Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage . . . They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
~Psalm 84:5

Friday, January 21, 2005

Life's Happenings

1.) I GOT A JOB!!! Yay for me!
Actually, it's only a VERY part-time job, but it's better than nuthin'! It's working at a Christian preschool as an assistant teacher in a three-year-old class. I'm excited because I'm definitely qualified and I love working with little ones in a Christian atmosphere. Thanks to my good friend, Becca, for the hook-up!
I'm going to try to substitute teach as a second job, and in the meantime work on an application for HISD alternative certification program and/or Baylor Graduate School of Social Work. I'm excited about both, so I don't know which one to pursue. I'm hoping God will show me soon.

2.) I finished reading C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces the other day. I read it years ago, but I barely remember it. I really enjoyed it this time around.
It's Lewis' rendition of the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche. Psyche's bitter and ugly oldest sister, Orual, tells the story, blaming the gods for taking her beautiful, beloved little sister from her when Psyche falls in love with Cupid. But at the end of her life, Orual looks back and is forced to reexamine her motives, love for her sister, and the gods' roles/actions. That's as far as I'll go with describing the book because I couldn't do it justice, so just read it for yourself!

I think my favorite part of the novel was towards the beginning when Psyche tells her older sister, Orual, that she always "had a kind of longing for death":
It was when I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine . . . where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The colour and the smell, and looking across at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me. I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home.

I think that's a beautiful description of life after death, of which I'm still working out issues I have. But we won't go into that emotional baggage here. =o)

3.) Still haven't finished reading MacDonald's book, but I'm slowly trekking through. Last night's chapter was especially good because it described John the Baptist as the ideal "called" person. MacDonald emphasizes that it's in the desert/wilderness that God speaks to John and forms his character. It reminded me of one of my favorite verses, Hosea 2:14-15
Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor(Trouble) a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

This is one of those scriptures that gives me hope in my own desert times.

4.) I'm still church shopping. I'll probably have to write about those adventures in a separate post. I've only been to two churches but I'm already sick of having to look around. *sigh* I wish there was an easier way.

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