Tag: friends

A Story to Rescue Your Monday from Despair

July 20, 2020 /

We’re in the middle of a pandemic, political division, racism, unemployment challenges, questions about what’s going to happen with our kids when school starts, and it’s Monday morning.

You may have had a stellar weekend picnicking in the sun, biking, going to “the lake”, but now it’s Monday in all its Mondayness.  And the week stretches out in front of you like a flat road across the barren pan-handle of Oklahoma.

Before you buckle down for multiple Zoom calls, or start washing sandy clothes from the weekend, read on.  It may make you feel better about your day.

Awhile ago I was listening to the radio and a woman called in with an experience that was, um…unbelievable. Except that it really happened.

The caller had been on a road trip with her friend. They stopped to get gas and go to the bathroom. The woman went into the stall, and sat down.  She put her keys on her lap, at which point the keys slid into the toilet.

The toilet was the auto-flush kind so she was afraid to stand up for fear her keys would be washed down the toilet.  

Panicky, she was able to reach her cell phone and call her friend who was outside filling the car with gas.

The friend came into the bathroom, and although she was a large woman, she squeezed under the stall door.

She knelt and (unbelievably) reached under her friend, into the toilet for the keys.  I know, I know…so many questions!  

(At this point I could spiritualize this and quote Proverbs 18:24 “One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is friend who sticks closer than a brother.”, but really?)

As I was listening to the story, I thought, “How could this get any worse?!”

It did.

The radio caller, on the toilet, had a gag reflex to the whole situation at that point, and threw up on her friend’s head as she kneeled in front of her trying to rescue the keys!  (Aren’t you glad I haven’t provided “art” here?)

Attitude is all in our perspective, right?

I share this because it’s Monday, and maybe we can all start the week thanking God that no one has thrown up on our head.  Yet.

And may we all have friends as devoted as this caller’s.

What helps you keep life in perspective? When has a friend rescued you and made your day?

Putting us Back Together

March 24, 2014 /

Yesterday I had lunch with a dear friend who is fighting a hard battle.  She looks fragile, but she is scrappy.

Prayerful.

And resolved.

She is grieving loss and pain and trauma, but also celebrating the simple fact that she is alive.  And alive is good.

Alive is something. Continue reading

Who’s Dancing With You?

June 5, 2013 /

Our daughter got married 10 days ago.  And leading up to the wedding just about everything went wrong.  They had trouble getting a license.  The seamstress made her dress too short.  We printed the wrong dates on a welcome for out-of-towners.  The guy who was going to do her hair backed out at the last minute.

Just about everything went wrong, but the wedding was perfect.  

Because of the people gathered around us.  Amazing, loving friends and family.  It made me think of this post from last year… 

I really admire my husband.

He’s brilliant and wise and athletic and better than me at everything.

Except maybe one thing.

When we were dating, we never danced.                                                                                 And when we got married we didn’t have dancing at our reception.                                    And when we went to our first wedding reception as a married couple he didn’t ask me to dance and I cried and was sure he didn’t really love me.

I wrote recently that some friends and I have wrangled our husbands into taking dance lessons, and I’ve finally discovered why this has not been part of our life together up til now.  I’m not gonna sugar coat it.  I’m no Ginger Rogers, but John is truly bad.   I don’t understand it.  How can someone who’s so coordinated in so many other areas be so…not…in this area?  Sometimes we just have to stop trying because we’re laughing so hard.

It’s one thing to have a humility thrust upon you.  You make a mistake and have to apologize.  Like BP.  Or the captain of the cruise ship in Italy.  Or Lindsay Lohan.  You’re given a job to do and things don’t go well.  You’re humbled.

But to choose to step into a situation where you know you’re weak, vulnerable, open to ridicule?  That takes love.

Doing this together with some of our closest friends has led me to another conclusion.

Continue reading

What are You Longing For? Bread and Wine, part 2

March 20, 2013 /

There’s a fire in the kitchen fireplace and candles are still flickering, empty wine glasses wait to be washed and crumbs are on the wooden countertop – evidence of hastily bagged leftovers I urged friends to take as they wrestled into coats and boots to head home after our dinner together.

It’s 9:15 and John’s not home yet, and the snow is piled high outside my window.  The serving platters are empty, but I am full.

Here’s what I did.  Remember my little group of women than God totally orchestrated and drew together around what we thought would be a book study and then it ended up being about so, so much more?  A young single, a personal trainer/professional cheerleader, a stay-at-home mom, a social worker, a pre-school teacher…But “titles” are deceiving! Well, that’s the group that came over for dinner on a Wednesday night recently.  Shauna’s new book, Bread and Wine was our excuse for gathering.

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Heather, who’s newly engaged and also a fan of Shauna’s writing, made the Bacon Wrapped Dates and the Dark Chocolate Sea Salted Butter Toffee, and I made the the Green Well Salad, and Risotto because I never had and we have one gluten-free gal and I knew everyone would forgive me if it didn’t turn out.

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Before the evening arrived I asked my friends to think about a question from Shauna’s chapter, “Enough” – Have you ever longed for something?  What helped you through that season of longing?  What are things that prompt discontent in you?”

We all (except maybe Heather) loved the bacon wrapped dates, and those who are Risotto vets kindly said I did it “right”.  We over-dressed the salad, and never got around to talking about the specific question I had thrown out, but none of that really matters, like what you watched on T.V. last night doesn’t really matter.

What matters is how we hugged and laughed and said what’s important.  We oohed and ahhed over Heather’s new engagement details.  We celebrated with Molly who was leaving the next day to visit her daughter who’s studying in Italy, and we looked into the eyes of another asking about the Hard Thing.

What do you long for?

We never asked that question, but we answered it with our hearts and eyes and ears all night.

Isn’t “community” one of the answers we’d all give?  I love the way Shauna writes of this:

“We don’t come to the table to fight or to defend.  We don’t come to prove or to conquer, to draw lines in the sand or to stir up trouble.  We come to the table because our hunger brings us there.  We come with a need, with fragility, with an admission of our humanity…The table is the place where the doing stops, the trying stops, the masks are removed, and we allow ourselves to be nourished, like children…Come to the table.”

This coming to the table takes courage, but like our little band of intrepid women and our couples’ covenant group, and the families we’ve done life with over the past 25 years have discovered, it is the place where God serves up true soul food and your longings are met in Him and through His people.

Come to the table indeed.

How are YOU doing?

October 10, 2011 /

“So how are you and what are you doing these days?”  A seemingly simple and innocent question from a friend I hadn’t seen in a few months.

I want to yell, “DOING???  What am I DOING??   I’m Road Runner running straight off the cliff and not realizing it!  I’m Charlie Brown constantly falling flat trying to kick the football!   I’m like the psycho squirrels in my back yard, frantically spinning around, more than a little confused about which way is up!”

Fortunately I catch myself, realizing this might not be an appropriate answer, especially since we’re in the middle of a crowded Starbucks and I’d probably start crying and that would be ugly.

Instead I smile and answer confidently, “Oh everything’s good!  I’m doing a variety of ministry stuff…Thankful for family and friends…” Which is true as far as it goes, but certainly gives a different impression than my first answer!

Have you ever felt like everyone else has their life together with a master plan complete with long and short range goals and is right on track doing meaningful work on the highway to success?

I was thinking about this as I rode through my neighborhood the other day.  I love my neighborhood.  It’s kind of a cross between Mayberry (remember the old Andy Griffith show?) and Stars Hollow (remember Gilmore Girls?).

Every morning very early, I either walk (when the snow is blowing), or ride my bike down Glenhurst, over to Huntington, right on 38th, left on Joppa to 39th to Raleigh to Starbucks where Cory starts my drink before I’m in the door.

I ride past Stanley the dog (named after the Hockey cup), who is always sitting outside keeping watch over his corner of the world,

neighbors sitting on their front porch with coffee, the house with the picket fence , the one with the window boxes that will soon be heaped with pumpkins and gourds as the season changes…

If I ride through my neighborhood in the humid summer evenings I hear dads mowing lawns, kids out playing on a slip and slide, parents on Adirondack chairs chatting over the squeals of their kids.  As dusk falls I love the smell of hamburgers on the grill, and seeing into a lighted house where a young girl practices piano in a bay window.

How much is my neighborhood like me?  Like you?

What’s going on behind the Capra-esque (It’s a Wonderful Life reference 🙂 ) façade? Is it as good as it looks or is there loneliness, and despair lurking?

Are there people just waiting for someone to ask “How are you doing, really?

Recently I had to write a profile describing who I am and what I do for a class I’m involved in.  As I read over it, it was like my neighborhood.

Everything I wrote was true (like the answer I gave my friend in Starbucks), but it gave a picture of a totally together woman with an idyllic life and that is so not true of me!  It didn’t reflect any of the brokenness, or insecurity or pain that I wrestle with.  Now here’s the thing…I was writing this for a small group of 5 who are in ministry.  This was a safe and appropriate place to share a little more deeply and authentically.  If I had, would the others have breathed a deep sigh of relief and jumped into a more meaningful life-giving dialog?

Do you ever feel like everyone else has it all together?                                                 

Are there places you appropriately and honestly share who you are or are you always in “image management” mode?

Do you have a friend that you might call today and ask, “How are you doing? Really?”

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