But in the midst of my homesickness (yes, I’ll admit it), I am stunned and amazed at how God is providing for my every need.  A wonderful gate agent on Sunday who helped me get two 53-pound (and overweight bags) through the checking process with a sympathetic smile and explanation that her daughter goes to school out East and “it is so hard to get everything you need out there.”  A dear friend who ferried me around the city and helped me haul those two overweight bags, Amazon shipments, and thirteen Target bags up to my new home.  An unexpected freezer in my room.  A welcome dinner on Monday night.  A “nook” outside my advisor’s office — a space of my own with a window that lets in the morning light.  A mailbox.  And internet today!

I’ve started each morning with coffee in this beautiful mug from jd’s wife and oatmeal in this beautiful bowl, a Christmas present from another dear friend who gave it to me so that I’d be cheered when “eating alone.”  I love my little 4-cup coffee pot, my routine.  Slowly but surely, I’m feeling settled and, dare I say, at home.

Ivory vinyl curtains.  Mint green polyester “bedspread.”  The anticipated “cable television” looks as old as I am (and nothing but static as of yet).  But there are positives.

Very-nice Brazilian PhD visiting student bathroom-sharing-neighbor.  Spacious closet and “kitchen” shelving.  Refrigerator that works so well it froze my milk by morning.  Windows that let in the sunrise.   And the perfect hooks to hang my twine/clothespin JPJD-shrine.

“After” pictures below, and more to come soon.

Bedroom

Office

Kitchenette

Turns out, these two appliances were most vital to our survival (and social interaction) our freshman year.  The hot pot supplied the tea, and the refrigerator the milk.

We devoted precious drawer space to our “tea collection,” and welcomed many a guest into the lands of Earl Grey (or Lady Grey, depending on the mood), English Breakfast, Mango Ceylon, Spicy Chai, Bengal Spice, varieties of Green, and during the holiday season, Tazo “Joy.”  The collection increased with each trip to Wal-Mart, care packages from  home, and trips to Dean & Deluca over spring break.

The refrigerator was good for more than just milk, I’m sure, although that’s the mainstay I remember.  When we couldn’t bribe a friend or hallmate-with-car to take us to Wal-Mart, we’d sneak Styrofoam cups of 2% (the essential fatty-ness for a decent cup of tea) out of Saga.  Actually, it wasn’t sneaking.  We paid dearly for the horrid food in our room and board, and the milk was, I think, the best thing we got out of that cafeteria.  Tea without milk (except in the case of said-Green) was unacceptable.

Although the refrigerator has gone to other siblings/friends, the hot pot is still with me.  Mostly unused the past five years (rejected for a stove/tea kettle), it is now packed in my suitcase for the semester away.  After three years of college and five years in the basement storage, it is still going strong.

It won’t be the same, though.  Nothing will ever compare to that freshman year in the back of Olds.

SIBDIN (sibling dinner) last Saturday.  My sister is the photographer-extraordinare, so I leave all the “real” photos to her.

Aren’t those napkins gorgeous?  I keep telling Mamma Mia that she needs to open an Etsy shop (or contract with Anthropologie).  I am bringing them with me to Philadelphia, no joke.  I will be eating in style.

He is not surprised by anything, big or small.  He holds my times and my days in His hands (Psalm 31:15).  He goes before me.  He commands me to fear not, comforting me and sustaining me by His right hand (Isaiah 41:10).  By His death on the cross, He has rescued me from His wrath; what shall separate me from the love of God? (Romans 8:39).

Over the past few days, He has shown His tender mercy and abundant provision to JPJD and me in ways we could not have expected.  Just as I prepare to leave, God reminds me of His steadfast love and magnificent grace.  He is faithful in the past, He has been faithful in the last 24 hours, and He will continue to faithful.

Today as I pack.  Sunday as I get on the plane and move in.  Tuesday when I start my job.  He is faithful.

“O God, we have heard with our ears,

our fathers have told us,

what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old . . .

for not by their own sword did they win the land,

nor did their own arm save them,

but your right hand and your arm,

and the light of your face,

for you delighted in them.”

Psalm 44:1, 3

The basic premise: pick 30 clothing items (sans undergarments) and mix/match them for 30 days, using said items only.  You can read more about it here (and get some remix-by-season inspiration here).  It’s a fun idea, I think.

Anyway, my packing this week has felt a bit like a 30 by four-month remix.  Black or brown?  How many things does a navy blazer really go with?  Dress clothes?  Gym shoes?  There is only so much you can fit into two suitcases and a carry-on.  Truth be told, I don’t need that much, and I can switch out clothing by seasons between JPJD’s visits and my spring break jaunt home.  But I want to be prepared and not spend all my free time in the basement doing laundry.

Thus begins my semester away.

And why, you ask?

My advisor is going to Philadelphia this coming semester to work with another scholar on a book on presidential rhetoric and foreign policy, and she asked me to work for them as a research assistant.  I’m excited, humbled, a little anxious, and sad.  Excited to spend a semester immersing myself in presidential rhetoric, humbled to work for/with such exceptional scholars, anxious because of the unknowns (and the 11′ x 14′ room might have something to do with it), and sad… because I’ll be away from my best friend.

When the opportunity to do this came along, JPJD was even more enthusiastic about it than I was.  ”Of course you need to go!” he said.  During this whole graduate school process (applying, reapplying, getting in, starting, teaching, researching, thesis-writing), he has been my biggest cheerleader and encourager.  I wouldn’t be doing any of this without him, and I’m only embarking on this “semester away” because he is behind me, pushing me, and believing in me.  No “opportunity” is worth sacrificing my relationship with him.

So, if you’re up for an adventure, this blog will take a new turn the next few weeks.  I’ll be updating this week as I pack up my life (JPJD refers to it as “sending my baby to college”), fly to a new city, and embark on four months of presidential rhetoric, U.S.-history-sightseeing, and weekend jaunts around the East Coast.  Oh yes, we have grand plans (including a romantic rendezvous in New York City).

But for now, I’m concentrating on making our house a happy home, filling our freezer with meals, having almost every piece of clothing clean, and relishing every moment with my man before Sunday morning.  It’s the least I can do.

I’ll explain more in the next few days, but I’m in the midst of cooking meals – a lot of meals.  On Wednesday, I met a friend at Costco and purchased 25 pounds of meat.  Ground beef, beef stew meat, ground turkey, rotisserie chickens.  Lots of meat.  I’m married to a meat-loving man.  Yesterday I chopped and sautéed and cooked while listening to the live stream of Passion 2012.  Right now we have over 20 meals in the freezer.  My goal is 50+ by next Friday.

Thanks to a “cash reward” from Pottery Barn (JPJD calls it the so-you-buy-stuff-to-make-money-??? incentive), I had a coupon.  A coupon.  Free money.  We went over together on JPJD’s day off and came home with these happy and spring-y paperwhite bulbs.  January in Minnesota requires a little spring pick-me-up.

They help brighten up the mantle, I think.  We also found (and eradicated) the source of the lingering smoke smell.  Turns out, the burnt plastic settled on the tops of our cupboards in the kitchen.  We spent New Year’s Eve cleaning, and JPJD went to town with pledge and paper towels.  One can and two rolls later, I’m happy to report the smell is gone.

Amid the meal planning/cooking/shopping, cleaning, laundry, (spring) decorating, I’m also assembling a pile in my office.

It’s more of a pile to pack.

“How about oatmeal,” JPJD suggested.  Great idea.  We both love oatmeal, and it’s the perfect comfort food (with walnuts and raisins and cinnamon and brown sugar, of course) when winter strikes Minnesota.

I ran to the kitchen, put the water on the stove, measured out the oatmeal, and came back to our room.  We planned to curl up with books in bed.  A few minutes later, a strange smell started wafting through the house.  Probably just the water heating up, I thought.  Famous last thoughts.

I sauntered into the kitchen, only to find the carefully measured plastic cup filled with oatmeal, half melted on the stove, with the contents a charred mixture of smoke, melted plastic, and burnt oats.  A thick, choking, blinding smoke furled up from the burner.  Yes, I had turned on the wrong burner of our glass top stove.  Yes, I had left the measuring cup on the stove.  And yes, the happy little pot of water sat untouched on the back burner.  Yes.  Awesome.

“Babe!”  I called frantically.  ”BABE!”

“What?”  He answered.

By this time, he made it into the kitchen.  Smoke was quickly filling up the kitchen, dining room, and living room.  It took me a moment to remember that the smoke needed to get out of the house, and then we flew around opening windows, doors, and turning on microwave fans (but not before we had started breathing in the smoke… and thus, choking uncontrollably).

If you had been a fly on the wall (or even a neighbor next door), I am sure the sight was rather comical.  Sparks flying from the stove, half a plastic measuring cup being thrown into the sink, burnt oats falling to the floor, us running around in our pajamas, frantic.  I hope you never experience this fact, but burnt plastic is really, well, just an awful smell.  Awful.  And it spreads quickly.

After two hours of clean-up, we limped (or coughed, rather) back to bed, without our oatmeal.  We left the windows open, and huddled under the covers since it was below freezing outside.  It was a long night.  In the morning, JPJD went off to work, and I drove to Wal-Mart in search of supplies.  Apparently coffee grounds, vinegar, and boiled lemon peels help get rid of the smell.  Word of advice — don’t waste the money.  Later that day, as I went to school, held office hours, and taught my class, I kept wondering, “Do they smell it?  Do I reek of burnt plastic?”  When my office-mate and colleague complimented me on my “new perfume,” I felt a bit better (although deep down wondering if it was one of those compliments designed to, well, ignore the obvious).

Sigh.

Thankfully, by Wednesday morning, the do-I-smell-like-smoke insecurity had subsided and I wasn’t constantly dwelling on my body odor as I spoke about Franklin D. Roosevelt and the “Fireside Chats.”

At least we can laugh about it now.

Steve Jobs: “He Knew the Couple of Things He Wanted to Do”

Steve Jobs, the biography by Walter Isaacson, went on sale yesterday. In an interviewIsaacson commented on the effect Jobs’ cancer had on his life focus.

He talked a lot to me about what happened when he got sick and how it focused him. He said he no longer wanted to go out, no longer wanted to travel the world. He would focus on the products. He knew the couple of things he wanted to do, which was the iPhone and then the iPad.

Wisdom in the House of Mourning

I just preached at a funeral. Funerals are high privileges for me. “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). So much wisdom is to be had there. “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). This is what the house of mourning is for: Lessons in mortality and the learning of wisdom.

Sometimes God makes us go to the house of mourning. He decrees cancer. We are forced to live in the shadow of our funeral—the school of wisdom.

The wisdom Steve Jobs learned, he said, was this: Do a couple things, and do them well. You don’t have time for much. And most of things are not lasting. So do two or three things, and do them amazingly.

Not a bad lesson. In fact, really good—as far as it goes.

What Matters Is United in One Thing

But when Paul described what he learned in the long shadow of his own funeral, it was based not merely on the inevitability of death, but on the death of death. “Death is swallowed up in victory”—through Jesus Christ.

Here’s the lesson: “Therefore, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

There is one thing, not two or three, that matters. All is united in one thing: “The work of the Lord.” It might be computers. It might be conversions. Whatever it is, in the shadow of your funeral, let it be “the work of the Lord.”

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23). “Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “Whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord” (Colossians 3:17). By faith in Jesus, every act becomes this one thing—the work of the Lord.

Let Us Learn

Get the wisdom of the house of mourning. Learn from the shadow of your own funeral. One thing matters. Whether you make an iPhone, or use an iPhone, let every breath, every thought, every deed be one thing—the “work of faith”—the work of the Lord.