This song is in my head, and I think that I could stand to sing it for the rest of my life.

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Vast unmeasured, boundless, free!
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current
Of Thy love
Leading onward, leading homeward to
Thy glorious rest above!

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus,
Spread His praise from shore to shore!
How He loveth, ever loveth, changeth
never, nevermore!
How He watches o'er His loved ones,
died to call them all His own
how for them He intercedeth, watcheth
o'er them from the throne!

Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus,
'Tis a heav'n of heav'ns to me
And it lifts me up to glory, for it lifts me up to Thee!

[Samuel Francis]


[I took this photo when I took the one at the top of my blog.]

How would you define love?

Yesterday Megan C. asked me what I thought love was. An interesting question, to be sure with all the weddings and engagements that seem to be abounding these days. To define abstract qualities or emotions is always a difficult task. I've been thinking about this question and I've decided that I think love is a commitment to pursue someone. If we look at 1 Corinthians 13, we see what exactly perfect love does, or does not do:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

I think that love is a commitment to pursue someone through patience, through kindness, through not envying, through not boasting, through not acting in pride. We can pursue someone through not being rude to them and by seeking their best, not growing angry with them, not keeping a record of when they mess up. Our love will pursue people through delighting in truth and goodness. Our love will protect, be trustworthy, hopeful, and persevering. It will pursue because it will never fail.

The amazing thing is that Jesus loves us just like that. The Bible goes even as far to say that "God is love."

We have intense waves of true love pouring out to us.

Yesterday I had my very first job interview with a princiPAL. It was so very unlike what I expected, which is good. I expected to be drilled and to not know answers. I tried to go in thinking of my interview as a conversation about education. That's pretty much what it was. We talked about my student teaching, and he asked me questions like about what a day in my classroom would be like and if I ever had to kick anyone out of my classroom. I also have a phone interview tomorrow for the youth camp. We'll see.

I'd very much like to be back in Greensboro. The waiting game continues. It's funny to know so clearly where I'd like to be and to not be able to be there...




currently listening to: Jimmy Eat World, The Middle

Un-brave: Memiors of the "play it safe girl"

All my life I have dreamed of adventure.

There are many words out there beginning with "un". Unacceptable, unabashed, unaccredited. I have made one up for my own purposes. As I've begun sending my poor little resume all over the known world, I have been made painfully aware of just how un-brave I am. I once wrote in my journal "I reside in safety and propriety." It is the truth. I have two job interviews coming up this week. One is with a school in Craven County, NC. The other is with a non-profit organization where I'd be a counselor out in the woods for a program that works with at-risk children ages 10-18. I am so excited about both opportunities. And terrified by them both too. I have been praying that God will put me where he can use me best. And I have realized lately that that is a scary prayer. So who knows where I will end up by the end of the summer, but I can tell you that it will probably be somewhere unexpected. And somewhere new. But...maybe not.



currently listening to: No Envy, No Fear. Joshua Radin [AKA, my husband.]

I feel like this quote explains my heart.

"Evil is real- and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away, not fled. ..You have questions on your mind. I'm glad you do. Perceptive people like you wound more easily than others. But if we're going to work on God's side, we have to decide to open our hearts to the griefs and pain all around us. It's not an easy decision. A dangerous one too. And a tiny narrow door to enter into a whole new world. But in that world a great experience waits for us. Meeting the one who's entered there before us. He suffers more than any of us could because His is the deepest emotion and highest perception." Christy, page 95

Pardon the Emo One

I feel sort of like I'm in mourning. I know that this doesn't make much sense and that I am supposed to be like a butterfly finally exercising new wings, bursting into a beautiful future but I don't feel like that at all. I feel like I have left all that I've grown into and all that I've fallen in love with. New adventures scare me. I am afraid of being alone. I am afraid of failure. I've taken outrageously long naps the past week I've been home, trying to sleep off the shock. I was so intensely working for so long and suddenly I've hit a lull. I have nothing to do, no where to go, no one to see. So much is up in the air; I am uprooted. I am never as brave as I'd like to be.



currently listening to: The Rosebuds

I think that growing gracefully is hard.

The "heroic efforts" of life.

I have a bit of a different view from this window. And no trains are rocking on past my home. I cannot bike to campus. I have no Tate St coffee shop. I am separated from the fellowship of believers that I have been grafted into over the past four years and from the city who's rhythm I had become accustomed. I am learning a lot though, I think. As I have been home these few days, the job search has been consuming. Not only am I looking for a job to being in August, I have been searching for a summer job so I can begin paying off my student loans and a car. A Strange disappointment has settled in my heart. I have been learning a lot about trusting God these past few months. I have been in a place that I have not wanted to be in: a place of transition. Oswald Chambers says, "Faith is not a pathetic sentiment, but a robust vigorous confidence built on the fact that God is holy love. You cannot see Him just now, you cannot understand what He is doing, but you know Him...Faith is the heroic effort of your life; you fling yourself in reckless confidence on God." Trust is a difficult thing to muster but it is becoming a habit, which is the whole point, I guess. I am very excited to see where God places me over these next few years. I want to pray big things and hope to meet God's heart. I long for adventure and I hope that I choose to see whatever I end up doing as such.

[Ohhhhhhhhhh summmmmmmerrrrrrrrr, good thing you're here.]






currently procrastinating on: unpacking my belongings
currently listening to: I may or may not be listening to Hanson's This Time Around cd...
currently waiting on: dinner

I am back in Wake Forest... Weird.


currently listening to: Iron and Wine

I am a big believer in recording memories because memories are like stars, shining in the darkness of your life. Memories help you to keep going. Wednesday and Thursday I said goodbye to my kids. We had parties during the last thirty minutes of our period. Perhaps you've heard me talk about how much I love fourth period, but how much I hate it at the same time. It was a really large class and there were some "gentlemen" in there who relished making my life a little more difficult than it needed to be. Of all my classes though, they are the ones, when it came to saying goodbye that were the most demonstrative.

I was standing there listening to E tell me that he hoped I'd be his tenth grade teacher, but that he wouldn't be any better for me in tenth grade than he was in ninth, when G came over and said, "Oh my gosh, Ms. Jackson, what is over the door? (imagine Will Smith talking, and you will have an idea of what this sounded like.)" There was a sign, written on notebook paper, taped over the door saying "We love you. We gonna miss you." Gavin went to get the sign, "Ms. Jackson! It says, 'we love you, we gonna miss you!' isn't that sweet! Who would do that?" He then proceeded to get the class quiet (which is no easy task.) and said, "Listen up! This is our last time with Ms. Jackson. Ya'll need to thank her, and you need to give her a hug goodbye!" On that note, I was group hugged by all the boys in 4th period that had given me such a hard time. In my head, all I could hear was my professor saying, "That's not appropriate", but what are you going to do? That was the closest to crying I came at school.

I wanted to write this story down, so even when I feel like I'm not connecting with a group of kids, I can remember that maybe somehow I've connected with them most.