friend rock

Read Sufjan Stevens' article on Friend Rock. Please note that some Friend Rock is Good Rock!

the virus

This past week I have been sick with the virus that's been going around. After day three, I had settled into a little cycle of self-administered remedies to beat the thing:

1. take cold medicine (three times a day)
   
2. drink a full glass of water
3. take throat lozenge as if it were candy
4. blow nose into tissue
5. pity self
   
6. gargle with warm salt water (every 30 minutes)
7. use bathroom
8. boil water for tea (4-6 cups a day)
9. cough (with what feels like the black lung)
10. spray chloraseptic into throat (every 2 hours)
    
11. try to nap
12. repeat steps 1-11

Unfortunately these things kept me so busy that I had little time to rest. Please note if using these steps that number 5 did not really speed the getting-well process. I kept thinking I was feeling better, and going full-force at work or going to class left me exhausted and back in bed at step 1 again.

It is amazing how much I value my health when I am ragged and feeling its absence. This virus slowed me down, and took away my control and plans, which was good. I had to stop and re-examine everything from a different point of view. What am I furiously chasing with all this activity and energy? Do I really think that I can control my circumstances?

It also made me experience a small taste of physical suffering. The first few nights were sleepless and restless. The pain in my sore throat was not quenched with tea or water. It was an unquenchable burn, not quelled by any attainable factor, and a cough that did not lend any feeling of progress. In our society, we suffer so little, we've created a sense of entitlement to a "convenience-based" system for ourselves. This makes real feelings of physical suffering seem abnormal. What do I do when I cannot control this pain I am feeling? At the time, this sickness felt like it would never end (but I knew that it would, in a few days). What horrendous pain must be reserved for those who will experience pain and suffering eternally? My desire for joy and rest deepens through this thought. The intense disdain for this light and momentary suffering made me want to go as far from eternal suffering as possible. With this heart I am entering Holy Week and I am falling on the cross and resting in the One who gives peace and rest, who paid the price so that I could become the righteousness of God in Him...

This Lent He is showing me to live in Him and not for His blessings. His presence as my Father and my Redeemer and my Savior is more precious than all the benefits and blessings and inheritances that I will gain. Revelation 21:1-4 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Amen. Let life begin.

when it rains, it pours

Sometimes everything hits you at once. Today is that day.

What do you do when you realize that everything is about to change? When the things that you were just sliding by on are coming to light and you don't want to face the fall out? When each imminent variation of your pattern of life is connected to all the other areas, and one string being pulled could alter it all and throw you into upheaval?

A couple of months ago I got hooked on this book I was reading in Barnes & Noble called PostSecret. It's full of deep confessions and heartbreaking stories from people who gave up their deepest secret to a postcard sent to the publishers of this book. And there are all sorts of people who say that they wrote a letter or a card that they never mailed and they still have it and think of the person. Sometimes I think, how can those people live with themselves, knowing that they have that letter all the time, always wishing that they could mail it?! Why did they write it in the first place?

But now I know that there is a reason that they never mailed it. And I am wondering what they would say to do after one has mailed such a letter. How does one get that letter back?

climbing a mountain

This past weekend, the sun came out after several days of snow coming down sideways. I said goodbye to the many shoveling sessions (we gave up on the last day anyway), the measley 12 degrees, and midnight snowball fights.

I flew down the the southwest for a few days of thawing out. Just a few days ago my aunt led me in a hike up this mountain... it was absolutely beautiful. I have never hiked up among so much red rock and cactus and felt so relaxed. Just as I was starting to remember what it felt like to wear summer clothes, back I came.

I praise God for my aunt and uncle, for dear friends who love me and listen to me and share their passions and heart and advice with me, and for the excitement of seeing a new place and getting new perspective when in a rut. My dreams resurfaced and my hope was renewed. And as I slip on ice and shuffle through slush and snow again, I am reminded of an excerpt of an e-mail from some 6 years ago:

"'I think differently about a March snow storm than a December snow storm.' ...in March, the spring is coming, and you know that it is coming so you can endure what trials come. likewise, in our Christian life, our hope is sure, the spring is coming, and that is a source of great encouragement leading to endurance (hupomone)."