On Single-Dom

Okay, so I started to write this post last December and got a little sidetracked in life....regardless, it still has a great article :)

After reading Singled Out: How Churches Can Embrace Unmarried Adults, I thought back to a lot of the interactions and experiences I'd had over the years.  Regardless of the frustrations I've felt, my faith itself has never wavered due to something directly related to this topic, it's just kind of something that is perpetually irksome.

 It's extremely easy to feel very lost, left out, and irrelevant as a single person in church.  I don't intend to point fingers at a particular one as I have frequented many in my adult (scary word) life.  Involving singles is something they can all work on.  I don't by ANY way shape or form mean that they should be offering matchmaking or dating services (not even close!), but it's pretty easy to feel overlooked or incomplete in a church setting.  Conversations frequently start with children, how many, and ages which inevitably leads to "my" children which I must have???  Nope.  Husband? Nope.  Boy---- Nope....at this point people are sometimes left standing awkwardly wondering what to say next.

Secondly, many people mistakenly assume that all Christian singles at church are "shopping" for eligible singles.  Not so.  Honestly, I'd love the opportunity to just fellowship with other people who share the similarity of singleness.  Single life is very different than married life.  While I greatly appreciate the opportunity to fellowship with the women in my ladies bible study across different stages in life and with families in my church, there is a something totally different about fellowshipping, encouraging, and enjoying the company of other single believers.

We want to be involved.  We want to feel needed.  These are human wants in any community.  Shouldn't they be met in a place where people are modeling their lives after the only perfect man's teachings?

Long Time Coming

I've been meaning to write about this for a few weeks now, but keep getting side tracked.....SHOCKER!  A lot of things have changed or have been new this semester.  Yes, I am still an RD, but I am no longer an official student (which I am LOVING).  Over the past couple years many of my close friends in the area have moved, I've changed churches, and well, life overall has changed.  This fall I decided to become more involved with my church here, this is a big step for me because I've always been pretty non-committed to church extra curricula's.  This may be because I'm pretty independent or it could also be because I was raised in a church without them and just have no experience with that type of involvement. I don't know for sure which...maybe both?

Back in October, I signed up to join a Growth Group and was hoping for one with younger people who I could connect with and be fed and encouraged...my spiritual mentors and people who kinda kept me going had pretty much moved and I was only involved in groups at the time where I was the leader, feeder, etc.  It was draining.  Well, God is funny (I'd say sometimes, but it seems to be more of an always) and my group is all people who have children my age :)  HA.  However, it has been fantastic so far and I am learning a lot and I love the people.

Still looking for peers/friends who share my faith I also jumped at the opportunity to join a college-30's group who would be discussing the book Radical by David Platt.  So far the discussion has been great, but the before hand interaction is less than great.  UGH.  These are days when I really hate being my awkward introvert self. :(  The hard part has been that the majority of group (about 18-20 men and women) have all grown up in this church and all know each other very well and while they are all more than happy to introduce themselves, but they then all head off to their corners of the room to talk amongst their best friends.  The handful of us who aren't from here, didn't grow up in this church, and who don't know anyone else are then left very awkwardly standing.  I've tried to join conversations or to initiate them, but so far it is just awkward awkward awkward.

My introvert self struggles sooooo much in these situations.  Here at the college, I am fine, most people never know I would rather DIE in social situations, but I think that is because I feel like I have something to offer students, I can help them, I have something to do.  At this group, I'm just one more person who struggles to make small talk, and when people answer open ended questions with yes/no and just move off to be with their friends, it is gross.  I've been reflecting a little in the past few days, for me, this group is almost like being right back in junior high and high school again.  I had pretty much no friends at that point in my life (which many of my friends now find hard to believe), everything was awful and those who I did consider my close friends were a guy 3 years younger than myself, one in my grade, and a lady who was old enough to be my grandmother.  I really abhor dead end small talk conversations and when I am asking someone what is happening in their lives or how they are I don't think people get that I really do want to know, that I really want to know who they are, what makes them tick and what makes them laugh.  I think it is a societal thing where society as a whole is so obsessed with go-go-go and the extroverts who dominate the societal norms that these short answers revealing nothing are okay, safe, and expected.

Lest this post sound depressed and complaining, I want to assure you that is not my intention!  I fully understand there is place for both extroverted and introverted personalities in the world.  I also am positive that I am supposed to be a part of both of these groups, no matter the comfort level for myself.  I am learning, I am growing, and I want to will to continue :)

A New Journey Into My Thesaurus

Nice.

This word has been slowly becoming more and more irritating to my subconscious self, making itself more and more consciously annoying.  Is that possible?  I don't know if this is an accurate description of what is actually happening but it makes sense in my mind.  :)  (isn't THAT a scary thought!)

I think it may have started in the fall of 2008 when I attended a church service at a local congregation and was startled and worried when I found the topic of the sermon to be something along the lines of: "Being a Christian is Being NICE".   Essentially what they were saying was we were to be sappy nice, not step on anyone's toes, never disagree, serve our hearts out and be NICE people.   I could not disagree more.   (More on that in a later post....possibly)  I did not return to church there.

In the past 3 years "nice" seems to become an increasingly cop out type description.  The point now is where it practically screams in my head, "LAZY!"  Do I really put such little thought into my words and interactions that I could use such empty phrases as "nice guy", "nice day", "nice time", and "you look nice"?  There are SO many more descriptive words that could convey what I really think but I am too busy or indifferent to put the effort in to use them.

I want to ban the word "nice" from my vocabulary.  From today on I will try to delve into my thesaurus and brain to think of more meaningful words to describe what I actually think.  I don't want to be detached from the world and people around me.  To be more engaged and genuine in the life I live.  Yes, that would be my ultimate goal I suppose. No, banning "nice" will not be a magic *POOF* that makes me a better person, only God can do that, and I will still fail according to his standards, but it may be a small step for me to be able to reflect his love and caring for the people around me.  I don't want my life to be devoid of emotion and filled with cop-outs.

I'm praying for a beautiful snowy wonderland tomorrow morning.  That would be spectacular to wake up to.

Good-bye, Nice!   Hello, Genuine!

Wowwee Zowwee!

I cannot believe how quickly time has passed! I've been quite awful at keeping this updated, I'm sorry!

Well, since my last post my Papa has passed away. It is very sad not having him here and Thanksgiving and Christmas were very weird without him. Not to mention all the times I have when something cool happens or reminds me of him and I want to call him and hear his voice, but then I remember he isn't here.

School last semester was hard because I missed quite a few days of studying and classes to visit with my Papa before he passed away and then for the funeral. This semester is going well so far, I like all of my classes and one of my professors who is retireing this spring reminds me of Papa... kinda weird.

It is miserably cold and blustery today and we couldn't even see the cars going by on the road from inside the front door of church today because of the white out (the church is only about 25-30ftMAX off the road!) There was a praise/worship service last night that Mt. Olive participated in, it was with a whole bunch of different denominations and we met at the Tower Church (Presbyterian). The church was ENORMOUS!!! I have never in my life been in a church that big. It was like sitting in a cavern. The coolest part though was being with all the people of different denominations just worshipping, so cool. Like Pastor Armstead said, "What if they don't play your song in heaven? Would you still want to go?" I think that really drives home that it isn't necessarily how we worship but that we worship the same God.

Friday night was the Extravaganza, the funnest dance of the year! :):):) A whole bunch of us went it is literally half of the student body smushed into one of the rec rooms with lots of music and lights and it is just a hoot with lots of free food....the whole thing is free! :)

Indoor Intermural soccer starts this week....we are doing a team and it should be a blast...we aren't very good but it is still wicked fun! :) O! O! O! I've been practicing shooting basketball left handed and it is getting really good! :) I can't wait for IM basketball!

On a closing note, I dyed part of my hair last week...a really fun purplish pink color. it is on the underside so you can't see it unless I have my hair up. (so it can still be normal if I need it to be! :))

Have a great week! E.

First real weekend back!

I took this pic the morning Tyler and I left Maine, the sun was coming up just as we drove into Bangor. It is so beautiful!

So far school is going well. My classes all seem like they will be manageable with the exception of my ecology class which could be wicked hard. My Professor wants all of our lab reports to be in the style of a scientific journal article! AAAAHHH!

Between studying and work I haven't really had tons of time to catch up with friends and some I really haven't seen at all. I got my Sunday shift changed! Yay! Now I can still go to Mt. Olive!

This weekend I went for a walk on Saturday morning, I went to the post office, the Salvation Army, and the farmer's stand at the American Legion. It was nice and cool and very relaxing to be doing something besides work/study. Saturday night I went to the street dance with a bunch of friends :) it was wicked fun and there were alot of people there! At the beginning it was all upperclassmen and the Orientation Board people but eventually freshmen came.

Sunday, after church, April, my friend Arielle's older sister, invited me to join them for lunch in her apartment. It was wicked nice and a welcome change from teh cafeteria!

Wow, the new cafeteria is amazing! I can't even explain it other than it is blue with industrial style ceilings and lots of different stations so there are hardly any lines! It is wicked wicked nice!

Well, today I am homeworking and then going with my entomology class tonight to go nighttime bug catching! :) should be fun!

Hugs, Love and miss you all! e.

I'm Back!!!

Hi all! I'm finally back at school...though i really liked being home and didn't really want to come back and start school again. I really missed my friends here though!

Tyler and I drove down on Saturday, we left my house at 4:30am....ick! But, that meant we arrived earlier which was nice! I got my room stuff out of storage on Sunday evening, so much of it is only temporarily unpacked and there is a lot more to go.

Church on Sunday was really cool because Pastor Armstead really covered all of the things that I had been praying about and struggling with this summer...kinda cool confirmation from God that Mt. Olive is where I'm supposed to be right now.

Please pray about my schedule, I'm currently working 2 jobs on campus but one of my shifts interferes with church. I emailed my RD so hopefully it can get switched, but we'll see!

Well, I have some precalc homework to finish up, love you all! e.

Hello!

Hello Everyone!

Last weekend my mom, sister, and brother came out to PA, we had an awesome visit, I had a blast with them! Hills got my bed and I slept on the floor....not so comfy! :) Sisterly love! haha It was pretty fun and it was really nice to see them...I can't wait until Easter break!!!!

This week has been rather crazy....no major exams but lots of little things that kind of piled up and made life quite hectic...

Our Intramural soccer team finished up...we didn't make it into the finals but we had a blast playing! I am now doing IM Bowling (we have an 8 lane alley here on campus) with 4 of my friends and so far we have won both of our matches! :) I'm also subbing for the hall IM basketball team when they don't have enough girls...we won our first game of the season and the second game the team forfeited so we got that as a win as well!! :) I'm trying to see about doing a hall IM softball (slow pitch!) team....but so far there are not enough girls interested....the good thing about IM sports here is that they are not too intense...mostly like pick up games at home....just fun! and good study breaks!

I had "Pelkey Church" today, was nice, listened to music from the Lincoln Christian Fellowship site (Part of HOME!!!!) and did my own bible study, it was nice....really miss my church family!

Well, I have a lot to do for classes tomorrow! Hugs to you all!!! E.