Saturday Shout-out: Happy Birthday!

In three days, my best friend will have a birthday.  Birthdays are times to celebrate someone's existence, but I don't have enough words or the right words to adequately explain how great this best friend is.  But that's never stopped me before from saying words anyway. 

When I was little, I would beg my mom for a twin sister.  No matter how many times she explained to me the impossibility of that request, I would wish and beg on.  And no amount of persuading me that sisters are not as fun as they sound would interfere with my dreaming of all the fun we would have and all the clothes we would share.  

I was not meant to be born as a twin, but thankfully, about a decade and a half after pestering my mom to give me a twin sister, I found something that I now believe is better.  Sarah is my heart twin, the sister that was not born into but has become a part of my family.  Experiences with her have far surpassed any dream I had for fun having and clothes sharing.  She has been right at the center of all my most important occasions, supporting me and cheering me on.  She has been at the center of even more of my most fun and treasured memories.  

Sarah has figured out the magic balance of going along with my plans to indulge me while, at the same time, challenging me to be spontaneous and flexible.  In the same way, during more serious times, she lets me explore what I think and respects my perspective but is never afraid to share hers.  She's my most extroverted friend, but time with her can sometimes still count as introvert time.

My best friend is the most joyous person I know, seeing every new day as an opportunity to love God and others.  She brings life and fun into all things, including, amazingly, that one time she came with me to tour a mortuary for extra credit in a class I was taking.  She jumps in like that, welcoming herself into any situation and subsequently being welcomed because of the gifts of joy and laughter and life she brings to any situation. 

God brought you into my life at just the right time, bess frenn.  Thank you for years of special memories and gut wrenching laughter.  You will forever be one of my favorite people, someone who loves me for exactly who I am and builds me up to be someone better, someone who rushes to my side when anything awful happens not to fix me or bring a band-aid or say the right things but to simply cry with me and hurt with me and hug me, someone who understands my humor but laughs with me even when you don't, someone who my life would be grey and dull without.  Thank you for putting effort into actively being in my life and sharing yours with me, even from so far away. Thank you for supporting my dreams and having grace for my shortcomings.  Thank you for all you've taught me and all the adventures you've taken me on.  You are the treat that never gets old.  Happy, happy birthday, BCP.  

I cried at my church today. 

It wasn't sad crying, I have done that quite a bit at church before because my church is the kind that you can come broken to instead of fixing yourself up nice beforehand.

It wasn't really happy crying either.  I've been to weddings and seen countless baptisms and been a part of beautiful things at my church enough to have cried plenty of happy tears there. 

This kind of crying was something, I'm a little sad to say, I don't think has ever happened for me at my church before.  It's happened with my church people at other places, like a camp or a concert or a conference. 

But today, for the first time, I cried at my church in complete awe of who God is. 

Also for the first time at church, I sat through an entire sermon on Revelation without having a minor panic attack. 

Revelation isn't a nightmare or a scary story meant to be told around a campfire.  Revelation is a promise that the God who was and is, is to come. 

Then we sang big songs, old songs, new songs, loud songs, and quiet songs, all about how mighty and magnificent God is.  The man behind me was singing with the loudest church voice I'd ever heard.  People were raising their hands even though our church is not a very hands-raise-y church.  Someone on the platform read from Revelation between songs.

And we would sing.  And our hearts were singing, not just our mouths, you could tell. 

At certain times during the songs, I felt tears well up, as I heard the voices around me, not just of my next-to neighbors that I can usually hear singing but the neighbors next to them and the ones next to them and everyone in front of and behind us.  And our voices were all shouting how great God is. 

And then the band sang this song that I have played on repeat in my car not to sing but to shout along to.  And I couldn't sing parts of it because of how choked up I was in awe of how big and great and mighty and good God is and of how much love he has. 

Then the service ended and our voices and spirits were all a little tired from how much emotion we sang with, but our souls were still rejoicing and our hearts still singing and it didn't matter that the music had made us tired.  In fact, it was a good thing.  It meant we had given of ourselves, the thing that worship was supposed to be about. 

And when the service ended and I looked around the room, it was strange only because I had never felt this way before.  I wanted to meet every person in the room.  I wanted to know the souls with whom I had just finished singing.  I wanted to meet the man behind me and thank him for encouraging me with the way he sang with his whole heart and his full voice.  I wanted to tell the woman who came in alone that I was proud of her and that she wasn't alone, not really.  I saw on people's faces that they were children of God, and I loved everyone in the room in that moment.  I wanted to know everyone's names and their stories.  I wanted to tell each person that I was glad they were at church with me that morning because the body of Christ needs someone just like them.  I wanted to talk to them about how great it was to worship God, not just sing music like we usually do at my church. 

Someone next to me asked me a question, and I forgot this feeling all too quickly.  I didn't meet anyone new that morning or shake anyone's hand.  I never even saw the face of the man behind me with the wonderfully booming voice. 

But I don't want to forget the way that putting God in his proper place and singing his glory with everything made the world look different.  Seeing God for who he is helped me see people for who they are.  Beloved by their Creator and mine and part of His, and gloriously, my, heavenly family.  Knowing God should make us want to know people, and we're told that loving God also means loving people.

1 John 7-21 

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, butperfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

There's been a change of plans.

Think of a movie.  Any movie.  Now think of how you'd summarize that movie with only three bullet points.  Go, really.  Do it.  Summarize a movie using only three bullet points.  

Did you do it?

I'm serious.  Do it. 

I thought of a movie that never gets old: The Princess Bride.  

• Wesley and Buttercup, who make a somewhat unlikely couple, fall in love.
• Wesley's ship is rumored to have been attacked by pirates, so Buttercup is pledged to marry someone else, someone who's a pretty awful man, actually.  
• Turns out Wesley was not, in fact, killed by pirates and, after a series of epic adventures, saves Buttercup from marrying an evil king.  

I think almost any good story, especially ones that made tons of money in movie theaters around the world, will follow a simple pattern: things were one way; the plan changed; things were another.  Was this true for your bullet poins?  Basically, there’s a character that’s going about his normal business, something happens that shakes things up, and afterwards he's different because of how the experience changed his life and what he learned from it.  

Bible stories are like this, too.  Adam and Eve are just hanging out in the garden, the snake tricks them, life is different.  Noah is just a guy, God tells him to build an ark and floods the earth, life is different.  David is hanging out in the field watching his sheep, Goliath is bothering his people so David steps up, the giant is dead and life will be very different for David, who later becomes a king.  This pattern is all over the place; in good stories, plans change.

I think about this pattern as we begin to talk about the Christmas story this season.  So many characters in this story were disrupted by a change of plans.  

King Herod was living a life centered around his own glory.  He was troubled by the change of plans, so much so that he committed mass genocide.  In Jerusalem, because of his fear and stubbornness, life is different, and there is much weeping and sadness.  

A woman named Mary has a very different reaction to the change of plans Jesus incites in her life.  We know that she was a young woman and that she was engaged.  So imagine the picture she has for her life at this point, think about the kinds of plans she has for her future with Joseph.  Normal plans probably, right?  What any average young Jewish woman would be planning for her future at that time.  But God wanted more than normal or average for Mary’s life.  He disrupts her plans and says, “I want you to be a part of MY plan instead, Mary.” 

When she first learns of God’s plan for her life, she’s confused.  She doesn't get it, she asks questions.  But, unlike Herod, she accepts this new plan and decides to be a part of what God is doing. 

Mary’s response is amazing to me because at the time Mary doesn't know what we know.  She can’t be sure that it’ll all work out, she’s trusting God.  From a human perspective, especially in the short term, this change in plans will ruin Mary’s life.  But she’s trusting in someone who has a different perspective. 

And I think of one group of people whose plans were changed big time when Jesus came: the Israelites.  They were expecting a ruler to overthrow their current physical government, but their expectations were too small.  They got a baby king who would eventually overthrow the spiritual powers that were oppressing them with much more eternal consequences.

Some responded, like Mary, with praise and a new, steadfast commitment to follow this somewhat odd rabbi, to follow him no matter what kinds of plans change, to follow him even to death.  Others responded like Herod, by deciding to kill the king himself.  

And then I have to wonder: how do I respond daily to God exchanging my plans for His?
                                      ______________________

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
 for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
    For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
 for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name.
 And his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
 He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
 he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
    and exalted those of humble estate;
 he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
 He has helped his servant Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
 as he spoke to our fathers,
    to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

I look so happy on Instagram

A few months ago, I started to write about how much I hate Facebook.  In my *cough, cough* old age (people roll their eyes at me when I say I feel old), I'm starting to develop a crotchety side and was all but holding Facebook responsible for everything wrong in our relationships and society. 

I wrote about how people only post the good things and used a very real example from my own life.  When I got engaged, I got 'likes' for weeks.  Every couple of days, I had a new, fun status to post.  Ring show off-ing, wedding planning, lovey dovey-ing, it just kept coming.  We had so many happy things to post and people encouraged us in our oozing happiness with their thumbs up.  It was sunshine and butterflies. 

Four months later, we had to carefully plan out how to take down our relationship status so that no one would open their newsfeed that day to see our dreaded news: Katelyn and Joseph are no longer 'In a Relationship'.  We had to tell people about our cancelled plans and our now non-existent relationship, but telling was different than posting, and we didn't want it posted. 

Facebook let us celebrate our engagement with trumpets and cymbals and light up notifications and one thousand thumbs ups, but there would be no likes found for this other occasion.  In fact, as what would have been our wedding date approached, some friends were following up on their travel plans as they wanted to attend the wedding I had talked about inviting them to but had never received invitations.  Our breakup was so social media silent that some of our friends didn't even know. 

Months after my transition into the single life, I had become rather well adjusted.  I was having an okay time with life and learning a lot about myself.  I felt good about where I was at. 

Until I logged onto Facebook. 

I would enjoy a Friday night full of West Wing binge-ing to the fullest until I saw pictures of my friends doing things without me that looked much more fun.  I loved living on my own but then a friend would post a status, #roommatelove.  I've been looking for a new job and, oh, look what luck my friends are having.  I was content being single, but please, can we take an engagement/wedding/babies break?  Please? 

My life was good enough for me until I held it up to the ruler that was my newsfeed and it fell devastatingly short. 

I thought it would only be fair if we posted the bad with the good and offered up honesty instead of lusting after likes.  I thought people were just BS-ing their way through social media.  And I thought people should be more considerate about all the happy things they post on Facebook - don't they know how much it hurts having that rubbed in my face? 

Tonight, though, something was different.  I looked at my Instagram profile and flipped through all the pictures I posted in the last couple of weeks.  I was oozing happiness again.

What happened?  When did I go from crotchety to cheerful?  Whose faces was I rubbing my happiness in?  Was I making people feel left out?  Was I adding to the ruler that they weren't measuring up to? 

But I didn't feel dishonest when I looked at my recent Instagram history.  I didn't feel like I was only posting the good and covering up the bad; I felt like a final piece of hurt in my heart finally healed and that the bad mattered less. 

I wasn't posting happy things to brag.  I was posting happy things because I was happy.  And maybe I was finding happiness in simpler things. 

Winning teams, funky mismatch earrings, students worshiping, holding a sleeping baby, treating myself to a cup of coffee and reading a good, highlight-worthy book, a super sunny day, finding a sign that makes me happy and giving it two real life thumbs up, making fun of Google asking me if I know my best friend.  I was happy, but it wasn't because I suddenly measured up.  The things happening in my life didn't suddenly grow to the happiness level my friends were reporting on Facebook.  

My friends weren't posting happy things to hurt me.  What hurt was that I was turning their happiness into a tool to measure my own. 

I walked a mile with Pleasure

she chatted all the way

but left me none the wiser

for what she had to say

I walked a mile with Sorrow

and never a word said she

but, oh! the things I learned from her

when Sorrow walked with me

Robert Browning Hamilton

Friendsgiving Flowers

A couple weeks ago, three of my favorite friends and I celebrated the new holiday we dubbed Friendsgiving.  The morning after Thanksgiving, we made breakfast and ate together with the sole purpose of enjoying each other's company.  It is possibly my new favorite holiday. 

One thing I liked best about it was how truly restorative it was.  There was no pressure, just being the people we are and loving the people we were with. 

I bought some flowers for the table.  There's something about fresh flowers.  They fit into two vases and framed our meal well. 

The day after Friendsgiving, I kept one vase of flowers as the centerpiece  at my kitchen table.  The other I put on a shelf under my living room window. 

The most special part of Friendsgiving was the most special guest.  It was the first Friendsgiving for all of us, but it was more fun to call it Penelope's first Friendsgiving because the fact that she's only two months old means a lot of firsts for her every day.  Next week, Penelope is taking her first trip to the zoo, and soon she will have her first Christmas. 

Looking at Penelope at her first Friendsgiving, I thought it was amazing that so many people love her yet she is, at the moment, completely incapable to love them back.  I asked her mom, my good friend Clarissa, "Isn't it crazy to love someone so much who is literally unable to love you back, at least for now?" 

At first, Clarissa didn't agree with me.  (Clarissa seldom agrees with me at first.  It's part of the beauty of our friendship.)  "Penelope loves me."  She said.  "She knows my voice, she cries for me, she needs me.  She loves me." 

"But she doesn't," I argued.  "She knows you, and that, in a way, is love.  But she doesn't love you like you love her.  That's what I mean.  It's not reciprocal.  She can't love you back, she can never repay you for all the love you have already given her, in these short two months." 

Clarissa was quiet in thought.  "I guess you're right," she said.  "But it's enough that she knows me and that she needs me.  She loves me with that." 

I smiled.  Clarissa had the same thought.  "Sound familiar?" she said with a chuckle.

Clarissa has been telling me all the things she's learning about God by being a parent.  I appreciate that I can learn similar things by just being around Clarissa being a parent. 

He created something and has so much love for his creation though it can't ever love him back in the same measure.  But it's enough that we know him and need him.  We love him with that. 

And when we know him and need him, we stand and we flourish in the light of his love.

There are no windows in my kitchen, and today I threw away dried up, ugly flowers that have decorated my kitchen table for the past couple of weeks.  The water smelled funny and I cringed as I tossed them into the trash.  I wished they could last forever, but they couldn't without the proper light.  It had been the amount of time that flowers normally survive, so I walked over to the vase in my living room expecting those flowers to be dead and shriveled, too. 

But this is what I saw in the vase by the window.  Light had made them even more beautiful than when I bought them.  I couldn't believe it.  Their beauty was not their own; they knew and needed the light.  

Ikea and the Internet

"Writing is not just how I communicate my thoughts but how I actually think.  It's the way an experience or a fleeting thought becomes real to me instead of floating away.  It's the way I catch my thoughts and turn them over and over, testing their weight and deciding whether to keep them or throw them away.  For me, to write is to become, and I can't become that older, wiser person without skewering these youthful thoughts to paper, without holding them up for my scrutiny and yours." 
 

I didn't write the words above, but I might as well have.  Alisa Harris, who wrote the above in her book Raised Right, has the same reasons for writing I do: to get my thoughts out of my head so I can look at them, so others can look at them, so I can learn from them.  I can't process something as well that is still up in my head.

My best friend says that my brain is like an Ikea.  I still don't know exactly what she means by that, but when I have too many thoughts in my head, it feels like an Ikea on a Sunday afternoon when it's too crowded to comfort test the couches and all the people are opening drawers and eating meatballs and arguing with their significant others about which towel rack would look best with which soap dispenser. 

And at the end of the day, everyone buys something to take with them and the spaces are all tidied and all the things are put back in their exact proper place. 

The cleanup, the organizing, the making sense of everything - that's what writing does for me.  Sometimes I process all that by talking, but there are just too many words for other people sometimes. 

So.. Hello, internet :)