I Hope I Die Like Her

     Right before mom died she was in a hospice care facility. Even though she was only there a few days, I felt like I entered and left a thousand times. Despite what a hard time that was in my life, I wanted to look around. I made friends with the patients, with the families. We knew each other and supported each other in a way that only those who are waiting for death can. I especially remember a little old lady that sat by the front door.

       I remember her because she was happy and she would talk to anybody. Well, I actually I remember her because at night she had a bottle of Arbor Mist by her wheelchair. I felt sorry for her. I never saw her with family, but that doesn't mean she didn't have any. We spoke briefly about her as a family. She's in hospice and she has a bottle of wine every night? 

      Now though, I hope I die like her.  I do hope I have family around. I hope I can comfort that family with my bottle of wine and no telling how many painkillers. I want to die still appreciating my sanity and the good little things in life. I don't want to die sad and bringing down everyone around me. I want to wait on death with a bottle of wine and a smile for those who come through the door who are also waiting. I want to die sure of my future, at rest with my past, and hopefully with a lot of morphine and a bottle of Arbor Mist. 

Last night I fell asleep with a wooden cross in my fingers. 

As I was getting ready for bed, my mind to flip through hundreds of fears, my heart began to race, fear gripped my insides. The never-going-to-happens became the inevitable. I had made so many mistakes that day, God would never forgive me. I was going to lose my job. What it all my family got into a car wreck? What if my bank account was emptied and I couldn't pay my rent? I will never be able to keep my house neat. I won't be able to lose this weight. In short, I was having a full-fledged panic attack. 

Unfortunately, I don't have insurance at the moment (believe me, I'm working on it) so I haven't been consistent with my anti-anxiety medication. I have no xanax. The fear was so intense that I felt I could quite possibly die. Who could I call that would understand? I tried praying, explaining to God and begging for Him to make it stop, but I couldn't get control of my thoughts well enough to do this. 

I needed something. I needed something in my hands, I needed something tangible. I didn't know why, but in a fit of desperation I pulled an old, hand-made wooden cross from over my bed, gripped it tightly in both hands, and prayed The Jesus Prayer over and over again. (Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me.) 

It wasn't a magical cure. I did not immediately become light as a feather. It took a lot of work to calm down. I repeated the Jesus Prayer over and over again, and anytime a fear began to creep its way into my mind, I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed the Jesus Prayer fervently, imagining that the prayer was literally a fortress and all of my fears would be cut into pieces against it. 

If you had told me a few years ago that I would ever have spent a night like this, I would have been terrified. I grew up idolizing the Puritans. I would have thought having the cross in my hands was akin to the Israelite Golden Calf when Moses went up to receive the Ten Commandments. I would have thought repeating The Jesus Prayer was too similar to the vegan-eating, yoga-attending, pagan, Prius drivers. 

Recently, I have changed my thinking. I even have icons of Christ scattered about my apartment. Although there is not space in this blogpost to relate my theological understanding of icons and artifacts in my spiritual life (although I hope to do that soon) I would like to be clear that I know that cross in my hands is merely two pieces of wood fixed to one another. I know that the Eucharist is a wafer and a sip of sweet wine. I do not worship that piece of wood anymore than I worship the wafer and wine at the Eucharist. I can worship better because of things. 

I used to think that we experience God only through the mind and heart. I believe now that God gave us 5 senses to worship better. There is nothing magical in crosses, icons, incense, or books, but I'm finally ok with saying that I believe there is something mysterious in them. 

How the hell did I get here?

Last night, as  I was falling asleep, I looked around and for some strange reason realized that I was sleeping alone, in an apartment I paid for, without a husband, without a mother, without a high-paying job in New York City . I was praying, and as a firm believer in being honest with God, the last thing I remember before falling asleep is whispering "How the hell did I get here?"

This was not supposed to be my life. In the life I had planned, I would go from college to a married life and I would have 2 kids by now, probably with a third on the way. Somehow though, I ended up with living the single life at 27 in St. Louis. In the words of Robin Williams in "Mrs. Doubtfire" I thought, This is not my life.

 

To the friends I thought would never get married, I said "I'm so thrilled for you! This will be an adventure and I'm so glad you're taking it!" To the friends who did not do well in college but ended up in exciting places with wonderful jobs I said "I'm so thrilled for you! This will be an adventure and I'm so glad you're taking it!" I said all of this, thinking that some day soon in the future, I would be married, or in an exciting place. 

I made my own decisions. I made the decision of majoring in education. I made the decision of attending graduate school in education at uw. I made the decision of living in Poland and Korea. I made all of those decisions based on what I wanted and what was possible. I made the best decisions I could with that was available to me, what I was good at, what I wanted. 

Somehow, those decisions did not lead me to the life I thought I wanted. 

I do not know if I ever will be married. I do not know if I will ever live in another country or in exciting cities like New York, Chicago, or Boston. I do not know if this will be my life. I do not know.

What I do know is that I have amazing family that chooses to support me. I do know that I have friends who love me, strangely, without conditions. I do know that I have a dog and a guinea pig that take a large part of my heart. I do know that I'm part of a church that loves me even when I fail to attend. I do know that I have so much to be thankful for. 

Surely, this is not the life I had planned. This is not the life I prayed for. Yet I am here. I made the best decisions I could and God has answered my prayers in strange ways. God did not save my mother. God has not brought me a husband. God has not given me a high-paying position in a bustling city. God has me here. It's strange and every now and then I look around and think "How the hell did I end up here?" 

Yet I am here, and I don't want to waste it. I want to love and make connections. I want my nieces to know me and be excited about spending the day with Aunt Callie. I want to spend time with my brothers and sisters-in-laws. I don't want to move away, although I am tempted from time to time with a new start and a new life. After much prayer, I do not think that this is a good time to move away. I want to set down roots. 

I want it all, but God has given me what I have now. I have much to be thankful for. My life's mantra should not be "how the hell did I get here" but "who am I deserve so much?" 

And everybody knows their names

Just like many of you, I was almost glued to my computer during the Boston lock-down and the search for the man who was responsible for the bombing during a race in that city. I wanted him to be caught alive and be brought to justice.

Just like when Osama Bin Laden was killed, I felt a surge of electricity and elatedness when he was apprehended. This one, I thought, won't get to die like a martyr for his cause though. He'll have to live the rest of his life facing what he did and the hatred of millions of people.

Osama Bin Laden, Adam Lanza, Timothy Mcveigh, the Tsarnaev brothers. A list of people who have challenged America and we have won. But have we really?

Do you honestly think that the Tsarnaev brothers expected to get out alive? I personally don't. They were two young boys in the most powerful country in the world. They had to know they would be caught. They did it though and for reasons I don't understand. What I do understand is that now millions of people know their names. The city of Boston knows their name. Perhaps they ultimately got what they wanted.

I for one, don't want to know who they are. I don't want to cheer their deaths or their captures. I want to ignore their names and focus my attentions on the fallen. I can't name one single person who died in 9/11, the Oklahoma bombings, at Hook Elementary School, at the Boston bombings. Yet I know the names of the men who did it. Something is twisted and wrong. Somehow, they ultimately got what they wanted. They got a parade, fireworks, thousands of people tweeting and facebooking their images. 

I want to forget them. I want to erase their names from this blog, from the internet. I don't want to die knowing their names and not knowing the names of the victims. We are part of a powerful and strong country. This won't be the last time evil people choose to kill others and die on our land to further their own purposes. Something has to change. We have to somehow know the victims and not know the perpetrators. We are giving them what they want, we are giving them infamy, which is not as good as being famous, but they died and live knowing we all know who they are.  

We don't have a better deal than the Israelites

I'm 27 years old and certified to teach high school social studies and I still get Jefferson Davis and Thomas Jefferson confused...

Ok ok, that's not what this blog is about at all, I just thought I'd share.

What I really wanted to talk about is reading through my Bible chronologically in one year. I have this great one year Bible that Lindsay Beeman got me a few years ago that goes through the Bible based on when stuff took place. It's awesome, but the flaw is that most one year plans have you read a little of the Old Testament, a little of the Psalms and Proverbs, and a little of the New Testament each day. I'm realizing why that is such a good idea. The Old Testament is horrifying in some places, boring in others, and only occasionally interesting. 

I'm starting in Leviticus and I hate it. I want to skip through it, but that's not what reading the Bible in one year is about. I'm at the part where it keeps talking about guilt offerings, sin offerings, and fellowship offerings. It talks about what to do if you have knowingly and unknowingly sinned and gives very detailed instructions on how to slaughter the sacrifice: what parts to tear up, how to drizzle the blood, what can and cannot by eaten of what you sacrifice and by whom it can or cannot eaten. 

It's gruesome, overly detailed, and boring. My mind tends to wander. I wonder why we have to read this stuff if it's no longer necessary, and then I realized it: all the gruesomeness and technical information on sacrifice should lead me constantly to Christ's death on the cross.

In Old Testament times, dealing with sin was a mindful ritual, an actual killing of another living being before your eyes to make some sort of atonement for your sin. The people in the Old Testament saw what sin causes; it causes death. We, however, don't have to see this kind of death....or do we?

I love animals. I can't stand to think of an animal in pain. Yet my sin doesn't hurt an animal, it is a nail in the body of  the very man who exists to save my soul. Every lie, every prideful thought, every lustful action is a nail in Jesus' hands and feet. Who gets a better deal, us or the original Israelites? I'm thinking it's the Israelites.

The Old Testament is important because it forces us to look at the blood, the pain, and the destruction our  sin costs. Maybe we don't have to watch the blood flow or hear the being cry out in pain, but we know it happened. My sin is a nail in the cross, just like the blade that slashed the throat of every sacrifice of the ancient Israelites. 

God in a messy day

I like to think I understand grace. I've grown up knowing that while God calls us to do good works, they have no bearing on His ultimate love for us. I'm starting to realize, slowly but surely, that I have no inkling of what really living in God's grace is like. 

I've been on this kick lately to get my life together. By this, I mean living each day perfectly. My perfect day would be something like this: get up in time to read my Bible, take a shower, prepare a healthy lunch, be an awesome teacher with kick-ass lesson plans, come home and walk my dog, clean my apartment, make another healthy dinner, and then enjoy an hour or so in a hot bath while reading a good book. 

My problem is that if one tiny things go awry, I give up. For some strange reason, I feel like I can only communicate with God if I'm making good choices and my life is in order. If I feel like my relationship with God isn't good or He's upset with me, I have this strange feeling that the day is lost anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

Today, for instance, I got up early, read my Bible, and made a salad for lunch. In all my self-congratulations, I forgot to grab my lunch from the kitchen. The rest of the day did not go well. I rushed off a school letter that my boss had to correct and then my kids went crazy in the afternoon and refused to learn anything. 

I was going to recover, though. Nope, they weren't going to get me down. I had a list of things from Target, Petsmart, and Trader Joe's and I mean an expansive list. This list included fruits, vegetables, lesson plan binders, and toilet paper. 

I'm on my way to Target and I'm at this intersection from Kingshighway to 64 West that no joke takes about 5-10 minutes to get through when it hits me: I forgot to turn off the coffee pot at school. Crap. In those few seconds, I know that my day is totally shot. I lose, Wednesday wins. I think, in internet-safe terms, screw it. 

I turn my car around, drive back to school and unplug the coffee pot, and head straight for home only pausing to pick up a bottle of wine at a gas station. My day is over. I failed. I might as well give it up for lost and start again tomorrow. I order take out, turn on Law and Order SVU, and pull up a blog that I've read through about 30 times. 

Where is grace in this day? Why do I not feel free to fail and try again? Why do I have to wait until tomorrow to start over? I honestly want God to fit in this neat little box on a healthily, happy, day between 6am and 7am. I feel like if I read my Bible and pray before I go to work, and then am productive throughout the rest of the day, then that's good enough.

Maybe the reason I keep failing at this ridiculous goal of "getting my life together" is because I refuse to let Jesus into the hum-drum, messy parts of my day. When things are going great, I pray. When things are falling apart, I pray. When I make bad decisions or slightly aggravating things happen to me, I ignore God until I can start again. 

This is just a theory, but I feel like if I let God into every part of my day, prayed before I gave up on going to the grocery store, prayed before I picked up that bottle of wine, prayed before I ordered take-out that I obviously didn't need, maybe I wouldn't need to skip the grocery story, get a bottle of wine, or order take out. My day falls apart and I go to an easy fix, an easy way to forget my problems. 

God needs to be in the messy parts of life. He doesn't fit into a quiet time or into a life that runs smoothly without Him. God loves me a lot more than I'm giving Him credit for, and I have a feeling I'm hurting Him as much as I'm hurting myself. 

A Prayer for Smoot

Before I start out this blog, I want to assure all of the Smoot-lovers out there that Smoot is perfectly healthy. There have been some recent events that have me thinking about what I want for the end when it comes to Smoot. These are my ramblings dealing with these ideas...

Yesterday, a neighbors dog died. I went to check up on her and she told me her horrid story. She came home and her sweet pup who normally snoozes on the couch or bed was by the back door. She was lying in a puddle of blood and urine, having seizure after seizure. No doubt she was trying to get outside to be obedient. She rushed her to the E.R. (animal version) and they told her that she was blind and it would cost thousands of dollars to keep her alive. This dog was 13 years old and my neighbor chose to euthanize her, which I applaud as a brave decision.

I'm saying all of this because this episode put a terrible fear in my heart. The idea of coming home to Smoot lying in a puddle of blood by the door, trying to be obedient to his last breath, breaks my heart. Smoot will be 8 in March. The average lifespans for English Bulldogs is eight years. While Smoot is healthy and happy, I can't deny that in all likelihood these are his twilight years. I'm praying to God that when I found out something is wrong, it will be in a vet's office. I pray that I will have the strength not to let him live blind, deaf, in pain, scared. I pray that I have the courage to give the ok to end his life. 

When it comes down to it, dogs don't have souls. Their suffering isn't "counted to them as righteousness." The only reason people have to keep terminal pets around is their own selfishness. I pray that I am not one of these people. I'm praying that I'll be able to say goodbye to Smoot in a vet's office, stroking him while he painlessly falls asleep. I'm praying that he never has to suffer. I'm praying that by some grace of God, I'll see him on the other side.