as usual, whenever one makes a choice,  IMMEDIATELY you run into a time to apply it.  that is SUPER true of the “practice makes perfect” doctrine.  as mentioned, vin’s grandfather died on saturday.  today, he was supposed to fly into baltimore to drive to newark tomorrow to go to the funeral services.  enter winter storm janus.

this morning, facing this complication, we got him on the earliest flight he could possibly make.  the FIRST cancelled one out of charlotte, as it turns out.   had he made the one JUST before, he would have gotten to bwi.  but not his.  so now, since the entire east coast is essentially closed, he sits in charlotte figuring out plan B.  meanwhile, i sit in tampa reminding myself that i am person who already possesses peace.  who already is gentle.   reminding myself that God knew this was going to happen and that all things work together for good.  this is not what i want to be doing.  i want to be freaking out and shouting orders.  but i am practicing something new.  and so far, so good!!

i hope your practices are also going well but with seriously less complications!

it’s odd.  death is literally surrounding me. not MY death, but it seems everywhere that i look death is present.  our neighbor on one side is moving closer to death every day after years of living with skin cancer now throughout his body.  our neighbor on the other side just lost his mother.    we went thursday to the wake.  last saturday, vin got an email that his grandfather is probably not long with us. this saturday, while vin was on the way to say goodbye, he died.  literally, death is to the left, the right and above.

frankly, even with all this death, i haven’t felt very DEEP. i haven’t felt very thoughtful.  (translation:  i haven’t felt very FULL OF THOUGHT.)  but i feel like i should be.  i should use these markers to remember that life is short.  so here is what i am going to undertake.  i am going to decide what i want people to say about me AFTER.  at my funeral , i want to determine what i want people to say, to think and to reflect about my life lived.  then i want to make that happen.  i want them to have no choice but to remember the me i have so artfully created.  i have also decided i want this picture to be in the slide show.  it is so descriptive of christmas and my sister.

so, first step is to determine what person i want to be.  a friend of mine, kristofer, who is remarkably charming and, evidenced by this next bit, amazingly gracious posted recently to his facebook about me.  as i read his post about me, i was so moved.  his description of me was so kind and so full of delightful memories.  but i also noted that he was certainly describing my BEST self.  my IDEAL self.  not the every day self that i typically am.   i would love if, at the end, EVERYONE described me thus.  that they would have absolutely no option but to describe that person.  so, how do i become the girl described so thoughtfully (considerately, in this usage) in that facebook post?  how do i become my IDEAL self?

a book i am reading, jesus feminist*, describes the act of practicing.  the writer likens practicing behavior like one would practice scales.  the more and more one does something, the easier, more fluid and more natural it becomes.  i can certainly be a witness to the opposite being true.  why am i a non-player of the guitar?  i hated to practice.  i hated to sit by myself and play things that seemed boring.  why was my friend dave so superior?  because he did.  things that were really hard for me to play were easy for him.   so, i can certainly witness to the fact that practice indeed makes perfect.   so, what am i perfecting?

according to my children, “angry mom” would probably make the list.  recently, in order to work on fine motor skills, my 5-year-old and i were drawing stick people.  so he was drawing daddy, and cricket, and me.  the 4-year-old (or NEARLY 4) cricket says “don’t draw her angry.”  helicopter responded with a nod…as if he would add that to his thoughts on the project.  and i said, “i am not always angry.”  and she said, ” not ALL the time.”   icky.  but she’s right.  i am not always angry.  but i am practicing.  so that angry is becoming easier and more fluid.

it’s not all bad at casa rich-e-rich.  i am certainly practicing some things that are worthy.  i am practicing to remember that i am NOT the center of the universe (i have a good bit of help on this one including two preschoolers and one amazingly needy great dane).   i am practicing being more thoughtful (full of thought again) about my responses and in my world view.  i am learning to listen.  sometimes i am learning to listen to the same thing again and again and again (see aforementioned preschoolers). but i want this season of death to begin INTENTIONALITY about the things i am practicing.  so here is my list:

1. i want to rely on the fruits of the Spirit:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  when i feel like i am becoming a dragon, i want to rely on those fruits…peace, patience, goodness…that God has promised are already in me.  when i want just ONE MORE COKE ZERO, i want to remember that i am person who already possesses self-control.
2. i want to be defined by grace.  i want to assume the best when i meet someone.  i want to always give someone the benefit of the doubt.   i want to be a place where people can retreat when they need a moment.
3. i want to do things ON PURPOSE.  because God has called me to do them.  because they need to be done.  because they would make the world a better place to be in.  because the more beauty, the better.

so, here comes the tough part.  the practicing.  the sitting in situations where i want to be the opposite of those things and doing the ones for which i want to be remembered.   having someone be judgey of someone that i love and remembering that they too have hurty places that they are defending.  answering with grace rather than a quick snark.   choosing to do things not just because they are easy for me or because they seem natural but because they are WORTH DOING.  drinking water instead of coke zero.  because i am person of self-control and someone who does things on purpose.  being patient with my children because patience already resides in me.  and when they are being dragons, they probably need patience more than they need me growling at them.

i’ll let you know how it goes.  and i encourage you to do the same.  to think about how you would like to speak of you when your time here is through.  what do you hope that they say?  who do you hope they remember?  then start to practice.  like scales.  day in and day out.  time and time again.  when you are discouraged, you can remember that i am probably facing the same hurdles in my scales.  to make it more fun,  you can even, like me, begin to determine what silly photos you would like to be included.

in addition to having kristofer sing at my funeral (and i at his), i am hoping that after all this practicing i will deserve the description that he included:  In short, Elizabeth lives out her life like someone trying to authentically follow Jesus–with compassion and sacrifice and grace and love. And she does it in ways that are organic and fun and creative and practical and real.

let’s hope practice at least makes CLOSER TO PERFECT for me!

*i have only read two chapters, but this book is SUPER thought provoking.  you should try it!

 

sorry about the delay between parts one and two of this thought!  our family went nutto and traveled and birthday-ed and celebrated thanksgiving.  oh, and my daughter cricket hacked off part of my right thumb with a potato peeler right before the giving of thanks transforming me into an incessant whiner.  i was distracted by my constant need to tell everyone about my very small injury.  but here we go!

so we were talking about shadrach, meshach and abednego.  the fiery three, as it were.  here is the second thought that amazes me about their tale.  to catch you up (if you have been snoozing during the three weeks between the two parts of this post), these three wouldn’t bow down to a statue upon threat of death.  even when threatened, and then actually THROWN INTO, a very very hot furnace.   just wouldn’t do it.

the next part of the story is when they are in the furnace.  the king sees that there are now FOUR people in the furnace.  he orders them out.  as a side note, i can never imagine HOW this happens.  how the king sees them in the furnace.  in my mind, they are thrown into a very thick plastic tube through which all the other people are watching.  sort of aquarium style but with fire instead of water.  but i realize that this scenario is technologically impossible, so i leave it up to you to determine how the king saw into the very hot furnace.  if you come up with something good to replace plastic tube image, let me know.

on we go.  when they come out (after going into the fire, the king noticing there were three and not four, then coming out), they are fine.  which we, reader of the story, just knew was going to happen.  i sit and read and say “SEE!  i KNEW that God wouldn’t see how committed they were and do nothing.”   my worry is discarded.  hope is confirmed.

but here is the SUPER cool part.  not only were they saved, but it says that they DIDN’T EVEN SMELL LIKE SMOKE.  it is crazy talk.  i mean smoke, even a small smoke situation, is amazingly pervasive.  i remember, back in the day when i was in and out of smoky places because they let people smoke inside, i would have to take a shower to get the smell out of my hair before i went to bed so that my pillow wouldn’t smell like smoke.  because if my pillow smelled like smoke, then my hair FOR DAYS would smell like smoke.  so days after being in a smoky place, NOT SMOKING, my hair would smell like smoke because it had touched another object that had NEVER BEEN INTO a smoky place.  smoke smell is not something with which you should trifle.   or at the very least, if you do, you should come armed with buckets of febreeze.

what an awesome example of God’s grace to us.  because in this example, He shows us that not only does he want to bring us through but he will bring us through UNSCATHED.  amazing.  we won’t even have the SMELL of this situation around us.  not even have that greasy chinese food smell stuck to our clothes when we emerge from the restaurant.   i can’t really get my head around it.

i think that whenever i am going through something, i always assume there will be lasting scars.  when my daughter slices off part of my finger.  when someone decides they don’t like me anymore.  when i have a really crushing failure.  i just assume that even if i emerge intact (which i often have faith to expect), i will carry with me some remnant of this experience.  not a good “wisdom gained through experience” remnant, but a messy, painful kind of remnant.  a hurty place that will never quite go away.  some bad reference that i can never quite avoid.  something that will slightly cripple me in the next race.  but this story show us that it isn’t true.  you can emerge and NOT EVEN SMELL LIKE SMOKE.

i am sure that some of you, like me, are wondering if God is really going to show up like this.  or thinking that you already smell like smoke.  here are my caveats to this thought:  1.  see the fiery three post one.  these kids had signed up whether God showed up or not.  they knew God’s truth.  that was it.  that is how we must move forward.  what God says is true whether it goes our way or not.  2.  for those already feeling smelly, i like to think of the 10 lepers.  there is another biblical story (sorry to use more than one) where Jesus heals 10 lepers.  leprosy eats your flesh…totally not awesome.  so just to get it to STOP eating your flesh was a big deal.  but one of the lepers goes back to thank Jesus, and he is restored to pre-leprosy.  the other nine still were without leprosy, but this guy was restored.  so if it’s already still too late to miss the smoke smell and the fire damage, think of him.  RETURNED to smoke free attire.

this is just such an awesome thought to tuck in at the start of something icky or something that could end up icky.   that you could see the end without even the smell of smoke.  not scarred and bruised Braveheart movie style, but not even soiled.  awesome.  mind-blowing.