sarah christine jackson

I'll Take Some Salt and Pepper on That

2012-02-07T20:06:00.001-08:00

Sometimes, when anxiety and insecurities tear through my soul, I stop everything to step outside and breath deeply. If it's daytime I tilt my head toward the sun and enjoy the potporri of southern California smells: jasmine, orange blossom, and eucalyptus. If it's evening, I watch the moon rise over the grassy knoll just beyond my patio. My body relaxes as its silvery fingers reach out and brush the nightscape with pale light. And then I wait for it. For that faint chorus of crickets, growing louder as the moon shines brighter.

I love those cricket symphonies. They remind me that the world is full of magic. For the moon's light is so enchanting that the insects cannot keep quiet under its light. And so they rub their wings and legs together and, of all things, music escapes from their spiny bodies; poignant and melodic. Magical.

Some nights, long after the crickets have finished their moonlight serenades, a lone voice quivers. It is unfortunately close to the door of my studio. So close, I occasionally think it has gotten into my house and is singing its sweet, loud song on my pillow. Next to my head. Where I'm trying to sleep.

I try to ignore it, and when that doesn't work (because it never works) I try to focus on the song's beauty. But that only works for about 7.6 seconds, and then I remember that I really, really want to sleep. So I turn on the lights and check every surface and open every cupboard looking for that.darn.cricket. with no luck.

In general, my sentiments toward that cricket have been...negative. Until one day four months ago when I discovered him chilling in the geraniums outside my door. And would you believe it, he's not a cricket after all: he's a three-legged grasshopper, with only one large back leg. How he sings so loudly is beyond me, but props to him for making such a noise with limited assets.

Over the months I've grown fond of my three-legged soloist. He and I are the same, really, singing our way through life a little off balance, a little handicapped; not what we were supposed to be when God first created, back before sin and sadness came on the scene. He's become my mascot, and so that's what I've named him. Mascot. Everyone needs a three-legged Mascot.

I love seeing Mascot enjoying the lush shade of my geraniums each day, and I take extra care not to disturb him when I garden. He is my musical companion. I count on walking out my door and seeing his beady eyes peering up at me.

But one day last week he disappeared, and this place erupted in drama.

First, I found a FOUR-legged grasshopper in Mascot's place. For a split second I was overcome by a surge of joy: Mascot had been HEALED! And then my boring, imagination-less adult common sense kicked in and convinced me that Mascot had not been healed; he'd gotten the boot by an entitled alpha grasshopper.

And then I got mad.

And sad. But I swallowed hard, gathered my wits, and willed away the ache in my stomach before going about my morning.

The next morning I rolled out of bed, walked outside, checked for Mascot, glared at the four-legged creature that was still in his place. and spun around to go inside.

That's when I saw Mascot clinging bravely to my door.

Relieved and delighted, I devised a cunning and daring plan to give Mascot back his home: I moved the four-legged intruder to the bark mulch next to my holly bush.

I almost passed out from the wild excitement of it all.

In the middle of the relocation it occurred to me that Mascot could have found a wife, and was enduring a marital dispute in which he had been banished to the "couch" for the night.

But my gut told me something far more sinister was going on. It also told me the four-legged hopper was a male. So that ruled out the whole marital dispute option.

My gut was right. Three days have passed since the dramatic affair and Alpha Hopper is nowhere to be found. Things have returned to normalcy, and Mascot rests comfortably in his geranium home. Although, many of the geraniums have been recently devoured by a vicious fungus, so there could be more relocation drama next week. I'll keep you updated. Never a dull day here on the compound.

In the meantime, I've been trying to figure out the moral of this whole story. There is always a moral to a story in which the main characters are insects.

It could be that it's unwise to become too attached to a grasshopper, especially of the three-legged variety. But I don't think so.

Life is too short not to delight in its magic, even if the magic only lasts for a moment. And so I think the moral of the story is to keep noticing things. Small things. Easily missed things. Because small things are the salt and pepper that season bland days. So I'll continue to let Mascot teach me to savor my days. I'll smile when I find him hiding in my flowers. I'll listen close when I hear his quivering voice. And I'll feel loss when I find my friend is gone. Because a string of seasoned days makes a feast for a hungry soul that's growing.

Others May, You Cannot

2012-02-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

I have an admission: I skip the long quotes featured in blog posts, articles, and books. I don't even bother to read texts that feature more quotes than original ideas.

I have analyzed and reanalyzed the psychology of this vice in an attempt to eradicate it, to no avail. I will continue to be a sheepish long-quote-skipper.

But I have no problem asking you, dear reader, to plow through a blog post that is almost entirely a quote from someone else.

My mom introduced me to this short essay last semester. I have revisited it over and over. I will probably continue to revisit it for the rest of my life.

I hope it encourages you like it encouraged me.

“Others May, You Cannot”

George Douglas Watson, 1845-1924

(Public Domain)

If God has called you to be really like Jesus, He will draw you to a life of crucifixion and humility, and put upon you such demands of obedience, that you will not be able to follow other people, or measure yourself by other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it; and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to make you sorely penitent.

Others may boast of themselves, of their work, of their success, of their writing, but the Holy Sprit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it, He will lead you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good works.

Others may be allowed to succeed in making money, or may have a legacy left to them, but it is likely God will keep you poor, because He wants you to have something far better than gold, namely, a helpless dependence on Him, that He may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.

The Lord may let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hidden in obscurity, because He wants you to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming glory, which can only be produced in the shade. He may let others be great, but keep you small. He may let others do a work for him and get the credit of it, but He will make you work and toil without knowing how much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He may let others get the credit for the work which you have done, and thus make your reward ten times greater when Jesus comes.

The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feelings, or for wasting your time, which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own.

He may not explain to you a thousand things which puzzle your reason in His dealings with you. But if you absolutely sell yourself to be His…slave, He will wrap you up in a jealous love, bestow upon you many blessings which come only to those who are in the inner circle.

Settle it forever, then, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit, and that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue or chaining your hand, or closing your eyes, in ways that He does not seem to use with others. Now when you are so possessed with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit over your life, you will have found the vestibule of Heaven.

Interrupted

2012-02-02T17:06:00.000-08:00

"The songbird singing stops what I am doing at the sink."

-A Japanese Proverb

Sometimes Life Gives You a Lemon...

2012-01-31T14:15:00.001-08:00

...and you have to stop everything you're doing to try to figure out what it is, exactly.

Is it an octopus?

Or a female elephant?

How about a male elephant? By the way, if this were an African elephant it could be either male or female, since both male and female African elephants have tusks. If it were an Asian elephant it could only be male, since Asian female elephants don't have tusks. I know it is definitely male, which means it is definitely either African or Asian.

Logic is so helpful.

Is it fire dancing in the daylight?

Is it a creepy, bony claw rising from the depths to snatch you?

Could it be a tulip?

Whatever it is, it is definitely the Wilbur of all lemons. I will not be cutting it up and eating or juicing it, because this lemon is special. It can do things. Crowd-drawing things. Money-making things. I could sell tickets to people who want to see the world's most versatile lemon. But I won't, because I have work to do. So I'll just save you some money and post pictures of the lemon freak show on here.

Thank goodness for blogs.

Thursday Things, a Friday Edition: Girls Just Want to Have Fun

2012-01-27T12:19:00.000-08:00

One of my dearest friends, Rachel, visited me this week. It's been years since we've been able to catch up like this, so we shared five days of non-stop talking. If the average woman says 7,000 words a day, then I'm pretty sure we each averaged at least 20,000.

I woke up hoarse the day after Rachel left.

We talked while we walked, sipped tea, slept (we're sleep-talkers, see), and munched on fries, more fries, and...more fries. Fries were a priority this weekend.

Naturally, it was a lovely, lovely week.

I give you some of the highlights from Gab Fest/French Fry Fiesta 2012:

1. First things first: we hit the beach and reveled in the fresh, salty air and winter sun. Then we went to a beachside cafe and ate a burger wrapped in bacon with, you guessed it: a whopping side of fries. It was a delight.

2. We loved investigating the tide pools.

This picture is so romantic with the sun slowly setting behind me, casting a golden glow over the tide pool with which I appear to be transfixed.

The truth is, I'm looking for a stick to poke sea anemones with.

Please excuse the fact that I ended a sentence with a preposition. Sometimes I like to rebel and let my prepositions dangle.

Doesn't this look like a donut with sprinkles?

Poking sea anemones is very satisfying. I imagine it's something akin to poking the belly button of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Except that the belly buttons of sea anemones squirt water. This makes them the most satisfying thing to poke in the world. Truly. I dare you to think of something more fun to poke.

By the way, this is how I originally spelled 'anemones': anenmoies

I think I must have been typing with my eyes closed.

3. Another of the week's highlights was our spa day, compliments of Rachel's thoughtful boyfriend. After an hour-long massage we got our nails done.

We fell in love with our manicures. They were smooth and shiny, and we couldn't stop looking at them. Or conspicuously waving our hands in the air every time we talked.

We ended our day of lavish pampering with dinner at TAPS Fish House and Brewery where I enjoyed salmon and...fried potatoes. Which is to say I ate classy french fries.

All dolled up for dinner.

4. In between our excursions we watched girly movies and murder mysteries, enjoyed impromptu dance parties, and ate....more french fries. There are no pictures documenting these activities. It's hard to take pictures when your hands are full of fries.

5. On Rach's last day here we visited our old stomping grounds, about an hour up the freeway.

We drove past our old apartment and then sipped tea and coffee at the neighborhood coffee shop where our friend, M, dropped by to chat for a bit. The highlight of the conversation, for me, was being introduced by M to some colorful slang euphemisms—my favorite being "bubble gut." Look it up on urbandictionary.com. Or just know that this is what happens to you when you eat heaps and heaps of french fries.

6. The last trip we took down memory lane was a stop at our old college. We enjoyed the familiar stench of the cafeteria, and stopped by the track where I pretended to be in shape.

Rachel is in shape, so she doesn't have to pretend.

7. This is the part I don't like, because this is the part where Rachel goes home. She's planning another trip, though, so I imagine I will soon be presenting Gab Fest 2012 Part II: the return of the Killer Fries. In the meantime, you can find me on the treadmill.

Happy Weekend-Is-Almost-Here, everyone!

A Southern California Winter

2012-01-14T16:48:00.000-08:00

This is why we Los Angelites put up with the smog. And the traffic. And the absurd amount of cement. Because, after all, living here isn't half bad.

Love (could be) in the Air

2012-01-09T11:40:00.001-08:00

If you are single and wouldn't mind a little romance in your life—or if you know someone single who's open to meeting that special someone—then keep reading, because I have discovered a sure-fire romance provider.

Is it online dating? you tentatively ask, with wariness in your eyes. No, my skittish-about-online-dating-friends, it's not—although some godly, gifted, and gorgeous friends of mine met online, and then they married. So I know it works.

Nooooo, it's not the matchmaker whose advertisement I just heard on the radio. Although her impressive success rate did have me belting "Matchmaker matchmaker, make me a match! Find me a man; catch me a catch!" for the rest of my car ride.

And no, I have not discovered love potion-laced chocolate truffles, for which you can be thankful. Ron Weasley can testify to the hazards of consuming those tantalizing treats.

I have, however, recently discovered this:

Romantic, delicious cake mix!

All you need is this cake mix, some eggs, oil, milk, and an electric fan and you'll find yourself a spouse in no time.

Why the fan?

You're surely wondering....

Perhaps you couldn't read the box's fine print, below its title:

"The sweetness and fragrance of the cake as well as its delicate feeling is like mild breeze spread in the air."

So you see, the fan is to spread the cake's intoxicating fragrance through the air more quickly, thus speeding up the twitterpation process between two potential lovers.

Sounds pretty foolproof, doesn't it?

So what are you waiting for?! Go check your local asian store for a romantic cake mix of your own.

And then go catch yourself a match.

You can thank me later.

Here's What Happens When I Wish I Had a Bullhorn

2012-01-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

Last night I enjoyed a mid-winter barbeque with friends. This is how we roll in southern California.

As I rummaged through a bag of potato chips looking for the folded chips (double the crunch = double the taste), I found myself wishing I had a bullhorn. I was just bubbling over with the.best.news. and I wanted to share it—to shout it from the rooftops, proclaim it from the mountain peaks, announce it at a noisy barbeque.

As C.S. Lewis reminded us, "we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation." Nothing could have made my news better than to praise Jesus by sharing it with others.

But I didn't have a bullhorn, although goodness knows it is the kind of thing I would carry around in my Mary Poppins purse—along with a pair of pliers, a sock, a golf ball, hand cream, nail polish, three empty water bottles, a Spanish new testament, etcetera etcetera.

So bullhornless little me just kept crunching and munching until my fingers were coated in sour cream and onion powder, and I could turn my attention to the burgers fresh off the grill. And then I determined to tell all of you my.best.news.ever. Because a blog is even better than a bullhorn. ;)

My news:

I've had a big ol' hospital bill hanging over me the last few months. When it first arrived in the mail I gulped big and practiced lamaze breathing techniques. Then I begged God to take care of this whopping, burdensome bill by providing funds, or moving in the heart of someone at the hospital who could lessen my bill.

Then I waited. And prayed. And waited. And learned a bit more about stepping into God's Sabbath rest daily—even when big bills burden—by trusting that he is good, powerful, and with me, and that he cares about me more than I care about me.

Yesterday I got a letter from the hospital telling me they would cover almost all of my bill.

When I found out I whooped and did a little dance move I like to call "The Windmill." Ever since my soul has been popping with praise to a good God who gives good gifts.

The only thing that has made this gift better is telling you about it.

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."

-Jesus of Nazareth, in Matthew 11:29-30

The New Year's Post I Wasn't Going to Write

2012-01-03T14:07:00.001-08:00

My mind is tired. I just finished reading a one-of-a-kind book. It used insects to resolve the problem of evil. My brain feels like my quadriceps do when I run up stadium stairs under a winter sky. Thrilled to be moving and flexing, very aware that it hasn't flexed in awhile.

My body is also tired. This could have something to do with the dance party I had this morning. Alone. While Little Brother ate breakfast and watched, his eyes wide with wonder at my ability to hula and do the running man simultaneously. Perhaps I should take up dance lessons in the new year. Nah. That sounds exhausting.

I'm tired from reading. I'm tired from dancing. I'm also tired from this last year. It was brutally hard. In this new year, I have absolutely no desire to review last year, to reacquaint myself with the thick and heavy darkness that settled over most of my days.

I don't want to look back on a year during which I spent most of my time in bed or on the lounge chair on my patio, too sick to participate in life.

I don't want to remember the way my broken engagement followed the onset of my sickness, knocking the wind out of my soul, leaving me deflated and stunned.

I don't want to revisit the subsequent nighttime dreams that chased me, pierced me, made me dread sleep; or the mornings when I woke up and wished I could just slip back into unconsciousness.

It feels like 2011 took its claws and tore into my soul, battering it with its savage blows. It feels like my soul is scabbing over now, heaving hard from the struggle. I think reviewing my year will be like examining my scabs, and then picking them open and watching the blood gush.

There is nothing in me that wants to dream up ways to try to make 2012 better than 2011. I think making resolutions will be like slapping Band-Aids on my freshly scratched soul scabs. Band-Aids keep the ugliness from view for awhile, but they're sure to peel off in the shower. And there will be more blood.

But I have a writer's impulse. An urge I can't restrain. It kicks at my soul, struggling to get out, like a bulldog in a gunnysack. I've got to release it. I have to write about the year, to try to make sense of it.

I used to write to get good grades. Now I write to discover. To figure out who God is and what he's doing with me, with this hard life. Each tap on my keyboard is like the blow of a chisel, chipping away at dense rock, reaching for a picture that lies buried within. Eventually a recognizable shape will emerge and I will sit back in relief and murmur, "Ah, now I see."

Tap. Tap. Tap. Chip. Chip. Whack. Scrape. Pound. The chisel does its work. Its blows sound familiar. Like the blows I've been dealt this year. And suddenly I remember a story about a boy who was turned into a dragon.

This boy was mean, surly, and selfish. He bullied younger kids, and complained about as often as he breathed. You may have heard of him? His name was Eustace.* Not the kind of kid you want to share a desk with. Or go on a road trip with. Or get stuck on a boat with.

But his cousins, Edmund and Lucy, did get stuck on a boat with him, and it wasn't pretty. Thankfully for them his greed and laziness got him turned into a dragon that couldn't talk. He could breathe fire, but he couldn't complain. A definite upgrade.

For the first time in his short life Eustace was humbled, reliant on his cousins' sympathy and help. His ugly exterior matched his monstrous heart, and he didn't like what he saw. He wanted to change, to be able to continue his sea-faring adventures with his cousins. He wanted to be human.

One night a fearsome Lion appeared to Eustace. He told Eustace to follow him into the forest, where they both arrived at the edge of a large well that looked a bit like a bathing pool.

The water was still and clear and the Lion knew Eustace longed to dive into it, to bathe his aching dragon's body.

"Undress first," the Lion told Eustace.

Perhaps he wants me to cast off my dragon skin, like a shedding snake, Eustace thought. So he scratched and tore until his dragon skin fell at his feet in a heap.

Joyfully, he turned to leap into the water but stopped when saw his reflection. He was still a dragon, covered in tough skin.

Two more times he scratched, desperate to free himself from his scaly prison. Two more times he failed to free himself.

"You will have to let me undress you," the Lion said.

Though afraid of the Great Lion's claws, Eustace laid on his back and let the Lion tear into his skin, so deep it felt as if it had gone into his heart. The pain pierced sharper than any pain Eustace had ever felt.

When the Lion's work was finished he scooped Eustace up and tossed him into the pool. Eustace's pain disappeared as he swam and splashed with delight, and then he saw his reflection in the pool: he was human.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Chip. Chip. Scrape. Pound. The picture is emerging. It tells the story of a girl. She is human, but her soul is twisted and stooped, gnarled as a result of the Fall of all humans. In every stooped soul lurks a dragon.

This girl, she hated that dragon. Hated the way its beady eyes sometimes glowered or its spiny back bristled at others, the way its fiery breath tended to scorch those around her. She didn't like what it did to the people she loved. She thought it made her soul unloveable, not as valuable. So she resolved to remove her tough dragon skin. This should take awhile. About a lifetime, she thought. But I can do it. So she strove and scratched for years, desperate to rid herself of her ugliness. Until one day she was wrestled onto her back, still and helpless. Broken. Too sick, sad and exhausted to keep scratching.

Sickness, sadness: sometimes they are a sword that slices deep. But an impersonal year is not wielding them; hands are. You'll have to let me undress you, their owner whispers. These hands, they are scarred, and they cut deeper and deeper, until they are covered in blood. They have been covered in blood before.

I know what it is to be wounded so that you might know what it is to be free.

There is pain worse than this. It is the pain of being stuck in the coffin of my selfishness, the prison of my anxiety; of being trapped in dragon's skin forever, while it grows bigger and fiercer. The pain of striving, striving; of trying to earn favor and value by attempting to remake myself. This striving is like eating but never tasting, reaching but never feeling. A little bit like hell.

You'll have to let me undress you.

I never expected to look back on my year and feel pleasure. The pleasure of slowly, slowly being freed from a dragonish destiny, of watching Divine Hands steadily untwist my gnarled and stooped soul. I expected to look at this year and be burdened, affronted by my deep, brittle scabs. But those scarred hands, they do more than use the sword of suffering to slay dragons. Today they have tipped my head upward, outward, and I find I'm looking at a clear, still pool. I lean in close and I see my reflection. I am human.

I think I'll spend 2012 splashing in the water.

*Read more about Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis

Tacky Tinsel and Beautiful Souls

2011-12-27T15:02:00.001-08:00

We Portlanders and Vancouverites experienced a Christmas miracle last week: the grey skies rolled away and the sun shone clear. My mom and I pulled on our walking shoes, eager to enjoy this unexpected gift of sun, and went on a leisurely neighborhood stroll.

"Look at all of the cute Christmas decorations on this house," my mom exclaimed, slowing her pace to admire the house.

There certainly were a lot of them. Too many, I thought. Too much tinsel, and too many bright colors.

"It looks pretty tacky," I flippantly responded.

My mom grew quiet.

"You miss out when you judge too quickly," she finally said. "There's a bigger picture that you don't see."

"Mmm, no, I don't think I missed anything," I responded, again carelessly.

She was quiet again before continuing. "The lady who lives there works every day for a week to get that house ready so that kids can enjoy it. She and her husband aren't able to have kids, and she told me once she hopes the neighborhood children will delight in her decorations."

Her soft words cut sharp into my careless heart, teaching it to see what she saw.

I felt shamed, overcome by the irony of my judgment. For that house's tinsel glittered cheerily and its colors shone happily to celebrate the babe whose entrance into a cold and fetid stable made him the scorn of flippant hearts, unable to see his beauty and majesty.

This celebrated boy King, he grew into a man who looked at the people society scoffed at—the beggars and prostitutes, homeless and sick—and saw valuable, beautiful souls.

This humble King, he delights in us because he sees more than our trimmings—our waning shine and fading color. He delights in the souls no one can see, and takes joy in their offerings—even when they pale next to the riches of his heaven.

And this High King who stepped down from heaven into a dirty feeding trough, he would have us delight in the offerings of the souls around us, dignifying them because we can see what others may not.

The Adventures of Mr. Duck

2011-12-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

This is Mr. Duck.

He is an adventurer; a bird of many hats who has traversed the years with me.

I first met him when he showed up on my doorstep, leading a band of other misfit lawn ornaments. Which, by the way, is a redundancy, since lawn ornaments are, by nature, misfits.

The moment I saw Mr. Duck and his motley crew I knew I would always love him. I also knew my friend, G, was the lawn ornament donor. G has always been generous. He has also always had an affinity for lawn ornaments.

Anyway, I graciously returned the gnomes, flamingos and other lawn riff raff to G, but kept Mr. Duck for myself. I sensed his strength of courage and versatility, and wanted him to be a part of my life. He quickly became a good friend—almost as good a friend as G.

It didn't take long, however, for Mr. Duck to grow antsy. He wasn't content to sit on my shelf and watch me navigate my senior year of high school. He wanted to be navigating a life of his own, exploring new terrain, climbing new mountains, sailing new seas.

Mr. Duck's first destination of choice was Antarctica. So I bundled him up in a home-made scarf and duck-sized ear muffs, snuck into G's house, and put him in G's refrigerator. Plane tickets to Antarctica are expensive.

He enjoyed his time in his dark, chilly corner of the city for awhile. Although I'm guessing it didn't take long before he grew restless.

Next thing I knew I found Mr. Duck hiking from my mailbox to my house, complete with duck-sized hiking pack and floppy-brimmed hat.

I brought him in for a tall glass of lemonade and some rest, and brainstormed his next adventure with him.

Turns out he had a hankerin' for the high seas. So I strapped on his eye patch, red bandana, and curly mustache (ahooooy there mateeey), and let him set sail on my brother's pirate ship in the raging waters of G's bath tub.

Back and forth Mr. Duck went, enjoying fantastic adventure after fantastic adventure. Until that fateful day when I left Mr. Duck at G's house one last time before moving 1,000 miles south to Azusa Pacific University.

I can't say that I missed Mr. Duck in the excitement of moving, but as I walked down the long, unfamiliar hallway of my dorm for the first time I felt a twinge of longing to see something familiar.

I stopped outside my dorm room, trying to ignore the stench of old dorm—a mixture of dust, cat urine, and mold—took a deep breath, and walked inside. And there was Mr. Duck, sitting on my desk with a walkie talkie strapped to his feathery bum. Turns out G had arrived at Azusa Pacific a bit before me, had the other walkie talkie, and wanted to see someone familiar, too.

The duck became a permanent fixture of my dorm room that year; a friendly, feathered piece of home that made my college transition a little less lonely. That's why it was so tragic when, in the middle of one of my several moves in college, Mr. Duck disappeared. I think he may still be buried in some random friend's garage somewhere. Lucky friend.

So here I am today fighting what's become a three-week battle with tonsillitis, in my childhood home where I first met Mr. Duck, with Mr. Duck nowhere to be seen. I'm sipping honey-lemon water, researching ENT doctors, wondering if a tonsillectomy would alleviate some of my chronic infection and fatigue, and feeling generally overwhelmed and discouraged.

And then my dad walks in and says, "Sarah, there's something in the driveway for you." Which makes me think that there is an old friend waiting in the driveway to surprise me, which makes me suddenly very aware of my pasty face, wrinkled pjs, and messy hair.

I work up the courage to go outside, and this is what I find:

A new lawn ornament friend bearing a gift: herbal "throat coat" tea. There is an accompanying card, from G.

Suddenly my day looks a whole lot brighter, and the possibilities for future fantastic adventures seem endless.

Thursday Things, a Friday Edition: Home for Christmas

2011-12-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

It's Friday and I'm home, where evergreen trees line the horizon, snow-capped mountains stand guard in every direction, and the icy air smells like Christmas. Yahoo!!

Here are a few things I love about being home:

1. My bed. Technically it's not the bed I grew up sleeping in, but it's in my old room and it's got a thick, fluffy pillow top and flannel sheets. If I could eat, work, converse, and play the piano in bed, I would. I'm currently trying to figure out how I can smuggle it back to California where I will put it in my office at work.

2. Little brothers. They are the funniest. I've laughed more in two days than I have all year. I am an endorphin-saturated gal.

3. Plastic grocery bags. They make the best shower caps.

4. Early morning dance parties. In our sweats, with tummies full of breakfast, and really bad dance moves. Okay okay, the boys had some wicked moves. I, on the other hand, was the awkward string bean dancer.

Geeet it, little Brothers.

5. Mom's homemade soup. Nothin' like it. I could eat it for every meal.

6. Hot chocolate. After almost a year of trying to develop a taste for herbal tea, I recently found a dairy-free, refined sugar-free recipe for hot chocolate. My life is complete.

7. A real Christmas tree. The whole house smells of pine.

8. Twinkle lights. When we were kids the whole family would gather by the twinkling Christmas tree before bed. My dad would make up stories about little fairies that pretended to be twinkle lights during the day but flew away and had marvelous Christmas adventures when all the humans were asleep. It's one of my favorite childhood memories.

9. The piano. Oh how I've missed having one this last year and a half.

10. Slumber parties out by the Christmas tree with little Sister and childhood friends. Best. Weekend. Ever.

I hope your week has also been full and merry!

Ditching my Dread of Dating: How I'm Learning to Not be My Own Worst Enemy

2011-12-13T08:18:00.000-08:00

For much of my adult life I've run in circles with a very favorable male-female ratio. In college I was on a track team with three guys for every one girl. A few years after college I enrolled in seminary where I am one of seven girls in a program of 100 guys.

You would think I'd have gotten good at the whole dating thing along the way.

But I didn't.

Instead I got good at hocking loogies and burping really loud, cracking jokes and throwing a frisbee.

It's always been easier for me to be pals with guys. The prospect of anything more has historically gotten me twisted and tangled up in my thoughts about our romantic and marriage potential: Do we have similar interests? Are we too similar? How similar is too similar? Why am I so nervous? Is it him? Or is it me? Why am I not nervous anymore? Shouldn't I be? Am I laughing too much? Does he think I'm too intense? Did I remember to floss this morning?

Not surprisingly, right about the time my anxiety and insecurity paralyze me, I get really bad at dating.

My initial solution to my dating ineptitude was to not do it. This worked for years. As time passed, though, I realized it would be pretty hard to jump straight from friendship to marriage, and I wanted to get married—so maybe I should date?

I gave it shot.

And I was still horrible at it. Still stifled by insecurity. Still suffering the paralysis of analysis.

Eventually I met a couple guys who weren't deterred by my dating awkwardness and stuck with me through my initial anxiety and uneasiness. And then one by one, none of the relationships turned into marriage.

Those broken relationships were disappointing and painful, but I learned a lot from them. I learned about tennis and crossfit, wine and chocolate, showing a man respect, and resolving conflict. I learned that effective communication is way harder than anyone ever told me, and that words must always be married to actions to mean anything.

Most importantly, those relationships changed me. They forced me to confront a lot of my fears, needs and baggage. They showed me the darkest parts of my soul, and encouraged me to open myself to the Light of the world who eradicates our fears, satisfies our deepest needs, and carries our baggage for us. These relationships taught me about Jesus, the Relentless Lover, and gradually prepared me to see him face to face. I can't help but think that the men I dated were also changed for good as a result of our dating relationship.

Last year I broke off my engagement a month before my fiance and I were to be married (read more here and here). It hurt more than anything has ever hurt. But even in the turbulent wake of the break-up, I rested in my confidence that God's plan all along was to use my relationship with my former fiance to shape each of our souls. Marriage was not his goal for me last year—marriage is never his goal for his children; holiness is. Sometimes the Potter uses marriage as a tool to shape the clay, sometimes singleness is his tool of choice. Either way, he always uses relationships to accomplish his good work in each of us.

My shift in thinking about marriage—not as a goal but as a grace God uses to make us holy—has prompted a shift in the way I view the guys I go on dates with. I am less prone to anxiously analyze our marriage potential. Instead, I have begun to view "him and me" as people who could help each other on this journey toward heaven, with or without a resulting marriage. Because this journey is sometimes hard and lonely, and always meaningless without other people to spur us up over the rocky terrain and down into the daunting valleys. This journey is where we meet God—sometimes in the still quiet, sometimes in the eyes of men and women. And this journey is where we become like God, often in an intimate huddle with other souls.

This new perspective has changed the way I feel and act around men. It's made it easier for me to be myself with them outside of frisbee-throwing, joke-cracking situations. I'm more confident to share my story, to let myself be known. I'm not as distracted by anxious analysis and I can enjoy the things my new male friends have to offer. I find myself hungry to hear their stories, to learn of their "soul adventures," as author Frank Lambauch calls them. These men have marvelous stories that spotlight the redemptive work of God, and renew my hope that the same God is working redemptively through my life. Their run-ins with God's grace have made many of them wise and intentional, and their input in my life has made it richer. Way richer than an afternoon of loogie-hocking and loud burping. ;)

Thursday Things: Rested

2011-12-01T16:26:00.000-08:00

Happy Thursday, Friends!

After a few weeks without "Thursday Things," it's time to reinstate the list that celebrates the week and looks forward to the weekend:

1. Sweet potatoes are the new chocolate around here. I had one for the first time last month and now I can't get enough of them. The weird thing is I didn't used to like them. Although, come to think of it, I don't remember ever tasting one before last month. I must have decided I didn't like them when I was five, and then never looked back. Silly five-year-old me.

I love eating them drowning in butter, but this recipe for baked curry sweet potato fries is puh-ritty delish, too.

2. Aren't words marvelous? I put together a few symbols on a page and they evoke an immaterial idea in your mind. Off. The. Hook.

And some people say there is no God...

3. My new favorite fall decoration is these tangerine-colored berries from the yard.

I have them in vases and jars all over my studio. They make my place feel so warm and autumnal.

4. This week at work whenever I looked at my students I saw stories. Tall stories, short stories, thin stories, stocky stories, dark stories, fair stories, smile-provoking stories, somber stories, heavy stories, light stories. Everywhere stories. I love that I get to be a character in their stories. I love that they are characters in mine. And I am thankful that all our stories have been grafted into the most Epic Story of all time.

5. I just woke up from the most delicious nap. I usually try not to use the word "delicious" except when I'm talking about food, but this nap was so good it somehow satisfied all my senses.

After 15 months of naps that did little to nothing for my debilitating fatigue, today's nap made me feel rested. Not the recharged-and-ready-to-run kind of rested, but the wide-eyed, hair-tousled, rosy-cheeked, mom-is-going-to-make-me-an-afternoon-snack-soon kind of rested. Hallelujah.

6. The wind is whispering at my window, luring me to step out of my cozy abode and into her wild dance. I think I will.

Hoping your evening is everything restful,

Today I am Celebrating...

2011-11-29T17:00:00.000-08:00

...Because today marks the 14th consecutive day that I've been up out of bed and really participating in life. This is the longest stint of good health I've had in about a year, and let me tell you, my soul is shimmying and shaking with delight!

This is my 'my soul is dancing!' face. It also happens to be my best Wallace and Gromit face.

Throughout this 15-month battle with debilitating illness the Lord has been teaching me to live in the moment by drinking deeply of the grace that is everywhere. To celebrate his grace today I've listed 14 things that make my soul dance:

1. Beetles gleaming emerald by the side of the road (and looking, upon closer examination, like Power Rangers wearing turbo packs).

2. Nimble fingers that can use keyboards, pens, fabric, and food to create.

3. A God who teaches us the worth of our souls.

4. Laughter that rolls out of my belly like undulating ocean waves.

5. Laundry machines that wash the grime out of my clothes for me.

6. Sherbet-streaked sunsets.

7. Coconuts. (And coconut sugar, coconut ice cream, coconut oil, and coconut milk).

8. California mandarin oranges. They smell like Christmas, don't they?

9. Trustworthy friends that have traversed the years with me.

10. A job and ministry I love.

11. Students who energize me and pray for me.

12. New friends.

13. The Biola library. Still shoots thrills through my soul every time I step through its doors.

14. Severe mercy. The kind that strips away the props we rely on for our well-being* and teaches us to dive into the unconditional love and grace of Jesus.

Hope your Tuesday is grand and grace-filled, dear friends.

*I've borrowed this idea from Gerald Sittser's book A Grace Disguised

Tea for Three

2011-11-26T20:54:00.000-08:00

Voices danced through my studio today. "Swing your partner round and round," the tea kettle cried. And the voices did, skipping and twirling through flickering candlelight.

Silver spoons clanked against china teacups to the rhythm of regular laughter, and hands exchanged lemon curd, clotted cream, and jam—boysenberry, blackberry and raspberry—to top English scones.

And the dancing continued,

As three girls marveled at the way God's sovereignty touches everything, shared the way God is redeeming loss and pain, and remembered that unfulfilled desires nudge us back toward the only One who can satisfy.

The candles burned brighter as the sun began to set, and the clock showed it was time to go.

Plates were whisked to the sink, and plans were made for next time.

Voices dancing have been replaced by dish water splashing.

The silence is full,

But my soul is fuller.

And I am thankful I am made in the image of a God who delights in good friends.

A Melodious Monday

2011-11-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

It's been too long since I've posted, and so I give you a few fanciful thoughts to kick off a new work week. I hope they make your Monday more melodious.

1. Imagine if the Milky Way could sing....

...and you could fly through it mid-concert.

2. Do you think our guardian angels sing back-up for us when we're singing in the shower?

3. If I ever get to spend Christmas in Fairy Land I will learn to play "Carol of the Bells" on these:

And then I will have the fairies teach me to play a fanfare on one of these:

Until then, I'm just trying to imagine what blossom bells and morning glory horns must sound like...

4. What if the only way to heal the sick was to sing to them? How would the world be different?

5. Sometimes I try to imagine how it would sound if God sang to me.

And then I wonder what words he would sing.

Goodnight, my friends. I hope you dream musical dreams.

Rebecca and Marc: Happy Birthday, Sister and Brother of Mine

2011-11-07T16:14:00.001-08:00

A pair of glittery fairy wings from my recent Halloween costume is sitting on my couch, winking at me in the afternoon's soft light and reminding me of our dress-up escapades as little girls, Rebecca. Remember how we'd parade around the house as Disney princesses, ballet and tap dancers (mom's kitchen floor was never the same after that), and whimsical fairies? We were dress up queens, you and I, but you—you were a dress-up diva. You. Just. Had. It. That flair for fashion, eye for beauty, and fingers that tingled with creativity.

You could coax a princess costume out of a piece of plain fabric with some ribbon and a few safety pins, and understood the power of color to transform even the plainest garb. And so it's no surprise that exactly 21 years ago, on your fourth birthday, you greeted your best birthday present—baby brother Marc—in a bright pink, flowing wig and blue Cinderella gown.

You wrapped your little arms tightly around your red, scrunchy bundle of birthday joy, gathered him close to your lacy frills, and in that moment showed your little brother what it looks like to really embrace life—something you've been showing him ever since.

You've shown Marc that tight squeezes and playful pinches are one of the best ways toexpress affection (because sometimes little brothers just need to pinched!), and that life is too short not to squeeze and pinch your family at every possible interval. You've shown him that running around the house with a blanket draped over your head can be fun, and that part of life's excitement is being surprised by the unexpected things, like smacking fast and hard into the furniture your blanket blocks from view. And of course you've shown Marc how to welcome the surprises, how get up and keep running after falling down, and how to let life in by laughing over painful mistakes.

You've shown your birthday buddy that a soccer ball isn't worth kicking unless you kick it withenough umph to put the umption back in gumption, or however that youth group song goes; and taught him that some forts are so spectacular they're worth keeping erect in the

living room for a week. You've taught him that life needn't ever be dull, and that the best way to spice it up is with a little mischief (the men in our family aren't the only ones with twinkles in their eyes!), and that the best way to sing is loudly, with gusto, dramatic flair, and the windows down.

And you've taught him that roses aren't just for smelling and admiring; they are for

picking, because this thorny life is exquisitely beautiful and we must gather up its beauty and drink deeply of all it has to offer. I think this is one of the greatest lessons your little brother could learn from anyone. For a love of beauty points us to a love of God, the one from whom beauty flows; and so, as you have let life's beauty teach you to love the Beautiful One, you have shown Marc what it is to hunger and thirst for God.

Marc, your sister is a good seed-planter and the Holy Spirit the best seed waterer, because you have learned to embrace life fully—to live well by loving the people, places, and opportunities God gives you as you hunger for and seek after him.

I've lived 1,000 miles away from you for over eight years now, but one thing I know, Marc: every time I come home for a visit and walk into the church sanctuary on a Sunday morning I will see you grinning big with a throng of kids at your heels, on your back, in your lap, climbing up onto your head—confident to use you as a jungle gym because they know you think they are pretty special. You've learned the secret of loving "the least of these," the little tykes whose souls make them just as valuable as your adult friends, whose malleable hearts yearn for good men and women to show them they're important.

If I'm ever a mom, I hope my kids use you as a jungle gym because, they could learn from you—the way you learned from your older sister—how to embrace all that life has to offer.

You would show them that a family dinner is not a family dinner without Nacho Libre impersonations ("Get that corn outta my face!"); that when they feel like puking and blacking out in a hurdle race, they must dig deeper and push harder toward the finish line; that timing is everything with comedic expression (and dinner is nothin' without it); that attending to the smallest details when finishing a task is one way we pursue excellence and offer our bodies as a living sacrifice; and that playing with legos and dismantled appliances is the best way to learn the importance of the little things.

You would teach them that they must welcome even the crankiest customers at work with

grace and dignity; that hands are for working hard and creating beauty; that creating music is both hard and beautiful, and is one of life's greatest pleasures; that playing the drums is the best way to remind the neighbors that life's daily rhythms are perfect for dancing, especially when no one's looking (and booooy, when you're not drumming, I love walking in on you dancing to a beat that only you hear;), and that it's important to call your family regularly when you move across the country for school.

Most importantly, you would show them that the manliest men are the men who grow the fruit of the Spirit; who are willing to wait patiently when little kids take longer than adults; who know that the best way to diffuse conflict at work is with kind words; who know the yield of maintaining self control when tempers are tightly wound; who have learned to be content with the great gifts God has given them; and whose friends stick around for decades because they have been loved well.

Marc and Rebecca—my most favorite birthday buddies—you have taught me what it is to grow a family legacy of loving life and living fully by pursuing Christ whole-heartedly. Thank you living with infectious enthusiasm and joy.

I hope I'm like you both when I grow up.

I love you mucho grande,

Sarah

Sissie

Sarah-boe-Barah

(Fee fie foe farrah..........Sarah!)

Thursday Things: Using Superlatives is the MOST Fun

2011-10-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

1. Brussel sprouts are the best vegetable. Well, they are if you cook them in bacon grease and add a pound of bacon bits, and sauteed onions and mushrooms. Otherwise, they are the worst vegetable.

By the way, the bacon bits and grease do not detract from the nutritional value of the sprouts. Not at all.

2. Tennis is the coolest sport because you get to wear things like this:

And this:

I sure got jipped.

3. The best way to ensure that your days are productive is to know yourself. If you are a procrastinator and you have 105 papers to grade tomorrow, then you should probably designate tomorrow as a day of endless, grueling cleaning instead. This will ensure that you procrastinate cleaning to do less unpleasant activities. Like grading.

4. Roses are the loveliest way to spruce up a house.

5. Vitamin jars make the best vases.

6. Dogs are the greatest company. Next to humans. And books.

7. This is the best book I've read in awhile.

8. Fall is the best season.

9. Apple cider is the best fall drink.

10. Carving jack-o-lanterns is the best fall activity—if you do it with your sister.

11. The most darling jack-o-lanterns come in pairs.

12. The most creative way to use a surplus of pumpkins and gourds is in a fairy tale display.

The Three Little Pigs, at Rasmussen Farms, near Hood River, WA.

The Little Mermaid

The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe

Flying with Peter Pan and his Gang

The Emperor...Without His Clothes

13. The best kind of game is a guessing game. So what fairy tale character do you think these feet belong to?

Copper Coins and Pistachio Shells

2011-10-25T12:40:00.000-07:00

There is a to-do list on my kitchen table covered in pistachio shells—the remains of the afternoon snack I'd hoped would make me feel a bit better. But three handfuls of pistachios later and my muscles still ache somethin' fierce, and my fatigue is so deep it feels like it's located in my soul somewhere.

My mind is racing, tripping over discouraged thoughts, trying to figure out why I felt good for so many days and then woke up today feeling like I was hit by a freight train.

I stare in silence at the checklist I can't read for all the shells heaped on it, and it's just as well I can't see what I've written because I've been in bed all day, too achy and exhausted to do much more than feed myself the last of my leftovers.

This is so hard for me, the woman who used to make her roommates laugh at how quickly she blazed through a heap of responsibilities; who literally sprinted her way through college on a track scholarship; who is energized by productivity and is wired to scale and conquer metaphorical mountains—mountains that get higher and steeper with each victory.

And here I sit, the only mountain I've recently conquered in front of me: a pile of empty pistachios littering the list I am too exhausted to look at.

I feel impoverished, somehow; like I have little to offer God when the fruit of my day is a pile of empty shells, when even my good health weeks allow me to do nothing more than scale mole hills.

The patient ache in my heart quivers and then I remember the widow in Luke 21 moving quietly toward the church offering, dropping in two copper coins worth less than a penny. They mustn't have sounded more than a quiet *clink* when they landed, swallowed up by piles of weightier coins.

I've often wondered how the widow felt when she watched Ol' MoneyBags walk ostentatiously up to the offering receptacle before her and pour in a heavy bag of gold and silver coins. Did she shift uneasily as the Rabbi, Jesus, watched her drop in her meager offering? As she gripped the two copper coins—all she had to live on—and walked up to the offering behind the pompous rich man, did her heart ache like mine, wishing she had more to offer God?

Perhaps not. Perhaps the kind of heart that is eager to give God everything is the kind of heart that understands the Kingdom of God—that knows that in this Kingdom greatness and value have never been determined by what we have to offer God. For what can clay do for the Potter or tools do for the Carpenter?

When Jesus saw the poor widow's offering he didn't see just two copper coins. He saw what no one else could see: a woman whose heart had taken a posture of surrender; a woman who had given the little she owned to God because she knew that the best thing clay can do is remain wholly available to the Potter for his purposes. Jesus knew that in his Kingdom—where less is more and loss is gain—the widow had given the most valuable gift of anyone in the temple that day.

The story of the widow's gift assures me that when Jesus looks at me he sees much more than a history of scaling and conquering mountains. I think he often sees a heart that strives: clay that believes deep down that its efforts and achievements are important indicators of its value and influence. Perhaps this is why God has stripped away my ability to achieve and conquer mountains this year. Perhaps he is redeeming this chronic sickness by teaching me, in still and helpless solitude, that clay is valuable, not because of its efforts, but because of the hands it rests in. Strong, capable hands that belong to a Potter who cares most about the things unseen: about hearts that need to be kneaded and shaped and taught to trust so that they can surrender to the loving plan of the Potter.

There is a stirring in my heart now—a lifting of my heart's gaze—and I know that Jesus sees beyond my pile of pistachio shells. He is looking for something smaller, something unseen. He is looking for faith the size of a mustard seed. The kind of faith that prompts a heart to surrender to the Potter's loving hands, available to be used for His plan because it knows that He is a God who uses a seed of faith—not to scale mountains—but to move them.

I think it's time to turn over my climbing gear.

Aslan On The Move

2011-10-16T10:06:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago a group of friends and I were hiking through the autumn splendor of the Rocky Mountains when, on my friend Jonalyn's cue, we stopped walking, ceased our talking and listened. I hardly dared to breath, straining to hear what she heard. A few seconds passed and then I discerned the far off, almost imperceptible burbling of a brook: the last of Winter's melted snow, winding its way down the mountain.

We stood still for awhile, hushed, wondering at the tinkling music of melted ice, and I remembered a country where it was always winter but never Christmas. Where Narnians waited for someone to rescue them from the icy jowls of winter and give them a reason to celebrate the towering snow-covered pines and knolls frosted with fresh powder. Where, one glorious day, the fierce whip of icy wind and silence of falling snow were replaced with the sound of far-off liquid laughter. Where the icicles began to shrink and wink in the sun's warm light, and droplets cascaded down snow-burdened boughs like tears of thanksgiving. The White Witch saw the changes to the world she'd turned into a prison and shuddered, but Mr. Beaver lifted his head and in joyful murmur announced to his friends: Aslan is on the move.

The Highest of High Kings may be called Aslan in Narnia, but here we call him Immanuel, God with us. We called him that 2,000 years ago when he came to live among us to make sure we'd never have to live through winter without Christmas, and to show us that winter's death will not have the last word. Two thousand years later we continue to call him Immanuel because he's not sitting somewhere far-off watching us sweat, heave, and weep as we struggle to love him and live well. He is in us, among us, fighting for us: on the move.

So listen close for that far-off gurgle, that sound of life in a wintery world. Be still and ask Immanuel to pull back the curtain for just a moment, to show you what He is doing unseen right now for his glory and your good. He will show you. He will show you that the smile from your distant husband, the hug from your rebellious daughter, the Facebook message from a long-lost friend, the hopeful letter from your medical insurance, the phone call from the friend who also had a miscarriage, the cookies fresh from your neighbor's oven, and the anonymous check that came in the mail just in time for rent are all signs of spring.

There will be days though, many many days, when even in still and silent searching it seems like spring cannot be found; when all you can see is icy grey and all you can hear is your heart creaking and cracking, splintering into jagged pieces. Be assured: your heart does not break from the weight of the snow; this is the sound of ice that thaws. This too a sign of Aslan on the move.

Thursday Things: A Colorado Adventure, Part II

2011-10-13T16:54:00.001-07:00

Well, it took whole weeks, but I've finally unpacked my suitcase from my trip to Colorado and shoved it in my storage closet, where it will keep the spiders company for one week. On Monday I will pull it out again and stuff it full of clothes for a trip home. It just occurred to me that, if I were in my right mind, I would have kept it packed all month—to save a lot of effort and lugging. ;)

I guess the silver lining in this unfortunate lack of strategizing is that my little abode is clean and tidy, and I have peace of mind enough to sit down and finish chronicling my Colorado adventure.

And so I give you: Part II (click here for Part I)

1. After a short stay in Denver, I spent the better part of a week in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for a retreat sponsored by Soulation, an apologetics ministry founded by Dale and Jonalyn Fincher.

Jonalyn and Dale

2. It was a grand week spent surrounded by golden aspen and brilliant minds.

3. Dale and Jonalyn's vision is to help others grow more "appropriately human." They used the retreat to facilitate the exploration of several ways we can grow healthier souls, and asked three attendees to contribute presentations on topics related to spiritual growth and formation.

4. First, I got to present on the way that beauty and the imagination can shape our souls. I focused on the especially powerful nature of fairy tales in helping us to recover our wonder at the world and our delight in a magical Gospel.

5. Jonalyn reminded us of the importance of taking time to play, to let something completely absorb us so that the process—not the product—becomes the point.

And play we did.

Jonalyn also reminded us that good play becomes so engrossing and delightful that we want to do it again and again, the way God wants to pull the sun up over the horizon again and again.*

This is my fifth attempt at trying to look like I belong on the set of "Oklahoma!".

6. Robin, fellow attendee and new kindred spirit friend, helped guide us to a better understanding of the redemptive nature of difficult transitions. She explained that transitions demand the reconciliation of life events and personal values, and force us to update our beliefs about ourselves. She encouraged us to allow tough transitions to "change the story you tell about yourself to yourself."

It was a timely talk for all of us.

Robin preparing her presentation

7. Aubrie—another attendee, a bosom friend, and a grad student majoring in thanatology—gave a presentation on grieving well. She reminded us that grief is work; it is a death and resurrection experience in which we are stripped "of the props we rely on for our well-being." Grief helps us to recognize our true identity as naked souls beloved by God.

Dear friend, Aubrie

8. On Friday, Dale talked a bit about the way our thinking about work has evolved since the industrial revolution from something to be proud of, to a mere money-maker. Then his wife shared one of the questions he asks himself when he's engaging in menial tasks:

"If the world were to watch me do this task to learn something about my God, what would they learn?"

And so we worked as unto the Lord and took great pleasure in it.

Bob and Tanya getting ready to stack firewood

9. Toward the end of the week we talked about the importance of including a Sabbath rest in our weekly rhythm, and determined to live the Sabbath as if God could hold the world together without us. Then we engaged in the Jewish practice of welcoming the Sabbath, and we rested.

Some of the girls on our Sabbath walk

10. We closed our week with "Mole's End"—a time to share poems, songs, and our own writings. It was a joyful and meaningful time.

This is what I look like when I'm about to chop off a fish's head.

This is also what I look like when I'm explaining what slam poetry is.

11. I am so thankful for my new dear friends, and for the renewal and restoration I experienced in such a life-giving community. In the wake of the retreat I have felt refreshed and hopeful, settled and satisfied.

*Jonalyn was referencing an idea in G.K. Chesterton's book Orthodoxy.

Autumn Repose

2011-10-11T12:45:00.001-07:00

This week the autumnal days have composed a soft and steady symphony; a fluid ebb and flow of sun and moon, breeze and rain, muted gray and smiling blue, curling leaves and unfurling blooms.

My soul has been still—settled and satisfied with the lot that has been dealt me, and my body, for the first time in 13 months, feels my own.

This, a most gracious gift, after learning to live a long and tiring year of chronic illness in a body that felt like a stranger's;

a frame broken and unrecognizable, an impostor in my once familiar world.

A body that didn't—couldn't—respond to the signs of the changing seasons with thrills of joy and remembrance the way it did when it was healthy and whole;

that shuddered at Winter's foreign frost, retreated from Spring's scouring rains, and squinted at Summer's bright light.

But today God has replaced the throbbing tempos of grief and the aching silence of sickness with the gentle, healing rhythms of Fall, and I remember what it is to have a body that I know and that knows me and my world.

A body that remembers Autumn, that recognizes Her dry warmth, earthen perfume, gypsy breeze, and early dusk;

that has stored in its cells Autumn memories captured by senses—sight of golden leaf, smell of rising smoke, taste of tawny russet, sound of sighing trees, chill of clearest night.

It has been two years since I last had a body that knew this gypsy breeze and could grant her passage into my soul, allowing her to swirl and stir within, unearthing the Fall memories that Winter buried there.

And so I walk into the setting sun, breathing deep, trying to swallow pools of sunshine and taste the azure sky;

my body welcoming Autumn, letting Her seep into every familiar pore,

and my soul remembers...

...Riding my little pink bike, wiry legs pedaling fast, wheels splashing through puddles and whizzing down hills, my lungs full of fresh air seasoned with the smell of wet earth...

...Sprinting laps around a stadium, face dripping with sweat, chest heaving; my teammates running behind and before me under an October sun....

...Shuffling through crunchy leaves toward the Glendora foothills while chatting with dearest friends, then stopping downtown for steaming peppermint mochas...

...Piling dirty dishes snugly in the sink, the smell of pumpkin spice wafting through the house, roommates waiting patiently for a slice of sweet bread—a taste of Fall...

...Helping twenty five pairs of little hands pick from piles of orange, yellow and green fabric scraps and tangled balls of yarn, the ingredients for third grade pumpkin patch collages...

These memories rise and rush out my eyes, wet and salty. The wind wraps around me and my spirit settles into my body, quiet and content. And in this settling there is a shedding of pain of loss and fear of the future: a lifting of my spirit. For in this reunion of body and soul is freedom, the feeling of coming home.

I close my eyes and spread my arms wide, welcoming the release, hoping never to forget this feeling: a foretaste, I hope, of heaven.

Happy Birthday, Brother of Mine

2011-10-09T08:01:00.001-07:00

Last week I was hiking with dear friends, drinking in the autumn air and feasting on the fall colors, when the youngest in our group, Baby Finn, pointed excitedly at the loyal dog at our heels and proudly declared, "Dah!". His small voice shot me back in time 21 years. I thought of you, Aaron.

I remembered when "Dah" was your favorite word, the only word you used for quite some time; the word you relied on as you tried to translate the feelings and thoughts in your small soul into sound waves—your contribution to the wide and promising world you were beginning to understand.

You could carry on entire conversations using only the word "Dah," and we almost always knew what you were talking about. We could tell when "Dah" meant, "I'm going to go ride my tricycle, okay?" And when it meant, "Do you see the jack-o-lantern I'm making with this orange paper? I'm gluing it together very carefully." Your wide grey eyes said so much more than your sweet mouth.

I think your little heart would have liked very much to have a dog of your own.

But instead you had a pet goldfish; one you shared with your younger brother; one whose name I cannot remember because you changed it at least seven times. I do know you never named it "Dah" because your vocabulary grew with your chubby frame, and you could eventually pull from a well of words like Fred, Goldy, Snowball, and Simba (name #5, I believe) when christening your scaly new friend.

You must have had a special knack with fish because Fred/Goldy/Snowball/Simba lived years and years. We sure got our fifty cents worth out of him.

Caring for fish wasn't the only thing you had a special knack for. You were also the King Cultivator of new worlds for your "hard animals". You, Marc, and Anne would spend hours in mom's garden carving out caves, propping up trees, and channeling small streams for your plastic animal kingdom. You'd gather your small herd of rhinos, giraffes, warthogs and mustangs and lead them through dangerous territories on daring exploits. You were a plastic animal shepherd.

You grew up to be a shepherd of people, too, Aaron.

When our family traveled the world, wandering the streets of Spain, Ecuador, Italy, and Croatia, you would hang at the back of the pack, slowing our group's pace so that our curious mother didn't have to walk by herself, and protectively eyeing the men who gawked at your blond teenage sisters.

Years later, when friends on your community college track team were lonely and longed for the companionship of a six-pack of Bud Light, you'd go to their houses, sometimes very late at night. You'd listen and encourage, and even challenge. They listened to you because they knew you cared about their souls, that your soul was full of the love of Another Shepherd.

When you moved to Los Angeles to attend Biola University, you were asked to be a student leader in Biola's Athletic Ministry. You poured your creativity and wisdom into your teaching and leading, and you influenced people, Aaron. They wanted to hear what you had to say, to follow your example. I think this is because you've always known something I'm still trying to learn: that being a shepherd doesn't mean being at the front of the pack or convincing others to buy what you're selling. It means spending much of your time behind the scenes—away from the spotlight in the bowels of community—so that you can care for the needs of the wanderers, flounderers, outsiders and forgotten. A shepherd is a sacrificer of time, money, and comfort; a giver of dignity, compassion, and kindness. You love and lead people, well, Aaron. You point them to the Good Shepherd.

I know it wasn't your practice caring for fish and corralling plastic animals that made you a shepherd, Aaron. I think, when you were being formed in mom's womb, God must have said, "I have set this soul apart; he will be a shepherd of the nations, a tender to wayward hearts. He will grow into a man who understands that in my Kingdom the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and he will point people to My green pastures and streams of Living Water."

Aaron, you've lived well these 23 years because you have served the Giver of Life, the One who gave you a shepherd's heart. I pray He gives you many many more years of shepherding His beloved sheep. And when this shepherd's work makes you tired, discouraged, and lonely, and your staff begins to feel like a rough and heavy cross, I pray you would know Christ's strength, presence, and approval.

I also pray God allows you to see the seeds you've sown, the souls you've shaped, and the lives you've changed on your journey. And as you merge lives with another seed-sower and soul-shaper this spring, I pray you would find deepest satisfaction in shepherding your family as you journey together toward our heaven-home, where our souls will rest in the greenest of pastures.

And finally, I pray that one day you'll have a little boy with big grey eyes—a doggie lover, goldfish re-namer, and plastic animal herder who teaches you the joy of watching a little boy grow into a man who loves and follows the Good Shepherd.

Growing up with you has been one of life's greatest pleasures, Aaron.

I love you mucho grande.

Happy Birthday, Little Brother.

Admiringly,

Sarah

When You Get Slammed with a Late Fee

2011-10-04T11:40:00.000-07:00

A few evenings ago I stopped off at the shabby video store down the street from my house to get a movie for the class I was teaching the next day.

As I pulled into the rental store's dark parking lot I muttered to myself about how I needed to run in and out of there fast so I could go home and get my aching body into bed.

I mindlessly put my car in park, eased slowly out of my car, and was startled fully awake by the ferocious snarls of a bulldog who was trying to squeeze his head out the cracked window of the car next to me to, no doubt, kill me.

Now I'm sure the driver didn't think his killer dog could squeeze out of that sliver of an opening to destroy passers by, but I've seen a kid get his head stuck in a smaller gap between two beams on a playground and am well acquainted with the pliable nature of heads. Naturally, I was not happy with the driver's negligence.

My mood grew more foul as I walked into the movie store only to spend who knows how long looking through the unalphabetized dvds for the one I'd come for (what kind of time does this place think I have?!).

I stepped up to the counter, anxious to pay and leave, and was told by the man behind the counter that I had a late fee for my last rental.

"Impossible," I told him . "It was a seven day rental: I checked it out Wednesday and returned it the following Wednesday." I did not smile at him.

"It says you rented it Tuesday and returned it the following Wednesday."

"But I remember checking it out on Wednesday," I said, conveniently forgetting about the memory problems that accompany my health issues. "I picked up the DVD and returned it on my way into work, and I don't go into work on Tuesday." He stuck to his guns.

"It's fine, it doesn't matter," I sighed. I still didn't smile, and this time there was an edge in my voice. A cranky, I'm so over this misunderstanding that is likely not my fault kind of edge.

I paid for the DVD and late fee, and walked around the counter so the clerk could hand it to me. The man shuffled over to me and handed me the DVD.

He couldn't look me in the eyes.

My heart sank and I quickly walked out the door so I could get out of there, like I'd wanted all along.

As I walked to my car and crawled in through the passenger's side to avoid Killer Doggie, I had a vision of Jesus picking an adulteress up out of the dust, looking at her with love when no one else would. I saw him talking to a scorned Samaritan woman—the town ho—and offering her eternal life, and I saw him letting a woman sit at his feet in a culture that only allowed men hang out with rabbis like Jesus.

I saw him rounding up a band of frumpy fishermen from a backwater town and telling them he'd use them to change the world. I saw him joining a reject tax collector for dinner, grabbing the deformed hands of an outcast leper, and pulling small children into his lap when there were important adults waiting to talk to him.

I saw him dignifying humans; making them feel like they were worth pulling up out of the dust; giving them a reason to raise their heads and pull their shoulders back; assuring them he didn't condemn them and it was okay for them to lift their eyes to his steady gaze of compassion.

And oh! when Jesus tells us to follow in his footsteps, he has commissioned us to spend our days dignifying the people around us by convincing the marginalized new kid that he's worth befriending, showing the man with cerebral palsy that he's worth serving, reminding the girl who got pregnant at 15 that she still has lots to offer the world, and assuring the movie store clerk that he can look into our eyes and find compassion there.

I wish I had dignified the man who stood behind the movie counter the other night, that I had remembered the great worth of his soul. I wish I had shown him that he is infinitely more important than a possibly "unfair" late fee.

I wish my focus had been outward, not inward. No—I wish my focus had been upward, that I opened myself up to the power of the Great Dignifier as I struggled to respond to my fellow soul with warmth and patience. I wish I could go back and do that night over again.

I haven't seen the movie store clerk since that night, but I've rubbed shoulders with several people—friends, family and strangers—since then, right when my soul was most laden with anxiety, fatigue, and just plain crabbiness. In his kindness, Jesus has given me lots of other opportunities to try to dignify the people around me, the way he did. And I am learning that when Jesus gives me second chances, he crowns me with dignity.

Ode to a Dying Earth

2011-09-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

Today the mountain wears a golden burial shroud, welcoming winter’s death as a crown.

Autumn pine peer solemn and silent at the dying earth through her cathedral windows of deepest amber and caramel, framed by slender branches.

Aspen quake and shiver, death staining their leaves with brilliant orange,

And the meadows stand still and breathless,

Waiting for the mountain that once quivered with life to die

So that she can live again.

And I, I sit at her base and sup on bread and wine,

This once living food now dead, coursing through my dying body so that I might live.

This, a reminder of the only Living Food; the grain and the vine, the Bread and the Wine;

The One who died and then lived.

And in this communion with death surrounded by the dying I know it’s true what they say,

Beauty is the Resplendence of Truth;

For the colors ring and the silence sings of death that gives life,

Of the Living One,

Who makes all things new.

Thursday Things: A Colorado Adventure, Part I

2011-09-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

1. I'm in Colorado.

2. I love it here.

3. I could move here.

4. Here's why:

4a. This is what it looks like when you decide to go driving in the Colorado mountains in September.

Saffron and Tangerine

Mustard and Caramel

Amber and honey

4b. The touristy section of Denver has a piano on every city block.

Middle C sounds like F and Chopin's Prelude in C# Minor sounds like pea soup on these inner-city pianos, but there's nothing quite like playing outside in the fresh mountain air.

One of my dreams is to play a grand piano in a mountain meadow surrounded by quaking aspen and towering pine. This is the closest I've gotten to that dream.

4c. This is what impromptu picnics are like in Colorado.

4d. This guy lives in Colorado.

Everyone, this is Dirk.

Everyone: "Hi Dirk."

Dirk's family and my family go way back: as kids we homeschooled together, camped together, communed over $5 "cardboard" pizza together, and explored, created, and got into trouble together.

Dirk is family, and eating Peruvian fare at the base of the Rocky Mountains with him felt like going home.

4e. There is lots of leather in Colorado. Soft, fragrant, turquoise-studded leather.

This is my best cowgirl face.

4f. Small mountain towns like Steamboat Springs, Colorado have drug stores with real live soda fountains and jukeboxes that play Elvis. This is me cuttin' a rug with some mad (i.e. "awkward string bean") moves.

I believe this photo has captured my inimitable "Sprinkler" move.

4g. Colorado is a great place to make new kindred spirit friends.

5. The fresh, clean Rocky Mountain air has been so good for my body, and the fellowship with new friends so good for my soul. The Lord has buoyed and bolstered my health the last few days and this is the first week in months and months that I feel like I've been able to really participate in life. I am loving it.

When I Wake Up Hungry

2011-09-26T10:41:00.001-07:00

Last night I went to bed craving a bar of swiss chocolate—the kind that's loaded with so much cream it melts in my mouth before I have a chance to chew it. Today I woke up dying for a steaming, frothy latte and a thick slab of pumpkin bread, hot out of the oven.

When I quickly and hungrily climbed out of bed and almost blacked out from the exhaustion of the week I decided it would be nice to take a vacation to Italy where I'd eat loads of fresh bread and butter, heaps of cheesy pasta, and bucketfuls of gelato.

Then I remembered that I'm not allowed to put gluten, sugar, dairy, or caffeine in my body, and I concluded that heaven can't get here soon enough. Because I'll have a new body in heaven, and I'm pretty sure the lattes and chocolate there will be off. the. hook.

So I started dreaming about heaven, where my desires won't ever go unsatisfied, where my Jesus will fully fill all the empty cracks and hollows in my soul. I'm learning that letting my mind drift "further up and further in" to my heaven-home is the loveliest tour an imagination can take— it fertilizes my hope of future glory and helps me to center my heart on the place I belong.

Won't you join me as I muse?

1. I hope Turkish delight in heaven is as exquisite as Edmund thinks it is in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

When I tasted Turkish Delight for the first time I felt certain someone was playing a joke on me. To think this supposedly smooth, creamy, and divinely sweet Turkish Delight is really just chunky jelly coated in powdered sugar. Heaven will certainly rectify this egregious culinary blunder.

2. Boy but laughter is divine, and I cannot wait to have a deep belly laugh with God. If all of the truest, wholesomest, and rip-roarin' funniest humour is just a shadow of the kind of humor that flows from God's holy character, then we are in for some right good laughs, folks. Especially when you consider that our current belly laughs are facilitated by bellies in fallen bodies. What capacity must a resurrected and perfect body (belly) have for laughing?!

3. Have you ever hiked Half Dome in Yosemite in autumn? It's spectacular. The crisp air is perfumed with traces of summer pine. The mountains rise jagged and majestic on every side, a banner of deepest blue stretched wide behind them. The trail is dotted with fragrant wildflowers, and everywhere there are deciduous trees turning vibrant shades of saffron, amber, crimson, and caramel. Around some bends in the trail there are silvery looking-glass lakes; around others are undulating waterfalls, chortling as they tumble from heights to depths.

If an orchestral symphony could be translated into visual artwork it would look like Yosemite.

Each time I survey this staggering beauty I can't help but remember this land is cursed. This is an imitation of the real thing; it's but a shadow of our heaven-home. Can you imagine what it looked like before the fall of man? I think we will know in heaven. And I hope to find autumn in some corner of heaven. I think its colors and smells are too strong and alive for my senses now, but I sure can't wait

4. Oh how I yearn for the day that I feel really, truly known. In heaven all of my dingy facades and tarnished masks will melt away with sin's soul scars and stains and I will know what it is to stand before my Creator naked, known and loved. And the best part is I will know him fully, even as I am fully known.

What must it be like to hear the voice that spoke the stars into the sky, calls dead men to life, and courses with love say my name....

5. In that same vein, I am so excited to see and really know my dear friends and family in their truest form, uninhibited by fear and unfettered by insecurity; radiant in purity and splendor as they rule and reign with Christ, more themselves they've ever been before. I think I will stand in awe at their beauty.

6. A friend recently shared this by Charles Spurgeon with me: "You may look, and study, and weigh, but Jesus is a greater Savior than you think Him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest."

Now close your eyes and picture his eyes burning love into the darkest corners of your soul, speaking compassion to your withered heart, resurrecting your deepest dreams and desires and then satisfying every yearning you've ever known.

Let your imagination plumb the depths of his goodness and love, and then remember that the Savior is much, much greater than even this. It doesn't matter how far and wide you stretch that imagination of yours, you will never approach his great compassion and loving kindness.

This is the one who fights for you, walks with you, and lives in you. Blessed be his good and holy name.

7. Okay, now it's your turn: what do you hope for in heaven?!

Ramona

2011-09-24T14:32:00.000-07:00

Today, if I didn't have papers to grade, a presentation to prepare, and lessons to plan, I would curl up with this:

I miss Ramona Geraldine Quimby, her annoying big sister, Beezus, and their adventures on Klickitat Street. Work and bills and deadlines will do that to a gal. ;)

Thursday Things: Another Year Behind Me

2011-09-21T11:01:00.001-07:00

1. Several days I ago absentmindedly opened my front door and almost walked face first into this:

If I were brave enough to hold the golf ball that I keep in my purse next to the spider for the picture, you would see that the spider. is. bigger. She is the BIG Bertha of Big Berthas; the mother of all spiders, getting cozy above MY front door.

Bertha was entirely too big for me to kill (I wasn't about to attempt a skirmish with her), and so I used a rake to carry her to the opposite side of my patio where I threw her over the patio wall. She landed with a very loud thud. I still shudder when I remember it.

The next morning I awoke to find this a few feet to the right of my french doors:

She's back folks, and I can't help but wonder if it's with a vengeance. Now, every time a wayward hair tickles my skin I do the spider dance (you know what I'm talking about).

Someone call the exterminator.

2. This is what we call a culinary success [finally]:

Admittedly they are a leetle brown, but these gluten-free, refined sugar-free, dairy-free apple spice muffins were totally edible. Welcome to Los Angeles, Autumn. (She's not really here yet, I'm just hoping that a warm welcome and the smell of cinnamon apple in the air will entice her to visit for a few months).

3. I turned 27 over the weekend.

My wonderful cousin made me these cupcakes. They were delicious!

This is the first birthday that's made me gulp big and wish fervently that time would slow down a bit. I figure 40 is just around the corner (because, my how the last eight years have flown), and although I hear the 40's are marvelous, there's so much I'd like to do before I get there (and so little time). This is a problem I will gladly embrace. I love that life has so much to offer.

To celebrate my big day, I enjoyed the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl with some dear friends and family,

and went paddle boarding in Dana Point with my cousins.

Are there any paddle boarders in the house? If not, you must try it soon! There's nothing quite like being surrounded by the still, quiet ocean, the water lapping against your board, the sun warming your skin and the breeze at your back. It's pretty much impossible to do it without singing the Pocohantas theme song, that's for sure. It was the one time all week that my bodily aches and fatigue faded into nothingness. Glorious.

4. I love love love having a a vegetable garden.

5. Would you be horrified if I told I kill at least one cricket every week? I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how they keep getting into my bathroom.

I wish I had a more effective means of capturing and releasing them so I didn't have to squash them. There's something about their wagging antennae and chipper hopping that makes them kind of endearing.

On that note, a happiest of happy Thursdays to you, my friends!

When God is the One Writing

2011-09-19T14:45:00.001-07:00

I've missed you this last week, Friends. It's been a hard health week for me which always makes it difficult for me to write. But today when God pulled the sun up over the horizon there was healing in its rosy rays, and I have a bit more energy to share something I discovered this last week and have tucked into the folds of my heart to carry with me through each challenging day.

I found it in the book of John, soon after Jesus rubbed spit and mud in the eyes of a blind man and in two strokes of his hand painted the man's world with light, color, and texture. A couple of chapters later this God-Man, whose fingertips bore unmatchable power, received word from his friends Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus had fallen desperately sick.

The Gospel writer sets the scene for us: Lazarus's sisters know Jesus of Nazareth loves their failing brother (and won't he do something for him?), and Jesus knows that this story will end well—just you wait and see, he tells his disciples: God will be glorified in all this.

Then, just before the story really picks up, the Gospel writer pauses to tell us something very important:

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."

Yes, yes he did. I nod as I read. This is the first thing I learned about Jesus when I was little tyke in Mrs. Doerschuck's Sunday School class, with her sweet smile, softly curling white hair and singsong voice: "Jesus loves us this we know..."

I go back and read it again.

"Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus."

"So when he heard Lazarus was sick," the Gospel writer continued.

My heart quickens. The English teacher in me knows that the word "So" means "to the great extent that," or, "for this reason." So I know the next words on the tissue-thin page will reveal the sort of thing God does when he loves people a lot—people like us, who need to be reminded of the ways Jesus shows us his love.

I lift my eyes and gaze for a moment at the pink geraniums smiling through my window. The muscles around my spine ache as I sit turning the first few verses of Lazarus's story over and over in my mind, thinking about all of the things that could follow that "So". My thoughts move slowly through my foggy mind (has it grown into a forest of cotton?), and I am aware that my limbs have fallen limp and exhausted at my side from the sensation of lead sitting thick and still in them. My emotions are slumped with my body—a body that almost daily reminds me that it is dying, slowly and quietly. I remember realizing as an adolescent that we're all dying; that our bodies consistently deteriorate after childhood and that this is the effect of the Fall of Man. It's just that now it's hard for me to forget about this steady return to dust when my body so often aches and trembles with fatigue. And so I daily cry out to God, asking him to sustain and heal me, to keep my body from falling into even more severe illness; and I think, in a very small way, I may understand how Mary and Martha felt and hoped when they asked Jesus to come to Lazarus.

"So when he heard Lazarus was sick he stayed where he was two more days."

Two long days with seconds that passed so slowly the minutes felt like hours, and hours that crawled by slower than lifetimes. Just long enough for Lazarus' body to break and die.

There are tears in my eyes at this point, because this story is not turning out the way it did with the blind man, and I think Jesus shows us his love in ways I wouldn't have chosen.

I keep reading: Jesus makes his way to Martha and Mary's house where he knows Lazarus lies dead, and reminds his disciples along the way of what he'd said when he first heard about Lazarus's illness: "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory....that you may believe."

I know the rest of the story well. Martha runs to meet Jesus as he nears their house, lamenting his late arrival. He promises her Lazarus will rise, and this Jewish woman remembers aloud another promise: the promise of resurrection at the last day. I think Jesus must have tipped her downcast, tear-stained face up toward his when he replied, "I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die." I think Martha's heart must have quaked and soared.

Together, Jesus walks with Martha into the village where they find Mary grieving among friends and family. Jesus looks at their heaving shoulders and contorted faces, hears their gutteral wails, and is deeply moved. Even in the face of his transcendent plan to use Lazarus' sickness and death for God's glory, he enters their pain and weeps with them over their dead friend, Lazarus. Then he walks to the tomb and calls for Lazarus, telling him to come out into the arms of his sisters and friends. And Lazarus emerges from the tomb's darkened doorway, tearing off his grave cloths as his blinking eyes adjust to the piercing light.

And the resplendence of God's glory fills that brilliant light, and many of the people around Lazarus believed.

My soul swells and sighs as I look up from my Bible and I know that I want God's glory to radiate from my weakness so that I and others might believe in his power, goodness, and unmatchable love.

I also know that this is what God will give me. He is writing more of his glory and goodness into my story than I could ever write myself, and although the story he pens may look very different from the story I'd pen, he writes it this way because he loves me. And so I try to see my story through his eyes, remembering that he is the God of Resurrection who douses our pain with his life-giving glory.

I thoughtfully close my Bible, set it on my cluttered kitchen table, and walk over to the sink where I begin to slowly wash my dishes, murmuring as I lather,

"Now Jesus loved Sarah Christine. So he allowed her a long season of illness...."

And I ask him to make sure that the story ends in his glory, even if it ends in sickness, because his glory is our greatest good.

How might your story change if you told it this way?

Thursday Things: Sometimes Even Corvettes Have Engine Trouble

2011-09-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

Well folks, it's that time of the week again, and I'm sorry to say I'm still lugging around my station wagon computer and its impossibly long and bulky power cord, because of course station wagon computers have a battery life of about 3 minutes.

I did get my honda-turned-corvette back on Tuesday, and boy was she fast. That little baby blazed many a smokin' trail through my piles of work all evening, and then her engine starting acting up. So now she's back in the shop in the hands of an amazing tech guy named Jim Bob. Well, his name is James Robert, but at this point the IT guys and I are on a nickname basis, and Jim Bob is so much more fun to say. It makes me want to get on a pogo stick and start wildly bouncing. Try it. Say Jim Bob five times fast and see if you don't want to get your hop on.

Anyway, the absence of my trusty Mac means you're in for some real spacing/layout treats today. So, without further ado, I give you this Thursday's Things, the Thursday edition:

1. I was just trying to revive my wilting petunias (we've had a real scorcher of a week here SmogVille) and my heart started aching for this:

My family stayed in an old renovated castle in Austria during the summer of 2004 so my dad could utilize the castle's library while he worked on his dissertation. One of the highlights that summer was hiking down into the village where we'd walk along the river and admire the blossom bedecked balconies and windowsills. Ever since then my gardening skills have seemed a little...lacking.

2. Thinking about those walks along the river gave me a hankerin' for some fresh Austrian mountain air, and maybe a yodeling session or two.

I don't know if my brother and I are doing any yodeling in the picture below, but we are definitely bellowing, "The hills are aliiiiive with the sound of muuuuuusiiiiic!"
#36 on my bucket list: cheeeck.

3. Of course those hankerins gave me more hankerins:

For a jubilant Lithuanian polka around a dancing fire in the alps (there were quite a few Lithuanians staying at the castle):

And a hayride on a MidSummer's Eve:

According to Lithuanian tradition, we made flower crowns to wear in our hair for the longest eve of the year, and then rode through the Austrain alps before sunset. (My sister and my backs are facing the camera. She's in red and I'm to her right in denim, with my hair wrapped around my head like a fraulein).

4. Ahhh, such glorious travel memories. I even began to wish for another opportunity to travel like this:

(Because there's nothing quite like driving through the Alps, your face smashed against the window, not because you are eager to drink in the scenery (although you are) but because there are 12 suitcases bearing down on your gravity-compliant little body.)

And this:
This was at a truck stop in France (we took week-long trips to nearby countries that summer). It was a much, much better alternative to getting some shut eye in our stuffed little Puegeot van.

5. And of course thinking about France made me wish I could eat a strawberry tart at a picnic table surrounded by this:

6. But instead, I'm going to go watch this in preparation for the class I teach in two weeks:

I am hoping the foreign scenery and occasionally convincing French accent satisfy my travel craving.

It's amazing what wilted petunias can do to a person's Thursday, isn't it?

Salut mes amis!

Just Around the River Bend

2011-09-05T09:38:00.001-07:00

This evening I huffed and puffed up the big hill in my neighborhood toward a horizon drenched in honeyed light. I stepped over scuttling baby lizards, past tall gates covered in climbing jasmine, and smiled at the lady watering flowers under the giant wooden cross that stands erect in her front yard.

As I walked through this peaceful quiet I noticed my deep thoughts were punctuated by even deeper sighs; my shoulders were rigidly tense and the muscles around my chest were slowly tightening around my steadily beating heart, and I realized I was waiting for something.

With this realization came a flood of realizations—that I'd been sighing deep yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and I've been living as if I am waiting for something.

It doesn't take long for me to identify the things I'm waiting for. I'm waiting for spring semester when I'll hopefully be healthy enough to resume my philosophy classes after taking this semester off; I'm waiting to finish my degree so I can get a Ph.D. so I have more teaching prospects; I'm waiting for the floor to get mopped so I can put my feet up, the papers to get graded so I can read a book, the weekend to end so I can resume teaching, and the work week to end so I can resume resting; I'm waiting for the day my body is healthy enough to go hiking at sunrise and running at sunset; and, if I'm honest, I'm waiting for the day I meet a man who makes my heart quicken and my soul stand in awe of a God who gives good husbandly gifts. And I know that what I'm really waiting for is a life that looks the way I think it should.

I didn't do this when I was a kid. When I was a kid I had a settled contentedness, and although I sometimes burst into a heartfelt rendition of Pocahontas' "Just Around the River Bend," I wasn't thinking about the bend in life's road—or river—that brings surprising, and sometimes jarring and undesirable changes. I was living in the here and now, soaking up the gifts of the present.

Sometime before I joined the ranks of the double digit folk I had a few adults tell me I'd grow into an adult and wish I were a kid again, and so I determined to live it up in my youth. I climbed the highest trees, ate the stickiest candy, explored the wildest corners of the neighborhood, and rollerbladed down the steepest hills. I enjoyed years of this childhood reverie, and then I stepped quietly into adulthood, my soul popping with over-the-top ambition and swollen with starry-eyed dreams, and I started to sigh deep heavy sighs.

The thing about ambition is it's elusive—our imaginations whisper of greater victories and more satisfying conquests; and the thing about dreams is they're not bound by time they way we are. And these grand imaginations and eternal dreams of ours, they're shadows of Another World that beckons our sighing souls; they are the signposts that declare "You're not made for here!...you are not made for here!...you are not made for here."

These heavenly shadows remind me that my life was supposed to look different than it does. My soul was created to delight in God's unveiled glory in a Paradise untarnished by human narcissism and rebellion. My imaginative mind was created to drink deep from the Fount of all Wisdom and Knowledge, and my heart was created to commune with the Creator God's in a state of deepest, eternal satisfaction. And so I know, when I sigh deep and restless, I am really longing for the home I haven't seen, for the place God is preparing for those who love him.

I think perhaps Pocahontas gives us an apt reminder as we journey toward our heaven-home (!). This home, whose earthly echoes awaken aching desires, is waiting unseen around a distant bend on the Way of Jesus. It is the culmination of this journey; the last and greatest destination on a thrilling and tiring pilgrimage. Heaven—seeing Jesus face to face—is not something we just sit around and wait for, and it's not something totally disconnected from and unrelated to the terrain we traverse today, and tomorrow, and the day after. It is something we move toward now, in this fleeting present.

Today we make it our greatest ambition to drink deep from the Fount of Wisdom so that we one day recognize his voice that roars like raging waters....

...We remember that the Object of our greatest and truest desire lives in us, walks with us, and fights for us; and He is the only one who can satisfy....

...We fix our eyes on the glorious truth that Immanuel, God with us, is preparing for us a home that is a Divine Kingdom, and this Divine Kingdom is being established among us, here on earth: Now, in this moment....

...Today we, the Saints, get to build this eternally victorious Kingdom in the power of the Spirit and the presence of Jesus. And when our bodies grow tired and our minds grow weak, when our days seem dull and understated and we're tempted to heave deep and heavy sighs, we let the Father teach our lungs to inhale grace and exhale gratitude, because these are the air of heaven.

Thursday Things: A Really Good Thursday

2011-09-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

I woke up yesterday feeling good. Really good—like, normal good. My limbs didn't feel weighed down by lead, the deep fatigue had crept out of my body, I didn't ache all over, and all I wanted to do was whoop and twirl. Instead, I basked in the glorious feeling of renewed health all morning and I got. things. done. Really exciting things like investigating insurance claims, washing dishes, and taking my computer into the shop where it is currently undergoing some sort of rehabilitative surgery. I have high hopes that I will be blogging from the equivalent of a honda-turned-corvette come Tuesday.

In the meantime, I'm writing from a computer that reminds me of the clunky station wagon my mom drove for ten years--a car that was practically longer than our house, and had a gigantic rust spot on the side, back seats that faced backward (the most coveted seats in the cul-de-sac), and an engine that died at every other stop sign. It definitely took longer to get places in that thing. A lot longer.

Needless to say, I'm blaming this painfully slow computer for another Friday edition of Thursday things. (But it could just be that Thursday was so full of feel-good productivity and busyness that my Thursday burst of energy is to blame. Now that is my kind of excuse!)

And now, the Friday Edition of Thursday Things (My apologies for the weird spacing. Station wagon computers are not able to space things correctly):

1. I finally bit the bullet and bought one of these for work:

I'd written off the idea of a computer-carrying roller bag after my experience with this:

My principal gave one of these to me the week he hired me to teach third grade, and it would have worked out just fine if I were about ten inches shorter and enjoyed snapping together its flimsy plastic sides each time I used it. But I'm 5 '8 and I never had an affinity for K'NEX.

Anyway, after a year of walking across campus in 100 degree weather, sweaty high heels, and a pencil skirt that reduced my long stride to a timid waddle, with my arms full textbooks, my computer, the 40-60 papers I'd just graded and the 40-60 packets I was about to hand out, I'm just thrilled to have this handy dandy computer/book/paper carrier on wheels.

My juggling days are over.

2. Thanks to this new roller bag that is actually a carry on, I'm really looking forward to the next time I fly. Which, just happens to be this September.

Destination: Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

I'm going on a five-day "conversation retreat" with eleven other people from around the country. I can't wait to tell you about it.

3. My clinical nutritionist advised me to go organic on the following list of fruits and veggies. Apparently this produce is particularly drenched in pesticides, and, I'm learning, pesticides contribute to high levels of toxicity in our systems that make us tired and more susceptible to illness.

I give you the Dirty Dozen:

Apples

Celery

Strawberries

Peaches

Spinach

Nectarines

Grapes

Sweet bell peppers

Potatoes

Blueberries

Lettuce

Kale/collard greens

Happy organic shopping everyone!

And over and out.

Better Together: Congratulations Aaron and Natasha!

2011-08-31T13:57:00.000-07:00

Every Monday and Wednesday morning I lug my bag of books and papers up the eight steps that lead to Sutherland Hall's shady courtyard at Biola University. If I'm not in a rush I stop at the base of the steps to breathe in the California morning, and then I lift my eyes to the banner that is stretched across the hall's faded brick face.

The banner is a blown up vintage photo of college kids from Biola's early days; youthful faces beaming down at me, excited to change the world. I'm not sure what year the picture was taken, but it looks like it dates back to the days when my grandpa and grandma were in college.

My grandparents aren't in the photo, but each time I look I half expect to see them, because I know my grandparents walked Biola's halls in the university's early days, excited to change the world. And so some days I look up at the life-size picture and I imagine my grandma's sweet face smiling down at me and my grandpa's twinkling eyes looking out next to hers, and then I thank God for Biola University, where my playful grandpa fell in love with my brilliant grandma, and where the two of them decided life would be best if they lived it together.

Their life together turned into life with a lively brood of seven: four boys and three girls. The girls grew into women with sweet, sweet faces, and the boys grew into men with twinkling eyes; and when the middle boy left boyhood behind he fixed his twinkling eyes on Biola University where he enrolled in a class in Sutherland Hall, back when the bricks weren't so faded.

Sutherland Hall is big and musty and perfect for large seminar classes packed full of enthusiastic students. It's also a perfect place for scoping out the hottest chicks in the house. At least it was for my dad.

It was hard for him to miss my mom that first day of class, with her wide green eyes and long, softly curling hair. She was lovely and full of life, and once he saw her he couldn't forget her.

And so he devised a plan to meet her. He sat near enough to her one day that he could scoot out of his row after class and walk out next to her. His timing was impeccable (not surprising; strategery is one of his many strongsuits). He fell into stride with her and said hi and asked her her name and where she was from, and was smooth as salt water taffy. But my mom didn't notice his winsome words as much as she noticed the handsome smile wrinkles around his eyes, and how much taller he was up close.

That first meeting led to another and another, and those meetings led to a date over pizza where my mom convinced my dad to put down his fork and eat it with his hands. And so they munched and wiped greasy fingers, and learned that they both really loved Jesus and wanted to use their short lives to change the world . Many pizzas later my dad and mom realized they were in love, and decided life would be best if they lived it together.

And life together turned into life with a blond brood of four: two girls and two boys. The girls grew into women who want to embody their grandma's sweet, sweet spirit, and the boys grew into men with twinkling eyes, and when the oldest boy left boyhood behind he fixed his twinkling eyes on Biola University, where he decided to run track.

Biola's track team is big and loud and perfect for getting sweaty and fit. It's also perfect for scouting out the hottest chicks on campus. At least it was for my brother.

It was hard for him to miss Natasha that first day on the team, with her bright blue eyes and long dark hair. She was kind, genuine, and full of life, and, as it turns out, really really fast. And once Aaron saw her, he couldn't forget her.

And so he devised a plan to spend a day at the beach with her and two mutual friends (strategery runs in the family). That first "hang out session" (third party presence means it wasn't a "date") they played frisbee and had handstand competitions and raced each other along the water's edge, and Natasha realized Aaron was considerate and sincere and fun, and, as it turns out, really really fast.

It didn't take long before Natasha and Aaron learned they could talk together just as easily as they could race together, and so they spent many evenings outside the Biola dorms digging into God's Word, talking about life, discussing the cool tricks they were learning on Natasha's BMX bike, and figuring out how they could change the world for Jesus. Weeks faded into months, and the months added up to almost two years, and they realized they were in love and decided life would be best if they lived it together.

They don't know what "life together" will look like exactly, but they know they will merge dreams and ministry, hopes and hearts. They will seek and serve Christ together and grow to love Him more dearly as they learn to love each other with His love.

Aaron and Natasha, I pray God fills your future with fresh adventures, unexpected pleasures, developmental challenges, glorious victories, and lots and lots of handstand competitions.

I love you both,

And I am very thankful for Biola University.

Grace Covers This, Too

2011-08-29T15:14:00.001-07:00

I just forced down two muffins that were free of gluten, sugar, and dairy. They were also free of flavor even remotely palatable.

Back in my sugar-indulging, cracker-loving days I wouldn't have expected "health nut" muffins like these to taste any better than cardboard, but these days I know better. I know because I have a mom whose ability to whip up tasty concoctions with bizarre ingredients knows no bounds. I know because I've had some minor culinary successes on this journey toward restored health.

Somehow, though, these muffins didn't make the cut (did I accidentally pour strychnine in the batter?). And as I stared down at the ten remaining crispy and deceivingly enticing muffin tops, I wondered how in the world I would manage to eat them all.

Not eating them was an appealing option for about .0789 seconds, until I started calculating what it cost to make them. Six dollars for the pecans, $1 for the gluten-free flour, $1 for the gluten-free oats, $3 for the raw honey, and on and on, until my bank account had taken quite a hit and my shoulders sagged with guilt at the thought of the extravagant waste I'd indulge in by...not eating them.

The day is almost over now; I haven't touched the fluffy taste bud offenders and my shoulders are still sagging with my guilt-laden spirit, and this is not the first time I can't scrape guilt's sticky residue out of the pit of my stomach.

Just the other day guilt paid me a visit when I broke a gorgeous goblet while trying to carefully wash dishes, found an opened can of moldy refried beans at the back of the refrigerator (all my tupperware were otherwise engaged!), forgot to water my flowers, and went three days without washing dishes.

Guilt's frequent assaults have made me realize that, although I easily admit my frail humanity when discussing sin's iron grip, I leave little room for error in my daily, apparently innocuous activities. I forget that I am human—just human—in a fallen world where the slippery soap that makes dirty things shine can also make you drop beautiful goblets; where fridges aren't magic wardrobes—they have backs, and beans often like to chill there behind the bigger, more attention-worthy items; where things that are out of sight often become out of mind, especially when it's 100 degrees outside and all that matters is keeping cool; and where sickness wreaks havoc on weak bodies, making it hard to roll out of bed some mornings, much less do the dishes at night.

I am a fallen human, *Sigh*, in a fallen world, and sometimes I mess up expensive muffins. I wish I were okay with that. I wish I were better at giving myself permission to just be human; that my heart believed my head when it tells me these foibles are expected and trivial, and there is grace sufficient to cover them.

My battle with chronic illness this year is slowly teaching me the sufficiency of God's grace in dark, sometimes desperate seasons. When I struggle to get out bed, cook dinner, and carry on a long conversation; when I wake up to a new ailment or the doctor finds another worn down organ, and when all I want to do is hike a mountain or hit the weights, I try to invite God into that moment, to teach me the sufficiency of his grace.

And he is teaching me. My experience is confirming something the Bible told me long ago: that his grace knows no bounds. It covers my sin and my frail body. It is the thing that sustains my organs and nourishes my soul. It gently shows me the ways I can grow, and assures me that I'm loved in my weakness.

And so I wonder why I don't invite God to show me the sufficiency of his grace when I ruin muffin batter and waste half a can of beans. For surely, if his grace forgives my sin and sustains me in my illness, it can free me from the burden of trying to be a flawless baker, gardener, finance manager, and dish-washer. Surely grace can teach me, slowly slowly, that Jesus died for the law-breakers and the recipe-destroyers—he died for fallen humans, and he's not under the delusion that we're anything else.

There is no guilt under this human-loving grace, and so I'm learning not to compartmentalize grace by living as if it only covered my sin (and I still struggle to believe this). I want to ask God to teach me the sufficiency of his grace when I'm late to work, bounce a check, neglect my chores, waste perfectly good beans, and mess up really expensive muffins. And I think Grace likes being invited into the little things.

Thursday Things: The Friday Edition

2011-08-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

This first week back to work was full, full, full, and Thursday just flew by before I could finish this post! And so I bring you Thursday things, on a Friday:

1. I took another trip to the library. I couldn't help it. The library and I are like north-south pole magnets that can't be in the same vicinity without— *clank!*—connecting. And it just so happens that I walk by a marvelous library every day at work.

I'm plowing through this pile one cup of decaf tea at a time.

I'm especially loving this and this.

2. The artwork is hung! Thank you to those of you who virtually arranged, rearranged, and did jigs with me. I don't know what I would have done without you. Well, yes I do; I'd still be jigging and the walls would be bare, that's what.

3. Yesterday was my first day back teaching after a glorious summer of rest. It was a full day during which my students and I got to know each other, I cast the vision for the course, and then we engaged in the most thrilling task of going over my syllabus with a fine tooth comb.

The best part of the day was the rousing rendition of Would You Rather that we played.

The verdict? I teach three classes full of would-be rappers, peanut butter sweaters, and belly button pencil sharpeners.

I feel intimately acquainted with them all now.

4. I had lunch this week with Dr. William Lane Craig—or Bill Craig, as he introduced himself—and some other philosophy students.

Dr. Craig is a philosopher most renowned for his work on the Kalam Cosmological argument, and is a respected debater and prolific writer. Not surprisingly, everything I heard him say was substantive and challenging (and often quite witty!), but the most notable thing about him was the aroma of Christ about him. It was a privilege and pleasure getting to meet him and ask him questions. Needless to say, I did not ask him what sort of edible sweat he'd rather produce, and if he's more comfortable rapping or singing opera. He would, however, prefer a belly button that sharpens pencils.

Just kidding.

5. I just discovered that if you spray PAM in the skillet before scrambling eggs it ensures that they won't stick. This has taken my eggs (and skillet-washing) to a whole new level.

Watch out, Betty Crocker; I'm gaining on you.

Happy Friday, everyone!

This Is How We Know

2011-08-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

One night last October I slowly moved through my pre-bedtime routine feeling lonely and discouraged. After months of enjoying spiritual refreshment and encouragement, it felt as if busyness, change, and health problems had dried up my insides, leaving them shriveled and brittle.

Anxious to shrug off my despondent thoughts, my mind searched for something to uplift my laden spirit.

I immediately thought of my fiancé, who had blended me blueberry smoothies almost every day we'd seen each other since the onset of my illness five weeks earlier. “An anti-oxidant blast,” he’d say. “We’re going to blast this virus out of your system.”

I felt my soul swell with gratitude for this relationship, this gift from almighty God, and sighed with satisfaction as I asked him, “Why me, Lord? Of all the people in the world, why did you give me this man?”

“Because I want you to know how much I love you.”

His words startled me; I wasn’t expecting him to answer. But his voice like raging waters filled my parched soul.

Almost a year later I am single. The tan from my engagement ring has faded, but the hopes I had last October—for a life companion and family of my own—have not. I meet them around every bend in the road and see them dance by in every flickering shadow. I feel their poignant prick at my heart daily, sometimes sharp and fierce like a knife plunged into my flesh.

The answer God gave me last October hasn't faded from my heart either.

“Because I want you to know how much I love you.”

I feel his words burn hot like embers, and then I count my recent losses. And as I count I know that God, in his goodness, shows us his love just as much by giving as by taking away. But I can't help but wonder exactly what I mean when I say that there is goodness in the taking.

A few months ago, when I was still bed-ridden and discouraged by my chronic illness, I called the phone number on the back of my computer's external hard drive hoping some techy somewhere could help me set it up. My call was routed to the Dominican Republic where I was helped by a patient Haitian man.

While he and I waited for something to download on my computer I asked him a bit about his life. He described his family, his church, and the day he gave his life to Jesus Christ. Then he told me about the day of the earthquake.

He said he had a nine-year-old little girl who loved Jesus. He said she was full of life but her life was short.

He recounted pulling her limp, cold body out of the earthquake wreckage, and then holding her tiny frame high in the air, his face turned toward the sky as he said, “God is sovereign, he is good, and I will still praise him.”

Like Father Abraham, holding his son up to the altar, this seed of the nations a sacrifice to a good God.

A good God who gives and takes; who gives knowing he will take.

A good God who sometimes, after the taking, gives back: A heaving sigh of relief, tears washed in with laughter, a cry of thanksgiving for a good provision.

But what about when God doesn't return what he's taken?

What can we say of his goodness then?

In my house, whenever we're enjoying particularly fine fare—a bar of swiss chocolate, fresh peach cobbler, a plate of homemade krumkake—my dad is known to pause between bites, food in hand, and say, "Now that is good. That is really good." We always chuckle, and maybe even pass him the rest of the treat, because we know what he means is that whatever he's eating is satisfying and desirable and he'll probably want more.

This is how I have understood goodness.

It is pleasing and welcome.

It doesn’t sear sorrow into our hearts of flesh.

When it became clear that I would need to call off my imminent wedding, my epistemology—or way of knowing what is good and true—was rocked. I found myself wondering how in the world I could know anything with confidence.

I had been so certain God wanted me to date and eventually get engaged to this man. I had recognized his voice, assuring me the budding relationship was his idea. Then I had sensed his leading toward the altar—I had even seen him open doors to provide for our upcoming wedding.

Hadn’t I followed Jesus close enough for long enough to recognize his leading when I saw it? Hadn’t godly friends and even acquaintances marveled at our love story, and blessed our engagement and deemed it God's gracious provision?

I had been so confident; could I have been wrong?

I must have been blinded by emotion, I concluded, reeling from the pain and confusion of the break-up. My hopes and desires must have clouded my thinking, making me believe I had heard God's voice and sensed his leading. Maybe the peace I had was nothing more than the byproduct of hope colliding against hope.

Weeks passed and my doubts snowballed. I revisited old memories, traversing my history to reevaluate every time I thought I had sensed God's direction. What had it felt like? Looked like? On what basis did I ever feel confident I had correctly sensed God's leading?

I felt like I was teetering on the edge of a precipice, about to plummet from my previously sturdy and reliable epistemology into the murky marshes of "not knowing."

Then I had an epiphany.

I realized my problem wasn't my epistemology; it was my assumptions.

I had assumed that God’s goodness wouldn’t allow him to clearly and intentionally guide me to a place of loss and sorrow; that if my life bled into sorrowful shades of gray it was my fault, or the Enemy’s.

In short, I had thought I understood God’s goodness, and had believed that if I held my idea of goodness up to God’s, the two would match.

But when my ring-less hands shakily raised my glowing idea of goodness and placed it alongside God’s, I saw that his Goodness was completely and utterly “other.”

There was no comparison between his and mine.

It was as if I held up a candle to the sunset;

A single note to an orchestral symphony;

A paper doll to a man of flesh.

It was unlike anything my wild imagination could create.

It was the kind of Goodness that smears spit and mud in a man’s eyes to give him eyes that see and heart that lives,

And lets a dear friend Lazarus die young so that he can breathe new life into his rotting body.

A Goodness Who once allowed flippant soldiers to twist nails into the flesh of his only Son so that he could remove the sin twisted into our decaying flesh.

A Goodness who is less concerned about giving us lives we think are good, and instead pours out grace that awakens us to his Goodness.

A Goodness who knows that His glory is our greatest good.

A Goodness that is “other”;

Distinct; Set Apart; Holy.

This goodness that is other has changed the timbre of my days. Now, when deep sadness stirs in my spirit it is accompanied by an unwavering confidence that this sorrowful journey was God’s idea. In his great and holy goodness he gave so that he could take away.

And he took away so that he could give back. He always gives when he takes, but he gives something “other.”

He dashes hopes so that he can give us a Hope that is stronger than the grave.

He pushes us into valleys of weakness so he can give us his power that sculpted the mountains.

He leads us into deserts of desolation so he can breath Divine consolation into our withered souls.

He removes the Hell from our hearts so he can give us a new Eden.

Because his goodness is not concerned with making bad people good, but dead people alive,

And He is a God whose goodness would make us “other”;

Distinct; set apart; holy.

This week two years ago I toasted to God's goodness with my roommates at the beach.This week one year ago my former fiance and I toasted to God's goodness in the park on our engagement day. Both times I was thanking God for the flickering candle-sized vision of goodness I thought lay in store.

I never dreamed he'd give me a sunset.

This sunset, in all its glory, has temporarily disoriented, burned, and blinded me, and I think this is the nature of holiness. God's holy goodness is not something frail eyes can behold and a dying heart can comprehend. That's why the Apostles Paul and John fell to the ground as though dead when they saw the risen Jesus face to face on the Road to Damascus and the Island of Patmos. But this risen Jesus wants to give us more of his holy and good self because he is our Greatest Good, and so he must give us eyes that can behold his loving face, and a heart that lives in him.

But first he must remove our vision of the good life so he can give us his eternal, perfect vision; he must sear the scales off our candle-accustomed eyes and burn the black sin out of our fading hearts. He must make us the kind of creatures whose sturdy souls can delight in his holy goodness. And as he works, our clearing eyes will gradually see and be captivated by the golden light that creeps westward on the enflamed horizon; this radiant light a reminder to our changing hearts that one day we will see a Good and Holy God face to face, and he wants us to be ready for that day. And so he gives, and he takes, and he gives back more than he's taken: he makes us holy.

And this is how we know how much he loves us.

Thursday Things: The Last Thursday Before I Go Back to Work

2011-08-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

This has been a good week.

1. First, I went to Home Depot and stuffed my trunk with flowers for my back patio.

The white rose on the left is called "Moondance." I'd love to have a moon garden one day. Wouldn't it be splendid to have bed of white flowers all silvery in the moonlight?

The red, orange and yellow rose below is called "Rainbow's End." Aren't they stunning? They make me want to eat starbursts and skittles and lemon drops all at once.

The red and yellow flowers in the right of my trunk are Petunias, and boy did they get the raw end of the deal. The name sure does fall flat next to Moondance and Rainbow's End. If Anne Shirley were here she'd definitely spice things up by renaming them "Elfin Bells" or "Morning Stars," or something equally romantical.

2. After my gardening splurge I propped up some new art I bought, tried to envision it on my walls (especially the giant blank one that stares down at my bed), rearranged it, surveyed the room, rearranged it again, stepped back to get a good view, cocked my head to the left and then to the right, paced the room, rearranged the art again, decided where it should finally go, and did a little jig.

I decided to put the tan pair above my bed.

I think I may put the blue one above my dresser on the right wall. Not sure about that one yet. I think I'm more inclined to return it. I need another pair of eyes. Yes, I definitely need someone else to come arrange, rearrange, and do jigs with me.

3. It hasn't been all gardening and garnishing games here this week though.

We also suffered a death.

Please take a moment of silence to remember our beloved apple tree.

This tree was was home to hundreds of little apples. It was also home to hundreds of little termites, although we didn't know it until three days ago. All we knew was that we would be enjoying homemade apple pie for months to come. Well, the neighbors would. I still haven't figured out how to make a gluten-free, sugar-free apple pie. Any thoughts, Krista?

Anyway, our plans have changed now that the top heavy tree went timber, and we have all been furiously peeling, cutting and baking bushels of fresh apples into enough tasty (and tart) treats to last the semester.

I am drowning in applesauce.

With all the activity, I had to get my rest on each day. I still struggle with pretty bad fatigue as I recuperate from my year of illness, and so I spend a great deal of time resting, sipping tea, and reading. Here are three of the eight books I'm reading right now (and won't finish for a very long time). I've been a bit of a book glutton this week. It's the library's fault. It has more power over me than Disneyland. I get butterflies in my stomach and thrills shooting up my spine each time I step foot inside. And my eyes are way way bigger than my reading stomach.

BTW, did you know there's such a thing as decaf black tea? That is not what you see in the picture, but it is what you will see in future pictures. Because the tea in this picture, although consumed at 10 A.M., had me up several hours past my bedtime doing the jitterbug. I shall never consume it again.

5. Eggs with spinach and salsa is my new PB and J. It's fast, it's cheap (ish), and it's the perfect blend of three flavors. I highly recommend it. Just saute the spinach in salsa and then crack in a few eggs.

6. I am so pooped from all the jitterbugging I did this week, and, because I am caffeine-free today, I am feeling ready to climb in bed.

Sleep tight my friends!

Don't let the bed bugs—or the jitter bug—bite.

Bon Voyage, dear Brosef

2011-08-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

I just got a voicemail from my little brother reminding me that tomorrow morning he'll hop on a plane by himself and fly five hours to Virginia where he'll go to school and run track.

His voice sounds deep and low in the message—too deep and low for such a little brother. But he's 20 now and he's grown big capable hands, and he's got a thick beard to match the thick curls on his head. His boyish frame has widened into broad, sturdy shoulders, and the boy who helped mom around the house has cultivated a work ethic that proves he's a man.

And how can it be that time passes so quickly?

Because I could have sworn that just the other day I was pressing his outie bellie button pretending it was an elevator button and he was grinning big calling me "sissie" as we scooted up to the 7th floor. And didn't we just dance to the Donut Man in the living room and eat lunch on some old boards nailed to the branches of the evergreen tree out back?—and it couldn't have been too long ago that his voice cracked for the first time and his upper lip sprouted the makings of a mustache...

I think I must be getting older too, because I want to weep that he'll be so far away from his Washington home, and I know this means things are changing and they'll never be the same.

And here I am 1,000 miles away from my Washington home and my trembling heart worries that Little Brother will be lonely, that he won't have a ride to church on Sunday, that he'll run out of quarters for the washing machine, that he'll get hungry when the cafeteria isn't open, that he'll meet an east coast girl, that he won't have any clean socks on race day, and that he'll notice his dad's not in the audience for every track meet.

But in the deepest part of my older sister's heart I know that the Little Brother I've watched grow into a man loves Jesus, thinks clearly, acts intentionally, manages his money well, and listens to the advice of wise parents, and so my sisterly worries keep colliding with great excitement him—for the opportunities for growth that change ushers in, for the things he'll learn about himself when he's far from home, and for the fun adventures that lay waiting on the horizon and will one day turn into the sweetest of memories. I can't wait to hear about them.

Little Brother, I think you're too busy trying to stuff a year's worth of living supplies into two suitcases right now to dream about your upcoming year, but you'll have time to dream on the plane tomorrow. In the meantime, here's to hoping you have a year that surpasses your wildest hopes; a year that stretches you intellectually, teaches you to persevere, allows you to experience victory over pain, pushes you into greater intimacy with Jesus, and teaches you the trick of spraying febreeze on the dirty socks you need for that race you're about to go run. And win.

I love you, Brosef!

Hope Has Its Reasons, Part I

2011-08-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

Last week I met a Russian Jew named Mike.

Mike is a successful businessman who studied biochemestiry, physics, and law. He comes from a family of Harvard professors and physicists, and he loves a lively intellectual discussion.

After telling me a bit about his wife and daughter, Mike told me his grandparents and great grandparents were killed by Stalin. He said his mom's life has made her tough as nails, and that their family is forever changed by the deaths of the men and women who gave them the gift of life.

Then Mike said he can’t believe in God. He said it doesn’t make sense that a powerful, loving God would sit back while he watched a few weak men extinguish millions and millions of weaker men.

I get it. I get why Mike, in his heart, struggles to believe in the existence of an almighty, good God. And although I have never lived the suffering that Mike’s family has, I think I understand that suffering can be one of the greatest obstacles in our search for God.

But I also know that our hearts can lead us astray, and that our suffering can point and propel us to a God whose goodness and power are evident in the way he invaded and is rewriting our sickening history.

In the midst of a world where tsunamis, genocides, dictators, earthquakes and terrorists etch horror onto the pages of our human story, there is a Hope that doesn’t disappoint.

And that Hope has its reasons.

The next few posts will focus a bit on how to share, with confidence and grace, the reasons for the Hope we have with people like Mike.

I’ll start by talking about reaching the person you’re talking to. Because for some of us, it’s easy for our passion for the truth to turn into a passion for being right, rather than a passion for the soul of the person in front of us.

And for others of us it’s easy to cower in the corner, heart racing, breathing labored as we search for a few feeble words that can somehow sum up the greatest, most beautiful truth in the world.

So how can we share our hope in a way that is winsome and compelling, and assure the person with whom we're talking that we really care about them, and not an agenda?

Here are several ways I have learned to lower a person's defenses as I endeavor to be a speaker of the Truth in love:

1. Get to know the person you're talking to. Show them you care about them as a person by showing interest in the three Rs:

Relationships (spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, kids, family)
Responsibilities (work, extracurriculars, school)
Recreation (hobbies, sports, interests)

(Thanks to my mom for creating and teaching me the three Rs as a girl!)

2. Respect the person you're talking to, even when you disagree with them. Validate their feelings and intentions.

3. Be honest and humble.

Admit your limitations: “What I don’t know I won’t pretend to understand.”

4. Find common ground. Don't set yourself apart to the extent that you create a chasm between yourself and the person you're talking to.

Avoid going right into "I'm a Christian so I believe...". This immediately ostracizes your reader, and makes the conversation more about your beliefs than the person of Jesus Christ.

5. Identify with the person you're talking to. People tend to trust those with whom they can identify. Appeal to something you and you and your friend can agree on:

Shared desires and values
Common experiences and beliefs

6. Reveal your motives. You're not trying to pull the wool over their eyes; you've found a Hope greater than life itself, and you want to share it!

7. Ask questions rather than immediately stating your position. Often, asking questions can more clearly make the truth resonate more than simply espousing beliefs. Listen with interest to the answers to your questions, and then engage them.

Come back for some possible atheistic objections and compelling Christian responses in “Hope Has Its Reasons,” Part II.

Thursday Things: Curry, Shepherd's Hooks, and Plots and Sloths

2011-08-11T17:29:00.000-07:00

1. I'm reading this book:

I'm 100 pages in and I'm enjoying the writing style, but where the plot is concerned I kind of feel like I'm watching a sloth move slooooooowly from the lower part of its branch to the upper part of its branch. Not that I've ever watched a sloth do that, but I can imagine it would be a dull show indeed.

Does anyone know if the plot picks up?

2. This is my new favorite ingredient:

(A larger-than-life image for your viewing pleasure, because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make it any smaller).

I've had many a curry disaster in my life, but this little guy is the solution to my curry worries. Huh, that has a nice ring to it: "curry worries."

3. Wouldn't it be amazing to get on a soapbox at Speaker's Corner and say something profoundly moving that changes the lives of everyone within ear shot? It's on my bucket list.

4. Speaking of soapboxes, allow me get on my third grade teacher soapbox for a moment, if you will.

I just heard about three young adults who hopped over a guardrail at the top of a 317-foot waterfall in Yosemite, climbed into the wildly swirling rapids, and were swept down the waterfall to their death.

And then I heard about a man who dug a tunnel under the sand at the beach, climbed down into it and suffocated to death when it caved in on him.

Now I'm not going to ask what in the world these people's elementary teachers taught them, because the teacher in me knows it's not the job of the government or private schools to raise our kids.

Instead, I'm wondering where in the dickens these people's parents were when they were growing up.

Because I think these two cases are the epically tragic result of an education that didn't teach kids cause and effect.

IF you jump over a guard rail into the white water at the top of a water fall, THEN you will likely fall to your death.

IF you dig a tunnel under wet crumbly sand, THEN it will probably cave in on you.

I'm not proposing that parents sit down and review cause and effect flash cards with their kids—although that might not be a bad idea. I'm thinking these parents need to encourage their kids to play—and even guide their kids' playtime.

My experience as a third grade teacher taught me that kids aren't gardening (IF you plant and water a seed, THEN a plant will grow), caring for a pet (IF you don't feed your pet rabbit everyday, THEN you will find him dead one morning), or cooking (IF you mix butter, sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla and baking soda, THEN you will have a delicious dough that turns to cookies in the oven).

They're not making mud pies, trying to build a treehouse, making a house for their paper dolls, or constructing lego fortresses.

Instead, kids are throwing farm animals at each other on Facebook, jumping off castle towers in video games (and surviving!), and watching their television idols become sexually involved with their television lovers and ultimately experiencing no emotional, spiritual, or physical consequences.

Yes, what our youth need are some daily, hard-core play sessions.

Okay, stepping off the soapbox now.

5. I am about to attempt to make refined sugar-free chocolate chips to put in my gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free cookies. Pray for me.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Confessions of a Former Carb Queen: Part II

2011-08-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

Okay, yesterday I told you I ran into a couple problems in all my carb queen glory.

Odds are you've run into this problem at some point too, because it's probably the most universal of my two problems.

Problem #2: My pants got tight. Real tight. Fortunately I rarely had an occasion to wear them, but when I did I avoided bending over in my skinny jeans—just to preserve their life; and I avoided sitting down in my riding pants—the top snap popped open almost every time I did.

This is not the first time I've dealt with pant dilemmas, and I know it won't be the last. It's one of the many joys of being a woman.

When I was a freshman in college I was totally unprepared for the way that heavy weight lifting with my track team would transform my body. Just two months into a regime of heavy squats and power cleans, my favorite pants split clean and quick up the backside while I was hopping into my dad's SUV. It wasn't one of my finer moments.

I learned soon after that the sprinter/hurdler/jumper girls on my team had two pairs of pants: one for the off-season and one for the in-season, because of the way the lifting in the different seasons changed their bodies.

Alas, my days of blaming tight pants on sweaty hours in the weight room have passed. In fact, while sick in bed I began to rapidly lose muscle mass, and there was no way in the world I'd be able to roll out of bed and move around enough to get my toneage back and shed a few jiggly pounds.

But glory of glories, the necessary diet changes I'd begun to implement for my energy and immune system eventually got my body back to its normal weight, and kept it there. Without any exercise!

Here are a few more energy-boosting and weight-shedding diet tips:

1. The word "diet" comes from the Greek word "diaita," meaning way of living.Unless you have exceptional health problems, the way you eat needs to be something you can do every day for the rest of your life. It needs to be manageable.

If you're on a "Super-Size Me" diet, then you are going to need to make some significant changes and it won't feel manageable, so try to make the changes in doable chunks. Give yourself one thing to change per week, or even month. And give yourself grace. (But do not "sin" because grace abounds!)

2. Remember the "focus on adding rather than subtracting" rule? Once you've made some good additions to your diet, you can begin to focus on gradually taking away some of your more unhealthy options and replacing them with good ones.

When you can, choose God-made over man-made.

Your body will be especially thankful if you use caffeine and sugar sparingly. I know, I know, climbing Mount Everest on your hands sounds easier. And it probably is. But eating refined sugar and drinking coffee will make your adrenals even more fatigued, which will make you so tired you'll want to eat more, which will make your pants tighter, which will make you depressed, which will make you eat more, which will—well, you get the picture.

So give up soda first ("pop" for you northwesterners, and midwesterners). Then replace froo froo lattes with black coffee and a little half and half. Then work on drinking tea instead of coffee once a week. Then work on replacing bad carbs with good carbs. You get the picture.

If you can slowly change your diet and adjust to the accompanying difficulties, you will eventually have more energy than you did when you ate refined sugar and drank loads of coffee.Your pants will fit better too!

3. Some of you may hate exercising, in part, because it makes you so darn hungry all the time. The irony is that exercise can make overeating even more of a temptation!

If you exercise regularly, try to eat in the first thirty minutes after you work out.

I know food is the last thing you want when you're sweaty, panting, and nauseated, but your body is doing its most serious muscle repair work in that thirty-minute window.

In fact, if you can eat the proper ratio of carbs to protein in that window you will be less hungry the rest of the day and you'll feel better for your next workout.

It's like magic.

Here's how you can figure out what you need to eat in that thirty-minute, post-workout window:

To determine how many grams of carbs your body needs, figure out your weight in kilograms(use this converter), and divide your weight in kilograms by three. This is the number of carb grams you need.

Take that last number and divide it in half. That's how many grams of protein you need to eat.

For example, if you weigh 150 lbs, then you weigh 68 kilograms. Divide 68 by 3 and you need 22 grams of carbohydrates. Divide 22 by 2 and you need 11 grams of protein in that window.

4. "An apple a day keeps the doctor a day." It also keeps your pants fitting like they should.

Eat an apple and drink a tall glass of water before lunch and dinner. This will help you to manage portion size, especially since we're often tricked into thinking we're super hungry, when it's water that we need.

Well there you have it, my friends: Some sure-fire ways to feel confident when you zip up those fitted pants, and energized when you realize you need to run to the store to buy them in a smaller size.

Bon Appetit!

Confessions of a Former Carb Queen: Part I

2011-08-08T10:06:00.001-07:00

Right around last Valentine's day I turned into a carb queen. No, it wasn't because I had boxes of Sees candies flooding my mailbox—although that would have been nice.

And no, it wasn't because I assuaged singlehood woes with potato chips and a carton of ice cream. Although some rocky road and a chic flick marathon would have been nice, too.

The source of my carb cravings was some seriously severe adrenal fatigue and the second round of mono in six months.

These illnesses sucked up every last ounce of my energy until I couldn't remain in a vertical position for more than five minutes without reaching for some sweet and savory carbs to give me a temporary energy boost.

And while I enjoyed my tasty indulgences for awhile, it wasn't long before I ran into a couple problems in all of my carb-filled glory.

Problem #1: The quick carb fix made me even more exhausted in the long run. Without fail, after every five-minute carb high passed I found myself feeling even sicker, weaker, and more exhausted than before.

I knew something had to change, and so did my doctor, so she ordered me to cut all gluten, refined sugar, and dairy out of my diet.

Goodbye joy and happiness.

Because really, who wants to eat cucumbers and raisins for an afternoon energy boost?

But overall health was more important than a short-term "fix", and so I turned into one of those health nuts that doesn't touch man-made foods, only shops at select grocery stores, and goes everywhere barefoot. Minus the barefoot part. Mostly because I hardly ever went anywhere.

Now don't get me wrong; I've always been a fairly healthy eater. I had to be to run track at a collegiate level for so many years. But I really loved my chocolate, cookies, and the salty, fatty carbs I ate to balance out my low-fat fibrous meals. I'm all about balance.

Not surprisingly, it took about four months of maintaining my new diet before my insatiable chocolate cravings died down, and it took just as long to figure out how to eat in a way that gave my body the nutrients necessary to repair itself on this long journey toward healthy living.

Thankfully I'd been picking up diet tips over the years that helped me to develop a way of eating that's slowly been restoring my body toward health.

I've taken what I've learned and have pieced together some trusty diet guidelines.

Give it a try, or your money back guaranteed!

And don't worry, you don't need to be as extreme as I am, and you sure DON'T need to give up sugar, gluten, and dairy to eat like this.

1. Here's the skinny on Americans: most of us have at least mildly fatigued adrenal glands. This is because our adrenal glands produce our adrenaline, and boy do Americans require a lot of adrenaline. We have fast-paced, action-packed, high-stress days, and don't often give our adrenal glands a reprieve from their adrenaline-producing frenzy. Nor do we feed them with the right fuel.

There are a lot of side-effects to having taxed adrenal glands because they play a role in regulating blood-sugar, monitoring hormones, and aiding the immune system. If you're prone to hypoglycemia, you could have fatigued adrenals.

Enter: good carbs.

Try to supplement your protein and good fats with carbs that won't spike your blood sugar, but will give you steady energy for the entire day. You can check this glycemic index for carbs that won't give you a temporary burst of energy before sending you crashing to the couch mid-afternoon.

Some carbs to avoid when possible:

Potatoes
Rice (especially white)
Corn
Chips
Crackers

Some of my favorite good carbs:

Black beans
Oatmeal
Apples

Is your heart sinking? Are you wondering if life is worth living without a daily dose of sour cream and onion potato chips?

I feel your pain.

Actually, I felt your pain. It gets better, it really does. Before you know it your body will be craving a handful of almonds and some cucumber with hummus. Bring on the beans, baby!

2. Focus on adding, not taking away from your daily eating routine. Every meal should have a serving of good carbs, protein, and healthy fats. If you're like me, then you don't have a problem getting a serving of carbs in at every meal and will need to work on adding a serving of protein and healthy fat at each meal.

I also try to focus on adding leafy greens to every meal too—even breakfast. It's amazing the energy some dark leafy greens can provide. And it's amazing how much easier it is to add good things to my diet than focus only on taking bad things away. This is an empowering, energizing way to begin changing a lifestyle.

By the way, a serving is about the size of your fist, although your fat serving will be about a tenth of a normal serving.

Back to good fats: I CANNOT sufficiently stress their importance. I know it may seem counter-intuitive to include good fat with each meal, but our body needs the proper ratio of fats, to protein, to carbs to function properly, with high energy.

Try to include one of the following healthy fats with every meal:

nuts
avocados
olive oil
fish

I promise you'll feel the difference after awhile!

This is all for today! Come back tomorrow for my carb problem #2 and part II of "Tips From a Former Carb Queen."

Thursday Things: Lizards, Rogue Vegetables and an Esteemed German

2011-08-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

The week in review (minus the gallons of orange juice, cough drops, long naps, and early bedtimes):

1. Our garden went rogue while I was on vacation.

Maybe I should have moved "buying metal cages for the cageless half of our tomatoes" to the top of my to-do list. They probably would have been a good investment.

This is what a tomato plant is supposed to look like:

This is a helicopter view of what tomato plants are NOT supposed to look like:

This is a ground view of the unruly little rascals. As you can see, they have become a nice ground cover:

This concludes my tomato tour.

2. I love my neighbors. They are like family to me. Let me tell you about them. J and M live in a sprawling ranch house on two acres of property with their youngest daughter, K. They are hospitable, generous, considerate and fun. I live in a small studio attached to their house.

L and L are a married couple my age that live in the guest house across the yard. They are hilarious, generous, adventurous and fun.

Our little community is like a compound. A lush, verdant compound with fruit trees and a community garden full of basil, onions, tomatoes, peppers, mind, and strawberries.

I love love love living here.

3. Allow me to give you a tour of our compound that feels like a retreat center.

This is the view from my front window:

This is my back patio where I keep the flowers that are supposedly prolonging my life:

This is the entrance to our communal garden. It looks like a Secret Garden, doesn't it?

This is the plot that houses most of our fruit trees:

This is the pool where I like to develop aqua aerobic routines, preferably when nobody is around:

The back and side yards are too big for my little Canon Powershot to capture, so you'll just have to come visit!

3. I broke a dish this week. I was carefully and methodically washing it, and then it just flew out of my hands Mary Poppins style, except it didn't land neatly on the shelf where it belongs—it crashed to the floor in irreparable pieces. I have broken three dishes in three months. At this rate I will be out of dishes in just 3.33 years. Is the number three lucky?

4. I'm reading Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy right now. Feast your soul on this little nugget:

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil:
God will not hold us innocent.
Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
— Bonhoeffer

I've been thinking about how this translates into my life in the midst of this baby genocide our nation has embraced. Any thoughts?

5. I had a staring contest with a lizard today while soaking up some rays on my back patio. He won, of course. This is because lizards don't have eyelids. At least I don't think they do.

Lizard-watching is one of my new pastimes. I love it. This is just one way that mono can change a person.

I watch them race across the patio, scurry up walls, and do push-ups. Yes, they do push-ups. I'm not sure if this helps them stay cool, or attract a mate. I'm going with the latter, because these little guys are preoccupied with finding a mate.

Here's how I know this interesting nature fact: almost weekly I catch lizard couples participating in elaborate mate-attracting routines that resemble the Pasa Doble. I'm not sure if the male or the female is the matador (how can you tell a lizard's gender?); all I know is these routines are tense and intimidating, and they make me very jumpy.

6. I just dropped a gigantic battery on my nose and am now trying to figure out which icy food I can pull from my freezer to numb my throbbing bump. Ouch.

At least it wasn't a dish.

Happy Thursday Friends!

The Jacksons go to San Diego: A Photo Journal

2011-08-01T10:47:00.001-07:00

I'm lying in bed while this virus storms through my system, but I'm grinning big as I flip through photos of my time with family this month. Won't you join me?

After spending a week in Sun Valley with my parents, my mom and I realized we hadn't taken a single interesting photo. The two photos I took of a mongoose-less woodpile and dandelion seeds do not count. And so ten minutes before bed on our last night in Sun Valley we reenacted every significant event of the week and took a picture of it.

I present to you: our staged photo journal

We rode bikes a lot.

And wrote a lot.

And read a lot.

And tried to figure out how to work the TV a lot. Like every day.

We also engaged in wild celebrations whenever we figured out how to get the TV remotes to work. Well, whenever my mom figured out how to get them to work. I tend to stick to the cheerleading role when it comes to troubleshooting technology.

After shooting several other random yet thrilling photos, we eventually wrapped up our vacation-documenting endeavor and headed to bed.

We arose three hours later and hit the road in order to catch our flight out of Boise to San Diego for my grandpa's memorial service. It was at this point that we realized that far more interesting photos result from live, on-the-scene documentation.

Take for instance, the deer escapade. Alas, I do not have a picture of this deer. I try not to think about this deer. It is hard, though, not to think about him. Especially when you have to drive 50 minutes at 3:30 in the morning to the nearest town with the deer's imprint on the front of your car.

We tried very hard not to hit this deer without endangering ourselves. We were cool, collected, and in control during the whole thing, but the deer was massive and we had to hit him. For years I have known that it is safer to hit an animal than to swerve into a ditch for him, so I braced myself as soon as I saw him. It was sickening and disorienting, and I shudder every time I remember it.

But I am also very thankful. For some reason our airbags didn't eject and we were able to drive to a small town 50 miles up the road that had cell reception before the car died. Thankfully, we were able to get a tow truck to come to this tiny town at 4:30 A.M.

This is what we look like when we're feeling sad about hitting a deer and a little nervous about making it to the airport in time.

Here we are at the airport. On time!

Upon arriving at the San Diego airport we met my siblings and dad.

The six of us squished into a five-seater sedan and drove to the hotel. This is a very effective means of getting reacquainted quickly.

We spent some time in San Diego before heading south, and we took careful documentation of our adventures.

First things first: Rebecca caught me up on all the reality TV escapades I needed to know about.

With this out of the way, we moved on to other important things.

Like this.

And this.

The plan was for all for of us to simultaneously assume the plank position while balancing on the stair rail, and although Sister and I easily hoisted ourselves up, did a few flips around the bar while holding on with just our pinkies, and then hovered in mid-air with a one-inch platform to balance our rigid bodies, the boys had some difficulty assuming the plank position, and so we didn't get the picture.

Geez boys, you might want to hit the weights or something.

If we were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy waiting for a train, this is what we'd look like.

Eventually, we got hungry.

And then we got thirsty.

And then we were full and happy, and so we ended the day with a jolly laugh...

...and a family photo.

The rest of the week was a busy blur of family gatherings, my grandpa's memorial service, and the graveside service. These final photos were taken at the graveside service, just before I returned to Los Angeles.

I love the contrast of the kids playing with the rose petals at the foot of my grandpa's coffin. My grandpa left behind him a legacy of life: young lives, maturing lives, and lives that have been transformed by the Life of Christ; Lives that can look death in the face and ask, "Oh Death, where is your victory? Where is your sting?!"

Thursday Things: Everything's Grace, After All

2011-07-28T09:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a tough week, and I've spent the last 24 hours lamenting its toughness. There's something so satisfying about whining. But grace is more satisfying and gratitude is the lifeblood of our faith, and so today's "Thursday Things" is a list of some of the colorful graces God splashes everywhere when life is painted with shades of gray.

Things for which I am very thankful:

1. My sister is here for a mini vacation this weekend, and even though she's sick sick sick, her sore-throated, achy, chilled presence is a great comfort to me.

2. My grandpa died this week and now he sees Jesus face to face; he knows Him fully, even as my grandpa is fully known.

3. The sound of voices rushing out of bodies clad in black, souls singing softly,

“I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see,” at my grandpa's memorial service this week.

4. My sister and I returned my place last night and were greeted by the roses outside my french doors: soft yellow sunbursts smiling big for an old friend.

5. Dear friends have sent me a steady stream of encouraging cards of condolence since I broke off my engagement last February. There was yet another lovely letter waiting for me when I got home last night.

6. My landlady had roses, dinner, water bottles, and snacks waiting for me and my sister when we got in last night. Now there are roses all over my studio—"Singing in the Rain" roses by my sister's bed and "Eden" roses by mine.

7. Tomorrow morning I will harvest fresh vegetables from our vegetable garden so I can make us sickies a healthy breakfast. I'm thinking vegetable egg frittatas with sausage is just what we need.

8. We've been drinking orange juice all day, squeezed fresh from the oranges off our tree.

9. I took a three-hour nap today and woke up to the sound of birds chirping outside my window. From my bed I can see the flaming fuchsia bougainvillea cascading down the hedge that borders the yard.

10. There is a rooster that cock-a-doodle-doos every time the sun nears the horizon. Any horizon. He is terribly confused and he always makes me smile.

11. The cough drop I am sucking on tastes like strawberries and cream. Yes, it's true; my mouth is bursting with creamy summery strawberries laced with zinc. Adios harsh menthol flavored cough drops that turn my tongue blue but at least clear out my sinuses in less than 11 seconds.

12. Did I mention I took a three-hour nap today?

13. I got to spend a day and a half in San Diego with my whole family. We ate ethnic food, took silly pictures (which I will debut shortly), and laughed deep belly laughs.

14. I got to see like 18 of my 23 cousins at my grandpa's memorial service. We had a grand time catching up and getting to know the babies that are popping out left and right. Isn't marvelous that Christians can use memorials as a time of celebration?

15. Revelation 1:12-18

"When I turned to see who was speaking to me, I saw seven gold lampstands. ¹³ And standing in the middle of the lampstands was someone like the Son of Man.^[h] He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash across his chest. ¹⁴ His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow. And his eyes were like flames of fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice thundered like mighty ocean waves. ¹⁶ He held seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp two-edged sword came from his mouth. And his face was like the sun in all its brilliance."

¹⁷ "When I saw him, I fell at his feet as if I were dead. But he laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last. ¹⁸ I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.^[i]"

Watch that Mongoose Groove

2011-07-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

The Lion King soundtrack was the first CD I ever owned. And boy did I get my money’s worth out of that thing.

I used track #5 to figure out how to play “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” by ear on the piano, and then crafted a piano performance I enthusiastically subjected all of our babysitters to that year.

I developed a dazzling song and dance routine to “Hakuna Matata” that I just knew would woo Jonathan Taylor Thomas, should we ever have an opportunity to perform my routine together. I practiced my routine until it was flawless and rehearsed the song’s lyrics until they were etched indelibly on my mind. To this day I have been known to walk through the house bellowing “When I was a young warthooooooooog……”.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas sure missed out on something special.

Whenever I played the dark and menacing "Be Prepared", I lurked around the house pretending to be a dancing hyena; and when I skipped ahead to the orchestral music on the latter half of the CD I worked diligently to choreograph new age jazz routines. I have no idea what new age jazz is, but it sounds impressive.

Yesiree, the Lion King is responsible for a very colorful time in my life. So you can imagine my delight when yesterday, while sitting on the patio here in Sun Valley, I saw Timone dancing on our woodpile. No joke.

Okay, okay, it was probably Timone’s great great nephew, but still; he was dancing on the woodpile.

Determined to document this once-in-a-lifetime experience, I whipped out my camera and crept stealthily to the woodpile. Thankfully, I had the foresight to refrain from bursting into the impassioned and no doubt moving rendition of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” that was bubbling up my esophagus. Or is it diaphragm? But Timone still scrammed. And so I waited, and waited, and waited, until about 26 seconds had passed and I realized I could never be a National Geographic photographer.

And so, I just took a picture of the woodpile.

Now look at this woodpile and try to imagine Timone grooving like he has no worries for the rest of his days, his tiny feet frisking from side to side, his wide eyes shining with delight.

Can you see it?

Isn’t it amazing?

Who would have thought: a desert mongoose in the mountains. In Idaho.

Of course experiences like this demand the consideration that I'm crazy or need glasses, and that maybe all I saw was a slender squirrel with a shaved tail. But my mom thought it looked like Timone too, and she has great intuition and vision.

So I'm not crazy, and I don't need glasses.

Hakuna Matata.