about pain

When I was much younger, probably early elementary school, I did something really stupid.  I was at my babysitter's house - this older couple who I called Granny and Daddo, and who really were more like grandparents - and I put my hand on the stove burner.

They had an electric stove, the kind with burners that glowed orange as they grew hot.  I loved watching them heat up; I loved the warm, familiar burning smell they gave off.  So one day, after Granny had cooked us pasta on the stove and removed the pot, I was watching the hot orange coils and just stuck my hand out and placed it on top of them.  I'm not sure why I did it - I guess my fascination just made me want to touch the stove and see how hot it really was.  Let me tell you - it was quite hot indeed.

For the next few days I walked around like a little wounded puppy, a big blister on my palm that pulsed with pain.  That's the thing with burns - they stick around so much longer than they are welcome to.

The funny thing is that to this day, whenever anyone tells me they got a burn, I think back on my little childish hand and how badly it hurt, and it makes me feel for that person.  Maybe it's a silly example - but the memory of my pain helps me understand just how annoying and awful it is when you burn yourself on a hot pan, or with a curling iron, or even get a bad sunburn.  It makes me, in a small way, an empathetic person.

This is something I love about the fact that we are bone & flesh human beings and not robots.  When something happens that hurts us, be it our fault or not, it becomes part of our story.  And as we share our stories in relationship with other people, our pain becomes a point of connection.  It creates little windows and doorways and cracks where we can get in and say yes, I know exactly what you mean, yes, I know exactly how that feels.  Our empathy with each other is key to our relationships.

I think this is true because the more that I learn about the life of Jesus, the more I see that empathy was at the heart of his journey on earth, and at the heart of sharing God with us.  Jesus came not only so that we might know him, but that he might know us.  He came so that he might feel, to the fullest extent, the brokenness that plagues our lives and the sorrow that bears us down.  He came so that we could crawl before him in our weakest states and say "this hurts" and be able to hear in response "I know".

What I love about our wonderful, alchemist God is his ability to take our horrible trash and turn it into treasured gold.  That he can take our pain and build these doors of empathy that make us feel known and understood - that is gorgeous.  That is about the most hopeful thing I've ever known.

I know a lot of people who are in or have been in extreme pain.  Strike that - everyone I know is in or has been in extreme pain.  And I just think that we need to stop boxing up this pain and throwing it in the junk closet so that no one can see, because our pain is useful. Our pain is meant to be shared, and it is meant to be understood.

I think we need to remember who our God is, what he can do.  We need to start looking at our pain and saying to it "you are not my burden.  you are my doorway, you are my uncovered gold."

about ditching the whole scene

I'm trying to think of some sort of explanation to go along with this. But what it boils down to is - I spent a weekend at the beach with some of my best friends and we made a music video to a T.Swift song.

We are not normal.  and I love that.

about a different place and season

Charlottesville, some Februarys ago

Before my birthday

I walked from Washington

Park to Price -

Frozen apple orchards

Twenty miles south,

Tree limbs swathed

In snow. 

Two years in,

My cheeks lit

Like carnival lights.

“Dear city,” I thought,

“you’ve frozen

the letters

of my name like

black ice,”

“Dear city,

you’re letting

me belong”

Five miles or more,

Plying open frozen quiet

I sang this hymn to

The city,

Holding my chin against it, humming.

about 30 yummy things for the summer

Dear reader, I like yummy things. Do you?  I'm gonna go with believing you just enthusiastically screamed "YES!"

This summer I decided that in order to diversify my cooking skillz (and just in order to eat more delicious food) I am going to embark on an adventure entitled 30 Yummy Things For Summer.  Basically I am going to try out thirty new recipes before the summer is over.  So...yeah, not the most creative title. These recipes will come from wherever - blogs, friend recommendations, cooking magazines.  I'll feature some (but not all, because thirty sounds sort of like a lot) on the blog!

I have a feeling I'll discover so many new things along the way.  I've already discovered that I cannot for the life of me spell "recipe" because autocorrect keeps underlining it.

Today I kicked things off with Lime Jello Conspiracy Pie.  

I like this pie because it only takes a few ingredients (and you can see that I was lazy and didn't make my own graham cracker crust):

You get to use a LOT of cool whip:

It sort of looks like a science experiment when you're mixing everything together: 

And all in all, it ends up being a very summer-y, reminds-me-of-jello-salad-at-a-family-picnic-but-in-a-pie sort of pie.  I'm a fan! 

I found this from Joy the Baker - recipe here.  and PS. if you live in Arlington and like pie, PUHLEASE come take some of this off my hands.  Or I may just have pie for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the next few days... 

about a tree to grow

Tree to Grow from SerialBox Presents on Vimeo.

I'll never leave, I'll always stay, I swear on all that I keep safe. 

I swear.  

about escaping the slinky

Escaping the Slinky from LPV on Vimeo.

I had to post this little devotional today because it is shaking me from my core. And I hope you'll find a few quick minutes to listen as well.

Beth Moore is so honest and wonderful. I love following her on Twitter - I love her tweets about having food stuck in between her teeth mixed in with sincere questions about faith.  And I love what she has to say here about pride, because it is something I struggle trying to understand and struggle handing over to the Lord.  Today I'm thankful for some new thoughts and some honest words.

"If you're like me, something will happen that is meant to be humbling but instead I'll be devastated by it, or I'll be insecure about it, or I'll be offended by it.  So all of these other things come to play that are rooted in forms of pride, and they detract from the humility that God allowed them to be in our path to provide.  We end up being offended or hurt or devastated or insecure when the point of it is just, humility."  

about being your best and truest self

What a happy week this has been -- two dear friends got married!  So much celebration and joy and beauty covered all of these past few days.  I have been surrounded by people I adore, people who know me and care for me so well.  It has been such a blessing.

After our townhouse cleared of friends today and the wedding buzz died down, I took a long walk.  I remembered writing something last summer in my journal - "I feel like my truest self when I am loving someone else."

When you find yourself surrounded by people you love, your skin fits your bones better.  You feel like you are using your heart right for the first time - you feel like you've found yourself serendipitously in the perfect place at the perfect moment.

I think that God knows what He's doing when He saves place inside your heart to love the people you end up loving.  And when He brings those people into your life and situates them there.  The magic of that thought astounds and humbles me - that the God of the universe prepared me to love others, and that when I do that I am acting out my purpose here on the earth.

So thank you, friends - for being people I love.  Thank you for making me my best and truest self.