And in summation, I would just like to say - huh?

I won't go in to great detail about the difficulties that have made this summer the thing of beauty that it was. Was? Yes, because sadly, one week from Monday, it's OVER. *Exasperated Sigh.*

I wish I could tell you that I stood tall the whole time and met each adversity and each moment of sadness with faith and fervency in my prayers. But I would be lying like a rug. I did learn to do one thing though: reach out. And I was always met with friends whose expressions of generosity and whose prayers on my behalf seemed to be without end. Thank you - you know who you are. Or maybe not. It's funny how generous people never seem to notice their own innate goodness or their impeccable timing.

While I wasn't blaming God - I was really trying to hang in there and see "all things work[ing] together for good" - I also wasn't really leaning on Him. I was looking for Him, though, as if He were off in the distance somewhere, like He had rounded a corner and I couldn't keep up.

My emotions this summer threw me into memories of myself as a child. I had that same fearful feeling that everyone else knew something I didn't, and I wasn't going to be allowed to know or participate because I was the baby. I felt like I was being left behind and no one knew I was missing.

Kind of like that time at Disney World when I was ten. ~ ~ ~ ~ dream sequence ~ ~ ~ ~

The youth choir of my home church did a singing tour of north Florida that summer. We wound the trip up with three days at Disney World. Quite the experience. Ten is a perfect age to experience all the wonder that is Disney World. It's also a perfect age for someone to mercilessly fill your head with all the urban legends of people dying on roller coasters. I had not been on many at that point in my life. I had just met the height requirements for most of them. The one roller coaster I feared most - Space Mountain.

According to one of the high school girls, because Space Mountain was an indoor roller coaster, it was more dangerous. In fact, she had a very elaborate story about a friend of a friend of a cousin....this girl was riding the roller coaster and bounced in her seat just as they came under a low rafter or sign or something. Of course the sign chopped her head off, and the head landed in the friend's friend's lap.

We were in line, and I stood there reading all the obligatory warning signs: "Do not ride this ride if you are pregnant, have heart or lung disorders, are afraid of enclosed spaces and small dogs." Not sure about that last part, but it seems to fit so I'll leave it for now. Well, when I read the part about lung disorders, I saw my "out".

"Mr. Mody, I can't ride this ride. I have asthma. It might make me sick." *Cue the pitiful face.* Eyes rolled, and the chaperone spun me around and pointed me in the direction of the exit signs. "Follow these and meet us at the exit. We'll be there in about ten minutes."

I started walking in the given direction, following signs. But then I came to a crossroad. One way led down a dark conveyor belt with small lights on a black canvas wall. This, of course, was the exit. But it just looked so dark and scary. To my immediate left, there was a door with a big red exit sign above it. I just figured one exit was as good as another so I climed through a handrail and went through the red exit door. Any guesses?

It was the emergency fire exit. To my knowledge, no alarm sounded. But the door behind me locked, and it didn't have a handle to get back in. I was stuck on the backside of Space Mountain in the Florida Everglades. There were frogs back there as big as a cat. Or so my memory tells me. I may be exaggerating a little. But I definitely remember frogs. I wasn't freaking out yet. I saw the space needle of the "Land of Tomorrow", where I knew someone from our group was sitting. I took off running, only to realize I was really heck and gone away from that needle.

I had to cross the railroad track that the little exhibition train took around the park. There were a couple of fences to climb. The more I ran, the more hysterical I became. By the time I got to the space needle, I was crying so hard I ran three complete circles around it before I actually saw someone I knew.

It was the girl who told me that story.

I collapsed into her arms, sobbing as only a ten year old can, and explained where I had come from. My mother walked up not much after that. Then the chaperone and students who had ridden the ride. He wanted to chew me out for not being at the exit. Mother wanted to chew him out for letting me go off on my own. I'm pretty sure mom won that argument. ~ ~ ~ ~

All that to say, there's nothing like the feeling of being afraid and alone. And there's nothing like the feeling of being found and known.

Dang - I'll probably work that into a song at some point. That'll preach.

This summer has been a little of both. But I had the biggest moment of blessing, an "AHA" moment if you will, this past Sunday.

My dear friend, Michelle, and her husband have the distinct joy of welcoming a new daughter into their home. Because of some terrible circumstances and some willingness to be a vessel for God, their prayers for a child were answered in the form of a recently orphaned 8 year old girl. While it is terrible that any child should have to go through that experience, our whole church is overjoyed that in her need, God has given her two parents who are a walking amusement park. I have not quit rejoicing, personally, because I prayed for them. I asked God to bless them with a child. I asked Him to give them the desires of their hearts. And you should see their faces in all the photos with their new addition. It will melt your heart and all your makeup - if you're dumb enough to be wearing any.

Add to that the story of divine intervention and healing of a friend, fellow choir member, and former teacher as her breast cancer disappeared.

My realization was that even when I don't feel blessed, I am. Even though God may be allowing me to go through a difficult season, He's still good. And when God is giving someone else the desires of their heart, He is being good to me as well. Their blessing is mine to share. I'm reading a book right now called "Adopted For Life", and it looks at the spiritual ramifications of the concept of adoption. Sharing life with someone means sharing in their joys, just as my brothers and sisters in Christ have shared in my struggles.

Today was still kind of rough, as the frivolity of my birthday wore off and I found myself immersed in tasks that brought me little satisfaction and much aggrevation. I found some peace of mind as I hopped on the lawn mower for an hour and listened to music. I let myself reflect on the fact that things are their most difficult when I am the least surrendered to God's control. When I feel that control slipping away from my fingertips, the "angry" switch gets flipped and I am suddenly impatient, annoyed, and withdrawn. But I know that my anger finds its root in my fear that I won't be able to make everyone happy. And the fear that I am not a good companion to my mate anymore because I'm having to take care of two other people. And the fear that I won't be able to make myself happy once they're all taken care of.

That last one will stick with me for a couple of days, sometimes.

So I felt like I had been given a second chance at my own happiness when I realized the richness of God's blessings in my own life as I see His goodness and provision and power expressed in the lives of other people I love. I used to laugh at this old woman I used to visit at a homeless shelter in Philadelphia who would tell everyone she met that she was "too blessed to be stressed".

Maybe I am too, but I have just been too distracted to realize it.

Thank you, God, for Mike and Michelle's new blessing. Thank you for Gayle's healing. Thank you for a positive outlook on a difficult situation that may still be difficult for another couple of months, yet. And lastly, thank you, God, that I didn't die a horrible death at Disney World. When the worst circumstances find me, at least I can say I wasn't toad-food.

Amen.

Today wasn't a good day.

Excuse the following. It's going to pretty much consist of emotional vomit. And this isn't to say that I am alone in all the things I'm feeling and going through, but I have brothers - not sisters - and we women handle things differently.

It's that other woman that I'm thinking of right now - MOM. She's had her fill of doctors and procedures and xrays and being yanked from bed to chair to table back to chair back to bed. Today, the nurse came in to tell her the doctor had ordered another lung scan to look for any developing clots. Mom refused. She accused the doctor of looking up excuses to run tests in order to jack up the hospital bill. They did the same scan yesterday, and couldn't read their results. She said that was their bad, and they'd have to use what they got.

The nurse looked pretty stunned. "Wouldn't you like to know if your life is in danger?"

"Nope. I don't really care."

A really big *exasperated sigh* came from my side of the room. When the nurse walked out, mom and I proceded to have an existential discussion on the purpose and meaning of life, the sovereignty of God, and the trustworthiness of scripture. Daddy told me not to lecture her.

Where does he think I learned that from?

Therapists interrupted us to take her from the room for a while. When she returned, I helped her with a sponge bath and left as the pain medication began to take effect. The next hour was one in which I experienced the grace and presence of God through perceptive friends. Dinner, a substitute teacher for Wednesday night Bible study, and a few listening ears. Tears spilled from my eyes as I drove home.

*Note to self: this brand of mascara burns like the fires of hell when it gets in my eyes! Seriously, I almost wrecked the car.*

Mom seemed to pull out of her funk by the time we finished with the bath. I've bounced back and forth between extreme weariness and gratefulness. And I realize that it's not the downs of this summer that have me so weighted and weary. It's the fact that my emotions have ranged from highest highs to lowest lows in the past year since I started and quit taking fertility meds, planned and still haven't filed an adoption application, signed three different contracts on homes only to just start building one THIS WEEK. And Joe got a ticket because we've been driving with expired tags, which we just discovered a few weeks ago. It just keeps getting better.

We had a great high recently. While Joe was in Honduras, I led for the youth. We did some creative writing led by scripture that manifested as worship songs for our weekly services. Since then, students have been craving to read more on their own, to journal and pray and reflect on the work of God in their lives. It's been so exciting to see some growth all of a sudden. Not just from that study, but also in Joe's life and the life of students who got to go on the trip with him. I know that the quick descent from that peak to the place that I and my mother are in right now are attempts from the evil one to have us doubt the faithfulness of God. Or at least the consistency.

That's where the post in centering came in. I just needed to remind myself of that place of security, stability, consistency in Christ. And I write once more for the same reason.

So today wasn't a good day.
But He is still a good God.

Center

People taking yoga classes are always trying to find their center. The one semester I did yoga (as part of my stage combat theater class), I was always trying to find my feet and a way to breathe with my lungs folded up like a dishtowel. I don't need fancy and foreign body positions and chants to find my center.

But first, let's talk about what the "center" is. We find it in physics - centripetal and centrifugal forces. They pull or hold things revolving around a point designated by the stationary or moving parts which becomes the "center" of a rotation. I was fascinated by this as a child - as seen in the number of cracked easter eggs I tried to rotate in my easter basket - the same reason I was petrified to actually try a looping roller coaster. I remember like it was yesterday. The "Diamondback" coaster at Frontier City, Oklahoma City, OK - summer of 1996. I was 20 years old. Life changing.

We also find it in the molecular sciences. Each cell contains a center - a nucleus. A hard drive that contains the very essence of the cell itself, its social security number, credit report, rap sheet, transcript and resume. I was not much for biological sciences. I prefered the math of chemistry. I don't do bodily fluids.

However, when people are talking about finding their centers, they're not looking for the cream filling of a hostess cupcake. They're not looking for DNA encoding. They're not planning on riding a roller coaster. But they are looking for something like this. I was reading in Ecclesiastes to my mother before her surgery this morning. Something about God putting eternity into the heart of man. He put it in the skies, in the orbit of planets. It is in the very skin of man, in the swirl of a baby's thumbprint. Like an M. C. Escher painting, our hearts seek, crave, to find a way through the labyrinth to that center doorway.

In our wedding, my college roommate and her husband sang a beautiful song - "Jesus, Be the Center". He is at that center doorway. He calls through the planets' rotation, and our heart and flesh cry out to reach Him there. In my most recent journey around the easter egg basket, I have felt very close to the brink of slipping from the bright green celophane grass and shattering into a million pieces. And yet, I feel a pull, a tether that anchors my spirit when the flesh weakens. I love this picture. It's the center of a rose that has lost its petals. Even this little remainder still has the rose's form. And its cells will reveal that essential information. It's still a rose.

That's me, tonight. After 30 hours in the hospital with my mother, I sure as heck don't smell or look like a rose. But I know the Beam to which I am tethered, my Firm Foundation, my Strong Tower. It has been a difficult summer. In addition to the hospital stays and not knowing what was going to happen with our housing situation, I have had to spend a lot of time away from my husband. When he's out of town, I've had to handle different situations that would have fallen to him. The hardest part of mom's recovery and one more mission trip still lie ahead of us for this summer. How good to know my heart has a Resting Place.

Jesus, be the Center, be my Source, be my Life, Jesus.

Jesus, be the Center, be my Hope, be my Light, Jesus.

Be the fire in my heart, be the wind in these sails.

Be the reason that I live, Jesus, Jesus.

Wow

I feel so much better today, which is odd because this was one of those days when everything took a lot longer than necessary.

I was on my way to pick up dad at the hospital, with a few errands to do on the way.

At the post office, I made it all the way to the door to realize I had dropped one of the letters just at my car door. It was 102degrees today. I didn't enjoy the walk.

Then I was off to pay mom and dad's utility bills. I missed the turn at the water district and had to make a u-turn in a bank parking lot. After paying the bill, I got behind a woman with an odd shaped hairdo and a personalized plate that said Ms TopCoat, who was also on the cellphone. Her plate should have read Ms Can'tJudgeTheDistanceBetweenOnComingCars BecauseIWon'tGetOffOfTheFreakingPhoneSoI'mGonnaSitHereForAnHourUntilIHangUp.
I had to turn right and make another u-turn to go left again. I beat her out onto the highway.

No problems at the power company, but there was just a lot of stopping from there to the hospital. To BenjaminMoore for paint chips, to the bank, to SmoothieKing, because I forgot to eat lunch, to ChikFilA for mayonaisse packets (someone brought my mother a fresh tomato at the hospital), and to the church for copies, drop offs, phone calls, and a quick kiss.

At the hospital, I hung around longer than planned because I was waiting on the doctor to show up and give us a time for mom's big surgery. My brother arrived to relieve me, and the doctor still managed to come in after we had both left. He has done this everyday. Next time, I'm going to go out to the parking lot and circle the block for 20 minutes. He should be standing at mom's bedside by then.

My precious daddy helped me (?) in the grocery store. It was a true lesson in patience. I am an aggressive shopper. I make a list that is categorized by aisles: toiletries, cleaning products, dairy, dry goods, meats, frozen foods, veggies, bread. It's a wonderful plan that gets me in and out in under 45 minutes when I am by myself. It took twice as long today. But that's okay. It was kind of fun letting daddy pick out little things he never gets to pick up at the store. We got pudding and jello and ice cream and cheetos. I don't even know if he likes cheetos, but he picked them out. So we got them. Supper was general tso's boneless wings and tater logs from the deli. I didn't feel bad about the poor quality of our meal because his sister had taken him to her house for lunch and served fresh vegetables, roast, and a homemade pineapple upside down cake. I really hope he sleeps well tonight. He's earned it.

All that said, I have the best feeling right now, and I know it's because of all the prayers being lifted up in our family's behalf. I know there will be times for more questions and more pressing on and more tears as we get up to the day of her big surgery - the one with plates and screws and the opportunity for more blood lost and more risk. But for today, I am basking in the goodness of God and jello pudding. There's always room for more.

About the Title

The picture behind the title was taken last fall, just as the winds began to chill and the grapes began to turn glorious colors of golden green with purple bumps. I sometimes like to go stand by the ancient grapevine and imagine myself transported to a 1900's hillside vineyard in Italy, where the women are voluptuous and admired for it, where their toes are stained purple from dancing among the grapes in a ritual of antiquity, where their families explode out of stucco walls and arched windows, and their elders sit in the shade of large fig trees drinking new wine and talking about old days.

The journey of abiding in the Vine is not one of ease. It is one of daily working, picking, pruning, where seasons bring their best and worst, and the branch tells a tale of years. Years of heavy rains, of long, intense summers, of bitter winters, of gusty winds and sudden storms, of sweet sunshine and mists of dew.

A year from now, I hope to look back on this present journey and say I remained in the Vine, that I stayed true to the One who will not abandon me because I have become a very part of Him. But it hasn't been an easy season. I could bore you with all the details of what has been a long and drawn out process in getting to the point of building our home. But just rejoice with me that the ground will be broken on Monday. I gave thanks at my mother's quick recovery from her recent surgery. But I beat my fists in the air when she fell last week and broke her leg so severely that repair will require two more surgeries and intensive physical therapy. Her recovery coupled with the constant daily care that my father requires is a huge undertaking that I am happy to share with the local family members. Those who came many miles the first time through will have to watch and pray from a distance because of the great cost of time and resources toward her first recovery.

In having to reassure and encourage my mother in her despair over the recent fall and its entanglements, I have found myself doubting the very words I used to comfort her. I want her in a healthy state of mind as she spends so much time alone at the hospital. But I have doubted my own. I have cried myself to sleep two nights this week as the situation has pressed me down into my pillow with a suffocating weight. I am okay. But I am not okay. And knowing what to share with others is difficult. It's not that I fear for mom's health or recovery. I'm not afraid of anything but running down and not having enough to give to everyone who needs me. Last time around, I bragged about being the "war department". This time, I feel more like the victim than the offense, which is selfish of me considering that I am not the one with a broken leg. I wish I were. It would be less of an imposition on people if I could just sit in the hospital for a few weeks. In fact, I'd welcome it.

The little footsteps I have taken this week are quintessential steps of trust. While everything within me wants to ask the question "Why Me?" and "Why Her?", I am pushing myself with the Spirit's help toward the question, "What is Your KINGDOM purpose for allowing this?" That remains to be seen. I know it's not about mom, and it's not about me, or dad, or anyone else in my family alone who is struggling through this. We may all gain some kind of spiritual insight or physical determination from this. But right now, I am looking for eternal purpose in it.

"For we know that all things work together for the good of them that love God and are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28

BTW - Diet? Uh, no.