Consider Yourself Notified

It's funny when life jumps up and slaps me where and when I least expect it. Tonight it was through a Facebook message informing me that a group was being archived due to inactivity, the group being a tribute to a teacher who died while I was in Grade 12. It took this to realize that I haven't thought about him since I graduated and it makes me incredibly sad because that seems to be what I do when people die: I don't think about it and end up forgetting they ever died and then, eventually, that they ever lived. What a waste of a memory.

This is so sad in this case, especially, because he was such a good man who loved God and loved his students. And he inspired me. He was a huge push behind my drive to do acting as a career, and maybe that was part of why I stopped. He died, and with him went my remembrance of his high enthusiasm for my abilities. I need to choose to see this as a positive thing, though. Without losing a part of that passion, I may never have become surrendered enough to pursue ministry the way I do today.

I am now in thinking mode. I cannot imagine a world where we know the time we will die, as does everyone else, and it causes neither shock nor sadness; a world that does not know cancer or disease and where life here is not the end but a precursor to the Greater Beyond. Yeah, Mr. Lewis has me thinking again, too.

I Hate When the Only Song Stuck in My Head Is Horrendous and Unworthy of a Blog Title

I had many things to say, but if I do not barf up the putrid nasties first, nothing good can come out.

How do you tell someone they're making the worst mistake of their life? Literally. Especially when they haven't spoken to you in months and even now, with this biggest decision, don't take the time to say something. I am just overwhelmingly sad. All I can say is how deliriously happy I am that it is not me.

So onto real life. We are currently just outside Chicago, staying in a hotel, and I am so excited to just breathe and have some me-time. I love being around people but I legitimately need time for myself by myself or I lose my charming habits of smiling and not biting people's heads off. I want to be nice and non-whiny and pull my own weight...I really do. But tired, hungry, sick, achy Leanne hates those things.

In 27 days I will be back home, which seems both impossibly soon and hopelessly far off. In time, however, I am sure it will come about as fast as anything ever does, and I will miss it but go on with my life to face new adventures.

The last few days in the van, I spent some free time reading a C.S. Lewis book, Out of the Silent Planet. I always knew the man had a gift for using mythical fiction to express incredible God-truths, but this went beyond what I expected. Just a plug for the book as well as a precursor to all the blogs that will mention it in the weeks to come. It has actually changed things.

If You Just Realize What I Just Realized

Today has been a day of introspective thought. Many things in, several things out, and most of it just circling around and around inside.

I'm getting back into a good place. Finally. But I'm still in want of some things. I still miss others. This is prep time; this is the period before things in which things still happen, but I am left waiting on the other things which may never happen.

I want to be content. I also want so much more than where I'm at right now.

I cannot find the words. The answer I need is still in someone else whose ears no longer accept questions or otherwise. And my future is all wrapped up in unknown. C.S. Lewis told me that the future is the furthest thing from heaven. I need to live now if I ever hope to get to a new now.