if You are willing

hullo, muffin.

I tasted Spring today. it was fresh & lively & tried to knock me off my feet, but I was too quick for it. I dashed between classes & grinned like an idiot when the wind tossed my scarf into my face. 

confession: my commute this morning was slightly south of legal. I accidentally left my wallet + drivers license in the car my sister drove away in, & therefore drove sans license. incognito-like. no joke, I passed more police cars than you can shake a stick at. (don't try. they don't like it.) probably looked like a guilty juvenile delinquent as I passed each one. thankfully, they did not pull me over for looking suspicious... & I must admit, it had been a while since I stuck quite that closely to the speed limit.

lecture today was about death. pediatric death. 4-year-olds with cancer, 2-year-olds with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. we moved from there into child abuse. let's just say that walking out into the blinding sunlight after class was comforting... & I'm once again reminded of how much I have to be thankful for. how very many things (read: people) I'm attached to, & precisely how little control I have over their presence in my life. hold on loosely, but soak up every moment we're blessed to share with each other. perhaps down the road we'll find ourselves looking back at today.

[why yes. oncology lectures tend to leave me feeling melancholy.]

on a side note, Thomas Edison hit me squarely in the face today. oh yes. dead people have a way of doing that. I was in the middle of telling myself how very bad it is indeed that I must be stuck studying on such a beautiful day. and then up popped ol' Thomas, saying--

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls & looks like work." ::Thomas Edison

so yeah. been chewing on that one all day.

 

it's neat how words hold a thought in place until you can absorb it. they give you time to mull a thing over, breaking apart & putting together until something clicks. these days, I've found myself becoming increasingly fond of matthew 8:2:

“Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.”

read it again.

if You are willing.

the leper didn't say, "give me what I want!!" and then squeeze his eyes shut and believe God would do it.

If You are willing. 

the leper believed that God can. he believed that, if He was willing, He would do it. I lose grasp of this so easily. my request is not the ultimate goal-- it is the means by which my simple mind learns trust. if You are willing, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will be done. and if You are not... then I'll know it wasn't the best way. after all, perhaps my leprosy is the best thing.

simple thoughts for a simple day. but sometimes I just need to be reminded of this.

so perhaps I'll put my mile-long list of requests on hold for the moment & focus on what I've already been given. the 4-year-olds I know who do not have cancer, & the beautiful days I can enjoy even from a window.

with that said, I'm off to read more about pediatric death.

go hug the closest kid for me, okay?

love always,

rory

sunshine in february

oh hey rory,

this eighteenth of February was a sparkling sort of day. it was sunny. it was warm-ish. my belly was quieted with the yummy contributions of pizza and rice-krispy squares and lattes and popcorn and grilled potatoes. the baby sister completed two laps in Mario Kart all by herself, I got to see my friends, dad helped me come up with the plot for a new story, and strawberry icecream is now waiting for me in the freezer.

at the moment, the dog is sleeping near my feet, hymns are vibrating off my eardrums via Pandora, mismatched fuzzy socks are warming my toes, and I am sitting on the couch with my hair piled into a knot on top of my head feeling the necessity to organize my thoughts into words.

today had the feeling of summer about it.

there was a giddiness in the air that made me want to skip around the block singing a song at the top of my lungs…

just kidding. that would be weird.

but you know what I mean. today was happy. it was like having July in February.

when I woke up this morning and suggested that after going to Starbucks we play Mario Kart and go see a movie at the dollar theater, lauren looked at me strangely and asked what was up.

(as if I’m not usually more fun than a barrel of monkeys… pft.)

well… I guess I *have* been sort of out of it lately. you see, two weeks ago, I had something strange happen to me. I lost most of my vision in my left eye, lost feeling in my right arm, and was so weak I could barely stand. I couldn’t remember most of what had happened that day or what I had said or done. and I was tired. oh so tired. mom was really worried about me and offered to take me to the hospital, but I said I would rather just go to bed.

I laid in bed for awhile thinking that maybe I was going to die. maybe this was the end. maybe eighteen trips around the sun was all the time I had been allotted in this life. and the weirdest part of it all was that I didn’t care. eighteen years seemed long enough. in fact, living for eighteen years had been exhausting. draining really. I was ready to close my eyes and sleep forever.

instead, I slept basically from Sunday night until Tuesday morning.

and since then, I have still been tired and weak and my mind has felt foggy, but my heart is beating and my brain is functioning and I’m ready for more adventures in life. I’m ready to travel many more miles with this planet I live on.

today was the first day I woke up and really felt like my mind was a bit clearer. I think the sun helped. the brightness made wanted to curl up in front of the window and lay still enough to feel my skin absorb the light. and I think I would have done that, but for the fact that my mind, which had been mostly idle for two weeks, was ready to do something besides math.

it’s funny how being sick can give you a new appreciation of life. how the seemingly small things suddenly feel so significant. how every memory begins to glow.

I had a lot of time to think these past two weeks. I went through a lot of my past and realized how much I have to be grateful for… from the big things: family, friends, church, home, food, clothes, etc… to the small things: every drop of rain, every pink-clouded sunset, every smiling face, every loving glance, every warm touch, every kind word, etc.

I realized how my existence has mostly been written with happy sounding chapter titles. sure, my life hasn’t been perfect. like any story, there have been sad parts. there have been parts that I wish I could’ve skipped over or seen coming. and I know that there will be chapters in the future that may not be easy reading. they may be tedious or boring or depressing or scary.

I know there will come a time when this chapter I’m living in will end. when the days of waking up to having my whole family under one roof will be over. I might not see the corner of my dad’s mouth tilt up in an ornery smile as he walks through the door with some surprise for all of us. I might not smell my mom’s perfume as I bury my head in her shoulder and spill out my heart. I might not get to stay up chatting for hours with my middle sister. I might not get to feel the three-year-old's head on my chest as she settles into a deep sleep.

someday, church fellowship meal might not mean the same thing it does now. it might not mean having the people I love most all sitting within a close proximity, laughing at pointless jokes and sarcasm, having one of the boys pick up a Frisbee and call everyone out to play. it might not mean all of us running through the green grass of the huge soccer field barefoot, feeling like nothing in the world could stop us from having a grand time. it might not mean cameras and shining eyes and ready smiles and funny stories and bright hopes.

but despite all of this, despite past memories both good and bad, despite future events both good and bad, one thing I do know is this: God is reigning. He is Sovereign. He is in control. He has a plan for my life and for the lives of those around me.

God is always right there. in every shining moment. in every dark time.

and I know that the sun is always shining. in every clear, blue sky. behind every dark, intimidating cloud.

am I happy to be alive? why yes. yes, I am.

love,
muffin

savoring the snow

dearest rory,

hi.

what's up?

if you say 'not much', then I think you are mistaken. just take a walk outside and look up at the dark clouds overhead. a trillion white frozen water droplets floating down from the sky will land on your nose and prove you wrong.

lots is up. and lots is falling down.

snow is wonderful, isn't it?

I first remember seeing snow back when I was four. we lived in Hanover Park at the time. in a duplex that we shared with a man named Larry who was almost seven feet tall and never wore a shirt. the garbage hill was just across the street. so was our neighbor who owned an iguana. but that's besides the point.

that winter we had a huge snowstorm. my sidewalk transformed itself into a tunnel and I still remember the feeling of walking through it, dragging my sled behind me as I hurried towards the garbage hill. yeah... the garbage hill doubled as a sledding paradise.

I don't remember much else about that sledding trip or winter, but I remember loving the snow.

doing school was difficult yesterday. not because the work was hard, but because there was a swirling world of whiteness blowing past my window. several times I realized that I had let my eyes drift from my math book to our front pine tree, watching the snowflakes build up on the evergreen branches. I guess the accumulating snowflakes were more interesting than the compound interest rates failing to accumulate on my notebook paper.

I was thinking about how cool it is that such small things like snowflakes can change the world. they make the winter grass go from brown to bright white. they cover even the dirtiest spots and make them clean.

snow always reminds me of Christ.

Jesus is holy. He is pleasing in the sight of God. when He came to earth and was killed, He took our sins upon Himself, upon the cross, and redeemed us, His children. and He didn't stay dead, but He defeated death and gave us the hope of eternal life. He wiped our accounts clean so that when we stand before God, He doesn't see our filth- He sees Christ's blood- He sees perfection.

one Man's sacrifice changed the world. one Man's sacrifice is slowly coloring our grungy world white.

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe. sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

yesterday I was confined to watching and dreaming about that beautiful world from a window, but today my friends and I went on an adventure and rearranged several million of those snowflakes.

all of us arrayed ourselves in warm sweatshirts, colorful hats, flowing scarves, and poofy snowpants, climbed to the top of a hill, and plowed new courses in the snow as we screamed and laughed and tumbled through it. our sleds carved paths as we sailed down the hill, sending snow in every direction- including backwards into our pink faces.

someone had the bright idea to build human ramps that would launch our sleds into the sky and hopefully set us gently on the ground again. the guys lined up and braced themselves while a sled packed with girls raced towards them. sounds smart, right?

let's just say the ramp failed.

oh we sailed through the air, all right. but we were no longer on our sleds. those were imbedded into the sides of the guys. and I wouldn't really say we had a smooth landing- but we did have a lot of laughs as we rolled through fluffy whiteness.

in the end, our noses got a little chilled, our knees got a little wet, and our hair got a little attacked by our hats. but we had a blast.

and afterwards we went to Wendy's where my cheesy potato and medium coke commited suicide by jumping off the tray and exploding on the floor.

it was humiliating. but I was grateful for friends who could laugh with me.

I'm glad for the snow. for the memories I have surrounding it. for the way it reminds me of Christ's love for us. for the friends I have to play with in it.

what's your favorite snow memory?

your friend,

muffin

life, death, & microwave popcorn

dear muffin,

I admit; the title is a little dramatic. humor me. :)

lately I've been musing. [which can look remarkably similar to day-dreaming. ahem.] there's nothing like a lengthy to-do list for bringing it on: that pensive mood in which one sits at one's desk, stares at one's wall, & considers the meaning of one's life. 

actually, I'm not sure it's fair to blame the to-do list. I tend to feel this way at the beginning of a every new year. 

December is too hurried for musing. from the time it starts with a tentative shopping trip, to its careening, late-night end on New Year's Eve, December feels like one long party: a blur of snowy sparkles & Christmas lights & curling steam from piping-hot mugs. piles of shoes in the doorway & lighted candles & enough food to feed several small armies. if there is time for a thought, it's only a brief moment of overflowing wonder at God's goodness. or else an incoherent bursting of happiness in general.

but December 31st has a tendency to be followed by January 1st. [funny how that happens.] the party spins to an abrupt end & leaves us reeling in its wake. the Christmas tree comes down & festive decorations go into hibernation. everyone puts their Christmas cheer into a cardboard box in the attic, and, without a second thought, life is back to normal.

I can still see the Christmas lights in my rearview mirror. a carol is ringing in my ears, & there are a few leftover cookies on the counter. but suddenly I'm looking down the runway of an entirely new year. what just happened...?

whatever it was, it's over now. with heads full of memories & hearts full of warmth, it's time to go back to normal. we restart the mill of everyday life & enter the cycle all over again.

thanks, but I'd rather not. in fact, I'd prefer to stay in my pajamas, make popcorn, & watch December 2011 on repeat. keep the glow alive. 

Who invented January, anyway? a long, dreary month painted in shades of grey... it's something of a letdown after December's vibrant color. see that puddle of melted salted slush? let's sit there awhile. I'll write a monologue on the cruel passage of time & you can sing a lament for glory days past. 

but that's the pessimistic outlook. put on your perspective glasses & you'll see things differently. here we are, blinking in the winter sunlight. our lungs breathe sharp air; around us, as far as we can see, blessings line up for us to count. air with oxygen, lungs for breathing it; love, joy, & hearts for holding it. friends & family to share the road. the page has been turned by the strong Hand that wrote our stories long before we arrived to live them; here is a gift. a new year. a year of beginnings & continuings & perhaps even some endings. grab a blank to-do list, pull that cute new Christmas hat over your ears, & burst out into the fresh snow. make tracks; leave snow angels; outside, there's a whole new year waiting to be traveled. make plans & start afresh, never letting proverbs 16:9 slip from your gaze.

surely this is how Lewis & Clark felt the day they set out to cross this side of the world.

so: away, dreariness! we're looking at a blank canvas; let's not start with a haphazard streak of watercolor. break out the acrylics & ask a five-year-old how to fingerpaint.

I'm not one for new year's resolutions [any more than other-day resolutions, anyway], but if I had to choose one, it would be this:

use well the days.

happiest of new years to you, friend. 

always,

rory