Heart's Desire

Last night, I cracked open a fortune cookie, secretly hoping for a great fortune. (I realize fortune cookies have no control over the future, but it's fun to play along.) I was delighted to find this: "You will get what your heart desires."

I spent a little time daydreaming about what that would look like. At first, it allured me. But I quickly realized that it wasn't all that pretty.

I wish that I could honestly say that the first desire to come to mind is to know God more intimately and to pursue Him with all of my heart. Instead, earthly pleasures topped my list of desires.

These desires reflect a stark reality: I've held on to the reins of areas of my life and haven't allowed God to penetrate them. So the desires in those areas are all mine and aren't necessarily God's desires or what's best for me.

This reminded me of the harsh truth from our sermon on Sunday that we don't pursue God because we're idolaters. Take a quick look at Ezekiel 14:1-6:

Some of the elders of Israel came to me and sat down in front of me. Then the word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. Should I let them inquire of me at all? Therefore speak to them and tell them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: When any Israelite sets up idols in his heart and puts a wicked stumbling block before his face and then goes to a prophet, I the LORD will answer him myself in keeping with his great idolatry. I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.' "Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Repent! Turn from your idols and renounce all your detestable practices!

Now comes the challenge of identifying my particular idols--anything that I put in the place of God--aand laying them down. Some things will come to mind easily, especially those that were at the top of the desires list when I opened the fortune cookie. Others are harder to decipher and will require prayers for wisdom to discern them. But the process will be worth it because I will get rid of some of the obstacles that block me from seeing God for who He truly is and from knowing Him the way I'd like to know Him.

So maybe I'll approach the next fortune cookie I encounter with even more trepidation. Or maybe not. This one has gotten me thinking in the right direction.

Doctor, Anyone?

(Leslie -anesthesiologist; Jen - surgeon; Ingle - nephrologist; Han - infectious disease specialist)

Almost ten years ago to the day, I received a call from Momma Bean saying, "I think I've found a roommate for you." I had been roommateless for several months because Momma Bean had gotten married. In the meantime, God stepped in and made sure that Momma Bean was appointed the task of being a Big Sis to Jen, who was moving from DFW to the Hub City to go to med school.

I met Jen and Momma Bean for lunch and then showed her the apartment. It was a tough sale because Jen was worried that her furniture was too big for the master bedroom. We somehow convinced her that it would fit (or that we'd make it fit), and she became my roommate for the next two years.

During that time, she more than repaid me for offering her a place to live. I needed a place to stay for six weeks during the summer of 1999 while I interned in Fort Worth. I couldn't find an affordable furnished apartment to save my life. It was at that point that Jen stepped in and offered for me to stay with her aunt. She hadn't even spoken to her aunt about the possibility, but she was sure that it would be okay. Luckily for me, it was. And that's how I had the awesome opportunity to get to know Aunt Nancy.

In 2000, Jen and I went our separate ways; I moved here to start my job, and she moved to El Paso to finish school. From there, she moved to California for her residency. And as of June 30, 2008, she has finally finished all of her schooling, her residency, and a fellowship in breast surgery in San Francisco. It has been amazing to see Jen persevere through a career path that has been extremely demanding. Some people say they have worked 100 hours a week, but she truly has. More times than I wished she could count.

This weekend, she made her way back to Texas for a baby shower thrown in her honor. Her former classmates threw the shower, and it was a walk down memory lane sitting in the same room with these gals that used to converge in our apartment every Friday and Saturday night before they went out to destress from the weight of all their heavy-hitting weekday classes and labs. They are brilliant gals who stand out in each of their fields.

Jen's little girl will be making her debut around my birthday in October, so I am super excited. I only hope that her family, who all live here, will be able to lure her back to live in Texas at some point.

Loving Neighbors

This week, my writers' group is posting on what it means to love our neighbors. I'm thinking this may be a timely topic if you recently had the joy of sharing the Fourth of July with your neighbors or possibly just watching their firework displays? At any rate, I hope you'll stop by and take a read here. I'll be posting on Tuesday.

Fleeting Freedom

Where have I been since my last post? Let's see. I started in Burl, Texas. Became a student in a writing class in New Mexico. Traveled to Rome. And have just learned about Sabbath rest.

And I haven't left my house.

I've finished at least six books over the past few weeks. To those of you who speedread, this isn't much of an accomplishment. For me, it translates to lots of bottom on chair (or bed) time.

I taste every single word from the inside jackets, to the dedications, to the forewords, to where the author is currently residing. I guess it comes from too much time in the classroom. Or more precisely, too many pop quizzes on minute details--the ones that enable the teacher to see if students actually read the material. I did, and now I know no other way of reading.

So why the sudden reading marathon? It's driven by the fear that I won't get to read much for pleasure once I start teaching next month. There'll be a mountain of drafts to peruse and mark up each week. And so the desire to devour my bookstack consumes me right now.

Before I head back to the stack, I thought I'd leave you with a few book recommendations while I'm in the blogging muse. You can always check the right margin to see what I'm reading and what I recommend, but I thought I'd add some of my favorite paragraphs here as well.

Mary E. DeMuth's Wishing on Dandelions (set in Burl, Texas) is the follow-up to her debut novel Watching the Tree Limbs. I found this second book much easier to read because the material is somewhat lighter, though there are glimpses back to Maranatha's past. There are love stories gallore in this book, and I hope that Mary will write a third book to let us know what Maranatha does next.

Anthony Doerr's Four Seasons in Rome is beautifully written. Every word choice must have been excruciating because he is not one to ramble yet he paints incredible pictures with his stream-of-consciousness prose. Here's one of my favorite paragraphs:

You find your way through a place by getting lost in it. Winter in Rome is a breath of daylight, then limestone and shadow: light glowing behind closed shutters as though stacks of gold are hoarded inside. In a window in Campo Marzio, not far from Augustus's sundial, two thousand silk neckties, each in its own cubbyhole, shine like tropical birds. In San Lorenzo, east of the train station, we drink hot chocolate thick as oil. At the Holy Staircase, a half mile from the Colosseum, where Christian pilgrims are supposed to asend twenty-eight marble steps on their knees, we see a man furtively tuck a folded newspaper behind his shins as he climbs. (p. 87)

I don't think I've underlined a nonfiction book (other than a textbook) as much as I did The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan. His examples of Sabbath rest are thoughtful and practical. Here's a glimpse of his writing:

Sabbath is the stranger you've always known. It's the place of homecoming you've rarely or never visited, but which you've been missing forever. You recognize it the moment you set eyes on it. It's the gift that surprises you, not by its novelty, but by its familiarity. It's the song you never sang but, hearing it now, know inside out, its words and melody, its harmonies, its rhythm, the way the tune quickens just before the chorus bursts. It's been asleep in you all
this time, waiting for the right kiss to wake it. (p. 104)

And now back to the books.

Childhood Dream Come True

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a teacher. Growing up, I subjected my sister, along with every neighborhood child I could round up, to endless hours in the "classroom."

The initial classroom was the metal storage shed towards the back of our property. It was blazing hot in summer, had the potential to house bees and other critters, and thus only allowed for brief teaching sessions.

Next up was a huge spool that must have held utility cable at one point. I have no idea where it came from, but a doorway was cut out, it was painted inside and out, and it became the place where I taught school, along with occasional classes taught by my friend Misti.

After we outgrew the spool and it found a home elsewhere (a/k/a the dump), smaller, more formal classes were taught on our enclosed back porch. It was complete with a real chalkboard, an official pen-like chalk holder, and two real student desks. Unfortunately, we weren't often allowed to run the air conditioner out on the back porch, and so school days couldn't last long there either.

I guess never having had an ideal classroom kept the dream alive. At least long enough to mark down on my freshman high school English teacher's form that I wanted to be a math professor when I graduated.

And then real world numbers started speaking. At first softly whispering how one can't live on the salary that a teacher, or even a professor, makes. And then shouting louder. Loud enough to pursue other career fields.

But God has a funny way of often straightening out my path when I haven't allowed Him to use me for the purpose He wired me for. And this is the week He chose to surprise me with a path correction.

On Monday, out of nowhere, a contract employee who works full-time for an "institution of higher learning" asked me if I would be interested in teaching as an adjunct faculty member one afternoon a week in the fall. Surprisingly, I heard myself reply that I would be interested. He gave me some of the details and then asked me to set up a time to meet with the academic dean. I did that today and will begin teaching August 19. I will not be teaching math, but more along the lines of writing and speaking, which is even better since I haven't officially "done" any higher level math in years.

Though I'm really excited, I don't feel the least bit confident in this new endeavor. I haven't taught grown-ups before, and my days of teaching Sunday school to four year olds showed me that I'm not exactly one to hold people's attention very long. I'm trusting that God will equip me for this task if I continue to lean on Him and seek insight and wisdom on how to creatively teach this class. My goal is to be more interesting than Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. By God's grace, hopefully I will realize that goal and come out on the other side of this twelve-week adventure with some good experience and some new insights about myself as I learn through the teaching process.

Bunny Blues

For those of you wondering what happened to the bunnies, let's just say I took the cheap way out and am grateful for the money-back guarantee.

The "Inflatable Natural Enemy Scarecrow" is apparently not the natural enemy of this bunny.

Small Group Reunion

Last summer, I planned a reunion for my mom's birthday that involved getting all of her sisters and their daughters down to Texas. This summer, the reunion planning was on a much smaller scale.

My small group started meeting together in September of 2004, one month after our church was planted. We met together through the end of that year and then split into two groups because the church was rapidly growing. The core members of that initial group--Lee Ann, Melissa, Susie, Stephanie, and myself--are all still attending our church and our small group, with the exception of Stephanie who moved to Dallas.

In the four years since we started meeting, we've had some amazing women pass through our group. Unfortunately, I haven't kept in touch with all of the gals, but I have done my best to keep in touch with many of them. And tonight, ten of the past and present members (& some future members a/k/a babies) of our Wednesday night group gathered for a reunion at my house for a fiesta-themed dinner party.

We had a blast! It was great to hear what is going on in each of their lives. And now I have proof that my "Wednesday small group" that I often write about is not simply an imaginary group of friends.