A Shift in the Wind
So I gave Him back everything He wanted me to give Him. And I had tremendous peace about it. Sometimes, I’d rather trust myself than God. But I didn’t realize the consequences that this would bring. I think it’s for the best. It’s what He wants.
What I mean
I don’t know if that’s what brought it on or not, but things have changed. I’ll tell you what I mean, in story format, the only way I know how, currently.
In the morning through the afternoon, I finished grading my orgo TA papers, and went to Dr. Conticello’s molecular biochemistry class. There was an audible gasp of joy when he said that he’d gotten the class on Blackboard! He said he’d had to learn to switch to it from Learnlink. I can understand – I did like Learnlink a lot myself and switching systems is no fun.
The lesson was on ribozymes and aptamers – some of my favorite topics of all time. But, to my amazement, I didn’t really care. Listening was still painful. Tiredness felt as if it had seeped into my bones, rather than just my body. I realized then, that I’ve hit the point at which I like to call “crunch 2.” I already hit crunch 1. Crunch 2 is a deeper, more thorough hunkering down point at which one is just surviving, more or less. I’ve experienced it before.
However, don’t despair, because when I hit this kind of low point, it generally produces good fruit and doesn’t last forever. I have full confidence that the Lord will bring me back. This crunch has an edge to it from tiredness and my not taking proper care of myself, which can change.
Let me see if I can explain better what I mean by “crunch”
I don’t know how to tell you what I mean except another description. Crunch, to me, refers to my attitude and response to deadlines and work.
When I am NOT in a “crunch” mode and there are deadlines – when I get home, sometimes I’ll be tired and not want to work, so I won’t, or I’ll sleep instead (especially weekends). I’ll panic massively as things pile up. I’ll rush around, trying to produce schedules, trying to furiously work at an obscene pace, doing as many things as possible, and neglecting my health, sleep and almost anything, in favor of work.
In crunch mode, part of me dies – or that’s what it feels like – and there’s a rebalancing of the equilibrium. I stop caring if I’m tired or not, if I want to work or not – I just work anyway. I stop panicking. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem to matter how many more deadlines there are or whether I fail them or not. I’ll still be alive at the end, if I do. I stop rushing around. I take a more slow, measured pace. I do random things that I would avoid before to save time: eat breakfast, actually exercise occasionally, spend time reading the Word (if I wasn’t before) – in spite of the fact that I actually have less time for those things. I stop caring if not doing them will result in failing something, because, there’s just things more important in life than work.
Crunch 1 is more surface level. Crunch 2 is a complete mental shift.
Back to what I was saying
I think I reached crunch 2 somehow by surrendering to the Lord and by sheer exhaustion. Part of me died. I lost my will for a while to care – that part, at least, is nothing to do with the Lord, and everything to do with … not enough sleep? I don’t know. He’ll bring me back.
What I know I have to do: stop blogging
So, in surrendering to the Lord, I also surrendered this blog.
The Lord told me to start this website and set of blogs about this time last year 2012, so I did. It’d been an idea in my mind for some time and I sensed He wanted me to actually try it and had plans for it.
However now, I think what He wanted to do with these blogs is done, for the moment, and my writing time is done for a while. For everything, there is a time.
I’ve felt as if He was leading me to this conclusion for a while now, actually. Perhaps I resisted. I had some bitterness today for Him bringing me to this dead feeling place and a bad crunch 2, but really, I’m a stubborn person. He probably knew I wouldn’t listen any other way.
Does that mean I’ll delete the website? Absolutely not! He’s not done with it, I think. But I won’t write for a while. I don’t know how long that will be. He’ll have to tell me when that is – some things would have to seriously change, I’m pretty sure. Once I reach conclusions of this magnitude, it takes a serious zap from Him to convince me He wants me to do otherwise. But, I’ve come to realize, He’s very good at doing that whenever He wants. I may still update Scriptures and papers read, occasionally.
Thank you for reading
So if you’ve been kindly reading, I thank you very much for your patronage! I shall one day be back here, blogging, but I can’t tell you when. I’ll let you know. I’ll still be on Facebook – occasionally – and will let you know from there if I start this blog up again.
Closing comments
Since I won’t be communicating for a while, here are a few things.
1. I’m getting ready to write all my proposals vigorously. Dr. Conticello gave us until October 10th for his, instead of the 3rd – how nice.
2. Yuan, one of the other grad students in the Salaita lab, and I are going to start meeting regularly, as often as I can arrange it, to read Scripture together. I think it’ll be good for us both.
3. One of James’s professors is very impressed with him and says, with his skills, he thinks he can easily help him get a job right out of college after he graduates next May. James has been fiddling with computers since he was a toddler. My dad got into IT right when computers first came out for general use. His communications company got their first computer – a gigantic beast of a thing – and he read its manual cover to cover. They asked him if he wanted to take charge of it. He’s been in IT ever since and brought computers home to take apart, work on or use since we were babies. James’s professor said his skills were a rare breed. Most people didn’t start tinkering with computers until they were ten or eleven. James was born on one and he has a knack for fixing things, fiddling with them and absorbing technical information like a sponge. He says all his IT classes at Kennesaw were a joke and he wishes he’d gone to Tech – but I know the Lord wanted him there – he did things in his life there that really changed him. And the Lord can teach him better than any professor. I think the Lord is really going to do great things in his life, using his gifts with technology. I’ve felt this for a while. I could say more, but that’s enough for now.
4. Oma is visiting us soon, she says, for about a week. I think it’s October 5th – 12th or something like that.
FIN
So, formally, I give up this blog back to the Lord, who birthed it within me to start it. I give up all pretense to doing anything myself – as if I ever did anything. Now is the time for Him to work while I take refuge in Him in silence. When He wants me to speak, I’ll know. If that ends up being next week, and not as long as I expected – I’ll also know. We’ll see. But I suspect that won’t be the case. I merely wait on Him. May He continue to teach me everything He wants, helping me love Him more, follow Him more closely, seek Him more thoroughly, pray more unceasingly and love like He does. May you all be blessed with His peace!
Sincerely,
Jessica, a.k.a. Culurien
Appendix: Scriptures (NKJV) and a Song
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”[a]
20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. 22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks[b] foolishness, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
Glory Only in the Lord
26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence.30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— 31 that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”[c]
Jeremiah 9:24
But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me,
That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the Lord.
Isaiah 29:14
Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work among this people, a marvelous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.”
Psalms 6:1-3
O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,
Nor chasten me in Your hot displeasure.
2 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak;
O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.
3 My soul also is greatly troubled;
But You, O Lord—how long?
Isaiah 35
The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them,
And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose;
2 It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice,
Even with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
The excellence of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the Lord,
The excellency of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands,
And make firm the feeble knees.
4 Say to those who are fearful-hearted,
“Be strong, do not fear!
Behold, your God will come with vengeance,
With the recompense of God;
He will come and save you.”
5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
6 Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing.
For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
7 The parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water;
In the habitation of jackals, where each lay,
There shall be grass with reeds and rushes.
8 A highway shall be there, and a road,
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean shall not pass over it,
But it shall be for others.
Whoever walks the road, although a fool,
Shall not go astray.
9 No lion shall be there,
Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it;
It shall not be found there.
But the redeemed shall walk there,
10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness,
And sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Isaiah 40:25-31
“To whom then will you liken Me,
Or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high,
And see who has created these things,
Who brings out their host by number;
He calls them all by name,
By the greatness of His might
And the strength of His power;
Not one is missing.
27 Why do you say, O Jacob,
And speak, O Israel:
“My way is hidden from the Lord,
And my just claim is passed over by my God”?
28 Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
29 He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,
31 But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
Matthew 26:40-42
40 Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour? 41 Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
42 Again, a second time, He went away and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless[a] I drink it, Your will be done.”
2 Corinthians 13:4
For though He was crucified in weakness, yet He lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in Him, but we shall live with Him by the power of God toward you.
A Song: Bebo Norman's "The Hammer Holds"
The Hammer Holds - Lyrics
A shapeless piece of steel, that's all I claim to be
This hammer pounds to give me form, this flame, it melts my dreams
I glow with fire and fury, as I'm twisted like a vine
My final shape, my final form I'm sure I'm bound to find
So dream a little, dream for me in hopes that I'll remain
And cry a little, cry for me so I can bear the flames
And hurt a little, hurt for me my future is untold
But my dreams are not the issue here, for they, the hammer holds
And the water, it cools me gray, and the hurt's subdued somehow
I have my shape, this sharpened point, what is my purpose now?
And the question still remains, what am I to be?
Perhaps some perfect piece of art displayed for all to see
So dream a little, dream for me in hopes that I'll remain
And cry a little, cry for me so I can bear the flames
And hurt a little, hurt for me my future is untold
But my dreams are not the issue here, for they, the hammer holds
The hammer pounds again, but flames I do not feel
This force that drives me, helplessly, through flesh, and wood reveals
A burn that burns much deeper, it's more than I can stand
The reason for my life was to take the life of a guiltless man
So dream a little, dream for me in hopes that I'll remain
And cry a little, cry for me so I can bear the pain
And hurt a little, hurt for me, my future is so bold
But my dreams are not the issue here, for they, the hammer holds
This task before me may seem unclear
But it, my Maker holds.