Midyear Book Update

We've just crossed the halfway point of the year.  I've read 64 books so far totaling 16,813 pages -- an average of about 90 pages a day.  I am honestly a bit surprised by that as it never feels like I'm reading that much.  I've continued reading more fiction and have been reading lots of books about marriage and the like lately.  Although I am enjoying the fiction, I'm realizing that biographies really are my favorite.  People are fascinating and there are really so many interesting things to be learned from them -- and their successes and failures; that's probably why I'm drawn to biographies. 

Here's a list of books I've read since my last update; as usual my favorites are bolded.

1. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
2. God's Generals: Why They Succeeded and Why Some Failed by Roberts Liardon
3. The Bean Trees: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
4. Wicked by Gregory Maguire (this book is terrible by the way) 
5. The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way by Amanda Ripley 
6. Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You by John Ortberg
7. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams
8. Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith by Jen Pollock Michel 
9. Clout: Discover and Unleash Your God-Given Influence by Jenni Catron
10. The Sacred Year: Mapping the Soulscape of Spiritual Practice -- How Contemplating Apples, Living in a Cave and Befriending a Dying Woman Revived My Life by Michael Yankoski
11. The Pioneer Spirit by Dutch Sheets
12. The Elephant Whisperer: My Life with the Herd in the African Wild by Lawrence Anthony, Graham Spence 
13. The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible by Mark Batterson
14. Dreams: God's Voice in the Night: Interpret Your Own Dreams with Ease and Accuracy by Barbara Lardinais
15. 30 Years a Watchtower Slave: The Confessions of a Converted Jehovah's Witness by William J. Schnell
16. A Trip around the Sun: Turning Your Everyday Life into the Adventure of a Lifetime by Mark Batterson, Richard Foth, Susanna Foth Aughtmon 
17. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers
18. Jesus Prom: Life Gets Fun When You Love People Like God Does by Jon Weece
19. Grace for Parents by Brandi K. Harris
20. The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership by James C. Hunter 
21. Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
22. The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne, Ernest Howard Shepard 
23. When We Were Very Young by A. A. Milne
24. Now We are Six by Alan Alexander Milne
25. Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard by Liz Murray
26. Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture by Adam S. McHugh
27. What Keeps You Up at Night? How to Find Peace While Chasing Your Dreams by Pete Wilson
28. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
29. Throwing Shadows by E.L. Konigsburg
30. Sex and the Soul of a Woman: How God Restores the Beauty of Relationship from the Pain of Regret by Paula Rinehart
31. Dangerous Surrender: What Happens when You Say Yes to God by Kay Warren 
32. Loved Back to Life: How I Found the Courage to Live Free by Sheila Walsh
33. The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco, Margery Williams, Michael Hague
34. Sacred Influence: How God Uses Wives to Shape the Souls of Their Husbands by Gary L. Thomas
35. Good Chinese Wife: A Love Affair with China Gone Wrong by Susan Blumberg-Kason
36. Happy Wives Club: One Woman's Worldwide Search for the Secrets of a Great Marriage by Fawn Weaver
37. So Long, Insecurity: You've Been a Bad Friend to Us by Beth Moore
38. Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail by Jennifer Pharr Davis
39. Love Walked in: A Novel by Marisa De los Santos

Desires

This spring has been hard and I've grown and learned a lot, but a few weeks ago I was faced with the reality that my life had been feeling hopeless.  I felt stuck and resigned to a state of indefinite (and permanent feeling) transition and waiting. 

I realized that over the last few years of life -- surrendering my career and job on the tenure track, living with another family and feeling no sense of home or stability, not having a sense of where life was headed -- I felt that life was spinning out of control.  It also hurt to have opportunity after opportunity fall through -- ones that I thought I was following God's plan on.  Over time, it became too hard and painful to hope and expect because I was afraid of being disappointed over and over.  While I had told God, "Yes, I will do whatever you want me to," over time that morphed in my head to become, "God will tell me what to do; I have to wait on Him," and eventually, "My preferences are irrelevant and unimportant." And that felt empty and hopeless.  And I'm coming to believe it is untrue.

Through counseling, a prophecy, and reading Teach Us to Want: Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith by Jen Pollock Michel, I am coming believe that my preferences and desires are important and do factor into where my life is going.  The gist of Jen's book is that as the Holy Spirit transforms our hearts and lives more into the image of Christ, He is also at work transforming our desires.  She uses the Lord's prayer to teach us that it is ok -- and even good -- to want, to hope and to dream.  And realizing that for me has been a game changer and a breath of fresh air.  For the first time in over a year, I'm seeing the breaking of a new dawn of hope.

I'm realizing that it is not selfish to want or to dream -- that God has placed many of the dreams that I have had in my heart, and that that is ok.  Realizing this has forced me to ask, "What do I want?  What are my dreams?"  Giving myself permission to dream and want again has made life seem less hopeless.

I have a few big desires that I am asking God for -- a professional opportunity that fell through last year; a house or condo that is big enough for a home office, guest bedroom, and to invite others over for gatherings; and I want to get married to a Godly, kind, gentle but strong man.  These are the desires of my heart -- the things I want, and the things I am asking for.  I trust God with the timing and with the way that it all works out, but I am allowing myself to acknowledge that I do have preferences in this. 

Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. ~ Psalm 37:4

Two Years in the Wilderness

Today is Good Friday.  It's a significant day to me not only because it's the day that Jesus died on the cross, but because it's the day I met with my boss to tell her I'd made the decision to walk away from the tenure track and, subsequently, my life plan.  The last two years have been so full of so many feels -- sadness, confusion, disappointment, frustration, fear, uncertainty (x365 x2) and a general feeling of being "over it".  At the same time, this crucible of mistake making and waiting and feeling trapped and general wilderness wandering has been a season of growth and refinement.

I can't believe that it's been so long and that I still don't have a life plan.  Someday this will make sense, but I still don't feel like it makes any more sense today than it did two years ago.  In the meantime, I plod through and put one foot in front of the other and rely on what I know to be true: God is faithful, and He has a plan in all of this that will work all things together for good.

Books so Far in 2015

Here's a list of books I've been reading this year.  This year, I initially planned to focus less on the number of books I read in favor of choosing to read (at least) 12 classics this year.  Well, that plan has fallen by the wayside as I've read exactly zero classics this year.  However, part of the original intent behind this goal was to incentivize quality over quantity.  Last year I found myself reading short books (250 pages or less, usually) so that I could mark them off my list.  This year, I've decided just to read what I want regardless of how long the book is, and I've noticed the books I've read are decidedly longer (iReaditNow, the app I use, says they're averaging about 300 pages and as long as 700).  As a result I've read fewer books but read about 7500 pages so far this year (not including reading for work).  I've also found myself drawn to more fiction stories, which is a surprise and a departure from what I usually read.  Below are the books I've read so far this year.   Like usual, my favorites are bolded.

1. Me Before You: A Novel by Jojo Moyes
2. The Veil by Blake K. Healy
3. Living a Life of Fire: An Autobiography by Reinhard Bonnke
4. What Every Bride Needs to Know: The Most Important Year in a Woman's Life by Susan DeVries
5. What Did You Expect?: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage by Paul David Tripp
6. Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the Last Place I Thought to Look by Emily T. Wierenga
7. What Every Groom Needs to Know: The Most Important Year in a Man's Life by Robert Wolgemuth
8. Birthing the Miraculous: The Power of Personal Encounters with God to Change Your Life and the World by Heidi Baker
9. Fly a Little Higher: How God Answered One Mom's Small Prayer in a Big Way by Laura Sobiech
10. 3500: An Autistic Boy's Ten Year Romance with Snow White by Ron Miles
11. The Sacred Search: What If It's Not about Who You Marry, But Why? by Gary Thomas
12. Becoming Fearless: My Ongoing Journey of Learning to Trust God by Michelle Aguilar
13. The New Rules for Love, Sex, and Dating by Andy Stanley
14. Wife Number Seven by Melissa Brown
15. Chasing the Dragon: One Woman's Struggle Against the Darkness of Hong Kong's Drug Dens by Jackie Pullinger
16. Scary Close (International Edition) by Donald Miller
17. The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
18. The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain
19. Nanny Returns by Nicola Kraus
20. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen
21. Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
22. Boundaries: When To Say Yes, How to Say No by Henry Cloud
23. Ghost Boy by Martin Pistorius
24. The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond by Bill Hybels
25. M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton

Update - March 2015

I feel stuck in one of those "the more things change, the more they stay the same" seasons: I get up, I go to work, I come home, I read, and I go to bed.  I repeat this the next day.  I'm usually up at 5 and in bed by 9 or 9:30 at the latest.  I hibernate on the weekends, generally reading a couple books, doing laundry, and recouping and storing up energy for the next week.  Sometimes I don't even leave the house at all because it takes too much energy and I just don't want to see people.

This semester I'm teaching three classes -- one of them for the first time.  I have about 150 students, and it is a tall order to get everything done and still have energy afterwards.  Being around so many people in a season of high stress as an introvert has taken a lot out of me, hence the weekend hibernation.

I realized it's been two years now since I jettisoned my life plan for the unknown.  I would have never imagined that two years later that I'd still feel in some ways as uncertain about where my life as going as I did when I decided not to go up for tenure two years ago.  I would have never guessed that I'd still be living with a family in their guest room and sharing a bathroom with two teenagers with 90% of my stuff in storage.  I would have never seen my life playing out this way.

Although my boss has (thankfully) expressed a desire to hire me back next year, the funding -- and hence the existence of a spot for me here -- is uncertain.  I would never have imagined that eight years into my career I'd be living on a year to year contract for a job that pays less than I made when I first graduated.  I would never have guessed that at 35 I would not own -- or even rent -- a house of my own.  I would never have guessed that I'd feel so directionless in my career or professional ambitions.

I would never have guessed so much about this life I find myself living now.  I would never have imagined how differently I judge success relative to how I used to imagine or view it.  I cannot actually imagine a single thing about my life (except the fact that I have an engineering degree) playing out like it has.

I have no idea where my life is going.  I will be honest -- it is scary and exhausting, and I am tired of having lived in transition for so long.  At the same time, I feel consistent reassurance (mercifully) that I am doing what the Lord is asking of me -- that this path I am on is the one that He is preparing and asking me to walk.  While I have no idea where that is going, I choose to trust Him and believe that hope is just around the bend.  In the meantime, I will keep walking on the path He lays out one step at a time.

2014

This year.  This year was all kinds of amazing, hard, stretching and ultimately, good.  At the beginning of the year, I felt God impressing strongly on me that I needed to focus 2014 on TRUST.  I didn't understand the fullness of what that meant (and probably still don't), but I can say without a doubt God helped to grow me in this area.  Trusting in God includes trusting in His plans, timing and most of all His character -- that it is unchanging, that He is faithful, and that He is worthy of being trusted.

At the beginning of the year I had no idea what I was going to do for a job beyond May, and I felt strongly impressed to wait and not actively pursue career opportunities.  The prospect of staying at Arkansas was not an option -- my boss had explicitly said so.  Yet in a series of not to be believed, impossible events, I ended up getting an offer to stay at Arkansas -- one with much less security and that is a hit to the ego and to the finances, but one that is well-suited to my interests and desire to interact with students.  Through the chaos and uncertainty of it all, God was teaching me that He is faithful, that I could hear His voice, and that -- even if it didn't look like I expected -- that He is trustworthy and that He will provide where there is no way.

This summer was awesome in ways I can't describe.  For the first time since I started working about 20 years ago, I had the summer off.  It helped me to retool and recharge from a stressful semester.  It provided me margin to think, to dream, to connect with friends, and to feed myself spiritually and emotionally.  It helped me to get perspective on where I was in life.  During this time I realized that discipleship pastoring was not going to be a career path with a job title for me; instead, I sensed God is leading me to continue in academia and serve industrial engineering students, in some way discipling and spiritually shepherding them there.  I still don't have clarity on what that will look like, but I can see that God is expanding my vision and training me in this season so that I will be ready to step to do what He calls me to do when, where, and how He calls me to do it.

Then out of the blue I was approached with a professional opportunity that was a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of a thing that I would be crazy not to pursue.  After a confusing situation where I ended up not getting the job, I just felt the Lord saying "trust Me; I will order your steps and open doors no man can open, and shut the ones no one can shut either."  And so, I do and in the fall I began another year at the University of Arkansas teaching our industrial engineering students.

I quickly realized that teaching three classes per semester instead of one or two was no joke.  I was exhausted and working harder than I can ever remember working.  I felt the Lord telling me, "This is about capacity building" -- and boy, was it ever.  I felt stretched and ultimately that resulted in growth.  I felt the Lord repeating the word "steadfast" --  to do a good job even when it is not always appreciated, valued, or guaranteed to lead to the next step.  I learned to rely on God in new and harder ways.  And then, as though it were a final exam, at the end of the year I felt God asking me to go home to Ohio for a day or two at Christmas.  And although I was terrified and skeptical, it was a good step and I was grateful I went.  Yes, God really can be trusted -- even when He asks us to do hard, counterintuitive things; even when He strips away layers of worldly security; even when it doesn't make sense and is confusing.

In 2014, I learned so much.  Like really learned it, having it travel from my head to my heart.

That God is faithful.
That His grace fills in the gaps.
That He is trustworthy.
That He is good -- really good -- and that His character is unchanging.

This year was one of growth;  I can say without a doubt that I am in a better place at the end of 2014 than I was at the beginning.  Not sure what 2015 has in store, but I am looking forward to it.  Even if it is hard, I know that it is worth it and that these lessons are critical to learn now.  God continues to develop my character so, when the time is right, He can release me into my calling.  I am working hard to be a good student of these lessons.