Triple Digits

Sooo, its August in southeast Texas. I am wondering if UTMB would consider a transfer to another city named Houston???



To give you some perspective...here are some actual thoughts that have entered my brain since August 1st rolled around this town.

• This egg could probably be cooked just as easily on the pavement
• I need to go grocery shopping...but that would actually require walking into the fires of Hell.
• Who invented windshield shades? can someone please call them as my other windows need shades too
• SPF 50 - you have failed me.
• If we moved the frozen corn over I'd have the perfect resting place for my face in this freezer.
• Sorry Nellie...you are just going to have to hold it.

Houston, Alaska...I am ready for you!!!

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. –Romans 4:18-21

At risk of sounding like a teenage girl, I must say it:

I want to make out with these words.

 Too much? Maybe so. By "make out" I mean, I want to read them, breathe them, and have their Spirit-filled wisdom seep into every ounce of soul. This passage comes at a good time as I’m finding that the realities of everyday, ordinary life have been consuming me. Not in a bad way necessarily. Everything is very normal and ordinary in our lives right now. We are working day in and day out. Friends come for dinner. We jaunt around town or around the house on weekends depending on what suits us. Andy is learning more and more in the lab and I am digging into a new job and some new volunteer activities that are utilizing my talents in cool, life-giving ways. But I found myself wondering this morning what was so extraordinary about the ordinary.

At the risk of sounding like a Debbie-downer, I must mention other things that continues to haunt me. Am I the only one that notices that A LOT of crappy stuff happens here in our world. And not just sometimes. Everyday! In the space of two weeks I learned about the passing of three people under the age of 30 in freak accidents. Two of them were sisters leaving their mom without her children. I hear these things and its as though my heart doesn’t know whether to leap out of my chest in anger or cower in a corner. What, exactly, are we supposed to do with these things?

Thankfully, when these moments come, Grace intervenes. I stumble upon a passage like the one above that beckons me to think differently.

A few months ago I was in the car on the way to work. I was very much on autopilot doing my usual 9,462 stops and starts at the absurd number of red lights that dot my commute down Broadway.

Confession here: I like me some Christian radio. I will be the first to admit that some of it is really, really bad music. No offense intended for those who thinks its all wonderful. Yet, sometimes, I wonder if Christian radio stations will play anything that comes from a band that puts Jesus in its song lyrics. Or do people truly believe that its better for their listeners if every lyric rhymes just perfectly with the next without regard for communicating any depth about the nature and character of God? Shameless plug. Come on people - lets sing deeply!

With that off my chest, I will whole heartedly admit that sometimes I just need to hear it. Even as I’m dumbfounded that this or that artist just rhymed the words savior and flavor (No, Jesus is not your favorite flavor. I promise you). I find with rare exception that I need to hear a different tune in my 15 minute drive to work than the one that life will sing at me in the ensuing 9 hours.

So there I am, stopping and starting at lights, and my radio hits a dead spot. I started to change the station but then heard smatterings of the two stations that my radio was stuck between: An NPR news channel and a Christian radio program. The following 30 seconds went something like this:

Christian Radio: “living He loved me, dying He saved me…”

NPR: “Riots continued in Egypt today…”

CR: “ …buried He carried my sins far away…”

NPR: “…30 killed in suicide bombing...”

CR: “…rising He justified, freely forever…”

NPR: “…Maria Shriver files for divorce today…”

CR: “One day He's coming…”

NPR: “Famine...Thousands...Dead.”

CR: “O Glorious Day!”

Now if this isn’t a picture of the gospel news, I don’t know what is. We all know that something has gone wrong. When 30 year-olds die in freak accidents its hard not to feel the weight of the fact that the world is groaning for redemption. I sense it in my soul. I sense it in the heartaches of friends and I sense it in the 30 seconds of failed frequency while waiting for a stop light. At the same time, I sense with deeper conviction that my heart must rest on the promise that at first started as an inkling and now shouts to me from the words of man who walked the world 2,000 years ago.

So I find myself at a crossroads sometimes. I could see the horrible irony of it all and continue to sway in the winds of reality that pull me from joy back to sorrow and from sorrow back to joy. Or I could rest on these ancient promises, be strengthened in faith through the Spirit of a living God, and give glory back to the One who provides eternal hope in the midst of these crushing temporal tragedies.

I pray daily for the grace to continue choosing the latter.

O Glorious Day.

A Texas Spring

"...But I'm a citizen of Texas and try to spend most of my time there. " -Thomas Haden Church

We've had a great Spring here on the island. Andy prepared for and passed his qualifiers in April. This was a big milestone for him and his work on campus. His final project was to defend a grant proposal that he had written before a committee of professors. He spent about an hour presenting his work and then his committee fired away with questions for another hour. The thought behind this portion of his schooling is to prove that students have learned enough in their classes to begin independent research in the lab. While stressful for candidates, I can tell that this is a really valuable exercise as its completely applicable to what future PhD's will be encountering in the work world after graduation.
He celebrated in great style and headed up to The Briar Shoppe in Houston to purchase his first professorial accoutrement: a pipe. Maybe by the time he graduates he'll have a tweed jacket and a leather recliner. For now, he's enjoying the art of weekend puff on the porch with his buddies.

We had visitors the following weekend for Easter. Alex and Cindy Myers and their son Charlie came for a visit. Alex was a roommate of Andy's in college and they have remained friends ever since. An amazing feat considering the tales I've heard of smelly feet and conflicting bedtimes, among other things. We love their friendship and had a blast showing them around town.

To round out the spring, we were able to head off for a week of vacation in May. Andy's brother James graduated from college in Boston and so we took the opportunity to tour a bit of the northeast. We visited our friends Jenna and Kim in Providence and then headed off to Cape Cod for a couple of days. I ate more lobster than in my whole lifetime combined and loved it. The highlight was a whale watch tour where we were able to see humpback whales out in the Atlantic. It was awesome! Made me want to give Moby Dick another shot now that I was "on location".

By the end of the week we realized how much Galveston island has had an effect on us. Andy became his typical goofy self and started channeling his favorite scene from his favorite cartoon: Spongebob Squarepants. I leave you now with the lyrics of "Texas" - written and sung by Sandy the Squirrell.

(Spongebob)


"What's wrong with Sandy?"



(Patrick)

"Maybe it's just a squirrel thing... "



(Sandy)

'Wish I was back in Texas,

The ocean's no place for a squirrel,

'Wish I was in Texas,

Prettiest place in the world, oh no.

I guess deep in my heart I'll always be a Texas girl

I wanna go hommmme hooommmmmme hommme oh oh

Yoldle ay e oh, yodle ay e oh, yodle ay e oh, a lay-ee,alay-ee.



I wanna wake up in Texas

I miss those wide open skies.

I miss my 20 acres, bar-b-ques,

And pecan pies, oh why?



When I'm so far from you, Texas, all I can do-o is cry.

Yoldle ay e oh,yodle ay e oh,yodle ay e oh,a lay-ee,a-lay-ee

I wanna go ho-oome,

Ho-oome, (a guy)I wanna go ho-ome!

Postmortem

I am about to write a post that I cant believe I am going to write. I'll be the first to admit that it's a bit odd at the healthy, young age of 27 to think about such things. But theres alot of things I never thought I'd do...or say...or think. Such is life. Here it goes.

I'm thinking about Death.

Death.

Dying.

Decay.

Are we uncomfortable yet? Me too.

A dear friend of ours is currently fighting for her life in Atlanta. A young mom in her 30s with 2 beautiful sons and a wonderful husband. I know her picture for her life did not include this. Nope. Alyson in a sterile hospital with chemotherapy coursing through her veins. Chemotherapy that makes her so weak that she faints when sitting up. Chemotherapy so toxic that it kills the good cells along with the bad requiring her to be away from her children for weeks on end. This is not what any of us pictured.

But its reality. and its a reality for millions of moms and dads. so are car wrecks and plane crashes and earthquakes and tsunamis.

I was sitting in my car preparing to head home the other day and stopped to check another Caring Bridge update from the Horton family on my iphone. There was hope and concern in Alyson's post. Hope that her HCG levels will remain low. Concern if they rise again that theres no more options. The reality of death hit me like a ton of bricks! We hope and pray that Alyson will live until she's 90. By God's grace, she will. I hope and pray that Andy and I will be old and rickety and running into each other with our walkers that have bright yellow tennis balls on the bottom.

But....What if that isn't to be?

It was such a paradox for me to be weighed down with this. Spring has sprung in Galveston and new life is everywhere. My plants are perking up, Nellie is anxious for walks and the windows have flown open to shake up the winter dust. But a part of me was suddenly wondering if I should be pulling out more stops. I should exercise more...or get more sleep...or stop talking into my "cancer inducing cell phone" or look into whats REALLY in our tap water, the hormone induced chicken that I will eat for dinner tonight...or the air I'm breathing in and out right now!!! I quickly realized how impractical I was being.

I got home and started up an after work conversation with Ola, our roomate. Her mom also has cancer, and she's recently received more bad news. Ola, a scientist, feels pressured to give her mom a hopeful answer. But the science doesn't necessarily back it.

What do we do with these realities? My life, my 27 years, suddenly felt so precarious. It could be over in an instant. In the history of the world, it IS an instant. A look at history will show Courtney Beck's 70, 80, 90 years as a blip. a single breath.

But I think I'm OK with that.

Here's why. Day by day I am learning that none of this is about me.

All of history, all of creation, every living thing, every day, every second of my life and yours is ordained by an all powerful and merciful Creator. It is a severe mercy and a profound grace that keeps my heart beating and my lungs breathing and my mind thinking day in and day out. Science explains it. And God ordains it. I can exercise all I want or eat as much organic spinach as I can fit in my stomach and still be hit by a car tomorrow. And not a single moment would be out of God's design.

Alyson's cancer is not a surprise to God. God wasn't sitting in the doctors office with Alyson and overcome by the surprise of it all. He's not hitting Jesus on the head and asking him to figure out the next step. IT WAS A PART OF THE PLAN ALL ALONG.

Death is part of the plan for a broken world. A broken world where we all still think we're the center of attention. A broken world where I unintentionally, and if I'm honest, sometimes intentionally, hurt those I love. When its all about me, then death is a part of the plan. Because I did not create myself. And a world perfected will be a world where my life is lived in worship and thanksgiving to the One who created me. He gives and He takes away and we live each day in this not-yet-perfect world preparing through grace for a perfect one that is to come.

Thank you Jesus that cancer does not have the last word. Thank God that the sufferings of this world are not the means to the end. My joy has returned as quickly as it threatened to leave.

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And i heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order off things has passed away.' " Rev. 21: 1-4