It seems crazy, but it's really not.

Much going on. Applied for my visa, started packing, began working on the new Israel blog. It'll look great soon, and I'll post the link for that very soon. My cousins are in from Hong Kong, so we've been over at my grandparent's house hanging out with them. We've watched a lot of Doctor Who, which I have fallen in love with. Fantastic show. Will talk more about it at some point later. Got my dad into Doctor Who too. Heh. Nearly finished painting the room. Some friends are coming in from Washington soon to visit, and I haven't seen them in... 2 years or so. Minus Skype calls. :)

I added little stickies to my computer keyboard so I can type in Hebrew without puzzling over which key is which. *grin* Summer classes are almost finished, just a project and an exam left.

This post is rather short, because it's been a while since I posted, but I'm spending most of my energy considering some rather deep things that, frankly, I should have dealt with before now. Prayer for that would be fantastic. I may write an ambiguous blog post about it later; we'll see. Depends on how well this goes in the meantime.

שלום
Sarah

Let it go, and let it be

It seems that recently, the future has been taunting me. It has been out there saying, "Haha, Sarah! You can't catch me!" I can't catch the future, true, but the point is that I have been thinking a lot about the future.

I don't know the future (surprise, surprise), so I rarely step out and say specifically that I want to be somewhere in the future. But sometimes I have to do that. For instance, I had to think ahead when I declared my major, and when I decided on a minor. I had to think ahead in choosing my school.

But now, I've had to think ahead in where I might want to live. What? That's crazy, I say. I barely know what I want to do. I don't know who I'm going to marry. How can I think about that? Because it's not just about me.

I'm not going to go into all the details, and that's not why I came here for. When I started looking into how far certain jobs were to this place, I felt myself go into overdrive, and became completely overwhelmed.

Lord, this is crazy stuff. What shall I do?
Never mind. Let it go, and trust me.
But, God, I don't know what to do!
I said to stop worrying about it and to trust me.
But...
Dearest, let go. You are not strong enough to go through this. Let me do it instead. Don't you trust me?
Well, yes, but...
Then listen to me and do what I'm asking. Stop worrying. Don't be overwhelmed.
I don't want to let anyone down.
Don't worry about that.

And when the waves crash over me and I sigh heavily, trying to hold passion back, He comes and pokes me gently saying, "Let it go. Trust me. I've got your back. We can get through this together. You're not alone."

Let it go, and let it be.

Surely the God of all creation knows what He is doing. Surely He has plans for good and not for harm. Surely He knows our hearts and what we desire most.

That doesn't make giving it all up any less easy. It doesn't mean viewing the future won't make us shudder in fear. It means that when we shudder in fear or pain, He is with us, trying to help us let go and let Him be in charge. :)

"When you pass through the waters, I am there. You are mine."

Birds fly, some return

A couple weeks ago, I subscribed to a blog called "Embrace Grace." It's a ministry for young pregnant mothers in the church, and it provides them with a community and mentors to be with them through the journey of pregnancy and either adoption or mommyhood. I bring this up because this morning, the post began with a lovely quote by Bishop TD Jakes that really struck me hard:

"There are people who can walk away from you, and hear me when I tell you this! When people can walk away from you, let them walk. I don't want you to try to talk another person into staying with you, loving you, calling you, caring about you, coming to see you; or staying attached to you. Your destiny is never tied to anyone who left."

Wow. I've heard the analogy of "Like a bird, if it returns to you, it's yours, but if it doesn't, it never was" but this is more concrete than birds flying.

"Let them walk..." This must be the hardest part. When someone becomes so close to me, I want to cling them close, but that's not what I should do. We should hold them in open hands, so that if they choose to go, they may.

I've tried to convince someone to stay several times. That actually made them push away and leave more than ever.

Can I say I've learned my lesson? I hope. I hope that those I love now stick around because they really love me. I hope that I stick around for those whom I love. And I hope that if the time comes for them to fly off, that I can let them fly.

Will you let them fly too? If you don't, you'll never know if they were meant to return...

Notice

It has come to my attention that some of you wanting to comment cannot. As in, you type up your comment nice and pretty, click publish, and then it disappears into oblivion.

I have not forgotten you! This evening I sat down with a friend, equipped with Skype, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and tabs of Blogger, Troubleshooting Blogger, and Keith Green (what? Gotta listen to something. :D). And... I think we figured it out. Maybe.

I think it's a third party cookie issue. So if you have disabled third party cookies, you will need to enable them. Another possible solution from my end I believe I have fixed, so if you could kindly (patiently!) try some test comments. Let me know in the comment what you're trying. And if you can't post, please email me at sarah.chayil@gmail.com This is a special email I made just for you all! :)

So please leave a comment, send me an email, help me figure out what's going on with this!

Thanks,
Sarah

Just hanging around...

I have a new toy. *grin* Well, not really a toy. But it is my newest object, and ranks up there in favorites.

I have my own hammock. Really, I made my own hammock.

I've wanted a hammock for quite some time now. Several months ago, I did research into different types of hammocks, but I wasn't ready to shell out that type of money. I'd rather be saving for a kayak.

Then, just a few days ago, I got an email from REI highlighting some cool things. One in particular caught my attention, for a site called Outside Mom. I'm not a mom, but someday I'd like to be, and I'd really like to be an outside mom myself. The next thing that caught my eye (a nod to those of you who know this really, really awesome joke) was an article entitled, "Make Your Own Hammock." Needless to say, I was hooked. And completely surprised at how easy it was.

Supplies:
1 twin-sized sheet
2-3 feet webbing for each side of hammock
Sewing machine

Basically, you sew the edges on the two shorter sides over to make a little "pocket." Then you thread the webbing through and tie a knot. Repeat on the other side.

There's another version that doesn't require any sewing, but you can check it out here if you'd like.

Lindsey, the author at Outside Mom, suggested using a yardstick or a flyswatter to thread the webbing through. You tape the webbing to the end of the yardstick and then push it through. But I didn't have either. So... I used my bow.

 Then you tape the webbing to the bow. Scotch tape worked quite well. And then you push it all through the little pocket!

This is one end with the webbing through and tied off nicely. An ordinary knot will do; just take the two sides, hold them flat, and then carry both of them through the knot. Neat and secure (at least in the twenty-four hours mine has been tied as such).

 This is the completed hammock, with both ends threaded and tied. All that was left was to hang it!

Note: I made this one out of what I believe is Jersey cotton. It's very stretchy and soft. The soft part is great, but you have to keep in mind that the hammock gives quite a bit when you hang it. I'd like to try it with a plain cotton sheet, and perhaps with a folded in half king sized cotton sheet.

 The only thing that Lindsey did not mention in her article on how to make one of these nifty hammocks, was how to attach it to a tree. In the first picture of this post, I have attached it under my loft bed using two carabiners and two pieces of webbing 5+ feet long.

This is the obligatory Chaco picture, but it also shows (kinda) how I tied the hammock to the tree. Basically I took the webbing (the orange piece and the yellow one I used for the other side were both over ten feet, but they really didn't need to be that long), folded it in half, and then wrapped it around the tree. I threaded the ends of the webbing through the loop and tightened it against the tree so that it would not slip. Then I made a simple double knot (also known as a figure eight), keeping a loop on the other side. It was through this loop that I clipped the carabiner. There's probably a more secure way of doing it, but this way worked just fine for me, and it also held my dad up when he tried it.

See? It holds up quite well! (I even slept in it last night)

I took the hammock outside and found two nice trees to attach it to, and thus spent the afternoon in lovely 80-degree weather with some books from the library and my water bottle (celebrating the finish of my first summer class!). There was even a well-placed smaller tree on the side that I could push with my foot in order to make myself rock. When I finally got down to fetch my laptop to do some online work, I found myself a bit unsteady, as if I had been on a boat! I had to laugh at myself a bit.

That's all for now! Shalom, everyone. I'm going to enjoy my hammock.

Joy of friends and sand castles

Sarah just got back from a wonderfully amazing weekend with three of her dancer family. She is now pleasantly exhausted and entirely not ready to face the rest of this week. She will post pictures when she is not half-asleep and speaking in the third person.

Actually, she is so proud of her lovely sand castle that she decided to post pictures of that now.

The sand castle! Complete with moat of water

Sarah decides to pose with said castle

Sarah is rather happy from the day and jumps while Aaron is taking this picture. Rather, before it.

The castle has a flag! And a foot in the background...

And now Sarah is going to bed to recharge for this week. But she is so filled with joy at seeing her dear friends and spending time "existing" with them, that she felt the need to share her joy with her blog readers. Who may or may not exist. :D

Yay! Sarah decided to post again!

Update on things. School is crazy this week. I have a lab exam and two lecture exams to do this week, along with a paper and two paragraphs. Some of these will be due at the beginning of next week, but I'm going down to Virginia Beach this weekend, and I do NOT want to be studying in the car. I've done that before and it is not fun. So I'm going to kill all free time this week and kick this work to the curb before enjoying my friends.

My room is clean today. It's very exciting, especially since I'm pretty sure I haven't seen all of the floor of my room for three years. The carpet also got cleaned today, so I am a happy camper. Now I need to keep it clean. Surprise, surprise, I do like the room and my working space being clean, but other things take precedence over deep cleaning. I ended up shoving some stuff in some boxes in the closet, so I need to go through those and get rid of old stuff. I have so much random junk. And now, a peek at Sarah's clean floor. It truly is a miracle (so would say my parents and sister).

In two days, the house is going to change dramatically. This story requires a bit of back story. When my dad and stepmom, Susan, starting going on mission trips to Haiti, they met a teenage girl named Lancie who has a severe back deformity. She's in a wheelchair. So they, by God's amazing sovereignty and grace, found a way to bring her to the States to have surgery to correct the kyphosis in her back. There is a hospital in Texas who is doing the surgery pro bono, I believe, and God has just blessed Dad and Susan by providing for needs. Lancie and her mother are now presently in the States, in Texas at the hospital, where Lancie had to go through preliminary stuff to make sure all would be well for the surgery in August. It's all been a bit crazy, but there are still at least eight weeks until the surgery. So Lancie and her mother are going to live in our piano room until then. Pretty cool and crazy. Especially since Lancie and her mom don't speak English. They understand bits of Spanish and French, so my sister Rachel and I will be able to communicate a little bit with them. Dad's the best at Haitian Creole, mainly because he has been consistent in learning and practicing using CD lessons.

So in the next eight weeks or so, I'm going to be working on my online courses while helping Lancie and her mom get acclimated to American life (and English), painting the spare bedroom (oops, I forgot to mention that...), painting my own room, and probably keeping an eye on my feisty three younger brothers.

And there are so many things other than that occurring this summer. Maybe I won't have to default to scheduled posts after all.

 And here is also a rather blurry picture of me in the clean room, courtesy of my webcam and low lighting. I apologize. I hope to buy a camera in the next few weeks so I have a way to properly document my time in Israel this fall. Squee! I'm so excited. Minus the fact that I need to send in my visa application. >_>