Being a PK's pretty legit.

I haven't blogged in a reallllly long time. Can you tell the end of my semester was ridiculously crazy?

Well, anyways, it was. I had 934,389,392 papers to write in the last few weeks and finished them just in time, after my computer crashed on the first day of finals, of course! At the same time, it was great. I still had time to spend with my friends in the final few weeks before summer break, and I might have even managed some pretty decent grades for the semester.

Okay, so the semester's done. Summer's begun. I'm doing nothing (except unpacking, reading, and mowing lawns) until June, so I'm pretty pumped for a relaxing few weeks. Sophomore year was great. I learn a lot. I grew a lot. I changed in more ways than one. However, I'm going to go out on a limb and not write a reflective blog about my year like the rest of the blogger population is.

Instead, this blog is about a lesson I've already learned. Lesson? I love being a pastor's daughter. I have written about my previous hatred of and rebellion towards this forced position in past blogs, but I have a couple more reasons to love it. Both reasons happened (and occurred to me) today.

Reason #1
Needless to say, I have been completely exhausted since coming home due to the crazy semester. For some strange reason, it was necessary for my family to go shopping after picking me up at Dordt. So, we left Dordt at 2 PM and shopped until 9:30 PM. Ridiculous? I think yes. Anyway, that left me even more exhausted. Because of this, I decided to take a quick nap around 4 PM today. This quick nap turned into a long nap. I dozed in and out of sleep and woke up around 7:45. Our evening church service begins at 6 PM, so I missed it. When my parents came downstairs and found me sleeping, I was informed that when I live at home, I live under their rules. One of these rules is (and always has been) that we all attend both church services unless we're out of town or so sick that we can't move. My parents weren't mad at me. They were a bit frustrated, but simply said that sleeping through church--whether accidentally or not--would not be tolerated under their roof. Two years ago, I would have yelled at them, told them "it's a freaking accident, I'm sorry I'm not perfect!"... or something along those lines. Today, I apologized...and fell back asleep (crap). As I've been thinking about what they said, I'm thankful for their strict rule. As a pastor's kid, I've rebelled against having to spend so much time at church, but today, I'm thankful for all the time. Until we're carried to glory, what better place is there to be?

Reason #2
So there's this girl at church named Emma. She's probably in second or third grade and has the loudest singing voice you've ever heard. Seriously. Even when I'm singing from the front of the sanctuary in choir, I can still hear her voice above all others. Emma has an interesting story. She has four younger siblings, and they're all blonde and arguably the most adorable siblings I've ever seen. Emma's mom is a single mother and drug addict or alcoholic of sorts, so her children were taken from her. Emma's been living with her grandparents for a couple years as a foster child. Her twin brother and sister--Dakota and Jackson--just moved in with their grandparents, too, while the other two siblings live with Emma's aunt in the same town.

Many would expect a girl coming from such a broken family to be a troublemaker. However, Emma's the most well-behaved child I've ever seen. She sits up straight and in absolute silence during church, only opening her mouth to quiet one of her siblings when they start fussing. She also PAYS ATTENTION to Dad's sermons. I'm pretty sure I didn't even pay attention until high school.

The reason I realized I love being a PK today is because of something Emma did. Emma made Dad a card. The front of the card reads, "thank you paster jansen." Once opened, it says, "Thank you for everything you have done for us. You have given us so much in our lives. I love you so much. I have never ever heard sombody so boldly preach. From: Emma." WOW. You want a story of redemption? Meet Emma, the girl with a shattered past, who might have the most perfect example of a "childlike faith." Being a PK means I see things like this... firsthand.


There you have it. Don't knock PKs. Some are rebellious. Some fake sainthood. I'm just normal. I'm broken, redeemed, and loving my life.