Spring always seems to bring the exact same feeling every year. As I walk around Cody Park, I can remember walking around the campus at USF, feeling just like this.
If you go outside and walk on the grass, you'll find that the ground if over saturated. Full of the recent rains and the winter thaw, the water has no place to go, so it just sits there, waiting to be utilized by the grass.
Back when I was in college, the thaw and rain signified finals and the end of the school year. I would walk across the quad every spring feeling just like the grass. All of this knowledge sitting in my head, but so overwhelmed and over saturated, that it just sat there, waiting to be utilized.
Now, two years after I graduated from college, I'm walking around this half way decent park in North Platte, feeling the same way, but different. Since 2004, I have spent a summer working at the Black Hills Playhouse; an experience that I absolutely loved and despised at the same time. I lived and breathed theater for three months, but the sex and the booze and the lifestyle was more than I expected or could process at the time. I still am in the process of working through everything that I experienced that summer.
For eight months last school year, I traveled in an ugly green van with one amazing lady for the fall, and a dear friend for the spring. At times, these women brought out the best in me. They were my best friends and most days the only familiar face I would see for a month. Of course we had our frustrations and difficult kids and irritated parents, bad weather, a broken window, homesickness, jealousy, and even one big blow out, but at the end of the day, I loved knowing that my partner and I could make a difference in at least one child's life.
Now, for the past 12 months, I have worked tirelessly as the General Manager of the North Platte Community Playhouse in my hometown. Everyday I learn something new that I didn't know that I was supposed to do. I am over saturated with information on midwest theater, theater management, dealing with difficult personalities, how to enjoy everyone that walks in the door, and how to better myself.
All of my work information sets on top of all of the stuff that I am continuing to learn about myself. With every breath I take I face new revelation about how to be a wife, a daughter, a volunteer, a role model, and a woman. And I know someday I will have to add the knowledge of being a mother to my list of things to keep track of.
So now, here in May of 2010, I feel the same way I did in college, over saturated with knowledge. I have many times heard the phrase "Too much of a good thing can sometimes be bad." Does that phrase ever ring true for knowledge? Is it possible to have too much stuff in your head? Its keeping me awake at night.
So, this over saturated grass metaphor. Let's look at it in a different context. I know that I seem to talk about this subject a lot, but its honest to goodness how I feel almost all of the time right now. Right now, I feel like the water just sitting in the ground, waiting to be utilized by the grass. I feel like I am just floating around waiting to be utilized by God. I'm completely clueless. Every once in a while, the sun comes out and a little bit of the rain dries up and the grass needs me; working with the beautiful girls that come week after week to Epicenter youth group, song writing with Greg, performing with the semi-currently named Tikvah, holding Sophie and talking with Lisa, and making my husband smile. These are the moments that I finally feel utilized by God. These moments are becoming more frequent, but still farther apart than I would really like. The few songs that I have written cry out to be utilized more. So, in spite of the difficulties that comes with living in North Platte and working for a 501(c)(3) and having to deal with people who sometimes don't like me and some who expect too much from me, I will dredge on, waiting for the glimpses of the sun (or Son) and attempting to live in and for His glory.
Enjoy the windy, stormy, and humid weather. Good things are coming. I love you all.
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