Slugs

Friends, it’s hard to believe that I haven’t written a single blog post in more than a month, but that real life happened.  Equally hard to believe is how much I loved the break.  Loved.  My blogless month was full of celebrations and best friends and adventure and whimsy and all of the things that make life worth it.  There are lots of good stories I hope to share and several I want to keep to myself, but first and foremost I need to tell you a story about slugs.  Yep, slugs.  

A couple of weeks ago I went to a cookout thrown by one of my Church’s ministries and found myself having dinner with a sweet middle aged Hispanic lady, her young daughter, and a couple of female missionaries from the Mormon church.  The woman began to tell us a few stories about things she did in her neighborhood to make it a safer, better place to live and also about how she encouraged each of her kids to pray diligently because, as she said, God answers prayers in his own timing.  She is the type of person that just pulls people in, and her daughter was the same way!

Her little girl began to talk about her Mom’s prayer life in such a way that made it obvious that she knew her Mom and God have a special, almost magical relationship where he listens to her and works tirelessly to meet the needs of her and her family.  I cried a little bit, to be perfectly honest with you, listening to her talk about her Mom.  

One of her stories featured her Mom seeing a slug outside.  When she went inside to get water, she saw a crow eat the slug.  She then prayed to see a new slug, and suddenly a new one appeared-- an answer to her prayer.  

Though I was mesmerized with how much this little girl loved her Mom, I was initially prone to explain the story as happenstance versus an answered prayer.

However, that night I couldn’t stop thinking about my new friends and slugs, and began to wish that I had an ounce of their faithfulness.  I prayed that when I saw something as ugly and icky as a slug, I would be reminded that God loves and listens to me.  When I thought about it that way, I had an “oh, duh” moment.  God would reward her prayer for a slug because it was a simple way to bring him praise and glory.  Of course he would.

I would suspect that more often than I would care to acknowledge I discount the goodness of God by limiting what I think he can do to giant life-changing miracles, while ignoring his amply provided small, potentially attitude-changing-miracles.  

You might know about my attitudes… changing them can really require a miracle.  Really.  

And with that, please excuse me while I go looking for slugs in Haiti.  It’s a metaphor.  You get it.  

[Prayers appreciated!}

Thanks for reading,

Jess

Thumbs Up If You Can Hear Me: The Lost Art of Communication

You know, you learn a lot of tricks from working with kids.  For instance, if you have a class of kids under 10 who are all talking over you while you give instructions, you might try yelling “thumbs up if you can hear me” to get them to respond to your desire for them to refocus.  Thumbs will go up around the room, and kids will be as quiet as kids can be.  It’s an imperfect science.  

To be very blunt with you, I kind of wish I could do that with adults sometimes.  Sometimes, all the time.  

I answer LOTS of emails and phone calls every day.  This week, HUNDREDS of emails a day.  Not exaggerating, hundreds.  So when I send out a few important personal emails for myself and family members, can’t people just respond to them for me in a timely manner?  Like within a week, at most?! [Can I get an amen?]

I don’t want to resort to being the person with the read receipts on emails.  I just want to know that the people I email care about getting my questions answered.  I would sadly even settle for them pretending to care.  

THUMBS UP IF YOU CAN HEAR ME.

A couple of months ago I was hanging out with my friend, Bryan, and he did something completely foreign to me… he didn’t look at his phone for the entire 4 hours we were together.  (Yes, people, I pay attention to things like that).  On one hand, maybe his phone died.  On the other, maybe he was entertaining a social experiment in which he was clocking how long I could talk without stopping and had to throw the towel in at four hours (because newflash blog readers, I can talk FOREVER).  Maybe he thought I was crazy and was afraid to move.  Regardless, we can all admit that kind of listening is sadly absent from our media obsessed culture, and more personally from our friendships.   [And we can all admit that Bryan sounds pretty cool].  

THUMBS UP IF YOU CAN HEAR ME.  

Nothing feels better than being heard, am I right?  My Pastor always says that the simplest way to make someone feel loved is to just listen to them, and my 6.5 years of college coursework suggest that, too.  

So maybe, just maybe, this week we can all try to put our phones away when we’re spending hard-to-come-by in-person time with our friends and family.  And maybe just maybe when we get desperate emails from people, we can answer like we’re desperate to help.  

They say the art of communication is dead, and that may be true, but can’t we try to revive it?  

I’m in if you’re in.  

Thumbs up if you can hear me.  

Pleasant Lack of Filter

My beloved friend, Jon, is always coming up with unique ways to tell me that I am completely odd but loved anyways (to which he would probably say, “yeah, we’ll go with that”).  The most recent way that he communicated this was when he told me that I have a “pleasant lack of filter.”  To which I, too, say, “yeah, we’ll go with that.”  He loves me, I swear he does.  [I love him, I swear I do].  But secretly- don’t tell him- that’s actually probably the exactly perfect way to describe me.  At least, I have to hope it is.

Love.

Thankfully both of us have become more stylish in

the 5 years since this photo was taken.

I have always been aware of the possibility that I may have somewhat poor social skills and disclose more than people would care to know (this is confirmed by my best friend’s husband, who gets sick of my intense play by plays about EVERYTHING).  Luckily, this potential character flaw that Jon claims to find endearing bodes really well for blogging.  For dating, no.  Heck no.  But for blogging, yes.  I only have to reign it in the teensiest amount from time to time. 

To be a decent blogger, you have to learn to be translucent (you know, the word you learned in 5th grade science class that means in the middle of transparent and opaque), and you have to be okay with some people thinking you are a little weird.  

To take the sugar coating off, at least once a week someone from work/ church/ a frienemy/ someone-I-haven’t-seen-for-a-million-years/ etc. will very sweetly bring up something I’ve written for RCG or Girlish-- triggering an internal response of “they just read that one, huh?”  It takes some getting used to.

Actually, I am still very authentically surprised when anyone reads anything I write.  I’m 30ish blog posts deep right now… maybe I’ll get used to it by 130.  Maybeeee?!

In the past few months since I started RCG, several of my talented friends have come out of the woodworks to disclose that they have top-secret blogs, or have top-secret ambitions to start writing a top secret blog.  [And then they usually ask me to read said secret blog and it makes me feel so honored and happy].  I just hope that one day they each get the cool experience that comes with making those quirky private thoughts public.  If that comes to fruition, you should probably read their blogs and not mine… they could each best me every day. 

Anyhow, what I always tell them, and what I’ll tell you, is this: I have come to find that sometimes the things that make you feel the most weird are the thoughts and ideas you are too afraid to see if other people are thinking, too.  If you stop over-editing yourself and finally share those thoughts and ideas out loud, you can have the amazing opportunity to connect with people and realize you’re not that weird.  Or, maybe you are, but you’re in good company!

I just have multiple academic degrees in feelings though, so what do I know?  [See what I did there?]

The summary is this:  have the audacity to be your own weird self.  Shed a tiny spotlight on your secret thoughts.  Befriend someone like Jon who makes you question your sanity at their amusement… it’s all very good for you.  Promise!  It’s this non-doctor’s orders! 

The Answer, My Friend, is Blowing in the Wind

A couple of weeks ago at church (Southland Christian Church) our pastor, Jon, talked about his practice of writing things that are holding him up in life onto a balloon and then letting the balloon go.  I don’t know about you, but I have had some things that I have been struggling to let go of in the last year or so, so this idea appealed to me.  And my sweet friends Lindsey and Rachel (or at least I talked them into doing it with me).  

Today we went to the Arboretum to do the thing, but before hand Rachel decided to run approximately 100 miles (go Rachel!) so Lindsey and I walked in the absolutely perfect weather.  No more than 3 minutes into our walk, an older lady randomly singled us out mid-stride and started a conversation.  After standing still and talking for several minutes, we invited her to walk with us.  Things escalated quickly.

For two hours we listened to her talk about disappointments related to churches and small groups, disappointments about relationships with family members, disappointments about her career, disappointment about her lost youth, and her desire to feel connected to the world and to people.  If we are going to be honest, I am confident she literally could have talked about her disappointments forever.  Forever.  

As we got to the end of the trail, slightly exhausted from all of the listening, we invited her to do the balloon activity with us and prayed together.  She seemed like a sweet lady who just didn’t have a full grip on reality... we will never know on this side of heaven if listening to her, attempting to encourage her, or the therapeutic activity will even make a dent in her emotional or mental health, but it sure did give us a lot to think about.

A few months ago I, too, thought I had a good handle on an issue I was dealing with.  However, every time I met with a new life group (mostly strangers) I found myself breaking down in tears and realized that was indicative I probably didn’t have as good of a handle on things as I hoped.  I’m grateful that those strangers listened and invited me to coffee and lunch.  Because they did, I’m not crying about that issue anymore, and today I popped my balloon and let it go for good.  [It turns out if you leave balloons in a hot car all day, it loses the floating effect so you just have to pop it].  

I am sure that I will think about today for years to come and still not figure out the purpose of that meeting in full.  Preliminary thoughts though:

1. I am sincerely thankful that at 23-25, my cute friends and I were able to analyze what we need to let go of.  It seems like it would be a difficult habit to start at age 60.
2. I am thankful/proud that I have at least two sweet friends who were willing to listen patiently to a stranger who had a lot to say.
3. Everyone needs friends.  It’s easy to forget when you have them.  It’s hard to reconcile when you don’t.  

So tell your friends you love them, folks, and don’t be afraid to make new ones.  

Party Like It's Your Birthday: A Tribute to Evie Cheatham

If you are like me, you try to not make too big a deal about yourself for 363 days out of the year.  But birthdays are different.  On your birthday you can wear whatever you want, go wherever you want, and feel like in the upcoming year you can be whomever you want… or at least, that is how a girl should feel on her birthday.  In a world full of disappointment, birthdays can be some of the biggest let downs in life.  Or maybe that’s just me.  My birthday is right between Jesus’s Birthday and the New Year, so everyone is usually out of town, broke, and/or just too cold to celebrate little ole me.  I get it though, I do.  

No one understands the need for a good birthday quite like my perfect roommate, Evie.  At the tippy top of her long list of best qualities is her essence of birthday magic.  Maybe you are one of her 26 best friends, maybe she doesn’t know you… it doesn’t really matter because SHE.  WILL.  MAKE.  YOUR.  BIRTHDAY.  AWESOME.  She loves your birthday more than you love your birthday.  Sincerely.  She really does.   

Another thing… she will absolutely always make sure

to make birthday photo collages of you two using only

your very most attractive pictures.

Since we met in October 2010, she has totalled her car not once but TWICE while traveling for my birthday.  [Again, you should probably just rule out ever celebrating my birthday because of stupid December weather].  Her insurance company hates me, but she still always tries her darndest to always show up.

Celebration of the life of me,

right before the death of her Fusion.

You know when she also makes a point to show up?  When it’s NOT your birthday, but you need it to be.  We all have those days,  don’t we?!  Life is hard.  Work is hard.  Relationships are hard.  Having 22 homework assignments  due on one day is hard.  Evie Cheatham gets it, and thus declares a lot of random days as my “birthday.”   [Luckily, she has never totalled her car during a fake birthday].  

When life kicks my butt, Evie makes my loves for blazers and riesling collide by taking me to my favorite little bar, Belle’s Cocktail House, and holds my hand enough for people to think I’m more interesting than I really am.  You should be her friend, but I’ll warn you, there’s a wait list.  

P.S. If you borrowed this dress from Evie, SHE WANTS IT BACK.

Another Post Script: I love Belle’s.

I would say that Evie doesn’t really have “secrets” because she is pretty open about everything, but one of the key tenets she practices that has helped her acquire 26 genuine best friends: 

LIVE EVERY DAY LIKE IT’S YOUR FRIEND’S BIRTHDAY.  

AND ALSO YOUR BIRTHDAY.  

But seriously, do it.  It will make their world feel more magical.  In the midst of hard lives, tough jobs, the stresses of dating, and having 22 assignments due in one day, don’t we all need more than one day a year to remind us of how good the world can be?!

Tomorrow is a snow day, and so Evie and I have deemed today and also tomorrow Sam Noe’s birthday.  Sam Noe moved to a new city, got her dream nursing job, and has Taylor Swift level awesome red hair.  If anyone deserves one and a half fake birthday days, it is Sam.  

Friends, tomorrow I hope you sit on your couch and drink some pinot grigio to Sam Noe, and tell your friends you love them.  Spread the magic!

Her hair though...

Friends on the Roof

After a week of being snowed in, it was a miracle to make it to church this morning.  Literally, a miracle.  The roads were fine, but my car did not want to move out of its parking spot.  READY. FOR. SUMMER.  Anyhow, it’s lucky that I did make it, because they discussed one of my favorite stories about Jesus, which of course I will now oversimplify for you (whether you’ve heard it before or not).   **Please look at Luke 5 18:25 for the full, perfect story.

There’s a party.  Jesus was there along with all of these hoity toity religious people.  It’s a pretty tough crowd.   A group of friends did not make the invite list, but they really really wanted their friend to meet Jesus… he was paralyzed and they knew that Jesus could heal him if he got the chance to meet him.  So those crazy kids, set on getting their loved friend what he needed, climbed on top of some person’s house and proceeded to cut a hole in the roof to lower their friend into the party.  Jesus’s response was to (a) forgive the paralyzed man of his sins and (b) heal him.  And he said he did both of those life-changing things because of his friends’ faithfulness.  I love it.

Usually when I read that story I think about how I could try to be that kind of friend, but today I was struck with how blessed I am to have that kind of friend.  For a couple of weeks now I’ve been trying to write a post about my best friend, Katie/”Bub.”  Bub is giving birth to a second perfect baby THIS VERY WEEK, and I wanted to give her some encouragement before she takes on that awesome feat.  

For the last 17 years, Bub has always been on the roof with me.  For the first few years, she probably wanted to push me off the roof, because I was a weird little kid.  In the second and third grades, I liked to wear this magenta and green plaid jacket with some fringe on it, and she  wore mismatched socks on purpose.  I knew that those two little souls were destined to be best friends, but she didn’t share my enthusiasm.   I spent countless recess hours trying to get the new girl in our class to learn cheers with me, and once told our third grade teacher that Katie had a crush on her son (leaving out that I did too--every girl in the school did).  She finally consented to being friends after both of our parents were super late picking us up after a field trip, and we bonded while making key chains on the playground.

Then we somehow survived Middle School angst together.  And High School angst together.

Then came college--we survived living together, and me throwing up in her car twice.   

When we were about 19, my body started to do this cute little thing where it randomly shuts down and I pass out.  This would have been a huge thing to tackle on my own, but my little Bub decided to make it her burden, too.  When it first began, there was miscommunication about medical insurance, charges, and overall poor quality of healthcare provided, and my friend on the roof with fire in her belly wrote letters to the then President of the University about it.  Now when I think it’s about to happen again, she usually picks me up from work and lets me sleep it off on her couch.  Last time, I woke up to her 3 year old with a doctor’s kit, saying, “It’s ok, Bubby, I’ll make you all better.”  If anyone’s faithfulness could save me, it would be Katie and the little girl that she and her husband are raising so well.

A couple of years ago, when Avery was just a newborn, Lexington had a major tornado scare.  Bub and her hubby came across town to pick carless me up before heading to a safe shelter.

On days when others fail to do the best job of communicating love, Bub is always there for extra reinforcement.  I get invited to pretty much every holiday event hosted by both her parents and in-laws, and more often than not I’m there, holding hands and singing “Ring Around the Rosie” with fellow grown adults while we walk in a circle around her daughter.  I picked her to be my friend, she picked me to be her family.   

Those are just some of the stories that could go on for pages on pages of the times that she has loved me very well.  I may not have ever been paralyzed, but no matter what need I have—accountability, love that reminds me of Jesus, someone to read Chronicles of Narnia with (at the age of 24), a loan, a safe place, someone to dance in a kitchen with, help with a medical scare, coffee, lentil soup, or a tough love kick in the right direction—I am beyond lucky to have a friend that is going to do whatever is necessary to make sure my needs are met, even when it’s costly or sounds crazy.  

As good as she is at loving me, the thing she does best and the thing I love her most for is being a Mother.  Whether she is teaching her baby girl to build words, clean her room, or run from pretend dinosaurs, I get so much joy watching the girl who used to mismatch her socks on purpose be a Mommy.  Lastly, I will add that true to the biblical allusion, she has literally learned to disassemble and reassemble walls for her family (how COOL is that, right?!).  Avery and Henry are two lucky little ones.  Thank you for being their Mommy!

LOVE YOU, LITTLE LOVEBUB!

Jesus Took the Wheel-- Off my Tire

On Wednesdays I leave my house at 7:30am, work for 7.5 hours, drive an hour through traffic to Richmond, have 5 hours of class, then commute home at 10pm.  Talk about a long day, right?!

Yesterday I was driving home from Richmond, and wasn’t even halfway back when my car started to sound more like an airplane than a car.  Yikes.  I pulled over to the tiny shoulder which in itself was a scary feat, and opened my door to see if I could tell what was going on.  It was pretty easy to figure out the issue… my back tire on the driver’s side was gone.  Not flat, gone.  There was literally no black stuff, just a hubcap.  HOW DOES THAT EVEN HAPPEN?!

Backstory, the microphone on my iPhone 4 has not worked for a couple of weeks now, so people can’t hear me during calls.  I went to my phone company twice to see about getting it fixed, but they wanted to charge me $99 to replace a phone that I have had insurance on for a year and a half and is like 6 models old.  You know how thrifty I am… out of principle, I just left with my broken phone.

YOU SEE THE PREDICAMENT THIS CAN CREATE WHEN YOU ARE A YOUNGISH FEMALE, STRANDED ALONE IN THE PITCH DARK ON A NARROW SHOULDER OF THE INTERSTATE AT !0PM.  

At this point, I remember there are such a thing as flashers and that I should use them.  I didn’t have emergency lights until about two weeks ago when my Best Friend’s Husband decided to be great and completely clean out my car for me.  When he did that, he found the button for the flashers and put it back on for me-- previous owner had taken it off for some reason.  SCORE.

Guys, my phone worked.  I needed it to work, and it worked.  So I called AAA, and they told me how much it would be to start an account and use same day service (an extra charge) to have someone come put the donut in my trunk on for me.  Again… I’m thrifty.  So I called my roommate to see if she and her boyfriend could come assist before signing up for AAA.  

While my roommate and her boyfriend are in route to save me, a nice gentleman from the KY Transportation Cabinet shows up and tells me that it’s his job to “drive around and look for nice people like you to help, free of charge.”  That’s exactly what he did.  He told me that my donut was flat, and proceeded to fill it with air.  By the time my roommate and her boyfriend got there, he was mostly finished.  Talk about a blessing.

My roommate’s boyfriend pointed out that if it would have happened to my front tire, I could have been injured since I have front-wheel drive… which reminded me that I just had my tires rotated, so just a little while ago, that tire was a front tire.  SCORE

From there:

1. Two seconds after posting a fb status, my Big Sister offered me her car for today.  I really must admit (again) that I have never done anything to deserve her.
2. Because studying to be a lawyer doesn't keep her busy enough, my roommate offered to take my card and car to get two new tires for me today. She's a real MVP.
3. People from all over the state texted me about coming to save me. THANKS!

Yesterday should have been a bad day, but to be honest, it was really pretty amazing.  It took less than 30 minutes for this whole problem to be resolved, and I got to see miracle on miracle.  My thrifty-ness was rewarded instead of punished, so I can continue to be generous in other ways.  I was reminded just how generous and loving my friends are, and how good strangers can be.  Last but not least, I was reminded that God really does work for the good of those who love him.  It’s not lost on me, kids.

Goosebumps!