Finally

Time for an update...

The journey that just won't start... is about to begin.

I got asked to be a summer intern in Guatemala for Buckner International today. I gladly accepted. I leave July 10th and return August 9th, and I bet a million bucks I will not want to get on that flight back here.

It feels weird... I have been praying about leaving the country since my sophomore year of high school (five years, but who's counting?) and the prayer was answered today. Talk about God showing me who's boss.

Lesson learned: I can plan things all I want. I can pick my major, occupation, friends, etc. I can research mission trips and apply and get accepted, only to have them taken away by parents that I thought didn't understand where I was coming from. I can tell everyone I am doing this or doing that, only to be brought back down to the dirt at His feet.

I didn't plan this one. Didn't rush or tell tons of people. Didn't put so much emotion into the process. I prayed, applied, prayed some more. Made it through a hardcore interview. Fully trusted God to make things happen the way He wanted them to (the trust thing should be a given, but it's harder than it sounds). For once, my intense history didn't disqualify me from this experience. And only Jesus could have allowed them to look past the negative aspects of my testimony and focus on the one thing that truly matters: Christ is my healer, redeemer, saving grace, and ultimate forgiver.

Another awesome fact: my entire family is going to London for spring break! I can't believe I have waited so long to leave the country and now I get to go twice within five months. God is miraculous.

School and new medicine is kicking me hard lately, but I'm pushing through. I have even more incentive now to do so!

In case I don't get back here before May, I get to be in my best friend's wedding on April 26th in Dallas, right before finals. Should be an amazing/interesting time. Christen DeBerry... different, but a good different.

Life is changing fast, but I knew it would happen sooner or later. Thank goodness I have someone to turn to no matter what time of day to keep me on the ground and on track in life.

BETTER

The new school year has gotten off to an amazing start...

1) Spencer and Brianna are engaged. And I was a part of it.

2) Classes are killer but, for now, I still want to be a doctor.

3) My apartment is awesome.

4) Working at Freebirds... ok.

5) Money is tight, but I'm happy.

My friend Samantha's uncle is getting me a doctor to shadow. I'm super pumped about that. My grandmother turns 75 in October, what a milestone. I hope I will live as full a life as she has. I miss Amanda and Christen, but I am getting along fine out here in the greater Lubbock area. I've never had satellite television, and now I do. It's an interesting experience. And I got a free ipod out of it... sweet!

Until November- Vivien

I've Got the Bad News Blues

A friend at church told me today he has lung cancer. Has he ever smoked a cigarette in his entire life? No. He hasn't. And doctors don't think chemotherapy will help him anymore. He finds out Tuesday what stage he is at.

Oh yeah, I also found out a different friend of mine has HIV.

Great day.

Don't drink and drive. You can drink, I have no problem with that. Just give me the car keys. Or call me and I will come get your keys from you and take you home. No matter where you are. I will drive hours. Don't worry about the gas money. I won't even ask you for it later when you're sober. Money doesn't matter if your life and others' lives are saved.

Please. No more broken hearts because of one too many empty bottles on the table. Life is too important to throw away on a night of stupid decisions.

Hopefully with the Father: Josh Cotton. January 28, 1983-July 1, 2007. Saddle Tramp. Texas Tech Graduate 2006 , Mechanical Engineering.

Think. Thats all I'm asking. And use this number at all hours of the night: (972) 742-7934.

Dearest Bill Walker,

I'm doing great. My studies are progressing, and I am doing terrific in those as well.

I will be coming over soon for a roping lesson in your backyard. Tell Mrs.Gail I love her.

Love, Vivien.

p.s. was this a good entry? sound cheery enough? :)

Learning

The key to living life, the key to knowing the deepest wells of hope and joy, are not found when all is well: they are found when we trust when all goes wrong.

May all our wells run deep.

It is unavoidable. We are going to suffer. We are going to be obedient and things are going to go wrong. We are going to do exactly what god tells us to do and its not going to end up like we want it to. But the question you are going to have to answer, not with your mind but with your heart, is do you trust Him. At the core of who you are, do you think God is good or do you think that He is evil? Do you own the faith that would say "if this goes wrong," for the rest of my life I believe that He is good. Because the answer and foundation of real life, the kind of life that leaves existence behind and becomes all that God created us to walk in, is not found in wealth and comfort but in trust and faith.

When is the last time you went to church and someone told you that sometimes life sucks?

Ahh, that our wells would go deep, that our hearts could trust Him, even when it all goes wrong. The only other option is to rail against Him.

Some of us have bought into some really crazy thoughts that, because things have gone wrong for us, we've obviously angered God or that we've sinned somehow and this is why God's doing this to us. If you are caught in that trap, you run from God instead of run to Him.

--Matt Chandler

Me: When God teaches me a lesson, it doesn't come quietly or slowly. He slams me in the face.

Why must God continually prove himself to me? Why can't I retain and practice the lesson I have been slammed with over and over?

Why do I constantly rely on my plans, instead of God's, while fully knowing that nothing I put into place will come to fulfillment without His will, influence, and power? Why does He keep working on me, even when I am an unceasing disappointment?

I do not deserve anything, much less the love of an enormous God who loves and cherishes me regardless of: the pastiness of my skin or the number of pimples on my face or the fact that I constantly question Him about my future husband and why I cannot seem to find him or my neverending worries about my family or my inability to say no to people even when I'm beyond exhaustion or my utter lack of faith in ever finding a cure or my insatiable thirst to understand my life and how I can somehow save the world from self destructing, even though I completely comprehend that it already has been saved.

Whoa, listed almost all my insecurities in a nonchalant sorta way.

Back with my face in the dirt. Beginning life without certain constants I have been relying on for the past 10 months.

Back to a different beginning and excited about where it will lead.

just normalcy

Apparently my previous posts have left questions unanswered, and some of my adoring fans have quietly given advice on how to find those answers I just can't seem to find.

Everyday someone gives me a piece of advice, either needed and heeded or completely out of line. I don't deserve to be treated like a child who has no control over her physical and emotional well-being. I choose when and if to take my medicine. I decide where and when I go to the doctor. And no, this disease is not "all in my head."

No matter how much my parents and I want to believe this is true, positive thoughts will not cure me. And the comment "just thinking bright thoughts will make you feel better" is a big, stinky bag of bologna.

So, just don't do it. If someone in your life is going through a rough patch, just listen. Don't give advice. I promise they probably don't want to hear it... if they do, they will ask you.

And, for heaven's sake, do not tell someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer or some other form of disease that they "are being punished for unconfessed sin" in their lives. Unless it is a venereal disease, then maybe.

While we are on the topic of suffering... Jesus never promised believers that life would be easy and happy. The form of Christianity being sold today, at least out here in LBK, is that once you accept Christ, your life will alter completely and all the bad stuff will disappear. Partly true. Life does change completely. But bad stuff doesn't just become invisible.

And where, exactly, in the Bible does it say that unconfessed sin will bring about an incurable, painful disease? And where does it say that Christians have the right to judge others, fellow believers or nonbelievers, according to their unconfessed sins and previous life experiences? Anyone know? Care to enlighten me?

STRANGE: I find that my closest moments with God are when I can't move my legs to get out of bed in the morning, or when my stomach hurts so badly I can barely breathe. I've begun to notice that when I think my walk is the strongest it has ever been, a newer, tougher trial comes and knocks me back down to the ground.

Life just does not make sense sometimes, and you have to learn to roll with the punches.

I guess I'm rolling all over the place.

Moral: think before you speak to someone suffering.