The Christmas season has come again. I know that because a) it’s December, b) everyone and his brother and his brother’s uncle’s friend’s pet dog is wearing festive red Santa hats, and c) the WalMart greeters have taken to saying “Merry Christmas!” instead of “have a nice day!”

I’ve had probably a hundred people wish me a Merry Christmas in the past week. It’s kind of heartwarming. Brings a smile to my face every time. But do they ever stop to wonder what that phrase means? Do they ever think about what this holiday really stands for, or what it really looked like to the characters who were most intimately involved in the story of the Christ?

There are many things that we think of when we hear the name “Christ.” Who is this Man to us? He is the Messiah. The Savior. The Lion of the tribe of Judah. The Root of Jesse. The Hope of Israel. Immanuel. The Prince of Peace. The Redeemer. The Ruler. The fulfillment of an age-old promise of redemption given to our forebears at the beginning of time. He is God incarnate. He is perfect man. He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is our High Priest, the one who sanctifies us. He is the Payment of our ransom, the Restorer of our standing with God.

And yet, who was Christ to the men and women of his day? An illegitimate child. The son of an unknown father. The bastard offspring of a lowbred woman, raised in a town of no consequence, part of an insignificant family made up of working class men and women.

And because of who He appeared to be, the Jews and the Gentiles alike missed the reality of Who He truly was. They failed to recognize that our God is a God who uses the ordinary to accomplish the extraordinary, that He allows our frailty to showcase His strength, and that He possesses a wisdom which confounds the minds of the wise.

I thought of this as I was out running errands yesterday, watching the endless streams of humanity bustle about doing their last minute Christmas shopping.

Each one of these men, women, and children appear to be one thing or another, I thought, and yet, who are they REALLY? If I could see deep down inside, could read the thoughts, could sense the emotions, could know their past, could feel the inner hurt that each one feels, could understand the struggles they face…what would I find? WHO would I find? Who would they find in me? What enormous depths of meaning am I missing as I look merely on the outside? If Christ came today, would I pass Him by?

I left the mall that day somewhat sobered by the realization that I, like many others, often fall into the trap of judging the man by his appearance, by his family, by his geographic location, by his hobbies—how often do I really invest in people and get to KNOW them like they deserve to be known?

It’s a question I can’t afford not to answer. Because today, just as for the Jews of 2,000 years ago, it is entirely possible to pass by Christ without recognizing Him. He tells us that what we have done to the least—those that society didn’t value, couldn’t see the worth in—we have done to Him.

I hope that this Christmas season is a valuable reminder for each one of us of the fact that how we treat the most vulnerable members of our society—the least desirable men and women, from a social standpoint—is a reflection of what our character really is, what our values truly are, and what effect our love for Christ has truly made on us as persons…

A few days ago, a friend and I set off in a little white car from Lynchburg, Virginia, to make the nearly 20-hour trek to Wausau, Wisconsin for Christmas break. It was exhilarating, to be sure. But more than that, the numerous quiet hours stuck behind the wheel of a car, listening to the steady hum of the engine and bemusedly watching my weary travel companion attempt to sleep in the seat beside me, provided a much-appreciated opportunity to think.

It has often seemed to me that the human existence is somewhat cyclical with regard to the emotional states an individual passes through. There are seasons in life when it feels like the heavens are silent, like God has hidden Himself, like the answers which we so desperately seek are nowhere to be found, and furthermore, like no one particularly cares--that we are abandoned to struggle absolutely alone through the moments of our greatest necessity and despair. (Granted, this sensation is just a feeling, but for the vast majority of humanity, feelings are, in that particular moment, their reality).

There are also seasons when one feels that the sun, the moon, and the stars have all propitiously aligned, that the world is only beautiful, and never horrifying, that God is particularly close, that His love is exceptionally real, that the answers to life’s deepest and most critical questions are within reach, that humanity beams upon us with affection and approbation…in short, that all is right with the world.

I have come to realize, over the course of several years and many conversations, that this sequential ebb and flow of the emotional tides is not unique to me—rather, it seems to characterize the vast majority of human kind to a greater or lesser degree, especially in our spiritual walks. And I begin to suspect that this is by design.

After all, the facts—the foundational truths upon which our worldview and our lives are constructed—don’t change. Our circumstances might, and our feelings definitely will, but if we act based upon the Biblical truth that we know, and allow what we know to rule our feelings, this creates an emotional maturity and stability that creates a solid foundation for the building of a robust character…

These were the thoughts that were spinning around behind my eyeballs as I drove through the long hours of a frigid winter night…and somewhere around hour twelve of the trip, I was reminded of a passage from The Screwtape Letters in which Lewis offered some characteristically perspicacious insight into the matter. This captures the perspective of a demon writing to his nephew, Screwtape, with some words of advice regarding the best ways in which to destroy the human soul:

“You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.

It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best…He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles.

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks around upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken…and still obeys.” –Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis (p. 39)

It is commonly hypothesized that before setting out on a long and arduous journey to the nether regions of the world, one ought to look over his or her vehicle in order to ensure that all of the parts of aforementioned vehicles are functioning properly and in order.

It was on account of this hypothesis that I found myself at Walmart this morning, hunting up and down the automotive aisle to find windshield wipers to replace the rather dilapidated set which had come with my car.

Now this whole process of thinking about cars and doing things with them required a somewhat different kind of brain power than I am accustomed to using in my little library world, and perhaps this is why I began to feel a bit overheated at some point prior to the beginning of the wiper shopping process, but however that may be, I had decided before entering the store that I no longer needed my coat, so I was traipsing around in my shirtsleeves, bemusedly watching these poor Virginians shiver in the sunny, slushy, sloppy weather.

I found the automotive aisle in Walmart, (this was a somewhat momentous event), and with a great deal of much-appreciated and much-needed phone coaching from my awesome dad, I was eventually successful in selecting two black rather rubbery things which looked wiperesque in nature and were apparently of the appropriate size for my car. Step one complete. Check.

Purchase wiper blades. Check.

Find car in parking lot (why on earth does EVERYONE drive white cars?! Makes this step so confusing!). Check.

I decided to put the new wipers on right there in the parking lot, since the sun was out, and the world was happy, and I…was also happy, mostly because I’d found my car.

I managed to get the old wiper blade off of my vehicle, but the instructions on the back of the new wiper blades were somewhat incomprehensible to me. I’d been standing there for several minutes, fiddling with the new wiper, feeling very blonde and very female, and looking inquisitively at certain aspects of the old one with my head cocked thoughtfully to one side, when a friendly middle-aged black dude strolled up with a confident smile.

“Darlin’, are you havin’ some issues?” he laughed, not even waiting for an answer as he took the wiper blade out of my hand. Apparently he’d been watching me struggle for longer than I knew.
I grinned a little sheepishly, and admitted that I was apparently lacking in many of the basic car skills that every competent woman ought to possess (silently vowing to myself to spend a number of hours in the garage with my dad over Christmas break to remedy these grievous deficiencies). He laughed again, and looked at me sideways as he effortlessly snapped the wiper blade onto my car.

“Are you a college girl?”

I nodded.

“Waell, then, I wouldn’t worry about that too much. In college, all most girls know is gas and go.”
“I, uh, know how to check the oil…?” I mumbled, distracted by his apparent proficiency in changing wiper blades.

“Are you a mechanic?” I asked finally, a wee bit envious of his skill.

“Naw, I’ve just been around, lived some life, you know? You’ll get there.” He laughed again, finishing his installation of the second wiper blade. He grabbed an alcohol wipe from his car then, and carefully explained to me that after installing a new set of blades, one should “wipe the rubber coating” off so the windshield won’t streak the first time you use them. I watched in silent admiration, and listened to everything he said, and nodded appreciatively, and thanked him for his time, and marveled to myself at how nice some people will be to a complete stranger.

“Now honey, you just take these old blades, and you throw ‘em away…and for the love of heaven, put a coat on yourself! And you have a nice day.” He gave me an enthusiastic high five, and with that, he was off, smiling, whistling a little under his breath…leaving me behind with a rather broad smile on my face as well…and an armful of trashed windshield wiper blades.

I love my life.

This morning I found a box outside my front door…with my name on it. I love it when that happens. It always feels like the beginning of a big mystery to me. Although, the mystery usually ends as soon as I open the box. Whatever.

Using my clever deductive reasoning skills, I gathered—from the return address—that this particular box came from my beloved family. Now, which family members, I still didn’t know. But at least, it was a start, because knowing the home of origin eliminated some billions of other possibilities—as well as decreasing the probability that the box contained explosive devices designed to help me meet my Maker sooner.

Inside the box, there was a letter, well, actually two of them…and a bunch of other stuff. The first letter, which was from my dad, opened as follows:

“Dear Darling Thea,
Mom says I can’t send candy, as you are more practical now and we need to send more practical stuff—don’t know what that has to do with it…”

I laughed. My dad has been sending me massive boxes of candy since I first left for college some three or four years ago. And not just space-filler candy—my dad is one of the best candy shoppers out there, and if he sends you something, it’s gonna be good. In fact, he was the one who single-handedly kept my entire hall supplied with Snickers candy bars during finals week of my first semester freshman year.

I could tell that he was somewhat disappointed that Mom felt I had outgrown the need for candy…I strongly suspect that he used to kind of get excited about the candy shopping thing more than he wants to admit. (I’ll admit that I was always pretty excited to be on the receiving end…it’s like…Christmas. Only you don’t know it coming. Awesome!)

So, partly to be funny, and partly to prove a point, and partly just because he’s random like that, my dad had put together a box of practical things for me. Made. My. Day.

The first thing I pulled out of the box was an MRE…which, I have to admit, is going to be highly practical at some point. Very, very practical. Plus, I’ve never actually HAD an MRE, so I’m pretty pumped about this opportunity to create a new life experience. (Score two for dad!)

The second thing that tumbled out onto my covers was a number of little boxes. Three of them were tea, and two of them were the same KIND of tea (I think this may be his way of telling me that I’m supposed to acquire an addiction for Sweet & Spicy Good Earth tea), and then, just for good measure, there was a box of hot cocoa mix. Whoa. Again, very, very practical. Not gonna lie, I was feeling pretty impressed by this point about my dad’s ability to pick out practical things. The third thing that fell out (and landed on my foot and tried to murder one of my toes) was a little jar of hand cream that I strongly suspect was my mom’s idea. Totally useful. I’m deeply grateful. And again, definitely practical. Good going, guys.

And the fourth and final thing was a little Ziploc bag on which my dad had written “Practical Stuff.” It was packed with gum, and a pen, and GermEx, and toothpaste, and Emergen-C packets, and cough drops, and…dried cranberries? I really laughed then, because I KNOW that that one was assembled just to prove a point to my mom.

And then it was time to go back and do second inspection...after all, what's actually in an MRE? And do I really want to know?

Yeah, you're right. I really don't want to know.

After all, anything that's wrapped in brown plastic and labeled "vegetarian" is sure to be healthy AND tasty, right? Of course right.

Thanks guys. You never cease to amaze me.

A couple of days ago, a bunch of spontaneous college boys and a couple of their naïve female friends packed into four cars and drove to Devil’s Marble Yard to engage in the age-old pastime of mountain climbing, a somewhat mind-numbing sport that pits man against the unforgiving incline of an apparently never-ending upward slope of earth and rock.

It was a Thursday afternoon of finals week, and I wasn’t sure that I could afford the time—but I reminded myself of the fact that time is a gift which we must invest in memory-making as well as studying, and then came to the conclusion that I couldn’t afford NOT to invest the time wandering around the mountain with this lively group of young people, because who knew when or if the next opportunity would come?

To be honest, this past Thursday, I needed the mountains. There are periods in our lives when we need to climb—to feel our strength draining away into the remorseless stones of a stolid and silent mass of rocky barrenness… to grit our teeth and work until physically we have nothing left to give, and we’re forced to stop and wipe the sweat out of our eyes and listen to the silence and the eerie moaning of the wind, and let the vastness of our surroundings sink in deep and permeate to the very depths of our being…

As I stood alone on the side of the mountain, surrounded by boulders the size of young elephants, there was no one within sight or earshot, and I was reminded of something that Elizabeth Elliot wrote in her book, Passion and Purity. She explained that “waiting silently is the hardest thing of all…the things that we feel most deeply, we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.” She’s right…but sometimes holding everything inside requires so much effort that the thoughts you attempt to hold back threaten to strangle you the minute your guard is relaxed even the slightest shade.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been wrestling—almost subconsciously—with an ever-increasing sense of loss. I realized it that day on the mountain…and again today, when it finally got the best of me, and I spent a few bittersweet moments sobbing over a philosophy assignment at my desk.

Why? Because I’m going home in a week. Going home because my little sister’s getting married. And I’m gonna miss her. A lot. Maybe even more than a lot.

All semester, ever since last summer, I’ve been running from the fact that this change was going to become a permanent reality…that eventually, she was going to leave—for good—and start a new life somewhere else. Subconsciously, maybe I thought that if I just kept busy with school, with ministry opportunities, with whatever or whoever would keep me from having time to think, the change would never become permanent. But now that break is less than one week away, the illusion of permanence and stability and changelessness is crumbling rapidly.

I know that when I go home, on some level, it’ll be to say goodbye to her…I know that after this, we won’t see each other nearly as much, won’t talk as often or as long, won’t be close in the same ways that we were…and I know that that’s ok—good, even…probably great, beautiful, and wonderful. But as with most major transitions in life (at least, the ones that I can remember), there’s a keen sense of loss, a dull aching emptiness that you feel in the moment…until it subsides with time, or until something else takes its place.

There will be something that will come to fill the void. I know that, because there always is. It’s the nature of our God to take us, and comfort us, and show us a new aspect of His character and His compassionate heart for mankind in the moments when we are most vulnerable and most needy and most alone... and then He gives us a new task, fills our lives with different people to pour into, and transplants us to give us more room to grow.

He will do all of those things in the next few years, both for Michelle, and for me. There’s a part of me that wishes I could know what that process will look like, but I’ve come to understand that often it’s the process of waiting without knowing that prepares us to better appreciate the gifts that God gives to us in His own perfect timing.

And so I wait. And I promise myself that I will learn to love the waiting, and the uncertainty, and even the pain…because I know that I know, in the deepest, most private corner of my heart, that our God is one who makes all things beautiful in His time…

Had a conversation in the library with a friend named Darryl who…frequently sees things from a different perspective than I do.

We were talking about dating relationships, because Darryl has a rather pessimistic outlook on life and relationships and many things happy. (He has just a bit of an argumentative streak, too…meaning most of our conversations would look like arguments to the average observer).

I don’t remember how it came up, but I told him at one point in the conversation that I hoped he married someone who was super sweet and would never argue with him. His face registered shock, and then deep dismay.

“Who’d wanna marry someone they couldn’t fight with?!” he protested. “That would be BORING.”

“I think it’d be good for your character,” I said absent-mindedly, not really watching his face.

“Fine!” he fumed, "I hope that you marry someone who will never fight with YOU either, then!”

“I hope so too!” I said, laughing.

Darryl was seriously put out by this point.

“Gosh!” he spluttered, “that’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard IN. MY. LIFE.” And with that he picked up his book bag and stormed out of the library…

I was laughing too hard to really notice where he went…

Last night, I had the privilege of going to a Christmas party hosted by one of my lovely nursing professors and her equally lovely family.

It seemed as though a lot of people must have been going to Christmas parties last night, because the roads were crazy…as in, really crazy. I almost felt like I was driving in D.C., except in D.C., there would probably have been more Smart cars weaving maniacally in and out of traffic. So I was glad that I was in Lynchburg.

I was on the phone with my sweet little mother as I drove, which may not have been helping my already-directionally challenged self to navigate to this new and unknown location. I was armed with mapquest directions, however, so I felt somewhat confident in my ability to eventually find my way from point A to point B.

During a particularly intense point in the conversation with my mom, I had come to the point where apparently I needed to take a right on Cottontown road. I saw a sign up ahead that read “Cotton…” something, but a telephone pole was obscuring the second half of the word. I assumed, and took a right.

It was one of those roads that started out ok…and then there was a railroad track…and after that, the road got really bad rather quickly. I have never seen such large potholes. Neither has my car, apparently, for a few moments later, I felt the bottom of the car hit the top of the earth’s surface with a rather sickeningly-solid, grinding thud.

Yeah. That…wasn’t my road. It was Cottonwood road. Very crumby road. I would recommend you don’t take it unless you’re riding a fourwheeler, or a camel, or something.

I found the right road, found the right house, met some awesome people, had a lot of fun watching Elf with them, heard their stories from the seasons of yesteryear, enjoyed some really incredible culinary delicacies, and finally decided that I had better see myself off to home before the clock struck midnight.

My instructor’s adorable little eleven-year-old daughter, Katie, and her twelve-year-old son, Jessie (who is every inch a boy, and one of the most hilarious little dudes I have ever met) had been conversing with us off and on throughout the evening, and now as I stood at the bottom of the staircase buttoning my coat, Katie was standing on the stairs just above me, smiling almost wistfully.

“Thank you for coming,” she said in her sweet little girl voice, “I’m really glad you came. I enjoyed it.” And she meant it. And I was touched, and wanted to grab her up in a big hug…I remember what it was like when I was that age, but I doubt that I was half so charming as little Katie. (She, like her brother, is possessed of social graces far beyond her years).

I went with Katie into the kitchen to say goodbye to my gracious hosts and some of the other Liberty faculty members in attendance at the party. As we exchanged hugs and Christmas blessings, one of nursing faculty smilingly shared a couple words of encouragement that brought a smile to my own face, and a bigger one to my heart. (We forget that we can be generous with our words, but in fact, our praise and affirmation is perhaps the single biggest gift that we can give on a consistent basis).

Maybe my head was a little off as I left, or maybe I’m just still very much in need of practice with reading directions in reverse, but…I got lost on the way home. Like, really lost. As in, stop-for-directions lost. As in, had been driving somewhat aimlessly for thirty minutes lost.
It was almost eleven o’clock on a Friday night as I pulled up in front of one of the few houses on the street that had its lights on and still looked somewhat alive.

I cringed as I rang the doorbell, hoping that the person inside was not the frazzled mother of a colicky baby that I’d just wakened with the bell.

There were voices moving around somewhere upstairs…happy sounding voices full of life and energy, which was especially impressive given the lateness of the hour.

The person who eventually came to the door was a pudgy, cute-as-a-button little black girl who peered curiously out the window of the door without seeing me. She opened the door then, and leaned out, looking first to the right, and then to the left. As she turned to the left, she caught sight of me standing there for the first time.

I’m not sure what she expected, but I was apparently not it. She jumped six inches up and possibly as many more to each side, and her heart visibly leaped into her throat from its former perch inside of her chest. Her beautiful brown eyes got wide as saucers, and a shrieking gasp burst from her mouth as she clutched the door frame with both hands and stared for a wide-eyed moment.

I smiled what I hoped was a reassuring smile, explained my predicament, and asked if her mom or dad were around to give me some pointers as to how to get back into Lynchburg.

She smiled proudly then, tossing her little head with its proliferation of braids, all of which ended neatly in a series of brightly colored plastic beads.

“Oh, AH can tell you THAAT,” she drawled in a friendly little accent, “You just git raaght on this road here, and ya fallow all the cuurves, and you don’t tuuuurn, and then, yew’ll git to the CVS, and that’s Lynchburg.”

I assured her that she had been most helpful, and that I was grateful. And then I left thinking “I’ve been all the way to the end of this road. It ends in a cornfield…”

But I resolved to find the CVS of which she spoke, regardless of how many turns it took, and eventually, I found it—and I smiled, remembering how much I’d loved to give directions when I was a kid about the same age as my little friend with the braids…like her, I usually managed to leave out most of the necessary turns, but if you say something confidently enough with volume and conviction, it doesn’t really matter, because people believe you anyway.

There were several things for which I was very thankful as I drove home last night. I was thankful for my mom, whose words of wisdom have very much blessed my heart and straightened my thinking during this past semester. I was also thankful to be back on familiar territory, headed towards a known location—that was awesome.

I was thankful too, for children. For little boys. For little girls. For the fact that their young hearts are often so tender, that they’re so gifted as listeners, as empathizers—so much more than we often give them credit for. Inside of each one of them lives a man or a woman who will one day walk a path very different than what we can today imagine for them…but I was challenged last night to remember always to treat each little one as an individual, to converse with them in such a way that they know that they matter to me…

You never really know what children remember from the social interactions they have, but I know that when I was younger, before I hit my teen years, there were a couple of college kids who took it into their heads to take an interest in me as an individual…and it changed my life. And somehow, in some way, I wanna pass that on…not just to kids, because I guess we need to be relating to every individual in our lives as though they matter, as though we genuinely care…but I want to be especially aware of it when I’m relating to kids. Because they do matter…so much more than they know.

Sometimes, in the craziness of daily life, the confusion of the inner struggle becomes a dull roar, and the voice of reason and truth becomes very difficult to hear in the midst of the chaos. Today I had to ask myself why it is that, knowing all that we know, we still wrestle with and fight against the truth that God brings to our attention. Why is it often times so difficult to submit to and be changed by what we know to be right?

Perhaps because we so quickly forget that to refuse to submit to God's draw on our lives is infinitely more painful and significantly less profitable in the long run. Perhaps because I lose sight of who it is that I'm serving...or where it is that my focus must be consistently fixed.

Today, I am reminded again of how blessed I am to have mentors in my life who point out to me the areas in which I'm refusing to submit to the truth of what I know, the ways in which I'm not being consistent to the worldview I claim to espouse...

As I ponder tonight, I realize yet again that while truth is sometimes painful, it is also healing, purifying, and helpful.

Kinda like that grape-flavored cough/cold medicine that my parents used to give us when we had stuffy noses...tastes disgusting at the time, but helpful later on...yeah. Perspective. Very important thing in life. ;-)

There were two note-worthy experiences that occurred over Thanksgiving break which were memorable in…very different ways than the rest of the break.

The first occurred before I even got home. You see, I’m currently enrolled in an online philosophy course, and since it’s only an 8-week course, it doesn’t break for holidays. Thus, there were assignments due over the week of Thanksgiving, and so I decided that my time in the airport would be well-spent if I used it to read for my philosophy class (we read a book every week…more reading than I’ve done in quite some time for one class, but…enriching, doubtless).

So I was reading a fascinating book about the art of Metaphysics while I sat at my gate. I would glance at my watch every little while to see how close my plane was to departure. I remember at one point looking up and thinking, “Odd. Why are they not boarding? It’s definitely time for them to be boarding.” I decided—in a rather naïve display of lack of airport savvy—to go check one of the flight screens in the hall, to see if the gate had possibly been switched without them announcing it.

The gate hadn’t been switched. The screen read that my flight was “boarding.” Oh. Ok. By the time I got back to the gate, I could see the plane slowly backing away, headed towards the runway. Fail.

First time I’ve ever missed a flight because I was reading in the airport. I groaned inwardly as I rescheduled for a flight that left seven hours later, realizing that my five siblings would never pass up such a prime opportunity to tease their oldest sister about acting blonde. (They didn’t, either). But I was grateful that there WAS another flight going to Wisconsin that day—would have been a bit more of a bummer if missing the first flight would have meant spending the night in the airport.

The second incident occurred the morning after we got back (my poor father drove until nearly two in the morning to get us both home from Milwaukee that night in time for my sister’s bridal shower the next morning…he was SOOO wiped)

When we got home at almost two, several of my family members were still awake—plus my sister’s fiancé was over, and his younger brother had tagged along. Oh goodness. A party. I just love those!

I’d only managed to get about four hours of sleep the night before, however, and thus, despite my desire to enjoy the company of my long-lost family, I was shortly forced to go to bed by my circadian rhythms and my concerned mother.

I remembered to take out my contacts. I was rather proud of myself. Since approximately half the herd at the home place has or wears contacts, there are bottles of contact solution all over the place, and nobody’s terribly possessive of any of them, so you just grab the closest one when you happen to be in need of contact solution. Which is exactly what I did. I didn’t really look at the bottle that closely, because all of the bottles, historically, have been the same stuff…normal saline solution that you can use as eye drops or contact solution or spider drowner, as the case may be.

Well, unbeknownst to my not-quite-coherent self, this bottle was…different. I didn’t find that out until the next morning, when I put my left contact in and experienced an odd burning sensation unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in the past (or hope to experience in the future). That was possibly the fastest I’ve ever removed a contact.

I thought to myself that I must have somehow still had shampoo on my hands from showering, or something, so I washed my hands veeeery thoroughly, and splashed some water into the eye to try to stop the burning, and waited for the little fellow to calm down and chill out…which he eventually did.

Michelle came in to stand beside me at the bathroom sink right about then, and instantly noticed my dilemma. She explained to me that that particular bottle of solution was peroxide-based and acidic, and thus, contacts must be thoroughly rinsed in regular solution prior to insertion. Um, thanks. I appreciate that tidbit. You have no idea how much.

So the second time, being one of those individuals who attempts to learn from previous errors, I rinsed the contact in regular solution…and put it in.

Ok, so it didn’t burn as bad…but it still burned. Quite a bit. So that contact just went into the garbage, and I opened a new set.

The eye, however, was irritated and watering for the rest of the day. Michelle had a bridal shower that morning, as I stated, however, and I had been asked to MC, so there was really nothing for it, I thought, but to just suck it up and go and pretend the eye would recover if I ignored it long enough (I am told that this is classic nurse thinking, for those of you who may have been wondering).

It was a lovely shower, and we had a lot of fun eating, and singing, and crying, and laughing, and watching Michelle and Joel open gifts, and for me, it was an opportunity to meet people that I’d not seen in over two years, which was special.

By the end of the shower, it was early afternoon, and the eye had gotten progressively worse to the point where I could only squint out of it. It had been watering away like an Artesian dribbler all morning, and by one o’clock, it had swollen almost completely shut and wasn’t overly comfortable.

My Dad is a wonderful, merciful, compassionate man, and thus it was that when he came to the shower towards the end to help with clean up, or whatever (I confess I was a little out of it by this point), he decided that he and I should just go home.

I thought maybe if I took a nap, the eye would miraculously get better. So I took a nap. And when I woke up, the eye was swollen completely shut and I could hardly see anything out of the other one either. Fail.

And so we decided that perhaps, we should have someone medically trained take a look at it. The only thing open that night was the emergency room, so…we went to the ER.

I was holding a washcloth over one eye, and the woman behind the desk looked at me with concern. “What do you have in that eye?” she asked. The look on her face suggested to me that she was expecting to see a knife protruding from the globe of my eye when I removed the washcloth. I was oh-so-tempted to say something like “well, my little nephew and I were fighting with forks at the dinner table…” but sometimes, you realize that the situation is just not appropriate. So I told her it was a chemical burn, and Dad showed her the bottle of contact solution, which he had brought along for show-and-tell.

After a lovely visit with my dad in the waiting room, a man in beautiful blue scrubs ushered me to a sterile-looking back room and asked me to please sit in the funny looking chair in the middle. He was a third-year resident named Ken Ugalali, or something like that…I think perhaps he was Kenyan. Whatever he was, he was certainly quite amusing to me that night. He towered above me, topping off at about 6’6”. Looking down with his black face full of deep concern, he asked what I had gotten in my eye. I told him the story, and handed him the bottle of contact solution.

He turned it over and over in his huge hands, reading the list of active ingredients.

“Number one in comfort,” he read slowly, reading the label on the front. He looked towards me. “Well, not for YOU,” he noted matter-of-factly. I cracked up.

Another doctor burst through the door at that point. He needed supplies from our room, and, while apologizing for his intrusion, he headed towards the medicine cabinet on the back wall to get what he needed.

“Oh, it’s quite alright,” I said, “We welcome any and all visitors. Thank you so much for stopping in!” He looked a little bit confused, and then he kinda laughed, and said he’d never heard that before.

Ken Ugalali wanted to examine my eye, so he had me sit opposite one of those big ophthalmoscopic machines like you find at an eye examination place. He sat on the other side of it, and tried to figure out how to turn it on.

I confess, I was very much amused by the process. He flipped a few switches, and then smacked it with his hand.

“Aw,” he grumbled, “it never works for me. And then the other guys come in, and it turns right on!” He smacked it again with his palm, and then started fiddling nervously with a bunch of knobs whose function he clearly didn’t quite understand.

“Maybe if you flip that switch right there?” I offered. He flipped it, and a few others, and eventually a light went on.

“Good job!” I said. “It’s working.” He grinned proudly, and nodded, and if he’d been a fellow-nursing student, I would have high-fived him. This medicine stuff is so much more complicated than people realize, you see.

He needed to look at my eye, but the eye was swollen shut. This posed a problem, one which he was unsure of how to fix. He took a very long q-tip, and poked at my eyelid, trying to get it to stay open. Not so much working. (I really wanted to suggest to him that we just use a toothpick to prop it open, but I was afraid he might not understand that I was joking).

Finally, looking very uncomfortable, he decided to just use his thumb to hold the eye open. I was laughing really hard on the inside by this point.

After completing his examination, he went to get his senior doctor to verify his findings (I actually am not sure if he found anything…but he gets props for doing the examination in my book).

The senior doctor came breezing in and did the same examination all over again. The look on Ken’s face was precious when the senior doctor reached out without hesitation to hold the eye open with his thumb. That time I laughed out loud.

Eventually, they reached the conclusion that I had a chemical burn of the cornea, and after irrigating the eye with two liters of saline solution, they decided that I could go home.

I was completely soaked at that point, because the saline had all kind of run down the back of my neck rather than running out into the little tray that they put under my head. It was really cold that night, snowing outside, and I was wearing about five layers, so I decided to just take some of them off before I put on my coat.

The attending nurse was ok when I pulled off the hoodie and said I didn’t need to be wearing a soaked sweater. Then I decided I didn’t need to be wearing a soaked shirt, either, so I whipped it off.

His face registered shock. “How many layers do you have ON?” he asked. I just laughed, and said probably more than the average person, cuz I’m still not used to Wisconsin frigidity. He left shaking his head. He’ll recover. And so did I. So thankful for the fact that corneas mend themselves rather rapidly.

You know how sometimes the cleaning frenzy strikes people, and they find themselves unable to rest, chew gum, or do homework until everything within the line of sight is spotless and neatly arranged in symmetrical patterns? Yeah. I suffered an attack of I-must-cleanitis two days ago, for no particular reason that I could identify upon much reflection.

This is why my room is now spotless, and, secondarily, why I am unable to find half of the items I’m accustomed to using on a daily basis. Fail.

I met an adorable little dude in the library a few weeks ago. On that particular night, he was working feverishly on a massive research paper covering the historical development of certain doctrines within the church—apparently this brain exercise is part of the degree completion plan for a Master of Divinity program.

Now, there are lots of adorable little men and women who work feverishly in the library on a regular basis. This is hardly outside the realm of the normal and expected. What was particularly striking about this little fellow, however, was the fact that his dad was working with him, helping him to edit the paper, and as they worked, they were conversing together in low tones, sometimes even bantering back and forth. I was intrigued.

I was working on a paper myself that night, but when the little dude took a quick water fountain break, I took the opportunity to strike up a quick conversation with his dad. I’d assumed that his dad must be a pastor, if he was helping him with the paper, but not so much—Little Man’s dad smiled at my assumption, and informed me that he was, in fact, an engineer, qualified to edit papers simply by virtue of the fact that he had written and read so many of them himself. He told me also that his son was an undergrad student, that he was enrolled in a Master of Divinity program online through another university, and that this massive paper was due at midnight (it was about 10:30 at this point). I was impressed that Little Man would enroll fulltime at two different schools, but he returned from the fountain just then to resume frantic work upon his paper, so that was the end of the conversation.

I’d mostly forgotten about Little Man until I bumped into him (not quite literally) outside the elevator yesterday. He has a full head of intensely black hair, with large black eyes that are equally intense and appear to be always observing. He’s a rather quiet sort of fellow, and thus, when I nodded in his direction, smiled, and said, “Oh hi!” he simply gave me a puzzled look, and said nothing. Apparently he was quite positive that I couldn’t have been speaking to him, or else he was secretly wondering whether I was a lunatic (in which case, he may also have been wondering if he should run in the opposite direction very quickly while screaming for assistance).

He did neither, however, and so we stood in very awkward silence for a long second, and then I laughed, and explained to him where we’d met before, and asked about his paper, and how it had turned out. His face lit up with recognition then (much to my relief—it would have been excruciatingly awkward and irresistibly funny otherwise), and I realized that perhaps his silence was simply the result of a little mind trying desperately to remember where this tall strange person would know him from.

He politely introduced himself, began talking animatedly about the paper, and answered a few questions about his student status. He told me bits and pieces about what it was like to be a commuter student, and how, although his sister is older, he’s the one who has the car—he grinned a little when he said that, shrugged, and said that maybe it was luck (or perhaps a state of affairs decided by virtue of the fact that he possesses a Y chromosome, but I didn’t ask). And then we were at my classroom door, and so we parted ways of necessity, and he went off smiling to find whatever it was that he was looking for…

But as he strode away, the thing that stuck with me was his intensity. Perhaps part of it is just his being rather shy (although it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s a bit outgoing when he’s with his family) or the fact that he has piercing black eyes, but the youngster—I discovered that he goes by PJ—was one of the most focused little dudes that I’ve met for quite some time. His walk, his tone of voice, his facial expressions—everything conveyed a sense of urgency which spoke of an inner drive uncommon in today’s average college student (it may also have been caused by a mild case of indigestion, but I doubt it).

I found myself shaking my head, and wondering…wondering how he’d been parented, where he’d gone to middle school, what he wants to do with his life after Liberty, what his parents are like, and what the family dynamic might be…because from surface appearances, it would seem that his parents have done some things very, very right.