My Person and The Constants...

Today's title sounds more like a bad idea for a band name than a blog post!  I don't really watch television all that much anymore.  Nevertheless, I still find myself influenced by a good story regardless of the art form.  

I need that one person, my person, who knows me best...the person who has my back...who cares about the daily details of my life...a "best friend". You know...the Grey's Anatomy Meredith and Christina idea of my person: Your Person as told by Grey's Anatomy.  I'm incredibly blessed to have such a person in my daily life right now. However, in response to my post I Lost My Best Friend, I received a message from the person who has been my friend the longest (27 years to be precise):  Cindy Bartley. She shared something that resonated so perfectly in my heart. It is another dimension of the need I experience for relationship and community. While I do experience a deep need to have a person, I also thrive within a community of people who are a consistent, long-term, ongoing part of my life. In many ways, it is they who define me, anchor me, and to whom I continually circle back.

Cindy shared that she and her family have found resonance in an idea from a cult television show. Lost aired on NBC from 2004 - 2010. The concept of a constant was introduced as that person who grounds us when the world is spinning (more literally in the show than in our actual lives). Cindy shared that, for her, "it doesn't mean day to day life but those that know where you've been and where you need to go."

People do come and go, but most of us can point to some constants in our life. For many, family comprise the earliest and longest term constants. However, for others that may not be the case. I am currently reading  A Music I No Longer Heard: The Early Death of a Parent by Leslie Simon and Jan Johnson Drantell.  The authors state that "[a]ccording to census statistics from 1930 on, roughly 5 percent of the population falls into the orphaned category, which means having lost one or both parents to death before age eighteen" (17).  My dad died when I was 16 and that experience radically changed the way I see the world, family, relationships, God, and loss as well as it impacts those with whom I'm closest. It left me a functional orphan and changed my family irrevocably. I lost my sense of security and permanence and I think I have been looking for that ever since. Of course, there are ways in which my family does still ground me. My brother stands as the representative of all that family is to me. Nevertheless, I find that I am still like that 16 year old kid set adrift in a vast world without her constant.

This idea of constants in our lives refers to more than simply relationships from the past. I love history. I collect things that connect me to my past.  Those friends with whom I have such deep and lengthy context are vital to my survival, but only if they are still connected to my present in some tangible way. I have spent the two weeks since receiving Cindy's message dwelling on this idea of constants in my life. I find these are the people who are a consistently positive part of my life even if that isn't on a daily basis or even face to face.  They do ground me in a world that is relentlessly spinning.

I am amazingly blessed by my constants.  They are my great cloud of witnesses here on earth (the order is merely chronological based on when I met them):

1. Cindy Bartley and The Todd / Bartley family (1986) 
2. LeAnna Davenport (1986)
3. Debbie Blue (1986)
4. The Meltons (1993)
5. Erica Glassburn (1995) 
6. The Cappos (1995) 
7. Kendra Campbell (1996) 
8. Carrie Myles and the Myles / Crane family (1997)
9. Karen Youmans and her family (1999)
10. The Walkers (2000) 

As an interesting side note, most of my constants actually know one another. Of course, that could have occurred because they have simply met one another through shared connection with me.  However, it is actually due to the fact that I have worked for my alma mater for a quarter of a century!  All but one are former OBU classmates, colleagues, or students!

What makes someone a constant?  It doesn't seem that there was ever a moment when it was decided.  One of my constants officiated the wedding of another this weekend. Father TimSean Youmans, in using Frederick Buechner's idea of covenant in marriage, said that such commitments begin with a series of small "yesses" that become weightier over time.  I think our constants may be formed in a similar fashion.

• Knowing someone for a long time. I decided to look at people who have been a grounding presence in my life for over 10 years. This resonates with something I referenced in a previous post about the friends that you have for seven years being lifetime friends. However, there are people in my life who I have known as long who aren't necessarily constants in my life.  Ten years doesn't mean someone automatically holds a place of deep permanence and trust.
• The connection continues even if daily life isn't shared. A love and affection has been nurtured over time and doesn't diminish despite life's circumstances.
• You feel like a part of their family. Perhaps you have spent holidays with them as I have with most of my constants. Typically, you are close with more than just an individual. Maybe it started with one person, but their family (parents, spouses, children, siblings) often become an equally significant part of your life.  The Walkers are one such case for me.  My relationship and connection with them really stems from the friendship I developed with Ashley while she was still in high school.  However, I have been so fully drawn into their family that I can't necessarily separate one from the whole.  In fact, I think it can be hard to explain your relationship with your constants to other people.  I definitely found that to be the case at Ashley's wedding this weekend.
• You will do all you can to honor life's BIG moments together (weddings, funerals, births, graduations, ordinations, etc.) 
• These are all people / families with whom I've been in the trenches. We have weathered life's storms together and have experienced times of strain, conflict, or even emotional distance in our relationships with one another. Nevertheless we seem to return to each other time and again. 
• In the end, there is a contentment, sense of security, and a vulnerability that exists with their more permanent presence in your life. 

Who are your constants?

                I really want to know!

                             Tell me your stories!

Anticipation...

...is keeping me waiting.

Carly Simon penned those words in 1971 about an upcoming date with Cat Stevens and ultimately Heinz Ketchup co-opted them for a famous commercial featuring the thickness of their product that ran throughout the decade.  While I deeply despise ketchup, Carly Simon's music has been a guilty pleasure of mine.  Regardless, the point is I anticipate... well, everything.  Thus, Simon's ditty is an appropriate theme song for my life.  I wait for things to go wrong; I expect to be disappointed; for relationships to end; for loss to occur; and for confrontation to be painful.  Heck, I even dread meetings!  My mind naturally creates worst case scenarios.  Repeatedly, life turns out so much more pleasant and beautiful than my expectations for it.  And, when it doesn't, I recover quickly.  Yet, I continue to anticipate the worst.

I thrive on routine.  I like it's predictability.  Habits are a comfort to me.  I rise before 5am to get in a run or go on a ride; consume a smoothie and a French Press of LaColombe Coffee; poke around on the interwebs; and head to the office for a day filled with my beautiful, brilliant, and sometimes broken students.  Lunch with my best friends and colleagues in the cafeteria provides laughter and a much needed respite in my day.  I head to bed early in order to do it all again.  

I LOVE calendars!  I've kept a detailed daily planner since I transferred to OBU as a junior in college who was overwhelmed by the new academic demands combined with flipping burgers at Sonic and pledging Atheneans.  On a visit home from my first job in Chicago, my then teenage brother stole my DayTimer.  He didn't do this to send me into crisis, but rather to make fun of me.  He selected a random day and entered everything that I need to do.  Wake up.  Brush teeth.  Go to the bathroom.  Eat breakfast.  He found my obsessive planning to be ridiculous and worthy of his mocking!  He likely still does as he has yet to maintain a calendar or planner himself.

In December, my routine begins to break down due to my fatigue and the innumerable activities that accompany the convergence of the end of a semester with the arrival of the holiday season.  The break beckons and I eagerly anticipate it while dreading it all the same.  My family life has been complicated by my father's death in 1982 and the resulting impact of that defining event over time.  My friends are busy with their own travels and family plans.  I look forward to the break in routine; the opportunity to truly Sabbath; the much needed solitude; and a few special moments with those I love most. However, I dread the awkwardness of being single during this season and the loneliness that occurs with the disruption of the very routine from which I need a respite.

It strikes me that Advent is an anticipation of sorts.  We plan for and anticipate the arrival of the Christ child.  Or rather, the celebration of that arrival.  At least that is what I understood the focus to be.  I was raised in a non-liturgical Protestant tradition.  As a result, the Church calendar, sacraments, and many of the rituals of religion aren't second nature to me as they are to some.  That, in celebrating his first coming, we anticipate the Messiah's second arrival on the world stage was rather lost on me.  It appears easy and relatively pleasant to look forward to the arrival of the baby Jesus in the manger.  We light candles or add characters to the nativity.  Some families post decorative calendars and remove dates as the 25th draws closer.  I recently learned about the French tradition of santons or "little saints". I love this practice of placing these beautifully crafted everyday people in and around the crèche as a way to celebrate Advent.  Yet, in all of the tradition and ritual, what are we actually anticipating?  Are we counting down the days until we receive all of our gifts or are we truly expectant for the Christ child's arrival? Add to all of this a need to be eager for his second coming?  Suddenly, I find Advent quite complex and confusing.  In such mental distress, all I can do is cling to the knowledge that he will make all things right and hope in his eventual return.

As I continue to think seriously about this Advent season, I am dwelling upon Ecclesiastes 9.11-12 and Psalm 42.  May the Word of the Lord be unto us both a hope and a challenge even as we anticipate together.

Ecclesiastes 9.11-12 (NRSV): Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favour to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.


Psalm 42 (NRSV):
Longing for God and His Help in Distress

To the leader. A Maskil of the Korahites.

As a deer longs for flowing streams,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me continually,
‘Where is your God?’

These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,
and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the thunder of your cataracts;
all your waves and your billows
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.

I say to God, my rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mournfully
because the enemy oppresses me?’
As with a deadly wound in my body,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me continually,
‘Where is your God?’

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my help and my God.

I lost my best friend...

You look like you've lost your best friend.

Cliches become such for a reason and the above is no exception.  Losing "your person" for any reason is painful and the emotions involved are difficult to hide.  I lost my best friend and few experiences have been more challenging for me to navigate than that. Relationships end.  This is simply a truth with which I must learn to live.  While I might like to blame myself for each broken relationship in my life, I must seek out the lessons and welcome the blessings that each loss brings.

I HATE when people leave.  Early in my professional career, I realized that I had made a vocational choice that was going to result in considerable pain for me.  Academic communities are transitory by nature.  I am required to say "goodbye" constantly.  It is the thorn in my flesh...and my heart.

I rarely cry at real life.  Literature, film, music, and theatre can reduce me to tears without warning.  If a piece of art tells the story of a lost relationship or departure, it will undo me. Such separation can be for any reason from death to a mere misunderstanding. Nevertheless, the emotional release is therapeutic for me.  I allow myself to experience the deeply suppressed emotions I feel regarding loss.

The holidays are not so holly and jolly for everyone.  The days and weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year can be ones of painful remembrances, loneliness, and confusion for many.  These feelings can be exacerbated by winter weather.  I'm a firm believer in Seasonal Affective Disorder and definitely fall victim to it myself.  Combine that with the losses I have experienced in my life, living alone, and my overly active brain.  The results can be devastating if I allow them to be.  I eagerly anticipate "the break" and yet, once it arrives, I can dwell on the pain of past losses and the loneliness that accompanies the disruption in the routine upon which I often rely for stability.

In recent weeks, I've been pondering a question.  What if losing my best friend was the best thing that ever happened to me?  As I have to repeatedly learn, I don't always need that for which I desperately pray.  As I wrote in this year's Advent Devotional, mountains can be moved, but they can also be our protection.  God's wisdom is infinitely greater than mine and he knows me more intimately than any other.  Two and a half years ago I lost my best friend for reasons that are complicated and there is ample blame to share.  I thought I desired nothing more than the restoration of that relationship and prayed in earnest for such healing.  In reality, what I desired and what I needed were two vastly different things.  The loss of relationship and brokenness which accompanied it created an opening in my life into which another could step.  And, it is that other through whom God has loved me so well.

Relationships are complicated.  Living in the bonds of friendship with another human isn't easy.  In order to be genuine, intimate, and vulnerable, friendship demands intentionality, personal self-sacrifice, and great discernment.  That's not to say that it doesn't also bring great joy, peace, and comfort.  It's easy to take those who are merely "friends" for granted.  We can misuse, abuse, or neglect our relationships and do damage to ourselves and one another in the process.  I am striving to be the best friend that I can be in order to be a blessing to my friend and in order to prevent the loss that I find so difficult to manage.  And, I am trusting God to know my heart.

Anticipate Brokeness

Continuing to tap the archives for previous Advent posts.  Today's post is from Christmas 2010.  I wrote this just months after experiencing a traumatic bike accident.  However, I was feeling more than just physical brokenness.  I was also struggling emotionally and relationally.  Reflection on the past can limit us, but today it causes my heart to rejoice.  I didn't know it was coming, but I experienced just the healing of which I speak through the end of some relationships and the advent of new ones.

The arrival of the Messiah on planet earth reminds us that through something abrupt, unexpected, and traumatic, something beautiful, restorative, and awe inspiring can occur.

The Messiah entered a cold, dark, and unwelcoming world through the vulnerable, brutal, and harrowing experience of physical birth. Was that what the prophets foretold? Was he the answer to their prayers? Weren’t they anticipating a triumphant and charismatic leader; a revolutionary who would vindicate and free them in a dramatically powerful fashion? Did his arrival cause them to question Yahweh? Did they have grave doubts whether this was the Messiah for whom they had long awaited?

What are we awaiting with equally great eagerness? For what do we hope and long? What are our expectations and desires? Love… healing… joy… comfort… peace… money… pleasure… ease. And yet, we are equally disconcerted when our most primal needs are met through trauma; pain; abrupt change; the unexpected. God frequently delivers that which heals, restores, provides life, and transforms through pain and brokenness rather than through more pleasurable experiences. Does this cause us to question His goodness; doubt His love; struggle with His version of justice? Perhaps. But such experiences also enable us to intimately know that it is in dying that we are truly restored to life…and that it is in being broken that we are healed.

The Messiah laid down his life both in the manner of his coming to earth and in leaving it. He so desired relationship with us that he placed himself in the most vulnerable of positions in order to seek us and find us and restore us to right relationship with the Father. He modeled the self-giving, sacrificial love that He expects us to bring to the world. Just as many anticipated His arrival…let us love in a way that causes the brokenhearted to know He is coming again.

Fear Transformed

I guess you can call this my Throw Back Advent Series! I decided to open the archives and share my Advent devotionals from some previous seasons. I wrote this for Christmas 2011. I can see where it reveals my heart at this time two years ago. I was feeling a bit lost, damaged, injured, and alone. Thanks be to God for giving me hope in my need and for providing so richly for me, especially in the past year. More on that to come...

Psalm 27.1-4
The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?  When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.  Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.  One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.

We live in a world with much to fear. People are unpredictable. They can careen into us damaging our bodies and our hearts. The earth is chaotic. It can shake us to the core and produce heat, wind, ice, and rain that threatens our very lives as well as those possessions which we have stored in its temporary shelter. Economic turmoil challenges us at every turn while acts of terrorism and war rip at the fiber of our societies.

We live and breathe and have our being by the very grace of the One who created both this terrestrial ball and those of us who call it home. We may seem bent on our own destruction and that of the planet; however that One, that Creator, is a God who loves not only the natural world that He spoke into being, but also the violent, foolish, broken, and flawed humans into whom He placed His very image. His love is so powerful, transformative, and other-worldly that He inexplicably chose to enter human history in the form of a helpless infant.

And, it is through that infant that all fear can cease and and in whom all confidence can be placed. An infant delivered light into the vast darkness of our hearts and salvation to all that exists. That moment in history transformed all future moments into beauty, peace, and hope.

Thanks be to the One for whom all things have been created and in whom all things hold together.

For once and for ALL!

“[A]t bottom, and just in the deepest and most important things, we are unutterably alone, and for one person to be able to advise or even help another, a lot must happen, a lot must go well, a whole constellation of things must come right in order once to succeed.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Writing for public consumption is demanding tremendous vulnerability from me. And now I am beginning the process of co-authoring a book for publication with my first small yet significant deadline a week away. To do this, I must be willing to risk the exposure that sharing my thoughts and stories will bring. The book is on the topic of friendship! Likely the most challenging and intimate of issues for me is that of loneliness and solitude. Or perhaps, more precisely, the tension between the two. A tension which has deeply impacted my ability to be in relationship with other human creatures; to experience, enjoy, and sustain friendship.

For those who don't know me well, I may seem self-sufficient as much as anyone can. At least that's my hope! It's probably best if you don't shatter my self-delusion. Since I was a teen, I have prided myself on appearing fiercely independent while secretly nurturing a deep desire for companionship. My family's myth is that I've been independent since I no longer needed my diaper changed and that my first full sentence was "I do it myself". Yet, my mantra as a child was "Take me where there are other boys and girls!" That paradox is a tension in which I have lived my life for decades. I'm pleased when people see me as a loner, independent, strong. I brag about having been able to go to movies or out to eat on my own since I was quite young. I have, on numerous occasions, claimed that Simon & Garfunkel's I am a Rock is my theme song (as if the pain and irony of the song is actually lost on me). I'm embarrassed when someone sees a crack in the carefully constructed armor that is my mask. When people sense that I'm lonely or in need of relationships, I kind of flip out. I don't want pity, but I do want to be seen and known by a few people (shhh...don't tell anyone).

Growing up with such a desperate desire for intimate friendship juxtaposed against a solitude that reinforced my façade of self-sufficiency has marked my relational style and personality in profound ways. With this as a foundation for all of my friendships, my mindset has been that I am a failure at relationships. We are often creatures of self-fulfilling prophecies. I tell myself that I suck at math, thus my math skills are quite pathetic. And, I tell myself that I am incapable of sustaining intimate relationships and such has been the case. So, what business do have I writing a book about friendship? It seems none, yet I know that I am actually not alone. Consider the book a travel guide from one who has gotten lost and been found.

The last man with whom I was romantically involved perceived me as in need of no one and found that appealing. He was struck by my ability to be in relationship without being in need. WOW!!! Was he ever wrong! I am in deep need. I want so badly for someone to care for me enough to see through all of that, recognize my need, and desire to meet some of it. It doesn't need to be romantic. Friendship is significant and fulfilling to me. REAL, "I've got your back", devoted friendship meets a need in my heart. My life experience has taught me that people leave, or die, or simply stop liking me. Funny, maybe we all suck at relationships and I just thought I had a corner on the market!

Recently, I have come to realize that all of the loss and perceived failure has resulted in my being much more private than I ever realized and incredibly hesitant to truly trust. And yet, I keep believing that someone will stay, will continue loving me...that they would live life with me and not die too soon. In the final analysis, I completely get that human creatures will fail me, and of course, I understand that we are all but dust. I simply wish that I hadn't experienced loss so frequently. I have learned to live with loss, solitude, and loneliness. I cherish solitude more than some; it's the loneliness that breaks me. I want a best friend who remains just that. I wish people didn't move, give up, get tired. I recently read somewhere that if a friendship lasts seven years, it will last forever. Yes, that seems right. I need it to be so and, despite what life has attempted to teach me, I have hope that it is.

Yes, "we are unutterably alone". That is the truth of the matter. However, I just want that "whole constellation of things" to go right for once and for ALL!

Mountain Mover

Psalm 72.1-7; 18-19

Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness.

He will judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice.

The mountains will bring prosperity to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness.

He will defend the afflicted among the people and save the children of the needy; he will crush the oppressor.

He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations.

He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth.

In his days the righteous will flourish; prosperity will abound till the moon is no more.

Praise be to the Lord God, the God of Israel, who alone does marvelous deeds.

Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory.

Amen and Amen

Written for University Baptist Church's annual Advent Devotional (December 6, 2013)

Mountains are majestic! Everest, McKinley, Kilimanjaro, Rainier! Climbers, cyclists, and adventurers are drawn by their challenge and power. The greatest thrill I ever experienced on my bike was tackling Clingman's Dome, a Cat 1 climb, in the Smokies. Mountains take our breath away literally and figuratively, but they also overwhelm and defeat us. The view from the top is indescribable, but traversing or ascending them is daunting, physically demanding, and even deadly. Moving them? Unthinkable!

Hebrew and Christian scripture includes the word mountain, or some form of it, 576 times. The Psalmist indicates they bring good, however there are many instances in which readers encounter mountains of doubt, danger, and destruction. Abraham took his beloved son Isaac to Mount Moriah to sacrifice him in obedience to Yahweh. Mark indicates that if our faith in God is sufficient, we can move mountains. And Luke prophesies that believers will be able to call upon mountains to provide for their protection.

Mountains are complicated not unlike the One who created them. This is as it should be. God takes our breath away; he provides our ultimate protection; he can undo us like nothing else; and he demands sacrifice we often find ourselves incapable of making. Have you prayed to the King that created mountains to move the ones you face? It takes courage, boldness, and faith. Do it! Watch the God of Israel do marvelous deeds. If you believe the obstacles in your life cannot be overcome, they may not be. However, if you cling to the One who moves mountains and beg him to do so, you may end up more breathless than when you gaze upon the vast expanse. Name your mountain. Seek the Mountain Mover. He crushes; he endures; he does marvelous deeds. "Praise be to his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory."

Beauty

Basically a little addendum to the Truth and Beauty post.  I wrote this on Sunday, September 29, 2013.

The MOST remarkable thing happened to me this morning. The woman taking my order at Starbucks looked up from her register to acknowledge me and spontaneously exclaimed "You are beautiful! Do you know that? You are absolutely beautiful!" NOTHING like that has EVER happened to me. Total stranger. Day made!!!!

Why don't we notice the breathtaking beauty in each person whom we encounter? Why don't we risk speaking words of truth and generosity when we do notice? May I take note of each person whose path I cross. May I see all people as striking creations of the Most Beautiful One who are worthy of affirmation and, in fact, possibly desperate for it.

Truth and beauty.

“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.” ― Sigmund Freud

Dallas Half Marathon - December 2012

I received a Facebook message from a former student that read: "You look incredible, and my goal is to look that awesome at my 25th reunion!! You continue to be an inspiration". This was, for me, the culmination of many comments and compliments that I have received during the past year. It was Homecoming weekend at my university and, along with enjoying the opportunity to see many former students, I also participated in my 25th class reunion. As a result, I encountered a significant number of people who I haven't seen in years as well as there were a number of pictures posted on Facebook of me with friends and students at the weekend's events. I am striving to best navigate the affirmation along with the odd and sometimes awkward comments I receive regarding the changes I have made in how I present myself publicly. I'm learning to be slightly more comfortable responding and attempting not to deflect all of it. I have taken action and made choices that have impacted my physical appearance. No one told me I ought to do so or even suggested that such changes were necessary. I consistently seek to improve; to be my best in all quadrants of my life. However, I didn't see my appearance as an area that I wanted to change. It seemed easier to deflect attention away from my appearance. I'm not unlike many women in that I struggle with body image and perceptions of self as well as the tension between outward beauty and inner substance. My best friend has been privy to each step I have taken, challenge I've faced, and risk I have welcomed over the past year. She has helped by going shopping with me, responding to random texted pictures from outlet malls and department stores, and by offering fashion and relationship advice. However, she has done much more, and it is that much more for which I am most grateful this year.


Jennifer's care, love, friendship, and belief in me have been the true difference makers in this season of my life. She created a space in which I could experience the courage to act and the belief I was lacking in myself through being authentic, honest, and genuine. This has required her to sacrifice her time and energy of which there is precious little to spare along with her willingness to trust, be patient, and love unconditionally. I want to acknowledge her with each compliment I receive. When someone points out what I'm wearing, I regularly respond with self deprecating humor that I have a personal shopper and no actual fashion sense of my own! My desire to credit her care for me is why I share so many of those words of affirmation that I receive with her. It's not because I feel unworthy of them or that I didn't make my own choices to grow and improve. I am willing to take credit for being who I was, who I am, and who I am becoming. Nevertheless, I need to acknowledge the transformational role that Jennifer's friendship has played in my arrival at this particular place in my life. It is a picture of true friendship to me. But, it likely doesn't look like what some might assume.  Jennifer McQuade and I may make for unlikely friends in the eyes of some.  But, I continue to be surprised by God's love as he directs us towards the relationships that will make us more like Him.


I want to share this publicly because this wasn't my goal. The "looking incredible"; the compliments; the appearance. I want people to understand that improved health, holistic wellness, and care for oneself should be at the center of any health and fitness goals; not the number on the scale, the image in the mirror, the compliments offered by friends or strangers. If my appearance has improved or been transformed in the process, that's added blessing and joy. I want others to understand that while Jennifer did play a significant role in how I perceive myself, she didn't tell me that I needed to dress better or wear make up or change my image in order to be her friend.  Even she was shocked when I started wearing pink!  Anyone who knows me well, knows that I would flatly reject such suggestions and the person making them.  Friends make a powerful difference in our lives.  They can help us to make radically positive changes in our lives and self perceptions or they can stunt our growth, damage our self esteem, and even contribute towards regression. I've read a number of studies that statistically demonstrate that individuals with friends who are overweight are significantly more likely to be overweight themselves.  Peer pressure rarely seems to work to our benefit! However, Jennifer was able to spur my growth without requiring it of me. She is a pusher, but that push continues to come with great empathy and kindness.  

VHA Musical Gala - October 2013

Sharing this demands vulnerability. It may be challenging, difficult, or even offensive for some to hear. Jennifer may not care for the attention. Nevertheless, I want to express my gratitude for this year, for change, for friendship. It is my desire in doing so to urge others to love themselves well and to love others transformationally. Be vulnerable. Be honest. Look for the best in your friends and then push them to be better. Celebrate their growth rather than stifling it. Oscar Wilde said, “Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.”  Thanks be to God for a friend who can do both.

A life of gratitude.

It's November. Facebook is all a-flurry with daily expressions of gratitude. Some are light, frivolous, and humorous expressions while others are deep, heartfelt, and vulnerable. Of course, expressing one's many thanks to God, the cosmos, or those most cherished can be inspiring to others and healthy for the individual. I enjoy reading what my many friends, colleagues, and students share. I anticipate those moments when I might be recognized for my contribution to someone's life. I think about posting. I do. However, I struggle with the idea as well. The reasons are complex and many, but primarily it has to do with a daily practice that I now keep.


Five years ago I began keeping a journal with daily entries. I was challenged to do this by Dr. Karen Longman, Professor of Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University. I have been privileged to sit under her teaching on several occasions including at the CCCU Women's Leadership Develop Institute at Cedar Springs Retreat Center in upstate Washington. She shared a practice she maintained of ending her day reflecting on the three best or good things that had occurred in her life on that day. I'm sure my practice has evolved over these five years to become something of my own making. I maintain this habit as I want to live a life of gratitude and focus upon the many blessings in my life rather than those aspects of it that most challenge me. The top of each page in my journal is currently headed with "Thanks Be to God. Today's Blessings...". I delineate the three blessings of my day. I have done this daily without exception other than for one month. This was the month immediately following my cycling accident. It wasn't that I didn't have MUCH for which to be thankful, but rather had difficulty with routine, clarity, and simple daily activity.

I value the past. I anticipate the future. This daily discipline not only gives me a record of the past, but also enables to focus on the beauty of this day. I am intrigued that the journal entries can often be easier to make on the harder days. The light seems to stand out in the darkness. Generally pleasant days are wonderful, but the beauty doesn't pop like it does when life is ugly. Regardless, I maintain this as a daily practice. And...on occasion,  I read past entries. At times, those entries inspire me and give me clarity and understanding. Other times, I find myself saddened by the loss of people for whom I cared or the memory of a particularly difficult or lonely period in my life. I love to look back and see when a friendship actually started. There are ways this journal keeping is not unlike my obsessive logging of each run and bike ride I complete. It keeps me honest. I can spot growth and decline. I also imagine people for whom I care reading these entries after I'm gone. I wonder what they will think of me. Will they be surprised, challenged, inspired, disappointed? I'm not sure. Perhaps they will experience all of these responses.

I want to live a life of gratitude. I never want to take the blessings in my life for granted any more than I want to allow the challenges that I face to prevent me from finding joy and experiencing growth. In Matthew 5.35, Christ says "for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous". That concept has done much to inform my theology and shape my worldview. I'm no more deserving of blessing or curse than any other creature. If this is the case, it challenges me to live with gratitude for all that occurs. In Philippians 4.12, Paul echos this truth when he says, "I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need". He says this in response to expressions of concern by the church at Philippi and concludes with the oft quoted statement that he is able to do all things through the strength of Christ. I am challenged to be both grateful and content by God's word. At various times, I have found both to be quite challenging. However, I want to live my life as a daily expression of thanks to God and to be content with my circumstances even as I strive to improve my own life and the community in which I am placed.

With what is remaining of this month, I plan to post some entries regarding those things for which I'm most grateful and the ways that God is working in my life through them.  I hope to challenge myself and others as well as to celebrate the gifts that I am experiencing.

Thanks be to God.