All- Nighter

So last night I was focused on finishing the Redbook (aka the University Housing Staff Manual) which was due to be read by August 3 (Friday). I did finish it, around midnight or so... but then I was already nowhere near bed, so I ran with it. Then I had a ridiculous sinus headache, and when I got home I was ridiculous about taking some sinus medicine with pseudoephedrine in it. Pseudoephedrine is an automatic all-nighter for me, especially since I took it around 2am. There was no way I was going to sleep last night... It worked for me though, because I caught the end of a TCM Elizabeth Taylor 24hr run. I watched her in "Butterfield 8" and "Cynthia." The first film was pretty good, especially her performance. It makes sense that she won an Oscar for the role of Gloria. So the movies were over around 6am. I decided to get dressed and take a walk around campus during sunrise. When I left my residence hall, it was dark. I had only past a few buildings when some 50ish man said I was absolutely gorgeous, he had teen daughters, they'd been eating out of a dumpster for the past two nights, he was a veteran, his check was coming on Friday but they needed money now... and oh yeah, he had a Master's in Theology. He even showed me his VA card... not that I believed ANYTHING he said, but I figured it wouldn't hurt if I gave him the $5 I was carrying around. I usually don't have any cash on me, so this was a rare opportunity to give, rather or not there was any credibility at all to the man's story. I'm definitely eating lunch from home today though. I had to talk myself out of being a little salty at the man's audacity to ask me for MY money. I mean, what was HE doing with HIS life. Grown men aren't supposed to ask strangers (young random graduate students) on campus (on which they don't belong) for money to feed their family. That's BS. I guess the bottomline for me there was that I didn't WORK for this money, God blessed me with it. I'm not BALLLIN' like Jim Jones, but I stay fed, housed and clothed. Whatever situation dude is going through in life, whether he really is that hard up for money, or he has some endless cycle of pathology that causes him to be a bum and not actually work for his money or whatever it's far worse than my situation. God-willing, I won't be 50ish asking 23-year olds for money at 6:30 in the morning in Tallahassee, FL.

The beautiful thing about this morning, though, wasn't merely the sunrise over the hilly Tallahassee horizon, it was the sunrise in my heart. God used the atmosphere of a silent campus and warm sunlight to make an impression on my heart. We had a bit of a pow wow. I listened and wrote everything that I felt like He was saying to me. I have to revisit it, because I'm sure that even though I was writing I missed the big picture. I feel like I've made spiritual leaps and bounds this morning. Though I'm delirious, I've decided some things for my life regarding faith and letting go. Only God knows the full details right now. It will be like that for quite a while because unlike before, I'm making sure that I'm setting apart most of myself for him right now, at least thoughtwise. People can taint your thoughts sometimes ( a lot of times) before you and God can work them through. Maybe one day again I'll have someone to talk to and share my heart with. That time just isn't right now.