Jane

When I first met Jane, she had no idea who on planet Earth I was. Several hours later, shortly after Jane and I shared lunch, she had no idea on who on planet Earth I was. 

But she told me it was going to be that way. 

Jane is one of the very small handful of very famous persons that I have had meaningful personal interaction with. When we first met, it was shortly after I had given a presentation at an event she was hosting, and somehow, I found myself with my host-provided boxed lunch, sitting at a table right next to her while she went on and on about how well I had done with my presentation, what good work I was doing with the group I was representing, how proud of me she was. She knew every detail of what I said. 

"But I will never remember your name." 

To be honest, I never expected her to remember my name. She was world-famous (literally) and probably met a million persons a year. Why would she remember little ol' me and the tiny little thing I was doing in the world? 

But she went on to explain that had lived her entire life with "name aphasia" - that is, she had some kind of physical brain cross-wire kind of thing where she simply could not remember names. It didn't matter how many times you told her. It didn't matter how many times you met. It didn't matter how many times you ate together. Even her friends, she explained, understood that she wouldn't know their names faithfully. Sometimes, she might get lucky, but she just couldn't remember names. 

At the same time, here she was, remembering every single other detail about me except my name - my whole project, my timeline, my goal, my hometown, everything I had said. She took a real interest in me, at least for the space of that presentation and the following lunch. But if anyone ever asked her about me, specifically, she would have no idea we ever met.

I think about that day often. It was honestly one of the coolest experiences of my life. But I also think about what I learned from Jane in her willingness to be honest about what she knew was a weakness in herself. 

For I also have weaknesses. 

Like Jane, I am very good at details. I am very good at remembering things. I remember your birthday, your kids' birthdays, the dates that are meaningful to you, what you like to eat, what you don't like to eat, your favorite colors, the things that have hurt you, experiences you've had that may be compounding whatever you're feeling now. Many times throughout my life, I have been told how much it means to others that I seem to so easily remember the "little" things. And, unlike Jane, I remember your name. 

But I have facial blindness - prosopagnosia. I literally cannot recognize faces. I cannot recognize my own mother's face. One time, she cut her hair, and I saw a woman in the grocery store that I knew that I knew, and I started making a plan to ask my mom who she was...and it was my mom. I have absolutely no ability to recognize even familiar faces, and I've been that way my whole life. 

I've got adaptations for this. For example, I simply say hi to everyone who says hi to me. When I'm out in public and someone seems excited to see me, I get excited to see them...because I assume it means they know me. Eventually, I get enough clues to put them into place and remember who they are. (You would not believe the things I notice about persons that others, who have the benefit of faces, don't have to pay attention to, but I have a dozen subtle clues about nearly everyone that will eventually help me identify you). But I also simply acknowledge the truth of my weakness and have a good laugh about it. 

Honestly didn't know who you were. Sorry. But I know you now. Your face means nothing to me. 

Being honest about this weakness helps me to be honest about other weaknesses. Things that are simply true about who I am and the way that I am wired and the way that I move about in the world. 

At the same time, like Jane, I also focus on doing well the things that I do well, the things that let you know that despite my weaknesses and the things I cannot overcome, I am fully engaged. I'm here. I see you. I know you. And I value you. 

I got all that from one lunch with a person who didn't know who on planet Earth I was before I sat down with my cold sandwich and handful of chips and who didn't know who on planet Earth I was after I took my trash to the bin, but who - for thirty or so minutes of this strange little life that we live - was fully engaged with who I was. 

Thanks, Jane. (And it remains one of the great honors of my life to have met you.)  

Set Me Free

We are persons of limited perspective, so we have to understand that there's always something we're missing. That something is usually truth - some nugget of truth that would absolutely crush us if we discovered it, and yet, we still need to know. 

When I recently discovered the truth that I had never said out loud, but its words pierced straight through to the core of my being, I was crushed. Utterly destroyed. Devolved into a sobbing mess of snot and brokenness, feeling the full weight of who I am on this side of eternity and...mourning it. It made me grieve. 

But then...it set me free. 

It set me free because I no longer felt the need to try to hold the fragile pieces of my life. It's like walking around with a tray of drinks, trying not to spill anything, but then, something spills, and you're like...well, guess that's over. And you aren't walking so carefully any more because that ship has sailed. 

I'd been lying to myself and telling myself that I had my life somewhat together, that the pieces were falling back into place, that things were coming back to where they were supposed to be, and then just one of those fragile pieces slipped through my fingers in one profound, heart-breaking, grief-fueling moment of truth, and it was like...well, guess that's over.

I'm really just broken. 

And then you look down at the floor underneath your feet where the pieces of your once-fragile life lay resting in the dirt, and you know what? It looks almost beautiful anyway. Like something meaningful is happening there, even if you can't quite place your finger on it yet. Like there is a way for all these pieces to fit together that you hadn't thought of before. 

And in that moment, you learn grace for your truth. 

You learn beauty from ashes.

You learn strength from pain. 

And for the first time, things seem to actually make sense - not in the way that you were lying to yourself just 5 minutes ago, but in a way that feel right in the depth of your bones. You just know it. 

It's gonna be okay. 

This is the great duality of the Christian faith - truth and grace. Grace and truth. The heart-wrenching and the heart-mending. The weakness and the strength. Falling apart and somehow coming back together. The fragments of your fragile life and the beautiful mosaic of the One who created it. 

So after all this, yes - I still believe in truth. But I'm trying to be a little less reckless with it. Because I think I understand now that you never hear the truth until you're ready for the grace, and if you try to push it too fast, bad things happen that make it harder to get back to beautiful. So maybe I learn to speak with a little more grace up front, too. 

Because I've been reminded what that feels like. 

And it's amazing. 

Limited Perspective

I've always had a bit of a hard line toward truth. You can't deal with what you don't acknowledge, right?

I'm the kind of person who will always tell you the truth, and rather bluntly, because neither one of us is getting anywhere if we don't acknowledge the reality that we're dealing with. This life cannot be made of smoke and mirrors; we have to see ourselves clearly. 

Yet Paul says we see but in the glass darkly - there's always something we're missing. 

And as I've come to find out, that something we're missing is often a nugget of truth. 

That's the thing, I think. I want to speak truth. Even to myself. I want to deal with the truth. I want to be working with the facts of a thing. But what I often fail to understand is how limited my perspective is, how narrow my vision. 

At a time in my life when I was younger and I was coming, I thought, to understand how the parts of my story were woven together, I found myself sitting across the table from a psychiatrist who had been tasked with assessing the real grip that I had on things, and when I read his report, I was offended. I had a number of good insights, he'd said, but overall, I was a person of limited perspective and not as much understanding as I thought that I had. 

What a jerk.

It's been a little over 20 years since that day, and those words still sting, but they have also become words that I say to myself quite often. Every time I start to feel a little more confident in what I think I know, in fact. Because he was right - I am a person of limited perspective. 

We all are.

And that little thing that we're missing, that thing that escapes nearly all of our perception for far too long, is the little nugget of truth that could set us free. 

It's the little nugget of truth that would devastate us if we knew it. That would break our soul into a thousand little pieces and just absolutely crush us, in all the best ways, of course. 

We are not prepared to deal with our own heartbreak, our own grief, our own brokenness, our own fallenness. We are not prepared to deal with the things that our lives hint at, but that we haven't taken the time to see yet. We kind of prefer the dark glass at some points because it protects us from the things that we couldn't handle if they were glaring back at us in brightest sunlight. 

Don't get me wrong - I still think we're better off facing the truth about ourselves. I still think we have a duty to be honest about our lives and to do our best to fill in the facts as best we know them. I still think that if we're not willing to at least try this, there's something wrong with us. And we ought to work on that. 

But I also understand that we're missing something. 

We're missing something true about ourselves that our finite minds cannot wrap themselves around, that our limited vision cannot see, that our tendency toward self-protection cannot fathom, and this truth that we're missing about ourselves is the thing that would - every time - bring us to our knees and humble us before the Lord who knit this mess together in our mother's womb in the first place. 

That's why we have such a visceral reaction to the truth that we don't yet know when we finally become aware of it. It's the thing that puts us in our proper place. It's the thing that takes us down a notch. It's the thing that makes us aware of all that we've been trying to avoid - 

Namely, that we are but finite creatures looking in a glass but darkly. 

And oh, how glorious the light when we finally do see it. 

Lying to Myself

I've been told that the way I speak truth will one day get me in trouble, and yet, I am so, so good at lying to myself. 

And then, both of these things came crashing together in a way that nearly destroyed me. And I finally understood. 

I've been lying to myself for a long time. In the face of a brokenness I didn't choose, it was an easy way to make me feel more whole. In the midst of a wilderness I didn't know I entered, it was a way to help me feel found. On a shifting sand that never stopped moving, it was a way to make myself feel solid. I have created facts and theories and ideas in my head to help me understand the things I just have not been able to understand, the things I have not been able to accept...so that I can keep functioning. 

Sometimes, the weight of the world that we live in is simply too great, and it's easier to tell ourselves a few little lies just to build something to take that weight off our shoulders a little bit. 

The problem, of course, is that when we do this, the foundations on which we're setting our fragile life are not firm. 

They are prone to shaking. 

And listen, I'm not alone in this. We all do it. We are all searching for ways to be at peace with how we have to live in a broken world. In broken bodies. With broken relationships. We're all, essentially all the time, trying to make ourselves feel better about the things we don't feel good about. It's how we're wired. It's the human condition. (It's not God's design for the human condition, but it's our default back-up system, so here we are.)

But then, one day, after way too long of lying to myself (and believing me because, let's face it - I can be very convincing), a little bit of the truth leaked out. Not a big bit of it, but just a little bit of it. A couple of words strung together in a moment when I wasn't guarding them as closely. They just sort of...slipped out. 

And as soon as I heard them, it broke me. 

It broke me. I broke down crying. I couldn't stop the rest of the truth from coming spilling out all over everything. My soul felt like it ruptured, like all the weight it had been trying to hold in just came bursting forth as from a dam. I heard those words, those few little words, and I heard them in my own voice, and suddenly, all the other words that I had been afraid to speak came rushing through with them and the truth - the real truth, the truth that I've known but that I had been building a hedge against because it seemed simply too heavy - brought its full weight down to bear on me, and it broke me. 

I seemed simply to crumple into an amorphous blob of complete exhaustion, total weariness, worn-down-ness. For the first time in (in this case) years, in that moment, I accepted the reality that I had been buffering myself against. Accepted it as true. Accepted it as unwelcome, uninvited, but present nonetheless...and present in an all-consuming way. This is the life I've truly been living. 

No wonder I have been so tired. 

As soon as I felt it, as soon as I felt my soul break, my body crash, my heart sink - as soon as I felt the overwhelming grief and uncertainty and just the personal nature of it, that this is the truth about me - as soon as the tears started flowing and it didn't seem they could stop and I wasn't sure if I would ever be able to open my eyes again, let alone stand up, I heard those words in my head -  

One of these days, the truth is going to get you in trouble. 

And she was right. Here was trouble. 

In the truth about, of all things, myself.  

Truth

I had a boss one time - a mentor, really - who told me that one day, the truth was going to get me in trouble. 

She knew that I believed that you can't really face the world unless you're honest about it. She knew that I had a habit of speaking the quiet parts out loud. She knew that I wasn't afraid to tell someone the thing they were trying to avoid. And I, of course, knew these things about myself, too. 

Christianity is and always has been truth + grace, and I think it's fair to say that I have always leaned a little more toward the truth side. It's the way I'm wired; it's the way my brain works. I have to be extremely diligent about grace, very intentional. 

I tend to be a little reckless sometimes with truth. 

I laugh a little as I type this because if we're being honest (and that's kind of the point, isn't it?), I struggle to understand - on a theoretical level - why anyone would be opposed to the truth. Why anyone would not want to hear it. Why anyone would prefer to waste their energies trying to operate in a framework that isn't solid in its foundation. 

And yet...

...I am so, so very good at lying to myself. 

You would think that would mean that I'm good at making up stories to make me feel better about my failures, but that's not true. I'm good at making up facts that make me feel better about my failures. 

I'm good at crafting theories about the human condition that make me fit right in. I'm good at casting judgments on the way the world works to convince myself that it's okay that I don't fit into it. I'm good at approximating completely false statistics in my head to justify - with math - the things I am inclined to believe in my weakness. 

And I'm good at convincing myself to believe me. 

Now, here's the thing: I would still tell you that I am an honest person. I would. And I would tell you that this is because I understand, at least at some level, that the things I am telling myself are lies. But the things I tell myself are not things I would tell you. The entire inner dialogue that I'm having in my head to justify myself...that's private. Nobody knows what silly, stupid, completely-made-up things I believe about myself and the way that I fit into the world around me. Those are not public sorts of things. They're just for me. 

So when I talk to you, I don't share those things. I still speak things that I know to be true, not things I have convinced myself of. And if you don't already understand how this happens from your own experience, I'm not sure I can explain it to you. But there's something inside of me that would never dream of lying to anyone...and yet, I am so very good at lying to myself. 

And then, believing me. Even though I know I'm a liar. 

And then, those words from my former boss, my mentor - "One of these days, the truth is going to get you in trouble..." 

And I never imagined it would happen like it did....  

Don

I had lived in my house for about 14 years before I met Don; he had lived across the street for a few fewer years than that. One time, when his garage caught on fire, I'd stepped out to see what was going on and talked to his wife for a few minutes, but it wasn't really a proper introduction. We were strangers, 40 feet apart. 

Then one day, Don knocked on my door. 

He'd been sitting on his porch (which he loves to do) and noticed some big holes in the siding of my house. The recent hail storm, he'd said. He went on to explain that he was a contractor and had spent his life in construction and that he'd be happy to help out with that if we wanted him to, but even if we didn't want him to, he wanted to make sure that we knew our house had been damaged, and he suggested starting with our insurance company, who should cover everything. 

Not often looking at my own house from the angle Don sees it, I hadn't noticed the hail damage. Upon further inspection, it was pretty significant on the front and west sides of the house. So we took him up on his offer, talked to the insurance, and contracted Don to do the work. He was already fixing the other neighbor's house from the same storm. 

That one conversation turned into a job for me - I became Don's assistant when the other kid he'd hired for the summer refused to show up because it was too hot outside to work. Not long after that, I became his house-sitter and dog-sitter. For years, he would call me when he had a job and needed an extra set of hands. We often hung out on his front porch or in his garage, always taking the time to shoot the breeze with each other when we saw each other outside.

He became one of the references that helped me to get the job that I now have. 

Several years after we first met, Don was sitting on my porch with me and my mom, drinking a beer and just relaxing, when he raised the beer a little bit in the air and took his fingers off the bottle to kind of point at us. "You know," he said, "When we first moved in here, we thought y'all was uppity." 

We all had a good laugh over that one. (Then, of course, he confessed that we're far from it.) 

We've exchanged favors for more than a decade now. Chatted. Traveled together. Don took me out to meet his mom one day (he needed something out there for some extra hands). He's met my grandma. We talk about the dogs, the kids. He stops in the middle of the street and waves at me in the mornings when I'm out walking my Thunder and he's on his way to his post-retirement job. We text each other when we need help...or when we see something on the street, but we're too lazy to go outside. 

It's a friendship I treasure a great deal (both with Don and with his wife). And none of it would have ever happened if he hadn't taken the chance one day to walk across the street and knock on the door of the family he thought was probably uppity. 

So every time I see him - which is quite a bit since he still lives right across the street - I'm reminded of the things that can happen if I push myself aside and go offer myself to someone new. Go knock on a door. Go point out something I see that maybe is in their blind spot. Go offer my assistance, from something I'm good at or know how to do, to someone who might have never done it before. 

My neighbor taught me to walk across the street. 

And more than a decade later, I'm still doing it.  

God Stays

Time out.

For persons of a certain generation, these are the most dreaded words. These are the words that meant that you had to stop what you were doing, go to some designated place all by yourself, be cut off from the rest of your world, and "think about what you've done." When you're ready to apologize, or when you're sufficiently remorseful, or whatever interpersonal-behavioral standard that has been set has been met, then you can come back into the fold and resume your place in the societal structure you were removed from. 

Then, of course, there are those of us from another certain generation who just got our butt busted and were told in no uncertain terms not to do that any more, and we didn't. Ever. 

But I digress. 

In the world of human parenthood (and teaching, as these techniques are often used in the classroom, as well), there is a certain sense of guilt that comes with punishment. That is, we feel guilty when we punish our kids. As a result, when the punishment is over, we do all kinds of things to try to make up for it. 

We have conversations, trying to make sure they don't hate mommy or daddy. We try to make sure they understand why we did what we did. We try to emphasize that they aren't bad kids; they just did something bad. We offer ice cream or toys or bonus screen time to try to make amends, to try to make sure we come out of this whole thing on their good side. (And in the process, completely negate whatever gains we might have made with the punishment in the first place. But...I digress.) 

It's because something innate in us knows that isolation is a terrible punishment. It's a terrible discipline. Cutting a person off from the entire social structure around them, even for five minutes, is, in a word, brutal. It cuts at the very deep core of who we are as beings-in-relationship. 

It's why God never leaves us, not even for a moment. 

Not even in punishment. Not even in discipline. Not even in exile or in guilt (Jeremiah 51:5). 

When Israel is in Egypt, God is in Egypt. When Israel is in Babylon, God is in Babylon. When Israel is wrestling with the storms and the famines and the diseases, God is in the storms and the famines and the diseases with them. When God's people need to sit on the sidelines for a minute, need to take space to calm down, need to be removed from the hustle and bustle for a bit, God is right there with them. 

Like taking your child aside, sitting down, and catching a breath. 

Removal, but not isolation. Time out, but not abandonment. Time to gather yourself, but not alone. 

Because how could He create us in His image - an image of constant relationship, an image based on love and connection - and then do anything to traumatize that very image in us? He can't. 

So God simply never leaves us. We are never isolated, abandoned, or alone. Even in exile. Even in punishment. Even in time out. 

He is always with us. 

God Forgives Forever

I consider myself pretty good at forgiveness. 

I understand the human condition and have spent most of my life trying to understand my own insecurities and traumas and failures, and as I have traced these threads through my own life, I have developed a kind of grace for the other that is uncommon in our culture today. 

The truth is that I believe everyone is doing the best they can with what they have; there aren't very many of us who choose to go out and fail or be mean or create bitterness in the world. We honestly think we're doing what's right or we wouldn't be doing it. Sometimes, we get the better of ourselves, and our brokenness speaks louder than our heart, but at our cores, most of us are trying to get life right. 

And I believe that our baggage, whatever it is, shapes us - for better and for worse. The experiences we bring with us into every moment shape that new moment, sometimes in ways we don't even understand. Very few of us have the kind of introspection needed to truly understand ourselves, let alone anyone else. 

So...grace. And if you want to start over, let's start over. If you tell me you're working on it, I'll take that at face value and encourage you forward. If today is not going to be like yesterday, then I don't see any reason to bring yesterday into it. 

Until you do. 

And once you bring yesterday back into it, my grace-filled, compassionate, forgiving nature...suddenly remembers every single bit of it. So that mistake you just made for the fourth time suddenly comes with the weight of your three failures before it. 

Because I'm not as forgiving as I really think I am. Apparently. 

I honestly do my best to forgive, but forgetting is harder. Much harder. So when you remind me, I remember. 

Sorry. 

Thank the Lord that He's better at this than I am. Than we are. 

Jeremiah says that when God forgives sins, they're gone (50:20). They're just gone. 

They're not gone to some place where He can go get them. They're not tucked away waiting to be recalled into awareness. They're not sitting over on the side somewhere, forgiven but not forgotten. They are forgotten. Because they are gone. They don't exist any more. 

When you mess up again with God, He doesn't suddenly remember all the other mess-ups you've had in the past. The new one doesn't come with the weight of all the old ones. What old ones? Those are forgiven, gone, covered in blood, then washed clean. There is no full weight to come bearing back on you because the scales against you are empty. 

That's the way God forgives. 

I wish I could be more like that, but in my human state, I don't think I'm ever going to get there. I don't think my flesh can do it. 

But I'm so, so thankful that my God can. 

God Punishes

It surprises most persons, including most Christians, to learn that the Bible never says that the Lord is the only god in the world. 

It says He is the only God in the world. 

A number of other gods and idols are mentioned, even by name, in the Christian book, and at no point does it ever say they are not gods. Rather, it says they are worthless gods. They are not good. They are not powerful. They are not loving. They are not really the kinds of gods that deserve our worship. Put these so-called gods and idols up against the Lord, and it doesn't take long to find out they are nothing at all. 

Then Jeremiah goes even further and tells us that God punishes other gods (46:25). He punishes them for not being good, for not being loving, for not being benevolent, for not being through-and-through the kind of gods that He is for His people. He punishes them for leading His people astray and giving them false ideas about what a god should be. 

The most famous example of this, of course, is what happened to the god of the Philistines when they took the Ark of the Covenant into his temple. He kept falling over in worship, then fell over so hard that he broke, and the people were like wow, this Lord of the Israelites is doing something powerful to our most powerful god....maybe we should take the Ark back. 

And it's really cool to read stories like this, but it's also a tremendous warning for us. 

Because who among us isn't prone to set ourselves up as a god? Particularly as our own god? 

We love to do this. We love to believe we are in control of our own lives, that we know how to build our future, that we know what's best for us and the best way to get it. We love to believe that if everyone in the world would just listen to us, this world would be a better place because we are, after all, so wise and so knowledgeable about how things should be working. 

Then God looks at us, looks at the ways that we have set up ourselves as gods over our lives, and He just says...wait a minute. 

You're not as good as you think you are. You're not as wise. You're not as loving. You're not as benevolent. You're not as powerful. 

And, in fact, you are leading My people - even My person (ahem...yourself) - astray. You're creating this false idea of what you think a god should be. 

Let Me fix that for you. 

And...He does. 

He reminds us that we're not really good gods after all. He reminds us that He's much better than we are. He reminds us that there's a reason that He alone is the Lord and that all other gods - including ourselves - are false. 

Ouch. 

But I'm so thankful He does this. 

Because I can't think of anyone in this world who has messed up my life more than I have. And I need to be reminded of that quite embarrassingly often so that I can return to the One who is truly, truly good to me. 

The Lord. 

God of Destruction

I have done a fair amount of art in my day, a good amount of creative work. I have worked on several construction projects, was a graphic designer, a wood carver, and much more over the years. I have made many things that were very good...and a few things that were absolute garbage (but my heart was in the right place). 

So I understand what it is when something you have made comes to ruin. When it doesn't work. When it starts to break. When it was kind of junky in the first place. When it isn't wanted. 

I have torn up, disposed of, even destroyed some of the things I have made when the initial euphoria wore off and I realized there was some kind of fundamental flaw with it, something I wasn't quite proud of.

And every time I have, I have resolved to redo it. To make it better. To make up for what wasn't good. Because I create in order to put good into the world. (Due to time or budget constraints or due to seasons that have simply passed, I have not been able to make good on all of my flubs, but I've wanted to.)

And I get this from God, my Creator, who also made me to create. 

When we read the Bible, we see a repeating cycle of God's creation and re-creation. Moments when He aims to do something good, but because of our free will, it doesn't turn out so good all the time. So He decides that it's time to tear something down and start over again, rebuild it in a new way. Try something different. Make a fresh start. 

Most famously, of course, there is the image of God as a potter, who is able to lump the whole thing back together and start over when it's not working out the way He imagined. 

In Jeremiah, when the prophet is talking about the exile and sending Israel into Babylon, he gives a message where God says plainly that He's going to tear down what He's built. He's going to destroy it. 

But don't worry - He's saving part of it, too. (45:4)

And that's God's prerogative as a Creator. As the Creator. He has the option to look at what He's created, to determine that it's not doing what He wanted it to do, that it's not as good as He intended it to be, and He can destroy it or trouble it or shake it and start again. Try a different way. Take a new approach. 

Sometimes, that new approach is exile...and return. 

But here's what's important: it's the Creator who has the right to destroy. Nobody else. Destroying someone else's act of creation is the behavior of a bully. Period. 

But God can destroy whatever He wants. He made it, and it's His. 

And He can recreate it as He sees fit. He can save the parts of it that are working. He can have a remnant ready to rebuild from. 

And that's just what He does. 

Dennis

It felt personal. I asked him for help, did everything he told me I needed to do, and he still gave me a B. 

Dennis was one of my professors in the print media program at my college. He taught visual design, or whatever it was called; we spent the semester doing graphics and layouts and, despite a somewhat-natural inclination toward such things (I had been a layout expert in high school and well-praised for it), I could never seem to figure out how to push over that invisible hump Dennis had laid out for the all-elusive A. 

So after repeated attempts to finagle things, to change a few things up here and there, to work and re-work my designs, I finally did something that I had not had to do very often in my life, and I asked Dennis for help. I stayed after class, for long hours, working through my big project designs, just the two of us, tweaking and roughing and reworking them until he started to nod approval and tell me that yes, I was on the right track. 

Finally. 

And then, I stopped. 

I mean, I had the professor right next to me and he told me that yes, this was what he was looking for. These were the few little things I had been missing. Once I got those little nods of approval, I simply polished what I had, finished it off, slept on it, then printed it all off and turned it in. (Yes, in those days, we were still printing things off - even entire newspaper/magazine spreads.) I had done everything exactly the way he showed in his demos (which I didn't always agree with, style-wise, but he holds the gradebook) and further enhanced it exactly as he had shown me, and I felt good about it. 

And I got a B. 

I was angry about this for a long time. And, I thought, righteously so. There were places in the print media program where I was just treading water - through no fault of my own, but because I ran on the wrong side of the political line for the professors and they let me know it by dinging not the style, but the content, of every piece that I wrote. Design was supposed to be my safe haven, my saving grace, something purely objective at which I already knew I excelled. And I had asked for help. I had worked directly with Dennis to get everything just right for this one big project. So...a B? 

But the more I've grown up, the more I've lived my life, particularly the more I've lived my life as a helper, I realize that at least part of my frustration with this whole experience was the way that I help others. 

See, by nature, I am someone who, if I help you, I don't want to leave until it's done. And done right. And done perfectly. I will be there until it's over, and we will do it together (for a long season of my life, I would just do it for you so that, you know, it would most definitely be done right) until it's not just good, but great. Perfect. Excellent. 

So it's the fact that this is the way that I approached helping others that frustrated me about the way Dennis helped me. I followed his plan exactly, and it was "decent." It wasn't excellent. Who helps someone else and doesn't end up with something excellent? What kind of sadist is that? 

It's someone who wants to leave room for a little sparkle. 

It's someone who does the bare bones well, but leaves room for the flourish. Who helps, but in helping, creates space for the person who is actually in charge of things to add their own personal touch. Who gets the basics down, but wants to see the personality come through. Wants to see something creative that they maybe couldn't have thought of themselves...or perhaps sat right there next to you the whole time and longed for you to see with your own eyes. 

It's someone who doesn't want to just create a finished product, but help to foster a vision - a way of seeing that helps you see more than you previously were, that engages your imagination and encourages your risk and embraces your personality. 

Helping others is not always about the finished product; actually, it rarely is. Most often, it's about development of the person you're helping...not just so that they do good work, but so that they become a better version of themselves. A more full version of themselves and their abilities. 

If Dennis had never sat with me for hours, painstakingly going over things pica by pica by pica, only to give me a freakin' B, I don't know if I would have understood that as well. 

So thanks for the B.  

God Remembers

There are days when I don't feel like I'm any good at all. I haven't done any good in the world. I haven't been my best self. I have added to the trouble and turmoil around me, if in no other way than by not stopping it. There are days that I go home and cry myself to sleep out of sheer weariness, out of that feeling of running on a hamster wheel and not making a difference. Of having made mistakes that wouldn't normally be like me. Of...having a messed up life. 

The thing is that on the days that I dare to share these feelings, on the days when I'm honest about the ways that my exhausted heart and mind are speaking to me, those around me seem to have no trouble at all coming up with a thousand things I do well, things I've done right, differences I have made, competencies I have shown.

More than that, they are quick to step in with positive character traits - kindness I've shown, gentleness, calmness, peace, generosity. Things I have offered from my spirit (even my weary, insecure, uncertain spirit) to others that have had a meaningful impact on the day that we shared. 

On the day that I, for whatever reason, didn't feel like I was good enough. 

Yet others seem to know my goodness a lot better than I do. 

And so does God. 

Jeremiah says that God remembers the good you do. (39:16-18) Even in exile. Even in a foreign land. Even on what looks like not your best day, God remembers the good you do. 

He remembers the difference you made. He remembers the little thing you thought no one noticed. He remembers the positive character traits - your kindness, gentleness, generosity, patience. He remembers it all. 

This is why, by the way, God is so slow to anger with us. Because He remembers the good things we do. Because He recognizes when we are troubled by our own insecurities and weariness and uncertainty and when we're not having a good day at all, but we have still done good. We do good. We are fairly consistent doers of good. He sees through our momentary troubles, our frustrations, our exhaustion, our failures, and He remembers the good we have done. 

And, like a good friend, He reminds us.

He's that one whispering in our ear. He's that one sending us the encouraging message. He's that one painting rainbows in the skies and smiles on faces and reminders all around us that even if we don't feel it right now, we are still good. We still do good. 

He speaks the truth that we need to hear at the moment when we most need to hear it, even if it's a moment we can't quite believe it. He still speaks it because it's easy for Him. 

He remembers.

And He reminds us when we have forgotten. 

God of the Promise

When you get out of time out, we can have ice cream. When you finish your book report, you can play on your tablet for a little bit. When you finish mowing the yard, we can turn on the sprinkler. 

Today's promises feel more like bribes...or, at worst, like guilt speaking through our mouths. Guilt for having to be the grown-up. Guilt for having to set the boundaries. Guilt for having to enforce them. 

That's not a promise. That's a concession. 

It's a way of going back on the hard thing that you just did. It's a way of trying to mend fences. It's a way of trying to change the perspective - no, you're not the hard, evil one with high standards; you're the fun one. Remember? You're the one that's going to get ice cream. 

Because doesn't ice cream put you back in everyone's good graces?

We spend so much of our time trying to save face in our world. Trying to not come off as the bad guy. Trying not to be the person with standards in a world that doesn't have any. Always trying to show that we can do it the way the world does it, that we can be like everyone else, that we, too, are "fun" and enjoy good things.

And what comes out of that is a relationship with God where we're all just waiting for Him to buy us ice cream. To acknowledge how uncomfortable He made us. To apologize for making us do hard things. To show us that He really is good and fun and loving. 

God doesn't play that way. 

God's not trying to save face; He's trying to save souls. God's not trying to let us off the hook; He's trying to get us out of the small pond altogether. God's not trying to make us happy; He's trying to make us whole. He doesn't want us to just have fun; He wants us to enjoy our abundant life that He's promised. There's a big difference. 

That doesn't mean the hard things don't have their reward. It doesn't mean He doesn't understand the challenges that we face. It doesn't mean that He enjoys punishing us. 

It means that He always keeps His eye on what He has promised from the very beginning...even in the midst of our harder seasons. 

That's the thing - you read the Bible, and you see all these promises of God. And you see all these curses that are promises, too. Promised to come down on those who turn away, who are unfaithful, who fail at maintaining righteousness. But even when you read the curses, the promises of hard things, there are promises of good things, too. God hasn't given up on what He wants to give you. 

Unlike us, He's not trying to get back in our good graces. These aren't bribes. They aren't guilt offerings. They aren't God trying to be friends again after He's been a little harsh with us. They are the same promises He's always been making, wrapped in the consequences for not pursuing (or accepting) them. He speaks them again in the same breath He speaks our discipline because He wants us to remember that this is what He's really about - 

The hard days get us back to the good things. If only we will be faithful through them. 

In other words, God always tries to remind us there was always ice cream.

Do you remember that? 

God Enjoys Good

I love loving on others. I do. I have always said that if I have to learn something or try something or brave something in order to love someone better, then I'm game for it. (Actually, it's how I've learned to do most of the things that I know how to do in life.) 

And I'm always looking for ways to love on other folk. I'm looking for the opportunities to do good in the world, quietly. I'm looking for the ways to make a difference without taking credit for it. I'm always paying attention to what's going on around me, to what others are engaged in, to the things that they like. 

There's a coworker of mine who thinks I'm always trying to take a part of whatever she's getting into - food, lotion, whatever - because I tend to hover. But I tend to hover because I'm making mental notes. Because I know that some day, the opportunity is going to present itself to love on her in some way when she most needs it, and when that opportunity arises, I will have a catalogue of memories and information about her to draw on to know just what she likes. 

I have that kind of information about almost everyone. It's been five years since I worked with one very good friend, but I still remember her kids' birthdays every year. I know that one of my coworkers is on a very restricted diet, so there are things I simply couldn't ever offer her. I know that this person loves the color pink, but that one hates it, and that my niece just changed her favorite color a week ago (again). I know the scents that you wear, the foods you can't stand, the little things you keep getting yourself just because they make you smile. I know the thing you've had your eye on forever, the one you've been talking about but haven't brought yourself to splurge on yet. 

Because the day is coming when I'm going to get to love on you, and I want to be ready. 

It's one of the ways that I'm like my Father. 

Jeremiah tells us that God enjoys doing good to His people. (32:41) This may have been hard to hear from the prophet who was telling the people all about their captivity in Babylon, about how God was sending them away to exile because of their unfaithfulness, about how their kings were going to die and only a remnant was going to be left. This may have been hard to hear from the same guy who kept telling you that your life was basically over, while also trying to tell you to go ahead and start building your new life because God was going to prosper you in this new place that you never wanted to be. 

The same God Jeremiah has been prophesying about is the God who likes doing good to His people? 

Indeed, He is. 

That's why He tells them to build their houses. It's why He tells them to plant their crops. It's why He tells them to pray for the peace and prosperity of the place they are living in exile...because when Babylon has peace and prosperity, Israel will, too. The people of God will, too. 

Because God is doing good to them even in a cursed place. He is blessing them even in discipline, even in punishment. He still loves doing good to them - thriving them - even in a place they were never meant to be. He loves doing good. 

Because He loves them. 

And He loves loving on them. 

And He loves loving on us. 

God is Found

I saw a post on social media recently where someone was saying how frustrated he was that his buddy still wouldn't tell him where he always hid during games of hide and seek. Even though they were both adults now, the friend refused to give up the secret hiding spot "in case we play again one day." 

It was lighthearted, of course, and worth a good chuckle. But there are many folks who believe they are stuck in a perpetual game of hide and seek with God...and that He won't ever give up His hiding spot. 

Friends, God wants to be found. 

He's not like the other so-called gods of the world who dominates with His presence, overwhelms with His power, makes a scene about who He is. I mean, just think about the images you've seen of Thor and Zeus and the others - big, booming voices, hands of thunder, bolts of lightning, unmistakable presence. God's not like that. 

But He's not hiding, either. 

Remember that all the way back in the Garden, all the way back in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it was man and woman who were hiding. Never God. God was simply walking in the cool of the day and realized that He was suddenly alone, so He went seeking. 

God hiding from us isn't even part of the curse. Our work will become toil. Life will get harder. Things will be tougher. And then, there's that whole "cherubim with flaming swords guarding the way to the Tree of Life, which we probably shouldn't eat from any more or we'll be miserable for eternity" thing. But not once does God ever say that part of the curse is that we will seek Him, but not find Him. That He will remove Himself from our presence. That we will call out and He won't answer. 

That's not the consequence of our sin. That's not the game plan.

In fact, even many generations later, when Israel as a whole is caught up in their sin and God pronounces judgment on them, He reminds them that even from Babylon, they will one day seek Him. They will be looking for Him. "And you will find Me." (Jeremiah 29:14)

You will find Me. 

Look for Me, and here I am. Desire Me in your heart, and I will be there. Open your eyes, and You will see Me. 

I haven't gone anywhere. 

Still here we are, thinking that we have to look under every tiny rock, behind every tall tree, over every mountain, through every cloud, into every strata of the earth that we walk in the hopes of catching even a small glimpse of Him - here we are, thinking that this God of ours is so good at hiding, so good at keeping us away from Him...but friends, that's not the truth. 

God wants to be found. 

You're probably just looking too hard. 

Jill

Jill taught me something important about taking care of others. 

She was my boss at a job that I loved. We spent an entire summer working side-by-side when Covid shut down the world, but we'd already known each other for more than a year by then. I remember when she looked at me during my interview and said, "With all the education and experience you have, why do you want to do this?" and then she realized that what I was really looking for in the world was for someone to give me a chance. So she gave me that chance. And then... 

And then, she just kept giving me opportunities. I had only been there a couple of weeks when she gave me one of the coveted spots in the summer program. I had been there less than a year when she made me part of the Covid crew. At every turn, when I asked, I received. 

Then I got Covid. Bad. 

Jill was there the day I tried to come back to work. It was day 10 after diagnosis, the day when my employer said it was okay to come back, so I did. I still felt like junk (we didn't know how badly my lungs had been compromised at that point), but I wanted to be back at work. I made it less than a half hour before they sent me home. 

The next thing I knew, Jill had filed all of the paperwork to give me an intermittent leave of absence. Told me she wanted to make sure that when I finally beat this thing ("when"), I had my job to come back to. Told me she cared about me and wanted to make sure I was okay above all things. 

Not long after that, a coworker was scouting my social media and saw that I was due for a Covid re-test, a formality that my doctor's office required in 2020 when we knew so little about Covid and everyone was so scared. I had already made the required contacts with my employer - Jill, of course, and HR - and they had both said I was still clear to fly. But my coworker went around "tattling" (or thinking she was tattling), trying to paint it as me being deceptive, as me being a danger to the rest of the staff, as me not following policy or whatever because why was I retesting? 

I told her it was none of her business and that I'd already done the things I was supposed to do. And I unfriended her on social media. 

Jill assured me not to worry about the noise. Not to worry about the stares, about the persons around me who were scared because, at that time, I was the only one on my crew who had gotten Covid and I had it so bad, it was scary for everyone else to watch. They were nervous about themselves, Jill told me. But she wasn't worried at all about me posing a risk. All she wanted was for me to take care of myself. 

Jill took care of me at a time when I didn't know what to do. She put the pieces in place for me to be cared for, and then she pushed aside the noise. 

And that's exactly the kind of person I want to be. I think it's a great way to care for others. 

To take care of them, to put everything in place for their needs, and then to push aside the noise and be a buffer against those who don't know but are trying to push their way in anyway. 

Jill retired the next year, and my ongoing battle with the ravages of Covid took me away from it, as I could no longer physically do the work, but that was a great season for me, in no small part because Jill did such a good job of caring for me. 

May I, in turn, help to create great seasons for others by caring so well for them. 

Damn the noise.  

Leaving a Mark

Here's another not-uncommon experience in my neck of the woods: finding a large spider web with absolutely no hint of the spider still actually being there. 

Not that long ago, I went in the bathroom one night to brush my teeth. When I opened the medicine cabinet to grab my toothbrush, there was a new, thick spider web across the inside corner of the cabinet. I noticed it right away, mostly because I feared that it meant that somewhere on my toothbrush was...a spider.

Better safe than sorry, I tore apart that cabinet. I took everything out of it, wiped everything down, thoroughly cleaned every item, every shelf, every hinge. I even wiped down the top of the cabinet, climbing on a step stool to make sure I was getting every little bit of it. 

No spider. 

And yet, even after thoroughly cleaning everything and knowing without a doubt there was no spider living in that vicinity in the bathroom, I continued looking for one for several weeks. Every time I went in the bathroom, I would scan the walls and the corners and the nooks and the crannies because even though I hadn't seen it, I knew it had been there. The web was proof enough. 

The question that comes to my mind, then, is: what kind of mark am I leaving on the world? 

Am I living in such a way that anyone would know that I was here? Am I shaping the things around me in ways that mark my presence? More importantly, are the marks that I am leaving the kinds of things that are going to get others caught up in them? Caught up in God's things the way that I am? 

That's what webs do. They catch things. Am I catching anything with my life? With my witness? 

And if I am, am I catching these things up to something better? 

I want the world to be a better place because I was in it. I want the places I leave to be better because I have been there. I want to leave a mark in the world that catches other things up into something better. I want God's glory to be more powerful, more prominent, more present in the world because I have been living it. 

Spider webs are neat things (when you aren't walking into them unexpected, face-first). If you really take the time to study them, they are so neat, the way every thread is woven into the others. The way the patterns are subtly different based on the winds that catch the spider while it moves, the posts to which it attaches its creation, the thickness or thinness of its silks, and all kinds of other factors. 

And that's the kind of thing we do with our lives - we weave it all together, each of us, in this beautifully unique way that depends on our personal experiences, resources, design. The winds in our lives. The posts to which we attach ourselves. The thickness or thinness of our silk. All kinds of other factors. We're all just weaving our own little fragile thing. 

The question is...is it making a mark? Is it creating the evidence that we were here? That we've done something here, in this space, with this little fragile life that we live? 

Man, I hope so. 

Hanging Out

I don't know what nature is like where you live, but here in Indiana during spider season, you don't just have to be worried about walking into unexpected webs that seem to be hanging from nothing at all. 

No, sometimes, the spiders themselves are also just hanging out. 

It's dangerous, a certain time of the year, to walk under any tree because you can't really see the spider until it hits you right in the face and by then, well, it's simply too late. It's already on you. 

These things, they just hang there. Starting their silk somewhere up in the leaves and just dropping down and chilling about human-height above the sidewalk. I've happened to see a couple in my life before walking into them, and they aren't moving. They're literally just hanging there. Hanging out. Dangling. 

The yellow ones are particularly bad about this. 

But again, in this season, I find myself wanting that kind of faith. The kind of faith that can somehow just come to rest in suspended animation - not at the beginning, not at the end, not even anywhere that seems particularly safe, but just wherever they happen to be. They're comfortable there. Not thinking about, or maybe even understanding, that something might come along and disturb their rest. 

Just resting. 

I'm not so lucky. I think all the time about the things that will come to disturb my rest. I feel very deeply in my soul when I'm stuck in a place that should not be conducive to rest. I understand - oh, I understand - that at any moment, something might come along and disturb my rest if I try to take it in a place that's not very good for resting. 

I would be hanging out in the middle of the air like that, constantly looking all around me, swinging in circles, keeping my tiny little refracted bug eyes open (actually, my bug-eyes ARE open), constantly aware of the threat that comes because this is not a place to rest.

And yet, sometimes, it's exactly the place God has called me to rest. In suspended animation. 

In the in-between. 

In the already-but-not-yet. 

In the not-there-yet.

In the what-is-God-doing-right-now-because-this-can't-possibly-be-it. 

In the when-do-we-get-there. 

In the wondering and the waiting and the hoping and the praying and the not-so-confident assurance that's trying desperately to cling to this fragile little thread of faith that is doing its best to hold me somewhere a little too far off the ground, but also too far from the place I started. 

I want that kind of faith.  

The Dance

The thing is - nobody walks into the fragile little thing you're building in faith without being disturbed by it. Even those who are just minding their own business and never intended to bump into your thing. 

If you need evidence of that, just look for any surveillance footage that might exist of someone walking into a spider web. Nobody walks into a spider web unaffected. 

A little dance always ensues. 

First, there is the gut-level, crocodile brain reaction of just trying to get it off you. Just trying to pull off as much of this thing that you just felt hit your face as you can, even though you still can't see it and probably wouldn't feel it in your fingers even if you were touching it. 

It's the reaction we all have when we run into a disturbance in the force, something that interrupts our path, something that shocks our system. We start feeling around, trying to get to it, to trying to touch it, trying to figure it out. What was that? Where is it? Is it on me? 

Then, there's all the looking around. Looking over our shoulder. Looking high. Looking low. Scanning the environment, trying to figure out what the source is. What made this thing? Who put it here? Where is the little bugger? 

And finally, the recognition that none of that is even enough. For a little while longer, even far removed from that place, it's not uncommon to feel..."buggy." To still feel the memories of that thing on you, to have the sensation of having walked through it, to run your fingers through your hair or across your cheek one more time. To turn your head and check your shoulder and make sure there's no spider on it...even three hours later. To spend the rest of your day grasping at something you still can't find, but can't shake the feeling of. If even so much as a single one of your hairs falls out of place and drifts against your arm, you are naturally just a little more jumpy about it. What was that? 

That's the kind of reaction I want others to have when they bump into the fragile little things I'm building by faith...even if by accident. 

I want them to know they've encountered something. 

I want them to start looking around, paying more attention to their surroundings, opening their eyes to see where it might be coming from. 

And I want them to have a little part of them that just can't shake it, especially if that's the little nag that's going to get them to start thinking about, looking for, understanding, believing in, trusting in, hoping in greater things. In God. 

And...

Part of me wants surveillance video.

Because I'm fairly certain that although the I-just-walked-into-a-big-invisible-spider-web dance is at least somewhat universal, I'm also fairly certain that it never gets less funny. Because we all know what's happening. 

Someone just got disturbed.  

Spiders

It's spider season again. I know because when I walk into various buildings, there they are. When I go to the bathroom, there they are. I watched one in the bathroom at work just hanging out all day, tracking him from the floor to the shower to the shower seat until I finally lost him. 

And I keep finding spider webs with my face while I'm out walking. 

That's a big giveaway. 

The other morning, I set out walking my dog and ran face-first into a big mess of spider web. Right in the middle of nowhere. (And it wasn't the only one.) But I looked up and looked around, trying, of course, to find the spider - to make sure it wasn't on my person somewhere. That's priority one. But as I was looking around, I realized I was literally standing in the middle of nowhere. Nothing around. A road sign a few feet to my right and a couple of inches in front of me; a tree and a chain link fence a few feet to my left and a little bit behind me. There was a good nearly 5 feet between these two points in space. 

And I thought...

Man, I want that kind of faith. 

I want the kind of thing to be a small thing in a big world and to just be completely comfortable launching myself across grand distances, across chasms that don't even seem like real spaces, with nothing but my tiny body and this fragile little thing I'm building to hold me together. (Of course, in faith, God and I are building it together, but stay with me here.) 

Some little tiny spider - some little 8-legged thing that I never did find - somehow wove a decently thick web across nearly five feet of space between the tip of a street sign a millimeter or so wide and six feet in the air...and the far end of the small branch of a little tree on the other side of the sidewalk. Some little guy that I could probably squish under my thumb if I wasn't so squeamish about things like squishing bugs under my thumb is repeatedly leaping great distances - hundreds of times his own body size - with nothing but this fragile thread of spider silk to steady him in the wind and against gravity. This fragile thread that is stretched across an incredibly dangerous space where anything - including a person just going about their life and not intending any harm - can destroy it in an instant. 

Man, I want to live like that.

I want to live confident in my fragile little things. I want to live comfortable with the things I'm building. I want to live stead in the wind and against gravity when all I've got is this very little bit that feels like it would break with the slightest bit of pressure. 

I want to throw myself into things that are so much bigger than me, where I can't even see...maybe can't even fathom...the other side. I want to stretch across what feel like dangerous spaces like they are the most natural things in all the world, the very best places for me to be. 

And I want to remember that most of the time, when things go south, there wasn't any malice in it. It was just some random person going about their regular life and not meaning me any harm, even if it brings everything tumbling down in an instant. 

And if it does?

Then I want to throw myself into that space all over again, hanging on by my fragile little thread, and doing my best (with God) to build something there to hold me up.  

Peggy

Okay, I promised I would tell you about someone else with resources I didn't know about and couldn't dream of who would change my heart and life for the better, so today, let me tell you about...Peggy. 

Peggy and I were in the same chaplain education class - my first one - at one of the local-ish hospitals. We were even assigned to the same units. She was already working on her advanced education; I was stepping out in faith on God's word and a prayer. 

The one vibe I picked up on from Peggy right away was confidence. Not arrogance, but confidence. She had this seemingly-innate knowledge of who she was. It was evident in the way she carried herself, in the way she spoke, in the way she related to others. It gave her this air that I could only envy. 

She never said it, but I felt like Peggy really adopted me for those 15 weeks. She was always doing whatever she could to expand my horizons a bit, understanding that I didn't have the real-world experiences that she had, that I didn't have the base to draw from that she did, that my life had been very different from hers.

I still remember the day she ordered lamb from the hospital cafeteria and, with an extra fork, offered me a bite. She had intentionally gotten the extra fork for me; she was planning this act of benevolence. I hesitated a bit and confessed I'd never had lamb before. 

"I figured you probably hadn't. That's why you've got to try it." 

So I did. 

But one of the other moments that stuck out to me was the day Peggy quietly pulled me aside, where no one else would hear us, and handed me a gift card for a gas station. She knew that I didn't have an income, that I was putting myself into this program and living on faith, trusting that God was going to provide. Perhaps it was something I had started to talk about in our group reflection sessions...or something she just picked up on. I can't remember. 

As Peggy handed me the gift card, she said she'd been pumping gas just a few days before and suddenly had thought of me. God had put me on her heart. I think she said that she couldn't relate, that she'd never been in a position in her life where she didn't know where the next tank of gas was coming from, and that prompted her to offer me the gift. No strings attached. 

It was still hard for me to accept gifts at that time, but she was right. The truth was, aside from a year's worth of manual labor as a construction gofer, I hadn't had a steady paying job in almost 5 years. I was salvaging trash and selling it...and handmaking some things out of wood. To pay for the program, a few generous souls who believed deeply in God's calling on my life had contributed the tuition fee and one kind soul had given me a gift card for gas, knowing the hospital was over an hour away - each direction. But that gift card ran out in the first three weeks. There were 12 weeks left to go, and I was just trusting God to provide. 

He did provide, by the way. Every time I got to my last breath, He somehow gave me another one. It was an amazing season. 

But what struck me about that little exchange with Peggy was that she was so reflective on her own life, so honest about it, so humble about it, that she was able to recognize the privilege she'd been given...and use it as a stepping stone to help someone who didn't know the same kind of privilege. 

It took me a long time before I really understood privilege. With my life story, it seemed like a myth. Like something the world thought I had but they didn't really know me. As I continued to grow and to be honest about myself and be humble about my life, I realized that I have had privilege that others simply don't understand. 

We all do. 

Sometimes, that privilege is wrapped in things that don't look like privilege. Sometimes, it's buried somewhere deep in our stories. Sometimes, we only see it in hindsight and humility. But if we're able to be honest with ourselves, we know. We know the advantages that we have that give us a vision for the world that others don't have. 

And if we, like Peggy, can be honest and humble and open to the guiding of God's spirit, we can use our privilege as a blessing to others. In ways they will never forget. 

I want my life to be like that. A humble, honest blessing to others.