Photo Finish

Isn't this a great photo? In my opinion, it's the best picture anyone's ever taken of me. Shoes on left: mine. Shoes on right: my son Phil's.

This photo demonstrates perfectly the reason I love to take the pictures. I get to edit!Over the years I've learned that my facial expressions when I'm thinking, planning, or concentrating...any expression without a smile...all look like I'm in deep pain. I'm serious. Just a few days ago, someone asked me (again) what was wrong. Nothing, I answered (again). I'm just thinking.


Now, I don't mind looking goofy in pictures, as I can prove:

Here I am in Hong Kong with an amazing friend (she's taking the photo); so much fun posing under a rainbow. 

Looking ridiculous is fine, but looking not-so-thin? Oh, come one, does anyone like that? To prove my point, this is me--slouched into Dena's comfy couch eating her heavenly buttermilk pie, which I clearly do not need. Caption: Messy-Haired Worried Woman with Flapping Neck Eats Delicious-But-Unnecessary Pie Without Regret. 

Another issue with photos (and yes, there are more) involves changing hair colors. In this one, I hadn't met my genius hair-colorist, and I've had white hair since my 20's. I realized how gray it was when I stopped dying it in my 40's--and the drive-through kid at Carl's Jr's gave me the senior discount. Grrrrr. I immediately went back to the helmet-headed brown seen in this shot, taken in a land I love. Caption: Helmet-Headed Woman Having Fun With Wonderful Friend Whose Hair is Actually Brown.

This is a second photo with my son whose feet you already met in the first photo. This one illustrates Personal Problem #4 regarding candid shots of me, which is the fact that I'm not a morning person and I'm not a spend-time-styling-hair person. Here I am with a look that seems kind of angry--and hair that looked pretty cute that day from the front (which is all I ever care about, until I see pictures not taken from the front).  Yep, I like to take pictures.

This is me, getting acquainted with a horse named Patriot, in the photo that's going to take me to the purpose of this piece. In this picture, I'm seeing exactly one angle of Patriot. I saw his head, his eyes, and his ears one fine day at my friend Dena's, but I never went into the stall and saw him. up close, from any other perspective...

Our brains are like cameras, taking pictures constantly and judging them by how well we like them. 

This is true about people and horses and God. I'm asking for an upgraded experiential internal photo of God that carries the same caption I'd add to this picture (yes, I like this one): Picture taken by friend who had the knowledge, desire, and a close enough relationship to capture my heart with hers.


Jehovah is not a dispassionate, disconnected father-figure, revealing Himself only at a distance. He has emotions. They are written all over The Book. We tend to cut out the ones that show the characteristics we're comfortable with and glue them into our internal photo albums, but when He shows His other traits, we don't always know what to do with that. It's true that concepts like justice look entirely different since grace came into the picture at the cross, but we do not serve a God we can control or even totally understand. He is strong in our defense. He is mighty in hearing and responding to our prayers.


Our assignment is to know Him and to judge Him good, no matter what the current circumstances of our lives may imply.  For me, right now, it's tempting to take huge photos of what free will has produced on our planet. 


But the Holy Spirit is always ready to show us a bigger, truer, fuller picture of God. In this season of life, I am so aware that He tugs on the threads of free will. I am being filled with the fact that He is unrelentingly pulling the dark threads of our life's tapestries into masterpieces of redemption. 


His love won't leave us alone, victims of free will, which is such great news. And in the bigger picture, His heart is more tender towards those we care about than ours could ever be, adding His strength, His wisdom, His perfect timing. 


So I'm asking, much as Moses implored so long ago: "Let Your glory pass before me..." My request comes from the viewpoint of this more accurate translation: "Let Your GOODNESS pass before me..." 


Oh, God, my good, good God. Please don't let me miss Your goodness, Your wholeness, Your truth, Your heart today. I will choose the great shots and delete the distorted photos permanently, never to be recycled.


Thank You from the bottom of my tender, purified, longing, loving, healing heart. 

January 31, 2011

Writing in Real Time

These days my heart is longing for my future husband, the husband I've never met. These waves of hurtful hope have crashed over me for days on end throughout the past 20 years. While they are hard, I've found that these times are painful (but not pointless). They are all about the dismantling of self-protection fences. They always leave my heart softer and more able to fully experience and appreciate the love that is all around me now. But between Wait--it's hard and feels lonely and sad!--and See, there are some very rough spots.

Surviving these waves of hope requires me to on celebrate every perfect moment in my life--which is also, I've come to understand, the key to a happy marriage. Married or single, life happens. The problems, the hard times, even the sheer daily-ness of it all...it's all distracting, all potentially disturbing. So I've learned that the perfect moments must be captured as they occur, like exquisite snowflakes on the fingertip of a warm glove.

Watch for me, (every perfect moment cries). See me, celebrate me, remember me before I melt into the texture of your life unnoticed.

I'm living one of those perfect moments in a cottage in Calistoga, California, where I'm spending the weekend. After sleeping for luxurious hours, I retrieved my breakfast from the common room and put on a DVD I've seen many times. It is the perfect movie for my mood. (Is that as hard for you as it is for me?) The movie's on Pause now; it's time to explore a sudden wave of deeper truth than my missing-spouse reality. 

Here it is, the unvarnished reality: I'm longing to fall in love. Not internet-love. Real-time love. In my opinion, mating sites are great, but my ad in the personals is not looking great. I have no material assets (in fact, I'm in the red!), plenty of sagging body bits, and only one breast.  The man who loves me will have to meet me first and fall in love with my eyes, my hope, my laugh, my tender heart. If that seems impossible (and it does seem that way to me, at times), I recall that God created a woman for Adam out of a rib and some dirt, and He is still in the creation business. So there.  

Meanwhile, there is no time to waste. I hear a song, when I'm hushed enough. It's calling me, reminding me of my first love, calling me to an upgraded perspective of my Bridegroom, the King of Kings. It reminds me that He is both a lover and a writer. He is The Word, and He is writing in my life.

In some way that exceeds my current understanding, He is weaving a beautiful tale, using both the best and the indescribably difficult threads of my life, including the newest one, the one that began with a cell phone call on the morning of December 21, 2010 (my birthday). That call started the unspooling of the chapter about my 36-year-old son's aneurysm, stroke, and all the other miracle-requiring strands of that situation. 

Lee is doing amazingly well physically and I'm coming out of numbness enough to begin to feel grateful. I'm beginning to see that my Bridegroom, the Writer, is thoughtfully, slowly, kindly weaving all the segments of this chapter into a miraculous story of hope. 

Dare I believe this? I must. 

When I try to skip these pages of my life story and look ahead, the dark possibilities color the plot-line with ominous movie music. And it's not just my pieces that concern me. My 90-year-old parents, miles away, with their health problems--what is the happy ending? As she cares for them, how will my sister find grace to deal with all the pieces of her life story? 

Danger! Danger! The music warns me, calling me back from of the future. I turn around, trying to run to the safety of the past, but no. The bridges are all burned. Only hope remains. 

So in this perfect moment, on this perfect day, I resolve to breathe. I will breathe in the awareness that my Bridegroom, the King of Kings, is also my Advocate, the One Who ever lives to intercede for me and promises to perfect all that concerns me. I will remember that He is touched in all ways--not just with the facts of my life and loved ones--but even with the feelings of all that we experience.

Alright, it's writing recess time. Time to watch the end of the DVD, a movie called "Love, Actually", a fact which you should consider a recommendation only with this dire disclaimer... It comes from a person who considers the word Crap a synonym for awful and for whom the S-word is appropriate for things I feel strongly about, both good and bad. Yes, that's me, the one who has always reserved the F-word (the word both my sons say does not sound right coming from my mouth) for really, really desperate situations. The same person who has spoken the F-word frequently and to the point of offending others in the past month. The person who is coming out the shock they entered on December 21 and lost most of Christmas (but will always remember and appreciate Kellie Milton, who gave it such a great shot). I promise that I'm not trying to be crude, I just haven't been able to find any other words to describe this last event cluster than "What the F---?" I am trying. You can pray that writing helps.

Anyway, I watched the rest of the movie, the title of which I only divulge to demonstrate the fact that my Bridegroom is so great that He brought me to Calistoga on January 22, 2011 to give me both my birthday and Christmas back. This is a happy-ending Christmas movie, right up to the last second. Now it's lunchtime, and I'm preparing to my temporary love-nest for a little while. I'm going to buy a Sunday San Francisco Chronicle. My Bridegroom will help me find a place to eat where His presence is more than enough. 


I am a living story with a very, very happy ending. Here I go, putting on my shoes and jacket, grabbing hold of a rope-swing called hope, pushing away from the safety of the tree, hanging on for dear life. 


It's a first-love life, and I am superbly loved. 

To be continued...


January 23, 2011

It's a Ring Thing

I absolutely love rings. And bargains. I’m convinced that when the two converge, an angel gets her wings (or something equally mystical and wondrous happens).

This love affair began when I discovered the joys of cheap adjustable rings as a young girl browsing the gift shop on the wharf at Santa Cruz. From then on, the word Souvenir was spelled R-I-N-G in my dictionary. Years later I found eBay, where companies run promotional sales to lure jewelry lovers into their regular higher prices. Not me, sucker! I’m in and out faster than you can say, “That’s too much money, honey, I’m only here for the sale.” I’ve found some pretty fun rings along the way.

One of my favorite rings was missing the day I received word that my 36-year-old son was in the hospital in Dallas having brain surgery for an aneurysm. Lee’s brother, Philip, and I had about 15 minutes to pack before we caught a ride to the airport at Oakland, California, an hour from where we live. As I grabbed the necessities, I picked up a cosmetics bag: out fell the missing ring, a plain silver back that simply reads, PEACE. I told you I love rings.

Four days later, on Christmas Eve, Philip and I returned to California. The surgery was successful. The aneurysm and resulting stroke stole none of Lee’s physical or mental skills. It was a miracle, and will need to be a miracle that continues to unfold, since Lee has no benefits and can’t work for several months as he heals.

Back in California, I kind of went into shock as I processed the whole event. After a few days, I decided that the event deserved a ring reward, so off to eBay I surfed. I found a site selling inexpensive, attractive rings engraved with these words: “Be Still And Know That I Am God.” I ordered it immediately.

It felt like the U.S.P.S. held that package hostage, but the ring finally arrived. It’s a beautiful silver ring with a larger inscribed yellow gold band over it. The funny thing is this...the gold band spins around the silver band. I’m not sure how they make that happen, but it seems fairly ironic. The band that says “Be Still!” spins in circles around the band that has no choice.

I’d been pondering this awhile, trying to put my perception about the ring into words, when a friend and I watched the newest version of “Karate Kid.” The Teacher says to the Kid, “Being still is not the same as doing nothing.” Perfect.You see, every time I put my hand on the steering wheel of my Saturn—and the sun’s shining, so I can read!—my ring displays a different message that starts a divine conversation.

Be Still...Stop worrying. Just breathe.

...And Know...It’s not about having an empty mind, it’s about focus on the bottom-line truth that has never failed....

...That I... Not you, Joyce, Me. You are not God and you don’t have to have all the answers or even all the right feelings...

...Am God. Period.

My heart replies: Yes, You are, and You are so good, so faithful. Thank You that every good gift comes from You—including this beautiful eBay ring.

January 17, 2011

Darker Pieces of a Joyful Life

At 12:15 a.m. on December 21, 2010, it felt like a wind of joy blew over my heart. My birthday! Joy? On my birthday?


That night, the longest of the year, often brings with it an involuntary longing to pull into my shell like a crusty turtle and emotionally absorb the many challenges that have unfolded in our family story.

My perspective of holiday celebrations was forever changed the day my 34-year-old husband was diagnosed with colon cancer; we got that call the week of Thanksgiving, 1986. John's 8-week post-operative hospital stay was punctuated with frightening nearly-worst-case scenario situations, like systemic septic poisoning and a blood clot that passed through his heart. Our boys, then twelve and nine years old, opened their presents in the hospital waiting room that year.

My husband, John, loved Christmas so much, and we had a few good ones before the cancer recurred and he died in 1992, just forty years old.
I made a conscious decision the week of his funeral to remember the funniest possible part of every life event after his death. That turned out to be really smart, because life has had it's rough places.

Here's one example: after my own breast cancer diagnosis and mastectomy in 1995, I found myself in a hospital waiting room dressed in one of those lovely gowns, waiting for a heart stress-test, my clothes neatly piled on my lap. When the nurse called my name she reached out and grabbed my stack of clothes...not realizing that I hadn't yet purchased a special undergarment with a pocket for my new prosthetic boob. Those things bounce. I choose to laugh at the memory that proves it.


Many great gifts have come into our lives--two daughter-in-laws! two grandchildren!--but still, it's often been really challenging. I've worked hard to live in peace, and been militant about gratitude, no matter what. But even so, that wind of joy on my last birthday surprised me a lot. 

When the phone rang at 5:30 that morning, I thought my son who lives in Dallas had remembered my birthday, and was leaving me a birthday greeting. The phone stopped ringing before I woke up enough to grab it, but when I listened to the message, it wasn't such a happy surprise. Lee was calling to say that he was in the hospital and the neurosurgeon had just informed him that his brain was bleeding.

By 10:30 p.m. that night, my younger son, Phil, and I had arrived at the hospital in Dallas, and were looking at a six-inch scar across Lee's head. The ICU nurse woke him so he could tell us about the 6-day blinding headache that finally forced him to the hospital for a long, risky surgery. The surgeon sewed up a bleeding aneurysm that led to a stroke.

It's such a miracle. Lee has all his physical and mental capacities intact. But the healing will take months; he has no work benefits, and I know how difficult this is for my daughter-in-law, too. And I care, I care so much. 

The thing is, it's surprisingly hard for me, too, and somehow that has to be alright. I'll write funny stories again, but right now it feels like someone pulled a scab off a deep wound of hard memories, a wound that needs to bleed awhile every day so the next layer of healing can be complete. My fingers can type, my eyes can cry, but often there are just no words willing to come out of my mouth.

I'm dealing almost nightly with layers of grief, surrounded by altars of wet Kleenex tissues. It's all real. But this is also true: the birthday wind of joy was real, too. It's a good thing God is brilliant, because I can't make sense out of this yet, but He doesn't need me to. Somehow, somewhere deep inside I know. 

On December 21, 2010, our family entered the best time of our lives, a time of "exceedingly, abundantly above all we could ever ask or think".

Tonight, I'm crying: not fighting it, just letting myself breath big gulps of grace, a word that means "God understands.". I'm may not always feel it right now, but I'm very thankful for miracles, Kleenex, my new job, my family, our friends, the Cooking Channel, chocolate, super-soft blankets...and my Comforter.