Took the test. It felt much better. But who knows. Life seems more balanced. Still unsure in some areas, but confident in most.

11 Days

I have ten more study days, eleven days total, until I retake the step 1 exam. Am I confident? Logically, no. But I think that it is time to turn on confidence, along with stress hormones.

Every time I converse with family or friends, I have noticed that I do a lot of talking, and that I speak very quickly. The former has often been the case, and it decreases once I feel that people are caught up on my life or thought process. It comes from feeling like you have a worldview and train of thought that merely sharing a few brief words can hardly manage to convey, so you try to establish context. For me, there is a significant need to recognize when there is need for such context, and perhaps more importantly, when there is not such a need. As for the habit of speaking quickly, I noticed today that it may be due to the lectures I watch every day. I speed these lectures up to 2.2x speed, and I keep this up most days. So when I talk to other people, it confuses me that I can continue talking at these speeds and no one else seems geared toward such a pace. So that is something to keep an eye on.

Anyway, back to studying. Hope I escape this academic purgatory.

Changing And Signs

Hung out with those friends again. I just... I was so selective of my friend groups in high school. And in college. But after those times, friend groups have mostly been based on where I find myself. On the island, I tried to be friends with everyone, but eventually, the white people were drawn to me enough, and the other colors of humans were not necessarily so, that they became my main group.

We all change after middle school, high school, college, other academics, traveling, moving, and relationships. If you are not changed by such, then that is a problem. In the midst of fluctuations in life's situations, the only thing that has remained constant in all of this is God. A significant portion of that is due to the fact that He set me on this course so early on, and this path will continue to dominate my life so much, that I cannot help but intimately connect Him to it, and myself to Him in the process. Especially since, had He not continued over the years to push me towards this pursuit of medicine, I would otherwise have likely dropped it. I mean, it is simply not my area of gifting.

Every friend group seems a sampling of some aspect of myself. Yet the more I revisit with each, the more I realize that the mission field really is the only place that I make sense. That is the personality for which 5-year-old me made his clever design. Stand out, grab attention, do practical good work, introduce Jesus in the midst of it and then again following, and then, after getting lost in the pleasurable exhaustion of that ultimate fulfillment, ready yourself to do it again in a new place the next day, all the while having an ear open to the Holy Spirit leading you. But God, in His infinite wisdom that shatters the logic of the universe, has seen fit to keep me in this educational purgatory rather than out there. I hope and pray that I am learning whatever I am supposed to be learning through this.

I came across this passage the other day. Spoiler alert: Isaiah seems pretty boring thus far. Lots of prophesying about war and stuff that was super critical to the Israelites for those hundreds of years, but preeeeeetttttyyyyy boring from a few thousands of years later. Still though, this passage hit me. It was not the contents of the prophesy, but rather the delivery.

Isaiah 7:10-14.

"Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 'Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.'
But Ahaz said, 'I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.'
Then Isaiah said, 'Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.'"

There was stuff preceding it and following it that was probably important, but what got me was Ahaz refusing to obey God when God told him to ask for a sign. Ahaz had enough honor and respect for God that he was not willing to just ask for something. But God is weird in that He actually wants us to ask, because, as this passage tells us, He already had something ready and waiting. In fact, Ahaz's reasonable response was trying God's patience.

Maybe I should be asking Him for a sign sometime.

Where Are They Now

I hung out with some old friends last night. In the midst of reevaluating myself, I have continued to be hit with the question of whether this version of me at a given time is the real me. A portion of that is the introvert thing, the sudden realization that you are around people whose company seemed pleasant enough, but at that moment much of what is in you just wants to leave right then and write out some expression is going on inside you.

I remember being surprised by these friends over the years. Rather than leave to pursue a conventional university education, most of them went to a school for ministry. It was there that they experienced some disillusionment regarding the ins and outs of ministry, and seemed to come out if it the worse for wear. They picked up smoking (normal enough, I know, but we all know better), casual dating, and an overall loose sense of morality. I am likable enough that my more strict rules on myself never really came up as an issue, but perhaps unfortunately, it contributed to my suppression of the voice of the Holy Spirit. These friends had once spoken of God's close interaction and direction in our lives in a fairly casual way, because it really was regular practice, but those topics seem to have fallen by the wayside over these years. Perhaps it is because I only visit so often, and the visits have decreased, so I only get snapshots. But we all used to be more purposeful, even through our doubts, and I miss that.

I certainly drifted. My time on the island pushed me further than I could wish, as has the past year, but I do not think I veered nearly as far as my peers. And those that have not veered off seem to have missed out on learning valuable lessons in empathy and appreciating alternative views that are necessarily involved in the process of living life outside of a ministry capacity.

The science department at my Christian university heavily emphasized that we do not know things for sure; we instead take the evidence available and form the best possible conclusion for it, all the while wrestling with the effects that this would have on our own personal beliefs. I had professors who, despite believing otherwise, would still argue in favor of the possibility of a flat earth in order to underscore the importance of realizing that our current answer is not categorically the "right" answer.

While backpacking in Europe, I couchsurfed with a university student who was only able to attend the university because it was sponsored by her government. There were times when I was tempted to overstay my time in Europe as an illegal immigrant. I have a friend whose dad's stay on this planet was extended for several more years after a leukemia diagnosis because of Obamacare. Another friend in college would later get his masters in theology and is now a somewhat prominent speaker for young LGBTQ Christians.

One thing that still shocks me most is dating. Even my friends who stuck closely with Jesus over the years had approaches that strike me as being very odd. On the guy's end, how could you date someone without asking for and receiving specific approval from God? Even aside from the fear of divorce, which is admittedly a very real dread within me, you risk so much every time. Your friend groups, and, depending on a variety of factors, your families too are joined based on that relationship. If it is an unpleasant breakup, you and that girlfriend become exes whose friend groups and many life experiences, along with time invested, become severed. I have friends now that I likely would not have retained had I dated them. Overlying all of this, of course, is that as Christians, we gave our lives to Jesus. Why do we only look for red flags, when green lights are what should guide us? Getting coffee or drinks with someone and getting to know them is normal enough, but if you throw a romantic commitment label on that... I mean, if God no longer spoke to us, then sure, whatever, but Jesus gave us a direct line to learn His will straight from the source. Then again, I am such a specific human, and my calling (as I perceive it), is similarly so specific, that I cannot imagine choosing to do life with someone unless I am absolutely positive. Long distance travel, bad weather, loss of sleep, and an ability to function well as we listen to the voice of God are all important. An ability to look past oneself in order to recognize and fulfill need...

Anyway, I do ramble on. It is currently my day off, with a little less than three weeks until I retake the Step 1 exam. Tonight, I get to attend a Christmas party. Tomorrow, I will hopefully be refreshed enough to hit it hard with studying. And maybe, just maybe, I will soon be able to live life in such a way as to stay out of my own head overmuch.

Those Who Hurt Themselves

This week, well, weekdays, has/have flown by. Such is life when you spend so much time studying. There really is something to that exhausted satisfaction of knowing that you cannot, despite caffeine or adderall, make yourself study anymore.

I went for coffee with my old youth pastor (now he is some other variety of pastor) yesterday. I told him about my lil' month-long identity crisis, along with my year of frustration with the church, and he advised me to maybe realize where I am in this transition period and note that there is a simplified version of the gospel to which I probably need to return. And it certainly brought to mind how many times throughout this whole age of Trump that I have repeatedly said that I do not want to care about these issues.

Fortunately, enough time has passed, and I have spent so much mental energy on processing, that I feel much more at peace with the idea of leveling out again. The salvation of Jesus is as simple or as complex as you make it, and my studying the complexities has been far more for the sake of evangelism than it has been for my own spiritual life.

Another idea came up during our time having coffee. One was that I should always order a "kids cup" if I want to survive my latte, and another, perhaps more in-depth concept, was concerning the church and the Trump supporters as we find them now.

When my parents got divorced, I spent the following semester evaluating myself for what poor qualities I had inherited from each of them. I also blamed one or both of them for the proceedings at a given time. After all, divorce is not a clear and easy thing; people have to use money and action to make it happen. Following that semester, I visited home and, perhaps for the first time, viewed my parents as people. Hurt people who had a made a stupid decision that would wreck a family. But they were people nonetheless. These were people who needed the love of Jesus as much as any African orphan. And perhaps that is how we should view Trump supporters now. Like my parents, they made a bad call. And also like my parents, they may still think that they made the right call. But they are hurting as a consequence of their actions.

It has been over a year. Maybe it is about time that I (and others) can set aside the blatantly evil actions and recognize a hurting people who need Jesus. If I can drop a little ego regarding my own carefully crafted perspective, it would be a lot easier than just being upset all the time.

Back To The Duck

My head cleared up a lot after that last post.

Earlier last week, I had seen a documentary on NetFlix called "Jim and Andy". In it, Jim Carrey tells about the change that took place in him when performing stand-up. He referred to it as "Mr. Hyde coming out". This is the version of himself that would do physically unusual comedy. He viewed it as a good Mr. Hyde, but still a Mr. Hyde nonetheless. There were times at which he would worry that he let Mr. Hyde take over too much, that he lost control. I have felt that I have that Mr. Hyde in me, suppressed by an academic lifestyle. Unlike Jim Carrey, I have always imagined the Mr. Hyde to be perhaps the truest form of myself.

Thanksgiving was pleasant. Instead of the feared topic of politics, my dating life (and extreme lack thereof) was the focal point of conversation thanks to the spearheading efforts of my drunk and loud aunt. My mother, through what I believe to be a subconscious effort to make the siblings choose between her and my dad in this post-divorce world, essentially made my sisters skip Thanksgiving dinner to go to San Antonio a day earlier than any of us had previously been told (the dinner's timing was announced well in advance so as to avoid such issues).

As I began my drive to Arkansas the following day, I found a sort of release happening. Between the urgent compulsion to process my transition through writing, and the acceptance that my crush was likely not the one for me, but was at least, for the moment, a stimulus for positive change that I could appreciate, I could just sit and drive. Taking a day off from studying was also certainly a help as well.

So I arrived in Arkansas. I had an hour before friends would arrive, so I visited a pub. I ordered a pint and the gentleman a few seats down advised me to avoid closing my tab so early, as I would be charged less for subsequent drinks because I was using my cards. I appreciated the advice and introduced myself; we conversed for the next half-hour. We did not speak of God, but with appropriate intentionality on my part, I am sure that such a task would have been easy. Instead, we spoke of women (I said that looks were important, but he informed me that cooking was the most critical thing). In any case, this encounter convinced me once again that this was a ministry opportunity that many churches are avoiding for little reason aside from legalism.

Once my time there was complete, I met up with a dear friend who had also been on moving journeys over the last few to several years. This was the friend who knew his theology but also drinks like me (quite a bit without a significant impairment in judgement). He is also my friend whose music will absolutely be a success if he can get discovered. I went bar hopping with him and his family, and on a rooftop bar on Dickson Street in Fayetteville, I looked up and out. I wondered if I could accept this as me, given the version of me that I had attempted to dip back into in weeks previous.

The following day, I drove to Tulsa, where the first friend I made in college, who has embraced a life filled with even more travel than my own, had a sister who was getting married. I was naturally quite late, having thought that the event was not to start for several hours. There are few friends I know who have pushed me to question my faith so deeply while still believing, and unlike me, he does not have the benefit of growing up with a surrounding of a manifestation of supernatural happenings in his presence.

The reception was heavier on the beer, which is a poor way to intoxicate this Irish liver, so it was all sober dancing to songs that seemed selected for energetic car rides rather than for a dance floor. We improvised and tried to remember dance moves from years past. Following this, I (after others were foolishly hesitant to do so) smuggled a nearly full bottle of wine for our private consumption at another friend's (who I had met mere days after my other friend) house. We drank and played board games to which I was just then learning the rules.

At various points throughout this, I wondered whether this was where my personality should settle. My crush had mentioned that she did not care for board games; the longevity of many of them was more than her patience was looking to bear. I certainly did not feel a particular affinity for the games, but the company and conversation were so pleasant that the game was hardly the point. That night, I slept with the added benefit of our hosts' cat who was kind enough to fall asleep upon me at various points. I had missed cats, and this one exhibited a personality that was markedly different from most cats that I had known, living the contrast of avoiding affection but being quite drawn to any form of play.

When I awoke, it was Sunday (which was fortunately the day that I was expecting it to be). I drove from Tulsa back to Arkansas, killed time in the best liquor store I have yet known (Macadoodles in Springdale), and then proceeded to a photo shoot.

Aside from a clown-themed photo shoot this summer, I had not modeled in quite some time, and certainly not without the theme and setting being from my own inspiration. The reflexes appeared to remain, and she complimented how I posed. She told me that she did not have enough males to photograph, and I replied that I would let her know when I visit, because I most certainly wish to do this more frequently. I also thought about how this was a version of me that I had truly missed.

This occupied weekend with some of my favorite people and places reminded me of what my goal had been throughout college. I wished to be well-rounded. I once had a dream in high school that I was a duck. The dream stuck with me to such a degree that I considered it to be "a God dream", one that was meant to teach me something. Ducks are awkward creatures, technically meant for the sky perhaps, but spending much of their time on land, or on water, or wherever. They do not have a real fit, yet they manage so many terrains.

Searching for which version of myself to become is a good journey, but in the end, I am beginning to think that I am meant to be all of these versions of myself. The biggest mistake I could make in any of this, in my opinion, would be to try to be rid of any version of me that I have become. Poor habits may be dropped, of course, but even those have led me to a point at which I am more able to relate to others.

I have always felt divided within myself. Such seems to be a trying consequence of remaining outside of formal ministry for so long. That being said, it may be the closest I can manage to genuinely becoming all things to all men, to the extent that a given human like myself is able. And when it comes down to it, I suppose that the internal conflict of identity found within these reachings of consciousness are worth it for the sake of saving as many of those humans with the gospel as possible.

Recognizing Transition

(Upon reading portions of this, it appears that it was written to someone apart from this blog to whom I felt that I may have given a false impression of myself. Those are the "you" portions. Do not make it weird though; even I do not write this much if it is not mostly to work through things in my own self.)

I’m in a period of transition. Life has been unsettled for years, but since I knew that that would remain an unchanged aspect due to moving and travel, I focused on changing myself to adapt rather than taking experiences as a method of refining whatever I already was. In any case, the weight of years of a myriad of transitions is finally finding its focal point now. And for a number of reasons, I finally find myself able to somewhat adequately recognize the transition and sort through how it should settle into defining me as a human and as a Christian.

Here’s the thing. I’m not a regular human. Granted, neither are you (credit where it is due).

Here’s a history lesson on my world to hopefully give an understanding of precisely where I am currently at. I grew up in a sort of standard conservative Christian environment. Never miss church unless you are sick enough for It to be justified, etc. And why would I want anything else? I loved the church. I volunteered in Children’s Church and adored it. I would even show up when I was sick, ‘cause I felt the need. I asked for prayer to be saved around the age of five (I think it was documented in some Bible, but five is my estimate). I knew a few things about Christians at that age: Christians are what everyone needed to become, and Christians stand out. Christians are different. People need to become Christians because being a Christian is far more preferable to being anything else. This, combined with a recently discovered love for making people laugh (among my first memories is the first time I made someone laugh), convinced me to become an odd human. I shaped my personality around my conception of what a Christian was meant to be. I was a bit of a goofball. Since I was a child actor from the age of 5 to 10 (and a little around that), tis persona was not difficult to maintain. Jim Carrey was a role model, and I kept trying to be weird.

Then Hollywood ended and I returned home around the age of 10, along with the rest of my family. Unlike many of them, I was not ready to be finished with acting. I enjoyed it, to the extent that I understood it. So I acted in local plays when I could. The small private Christian school with which our family became involved put on productions, and we, the family with acting experience, did much to influence the drama department. At the same time, I was becoming more involved in church. I became curious about this God, the same one to whom I had dedicated my life many years thence. So I began to ask Him to speak to me. At the age of 12, when I became more involved in the junior high groups at church, I began to pray for God to speak to me. Youth leaders who prayed with me wisely conveyed the tall order of the Lord God Almighty and said “wait”. If only I had known the theme that such a word would play on my life. Months later, when I became impatient once again to hear from the omnipotent creator of the universe, my mother mentioned to me an event at which the prophet Kim Clement (who reportedly predicted the twin towers incident) would be speaking. I knew at that point that God would speak to me at this occasion, so I agreed to go. Kim sang and played keys and prophesied, and then he pointed me out, in a repurposed movie theater, and told me that I was to be a medical doctor, that I would come up with something that, like penicillin, would be a scientific breakthrough.

I took this home and took it to heart. At the time, I was assuming that I would become a pastor. After all, that is what you do when you love God. But no, I instead aspired to do better in all of my classes. From what I understand, I did improve drastically during this time. For anyone wondering, having high aspirations does tend to help one improve themselves.

Years would go by as I learned to hear and understand what God was speaking (and I would be lying if I said that it is now an easy ordeal).

And then youth group began. I would become a leader in youth group, a leader in my school, leading in most every area within which someone at my time and place would likely become a hero. I was interested in all aspects of spiritual life. God told me, through a prophetic word at youth camp, that I was to be a missionary to Africa (among other places), and this was to be fulfilled within the year. I was exposed to demonic possessions, spiritual warfare, and, in general, an awareness that things were different beyond the level of mere eyesight.

As much as I adored this, and teaching upon spiritual gifts with junior high students, the time came for me to go to college. As with anything else thus far, it was a decision made in the Lord. John Brown University will forever remain a treasured thing in my mind. There is no place on earth that excites, challenges, and leaves you appropriately dumbfounded as that university does. During orientation weekend, I attended a small talk on study abroad courses, which would of course begin my love affair with Ireland, along with all of the other countries that I so adore.

Although I would love to go in-depth on my freshman year of college, which conceived much of what we now know as LondonSmith.com, there is something more pressing to address. The summer after my freshman year, while I was in Ireland, I learned that my parents were getting a divorce. They are both funny. They both managed things, at least somewhat, for 20-something years. But for whatever reason, the most evil of sins that I know of, a sin that Jesus took time to denounce in His rare listing of worst things, was committed by my parents; they began divorce proceedings. The next day, when I wanted to share this tragedy with the class during our prayers, two other students had friends who had died. My tragedy seemed significantly weakened in the face of that, so I held back rather than sharing.

But the divorce was the beginning of a reshaping of my world. I had a clear cut picture of right and wrong before then, but how do you reconcile such events when your parents, the ones who did so much to define your understanding of the world, do something so completely antagonistic to the beliefs that they had professed and instilled? In a way, it was fortunate that divorce was such an ugly thing. After all, what if it had all been peachy? I might have questioned why Jesus said what He did. But divorce was very much the awful thing that Jesus described; it is a foul thing, a lengthy legal process of sin that wrecks the couple getting divorced as well as the children and relationships that stemmed from it. What I learned then was that my genuine love for God and obeying Him was something different from that of others, who were amenable to the idea of God, but reluctant to change themselves in order to embrace His purpose. Well, I learned a lot of other things then too. I met some of my closest friends in the year that followed, and I found that rather than judging my parents for the blatant sin they had committed, it was better to recognize the people who had been broken by their own actions. For whatever reason, God gave me the ability to remain committed to Him in difficult times. For others, alternative actions seem appropriate in a moment, and they seem unable to comprehend the gravity of such decisions. So my parents were divorced. They justified it poorly, but those methods of reasoning would later become the methods I would use to relate to those outside of the faith.

During college, I focused on making myself well-rounded, both through traveling through study abroad programs and missions work, and through taking odd classes here and there that had no relation to my major. I took singing lessons, audio tech, creative writing, French, radio, and more that escape my memory for the moment. Everything was aimed at making myself into the perfect missionary, able to take on whatever role may be necessary in a given situation. I acted in student films, modeled for student photographers, and continued to make video blogs for a long while. I was also involved in prayer ministries. One ministry was a thing that I started when God told me to do so. Every week (on a Tuesday, I think), I would show up to the university’s “prayer room” and intercede for a long list of people. I invited others to it, but I was the only one who ever showed up. I kept this up for a full semester, I think. There was also a 24-hour prayer vigil that incorporated “prophecy rooms” in which a group of people would prophecy at you. It was hit or miss, but one time in particular was notable. They told me that change was coming academically. There would be a shift. I did not believe them, but I did document it in my blog, and it later came to fruition.

The talent show. This represented a change on so many levels. I performed what I describe as a “popper contortionist” dance routine. It was two and a half minutes of reportedly entertaining dance moves with my hypermobile joints. It was strange because unlike every other talent show in which I had performed, this was just me. No words, just dancing. Just. Me. At one point in the dance, I lean back very far, like in The Matrix, and then I come back up. I noted that my abs were shaking, so I decided to begin working out. And that, dear friends, is what started a change. It has been five years since this occasion, and I have not gotten to be a big and bulky guy, but I will say that regular working out like that thoroughly changed the way I functioned. I stopped having such wide variations in mood. My need to blog and be moody was reduced to occasional moments that were usually associated with drinking (am I doing that right now?) because my emotional state had so stabilized.

It helped me academically. I was able to focus better. I am still not gifted in this pursuit. I think I may maintain that until the end. God chose this path for me. No amount of science or logic would ever push me to undertake this. I attended a well-funded school with high academic standards, so I even had a committee assigned to myself to advise me every year regarding my professional choices, and every year, they strongly advised that I change my pursuit. I had other giftings. Science and medicine are not those giftings. I would then tell God that they made good points (I generally give God the chance to change His mind), and He would reaffirm to me that, despite everything, I was to continue to pursue this medical doctor thing. So I did.

Then I graduated. I studied for the MCAT and made about as low a score as one might expect from someone who is trash at science, and applied to Texas medical schools. I also applied to Caribbean schools. I went to South America with a doctor from my church on a medical mission trip and saw an incredible example of how the medical missionary life could work. Then I began working for a neurologist, which was fulfilling but draining due to the commute, and then told them that I would be leaving them to backpack through Europe. The year was 2014 and there was a mission trip to Belarus, so I joined my church for that and paid for travel expenses with my $11/hour earnings over the course of those eight months. For three months I traveled Europe. The point of the trip was to make me into a better human. The reasoning in my mind was that increased exposure led to a bettering of oneself, and I still believe it to be the most useful tool in that regard.

My worldviews as a Christian went through drastic transitions during that time. I was somewhere in southern Austria and was attempting to reach the eastern coast of Italy, from which I would take a ferry to Greece. I had been without much sleep (aside from what one acquires upon benches at train stations in Vienna) for two nights. The train, for which I had reserved a seat in advance, did not show. They were apparently on strike that day. I caught a train to a town on the northern border of Italy and found that the only way to reach the area of Italy to which I was heading would be to take this late train to Rome. I did not have reserved seating. I entered the train and took a seat. Someone showed me their ticket, revealing that they had reserved it. This happened several times, until I was forced into the hallway between seating areas. The hallway did have fold-out seats, but considering that this was an overnight train, such a prospect did not sit well. So I prayed. I asked God to make a way for me, to reveal one of these reservation seats to have a vacancy. None did. I tried laying down upon two fold-out seats and found that this was not a feasible way to sleep. The night wore on. Finally, I asked God to teach me whatever He was trying to teach me, since I was obviously not going to acquire sleep that evening. This was the moment at which I changed my worldview. No longer would I always consider God to be intimately involved in every situation, in every minuscule aspect of the lives of myself and everyone around me. In order to make it through that night, I needed to imagine God in a less involved role. This taught me that those theological debates surrounding such views of God were kind of foolish; similarly to the issue of denominations, each situation and personality requires a different perspective toward God, and it is okay if these perspectives change according to a situation. God never changes, but the way we perceive Him may. And that is okay.

A few months later, I would begin my journey through medical school in the Caribbean. For tonight, I am unsure of whether I can stand to elaborate upon it. It changed me so deeply. I have tried to put a nice spin on it, but if I am honest, I feel that it robbed me of so much of myself, of my morals, of my beliefs, of my love for life, that I would have been better off doing anything else. But God sent me there, so it is undoubtedly a critical aspect of my world that impacted me in such a way as to make me that well-rounded person that He desires for me to be. I have so many awful things to say about that place, so I will skip over much, because it does not contribute to the point of what I am writing. I was exposed to the culture of Muslims. They were kind and religious. They prayed at the specific times of day, which would interrupt class or dinner, and then they would be people. I learned what I could about them and their faith. It was the first time that I had met someone who knew absolutely nothing of Christianity. For two years, I lived in this geographical and social isolation. Sure, I made friends with a fellow Christian Texan, but he was far superior to me academically, so I saw him a lot less after I had to withdraw from a class. The point remains that I experienced this form of isolation. I was without white privilege for those two years. Ferguson happened during my first semester. The election campaigns began during my second year. I began to view my own religion with suspicion. Christ was still Christ, but Christians? They appeared as racist and hateful as the worst of humanity. And when I returned to the States, these fears were affirmed. Trump was spoken of in glowing terms.

This brings us to the last year, the year that would wreck me.. I had spent two years away from church because I did not have a car on the island. And, let’s face it, I was busy studying. I watched sermons every week, but that is hardly the same. When I returned home though, I was ready to reconnect with my old church and find my footing… but it was not to be. The election was in full swing. I was at my suddenly very noticeably white church and though no pastor mentioned Trump, I certainly heard Trump keywords in what they said. How could any church leader speak without first clarifying that they strongly disagree with the words and actions committed by the racist bigot who would later take office? Since I saw no attempts to address this, I left that church. Perhaps it was cruel, but my convictions felt strong, and I felt as if the Holy Spirit was telling me to leave that church. Well, more accurately, it felt wrong to stay. That was perhaps the worst part. My favorite place in the world was the church. But at this point, the church distinctly felt like a place that would tolerate actions and words that Jesus absolutely would not. For that reason, I left.

I continued to read my Bible every day and stream sermons on Sunday, but I was no longer trusting of the church. For much of my life, I have felt like too many people and pursuits put into one person, but this was the first time that the representation of the only constant and pure thing in my life appeared to have let me down. As one pastor, who still maintained that his vote was still in the right for his convictions, said that the church had traded away its witness in this election.  And as someone who needed a Christian community more than I had ever needed it in times past, my love for Jesus led me to distance myself from the church. When I participated in a study program, I was well-liked because I primarily criticized my own race, gender, and members of my faith. Unlike many fellow Christians, my academic peers were the only community that I had found who could easily recognize that the president’s words and actions were both blatantly antagonistic toward the teachings and actions of Jesus.

In an effort to find community of some kind, I moved back to Arkansas over the summer. I studied and, during days or hours off, I would befriend people. It was easy and I had missed it.

And then there was a pretty lady who, by a careful survey of social media, no longer appeared to be dating the hunk that she had been with. Summer was waning, she had begun nursing school, and I was studying hard for the exam that will continue to define much of my life. But instead of normal small talk via text, we prayed for one another. Something within me that I had suppressed for so long was stirring. The irony is that what I had suppressed is precisely what guided me into all of these foreign environments that inspired such suppression in the first place. The stirring continued, still suppressed in the name of studying, but I recognized its presence. After my test, and after a road trip that served to distract until I would receive my failing scores, I met up with her for the first time since New Years. Another beloved activity that had been suppressed was dancing. It largely because of me that ballroom dance had been offered as an elective at my high school; I loved to do it. But similarly to what had happened to my previously ingrained habits of following the whispers and stirrings of the Holy Spirit, I had fallen out of practice. The things I had most enjoyed had been pushed aside for the sake of becoming what God intended for me to be. As I went to a few other events with her, I continued to be hit with realizations regarding how much I needed to be honest with myself and recognize that this is a transition period for me.

After one of those events, I asked God whether I should date her. I had only asked Him this twice before. I was unsure of whether I liked her. It is like when I go to Europe and try on clothes, and I suddenly want to buy everything because everything fits my narrow frame; I rarely made a purchase on my first day visiting the store, and if I did, it would be after spending far too much time calibrating my mind to these wonders. In a similar fashion, I was not sure (and still am not) of whether I was overreacting because I finally found an attractive female who loves God and does not smoke. She just happens to fulfill a lot of other hopeful standards as well. In any case, I asked God and, here is the kicker: he responded. Fortunately, He did not have any response regarding the lady of interest. Rather, He spewed a deluge of ministry ideas revolving around bars and reaching fellow young people. The channel had been reopened and God had a lot to say, and I had her influence to thank for it, though I am unsure of how much I should actually thank her for in person.

As I reach an age at which my personality is solidifying, I recognize the need to reconnect to my spiritually aware roots. It unfortunately requires a hefty amount of thinking, processing, and writing, but avoiding it would have been as stupid as avoiding all of the travel and isolation that has shaped me into this well-rounded creature that I have become. Along with the spiritual roots, I am going to try to engage in my other lost loves again, with acting and modeling and such. After I retake this test, I will finally have the freedom to do so.

I have not proofread this, and I must admit that I was not sober for the entirety of it…or much of it. And I did not read as I wrote, just lowered the laptop screen and let the words bubble out. I wanted an honest take, a free flow of expression that was not put through my usual layers of filters. Hopefully it was so (though the last few paragraphs were absolutely not as free a flow).