enjoy

i have 2 thoughts that are ever in conflict with each other:
1. most aspects of my day to day life, my world, if gone unchecked, can seem mundane...lonely...small...lacking...empty.
2. there are specific ways that God has crafted the makeup of all that I am & because of His mercy & love & creativity, i enjoy things & there is fullness of life to be lived with Him each second of each day.
i forget that. so, this post is a reminder of things that i enjoy. now, if i know anything, i know that God does occasionally call us to things we don't necessarily enjoy but are for His glory & our good. that is a different topic for a different day.


--> music...especially the kind that speaks to my heart & in unexpected ways tells a great story.
--> watching & observing strangers & making all kinds of guesses as to what they are like...and checking out their style & what it might say about them...which is mainly why i like the next one so much
--> new york city...all the diversity & people & art & business & noises & fashion & really it's like the biggest library ever of people, each with their own story of life.
--> fashion...i think that what we wear is not all there is to us by any means, but it can be such a fun way of expression...like a blank canvas for colors & textures & style & even sound (heels of shoes clicking & the swishing of a flowing skirt).
--> giving people gifts that aren't things that i like, but things that will make them smile & help them tangibly feel the love i have for them.
--> the color teal...the color yellow, but not too neon of a yellow...the color red, really any shade from coral to maroon...i guess i like all type of colors & color combinations.
--> relationships/friendships...and i don't mean having a ton of friends. that's fine & well, but i'd much rather have a few that are close than a ton with no depth. i long to have people in my world who i can call at anytime...that i can cry with & laugh with & i love the people in my life who knew my son. it is so important to me to have those who aren't afraid to bring him up & even have pictures of him around & just remember him with me...it makes the loneliness of grief not so intense.
--> clouds...the big marshmallowie kind that move pretty fast through the sky on a windy day.
--> worship...it always gives perspective on how little the things that seem to matter to me really are & it reminds me of where eliot is...that his life didn't actually end, but only just began & most likely a huge part of his new life in eternity is worship...and it makes me feel like we are doing the same thing...and therefore, it is one of the few times that i remember & miss him & smile all at the same time.
--> coffee...even though i am cutting back on the caffeine intake, i still can't resist the steaming cup of decaf. henri nouwen talks about how the "cup", whatever it is a cup of, makes us sit & stop & think...as crazy as it sounds, i think my "cup" of coffee is a vital part of my friendship with God.
--> walking to where i need to go. i love that we live where we can walk to the store or to coffee or out to eat or to meet matt at school...i should do that more often.

i guess that is what this little exercise is all about. things i should do more often. things i should look at more often. things i should think about more often.
for the 99 days that eliot was here, matt & i stopped, slowed down, & treasured the most amazing gift God had ever given us...we looked at him, studied him, took in everything about him & enjoyed our son. although the other gifts, the ones mentioned above, seem to pale in comparison to eliot...we should enjoy them for what they are & Who they are from.
the norm these days is to go, go, go
i want to be different & just slow, slow, slow
down & enjoy.

normal

after my husband & i had been married for a few years, we looked around at our lives & the lives of those we knew & were convinced of one sole desire. we did not want our lives to be "normal". what does that even mean? at the time, we had no idea. our thoughts were basically we don't know what we want, but we know what we don't:
we don't want a picket fence life.
we don't want to keep up with the jones'.
we don't want our conversations with people to center around our new car or curtains.

so, on these random thoughts, we began praying for a life that was not normal.
as those prayers went up & time went on, other "not normal" thoughts came. i told my husband one day that i had a pressing feeling that we, at one point or another in our life together, would have a special needs child. his response was at the very least deprecation. after all, we hadn't started a family yet & what kind of feeling is that for a young married couple? each time that thought surfaced, i successfully dismissed it as a possible foreshadowing of a distant future. maybe kid #5, when we were advanced in years & could love him or her in our old age along with all of our other children. i pictured the sweet face of a chid with down syndrome or maybe a wheelchair? what i didn't know was what i never could have pictured.

fast forward a few more years & i'm pregnant, at the halfway point. we pop in the ultrasound video to show the eager audience of family. the black & white portrait of the little one inside my belly tosses & turns on the screen. we, the proud mom & dad to-be, describe the details of crossed legs, spine, face, profile, beating 4 chamber heart, of the floating star of the show. as we narrate, we leave out a few particulars. like how most umbilical cords have 3 blood vessels & this one only has 2...& how those black blobs in the brain are actually cysts that are sometimes "normal" & sometimes not. a few months and many pounds later a specialist sat us down & said "things had progressed".

what we got was not normal. it wasn't the way we had pictured a not normal life, i mean we wanted no picket fences for petes sake. it wasn't even a special needs child to love & live a long life with. in an instant "not normal" was actually "not viable with life". it was a baby with a beating heart that had a hole in it, clenched fists, & sweet life inside my own that was terminally ill. we knew all this bad news about this kid before we even knew if it was a boy or girl.

it was a boy. his name was eliot. he was awesome & i believe is even better now. the 99 days he was with us were incredible, miraculous really. i spent 3 months & 10 days staring at the cutest "not normal" there ever was.
he left us for the much better 15 months ago. in his absence, my husband & i live with a constant ache in our hearts of missing him. this blog is about my learning to live with that ache.

an author named jerry sittser talks about how loss & saddness actually expand the soul. this is my journey of expansion.