rants & God questions

I'm hiding in my room at the moment with my Anberlin (who I should be seeing tomorrow at Cornerstone but can't afford to go, sigh) blaring. My mom is watching this freakshow televangelist who updates weekly regarding progress on Biblical prophesies and the rapture and a bunch of other crap that really upsets me. He said the biggest promise in the bible is the rapture. I was just thinking how damn ungrateful you have to be to focus your religion on that. This guy never once mentions how fortunate we are just to be alive, he just talks about this fallen, evil world. There are so many people who would love the chance to be here a little longer, who would actually appreciate the life God's given instead of spending all the time talking about some vague life to come. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.

I had a bad job interview today. It was for an administrative job that I was definitely not qualified for. It would have been great because it's at a retirement home who also just recently got into the hospice business as well, so that could have been great networking. Anyway three ladies interviewed me asking me all sorts of intricate questions about my past experience and projects I've completed and taken the lead on, and I couldn't help thinking all I've done the 7 years I've been working is take direction from other people and follow through. I'm good at following orders. Now I find myself in a job environment where it's not enough just to be a good worker and listen to your boss. I felt like a 10 year old interviewing with them, in my 30 dollar pinstriped pants and 12 dollar Payless heels with them in their designer suits and stuff.

I don't take well to feeling inferior. I guess I've felt it so much in my life growing up I thought adulthood would be different. It's not. I was wondering today what I would have to show for my life if I died tomorrow. I couldn't come up with much, nothing that seems significant anyway. It makes me think of the Bible verse in James that talks about our life being a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. In its context, it is a warning against boasting about tomorrow and the things you will do, assuming you have control over tomorrow. I can't help but wonder if the verse means we're pretty inconsequential – we're here, and then we're six feet in the ground, to be remembered for a couple generations and then forgotten. I suppose that is okay with me, too. Then on the other hand maybe it is just human to want to a nice little list of accomplishments (or things to "show for" my life) to show I succeeded at anything. That seems like a pretty egoistic thing to want and maybe that is missing the point. When I think about a list of what I have to show for my life all I come up with are things I have failed at. I wonder what God would have me think about my life, if God was here to talk to me in the midst of all these ponderings. I kind of hope God would rip up the list and tell me I am not my mistakes. I bet God would say something like, I can tell you're trying here but refraining from making waves so that people won't dislike you isn't exactly what I made you for. That is, if God is the God I think he (or she… heck, I think God transcends gender but I'm so used to "He" that that's what I'll use) is. I wonder a lot if God is disappointed in our failures or proud of our attempts. If anybody has any thoughts on this subject I would love to hear them.

By way of venting, I have been a big mess of emotion lately. I wish I could blame it on female related issues but I certainly can't. Yesterday I woke up after a terrible dream and spent most of the morning having random outbursts of tears, and then cried probably every couple hours the rest of the day. I cried over Simon Birch (Bri, do you remember making me watch that movie? I think you're the one who forced me to see it…) and then watching Veronica Mars with Niles. Then today I cried cutting onions LOL – not my fault – and watching One Tree Hill when Peyton's birth mother dies. I haven't cried hardly at all in the last months so perhaps I am making up for all the times I held it in. Either way I would sort of like to not be a mess anymore. Here's hoping.

Oh, I did do a couple things well today. I made great brownies from scratch and I made meatloaf. I looked through a cookbook to see if there was something I could make in the next couple days but it's kinda hard when you only know what half of the ingredients are or where the heck to find them in a grocery store.

Laters.