whitney dziurawiec

All my homework is done for the semester, excluding a few small things. I handed out fliers all morning to the neighborhood to get them to come to our block party. I’m currently dressed up as I wait to go to the rehearsal dinner for a wedding I’m playing for. This is the most productive week of my life. I’ve learned that lists aren’t necessarily evil, that sleepless nights aren’t all bad, and that it feels great to not have homework looming over my head. But the biggest thing I’ve learned is something I knew all along. It’s that He is mighty to save. Not that He just saves, though He does. But He saves mightily, with a powerful hand and a rush of wind. His salvations, when we let them be, are a testimony of the realness of our God in and of themselves. At the beginning of the week, I was bad again (I feel so bipolar nowadays). And nothing or no one made me feel any better. I felt stuck again, hopeless, and done trying. So I just cried out to Him, “Save me.” There was nothing l...

Yesterday was a failure in the simplest of terms. I was selfish, pessimistic, dwelling on the wrong things. I cringe when I think of yesterday. And the hopelessness I felt when I could not bring myself out of it. My worst is still bad, even when my best is so great. Hard is good, I’ve come to realize. Hard keeps me on my toes. It causes me to search my heart even further, to rely on Him even more, and to change some things that are wrong. Hard stretches and prods and pushes, and makes me softer. More receptive. Ready to celebrate. Yes, the hard days make the good days even better. More hard days will come up and slap me in the face, I know. But I want to make each hard day a little better than the last. God knows anything is better than how I handled yesterday. But I remember the loneliness He felt on the cross. The burden He carried up there was far greater than what I complained about yesterday. And His misery makes my yesterday look like a piece of cake. So I thank God that I ...

Well I’m home for the time being. With stacks of homework that seem like Goliath in comparison to my motivation to complete them. But tomorrow is supposed to be cold and rainy, a great day to curl up with a Judges synthesis… I always listen to “Boston” by Augustana on my way back from working out. I don’t know why. I just do. That song has been my anthem in the past few months. Get me out of here, God. Move me, please. I feel stuck and trapped and not going anywhere at all. But listening to it today did not stir my heart as it normally does. No longer did I have the overwhelming desire to drop everything and run away to the East Coast, bringing only my preppiest beach clothes and a good pair of sunglasses. No. For the first time, I wanted to stay. Rather than feeling restless and stuck at the thought of being at Grace another year, my heart soared as I thought of the themes the leadership prayerfully created. I daydreamed of our whole student body seeking One thing. I don’t nee...

I am NOT ok today. And I have to get all dressed up and smile real big and not freeze my butt off. Honestly I just want to stay in bed. You are good, Lord. All the time. sigh.

Thanks to a big black guy and a Mexican, my life just got a bit more complicated. Poor Mercedes. She’ll be fine. She’ll get some great new windows from a junk yard that my grandpa apparently found. She already is a conglomeration of different parts of other cars, this just adds to her variety. I’ll still love her no matter what. She runs like she’s new, except for sounding like she’s going to fall apart. Not to put in a cheesy metaphor here or anything (though that is one of my favorite things to do), but I love that when we are broken, Jesus does not replace the pieces with random things He finds from junk yards. Amen. The only thing I keep thinking about are the men who stole from my car. I wonder what their home life was like. Was it good, and they just rebelled? Were they neglected? Did they have a father in their life? How much hurt and brokenness do they carry? And goodness sake, do their mothers know what they’re doing? Do they even care? My heart hurts for them. I’ve ...

After a long night of cutting kiwi and explaining what popping boba is for the eightieth time, I find myself sitting in my bed, listening to the storm blow in. I’m sitting here smiling as I think about how He has saved me these past few days. Amidst so many feelings of utter confusion, stinging insecurities, dizzying worry, and bleak loneliness, I am…ok. And He has done that. He has taken those awful feelings, lifted them off of me. He is carrying them. And though they lurk in the back of my mind at times, they are not mine to handle, praise the Lord. And I am actually, really, legitimately happy. I am so thankful. I am so unworthy. And though new bad feelings come almost every day, He takes them all on. Today’s bad new feeling is…lameness. I feel prude and inexperienced. So innocent, too innocent. Left out from what everyone else has been doing for years. I am embarrassed at my lameness. That song “I’m not Cool” by that one guy is coming to my mind, and I feel exponentially ...

Many people die for Christ; few ever live for Him. I heard that statement today in church and said to myself, I would die for Him in a heartbeat. And I live for Him…don’t I? But today we didn’t talk about capital-D Death. We talked about little-d death. Those little deaths we have to die to. Like the death of listening to a friend even when my problems seem much more important. Or the death of practicing piano two hours a day when I’d rather sleep, get homework done, work out, or actually do nothing. Or the death of choosing to be happy, choosing to be in a good mood and let others cheer me up, even in my deepest despair. Or the death of being the only single one. I try to stay alive, when all He wants from me is to die. Die to my selfish desires, my sense of entitlement, my longings, my rights, my feelings, my anger, and my laziness. And let Him live. Stop grasping for attention and pity, stop having to be right all the time, stop being bitter. And just die, already. It woul...