Misery: The Price of Control

I know a married couple who are eating each other alive. It is a horrible thing to watch. Both are so consumed in the other's wrongdoings that they can't see anything else. They are helpless to see any answer or a solution other then bringing that other person down, making them pay an enormous price, and then demanding perfection from there on out. It is an impossible ideal. They are each wrought with pain; sometimes the pain seems almost physical. They think that if the other person would just change then they would be free to be nice and happy. It seems they think it would be so much easier to try to control the other person then it would be to change themselves. They believe that it is the other person who is holding them in this painful bondage. But that isn't true. It is their own white knuckled grip that is keeping them captive. Like prisoners holding on to chains that aren't even locked around their wrists. And yet they stay day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, chained, and fighting. It would make me not want to live.
Control.
When you think about it, the really big things in our lives, some of the defining things about us, were things over which we had no control: our race, our gender, or nationality, the year of our birth, the family we were born to, our genetics including our predisposition to certain cancers or other illnesses, the color of our eyes, our IQ, our disabilities, the size of our nose, ears, and feet. Sure, some of these things we can alter or interfere with. But when we came to earth, these circumstances came with us, as part of us.
But there are so many things we do choose. We make choices to save money or waste it, study or drop out of high school, have unprotected sex, exercise regularly, go to counseling, break the law, get married, abuse our kids, or go to church. We choose our friends. We choose our enemies. We love feeling in control. It really is an illusion of control, though. We can never leave our houses, brainwash our kids and spouse to do and say whatever we want, cling to our philosophies, and only associate with people who agree with us. But there is nothing we can do really, to stop an undetected heart defect from suddenly stopping our heart from beating or having a seizure and becoming a vegetable or even a terrorist plane from slamming into your building.
Wow this post is uplifting, huh?
I think our lives are like a handful of sand. The tighter we squeeze, the more we lose. We insist on control, even if it means our lover must leave us to keep from being suffocated. I just had a good friend break up with someone she loved very much because he was so afraid of loosing her, he was suffocating her. That's what control does. It causes the very opposite of what the controller wanted.
Here's where we come to me.
I'm not really sure what it is I am trying to control. But I know I am trying to control because I find myself in kind of a resistance to God. In a way, it kind of baffles me. I love Him. I have known Him. It was so good to be close to Him. And yet the idea of praying, talking to Him makes me inwardly groan right now. I think I have some sort of strong hold in my heart. Something I am keeping from Him. Something I am trying to hide and control.
C. S. Lewis once wrote, "The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words, 'Better to reign in Hell then serve in Heaven.' There is always something they insist on keeping, even at the price of misery."

What am I insisting on keeping?

How to use some one

I have a friend who has a big secret. He is fabulously wealthy. He's a multi-millionaire. I cannot fathom the amount of money he has- to be able to walk onto a car lot and think, 'I can have any car here. In fact, I could have three of them.' He is in his early 20s and he could buy any house in Des Moines. He probably will never have to work a day in his life. Here's his problem: he wants to find a wife. And not just a wife, he wants to find the love of his life. How do you do that when you are a millionaire?
So he has kept it a secret. It's really kind of romantic. Some girl is going to come along and fall for this average joe and upon her wedding day find out that he is virtually a king! I know he feels frustrated and lonely and is wondering when she will arrive in his life. And he knows he could probably have a wife tomorrow if he would only advertise his status. How tempting. But he is a smart guy. So he waits.

Tonight I am writing about using someone as a means to an ends.

On that note, why in the world would anyone want to surrender their lives to God? Doesn't it seem that it would be proof of God's love and existence if, once someone because a Christian, their lives became wonderful? If God has really 'saved' some people then why do they still get murdered? Why do their children get leukemia? Why are they not healed when they have a whole church praying for them and mass chain emails being sent out asking for prayers? Why don't all the non-Christians go bankrupt and get sick and have terrible relationships, etc, etc, etc.? Christians lives are no 'safer' then anyone else. God allows bad things to happen to even the kindest and seemingly most innocent. So what the heck?
Here's what I am thinking. God doesn't want to be used. He doesn't want to be reduced to a genie in a bottle, only summoned when we have a wish. There are lots of praying people in the hospitals. There aren't nearly as many in the parks. Being used hurts. I have no doubt it hurts God. I think praying in a time of need is better then not praying at all, but it still kind of hurts, I think. God is more like us then we realize in some ways (well, actually we were made in his image, so...). In one of his books, Phillip Yancey writes, "(It is implied) that God is not worthy of love in and of Himself, that people only follow God because they get something out of it.... God seeks, as a line from Handel tells it, "love unsought by price or fear." Love unsought by price or fear. How beautiful.
I think I might be a little mad at God right now. I think I feel let down. I think I feel like I should be getting more out of this whole relationship with him deal. I hate the silence. The physical separation. All of the unknowns. But mostly the silence. I know God speaks through his word. It is alive and active, I have felt it and heard it deep in my soul. I know God speaks through his majestic creation. But I am constantly surrounded by brick and even if I go a hundred miles, then I am surrounded with mud and corn. And maybe a few trees. Maybe I should move to the redwood forest in California and live in a tree house. I actually bet that would help. Maybe it's me. Maybe I have some sort of sin issue, some sort of strong hold that I refuse to acknowledge and deal with a let go of. Yuck yuck yuck I don't even want to divulge in there. What am I so afraid of? I think there are some people I am angry with that I don't want to forgive and let go of. I think I am afraid that God's plan for me involves moving my children down to the ghetto. I think there may be a secret from my past I don't want to tell. Why oh why is there ever accumulating crap in my soul?!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why does the layer of dust continue to return? And why in the world do I insist on hoarding that cancerous muck inside? God is gentle. But I think he wants to rip the band-aid off quickly. And I am afraid.
I don't want to use God. I think a real lover will settle for nothing less then the best for his love. And the best involves wholeness. And to be whole must require healing. And healing requires honesty.
I'm just going to end here.

beautiful lawnmower, broken boat

the stars stayed the same
that's how they found their way
sometimes they had to pull the curtains down
and try to remain still
and small
just to not be knocked off course
their hearts ached
in sorrowful hope
could they fix it?

from far away, what they could not see,
a violence waited them
she powerlessly hammered away at the floor boards
making relentless, devastating holes
while he built lawnmowers
if he wouldn't stop
she wanted off
he wanted off
oblivious
their cyclic seasickness
had spread to the stowaway

Mother Theresa is the closest real life picture I have of Jesus here on earth, in my lifetime. If she was like Jesus, can you imagine crucifying Mother Theresa on a cross?

Rock: Part 2: My little pickaxe

I think I like to have more questions then answers.
Because as long as I am asking questions I don't have to act on the answers I have received.

What is happening on the inside of me can have nothing to do with what is happening on the outside of me. Suicide rates are highest in the spring and at Christmas- interesting, huh? Even when there are presents and days off of work and birds chirping and grass turning green, everything inside can be empty, exhausted, silent, and gray. On the same token, things can be gray on the outside and yet there can be hope and maybe even joy on the inside. Of course even the best of feelings are always bittersweet, because there is so much pain and brokenness all around us, if not in our lives then in someone near us. But hope can be a lifeline to grab onto in the quicksand of our concrete world.
We need hope.
Hope that things will get better.
Hope that things can be fixed, things that I have broken or things that someone else broke in me.
Hope that in the torrent of blogs out there, I actually have something different to say and someone important is listening.
Hope that all I have collected and created and loved and bled for will not be for nothing.

Only in our broken moments we have room for hope. But we have to be open to it. And we have to be quiet too.

In the movie 'What Dreams May Come' Robin Williams plays a man who dies and goes to heaven. But his wife commits suicide and goes to hell. So, he decides to go in after her. When he finds her down in the depths of hell, his heart breaks. She is dirty and empty and miserable and not even aware that she is dead, surrounded by broken glass and filth. However, when he reaches her, she doesn't even recognize him. And worse yet, she refuses to go with him. So he goes along with her, pretending to be her neighbor so not to frighten her, waiting for the moment he can reveal his identity and save her. When she finally realizes who he is, she is terrified and runs away. So, he makes the ultimate sacrifice- rather then leave her and go back to heaven, he stays in hell with her. It is this sacrificial act of love that breaks the spell of hell on his wife. She accepts his help and he rescues her and brings her home, to heaven. Now, there is a lot more in this movie that I don't agree with or think is true but this scene so touched me because it tells (accidentally, I'm sure) the story of what God had to do to rescue us from the concrete hell we are making for ourselves. He had to join us here. He had to experience the pain and crap that life can bring in a personal way- as one of us. And then ultimately, sacrifice himself to get us out of hell.

I think we like to think the answers to the human problem lies with us, solely with us, if we could just find the right philosophy and make everyone aware of it and make everyone abide by it.

Ok.
So here is my belief in a simple, big picture sort of way:
We came from somewhere.
We were intelligently designed.
And I think the One who designed us must have loved us very, very much.
How could hands that carved our faces, chose the color of our eyes, breathed in us a love for music or athletics or poetry, not love us deeply, his own children?
And He made us perfect, orignially.
We were made for perfection.
This is how we know that something is wrong here.
Why would we question the condition of the world when it is all we have ever known? Unless.
Unless we were made for something else.
We were made for perfection. Happiness. Love. Excitement. Thrill. Adventure. Romance. Creating.
Doesn't that sound GOOD?!!!!!!
Doesn't that seem, I don't know, RIGHT?
In looking at human history, where would even come up with the idea that this is possible for us?
The problem (if you could call it a problem) is that in perfection is freedom.
We were not made robots.
We were made free.
Free to choose.
And we have chosen some very bad things.
We messed everything up,
in the history of our world,
in the history of our lives. Maybe even in the history of our day.

And we can't fix it.


Evil is like a snowball. It starts out as a half-truth and ends up a pedophile. It is like cancer. It starts so, so, so small and ends up closing off your airway. It's a plague and we cough it all over each other everyday. We are tangled in it, tangled in it with each other. Your evil intertwined with mine. That is why we cannot stop it. We started a epidemic that is treatment resistant, a super-bug that we can only 'manage' (if that). But we cannot cure it. And the really weird thing is that most of us like to walk around pretending like we aren't sick.

Here's the good news to what I believe:
He decided to come in after us.

The one who carved us, named us, breathed life into our infant lungs, has come for us.

Only, we didn't recognize Him.
This breaks my heart because it makes so much sense to me. It seems that becoming one of us was the only way He could get us to trust Him. We are like wounded birds who limp/hop/flee from the giant human hand that wants only to mend and care for us.
Jesus is this amazing paradox. He had a crappy life. He was often homeless and hungry. His friends betrayed Him. He received an unfair trial and was killed by His own people. He was a radical, a barefoot hippie who was people's friend. But He also was (and is) the majestic God himself. For some reason, in that mystery I find logic.
When I worry about or doubt who Jesus claimed to be (He himself said He was God), I think of the movie "What Dreams May Come". That's how much He loves me. He came for me. I am confused and I am often in denial, but I cling to to this hope.


Concrete.
I hate to even write it in so cheesy a way:

Jesus is the jackhammer.

Because my little pick axe ain't gonna do it.
But i think there are two parts to this story. Jesus can cut through my crap right now, if I let him. But all the concrete cannot be obliterated until the very end. Until everyone has made their decision. Remember happiness love excitement thrill adventure romance creating??? That is what I think is under the concrete. We often think of 'heaven' as white, cloudy, and well, boring. But the Bible says in the end, God is going to make a new earth. WITHOUT CONCRETE!!! (The Bible didn't say that about the concrete, that was my idea.) But we have to accept His rescue. And love. And forgiveness.
And that can be a very hard decision to make.
But I made it.

"If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." -C.S. Lewis

"... a scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited." -c.s.lewis

Rock: Concrete/Superstars/Mountains

Right now I am in a cozy little coffee shop. But I am looking out the window. I wish I was looking at a dipping valley or a mountain or a forest river. But instead, I am looking at a parking lot surrounded by dead grass and dirty snow piles. Everything is grey. The sky, the snow, the parking lot. Directly in front of me is some sort of truck. I think it is used to lift workers up to work on power lines, or something like that. There are metal bars and handles. All dirty. Man made. A nessesary means to fix things. Broken things. Everything is broken here. Rust and moth steal and destroy here. No wonder we can't find God. We've covered up his beautiful handiwork with cement. And bricks. And Jerry's homes. We've put concrete over prairie and forest and cut holes in mountains! Why? So our cars can get us places faster. So we've covered everything with concrete and we put our chins down and hurry, hurry, hurry. We put headphones on in buses, talk on cellphones while we pay for coffee, and turn on the t.v. during dinner.

We never have to talk to each other.

We are too busy for each other, too efficient for nature, too capable for God. And then we wonder on Sunday mornings why, when we try to open our hearts, we find them stinky and parched. "Where are you God?!" we cry. "Where were you this week?" Yet there He stands in our very presence, audible in each others hearts, tangible under the concrete.
One can lose hours on the computer, or watching t.v.. And in a way, I think that's exactly what we want.

Psalm 115
"Why do the nations say, "Where is our God?"
Our God is in heaven and He does whatever pleases Him.
But their gods are silver and gold, made by human hands.
They have mouths but cannot hear,
eyes but cannot see,
ears but cannot hear,
noses but cannot smell.
Hands but cannot feel,
feet but cannot walk,
nor can they utter a sound from their voices.
Those who make them will be like them."

"We are that to which we pray"- Jewel (singer/songwriter)

Ick. Right now a digging tractor has started scraaaaaaping snow off of the parking lot. What a sound.
Sigh. But it feels really good to think. And sit. And be.

Author Philip Yancey talks about how to the bafflement of anthropologists, every human society ever discovered and studied has worshiped something in someway. I think it is evident in both a society and in individuals that worship is natural. We cannot help it. Our ancestors struggled against worshiping monarchies and royal families. And finally, in the beautiful country of America we are totally free of forced worship. No one has to worship anything. And yet- WE DO!!!!!! It has crept in! Who can argue that we don't worship our celebrities?! Athletes and movie stars and models and rockstars- we are obsessed with them! We cut our hair like them, we hang their pictures on our walls, we buy their clothes and perfumes and pay thousands, even millions to own something they once wore or owned or hit with a bat.

That is worship, is it not?!!!!!!!!

And we worship ourselves. There are too many ways to mention (my fingers are getting tired), but one example is we worship our goals. One after another, once achieved we must continue. We never arrive. Just when we think we have it all someone else has achieved more. So, to be better we work harder and longer. We sleep with our blackberry, walk around with a cellphone earpiece in our ear, get in our cars and run from meeting to meeting, event to event. And we need lots of concrete to do that, don't we?

Where is the God we worship?!!! He is in our pockets, our driveways, and in PEOPLE magazine. We pray and meditate and bow down to these heartless, earless, eyeless gods. And "those who make them will be like them".

But where is the God that made us and that we were made for? Why can't we hear Him? Why can't we feel him?

The Bible, in 1 Kings 19, tells of a man named Elijah who is afraid because of some circumstances in his life. He runs away to a mountain called Horeb, the mountain of God. He is exhausted and longs to hear from God. Elijah finds a cave in this mountain and spends the night there. It is in this quiet, solitary place that his God speaks. He quietly asks Elijah, 'What are you doing here?' Elijah cries and tells his story to his ever-listening God. Here is what happens next:

"The Lord said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by."
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.
After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

What is God asking me?
And do I really want to know?

Are we brave enough to lose the noise and lights and all the sensory overload?
Are we brave enough to be quiet?

the paths we choose

After having a facebook account, I have come to see the many paths my classmates have taken in the 7 years since high school graduation. However, the paths chosen seem to fall into three main categories: 1) College, a profession, marriage, and/or kids, and/or grad school, 2)The Bar scene, maybe a little college, still in hometown, and 3) Adventure, travel, no ties of relationships, etc. It's kind of hard not to think about what life would be like if I had chosen another way. Sometimes still being in my hometown with old friends sounds nice. I see their pictures of being together and drinking and having fun. Then I also see the people who fled completely and have traveled, and crossed the ocean, and lived in the jungle even, the mountains, near the ocean.

I (obviously) chose the path of college and marriage and kids. I think those things turn out in the way they are supposed to- especially in the area of children being born. I think the date of a child's birth was meant to be and planned by God before the creation of the earth (even if the parents didn't plan it).

But what would my life have been like? My husband and I still talk about moving somewhere, just for a while. But we have our little girl, now a toddler, who loves seeing her grandparents on a regular basis and I know they would be heartbroken to miss some of these early years of hers and another one should he/she come along. It really has seemed to me that the second my little girl was a born a clock began ticking loudly in my ear. Tick tick tick. She grows every single day. I can almost visibly see it happening. And now she's 17 months and we are like, "We wanted our kids close in age but that means we have to have another baby NOW?!!!" And it sooo limits us in our lifestyle and goal options. My husband is thinking of seminary- but how could we pay? Would I have to work to support us? What would we do with our kids? We would have to move. Move away from family- is it worth it? People with no kids do not have to deal with these issues. They can go out and stay out late. They can spend all of their money on themselves. Their houses stay cleaner longer. They get to be ridiculously selfish. Some days I want nothing more then to be selfish- if nothing else at least with my time.

But I also think about loneliness. I guess I have been blessed with never having felt lonely, at least not for a long extension of time. I guess maybe the grass is always greener on the other side. If I was a single woman traveling the world with all of that freedom and spontaneity and my very own money would I be lonely, deep down? Would I long for a nest of my own and the predictability of every morning being wrapped in a man's arms who has promised his life to me? Would I long to feel a baby growing inside of me? Would I long to be a mama with a stroller and a cool diaper bag and big sunglasses and an awesome tan because I get to be outside every day playing with my little one? I have that now. I have that now! And I love it! It is so good to remind myself that I chose this life because I wanted it. There are a lot of sacrifices, but really, in the summer, if I want I can go to the pool every single stinking day!!!!!!! In the fall we can go for walks with our dog and play in the leaves every day if we want. Year round I can put on our favorite music loud and dance like crazy. I live with a man who genuinely thinks I am the most beautiful woman he knows (although it has taken me awhile to actually believe that.) I do love my life. Just 2 hours ago I was out having lunch with my friends and their babies- so fun! When I really think about it- this is what I want for myself- this is what I have always wanted for myself. My husband and I will be young empty nesters (like my parents). We will be able to do so much then- and we will have more money to do it too (maybe) then if we didn't have kids now. A lot of people are waiting longer nowadays to have kids and they are having a good, free time now, and that's ok. But I like what I have. I love what I have. Look at those pictures of my baby girl there in the margin of this blog! And she loves me more then almost anyone in the whole world. Do you know what that is like?!!! And I love my little nest, woven and spun just the way I want it. I love inviting people to enter into it and feel welcomed and wanted and fed and happy here. Because I am happy. I am safe. I am wanted.
Okay. That's enough of that.
This is the path I have chosen. And seriously. I'm only 26!!! Who knows what else is in store for me.

struggling to stay awake

There is a story from my childhood that I used to love to read. It's either by Frank Peretti or Max Lucado, I can't remember. Anyway, the story is about two brothers who arrive on an island with 'the captain" (I think he may be their grandfather, not sure). Anyway, it is very evident that he loves them very much. But he has to leave them there for a little while. But he promises he will come for them, they just need to watch the horizon. He reassures them of how very much he loves them. He also warns them to not go back into the jungle on the island. He says the things in the forest are not good and to stay near the shore and watch for him. The three say a tearful good bye and the captain sails away. The boys watch him until they can see his ship no more. So morning after morning, day by day, they watch for him. After a while one of the brothers starts to turn his gaze back toward the forest. And talk about it. And wonder about it. One night, he succumbs to temptation and goes in. When his brother confronts him the next morning the two argue. "There is nothing bad about this island after all. Why won't the captain let us go in it?" the one brother asks the other, and he says he doesn't think the captain is coming back or even loved them in the first place. Little by little this brother begins to spend more and more time in the forest. Somedays he doesn't come back at all. His appearance even begins to change. His blue eyes are no longer blue, but grey. Everything about him is turning grey, just like the island. The other brother tearfully continues to watch the ocean's horizon pleading for the captain's return. Then one day, he sees it. The captain has returned for them! Unfortunately, his brother has not returned from the forest. He has been gone for days now. The captain and the boy are forced to leave the boy on the island, mourning in the knowledge that he has made his choice to stay.

This story, ever so simple, seems to speak to me in more depth now as adult. How we tire of watching! How we tire of trying to remember this good God we are waiting for. How we try to remember what we are even watching for. How the place we live starts to seem okay, good even, after being away from home and the captain for so long. How we long to be done with the endless waiting. It's like trying to stay awake when driving at night while exhausted- so much focus and energy and strain...

In the Bible, Paul wrote a letter to the Romans of that time who were struggling. This is part of his letter:

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation WAITS in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. Against its will everything on earth was subjected to God's curse. All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious FREEDOM from all DEATH and DECAY. For we know that all creation has been GROANING as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also GROAN TO BE RELEASED from PAIN and SUFFERING. We, too, WAIT anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the NEW bodies he has promised us.
"Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this FREEDOM.
"And the Holy Sprit helps us in our DISTRESS. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with GROANINGS that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit PLEADS for us believers in harmony with God's own will. And we know that God causes all things to work togther for the good of those who LOVE God and are called according to his purpose for them.
"What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?
"Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatend with death?
"I am convinced that NOTHING can ever separate us from his love. Death can't. Life can't. The angels can't, the demons can't. Our fears today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the LOVE OF GOD, which is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:18-23,26-28, 31, 35-39)

The truest, most honest prayer from my heart has no words. There are no words, only groans and sighs and tears and frustrations and sometimes, joy. All wordless. And the Bible says that God knows our hearts and wants our good and has a purpose for our lives. He understands- he wants to hear our hearts. I don't want to get mushy. So I will just leave it at that.

This video so resonates with me and my experience. Check it out:
http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5

questions and fatigue

"...continue to work out your salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose." Phillipians 2:12-13

This verse makes me think about the hard things Jesus said to his followers like, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword." (Matthew 10:34) I might not understand what that means exactly, but maybe I am to work through it with fear and trembling. I take fear and trembling to mean a deep form of humility and a reverent awe of the vastness of who God is. I think it means to trust that God is bigger and that He can see things I cannot and He knows things my mind cannot comprehend. Maybe I can attempt to rest in this truth, that God is good and I can trust Him. I can trust Him not only for the overall good, but for my personal good as well. This verse also encourages me that Paul (the author of Phillipians) is writing to people who had the same questions I have, even hundreds of years ago. So...

"I press on to take hold of that for which Jesus took hold of me....forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus." (Phillipians 3:12b, 13b, 14)

There are just so many questions for me. But I do love God. There is NO question in my mind that He exists and that He is the creator of this world. All honest evidence points to Him. And I cannot then, help but follow that belief that this creator God is good. So good- the mountains, the sunsets, the stars, the ocean, waterfalls, flowers- they are good. Really, really good. That being said, I think it seems apparent that God wants us to see Him. The Bible says, "the God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth... He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else... He marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that we would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him- though really, He is not far from anyone of us. for in Him we live and move and have our being." (Acts 18:24-28) He wants us. He wants me. I feel so tired. But I have learned in the past that fatigue comes when I am empty. And if I am empty it is because I am not connected to my life-source, my nourishment, my heart's home. Him.

"I seek in myself the things I meant to say and lo! the wells are dry. Then, seeing me empty, You forsake the Listener's role and thru my dead lips breathe into utterance awake the thoughts I never knew." -C.S. Lewis

this really did happen

In 1996, Marion High School added the 8th grade class to the high school building. I was in 8th grade that year. So, I was basically entering high school at age 13. And to my horror, I had to ride the bus there.
So. First day of school, there I am standing at the bus stop, with 3rd graders, waiting. And waiting. And waiting. The bus finally shows up and I get on board, only to join more 3rd graders and their lunch boxes on our journey to the first day of school. As I am contemplating what will happen next, it dawns on me that since the bus will be arriving late, no one will be there to see me getting off the bus! This is great! (As if anyone cared or would even notice that I was riding the bus.) By the time I get to school I have calmed down a little (a little) only to discover, as I walk faster and faster, that I cannot find my classroom. Room 11. Room 11. Room 11! Where is room 11?!!!!! I come around a corner only to see Mr. Singer. Now, Mr. Singer was a not-very-nice middle school teacher (the kind who seems annoyed that there are actually children in his classroom) who has magically arrived at the high school at this exact moment to make me feel like an idiot in my time of need. So I ask him, "Do you know where room 11 is?" To my recollection, he doesn't even say a word, nor turn his head, but jerks his thumb to the door to his immediate left, just feet from where I am standing. Of course. Of course I would be standing right in front of the room when I ask a mean teacher to please help me. Sigh. Ok. There it is. But then.
Just as I am about to open the door, an announcement comes over the loud speaker,

"Attention teachers: Please admit the bus students. They will be arriving late."
Ta- da! My grand entrance. Hello upperclassmen! I am a bus student!

I open the door. To my left, are my fellow eighth graders, their eyes kind of bulgy and blinking, too concerned with their own inner turmoil of the terrifying morning to even notice me. To my right are upperclassmen at tables all looking very directly at me, interested, in an unattached sort of way. At this point, the third graders on the bus seemed awfully appealing. I let the door slide closed behind me. I gulp. (Ok, I am assuming I gulped. I don't actually remember gulping.) I begin the slow walk to find a seat, eyes moving quickly, scanning the aisles, heart beating so slow I'm not sure it is going to continue and finally find an empty seat. Amazingly, it is between two friends. I sit. I think I hear angels singing as my rear touches the magnificent pine seat.

The class I am in is actually a study hall, thus explaining why there are both 8th graders and upperclassmen in the same room. There really is nothing to do the first day, since no one has school work, so I think we basically just sat there. (I don't remember.) Well, at some point I decide to redo my hair which has kind of fallen down out of the clip it is in. I take out the clip, set it on my desk and begin to re-twist my hair. Now, before I go on, let me explain something. The desk I was sitting in was actually one of those chairs that has an arm with a little table that can swivel up to make a desk or down to make just a chair. A flimsy little thing. Well, I knock my hair clip off of the desk. I reach for it. But not with just one hand. With both hands. I strain. I feel the tipping. I see the ground growing closer. I feel the dirty, hard carpet scrape my ear.

I have flipped my desk on top of myself.

And I have managed to pin both of my arms beneath the desk with all of my weight on top. A book slides down the surface of the desk and bangs me in the face. I wish I could say that I am making this up. I am not. The "friends" that I was sitting between were laughing and denying they knew me and later told me that I looked like a fish flopping around trying to get free. When I finally free myself I stand up, and yes, everyone is looking at me, including the teacher, who has this disgusted look on her face that suggests that she thinks I am trying to get attention. I say, in flat honesty, "Don't worry. I'm okay." And kind of bow my head to the teacher as if to say, "Please forgive me- I thought this would be a great way to get people to want to be my friend." I then touch me cheek. Blood. Yes, blood. The book that hit me in the face drew blood when it's academic corner stabbed me on my cheek. So I say, "Can I please go to the bathroom?" The teacher nods as if she is being so gracious to let me go to the bathroom to wipe blood off of my face.

And to think, just 30 minutes ago all I wanted to do was get off of that bus. And now, there is nothing more I could wish for then to be back on that bus, that cozy, warm, yellow bus with all of those cute, nice little 3rd graders. Tomorrow, I will smile at them. All of them. And in borrowing from Billy Madison I will say, "Stay here forever! Never leave 3rd grade!"