Early Signs of Perfectionism: When a Toboggan Is Not a Hat

 

When I was in the first or maybe it was second grade, my school conducted a test for all students my age. I later learned that it was a comprehensive IQ test. I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but it was presented to us youngsters as “a very important test.”

Even at that young age, I had learned that very important tests were . . . very important, and that I was both expected to do well and capable of doing well. My exceptional performance was clearly anticipated.

I don’t know my exact score received, but I do know that it fell short of perfection. I precisely remember missing the word needed to identify and label an image of a sled made of slats and with an upward curve at the front—the kind I would later see in movies like It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story—both unknown to me in first grade. 

The word needed, which my vocabulary at least partly lacked at that time, was “toboggan.” I studied the image and the word choices. “Sled” was not among them. “Toboggan” was, but I knew what that meant: It was a knit winter hat, and I even owned one, and it had a multi-colored pom attached to the top. 

When my score came back and I saw that I had missed associating “toboggan” with the sled, choosing another word instead as the best educated guess I could make at the time, I was perturbed. Clearly the test-makers were wrong! A toboggan was a hat, not a sled. Indignant, I complained to my mother, a teacher, and the holder of the majority of the knowledge I had accumulated at that point in my short life. 

She then informed me that the word toboggan could, indeed, apply to both a hat and a sled like the one pictured. 

And my indignation pivoted. I had been proved wrong, and it stung, and I was sure, it was not my fault for not knowing! She was my teacher, and my short-of-perfection performance was due to her failure to anticipate and teach me this one application of a word I had not yet experienced in my seven years as a resident of a Deep South state that rarely saw freezing temperatures, much less enough snow to call out sledders, or tobogganers. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” I demanded, my anger apparent, according to the way she recalled the incident. 

A few days later, my mother produced for me a small plaque, acquired at the local Christian book and trinkets shop. It was a small brown wooden board, perhaps three inches by five inches, varnished to a shine, with an engraved matte veneer centered on it, and these words:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.”

Together we placed that plaque on the hutch of the new dresser set my parents had recently allowed me to pick out at a real furniture store. It stood on that shelf for decades—long after I had left for college and moved into my first apartment and married. It was a fixture there and probably the first bit of scripture I ever committed to memory.

I am and have been since before I can remember, a perfectionist. While there are some benefits to perfectionism, there are also many burdens. One of those burdens is the inability to graciously and immediately accept the very real reality that I will fail, or be incomplete, or need to adjust along the way.

In many ways, this is in contrast to another aspect of my nature which is a deep curiosity and a willingness to be taught. I do love to learn. But under the pressure of performance, I have always wanted—no, expected—to be already complete. To perform very well. To not miss the mark when measured. 

A previous supervisor once called out my perfectionism, to which I replied, “I don’t think I’m a perfectionist. I’m almost a perfectionist.” He laughed and solidified his argument: “Only a true perfectionist would ever even say, ‘I’m almost a perfectionist.’” I haven’t even adequately perfected my perfectionism.

As the years roll by, I am slowly realizing that perfectionism is quantumly entangled with insecurity. Being detail-oriented and meticulous is a way of seeing and operating that is good in many situations. But needing to always be measured by the standard of perfection is an inner spotlight on insecurity. If failing to rise to the level of perfection when analyzed, tested, measured is a blow to identity, a reason to turn to victimhood and blame (the first grader demanding, “Why didn’t you tell me?!”), then it certainly suggests that another valuable and desirable trait may still need further development: I’m not talking just about grace for others and self, or meekness and humility though those are just as certainly paramount, but adaptability, adjustability.

I like systems. I like processes. Most of my life has progressed through “sink or swim” introductions. I expect it’s this way for most of us. We step into a new role and are told, “Make it work.” And so we do. We don’t come in with a clear blueprint or even a full toolbox. We are set down before a challenge at point A, or maybe at points B or C, and told to find a way to the end. Maybe the end is identified clearly—achieve this goal. Maybe it’s even more vague: We need to get from here to points E and G, and eventually we’d like to attain Q, and then in time, a very mature and perfect Z. Figure it out. Innovate. Gamble, even.

I have developed many processes and systems over time. None were automatic. None worked with perfection initially or immediately. None were crafted exclusively by me either. It is impossible to anticipate or intuit every scenario, every variation, every possible alteration or obstacle or adjustment that will be needed, but to be sure—every challenge will have many. 

The laws of scientific observation and application work here as well, in all of life’s work: Plan, test, observe, evaluate, adjust. Try again. When one of my daughter’s science fair projects didn’t prove its hypothesis, a scientist friend of ours encouraged her, saying, “That’s what most of my job is. Looking at what I’ve just done and saying, ‘Well, that didn’t work.’“ And still, we keep on. We test our attempts, our processes, our systems. We see what did and didn’t work. We learn, we adjust, we try again. An unproven hypothesis is not a failure. It’s a different form of success that serves as a vital steppingstone to the next hypothesis.

I didn’t have that mindset as a first grader. Who would? I have to remind myself now, regularly, that to find need of more information, or to adjust that which was initiated after giving it some testing isn’t the same as failure. It isn’t even a negative thing at all. It is an opportunity to learn and to grow more and to move closer to the final and mature and perfect goal we want, we hope for, we strive for. 

It’s still progress. 

And under God’s grace, we actually have the freedom to fail. Freedom to fail and grace to grow. 

If we didn’t, grace wouldn’t be grace after all. And that should free even a perfectionist to bounce back from the reality of imperfections, shouldn’t it? “Lean not on your own understanding“ doesn’t mean don’t learn. It doesn’t mean don’t add to your knowledge. But keep it in its right place. Perfectionism may tend toward usurping God’s proper place, or the proper places of those who do have more knowledge, more experience, or who simply want to see you grow and stretch and thrive because you've faced a challenge, failed, and had to figure out another way. 

One Thing I Learned from Joel Belz

 

Joel Belz

August 10, 1941 – February 4, 2024

I first met Joel in December of 1993 when I as a very young adult interviewed for a position in the God's World Book Club.

It didn’t feel like an interview. It just felt like an introduction. Rather than grill me with questions about my experience and qualifications, he enthusiastically shared with me what God’s World Publications was about by quoting the verse 

The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof,

The world and they that dwell in it.  (Psalm 24)

Over the next few years, I discovered that Joel and I shared a personality trait: We are both idealists. He is more of a visionary idealist and I a metaphorical idealist, but we still found connection in the struggle that is living as idealists while being people who fall short of even our own ideals, in a world that has fallen also from the ideal. We both had the capacity to reach real emotional and anticipatory highs—and to fall low when our expectations weren’t realized.

I remember one time when both of us were at a lower point, we had a conversation about the sanctification process for idealists, who can so readily turn our “shoulds” into idols. Letting go of those “shoulds,” those idols, is a painful part of spiritual growth. 

And through those types of conversations, I began to form a more right view of how to navigate this life, this work, this world, relationships with family, others, and God himself.

We tend to think that the opposite of Idealism is Realism, but I no longer think that’s true, and I learned this because of living and working alongside Joel for three decades.

The real opposite of Idealism is Cynicism. Both are incorrect—out of focus, but easy to slide into one or the other. We are either/or people. Either it’s all perfect or it’s all rotten. Either we worship utopian perfection, or we declare it all worthless nihilism, and essentially worship nothingness. 

But People of the Good News ought not see it that way. 

Instead, if we turn the lens of scripture on our tendencies, we don’t see Either/Or. We see the Both/And of not Idealism and Cynicism, but of

Optimism and Realism.

God is at the same time realistic and optimistic about us, because of WHO he is and what he is able to accomplish, and we have reason to be both realistic and optimistic as well.

“He who began a good work in you WILL see it to completion,” he promises.

I cling to that personally and optimistically—about myself and about each of you.

“I know the plans I have for you,” DECLARES the Lord. “Plans to prosper and not harm you. Plans to give you a HOPE and a future.” 

I cling to that for all of us, corporately. For the universal church. 

Because of this hope that grounds all of life for believers—and did so for Joel—even the idealists can tuck away their “should bes” and open themselves up to live in the real: We each have a cross to bear, and under it, we will stumble. We will fail. We will harm ourselves and others, and circumstances beyond our control will also crush expectations, cause harm, weary us… but never rob us of the hope that is finished already in Christ’s entrance into our weary, broken world, the life he lived, his death, resurrection to overcome it all, and ascension as proof that all truly is settled and accepted as good. The Father knows our frame. He is realistic about us. He says that he will uphold us with HIS mighty right hand, so that when we fall—and you and I will—we will not be cast headlong. Realistic, and optimistic at the same time.

A few years ago, after Joel had received his Parkinson’s diagnosis but he was still coming in to the office regularly, he and I met in the kitchen here at #12. If you’ve spent any time in the kitchen at #12, then you know that many good things happen there—that don’t have to do with food.

We were having another rich talk, but both of us were feeling the weight of the realities of this life, and I asked him a rather naïve question—or a question that was seeking a naïve answer. The idealist was trying again to come to the surface.

I asked, “Joel, when do we get to coast a bit? When does life become smooth sailing?” 

The normal answer even believers give to that question is the idealist’s fuel and fodder: It's just over the next life hump. When the deadline is past; when that degree is complete; when the kids move out; etc. We’re always waiting for what comes next—and it never seems to come.

But Joel didn’t give me that answer. He looked at me lovingly, like a father, and he said directly but gently, “Rebecca, it’s uphill all the way.”

That statement didn’t immediately give me joy, but I will tell you that I think of it

every. single. day.

Every day, as I pray to take up my own cross for what’s ahead, I think with thanksgiving of the honestly of that statement. That’s reality.

It is uphill all the way.

So, Rebecca, lay aside your idealism, and pick up the reality of today’s requirements and challenges, but not without hope; with optimism—because Christ has taken my actual burden on himself, and he said, “It is finished.”

We labor on, uphill all the way, and that is true. But it is grounded in the optimistic reality that our future is secure. We have a living hope, born out of Christ’s resurrection, which is held for us even now, an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading! Joel knows that face to face now. It is not at all like my earthly ideals, and it will never disappoint.

And because of Joel’s “brutal” honesty to tell me the truth that it is uphill all the way, I am compelled every morning to set my sights on that eternal hope, and take the next step that today holds, to press on toward the goal, as Joel did.

Joel has finished the race, and he now joins that great cloud of witnesses who surround us. So, let us take up our crosses but lay off the weights of both cynicism and idealism, and run with endurance that real uphill race that lies before us.

In the studio in Asheville with Joel and Carol Esther Belz, August 2021.

The Untorn Robe

 Let Earth Receive Her King image of print by G. Carol Bomer

John 19:23-24

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom, so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the scripture which says,

“They divided my garments among them,

    and for my clothing they cast lots.”

So the soldiers did these things.

This was what I was reading this morning when I was internally stopped to ask and wonder: What was the significance of the seamless, untorn tunic? It was the words “woven in one piece from top to bottom” followed by “Let us not tear it” that got my attention—because we’ve seen some of those words in other books of the Bible recounting this very same series of events, but used differently.

What was torn, almost immediately after this scene? The Temple curtain. How was it torn? From top to bottom. Surely John’s choice of language is not accidental. Is there a connection to be made?

In John’s account alone, this detail about the tunic is given. And from John’s account alone, the detail about the Temple curtain is omitted. So I ask, “Why, John? Why the maverick approach? Why the different focus but the similar language? What is it you want to show us by taking this very specific but alternate track?"

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all affirm that while Jesus is being crucified, his garments are divided near the foot of the cross. All three also tie his death to the curtain being torn in two. Both Matthew and Mark specifically say the curtain tore from top to bottom. (The word used actually means “from above.” Fascinatingly, it’s the same word that is used for Jesus who came “from above,” and for the power Pilate has, which would not be his if it were not granted him “from above.” The curtain tore “from above”—perhaps implying that the power that tore it was not earthly. This robe, then, woven in one piece “from above”. . . what might you make of that?)

But, Matthew, Mark, and Luke don’t mention the single-piece robe among the garments. Only the curtain and the garments in general.

Scholars all seem to be in agreement that the mention in all four gospels that the garments are divided is a reference meant to show that Jesus filled the prophecy of Psalm 22:18: “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” From this same Psalm come the words Jesus cries out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and also the imagery, “They have pierced my hands and feet.” These are all signposts: Evidences that the Christ who was prophesied to come is indeed this very Jesus now upon the cross. A thousand years passed from the time Psalm 22 was written until it was fulfilled. 

But that answer, while good, doesn’t completely satisfy. They divided his clothing to fulfill the prophecy, to show us that he is that fulfilment. But why clothes? And why these particular clothes? What is the meaning of the single-piece tunic that was woven from top to bottom (or from above) and not torn? Who cares if it was torn or not? Does it matter? Indeed, I now think it does.

First, I think, we need to address what this garment was to Jesus and to people of the day. The tunic was not an outer robe. It was an undergarment, worn close to the skin. (There was likely also a loin garment as well, but the point is that it covered nakedness. Its purpose was not to signify status or role, outwardly—like the purple cloak that the soldiers put on him at his scourging, when they mocked his kingship.) When did the need for these undergarments first come about in human history? Let’s go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3.

After the first six days of creation, when God had made it all and set it into motion, he rested. After all that creative activity, the next thing that we are told about God making is a pair of tunics. (Genesis 3:21) Adam and Eve initially enjoyed complete fellowship with one another and with God and all was very good—with nothing at all standing between them. Not even a thin layer of fabric. There was no shame in their nakedness because there was no reason for shame. There was no reason for them to be at all divided, disunified, from one another and from their Creator, whose image they bore. But it didn’t last, because they sinned. They broke that fellowship and created a division. Their nakedness was no longer a sign of unity, but of shame and guilt and rebellion. (Treason, one might even say.) They could not stand uncovered before him and live.

So in his mercy, God created again. He made tunics for them, and he covered them. 

The need of a tunic was established at the beginning of our story. 

But that clothing that we now must wear that keeps us separate from one another and from God isn’t always maintained in its own unity. Most of our clothing is made with seams and we all know what happens with seams eventually: They give up. They tear. They rend. Rending clothes is symbolic too, not just a practical matter of use and age. In 1 Kings 11: 29-33, the prophet Ahijah tears his new garment as a symbol of coming disunity. God is going to divide the kingdom over sin. Separation is a reason for mourning. The garment is torn in grief as well as prophecy. When Job learned of the calamity that had befallen him, he tore his clothes in an act of both great mourning and worship—recognizing that he came naked into the world, that all he had was from God, and therefore God’s to take. (Job 1:20). The Bible is full of clothes-tearers: Reuben, Joshua and Caleb, David and his men, Athaliah, Mordecai, Hezekiah… the list goes on and on.

But there was one person of great biblical importance who was not to tear his clothes: Aaron, the high priest, and the high priests who would inherit their position after him, for generations. While the people mourned their separation from God, the high priest donned a tunic that could not be torn, and in it, he entered into God’s holy presence in the Holy of Holies, behind the curtain. With his unrent tunic against his own skin, covering his own shame, Aaron did not mourn. Instead, he dealt with mourning. He brought atonement for the people’s sin that was the reason for mourning. Exodus 28:32 tells us about this garment that went beneath the ephod. “You shall make the robe (or tunic) of the ephod all of blue. It shall have an opening for the head in the middle of it, with a woven binding around the opening, like the opening in a garment, so that it may not tear.”

That certainly sounds like a garment of all one piece, doesn’t it? No seams to reinforce but only the opening for the head. And it is emphasized: so that it may not tear.

These garments were preserved and passed on to other generations of priests. Exodus 29:30 says “The holy garments of Aaron shall be for his sons after him; they shall be anointed in them and ordained in them. The son who succeeds him as priest, who comes into the tent of meeting to minister in the Holy Place, shall wear them seven days.” Each time the high priest entered into God’s presence, behind the curtain, he had to be clothed in these garments, “so that he does not die.” (Exodus 28:35) It’s not time yet for all the shame and sin to be exposed in full. The annual ritual atonement that Aaron and the next generations of priests will perform are always partial, and must be repeated and repeated. 

When Jesus went to the cross, he went in this very significant and noteworthy piece of clothing. He was dressed to make an atoning presentation to God. On the previous Thursday evening, he had received the burden he was taking on, for which to atone. He had become sin then, taking onto himself not just my sin and the sin of those men with him that night, but “the sins of the world.” Aaron declared the sins of the people imputed to an animal. Jesus knelt in Gethsemane, and called it all onto himself. Past, present, future. No wonder he sweat drops of blood. If we think he stumbled on that so-called Via Dolorosa under the weight of the wood he was carrying, perhaps we are not fully aware of the weight he had actually accepted, which set him on that path.

As we work our way through the Stations of the Cross during Holy Week, we note that “Jesus is stripped.” We are reminded to reflect on his humility, that God would be exposed, naked, before the world. But in reality, so great is our union with him in his purpose, that it is not just his nakedness on that tree. It’s all of mine. It’s yours. It’s the apostles, the soldiers, his mother Mary’s. We are bound to him and it is our shame and humility that he purposefully takes there—when his garment is removed. We are exposed with every bit of the ugliness that we brought to Gethsemane. We are naked on that cross, before God and the entire world, for both Jew and Gentile were present there.

I believe two things happened there with the stripping: 1) All the burden of separating sin was laid bare for all the world; and 2) Jesus’ own covering was removed in preparation for his death: He is accepting the forthcoming death—as Aaron could not enter God’s presence uncovered and live.

The atonement complete, the separation is over. This is what he came for. God’s presence is accessible again, without the need for covering and ritual. The curtain is torn completely, “from above,” opening his presence to all who accept the way. As it was in the beginning.

And now, the high priestly garment is . . . gone. There is no need for a next generation priest. Mourning is ended. Separation is ended. Atonement is secured. 

It really is finished.

The Case for Odd-Numbered Place Settings

Today, a young couple gathered with friends and family to receive gifts in anticipation of their upcoming wedding. Their gift registry was modest, by anyone’s standards. Only four plates. Four glasses. The most basic kitchen needs. 

It was charming, really, the simplicity with which they are looking ahead to their union and housekeeping. I appreciate the minimalist approach. There are far more important things to think about and invest in than the maintenance of much STUFF.

But even as I pieced together my gift selection for them from their registry, to try to help in meeting their needs as well as their expectations, I did invest in one item that they might consider superfluous: a fifth dinner plate.

My daughter, through whom I know this couple, had already purchased for them the four plates they had registered for and requested. I added a fifth, and along with it, an explanatory note, which was inspired by my own long history of life at this point, and the knowledge that these young two truly desire to honor Christ in their marriage. 

So I wrote a note, and it said something like this, or at least, this is what I intended to say in that dashed-off missive:

Blessings of grace and peace and mercy and joy to you in your new marriage! The gift you find here of the fifth and odd-numbered dinner plate is to serve a purpose as a reminder in your marriage as you gather with others to nourish bodies and friendships, to remember the sojourner, the widow, the orphan, the single person, the lonely elderly neighbor, and to set a place for one who might not be so embraced at the table as those who are bound in pairs. For this is true religion: to visit the widow and the orphan and remain unstained by the world.

I myself have recently married after six years of singleness. It was a long six years. In that time, I realized that while I have far more than four plates (I do enjoy inviting in), neither my “good” china nor my everyday stoneware inhabit the cabinet in even numbers. There are 13 of one and 15 of another—and that wasn’t intentional. Over time, a piece here or there was broken. But the odd number still serves as a reminder.

I don’t have an extra plate to be left off as I fill the table with pairs and couples. Even now that I’m married, I don’t have an extra plate to leave in the cabinet. I have an extra opportunity. An opportunity to bring in one more, someone who, like I was all those years, may be eating alone on the night of . . . whatever event we’re having, whether it’s our annual Friendsgiving—a gathering of mostly singles I have hosted for several years and intend to continue even though I am married again now—or just dinner, at home when someone single crosses my mind.

And this I would offer: If a single person crosses your mind, don’t dismiss it. That’s very likely a God-nudge to bring that person somehow into fellowship. Clearly, God wants to talk to you about that person, and maybe what he wants to say is “Reach out. Include. Visit. Invite.”

And if you too have an odd number of plates on your shelf, think of setting an odd number of places at your table, and find that lonely soul who needs you. 

Thoughts on Day 40: Life in the Time of Corona

Quarantine. The word literally means “a period of 40 days.”

40. A significant number. Today is day 40 in quarantine or lockdown or “safe at home” for us. 40 days. Like Jesus in the wilderness. Like the time it rained while Noah and his family and all those creatures were on the ark.

I’ve been wondering about this number. It comes up so often in the Bible, but why does our English language have a word for this particular number of days? The word goes all the way back to Italy in the early 1400s. As people attempted to manage and avoid plague, travelers were sometimes required to spend a full 40 days, a quarantino, in isolation to allow for potential infections to incubate and run their course before risking transmission via contact with others in an uninfected area.

Perhaps there’s some epidemiological science behind that. It seems reasonable to think so. But I also think there’s some Creator-inspired psychology behind it. I think of how we started out 40 days ago. Sure, we didn’t like this—didn’t relish or enjoy it—but it felt like something of an adventure, and I for one dive into adventure with vigor. At first. My intuition had told me as far back as early February that something was likely to “go down,” and so I had made a little game with the girls of selecting strategic items to add to our normal weekly grocery shopping. Before there were even rumors of isolation, we had a small surplus store of pasta, peanut butter, beans, rice, applesauce, pet food, and acetominaphen. (Always ridiculed by my daughters about my personal dread of running out of toilet paper, I failed this time to stock up on that precious commodity in advance, however.)

We made some plans about how to address a temporary isolation. Schools sent home student laptops. We baked a little. We pulled out games and a puzzle. We planned movie nights and took youth group to Zoom. We were so going to do this! And we did, without much strain despite the uncertainty for the first two weeks.

And then we felt the restlessness creeping in. We felt the end of our own resolve and resources. Trips that kids were excited about got canceled. That hurt. We got cranky. Moods have stayed pretty good overall, but it is clear that our own bootstraps have grown much, much shorter as the days creep on. There have been a few teary meltdowns (mea culpa—even more than the younger ones here in the household). We miss our friends. We miss our families. We miss sports. We miss church. We miss classrooms and offices and lunches out. We miss the movie theater and the spontaneous errand. We miss… everything.

We’re not hungry. We’re not cold. We’re not even alone. We have each other and we connect with people by text and phone and social media and Zoom. But even so, we know we need something else. It’s not enough. And I think this is where the development of real patience and perseverance and healthy dependency upon someone other than ourselves to sustain our whole-image health has opportunity to get roots and grow… around the 40 day mark. It’s too long for us. We want it to end, now—just as it has the potential to develop something lasting within us. Endurance. Endurance doesn’t come easily. It isn’t born into us. It’s nurtured into us. It doesn’t spring up like a weed but grows like an oak—from something small but lasting, that takes a long time to become mighty.

I think its unlikely to be coincidence that Psalm 40 claims, “I waited patiently for the Lord.” And then, the Psalmist goes on to ask God to “make haste” to deliver him. We hold both truths simultaneously. That’s simply honest.

We’re becoming more aware of our needs beyond the physical. We’re becoming something. We’re becoming.

I don’t want to miss this. I want to welcome it. I want to receive it. Despite all the hardship, I’m trying to open my hand to what this is working in us—individually, as a family, as a community, as a nation, as a world. May there be fruit in the future.

Life in the Age of Coronavirus, Day 9: The Tears Come

Nine straight days of quarantine didn’t do it.

Moving a disappointed college freshman home without a chance to say goodbye to the friends she made didn’t do it—even though she’s changing colleges and really won’t see them again.

The lost eighth grade track season didn’t do it, nor the lost running club for the youngest. The lost hostess job for the oldest didn’t do it. Not even, NOT EVEN, the very real possibility that my own wedding might be canceled later this summer—or at the least radically altered.

Hearing my 80-year-old dad say, “Becca, I reckon you better not come visit” didn’t quite do it.

No, none of those things yet had brought tears. But this one did.

This face. This gentle, smiling face of a stranger, which I sat mesmerized with in Twitter’s feed, posted by a stranger.

I looked him up. I needed more. Who was this man?

Don Giuseppe Berardelli was a 72-year-old Catholic priest in Bergamo, Italy. Though the account of his life I found online was awkwardly translated from Italian to some assortment of English words and phrases, I could pick out enough to grasp that he loved and was dearly loved by his parishioners. So much so that when he contracted COVID-19 among the throngs of others in his community, his parish knew: He won’t let himself be treated above others.

The parishioners went in together and bought a ventilator. Who of us has thought of that? They bought him his own, to be sure he wouldn’t refuse one at the hospital.

And still, when there were not enough, he opted to give his ventilator to someone else. I don’t know who. Someone younger. Maybe someone not yet so secure in his eternal inheritance.

And there they were. The tears, for a stranger. For the man, yes. For his parish, yes. For love, for sorrow, for anguish. For anger at this stupid virus that is sweeping our planet. Taking away Don Giuseppe Berardellis abroad and at home.

For something else too. For the sheer, perfect beauty of it. It’s a beauty that can’t be grasped without tears. Self-sacrifice. Greater love has no man than this, and we know it. We know it so much that we can’t experience this kind of beauty with glee. It has to hurt. It’s too foreign to us. Too vast. Too other. I recognize it but can’t take it in. The tears and sobs push it OUT, OUT! It doesn’t belong in me.

After Moses saw God face to face, his face was too radiant. No one could look at him. He had to veil it until it faded. That’s it. I can’t look. I can’t take this in. It is too wonderful for me.

Mercy, mercy! God have mercy on us all.

And thank you for Don Giuseppe Berardelli. May his memory be eternal.

Life in the Age of Coronavirus, COVID-19: Tuesday, 3/17/20

Tuesday, 3/17/20

My daughter who isn’t “supposed to be here” told me today was St. Patrick’s Day. I hadn’t realized it. On a normal weekday in mid-March, I would likely have been surprised to learn it was a holiday requiring specific attire the morning of as we were rushing to get to school and work on time, and WHERE IS IT? THAT GREEN SEQUINED HEADBAND I BOUGHT LAST YEAR TO WEAR TODAY! would have been expressed in profound despair from behind a closed bedroom door no more than four minutes before my own WE MUST GO NOW! declaration would add to the desperation of the morning.

But that was then. This year, it was quiet. The children were not even awake yet at 7:09 am, when all that would have been happening. No one particularly cared about wearing green.

I was sitting in front of my computer when she passed by to tell me and to give a sharp pinch. I felt its sting for minutes afterward. That was good, actually. I was feeling numb there. Blank. Not at my office in the Village, but at home at the dining room table. A bit disoriented. The house is more full than normal. The pincher is one of my college girls, home, presumably for the rest of the semester, as her college has closed dorms. She moved her things out yesterday. All but one rug and one shelf that she couldn’t manage to get. She might go back for them. She might abandon them.

Very exciting, planned-for-all-year, paid-on-all-year field trips to Atlanta and Chattanooga for the younger girls have been canceled. Our $550 so far investment may not be returned to us. No one knows how this is all going to work.

All three girls are waiting for virtual school to start: sixth grade, eight grade, and freshman university classes are all going online. My oldest chose to stay in her city, where she rents a house and has a job. Or had. She’s a senior, hoping to graduate in December—IF her summer internship, which is needed for credit toward graduation, doesn’t get canceled. She too is waiting for virtual classes to begin. Her university has already said that all in-person gatherings on campus are suspended through the end of the semester. No students will return to dorms or classes. Everything will be online. On-campus residents were asked to move back home. She chose to stay in her house with her roommates. I catch myself praying for her protection out loud as I rinse my coffee cup or try to make the ice maker stop that grating sound it makes or wipe the dog’s feet after she’s been out. Pray without ceasing. My baby isn’t a baby any longer, I know. But right now the mother hen’s wings feel her absence. I wish she was here with us.

We’re not going out beyond our yard right now. I needed soap. I ordered from a local craft soap maker. Her prices are now completely reasonable compared to the “market demand” prices for the supply available online. She brought my order in person, in a brown paper bag, and left it at the street. It feels like a treat even while it’s a necessity.

We have enough food to last us a few weeks, I’m sure, though we won’t love what we’re eating. Fresh vegetables for probably another day, maybe two. Fruits for three or four. And then it’s frozen, and then it’s canned unless things restock. Pickup for orders isn’t available at Walmart. No clue when it will be. Many of the things I would have ordered are not in stock anyway.

While I’m trying to work from home, there are interruptions frequently. We’re going to have to find a way to have a schedule, or a routine at least. Maybe once virtual learning actually starts we can define dedicated blocks of time. For now, it feels very fractured. I like order. I don’t like this, though I’m not as anxious as I might have expected to be. We’re doing what we can. We’re in. We’re supplied. We’re praying Psalm 91 daily at dinnertime together, asking for provision, protection. Expecting it. That’s comforting.

This is Day 3 of home quarantine for me. It’s only Day 1 for my college girl since she had to leave to go move out of her dorm. As the extrovert in the family, I expect to struggle the most with the isolation.

My fiancé and I have chosen to honor the time apart. His job still requires him to travel to various sites as needed. Yesterday and today, different sites. Tomorrow already has one planned. It’s less contact than normal but he is still more “out there” than I would like. So to protect my household, we are staying separate.

We text throughout the day and talk on the phone at night when we can. It’s something. Long ago, people wrote letters. They waited weeks for a reply. We can do this.

Our wedding is planned for August. At first we thought, “Surely…” Now we’re thinking, “Maybe not…” We may not have the wedding we’d planned—small though it was to be. We agreed tonight that even if we can’t have the wedding, we will still get married on schedule. “It will be,” he said. I love that.

At the end of the day we did the dishes—again. There are so many with everyone home all day. We played Monopoly. We’ll continue that tomorrow. And now we sleep. We’re really OK at home, without class and sports practice and physical therapy. For now. It feels surreal. It feels like we can’t see what’s happening outside, but we hear. We hear and we accept and we wait. For now.

So this is life. What a rapid, sharp turn it took.

This Is the World We Live In: Reflections of a Reluctant Adult in the World

 I had hoped to have my kitchen counter clear of clutter, polished to a shine, and ready for making holiday treats and feasts by now. But instead, it is completely covered in gallon zipper bags, a case of water bottles, fleece blankets, multi-packs of lip balm, peanut butter pods, sanitizing hand wipes, breakfast cookies, tuna packets, potted meat pop-tops, squeeze packs of applesauce, plastic spoons, tissues, Tide pods, and feminine hygiene supplies. Why?

Because there are just too many people standing at street corners, cold, hungry, lonely, and hopeless right now. So my second daughter and I began building these bags of goods. Her friend Mia keeps several in her car, so when she comes upon someone asking for help, she has something to offer. The gift bags equip her with a kind of freedom we rarely think about. With one of these in her car, she is free to make eye contact, to share a word, to offer something more than a blank stare as she hits the accelerator. And if it has to be this way, then I want to be like her.

At first, I thought I would just make four bags. But researching protein sources led me to buy in bulk for dramatic per piece savings and now the kitchen counter is swamped and I don’t know when or how I will find that surface underneath again. Except that I know all these will be gone too soon—because there are that many people out there, without their own tribe picking up the pieces after it all fell apart.

None of them have the same stories—how they got there. In my young adulthood, I always heard really simple summaries, assumptions really: It was drugs. They get on drugs and they spend all their money and lose their jobs and end up on the street. I have heard that story. It is the story for some, but it’s not everyone’s story.

Some trusted the wrong person without a safety net of their own. Some were scraping by, already on the margin working low-wage jobs in our high-rent area, when >insert random trauma< happened, there was nothing to cover the gap. For more than one, grief landed them here. Grief. Did you ever think about that? “I was taking care of my mama,” says M as we stand shivering on the pavement on a cold Saturday morning, “and then she died. I didn’t have anyone left in the world after Mama died. I couldn’t live in that house without her, so I came here. I had a job for awhile, but I lost it. I didn’t know how to fill out the paperwork so I got that wrong. I think I got it right now, so there’s some money coming, but until it gets here, I’m sleeping in the post office or the bus station most nights. The shelters are full on cold nights. Someone stole my backpack the other night. I lost my clothes.” He’s holding a black trash bag now with a few “new” things in it. He picked them up here, where donations are spread on a tarp.

He’s young. He looks strong and fit enough, but his teeth are missing and he speaks with a strong local dialect. He’s not dirty, though it’s surprising to me how it is that he’s stayed so clean on the streets for the last week. He asks if there are any gloves. They’re all gone, the few that were available taken already. The woman beside me whips off her own and gives them to him without a thought. There’s another one. If it has to be this way, then I want to be like her.

I think about my own company’s hiring processes—how much alike everyone is. I wonder… if an accident took my two front teeth and I couldn’t afford to get them repaired, would I be safe here? Would I ever be hireable commensurate with my education, ability, experience, and aptitude if my front teeth were gone—in this culture? Appearance matters so much. There’s an assumption about where a person belongs based on how well they’ve been able to care for their physical shell.

All the gift bags we assemble at home contain soft foods. Nothing with seeds or grains. Not even soft oatmeal bars with their flaky, grainy topping. Dental issues are rampant and many of these people are living in pain, unable even to chew an apple. My former boss’s wife had an abscessed tooth once. It went on for a long time, as they first tried homeopathic treatment over the standard (and very expensive) root canal option. I had one long ago too. I remember the intensity of the pain—and I lived with it only a few days before getting it resolved. There was pretty good insurance back then. My boss’s wife was in agony much longer. I remember talking with her about the sense of being “shaken” that one has to work through after suffering tremendous pain over time. There is a kind of trauma that you’re left with even when the physical pain is over. And for many of these, it doesn’t get to be over.

I don’t have solutions. Something’s not working the way it’s supposed to. The problem seems to be growing. Shelter is just not reachable for far too many people—even the “working poor.” Just simple shelter. That doesn’t even begin to address something like restorative health care. I can’t see where I have much of anything to give into the problem, to make a real difference. I’m thankful for those who do have resources and will use them—will use real estate in this high-demand area to provide walls and a roof sometimes. I’m sure those properties could be sold at enough profit to make some individual more than safe, more than comfortable, but lavished in luxury. Somewhere, someone is making a sacrifice, setting aside his or her own potential gain to serve those who can give them nothing in return. I know there’s beauty in that. But I can’t help but wish it didn’t have to be this way.

For the Kid Who DIDN’T Get Acknowledged This Awards Season

It’s that time of year. End of the school year. Time to acknowledge all the “mosts” and “bests.”

Most valuable. Most improved. Highest average. Best in sports, math, second languages, music, debate, character, virtue, integrity, helpfulness, setting an example… best in being the best of the best.

Superlatives abound, and at every gathering, exemplary versions of today’s youth are carrying away certificates, plaques, trophies, ribbons, medals, cords, and tassels.

And exemplary versions of today’s youth are not.

I know one of those exemplary overlooked youths very personally. I can’t understand how others don’t see what I see, but I know it to be a fact in her case. Therefore, I know it to be a fact in the cases of many, many others as well.

I suppose it’s simply impossible for finite humans to acknowledge every aspect of what borders upon infinite uniqueness in the variety of traits, attributes, gifts, talents, skills, and efforts imbued in an entire generation. I’ll acknowledge that to be true. Still, we do enough of the pointing out and awarding that at this time of year in particular, those who walk away empty handed can’t help but feel as if their absolutely adequate (and ultimately essential) existence just… isn’t.

This isn’t a post to oppose honoring effort or achievement. Believe me, it isn’t. Nor is it a post to support the now-ubiquitous “participation trophy.” Maybe that means something to a four-year-old just starting out in this world of competition, but to the more experienced, it quickly loses any luster and even rubs worse at the wound: Here, have a prize just for existing because there’s nothing else nameable about your worth.

What is this wound that comes with being overlooked? I think most of us at some point experience it—a longing to be seen, known, accepted, affirmed. And when we aren’t, the wound deepens. And when we try harder—serving a favorite mentor, teacher, parent, coach, friend—even joining our goals to his or hers—and then get skipped in the ceremony, it can feel like a blow of an existential nature. 

Have you ever had one of those days in traffic when your car seems to be the invisible one? Someone changes lanes and almost side-swipes you. Moments later, another person turns in front of you and in a screech of rubber-on-asphalt, you barely prevent the inevitable T-bone. While you wait patiently at a red light, the car behind you almost rear-ends you as if there really was an extra car’s length before that painted white line signaling the boundary of safe existence before the intersection. 

Does it make you want to scream at the universe, “I exist!”

Stephen Crane, an American poet who is considered part of the “Realism” movement, wrote as much:

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”

“However,” the universe replied,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

Does the overlooked athlete who showed up at every practice unless (s)he was too sick or injured, who ran coach’s errands and refused to be unsportsmanlike to the teammates carrying a sickening sense of entitlement for fear of damaging the overall esprit de corps want to say the same thing?  Or the plugger of a student who took the hard classes and studied late and managed a solid GPA along with extra-curricular activities but not only didn’t receive a single scholarship applied for but also didn’t get accepted to more than one of the schools applied to? Or the kid who not only managed to pass everything with effort, but also worked a job outside of school to help pay for his/her basic necessities and managed never to be tardy—not even once—but no one noticed that. No one noticed the kid who stayed off drugs all through high school though the parent in the home didn’t set the same bar of expectation for him or herself. The quiet one who never ran for student government but held the door without fail for the kid on crutches, picked up the paper towel on the bathroom floor instead of adding another to it, whispered, “I understand” far more often than spoke, “Why didn’t you…?” The faithful, persistent, diligent background people of all levels of performance and participation—but unseen. Unacknowledged.

As a youth in my own life, I had a foot in the camp of each of those. I made good grades and got acknowledged for that, but there was so very much more to me that no one saw way back then. As I have now reconnected with several from my childhood and teen years, I feel pretty confident in saying that we were all that way: known for one or two characteristics but nothing at all of the great width and depth to each of us. It’s far too easy to just attach a label to a person and think that’s enough. It isn’t.

When I look back, I see myself as just an embryo then, but full of potentials unseen, and longing to be known for all of me. I was not particularly athletic—and still am not, though I would love to be—but I was exuberant and positive about others’ performance and efforts, and so, in keeping with my personality, I tried out for and was voted onto one of the cheerleading squads at my school for most of my teen years. It was far too important to me—all out of proportion for its actual value—but it was an area that I felt equipped for and wanted to be integrally important to. There was one year in which I did not make the team and I felt crushed for it. I remember an older girl turning in her seat in math class to ask me about tryouts the day after decisions were made. “T,” I said as bravely as I could, “I didn’t make it.”

“What?” she responded, with genuine surprise. “Something is WRONG,” she said. And that’s all she said, but it helped. I had not been seen, but T, right then, saw me. No one else ever said a thing about it, and I suffered, at the time, through that year of being cut off from the activity that I loved, and tried again.

At the end of the next year’s season, at this time of year we're in right now, awards were being given, and for the first time ever, that year, I did receive an award for my part on the squad. The trophy still stands on the dresser in my childhood bedroom in my father’s house.

“Most Dedicated,” the plaque at the bottom reads.

I don’t recall exactly how that award was chosen. I don’t recall if it was just my squad-mates voting, or if voting included team members from the sport we supported, teachers, coaches, etc. I do recall that when I returned to my seat with the trophy, my hands shaking a bit, my sweet squad-mate J turned to me and said, “I never even thought of you!” She didn’t mean it in a negative way. In fact, she went on to affirm that OF COURSE I was the one who deserved that honor—“OF COURSE YOU DID,” she said, but again she emphasized, “I never thought of you for it though.”

And that was so honest that it stuck with me. I really was there. I really did exist. I was showing up to practice and games, staying on, doing my part, doing the extras, putting notes of encouragement into cubbies on game days, painting banners, putting myself out there in every way I knew how to do—and not being seen for it. “I never even thought of you.”

But the fact that she, a friend, a good person who cared for me, didn’t notice my consistency in that area did not in any way take away from the reality of the fact that I was there and doing my part and that it mattered. 

Nor does the absence of an award in this season for any of the non-acknowledged youth who have been showing up and doing their thing faithfully for the last four years in any way take away from the reality that they matter. And it most certainly doesn’t mean that their existence and value and uniqueness will never be seen and acknowledged either.

In fact, it already is. 

Oh, to believe that high school is just going to be a dusty memory one day, and that all the shining you’re going to do is still ahead. The opportunities to be the “you-est you” are still coming and you’ll rise to meet them—maybe even surprising yourself.

But even now, today, this moment, I wish I could make you know that you’re seen. Seen, loved, accepted, sung over loudly—and being used. Even when the limited humans surrounding you aren’t seeing clearly, loving well, accepting fully, acknowledging joyfully, or opening doors for you they might have authority to open—
There’s one who does, who knows exactly what he made you for, who is guiding, developing, directing, and providing. He’s not a cold, distant, clockwork universe without a sense of obligation to you. He’s a personal Creator and a Good Sovereign who refused to move into the very future he rules over without his beloved individual human children in it. He was called “the God who sees me” by an outcast who had received no favor at all from mankind. He saw her truly.

He sees. He knows. He has plans for you, now and in the days ahead. He made you for good works that he prepared also for you to do and his eye is never off you. Your story is not the same as anyone else’s, but it is yours and that is enough, because it is being written by one who knows you intimately and cares about every detail, who created you and equips you for every chapter. So be strong and courageous and in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path—and say to you, “Well done,” and rejoice over you, no, even EXULT over you. This is the greater reality—greater than anything thought of in our modern philosophies.

You do exist. You are seen. You matter.

On Waiting for God

Life Lesson

Our homeschool Bible lessons have led us now to John’s gospel. The girls and I are taking this beautiful book in small, savory bits. We’re listening carefully to the Spirit-inspired voice of an insider, a bosom buddy of our Lord. And we’re hearing reminders and encouragements that address deep issues of aching human hearts.

We’ve imagined the reality of walking with the Lord, eating with the Lord, wiping his feet with our own hair. We’ve re-enacted reclining against God incarnate and sharing a whispered exchange. John makes Christ’s physical presence so prominent, personal, and appealing. Oh, how we long to see him face to face!

And yet, John makes sure we hear how the physical presence is not always as important as physical distance. He is careful to prime us first, in Chapter 11, for what is coming, knowing we’ll need the reassurance. “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So…”
Don’t miss that preface: Jesus LOVED the sisters and Lazarus. SO. Believe he loved them before you read on.

The one Jesus loves is sick. The sisters have sent for him. Their confidence is in his presence. After all, he told Martha—in gentle rebuke—that Mary had it right when she planted herself at his feet for his earlier visit. Now they need him. And he loves them.

But he doesn’t go. And they can't see it. They can't see that the reason he doesn't go is actually because he loves them.

Can’t you taste Mary’s shock and sense of rejection as she sits in the house, four days past her brother’s death? The Lord has let her down. She called, she expected, and he didn’t come. And when he did finally come, she is too numb, paralyzed by disappointment, to go at first to meet him.

The Lord doesn’t take this lightly. There is no patronizing pat on the head, no smug “watch and see.” No. He knows full well that his delay, though for everyone’s greater good, has been deeply painful. It causes him great anguish in his own spirit to see Mary and the others weeping. I believe he also knows her grief is not just over the death of her brother, but the death of her expectations as well.

While the sisters wait and Lazarus dies, Jesus tells his disciples “For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” His absence will be more valuable than his presence. In hindsight, we can see why. It is good for all who wait on the Lord to have this example before us.

Fast-forward to Chapter 16, where we hear something like this again. Jesus tells his friends that he is going back to the Father. The disciples grieve. (Whisper it in our ears again, John, as we get the bad news. Remind us that he loved them. So...)

“I tell you the truth,” he says. “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you.”

How is it, I ask the girls, that the presence of the Holy Spirit can be better for the disciples—and by extension, better for us—than the bodily presence of Christ himself? To my small mind, it is difficult to grasp—and grasp is exactly what I want to do!

Oh, how I long for a God with skin on! I want to cling to him in the garden. I want to crawl into my Abba’s lap. I don’t immediately care so much about the omnipresence of the Spirit.

I long for the tangible in part because I am still immature. But to walk by sight and touch alone is to stay little. My heavenly Father who loves me does not want me to stay little. It is for my progress toward maturity that I live now outside Christ’s physical presence. It is for greater things—greater glory, greater knowledge of the fullness of his power—that he left in body. But he did not leave us alone. He loves us and so . . . he left us—left us indwelt with the one who will guide us into all truth. Believe it! And yet his physical absence is only for a time. He will return, in bodily form.

Remember, John says: He loves us. And so it is for our greater good that we learn to walk by faith, and for his greater glory that our maturity comes to completion.

--Rebecca Cochrane

From November 2010.

Update: Improving and Adapting

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning, it's time to sing your song again. Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes. -- 10,000 Reasons, Matt Redman

I suppose it's also time to give you good people an update about me. I want to start off by saying that I am SO MUCH BETTER, and while not fully restored to physical abilities, I have seen progress. Not everyone does. I'm still hoping for more progress, but if it comes, it will come slowly, and so every day, I have to consider: What if this is the most improvement I will get? Can I live and work with this? The answer is "Yes." So each day that I get to see even a tiny tick of betterment--slightly less tingling pain, slightly more sensation, more stamina on stairs or during a longish walk or while standing to deliver a presentation--each day something like that presents itself is a bonus to me.

I would not qualify my physical condition as a result of the transverse myelitis attack on my spinal cord as debilitating.

For that, I am so very thankful. Many people who are hit with this and similar rare spinal cord diseases suffer with paralysis, long-term pain, and loss of use of limbs and/or digits. My residual effects are minor in comparison to what I have learned about many others.

My condition is not debilitating, but it is still challenging. Pain is mostly under control with medication, but the medication does not help with the numbness that I still have in my lower left leg and foot. I have recently regained sensation in my left heel, though, and that has been super-encouraging. That numbness is a matter of the nerve damage in my spine, and there is no drug that can repair the damage. Only time, good nutrition, and the power of God can address that. 

In my case, I have insecure footing that comes from that numbness, pain in the form of tingling that is generally manageable with gabapentin, taken three times daily. The perception of movable bands of weakness and fatigue in both right and left legs--which is a phantom weakness--is getting less and less. I'm hoping that continues. My muscles are actually fine, but the damaged nerves in my spine are firing off desperate and inaccurate signals to my brain telling me my legs are shaky, weak, about to buckle under me. I keep climbing those stairs to prove to my brain that it just isn't so. 

So, I'm continuing in hope that I might see more improvement, but at the same time making some smallish changes around the house and office to accommodate my particular challenges and make regular, daily life as manageable as possible.

Most of these are taking actual physical form, but some are activity oriented. Eventually, I'm told, I will need some physical therapy, but in the meantime I try to get as much normal movement in as my legs and heart (cardio was a mess while on prednisone--heart rate and blood pressure stayed elevated no matter what I did; I am now off the steroid and already see a slight decrease in resting heart rate; hoping blood pressure will follow suit and drop back down near my previous normal range). My brothers and friends help me with this by constantly challenging me to FitBit steps competitions and I'm keeping up with them as best as I can right now. It takes a team and I'm grateful for mine!

As the weather warms, I plan to tackle some altitude in the real world.

I shared in another place that the wonderful man in my life (his name is Chris) and my good friend Jordan, with other friends Cathy and Jack and Ashley and Woody stopping in to see if they could help too, tore out and replaced my stepping stone walkway to my back door. They did a wonderful job of removing a path that was gappy, uneven, and treacherous for not-so-nimble feet, and now I walk safely and as smoothly as possible to and from my car and home. I am so thankful.

But I'm not going to be able to easily mow the steeper parts of my yard this spring and summer, and already, the grass back there is beginning to rise up in scattered clumps that demanded attention. (Chris did the initial mowing for this year for me.) The sloped area is not large, but it was already difficult for me to manage on my own with my small but hardy Murray lawnmower that I depend on to partner with me in that job. Murray and I struggled even when my legs and feet were fully in this game. So some landscaping is on the horizon, and soon.

Front slope

Back slope, where the rainwater also collects.
We've had actual algae growing on the mud at the base of this one.

A small portion of my tax refund is going to some more mulch, gravel, dogwoods, azaleas, and groundcovers. I'll have to stage the landscaping plants because they are so expensive, but the plan is to put in a few feature items, groundcovers, and then mulch the slope and use gravel at the base to turn the muddy areas (one even has ALGAE growing on top of the clay mud after all this rain) to make them as maintenance free as possible. I will still be able to mow the flat grassy strip above and below each area, but the slopes will hopefully be mostly hands-off after this project is done. A married couple who are also outward-thinking, sweet and supportive friends, have offered to come over on "planting day" once I set the date, to help dig and plant and mulch. That will make it so much more fun and help the project move along quickly as well. It makes me look forward to it. So I told Dave and Christine I would let them know after I "call before I dig" to have utilities marked, and then purchase the plants that I'm able to do in phase 1.

Dinnertime prep and aftermeal cleanup have gone fairly well with the exception of one hard day last week. I am giving myself a little bit of grace in this area while I learn how to do the same things I used to do when they do contribute to a building of late-day fatigue or pain. I am allowing paper plates at the dinner table at least once per week. But I decided that it might help me to invest in an anti-fatigue kitchen mat to remove some of the standing pressure that increases the tingling pain. Just as I was researching those, and finding them MUCH more expensive than I expected, I got a promotional email from Brad's Deals with a deep discount on a selection of cute mats. I couldn't believe it. I was looking at 1/2" mats on Amazon with mediocre reviews for $50 each, and here on Brad's Deals was a 1" mat with a number of cute, kitcheny decor patterns, for $16.00. I snapped one up and it arrived earlier this week. After using it in my sock feet for a couple of days, I must say it really does help relieve a bit of pressure. So I went back to the site to see if there were any left and whether the promotion still worked. It did, so I ordered a second one. My plan is to have one permanently between the sink and stove, so that whether I am washing or cooking, I can have a mat always there. Then the other will go at the end of the kitchen bar--the "prep" area, so that if I am chopping veggies or making lunches, I can always have one to stand on there. An easy, inexpensive bit of assistance!

I traded out my desk chair at work for one made for a shorter person and put a lumbar support pillow in the seat of it. Now there is no chance of my legs "dangling" from the seat and possibly putting pressure on any blood vessels to reduce circulation. In the past, if that happened, I would just adjust position and restore circulation. But today, if that happens, it is almost immediate pain. Let's just try to avoid that entirely.

This is adaptation. These are small adjustments. No matter how long this condition lasts--whether it is months or years or the rest of my life--there are things to do to adjust and to keep moving forward in the tasks we're called to keep doing. Life is still worth the effort.

And I can stand and walk to do almost anything I need or want to do. Running--such as in playing backyard baseball--is still really not an option. I'm sure to stumble and fall. I hope this improves. But if it doesn't, I'm still gratefull.

My perseverance is so small in comparison to others and what they are working through. I think of the Wounded Warriors. I think of those paralyzed in accidents or illnesses. I think of children born with harder hardships than mine.

But on some days, if I'm honest, I still ask: Wasn't it enough already? It seemed like enough already. I'm not whining, but I think it's realistic and a cause for me to look at others with more compassion, no matter what level of challenge each faces: No one really has it easy. To diminish one's burden with a "could be worse" response doesn't actually help encourage them. It may be true that it could be worse, but that doesn't in any way mean it isn't what it is. Lord, help me see them too. Help me see what they're carrying and say, "I know; me too; soldier on--it's worth it." And maybe, if enough knowledge and insight is afforded, also lend a hand. At least my hands and arms are strong and working. There is that.

Let me be singing when the evening comes.