a beautiful nightmare

i guess the vacation got to my head or something.   we're a few weeks past new year's and a whole new round of birthdays is starting, both of which tend to make us think of newness, happiness, beginnings, life and all manner of fun and frivolity.

we had spend a month learning about Noah and that section's theme of God keeping His promises.  it was fantastic, and we all had a blast.  if the kids spent any time at all thinking about the hundreds or thousands of people who were washed away by the rising waters, that all stopped the second i mentioned a 600-year-old guy building a boat, or doing anything, really. that alone is fairly distracting; when you add the chaotic zoological menagerie Noah and his family catered to for that entire year, i should be grateful they even retained "God Keeps His Promises."  we galloped like horses, stomped like elephants, roared like lions and tigers and bears, oh my- we did it all.  we sang "Arky, Arky" (which every child needs to know.  is this a "Northerner" thing?!?  only 2 adults i polled from church knew the song).  we had so much fun wondering if Noah had freshwater fishbowls on the ark, that we didn't really bring up the homes and pets and people and wildlife that didn't make it.

i was still a thinking a week behind when i waltzed into church this afternoon to prepare some coloring pages for all 17,000 children, flipped open the manual and saw the story for this week.

oh goodie.

instead of sticking with Abraham, we were jumping ahead a few centuries, right into Egypt, a land filled with slaves and sin, and about to be filled with frogs, bugs, brimstone and death.

i chose different coloring pages- happy pages- to photocopy.

i got all the story picture cards in order.

i wondered for 90 minutes how on earth to tell the story without causing too much trauma. this story didn't have any 600 year old people OR giant boats. 

we were doing mostly alright for almost half the time. 

entire river turning into blood? eww, but we moved on.

frogs? icky, but not too bad.

bugs? eh, not a problem.

boils? gross, but 4 year olds can't quite fathom it, so it passed right over their heads.

then all the fluffy cute animals died. bam. the Egyptians had lost their water supply, now they'd lost their meat, too. the kids didn't get that, either.  so i told them the truth: every time you eat a burger, someone lost a cow for that deliciousness.  no more burgers for the Egyptians.

thunder and hailstorms. locusts. darkness. three days of a darkness so dark you could feel it.

each time, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and asked him to let God's people go.  
each time, Pharaoh said, "No."

every. blasted. time.

the kids had sobered enough by this point to hear the whole deal with Plague #10. 

about the fluffy white sheepie. about killing it.  about painting the door frame with its blood.  i am SO GLAD we no longer live in a culture where this wouldn't have sounded altogether creepy and gross and sad. 

but it is.  it's creepy AND gross AND sad.

it's to save the firstborns.

God was going to save the firstborn Israelites (all of them, really).  the firstborn Egyptians weren't so lucky.

the kids didn't really understand the word "firstborn."  so i told them the truth.  the oldest boy in every family.

bam.

there were a few firstborn sons in the classroom. at least half the class had older brothers.  there were tears- legit, wet, crocodile tears- welling up in those eyes.  one child covered his face with his hands and fell forward to hide his reaction to the idea of his older brother dying.

i couldn't help feeling it, too.  i've got a brother.  my sister has a firstborn kid that i saw last week and played in the snow with and worked puzzles with.

we ended the night with awards and badges for all the verses they've said, so i think they recovered. possibly better than i did.

…

this year instead of returning with my friends to India, i have remained here.  but my thoughts and prayers are still with them now, and i remembered one of the experienced from last year that got my attention.

it was a sunday morning after a 12-hour drive through bouncy, bumpy unpaved "roads" in a car with fewer seats than people.  the end of the trek landed us in a hotel with fewer beds than people, no hot water but lots of cold water on the floor and walls and pipes and…

anyway, we woke up and sipped the chai tea the hotel guy brought from the seller across the street, so we were looking down on him from the second story window as he conversed with a large crowd of folks, probably all about the white people that came to town.  then Lynn and i looked a little past him to the empty lot.  oh boy.  i was not quite awake enough for that. this is a small excerpt from what i wrote about it later.

***

the first morning in the hotel in Ongol i woke up to a surprise.  apparently on weekends, Indians like to chill before another work week and do most of their hanging out on Sundays, and their hanging out usually involves eating more meat than weekdays. some things are the same over there. :)

well, this hotel was one street behind a main street, so our windows overlooked the back of the market stalls that sell meat, especially lamb and chicken.

i would just like to state that i didn’t immediately appreciate the eye-opening insight to the Passover celebration, especially that early on a morning…but i did several cups of chai tea later.

it’s not clean.  it certainly isn’t pretty. it is not a part of our sanitized culture.  i wonder if we lost some of the beautiful hugeness of his sacrifice because we got rid of some of the ugliness.

the idea of hosting a cute little lamb in your house for a week and then turning it into lamb chops is one thing, especially after the kids have named it, petted it, played with it.

the idea that God Incarnate would willingly become that lamb and live among us, seeing the cross in His future for 33 years takes “sacrifice” to a whole new level.

***

i did not particularly enjoy making small people cry.

but the fact remains that without the sheep's sacrifice, Israel was doomed to slavery.

and without Jesus' sacrifice so are we.

it's a terrible bedtime story. 

but the good-ness is so good only because the bad-ness is so, so bad.

the best-est, most beautiful nightmare.

when the children get over the buggy nightmare, my hope is that maybe they'll hold on to just enough of the terror of the plagues to make the coming salvation that much sweeter.

my other hope is that big people do, too.  i know that all too often i forget some things.  it's easy to remember that i'm saved.  it's not always easy to remember what i've been saved from. i take the salvation almost for granted and neglect the cost that i didn't have to pay. it's happier, but it cheapens the happiness.  it's prettier, but it's not the truth. the truth is that all of humanity was on the edge of a thousand-foot cliff, about to fall into a rocky barren firepit. then we were hauled back at the last instant by our only hope. take away the cliff and firepit and all you've got left is a walk in the park that Jesus gives up an afternoon to join you for.

without the plagues, the Israelites would've given up even earlier or not even left their taskmasters. they would have made all the bricks Pharaoh wanted, as long as they got their cucumbers (seriously, where were their priorities?!?!).

we closed out story time, transitioned to snack time and after the Nilla Wafers we sang another classic, "My God is So Big"- and said a prayer of thanks. thanks for being so big, so strong and so mighty that there's nothing our God cannot do.  so big and so strong that he can turn rivers to blood, dirt into bugs, horror into hope and death into deliverance.

sweetest dreams, friends.

(just remember to check for frogs!)

a shameless plug and a case of taken identity

every time, it seems, that a new person finds out how old i am, something happens to their faces.  first, the surprise, because reality is about a decade ahead of their guesses (no, i'm really not kidding).  then the surprise melts away to reveal a sympathy or stupidity masked in humor or faked jealousy.  somehow, they think being treated like a high school student is something to envy.  really, people?  as if i'm not aware of what my face looks like, or how old i am, or how most people talk about high school students.  trust me, i'm fully aware. but thank you anyway for your opinions and judgements and comments.

anyone who doubts me, ask for Charter's security camera from this morning. because i've finally gotten a different internet service, i returned the modem to the store and thus severed my last physical tie to the place, excepting the inevitable bombardment of junk mail in my future.  the lady was incredibly nice, to her credit.  until.  there's always an "until."  as soon as i showed my photo ID (driver's license), there was the "Awww, that's so nice."  and then her voice changed half an octave up.  my favorite part of the sequence: when she starts calling me "sweetheart."  yeah, that happened again. 

now that the ranting is over, i will say that once or twice it has come in handy, to be able to play dumb when i've made an honest mistake and let someone else who knows how to fix it.  and then there are the times when the other person made the mistake, talks down to me and then turns red in the face when i show them the other side of my ID, where there is a copy of my nursing license, state seal and everything.  it's very rewarding, and almost makes the irritation of their judging worthwhile. 

this past spring at the prompting of a friend, i began using some health supplements to see if this "Plexus" stuff could do for me what it seems to have done for others.  if 100% of the testimonies are even 50% true, then this is the closest product i've seen to a cure for, like, everything.  kinda ridiculous.

but glory be, i have been very blessed by it.  the quality of my sleep has increased dramatically, as has my energy.  my migraines have been almost entirely eliminated.  my hormones and appetite have leveled and my skin is completely clear.  like i said- ridiculous. 

so now i have officially joined the Plexus crew as an "Ambassador," and have my own website and access to zillions of other people's testimonies of how Plexus has changed their lives and how everyone in the world should try it.  you can search testimonies categorized by illness, even.

(so if you want relief from headaches, tiredness, insomnia, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, hypo- or hyperthyroidism, obesity, acne, IBS/IBD, chronic fatigue syndrome, or anything else, click here for 60 risk-free days: http://shopmyplexus.com/evangelinewebb/  ) i really think it could help you, and if it doesn't, i really want to know.

but as much as i love Plexus, there's been something nagging at me.  it might seem insignificant to many, which is okay.

it's my identity.

what people see when they look at my oddly juvenile-looking face (and then recover). 

a really cool pastor once quoted someone i've forgotten by saying that we are living out our eulogies.  right now, what we say and do and believe and act on are what other people are going to remember about us when we're gone. 

i had a "Jesus moment" a few years ago after a particularly lousy shift at work.   everything had seemed to go well- until they didn't.  a few things went wrong, i made a few mistakes (non-lethal… nobody died; i'm not even sure any patient realized anything at all) and then there were some false assumptions made about me, and a few complaints and comments behind my back- and it all landed on me at once.  hand-delivered by a rather biased person.  i drove home almost in tears and sat in the car for almost an hour.  i promised myself that i would not allow this kind of down-in-the-dumps attitude inside the apartment, so i didn't.  it was in that parking spot that i realized the root of the problem, and it changed a whole lot about my life, my career, my goals.

i realized that morning that this is exactly what happens when you misplace your identity.

like this:  what do you say when you meet someone for the first time and they ask you to tell them about yourself?  I usually say something along the lines of, "Well, my name is ____, and i'm a night shift cardiac/NICU nurse at the local hospital."  if they want more, i'll tell them what i do in my spare time, like reading, writing this silly blog, arts and crafts out the wazoo, visiting my family out-of-state, etc.   it's only after all that when things like mission trips, teaching the kids at church, my devotions, and  time spent with other church members come into the conversation. 

i'd made my primary identity my nursing license. a job that is completely dependent on myself: my skills, my labor, my knowledge, my earned respect from others because of two stupid letters after my name.

that was my problem, and one i'm still working on.  the first… the very, very first thing i said about myself was that i was a nurse.  yeah, i am.  i work (at least) 40 hours most weeks, i love my job, i love my coworkers, i love my patients and their families.  it takes a lot of time and effort and planning.  there are good days and bad days and every sort of day in between. but what's really most important about me?  definitely not nursing. 

when i'm in my coffin and tossed into a grave, that's not all i want on that tombstone, or said in my eulogy. 

it's not nursing.

it's also not Plexus.

it's Jesus, people.

it's just Jesus.

what good have i done if i treated your heart attack or your neonate, got you whole family to take Plexus stuff that cured your diabetes and gave you energy to run a marathon… if your soul is not regenerated and winds up burning for eternity?  i'd love to help your physical body as much as my training allows, but i have a bigger goal in mind.  i want impact lives on a deeper level.  i want my primary identity to have nothing to do with me or what i've done, because all of it is going to turn into dirt sooner or later.  no matter how old this face appears to be, eventually it will look like dirt. 

everything Jesus did will last throughout eternity.  the souls He's saved will never grow old or die.  there are no hospitals in heaven.  there are no banks or stores.  there is no need for photo ID because what Jesus did was take our screwed-up identities and replace them with His.  whatever we achieve during our days on earth now has His name and face attached to it.  we are HIS ambassadors, proclaiming HIM with everything we do.  and all this is because later on at the entrance to heaven, we will not be showing our license to get it.  we'll be showing His. 

it's completely unfair, but it's unfair in our favor. 

there's a little section on my Plexus website that i have not filled out yet.  it's the place where i can write my Plexus "testimony" or story, and share with the world how my life has changed for the better since taking Plexus.  part of me feels horribly guilty because even after one or two requests to share my spiritual testimony, i still have not been able to.  i'm working on it- really, and i think it will probably happen soon.  but i think i want that to happen first.  Jesus changed my life more than a healthy diet ever could. it's a much better story, too.  i'm not going to brag on some vitamins and minerals before i brag on the only Person who makes this life meaningful.  i'm not going to testify to the powers of natural supplements more than i will of the all-powerful Creator of nature.  Plexus, Hobby Lobby, Barnes and Noble, the hospital- none of these will have their logo engraved on my headstone (i hope).  i don't need their seal of approval.  i have the only seal i need. 

what i do NOT want is for the only thing that is known about me to be that i take a supplement and am striving to be healthy. big deal.  this is the identity that Jesus took anyway.  i take care of it because this body has His name on it.  i'm glad He's given me this way to be healthy, and if it helps you in your health goals, too, then i'd love to partner with you and go through it by your side.

but let's do it for Jesus, please. 

let's make His name be heard farther and wider and louder and stronger than any other.

let's carry His ID and show it every single chance we get, tell our story of what He's done and how He has a fix for every need, hole, wrinkle, and rip in your life- and how He can swap out that temporal life for His eternal one.  these benefits are the worthwhile ones!! 

With or without your Plexus Pink Drink, let's start living our eulogies the way our King has called us to, flashing those nifty IDs every chance we get!!!

watch out, Crowe: old guy with a hammer coming through!

but now the world in general has moved on. it has washed its hands of anything spiritual that it calmly tolerates between Thanksgiving and New Year's, and is now free to focus on itself and the fulfillment of every temporal desire.   except if it takes too much effort.  heaven forbid we work too hard to keep all those vain promises we made to ourselves two weeks ago. i already see myself "editing" my goals for this year, and i know in about 3 weeks the gyms are going to be much less crowded, fast food restaurants will have more business and credit card debts will just keep going up as budgets (caloric and monetary) are abandoned by the wayside and promises broken, even the ones recycled from last year's New Year's.  the general response is to repeat the plan and wait 12 months to fail again. i'l doing good just to keep the clutter under control!

for some reason, it's only on the busiest days when i have the least spare time that i go into over-achiever mode and tear through the to-do list like a rabid porcupine. (bunny trail: i've never seen a rabid porcupine, nor any porcupine at all in the vicinity of a to-do list). i usually start in the master bath/closet, work my way through the bedroom and then the living room/dining room before tackling the kitchen.  it usually doesn't even take too long, as i time myself by episodes of Friends, which serves both as a timer and a mood-elevator, keeping things perky while i scrub, move, fold, organize, put away, hide, shove, burn, demolish…. 

BUT ANYWAY.

the past two months i've been covering for the Cubbies' lead teacher, and i have had a blast with the crowd of 4 year olds.  this past month surrounding Christmas we have been learning about Noah, the unit theme being "God Keeps His Promises."  and while Noah's story only takes up a couple paragraphs of Scripture, the other several thousand pages of the Bible teach us not only about so many other promises that God keeps, but also what our response should be.  the Christian life is a two-way thing,  which is great because that's just how i love to teach these lil' charmers!  it just so happens that the promises He made to Noah come along with an absolutely epic story that serves as a perfect segue to even bigger and bolder promises, and bigger and bolder responses.

did i mention that i was an over-achiever?

for a 4-year old, a summary of our lesson would look like this:

we are sinners- but so was Noah.

He promised to punish sin, because He is holy and perfect and completely just to do so… just like He promised the flood to punish the evil

He also promised to send a Savior, just like He promised to rescue Noah and his family, unworthy and sinful though they were.

and He promised to keep us safe if we trust in Him like Noah did. 

i totally got this- i can keep on going, but i think you get the point ;)

and every single one of these, and His other, promises are completely true.

"God keeps His promises" are 4 short words that are easy enough to get a pre-K child to say, but harder than it seems to get an adult to believe and respond rightly to.

if i were in Noah's neighborhood, i can't say for certain that i wouldn't have been one of the evil guys laughing at the crazy nut-job building a gigantic boat in the middle of arid wilderness.   they thought he was stupid. they literally thought the guy had lost it.

the kids just laughed because their teacher said the word "stupid."  

but for up to a hundred years, Noah was the idiot farmer/gardener-turned-shipbuilder who they probably thought was either dehydrated or intoxicated.

can you imagine believing a promise like that for a hundred years?  we can't even trust ourselves to exercise regularly for a month or two, but Noah had enough faith to trust an unpopular Deity's unpopular promise, even though it required a career change, personality change, reputation change and logistics out the wazoo.  the Noah that woke up that crazy day was NOT the same Noah that went to bed that night.  i'm having fun right now, imagining their family conversation over dinner, as Noah tries to casually bring up the subject of impending doom.

Noah: so, honey… God said He's gonna wipe out all mankind and every living being that draws breath…

Mrs Noah: say what?!?

Noah: um, yeah- but it's okay-we're not gonna die...just everybody else. God says He's going to save us!

Mrs Noah: huh.  did He, now?  and how's He going to do that?

Noah: with a boat.

Mrs Noah: a boat...

Noah: yup- A BOAT.  a big one!!

Mrs. Noah: oh good.  a 600 year old farmer's building us a boat.  we're doomed.

but build it he did.  and it's so much cooler than any joke of a movie about this faith champ. (at least Russell Crowe remembered to include a boat, even if he forgot EVERYTHING else).

God made a promise, Noah believed it, and he knew that his response could only be to pick up that hammer and start working.  he drafted his sons, he found many, many gopher trees, i don't know what educational material he had access to but he found something, and he went hammering away.  he tuned out the jokes and whistles from the bored, evil bystanders.  he smiled and replaced the vandalism and sabotage from the evil teenagers.  he used the evil junkmail as blueprint. i'm thinking that as the project turned into a reality, he came to regret every joke or harsh word he'd ever said about his evil mother-in-law or evil neighbor or evil politician. every board he sawed was a reminder of God's coming judgement on everybody he knew- and also his own salvation.  if they'd have asked, i bet he would have negotiated with God to give some animal's room to a repentant friend (do we really need opossums?  could we let them float and take the Smith family with us instead?)

but then it was done. 

the blazing hot sun shone down on the ark- that giant monument to insane faith- drying the last layer of tar sealant. door hinges greased. window panes set. cages secured, feeding troughs in place. the "work" was done; everything else was just cosmetic, so Mrs Noah was captain over that team.  so much hard work, so many blisters and sunburns, pulled muscles, strained finances.  turning that last calendar page must have felt surreal as the deadline date circled in red approached.

the hardest part for a motivated, Type A, task do-er is to stop.  yes, Noah built the ark, but then he had to put the hammer down.  either the boat was gonna float or it wasn’t.  either God was gonna keep His promise or He wasn't.

the first part of Noah's response involved a lot of splinters and sweat. 

that was the easy part.

the second part-the harder part- was simply to keep trusting the promise he'd gotten so long ago. no splinters… probably still some sweating involved, though.

even though i have fun, i sweat and stew all the time about all this work i do so far outside my actual career path. i'll laugh, i'll sing, i'll distribute stale goldfish liberally to any child that asks, but part of me is constantly freaking out-   about things entirely outside my control and realm of responsibility, no less.  first part of my response to God is to tell others by teaching: the easy part. second part: letting God grow the seeds and reach these small minds and hearts, not so much.

despite my sit-still-and-just-trust issues, God sends moments like sparkling gems when i need them.  tonight was a gem; i hope i keep this ruby around forever. 

Avery, Olivia and Charlotte wanted to read fairy tale books instead.

Sean was out of sorts and adjusting to a new baby brother.

James is everyone's friend and wanted to catch up on all the news.

Rebecca had a boo-boo and wanted a doctor (not a "nurse," whatever that is) to look at it immediately (the only doctor around was the gym teacher, and he's a urologist).

Graham is the self-appointed captain/ringleader/director and knew the Bible story anyway (he's the PK, of course he does) and would rather confirm with me the details on snack time or whisper in Isabel's ear.

nobody was overly intent on listening- or at least looking like they were listening.

but right at the end of story time when we were discussing other promises God has made, a wee little voice piped up from a normally bouncy, rambunctious child and said, "i wonder why God had to punish Jesus."

amen and hallelujah.

well, child, let me break it down for you!

God promised Adam, and Eve, and Noah and us that He would punish sin, right?  *little heads nod yes*

Jesus never sinned, did He? *little heads shake no*

raise your hand if you're a sinner *all the little hands go up*

raise your hand if you like being punished for breaking rules *aaaaaallll the little hands go back down, except for Micah's who has already exceeded his attention span and wasn't listening*

God promised He would send someone to save us, didn't He?

it's Jesus, kids.  it's Jesus. 

Jesus told God that He would take our punishment, so that we wouldn't have to.

if you ask them if that's a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" thing, you'll really get them confused- because it's both good and bad...but mostly good.  kinda like Noah's situation. judgement= bad, salvation= good.

Promise first, then response.  Jesus kept His promise, and our response tonight was a prayer of heartfelt thankfulness, telling our blue-vested  children again that God promised to hear our prayers even though their big trusting eyes couldn't physically see Him.

and the kid that you always have the hardest time patiently corralling is the one who shows you at just the right time that God also promised to protect us and the kids, from floods and control-freak teachers alike. 

i'll tell a Bible story to the best of my ability, but then it's time for me to "put down the hammer" like Noah and just let God do the rest of the teaching. the cleaning rampage can wait. i'm not done learning by any means.  there's a pile of promises to sit down on, and centuries' worth of rainbows overhead to remind us that "God Keeps His Promises." i hope i learn to listen and trust more like a Pre-K, and that you are able to take a breath and rest with me; there's more than enough room for us all here on this pile. 

the impossible snowflake

it's snowing now.  it was 50 degrees yesterday, but by gum it's snowing today!  welcome to tennessee!

it was raining when i began the errands, sunny when i picked my sister up, raining while we binge-watched Jack Bauer and then snowing when we had to be responsible and part ways. 

i still am torn on the theory that no two snowflakes are exactly the same- i feel like there's gotta be some sort of conditional statement, but maybe not.  part of me thinks that as soon as someone spat that one out, all his scientist friends were like, "thank goodness- now we can stop checking for duplicates."  at last they were able to move on to more important things.  

all i know is that until a very bored person disproves the theory, i'm okay with going along with it.

the past few weeks have been something less than a smooth ride for me.  not my fave.  i've only had two...or three… breakdowns witnessed by other people.  am i getting better or what?!?

the burden was great enough that i felt the intense need to have the prayer support of multiple friends and so i appealed to the social media networks and was met with an overabundance of replies.  i was humbled by the numerous responses and friends who followed up with me later- and all this without me even saying what the prayer request was about! 

the first part of the trial has passed; the next, and longer, part is going to start once i kick myself into action again, rather than stopping in between.  i'm not quite "scared," but i'm more than "nervous."  i'll settle for  "disheartened."  i'm tired.  i'm worn.  i'm not exactly full of hope regarding this particular concern.

but even so, just a few days ago i met with a trusted friend/adviser who is "in the know," and for the first time in a bazillion ages i was able to say, "yeah, i'm exhausted...but maybe a little bit hopeful, too...maybe?"  even just working through the ins and outs of a knotty problem at least put some perspective on it.  it was just as large, or larger, than i had considered, but at least it had some parameters now.

with that and the prayers, i felt some of the weight lift, and even running on less sleep than i'd have liked i waltzed into work for a 12+ hour shift treasuring this small seedling on hope. 

during one of those hours i was bringing some labwork to the front of the unit to be sent out and processed, and i stopped to smile at the whiteboard stating the date, the charge nurse, a welcome to the NICU...and featuring what was clearly supposed to be a snowflake.  a completely impossible snowflake. 

an 8-sided snowflake.

i can't help it.  i'm a homeschool veteran…. i did well by not ever mentioning it until now.  and to be fair, it's a hundred times easier to draw 8- than 6-sided anythings.

but there it was- the happiest octagonal snowflake, not even realizing that there really be no snowflake like it, ever. and there never has been. 

i want to hold on to this impossible bit of hope for as long as i can.  even once i start moving again down this bumpy, twisty road, even when i trip and faceplant on a sidewalk.  this hope that seemed just as likely as an 8-sided snowflake happened. 

i am so grateful for all those who have walked down any part of this road with me, whether for a step, a mile, or around a corner.  a couple "first responders" were ones i wasn't aware still read status updates.  for whatever reason, Jesus let this one be read and let me see once again the bigness of Him through small things like facebook posts and snowflakes.

i hope the beauty of the silent flakes outside last just a while.  i'm not one to cherish frigid cold, but every one of those hexagonal miracles is (this time around) a little reminder that no matter how impossible the circumstances hope can still sprout.  and impossible hopes are the best.