war and peace

Peace. We will never see peace.
We yearn for it. We pray for it. Fight for it. Die for it.
Yet it will not come.

God's children, his creation, killing each other in his name. We are hopelessly corrupted. There can never be peace.

But there will be. Someday.

In God's kingdom, there is hope, life, peace. Oh, how I long for it. But it seems so far off.
Father, redeem your earth. Fix our miserably broken lives.

I want to live in peace. I want to see beauty, to watch salvation and redemption overcome. I want to write books, listen to an opera, watch a sunset. To love, to raise a family. To live without fear.

Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.

playing grown up

I have a life now.

Yes, a life. I’d forgotten what it was like.

My new job is wonderful. Right now we’re working summer hours, which means roughly 8:30-4, Monday through Friday (no working on the weekend!). We actually get vacation days and breaks (fall break, thanksgiving break, Christmas break) . I almost dissolved into tears of joy when I learned the break schedule. I have new toys to play with (aka, a laptop and design programs). And this afternoon I have been sitting in Stone Cup designing a book cover from old yearbook photos.

I have evenings again. Evenings mean bike rides, playing outside, pilates, and cooking dinner. Actually getting to the bank before it closes. You know, normal people activities.

Plus, I actually enjoy what I do. Lots of design, which is really fun. Really cool people.

I hung a whiteboard on my door and started a word of the day. Everyone has come to enjoy it; I get complaints if I don’t get a new word up by 9 a.m. each morning. Contests then ensue to see who can write the best sentence on the board. It gives people a reason to stop by my office. And maybe the routine will bump me up a few points on the GRE . . .

I can definitely say I haven’t been bored. It’s been some adjustment, as all new jobs are; and lots to learn.

God is good.

God was good before, too.

I often feel like a kid playing “grown up.” I go to my office, where I can initiate projects, call meetings, make suggestions. And people listen to me. They like what I have to say. And somewhere inside I think “but I’m just a kid. Don’t you know I’m just pretending to be a grown up?” I think the same thing when yet another friend gets married, has a baby, makes some life-altering, very adult-like career move.

It’s making more and more sense.