Rhythms

For the majority of my life thus far I have been a formal student - that is, enrolled in some type of formal academic program.  I lived and breathed and slept and sweated and cried academia.  My life had a rhythm that was dictated from outside of itself - the rhythm of the school year. It ebbed and flowed like the tide, cresting at midterms and finals, and entering a trough during the hot summer months, only to start up again in the fall. There were smaller troughs throughout the year when we had short breaks for Christmas, Easter, March, Thanksgiving and other such occasions.  Th rhythm was as predictable as it was familiar.   Busy times and less busy times.  Stressful times and less stressful times.

I'm still a student, though at a much slower pace, but primarily I am a mother.  My life has a different rhythm now, although it is still dictated outside of itself - this time by a squirmy little Bean rather than a calendar.  Our days settle into a rhythm of eating, sleeping, toileting, playing...however the rhythm is not nearly as predictable or familiar as the academic rhythm was.  If the academic rhythm was a steady march the rhythm of being a mom is a swing dance inspired by a group who is making up the music as they go along.

Along with the daily rhythm of being a mom comes the rhythm of living on the farm.  This rhythm not only goes from day to day but also cycles through the year.  While we don't plant seed (except for a few small container gardens) and will not (likely) be harvesting any hay this year, the rhythm of farm life is still dictated by the weather and cycles through the year, with only minor variations from year to year.  Spring brings the Alpaca Ontario show, followed by shearing, birthing, breeding, fencing and all manner of other summer activities - with swim team thrown in there for good measure.  The fall brings the Rockton Fair and the Alpaca Ontario sponsored fall show (this year it will be the all new Cavalcade of Champions), followed by Christmas craft shows.  The rhythm of farm life could be compared to a square dance - dances between couples (the day to day rhythm) taking place within the larger dance of the square (the yearly rhythm).

Dancing to the rhythm allows us to find order in our lives.  The rhythm give us all something in common, a common link, a common beat.  However, no matter the dance there is a something that all dances have in common: the need for rest.

When I got sick in 2008 I learned that my dance, my own personal rhythm would require more rests than the average dance.  My rhythm was slower.  There were are times when I forget that my rhythm is slower, that my dance requires great rests, and I pay dearly for those times.  It would be an untruth to say that I have completely embraced this slower pace of life - there are still times it frustrates me to no end that I have to slow down.  But it has taught me to savor the slow times.  It has taught me that without the rests, the dance becomes a dance marathon where you dance feverishly until you drop and a rest becomes forced.  Forced rests are not nearly enjoyable as rests that you choose - take it from someone who has been forced to rest many times.

You can't stop the dance altogether and you can't completely change the rhythm - especially when it is a rhythm from without - but you can choose to sit out part of the dance.  You can choose to take a pause, sit a spell, rest, and then join back into the dance.  I think that all dances would be better, and all dancers would do better, if our rhythms had more breaks, more rests, built in.  Life is not a dance marathon (unless dance marathons are your thing), but a dance party.  Take time to sip some punch, eat some chips, and catch up with friends.

The beat goes on!

Some rhythms are just plain special in and of themselves....

Solitaire

*Between Christmas, New Years, and being in Iowa with my boyfriend this week posts have been lacking.  Once school starts again I should be able to post more regularly*

Life is sometimes like playing solitaire.  Every once in a while I need a break from my homework or whatever it is that I’m working on and I pull up a quick game of solitaire to give myself a brain break.  Sure it’s not the healthiest break…getting up and doing jumping jacks or walking the dog or such would be better and might even clear my head better.  Or doing a different project…that would be more productive, but sometimes, solitaire wins.  It’s one of my many vices.
Anyhow, when I’m playing solitaire I like to know what’s coming.  One of the “fun” parts of the game is that you don’t know what’s coming.  Sometimes you have two cards that you could play, playing the right vs. the wrong card could change the entire outcome of the game.  Of course, in computer solitaire you can just undo your move and back it up and try again until you find something that you like or that appears to give you the best outcome.  The computer even tells you when you have no more options and you need to quit beating your head against a wall.  And, if you have the scoring set right, you don’t even lose points!
You have options.  You can look and then cover a card up again, move a card and then unmove it. See a move you should have made much earlier? Reverse and make it.   And the best part? It’s just a computer game and the outcome doesn’t actually matter!
I wonder what life would be like if it was like solitaire.  What if you could try something out, see what happens and then undo it you don't like it without penalty? What if you could peek at an upcoming event and choose whether you want it or not?  What if you could "click through" the next series of options and thereby pick the one most favorable for you? What if you had a clear sign to tell you that it was quitting time and that beating your head against a wall was only going to give you a headache?
Some times I think it would be nice, but I know that that is not how life works.  If that was how life worked there would be no need for faith.   We would constantly be second guessing ourselves, constantly trying to do things over.  Which works if you are existing in a bubble, but we don't exist in a bubble.  If we kept doing do overs then we'd never
get anywhere in life and everyone else would get really annoyed with you.
So I'm coming to realize that I just have to be patient, to wait, to not try and guess what is coming, but to take it has it comes and make the best of it.  And if I get a 5 when I really wanted a jack, well then, I'll just have to make the best of that 5.
"For faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see"  Hebrews 11:1

Life Saving Information

Somewhere I have a more "New Year's" type blog post saved and it will come soon, but this one is more important, because it may save someone's life.
If you reading this post, you have the capabilities to save someone's life.  I've posted before about how to save lives (The pen looks different now, as shown in this post).  If you don't know how to use an Epi-Pen, please check those posts out.  They contain life saving information.
If you already know how to use an Epi-Pen, please continue reading for further important information.
The creators of Epi-Pen released a warning.
Here it is: "When the blue safety cap is removed from the EpiPen or EpiPen Jr, it is important that it is removed by pulling it straight up.  The blue safety cap should NOT be removed by pulling it sideways or bending and twisting. Inappropriate removal of the blue safety cap may prevent the device from working properly and potentially result in failure to deliver the drug."
Another important reminder is to know the signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis or a severe life threatening reaction.
Here are some of the symptoms of anaphylaxis:

Abdominal pain or cramping
Abnormal (high-pitched) breathing sounds
Anxiety
Confusion
Cough
Diarrhea
Difficulty breathing
Difficulty swallowing
Fainting, light-headedness, dizziness
Hives, itchiness
Nasal congestion
Nausea, vomiting
Palpitations
Skin redness
Slurred speech
Wheezing

Abnormal heart rhythm (arrhythmia)
Hives
Low blood pressure
Mental confusion
Rapid pulse
Skin that is blue from lack of oxygen or pale from shock
Swelling (angioedema) in the throat that may be severe enough to block the airway
Swelling of the eyes or face
Weakness


Not every sign or symptom will be present every time.

Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening condition.  It can kill, but it doesn't have to.  The proper medication, administered properly can save lives.  The beauty of epinephrine (the drug in Epi-Pens) is that in most every case it can do no harm. Your body naturally produced epinephrine. The only times it may cause harm is if there is a pre-existing heart condition such that the body cannot withstand a burst of epinephrine.

Please, if you or anyone you know suffers from severe allergies, familiarize yourself with Epi-Pens and the signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis.  You can save a life.

Who's in the Driver's Seat?

Mauschen (my dog) and I are exploring bike joring together.  Bike joring is a lot like ski joring, except it’s on a bicycle.  Joring is a sport in which the dog or other animal (horse often) assists the human in their work.  In joring, the animal and human are joined only by a joring lead, a special kind of lead that has bungee built into it do help with starts and stops.  There is no bit or bridle like with driving a horse.   Joring can be done individually or in teams.  In my case, it’s done individually, since I only have one dog.  She does a mighty fine job though.
The other day I sent Littlest Brother out to run her because I wasn’t feeling up to it (truth be told the only thing I was feeling up to was hunkering down in my bed and sleeping it all off).  When he returned I asked him how she did.  His report was not positive.  Mostly, she’d run beside the bike, veering off to sniff a lot and not pulling her weight at all.
I was shocked.  I’d taken her out every day in the last week and she had pulled beautifully; never beside me and seldom stopping to sniff anything.  Why was her behavior so different with him?  I took her out with me again the next morning and once again, she was pulling wonderfully with no problem (road conditions on the other hand were a problem).
I thought back to a time a couple weeks ago when we were in town and my sister had tried walking her.  She pulled on the lead, chased squirrels and generally misbehaved.  When I had Mauschen a few moments later she walked as if she had just graduated from puppy school at the top of her class.
Another time I watched as a family member tried to put the dog into a “sit” while guests were at the house.  Mauschen would have none of it.  Sitting was not in her vocabulary at that time.  I walked over, snapped my fingers and gave the command.  Her butt dropped and she sat, her tail thumping on the floor.
The dog hadn’t changed.  What had changed was who was driving.  The human factor.   Mauschen knows me and I know her.  It’s not that she doesn’t know the rest of my family, they are all very familiar to her, but her and I have a special relationship.  When we are out joring together, she is not just providing me with pulling strength, she is being my eyes and my ears.
When we are out together, I don’t ever where my hearing aids and very seldom where my glasses.  Essentially, I’m riding blind and deaf.   I have to trust her completely to make the right calls when we are riding together and I know she will.  If she refuses to cross a road, I know it’s because she can see or hear something that I cannot.  If she starts pulling to the side (and her nose isn’t to the ground in a sniff!) I know a car is coming behind me and I can’t hear it.
As I have to trust her, she knows that she can trust me.  If I tell her to sit and stay, she knows it’s because I have the situation under control.  We are a team.  I don’t try to overpower her and she doesn't try to overpower me.  We just work together.

This led to some life thoughts.  Who is in the driver’s seat?  Who am I in a partnership with that I trust completely?

The Sunday School answer of course is G-d.  G-d is someone who I can trust completely, someone who will always have my best interests in mind, even when I can’t see it.  Do I always live as if this is the case?  Far from it!  Often I find myself working against G-d, working on my own, without trusting him to lead me completely.  It’s sad that my 4 year old black lab trusts me more than I trust the G-d that created me.  Even sadder is the fact that I trust her to guide me through the everyday things of life more than I do my Lord and Savior.

Someday I hope to trust my husband they way my dog and I trust each other.  Mauschen and I share the load together, we trust each other to have the others best interests in mind.  I would hope to have that with my future spouse.

It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where everyone looked out for everyone else and we all had each others best interests in mind.  That would be delightful. Then a economy of mutual trust would be built.

Don't Point!

I stood singing in church one morning, my hands moving as much as my mouth.  The church-provided FM system hung over my right ear, the wire snaking down to the box clipped to my pocket.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the little blonde haired blue-eyed girl in the row behind me pointing at me.  I turned to smile at her and watched her ask her mommy why I had the funny thing on my ear. I watched her mommy pull her hand down from pointing and saw the words "don't point" as they came out of her mother's mouth.  The rest of the reply was lost as the mother and the child turned away and we moved into a time of prayer.
My heart wanted to yell at her or at least offer gentle advice, since I'm not exactly the yelling and screaming type of person.  I wanted to tell to let her daughter point, to let her daughter ask questions, to let her daughter ask *me* questions.
Some of you mind think that this sort of response encourages rudeness or impertinence and perhaps it does, but that's not how I see it.
The genuine, inquisitive, questions of a child who doesn't yet understand the world around her are not offensive.  Neither are the genuine inquisitive questions of an adult who does not understand the world around them.
What *is* offensive though is people who assume they know the answers without asking.  The people who don't asking can't really know.
If we hadn't been sitting in church and I had the opportunity to interact with the child, I would have taken my FM system off and handed it to her and let her listen.  I would have shown her my hearing aids and explained that my ears were broken and that hearing aids were like glasses for my ears.  I would have told her that I use my eyes to "hear". I would have asked her what her name was and then shown her How I would fingerspell it.  I would have answered her questions. And I would have answered the questions that her mom was too afraid to ask.
And I would have told her them that pointing was okay, as long as they weren't laughing as me when they pointed.

A time to fight, a time to acquiesce?

***Keep in mind that I'm writing this post while on Benadryl and Prednisone in large amounts. Anything I write should be taken with a grain of salt and any glaring errors should be overlooked.***

There was a time when someone telling me that I couldn't do something served to raise my hackles and make me try even harder.  I remember one time when we were at the feed store picking up some rabbit feed.  We ordered our feed in the building and then took the car around to the loading dock.  I must have been about 12 or so. It was Mom, Ben and I there.  We pulled up along side the loading dock and Ben and I got out of the car to start loading the feed.  I reached for a bag of feed so that I could put it in the car.  As I did so, one of the mill workers told me that I couldn't do that because I was a girl.  I don't remember saying anything, Mom says fire burned in my eyes. I remember picking up that bag of feed and putting it in the back of the van.  I was so determined to do it.  The mill hand told me to come back when I was older and get a job.
It wasn't a big deal.  Loading a bag of feed isn't hard work or important work.  My intense desire to do so was largely caused by being told I couldn't because I was a girl.  Now, I don't mind letting the guys do the work, but they all know that I can.  And my brothers know that if they ever tell me I can't do something because I'm a girl, they'd better watch out.
But things are changing.  Maybe it's just because I'm tired of it all, maybe it's because I'm learning to accept my limits,  maybe it's something else, but now, someone telling me I can't simply hurts and makes me angry.  It no longer stirs me to try and prove a point.
I experienced this recently.  Someone outright telling me that I couldn't do something for a not great reason.  My initial response wasn't my normal, "oh yes I can!  just you wait and see", but just anger and pain.  And then maybe even a little bit of acceptance.  Not full acceptance, but some.

I could fight it.  I could do what it is that they said I couldn't because I know I can if I'm given the chance.  But I'd be doing it just to prove a point and it might not be worth it.  I wonder how many of the battles I have fought have been to prove a point, either to myself or to someone else. I wonder how things would change if I stopped fighting to prove a point, stopped trying to measure up and simply accepted that I don't have to prove my worth to anyone, myself included.

The "What-If" Game

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been playing the “what if” game.  I played it as a child and I play now as a grown-up of sorts.

There are different kinds of what-ifs, some healthier than others.

Firstly, there are the ones that simply cause more anxiety:

What if the neighborhood cougar eats me when I take the compost out?  (although the neighborhood cougar was very real, it never attacked a human.  He preferred sheep and chickens)

What if it snows so much that we can’t get home from school? (at least once we were sent home early to avoid this)

What if Mommy gets in a car accident because the weather is so horrible and she doesn’t come home from work? (she worked homecare in a rural setting.  The weather was often very horrible at night)

The anxiety causing ones are typically things that are well beyond our control and we can do little to nothing to prepare for them.

Then there are the what-ifs that lead to being prepared:

What if instead of being sunny on our campout it rains? (hint: pack rain gear)

What if there is a fire in the building I’m in? (hint: know your exits)

What if I get stuck in traffic with 13 little girls in the back of the van? (true  story.  Hint: sing songs and make up games)

What if my Kingdom Kids finish their craft in 5 minutes instead of 15?  (hint: always overplan)

What if our trip takes a day longer than planned? (hint: bring extra underwear and extra medication)

What if we come upon a car accident while we are driving? (hint: keep your first aid training up to date and carry a first aid kit in the car)

What if I'm hungry before I get home? (hint: always bring a snack!)

There are some what-ifs that are more likely than others:

“What if I get kidnapped?” is a much less likely scenario than “What if I get hit by a car on my way to school?” (some mornings my eyes are barely open as I cross the street to school)

“What if I forget that it’s my Sunday to do liturgy?” is much more likely to happen than “What if I forget the way to church?” (It’s been a year, it involves no more than 3 turns and one of them is a forced turn)

“What if I forget to comb my hair?” is much more likely than “what if I forget to get dressed before going to class?”

Then there are the really fun what-ifs, the ones that let you play with the future and explore different ideas:

What if I decide not to go on my J-term trip?

What if I don’t turn in my credo paper on time?

What if I decide to stop going to school for a while and instead get a real job?

What if he actually loves me instead of just likes me?

What if I dye my hair purple?

What if I move to a different state?

What if I switch to distance learning?

What if I decide to get my nose pierced?

What if I find out I can’t have children?

What if I could find all the people who ever made me angry and beat them with a wet noodle?

What if the seizures never go away?

What if I could stop worrying about what people think about me?

What if this is my last day on earth?

The last list is by no means complete and not all of them are necessarily happy or serious.  They just are.  In one of my classes this semester, Play in Life and Ministry, we’ve been reading about creativity and how playing the “what-if” game can actually be healthy.  It helps you see outside of the normal bounds of society.  It gives you the freedom to look beyond what is immediate and play with the concepts of time and the future.  Of course, some what-ifs are just plain worrisome and should not be played with (see the first list).

So how do you play with the future and time? How do you relieve your stress by playing with your imagination?  What are some of your what-ifs?

How to convince your stomach to produce too much acid

1. Go to graduate school or seminary.
2. Get a urinary tract infection (UTI).
3. Instead of going to the doctor for your UTI, try and take care of it yourself with cranberry.
4. Consume about half a gallon of cranberry juice every day.
5. Skip school because you are in too much pain to go to class.
6. Finally go to the doctor when the pain become unbearable (after about a month of self treatment).
7. Take 10 days of the strongest antibiotics the doctor feels like giving you.
8. While taking the antibiotics, travel to a funeral in another state and back (9 hours of driving each way).
9. Miss three days of school right before midterms because you are going to the funeral.
10. Continue to drink cranberry juice at incredible rates while on the antibiotics.
11. Survive midterms by staying up late, eating lots of greasy food, and generally not caring well for yourself.
12. Finish the antibiotics.
13. Realize that you are still in pain and convince yourself that you still have a UTI, because it seems like the most pleasant option.
14. Drink more cranberry juice.
15. Add apple cider vinegar to your plan for kicking this UTI in the behind.
16. Drink more cranberry juice.
17. A week after the antibiotics are gone, realize you are still in pain and it's not getting better.
18. Go to the doctor again.
19. Let the doctor poke you where it hurts.
20. Discover that your stomach has decide that producing massive amounts of acid is the best way to get your attention.
And this my friends is how you convince your stomach to produce too much acid.
So now I'm on a low acid, non greasy, non spicy diet as well as acid reducers for the next two weeks to see if that fixes the problem. If not, it will be back to the drawing board again. 
 Unfortunately, most of my favorite foods fall into the categories of acidic, greasy, or spicy (or some combination of the above!). I suppose the bacon I ate the day before going to the doctor was a bad idea, as was the apple cider I had been drinking like it was going out of style and the cranberry juice and the cinnamon and, and, and....
It's definitely been a learning curve. I learned to broil fish today instead of pan frying it like I usually do. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my Sunday chicken to eliminate the grease. The best option seems to be to boil it, let it cool, scrape the grease off and then do something with the meat. Not quite sure what yet. Maybe chicken salad or some non-spicy type of chicken tortilla, though that doesn't sound too awesome. 
I'm open to suggestions, so if you have suggestions on how to eat "bland" (as the doctor so appealingly put it), please, please, let me know. Otherwise it's going to be a long 2 weeks!

The Dash

In the past week I've spent a fair bit of time in cemeteries. More than I usually do for sure.  In one cemetery we were looking for a particular headstone, so we spent a lot of time looking at headstones trying to find the right one.  It was a very large cemetery and I may have gotten a little bit lost, and we didn't find the stone we were looking for that day (we went back the next day when the office was open and found it), but I read a lot of headstones. The headstones were all different shapes, sizes, and colors.  They had lots of different things written on them, but there was one thing that they all had.  They all had a dash.
The dash spanned from between when the deceased was born and when they had died.Sometimes their birth and death were listed just as years, other times with months and days in addition to the year.  Sometimes there was an epitaph, other times it was simply a name and date.  Sometimes there were pictures.  But on every headstone there was a dash.  That dash summed up more than anything else.  That dash summed up anywhere from mere hours to decades.

We all will end up with a dash.  It's just the way life is.  The mighty dash, the space between when we take our first breath and when we take our last.   The dashes all looked the same, but they all meant something different.  For my uncle, who we buried this week, his dash summed up a very full, very broad life.  2 military tours, involvement in the space project (he helped put man on the moon!), lots of work with Midwest Old Treshers (50000 volunteer hours after he retired!), Lots of volunteer work with boy scouts, many awards including awards from the president, close friendships with many politicians (including the governor of Iowa), and so much more.  To sum his life up in a dash seemed inadequate, but that's how we all end.  Our life summed up in dash.
It made me wonder and think.  What will my dash sum up? When people who know me look at my dash, what will they remember?   None of us know how long or short our dash is going to be.  We can hope for a long dash, but there are no guarantees.  Each and every day that we are alive is a chance to influence our dash.
How am I going to influence my dash today?  How are you going to influence your dash?

>Mine

So I should be working on translating Greek (we are working through Mark 3 for tomorrow) or prepping for my sermon next Sunday, or doing readings for class or something else productive.  But I don't want to. I mean, I do want to, those are all great things to do, and sometimes like doing all of them, but right now, I don't want to.
I preached yesterday.  It was an interesting experience.  It was at a long term care/rehabilitation facility, so mostly really old people.  The last time I preached to really old people it was at an independent living facility - completely different atmosphere! It was also one of the most laid back preaching experiences I had.  We started the service and then realized that the set-up we thought was going to work wasn't going to work.  So we moved the podium, moved the sound system, moved everyone's wheelchair...and started over.  I got compliments afterwards, so I guess that's a good thing.
I'm not going to post my manuscript like I often do, because my manuscript is becoming more of a tool and less of a crutch for me. It no longer accurately reflects what I say during a service.  Sure it gives a general idea, but that's about it.   If you really want to see my manuscript, let me know and I'll send you a copy.  Otherwise, not.
My sermon theme was from Exodus 16 and about how G-d's plan is always greater than ours and how we have to trust him when we have no idea where to turn or what the deuce is going on.
As I prepared and delivered this message I realized that it spoke to me just as much as it spoke to any of my congregants if not more.  That's a cool thing about being pastor.  Frustrating at times, but also cool.  You get to preach to yourself, but it's not really you, but the Holy Spirit through you...it's a beautiful thing indeed.  Right now I'm really focusing on the phrase ">Mine".  For those of you who struggled in math, that means "Greater than mine." Think of the ">" as a hungry alligator mouth.  It doesn't want to eat mine, it wants to eat what is greater than mine, because it is a very hungry alligator.  If you're the praying sort, I could really use prayers for clarity and guidance.  I'm feeling a call to refine my call and maybe possibly change courses a little.  Of course, that's scary.  I need to make sure it's not my plan.  Because then the alligator will still be hungry.  No one likes hungry alligators.
In other news, I feel like I'm turning into a fish.
I'm super distractable today.  I think it's because I skimped on Sabbath this weekend.  Don't skimp on Sabbath.  It's a bad plan!  Bad Joy!
Now, time for supper and back to work

Late

“You’re late”
It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement of fact. Not even an accusation.And not just from one mouth, but from many.
There was nothing false about the statement. I was late. It was 8:10. Normally, I’d have been home and well through my breakfast by 8:10, instead of just arriving, but for some reason hearing that statement in the locker room caused the anger to rise up in me.
Who were these people to call me out on being late? They were old enough to be my grandmothers, yet none of them were related to me. In fact, we mostly didn’t even know each other’s names. Yet here they were, calling me out on being late to the pool.
I had no formal obligation to be at the pool.  I didn't work there, didn't teach there, just showed up a few times a week to put some laps in, keep my knees happy and maybe work my heart out a little too.  Yet these women had begun to keep track of me.  They knew which days I cam and what time I came at.  And they knew that I was late.
I knew I was late too.  That morning sleep had seemed much more important than getting out of bed before the stars had gone to bed and getting to the pool.  I didn't have to be anywhere until 9:40 (technically not until 10:20 when my class started but chapel is at 9:40 and I like chapel), so I could do it...just a few minutes more...well those few minutes kept growing and by the time I'd finally guilted myself into getting up and heading to the pool, my roommate had left for her first hour class. I was late.
I spent the rest of Thursday trying to catch up.  I got home at 8:30, hardly enough time for breakfast before chapel...I grabbed a GF bagel and ate it on the way to chapel and finished it in class.  All day it was go, go, go until I finally fell into bed.
That day made me think.  Mostly about the importance of starting my day right.  I've always been told that starting the day with devotions is the best way, but I am not a morning person.  Daily devotions are important, don't get me wrong, but I doubt they will ever be the very first thing I do.  I've been reading through the Psalms with a friend, and while I usually do it pretty early in the morning, it's almost always after my swim (if it's a swimming day) or at least after I get the oatmeal on, start the water for my first hour tea and mix up my yoghurt for second hour.  then I can focus a little bit better.
The timing of my devotions isn't super important, but what I've found to be important is the routine of starting my day right.  If I start right, whether it's being on time for my swim or making time for my devos before class, it makes my whole day go better.
It amazing how something as little as that, as setting down for 15 minutes and reading scripture can put the entire day in a right frame of mind.  Or getting up and actually going to the pool "on time" can make my whole day run smoothly.
Next time I'm tempted to snag a few extra half hours of sleep before pool time, or a few extra minutes in lieu of getting up in time to do my devos, I'll remember that day and how I played catch-up all day. And I'll remember those ladies at the pool...and, I'll be on time.

More than a Meal

Recently I took a trip to my former college to see some friends and spend my break. One night as I sat in the dining hall I began to reflect on my food-related experiences in college. It would have been easy for me to make a case to be exempt from meal plan. I mean, for me, eating is a very dangerous activity. The college also could have easily requested that I not be on meal plan.  Trying to safely feed me is a challenge that few people undertake (The short list of my allergies includes gluten, corn, dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, tomatoes, banana, pineapple, kiwi, and shellfish. At least 6 of those present with skin blistering on contact, anaphylaxis upon ingestion).  Central College however decided to take on the challenge of trying to feed me and I decided to let them.  In all honesty, I really didn't want to try and cook three meals a day for myself on top of being a student.  Central went above and beyond to make sure that I had food at every meal.  In all four years that I was at Central, the only times I got sick from food were times that I had made less than wise choices (eating food without checking the ingredients, eating food from the fryers).  Which is super impressive.  I mean, really super impressive.  Very few people/kitchens can pull that off.
As I sat and reflected upon my experiences with food, I came to realize that the staff (dietary manager, cooks, servers, etc) did far more than just provide me with food options that wouldn't kill me.  Food is a central part of social life on a college campus and the dining hall is the center of food.  On a campus with only 3 options for meal plan (the main dining hall, a fast food type place called GSC, and the Cafe), it was pretty safe to assume that most students would eat at least one meal a day in the main dining hall.  The main dining hall was also a hub of activity, especially when things got busy (so, basically, all the time).  If you wanted to catch up with a friend, it was easy to say "Let's have a lunch date".  Need a meeting time for a small group Bible study or GIG?  Everyone has to eat, why not hold it at the dining hall?  Want to practice language skills? Sit at the German or Spanish table.  Thinking about studying abroad?  Go to a Lunch and Learn.
By allowing me to be on meal plan, and making meal plan easy for me, all of these social opportunities were opened to me.  I ate almost every day with a group called "the Table".  We (almost) always sat in the same spot in the dining hall, and there was always more room at the table.  It was a time where important news was shared, where schedules were coordinated, where we could check in with each other and make sure we were doing alright.  If I hadn't been on meal plan, I would have missed out on all of that.
I would have missed out on Study Day picnic, an event which grew out of my propensity for sitting on the floor randomly to eat (people would ask me where I wanted to sit, I'd say "right here" and sit down wherever I was.  Eventually it became an organized event with a picnic blanket and everything).
Some people see meals as nothing more than a chance to eat, but they are so much more than that.  So much of our culture revolves around food.  When the dining staff decided to make an effort to provide me with safe food options, they were concerned about feeding my body.  What they ended up doing was feeding my life.
Sometimes life is like that.  People intend to meet one need and end up meeting another, often far greater need.  Or they fail to meet a need and end up failing to meet another, far greater need.
You may never know what what deeper need you'll meet by making the effort to meet a need on the surface, what wounds you'll heal by reaching out to someone.  Likewise, you may never know how much you'll deepen wounds by failing to meet surface needs.
Remember, what you do on the surface often runs much much deeper.

The Plan

The plan was perfect.  We’d thought of everything, or so we thought.  My sister needed picked up from the canoe course she’d just taught. We had reservations at a “safe” restaurant.  We had excuses for why we needed to ride along to pick her up.  The birthday cake was made and decorated.  Chores were done early.  We were ready to get in the car with our unsuspecting father and head out.  Then the phone rang.   Phone calls at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon when all of us are home from college are unusual (when we're at school, that's about the time we check in).  It wasn’t hard to figure out from his side of the conversation what had happened.

He had a call.

He had to go respond.

Our plan seemed to be ruined.  Mom tried to cover, but he got suspicious.  Thankfully for us, he was wise and didn’t relay his suspicions.  Once he was out on the call Mom called the restaurant and tried to change the reservations.  She was successful. Then we tried to contact my sister and inform her of the change.  If we had reached her before he came home we could have made up a story about how she called saying she had been delayed in her return, but the number she had left us was erroneous.  We spent an hour trying to find the right phone number.  My dad returned. We thought our bluff was up.  In reality it partially was but, my dad in his wisdom, played along.

Mom, Youngest Brother and I, got in the car with him to go get her.  Mom came along just because (she doesn't need an excuse to hang out with her husband).  I came along so I could show Sister pictures of her new alpaca baby.  Youngest Brother came along so that he and Middle Brother wouldn't kill each other (they were having one of "those" days).  Papa came because he was the driver.

As soon as we left and were out of sight of the house Biggest Brother, other Sister and Middle Brother got in the truck and headed to the restaurant.

We collected Sister and then proceeded to give my dad directions "home".  I "spotted" a restaurant and decided I was hungry and couldn't wait until we got home and there were no snacks in the car, so we just had to stop. When we convinced him to pull into the parking lot, he knew we were up to something for sure.  Mom and I spotted Biggest Brother's truck and tried to direct him to park near it, but he didn't see it and wouldn't listen.  It was only once we were in the restaurant being seated with the others that he figured it out.  And it wasn't until dessert that Sisters figured out that we had cake for them and I had their birthday gifts.

The Plan didn't go exactly the way that we had intended it to (my dad is just too smart sometimes!), but it was still a good evening, and it made me think.

Someone has a Plan for my life.  I also have a plan for my life, just like my dad had a plan for his evening (FYI: it did not involve an emergency call or going out for dinner). Our plan for the evening was almost ruined by unexpected events.  I'm thankful that the One who knows my plan is greater than anything that could possibly ruin it. Things might (and often do!) happen that I don't expect, but nothing is unexpected for Him.  Just like my dad made plans to go pick up Sister and then come straight home, which didn't happen since we had plans for him that he didn't know about (which, in my opinion, were better anyways), G-d has plans for me that are different than my plans for me and in His opinion (and in mine), they are better anyways.

Sometimes it scares me to think that my plans are just that, my plans, and someone far greater than me is controlling them, and not just for an evening, or a day, or a week, but forever.  But when I think about who is controlling them, it scares me less.  He's been controlling everything since before time began, which is just crazy to think about.  When I'm confused or overwhelmed, I just remember Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

I don't have to worry about my plan, because as long as I'm following His Plan, I'll be okay.

A2CW: Addicted to Christian Weed

Do you ever start to think about something and then think about something else and eventually end up right back where you started?  That’s a spruce loop.  Some people might call it rabbit trail, but spruce loop is the far better term.   Besides, spruce trees smell better than rabbit poop any day of the week.

Anyhow, we were driving home from some place the other day and I was thinking about a particular time in which I’d gotten lost.  It was a time when I really ought to have known my way, but because of the state my brain was in during that period of my life and because I’d taken some prescription medication that exacerbated the condition, I was in no position to give even the simplest directions (think drunk and high). Anyhow, while I was thinking about that event my brain stumbled upon another event from close to the same time period in my life...

It feels like half a lifetime ago, though in reality it was only about 7 or 8 years ago or so, so about a third of my lifetime ago really.  I hung out with some pretty awesome people that summer.  And by pretty awesome, I mean super awesome.  I don’t know where all of them are now, and that makes me sad, but so goes life. I miss them though and think of them all often.  The ones I have stayed in touch with are mostly married now and some even have children of their own.  There are a few of us left that I know of who are still single.  Often, I wish we could go back to that summer, share what we shared then.

Life was in many ways easier then. We dealt with some pretty crazy stuff that summer, but now, looking back, it seems like such little things compared to all that has happened since then.  That summer, I hadn’t yet learned how to deal with a high school student who was suicidal.  My struggle with an eating disorder and depression hadn’t quite begun yet, though it did follow not overly long afterwards.  I didn’t have a clue what life with seizures was like.  I had no idea what feelings would run through my mind when a doctor would tell me that I was potentially terminal (he was wrong by the way). The struggles we had, although they seemed major then, and some of them were fairly major, all shrink in comparison to everything that has happened since then (and there is a whole bunch I’m not sharing in this public of a forum).  And that’s okay.  That’s not was this is about.  Just a bit of explanation as to why that summer feels like half a lifetime ago.  Think of it has a mini spruce loop.

That summer I was introduced to Christian Weed.  In fact, of the many quotes that graced our quote board (which I almost want to pull out and read, but it’s packed away and I’m tired), one of the few I can remember right now, off the top of my head, is “A2CW” which stood for “Addicted to Christian Weed”.  (The other one I can remember is “Jesus thinks you’re cool” or JTYC), and that is what I began thinking about as I thought about being lost - Christian Weed.

Christian Weed was how we referred to that feeling we got after an all night prayer vigil or a spontaneous session of worship or a time of intense prayer.  It was that feeling of being so filled with the spirit that it overflowed and bubbled out of us, making us laugh uncontrollably or jump and sing with complete abandon, the joy of the Lord that made us completely undignified before our King. That feeling was so addicting, our hunger for the Lord was so strong, that we would do whatever it took to get back to that place and stay in it.  Although there was nothing wrong with that, in fact, there was so much good about it, I wonder though, if maybe perhaps we were a little misguided.

We were addicted to Christian weed. We were searching for one spiritual high after another, always trying to experience that again.  But, like with any drug, no high is ever as high as the first one.  Perhaps it would have been better if we were truly addicted to Jesus, not just to Christian weed.  I’m not saying we weren’t addicted to Jesus, for there is no doubt in my mind that we were all crazy about Jesus.  Our addiction to Jesus is what led us to Christian weed in the first place (Does that make Jesus a gateway drug?), but somehow I think our focus, or at least mine, got shifted away from Jesus and more to towards Christian weed and the feelings that went with worshiping Jesus.  The problem with that is, feelings aren’t always reliable.  When depression took over (and nearly took) my life shortly thereafter, I couldn’t get that high.  No matter how hard I sought it, I couldn’t get the Jesus high.  I couldn’t get high about anything.  I could seek that high all I wanted, but I could never get there.  Instead of seeking Jesus and longing for him, I longed for Christian weed. 

Now, even though my fight with depression has been mostly won (every now and then it rears its ugly head), that habit is sometimes still there.  Sometimes I still find myself longing for a hit of Christian weed.  I search long and hard after it, instead of searching long and hard after Jesus, the only one who can really give me that high.

I don’t blame anyone for that habit.  In fact, I think I have learned a lot from it.  I also cannot say that everyone from that summer had the same experience.  Even though we were all in the same place, we didn’t necessarily have the same experience.  My experience is valid only for me.

Which brings me full circle to where I started.  Sometimes, my brain loses focus and I get lost.  I start searching for what I want instead of what I know I need.  It’s simple, something I’ve known for a long time, but I still can’t always remember it.  The time I was remembering about getting lost (the story at the very beginning of this post) was when I was trying to give someone directions from my high school to home.  I should have known that.  I had known it for a long time, but because my brain was on a binge, I couldn’t do it.  

When my brain and spirit long after a hit of Christian weed I forget that all I really need to do is turn to Jesus and long after him instead.  In the end, He’ll be better than any hit and He will keep me from getting lost. And even when I do get lost, He'll still be there to guide me back to the right path, to get me home even when  I can no longer help myself.

Perhaps it's time to say goodbye to Christian weed and figure out some sort of catchy slogan that communicates an addiction to Jesus instead of to feelings.

And perhaps it is also time to conclude this particular spruce loop.

Lesson in self-care from a loaf

The other night I made bread.  I don't make bread very often because I don't eat bread very often.  I don't eat bread very often because I don't make bread very often.  With my list of food restrictions there exists only one or two options for me when it comes to store bought bread and they are both pretty gross...at little better than flavored cardboard, but not much.  I've been making my own bread since I was about 18, so I've had lots of practice.  When I pulled my loaves out of the oven last night, I cried.  They were not beautiful well formed loaves.  They were more akin to a disaster. I cried because I longed to pull beautiful well formed loaves out of the oven.  I wanted my loaves to look like the loaves of bread my father pulls out of bread-maker about once a day.  But my loaves will never look like those.  Yes, the often will look better than the ones I pulled out of the oven the other night, but they will never look like the loaves that other people make.  Why? because I use different ingredients.
I use different ingredients in my bread and therefore will never have bread that looks quite like what other people make.  Once I finished crying over my fallen loaves, I accepted the fact that my bread will never be quite like other people's bread because of the different ingredients. Then I started to think about it more.  I'd already been thinking a lot about self-care already, so it logically follows that my thoughts went in that direction.
We all come into the world with different ingredients.  We cannot expect to turn out the way that someone with different ingredients is turning out.  My bread will never look like the whole wheat bread my dad pulls out of the bread maker, because it's made with different ingredients.  My seminary career won't look like someone else's because I'm coming into it with different ingredients.
Making Joy-Friendly bread takes different steps than making whole wheat bread, but both are still bread in the end.  If you try and make Joy-Friendly bread the same way that you make whole wheat bread it's going to be a disaster.  I might take different steps to becoming a pastor, but in the end, I'll still be a pastor.  If I tried to follow the same steps as someone else, it would likely end in a disaster.
So if I take 4 years  or even 5 to finish instead of 3, that's fine.  If I need an extra month to finish off this semester because I spent a week in the hospital, that's fine.
It doesn't mean I'm failing. It doesn't mean I'm any less of a student or any less of a person.  It just means I'm coming in with different ingredients and taking my own steps, so I'm going to turn out different.

This is the loaf that made me cry and then taught me a lesson.

Unexpected Hope

It had been a nearly perfect day to end off my spring break.  The sun had been shining, the temperature was warm enough for shirt sleeves (almost outright hot in the sun!), and I'd spent the day visiting with dear friends. It was evening now, about 7pm and there was one thing left one my list of things I wanted to do on break: Watch the sunset.  I would have preferred to go to the lake to watch, but that wasn't an option (and we do have lakes in Michigan), so I headed out to the soccer fields.  On the way I met a friend who said that she thought we were in for a spectacular sunset.  The cloud cover seemed just right, it was warm out.  My heart was happy.  I was looking forward to a spectacular sunset with bright, vivid colors.  Iowa has some pretty spectacular sunsets and I was ready to be romanced by my King.

I settled down onto my perch on the hill by the soccer fields, my camera in hand, a bag of grapes and my water bottle beside.  My Bible lay open on the ground beside me. My journal was in my bag so that I could jot down prayers or thoughts that came to me.  It was going to be a great night.

Then I saw it.  A massive cloud mass coming in from the north.  It all but obscured the sunset.  My heart sank. This was not going to be the spectacular sunset I had hoped for. I dropped my gaze to the grass and concentrated on eating my grapes, pouting a little on the inside.  I glanced up again and realized that the colors had changed. I watched in awe as the colors morphed, very slowly, before my eyes.  The changes were almost indiscernible.  I noticed them most when I looked away for a time, to study my text that I'll be preaching on it a week or to pick the perfect grape out of my bag.  When I looked back, it would have morphed into a new type of beauty.  It wasn't the spectacular sunset I had hoped for, it was far better, for in the slow, gradual changes, I found a lesson.

Often we come before G-d expecting something big.  We ask for healing and expect it to come right away, in a big, spectacular sort of way.  We ask for Him to remove the storms from our lives and expect them to be gone like the waves and wind in Mark 4.  We ask Him to free us from our demons and expect them to thrown into the abyss immediately.  But it doesn't work that way.  We don't get a big spectacular healing, the storms are still there and the demons still haunt us.  We are disappointed and pout.  We know that we serve a big G-d, a G-d who has a history of doing spectacular things.  We have seen spectacular things in the past.  Why not today?  Why not this time?  Why not in this situation?

It is then that we need to realize that G-d is working.  He is making changes.  He has something far greater to teach us through the small gradual, barely indiscernible, changes.  Slowly He is bringing healing.  Slowly He is calming our storms.  Slowly He is freeing us from our demons.   Sometimes He chooses to respond in spectacular ways, but far more often, it is the slow and steady that He uses to romance us.  It doesn't mean He isn't answering our prayers or that He isn't working.  He's just working in a different way.  Just like the sun was still setting.

Always on Guard

Last week I got to try out the hospitality of a local hospital (I do this more frequently than I would like). The hospital was nice.  I had my own room, I could have visitors whenever I wanted, there was a TV and an internet connection.  The food however, left me a little nervous...
When you live with multiple severe food allergies you learn to always be on guard.  You constantly read labels, check ingredients, and always second guess what you are putting in your mouth.  However, there are some places you think you would be safe...at home, with close friends, in the hospital. Right from the beginning we had stressed that I have multiple severe allergies.  We had copies of my list.  We gave them to the nurse, to pharmacy, to registration, to anyone we could think of.  The first morning that I was there, I called down to dietary for my breakfast.  I reminded them that I was ordering from the gluten free menu and then asked, very specifically, if any of their breads were corn free, egg free and dairy free (three big things that tend to sneak into GF bread and would make me very sick/kill me).  The person on the other end of the phone told me that the bagels met those requirements.  I ordered a bagel and some jelly to go with it.
Soon my breakfast tray arrived.  The jelly was in a little container, like what you'd get at a restaurant. I looked at it and noticed that the ingredients were printed on it.  I scanned them out of curiosity (I'm a compulsive ingredient label reader).   Corn syrup was listed twice, in different forms.  I put it back on my tray, a little leery about food in general, but more sad that I couldn't have jelly on my bagel.
I lifted the lid on my tray and looked at my bagel.  It looked good.  It also didn't look like the familiar, Joy-Friendly bagel I was used to.  I smelled it.  I poked it.  I wondered what the odds were that there existed a Joy-Friendly bagel that I was unaware of.  Then I remembered the jelly.  The ingredients were right on it and they still messed that up.  But I'd asked specifically about the bagel...I put the lid back on my tray and waited for the nurse to come in.
The nurse came in and I told her about the jelly.  I explained that I didn't want to be a bother, but I was nervous about the bagel. Could she please double check it?  She called down to dietary and asked about the bagel.  They assured her it was fine.  Being very wise, she informed them that I wouldn't eat it unless I saw the packaging.  (She was smart...I hadn't told her that, but it was correct).  Dietary brought up the packaging.  The second ingredient on the list was corn starch.  The third, skim milk powder.  The fourth, egg.  In short, if I had taken even a single bite of that bagel, I would have become very, very sick and they would have had to fight to save my life.  I cannot even have skin contact with egg without having a reaction.

I thought about this incident many times since then.  It would have been easy to let my guard down in the hospital.  These were people that were supposed to "get it".  I was supposed to be safe there.  And like with most things that I think about a lot, there was something to learn from it.  A verse came to mind from 2 Peter 5: "Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."  Be...alert. It's when we feel like we are safe and secure that we tend to let our guard down.  That's when the devil can attack us.

I could probably write more on this, but my brain is fuzzy so it might not make sense.  So I'll just stop. Think. Use your brain.  maybe your brain will know where my brain was going with this, because my brain forgot.

Lessons from an Epi-Pen

Those of you who know me well, or have been reading my blog for awhile, know that I have multiple life-threatening allergies, as well as multiple non-life-threatening allergies, to both food and medications.  I carry two doses of epinephrine on my person at almost all times (exceptions: sleeping, showering, swimming).  In fact, I carry epinephrine on my person so religiously that we used it as a memory device for the Greek preposition επι meaning "on" because the epi-pen is always on Joy.  If you do not know how to administer an Epi-pen, please stop reading this right now and go read these two blog posts (Post 1, Post 2). Please read them.  They contain life saving information.  For real. If you know how to administer an Epi-Pen keep reading...
Anyone who has ever used an epi-pen knows that it hurts.  Yes, it saves your life, but it also hurts. There is, after all, a rather large needle being forcibly pushed into your thigh muscle.  Anyone who has been with me when I have had an allergic reaction knows that I hate having to use my Epi-pen.  I will usually do everything possible to convince both me and everyone else that I really don't need it.  This usually includes taking lots of Benadryl and waiting until I have absolutely no choice but to use the Epi-pen.  By this point I am typically only semi-conscious (not breathing will do that to you) and unable to give the epinephrine to myself.  So someone else gets to do the honors.  Then it's usually a mad dash to the hospital where the doctors and nurses (and sometimes respiratory therapists) fight to bring me back to breathing on my own. It usually involves lots of needles, oxygen, monitors, collapsing blood vessels, drugs and organized chaos to keep me from dying.  As well as a lecture on using my Epi-pen at the first sign of a severe reaction instead of waiting, which I usually counter with some sort of excuse about the pens being so expensive and wanting to wait until I'm actually sure I need to use it. Overall, not a pleasant experience.

Last week I was blindsided by a snack that was not as Joy-friendly as I was led to believe it was.  Within moments of eating it, I broke out in hives around my mouth and throat, my heart rate started going crazy, I got sick to my stomach, and shortly thereafter my breathing became labored.  After a brief moment of panic during which I thought I was home alone and mentally ran through a list of people who might actually answer their phones if I called needing a ride to the hospital (I try and avoid the ambulance if I can), I realized my roommate was indeed home and went downstairs to tell her that I had loaded up on Benadryl and was maybe going to need the Epi-Pen.  Because my roommate is amazing she was super calm about the whole thing and we waited to see if the Benadryl was going to do its job or not. After waiting 15 minutes for the Benadryl to kick in, and feeling it kick in but not reverse the reaction, I realized that I was going to need the Epi-pen.  At this point I was still completely conscious and could even still kind of talk.  I actually gave the epinephrine to myself for the first time, while LDK called the library where she had to work in half an hour to tell them she would be late (I have awesome roommates, just saying) and went next door to grab a neighbor to help me to the car (epinephrine makes me really woozy).   On the way to the hospital the epinephrine did its thing and by the time we got there, other than my blood pressure doing silly things (side effect of epinephrine), my vitals were good.  I still had hives, but I was breathing on my own with a large degree of success.  After a round of oral steroids and some meds for my stomach, they kept me for about 2.5 hours and then sent me home - no needle sticks, oxygen, monitors, or organized chaos.
When all was said and done and I came out of the drug induced haze (okay, I'm still coming out of it and will be for a few days yet) I looked back on the whole ordeal and tried to figure out what made this particular reaction so different from past  reactions and what I could learn from that. The suspected allergen in this case was nuts of some sort, one of my major allergens. Past nut reactions had resulted in reactions similar to the ones described in the linked posts above.  It would take a couple days before I was anywhere close to back to normal and a week or more before the bruises on my arms would fade.  This time it was different.  Once I figured out that the prescription antacid that the doctor had given me was full of cornstarch and making me very sick and stopped taking it, I was pretty much back to normal (well, normal with a prednisone kangaroo in my brain).

I finally figured out the difference.  I had taken the epinephrine early on. I knew it was going to hurt like crazy, but more importantly I knew I needed it.  Usually stubborn gets in the way and even though I know I need it, the desire to avoid the pain overrules the common sense.  In the end, it results in an even more painful process (trust me, having nurses fight to start IV's while your blood pressure plummets and your veins collapse is way more painful than a dose of epinephrine).
As I thought about it, I realized that it is much the same way in my walk with Jesus.  I know that letting Him work in my life is going to be painful.  There's a lot of junk He has to deal with.  And I know I need Him to deal with it, because I can't fix it myself. But often, stubborn wins, and I try and fix things on my own.  And I fail.  In the end, the process of Him fixing things up is more painful than if I had stopped being stubborn earlier, because in the end, He always gets His way, just like in the end, the drugs needed to save my life always get into me.
It's easier on me (and everyone involved) if I just take the epinephrine when I know I need it instead of waiting until I'm almost dead.  Likewise, it's easier if I cooperate with Jesus when He is trying to make changes in my life instead of waiting until I'm at the end of my rope, dangling between a rock and hard place, with nowhere to go except down, but I can't even really go down because I'm already at rock bottom.
How would my life be different if I stopped being stubborn? Is it even possible?  And if it is possible, is it a good thing?
Enough thoughts for now.   The kangaroo is waking up.

Question: What is your only comfort in Life and in Death?

Answer:  That I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, unto my faithful savior Jesus Christ.  He has fully payed for my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.  He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my father in heaven...

It goes on, giving more comfort and hope, but that first section, the assurance that I am not my own, that I belong to some one greater than myself, that G-d is watching over me and that I am under his care, is my comfort, a lifeline of sorts.   It gives me the strength, on days like today, days after I have experienced great disappointment, days when I am hurting, it gives me the strength to keep going.  To remember that I am not my own, that this is not about me.  It gives me strength to get up in the morning, to go to class, to go to chapel, to keep worshiping G-d, even when I don't understand why things happen the way they do.  It's not about me.

As a side note, seizures and mono are a bad mix.  My spleen is not happy with this arrangement.  It's actually quite upset.

This is Your Brain on Drugs

As I lay down to sleep last night I could hear machinery outside my window clearing snow and ice away from the streets and parking lots.  It was loud and noisy.  I knew exactly what it was, but my brain was under the influence of a NyQuil like substance (I didn't have NyQuil so I made my own.  It had all the same ingredients).  As I lay there I saw an image straight out of one of my childhood story books.  It was a book about this thing that was half monster, half machine.  It looked kinda like an overgrown giraffe on wheels.  Anyhow, this thing had a name, which I currently can't remember, so I'm just going to call him a machino-saurus.  This machino-saurus wasn't mean, but he was a picky eater.  He only ate the tops of things.  Tops of trees and tops of houses mostly. This of course created problems for the other inhabitants of story-book land.  Especially when he ran out of tree tops to eat and started eating houses.  So they fed him pie and made a deal with him that they would feed him pie if he stopped eating their houses. And everyone lived happily ever after (okay, so there was a bit more to the story, but those are the important things).
So I'm laying in my bed hearing the machinery outside my window and being a little trippy from the drugs and all of a sudden I'm convinced that the machino-saurus is coming to eat the top of my house.  I am not at all happy with this.  I'm scared of the machino-saurus because my room is upstairs so if he ate the top of my house, he'd eat me by accident.  I remember at one point I was nearly hyperventilating out of fear of the machino-saurus.  Then, I realized that if he at the top of my house, I would be able to lay in bed, snug and warm and watch the stars.  This made me happy.  So I went to sleep. And I dreamt of pie.
This my friends, is why you should not take drugs.