Wearing Your Pants Backwards: Why You Don’t Have to Wait for Hindsight to See 20-20, Some Rambling Lessons on Trust.

"Wearing Your Pants Backwards:

Why You Don’t Have to Wait for Hindsight to See 20-20, 

Some Rambling Lessons on Trust."

  

That’s what I’ll name my next book.  [If in fact I ever finish the latter of them all.  If in fact I start any of the later for that matter.]  And I think the whole book will be about changing perspective.  Being proactive instead of reactive when it comes to investing in people, in relationships, in ministry.  It’ll be about trust. 

Last week I wore my pants backwards for the entirety of a day.  I don’t know what compelled me to do this exactly (although my pants stayed on for the first time in many days with the changed angles) other than the fact it came up at cabin leader training and I had a group of kids who it was extra fun to be goofy and silly with.  I only actually intended to wear them backwards through breakfast but when their amused befuddlement became the utmost for my own amusement, I had to keep going.  The fact every time my students saw me it confused them more, somehow made the whole ordeal that much funnier and that much better. 

The day ended when an energetic camper came up to me stating “Anika!  I have a joke!” “Go for it!” I replied enthusiastically.  “What’s blue and backwards and unzipped?”  Without hesitating I chuckled and responded “My pants!” *brief pause* *gasp* “My pants!!!!”  As I reached for my bum where my zipper had been located all day my young charge laughed contagiously and responded “just kidding!  But we got you!”  Admittedly after the color returned to my face (it had drained), her contagious laughter was joined by my own and I find the entire situation and joke hysterical.  Even if I probably won’t make wearing my pants backwards a life decision. 

The next day, Thursday, realizing just how attached I had become to these students (both cabin leaders and campers alike) – I nearly had a meltdown.  The realization that is true of every week became somehow unbearable this time around: I get these kids for three or four or five days at best and I have to send them home.  I found myself roller-coastering through what my dear friend and co-work called “proud mom” and “anxious mom” moments. 

Proud mom times where I would merely watch and begin to smile and almost laugh.  Their joy and dedication, their love for life and friendship with each other was infectious.  They were my kids.  I loved them. And I was indeed proud of who they were and who I saw them becoming. 

And other times, other times, anxious mom broke in.  It was like watching with my pants on backwards.  The perspective was all off.  I was looking forward and looking beyond as if I were looking behind.  This is where the meltdown happened.  Because as I watched out and looked at a room full of kids, MY kids, I suddenly had this vision of who they would be as high schoolers, as adults.  I had a notion about what they would look like, be like.  I was seeing who they would become.  And it scared the snot out of me.  First because my room was full of 6^th graders not teenagers or college kids...I shouldn’t be “seeing” anything.  And second and mostly because I could see the picture but I couldn’t control it.  I couldn’t control who they would become.  I couldn’t walk along side them for the next 10 years of their life.  I couldn’t dictate which of these kids would end up an alcoholic or in an abusive relationship.  I couldn’t stop the girl who would statistically get pregnant before she graduated or the boy who’d drop out addicted to drugs.  I didn’t get a say. 

I was seeing 20-20, or so it felt.  The truth is such clarity it started to destroy me. Seeing how each little piece of their day, their life was being currently impacted.  Something I only should have been able to see in reverse I was suddenly hopeless in preventing from the front.  With my zipper to the back I felt most unable to guard and protect the most vulnerable pieces.  And like my camper who laughed that it was already down, I was convinced I had somehow left exposed all of the lives I so desired to protect.   

But life is about, among many other greater things which find home inside this one, perspective.  And on Friday morning as my computer crashed with the messages for the youth retreat I was speaking at unable to be retrieved and my kids going home and my high schoolers making this girl so proud of their leadership and love and investment, I just stared.  I should have panicked.  It’s what I do best.  My anxiety level should have skyrocketed...I am an expert in the field of acting out of situational anxiety.  But I didn’t; it didn’t.  I simply stared.  Tired and defeated I realized I held no control.  Over anything.  And so I simply stared and began to talk out loud.

[I feel it necessary to note that I don’t think I’ve ever audibly heard the voice of God, but I often have conversations where I realize I’m answering out loud to things no one has said.  Things God is speaking gently into the chaos of my spirit.  Our conversation on Friday morning went a little and a lot like this...]

“God, I don’t even know what to do or where to start.”

“With what?”

“I have to send them home...”

“Yes...”

“But I can’t!  They’re mine!”

“Yours?”

“Yes, mine!  I claim them.  I always claim them!  But this week is was different.  It’s harder.  Who they’ll become. I just, I can’t...”

“Were you faithful?”

“With what?”

“With them.  Were you faithful?  Did you show them truth and love them as much as able in the time you were given?”

“Yes.  I mean, I don’t know.  I think so...”

“Then send them off.”

“But they’re my kids...”

“They were never your kids.  Not to begin with.  They will first and always be mine.”

“So what do I do?”

“What are you going to do?”

“What choice do I have but to give them back to you?”

“Be faithful with the time you’ve been given, but choose to trust me...”

Choose to trust.  Because trust is a choice. 

I don’t have to wait for hindsight to see in 20-20 if I can wear my pants backwards from time to time.  If I can see in advance what typically I should only see in reverse.  If I am faithful in the moments then I won’t have to look back to see where I was the missing link in the future I can’t control.  Perhaps I’ll be able to look back and see where maybe one faithful moment was enough to change the whole trajectory.  To be faithful in the now and to trust that they’ve always been God’s...if they were never mine to begin with.

Start where you are.

Use what you have [and the grace you have been given]

Do what you can.

It will be enough...  

[*dun, dun, dun*] The Twilight Zone [*gasp!*]

A bout of pneumonia and an appendectomy had me “out of the office” for 12 days.  Not that I have an office.  Nor do I have anywhere near an office job.  [Just to clear up any unnecessarily believed implications behind such a euphemism.] Returning last week was not a hard decision.  In fact, in my mind, it was the OBVIOUS choice.  The fact people questioned it – well, quite frankly, confused me.  It just showed they didn’t really know me. [Now those who accepted my decision and questioned my sanity and the validation of wisdom were a different story. Ha!]  I WANTED to be back.  It wasn’t a question of necessity or allowance or even ability.  I knew it would kick me in the shins and other places of pain and severity (it did, in fact).  Still, there was the desire to return to the place I had committed to and so in had come to love. 

“Very nice.  Sweet in fact.  Touching really.”  You might be saying.  “But so what??”

Agreed.  This has to have a point. 

The thing is, for all my desire and all my anticipation and expectation...the one thing I hadn’t at all prepared myself for was the...

*Dun, dun, dun!*

The Twilight Zone.  *gasp!*

I returned – pumped and ready and perceivably eons out of the loop!  I mean, I was only gone for 12 days!  My coworker with animal growing on his face had shaved.  The lizard had been found! (But I didn’t actually know she was missing...).  The “newbie” on staff was carrying herself as if she were no longer new (not that it really surprised me but she was still finding her OE legs when I left).  The snack clip was back in circulation. People were holding conversations and laughing about things everyone knew but made absolutely no sense to me.  There were new inside jokes and small changes and adjustments. (“Is this new?”  “Oh yeah!  We’ve been doing it for like a week.  Oh, right... sorry.”)  Not to mention I felt like EVERYONE knew just about everything about my immediate history and I didn’t actually know anything but the base of the current world at camp. 

At one point during the middle of the week I paused.  “Wait?  Do I work here??  Life seems so out of place!”   I’ll admit there were times I felt like an outsider.  And other times I felt a little replaced.  Perhaps not the most appropriate feelings, but probably understandable – if you are indeed in the...*dun, dun, dun!*...Twilight Zone. *gasp!*

It was strange.  To say the least.  But there are some important lessons or at least minor acknowledgements to be made.

For example...

Get this – the world doesn’t revolve around me!  I know this, truly I do.  I didn’t expect the world to stop just because I wasn’t there.  But I love to save the world.  And the fact the world survived and did just fine without me?  Probably a good reminder that I can always be part of the solution (whatever the situation may be) but if I step back occasionally, someone else probably will step up. 

You appreciate what you have more when it’s gone.  Cliché, I know.  Anyone who knows me knows I love OE and I’m stoked to be here right now – but it’s not forever.  It’s not what I want to do forever.  I was super frustrated at Christmas with whether what I did mattered and whether I was really being faithful to stick around.  Not being at Michindoh when I was supposed to be?  Not being with campers when I wanted to be?  Confirmed for me how much I do enjoy what I do and how much I do feel faithful in still being here.

People will feel really bad when you tell them that you didn’t know the lizard was missing upon the announcement of her return.   I didn’t really care that the lizard was back because I didn’t know it was gone. That doesn’t mean I couldn’t still be excited that the lost has been found.  Responses are still choices. 

Sometimes when everyone seems to know everything about you and would rather talk about it than answer your three questions about what has been going on at work – it might have more to do with their care than anything else.  In asking, they’re asking to be a part of your world.  I already have an in to the work world...I work here.  But my personal world?  Just like yours, there is only entrance with permission.  It is weird to have tables reversed when I like to be the one to take care of everyone else.  But, well, in the end...they ask because they care.  They know because they care.  They’re praying because they care.  They also know you’re not incapable but because they, you’ve got it...care, they are probably also going to be protective. It’s hard. But it’s okay.

[I could write more things,  Seriously. But instead...] I’ll just end with the fact that God is faithful.  Another cliché phrase, perhaps.  But before, after, and in the midst of my [*dun, dun, dun*] Twilight Zone [*gasp!*], He showed up.  What could and perhaps should have been a challenging and frustrating week where I was trying to knit myself back into a picture where I had dropped a stitch and missed a pearl...was positive and joyful.  God is still good.  He’s working in and through the strangest Twilight Zone situations.  And He’s working in and through me...which might be the strangest of them all!  

Confessions of a Kid Who is No Good at Being Sick...

I’m a terrible sick kid.

Anyone who knows my medical history now has my permission and my plead to stop laughing.

It’s true.  I don’t handle being sick well.  I just don’t feel like life really makes allotments for sickness.  And, perhaps more accurately, some mal-wired piece of me doesn’t make allotments for sickness either.  The proper answer to sickness in my life? To buck it up and work through it.  There are things more important than how I feel.

Seriously.

I could give you example after example of how this has played out but suffice it to know I had curiously exceptional attendance in college despite everything and while one time last spring I was sent home sick at lunch, I can’t actually bring to mind a time in my semi recent past where I’ve called in ill.  I’m just never sick enough to justify taking time off – of anything. 

Most people would call this sort of mindset...

Denial!

Maybe. 

I just think most things you can work through. That what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.  And some combination of “what’s the big deal?” and “I get to decide so...” Alright, I will also concede that the people pleaser in me would much rather meet up to the expectations and commitments before me than place them aside for something as dumb sounding as “I don’t feel good”.

But there’s more to being a terrible sick kid than that.

Because when I am sick, I don’t handle it well.  I become whiny and irritable.  (Yes, even more than usual, thanks for asking).  And needy – but I don’t actually let people take care of me very well.  Counterproductive?  I would say so. 

So what happens when, in the name of being sick, I’m stuck on a 10-day “vacation”? Well, confusion for one.  I was never off for 10 days in a row during cancer!  And here you’re going to tell me that some odd combination of pneumonia and cheater’s appendicitis have done the trick?  For real?  Come. On!

And yet, in my last 10 days I’ve been taught some important lessons about being sick.  Like the fact it’s okay to let people take care of you from time to time.  Not to mention, when you’re THAT sick, a blind man sees through your claims that you’re feeling fine.  I was a little caught off guard by the intensity and legitimacy of the individuals who were there to offer and provide whatever I needed long before I could ask.  And not just my mommy (who I still need to take care of me even though I’m just shy of 24 years old) either.  I didn’t have a day without at least one text asking me how I was feeling or how I was doing.  To let me know they were praying for me.  It is weird to be the one who wants to take care of everyone else and to suddenly be the one being cared for. Admittedly, I don’t do it very well...

I learned other things too.  Like (but not limited to)... it’s hard to get better if you don’t slow down.  In fact, I have spent more time in the last 10 days in my pajamas than in jeans.  Furthermore, I’ve slept more than I’ve been awake. (Anyone who knows me can sight these as not just “woah, really?” statements but NOTEABLE accomplishments).  I’ve read.  I’ve watched movies.  I’ve had phone dates. I’ve made it through the comics every morning and the evening news every night. I’ve spent some time in my journal and I’ve managed to do a little reflecting.  Life has been soooo slow.  But good. 

In the end, the time was almost...healthy.  Healthy enough that I find myself in moderate pain (we won’t talk about how many mg of Ibuprofen I’m allowed to take in conjunction with Tylenol to reach this functional status.  Not important) and am anxious to be back to work with my colleagues and the camp I have come to love and the kids that always have a way of stealing my heart. Blast them!  I am antsy and grumpy that I won’t be there to greet the new group when they arrive tomorrow so that I can make it to my post-op appointment instead.  Eager to get back to being too busy and trying too hard to take care of the world...it sounds almost refreshing!

In the end...I’m still a terrible sick kid. 

I don’t handle being sick very well and I don’t anticipate I ever will. 

On the plus side...I’m tonsils and a kidney shy of losing all the body parts there really are to lose (I’m a gallbladder, a thyroid, four wisdom teeth, 32 lymph nodes and now an appendix down)... so that she keep me settled for a while.  Plus, I’m on enough antibiotics to kill bacteria within a 100ft radius of my body AND yep, cashed in and made sure I got my flu shot before I left the hospital.  I intend to ride healthy for the rest of this blasted winter season. 

If not...

Call the Missing Parts Club.  I am now a Gold Card Member and they’ll be forced to deal with my incredulously grumpy persona and accompanying dripping nose.  : ) 

Anything Important? Anything Real?

I’ve really wanted to write.

And suddenly I have the time. 

Yet mostly I’ve stared at the cursor on a white screen until my attention is diverted for a few minutes and I eventually close my computer and/or fall asleep.

See writing is one of those things – one of those things I think I have a passion for.  When I write something meaningful or something that matters, it makes me come alive.  I love the look of words on a page and I love the way suddenly thoughts I couldn’t quite express take shape as my fingers fly. 

The problem is that my motivation to write has been mere desire.  I want to but I also want it to be something significant, profound, intentional.  I could just write, but why?  For what reason?  Simply because I’m capable? But unless I’m writing out of passion, well there is never anything really worth writing about.

A year or so ago I came to these conclusions about passion and desire (and capabilities for that matter)...

“Passion is always about something external – outside of person, outside of self, about something else.

Desire is always about something internal – inside person, emotional and so changing, about self

Passion can fuel desire and desire can fuel passion but one must be careful of the foundation and/or motives as desire may fuel a selfish passion or passion may produce an unhealthy desire.

Capabilities without desire boils down to obligation and duty.

Capabilities without passion is self-sufficiency.

Desire without passion is often a prideful power trip...because desire is brought back to self.

Passion without desire is merely ideals and good intentions...because passion is about something external. 

Capabilities without desire or passion is apathy.”

Recalling and re-finding these conclusions bothered me.  Not because I’ve been home sitting in my pajamas for two, going on three, days doing nothing and not writing though I could.  But because somehow it registered something bigger, deeper...

Because writing isn’t making my blood flow.  Whoop-de-do!

But what is?

When is the last time I felt passion for...anything?  Let alone anything important, anything real?

I take even just brief stock of my life and I immediately note that I’m functioning on capabilities and limited desire – in almost every spectrum.  I’m capable.  Good.  And desire comes into play because desire, being internal often has to do with my want to succeed, to please, and to achieve.  And what I have a lot of is, in fact, self-sufficiency.  And a realization that I need to let go of my pride. And when success, achievement, and people pleasing wear me out for the day?  I’m apathetic. 

Too often, far too often, I just don’t care. 

About anything. 

Not really.

I want to.

I used to care about everything.  Absolutely everything.

And then I think I got tired.

But now what’s keeping me going?  What moves me? What propels me?  What shakes me?  What encourages me?  What inspires me?  What angers me?  What motivates me? 

And why don’t I have an answer for any of those questions? 

God’s been distant in my life the last few months.  Distant, so distant. I suppose that’s not really very accurate.  I’m quite aware that I’m the one who is distant.

I need Him now more than ever but He also can’t be – for reality or for show – the answer to those questions.  Because the unfortunate and honest answer is that He’s not. 

God’s not currently my passion. 

This saddens me.  But I feel as if I would be more disappointed with myself if I had replaced Him with something else...I have not.

I’m finding myself lacking the passion for much of anything.

Especially anything important, anything real...  

Grieving Cancer

On November 15^th of 2011, I went in for my “yearly” – an appointment at the good ol’ University of Michigan hospital with my surgeon and the doctor who has been monitoring my cancer care on a macro level for the last three years – since fall of 2008. 

Oh yeah,  now might be a good point to mention that I had thyroid cancer (just in case you didn’t already know); diagnosed at age 19, the day after Christmas of my sophomore year of college. 

Nearly four years later after signing my life away on a “Five Wish Form” – just in case via hospital protocol, two major surgeries, four notable hospitalizations, a ridiculous dose of radiation, several biopsy stabs to my general neck area, numerous scans and ultrasounds, literally hundreds of blood draws, later and I still had what I declared for the curious was an “existent but non active thyroid cancer diagnosis”.  The medical science aside (you’d have to talk me later for more of my story and the details), I had existent protein levels in my blood work pointing toward thyroid cancer tissue that was unidentifiable on my scans...meaning we couldn’t treat.  While the levels were negligible for the average person, they were dangerous for a person such as myself... without a thyroid and with a cancer diagnosis. 

Basically my options were to either a) hope it would gradually clear out by itself, b) wait for it to grow so that location could be identified and properly treated and eradicated, or c) live in limbo (my self-proclaimed “sabbatical”) as if life were normal until ‘a’ or ‘b’ could be established.  When after six months ‘a’ failed to come through – we moved into ‘c’ and hoped for ‘b’... essentially eliminating the hope of ‘a’.  And such it has been. For two years worth of sabbaticals.  And such I anticipated it would remain as I went in for my yearly this last November.  At the rate I was going – I could die with a diagnosis.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my blood work came back with indistinguishable levels.  The ‘a’ option which disappeared some time in 2009 was suddenly the answer.  I go in anxious...and prepared for anything.  But I wasn’t prepared for a “blood work looks excellent! In fact levels are unidentifiable!”  I nearly jumped out of my seat.  “So I’m cleared then?  My levels have never been unidentifiable!  Am I cleared?”  My doctor laughed “maybe after five reports that look like this one we can officially clear you.  But for now, know you’re in good shape and don’t have anything to worry about for a while.”

I was far more excited in my shock than I imagined.  I eagerly called and texted the extent of my world.  I ran back to work to tell my coworkers (some of whom had only known this part of my story for a month or two...and for a couple, a day or two) – they celebrated with me in a way I wasn’t quite expecting.  I wasn’t prepared for how excited they would be for me and I shook telling them my news and nearly cried later realizing the depth of their care and the rest of my world’s joint rejoicing. 

And then the 16^th came and life went on. 

Quite literally.  That’s how the story goes.  Life went on.  That’s the way it always went with me and cancer.  Life went on and so did I.

At Christmas time – the 4 year anniversary of my diagnosis – I realized that I never dealt with the “clear” because I never really dealt with its presence, not where it matters.  I’ve felt propelled ever since to again watch the movie “My Sister’s Keeper”.  I have only watched it once and haven’t thought or dared to play again since.  The story, while quite different from my own, was too close to home.  The narration of the family, the thoughts of the girl – I wept.  It was my response the first time and I watched it.  And I think I want, maybe even to need to watch it again for the same reason.  I need to cry.  And I’m realizing I need to grieve.

Cancer is a funny thing.  At least mine was... During the thick of things, I hated it.  When it was its worse, I loathed it.  And so I did what I did best, pretended that nothing was wrong and there was nothing I couldn’t handle and life went on.  “Life went on and so did I” really was the best summary.  Mostly, I stuffed and repressed grief. I have two compilations of writings – ponderings, journals, reflections – pieces written to help me process when the “stuffed and repressed” built up.  The first “Glimpse...” was my first four months trying to deal, confident my “all clear” was just around the corner, watching God show up.  The second, “The Sequel” (its title referring to something different than what you might be assuming), was compiled nearly two years later and was the combination of what was going on beneath the surface of my “life went on and so did I” exterior.  To read these compilations one might see some of my bitterness and hurt and resentment – especially over the pieces of life that it had touched without permission...my family, friends, school, finances, relationship with Christ...  Then it ends.  Generally speaking, as far as anyone on the outside could tell, I handled it quite well.  But I haven’t processed much of anything cancer related in a long time and I never spent much time grieving cancer when I had it.  And only limited time grieving the loss of the things it touched. 

But cancer is a funny thing.  At least mine was.  And now that it is gone.  I miss it.  It was such a huge piece of me that losing it was a relief – a burden lifted.  And yet, its loss also left a gaping hole.  Sounds crazy doesn’t it?  Despite living as if it didn’t exist, despite the fact that unless I tell you – people have spent time with me over the course of two years before they find out – you probably don’t know, part of me doesn’t really know who I am without that diagnosis.  It has been such a part of my life for the last four years that it just...is.  And while I get excited to explain that I’m ‘clear’ to people who ask... I also feel like a piece of my identity is missing.  I learned so much with cancer – figuring out who I am and who God is and what it means to be part of a bigger picture and now it’s just gone.  It was a painful experience but I would go back and do it again (I processed this out some 18 months ago).  It was a hard friend, a hard teacher, but that teacher was my friend and I miss it.  I miss it being my secret giver of tough lessons (my own Miagi); I miss it being my secret super-human strength (“You seriously graduated with honors and went through cancer the whole time??” “yep...”); I miss it giving me a secret sense of purpose (“Anika, wait! Because what no one else knows is what you know you fight against every day.  What you fight over.  What you strive to be more than.  No one needs to.  But look who you’ve become despite it?  Look what God’s done in and through it?”).  It seems silly to grieve the loss of something like cancer – especially the wimpy form of cancer I battled. But it’s there. 

Grief.  I feel grief.  Sorrow and pain and heartache.  And I’m processing two kinds of grief all at the same time in two different ways for the same thing.  The thing I am realizing is that grief comes when a piece, a person, an endeavor, meant something.  I wouldn’t be grieving anything right now if it wasn’t such a big part of my life...

And I bring it up now, because maybe I am supposed to.  Maybe I am supposed to grieve it. Maybe there is more that God needs to do in and through this part of my story.  Or maybe it is finally time for me to move on.  Maybe it is time for this chapter to see its last page.  Maybe it’s time to be free to just breathe...

Adaptability, Change, and the Holidays

My senior year of college, my senior exit class for my major (youth ministry) had me take a strengths inventory profile/assessment.  The end result gave me my top five most prominent strengths.  In order, my number two result was “adaptability”.

If I had been drinking a beverage when I first received these results, it probably would have been spewed in a dramatic array over the whole of my computer screen.  “Adaptability?  Seriously?”  I cringed.  I moaned. And I laughed.  This inventory had to be mistaken.  I. Hate. Change.  My classmates and some personal evaluation helped me realize that acting in adaptability when needed and pushing forward regardless of the changes arising is in fact a strength of mine.  Life has demanded change and so I have worked around it and with it and apparently that makes me adaptable.  I ran this recently by just a coworker or two briefly who nodded and said “you go with the flow, no questions asked. You’re adaptable.” *Sigh*

Part of me still wanted to hit my head.  While I am glad it is what other people see – as I don’t want to be a person so caught up in “what isn’t” that “what IS” becomes neglected, under served, unmanaged, or missed – if I had my way, I would not choose to be adaptable.  Inside, change makes me cringe.  Without fail.  I like normalcy.  I value consistency.  In fact, I had a moment of celebration when I realized the loss of some current staff and addition of some new ones would not cause me to lose my office mailbox as it has been alphabetically placed. 

I just like when some things stay the same...

It’s a shame then that over the course of this year absolutely everything has changed.  I’ll refrain by giving labels like “for the good” or “for the bad” but everything has changed.  Or so it feels. 2011 marks the first year that has not included be as a student...since 1992!  Change. I no longer live in my parent’s home and am basically independent (minus the part where I still rely on Dad’s health insurance benefits and can’t actually move out of their home because I work a job that provides housing but my life doesn’t actually fit into my 10x10 bedroom).  Change. Oh!  I have a job.  I have been working a job I basically enjoy that doesn’t actually use my major very much for almost a year.  That’s not like before at all.  Change. My sister is married.  Change.  I have a brother-in-law.  Change.  This was the first summer in almost a decade that I wasn’t involved in ministry at Wesley Woods.  Change.  I don’t have an active cancer diagnosis for the first time since 2007.  Change.  I could keep going.  Seriously...not much in my life (minus the fact I still puke like a champ – dumb consistency) has stayed the same. 

I could have pre-anticipated such a year.  I could have because just about this time last year is when I first felt like everything I had known to be a place of stability in my life was being ripped from underneath of me.  I kept saying things like “Well, if that’s gone, at least I still have...”  as I continually reached out for other places of consistency. As a kid who grew up in a handful of places and needs both hands to recount every school, I was familiar with change and I held tight to the things that always stayed the same...

The biggest “...at least I still have...” at this point last Christmas was, well, Christmas.  For years Christmas has been getting weird.  I think it is because I am getting old.  Christmas has lost some of its magic and charm.  And ever since getting “sick” and being diagnosed the day after Christmas four years ago, a lot of the “little things” which used to make Christmas seemed to disappear.  My family was too busy and there were more important things to worry about.  But there was still something intrinsically the same about Christmas to cling to and yet, I was losing the pieces. Last year I was mourning their loss.  The hours spent on a Saturday decorating the tree and the house.  The time spent creating a mess in mom’s kitchen making candies and chocolate covered pretzels and homemade tootsie rolls.  The planning and crafting and making.  The detailed debate over what ornaments to acquire or make or find that year (I (each of us) have a specific ornament for each year so by the time I was, well, this old, I could move out and have ornaments that meant something to put on my own tree...) We would practice for church Christmas programs while watching all of the classics on TV and fighting over whether or not we had gotten through our own collection of Christmas-must-watch movies.  And when all was said and done, we would get dressed and go to Christmas Eve services and then come home and change into pajamas in time to open up presents as a family.  In the morning we would all load into the car and head to Grandpa and Grandma’s for the day.  Christmas.

But last year everything officially changed when my older sister wouldn’t be home for Christmas and so we didn’t open gifts on Christmas Eve.  We came home and nobody knew what else to do...it’s just what we always did.  And then everything changed again when Grandpa and Grandma announced the fact that it would be the last big family Christmas at their house.  Christmas was being relegated to each and their own.  And there went my last “...at least there is still...”  Christmas was gone.  Call me embittered but I am still having a hard time stomaching the change and transition as this holiday season closes in.

In fact, more things change this year.  My sister and brother-in-law won’t be home for Christmas and we won’t celebrate without them.  But they will be home later when my younger sister will be out of the country.  And there are like three services to go to after which time, undoubtedly, my brothers will watch football and my parents will fall asleep and that will be Christmas.  So what?

I don’t like change.  I don’t want to adapt this newest take on a holiday that, let’s face it, is defined by tradition – of which mine don’t really exist anymore.  And when people ask about what I’m doing for Christmas – I cringe.  I think the way things have to fall this years sucks.  And maybe I don’t want to celebrate if I can’t do it the way I want to!  The way we always have...

That would be honest.  And also immature.  Ridiculous.  And self-absorbed. 

Some things have to change.  Change is inevitable.  Nothing is going to remain permanently consistent and it’s just dumb that so much change has had to happen all in one year leaving my completely overwhelmed by “all that isn’t”. 

But if that’s all I focus on, I still miss it. Especially at Christmas time.  In the midst of everything I think I need to take place for it to feel like Christmas is the reality of the season.  Christ.  The reason a tradition of a holiday – something consistent – is the same reason God ordained certain holy days among the Israelites.  So that they wouldn’t forget. 

And here I am, forgetting.  Moping.  Moping because nothing stays the same when the only thing, the only One, that matters has never changed.  Psalm 55:19 promises that God doesn’t change.  That the same God who created the world, saved the Israelites, sent His son, performed miracles, and raised the dead...yep, same God.  Hebrews 13:7 says “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever”.  Have I lost my stability? My consistency?  My normal?  Or have I just lost focus on my Rock and my Salvation?  My Security... My Peace... My Constant. 

Father God, when all around me changes... remind me that You are the Everlasting.  Help me keep my eyes on You...the One who never changes and continues to love me, just like always...

To Remember...

She was walking briskly down the street.  In a hurry...per usual.  Running late...as was becoming the new norm.  Time.  There was never enough time.  Always too much to do.  Too many things for which to keep track.  And people.  Never enough time to spare for the ones she held closest and never enough to spread adequately over those demanding it.  She shifted her bag to glance at her watch.  She had fifteen minutes at best if she were to get to work in time to have everything arranged before the rest arrived.

She looked up from her mental calculations to see a young woman.  She smiled politely and nodded her head in greeting before continuing in her hasty steps; her shoes making a steady click against the sidewalk squares.  The woman returned the nod but did not continue down the street; instead in her spot she remained although was quickly lost from view...

She paused suddenly. She felt as if the eyes of her arbitrary morning greeting were still watching her.  Considering those eyes, she also felt a sudden sense of recognition.  Her head tilted in a moment of confused pondering.  Slowly and deliberately she turned and began to walk the handful of steps back to where she saw the woman first.  The woman was still there...

She stopped and looked at the woman curiously.  “I’m sorry...” she found the words escaping her mouth almost before she knew what she was saying and long before she could retract them. “but do I know you?”  The woman responded with a similar confused yet pleasant expression but said nothing. 

She seemed not notice her companion’s silence before continuing.  “I just feel as if I know you.  You look ever so familiar.  You remind me of someone I used to know...

“Did we go to school together? High school perhaps?  Yes that seems quite possible.  I seem to remember you as one of the quiet girls? Always with your head in a book? Smart and studious? Yes!  That’s right!  Because everyone was so surprised when you spoke so well and clearly during Speech Class our senior year but no one was surprised when you were Valedictorian!”  Her excitement faded and she caught the woman’s quizzical glance.  “No, that couldn’t be it.  I would remember...

“Wait!  I was wrong!  We met in college!  You never really were in any group per se.  You were your own person, unique.  A little socially awkward perhaps.  But also witty.  Everyone was always laughing at your silly antics and comments!  That was you, right?  When you emerged as a leader, no one saw it was coming.  Didn’t know you had it in you!”  She chuckled but paused. “No, that had to have been someone else.  Someone like that I wouldn’t have to place.  I would remember...”

She shook her head and pursed her lips.  She saw the puzzled but soft look on the woman’s face and her own expression softened.  “Pardon me.  I’m not typically like this.  It’s just, just that, well...your face, those eyes.  I know you from somewhere...”  She paused.  “Do you know...?  Was it a summer of camp?  Did we counsel together perhaps?  There was one girl I seem to recall who would come alive for those weeks of camp.  Were you the one who appeared to have such a zest and a passion?  The one who got to the end of that one week and cried because she had to send her campers home to worlds she couldn’t protect or control?  No. It couldn’t be.  I wanted to be just like her.  I would know her if I saw her.  I would remember...”

A dawn of realization flashed in her eyes and she blushed briefly before leaning in just a little.  “This might be a little personal, but were you, did you, have you ever...” She collected herself before continuing. “What I mean to say is, was there ever a time in your life where it, life that it is, where it was a struggle?  Where something in your life was difficult or challenging?  Perhaps I don’t remember you and just your picture?  Maybe I prayed for you off of a list at church or something of a similar variety?  Did you ever lose someone close? Or were you ever very sick?”  She looked up and saw pain burning in the back of the woman’s eyes.  “You don’t have to answer.  I just seem to be reminded of someone who went through quite a bit.  Everyone was so proud of her strength and her courage and the way that nothing stopped her.  And I always wondered if there was more to her story than what we saw.  And yet, I hoped I could be that superhero in real life.  You know with the ability to do and be everything everyone wanted despite what was going on.  No, it couldn’t be.  Even if it were just a picture, I would remember...”

 

She massaged her brow and shook her head in frustration.  “I know!  I probably look crazy. I am going to be late for work and I suddenly don’t even care.  I still feel as if I know you.  The longer I stand here, the more I am convinced that you’re someone I not only know but should still know.  Should have kept in contact with.  I wish I could remember...

“Obviously it’s been years.  It must have been.  You are quite a bit older than I remember.  But then so am I.  It’s only a matter of time before my hair streaks gray with the crazy life I live!”  She laughed.  “And life must have been pretty crazy or busy since we talked last.  Your eyes are tired and your shoulders sag as you stand.  You almost look, weary?  As if it has been too long since there was anything to refresh your spirit and your soul.  I seem to remember you as having more fire behind your eyes.  But I guess I don’t really remember...” 

Her voice trailed off and her gaze was lost in a personal day dream.  A world all of her own.  When she snapped back to all she could catch was the sad look in the woman’s eyes.  Her own voice cracked and a tear ran down her face. “I wish, I wish I remembered.  I wish I remembered who you were and why you’re so important to me...”  She leaned into her purse to grab a tissue.  “Look at me blubbering like an idiot.  I’m sorry for taking so much of your time.  Time!  Oh my, I am going to be so late for work.  I really must go!”  She paused before rushing off again.  “If you think of it, if you remember, will you look me up?  I’m awfully busy but I would make some time...”  The words seemed to be lost as somewhere a clock began to strike the hour.  She reached out towards the woman’s face and compulsively brushed her smooth cheek.  “Goodbye, old friend.  Someday, someday I’ll remember...” 

She regained her composure and again rushed off.  Her hasty steps made a steady click as she hurried down the sidewalk. 

As the day began and the clock at the center of town put in its last and ninth chime, the street began to come alive.  From where the two women stood a shopkeeper flipped the sign in his door to “OPEN” and exited with a cloth in his hand.  He walked up to the pane of the two-way mirror windows he had installed.  “Silly kids.  Always making faces in the mirror and putting their finger prints on my windows!”  And with a steady motion he began to wipe away the latest streak.  Almost at eye level.  And almost as if someone had run her hand gently down the side of his face...