So Much to Tell

Friday afternoon, bus up. Saturday evening, bus home. Barely 24 hours in Michigan, yet it’s Thursday night now, late, and I’m still fighting to tell you about it. School hardly over, my room just emptied, I got on a bus with The Jen and her sister, Katie, and we went to Michigan.

I want to tell you all about it. I do. I want to tell you so much and tell you so well that I’ve thought myself, planned myself, into a corner. I wrote a post, just now. Part of one, anyway. About my time in Michigan. But there’s too much to tell and I wasn’t telling well, so I stopped. Began again. And here I am.

I told you, in March, about Jen’s sister visiting school. Remember? I told you about our shared love of Spanish and school and children and the way I stored our conversation away in my heart; a woman who loves the Lord, and His Word. This same sister, Kristen her name, graduated from New Tribes Bible Institute last weekend.

The Jen, sweet girl two dorm doors down, stopped one day last month, outside my door. I was on my computer, typing. Looking up, looking across my bed, across the room, I smiled at her. She dimpled back. This is routine: I like my desk there, the door open, so that I can see the hallway, see those who pass by. Jen passes frequently. She stopped this time, and in our brief conversation, she said graduation, Michigan, Kristen. Half serious, mostly joking, I said I’d go along.

Joke turned serious and later, sitting on Jen’s bright yellow sheets, I clicked to Megabus, bought a ticket to Michigan.

Katie, Jen, me. Four hours, more even, on a bus to Michigan. They sat behind me, the two sisters; one older, Jen the younger. I sat one row up. Backpack next to me, feet against the window, I watched Michigan fly past the window. Trees and grass line the highway; long, tall, strong grass that seems to glow in the sun. The trees are green, too. Wide and thick and many. It’s just trees, bushes, grass, but I breathed tight in, held my breath at the clean, brilliant, freshness of it all. This I love about Michigan.

New Tribes Bible Institute- students call it NTBI, roll it around their tongues, quick- is one building. Used to be an elementary school, maybe a middle school. Now it’s classroom building, dorms, dining hall, offices, all in one and walking the hallways feels like a little bit of everything. The voices down the hall, in the dorms, are adult, mature. They talk about missions training and the Bible and where God is taking them, and this is a place of leading and prayer and faith and I soak up every word while I’m there.

There’s a world map in the downstairs hallway. It’s big, tall: I’m eye-level with Brasil. Kristen gives a tour when we arrive; her dorm room is on the third floor. We climb up and down those stairs, together, in groups, pairs, alone, all the day long, and my heart, mind catches every time I pass that map. Think of the lives who are here, now. Think of the hearts that are growing, the minds that are learning. The Lord they serve, He has plans, big, for them. The Word they love, it will bring hope, much, to people all over that huge wall map.

The school, these students, have so very much.

The ceremony is the next day, then a reception in the dining hall at the school. I line up with Jen, and a brother, tall, and we stack miniature plates with cheese, crackers, thick little cubes of meat. Students, graduates, families, overflow the dining hall. They are in the halls. In the foyer. In the yard. Children, little boys in collared shirts, little girls in sundresses, run in and out of the adults, play on the park. There are more siblings now, and cousins- first? Once removed?- and friends and friends of friends, and introductions are short, conversations long.

It feels like family. Family when we’re upstairs, getting ready. Jen and sisters and friends and we’re all putting on dresses, earrings, makeup. Feels like family afterwards, when we sit around in the sun and drink fruit punch and talk. Feels like family when there are hugs, congratulations, thank you for coming, see you later.

There’s more to tell, no doubt. More about New Tribes and the graduation ceremony, and Jen’s brother driving to the church with the windows down, my hair and Jen’s whipping in the wind. More about the 5k the graduates ran on the morning of graduation, or the night before, driving slow at 10pm, stopping at corners to mark the 5k route with chalk. More about The Jen and Katie and Kristen and sisters I don’t have, who made me feel another sister, at home. More about God’s will and God’s plan and how great He really is.

There’s so much more to tell, but I’ll leave it there for now.

~Natalia

Cut on my Finger

Romantic relationships, once ended, have a habit of souring. I’m not an expert in this field, of course, but I’ve seen it and I’ve heard it and I’ve lived it, a little bit. I’ll not attempt to explain the intricacies of bitterness, or the line where attraction darkens to resentment. I just know that, good-byes said, possessions returned, relationship status changed, things sometimes get rough.

I’ve lived this, a little bit. No longer connected, no longer relationally attached, I didn’t choose to resent, to look back with a short laugh, with scorn. I just did. It could be a part of moving on, I suppose. Could be caused by culture: of course we come out bitter because so does every star in every media-celebrated celebrity romance. Could spring from sinful nature, my own. Could be anything, really.

It feels protected, of course. There’s not a lot of vulnerability in rolling your eyes. It feels like power and security and control, a little bit. But there’s a sour taste of anger, of disappointment, of sadness, too. Memories that you know held some good come back stained: only the bad stands out. I know that I had fun, smiled, laughed. But the end came and the bad swallowed the good, and slowly, that’s all that I remember.
~~~~~

June 2012, the end of the month. We were in the middle of summer, and the middle of a relationship, too. It would be over before the calendar hit August, but we didn’t know that, yet. I flew to a wedding from Michigan. Left a missions trip halfway through, two car rides and two plane rides later, landed in the breathtaking beauty of Lancaster, PA. Friday night, Saturday wedding. All day Sunday I rode in the middle seat with four other Moody students for the 10-hour car ride back to Chicago.

He was in Chicago, working. It’d been some days since I’d seen him, and maybe that evening, as I rolled into the city after eight days of travel would be a good time to say hi. He had work, soon. Needed to leave at 6pm. We drove through Pennsylvania, Ohio, into Indiana, then Chicago. I texted him, somewhere in Ohio. He asked where we were, our estimated arrival time. I told him, best I could. I asked if I’d see him, between arrival and work. He must have said yes, I suppose.

Skyscrapers and steel hold heat, and the city was hot and stuffy when we arrived. I was tired from an early wake up, worn in the funny way that sitting in a car wears you out. Suitcase and backpack next to me, I laid on the concrete next to the car. Arms spread to my sides, my car ride companions laughed, shook their heads at my rather dramatic demonstration. Grinning, I got up, left suitcase, shuffled across the Plaza to the bathroom.

He was waiting for me when I returned, his bike already unlocked, ready to go to work. We talked, briefly. Plaid shorts, a black t-shirt. How many times did I see the same shirt that summer? He must have asked questions, I must have answered them. Part conversation, part pre-determined set, the same words we exchanged throughout the summer. I had cut my finger at the wedding, a long, narrow slice from a cake cutter. I held up the bandaged finger, he inspected, approved of my battle wound.

Then it was over. I collected suitcase, headed home. He got on the bike, went to work. Almost exactly a month later, it was over for real, and he walked home and I rode the train home and in the days after, that’s when the good memories began to fade and the bad grew stronger, bolder. But recently, I remembered that June evening after a week of travel. Those five minutes standing in the Plaza. Nothing bad taints, no resentment stains, that memory. Just him and me and a suitcase and a bike and a cut on my finger.

~Natalia

Coming Back

It’s hot outside. Classes haven’t started yet but they will soon; another day, maybe two. It’s the middle of August, 2012, and students are slowly trickling back to this downtown campus. I’ve been here since Tuesday, so has The Roommate.

There are other girls here too; carting suitcases and boxes upstairs from waiting minivans, dragging bins out of storage. Moving into a dorm room stripped bare every summer is a long task, but we prop our doors open and the hot Chicago wind blows through the open windows, and there are people arriving, people welcoming, people shouting, downstairs in the Plaza.

The new students have already moved in. Seven of them. August, of course, means new friendships and new faces and new voices in the hall, and it’s funny to think that August has no idea what May will look like. But May looks back and August is hopeful, excited, anticipatory.

The new students are here, and the returning students fill in the empty rooms every day. There are more doors opening and shutting every morning, on the way to and from the shower, meetings, breakfast, New Student Orientation functions. There are more soft, padding steps on the flat hallway carpet. This floor is coming alive.

But not everyone is back. Ellie Rose lives across the hall, three doors down. At the end of last school year, I stayed on campus until the very end, until graduation, and that last night, four of us (Ellie Rose being one), we laid on that dingy hallway carpet, amidst the suitcases and Goodwill and garbage bags. Packing up is a hard thing to do; I don’t understand how everything so expands, grows, accumulates at school. So we laid there at one in the morning, taking a break from all that packing. Then in the morning life began again, and we went to graduation, finished packing, moved out.

But that was last May and now it’s August and Ellie is back. She’s brought Spider Boy with her, after hosting his highness all summer long, and working to unpack in my room, I can hear her voice, hear her music, hear her calling for me (she calls me Nataline) just down the hall.

Mar is back. She’s moved from next door to the end of the hall, just one more door down, and once again, May looks back at August and how could I know that I’d spend so much time in that end cap room? A year spent as neighbors, Mar and I have created memories, and her water-blue eyes and gentle smile feel like coming home.

The Neighbor’s not back, though. The Neighbor, whose real name is Krista. The Neighbor with that blonde hair, long down her back, and blue eyes. We get along, we always say, because we’re the only ones who laugh at each other’s jokes. But I think she’s hilarious, and she builds my self-esteem right up; people roll their eyes sometimes, because they can’t see just how funny we really are.

And she laughs at my humor, sends grinning emoticons on the group message that circulates our phone, but she’s not here yet. We’re not quite whole yet.

~~

She came later. Not the very last one to return, but close. With her arrival, she completed our floor. We were waiting for her, counting down the hours until we knew she’d return. She texted in the morning, at the gate, before take-off, after landing, on the train; we asked her for updates constantly. When will you be here?

I didn’t realize she had arrived. There were loud voices, exclamations, in the bathroom, Mar’s, Ellie’s voices ringing loud off the tiled walls. Elevator dinged up and I stepped off, tucking my keys in my pocket. I could hear the noise from the hallway. Three voices, I recognized them instantly: Ellie. Mar. Krista.

Krista!

I ran the last two steps to the bathroom, pushed through the swinging door. Two rows of stalls, a sink and the showers at the back, the girls are in the middle, in the center of the room. The Neighbor had her back to me, that white-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail that brushed her back with every swing of her head. I said her name, must have, because she turned around and then those bathroom walls shook with echo because we were screaming and hugging and the other two were yelling, and we were all talking at once, and suddenly, everyone was back.

Everything was just right.

~~

The summer will change things, of course. The upcoming months will grow relationships, stretch them, change us all. And there will be new hearts on the floor this August, new friends, new family. And there will be old friends, too. Returning students, hearts I know, stories I’m familiar with, faces I love. And we’ll count down the hours until everyone’s back, and we’ll yell in the hallways, laughing, talking all at once when another sister steps off the elevator, makes her way down the hall. Things will be different, but they’ll be the same, too. Because these friends are family and these friends are sisters, and everything will be all right.

~Natalia

In August

We have these meetings just in April. Three of them, each on a Monday night. We climb those musty concrete stairs, into that classroom. It’s one of the big classrooms, at the end of the blue carpeted hallway. We all meet up there and we sit at the long tables, the skinny ones that seem barely wide enough to hold a notebook. We all sit there and we prepare.

We’re preparing for August 21st. It’s a Wednesday. The Wednesday when the half-circle parking lot in front of the clock tower is filled with cars rolling, rolling through. Cars stacked with bins and suitcases, pillows tucked into back seats, mini-fridges always fit awkwardly.

Then, in August, we’ll all stand outside in the hot city air, and we’ll wait for all these new students. In August, we’ll pull carts bumping down over the short curb, and we’ll balance bins on boxes, pile baskets on top, grab hold of the pillow because it’ll probably fall off.

In August, we’ll talk those new students across the Plaza; a Plaza full of tables, booths, teams. There are more than thirty student groups here at Moody, and their all in the Plaza on that move in day, waiting to talk to these new students. And we’ll pull those heavy-loaded carts right across the Plaza, snaking past all the clubs and the teams and the groups and organizations. We’ll pull those carts right into the buildings, up the elevator- two carts fit, I know- and then in a second, those new students have seen their room for the very first time.

In August, we’ll welcome all these students to a brand new home: Moody Bible Institute.

But it’s April now and we’ve no need for carts because the Plaza is empty and full of rain today. It’s April and we have these meetings and we’re a team working together and talking together and laughing together, and planning together, of course. And we design the shirt and the schedule, and we talk it over, shout it out, from our seats at those long, skinny tables.

And then when the meeting’s over, we walk in the rain back to dorms and homework and another week ahead. And weeks turn into months quickly and it’s just over four months, August 21st comes bright, hot, early, and the new students come, too.

~Natalia

2012

I’m determined to write a 2012 recap post. I love turning around to catch a glimpse of where I’ve been, what I’ve done, what I learned. Through the hundreds of posts I’ve written over the past year, I can dig deep into what He’s already done; get my bearings, and step confidently into what He’s yet to do, because past give reason for present, and faithful then can’t be anything other than faithful now, faithful to come.

There’s a thread of redemption story, of God’s character and grace, winding throughout 2012, and there’s a personal story,too. This blog is a personal account of my life, my heart, and my story is nestled small in the grand narrative of God saves. And that’s what I want to see when I look back at 2012. When days are lined up alongside longer days, and months are tipped end to end in line, I want Him to shine bold amidst the snapshots of life that make up this blog.

I started 2012 in Mexico, ringing in the New Year with the hearts that I call family. Birthday, Christmas, New Years; I soaked in every moment I could, but the cold came every night and I laid in bed in my sweatshirt, blankets piled on top of me, and dread of school settled heavy and tight in my stomach.

A semester that I look back on as rocky, unsure, stressed, I landed hard on God’s gentle grace at every fall, and God’s provision rocked me to the core. Three months of stress culminated in a two weeks in Kenya, during spring break. The western world, the world that I’ve spent my life spinning through, is clean and neat and suffering and death sweeps easily under the rug.

Not so in Africa. There is no rug in Africa and sickness and death is the backdrop of millions. Nine months since my return to this country, and I still don’t know why I went to Africa; man places a question mark on I don’t understand, but God’s will is unmistakable in hindsight and He put Africa in my heart, and maybe someday He’ll tell me why.

The spring semester ended like a marathon, and the shroud of school life stayed thick around me for a while after. School breaks are a funny thing because they inevitably come after days, weeks, months, of fast-paced academics. Go, go, go turned to wait, relax, enjoy in the blink of an eye and I hesitated for a moment, shuffling back and forth, swirling uncertain between a long semester and a wonderful summer.

But life waits for no one and summer 2012 vaulted itself into action with a running start. Weddings, Grandparents, WOW camp, Michigan, cousins, Mexico and marched together, one long train of events created their own routine, and I landed back at school in August excited for another semester.

God’s not more real this semester than last, but He’s close, and we’ve gone back and forth. He knows words before I speak them, whisper them, yell them, and His response pours grace, mercy, healing on a heart that He holds always. Friendships developing in the spring found new depth, and He continued to grow me into who He says I am.

There’s much more than I could say, there’s always more that could be said. But I’ll stop now because I’m not ending; a year is a continuation, not beginning to The End, and there’s not resolution because God’s still working.

I still alternately fight against grace and lying powerless and grateful against its incomprehensible redemption. I still shrug off Child of God, forgetting that the grace-work of my salvation is not a blanket for cold days, but a heart-deep stamp that changes everything I do. I’m still unsure, sometimes stumbling where I wish I was stepping, and falling where I thought I’d not.

2012 was grace and mercy and learning, and 2013 will be, too. Because faithful then is faithful now, and changing dates don’t change a thing to change to character and heart of the God who’s been God since time began.

~Natalia

Not the Only One

I like to think I’m the only one.

And even if I don’t like that I think that way, I tend to think that way.

I’m not whining and moping, reveling in the individuality of whatever minor calamity has befallen me, but I am thinking about it.

The end of last school year, dragging my feet, and truly my whole body, through the final days, weeks, of a long, busy, full semester. Sleeping much less than I should have, and forcing myself to do things well, do things right, during the day.

I was exhausted and drained and you know what? I thought about how exhausted and drained I was quite frequently. I wouldn’t have ever said it, because deep down somewhere I know it to be false, but I supposed rather fancifully that I was the only one struggling just as I was, in the areas that I was battling.

Back at school this week, I’ve been busy, yes. My teeth have been giving me a little bit of pain here and there, yes. But there’s more there, too. Deep down, I’m thinking about and processing things, lessons, happenings, from this summer and beyond.

I’m going through my days, helping with orientation sessions, working with the team to plan new student events, meeting and spending time with new students. I’m going through all those movement, and I’m loving it.

But on the inside, under the name tag that says “Staff” and the floral lanyard with my Moody-issued ID and keys, I’m thinking and wondering and sorting out, and I just might be growing.

That’s good. That’s very good.

Growing and thinking and even sometimes hurting, is a sign that God is working. God is working in my heart. He’s molding me to be more like Him and teaching me to trust Him more and opening my eyes to see things that I had not seen before. It stretches and hurts a little sometimes, but I trust Him.

But I’m not the only one.

I’m not the only one who is learning, seeing, stretching. I’m not the only one whose balled up fists God is slowly uncurling, until my fingers, stiff from clinging to things I can’t hold, stretch completely flat.

There are girls here, the very girls I live and work and play with, who are learning, too. Hurting. Questioning. Unsure.

Girls who I interact with every day; riding the elevator, lining up in the SDR, saying hi and spending time together on the floor. Girls whose lives are so much deeper than where are you from and how many siblings do you have and what are you excited about this year.

They think and they feel and they wonder and they doubt. They read and they write and they learn and they struggle. They celebrate and rejoice and sometimes, when no one’s looking, they cry, too.

They’re not the only one, and I’m not, either.

There is a God and a plan so much greater than any of us can imagine, and I want to see that. I want to open my eyes, look up from the ground I’ve been watching my feet plod along, look out from the internal conversations I’ve been watching myself have, and learn to see.

See the world, the hearts around me, the way God sees them.

Because I’m not the only one.

~Natalia

This Was Summer {The End for Now}


Ballet Recital


Camping


Grandparents in Town


Wow Camp (photo by Tommy Ekstrand)


Weddings


Cousins in Town


Mexico


Vacation Bible School


Trip to Mancelona


Friends, Family, Neighbors

and so much more.

My summer’s over, but it was a wonderful adventure, and I wouldn’t have it any other way!

~Natalia

Here We Go

I have self diagnosed myself

as having some sort of mental block

wherein I know that things are happening

for days,

weeks,

years beforehand,

but am completely incapable of processing said occurrences

when they actually occur.

Five full days after my wisdom teeth were removed

and I still find myself sucking my cheeks in and

wondering if they really actually removed a part of my oral anatomy.

Stevy left for a conference this morning

and I’ve known about it for weeks

but I still can’t quite comprehend that The Boy will be in Colorado

for two weeks.

It’s been three full months since I laboriously packed up

and moved out of my little dorm room;

three months of glorious, busy, crazy summer

and I’m going back to school tomorrow

and I absolutely cannot compute

that another school year

is about to

begin.

But here we go!

~Natalia

Made This Tapestry

I’ve talked about the tapestry of life. I’ve written about the rich, thick rug that is the life you and I lead. I’ve battled to unwind the fabric, impatiently tugging in the same threads over and over again, hoping desperately that I’ve somehow grabbed hold of the one string that will cause the whole woven mass to fall to pieces. To unroll and unwind and become once more the individuals threads that I hope against hope would be easier to decipher.

I’ve told you about the paint. Not an elegant portrait, not even a decipherable image, but the splotches and splatters of a real life. There are no color by numbers in this life, and the paint runs freely and eagerly all over the place. The red’s running in streaks through the green, the green is tinged yellow, the yellow’s dripping everywhere, and there’s a pool of blue at my feet.

I can’t unwind the tapestry, and sometimes I can’t make heads or tails of the painting. So very often, I’m careening through life, clinging fruitlessly to what I can get my hands on, and sending paint spraying with every step I take.

I don’t get it and I’m too close, too involved, to be able to step back and see the beauty in the twisted threads, in the running, oozing paint.

But sometimes, every now and again, I do see. A thread, a colored string in the tapestry of my life, catches my eyes, and I can follow it. I step back and I can suddenly see how one single thread runs across the whole. I can see where it twisted around to form a flower, where it ducked and turned and mixed with other threads, temporarily lost among the jumble, to form something more beautiful than it ever could have on its own.

But a glimpse is just that- quick, short, instant. And suddenly, I’ve lost the thread and all I can see is the jumble, the twist, the in and out, once more.

But the thread is still there.

In fifth grade and completely decided: I’m going to Moody Bible Institute. And, while I’m there, I think I’ll major in Elementary Education. I’ll learn to teach, to train, learn to be like so many who have taught me.

Then, suddenly, I’m a senior in high school and the application I’m filling out online lists me not as an El Ed, a future teacher, but rather as a linguistics major. Years have passed and I have somehow convinced myself that I’m not a teacher.

I could never teach; I’m sure it’s hard and tiring, and think of all the requirements and classes to take before I even begin; I can’t do that.

But there’s something different, too. The thread doesn’t stop, it flips and rolls and loops under another and it’s spring 2010, and eight years of plans skid to a halt. I’m not going to Moody, not this fall anyway. My after-college plans are unformed at best, completely nonexistent at their worst, and I slowly begin to realize that a career in linguistics, Bible translation, is not where my heart lies.

Children’s Ministry it’ll be now. I’m nineteen years old and have applied once more to the Moody Bible Institute. January, February, March 2011 pass, and I’m deeply embedded in my life in Mexico, my heart completely wrapped around the Casa Hogar.

I’ll not apply a third time, and I find myself planning, imagining, what it would look like to not attend Moody, to stay in Mexico. To work, to help, to love at the Casa Hogar.

But the Moody thread’s a long one and there’s a scanned letter in my Facebook inbox. We are excited to inform you…

My world tips violently and I’m completely doused in paint. Casa Hogar and church and family and Moody are so mixed together, I’m not sure what I’m feeling, and my eyes blur with hot tears as I read the full extent of the acceptance letter.

One school year down. May 2012, school ends and I’m reeling. The tapestry is fully intact, the painting’s just as vivid, just as intricate as ever, but for months I’ve been too busy to see it. Too busy to marvel at the beauty. Almost too busy to take comfort in the fact that I don’t get it, I don’t understand how the paint swirls, or why the threads knot and loop, but there is Someone who does.

Summer flows out of school, out of last year, out of the rest of my life; it’s the same tapestry. The same story. The same me. But I’m growing and learning, too. I’m jumping from puddle to puddle, splashing paint left and right, skipping and hopping as the thread continues to loop and twist, a never-ending story of God growing me, stretching me.

And then suddenly, I looked up and things looked familiar. I wiped the paint off my feet and shuffled around and realized I’m right where I was ten years ago. I’m going to Moody. In fact, I’m moving back to campus in just a little more than a week. And while I’m there, I think I’ll major in Elementary Education.

It’s funny, the way God works life, works hearts, works sovereignty. I’m not decided yet, I’m standing in front of the mountain, the skyscraper, trying to hold onto anything firm, anything steady. Because it’s a long climb and you’re right, I’m scared. But thread doesn’t stop and the colors of this painting, the hues of this next step in my life, are brilliant.

I might lose sight of the thread, left standing confused in front of the tapestry. And it won’t be long before I’m dripping paint, but Someone much bigger, much wiser, much grander than me made this tapestry, painted this picture, and I trust Him.

~Natalia

This is Summer {#44}

20120704-234609.jpg

These fireworks tonight:
celebrating freedom and
this, our great country!

~Natalia

Previous Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 197 other followers