Quote of the Day #3

"La-la-la, I'M Emily GOLDberg! And me and the Holy Spirit are just like so totally BFF that He just does my homework for me!!"

-Gabe Richarde, imitating me after Rach told him she was on her way to hang out with me on Monday night.


Me and the Holy Spirit are absolutely just like so totally BFF.

Unfortunately for my finals week, He has yet to agree to do my homework for me.

Quote of the Day, Wednesday

"Your frustration delights me, to be honest!"

-Dr. Ewert, my Economic Growth and Development prof.

Apparently feeling overwhelmed at the task of identifying the foundational macroeconomic problems which contribute to the street child phenomenon in Bolivia and providing several key potential solutions...
means I'm on the right track.

I love our profs and that they want us to learn and grow and be challenged.

(I'll just keep repeating that over and over as I write this paper...)

Quote of the Day

"We are going to learn SO MUCH! Look how much there is to learn."

-beautiful Christine Emilie Kirschner, as we sit stressed over our laptops in the Stupe.

It's true. My education is an amazing gift. I love learning.

I just suck at writing papers. But, I LOVE FREAKING LEARNING. Heck yes.

*takes big deep breath... continues work on Spanish paper...*

Why I Love Talking To Claire

"Did I ever tell you about the painting I love? No? OK, I used to have this Georgia O'Keefe painting on my computer, and tonight I realized I haven't looked at it for awhile so I went and found it and I just love it so much, I've spent the rest of the night just looking at it. It just makes me so happy... I love the color of the sky. It's just so blue. Aahhh!!! It's just like... as soon as I started looking at it, my heart filled up."

Reassurance.

I got two emails this week from my organization in Bolivia about what I'll be doing, logistics, etc. At this point it's our responsibility to be in contact with them, something I have been putting off, because I wasn't sure what I was "supposed" to say. Last night when I got the second one I was like, hmm, I'm not sure how to respond to this, I'm still unclear on some details and should probably double-check them with someone first, I wonder what I should say or what's appropriate, and my Spanish is definitely not good enough, oh well, it's too late to call Ryan so I guess I'll just handle it tomorrow.

And THEN I'm like, ok, why am I really not sending this email. I'm not sending this email because I'm scared. I'm scared that I'll somehow offend these women (What if in Bolivia you're not supposed to say "So excited" three times in an email? Maybe using the same salutation they used to me is disrespectful. I used an online translator for the word eagerly but what if its connotations come out to more like impatient, etc, etc...). And I'm scared because I don't want to use Spanish without having someone check it first.

And then it occurred to me that in like, LESS THAN TWO MONTHS I am going to be LIVING in Bolivia, working with these people, HAVING TO SPEAK SPANISH... ALL THE TIME. Calling up Ryan or Claire or Lauren before every conversation to make sure my verb tense is correct is um, not going to happen.

So I wrote the freaking email. In Spanish. And I sent it to the organization without having HNGR officially approve it 8 times. I know, right?!! How hard core am I. JK...

OK, now that I've written this down it sounds like not that big a deal.

But I am so someone who loves to triple-check things with other people to make sure I am doing the right thing. As in if I have to get dressed and leave the apartment without one of my roommates to tell me I look okay it really stresses me out. (After doing this to Amy M every morning this summer, I asked her if she knew that having me live with them would mean constant reassurance. She said yes immediately :-)).

And I don't just like reassurance about clothes.

I like reassurance that I definitely didn't hurt anyone's feelings...
and that I didn't sound awkward around a boy I like...
and that no, I'm not really a terrible friend for being late/forgetting a Saga date/forgetting a birthday/not having time to hang out...
and that yes, it is okay to put homework before friends/friends before homework/sleep before anything...
and that I will pass these classes and finish these papers...
and that Jesus will still like me if I...

Wow. Typed out, that sounds like a joke, but I remember specific conversations making people reassure me about each of those this week. And probably every week.

I am pretty much reassurance-dependent.

And I'm about to go spend six months where it will be a lot harder to get that. About my Spanish and my cultural acceptability. But maybe also about the scarier, deeper things I really like having people reassure me about. Like that I'm liked, and loved, and that people feel close with me and my friendships are strong. That God is pleased with me and is at work in my life. That I am in fact useful, and helpful, and fun, and "doing good".

I'm sure I will develop relationships close enough where I can get reassurance on some of those things, and I'm sure through email people here will be able to maintain their awesome-reassurer status' to some degree; but not as much as I'm used to, as much as I would like (aka, all the time, about everything).

I think I'm going to learn a lot of Spanish on this trip, and a lot about people, and economic systems contributing to poverty, and about living without the conveniences I'm used to, etc.

But maybe I'm also going to learn a little bit about how to live without constant reassurance that everything I do and everything I am is just great. Maybe I'll learn how to do more hard and scary things (like, you know, sending emails).

Maybe I'll learn more about what it means to find strength in God's view of me, not other people's; and about trusting that goodness and purpose will come out of my life because He redeems imperfect things, not because my best efforts are particularly productive. And about being okay with that.

I think I need to learn those things.

(In the course of writing this blog post, I called Mary and she reassured me that she's SURE my email to Mosoj Yan was probably JUST FINE!)

Santa Biblia

This sweet couple from my church who found out I'm going to Bolivia gave me a Spanish Bible last week (have I mentioned I love my church?).

I'm having a blast trying to read it. I thought it might be a good idea to go over some of my favorite passages in Spanish so that then when I'm on HNGR and feeling overwhelmed and like everything is alien, at least some words will be familiar. I want to get used to hearing from God in Spanish.

The problem, though, is that I'm realizing it's making me feel WAY over-confident in my Spanish skills (read: I don't really have any Spanish skills). Example: Psalm 139. I've had this memorized since, oh, about 10th grade? It's like my favorite ever. I read it every day for a month with Marissa this summer. It's not exactly random words to me.

So here's my thought process as I read:

"Señor, tú me examinas, tú me conoces. Sabes cuándo me siento y cuándo me levanto; aun a la distancia me lees el pensamiento... Oh yeah, I TOTALLY know what this means! Oh man, this is so easy. I am GREAT at Spanish. Let's see, 'At a distance... You read my thoughts'. Oh, CLEARLY. Oh yeah. Me and Spanish, we're totally down."

Right, because the fact that I KNOW THAT PASSAGE IN ENGLISH has NOTHING to do with the fact that I decided to translate "pensamiento" as "thoughts", even though I've never heard it before and if someone just threw it out in, oh, say, conversation (or a quiz!) I wouldn't have a clue.

So yeah, basically reading stuff I'm familiar with in English in Spanish makes me feel way more confident in my abilities than, oh, attempting to speak with someone does. I suppose this could be dangerous, but instead I'm just hoping it will have magical placebo-ish effects and that feeling all "I think I can, I think I can!" will mean I hop off the plane and immediately start chattering away like Salma Hayek. Es posible, no?!

But, even though someone coming up to me on the street and announcing, "I praise You because You knit me together in my mother's womb!" would prooobably not mean much out of context to my woefully-gringa ears at this point...

...the fact is, it is really fun to go over these words that I'm starting to be able to sort of pick out, and let God comfort me through another language... a beautiful one.

Take this passage:

Tu protección me envuelve por completo;
me cubres con la palma de tu mano.
Conocimiento tan maravilloso rebasa mi comprensión;
tan sublime es que no puedo entenderlo.

Your protection envelops me completely; You cover me with the palm of Your hand. This knowledge is too marvelous for my comprehension; it's so wonderful that I can't understand it.

Now that's just beautiful in any language.

Happy Birthday Mary W!!!!!!!!!!

I love you so much, my sweet friend... you have impacted my life more than you know. You have brightened so many of my days, spoken truth into my life, and encouraged me in a million ways. I truly know and love God more because I know you.

You are beautiful and you are going to be SUCH an incredible mother... I am so excited for you and Wolf, and Rex is such a lucky baby :-)

I am just really excited to meet this child...


These are flowers that Mary dropped by my house on her way to work one day this summer (she was sick, I might add). For no reason. Just one of the trillion and five examples of how she is always thinking of others and making their lives more joyful.

Happy 25th Birthday!!!!!!!!!! I love you!!!!!!!!!!!!

Somali Momma

As part of the preparation for HNGR, all of the interns sign up to tutor refugee families through World Relief. All year, my sweet friend Lauren and I have gone over twice a week to the apartment of a Somalian family in our neighborhood to practice English. And by practice English, I really mean spend an hour chasing around and tickling three adorable and VERY energetic little kids (Lauren always gets more actual tutoring done than me...).

HNGR tells us that this experience is what will help us the most for being immersed in another culture. I thought that what they meant was that spending all that time in the home of someone from another culture would be good preparation for being in our host culture, and that's definitely been true. But I think even more getting to know the family and what they've gone through adjusting to an entirely different world has made me realize just how difficult that is. One of my biggest hopes for my time in Bolivia is that the times when I feel lonely, frustrated, misunderstood, and totally out of my element, will really give me a new understanding of how it is for the thousands of people who come to America every year and try to start a new life. Unlike me, they're not living in a new culture for a study abroad or a cool adventure.

Our friends lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for twelve years before they came here. One of the moms (the family consists of two brothers and their wives) birthed three children there, two of whom are still alive. She's two years older than me. Lauren once asked Madina, the other mom (she's 20, like us), what her hopes for the future were. She answered immediately, "To go back to Somalia". They're here seeking a safe place to raise their children, learning the language, working hard, in a culture totally foreign to them (not to mention climate!). And judging from their children (between the two families, there's a 6 year old, 4 year old, almost-3 year old, 10 month old, and newborn), who are some of the most joyful, engaging kids I've ever met, they're doing an incredible job.

Wow, this was supposed to be a funny post! Anyway, today Madina, Lauren and I went to the park with the four oldest kids. We had a blast- I love whenever we do something with them outside of tutoring, because I feel like we get to connect in a different way (for example, today Madina and I talked about boys. It's somewhat concerning to them that I, unlike Lauren and our friend Lucy who's come a few times, am not dating. "Why you no have boyfriend?? Everyone else have boyfriend! You need to get married, have babies!!" Mm, well...)

OK, so we're at the park and I'm pushing Aisha (10 months) on the swing. A couple next to us smiles and tells me she's beautiful, asks how old she is, etc. I smile and chat and agree and coo at their baby, etc, and then the mom asks, "So, she's adopted?". Uh... "No, she's my friend's...", I point to Madina. Ohhh, OK.

Later I whisper, "Madina, they thought she was my baby!" She starts laughing. "But she so black! You white!"

She always carries her wrapped in a sling on her back, and I asked if I could do it on the way home. She shook her head at me, but tied her up on my back. It was way more comfortable than carrying her, my arms were totally free. I loved walking around the park with her but it was kind of disconcerting not being able to see her... I kept trying to make sure she wasn't falling out, and Madina was all, "No, she asleep!". It's true. I pushed the rest of the kids on the swing and talked on my cell phone and she was totally conked out against my spine. Also all the other parents at the park gave us kind of funny looks but smiled. I loved it.

When we got back we thought Arbay, her sister-in-law, would think it was funny to see me dressed like a "Somali momma" so I ran upstairs to show her. I walked in and she and the grandmother both cracked up. "Do we look cool? Do I look like a Somalian mom?", I asked. Arbay shook her head... "Yeah, like a Somalian mom. Very cool!"

More from Peace Like A River...

I just love this book!

"...we're fearful people, the best of us. We see a newborn moth unwrapping itself and announce, Look, children, a miracle! But let an irreversible wound be knit back to seamlessness? We won't even see it, though we look at it every day."

Mmm.

(I love that God makes something beautiful out of our broken and scariest places. Do I notice them?)

Like A Rope Ladder

Sarah gave me Peace Like a River last year. (Isn't that just the best present, a book that meant something to someone you love?). I've been rereading it and remembering why I loved it so much the first time... great plot, beautiful and believable characters- and writing that is breathtaking. I don't normally write in my novels but I underlined all the way through, because his phrasings and use of language is just perfect.

The coffeepot was in the kichen, and the action pretty much stayed there. Swede said no conversation in any room but the kitchen was worth overhearing anyway...

A word I hadn't heard before; it almost gave me the giggles. Ratfink. It's vulgar, I know it. One of those terms that makes it worthwhile having enemies.

I succeeded in worrying about this escalation business for a good day and a half before worry died, as usual, at the hands of routine.

"Thanks so much," she said, and may we all be paid one day with looks such as she gave Dad.

I didn't hear what she said but can see their hands touching- not a passionate clasp but an easy timeless transaction as old as Scripture.

This is one of my favorites- the one that made me want to write this post:

Many a night I woke to the murmur of paper and knew he was up, sitting in the kitchen with frayed King James- oh, but he worked that book; he held to it like a rope ladder.

Isn't that just such a great description? I love writing. Yay for books. Peace Like A River, I totally recommend it (Mom, I think you would like this one).

"Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern-
it will come out a rose by and by.
Life is like that...
one stitch at a time, taken patiently."

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Easter Greetings

Traditional version
Person 1: He is risen!
Person 2: He is risen indeed!

(I love that one, btw)

The Mary-and-Emily version
Person 1: HAPPY EASTER!
Person 2: HAPPY EASTER!! I LOVE YOU!
Person 1: Love you too- Oh! He is risen!!!
Person 2: He is risen, oh, YAY, He is risen!!!
Person 1: Yayyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alleluia!

Good Friday, part two

Last night my church held a Good Friday service. Anita, the pastor's wife, brought a big bowl of mud (yes, I'm serious, mud from the backyard mixed in with Worceshire (sp?) sauce and vinegar... I love my church), and during worship we took turns going up quietly, ladling mud into a plastic cup and then dumping it out and throwing the cup away. She explained that the mud was to represent all of our sin, the things we've done wrong, the things about us that are wrong... the things the devil loves to remind us of. She pointed out that Easter means God has forgiven us of those things... He sees us as "mudless" and clean. It sounds kind of cheesy typed out, but I really loved it: I'm a kinesthetic learner, and I also have felt particularly aware of my long list of disappointing qualities lately. So ladling this mud into a cup, I could think of some pretty specific things it represented. And pouring it out was a sweet visual. Thanks be to God.

Then today I read this on the "Stuff Christians Like" blog. If you haven't read this blog, btw, I HIGHLY recommend you go check it out, it's amazing ("Joking about Sex at Weddings", "10 Styles of Hand-Raising During Worship", or my personal favorite, "Confessing Safe Sins"). Normally, it's hilarious with a slight dose of "Hm, maybe we do do that and it is weird or possibly even harmful". But every once in awhile he does a really serious one that is great. This one actually made me choke up a little bit today. In light of the holiday and particularly the visual of that mud getting dumped out, I thought I'd share it... Stuff Christians Like #512: Thinking You're Naked:

"I don't want to brag, but I'm pretty awesome at applying band-aids. And make no mistake, there is an art. Because if you go too quickly and unpeel them the wrong way, they stick to themselves and you end up with a wadded up useless mess instead of the Little Mermaid festooned bandage your daughter so desperately wants to apply to a boo boo that may in fact be 100% fictional.

Half of the injuries I treat at the Acuff house are invisible or simply wounds of sympathy. My oldest daughter will scrape her knee and my 3-year old, realizing the band aid box is open will say, "Yo dad, I'd like to get in on that too. What do you say we put one on, I don't know, my ankle. Yeah, my ankle, let's pretend that's hurt."

But sometimes the cuts are real, like the day my 5-year old got a scrape on her face playing in the front yard. I rushed in the house and returned with a princess bandage. As I bent down to apply it to her forehead, her eyes filled up with tears and she shrunk back from me.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I don't want to wear that band-aid." She replied.

"Why? You have a cut, you need a band-aid." I said.

"I'll look silly." She answered.

Other than her sister and her mom, there was no one else in the yard. None of her friends were over, cars were not streaming passed our house and watching us play, the world was pretty empty at that moment. But for the first time I can remember, she felt shame. She had discovered shame. Somewhere, some how, this little 5 year old had learned to be afraid of looking silly. If I was smarter, if I had been better prepared for the transition from little toddler to little girl, I might have asked her this:

"Who told you that you were silly?"

I didn't though. That question didn't bloom in my head until much later and I didn't understand it until I saw God ask a similar question in Genesis 3:11. To me, this is one of the saddest and most profoundly beautiful verses in the entire Bible. Adam and Eve have fallen. The apple is a core. The snake has spoken. The dream appears crushed. As they hide from God under clothes they've hastily sewn together, He appears and asks them a simple question:

"Who told you that you were naked?"

There is hurt in God's voice as He asks this question, but there is also a deep sadness, the sense of a father holding a daughter that has for the first time ever, wrapped herself in shame.

Who told you that you were not enough?

Who told you that I didn't love you?

Who told you that there was something outside of me you needed?

Who told you that you were ugly?

Who told you that your dream was foolish?

Who told you that you would never have a child?

Who told you that you would never be a father?

Who told you that you weren't a good mother?

Who told you that without a job you aren't worth anything?

Who told you that you'll never know love again?

Who told you that this was all there is?

Who told you that you were naked?

I don't know when you discovered shame. I don’t know when you discovered that there were
people that might think you are silly or dumb or not a good writer or a husband or a friend. I don't know what lies you've been told by other people or maybe even by yourself.

But in response to what you are hearing from everyone else, God is still asking the question, "Who told you that you were naked?"

And He's still asking us that question because we are not.

In Christ we are not worthless.

In Christ we are not hopeless.

In Christ we are not dumb or ugly or forgotten.

In Christ we are not naked.

Isaiah 61:10 it says:
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness.

The world may try to tell you a thousand different things today. You might close this post and hear a million declarations of what you are or who you'll always be, but know this.

As unbelievable as it sounds and as much as I never expected to type this sentence on this blog:

You are not naked."

Good Friday

I love this picture.

Allison Louise

My sister is visiting and it is fabulous.

I love her a lot. I am going to have major separation anxiety tomorrow when she goes back home.

More Dad-on-Facebook Fun

He has a small photo album up, mostly with pictures of me and Allie. Per my request, under one  particularly unfortunate one of me at 14, he's posted: "To: Everyone Who Might Be Viewing This Photo- Please be informed that my daughters no longer look like this. They have grown out of that awkward phase, and now have blossomed into graceful beautiful young women. Sincerely, Their Dad."

John (the best friend) had several impressively long and unfamiliar words in his status and religious views, so I looked them up and posted the definitions on his wall, thanking him for helping me study for the GRE. He's now left me six wall posts with different words-of-the-day. Sweet.

I love my family.

Oh, wow.

My dad now has a facebook.

And so does his best friend, and I just looked at their wall-to-wall, and they've been quoting Beatles lyrics and philosophical statements (with lots of exclamation points) on each other's walls all week. Because what else would a psychiatrist and a neurosurgeon do between patients?