Whoa.

Last night, my change from "I'm scared" to "I fear" was insanely fast. Almost impressive, really. 

I believe the precise moment of the shift occurred when the windows of my house glowed an electric purple to match the piercing clap of thunder and the howling winds outside that were sweeping away anything not held fast to the ground. It was then that every trace of my resolve to be calm in this storm was swept away. I wound up in my bathroom with survival supplies: Bible, phone, laptop. 


I've never been good at storms. But this was no regular storm. It was a tornado - a full fledged, evil, spiraling hater that is unpredictable, destructive and potentially lethal. And I REALLY don't do tornadoes. 


This was a literal faith exercise for me, because, honestly, I truly do not suffer from fear that often. Sure, I worry, get anxious, all that jazz. Fear, however, is something I rarely face. 


So I'm sitting in my bathroom, texting my parents, praying, flipping between Twitter and Facebook for tornado updates, when I get a text from a sweet friend (another tornado fearer). Her message was simple: "It helps!" But the other words she included sent a river of peace through my tense, tornado-fearing body. They were the words from Mark 4: 35-40...

The disciples were with Him as He slept in the boat, when a furious squall came, 

and the waves broke over the boat...

They woke him, saying "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?!"

He got up, rebuking the winds and waves, saying "Quiet! Be still!" He then said to the disciples, 

"Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"

Whoa. I'd never seen the metaphor in that passage until I was in a literal storm clinging to those words. 


In any struggle, any hardship, any confusion, any disturbance of peace, Jesus is there and totally capable of providing safety... though the ship may rock and shake, though things may look bleak. 

Why are we so afraid? Why do we still, even having witnessed all He has done, have no faith sometimes?

Oh, his patience with my floundering heart. What grace. What goodness.

 Whoa. 

Reader(s) (hopefully (s)), meet my friend, Spoonie.

The precious face you see above belongs to my sweet, annoying, cheerful, loud, and definitely psychotic yellow lab, Mary Spoon Davis. I'll spare you the details of what insane lapse of thought drove us to name her "Mary Spoon," and hop right to why "Spoonie" fits her so well.

Spoonie is a weird name. It's ok to laugh/question/mock. I know it's strange. I've known it since 2006 when we deemed a 3 pound, helplessly sweet, painfully adorable puppy as "Mary Spoon." I cannot tell you how many times I've told people Spoonie's name and gotten one of the following responses:

A. "Why did you name your dog after a utensil?"
B. I'm sorry, did you say... "Spoon?"
C. "Well do you have a Fork also?"
D. "Hahahaha. Oh.. her name is actually Spoon?"
or the ever classic and frequent,
E. Blank stare and awkward silence.

All that to say, "Spoon" is a weird name. A random name. A weird word. A random word. These are both things that characterize my friend Spoonie: weird, random.

But "spoon" is also a happy word. Well, I think it is. And Spoon is certainly a happy girl. And she verbalizes that happiness probably 75% of her conscious hours... but really.

Shouting joy from the depths of her being.

I truly learn things from my weird, random, happy friend Spoon. I will share them with you at some point, dear reader(s) (please be (s)), but I just had to introduce my friend before I flooded you with tales of her insanity from which I actually glean great life lessons.

The Unnecessarily Awkward and Ridiculously Lopsided Adventures of Spoonie and Emily are forthcoming. Stay tuned. 

Protaftination.

I have a Shakespeare test in the morning. So, naturally, I'm blogging it up right now. If you are also suffering from the "I-don't-want-to-do-this-I'd-rather-be-tased-than-do-this" blues, then here are 10 suggestions for temporarily avoiding what you will eventually get around to doing once you've hit rock bottom:

Pre-Game: Facebook/Twitter. Duh. This is the warm up to the true procrastination activities.

10. Text all your friends and in good humor tell them how much you don't want to work on what you're both supposed to be working on. Here's one of my conversations that made me feel better:

Me: Well, I have no idea what I'm doing. What are all these notes I took and have to learn, yet have no recollection of hearing in class? What the taft. I want to quit.

Friend: I wanted to quit before I started. Shakespeare should die. Oh, wait... 

9. http://www.sporcle.com - Goodness the games are addictive. And guilt-free, because many are educational.

8. Write a haiku. Here's mine:
Studying is hard.
I think I'd rather swallow
A full pint of lard.

7. Organize your desktop. If that's not time consuming enough, tackle your photo albums.

6. Time for YouTube. Catch up on all those trends you've heard so much about but haven't understood yet. PTL for this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBLmogRL4c

5. Attempt to get back to work. This step is important because it proves how desperately you need to keep not doing what you ought to be doing. Confused by that last sentence? That makes two of us. Proof the procrastination is truly sinking in because if we were on top of our game we wouldn't have had to read that sentence like 6 times to get it (or still not get it). Rebound by sifting through Itunes and choosing some new music to listen to.

4. Plan out every outfit you will wear this week. Plan out every meal. Plan out when you'll work out. Schedule in a few moments of reason in which you may actually accomplish something this week.

3. Make a paper chain counting down the number of days left till summer.

2. Make a list about how to procrastinate and post it to a blog.

1. Rock bottom. Back to work.