NYC

I'm Here! I'm Here!

This morning I rode the subway for the first time. There is something very ominous about walking down a dark hole in the ground. But I swiped my handy-dandy metro card and sat down on the bench next to subway stop.

When it came, I got on, all proud of myself. As I am sitting there trying to put on my best "I'm a New York, so don't mess with me" face while trying to hide the "I'M IN NYC!!" face, I hear "Next stop Rockafeller Center." Now while I want to go to there...it was not the same direction as the office...I got on the subway GOING THE WRONG WAY! The city is laughing in my face...but I was laughing too :)

Subway: 1
Amanda: 0

Anyway, I got off and changed trains and went back the correct direction.

Lesson of the day: Learn NY geography...

Didn't see that one coming...

There are two conversations that I had in the last few months that are now blinding irony to my current stage in life.

Conversation #1: I was talking to a friend about how I was desiring more out of life; more excitement, more adventure. Settling into my second year of work made me realize how much I was used to annual changes. School and classes changed every 6 months. As an RA, my staff and residents changed each year. I moved living arrangements every May and August. I may be weary of constant revolving change, but the annual shake up was something that I had become used to and without it, I was feeling a little on the apathetic side of life.

Conversation #2: Another friend asked me, now that summer busy season is over, will work slow down...

Current Stage of Life:

I bought my first car!

I passed my CPA Exam!

I am doing an extended rotation in New York for work, starting in a week!!

I am going to Israel in January!

I feel like this is a stage of life where God is asking me repeatedly, "Do you know me well enough to trust me?" It is easy to say yes when I have just bought a new car, passed my CPA exam, have a great job and wonderfully caring friends. It is not easy to roll that answer off my tongue when I am living in a new city, by myself, with the only frame of reference being crime dramas such as Law and Order, or CSI: NY...So while New York excites me, it also terrifies me.

It excites me because it is new and ready to be discovered. It terrifies me because it is new and unknown. It excites me because it is an opportunity to meet colleagues from different offices and make new friends. It terrifies me because it is a long time away from my friends and my Life Group (bible study group) who know me and understand me.

Israel doesn't make this question any easier either. Typical mission trips are comfortable for me. Going and doing. Bringing some tangible value. That is easy to focus on and plan for. But being put in a situation where my ignorance, misunderstanding, and prejudices are exposed? That is uncomfortable. That is difficult for someone like me who thrives on being right and being the best.

Actually, let me clarify, it is easy to answer this question of trusting. It is hard to live your answer. Which is why I am choosing to enter this stage of life. I am tired of sitting back in fear of "what ifs" and comfort of routine.

I'm not ready. Nowhere close. No one is ready to get their butts kicked in humility and trust. But I would rather have a faith that is thriving than one that is atrophying and dying.

When creatures of habit take detours

Generally, the daily life of Amanda Gayle Wheeler is pretty predictable.

I wake up around 6:30am,

Get to work at 830am

Come home around 7pm

Go to bed around 10pm

Repeat.

However, these past couple of weeks I have been making friendships a greater priority and adventure has naturally sprung from that.

Last Sunday after the Oscars, someone suggested that we go to Beverly Hills and find Banksy artwork.

Banksy is a British graffiti artist who tags places all over the U.S. and Europe. No one knows what he looks like and his art tends to be political, so he makes for an intriguing topic of discussion. Anyway, he had made a documentary, Exit through the Gift Shop, which was up for an Oscar, so he was in LA last week.

One thing led to another and I didn't get home until 2am and as a result slept in until 930am. By the time I rolled into work around 11am, I had 3 text messages, 2 missed calls and someone looking up traffic reports in search of a potental accident as the reason my delay in arrival.

As I mentioned earlier, I go to bed early and my roommates are basically nocturnal, so they stay up super late. They are used to fully locking up the apartment. I have almost gotten locked out several times...

Their insomnia also means that they know when I don't come home until the middle of night...

This weekend I went out with some friends on Saturday night and on the drive home, the conversation was so good, that I ended up talking with my friend until, oh, say 530am...this unusual behavior caused concern among the roommates of whether to try and call me or decide I stayed at someone else's house for the night...Either way, I got a mini interrogation the next morning.

I am usually so predictable, so now that I am changing up my routine, its causing a bit of a ripple.

But the good news is that people notice when I'm missing :)

So that they may know...

I have a pretty awesome memory. I can remember things mentioned in a side comment or an off topic conversation. I can remember names and faces. I can remember random facts, trivia, movie lines and song lyrics. I busted through half of an N'sync song last night and I haven't listened to them in years!...ok, maybe I took a trip down 90's boy band memory lane last June...

But I also have a really terrible memory. In the past two months I have nearly run out of gas 4 or 5 times because I just can't seem to remember to turn right instead of left out of my apartment to go to the gas station as opposed to heading towards the freeway. I have also wandered around the parking garage at work because I can't remember which floor I parked on.

But where my selective memory really become detrimental is in remembering how God has been faithful in my life.

For example, a few weeks ago I took the 3rd part of my CPA license exam. Despite the fact that I have done very well on the first 2 parts, I spend every day working with the material that was going to be on the test (taxes), and I have usually always been a good test taker, my anxiety was through the roof...again.

In almost every situation, I count my past success as worthless. This is not coming from a Pauline-like humility; it is straight up doubt.

Doubt in God's faithfulness.

Doubt in his gifting to me of an ability to understand and retain information.

Doubt in God's plan for me.

I need some serious Joshua 4 action in my life.

In Joshua 4, the nation of Israel has just passed over a dry Jordan River. God commands Joshua to send one man from each tribe to get a stone from the dry river bed. These stones were to serve as a catalyst for remembering what God had done; from bringing the people out of Egypt to his recent Jordan River escapade.

He said that the purpose of the stones were so that the people of the surrounding nations and the next generation of Israel may know what God is capable of and that He is faithful to his people.

So since I apparently lack the capacity to look at a situation and remember God's faithfulness, I need some stones of remembrance to keep his work in my life in the forefront of my mind as opposed to the back recesses.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend...

The strom approaches:

"I don't want to be in a battle. But waiting on the edge of one I can't escape is even worse."

-Pippin, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

This is how I feel about the coming busy season...

*P.S. Post 100!!

My First Business Trip...

Last week I had the obligation (not privilege, not opportunity, and certainly not pleasure) of going to Peach Tree City, Georgia to attend my firm's national training.

Little did I know when I made my flight reservation, this would be the first time since 1993 that Georgia would get a big snow storm. Needless to say, the city of Atlanta did not know how to handle said storm...they would fail as boy scouts due to lack of preparation. I later found out that the city only has 12 snow plows, two of which were broken down at the time of this "severe" weather.

After having my first flight canceled, I rebooked a red eye out of Seattle to arrive in Atlanta at 6:30am the morning of the first day of training. The conference center was 20 minutes away from the airport, so I WAS going to make it on time. However, after standing on a snowy curb for 45 minutes I called the hotel shuttle service to discover that transportation was shut down because of the snow.

With the shuttle ETA being unknown, I shuffled back into the airport main terminal and found a nice comfy chair to make myself at home in. The only thing that would force me to surrender my chair to the other stranded travelers who were circling like vultures would be the need to use the restroom or find an outlet to charge in my rapidly decreasing phone battery...

After two hours of pondering how to stay productive in an airport I got a phone call from the hotel. The highway was still closed and no taxi was will to brave the side streets, so they were sending me to a nearby hotel to wait until conditions changed. All I had to do was take the train to Midtown station and the hotel will be right there.

I lug my suitcase onto an already crowded train and ride it to the instructed station. I get out at said station, yet the hotel is nowhere in sight. To add to this ever evolving adventure, it was snowing; just adding to the several inches already covering the streets.

Shuddering at the potential of wondering in the snow in the wrong direction, I pulled out my trusty iphone 4 (insert product placement plug here), looked up the hotel and began walking in the right direction. After half a block I gave up on trying to wheel my suitcase through the snow and just picked the not-so-small thing up and carried it the rest of the way.

Once at the hotel this weary traveler took a shower, a nap, and a detailed assessment of why I am overcommitted to my job...

Around 2pm, I decided I was hungry enough to go forage for food. While getting a burger to go at a local restaurant called "Taco Mac" (I was confused too) the hotel called and said they could now send a shuttle to the airport, I just had to get back there soon. So I grabbed my burger and started hurrying back to the hotel. In my rush I forgot that my shoes lacked any traction whatsoever, so resultantly I slipped on an icy grate and fell. It hurt.

When I finally got to the CORRECT hotel, I was tired, hungry and in need of more PTO (paid time off) to recover; however, I still had 2 and half days of tax training ahead of me.

I gave it my best and here is what I learned from LTS Consultant training:

1. Never fly a red eye unless you only plan to sleep the next day.
2. Never open a camelbak water bottle in an airplane...the cabin pressure causes the water to shoot out of the bottle like a sprinkler gone haywire.
3. Never wear TOMS shoes to walk several blocks in the snow or over icy grates.
4. Never travel with a half charged phone - it got kinda tense near the end to find an outlet.
5. Never, under any circumstance, go to Peach Tree City, Georgia if they think a flake of snow will fall.
6. Oh, and S Corporations can't have foreign investors...

Christmas from the Other Side

The thanks have been given. The tryptophan nap has been taken. The golden gobbler has been awarded. The Presidential turkeys have been pardoned. Thanksgiving is over and the Christmas season is officially upon us.

And nothing says the end of Thanksgiving like Black Friday, Santa Hats, and Christmas music!

Being the strict holiday follower that I am, today I switched my Pandora station from the epic soundtrack music (perfect studying atmosphere) to Jars of Clay (Holiday). One of the first songs that came on was "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen". When they sang of remembering Jesus Christ was born on Christmas day and that this is reason for good tidings of comfort and joy, tears were brought to my eyes. For those who know me, I am not so familiar with the waterworks.

Lately I have been thinking about what Christmas is like from the other side; from the side that doesn't know that Christmas is a celebration of the beginning of God's tangible work of bringing us into his family. What songs do they sing? Surely not "Hark the Harold Angles Sing", or "Joy to the World", or "Silent Night".

What is Christmas without our Savior? Another quasi-birthday holiday where you get stuff? Another summer break-like holiday where you get off school?

Christmas without the manger is as hollow and disappointing as that chocolate Easter bunny you were convinced was solid...

I wonder what it is like to not feel the weight of the theology behind this holiday and yet still celebrate. Christmas is so rich with meaning. How could you hear the music and see the change in mood and not wondering why? Thinking about how my co-workers or high school friends would celebrate this day makes me realize that I never want to experience a day without the knowledge of what my savior did for me.

Let me not just remember Jesus in the time between the fourth Thursday in November and December 25th.