Meet Me In…

Meet me in… where are we again?
Just a few highlights from our coastal journey.

Click here to view some of our photos.

Soulmates

I had the pleasure of watching one of my best friends walk down the aisle yesterday. I watched her anxious smile as she was led toward her soon-to-be husband and I looked on with three of my other best friends as she joined lives with her love.

Love is an amazing thing. It was the ability to endure time, distance, silence. It can carry us through hard times and right back in to new and exciting life events.

I sat next to my best friend, the love of my life, as I was reunited with my three best friends growing up. It had been quite a while since I’d seen two of them, but it was so amazing to have friends that we could just pick right back up with.

Missy, donning the white gown and beautiful glow, was who we all joined together to see. Fitting, since I believe she was always the magnet of the group. She is bright, warm and caring, and I know she had a pull because I would drive to the middle of the boon docks just to pick her up for a movie.

Kate, never afraid to be herself and with an artful style all her own, could paint works of art and bait a fish hook all in one week. My mother will always remember her for her rainbow-stripped knee socks, but I will always remember her for the opportunity to duck tape my pinky finger to a carpenter’s pencil in the middle of the Appalachians.

Erich joined our merry band in high school and subsequently accompanied each one of us to at least one school dance, I believe. Affectionate and caring, he added the subtle humor to the mix.

The four of us have memories to last a life time, and I have to admit… many of those memories have caused spontaneous bursts of laughter that might have made me look crazy to onlookers. Life has taken us in different directions, but it is always wonderful to know that love can lead us back to each other.

We the People

I had a hard time not becoming overwhelmed with emotion in DC. Memorials line the downtown area honoring the thousands who have fought for the amazing country that they so believed in. We watched as people brought flowers and cards to leave next to their loved ones’ names. Children, husbands, wives… all serving to protect this great country.

The media today is filled with depressing news… the economy is failing, the war is failing… our children are failing…
But I saw something different on those hallowed grounds. I saw Americans, standing side by side, paying respects to people they never met, would never meet. I saw tears in their eyes. I felt the tears in mine. And for a brief moment, we the people stood together in admiration.

I have family members who served in World War II and Vietnam, who fought in the trenches and tended to the wounded. I will always be in grateful awe of the thankless service these and so many other heroes gave and still give our country.

Wing and a Prayer

Tonight I have a lot of work to do. I have to pack, which also means I have to haul my suit case out of the storage. Oh, and find my good rain coat. I have to vacuum and scrub toilets so that my sister doesn’t think we live like pigs. Maybe clean out the fridge. Does soy milk spoil and turn into soy cottage cheese? I have to pick out something to wear to a wedding on Sunday… All of this to get ready for a trip that may drive me crazy!

Have I mentioned that Mike and I are going to wing it? I’m not too great at winging it. Guess I’ll just call it a second honeymoon and consider it a romantic adventure. Trip and survival details soon.

Tomorrow!

In honor of “Annie” auditions tonight, I thought I should take time to reflect. Hum along if you’d like.

It’s a hard knock life some times!
It’s a hard-knock life some times!
'Steada fairy tales, We get junk!
'Steada floating, We get sunk! It's the hard-knock life!

But… The sun'll come out tomorrow.
There’s no need to worry ‘bout tomorrow.
There'll be sun!

Just thinkin' about tomorrow
Clears away the teardrops and the burdens
'Til there's none!

I've been stuck in some days
That're gray and lonely,
But if I stick out my chin
And grin and say, ...

You know you're never fully dressed
Without a smile!

You shouldn’t care what they're wearing
In Uptown or in the ‘burbs,
It's what you wear from ear to ear
And not from head to toe.

“Annie” is certainly a fun story with some great life lessons we can all learn. Even though there will be hard times, you can’t let life get you down. Things will turn around… and if you smile along the way… you’ll often trick yourself into finding happiness along the way!

And whether it’s God, or another faithful companion, we can find ourselves humming,
“I don't need sunshine now,
To turn my skies at blue --
I don't need anything but you!”

Forgiveness

I’ve been taking some time to reflect on all of the things that have happened or changed over the past year. One of the things that comes to mind is the obvious fact that I’ve been keeping a journal – most of which I’ve posted in this blog. Since Lent I’ve been taking time every day to catalog the emotions and experiences I’ve had that day, see how they relate to my journey with God and thank God for another day for growth. One of the books I’ve read in this recent journey is “Soul Feast,” by Marjorie Thompson. After going to a spiritual formation retreat lead by Marjorie, my eyes were really opened to how important it is to commune with God regularly. As I’ve said before… I’m not a Biblical scholar, or any kind of scholar, but I enjoy learning new things. One thing I’d not learned how to do though was talk to God about sin. It seemed like such a formal, incomprehensible word to me. I got big sins (murder, false idols, etc.), but everyday we-are-constantly-sinners sins I didn’t grasp well. A big thing I took from Soul Feast was how sin is like an arrow missing off target. Sin is missing the mark. That just seems so human – so understandable to me.

There are so many times I know that I’m off track or just not hitting the marks I want, but rarely would I have thought of that before as sin. But, when I’m not living the life God desires for me, when I’m off target, that’s a sin. While that may make it suddenly seem like we’re all just constant sinners, I find comfort in that. God forgives us of our sins. All of them. So, if I just take the time to notice when I’m off track, not hitting my marks, I can ask for God’s help and guidance and all of those error marks are forgiven.

So, then the battle becomes forgiving myself. It’s those little things, those ‘well I could have been’s or ‘could have done’s that I rack my brain with. Why? God’s over it. Can’t I be too?

Rainbows

I have really struggled with smiling this week. Personal junk and work junk have been playing havoc on my spirit this week, and every day I get closer to Sunday and closer to a day I am really dreading this year. This year might be the hardest yet.

As I was washing some dishes this morning, I squeezed the dish soap into my favorite pink travel mug and then set the soap back down. Suddenly up popped dozens of little bubbles. They floated up and danced around my face and I realized I was smiling. I reached out and caught one on my finger and its own little rainbow ushered in a little brightness to my day.

It feels so good to smile. But even as I sit here typing my eyes still burn as I fight back tears. I’ll be better soon, I tell myself. At least I can still find some rainbows in my day.

Patience

I needed a break today… in a bad way… like run out the door and find a small hole to crawl into bad… so I did the next best thing… I distracted myself. I took a sip of my Fresca, check in on my peanut M&M supply (yep…still there!), flipped through my journal and landed on this scripture.

Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
- Joel 2:12-13

How about that! God is slow to anger, gracious and merciful. Oh how I long to be more Godly in my ways. There are times when life just gets going so quickly and items on our task list just grow bigger and out of our control. Why is it that the first reaction when these things happen is “why me?”

It seems so easy to fall in to the “this junk keeps coming” mood. Why is it not that easy to take a deep breath and pray for help?

I’m reminded of “Evan Almighty” when God is talking to Joan and says, “Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

This is the time to be grateful for opportunities to be patient, for opportunities to be slow to anger, gracious and merciful. And, this is the time to be grateful that when I’m not, God loves me anyway.

Worth the Wait

While it might be true that life imitates art, I’m pretty sure that baseball imitates life. Saturday night might have been the longest nine-inning baseball game I’ve ever attended. The rain delays almost totaled the amount of playing time, leaving first pitch and final out five hours and four minutes from each other. But it was worth the wait.

With all of the frustration that surrounds rain delays, you have to respect the beauty of perseverance. And in retrospect, I couldn’t help but correlate that long, complicated game to the relationship we have with our loving God. Like the prodigal child, we are just a couple of rain delays away from the ultimate relationship with God.

After a 45 minute delay to start the game, the Rangers got off to a quick start and pulled ahead of the White Socks, but pre-game was not without incident. We actually drove out to the game twice. The first time the rain was so thick, so heavy that I knew for certain they wouldn’t be able to play. So, we did what any right-minded people would do… we turned around and went to dinner. Life’s like that though, our own self-doubt and preconceived notions can be real barriers in our relationships and experiences.

As we were finishing up dinner, I looked out the window and with surprise and exasperation told Mike, ‘I think I can see the sunshine.’ It was just a small patch of light, but I fully believe it’s the little things you have to pay closest attention to. Game on! So we made our second trek and arrived without a drop of rain on our heads.

So when the Rangers were up by eight runs after the forth inning I must say, we were pretty happy campers. That’s about when the thunder crashed and the rain started pouring down. Thank God for seats under the awning! Here comes the tarp – that rescuing blanket of protection. But it’s not an official game yet. If we call it off now, all nine runs would be wasted. Isn’t it amazing to know God never considers His time wasted on us? That’s just too human a reaction. He just sits by – patiently waiting out our personal thunderstorms.

Now any Rangers follower knows that there are times an eight run lead is not a strong enough cushion, but just this once it would be nice. A little tip-of-the-hat thank you to all the soggy, loyal fans. But almost immediately after the game resumes, the White Sox blast off a grand slam. Seriously? We don’t need this. Things were going just fine. Why do things need to get messed up? Is life trying to throw me off track? WHY?!!

Oh… baseball. Right. So what’s the answer? Bring on the rain. Just a little cleansing distraction. Stay focused. And five hours later, get the victory. And in the end, the victory will always be worth the wait.

In the end what matters is that we turn home in our hours of need. The rest works out. Ultimately, through all of our struggles, our ups and downs and our veering off path, God will love us any way. And each time we run back home to Him, He just opens His arms and says, ‘It was worth the wait.’