From Asia with Love

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Summer is the Season of Happy Heart

Blueberries!!

The Little Red Truck

Doodling....my de-stresser. :]

One of the cutest little guys you'll ever see...!

Lavender...one of my favorite aromas!

...Laundry in the summer sun...

Fruits of summer

Grapes coming ripe

on the vines outside my door.

Petunias spilling onto the sidewalk

Front porch relaxation

Coffee, flavored. Hot Ragatoni from a can.

5 patients, fast asleep.

IV's hung.

Meds given.

Charting completed -- for now.

I was dreading coming to work tonight. Because, even after all the night shifts I have worked, there is still that looming question: what will happen? will i know what to do?

In many ways, I just wanted to stay at home with my family, hanging out with little brothers that make the world go around. It was storming right before I left; dark grey clouds, slippery blowing clouds scudding across the sky like fallen leaves hurrying downstream. Going somewhere to blow some trees down. Somehow it seemed to reflect the emotions of my own heart.

There are so many questions hovering over me right now. Questions about the future...about the past...about who I am and who I am becoming. Sometimes I think over-analyze; you know, "borrow trouble" as my mom always warned me against as a little girl. But lately the questions have been dominating the canvas and I find myself in a near constant battle to fight through those heavy clouds and into the sunlight of solid answers.

I'm not a big fan of not knowing what to expect.

But I stand on the front porch and watch the approaching storm, then wander out into the garden to see what's growing in spite of it all. The garden is a carpet of green, rising and falling in waves of undulating heights and textures. It's the season for growing. The earth is changing to bring forth fruit.

The corn is just coming ripe, ears fat and blonde-tassled. I peel back the layers and resist the urge to collect an armful for supper. There isn't time before work. Ambling back to the house, I am stretching time into a long green ribbon. Even 5 minutes holds infinite value when you know it is all you have. So, I embrace my 5 minutes, wringing every bit of sensation from them. The world is crystal clear--how the colors emerge! My bare feet step lightly through fresh-mown grass; a bit of thunder echoes far away. The sky trembles as the clouds scuttle by and the world is so alive. Something about it makes me feel alive too.

I do a cartwheel across the cool grass. I feel like a kid again.

The road to the hospital is long and under construction. It has been for months and months.

And I can't help but think...it's the season for changing things. Even me.

"Jesus," I tell Him--my faithful passenger seat friend, "here we go again. Thank you for coming along...not just to drop me off at the door or pick me up in the morning, but to stay right at my side every second."

There is something infintely comforting about this reality: Jesus, at my side, always. Period.

The reality of His presence wherever I go has become more and more clear. It is the one thing constant in this world of uncertainties. I choose to live its reality every moment of every day. Jesus is my companion, regardless of time, place, or event. I need Him desperately, just to get through. Moment by moment, I depend on Him.

Call me co-dependent. I think it's just fine.

And as I swerve between orange lane markers, upended asphalt, excavators, and huge earth movers I remember that change and growth never happen without outside intervention and a little discomfort.

The future in about 6 months is all unknown. An empty sheet. A blank canvas.

I feel like a garden, coming into bloom but unsure of what the crop will be.

I feel like a highway, torn up and rearranged; dusty, re-directed, a little disoriented. But while I wait for my change to come, I feel that the work is quietly going on within me. Something is being carved out--the completed work remains to be seen, but there are signs of progress that keep me hoping in my Savior's promise to finish what He has started.

So the B-Wing is asleep. My styrofoam cup is empty. The ER is looking quiet and if I'm lucky I won't fall asleep on the job.

And I walk knowing that the Lord of creation will perfect those things great and small, which conern me.

Things that Matter

"In the course of a lifetime, what does it matter?" --Walk Across Two Moons

Perched up on the roof
Flat and dry in the afternoon haze
Eating a picnic of hamburgers and fries
You should hear our footsteps in the rooms below!
I look at my 3 musketeers--
Dana as she waves at random cars passing,
Alisha as she poses beside me for the camera-
"Let's act like we're falling!" We careen on the edge,
And Weston as he runs back and forth,
The length of the shingles, playing with a camcorder
That has no tape, giving a tour
Of a rooftop playhouse.
We laugh and salt our fries and talk of zip lines
And are just together.
And I look at them and know
That these are the things that matter.

Snuggled next to my littlest brother--
My buddy, my pal--as together
We experiences other times and lands
Sharing the world captures on old pages:
Zia, Gramps and Gram, Peeby, Karana, Huck and Despereaux.
We read for hours and then we talk
Of life, hopes, and dreams, disappointments,
And all of the things that make living sweet.
Long explorations down old gravel roads,
Building a treehouse,
Sitting together, waiting for the horses
Plucking clumps of sweet grass for Lady and Mary.
We giggle and wonder, dream and imagine.
And I think--In 10 years these days will be over
My sweet Austin, THESE are the things that matter!

Long trips through the night home with Zac--
Reflecting on life, God, and things yet to come.
Holding a lonely child in my arms,
Oohing at artwork from their fingers to mine.
Wiping the brow of a dying man,
And crying with his wife as she clings to his hands.
Late-night talks with parents dispelling my fears,
Laughing with sis about our funny quirks.
Sharing heartaches and needs and stories of the journey,
12-hr days on a bus through the West.
Listening to my guitar students play and sing,
Feeling the ache of the desperately hurting.
Rolling haybales, and writing, and watching my
Girlfriends become brides,
Getting lost on the subway, first-ever cliff jumps and
Watching a hard man cry.
Experiencing God in the love of another,
I look at my journey and the relics gathered
And know that these
Are the things that matter.

--Rae

Bounty Hunters

Warning: Not for those Who Hate Bargain-shopping, Digging for Deals, Cheap Junk Stores, or those who are perpetually Glued to their Hand Sanitizer Bottles. If you do not fit into these categories, you may proceed safely without risk of Heart Attack.

Mom and I went down to Etowah today, a spontaneous trip to Ha-Ha’s for smoothies and some mother-daughter time. It’s been a rare commodity lately. At the end of the day, I wonder why we don’t do it more often. We sat under a bright red umbrella on the outdoor eating porch and sipped our fill of huge 20 oz. cappucino and orange-pineapple smoothies, so refreshing in the 87 degree afternoon heat.

Afterward we climbed in the old Rhino (otherwise known as, family van), and went south of our quaint little town to one of it’s many junk shops…where even “junk” looks more like treasures. Expensive, name-brand colognes, shampoos, lotions, soaps, tanning sprays, even diapers line the sticky shelves and dusty floors…some in torn boxes, others without lids, some dented, some taped back shut, some missing caps. Still, for the trained shopper, like mom and I, anything is salvageable and even if it means hunting the store over, we WILL find the lid, the cap, box, or the wrapper to suit the few rare items that are not dented beyond repair and still fully useable. I love stores like that. After several rounds around the leaning towers of precariously balanced pampers and toilet paper, and down long, crowded aisles with even more cluttered shelves closing in claustrophobically on either side, I emerged at the check-out counter with such coveted brands as Charles Worthington London, Colgate, Herbal Essence, Sunsilk, Lady Speed Stick, and Fashion Essential diamond-studded hair clips…a whole cartful for only $10.24!!! Such stupendous savings! And now I am fully outfitted for whatever may come my way on all my meanderings this summer. Ahh. Stores like this make shopping for the boring, bare essentials, actually quite fun.

Next we headed yet farther south to the United Wholesale Department… a wonder of a store. It is a huge warehouse converted into one of MANY local “wholesale stores” as we have so fondly come to call them. Inside is a vast array of anything from khaki shorts, to Target end tables, to sleigh beds, to the boring essentials, to digital camcorders, and everything in between. It’s like a junk version of Target. In fact, most of the merchandise comes from Target or other large department stores…most of these items are faulty in some way… and in varying extremes. Some are merely missing their original box; others are scratched, or chipped, some are simply returned items taped back shut, having lost their original, untouched and spotless aesthetic appeal. We went there to appease my sudden urge for a webcam (so I can skype some V.I.P’s), and lo and behold…Cha-Ching!! Three--including a very cute pink one, though having no box--fell into my hands immediately. For $8.50 I walked away with a brand new MiniCam Pro…the true value of which, I have absolutely no clue about….though I’m pretty sure it was more than what I paid for it. Having secured a thorough knowledge of the store’s return/exchange policy, I exited clutching my new toy exultantly.

On the way to this illustrious wholesale store, we had spied a new thrift shop along Main Street and decided that we simply could not point the Rhino homeward until we had checked it out. My mother is a bargain-hunter like me…I credit my taste for it from both my parents, who have raised 6 children amidst many obstacles and a wise and disciplined understanding of what it means to find good deals and not demand everything to be brand new.
The thrift store was AMAZING!!!!! I approached the racks apprehensively…some thrift stores these days charge practically what things cost new. Imagine my ecstatic delight when beautiful, clean garment after another yielded price tags boasting prices no more than $2!!!! Immediately I began seizing the things that caught my fancy, loading them in a frenzy of shopper’s delight across my left arm. Some time later, as my mom quietly perused the aisles, taking a much calmer and more reserved approach to what she selected, I staggered into the first dressing room and noted with deep chagrin that there was no mirror.

Now, as we all know, a mirror is essential to the careful preening and evaluation of new clothes by females. “This will never do,” I thought to myself and hastily rushed out to examine the other dressing room. No mirror there either. Sauntering by my mother, who has come to embrace the random things that I do, I inconspicuously made another pass around the store until my eyes came to rest upon the most lovely, framed mirror you could ever hope to happen on for just such an occasion as this. Gripping it, I once again entered the dressing room and found--AH!! Perfect! A screw in the wall at just the perfect height for my mirror… I think it had been placed there just for me.

For what seemed like forever I filtered through the pile of acquired clothing. Examining, inspecting, tossing, keeping. I heard my mother moving about outside, and wondered how many times she had been around the store now, as I rushed anxiously to conclude this extended stay in the dressing room. Within its confined spaces, I clattered and bumped, shoving things back on hangers and attempting to keep the mirror from falling off the wall. Eventually, the clamor ceased and I emerged, red in the face, and somewhat wearied, to find my dear mother sitting on the floor in peaceful repose outside the door. She told me later she had carefully made several laps around the store, examining everything they had to offer, and finally ran out of things to look at and so sat down to wait. We made our purchases, and departed, put the Rhino into the wind in and made a remarkable U-turn, into a Drug store. A yard-sale at the business next door was the final destination, but somehow our U-turn wasn’t sharp enough to make it back onto the road so we simply lumbered through the parking lot and across the erratic pavement between, barely scraping by underneath the very low drugstore sign.

Despite the colossal proportions of this yardsale, we found very little. At least, that we could afford. The dear yard-saler lady--bless her heart for sitting in the scorching heat all day!!--didn’t want to take a check, and we were reduced at that point to $2 cash between both of us. So I made off with a few cute shirts, and joined mom to look longingly at a paraffin wax foot and hand spa kit. It was brand new, a little bowl thing with varying heating levels to melt paraffin wax for luxurious hand and foot treatments. It was for sale for than $10, but alas and aleck, we had not the money!! Tonight, as we discussed wishfully how lovely it would be to be able to treat our hands and feet to such royal treatment, we pondered for a while. I said I thought a pan would work just fine, or better yet, a crock-pot. Then we laughed until we had to hold our sides. And mom brought out the Milk Duds she had bought, but that had melted together, and then we laughed some more. What a dud.

It’s good to shop with moms. Even better to laugh with them.

I laugh even now, remembering. What an odd, frugal bent we have. And yet one that has become as much a thing to maintain for the fun of it as for out of necessity. I look at my family and how comfortably we live… perhaps not with the newest and the best… but with Enough. More than Enough. Our access to stores like this has been a saving grace to our large family in the midst of many unpredicted medical bills and economic stresses over the years. I feel incredibly, resolutely, and incandescently proud and blessed to be a part of a family that doesn’t scoff at things that say “Used” instead of “New”… that has learned to be content with what we have… and for parents that have instilled in us kids the value of hard work and the pure enjoyment that can come with the simple life. I feel so rich, so privileged.

Even if it means using a crockpot instead of the real thing to do hand and feet dips in paraffin wax.

"But We had Hoped"

I am leaving the house for a walk… it’s been a long day, and I have to get out for a while. Do you want to come too? It might do us both some good.
We step into the cool evening air and start down a gravel road. The sun is sinking lower… I look up at its diminishing rays and wonder if it’s the sun or my heart that is going down. A heaviness, like a weight, in the pit of my stomach slows my steps, as I remember again. Why did things have to turn out this way? I had so many hopes, so many dreams…so many things have turned out differently than I thought they would.
As we walk we talk…about the way things were before the walls collapsed and the bottom fell out on all our plans and dreams. Were we deceived all along? Wasn’t all we had believed in good…and safe? What had happened? And how do you say goodbye to the things you have built your life around but that have disintegrated before your eyes in a moment? Unspoken expectations and hopes now dashed fill my heart like bitter waters and, weary of crying, tears won’t come and all we can do is plod forward, trying to understand. If all we had believed in is gone, what is there left to believe in?
We had hoped.
Our hopes had been crushed.
Where do we go from here?


I imagine this scene is one we could all identify with…our own journey down the road to Emmaus. Perhaps not feeling the agony of crushed dreams of the long-awaited Savior…but the agony of our own disappointed expectations. When, on the 3rd day after Jesus' death, the two disciples walked the long dusty road to Emmaus, full of the questions that follow broken dreams, a stranger met them and began to walk alongside. “What are you talking about?” He asked kindly, opening the conversation. One replied, probably a little indignantly, “Are you the only man in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have been going on the past few days?!” The impact of current events on these two men’s personal lives is evident in the question. It’s as if he’s saying, “This is the greatest event in our lives…how can you not know what we‘re talking about?!” The stranger probed a bit further, “What things?” He wanted to know…to hear them say it…to hear them voice the struggle they were feeling. To this they replied, “Concerning Jesus who was a mighty prophet in all ways before God and the people, and how he was delivered to the Jews and crucified…” Here I can imagine that the speaker paused for a brief moment…perhaps gazing longingly into the distance, or dropping his gaze to the ground, the potent epitaph of their lost dreams echoing in the next words, “But we had hoped…that He was the One to redeem Israel.”
But we had hoped.
Had hoped.
Had dared to dream, to believe, to place confidence and security in something great and beautiful and powerful. But dreams seemed to have failed. Confidence broken and security shaken as the man they had pinned their hopes and dreams on had been taken...and killed. Besides this, their last hope, that He would rise again on the 3rd day as He had spoken of, was now fading with the setting sun. The 3rd day had come, and was nearly gone. He had not appeared. All that was left was the winding road, an ignorant stranger, and two men bearing the burden of “we had hoped”.

(How many times have you walked the road to Emmaus? Have you ever come to the end of your confidences, your dreams, your expectations…and in a gaping hole of disbelief…found them unfulfilled?)

The road to Emmaus wasn't the end of the journey however...in fact it was only a bridge. At one end lay Jeruselem, the place where their dreams had been laid to rest with the body of Jesus Christ...at the other end was Emmaus, the village in which their greatest hopes were restored. I smile as I read the end of the story…how the “ignorant” stranger listened to the hearts of two men who loved him the most; how He joined them in their journey away from the scene of so much disappiontment and loss, and talked with them about this man Jesus and all that had led up to His life and death; how He tested them at Emmaus and was welcomed into their company rather than allowed to continue on. It was the Greatest Hope of eternity who journeyed with two men who walked into the sunset of everything they had pinned their hopes and dreams on, and at last revealed himself to them for Who He was.
Imagine the feeling of life that must have sprung into their breasts as they realized; struggled to grasp, to believe, that it was real…that this man really was the answer to all their questions after all…that Jesus was alive…that their greatest hopes had been realized.
Life is painful and brutal in its realities… much does not go as “we had hoped”. Much is lost to the chasm of broken expectations and shattered dreams. I have walked the road to Emmaus many times…wishing that out of nowhere, the hopes I feel were dashed, were actually as close and as fulfilled as the presence of Jesus was to those two men that day so long ago. They aren’t always. And it makes me wonder what my hopes are really placed in. Where does my confidence lie? What is the “thing that I long for”? What is my “refuge”, my security? I have learned that when my greatest, deepest, most consuming hopes are placed in things…in people…in possessions…in personal aspirations…and are injured or crushed…that I walk the road to Emmaus alone. “We had hoped” remains.

The road to Emmaus is never lonely, however, when my greatest expectation is in Christ, when my deepest hopes and dreams are ultimately in Him. Here, even when it looks like they will still be lost, or crushed beyond repair…I find Him often, maybe even as late as sunset, joining me on the journey as the perfect, faithful, dependable fulfillment of everything I truly long for.
Things do not always turn out as we had hoped. But when our greatest hope is in Christ, we will survive even the greatest disappointments…finding in them, somehow, a supernatural strength that allows us to rest in something greater than the here and now: the promises and expectation of a saving Father who never, ever deserts us in our hour of need. May we declare of God as the psalmist did, “Thou art my hope [my binding cord; the thing that I long for].”
But we had hoped.
Hoped.
Hope. Dare to place it all in the Stranger on the road to Emmaus.

Safe in His Arms

Prayer for Rest

By Rae

I watch you fight it out
Struggling to find the way out
And what life is all about
Eludes you again today.
You’re buried in the shattered dreams
Of all your yesterdays
Hoping that life is more
Than the agony of today
Than the agony of today.

Hold on tender warrior,
Even when you feel you’re going down
It’s too much for you to carry alone
Don’t worry if you can’t go on

Your head’s buried in your hands
You’re desperate for someone to know
The weight of all the pain
Your heart’s going through
You tell me that you’re ok
That tomorrow’s another chance
When what you really wanna say
Is locked up in your tears
Is locked up in your tears.

Hold on tender warrior
Even when you feel you’re going down
It’s too much for you to carry alone
Don’t worry if you can’t go on

Rest your heart, lift your eyes
I am here, though the battle rages wild
I’ll wrap my arms around your tattered soul
Hold you close now to my chest
I will shelter you
I will carry you
And all you need to do….

Is hold on tender warrior
Even though you feel you’re going down
I won’t let you go through this alone
Don’t worry, I’ll carry you home.

I remember the shadows. Rain… or was it my own tears? Pain, even physical… a gut-wrenching deep ache that nothing eased. Curled up tight, rocking back and forth. I remember the darkness. The emptiness. The bottomless sense of aloneness. Numbness. Disbelief. Grief so violent it shook my whole body.

Nothing but shadows. The light had been absorbed by sorrow. The darkness my only companion.

“Why God? No… not this. Please not this.” Standing on the edge of a rocky cliff, wailing out the questions in a hot river of pain and tears. Questions with no answers. I was never supposed to be here. This was never supposed to happen. But the crying fields were frozen in the silence of God. We have all walked these fields at some point...will walk them sooner or later. It's the place where, bowed by the weight of an immeasureable sorrow, our words seem to come back as air...where God feels far away...we wonder if He is there at all.

What happens to the human soul…the human spirit…when this kind of shattering, grief-laden moment descends? And I wonder what it looks like from the all-seeing, sovereign eye of the Lord… does it look like a crystal vase hurled to the floor? Or like a tender rosebud haphazardly crushed under a careless hand? Like a clay pot broken and softened for reshaping under the potter’s knowing hand? What does He see when we see a devastated world? When everything we thought would be forever, permanent, safe, loving, comes crashing down into a heap of smoldering dreams?

Bigger still… what happens to the spirit of our eternal Father when deep tragedy strikes us down? How does the heart of the One who knows all, has felt all, and understands all, receive the shock and the jolt of the pain of his Created? Do His tears mingle with our own? Does He stay seated calmly… or does He jump to His feet? In the light of all He knows about the past, present and future of our situation; what Good He knows will come out of what appears to our finite minds as so entirely hopeless…does He limit Himself to the windows of time, to the boundaries of human knowledge and emotion, to feel with us the agonized, profuse, and seemingly permanent pain of our situation? Can an infinite God who knows what will become of both me and my pain still identify with me…see my heart in its deepest state of sorrow…and feel it with me too?

Two of the most powerful words in the entire Scripture answer this question in a way I have come to personally experience in my own journey through the sorrow of loss: Jn. 11:35 “Jesus wept.” It’s not a question…but a simple statement, quietly affirming what we all desperately hope to believe is true of our Great High Priest. This verse falls in the chapter describing the death of Jesus’ good friend Lazarus, and the subsequent summoning of the Lord by Mary and Martha. Jesus came to Lazarus’ grave KNOWING and having already told the disciples that Lazarus would be raised to life again. Jesus knew the outcome… He knew that Mary and Martha’s intense grief would be ended in a few short hours…and yet he was moved by their present state; by their pain. He connected with their hearts exactly where they were at and empathized deeply with them…perhaps as much for their experience of pain as for their limited understanding of what glorious things they were about to see.

As I have wrestled and grappled with the pain of tremendous loss in my life recently, I have found that “Jesus wept” with me too. Feeling Him enter the pain and sorrow with me somehow helps bear the reality of the losses, and claim grace for what looks like catastrophic failure. Knowing that Jesus knows the whole story, even though I never will, is like putting myself in the yoke next to Him…walking through the painful realities while at the same time leaning on the All-Knowing Strength of the One who knows the end from the beginning and has the power to either restore what’s been lost, or give me the strength to bear it.

When we experience the pain of loss--loss of any kind: broken promises, the death of a loved one, thwarted plans--Jesus understands, and grieves with us. He sees a wounded child, not a hopeless situation. He sees the panicked questions…the feelings of inadequacy…the losses so great they seem impossible to heal. Jesus sees them all…but as One who also sees the Rest of the Story.

Allow Him the privilege of being your Healer…allow Him the full rights to your heart…allow Him to be in control. Sit back and lean on His breast as He carefully carries you through what feels like the end of the world. Know that nothing can touch you that doesn’t touch Him as well… and that in clinging to Christ when the lights go out… you will surely be Safe. The One who knows all that is behind and before in this thing called Time will never, ever, ever allow us to walk through a place where He has not first walked and where His love cannot keep us. Hold on tender warrior, and know that He will be holding you.