Summer Truth

“So how has your summer been going, Brittany?”

It’s the typical question that relatives and friends you haven’t seen for awhile ask you during this three-month break away from school. I’m sure you know it well and have had to answer it on more than one occasion these past few months. Some of my past answers have included:

“It’s been going well. I’ve been working a lot and spending time catching up with friends—it’s been really good, but I am looking forward to going back to school soon.”

“This has been one of the best summer’s ever! I spent a month at Cedar Campus in Michigan at SLT—an InterVarsity summer leadership training program and I met God in such a powerful way. I was challenged and stretched and made so many close friends while I was there—it was hard to go home after such an incredible experience.”

As I have been asked time and time again how my summer has been going these past three months, I am having trouble coming up with an appropriate response. None of those two to five lined responses above can really capture this summer’s experience. I mean, where do you want me to start?

Do you want me to start at the beginning where I had an awesome week retreating up in Michigan with my InterVarsity chapter, then had a whirlwind three weeks spending time with my boyfriend before he left for Africa which was directly followed by a week-long missions trip in New Orleans serving alongside high school students from around the U.S.?

Or how about the middle where I have enjoyed working at Family Friendly WBGL and the National Soybean Research Laboratory 9am-4pm five days a week, but then felt sick starting June 30th and had to miss work, gatherings with friends, among a host of other things. Oh, and I forgot to mention, having my car die on me the same night I drove three hours back to Urbana.

Or how about now? I find out that I’m allergic to unseen mold in my apartment, and have had to move in with my adoptive family from church for the past week. Meanwhile, I continue to be sick and returned from another doctor’s visit yesterday with the same response as the first: “drink plenty of fluids and get plenty of rest.” Then I returned to the doctor's two days later because I continued to feel worse and was diagnosed with mono several hours later. Planning to go home, I visit my apartment to pack up a few things and my car dies AGAIN in a spot where I can get a $50 ticket. Oh yeah, I miss Greg and am counting down the days until his arrival back in the U.S.

Are you sure you still want to ask how my summer has been going? By the above synopsis, it doesn’t look like it’s been that great, eh? Well friend, to be brutally honest, this summer has been the worst. Never in my life have I ever felt so awful for such a long period of time. Never in my life have I gone 6 weeks without seeing or being able to converse other than a weekly email with my significant other. Never in my life have I had to stay with a family for more than week because I’m too sick to do anything else.

There have been moments in the past few weeks where I have reached my wit’s end. I have broken down and sobbed. I have called and complained to my mother. I have written down my frustrations in my journal. I have, at times, let my attitude be consumed with every “bad” thing that has happened to me this summer. Right now, I am only holding myself together by choice.

And it is a choice that I am faced with when I wake up every day: “Are you going to let your circumstances get to you, Brittany? Or are going to choose to be joyful?” Some days I have chosen the first option. But I am working hard to make sure my response mirrors the latter—and it has been hard. It has been hard to see what God could possibly be doing with these series of unfortunate events. But as I continue to reflect on my worst summer ever, this is what I have discovered:

God has affirmed the abilities He has given me and how I can best use them to serve Him in my daily life and in my future career.

I have learned to accept help from others and have been humbled time and time again by the loving people God has placed in my life this summer.

I cannot control the things that happen in my life or in the lives of others. What I can do however, is listen and then make my requests be known to God—my prayer life has grown considerably these past few months.

In a sermon brought by pastor Shannon at TCBC two weeks ago, the focus of his message was out of Colossians 2:9-10, “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” Pastor Shannon went on to ask, “Why do we live like we’re lacking something?” That hit me. This whole summer I have spent time looking at all the things that I lack: I lack good health. I lack an apartment. I lack close proximity to my boyfriend. To my eye, and the eyes of the world, I lack a lot of important things. But pastor Shannon’s words reminded me that Jesus lives within me, so how can I lack anything?

This summer has been awful and I’m not going to end this post by saying the things that I have learned have made it an incredible summer because I’d be lying to you if I did. It is true that I have learned a lot about myself and who I am in Christ this summer and it is through all of these circumstances that God chose to show me those things. Sure, I would have picked different scenarios, but I’m not God.

So I write to you from the guest room at my adoptive family’s house, coughing and feeling like I am swallowing shards of glass but with the knowledge that God is fully divine and with Him, I lack nothing.

A Familiar Fountain

I took a bike ride tonight. Let me tell you, it wasn’t because I was feeling up to it. I needed out of my apartment, away from my horizontal position on my bed—I needed clean air. I’ve been sick for the last two weeks with headaches, sleeplessness, back pain, night sweats and coughing, symptoms of the flu my doctor assured me. Well, I’ve rested and I’ve drank enough water to cleanse my bladder 100 times over and I still feel—blah. Thanks, doc.

The purpose of this entry is not for me to gripe about my current ailment, but to share with you about a fountain that I visited toward the end of my bike ride tonight. I didn’t plan to stop. I was riding past a familiar place on campus—the “Allen Hall pond” as it is known to most students. A lot of things have happened to me along the “banks” of that pond: my first RA meeting; Retreat of Silences; conversations with friends, old and new; my first kiss. It is a place of good memories and I visit there often.

Tonight was no different. Usually though, I sit up on the “banks” with my eyes closed listening to the sound the fountain makes on its surrounding pool of water. Tonight, something compelled me to walk through the damp grass down to the water’s edge. Of all the times I have visited, never had I gotten so close to the water. Now, I wish I could say the water is as clear as crystal and that it sparkles like sapphire. Or that you can see thousands of pennies littering the bottom of the pond from the hands of many love-struck, well-wishers.

The truth though is that the water in this “pond” is disgusting. It’s dark; it almost looks thick like motor oil. Pennies aren’t littered on the bottom—real litter is floating at the top. It looks like a health-code violation, and I can’t help but wonder if one of these days I’ll see a smaller version of the Lock-Ness monster rise up out of the water to take an unsuspecting visitor. I don’t want to paint you an inaccurate picture of this place. It’s a nice “pond”, it really is—the water is just gross.

So tonight, I sat at the edge of this “pond”, careful to keep my feet and arms a safe distance away from the water’s surface. As I sat there, my knees to my chest and my arms clasped around them, I looked at the fountain in the middle. I’ve seen it plenty of times before, but as I looked at it tonight, I felt like someone was asking me: “Brittany, what part of the fountain are you?”

Huh? What part of the fountain am I? “Do fountains even have parts?” I felt myself asking. I continued to look at the familiar sight. I noticed the base, where the water magically shoots upward with enough force to make it fan out in the air. The streams of water turn to droplets as they make their downward descent toward the pool below. The droplets become another part of the “pond”, rippling out toward the edge where I sat. This is what I saw, nothing groundbreaking by any means.

I continued to ponder, looking at the fountain. Then, like one of those droplets hitting the water’s surface, I was hit with this question: “Brittany, do you want to be the part of the fountain that makes the water look beautiful? Or do you want to be the water, rippling out toward the edge of the pool?” Both parts are important—one is more visible than the other.

I’ve had the privilege of taking part in a lot of things throughout my life. In high school, I directed or was on stage in almost every school play. I was senior class president, National Honor Society president, a Leadership Retreat leader. In college, I’ve been a desk clerk, an intern, a Small Group Leader, an Area Coordinator. I’ve been in roles where I have led large amounts of people and roles where I have taken the back seat.

I remember being so excited to attend college to become the visible one—the star. Everyone told me that I would succeed at everything I chose to pursue and to me, that equated to fame—my name in lights, perhaps my face on a billboard. Now, I realize how silly this sounds but in many ways, it’s the truth. I finally would join the ranks of thousands of other students, but I would rise above them all because I had the talent. I had the potential to become the best.

I looked at that fountain tonight though and I realized that I don’t really want to be those visible droplets anymore. I want to be the part of the fountain that makes the droplets look so beautiful. Of all of the times in my life that I have held positions that have required me to empower others, I am just starting to realize that those were the times that I enjoyed what I did the most. I loved working behind the scenes and making the cast of “Morning’s at Seven” look great on opening night. I loved helping to plan a retreat where students could come and have fun away from school. I loved being the Crew Encourager on our missions trip to New Orleans this summer. In all of these roles, I was the one helping make others succeed.

That is what I want to do with my life. I want to do things that empower others. I have no desire to be the lead role in the play anymore. I desire to be the director. I want to be the base of the fountain that sends the droplets of water up and outward to make a difference in the world. This is what I feel God is calling me to. It’s not as glamorous as I had envisioned—my face won’t end up on a billboard—but I know it will be the most fulfilling.

Shells

This first post was inspired by a short film that I watched with my coworkers at Family Friendly WBGL during last week’s Wednesday morning staff meeting. Entitled “Shells,” the narrator of the film shared a story about his youngest son. One afternoon, while their family was at the beach collecting shells, the young boy saw a starfish floating just off shore. Realizing that such a prized specimen was within his reach, he asked permission to go and grab it. Giving his son the okay, the father watches his son run into the water after the starfish. After a few minutes, the boy runs back to shore without the starfish. His dad yells words of encouragement, thinking that the boy had become a little intimidated at the prospect of such a find. The boy runs back toward the water, and again comes back without the starfish. This happens time and time again, and finally the dad asks his son when he comes back, “Son, why aren’t you able to catch the starfish?” The young boy holds out his hands and responds, “Because my hands are full of shells.”

For those of you who have seen “The Wedding Planner” starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Lopez, there’s a part in the movie when Eddie (played by McConaughey) is trying to determine if Mary (played by Lopez) is a better match for him than his current fiancé. Talking with his golf partner out on the green one afternoon, he asks, “What if what I thought is great, really is great; but not as great as something greater?” You may need to read that through again. Go ahead.

This summer I have had a lot of time to myself. My family is three hours away. My boyfriend is in Africa. My friends are working odd hours. With all of this “me time” I have been able to reflect a lot about my past three years in college and how much I have changed since my parents drove away from my dorm that one muggy August day in 2006. They left behind their not-so-little girl, her head full of dreams. I identify well with that little boy in the beginning who worked so hard collecting his shells. I feel that with every year that I’ve been in college, I have collected my own version of shells. Call them pieces of wisdom, knowledge, plans—the names aren’t important. Every internship, every compliment from a professor in the journalism department, every A on a major assignment—they have all contributed to my “shell” collection. And with each new addition, my hands have become filled with these “shells.”

These are my prized possessions. It is these things that will ultimately help determine my future. The more “shells” I am able to gather, the bigger collection I am able to showcase to those who may be interested. But what about the starfish in the story? Or the ‘not as great as something greater’ line? As I move into my final year of college, I feel like now I have become that little boy who has discovered the starfish floating off shore.

Recently, I have been reexamining the “shells” in my hands as this starfish has come into view. I am starting to ask myself what Eddie asked his golf partner. What if what I thought is great, really is great; but not as great as something greater? I’ve picked up all of these beautiful “shells” these past few years; my collection by most people’s standards would be considered complete. But I find myself not satisfied with what I’m carrying in my hands. I want the starfish. But the only way I can get it, is by letting go of the pieces I have worked so hard to find. It has taken me three years friends, to finally be willing to let go of my “shells.” I have decided that the starfish floating off shore is worth more than my whole collection. Yes, it comes at a cost, and venturing out into the water is scary, but how much better would it be to show off my starfish rather than my small “shells?”

I think too often we settle—I know I have. Don’t let your shells keep you from your starfish, friend.