An Advent of Thanksgiving

Not long ago, Kev and I had the opportunity to spend a Sunday afternoon at the home of Kev’s aunt and uncle when several of their grown children and their families were gathered together for a post-Thanksgiving meal. There I observed a scene that was beautiful and yet cut through me quite unexpectedly. Like slipping and falling on a patch of ice disguised as pavement, it caught me off guard and knocked the wind out of me: A mother and her lovely daughters sitting around the table sharing family stories and memories with one another, finishing each other’s sentences. They might not have been aware of it—I certainly wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t been so keenly aware of its absence in my own life—but they were sharing much more than conversation and laughter; they were sharing a connection that can only exist between a mother and her daughters.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this mother-daughter connection. It’s hard to describe my relationship with my mom because words like “friend” or “confidante” don’t do it justice. All my life, my mom was the first one I thought to call whenever something exciting or sad or confusing happened. She knew all my secrets and all my hopes, and she knew all my foibles and flaws—and loved me anyway. I miss sharing things with her—chatting for more than an hour on the phone until she’d inevitably say, “I have to let you go, Keri. I have to go to the bathroom!”—and sometimes I feel very hollow inside. But these days, I mostly feel thankful.

This feeling of thankfulness is surprising to me because throughout much of the grieving process, thankfulness has been an afterthought instead of a real, honest emotion. Of course I’m thankful my mom is in heaven and will never know pain or loss again. And I’m thankful for the assurance I’ll see her again. But thankfulness for these things hasn’t necessarily changed the fact that what I really want is another 30 years with my mom.

The thankfulness I’ve felt lately, though, is different. It’s been quietly and steadily replacing the vague, unsettled feeling that’s lingered all these months with a soothing sort of peace. Grief for what I’ve lost now mingles with thankfulness for what I had. For 36 years I had a mother who loved me, supported me, corrected me, and modeled for me what it means to be a woman of God. That is a huge blessing! Mourning that fact that my mom will not live to be over 90 like her own mother seems to cheapen the 66 years God gave my mom on this earth, 36 of which I got to spend with her. Why have I not realized this before?

Oh how the grace of God is a salve for the pieces of me that were broken and are now healing! I love how he reveals things in his own time, patiently and repeatedly for those of us who are slow to catch on. Jesus’ promise that those who mourn will be comforted rings true in so many ways that continue to leave me amazed and humbled.

I don’t know if I’ll ever stop longing for the concreteness of the relationship I had with my mom. I haven’t heard her voice since Good Friday, and I miss it every single day. But the relationship I had with my mom did not die when my mom did; it will always be a part of who I am and will continue to influence and shape my relationships with other people. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.

Baby Steps

I regret I’ve gotten sidetracked from my blog. But I have a good excuse: I’m working on a young adult novel. I’ll write more about that at a later time, though. I just wanted to write a quick reflection while I have the time.
A month ago, I felt like I was in a different skin, and I didn’t quite know how it fit. Many of the things I used to enjoy doing, like going shopping or baking, no longer held any appeal for me because they reminded me of time I’d spent with my mom doing the same thing. Shopping just seemed like a chore, and baking took too much effort. I couldn't even drive through the neighborhood where I spent more of my childhood without falling to pieces in the car. But with the change of seasons has come a time of healing and rejuvenation. I can’t explain it except as God’s incredible grace and mercy.

Since my mom’s death, I’ve been in a hamster wheel chasing after something to just help me feel good again. I’m not talking about drugs or anything like that—I’m talking about lifestyle changes. I’ve changed my diet to include much less refined sugar and white flour. I’ve started going to an upper cervical chiropractor to try to get rid of the heavy fatigue that’s hung over me most of the summer and fall. I’ve gotten a new job with a much shorter commute and more chances for challenge and growth. I’ve started to invest once again in my relationships with the people who’ve held me up in prayer all these months.

But something else triggered a change only this past weekend. I took my stepdaughter shopping for a Confirmation dress. It was a very short shopping trip, as we’d done our research online before hitting the store, but it was enough to launch me forward. The next day, my sister commented that my nephew needed new pants because he’d worn holes in all his jeans. “If Mom were alive, he’d never need pants,” my sister said. “I’ll get him pants!” I volunteered. Shopping is such a silly, unimportant thing, and it makes absolutely no difference in the grand scheme of things whether I like to go shopping or not. But I feel like I’ve regained a piece of me that was lost, and that is good.

The grieving process still continues, though. I can’t look at recent pictures of my mom without breaking down, and I can’t yet read her notes and emails. It’s too exhausting to deal with all of that right now. But I can talk about her. I love to talk about her. I love to tell stories from my childhood and tell my stepkids things she used to tell me. That’s something, right?

There was so much more I wanted to say, but I need to get to bed, and I can’t remember what I was going to say anyway. All I know is that God’s promise to be near to the broken-hearted is true. He’s so good.   

A Matter of Time

Grief is a curious thing. These days I feel like I’m part of a science experiment, waiting to see each day the form grief will take. Early on I thought the listlessness I woke up with week after week was the result of a vitamin D deficiency or too much sugar in my diet or the blasted heat and humidity…until I talked to my sister and discovered she felt the same way. I’m not sure why missing my mom would drain me of energy to the point that I found nothing even remotely interesting or appealing, or why the mere thought of going about a normal day as if nothing was wrong made me want to hide under the covers like a child having a nightmare. Thankfully, as the summer has faded so has my lethargy.

I was actually feeling really good up until a few days ago. I thought maybe I’d reached a turning point. My mom’s birthday came and went, and I barely cried; instead I felt thankful and at peace. But now I think the permanence of my mom’s death is setting in, and I find myself wishing we’d just had more time.

I had a very vivid dream about my mom last night, my first one in a long time. In my dream, my sister and I were trying to make a pizza for us and my parents to eat. I was charged with finding the right pizza pan, but my parents’ kitchen (you might call it their “dream kitchen”) had about as many shelves as a department store, and I could not find the pan I wanted. My mom was across the street talking to a neighbor, and when I went over to her and asked her where to find the pan, she told me she was busy. So I continued looking, all the while getting angrier and angrier with my mom for not helping me.

When my mom finally came back home, she apologized for not coming home right away but said she wanted to talk with the neighbor. In my anger, I threw down the pan I was holding (apparently not the right pan) and stomped away. But my dad stopped me. He asked me if it was worth it to be angry with my mom over this. He told me I might regret it. At that moment, I (in my dream) knew my mom was actually dead. I said to my dad, “I think I understand what you’re saying.” And then I went back to my mom and gave her a hug so tight I could actually feel it, and she hugged me back.

Needless to say, I woke up rather confused.

I don’t place a lot of stock in dreams or pretend to know how to interpret them, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I wish I had taken better advantage of the opportunities I had to spend time with my mom and do stuff for her. I’m not angry with my mom; I’m frustrated with myself. I wish I had visited more often, called more often, offered to help more often. I wish I had asked her more about her childhood and college years and written down her memories. I wish I had loved her as selflessly as she loved me, but often the opposite was true.

Maybe this is the guilt stage of grief, if there even is one.

But God has always been and continues to be so good to me and my family. While I wander the land of “I wish,” I know it’s pointless to long for opportunities that I let slip away, and I’m continually reminded to be thankful for the opportunities I grabbed onto.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that my mom loved me as much as one human being could possibly love another, and I loved her as well as I knew how. There were no unresolved issues or conflicts. There were no hurtful words or actions left unforgiven. There was no bitterness or anger between us. What an incredible blessing!

Kev and I were talking recently about the week my whole family spent with my dad in Illinois after my mom’s funeral. We were reflecting on how even though I was a bit nervous about all of us being in close proximity for a week when we hadn’t been together for that long since the time all of us lived at home, it turned out to be a really good thing. At some point, Kev asked me what I’d like to be different if we were to repeat the experience in the future. I said, “For my mom to be there.” Kev said, “I don’t think she’d much like leaving heaven, even for that.”

He’s right. My mom’s experiencing joy we can’t even come close to this side of heaven. Though I often wish we could have her back just for a little while, the permanence of my mom’s new residence by Jesus’ side is something to rejoice about. And one day when we’re experiencing eternity together, we’ll have all the time in the world.

That thought makes me smile.   

The one I needed to write

I was a senior in college the year my parents went to Africa. It was an experience of a lifetime for them, but it was also incredibly hard on my whole family to be apart for so long. After we took them to the airport for their flight first to Paris and then to who knows how many places before they arrived in Cameroon, my siblings and I went out for pizza, and we sat in the restaurant and talked about how strange our world suddenly seemed with Mom and Dad half the planet away. It wasn’t like they had gone to a developed country with reliable high-speed Internet and telephone lines you never thought twice about; they were in a place where they were lucky to receive e-mail once a week, and I can count on one hand the number of times we talked on the phone the year they were gone.

            All of us kids felt their absence differently. I felt lost. Here I was, almost finished with college, trying to figure out what to do next, not quite sure what to think about the young man who had his eye on me, wondering how best to help my grandparents as they struggled along with daily life, and I couldn’t ask my parents for advice. I especially missed my mom—our long conversations about boys, our shopping trips when I was home for the weekend. I’d get on the phone with my sister, who felt equally lost, and we’d just cry.

            One night after a particularly difficult day, I dreamed that my mom came into my room and gave me a hug. I could actually feel her arms around me, soothing me. She didn’t say anything; she just held me. When I woke up, for a moment I thought she was actually there, and even though I was disappointed that she wasn’t, I still felt comforted. To this day, almost fifteen years later, I remember that dream as vividly as my favorite memories. I don’t know if it was a little present from God or it was just my subconscious playing out my deepest longing. I do know that in the past months I’ve often wished for the same dream over again.  

            When my mom was sick this past spring, I dreamed about her a lot. She was in what the doctors called a semi-coma, which essentially meant she opened her eyes and responded to pain, but she didn’t respond to anything else, including our voices. In one dream, she was awake and sitting on her bed at home reading. I talked to her, and she talked to me, but I don’t remember what she said. In another part of the house, I found my sister. I told her Mom was awake and this had to be a dream because Mom was unconscious. My sister said (I remember it clearly), “If she’s awake, it’s a miracle. If you’re dreaming, it’s a hug from God.” I liked that.

            After my mom’s death, for a few weeks I dreamed she was alive, but I could never reach her. She was always too far away for me to talk to, and I just couldn’t get to her. I woke up frustrated and confused. Why wouldn’t she talk to me? Why wouldn’t she acknowledge me?

I don’t dream about her much anymore, at least not right now. She occasionally shows up as an extra in a dream, but she’s rarely the main character. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m not sure how I feel about anything actually. My mom’s death is a vague and unsettling concept I can’t quite hold in my hands or get straight on my head. Not a day goes by when the notion to call my mom goes fluttering through my head followed a split second later by the gut-wrenching realization that I can’t. Nor will I be able to ever again as long as I’m here and she’s there. But I try not to look too far into the future. One day at a time without my mom is much easier to accept than never hearing her voice again or feeling her arms around me for the rest of my earthly life. I try not to go there.

But at the same time, I want to go there. I want it to be real, to just sink in all at once so I can deal with it and move on. No more of this breaking into tears at random moments, usually when I don’t have a tissue nearby. No more of this ending up a slobbery mess, wiping my nose on my hands and hoping no one saw me. No more of this getting angry at the guy on the radio for praising God for how his mother recovered from a life-threatening illness and wanting to say, “Why don’t you just keep it to yourself, buddy? Not everyone’s mom recovers.” No more of this smiling and nodding when good-intentioned people have it all wrong and tell me my mom is an angel watching me from heaven or is with us in spirit. What does that even mean, with us in spirit?  

I know the truth. My six-year-old nephew knows the truth. Ask him where his grandma is, and he’ll tell you she’s in heaven with Jesus. I know we’ll see her again someday, and it will be amazing. But it’s hard to live in “someday.”

Someday, memories of my mom will comfort instead of hurt. I can barely even look at pictures without feeling a physical ache. Every little thought of her pierces my heart. I know I’ll be thankful for the cards and letters and e-mails I’ve saved, safely tucked away for someday.

Someday, my praise will ring out louder than my cries. My thankfulness for all the years I had with my mother will replace the bitter loneliness for that one person I can’t get near. Someday the unsettled feeling that all is certainly not right with the world will be replaced by the promised peace that passes understanding. Bit by bit, maybe it already is.

But someday is still too far away. Each hour brings it closer, though, and with God and time, I’ve no doubt someday will come. As for right now…right now, I just want a hug from my mom.

Facing the Giants

It's 1:00 in the morning. I really should be sleeping, but I can't. My younger brother called and woke me at 11:00. He wasn't calling about anything important; he thought I'd be asleep and intended to leave a message. But these days I sleep with my phone's volume on high and jump to answer when it rings, my heart pounding in my ears, because all of a sudden life got unpredictable.

Who am I kidding? Life has always been unpredictable. Once on my way home from work I saw a car along the side of the road smashed into an accordian shape as if it were a toy, and I knew that despite all wishful thinking the person in the car couldn't possibly have survived. The realization that someone was waiting at home for that person hit me in the stomach. It was a Friday night. They probably had plans; maybe supper was already on the table, and the person in the car never made it home. Who can prepare for that?

My brother-in-law's dear father went to the doctor with what he thought was some sort of flu and weeks later found himself in the operating room having a brain tumor removed. Only the doctors couldn't get it all, and a handful of months later my brother-in-law's father went home to Jesus. It was just an ordinary day when my brother-in-law got the phone call that his dad had cancer. No one saw it coming.

I'm not a fan of unpredicatbility. One of my worst fears, the one that keeps me up at night, is getting a phone call that something bad has happened to someone I love. This fear ties my insides in knots and brings me instantly to tears. I know better than to be afraid; I know God holds the future. But I want to hold on to the people I love with a white-knuckled grip. When the phone call came last week that my mom was seriously ill and in the hospital, my fear to some extent was realized.

An infection was raging through my mom's body. Thankfully, it's mostly under control now, but the toughest part is still to come. Surgery today revealed a great deal of damage to her foot. The weeks and months and maybe even years ahead are going to require more patience and strength than my family has ever mustered before, and I'm scared. I'm scared for my mom. She's got an inner strength to rival Abraham's, but my heart breaks for the loss of her use of her foot for an undetermined amount of time, and I wonder how one even starts to deal with such a thing. I'm scared for my dad. He's been a kind a gentle caregiver, but how he's got big decisions to make and a lot more care to give, and none of us kids are near enough to be there all the time. And I'm scared for me, in a selfish way I suppose. I wonder what I can do, how I can help. I live the closest and want to there, but I have a job and family too; I don't know what the balance should be. I wonder how all of this will change my mom and dad. I feel helpless, and I hate that.

I suppose that's why I'm awake at now 2:00 in the morning. All of this will take time to process and understand. I'm thankful God spared my mom's life and pray for his continued healing and mercy. I know what God says about fear; I have dozens of Bible passages at the tip of my tongue. I know Jesus said time and time again, "Do not be afraid." I know all this. But like everything else, surrender also takes time. It will come, of that I am certain. And certainty in God's promises wins over the unpredictability of this life every single time.

I think maybe I can sleep now.

The Simple Things, part 2

Last Friday evening, Kev and Teenage Stepson went to a retreat at church, so Teenage Stepdaughter and I had the house to ourselves. After tidying up in the kitchen a little bit, I decided to go to the grocery store to pick up some things for the weekend meals, and I asked Teenage Stepdaughter if she wanted to come along. Though the prospect of grocery shopping on a Friday night didn't exactly put a spring in her step, perhaps due to sheer boredom or a lack of a better offer she shrugged and said, "I suppose."

At the grocery store, after gathering ingredients for build-your-own burritos and while the browsing the organic section for quick freezer meals, Teenage Stepdaughter said something about how Amy's Pizza Snacks look like Pizza Rolls. She had me at "Pizza Rolls." We'd eaten supper early so the guys could get off to their retreat, and my stomach was growling. I couldn't get Pizza Rolls out of my head.

"Those sound really good," I said. "Should we get some?"

She was on board.

As we hurried to the freezer aisle, I had a moment of deja vu and laughed out loud. In my preteen and early teen years, my dad was on several synod committees that required him to travel to Wisconsin for meetings three or four times a year. He usually stayed overnight in Wisconsin, and on those nights he was gone, my mom took us kids to the store to pick out TV dinners. On the way home from the store, we often stopped at the library to get a video to watch. As we sat in front of TV trays in the living room and savored our salisbury steak and chicken nuggets and, if we were lucky, the warm chocolate pudding that usually came with the salisbury steak or chicken nuggets, while we watched the movie from the library, we wished we could have this ritual every night.

Those rare evening three or four times a year were pretty much the only times we didn't eat at the table, and they were certainly the only times we had TV dinners, and so they were special. 

After I finished college and moved back to Minnesota, not too far from but not too close to my parents' house, my mom would call me when my dad had to go out of town. She'd pick up eclairs from the grocery store and order a pizza, and we'd eat in the living room while watching a movie--usually something with Sean Connery.

While laughing out loud in the freezer aisle, I shared this memory with Teenage Stepdaughter. We checked the bakery aisle and snatched up the last box of eclairs. Then we went home, curled up on the couch with our Pizza Rolls and eclairs, and watched one of the movies I'd watched with my mom years ago.

You just gotta love the simple things.

Generations

My great-grandmother's house had what I liked to think of as a parlor. I suppose most people would call it a living room, but with the roses blooming on the wallpaper and the old pump organ in the corner, it was everything I imagined a parlor to be.

I never met my great-grandmother, but my grandma's sister, my great-aunt Esther, lived in that old farmhouse her whole life, looking after her mother throughout the stages of what might have been Alzheimer's and tending the cows in the pasture and the flowers lovingly planted all around the yard. Esther never married, and though I was too young to really talk about such things with her, I think she must have been lonely sometimes. My grandma said she fancied a young man at one time, but he thought of her more as a sister than a potential bride and married another.

Esther was a true salt-of-the-earth woman. She was small and reed-thin, with skin ruddy from the sun and wind and gray hair cropped just below her ears. In my mind she always wore a cotton dress with an apron, knee-high stockings, and black buckled shoes, and her voice crackled when she talked. All those years she lived in that house, she never installed indoor plumbing but instead used the little outhouse from her childhood. She had a small pump for water in the kitchen, but my siblings and I especially enjoyed helping Esther get water from the big pump out in the pump house.

Though my grandma had two sisters, neither had children of their own, so my dad was the only child among the three, and from what I've heard, my dad's aunts adored their red-headed nephew like no other. When he was a kid, my dad spent time during the summers out at Esther's farm building playhouses in the fields and chasing after his dog Penny. He also spent time keeping his grandma company so Esther could get her work done. Esther's mother, I'm told, was in the habit of wandering off, so Esther would bring her along when she did her chores around the farm and try to keep her occupied by having her hold the tails of the cows while Esther milked them.

It was during those summers when my dad and his grandma sat in the parlor and played church. I'm sure my dad knows the story much better than I do, but I've heard he preached many a sermon long before the idea of attending seminary ever sparked his imagination. And my great-grandmother sang the hymns so deeply embedded in her memory the dementia couldn't touch them. I can envision the scene in my mind so clearly--a little freckled-faced boy and his grandma enjoying time with their Savior.

Fast-forward some forty years, and the scene isn't that different. The youngest son of the freckled-face boy is standing on a small platform in the living room of his house wearing a "gown" his grandma made from an old white dress and preaching a sermon on John 3:16. The sermon is followed by his older sister plunking out "Silent Night" and "Glory Be To Jesus" (the only two hymns she can play with both hands) on the piano, while both children sing the words they know by heart.

What started in the parlor of the old farmhouse continued in the living room of the house in the suburbs. That's powerful stuff.

I'm just saying is all.

I'm not the kind of person who jumps on every rickety wagon that goes clattering by when it comes to my health and well-being. With all the "studies" that reveal conflicting information and "new research" that may either solidify or debunk old research, not to mention the "oh, we said this but now we realize something else is actually true" scenarios, I've really had to educate myself about what I should and should not do to be conscientious consumer.

Until about a year ago, I never thought much about things like where my food came from or what kind of impact my lifestyle had on the environment and on other people. Maybe the fact that I do think about such things now has to do with my generation. It seems to be a common goal among many of my friends and acquaintances to live more like people did a hundred years ago in terms of getting food from a farm instead of a corporate conglomerate, being active despite having a desk job, conserving natural resources, and trying to buy local products instead of those produced by exploited people in developing countries.

Of course, with this new awareness comes a great deal of responsibility--and that for me is the hardest part. I cannot feed myself or my family feed-lot-raised beef or eggs and meat from antibiotic-and hormone-filled chickens that never see the light of day. I just can't do it. This means paying more for grass-fed beef and free-range chicken and eggs from the farmer's market or co-op and eating less of it because it costs more. This also means very little fast food. Knowing where my meat comes from and not eating fast food are healthy decisions, but sometimes I want a McDonald's cheeseburger so much it hurts. Seriously.

When it comes to label reading, we tried the baby-step method. We started simply--no foods containing high fructose corn syrup or anything hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated were allowed in the shopping cart. It wasn't too much of a sacrifice, as there are usually alternatives. But then we started looking at food labels for anything modified, I knew my Little Debbie days were over, as were the days of pretty much anything packaged. I had to draw the line, though, when it came to refined sugar. Giving up Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines was not a problem, as I bake at home using raw sugar. It was the bread products that broke me. I tried making bread and buns in my bread machine, but I just couldn't get them to taste the same...not to mention the fact that it takes four hours.

And then there's the organic-or-not-organic debate. Frankly, I think buying organic has become much too trendy for the label to mean much of anything. Many organic brands are owned by large food-producing empires that also produce non-organic brands, so I don't really trust them. That's just me being skeptical. But there are some organic brands I know and trust, and while we get our produce from the farmer's market in the summer, we do try to get organic produce from the store in the winter.  

Being socially conscious has even reached into my chocolate-eating habits. Several of my coworkers feel the same way about food as I do, so we share information. Around Halloween, someone e-mailed me a list of chocolate manufacturers that use child labor in developing countries to harvest the cocoa beans. And so the Hershey's chocolate went the way of the McDonald's cheeseburgers and the Little Debbies. Who'd have thought the choice of which chocolate I buy would matter? But even on the smallest level, it does. At least I keep believing that at some level the choices I've made and continue to make will make a positive difference in the grand scheme of things.

I still have so much to learn and many changes to make to be the best steward I can of the body and resources I've been given. Someday we'd like to have a few acres of land so we can have a big garden and some chickens, but until then I need to work on my canning skills and read up on how to actually get the eggs from the chickens. I sometimes think if I didn't have a job and if I actually liked to spend time in the kitchen, I could do a whole lot more to provide the absolute best for my family, like cook grains in a rice cooker and figure out creative ways to use tofu. But I do have a job and I don't like to cook, so that's that. Between Kev and me, we do what we can with what we have, and for now that will have to be good enough.

This PK's Life, part 1

A Pastor's Family

If you would have asked my ten-year-old self what it was like to be a pastor’s kid, I would have said it meant moving a lot, having to be at church all the time, and getting to be first in line for potlucks…unless there was a guest preacher, then his family got to go first.

Fortunately, my 35-year-old self tends to dig a bit more deeply into my growing-up years (it’s all part of the whole maturing thing), and I think being a pastor's kid has shaped who I am in ways I've not spent much time reflecting on. That’s why I wanted to write this series of blog posts—to explore what it was about my dad’s profession that influenced my choices and outlook on life.

Growing up, I remember getting strange responses from people when I told them my dad is a pastor. At my first after-school job during high school, my coworkers would apologize every time they accidentally said a curse word...because my dad is a pastor. People I didn't know personally would ask me to babysit their kids because they assumed I was trustworthy...because my dad is a pastor. Elementary school classmates wanted me on their team when we played Bible trivia...because my dad is a pastor. Just a few years ago when I told one of my coworkers what my dad does for a living, she said, "Oh, we need to go to lunch and talk about that further"...because my dad is a pastor. I have a vague recollection from fourth or fifth grade of someone in my class saying he thought pastors' kids were supposed to be perfect (ha!), and it always puzzled me when people said things like, “I’ve heard pastor’s kids rebel when they grow up. Are you going to become a wild child?” Huh?

We were just kids, my siblings and I. We liked the same things other kids liked and felt the same things other kids felt. Our parents had expectations of us to be on our best behavior and to be respectful and responsible, but other parents had the same expectations for their kids. So what made, and continues to make, us different?

That is indeed the million dollar question, and I'm not sure of the answer.

Maybe I'll start with the obvious. I think one big thing my siblings and I experienced that maybe other kids didn’t was a unique perspective about ministry. I have a very vivid memory from when I was five or six years old of my dad taking my sister and me with him when he went to the nursing home to visit the church members who were residents there. My mom would tell us we were going to visit the grandmas and grandpas, and my sister and I both loved those times. The grandmas and grandpas would hold us on their laps, tell us stories, and give us candy from their pockets.

We didn't know we were involved in ministry; we just enjoyed basking in the attention given us by people who probably had far too few visitors. We didn't know our dad was teaching us to offer love to others and be Jesus’ hands and feet. But he was—not with words but by example.

Just this winter, my church offered the opportunity to volunteer at a local care center. When I saw the announcement in the bulletin, the memory of visiting the grandmas and grandpas in the nursing home three decades ago flashed in my mind, and it didn’t take me long to sign up.

Of course, when it came to ministry, we had double the influence, with my dad being a pastor and my mom being a parochial school teacher. I always remember my mom being actively involved in the Sunday school and vacation Bible school programs at whatever church my dad served, and she also played organ and accompanied the choir. Once we kids had flown the coop, she started leading women’s Bible studies and helping organize various events. Needless to say, all throughout my formative years my family spent a whole lot of time at church.

This meant that my siblings and I participated in all sorts of church-related tasks. When I was in second grade, my dad took a call to a congregation that didn’t yet have a church building, so church services were held in the local American Legion Hall. To this day, the smell of stale beer and burnt popcorn and the tinny sound of an out-of-tune piano take me back to those years when my family got up very early on Sunday mornings and arrived before anyone else to vacuum the carpet, set up folding chairs and a makeshift altar and, my mom says, to clean up beer cans, though I don’t remember doing that.

There was a special closeness among the members of the congregation who worshipped in that Legion Hall. There was an appreciation for a place to gather and an excitement for the future. I imagine it probably seemed strange to me at first, not worshipping in a church, but I remember being proud to be part of it. Thanks to that beer-can-littered Legion Hall, it didn't take long for me to understand that ministry can happen anywhere. 

Well, I’ll stop here for now. I keep going off on tangents and then cutting and pasting what I wrote in a different file to use later. I suppose thirty-plus years of memories might come out in a bit of a jumbled mess.

Hmmm, I could really go for a good potluck about now.

Even in our brokenness...

It's a classic episode in most sitcoms: While their parents are away, the kids play ball in the house or have a wild party or do something or another that breaks their mom's favorite vase or lamp or figurine. Because there is still time before their parents are due home, the kids gather up the pieces and glue them together. Then, usually one of two things happens: 1) the vase or lamp or figurine looks like it did before it was broken, but when Mom gets near it, it shatters into pieces because the glue doesn't hold, or 2) the kids get nearly the whole vase or lamp or figurine put back together before they realize they're missing a piece, so they try to position the said object in such a way that no one would notice. In the end, the kids usually end up confessing to their parents, which would have been the easiest solution to the problem to begin with, but that's why I'm not a sitcom writer (among other reasons).

I've been thinking a lot about brokenness, not in terms of vases or lamps, but in terms of people. It seems like lately the news has featured story after story of people's lives and families being torn apart by natural disasters, war, crime, death, abuse, addiction, illness, deceit, selfishness, pride, you name it. And then there are the stories that aren't on the news--the personal fractures each one of us has. Some are obvious and some hidden from view, but all of them leave us bleeding and aching.

We live in a culture that doesn't look too kindly on broken people. Broken lives are messy, and broken families are complicated. Look at Humpty Dumpty; he's still splattered all over the sidewalk because not even the king’s best men could mend him. Bookstores have scores of resources to help people fix their lives, and well-intentioned organizations want to offer a hand, but given Humpty’s situation, it’s easy to give up hope.   

I asked Kev about the physics involved with gluing something back together. If a person had all the pieces to, say, a broken vase or lamp, and glued them exactly in place, would the glue hold? Kev said it would depend on the strength of the glue. When it comes to putting together the pieces of a broken life or family, the glue is going to make all the difference.

For some people, bitterness is the first glue of choice. I’ve been there. It feels good at first to get really angry and focus all one’s energy on how unfair everything is. It’s quite convenient to blame someone or something else for the internal damage and to let resentment reign over reason. But that bitterness is gangrene in a wound, and after a while, the poison spreads to relationships and hurts other people. It seems like quick fix, but like the vase that shatters in the sitcom, the glue of bitterness doesn’t hold.

Then there’s the problem of the missing piece. I’ve been there too. Maybe through sheer will power we think we’ve managed to pull ourselves out of the mire and, one painful piece at a time, put the fragments together…only to end up with a hole. So we try to fill the hole. Maybe we try to keep ourselves busy all the time so we don’t have to think about it. Maybe we try all kinds of new things and make all kinds of big plans and try to find joy in it all, but we can’t because there’s something missing. Some people look for relief in a bottle or in a one-night stand or in the accumulation of more and more “toys,” but that missing piece continues to be missing.

That’s when we go to our Father and confess. That’s when we lay our broken heart or crushed spirit down at our Savior’s feet and pray for healing. He’s been waiting for us to come to him; he’s been reaching out his hands this whole time. He binds together the pieces of broken lives with forgiveness and grace, giving us the strength to forgive and offer grace to others. He reinforces the bonds with a peace beyond our biggest expectations that enables us to accept our circumstances with hope and trust his sovereignty.

When we go to Jesus to put us back together, there are no missing pieces in the end, but there are changed lives. Like anything that’s been broken and put back together, we’re not going to be the same as we were before; the cracks are going to show. A person broken and made whole again will have scars. Someone who has lost a love one will need to mourn. A reconciled family will need to learn to trust again. But with time, the scars fade. And with Jesus walking beside us, one day at a time seems the perfect pace.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

~Psalm 34:18

Oh, Mimi!

I was awakened at 2:00 this morning by the familiar ug, ug of my cat retching, right beside my bed.

"Oh, Mimi," I sighed.

Preferring to wait until daylight to clean it up, I nudged Kev, who kind of opened one eye.

"Don't step in the cat puke," I mumbled, before rolling over and going back to sleep.

Unfortunately, this was not the first time I had to warn Kev not to step in whatever Mimi's left behind--be it a hairball or partially digested cat food...or, because Mimi thinks she's part dog, whatever she scavenged out of the kitchen garbage can that did not agree with her sensitive kitty tummy. But I suppose its the price we pay for being pet owners.

Anyone who's met Mimi can attest to the fact that she's no ordinary cat. Some may say she's a bit of a snob, selective in whose lap she sits in or whose stomach (or face) she walks over. Others may comment on her particular good looks, as one of Kev's friends proclaimed, "I'm not too much of a man to say your cat has beautiful eyes." Those allergic to or afraid of cats might say, "Go away, Mimi!" when she chooses pay them special attention, and cat lovers may feel be offended when they call her but she doesn't come; she is, after all, rather coy, and will play with the affections of those too eager to please.

Oh, Mimi.

Mimi and I have been together for more than six years now. In 2004, when I came back to the States after living in China for two years, I was eager to find a job and get my own place. Having lived with two roommates in an apartment this size of a goldfish aquarium in a country where personal space is hard to find, I was looking forward to living by myself in a city with easy access to wide open places. Don't get me wrong, I loved my roommates and Beijing, but always seeing myself as a bit of a lone wolf, I wanted to live alone again. I never figured into the equation the fact that I'd be lonely. While in Beijing it was a rare treat to have the apartment to myself, in Minnesota it was depressing.

"You should get a cat," was my friend Janet's advice when I told her my predicament.

We never had cats growing up because half my family is allergic to them, but the idea was appealing. "A cat? I don't know anything about cats," I replied.

"You'll figure it out," she said. "They're not hard to take care of. You just need to feed them and keep their litter box clean. They're great!"

After getting some books from the library and doing some research into the secret lives of cats, I ran to Walmart and bought some supplies. Then I gave Janet a call. "Will you help me pick out a cat?"

So one Saturday morning, Janet and I headed to Humane Society to find me the perfect feline companion.
It was a bit overwhelming, trying to choose one from among all the cats in cages looking for a home, but when we saw the scrawny brown tabby with the big green eyes pushing her little paw through the bars of the cage, Janet's face lit up. "This could be the one!" she announced.

When we took the little tabby out of her cage and went into the get-to-know-your-potential-new-pet room, she sniffed around for a minute before jumping into my lap, purring like a well-oiled machine. I picked her up so I could look into her face. "Well kitty, looks like it's going to me you and me."

After filling out the paperwork and paying the adoption fee, I tucked the brown tabby in her cardboard carrying box snugly into the back seat of my car. As I drove home that sunny October morning, I remember feeling knots in my stomach and thinking, "Oh my goodness, I've just taken responsibility for another life for the next twenty years. This is scary stuff."

And it was a bit scary. I felt tied down, like I no longer had the option of taking long-term trips out of the country. Even going away for a few days meant I had to find someone to take care of the cat. But at the same time, this little kitty with the big green eyes made herself right at home in my life.

I decided to call my new friend Mimi, which is the Chinese equivalent of "meow." As we got used to each other's routines, Mimi realized that jumping on my face in the middle of the night would get her nowhere except kicked out of the bedroom, and I realized that no matter how many different cat beds I bought, Mimi would never be a cat that slept in a cat bed. I learned not to leave a loaf of bread on the counter because Mimi would bite a hole in the plastic and nibble on the bread, and Mimi learned that if she chased after her little jingle balls and brought them back to me, I would throw them again.

Six years later, Mimi doesn't play fetch too much anymore, but she still tries to sleep on my face. When I pull in the driveway after work, I see her little head sticking out from the vertical blinds in the living room before she turns and runs for the door to welcome me home. She and Kev have developed a mutual respect involving sardines and their own methods of communication. Kev thinks he can interpret her meows. I'm skeptical about that.

And even though there's the occasional hairball in the bedroom...or living room...or hallway, there's something special about being the one Mimi loves most and hearing her little footsteps following me around the house and feeling her warm body by my feet at night.

Oh, Mimi.

There's no other like my mother

I called my most loyal blog follower today (my mother), and after she inquired about my husband's health (he's got something like the flu) and my plans for the afternoon (shopping and laundry), our conversation went something like this:

Mom: You haven't written on your blog lately.
Me: I know. I think I have writer's block.
Mom: You could write about having writer's block.
Me: Well, I also downloaded this really cool app to my new phone. It's this word game...
Mom: Mmmmhmmm.
Me: Okay, okay, maybe I'll write something this weekend.

Leave it to my mom to get me motivated.

So even though I thought I had word-game-app inflicted writer's block, I decided I would try to post to my blog today, for my mother's sake, and that the topic of my blog would be the very person who misses it the most when I don't show up for writing--my mom.

As I was shopping at Target this afternoon, I tried to locate in the recesses of my brain some memories of my mom that would really reflect who she is and what she means to me. The first one that came up kind of surprised me. After I reflected on it for a while, though, it started to make sense.

The summer I was thirteen, my family went to Glacier National Park for vacation. My dad worked there one summer in the 1970s and has a reverence for the place that runs deep within him. He hadn't been back to Glacier for almost twenty years and wanted to capture everything about our trip on video.

I just have to take a moment to describe my dad's video camera. In 1988 the palm-size video camera was only a speck in someone's imagination; our video camera was the size of a small child and had to be connected to a power pack at all times. This meant that one of us had to carry a backpack holding the power pack, which was tethered to the video camera with a three-foot cord, while my dad carried the camera. The camera recorded footage on a full-size VHS tape. There's one particular scene on our two-hour-long Glacier National Park video in which one of my brothers is wearing the backpack holding the power pack while my dad is filming. My brother, none too fond of bees at the time, nearly pulls the camera out of my dad's hands while trying to thwart a particularly persistent bumble bee. And, much to my brother's chagrin, we have it all on tape.

Anyway, I digress.

On our vacation to Glacier National Park, we were standing on a grassy hillside speckled with wildflowers and framed on three sides by purple mountains majesty when my dad, caught up in the beauty around him, decided his video needed some background music. He had all of us stand in a row and sing the chorus from one of the songs of Isaiah. It's a beautiful song, and we all knew it well, but as my dad slowly panned the camera past our faces, my sister and I, in our cooler-than-cool pink pleated stonewashed jeans, barely moved our mouths as our eyes darted back and forth looking for anyone who might possibly see us. My younger brother, not quite sure singing on a mountainside was such a bad thing but not wanting to give the impression he was enjoying himself, moved his mouth to the words, but whether any sound came out is yet to be determined. My youngest brother, the lovable ham that he was, sang out loud and clear and didn't care who heard him...though my sister and I no doubt wished he'd tone it down a bit. My mom had her arm around my youngest brother, and when my dad got to her face, she was singing with the joy of someone who understood that surely it is God who saves us, and he's stronger than any of the seemingly infallible mountains, and if we trust him, we don't ever need to be afraid. She understood the significance of the song in that particular setting, and she sang like she meant it.

I love that about my mom: She lives life like she means it. She gives her all to whatever she does, motivated by a deep and seasoned love for Jesus and a firm grip on his promises. She'll be the first to admit that in her more than 30 years as a teacher, her almost 37 years as a pastor's wife, her almost 36 years as a mother, her one year as a missionary in Africa, and her 65 plus years as a believer, there have been a lot of ups and downs, and her faith in God and in the good of humanity has been stomped on and violently shaken. But she never gives up--not on her family, not on her ministry, not on her Savior.

A more recent memory of my mother is from just a month or so ago when I was visiting my parents for a weekend. I went into my parents' bedroom to talk to my mom and there, on her rocking chair, was her open Bible, the pages ear-marked and filled with handwritten notes, the cover faded and worn smooth from being held in her hands. I imagine if her Bible is anything like mine, there are probably tear stains on some of the pages and prayers penciled in some of the margins.

That image of my mom's open Bible encompasses so much of my mom's character and reminds me of the living legacy she and my dad have passed on to all of their kids, the very same legacy their parents passed on to them. It's not millions of dollars or property or priceless heirlooms, all of which mean nothing at the end of this life; instead, they've given us the gift of a planted seed of faith and an appreciation for its value.

I really meant for this blog post to highlight several of the ways my mom is so precious, but I'll end it here for now. I'm sure there will be many more posts to come about my mom...and my dad, as well...given their influence on who I am. It's interesting, though, how I don't really spend a lot of time consciously thinking about who my parents are as people and how they've contributed to my life. Something I love about blogging is it makes me slow down and reflect and remember.

So, Mom, I guess my writer's block was all in my head. And now that I'm done, I'm going back to my word game. Love you!

Sometimes you just have to go after the gumballs.

Last week when I was visiting my sister and her family in Tucson, we went to my favorite gelato place for desert (after going to my favorite pizza place for lunch). My nephew chose bubble gum gelato, and the kind lady behind the counter gave him an extra supply of gumballs in a little paper cup. As we sat outside eating in the lovely Tucson sun, a gust of wind picked up the paper cup, the gumballs, and a bunch of napkins and sent them flying across the sidewalk. My nephew jumped out of his chair and hurled himself onto the sidewalk after the gumballs. He quickly scooped them all up before they rolled too far and then returned to his chair. Meanwhile, my sister chased after the napkins and paper cup.

When my sister got back to the table, she chastised my nephew for only going after the gumballs and not helping collect the other things that had blown away. He kind of shrugged a bit sheepishly, and I laughed and said to him, "Sometimes you just have to go after the gumballs, right?" He quite agreed.

Just that morning I had been thinking about how I hadn't been able to fulfill my blog-a-day goal. Instead of feeling bad about it, though, I was okay with it because it wasn't due to me being lazy or blowing it off; I simply had other things to do, like spending time with my in laws, hanging out in the youth center at church, going to a play with my good friend, taking a trip to see my sister. I liked this feeling of freedom without guilt.

I recently heard a news story about how multitasking is a myth. After testing a variety of individuals who claimed to be excellent multitaskers, a research study revealed that these people who were supposedly multitasking actually did quite poorly on all the tasks they were trying to accomplish at once. If they had just focused on one task at a time, they would have done much better. In our pushing the vacuum cleaner while texting while paying the bills while walking the dog society, the idea of slowing down and deliberately choosing how we spend our time often gets swept under the rug.

Of course, I'm a fine one to talk. There have been times--more often than not, I'm afraid--when I've almost hyperventilated thinking about all the things I have to do. Actually, I should say all the things I think I have to do. I remember several years ago paying a visit to some friends of mine who have four kids, full-time jobs, and a ton of commitments. When I came into their kitchen shortly after dinnertime, the whole family was getting up from a homemade meal, and right then and there it hit me: They deliberately made the choice to spend time together as a family. They chose how to spend their time, and I think they chose wisely.

I've tried to model the attitude of my friends. The dishes in the sink, the unsorted mail on the counter, the unfed cat--all these things can wait. Time spent chatting around the dinner table or visiting with friends or serving at church or scouring the Scriptures is worth way more to me than a spotless house, a menu plan, a half an hour of exercise, what have you. Some days I can fit it all in, and some days I can't. On those days that just don't seem to have enough hours, I'm learning to chase after the gumballs and let go of the rest. And boy does it feel great!   

My Writing Hat

I wear a hat when I write. It's a white crocheted sun hat with a little flower on it. I don't wear a hat because my office is particularly sunny or because I'm trying to compensate for a bad hair day; I wear a hat because it's part of my writing ritual.

Last summer I took a class about how to make writing more of a habit. The instructor suggested one way to really get into the writing mindset is to have a ritual of some sort that triggers the senses and says to my brain: "Keri, it's time to write." I tried a bunch of different things before I chose my writing hat. First I thought when I sat down to write I would light a scented candle, and after a while, every time I smelled that candle my brain would be ready to write. I went to Target and found a candle that smelled nice. It smelled just as nice when I burned it. But it also made me sneeze. And sneeze. And sneeze. So I scrapped the candle idea.

Then I thought maybe my sense of taste might get me into writing mode. I decided I would eat black licorice only when writing, and the taste of black licorice would entice me into a creative frenzy. Unfortunately, I love black licorice way too much to only eat it while I'm writing. Plus I figured that snacking while writing is probably more like mindless eating, and I didn't want to develop any bad habits whilst trying to establish a good habit.

After that I was stumped. Fortunately, I remembered a scene from the movie Little Women where Jo is writing a play in the attic, and as she writes, she wears a special hat. Aha! Thus the writing hat idea was born. As I rifled through my hat collection, which is surprisingly expansive for someone who doesn't really wear hats in the first place, I can across my white crocheted sun hat and knew it was going to be my writing hat. You see, it's not just any ordinary hat; it has memories behind it.

Back in early 2003, I was working as an English teacher in Beijing, China, as was my youngest brother. At the time of the Chinese New Year, we had about a month off of school, so we decided to go to Thailand for a change of scenery. We first went to Bangkok, which was lush with foliage and colorful flowers--a lovely contrast from the drab brown of Beijing. We did some sightseeing in Bangkok, but we really wanted to escape the city and cleanse our lungs with some clean air, so we headed down to the island of Koh Samui, where the European tourists sunned themselves on the beach but rarely set foot in the sea. I walked by the sea at night, listening to the whoosh whoosh of the waves over the sand and contemplating how easy it would be for the sea to swallow me up in its dark vastness. It was less than two years later when a tsunami that came barreling across the very same sea did swallow people up, though not on Koh Samui.

On Koh Samui I tried my hand at sea kayaking around the jagged rock formations surrounding the island as if they were dropped there from the sky. After steering my sea kayak in circles, I figured I'd be better off on land and so hiked to waterfalls and pineapple plantations and temples.

From Koh Samui, we island-hopped over to Koh Phi Phi, a tiny island filled with twenty-something tourists clad in cut-off shorts and scuba fins. My brother and I decided to sign up for scuba diving lessons and soon found ourselves 20 meters under the sea staring wide-eyed at reef sharks and clown fish and corals in a dizzying array of colors. I didn't want to leave Koh Phi Phi. I was captivated by the deeply tanned islanders who hauled carts down the dirt roads barefoot, yelling "beep, beep!" as they passed; I was intrigued by the fishing boats left forlorn in the sand when the tide went out at sunset, each its own desert island; and I was left speechless by the unspoiled beauty of the rocky cliffs along the shoreline.

The main "road" of Koh Phi Phi was crowded with shops selling everything from flip flops to kayaks, and when I spotted the white crocheted sun hat, I knew it suited me perfectly. To this day, more than seven years later, the hat still encompasses my memories of a country as diverse in landscape and people as a 1000-piece puzzle, as well as the little island of Phi Phi that, unlike Koh Samui, was not spared from the wrath of the 2004 tsunami. It was, in fact, nearly completely destroyed, as far as news accounts go.

Our trip didn't end in Phi Phi. From there we went north to Kanchanaburi, a solemn town featuring the infamous railroad bridge over the River Kwai built by POWs held in Japanese camps during WWII. I crossed this bridge many times, each time looking down through the cracks between the railroad ties at the fast-moving river below and then quickening my pace to the other side. This town holds a cemetery of hundreds of white headstones set neatly in rows, each commemorating one soldier's life. It's an eerie resting place, so far from home for many of the people remembered there.

And that's the story of my writing hat. Whenever I put in on, I hear lilt of the islanders' words; I taste the pineapple, sweeter than candy, and feel its juice running down my chin; I smell the orchids in my hair, and I see a collage of images that waken memories long since fallen asleep.

It's a great hat.
　

This chicken's scratchings

I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of finding strength in my weaknesses. For the longest time I knew I had come across this concept somewhere--I thought maybe in the Bible or in a song, but I couldn't remember specifically what the context was--and it's been nagging at me. Yesterday it finally dawned on me that the reference I was seeking was in a Madeline L'Engle's classic novel A Wrinkle in Time.

 

I haven't read this novel in many years, though we listened to it in the car on a road trip maybe three years ago, so I don't remember all the details exactly, but essentially teenage Meg "tessers" to another planet to rescue her father and younger brother from the grasp of a mind-controlling entity called "IT" (I think). When Meg is going off to face the entity alone, someone (I can't remember who) tells her to use her weaknesses as her strengths. This puzzles Meg, but as she confronts "IT," who has pretty much taken over her brother's mind, she realizes her stubbornness, which she'd always thought of as a weakness, gives her the determination to not give up on her brother. That's about the gist of what I kind of remember.

 

Why this particular scene from this particular novel has stuck in my mind I can't say, but it's really made me think hard about how I can generate strength from my weaknesses. Of course, the first step in my self-analysis is to think honestly about my weaknesses, which is about as fun as standing outside in the snow barefoot. But I did it--on my 40-mile drive home from work last night, I tried to list all my weaknesses in my head. I'm not gonna lie; it was depressing. After filtering through them all, I narrowed the list down to one weakness that seems to impact quite significantly the choices I've made and continue to make in my life: I'm a chicken.

 

That's right. The cowardly lion has nothing on me; my second language is bawk, bawk, be-gawk.

 

Let me clarify: I'm not lacking in courage when it comes to new experiences (except those involving great heights or considerable risk to my person). I am, however, incredibly inhibited when it comes to dealing with people. I suppose there's a fine line between being chicken and being reserved. I'm an introvert, and there's nothing wrong with that. But when fear dictates my actions (though fear of what I'm not quite sure), that sounds like squawking to me.   

 

When I was little, I was afraid to ask a clerk in a store for help. In college, I got all nervous before calling Dominos to order a pizza. Fortunately, those kinds of things don't bother me anymore like they did when I was a spring chicken. Still, to me, being in a social situation with a group of people I don't know well makes me more uncomfortable than when I'm at the dentist getting a cavity filled. Okay, so I've never had a cavity, but I imagine getting a filling would not be on any one's bucket list.

 

I don't know what it is about people that intimates me so much. I guess maybe I'm afraid they won't like me, but that seems too easy an explanation. Or maybe I just worry too much about what people think. When I was teaching classes at a local college, I absolutely dreaded student evaluations because I took any feedback that could be interpreted as negative personally. Constructive criticism is one thing; I value knowing ways I can improve myself or my work, but when students would complain about the textbook (which I didn't choose) or would say I was a bad teacher because they were failing (which they believed was my fault even though they didn't do the work--see I'm getting defensive), I felt terrible, like who I am to as a person was being dragged under the bus when that really wasn't what student evaluations were about.

 

The area where my chicken-ness bothers me the most is when it comes to reaching out to people. Our church hosts the homeless once a month every year and asks for volunteers to help people settle in and feel at home. When our family volunteered a few years ago, I could smile and say hello, but actually emitting warmth and welcome by reaching out, engaging people in conversation, giving hugs, what have you, I couldn't do. This bothered me because I don't think I'm a cold person, but when I'm trying to connect with people whose experiences I know nothing of, I can't think of what to say or do, and so I chicken out and to very little.

 

The same is true of me when it comes to working with the youth at church. Some people are so good at meeting kids right where they are, at saying the right thing and letting the kids know how loved they are, but this is something that does not come naturally to me. I love the kids too, but I hold back because I don't know what to say or do. It makes me feel awkward and uncomfortable, this not really knowing what to do, which is ironic because the kids probably feel awkward and uncomfortable too, and I'm supposed to be the grown up who puts them at ease. I'm starting to wonder if the coward in me kicks in when I really have to put myself out there and dive in, which comes with the risk looking foolish and the risk of rejection. In the end, though, I know these kids are totally worth the risk, which is why I keep trying.

Okay, so I've analyzed my weakness as much as I can without professional intervention. Now the question is, what can I do with it? I suppose one way to look at my weakness is to realize that my inner chicken has no doubt kept me from making any number of big mistakes that might come from leaping before looking. Also, given my fear of people in numbers, I've gravitated more toward developing one-on-one relationships, which is great.

 

The heart of the matter, though, is figuring out how I can use my weakness to glorify God. I think being chicken causes me to turn to God for help every time I know I'm going to be in a situation where it would be really easy to be afraid and run away. My inclination toward cowardice pushes me to really lean on the Lord when I step into a place where I know shining his light is going to mean I'm uncomfortable. I've been inclined to not do things that involve reaching out to people because I'm afraid; being aware of my weakness helps me trust that I'm never alone and that God can use me regardless of my reluctance. But I want to be joyful, so I pray for that too. I wonder if Jesus called me out on the water to him whether I would sink. My prayer is that I have to courage to go where I'm lead, knowing that weakness and all I am a beloved daughter of Christ; he's my strength.

 

I'm seeking out a coward's boldness. How's that for an oxymoron?

A trip down memory lane

Today I transferred all the photos from the 4-gig memory card in our camera to our external hard drive because the 4-gig memory card was full. That's a lot of photos! As I was doing this, I took a few moments to browse through the pictures I'd already saved onto the external hard drive. I'm so thankful for all the pictures we have; I love looking at them and remembering. Since I'm not feeling particularly creative today, I thought for my blog I'd post my five favorite pictures from the past--as least from the recent past (in other words, after digital cameras came along). So here they are, with commentary.

June 2004. This is a lotus flower from Wei Ming Lake on the campus of Peking University in Beijing, China. The lotus flowers only bloom for a short time, so I was thrilled to see one in person!

August 2005. This is my nephew when he was only sixth months old. (He's five now!) My sister and brother-in-law adopted this adorable little guy from Guatemala, and I love him to pieces.

March 2006. This photo was taken when I was visiting some missionary friends in Lima, Peru. These kids' parents recycle plastics and cans and anything else that can be salvaged for a living, and they essentially live in a garbage dump of sorts.

November 2006. I love this picture from our wedding!

June 2010. This is Kev watching the sun set over Lake Superior along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The UP is one of our favorite place to visit.

All's well that ends well (for lack of a better title)

Friday night my friend Lis and I went out on the town for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory followed by a play at the Guthrie. Dinner was delicious, and the play was full of tragic misunderstandings, mistaken or hidden identities, secrets and lies, witty humor, and rather raunchy comic relief--in other words, typical Shakespeare.

After the play, we went to the parking ramp where Lis had parked...and after wandering the various levels where nothing looked familiar for more than twenty minutes, we started to wonder if maybe the car had been stolen and if we should call the police. Fortunately, I spotted a guy with a name tag and clipboard and explained our situation. He looked at me, expressionless, and informed me there was another ramp a half a block over and we were mostly like parked there.

Oh.

Turns our the guy with the clipboard knew what he was talking about, and as soon as we spotted the car, we scrambled to turn the heater on full blast and warm up our frozen extremities.

Needless to say, this was not the first "adventure" Lis and I have been on together. In the more than fifteen years we've been friends, we've traveled abroad, been roommates and housemates, laughed ourselves silly, and chatted ourselves hoarse. We've puzzled over the strange ways of men and encouraged each other in our careers. I celebrated with Lis in the hospital when her beautiful daughter decided to arrive earlier than expected. And on my wedding day, Lis was right there with me when coffee spilled on my veil at the hair salon. (Fortunately, spillage on veils must happen frequently at the salon because one of the stylists knew just what to do!)

I have to go way back in time to remember when Lis and I first met. We were in the same French class my sophomore year of college, where Lis witnessed me rather skillfully averting the advances of the guy we later coined "French-class Brian" (we knew several Brians at the time), and though Lis and I didn't yet know each other well, we were both relieved to see a familiar face in the group of students who would spend a semester on an exchange program in England the following fall.

Our friendship really solidified during our semester abroad, where Lis, the bolder of us two, nudged my way-too-chicken 19-year-old-self toward countless new experiences. We shared many a stuffed-crust pizza and game of gin rummy, pub crawled like the best of them, took in theater in London, roamed the countryside of Cornwall, and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with our new friends--British, German, and American alike.

Back in the States, Lis, our friend Tam, and I rented a tiny house our senior year, where each of our bedrooms was about the size of a closet, and a mouse sometimes inhabited the silverware drawer. That year my parents were in Africa doing mission work; in their absence, I looked after my grandparents who lived about a half an hour from the university. It was a dark time for me, as my grandma's dementia and osteoporosis made in increasingly difficult for my grandpa to care for her, and when my grandpa's sister called and said my grandma needed to be in the nursing home, I was the one who had to make it happen. There were many evenings when I sat with my two wonderful housemates and cried, not really knowing what to do, and I've no doubt God placed these two incredible women in my life at just this time to help me through.

After graduation, I moved back to Minnesota, and Lis went to graduate school on the East Coast. Those years are fuzzy in my memory, but I remember that even after long stretches of time passed, Lis and I picked up our conversations like we'd never left off. When Lis moved to Minnesota not long after I returned home from China, I was thrilled. In the many years since then, both our lives have changed dramatically--some changes for the better and some not so much. Yet in the midst of the joys and challenges we find ourselves facing, our tea outings, lunches, birthday celebrations, and occasional excursions to the theater give us both a chance to unwind and enjoy the familiarity of a friendship as comfortable as a Saturday sweater. A rare gift indeed.

As we walked into the Guthrie on Friday, Lis commented that she could see the two of us as old ladies hobbling down the street with our canes and getting in the rush line to see Shakespeare at the Guthrie. Of course, we'd be sure to know which ramp we parked in. Or better yet, maybe we'd take a cab. Here's to many more adventures to come, Lis! You're a treasure!

Punctuation and me, happy as can be

I love punctuation. Some people have a favorite sports team; I have a favorite punctuation mark. It's true. When I told this to the first English Composition class I taught at a local college, the students looked at me like I had sprouted a third ear in the middle of my forehead. To them, punctuation was something to dread, not something to swoon over.

I've heard rumors in the editing world that the current trend in writing is toward less and less punctuation. Even the Chicago Manual of Style, the be-all-end-all in the editing business, advises against using a comma after a short introductory phrase. Truth be told, I'm okay with that. Too many commas clutter a sentence. However, when my stepson told me that his sixth-grade teacher said the only comma rule the class needed to know was to use a comma when they would normally pause in a sentence, that I was not okay with.

I understand, though, why the teacher would want to simplify any punctuation rule she could. Punctuation is tricky, and there's really no easy way to learn to use it correctly except to practice. I've worked closely with punctuation for more than ten years now as an editor, and every day I have to look up some rule or another. I can handle the reality that comma splices are a fact of life. They actually help keep me in a job.

Still, I have to admit, when I see a flier announcing "car's for sale" or a billboard telling me to "stop in, and shop," I want to hang my head and cry. Fortunately, there are still some punctuation vigilantes out there, and we'll do our best to help future generations carry on the fine punctuation traditions of the English language.

By the way, in case you're curious, my favorite punctuation mark is the semicolon. Interestingly enough, I didn't learn about the proper placement of the semicolon until my freshman year of college, but that is perhaps a whole other story.