So Long Stress

I have been home for three weeks now with very few obligations and more free time than I've had in years. My job is low key, fun, and absolutely rewarding, my family has been getting along, and my friends and I have had a blast reminiscing and recreating the fun we had last summer. In short, these first three weeks of summer have been exactly how I pictured them--enjoyable, productive, and carefree--yet I still find things to stress about.

I still lay in bed every night planning out the next day hour by hour. I replay conversations in my head making sure I didn't say something wrong. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying that I won't get to work on time. I obsess over regretting the cupcakes I ate three nights ago. I thought that the absence of homework, tests, meetings, article deadlines, and rehearsals would ease my anxiety, but it didn't and I'm learning that stuff isn't the culprit of my stress level....I am.


I've been reading Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis: a philosophical series of letters from one demon advising another demon in corrupting and destructing a human. One of the letters is about time and humans' obsession with it. We are physically living in the present, yet constantly thinking, dreaming, and wondering about the past and the future. We have no power to change the past and no instrument to see into the future and yet most of the time our brains live in one of these impossibilities. The demon explains that the present is the most dangerous place for a human to live in, because God's presence is most tangible in the present.

This is soooooooo genius! Everything I stress about has to do with the either the past or the future. When I intentionally focus my mind on the present and everything the present has to offer, there is no longer anything to fear or worry about; there is only God and me and endless possibilities of what we can do together. That alone is exciting, harmonious, and completely stress-free. :)

Home Sweet, Sweet Home

It's official. I am done with my freshman year of college. I crammed all my belongings into our Pacifica, carefully unpacked it all into my tiny dorm room, made hundreds of acquaintances, made a few lifelong friends, pushed the boundaries, fell madly in love with Jesus, switched my major a few times, cried with homesickness, laughed with 3 a.m. delirium, packed back up all my belongings and again crammed them into the Pacifica for a long drive back home all within nine months. Wow. Last August as I stepped into my dorm room for the very first time--timid yet beaming with excitement--I had absolutely no idea how much I would experience and learn in the course of two very short semesters.

I am now back home in the comfort of the only house I've ever lived in with its bruised walls, overstuffed cabinets, and squeaky floor boards. I am back in my own rustic room with my favorite wooden wall my dad and I custom built together. I am back running on trails instead of pavement, sleeping on a mattress instead of a futon, eating pancakes instead of stale cereal, driving on empty roads instead of crowded roads, reading instead of studying, and loving every single second of it. I never, EVER, thought I would appreciate this beautiful, quaint hometown of mine, but I missed so much of it.

Yesterday, one of my closest friends, Katelyn, came over to bake cookies for one of the girls in our small group (her birthday was on Saturday) and catch up on life. It was my second day back from school and I badly needed a break from unpacking clothes and other paraphernalia. We talked, and baked (whole wheat dark chocolate chip cherry cookies), and make a healthy organic lunch, and talked some more, and made summer plans, and had the best time. With the constant activity of college, I had forgotten how important it is to breathe, do something for someone else, and spend quality time with the people you love.

My mom got me Cold Tangerines, by Shauna Niequist, for my birthday and I started reading it yesterday. It is a collection of stories about her life--small, everyday, pedestrian stories about the beauties of real life. She writes about celebrating the small, yet important moments God gives us each day and I am realizing that she is so right. Life is happening right now, in the small moments, with friends and family and pets and neighbors. Life is not one big adventure, but a series of adventures that bless us every single day. It is the sweet combination of  exciting adventures like taking off for your first year of college and relaxing adventures like baking cookies with a good friend. Each one unique and special and each one designed perfectly by God to best suit your personality, circumstances, and destiny.

Shauna is sooooooo right: celebrate every day and every adventure because they are each special gifts from God:)