Rachel Recovered

I've been praying for Rachel. A LOT.

Rachel is my daughter's best friend.  They met in high school.  Rachel is 22 years old.  She's a ballerina and an honor student at UCLA.  She is bright and charming, and I love that over the years and through long separations away at college, Rachel and Jeannette have remained close even after other friends have drifted apart.

Thank you for young women with great promise.

Rachel has spent much time at our house, and we love her joyful spirit and sense of humor.  Her own family, however, is very protective of their privacy and ever more so of their only daughter.  It is bittersweet for most parents to balance between keeping your children safe and preparing them for adult life on their own.  We celebrate their achievements and independence even as we miss their needing us.    For Rachel it was clear that her natural and deserved steps toward independence were hard fought.

Thank you for strength and perseverance in adversity.

She wanted the full college experience.  Several of her friends from high school had gone away to college and taken dorms and campus apartments when she was attending local community college part time.  She studied hard and worked hard and earned her place at one of the top universities in the nation.  She worked several jobs and saved her money, and she was ready to move closer to campus with her friends.  And while this sounds like absolutely perfectly normal American success story stuff, her success wasn't something her family could easily bear.

Thank you for normal American success stories in a world where little is normal.

Rachel made a normal, co-ed life for herself in Westwood for a little while.  Two weeks ago, this vibrant, lively young woman collapsed following a boat trip with her class and suffered a seizure.  Someone dialed 911, and Rachel was whisked away.  Her roommates and friends didn't hear from her.  She didn't attend classes.  She didn't answer her phone.  So Jeannette told me she was going to drive over to Rachel's parents' house to find her.  Jeannette was confident that Rachel was okay and resting at her parents' house, and I was inclined to let her go.  But I changed my mind and decided I needed to go with her.

Thank you for changing our minds.

We met Rachel's dad that day for the first time.  Jeannette knocked at the door and identified herself.  Then out came a father who'd spent the previous days at his daughter's hospital bedside in ICU.  His heart was breaking.  We heard unconscious, breathing tubes, responding to stimulus, some movement in her feet.  He said he felt glad when the doctors said they could expect her to remain in the hospital for a couple months slowly recovering, because it meant she would still be here in a couple months.  Jeannette and I cried with him.  I promised to pray for them all.  Private still, no visitors, no calls, please.

Thank you for unexpected visits with people who need them.

I've been praying ever since.  For Rachel.  For her parents.  For Jeannette.  I've seen my good friends Lacey and Matthew have to tell their daughter one of her best friends had died in an accident.  So many broken hearts!  How could Jeannette bear it?

Thank you for prayer.

Jeannette and her friends were asked to stay away and to respect the family's privacy at this time.  It's understandable.  But the girls couldn't help but feel that Rachel would want them even if the parents didn't.  You can't keep girlfriends away, it seems.  They are a persistent bunch and a positive force with a special bond [and Facebook].  A week later, it was time to "bust a mission."  The timing was perfect.  Rachel's mother had just stepped away.  One of the girls got through and talked to Rachel.  And Rachel woke up.

Thank you for perfect timing and the voices of friends.

How typical it is for a beautiful college co-ed to sit up in bed talking to her friends on the phone.  How wonderfully, perfectly, miraculously typical!  Now that Rachel's talking, she has asked for her friends.  And no one can keep them away.  Rachel's doctors are surprised by the huge and unexpected progress she's made in such a short time.  The girls aren't surprised; they never doubted the success of their mission.  I shouldn't be surprised; I never doubted the power of prayer.

Thank you, God, for the love of friends, for your healing spirit, and for the gift of Rachel.

[Hey, so Rachel's parents are still really private, so don't tell them about his blog, okay?  Cool.]

Feeling Grateful and Guilty

Why, me, Lord?  What did I do to deserve this?

Familiar words, familiar sentiment.  Usually one lets slip these words when overwhelmed with woes and troubles.  Sadness and trouble come to every life, deserving [whatever that means] or not.  Children fall ill, jobs are lost, bills come due.  We obey the law, we try to do what we think is right, we try to love others as Jesus loves us, and still $#!+ happens.  Bad things happen to good people [which, it seems, is easier to accept than when good things happen to bad people--we hate that].

Thank you for Justice.  Thank you for forgiving us when we humans think we know how to judge what is Just.

Have you ever wondered "Why me, Lord?" in the midst of great joy?  I have a wonderful husband and strong marriage.  I have two beautiful, smart, healthy daughters.  I work at a job I was called to do.  My knee stopped hurting.  I have awesome friends [oops, is awesome better than wonderful? sorry, Drew].  God loves me.  I am thankful for all these gifts and more.  But

Why, me, Lord?  What did I do to deserve this?

So, imagine you parked the car under a tree because you wanted to keep it cool in the shade, but when you returned to the car, it looked like birds had been taking target practice all day all over your windshield.  Do you have that image in your mind?  [yeah, yuck] Now, take that disgusting car directly through a carwash.  When you get home, your honey-bunch [sweet-cheeks, sugar-lips, insert cutsie nickname of your choice] gives you hugs and kisses and whisks you out for a nice dinner because you got the car washed.  It's like that.  Basking, as you are, in all those hugs and kisses and cheesecake [imaginary dinners come with cheesecake for dessert], you can't help feeling a little guilty.

Thank you for trees and birds, carwashes and cheesecake.

God's Grace is like that!  Like super-amazing vanilla bean cheesecake for getting the car covered in bird poop.  [I'm going to hell for this.]  What the heck, God?  You love even me.  Here's the thing:  I'm not special; I'm about as normal as normal gets, pretty dull stuff.  So, if I'm normal, and there are times when I don't feel lovable, logic holds that everyone else who's normal, too, has times when they don't feel lovable.  Here's Grace:  You don't have to feel lovable to be loved.  Maybe you don't even have to  be lovable to be loved.  How many of us have had to abandon our full grocery cart and leave the store with a two-year old mid-tantrum, loving him still?  It's like that.

Thank you for logic, which gives us the silly notion we have a handle on things.  Thank you for Grace and for really having the handle on things.

So, I feel guilty.  I'm blessed with joys I don't deserve.  I will never deserve.  All I can do is live and love and work and try to be worthy.  I feel guilty.  There are good people in the world who suffer ills daily that they don't deserve.  The "fixer" part of me wants to fix that, but the "helpless" part of me says "I'm just one person!" so the "worrier" part of me frets and then I pray.  I don't have any answers.  Pray.  Praying is the best place to start for answers.  I have no other advice except that the best advice will come to you when you pray.  And when you pray, remember to say "Thanks."

Thank you for the storm before the peace.  Thank you for answers to questions we're afraid to ask.  Thank you for prayer.  Thank you, God, for loving even me.

Call a Meeting

Between my work and church, I am on [counting...] ten committees, no I forgot one, eleven.  Then there are actually two more committees of which I am the only member [yes, that's a thing].  The pastor at our church gave me an award for being "Just a Gal Who Can't Say 'No'" [I am assured that there are no parallels being drawn here between me and the somewhat promiscuous character Ado Annie in "Oklahoma."]

Thank you for Rodgers and Hammerstein.  [If I have already thanked you for Rogers and Hammerstein, well, thanks again.]

We finish our work day, and then we get down to business.  We meet and get things done.  We make decisions.  We make lists.  We divide up tasks and responsibilities.  We celebrate successes and solve problems.  And we do it all in an hour [well, that's the goal, anyway].

Thank you for tangential conversations that are WAY more interesting than the business at hand.  Thank you for getting back to the business at hand.

I mention this here because I'm thankful for the people gathered around those tables praying, laughing, brainstorming, volunteering.  These men and women, unfailingly generous with their energy, experience, creativity, and time, are making a difference.  Some of them work to plan worship celebrations to lift people in faith and bring them into a closer relationship with God.  Some of them strive to lift up children, celebrating and praising their academic successes.  Some of them create opportunities to bring families together in Christian fellowship.  Some seek ways to bring families together to share a joy of learning.   I'm sensing a pattern, here.

Thank you for recognizable patterns of behavior and self awareness.

As much as I like and respect my committee companions, as much as I enjoy a well-planned event, I don't always want to stay after school or jump in my car in the evening and head to a meeting.  Can we change the world without getting off the sofa?  Can we make a difference in our pajamas?  I think this was the question that drove people to improve communications technology.  [Okay, maybe it had something to do with needing to work with people who were far away, but I like to think that they're in their pajamas.]

Thank you for pajamas.  Mmmmm so comfy.  Nice work.

So, here I am at the intersection of lazy and industrious.  And on the corner we find:  the conference call.  Certainly conference calls have been around for years in the business world.  But they're not just for multi-national corporations anymore.  Thanks to internet-based free conference call providers, folks like me can host a conference call and conduct meetings from our sofas in our pajamas [our sofas are not in our pajamas, just to be clear].  So I gave it a try.

Thank you for www.freeconferencecalling.com. [Not a paid endorsement.  Definitely no payment.]

To plan a large luncheon for a Sunday after church, the Family Ministries Team went home.  We kicked off our shoes and put our feet up.  We grabbed a snack.  We got comfy.  We picked up our phones and dialed in.  It was great.  The very novelty of the conference call made the event planning fun.  We were so fired up, we actually planned two events:  a Sunday luncheon and a Saturday picnic.

Thank you for feeling fired up about planning fellowship opportunities.

On some level, it is a superior technological advance years in the making starting with Alexander Graham Bell.  And it is a simple thing, a bunch of friends on a single phone call.  It is a sea change for church committees.  It's akin to wearing flip flops as an acolyte.  [Relax, it's no big deal, at least the kid's in church, right?]  Well, I'm thankful:  for all the genius and invention and work and time and people it took to invent this little thing; for the sofa and the footstool and the tall glass of iced tea; for the caring volunteers who called it in and accomplished just as much, if not more, than we would've in our Sunday best around a table starving for lunch and looking at the clock.

Thank you for ice and tea.  Thank you for kids in church--even in flip flops.  And Alexander Graham Bell [not in flip flops].

What will future meetings look like?  We won't forgo in-person, face-to-face all together meetings altogether.  We like each other too much to stay away [we'll spend true quality time together at that luncheon or picnic that we planned].  I suppose the next phase will include Skype or some such video component.  I'm not a great fan of videoconferencing; the camera on my laptop is always at an unflattering angle, and I have to make sure there is no mess behind me.

Thank you for "The Grammarist" website and its concise explanation of the difference between forego and forgo.

Try conference calling.  Get a bunch of friends or family to dial in and connect in a way you haven't tried before.  Expect some goofy silences while you try to figure out whose turn it is to speak or who just said that.  I'm sure we'll give conference calling another try.  But really, I can't wait to see my friends again.

Thank you, Lacey, Amybeth, Mike, Sally, Katie, Robert, Julie, and Elise for being a great team.  Thank you, God, for Lacey, Amybeth, Mike, Sally, Katie, Robert, Julie, and Elise.