Loving God and Loving Others

Rain falls on my soul today.  I wake this morning to an email from my youngest's math teacher. E is a conscientious student whose efforts to please often go unnoticed. He has given up his seat more than a few times this past year for other students and opted to sit in a much less comfortable place in the classroom. His teacher bought him a desk to give him a permanent place, but he gave that desk up, too for a corner at the edge of another crowded table. His teacher wants to give Elijah the desk and asks if we will accept it as a gift for a student who actually loves learning math. (who knew this was possible?) Tears rolling down I cannot believe that a teacher would notice my boy who is always willing to share his seat. We tell my son this morning. We also include that while we are so blessed by his generous heart we also want him to know that we love him just because. We all figure out ways to give and get love and I must tell my son before this becomes his only mode for l...

The cracks are starting to show. A friend takes our oldest out for breakfast this morning and asks him to write down all the things that have been going on. Concerns, Conflicts, Transitions, Crisis. .. the list is long of unattended heart needs. My heart breaks as my son shares them with me. Wish I could protect my children from pain.  Sometimes I misread my kids' responses. It feels callous sometimes. When I'm crying and they're not. When I'm angry and they seem happy. When I'm burdened and they are playing uh, mine craft. I call it selfishness and careless. It hurts them when I do this. They're hurting, too. It's not the recent 10 days of pain and unknowns that are causing the cracks. It's the last 1 1/2 years of stuff. It's when my son's ability to feel pain stopped when I told him that Dad had collapsed in Thailand and I needed to get on a plane to be with him right away. He says he stopped being able to feel pain. It was too painfu...

Six days ago my life turned upside down. An early morning phone call brought news of my husband's collapse in his hotel room soon after he had arrived for some organization meetings. The call came at 7am. The shock that ensued and the desperate cry of my heart in those moments is hard to describe. A friend came over, other friends told me they were coming to our home and that our kids would be cared for, and a call to our travel agent, and I was on my way to my husband. Not knowing what had happened and what was happening made the trip a heart-wrenching experience.  Fifteen hours later I arrived at hospital. He'd just been wheeled out of surgery. I had almost lost him. That day he lost half of his body's blood. Hearing those words from the doctor nearly brought me to my knees. How does one survive that? His flight down the previous day was a difficult one and he bled heavily on his last 6 hour leg of the journey. In that lonely moment when he thought he might bleed to...

I recently reset my home page to a generic page removing my news site from the first thing I see when I turn on my computer. It's not that I don't want to know what's going on in the world, but I found that the news didn't always drive my towards prayer which should be my response. I get more of a compact version of news over email these days and it has helped direct rather than distract me in my praying. Advent brought about deeper reflection for me on suffering and pain in the world, especially thinking about Christ's coming into a world very much like ours today.  My daughter is writing a point of view essay and we were discussing the criteria for her paper and possible topics. It's supposed to be about something that moves me, mom. She informed me in her sweet mature tween way. That launched us into a discussion about things that cause a heart-stir, a movement in our heart. We laughed about her brothers, yes, they move her sometimes in a good way, other t...

My heart is grieving today. As I helped my daughter write a paper this morning my phone alarm alerted me to news of a tragedy in Connecticut. While we were eating breakfast in California, a gunman walked into a small town school and shot 20 children and 7 others, including his own mom. Parents who said good bye to their children this morning were anticipating a family weekend ahead not news that their child is no more.  I'm struggling making sense of this.  I look across the table to my own precious kids studiously working on their homework assignments and the sight of them takes my breath away. What if I was that parent? The mama who had carefully bought Christmas presents early tucking them under the tree hoping her curious kindergartener wouldn't be too curious. Her heart is breaking tonight and I have my four of my own in my arms tonight.  I don't like pain and I don't think I'm alone when I say that I don't like suffering. In fact even though I shouldn...

I love markets in the morning. Breakfast vendors flipping pancakes and frying eggs, the Chinese version of a breakfast burrito. Wooden stools and makeshift tables crowd the sidewalks; people come out of their apartments for their daily breakfast fare. Spread on the ground, a man on his stomach crawls his way through the throngs of people. A radio, strapped to his back, blares Chinese opera. Notice me, he says. He's on the ground. It's easy to miss him. People avert their eyes, dodging him with near misses as they clutch their saran wrap thin plastic bags tight. My daughter and I walk through the market towards violin lessons on the other side. I love early mornings, I tell her. I am reminded why I'm living here in this country. While the rich seem to be getting richer, the poor, well, it's the opposite. A soy milk lady's stand. She pours freshly made soy milk into plastic cups for potential customers. An old man sits on a small stool fixing bikes. A pile of sp...

How do you explain to a 10 year old that you are never to stop loving? When her heart is so sad that it feels like it's going to melt away and shrivel up and never come out again? Don't hide. I tell her that this morning. It's not worth it. No matter how hard it hurts? No matter how hard. But how is it worth it to love and then to say goodbye again so quickly? For reasons that even adults cannot comprehend. Could you explain to me, please? There are tears caught in my throat. I'm afraid to let them out for fear they won't stop coming. I'm not a robot. My heart is made of flesh, not stone. To love again and again, to say that very same number of goodbyes. It doesn't get any easier, my oldest son said to me as he watched grandparents say goodbye at the airport one year when he was 8. This life that we've chosen to live seems to filled with so much pain. Everywhere you turn. At least that's how it can seem sometimes. I confess, Lord. My h...

So, I didn't think it could get worse, but it did. My neck, arm, wrist, hand thing that I've had for 14 years since my eldest was born has worsened. I shouldn't even be typing this, but I am. See, it's this stubborn perserverance that probably has brought me to this place. I examined my hand last night, asked friends who were over for dinner to look at it, yes, it's pretty swollen. It's all in my head, I'd like to presume.  Mind over body.... isn't that they way the old saying goes? My husband is off doing relief work in tsunami stricken Ibaraki, Japan, he's only been gone for 1/3 of the time he's supposed to gone for... time is definitely going by too slow. It's my right hand, the hand I use for everything! I'm typing this out like a second grader first learning they keyboard. The passage I read this morning has left me pondering, "Make us glad by the measure of the days you afflicted us, and the years in which we suffered...