break it down

i'm having a slight breakdown today . . . i called in sick to school and instead i slept in and i am reading in john and later on i am going to read the books of psalms/job/proverbs and i am going to pray a lot and look out the window and drink coffee and miss my sisters and i am also going to enjoy not going to school. i have been doing so good all semester . . . barely even a hint of cynicism at the institution known as multnomah school of the bible. but then yesterday happened, which is a long, boring story, and i wanted to quit. that instant. i hated the school, the required classes, the lack of professors who i learn from, the amount it costs me (financially and emotionally) to go there, the countless non-credit commitments i have to make (chapel 3 days a week, student ministries lab), and the fact that i have to go for 2 more semesters.
most of all, i hate feeling trapped.

i think i must be part gypsy. yesterday somebody asked me why i so badly wanted to be a missionary. he said: "are you running away from something? how do you know that you won't get overseas and discover that you can't run away from yourself?"
this only made me think for a couple of seconds. i know i can't run away from myself, just like i can't run away from my fundamentalist evangelical consumerist charismatic conservative form of christianity. but that's ok.
every time i go to another country, my view of christ and who he is broadens. the american church doesn't have it nailed down. neither does the indian church, or the croatian, or the turkish. we need each other to make sure we are not coming imbalanced. i guess maybe i need to see my time at multnomah as a chance to confront my own imbalances while i have the opportunity.

people are wrong. everybody told me that multnomah can suck you dry, take away your passion for christ and for the bible.

but i've never been more hungry for the bible in my life. it feels like a new book all over again. it is fantastic literature, what hemingway and steinbeck and salinger tried to write but failed miserable. it makes me think for hours. it puts my life into perspective. it is confusing, terrible, and beautiful. it reminds me of how dim my view of christ is. and i get happy, because i know he is so much brighter.

i need good friends and free time and family, and i need to not worry about the future or money or cars breaking down.

most of all, i just needed a morning off.