Author Archives: Life is For Living book

Humility is Truth

Posted in life, words by

If you want a good book to chew on for awhile, pick up Jean Vanier’s Community and Growth. It’s rich, crammed full of wisdom that comes from experience and insight into how people function with each other and God.

This morning I was reading it while drinking coffee, sitting in the sun on the steps. The following paragraph made me remember the meeting I was in yesterday where all 3 of us admitted a certain level of fear about the new things we were planning/discussing, and that honesty helped me feel not so alone as I had before.

This  is from the chapter “Nourishment.”

I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes. There is a fundamental tendency to become discouraged in community. We either believe that others are better than we are, or that they don’t have to cope with the same problems. The discovery that we are all in the same boat and all have the same fears and weariness, can help us to continue. People are nourished by humility, because humility is truth; it is a sign of the presence of God.–Jean Vanier

Happy, Fractured Dreams

Posted in Ireland, life, Poland by

I used to insist that Christians should be happy all the time. They’re the ones living without condemnation from sin, they have joy and peace and fulfillment in Christ, they have everything! Why should they squander a perfectly good day by talking about difficulties and disappointment?

Thankfully, I think I’ve grown up a little bit since then. Or life has knocked me around and showed me some things.

I still don’t have answers for this crazy, surprising life. I just know that when you talk with emotionally-healthy people, you can be having a normal conversation and then only a word will trigger tears you didn’t know were coming. And I’ve learned that tears don’t mean something is terribly amiss. It just reveals the fact that tears are often just under the surface, even for people who deeply love Jesus and know His joy. Maybe this is true especially for those people, because they are the ones who can be better equipped to have emotional integrity and deal with pain and discomfort and grief and don’t need escapes from that.

In others words, I can say that my world shifted when I heard a widow speak with tears running down her cheeks: “You know, life really stinks sometimes. It really, really stinks.” Then over her tears, her eyes lit up and she talked about God’s nearness and love and wisdom in her desperate grief.

So I’m trying to give up insisting that life feels good all the time. Because it’s not going to happen, but it doesn’t mean that life is all bad.

This morning I met a student for coffee. She’d asked if we could meet, and I said my brain isn’t working to have a lesson during vacation, but we could go for coffee, and we did, and it was lovely, and she wants me to come to her house next week to look at her vacation photos and eat food. Last Sat. morning I was in Ireland and met an old friend for coffee too, and I felt so loved and cared for and relaxed and happy. And it was at the end of a week with my whole family, in which we didn’t do much more than take care of little children and make food. And swim and go canoeing.

I’m living a lot of happy dreams. Of course good coffee always makes me happy anywhere, but living in Europe, meeting with women who want to meet just because they like me, having a student-teacher relationship grow to a dear friendship–this is the stuff of my dreams.

Which means that other dreams haven’t come true (because–surprise!–you can’t have everything) and my life stinks in places, and I cried pretty much every day this week.  Life is wonderful and terrible, and that’s about all I know about it, and for now, it’s ok.

So Complete

Posted in books, recommendations by

Thanks to a sister who recommends good books to me, I read Stargirl last week, by Jerry Spinelli. In my typical broad generalizations, I’m thinking that every girl and woman should read this book. At least, anyone who is thinking about living outside the box, and who is weary of homogenized life.

The following paragraph, in the context of the school dance, was probably one of the most exciting to me, and one that I’d like to live like. Especially here in a country where I get stared at disconcerting ways.

She is no one’s child. She is the girl they have heard about. As she passes by she makes no attempt to avoid their eyes. On the contrary, she looks directly at them, turning to one side, then the other, looking into their eyes and smiling as if she knows them, as if they have shared grand and special things. Some turn aside, uneasy in a way they cannot account for; others feel suddenly empty when her eyes leave theirs. So distracting, so complete is she that she is gone before many realize that she had no escort, she was alone, a parade of one.

Explaining

Posted in recommendations, singleness by

I identify with Elisabeth when she wrote: “As a writer, I have to fight the feeling that each article I write must be pretty much the very last word I’ll ever have to say on that topic.”

Writers are strange, often- misunderstood people. They write authoritatively even though they don’t know everything about the subject. They doubt themselves, but at some point they put their soul on the line and let others see their words. They give the faceless public the chance to riffle through the paragraphs, pounce on a point or two, take issue with nonessentials, and remember what suits them.

Then the writer thinks about how she could have said it differently, how she could have fleshed out that idea, taken the other one out, and she hopes that the discerning reader will see what she didn’t explain, and understand that no one will write flawlessly.

Elisabeth wrote the excellent article “What’s a Guy to Do?” and followed it up more recently on her own blog by explaining what she could’ve written, explained, and discussed, but didn’t. Good stuff, especially for women. Breeze on over there and see.

School Year Superlatives

Posted in Poland, teaching English by

Thinking/speaking/writing in superlatives is a habit that I should maybe try to break, but at the end of a school year, it could be fitting to remember some of the best and worst moments of the year. Besides, an English teacher who teaches comparatives should be allowed to use superlatives now and then.

  •  The evening 3 teen boys came for a lesson expecting  a man teacher, not a girl who looked to them like a nun. They reacted by giggling uncontrollably but ended up being good students while they lasted.
  • The Business English lesson that I’d valiantly tried to prepare but in class I realized that I hadn’t understood the material after all. I choked down the panic and guided the discussion to something I could talk about, which didn’t include loans and banks.
  •  The  lady who spent most of the lesson talking about her problems after her baby died. She threw her arms around me twice as we said goodbye for the summer.
  •   Licking cones with two 12-yr old girls who said they like these classes and want to come back next year. Yes, dearies, I like these lessons too— particularly the ones with ice cream in them.
  •  The student friend who texted “I want to come kiss you before the summer break. When are you at school?”
  •   Holding the 7 yr old on my lap for an Amelia Bedelia story, and hearing her giggles at all the right times.
  •  Rollicking laughter during the first lesson with a girl who could be a model. I asked her why she wants to go to Italy. “Because the men are so beauuuuuutiful! What’s the word for joke? It’s a good joke!”

You don’t get the dialague unless you’re used to hearing conversations with people whose English is their second language.  But simple language and laughter helps recharge my batteries and make me ready for the next day’s lessons.

I’m endlessly thankful that the best teaching moments far out-number the worst ones. I’m tired now. My brain is barely functional. But I have  every reason to expect that come September, I’ll be ready to give my students everything I have. Which means I give them more than words. I give them my heart. Big chunks of it. Maybe that’s partly why I’m tired.

Time to go find my heart.

Celebrating True Love

Posted in life by

This morning I saw a photo of my cousin posing with his bride. He was radiant, and she was laughing, and seeing them gave me a burst of joy and delight. They are gifted, wise people. I know they will serve each other and their world like Jesus would, and it’s so wonderful and beautiful to see that it makes me cheer.

The mysteries of love are a mystery to me (to everyone else too, I guess) but when a man and woman find each other and settle deeply on far more than fluff and feelings, and commit to loving and serving in the nitty-gritty for the rest of their lives, it has to be one of the most beautiful things in the world.

Which means that divorce is probably the worst thing in the world. Maybe because it desecrates the symbol of God’s choosing us and faithful betrothal to us.

I bumped against the divorce word so often this week, maybe it’s why I was particularly sensitive to the happy wedding picture.  I heard mothers talking with each other: “You don’t have a husband either? Me too, I’m happier this way, being lonely, than being with my husband.” I read a woman’s words about how everyone else liked her husband but she couldn’t live with him so she left him. It all made me want to weep.

My friends tell me that marriage is hard work and demanding in surprising ways. (I say that singleness is too but in different aspects.) When I see couples promise their lives to each other, and each is whole and and focused on and sacrificial for Kingdom priorities, it gives me hope that some things in this ravaged world are as they should be.

It isn’t always like that. There are moments when I watch girls give their hearts to unworthy men who are happy to take them, and I want to shout “Oh,no,no,no,no,no, please no.” Not that I’m an expert match-maker, but I think that at this stage I have a pretty good idea of what a girl’s heart is worth.

So, to Caleb and Sandra out there ready to do life together for always, here’s one voice who’s cheering for you, proud of you, and wishing you everything beautiful!

Quick Energy

Posted in life, words by

This week I got a darling, hand-made card from teenage sisters I never met. They wrote that they’d seen my prayer card on a mutual friend’s fridge and wanted to let me know that they’re praying for me.

It blew me away, the tangible gentleness and love and care. I depend on email most every day, and value it hugely. But I still love seeing my name and address on an envelope in the post. This surprise card motivated me to write a letter, and drop it in the postbox down the road. I’d been thinking about writing that letter for months, and the card was the final push to do it.

It’s easier to complain or seethe or stay silent during each day’s wear and tear. But no matter the situation, encouragement is never out of order, on this side of heaven. Who have you been thinking about and who could use your words?

“A wise person gets known for insight; gracious words add to one’s reputation. Gracious speech is like clover honey–good taste to the soul, quick energy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:21, 24, The Message)

 

Nobody Knows the Trouble

Posted in life by

I was telling a friend that I think that if any five of us were standing around the table, and we had our problems in our hands and put them all–ALL of them– out on the table for each other to see, we wouldn’t choose anyone else’s problems. We’d take back our own again.

She wasn’t so sure. She said she wished she had her friend’s problem instead of her own that were consuming her energy.

It made me think of other scenerios. A girl complaining to her friends that she had no free day to pack for her 2 week vacation to a Greek island. A bride trying on her dress and saying that her shoes weren’t the color she wanted. A homeowner complaining to a homeless man about the heating bill. To someone on the sidelines looking in, these all look like good problems to have.

I maintain that if we knew everything–everything– about our friends’ lives, and saw all their troubles, we would take back our own. But I am young and my life is good. I have problems and issues that make me sad and cry, or that I tell to only the closest to me, but most days, my life isn’t defined by problems. When I look at my friends who appear to have beautiful, enviable stories, I am jealous for half a second before I remember that they have problems that would have completely derailed me.

There are surely people who wouldn’t take back their own troubles if they were out on a table. I think of the widow raising eight children. My lady friends whose husbands have betrayed them on every level, week after week, year after year. The beautiful girl with cancer, another friend with Chronic Neurological Lyme Disease. Life is not fair and trouble is spread wide and without respect to age or talent or wealth.

Friends walk with, support, believe in each other. So her problems look silly or petty to you? They might be, but to her they’re huge. It’s really ugly when friends get together and compare their troubles and try to impress each other with the amounts of pain each is suffering. Sometimes we can give each other a splash of reality or perspective but most times it’s best to listen and not say much.

So I’d love to be going to a Greek island, and I wouldn’t complain about having little time to get ready for it. But, well…

There’s a difference between stuff you complain about and serious life experiences. Maybe I’m naive, but isn’t it generally true that at the end of the day we’d still choose our own troubles?

Article Recommendation: What’s a Man to Do?

Posted in recommendations, singleness by

This week my wise, gentle friend Elisabeth whom I’m never met but correspond with regularly, wrote a brave article here on Boundless. I say it’s brave, because it takes a lot of courage for a single woman with a quiet spirit to write about the unspoken dynamics between single men and women.

Chatting with Elisabeth this morning, she told me she’s gotten good feedback on the article, mostly from girls, which means it’s more than just me who says it’s accurate and well-done.

In her blog, Elisabeth writes an introduction for the article and says it took her way out of her comfort zone and that a lot of the points can apply to both men and women.

It’s a delicate balance, I know. Over-kindness and over-coldness are equally off track. Selfish rashness and selfish caution: both are outside the kingdom realm.

Believers in Jesus, whether we marry each other or not, are on parallel tracks toward a common goal. This is a lifelong closeness and commitment: not to one another, but to Him.  As C. S. Lewis describes in The Four Loves, we stand — not eye to eye, like lovers — but shoulder to shoulder with eyes on the same goal. And with eyes (and heart) on that goal, we’ll be steering very well.

Sometimes we don’t realize we have the power to hurt others, but as mature men and women, we need to recognize this and plan accordingly.

And honestly? It’s not impossible to get it right.

To Have and To Hold–A New Book!

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I’m delighted to tell everyone who will listen about a new book that my friend and mentor, Sharon, wrote. It’s out now! To Have and To Hold is written for women who find themselves alone and wondering how to think about themselves and life and God.

Sharon is a gifted teacher and mentor, and writes out of her own experiences and questions. I was privileged to read the manuscript, and what I liked best is how she is brave to ask and wrestle with questions that have no quick, pat answers. It’s a must-read if you are wondering why there are singles in the world, and what is God up to in your aloneness?

You can order the book now from Christian Learning Resource for only $10.99.

Call  800-222-4769       or email clr@fbep.org for your own copy.

And in your spare time, visit her lovely blog at www.tohaveandtoholdbook.com