Look Back {Part One}

02 Nov 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Animals, Bible, Faithful, God, Look Back, Realizations, Remember, Trust

Every one has a story; an account of how I arrived, how you arrived, at where we are right now. Look back at your story, rehearse your story, remember your story. See God’s faithfulness then, God’s faithfulness looking back, and find peace and comfort, joy and courage, to turn around and follow Him into the now. Into the future.

Fuzziness and half memory blur the edges of what I know to be real, what I know happened. A snapshot of a moment that I didn’t even recognize to have significance until years afterwards.

THe play table at the public library is just my size. It can’t be very big because neither am I. There are trains, I know, and cars, too. This I remember. But my hands, little hands, are not engaged with the cars and trains, trucks and airplanes.

It’s plastic animals; large toys with realistic features, the heaviness of them settling into my palms as I play. There are people, too. There must be, there are in my memory. Rhinoceros, giraffe, tiger. Man, woman; toys.

Children’s toys on a library play table.

It’s the Garden of Eden. I’ve heard the story of creation, and I know the names and the sequence of events. God then world, animals then Adam, Adam then Eve. I’m playing and pretending, acting out a story that I’m so familiar with.

Toys play and my imagination swirls and this play table is just my size.

Memory softens and fades and it was so very long ago, but this I do remember. Standing where I am, standing in the middle of the public library, I’m suddenly completely convinced. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.

Clutching the man and woman figurines, I know in the deepest part of my soul that Adam and Eve are not just a story; they are real. God did create a man and a woman; the very first account in the Bible is not a happy legend; it’s absolutely real. The realization dawns on me in a second, and I’m instantaneously absolutely positive.

I know the story, the story that starts with creation and flows through the fall, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, all the way through Jesus Christ and the Apostles. I know the story and I know it’s true. It’s true and the truth of the story of the Bible affects every aspect of my life.

Plastic animals still gripped in my little hands, the sounds of a library’s play place all around me, I’m heart and soul convinced that the stories of the Bible are real, and in that moment, I’ve committed to live my life based on that truth.

Children’s toys on a library play table. Plastic toys and a soul-deep turning point in my faith, in my life.

~Natalia

I Wish

15 Sep 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Friends, God, Grow, Intentional, Love, Moody Bible Institute, Realizations, Sovereign, Trust

I thought this evening, sitting in bed and my mind wandering to what I would blog about, that it would be nice, for once, to blog about how I finally got my life together.

Mentally constructing the first words, first lines of a post, I wondered what it would be like to write about how I accomplished everything I needed to do. How I stayed on top of relationships, my walk with the Lord, and other extracurriculars. I daydreamed for a moment about what it would look like, practically, to have it all in line and get it all done.

My dream lasted a moment, maybe a little longer, and I came back to reality. Because I know in my heart that there will never be a day when I completely have it all together, get it all done, perform well in every area of my life.

I will never achieve perfection in relationships, balancing time surrounded by friends and time alone with precision. I’ll never hit the perfect balance that exists between drinking in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, and pouring that out into the lives of those around me.

I can get on top of homework, and generally strive to do so, but a planner full of pink high light marks, full of accomplished tasks, too often means a heart full of half-prayed prayers and relationships that I haven’t nearly poured my all into.

I’ll most likely never hit the balance just right. Never be able to consistently hold to the magic rhythm, the perfect schedule of life that automatically means that I have it all under control.

And I suppose I’m okay with that.

I have to be okay with that.

And not only that, but I have a reason to be okay with it.

I’ve told myself and I’ve told you, and the line is sometimes blurred between who I’m telling, who I’m reminding. When I sit up late during the last weeks of the school year and tell you that God is faithful, God provides, God knows best, I’m not just telling you, I’m reminding me.

I’m reminding myself of the truths I’ve been taught. The wisdom I’ve seen. The grace I’ve experienced.

And tonight, when I tell you about my perpetual inability to be exactly as put together as I’d like to be, it’s not because I’m angry or complaining. Just because I’ll never be just as good as I’d like to be doesn’t mean I’m quitting everything.

I can’t quit everything.

Can’t quit because God, the same God who speaks into my heart and life, the same God who quite intentionally put me at Moody, on this floor, in this place, because that God is just as real and powerful as He’s ever been.

He’s just as good and wise and great and gracious as He’s ever been. And if the lesson I’m confronted with in every area of my life, the lesson of my own insufficiency, is pushing me more and more into His arms, more and more to rely completely on Him, then I trust Him to do that.

I trust Him to truly know what’s best, what’s right, what’s stretching me to become more and more like Him everyday.

I trust Him for that. I trust Him. I trust Him.

But sometimes I just wish I could really be on top of everything.

~Natalia

Simple

28 Jun 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Beauty, College, Friends, God, Grow, Intentional, Longing, Love, Purpose, Realizations, Simple

Around this time last summer, I began shifting the ways that I interacted with people. As I went through my days, I tried my very best to interact with intentionality. When I remembered, and then with increasing frequency as I got in the habit, I listened with painstaking attention when I conversed with people. I worked to pull myself out of the spacey, sliding-through-life mode that I often operated under, and instead become truly mentally and emotionally involved in those around me.

I wasn’t perfect, but I was engaged and involved, and I grew through listening to those around me.

But then I went to school, and as first one semester then another skipped past, I pulled back. Slowly, as month after month went by, my focus on listening and truly being involved in my relationships and interactions waned. I still loved, still cared, still ached, but not with quite the edge that I had before.

I was less focused. More scattered. In the spinning table that was my life this past school year, being fully present in my interactions and friendships slipped to the back, while turning in homework assignments on time and scrambling to keep my life together came to the foreground.

Being present, being involved, communicating fully, was hard and draining, and I believe I burned myself out. To be honest, I don’t miss the strain of working to remain open, fighting to keep my own heart open, for the sake of interacting with others.

I don’t miss that, but I do miss the focus, the purposefulness of so many of my interactions last year. I don’t like the floating, skimming-across-the-surface sense that I’ve been feeling lately. I don’t like feeling like I’m sliding across a slippery grass field in my relationships. I want to dig my hands into the grass and hold on to those relationships.

I’m rooted in Christ. I can stand on the side of the pool, sit in the living room, drive down the road, and let my mind reel over what God has done for me and how He has poured out too many good things on my life. My hands are too small to hold everything that He’s given me, and I want to open my hands and dump some of those gifts on those I interact with.

His grace. Mercy. Love. Joy. Peace. Contentment.

But I can’t do that if I’m not truly there, not truly with, not truly interacting.

So, what’s to be done? How does one infuse purpose and intentionality into one’s own life?

I have a sneaking suspicion, a vague feeling, that the answer lies somewhere in the simple. I’m beginning to realize that I might have too much in my life that takes away from the real, living breathing, hurting, laughing, beautiful relationships that are right in front of me. There are too many superfluous things, distractions, websites, tasks that I pour myself into, leaving only a thin layer of energy, love, care for the souls I encounter day after day.

For the first time in my life, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that my life, my mind, my heart need to be more simple.

And with that simple, maybe I’ll find the purpose, the intentionality, that I know I’m missing.

~Natalia

Content

26 Jun 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in Family, Happiness, Mexico, Realizations, Summer, Words of Wisdom

We were standing in the back room at the pool, leaning against coolers filled with water and Gatorade, balancing paper dinner plates and plastic silverware. I hadn’t seen her in a while and was excited to be catch up with her briefly. As we munched on our dinner, we swapped questions back and forth.

She asked me about the end of the school year and my summer plans, laying down broad, open-ended questions like a wide road that I could walk down any way I desired. I thought for a moment or two, considering how best to encapsulate my life in a response.

Honestly Rachel, I told her, my summer is off to a really great start, and I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. I’m also really excited to go back to school and be there again. I guess I’m starting to realize that if you’re happy where you are, and you have things to look forward to, well, you have it pretty good.

Smiling broadly, her blue eyes wide, she looked at me for a moment or two before responding. You know that’s contentment, right? She finally asked, chuckling a little as she said it.

And she was right. This summer has been a content summer. I’ve relished being in the moment, living with my family, spending time with grandparents, traveling first to Mancelona, then to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I soaked up the week spent with my cousins, taking mental snapshots as the week whizzed by. I’m happy now.

And I’m also looking forward. Forward to the next week, the next week, the next month. I’m looking forward to the 4th of July, to three weeks in Mexico, to going back to school.

Happy now, happy then; content.

~Natalia

Swimmy

26 Mar 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Bible, Purpose, Realizations, Swimming

Remember when my life was like a circle chart, except all the colors and ideas kept swirling together and overlapping and I couldn’t for the life of me get a grip on which part of my life was which?

I’m experiencing a similar dilemma.

I sat down to write a minute or two ago, and paused a moment to consider what my life is like right now; what word or phrase or image or idea sums up me right now. And then I was absent-mindedly typing the word “swimmy” into the “Enter title here” space, and I knew exactly what my life was like.

I feel a bit like a fish. Not an intelligent or attractive fish, mind you, but rather like a wind-up, plastic, toy fish. I’m little and small and a bit fuzzy and I’m not going anywhere. In fact, I’m going gently in lopsided circles. I’m not lost, and the water’s not murky- it’s brilliantly blue and feels sterilized, like a swimming pool. No, lostness is not the issue; goal-less-ness is.

If only I could get a hold of some greater purpose, if only I could wrap my little fins around some higher goal, then maybe I could swim straight. Then maybe I would feel more like a determined seal than a mindlessly swimming goldfish.

So I tried out a couple different goals.

Spending the next several weeks of school expending copious amounts of energy for the purpose of doing phenomenally well in all my classes sounds great, but “A”s in and of themselves are not something to swim for; there must be more.

So I thought about spending the final weeks of this school year throwing myself body and soul into my relationships with friends. This is most definitely something I want to do more and more; I value my friends very much and want to bless them like they bless me, and be involved in their lives.

But no matter how much I love them, and how big a part of my life they are, friends can’t possibly be the reason to move in this life.

I kept going. Trying out goals and purposes and reasons to move. School, friends, work, Mexico, home, church, Bible study- I considered the various facets of my life. But each part, each slice of my life, was just that: a slice.

No one part of my life is anything more than a part. I’m not going to find an ultimate reason to move and swim and do and go in any limited aspect of this life that I live day in and day out.

Just like the circle chart whose colors refuse to stay inside the lines, so my life, my reasons, my goals, can hardly be sectioned off into segments and areas, each with its own purpose, its own meaning.

It doesn’t work like that.

Because school doesn’t make sense without church and church is not church without friends and friends are not such friends if I take away the Bible, and so on. Everything is connected here, and there’s no easy answer for this fish.

I’m spinning slowly around, trying hard to get a steady foothold on anything, something to push off of and be on my way. But I’m not going to find a foothold, a reason, a purpose to move for, in any one bit of my life. Rather, the answer is in the whole thing.

When I piece together each aspect of my life, watching them slide into place, connecting with one another as they were meant to, that’s when I’ll find reasons, that’s where I’ll find the push to go forward.

I still feel a bit like a fish, and I think I’m still swimming in a bit of a circle, but I know where to look now for the reason to go, the push to swim straight ahead, and it’s not in school or friends or home or work; it’s in all of these put together.

~Natalia

Unaffected

24 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Beauty, Chicago, Realizations, Travel

The train was making its way rather laboriously through the city. Elevated above and over the street by way of decaying cement underpasses, I could see into second and third story windows from where I stood.

I leaned back against the clear plastic window that separates the standing area from the sitting area. My hands were shoved into my coat pockets, more because I didn’t know what else to do with them than because of the cold.

I stood where I was and watched the world go by.

The train swayed back and forth as we rounded a bend, and I had to put my foot out to steady myself. I had regained my balance, leaning once more against the dingy window, when the train gently ground to a halt.

Three beeps from the overhead speakers were followed by a clear-voiced recording informing us that we were “standing momentarily, waiting for signal clearance”. I silently recited the message along with the recording, absently repeating the oft-heard public transportation announcement.

I turned once again to the window and gazed out at the scene before me, all around me. The train was on a wide sort of natural platform, raised a level or two above street level. Three or four other sets of tracks lay neatly across the platform, gray gravel filling the spaces between the tracks. Beyond the last pair of parallel metal lines, the ground dropped away, leading neatly and steeply to a city street.

Buildings and offices, apartments and stores rose up from the cement walkway, and behind them, a gray sky poured pale white light rather weakly onto the world below.

On the platform right in front of me, little white puffs of untouched snow lined each wooden slat that lay between the train tracks. Each piece of wood sported its own column of perfect white snow, and I studied the wooden slats for a moment or two as I waited for the train to begin rolling again.

I looked from the gray sky to the little snow piles to the buildings neatly lining the slick, wet street. My eyes wandered here and there across the scene in front of me, unconsciously seeking something that I could not find.

What am I looking for? I asked myself, trying ineffectively to drag my eyes away from the cold afternoon view and to focus on something inside the brightly lit train. But my eyes remained transfixed, moving slowly from tracks to sky to street to building to tracks once more.

And then, suddenly, I knew. It’s the beauty that I’m looking for. The beauty that I’m missing. I realized. And a certain kind of sad resign welled up inside me.

Because I know it’s there. I know the sky is beautiful. Know that the city skyline is beautiful, no matter how gloomy it looks. And I most certainly know that perfectly white puffs of snow on the train track slats are beauty almost indescribable.

I know that the beauty’s there. And maybe I even see it. But it doesn’t grab my heart and squeeze it, doesn’t cause me to suck in my breath and stare and stare and stare at the beauty until I think my eyes might pop out of my head.

I wasn’t affected by the beauty this afternoon.

But I want to be.

~Natalia

No Words

29 Jan 2012 2 Comments

by nataliaria in College, God, Hurt, Love, Realizations, Sovereign

It’s not a secret in the least that we live in a broken world, and that people everywhere are struggling, hurting, and broken. You, me, her, him; we’re all heartbroken humans living in a messy world.

Sometimes, we live our hurt out in silence, carrying it to and from work and school, keeping our pain neatly bottled, unknown to everyone but ourselves.

Sometimes, it comes out. We share it with others. We open our hearts, slowly yielding control of our situation as we verbally tell someone what happened, how we feel, what we’re going to do, that we’re not sure what we’re going to do.

Openness and struggle-sharing are happening all around us. I tell her, she tells me, they tell each other, we share. And it’s good.

But …

When friends and loved ones are upset, hurt, crying, I listen. But no words come. My heart breaks. But I don’t say it. I can’t say it. Looking brokenness in the face knocks me speechless, rendering me unable to comfort, unable to encourage, unable to tell them that it’ll get better.

She’s exhausted and sick. I would do her work myself if I could, but I can’t. I can’t verbalize my sympathy either. All I can do is listen.

He’s frustrated and hurt and he doesn’t understand. I want desperately to help him see, to help him understand, to explain to him why. But my mind has once again completely erased the appropriate words. The gentle, healing words that I know I must possess, and I remain seated where I am, my heart aching to help him, and completely unable to tell him so.

Until quite recently, my apparent inability to form coherent sentence when faced with heartbreak and pain bothered me.

Maybe that’s just how I am wired, I told myself; I feel their pain. My heart breaks along with them. I beg God to help them. To heal them. To show them the comfort that I can not. And that is what I can do.

I halfway accepted that I simply was not made by God to share words of comfort. But doubt lingered in the back of my mind. Could it really be that simple? Am I allowed to say that I simply do not have the gift of words in crisis (even though I don’t generally struggle for lack of words in other situations) and leave it at that?

I couldn’t bring myself to believe that it was that easy.

In my Speech Communication class we recently read about Listening and Feedback Styles. I scoured the pages for the “listens mutely while heart bursts with heartaching compassion” listening style, but could not find it. The closest I could come was the “Empathetic Listener”, who first listens and then seeks to comfort, and then build up with words.

I gave the chapter some thought, and suddenly felt rather sure of an answer to my speechless dilemma.

Over the past ten years, God has slowly been opening my heart to love others and show them empathy in their struggles. I listened to them. Cared about them. Truly desired to hear about their lives and hearts, joys and heartbreaks.

But all the while, I felt insufficient and useless, as if sincere love and empathy are not enough and will only be complete with the addition of comforting words and phrases.

And then I realized maybe that is the way it’s supposed to be. Maybe I’m not supposed to have all the right words.

Because, in the end, it’s not me who comforts at all; it’s God. It’s God who heals souls. It’s God who offers comfort and mercy. It’s God who gives me empathy and compassion in the first place.

And I trust His sovereignty, too. If He wants me to speak, then He’ll give me the words to say. If He wants me to sit, to listen, to hurt for them and with them, then I will.

I’ll just keep my heart open, so that when He leads me in what to do, I’ll be ready to follow.

~Natalia

Trust Him on That

23 Jan 2012 1 Comment

by nataliaria in Friends, God, Realizations, Trust

I recently began to realize that I have a rather unhealthy obsession with relationships.

Now, we are relational people; God created us that way. He made us for relationships. With other people, and most importantly, with Himself.

That’s good.

But a good thing, a thing created by God, can turn into a bad thing, twisted and crumpled up by our sinfulness, in a matter of seconds.

That’s what happened in my life. In my heart.

I don’t think I would have noticed, if it hadn’t been gently pointed out to me.

And now I see it everywhere in my life.

I’m fascinated with analyzing my friendships.

I spend exorbitant amounts of time thinking about different relationships in my life; imagining where they’ll be in two months, two years and remembering where we were two months ago, two days ago, two minutes ago.

I’m wrapped up in the specifics of why that relationship works, how this friendships could to improve, what I should do in this relationship.

I’ve taken the wonderful, God-given gifts of the need for relationships, as well as those relationships themselves, and I’ve inflated them way out of proportion.

I’ve made the gift almost a bigger deal than the Giver.

When God opened my eyes to the issue, my incorrect heart attitude, I repented. I was upset and convicted that I had allowed myself to become so consumed by the inner workings of my friendships.

I told God that I wanted Him to recreate my view of relationships.

I want to think like He does. See people like He does. See relationships like He does.

It was a good conversation that I had with Him, and I very sincerely meant what I said, but that’s not all that needs done; God will give me a new perspective on relationships.

If I let Him.

Because if I beg Him to open my eyes to the way He sees things, to broaden my perspective and to show me what is really important, and then turn around and expend more mental energy in analyzing the intricacies of my relationship with so-and-so, that’s not going to work.

So what am I supposed to do?

Allow Him in my head. Allow Him in my heart. Allow Him to direct my thought and words and actions.

And trust Him.

Because often, when I’m considering the heartbreaking question of how long a friendship that I value quite much will endure, what I’m really doing is distrusting God.

Distrusting that He actually knew what He was doing when He created us as relational people.

Distrusting that He had His head on straight when He put the people I love into my life.

Distrusting that He could possibly have what’s best in mind when it appears that He is stripping me of things and people that I love very much.

But He did know, and He does have His head on straight, and He does have in mind what’s best.

And I’m just going to have to trust Him on that.

~Natalia

Unsustainable

19 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in College, God, Realizations, Work

It occurred to me as I waited the two seconds that it takes for Google Chrome to open WordPress that I’m not sure this is sustainable.

It doesn’t seem like a lot when I’m in it, going from class to class to class to meeting to PCM office to lunch to library to the room to the computer lab to work. It doesn’t seem overwhelming or too much when I’m living it.

But then I sit down for a moment or two (and I just realized that I don’t often do that, either) and I realized that my semester thus far has been mostly one long string of classes, homework, spending time with people, work, and meetings.

Yes, I’ve factored in Jesus Time, but I have a nagging feeling that I can’t sustain this for too much longer. That soon enough, all the energy, love, and strength that I have is going to finally drain out of me, and I’ll be left an exhausted, emotional wreck, much like I was one night last semester.

So far, I’m plugging along alright. I’m doing what needs done, and having fun in the process. But I can’t shake the feeling that I’m headed for a breakdown sooner or later.

And I’m not exactly sure what to do to prevent that.

~Natalia

Enough for Me

01 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment

by nataliaria in Casa Hogar, Chicago, Church, Family, Friends, God, Mexico, Parental, Realizations, Sovereign, Travel

I wrote a post a couple of days ago. A long one that I read over twice before submitting. I thought it was pretty good, actually.

I realized just now that the post never appeared on Leadmewhere. I wouldn’t have realized if the mother had not asked me about that one post I wrote, and why it wasn’t anywhere to be found.

It’s in my drafts box. Maybe some day you’ll read it.

But not tonight.

I’ve told you before that I go to church more while in Mexico than in the States. Not because Central America is more spiritual than North America, just because our church here has services three times a week.

Almost every service has an enforced moment of silence.

Kneeling. Sitting. Crouching. Praying. Thinking. Pondering.

I like it because it’s usually in those moments, when I actually pause long enough to allow my mind to fully form thoughts, that God puts thoughts into my head.

Oh, wait. I never realized that before.

You’re right, God. I’m not quite doing that right.

Now I see that what I thought was a big deal really… isn’t.

So I’m a fan of pastor- enforced quiet times during the service.

Big fan.

We went to Starbucks tonight with six of the oldest Casa Hogar girls. Mom drove the 15-passenger van like a boss.

I’m still trying to figure out why we took a 15-passenger van for eight people.

It’s not like we’re really big on personal space.

Regardless of questionable transportation methods, it was a really great evening.

Naturally, we took pictures all the way home. Four rows of seats to choose from, and six of us sat within three feet of the driver.

That’s where they were taking pictures.

Then we got back to the Casa Hogar and the little ones, at Hermana Tere’s house, had used my phone to call our mother four times, asking her to come home, and it’s cold outside, and the entire Casa Hogar is tucked into the Sala for one last movie night before school starts.

I chose to stick around Casa Hogar for a bit.

It was lovely. Again.

Now I’m back at Manuel and Tere’s, and Mom and the little ones are flying back to Chicago tomorrow, and I’m here until Friday.

Tomorrow’s another adventure, and getting all twisted up about what will happen next does me less good than harm.

And you, too.

So sleep on it, and get set for tomorrow, because I don’t have a clue what the morning will bring.

And let’s be honest, as long as God has this thing called life under control, that’s enough for me.

~Natalia

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