I always enjoy it when a parent offers me a chance to spend time with their young ones–and last Saturday, I got to spend a day with Jonah and Livi.
I returned from taking Livi to the bathroom to find that Jonah had made himself a “nest” with all the living room pillows.
Livi wanted to join in the fun so she grabbed the sole remaining pillow and tried her best to make a nest as well.
…of saying “I’m a fan” or “I’m not a fan”.
Evidence?
According to this very blog, I’m a fan of…
And, by the same source, I’m not a fan of…
Yeah, I’m pretty much a fangirl. Or not.
There’s a little game I play on occasion–I call it “when I get a big-girl job”.
You see, right now I work on a contract basis, with a semester-by-semester contract for the teaching assistantship. I have low job security and need to be prepared for an extended job search each time my contract expires. Because of this, any “extra” money that I earn gets funneled immediately into savings.
Which means that there are a number of things I want but don’t really need that I’ve put off purchasing for now.
But on the days that I allow myself to play “when I get a big-girl job”, I dream of buying a road bike and contact lenses.
The road bike is for me.
I love cycling and commute wherever I can on my bicycle. I’m ridiculously slow, in part because I’m not in that great of shape and in part because my bicycle is not that great.
I bought it seven years ago off a rack at Walmart. It’s a standard $100 mountain bike, heavyish and clunky. It’s great for a kid exploring–not so great for an adult who wants to commute.
Then there was the accident. Only months after purchasing my bike, I had an unfortunate encounter with a fire hydrant that mangled the front post. Somehow, between my dad and my grandpa, we managed to scrounge up a new front post and get it installed. The new post is older and heavier, and unfortunately, the brake mount is different–and doesn’t exactly work correctly.
I’ve tried replacing the brakes, remounting them, working whatever hacks I can. But I’ve been unsuccessful at truly making the brakes work properly. So the mount swings back and forth and occasionally, I discover that I’m working double time trying to ride with the brake pad applied to one side of a wheel.
So I’d really like a new bike. A road bike, light and well-designed.
The second item isn’t so much for me as it is for my dad.
When it became clear that my vision needed correction, I chose glasses over contacts for a number of reasons. First, glasses are the economically savvy choice. They last until you need a new prescription. Second, glasses are the economically savvy choice. :-) Even if you use contacts, you should have a pair of glasses for emergencies anyway. Third, I have perennial environmental allergies. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to introduce little pieces of plastic into my already regularly red and itchy eyes.
Now, though, I’m eager to give contacts a try.
Why?
Because my glasses bug my dad to pieces. They’re perpetually crooked.
At first, I regularly dropped by the eye center where I bought my glasses to have the professionals there straighten my frames. It frustrated me that by the time I returned home, they were sitting crooked again.
I took to straightening them myself–but it never seemed to last for long.
Finally, I figured out what the problem was.
My nose is crooked.
That’s not new information–but I hadn’t connected the two. You see, my nose’s crookedness begins very close to the bridge of my nose and continues all the way down. Which means that straight glasses, if placed all the way at the bridge, will sit straight. But if those glasses slip even a quarter of an inch down my nose, they will begin to tilt precariously.
The glasses that once sat parallel to my eyebrows now lie at odd angles, giving me a rather mad professor look.
It doesn’t bother me too much–but it drives my dad crazy.
Enough that I’m ready to try contacts “when I get a big-girl job”.
In the past week or two, three of my four brothers have built themselves computers. They have finally conceded that laptops are a bad investment (I’ve been telling them this for years–my desktop is showing no signs of waning after 7 years while most of them have gone through two laptops in the same period.) And, apart from the economics, they also realize that desktops are immensely preferable as gaming computers.
That, after all, is really why they built their computers.
So last Sunday, after our family (plus some) lunch, Daniel set up a table in the basement and traveled home to get his computer. John went to his separate corner of the city to get his computer. And Timothy brought his down from upstairs.
In between chatting with my folks, processing my pickles, and crocheting a Christmas ornament, I popped downstairs to take a few photos.
John gave the signal and each boy raised his hand to avoid a face photo.
I switched sides, making it harder for Dan to hide his face–but he managed it nonetheless.
Just another Sunday afternoon when the Menter children re-converge on their house of origin.
“What did you do this summer?” she asks.
I struggle to come up with a decent answer–an appropriate answer. I want to say, “Apart from trying to write a thesis blind, you mean?”
“Uh, I’ve been canning, and blogging–”
“You’ve been canning?” Her incredulosity makes me want to shrink out of the room. It sounds so frivolous, so ridiculous.
After I’ve left, my mind whirls over the dozens of things I could have said to justify my summer. I helped my brother and sister-in-law with their wedding. I drove my mom to see my grandparents. I completed two quilts, a couple of pillow shams, a dresser scarf, and over a dozen potholders. I crocheted a scarf and a half dozen dishcloths. I embroidered a set of day-of-the-week tea towels. I cleaned my house and prepared meals. I babysat and helped a friend weed. I applied for jobs and went to interviews. I read and reviewed books. I blogged. I canned. I rode bicycles with a friend. And, of course, I tried to write a thesis blind.
Even as I contemplate what I’ve done this summer, I know it would have been pointless to mention it. I think back to her raised eyebrows when I read over my lunch break. “What are you reading?–Ugh, why are you reading that?” I remember the countless questions–“How many hours are you taking?”–and the snorts when I say it’s important that I spend time with church and family. The implicit message, etched into me with every interaction?
You don’t do enough. You don’t work hard enough. The stuff you spend your time on is worthless. You are worthless.
My heart believes her message even as my head rebels.
I do work hard. I don’t waste my time on frivolous things. Relationships are important. I’m not worthless.
She is the voice I’ve heard since before I ever met her, the voice that held me in bondage for years. It labels me insufficient, unlovely, incomplete, a failure. The voice that once, inside my head, told me “You’ll never amount to anything. You have all these goals but what have you ever done?”–that voice is now an external voice, attached to a face, to a woman, my accuser. “Just give up,” it says. “You don’t have anything worthwhile to contribute. You’re a waste of time, of energy. Take the easy way out.”
I firmly tell her NO–I’m not taking the easy way out. I’m not going to quit. I’m not a failure. My ideas have merit, my work is worthwhile. I’m not going to argue with her evaluation of me–I know by now that it does no good. But I’m not going to bow to her evaluation of me either. I’m not going to bow to the accuser who says I’m still in my chains.
I’m going to take my heart–that heart that’s smarting from wounds inflicted years ago, that heart whose wounds have been reopened by her word’s claw–I’m going to take my heart to the Great Physician who bore my wounds already. He bore my insufficiency, my unloveliness, my incompleteness. The stripes on His back are my heart’s healing. He took my worthlessness, granting me worth. He bore my wrongness, giving me righteousness. He experienced my failure, and declared success.
I’m taking my heart to Jesus–for by His wounds, I am healed.
At the close of the last semester, I had every reason to believe that I’d be offered another teaching assistantship for the fall semester. Two instructors had approached me saying that they would like to have me as a TA–but the word around the department was that another person, a professor, was also interested in having me TA for her.
I made my plans accordingly. I had enough money in my checking account to live on throughout the summer. I would spend the summer working on my thesis and then take the assistantship in the fall. Come December, if I had not already found a job, I had enough money in my savings account to last 4-6 months while I searched for a job. I considered it a comfortable margin.
And so I proceeded.
But when May passed and June passed and July started to pass me by without receiving an assistantship offer, I had to assume that I would not be offered an assistantship. I started searching for positions in the Lincoln and Omaha area (having promised my roommate I’d remain in Lincoln until December.)
Today, I received a phone call from a University number–nothing surprising for me since I’d applied for several positions at the University.
But the call was not from one of those positions. It was from the Nutrition Graduate Department’s Administrative Assistant.
“Hi, Rebekah,” she said. “I’m getting ready to process payroll for the fall and realized that I still hadn’t received an acceptance from you for your assistantship.”
“That’s interesting,” I replied. “I hadn’t heard that I received an assistantship.”
But I had received an assistantship–and she’d emailed me the offer May 7, the last day of classes for fall semester. When I hadn’t promptly returned my acceptance, she e-mailed me again.
I received neither e-mail.
This time, she forwarded me the letter and I received it just fine.
She explained that I should pay no attention to the deadline for acceptance. She’d process my payroll papers and I could mail or drop off my acceptance any time.
So I have a job through December. I have the whole time. The rumors were true and I’ll be working with the professor.
A bizarre turn?
Absolutely.
Fate or luck?
I’m not willing to say that.
I believe that God is sovereign over every event of my life–even over misdirected or otherwise lost e-mails.
Why were both of those e-mails lost?
Maybe God wanted me to learn trust. Maybe God intends me to have one of these jobs I’ve applied for and knew I wouldn’t have applied for them if I had been secure in the knowledge of the assistantship. Maybe I’ll never know God’s plan in this.
But one thing I know: God knew exactly the moment each of those e-mails entered the ether–and He had a perfect plan for when and how and why things would turn out the way they did.
Because my life does not rest on the caprices of fate, but in the hands of a sovereign, all-powerful, all-loving God.
A native Nebraskan, I’ve always derided the idea of “heat index” or “wind chill.” You ask the temperature or hear it on the radio. “It’s 88 degrees outside,” the announcer says. “But humidity’s high so it feels like it’s 100 degrees.” Come winter they’ll be announcing that the wind chill means it “feels like 10 below”.
Even as a child, I dismissed the idea. Heat index and wind chill are for weenies–people who want to whine about how hot or cold it is when it really isn’t that bad.
I grew up in Nebraska. We never have heat without humidity. 95 degrees with humidity still feels like 95 degrees to me. It’s all I’ve ever known (excepting my brief stay in Mexico and forays into the mountains where the dry air makes 95 feel positively comfortable.)
I grew up in Nebraska. We never have winter without wind. 5 degrees with wind is still 5 degrees.
Today, Joanna and I took a bike ride. We started out on the MoPac East, intending to ride to Elmwood and back, somewhere around 36 miles.
As we traveled to the trailhead, Joanna commented on the weather. They’re predicting scattered thunderstorms. It’s pretty humid. We’re under a heat advisory.
“Heat advisory!” I scoffed. “They put those things out entirely too often.” After all, there’s barely been a day that hasn’t had a heat advisory for the past two weeks. “We’ll do fine.”
We enjoyed a nice ride, commenting to each other how much easier the return trip would be–so long as the wind didn’t change.
Ride, ride. Take a break. Sip water from my camel-back.
Talk a bit. Ride some more. Note the trees and streams and velvety soybean fields.
We passed through Walton, arrived at Eagle. We’re pushing on to Elmwood. Tired, slowing, starting to think about lunch.
Two more miles, one more mile. We’re here at last. Halfway. Only the return journey to go.
Let’s find a park, a bench, somewhere to eat our lunches.
We sit at a bench beside the community center, watching old men come and go. I pick at my sandwich, eat a pear. My appetite’s been poor for months now–and today is not a good day for eating.
Turn around, fly down the hill from Elmwood back to the trail. We’re on the road again.
The wind is with us, but we’re fatiguing. The sun has risen to the top of the sky and we’re starting to feel hot. We’re counting off the miles again–except that this time we have 18 more miles to go.
Seventeeen…
Sixteen…
My camel-back is almost dry, my clothes completely soaked. We’re gonna have to stop in Eagle, I say. I need to get something to drink.
We discuss heat exhaustion, heat stroke. Best to know the signs and how to respond just in case.
My odometer slowly counts up the miles. Twenty two…Twenty three…Twenty Four.
I remark to Joanna that I can’t believe people who run marathons. Two more miles, I say, and we’ll have ridden the distance of a marathon. How do people do that?
I’m really looking forward to stopping at Eagle, getting something to drink. I’m soaked through. My clothes are starting to chafe horribly, and I’m feeling a bit…off.
My odometer announces that we’ve traveled 26 miles. A marathon.
And Eagle lies over the next little rise.
We park our bikes at a gas station and begin to fantasize about the air conditioning that will greet us when we open the door.
Oh, it felt nice.
Joanna points out the mud on my face–a mixture of road dust and sweat. I head to the bathroom to clean it off. I don’t need to use the restroom. Never mind that I’ve consumed two liters of water in the past couple of hours. My bladder is empty. I’ve sweated it all out.
I walk back out of the bathroom and Joanna takes a good look at me. “I think maybe we should call and see if someone could pick us up.”
I don’t like to admit it, but I can’t deny. “Yeah, I think maybe we should.”
We buy some Gatorade and sit at a booth while I call back to Lincoln to ask for a ride.
I was clearly dehydrated–and probably running out of both glucose and electrolytes. It was clear that for my sake we needed to call it a day.
Twenty-six miles.
Thirty-six would have sounded so much better.
How my brothers will tease.
But twenty six isn’t shabby, I told myself. And we rode most of it against the wind, in a heat advisory.
We passed a marquee as we entered Lincoln: 88 degrees. Disappointing.
“Bah,” I said, “what with the heat index and all, it felt an awful lot hotter.”
I don’t often have opportunity to share tidbits from conversations with little folks–but yesterday, I had four-year-old Abigail and three-year-old Joseph spend the day with me. Their mother is recovering from the c-section that brought a third baby into the family, and their dad had to get back to work.
I thought this little exchange was definitely worth documenting:
Abigail: Do you have a baby?
Me: No
Abigail: Why not?
Me: Because I’m not married.
Abigail: Why aren’t you married?
Me: Because no man has ever asked me to marry him.
Abigail: Maybe because you’re old.
Me: (Laughing) Maybe
All is quiet for a while
Abigail:Maybe God’s still making your prince ready.
More silence
Abigail: Maybe God’s making him OLD!
Maybe so, Abigail, maybe so.
Check out more Tiny Talk Tuesday posts at Not Before 7.
Little John misses his mom. I sit him on my lap until he feels he can function again. He ventures away to play. I move on to new tasks. I hear a couple of deeply drawn breaths and ask my compatriot whether she’d heard a cry coming on. She hadn’t, but when John starts crying again, she looks at me and suggests that I’m telepathic. I’m not. I’m just attune to his sorrow.
Jarell misses his mommy too–but my lap isn’t enough to calm this little fellow. He wraps his arms around my chest and buries his head in my shoulder. He wants to be as close as he can be. I understand the feeling. I hold him close and let him take comfort in my nearness. It takes him almost half an hour, but eventually, he is ready to move forward, returning every so often to remind himself that I’m still here.
Cooper is generally stoic, playing happily with the other children. Today, he plays almost as usual, except that he periodically turns to me to say “I miss my mommy.” His little lower lip quivers as I respond: “I know. It’s hard missing someone.” I know.
McKenna asks me if her mommy will be back soon. I tell her it will be a while. A couple minutes later, she’ll be back to ask me again. She misses her mother, she wants her back. She cannot comprehend the scale I see, the hands of the clock ticking away the minutes. “I know it’s hard,” I tell her, “but trust me. She’ll be back.”
I am McKenna, Cooper, Jarell, and John–sometimes almost unaffected, sometimes incapacitated by the pain. I don’t understand what’s going on outside the walls of my nursery. “Where is my mommy? What is she doing? When will she be back?”
God, omniscient, knows what’s going on even when I don’t. He watches the clock, knowing the time when my suffering will end. “I know it’s hard,” He says, “but trust Me. It won’t be long.” Still, every few minutes I ask when the pain will be gone.
Does He feel my pain as I feel theirs?
Certainly He knows of me what I know of them–that this present suffering is only momentary.
And thus He calls me to rest, to trust, and to enjoy the place I’m at right now.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
~II Corinthians 4:16-18 (NIV)
After church last Sunday, I was chatting with a man who worked at the Glenwood Resource Center and had helped out with the Special Olympics in years past. He told me that it was a great opportunity, and that I should really plan on seeing an event or two.
“I’ll have to do that,” I answered. I hadn’t even considered attending an event before–I’d been more concerned with staying out of prime traffic areas when visitors might be swarming. Campus tends to be a zoo when we host events like this. But attending an event…that sounded like a nice diversion.
I mused almost to myself at dinner whether my former coworker Daniel might be competing in the power lifting competition. When we were working together, he’d gone to Beijing to compete–so I knew he took part in the Special Olympics.
I wasn’t expecting a response from anyone, but Dad answered me anyway. Yes, Daniel would be competing.
I asked if Dad had a schedule of events. He said he didn’t–at least not a specific schedule. I made a mental note, hoping to look it up.
I forgot.
But this morning Dad texted me a web address where they were live streaming the power lifting events.
I sat in my chair in front of my computer with my embroidery in hand and watched the event until my internet connection went wonky.
“I’ll just go out,” I thought. It isn’t that far and I was planning on riding with Joanna today anyway. Maybe she wouldn’t mind making that our destination.
Joanna being amenable, we rode to UNL’s Kimball Hall and sat and talked (about liturgy and church calendars and altar cloths–of all things) until the program was to start. It turned out the award ceremony was later than I thought I’d heard the announcer say (I had a bit of difficulty understanding her thick Southern accent), so Joanna had to leave before the ceremony.
But I was able to sit and cheer for Daniel and others from far and wide as they collected their medals. Daniel won four gold medals and one silver–and set a personal best record on the bench press! Go, Daniel!
Whether it was just excitement over his day’s successes or true pleasure in seeing me, I got a giant hug from Daniel once I managed to break through the crowd to congratulate him afterward.
It was so nice to cheer and to support Daniel, who for a couple of years was my head dish-man and still holds a special place in my heart. My church informant was absolutely right–the Special Olympics are a blast!