longing.

Today, just for a moment, I'm allowing the longing to flood my system.

I miss his singing voice.
I miss his silly jokes...the ones I only laughed at to spare his feelings.
I miss his grilled cheese with ham.
I miss wearing his oversized shoes.
I miss his laugh.
I miss listening to Reggae with him on roadtrips.
I miss one-sided conversations, and simply listening to his wisdom.
I miss the way he would talk with his CPAP on.
I miss the way he smelled after being out in the cold winter air.
I miss playing Nintendo with him.
I miss losing to him in chess... every time.
I miss watching storms on the porch.
I miss "ice cream in the paper." (This is the name my five-year-old self invented for ice cream sandwiches...and not just any ice cream sandwiches- the real ones, with the smooth vanilla ice cream enveloped between two chocolate chip cookies. YUM.)
I miss the hotdishes he would invent.
I miss how he'd forget to turn off his blinker after changing lanes.
I miss saying prayers with him.
I miss waking up to his snuggles before school.
I miss his snore.
I miss lunch box love notes.
I miss his email forwards.
I miss him cracking my toes.
I miss pancakes for dinner.
I miss his thorough and detailed explanations.
I miss how he'd respond to the question, "You know what's funny?" with, "Ummm...when you suddenly realize your pants are on backwards..." or some other thing he invented on the spot.
I miss how much he truly desired to understand me.

geese.

The geese are back, and I couldn’t be happier about it. :)

Growing up along the Mississippi, it was always the return of the geese that heralded the release of winter’s terrible icy grip. In the fading light of the evening, their cries would echo over the surface of the water and ring for miles through the river valley. To this day, it is one of my favorite sounds. Geese signaled that warmth was on its way, and soon. Geese meant thunderstorms and star gazing and crickets, and nights of ice cream and open windows and snuggles. Geese meant walks with my dad along the river on balmy evenings under the yellow light of the street lamps, conversations on the porch with our feet kicked up on the railing while sipping ice cold diet cokes, and the earthy, piny smell of hands and knees covered in dirt after a day of gardening together. 

Oh, my heart aches for it. I miss him, I miss him, I miss him.

I love every single thing about spring. I love pot holes and puddles and pink buds of crabapple trees. I love cool breezes that dance in on rays of sunshine through open car windows. I love watching fire hydrants and curbsides reemerge from beneath grey crags of crystallized snow drifts. And I think I actually could roll in the slush and slop and freezing streams that tumble and race along the gutters. I especially love the fluffy white clouds that finally part like curtains after the intermission of winter, revealing the impossibly perfect blue of the sky. What’s weird is that winter is not without its own clear days, but somehow the sky seems so much more piercingly blue as the world beneath it melts into puddles of pure joy. Everything about spring breathes new life. It’s as if every budding tree and muddy lawn and ray of sunshine is whispering tenderly, “Wake up, sleepyhead. Wake up, wake up. There is life to be had- don’t you dare miss it.”

Winter has deadened my spirit again. Every year I tell myself it won’t happen, and every year I’m wrong. It used to frustrate me because I thought it meant there was something terribly wrong with me. How can I claim to have joy in the Lord if something as simple as snow has the ability to drain my spiritual strength and leave me feeling bone dry inside? Granted, this year is slightly different. But with all the stop measures I put in place for myself this fall and all the growing I’ve done in the last year, I thought for sure I could handle it. But no... I watched in horror from some other-ly place as I once again stumbled down that icy, wintery, slippery slope back into the same familiar niche I’ve been to so many times before. Dark and isolating, and something I’m entirely unable to put words to in the moments when I’m most in the midst of it. It feels shifty and off, in the way that your shirt feels off when you accidentally button it two holes down from where it should be and wind up with flannel that is crooked and hanging slightly off one shoulder. But it’s also sort of disgustingly comfortable, like when you walk into a movie theater and sit down and the seat is already warm. (For the record, this grosses me out so much that I will move ten times out of ten.) It’s a place I hate, and sort of love, and never want to be in, and feel 100% comfortable in all at once.

So, back to the question: Should I join the Fair-Weather Christian club? Because I could be the president. Definitely.

Here’s the thing I’m learning. There is a reality involved here that I don’t ever like to admit- that reality is that I’m a human, which is a fantastically fragile thing to be. I am completely prone to every bit of brokenness that this world throws my way. I have zero immunity. BUT, I have a deep belief that the Lord purposefully crafted me to draw my strength from a very specific set of things in life- a family that loves me, friends that know me, music that carries me, art that frees me... And adversely, I also believe that God designed some things to sap my strength, just a little bit, to consistently remind me how weak and vulnerable and human I am, and how much I truly need him. Winter just happens to be one of those things for me. 

I need weaknesses, or else I don’t need God. 

My weaknesses lately have manifested in the forms of a zillion questions all chasing each other in circles around my head. How can I be a good "big sister", and a good friend, and transition into a new household, and be a 21 year old learning how to be independent, and be a good student, and a good receptionist, and grieve my dad, and transfer schools, and miss my old life while still rejoicing in my new one? How do I even know I’m doing any of it right? When will I feel settled? When will I stop fighting the same battles over and over and over and over...

Here’s the answer I’ve got for all of that: STOP IT.

It’s not my job to know all the answers, or even all the questions. I was not created with infinite wisdom or knowledge or even the capacity for such things. My job is just to be human, and to follow Jesus. He knows how fragile and weak I am. He knows the places in me that are dead, that need to die, and that are in the process of being made new. He’s in charge of all of that. His whole MO is waking dead things to life. And I know eventually he will have produced enough new life in me that none of those questions will actually even matter anymore. I’ll be right where I need to be, when I need to be there. And truthfully, though it feels shifty and off sometimes, I am right exactly where I need to be even now.

The geese are back. The sun is out. The ground may still be frozen and dead, but it is just waiting to be called forth to produce new life. And it is the exact same ground that has been through this cycle before- death, rebirth, death, rebirth. Changing seasons are older than we are. They don’t stop. Whatever place you are in now is not permanent. But it is shaping you, so pay attention. 

Because your weaknesses are just as valuable as your strengths. 

nine.

So, this five year old love of mine has a stuffed cheetah that he named Faster-Faster. Cute right? This morning, Faster-Faster had a pretty nasty fever-fever of "nine." (For the record, the whole reason I ask questions like "How bad is his fever, buddy?" is so that I can hear answers like "nine.") But never fear. Faster-Faster's temp was back down to normal within minutes. His qualifying response to his cheetah's quick recovery? "They don't call him Faster-Faster for nothin!"

I love this boy. So so so so much.
That's all I have for you today. Happy Tuesday :)