life lately

Thinking

nonstop, about everything. As is usual for me—and the more thinking I do, sometimes, the harder it is to sort through all the thoughts and write them out. So this has been a very quiet site for the last month or so. I figured a list like this would give me just enough structure to brain-dump a bit, and maybe the clarity to write with more focus will follow.

Feeling

weird. That seems like the best word to describe the feeling of being pregnant. It’s weird to have a stomach sticking out in front of me and pulling on my back, and it’s weird to be unable to tighten up my abs like usual. It’s weird to feel the thuds and thunks against my insides. It’s weird when I can see them from the outside. It’s weird to get the app updates every week that tell me how big the baby is using fruit or vegetable illustrations—right now she’s as big as a head of lettuce. How in the world does a head of lettuce fit in there?

Eating

a lot of fruit. Strawberries and cherries are in season and I eat so many of them at work! I also just discovered New Zealand sungold kiwis, and I don’t know how something round and yellow and egg-like can taste exactly like the best raspberry I’ve ever had, but I love them.

Noticing

that there’s a very fine line between “Bible student” and “Bible snob.” I love talking and learning about the Bible, so I gravitate toward Facebook groups and podcasts that share my enthusiasm, but I’m often turned off by the way some scholars seem to lord their knowledge over others, or make a mockery of those who try to share in it. It seems to become a competition over who is the better Pharisee rather than a celebration of the God who invites in the little child, and it makes me sad.

Wondering

if all the “problems” I have seen in the Church are really just projections of what I see in myself. I’ve struggled with seeing the Church as more of a skeleton than a body—well-structured with truth, but lifeless, motionless, lacking in spirit and warmth. But the reality is, that’s me most of the time. As an Enneagram 5 who finds great security in attaining knowledge, it’s a very short step for me out of relationship and into religion. Pharisaism comes easily; community, vulnerability, and love are hard. I have to be vigilant to seek after knowing God intimately and experientially rather than merely knowing Him theoretically or theologically.

Playing

“O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” and a lovely arrangement called the “Children’s Medley” on my piano. Ever since I got far enough along in my pregnancy that I learned the baby can hear sounds outside the womb, I’ve been trying to play and sing her a few songs on a regular basis. These are my favorites.

Making

sooo much granola. I used to fast from evening until around noon the following day, but I’m back to three meals a day since becoming pregnant, and having fast and healthy things available for when hunger hits with ferocity has helped me a lot. I use coconut sugar, monkfruit, and whole oats so that I don’t feel bad about sprinkling a few chocolate chips on top! ;)

Reading

the Epistles and the very last few Psalms, because Bible180 is almost at an end! It always seems like such a long, hard challenge when I’m in the middle of it, but then I blink and it’s June and I’m almost done. It’s so good to be back in the Story again.

Creating

a baby quilt with a giant, scrappy patchwork strawberry on it. My obsession with fruit apparently extends beyond merely eating it.

Asking

if trying clothes on in a store is actually overrated? I have always felt that fitting rooms are absolutely nonnegotiable when clothes shopping, and I definitely still think so about certain stores where I don’t know my sizing, but since most fitting rooms are closed right now, I’ve been doing a lot more online ordering or grabbing off the rack to try on at home. My success rate at picking clothes I like has actually surprised me, and trying stuff on at home is SO much nicer than in a public fitting room. Thankfully most stores are back to accepting returns when something doesn’t work out, so it’s really the best of all worlds (especially now that I have to figure out the maternity clothes situation).

Watching

so many hummingbirds zoom through my garden. I got a bunch of fuchsia starts for fifty cents each this spring and filled up all my containers and baskets with them, and they’re finally in fully bloom. The hummingbirds love them. (Random aside—I have somehow been spelling the word “fuchsia” as “fuschia” for my entire life. Apparently that’s wrong.)

Enjoying

working my standard Thursday morning shift at Spud’s Produce. Thursdays are the best morning to work, in my opinion, because we get 2-3 grocery loads delivered on top of our usual produce load. I like how much there is to do, and that so much of it involves replenishing dwindling stock on the shelves till they are full and bursting again. I usually get to be the first to see new items come in, and every once in awhile, a misdelivered item means I get free snacks. :)

Worrying

that summer is going to go by too fast. It always does, but with how eventful this year has already been and is promising to continue to be (in good ways as well as bad) it almost feels like being trapped in a tornado that just keeps picking up speed. I want to have space to enjoy the summer, to reflect on everything we’ve been through, and to look forward to what’s to come, but it often seems like there is just not a moment to spare.

Laughing

too little? This one has had me stumped. My cats always make me laugh, and so does watching the birds in the front garden frolicking over the birdbath, but laughter has not been a main element of my life in the last few weeks. That seems sad.

Dreaming

very vividly, thanks hormones.

Doing

lots of squats and stretches for my lower back. I heard squats are good for preparing for labor, so I’ve been adding them in various forms to all my workouts and day-to-day activities. The low-back ache from losing so much core stability has me trying every stretch in the book for relief.

Listening

to an abnormally high amount of news commentary, for me. For a long time I was pretty much a news avoider, but I started on a quest to be better informed a couple years ago, with a special focus on hearing voices from the opposite “side” from myself. I suppose this plays back into my security in knowledge; I wanted to discover which perspectives truly made sense, and know why they made sense. Interestingly, this journey has brought me back to many of the same standpoints I started from, but now I feel a little more firm on why I stand where I do. I’m trying to maintain an open mind, open ears, and open heart—because it’s hard to find that anywhere in the current cultural and political climate—while holding fast to what I know is true, right, and good.

Planning

a kitchen remodel and a baby room—who thought doing both of those at the same time was a good idea, anyway?! Thankfully Sam is doing 99% of the logistics and labor the kitchen will demand, so I have at least some brain space free to think about the fact that we are adding a person to our house in September.

Fearing

what it will be like to transition from a household of two to three, to be honest. Having a child is a weird paradox: Everyone is excited and happy for you, but they’re also the very same people who have made offhand comments over the years about how hard it is to be a parent and how having kids restricts you from doing a lot of your usual activities. It’s a bit like reliving the days before I got married, when so many people stated or implied that I was too young to tie myself down, and was throwing away my life. For someone who doesn’t need a lot of help to overthink things, this can really send me into a tailspin of fear. Is this going to be okay? Can I do it? Will I still be myself, or will I turn into someone I don’t recognize? Will people still want to do things with me? Will I have support, or are Sam and I in this alone? How in the world does one take on the enormous task of raising a person from newborn to adulthood, anyway? In fact, how does the human race still exist? (I realize these questions are progressively more dramatic and absurd—but that’s what I mean by a tailspin.)

Praying

for peace, wisdom, and the presence of God. My path over the last 8-10 years has involved many twists and turns, some of them incredible blessings and some of them terrible heartbreaks, and He has been faithful. So I am trying to keep my eyes set on Him and follow His lead, one step at a time.

life, death, and a very little thing

I've always loved cemeteries. They are beautiful, quiet, profound. I love the way the giant trees stand sentinel over the names of so many people who have lain almost-forgotten by the loud world that is constantly buzzing by - and yet who each shifted the world, even in only the tiniest way, by being part of it for a little while.

Every Memorial Day weekend, I try to spend an hour walking through the cemetery that sits across the road from where I do my grocery shopping every week. It's usually a sunny midday right after I've been to church, and I walk among the headstones with a few other people who have come to pay respects. The flags ripple lightly in the breeze, and the whole expanse of these countless graves is dotted with color - of flowers, of flags, even of balloons. I like to think that today, at least, those who so quietly left this loud world behind are remembered.

Today was not much different. Sunny and warm, with a clear blue sky held up by ancient trees, and that uncanny graveside hush. But this time, I had just come from the hospital - where I met my hours-old niece for the first time.

Life, death.

It makes me feel rather small to reflect on how, minute by minute, new lives are born into the world, while at the very same time other lives are coming to their ends. How fleeting it all looks when I stand under the trees and read the names and dates that quantify countless strangers' momentary earthly lives. And it becomes a lot harder to fret about small, stupid things when faced with the reality of how tiny even the "big" things are, in light of eternity.

Jesus said, "Do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. . . . Which of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life’s span? If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?" (Luke 12:22, 25-26) This whole chapter always hits me hard, but that last question is the most humbling of all: If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters?

Can we even imagine having the power to willfully add hours to our lives? Wouldn't having that kind of sovereignty be the pinnacle of human achievement - the elusive Fountain of Youth? And yet Jesus calls this a very little thing.

And to the One who sits on the Throne of eternity, with a view that spans from eternity past to eternity future, of course that's just what it is. A very, very little thing.

Life, death. It is small. We are small.

But lest we get lost in the smallness - lest this reminder of the ever-cycling nature of life leave us hopeless - Christ gives the greatest reassurance of all, right in the middle of the same passage: "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!" (Luke 12:25)

Life, death. Food, clothing. Ravens, humans. It is all so very small - and yet it is all important in the eyes of God.

His view may span eternity, but His eye watches over the sparrow.

We are small, but we are not too small.