A Smaller Frame of Reference

How big is your world?  Is it big enough for you?  Mine seems agonizingly small these days, but the problem isn’t my itty bitty world.  The problem is me.

Each week since my surgery, my world has gotten larger.  I started in a hospital room, and oh, I was so glad to get home to see the familiar walls and smell familiar smells.  There, my world was limited to the space between my couch and the bathroom. But slowly, by the week after my surgery, I made it to more areas of the apartment, including upstairs.  Eventually, I got really sick of the apartment and longed for more. 

In the following days, I was outside, walking around my parking lot, encountering neighbors, and breathing in the renewing fresh air. 

Now, a full month after my surgery, I take walks around my apartment complex, each day growing stronger to walk a little further.  I find myself anxious to walk beyond the complex, to make my regular trip to the library, about a mile away, or go to the shopping center to pick up items for dinner, maybe to one of the three Starbucks we have within a mile of our apartment.  But no, I have an invisible tether keeping me near my apartment.

I’m growing tired of the same sights each day, the same flower beds, the same car ports, the same kids waiting for busses.  Whereas a couple weeks ago, these sights were refreshing to me, they are old and drab now.  How quickly I lose interest.

Yesterday, I was walking, thinking these thoughts, and two little brothers were chasing each other with sticks, yelling that they were going to “kill” each other.  Violent little things, I mused.  They ran towards the road and stopped, immediately held hands, looked both ways, crossed, and resumed their “sword play.”  I laughed at how deeply rooted their mother’s lesson was for crossing the road.  Apparently, the part about being nice to each other hadn’t sunk in as well.   

I noticed several places where the apartments were doing construction and repairs, noting that I wasn’t too fond of the choice of linoleum for the kitchens. 

I continued walking and noted that several neighbors had planted spring bulbs, much earlier than I did.  I saw brilliant yellow daffodils smiling at me and some purple flower that I can’t name, but it was lovely. 

One of my neighbors was in his garage, tinkering on a classic car he’s been restoring.  I stopped and chatted with him for awhile about the construction and his plans for moving during renovations.

Returning from my little walk around my complex, I realized how much I experienced in my limited frame of reference. 

Many successful, happy people have lived the majority of their lives confined to a smaller sphere.  I think of the reclusive Emily Dickinson, who wrote thousands of timeless poems while hiding away at home.  What about Jane Austen, the country girl, who lived in small towns with her family and lived a spinster’s life, all the while writing brilliant novels about that same kind of life.  Or John Bunyan, who wrote his masterpiece in a jail cell. 

Perhaps it’s a matter of contentment on my part, that I need to learn to accept my limitations and be happy with my lot at the moment.  “But godliness with contentment is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).

I don’t think I’ll stop longing for my longer walks, but perhaps I can become just a little more open to the beauty of life within my small world.

Cart of Darkness 2

I just found a new toy.  How in the world did I ever not know these wonderful little devices existed before?  And they’re EVERYWHERE!

Annoyed that I couldn’t walk for longer than about 15 minutes (which seems to stretch another 5 minutes each additional week), I complained to my mom that I was going a bit stir crazy.  I love my home, don’t get me wrong, but these walls are starting to drive me a little batty.

So mom told me that most major stores have electric carts that you drive in to do your shopping.  Who knew? This was a revelation to me!  I called all my favorite stores to see if they had these miraculous machines, and low and behold, many of them did.  My first stop was Costco, with Dan.  I still needed someone to drive me there, and I couldn’t exactly lift anything to put in the cart, but at least I could putt around and look at things.

There’s a little diagram on them that is supposed to help the average adult drive them, but I guess I’m not the average adult.  Maybe it’s because I’m left handed, and I can’t tell my right from my left.  But I was constantly going backwards when I wanted to go forwards. There was no brake pedal, so the only way I found to stop was to release the accelerator (which as always on full speed).  It sent me skidding ahead a few feet before I came to a complete stop (imagine tires screeching every couple feet).  Small children gawked with eyes as wide as saucers.

 I noticed that people would clear out of my way as I went barreling down the aisles.  Turning was a bit of a problem, and I frequently backed up and had to start over again.  I could hear Dan from a couple aisles away, trying to suppress his laughter at my horrible driving.  People pulled their children out of my path, as I tore through the store.  At one point, Dan decided that it was easier to hitch a ride with me than to jog along to keep up.

Here I am browsing through my favorite part of the store, the books! 

I figured I’d gotten the hang of the cart things, but Dan wasn’t confident enough to bring me to a store during busy shopping hours.  So, he brought me to Target late in the evening when there would be less chances for me to maim someone. 

Just when I thought I could manage the carts, they changed on me.  The Target carts had a different mechanism for turning, so I had to relearn that (did I ever really learn it in the first place?). Plus, the rows at Target are a lot tighter than at Costco, so you can imagine the shenanigans that ensued.  Dan watched, horrified, as I plowed, full speed, into a display at the end of an aisle.  Thankfully, nobody was injured, and the stack of bread and crackers didn’t seem to mind the collision too much.  My pride was a little wounded, and the people who witnessed the event were kind enough to scurry away, even though I could tell they were hiding their violent giggles.  Dan thought it was fun to re-enact the event all evening. He’d regularly slam his hands together and yell, “BAM!”, and laugh until he cried.  I’d glare at him. 

I was also a bit humiliated by the fact that the Target carts added an annoying beeping feature whenever I needed to back up.  “Great,” I thought. “Here comes the wide load.”  Dan liked it because he knew where I was wherever he was in the store.  Personally, I tried to avoid backing up whenever possible, often circling round and round on aisles until I got dizzy.  But, sometimes, I’d just give up and go backwards.  My pride is only worth so much effort.

Thankful for my newfound sense of freedom, I’ll be visiting other local stores in the coming weeks.  If you happen to see me on a collision course with you or your small children, I’d advise you to quickly get yourself, and them, out of the way. 

By the way, what goes around, comes around, or whatever.  Here’s my first Cart of Darkness post.  Looks like I’m at fault this time.

What’s so Good about Good Friday?

I can’t say that I look forward to this day. In fact, I’ve been dreading it for the past couple weeks.

We get all dressed up, many of us in black, go to church, where it’s all dark, and talk about killing someone I love. 

Who looks forward to that?

My church has a pretty gory Good Friday service too.  Lots of blood and guts (Just think Passion of the Christ with more emo music and maybe some slasher stuff thrown in).  Here’s the promo, but I offer a VERY strong warning about how graphic it is (click here for 17 and older).

So why in the world do I drag myself to this each year? 

No, I don’t consider myself a sadist.  When you marry a doctor, you tend to like talking about healing, not death and blood. 

But on the Christian calendar, this is our Day of Atonement, our day to see our sins and weep and mourn at our folly. 

In the darkness of a tenebrae (Latin for “shadows”) service, we recognize that we were the ones who put Jesus up on that Cross.  No, it wasn’t a certain people group, nor was it limited to a particular time in place.  It was the sinful heart of man that did it, when faced with the perfect son of God. 

We all know we’re capable of it.  Have you ever been jealous of someone or scorned people who did better than you?  Do you want in your deepest, darkest heart of hearts, to see someone sink lower, so you can rise higher?  If so, you’ve hammered a nail.

Many Christians fast on this day, and I’ve done so in the past.  This year, I can’t for medical reasons, but when I can, I prefer the physical emptiness that accompanies the pain in my heart. 

If my standard is my own level of comfort, if my god is my stomach (Philip. 3:19), then today isn’t a good day.  It’s a downright bad day.  My savior died. I was the cause.  All my friends know it.  We all feel awful about it.  And we’re all wearing very depressing colors.

If my standard is God’s Word and God’s plan, then today is a very good day.  Despite my sin, my savior Jesus chose to die for me, even though I was at fault.  Praise God my friends know the good news, or I’ll have a chance to tell them about it someday.  And even though we feel awful about our sins, we know God himself is up on that cross, dying to take them away. 

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed (1 Peter 2:24).

Back to Basics

It’s week 3 on this diet, and I’m really sick of liquids.  I started with Gatorade and apple juice, and slowly, I’ve moved up to thicker drinks. But I’m still in the realm of very soft, soup-like substances.  I’ll be there for at least one more month.

In stroke of brilliance, my husband visited the baby food isle and returned with some lovely meat concoctions to help alleviate some of my cravings for beef and chicken.  This past week, I’ve also moved on to baby cereal, which looks something like plaster  (For some reason, even though I keep offering, Dan doesn’t want to try it).

I called my mom to tell her how excited I was about moving on to baby cereal and how good it tasted (it’s amazing how good gruel can taste when you’ve been living off of broth for awhile).  So far, I’d only tried rice cereal, oatmeal, and some mixed grain.  I’d just purchased a box of barley, and was excited to try it.  Mom warned me that although I liked the other kinds when I was a baby, I hated the barley, and she’d ended up wearing a lot of barley cereal when she tried to feed it to me.

I laughed, but it wasn’t going to stop me from eating it. I mean, I was a baby for heaven’s sake. I’ve come a long way since the days when I was last eating this stuff.  Hello, I’ve learned to chew gum AND walk, at the same time!

As you probably already guessed, I hate the stuff.  It tastes all wrong, a little bitter and nutty, not at all like the others. 

How depressing.  I didn’t want to tell my mom because it just seemed to show that my 28 years on this earth haven’t accomplished very much.  Here I am, a grown woman, and not only am I back to eating the same stuff I ate as a 6 month old, but I apparently also have the same tastes.

(Here’s my food stash for the next couple weeks. The meat is on the left, combo in the middle, veggis on the right, desserts in back, and cereal is in the far back.)

Disgruntled and a bit humiliated, I went to the Bible for a bit of advice. 

Here’s what I learned.  We shouldn’t be ashamed to go back to basics because the basics are our foundation.  When we find ourselves going astray, always go back to the place we started, back to the beginning, back to our first love, and find the right path again.

The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! (5:11-12).

Sometimes, I get so caught up in the finer points of the faith or questioning picky elements of doctrine, or I just start coming up with stupid ideas of my own that aren’t rooted firmly in God’s Word.  I need to heed this advice and go back to the elementary truths, back to the milk, back to the foundations. 

The Nicene Creed is a good place to start, and my favorite band, Third Day, does an amazing job with it.

So, while I slurp down my baby food and take cuisine recommendations from all my 6 month old friends, I’m keeping in mind that every good and lasting thing needs a strong foundation.  I’m just taking a trip back to my roots for awhile. 

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2: 2-3).

Driving Ms. Amy

It’s been sixteen days since I had surgery to repair a hernia in my esophagus. In the weeks since, I’ve had to adjust to a different way of life, including letting people shuttle me around from place to place, since I can’t drive myself very well yet.

I’ve also come to realize that this mirrors my spiritual state. I’m not in the driver’s seat of my life. I guess I mistakenly thought I was. God thought this was a good time to remind me who really has the wheel. Just like he’s been teaching me to let others serve me by driving me places, he’s also teaching me to hand the wheel over to Him, and it’s been a hard lesson to learn.

The day before my surgery, on my daily reading through Proverbs, I hit chapter 19 that day, and stopped on verse 21, sensing a Holy Spirit nudge. The verse has become my theme for these past several weeks:

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

As usual, I’d planned everything out before the surgery. The freezer was packed with food for my husband while I was out of commission. I’d scheduled a caretaker to be there for me while Dan was at work. My school was on spring break, so I expected to ignore my students all week while I was zoned out on meds. I even loaded up on lots of juice for me to drink, so I’d have something to “eat.”

But then, my plans all fell through. My ideal caretaker, my mom, was fighting a cold, which turned into pneumonia, and she was busy trying to breathe. So obviously, she couldn’t make the trip to Seattle. Even in my medicated stupor, I realized that I’d forgotten to do some important school work, and some unexpected work crept in as well. At the hospital, just before I was released, the dietitian gave me a list of foods that I couldn’t eat, including most of the juices and fruits that I’d purchased before the surgery. And this recovery period is taking much longer than I ever thought it would, so the frozen food stash isn’t enough for my entire period of convalescence.

I didn’t have a plan B, but thankfully, God had his own plan from the start.

He provided new caretakers, and I could see God’s hand in all of it. Dan managed to get some time off work, and my little sister took time off from her job and drove here to nurse me when Dan needed to go back to work. For awhile, I had both of them here, switching shifts and helping me out when I couldn’t help myself. God gave me just enough strength to do my school work. And Dan has been doing some creative grocery shopping for me, finding foods that are soft enough for me to eat, including items from the baby food isle. I’m also learning a lot about asking for and accepting people’s generosity, since my dear church sisters and friends from the community have been volunteering to help out wherever we need it, including filling in on meals when the freezer gets empty.

It’s certainly not what I’d expected during this time, but it’s a far better plan than mine.

I know I haven’t learned my lesson. I’m going to keep grabbing the wheel, plotting the course, going my own way. But hopefully, every so often, I’ll remember this time in my life, and scoot over to the passenger side to let the better driver take over.

Okay, so I’ll say it: “Jesus, please, take the wheel!”

God’s Peace via Your Prayers

It’s been two weeks since my surgery, and I’m so thankful for all that God has done to bring me this far in the recovery process.  Thank you everyone for all your encouraging notes and the constant stream of prayer that was sent heavenward on my behalf.  You’ll never fully know how much it helped, but I hope to give you some idea of ways it made my life much better during this time.

Starting the night before the surgery, I had an overwhelming sense of peace about the whole thing. I can’t explain it outside of God’s grace.  Normally, I’d be flipping out, up late stressing with insomnia, tossing and turning, thinking, “what if?”   But, there was none of that.  Dan and I prayed before we went to sleep, I read for a little while (as usual), and I went to bed at a very normal time. 

The things that I’d feared ahead of time didn’t even scare me, when it came time for the surgery.  The moment where I got onto the hospital bed and had to say goodbye to my husband wasn’t as painful as I’d expected it to be.  I was very comforted, beyond my own reasoning and understanding.  I think that more than ever, I understood God’s promise from Philippians 4:6-7:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

The fact that the nurse couldn’t find a vein to insert my I.V. normally would have caused me a bit of distress, but I didn’t worry.  She found one eventually (even though my arms are still bruised from the war with the needles). 

I had very kind and competent caretakers who got me prepped for surgery, but they left me alone for what seemed like an eternity.  While I was waiting, with nothing to do but stare at the nature poster above my bed, I started reciting James, from verse one, all the way through verse 15.  When I’d finished, I did it again, until I was in the operating room, and they’d put the oxygen mask on me.  I think I zoned out somewhere after verse two.

In post-op, I woke up groggy with an oxygen tube sticking out of me.  They’d had me on a ventilator during the procedure, and breathing was very difficult.  I wasn’t prepared for this, but I was also doped up.  So, I handled it very well.  I couldn’t speak well for the first couple days because of what the ventilator did to my throat, but the nurse heard me asking for my husband, and they allowed him back to visit me (against protocol).  I was very blessed to have him stay with me all through the night, since I miraculously didn’t get a roommate, even though I was scheduled to have one.  It was comforting to have my own personal on-call doctor at my bedside, and he monitored my vital signs and helped to get me up if I needed it.

The hospital discharged me the next day, and I went home to begin my recovery.  Since then, I’ve been camping out on our couch, sleeping lots, drinking liquids, watching movies, and recently, I’ve started reading again.  One annoying side affect of the medicines was that for the first week, I couldn’t read because they affected my close up vision.  Dan was reading me all my e-mails and all your wonderful comments. 

I’ve been learning a lot, mainly lessons about patience and God’s faithfulness.  I still have a long road ahead of me for recovery, since I can’t do much activity for the first six weeks to two months after the surgery.  I’m discovering all the different liquids that one can drink as part of a balanced diet.  A few days ago, I branched out into the world of baby food, and although it’s a bit embarrassing to be eating out of a Gerber jar at my age, beef and chicken never tasted so good. 

Everything takes far longer than it did before, but I’m hoping to get back into posting again.  Thank you all, once again, for your prayers on my behalf.  I’m overwhelmed, blessed, and encouraged.