Day 313 - I love flowers

Happy Memorial Day!

I can't believe it's the last day of May already. Tomorrow it will be June! It's so amazing to me how quickly the days pass nowadays.

Last year on Memorial Day, Anderson had his spine surgery. We were the only people in the massive surgical waiting area. M.D. Anderson is a really great facility. Thinking back on how much they do and how far they go to make things easier on their patients and families... makes me really glad that God brought us there. I remember that night... the surgeon came to see us after the procedure... and told us the news that the tumor was growing inside of his spinal cord so it was basically inoperable. They debulked the tumor as much as they could, but there was only so much they could do. I remember being there but it almost seems like... it happened a lifetime ago... or that it didn't happen to me. When I think back on those days... it almost feels like I watched it all happen on the outside, as if it were someone else's life... someone else's husband... someone else's tragedy.

Even when I tell people about it nowadays... it doesn't hit me that I'm actually talking about my own life until the words come out of my mouth and I actually hear what I'm saying. I don't know if that makes sense at all. It seems so surreal.

A nurse was giving report to me yesterday and she was wearing a bracelet with a Brazilian flag on it. I asked her if she was Brazilian and she said yes. I said, "my husband was Brazilian." I didn't expect her to continue on, but she picked up on my tense. She said, "was?". I said, "he passed away." I was pretty matter-of-fact about it. I don't know if that seems cold or obtuse. Maybe I'll get a chance to talk to her again one of these days. Maybe I'll try out some Portuguese phrases that I still remember... or maybe I think I still remember until I actually try to say it. I get French and Portuguese mixed up in my head sometimes.

And then I was talking to another nurse at work and I mentioned my in-laws in conversation and she said, "oh, you're married?" and I said, "no, I'm widowed." Again, very matter-of-fact. I really don't know the proper social etiquette when it comes to telling people these things. Now that I can talk about these things without being so emotional... I wonder how it's perceived. Anyway... so that conversation continued on... as she asked more questions, I eventually ended up telling her our story mixed in with explaining my schooling... I barely got to the Friday before our wedding before we had to stop talking and both of us had to get back to work. I wonder if I'll get to finish the story one of these days.

It's kind of a neat story to tell. A lot happened. There's so much to tell. Oh yeah, so I wrote a short(ish) version of my testimony for Inheritance Magazine, it's in issue 6. The direct link to my testimony is here. Most of you already know the story. Anyway, it's there for you to read if you want.

Even in looking at my own story... oftentimes I wonder... why me? Who am I? Who am I that God would choose me? And who am I, really? I'm pretty average. I'm nothing special. The only thing extraordinary about me is the God I love and serve. I'm not the smartest, brightest, prettiest, most eloquent... I'm not brilliant at anything in particular. If anything, God's created me with inklings... very small hints of Himself woven into the very fiber of my being... and it is up to me whether or not I choose Him and allow Him to grow those inklings in me... to manifest Himself and His character in me and through me... and that is the only reason that I am who I am today. The only reason I'm standing and living... and not crippled, weighed down, and paralyzed by the weight and baggage of life, sorrow, and my circumstances.

Kind of like a small seed. Just a little speck of a thing. However tiny and insignificant, within it lies the makings of a beautiful flower. I love flowers. Flowers make everything better, brighter, and happier. But like a seed... without soil, water, and God's loving touch... the seed will remain just a precursor to a flower... and not a flower itself.

I can look at other flowers that have bloomed and be jealous and wish I were like them... or I can just take a good long look at myself and realize that... I am a flower too. I might not be the same kind of flower... but every single person has the potential to go through a similar process of sprouting, taking root, drawing nutrients, and growing towards the Light. We were created for this. It is our intended purpose. How freeing and liberating it is to no longer be trapped in my little seed's casing... but to be transformed... to grow and bloom and show color and beauty and life and eventually fruitfulness... to be the flower I was created to be. Perhaps a hot pink one, in the words of my late husband.

From Tifferson Continued

Here's another quote from Streams:

...in this life you are receiving a music lesson from your Father. You are being trained to sing in a choir you cannot yet see, and there will be parts in the chorus that only you can sing. There will be notes too low for the angels to reach, and certain notes so far above the scale that only an angel could reach them. But remember, the deepest notes belong to you and will only be reached by you.

Your Father is training you for a part the angels cannot sing, and His conservatory is the school of sorrows. Others have said that He sends sorrow to test you, yet this is not the case. He sends sorrow to educate you, thereby providing you with the proper training for His heavenly choir.

I'm not sure if you're anything like me but... in life (well and in choir for that matter)... I don't ever take the solo part. Even when I sang on worship teams, I'd much rather sing the harmony than the melody... to be in the background and to have my mic be second in volume to someone else. And yet, I would secretly wish that I had the skill and ability to actually take and sing a solo with brilliant clarity, confidence, and control.

And what if life were like a musical... and God decided to pluck me out of the chorus and train me for a different part? For a part that stands out from the crowd. For an extraordinary life? It would require a lot of hard work and pain... perhaps sorrow and being confronted with failure time and time again in the process of transforming me into something completely different than I was... would I up and quit? Would I trust that the God who created me... who knows me inside and out... every thought, every whim, every tendency... and also every bit of latent potential that lies beneath the awkwardness and insecurity... the eyes that stare hopelessly at the floor... the head that dare not raise to feign equality with those with natural gifting or those who have rightfully earned their principal or leading role in the musical of life. Are "principals" only used in reference to ballets? I dunno. Whatever. You know what I mean. Do I trust that God knows what He's doing or will I fight the training or quit the education to keep myself part of the chorus? What if after everything that's happened to me... I can't ever go back to being in the chorus? OK I'm getting lost in my own analogy.

I wonder why all of this happened to me. I don't really know why. I see snippets of good things that have happened. I wonder though... if this is it... if Anderson was my biggest training or if he was only just a small part of it... or if all of life plus now is training me for the next big thing that will happen in the future... I don't know. And not to say that I'm super duper special or anything... I honestly feel that my life is mine to live... all I can do is do the best with what I've been given... to make the choices that have been proposed to me... and to do what I need to do when I need to do it. I can't compare my life to anyone else's... it is unique. I also can't really compare my relationship with God to anyone else's either. What is beautiful about God is that each and every one of us can have our own personal relationship with Him... we can each star in our own musical and we can each be in personalized, individual training for the role that we are born to play. I can learn from yours, you can learn from mine but I'm my own flower... just doing the best with what I've got.

K. End of thoughts. Wow it's still early. :P