OWN

Last night, before bed, I watched a show on the Oprah Winfrey Network otherwise known as OWN. And if that was at all confusing for you, yes, Oprah Winfrey does indeed OWN  a television network (pun intended). It was a show about recovering prostitutes and their efforts to return to society without returning to their old ways. It was completely fascinating, heart breaking, and even hope-giving.

As I may have hinted in my last blog, I'm not the happiest "camper "right now (I'm sorry, I can't control myself when it comes to puns). What most post-college graduates experience after their senior year was slightly postponed for me but that I am feeling with full force now. You know, it's that familiar what-the-heck-am-I-doing-with-my-life kinda feel. Some may call it directionless staggering, aimless wandering, wayward stumbling, aberrant ambling, or vagrant trotting, not to beat it on the head or anything (and yes, I did use dictionary.com for that, it has a phenomenal thesaurus feature). And yet with all her power and wisdom, Oprah Winfrey can offer me little resolution in this quarter-life crisis.

Although I still have no answers, I did have an amazing dream last night. I dreamt I was an in-home caretaker for a prostitution recovery center. I lived, slept and ate with dozens of women fighting the greatest fight of their lives; to believe that they are more valuable than what their bodies can offer. This seemed to take place in an old, southern rickety house, complete with peeling paint, somewhere in Harrisonburg, Virginia. One morning, at the crack of dawn, one of the women decided to leave. She packed her bags quietly and slipped out the door. She didn't want to fight anymore. I woke to see the screen door creaking shut and rushed to the porch as I watched her get in a car with three men and drive away. I quickly realized the other women had joined me and we mourned our friends choice of path. The women looked at me, the only white woman still in her early twenties, and asked me what would happen to our friend and what we were to do. I did the only think I ever know to do so I prayed. The first thing the Spirit told me was that we, the recovery center, were not the epicenter of all internal change but that in fact it is the Spirit of God and only the Spirit of God that can redeem. The second thing I heard was that His Body, the rest of the church, is out there and will take care of her if she chooses to return to Him again. And the third and most powerful thing I heard was simply to have faith. That all things work for His glory and all we can do is be patient and trust this.

I wish I could say that was the end of the dream but there was something else about me cleaning up poop and a tremendously dirty kitchen in there too. But I digress. I think God is trying to hint at something. Or else Oprah Winfrey now has control over all of our dreams. FAITH. It seems to often come back to this little bugger of a spiritual fruit. When you find no satisfaction in your career, when your daughter goes into a rehab center, when your wife wants a divorce, or when you are $60,000 dollars in debt at age 22, even then we are asked to have faith. And when all seems stagnant and there are no hopeful ripples in the pool of my future, I guess, well, I just have to have faith that God is greater.

La Loba