Bones | post 14

I sat and watched her gently pet his black head. Stationed on the floor next to his long limp body and an untouched bowl of water, she was silent. Our family’s oldest pet is dying. And Mama is sad. Because he was the one who stood by her every morning that she told my older sister and I goodbye as we went to school. He was the one my younger brother brought home from the local dog shelter. A couple pounds of fur, ribs sharp for all to see, a neon orange collar swallowing his neck. Bones is what TL named him. And he is teaching me a bit about grief. About death. About handling it well.

See, I noticed Mama sitting there with her knees up, patting his head and rubbing his stomach as pain waves hit his tired body. And my first thought was, “I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t sit there. I would put him in a corner and check on him every hour. And just wait.” Not that I wouldn’t be sad. I would be sad. I wouldn’t want him to die.

But I wouldn’t have the courage to sit next to him and watch the inevitable ending.

I wouldn’t be brave enough to be still and let myself ache in the presence of unstoppable loss.

But she does have that courage. She is brave enough.

So she sits by Bones. She watches his long legs twitch in pain. And she offers what comfort she can. She admits to us all that she is sad. That his life meant something to her and she wishes that it wasn’t ending. She didn’t put him in a corner.

She sits by Bones.

the slide | post 13

A friend of mine once told me the story of his most memorable trip to the playground. Excited about playing at the park with his parents, Jonathan flew to the slide and climbed straight to the top. It was one of those spiral ones with bends and twist, making it impossible to see the ground from the top. Having reached the top, Jonathan fearlessly pushed off and began his descent. But the thrill of speeding down the biggest slide on the playground was forgotten as my friend felt himself being pelted with tiny foreign objects. His skin stung as he landed in a heap at the bottom and met the stares of the group of bullies that had crowded around, gathering to torment any child who dared brave their slide. Young Jonathan noticed it looked like they had straws in their hands. These must be the weapons they had used to shoot rocks at his innocent journey down the twisty slide. My friend was mortified and afraid. So he ran to his father. As the story of his persecution tumbled out of him, he noticed his father slowly stand up.

“Let’s go.”
“Wait, dad. Where are we going?”
“We are going to go down the slide again. And this time, I’m going down with you.”
“No! No, Dad! I can’t go back!”

My friend pleaded with his father to change his mind. But he would not be moved.

Walking together, they climbed the ladder to the top. Jonathan’s heart pounded as he settled into his father’s lap, putting his arms tight around his dad’s neck. Then Jon watched his father do the most amazing thing he had ever seen.
Arms outstretched, his father pushed off and sent them flying down the spiral slide, scattering the bullies as each one collided with his strong arm and fell off the side of the slide. Reaching the bottom, my friend couldn’t contain his elation over the power and protection of his father.

“Dad! You’re AWESOME!”

All he had to do was held on for dear life and trust his dad to take care of the rest.

“Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows my name.
When he calls to me, I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
With long life I will satisfy him
And show him my salvation.”
Psalm 91:14-16

For all my sisters in Christ, replace “he” with “she.”
Read it again.
Now read what it doesn’t say.
Does it say God Almighty protects his daughters and sons because they work for him? Because they haven’t done certain things? Because they try really hard to be right and good every day?

“Because they hold fast to me in love.”

“Because they know my name.”

Because they cling to me out of desperate need.
Because they know my name and listen to my voice.
That is where our protection lies. That is where we find our hope and honour and satisfaction.
In knowing and loving our Father.
In trusting Him with the journey.
Arms wrapped tight around His neck. Holding on for dear life.
Ready for anything.

the in between times | post 12

Flannery O’Conner once said, “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” This blog has been a space to publicly think out loud. It has challenged me to refine fleeting thoughts by putting them into some sort of order. Especially because I am living through days that most often feel devoid of purpose. During these times I have found myself understanding the lyrics “We’re happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time / It’s miserable and magical.” And though some will be outraged that I quoted Flannery and T Swift in the same paragraph, I assert that they have both spoken truth to me. They have both experienced at least a part of the times that I am now living through, and they used the best way that they knew how to empathize with and encourage others – their words.

They have challenged me to do the same. So here goes nothing. I am a recently graduated twenty-something. I don’t have a job. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m living with my parents. I lived four years of my life writing research papers and reading Shakespeare, attending recitals and counseling freshmen, spending every holiday on mission trips and serving in my community, going to football games and working 20 hours a week, rushing to 8 am classes and being a leader on campus. Now I find myself sleeping ‘til 10 o’clock every day and watching too many episodes of The Gilmore Girls, eating chips and onion dip for breakfast and living in my sweats. Because it feels like something ended but nothing started.

People don’t tell you about this part. Maybe because it happened to them so long ago that they forgot about it. Or maybe they were married and working by 18 and never experienced the awkward dance of independence and confusion that twenty-somethings in 2014 are stepping through. Regardless of why, I wasn’t warned. I was told “Things are just downhill after you graduate,” and “You’re about to join the ‘real world’ now,” and other patronizing platitudes, but no one told me about the in between time. The time when you would be absolutely thrilled to be thrust into the fray of the boring “real world” but you’re still waiting to hear back from the interview. The time when your identity as a student has been politely taken from you and replaced by a diploma with your university’s official emblem on it and now you have no idea what the heck to do next or who on earth you are.

This is the time when you have to intentionally decide every day that you will not give into worry and you will spend your hours in beautiful and purpose-filled ways. A wise man once told me that we are constantly living in the in between times. They never stop. And what we do with them now will determine what our future looks like.

I’m writing this in my enormous navy blue sweatpants. At 6 pm. I’m nowhere near the poster child for those mugs that yell “carpe diem!” But I want to start. I need to start. And like Flannery has taught me, writing all this is the best way to understand where I am, and consequently where I need to go from here.

I know I’m not alone in this. If I was, I would have saved these words to my documents and never attempted to publish them for you to see. So whether you’re a fresh out of university twenty-something or a seventy-something straight out of retirement or anywhere in between, let’s remember this: what we do on the days that seem to hold no significance will reflect greatly on what we do when the job finally comes through, or the baby is finally born, or the house finally sells.

So let’s take joy today. Let’s do what we love today. Let’s do what is hard today. Let’s refuse to waste time thinking something bigger is coming, but instead embrace this in between time and LIVE.