kid lit and dads who listen.

"She... thought of how when her sister had played her flute, whatever her father was doing, however busy he was, he would listen, gently opening all the doors between the place where he was working, and wherever Clem was practising."

          - Binny for Short by Hilary McKay, pg. 14

I'm a part of that strange family of people that prefers children's literature over adult literature. It's not that I don't like solid adult fiction or a good biography -- it's just that I find the humour and kindness and gentleness and unique perspective of children's literature to often be more enjoyable than the sometimes exhaustive emotional roller coaster plots of adult fiction. Whether this is an indicator of my maturity level... well, we won't go there today.

Anyway, I've been busy reading some kid lit over the last week and the quote up at the top is from a book I just finished. The 12-year-old protagonist is calling to mind memories of her father who died a few years before -- and when I read this my breath caught in my throat a little bit because I had this moment where a fictional phrase is so real and mirrors a past moment so acutely that you have to read it again just to make sure you're not imagining things.

It's just a sentence, just a subtle phrase that most readers skim over to get to the next paragraph. But in my own life, for my family -- this exact thing happened countless times. One of us would close the doors to the living room after pulling a violin out of its case or snapping the piano light on, not wanting to disturb the peace of the rest of the house with messy scales and unsuccessful attempts at sight-reading. And sure enough, a few minutes later, one door would swing open, then another, and sometimes he would come through one of them and stand with his ear to the music and his hand on the bannister and just look out the window, and other times there would be nobody there, just silently opened doors and a dad sitting back down at the kitchen table, preferring the full-volume effect of jolty quasi-musical phrases and cries of artistic frustration to accompany his paperwork.

For a little while after he was gone, playing music felt lonely. The doors remained shut. I'd look up, half-expecting to see him standing at the bannister, even though I knew he wouldn't be there. And then I'd feel a little bit annoyed, because he should be there and it's weird that he's not because he was just there, just a few weeks ago, and he was just laughing, and he was just eating dinner across the table from me and it seemed so terribly stupid that someone who was so completely alive is -- just -- not.

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I came across 1 Corinthians 15:21 last week. It read, "For as by man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive."

Some people find the resurrection of the dead simply unbelievable, too far-fetched, too sci-fi. For me, the reality of the resurrection is inescapable. Experiencing the death of a loved one is strange and bizarre. But I can recall looking at the shell lying in the casket and thinking that there was something missing, something so glaringly huge. And I thought, his soul is not here. If someone who was so alive, so full of laughter, just recently mashing up shepherd's pie on his dinner plate could be so quickly lying here in this shiny casket, how swiftly can his soul be filled with life, real eternal life.

I am not an exegetical genius, but I do know that we are quick to think that by man came death, evil, sin; I know that we are quick to limit the power of the Almighty God and think that that is the end. But that is not the end. That is never the end. In Christ shall all be made alive, and no, not in these lousy bodies that get the flu and get sunburned and get choked up with cancer and darkness. Our souls, our new bodies, these will be made alive in Christ. We were created in His image, and as Christ lives and will live and reign eternally, as co-heirs and sons and daughters of the Lord, so shall we.

 Thank God for fathers, here and already there.

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the wedding pt. 8: flowers.

Flowers at weddings are odd things. When else in your life do you ever hold a bunch of flowers in an awkward-yet-queenly sort of way for an entire day? At any other time in your life this would be considered abnormal behaviour. But no -- today, on this momentous day of days, you are allowed to hold a bunch of flowers for hours on end. All your friends get to hold them, too. And the boys! The boys get to wear them! Not at any other time (at least in this century) will they consent to pin pink gerberas to their shirts, but today -- oh yes. Today this sort of accessorizing is the pinnacle of masculinity. 

I wasn't very good at the whole flower thing. I was not nearly as prepared as I should have been. Smart girls have Pinterest boards packed with bouquet ideas from the age of 13. The go to flower shows. They do serious research. I googled "pretty wedding flowers for July", pasted some images into a document, and never referred to them again. This is rather too bad, especially in the wake of how my wedding flowers actually turned out. There was nothing wrong with them -- they looked beautiful and smelled nice. They just didn't really... match. 

{Darryl Schipper Photography}

This is all my fault. My florists were brilliant. They did exactly what I asked them to do -- and that's why it's my fault. I can even recall them asking if that was exactly what I wanted, and offering other brief suggestions, but I declined and popped out of there as soon as I could because we were late for a family wedding (where the flowers matched beautifully, I might add). Also, it had been pouring rain outside and being doused in mid-June showers resulted in all my creative sense washing away. No, this has not been scientifically proven. Yes, I'm still going to use it as an excuse. 

You may recall that our girls were dressed in various shades of blue, and the boys in black and white. To stay safe (and inexpensive) I decided to go for crisp and clean with a white and green bouquet. This was to be my theme throughout -- for the guys, girls, moms, etc. Keep it simple and pretty. Princess Kate's bouquet from earlier in the year may or may not have played a role in helping me make this decision. 

The day of the wedding -- surprise! My bouquet was a pinky cream with purple here and there. Not white. Not green. My mouth got a little dry when I had a flashback to that day in the back room at the flower shop -- yes -- I distinctly remember saying cream would look nice. And purple, too. What?! Why?!?!  I still have no idea what possessed me to think that this would look all matched and proper. I wish I could say that the purple was for some sort of sentimental reason... that it had some sort of secret meaning. Alas, all it means is that Suzanne doesn't always pay very good attention to things. 

{Darryl Schipper Photography}

Not that it really matters. We rocked our bouquets, and those flowers have now gone back to where they came from... composted and rotted back into the earth, helping other plants grow! Makes one consider their mortality and all that serious stuff. Matrimony. Mismatched flowers. Mortality. I don't think I have blog categories for all of these important things. 

 {Darryl Schipper Photography}

a boring-ish update.

Annnnnd.... she's back!

Not that I was ever gone. I'd log into this website thinger and sadly look at the last date posted and hope that some magic blog fairy would have posted something witty and charming to appease the blog-reading mobs. I suppose I should just get on with it and stop imagining earth-shattering entries into existence. I'd be content with something that was at least a touch comprehensible. 

Congrats to all you long-suffering readers out there, though... my blogging dashboard tells me that people are still regularly checking this insignificant page with hope in their hearts. Well -- I can't confirm the hope in hearts, I just imagine that. 

Life update, since you all care so very much: May was nice. Daffodils bloomed, then the nasty bunnies ate all my poor little tulips before they had a chance to burst open -- made me rather vindictive towards bunnies for awhile. We have very friendly neighbours whose little children can now spend time outside in the pleasant weather... they come and press their faces up against our sliding door, providing much entertainment and leaving some oddly shaped slobber marks on the glass. Work-wise, I surpassed even my own expectations in defeating the insurance billing monster conundrum. Our office lost its insurance biller. Guess who took on the job? Yes. Turns out people actually go to school for this for a reason. BUT -- as I said -- it was defeated (through much trial and error, but we don't need to talk about that). 

My ever-present friend of almost six years took a turn for the worse and had to be admitted to a rehab centre -- fare thee well, 2007 macbook. Her light went out and using a flashlight to see the screen isn't the most effective way to check one's email. Being without a functioning computer may have also aided in my absence from the blogosphere -- I used Wayne's old and limping laptop for awhile but trying to blog on a computer whose functionality depends solely on its mood isn't the best for creativity's flow. Oh, you'd like to turn off now? Alright. Go ahead and do that. We'll try again tomorrow. Fortunately I  know some people with connections. Thank you, people, for letting me know you and lending me a tool that will aid in my trades. Have you tried digitally editing illustrations without photoshop OR a computer? It's quite impossible. 

The Grand Rapids weather has been ever-constant -- and by this I mean completely all over the place. Cold and rainy and miserable to steamy and unbearably humid all within a few hours. I didn't think any weather could be more moody and unpredictable than southern Ontario, but west Michigan takes the cake, I think. Merci beaucoup, Lake Michigan and surrounding bodies of water. 

Before I bore you all with more lengthy weather descriptions, I think I'll put a stop to this entry. Now. I'll be back with more substance later. Also, the below photo is amazing. 

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it's here.

"It always amazes me to look at the little wrinkled brown seeds and think of the rainbows in 'em."

           - Anne's House of Dreams

I would like to take this moment to say how ridiculously delighted I am by this time of year. 

In general I'm not very good at dealing with change, but when it comes to the changing of the seasons, particularly the transition from winter to spring, I am perfectly fine with change. It's not that I hate winter -- I'm just annually struck by the wonder of spring and by how quickly the waves of green take over the brown and grey.

I go outside every morning to check on the status of the garden. It's like a weird twitch... but a happy twitch.

Welcome, spring. 

the many benefits of scrubs.

As has been mentioned before, I work in a chiropractic office. In January the Dr. decided that it would be shnazzy if all of us wore matching scrubs instead of random scrubs/poorly matched slacks and blouses (I am to blame for the poorly matched slacks and blouses, probably). Since January we have been wearing rather lovely scrubs, black and purple, and though I was a little bit skeptical about going into work wearing something that felt like pyjamas, I have now come to deeply appreciate scrubdom. 

There are many reasons for this:

1) They make me feel clever, like I'm a real nurse and take people's temperatures and jab needles in arms and know what words like antipyretic and athetosis and hemolysis mean. When I am at the grocery store in my scrubs I like to think that people think I'm a real nurse when meanwhile I'm just a poser who manages the office and is on the telephone with insurance companies for a significant chunk of the day.

2) Workweek wardrobe requires absolutely no thought whatsoever. In the mornings I stumble around a dark bedroom and haphazardly grab whatever's on the top of the scrubs pile in the closet. And that is how real fashionistas do it, my friends. 

3) Ultra-comfy. Like I said earlier -- pyjamas. On the downside those babies don't hold up to Michigan winter winds very well. Not much insulation going on there. 

4) Scrub-talk. I am very much allowed to discuss the quality and workmanship of different types of scrubs with other scrub-wearers (aka real nurses) while not sounding like I'm one brick short of a load. The Grey's Anatomy line by Barco, baby. Only way to go. 

5) Scrubs have endless pockets. I discover new pockets every day! They are extremely convenient and I have found multiple uses for all of them. They hold bobby pins and pens and post-it notes and crumpled pieces of paper and granola bar wrappers and pretzels for when I need a little snack but can't leave my desk... or am too lazy to leave my desk. Pretzel pockets!

Scrubby-dub-dubs! Bedtime. 

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A happy nurse who clearly loves her Grey's Anatomy scrubs. How does she keep her hair so nice while assisting in surgery?

evangelism is hard.

The title of this post about sums it up, boys and girls. But you didn't need me to tell you that. Anyone who grew up in a reformed protestant church setting surrounded by wind-weatherd Dutch farmers who lived out their faith through hard work and fierce family devotion as opposed to pentecostal hand-raising and soap-box preaching would know that the phrase sharing the Gospel causes some severe heart palpatations. To a lot of us, the concept is so foreign and scary that we pretty well write it off as someone else's job. Someone who has that spiritual gift. Because I certainly don't.

I don't have the spiritual gift of evangelism. I really don't. I'm not articulate and this is mostly because I can never remember how to verbally string together nouns and verbs in proper sentence formation (and this causes problems in more than just the theatre of evangelism). However Jesus didn't say to go therefore, articulate and conversationally gifted Christians, and make disciples of all nations, He just told all of us to go and be empowered by the Holy Spirit and roll with it. Well, not in those words. Jesus articulated it better than I just did. See Matthew 28:18-20.

Evangelism is hard because it puts you way out there. It makes you desperately vulnerable. It's like that guy who spent his whole senior year of high school smiling at that pretty brunette in the hallway when they passed between third and fourth period, and he finally gets up the nerve to ask her to prom, and he does it, he stammers out the question, and he feels like his clothes have all been turned inside-out and she's looking at him and realizes she's caught a glimpse of what's actually going on inside his soul, it's spread all over his inside-out shirt, and the next move is hers. And she can say whatever she wants, think whatever she wants, because he just handed her a chunk of his vulnerable soul and told her to do whatever she wanted with it.

That's why evangelism is hard. Except when evangelizing, you're not just asking someone to prom. You're working your way towards asking them to give up their whole way of life, their whole worldview, their ideals, their philosophy on ethics and morals -- and trade them in for something that on the outset seems completely off the rails and terribly offensive. 

Then they look at you and realize that you yourself have given up all of those things for this Jesus guy and realize that you just handed them a chunk of your vulnerable soul and are letting them do whatever they want to do with it. And then they might think you're crazy. They might even call you that, too. 

And even if you get past that first hurdle and they want to hear more about why you believe what you believe, there are endless ways in which you can screw things up. You can say the wrong thing, use too much Christian lingo, make the Gospel too simple and soft and suddenly they're believing some Christian-lite version of the faith and you've really set them down the wrong road and something deep down inside you says, "Great job, you're such a valuable asset to Kingdom Work, you should probably just stick to singing in the church choir so that you don't mess anyone else up."

A few weeks ago I made a weak and bumbling attempt at explaining my faith to a friend. I was pretty sure I had botched the job completely and confused the poor girl to pieces and lamented this to Wayne and he said, "Suzanne, you've got to be a little bit more of a Calvinist."

All snide "you know you're a seminary couple when..." comments aside, Wayne was right. I was putting far too much weight on the effect that my words and abilities were having and forgetting that the real life-flipping heart-changing work is done by the Holy Spirit, and as evangelists we are merely tools to be used by Him. It's a humbling thing... especially when you are not very articulate. 

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Evangelism is hard. It's not something that I'm very good at. It's not something I'm comfortable with. I would much rather talk about the weather or my latest project or the impending royal birth over in jolly old England. And I guess I could just not bring up the Gospel at all. I could avoid it very easily -- I'm well-practiced at that. But over the years I've found that when opportunities present themselves -- and when I shut my eyes to those opportunities -- the sticky film of Something That Has Been Lost clings to me for hours, days, years. And then I think of Jeremiah, and of his determination to never ever speak God's name again, to never prophecy, to pin his tongue in place and cease the preaching of his message for good because it costs too much and no one's listening anyway. But there's that fire in his bones, and he tries to shut it in but he can't because keeping it in makes him weary.

I'm not sure that I have fire in my bones, but when I'm presented with a Gospel opportunity there's definitely a spark that flits through my ribcage, a Holy Wave of You Know What Comes Next that crests and breaks over my heart and soul and stomach, yes, stomach too. And I don't know if I want to say anything because if I say something I'm handing someone a chunk of my vulnerable soul and that exhausts me, but if I always stay silent I'll grow weary with the struggle of keeping the Gospel to myself. So I open my mouth and I might not screw up but I probably will and that's okay because God's in charge of this, not me. 

But more on that later.