Missing

When I was little, Mom homeschooled my brother and I, and for several years into our early childhood we weren't allowed to go get breakfast or watch TV in the morning until we had cuddled with her first. Every morning we'd clatter into her bedroom and dangle our muffed-up heads over her face as we asked, "Mom, can I go get some cereal?" "Mom, can I get up now?" "Mom, I think Kitty needs me..." 

"Just one quick snuggle..." she would say. 

She'd pull us under the covers and bury her nose in our warm, fluffy hair as she sighed with contentment. There's no real activity to cuddling, just resting and loving, so we'd tuck ourselves in tightly next to her, each on our own side, and lay there and let her warmth wash over us. 

When I was five the local newspaper came to our house and interviewed me because I had written them a letter. I thought they should do less stories about violence and more about cuddling. Somehow it made the front page. 

One of the last times I saw my mom truly alive (before the coma and respirator), she was laying in her hospital bed as Dad and I sat and talked with her. I was tired and she could tell, so she pulled the covers down and invited me to come up and take a nap with her. There wasn't a moment's hesitation as I pushed the tubes and wires aside and crawled into her big, squeaky hospital bed. I laid myself down in the nook that had always been mine on those mornings at home so long ago, and tucked my now bigger head under her chin, resting my cheek against the soft skin on her chest. My legs dangled off the foot of the bed as she wrapped her arms around me and kissed my hair. We drifted off to sleep together that way, soft and warm and overgrown. 

 I don't think I'll ever stop missing that.

Titanic

I was 12 when I first saw Titanic. I sat stock-still in the theater, enraptured but unflinching as 3 hours and 17 minutes of romance, drama, history, and tragedy assaulted and set fire to my preteen mind. When it ended, my dad and I exited in darkness and walked calmly to the car, chatting in the chilly California winter air. But I never made it to the car. At least not right away.

When I was five to ten feet from the trunk of our gray sedan, all of a sudden it all hit me. I froze. Every inch of the weight what I had just seen hit me all at once and I began to sob in the middle of the movie theater parking lot. My father who had gone ahead, turned and saw his only daughter suddenly weeping openly, and came back around to ask what was wrong. I couldn't explain, but continued to cry with heaving gasps that wracked my body.

We drove home and I continued to sob.

When we walked into the living room, my mom was sitting on the floor by the Christmas tree and innocently asked how we liked it. My eyes now dried, I opened my mouth to tell her, but as I did the sobs returned. "They just... They LOVED each other...! And... She said... she'd never... let go... And then SHE... DID...!"

I was inconsolable.

Tonight I saw James Cameron's record-breaking masterpiece, remastered in 3D, in a theater in Times Square. I LOVED it. The tears didn't hit me until I was on the subway platform, and made a steady stream on my cheeks as I rode home alone on the train. My heart feels tender and alive all over again.

15 years later. It still holds up.

Bad for Good

The story of Jesus standing before the tomb of Lazarus is an endless source of insight for me. As he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, Jesus was not smiling. He was angry. He was weeping. Why? Because death is a bad thing! Jesus wasn’t thinking, "They think that this is a tragedy, but no harm done! I’m about to raise him from the dead. This looks like a bad thing, but it’s not. It’s really a good thing! It’s a way for me to show my glory. It’s really exciting! I can’t wait!" He wasn’t thinking that. Jesus was weeping at the tomb, because the bad thing he’s about to work for good is bad. 

The story of Lazarus does not give you a saccharine view of suffering, saying bad things are really blessings in disguise or that every cloud has a silver lining. The Bible never says anything like that! God will give bad things good effects in your life, but they’re still bad. Jesus Christ’s anger at the tomb of Lazarus proves that he hates death. He also hates loneliness, alienation, pain, and suffering. Jesus hates it all so much that he was willing to come into this world and experience it all himself, so that eventually he could destroy it without destroying us. 

There’s no saccharine view in the Christian faith. The promise is not that if you love God, good things will happen in your life. The promise is not that if you love God, the bad things really aren’t bad; they’re really good things. The promise is that God will take the bad things, and he’ll work them for good in the totality.

-Tim Keller

Breath to Dry Bones

His eyes got big as I approached. "Hello!" he said. I responded with a cheerful "Hi!" and a big grin.

A few silent moments passed. "What do you do?" he finally asked. "You intrigue me. Tell me about yourself."

I swiped my credit card as he loaded my groceries into the brown paper bag.

Well, I work for a marketing company, but I don't DO marketing.

"So what do you do?"

I do all of our internal projects. Admin and stuff inside the company.

"That doesn't seem right. You're too outgoing, too alive."

Pause.
Well... I used to be an actress.

His eyes lit up in satisfaction before getting very serious.
"OH there we go. THAT'S it. ...But you didn't 'used to be' an actress. That never goes away-- you can't just turn that off. You're just playing the part of someone who works at a marketing company. You'll always be an actress."

Whoosh.