My Bucket List

I like to think about eternity, and sometimes I long for heaven - to be rid of this world and be with my Lord in person, forever.

Buuuut, I'm not there.  I'm here.

My older brother once told me that only 3 things last forever:  God, God's Word, and people's souls, and that I need to invest myself in all three.

I believe this.

That said, while I'm here on this Earth, I decided to make a little bucket list of less important things I would also like to do.

Here be that list (in no particular order):

1. Visit NYC (I've never been!)

2. While there, see a Broadway show

3. Own a real camera and learn how to use it

4. Go skydiving (Matt isn't comfortable with me doing this, but I'm hopeful he'll warm up to it)

5. Repaint a piece of furniture

6. Acquire an impressive collection of classic British literature, read them all, and display them on beautiful, built-in bookshelves

7. Have children

8. Can something (like pickles)

9. Globe trot with Matt to Europe and Southeast Asia 

10. Grow a successful garden

11. Run a marathon (nah)

12. Master the moonwalk

13. Paint or draw something that I would be glad to hang in my home

14. Start a school

15. Get Lasik

16. Find cool things at thrift shops and relish in my savings

That's it for now.  Perhaps some of these are overly ambitious, others not ambitious enough. 

It is what it is.

I figure I'll be adding new items to my list as time goes by and as I (hopefully) accomplish some of these things.

He speaks

My new pal Cassie (fellow med school wife) got up early and ran a Kansas City half marathon this morning. So proud of her.  I stayed home and ate pancakes.

Her race did cause me to reflect on something the Lord did for me though, which is always a good use of my time.  Allow me to share.

First, I feel it must be said that there is nothing grand about me that would warrant God's special attention and favor, just like there was nothing special about Jesus's disciples when he lived on this earth.  They were blundering and flawed, and they often misunderstood him.  And yet, he lovingly devoted his time to them and shared wonderful secrets of God's Kingdom with them, these ordinary men.

This gives me such hope.  Some days, I am more aware of my ordinariness.  My flaws.  My selfishness. My human condition.

And then, almost at the same time, I am made aware of Christ.  His grandeur.  His love.  His grace extended to me- another one of his flawed disciples.

With all this in mind, I was reflecting on a past time when God spoke to me in a dream.  This is not typical for me.  Some don't believe that He still does that.  All I know is that I had this dream, it specifically addressed a deep-rooted concern I had, and peace flooded my heart in the morning.  I credit it to Him.  I believe He gave me this dream for no other reasons than to comfort me, build my faith in him, and make himself more known to me (and perhaps to others now), because He is kind and good.

The events leading up to the dream are of importance.  That particular year, I was faced with some simultaneous challenges, each of which I felt ill-equipped for.  Challenges that frazzled me, exhausted me, and eventually left me feeling totally burned out and defeated.  Battling fatigue and hopelessness, I felt like seriously giving up.  I remember coming home and laying prostrate on the ground before God, crying.  I cried on the couch.  In my car.  As I was falling asleep.  Mind you, I am not usually a basket case.  But during this season, I felt so fragile.  So done.  I desperately wanted to escape these challenges, and I often daydreamed about ways of escape, which provided some fleeting hope.  If I wasn't daydreaming, then I escaped through sleep.

I felt like I had nothing left to give and had firmly decided that I was just not up to the task(s) - end of story.

One night, before falling asleep, I lay in my bed.  And the only prayer I could muster was a whimpering, "God, you said that you're the God of All Comfort.  I need you to comfort me."  And with that, I fell asleep.  Tear-stained face and pillow.

And I dreamt. ********************************************************************************************

I dreamt I was running a marathon.  Not running.  BOUNDING.  With strength and purpose!  Only a mile left to go.  My lungs felt strong.  My legs felt strong.  My mind was clear.  People were cheering along the streets.  I saw the finish line and sprinted towards it.  As I crossed the tape, arms raised and victorious, I looked up at my time on the clock - 15:00:00.  (Huh, 15 hours is not a great time for a marathon.  I was puzzled, knowing I had run a good race.  I concluded that the 15 must stand for something other than hours.)

Reporters flanked me - "How did you run such a great race, Liane?"  "Tell us about your training!"  "How do you feel?!"  I caught my breath, shrugged, and said I had been doing flexibility training (?? - ha!)

The dream ended, and I woke with an inexplicable peace and a clear promise in my head -

"Don't you know that the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth?  He never grows faint or weary...He gives power to those who are tired and worn out; He offers strength to the weak.  Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up.  But those who wait on the Lord will find new strength.  They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary.  They will walk and not faint."                                                                                                         Isaiah 40:28-31

************************************************************************************************************
I wrote the dream down right away and told Matt about it.  Then, out of curiosity, I felt compelled to check my calendar to see how many weeks I had left to complete my season of challenge.  Guess how many weeks I had left.  - Fifteen.  Exactly fifteen.

Tears came to my eyes - different tears than the ones that had flowed not even 10 hours before.  These were tears of hope.

Again I lay prostrate before Him.  But this time, worshipping.  Not groaning.

Why does He care to speak to me???  But He does!!!!!!!!!

Just as exciting to me about Him speaking this promise, is Him FULFILLING this promise.  It wasn't just nice words to think on to temporarily dull the pain.  No!  He actually did them!

"First, I predicted your deliverance; I declared what I would do,
and then I did it - I saved you."                                                                                                                                                                           Isaiah 43:12

After taking a closer look at "those who wait on the Lord will find new strength," I learned that the word "wait" here comes from the Hebrew word meaning "to hope expectantly" - it is a very active waiting.  Not a passive waiting.

Well, hope expectantly I did.  I returned to my place of challenge.  And amazingly...

• Where I was confused, He provided clarity.
• Where I was at a loss for ideas, He gave me fresh ideas.
• Where I was tired, He gave me focus and energy.

He gave me new perspective, strengthened my stamina, even granted me joy when I was in the thick of (previously dreaded) duties.  It was nothing short of divine.  I know that I did not muster this in myself.  God granted it.  And each week that past, with Him sustaining me and helping me, the more I came to hope and expect Him to continue helping me, which was the only mentioned prerequisite for experiencing this new strength.

And I learned (perhaps for the first time, really) what "His power is made perfect in weakness" means.  I learned it when I was at my lowest and the utter end of my capacity.  This is when He showed Himself mighty for me.

Interestingly, my situation did not change.  The challenges remained, crazy opposition was still needing to be handled, etc.  But it felt SO DIFFERENT from before when my hope was dwindling and my strength was squelched.  He saved me from my hopelessness.

I used to inaccurately think that God would not give me more than I can handle, but later I realized I was misquoting to myself I Corinthians 10:13, which is just referring to not being tempted beyond what I can bear.  A very different point, indeed.

Suffering DOES come.  Sometimes I DO feel overwhelmed.  Sometimes I CAN'T handle it.

This morning, after remembering my suffering and the Lord's deliverance, I read Paul's words and was deeply encouraged again:

"We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it.  In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead.  And He did deliver us from mortal danger.  And we are confident that He will continue to deliver us.”                                                                        II Corinthians 1:8-10

I joked in a recent post how I was thinking of making a t-shirt that says "my husband does exist" (for those who never see him because he's always studying for med school).
  
Now, I want to proclaim that God exists!  He's real.  My heart bears witness to it.  He is an ever present help in times of suffering.

Our Thankful Tree

Collected some branches from outside to fill our empty dining table vases and as a nod to Fall.  Matt asked me if I had checked them for ticks.  I can't say that I did, but I tend not to worry about that kind of stuff.  I did brush them off with my hands and made sure they didn't have any cobwebs.  So as far as I'm concerned, they're practically store bought!

A few weeks ago, I had collected and displayed a few branches that had colorful leaves.  But then, naturally, the leaves dried up and the branches looked sad and silly.  This tends to happen to plants when they are not given any water.

So this time, I collected branches that had already shed their leaves.  After gathering, arranging, and standing back to admire my work, the naked branches looked a little blah.  Matt agreed.

So I thought I would make some paper leaves for them that won't die.

Then the Thanksgiving spirit grabbed hold of me, and I decided to write a few things I am thankful to the Lord for on those leaves.  I didn't originally intend the branches for this purpose, but now I really like our little "Thankful Tree" (which I'm sure is not original and is probably pinned all over the place on pinterest - in fact, I saw a similar idea done for a fundraising event by our school's PTO recently.  So full artistic credit is not due me.)

Our Thankful Tree.

 It's fun to let new friends who come over add a leaf of their own to the Thankful Tree.

I'm trying to be thankful for our camera, which focuses inconsistently and forces me to do some creative editing (as evidenced in the very different styled pictures above.)

What are you thankful for?

A week to enjoy

Matt finished his grueling finals week for the musculoskeletal block (insert loud cheers and applause!) and recently enjoyed a week off (more or less).

He had asked me to plan some fun events for his week off.  So plan I did.  With the help of giftcards and groupons, I'd say we had a successful week of entertainment with our med school budget still in tact.  Thank you, Lord!

First, we toasted the week with pumpkin spice lattes.  A big thank you to my thoughtful mother-in-law for the giftcard.  I do not hate on commercialism, ...especially in the form of delicious treats.

Here are some other fun things Matt got to experience post finals.  The zoo was offering half off admission for Clay County residents.  That's us!

There was something sweet about this elephant to me.

meerkats.  Which one do you like best?  I'm partial to the two standing up.

yikes!

It's hard to see, but this is a field of lounging kangaroos (picture taken from the path that I heeded to stay on.)

Later in the day, while we were quietly observing the bat-eared fox, we heard several magnificently loud roars coming from nearby.  My ears perked!  My eyebrows raised!  My childlike curiosity kicked in, and with mouth agape, I set aside my dignity and ran in the direction of those roars, not wanting to miss the action.  I assumed Matt was behind me, but I didn't slow my pace to check.  Bag flopping by my side.  Scarf loosening and unraveling round my neck.  I didn't care.  I wanted to see that lion.  I imagined the ravenous beast wowing onlookers during feeding time, exposed teeth ripping into the meat, majestic flowing mane!

You can imagine my disappointment when I came around the corner and saw...this.  Matt showed up shortly after I did.  There were some others that had followed the noise too, and we all just stood there, bewildered.  We figured that the roars must have been a recording that the zoo was playing over the speakers.  Tricky.

Despite the lion letdown, we liked the Kansas City Zoo very much.  It's remarkably scenic and pretty.  Sometimes I forgot I was at the zoo and felt like I was taking a walk through the countryside.  Though the air was chilly, we enjoyed strolling around, breathing in the beauty of Fall.

Another great feature about this zoo is the African Sky Safari. 

 

lifting off

 

 

white capped and gray coated lovebirds

Later in the week, we made our way to the National WWI Museum (thank you groupon!)

There is much I do not understand about this war, it being so complex.  Still, I enjoyed gathering at least a little more knowledge about it.

WWI surgical tools

Outside of the museum, visitors are allowed up to the top of the 217 ft. Memorial Tower which overlooks the city.  I was so excited about it all day.  However, when we went to take our ride to the top, we found that it had, moments before, closed for the day while we were tootling around reading every descriptive caption in the museum.  Bummer.  First the lions, now the tower.  Oh well.  Here's the outside anyway. :)

Our disappointment was assuaged at the Blue Nile Ethiopian cafe (thanks again groupon!)

Matt had not yet met my church gospel community group.  I almost made a t-shirt that says, "My husband does exist", but now I don't have to.  The community group came over for dinner and some good old fashion board games one night.  We mingled, we laughed, we ate.  It was a good time.  And they got to see this mysterious husband of mine that I have been speaking of.  He's real.

We discovered that Catch Phrase is way more fun if each player has to say their clue with an accent.  We had several accents represented, including English, Indian, pirate, and Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

Towards the end of the week, we drove north to the historic town of Weston, MO.  It is quaint and charming, surrounded by rolling pastures.

We stopped by this cute little winery,

Matt embraced his sophisticated, pipe-smoking side with some fellow med students,

and we popped into the local Irish pub where this gentlemen was playing a mean bagpipe.  While I unabashedly do not care for beer and am only an occasional (sweet) wine sipper, I rather enjoyed myself at the Irish pub and found myself wanting to practice my Irish accent for a future game of Catch Phrase.

We topped off the week with some fireplace s'mores.  And called it good.

I am grateful that the Lord created both work and rest.  and fun!  He has proven faithful with great, big matters of my heart AND with little, seemingly insignificant details, like my husband re-energizing and enjoying a week off from studying.  I have been considering again this week Psalm 37:23 - "The Lord directs the steps of the godly.  He delights in every detail of their lives." 

I just love how intimately He is acquainted with us, caring about the details.  Thank You, Jesus, for a week to enjoy.