A Crisis Observed: It's a short one!

Good news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) :) :) :) MY AUNT DOES NOT HAVE CANCER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Yay! :) I'm so happy :D She's going to be in the hospital until probably Sunday, but she is recovering as expected. 

This crisis is a short one, but still significant. My friends noticed that I wasn't really as perky and cheerful in our paralegal classes. I went home and just chilled out. I think a lot of the worrying I did and stuff oh yes, and lack of sleep wore me out. 

But yeah. It's still a bummer that one of my favorite aunts is sick, but the fact that she should recover shortly is definitely a major plus! :) 

A Crisis Observed: The First Morning

Whoa, hey, last night was like "Angry Birds" except it was
Angry Blogger... wow. 

So last night, I listened to music, wrote in my journal and then listened to John Piper's message "The supremacy of Joy in a Postmodern World." That was really awesome because it grounded me that joy flows out of the relationship between the Father and the Son and then we are able to share in it because we are justified through the Cross. That was nice because joy is NOT in my circumstance (yes, Katie, you should've learned that by now, but apparently...) and also for this situation will not be primarily in: an amazingly good recovery for my aunt after surgery, the tumor being benign, or even if my unsaved family members come to know Christ through this. These would be secondary sources of joy, but the primary source is God. 

Knowing that still didn't stop the 'blahs' from hitting me when I woke up today. I lay in bed just wanting to snuggle in my blankets and stare at the wall until I had to go to class. But I reminded myself of Truth and reminded myself that God will give me strength to get through the day :) 

Knowing my joy comes primarily from God allowed me to enjoy some little smiles this morning. When I got dressed for a little morning walk, I got into my CSU Rams sweatpants and hoodie. I thought, "Oh man, I'm Ramed up today! Woo! :)" and seeing the grass along the bike path near my little house just a little bit greener thanks to the rain yesterday made me smile. Watching some ducks in the creek also made me smile :)  And during my quiet time, the way 1 Chronicles 19 was HILARIOUS. "So the Arameans were not willing to help the Ammonites anymore. v.19." Um... YEAH... if you ally with a country that God through King David will beat down, you will not have a good time. Anyway, I laughed a bit.

When I came back, I wasn't that hungry (I know that's a sign of stress for me), but I ate cereal and then made an easy lunch. Joy means I can go through the day doing my thing and not lay around stressing out. Joy means looking for little smiles in the day even though I don't know how my aunt's surgery will go later on today.

I know today I might think about my aunt when I'm in class and stuff, but I also know I can just shout out a prayer (silently) to God and then go back to thinking about torts or something. 

Cussing out the Proper Spiritual Authorities

Note: I usually don't post my raw thoughts, but I just had to let this one go because honestly, there is no cleaning up certain situations. Pain hurts and pain sucks, but even when I am pissed beyond acceptable language, I can still honestly see God, and that's why I'm sharing these thoughts with the blogsphere.

I AM SUPER F-ING PISSED RIGHT NOW! Like SERIOUSLY???? Ok, my aunt who has down syndrome and who has been at times like a big sister, at times like a younger close cousin to me, at times like my favorite client, just went to the doctor and was told she had a 6 inch mass in her abdomen. 
LIKE SERIOUSLY??? Who the hell thought, "Oh, let's give a lady with down syndrome a tumor RIGHT when she's about to move in with one of her best friends into a new apartment and when she's trying to help her mom who has osteoarthritis??" And also, WHAT THE F!! My family lost an uncle to cancer. and whoever it is, if you remember THAT WAS HER F-ING BROTHER WHO DIED FROM CANCER and SHE BETTER NOT BE NEXT!!!!!  F THIS CANCER AND F THIS SICKNESS AND F ALL THIS PAIN AND SOMEONE'S GONNA BURN IN HELL FOR A LONG F ING TIME FOR ALL THIS!!

Like, my anger is truly real, and I was totally cussing out - well someone - in my head. Like, I don't cuss much (even though some of my paralegal friends drop s and f bombs on a regular basis) but anger was my first reaction. 

Unfortunately, I first started cussing out God like, "Ok, I know You have a plan for this buddy, but WHAT THE F!?!?!" Honestly, this can be a valid mistake for people. Because when I found out that my uncle was sick in 2005, my grandpa had a stroke in 2006, and tonight that my aunt has a tumor, I wanted to find some supernatural power and kick it in the nuts and make it hurt for somehow being sovereign over all this earth and letting these things happen. Because IT HURTS. It's just a natural reaction to want to make someone pay for suffering. Even that thought: that people understand there's a true good and a true bad means that SOMEONE created these standards, therefore, there is SOMETHING out there. Of course, the God of the Bible has proved Himself through Creation and through the Word and through Christ. He's proven that yes. There is a good. God is good. He is good. And Satan rebelled bringing evil into the world. That is why there is suffering. Satan is the ultimate cause of all this pain: Everything from Cain killing Abel, Eve getting deceived, Adam not manning up and standing up for her, and all the divorce and child abuse and war and genocide and starvation and class warfare and selfishness and persecution of God's people and sickness and disabilities and cancer and - ALL THIS F ING PAIN IS CAUSED BY SATAN!  Nope not God. If we don't understand the Christian worldview and we believe God is a mix of good and bad instead of the perfect just and loving God that redeems His people from a fallen world, we WILL shake our fist at Him for suffering, because we just want a supernatural being to PAY for ALL THE SUFFERING EVER, especially when it touches us personally. 

Did I cuss Satan out in my head? Oh, yes I did. Yeah, I sure did. And I was thinking, "AND I AM SO F -ING GLAD, SATAN YOU ARE TRULY HONESTLY GONNA BURN AND ROT IN HELL FOR A LONG LONG LONG LONG TIME AND YOU WILL GET YOU ASS HANDED TO YOU FOR ALL ETERNITY BECAUSE YOU CAUSED SO MUCH PAIN AND SO MANY TEARS AND SO MUCH - AAAGH! YOU WILL F - ING BURN!!!!"

Then I realized, "God, I truly do thank You that we don't have to go around like, 'pain is really nothing la la la,' and brush it under the rug and put on so-called rose colored glasses, but we can fess up like, 'GOD THIS F ING SUCKS AND THIS IS ALL F ING SATAN'S FAULT!' because God is sick of this sht too. That's why He's going to judge the world. 

Then I was humbled thinking, "Oh crap. Obviously I've sinned too. Yeah, I deserve to burn, and apart from Christ, I'm just as screwed as the rest of the world." Then I was like, "Grace is seriously epic." Like that sentence doesn't even capture the epicness of God because God rescueing even 1 person from this crappy pisshole of a world that is just as defiled and covered in filth is mind blowing and He is rescuing THOUSANDS of people EVERY DAY and He is not going to stop until He gets people from EVERY SINGLE NATION IN THIS PAIN-FILLED WORLD. THAT is the reason no human being can EVER fathom that, and that is what the Apostle Paul writes over and over in his letters. 

If there was not a good sovereign God who has through Christ defeated Satan and defeated sin and death and sickness (including cancer and tumors), there would seriously be no hope at all. This is the light in this onslaught of pain and anger and crap, and this is the light and hope I hold onto so I can trust God and be real with Him and connect with Him through all this. 

One of America's Worst Days looking back

 

 

NYC skyline at night - Google Images

Today is the 11th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I was walking down the hallway at John F. Kennedy High School in Denver, CO when I heard kids talking about how a plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. I thought it was a small commuter plane and I wondered why it went off course. I told my friends, "Well, you know, a commuter plane is small, so it might not damage the building, but why would it fly so close to the skyline?" They just told me to look in one of the classrooms that had a TV on to the news. I looked and saw dark black smoke billowing out of one of the towers. 

First Period AP American History started and we sat there and watched the news. We learned that two planes hit the towers, another hit the Pentagon, then another plane went down in Pennsylvania en route to somewhere in Washington, DC. We realized this was an attack. Just as first hour ended, the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed. I saw just billowing smoke mixed with the ash of the buildings collapse into the streets. I was worried that so many other people were now hurt by the debris that had spread into the street. 

That started several months of what I'm pretty sure was secondary PTSD. That was no fun. The newsreels kept on playing in my head when I went to sleep and I couldn't get the images out of my head. I would have nightmares about it. I may have also developed a fixation around the World Trade Center as a way of processing all of it on my own. Because I did have to process all of that on my own. Sometimes I'd get scared to go to Downtown Denver because I would be fearful of an attack there. This lasted the rest of the school year. Before my honors Chemistry class, I liked to get there early and crawl into a little space under the lab counters because it was a nice safe space in case something happened. My country wasn't safe, my home wasn't safe when the news was on because they would show newsclips of the attacks which would start flashbacks, and sleeping sometimes wasn't safe because I would dream about it. 

 What did I learn from it? Well, first, that I took for granted this country. As someone adopted from a third world country, I knew living in this country was a gift. I thought living here provided some immunity from the "horrible current events 'over there'"
 I also learned how to handle a situation completely differently than Mom and find my own way to deal with it. Mom responded with anger and hate toward Al Queda. By God's grace, I responded with asking God to help me with my sadness and fear. I turned to God instead of just hating what happened. 

I learned that with God's help, and with adequate emotional support, things I saw on the news that made me sad didn't have the power to make me spiral into fear. When I came to CSU, I visited the Counseling Center around the anniversary of the attacks and they gave me tools to help me deal with it and then helped me learn how to deal with my emotions better. I think this event is the last one that I have unhealthily interanlized, that is: had it hit me so hard it was like I was there, even though I wasn't actually there. I learned how to have a healthy emotional distance between myself and what I saw on the news. To empathize without letting the dark world crush me. 

If I had told myself on September 12, 2001 that on September 11, 2012 I would cheerfully tell my mom who I love very much to have a great vacation as she left on an airplane knowing that day was the anniversary of the attacks, I would say, "How will I be able to do that without being sad and having flashbacks and stuff?" My present day self would say: It will be a long road, but by God's grace, I promise you, He will get you there." The way God can help me heal from handling a very intense national crisis with limited emotional resources has taught me this: God's healing power is amazing and stronger than anything the world tries to destroy.

Competence tested and reasserted

Greetings blogsphere!! :) Mom is off on a jet plane with one of her nursing school buddies on her way to Maine!! :) 

Lighthouse in Portland, Maine - according to Google Images :D

They're going on a little vay-cay and I'm here in Denver doing school stuff :)This morning very VERY early, I saw my mom and her friend off and Mom reminded me of some things and a laundry list of stuff not to forget while she's away. I jokingly told her, "Mo-om, I've lived in Fort Collins for 9 years before. I'll be fine." After she and her friend left, I did think about it: 

I realized that excessive worry on a parent's end may cause a child to feel less confident. Or in less HDFS scholarly terms, I can second guess myself when Mom is constantly worried about me because her worries say to me, "What if you're not doing something right?" 

It took a lot of time for me to realize that I could do things on my own without second-guessing myself. It's funny, I think I learned my lesson, and yesterday I was on my own at my volunteering time at Colorado Legal Services, and today I'm back on my own (YAY!) defined as: making my own choices about my daily life without Mom's input (which I follow when prudent, and don't when I want to do my own thing ;) I think also this time of being by myself will just remind me that I can do stuff on my own so I am confident next semester when I do an internship, when I graduate and I get my first paralegal job, and FINALLY when I get out of the house :D

Turned loose in the law office

Today was an interesting day for me when I volunteered at Colorado Legal Services (CLS). The person I usually help called in sick. Her assistant, however, left me with some stuff to do which was sort and file paperwork as well as add a final sheet to some files. I would partially fill out this final sheet.

Normally I work pretty closely with the CLS staff. She doesn't check every single thing I do, but I usually do my work in her office. Since she was away, I did a lot of it on my own. At first I was nervous about doing it by myself, but I had to remind myself that I knew what I was doing because I had done it before. Her presence had been like a safety-net. However, I realized that I really did understand more of the case closing and case categorization processes than I thought I did because I was really forced to think it through myself.
In the paralegal world, the more experience a paralegal has, the less 'hand holding' the attorney does. Being able to work with minimal supervision is the mark of a good paralegal. The fact that I sort of had that happen suddenly, and the fact that I think I did everything I was supposed to gave me confidence that I will be able to do a good job as a paralegal :)

Sometimes I doubt myself because of my disabilities or because other people doubt me, but when I have accomplishments like this, those help boost my confidence :)

Kids make me smile

Today was my second cousin's first birthday :) She and her sister were SO CUTE :)

Her older sister is three and she helped her open presents. I of course played with the kids. The cutest greatest moments where when the little one discovered what all her new little toys could do. The look of joy / surprise on her face was pure awesome :)

Hanging around them made me think about how I'd like kids someday Not while I'm in paralegal school, not right after, but you know - someday :) A bonus will be that they will be at least 1/2 tan! WOO HOO!

It's funny. I went from: "I want kids to prove my HDFS competency in spite of a complicated past" to "I'LL NEVER HAVE KIDS BECAUSE I'M ON THE AUTISM SPECRUM!!!" to "Hm. I think I want kids. I just know I'll relate to them in a completely different way, and that's ok." to "Kids would be nice. In a few years."

Even though I am not married or engaged or otherwise in a relationship, it is nice to think about this whole idea of having kids. It's called being prepared. Not just learning the child development knowledge, but think about why I want kids. If a child was merely a tool to fill a void in my heart, that kid can't fill it. I've been a kid in that position, and I do not want to put a child in that position. It's the neatest thing to watch a child develop, but I realize that having responsibility for that child's development is an enormous responsibility. I understand why it takes a community (the parents and their social support system) to raise children because with so much responsibility, social support gives parents emotional and practical support.

It's also nice to ponder questions such as: would I truly be ok with leaving a career to raise a child or children, how could I realistically balance work and family responsibilities, how would I take a family on the bus, would I be comfortable homeschooling if that's what Prince Charming would want? The nice thing is that I would have the help of Prince Charming (husband) in these decisions, so I wouldn't do it alone.

Sometimes I think a lot of people that do not have children (me included on some days) can have fears that would lead them to not want children. Sometimes the idea of giving up a career I may be passionate balancing that career with family responsibilities would seem very difficult, sometimes I would say, 'What if Prince Charming kicked the bucket and left me alone and I would have to do it myself, sometimes I would say, there can be so much that can happen in a family that can be bad for a child, the risk seems really high. I think sometimes in the human services professions, many people can become jaded and say, "Families are messed up, parents are generally ignorant and human services professionals must do the best they can with the limited funds the government has." I've heard that sentiment several times going through school :P Sometimes I think that even after all this time, my attachment history and my current limitations would make it hard to raise a child.

Getting bogged down in these risks would be a reason why I would willingly remain childless. However, to counter those voices, I have to remember the good things: helping a child achieve developmental milestones, the smiles and giggles when a child discovers something new, being able to love a child, raising someone to be a productive member of society, and being able to share God with a child are reasons why, if it is God's will, getting married and having a child would be worth it. Because ultimately, kids do make me smile, and more importantly, the act of raising a child to know God and be the person He made them to be makes God smile.