Waiting on God

Listen to my Radio Interview!
Posted by Taryn on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 12:18am
During my lunch hour today, I was interviewed by Life Lessons Radio about my book. The topic was transformative travel. My knees shook and I was plenty nervous, but I think I used the opportunity to clearly proclaim my faith in Jesus Christ over the airwaves. I stressed that the only reason I "traveled" to Eastern Europe in those dark days was because I had already been transformed by Christ. I had a purpose in going: to help introduce others to the only One who can truly transform us. And while there, I was transformed myself after seeing God do the impossible and changed by the graciousness of the people I lived among. Take a listen: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lifelessonsnetwork/2012/01/24/taryn-hutchison-shares-her-transformative-travel#.Tx8HB3rX7hA.facebook Book News
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Rembrandt in Raleigh
Posted by Taryn on Friday, January 20, 2012 at 1:49pm

Last weekend Steve and I, along with hundreds of others, thronged to an event in our state that was so popular we had to park in an overflow field and wait in a long line for tickets. And it wasn’t even NASCAR. We went to Raleigh to see some of Rembrandt's works at the North Carolina Museum of Art. Here we were privvy to a higher level of sophistication than we usually encounter in the foothills. And being a former art major, it's an aspect of life that I need from time to time. I can’t hear the name of my state capital, Raleigh, without picturing Barney Fife puff out his chest, put his thumbs in his belt loops, and snort as he boasted about going to Raleigh. And so the idea of going there to see the largest exhibition of Rembrandt works ever presented in America, with the show's only East Coast venue being Raleigh, is incongruous. But that’s exactly what we did. To get to Raleigh, we drove through the Triad cities of the Piedmont area (Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and High Point) on to the Research Triangle cities (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill). With barely 40 miles separating the two triangles, I think they should be combined and called a hexagon. But I digress. The one day I spent in Amsterdam many years ago, Rembrandt's museum was closed. As was Van Gogh's. Just like my day in Rome. I happened along on the only day in the entire calendar year, besides Christmas Day, that St. Peter's (and the Sistine Chapel) are closed. Who knew that August 15 is Anunciation Day (or was it Assumption Day)? Not me. So when I heard that Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was coming to my state, I jumped on it. And it was worth it. Even my country-music-and-baseball-loving husband thought so. Current Events
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One Mile and Fifteen Minutes
Posted by Taryn on Monday, January 16, 2012 at 12:50am

Last Wednesday evening, I drove home at the end of a strange weather day. All day long, the skies would open up and let loose a torrent of rain, stopping abruptly to gather steam for the next offering. Dark thunder clouds chased me home, but no rain fell on my car as I drove on dry roads. The National Weather Alert that sounded on the radio seemed surreal. A tornado – in January! – had just touched down in a county south of me. The warning said to abandon your vehicle or mobile home if you were in Catawba County (where I started) or Southeastern Burke County. I was on the edge, headed out of the danger zone to my home in the center of Burke County. I would’ve felt foolish (and cold) laying face down in a wet ditch, so I kept going. Lightning flashed on either side of my car as I entered the safety of my garage and the comfort of my husband in our warm kitchen, redolent with my beckoning dinner. While we ate, the tornado touched down in the town of Icard, one mile south of the highway where I heard the warning, fifteen minutes after I passed by unscathed. The 130 mph winds classified it at the upper end of a Stage 2 twister. The pictures on the news showed uneaten dinners still on tables or stoves where walls had been ripped away. In all, 66 homes were destroyed, with $2 million damage (the amount for one home in California). The people interviewed made statements like "the good Lord was watching over me" as they cried out “Jesus, help me!” The most censorable word in our politically-correct society was loudly proclaimed. Absent were the usual angry people blaming the government for the disaster, replaced by people thankful to God for life. Every day, more times than we can count, tragedy almost strikes. We’re late for work and come across an accident on the freeway, right at the place we should have been. A planter falls off a balcony and would’ve crashed on our heads if we hadn’t stopped to tie our shoelace. Rather than thinking how unlucky we are when something bad happens, I wonder how our attitudes would change if we were more aware. What if we could see the myriad ways we escape disaster? Wouldn't our response be to thank God? This time I was aware. God protected me by just one mile and fifteen minutes. And I'm thankful. Current Events
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Like Fingernails on Chalkboards
Posted by Taryn on Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 12:18am

Noises bother me. I wish they didn’t but they do. I realize it’s my problem so I generally keep it to myself (except when I’m with my poor husband), but some days my head is pounding from sounds that grate on me. In my last job, I was subjected to a symphony of gum-cracking and pen-clicking noises that made me want to run, screaming, out of the building. In this job, the screechy dissonance I must contend with is bad grammar. One of my Romanian professors would put her hands over her ears and wince whenever I made a grammatical blunder, which was quite frequently. She promised me that someday I would know the language well enough that mistakes would hurt my ears, too. I don’t think I ever got to the point of pain, but grammatical errors in Romanian did start to simply sound wrong. I wonder why certain things don’t “just sound wrong” to some of the people I encounter now, in my daily life. I’ve kept track of some actual statements I‘ve heard lately, here in the foothills of Appalachia, that are the equivalent of fingernails scraping across a chalkboard to me: Me and her had ate it up. It don’t matter. Him and Carrie had went to . . . We was sitting . . . He don’t know. If it had became on sale . . . I was froze. Make sure it can be drove. That song was sang. She’s fixin’ to get her hair did The words I’ve just typed look like a Christmas tree. The grammatical errors are underlined in squiggly green lines and the spelling errors in red. The only excuse for typos is color-blindness. If only we could see those squiggly lines when we speak. A friend of mine here cringes every time a local person is interviewed on the TV news. In fact, North Carolina is crawling with colleges and universities, and there are many very intelligent people who make their home in the Tarheel state. Somehow, the ones who get interviewed seldom have good teeth (sometimes no teeth at all) and never use proper grammar. It doesn’t help the stereotype. Another friend used to complain that whenever a Southerner is depicted in television or film, they are cast as the dumb one, even in cartoons like the Smurfs. Just because Southerners' words are slowed down with a big dose of kindness, it doesn’t mean their brains are slow. That said, I don’t remember grammar being as large an issue in other places I’ve lived. I’m jes' saying’. . . Cultural Observations
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The Majority of my Waking Hours
Posted by Taryn on Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 7:52am

I have now completed almost eight weeks at my new job, and it’s high time I tell you how it’s going. The week before Thanksgiving is an odd time to start a new venture, with nearly two full weeks out of my first eight being holiday time off. That's countered by the days being shorter and (especially this week) much colder, and the holidays dumping a ton of extra things on my To-Do list. My trusty alarm clock (my husband) wakes me up quite a bit earlier than when I did freelance work at home, which I remember fondly as being unemployed. Commuting is the hardest part of my job; it’s the first time in my life I’ve done it any distance. I now leave the house when it’s dark and return when it’s dark. I’ve had longer commutes before - longer in time not distance - but they’ve always been stress-free ones by foot on campus. My commute is directly due east, so I drive into the rising sun each morning and the setting sun each evening. I’ve learned that it’s best to live to the east of your workplace and, if you can't, make sure the visor in your car works. (Mine didn't.) Each evening, I’m only awake at home about two hours before I fall asleep sitting upright on the sofa. The majority of my day is no longer spent with Steve but with all new people in my life – my colleagues. Learning a new job is like learning a language. It takes a tremendous amount of mental energy and I’m depleted by the end of the day. But I enjoy the work, the campus, and the people. And I’m so grateful to have a job. My first day, I discovered that three of us on my floor were raised on chicken farms. It just doesn’t get any better than that. My second day, everyone greeted me with, “You came back!” I spend each day trying hard to prove that I’m indispensable, or I did until my husband reminded me that everyone can be replaced. He told me I’m very efficient, definitely unique, and a joy to be around, but indispensable – not really. I was surprised to find that I’m one of the youngsters on my floor. The bad news is that I don’t have the pool of computer knowledge available to me with younger co-workers, but the good news is that somehow I’m viewed as tech-savvy. However, it is a college campus and so the enthusiasm and energy of students is everywhere. I was thrilled to learn that 10% of the student population is involved in a student-led Campus Crusade group - probably a record - and hopeful that I’ll be able to help mentor some of the student leaders. Could this be part of the reason God positioned me here? To me, work is never about making money; instead, it’s a place of ministry. I see this job as a calling, the location God chose for me to serve Him as I trust Him to provide for my needs. My aim is to work here for the next 10 years and then join my husband in retirement from the workplace, never retirement from God’s work. I’m hoping this will be my last job. I only have 9 years and 10 months to go. I feel tired already. Living a Life of Faith
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