out of Kadesh

The night before I came down with the Horrible, Nasty, Unfair, Mean Plague, I read this verse in Psalms: “Don’t you know He enjoys giving rest to those He loves?” (127:2) It was so lovely and encouraging, and I showed it to Lance, and I went to sleep with a content little smile on my face. The Lord enjoys giving rest to those He loves! Isn’t that great? La la la.

Fast forward to 4:30am. I wake up, per normal these late pregnancy days, but with knives of fire inside my throat in addition to my full bladder and growling stomach, and I’m all, OH CRAP. Quick background: when I first met my doctor here, she gave me a list of approved medications for pregnancy, and I thought to myself, “oh, I won’t use any of those.” And until last week, I prided myself on having only taken a low dosage of Tylenol when an extreme headache persisted, maybe three times throughout all 39 of my weeks of child-carrying. Then last Thursday happened. Now my first instinct was to call on the Lord. With that verse fresh in my memory, I asked Him to heal me and take away the cold pronto, knowing that He not only COULD do it, but WANTED to.

Thursday night: the cold got worse. I was in pain, so I took some Tylenol. My parents and sister made me some chicken noodle soup and brought it over and I smugly thought, great, it’s definitely over after today! I took care and rested, drank fluids, and ate chicken noodle soup.

Friday morning wee hours: woke up with fever symptoms. My skin ached; my muscles ached. My throat was still on fire, and I couldn’t breathe. I had gotten maybe a collective four hours of sleep. I was miserable. Lance pulled out that list of medicines considered safe and gave me some. I don’t remember what it was, because since Friday I have taken Tylenol, Tylenol Multi-Symptom, Mucinex, Mucinex DM, and Afrin. I’ve also sucked my way through the baby’s weight in Riccola Lozenges and slathered myself with more Vick’s Vapor Rub than I’d have imagined possible, taken 30 minute steamy showers and stuck my head over steaming pots of water, used up an entire bottle of Nasal Saline Solution, drunk two gallons of orange juice and probably as much cranberry juice, taken Vitamin C several times a day, sipped hot chicken broth and tea, sucked on about a dozen popsicles, and gone through two boxes of Kleenex. I have even GARGLED WITH SALT WATER, which is the absolute most revolting thing of all time besides spraying Chloresceptic spray, which I have only ever attempted when I know my choice is between that and the Apocolypse. And Reader, I’ve sprayed FOUR SQUIRTS THIS WEEK. IN MY MOUTH! I’ve spent entire days in bed or on the sofa, trying to scare the cold away with enough rest. And guess what.

IT’S DAY SIX. IT’S STILL HERE. And it’s showing no signs of stopping, since last night I woke up with those knives of fire in my chest now, too.

Ok. All the time that I’ve been sick, I’ve spent my waking hours begging God to heal me. It would take Him like two seconds. Yes, I know there are people way worse off than me, I mean my gosh it’s just a little cold. Let me say this though: I have asked God to instantly heal the following: headaches, a swollen eye, and anemia, and He has done it. It’s always miraculous. One second my head is pounding, the next second the pain is completely and totally gone. One minute doctors are telling me I need prescription iron pills for the rest of my life, the next they don’t know why my iron levels look fine. So I have experience with God’s instant healing power, and I believe He doesn’t care how tiny the problem is; He still can and will take care of it. After all, if I can’t trust GOD to heal something tiny like a sore thumb or something, how am I going to trust ANYONE to heal things like cancer? So I keep asking Him about this cold. And few things test my faith, Reader, but this truly has. I started doing something I almost never do: questioning why. Why is He allowing me to go through this torture? Why isn’t He doing what, according to that psalm, He would ENJOY, and giving me rest?

I posed this question to Lance this weekend while he was drying dishes and I was, worn out by the journey from the sofa to the kitchen table, sitting there watching him. I said “God knows I will worship Him no matter what… and I know He’s not like a slot machine or something, but I just don’t understand why He won’t zap this cold. Is He ignoring me? Am I supposed to be learning something from being sick?” And Lance, with the calmness and wisdom of Calvin’s tiger Hobbes, goes “Maybe God IS giving you rest. If you weren’t sick, you would be running around like crazy trying to get all this stuff done. Maybe He’s just making you slow down during these last couple of weeks before the baby comes.”

And I, similar to the aforementioned comic strips, sat there blinking like Calvin in the truth of what he’d said. Would I, if I weren’t sick, be spending 90% of my life in bed, drinking lots of fluids? (Um, no, I would not, because it’s really boring.)

DON’T GET ME WRONG, I still plead with Jesus to rid my face and chest of all the EXTRA FREAKING MUCOUS that currently resides there. And I went to the OB today and told her about the Horrible, Nasty, Unfair, Mean Plague and how it refuses to go away, and she was like “Yeah, it’s a lot harder to get over something when you’re pregnant. I can give you an antibiotic and you should make sure to take Mucinex every 12 hours.” I was all “But I’m scared of all the medicines I’ve been taking hurting the baby,” and she was all “The medicine won’t hurt him, but not getting enough oxygen because his mom has an upper respiratory infection will,” and I was all “Where’s my prescription?”

But even though this cold cannot be gone soon enough, I’m starting to realize that God giving me rest doesn’t necessarily have to look the way I thought it would. Now, am I saying God MADE me sick? No, not at all. I’m just saying that even though I don’t understand Him all the time, I believe He’s a loving God with our best interests at heart, and maybe what looks like His apathy is really more like His love. And truly, if I COULD understand Him, would He be God?

Besides getting rest, I’ve also noticed that I’m gaining superior ab control from blowing my nose so often, and I’m doing probably a hundred Kegels a day from all the coughing. Now I don’t know about you, but I would NEVER be doing that many on my own. When I told that to Lance he was all “You must cough really weird,” and I was all “I have to squeeze when I cough to keep myself from squirting pee.”

I can’t WAIT to see the popular web searches from this post!

Here I am y’all, six weeks away from having a child. When I first saw that plus sign on the pregnancy test in the bathroom stall of the Harris Teeter, I don’t think I ever really thought six weeks away would happen, but here it is. I called the doctor first thing that Monday morning only to be told she didn’t see new pregnancy patients until 10 weeks, and I swear that 10 weeks was like the longest stretch of time I’ve ever experienced. But now time is just slipping through my fingers, which is also some kind of miracle, since my fingers are now so swollen that even when I spread them out there are still no cracks in between them. Ok, I exaggerate. The truth is I don’t even have fingers anymore; it’s all just two big flesh-colored lumps. That size nine ring I bought as a faux wedding ring has been eaten by the folds of finger fat. But it’s ok… the question of whether or not I’m having an illegitimate kid is moot since I can’t go anywhere without Lance’s accompaniment anyway. He has to help push me through the supermarket aisles and through the door of chicken finger establishments. And I’m sure those clerks realize that no one but a husband would get themselves stuck with that kind of task.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how terrified I am about having this baby. I know it’s probably very common to be nervous about a complete life-change like this, but the Lord has been speaking to me about fear. I was comforted by Psalm 23 yesterday (I know, the most common passage of scripture this side of the Lord’s prayer, but hey, whatever works). It says that even though the psalmist walked through shadow and valleys and death, he did not fear, because the Lord was with him. It says the Lord prepared a table for him right in front of his enemies… in other words the Lord mocked his enemies and dared them to come near while he was eating and ill-prepared for battle. It says that the Lord’s goodness and His mercy would follow the psalmist all the days of his life. Reader, I’m adopting this psalm for myself. If the Lord is with me, what reason do I have for fear? Should I not expect good things from the creator of the universe? The One who loves more deeply than I can even imagine? I’m believing that for the rest of my life, His goodness and mercy will follow me. I’m believing that I have no reason to be afraid of anything, much less a tiny baby. I’m believing that I will experience joy when this little guy arrives via Vagina Express in six weeks. So I will be over here, Reader, gaining weight and hoping I get everything done in time for the baby’s arrival. But if I don’t, it’s going to be ok, for the Lord is my shepherd and I shall not fear. I’m too fat to get worked up about anything anyway… it takes too much energy. Kind of like trying to type with no fingers. You see my dedication to blogging now, don’t you?

Yet another good thing about moving back to the south is that Blueberry is going to have so many babysitters. My family just closed on a new house, and they’ll be about half an hour away. I plan to take serious advantage of this for the purposes of A) taking a shower, B) taking a dump, C) taking a nap, and D) taking Vicodin. (Just kidding… I’ll be breastfeeding so I can’t take anything stronger than a couple dozen Vodka shots.) It really is a huge relief knowing that help will be a phone call away. And with Lance working from home, I can pee and shower and go outside to get the mail and take the dog for a walk and tell Lance I’m going out for more nipple cream but actually drive to the Bay Area without leaving Blueberry alone. I really am so blessed. And I know as soon as we get some more needed essentials, like a car seat and some blankets and more diapers, I’m really going to look forward to meeting him. Also I’m looking forward to moving around without the aid of a forklift. And going all night without getting up to pee. And not being woken up by tiny feet between my ribs. And eating raw fish and drinking wine. And putting on lingerie without wondering if it will make Lance barf. And sleeping on my stomach again.

This weekend being their closing, my parents and sister spent the weekend with us, and we had a great time on Halloween. We carved pumpkins, and then my dad made chili and we ate ourselves sick with all the candy the non-existent trick-or-treaters left us with.

Carving pumpkins:

Here’s my dad, doing the Monster Mash:

My sister dressed up like a ninja, but she thought she looked like a terrorist even though I tried to convince her that a terrorist would NEVER use Wii nunchucks, cause he would just look like a poser if he did. Regardless, she refused to answer the door for trick-or-treaters (the one time it rang).

My mom’s contribution to Halloween: weird socks.

My goofy pumpkin:

And Lance’s scary one:

(For all you nerdy types out there, this pumpkin is actually Domo Kun, and Lance did a great job with him. But I think Domo Kun is scary-looking anyway, and all lit up with fire from within is even worse.)

((sigh)) I love Halloween. Whether you spend it drinking your face off or eating chili or watching Young Frankenstein or dancing to the Monster Mash or looking out your window holding a bowl of candy and just waiting for cute dressed up kids to ring your doorbell (ahem) or dressing up and going to a party or whatever, it’s just so fun. I can’t wait to dress Blueberry up as Harry Potter next year. And (internal gasp) Lucy can be Sirius Black! (She wanted to be a doberman this year, but we couldn’t think of a way to make her ears stand up straight.) Anyway, Halloween being over means it’s the start of the Christmas season. I haven’t been inside Target yet, but I’m sure it’s covered in Christmas decorations. I wish I could go get our tree right now, because I totally would. I love this damn time of year.

I admit it: I have been known to awake with a jolt, crinkly page marks on my swollen face and a puddle of drool running out of my open mouth when I attempt to read those so-and-so begat so-and-sos in the Bible. Just to say that I have not read every single word of The Word, so I may have missed the part where Jesus tells us that our job as believers is to assign people the eternal destination of “Heaven” or “Hell.” Please, if I am wrong, feel free to leave a scathing, judgmental comment for me to read and get angry about.

When did we, as Christians, give ourselves the task of determining the everlasting whereabouts of other human beings? And more importantly, when did that become the point of Christianity? When I read Christ’s teachings, I find Him telling us to love one another, because then the world will know we belong to Him. I find Him telling us to share everything we have with those who don’t have enough. I find Him telling us to heal the sick. To care for widows and orphans. To above all else love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, and minds. Nowhere do I find Him telling us to decide if our friends, neighbors, coworkers, or various celebrities are making it into the pearly gates or burning in Hell for all of eternity.

I don’t mean to offend you, Reader, it’s just that I have given this a LOT of thought. I was raised in a fear-based denomination. My church taught us that we were “saved” and we needed to “save” other people. Being saved meant not spending a lifetime burning in Hell. It meant living life with the purpose of safely reaching death and the afterlife beyond. Our pastor preached that we would “drag people down there” if we weren’t constantly “witnessing.” (Witnessing, for you who don’t know, could mean anything from asking someone “If you died tomorrow, do you know for certain where you would go?” to passing out tracts chock full of information on what the fires of Hell would feel like as they melted your skin off your bones.)

I became the youngest-ever evangelist. Saved and baptized at seven years old, I became paralyzed with the fear that everyone I knew who hadn’t walked the Roman’s Road was going to burn forever and it would be my fault. I prayed the sinner’s prayer with my four-year-old brother in the back seat of our Astro van one night because by God, I was not going to let him burn! And if all I had to do was convince someone to say “Jesus please come into my heart and save me” to keep them from the land of the gnashing teeth, how could I not feel that insane guilt every time I was around someone?

And if you had lived through that, you would understand why I have come to the conclusion that our salvation is not about Heaven and Hell. These are concepts that even I, as a believer, can’t wrap my tiny head around. Are they places? Where are they? Are my dead loved ones there now, or will they go there later? Are they states of being? How can we expect anyone to understand, or care, about these overwhelming, mythological-sounding places?

How did it become the central focus of the gospel?

Here are some of today’s headlines (found on cnn.com, June 30, 4:30pm):
Students shot at bus stop in Detroit
Duke official offered adopted son for sex
Re-election of Ahmadinejad ruled valid
Girl, 6, lured into home, chained
Son lured home for family slaying
Woman assaulted by husband

Look at this! There is Hell going on right here, right now!

I think it’s time, Church, to bring the gospel back to what it’s supposed to be. The good news of Christ. His ability to bring us joy. His ability to heal us from our brokenness. His ability to love us when we are unlovable. He charges us to forgive each other, to help each other, to be at peace with one another, to love one another. Let’s stop operating in fear and judgment, and come back to Christ’s true commandment to us: that we spread His good news.

There is hope in Christ, Reader. There is hope that one day these grim headlines will be good tidings, when all people realize the true Gospel of Christ. Then we will experience Heaven.

But I’m saying “him” because “him/her” is getting old and “it” is just weird. And right now he just looks like an alien anyway. If it turns out this baby is a girl, I’ll pay for her therapy later.

Last weekend, I went to the Tony Awards. Yeah, I didn’t have anything else to do so… I figured why not. WHY NOT HAVE THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE. In addition to being so close to Sir Elton John I could have reached out and touched him, it was exciting to me that Blueberry was getting his first trip to NYC, so we got some “Baby’s first” pics.

Here’s baby’s first time in Times Square.

Here’s baby’s first wait on the train… get used to this, baby.

Here’s baby at the Tony after-party. He is still hip enough to party with Mama and Daddy.

And here is baby… ON THE WAY TO HIS FIRST TONY AWARDS! (The other lovely ladies are my coworkers and friends, Emily and Jackie.)

Tonight, we took communion at church. Nothing has felt more real to me than this, not even hearing the baby’s heartbeat yesterday. As I ate the bread and drank the wine (ok I’m a protestant so it was actually tiny crackers and grape juice don’t get me started), I suddenly remembered this thing I had read warning mothers-to-be that everything they consume, the baby also consumes. Which means tonight, I fed my baby the body and blood of Christ.

How we’re going to raise this kid, we don’t know. What we’re going to say to him when he wants to know about all these issues that Lance and I consider “gray areas,” I have no idea. But what I do know is that no matter what, I want to raise this child to love the Lord, and love people. And if I can teach him to do that, I will have succeeded as a parent. And I felt it seal today, that commitment within me, when baby had his first communion.

On Friday I was so depressed that I had to leave my office and go for a walk. I stepped out the front door of the building and into the sunlight and just started walking, feeling rage and sadness course through my veins. I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going, but I ended up in the breezeway of an apartment complex nearby. I went under the awning and slid down the wall, letting myself wallow in self-pity. I haven’t felt that alone, that rejected, in a long time.

Then out of the sky came a rumble of thunder and I swear, where there had been sunshine not two minutes before, there was darkness. And rain. Wow, there was rain! Let me just clarify that I am from the south, and “rain” in DC is not real rain. These people don’t know the meaning of a summer shower. But this rain was real rain. The rain was sudden and hit the ground in big, fat drops. It whipped in different directions, so that I was soaked in no time even under the protection of the breezeway’s roof.

It occurred to me that I wasn’t alone. I felt the love of God in that moment so strongly, as I watched the rain pelt the ground. I don’t even know why… but I felt like that tiny storm was just for me. And it was what I needed to go back inside and finish the day.

Something has been troubling me, and I’ve been thinking about it all week (and of course have been wondering how best to blog the situation). In an odd turn of events, our pastor preached about this very thing last night, which led me to the conclusion that I am not alone in my pondering.

It started out with a conversation over lunch, where Person A wondered aloud if Jesus really fed 5,000 people with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, or if the person who wrote down the story was just in the front of the cafeteria line. And then Person B mentioned hearing a theory on Moses parting the Red Sea, that there was some freak tidal wave having to do with the salt content or something like that, and Moses might have known when this freak tidal wave would hit, which is why he was able to lead the Israelites across the freshly parted sea. Then Person A said probably Jesus never really “walked on water,” but was walking on some sand just underneath the surface of the lake.

It occurred to me then how simple it would be to take a look at every single miraculous instance in my life, and also in scripture, and fit it neatly into a Megan-sized box. I could go through and explain, in human terms, everything that people think is outside explanation. Noah and the flood? Noah had arthritis. He could feel the inclement weather coming on. Also he majored in Boat Architecture at the University of Ur, and can you believe his luck? Jonah surviving 3 days in the belly of a fish? Well that’s probably a made-up story anyway because there’s really nothing I can think to say about that one besides WOW. And Jesus turning water into wine? Well that’s simple, He probably just switched the barrels when those water-fetching fools weren’t looking, to make Himself look all cool. Mary, a virgin? Don’t even get me started on all the ways THAT could have been a big fat lie. And finally, the big one, the queen mother of all biblical miracles, the supposed Jesus dying and raising Himself from the dead 3 days later, which is the foundation of the Christian faith and also the reason we celebrate today. Well obviously He was just in a coma. Could have been sugar-shock from hanging on a cross for so long with nothing to eat or drink. Or He could have been taking a well-deserved nap. Maybe His heart slowed, making people think He was dead, but it was like Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet only looks dead, but when Romeo gets there she wakes right up.

Or how about when I went to the doctor in college because I was so tired all the time, and after a bunch of blood work he told me I was anemic and needed to start on daily medications right away. But then someone prayed for me, and I felt warmth in my veins at that very moment. I’m sure that could have been psychological, Reader. Then I went back to the doctor the next day and asked him to do another test, so he did, and he couldn’t explain why, but I wasn’t anemic anymore. I guess that first test was faulty.

This is what C.S. Lewis, the famous atheist-turned-theologian says: Either God is who He says He is, or He’s not.

People often say Jesus was a good teacher, or perhaps a prophet, and they recognize that He was very compassionate and so on. But they don’t believe He is the Son of God or that He really did miraculous things like healing people or feeding a bunch of people just because they looked hungry, or that He could have the authority to tell a raging sea to be calm, and have it listen to Him. But He doesn’t really give us the option to think He was just a good, nice guy. If you think He wasn’t God’s Son, the messiah, you have to think that He was either A) CRAZY (um, David Koresh anyone? Yeah sure I’m totally the son of God please drink this cyanide now?) or B) A complete liar that just hoodwinked a bunch of people into believing Him so He could obtain power (like Scientologists, holy yikes). No one thinks David Koresh was a good teacher or a kind prophet, and everyone I know is scared to death of Tom Cruise. Just sayin’.

So really the thing is, do you believe in God, and if you do, just how big is He or She? Because I know atheists, and they make a lot more sense to me than someone who claims to believe in God but doesn’t think He or She has any of the power that He says He has. You have to COMMIT to what you believe in, Reader!

I just feel like this. If I say that I believe in God, which I do, it’s only worth believing in Him or Her if I believe that He or She can do all these mind-blowing things, like, hello, creating the universe or coming up with the reproductive system. Because if I, with my human brain, could explain it all, it couldn’t be God. God doesn’t fit inside my logical left brain. I can’t make God in my own image. I recognize that some things are outside of my comprehension, because if I only believed in what I could perceive with my human senses, my world would be so very small. And I don’t want to live like that.

Today at work, I felt like a total screw-up. And that word isn’t strong enough for what I actually felt like, but I’m still on my no cussing fast.

I was working out some of my frustration at the gym by beating the bejesus out of my poor bronchitis-stricken body, and I said to the Lord “If you will just show me that You’re proud of me, that’s enough. I don’t need anyone else’s approval. Just Yours.” I felt like this wasn’t true and the Lord knows it of course, but the thing is, I want it to be true so I said it anyway.

He didn’t answer me like a friend would talk to me over coffee. It wasn’t even a sentence. It was more like a comprehension. When the Lord spoke to me, He told me it wasn’t anyone else’s approval I was seeking; it was my own. I think when I come home from work all emotionally exhausted and “Lance, I NEED A COCKTAIL PRONTO!”, no one else is going “Man, Megan really sucks.” It’s just me that’s thinking that. So my prayer has to change. It has to be “Lord, I don’t need my own approval, because my opinion of myself some days is like I was personally responsible for the war in Iraq, segregation in the 60s, Sex and the City being cancelled, and the fact that cosmetics test on animals. I only need Your approval.” And maybe that’s not true yet either, but soon it will be, especially now that I get it.

I hope you hear the Lord’s voice telling you that He has nothing but good thoughts about you today, that you’re not a screw-up, and that His opinion of you is infinitely higher than what your opinion of yourself could ever be.

I talked with a friend last night about God, which I don’t do very often anymore, not having many friends who really care to talk with me about God here in Politics-R-Us, the capitol of the USA. It got me thinking again about my faith and why I believe what I believe. There is something that I need to say, because I know so many people who have been hurt by the church. This is the most important thing in the world for me to share with people; almost no one seems to know it. In fact, to borrow a phrase from my friend and college pastor Josh, it was the greatest revelation I ever had.

God loves you.

I have been thinking a lot about high school lately. Maybe it’s because my friend Jennifer posted these young blackmail pictures of us on facebook, or maybe it’s because I am only one year away from my 10-year reunion WHICH I WILL NOT BE GOING TO. God, I hated high school. I was absolutely tormented. To be fair, I’m sure I was an easy target. I took offense at everything and never knew how to laugh at myself. I was awkward and miserable, so I spent most of my time crying into my locker for one reason or another. Also I always answered questions in class and tried real hard in drama. I was like a walking field day for jocks. One of my worst memories is of sitting in my choir section with one of The Torturers, Nathan, sitting behind me. He started tearing off tiny bits of paper, putting them in his mouth and making them all slimy with spit, then throwing them into my hair. I couldn’t retaliate because we were about to give a concert and our teacher had warned us that if she saw us talking, she would fail us instantly, no questions asked. He just kept pelting me with spit balls and my friend Melissa and I just kept silently wiping them out of my hair. The guys were all laughing hysterically behind me, and Nathan risked flunking the class to start whispering in my ear “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” (STILL, WTF MAN?!)

Then there was my home life. My mom and I couldn’t stand each other, so I spent my nights trying to escape to my bedroom because all my teenage self wanted was to be alone. I never did drugs or smoked or even drank alcohol, but I was still grounded so often that I had time to entirely cover my walls in cut-out magazine pictures. Seriously, the whole room was one big collage. And then my mom would try and understand what was wrong with me but she’d end up yelling at me and I’d be sarcastic back and then she’d verbally abuse me and I’d (you guessed it) start crying. My nose was perpetually stopped up the next morning. More fuel for the jock fire.

And that’s the way it was. I was in so much pain that every time I drove somewhere alone, I’d beg God to let me get into a car accident. I just wanted it to end. And even though I did have friends, I honestly didn’t think anyone would care if I died. I was unloved, or so I thought, but deep down I felt like it was my fault – something about me made me unlovable. I hated everyone, but not nearly as much as I hated myself.

The first time I heard that God loved me was right after I graduated high school, and it was not the first time I had heard that God loved me. After all, I was raised Southern Baptist. I knew that yes, Jesus loved me, for the Bible told me so, or something like that. But how do you explain to someone with nothing but anger and sadness in her heart about love? It meant little to me, but it was still a shred of light in a whole lot of darkness. I was tired of being anguished. I didn’t want college to be like high school, so I started praying. That summer before I became an Auburn Tiger was the pinnacle of my faith. I started going on walks and talking out loud and with my hands, the way I’d talk to a friend, hardly noticing the strange looks of southerners out on their front porches. I had a lot to say to God, or my idea of Him; I had about eight years of sadness to get off my chest. And for the first time, I felt listened to. It occurred to me that if this person I was talking to was actually GOD, He already knew how I felt. I didn’t need to wrap my head or my words around my feelings. It was a relief, and I needed one of those badly. I wanted more; I was hungry for God. I got involved in a campus ministry called Chi Alpha on my very first week at Auburn and that is where I met the dearest friends I have. I leaned into them, feeling embraced and like pieces of my heart were healing. I learned about worship, and how it’s time spent loving on Christ. I worshipped God through music and I heard Him and felt Him all around me.

But I still didn’t understand His love.

I began struggling with guilt. If I cursed in anger or felt a twinge of jealousy or didn’t read my Bible every day I felt like I had betrayed God and had to ask for His forgiveness. I was zealous to the point of being judgmental. Essentially, I still hated myself, but in a completely different way. I hated feeling like a failure to the Lord. I was trying to earn God’s love but I wasn’t able to do it. I always fell short. The realization that I actually could do NOTHING to earn His love didn’t come at me all at once, but slowly, over time, and as I matured in my faith. It was reading scriptures that said nothing could separate me from the love of God, or His promise that He would never leave me or forsake me. It was good friends and mentors telling me that God loved me and thought about me, and that He wasn’t going to give up on me. It was a lot of soul-searching and learning why I was always seeking approval (see above paragraphs – HOLY ISSUES, BATMAN). It took several years of beating myself up before I realized that God wasn’t sitting around waiting for me to screw up. As one friend put it, He wasn’t going to pull the rug out from under me. His love was stronger than anything I could throw against it, and it far outstripped my feeble attempts to please Him.

A few weeks ago at church, a children’s choir from Africa came in to sing for us. They sang three songs and I was weeping by the time they were done. There was joy in them like I had never seen, and these were orphans whose PARENTS HAD DIED IN WAR OR FROM AIDS HOLY HELL. It struck me just how far and wide the Father’s love can reach, that these kids even knew the name of Jesus or had hope in their lives at all. The most astounding part was when we, the middle-class, first-world, I-had-a-bad-day-and-you-are-out-of-tune-for-God’s-sake! worship team, were singing and the kids were standing in the back, eyes closed, singing right along to our English songs as they praised God. They worshipped Him freely, faces smiling and lifted to the heavens, dancing and clapping and raising their skinny arms, with no inhibitions whatsoever.

I continue, as I walk through my life and my faith, to have ups and downs. I struggle with depression and loneliness, and I still beat myself up at times over stupid things. I believe there is an enemy who wants to destroy the joy that exists in humankind, and he has done a good job of it. Turn on Fox News if you don’t agree with me. And he has tried to destroy the joy in me. But I hold to this truth that I rediscover all the time. There is a God whose love is unchanging, all-consuming, and without condition. I will never fully fathom the height and depth and width of His love. It is more powerful than words permit, and that’s only the portion I can understand. I fully believe that who you are, who you date, what you do for a living, your past, your future, your thoughts, whatever, are all wash… God’s passion for you is bigger than all of it. Even if you don’t believe in Him, He believes in you. Can we, with our finite minds, ever grasp this? It’s a beautiful and mysterious world when you realize how much the Creator of the Universe loves you, and I swear it makes all the difference.

Loneliness weighs ten tons
And hurts like a physical ailment
It makes my shoulders hunch
And my eyelids droop
It makes me drag my feet
Shuffling dust in my wake
It makes my back ache
Which makes me bend awkwardly
And gives me a pot-belly
My muscles are sore with fatigue

But Your love gives me wings
In Your room, I am feather-light
And drunk with relief
My feet leave the ground where I stood
And I feel the burden I carry drop to the floor
My arms drift up past my face
Which tilts toward the sun I can’t see
For this one moment, I am weightless
I am lifted

I can’t believe the holidays are over. It’s so sickeningly overwhelming to me, facing the entire year in front of me. It’s even more depressing to think wow, I was home, I was with family, I was with friends… I was basically totally surrounded the entire time and now I’m back. It’s like the Lonelies had been sitting up waiting for me and they greeted me with enthusiastic hugs and “welcome backs!” the second I walked in my front door after 10 days away.

This place is such a drag. And by “this place” I don’t mean DC; I mean this place, my place right now, in life. I need something to look forward to and I can’t think of anything.

I realized while I was away one reason it’s so hard for me to make friends. This blog is so great for me because it’s like a release of all my innermost thoughts and somehow I feel that I can get away with it. But in real life, I have such a hard time exposing who I really am. There are two Megans, and they only get together when I’m with Lance, my family, or my closest friends (most of whom went to college with me).

The me that exists most of the time is sort of a suppressed me, a me that hides behind a big gummy smile. This is the me that my coworkers know, the me that drinks champagne and complains about work and life and marriage, and certainly doesn’t talk about my faith because when I do they don’t get me. I don’t mean they scoff or anything, they just don’t understand this part of me that is sold out to Jesus, this part of me that is passionately pursuing my God.

Then there’s the other me, the me that sings on the worship team at church and reads my Bible and prays and longs to talk about the Holy Spirit and has wonder in my heart that I reserve especially for the Father. That me only comes out sometimes, but when I’m that me I feel like the people around me don’t know about the me that curses when I’m angry and flips off dick-heads who honk at me when I’m walking to work, the me that drinks too much on occasion and complains a little too often.

The two me’s converged on New Year’s Eve. Most of my best friends from college and I, who haven’t seen each other in years, did shots of rum and chased them with coca-cola while steadily becoming more and more bleary-eyed, and then sat down in a circle and talked about how much the Lord loves us and how good He is. There was so much laughter and I felt so relaxed, so fully myself. But my heart ached because I knew it would come to an end all too soon and sure enough, it has.

So we’re back now; we stumbled in the front door at 3:15 this morning and I looked around at all my material bullshit that I obtained over the Christmas holiday. “Yay” I thought sardonically while the Lonelies gave me high-fives. “I can wear my new boots to work tomorrow.” And my heart is heavy and my back is actually aching from the piggy-back ride I’m currently giving the Lonely Family.

I hate that my first post back is so dreary, but I can’t help it – I feel so blue. I’ll write soon about how incredibly much fun my trip was and maybe I’ll post some of the dozens of pictures I took, and hopefully the good memories I made will snap me out of this funk.