As a student in the counseling program I’m in, we are required to take (at least) three classes called Intensives. These courses require each student to travel to Liberty’s Lynchburg, VA, campus and attend class for the week. Last week I went to my first Intensive. The entire experience was life-altering, and though I’m prone to hyperbole, I completely mean that.

I traveled with one of my coworkers who is about a year ahead of me in the program and it was good to have a travel buddy. I’m not used to traveling as part of a pair, so it was good for me to be a part of a team. We stayed at a hotel a few miles from campus that was an old shoe factory and it was swank. There was not one bit of decor in that hotel that I did not want to steal for my own home. It was sophisticated and comfortable with a dash of fabulous. To drive the we-used-to-make-shoes-here-no-really theme home, the hotel owns a dog named Buster Brown! He lives at the hotel and is cared for by the people who work there. He’s a chill little dude who just hangs out in the lobby and in the office.

One of the major themes of my year so far is Trying New Things. I don’t do that all that often and I think I live a smaller life than I should as a result. There are many reasons why I’m not more adventurous, but it all boils down to the tremendous amounts of anxiety I feel pretty much every day. (I know I need to talk to someone about that.) So anyway, this trip was all about trying new things and being less . . .rigid than is my tendency.

And I totally lived to tell about it. Who would have thought it was possible?

I guess because I know I’ve got gps capabilities in my cell phone, I didn’t get any actual driving directions for this trip before I left town. It’s hard to state how insanely out of character this is for me, but I ended up leaving town with everything I needed except for directions!

We got lost every single day in Lynchburg. The beauty of that is that Lynchburg is a pretty small town. If you go in the wrong direction long enough, you’ll just head out of town. That way you can turn around and try again. And try again we did.

At our first stop in town (dinner!), I was approached by a guy in the restaurant who told me that I was the prettiest girl he’d seen in a long, long time. And when I say I was approached by a guy, I mean a man who was in his seventies, if not his eighties. He then said that I looked like a movie star, oh what was her name? Halle Berry.

I love Lynchburg!

It’s not everyday that one is told that she resembles one of the world’s most beautiful women (which I certainly do not, but it was a sincere compliment and and I thanked the gentleman for his lovely words).

I don’t recount that story here because I believe I actually resemble the lovely Ms. Berry. I’m just saying it was an unusual week.

The next morning, our first morning of class, I get up and get dressed and realize that I cannot find the car keys (to the rental!). Aack! After emptying out my backpack, I found the key right where I’d placed it for safekeeping. Oy. Once we got to school, I found a parking place and proceeded to pull into it a bit too quickly, hitting the car in front of me. And this car still had its owners inside. And they were my classmates. Can we go ahead and call this awkward? No damage to either vehicle, but who wants to be the person to hit a parked car at 3 mph? Not me. But I did it anyway. I also lost my new hat on the first day of class. Boo. I hope that it found a good home with some student with a cold head.

The days in class were good. We had lecture time in the morning and in the afternoons we were placed into groups of 18 students each for clinical work. It was during one of these afternoon sessions that I asked my classmate, who was posing as a client, a question with the word ridiculous in it. That was so unprofessional I can’t even stand to think about it, but it happened and it’s water under the bridge. Here’s praying it will never happen again! Ever!

Moving forward through the week . . . lots of learning and surprisingly enough, some healing. We each had a chance to pose as counselor, counselee and observer during each afternoon session and the student who was my “counselor” actually helped me to understand some things about myself that I did not know. It was good stuff! Our professor said that students frequently experience enlightenment about various struggles in life during these pretend sessions and I kind of scoffed at that notion, but I’ll be darned if the same thing didn’t happen to me. God is good and works in all kinds of ways.

There’s more stuff about my week in VA that I’ll share in the future, but I want to savor it a little bit first.

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Before I left for Virginia, I received an email from my friend Andrew (a singer/songwriter living in Nashville), letting me know about a trip he was planning to Houston. He told me the dates that he was performing and wanted to know if I might be able to come to a show or to one of the church services where he was playing. Our schedules didn’t quite match up but we were able to have lunch today, and that was pretty awesome. I met Andrew in 2006 when the band he was in played at Second Baptist in Arkadelphia. We’ve kept in touch periodically since then and since the first meeting and until today, our friendship has been completely digital. I was anxious about meeting him today because I wondered if it would be awkward or weird and you know what? It was delightful! It was like talking to a good friend, which he is. I don’t trust many people, but I trust him, and I think it’s because his music makes me think I know him better than I actually do!

A couple of years ago, Andrew recorded a record that has really impacted my life. (“Really impacted” doesn’t really do it justice. It kind of wrecked me, but in the very best way.) Released in 2009, Open Book helps me to understand how God heals us from the pain of sin and disappointment and whatever else life throws at us. To be candid with you, I couldn’t listen to it when I first got it. I wasn’t ready for the raw honesty of these songs, but these words and melodies served as the soundtrack to my trip last week, and I know I’ll savor them moving forward. He also wrote one of my very favorite songs, “Bittersweet.” I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to that song since my Mom died (hundreds of plays, at least) but every time, the words help me to express feelings I can’t express on my own.

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Only sixteen days in and 2011 is shaping up to be a year of changes, growth and new things. May God be glorified!

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“Remind Me,” Andrew Greer.
–Song of the Day