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One day I decided-

“One day I decided that I was beautiful, and so I carried out my life as if I was a beautiful girl.  It doesn’t have anything to do with how the world perceives you. What matters is what you see.” -Gabby Sibide

Life’s about choices, and perspectives. Forget the glass-half-empty-glass-half-full regime, but what about when you get lost on your way to a new place? You miss a flight? You left the shampoo on the counter AGAIN, and now you’re soaking wet?  Is it an adventure or a curse?

My sister turned 12 this year, and is one of those morning people. Yeah. All cheerful and talkative, and let’s-go-fly-a-kite, and I’m all like “gee-it’s-morning” and feeling my way to the tea kettle.  You know what?  It is HARD to be pleasant and interested in what the cat did last night, or the deep troubles of the other cat, or what Snoopy said in the last Peanuts she read. And Miss Blonde over here can get pretty short, if she’s not careful.  And yes, I did set some boundaries, but think about it. How many 12-year-olds want to hang out with their big sister?  Most girls her age like boys and… boys, I guess, and it’s a big privilege I get to spend time with her. If I’m gone this summer, I won’t be there for her, and she’ll miss me. Which is kinda amazing, now I think it through. So you know what, I’m glad she talks my ear off about the cat every single day. Because I love her.

What about being there for people who hurt you? Like, hurtyoureallybadly? There’s a woman in my life who has said some of the unkindest and cruelest things I’ve ever had anyone say to me.  She’s called me some horrible things.  She hurts my feelings.  And I don’t want to talk to her.  Everyone told me not to, by the way, she’s 70 years old and really should know better.  And I don’t HAVE to be there for her. But one day I realized that I was the only Christian in her life. That I could take being picturesqly and basically called a slut, because I’m the only woman she has in her life, the only Christian, and she needs me. And she wants me to be there for her, even though she hurts me. And I’m bigger than name calling.

By the way, it’s still not easy.

Perspective is bleh, sometimes.

So take a minute.  Decide you’re beautiful. Even if you think you’re the ugliest person in the world – and please don’t tell me you’ve never seen that horrible tag on facebook and said EXACTLY that – decide you’re going to act like you’re beautiful.
Mum gave me some advice. Well, two pieces of advice. One was never wear white shoes before Easter, and the second was that if you couldn’t do right, keep faking it until you did.  Both are good, the second more applicable. Decide you’re nice. Decide today is you’re-going-to-love-people-anyway day.

And who knows. Maybe someday I’ll be a morning person.

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Wee people, Bangledesh, and James Bond

I was still in bed this morning, trying hard to focus my mind on the fact it was a Saturday and Ididn’thavetogetup, when my little sister waltzed in the room, obviously in great need of sister time.  We talked a little, very groggily on my part, and the upshot of the matter was that I was showing her Bangladesh on the globe, and explaining exactly where it was, and the area surrounding it.  Why? Because we have a VOM calendar hanging in our bathroom, and every morning we pray for whoever is listed. Today, it was Christians in Bangladesh who are denied wells of water.

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And what about our entirely-girl-sushi-time, when the conversation ranged heavily over whyisthatguystaringatyou, can-I-have-a-milkshake, what are these little calamari-no-fish-eggs-things, how do you know who James Bond is, and no seriously, CAN I have a milkshake?

I bought the poor thing a milkshake.

Influence over wee people. Oh, you mean like the other day when I freakin’ burst into tears because she was brushing her teeth when I wanted to? Well, so much for being 18. Or when I totally burst into tears on my entire family and stomped out of the room. And when I argued with everything. Or when I woke her up because I was crying my eyes out in bed because I was sick.

Uhm. I just realized how much I cry. Greeeeat.

…and sometimes it’s funny.  The wee little girl I babysit sometimes, who took one look at my muscle spasms and started mimicking it. You have NO IDEA how funny it looked to see a 2-year-old look over the back of the pew and start jerking her arm.   We almost disrupted the entire service.

Little people look up to us. Does my little sister see me reading the Bible, studying hard to take exams well, smiling even when I’m mocked to my face, laughing when it’s hard?  Or does she see me rotting my mind in Bon Jovi [and no, I am not dissing Bon Jovi. It is essential to midterms], complaining about my job/my studies/the weather/dinner/who’s playing Enjolras, and the fact I just drank three cups of coffee straight.

Errrhm.

Take the time for your siblings today. Ten minutes of just-you-and-wee-little-person… heck, even if it’s just a phone call or a postcard… it might do the trick.

They need lovin’ too.

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utter honesty

There is nothing dreamy or romantic about illness. It is twisting, carnal, writing through the night. It’s pain so intense that sheets tear in spasms. There is nothing lovely in sweat and hot breath and the clammy lint that gathers on the palms of your hands. It is the natural state of man, a worm. Writhing. And so I cried that night. Cried in class… back seat, nobody noticed. Cried because I was scorned, cried because the pain was so intense, cried because I was simply hungry. And I am not very brave, you know.

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I’m just a person. I don’t want to hear the whispers of friends who asked the question I didn’t want to hear. “Are you going to die?” I am not afraid of dying. But I am afraid… horribly afraid… of ceasing to live. And how can I climb mountains and elbow my way beneath them when I’m stretched out on the bed? I cannot. I am prisoner to the unknown, to pain.

But here’s the secret – for us. Illness does not define who I am. It does not define who you are. You and I face death everyday. It can scare us  we slam into our driveways and abandon our cars, while we hide behind our curtains as hypochondriacs, terrified, attributing every cough to whooping-cough, every ache and pain to the worst. Or we can shrug off death as a necessary part of life and ignore it. Learn to tune in to the little things, the God things. The friend who sits across from me at Wendy’s and says “hey, uh… could we study the Bible?”, the praise music I have a habit of blasting at anyone who’s driving to school with me, the boss who gives me an extra ‘how are you’, the dad who lets me sit on his lap and cry, Mum’s interested listening to my stories of school.

This is my secret. The story does not end. I am free. Ever since I can remember, I’ve flopped down in the newmown grass and watched the birds. Learned their species. Laughed at the crows chasing off an indignant hawk from their young ones, cupped the tiny bluebird who has been abandoned in my hands and marveled. I am a bird. I am free. And I will live. I will run those mountains again. I will laugh and swing from a grapevine over the cliffs, I will swim up to raging falls found hidden in the woods. I will show a child the marvel of a chrysalis, and lay my head up against the hollow of a poplar tree and hear an owl sleepily answer my voice. And I will not die. I will never die. Who cares about if this body lives or dies. I am alive with a life that is eternal. I am ALIVE.

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…All I want to DO with my life.

These words struck deep.

People who really want to make a difference in the world usually do it, in one way or another. And I’ve noticed something about people who make a difference in the world: They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters. They get excited over one smile. They are willing to feed one stomach, educate one mind, and treat one wound. They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once; they’re satisfied with small changes. Over time, though, the small changes add up. Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world.

I found this in a book by one of the most amazing women I have heard of, and one who shares my name. Katie Davis’  book, Kisses from Katie was gifted to me by a certain Grace-woman, and I read the entire thing in a day. The ENTIRE thing. It started quite the thought process.

Individuals. People. One at a time.  On a rightbeforecollegeandweneedtogetgearedup phone call, a friend and I  started talking about goals for life. We’re both young and impetuous. He usually shoves me off cliffs and catches me just in time, and I annoy him mercilessly.

Kate: “Honestly, all I’m good at – is – is… loving people. That’s what I want to DO with my life. LOVE people. Is that lame?”

Person: “To love people well, to live a good life, is a higher purpose and achievement than most people dream of… Many people want to care for their families and be a good person, yes,  but to have it your sole goal to better others above yourself that is the rarer thing.”

And of course he’s right. And my goal for this year is too simply love people. To look at the individual for who they are. To realize that Jesus doesn’t save the clean, he saves the vile, the people with pasts, the peopleonthestreetsmellinglikepot… and I was no better. I AM no better. I’m hiding behind a man with a gash in his side and ripped flesh, which he did for me.

UPDATE: So funny. I had barely penned these words when I realized how much I was being tested. And then I laughed again. I count this a TEST? I am so little.

  • I couldn’t eat. I mean literally had an ulcer and was starving. It’s hard to love when a drink of water has you in the floor in agony.
  • I couldn’t walk. Not without Bob Crutchit, aptly named.
  • I was hated. Literally.
  • An old woman I had repeatedly tried to reach out to turned on me and reviled me to my face. Suck it up, maybe, but it hurt. I’ve tried so hard to love her.

…and the hardest part? I wanted to turn inward. To look at ME, MY hurts, MY wrongs, MY body.

God help me.

I still resolve to love allthepeople. And I resolve that because I am too small to do anything else.

I really mean it. God help me.

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Branson is… Branson

Branson is… Branson.gang

Foulest mouth in school, knows an awful lot about the Italian mafia, a kid or two out of wedlock, 21, and beligererent. We bonded over saving a professor some obvious agony from another student, I think. Or something. And then one day he was gone. For three weeks.

He* came back in desperation, the day OF finals, and I learned the whole story. Of a kid who had totally gone wrong after his father had died. The angry boy had left home and dropped out of school at 17, ended up in a street-gang of sorts, I suspect, and in jail a few times. He had no money, no life, no tomorrow. He spent his weekends at the Locker Room, a notorious place downtown.

And he tried to change. He got a job. He went back to school. And he found out about a child he never knew he had, a three-year-old son. He engaged himself to the mother, and he was trying. Trying SO hard. He was so close.

And then the mother turned on him, because he suspected his son was not his own. She threw his laptop on the sidewalk and broke it. And his cell phone. And EVERYTHING he had.

And now he was going to finish with Fs.

A professor told me that he was going to try to save Branson’s grade.

I saw the desperation in Branson’s eyes that day. The Italian Mafia look was almost convincing, but I could tell he wasn‘t okay. He was smoking an awful lot, and pale under his dark skin.

I mentioned it as off-handedly as possible. I am a tutor, you know. I can help. I didn’t want to help though. I’m no amazing person. I was beyond exhausted.

We sat there at the cafeteria and crammed information into him, an hour before the final. We went to one teacher together and told her the story. She agreed to help him make it up. We sat down and crammed again. And crammed. And cracked jokes. And he made it. With good grades.

I didn’t get any thanks. I didn’t want any. I felt raw as I saw the man who was trying to pull his life together trying so hard. He brought me lunch, for helping him. Granted, he let another guy [Jay] eat it, because I didn’t get there in time {I ended up kicking Jay in the shins, much to the amusement of everyone around}. And I was exhausted and torn.

He finished.

I have no lesson. No great insight. Helping people hurts. Loving people hurts. It tears your insides out like a devil in a blender. And I help because I see my parents help… I’m no hero. I see those around me helping.

So unworthy to love those around me.

How dare I look down?

Teach me.
 

*all names have been changed for the protection of those involved

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faces and names

During my second year of nursing school our professor gave us a quiz. I breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was a joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank.

Before the class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our grade. “Absolutely,” the professor said. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say hello.”

I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. {Joann C. Jones}