I suppose that when we begin to pray for God to make us mindful of humanity’s woundedness, to increase the tenderness of our hearts towards the pain of others, and to give us opportunities to comfort others with the comfort with which He has comforted us…we should expect an answer. But I confess, sometimes? His answers—and the ways in which they come—are rather shocking to me.

Last night was one of those nights that I found the divine tweaking of my life plans to be rather…shocking.

It’s finals week here at Liberty…and as a result, I’ve been spending more than the usual amount of time in hibernation with my textbooks and my own befuzzled thought processes (the latter is possibly not a good thing).

However, each year, Liberty does a sort of campus-wide talent show—and you have to be rather talented to get in as a performer, so it actually is rather impressive to watch—on the Friday night of the first official day of finals. A kind friend had purchased a ticket for me to attend, but I guess yesterday, I just wasn’t feeling it—sometimes there is something inside of me that rebels at the thought of being surrounded by crowds of people when my heart and mind are desperately longing for time alone under a starlit sky—I call them wilderness moments…because sometimes, we just need to withdraw from the rest of the human race and spend some time listening for what God is really trying to say to us (it’s a pattern first modeled by Christ, and you know, He was a pretty cool guy, so...just saying).

Thus, at around eleven o’clock, when everyone else was just settling down to watch the wonders of Christmas Coffeehouse on Liberty’s campus, I was driving up the side of a mountain in the dark, humming under my breath, and only half aware of the millions of different thoughts churning around inside my brain.

As I turned onto my street, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was a young man walking alongside the road. He was dressed all in black—black t-shirt, black shorts—and no reflective anything on him anywhere.

That’s weird, I thought to myself, and kinda dangerous. If you’re gonna be out at night to exercise, at least wear something besides black so people can see you.

I kept driving, but somehow, something about the situation wasn’t sitting right with me.

Thea, a little voice nagged, you’ve gotta go back. If he was just out here to exercise this late at night, then why wasn’t he running? He had a backpack on.

So I turned the car around, and went back to check on him. As I pulled up alongside him, I rolled down my window and asked him if he was ok.

He looked a little dazed, and I wasn’t sure at first whether or not he was drunk. I was surprised by how young he was—he was just a highschool kid, at the most.

“Um, I’m…really not ok,” he mumbled, tottering a little bit as he headed towards my car.

As he got closer, I could see that he was telling the truth.

“What on earth happened to your face, man?!” I blurted. There was blood oozing from a number of abrasions on his head, and dried blood all around his mouth—somebody had obviously roughed him up a bit.

“Uh, a guy beat me up,” he said dazedly, staring into my face vacantly. “Can you help me?”

“Well, I can’t exactly leave you out here to freeze to death,” I retorted. “Get in the car.”

He’d been out in the cold for three hours without a coat, in his shirtsleeves and shorts, and it took him an hour just to stop shivering. Gradually, as I peppered him with questions and tried to calm him down, his story began to come out in bits and pieces between sobs and long pauses.

I have rarely seen desperation manifested quite as obviously as it was in this child. He literally leaned over and latched onto my arm like a frightened kitten, clinging to me and weeping for two hours as I cradled his head in the crook of my arm and stroked his hair and just asked questions, and listened, and prayed silently for wisdom to know what to say next.

Sometimes the depth of pain and hurt that humanity is capable of inflicting upon each other is so dark, so twisted, and so wrong on every level that when it confronts you directly, the shock of it is so visceral that you almost want to vomit. This was a kid that everybody had thrown away—his parents had ditched him, leaving him with an elderly grandfather who later died. Foster care had no answers and no place to really call home, and so when he turned 18, he fled the system. Kids at school told him he was a disgrace to his species and didn’t look human. And the one person he’d ever met whom he hoped might actually care—a girl he met at the mall and started dating—had dumped him that night, and then her step-brother had finalized it by trying to punch out his lights.

Sometimes there are no words to give voice to the emotions of the soul as you listen to a story like this and realize that it could have been your own. Is he a pitiful, broken, wounded, whiney, groveling creature? Yes. He’s not perhaps the kind of person that it’s easy to love. But it’s these people—the ones that require a lot more grace to care about? It’s these people that the church is called to minister to—and it’s also these people that we’re best at ignoring, dismissing, and secretly despising just as the rest of the human race does.

It’s not possible to undo 18 years of garbage in two hours on a Friday night. I didn’t even try. He was hungry and cold, so we fixed that, and then he just listened as I explained the fallenness of the human condition, what it is that we are saved from, and what it is that we are saved to, and what it means to serve a God who has declared us to be of value—what it means to serve a God who loves us, holds us, protects us, nurtures us, disciplines us, sees us as we really are—and cares enough not to leave us there in our own filth.

And then I took him back to the apartment where he lives alone, and gave him my phone number, and promised him that I’ll walk with him through the process of whatever it takes to help him start getting some things straightened out, and getting him plugged into some kind of community that actually cares.

What really made my heart sick as I drove away that night was that he told me that he’d been going to one of the local Lynchburg churches for over a year—but that no one knows him there. And maybe no one really cares, I thought to myself with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I recognize that it’s not socially acceptable to open our arms, our homes, and our hearts to society’s social outcasts. But if the church—claiming to represent the loving compassion of an accepting, forgiving, holy, and just God—refuses to love this subset of society…then my question is, who is left? The rather sobering question that’s been on my mind all morning is, who picks up the slack when God’s people refuse to act on their responsibility to be messengers of mercy, and make disciples of all men?

Liberty’s campus is relatively large—not so large, perhaps, as Duke’s campus, or Brown University, or something…but it’s biggerish. And parking is ridiculous…so in order to avoid the trauma of having to potentially find a parking spot more than once in a day? We walk. Everywhere. And doubtless, that is good for our characters and our cardiovascular systems, so no complaining on that note.

But yesterday, as I was walking from the cafeteria to the library, I was looking into people’s faces, like I always do when I walk, and I was struck—as I am frequently—by the fact that despite the fact that this is technically a Christian school, there is so much hurt in people’s eyes. And more than half the time, you can’t even catch the eyes, because the face is looking down—drawn, stressed, introspective, and insecure.

By the time I actually made it to the library, I could feel the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes.

“God, there’s SO much hurt here, even just on this campus. And we’re the ones that are supposed to have the answers, supposed to be offering hope—where do we start when it comes to mending the broken pieces of this generation, and what role do I—as the individual—play in this?”

It’s frighteningly easy for me not to care. In fact, for the last several months, despite the fact that I was technically doing everything right—spending time in Scripture, and praying for those around me, and being an active part of the church community and blah blah blah—I’ve kinda gone into survival mode, and I’ve had a growing sense of the fact that I was emotionally and spiritually disconnecting…that somehow, the truth that I was reading with the eyes of my mind wasn’t permeating to color the perceptions of my heart…and what I was doing with my hands wasn’t springing from a deep-seated sense of compassion or real caring.

It’s appalling how easily we can delude ourselves—and others—into thinking that going through the motions is the real thing.

God mercifully opened my eyes to the extent of my own callousness last week and gave me a glimpse of the direction in which my heart had turned in sort of an unexpected way. It was one o’clock in the morning, and I was sitting in a parking lot in a car, listening to a friend pour out some of the struggles of his soul…and suddenly I realized that this was the first time in weeks that I’d actively tried to care about somebody besides myself on any real level. And the realization was startling, and humbling…and as I sat there listening, I began to feel an overwhelming sense of shame. God doesn’t always speak in an audible voice, but sometimes…it’s almost audible:

“Thea, what on earth? How do you MISS it this badly for this long? How did you get so caught up in caring so much about what other people think of you, what other people are doing, and how they’re perceiving you that you lost three months of your life when you could have and should have been reaching out to people as they really are and caring for them as they really need to be cared for? Do you think I don’t know it when your heart isn’t with Me? Do you think I can’t sense your relational disconnectedness when your time with Me is just a ritual?”

As I drove home that night, the tears were rolling down my face and making little splashy tracks all over my steering wheel. The big plastic buttons on my coat probably thought it was raining. But somehow, the pain of God bringing us against the brick wall of a harsh realization is a pain that is redemptive, restorative, and freeing—and the tears were a good thing.

My prayer since then has been that God would keep my heart tender—that I would never become immune to the pain of others, that my eyes would never be able to ignore the needs, and that my heart would never be able to refuse to weep for those who are bleeding inside. It’s overwhelming to live this way. It’s beyond the handling capacity of my emotional and physical resources. But perhaps we were designed and called to live in a way that demands of us more strength than we have and more love than we are capable of giving so that we never come to the point of thinking that we no longer have a need for the One whose unending strength and infinite love have enabled men to do the seemingly-impossible since the beginning of the human race.

Thanksgiving. Giving of thanks. Noticing and appreciating the little things. Gratitude. Such simple concepts. Such an enriching way of approaching life. Such pathetically neglected and underused thinking in reality.

During the past week, as I was basking in the warm glow of being reunited at long last with my family after what feels like nearly a year of separation, I was challenged at times—usually by little things that people said or did—to ask myself if I have formed the habit of thankfulness, and whether I am actively cultivating a spirit of gratitude on a regular basis.

One instance in particular kind of stuck with me even as I deplaned on Virginian soil. See, I have two nephews and a niece, all of whom I am frightfully proud of, and five awesome siblings with two amazing additions by marriage—and often times, it is through one of these mediums that I am most forcibly reminded of my own need to sit back and reevaluate.

One of my nephews, Brock, is very nearly three years old. And he’s precious, and adorable, and possessed of a very compassionate and sensitive little heart. But as with most two year olds, he’s also very possessive of everything that he considers to be rightfully his.

I was a bystander one morning when he discovered that his baby sister, Lauren, was wearing a pair of his socks. Now, he had been running around barefooted all morning, and he had a different pair of socks stuffed inside of his little boots in case the notion to wear shoes might enter his tiny head, but somehow, all of this was completely irrelevant when it came to the fact that Lauren had been dressed in clothing items which he knew to be rightfully his.

“Mom,” he wailed, instantly very distraught, “did you think that maybe I would want my socks?!”

Ok, it was amusing. And yeah, I laughed. But then I had to do a quick double-take, and ask myself how often that kind of blatant selfishness characterizes my own thinking. The verse that came to mind was Proverbs 3:28, where Solomon or some other smart person is admonishing his readers, “Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Go, and come back, and tomorrow I will give it,’ when you have it with you.”

Maybe I’m not so much guilty of this one with my physical possessions…but with my time? Uf dah. Yeah, generosity in that area is a struggle, and I realized (a wee bit guiltily) that I definitely need to work on being more grateful for the time that people have chosen to invest in/share with me and to be more intentional in investing time in others.

On that note, I must say that over this particular break? I am especially grateful for the time invested by my tiny niece and new baby nephew, both of whom invested large quantities of sleep time and prodigious quantities of drool and baby urp in their oldest auntie. I miss it already, and I’ve only been back at school for half a week.

Yet another semester has fairly flown by, and once again, I find myself plowing through that last week of academia before heading back to the arctic regions of Wisconsin to see my beloved family and friends. But as I sat on my bed this morning making a mental note of all of the things that need to be packed/organized/studied before I head out, I took a moment to stop and reflect on the 12 months that have passed since the last time that I made this trek halfway across the U.S. for this particular holiday. It’s been a year full of so many incredible memories, incredible experiences, and incredible friendships—a year perfectly orchestrated by an incredible God.

Last year, when I was preparing for this journey, it was with mixed feelings, knowing that I was going home to the craziness of wedding prep and the emotional chaos of trying to sort through what it was going to look like and feel like to give away my younger sister—who also happens to be my best friend—to her new best friend. For the rest of her life. It was one of those weird experiences where you feel both incredibly happy for the other person and yet inconsolably sad deep down inside…and yet you feel almost guilty for feeling sad, because you strongly suspect that your reasons for feeling sad are entirely selfish.

This year, in going back home, I feel somehow…more excited, but also more disconnected, more independent, older somehow—as though I’m a visitor rather than a resident at the home place now. And I suppose that’s what it always comes to when one has lived away from home for several years—but I was almost startled to realize that this change had taken place in my thinking. I suppose this is part of growing up—of being an adult (whether or not this means I’ve earned the right to jump up and down and excitedly proclaim the fact that I’ve officially “arrived” at adult status? Well, I’m pretty sure not).

But in the midst of this philosophical reflection on life in general, I was impressed with a tremendous sense of the fact that in the past 12 months, I have been soooooo blessed…in my friendships, my family, my mentors, my teachers, and in the random encounters that happen with an odd degree of regularity on an almost-daily basis. And I’m super duper excited to go home and meet both of the little munchkins that have joined the Beaty family since last I darkened the doors of the home place. Woohoo! I'm off to see the wizard.

A belated but very warm congratulations to my beautiful sister and her handsome man on the arrival of baby Bobby...or "Blobby," as my sister has lovingly dubbed this round little feller.

Officially a family! Blobby's grand entry.

Bobby's first bath at home...an event which appears to be deeply fascinating to his wee philosophical mind.

Sleeping is Blobby's favorite activity. It's one of those great pasttimes that lends itself well to participation by the whole family--which is awesome.

Bobby has discovered at a very young age that the best way to keep camera flashes from annoying you is just to...sleep through the ordeal.

Aw, mom. No tickling.

Tonight, as I was sitting in my corner of the library working on a patho for one of my lovely clinicals, a wee little man with blonde hair and strikingly blue eyes plopped his little bottom down in front of the computer which stood vacant on my left.

I confess I didn’t really pay him much heed. Just smiled absently, and nodded, and kept on typing furiously. I had my headphones in, and was listening to a couple of songs that really make me think…so I think I may have lapsed a little, and begun staring very hard at the wall of the cubicle in front of me, or in some other way indicated that my mind had taken a brief vacation.
My reverie was interrupted by a little masculine voice:

“Excuse me,” it said.

I looked to my left, and found myself staring rather startledly into a pair of very blue eyes.

“Yes?”

“Am I invisible?”

I wasn’t sure what to make of this question. Was he feeling ignored? Unloved? Pretending to be a superhero with special powers? Was I supposed to play along? I was suddenly at a loss. So I grinned, and shrugged.

“Well, were you hoping?”

He grinned back, and nodded.

“Yeah. For Friday night.”

Oh please. Has it come to THIS? Are we so desperate we now hit on random chicks in the library?!

I just laughed. And then he suddenly turned bright red, and dropped his eyes, and mumbled something to himself about that being a super cheesy pickup line. And I thought to myself, yes. My sentiments precisely. Maybe you should…listen to the little voices inside of your head before you venture to speak in real time...it might be safer for you, little friend.

Some people’s children make me laugh. Others of them make me want to poke them in the face and then laugh…all in the spirit of Christian love, of course. *sigh*

One evening last week, when the stars were beginning to glimmer overhead and the frogs were excitedly croaking about the appearance of the moon, I emerged from my hole in the library desperately in need of a change of venue for studying. You see, sometimes, the austere towers of musty books and the hushed solemnity of the place get a little…nerve wracking. And this was one of those nights.

Thus it was that I found myself lovingly tucking my textbooks into the back seat of my car, like so many sleeping children. And thus it was that I found myself, sometime later, sitting on a park bench beside a stone table in the quaint, pedestrian section of Lynchburg’s downtown, reading about the marvels of human procreation and studying the developmental process of the embryo.

I hadn’t been there very long when a rather shaggy looking elderly gentleman with one whole tooth and one tooth that was merely pretending to be a half came sauntering up to the table where I was situated.

I glanced up briefly to see just what sort of a person it was who had graced my table with his presence…which he interpreted to be an invitation. So he plopped himself down across the table from me, and began, in a very good-natured sort of way, to tell me about himself.

I laughed quietly to myself as I listened, marveling over the fact that humanity is so delightfully quirky at times—and also quietly wondering if there’s a scientific reason that I seem to meet an extraordinarily high percentage of humanity’s quirkiest cases.

He informed me that he was sixty-three years old, and that his name was Gregg, and that he lived in a camper down by the river. He was feeling particularly proud of himself that night, because he had just finished fishing in the dumpster and had found a birthday gift for one of his friends—he told me happily that he is “very good” to his friends. I told him that he really didn’t look a day over sixty-two, and that he did, indeed, appear to be a most thoughtful friend.

He told me that he loves to meet people around town, and makes it a habit to speak to anyone and everyone (obviously)—but that he finds people become progressively less-friendly the longer they’re married. I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, so I just smiled and kept silent, which he didn’t seem to mind.

We sat like that for probably ten minutes, with him talking, and me just smiling and nodding, and making random side comments if he seemed to expect them. One of my friends called just then, and asked if we could walk together, to which I said yes. I told Gregg politely that I was leaving, but his face looked almost wistful as I rose to go, and my conscience smote me.

Thea, here is a living, breathing, human soul…one who is longing to be loved, valued, respected, nurtured—just like everybody else on the planet. And probably all his life, people have come into his life and left again…just like you’re doing now. And he’s dirty, and smelly, and greasy, and unattractive, and so he’s ignored, and treated as if he’s not valuable, not desirable…not human.

I stood there for a split second as these things went through my mind.

I bet no one ever touches him.

I couldn’t give him a home. I couldn’t get him a job. I couldn’t undo all of the hurts in his past that had been perpetrated over the past sixty-three years. But I could touch him…and let him know that I viewed him as a fellow human, a man worthy of respect, a man with intrinsic worth and dignity.

I placed my hand on his arm, and smiled. “Greg, it was nice to meet you tonight. I appreciate your time. And your friends are lucky to have someone like you who looks out for them.”

His face lit up.

“You remembered my name!” he exclaimed. And then he reached up both arms to hug me.

I kinda smelled like a homeless person for the rest of the night…but somehow, it didn’t really matter.

You know how sometimes you feel completely overwhelmed thinking that there just isn’t enough time in a day to get everything done that you have to do? And you start to mildly freak out in a major way, only very quietly, on the inside, where no one can see?

Yeah. Story of my life for the past…semester. But what I realized is that…it seems like, the more you have to do, the more you get done. So maybe what I really need to do is…add more to my to-do list.

So I think I’m going to go and get two full-time jobs. And maybe a part-time one too. And then I’ll be a full-time full-time part-time employee who’s also a full-time student. So hopefully, I’ll get a lot more done. Which would be awesome. Then I would feel like the silent freak-out parties in my head weren’t such a waste of time.

Yeah. And the cool thing is, the more coffee I drink, the more this whole idea makes sense. Coffee is this wonderful, mind-clearing substance that gives you marvelous new perspective on life. Super duper thankful to What’s-His-Face for deciding it was non-toxic and therefore could be consumed adults too (since children were probably drinking it for years before their parents caught on).

This semester has been so ridiculously busy that it’s difficult at times to find the time for extras such as blogging—or phone conversations, or email, or facebook, or movies, or anything else, for that matter. (I really do love my life—I just wish days were longer and that sleeping and eating were unnecessary).

I had the opportunity to spend my weekend in the labor and delivery unit at the hospital, and I have to say that…no matter how many times you see it? The miracle of birth is still…miraculous. Messy, but miraculous. It gives me chills every time.

Today was the first time I’d been able to stand-by in the operating room and witness a Caesarean. The patient was the sweetest little thing ever—she and her husband were both so incredibly gracious and understanding throughout the whole process.

Surgical procedures are fascinating to watch (if you’re not one of those people who have an inconvenient fainting tendency at the sight of blood). Honestly, though, my favorite part of every birth experience is that magical moment when the parents get to meet their new little one for the first time.

In the operating room, it’s a little different because of all the surgery-related chaos that surrounds the birthing experience, but I remember looking up from the table at one point, and glancing over, and seeing that the dad had wandered over to the warming table where his new baby girl was lying.

The neonatal team had suctioned her and rubbed her down, and she was just minding her own business over there while everybody else was preoccupied with repairing the damage done to her mom…

She was a beautiful baby. Stunning, for a newborn. And as I watched her dad standing there, gazing down at her like she was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen, I felt a lump forming in my throat.

There’s nothing quite like the look that a new dad gives to his first baby girl. It’s a look that carries all of the fatherly pride with which he looks at his first son, but it’s mingled with a different kind of protective tenderness and awe—as if he understands, even as he sees her that first time, that he’s always going to need to protect her in different ways than he does his sons.

The father today stood there for a long moment, just looking at her…drinking her in. His eyes were glistening with unshed tears, and he kept having to look away to keep from crying. You could see the emotions chasing each other across his face…a sense of wonder, and fatherly pride…his yearning to touch her, to cradle her, to shield her from everything that will ever hurt her for as long as he possibly can…his compassion…his desire to be her knight, her guardian, her protector, her hero, and her mentor…his incredible love for her, in her state of helpless dependency.

I had to look away myself to keep from crying. There are some things which are so incredibly beautiful that it’s almost painful to witness…in a good way.

Thank you, Dad, for being my knight, my guardian, my protector, my hero, and my mentor. I love you.

Today I met a lady from Delaware. She told me so very proudly. She was a most fascinating little creature…one of those ladies who shamelessly wear Hawaiian-printed button-up shirts with mismatched socks and clashing shorts.

She caught my attention as I was walking briskly into Goodwill to drop off some of the clothing articles I’d purged from my closet last week.

“Ma’am…do you know where the closest Salvation Army is?” she asked, smiling a bright, perky, expectant-sort of smile.

I explained to her that I was a student, and that I wasn’t originally from the area either, but pointed her in the direction of some other thrift stores that I knew of, and turned her over to the helpful, happy Goodwill employees who gave her step-by-step directions to here, there, and everywhere else.

She thanked me profusely (I think she forgot that she got more help from the Goodwill ladies than she did from me), and gushed to me that she “just LOVES!” thrift shopping. (She must have been telling the truth, because dude, who drives from Delaware to hit up Goodwill and Salvation Army?!).

I nodded, and smiled, and told her that I hoped very much that she would enjoy herself at Salvation Army as much as she apparently had at Goodwill.

As we were walking across the parking lot towards our respective vehicles, she suddenly stopped short and said with some forcefulness,

“Good luck in school, too, honey! That’s right. You just keep studying. You don’t need to be dependent on some man. You can make it all by yourself!” She was jabbing one stubby forefinger emphatically in my direction as she smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

I was somewhat perplexed by her comment, and the way in which she said it, so I simply nodded, smiled, waved, and got into my car.

But then I had to wonder…is that really what people think? If I, as a woman, choose to pursue higher education, does that automatically mean I’m doing it because I’m a feminist who wants to be able to live my life without being “dependent” on a member of the opposite sex, or—horrors!—burdened with runny-nosed, noisy little kids who might potentially get in the way of me doing exactly as I please for as many days as God please to give me?

But then I thought a little further, and realized that probably, beneath that dazzling Hawaiian shirt, beats the heart of a woman who’s been deeply hurt by failed relationships…the heart of a woman who projects her own failure and pain onto those she meets. And suddenly, I could feel only compassion for the eccentric little prophetess as I thought about what her life might have been…and as I realized that perhaps she awakes each morning to find herself yet again in a world of shattered dreams and broken promises.

So am I studying nursing because I’m hoping to live a completely independent life, “making it” all by myself? To be honest, that sounds like a dreadfully depressing existence to me. As humans, we were created to live in relational community, regardless of our marital status, career track, or dietary preferences, and I can’t imagine trying to flounder through life without the network of godly mentors, peers, and family members that God has blessed me with.

But the Hawaiian-shirted prophetess was alluding to something deeper. She was unwittingly highlighting the fact that here in America, we place a ridiculous amount of importance on self-sufficiency and independence. Why is it that we attach such a negative stigma to the concept of being “dependent” upon someone else, or to having someone else be “dependent” upon us? We see dependency as a weakness…an admission of inadequacy and ineptitude.

What we perhaps fail to understand is that our willingness to lean on others—to be “dependent”—when done in the proper way, is actually a manifestation of strength. With each passing year, I have come to realize a little more fully that it takes a much greater strength of character to live in community, to maintain closeness, and to be intentionally dependent upon each other than it does to lead a life of freakish independence, coming and going as we please without regard for the feelings, schedules, or priorities of others.

I hope that the men and women of my generation will become more dependent as we mature...first that we’ll have the wisdom to depend heavily on God, and secondly, that we’ll develop the character to depend on—and be dependable for—each other.

And some day? I hope we have the maturity to see that there’s no better legacy to leave than to raise a passel of runny-nosed, noisy little kids (who will inevitably get in the way of us doing exactly as we please for the rest of our lives)…to nurture them and guide them and disciple them and plant a vision in their little minds…to do our very best and to hold nothing back in order to instill in the generation to come an uncompromising character and unstoppable determination.

Laughter is a gift. I'll be the first to confess that I love all that is light-hearted, funny, innocent, comical, and endearingly sweet. But sometimes, I'm confronted with things at which I cannot laugh. Sometimes, when I look at life, the reality of who and what we, as humans, are...is enough to make me want to put my head in my hands and just cry.

It is impossible to spend any great length of time on earth without recognizing that humanity, even at his most exalted and in his finest form, is sick—emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically twisted, deformed, and warped on a fundamental and intrinsic level. In each of us, much of what was once the divine spark has been obliterated, stained, darkened…ruined. Man as he once was—flawless, beautiful, fearless, and perfect—has been transmuted into something which is insidiously sinister, grotesque…even horrific.

And because man is not what he once was, the world is now what it is. Each one of us is part of an international community in which there are literally millions of people affected by pressing issues…men, women, and children who are begging for our attention, pleading for solutions, praying that someone, somewhere, someday will have the decency and the humanness to merely care.

This past week I had the opportunity to preview a film made by a couple of young people who had the decency and the humanness to care about what is perhaps one of the more pressing and increasingly pervasive poisons in American society. It was a film called “Sex + Money: a global search for human worth"…and it dealt with the issue of sex slavery in America.

It was challenging—and horrifying—for its honesty. I left feeling like someone had punched me in the gut…it was that sick, panicked, stunned sensation you get when you hit the ground after free-falling 20 feet.

Why? Because there was a lot that I didn’t know. I didn’t know that literally tens of thousands of middle school and high school girls are recruited or kidnapped annually and forced into prostitution all over the United States. I didn’t know that only one in three of those girls forced into prostitution at 13 or 14 years of age have parents who actually care enough to even report them missing. I didn’t know that the average clients—those who devalue, destroy, humiliate, and abuse these young prostitutes by using them instead of rescuing them—are married men…middle-aged citizens with children—perhaps with teenage daughters around the ages of the girls they’re using and then throwing away. Men with average marriages, average families, average jobs, who go to average churches, and lead average Christian lives. Average pastors. Average deacons. Average businessmen. Who go home to their families at night with a smile pasted on their faces as though man were not the product of his thoughts, his actions, and his values…as though the largeness of one’s pretense could make up for the smallness of his character.

Another thing that came out was that there is a frightening amount of evidence indicating that pornography addiction is the single biggest commonality shared by those who perpetuate the sex slave trade by serving in the role of client. Perhaps we, the American people, should do more than lip service to the reality of the fact that where we allow our minds to go is where our bodies will later follow.

The kids who put together the movie had learned and grown much through the process, and you could see in their eyes that the dark reality of what they had learned in the course of putting the documentary together had changed them. There was no going back to what they had been.

One of the distinct realities of life is that when we are exposed to something which appalls us by the very tragedy of its existence—when we gaze with anguished fear into the black horror of some monstrous atrocity—we are faced at that moment with a decision. We can choose to turn our back, and walk away, and let our actions speak to the fact that we simply refuse to care…or we can choose to feel every ounce of the pain, to let our minds and our hearts be revulsed by what we nonetheless choose to embrace, to feel the full weight of the despair and the hopelessness and the brokenness—to understand that to act will also require that we be encompassed by the blackness and scarred by the monstrosity of the battle in which we are called to engage—to know all of this, and yet choose to move forward with determination and purpose, knowing that it is better to die fighting than to die without ever having entered the fight…we can do either of those things. But we can never again say that we were unaware…that we didn’t know. We may no longer hide behind the protective veil of ignorance, because in the moment of truth, the luxury of innocence is forever ripped away.

You could see in the eyes of each person there that night that the luxury of innocence had been ripped away. And you could see in the tears coursing down the faces of many of us that were there that night that the issues of sexual abuse, pornography addiction, and the resulting devaluation of human worth are all issues which strike very close to home. Statistically, one out of every four people in that room had been sexually abused, raped, or molested at some point in his or her lifetime. From the uncontrolled sobbing that was elicited from some who were there in response to the film, I’d say the statistics are about right.

It’s incredible to me—in the most ghastly sense of that word—that humanity can be so noble at times, and yet capable of perpetrating the most heinous acts of compassionless destruction. To choose deliberately to degrade someone sexually…to use them and then casually throw them away…is one of the greatest horrors one person can perpetrate against another. To reduce man, made in the image of God, to a mere object to be abused, mutilated, and destroyed—both personally, emotionally, physically, and psychologically—is appalling for the fact that it is done openly, shamelessly, and remorselessly on a daily basis. We live in a world where human souls by the millions are tortured and sacrificed upon an altar erected to the god of human pleasure. And the question we’re left to face is whether we care enough to lift a finger—whether we’re willing to take part in a war that might cost us everything…whether we can live with the shame of choosing to turn our backs and do nothing.

Woohoo! God is so gracious! It’s the beginning of yet another school year. Which means I’ve survived yet another 12 months of…life. Awesome.

I’m excited to be progressing, and slowly working towards a theoretical graduation date. But I also find myself wrestling with a rather massive case of senioritis—or maybe it’s I-just-want-to-be-done-itis. And it’s only the second week of school. Oh dear. This might be a very long year.

But it’s going to be a good one, because life is awesome in so many ways!

It’s amusing to be back on the college campus again…you start to notice patterns. Every year, there are crowds of eager freshman, just out of highschool, who are quite positive that they will find the perfect woman or the perfect man within the first 24 hours of being on campus. And if not within the first 24, well, surely within the first week. After all, the odds are truly in their favor, right?

Note: It IS true that the odds are in their favor. Experience shows that it is indeed the odd ones who are the most intent on showering favor, love-smitten glances, and marriage proposals upon anything that resembles a specimen of the opposite gender…especially if they’ve been acquainted for more than 24 hours. Oh. My. Word. That’s like, um, an ETERNITY to know someone. And if you don’t propose to her NOW, well, then, gracious, the next guy’s sure to snatch her out from beneath your very nose!

Seriously? Chill, guys. Relax. Take a deep breath. Maybe take some sedatives. Whatever it takes. But just give yourselves like…three years…to kind of get the hang of things, get to know her, yeah, you get the picture. And then think about maybe…asking her to coffee. No proposals on the first date. Bad idea. I promise.

And the sophomores, juniors, and seniors…well, the closer you get to the finish line, I think the more you begin to feel like you’ve got ants in your pants…and as you pore over your textbooks, you secretly are earnestly longing for the day when you will sell every last textbook to some naïve freshman and move on to the next phase of life. Maybe not. But I secretly feel that way sometimes. Especially when I read Pharmacology textbooks.

But I have to say that studying nursing has been an extraordinary opportunity. It changes your view of people—and your understanding of God. It’s crazy, in an awesome kind of way, to catch a glimpse of the intricacy of the systems which make up the human body as you study human anatomy…or to marvel at the miracle of new life as you hold a slippery, wriggling newborn in your hands in the delivery room…or to feel how deeply God’s compassion towards us must be as you stand beside the distraught family members of a patient who may not live through the night. These moments—these memories—are gifts. And the longer I live, the more I feel that this is so. And I’m grateful.

But right now…I’ve gotta go read Pharmacology. And as I do, I shall think about selling my textbooks to a freshman—and giving her a smile, and a hug, and telling her with a wink that I wish her all the best. And then…just because I’d feel mean if I didn’t…I’d give her my phone number and tell her to call me when she had questions…or just needed a hug. ;-)

This past week, as I was bumping around Alexander County in my little car, delivering books to all of my customers, it was with mixed feelings that I realized that yet another summer has come and gone in a blur.

I’ve had an amazing opportunity to meet nearly 2,000 families this summer, however briefly. Some have been more memorable than others, for various different reasons.

For example, this past week, there was the balding, 60+ year old man with a Santa Claus beer belly and kindly brown eyes who informed me that more and more younger women are dating older men. I nodded absent-mindedly, and agreed that this might, indeed, be the case.

In hindsight, that should have been a hint or a clue, or something, but I was in book-woman mode at that point, and was thinking only of books and delivering books.

His next comment sort of caught my attention, though:

“So you’ve been down here for 13 weeks, and you still haven’t found a boyfriend?!”

I blinked, suddenly jarred slightly out of book-woman mode.

“Um, well, no, I haven’t found one. But to be frank, Shorty, that really wasn’t my primary objective in coming to North Carolina. I came to sell books, not to find a boyfriend.”

“Still,” he spluttered, “I’m surprised. A pretty girl like you?”

‘Oh please. Here we go again,’ I groaned inwardly, finally realizing where this was headed.

He proceeded to very generously offer to serve in the capacity of boyfriend for me, thereby remedying my situation quite dandily. He gave me his phone number, and insisted that we should keep in touch.

‘Riiiiiiggghhhhht,’ I thought, it’s always been my heart’s dearest wish to date someone old enough to be my grandfather. Or not so much.

Then there was the sweet little motherly woman who greeted me with the warmest smile I think I’ve ever seen when I returned with her books. She insisted on making me a tomato sandwich, and kept asking me if I didn’t want something else? And then, two days later, when I bumped into her at WalMart, she came racing over to give me a bear hug and ask me if we could keep in touch during the next school year.

When she turned to walk away, I stood there for a long minute, thinking wistfully that I loved her, and that I hope someday to be as warm, as welcoming, and as genuine as she is.

Each summer, there are people you meet out here on the field who shape you, influence the way you think, and challenge some of your long-held presuppositions…and this summer was no different in that respect. I’m incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to serve as a member of the Varsity team for yet another year…and yet am still unable to comprehend the fact that classes officially start again in three short days. Where on earth did the time go?!

Whatever. Clinicals, here we come…

Week 7 on the bookfield is just drawing to a close. I apologize to my lovely readers for not updating this sooner—didn’t quite reckon on the summer being as hectic as it has been. But when I say hectic, I mean that in a completely positive way. Of course.

This summer has been a whirlwind of interesting scenarios, hilarious moments, memorable conversations, and new life lessons. I thought I’d learned a lot after my first summer on the bookfield, but I’ve since discovered that you learn infinitely more your second year on the field.

We rolled into Hickory, North Carolina seven weeks ago—four girls from four different states, with 24 hours to find a place to stay before we started our 12 week summer going to door-to-door. I love sales! And honestly, this summer, I have truly loved being a bookwoman.

Initially, I was planning to post an update on here every week so my poor fambly back home would have some idea of what life on the field looks like. However, between leading a team this year, and working more hours than I did last summer, there hasn’t been a lot of spare time for extras like blogging.

But today, I just wanted to put up a quick little blurb to let you all know that I’m still inhabiting the planet. Woohoo!

There have been so many laughable moments in the past few weeks…my goodness. I wish I had time to share them all.

One of my favorites happened this past week…I had knocked on a door not knowing anything about the family who lived there. When the lady of the house answered my summons, she had a huge smile on her face…and a parrot perched on her shoulder.

Maybe it was the retarded blinking of the parrot, or the fact that it seemed a little out of place—but I started laughing really hard. Which was apparently odd. So the lady of the house started laughing too. And the bird got very excited, and began in her squawky voice to say, “Hello, Sunshine!” Which really made the whole situation more laughable.

I discovered that the bird’s name is Sunshine. Throughout the entire demo, as I showed Bird Woman my books, the bird sat above us on the porch swing, and every time we got to an exciting part of the demo, she would lean over and squawk and tell us her name, or bid us hello (I confess, I was sometimes a little worried lest in her excitement, she might poop on us…but she didn’t. Happy day!)

Ah, I love my job. Never a boring day…

Only five more weeks until the end of the summer—I can’t believe how quickly the time is going. But 75-80 hour work weeks leave little time for reflection. Maybe at the end of the summer. :-)

One day this past week, after coming home from a long day at school, I was greeted at the door by a sunny little face with sparkling brown eyes and tiny pink lips that were turned up at the corners to form a beautiful little smile.

It was my landlord’s wee granddaughter, Isabelle, and apparently her family had dropped her off to spend the day with her grandparents. Well, and me, by default.

I had forgotten what it’s like to be a four years old girl, and to have the attention of a college student all to yourself. I’d never quite imagined what it would feel like to BE that college student, either.

We sat beside the kitchen table talking like grownups for a good while. Well, not entirely like grownups. Isabelle expresses her affection through touch, and her cute little sticky hands were always attached to some part of my person as we talked…until finally I began to catch on that what this constant touching was really communicating was, in fact, her need to be touched. So we started an on-going tickle fight that went on sporadically for most of the afternoon.

She was beside herself with delight when I told her that I was going to make tea, and asked her if she wanted to try some.

“Oh!” she gushed, “Ith it like the tea they have at McDonaldth? I jutht LOVE that!” (I love her lisp!)

“It’s a little different,” I said, “because this is hot, and it’s made with a tea bag…so it’s not sweet like that.”

She looked a little dubious at that point, so I told her I’d let her smell it before she tried it.

When I set the cup in front of her a few minutes later, she looked more doubtful still.

“It smellth thpicy,” she said, “and I really don’t like thpicy.”

“Well, I’ll just put a tiny bit into a cup, then, in case you don’t really like it,” I told her.

She stood there watching me with her head cocked to one side quizzically. I was trying not to laugh as I watched her take that first sip.

I really half expected her to spit it back into the cup or something—she’d been so sure that spicy was not her thing. But I think the fact that I was drinking it and apparently enjoying it might have influenced her reaction a little.

Slowly but surely, an awe-filled, rapturous expression spread across her face.

“My goodneth!” she lisped in her little four-year-old voice, “thith ith AMATHING!”

So we sat, and drank tea, and talked about her life. She asked me if I backwash when I drink tea. I told her I didn’t think so…but she thought she should probably look in my teacup to make sure, so I let her.

And then we put her hair in frenchbraids, and she asked if I wanted to play dress-up with her.

“And then after we get all drethed up, we can danthe for Grandpa! And he will pwobably say that we’re beautiful, and that he LOVES it!”

I just smiled, and thought to myself that if I dressed up and danced around in the living room for her grandfather, he would probably just think it was frightening and wonder if I had lost my mind. But I nodded enthusiastically, and told her that she was beautiful all the time, even when she wasn’t in dress-up clothes.

Her comment was striking to me, though: “he will probably say that we’re beautiful…and that he loves it!” I marveled to myself at how early this desire begins in the little feminine heart—the desire to be beautiful, the yearning to be admired, to be cherished, to be loved and treasured…to be thought exquisite, and unique, and desirable.

Oh, how fragile a thing is the heart of a child! How easily these little dreams are crushed.

As I finished plaiting little Isabelle’s hair and sent her off to be admired by her grandparents, I found myself silently resolving to do a better job of protecting the dreams of those I know…whether it’s a four-year-old who dreams of being someone’s princess, or a college student who dreams of becoming a missionary.

Because dreams are one of the things which make an ordinary existence both magical and extraordinary.

It is a beautiful thing when we find others who have spoken beautifully and poignantly to the pain which is a part of human existence--sometimes putting into words things which we ourselves find beyond our ability to articulate. Such was my feeling when I stumbled across a number of quotes by Khalil Gibran this afternoon. And while I may not agree with his doctrine, I admire the artistic skill with which he weaves his words together.

I've been thinking much this week about transitions--about learning to love, and learning to let go...about learning to embrace the seasons of life with enthusiasm, but to let them go without resentment, although inevitably, it will not be without a sense of loss.

Gibran said a number of things that I found thought-provoking, especially in light of certain recent situations.

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."

"When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."

"It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone... but it takes a lifetime to forget someone."

"I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers."

Some days, when I go to the hospital to do yet another clinical rotation, I’m overwhelmed by the tremendous privilege that this is to be able to spend time with people who are hurting, sick, broken, and sometimes dying—to have the freedom to help mend those broken bodies, to have the time to talk with patients about their fears, to have the opportunity to speak hope and pour love into souls that are wounded and searching—this is an amazing thing to me...and an incredibly beautiful opportunity.

But sometimes, when you go into a situation expecting to minister, to pour out, to give, to build up, and to be spent, you find that in an uncanny way, the one who is actually ministered to is yourself.

Last Monday was that kind of a day.

The elderly patient that I was caring for was a former Navy corpsman. In his day, he was a man who commanded respect—when he spoke, men listened, and things happened.

But now, he’s a pitiful heap of bones with skin stretched tightly over top. His frail body is home to an equally fragile mind, a mind which wanders over many places, although none of these places relate to his current reality. His withered body is wracked by disease and spent by the years. He is dying.

Somehow knowing that someone is dying does not always prepare you for the reality of the death process, however.

As I stood in his room, watching his claw-like hands grasp at imaginary intruders at the head of his bed, I was struck deeply by the fact that someday, it’ll be my father in that bed…and then someday…it’ll be me.

How often we forget how brief our stint on this planet really is, I thought, taking the hand of the confused old man in my own and stroking his arm gently.

His tired, sunken eyes met mine, and a beautiful smile lit up his face for a brief second. It was like the sun bursting through clouds after a storm, and I had to choke back the lump in my throat.

His son came later to spend the day with his dad.

Sometimes, as a nursing student, it’s a little bit intimidating to have the family of the patient in the room when you’re providing care, but this time was different.

The son was a soft-spoken, gentle, middle-aged man with kind grey eyes that twinkled out from a friendly round face.

It was a pretty quiet day on the floor, so I spent most of my time just standing in my patient’s room, sometimes holding his hand if he got restless, or fetching things if he needed them.

The ancient Navy corpsman was delirious, and unaware of his surroundings, but he recognized his son’s face. Watching the two of them interact was an incredible thing.

The elderly father was very hard of hearing, and all of the nurses yelled in order to make themselves heard when they were in his presence.

But the son never yelled. Instead, he would lean over the bed, cradling his dad’s head in his arm as he spoke directly into the old man’s ear in a low, calm voice. For hours, he would stand beside the bed, one hand gently placed on his father’s wrinkled head, listening to his dad talk incoherently about myriads of different things from the son’s childhood.

Every once in a while, the son would turn to me, grinning slightly, and share a story from when he was little—things he remembered about his dad.

“He was an incredible man,” he murmured once, gazing fondly at the gaunt face on the pillow, “and there was nothing he couldn’t do.”

The old man opened his eyes slowly, looking around with a confused expression.

The son sat down on the bed beside his father, placing one arm gently around the old man’s shoulders.

“Dad, it’s me,” he said, leaning in close so his father could hear him, “I’m here. It’s ok. Just rest…I’m not leaving.”

He stayed there, seated on the bed, his hand placed tenderly but firmly on his father’s forehead.

The tears welled up in my eyes as I watched. I thought of the many years during which this father was there for his son…the hundreds of times when he came alongside and put his arm around his son and assured him that everything was ok…because he was there…because he wasn’t leaving.

And now the father and son had traded places…and it was the younger with his arm around the elder, assuring him that everything was going to be alright…because he was there…and because he wasn’t leaving…because he understood the importance of being there to help his father die…because he understood that goodbye is something that you say with your actions, with your time, with your touch…not a few words that you mutter as you pause in front of the casket at a funeral.

It was a heart-wrenchingly beautiful thing to watch.

I wish that more children understood this version of love. I wish that more of us understood the importance of giving of ourselves—of giving back, of being available…even if it means just being there to hold someone’s hand as they die.

Because sometimes...it's the little moments that nobody will ever really know about that truly matter the most. And some of the sweetest lessons in life come through giving to those who can't say thank you.

Today, as I was preparing lunch for the elderly couple with whom I live, a couple of the grandchildren stopped in. Being delightfully inquisitive little people with quick minds, they all congregated in the kitchen to supervise as I worked and share tidbits about their aspirations for the future. There are three children: Marissa is 11, Caleb is 8, and Isabelle is 4.

Isabelle, who is a charming little girl with big brown eyes and soft brown ringlets (which she finds keenly annoying due to the fact that they insist on falling into her eyes) was animatedly telling me about where she and her siblings are going to live "when they all grow up."

“Yes,” she said, nodding enthusiastically, “we’re going to have a big mansion, because Caleb and Marissa are going to make lots of money. Because they’re not going to get married. They’re just going to make money.”

Marissa nodded. My curiosity was piqued.

“So you’re the only one that’s going to get married, Isabelle?” I asked absently, dropping diced potatoes into a pot on the stove.

“Yes,” she said emphatically, “and you know why? It’s because Caleb and Marissa don’t like kissing on the lips.”

I had to try really hard not to laugh.

“Oh,” I said, “they don’t like kissing on the lips?”

“Yeah!” Isabelle’s face was oh-so-serious.

“What if they just didn’t kiss on the lips? They could get married then, right?”

Isabelle’s lips pursed as she pondered this. Finally, her face brightened, and I could see that her keen little mind had hit on something brilliant.

“Oh!” she said energetically, “I know! They could just kiss on the cheek! Or maybe the forehead. Or just the head.”

“Or they could blow kisses,” I said, shrugging, still trying really hard not to laugh.

“Yeah!” Isabelle was getting more and more excited.

“Plus,” I said thoughtfully, “Marissa might change her mind about kissing once she gets to be about 18 or 19.”

“No,” Isabelle shook her head decidedly. She was quite sure this would never happen. Marissa didn’t say anything.

“So you’re all going to live in the same house?” I asked.

“Yeah…and you…you can live with us too! We’re going to have a big house, with a huge, huge deck—bigger than Annie and Mark’s deck.” I nodded knowingly, although I have no idea who Annie and Mark are, nor how big their deck is.

“And we’ll have a pool!” Isabelle continued, “And a room for the boys, and a room for the girls. And I’m going to have lots of kids.”

“So you and Marissa and all of the girls are going to stay in one room, and your husband and Caleb and all of your boys will stay in the other room?”

She nodded.

“And we can build a separate room for you!” she squealed excitedly.

My goodness! What a tempting offer. I may have to seriously consider this option...in about 20 years.

I sometimes wish that life were simpler...but in my saner moments, I'm incredibly grateful for the fact that it's not, because honestly, how does one learn to surf in an ocean without waves?

Ran across this quote by C.S. Lewis in a book that I was reading this morning, and it challenged me--challenged me because sometimes, in moments of selfishness, I feel like the easy way out is to withdraw, to love people less, to be more guarded, to care on the surface level instead of seeing the hurt under the surface...when in fact, that's a coward's response that refuses to confront the real issues.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." --C.S. Lewis

There is a frustrating inconsistency in the way we, as Christians, view the history of our faith…one which I see often, and have experienced myself on several occasions.

You see, I have lost count of the number of times that I’ve heard a reference made in conversation to all of the “horrible things” that have been done “in the name of Christianity.”
Sometimes it’s verbalized by a Christian, who hangs his head slightly, and mumbles with a touch of embarrassment as he concedes that such is indeed the case. Other times, it’s an atheist or agnostic friend, who points somewhat self-righteously to the fact that religion clearly is not an answer if it is capable of being so atrociously perverted and utilized for such unjust ends.

I will not deny that atrocious things have been done in the name—or under the auspices—of Christianity. The Crusades are perhaps the most well known of the abuses perpetrated in the name of the community of faith, but for hundreds of years, Christians and non-Christians alike took part in other practices which have today been criminalized in our society, such as slavery, or the open demonstration of anti-Semitism.

Let’s be a little bit realistic, though. If things which our “modern” society now considers to be horrific have been done in the name of Christianity in the past, is this a reason to vilify the belief system itself? Are atheism or agnosticism better philosophical systems, if we base that judgment strictly on the effect which each system has upon mankind?

What legacy –what lasting imprint on the face of humanity—has been left by atheism?

While this is a question we may not often ask, it is a sobering one to answer, because in truth, atheism has left a bigger trail of human carnage in its wake than Christianity ever has or ever will.

There are the scars left by Hitler’s Third Reich…the legacy of the Nazis…the silent horror of the millions of men, women, and children who lived and died in the hells of Auschwitz, Dachau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka.

There is the ghastly reality of Russia’s Red Army…the anguish in the tears shed by the tens of thousands of innocent Russian citizens starved to death and brutalized under Stalin’s merciless political regime.

There is the legacy of Mao Zedong, the revolutionary under whose leadership 40 to 70 million Chinese men, women, and children were slaughtered.

There is the brutality of the genocides committed in nations like Burundi, Rwanda, Pakistan, and others…mass murders which have claimed unimaginable numbers of human lives, and left millions more homeless, destitute, maimed, and broken.

Have awful things been done in the name of Christianity? Sadly, yes. And worse things have been done in the name of atheism.

But this is not evidence for the defectiveness of Christianity as a belief system. It is rather a testimony to the brokenness of the human soul and the darkness of the human mind. I grieve for the fact that humanity is so badly broken. But I do not apologize for God...and I am not ashamed to call myself a Christian simply because, in the past, broken humanity has done tragic things in the name of a faith it did not understand.

Counting the Costs

It is seemingly a cruel stroke of fate and one of the incongruous realities of existence that it is those whom we most love that we are, in fact, most capable of hurting deeply.

I have thought on this long and regretfully during the past year…and again during the past week. Sometimes I marvel sadly over the fact that we can wound someone more profoundly than we know through something as simple as a careless word, a thoughtless action, or a disrespectful attitude. How is it that, knowing all that I know, I still haven’t learned not to damage those around me? How is it that I still inflict wounds on my fellow man? Still mar those who have been—like me—made in the Divine image?

How we view others is perhaps largely a function of how we view God…and how we view ourselves.

Today I hurt someone that I love…because I lost sight of who God is, and I allowed my focus to shift to myself, my needs, my feelings, my insecurities…my rights. And according to the rules of my myopic, self-focused little world, I was justified in my impatience, in my lack of compassion, in my judgmental attitudes…in my lack of love.

What I so often fail to realize is that in my myopic, self-focused world, there is no room for others…and there is no room for a loving, compassionate, forgiving, and gracious God. There is room only for one flawed, sinful, broken individual…and there is no healing and no hope.

I wish sometimes that I could turn back the clock…that I could undo the thoughtless deed, the hasty word, or the judgmental glance, and replace it with something Christ-like. But the reality of it is that we can’t…that what is once done can never be completely undone, and what is once uttered can never be unspoken.

And so it is with humility and a keen sense of my own inadequacy that I echo the words of David tonight when he says in Psalm 19:14, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer.”

After all, it is our words which expose us for who we truly are…as Christ says Himself, “A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

May our words and our actions consistently bear testimony to the treasure which is within our hearts…and may we have the humility to admit when we are wrong, the grace to ask for forgiveness, and the persistence to seek reconciliation of damaged relationships...

The evolution of human development throughout the life cycle is nowhere demonstrated so clearly as in our conversations. I was musing on this the past week as I observed a number of subjects, all of them at different points in the age spectrum.


At one point, it was a couple of toddlers squawking exuberantly at each other, waving their pudgy arms emphatically, and stamping their little legs to add meaning and emotion to their incoherent babblings. Both children were completely unaware of the fact that this sophisticated process was communicating approximately nothing to their audience.


Then there were the groups of giddy, giggling teenage girls. For this particular age group, every conversation must apparently be punctuated by laughter, whispering, or shouting, or it is much less meaningful to them, and naturally, much less fun as well.


Finally, it was the group of old men sitting in the corner at Hardees. They were very seriously discussing something of great interest, such as whether cows would ever have the capability of producing purple milk…but every sentence on the part of one member was followed by puzzled looks and several loud “Huh? What was that now?” comments from the other members of the group as they all reached up to adjust their hearing aids again.


Ah, humanity! What on earth would we do if men were truly islands? Failed attempts at communication are the spice of life.

Two claw-like hands grasp my arm tightly, maybe because she’s unable to let go, or maybe because she’s afraid that she’s going to fall over as soon as she attempts to stand up. Her shriveled face is gaunt, with a vacant expression, while her body is stiff and permanently bent.

As I look at this woman, my mind automatically goes back to what she must have been before…before her mind left, before her body was wasted and crippled, before she was reduced to a helpless invalid with a child-like mind.

I have never seen her when she was other than what she is now—a shriveled, stiff old woman incapacitated by an invisible disease that slowly eats away at her mind and daily lessens her physical capabilities. But there were those who knew her then—when she was a capable doctor who organized departments, mobilized teams, ran her home, and raised her family.

Is she really the same person? I wonder, smoothing her hair out of her eyes and gazing thoughtfully at the gaunt, vacant face. What makes a person a person? If we become severely ravaged by disease…if our mind is gone…do we cease to be—essentially—who we once were?

In caring for this woman, there are many questions that have been raised in my mind. What is it to love someone forever, for better or for worse? This is a question that I often ask myself as I see her husband’s frustration with her. It saddens me that he seems to blame her for her current state—that he’s passively aggressive, or even openly aggressive, in the way that he responds to her increasing physical needs.

Could I do any better? I wonder quietly. Am I selfless enough to serve someone like this year after year without recognition or prospect of relief? Maybe not.

Is it ever right to starve yourself to death to avoid being a burden on someone else like this? Is this what old age is really about—being helpless, incompetent, dependent…to be a shadow of what you were, to be out of your mind, to waste away gradually and exist as a pitiable wreck? Why do I dread that? Are dependency and helplessness the worst things possible? When someone is in this state, is God using the condition to sanctify them, or to build character in others? When two people vow to each other to stay together for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death separates them…does that mean that you fight to keep your spouse’s body alive long after the mind has gone? What makes the person who they are? How do you practically cope with being married to someone who is nothing like the person that you married?

All of these are things that I wonder…and sometimes the questions themselves frighten me, because I can’t always answer them. But in caring for this elderly man and his ailing wife, these are, nevertheless, questions which cross my mind...

It’s an overcast, cold, windy afternoon, and the sidewalks of Liberty University are bustling with thousands of students, most of whom are clearly absorbed in their own little world.

Yes, I confess—I watch them. It’s fascinating to me to observe the ways that students interact—or don’t interact—as they jostle through their daily routines. Often times, they’re elbow-to-elbow with hundreds of other men and women just like themselves…men and women whose names they don’t know and whose faces they probably don’t even recognize—because sadly, college campuses are home to some of the most sobering incongruities of our generation. College students are daily demonstrating the fact that it is entirely possible—maybe even probable—to live in close physical proximity to thousands of other individuals who are in approximately our same stage of life…and yet be incredibly isolated—almost as completely alone as Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the sole human occupant of a lonely island, whose isolated stretches he wandered alone for years.

As college students, we spend prodigious amounts of time talking—moving our mouths—and very little time communicating. We long to be heard—and yet we rarely take time to truly listen and ask thoughtful questions. We yearn to be considered intelligent, significant, sophisticated, mature, and respectable—and yet we feed our minds with trivialities, mediocrities, and frivolities, and are completely oblivious to the fact that what comes out in our behavior and our words is a reflection of what we put into our brains in the first place.

We are eager to find people we can follow—people who will lead—because we ourselves lack direction. We want others to make all or most of the important decisions in life for us—because we are mortally terrified of failing…of messing up…or—horrors!—of having to reap the consequences of our own actions. We desperately seek for intimacy—for that magical someone who will love us unconditionally—and yet we fail to understand that we ourselves lack the capacity and the maturity to love in the ways that we demand others should love us.

We point angry fingers at the Church, and accuse her of frightful shortcomings and egregious moral failures—and yet we are incognizant of the inconsistencies and shortcomings in our own spiritual lives…and oblivious to the fact that we ARE the church…ignorant of the reality that truth must be lived honestly before it can be spoken powerfully.

Does it frustrate me to witness this on a daily basis? Sometimes. Does it hurt to see humanity wrestle—and often fail—in their struggle to begin to understand what it means to live in community—to live fully, and joyfully, and righteously, and well? Yes. But that’s probably the wrong question.

Maybe what I really need to be asking is, what part do I play in all of this? Am I part of the problem or part of the solution? And what does it look like to be a part of the solution?

It costs us nothing to point fingers. It solves nothing either.

But what would happen if we talked less…listened more…read more…thought more…asked more questions…realized that it’s ok to mess up as long as we’re willing to get up and try again?

I guess the only person that can really answer that for me is…me. And the only person who can really answer that question for you is...you. But I’m willing to venture a guess that when we make the decision to live as we would have others to live around us…life looks a lot different, both inside and out.

Are we willing to be the change? To live the difference?

I was in line at the post office this morning behind a young mom and her wee daughter—an adorable little munchkin with huge brown eyes who must have been about 18 months old. Her fuzzy brown mop of hair stuck out crazily on all sides as though she’d stuck her finger in the power outlet in the not-so-distant past, and her tiny red mouth was perpetually formed into a wonder-filled O.

She was remarkably active, toddling all over the place like a tiny little drunk person, much to the amusement of the elderly men and women who were patiently waiting in line to mail their packages. While her mother was distracted talking to the clerk behind the counter, the fearless little explorer took it into her head to see the great outdoors. As her pink diapered bottom tottered out through the doors into the street, however, her adventure was abruptly terminated by a fatherly-looking fireman who ducked out right behind her and swooped her up into his arms. There was some general laughter as he returned to the post office with the wee prodigal, she looking up at him curiously, fearlessly, while he returned her gaze with kindly amusement.
Her mother thanked him profusely, and apologized, but I think he was rather enjoying the little midget, because he offered to hold her until her mother finished at the counter.

Thirty seconds later, an elderly woman came in with two identical twin boys in tow. The boys were probably a few months past their second birthdays—they were walking well, and starting to experiment with basic English phrases in cute lispy toddler voices.
As they came in, both sets of little boy eyes latched onto the fireman right inside the door…and then both sets of little eyes noticed the wee girl in his arms. She looked at them curiously, as though she had never seen little boys before. The boys, however, had clearly seen little girls before. Huge smiles instantly appeared on their faces.

“Ooo!” one of them cooed, lisping in his amazement and excitement, “It’th cuuuute! Look at du baby!”

“Yeah!” his brother nodded enthusiastically. The two little dudes stood there admiringly, stock still, gazing up at this small female wonder.

I almost lost it at that point—it was SO funny! These two little men were hardly more than babies themselves, but clearly they felt that they had long passed the point that this chick was at.

I suppose it’s a lesson that broadly applies to all of life—we tend to look back at those who stand where we stood—emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically—just a few short months ago…and we make comparisons, and think to ourselves how much we’ve grown, or how much different we are from these others…when in fact, there is probably very little that separates us…and if we find that we are allowing ourselves to focus on the differences, we’re probably missing the real point of our life journey anyway. So many incredible lessons to be learned from the commonplace!

Incidentally, if it weren’t highly illegal and just generally unadvisable, I think I’d go kidnap me a cute little pair of identical twin boys tonight…but I shall exercise admirable amounts of self-control instead, and refrain.