Corinne's Blog

So it’s 10:27am on the last day of the year, yesterday was my brothers birthday and I wish him the best in my heart and at this moment my boyfriend David is at work teaching an ACT prep course. I was up all night baking banana chocolate chip bread and cookies because I had nothing else to do and an abundance of resources to do so. I just woke up.

I was thinking about how the year is coming to an end and everything I’ve done in the past year and accomplished and everything that I hope to accomplish in the next up coming year.

So Like I’ve done in years past I’m going to write down some solid New Years Resolutions for the year of 2012.

It’s said that 2012 may be the end of the world because that’s when the Early Mayan peoples stopped calculating on their calendars but I don’t believe that to be true.

But I’d still have to say that my first New Year Resolution for 2012 is to

1) “Simply Survive“…I just want to make it through 2012 is one piece, alive and healthy with a stable enough life like I have now. The next time I’ll be writing a list of resolutions two semesters in school and a Summer would have passed and I may or may not be where I want to be to be able to sign up for the MCTC nursing program. I want to live my day to day without getting super depressed that I’m not making any progress, I want to look at each day in a more positive light.

My 2nd Resolution: Would be to
2) “Not be a quitter”- Whether this is in my relationship with David, at my workplace(s) or in my school work I’d like to keep going with everything I start until I succeed, and if I fail I’d like to know that I made my very best effort.

3) “Enjoy Life for what is has to offer” This past year I can honestly say I didn’t have many adventures, the whole year outside of a time I went to Michigan to represent my church I’ve been in Minnesota, and what I’ve been doing here has mainly been working, going to school and watching a lot of movies. I’d like to be able to get out and enjoy Minnesota for what it has to offer me, I want to explore new parts of the city and enjoy the weather. And create a new outlook on life even during the boring times.

4) Get out of Debt: I recently looked at my expenses again and in order to figure out how much money I’d need to make a month in order to continue living the life I am and still be able to save for a car or a new apartment in the future. I discovered that If I continue on I’ll be able to get out of all my Debt to Hamline University, to MCTC and to the Various Hospitals and organizations I’m a part of that I haven’t been paying by this time next year if I keep my consistent hours at working at Minneapolis Kids at Burroughs and working at my new workplace. I don’t want my pushing to get out of debt to interfere with my ability to do well in school though, this is the only thing that worries me I’m going to get so overwhelmed and wrapped up working that I’ll have no time for school.

5) Learn How to Prioritize.- Most people who know me know that I value strange things and I prioritize things that I value rather than what I should be prioritizing to make life easier on myself. I value my relationships but I don’t value my family, I value what I do with my money now rather than worrying about how I’ll save my money for the future. I also Value work over school which seems to make life harder because I need to do well in school in order to do better work. I’ve learned a lot of these life lessons over the past year and I’d like to be able to say ‘first things first’ and actually know where I’m going to go when I need to place value on things.

6) Lose More Weight: I’m proud to say that though an unhealthy weight I have maintained the same weight for the last few months and over the summer I actually lost weight. This past year I was a member of a gym called LA Fitness and because of some financial difficulty that I’m still trying to get out of I’ve found myself once again without a means of working out. I do do a lot of walking on a regular basis and I find myself jogging to and from the bus stop often but that’s not enough. I want to find some means of exercise which can be incorporated into my everyday routine, maybe it’s rollerskating because I discovered I am good at it and that I enjoy it or maybe it’s just biking like my housemates do 24/7, I don’t know. Part of that is the simple step I can take of eating more healthy, David said that he could help me with that and I’m hoping to get a George Foreman grill because David swears by it. In general I just want to GET FIT.

7) Get even More Organized than I already Have- This past year I’ve come a long way in maintaining the clutter that is my room. I have installed and organized to the point where everything now has a decent place. I realized though that when I move in the future that I want a place with walk in closets. Or I want to be able to build myself walk in closets because a bulk of my bulk is clothing and I don’t feel like getting rid of much of it now. My room currently is so small that it constantly needs to be converted for me to be able to do simple things such as play a board game, sleep or watch television on my computer. I’m getting tired of having to move everything around in order to do simple tasks so I want to eventually maybe in the next year find a place where I can have enough room to roam and be able to store what I want to to bring out later. Getting more organized may help me manage my stress better, calm easily maintained environment might mean a calmer me.

8) Maintain relationships: I’m proud to say that unlike last year where I was getting over Craig I have a great man who though he has his faults I’d like to keep around for awhile and have adventures with. I’m not on that search for a boyfriend “Thank God.” and i’m not wondering what the wide world of dating has to offer me, instead I’m in a perfectly good spot in my relationship with David and I’m finally starting the see breakthroughs in how he and I communicate and understand each other as for dating at this point I’m going to keep things open I’m not looking for anyone on the side but David said that if something better comes along that I should take it. So far nothing better has come along that can be long term. I think that’s what I’m looking for now, not just a boyfriend who will be around for a few months who I give a lot to and who leaves, I want something that will last more than a year. David and I have potential to last more than a year, three months have flown by and I think part of it is because we are able to give each other enough space to live our separate lives. Though I’d like to see parts of our lives coming together more like him meeting my family and me meeting his family for now I’m pretty content with him coming over and spending time with me. Anytime at all can be hectic I know with his crazy law school schedule. Part of that maintaining this relationship would be not being so clingy and demanding so much of David, it’s hard because it seems to me that David thinks my wanting anything at all is from him is being too demanding …that’s something we have to work on.

9) Find Church again: I didn’t write a blog about being kicked off the worship team because I thought getting into a big fuss over it all would be a huge waste of my time. I didn’t write a blog about not attending church because of a lack of motivation to do so because I didn’t feel it was something that was worth blogging about just yet and I’ve been busy and haven’t really had the time to blog as much as I wish I could. I was kicked off the team because Matt and Peter think that I need to become reconciled with something in my life that’s going on before I can help lead a congregation in worship.  They think I’m going through some sort of spiritual battle and they think i should seek some kind of counseling. There’s nothing crazy going on in my life right now that isn’t normal for someone my age to be going through, I’m experiencing life as everyone else does and I’m trying to get by. Counseling is expensive and unnecessary in my particular case because anything a counselor might say to me is the exact thing I could discover by making mistakes and learning those life lessons on my own. I accept that things aren’t perfect in my life and that I have a lot to work on but that’s the same for everyone that God put on this planet. I am in a relationship and it scares me that I might be trying to commit myself to a person who might not be meant for me, but I’m experiencing it because even if David isn’t “the one” I’ve learned a lot from the relationships I’ve already experienced and the experiences I’ve had have taught me much about what I am looking for in a partner.

I’m looking for a love in a man and I am looking to love a man just like those famous passages in Corinthians 13 talking about love:

¹ If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,^[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I see a lot of good things in David and I hope that over time I will learn to love him or that through my experiences with him I’ll be able to better love another. There is no loss of faith in me in that respect and I don’t need to go to church to know what I should seek in LOVE.

I’m working and my coworkers are frustrating at times when they make my job harder and cause me unwanted stress. They are mean and inconsiderate and lazy and I can honestly say if at times if it weren’t for work and the fact that I might lose my job, I would quickly curse some of them out for acting the way they do. They aren’t the worst kind of people for they do have the abilities to make the children at my work place happy but they aren’t good to me and some of my other coworkers. They do good but there isn’t much love in them but for those who are their own and mean like themselves. I’ve watched and I’ve taken a lot of shit because of their wanting to make someone look worse than themselves. I don’t need to go to church every Sunday to know how I need to deal with them because being in church as I grew up I’ve learned that Jesus instructs me to Love my enemies in Luke 6:27:

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you,²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

So at work I’m learning to turn the other cheek and so far being nice to those who mistreat me, though it isn’t always easy has kept me my job for the last year and a half.

I’m also in School and though it’s hard I don’t need to go to church to know that God created me to do good things and produce good fruit from all my hard work. I have a good heart because of God and what I produce in the world will be good it says so clearly in the Bible.

 ⁴³ “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. ⁴⁴ Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. ⁴⁵ A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

All these things I’ve learned to deal with over the years and God has taught me many lessons about how to deal with people in those settings and in those situations.

Learning about God in church in my life has taught be a lot.

I have enough knowledge to deal with my day to day struggles so I don’t feel I need to attend church every Sunday I’m taking a break from Church for awhile. I need to find myself and reestablish a positive relationship with God on my own and where Gods place in my life is. I want to get out of thinking about church in a legalistic way where I hate that I can’t be myself in church and everyone pretends that life is just so fine and dandy and no one can really says what they want to say to a person’s face.For example: when my mother was planning on putting my cat down I was against it, that was this summer and I vocalized my feelings to her and the cat still lives today and is doing much better than she was a couple of months ago. And when my brother didn’t want to go to college and instead decided he’d rather join the military because he’s afraid he can’t afford to go to school I was against it, and the many soldiers I know (except Jason) were also against it. I want to go to church when I know I can really praise God again and not have to worry about How the way I’m living my life will reflect how holy and great the church itself is. We all make mistakes and God is helping me through mine in his own way and his own time. I don’t need the people at my church judging me. It’s not that I’m no longer a Christian I just haven’t been going to the Christian gatherings because I don’t feel that they are genuine anymore. But this next year I’d like to find a way to come back to church whether it’s a different church or not I’m unsure.

For some reason when I think of the church now I think of what Jesus said : “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Meaning that I can do what I want on Sunday as long as my heart is there. And I can have communion with bread and grape juice whenever I want to at home, every meal I have can be my communion…I still pray I still believe I still want God to be in the lives of the people I love and care about. I believe that God blesses me daily. Enough said.

10) Learn to Love myself: Which means taking care of myself and thinking about what I deserve rather than what others think and want. I hear that is the only way I’ll find self esteem and confidence in this world, apparently everyone says I don’t know myself and that I’m afraid of my own company and as soon as I find myself I’ll find where I’m going in life. So that is definitely a goal.

For awhile in my church I had a hard time finding my feet. I was too old for youth group and too young to really understand and fully fit into the Life Groups. On top of all that I wasn’t married with a child and the youth group was disband.

I’ve been participating in the praise and worship team and even though my throat has been hurting me and I’m becoming a little worn down from being ill I always know I can find a place in church behind the music.

Surprisingly though I was invited to take up a position that would give me a lot more responsibly. Julie Kurtz one of my sisters in Christ at my church told me that It would be a good transition for me as more of a leader in the church. It’s about time I stepped up and took on more at the church. I already volunteer when I can, at the church picnic this year I’ll once again be working with the kids, during the Aldrich Arts Collaborative stuff I’ve tried to get involved but that’s way different than this.

Last year my church received a grant based on our efforts to become a more reconciled and multicultural, multiracial body in Christ.

The Calvin Grant has helped us explore new mediums of worship and learn a lot about ourselves.

We were invited last year to a convention for those seeking to win the grant and after winning it we are invited back this year to talk about our experiences with the programs we did with the grant money.

I was asked to be one of the representatives from my church to travel to Michigan and attend the convention.

This is a big deal because I need to prepare my heart and my mind to know our vision and the information on the grant and how our messages of reconciliation are spawned from our wanting to be more like God and his image to the world.

At first I didn’t fully understand the commitment I was making, in my mind this was just a vacation…but then I read the grant and I met with Julie and she asked me questions that really opened up my mind about how I look at my congregation and how I personally think things are working in our church. I need to look at the whole situation from a biblical perspective which I’ve always had a problem with. It’s not as if I don’t read my bible, it’s just the fact that I’m not really good at quoting scripture out of memory to support my arguments.

To prepare myself after reading the original grant proposal I’ve been looking through the notes that were taken after we did each special voices Sunday. I’ve been reading the book United By Faith which Is a little more challenging a read than I’m used to…but is a book which I would say is a must read for anyone of the Christian faith.

On top of that I’ve been trying to read my bible and understand personally what I feel is God’s message for the future of the Twenty first Century church.

It’s been really hard and I actually and learning a lot about myself in this journey and a lot about God and Jesus’s life on Earth and what I say that I believe in as a Christian.

And the more I learn the more motivated and excited I am that I have chosen such a clear straight and narrow path in following Christ.

I feel like an adult and much less of a kid because many of my questions I’m finding answers to on my own in my reading and research.

I am beginning to feel myself developing a solid foundation in what I believe and what I don’t believe.

Yesterday in Church Jermaine Ross preached about how he learned how to hear God’s voice speaking to him though he was always being told different things from different sides and people about who God really is.

I feel that I am learning how to hear God’s voice clearer. Though I know I still have a long ways to go.

So I can split my social life up into four categories, 1) For me, 2) with her, 3) with them and 4) with him. (Five if you consider how I look at my relationships in view as a Christian and for God.)

Recently I’ve had a lot of fun outside of work hanging out with Adam Maarschalk from church.
My time with Adam can fit into two of my social categories. The first one being number one “for me”, and the second one being “with him”. Adam and I started hanging out mainly after Heidi became a flake on me when it came to working out at the LA fitness. Adam became my new workout buddy and he committed to working out with me on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 10am till 11:30ish. It’s a win win situation for both of us because his being there has made me feel more comfortable in going to the gym because he is a great person to talk to and I really enjoy his company. Adam makes going to the gym more of a social fun gathering than a chore. Since I began working out with Adam I’ve lost a quick fifteen pounds and I’ve gain a lot more confidence in myself. I’m working for the improvement of my social “me”. After we workout sometimes I go to a coffee shop and work on my novel which is coming along nicely, or Adam and I go out to eat (we’ve been trying a lot of different worldly cuisine), sometimes we just end up at Adam’s apartment which is usually calm and quiet in the afternoons and a great place for me to work on my novel or just plain and simply sleep. Adam’s apartment is closer to my work so it’s more convenient for me to go back to work from there and home after work than for me to travel all the way back home just to turn around and travel the whole distance on the bus to head back to work. Because of my feeling for Adam and the way he teaches me about God and God’s messages I feel that my social time with him also fits in the “with him” category twice. My time with Adam is “with him” and my time talking about God and meditating on what is being said and learned is also my time to be with God, so in a strange sense with my father in heaven who is also a “with him”.

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My social life has also become my time with Heidi, even though we haven’t been working out and hangout out together as much as we were a few months ago I still am able to invite Heidi over and talk to her over the phone. A week ago we were able to get together and hangout at the Lyndale and Lake Street festival where we listened to some great bands and socialized.

Heidi is a good friend because she understand me when I’m desperate for attention from men. And she is a great inspiration for me as I write about my characters in my novel. I find inspiration from her and her friendship because she gives me confidence that I am worth something more than I value myself being alone. She also gives me a major friend high.

Through my interactions with Heidi I’ve been able to meet and reconnect with a lot of people from my past. So my interactions socially “with her” have become interactions with other and “with them.”

For example after last Sunday’s Lyn-Lake festival I joined Heidi and some old friends from the pasted that we bumped into at Heidi’s house for a bonfire. Before that we had gone shopping for ingredients to make fun over the fire pit kabobs that ended up tasting out of this world good. It was nice to be able to socialize with people my own age late into the night, drinking responsibly and laughing and making memories.

Also at the Lyn-Lake festival because I ended up staying to wait for Heidi to show up I was able to bump into some of my coworkers out of our co-working element. Because of my being sighted at such a cool and hip event now I’ve earned some street cred’ with my coworkers and they’ve been treating me as more of the team and less of the geeky outsider.

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I need someone who can accept my geek and my outsider. I’ve been on an up and down journey to not look toward the past in my personal relationships with men and to try to fly full speed ahead to the future.

I’ve gone on a couple of dates and went to see the movie Thor with a cute boy.

I’ve taken the time to make myself available to men and I’ve been hit on …I’ve been asked for my number and given the numbers of others.

I’ve given myself for time for times “with him” and I try to get Craig and my relationship with him out of my head. He’s moved on I should also.

So far my looking for other men has been good at times and bad at times…for example, my timing with some of the men in my life has been really bad. My friend Vince and my friend Jeremy both told me they had feelings for me, I didn’t act on their offers to be more than friends with them because I felt that I wasn’t ready to get my heart broken again and both men ended up finding other woman. They both still claim to love me but I’ve missed my chases with both of them.

There was a date I was supposed to be on today but I was stood up…but, I got out there and I actually showed up which I wouldn’t have had the guts to do months ago.

I’m actually acting on the crushes I have though some of them have been harder for me to act on than others. Having feelings for single men at church has been the hardest…do I act on my impulses to give a guy my number or do I only treat him as my brother and watch as a good man passes me by?

At times I need to stop focusing on my times “with him” and make them times “for me” and “with/for God”

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Speaking of “For God” a all encompassing social category. I’ve been taking on more responsibilities at my church and I’m actually feeling like I’m finally becoming an adult.

I’ve been asked to represent my congregation in a worship convention in Michigan come June 14th-16th. I will be in school at working my summer job at this time and I’m hoping that I won’t miss too much.

But it’s nice to be able to take on more responsibility and be available for my congregation to do more work “For God”.

Maybe being at the convention I’ll meet some nice Christians and create some lasting friendships.

For all I know maybe my future prince charming will be there at the convention…though that won’t be my motivation for going.

I’m really happy to be putting myself out there and taking more risks with myself socially.

Do you know those scary movies where the bad guys die in the end so you are happy.

Bin Laden’s name has been like the name Voldemort in Harry Potter films…no one speaks of it though we associate it with pure evil.

Well, this is real life and I’m shocked to have just heard that Bin Laden was killed.

When Saddam Husain was hung I remember posting something about how I didn’t know how to react, but now that Bin Laden is dead I realize that real life is so much more terrible than movies make them.

The reality is that someone has died. Yes that person is responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Even though conspiracy theorists may think it’s the government (some who I know and speak to on a regular basis) but I don’t want to think of my government being responsible for the deaths of all those people.

I remember how happy America was before 9/11…how untouched and unscarred…

The reality is to me that just because Osama Bin Laden is dead, that doesn’t mean that there is justice and peace and complete healing left behind for those who are still suffering from his tyranny… or recovering still from losing a lost one. That pain and the scar 9/11 created isn’t just going to go away now that Bin Laden is dead. He was just a name and an icon since the time this whole thing began…we couldn’t find him so his name was buried and we forgot about him and now that he’s dead I don’t understand how this is a new sign of hope.

What does this say about what we value in society? What does it say about what kind of people we are…you know, Osama is getting the standing ovation after his dead that he probably wanted…he wanted everyone to feel something when he left and this is exactly what he’s getting from the press. Everyone will remember his name and his legacy now and especially because those people who are writing books on him are now able to find themselves conclusions.

This doesn’t change anything…people have still died…and Osama was still murdered, doesn’t God say in his commandments that ‘Thou shall not Kill’ there should be no exceptions made now because it was Osama Bin Laden…murder is murder and the dirty deed was carried out.

I don’t mourn Osama or his memory but I do mourn the fact that human beings are reveling in his death. That’s just sick.