Dear God, you are confusing.

Dear God,

I don't understand you most of the time. It seems to be that whenever I get a sense of divine direction in my life the direction changes. The trail ends. Sometimes the trail's end is gradual, as if the trail's caretaker had long since forgotten about it and nature had begun to claim its space again. Sometimes the directional change is as abrupt as getting a door slammed in your face.

I do my best to understand what you want, to understand where I need to be, to understand my place in the world at any given time. I know it changes. Life is anything but static. Permanence is a concept I've learned to live without. And yet I crave stability.

I've always been able to see the good that can come from a situation, or the steps I can - I should - take after the trail I have been hiking begins to fade away. You have always taken care of me. I'm sure you still are.

It's just hard to understand why some things happen the way they do. You know, why did this have to happen, when the opposite of this would have been so much better? And easier? And good for everyone? Well, perhaps not. Often times the things we want are not the best things for us.

It's hard to swallow that medicine, but I'll do my best.

I wrote once that there are no "ifs" in the world. You remember, Corrie ten Boom actually wrote it first. Things happen, and we move foward. It's no use wondering what if. Luckily I've never been a big "what if" kind of girl.

I don't wonder "what if," but I do wonder "why not?"

You typically tend to answer in time, so I'm going to wait. You'll know where to find me.

Your friend,
Me

Confessions of a Control Freak

Hello. My name is Gloria, and I am a control freak.

This may surprise some of you. More likely, it surprises none of you and you’re sitting there thinking, “Yeah, we’ve all known for awhile.” Well, it surprised me. Control freaks rarely know they are control freaks until they unwittingly find themselves out of control, and this rarely happens because control freaks are pretty good about staying in control. It comes with the condition.

Youth ministry is an odd place for a control freak to be. My kind flocks here, to be sure. Planning meetings and events, trips and retreats, detail after detail to be looked after – it’s like Christmas all year long. But add in the unpredictable nature of human behavior and Murphy’s Law and it’s a control freak’s worst nightmare.

I was unaware of my problem for so long because I felt I handled the unexpected ups and downs of ministry quite well. I didn’t feel freakish about having a handle on everything and being in charge.

Then came Boston. By far the largest ministry endeavor I have ever embarked upon, the only way for that mission trip to be successful was to rely upon the help and initiative of others. Much like the path to recovery for any condition, I took baby steps. Even so, I was still burning the candle at both ends and exhausting myself in the process.

July 17th – the day of our departure – arrived and right away I knew something was wrong. I was exhausted and running on fumes. Even worse, I was sick. My head throbbed and my throat ached. By the time we stopped in Albany, NY on Saturday for the night I was a delirious mess. But with 48 people relying on me for guidance, information, and direction, what was I to do?

Well, for starters I was to realize that I was never in control of anything to begin with. God was in charge, and God would provide. Boy, did God provide. The adult leaders stepped up and took the reins. The pastor of our overnight host church called a church member early Sunday morning and arranged for me to be taken to an urgent-care clinic. It took a few days for me to feel like myself again, but little by little I began to come around. Not even counting my illness, on a mission trip there are a million details to be attended to throughout the week – never once was anything left undone. Never once was anyone’s need left unmet.

As the week progressed I began to see very clearly the reasons why each person was brought on this trip – adult leaders and youth alike. Everyone served a purpose. God was in control of this trip back in the fall when kids began to sign up, when adults came to me saying they wanted to be a part of it all. There were 49 of us, and not one of us an accident. Not one.

The theme of our mission week was “Free.” Yes, I have been a control freak, but that week I experienced liberation. Because I was physically incapable of doing everything myself I had to delegate and watch as other people met and fulfilled every need that arose. I watched as our adults and youth made genuine connections with each other. I watched as they made genuine connections with the people with whom we were sent to serve. I watched our young people and adults wrestle, bend, and grow in ways they hadn’t anticipated, as each one of us stepped outside our comfort zone.

And the more I let go, the more I felt at peace.

Yes, my name is Gloria and I am a control freak. But on this mission trip, I learned that I don’t have to be. Things actually work out better when I’m not.

Grieving tummies.

Today for breakfast and lunch I ate an entire bag of hot dog buns. Just the buns. Plain. It was exactly what I needed. Yesterday, a blended strawberry lemonade from Starbucks was the thing. I had three.

Grieving tummies crave odd things, but when they do it's best to give them exactly what they want.

The Pitcher

There’s a pitcher that used to sit in my living room, holding an arrangement of tiger lilies. It was an odd coupling, to be sure. The beautiful bouquets contrasted horribly with their vase—arguably the ugliest pitcher ever made. Looking back, I’m not sure why I used it at the time.

Well, still used it.

That brow-crinkling piece of pottery—a mosaic of different earth-toned fruits and flowers—was a gift. Endearing at the time but painful as time passed, I remember fighting the desire to throw the pitcher up against the wall in hopes it would shatter and cease to exist. However, breaking the pitcher wouldn’t have solved my problems (though it would have relieved my living room of the eyesore).

See, there was this guy. (You knew we’d get there sometime, right?) He gave me the pitcher—the ugly, chipped, thrift store pitcher—and though he exited from my life, the pitcher hung around.

That’s the problem with break-ups – the person is gone but their stuff is still with you. The least they could have done is taken their crap with them when they left, like all those blasted memories… But you have them, their stuff and those memories, and are left with the arduous task of figuring out what to do with all of it. For some, that “stuff” is a house, or a dog, or books and movies, or an old sweatshirt you keep hidden but secretly wear at night because it still smells like them. For me, that “stuff” was an ugly pitcher.

It was so grade school when he gave it to me. We were “friends” at the time. He was browsing the shelves of a thrift shop one day when he came upon the pitcher and immediately thought of me. Cute, right? Ugly pitcher, Gloria. Ugly pitcher, Gloria. It was hard for me to get the connection at first. He explained it by saying it was the ugliest pitcher he had ever seen, and that he thought I would laugh if he gave it to me. It should have a home, he said. It worked. I laughed. I loved it. Then he left to go spend the weekend with his long-distance girlfriend.

This is how our relationship—our “friendship”—was for a long time, really. He had a girlfriend and was unavailable, but for having a girlfriend and being “unavailable,” he was awfully available to me. So when we finally started dating for real it seemed right.

Wrong. Take note: relationships involving an exchange of hideous pottery are not any more likely to succeed than relationships in which pottery has not played a role. Endearing gestures a relationship do not make.

I have moved twice since the pitcher came into my life, and I can’t seem to remember what happened to it. I’m not a very sentimental mover – the less I have to pack, move, and unpack the better. The pitcher probably ended up in a box marked for Goodwill.

I think that’s how it is with relationships.. They come and they go. When they come, we do crazy things like buy ugly pottery. When they go, we want to throw the pottery against the wall. We want to keep whatever pieces we still have with us. We want to get it out of our life. We want to figure out how to keep it in our life. Time passes, and then one day you can’t remember what happened to it. It’s gone. It disappeared, and you hadn’t even noticed.

I have been ugly-pottery free for quite some time now. I think perhaps it might be time to go and find some more.

A bathroom for the birdies.

For all the wonders that spring brings with it - warm weather, sunshine, J.J. Hardy's brilliant blue eyes, flowers, green grass, and the smell of fresh rain on dusty pavement (just to name a few) - there is one spring phenomenon I could truly do without.

My front porch turns into a birdie bathroom.

It's ridiculous. This didn't happen until my father started feeding the birds in the front yard instead of the backyard. Before this, I would awake each morning to the not-as-soothing-as-one-might-think sounds of mourning doves and sparrows chirping as they fight over corn and seed. One morning I woke up and realized the birds were gone. In pursuit of better protection from predatory birds (more than once I have witnessed the demise of a mourning dove at the hands - well, talons - of a hungry hawk) and more plentiful food, they had migrated south-east to the front-yard birm.

I thoroughly enjoyed the break from my avian alarm clock. Of course, for every action there is a reaction and no good thing comes without a price. Upon returning home from work one summer afternoon, I noticed the white porch banister was in need of some serious re-painting. Of course, that was from far away. A closer inspection revealed the chipped paint was not, in fact, chipped paint at all, but bird poop. Lots and lots of bird poop.

By itself, a single bird dropping doesn't give off much of a smell. Combined, bird droppings have the power to bring even the most olfactorily-resistant man to his knees.

(I don't know if "olfactorily-resistant" is a phrase, or if "olfactorily" is even a word, but I am not deleting it. I like it.)

It's not only unpleasant to the nose; it's an eye-sore. And this is the front porch--this is the first thing people see when they come to the house. Is that the kind of impression we want to give people?

I scrubbed and scrubbed that banister, but try as I might I wasn't able to completely rid the porch of all the crap.

"Move the bird feeder, or clean the shit yourself," I told my father in exasperation. He didn't seem to care. He uses the garage door, thus limiting his exposure to the front porch.

The bird feeder remains.

As a side note, on more than one occasion I have found myself caught up in a mass of frantically flying feathers as my sudden presence on the porch has startled the birds from their peaceful perches. And while I feel badly for the occasional mourning dove that flies straight into the garage siding, I also laugh at it. I suppose that is the one bright side to this whole situation. A little bit of humorous bird suffering. It's the least they can do, seeing as they continue to use my porch for their toilet.

Mmmmmm sunshine.

For those who know me, this will come as no surprise. I love sunshine and warm weather. It's not just a preference for pleasantness; sunshine and warmth actually affect the very innermost parts of my soul. Sunshine is at the very heart of my being. Sunshine really does make me happy.

This is why I go tanning in the winter. I need the rays.

Wisconsin isn't a bad place to live once spring begins. Everything turns green rather quickly once it's warm enough. I swear that the tree outside my office window sprouted leaves during the weekly staff meeting one Tuesday last spring. It happens that fast. I love it.

There's something about sitting outside in the evening, not even close to sunset, reading a good book and feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin. There's something about laying on the grass listening to soothing hum of a crowd at a baseball game on the radio. There's something about taking a 2-hour walk on a Saturday morning and stopping by your favorite park by the river just to sit and watch the water flow.

There's something about having sunlight for 15 hours in a day.

Love it.

Best six months of the year.

Can you feel it? April, May, June, July, August, September... They're here. Well, the first one is here. Are you excited?

Please repeat after me, with the indicated level of excitement:

(loud and very excited) BASEBALL IS BACK!!!! I'm so excited!!!!

Thank you.