love hard. love often.

well, vacation time is almost over. I leave on Monday for training and then a week after that I will be headed to my site for the rest of the summer! It's pretty exciting, scary, and nerve-racking. I got to talk to all of my staff members and they all seem legit. It should be an interesting summer and I am interested to see how and why the recruiting department partnered me with the staff that I have. If you're reading this, I am not meaning that in a cynical way, but in a curious way.

Vacation has been fine. Staying with Jesse was good. I am glad that I got to spend those few weeks with him because I may or may not see him for another year. I probably will have to go visit him at Cedarville, but I guess that travelling right now doesn't seem so appealing with the travelling schedule that I got coming up. I also have to go to see Leah and hopefully Kayla and definitely Mallory. So that is.. Indiana, Chicago, Ohio, and Michigan. That is quite the trip. haha. Anyways, I am good to go for the summer. I got everything that I need and I am just mentally and physically ready to go. I need more structure and can't wait to have that structure during the summer.

Family while I have been home has been very life draining. The two times that I have seen everyone, it has been awkward, weird, and just downright awful. My Mom is really weird now. I've almost villianized her in my mind. Now that she is going back to church she feels like she can be some sort of spiritual authority in my life. Where the hell was she for the past 12 years? Praise God that she is going back to church but this adds another dynamic to the dysfunctionality to my family. Now this is where my Mom tries to push her 'religion' onto my sibilings and onto me. Again, it is awesome that she is going back to church, but that does not mean that I have to attend with her or be apart of her church. I have my own church and my own support system set up. How dare my Mom continue to use the memory of my Dad and my younger sister to further make her circumstances more dire. How dare she continue to hold her status as a 'widow' to further manipulate me into what she wants. I am taking a stand and I won't let the manipulation get to me. I am trying to not 'abandon' my family or turn my back to them, but they've all made it so damn easy. I have no real relationship with any of my siblings -- not even the ones that I thought I did. My brother would rather use his daughter as an excuse to not hang out or not do anything because "he has a kid." Blah. Maybe, God, this is a humbling reminder that I can't fix anything, nor can I even attempt it. I'm sick of family holidays where we come together and play pretend family. Where we pretend to care about what we're doing in our lives and where there are more than our fair share of awkward silences. The question remains, what is the biblical, godly thing to do? Continue to pour of myself into my family that has no foundation? Be authentic and try to be intentional about the issues instead of just pretending that they are not there? Blah. Sometimes, I do wish that my Dad was alive because he seemed to bring some sort of structure to my family. You never screwed with my Dad. At least, that is the attitude that my brothers had. There was a respect there. That respect is gone with my Mom. That respect is gone throughout all of my sibiling-relationships.

Furthermore, I am caught in this weird balancing act of churches. After a dialogue that I had tonight, I am not sure if I really have a legitimate denomiation that I consider myself to be apart of. I give credit to this because of YouthWorks. YouthWorks is multidenominational. They open their mission sites to all denominations including Catholics, Lutherans, and hardcore Penecostals. You can imagine what it would be like to serve a week with all of these different traditions. It is awesome to see 3 churches who didn't know each other prior to a service week, end up on a Thursday night, embracing each other and basking in God's love. God's love -- something that I have to remember that YouthWorks is all about. They are not the organization to go out and do a skit and then go reel in the fishes. They are not about doing massive amounts of service for a spreadsheet full of statistics. They are not about trying to lure out the Holy Spirit and look out for healings. I consider myself a Bible-believing Christian. I come from a church that teaches me to know myself, my theology and have a stance on everything. There can't be anything gray. There can't be any room to move, grow, or falter. I can't let emergent ideas or contemporary routines affect my orthodox theology. That was me -- prior to my GreaterWorks year. Here I am now, after my GreaterWorks year -- mainly confused and not really drawn to anything. Traditional churches bore me. Extreme emergent churches freak me out. I have developed my own little box of how I can worship God. This isn't good. The church that I will be working for in the fall is Lutheran-ELCA, Presbyterian, and non-denominational. Three different traditions, three different ways of looking at the Gospel and what it means. I need to remember that I can't and won't have all of the answers. I need to know that if I say something "I don't support pastors who are homosexual", I need to be prepared to back that up with Scripture. I need to learn that the Gospel is far beyond denominations. God help me. God help me.

This is a longer rant than normal. So I'm peacing out.

To God be the glory, forever and forever, amen.