Friendship

"A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart- chaff and grain together- knowing that gentle hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."



~George Eliot

Pretty Dress

Put your pretty dress on its time for you to go to the dance.
Tie your hair in ribbons and lace and wear pearls round your neck.
And all the pretty princes will see you,
All the pretty princes will see you,
Someday, someday.

Put your red boots on its time for you to walk home from school.
Everyone will laugh they'll point fingers at you, they'll be cruel.
Cover up your ears and don't listen,
Cuz you'll know much better than them
Someday, someday.

And they'll wave to you
And they'll wave to you.

Put your red coat on and walk with the light in the woods.
If it gets dark don't get scared there's so much waiting for you.
Cover up your tears and don't show them,
Cuz you'll know much better than them
Someday, someday.

And they'll wave to you
And they'll wave to you.

Put your pretty dress on
Put your red boots on
Put your red coat on
Put your pretty dress on
Put your red coat on
Put your pretty dress on...

Blogging

I'm going to try to blog once a week...so hold me to it!

Anger

"In all this Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong." ~Job: 122

So, this week I got really upset, angry, sad, hurt, and just grieved some of the things that have been going on for me these last few months. I don't know where this hurt came from, but the floodgates just poured open.

Even though I had reason to be hurt 1 or 2 or 3 months ago, those real tears didn't come forth until now. I remember even thinking a few weeks back that I just wanted to get really mad. I wanted to be angry about my health problems and limitations, as I had seen others express, but I couldn't. Until now. From somewhere deep inside, it poured through.

It's interesting to me to see how people around you respond to it. Many times, they just try to give you some positive antedote to try to get you to move on and away from there. They tell you not to take things too personally or to let it go. Just hope that if they spin things positively you'll be alright. Now, I'm not talking about constant complaining about difficulties, or trying to get others to feel sorry for you, or dwelling on the negative, but for real sadness and just anger about the tough situations in our life and consequences of living in a fallen world. Many times we don't understand that this grieving is part of the process of moving on and leaving things behind us. I expressed all this anger to God, not to blame Him, but just to say, you know what, I've been pushing on and will continue to hope and strive to fight, but the reality is that it sucks. And I felt so much better afterwards and rejuvenated to continue the fight and to perservere with hope that things can be different. I can't change the past, but I can grieve it. The truth can hurt, but just like the Lord and Job, we can have anger and yet not sin.

Vision

So I recently got new glasses. I had gone without for about a year. I'm near-sighted, so it only became a problem when I was watching a movie at the movie theater, driving, or sitting at the back of a class or meeting. (Not to worry, I passed my driver's vision test without my glasses). I could see things in front of me and I could see things far away, except for the details. After having my glasses, everything seemed newer and brighter, as I could see all the details of a person's face from far away or the skyline of the city in focus or the details of every leaf and branch on a faraway tree. I could also read road signs from much farther away and watch tv in focus from across the room.

Today, I heard in church, the old familiar hymn, Be Thou My Vision, which has always been my favorite, due to its celtic sound and meaningful words. My last year at college, I shared an arrangement of it that I had written for a contemporary service that met every Wed night at Valparaiso's Lutheran Chapel. It was a gift night, an opportunity to share one of your God-given abilities with the college YA community, as a semester was ending and many were graduating. I arranged a version of Be Thou My Vision, complete with a lot of Celtic lilts included. At that time, I didn't know where I would be living, nor had I found a teaching job. I was trusting God with my future. That day, it really seemed symbolic of trusting the Lord with my whole life ahead, whatever befall. Today, I heard the hymn with new ears (or should I say new eyes). We're not just trusting God with our future, but we're asking God to be our vision, even for those things in the future that seem so faraway, confusing, and unclear. Our vision is blurry and we see only part of the details, but God's vision is always 20/20. We need to put on God and trust Him to show us the details in His time. Trust Him to one day clear our vision to see with His eyes the purpose and completeness in loss, pain, struggles, and hardship. What a difference my glasses have made in my vision. One day, God's eyes will be all I need to see clearly.

"Now we see only a dim likeness of things. It is as if we were seeing them in a mirror. But someday we will see clearly. We will see face to face. What I know now is not complete. But someday I will know completely, just as God knows me completely." ~1 Corinthians 13:12