Some nights, sleep is elusive…

I stared at the ceiling into the wee hours of the morning yesterday, listening to the muffled sounds drifting up through the floor boards from the conversation of the couple who lives below me, trying to ignore the endless streams of thoughts and questions whirring around behind my sleepless lids.

Homework, job situation, the outline that still needs to be fleshed out for tomorrow’s evening Bible study…I push the thoughts resolutely aside, and close my eyes, trying to will myself to go to sleep.

Not so much going to happen.

I had been thinking all evening about the concept of discipleship, about what it means to disciple someone, or to BE a disciple—what makes discipleship effective…or not? So many questions in my mind about this Son of Man that we follow…so much to marvel at in considering His characteristic attitudes, emotions, and reactions, when thinking of the wisdom of God, and the situation of man—His broken image-bearer.

Somewhere in there, sleep drifted in for a few hours, because I remember waking at some point before 4 a.m., and being unable to drift off again.

Sometimes God wakes us during the middle of the night because there’s someone—or something—that He wants us to pray for. So I waited. And listened. And the names—and the faces—began to parade through like some kind of odd funeral procession.

They were smiling faces…hundreds of them…people that I know, and care about, and some that I have not thought of for a long time…but their eyes were haunted, deep pools of unspoken emotion, mute witnesses which spoke of the pain of existence, the uncertainty of life, the tremulous beauty of hope, the struggle of growth, the shame of failure, the unquenchable desire for that which is deeper, fuller, more meaningful, most real…

There’s a story behind every face. Many stories, actually. Some of them, I know…and many, I don’t. But it was sweet to know this morning that my Father knows all of them. That He cares more deeply than I am even capable of imagining…that He has a plan for each one of these men and women…that He holds their futures in His hands, that He sees the hurts, knows the pain, and longs to heal and restore each one of them, and that He yearns over them all with a father love too rich to have a mortal counterpart.

It is an incredible thing to be upheld and undergirded by the hands of the Living God.

But right now...I think I'm going to go brew some tea, and head to my 7:40 class. Might be needing an awful lot of tea to make it through today. *laugh*

Sabbath day musings...

There is a growing phenomenon amongst the men and women of my generation that has become increasingly and disturbingly apparent in recent years—a pervasive and subtly poisonous mindset that seems to be ever more common. Up until the past few months, I’ve been pretty much baffled when it came to trying to deal with or understand what I was encountering, but I was very much aware of the fact that it was there.

What am I referring to? People have labeled this as many different things. A fear of commitment. Personal insecurity. An inability to relate to others. Self-centeredness. Insensitivity. Callousness. Cultural myopia. Narcissism.

It may be all of those things. But what I’ve wondered for several years now is…why? Why is it that young people in THIS generation are floundering through relationships, messing up friendships, and fracturing family ties as if the concepts of human love and lasting trust were recent inventions still in the experimental stages? If marriage has been around for literally hundreds of centuries…why is it that forming and maintaining this relationship has suddenly become an unattainable form of rocket science to men and women of the 21^st century? How is it that such a high percentage of one generation could be incapable of really trusting enough to care…or caring enough to trust?

Last night, I curled up with a book and a cup of tea—still possibly my favorite pastime—to see if someone, somewhere, somehow, had cast some light upon our current perplexing state of relational affairs in the U.S.

The book which thus engrossed me last night was called The Love They Lost: Living with the Legacy of Our Parents’ Divorce, and I picked it out when meandering through the library because I have a number of friends who are the children of divorced parents—and I thought that maybe somehow this mysterious little volume would shed a bit of light on the struggles that children of divorcees face, as well as revealing some of the ways in which their friends can most effectively minister to them as they attempt to wade through the emotional wash of a fractured family situation.

As I read through page after page of first-hand accounts given by the now-adult children of divorced parents, poring over their descriptions of emotional responses and various methods of coping with the pain of their parents’ separation, a lot of things that I’d wondered about began to make a lot more sense. Each chapter was a succession of those “Wow! Are you kidding me?!” moments, where you’re excited by how much sense the new ideas make, but where you also grieve over the fact that you didn’t understand this stuff six or seven years ago…

There were a couple of recurrent themes that surfaced in story after story, though. One was that, when parents separate, there is an almost subconscious assumption of relational stability that is shattered in the minds of their children—and often times, they never recover from this. It’s replaced with an assumption that relationships are meant to be fractured, that trust will inevitably be irreparably broken, and that those upon whom we most depend are not truly dependable. Often, the kids spoke of being unable to face the emotions related to their parents’ divorce—so they simply didn’t. They stuffed it, sometimes not dealing with the depths of the emotional pain until decades later, or maybe not at all. And during those interim years, they simply didn’t allow themselves to feel—because they were afraid to feel, and had decided that numbness was a better option than emotional agony.

Maybe this isn’t really the answer, but it certainly made me wonder—do we live in a society where divorce and the resultant relational transiency has so warped and scarred our view of relationships that people are afraid to really feel, and therefore unable to really trust, and thus, as a result, incapable of forming meaningful, lasting, and healthy emotional ties?

Even for those of us who have grown up in nurturing, mostly-functional nuclear-family homes, the legacy of the skyrocketing divorce rates of our parents’ generation has affected us deeply, because we inevitably sense that there’s a lack of trust and a lack of trustworthiness in the average man or woman from our generation. We’re bombarded with dysfunctionality in the media. We hear about it on every street corner. We see it in the lives of our friends. We’re constantly surrounded by emotionally wounded individuals who are self-sufficient, suspicious, freakishly independent, and relationally isolated. They insist that this is the new normal, that this is “coping,” because they can’t or won’t admit that they don’t know how to be open in a healthy sense, don’t understand what it means to love—and be loved—unconditionally, or accepted for who they are, or nurtured and cared for without being afraid that it won’t last. And so those of us from nuclear two-parent homes begin to wonder if what we experienced in our own families is abnormal—if what everyone ELSE seems to be experiencing is really the way life is? Can we ever hope to repeat what we saw our parents do? Can we ever really find a spouse who shares our view of commitment as a life-long thing—do those people with a functional, healthy understanding of trust and dependability even exist in this new generation? Or is that asking way too much?

Are we creating a self-perpetuating monster? Are we unwittingly setting the next generation up for the same kind of emotional roller-coaster ride that we’ve experienced ourselves? Where does one go to heal from the kind of trauma that two or three or four decades of wrong relational paradigms inflicts on one’s soul? How do you teach someone to trust when the most rudimentary ideas of what trust really IS have been shattered before the kid reached five years of age?

And how do you help someone begin to feel things again—to find themselves, to experience real emotions in a healthy sense—when they’ve coped for years by simply burying their feelings and pretending they don’t exist?

I wish I had the answers. I don’t. And I doubt if it’s that easy anyway. But sometimes…I’ve found that the beginnings of the answers lie within the questions themselves—in the process of asking, the agony of trying to sort things out…in the willingness to wonder why, and how, and when, and where, and what next…

Tonight I learned an exciting new crowd-control technique that I may find occasion to utilize in the future.

I was at the plasma center, having once again opted to exchange a percentage of my body fluids for cash—just because that’s so fun.

Donation is a fairly uneventful process, but tonight, as I was preparing to leave the center, a fellow donor came rushing through the door looking rather distressed. His right arm was completely covered in blood, and it was running down his forearm in little rivulets onto the floor, where it quickly began to pool in little red puddles. His jacket was a mess too.

Now, from my limited clinical experience, I have learned that when you remove a needle from a vein, like when you pull an IV, there’s always the possibility that profuse bleeding will result if pressure is not applied at the insertion site right after removing the needle. So you apply pressure for what you hope is long enough, and sometimes it IS long enough, and sometimes…a miniature geyser happens a few minutes after you take the pressure off. At which point, it’s always wise to reapply pressure. And get a mop to clean up the mess.

But apparently, this guy didn’t realize that the geyser thing is a possibility after needle removal. I think he might have thought he was dying (because, you know, bleeding all over, dripping on the floor, feeling woozy from fluid loss, getting horrified expressions everywhere you turn—I might think I was dying too…).

What was most remarkable to me, however, was that while the room full of people had been happily buzzing with conversation, with everyone involved in his or her own little universe, as soon as Bleeding Man entered, there was an instant hush, and all eyes were upon him. And all the facial expressions looked kinda like this:

Magical. I have rarely met an individual with such a commanding presence as Bleeding Man.

As the nurses bustled to get the guy sitting down before he passed out and plugged up before he bled to death, I headed towards the door...making a mental note to myself that if I were ever to need to very quickly get the attention of a very large group of people, the most effective way to do this would probably be to poke a hole in myself and then stand and bleed all over the floor in a conspicuous place with a very distraught look on my face.

I feel like this could be a very effective way to announce a toast at a dinner party. And thus, I shall keep this in mind. Maybe for the next wedding I’m asked to stand up in…because weddings should always be memorable...

This weekend, as part of a meandering trip across half of the contiguous 48 states, I found myself taking in some of the sights and sounds of downtown Chicago.

There were two of us in the car; I had been accompanied to the Windy City by a thoughtful friend, and we had decided to head over to Michigan Avenue, the famous Magnificent Mile—composed of impressive shopping centers which rise towering into the air above you on all sides. It’s tempting—especially as a tall person who sometimes feels a bit like a tower herself—to look up…to let the lines of the architecture draw one’s vision to the top, to stand in the middle of the sidewalk tottering dangerously from side to side while gawking up into the air and looking frightfully much like a tourist who is about to collide with a light pole.

Everything about Michigan Avenue appears to be full of life: the shoppers bustle in and out with enthusiastic smiles, talking animatedly. The traffic moves along in one congested, tangled mass of chaotic motion, horns beeping, cars swerving, taxi drivers gesticulating angrily. The buildings themselves are lit, elaborate, ornate, silent—colossal monuments to the creative ingenuity of the human mind.

It was all new, exciting, fresh, and fascinating—a feast for the senses, and it was difficult to know where to look first.

We were driving, paused at a red light, conversing excitedly with each other about various aspects of all the marvels that surrounded us…and then I saw her.

She was alone, sitting beneath a gigantic statue erected to honor the memory of someone who has now been forgotten. Her dirty blanket was wrapped around her tightly, and a worn duffel bag sat beside her on the pavement. Her eyes were closed against the cold, and even from across the street, I could see that the muscles of her face were tense, drawn against the semi-arctic cold of a bitter Midwestern winter.

What was most startling to me was not the fact that she was homeless, alone, destitute on the streets of Chicago on an afternoon cold enough to give frostbite to a polar bear. What assaulted the senses and saddened the mind was the fact that people were walking right past her without even noticing that she was there. Not so much as a passing glance as they walked by three inches from where she sat with her little sign. No smile, no look of pity or compassion, no kind word, no offer of assistance.

“Look over there,” I said, almost desperately, “look at her. She’s homeless.”

My friend’s eyes followed my pointing finger, but the comment was met with a shrug. “Yeah. Homeless people. They’re everywhere in Chicago.”

As the light turned green, the car moved away in the endless swarm of insistent city traffic, but the picture stayed in my mind…and all through the long hours of the night, as we drove, I wondered what Christians are truly called to do, say, and think in the face of the abject poverty and obvious physical need on our own doorstep.

Maybe it’s not possible to give a car, a house, and a job to every homeless person we meet…but surely we have a responsibility to do something?

There’s a passage from James 2, where the apostle asks, “what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead…”

What does that practically look like? What does it mean for me, as a Christian, in how I relate to the homeless? I’m honestly not sure at this moment. But I know that somehow, on many levels, it does relate. And while I’m not entirely positive what Christ would have done with a homeless old woman in downtown Chicago, I can’t help but think that He wouldn’t have just passed by without noticing her. Because on a deep, significant, and life-changing level, He would have cared. About her situation. About her. And because He would have, we must—because Christianity is not a passive, comfortable faith, but a pro-active, life-giving, heart-changing, effort-requiring, transformational reality that should cause us to think, speak, and respond differently than we would have before…

Each day we are given 24 hours—to breath, to think, to laugh, to speak, to learn, to invest in others, to experience life, to walk with God…to make memories. And these memories that we form and the experiences that we have in the course of each day are gifts, much like the day itself.

Each day is different. Some are filled with the seemingly insignificant. They leave no definite impression upon the mind in their passing. Others are more memorable. They change the course of our lives, alter our thinking, or mark us with memories that time will never erase. Sometimes the making of those memories is painful and cuts deep—and other times, the experiences behind the memories are so meaningful, so significant, so beautiful and so breathtaking as to be almost painful.

Yesterday was all of those things—meaningful, significant, beautiful, and breathtaking by turns. Because yesterday, I had the tremendous privilege of standing beside my little sister, the most amazing young woman I have ever known, as she pledged herself in marriage to an equally amazing young man who has earned her love, her trust, her respect…and her hand.

For my little sister, yesterday was the fulfillment of many dreams…and the beginning of what I hope is a long and rich journey. The morning hours of preparation were a blur, but time seemed to move in slow motion once the wedding ceremony itself began.

There was the seating of the grandparents, the close relatives, the mothers…the procession of the bridal party…and then, for one long moment, all of the bridesmaids and groomsmen were standing at the front of the church, and there was silence as all eyes gazed expectantly towards the door at the back of the sanctuary.

As the hauntingly beautiful melody line of “Be Thou My Vision” filled the sanctuary, my little sister appeared on my father’s arm, gliding towards the front of the church slowly, gracefully, wearing a smile more radiant than any I have ever seen.

Beside me waited a young man for whom this moment was the culmination of a dream…and the beginning of a new life. The degree of his nervousness was almost as apparent as the intensity of his joy, but the glow in his eyes was mirrored only by that which sparkled from the blue depths of my sister’s gaze.

And then she was there, beside him, her hand in his, eyes gazing trustingly up into his face. For twenty-one years, God had been uniquely preparing her for this moment, to join her life with that of this man, to minister together beside him for as many years as God chooses to give them. And for twenty-one years, God had been preparing him to lead her, to love her, to protect and provide for her, and to grow in grace with her. The intentionality of our Creator is a marvelous and beautiful thing.




As part of the wedding ceremony, Michelle and Joel wanted to have the congregation join them in singing “In Christ Alone.” The lyrics are absolutely beautiful, and I remember looking over during several of the verses to see my sister, eyes closed, worshiping, singing from the depths of her heart, hand in hand with the man who will worship God beside her for the rest of her life…it is a sweet, sweet thing to me that Michelle and Joel were so intentionally aware of the fact that yesterday was not about them as a couple—that weddings, like every other part of life, are to be centrally focused on the message of the cross, because the marriage which follows the wedding must be focused there as well.

And as He stands in victory

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me

For I am His and He is mine

Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

Michelle and Joel’s wedding was one of the most worshipful ceremonies I’ve ever been a part of, and it was a whole lot of fun to boot. I am so, so happy for them, and totally excited to watch them grow together as a couple during the years that follow this one!

And now…maybe the Beaty family can sit back and take a few deep breaths, and not have any weddings for a while, because the younger boys have some growin’ up to do before they’re ready to go wife-shopping. Phew.

Censored! Oh wait...they're allowed to do this now. Woohoo!