Remembering to be Thankful

When I was in college my grandmother suffered a stroke.  This first stroke was just one of many she suffered over the course of about three years until she finally died from one.  These strokes affected her in a progressively negative way.  The first one she had affected her ability to raise her right arm and also her speech.  She also fell and tore her rotator cuff in her left arm, rendering her virtually unable to use either of her arms.  As the strokes progressed in severity, her ability to take care of herself was also affected.  About a year after her first stroke, we decided to put her in an assisted living facility.  As she deteriorated, we moved her to an increasing level of care until finally, right at the end, she was in a fully assisted nursing home.

I remember my aunt coming up to visit my grandmother while she was still in a section of the facility that was for folks who were still fairly independent, but needed some extra help.  In this section of the facility she was served a couple of meals a day and got some help cleaning her apartment. 

During my aunt's visit, we ended up having lunch over at my grandmother's apartment.  After lunch, my aunt and I were washing dishes by hand and my aunt casually looked over at my grandmother and said, "Boy, I sure bet you don't miss washing dishes!"  Suddenly without warning, my grandmother burst into tears.  My aunt and I stood there shocked for a moment before we could register that my grandmother was crying over not being able to do the dishes.

I was pretty young when all of this was happening...maybe 20 or 21, but the memory of this day is etched with me.  You see, my grandmother wasn't sad because she liked doing dishes....she was sad because even if she had wanted to...she was physically incapable of helping.  It wasn't the dishes, it was what the dishes represented.  My grandmother was a feisty, strong and capable woman.  I don't know how she couldn't have been, growing up in the depression, raising a family of four and then in her later years nursing my invalid grandfather until his passing.  This woman, who'd served her family and others for her whole life was now almost completely dependent on other people. 

I had an epiphany at that moment....the epiphany was just how thankful and grateful I should be over the things I had...at any moment they could be taken away.  I resolved to try my best to complain less about the things in life that were really not worth my time or energy to complain about.

I was reminded of this truth again this past week.  I just got done reading a book called "90 Minutes in Heaven."  This book is about a man who died in a car accident.  He was so dead that the paramedics who arrived did not even bother doing CPR on him.  His dead body sat in his car for 90 minutes until a man happened to come along and asked to pray for him.  After being declared dead for 90 minutes, this man, named Don Piper, came back to life.  Of course an accident as traumatic as he was in had a lasting impact on him physically.  Much of the book is about his road to recovery after this accident.  He lives in almost constant pain, he has no use of one of his arms, his leg is missing a whole piece of bone and is shorter than his other leg, twisting his body and causing arthritis among many other physical ailments.

In one chapter of this book, Don describes the emotional trauma of realizing he is unable to throw a football with his boys again, and cannot take the youth group skiing like he used to.  I was struck anew with all that I take for granted in life.  I am relatively healthy.  All my arms, legs, fingers and toes work exactly the way they were designed to.  My brain is fully functional, I can communicate with others and take care of myself. 

I am resolved yet again to be grateful and thankful for what I have....even when it means I am mowing the lawn for the second time in a week, or doing laundry yet again, or any of the things in life that seem to be my least favorite things to do.  I am going to remember to be thankful I have the ability to do them. 

Blessings,
Erin

Smart Cookie

I'm a pretty smart cookie.  I mean this with as much humility as I can muster.  I have two bachelor's degrees, one of which is a BS in biology.  I am an incessant learner and thinker.  One of the ways the Lord created me is with wisdom and "brilliance."  However, in the words of Voltaire: with great power comes great responsibility. Everything good about how we are created has a flip side.  Taken too far or twisted in the wrong way, our strengths can also be our biggest stumbling blocks. 

One of the ways this works with me is that because I am right about most things much of the time, I have a tendancy to think I am right about all things all of the time.  In other words, I can come across as condescending or patronizing or even an outright know-it-all.  My pride rears its ugly head because I love sharing all of my knowledge and wisdom with others.  This is one of the reasons I am a great teacher, but it can also be hurtful to other people.  Not just because I have corrected them, pointed out that they are wrong, or in the tone of my voice but also because there is a real part of my heart that just likes being right.

This week has turned out to be a series of me having to apologize and say I am sorry.  First at work when I was told I had been condescending to a little boy who reached for something I was holding without asking, then to a friend who was offended at a facebook status I posted after a conversation with her, and then to another friend who roots for a different baseball team than I do after a comment he made about the Mariners.  Sigh. 

And, I will tell you...nothing shows you just how much pride you have when you have to swallow it and admit you're wrong and apologize.  Thus, I march on, swallowing my pride and learning how to live in the fullness of being me but in all humility considering others better than myself (Phil 2:3).   This is a lesson I have needed to learn this week. 

Blessings,
Erin

Not Defined by My Past

I have have a friend who likes to talk about her past by using phrase such as: "When I used to do ____ (fill in negative term)." Or, "When _______ (fill in past event described in horrific terms) happened to me." In perusing my own blog posts, I have come to realized that I also talk at times about things in my past this way.  I am sure a lot of us do this.  It is probably a natural tendancy when we have memories of something negative to describe it in negative terms.  The difference is that my friend talks about these things all the time.  And, she cannot use any other description for these things except in boarderline hostile words.  She is, in essence, defined by her past.

I am finding, however, that whenever I use negativity to describe things from my past, it brings up negative emotions within me.  This gives my past a measure of power over me.  If I allow things from my past to continue to affect me negatively, then I am still in some ways defined and controled by those things.  It makes me a victim.

I am not a victim.  My friend who continues to describe her past in negative terms is not a victim either, if she choses not to be so.  She has a decision to make.  Is she going to let these things define her today and control her today? Or, is she going to move on from her past?

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about negative things that we've been involved with or bad things that have happened to us.  In fact I think it is good to talk about those things and understand how those events have affected us. What I am talking about is the power we give those things when we allow them to define us. 

Blessings,
Erin

Hope

President Obama wrote a book about three years ago called "The Audacity of Hope."  I have not read this book, but the title intrigues me a lot.  Specifically, why is hope audacious?

A week or so ago I was sitting in our church's prayer room when I felt in my spirit the Lord stirring me to hope again.  If you've been following my blog for any length of time, you  know that since about September, life has been overflowing with peace and calm.  There are so many lessons I have learned in the last seven months.  One thing that seems to have eluded me, however, is the desire to hope again.  It isn't that I have been in a full-on hopeless state, but it has felt like I have come to accept the mundane and perpetually mediocre as normal for me.

When I felt this stirring in my guts to hope again, it came as a bit of a shock: how had I gotten to a place where hope was NOT normal?  In light of this, I realized that while I had moved past the idea that the Lord had nothing but pain and turmoil for me, I had NOT moved on to fully expecting abundant life, though that is my inheritance.  As a daughter of the King of Kings, I should live hoping for and expecting abundance.  I don't mean this in the prosperity gospel, materialistic kind of way.  I mean abundance of life on the inside, in my heart, in the fruit of the spirit, and yes, even sometimes in my circumstances too.

I wrote in my journal on that night a long entry about hope....that this year would be a year of jubilee, that this would be a year of blessing, of joy, of outrageous outpouring of amazingly wonderful LIFE.  I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, because I feel like I have the power to make changes in my life at any time, and so I have decided to hope extravagantly yet again.

This brings me back to my first paragraph about the "audacity of hope."  Barack Obama describes hope as audacious.  The definition of this word is: fearlessly, recklessly bold, daring, disregard of normal restraint."  I find it fascinating that the president of our country would describe hope as audacious. 

The reality is that hope should be NORMAL.....not fearless, not reckless, not restrained, but NORMAL. I mean, I've got the God of the universe on my side, working on my behalf.  I know how my story ends.  I know that all things work together for my good.  I know too much to live a life of not expecting the worst, but also not expecting the best.

This is what the Lord is asking of me: to make hope normal again.

Blessings,
Erin

Community

A number of months ago Steve Fry, pastor of The Gate and president of Messenger Fellowship spoke at our young adult gathering.  He spoke on the Trinity and really shifted some of my paradigms about how the Trinity functions. Specifically I was intrigued by a new thought: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit live in community and fellowship with one another, each equally important, and in interdependence with one another and in mutual submission to one other.  (I am paraphrasing an hour-long message into a short sentence, so suffice to say that there was a lot more depth and detail, which I won't get into now.) He spoke about how this model of community really shapes how we see each and interact with one another. 


This community existed before time, and we are drawn into this relationship because we are invited to be a part of this same relationship.  Not that the Lord needs us in the same way He needs the other members of the Trinity, but we are adopted and grafted into His family and He does chose to use us to accomplish all He wants accomplished.  I find this concept intriguing.


I think most people are longing for community.  We are designed in the image of God, we are bearers of His likeness in spirit.  If He longs for relationship, it makes sense that we would be too.  One of the very definitions of the word community is: "A group of interdependent organisms of different species growing or living together in a specified habitat."  I love that this definition is applicable to so many different scenarios.  It can apply to a group of people simply living in the same town, it can apply to a group of people growing in knowledge of something (like a class in college) or growing in a common interest (like a group of people who all play softball) and it can apply to a group of people who happen to work together.

I have found that there can be a lot of power in community.  I believe that there is a direct correlation to the amount of investment each individual is willing to give and how interdependent each person really is, to the amount of power within that community.  If there are members of a community that feel superior to the others, the power breaks down.  If there are members who are holding back and not fully investing in community, the power breaks down too.

This is why people respond so positively to people who are willing to invest in other's lives in every way.  You want to speak into my life on an issue?? Great! But the authority to do so will be increased if you also celebrate with me or cry with me or just be silly with me too.  We are so much more than our sanctification needs. This is why kindness leads to repentance....not frustration, or a desire to fix, or to make people a project.

This is also why people don't respond to superiority.  You want me to come to your Bible study?  Wonderful!  I love coming to Bible studies where there is an atmosphere of interdependence and sharing.  How do I know when this is in place?  When anyone, regardless of marital status, ministry status, or age could be up in front sharing.  Or, even better, when the person sharing is sharing out of their own brokenness and realness...this is when real transformational power occurs. 

No community outside of the trinity is perfect, but I am praying for full investment and true interdependence in the communities I am already a part of, including myself.

Blessings,

Erin

I Bless the Rain Down in Africa....

I want to go to Africa.  I actually have been dreaming of this continent since I was a little girl.

You see, I grew up going to a Christian and Missionary Alliance church.  While our church's focus was unreached people in Southeast Asia, for some reason I always had Africa in my head.  I remember in high school a friend went on a mission with Youth With a Mission to an island somewhere in South America.  In that moment I knew I had a call to the nations, but because I was so scared about what it meant, I denied it for years.  I would think about what it would mean to be a missionary and inevitably my  mind would turn toward Africa. I just thought about the worst case scenario, and to me that meant a place that was most unlike the place I live....and I don't think you can get much further from Western Washington than Africa.

Fast forward a number of years and a restored Erin starts to emerge.  I actually start to embrace my love for the nations and I am excited about the what it means to GO....and I do "go" a little.  Africa is still hovering on the edges of my mind.  This is fueled by a blog I read about a 20-something woman in Africa who adopts orphaned and sick babies in Africa.  You can see her blog to the left of my blog titled "The Journey."

The good news is that this dream is looking more and more like a reality.  The bad news is that a lot of stuff has to fall into place to make it happen.

Here are the details:
The powers that be with the governing body that runs the zoo finally realized that they were losing people in my job classification right and left. To give a little background, my position classification had been listed as "part time temporary" which meant that I did not have benefits and sick leave and that I could be let go at a moment's notice.  Others in my similar classification would get hired and leave once a better paying or benefited job came along.  In the two+ years I have worked at the zoo I have seen this happen with three people.  This is a pretty high turnover rate for a job that really takes a decent amount of time to figure out.  So....this winter it was decided that we would officially be reclassified as "career" employees and be given benefits and a raise.  So, as of April 1, I now have benefits and sick leave leave.

This is not the end of the good news.  While I am not a "full time" employee, I am a 0.9 employee.  This is where I have a choice: I can chose to either work 36 hours per week (which is actually four more than I was working) or I can work 40 hours per week and take five weeks of unpaid leave throughout the year. 

Since I have to take time off, my plan is to take the five weeks all at the same time in the fall, which is my least busy time of the year.  Since I can do this all at the same time, this will enable me to GO somewhere.  Specifically, somewhere in Africa.

I'm looking into orphanages, AIDS houses, a hospital, halfway house for women getting out of prostitution/sex trafficking or something like that.  I am exploring my options right now.  I have lots of contacts within the continent of Africa, specifically in Malawi, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. 


The hard part of this is going to be raising money to go.  I won't be getting a paycheck for those five weeks, but I'll still have bills at home to pay.  Additionally, I'll have expenses in Africa to attend to such as flight and maybe even transportation and housing costs while I am there.

However, the thought of going makes me really excited.  Just the possibility encourages me in a way I haven't been in a long time, even more than the trip to Turkey last year.

So, stay tuned for updates on all of this!  We'll see how it goes!
Blessings,
Erin

Jane Eyre and other Romantic notions

I have been accused before of spending too much time thinking/blogging about my singleness, and I realize that lots of my posts are about this particular subject.  As a result I have been thinking about this post for a long time before finally deciding to post about.   If I was a mom and I posted about mom stuff a lot, no one would blink an eye.  If I was a police officer and I posted about crime a lot no one would blink an eye...This is where I am at in life right now, it's what is on my mind, so I am going to quit feeling like I need to apologize for blogging about what is happening in my world.

I made a mistake this weekend.  The mistake was thinking I could see a romantic movie and not have it stir up within me longings I do a really good job of suppressing most of the time. 

The movie was Jane Eyre, which I think is a widely enough read book and movie that I don't think I'll spoil any of the plot by talking about the movie.  The movie, set in the 1840s, is about a girl who goes to be a governess in a house after growing up under some pretty horrible circumstances.  Jane is a character I can relate to a lot.  She is described as "plain, and a thinking and passionate young woman who is both individualistic, desiring for a full life, while also highly moral."  She moves into the home of wealthy Mr. Rochester to teach his ward.  Rochester and Jane fall in love, as he is smitten with her straightforwardness, her lack of simpering towards him and her ability to stand her ground in conversations with him.  In short, he falls in love with her intellect and character. 

Now, Rochester is a capricious character, at best.  He fights his feelings for Jane by openly courting another woman in front of her, and he baits her into arguments.  However, the thing that strikes me most about this character, and the thing that makes this movie linger with me several days after seeing it is this: he is relentless in his pursuit of her in spite of convention.  He falls in love with her as his intellectual equal and does not seem to care about her plainness, lack of wealth or status.

I think in the heart of every women is an intense longing to be pursued.  I know that this is true of me.  The scenes that run through my head and pierce my heart are the ones in which Rochester cannot seem to help himself and runs after Jane, or the things he says to her, "You transfix me, quite."  There is a decided ache in my soul to be pursued in this way. 

I had a conversation with a good friend about a gentleman she had been seeing who was not pursuing her.  In fact, he was decidedly passive towards her in this area and she had decided to end things with him.  In this conversation she told me about a male friend of hers who had said that a "spirit of pursuit comes upon a man when he finds the one he is going to marry."  I feel as though I have observed this in many men around me who are now married....they saw and they pursued.

But, I'll be honest.  I struggle with knowing how much "being out there" is my responsibility too.  I wrestle with questions about what it looks like to put myself out there or how much I am supposed to initiate.  I certainly don't feel like I am a hermit, but I also know that I generally wait for guys to start conversations with me. 

I read a book called Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye (and as a side-note, I HIGHLY recommend this book for older, single, Christian women.  Other than some interpretations of "singleness being a gift," it is a book I would have written on this subject if I was able!), and in it she has a quote: "Therefore, if you are in a room full of people and your eyeballs land on some guy who you think is awfully cute, you just need to keep that comment to yourself and keep right on stepping if he doesn't approach you.  Why? Because if he doesn't approach you, he wasn't moved enough by what he saw when he looked at you.  "Well, maybe he didn't notice me," you say.  Well, if he didn't notice you, all the more reason to leave him right where you found him!  If you have to make him notice you, you are starting off on the wrong foot already."

I get what the author is saying, and I have even myself written about how I feel like when a new guy comes around we single women can act like vultures hovering over some fresh road kill, but I still struggle with knowing how much of my longing to be pursued is wrapped up in some romantic notion a la Jane Eyre, how much of it is the Lord's heart for me, and what exactly my role is in the whole thing.  Clearly being some princess sitting on her tuffet waiting around for a knight in shining armor on a white horse to ride up and sweep her away, which so many movies and books portray, is not truth.  I also don't want to be some bra-burning "Sex and the City" have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too gal.  I am finding that there is a LOT of gray area to navigate in between these extremes, and I am finding it really hard to land on truth somewhere in there.

If only there were some "Dating for Dummies" book out there.  Maybe I should write one some day.
Blessings,
Erin

Known for...

My prayer is that it would be said of me after I have died, no matter what I accomplish in this life or no matter what circumstances I have faced, that I leave this world more passionately in love with Jesus than the day before I depart.  I would rather be remembered for that than for anything I accomplish or for anything I have overcome.

Forgiveness

Because I am not Jesus, forgiveness is more like a journey than a destination for me.  I know I am getting close to the end of the journey when I can see someone whom I feel has wronged me and genuinely greet them with joy or rejoice in their good news.  After the pain of these last few years and all of the friendships I have lost, I am finally arriving at this place.  I am so grateful for all of the teaching I have had on this, over the years.  I could easily become a bitter and hard woman if not for the power of forgiveness. 

Injustices and evil happen every day, sometimes even to me.  I chose to forgive not because it absolves the person of what they've done, or sets them free but because it sets *me* free.  In the same way I am the main one affected by unforgiveness and bitterness, I am the main one affected by my decision to forgive.

Blessings,
Erin

Do I Have Something on my Face?

Do you ever wonder how people see you?  I mean, not in a morbidly introspective kind of way, but really wonder if how people perceive  you matches with how you perceive yourself. 

When I was  growing up, I went to elementary school with a girl who was sort of socially awkward.  I mean, she just didn't "fit in" and what seemed to make it worse was that she was seemingly oblivious to this fact.  It seems to be a trend with socially awkward folks...they are almost always the last to know.  She was kind of always the fifth wheel and because my school was so small (a total of 10 girls in my whole grade) options for friendship were pretty limited.  To top it off, when someone had a party it was pretty easy to know who did or did not get invited.  Every once in a while one of the girls would have a party and invite everyone....even "awkward girl." 

Ever since then I have always been keenly aware of NOT wanting to be the pity invite or the awkward girl in a group....but sometimes I wonder if I am.  I sometimes get this irrational fear that I am saying or doing something that is actually weird and strange.  I wonder if I have some sort of booger on my face that no one is telling me about. 

In my mind I have this idea about who I am, what I am gifted at, and the plans the Lord has for me....but when I am treated a certain way, or NOT treated a certain way....I sometimes wonder if I'm really the "socially awkward girl"...you know, the one who doesn't even realize that she's not actually who she perceives she is.

I hear a lot that I am real, and genuine, and nice and sweet and warm and caring. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE those things about me, and I see do them too.  But, there are other aspects of me that I wonder if I am the only one who sees them.  I wonder if they just aren't as great and if I'm not as gifted as I think I am.

I'm hoping I don't have a proverbial piece of spinach between my teeth.
Blessings,
Erin