a lot

i've sat down to blog several times in the last week and couldn't actually finish a post. so here are bits and pieces of what i've been wanting to say about various subjects:

- adoption. it's hard. last week, i sat at my desk everyday at work with a knot in my stomach for no apparent reason other than that the waiting is starting to wear on me. literally, we are in this phase where we've been waiting almost 9 months, and it's possible that my phone could ring any minute with our referral. on the flip side, it's also possible that my phone might not ring for another 2-3 months (or longer). i think what has exacerbated the uncertainty of the whole situation is that our case manager doesn't give us any information. we don't know much more about our case now than we did back in february when we first got on the waitlist. it's frustrating in a lot of ways because (a) we feel like, after 9 months, we deserve to know a little more (b) we pay our adoption agency a nice sum of money to advocate for us and keep us informed and (c) we aren't dumb enough to think that everything they say to us is written in stone. in fact, we understand that adoption is a rollercoaster as my friend, leigh, said on her blog today (if you want to read a story about perseverence through a difficult adoption, you need to go to leigh's blog now). it can change at any minute and really isn't set in stone until your children are home with you. honestly, we just want to see our kids' faces, know how old they are, know what genders they are. we want to be able to buy them clothes, paint their rooms, and call them by name. we realize the waiting will intensify after we actually have faces, but we are just ready to know them.

-being in debt. so this sounds random, i know. i just hate hearing people imply that all people who are in debt must be irresponsible and frivolous. jamie and i have debt. we have a load of student debt from graduate school. we also have a bit of credit card debt from when we were living solely on student loans and small work study salaries. honestly, both of us felt God call us to our respective degrees, so we don't spend a lot of time regretting the debt. sure, we need to make responsible decisions to manage our debt, but it's not something we should be made to feel ashamed of. i also don't feel like debt is always a good excuse to not do something radical you feel like God is asking you to do. on paper, we look like the last people on earth who should spend $30,000+ on an adoption. it would've been great to put all the money we paid out in adoption fees towards our student debt. that probably would have been the responsible thing to do. but it wasn't what we were being asked to do. i'm not trying to pat us on the back, i just feel a little passionate about speaking against the popular ideology among christians today that says you shouldn't do anything really radical until you've got all your debt paid off and your savings account fully loaded. where is our reliance on the son of man who didn't even have a place to lay his head?? oh, and one more thing. we would love to be free of our debt. there is no doubt that being in debt sucks. it is constraining. but i don't think God encourages us to be free of debt for our own pleasures. rather, i think he wants us to be free of debt so we can help others. we crave to be in a place where we can freely give to anyone we know who is in need without thinking how that money could've have been "better" spent on reducing debt.

--materialism. can i just say that i struggle with materialism? whenever i think i've got it under control, it rears its ugly head in the form of a $30 carolina tshirt that i "just had to have." honestly, i just really care what other people think about me when it comes to stuff. i often think other women will accept me and want to be friends with me if i look a certain way or wear certain clothes. or i feel self-conscious when people walk in my house and see that i literally have nothing on the walls in my living room. all of that self-consciousness typically drives me to materialism. there's nothing wrong with buying stuff. i've purchased new clothes recently because a lot of my old fall/winter clothes were too small or had yucky pit stains because i've worn them the last 3-5 (even 8) years. but when my buying is driven more by what other people think about me than what i think of other people (ie, the poor, who i believe need my money more than i do), then i'm falling into materialism. and, in general, i fall into materialism every time i think stuff and others' approval is more important than God. i often think that it would be easier to escape materialism if i just picked up and moved to africa. i should say that moving to africa is not some far-off fantasy that i've dreamed up. we'd like to someday if the doors were to open. and when i think about it, i feel relieved that if i can get over my fear of bugs and rodents, i'd do OK over there because i'd be free of social pressures and materialism. forget that i am romanticizing africa in a big way and underestimating the difficulty of living there long-term...i am also forgetting that part of being radical is making a decision that is counter to the consesus. sure, moving to africa would be radical but once i got there, it wouldn't be radical for me to live simply because nobody there has much of anything so everyone has to live simply. wouldn't it actually be more radical to live simply in a culture where everyone has everything they need plus a lot more? wouldn't it be more radical to say no to social pressures in a culture where those pressures are so pervasive and strong? jesus, empower me with your spirit...

-glee. i still stand by what i wrote in my last post about glee. but i was extremely disappointed to have given the show so much credit only to have the following week's episode (2 weeks ago) deal very irresponsibly with sex issues. i was even more disappointed at the GQ photo shoot 3 actors from the show appeared in. i'm beginning to question whether people who care about women's issues (seriously, if you didn't see the GQ photo shoot, google it and be disturbed if you are a woman), teenage sex issues, and even gay issues (i say this even though the show tries to deal thoughtfully with kurt's sexuality. i take issue with how the show consistently portrays britney and santana using each other for sexual gratification. i think it's offensive to anyone who may actually struggle with homosexuality to see it portrayed so flippantly) can continue to watch the show in good conscious. i don't mean to offend anyone or seem judgmental. i'm honestly just starting to feel genuninely concerned. thoughts?