What do you do with hurt?

In the last 7 days, I've had so much hurt I feel like my heart will burst.  It's not that one single hurt has taken precedence over the other, it's the accumulation of the hurt that has taken its toll on my humanness.  The events are broken down into the "Biggies" and the "Minors".  The "Biggies":

• My cousin, in her early 40's, has just been diagnosed with aggressive stage 2 breast cancer.

• My mother-in-law, in her late 70's, has declined in health and now faces yet another care transition.

• My friend, in his mid 40's, died suddenly just last night.

• My teammate is dealing with a life way too hard.  As we speak, her Mother is dying and we are trying to help her navigate international flights during COVID.

Add to that the "Minors": 

• car repairs

• a constantly dripping faucet in my upstairs bathroom

• a migraine headache

• a surgery for my Mom, JoAnn

• and unemployment for my youngest daughter who needs money to do her teenage life

And then, the nagging feeling that "normal" life has evaporated to a far away place, the toxicity of news, the division in my community, the chatter on Facebook ... it all piles up on tender hearts that when left unattended makes one feel ... hurt.

What do you do with the hurt?

• When I heard of my cousin's diagnosis I cried.  I called her.  I prayed.  I told My Chris.

• As we've dealt with the myriad of details that seem to consume us with the transition of my Mother-in-law, I've gotten frustrated. I've cried. I've been angry. I've escaped by watching old episodes of "Highway to Heaven" on Netflix.

• When I heard the news of my friend's death I cried.  I questioned why our collective prayers were not answered by renewing his body to live.  I anguished for his wife who is a dear friend.  I didn't sleep.

• When I talked with my teammate, I, too, felt her hurt.  When I got off the phone, I cried.  Her words echoed mine but it was her hurt I felt.  I'm calling to find out what you have to do to travel internationally during a worldwide Pandemic.  Even typing the words seems like a science-fiction novel.

The other "minor" things just get pushed aside to deal with when they are most ready for my attention.  They don't require my mental energy to the degree of the "Biggies".  They do require emotional stamina which seems to elude me right now.

What do you do with the hurt?

Lesson #1:  Acknowledge there will be trouble.

As a follower of Jesus, I am not promised life lived through rose colored glasses.  Quite the contrary.  Jesus says that in fact there will be trouble.  Trouble.  Right here in River City.  Trouble with a capital "T"!  I've lived enough years on the planet to get that.  Trouble in this life is a promise.  You can always count that there will be trouble.  To live with the expectation that bad things will not happen is futile.  Put on your big girl panties and face the reality.  

Lesson #2:  Acknowledge there will be peace.

In the middle of the trouble, there is also peace.  It sounds like an oxymoron but most of the things Christ followers anchor their lives upon does.  Christs' way of navigating life doesn't follow the world's rule books.  We live by faith.  But we also live knowing that He is peace and gives peace.  I don't understand it. I just choose to continue living in it.  This peace billows down like a heavy fog and envelopes the inner cracks of my soul.  It's what I need when I hurt.  And when I hurt, I need it 24/7.

Lesson #3:  Acknowledge there will be relief.

Trouble will pass.  New trouble will come, but the current trouble will pass.  How I walk through the trouble is crucial.  Living in the midst of trouble wanting it to be over and not dealing with the reality it brings, surprised by it, or refusing to utilize the peace in the middle of it is a recipe for disaster.

Now is the time to mature in our faith.  The world isn't in need of a pansy, Sunday School kind of religious  movement that puts sweet labels on circumstances and ties everything up in a special prayer-like mantra.  It's time to put on combat boots and live our faith as movie- character Heroes.  It's time.  Trouble, it's all around us.  It's time to show the world what living with Jesus in the middle of the Trouble can do for a weak human living with total dependence on the supernatural arms of a strong God who can overcome anything.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."  John 16:33

Working, living, and vacationing in Austria has had its moments of ups and downs.  Being back in this country that stirs something so deep in my heart has brought unspeakable joy.  However, being back in this country that stirs something so deep in my heart has also brought ... stress!  Parking, language, heat, rain, cultural differences - they have brought me stress.  Yes, the experiences of each aforementioned condition themselves have been stressful but what the experience of parking, language, heat, rain, and cultural differences has stirred in me has been the deeper stress.  

"Why can't I understand?"  sparks insecurity about my language skills.  "Why is there no AC?"  stirs something in me that says suffering discomfort is bad and must be solved.  "Why didn't I pack an umbrella?"  translates I should have been more prepared. "Why did they just yell at me?" strikes some deep chord within that deeply wants to always please people.

This human condition of mine struggles against the Spirit condition of mine.  Every time I choose the human condition, there is stress.

Walk with me through the Old Testament book of Joshua.  Chapter One finds Moses' predecessor, Joshua, leader and head honcho of the nation of Isreal, leading the charge to take promised land that it took this band of chosen rebels 4o years to occupy.  The first thing God tells Joshua:

Prepare.

Seems a little ... simple.  Haven't they just spent 40 years preparing?  And yet, the Father's instruction to  His beloved and chosen was:

Prepare.

This simple word displays the Father's heart toward us in a most profound way.  His heart is always for us.  He wanted Isreal to prepare to go to a promise.  Seems a little ... simple.  But then again, the Father's heart fashioned the human heart.  He knows all too well our tendency to freak out.  Even though they were entering the promised land, the promise needed to be prepared for.

Why?
Why prepare to walk into a promise?

Before I give you my lifechanging opinion, let me ask you a question.  Ever entered the first grade, or got your drivers license, or walked down an aisle to say I do?  Wasn't there a great amount of expectation?  If you are like me, you didn't prepare.  You just walked into what you thought would be a fantastic, new experience.  But what happened when the kids in your class made fun of your lunch box?  What happened when you got your first speeding ticket?  What happened when the one you said "I do" to woke up on the wrong side of the bed? Disappointment? Discouragement?  

When we walk into a Promise, it may not always feel like or look like a Promise.

Isreal had to enter and inhabit a land that was promised to them, was already given to them, but was also going to be given to them.  However, there were going to be obstacles.  And, my fine feathered friends, wherever there are obstacles, there are doubts.  

And God, being such a good Father, knowing our hearts so well, wanted them to PREPARE for the doubt that would rush in and try to steal the security of the promise.  Therefore, the pep talk and words given to help them prepare:  I will be with you.  I will not leave you.  

Every place they stepped with crusty sandals would be theirs.  God was giving them a tool to prepare their hearts for what was to come.  Their biggest enemy was not the inhabitants of the land but their own fears within.

Be strong.
Be courageous.
Be very courageous.

Their strength and courage was their weapon.  It was a command for them to follow.  God knew what would happen if Isreal chose not to be strong and/or courageous.  The opposite of strong and courageous was not designed for them.  Yes, they might feel those emotions but those emotions were not the place they were to inhabit.  God was teaching, guiding, mentoring His kids about how to live according to His standards, not their own.

Rise above!
Live above the circumstances you see with human eyes and live by faith!

When they lived by God's words they would prosper and succeed.  It wasn't instruction about how to avoid enemy territory.  It was instruction about how to walk through it unharmed!  God has always given His kids the same message:  Trust me not what you see!  

Need a few examples:

• Daniel in a lion's den
• Three Hebrew children in a fiery furnace
• Jesus

Living by what God says, tapping into what He has given us through the Holy Spirit, transforms us, influences others and glorifies God!  And, not to state the obvious, but that's always the goal:  to glorify God!

Today, I'm preparing to encounter some stress with parking, language, heat, rain, and cultural differences.  However, knowing and settling in my heart, right now, that I am designed to walk through them and not be defined by them is my weapon!  Watch out world.  I'm prepared!!

 Being prepared in a foreign country and beyond,
Christina

On a recent overnight trip to Salzburg, we made a mandatory stop at Mauthausen.  Between 1938 and 1945, around 190,000 humans from over 40  nations were sent to this Nazi concentration camp nestled on a rolling hill overlooking the Danube river.  At least 90,000 prisoners never came out.  As Allied liberation became imminent, 200 a day were systematically killed.

The mood arriving at the camp, 9 passengers in a rented van, was somber.  We prepared ourselves for what we were about to experience.  Chris prayed over our circle that gathered in the parking lot before entering.  We obtained the audio guides at the registration desk and made our way through the tour.  Seems weird to call retracing steps of intentional evil a "tour".

I can not describe the scenes we viewed.  The images sat heavy on tender hearts.  Not only did we read detailed accounts of atrocities committed, human toward human, but we also imagined ourselves in the same scenarios.  What would WE have felt?  What would WE have done?  What would WE have experienced?  It's too much.  It's all just too much.

After leaving Mauthausen, we continued our trip to Mondsee and Salzburg.  Later that evening, we arrived at our Austrian guesthouse, ate in a candlelit room, and then took a stroll under a stary, mountain sky.  Breathtaking.  Before retiring in our wooden, alpine beds, we gathered in our room to debrief our collective experiences at Mauthausen.  Four parents and four girls needed to put words to feelings that engaged our hearts in that awful place just hours before.

This morning, I am still profoundly pondering the events of Mauthausen.

Psalm 13: 1-2:  "Lord, how long will You forget me?  How long will I store up anxious concerns within, agony in my mind every day?  How long will my enemy domintate me?"  

Where these their prayers?  The political prisoner from the former USSR, the Jewish mother who witnessed her child's death, the 10-year-old twins confined to the medical experimentation ward, the Hungarian Jew who was crammed into a wooden structure with hay for a bed, the Polish Jew forced to push his fellow prisoner off the walls of the rock quarry for the Nazi soldiers amusement.  Where these their prayers?

Psalm 13: 1 - 2:  "Lord, how long will You forget me?  How long will I store up anxious concerns within, agony in my mind every day?  How long will my enemy dmiate me?"

These are also my prayers ... and perhaps yours.  The times when friends die when we prayed for healing, the times when children have fevers in the middle of the night, the times when my thoughts turn toward bank accounts and relationships and poor self-image issues and past hurts and soul hungriness.  These are my prayers.

How does one survive a prison camp?  How does one survive life in 2019?

Psalm 13: 5-6:  "But I have trusted in Your faithful love; my heart will rejoice in Your deliverance.  I will sing to the Lord because He has treated me generously."

By their own admission, survivors had to change their inner world.  They had to shut out the madness of their reality and live in a place that imagination and soul created.  It was a safe haven in a dangerous world.

For those who have chosen a new life in Christ Jesus, the same mentality is offered to us.  In the power of the Holy Spirit, we are afforded a way out.  We can shut out the madness of our reality and live in a place that we are intended to operate from.  That place of the Spirit is given to us as a safe haven in a dangerous world.  Jesus knew all too well and by real-time experience that earth life was hard.  Yet, when He left, He gave us a secret weapon in the form of the Holy Spirit.

The struggle is not so much the outside forces that make us question God's attention.  The struggle is our internal desire to make sense of those outside forces.  Why is this happening?  Where is God?  When will this end?

How do you cope?  How do you survive?  I believe and speak to the reality of my own experience that survival only comes in the form of a person, the Holy Spirit.  Because I am in Christ, and because I have the living Holy Spirit dwelling inside me as a child of God, I have the ability to rise above and see from a new place.

How can a heart rejoice in deliverance before it's delivered?  Knowing the One who sees me.  Knowing He has offered me a way out.  Knowing He has already given me tools to master emotions and live in a place of the Spirit.  Knowing He has already delivered me from sin and will continue to deliver me from sin.  Knowing He will someday bring me to an eternal home where no more pain, suffering, or torment will dominate my life but true life will be lived - forever!

As I ponder, again this morning, Mauthausen, these are my expressions of how that awful place affected me.  It's important to remember the past.  It's important to come face to face with evil.  It's important to remember that Nazi ideals and unthinkable torture could not crush human spirits.  There were no tools of punishment that could penetrate places of soul rest.  May we, living in 2019, have the same inner tenacity to strengthen that inner place and fight like hell to stay there!  This is the place from which we were created to live!

When we first arrived in Austria in 2009, I discovered fruit from Spain, when consumed by this American girl, made me swell up like Violet Beauregard in Willy Wonka who ate the blueberry gum.  I had forgotten this little fact.  Today, my feet, hands, and eyes are swollen from what I believe to be an allergic reaction to all the fruit I've eaten since my arrival.  So this morning, I sit in an apartment graciously given for our "home" base while in Vienna by a school teacher at my girl's former international school.  Windows wide open, I'm enjoying the breeze and the cooler temperatures.  Since it's Sunday, there is little traffic on the otherwise hectic street outside the second-floor apartment.  The smell of garlic floats through the air from the downstairs Pizzeria.  The occasional conversations from passersby can be heard from the sidewalk below.

While we've been here, these 12 days, we've had the privilege of meeting with old friends, made some new ones, spent plenty of time drinking great coffee, laughing, crying, just being, and for me personally, doing a lot of reflecting.

When we originally moved to this foreign place, we lived in the same district that we are now visiting.  Just minutes from this borrowed apartment door is the Kindergarten I dropped off my then 5-year-old Libby.  For months, every time I released her pudgy little fingers from my hand, she cried.  She begged me not to go.  I  handed her off to her German-speaking teacher, hoping she would comfort my precious girl, as I turned my back toward my child to head to language school.   With sheer will and determination, I made my way for the door.  Everything in me wanted to rush back to my very vocal daughter and take her back to our apartment and watch Sponge Bob - all day.  Instead, I walked through the doors, got outside her Kindergarten, and cried.  This life was hard.  I'd then regain my composure, suck it up, take a deep breath, and begin to talk to God.

"You know this is really hard.  You know that if the Kindergarten calls me I won't have any idea what they are saying because I can't speak the language yet.  You know my daughter's heart is hurting.  You know I'm off to language school to learn a language that hurts my brain.  I know you know this.  I know you are good, but this feels so hard.  Help me."

Now, as I walk by this Kindergarten, my Libby is 16 years-old.  We made it!  This little building is now a remembrance of God's goodness.  The hard was meant for our good.  It didn't feel like it at the time, but every day, every step, every tear was redeemed.  That's what God does.  He uses everything for our good.

In a few hours, we will meet our dear Philipp and his new wife.  To witness this wedding was the primary reason for this trip back "home".   Now, married, we will get the privilege of seeing them before they take their honeymoon.

When we met our dear Philipp, he was a young university student who awkwardly sat our dinner table and talked very little.  Now, affectionately known as our Austrian son, he's a part of us.  Seeing all that he's become over the years makes my heart full.  He's kind and loyal and smart and confident and now .. a husband.  He's walked through such difficulties in his young life.  But, again,  God has used them all for his good.   That's what God does.  He uses everything for our good.

Last night, to an audience of 4 Americans and 1 Ukrainian, our Austrian friends shared their passion and spoke confidently of their calling to serve the over 100,000 international students who make Austria part of their higher education.

Our friends have traveled hard roads.  I won't go into the details of their suffering, but we've traveled the road alongside them.  Last night, however, they were a living testimony of coming out the other side.  God has used all of the hard in their lives for His good.  That's what God does.  He uses everything for our good.

We see a pattern emerging.  "Hard" is universal.  Whether you call Austria home or live in the land of the free and the brave, God is interested in His kids.  However, He gave us tools to not just get by but to thrive.  He gave us the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.  He gave us the guidance of His word.  And He very graciously gave us one another.  We are the hands and feet and heart of God.  When we kiss a cheek or hug a neck, we can offer the affection of a loving heavenly Father to one another.  It's in those moments I feel God so near.   It's in those moments I see clearly the invisible God.  That's what God does.  He uses everything for our good.

In America, in a hospital bed at OU Medical Center, my 40-year-old friend is dying.  I got a text from her sweet Momma in the wee hours of the night.  My friend has fought a battle with cancer and now kidneys and lungs are shutting down.  God can totally reverse this situation.  We all have the faith to believe He is able.  In a few short hours, they will disable all life support devices.

In a small Austrian village, our friend who feels more like a son is getting ready to get married.  In a few hours, we will watch him sign the certificate and say his vows to a young woman he's waited and prayed for.  God has been right in the middle of their relationship from the start.  We couldn't be more proud, more excited, more in love with both of them.

"You have stayed at this mountain long enough.  Resume your journey.  See, the Lord your God has set the land before you.  Go up and take possession of it.  Do not be afraid or discouraged."  (Deuteronomy 1:6, 7, 21)

Both of my friends have stayed on mountains.  One, a mountain of great pain.  She's endured unthinkable hardship that doesn't include her cancer.  She's walked through devastating things that would make most people crumble.  Yet, this little woman has walked through and emerged a powerhouse of big faith.  Her eyes have never landed and settled for the facts of her circumstances.  Instead, her eyes have landed on the truth of what God can do and what His Word says about her and her future.

The other has stayed on a mountain of waiting.  He's waited a very long time to establish a life with someone who would share his ideas and life vision.  He's waited for someone to build a new life and a new family that would bear the characteristics of a childhood he never experienced.  He's wondered if this would ever happen for him.  He endured some relationships that didn't last and suffered the heartbreak of lost love.  Yet, he's remained faithful to the promise he's believed God has given him for a family.

Now, my dear friends, are resuming their journies.  One, unless God whispers life back into her body, in heaven.  One as a husband.

Now, my dear friends are getting the privilege of taking possession of a new place that God has prepared for them.  One, a place we know about, read about, and dream about but is surrounded by mystery.  The other, a place of becoming one with another human and sharing and building a life together.

Both have the same marching orders:  do not be afraid or discouraged.  Neither one of them has walked the new journey ahead of them.  They do not have any idea what's next.  All they know is that God is waiting.  God is with them now.  He is waiting for them in the next journey.  He will be with them always.

Today I live with the awareness of funerals and weddings.  God is in control of both.

Make the most of your time.  Release people to their next step

Learn to adapt.  Live within the lessons learned.

Experience new things.  Normal is flexible.

When I see God working outside my own culture, I see the greatness of a great Father.

The 12

Alfred

Alfred is a man who has an intimate relationship with Jesus.  He makes the mysteries of God seem like simple truths to be lived by the ordinary.  Like E.F. Hutton, when Alfred speaks, I listen. His wife, Helga, is a quiet woman.  Elegant and gentile, she personifies class. She is warm and friendly and looks at you as if she's seen you for the first time every time she sees you.  

Being away from your normal surroundings is a good thing.  It gives you space to think.  As we are working and living and doing life in our beloved Vienna for the next month, already there is new space to think new thoughts and hear from God in a fresh way.  For this, in spite of 97 degrees with no AC, I am grateful

Traveling always expands your mind.  You see new things and people that you hold up next to your old things and people.  Comparison and evaluation occur.  And in the space where differences divide you from the others, there's room to expand your thinking.

When we first moved overseas in 2009, we adopted a phrase as a family.  To girls who were 5, 9 and 13 years old, we repeated a mantra:  "This is not weird.  This is different."  Truth is, often things were weird!  They were so outside our experience it made us uncomfortable.  However, it didn't make our things right and other things wrong.  It just made things different.

There are lots of people on this planet.  If I just focus on one segment of society, the Christian community, there are lots of differences.  Some raise hands.  Some wear hair in buns.  Some sport tattoos.  Some drink.  Some dance.  Some observe different days as a Sabbath.  Differences are up and down the spectrum.  However, when we spotlight what is "right" and "wrong" from a place of human logic and stand on soap boxes made from personal opinions we divide and drive wedges that I'm pretty sure God never intended on being there.

In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron start bashing their brother, Moses, for having a bride from a different culture.  This brother has ushered 10 plages upon the mighty Pharoh, opened up a sea, made water gush from a rock and asked God to bring meat to a grumbling audience of 2 million of his kinsman.  And yet, Miriam and Aaron got stuck on this one difference.  They got stuck on Moses performance and not his position.

Performance issues (what we see on the outside) highlight something in us that needs to be resolved spiritually.  God is always interested in our position (our heart in relationship with Jesus).  Moses, despite marrying a woman from a different culture, was humble and obedient and as a result, had a direct line of communication with a Holy God that Miriam and Aaron did not have.

Moses' humility and apparently his obedience put him in a position to hear from God directly.  God honored the position of Moses' heart.  Because Miriam and Aaron were critical of his performance, Gods anger burned against them.  He was defending His kid, Moses.  He was letting Miriam and Aaron know there was something more He wanted for them to see.  He wanted them to look beyond finding their worth and value in laws and rules and finding their worth and value in a relationship.  He knew that their future depended on not seeing with 20/20 vision but rather seeing from His perspective.

That's a tough one, isn't it!  I'm not advocating we accept wrong and sinful thinking and/or behavior in the Christian community.  Turth is truth.  But, because just like every culture in the world looks different, so can Christianity.  The way I am "Christian" in Norman, Oklahoma will look vastly different from Peruvian tribesmen.  However, the position of my heart in relationship to Jesus Christ and the position of the Peruvian tribesmen's heart in relationship to Jesus Christ makes us equal.  I may raise my hands in an air-conditioned auditorium and he may dance around in a loin cloth in a mud hut but in Christ, we are the same.

In Western culture, we say position matters but we get caught up in performance.  Performance is what people see, right.  I can be super active in my faith community and do all the right Christian things like sweet Miriam and Aaron.  However, my heart can stink.  I can still be in Christ but out of alignment in my heart and head thinking because so much of my attention is focused on my performance.

Case in point, me.  Normally, I've got a plan for my study times with God.  I love my routine:  coffee, Bible, TJ Max journal, favorite pen, reading plan, prayer, hear from God.  It works.  My discipline of devotion to this life-giving book called the Bible has matured and shaped me into the person I am.  But since I am out of my normal routine, I know God has asked me to go out on a limb and shake up my time and experience with Him.  I'm throwing out some routine and spending a whole lot of time letting Him guide the morning.  In Norman and now here in Vienna, my study times are valuable.  However, I'm creating some space to allow God to speak in a different way.  There may be some "Miriam and Aaron" kinds of things lurking in those places of my soul that a little shake-up of my routine will flesh out.

Stay tuned.  You just never know what will happen when we let our performance slip and our position take center stage!

My Libby is a processor of feelings - deep feelings.  After about day two of being "home" she formulated what we all were feeling:

People have asked us how it feels to be "home".  When we are in the U.S., we miss our "home" in Vienna.  When we are in Vienna, we miss our "home" in the U.S.  

Now that there is no return ticket and roots must be established to thrive in our new zip code, it just feels like the best thing to do is walk in slowly.  Walk as if the pool of water before us is cold.  Really cold.  I would give myself a heart attack if I jumped into the deep end.  It's better to ease in ... one toe at a time ... pushing deeper as the comfort of the cool water increases.

I love AC.  I love the English language.  I love driving.  I love my family.  I love my friends.  I love big washing machines.  I love Sprouts.  I love being in the same time zone as my oldest.  I love my county.

Now, it's a matter of taking and utilizing the time to reset to a new normal.  I've learned in my almost 50 years on the planet that this transition time takes time, takes rest, and takes sacred moments to adapt. We are landing on any feeling that is good or bad.  We aren't pining away for a home/culture/life we just said goodbye to.  We are just transitioning.

Here's to a new normal in a new place that is familiar,
Christina

Plane tickets have been bought.  June 28, 2018, is our departure date.  Wow.  I've bought tickets coming and going "home" for over 9 years.  This is the first time I wept after hitting the pay button.

Going "home"/going "back" seems right.  However, it's packed with so much emotion it often leaks out of my eyes in the form of slow, salty tears and drips to my shirt and while bringing a reflective smile to my face.  I love my home - here.  I love my community - here.  I love my friends - here.  I love what we've carved out for ourselves and what God has brought in and out of our lives:

• Sunday afternoon walks through the city
• Sleepy cafe's that let you sit for hours
• Crowded public transportation filled with others who do not make eye contact
• Lugging a granny cart to the grocery store every other day
• Speaking German with a funny American accent
• Taking a bath in the winter because it's the only way to warm up
• Buying cut flowers on a regular basis because they are cheap
• Making espresso every day
• Wearing the same pair of boots every day in the winter 
• Wearing the same comfortable shoes every day in the Spring
• Kissing cheeks twice as a normal form of greeting
• Eating insanely thin pizza with ham and corn
• Grabbing coffee with parents from all over the world who send their kids to the same school my girls attend
• Traveling to other countries for volleyball tournaments
• Not speaking dialect because high German is all I know
• Eating the best sausage on the planet while standing outside the Wurstel Hut

After spending a lovely, traditional Thanksgiving with our American friends that have become like family, we rode public transportation 45 minutes to our home.  I had a bag filled with a few leftovers and a heart filled with cozy, fresh memories of another holiday spent abroad.  For the rest of my countrymen, this was just another day.  They had little idea that my family was celebrating a historical moment in the history of our home country.  That, however, has been our normal for many years.

While we boarded the streetcar for the second leg of our trip home, two boys that looked to be around 20 years old were our traveling companions.  They occupied the area in the front of the car that was reserved for wheelchairs.  One was obviously the caretaker of his friend - and we speculated if he be the brother - of one who had wheels for legs.  They weren't drunk or high ... just dirty.

I normally do not use my phone when I'm with my family on public transportation but for some reason, I wanted to check my messages.  As I did, the boy in the wheelchair asked me if he could borrow my phone.  I had no hesitation in letting this boy use my phone.

A quick phone call to some unknown recipient to say he was on his way.  He then returned my phone with a gracious "Danke".

I, without thinking, asked him if he was hungry.  His sweet eyes softened and said yes.  I proceeded to tell him that I was Ameican and today we celebrated Thanksgiving.  In my bag, I had some food that I'd like to share with him:  a few slices of turkey and some fresh cucumbers and carrots.  He took my small offering wrapped in aluminum foil and stored in plastic bags as if they were being presented on fine china.  He graciously accepted and wanted to shake my hand ... and the hands of my dear girls ... and the hands of my Chris.  He then carried his bounty in his lap back to his buddy.  They unwrapped and unsealed the food immediately and ate as heartily as I had done a few hours earlier while sitting in a comfortable home surrounded by friends and family and having all I needed.

Humbling.

In between bites of food, they would glance our way and thank us, again.  As they approached their stop on the streetcar, they waved goodbye and thanked us, again.

And just like that, our encounter was over.

I was thankful for the things I have seen God do in my life while I was sitting at the white table-cloth draped table and surrounded by dear ones.  I was thankful that my friend had found real pecans when I bit into the real pecan pie.  I was thankful that I had a way home and could pay the price of the fare when I jumped on the bus to begin my journey.  I was thankful in theory.  But when those two boys began to eat ... thankfulness became real and tangible and something to grab with tight fists and believe in the deep parts of my heart.

Sometimes the good things in our lives are fluff.  We are thankful at a head level but thankfulness never quite drips down into the core ... the places where it matters.

God has been gently whispering songs of thanks in my heart.  I'm paying attention. I truly want to be a giver of thanks ... real thanks.  Psalm 26:6 - 7 made more sense to me this morning when I read it:  "I come to your altar, O Lord, singing a song of thanksgiving and telling of all your wonders."

Thursday night God provided a most unusual alter for me in which to bring my thankful heart ... a streetcar.  And this blog, as silly or insignificant as I may perceive it to be, is my attempt to "tell His wonders" to whoever may read.

Thankfulness realigns the condition of the heart.

Learning to be thankful ... really,
Christina

Our summer's have been marked by two things:  coming and going.  At the end of school, we pack up bags and desires for good hamburgers and head back "home" to Oklahoma.  We live out of suitcases, drink lots of Sonic discounted Happy Hour drinks, spend time with family and friends recounting old memories while making new ones, reflect on what it means to be American and make excuses for eating just one more donut ... one more time.  At the end of our time "home", we get that feeling.  It's a feeling of upset stomach boarding on excitement and nausea.  It's that feeling of saying goodbye again while knowing a new year in our other "home" awaits.  It's so weird.

Parker, Libby and I flew home a week early while my Chris finishes up Fahrenheit work.  We came home two days ago to our clean apartment and felt awkward in what is our "normal".  Things smell different.  Food tastes different.  We are in that place of limbo.  We wait while our brains, hearts and bodies align.  Jet lag doesn't help.  Neither does no AC in 99 degree heat.  However, we know the routine.  I voice what we all feel, "We are not going to give into any feeling we may have in the next 48 hours.  We are tired.  This will all feel normal soon."  The girls nod their heads in agreement while looking through glassy eyes that reflect the emotional ill-at-ease.  We own our feelings.  We just don't pay attention to them right now.  These feelings will not hold us captive.

This is our third year of this pilgrimage.  We learn something new each time.

This year is different.  Transition in the air, we ease into another year projecting hope and standing firm in the knowledge that we are exactly where God has us.  The only thing that doesn't change is what God has told us ... and the knowledge that he holds us while "normal" sets back in ... until it's time to get back on a plane.

Learning the routine,
Christina

• Is this OK?
• Do you think it's OK to ask this?
• Do you think we'll get in trouble if we do this?