Hit the Fast Forward Button

There is a clap of thunder, my pastor slams shut a Bible and exclaims, “It is finished!”  We leave the church in darkness and in silence to contemplate Jesus’ death on the cross.  This is how our Good Friday service ended tonight (as it does every year).  It’s quite dramatic, as it should be.

The words “it is finished” seem so final and leave no room for anything else.  But we all know that this isn’t the end.  Things weren’t really finished on Good Friday.  Easter is coming and on Easter we will celebrate Jesus’ triumphant resurrection from death.

Yet we have this time of waiting between Good Friday and Easter, a time in which we have to wait to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection.  Every single year it’s the same… sometimes I wish that we could just hit the fast forward button and get to the good part.  It just seems a little silly to wait around in sadness remembering Jesus death when we know that he didn’t stay dead.

I have no choice but to wait.  We all wait.  Every year.

And really, it’s probably good that I have to wait because I get to practice patience and because I am reminded of what I’m really waiting for.

Like we wait on Saturday for Jesus to rise on Easter Sunday, we wait today (and every day) for Jesus to come again, to restore the world to all that God intended it to be.  This is an odd and often times frustrating time of waiting.  I sure don’t understand God’s timing.  At least we know that Easter always comes on Sunday, but we have little idea when the new world is coming. 

We do, however, know what’s coming: a world that is just and fair and filled with peace.  Certainly something worth waiting for.

We also know what God expects of us now as we are waiting for this new world.  God expects a lot of us.  God expects us to be watching and waiting for the return.  God also expects us to prepare the way, announce the coming of the reign of God though our words and actions.

The story wasn’t finished on Good Friday and the story wasn’t finished on Easter.

Every day that I wake up, I have a choice to make.  I can choose to be frustrated by the waiting, or I can choose to be a part of this incredible story that God is writing.  I can choose to play my role in being a Christ follower and try to live according to God’s will, I can choose to do my part to live in a way that will show the world what this story is all about.

When I go to bed tonight I will have failed to live perfectly and do everything I was supposed to, but I know that God willing I will have another choice to make tomorrow morning.  Again I will have the choice to be aggravated by the waiting and just give up, or I can chose to play the role God has given me to a be a part of the most incredible story there is (even though it’s a very difficult role to play and a very difficult story to be a part of).

I know what my choice will be.  Do you?

10 Days

I’ve been a writer for 10 days now.  And I love being a writer.

I haven’t written profusely, but I have been much more successful than I thought I might be in making the time to write.  There have been times when the words came faster than my fingers could move on my keyboard, and there have been nights when I just didn’t have anything to write and that was ok, too.  I have been working on some pieces of writing that I have been meaning to work on for some time, and I have even started some new pieces.  I’ve got a bunch of things lined up and ready to post on my blog, so get ready.

Here’s what I love about being a writer:

… that I actually made a decision without worrying and trying to work out all the details- that I made a decision because I felt the call and then put my trust in God (if God would call me to something, then God is going to help work out all those details).

… doing something for me, doing something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

… that I’m closer to fully being the person I am meant to be, and that I can feel that this is true.

… taking the opportunity to reflect on my life on a daily basis.

… thinking about events, people, and life on a deeper level.

… making the time for something that is important in my life.

… noticing things that I wouldn’t otherwise have noticed because I’m looking at the world and my life from the perspective of a person who is looking to write.

… that I’ve stopped with the excuses.  It feels really good to actually do something rather than allow insignificant things decide whether I actually do something that I feel called to do.

A Slight Change of Favorites

Autumn is by far my favorite season of the year.  I love the transformation the tress make as the leaves change brilliant colors.  I love the cool, crisp, fresh air that comes in from the north.

But this year, I’ve found myself loving Spring like I have never loved Spring before.  Maybe it’s the fact that Spring has come so early and never really gave poor winter a chance to mature and deliver all that winter usually provides. 

I’m finding that I like Spring because I’m actually noticing the changes happen.  The sun has often warmed up the air and ground.  The clouds have parted on a number of occasions and have offered the sight of clear brilliant blue skies.  The grass has turned vibrant green and is growing.  The flowers have come up and bloomed.  The trees are growing leaves overnight it seems.  I’m not even exaggerating when I tell you that I woke up one morning, looked out my window, and saw the trees in my front yard in a full bloom of white flowers when the night before there was no sign of blooms.  The birds and the squirrels and the bugs are all over the place being busy doing Spring things.

All these changes are simply beautiful.

Maybe the warm weather has made these changes happen at a quicker rate than usual.  Or maybe this is how the changes of Spring always happen and I’ve just never noticed. 

What a shame it would be if this is the way it has always been, what a shame it would be if I have missed out on the beauty of spring for the last 24 years.  But on the other hand, now I know that Spring is indeed a season with its own beauty I can appreciate it for the next 75 years or so. 

Micah 6:8

Look what I made!

I saw this idea on Pinterest (if you don’t know what this is you should check it out because it is a super cool way to spend way too much time looking at pictures of delicious food and fantastic craft ideas.  If you want an invite, let me know.).  The one I saw on Pinterest was one a mom made with her baby’s hands and feet prints and I thought it would be cool to do this with my own hands and feet.  

It may look pretty simple (and really it was), but it really took more skill and work than I was anticipating.  First I had to figure out what kind of paint to buy, then I had to choose the colors.  Making the hand and foot prints was much more difficult than I thought it would be…when was the last time you covered the bottom of your foot in paint, put it on a canvas, and then tried to wash your foot off in the sink without getting paint everywhere?  Well, it’s actually pretty difficult. 

There was something very therapeutic about getting my hands and feet all paint-y…the paint was cold and a little slimy and made me feel like I was back in preschool.  I think we all need to get out hands and feet messy more often.

Then there was painting the words…  My mom was gracious enough to give me a little refresher course in cursive writing.  I forgot how some of the letters were formed (3^rd grade was a long time ago!) and I went through a series of touch-ups on the letters trying to get them just right.

It’s not perfect, but it sure has some character.   

But in all seriousness, I love this.  I love that my hands and feet are on this.  Whenever I see it I will be reminded of this verse from Micah 6:8:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. 
   

And what does the LORD require of you? 


To act justly and to love mercy 
   

and to walk humbly with your God.

More importantly, every time I see my painting I will be reminded that it is my hands that must act justly, it is my heart that must love mercy, and it is my feet that must walk humbly.  God has called me and each of us to follow God’s will, to act as God has called us to act, and to bring about a more just world.  God has pretty high standards, and I need to be reminded of these standards. Often.  Hopefully this painting will help remind me and convict me of the importance of doing all that God requires of me.  

Stop with the excuses.

Today I decided I’m going to be a writer.  Yes, I’ve said before that one of my dreams is to be a writer (and get paid for it), but today I decided that I am indeed going to BE a writer and I’m going to be a writer now.  I’m not going to quit my jobs to be a writer (at least not anytime soon), but I am going to write.

You might be wondering what made me decide today that I’m going to be a writer now.  Well, today I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott (I can’t really say that she is my absolute favorite author because it’s a three-way tie for my favorite author).  I’ve written about Anne here on my blog before, but as a refresher Anne Lamott is an incredible person and writer.  I love Anne’s writing because she writes about the beautiful as well as the messy aspects of faith and life and she does it with humor and brutal honesty.

There were a few pieces of advice that Anne shared about writing that really helped me decide to be a writer:

There will never be the perfect time to start writing.  I can wait until I have a well-paying full-time job, I can wait until I get settled with a husband and a family, I can wait until I have an incredible life experience to write about, I can wait until I’m retired, or I can wait until ________________ happens in my life.  The point is I can wait and wait for the perfect time, but once X happens there will be another reason why things aren’t perfect for me to write.  So, as they say, there’s no time like the present.

We each need to give ourselves permission to write.  I have really struggled with finding the time and reason to write and I think it’s largely because I don’t give myself permission to write.   I doubt that I am a good writer (I’m certainly not the best writer ever, but I do have some skill).  I rationalize that there are far more important and urgent things to do than write (and many times there are).  I tell myself that I don’t have anything important enough to write about.  I tell myself that no one will want to read what I write (at least no one besides my friends and family).  The only person I need to get permission from to write is myself.  Anne suggested that getting permission from ourselves is like calling up a really good friend.  Sometimes we may have to call every morning to get that permission, but what kind of friend wouldn’t give permission to do something we love and long to do?

Don’t be afraid to write bad first drafts.  Anne said she only writes one kind of first drafts: bad ones.  The blank page often paralyzes me and I’m usually afraid to write anything down without it being in perfect, creative sentences.  But if Anne Lamott writes bad first drafts and her writing ends up like it does in her books, maybe I too can overcome imperfect first drafts.  (However, this piece of empowering advice also means that second and third and forth… drafts will be necessary.)

Write what you would like to find.  Someone in the audience asked Anne if she would ever write a book about meditation.  She said “no” because there are already so many good books out there on meditation.  Anne said her best books are those books that offered something that no other books out there offered.  I haven’t quite isolated exactly what it is that I want to contribute to the written world, but I have a few things in mind. 

Stop with the excuses.  Just stop.  This pretty well sums up all of Anne's advice, but encompasses anything else that might stop me from writing.

So here’s what I’m going to do: Write every day.  Even if it’s only for 30 seconds.

Thanks Anne for the encouragement and advice.

Today was a perfect day for...

...drying clothes outside!!!

I got this new collapsable clothes drying rack for Christmas.  In the dead of winter (even in this lame winter we had), it seemed like it would be forever before I could use it.  Most of the time during the winter I hung my clothes up to dry in the basement, but it took forever for my clothes to dry and it just didn't have the same feel of hanging clothes up to dry outside.  But now the weather is just great for drying clothes outside.

On Sunday my dad helped me install a pipe connected to our deck that the collapsable rack fits into.  So I can fold up the rack and take it inside when I'm not using it so it doesn't get all dirty.  And it works super!  It is easy to set-up and it holds a LOT of clothes.  I did a very large load of laundry and I could have easily fit at least one more very large load.  The really cool thing about the design of this rack is that I can hang laundry on the inner part that I don't want the neighbors to see.  Even though it got pretty windy today all my clothes stayed on the rack (I don't know if this can be attributed to the clothespins or the rack- either way I was pretty happy to come home and not have to collect my clothes from around the backyard).

First Week of Acts of Beauty

Here's a recap of my first week of acts of beauty:

Day 1: Feb. 22 

I had a little bit of a rough afternoon and my patience ran out.  My patience usually doesn’t run out so quickly (although there was certainly plenty of good reasons that my patience got used up).  I was in a pretty bad mood, and so I knew that my first act of beauty in Lent would have to be something to make my mood and spirit more beautiful.  So I came home and did some yoga, something I love to do but haven’t had much time to do lately.  My yoga left me feeling refreshed physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Day 2: Feb. 23

I posted this video on Facebook: Indescribable

Day 3: Feb. 24

I woke up to a beautiful snow covered world.  I didn’t think that I could do any acts of beauty today because it seemed that God had created all the beauty that was needed for the day.  But then I figured I would capture that beauty.  So I went to the forest preserve to walk around, soak in the beauty, and take some photos.  I finished up a roll of film that I started to use back in September (yep, every once in a while I break out the old fashioned camera and film).  I’m excited to see what beauty is on that roll of film.

Day 4: Feb. 25

My act of beauty for toady was being a part of packing enough food to feed about 185 kids for an entire year.  We have been trying to pack as much food as possible lately at FMSC.  I spent most of the afternoon and evening encouraging the volunteers to pack as fast as they could.  I love to see the volunteers get excited about packing a lot of boxes of food.  They have fun seeing how much they can pack and it just makes them feel good to leave knowing they made a significant difference for as many children as possible.  We have five packing sessions on Saturdays and our goal was to pack over 100 boxes each session.  Most of the sessions had no problem getting to 100 boxes.  The last group of volunteers was a great group, but they struggled to get to 100 boxes.  We let them pack a few extra minutes and they made it to 100!   

Day 5: Feb. 26

My act of beauty for the day was spending part of the afternoon reading in bed and then taking a little nap. 

Day 6: Feb. 27

I was a part of making a beautiful and fulfilling experience for special needs students who came to volunteer at FMSC.  The volunteer group of was a group of students with varying degrees of physical and mental abilities.  These students had an incredible time.  They got to make a contribution to something really important and meaningful- something they don’t get to do often enough. 

Day 7: Feb. 28

My act of beauty for today was making a delicious chocolate dessert for my family.  It’s called “slutty brownies”.  Basically you put a layer of chocolate chip cookie dough, a layer of Oreos, and a layer of brownie batter all in a baking dish and bake it in the oven.  There is something about chocolate that makes everything more beautiful.