This Christmas day has been wonderful. Everything was beautiful, the gifts were great, the food was tasty, and the day was relaxing. I have no complaints. Why then am I going crazy with restlessness just after midnight, December 26th?
I want to get in my car for a night drive, but first I need to know what’s compelling me. Obviously, I seem to need to talk to someone, but unfortunately, everyone is asleep. My blog is awake, however.
My latest revelation came when emailing an old friend—perhaps; this is kind of about Melanie. I don’t even know. How weird is that? Death makes no sense. When my uncle died, I was just in shock and felt like something very valuable had been wasted. My gran died and I just thought of all the memories and realized how much I would miss her presence in my life. But, with Mel, I’m all over the place. I go from confident and content to lonely and climbing the walls. One minute, I’m amazed at my own resilience and the next, I feel like I’ll never put the pieces back together. I realize that loosing Melanie isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen, as heartless as that sounds. It just seems like I don’t know how to deal with this particular loss.
If you’re sick of reading about this, just imagine how sick I am of thinking about it all the time! What good does it do? I wish I knew that she could see me. Maybe then, I wouldn’t feel so alone without her.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
A Warm and Fuzzy Christmas Post
Almost nine months ago this coming Christmas Day, I was in a Hospital operating room, giving birth to my first born son. No stable, no manger, no virgin birth—just a normal human boy being delivered by a very ordinary mother.
Last Christmas, I was in a large Christmas program at our church. I was also 6 months pregnant with a boy. As we got ready for one evening’s performance, a woman asked me if I felt the significance of carrying my first born son at Christmastime. I hadn’t thought about it beyond the fact that my oversized angel costume could incite younger show goers to ask their parents some rather unchristmaslike questions that evening.
Eventually, we got to the segment of the program where Joseph and Mary are trying to get a room at the inn. I was one of twenty or so people on stage also pretending to need a room. Someone improvised the line, “but she’s having a baby!” and the Christmas timing suddenly hit me. I began thinking about Mary, heavy with a full-term baby, being forced to travel on the back of an animal and resorting to giving birth among animals in a building that was tantamount to a carport. As an expectant mother, I was moved to tears as I imagined the fears she must have had and the doubts about whether God was going to provide for them. I gave birth in a sterile hospital room. I had the assistance of a highly trained and experienced medical professional who had treated me since day one. Nurses stood by with oxygen, suction tubes, heaters, blankets and dozens of other things. Mary had to trust God to provide all of that. You might think it would be easier for her since, after all, an angel had come to her about this and told her of God’s plan in her life, but if I had been Mary, I would have seriously begun to doubt God around the time I packed my bags for Bethlehem.
It’s strange to imagine that my son had a more glamorous entrance into this world than the very Son of God. It wasn’t just modern technology that made it possible; there were cleaner and more honorable ways to give birth even then. Mary wasn’t given that luxury. Did God just want His Son to come in the most undesirable, uncomfortable way possible so no one could use that word, “privilege?”
I went to Israel a long time ago and we visited the place where Jesus is said to have been born. If you’ve ever seen it on a television program, you know how enshrined it is. It is gilded, marbled and smells strongly of incense. There is very little left of the humble stable it used to be. A large gold star marks the spot where Jesus was born. I have no idea how anyone could possibly have that much information from a supposedly obscure birth, but they claim to know that that piece of earth is It.
I’m convinced that it isn’t the actual location that matters, but the event itself. When Jesus was born, unlike any other birth to take place on Earth, there became a reason to hope. Our redemption was at hand and this great cosmic battle against the predator death was nearly won. That’s why we celebrate. Everything else is secondary to the fact that on that night, whenever it was, hope came to Earth.
More than just poetic, fantastic words; the hope that was born that first Christmas has lead to victory and victory to grace. That may seem far removed from daily life, but if you’ve ever seen a life redeemed by God’s grace alone, you would celebrate this Christmas with as much zeal as any of those who witnessed Christ’s birth.
Perhaps I’m a little gung-ho about God’s grace these days. I see it in everything from the timing of my son’s birth, to how it saved my sister from an eternity without hope. This is going to be an unusual Christmas for those reasons as well. Merry Christmas to all my friends and family—I love you all.
Last Christmas, I was in a large Christmas program at our church. I was also 6 months pregnant with a boy. As we got ready for one evening’s performance, a woman asked me if I felt the significance of carrying my first born son at Christmastime. I hadn’t thought about it beyond the fact that my oversized angel costume could incite younger show goers to ask their parents some rather unchristmaslike questions that evening.
Eventually, we got to the segment of the program where Joseph and Mary are trying to get a room at the inn. I was one of twenty or so people on stage also pretending to need a room. Someone improvised the line, “but she’s having a baby!” and the Christmas timing suddenly hit me. I began thinking about Mary, heavy with a full-term baby, being forced to travel on the back of an animal and resorting to giving birth among animals in a building that was tantamount to a carport. As an expectant mother, I was moved to tears as I imagined the fears she must have had and the doubts about whether God was going to provide for them. I gave birth in a sterile hospital room. I had the assistance of a highly trained and experienced medical professional who had treated me since day one. Nurses stood by with oxygen, suction tubes, heaters, blankets and dozens of other things. Mary had to trust God to provide all of that. You might think it would be easier for her since, after all, an angel had come to her about this and told her of God’s plan in her life, but if I had been Mary, I would have seriously begun to doubt God around the time I packed my bags for Bethlehem.
It’s strange to imagine that my son had a more glamorous entrance into this world than the very Son of God. It wasn’t just modern technology that made it possible; there were cleaner and more honorable ways to give birth even then. Mary wasn’t given that luxury. Did God just want His Son to come in the most undesirable, uncomfortable way possible so no one could use that word, “privilege?”
I went to Israel a long time ago and we visited the place where Jesus is said to have been born. If you’ve ever seen it on a television program, you know how enshrined it is. It is gilded, marbled and smells strongly of incense. There is very little left of the humble stable it used to be. A large gold star marks the spot where Jesus was born. I have no idea how anyone could possibly have that much information from a supposedly obscure birth, but they claim to know that that piece of earth is It.
I’m convinced that it isn’t the actual location that matters, but the event itself. When Jesus was born, unlike any other birth to take place on Earth, there became a reason to hope. Our redemption was at hand and this great cosmic battle against the predator death was nearly won. That’s why we celebrate. Everything else is secondary to the fact that on that night, whenever it was, hope came to Earth.
More than just poetic, fantastic words; the hope that was born that first Christmas has lead to victory and victory to grace. That may seem far removed from daily life, but if you’ve ever seen a life redeemed by God’s grace alone, you would celebrate this Christmas with as much zeal as any of those who witnessed Christ’s birth.
Perhaps I’m a little gung-ho about God’s grace these days. I see it in everything from the timing of my son’s birth, to how it saved my sister from an eternity without hope. This is going to be an unusual Christmas for those reasons as well. Merry Christmas to all my friends and family—I love you all.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
New Forms and Ghosts
I never did believe in ghosts, but what is a dream of someone you can never see again? Isn’t that like a ghost?
Melanie haunts me when I sleep and I look forward to seeing her there. Right after she died, I had disturbing dreams about her flesh and bones—the decay that naturally comes, but in one dream that all changed. In that dream, she was on an operating table and from her tissue; she was being regenerated one step at a time. It was gruesome, but got progressively lovelier as death began to work in reverse. First, the tissue grew and was little more than a mound of red muscle and white sinew. Then the muscle pulsed with blood and took shape as bones formed within the mass. Next an inhumane gray skin began to cover the tissue and soon looked like a human form without distinction. From that point, she grew definition around her joints and her beautiful brown hair began to grow. Her face surfaced out of the shapeless void and even a healthy pink color replaced the pale grey. When the process was complete, she was even lovelier than she was in life—freckled, bright eyed and humming with life.
Now my dreams simply star her as a major player. She is sometimes my companion—experiencing what I do, talking or sharing with me. We laugh at our mom, cried over a dead sister and she even held my son.
I feel like I’m going crazy when I wake up in the mornings, but I enjoy our surreal moments together.
Melanie haunts me when I sleep and I look forward to seeing her there. Right after she died, I had disturbing dreams about her flesh and bones—the decay that naturally comes, but in one dream that all changed. In that dream, she was on an operating table and from her tissue; she was being regenerated one step at a time. It was gruesome, but got progressively lovelier as death began to work in reverse. First, the tissue grew and was little more than a mound of red muscle and white sinew. Then the muscle pulsed with blood and took shape as bones formed within the mass. Next an inhumane gray skin began to cover the tissue and soon looked like a human form without distinction. From that point, she grew definition around her joints and her beautiful brown hair began to grow. Her face surfaced out of the shapeless void and even a healthy pink color replaced the pale grey. When the process was complete, she was even lovelier than she was in life—freckled, bright eyed and humming with life.
Now my dreams simply star her as a major player. She is sometimes my companion—experiencing what I do, talking or sharing with me. We laugh at our mom, cried over a dead sister and she even held my son.
I feel like I’m going crazy when I wake up in the mornings, but I enjoy our surreal moments together.
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