sun + rain

Lately whenever it rains, it's also simultaneously sunny.  Like right now.  As it began raining, it quickly turned to hail, which quickly turned into bigger hail, until all of a sudden the clouds blew away, leaving a gentle rainfall and sharp shadows on the ground.

It's as if God was saying, "See!  I'm in charge.  Trust me."

freeze-frame

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You know how sometimes you witness a moment and it happens really fast but your brain takes a freeze-frame and you just remember that one moment instead of the whole scenario?

As I was leaving work this evening, it was still light out with just a few clouds and as I sat admiring the general beauty of the outdoors, and also waiting for the light to change green, I noticed a young couple walking down the sidewalk headed in my direction.  It all happened so fast:

My left-turn arrow turns green.  I accelerate.

Halfway through the intersection, I notice that the couple is about to cross.

A car who has the yield sign, but obviously doesn’t notice the couple, keeps on cruising through his right turn just as the girl sets her foot into the intersection.

Mind you, I’m still mid-turn.

All in one motion, she starts stepping in front of the moving car and the guy sticks his arm out to his side across her belly, holding her back, while he turns to look straight at the driver who almost ran over his lover.

I still see the heroic air in his stance as he saved his girl from danger.

I don’t know, maybe he overreacted.  Maybe she was going to stop in time.  Maybe they aren’t dating yet and she was infatuated, or perhaps bothered, by his overt effort to save her and prove himself manly and strong.  Maybe she felt demeaned as a woman and got mad at him a second later because “can’t I look after my own safety?”

But it was a sweet picture.  I hope that it made her fall more in love with him because he cared enough to stop her from getting hurt.

the impossible has been done

Think of all the things that once seemed impossible.  We take them for granted now.

Maybe in the beginning, their inventors didn’t think they could actually do what they had somewhere vaguely pictured in their hearts.  Maybe they thought that even if they did their best it would still look like a half-hearted, underdeveloped, pile of broken pottery.  Maybe they didn’t know if they could pull out the dream from deep inside and mold it just right.  Maybe they felt like inspiration waned and waxed faster than their heartbeat.  Maybe they felt trapped within the limitations of culture, workspace, thought.

But it worked.  Those people changed the world.

human

My feet started tingling at the prospect of sinking my feet into the soft Italian grass.  I could go there?  I could.  I wish I was.  I wish that right now I were on a plane headed to Italy just because the world is awesome and I want to see it.

I get hung up on the not-so-awesome parts of the world much too often.  Sometimes money is where my dreaming stops, and with it my joy.  I mentioned in my last post that I'm giving up expectations of myself...I have learned that I am capable of more than I think I am, but sometimes feel trapped from making capabilities reality.

Transparency.  Why is it so easy to perceive others as totally and entirely transparent when in my head I can't even get a solid picture of who I am?

If we're honest, nobody's completely okay.  "That which is most personal is most universal," and yet we resist total honesty, would rather act like we have it all together.  Which might be true most of the time, but one moment of honesty and we feel like the rest of them will judge while pulling their cloaks tighter against their vulnerable hearts.

Here's to being human.

giving up

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I'm giving up

my self-imposed expectations

for happiness

for this journey

for my future

for my relationships

for my image

for my heart.


And most importantly

I'm giving up

my expectations

of who God should be

and choosing to let Him be

who He is.

"I'm heading into the office to get an early start on stapling papers.  Good thing my high school principal was insistent that all the girls took office skills," mom says.

"Yeah, that was before women's lib," dad replies.