The unexpected Ohio State reunion (meaning I didn't find out about it until very recently when I unexpectedly went to Facebook, something I've rarely done in the past couple of years, and saw the invitation) I just had with my classmates the other weekend could not have been more rejuvenating from this perspective: I realized what made me who I became.
My dad attended the University of Michigan and when I applied to attend Michigan in 1982 I was accepted, but my dad said he would not pay for out-of-state tuition. I then chose to attend Ohio University in Athens, OH, but it didn't work out at all.
So, in a struggle with unhappiness and discouragement that I clearly remember, I decided to transfer to Ohio State. This changed the whole trajectory of my life! I realize today that I would have turned out quite different had I gone to Michigan! I would have been a different person today.
The thing that made Ohio State so great for me, looking back, is it really is a city inside a city--the capitol of Ohio, in fact. People agree "Hang On, Sloopy" is the state fight song for good reason. I was free to explore anything and everything there it was so open as a campus. The attitude was, "Be who you want to be."
When I took my own little tour of campus the other weekend I walked in the rain down 18th Avenue from High Street to the Journalism Building, which is at the end of the street, and all the buildings on the street came right back to me.
As I told classmates that evening, at our final outing to see the OSU-Texas game on TV, the thing that threw me about finally coming upon the J-School was there was no bike rack out front. That was one of my biggest memories. I would always be locking up my bike when I got there, either to attend a class or coming in with a fresh story to write up for the Lantern as a campus reporter.
I walked around to the main entrance of the building on Neil Avenue and peeked inside the locked doors to see the same old highly polished linoleum floors I remember. It instantly brought back to me the times I would sit on that linoleum floor and wait for the faculty staff offices to open in the morning so I could make an impromptu appointment to see my favorite professor, Henry Schulte.
In my early days, I was always looking for him to go over a story element with me and tell me if I was on the right track, or if I had "holes" that needed filling in. Thankfully he was always delighted to help me and, honestly, I don't think there were any students at the time craving his perspective/input more than I was.
One of the best moments for me at the reunion was talking "shop" with my fellow classmate, Beth, who dated back to the very beginning of my Journalism classes, about the craft of writing. She was a star pupil and I always looked up to her.
After initially working as a business reporter for the newspaper in Cape Cod, Beth went on to write award-winning fiction books and has been interviewed about her writing many times in her hometown of Boston where she still lives.
I told her that I didn't know anything about what she had been up to since graduation, only finding out via Facebook since learning of the reunion (which Beth actually planned) that she was writing books.
I told her I read one interview with her online in which she said she learned to treat writing like her penchant for long-distance running. In essence, just keep going no matter how you're feeling.
I said, "That's been my whole problem. I let my emotions get in the way." The other problem I have is I lack self-confidence, something I've dealt with my whole life. In fact, my mom's told me many times that when she would meet with my teachers during my childhood, they would often note, "Lisa lacks self-confidence."
But, as I told Beth, seeing campus again reminded me of when I trained for a triathlon as a senior and me and another girl I trained with would get up super-early, as in 6 a.m., and run the track inside Ohio Stadium before our morning classes. They actually let students do that sort of thing! We would also run the bleacher steps.
It's funny how last year at this time I wrote on this blog about my self-concocted "near-death experience" where I went home to Loudonville, Ohio for the first time in 24 years and that I prayed to God (at a special place in the forest where I would always pray), "I don't want to be a writer anymore--it's too much pressure."
Now, thanks in part to the reunion, I'm thinking more and more, "What are you so scared of?!! Just do it and let the pieces fall where they may! Pretend you're back at OSU inside the stadium, training for a triathlon."
I'm going to make a commitment to myself to write each day on this blog about personal things (even if it's just a paragraph or two) in addition to posting material about the Bible and current events, etc. So, until tomorrow . . .
For Believers, the knowledge of what we have as our future heavenly inheritance is THE motivator to endure the pressures of our present life.
“The sufferings in this world simply aren’t worthy of even being considered with the glories that are ours in Christ," my pastor always likes to remind.
“If you understand your position in Christ, and the fact that you’ve been made an heir of God--but not just that, a joint-heir with Christ—you know EVERYTHING that belongs to Him belongs to you!
“That’s what’s called ‘co-per stirpes’ in legal jargon. It’s to have equal shares. Everything that Jesus Christ inherited from God the Father, we inherit. Whee, doggy! Occupy your mind with that! Be stabilized by that!
“Paul is saying, ‘Your understanding NOW of your sonship position isn’t just all this pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by; that life is yours right now and it affects your walk right now.
“If you can see what’s going on in the issue of suffering NOW you can actually—you know ‘endure’ is not the right word, and ‘waiting out’ is not the right expression. You can REJOICE in the things!
*****
“Do you know if you go out and serve the Lord what’s going to happen? ‘Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.’ You begin to get rebuffs, Satan comes against you, the religious system comes against you, the world system, your friends, your relatives, your neighbors.
“Everybody comes against you and tries to make you feel ashamed and dirty for serving the Lord; for not being under the law system, not being under the legalism.
“You begin to suffer pain, you get sick, your old body wears out. Are you going to begin to cry and moan and squall? That’s what the average Believer does.
“Listen, God Almighty expects you and me to live in light of who we are! When you begin to realize just who you are, like Paul says, ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.’
“That’s a mental-attitude dynamic. Paul’s saying, ‘Here’s the way I look at it.’ When you keep that eternal glory out there in front of yourself, and that privilege of sonship position and joint-heirship with Christ, here’s what it does.
“It lets you look at whatever it is and say, ‘This light affliction is but for a moment. And it works a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’
“Paul says, ‘This thing down here it isn’t even worth talking about! Let’s talk about that up there! We don’t want to talk about this and that in the same breath!’
*****
“You listen to me, God Almighty wants tough sons. You write that down, would you please. God Almighty expects us to be tough and He’s fixed it so we can be!
“Hey, folks, it doesn’t mean that when you stump your toe and you go crying to the Lord, it doesn’t mean He’s mad at you. It doesn’t mean He won’t listen. But God has equipped us to be grown-up Believers. Recognize who it is God’s made you, and who you are, and live consistent with that.
“Endure hardness. He didn’t say it’s all going to be lace pants and sunshine. He said, in order to get the job done that I put you here for in that Body of Christ, be tough! Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
“You know what a soldier does? When the ol’ enemy comes along and takes a pot shot at him does he go squalling back to the battalion leader? Why somebody would kick him in the seat of the pants or lock him up on a Section 8. What does he do? He shoots back! You expect a soldier to be able to endure hardness.
“Talk’s cheap, gentlemen. Talk’s cheap. Easy to say that and ain’t so easy to do it and live it and walk in it unless you’re strong in the grace that’s in Christ Jesus.
*****
“How do you do it? Well, here’s an example. Hebrews 12: ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’
“You know something, fellows, in your ministry, you don’t have to fear poverty, you don’t have to fear war, you don’t’ have to fear the government, you don’t have to fear the congregation, you don’t have to fear relatives and in-laws. You don’t have to fear but one thing and that’s sin.
“The only thing you need to fear is sin. I hope that will sink into your head. ‘The sin which doth so easily beset us.’ That’s the one that comes along so innocently looking like it might be so easy.
“You can’t run with patience with that sin out there. You see, it messes you up. What you’re doing is you’re messing yourself up.
“If you want to endure the sufferings you do what Christ did. He kept some information in His mind at all times that allowed Him, and helped Him, and motivated Him and empowered Him to endure.
*****
“Romans 8:19 says, ‘For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.’
“The idea there is it’s like a kid with his head stuck out the window looking for his daddy to come home. He’s eagerly anticipating. In other words, creation out here is waiting for what? Man, it’s waiting for the time the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and we’re put in the heavenly positions up there . . . He comes back to the earth, sets up His kingdom on the earth and then the whole shooting match out here is brought under the headship of Jesus Christ and is liberated.
“The globe out here, the whole universe, is waiting for the time the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and take up His inheritance which, as you recall from Hebrews 1, has to do with universal dominion over the heavens and the earth.”
“The sufferings in this world simply aren’t worthy of even being considered with the glories that are ours in Christ," my pastor always likes to remind.
“If you understand your position in Christ, and the fact that you’ve been made an heir of God--but not just that, a joint-heir with Christ—you know EVERYTHING that belongs to Him belongs to you!
“That’s what’s called ‘co-per stirpes’ in legal jargon. It’s to have equal shares. Everything that Jesus Christ inherited from God the Father, we inherit. Whee, doggy! Occupy your mind with that! Be stabilized by that!
“Paul is saying, ‘Your understanding NOW of your sonship position isn’t just all this pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by; that life is yours right now and it affects your walk right now.
“If you can see what’s going on in the issue of suffering NOW you can actually—you know ‘endure’ is not the right word, and ‘waiting out’ is not the right expression. You can REJOICE in the things!
*****
“Everybody comes against you and tries to make you feel ashamed and dirty for serving the Lord; for not being under the law system, not being under the legalism.
“You begin to suffer pain, you get sick, your old body wears out. Are you going to begin to cry and moan and squall? That’s what the average Believer does.
“Listen, God Almighty expects you and me to live in light of who we are! When you begin to realize just who you are, like Paul says, ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.’
“That’s a mental-attitude dynamic. Paul’s saying, ‘Here’s the way I look at it.’ When you keep that eternal glory out there in front of yourself, and that privilege of sonship position and joint-heirship with Christ, here’s what it does.
“It lets you look at whatever it is and say, ‘This light affliction is but for a moment. And it works a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’
“Paul says, ‘This thing down here it isn’t even worth talking about! Let’s talk about that up there! We don’t want to talk about this and that in the same breath!’
*****
“You listen to me, God Almighty wants tough sons. You write that down, would you please. God Almighty expects us to be tough and He’s fixed it so we can be!
“Hey, folks, it doesn’t mean that when you stump your toe and you go crying to the Lord, it doesn’t mean He’s mad at you. It doesn’t mean He won’t listen. But God has equipped us to be grown-up Believers. Recognize who it is God’s made you, and who you are, and live consistent with that.
“Endure hardness. He didn’t say it’s all going to be lace pants and sunshine. He said, in order to get the job done that I put you here for in that Body of Christ, be tough! Endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
“You know what a soldier does? When the ol’ enemy comes along and takes a pot shot at him does he go squalling back to the battalion leader? Why somebody would kick him in the seat of the pants or lock him up on a Section 8. What does he do? He shoots back! You expect a soldier to be able to endure hardness.
“Talk’s cheap, gentlemen. Talk’s cheap. Easy to say that and ain’t so easy to do it and live it and walk in it unless you’re strong in the grace that’s in Christ Jesus.
*****
“How do you do it? Well, here’s an example. Hebrews 12: ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.’
“You know something, fellows, in your ministry, you don’t have to fear poverty, you don’t have to fear war, you don’t’ have to fear the government, you don’t have to fear the congregation, you don’t have to fear relatives and in-laws. You don’t have to fear but one thing and that’s sin.
“The only thing you need to fear is sin. I hope that will sink into your head. ‘The sin which doth so easily beset us.’ That’s the one that comes along so innocently looking like it might be so easy.
“You can’t run with patience with that sin out there. You see, it messes you up. What you’re doing is you’re messing yourself up.
“If you want to endure the sufferings you do what Christ did. He kept some information in His mind at all times that allowed Him, and helped Him, and motivated Him and empowered Him to endure.
*****
“Romans 8:19 says, ‘For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.’
“The idea there is it’s like a kid with his head stuck out the window looking for his daddy to come home. He’s eagerly anticipating. In other words, creation out here is waiting for what? Man, it’s waiting for the time the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and we’re put in the heavenly positions up there . . . He comes back to the earth, sets up His kingdom on the earth and then the whole shooting match out here is brought under the headship of Jesus Christ and is liberated.
“The globe out here, the whole universe, is waiting for the time the Lord Jesus Christ comes back and take up His inheritance which, as you recall from Hebrews 1, has to do with universal dominion over the heavens and the earth.”