IHOP Girl: Two weeks...

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Two weeks...

Wow! Sorry that I have not posted in such a long time!

Things have been crazy around here, and it is so hard to imagine that we only have two weeks left!!! The seige ended well, and we were all sad to stop in a way. We'll still keep praying though! This past week we had a Song of Solomon intensive (Mon., Tue., & Wed.) which was soooo good. I can't wait to listen to the recordings again, because I know that I didn't absorb everything the first time. Then this week we have the Global Bridegroom Fast (Mon., Tue., & Wed.) - I'm not sure what I'm going to do, because although I want to go hard these last weeks, man I don't feel like fasting again... - And starting Thursday we have the Forerunner/End-Times Conference through Sunday (which we're working). The last week of the internship is fun week, where although we spend time in the prayer room we mainly have tons of fun (going different places).

This week and the next two are going to be so easy to slack in, because we're almost done. I want to finish well though, to go harder than before, so I won't look back with any regret. It is soooo hard to believe that two weeks from today we will be graduating! I'm going to miss everyone so bad! My roommates especially because we have so much fun together, and there is nothing like coming home and taking about Jesus. Thursday night we all were dancing around the livingroom doing the "Musical Song of Solomon". Jen was the Beloved, Leah the Lover, and Tiffany & me the friends/extra background sounds (Lindsay was gone). It was hillarious as we sang the SOS, mainly off key...hehehe....Yeah, it was one of the funniest things I've ever done. Then last night our air-conditioning wasn't working, so we were sleeping on the floor, and as we laid there we just talked about the man we all love, this Jesus who has changed all of our lives. Needless to say, although I'm excited to come home and see everyone I don't know what I'm going to dd without my girls...

Enough sadness for one day, I'm off to take Leah to sunbath. Ciao!!

1 comment:

Jess said...: Jess!!! Hey! I miss you! I meant to call you today but I had to play violin at a church with some friends and just forgot of course. LOL! Silly me. Did you get the pictures I sent you from Letchworth? I mean, the pics OF Letchworth? If not I will try sending them again. I sent them once and it gave me a message that something wasn't sent...but I don't know what it was. So anyway. Sounds like you're having a marvelous time with your roomies. Wish I could be there to sing along with you! Of course, I don't know the words to the song, but that's never stopped me before! Oh hey, BTW, I made a little website. It's http://indiamackenzie.tripod.com. I posted a link to my blog and yours on there...I hope that's OK. If you don't want your blog linked to there, just tell me and I'll take it off. K? Oh, yeah, and India Mackenzie is just another one of my aliases. I love confusing people with all my alternate names. What's that you say? You think I'm living in an alternate REALITY? Oh. Well, you're probably right...anyway, gotta go -- love you -- see you soon -- bye -- I think I have enough dashes in here now, don't you? :); 10:20 PM

Movie Night In...I love a good movie!

Mega Mind
Taking Chance (Will make you cry like a baby)
Charlotte Grey (A bit of a different take on Nazi Germany)
Series - Merlin (I LOVE BBC)
Robin Hood (Okay, a love Russell Crowe, you'll have to understand that about me...)
Kingdom of Heaven (Chuck full of acting power with an epic tale)
Miss Potter (Such a great film! Story of the creator of Peter Rabbit)
How to Train your Dragon (Possibly my favorite animated movie ever...I'm like a little kid, I watch it over and over)
Buck (Sundance winner, Biography of Horse Trainer, heart touching)
Lost in Austin (Modern day spin on Pride and Prej.)

Life as a nurse...

Great words by Reb Jeff: Vayishlach: Facing Death

"Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrat — now called Bethlehem. Jacob set up a pillar above her grave. It is the pillar at Rachel’s grave to this day."–Genesis 35:19-20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidui http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism), and preparing the notifications to the community, feel like little fragments of the sacred. I have been entrusted with the care and tending of the most powerful, complex and difficult emotions that a person can experience in life. I have been made, in some small part, a guardian of the memory of a departed soul — a life that touches upon many other lives.After dropping off my older daughter at her high school this morning, I made a stop at Treasure Coast Hospice http://www.tchospice.org/, a remarkable organization that sets a very high standard for the loving and respectful care of the dying. There, I visited a lovely man whom I have seen a few times in his hospice room. I sat by his bedside and listened to him (in full possession of his faculties) as he told me about his worries about his family, the support of his wife after he is gone, and the future of his children and grandchildren. I was deeply moved by the way he put any concern for himself — even while facing death — in a distant backseat to his concerns for his family. When my own time comes, I can only hope to have his awareness of the way that one life can touch so many others.Also at hospice, I visited a woman I have known for the past two years — a dear soul who is a former Jewish religious school director. I sat with her, too, singing psalms to her as I listened to her heavy and labored breathing. I have no medical training, but I have come to know the sound of a person who is close to death. The body begins to fight for each breath as it slowly looses it grasp on life. As I held her hand and sang, I realized that being a rabbi is no protection against becoming one of the people caught in the web of connection. I, too, am changed by the loss of a life that has touched mine.Later in the day, I met with a couple from our congregation. She had just learned that her brother died yesterday in a car crash. Coming to terms with the loss is made more difficult for her by the fact that she and her brother had not seen each other or spoken in five years. Sometimes, people think it is easier to mourn the death of someone who has moved out of your life. In my experience, though, it's harder. Grief is magnified by wounded love and regret. I have no magic words to say to ease the pain of mourning. All I can do is listen, become a vessel in which people place their stories, and offer compassion.Actually, there is one more thing I can do. I can have faith that "all I can do" is all that I need to do. It is enough.In this week's Torah portion (Vayishlach) Jacob watched Rachel, the love of his life, die in childbirth. He was overcome by grief. Jacob had worked for his cruel uncle Laban for fourteen years to earn the right to marry Rachel. Now she was gone. Because she died while they were traveling, Jacob had to bury her by the side of the road. He built a pillar of stones on the spot to mark the place as sacred.This is what we all do, in one way or another, when death enters our lives. We grieve and our hearts break. We wish that we could continue to walk along the path of life with our loved ones forever, but the dead cannot fully join us. We have to leave something behind in order to resume our own journey. So, what do we do? We mark the moment as sacred. We erect monuments — both in cemeteries and in our hearts. The stones we place on top of stones remind us that a life may end, but its sanctity is forever.The Torah says that the monument Jacob built for his beloved continues to stand until this day. A life that touches the lives of others never ceases to send living reverberations throughout the web that binds us all.