Idle and Blessed

I had a dream a couple nights ago that I went back to Russia. I wasn't ready for it for some reason; I was already there before I decided if I even wanted to go. I remember thinking it was too expensive, but I was having a hard time stopping the whole thing. Traveling was normal and quick, since that particular itinerary is somewhat normal to me now, but I began to realize it was TOO normal. I was going to Russia, but I wasn't leaving home. When I got there, Russia was in my living room, in my house in Spring Hill. Tanya was there. I saw Tima. I held Karina's hand. But the person I was really looking for was Nadya. I walked down the stairs into the bottom level of our house and found her, and we were so happy to see each other we could hardly talk. I asked her where my baby girl was, and she brought her to me so I could hold her - baby Tanya, wrapped in a wad of pink blankets. She wasn't a newborn anymore, and that made me sad, because I realized I won't ever get to...

"I've been thinking about grace a lot. And writing about that. I guess because imperfection bothers me, and I'm realizing just how short we come of measuring up. All of us, even in normal, everyday interactions." Dr. Curtis just nods his head, in that way of his, with his eyes closed and his small frame sinking into the couch cushions. If the vagueness of my ramblings ever occurs to him, he doesn't acknowledge it. I don't really think acknowledging vagueness is possible for him. He just nods, like everything makes sense, everything is worth feeling, everything resonates with him. I'm aware of how blessed I am to have professors like Ben Curtis. Professors who see me as a person and not a number, who know me well enough to have me in their office for conversations like this. Who remember what graduate schools I'm looking at and what my major is. Who offer their advice when I ask and suggest books I need to read. People say there are two sides to every s...

The past few days I have been sending and receiving emails from Russia like nobody's business. I've been obsessed with certain pictures of a certain baby girl: Her name is Tantiana and I love her. She doesn't know it yet, but I do. Her parents, Sasha and Nadya, and Slavik and Tanya have been having a really hard time lately, so I'll extend the request they gave me: МОЛИСЬ ЗА НАС ПОЖАЛУСТА (please pray for us). My "Russia" life and my "Belmont" life have been very, very polarized lately, even with the emails and the difficult Russian class I'm taking. It probably is because I've been so preoccupied with school and the tough lessons God is teaching me here that I can't really remember what it was like to be there, pouring out instead of God pouring into me. I mean, he is always pouring into me, but you know. Somehow I feel like right now, in Nashville, as a junior at Belmont, things are all about my formation and shaping and learning and ex...