Ive been gone from this blog since I moved to Huntington and honestly its cuz life is crazy and I barely have time to clean my room and do laundry between texts and appointments. I’m still learning how to say no. Recently one of the guys on my staff team told me I need to slow down and take better care of myself. He said, “I know Hannah (his wife) has an excuse to tell girls, ‘I’m sorry, I have to go home and cook Caleb dinner’ and you don’t have that married buffer but you need to learn how to tell girls no because you aren’t going to make it at this pace.”
Last night I said no when I needed to say no, and then went and took pictures for a friend who asked for help to find a new profile picture. I haven’t taken pictures just for fun in a while so we had a great time snapping some shots in a library parking lot. After, I hung out in a media room on campus and partook in a FIFA tournament with some friends. It was a night where I didn’t have to feel like I was working even though the guys playing FIFA were mostly students.
That’s one of the fun yet hard parts about being single here in Huntington. There are not very many, in fact, very few singles out of school in Huntington. I have been learning how to navigate what parts of my life are work and what parts of ministry are outside of my “40 hours”. Its definitely been trial and error and something I’m still figuring out. Can students really be friends? Is it possible to have a life outside of work in this city with so few singles my age?
God is surely teaching me all kinds of boundaries in this season. Can’t wait to share many of them with you when I arrive back in the frozen tundra this weekend before heading off to Lebanon in a few weeks.
In the mean time… here are two of my favorite people in this city. They are best friends; but refuse to act like they actually like each other because it might be “weird” if they enjoy each other “too” much. When the one asked me to take his picture, I shouldn’t have been surprised when the other showed up unannounced. They couldn’t be more opposite in personality but they enjoy arguing about pointless things like who the girl in their relationship is, and why oreos are a dumb cookie. They’ve taught me a lot about what it means to choose whats right when its not what I feel and how to see more of Jesus in the trusting and the failing. They’ve often reminded me how growth is such a process and each small step is to be celebrated one moment after another.
Dear Samm, 