"Chubby Chasers:" Rantings of A Big Girl

            I am prepared (at least I think I am) for some of you to be kind of irked at me after this article. I’m going to be completely honest and try not to hold anything back, so if you don’t want to know too much about me, please feel free to skip this post.  I won’t mind. J

            I would like to think that I have a pretty good sense of humor.  I like to laugh, I love sarcasm, and I’m a pretty big fan of jakes in general.  That being said, I have recently been acquainted with a new term that I absolutely despise: “chubby chasers.”  It’s possible that it’s been around for a long time and that I’ve been sheltered from it previously, but it is all over the television now.  Most often as a “joke.” 

The show I was most surprised to hear it on is one of my new favorites, Psych.  The term was followed up by another character asking, ‘they actually have those?”  As if it’s beyond comprehension that anyone would find a “chubby” person attractive.  God forbid, eh?

            I hate to be one of those people who blame everything on the media, but there is a little something to that.  I’ve still never heard this phrase used in regular conversation, but I have heard it a few times on television.  I also have a few friends whom I can see using this, and it really bothers me.  Isn’t there enough out there that promotes people feeling bad about their size (whether big or little), and everything about them? I swear, you can’t win no matter what size you are!  Magazines and entertainment shows will write/say hateful things for people being large, glorify them for losing weight and then turn around the next day and say that they’re too skinny and look disgusting.  Oh, and FYI…America sucks because everyone’s fat.  Be ashamed!

            I freely admit that I am 100% absolutely “chubby” (at least).  I know this and anyone who has seen me knows this.  It’s something that I’ve been incredibly embarrassed about since kindergarten.  It’s one of the reasons why I have a bit of a social phobia.  I often don’t want to go anywhere because I don’t want people to have to look at me.  Oh don’t worry, sometimes I absolutely think I’m super-hot!  That’s because the “me” in my head is about 7 sizes smaller than I actually am.  But when I realize that this isn’t so, I want to curl up in a ball and hide.

            I’m a big fan of my husband for many reasons (I guess I’ll keep him).  According to the term’s definition, he is a “chubby chaser.”  I was definitely smaller when we started dating (let’s admit it, we both were), but I was still “chubby.”  He was very very skinny, and as much as he denies it, still is!  And yet he has always found me attractive.  He chastises me when I start to make fun of myself because he thinks I’m amazing and hot (dude, his words, not mine). 

I often tell people that I’m lucky to have him because he doesn’t mind my size, and everyone agrees with me.   I react to his praise by thinking, “oh, he just loves me so that makes him blind to the fact that I’m so gross.”  Yet I’ve begun to realize, he doesn’t find me attractive despite my size, and he doesn’t “just get past” that fact. He freaking loves everything about me. Crazy isn’t it?  There must be something wrong with him!  …or there may be something wrong with everyone else for thinking that being a “chubby chaser” is even a thing that needs a label.  I’m a person.  I have a body.  My husband tends to enjoy said body.  Huh.  What’s the world coming to?

            So, as I mentioned before, I’ve always been super self-conscious, and a lot of it comes with my size.  I am embarrassed that I’m so big.  Although it seems like it should be the opposite, I feel like less of a person.  Why should people ever listen to me, being the size that I am?  What would they get out of being my friend?  I know this is absolutely ridiculous, but sometimes you can’t help how you feel. 

            I don’t blame this just on the media.  A lot of it was the world in which I grew up.  I grew up with someone who said that the only prejudice she has is against fat people.  After high school, I gained about 20+ pounds.  I was starting to feel as though there was something odd going on with me and my family that I couldn’t put my finger on.  I understood what it was when my sister and I were talking one day and she told me that my parents were worried about me with the size that I was.  That hurt, and it hurt bad.  So I started to work out and watched my calorie intake.  I mostly ate popcorn, corndogs, and SlimFast because they were quick, easy, and it was easy to keep track of the calories.  I lost 30 pounds, but I’m pretty sure I became even unhealthier than I was before.

            My family could not stop talking about how great I looked and how amazing it was that I lost the weight.  Other members of my family told me that I looked good at that particular size and should try to stay there.  It made me feel good, but also a little embarrassed.  If it made such a difference with my family, how did other people who didn’t have to love me see me?

            There was one time in my life that I actually felt good about myself and liked the way I looked. I wasn’t even the skinnies that I’d ever been, I just felt good and I liked what I saw when I looked in the mirror.  A few months later, I was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma.  One of my first thoughts when diagnosed what that I would lose weight.  I was actually excited because I thought cancer + chemo = weight loss. But of course I ended up getting the kind of cancer that usually causes people to gain weight during treatment.  And boy did I gain! 40 pounds!  Every two weeks they would weight me and I’d gain between 3-7 pounds each time.

            That summer, I was a bridesmaid in one of my best friend’s wedding.  I had gotten my dress just after my diagnosis.  I’d try it on every week to make sure it still fit.  Of course, when I tried it on the day before the wedding, the zipper busted open when I had finally wiggled it closed.  I was devastated.  But I knew there must be some way to fix it, so I ran to the mall and went to the store it was from. 

            I’m pretty sure I looked totally nuts as I zipped around the women’s dress section.  I was able to find the dress, but in the wrong color.  Mind you, it was summer, I got winded very easily because of the chemo treatments, I was bloated from the steroids they were giving me, I was upset, and I had a shaved head.  As such, I made my way up to customer service and asked the sales lady if they had any more of the dresses.  I explained to her that my friend was getting married the next day and I needed a bigger size.  She gave me the dirtiest look and a bit of a snippy response that the only dress they had left was the brown one I’d found.  I assume she was thinking that I was a weird, bald headed, fat ditz who should have known the dress didn’t fit before now. So, I explained the chemo to her and how I was ballooning up.  Let’s just say that her attitude completely changed and she looked a little harder for me.  

            Situations like this happened all over the place while I was undergoing treatment.  Outsiders, family, and friends gave me a free pass to look however I wanted and do whatever I wanted (you better believe I took full advantage).  Yet what I learned here compared to how people treated me before was that it is only ok to be my size if you have a good excuse.  This is very messed up.

            I still haven’t been able to get back down to my comfortable size.  Every time someone looks at me or talks about working out in passing, I want to explain to them why I look the way that do.  I need to give them an excuse so they don’t think that the way I look is really my fault.    They need to understand that I am trying my hardest to be healthy and treat my body well, you just can’t tell.

Now, I think (hope) I’m in a bit of a transition.  I have recently moved to Gresham and work with so many fantastic people, I can’t even begin to give enough people enough credit for all they’ve done for me.  For this subject though, I have to give some fantastic props to the lovely Annie.  She is a co-worker of mine and also the owner of a beautiful shop called Fat Fancy Fashions.  In her work, Annie is taking the negative stigma away from “chubby.”  It is not something to be ashamed of.  There is no reason to want to hide yourself.  People of all sizes have value.  Skinny doesn’t mean healthy.  These are truths that need to be embraced. I haven’t been able to shop at her store yet, but I’ve got a gift certificate I won at our holiday party that I cannot WAIT to redeem.  And here’s a link, in case you want to check the store out (which you should): http://www.fatfancyfashions.com/

            With my old issues mingling with the fantastic influences I have at work, I had an epiphany.  Instead of dieting and working out to lose weight and get smaller, it’s more important to eat right and exercise to be healthy.  You may ask what the difference is.  To me, it means that I don’t have to go crazy counting calories, weighing myself every week, and beating myself up if I don’t lose what I want, or *gasp* I gain a pound.  Instead, I eat what I should and how much I should to be healthy and exercise regularly.  I don’t have to care what I weigh if I’m doing all I can to be healthy without driving myself into a downward spiral of numbers and depression. Ta-da!  Issues solved and health acquired!

            So, going back to the whole “chubby chasers” bit; the way this term is being used is absolutely abhorrent.  There is nothing weird or wrong with a person finding someone “chubby” attractive or sexy.  There are way too many uninformed people out there putting pressure on others to be something that they’re not; attributing it to laziness and unhealthy living when this is not always the case.  Terms like this and comments to people can be extremely damaging and can work in people through their entire lives. Freaking stop it! 

My Life With Jellies

                If you know me very well, you know that I am not a foot person.  Some people may respond that that’s an understatement.  I don’t like being touched by other people’s feet, and I don’t like them touching mine.  Would I like a foot massage?  No.  Would I like my toes painted?  No.  Leave my feet alone.  They are mine, I can take care of them myself, thank you very much.

                What gets me even more than people trying to touch my feet or trying to make me touch theirs, is socks.  I will not wear shoes without socks, but I cannot stand touching socks that have already been worn.  It doesn’t matter how long they’ve been worn of even if I was the one wearing them.  If they’ve been on feet, I don’t want to have anything to do with them.  To me, socks that have been one feet = sweat soaked grossness.  BUT ANYWAY…

                I’m sensitive about my feet in other ways too.  I only ever want to wear sneakers.  If I have to dress up, I’ll go as far as putting on some heels that have the toes covered.  This doesn’t mean that I don’t like the cute little flats that all the females are wearing now.  They’re totally cute!  My problem is that I look at them and think about jellies and shudder.

                Some of you may be thinking, what the heck are jellies?  If you were a female growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, you would not be asking this question.  I feel sorry for you, I really do!

                Jellies are the stinking coolest shoes that were ever invented!  They were sandals made out of semi-colored jelly-like plastic.  You could get them in either pink, purple or clear translucent.  My favorite were the pink with sparkles.

                My sister and I wore these every summer, all summer long.  They were our FAVORITES!  They made us feel pretty and made up, but there were two problems with them.

                The first problem is that they always disappeared.  You see, as a child of the 80’s in Eugene Oregon, one of our most common haunts was Papa’s Pizza.  Every get together, birthday party, and after t-ball party was held at Papa’s Pizza.  They had the most entertaining and ridiculously huge playground ever imaginable.  It had a merry-go-round that wasn’t quite so merry.  There was a playhouse-thing that had tubes to crawl through, a tower to sit and play telephone in with a bunch of random kids (one always had a dirty diaper that stunk up the joint), and for the older kids who were too mature to just run around like crazy gerbils, it had a dark cavernous hideout in the body where they could drag a friend to tell secrets or take their playground “boyfriend” to practice the art of kissing.  Heck, there was even a giant wood wheel that kids could run on, which gave more credence to the simile above, or where they could trip and roll around underneath all the other kid’s feet.

                My favorite though, was the ball pit.  It was AMAZING.  I could pretend to swim around in coins like Scrooge McDuck through his coins in Ducktails.  I could throw the balls out at my sister to get her attention and then duck under to hide.  My love for the ball pit was equal to my love for jellies, and therein held the problem.

                You see, every time that we would go to Papa’s Pizza and were let loose into the play area, both my sister and I would head right for the balls and jump in!  We didn’t have time to follow the pesky rules and take our shoes off.  The problem was, when we came back up.  One or both of us would come out with one less shoe, and two very upset parents. 

I cannot tell you how many times this happened.  You may ask why we didn’t wise up and take our shoes off before we jumped in.  Well, smarty pants, we did.  And it didn’t matter because whenever we left our jellies in the shoe cubby outside of the ball pit, they’d be stolen by the time we’d get out. 

It got to the point that my parents refused to buy us jellies anymore.  I remember going to Fred Meyer as a kid and crying with my sister because we were given a firm “no” when we begged and pleaded for new jellies.  Every time she’d take us over to pick up a new shoe, no matter how sparkly and girly it was, we’d just pull her back over to the jellies shoe display and tell her that was all we wanted. 

When it finally got through our heads that we weren’t going to get jellies, we just sat in silence while our Mom picked out our new shoes.  There was no way we were going to help her.  If she insisted we got something else, she would just have to take care of it.  That would show her.

So, I got sneakers.  I was not happy with it and almost refused to wear them, but when you’ve gotta wear shoes, you’ve gotta wear shoes.  So I slipped them on and was immediately surprised.  They were so comfortable!  It was amazing.

You see, here’s the second problem with jellies.  They’re made of plastic!  Sure, it may be a jelly-like plastic, but they’re plastic nonetheless!  Just imagine being an active kid in the summer time who has sensitive skin and doesn’t do well in heat.  Then think of wearing plastic sandals that have holes in them.  As an active kid, you run around everywhere you can get away with.  This means bark mulch, pebbles, grass, and dirt get stuck between your warm, sensitive skin, and plastic.  Just typing this out is making my feet burn. 

Because of jellies, I cannot wear shoes without socks because of think of the plastic chafing against directly against my skin and rubbing in debris of the outdoors into my feet.  This means no cute little slip on shoes, and absolutely no flip flops (which I physically cannot figure out how to walk in away…but that’s another story).

So, I’m left all year round wearing my sneakers.  But I have to say, I have some pretty awesome sneakers!  Kangaroos anyone? 

The Crooked Woman: A Fable

There once was a crooked woman who lived her life in shame.  She wasn’t crooked by any trespass she committed, but was crooked by happenstance.  Children laughed and taunted her as she made her crooked way down the street.  Men pretended she wasn’t there, and women whispered their spiteful words veiled as concern and pity.

It hadn’t always been that way.  Once the crooked woman had been a spry young lady.  She and her sister shared both look and personality.  They were happy and as carefree as the world allows any person to be.

When they were young, the sisters had lived through a tragedy together, but had both come out of it with nary a visible scratch.  They were still haunted by those days, when they dove into the thoughts and memories.  Yet as far as anyone was concerned, they had pulled through marvelously.

One day, the crooked woman’s sister began her fairy tale.  She married a handsome young man who was devoted to her in every way.  They laughed and loved and spent every day living to please the other.  Everything was perfect and white; covered in fairy dust and rose petals.

It wasn’t long before the bubble of the sister’s perfection ripped apart.  She and her young man were taking a day together.  They planned to frolic in a meadow filled with buttercups and mistletoe.  Yet as they danced through the wondrous meadow, the sister fell to the cobbled ground.  She became diseased.  Her whole body began to swell and turn black.  The young man fell to his knees and wept as he saw his love and his future fester and rot in front of him.  

His cries of anguish filled the air, scaring the birds who then carried it to the village as they fled from the now desolate meadow.  People ran to the noise to see what great happening could be occurring that would cause the young man to make such a noise.  They were to feast on his misery.

The crowd stood back, watching in delight as the woman’s time passed before their eyes.  A round and rosy-cheeked doctor came forward with the one who would become the crooked woman to peer at the sister.  

The doctor placed her hand on the young man’s shoulder and looked at the sister she had walked with whose body began to kink, slope, and jut as the crowd looked on.  “There is nothing to do besides remove her from this body.  You must cut her out.”

The young man looked up at the round, rosy-cheeked doctor with pleading and horror in his eyes, slightly shaking his head.  His lips remained silent.

The crooked woman slowly pulled the knife that was clinking around in her apron pocket, knocking against her jutting knees.  Grasping the young man’s hand, she placed it over hers so they were holding the knife together.  His eyes trailed up to her, seeing her for the first time.  His eyes flared with startled recognition and disgust at her new form.

He stood and put a tentative arm around the now crooked woman and led her over to his bloated wife.  Leaning down, they held the knife over her stomach, shaking and dripping with sweat.  Slowly and deliberately, the knife was lowered and sank into the decaying flesh that the young man had so recently touched gently with love.  A putrid gas floated up and assailed the nostrils of every living thing in the area.  

The thing that used to be the sister and a wife, stared up into the faces of her loved ones as two men with black hoods covering their faces meandered up to where she was slowly dying.  With gloved hands, they grabbed her and dragged her away.  Her eyes were linked with what was her family until the men had disappeared with her into the forest.  No one knew or asked how she was disposed of or where she went.  Her transition from a human being into a diseased and dying specimen had revoked any right anyone had toward her.

The young man then let go of the now crooked woman.  Reaching out his hand, he cupped her cheek.  His eyes were full of sorrow as he looked through her. 

His hand dropping, his shoulders hunched, the young man slowly made his way to the covering of trees.  He disappeared into the blackness of their sanctuary.  A blackness that matched the bemoaning in his heart.

The round, rosy-cheeked doctor looked at the crooked woman and studied her.  “Yes, you’ll make it.”  She answered the question that wasn’t asked.  “You will live, but have no life.”  And she turned and moved back into the group of people who had started to move back to the village.

The crooked woman stood in the desolate and barren meadow a while longer.  She no longer felt as though she existed, yet she had a sense of not being right.  There was no joy left.  There was nothing.  She had become a living un-living thing.  A crooked woman who was no longer an asset to society.  Who lived but did not live. 

Clean Sheets

He sat down heavily on the bed.  The spring creaked familiar underneath him.  He lifted up his hands, holding them in front of his face seeing the lines there that he took for granted every day.  Those hands with those lines had been happy once; holding a hand, caressing a cheek, stroking hair.  

     He brought them to his face and covered his eyes.  They became damp as they rubbed his eyelids, then moved up to run through his hair.

     What now?  He couldn’t look at his hands again.  He’d put too much stock into those hands.  Into everything, really.  

     Standing up, he unbuttoned his shirt slowly, remembering the feel of each button, and then let it fall to the floor.  Next came his pants, undershirt, socks, and underwear.  He didn’t even think to bend over and pick up the pile of dirty clothes.  He never would have made it if he had.

     Naked and feeling as newborn as...well...his mind couldn’t bring itself to finish that one.  He pulled the covers back from the bed and slid between the sheets.  He covered himself up.  Clean sheets.  That had been one of her favorite feelings.  One that he’d always teased her about because it was so simple and so pure.  

     She’d changed them this morning.  This morning...that was so long ago.  He’d been dressing as she fluffed the sheets up.  She’d given him a smile and a wink.  New sheets always meant a christening sometime that day.  He’d smiled back, thinking of the easy yet exciting day that was ahead of them.  

     And yet here he was.  Alone.  The fresh sheets reminding him of what he’d lost only hours ago.  He used to be part of a whole, now he was all that was left.  The other half, the better half, was gone.  And so was any future they’d planned together.

     He felt like half of his body had been ripped off.  There was a gaping wound furiously leaking blood.  He couldn’t live like this.  He’d die.  He hoped he would die.    

     Slowly, he curled himself into a ball, hugging his knees.  “Jesus...”  He began to pray...and then stopped, trying to think.  “Jesus, I just don’t know...as much as I hate it right now...your will be done.”  He was barely able to croak out this prayer before the pills took over and he crashed into oblivion.  If he was conscious, he would have hoped he’d stay there.

Just A Day Like Any Other

            I have a particular way that I act when I’m waiting at the Eugene train station for my bus up to school in Portland.  Everything that I do is done for a reason.  First, I keep my headphones in.  I’m usually listening to a Matt Chandler or Mark Driscoll sermon, so I’m definitely into it, but that isn’t the main reason why I keep those suckers in.  I also keep my cell phone out most of the time, checking it every few seconds or so for text messages (and a lot of times I send text messages to my friends for no reason other than to look busy).  I keep as far away from the waiting people as possible, sidling up to where the bus usually parks to pick us up.  All of these things help me from drawing any sort of attention to myself, and it also keeps people from talking to me because I look predisposed.  I also carry a bag with me (my MacGyver bag) that has everything in it that I could possibly need in any situation ever.

You may wonder why I put so much stock into being so unapproachable.  If you’ve ever been downtown Eugene, you may understand why.  There is a certain type of people you’ll find there.  Often the people downtown that don’t really understand personal space.  They like to ask for money or cigarettes, and they usually smell pretty…interesting.  There’s usually a lingering smell of alcohol mixed with body odor and a hint of crazy drifting around people like a swarm of gnats.  Then there are the kinds of people who really enjoy starting a conversation with a person and then attaching themselves said person presumably for till the end of time.  This sort of thing makes me very uncomfortable.

You see, even thought I make sure to look like I’m completely distracted by my ipod and cell phone, I’m actually on high alert and notice most of what is going on around me.  This is a good disguise for people watching.

One day when I was waiting for the bus, I noticed a figure out of the corner of my eye.  He was about two blocks away, but there was something distinct about him.  The way he was moving was more of a shambling stagger than an actual walk.  The jacket that he wore was sliding off one shoulder and the arm was dragging on the ground.  One foot sort of skidded alongside him as he walked.

Everyone else standing outside of the station waiting for the bus were talking with people around them or reading books and listening to music.  I figured since they were all preoccupied that I’d just have to keep an eye on this guy myself.

So I kept my eyes covertly trained on him as he got closer and closer to the station.  When he was in the parking lot, I could see details on him much clearer.  Everything he had on him was smudged with dirt and grime.  His eyes were almost cloudy and didn’t focus.  Below his gaunt cheeks, his mouth hung open just enough to see the very few remaining teeth in his mouth.

After seeing these details, I quickly popped out one of my earbuds and strained to listen to him over the noise of the people around me chatting.  He’d gotten all the way to the station and was now trying to figure out how to get up the steps to the platform.  And there it was, exactly as I’d feared…a quiet but nonetheless real groan.  Just as it dawned on me what was happening, the man’s murky eyes rolled to the side to lock on one of the people standing closest to him.  He slowly reached out one of his hands toward a girl standing and chatting with a guy and groaned louder as he finally managed to get a foot up one of the steps to the platform.

            I jumped into action.  Slinging my bag around, I quickly unzipped it, stuffing my hand all the way to the bottom, grasping whatever my hand landed on first.  It was a pen.

            “This’ll have to do.”  I mumbled to myself as I uncapped it and looked up for my target.

            He had gotten farther up the steps and was just close enough to grab the girl standing nearest him.  She was just starting to shout a warning at the stranger not to touch her as I flung the pen at the slinking man.  It hit him directly in the ear and stuck there, which only gave him a second’s pause.  I hoped that pause would give me enough time to reach him.

            Leaving my bag where it was, I lunged forward, knocking the crowd of people out of my way as I made a bee line toward the man.  A line cleared for me as people started to finally notice the girl’s screams.  The man was over the annoyance of the pen in his ear and now he was starting to claw at the bare skin on her arm.

            Just feet away from the man I grabbed the book that a nearby recluse was reading, shouting at me as I snatched it from his hands.  I pulled it back to get momentum and then swung at the slinking man’s head, hitting the pen as hard as I could.  It sunk deep into his head, squishing into the brain (I presume) because what little life was left in him vanished and he fell to the floor like a sack of oranges.

            The girl he’d been clawing had stopped screaming.  I looked around and saw that no one was paying attention anymore.  I tossed the book back to the person I’d taken it from and he just went back to reading after giving me the slightest look of disapproval.  He didn’t even avoid putting his hands in the blood that was congealing on the book.

            Pulling my attention back on the girl next to me, I grabbed her arm and inspected the scratches.  They were bleeding and gaping.  She didn’t wince at my touch.  

            Next I had to check her eyes, and there it was.  What must have been beautiful, deep brown eyes just seconds ago, were now being clouded over by a dusty gray.  There was no focus to them. 

            Just then there was a loud honk coming from the street.  I looked up to see the bus was pulling into the train station and making its way toward us.  It was going to be sliding in right next to me.

            There was a slight moan starting to escape from the girl next to me whose arm I was still holding.  Before I knew it, her head dove down toward my hand to try and snatch a bite.  I was lucky she didn’t weight very much.  Using them momentum of her strike, I was able to yank her around and toss her from the platform just as the bus was sliding in.  There was a crunch and a crack as the bus bounced over her lifeless body. 

            “Sorry kid.”  I said as I turned to gather my bag and get in line for the bus.  I popped my earbuds back in as I found my favorite seat in the right isle toward the back of the bus.  People were still abuzz with conversation, but no one seemed to have noticed what had just happened right in front of their eyes. 

            I looked out the window as we pulled away from the station.  There were two bodies lying on the ground outside, but they were already starting to decompose.  All the evidence would be gone soon, and in 3 short hours I’d be up in Portland and on my way to class.

            Ok….so there are parts of this story that aren’t exactly true.  Maybe even all of it after the first two or three paragraphs.  But really, any of that could happen at any time.

Beyond just feeling uncomfortable with and suspicious of some of the people that dwell down there, I am convinced that downtown Eugene Oregon is going to be where the impending zombie apocalypse is going to start.  Seriously.  If you don’t believe me, you’ve never been downtown Eugene.

Life Sucks Part 2: All Is Right With the World

I still hold strong to my last post about how life sucks.  There’s no denying that, at least in part, without being delusional.  Yet this morning, I find myself waking up with a sense of overwhelming peace.  I am satisfied with the day thus far and with my life.  

It’s not like I’m doing anything exciting, I’m just going through my usual Saturday routine.  The kids let me sleep in until a whopping 6:30 (hallelujah!) before waking me up to have me feed them, then I slept for another few hours.  I read a few pages in bed after I decided it was time to get up and I’d had enough sleep (my favorite thing about Saturdays, they’re the one day I can sleep as long as I want).  

A few minutes later I got up out of bed and sorted the laundry and put some in the washing machine.  As I did, I remembered a few things that I need to pick up at the store later today.  Usually at this point I start to prepare myself for action, pumping myself up to go to the store and to figure out some sort of recipe to make tonight for dinner that will give us leftovers for tomorrow.  Instead, this morning I found myself just being thankful that I could even go grocery shopping, and that I’m adult enough to make a list (silly, silly things).

My mind hummed with my schedule today: do laundry, go grocery shopping, finish my homework, work out.  I rarely make lists for myself, but when I do they sort of swallow me up because I have pressure to get everything done.  Not today.

Today, as I moved around our apartment, I felt satisfied.  I cleaned the house yesterday, so that was one less thing to do.  Aquinas and Ashi were both passed out on the bed with Aaron, so I didn’t have to ref any fights.  I didn’t feel self conscious that my hair was sticking straight up.  I was grateful (and still am) for how a lot of really crappy situations lately have turned out.  I was even more grateful for the ability to be grateful.  I woke up with the smile on my lips that I’d gotten so used to through most of my life, but that had seemed to abandon me for the past couple of years.

Nothing in this world is perfect.  We don’t know why things happen and we have to try to be content with knowing that God may or may not let us know, yet He still uses things for good.  As you know, I am fully aware of all of this.  Yet, instead of thinking of Job and Joseph, other verses are flowing through my head.  

“This is the day the Lord had made, I will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).  I think that a lot of people take this verse to mean that they have to be happy about everything no matter how hard and how crushing it might be, that it’s an ultimatum.  But what we are called to do here is rejoice in everything that God does.  He doesn’t create the bad situations, although He’ll allow them.  God makes good out of the bad situations.  I say, rejoice in that.  God has made this day as He’s made all things and He is good, so we will rejoice in the fact that He brings good into this fallen world and that He cares enough to do so.

For over ten years, what I considered my life verse was Matthew 6:34, 35, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself; each day has enough troubles of its own.”  I’ve been a worrier my whole life and this verse is a reminder to take each day and it’s troubles one by one.  For someone who is afraid that not worrying means that they aren’t prepared for situations in life, you can’t get any better an excuse to relax than that.  

So far today, I’m impressed upon to feel few troubles and just kick back, enjoying my day that will be filled with the boring and the usual.  Heck, I’m barely even annoyed that, yet again, what I’ve written isn’t quite as good as what I’d been thinking in my head before sitting down to my computer. I’m just happy that I can write something with good enough grammar for people to be able to read.  Just call me Pollyanna.

Life Sucks

Life sucks.  Seriously.  And I’m not meaning in an emo sort of way.  It’s just true, a lot of things that happen in life suck.  There’s death, cancer, emotional baggage, poverty, war, and so many different evils in the world that just really suck.  It’s impossible to get away with not being affected by these things in some way, even if you don’t experience them personally.  Sin has pretty much ruined our world.

So what do we do?  Well, I can’t account for everyone, but I know what I do.  I have one thing that I take comfort in that is the only thing that keeps me sane.  Jesus.  

Some people might be rolling their eyes by now and scoffing at that, thinking I’m just a kid who doesn’t know what “life sucking” really is or someone that’s been brainwashed.  Well, think what you may.  The awesome thing is that God has control over that.

You see, Jesus has two characteristics that I absolutely adore that kind of make everything better, or at least bearable.  Most people right now would be guessing that one of them is His love.  Jesus’ love is a great and mighty thing, a freaking sweet characteristic of His, but it’s not what I’m referring to here.  You see, beyond all of Jesus’ characteristics including love, kindness,  justice, acceptance, grace, and majesty (as well as many others), His righteousness and sovereignty are what keep me going through all this crap on earth.

Jesus reigns over everything, including Satan.  Satan, demons and the effects of sin cannot do any work without Jesus’ consent.  (I know I’ve lost a lot of you here, but just hang in there with me).  The best example I can think of here is the story of Job in the Bible.  Pretty much, he’s a great guy.  He does everything he’s supposed to, his family is full of believers and all of his children are just as successful as he is.  Then at one point, Satan asks God’s permission to mess with Job and see if he will turn on God.  The twist is, God consents.  The rest of the story is Job’s life falling to pieces and neither his friends nor his wife, as much as they try to “help” him through it, can help him at all.  They try to figure out what Job did for all of this to happen to him and blame him for committing sins.

Job was amazing in the fact that he never turned on God, and he didn’t listen to his friends or his wife.  He did mourn the deaths of the people in his family, the loss of his livelihood, and the decline of his health (heck he even got angry at God), but then he continued to praise God. He definitely wasn’t perfect (come to find out a lot of the good things he did were done because of selfishness).  Overall, Job dealt with things as they came in a fairly appropriate (although human) way.  Embracing the fact that everything that happened sucked, but also that God must have a reason.

In the end, God had a heart to heart with Job.  Job asked God why He did the things He had to Job.  God’s answer?  It isn’t for Job to know everything that God is doing, even in his life.  As callous as this may sounds, it makes so much sense!  Was Job there when God created the earth?  Was he there when God breathed life in to man?  Not at all.  Job is part of God’s creation and God is sovereign over all.  What He does is His business.

The question comes up here, then why believe in God?  What stops Him from doing evil things to people all the time just for kicks and to play with people, kind of like a kid with a magnifying glass on an ant hill.  That’s where God’s righteousness comes in.  God is righteous and so does everything for some sort of reason, even if we never understand what that reason is.  

God did not make the world evil and sinful.  Everything crappy that happens to us comes down to the fact that there is sin in the world.  What God does is He takes the sin that is meant for evil and then uses it for good.  We may not ever see the good that comes out of it, but it does.  Just look at Joseph with his brothers.  First they try to kill him, then they sell him off into slavery.  As his life gets better and he moves up as a top slave, he is then thrown into jail because of some false accusations from his owner’s shady wife.  After he’s in jail he helps save a royal servant who was put in there, and then waits years before he is ever repaid for that favor.  Then, he is taken out of jail and after some pretty sweet dream interpretations and helping the Pharaoh, he is elevated to a monumental status in Pharaoh’s house and even saved Pharaoh's people from a famine.  In the end, he’s able to help his good-for-nothing brothers who caused all of this super crappy stuff to happen in the first place and does it with joy.  When his borthers finally realize that it is Jacob who is helping them, they understandably ask him why he would do that after everything they’d done to him.  His answer?  In Genesis 5:20 he says, “...you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

Jacob completely got the whole concept.  God allowed those things to happen to Jacob.  They were terrible and in God’s love for His children and compassion for us, I’m sure that it hurt him to see those things go down.  But because of what Jacob went through, he was able to save a whole land from a famine and have enough influence on the Pharaoh to keep his family alive as well and therefore go on to create the 12 tribes of Israel that would eventually produce Jesus Christ.  

Jacob went through the motions and made everything that he did count.  He trusted that God had great things in store for him.  It seemed impossible in the way his life was turning, but God came through!

Trusting in God’s sovereignty over everything, including my personal life, is what I cling to when things go all craptastic on me.  I may never know why something has happened, but I can trust that it is part of God’s will and that He takes what is sinful and meant for evil, and will use it for good in some way because He is righteous.  In that righteousness He is loving, full of grace, and bearer of justice.  

Knowing these things doesn’t keep me from getting upset or shield me from noticing when bad things happen.  I’ve got my “Debbie Downer” moments and times when I just don’t want to exist anymore because things hurt so bad (kind of reminiscent of some of King David’s Psalms).  That’s when God reminds me of those two characteristics of His.  He is sovereign and righteous.  Remembering that gives me a sort of peace that can only come through Him, and I realize that even though life sucks, I really can get through anything as long as I do it through Him, and that’s when I can’t help but worship and praise Him.  

I don’t have to like every situation or even think that it’s fair.  I just have to remember that fair doesn’t come in to play in a broken and sinful world.  God will morph evil into good, and His presence on the earth actually gives us the taste of what good is, rather than left being encompassed with evil.  He really is a great and mighty God.  He is righteous and sovereign.  He brings the only justice the world sees, and grants grace on His people.  Even in the harsh, sucky, craptastic parts of life, I find contentment and peace when in Him.  

HALLELUJAH!  Jesus, you freaking ROCK!