running out my life

that is it-
5 weeks from tonight i'll be on a plane- heading to a new life- a new home- a new place- east africa.

right now the sun is setting over the field beside mikes parents house.  the kids are watching some american ashley tisdale movie- the birds are finishing their day- an ambulance sounds- things here are normal- western- as expected- in sound and sight and plan.

5 weeks from now i'll be on a plane- no turning back- with our 15 bags and our hopes and plans and a whole lot of unknown- a whole lot of adventure and excitement and surprise.  5 weeks from tonight- it's happening.

and i'm ready.

today i went for a run.  i'm not a runner.  not in the way that most people are.  it's not part of my self description- it's not part of my day- i don't have cute running clothes- i don't time myself- i don't run with other people or compete.  but i run because it's good for me- because it helps me regulate- because even when i hate it and i'm huffing and puffing and miserable- it's humbling and it keeps me mindful of others.  today it was a perfect running day.  there are no excuses.  it wasn't too hot- or too humid or anything else.  (i did have a cut on my heel- but that didn't even hurt.)  so there was no reason to complain.  i ran a little more than a mile and got to a hill.  hills are hard for me.  they require more- they push me and tempt me to walk- to slow down - to pause.  but they also ask me to challenge myself.  so as i'm pushing up this hill, i began, as i often do, to push myself to run up this hill for a specific person, a cause, to attribute meaning as a way to get myself to motivate and rise to the occasion.  it never works. in fact, it back fires.  every time i envision myself running up the hill for this patient or friend with cancer- for zoe and her challenges- for those with out  hope in africa- i inevitably-stop and walk up the hill.  so today- after failing, again, that challenge- i did what i usually do when i get to hill, i surrender, i ask for help, i rely on the grace and not my own strength. and, as usual, that is what gets me up the hill.

where is the lesson in this?  perhaps it's obvious. 
i need to acknowledge my own need- my reliance- my inability to power through- my dependence.


today i felt nervous- mildly anxious and uneasy- uncomfortable with the time frame- with 5 weeks- with 35 days- with how quickly it's all happening.  but then- i ran.  and i remembered my need and dependence.  i remembered it's not about me being in control, it's not about me gathering my strength.  i remembered the 'why' and the 'who' and let go of the 'when'.  i felt the lift of 30,000 feet.  i saw the world again from that angle and perspective and i got excited and i got convicted and i was humbled that i need to be still and show up.  i need to let go and just go. 

this crazy thing we do- each day- this life- this air we breath and exhale- it doesn't matter where we do it- but how we do it.

happy easter!

today is easter.  and i have a celebratory migraine- either from too much left over easter bunny chocolate or my not-routine-over-exertional run, or not enough water and having wine with my easter dinner.  but despite my headache, it's been a good day.

the sermon was about the road to emmaus, about Christ showing up on an ordinary road to some of the ordinary guys who hung around with him.  it was not spectacular, it was not monumental or full of pomp and circumstance-it was plain and simple- kind of like the way he entered the world the first time- in a stable- with some hay and animals.  the point being that God shows up in our ordinary lives, where we are, not necessarily where we'd expect, not only in a church or a cathedral or a temple.  i have felt God show up three times, in an undeniable way, in very non-dramatic ways. but all of them were in san francisco, so maybe God likes the bay area as much as i do.

the first was late at night in my friends apartment when i felt really alone and tempted to reach for something i'd let go of, to deal with that feeling.  i was wrestling with this and i felt this strange sense of 'presence' that i can only describe as God.  i didn't hear any audible words, i promise, but if the feeling could be put into words it was saying, 'i am enough for you'.  

the second time was when i was pregnant with jude and had just been told at my 20 week ultrasound that he was likely going to be severely handicapped (see post from last year 'happy birthday jude').  that night i had a dream and God showed up in the dream dressed like a young doctor.  i was crying and said to him, ' i can't handle this'.
he replied, ' you have no idea what you can handle'
i told him, ' but i don't want this'
he replied,  'i know.'
and reached out and held me and cried with me.
when i woke up, i felt peace- i felt no matter what, with out a promise or even a word that things would be 'ok', i would not be abandoned.  that i was known, held, comforted.

the third time was in the basement MRI suite at moffitt long hospital- while jude was being swallowed by that giant magnet to look into his little head and see how much his tumor had grown- and we paced- and bit our lips and didn't make much eye contact to hold in the tears- and there it came- that sense of 'presence' followed by peace.  no words, not even a sense that the scan would be fine or that all would be well- just a promise that in the pain and crap and fear and suckiness of life, we are not abandoned.  we are not consumed.  and that is enough. 

basement hallways, my bed at night, a friends living room- ordinary spaces- but places of great need.

there have been other times though, other seasons of great need, when i wanted to feel that 'presence' and i didn't.  when i even asked, or cried out, but i felt nothing but the echo of my own need bouncing around.  and i don't know why this is.  i've wondered about it.  but in those times when i have not felt the 'divine', other people have showed up.  friends or family have responded to that need.  people who know me- who get me, or even if they don't, they try to.  sometimes it's even been people who don't know me, random strangers, or minimal acquaintances,  but some how, somebody has shown up.

maybe in those times when we know enough to know we are in need, when we know enough to cry out, God shows up in other people- our answers come in human words and embrace, a phone call, a letter, sometimes just a smile. 

maybe we are that answer for each other in this great spinning world.  so we need to be still.  we need to be 'present'.  we need to pay attention- even when we walk down ordinary streets- on ordinary days- beside ordinary people- who might need for us to show up.

understanding backwards

i've decided it's the gray wolf.  our spirit animal.  we're all sitting out here on the porch - the five of us- our little wolf pack.  the kids are pups, always skirtling around at our feet- doing there own thing- but with us in reach.  i've got the spot in the sun.

there is a lot on my mind today. about our movement, our choice of motion, our need to not settle in, our need to push, to be in near constant challenge.  it's a funny combination of a natural process and one we also repeatedly question, mike perhaps more than me.  he'll say, ' do you ever wonder why we can't just have a challenge-less season?'  or 'why can't we just live our lives?'  i kind of know what he means. we're always stepping into something else- pushing the boundary-just when we get to a place where things are more comfortable. but does God ask us to be comfortable? i think not.  He asks us to follow him- even when it's uncomfortable- even if it's knowingly uncomfortable.  so, why are we surprised.  i also think that when you step into it- you keep going.  one choice leads to another choice, you move closer to one place and farther from another.  you go with that nudge- whatever you chose to allow yourself to be nudged by.  so i've been looking back at our decisions, at our nudgings.

i remember when we moved to san francisco.  we loved it.  if there ever was a 'spirit city' that would be it for us.  when we landed there before i started residency- i looked around at the wild calla lilies and the quick growing lemon trees' in our neighbors yard and that strong earthy smell of eucalyptus and knew that as foreign as it was- i'd found my home- my past life home. i remember thinking- we'll never leave.

when i finished residency and fellowship, i had a job as faculty at UCSF and mike was well employed as an architect.  we had a third baby on the way.  we had great friends and a great church and a small but great apartment.  we had good doctors, and zoe was well plugged into the san francisco public school special ed world.  we sat in the little breakfast 'nook' and talked about our future.  we knew we could 'make it' out there - we could stay- we could someday buy a place or move out of the city, but there would be cost.  there would be limited flexibility. one of us said if we stayed it would be a lot harder to move to africa.  we knew that choice would lead us in a certain direction.  not a bad direction, but a direction that would be different than if we made another choice. we knew it would discourage a move to uganda and we knew where our hearts were. we knew that while now wasn't the time, east africa was hopefully in our future.  we're not good planners, but we are good at listening to the stirrings.  we never had 'a plan', but we know our priorities. 

when we decided to home school zoe- for me to basically leave the academic medicine track- we knew it was letting go of some things- we also knew it was embracing other things.  the great shift.  the change in focus.  i wrote in my journal - ' is this getting us closer to uganda?'  in an almost subconscious way.  like if we drilled to find water for a well, we'd be closer now.  a choice, made for the right reasons, for zoe, hard as it was - but aware of the possibility of it leading somewhere else.  and it has.

but it goes the other direction too.  because i could spend my whole life with my identity, my purpose wrapped up in having a child with special needs.  she, her issues, could become my "M.O"(modus operandi).  i found this happening (as many of you know) especially when i was her mother and her teacher and her friend and my hours and her hours were the same, and my work was working with her, and my view of the world became small and limited.  it became an intense and detailed focus, and it was about right and wrong ways, and my control was key to the success or failure, and her happiness and my happiness was dependent on me.  and it was kind of awful.  overwhelming and i would even say, wrong.

when we decided almost a year ago, to move to uganda- the focus shifted and i stepped way back.  i began to remember that we are one small family in a great big world.  that she is one girl with some needs, in a very needy world.  that i am one person who is, yes, her mother, but also a person with other skills and gifts.  that in the grand scheme of things, we are really small, our problems pale in comparison to most of the worlds problems and looking out at the rest of it all gives a beautiful and freeing perspective.  that God doesn't call us to 'easy'.  he doesn't say- just get comfortable and relax.  He doesn't give us one challenge per lifetime.  He calls us to 'do'.  to love, to serve, to make it better, to get dirty, to ask hard questions, to lean on Him, to let His grace be sufficient.  it took me being broken by it, to lean into that grace.  and relinquishing that control brings peace, unclenching my fists, frees my hands.  that turning away from myself- opens me to give out of that grace.

i'm still understanding it backwards. 

don't close your eyes

i'm home sick.  that virally fevery thing when your spine hurts and the nerves ache and you have that creepy chicken skin feeling.  when i get sick it give me such pause, as i think about the lives of my patients- about how hard it would be to live sick.

it's again beautiful outside and i keep wanting to get up and pull a mattress out onto the porch and sleep out there- but then i fall back asleep in my bed. i'm planning on it though- after my next nap.  mike and the kids have gone to church- so i decided to listen to an andy stanley sermon my brother had sent me a few months ago.  it was so good!

he talked about the overwhelm we all feel  in this giant global world, where we all know each others business.  we hear about all the sadness and the wrong and the disasters and the wars and the hunger.  our response to this is often to shut down- we feel helpless- swallowed by it- and in our smallness we hide or avoid the need.  we don't give a dollar to the homeless guy because there is another one down the block and then we'll just keep giving dollar after dollar.  so we decide things like "i only give my money to legitimate causes".  we make assumptions like " i don't give to street people because they're just using the money for drugs".   we look for ways to manage our own sadness about the problems of the world.  sometimes we close our eyes, walk on the other side of the street, turn off the news, don't answer the phone.

his point in the message was: "do for one, what you wish you could do for everyone."  his message was to 'go there'-to help 'one' -  to dig deep, go long, and invest in someone- with not just your money but also your time.  that caring on that level for someone will change lives- it will make a difference. it will make a difference in their life, but it will also change ours.

a few years ago the ONE campaign was begun as a grass roots advocacy program to fight poverty and preventable disease in africa . the campaign idea was we are ONE world- and we should all care about and for each other even across an ocean.  and that is so true.

i love that we can double the meaning of ONE.  ONE world, and 'do for ONE- what you wish you could do for everyone.'  and if we all did this- if we all invested in one- wouldn't that begin to change our ONE world?

good things and a challenge

it was another day of blessings and thankfulness.  

but there have been many seasons in the past few years, of self-pity and inward glance- of feeling the sting of my own trials and forgetting the rest of the world.  when i felt too tired to look anywhere but straight ahead. but in that, you can  miss the blessings that are tucked in between the moments of overwhelm and you can miss the quiet beauties that lighten the sting of the rest of the world. 

my cousin posted this on facebook today.  it made me happy cry.
because of this man's beauty and choice.  because of his 30,000 foot view.  because his head is screwed on right- and his heart is big.  because sometimes i forget that there is goodness hiding out there in the dark, and i just get overwhelmed by all the bad stuff.  and because it challenges me to live right, to think, to do- something.  i know it's dramatic- but it doesn't have to be.


then someone posted this on the home school group email that i belong to:
"Cleaning for a Reason:  http://www.cleaningforareason.org If you know any woman currently undergoing chemotherapy, please pass the word to her that there is a cleaning service that provides FREE housecleaning-once per month for 4 months- while she is in treatment."

it reminded me that we can all do something.  we can clean, or make food, or we can organize groups to do these things.  we can tutor refugees. we can rake someone else's leaves.  we can use whatever resources we have- because it's really about willingness not how much you have.  we can all affect change in the lives of others.

we can care.  we can love.  we can give.
like martin luther king jr. said, we can all serve.

sometimes because i have a special child who zaps a lot of energy and time, i think i should be on the receiving end.   but then i think about my fridays and why they are so good.   because i'm off center stage- my focus is elsewhere- i'm thinking about other people.  and when i grab onto something else- it forces my grubby little hands to let go of my own self-occupying troubles- which is exactly what is most needed and what brings the peace.  there is joy in the giving.  there is freedom in expanding beyond the borders of our lives.

what if we all had just one hour a week to give to someone else- someone not related to us- and we built it into our schedules?  what if we all found one cause to support or invest in? what if instead of being consumed by our own needs, or overwhelmed by the needs of the world, we just did one thing to make it better? how much would the world change? how much would we change?

"everybody has got 5.5 liters of blood. i am just a human being- for me, everyone is the same.  there are 1000s of people suffering- what is the ultimate purpose of life? it's to give.  start giving.  see the joy of giving."

what's it going to be?