Everyday Life

Categories Everyday Life, Faith

Wood, Hay, Rubble

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About two weeks after a massive tornado cut a swathe through Moore, Oklahoma, Daniel and I took a team from our church down to help with relief.

We essentially walked around until we found homeowners who were digging through the ruins of their homes–and asked if they needed help with anything.

Different people had different requests.

Daniel and I stopped first at a home where a woman was digging about for anything that might be salvageable. Helping was difficult, because we really didn’t know what she wanted or didn’t want. What was important to her? What did she consider worth saving? We didn’t know, so we busied ourselves with moving bricks and beams and broken furniture, piling up anything that was at all intact for her to sort through. Once she started looking herself, it became apparent that the items she cared about the most were DVDs.

Daniel amidst the rubble

Her next door neighbor stood outside her house, unsure of what to do. This second homeowner, unlike her neighbor, understood that insurance would cover ruined belongings. She wasn’t interested in searching for this item or that. Her daughter (in the elementary school that was devastated) was out of the hospital. Her sons were safe.

But that didn’t mean she didn’t have a request for us.

Her mother was worried that the church people might show up and see the couple dozen trash bags worth of beer cans now strewn across the property. What would they think? Her Christian reputation would be ruined if they could see that evidence of how much she drinks. Would we help?

Two friends held open trash bags as Daniel and I shoveled beer cans as fast as we could. We filled the bed of a pickup truck. They’d be able to recycle them for some cash.

When we met up with some others of our group, they had a different story to share.

A family was searching for an heirloom–a family Bible full of underlinings and notes, with leaves outlining births and deaths and baptisms. Our team searched with them, digging through the remains of their lives.

A Bible was found, was brought to the homeowner. The homeowner opened it, confirmed that this was indeed the Bible. The couple dropped what they were doing, called off the team.

That was it. The rest could be bulldozed. Nothing else mattered.

They circled the team for a prayer of thankfulness before they headed back to their temporary housing.

“Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

I Corinthians 3:12-13 (KJV)

Before the Day stands these lowercase days, days when wind–not fire–exposes our hearts. Are we set on the entertainments of this world? Are we building merely a facade to hide our sin? Or will the wind expose a life that sets its hope in the eternal?

I pray that the Day…and every lowercase day…will find me building with gold, searching for silver, storing up precious stones.

What a loss, if the wind should come and all I be left with is wood, hay, and rubble.

Categories Marriage

Transitioning into Marriage

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About a month ago, Melinda and Carrie from Wholesome Womanhood asked me if I would be willing to participate in a blog carnival answering the questions:

“How did you transition between singleness and marriage? Was it difficult? Were there some things about marriage that surprised you?”

I immediately agreed, thinking I’d love to share my (very) recent experiences. What I wasn’t necessarily thinking about at the time was what the really honest answer to those questions would be–and how hard it would be to write those down.

The truth is, to answer the questions in reverse: Sex surprised me. It was difficult. I’m not quite sure how the transition happened–except with lots of grace, lots of patience, and lots of communication.

I want to give a warning to my readers. I’m not going to be graphic, but I am going to talk about sex pretty frankly–since that has been the most difficult change for Daniel and I.

In retrospect, we were given some warning. Kevin Lehman talked in Sheet Music about how married sex is different than illicit premarital sex (I am so glad neither of us had to deal with comparisons there!) in that you’re learning what makes *one person* tick. My mom cautioned that all the books in the world couldn’t tell me what *Daniel* would want or what would feel good to *me*.

Still, I somehow had the impression that sex would just be a matter of doing the right things. Furthermore, I read three different books on sex (Kevin Lehman’s Sheet Music, Gary Smalley and Ted Cunningham’s The Language of Sex, and Ed Wheat’s Intended for Pleasure) so I had a good idea of what the right things were. Or so I thought.

I learned pretty quickly that my perception was completely wrong.

What I learned is that Daniel is not just any man and I am not just any woman. I am myself, he is himself. Just because the books say men prefer this or that doesn’t mean Daniel prefers either. Just because the books say women like this or that doesn’t mean I like either. Instead, we had to learn (mostly from scratch) what pleases one another.

What I learned about sex as a newly married woman (Okay, so I’m still a newly married woman–just three months in) is that sex is hard work. Sex requires practice, persistence, patience. And it requires communication.

We learned that we had to relax our expectations. Sex will not necessarily be amazing every time. Sometimes it might hurt. What seemed to work a few days ago may not work today. We learned that trying to make every time we had sex a “10” just stressed us out–and too often resulted in tears of disappointment instead of tears of joy. We had to relax and focus on intimacy, on learning about one another, on enjoying the small (and sometimes large) pleasures. As we did, our overall experience improved–as did our outlook towards the more “ho-hum” moments.

We learned that we had to be willing to experiment. A lot of the practical advice in the books I read was centered around spicing up a boring sex life–which I suppose is useful for a couple who’s been married for a while and maybe has gotten into a rut. But for the couple who hasn’t really figured out what works for them? The books weren’t too helpful. We had to learn to experiment on our own–with different positions, different types of foreplay, different ways of communicating with one another what we liked, different brands of lubrication, different times of day. We had to be willing to retry things that didn’t quite work, switching up a variable or two. As we did, we learned more about ourselves and each other–and added to our list of shared experiences.

We learned that we had to keep on communicating. We both of us had to be willing to say “That’s really not working for me” or “Why don’t you try…” We’ve had to be vocal about when we were enjoying something. We’ve learned that we need to keep talking about differing expectations for frequency of sex, length of sex, whatever. We’ve had to learn to ask when we don’t understand each other’s facial expressions or sounds. Even though we discussed sex, including our expectations, prior to getting married, we have had to keep on discussing sex frequently since then.

We learned that we had to be patient.

Sex isn’t learned overnight. Great sex doesn’t happen in a week-long honeymoon or even a month of regular practice. There are plenty of things that we still need to learn about each other and how to please one another more fully. But, the good news is that we know that practice and patience pays off. Communication and care produces results. And we have the rest of our lives to continue to learn how to have truly outstanding sex.

Please note: When I had my husband read this over, he reminded me that what I’ve said above isn’t really new. The books *did* warn of these same things–but in our premarital optimism we somehow glossed over those things. Daniel says that the most important thing *he’s* learned has been from the paragraph that starts “What I learned is that Daniel is not just any man and I am not just any woman.”

Don’t forget to visit Melinda and Carrie’s blog post to see how other women transitioned into marriage.

Categories Work

My “Personal” Collection

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I don’t think my client’s intend to steal from me.

They’re in a hurry, the kids are screaming–they don’t notice that one of the kids has a toy up his sleeve.

Little Jenny has her bucket of personal toys. Mom checked to make sure she’s carrying the bucket out, but didn’t notice that Little Jenny had stashed all my sorting shapes inside.

I don’t make too big a deal of it.

Life happens.

I take the sorting lid off the bucket and now I have my own bucket, devoid of shapes to sort.

image

Likewise, I don’t intend to steal from my clients.

They’re in a hurry, the kids are screaming, I’ve got ten minutes to chart on all four before we close down the office–I didn’t notice that Little Johnny left behind his toy car.

By the time I find the toy the next morning when I’m tidying up my office before new clients, I can’t say for certain whose toy it was–and the client is long gone.

I don’t make too big a deal of it.

Life happens.

image

I collect the detritus in a corner of my desk.

So far, I have

  • 3 matchbox cars
  • 1 teething toy
  • 1 flip phone without a back
  • 1 gray and pink burp cloth

They nestle carefully in the shape sorting lid from my bucket, reminding me that sometimes you lose things and sometimes you gain things–but, generally, life happens.

Categories Everyday Life

A (Second) Naming Exercise

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In my first naming exercise, I suggested using a thesaurus as a baby-naming tool. This remains a great source for unique, incomprehensible, and unpronounceable names–but I’ve learned even more naming tricks in my tenure at WIC.

One popular choice is to take a common name and switch one or more letters to make it an uncommon name.

I’ll use some of my cousin’s names as examples.

Eric becomes Aric
Sarah becomes Barah
Joel becomes Coel
Jennifer becomes Dennifer
Adam becomes Edam
Tabitha becomes Fabitha
Kyle becomes Gyle
Susannah becomes Husannah
Elizabeth becomes IyLizabeth
Christine becomes Jistine
Joseph becomes Koseph
Joanna becomes Loanna
Caroline becomes Maraline
Lauren becomes Nauren
Aaron becomes Oh’ron
Naomi becomes Paomi
Caleb becomes Qualeb
Donna becomes Ronna
Daniel becomes Saniel
James becomes Tames
Anthony becomes Untony
Luke becomes Vuke
*Note that W has been skipped because I can’t countenance lisping a name, even for an exercise*
Brett becomes Xett
Paul becomes Yaul
Benjamin becomes Zenjamin

Of course, this is only switching up the first letter of the name. Multitudes of additional combinations can be made by trading out one or more of the middle or ending letters. For example, Jane can become Hael by changing the J to an H (Hane), switching the e and the n (Haen) and then switching the N to an L.

The possibilities are endless.

Please note that all names (except those of my cousins) are fictionalized. Any resemblance with actual WIC client names is entirely accidental. :-)

Also note that this is not a complete listing of my cousins. Exclusions were made to keep the number at 25. My apologies to those whose names I have not butchered.

Categories Family & Friends, Following Christ

What I pray for your children

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If you are one of my siblings or one of my bloggy friends, I pray for you and for your children. Approximately once a week, your name pops up on my phone and, generally while I’m cleaning the toys in my office, I pray for you. If you have expressed a particular request or if I’ve deduced one from what you’ve written, I’ll pray for that; but otherwise, I pray a very specific sort of prayer.

I do not pray for your children to be obedient.

Obedient, manageable children are nice to have, easy to care for. But that isn’t what I want for you or for them.

Obedience and manageability can mask inward apathy or rebellion. Obedience and manageability can convince a child that they’re a “good kid”. They can begin to rely upon their “good kid” status. They can begin to work hard to maintain their “good kid” status. Someday, they may rebel against their “good kid” status.

I don’t pray for them to obedient. They need something more.

They need Jesus.

Even so, I do not pray for your children to love Jesus.

Many a child who “loves Jesus”–who delights to sing Bible songs, who loves to go to Sunday School, who tells his friends about Jesus–grows up to be an adult who rejects the faith.

“Loving Jesus” is often a cultural thing, about speaking the lingo of the church, singing the songs of the church, acting the way church people do.

But just like the children of hippies turned yuppie and the children of yuppies turned hipster, the children of Christianity often turn atheist or agnostic or non-practicing nothings.

I don’t pray for the to “love Jesus”. They need something more.

You see, I don’t want your children to just love Jesus, like they love their favorite toy, I want them to know Jesus.

And I don’t want your children to just know Jesus, I want them to know Jesus savingly.

And if they are to know Jesus savingly, they must know that they are depraved.

For that reason, I pray that your children would recognize their sinfulness.

I pray that they would be acutely aware of their inability to live up to God’s standard.

I pray that they would recognize the futility of their works to ever change their status.

I pray that they would fall wholly upon the mercy of God in the person of Christ.

That, my friends, is what I pray for your children.

Categories Family & Friends

Snapshot: Mothers

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My mother was indispensable in wedding planning. From the reception site to the cake to making salads to altering my dress, her hand was all over our wedding.

Nevertheless, I didn’t even think to have her there to help me dress. (Shame, shame.)

Thankfully, my photographer did think, so I gave my mom a call and she quickly got dressed in her fancies and made her way over to the church (she’d just been picking up the rolls from the bakery, of course.)

My mother helping lace up my dress

I’m glad she was there to celebrate with us that my brother and sister-in-law and niece had arrived. I’m glad she was there to help lace up the back of my dress. I’m glad she was there to show my sister (also my maid of honor) how to bustle up the dress.

But even had she not been there at those exact moment, my mom has faithfully been there whenever I needed her.

Me and my mother

I didn’t see my brother Timothy escort my mother up the aisle, but I have pictures to see my mother make the way up–her first time as mother of the bride.

My mother walking up the aisle

I also didn’t see my mother and my mother-in-law-to-be mount the stage to light their respective candles. But I have pictures of them returning.

My mother and mother in law lighting the unity candle

I do remember greeting my new mother-in-law with a hug in the receiving line. I remember hugging the woman who has welcomed me so well into her family.

My mother

This year, for the first time, I am blessed to have two wonderful women to honor on Mothers’ Day.

Both of these women have blessed me immeasurably–one in raising me in the fear of the Lord and the other in raising my husband in that same fear.

May we ever rise up and call her blessed.

“Many women do noble things,
but you surpass them all.
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done,
and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.”
~Proverbs 31:29-31 (ESV)

We are their works, my husband and I. May we ever bring them praise.

Surely, they deserve it.

Categories Everyday Life

The path they traveled

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When it got to be a week and a half after our photographer (The wonderful Chris of La Brisa Photography) told us he was sending the USB of our wedding photos and I still hadn’t seen them, I started to wonder.

I sent Chris a quick update. “Hey, we haven’t gotten the USB drive yet. Were you not able to get it into the mail as planned?”

Chris’s reply was prompt: “That’s strange. I received confirmation that it was delivered on the 25th of April!”

He went onto list the address he’d sent it to.

I read the address, looked through our pile of mail again.

Then I looked at the address again.

Just a second. Of course. That wasn’t our address. Two of the digits had been transposed–so that instead of sending our photos to 1243 Our Street, they were sent to 1234 Our Street (Not our real address :-P).

Daniel and I at our wedding

During our “first look” session

I’m sure it was my mistake.

If I weren’t so lazy, I’d look up the email trail to confirm that it was my mistake.

I’m sure I’ve done it before, if only in my mind–and once it’s wrong, it’s easy just to rush through the address for confirmation, see all the digits and transpose them in my own mind…

So, instead of being delivered to US, our wedding photos were sent to someone the next block over.

I was on my lunch break, so I prepared a letter explaining the predicament and made my way down the block to 1234 Our Street.

I rang the doorbell and waited. No one there. I’d expected that–it was the middle of the day. That’s why I’d prepared the letter. I opened the screen door to insert the letter and decided, on a whim, to knock.

The dogs barking indicated that the doorbell probably didn’t work (they would have barked at the bell, right?) and a few moments later, the resident of 1234 Our Street opened the door.

I explained my predicament in a single long incomprehensible sentence. Mr. 1234 rubbed his eyes and asked me to explain one more time.

I slowed down and tried to explain more clearly. “My name is Rebekah Garcia. I live just down the street at 1243 Our Street. I was supposed to have a letter delivered to me last week, but I believe it was accidentally sent to you. I was wondering if you’d received it–it contains my wedding pictures and I’d really like to have them.”

This time my explanation made more sense. Mr 1234 explained that he didn’t know, since he’s just back from traveling, but that he’d ask his better half when she got off work. I left my cell phone number with him and waited.

Walking to a vacant lot for photos

Walking to a vacant lot for more photos

I waited impatiently.

After two days, I checked back in.

“We’re still searching. The kids swear they got the mail.”

I assured him I knew how that went–and went back to my everyday life.

Finally, this Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in bed with Daniel’s laptop on my lap processing some data for one of Daniel’s projects when the doorbell rang.

Daniel got up to answer it, his textbook being easier to get off his lap than the laptop off of mine.

“Is this where Rebekah Garcia lives?”

I listened with growing excitement as Daniel received the package from our neighbor.

My pictures were HERE!

Daniel and I at our wedding

Categories Everyday Life

A Naming Exercise

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Working at WIC has introduced me to a whole range of names that I never would have imagined existed as names.

I have lived my entire life believing the Bible to be the best source for ideas in naming children.

After all, my siblings are Anna, Joshua, Daniel, John, Timothy, and Grace.

//On a side note, the boys in my family appear in Biblical order of appearance: Joshua comes before Daniel who comes before John who comes before Timothy–while the girls in my family appear in reverse order of appearance: Anna comes after Rebekah who comes after the first appearance of Grace. This was NOT planned.//

When trying to be unique, I still relied on Scripture for my names. I imagined daughters with Biblical place names as their first names: Bethel, Tirzah, Shiloh. (Davene has a beautiful Moriah.)

My second source of ideas for names was books, namely literature. Many of these names, of course, coincided with the Biblical names.

I could have a Jane, an Elizabeth, a William (I’m not pretentious enough to add the Fitz–and woe on the daughter named Kitty or Lydia.) I could have a Nancy, a Frank, or a Joe. I could have a Caroline, a Charles, a Laura, a Mary, or a Carrie. I could have Anne or Gilbert or Blythe (did you see what I just did there?)

The one book I never imagined getting names from was the thesaurus. But apparently, that is THE baby naming book of the decade.

Let’s give it a try. Start with a word, any word, and get looking.

I’ll start with HAPPY.

Thesaurus.com suggests “blessed, blest, blissful, blithe, can’t complain, captivated, cheerful, chipper, chirpy, content, contented, convivial, delighted, ecstatic, elated, exultant, flying high, gay, glad, gleeful, gratified, intoxicated, jolly, joyful, joyous, jubilant, laughing, light, lively, looking good, merry, mirthful, on cloud nine, overjoyed, peaceful, peppy, perky, playful, pleasant, pleased, sparkling, sunny, thrilled, tickled, tickled pink, up, upbeat, walking on air”.

Let’s get busy making naming trees now.

Blest would be a good name–but it would be even better if spelled B’lest. And its synonyms suggest: Adored (probably pronounced Uh-Door-AY-d), Divine (possibly spelled D’vine), and Celebrate.

Blissful’s synonyms are rich in possibility: Delighted (clearly the best way to spell this would be DeeLyte), Ecstatic (spell this Xtatik), Enchanted (probably pronounced “EN-shahn-T” with a silent “ed”), Heavenly (but this is too straightforward–best to spell it backwards as Yl-Neveah, pronounced “I-ul-Nuh-VAY-ah” or “Ill-Nuh-VAY-ah”), Rapturous (pronounced “Rap-TWO-russ”, of course.)

Give it a try. What names can YOU come up with?

Please note that all names are fictionalized. Any resemblance with actual WIC client names is entirely accidental. :-)

Categories Everyday Life

Miscellany

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Remember my new nightstand?

Apparently it is now home to Daniel’s glasses.

Daniel's glasses on Nightstand

I don’t really mind. If I did, I’d transfer them back onto his own nightstand.

Still, it’s funny how that happens.

This morning, I was telling Daniel that I was excited–and I came up with a new simile to describe my excitement: “Like a sixteen-year-old getting her period for the first time.”

Daniel suggested that I post said simile on Facebook.

It managed to gross out one of our least gross-out-able friends.

Does that gross you out, or does it convey (as I intended) the excitement and relief of the arrival of a long-anticipated event?

Our wedding photos are now up so that we can order professional prints–and the electronic copies (which we bought rights for) should be arriving any day.

Which means I should soon have wedding photos to share with you. (For some strange reason, I didn’t take any pictures of my own that day :-P)

For now, I’ll give you a teaser from among the stuff our photographer posted on Facebook.

Sunset Photo

Categories Everyday Life

Profile of a Terrorist

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Since we all know that the greatest risk to the safety of Americans is fundamentalist Christians, it makes sense that the TSA engage in terrorist profiling.

I suggest profiling for the following characteristics:

  • White Race
    Everyone knows that most fundamentalist Christians are white. And everyone knows that most white supremacists are white. Which means that white people who exhibit characteristics of Christian fundamentalism are a threat. Obviously.
  • Female
    While most known perpetrators of terrorism are male, any woman who is willing to submit to so misogynist a culture as Christian fundamentalism may be just as easily brainwashed into committing an act of terror.
  • Long hair
    Clearly, just being a white woman is insufficient to make one a terrorism suspect. A vast majority of white women are innocuous. When white women become a risk is when they also exhibit signs of religious fundamentalism like Long Hair or…
  • Long skirts
    See above. Actually, though, just to make sure that we don’t miss any terrorists, we should probably suspect any woman crazy enough to fly in a skirt–no matter what the length.

The above profile most likely explains why I have been “randomly” selected for additional screening the last six times I have flown.

During the last two flights (on my honeymoon), I exhibited fewer signs (I wore jeans on the way TO South Carolina and a knee length skirt on my way BACK from South Carolina) so I only had minimal additional screening–a closer look at my shoes and my tablet. Prior to that, I enjoyed four full-body pat downs.

When I shared this, my pet conspiracy theory, with the Happy Food crowd (friends who get together for dinner every Tuesday night) last night, they offered an alternate explanation: My file has been flagged.

This, it is true, is a more likely explanation for how I’ve been “randomly” selected so often.

But, the question remains: Why on EARTH would they flag ME?

Some potential explanations: I wore long skirts (potentially capable of hiding something underneath) while flying on four different occasions. On the fourth flight, after waiting ten minutes for a female TSA agent to search me, I questioned why a male TSA agent couldn’t do the job (since there were several male agents standing around doing nothing.) Or…maybe…I don’t know.

Oh, wait. I have an idea.

Maybe it’s because I attended a Tea Party Rally.

Yep, that’s probably it.

And…I’m back to conspiracy theories.

Sigh.

:-)