The only certainty is bad grammar – Page 34 – Too personal for the internet.

The tired person’s lunch-break rant

Published: April 17, 2012 / Updated: April 17, 2012 Crystal feminism?, god, long

So, I was up until 2 a.m. last night putting final touches on the gift baskets that will be auctioned off tonight at the youth group fundraiser.

I’m really excited about the fundraiser, (Shameless plug: Mission trip fundraiser 6-9 p.m. at bd’s Mongolian Grill in Bolingbrook tonight will feature myself, my awesome pastor and the our wonderful youth helper-outer grilling for tips. And, also, of course, the silent auction baskets. Please come!)

There are nine baskets and I put 8 of them together with help from my little sister and a wonderful student in our youth group. I did not ask for donations or help from adults because I’m on the brink time-management wise and I seriously did not have one ounce of one minutes to go around asking people for things only to be rejected by a solid 65% of them. So I made the infamous rookie leader mistake and took control of the task myself.

I know. I’m dumb.

So now, I’m at work (on lunch) and really tired. Because, even with the help from my little sister and a wonderful youth student, there were still hours worth of work that had to be done last night before the event. You don’t think making bid sheets, little name cards along with corresponding envelopes for the baskets, and figuring out what to do with the last 11 items that don’t match at all will be hard or time consuming until you spend four hours on it.

The thing is, I promise you I did not have four hours to spend on it until 10 p.m. last night.

I can feel myself being overcome with exhaustion because I’m starting to get mad in my head at inanimate objects. I feel the urge to yell at the top of my lungs at my cell phone when it doesn’t load DrawSomething right, and to scream at my car when the doors don’t unlock the split second I press the key chain button, and to throw a complete tantrum when my towel gets stuck as I try to pull it off the towel holder after my shower.

Really, the problem is that I also was up until 2 a.m. Saturday night trying to get my youth group lessons finished. I got stuck because my DVD conversion program was randomly converting an MP4 file I needed upside down and backward and the whole internet world did not seem to contain the cause for such craziness, much less a solution.

So I was up half the night messing computer programs that people with my skill set probably shouldn’t even be downloading on to their computer for fear of viruses, all in an attempt to show a 5 minutes and 39 second sand-art video of the Resurrection story.

I finally got the thing to play correctly on a DVD at 7:30 a.m., after I woke at 6 a.m., prayed a bunch and worked at it again. Take that Satan.

You’ll probably all, “Crystal, um maybe you should have started working on the youth lesson sooner so you wouldn’t have these problems.”

But again, I promise you with all my heart that I did not have time before Saturday night to finalize the lesson plans. You’ll have to take my word for it regarding the weekdays, but to illustrate the craziness that was my Saturday, here’s what my scheduled looked like:

8 a.m.: Got my taxes done. Yay because I got them prepared for free at my best friend’s job, which offers tax prep services. But boo because I own the federal government $467 dollars because having two jobs effs up your withholdings.

9 a.m.: Skype conference call for a Christian board I serve on. I had hoped to participate using my new web cam, but A. I did not get done with my tax appointment on time, so I had to take the call on my cell and then try to focus on the meeting without making too much noise with my turn signal and B. Even when I did get to my house and switch over to my computer, I realized that group video chat is different than normal video chat and you have to pay for it, so I still couldn’t use my webcam.

11:30 a.m.: Doctor’s appointment in Joliet.

Post doctor’s appointment until 5 p.m.: Finish buying all the random things I needed for the aforementioned silent auction baskets.

5:30 p.m.: Leave for a (really awesome and fun!!!) event at my church.

9:30 p.m.: Finally sit down to finish my youth group lessons.

And, just like making silent auction baskets, putting final touches on lesson plans is the kind of task you don’t think should take very long, and then you look up and you’ve spent seven hours doing it.

I will tell you that putting in the extra effort on the youth lesson was totally worth it, and that the group is doing so amazing right now and that lately there’s been a lot of fruit (in the Biblical sense) and that the kids seem to really be understanding things in new ways and by extension, I’m learning to understand things in new ways and it’s so wonderful that I truly can’t understand why the whole world isn’t a youth leader.

And I will also tell you that fundraising for mission trips is more than worth it because mission trips are little pockets of time where you and everyone with you is somehow able to physically touch the holy spirit and nothing is more amazing.

But I will also tell you that I’m giving the sermon at church this weekend (approx prep time needed: 40 hours total) and that I have to plan a night lesson for next Sunday night and that our youth group is changing rooms and has to be out by next week and so I have to somehow find time before Sunday to take care of that and that, really, I’m just extremely tired.

And when I close my eyes to pray over my lunch, I will mostly likely fall asleep for 10 seconds.

I just hope Heaven is the kind of place where no matter what you do, you always feel like you’ve had a full night’s sleep.

My Easter Prayer.

Published: April 8, 2012 / Updated: April 9, 2012 Crystal god, medium

Editor’s note: This is the prayer I wrote for the Easter services at my church.

Dear Lord,

Today we remember your grace, mercy and love.
We remember your son, who you sent as our dove.

We reflect on the suffering he endured for our debt.
It’s gift that we pray we will never we forget.

Because we understand that our debt was substantial.
And we pray we will always be humbly grateful.

Jesus hung on the cross, and bleed for our sin.
He was beaten, and tortured and endured wounds on his skin.

But, the story, we know, didn’t end with the grave.
Instead, your son, the whole world he did save.

Through his resurrection, we gained access to eternal existence.
And suddenly your presence wasn’t at a great distance.

Jesus offered us all true unity with you.
And gave us a chance to each be made new.

So we rejoice, and shout: He is risen!
We are no longer bound by sin’s mighty prison!

But we also know that this world is still broken.
And that many have not yet heard the good news that’s been spoken.

So, we pray for the sick, the poor and the sad.
We pray for the lonely, the hungry, the mad.

We pray for the people who need it the most.
That they might be touched by your holy ghost.

We also, today, pray for the people who don’t think they need it all.
We know that prayer’s need is never that small.

And we pray for those who are still in the dark.
We ask that you’ll help them see your wrists, feel your marks.

Lord, we ask that they too can tap into your peace.
And truly understand that your love does not cease.

We pray that, like your son, we can be a light in the night.
We pray that as followers, we can shine even 1/100th as bright.

And, we ask all these things in Jesus’ name.
Because after He rose, everything changed.

Amen.

My best friend got engaged!!!!!

Published: March 23, 2012 / Updated: March 23, 2012 Crystal feminism?, god, medium, Wow

My very best friend in the whole world got engaged last week! YAY APRIL!!!

And I’m the maid of honor!!! OMG!!!!!

We’ve been friends since she was days away from turning 13 and I was 15.

We met when one day, when this girl Shari and I decided to go knock on April’s door to ask if she wanted to walk to Dominick’s with us to buy ice cream. April had just moved in to the neighborhood and even back then I was uncomfortably friendly, and so, I did random things like show up unannounced at random doors, and ask the people who lived there if they’d like to go to the store with me and my friend Shari.

Lucky for us all, April said, “Umm, sure.” You know, as opposed to “Who the F*ck are you? Where’s my gun?!!”

If you added up all the hours we all spent together that summer, you’d get infinity. That’s how summers feel when you’re old enough to leave the house alone, but not old enough to need a job. Infinite. I do not even understand how we all fantastically wasted away as much time together as we did, but I suspect Monopoly, the card game Speed and discussions about boys helped immensely.

It’s been about exactly 13 years since then now.

13 years.

Wow.

In that time, April and I have both graduated college, lived in our own apartments, lived together in one apartment, dated hundreds of boys and spent years on the phone together. We’ve both gotten excited about alcohol and then over it, dived into the skinny jean trend and stuck with it, and grown deeper into our faith.

Deep down though, neither of us will ever fully shake the teenage girl inside us. Or at least I hope we won’t. Because those girls are SO EXCITED!!! right now about April’s wedding. They are smiling, and laughing, and speaking our secret language, and crying about the joy of it all.

And they are praying as hard as they can that peace and joy and blessings will follow us for many years to come.

So congratulations April!! You have found your one true love and I’m so happy for you that I could jump up and down and fart right now with pure glee!

Here’s to the best wedding ever!