guard my way to You...

I love that we have the freedom to pray spontaneously and easily. But I also love that when we for whatever reason can't, there are things to help us. I wish I remembered that more often- so often these past few months I have wanted to throw up my hands, scream, or worst of all, become indifferent, at my lack of attention span, lack of words, lack of desire to pray. And then every once in awhile I'll remember with total "Duhh!" clarity- oh yeah, there are things to help me with this. Somehow every time it seems like this novel concept to grab Celtic or the Psalms, to remember that God accepts any prayers we can offer, is happy to meet me through others' writings. I'm so thankful for prayer books, for words I can read and set my heart to- letting my prayers be formed by their truths and not by my will.

I started praying this prayer regularly a couple of months ago. I picked it back up this week and was encouraged by its simplicity, by its statement, and by how it spoke my desire, need, and dependence perfectly... and I experienced gratitude and dare I say, even wonder, to see just a bit how God has been answering it this spring.

"Lord, I have heard Your voice calling at a distance.
Guide my steps to You, Lord, guide my steps to You.

Lord, I have heard Your voice calling at a distance.
Guard my way to You, Lord, guard my way to You.

Lord, I have heard Your voice calling at a distance.
Keep my heart for You, Lord, keep my heart for You.

Lord, I have heard Your voice.
Amen."

-from Celtic.

I need my way to Him guarded. He is doing it. I'll keep praying it.

And I am grateful always for this:
"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." -Romans 8:26

Rooming with Amy Grace Martinez

Three weeks before I got to Wheaton, I received a little letter from the Student Life department, welcoming me to campus and informing me that I would be sharing Smith Hall Room 115 with some California girl named Amy Grace.

I am not exaggerating when I say that I am not sure it is possible to have a more positive freshman roommate experience than I did.

Ways rooming and friendship with Amy have been shaping for me:

• I had a lot of hard stuff going on at home coming into Wheaton. This could have been completely disastrous depending on who my roommate was. Amy was PERFECT. Perfect. She was compassionate, perceptive, prayerful, present, and nonjudgmental. I really could have had a very different Wheaton experience had I roomed with someone who had been less fantastic about the situation that year.

• On the same kind of note, I felt really weird at Wheaton sometimes freshman year... I had definitely grown up in a different culture than a lot of the other people, at least it felt that way. I felt pretty self-conscious a lot of the time. She was great about loving and accepting me as I was, never making me feel judged or awkward about not speaking Christianese... among um, other things... (cough). As well as about not being super academically successful that year.
  

• She is a truly compassionate and inclusive person. Freshman floors have a tendency to get cliquey and ours was no exception, and Amy really rose above that impressively. She continually made efforts to know, celebrate, and include all sorts of different people. I learned a lot from her about that.

• She is an incredibly solid and consistent person in friendships. She is super loyal, would do anything for anyone, plans on keeping her close friends forever. She doesn't speak words of affirmation superfluously, but when she does speak them they're really thoughtful and encouraging. She was one of the only people outside of my immediate family who bought Skype credit and called me on my cell phone while I was in Bolivia.
  

• She connects with God in some really different ways than I do. This was REALLY good for me. I came into college pretty much thinking (subconsciously, but still) that relating to God and praying needed to look a certain way (A morning quiet time with your Bible and your journal, basically). Amy does all those things but she also connects with God beautifully and real-ly through lots of other things, like serving others, like music, like going to church and worshiping communally uber-consistently. I learned so much from her just in terms of all of those things, but I also learned a lot in terms of the fact that connecting with God CAN look different for different people, and that's totally valid.

• On the God note, we have this thing which has been one of my totally weirdest spiritual experiences ever. Sometimes God just TELLS us when the other one needs us. I'm not joking and I think that sounds weird too. Several separate instances this has involved one of us waking up in the middle of the night and randomly CALLING the other one to find them (several states away usually) crying. One time, it involved me calling her to find her like seriously ill to the point of being unable to leave the room to get someone to help her. Our friendship seriously makes me believe in prophecy.

• Whenever I hug her, smelling her "scent" makes me feel like I'm back in freshman year. (I once said this in a psych class and everybody looked at me like I was awkward.)
  

• Over time, our roommate-ship deepened into one of my closest and best friendships. Amy is a loyal, encouraging, fun, easy-to-be-with, and inspiring friend. I enjoy her, I trust her completely, I learn from her, and I want to be her friend forever. And our initial experience of being each other's haven through that first crazy, homesick year, and building on all of those memories, has cemented our friendship into one I hope is lifelong.

Other fun things:

• She is quirky and hilarious: she owns a stuffed germ (seriously. Like a stuffed animal but... it's a plush, furry version of a bacteria); she makes hamster noises when she's excited; she owns very tall, very fancy leather boots which she refers to as her "Empowerment Boots" and wears when she's facing a stressful day; she taught me to use the word uber.
  
• She has great fashion sense and taught me how to accessorize (match your earrings to your scarf and wear a sweater in a complementary color!).
• She is impressively skilled at flirting. It's pretty funny. Unfortunately, I didn't pick this one up quite as well.
• Great musical taste (well, once you get over the Techno). Rosie Thomas and Rufus Wainwright, heck yes.
• She has a breathtakingly beautiful singing voice.
• She's obsessed with her nieces and nephews (rightly so, they're adorable).
• When she was an RA her floor theme was children's books.
• She paints poems on huge pieces of fabric and hangs them in her room.
• She graduated in December so wasn't here when I got back from HNGR, but she left me her entire bedroom set to use for the semester plus a bunch of food to eat until I could get to the grocery store and a wrapped and carded Christmas present (who does that? see what I mean about being an incredible friend?).
  
• She's academically brilliant but never brags about it.
  
• We talk about loving each other so much that random people comment on it (and our RA told us we were the cutest roommate pair on the floor).
  
• Too many memories to even write... here's a good one, and here... and this might be my favorite.
  

In our room freshman year- how we do.

Showing off our matching roommie pajamas!

I am so thankful Amy was my freshman roommate!

(PS so much for brief)

College.

Some months ago, I saw a series on a blog where every day for the 30 days before her 30th birthday, the writer wrote on one of the top 30 moments which "have helped shape who I am and want to be".

I thought that was a creative and great idea, but my next birthday was 22, which wasn't as exciting. Plus, I felt a little young to be able to name which things have shaped me- I'm not that shaped yet! (Because I'm sure by 30 I'll be ALL DONE, right?)

However, in the two weeks since graduation, I've been reflecting on my four wonderful years at Wheaton. I've been thinking a lot about the many moments, people, experiences, and qualities of my school which were so influential in my college experience and to who I- well, am and want to be.

So, I decided I'm going to do a similar thing on here- a list of ___ shaping parts of my college experience. I put ___ because I have no idea how many I'll end up with. 30 seemed like a good number, but my initial brainstorming list was 28 and that left a lot off. 50 seems like a lot. Chet pointed out that since it was Wheaton's sesquicentennial this year maybe I should do 150, but that REALLY seems like a lot. So we'll see. Who knows, maybe 4o is a nice medium.

This is mostly for me- just starting to make the list was really interesting and as I've kept it running in my journal the last couple of weeks I've started to reflect on some seemingly small things which I can tell have influenced me and my time greatly. And I honestly really wish I'd done it after high school- I could name a bunch now but it would have been interesting and more relevant to see what I would have picked immediately after. I hope it will be fun to read too though! I'm going to tryyy really hard to keep them each brief :-)

I'm already stressing out about naming individual people, simply because there are way too many wonderful friends who have been influential in my life at Wheaton. I'm going to have to because duh, but yeah... I love and am thankful for everyone! And I'm just not including any Maryland things. Obviously Maryland people have been influential over the last 4 years, but then it would just never end.

So yeah! New blog series. Holler. Then maybe I can actually finish one single entry about real things from the pile of half-done ones I have in my drafts folder.

Stay tuned for the first one tomorrow...

More Graduation: Suite

Looveee these girls.

And possibly my favorite pic of the suite and the Suite Husband ever:

Graduation station.

Five of my favorite people on the planet...







Possible to be more blessed?





I'm thinkin'... no.

the first post-graduation days

Randonmness in no particular order...

• In the 2 days since graduation, I have...
  

-Run 3 miles with Chet
-Hung out swapping stories and laughing for hours with my old roommates
-Smoked cigars with Matt and his dad and brother and cousin (although "smoked" might be an exaggeration of my abilities in this particular area...)
-Cooked and ate a delicious dinner with the Tuesday boys
-Been to Starbucks three times
-Eaten Panera twice
-Cleaned my room
-Stopped by to see people spontaneously
-Enjoyed a glass of wine
-Blogged
-Not done any homework.

So far I really like adult life, but I feel like it might get a tiny bit harder?

• My dad is learning to text message. He sent me one about his feelings on coming out for graduation:
  

"Hi em i love you soooooooooooo much it was such a treat to be with you and talk and now 0f course your truly an adult a coll ege grad hooray f0r em 0pke gq ve0ng"

Precious.
Oh how I love him.

• I start my first real job tomorrowwwwww!!!!!!!!

Yikes. Pray for me. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

• Christine and Heather left this morning. That SUCKS!!! It was way harder than I thought it was going to be. I was depressed this afternoon and couldn't figure out why (I'd had an unexpected free few hours, seen great people, had fun plans for the evening, etc.) and then started journaling and that came out and I started crying.

Those girls in so many ways ARE my Wheaton experience. We've been close friends for four years and lived together for two. So many of my close friends are staying in the area at least for the next year that I really haven't processed much about saying goodbye to specific people (because I've barely had to). Realizing that though of course we're going to stay obsessed with each other and involved in each other's lives and best friends, we are really all now living ACROSS THE COUNTRY FROM EACH OTHER IN EVERY DIRECTION (Alabama, Colorado, Illinois)...
is really, really sad and hard. I will miss them and sharing life with them in a more daily way, so, so much.

But mostly, I am just so grateful for them and who they are and for our friendships and the last four years together.

• On the Heather-and-Christine note in a happy way, since it was their last night, I slept over their house last night. We pushed two couches together to make a big bed so we could all sleep together and snuggled and talked before bed (we missed you, Married Roommate!). It was just wonderful. We've actually always done that the night before we leave for the summer, we realized- although it was easier when we all lived in the same ROOM. It was the perfect last night together.

Then we woke up to all of their parents and assorted siblings bringing us bagels and scones from Panera to start the morning before I headed to what I thought would be my first day of work (turned out to be a few hours of paperwork and then they let me go home!) and they headed out to their adult lives... apart from me (sob).

• One lovely part of the evening was that Christine told us last night how her parents prayed specifically for her friends at college when she was still in high school, and how she knows "you guys are who they were praying for!!". Isn't that cool? I just think that's cool. It actually makes me teary (again).

• Um. I love my life. I love my friends. I think being an adult is gonna be good. So far all of my purchases as I falter into financial independence have been coffee or food, is that bad?
  

four years.

“Everything that the Creator God does in forming us humans is done in place.

It follows from this that since we are His creatures and can hardly escape the conditions of our making, for us everything which has to do with God is also in place...

...All living is local: this land, this neighborhood, these trees and streets and houses, this work, these people…

What we often consider to be the concerns of the spiritual life—ideas, truths, prayers, promises, beliefs—are never in the Christian gospel permitted...

...to have a life of their own apart from
particular persons and places."

-Eugene Peterson, from Christ Plays in 10,000 Places

Thanks be to God.