Awake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjr3A_kfspM

I absolutely love frogs.  I have loved them from the time that I caught one from the pond in our back yard, and I will love them forever.  I saw this video today in an e-mail, and I just started laughing after watching it.  I knew that in the winter, frogs freeze, but I never realized that they completely froze over.  And that their hearts stop beating!  Craziness!

The first thing that popped into my mind as I watched the sun slowly warm the little amphibian was how Jesus does this for me.  I am a sleepy, sometimes frozen-up little lady and Christ's warmth makes my heart beat again.  Ephesians 5:14 says:

   “Wake up, sleeper,
   rise from the dead,
   and Christ will shine on you.”

 

I just think it's so interested how I feel like I have spent so much of my time in life asleep.  When I met Jesus, it really was like waking up.  Again and again and again.  It's also quite ironic that I saw this video today because in less than 12 hours, I will be stepping off of an airplane into a climate unlike any I have seen in quite some time.  85 degrees Fahrenheit, baby.  Here I come.

Conversation.

Know what I've been thinking about all day?  How do I fit my story into a 30-second blurb that I can easily share with other people?  Like, strangers that walk up to me and ask, "So. I just gotta know.  What happened?" or "Oh my!"  or "I'm doing better than you are..."  I keep thinking about how my response to these people.  It's so limited, and it doesn't come near capturing the awesome God that has brought me through so much.  I so long to give him the credit for what happened and what he is continuing to do.  (BTW, today was my first "official" day as a 100% weight bearing woman.  Heh heh...I cheated a little...)  But, I really want people to walk away from me, after listening for 30 seconds or less, thinking about and pondering this God.

I think of this verse:  "Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."  Hebrews 10:23-25

Just in general, I want to encourage those around me on a daily basis, and God is showing me that I can do a much better job of this.  The story of the last five months really lends itself to God's grace & to his plan & to his redemption of any situation.  In each conversation with the people I don't know, I really need to speak the words, "Jesus", "grace", and "thankful".  And somehow show that God deserves the credit.  It's tough to do, especially when people think they want to hear the story, but they really don't.  It's weird.  Time becomes limited very quickly.  And it probably doesn't help that I am socially awkward.

As for people that I do know, I continue to be thankful for God's faithfulness towards me (us), and how he continues to teach me (us) what "grace" actually means.  We are to spur one another on regularly, not just when we are in a good mood, or when we have most of the things on our "to-do" list crossed off.  Think about what a spur is.  It's those things that go on cowboy boots.  I just get this image in my head of the many people around me gently clicking their heels into my mind & my heart, and it is such an encouragement.  I need help with the spurage.  Because sometimes my mind just becomes mush. 

Anyway.  Please pray that as God continues to lead me into the paths of so many people, and that I would have clarity and discernment about what to say.  He is writing such a cool story, and I could not be more thankful.  Truly, we have so much hope to profess.

Yet.

Phew!  It's been over a week since I have written in this little blog.  You know, it's funny because I really do feel like my writings in here are coming to a close, yet I still feel God leading me to share for a little while longer.  Not quite sure how to gauge "an end", but know that I so appreciate your support, and the time you have spent reading my thoughts & my struggles & my joys in this place.  What a place of redemption and wonder it has been for me.  God is incredibly good.

Lots and lots has changed since I last wrote: I'm walking with one boot (old news) BUT I'm down to one crutch!  And, as of this Tuesday I will be 100% weight bearing on both feet!  Ahhhhhhhhh!  I will have to wear my oh-so-fashionable boot for another month or so, but so what.  It's hawt.  (Seriously.  My feet reek.)  And I'm pretty sure it could be considered a weapon.  No more silver stick-thingys!  I can't even believe it!  Things are happening so fast!  Sometimes I feel like I need a pause button, but that's not real.  So.  I'm working hard (and resting hard) to try to soak up the moments as they come.  I'm trying to feel as my feelings come, even when they bring tears.  Of joy and sadness. 

Man.  I just so wish that you and I could sit down for a cup of coffee, and talk about what's been happening in your life, and what's been happening in mine.  I mean, there are just so many emotions pulsing through my body, I can't even begin to explain them all.  There are so many things swirling around in my head, and so many things that I am excited about.  It would seriously take me hours to describe everything to you.

This morning in church, I was deeply impacted by Lamentations 3:22-24, but I've put the verse into a little bit of context.  If you have four minutes, pleasepleaseplease go and read Lamentations 3.  Here, I'll make it super-easy:  http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Lamentations+3&version=NIV

See?  Four minutes, right?  It's a good one, isn't it?

For those of you who never do what stupid writers tell you to do in their ramblings (ahem...I skip almost every suggestion and question there is...ahem)... here's a summary:

So I say, “My splendor is gone
   and all that I had hoped from the LORD.”  I remember my affliction and my wandering,
   the bitterness and the gall. 
I well remember them,
   and my soul is downcast within me...

Yet this I call to mind
   and therefore I have hope:
 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
   for his compassions never fail. 
They are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness. 
I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
   therefore I will wait for him.”

I absolutely love it.  We truly do have to call the Lord's great love and compassion to mind.  Every day.  And it is there, and only there, that we really do find hope.  I have to say that it is quite tempting to allow my predictions and my shortcomings to loom overhead.  When I think about not being about to run in the grass with my sweet housemate, HJ, this summer, I seriously start sobbing.  Every time.  I start thinking about all the things I won't be able to do that I was able to do before, and all of the things that will be different and feel different.  It is so tempting for me to peer out over the cliff of the future and to step back and gasp.  But I am trying to continue to call this to mind:  God's faithfulness is new every. single. morning.  Great is his faithfulness.  Like, great in the sense of "huge, big, wonderful" and great in the sense of, "Oh my gosh!  That is so awesome!  Holy cow!  Man!"

He is worth the wait.  Even when it seems like it is going to be really really really long time before things return to "normal".  (And, by the way?  There is no normal...)

Waves.

Henri Nouwen said, "Self-doubt is such a rampant disease (in many schools, but also other places) that affirmation is more important than ever.  It can simply mean the expression of excitement and surprise or a word of thanks.  It can mean recommendations of good books or refgerral to people with special talents.  It often means just bringing the right persons together or setting apart time and place where more thinking can be done.  But it always includes the inner conviction that a precious gift merits attention and continuing care.

There are just as many ways to be a Christian as there are Christians, and it seems the more important the impostion of any doctrine or precoded idea is to offer (the students) the place where they can reveal their great human potentials to love, to give, and to create, and where they can find the affirmation that gives them the courage to continue their search without fear.

Only when we have come in touch with our own life experiences and have learned to listen to our inner cravings for liberation and new life can we realize that Jesus did not just speak, but that he reached out to us in our most personal needs.  The Gospel doesn't just contain ideas worth remembering.  It is a message resopnding to our individual human condition.  The Church is not an institution forcing us to follow its rules.  It is a community of people inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at its tables.  Doctrines are not alien formulations which we must adhere to but the documentation of the most profound human experiences which, transcending time and place, are handed over from generation to generation as a light in our darkness."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nS_aR8XX_U&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Self-doubt is a crippling disease.  When I can across this random YouTube video tonight, I wondered what was going through that surfer's mind.  I was blown away.  I am baffled by human potential; that wave was huge. 

We have seasons in our lives where the waves just seem so big.  I have found myself hesitating and hesitating to just dive into them, but I am slowly gaining courage.  Slowly.  Because to love, to give, and to create, and to find the courage to continue our search without fear is something that, I think, honors God.  Surfing large waves is what we were made to do.  And, you know, I'm so thankful for the people in my life who are willing to "ride out on a jet ski" to see me off into the waves, and to wait with me while I figure out which one I'm going to take.

Parking.

Two words: parking space. 

Oh my goodness, I had an epiphany today in the parking lot of the pool I do aquatic therapy in.  I realized that parking spaces are a terrific way for me to put others before myself.  It sounds ridiculous, but next time you see that sweet, juicy, right next to the door spot, drive right on by, and park 100 yards away from the door.


It's hard to do.  I really had to adjust my attitude as a white SUV zoomed into the spot that I was about to pull in to.  Especially when you have two dweeby crutches, and don't want to have to mess with the shenanigans of having to crutchstepcrutchstep to the back row of the parking lot.  I mean, I'm pretty sure it was a red Skittle that almost took me out.  The place was packed.

But you know what?  It was a teachable moment for me.  It truly was a sacrifice, as stupid as that sounds.  Why is it so difficult for me to think of others before I think of my own benefit?  It's unnatural in our broken world.  That's why.  Because, man, there are so many ways that we can demonstrate love to others using something as simple as a parking space.  Holding the door for someone.  Bringing a meal to someone's house.  Not having to have the last word in the argument.  Driving considerately.  Smiling.  Being the first to say "hello", and stopping to listen when you ask, "how are you doing?"  I could go on and on with seemingly menial things in our everyday lives.  But those tiny things make all the difference in the world.

Thank you, Lord, for lost parking spots.

"Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself... For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."  -Romans 15:2-6

Follow.

"Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You're not in the driver's seat—I am.

Don't run from suffering; embrace it.

Follow me and I'll show you how.

Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I'm leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn't, you realize, pie in the sky by and by. Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God."  -Luke 9:23-27

Oh man.  This verse is the bomb.  I read it tonight, and I'm totally speechless once again.  God has some pretty amazing things to say to us, and when we listen to his voice amidst all of the other noises surrounding us, it is a beautiful thing. 

I caught my embarrassed self red-handed today as I was talking to a cashier at Caribou.  Lately (because I'm only using one crutch & have only one boot) people have been saying, "Oh my, what happened to your foot?"  It's then that I have to tell my snarky self to shut its pie hole.  (I can't even tell you how many times I seriously want to say, "An elephant stepped on it while I was running around in the exhibit dressed up as Tarzan at the zoo." or "I ran over it while I was driving my car.")  Or, people will ask me how my day is going, and when I say, "It's going good, how's yours?"  The reply?  "Better than yours."  It breaks my heart that people just assume that because I hobble, I'm not happy or hopeful.  Well.  Jesus is pretty cool like that.  He creates new equations:  Hobbling = happy and hopeful.

Anyway, I became really embarrassed when the cashier was drawing her co-workers' attention towards me, and I really just wanted to walk away.  Somehow, I couldn't even find the words, "Jesus" or "thankful" or "thank-you".  I don't know why I got so flustered.  But it is the way I am being led right now, and I need to buck up.  I tell you, it's not pie in the sky.  Thankfully, I can continue to follow my Teacher, and embrace it.

And I can't even begin to say how those last few sentences sum up a whole lot more than the last few months.  I have read a heck of a lot of self-help books, and tried to figure out "who I am", when really, it just comes down to following Jesus.  Heh heh...one hobble at a time.

Full.

Mmmmm...I love clean sheets.  There is definitely a reason that I'm still living at home though.  I still need my mom's help putting them on the bed.  I need help with quite a few things still, and I'm so thankful that my family is still supporting me, 100%.  I know for a fact that I wouldn't be where I am in the healing process if it wasn't for each member.  I know that the next few weeks of living here are going to fly by crazy-fast.

That said, I did get quite the taste of freedom this past weekend; I spent three days away from home!  It felt pretty surreal.  Everyone kept saying, "Oh man, I bet it feels so good to be out of the house."  Well, yeah, but I missed being home at the same time.  I got to see so many people that I haven't seen in quite a while, and it all culminated with a church service in Grayslake, IL (where I became a Christ-follower.)  It was pretty cool - my heart felt so full.

I kept thinking of that word all weekend, "full".  I have been so richly, richly blessed in the past four and half months (can you believe it's been that long?!)  Psalm 23 has been resurfacing in my heart over and over again.  Last week I talked about the first chunk of verses, but I can't stop thinking about the second chunk now (v 5&6):

You prepare a table before me
   in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
   my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
   all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
   forever.

I keep getting this picture of me standing in the middle of a grassy, wind-blown field with the sun streaming down so brightly.  Jesus is there standing in front of me, and with one hand he cups my face.  With the other, he pours sweet-smelling oil over my hair.  It's never ending.  It trickles down over my eye lids & down my bumpy nose, and into my smile.

My heart feels this way.

My cup is overflowing and overflowing, and I can't help but tell the people that talk to me in the health food store, and in restaurants, and in the hot tub at the gym, and in my church, and at my sister's tennis lessons that Jesus is so good to me.  I look back at the last months, and that's what I see: his goodness and love trailing behind me all the way.  All the days.

From the time that I realized I needed Jesus more than anything else to now, I have learned & continue to learn what it means to dwell.  I can't wait to touch my fingers to the walls of his house, and to smell the inside.  I can't wait to feel the floor beneath my feet and to sit on God's sofa drinking who knows what.  Root beer.

Oh man.  My heart skips a beat at the thought of it.  Following Jesus is worth it.  Every step of the way.