Maria Pull?

So I was sitting in the kitchen eating waffles. Completely minding my own business really, and I look over and see this:



It made it awful hard to eat waffles cuz I was laughing so hard. :)

God's been working out!

I had a great conversation with one of the guys I work with at the gym last night...Friday nights are really slow, which gave us a chance to talk over subs from Subway. Just having a conversation at all was quite an answer to prayer, and the topic of conversation...well, isn't it just like God to go above and beyond? :)

This particular guy, who is just a bit older than me, just broke up with his girlfriend of 5 years. I have a really good feeling about it because he is a smart, quality guy and she--well, I don't know her well, so let's just say I never felt like they really "fit." So he's on a new track now, at that stage where he's sort of feeling things out, trying to get his bearings, figure out how to do this, etc. GREAT time for making some changes, if you ask me. :) Anyway, he asked me randomly if Nate and I's relationship changed when we got married. To be truthful, I told him yes, it did, some for the better and some for the not better. We have lots of things to work on. :) And before I could elaborate anymore on it, he asked me if we had lived together before we got married. I just about cried at the opportunity to explain to him how much that can damage a relationship, not make it better like the world says it will.

Nate and I did not live together before we got married, but we struggled with physical things for most of our dating life; sometimes I feel like, considering all that went on, we basically did live together but just didn't call it that because that is a sin you can't hide, while physical things you sort of can. So I am well aware of the psychological and emotional turmoil that a woman experiences when certain marriage-only benefits are pursued outside of marriage. As I was talking to this guy about all of this, I was discouraged at my inability to find words to accurately describe what happens without sharing too much detail...we have not been friends that long and I didn't want to gross him out or overwhelm him or make him feel awkward. At the same time, though, I wanted to convey the seriousness of the situation.

We only had 10 minutes or so to talk, so obviously it wasn't a real in-depth discussion, but I feel like it's got him thinking and perhaps re-thinking some of his habits. You guys, out of everyone I work with, I feel like this guy has the most potential in life--he is smart, curious, and bold about the things he believes in--and is really someone who, if he ever got hooked on Jesus, could really do some damage for the Kingdom. And this big time of change in his life might be just the primest of all prime times for him to make that decision. Please join me in prayer for this man's future and for my own wisdom to open my mouth when I should and be bold in a way that does not push him away.

This is SO exciting!

Thankfulness...

Inspired by my friend Amy's excercise in thankfulness, I thought I would make a list of my own. Here are ten things I am very, very thankful for today...

• The kind and gentle spirit my husband has. He is never mean or rude to anyone, not even to campers who really deserve it, or to I, who sometimes super deserves it.

• Weather that is sunny with highs in the 60s. Perfect fall weather.

• Enough intelligence to know how to be a good student and the desire to do so. I am realizing more and more that not everyone has this...scary when these people are going into the medical profession!

• Hymns

• A piano on which to play the hymns, even if it is grossly out of tune and third-space C won't play.

• A job at a gym so I can go to the classes for free.

• God's faithfulness to be Jehovah Jireh in all senses of the name...abundantly providing everything I need precisely when I need it. Like the woman at the gym yesterday. I think I may have just made my first friend in West Virginia.

• Free sermons online...both by podcast and by live feed. It is funny that they call it live "feed" because that's exactly what it is to me: sustenance.

• Jasper
  

• The gift of today, and that Nate and I both got this gift again.

Grab a Kleenex

My father-in-law sent this to me today...

From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day. Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester , Mass. , 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. ``He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told. ``There's nothing going on in his brain.'' "Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''

Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!'' And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon. ``No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?'' How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii . It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-o! ld stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says. Dick does it purely for ``the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? T! wo hour s, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

``No question about it,'' Rick types. ``My dad is the Father of the Century.'' And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, ``you probably would've died 15 years ago.''

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston , and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland , Mass. , always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. ``The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ


I want to be a nurse because I feel like it is my way of being Rick's dad to all of my patients. I think, at some point, everyone needs a Rick's dad in their life.

More games, but no flames

I am happy to report that this year's US Open (specifically, Andre Agassi's performance in it) has concluded its airing in our house with no articles of furniture being toasted. You will recall that last year, the intensity of Agassi's game led to our coffee table being lit on fire. Flame free this year.

Be Still My Soul

Was moved by the truth in this hymn this morning....

Be still, my soul! the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul! thy best, thy heavenly friend
through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul! thy God doth undertake
to guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul! the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Apple Pie?

Due to a great deal that I couldn't pass up, I now have approximately 2 bushels of apples (that means a lot of apples) that I need to use up very soon. I don't have much experience in knowing which recipes freeze well and which don't, so I need some help. If anyone has a great apple pie recipe that can be frozen after it is baked, please pass it along! Either leave it in a comment or e-mail it. Thank you! :)

Power of Prayer

Maria gets the feeling on Thursday morning like she needs to hit the floor with her knees, that God is urging her to prayer. Maria had planned to attend an aerobics class at the gym before work. Weighing the two options, Maria decides she will just pray in the car on the way to the aerobics class. Maria later learns of an event that occured on Thursday that had a rather undesirable outcome. Maria is stuck wondering if she would have prayed, if things would have turned out differently. If she could have stopped the yucky from coming.

I believe in the power of prayer, I really do. Which is why I can't get over the thought that I could have done something. Could I have fought off the enemy and avoided the current circumstances? The situation, technically, is not my fault, but if it could have been avoided had I done what I was supposed to, that does make me partially responsible for the way things are now.

What do I do with this?

Sometimes it bothers me that people tend to comment more on the pointless or strictly-for-entertainment blog entries...not just mine, but all across the board...but they remain unnervingly quiet on the more in-depth and/or controversial blogs. Anytime people write about a certain stand they are taking or Biblical truths they are grasping and/or struggling with and/or feel deeply about, the "comments" section is pathetically empty.

I am guilty of being a non-commenter on the deeper blog entries. Sometimes I disagree with the post and am afraid to voice my opinion, sometimes I agree and just find it redundant to comment about it, and sometimes, I will confess, I do not comment because I have skipped over that particular entry, feeling like it was going to take too much work to read the whole thing and think through it.

I would guess that many people have these same feelings, and that drives me crazy. It is so frustrating to walk around needing depth in my life and have conversations with people who are feeling the same loss, yet when we are actually confronted with depth, we avoid it. Because it is safer. Easier.

Grrr.

Sometimes you just want to do this:

You know, stick your fingers in your ears, make a scary face, and lean way out over the wall of a humongous cathedral.

(This was taken by Nate at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. More info later on exactly what we were doing taking pictures of gargoyles on the rooftop of a cathedral in DC.)

God's Gym

Do you ever get the feeling that you are a twinkie in a sea of rice cakes? That sharp, clear understanding that you definitely do not blend well with your current surroundings? That you stand out like a white guy on an NBA team?

I grew up in the church and have had Scripture quoted to me, reminding me that I am not of this world, and the world will reject me because I am Christ's and they rejected Him first...it is one thing to hear that and quite another to actually experience it. For those of you who don't already know, I started working at our local Gold's Gym last month (making my twinkie analogy all the more fitting), and in the past 30 days I have felt the difference between me and the world more intensely than I have ever felt it before.

Lots of the women I work with tan frequently, have perfect hair, have perfectly toned bodies, and have had breast implants. They look terrific and I am not condeming or judging them for these things in anyway...I am just way more aware of my white hind end that has never seen the light of day, my haircut that is not exactly what I had wanted, my not-so-toned areas and my small womanly curves. Some days I walk into work and just wish I could get through the day without anyone seeing me because I feel so frumpy next to these other women.

But my not fitting in goes way deeper than looks. It is painfully obvious that my priorities/morals/choices are in stark contrast to those of my co-workers. I work with gay people who often share details of their private life; I work with people who come in Monday and exchange drinking stories from the weekend; I work with people who are not married but are living together; I work with people who are not married or living together but are having sex; I work with guys who stand around my front desk area and talk about other women, make sexual jokes and/or comments that though not directed at me, often make me wish my small features were even smaller because I can't stand the thought of what they might be saying when I'm not around.

Yes, I know that the fact that these things shock me so much points out how sheltered I am. I know that this is how the world is now and that this work environment is not unlike any other. I know that I should just get over it and accept that these things are part of men/life. Or should I? Shouldn't I be bothered by some of these things? Just by reading the Scriptures, it is clear that God does not approve of anything I just mentioned, so why should I?

The working out of how to be in this world but not of it has been an area of slow growth for me. I really love the people I work with and truly enjoy them time I spend with them. It is just hard to know how to love and support the person but not love and support the actions, all the while trying to keep my light out from under a bushel but avoiding burning the place down with words of fire and brimstone.

Often when I am typing "Gold's Gym" I will miss the "l" and type "God's Gym." While I do think the "L" key is in an awkward place, I also think God is reminding me that it is, ultimately, His gym; that He loves those people, too, and that He has plans for them and wants them to come to Him as much as He loves you or I and wanted us to come to Him. I am both honored and humbled at the thought that He might want to use me to reach some of them...like Moses, I am tempted to think up some excuse to avoid opening my mouth to my co-workers ("Lord, I can't speak to these people! I have small boobs!"), but I am trying to remain open and willing.

If you think of it, pray for the people at God's Gym this week.