Tag: memories

In Memory of Ms Wong

I just received news today that Miss Jennie Kuk-Ying Wong has passed away. She was my piano teacher when I attended Biola University. She was the head of the Piano Department, and Aunt Laurie, who taught me piano in middle school and high school had also been one of her students years before. Ms. Wong, who never married or had children, told me that I was essentially, as her student’s student, her granddaughter. 

I was intimidated by Ms. Wong. And that’s putting it mildly. She had the highest standards and was not quick to compliment or praise. When I am nervous I have a tendency to crack jokes and make little comments. I remember sitting in lessons and I would say some joking comment and she would pause and just look at me, blank faced, almost in disbelief, and then shake her head and tap the piano book to get me back on focus. But occasionally she would flash a quick smile and that felt like a big win for me. 

During my first semester I developed a bad tendonitis that kept me from being able to practice. Ms Wong said that she knew of a place that did some kind of shock therapy to help people get a quick recovery. She had never been there, but was really interested in finding out if it worked. She asked if I’d be interested in trying it. I said yes and she made the appointment for me and then drove me there. It felt so bizarre to be in Ms Wong’s car with her. She was not the talkative type, and neither was I, and we drove mostly in silence. When we got to the reception area, we walked up the desk to get signed in, me slightly behind Ms Wong, very nervous. The receptionist looked at me and then looked at Ms Wong and asked in a stage-whisper, “Does your student speak English?” Ms Wong assured her that I did and we went on with the appointment. But later, when we left the office, my arms now tingling, Ms Wong laughed so long and so hard. It was a new experience for her, a Chinese woman, to be asked if her student, a white American, spoke English. On the way back from the appointment, Ms Wong took us out for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. She ordered for me and soon a large bowl of egg drop soup arrived at the table for me. I do not like Egg Drop Soup. But, I picked up my spoon and ate my soup, because it would be inconceivable to do anything else. 

My second year under Ms Wong I started to relax more. Probably because I started to realize that she actually liked me. The real turning point though happened late in the semester. It was winter time and finals were looming and we were all practicing a ridiculous number of hours a day to get ready for piano juries. It was a Thursday evening and I was standing in the lobby of the music building looking up at the cafeteria which was next door. Ms Wong walked by and saw me standing there, just staring, and she came up to me and asked me what I was doing. I explained that I only had two meals left on my meal plan for the week and I was debating whether I should go up and eat supper at the cafeteria or take the long walk back to my dorm and have a bowl of cereal. She nodded and said goodnight and left. I ended up finishing my evening of practice and homework and then eating some dry cereal before I crashed into bed. 

The next day one of Ms Wong’s other students told me there was a note for me on Ms Wong’s studio door. This was a typical way that she communicated with her students so I went to see what it said. The note told me there was something for me in the fridge in her studio. Since the studio was empty at the time, I let myself in and peaked into the little dorm fridge Ms Wong kept there. Inside was a tupperware with my name on it, filled with rice and some kind of Asian meat and vegetable dish. It was delicious. I was a little embarrassed the next time I saw her and thanked her for the food. But I think it broke down some of the formality we usually had. I remember she talked to me more. About music, her own experiences, students she had taught. 

Now, when I think of her, I picture her looking up at me (she was very short) and shaking her head and then laughing about some comment I had just made. The other thing I think of are her hands. They were small, square, so wrinkled and so soft. And when she touched the piano she would make sounds come out that were impossibly beautiful. When she played it brought to my mind rich velvet and gold, deep royal blues and reds. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything more beautiful than her playing. 

I left Biola after two years and kept in touch with Ms Wong for several years through letters. But eventually we fell out of touch. 

She was strong and formidable, stern and intimidating. A genius. And she was also generous and kind and an amazing teacher. I am a richer person for having been her student. 

Needing Some Forgiveness for the New Year

It’s Sunday evening and I’m sitting in my living room, fire going, wrapped in a cozy blanket. Kids are reading, and skating, and playing loud instruments. Just another quiet evening at the Heneises. 

We’ve had a wonderful Christmas break. Lots of family time. For the most part everyone has managed to enjoy or at least put up with each other’s company. Apart from a couple days visiting grandparents, we’ve just been home. It has been a nice rest, but I’m ready for us to start back to our normal schedule tomorrow. 

It’s the beginning of the year and this is normally the time that we set goals, make plans, look forward with a hopeful list of all the things we want to accomplish. I couldn’t resist doing the same. I made a realistic exercise and diet plan to start on the first of the year. I followed the plan for day one, and then the next day came down with a really bad cold which wiped me out for the rest of the week. But, this is probably a good thing. I am realizing that I don’t want a “plan” or a “regimen” or anything like that. I want to head into this year making better choices every day. One step at a time. One day at a time. Not a set of rules, but rather a better mindset. 

As I’ve been sick these last several days, I’ve found myself all of a sudden remembering things I don’t want to remember from years ago. Remembering times I was especially selfish or stupid or mean. Remembering times I made really embarrassing mistakes. And I’m sitting here, years later, minding my own business, and all of a sudden I’m in that moment in my memories and my face turns red and I feel deep shame and I wish the earth would just open up and swallow me. Not fun. I was thinking about these horrible memories when we headed to church this morning. And then during the worship service over and over again there was the message of Jesus’ forgiveness and how it changes us and makes us new. We are forgiven. The past is in the past and we are moving forward into this new year, washed clean, filled with the Holy Spirit, following our Jesus  wherever he chooses to lead us.  

Forgiveness seems like a pretty relevant subject when you’re starting a new year. We want this coming year to be wonderful, we want our relationships to be healthy and fulfulling. We want work for our hands that gives us purpose and challenges us. We want to walk into this next year making great choices that will make us healthier and stronger and wiser. But, it’s hard to move into something new without addressing the old. If we want great relationships this year, we may need to go back and apologize for things we’ve done this past year. If we want our work to be purposeful and challenging, we might need to look back at why it wasn’t purposeful and challenging before. If we want to make better choices moving forward, we might need to make an honest assessment of the choices we made in the past that were more harmful than helpful so we can actually see what changes need to be made. And in the midst of all that looking back, we need to not sink into despair. We can ask Jesus to forgive us for the things we have done wrong and then we can move forward, learning from our mistakes and sins, and stepping into the new year with a clean slate. Ready to try again. 

So to all my fellow imperfect human beings, I wish you a Happy New Year. May you learn from the year we just finished, and may you seek and find the forgiveness that washes you clean and may this next year find you wiser and kinder and walking closer with Jesus.  

In Memory of…

When I was a kid I lived in Eastern Kentucky for five years. Second grade through sixth grade. Second through fifth I attended Haldeman Elementary School. It was small. The building used to be a high school and my father or my uncle (I can’t remember the lore) had attended school there during one of the furloughs when their family was home from the mission field for a year. 

Haldeman was a small community school, close-knit. There was only one classroom per grade and for a lot of the kids, their parents had gone to school together too. My dad had stories about Mr. Knipp (the principal and 5th grade teacher) when they were teenagers. Mr Knipp lived in our same holler, and when we were not at school, he was Uncle Sandy. He looked after me and my brother in the same way that he looked after a whole host of nieces and nephews and “kin” who also attended the school. 

I was with the same group of kids, with a new kid added on here and there, every year, from second grade through fifth grade (I was gone for fourth grade, but when I came back, nothing had changed). 

In third grade it was decided by someone (my teacher, my parents?) that I needed speech therapy. Once a week a speech therapist would come to the school and she would come stand outside Ms Rigsby’s classroom door and I and another boy, Damon, would get up quietly and walk out with her. We met in a small little classroom that had been added on to a corner of the cafeteria. I loved going to speech. The speech therapist was a beautiful younger woman with long, long, straight hair that went  past her waist. She always wore long flowy skirts and I remember that she smiled a lot and was gentle and kind. 

Damon and I would sit down at a little table and she would pull out boxes full of little cards. Some had the alphabet written on them, some had sentences to read aloud. Some had pictures. I was there to work on my “s” sound. I remember her telling me, showing me with her own mouth, how my tongue wasn’t supposed to go past my teeth when I made the “s” sound. It felt so weird and unnatural, but I would try again and again. (Now I sit here at my computer and whisper to myself words with S to see if I still stick my tongue past my teeth, I don’t think I do, so maybe the therapy worked?) . 

Damon wore hearing aids and had a stutter. I found this fascinating as he was the first person I had ever met my own age that wore hearing aids. And stuttered. These were all new things to me. His stutter really wasn’t bad. I don’t remember it stopping him from talking, it was just there in the background. And despite the fact that this was the 80s and culturally, we hadn’t all learned how to be kind and accepting to people who are different, I don’t remember his hearing aids and stutter affecting his social status in the classroom. Damon was a cute kid. Fun. He had lots of friends. I felt a little privileged that I got to go and do something with just Damon and no one else. 

As we got older Damon joined the ranks of the popular kids and I didn’t have a lot to do with him. But, he stayed kind. There was a group of boys who would tease me about my name and just generally be awkward annoying boys. Damon never did that. He always said hi and didn’t act like he didn’t know me, as some of the more popular kids did. 

In 6th grade we all moved up to the Middle School in town. All the small elementary schools scattered around the county all sent their kids to the same school. It was big. Crowded. I think we had eight classrooms per grade. I only had two other kids from Haldeman in my homeroom class and I rarely saw my old classmates. I honestly have no good memories of that school. Lots of bullying, cliques, kids coupling up, name brand clothes suddenly became important, rumors of other kids going to parties and drinking. It was a bizarre step from childhood innocence to a world of sex, drinking, and your worth being graded on how expensive your clothes were. I did have one English teacher who noticed my love of books and she kept me steadily supplied with new books to read all year round. That’s my only good memory. 

And then, sometime in the winter of that 6th grade year, while I was home in our cozy trailer, my friend Leah was over, and she got a phone call. She came into my bedroom after getting off the phone, her face was white and she said, “Damon’s dead.” He had committed suicide. And whatever remnants of childhood innocence that had still tried to cling to us, left. 

I remember trying to find black clothing to wear to the funeral. The horror of the funeral with his body laid out in a casket. Rows of children in the funeral home, weeping. Going back to school after the funeral and just sitting at my desk crying. A counselor went around all the classrooms and gathered up whatever children seemed to be doing the worst, and she grabbed me, and we all went into a room together. One of my old Haldeman classmates, a good friend of Damon’s, Brad, came up and gave me a big hug. I hadn’t said more than a handful of words to Brad since we moved up to the Middle School, but at that moment, he felt like family.  

I went home after school and laid down on my bed and fell into a deep sleep. When I woke up, sometime around supper, I felt fragile. Breakable. The world was different. I was different. 

Damon was not a close friend. But he was part of my community. He was a presence of kindness in my life. He lives in my memories. And I’m glad that I was one of those privileged to know him. 

I just went and looked and found that there is a memorial page for Damon online. Michael Damon Rivers (1977-1990). If any old Haldeman friends want to go add a memory about Damon to the page they can. 

As We Forgive Those Who Sin Against Us…

This summer I’ve been struggling with how to move forward in relationships where wrongs have been done in the past. How to move forward into something new. It’s all been a part of a long journey God has had me on, learning the right way to handle someone sinning against you. 

When I was young, my automatic response was to not dwell on whatever happened, try to forget it as quickly as possible, and just pretend it never happened. I did not have the emotional stability and security to explore feelings of rejection and betrayal. I needed those people to be my stability for me and if I suddenly didn’t have them, it felt like I would be the utmost alone and that felt like death. So, I did not acknowledge or dwell on sins against me. I just brushed it off as quickly as possible and moved on. 

God finally got me to a place where I could stand back and be objective and say, wait, that was wrong. That should not have happened. I should not have had to go through that. That process was really hard to go through, because suddenly I had a lot of things to grieve. Things that should have been processed years ago had all built up inside and slowly deadened all my emotions. And when I finally started opening up all those memories, there was a lot of grief to wade through. And anger. And some hard conversations where I had to say, you did this, and it really hurt. 

And then the next thing God took me through was learning about forgiveness. Getting to a place where I truly wanted only good things for those who have wronged me. And also, being careful to set up boundaries of what I would and would not allow in my relationships. 

But then, I felt stuck. I acknowledged the wrong, I forgave. I established healthy boundaries. But how to move forward into a healthy and happy relationship? 

Then this morning I woke up and for some reason was thinking about my marriage. I was thinking about how, when we first got married, we weren’t very good at loving each other. We made a lot of mistakes. But, because we made vows to each other, we pushed through each mistake. Asked forgiveness. Learned. Changed. Adapted. And now, a couple days short of our 25th wedding anniversary, I know with a certainty that I am loved and cherished and protected by my husband. It’s a love that we’ve grown into. And it’s a work that God has done in our lives. 

And I suddenly had the revelation that it’s that way with all of our relationships. We are not static people that stay exactly the same forever. We are all growing and changing. And even though I may have a history of hurt with someone, it’s possible to go through a healthy process of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation, because both people are changing and growing. I’m not saying this is the case for every relationship, if the other person has no interest in changing their behavior, it may be better to love them from a distance. But I think there are many relationships, especially within the body of Christ, where God is equally working on both people, taking them through the process of becoming more like Jesus, and teaching them how to repent, forgive, reconcile and move forward into even healthier connections with each other. And that fills me with joy. Jesus is in the work of redeeming. Taking the bad and turning it into something good. Allowing us to live a life where forgiveness is an option. And love can grow stronger and deeper. 

Ramen Noodles

It’s funny how certain foods are like portals to the past. As soon as you take a bite you are immediately back in an old memory. Ramen noodles do this for me. I don’t eat Ramen very much. I’m aware it’s not the healthiest option on the planet. But, occasionally, I will get Ramen for the kids (they rarely get it, and for some odd reason, have decided it’s a treat). I ate a packet for lunch today and as soon as I smelled the rich broth, I was floating back in time.

Fifth grade. Morehead, Kentucky. 

I think this was the first year our family stumbled on this amazing food. By this time my brother and I were latchkey kids. Our parents were working, and my mom was finishing up her last year of school to be a Physican’s Assistant. A save-a-lot had moved into town and my mom would stock up on freezer meals and fast foods that my brother and I could prepare for ourselves. 

Every day after school I would walk into the trailer, put the old copper kettle on. I’d pull out one of our orange bowls that had a white lining, bowls that had followed our family everywhere we lived,  and I would make myself a bowl of ramen noodles. 

I was always starving after school. Fifth grade was the year I stopped eating lunch at school. When we first moved to this school, I was in second grade and my brother was in fourth. My parents would send school lunch money with my brother and he would pay for both of us. We ate school lunches for about two years, but we didn’t really enjoy them. They served a lot of Southern American food that we just weren’t used to. Pinto beans and cornbread, corndogs (what was this thing?? I always pulled the corn breading off and ate the hotdog), really cheap hamburgers that had some kind of weird slime on them, mashed potatoes that were so runny it was almost more like a porridge. (There was one meal that I actually liked, beef vegetable soup and a bread roll.) 

When I was in fourth grade, we moved away for one year while my mom did an intensive year of study at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, then we moved back to Morehead. I was now alone at my school, my brother had moved on to middle school, and I had no idea how to navigate school lunches. Who did you pay? When did you pay? How much? It just seemed like an overwhelming problem, overwhelming because everyone else already knew what to do, and here I was, in 5th grade, clueless. 

Just an aside. This has long been a problem for me. My mother is British and grew up overseas, my father is American but he grew up overseas. I did not move back to the states till I was almost seven. And we moved to Eastern Kentucky that has its own unique culture going on. I spent a lot of my childhood not knowing what everyone else already knew. I would try to be very observant, see what everyone else was doing and copy them. Or just retreat. Or pretend like that was just not something I wanted to do, cause I had no idea how to go about doing it. Sometimes I would brave being made fun of and just ask, but other times, it seemed like too much energy to try and figure things out. And for school lunches, It was just easier to not buy any. 

So, I told my mom I would take a lunch. And then, I just didn’t. I didn’t like packing lunches. In fourth grade I got teased quite a bit because I would pack a lunch and bring food that was not “normal” like a whole tomato that I would eat like an apple, or a piece of bologna, and piece of bread, packed separately, cause that’s how I liked them. Somewhere along the way I just decided school lunches were not worth the hassle. So, I would sit at a table and wait a couple minutes until I could just line up with the other kids and wait to leave the cafeteria. I always had a book to read, so I wasn’t bored. 

Then I would get home, starving and eat Ramen noodles. And cereal. And whatever else was laying around the house. 

I’m not sure what kind of memory that is. But, I’m thankful for those hot hearty noodles that made me feel full and satisfied after a long day at school. 

Forgiven

I’ve had a bit of a rough week. Finding myself frozen in place where I can’t seem to do anything. This happens to me occasionally, and the hardest part is trying to figure out why am I acting like this? It feels like character failure. I’m being lazy. And then I get worried, am I slipping into a depression without even realizing it? I mentally explore all the sensitive areas in my brain, no everything feels pretty normal. Why can’t I get moving? 

And then I slowly start putting the pieces together. I realize that the old nighttime terror has returned, where I walk into my dark bedroom and I feel fear to the point of being nauseated. And I’im so used to dealing with this feeling that I just keep moving, get back into bed or turn on a light which then makes it go away. Then I find myself flooded with old memories that my brain keeps trying to process. Maybe if we just remember this one more time, it will make sense and it will go away. So I pull out my computer and write the memories down in an attempt to remove them from my head and place them into the safety of a computer program. 

And once I finally realize what is going on, I feel better. Ok. This is just that old thing that I have to go through occasionally. It will pass. 

This morning I sat eating my breakfast, thinking about all of this, and thinking about sin. Someone’s sin against me and then my reaction that led me to my own spiral of sins. And I just felt a rush of relief. Thank you God for Easter. Tomorrow we remember Jesus’ death on the cross. We mourn over the pain he had to suffer and we feel the deepest gratitude that he was willing to do this for us. It was the only action that could fix our sin problem. And then Sunday we will rejoice as we celebrate that Jesus came back to life and that death has been conquered and that we can look forward to an eternity with Him. 

What Jesus did was the only thing that can fix me. The only thing that was able to take me off a path of self-destruction and put me on a path of life. His forgiveness of my sins was the only thing that made it possible for me to forgive others when they sinned against me. And broke off the chains of bitterness. The Holy Spirit entering my life is the only thing that renews me, helps me to heal and grow and continues to show me the way of life. 

And I find myself singing, “Worthy is the lamb, Jesus son of God…” 

Luke 7: 36-50 tells a story about a woman who comes and washes Jesus’ feet with her tears and her hair and anoints his feet with perfume. The pharisee whose house they are in, thinks to himself, if Jesus was a prophet, he’d know this woman was a sinner. Then Jesus tells him a story about a banker with two men who owe him money, one a lot, the other not as much. The banker forgives both debts. Jesus then asks, which man is going to love the banker more? And the pharisee answers, the one who owed him more. Then Jesus says in verse 47 “I tell you that her many sins are forgiven, so she showed great love. But the person who is forgiven only a little will love only a little.”

I am the woman. Life is dark. We are sinned against from a young age and we sin against others from a young age. But Jesus came. He made a way so that we can be forgiven and healed. My many sins have been forgiven. And I pray that I may be like that woman, that I would respond with great love to Jesus. May my praise be an extravagant show of gratitude. May my actions be an anointing perfume that brings pleasure to my Lord. 

The Old Brown Buffet

When I was going into second grade, my family moved back to Eastern Kentucky from the missionfield. We moved back into an old trailer my parents owned, sitting on a mountainside lot on my grandparents’ farm. 

I remember some of the bustle as my parents tried to freshen up the trailer for living again. The old carpets were torn out. I remember going to a giant warehouse filled with giant rolls of carpet. Feeling each one as we walked past, wondering which one we were going to have. I remember the carpets getting laid down in the trailer, how clean and bright they made everything look. I didn’t want any furniture to ruin this perfect carpet. I remember rolling around and revelling in the softness and newness of it all. 

I remember visiting an auction held in a giant barn out in the middle of a field. I remember the auctioneer’s voice going through the call for bids and how wonderfully entertaining it was to just listen to him go on and on and on in his sing-songy voice. I remember that an old solid couch came home from that auction, took up one wall of the living room. 

We also had some new furniture. A shiny round glass top table with four square, modern looking wicker-type chairs with shiny chrome metal as their frame. 

And then there was an old brown buffet. I don’t know if we also got it at the auction or if my parents picked it up somewhere else. It was definitely not new. But it was warm, brown, solid. A cheerful addition to our mix of furniture. 

It sat in the corner of the living room. I think our TV sat on it. It had three drawers across the top and a long drawer underneath. We kept something in it that we used regularly. Maybe our cloth napkins and tablecloths? I can’t remember exactly, I just know that I had to open those drawers regularly, and they were always a pain to open. The drawers were stiff and if you didn’t pull it out exactly straight they would jam and stick. 

Once a week my mom would assign cleaning chores and I remember her handing me an old cloth and a can of “Pledge” cleaner that I would spray on that buffet and then wipe industriously with my cloth. Watching as the wood took on a soft shine.

I have a vague memory of perhaps being on top of the brown buffet when my parents weren’t home and my brother and I were playing some involved game that made it necessary to not touch the floor. (Ground is lava perhaps?)

The brown buffet did not necessarily play a significant  role in my childhood, I just remember it being there. When we moved back to Haiti the brown buffet went into my parents storage shed that sat on my grandparent’s farm. 

After I got married my husband and I eventually settled into Eastern Tennessee. When we purchased our first house we drove up to Kentucky and raided my parents storage shed. The brown buffet came home with us and settled into our dining room. That was about seventeen years ago. The brown buffet has sat in our dining room ever since. 

It is truly a buffet now. Every meal time, three times a day, I lay out the food on the brown buffet and serve the small children their plates from there and then the older kids serve themselves. In the mornings I lay out the bowels and the boxes of cereal on the brown buffet and kids serve themselves. Our silverware has a special container and it stays there permanently. 

Now that my dining room is also my kitchen, the brown buffet has become one of my counters. I lay my electric griddle on it so I can make pancakes. I set my various containers of food on it while I prepare a meal on the stove that sits right next to it. In the afternoons I put out bowels of fruit for the kids or plates of cookies. 

The drawers are still a pain to open so I try to only keep things in there that I don’t need to access regularly. I’ve got a drawer of old framed photos. A drawer of random decorating knick knacks I don’t use anymore. The bottom drawer holds all of the random odds and ends that my husband and I picked up on our international travels. Carved wooden statues from Haiti, tin cars from Nicaragua, pan flutes and a miniature chess set from Chile. Any time my kids need something international for school, the drawer opens and we dig around. I even have some things from my mom’s childhood in India. 

Today as I wiped off the brown buffet, clearing off dirty dishes, putting away random condiments that had been left out, I suddenly remembered myself as a small child, trying to open the drawers. And I had this thought. I wonder if this dear brown buffet ever thought, years ago, that it would come to live in my home one day. That the little girl who pushed and pulled on it, wiped it clean with pledge, and sometimes clambered all over it, would one day be the mom who was working to keep it clean and organized. And yes, you can say it’s just a piece of furniture. No thoughts or emotions. But I prefer to live in a world where maybe fairies really do exist, and maybe my old piece of furniture has fond thoughts about the family it lives with and maybe it smiles benevolently on us as it watches over our mealtimes. 

Crazy Brain

I’ve had a strange week. It’s been a good week. Good times with my kids. Lots of basketball games. Everything has been done that needs to be done. And then, it’s been a bad week. 

My brain has decided to pull up every bad memory it can think of from the entire span of my life and just flood my thoughts with them. I’m driving down the road and suddenly I’m remembering that one time in middle school where I was so embarrassed. Or I remember that long forgotten argument with my husband. Or I remember that horrible parenting I did years ago. Or I remember how that one time in college I acted like an idiot. And it just goes on and on. And it’s weird because I don’t feel emotionally connected to those memories. I feel very separate from myself, like I’m watching myself remember all this stuff and I’m making commentary, like, Oh yeah, that happened. Huh. Forgot about that happening. Yup, that was a thing. 

Yesterday I kind of hit bottom with it all. Found myself frozen on the couch again. Not wanting to move to do anything. And I finally kind of talked out loud to the whole situation. Ok, my body and brain seem to need to do this right now. I don’t know why. I’m just going to accept that today is a non-productive day. I’ll do all the “have tos” of the day, but nothing extra. And I did feel better after that. I stopped guilting myself for not being industrious and motivated and just went with it. 

Today I woke up feeling anxious. What kind of day is it going to be? Am I going to be energized, ready to tackle all kinds of extra projects or am I going to have to force myself just to do the basics. I set myself some goals. Must clean my room and the bathroom before lunch. Read my Bible. Sat and wasted time on Facebook. Then I think I had a shove from the Holy Spirit. You’re feeling emotional. Go play Beethoven. Beethoven is a great outlet for emotions. So, I sat down and played through an entire Sonata. And I felt a lot better. 

I decided to make a list of four goals for my year (learning that sonata properly is one of them). And then I went and cleaned my room. And while I sit in this little corner of order, I feel like yes, maybe I can accomplish things and life can be good. 

My kids’ bible verse for the week is Galations 2:20.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I’m human. I’ve collected my share of wounds, just like every other person on the planet. Sometimes I can walk through my days cheerfully, motivated, purposeful. Other days my brain is completely absorbed with processing, mourning, healing. But, over all of this is the fact that I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. I’m no longer trapped in my shame and guilt. Jesus’ work on the cross has covered all of that. I’m still here on this sinful earth. I still have my past hanging over my shoulder, but, the life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am no longer alone. I have the Holy Spirit in me, comforting me, guiding me. Giving me wisdom. Loving me. 

I want life to look perfect. Problems and then instant solutions that wrap everything up neatly in a package. I want to wake up every day full of energy, on a mission, ready to change the world. I want my past to be touched with a magic wand so that all the consequences of sins done against me, and sins I have done against others will all disappear into the void, never to be seen or heard of again. I want to be full of faith, never wavering. I want each day to be me accomplishing great things and then ending with peaceful sleep. 

So far, I haven’t gotten any of those things. It seems so sporadic. So messy. One day good, the next day bad. One morning awesome, the afternoon messing everything up. One day I can conquer the world, the next day I can hardly get out of bed. So imperfect. 

But I am taking comfort in the fact that I am in Christ Jesus. He knows what he is doing with my life. And he does things in his own perfect time. His priorities and goals for my life are not the same as mine. And his are better. So me and my cluttered mind will move on with this imperfect day and I will rest in peace, knowing that I’m in Christ, he is in me, and nothing can separate me from that. Not even my crazy brain and fluctuating motivation. 

High School

My last two years of high school I attended Bethel Regional High School in Bethel, Alaska. It’s a bush town out on the tundra. The only way to get there is by plane, boat, or in winter, via snowmachine or the ice road. When I was living there the population was somewhere around six thousand. I moved from tropical Haiti to frozen Alaska and it was quite a shock to the system. I walked around in a heavy coat the first summer, but eventually I got used to it. It was the first time in my life that I did not have any tan lines. I’m sure my skin appreciated the break. 

I remember my senior year a girl I knew called me and asked me if I would be willing to tutor her in geometry. I was surprised and a little confused. Umm. I’ve never tutored before, I’m not sure how helpful I would be. Then the girl assured me that our math teacher, Mr. Guffin, had been the one who told her to call me. Oh. Ok. (Mr. Guffin thinks I can tutor someone??) Well, sure, I guess I could tutor you. 

The tutoring went well, she was able to get her grade where it needed to be, and the next semester another girl called and asked me to tutor her for Alegebra 2, also saying Mr Guffin had suggested she call me. I tutored her as well and she was able to pass her class too. 

I would have never thought that I could tutor someone in math. I would never have volunteered to do it. I would have never thought myself qualified to do it. But my teacher saw that I could, pushed me in that direction, and my confidence grew and I learned how to tutor math. 

I ended up writing for the school newspaper. Another thing I had no previous interest in and didn’t really think of it as something I would be capable of doing. A teacher pushed me in that direction and I ended up learning how to conduct interviews, and do layout on a computer. 

My gym teacher declared that everyone in his class would do calisthenics and running and become competent in a long list of sports. I did not think these were things I could do. But, it was required so I did it. And learned that I was actually capable of these things and could even semi-enjoy them. (Ok, maybe I didn’t quite become competent in all the sports, but I definitely made improvements!) 

I was not signed up for band class because I did not play any band instruments. But the band teacher learned very early on that I could play piano. He volunteered (voluntold) me to be the band accompanist. I accompanied several ensembles for their competitions and performances and I ended up accompanying every single student who performed a solo for band competition. And one time, when they were short somebody, I played the timpani. All things I did not think I could do. But the teacher said yes, you can do this, here’s the music, get busy. 

My best friend pushed me to be a class officer. Did I want to do this? No. Did I do it anyway? Yes. Did I learn a lot in the process? Yes. 

When I look back, I think of these last two years of high school as the golden years. I was learning who I was and what I was capable of doing. I made some great friends. My teachers were supportive and involved. My classmates were friendly enough. I was good friends with some, acquaintances with others, slightly nodding recognition with a handful. But no bullies. No kids that I felt the need to avoid at all costs. 

This is what I want for my own children. I want school to be a place where they are pushed to try new things, pushed to excel. Pushed to be more, do more. A safe environment with at least a handful of friends. 

We are looking at making some changes for next school year when we have a junior and freshman in high school. While our local high school was a great experience for our oldest daughter, a reasonable experience for our son and a decent experience for our other daughter, we’ve reached a place where it is not meeting the needs of our fourth daughter and we have concerns for our upcoming freshman. And while I struggle because I want to support our neighborhood school and I believe in their vision and I applaud the efforts of many of their staff, I can’t help wanting my kids to have the same thing I did. And right now it looks like we will have to branch out to find it. 

I’ll write more about this later. 

In Memory of Peter

When I was four or five years old my family was living in Northern Haiti on the OMS missionary compound. Our maid, who lived in the neighboring village, told my mom about a newborn baby in her village whose mother had just died of AIDS. The grandmother was caring for the baby now, but it was not doing well. My mom went into the village and found the baby: tiny, severely dehydrated and dying, the grandmother trying to keep him alive with sugared tea water. My mom brought the baby home. We had a nurse who lived on the compound. She tried to start an IV but the baby was too dehydrated. She instructed my mom to give the baby a dropperful of rehydration fluid every five minutes. My mom worked around the clock with the help of a volunteer missionary who was staying at our house. On the third day, exhausted, my mom asked the nurse if she could take a night shift with the baby. That night, under the nurse’s care, the baby opened his eyes, smiled, lifted his arms and then died. They had a funeral, people from the village came and this death ended up being the birth of my parents’ relationships and ministry in this village. 

I don’t really remember all of that. I had to ask my mom to get those details. 

What I remember is a blue blanket. A little dark head peeking through. I remember my mom made a baby bed in the living room out of a dresser drawer. I remember having to be quiet. And I remember the delight of having a baby in the house. The hope. Could this be my new baby brother? Do we get to keep him?

And then I remember the solemn conversation. Standing next to my big brother as the adults shared some important news. No images of the adults, no memory of their words, just information that was imparted. The baby had died. 

Peter had died. 

No one had bothered to name him, so our family named him Peter. 

It’s a wispy memory. A memory of What If. What if he had lived? What if my parents had decided to adopt him? What if I could have had a baby brother? 

I remember as a bit older child, moving to a different place, telling the new kids I met that I used to have a baby brother, but he died. 

As I was sitting here thinking about all this, it brought to mind another Peter who died. I had an early miscarriage in between my 9th and 10th child. I have no idea if the baby was a boy or a girl, but my heart said, this was a boy, and his name was Peter Elisha. Another wispy memory. What If? What if he had lived? A thought I shy away from. If he had lived, we would not have our last little boy who has brought so much joy to our lives. What ifs are too convoluted, confusing. A rabbit trail not worth pursuing. 

But, it is good to remember for a moment. Peter. Both Peters. You were loved for the few moments we knew you.