News and things

So yes, I haven't blogged in ages! Between school and work, it's all a little crazy to try to have a life. But I have just quit one of my jobs and I'm feeling pretty good about that. I stayed up late last night and got up early this morning to finish a paper analyzing Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt"...it's worth about 40% of my mark in a Structure of Music course. Class was short, so I came home and took a nap! That was so nice. I love naps and it was my first one in a long time! Now I should be preparing for a Spanish in-class composition that is tomorrow morning, but it's open-book and I'm not too worried. I should also be doing some cleaning around here, but it's kind of nice to re-enter the blogging world.

I have a new niece, Lian. Here I am with her and her brother.

Notice how Ezra and I are bundled up: we headed out to explore Pickering's Waterfront Trail with Max the dog. It ended up as quite an adventure, with Ezra landing himself in the freezing lake!

I have applied to spend a semester of my degree at Université François Rabelais and over the next couple of months, I will likely need to make the decision about whether or not I will go. I would really like to, but I am not sure if the timing is right when it comes [once again] to the health of my parents. So for those of you reading, prayers for guidance, peace and wisdom are appreciated.

Bah humbug

Phew, what a roller coaster. The last few days ended up being about the worst I have experienced in my life so far. No over-dramaticism. I'm trying to recover today in my introverted-self way, while trying to still let myself receive from friends. It is very difficult to navigate this season of joy when you are emotionally and physically exhausted and just seriously in pain. (I don't think I am even aware of how tired I am--I just feel kind of wrung out.) I want to be real and honest about where I am at, but I don't want to dampen anyone else's happiness.

Tomorrow I have to lead worship at church, so help me God! Actually, thanks be to God still. My drive back to Waterloo was once again good for me to "release all" and to receive from God. This song came on the radio and I'm thankful. (I'm not a huge fan when people make cheesy videos, so maybe just listen to the song!) :)


By Your Side, Tenth Avenue North

Family Foto Flashback

Leafing through some photos here and doing some up as gifts...thought I'd share some with y'all.
1980

Me and Daddy with the '81 Lynx (I think)

Me and Timmy

Mommy and Me. This is at the start of the bad hair era

Four Generations. Five if you count Judy, my adopted daughter from the Cabbage Patch

Wearing Christmas wreaths. I think I'd like to make a Christmas card out of this or something!

Still here

I think about blogging. I think about journalling. I think about reading. I think about composing. It takes enough for me to keep praying: without falling asleep. I go to bed at decent hours, but sleep in, dragging myself out from under my cozy flannel sheets. Never getting up early enough to bother with yoga, sometimes early enough to shower or maybe just do that later. Sometimes with motivation enough to scrounge together some breakfast, but really it's brunch time. (Besides I have to eat at strange times now since I tutor English so much over dinner time.) I think about walking to the office, but it's so snowy and cold already that the car just seems best. (Besides I have to drive further after work to my students' houses.)

I keep saying, "I'm ok. God is good and I'm ok." I've had some nice revelations about how I've never felt alone and God has always been here helping me. And there are all these people to whom I come across admirably strong, but I have a new realization that any strength I may have appeared to have has always been from God. I am not particularly strong on my own. And thankfully, I have never been on my own. So yes, God is good. And I am feeling much better about him and his involvement in my life.

But life is hard for me right now and has been for some time. Last night after I left our church's annual Christmas dinner, I was reminded again how I am not enjoying social gatherings right now and how I am generally not that happy. I am not feeling able to join in on people's celebrations (engagements, pregnancies...), or even in on normal and general conversation. No, I have nothing new to report. No, I do not have guys lining up to ask me out and the last date I had a few months ago was lousy. No, my mom is not getting better. No, the marriages of those I care about are not getting better.

Even my friends who are twenty years older than I, have not had to put their mother in a nursing home. And I don't know anyone who has had to listen to irrational, mentally unhealthy words come at them from a mother as I have. (Thank God, that He takes away the words that could seriously hurt me.) And I don't know anyone who has had to hear and bear the pain and the tears of their parents.

Now I know that everyone has had their own doses of pain and their own hard things, but right now, it is striking me that no one my age who I know is having to handle this type of stuff and most are celebrating and anticipating a joyous Christmas. I am not anticipating such a Christmas. There will be one missing at our Christmas table and there will be remaining a broken, depressed, exhausted family with a possible time bomb of fury and irrationality waiting to go off at any moment. Thank God for my nephew, who surely will be a lovely delight over the holiday.

I am at the Beach tonight. My dad turns 64 on Tuesday and I came to visit. I saw my mom today and it actually was a fairly good visit. We played the piano together and I don't think we've ever done that. I was emotional as I left and thought and said, "I miss you."

That's kind of all I have to say, but I don't want to end on that note. I bought an old and a new Jill Phillips cd recently and on my drive last night I found myself singing loudly along to her song "Steel Bars" where she is "fighting back to gain control" from the "rock bottom of despair". I think our little band could do this song well. I'm really enjoying it. Then there is the other little new anthem of hers I'm digging: "Oh I believe, though its hard sometimes: You are the resurrection and the life....I know the words of life to come are true, but sometimes they feel like salt upon the wound. When I’m asking in these moments where are you? Where are you? Oh I believe, though its hard sometimes: You are the resurrection and the life."

At this same Christmas dinner last night, I was complimented on my voice a few times. That always makes me feel happy (see, there is happiness to be found even when you're sad), yet it also always makes me wonder. There were a couple questions posed to me about blues and jazz and once again, I am pondering if there is something more I can be doing with music....

Friends. Friends are a good note to end on too. They are loving. They are supportive. Even if no friend really knows what I am feeling, they know pain and they care. Thanks.

Just when you think things can't get any worse...

The last week in Brazil, I was attacked in the night by a stealth army of mosquitoes. They left evidence of their attack on the lower half of my back. I didn't even view the evidence for a couple days and when I saw it, I was disgusted. As was every other person who saw it, or even just saw a photograph of it. (A photograph I will not post here, since the image is just too graphic!) I looked diseased. Measles or chicken pox or something. And of course, there was the itch. It was hard for me to be sympathetic to any other person's bites at that point. I was feeling quite excited about getting back to Canada so my back could heal.

After reflecting and blogging last week, I was looking forward with some more peace and good expectation than I had had in awhile. I finally was getting back into the swing of life and one element of my life before I went away, was bicycling a lot. (I bought a new used bike this summer. It was a sweet deal. It's a kind of retro Miele. Here's a pic.) So finally on Wednesday, I got back on my bike, riding it to the office. I really only just got out of my driveway, when I found myself face-first on the road! I had a bag with my lunch in it that I had wrapped around the handlebars and it got stuck in the front wheel spokes! I saw it happening, but it was too late to do anything and I'm pretty sure I flew right over the handlebars. I recall that I adjusted my helmet, so it must have been hit. My teeth hurt and I touched under my nose when a lady in her car stopped and asked if I was ok. "I think I'm bleeding," I said. My house was right there, so I just picked up my bike and carried it and myself home. Yogurt was everywhere! And my peach and tomato where squashed. (I had to later cut the cloth bag out from the spokes, it was so wedged in.) When I saw myself in the mirror, I freaked out! It wasn't my nose that was bleeding as I had thought. My chin was all scraped away and my lip was puffy and split. Throughout the morning, I would continue to find scrapes here and there on my body. And yogurt randomly crusted on me too!

I was REALLY upset about this for the whole day. Even after I found out from the nurses at the doctor's office that I didn't need any stitches. It was so upsetting to me to have to have big pieces of gauze on my face and to be worried about forever carrying scars on my already acne-scarred face. And would my teeth ever stop hurting? "What if they're messed up and fall out later?"

Later that night, I called my dad to let him know that I would indeed be coming for the meeting with the nursing home the next day. Before I could pour out my sad details of my day, he had "bad news" for me. My mom's psychiatrist is starting to think that my mom is showing signs of dementia, which, unlike mental illness, is something that just happens with old age and is irreversible.

A few days later, I learned that my friend had a hellish weekend on top of an already difficult situation and I wonder at how she is even keeping herself above water.

Talking with another friend about all of our struggles and the struggles of those close to us, it really is too heavy. Is this what being an adult is?

On Sunday, a friend threw a big birthday party for her husband. It was his 44th birthday, so not particularly special. But emotion was in the room as she began the toasts by explaining that she wanted us to join in her celebration that he is still with us for this birthday! In February, our friend Fred was hit on the head by a tree when he was working to collect sap to make Maple Syrup. It was a scary and upsetting time as we waiting for the outcome of this horrible accident. And many people prayed.

On Sunday, this same group of friends were reflecting that another friend of theirs died ten years ago when he attempted to rescue some children from a river. So here we are, back at those questions. Why does it seem that prayer works sometimes and sometimes not? Or why do bad things happen to some people?

This week, I received an email from one of the Brazil team who had compiled a few stories of the children in the shelter we helped at. Stories of children being abandoned by their families; young girls being raped and baring the physical affects of this; and, boys being prostituted on the street and resorting to glue-sniffing and other drugs. I had heard some of these before, but reading them again seemed timely.

As I look at this last week, I have to admit that bad things happen to most people. When I was all upset about my messed-up face, my friend Sharon said to me, "Beth! Think of Fred!" (From his accident, Fred had to have his whole face basically rebuilt and for awhile, he looked quite different. Nowadays, he has a big scar on his forehead and difficulties with smell, taste, weather and temperatures.) I finally got to the place where I realized it REALLY could have been A LOT worse.

Fred's brother-in-law ended the toasts on Sunday with a prayer. He said that it wouldn't be long before we would feel pain again about something in our lives, but today would be our day to celebrate. We would celebrate for the miracle that we do have.

And I guess we just keep praying. And we give thanks that when we don't feel like we can pray, there are others out there praying for us.


By the way, I am completely in awe of the ability of our body to heal. There's the fading mosquito bites. My teeth don't hurt anymore. The inside of my mouth is nearly all healed and my lip is looking normal. You can barely notice anything on my face either! Even where it split!

Faith...

So I've realized that my faith is a lot smaller than I thought. As I anticipated, my 17 days in Brazil this July were perfect in that they put me back in a place where I could hear lots from God. And speak and nudge he did.

I remember that at the new year, I didn't feel like looking back on 2007 with much happiness and sadly, I've felt the same way about 2008. It has been hard. And sad. And depressing. And I am so tired. So when my mom ended up in the hospital just before I was scheduled to go to Manaus (for my fourth time), I must admit that I felt a blow at the possibility of not being able to leave--I was so looking forward to a time of refreshing away and in a beautiful, familiar place. Thankfully, I was still able to go and have indeed returned somewhat refreshed. Not necessarily any happier and still tired, but with some things to mull over and with the knowledge that God is out there and is speaking to me.

So yeah, I have realized that I have no trouble believing in God for provision--I have seen it so many remarkable times. But I have discovered that my faith is small in believing that God wants to heal and wants to see people happy with their heart's desires fulfilled. I am NOT seeing these. In my own life and in the lives of those closest to me. And I'm not particularly happy with God about it.

After a week at the YWAM base outside of Manaus, our group took off on the YWAM boat for a 6-hour trip up river to visit 3 river communities. Sleeping on the boat in a hammock is something I really enjoy and getting away from the mosquitoes at the base was a nice change. In the days, as the boat was docked, the group would walk into the communities and visit families. The dentist on the team ended up pulling out many teeth and every day, I ended up going off in a motor boat with just a few others, doing my best as the translator. We would visit families who lived on their own tucked away up various tributaries. I must admit, taking a group who wanted to pray and read the Bible to people is something I have become unaccustomed to, since working mostly with young Canadians who are not necessarily Christians. But this team had an average age of 50 and they were all from an evangelical church. The suggestion to pray and share God's word with the families came from our Brazilian YWAM friends anyway, and the village people all knew them personally. We were not unwelcome whatsoever. I needed to swallow my young Canadian tendencies and get into it.

So there was one family of 6 or 7 who all lived in this one room and in the house, there lay an old man on his hammock. They told us, he hadn't been up or eaten for 14 days. He looked horrible. Skin and bones. Our YWAM friends offered our prayers and asked the man if he believed God could heal him. (Actually, I don't know if she said, "could" or "would".) And Francisco spoke out, clear as day, "Eu creio." (I believe.) In that moment, I was overcome with emotion. I felt compelled to lay my hand on him. I felt compelled to pray for his healing, although I had no words to say. I just stood there, crying and touching him while listening to Portuguese prayer. Then we left.

Later that evening, Newton, our boat captain came to me to tell me that Francisco was up out of his hammock, feeling better and eating. This was the third person that our group prayed healing for and then later heard (or even saw) an improvement. The next day, we went to take him some soup, but he and his family were already en route to Manaus to seek treatment now that he was well enough to make the long journey. I found out that Francisco's sickness was cirrhosis of the liver from drinking too much. This struck me even more: that this man could believe so strongly in God's ability and desire to heal him, even though it was his own shortcomings that caused his sickness. Oh yes, how small my faith is.

Through conversations with DTS students, through morning team times and Bible reading, through Brazilian church songs, through a sermon given by a team member and through stories like this, God has been nudging me (or maybe hitting me over the head) to press in and actually pray. To not give up. To consider the hard things joyous and a chance to grow my faith.

I spoke with my dad last night for over two hours. It was really nice. I told him some stories and some of this as well as talked to him about light-hearted things like native issues in Canada. :P I was impressed as he talked about his own struggles with everything, yet I could hear his strong faith in it all. And even a strong belief in a physical miracle. It is so good for me to be at this end. Far too many times do I feel like I am supposed to be the strong one, but here now is my dad demonstrating to me a strong, strong faith. And a strong endurance (he told me a difficult story from his life that I'd never heard before).

(I gave up being strong a couple months ago, by the way.)

Happy New You!

My brother sent out the following about his son (my nephew), recently diagnosed autistic. His email has sparked much response including a sermon topic. May these thoughts also bless you.

Ezra sings the following:

"We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New You! Good tidings to you, wherever you are, good tidings at Christmas and a Happy New You! We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New You!"

Considering that in July, Ezra had a vocabulary under 40 words and hardly spoke at all, that’s amazing. To me it’s also profound. Instead of wishing you all a Happy New Year (so common, so predictable, so un-Ezra) I now wish everyone a Happy New You! Your new year may not be what you’re hoping for or very happy, but your New You, I hope it exceeds all your expectations and your circumstances. May your New You be happy. May it be more kind, more helpful, more beautiful, and more wonderful. May it be everything you ever wished for and everything those around you begged God for. May you be new and renewed and feel brand new and better than you ever knew. May your “After” pictures always be better than your “Before” pictures. When the New Year becomes old and tired, may You still be New. Happy Birthday! Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Happy New You!

Un bon jour

C’est une nuit froide. Beaucoup de gens sont dans les rues de ma ville. C’est un ville d’étudiants et les classes ont fini pour l’année! Oui, beaucoup de gens sont dehors ce soir. Je l’aime.

Je me suis promenée aussi. J’ai rencontré ma bonne amie à un café. Elle y était avec des autres femmes pendant que leurs maris ont joué le poker! Finalement, je suis revenue chez moi. Et j’y suis!

Aujourd’hui était un bon jour. J’ai eu un examen français en Collingwood (j’ai vu un enseignant vieil que j’ai eu il y a 11 ans!) et il a passé très bien. Je me sens bon de lui. Après l’examen, je suis allée à Wasaga Beach et j’ai eu une sieste! Alors, je suis allée à la celebration pour l’anniversaire de ma grand-mère. Elle a 80 ans!! Il y avais beaucoup de gens. Elle est spéciale. J’ai chanté pour elle. Elle s’appelle Mary alors, j’ai chanté “Let It Be” parce que les mots. Ensuite, beacoup de ma famille m’a approché complimenter. Ils n’ont sait que je chante bien ou que je joue le guitare. (Parler dont, j’ai parlé à mes amis de jouer de musique ensemble. Faire une bande.)

J'ai apprécié passant du temps vraiment avec ma famille aujourd'hui. Je ne les vois pas très souvent. Je vois rarement mes cousins, donc c'était très agréable. Tout le monde était très gentil et qui soutient quand parler de ma maman.

Merci Dieu pour mon bon jour.