Expectation

Last night I spent the evening talking with a great friend I met back in college. We spent a good bit of time talking about expectations. That is, we often place our expectations on others and then aren't sure how to respond when those expectations aren't fulfilled and we are disappointed in the other person's response or reaction. Neither of us really came to any great conclusions on how to deal with this but it was an interesting conversation. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that more often than not the people who don't live up to my expectations for them are the people I care most about (usually my family). It's funny that for so much of my life I didn't realize that my family was a little crazy and that they are far from perfect. They make mistakes and they often do things that hurt me. And I find that as I get to see other people's families and gain more "life" experience I realize that my expectations for those I care most about change. I expect that they will be like these other people I see or that they will be better people because I've gotten some notion about what that "better" should be. What is hardest though is understanding that I have expectations of people, my expectations have changed, and they probably have not. And I cannot expect them to change. How do you accept that they haven't changed and maybe I have? How do I not put my expectations on others? How can I not be disappointed when my expectations for others aren't met? I don't have an answer but at least I can, at this point, acknowledge that I do put my expectations on others and they may or may not live up to them. But I can't change them. I'll have to at some point figure out how to be ok with this.

Sweet Little Boy

Yesterday I was finally able to go visit my friend (and skating choreographer) Lisa and her new baby, Natan. I say new, which I suppose he still is, but he's already about 6 weeks old. With the craziness of the holidays and being out of town I wasn't able to get over there until yesterday and I'm so sad it took so long! Natan is the sweetest, most precious little thing I have seen in a very long time. It was great to catch up with Lisa, too. She's become a great friend and I love that she's very honest and open about things. I've learned a great deal from her. And I've learned to laugh more about things that maybe before would have upset me. I'm thankful for her in my life and excited to watch Natan grow up. Here's a little snapshot of the Polunin family

Thoughts on the year

I realize the year isn't quite over yet, but there's one thing that has been on my mind and heart recently. That is, I've been blessed to have many great people in my life and especially over the past year. I think if I had to sum up what the year has been about I'd have to say relationships. In the past it might have been getting through school or finding a job or some over big life change. This year was relatively stable. I just celebrated my one year anniversary at my current job. There's no school I'm having to worry about finishing. I'm not an intern anymore (which is sad since I really loved being a Young Life intern over the summers...). As I think back over the year though I'm reminded of the people. Some of these people I know I will be great friends with for a long time. Others may only be for a time. Most of them are people I met through YoungLife and thus they tend to come and go pretty frequently and the challenge is always to try to keep in touch (which I've realized it quite difficult when you aren't in a place to be living life with those people and your only source of communication is a phone call in the midst of two generally very busy lives). Some of the relationships that come to mind were on the mentor/mentee level and some were peer-to-peer relationships. The one common theme was that I learned something new about the Lord. I was challenged with relationships that weren't easy to love like Christ when it was hard or when it would have been easier to just walk away. I have been encouraged by others perspectives and stories. Challenging situations pushed me to search the scriptures and prayer in ways I wouldn't necessarily have done just on my own (that whole iron sharpens iron thing). I was given great, honest pictures of Godly marriages and families. And because I've met all sorts of interesting people over the past year I've been reminded of the Lord's creativity and I can stand in awe of a God who knows each and every one of those people intimately... which is really hard to wrap your head around. I could go on and on about the things I've learned and the wonderful people who have been a part of my life over the past year. But suffice it to say I am truly blessed to have been given the opportunity to live life with these people. If Christ came to give us life to the fullest then I believe I found that through the people I lived life with this year.

The holidays go by so quickly!

So, it looks like I'm a little behind on posting. It's been a very crazy December so here's a snapshot of things that have happened:

• About a million white elephant Christmas parties... ok, maybe not a million. But I had one for our Young Life club, one with the Young Life committee, one all-area Young Life party, and one with the small group.
• Celebrating Christmas with my dad, Pam, and Taylor before I flew home for the real Christmas
• Celebrating Christmas with my "family" (those would be the friends that might as well be a part of our family) and my Aunt and cousins who live in Orlando
• Visit my second family back home... unfortunately only for a very short time
• Did the tourist thing at the theme parks which are always decorated so well for Christmas
• Went to the beach... a must for any Florida white Christmas!
• Spent a good 2 days baking about 30 different kinds of cookies, bars, and cakes
• Was given the family recipe for potato pancakes... just like grandma used to make!
• Visited a local brewery in Orlando that I never new existed
• Finished my program so I can compete in February... and it only took 4 months...
• Read lots of books and got way too many new ones to read over the coming months

So I think those are the highlights. I was able to spend about 10 days in Orlando which was awesome! I don't really have any great desire to move back to Orlando but I do miss a few people in particular. I'm again reminded that I've been blessed with some great friends it's just unfortunate that most of them don't live in the same place.

Cupcakes, cookies, and Elf

Last night a couple of my high school friends came over to bake some cupcakes and cookies and watch Elf. We spent about an hour making some funfetti cupcakes and making our own version of peanut butter blossom cookies... ours were made with peanut butter cookie dough rolled in cinnamon/sugar mixture and then we put the Hershey kiss on top. Despite how weird it sounds to put cinnamon on a peanut butter cookie it actually ended up being pretty tasty. Afterwards we watched Elf and enjoyed some good laughs!

for His glory and our good

I was reading a devotional today and the question for reflection at the end was this:

What are you crying out to the Lord for? If God were to answer that prayer according to your desire, how would he be glorified by it?

A very interesting question and even more fascinating in the context of the devotional which was talking about Israel (in the old testament 1 Sam 1-2) and how they desperately wanted to have a king and begged God for one. God gave them a king knowing that it would be destructive to the nation of Israel.

I know that I often ask God for things that are probably not the best for me. But, how awesome to pray for things knowing that God will be glorified in it as opposed to just praying for things because "I want it now". I would rather it be for His glory and for my good.

Raleigh!

This past weekend I made a long overdue trip to visit my friends, the Springer's, in Raleigh. I had tried twice in the past few months to make it up there but plans kept changing. It was awesome to finally get up there to see them, their new home, and some of their favorite things about living in North Carolina. I arrived Friday and was promptly greeted by Maple, their sweet puppy. We headed down to the famous Franklin St. for dinner at a place called Spanky's and dessert at the yogurt pump (or 'yo-po" as the locals apparently call it) and I met some of their friends. We headed back to the Springer's and Puffer stopped by for a little bit. Saturday morning we went to the Farmer's Market and had breakfast and then Sarah and I spent the afternoon walking around downtown Apex looking in the little shops and enjoying great conversation over coffee. Saturday night we made dinner and some of their friends came over for a game night. We played some Wii and Apples to Apples. It was great to meet new people, eat good food, and have good conversation with lots of laughter! Sunday morning we got up for church and my friend Ashley joined us and afterwards we all went to lunch. I am reminded how much I miss that type of community where all sorts of different people who don't know each other can get together to share a meal and conversation. All in all it went way too fast but I enjoyed my time up there. I could definitely live there... and maybe one day (if Sarah has her way) I will!

My latte tastes like hot chocolate...

Last night I got to hang out with some of my high school friends. We've been meeting Wednesday's at this little pizza place called Steverino's where we've gotten to know the owner, Henry, pretty well. He's an interesting character for sure, but very nice. It's fun hanging with these girls and getting to know them better. It's a sort of random hodge-podge of girls but I love that they are becoming friends. After dinner we went to get some coffee. Funny when the girl gave me my latte and my friend her hot chocolate. I took a sip and definitely discovered that I had hot chocolate and thought my friend had the latte - she's HATES coffee, by the way. She told me I was crazy. Turns out, I wasn't. The girl walks over a couple minutes later and says that she thinks she made me hot chocolate and not a latte. I mean, honestly, how do you think that "may" have happened? Anyway, I'm fairly certain these girls think I'm just a little crazy which I guess is fine because they still want to hang out with me.