joy

I don't think of myself as a very joyful person...and God convicted me recently to remember I am his child and that it is something to be very very happy and joyful about.

Little things have been happening that show me God has planted a deep joy in my heart. One of our teachers brings her dog into the class and whenever I see her(the dog) she runs up to me and licks me and gets all excited, ready to play. My teacher says her dog has a special recognition for my joyful spirit. The Pastor's wife at church said her kids really like me- that I'm a joy magnet. When I get home after school I get so happy to be around David's gentleness and humour. I wish it translated so that I could deeply know and experience it.

It is hard to live in Vancouver. All the things I hear on the bus about bloodletting ceremonies, gay men breaking up marriages to sleep with the man, all my homeless friends I see everyday, and the shameful thought inside my head when I am exhausted; I hope I don't see them today. I cry on my walk home from church nearly every sunday, partly from the relief of seeing families and couples that love eachother, and partly because so much of what I am experiencing here at this point in life is challenging.

I think God will have much to say to me this Christmas about joy.

look and listen for awhile

(picture by "groundwork", check her out on etsy.com!)

honest intention

"Jesus our Hope,
Make us into humble people of the Gospel.
We would so much like to understand that
The best in us is built up by a very simple
Trust...
Even a child can manage it".

- Brother Roger, Taize

within the classroom

Midterms are among us at Utopia Academy.
We are STRESSED!
The energy in the classroom today was like waiting in the wings to go on stage...so much anxiety and nervousness.
For the first half of our Myology (the study of muscles) midterm we had to know (well, should have known :)) 540 different facts about muscles. That is a lot to be tested on! The second midterm today was for Clinical Assessment. You were paired off and then went into the room with the examiner and did a series of tests and assessments. Apparently the teachers (examiners) were being harsh and hard faced. Classmates were coming out of the test area crying! Today was a high intensity day.
Everyone gives an answer to beat the midterm or test stress:
"You are not your marks"
"calmness and understanding overcome fear and anxiety"
" It doesn't matter. Plenty of people have done it before and you can too. Stress doesn't help anything."

Some, I would agree with. They just don't have any staying power. Sometimes you'll be studying and you feel so incredibly stupid. Just incapable of ever getting through it. What am I doing? You say. Why did I think I could do this? I come home in tears many days. Exhausted. Just this morning I was thinking, if only you didn't have to pay for school...I'd have run away to Peru long ago! I wonder, why God, did you call me here? What is the purpose of this? What am I supposed to learn, and can we get it over quickly?

Today my partner was 38 year old Aya, from Japan. She is extremely shy. I have tremendous respect for her, coming to school (which is not easy) and learning it in her second language!
After doing some practise palpations, we sat down on a massage table and started to talk. She said she was so nervous, that she blanks out, finds school scary and feels so stupid.
"Me too, Aya! I find school so hard!"
She looks at me with these open, genuine eyes and says with relief, "Really?"
(Aya once told me that I was the epitemy of a western culture woman! Ha! What does that mean?!) We continued to talk about crying when we get home, crying when someone says something nice to us, crying after people die and thinking there are no tears left and then...there are more! She said in Japan she is considered "highly emotional" and people don't like to be near that type of person. Here she is the quietest and least obnoxious of the bunch! We laugh about this and continue talking. I know that for a Japanese person to reveal this much about themselves is very rare.
I have been really struggling with having the motivation to continue with schooling. I don't like going to school and I find it incredibly challenging emotionally and spiritually. Aya told me that she thinks about quitting nearly everyday, but that giving up would be easy, and she wants to be here. Wow. I need to stop being a baby!! I have so many advantages and still find myself whining and sniveling about the trivial things. I admire Aya's focus.
When it was our turn to go in for testing, we did just fine. I don't think it was because we listened to the advice people offered. Something about knowing you are not alone not only in the world, but yes, even just in the classroom, is so reassuring.

Hands

Last year God gave me an incredible invitation to trust.
Even though, for the most part, my hands are extended, open, ready to receive, I still go back to worrying, with hands rubbing nervously.
Everytime I leave the house I think, " Will I see David tonight? Will he be okay today?"
I read blogs and hear stories of women who've lost their husbands and I think, "God, did I read that because I too will lose David?"
I'm going to school to become a massage therapist. We always talk about the privilege of putting your hands on people.
Today there was a rugged, beautiful smiling man by my bus stop. I smiled, but I didn't want to give him money. I wanted to hold his hand in mine and say, "I see you" .
Life is uncertain. Jesus promises that in this life we will have troubles. I can't foresee what suffering will be included in mine.

I say this prayer in the morning, and I mean every word (I think it comes from Taize)

I bind my mind to the mind of Christ
I bind my heart to the deep love of God
I bind my feet to the path you have for my life
I bind my hands to receive all that you have for me
And to bless all that they touch.

Our hands make us so capable. There are over 10 muscles in the hand alone! Touch is powerful. Touch makes us incredibly vulnerable. I want to go back to that place of trust with God. I want to have my hands open, knowing that, although pain will happen, God will never leave me. God's love will never leave me. God is trustworthy.

"The presence of God is the finest of rewards" (pg.63, Life of Pi)

Mama warmed the plates too hot!

We were having dinner the other night and my mom was being so clever. It was very cold out, and she thought the perfect way to warm us all up was to put the plates in the oven to warm them up like they sometimes do in restaurants...Only she forgot them there...And so as we ate my brother refused to touch anything, grumbling complaining, and my mom burnt her fingers. Our cold carrots sizzled. It was hilarious.
It is times like these that make me so happy and give me a sense of freedom. Something I love about women is their humanity. I know I'm never going to "make it". Right now, waiting just three months until I'm married, going off to school for something I really want to do and moving to Vancouver and living off my measley savings account, I'm filled with a lot of anxiousness and fear. Will our marriage last? Will I be a good wife? Will I like my school? Will the stress be too much? I know it doesn't take very much for me to fall apart when I'm standing alone. GRACE GRACE GOD'S GRACE! AND MERCY! IN MY TIME OF NEED! I love to hear the spring birds chirping out a song of, "God provides! God provides!" and I'm sticking to that...As hard as it might be...To trust he considers the birds of the air, the flowers of the field...little ol'me and my silly fears and worries.
Something I do have to just say though: I am so in love with Jesus. I am so blessed and humbled to walk with him. We have an unshakable relationship. I feel so secure in his love. Throughout this year, I never imagined that my faith and trust in God would be so strengthened. In all of my brokeness and anxiety and failures and short comings, God is so good.
We tried to say grace before we ate, and we singed our hands a little, laughed, and just surrendered. I can present no illusion of myself as a put together, in control, successful woman before God. I'm just a beautiful mess :) and so we say with burnt fingers, come LORD Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blest, Amen.