An Attempt at Standing Up

2 Part Update!
I decided to do this one as 2 parts: The first part is just the basics of what is going on. The second is bigger things there are going on in my head. I figure that not everyone wants to read the second part (oven people vs. microwave people :P )

Part 1:

I have a meeting with a woman tomorrow about a possible job. We will see how that goes.
I am also the midst of still digging through jobs and sending out resumes. I am feeling slightly unmotivated it in, so please pray for stamina and perseverance.
We are also looking for an apartment for August 1 that will be cheap and in a good location, but I am currently the only one around, but I do seem to have at least 3 roommates to live with now.
I am melting in the this heat and can't eat enough popsicles! :P

Part 2:

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
- Henry David Thoreau


I read this quote today and it hit me pretty hard. I function in writing. The way I write and the amount that I write is a good indication of where I am at in life. The times that I am learning the most and processing the most are the times when I am writing the most. So I can relate pretty well to Henry up there. I don't have anything to write about unless I've bothered to pay attention to the world around me.

But to be honest, I've been in survival mode for the last bit of time here. This move has been the hardest thing I've ever done. And like the already oppressive heat of New Orleans that I have experienced thus far--this has not been the worst of it.

The first 5 days here were distracted, with my parents being down here. The next few were just fine because Michael and I were spending quite a bit of time together, so I wasn't really lonely. Piece of cake.

And then yesterday and today happened: Too hot for me to really want to leave the house but desperate to not feel lonely.
It has got me thinking quite a bit though. And in conjunction with the sermon that I heard at the church I attended on Sunday as well as with the community group that I went to based off of that sermon, I believe my world might be turning on its head.

For the last 3.5 years, I have been surrounded by amazing fellowship and community. Let's face it, I have been spoiled, like the youngest child that I am. I loved every minute of it and miss it terribly. But I think that it might have crippled me a bit. The sermon and small group tonight focused on sin and we talked for a bit about idols. This was a challenging topic for me because I began to be more convicted (I had already started thinking about it a little bit) because I believe the good community that I had up there became an idol to me--I found worth in it. I found comfort in it. It fulfilled me. While God has such joy in community for us, there is a line we can cross, as with any good and perfect gift that comes from Him, where it becomes a crutch to replace instead of a gift to receive. Sad, huh?
Community is nothing unless it is fulfilling the will of God by inviting other people in to share in His goodness. But what does that mean? Something I recently realized is that we have such a tendency to trick ourselves into believing that we are doing His will with community when really we are not. We invite people into our community if they are like us--we have an application that needs to be filled out, screen tests that need to be run, and background checks that need to be gone through. God's purpose for community is that EVERYONE should experience Himself through it. But we, as consumers, have infiltrated the true calling for community. Instead, we make community fit to what we need, not to what He needs to be accomplished.
We make it our idol.
We are fulfilled by it, so long as it fulfills what we need.

Tonight, I felt a little bit like I understood God more.
In a conversation about spending time with people and the motivation for doing that, I got blindsided by a reality.
I am an extrovert to the core. I get fed off of being around people. But this can easily trick me into believing that I need people. But it's not the case. If my relationship were right with God, all I would need was Him.
And aside from that, the bigger thing that I understood Him more in is this:
The situation has occurred where I have been lonely and people have wanted to be there for me, so despite knowing that they need alone time, they hang out with me because they know that I need it. It is out of care for me and a genuine desire to be there for me--but I can always tell when they are doing it out of duty and when they are doing it because they really want to.
And then I realized that this is what God must go through all of the time with us. Our constant knowledge that we should hang out with Him, as opposed to a real desire to spend time with Him.
There is a sadness that comes along with the former situation and it made me remorse over all of the times that I have spent time with God out of duty, rather than spending time with Him because I actually care about the relationship and want it to grow. And it stems from a deeper issue than I care to write about tonight, so I will have to come back to it later.

A place to call home?

Well, I have now been a New Orleans resident for 4 days.
I settled into the sublet that I have through July. By settled, I mean, got the boxes arranged along the wall so that I can walk around the room without tripping every 5 seconds. No point in unpacking completely if I am only going to be in this apartment for 2 months, right?
Since we arrived, I have basically just been doing the tourist thing with my parents, which has been good, but draining at the same time. My legs are tired from walking around, but it's great to be able to spend time with my parents as they experience my new city for the first time.
I am almost starting to learn my way around. The Mississippi River curves around in New Orleans about 3 times, making it difficult to tell which direction is where, not to mention, everything down here is just wacky. Uptown is actually down river while Downtown is up river. At least there is some semblance of a grid system that actually makes some logical sense, as opposed to everything working it's way out from the capital building... :P

I was talking to a man at a concert in Lafayette Square yesterday (they have a version of Concert on the Square down here too. But get this! They do theirs in the spring and fall because the summer months are actually the icky ones! (Have fun, suckers! I get double the amount of concerts than you do now! :P) Anyway... Felix runs a job center down here and we got to chatting after an introduction. His center focuses more on jobs for people with not as much education as I have, but he was helping me come up with ideas, nonetheless. He asked me why I was in New Orleans--A question many of you (and I) have asked myself. But then he asked a really interesting question--How long will I give myself before I pack it in if this doesn't feel like home? I didn't really have an answer to this question. I have focused this whole time on getting down here and have known for a while that I would probably be down here for a long haul. But the idea of "home" really got me thinking. How long will it take for New Orleans to feel like home?
Certainly, sitting here in my room, surrounded by everything I own that is packed up in boxes currently makes me doubt that this will ever happen. And after checking the Blackhawk website a few minutes ago just to see what was going on and seeing a picture up on the main page of me and a group of girls from Study Day, that reality cut a little deeper. Will anything feel as much like home as Madison, Wisconsin does?
I don't know the answer to this. But I know that when I got out of the car in the neighborhood of Central City the other day and a woman named Tess yelled across the street to me, ran over and gave me a hug, it felt like this could be home. And sitting on a blanket in Lafayette Square, listening to jazz music in the Louisiana sunshine, a little bit of my heart opened up more to the idea of it. Joking with the cop and the clerk at the counter at the local Winn Dixie grocery store certainly made big New Orleans feel a little smaller.
Will New Orleans ever feel like Madison did? Probably not. But do I believe that God is going to bless me with a feeling of home and community within this community? You can bet your parking spot at the 10:45 service on it.

As for the coming days, I will say a sobbing goodbye to my parents tomorrow night. This is the goodbye that I have tried to put off the longest, even making them drive me down here and stay for a week with me. :P It will be awful and I am not looking forward to it.
I will start really diving in and looking for a job when my parents leave. Please pray that God will teach me the things he needs to teach me in this time of uncertainty. I look forward to the challenge of a new job, but am also just anxious to secure something.

Thank you again for all of your prayers and words of encouragement!