Painting the Blind Girl's Nails

Recently I had the pleasure of being pushed out of my comfort zone. An East Coast trip with two of my brothers ended in the Bronx where we spent two days with a family, the daughter of which was blind. It was my first extended experience with a disabled person.

I entered their home with all these preconceived notions about the life of a visually-impaired person, most which came from movies. I wondered if her eyes would be clouded over and if her other senses were so acute that she could karate-chop a person sneaking up on her. I wondered if she would want to feel my face to know what I looked like. I wondered if she would be docile and helpless, assisted in every aspect of life.

Crystal turned out to be none of these. She greeted us at the door and held out her hand. Adopted from China at eight, Crystal was a few months younger than I, but looked about thirteen. Her eyes weren’t clouded over; rather they moved of their own accord, back and forth, and in arcs, generally in the direction of the speaker where she tuned in with her ear.

I was her guide touring New York City. She took my arm and passed her walking stick across the pavement in front of her. People moved out of our way like Moses parting the Red Sea. Most were respectful, allowing us the disability seating in the subway; others were not so tactful, like the guy who said to me, “Yeah, I’d like to hold your hand, too,” as we passed on the sidewalk.

I had a lot of questions to ask Crystal about her life, and she was not shy about giving answers and elaborating. “If I describe the scenery to you, do you have any context for understanding it?” She said she knew what green was because of the trees and grass she has felt, but I realized she didn’t know how the color green looked because she'd never actually seen it. (Try describing a color to someone without using other colors or an object of that color, and then you'll see how abstract it is.)

She talked about her life as a person who sees would. She liked to go shopping; when I asked her what for, she answered, “I don’t know, I just like to go look around.” Or when talking about movies, she’d say, “I saw such-and-such and loved it."

When I went to bed, she would be sitting on her mattress, either knitting a scarf or tapping on her Braille computer. I was about to ask if I could turn the lamp off when I realized how ridiculous the question was. I lay back and stared into the darkness, listening to her fingers and trying to imagine what it was like to be blind.

On the last evening of our stay, Crystal asked me to paint her nails. “I have a whole collection of colors,” she said excitedly, “I’m obsessed with them!” She brought me a tin lunch box and rooted through it until her fingers found the one she was looking for. “This red one I got for Christmas.”

“It’s a beautiful wine color,” I said.

“Oh really?”

I stroked it on her nails. While we waited for the first coat to dry, I asked her what God was teaching her. To trust him, she answered, and confessed her fears about a learning program she was going into and a bible college she wanted to attend in Europe.

“Does being blind make it hard to trust God?”

“Yes. Sometimes I wonder why he made me have a disability when he could have made me without it.” Crystal went on to talk about the passages in Scripture where Jesus heals the blind man. “I think God made him blind so that he could heal him and be glorified. I wonder if he wouldn’t have known Jesus if he hadn’t been blind. Somehow I want to glorify God with my disability.”

I encouraged her that God already was being glorified through her. She was the most selfless, trusting person I have ever met. She didn’t allow her physical blindness to blind her to the needs of others. She was always serving, always thinking about others’ needs before her own.

Her servant heart made me ashamed of my own trivial complaints. Her longing for learning and travel dispelled all worries that we would have nothing in common. Her vulnerability stirred a fierce protectiveness in me. Her fear and longing of love and acceptance was not so removed from my own.

I spent only a short time with Crystal, but from what I observed, I believe her to be the embodiment of 1 Corinthians 13: patient, kind, humble, honoring, servant-hearted, trusting, hoping, persevering.

I also observed that I—who have twice her capability to go places and accomplish things—haven’t half her love. I am the resounding gong and clanging symbol. I am the one who can see and can’t see all at once. Are those who are visually, orally, or aurally impaired the only ones who must live vulnerably, trustingly, dependently? What would my life look like if I lived as she does?

If Cats Are the Devil, I Must Be a Demon.

I’ve never been particularly fond of cats, with the general opinion that if Satan had been female, his earthly form would’ve been the feline instead of the reptile. (Every time I see a cat, I automatically assume it is female, as if they have no need for males and reproduce by their own demonic powers.)

I had the pleasure of house sitting for a couple the past week and a half, with every luxury I could imagine, and only one pitfall: they owned two cats, both male. Oscar, the larger gray and white one and Boo, the brown and cream colored one with eyes like Puss ‘n Boots from Shrek.

While Oscar pranced around acting like he’d won the nomination, Boo shed cat hair, peed on the floor, and mewed at me while I read. I’d go into the bathroom to get ready for bed and come out fifteen minutes later to find him sitting outside the door, eyes glinting. I swear he was willing voodoo, perhaps in retribution for my accidently closing him in the closet for three hours.

As the week wore on, Boo’s meowing became more persistent and he would hardly leave me alone. The owner said if he did that, it usually meant he was hungry, but I was very punctual about feeding them Captain’s Choice Tuna. One evening I cracked the lid and Oscar came running, followed by Boo. After emptying the fishy can, I went into the bathroom next to the laundry room to brush my teeth. In the mirror, I saw Boo’s reflection in the hall. I had a nagging suspicion about why the cat watched and meowed.

Spitting the toothpaste out, I went into the laundry room and shooed Oscar away from the dish. Sure enough, the minute he passed Boo, the younger cat fled down the stairs. The poor cat had been starving all week because he was afraid of Oscar, who was feasting on all the tuna. After that I had to stand guard at the bottom of stairs so Boo could eat in peace.

Oscar paced back and forth in front of me, and then, seeing no way to pass me, fluffed up his fur and nuzzled against me. Now you kiss up to me, you little…When he didn’t succeed, he proceed to try to slip under my leg or hop over my foot, and then sat glaring at me. I felt deliciously manipulative at that point. Now how do you like it...

It wasn’t until the second to last night that Boo and I finally began to warm up to each other. I was tucked in bed with my laptop when he hopped up and curled next to me. He made this purring sound deep in his throat like a trolling motor, stroking his sandpapery tongue across my arm. I closed the door in an effort to keep him on the bed, but he panicked and leapt off, shrinking into the corner, mewing. He wouldn’t let me touch him. When I let him out, he streaked beneath a piece of furniture and wouldn’t be coaxed out. He gave this pitiful sound halfway between a mew and a honking chick, unmistakably crying. I knew if he had trusted me before, he didn't now.

It struck me that if cats are the devil, I must be a demon. I am just like Boo. Supply me with emotional and psychological nourishment when I'm hungry and then leave me to my solitude, pet me when I'm feeling luxurious because I am bigger and older and fluffier and more deserving than every other cat, and what on earth made you think I was going to do the same thing for you?? 

And then there are the innumerable times when someone tries to win my trust. Shows me what it feels like to have a friend and be loved. For a moment I am relaxed. And then the safe room suddenly looks like a trap I can't escape. So I wait for the first crack in the door to bolt and cower beneath a roof of excuses and fears, indistinguishable from a cat’s crying.

 

New Year's Tribute

For Abraham and the expanse of stars.

For that pinnacle moment when he believed God and was credited with righteousness.

For Sarah, a bitter, barren woman whose laughter was scoffing.

For Hagar, the human attempt to make God’s promise happen.

For Isaac, whose name meant laughter, the fulfillment of the first promise.

For Abraham’s faith in the sacrifice of his one and only son.

For God’s protection of his plan through a substitute sacrifice.

For the second-born: Jacob, who stole Esau’s blessing, and Perez, the offspring of incest.

For the barren woman in a familial culture: Sarah, Rachel, and Elizabeth.

For Bilhah, abused by Rachel’s manipulation and scorned upon giving Jacob sons.

For Leah, the ugly older sister and neglected wife.

For God’s faithfulness in giving her six sons, the triumph of a woman.

For the fourth son, Judah, and his descendants.

For the prostitute Rahab, who believed in the God of Jacob and was spared destruction, and for her son Boaz.  

For Ruth, a widowed Moabitess who left her people and pursued the kinsman redeemer.

For Obed, their son, the father of Jesse, the father of David.

For that youngest, most diminutive shepherd-boy, anointed by God as king.

For Solomon, David’s son, the product of adultery and murder.

For the series of Israel’s kings who did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord.

For the four hundred years of silence between the last prophet and a Wildman who ate locusts and honey.

For the faith of a young virgin and the courage of her betrothed carpenter.

For the birth of an infant in an obscure stable, the fulfillment of God’s first promise.

For the 42 generations of willfulness and ineptitude and God’s tremendous orchestration over 4,000 years to redeem his fallen creation.

For the one man, the Firstborn, the Freeborn, the King, the Kinsman Redeemer, and the Substitute Sacrifice.

For the girl who is also willful and inept.

For the God who uses the ordinary and imperfect.

For her bitterness of years past and scoffing of years to come.

For God’s forgiveness that purges bitterness and His faithfulness that rebukes scoffing.

For her human attempt to fulfill His promise of love, and the hearts she bowled over to get there.

For His unceasing pursuit of her heart.

For her barren idols of appearance, attention, and affirmation.

For His breaking down of her gods.

For her ungenerous heart and controlling hands.  

For the God who provides for a sparrow.  

For her selfish manipulation of others and her scathing words, for her cowardice and her taking of the wide road.

For His unconditional grace and sanctifying work.

For His faithful orchestration over twenty years.

For the year 2013. For the year 2014.

For the number of years, of which only He knows the exact number, until Christ returns to finish history.

I Am Not a Beautiful Mess

Sometimes revelation comes through reiteration. Last Wednesday, I sat beside two middle school girls in youth group, writing some idle notes as Ross talked about Christmas and why Jesus came as baby. Stuff I've heard before. It's easy to become complacent about the gospel when you've heard it a million times.

Something about the way he described God's holiness and humanity's messiness produced a revelation in my mind. Up to that point, the insight had been percolating in my head, a vague silhouette that for years I have been trying to snatch and pin down: what human messiness means.

I’ve been trying to write about it, but it keeps slipping through the spaces between the laptop keys. I gave notice at my job so I could focus on my passion. My passion: writing. Focus: writing passionately. Writing like J.R.R. Tolkien, Louisa May Alcott, Charlotte Bronte. Writing that gets to the core of the human plight.

I think I haven’t been able to pinpoint that focus because worldly truth has been clashing with God’s truth. My writing—an attempt at raw, emotional, relatable messiness—is lacking because it is only fulfilling the worldly truth that messiness is beautiful.

You see it all the time in the media: Jason Mraz’s song “A Beautiful Mess,” Hunter Hayes’ “Storm Warning,” Brad Paisley’s “Old Alabama,” all with some version of a girl who is imperfect and therefore beautiful. Movies play up themes with protagonists who are broken and learn to embrace their brokenness, learn to see the beauty in their failings.

In the literary community especially is beautiful messiness embraced. (Memoirs are generally a reflection on a time in one’s life where everything was a mess and—in reflection—is beautiful.) Nothing messy is beyond the scope of beauty, therefore all messiness should be embraced because beauty is desirable. Society embraces messiness because it is relatable. When you read someone’s memoir and realize they do/say/think the same truly awful things as you do, you feel less guilty for your failings.

Where does this understanding of embracing messiness come from if not an innate desire for beauty and wholeness? Our original design is for a beautiful wholeness, and our messiness is nothing more than a reminder of how great God’s plan is to redeem His design. The only beautiful thing about our messiness is that God still wants a relationship with us, even though our messiness separates us—and that’s because of His grace, not because our messiness is somehow attractive.

Because secular society does not acknowledge that Jesus is the source of the desire for wholeness, all it can do is make an idol of its messiness. We have come to celebrate our messiness because it is “only human.” All sorts of messiness (which is just a euphemism for sin) is justified because it is only human, and humanity is messy.

I’m beginning to realize there is something terribly flawed with this wisdom. Messiness is nothing without grace. Our messiness can’t approach His holiness. His justice cannot let our sin go unpunished. So He decided to suffer to allow us access to His beautiful wholeness until He makes us fully whole in the New Earth. How incredible that the God of the universe would make Himself human and experience the messiness of the world so we might have a savior who is able to sympathize with our weakness! So I might be in relationship with Him and embrace His beautiful wholeness.

I am not a beautiful mess. I am a terrible, sinful, hurtful mess. And it is only by His grace that I can partake of His beautiful wholeness. While I await the promise of a restored body and soul, I must divert from the literary world's wisdom and write about His grace, because my messiness has no meaning apart from his wholeness.

 

 

 

Grace in "the Land of If Only"

Yesterday I initiated a car accident. (Shocking, I know!) I was leaving 35W to pick up something from my dad’s office and had to merge three lanes to get to 11^th Street. The cars were shuffling in and out as they tried to get over to 94, so I was (very responsibly) looking over my shoulder before merging. I turned to check for a clear lane before I merged into my last lane, and when I faced forward, the guy in front of me was at a standstill.

I punched the brake, swore, and my backpack went flying from the passenger seat as the front of the car crunched into his bumper. My body wrenched against the seatbelt like a ragdoll and I saw the ripple of impact as my hood bunched up.

We were at an underpass and pulled up onto the shoulder as best we could—he had bumped into the person in front of him. The cars pulled around us, crunching over the glass and fender bits. I sat clutching the steering wheel and started to cry as Kool 108 crooned Christmas music. The sandwiched driver climbed out, spreading his arms in a what-the-hell gesture, though he was probably thinking worse. He looked like a character I had seen in a movie, but I couldn’t quite place him. A cross between Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber and a Smurf, almost like Mayor Maywho in Carrey’s The Grinch.

When I came to my senses, I called my dad, called 911, and called my brother (whose car I was driving, though it really belonged to someone else). The ‘94 Chrysler La baron was drivable—we pulled off the exit and waited for the State Trooper to come file a report. I was still trying to gain control of my tears, and the two other drivers—Stuart and Michelle—were tremendously gracious about it (granted, most of the damage was done to my vehicle). “Is this your first accident?” they asked. Cool as cucumbers.

That day I learned how to exchange insurance information, and that 911 doesn’t ask what’s the nature of your emergency, but what the location is. I also learned that there is grace is not being able to determine the future. I kept thinking, if only I had stopped at the bank on the way out. If only I had gone to the coffee shop first and the office second, I might have changed the course of the future. As I reflected on it, I realized I was looking at it from the wrong angle. Instead of living in the land of If Only (a concept I read in a book by Robin Jones Gunn), I should be living in the land of grace. There was grace in the fact that I was not hurt, that Stuart and Michelle were not hurt. There was grace in my seatbelt, and that I was wearing my glasses (which I picked up not a week ago), and that I hadn’t been texting. Somehow I think there will be more grace as I work out the details of insurance and repair.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for God’s omniscience and grace in situations beyond my control. As I reflect over the past year, I am overwhelmed by God’s gracious hand in orchestrating my future (now my past) and I have assurance that he is omnipotent to continue that work of demonstrating grace again and again in my life.

 

 

 

Dear Grace...I have great news!

Today is a momentous day in history. Well, my history. Today is the day I opened my email inbox and saw these words: ENCOUNTER Acceptance.

My first publication where I get paid for putting my experiences into words. The editor even wrote, “We’d like to purchase “Free to Struggle” to publish,” as if I were doing them a favor! It was the most exhilarating feeling: They want me work. They want to pay me for my work. I’m an author! Wait, no—really? Am I? Does this count?

I’m still trying to decide.

I sent ENCOUNTER a piece in April about my experience as a member of a Frisbee team. It was dry and superfluous, lacking heart and impact (kind of like the experience, I suppose), and I wasn’t surprised it was rejected. I sent four other pieces in the following five months, and went to China with the hope of gleaning some writing material.

I did glean material, but not what I imagined. Going to another culture revealed some dangerous habits in my life that had been festering for at least twelve months and started to surface there, refusing to budge when I returned to the States. The piece is a testimonial about an eating disorder that might’ve sucked me into a secret hole of discontentment and guilt, had the Lord not been faithful in uprooting my idols.

His grace allowed me to see the signs and get help. His grace allowed me to struggle against temptation. His grace offered me forgiveness when I gave in. When I decided yesterday that writing is my calling and gave my boss notice, his grace appeared today in that acceptance email with the reassurance that he will provide for me. I am thankful for and worshipful of His faithfulness in things big and small!

Tomorrow I will have to come down to earth. The long nights and short deadlines, the writer’s block and painful transparency yet to come will be steady reminders that this calling is not always euphoria and contracts.

But there is grace for that, too. :)

(“Free to Struggle” will be published in Fall 2014, and I will put the link up after it’s printed, as I no longer own first rights!)

Marriage Isn't for Me, Dating Isn't for Me

Yesterday I read a blog post by Seth Adam Smith who says, "Having been married a year and a half, I've recently come to the conclusion that marriage isn't for me." I didn't understand why all my friends were sharing it on Facebook until I read further and captured his real meaning: marriage is for the other person.

While I am not married, I think his premise can be applied to the dating scene, especially since I believe dating should be an avenue to tying the knot. A year has passed since my embarkment of exploration on that wobbly gangplank called dating. At that auspicious time, the walkway eluded to journeying, adventuring, and treasure. I didn't think about getting lost en route, thwarting weather, or sea sickness. I quickly learned that not every ship makes its destination.

My well-intended philosophy of dating-maps-a-route-to-marriage was run-aground, and I thought it was my own failure as a crewman. During those months and the year that followed, Smith's philosophy never occurred to me. In hindsight, it probably wasn't my panic attacks, stress, doubt, or other uncontrollable things that steered the ship into the rocks. It was my own selfishness.

You know the breakup phrase, "It's not you, it's me." Well, you're on the second star to the right and straight on til morning. It is you. It is me. Our own selfishness. Our entering a relationship (of any kind) with the mentality that this adventure and all the treasure in it is for me. Even a sharing mentality won't work. You seem like a good mate for this adventure, let's split the treasure fifty-fifty...

Just imagining what the adventure would look like if I signed on thinking, this is all for you--you can have all the treasure and I will be the second mate, here to serve you is incredibly freeing. It frees me from the fear of sinking the ship during sea sickness and bad weather. Because those things are inevitable on a journey. But I'm able to weather the storm when I've taken the focus off me and puts it where it should've been all along--on him. And I can work harder than any other shiphand to achieve selflessness, but I only have the grace to do that when my compass is Him, the greatest Captain.

All that mused, weigh anchor and go serve your mate!