Owl City

an apology. I haven’t blogged in a while. I had the intention of writing a farewell post and taking this blog down, this might not be the time.

Just an update on my life. Please don’t pin me for whining, I am just relating what’s going on. Five weeks ago yesterday(September 26th) I was told that I have tendonitis in both wrists. Four weeks ago yesterday(Sunday, October 3rd) I fell down the stairs and presumably broke my toe. Three weeks ago today(Monday, October 11th) my brother John left for Marine boot camp. In the near future my sister Rebekah will be moving up to Colombus, Nebraska. Since these things happened I have been having a hard time coping. It seemed to me that everything in my life was collapsing in on me.

The tendonitis has wiped out all piano. No playing for Sunday morning worship, No playing for Youth worship, No personal practice, No Winter recital, No taking notes in class, No writing stories. I initially thought it would only take a few weeks to heal. It’s been 4 weeks since I cut a large portion of these things out of my life, and still the tendons give me pain and wear out easily. At this point I’m having a crisis. I don’t know if my wrists will ever heal to the point where I can pursue a degree in piano. The 2 hour daily practicing requirement might be a hindrance in getting into and staying in UNL’s music program. Praise God I can sing, and I’m planning on a music theory major, not a music performance major.

With the toe, I can honestly say this is one of the only things in these past weeks that has gone well for me. Sunday night I tripped on the stairs while wearing fuzzy socks and landed with my entire body weight on my bent backwards big toe. Excruciating pain, extensive swelling, awful bruising. I talked to my sister the next morning and I was 99.7% sure I had broken my toe. I talked to my mom, she set up a doctors apointment and X-ray. As the day went on I had difficulty walking around school. Any pressure on the toe made it hurt like none other. It got to lunch and I was about to cry, if my toe was broken that meant I couldn’t rehearse with show choir. I texted my friend during lunch and asked him to pray for my toe. I ate my lunch and didn’t really think about it until I got to my 6th period class and realized that I hadn’t been limping. I texted my mom(yeah, I know. No texting during school). My mom cancelled the appointment with the doctor. I went home, and the swelling was down and the toe didn’t hurt all that much except for pressure on the bruised areas(duh!). To this day there are still bruises on the toe, and occasionally they pain me, but other then that, my life is uneffected by the incident…. except for the amazing testimony. Praise God!

The Thursday before John was supposed to leave for boot camp he came to my school. He had bought 25 Taco Inn burritoes. Together we explored the cafeteria at school handing out burritoes to random people I knew. Then we sat outside where I usually sit and ate our own burritoes. It wasn’t spectacular or anything, there was sufficient awkward silence, but my brother was there making sure I got to be with him before he left. Now three weeks later I wish I had made more of that day then I had. Making it through these three weeks has been difficult. I’ve had to watch war movies in class, I’ve had to listen to the news, I’ve had to go about daily life knowing that he’s not around to beat up the boys and make me feel special. He’s not around to be my big brother. Knowing that I’m three weeks in and I still have ten weeks just makes me dread the weeks to come. In class it’s been hard to concentrate just with wondering what he’s doing and how he’s coping. It’s hard to watch other people have their family and friends around them being happy when I have someone missing from my life. It’s hard seeing the “Bring our Troops Home” signs and the “Nebraskans for Peace” bumper stickers and the “God Hates Fags” protests knowing that these people are somehow offended by what my brother has decided to give his life for. Wondering if someday a shipping, a homecoming, a funeral I go to will be protested at by radical extremists. It’s hard knowing that everyone I know can’t understand what I’m feeling, and that everyone I know is just going to ignore it and pretend it’s not there, even though it’s eating me up from the inside.

On top of these things, my sister has been gone a lot lately, and will soon be living in a different town. This means that one of the few people I can really relax around will soon be out of immediate reach. And never forget the usual teenaged insecurities. I am far from perfect. To say the least, I’ve been having a difficult time of the past few weeks. To make matters worst, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve picked up my bible. When life is spinning out of control and I refuse to turn to my refuge it’s no surprise I ran into today.

After a fit of rage over the most insignificant thing ever, I angrily got on facebook and started randomly looking at anything to get my mind off of my anger and started chatting with some friends. One thing my friend Ben said made me double think. I had asked him what I should binge on, meaning food. his response was “Jesus and something else, What do you have?”. This got me to thinking. On facebook I had seen several of my friends post a link to Owl City singing a cover of “In Christ Alone” I listened to the song and started to cry. I did some google searching and was lead to the Owl City blog where it had the analysis of why he made a cover of this song. He had written out the lyrics and I listened to the song while reading the lyrics and realizing that I fail at life. Where I was trying to cope with all this stuff going on in my life, trying to sweep stuff under the rug and pretend like I am okay, trying to make it through advanced classes with a lot on my mind, trying to plan my future around an unforseen complication, all the while trying to drive from the back seat. Cuz I’ve given God the driver’s seat, remember? But perhaps I’ve tried to take it back. saying “I’ve got this curve, Jesus.” “You’ve saved me, now I can take it from here.”. But somewhere along the way I’ve lost track of truth: My hope is found in Christ alone; He is my strength; He is my solid ground; He is firm through the fiercest drought and storm; He stills fears and stops striving; His love is where I stand; Jesus rose again; He stands in victory; sin’s curse no longer rules me; Christ bought me; Jesus commands my destiny; Nothing can seperate me from Him; Til He returns, or calls me home, here in the power of christ I’ll stand.