February, as seen in various ways

Water and sun, where I don't live, circa 7:00 am

I might not have mentioned, but I went to Florida recently.  It was sunny (mostly) and warm (actually).  When I came home it was a February record-breaking 66 degrees, but the weather has gotten decidedly more February-ish in the weeks since.  For instance, the above photo was taken at the beach in Florida, the below picture is a photo I snapped at work this morning.  Same time, two weeks, and about six states lay between the beach and the snow.

Honestly, I loved the beach.  It was delightful.  But the winter has its charms.  It's beautiful, for one.  It gives me a chance to wear all of my cute boots, for another.  And there's always that winter reminder that when it's done we get sunshine, and flowers, and birds, and a fresh perspective on life in general.  Winter serves a certain purpose, as far as I'm concerned.  So I won't complain.  It might not be sand between the toes or sun on my face (no, really, we don't get sun in the winter here), but it's a promise hidden beneath piles of frozen dihydrogen oxide, and an excuse to look at everything in ways I've never had the chance before.  I'll take it.

Snow, where I live, circa 7:00 am

Intersections, a sequel of sorts

A few weeks ago I wrote about a young woman I know with four children, for whom I pray, with whom I'd lost contact.  I got a single comment on the blog post, reminding me to pray, reminding me that it's worth it to pray.

I had been praying for this young woman, and thinking enough about her to merit a blog post, but that comment spurned me on to pray more specifically.  More specifically that I'd be able to get back in contact with this young woman.  More specifically that I'd be able to be a part of their lives again, that the Word of God could once again have entrance into their home, perhaps by way of the Sunday School paper, or a calendar.

This past Saturday, I was busy.  My grandma's doing poorly, I had a babysitting gig, things felt hectic, but I'd been away and decided it really was high time I visited around my Sunday School neighborhood.  I arrived to my usual houses and the first person I saw, out playing on the lawn, was her little six-year-old boy.  I got out of my car, at least 90% sure that I was seeing things, but he came running up to me.  "Miss Joanne, Miss Joanne!"  His older sister (but not the oldest, who was with her grandma) came up, a boundless ball of seven-year-old energy.  "We miss you!"

Many hugs ensued.  "I've missed you, too."

Here, right in front of me, was an answer to a prayer I'd been praying.  I had been praying, but honestly, until I saw their happy little faces, right in front of me, it didn't cross my mind that I really hadn't exhibited a lot of faith in my prayers.  Did I think I could get back in contact with them?  Yeah, I mean, I guess so.  Did I firmly believe it?  No.

Their mom was in one of the apartments, getting water.  When she came out I gave her a big hug.  I'd really, really missed her.  She had the baby with her--a beautiful little boy named Anton Jr.  He's perfect.  We didn't talk much, my friend and I, but I got her new number and she said I could stop by their new place sometime.  I played tag with the two little ones for a few minutes, by which time she'd packed up the baby in the car and was ready to go.

I stood in the parking lot, waving them away.  The wind was slightly biting, so as soon as they were gone I carried on, but you have to understand, my smile was brighter,  my steps were lighter.  The Lord showed me, in this small but incredible way, that of COURSE He's able.  The fact that she and I overlapped by probably only ten minutes, on a day where I had enough going on that my schedule was so unpredictable, is such a little picture to me of how the Lord orchestrates everything.

So if you're praying for something, for someone, keep at it.  If you're praying for a single mother of two who recently had a birthday, keep at it.  If you have a broken heart, keep praying for grace.  If you know someone who is still lost in their sins, keep praying for their salvation.  If you know someone who's in over their heads, keep praying for them to seek out the Lord in their depths.  If you know someone who daily is choosing to reject this world and choose Jesus, keep praying that they might continue to train their eyes on Him and Him alone.  If you know a broken family, pray for healing.  If you know of someone who has a big decision coming up, pray for wisdom.

The Lord our God is able.  He is mighty to save, and His grace is sufficient for all of our needs.  His mercies, which are new every morning, are available for us.  May we daily seek Him, may we daily make our requests made known until God.  He's got this.

Mornings, part 2

I have a lot of feelings about mornings.  Quite a lot.  I've written about my struggle to overcome the morning grumps, and this has actually been a point of great discussion between me and, well, pretty much everyone I've ever met.

A friend recently said to me, "It seems to me that you're exercised about not being grumpy in the mornings...  but you really don't get exercised about it until the afternoon."  Ouch.  Ouch and that's hilarious.  And also, I maintain that that's not true, in spite of the hilarity of it.

But really, for almost a year now, I've started work at 7:00 am.  More than anything else, it's forced me to get up and BE up in the mornings.  It was one thing back in the day to roll out of bed, wordlessly skulk to the gym, and come home an hour and half later having spoken to not a soul.  It's another thing to get up much too early and have to interact in a meaningful way with people, and to try to not be the one crying.  (It's a daycare.  At 7:00 am.  Someone is always crying.)

But, my distaste of mornings aside, here's a quote I found that I liked that I feel like has a particular significance for my daily morning struggle bus.

We are influenced by our personality, but we are not controlled by it.

Bros.  Brothers.  Brethren.  That's a good point.  It's a fact about me that I don't like mornings.  That's just part of my personality.  But so what?  That doesn't give me free license to breathe fire upon those that happen to be in the same sphere as me in the mornings.  It just means that, knowing this, I have to manage my state of constant drowse.  Maybe I go for a run first thing.  Maybe I drink coffee.  Or Mountain Dew.  Or basically anything with caffeine.  And mostly I just keep repeating the same things I trained myself to say years ago.

This is the day that the Lord hath made.  I will be glad and rejoice in it.

Lord, help me to have a good day.

Lord, help me to do everything today to the best of my abilities.

Everything

I recently heard a quote that I loved.  It goes like this, How I view God is how I view everything.

Actually, now I'm plagued with doubt about the exact wording.  Maybe it went more like, What I believe about God is what I believe about everything.

Either way.

I've tried to explain to multiple people why this quote is such a great one, with varying measures of success.  It's a little more abstract than your run-of-the-mill statement.  But all that aside, here's why I like it.

Because if God is Just, and Perfect, and Good, and Unchanging, and He is Constant (I started capitalizing all the words and now I just can't stop), then I am able to understand that literally nothing else in this entire world will ever measure up to God.  Nothing.

A friend recently was talking about how life wasn't fair.  She's been praying for the salvation of several close family members, praying that their lives would get straightened up, that healing would come, but nothing was happening.  Don't all things work together for good to them that love God?  She loved God.

That's tough.  A lot of what was going on in her life at the time was unfair.  There isn't another way to say it except to admit that she'd been dealt a raw deal, and things were not looking good.  And you know what?  That's okay to say that things were unfair, things were unjust, things weren't looking good.

It's okay because God is good inspite of the injustices of this life.  It's okay because God is faithful in spite of the failures of literally every single one of us.  It's okay because there has never been a promise made to any single one of us that life would be fair.  It won't be fair because it can't be.  Because when I understand that God Himself is the only perfect and true constant, I can stop expecting that life will be perfect.  Life can't be.  Life is messy and hard, but in all of that, there's God.  And when I view the Lord Himself as the only answer, then I can rely on Him each and every time that life lets me down.

And that's why what I believe about God is what I believe about everything.  Because my view of God's of God's infallibility/immutability/etc. means that nothing else will measure up.  And that's actually a really, really, really reassuring fact.

Intersections

I've known her for years.  I met her daughter first.  A beautiful little girl named India with huge hair and bright eyes.  "Can I come to Sunday School, too?"  I was out visiting and India had found me on my rounds.

"Sure!  I'll have to talk to your mom first, though."  So she brought me to her mom.  Mom welcomed me in and talked to me about the Sunday School.  She thought it was important if kids went to church, even if, like her, they one day realized they didn't need it any more.  "We don't just outgrow Jesus," I told her.  "No, no, of course not," she agreed, "I know God is important.  I just don't really think it's for me."

But her daughter came to Sunday School anyhow.  That wild hair and those bright eyes that were so intelligent.  When India's two little siblings--a girl and a boy--got a little older she'd bring them too, though she wasn't that excited about it.  "My mom said they have to come," she'd huff after taking forever to round herself and them up.

Not everything was smooth sailing in the home, of course.  "Me and their dad?  We never got married," mom told me, "there just wasn't a good time, and he's away now, of course."

Of course.  He'd stolen a car (call me jaded, but at this point in my life stealing a car is hardly the worst offense, as far as I'm concerned) and been locked up for a while.  The little boy hardly even knew his daddy, but that didn't stop him from talking about dad for weeks after their sporadic visits to the prison.  Father's day came and went, more than once, but at least they had a dad.  They were pretty stable, as far as families go.  "And we'll be getting married when he gets out," I would hear.

And then one day it happened.  I had gone to their house, just to see if the kids were coming to Sunday School the following morning.  "Miss Joanne?"  It wasn't surprising to hear a strange man know my name--this happens all the time, though "Miss Church Lady" is the common moniker.  "Yes, that's me!"  I brightly introduced myself to this strange man, only to have him introduce himself right back at me as the kids' dad.  "I've heard a lot about you, and I'm so glad you take my kids to church.  They really need it, you know?"

He'd heard about me from jail.  I think that was a scrapbookable first in my life.

I was happy to meet him, though.  I'd heard about him a lot, too.

He and she and the kids were so happy.  He was still on parole and couldn't live with them--the projects are not a place you're allowed to live right away, apparently.  They knew they'd have hiccups, of course, but they'd stayed together a long time and they'd be fine.  Their little family of five finally had a chance at a life together.

But they weren't.  They weren't really together, and they definitely weren't fine.  There were rifts that I didn't see for a while, but she confided in me one day that they weren't sure they could make it work.  "What if we can't do it?  I wanted my kids to have us both.  And he's out now.  They should have us both.  But we both changed so much when he was on the inside.  Neither of us realized how different things were going to be."

After that, it was really just a matter of time, a matter of all the pieces finally falling down.  His parole allowed him to move into a little place a little more towards the respectable side of town.  Sometimes they would all go to stay with him.  I'd go on a Saturday afternoon and she'd be alone in her little apartment.  "I'm sorry, Miss Joanne.  They're at they're dad's and I was going to go.  But we fought, so I came home.  I didn't want them to have to leave their dad's, though, so I let them stay over there.  I hate for the kids to know we're having troubles.  Try again next week."

She still had no use for God.  She put herself into this unraveling mess, she told me.  She'd take responsibility.  This didn't have to do with God.  This was just life.

"Maybe I shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place," she said, as if it might have fixed her issues.  "But we were going to get married!"

Time passed and things formally ended.  Now instead of working on the relationship, they worked on a schedule.

"You'll have the kids on weekends, and we'll do every other school holiday."  That sort of thing.

"We'll start seeing other people."  That sort of thing.

After all that time--and the beautiful, crazy-haired girl who'd wormed her way into my heart at age 6 was now a responsible young lady of 10--after all those years of promises to each other, things were changing.  All the commitment they had felt was easily dissolved, because all those promises had been inked only in words, so easily spoken, so conveniently put aside.

She spent a lot of weekends away, after that.  India and the two younger ones were at dad's, and she'd go to stay with her own mother, looking for stability and an understanding heart.  But then the time came when I noticed that she was around more, and I kept hearing from others in the neighborhood "Did you hear that she's together with Anton?"

I knew Anton, of course.  I know a lot of them.  Spend lazy Saturday afternoons anywhere and you become as much of a fixture as the next person, even if they mostly think your name is "Miss Church Lady."

Anton was solid.  He was kind.  All the neighborhood kids loved him, and he (respectfully and in a trustworthy manner, because it's 2016 and you have to specify) loved them back.  He was friendly and when the kids begged him to show off his standing backflip to me, he would.  I was impressed by him, because he had a job, because of his standing backflip, because he knew how to keep his language clean, because of his way with kids, because everyone thought highly of him.  We weren't friends, but we knew each other.

He's the one who told me.  "You knew I was with her, yeah?"

"Yeah,"

"We're having a baby, did you hear?"

No.  No, I hadn't heard.

She was in the process of moving.  A different life, a different place.  We'd talked about it before and she was trying hard to make things better for her little brood of three.  I'd see the kids, they'd come to Sunday School from time to time still (India was finally old enough to be in my class, but missed so many Sundays because of her dad's schedule that she never felt like she was fully a part of the goings-on, so her enthusiasm waned considerably), or I'd run into them at the park.  "Yeah, she's having a baby," they confirmed.

"I was so mad that I cried when she told me," the biggest-sister-to-be confided.  "I liked Anton, but not as my mom's boyfriend."

But still, I never talked to her.  I'd go to their place and ask to see her, but she'd be napping, or in the shower, or in the basement, or anywhere else but there at the front door.  The first time I met her I'd been invited in.  Not now, though.  Now she was like a ghost.

And finally they moved, and I had no forwarding address.

Then one day, by chance (except that I'm a Christian and I know it wasn't chance), I met them at the library.  The two younger (now middle-to-be) siblings came flying up to me, smothering me in hugs.  She was turned toward the counter and didn't angle her body towards me.  At all.  "Congratulations," I told her sincerely, understanding at once that after all this time she thought I didn't know.

"New life is always exciting, and wonderful!"  I went on to tell her that I knew she'd be such a great mom to this one, too.

"Oh, you've heard?"  She now turned fully towards me.  She was about seven months along, and there's no way I wouldn't have noticed, even if I hadn't been looking, even if she'd tried to use a counter and a stack of books to cover her belly.

"Of course!  Anton told me, and the kids have talked to me about it, too."

At that point she opened up a little bit.  "It's going to be a boy," she said.  "India--who's at her dad's today, I'm sure she'll be sorry she missed you--was so upset when she heard it was a boy.  She just thought I'd still be together with her dad, you know?  And if she had to have another sibling, she wanted a girl to make up for it."

She kept squirming, like she wanted to tell me something.  Something to make her feel better, or possibly make me feel better.  Finally, it came out.  "Maybe I shouldn't have gotten pregnant, Miss Joanne, but I really think it's going to work.  I can feel it.  Did I tell you?  It's not the right time for us now, but we're going to get married!"

One of my other Sunday School kids still goes to school with her daughter India.  I heard that she delivered a healthy baby boy at the end of October, though nobody has been able to tell me his name.  I don't tell this story for any reason--moral, social, spiritual, or otherwise.  I was just praying for her today, and her little brood of four.

Things I Learned, 2015 edition

This is my usual annual review.  The only thing I've managed to do consistently, I believe, the entire time I've had this blog.

My usual disclaimer is as follows: This is purposely vague, because I don't have time to include a year's worth of actual things I've learned.  Also, these are things that even if I knew before, were refreshed to me in such a way that I shall henceforth peg them to this past year.  And finally, this list is in no particular order, and the importance of the items are in no way discernible.  Disclaimer over.

1)  Adventures are where it's at.  I don't mean specifically you have to go on adventures, I just mean that I think it's important to be open enough to let life be a series of adventures.  Nothing turns out the way we expect it to, anyhow, so we might as well let go and enjoy all the things.

2)  Spiritual laziness is a thing.  This is pretty personal, but I'll put it out here: there were times in 2015 where I struggled to keep my Bibleing habits consistent.  It's not pretty, and ends up being painful when one finally comes to ones senses and buckles down, but it's the truth.

3)  Mornings never, ever get easy.  I've tried everything to make my mornings be a breeze (I lay everything out ahead of time, I set my alarm clock away from my bed so I have to get up and stay up, I drink much caffeine), but guys, mornings are the worst.  And when mornings suffer, so do the Bible times.  See #2

4)  Everything has to change eventually.  There were choices I made this year in terms of activities where people questioned my motives.  "Why didn't you go to that event?  Why did you go for a shorter amount of time?  What's going on?"  The answer?  I can't do everything.  I just can't.  It's okay to pick and choose and help people understand that not everything can stay the same.  That's life.

5)  Love endureth all things.  Sorry to be so cliche, but if there's anything that friendships have taught me, is that it takes a lot of grace and love to navigate people.  And, of course, for people to deal with me!

6)  People talk about what's important to them.  I consider myself to be a people person (by that I mean I'm not a plant or animal person, so I must be a people person), but sometimes it takes a great amount of focus to realize that when it all boils down to it, people end up saying what they'd like to be saying if they felt safe enough to say it.  Those things that people want to say?  They are saying.  You--which is to say I--need to listen up.  That was a pretty important one for me.

And that's that.

Waiting & Watching

The story goes that there was a dude with some kids.  He would be at work, as dudes often are, but when it came time for him to come home from work, his kids would always be excited.  They would be waiting for him to come home, mostly for supper-eating purposes, I imagine.  Anyhow, one of his children, his little daughter, would stand at the front window.  She wasn't just waiting for him, she was watching.

Cue the tears.  I've heard this man tell this story enough times that I can't cue the tears, but it's a nice story and I hope you've been emotionally touched in a way I haven't been in the past ten years or so.

But the story brings to mind (obviously, as is the point) that we are not just to wait for the Lord's return, but also we ought to watch for Him.  Any one of us could think of a number of verses that echo such a sentiment.

But I'd like to pose another story.  It's about a girl, about my age, who works at a day care.  And about how at that daycare there started a young child, 2ish years of age, who really loved his mom.  Which is a good thing for a child to do, but it's rough when kids have never been away from their mom, and then their tossed into a daycare setting.  So this young boy (we shall call him henceforth Jay), every single day he's at the daycare, spends from 7:30 in the morning till 12:30 in the afternoon waiting for his mom to come and get him.  After all, she will be coming, he knows this for a fact.  And indeed, at 12:30, she comes to fetch him.  He was right all along--mommy loves him enough to remember to come and get him after lunch.  Heartwarming, yes?

No.  Not in the slightest.  You see, Jay doesn't just wait for his mom, he watches for his mom.  Every day, from 7:30 till 12:30, he stands with his face pressed against the window, looking for that first glimpse of her car.

Even more heartwarming?  No.  Not in the slightest.  You see, from 7:30 am to 12:30 pm Jay doesn't just wait and watch for his mother.  He SCREAMS HIS HEAD OFF because he's terrified that she's forgotten about him.  He won't play, he won't color, he won't paint, and if it's ever warm enough to go outside to play he just presses himself up against the fence in lieu of the window and screams there while waiting for his mother.

WHAT KIND OF LIFE IS THAT.

Jay needs to cool his jets and realize that while he's waiting, he could be doing.  Really, he does.  And, frequently, between 7:30 and 12:30 I (being the featured girl in the story who works in sad earshot of this child) am reminded that you know what?  While I'm waiting for the Lord to return (which had better be soon, that's all I'm saying) I need to be doing as well.  Maybe it's just the Sunday School work, maybe it's reaching out to younger girls, maybe it's giving away copies of Get Lost (bless you, Dannah Gresh, for being the best), maybe it's just helping out around the house or with hobby class.  Whatever the case, let it never be said of me that I was waiting and watching for the Lord's coming at the expense of doing for His glory.