Office life.

I've never really had a real job. I've always been a babysitter. Since I can remember that is what I have done. I watch other people's kids. Every summer except for the past two that is what I have done to make money. I have definitely never had an office job, but that's where I've spent a good chunk of time the past few days, in the office. This is our first "normal" week of work. Every morning our schedules start with "office hours." I'm not sure what I thought it would be like, but it's better than I was expecting. It's good to all come together and work alongside each other to begin the day. Especially with the way this internship is set up, time that we get to spend together as a team is precious. Time that we get to spend together learning how we all work, think, and just do life is valuable for us collectively as we learn to better love one another, and also individually as we find our place on this team, develop our strengths and realize areas of weakness, where we need encouragement and help.

Even though we all have separate things going on, separate projects, separate life happenings, separate goals and hopes, it is comforting to be close to my team. To know that even though we are all so different, we all have common ground to stand on, firm, unmovable common ground. And I need them to remind me of that sometimes. I pray that as I continue this summer, I would work to actively engage my teammates. That I wold strive to know their hearts, but also to let them into mine. I'm not the best at that. It's ok to show weakness and vulnerability. I need to constantly be reminding myself of that.

Outside of the office, we had our first Ultimate Frisbee of the summer last night. A good number of people came out to play, and I am also thankful for the others that came out to watch and hang out on the sidelines. It was really, really, really hot. I don't know how they played for two straight hours. We enforced lots of water breaks, but still the heat was killer. It was a good first week though.

More days.

I stayed up last night writing this whole thing out and then went to post it and I lost service or something. It didn't work. I will try again. Saving more often this time around.

Monday morning we left for Boone. We is the five interns plus Todd (pastor) and Michael (worship director). Todd and I both drove. I followed him. Crazy driver. We arrived at this cute cute cute little cabin on the side of a mountain positioned right next to a cute little pond. It really was just so cute. Classic mountain cabin. Erin and I got the cool upstairs loft to ourselves, complete with our own bathroom (one of the many perks of being "the girls").

The ride up there was fine, but I felt off, just not good. Once we got there this annoying feeling continued to grow. It was like I was with all of these awesome people, in this beautiful place and I wanted to be anywhere else. It wasn't anything anyone had done. It was just me feeling pressure, anxiety, it was just me believing the lies Satan tells me.

I felt small. I felt my confidence blow away. I felt cheap, like I wasn't worth enough to be there, like I had nothing to offer. I was having flashbacks to last summer when I started the internship. Not vivid flashbacks to particular times spent, more like feelings that reminded me of feelings I have had in the past. I didn't like it. It felt like after all of the progress I have made over the past year, I had regressed right back to square one.

I really really hated it on the one hand, but on the other hand it was a sweet reminder. It humbled me and reminded me that it is by the grace of God that I have made any progress whatsoever. It reminded me that my identity, my confidence, and my voice all come from above. They are gifts my father has given me, and without him I couldn't be who I want to be, I couldn't know what I know, and I certainly couldn't grow in my understanding of either of those things. So I am glad that my insecurities haunt me. I am glad that Satan temps me with self pity and self contempt, because he won't win. He's already lost, and I get to grow closer to Jesus when he tempts me. I get to know the goodness of my dad more and more. For that I will happily walk through these dumb insecurities. For that I will hold onto the hope of a day when all of this is made right, and I will live today in the knowledge of that day's coming.

Things got better the more time we spent together in Boone. We had plenty of time to spend in conversation with God, and we had plenty of time to spend in community with each other. We talked about our hopes and expectations for the summer. We made goals and shared our fears and anxieties we have going into the internship. We did some hiking, ate some good food, jammed out to some John Mayer in the car rides, and just got to know each other all a little better. It was a sweet time for us to spend as a team.

Returning to Greensboro felt right. It felt good. It felt like home. Being here, driving these roads, spending time in these places that I love is making me more and more excited about the work we get to do this summer. We got back Wednesday afternoon, and all went our separate ways to spend some time with our host families (who I love). The Weatherlys, Erin, and I watched Scotty win American Idol! Woo Woo!

Thursday was our first day in the office. We spent a good bit of the day just setting things up. We made some trips to Office Depot, Target, and a few others. We set up our office mailboxes, and rearranged some furniture so that we will all have space to work. We were all really just settling in and starting to set up some of our meetings for the weeks to come. It's an exciting feeling to actually have an office space. I never worked in the office last year, so that will be a change for me.

It feels good to be here. I feel God moving in our team and in me. I can't wait to see what he has in store for us this summer. I pray that I would be open and willing to go down whatever road her leads me to.

Day 1.

I am thinking about documenting my summer on here in a more regular way than I usually blog about my life. I journal a lot. I write a lot. I like doing it, but the idea of blogging about my life daily or weekly in a public way has always kind of freaked me out. On the other hand, I am working for a Church this summer, and I have a lot of people who are supporting me on this journey financially, prayerfully, emotionally, and other ______lly ways too. The thought of them knowing specifically what I am doing, who I am working with, what I am struggling with, where I am doing well, my fears, my joys, my life, this excites me. It makes me feel a little less alone. And if I can tell them about it through written words, it will sound better, more eloquent, and probably just make a lot more sense. So I'll try it out. See how it goes.

My hope is that by making myself more vulnerable I will, in the long run actually make myself less vulnerable. Explanation: It scares me to write about myself on this blog. I am afraid people will actually read it. I am afraid I will sound dumb. I am afraid people will see how dumb I sound. To me, all that makes me feel vulnerable. My hope is that these things will happen, people will read it, people will see what I have to say (dumb and all), and they will pray for me, talk to me, encourage me, point me in the right direction when I am off, and when I have them backing me in all of those ways I will actually be stronger, not weaker, not vulnerable. Hope that made some sense.

Here it goes.

I am working with Hope Chapel in Greensboro this summer. There are five of us interns. We are all living with different families from the church. Erin and I (the two girls) are living with this awesome family called the Weatherlys. They have three kids, but only one of them hasn't left for college yet. They also have two Golden Retrievers (who I LOVE). We moved in yesterday. We get this cute little room in their rockin basement. Love the closet space and the really nice shower.

This morning we helped set up for the worship service and tore down afterwards. Patrick (intern) and I are doing our concentration this summer in what they are calling "Project Hope." It is an already existing mission within the church to engage the city of Greensboro both spiritually and socially. We had a meeting after church where the team got us up to speed on what they have been doing and planing on doing recently (more later).

All of us interns (Erin, Griffin, Matt, Patrick, and I) got dinner together tonight. They are all awesome. We're all very different from what I can tell, but good different. I can learn a lot from these people. That kind of different.

We are leaving for Boone tomorrow morning for a three day orientation.

I have a Urinary Track Infection. It hurts. It's kind of put me in a funk. Things irritate me more easily when I am not feeling great. I am on medicine and hopefully it should start clearing up soon. I don't want to be a downer. I want to be happy and fun.

Everything Moves.

I wrote this to my mom last year towards the end of the summer. She shared it will me again recently:

There is too much change that is constantly happening in this post-high school stage of my life. It's hard on me. I don't do change very well. Sometimes it feels like my heart is continually breaking. I have to leave high school and get used to college. I have to leave college and get used to internship life. Then, right when I get the hang of things and really start to love my work it's over and soon after that everyone is scattering off to school again. Nothing is constant. It's a struggle for me. I am excited to go back to school though. We're going to have a really cool group of girls this year, I think. I'm not so excited about my classes, but I'm sure they'll grow on me. I'm sad to leave Hope. I'm sad to leave home. I hope you know that I'm sad to leave you. Sad that Jenny will never greet me again. But happy and thankful that I'll get to come home sometimes. But for now, Raleigh it is.

This was so me. So something I would say. And it still is. But I'm also different now. I've changed since last summer. I am stronger than I was then. I am a little bit more brave. I'm not as insecure. I've ditched a few idols (probably also picked up a few more). But I'm better. I'm more like Jesus, or on my way to more like Jesus. I still have a lifetime more of improving to do, but I am glad for this stage. Thankful for the lessons, the trials, the friends, the memories. I am thankful for this time, and I am loving it. Maybe not always in the midst of things do I love them or appreciate them, but I love to look back and see how necessary and purposeful it all is. I cannot wait to understand in full all of the wonders and mysteries that fill this life.

My heart still hurts every time things change. I don't know if I will ever not be like that. Even transitioning into things that I am excited about is sad on some level. Going from my familiar, my routine, into something new is sad to me. It's sad and it's scary and it's hard, but it's also good. I've learned that it makes me better. It forces me to lean on solid things, the few things that don't change, that don't move. It forces me to see beauty in new things. It give me a fresh perspective. I love to be able to see life and beauty from different perspectives. It opens my heart and my mind to possibilities. It increases my ability to love. It gives me new eyes, and I need new eyes. Sometimes my old ones get in a rut, and it's hard to get them out of it on my own.

It's makes things tough when nothing stands still. It makes life hard. I feel like I'm having trouble keeping up sometimes, but I am thankful for grace. As I go into this summer (at Hope Chapel again) I don't ask for the pain to not be there, but rather that I would embrace the pain, enter into it, and learn from it. I pray that I would hold on to this solid foundation I have been gifted, and interact with all the movement, love the movement, embrace the inconsistency.

all the things I pursue

well, they stay for a season

then everything moves

everything moves, oh

my towers fall

but you aren't leaving me

cause everything moves but you

Thankful.

I woke up this morning very late. It was almost the afternoon. Sleeeep. Mmmmm. I went to a Brooke Fraser concert last night! It was awesome. Sold out, so it was packed, but so worth it. She is so random and funny and her music is beautiful. Really, really beautiful. She is just awesome.

But more importantly, I got to spend time with two lovely girls, very dear to my heart. We've known each other forever. I am so thankful for them both.

Alison and I have known each other since elementary school. We played basketball together, and we became best friends forever when my dad moved onto the same street her family lived on. Every other weekend, and Wednesday nights we would get to hang out. Well, more like I always wanted to hang out, but she was a much better student than I was and often turned me down for things like homework and reading (she also ended up at UNC, out of state; smarty pants). But when I could convince her to play we had many adventures in "the meadow," made lotion in the creek, created super cool betty spaghetti hair styles, practiced our dribbling drills, found the best sledding hills, and so many other heart warming memories.

Lindsay and I have known each other since the 7th grade, when her family moved to PA from LONDON (she's so legit, accent and all). We bonded over our common love of field hockey (ha), so naturally our friendship was bound to succeed. Linds (as she likes to be called), saw me through my depressing first year [or so] in NC, when my family moved to Greensboro after our freshman year of high school. She was and continues to be such a huge encouragement to me. I was a mess. I know I was. I had it in my head that I was going to hate everything about Greensboro, and so I did. But she didn't just tell me I was being stupid. Lindsay listened to all my complaints, she cried with me, prayed with me, even made me laugh a few times. We both came a long way in our talking on the phone skillz that year.

I hadn't forgotten how much I loved these two girls. Well, maybe I had. I don't know. But when I woke up this morning, and thought about all of the fun we had last night I couldn't help but make this observation: my favorite part of last night wasn't the concert (the thing that brought us all together in the first place). My favorite part, by far, was the thirty or so minutes we spent sitting in Alison's apartment after the show. We went back to pee before all heading our separate ways, but ended up just chatting for a little while. My favorite part of last night was sitting in Alison's cute little living room and playing with Lindsay's hair. My favorite part of last night was hearing about how Alison's family is doing. My favorite part of last night was reminiscing about the old days. My favorite part of last night was getting to laugh with these girls that I love so much. How I miss them.

Today, I am thankful. I think I often forget how truly and ridiculously lucky I am. I like to dwell on the bad things, as if they were anything for me to complain about. I am blessed beyond belief to have Alison and Lindsay and all of the other outstanding friends Jesus has given me. I owe them so much. They are the best kind of friends I could ask for. They rejoice in my triumphs, mourn my losses, and always, always pick me up and point me in the right direction when I fall. Today, I am more thankful than I can express for Alison and for Lindsay and for all of you beautiful humans I get to be friends with. Thank you for loving me so well. You rock. So, so thankful for you all.

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." John 15:12