Roll with the Punches

Recently, I got news that could affect my life forever.  I’ve wavered between dumbstruck, panicked and un-phased.  But at the present moment, I’m focused on not wasting any amount of time unhappy.

Four and a half years ago, with a deep breath and fingers crossed, I stepped out of the small town life I’d been born and raised in, to see what else life had to offer.  I’ve spent four and a half years and more money than I care to calculate chris-crossing the country, seeking the destination that would provide the life I want.  The life I have always wanted.  In retrospect, I can say that every day has taught me that life is not like Burger King – you can’t just “have it your way”.

Five days ago, I completed my first 5K(!!!!!).  It’s been almost two years since I injured myself preparing for what would have been my first 5K and had to bow out.  So, this time, my goal was simply to finish.  I asked a friend to join me, because I knew she’d done races before.  A few weeks before our race, she suggested we check out a local race, so I’d have some idea of what to expect at ours.  I learned about the registration table and the little tags you tie to your shoelace to track you time and that it’s ok to drop your little water cup on the ground and keep it moving...As we headed back to my friend’s apartment, we had to cross a street that was in the race route.  Waiting for a walk signal and a break in the runners had us standing there for a few minutes.  And that’s when I saw him.  At first, I was struck by the three people on a leisurely stroll right down the middle of the runner’s route.  What are they doing?!  Then, I could see one was a very old man (aaah, maybe a nursing home escapee...) and two women – one older than the other, but both younger then the man.  Intrigued, I watched them come closer and what I saw I never want to forget.  The man – easily pushing 90+ years old – was wearing a runner’s number on his chest.

I called my old and dear friend, The Hawaiian, 3,000 miles away, to help me process the news of my life’s recent twists and turns.  I desperately needed some of her insight and her island calm.  “It’s so cliché,” she said quietly, in her soothing calm voice that I knew she was pulling out especially for me, “but nobody said life would be easy, right?  If we’re going to make it through, we can’t stand all stiff and stubborn, we have to roll with it.”  I think the type of senior citizen who would participate in a 5k with a cane in one hand and two people holding him up, is the kind of person who has learned to roll with it.  Obviously he’s lived a long life and has experienced any number of things – good and bad.  He’s weathered the negative experiences, but hasn't let them define him.

I’ve come to realize, I suffer from a recurring case of whiplash.  When I see my life moving in one direction, I get comfortable and settle in for that ride.  Then, when my life zigs where I zag, I stumble and struggle to regain my balance.  God let’s that happen to me, to keep me on my toes and to help me remember that the only thing I can count on in this life, is Him.  This life isn’t what we want, but what we get.  And if life is what we get, then it’s what we do with it that matters.  What we think and what we believe is what we live out – it determines our actions.  So today, I am choosing not to waste any moment of happiness in despair.  Because even when the going gets tough, we are called to hang in there, and persevere.  To roll with the punches.  Because life is good, even when it’s bad – because I am in Christ Jesus.

 

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  John 16:33

Love y'all!
 ~M~

A Christian Carrie Bradshaw

From: Courtney
To: Missmiangels
Subj: Waiting...

So seriously – when are you going to blog again? I miss your posts, they make me think. You’re like a Christian Carrie Bradshaw.

xoxo,
C

Two things about friends: (1) They see you in ways you don’t see yourself and (2) They’re always encouraging you to be your best you. My blogging as been lacking in the last...well, couple of years. But that doesn’t stop my friend from emailing me on a recurring basis to ask what’s up and when the next installment will arrive. Recently, her consistant but still unexpected, near one-liners have had me thinking. People actually read what I write. I balked, when I first read her comparison to the illustrious CB. But as the weeks (ok, fine, months) have passed I’ve become more comfortable with the idea. Because really, I am.

So I’m going to try yet again to blog more consistently. To share my observations on faith and on this crazy life I’m living and how the two relate. I don’t always get it right and I don’t always succeed, but that’s when I can revel in the grace God’s given me. My life might not be the life I would have chosen for myself, but it’s the life God has seen fit to give me and it’s been unmistakably a great adventure! :))

“As we drive along this road called life, occasionally a gal will find herself a little lost.  And when that happens, I guess she has to let go of the coulda, shoulda, woulda, buckle up and just keep going.”  ~ Carrie Bradshaw

Love y'all,
Mimi

 

Even If...

My dog dies; My body chemistry changes so I smell like pizza every day, no matter what; I never take another trip in this lifetime; I lose my job and my apartment and my car; I don’t get to lead a small group; my coworkers hate me; only crazy men ever love me; I gain 100 pounds; I never lose another pound; my hip never heals; I never meet “The One”; I never become a mom; I lose touch with my best friends; I never make new friends; I never get out of debt; my family never speaks to me again; I develop a persistent dandruff problem; I get gout; I get gas; I never get another raise; I never date again; I lose the serenity I found in California; the love of my life breaks my heart…again; it never stops raining; Spring stops existing; my cable never gets turned back; Redbox stops updating their movies; my contact prescription gets discontinued; Sarah grows up and gets married before me; my neighbors keep fighting; my iPod isn’t on my desk when I get to work tomorrow; my coworker resumes stalking me; I get backne; Brazilian waxes are linked to cancer; my Blackberry dies; I catch the plague; Groupon goes away; I live in this apartment when I’m 80; I never get back into HR; I never move to Germany; I never visit Venice; I never see the Holy Land; the MARC stops running; I never buy a home again; he comes back to my church; he starts attending my other church; the other "he" starts attending my church; *both* "he’s" attend my church (man, that would suuuuck lolol); that video from ‘09 goes viral; no one answers when I call; no one cares when I cry; my pastor is caught in a sex scandal; my pastor is caught in any scandal; Britney Spears is voted the greatest performer of all time; gas prices reach $9.00 a gallon; Starbucks goes out of business; Red Velvet cake is no longer hip and therefore so incredably easy to find, anytime, anywhere; my arch nemesis gets to my engagement ring first; my wedding chapel is booked from now until…don’t call us, we’ll call you; skinny jeans never go out of style; I always battle the bulge;  debit cards really do turn out to be the mark of the beast; I voted for the anti-Christ for president (jkjk!); my boss takes away my Regular Day Off; I have to move back home; all of my teeth fall out; he turns out to be gay after all; I never find a perfect hair dresser or masseuse or nail tech again; the friend I called a sister abandons me; the man who is my father abandons me; the woman who is my mother abandons me; I can no longer see the stars or the harvest moon; I have to keep this stupid tattoo for the rest of my life; he stays 3,000 miles away because he’s so stinking stubborn; she never calls; it’s just me and Malachi for the next 10 years; I never meet Kai; all my fingers fall off and I can no longer write…even if the hokey pokey really is what it’s all about, my only concern in this life will still remain: to love God, and seek daily to bring glory to Him. :)

Love y'all,
~M~

“I Thought About You Last Night…”

Three years ago, I was scheduled to move to San Antonio, TX.  My job was transferring there, from Maryland and for reasons not worth re-visiting, I elected not to go.  I had a friend, though, I’d known casually for several years who was from San Antonio and like me, was working in the DC area at the time.  I called her and asked her if she was interested in going back to San Antonio.  The answer was a resounding YES!  Like many of us, she had come to DC not because she wanted to, but to further her career and experience.  Within a matter of days, I coordinated an interview between her and my boss and a short time later, she was home in Texas.

Within a year, my friend met and married her husband.  They’ve now been married for just over a year and they’re expecting their first baby.  Several months after she returned to San Antonio, I moved to California and just over a year after that, I moved back to Maryland.  We’ve diligently kept in touch this whole time and I can honestly say we are closer now then we’ve ever been.

Our lives are busy but we connect when we can – a training for work, requested specifically because it would send me to San Antonio (and of course, because I actually *needed* the training, lol). Or, primarily email updates on Fridays, filling each other in on our week and plans for the weekend.  Occasionally we’re able to take advantage of “slow days” and email back and forth throughout the day.  Last week’s emails consisted of me voting on the nursery theme for her baby and this week was the first song I’ll play at my wedding.

Ten years ago I started my first Federal job with a woman who had just moved to Washington state from Utah.  Her two younger daughters were in school and making friends, but her oldest daughter had already graduated and chosen to move with the family, but hadn’t made many acquaintances yet.  Being a local to the area, I started hanging out with her daughter and we became close.  For reasons not worth re-visiting now, we fell out of sorts for some time, but managed to reconnect a short time before I moved to Maryland – the first time.  Since then, we keep in touch by consistent “drive bys” on Facebook.  When her job sends her to DC for work, or when I go back to Washington to visit, we make getting together to catch up a priority.

My friend is single, loves to travel and has worked her way into a good paying job.  When she accepted Christ, I was one of the first people she told.  When we’re together, we’re usually in pain because we laugh so hard.  We’ve decided it’s time for both of us to travel more and have begun planning our first vacation together this winter.  

Two years ago, all I knew was that I needed prayer – bad!! I made my way to the front of the church and into the arms of a waiting couple.  I sniveled and hiccupped my heartbreak and they embraced me and we prayed.  I exchanged email addresses with the wife and went on my miserable, clouded way.  A short time later came the first of what would become thousands of emails.

My friend is active in her church and a stay at home mom who home schools her four kids.  She doesn’t have loads of time to roam the mall aimlessly and she can’t regularly get away to do lunch or get a pedicure.  Shortly after our one initial encounter, I packed up my toys and moved to California.  We emailed every single day – sometimes multiple times a day.  I didn’t see her again for eight months, when I returned to Maryland for a visit.  I was ecstatic to see someone I’d met once – and NOT in my finest hour – but considered a very dear friend.  When I moved back to Maryland in July, it was this friend who showed me where my post office was, how to get to the Costco, who counter-balanced the “crazy” in my church and who I still call when I’m lost.  Her family has taken me in and made me one of their own.

Seven months ago, I signed up for an Anger Management class at my church.  The class was fascinating, I learned a lot and I also made a friend.  We share the same dry, sarcastic sense of humor and often stood outside in the cold after class to keep talking, or gave each other the giggles while our teacher led us in breathing exercises in class.  My friend is real and transparent and I love it.  I know I can tell her anything and she will at least understand and at most, relate.  Living in Virginia, we don’t have the opportunities to get together as often as we would like, but when we do, we can spend an entire day together without realizing the time has passed.

As I travel though life, as I’m frustrated and encouraged, hurt and blessed, I’m thankful for my friends.  I’m awed daily by them – by how many I have, and how much they love me.  By how different they are and how quickly my years with them have flown by.  The one who called my job and pretended to be my mom when she got worried when I wouldn’t pick up the phone.  The one who used to call and leave long rambling voicemails “venting” – and if I’d make the mistake of picking up, she’d politely request to call me back and ask me to send her to voicemail, please.  The friend who is the ying to my yang who would allow me to drag her along on whatever adventure I could think of.  The friends who thoroughly investigated the two churches I was struggling with, from 3,000 miles away, so they could give me the advice I’d asked for.  My friends surround me like the flowers in a bouquet, but they are in fact scattered across the globe.

Something I’ve been reminded of lately, is that friendship – the comfortable kind, that fits like an old pair of house shoes – takes time.  But also – like love – it comes out of the blue, when you’re not really looking for it. 

LOVE y’all!!

~M~ 

No Normal Friday

“God is on a cross.  The creator of the universe is being executed.  Spit and blood are caked on his cheeks and his lips are cracked and swollen.  Thorns rip his scalp.  His lungs scream with pain.  His legs knot with cramps…and there is no one to save him, for he is sacrificing himself.  It is no normal six hours…it is no normal Friday.” ~ Max Lucado

So whether you're lying to your boyfriend, or living with your girlfriend, beating your children or cheating on your taxes, if you're drinking, gambling or shopping away your paycheck, whether you're tired or angry, bitter or jealous, if you're lazy or controlling or depressed or afraid...today, He died for us.  Lest we forget.

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” 1 Peter 2:24-25