Apparently I'm an adult.

Hi, I'm Amy. I'm your average Midwestern girl who is beginning her post-college adventure of pretending to be a grown-up. Here is my collection of practical life updates, crazy happenings, and life lessons learned.

[amysagrownup]

[whatshouldwecallpiccolo]

When there's someone really good in the practice room next to you

[amysagrownup]

The most accurate of gifs.

[amysagrownup]

Dinner last night = scrambled eggs and horchata

Dinner tonight = cantaloupe and beer

AHHH, THE SINGLE LIFE. Doin' it right.

[amysagrownup]

God Is with You in Depression

THIS THIS THIS.

A lot of what Randy said in the video oddly reminded me of Devil's Snare in Harry Potter.

Trying to fix yourself makes it harder. Always. Also, Devil's Snare hates sunlight! Exposing your snare to the light of Scriptural Truth and Christian community is essential to progress.

In other news, I've been feeling much better the past week or so! Hallelujah!

[amysagrownup]

Dietrich. Bonhoeffer. Am I right, guys?

my friend Chris clearly has an awesome Dad.

I'm working through Life Together right now, and once again, Bonhoeffer does not disappoint. I love authors that make me take a week to get through 20 pages.

I've been struggling lately in the area I hate the MOST to admit I'm struggling in--romantic relationships. I don't like not having "my cool" or a sense of control over my thoughts... an understanding of how to navigate the field of interest.

I overthink every interaction, wondering if I'm making too much eye contact or too little. "Should I try to sit by him, or is that too obvious? I didn't get to talk to him very much today, but I don't want to hop into every conversation and freak him out. But if I never talk to him, he'll never know I'm interested! Bah."

Big picture, I trust that God's got this. I really do. If He wants something to work out, He can make it happen no matter what. If not, I trust He has something even better. But it's day to day where I struggle. Then good ol' Bonhoeffer totally called me out.

Life Together's subtitle is "the classic exploration of Christian community." It's about followers of Christ living daily life, together (shocking, I know). It's not focused on marriage, but a much larger group of people. The following excerpt totally changed my mindset for my current concern, but also for interactions with other Christians, including my housemates!

Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule.... Human love desires the other person, his company, his answering love, but it does not serve him.

(...)

Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them. As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others too can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love. the other person needs to retain his independence of me; to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became man, died, and rose again, for whom Christ bought forgiveness of sins and eternal life.

Life Together, p. 34-36

My human love has been so incredibly selfish. I have thought about love and service within the context of marriage or even dating, but not in the "liking" stage. I have been so focused on how I'm coming across or how much time I get to spend with a person. Instead, my decision of whether or not to enter a discussion should be what serves the other person best. DUH, AMY.

[amysagrownup]

Mind-blowing thought for the day:

What if God is not just glorified in the midst of/ despite my depression? What if the way He can be MOST glorified in my life is through this continual struggle?

This gives my life purpose, not "just as soon as I can get rid of this nasty illness," but TODAY. It almost makes me glad to bear this burden for the sake of His name. May my life be a constant clinging to its source, a constant act of praise through complete dependence on the King.

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[My brain has been repeating "Can I just... not have depression anymore? I'm tired of fighting, tired of trying" the past several days. This brain bomb just turned my whole day around, and infused new life into the verses below.]

Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:8-9 ESV)

[amysagrownup]

Stick with me here. The good part's at the end.

I love when my counselor admits that something is cheesy.

The phrase for the week is "feelings are my friends." LAAAAME.

But really true.

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Feelings function as symptoms of heart issues that need to be addressed. So the project lately has been taking note of situations that flare up feelings. Instead of brushing them away or telling myself I "should be past this," I'm practicing using them to my advantage to really dig around and look into the cause.

So I gathered 3 of those situations this week--situations where I became disproportionately upset from a trigger.

I looked into the feelings and named them. But then comes the hard part-- unlocking memories I have no desire to revisit and finding the earliest correlating memory to the situation and feelings.

Until I allow the Gospel to speak the Truth of my acceptance, freedom, and value in those crucial, identity-forming moments of my youth, I will never be able to move beyond them and see my current situations in the Light of that same Truth.

It sucks going back there, but it's a-MAZING to see how God redeems those hurtful memories.

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I've been doing all the steps of this exercise and finding the truth of those individual moments, but today I saw them as a whole.

Every single negative memory I have, every lie that was pounded into my fragile little mind, was placed there by a member of the Christian community.

And in that moment of realization, I saw the grace of God.

It is only because of His grace that I continued to see His goodness despite attacks from His fallen followers. It is only because of His grace that I ran toward Him through the pain. It is only because of His grace that any of us remain a part of a Christian community after a few interactions with each other. There are a lot of rough edges that are being smoothed--some of them are bound to hurt those around us in the process.

After years of painful interactions, all human logic says I should run as far away from the source of pain as possible.

But God changes everything. God redeems. God heals. God is so much bigger and better than our feeble logic.

God is using my current church community to nudge these issues to the surface--both directly and indirectly. He's using the very same people group that caused so much pain and is redeeming it for my growth and His glory.

Because He is just. that. GOOD.

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(Side note, I just want to thank anyone at DCC reading this--you all have been so encouraging and vulnerable and wise in showing and speaking the Gospel to me, especially the past few weeks. Christ's Community as it is intended to be is the most beautiful thing on Earth.)

[onlinecounsellingcollege]

"How to Care for an Introvert"

[amysagrownup]

3. When they are in a new situation, allow them to stand back and watch what’s going on.  

4. Allow them time to process what you’re asking or saying. Don’t demand an answer right away.

5. Be patient if they hesitate to find the right words – and never interrupt while they are speaking.

The others were okay. But THESE THREE. So true, and I don't think I've seen them detailed like this before.

[amysagrownup]

On Jessa Duggar and Courtship

"Sexual freedom was a legitimate tenet of the original women's movement, but the Girls Gone Wild climate of today's youth culture is not pro-feminism. It has nothing to do with feminism. The Miley Cyrus arc of 'growing up,' becoming overtly sexy, and proclaiming your independence is not progressive. Embracing the objectification of women doesn't make you clever."

[amysagrownup]

We begin to see that when God does something painfully unexpected, he's showing us something. The more you get to know God and his ways, the more we begin to lift our head from our discomfort to focus on what he's doing. He's changing us. He's making us more like Jesus: meek and humble. And usually on the thousandth time he's brought us into some measure of pain, we can begin to say with the apostle Paul, 'His grace is sufficient.'

John Starke, The Gospel Coalition Blog

Well this was the perfect thing to pop up in my Feedly tonight!

[amysagrownup]

WOW 2 posts 1 day such text how writing

HAAAAAAAAAA

so.

I'm having a really hard time right now accepting God's timing. I write that post, head to a game night at a friend's apartment, and walk outside to find that my car has been towed, without warning, without any visible signage about no-parking rules.

Instant shoe drop.

I just can't so many emotions maybe I just need to sleep but I can't.

Like, on the one hand, my first reaction was to find things to be thankful for. I had my phone, wallet, and keys all with me, and friends to take me home/ help figure stuff out. I have time to go pick it up before work tomorrow. I reminded myself that there's a purpose behind this, for my growth and good.

But knowing truths or positive things doesn't mean they feel true all the time. I FEEL REALLY ANGRY. Why does Seattle hate my cars? Broken window. Totaled car. Now a towed car.

In moments like this I wonder if my go-to thoughts that I've practiced so many times are really... healthy? Do I just think I'm dealing with stuff, or am I telling myself the "proper" response while really just stuffing things away to fester for later?

Daddy, I'm hurting right now. I don't understand, and my prideful desire for control is overwhelming me. Please give me the grace to surrender all things to you, and the peace to deal with this situation in a manner that brings you glory.

[amysagrownup]

Life in the Balance

So... life is wonderful right now.

I just had a birthday.

I just moved out of a house with random Craigslist people and into a house with wonderful, real, encouraging ladies from church.

I've reached a level of peace about my job and what I'm learning from it in this slow season.

I've realized that I actually don't hate Seattle--that it's actually growing on me, and I have more moments of "gosh, this city's swell."

I'm reaching the point of real, deep, honest, open relationships with people instead of the same small talk over and over.

I've actually had energy to do the stuff I want--extra crafts, going for a walk, etc.

But the problem for me when I'm in seasons of pleasure is the remaining presence of fear in the back of my mind.

Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And it's really easy to tell myself to just let go of that fear. But the problem is that the fear is so very rational. I have clinical depression, and this is a fact of my life. Sometimes my chemicals or hormones or whatever are more balanced, and sometimes they're just not. Sometimes, no matter how wonderful or terrible my circumstances are, my brain is unable to process those circumstances and have my emotions match them.

My fear is rational because the storm will return. Always.

Part of me wants to push the fear away and simply enjoy this present season of joy, but the other part is thankful for the fear. It can be healthy, so long as that fear motivates me to take advantage of this mental clarity to pound in what is actually true of me. These seasons are the times to prepare for battle while I have the strength to do it.

The fact that I need to prepare is scary in and of itself, but fear channeled in the proper way can be beautifully powerful.

[amysagrownup]

2 Predominant Thoughts on my Birthday:

(and the one time a year I post a gif)

1.

2.

Here's to another year of figuring things out!

[amysagrownup]

With my Hulu queue being abnormally empty thanks to the Olympics, and my abandoned hope of ever enjoying Doctor Who on Amazon Prime (I got halfway through season 3... I just can't take any more. I really tried), I'm at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to TV. I think I've watched everything I've ever wanted. Seriously... I don't think there's a show left that's on my "Oh, I definitely want to work through every episode!" list. And I don't really like re-watching stuff.

So until new episodes start happening in a week or two, I'm strangely... TV-less. And I think it'll be really good for me. Here's what I've learned so far:

I rely entirely too much on television for both time-filling and entertainment.

There are a lot of hours in a day.

I waste most of them.

Without TV, I read more and craft more, blazing through my "I'll do that at some point" list. Yesterday I sewed a pillow and elastic stool cover, spray painted said stool's base, stained the inside of all my dresser drawers, sanded the outside for painting, and made progress on 3 books.

I need resting time, as does every human, but I need less than I thought. TV turns my need for 15-minute chunks of rest into what I think needs to be a 40-minute show, which can turn into a VORTEX OF TIME THAT MAKES 4 HOURS DISAPPEAR.

I can read for longer periods than I realize, but I also can't do it for a whole evening.

I have very little creativity when it comes to filling non-reading times of rest.

That's secretly why I'm writing this post.

I need to get in the rhythm of playing music more. (ba-dum chhh.)

[amysagrownup]

Super interesting! (Short read-- 4 page PDF) "Such girls do not consider their femininity a limitation to be overcome or a weakness to be hidden, but something special and unique that must be nurtured and developed."

"They embrace their femininity as a positive and dynamic force that has the power to shape the world around them in a life-giving, soul-enhancing way."

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Wow such female how womanhood

[shawnmichaelfranklin]

[amysagrownup]

Neon Gospel  

Pretty cool!

[amysagrownup]

This proved, by the way, another thing about the rings which Uncle Andrew hadn't told Digory because he didn't know about it himself. In order to jump from world to world by one of those rings you don't need to be wearing or touching it yourself; it is enough if you are touching someone who is touching it.

C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew

J.K. ROWLING YOU SAUCY LADY, I know where portkeys came from!