crazy days

Things I've learned since last weekend (this includes the retreat and the jaw infection):

• "How am I going to find you a husband if you're going to spend all your time running away from convents?"
• Do not be afraid! It might not even be scary, and whether it is or not, He is with you always.
• If you cannot love or cannot express your love, ask God how much he loves you and allow him to answer. When you are full of his love, you can overflow onto other people.
• [G] is a really good friend, and I've greatly underestimated his loyalty.
• Your body has plenty of ways other than physical pain to tell you to slow down. Physical, mental and social exhaustion are three of them.
• When everyone else is telling you that you look like a dead rat and you should skip classes and go to sleep, that is not the time to be tough. Sometimes you actually are weak.
• Darby is a really good friend, and I haven't known her long enough to underestimate her (I don't think).
• My antipathy toward pharmaceuticals is rooted in a need for control, and I need to give up that control sometimes. Not do heroin, but just take the dang antibiotics.
• I need to be willing to give up anything if Christ asks. Including friends. The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord! Parents, when they send their children off into the world, give back to God what God has given them. I can do the same with my departing friends. Let them go, and if God wills it, he will give them back to me.
• I can decline agricola and pray multilingually while sedated.
• God's love is like the crazy powerful ocean, and we're all just little Dutch boys with our fingers in the wall, afraid to let him in. Because we know that his love is a crashing, powerful surf that will sweep us off our feet and send us somewhere we don't know. And we'll have to change. But we have to trust him and let his love flood us: otherwise we can't let it overflow into other people.
• If you're afraid, look satan straight in the eye and ask him what, specifically, you're afraid of. He probably won't have an answer. Call on St. Michael and tell satan to f--- off and you'll be fine.
• Play fighting is an expression of love, probably because we're all afraid to tell someone directly how much we love them.
• I might not have had as much pride as I'd thought resting on that prank. Maybe it was an elaborate expression of love. And maybe it was my heart, not my pride, that was angry when the whole thing was ignored.
• "Mary, I see how you work. You're more complex than that. You're not that simple."
• Everyone is shy. Everyone is afraid. No one knows what it's like to be the bad man behind blue eyes, but we all know what it's like. The only remedy is Christ's love.
• It all hinges on love. Everything.
• [G] is a much stronger, more mature man than I gave him credit for.
• We are all called to holiness, but we aren't all called to famous holiness.
• Empty antibiotic capsules are fun to play with.
• There are real deer, deer that run away from you when you're on the other side of the field, in Hillsdale County.
• Christ has no body now but yours, and when I fall, he can use your arms to catch me if you let him. And if he is giving me your arms, I should let him.
• "Why are you running away from men? You are running away from me."
• Any love I give anyone is merely His love. I am a pitcher of water. If I let him fill me up, then I will overflow and spill onto everyone else. I can't love on my own, but I can be a window showing His love. Let my soul magnify the Lord!
• Other people are windows, too, and I need to let them love me.
• It's all about love. Everything.

I have a theory that the most important things I'll learn in college are not academic things. Well look at that. I went to one class all week and look what I learned.