fact that it was God who carried me through this darkness, this new foreign place (in so many ways for me). It was God who didn't hate on me because my attendance at church slowed while I got lost in the forest of academia and could not find my way back out. It was God who whispered in my ear, Keep typing , or who told my body, "Don't listen to that girl anymore. Go to bed. She'll be OK." And even though I cri...

Every Sunday/Monday for the last five months, I have posted at least twice - once for my Verse of the Week entry and then a longer entry on the goings on in my life. This past Monday, I didn't post. I had left church Sunday morning with the burn to write. I knew what I would write about because I got it RIGHT from the sermon. Church was on FIRE last Sunday, and it helped to get me out of the reverie I had been feeling over the last few days because of personal issues that occurred back home and rocked my mental foundation. Thanks to church, I was seeing positively again and felt I could overcome my circumstances. Well, we all know that darkness loves to dwell just behind the light of goodness, and as soon as I arrived home, the darkness enveloped me whole. The issues I had moved to the back of my mind came back with a swiftness that literally took my breath away and brought with it tears, anger, and angst. In a split second, I didn't care about anything. I didn't care about...