Saved for a Rainy Day

I got caught in the rain on my way home today. It was that tricky sort of rain that starts out gently but throws you off by suddenly taking its job seriously. After about 40 seconds of lazy drizzle, it became a deluge that left me absolutely drenched after the 8-minute walk between my house and the metro station. I didn't really mind, because I was headed home so it didn't really matter how my hair looked, and there were dry clothes waiting for me there. What else is there to worry about?

So I enjoyed it. I always love a good storm or a nice rainy day, and this one was beautiful, with a cool breeze to go along with it. It watered my little herb garden nicely, and somehow that inspired me to try reviving my poor withering blog, so here I am. I don't want to get too ambitious, so instead of tackling my general love for rainy days, let's focus on umbrellas. Even more specifically, broken umbrellas.

Umbrellas can be so beautiful, and I love the color they add to a gray day. Crowds carrying umbrellas always have a busy, sparkly look to them that I enjoy. For some reason, though, I also enjoy taking pictures of broken umbrellas, and my friends and family have kindly stopped to wait for me while I snap pictures of garbage in the middle of a downpour. Walk through the city on a good, rainy day, and soggy umbrella carcasses are everywhere.

They seem to be the only type of trash that's exempt from all litter rules. Once an umbrella breaks, it somehow becomes completely acceptable to just throw it to the ground in frustration, no matter where you are. Right in the middle of the street? Doesn't matter. There's a trash can five feet away? Doesn't matter. My umbrella broke, so I'm ditching it right here, right now. I can't have such a horrible thing in my hand one second longer.

That seems to be the attitude, and the faithful souls who give their umbrellas a respectful farewell in a trash can are few. I don't know if it's a subtle comment on cheap commercialism in the back of my mind, or something a little bit funny about the shameless way we abandon our umbrellas in utter digust when they've outlived themselves.

Either way, I always see something artistic in these poor broken wings. Here are a few umbrella shots that seemed worth sharing on a freshly-watered Tuesday evening, and I'm sure these won't be the last that I take.

My DC Experiment

A year ago this week, I moved to the Washington, DC area for three months.  Three months later, I moved to DC again, and here I still am.

(That's last year.  No cherry blossoms for a few more weeks!)

I originally came when a family friend recommended me for an internship, which led into a real job that practically applied for me, instead of me for it.  I had nowhere to live and wouldn't have come, if not for a friend in the area that I barely knew (at the time), who happened to know someone with an available and affordable room for rent.  My parents helped me pay for living expenses during the unpaid internship, and while the car I drive and the bed I sleep in belong to me, they were both gifts from some generous friends.


A few months in, when I was still in DC but needed a new place to live, God gave me a miraculous little house and some slightly wonderful roommates.  That's more of a story that I will tell another time, but I live in a little brick reminder of the fact that every part of my time in DC has been a gift.  My whole life is a gift from God, I know, and I don't want to make light of that, but it's been particularly obvious that my being here now is just one gift after another.  Each person and each place--it's almost funny how many doors the Lord opened that I didn't even know were there!  This is not at all what I expected to be doing this year, but it's great!

Yet sometimes I find myself wondering what I'm doing here, and why.  Wondering so hard that it wells up in my eyes and pours down my face--not because things are going badly, but simply because I do not know.  This isn't what I expected to do, so I can't see where it's going, and that scares me if I let it.

But God, my wonderful Father who loves me, reminds me of Himself.  He lets me look back at all of these gifts, at all the tiny threads He has woven together this far and I am amazed.  Only He knows how to weave our lives together, and I sit overwhelmed by how tiny I am in the fabric that's being made, and yet how specific He is in caring for me.

I look at my tiny little self in that picture He is making, in the one corner of it that I can see.  I feel like I don't know anything, and I really can't even do much, but isn't that good for me!  When I can see what I don't know, I'm quicker to see what He is doing.  Maybe you are not like this, but sometimes I get distracted by myself and need to be shocked back into the reality that I'm not that great.  Not in a self-deprecating or poor-me way, but truly recognizing that the best of me can't even begin to compare to the shadow of God's greatness.  And this is good!  He is truly, completely, nothing missing and always enough for me, and that makes me love my smallness, which lets me sink in and enjoy how much better God is than I would be.


And all of this came out of my one year anniversary with this city.  I used to think I might end up in DC one day, in some vague, far-off future thought.  I didn't know how long I would come or what I would do here or when, but suddenly, by no plan I made, DC is now in my present.  And it's still a little vague to me, but that's okay, because I couldn't have figured it out this far by myself anyway.  I would quite literally not be here now if I were on my own, but my God who knows how to guide and give so perfectly is with me, and He does not change.  In everything I don't know, He brings me back to things I do know, like this:

This I know, that God is for me.

In God, whose word I praise,

In the Lord, whose word I praise,

In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid (Psalm 56:9-11)

A month ago at this time...

Happy February!  Among other things, February means I can flip a calendar page and have new pictures of my cute nieces to look at for the next few weeks.*  But I'm not ready to write about February yet, even though we're a week into it already.  January felt about seven weeks long this year (in a good way!), so I'm still going to write about it...and a few days of December.

A little over a month ago, I walked off a plane and found myself in Thailand.  Yes, I knew I was going there, but in the hazy oblivion that is travel, time loses its identity and somehow so does everything else.  We just went 8,000 miles over the world's largest ocean in the last few hours?  Of course we did.  12 hours just vanished because we crossed an invisible line of longitude?  Of course they did.  So, we time-traveled?  I think that back when travel involved sails and weeks instead of wings and hours, you could really comprehend how far you had gone.  Now I can just take a few naps, tell the friendly flight attendant whether I'd like beef with rice or chicken with pasta--and suddenly I step out of my travel-induced haze onto the other side of the world.  Of course.

This was my first venture into Asia, and I had a blast!  I love new places, new sounds and people and everyday details that could escape my notice, but make up the rhythm and breath of a country.  I met some delicious new kinds of fruit, tried to bargain at the markets, practiced saying "thank you" in Thai, lost my voice and hoped people would understand me anyway.  I wished for the first time in my life that I had a motorbike to ride around on, and tried not to offend anyone with my feet or clothing.  I smiled a lot, bowed occasionally, and wished I could stay longer. 

But above all, I got to enjoy God's people.  I'm amazed at what He can do despite time, distance, culture, language, and all of those things that I can't control or really even understand.  I'm so glad God is bigger than all of it!  Even the reason I was in Thailand is wonderfully confusing:  I was there for the wedding of an American friend that I met a few years ago while we both lived in Austria; she and her new husband are now missionaries in Thailand, and he is from Australia.

So it took four continents to get me there, and I was just one of the many guests.  Those two vibrant children of God brought people from all over the world for their wedding, and we whirled around for two weeks of wonderful chaos (check out that W alliteration...I wasn't even trying).  I only knew the bride and one other girl at the beginning of the trip, but this eclectic group of wedding guests was there for so much more, and the way our God wove our lives together, even for such a short time, was something only He can do.  We laughed and prayed and encouraged and challenged each other, and the love of Jesus just poured and squeezed out all through that group.

We spent some fleeting but great time with the kids my friends teach; we saw their school, took them to climb a waterfall, and took them out to dinner.  One girl was my pal for the week; we talked about our families, sang, and I asked her to teach me a few words in her language and gave her and the other kids plenty to laugh about as I tried to learn.  When we went to dinner, she had me try almost everything on the buffet, and I'm still not sure of all the things that ended up in my stomach that day, but they were delicious!

   

I wish I could describe all of this better; I feel like I'm only hitting bits and pieces of this trip and missing the depth, but there's really not enough space or time for that. I can't think of a better way to have started my year, and I'm still enjoying it, even being back home in my normal routine.  I don't want to let anything get too normal, though, and I'm so in awe of the God who has designed our lives and perfectly woven us into what He is doing.  He sends us out with His love and His word, and that's a powerful combination if we're willing to follow Him.  Nothing is insignificant--He can use a second or a word or a friend of a friend, or He can use decades, conversations, and families to draw people to know Him.  I love it!

I haven't put any pictures of the wedding or school up here for security and such things, but here's a random unrelated Thai wedding that I ran into while visiting the Grand Palace in Bangkok.

Please pray for my friends' ministry and for that part of the world.  There was such a spiritual urgency there, and I can't wait to see more of what God is doing.
You can check out the ministry's website here: http://helpsavethekids.org/


When I was leaving the wedding, which was the last day we saw the school kids, I got to spend a little more time with the girl who was my buddy and language teacher.  When it was time to go she gave me a big hug and said, "see you...see you..." then shouted something to the other kids, one of whom shouted back, "heaven!"  She smiled.  "See you in heaven!" 

*For more on the ridiculous cuteness of my nieces and other fun stuff, visit my sister's blog here: http://cariboucastle.blogspot.com/