It's My Life - Melody Carlson [68]
“This is so totally cool to have a washer and dryer right in the house,” said Beanie with unashamed appreciation.
I nodded, thinking how little I knew of real suffering.
TWENTY-ONE
Thursday, November 15 (catch up time)
The past two weeks have been so wild and busy that it's almost a blur in my memory. And consequently I've neglected my diary. I'll try to catch up if I can, although it won't be easy.
The first thing I want to share is that I'm going to go to a missions conference! Now I'm sure that sounds pretty boring to the average person on the street, but I am just totally jazzed about it. Our youth pastor, Greg, was planning on going, and last week he told our youth group all about it. It's this really big event where thousands of kids who are interested in missions come from all across the country to attend. It's called Urbana (and is somewhere near Chicago). It happens right after Christmas and lasts until New Year's. Anyway, Greg invited anyone interested to come along. He's going to drive a church van.
So far a quiet guy named Rick from McFadden and I are the only takers, but I am so excited I can hardly wait. At first my parents were all, like, no way, that's too far away, you need to be home during Christmas vacation, and on and on. So I just quietly told them (no ranting, no raving) why I wanted to go, and that I'd pray that God would speak to them, and then I left it at that. Well, it took about a week, but finally they told me they'd talked about it and decided I could go. Of course, they're not paying for it, which is fine (I have money in savings), but I'm just glad that they willingly agreed. I had really prayed that God would soften their hearts. And let me tell you, I really did not want to have a great big fight. So I was hugely relieved. Of course, they had to tack on a little parental lecture about how this didn't mean they thought it was okay for me to skip out on college and hop down to Mexico to live at the garbage dump. I bit my tongue, then told them I understood their concern. But the whole time, I'm thinking, we'll see about that! Anyway, I'm just glad I get to go to Urbana.
Okay, now I'll tell you about Jenny. She had her eighteenth birthday on November 10 and moved out of her parents' home on November 11. First, let me say I don't think that moving away from your parents while you're still in high school is such a great idea, but in Jenny's case I totally agree. Plus, she'd met with Pastor Tony several times for counseling help, since she was starting to turn all anorexic again as a result of all the stress and pressure her mom was dishing out to her. And Pastor Tony actually called my grandma who's soon to become his mother-in-law to make sure it would be okay for Jenny to stay there with Beanie. And of course, Grandma was totally cool about the whole thing and even said she was glad for Beanie's sake and that she didn't really like the idea of a young girl being there all on her own. So now Beanie and Jenny are roomies and both living in Grandma's house. Beanie stays in my mom's old bedroom, and Jenny has Aunt Steph's. Now isn't that just too funny?
But in order to cinch the deal, Pastor Tony had them both sign a contract with my grandma (his idea not hers) saying they won't have boys over, drink alcohol, or smoke, or anything else that my grandma wouldn't approve of. And they both signed with absolutely no argument. And within days, Jenny seemed to get better–she's eating again and even cooking too! She says she just really needs to feel like she has some control over her own life. She was a little worried at first because she had to leave her car at home, and she was afraid her parents wouldn't pay for her college, not to mention how she'd manage to afford food. But she and Beanie both got jobs at Pizza Hut. Okay, so it's not the best place in the world, but the bus goes straight there, and they get all the pizza they can eat. But then after that, Jenny's dad started to secretly send her money. Pretty nice, I think. So Jenny's sitting pretty right now. And I expect