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Shattered

April 8, 2011 in Reflections with 0 Comments

 

I had a dream last night. Then my son started crying and woke me up in the middle of it. I’m actually glad he did because otherwise I might not have remembered my dream or had the thoughts I had. The dream wasn’t so important really, but it did remind me of a hard season in life from a few years ago. I crawled back in bed after tending to my son thinking about that hard time; a time when I was already feeling raw and then harsh words were said to me. I slipped back into sleep thinking about that. The last thought I remember having before I fell back asleep was, “But didn’t you know I was fragile?” I imagined myself as a pane of glass teetering on the edge of a cliff. The words spoken during that time in my life pushed me over that cliff and I was shattered on the ground below.

It’s funny how we learn to chant “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” at such a young age. Such a lie. It is words that can do so much damage to a person. It is harsh words that stick to me like burrs; so hard to untangle from myself, from my thoughts and to forget.

This past week has been a hard emotional week for me. Another incident of harsh words that came out of no where from a friend smacked into me and again I felt shattered. There have been lots of tears. Lots of questions for me as to where this came from and where do I go from here.

Last night I fell back asleep with the image of shattered glass in my head. And then I thought about tempered glass. So this morning I looked it up. This is from Wikipidia: Tempered glass is glass that has been processed by controlled thermal or chemical treatments to increase its strength compared with normal glass. Tempered glass is made by processes which create balanced internal stresses which give the glass strength. It will usually shatter into small fragments instead of sharp shards when broken, making it less likely to cause severe injury and deep lacerations.

I’ve been mulling this over all day. Thinking about how I’ve been feeling shattered this week.

Often when I look at myself in the mirror I can see myself as broken; shattered. I can see the hurt that caused the breaks, the wounds, the imperfections. I see a mess a lot of the times. I just see the broken glass shattered on the floor.

But I’ve been sealed with the Holy Spirit. I’m not just a regular pane of glass. I am like a piece of tempered glass. There is no guarantee in life that the breaks won’t come. And oh how they do come sometimes. Today my epiphany is that sure I am broken; shattered; imperfect. And when God looks at me through the righteousness of Christ, He sees a piece of glass broken sure, but held together by Him. And all those breaks, all those imperfections. All these fragments of my life that make up my life. All of these are used by Him to reflect Him.

I might be a broken, shattered mess, but it is sort of a beautiful mess when I look at it how Christ sees it.

2 Corinthians 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ephesians 1:11-14
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whistle Trained

March 30, 2011 in Reflections with 0 Comments

Here is something you might not know about me. I am whistle trained. And it’s not just me. My sister, brother, mother and I have all been whistle trained by my dad. There is this certain whistle he does and when he does we all look, we all stop, we all turn. We all look for him.

His whistle is as familiar to me as he is. He’s done it my entire life. He does it for our safety, our protection. If we were out walking and we got ahead of him on the path and he wanted us to stop and go back to him; he would whistle. If we were at a store and we couldn’t see him or he couldn’t see us; he’d whistle and we’d find him. If we were in the house and he needed us to come help him; he’d whistle. If in all the noise of life we couldn’t hear him calling our names; he’d whistle and we’d hear that instead.

Sometimes I think I tried not to hear it. But that never worked. It is a physical response every single time. My head would turn toward the sound. It works to this very day. Every time I hear it, I turn to look. I can’t help it, it is what I’ve been trained to do.

I was thinking about this and my other dad today; the one who’s off building a house for me. I thought about John 10:27 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” I was thinking about how sometimes I hear His voice but I try not to. How sometimes I hear and listen to other voices instead; ones that tell me slippery, pretty little lies that sound so good they must have to be true. I was thinking about how sometimes He speaks so softly I think I really didn’t just hear that. I was thinking that sometimes I wish He would just whistle for me, because I’d hear that; I’d know where to go then.

So maybe God doesn’t whistle for me. But He does speak. He does, constantly. In all kinds of ways. I have to tune my ears to Him just like I tuned my ears to my dad’s whistle. It’s not just any whistle that I respond to, it’s my dad’s whistle. And God’s voice isn’t just any voice, it’s God’s voice. That still small whisper. That roaring consuming fire.

I have one dad who whistles and my ears hear.

I have another dad who whispers and my heart hears.

I didn’t really have a choice to be trained or not to be trained by my dad’s whistle. It is just a fact of life of growing up in my family.

I do have a choice to train my heart to hear God’s whispers to me.  And I’m trying every day to train my heart to hear better.

Hebrews 3:12-15 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said,”Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

 

 

Walking on Eggshells

March 21, 2011 in Reflections with 0 Comments

First, I put a napkin on the counter. Then I proceeded to tap my hard boiled egg on the counter and peal it for lunch today.  I collected all the bits of shell on the napkin I put down in preparation for the eggshells. And then I’m not even sure what happened but in one swift motion the napkin upturned and most of the eggshells ended up on the floor. I tried my best to avoid stepping on any of them as I went to go get the broom to clean up the mess. But I managed to step on one tiny little bit with my barefoot.

I don’t normally ponder eggs or eggshells or walking on eggshells but today with my little lunch adventure, I started to. I know what the phrase means, but I looked it up anyway.

 The OED defines the phrase "walk on eggshells” and its variants as meaning “to be extremely cautious in one’s actions or words, esp. so as to avoid offending or angering others.”

 

My mind just started thinking about walking on eggshells. The little piece I stepped on wasn’t too painful to my foot, but some of those could have been with their sharp jagged edges. Which makes me think that walking on eggshells is painful to the walker. I’m not saying that I should go around saying offensive things willy-nilly just because I can; just to keep my foot free from painful jagged eggshell bits. I’m not saying that at all.

I heard something from my pastor once that really stuck and I try to keep in mind all the time in regards to saying things.

Is what I am going to say B.E.S.T?
Can the person BEAR what I am going to say?
Is what I am about to say EDIFYING?
Is what I am about to say SPIRIT FILLED/LEAD?
Is what I am about to say TRUE?

So maybe sometimes I need to perhaps endure a little sting on my foot from walking on eggshells in order to keep my speech B.E.S.T.

Then my mind turned to Proverbs 27:6

Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy.

So maybe sometimes instead of walking on eggshells, I need to say something B.E.S.T. to a friend. It might sting them for a little while to be called out on something that isn’t a healthy behavior or a right attitude or whatever it is that is going on. But I think better to not walk on eggshells in those instances and to follow what this Proverbs teaches.

Remember Birds

March 19, 2011 in Reflections with 1 Comment

Sometimes I feel like I don’t remember much.  Like all the rules to long division or how to find the slope of  the line.  I don’t remember those so much.  My brother says I remember everything.  So maybe I just have a very, very selective memory because there are some things I do remember with heartbreaking detail.

You know those silver ventilation tubes that look like they have hula-hoops for ribs that go from the dryer to the outside of the house?  Yeah, those.  Well, the spring of my freshman year of college, I was living at home and commuting.  It was that spring that birds decided to build a nest inside our ventilation tube.  Little black birds with yellow beaks.  They’d hop along the railing of our deck.  Eat the birdseed from the feeder.  And fly in through the hole in the house, into that tube, with little sticks and bits of grass; building their nest.

I don’t remember what day of the week it was.
But I do remember I was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast.
I do remember my mom and dad were already at work.
I do remember the phone ringing.

It was my Uncle.  The only thing I remember him saying was, “Aunt Julie fell asleep in the Lord last night.”  And after he said that I don’t remember anything else he said.  I felt hot all over and all I could hear was the scratching of the birds building a nest inside the ventilation tube.  I don’t remember saying anything.  I don’t remembering hanging up the phone.  But I do remember standing by the french doors that leads out to the back deck and starting to cry.

I see those birds a lot.  Those little black birds with yellow beaks; which thanks to google I think are starlings.  Every single time I see those birds I instantly remember the phone call from my Uncle.  I remember the orange formica of the counter top and the gray phone in my hand.  But I generally only remember that for a moment.  My mind goes to my Aunt and how much I miss her.

How much I’d like to walk to Baskin-Robins with her.  I think of all the outfits she made for my dolls.  I think of her burying my sister, brother and I in the snow.  I think of her earrings and how much I always liked the tiny little penny earrings she used to wear.  I think about her and I having contests to see if we could stop biting our finger nails.  I think about the bunny cake she made one Easter covered in coconut shavings.  I think about going to the park and watching her softball team play.

And then I think about how much I dislike cancer for taking her away.

Sometimes I don’t like the first initial feeling that hits me when I see a starling; the sharp sting of loss.

But I do like that I see the starlings in spring, when the sun comes out to stay a little bit more.  When the plants are starting to bud.  When life is waking up again.  I like that.

I like that these birds help me remember.  I like that these birds bring me memories of my Aunt.  I like the surprise of seeing one perched on a concrete railing while I’m getting on the freeway and suddenly I see my Aunt’s beautiful face.  I like having remember birds.  I like that one day I’ll tell my Aunt about the remember birds and she’ll smile.

Sleeping Like a Baby

March 15, 2011 in Reflections with 2 Comments

“How did you sleep last night?”

“I slept like a baby.”

This wonderful phrase conveys a deep, peaceful sleep. A sleep where you are out like a light; sleeping like a baby.

Not the sleep of a newborn. Not the kind of sleep where you wake up every 2-3 hours to eat, or scream or just be awake. Not the kind of sleep where you think 2am is a good awake time and 2pm is a good sleep time. You don’t mean that when you say you’ve slept like a baby. Continue Reading…

Silent Victory

March 12, 2011 in Reflections with 3 Comments

My son just turned 8 months old on the 10th. And yesterday, on the 11th, I ran my first 5k after having him. I’m not a runner.  I never have been a runner and never will be a runner. In junior high when we used to have to run The Mile I’d hold my breath as people passed me or as I passed my PE teacher because I didn’t want to seem out of breath; which just made a bad thing worse.

Runners are a breed all their own; half gazelle and half human. They can wear those little bitty shorts and run like the wind and never look winded. That is most definitely not me. My slogan is more along the lines of, I might be slow and sweaty and red in the face; but I will not stop. Although not a runner myself, I’ve discovered that I can run. I will not win any race, and that is perfectly fine with me because sometimes the pounding punishment of my feet on the pavement is exactly what I need that day.

I was planning on going down to Portland this weekend to participate in the Shamrock Run, mostly because my 2008 Shamrock Run t-shirt is a little worse for wear and I wanted a new one. I registered and started getting ready with the help of Robert’s podcasts from the Couch 2 5k program. Schedules and logistics made going down not an option so I decided to do my own Shamrock this weekend. So yesterday I did. I stretched. I started my Let’s Go playlist on my iPod. I put a piece of gum in my mouth and I started. 46.5 minutes and 3.2 miles later, I finished. You might think, “It took you how long to go how far?” But you see, I didn’t do this for you; I did this for me.

No one around me knew what was happening. There were not 30,000 other Shamrock runners and walkers slugging it out with me. There was no finish line to cross. The girl on the treadmill at the gym next to me didn’t know this was it, this was my Shamrock, this was my “I might be slow and sweaty and red in the face, but I will not stop” moment. I didn’t pump my arms in the air like Rocky when I was finished. There was no fanfare. No congratulatory slap on the back or nod from a fellow runner. It was just me knowing that I did it. It was my own silent victory.

Sometimes I need the incentive of a finish line, the incentive of 30,000 other runners sharing the excitement of the event and the agony of the hill along with me. The fellowship of other runners. And sometimes I just need to do it. To have the determination and discipline and diligence to slug it out on my own. I need both. Fellowship and personal discipline.

Lots of times I lack personal discipline and yet I am learning that there are sweet silent victories every single day when I follow through.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27

 

Center of Attention

March 9, 2011 in Reflections with 4 Comments

I don’t like to be the center of attention.  (says I, as I start a blog)  Sometimes I think I do.  Sometimes I have daydreams of being a famous photographer, poet, author; a heavy hitter for some NGO and being on a talk show, or somehow achieving national acclaim; that would be pretty center of the stage attention.  But when it comes down to it, I don’t like it or really the idea of it.

Today in the shower I was thinking about life.  I tend to have really good thought processes in the shower.  It has something to do with the running water.  Anyway, I was thinking about life and how I’ve gotten from point A to point B.

Do you ever trace things back to their point of origin?  Like rabbit trails in a conversation.  One that started out discussing Genghis Khan and ended up talking about Skittles.  Do you ever try to trace it backwards and find the bridges that got you from one idea to the next to the next to the next?  I do and I like to think about that in my life a lot too.

I can trace a lot back to Fiji.

I’ve never been to Fiji.  That’s sort of the point.

It goes something like this. Continue Reading…

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