Patience...A lesson not learned yet.

One of my favorite things to do is look back through my old blogs....usually to see how different things were, to see how much has changed, and how much I've grown.

Sometimes, however, I find that some things haven't changed much at all. Specifically, I've found a common theme among some of my past blogs, and more importantly, one that has woven itself through my recent thoughts as well-and that is lack of patience.

No matter where I am in life, I'm always reaching and pining for the next step...and while some degree of determination and drive is good, I think that a lot of times I do it to the extent of not enjoying where I am in life, right NOW. Examples:

August 08, 2005:

"I am excited to get back to school. I'm ready to be busy again, to feel like I'm working toward a goal....Its almost like I'm on hold from my future. I know I should be enjoying my time right now, and I definitely am, and there are many things that I love about college....having my friends closeby, living with Jen, not really having to worry about finding a job or making money, etc...but I am so excited to graduate, get married, apply to PA school....so on and so on. It will come. I just need to be patient." March 13, 2007: "I need something new....something different to experience....I am feeling stuck and comfortable, and I don't want to be. I want a change, a chance to leave my comfort zone and hear God's voice in a way I never allowed myself to before."

June 20, 2007:

"It is driving me NUTS not to be able to PLAN anything. I am sooo anally detail and future oriented that I am driving myself nuts. I keep trying to look up apartments, jobs, etc. but then my dad or Jay reminds me that I can't do either of those things until we get down there. Its still too early to find a job, and we want to make sure we live near our jobs, so its too early to find an apartment/condo (we havent decided yet what we can afford...) too. Its so annoying, but I'm trying to let go and let God."

February 13, 2008:

"So in the next couple of months we are going to have a LOT of decisions to make. So if you'd keep us in your prayers, that would be great! Its so hard to trust right now because EVERYTHING seems so up in the air.

I've been trying not to play my favorite game....entitled "lets talk through scenarios A thru G" because I want to wait and see what happens. Again, God is teaching me patience, and complete trust in Him and His timing."


Doesn't seem like I've learned to trust God much at all, does it? My posts sound exactly the same from the past 3 years. I suppose this is a lesson I will constantly struggle with, and have to put extra energy and effort into faith and trust and LETTING GO. Haha. Hopefully one of my blog posts a year from now can bring this post up and I will talk about how great I've been doing. ;-) One can only hope!

Sadness

Many people might think I am ridiculous for being so distraught about giving away a dog, but I feel like my heart has been ripped out. I don't think I have ever cried so much in my life. This is so hard! So many things running through my mind....I hope he's safe and happy, I hope they are taking good care of him, I wonder if he misses me and wonders where his mom is and when she is coming back to get him...I miss him so, so much. He was my pal...he was always there when I was lonely, when Jay is away, he loved unconditionally and he trusted me completely since he was a puppy. I feel like such a horrible mother for letting him into stranger's hands. I KNOW it was the right decision....I KNOW these people will probably take good care of him, I KNOW that dogs are adaptable and he will probably be just fine, and I KNOW that when I start school I wouldn't be able to give him the time and attention he requires. Unfortunately, knowing all this doesn't heal my heart. I wish it would! I hate the disconnect between emotions and rational. I wish I could just tell my heart to put itself back together, and my overactive tear ducts to quit it. But I can't. I just have to wait for time to heal me I suppose...its not the first time I've done that.

I DO love my husband though. He may not like dogs very much, but he does love me amazingly well. He is probably the best husband in the whole world. I can't tell him enough. I can't believe we are quickly approaching our 2 year anniversary. We have been through SO much together already. 2 huge country-wide moves, living with family, new jobs and friends, and staying in touch with old friends. I wouldn't ever want anyone else by my side. I don't think I could make it in this world without him. I thank God every day that he saved him for me to marry. :)

Recognizing how blessed I am to have Jay, family and friends helps me keep perspective and helps me keep my head up despite the pain. It is hard work to keep your head up, but I am trying. And hopefully every day will get easier...

Have you ever googled yourself?

Hilarious cure for boredom or depression.
Picture results for "kara govoni"
I do need to mention that a lot of the pictures that came up were Dave Capozzi blog posts. After some research I realized that there is a link to my blog on his page titled "Kara Govoni"....ahh yes, it all makes sense now. :)

where's the balance?

Lately i've been struggling with the issue of defined "sin". Obviously, there are points in the Bible where God clearly denounces some things multiple times, and deviation from those is considered sin (i.e. 10 commandments). However, the rest of the Bible's messages sometimes intertwine and even at times contradict themselves, and a lot of the things considered "sins" by the Church today are very gray areas, not clearly defined in the Bible.

Can you truly depend on your intuition and the brain and soul God gave you, in addition to cues from the Holy Spirit on these gray areas?

What if this area remains gray for years, despite your best efforts to sort it through and prayers for guidance?

What if you finally form an opinion and it turns out to be wrong?

What if you disagree with certain views of the Church as a whole, because what they preach doesn't make sense to you?

How do we decipher which "laws" in the Bible we are supposed to take literally and which we can realize were put in place for a culture and time very far from where we are now? How do we deal with contradictions between the old and new testaments?

Your thoughts...

More thoughts

I have recently begun volunteering at CareNet, which is a Christian-run national crisis pregnancy center, and there just happens to be one in Mt Vernon. It has been great so far, the volunteer training is intense though...classes, reading, videos....it has taken me forever to get through it! Its been really great though, since my eventual goal is to be a midwife for teenagers that have crisis pregnancy situations.

Being Christian-based, CareNet is obviously very pro-life. Until I started going through the training, I ashamedly admit that I wasn't exactly sure where I stood on abortion. Ironically, I am anti-war and anti-death penalty, but couldn't bring myself to fully call myself pro-life! I never called myself pro-choice either, I just wasn't sure, having a medical background and working for an OB/GYN who discussed abortions like they were no big deal and a normal part of life. Well, after being fully educated about the abortion procedure and its after-affects from a surprisingly un-biased standpoint (I was bracing myself for a fire and brimstone "Christian" lecture about abortion being of Satan) from Carenet, I can now confidently call myself pro-life in every aspect. Along with my pacifist-prone nature, it is not up to us to end any human life, whether born or unborn.

I am all for empowering women to make choices concerning their bodies, but when it comes down to it, abortion is the selfish way out. If a baby is carried to term, whether it will be parented or put up for adoption, everybody will know about the pregnancy, which can be avoided by aborting. The ONLY reason that abortion should even be discussed in my opinion is if carrying the child to term will endager the mother's life. Have you ever been told or read about the abortion procedure in depth? It just about made me cry. Look it up if you have never heard about it. It is absolutely horrifying. And yes, the procedure is usually relatively safe and has little side effects medically. (Not to say that there are never side effects or situations that will leave the woman sterile for the rest of her life)...but the emotional and psychological trauma is unmatched. Just hearing stories from fellow volunteers/coworkers at Carenet of girls who have come in post-abortion an absolute mess, wishing someone would have warned them what it would be like. It makes me devastated for the girls, and for the babies who had no chance to make their mark on the world.

I was surprised by the statistics that show that adoption is not chosen very often by women in crisis pregnancies. That also made me sad. There are SO many couples in the world who are infertile, and would be amazing parents. There couldn't be a better alternative to abortion out there! Either way, you are "giving up your baby". The difference is between ending the baby's life, and GIVING them a good life. Both are traumatic for the mother, but only one is traumatic for the baby AND the mother. Giving a child up for adoption is one of the most selfless, loving things a mother could ever do.

Just some things I've been thinking about lately, and just another thing I'm figuring out and praying about in my walk of faith that makes SENSE to me.

p.s.

apparently TODAY is the one year anniversary of this blog. Super.

i think

Moving to Ohio has made me think a lot more than usual. It makes sense....I went from constantly having either a full time job or school for the past 20 or so years of my life, to not really having many responsibilities at all until school starts.

Thinking has been really refreshing for me. I had begun to wonder why no matter what I did, I felt a wall between me and God. I couldn't tell why it was there, or what I could do to get rid of it, but it was there, and I could feel it every time I tried to pray, read the Bible, go to church, or do anything "religious." And I think having these couple of months of thinking has finally helped me figure it out.

I started re-evaluating my life choices...where I put emphasis and why. I realized that my choices were completely based on society's (and even the church's'!) expectations rather than on my relationship with Jesus or the Bible. When I finally stripped down to the words of Jesus and my inner convictions that I believe are Holy-Spirit driven, I realized that I had been living my life wrong all along. The wall between God and I was built up because I was following "Christian" society...not Jesus.

As I have been realizing these things and beginning to make small changes toward the way I feel I should live, I have felt the wall slowly dissolve. I feel closer to Jesus than I ever have, and am so thankful that I have had this opportunity to THINK for once. How sad is it that in our career-driven, money-driven, work-driven success-driven lives that we don't even have time to breathe, let alone think. This isn't the way it is supposed to be. We work 80 hour weeks just to keep up with our lifestyles, when I think Jesus would prefer us to spend that time with family, friends, and HIM.

So what are these small life changes I have been slowly working towards? For one, I have been feeling convicted for a long time that Christians should be the most passionate environmental activists there are. God clearly put us in charge of this earth, and look what we've done to it! Personal small changes can make all the difference, but instead, we just adapt to society without even making a decision at all. I'm slowly trying to adjust my personal lifestyle to be more environmentally-friendly, and I still have a long way to go, but for the first time, I feel GOOD and RIGHT about the choices I'm making, even if it goes against the grain.

Consumerism is at a disgustingly high rate, and I don't even want to think about all the times I've bought something that I don't NEED. We live in excess....and this way of living is being force-fed to us by our country. We buy the most expensive things we can afford...the nicest houses, multiple ipods, TONS of clothes, etc...etc... and all because we think we NEED it. This is especially hard for me, because I love to shop and have new things as much or more as everyone else, especially electronic gadgets :). But buying new things never makes me happy. It makes me feel worse, because I know that the money I just spent on another pair of shoes could have gone towards paying off debt or buying a child clean water for a YEAR. I mean, when Jay and I lived in Nashville, the rent was so cheap compared to MA, that we got a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment, which was great, except that as cheap as our rent was, we could have been just as happy in a 1br/1ba and SAVED the extra money we could have spent. But we subconsciously felt that we had to get the biggest apartment we could afford- just because we could! It is this attitude that I want to try to slowly change in myself. I want to live a simpler, less cluttered life. I want to be financially smart-and make sure we have no debt, and that we give with cheerful hearts. Easier said than done, but with God's help, it can be done!

These are just two of the many life changes I am desperately whittling away at. I know it can't be done overnight, so for now, I am content changing little things at a time until the wall is completely gone and I can rest in my Father's arms.