Things I've Come to Believe In My 20s

The grass is greener where you water it.

 

Plan B IS life.

Marriage is able to enhance a life, but it does not solve life's problems.

People with a need for constant achievement (and constant conversation) are exhausting.

Swim

I went swimming this morning.  And it was that deep down happy I was talking about a few months ago when I discovered I finally made peace with exercise.  It had been a while since I had been swimming, but the joy of it came back.  Let me tell you, I am not constantly doing laps or doing those cool flips at the end of the pool in order to turn around and not lose momentum.  In fact there were only laps in intervals, and in life, I have never been able to do the cool end-of-the-pool flip. 

Believe me, I have tried.  Water gets into my nose, and once I hit my head and got disoriented, and my overly active imagination imagined how I would get myself out of drowning if the coach wasn't watching me at all times. 

There's something nice though about not being the best at something and liking it anyway.  This, for me, is swimming. (And diving.)  But I grew up with swimming lessons, and I would say that, though I don't want to head for open water to do all major swimming, I am just fine in the pool at the gym. 

French Motherhood, Observed

A few weeks ago, I came across Bringing Up Bebe, recently published by an American living in France.  It  immediately caught my attention, though I am not yet a mother, so I bought it and finished reading it today.  And now my mind is full of things very French and very American and the middle ground - whatever you get when you agree and disagree with both all at once. 

It occurs to me now that sociology might just be a hobby of mine, loosely attended, amidst the hustle and bustle of my life.  I like these books...written about the times, about people, about their habits in society.  And stated with notes and research to back it up. 

Do I want to do that research myself?  No way.  Is it always right?  Probably not.  But I like reading about it.  Especially when the author is good.  Or so unlike me that I can't put the book down. 

What the Years Know

Good morning, Monday.

This time, here and now, with coffee and silence and without the orders of the day, is good medicine for clearing the mind and refocusing the heart.

I am still thinking about the weekend. It will be said cryptically. But when some of that 'unbelievably painful' found its way again into the last few days, I decided that this is why God gives us time second by second, minute by minute, in order to go on and breathe in and out and make it through. For all of our wonderings about the reasons for time feeling and being what it is, the brilliant genius of God is that He lets us see it in small slips.

And then there are the years.

Sea Storm

Earlier this week, I read a Max Lucado book that was really short, probably really an excerpt for another he's written.  It was about what you really say inside when life is rough.  When I read it, I thought about one of the most intriguing stories in the Bible, which has always been, for me, when Jesus calms the storm.   

I know the connection.  And it's been said before.  Despite my entire childhood in farmland, there is a very real side of me that also loves the sea.  I felt homesick when I saw it, and if that didn't make me think of Heaven I don't know what does.  

I think about the sea when I think about God because it makes sense to me.  And I love in the story that at the end, peace is all that is left.  Sometimes I have felt this peace deep down in my bones, in an insular way, when everything else the in world in front of me is going dead wrong.  And I should be saying otherwise.  And this is what it is like to know Jesus. 

Breathing Easy

Lately I have been thinking about the things in life that are my favorite.  It's a thought that has been tapping on my shoulder as I've been living my life.  I don't really know why either, except that I believe it's good to be alive.  Fully alive.  And delight is a part of that.  

I've sort of been a curmudgeon inside, but I don't think that people can see that because I have become good at pretending.   But let me tell you, there is some cynicism that happily lives inside of me until I foist it out.  And I can be pretty vile and mean sometimes too.  Sometimes I can use words to be funny, but it's not very nice, even when I feel momentarily justified by it.  I felt that way this morning, so I confessed it.  And felt pretty human.  And this made me think about Jesus and being in a redemption story and how good that feels too.  Even when I'm exasperated and bewildered and feel justified about the stank eye I just gave the world.    

And then, lately, I come to my favorite things.  Here are a few I just thought of.