Thanksgiving

On Wednesday I spontaneously burst into tears anticipating a Thanksgiving apart from my family. I am now 31 years old. One would think I would be "grown-up" enough to not need my mommy's mashed potatoes at the end of every November.

This holiday, this year, however, seems to have brought up more heaviness than usual. I have spent several Thanksgivings with other families...with the Sulaymans a few times in Chicago and with my grandmother's side of the family in KY. Both locations were full of joy and love.

Last year's Turkey Day, however, is a stinging memory. I spent the holiday with my ex-boyfriend's family. I had then thought they would soon be my inlaws. Though in many ways our relationship was crumbling, the "happy clappy" shoe hadn't quite dropped and I traversed this different Thanksgiving as part of my new tradition. My family doesn't do "black friday", his family was in line at 3am. My family does broccoli, his did green bean casserole. My family does movies, his family does football. And on and on. That weekend was the last time that I saw any of his family, the family that I had prepped myself to love and enjoy, serve and blend into and this week's reminder of them bowled me over.

In the day to day, I feel I've managed to move on from the relationship well, but commercials for black friday coupons and aromas of turkey and stuffing proved more than I could handle. For the first time in months, I was tempted to make contact, to check in, to see how his brother's college applications were going and if he'd been up to the city to see "West Side Story" yet. I wanted to know if his sister was still dating that guy at the grocery store and to tell her that I got my hair straightened again. But these left-overs if you will, are the last pieces of hanging on to a past that God has carried me through. And I'm not meant to go back there.

I wished for a flight home to be with my REAL family, to re-write once again our traditions in my head and forget the stormy end to 2008. I wanted to drown myself in niece and nephew time and disengage with my future or chosen life. Expensive flights wouldn't allow it.

Instead I had a wonderful and full day of attempting the parade with Mon, pumpkin pancakes and bacon with Steph and Kevin and a Thanksgiving potluck with NYC orphans at Emily's. I might have been away from my family, but here I was creating new family, new memories and feeling full in every way.

I do long for the day when I'm not a single, not an orphan hopping from party to party. I long for my future husband's family to love and for new traditions to absorb. I look forward to caring for his family and not having to wonder about their future. I look forward to the forever. Until then, I'll make my own Cranberry Fluff, I'll call my family and get the entire menu detail from Grandma, giggle at pictures, ooh and ahh over Noe's latest outfit and thank God for the rich life He's given me as a single girl in the city.

6:30, 7:30 and 2:45

My cell phone is possessed. While in a long-distance relationship, I might have exercised the cell phone so much that it had no choice but to fight back. After months of bullying, I'm close to tossing it to cell phone heaven. For the past month or so, it has stubbornly refused to let me reset its' alarms. So if I have my cell phone turned on, it will, without fail, buzz or beep at 6:30am, 7:30am, and 2:45pm every day. I use my cell phone as my alarm clock. I know what you're all thinking...it's so obvious: Why don't you turn your cell phone off and buy a $4.99 Duane Reade special alarm clock? Well, everyone, that would make perfect sense, but I'd rather have a small, unreliable, ornery and once shiny, now sadly dulled rectangle rule my mornings and mid-afternoons.

The amazing thing in this all? It's been putting me on a schedule! I wake up earlier, got to the gym or practice, have a QT, make breakfast and if I'm feeling particularly luxurious, a cup of tea! So this annoyance is really creating the discipline I need. The Lord truly works in mysterious ways. And every night when I'm tempted to stay up till 12 or 1 scanning facebook statuses or broadwayworld.com, I'm inspired instead to go to bed because I know what will be buzzing at 6:30. That reliable little friend of mine that I can't wait to replace!

Off to bed friends...it's past 10:30. :)

Oh but wait...I have to share! I'm reading a wonderful Beth Moore called "Get out of that Pit". It truly is helping me to do just that. I thank God for the way He has brought Beth into my life once again to teach me and excite me about His word.
Also, I've signed up for the memory verse challenge on her blog: http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/

The first verse that I posted is from our FG's most recent passage, Galatians 5:1

"It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

This past Sunday's sermon was on Romans 4 entitled "Through the Blood of Jesus Christ" We need redemption because we are slaves to guilt and shame and also our slave masters/idol factories.
What are my slave masters? Approval, career, family(husband/kids), ideal weight, so many more, I'm sure!

Streaker!

Monday afternoons mean worship meetings at the Redeemer Offices. All of the worship leaders/pastors, the worship/music staff as well as the Sunday Ops staff meet to discuss what's coming the following Sundays as well as to debrief what went well and what well, didn't, the day before. My predecessor promised these meetings would be entertaining. Mostly, we look across the table from each other either too shy to share what we really think or too eager to get to the next event and we're in and out in just a few minutes. But here and there, we laugh.

Matt was sharing that a man at the East Side PM Service somehow got on the stage and plopped down next to Jon, while Jon was playing the postlude.
Matt: "I thought this guy might be a streaker."
Chris: "Please tell us you mean stalker."

6th months later...

Hello long-forgotten blog!
I just went to my 6th month post-op appointment last week. The news is good...all is well with the vocal cords, even after 2 weeks of coughing! More alarming was the fact that 6 months has gone by since that momentous time of trusting and waiting and being carried by prayers and my community.

Of all the 6 month stretches in my 30 years, this past one has been filled with the most jolting highs and lows. After weeks of real sorrow at the beginning of this new year, I was overjoyed with the way God was reaching down and gripping me out of my pit through the strength of family, old friends, new friends, passions no longer on hold and His Word. But then, most recently, I was brought low once again. Something that should have been encouraging, sent me to despair, back to grieving the loss of the one I thought would forever hold my heart.

A few weeks ago I felt utterly lost. While on my walk to work, I wondered what the difference was between my life now and the giddy life I had in the fall. Certainly, a person and a relationship. But as I navigated the same windy path with all its familiar marquees and landmarks, I realized the core of what's gone is the dream of a life with someone, of building a future that is not just in my own hands. My dear friend reminded me I am building a future with that someone and that I can dream of my future with Jesus. It sounds cheezy, like the back-cover of one of those Bible Belt Christian self-help books, but it's true. I've been reflecting on 1 Peter 1:3-8 over the last 24 hours and I'm struck by so many things. The Lord wants to hold and direct our future and so wants us on the inside of his kingdom, of his peace and heart....those verses are dripping with INS!! "In his great mercy"...."into a living hope" "into an inheritance that can never perish.." "kept IN heaven", etc. And so even while we are suffering, we're still "in" with him, never on the outside of his love or gaze.

Now on the other side of the past 6 months marked by physical healing and wandering and rejoicing and leaning on one over the ONE I continue to be humbled and stripped down, plainly seeing my sin and the darkness that lies within me. But I can confidently say I also have hope and a future IN Christ Jesus, not because of my record but because of His.

"IN this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." 1 Peter 1:6-7