What About Now?

In the morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. Psalm 5:3

Three weeks ago Tuesday, at approximately 6:15AM:

God: *poke*
Me: *sleeping*
God: Psst. Elisse!!
Me: Umpfh.
God: Elisse! Wake up!!
Me: God?? What is it??
God: Get up!!
Me: *yawns* *looks at the clock* *rolls back over*
God: ELISSE!! WAKE UP NOW!!
Me: Whyyy?
God: Because great things are about to happen! You can't keep sleeping when I have such wonderful things in store for you! I'm too excited to keep watching you sleep!!!
Me: But you've been telling me this for weeks!
God: I know!! Isn't it awesome?! So you have to get up!!
Me: When are these amazing things going to happen? Today?
God: Mayyyybe.
Me: Just tell me!
God: It's a surprise!
Me: I hate surprises!
God: I know - that's why I'm telling you that great things are going to happen!
Me: WHEN??
God: Soon!!
Me: Today?
God: Could be!
Me: Tomorrow?
God: You never know!
Me: This week?
God: If I told you, it would spoil the surprise!
Me: This isn't like that time last May when you told me something great was going to happen and I had to wait until January, is it?
God: And wasn't that totally worth it?
Me: That is SO not the point!
God: Didn't I time that perfectly and then do great and powerful things through it?
Me: Still not the point!
God: And didn't I remind you of that very thing JUST LAST MONTH so that you would believe me now when I keep saying that GREAT THINGS are going to happen?
Me: I don't see how that's relevant.
God: Didn't I know exactly what I was doing then?
Me: ...yes.
God: Don't I always know what I am doing?
Me: Well, you don't have to rub it in.
God: Well, obviously I do because you are NOT LISTENING TO ME. I'm telling you to GET UP and BE EXCITED because GREAT THINGS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!
Me: WHEN??
God: Geesh, you are high maintenance!
Me: What?! I can't believe my own God just called me high maintenance!
God: Well, I'm allowed! I made you!
Me: Well, then, YOU made me this way!
God: Touché.
Me: Ha!
God: And by the way, NO, your hair does not look like a chia pet at that length when you style it curly.
Me: What?!
God: I got sick of listening to you wonder about it for 12 hours straight yesterday instead of being excited about the GREAT THINGS THAT ARE GOING TO HAPPEN!!
Me: I am excited! YAY!!
God: Good!! That's more like it!!
Me: Y'know, I'd be even MORE excited if I knew WHEN these great things were going to happen...
God: *facepalm*
God: Have I ever lied to you?? Just TRUST ME!!

No, He has never lied to me. Three weeks later, He's only just starting to show me some of these great things, and I can tell they're definitely going to be worth the wait, so I am waiting...expectantly!

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. John 1:16

I'm Blue!

I just took the Color Code personality test while watching "Will & Grace" reruns on Lifetime and cuddling with my poodle, which I'm pretty sure makes me a total cliche, but the results were remarkably accurate, I have to say:

Definitely Blue

Congratulations, Elisse, you are a BLUE personality. The Core Motivation that drives you through life is "Intimacy". It is important to note that this does not mean sexual intimacy. BLUES need connection - the sharing of rich, deep emotions that bind people together. As a BLUE, you will often sacrifice a great deal of time, effort, and/or personal convenience to develop and maintain meaningful relationships throughout your life.

BLUES seek opportunities to genuinely connect with others, and need to be understood and appreciated, especially by their partner. Everything you do as a BLUE has to be quality-based, or you won't do it at all. You are incredibly loyal to friends, employers, employees, and above all to your significant other. Whatever or whomever you commit to is your sole (and soul) focus. As a BLUE, you love to serve and will give freely of yourself in order to nurture the lives of others.

BLUES have distinct preferences and are the most controlling of the four personalities, although they may not acknowledge (or even realize) the fact. Your code of ethics is remarkably strong and you expect others (not only your partner and those closest to you, but everyone) to live honest, committed lives as well. You enjoy sharing meaningful moments in conversation with your partner as well as remembering special life events (e.g. birthdays and anniversaries).

It's kind of creeping me out how true that all is.

Wanna take it too? You can find it here - you have to be, like, reflective and stuff, but it's fun!

Stream of Consciousness Post at 2AM...don't say I didn't warn you.

I am not myself right now...and if I'm being honest, I haven't really been, at least consistently, for weeks.

Oh, sure, I have an excuse - that whole unemployment thing. It's a "difficult time." I feel like people nearly wince when they approach me to ask about it because it's as if I'm walking around visibly bleeding all over the place.

But I don't want that to be an excuse. I have promises from God! I've been given so many encouraging words from Him, firsthand and through others! I don't want my circumstances to affect me - to change me - to make me someone I don't want to be.

God has been jumping around like a divine Mexican jumping bean for weeks, more excited than I've ever felt Him, about the wonderful things that He's going to do for me and in my life. He's given me words and then fulfilled them. He's given me countless signs and confirmations. He's even spoken audibly to me, saying, "I am going to do it!!"

And yet, still, I'm blocked. I'm frustrated. I can't write - I can barely speak! My mind is a vast wasteland, dry as the Old West with tumbleweeds rolling by (and, apparently, lame metaphors like that one). On the rare occasion I do think of something to say, it usually ends up being something bitingly sarcastic, and then I seem mean and horrible to everyone within earshot. Either that, or I'm just silent, and I sit like a jealous five-year-old, brooding and pouty as I watch others get to be witty and funny and light while I am the personification of epic failure. It turns me into the worst version of myself: insecure, panicky, and generally ~emo~...and not in the cool way, either, believe me.

I won't describe the several recent events that brought me to this conclusion, or the utter stupidity going on in my brain that caused me to nearly burst into tears as I was driving home from my friends' apartment tonight. But as it happened, and those old, familiar feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness came over me again, and as I finally came to the realization that this isn't me, I'm not myself, I'm beyond this, for crying out loud!...God spoke to me:

"You can either stay upset about this and dwell on it and make it that much worse, or you can ask Me to heal and restore your spirit and vivacity and humor...and make you you again."

I mean...which one would you choose?

I just hope He realizes the magnitude of what He offered to do, cause I am totally taking Him up on it, starting, like, right now.

The joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10

Cosmically Cream-Pied, Best Friend Edition

My best friend and I have known each other for nearly eight years now - since we were freshmen in college. Suffice it to say that we've been through a lot together and we know each other quite well. While there are many more where these came from, I thought I'd share a few of the interchanges we've had over the past year or so.

As she's mercilessly beating me at a video game:
Her: A girl being good at video games automatically adds, like, five points in a guy's opinion.
Me: So that's why you're married and I'm not?
Her: Exactly.

***

Me: I hate my life!
Her: I hate your life too!

***

Needing boy advice, I asked her about her husband:
Me: How did you first tell him you were interested in him??
Her: I walked up and Frenched him.
Me: ...*blink*
Her: Well, you asked!

***

A recent instant-message conversation:
Me: I took Lottie to walk at Lake Lynn tonight
Me: it's frickin' GORGEOUS
Me: it's amazing
Me: and there are like 10 different kinds of water fowl
Her: wow
Her: you could say ducks and stuff, but you said water fowl

***

I think we'd both be different people without each other...at least, I know I would.

From One Redhead to Another

The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord. Psalm 45:11

An open letter to my dear friend, soul-sister, and fellow fiery redhead, Kayla:

You are lovely.

I truly don't know where I would be without you, and I don't even want to think about it. Your faith has been such an inspiration to me, and your energy and vivacity and tenacity have kept me both grounded and afloat more times than I can count. You are smart and passionate and spunky and you bring light and laughter and joy into the heart of our Daddy and Lord.

He loves you so very much. He delights in you. He is absolutely captivated by you. And He can't wait to show you how much He loves you and the amazing plans He has for your life. I am so excited for you in these future days and weeks - excited for you to spend such focused, intimate, intense time with Him. I know you will experience His love in a way that will leave your heart and your life changed forever.

And at the right time - in His perfect time - I pray that He brings the man that He has for you into your life - a man who will see you the way that our Daddy and Lord sees you, a man of morals and character and integrity who knows our God in the same powerful, personal, life-directing way that you do. I pray for God to bring you a man who will be able to meet you in faith and in passion, a man who will stand up and pray over you and your family in the name of Jesus because he knows how and he knows it will work. I pray for you a man who knows who he is in Christ and who is not only deep and mature in spirit, but, even more importantly, is a man of strength who is willing and eager to pursue you and fight for you every single day for the rest of your lives together. I am confident that our Daddy has created men like this for both of us - men after His own fierce, valiant, passionate heart, instilled with His dreams and called for His purpose, that He has created us to support and sow into and love with all the feistiness and pitbull faith that He has given both of us.

So, during this defining time in your life, let Him love you. Let Him prepare you for the wonderful future He has for you. Meet Him in this time, and cherish this solitude with Him. As He is preparing you, He will be preparing him too, and preparing your futures both separately and together. He will make it clear where you are to go and what you are to do next, in His will and with His blessing. The waiting may be hard, but it will be worth it.

I can't wait to hear all about what He speaks to you!

All my love,

Your big-soul-sister and friend,

Elisse

P.S. In light of our recent conversation - and speaking of heroes - I thought I'd show you why this one is right at the top of my Favorite Animated Movies list:

I KNOW, RIGHT? *grin*

Fascinating.

Ever since my friends dragged me (and by "dragged," I mean "invited me to go along and offered to pay") to the Star Trek movie on Memorial Day, I've been entrenched in a state of what some people would call "fangirling," but because I am actually remarkably self-aware, I am choosing to call "channeling my affection," about the film itself and also about a specific character. (When this sort of, ahem, reaction happens to you roughly 116 times over a span of oh, say, a quarter of a century, you tend to get pretty good at, ahem, pinpointing the emotion.)

And which character has captured my attention, you ask? Is it the dashing, brazen hero Kirk? The gruff but ruggedly handsome "Bones" McCoy? The impish and appropriately-accented Scotty? Heh, no. Instead, I have become totally intrigued by the smart, serious, withdrawn, dutiful, emotionally repressed yet somehow still intensely mysterious...Spock. Spock, the victim and yet victor of his Vulcan heritage, softened by his human mother, passionate in his quest for excellence, with flashes of depth that most people only pretend to fake, and my gosh what I wouldn't give to see him to smile just once...Spock.

Anyone who knows me at all will be totally unsurprised by this.

The only problem I had with the film was Spock's relationship with Uhura. It just seemed competely improbable to me that it would happen that easily. I mean, how did they even meet? Spock walks up to Uhura and goes, "Hi, I'm Spock. I'm Vulcan. Vulcans repress their emotions, so I have no idea how to express anything I'm feeling, ever. WANNA MAKE OUT?"

Pft. Right. Why don't we all just hop on a spaceship and fly to...oh wait.

What are they going to do for the next movie - get married and have a bunch of Vulcan-human kids running around Kirk's chair playing lasertag with the phasers?

I know, I know, I'm poking holes in the otherwise airtight logic of the Star Trek universe, but I'm just saying.

Plus, honestly, it's just (lest I offend my die-hard Trek-loving friends)...not-quite-stellar storytelling. It's instant gratification. We never see Spock struggle with realizing his feelings for Uhura, or her struggle with his inability to return her feelings for him as soon as she'd like. We don't get the thrilling sensation of longing glances or barely-missed opportunities or gazes held a little too long but then dropped in pitiable shyness or a sudden surge of stupidly stubborn pride. We don't get to yell "WHY CAN'T YOU SEE IT?!" at the screen and wait with baited breath until the day when these two characters, after months or years of drawn-out expectation, finally have a life-changing experience either together or separately and realize they can't live without each other and go running into each other's arms - walls broken down and hearts - even Vulcan - exposed at long last.

Perhaps I should remind myself that Star Trek is science fiction and not, in fact, a romantic comedy. It was not written by Jane Austen, nor is it a sitcom set in late 1990's Manhattan where the characters all hang out at Central Perk. Also, apparently, the central theme of Star Trek does not totally revolve around Spock learning how to understand and express his emotions. I mean, it's there, but there's, like, other stuff too.

But I bet it would reach a whole new audience of 21st-century Elizabeth Bennets if it was.

Oh look, something shiny!

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Psalm 73:26

Last night, I got home from watching a movie at my friends' apartment and checked my email before I went to sleep. Sitting there in my inbox was an outright rejection from a local business where I had applied only hours before to be a grant and contract writer. I'd seen the ad late yesterday afternoon on Craigslist and promptly added it to my now more than 60 job applications, getting very excited because I seemed to fit all of the qualifications and maybe someone would pay me to write!! Apparently, they did not feel the same way, and didn't even need to mull it over for more than four hours before sending me an email in return that, to summarize, read "Um, no."

It was 1AM. It was late and I was tired and it hit harder than it probably would have at, say, 1PM, but I got very down when I read the email and immediately decided to break out the streamers and punch for an all-out pity party. I clicked compose and was preparing to type out a group email to, like, EVERYONE I KNOW saying "WOE IS ME, PLEASE PRAY BECAUSE I AM DROWNING IN JOBLESS QUICKSAND"...but then Lottie started barking shrilly that she had to pee and I got distracted.

EVERYONE I KNOW is now breathing a collective sigh of relief and thanking God for tiny poodle bladders.

Now there's a sentence I bet you never thought you'd read.