Sunday, January 4, 2009

With the Time that is Given to You

Well, I go back to school on Tuesday. To say I'm afraid would be far too mild a phrase to use, but I'll leave it at that. I've been working on plans to try to make this semester better than the last; I want to schedule in times for things like exercise and specific housework times, so I don't feel so bad about doing them. I have only one class on Tuesday, and if I get most of my Wednesday homework done on Monday night, I could have most of a day to get other things done – maybe even some writing. My creative pursuits have been somewhat stifled since August. I also want to do some more work on my desk, which I've already started. I want to put up my bulletin board and white board. I want to put some candles around it. I would buy a Skillet poster to put up (they just put a really cool one up in the store) but I think my mother would object to having that in the school room, so I'll have to settled for having my autographed tour pass and autographed DVD here beside me, as usual.


Most of all I'm trying to make a resolution to try to be happy. I have to try; it doesn't come naturally to me, nor does it come easily. It's a complicated maneuver I can never quite get the hang of, no matter how I try to figure it out. I've figured out how to pretend I'm happy, but that's not at all the same. Sometimes I think I'm always going to be the depressing little girl who was obsessed with violence and death.


I've been spending the weekend watching the Lord of the Rings movies (extended, of course). It's the last thing I will get done over my Christmas Break. I'm so glad for the opportunity. It's been almost seven years since I first saw Fellowship of the Ring, over six since I first saw The Two Towers, and over five since I first saw Return of the King. Lord of the Rings has been a constant part of my growing up during these past seven years. One thing I've been reminded of over and over again as I watch is the simple truth that I believe is the greatest lesson to be learned from these stories: we should always fight to do the right thing, even if it means sacrificing everything we are, and even if we have no hope of succeeding. That's what Frodo did, in the end. He gave up everything he was and everything he might have been to save a world he would never be a part of again. He didn't think he'd succeed. In fact, in the book he says multiple times that he will not. Even though in the end he did “succeed” in the surface sense, it cost him his personality, his hope, and his life. But that didn't matter. He kept going.


And that's a little bit of what I'm trying to remember right now. It doesn't matter if I have any hope that this year will turn out well. I don't think it will turn out well. I am fully convinced that it will be one of the worst years of my life. But I'm going to do the absolute best I can, not because I think I'll succeed, but because God asks us to do our best in order to glorify Him – even if we have no hope aside from Him. Besides, even if He never promised life would be easy or that we would succeed, He did promise that we'd never be alone. And in the end, what else could we ask for?


In other news, I made a new cloak. I may do a blog entry on that sometime later this week.


God bless!

- Elraen -  

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