Emails With Kendra About Trusting God

November 15, 2017

Me: 

[...] What will I do in eight months when I get off the plane from Morocco? I basically need to step into a job right away, and I cannot yet imagine what that will look like. And rightfully so, because it's maybe too soon for me to have the next step lined up. Would you pray with me about having peace despite not knowing? Would you pray that I would know which of the many adventures to choose, in good time? 
It's like the light shines just steps ahead of all of us, for us to walk at full speed always straight into the darkness, illuminating it as we go. May God have glory in all our lives! 
Ugh. Please... don't tell me I should fast. I know you're gonna tell me I should fast. Okay. Okay. 
Thank you for reading this. I'll pray for you, too.  

Love,  

Carolyn 

P.S. If you don't let me know how to pray for you, I'll just pray that God would "bless" you with a litter of kittens at your back door some morning. So, this is like a cosmic chain letter, and for most of you, that is a threat.

K.G.: 

Lol.You know the "threat" goes both ways as we pray for Him lighting the path just enough so you know He's there, but not enough to have a clue where you're going neither with your [...] relationship or future who what when and where after Morocco. I mean, we don't even know what tomorrow will bring. So it can be threatening to free Jesus to release His best for us. 
I am excited to pray ”threatening" prayers that free Him to bring you to places you never could have dreamed. Heck, you've already been to a lot of these places. Hard ones. Lovely ones.
I love you, Sweetness Seasoned with a Bit of Tart. Pure sweet is sickening. Your tart makes you special to me.

May 12, 2018

Me:

Thank you for your emails and for praying for me in the fall. I've had a little bit of heartache since that email asking you to pray for clarity. Clarity came. [...]
Now, in the time of searching for jobs and wrapping up my work [...] I'm trying to push aside all my concerns about money! I have a lot of options for temporary living spaces, and no job offers yet.[...] I am praying not to miss the boat by being lazy, to keep doing my work diligently. That's always been a tough call: when is the work enough, and you can just trust? Is this terrible theology? 
[...]
Thank you for praying for me and loving me from a distance. I think of you often. 
Love, 

Carolyn

K.G.:

I feel that I have to resend my last response to your previous transparent sharing.
You are so right with the push pull action of faith-listening, and action. I'll just say it is a lot easier to turn a massive ship while it is in motion.
With a sense of excitement about where our Jesus is moving you next, you can open doors by applying for jobs, etc., but retain the listening ear. Carefully balance action and trust. Neither one without the other. Faith only, sitting there, expecting God to drop things in your lap is ok at times and with some people. But faithFULL
listening is mind-blowing, faith-building relationship. I speak of relationship as a verb, less of a noun.
You are so very beloved.
A visible, towering sunflower, lightening our world, bringing sunny times into my life.
Mwah!
Huggle!

Qualifications

I have been filling out applications for teaching, then, per their request, attaching a resume that says  everything in the application.

I keep it professional for the most part, but in one particularly detailed application today, I was nearly to the final step when the form gave me an opening with some question like, "Is there anything else we should consider in the hiring process that this form has failed to ask about?"

There are so many other talents. Where do I even begin? I can do a plethora of things as a result of my former, less relevant job experience.

I can...

• stuff a cannoli
• crack two eggs at once
• haggle for a rug in a souk
• wrap gifts very neatly, including curling the ribbon
• count letters in words very quickly
• count money in a cash drawer or a safe very quickly
• alphabetize all the letters in a word (e.g. Carolyn --> aclnory)
• say words backwards
• drive stick shift
• backfloat very well
• pick out glasses that look great on your face
• call your insurance company about your benefits
• follow you around a corn maze if I think you're drunk
• spin cotton candy
• fry Oreos
• whip up pancake batter
• lead any of several get-to-know-you games
• clean a bathroom in 35 seconds or less
• sense when someone is talking about me in another language
• curse in Mandarin, Arabic, French, and Spanish
• tell you where any item belongs in the Waynesboro Kmart in summer 2007
• recite all verses of the "Found a Peanut" song, including alternate endings
• make a lox and cream cheese bagel to die for
• make an espresso using a standard machine
• memorize specials

And cats like me.

Recitation

Assignment: Memorize and recite 20 lines of a poem; use appropriate pace, tone, gestures; connect with your audience. You have one week, ready, Go!

As I assigned it, I knew I would be terrified if I were they, so I decided to do it myself. Always model what you want your students to do and be.

I stood in front of the class as if it were the first day I had ever stood in front of a class instead of the 3,000th. My hands shook, and my voice caught in my throat. I was momentarily Anne Shirley when she stood before all of her friends of Avonlea at the White Sands Hotel, prepared to recite "The Highwayman," while being seized with fear.

It's still a fresh feeling, the muscles and everything in me saying that it is a bad idea to speak words not my own. Then, to speak with spark is even more impossible. What evolutionary trait resulted in this fear? What am I preserving when I fear performance?

But then I began. Why was my voice suddenly so small? It was a hollow, tin whisper at the bottom of a well. I tried to draw myself up, speak from the diaphragm, banish signs of fear. All of that is rather a lot to do at once.

I recited Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death" to a group of 11th-graders. I knew the poem cold, and still I floundered. It almost undid me. I continued to shake for minutes afterward, still teaching. I have no idea what it is about reciting something I have memorized. When my students ask me why I am not an actor, I know that this is why. 

I Will Watch That Movie If

• "Ragtag" is somewhere in the description.
• Shah Rukh Khan, Will Smith, or any of the Wayans brothers,  is in it.
• It's based on a Jane Austen book.
• Someone must learn to dance.
• One or more characters undergo a montage transformation.
• Someone must go from poor to rich or from rich to poor. (They must "Trade Places," if you will.)
• I can immediately tell that there will be a happy ending.
• There is a heist.
• "...must learn that, in life, things don't always go as planned" is in the trailer.
• A remarkable child is the narrator.
• Morgan Freeman is the narrator.
• Tom Hanks and/or Meg Ryan are in it. Who am I kidding? It's Tom Hanks *and* Meg Ryan.
• Tina Fey and/or Amy Poehler did anything with it, to it, or near it.

Status: Doing All Right

It's the end of a quarter, so naturally I feel that I should be grading instead of writing this, but I'm taking a moment to evaluate my emotional state since mid-winter. I find that I took no time to slide down off of one sad farewell before leaping to another potential relationship. The pain was compounded. Maybe that's the problem with rebound relationships: you're not ready to approach the risk with a clear head; you aren't thinking about the risk, just thinking of feeling better. If and when the fall comes, it takes you by surprise because this was supposed to be your feel-good relationship, so how can it make you feel so bad?

After a month of attempts to install the Windows 10 update, I asked for help. It seemed the update had not installed after numerous attempts, but lo, and behold! thank the Lord above!, I have the beautiful privilege of using my computer. It is working for the moment, but another update could crash it. Anything could crash it. I have a new least-favorite brand, and they don't have a support center in Northern Africa, and they don't do refunds.

The job search has been a distant but real part of my daily stress. It has been the chord in a tug-of-war between trusting God and trying to be diligent, feeling like I'm not doing enough.

It seems like a lot to do, I mean... I've gotta move countries again. Gotta find a place to live when I find a job. A place that has a kitchen where everyone can hang out, living room be damned, if I have to choose.

I hesitated to write about this, because what if it sounds like whining, especially when I know that I did this to myself. It looks awfully masochistic, doesn't it? I knew this would be challenge upon challenge. Just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Very often it's the opposite, as you well know.

Grit

I've been watching, and yes, rewatching a boot camp reality tv show. It is inspiring television, let me tell you! The recruits were forced to do a five-kilometer hike carrying a 180-kilo log. When they had reached their destination, the drill sergeant said, simply, "Do it again."

The camera crew asked one recruit if he thought it was unfair. "This is life," he said without malice; even with humor, he said that. His forehead sweaty, a rye laugh: this is life. I love that.

I don't often think I have a lot of grit. I can give up pretty easily. Even if I don't give up, I am prone to complaining.

But here are two times when I didn't give up recently, because I was thinking about how much stamina and humor the recruits on this show had.

1. When I was doing a really challenging section of workout, I kept going. Burpee-pushup-box-jumps. It's a real thing.

2. When I had to pay our internet bill, and tried no fewer than eight ATMs.

---

Here is where I catch myself. If I truly had grit, perhaps I would not go on to tell you the particulars of the inconvenience this entailed. But you cannot possibly grasp the difficulty of the situation unless I explain. Someone with grit may not need you to grasp the situation. But I do need you to understand, if I can make it happen at all.

Here goes.

We had not received an internet bill for at least two months. The reminders I had placed on my phone were not enough for me, and the internet was shut off as of yesterday evening. I boarded the bus headed toward the city immediately after work, and made a beeline for the Maroc Telecom where one pays for internet. This is distinct from the Maroc Telecom where one buys internet.

I had no Moroccan money, only US money, and needed to find an ATM where I could withdraw dirhams using my US bank card.

I walked from ATM to ATM looking for a working, international-friendly one. After covering two kilometers in walking, I managed to get 400 dirhams, plenty to cover the bill, from a BMCE kiosk. Ah, but pause! I had recently heard you could pay your bill at a Telecom kiosk nearby! This I attempted to do with my US card. No luck. I went inside. I'm sorry, no, we don't accept payment here, that one is 600 meters down the street.

Briskly walking back four blocks to the Maroc Telecom where we pay, the agent there told me we in fact now owed two months of internet, not one.

"OH!? Could I see those bills, please?"

"We don't give print-outs here. That one is 600 meters down the street."

"Forget it." Still, quite the pickle, considering my limited cash. We tried my American card, no way. I needed more cash.

"When do you close?"

"In 15 minutes."

"I will return!"

And I did. And I paid it.

If I had not been watching Special Forces: Ultimate Hell Week on repeat for the last two weeks, would I have had the determination to try two Credit Du Maroc, two Banque Populaire, one Societe Generale, one BMCE, and three Attijariwafa ATMs in my attempts to pay the Hydra-headed bill? I doubt it.

Three Years' Worth of Valentine's Day Posts

Valentine's Day 2016

I received a Valentine's card from Johnny D. at work. He has Down's Syndrome, and doesn't read. He chose the card especially for me, though... It reads, "You're still the reason I can't wait to get home each day."

I bought chocolate-covered strawberries to share with the Bible quiz team, but forgot to bring them to practice. I ended up eating them with roommates.

In the car on Saturday, Charlene gave me one of her silk roses, sharing her gift from another friend.

My aunt and uncle gave me and my cousins beautiful flowers. Uncle Ralph made a special trip to my cousin's house to drop them off, and I got them when I went to cousin lunch. What a delight!

It is bothering me that I did not give anything thematic this weekend. I barely got places on time. I enjoyed the fruit of others' labor, and ate well and drove a lot, and hope it was helpful. But I didn't think far enough ahead to write a note or buy a gift. The one thing I did buy, I forgot to give, and ended up eating myself. (I am so serious: I just finished the last strawberry.)

Valentine's Day 2017

I was a million miles away from everyone I love. It was chilly and rainy this week. I went to French class at the end of the day, and home afterward, and probably did an hour's worth of work and watched a show on Netflix before getting ready for bed.

Did love cross my mind? Maybe in that self-pitying way that asks, "where is the love owed me?" But I can't remember.

Valentine's Day 2018 

I participated in nine parent-teacher conferences for at-risk students. I spoke very little in these meetings. At some, there were 14 adults, including parents, teachers, administrators, all sitting with a student to say, "We care about you. We see you're failing. What is going on?"

I stayed on campus to attend the school play, and to discourage disruptive behavior in the audience. Then I struggled to keep my eyes open long enough to get ready for bed.

I was tired, but happy to find at the end of the day that some of what I had done was loving.