Normal Not Normal

I normally shun normal. I usually shun what everybody else does. I'm not sure how to say it and I'm not sure why I am like that. It’s not like I think that everybody else is wrong. And I'm not one to want to be in the spotlight, especially for being different. But I guess I just like to not be like everyone else. I like to be my own definite person. I get it from my Mom.

So that being said, today I'm going to write about what the whole world is talking about. Yup, you get to hear about the novel corona virus again. I guess by now it is controlling everybody's life so in a way I'm justified because it isn't only what everyone is talking about, it has been our life for the last few weeks and seemingly will be for the next few weeks or even months.

I don't pay much attention to news. That's an understatement. Part of the reason I'm not interested in lots of socializing and small talk is because I have absolutely no clue what's going on in the rest of the world. I prefer to spend my time sewing instead of catching up on the news. So the first I remember about this whole deal is being in Winnipeg with some friends near the end of January and seeing footage of streets of different cities in China with people walking around wearing masks. I heard tidbits here and there from people discussing the news but I didn't think much of it till one week in March when all my co-workers could talk about was the disappearing supply of toilet paper only to reappear on Amazon at a ridiculously high price. By the end of that week I was seriously sick of COVID-19 jokes. That weekend we had the last church service we'd have for awhile. By then, there had been a caution that maybe the older folks should not attend as a precaution. Sunday evening some of us youth were sitting around in a coffee shop and someone wondered if it was ok to joke about the virus any more. He was realizing it was getting serious and all of us agreed. That was the first it really hit home to me that this virus was really affecting the whole world. I don't know when in this timeline the first case hit Manitoba and I don't know when I started keeping up at least a little bit with the news. But both of those happened. As I write this, Manitoba has 194 confirmed cases of COVOD-19. (I started this post a long time ago, obviously)

Life was pretty normal for the next few days. There’s that word ‘normal’ again. And then suddenly church was cancelled a week later. And from there we spiraled down quite quickly. Normal church services have been reduced to a speaker preaching to an almost empty church, a few singers and the rest of us listening from our couches at home. Extracurricular activities have been halted. My work days have been affected slightly, a few weeks I only worked two days instead of three, but we are still considered an essential business as Technology does not submit to Virus. I haven’t found this super hard, staying at home I mean. Although if I don’t get out of the house at least once a day I can go crazy. Six-year-olds and 2-year-olds can do that to a person. Long walks and bike rides and drives and early morning shopping trips are good ways to keep from going too crazy, I’ve found. Following are a few paragraphs of my experience with this pandemic so far.

I’m listing to church. My mind pictures the one family singing, staring out over the sea of empty benches. A handful of people where usually there are over a hundred milling about or listening quietly to the sermon. And here we are. Listening from our own homes, our own couches, in everyday clothes and bare feet. Sure, maybe the first Sunday was novel. We didn’t have to scramble to get lunch in the oven and breakfast eaten and the drive to church driven before 10:00. The second Sunday was ok but by the third Sunday I was definitely ready to go back to church. It doesn’t feel quite right listening from home in our short sleeves and bare feet.  As of today it’s been 6 Sundays.

Since socializing has been prohibited my cousin has made our home his second home. This is a win/win all around as he lives in town and doesn’t have much to do there and we need something (someone) to keep us busy. And it’s never boring when he’s around. Sometimes we go canoeing down the creek and after traversing under a few bridges with only a foot of clearance underneath we disembarked ungracefully into the deep. And trudged dripping wet and cold across a muddy field to warm up in the truck that my dad so wonderfully brought us. Sometimes we waltz into Walmart just before closing time the night before Easter to buy ourselves a nice expensive Ninja blender since our old blender has only been working half for the last few years. Sometimes we head to a local park after driving around making valiant but failed attempts to find potato wedges at the numerous Timmy’s in town and we spend an hour or so acting like kids, rolling down hills and climbing trees and generally making fools of ourselves to anyone watching, nobody was watching. If all else fails and we can’t find anything else interesting to do we head upstairs and play endless rounds of ping pong, trying out left hands and spins and spikes. I’d like to say I’ll be a pro at ping pong when we can start getting together and playing ping pong again but in reality I won’t be.

Near the beginning of this whole staying-at-home, not-being in physical-contact-with-people deal I was chatting with a friend who kinda shares the staying-at-home, not-being-in-physical-contact-with-many-people mentality with me in normal life, I made the comment that I didn’t think I’d get very bored staying at home. I was wrong. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dying for human contact (meaning other than family) so much that I take a drive in town, or go to the store just to see and talk to people even if they are strangers. There’s no danger of that, although I wouldn’t mind seeing my friends again. Sure I have a device to communicate with them but that doesn’t take the place of actually being with them in really life. My biggest problem has been being at home all day with nothing to do. Actually there’s lots to do. I could cook and clean and sew and take care of kids and do all sorts of things that I ‘don’t have time for’ normally. I do do this stuff. But I get really bored of not having much purpose to life. I feel useless. I’d like to be back in Gallup right now, where I know I’d be doing something to help people other than myself. But soon it will be nice enough to start mowing lawns and working outside and I will be a lot busier.

One evening after two, three weeks of not seeing most of my youth friends, we met for a few minutes on a random parking lot. Not our normal party but it was good to see my friends again. One day after a few trying hours of uselessness I had a brainwave and the next day saw a friend and me driving 3 hours both ways to spend a few hours at another friend’s house. One evening I was slaving over a fire trying to cook up supper and my device heralded me with a message from a friend inviting me over for the evening to sit around a fire. More friends joined us and we spent the evening chilling and being crazy and singing to a soundtrack of rippling water and splashing logs and the natural sounds of the bush. These get-togethers have been spread out over a few weeks, increasing as the virus forecast is slowly looking better and better.

 Simple. That's what life has been the last few weeks.  Blissfully free. No social life to worry about. I know I'm contradicting myself from a few paragraphs up but I wish life could continue like this. More time to read. Long walks in the evening without having to worry about some sort of social event that you are expected to show up to. More time to go 'sploring' on the 'forest' with little kids. Lazy Sunday mornings making delish food for dinner. More time taken to watch sunsets. Normal life is such a social life. I feel like this new normal for these few weeks/months is good for me. As much as I force myself in 'real' or 'normal' life, social drains me.

Excuse the scattered, contradicting thoughts. Mistakes are rampant but I guess that makes it more interesting. I started this post a month ago and I decided it was time to just get it posted. I've found I have more inspiration when sitting at the computer than typing on my phone and I'm going to use that as an excuse. The internet has been down some, this computer can be very stubborn and slow sometimes and often is being used for business purposes by my Dad. So now a lot of this is old news. Boring. Already life is beginning to change and we're becoming more social. Life is becoming normal again. 

But My Legs Are Too Short

I went on a little walk with my small sister a few days ago. She actually acts large for her age (which is 6). Sometimes anyways. On our walk, the question was posed to me 'How far are we going?' When I made known my intention to make the end of the driveway our turning point the answer came fast 'Aww why can't we go farther!' The night was slightly dark and quite dreary. A few drops of moisture were blowing into our faces and her tune changed in a matter of seconds. 'I'm cold. I'm pretty sure my ears are gunna freeze off in 10 minutes. Do we have to go all the way?' I tried a few things to help her warm up a bit and bear the slight cold. In my efforts I suggested a short jog. No sooner had we started when I was being begged to walk again. I made mention that we had barely jogged at all and that it would keep us warm. 'But my legs are short.'

Her legs are short. Are mine? She's a small child who doesn't comprehend consequences. Do I?

I'm on that walk with God. I'm that 6-year-old. My sinful natures tells me that what I want is better than God's way. If I don't want to turn at the corner God has for me I don't have to. It's my choice to make if I want to turn when God tells me to keep going. My ears are cold and I probably know a faster way to get where we are going, or at least somewhere where we can warm up. I know that God's way is truly best, and will take me on the best route to heaven, but in the moment I don't think about how my actions will affect my future. I just want to do what I want right now! It isn't always like this tho. Sometimes the other corners on the path have no appeal to me. And we wall together for awhile. But soon I'm starting to fall behind and God turns around and beckons me to walk faster. 'But God.' I say. 'I'm tired. You're walking to fast and my legs are short!'

Does God ever get exasperated with us? Does he sometimes want to knock some sense into us and say 'Look. If you turn now, if you follow your own road, you are not going to make it to heaven. The path to heaven is the way I'm showing you. Take it or leave it!' and stomp off down the road leaving us to fend for ourselves? He has never done that to me. When I do choose my own way and come back shamefully awhile later, he smiles at me and forgives me and we continue on. When my legs are too short, my ears are too cold, he slows down, gives me a toque and we continue on. 'Sweet is the tender love Jesus hath shown, sweeter far than any love that mortals have knows; kind to the erring one, faithful is He...Where he leads I'll follow. Follow Jesus everyday.'

 

(Updated October 6, 2020)

Making Joyful Noises

Do you feel power in words? When you sang 'Joy to the World' so many times at Christmas, did you feel the song as you sang about the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love? Or when you sing in church or to the many old people you go out to, do you listen to how the melody compliments the lyrics and suddenly you aren't just singing anymore. 'He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock' and 'Blessed assurance Jesus is mine. Oh what a foretaste of heaven devine' become strong and real instead of just words trying to describe indescribable feelings and wonders.
Songs are a wonder to me. They take the seperate abilities of our vocal cords and minds, and mold them together and you've got something beautiful. And these songs in turn, stir hearts. But the key to stirring hearts with song is in the mixing. If you just think about the words while your singing, then you start judging the songwriter for how he uses grammar and punctuation. If you listen solely to the music, the words are meaningless and to you and your heart is not in the song and people around you can realize that. But when you thoroughly mix the words and the music, you are usually presented with an object that your heart can hear and your mind can feel. The softly sung words of a slow, thought-provoking song, tugging at your heart and making you cry for unknown or obscure reasons. Or the rousing, uplifting tune with joyful words and news that makes you want to sing it louder and louder until the whole world has lost its sadness and joined in.
Sometimes tho, the music is choppy. The timing is slightly stressful and takes a bit of effort to manage, voices cut in and out here or there, and besides that the words are weird. I don't know anything about writing songs so don't ask me for advice. But I've found that most old familiar songs aren't super stressful and choppy. Perhaps that is why they are old familiars. Of late I've been taking note of the words we sing in church, at youth, wherever. I've sung them for many years, but only in the passed year or so have I really begun to realize what they say. And it's amazing what they have to tell me. I used to want to sing new songs all the time because I was bored of the old tunes. I still do, of course, but now I love singing (most) old songs as well. The songs I mentioned in the first paragraph are but a fraction of the touching songs we sing.
Our voices strengthen in the last stanza of an Easter song-  'Hallelujah' and then we quiet down as we sing with awe and wonder 'What a Savior.'
'It is well with my soul.' The first stanza of the chorus is sung a bit quietly as the baritones of the men's voices have not joined us yet. We repeat it once, twice altogether to complete the rest of the chorus and by repeating it we start to wonder at the words. By the end of the crescendo, everybody has determined that it is well with their soul, or it will be soon.
'I took a long long walk by the river. Had a quiet peaceful talk with my Lord' This old song is a personal favorite. Perhaps due to the fact that we sung it a lot with the kids in Gallup and you would frequently hear them singing it while playing thruout the day. Perhaps it's also due to the promises it gives us. 'My Jesus has broad shoulders. His back is stronger than mine. He was there the first time I called him. He'll be there any place any time.' The slow timing and the medium range that doesn't hop around drastically lends a solemn, thoughtful air to the song while the well-placed rest ensures that we stop and think about what we are singing to ourselves.
 'Oh Lord when I in awesome wonder consider all the worlds thy hands have made.' This song, too, is one of my favorites. It's a simple praise song, that some how takes unusualish words like 'lofty mountain grandeur' and 'scarce' and 'acclimation' and combines them with a tune to create a piece of timeless music. It is best sung under the stars, around a fire, out on a hike thru some great red rocks, or whenever you are in the great out doors and can see the nature God created and you can truly, in awesome wonder, proclaim 'How great Thou art.'
There are many more I could mention. 'Oh how I love Jesus' was once upon a time, maybe even still is, my Grandma's favorite song. I haven't heard her sing it for awhile but I can hear her in my head 'There is a name I live to hear.. It tells of One whose loving heart can feel my deepest woe.' 'The solid rock' becomes a lot more precious when you hear it sung by memory by littlw 4 and 5- year-olds who don't really know what they are singing but they're repeating what they hear from family and in church. 'Sitting at the feet of Jesus' and 'Behold what love' and 'Savious breath and evening blessing' and 'He comes to bless my soul. All these songs are much more than pretty tunes. Take a Christian Hymnal or another old songbook sometime and listen to the words as you sing the songs. You'll start putting more feeling into the song when you're really listening to the words and letting yourself react to them.
Try one more thing. Sometime when you sit in church, stop singing and just listen. Listen as the hundred or so people blend their voices, singing the words in perfect unison. You might just hear the words first. Maybe just the songleader or the enthusiastic soprano behind you. Keep listening. Close your eyes. Soon the harmony will start to blend in. You'll hear high and low. You'll hear the music and you'll hear the words. You'll hear everything. And it will be hard not to join in.

Ah yes my friends. My thoughts are slightly scattered and this post is not fluid. The time is galloping toward midnight and sleep is nigh unto me with daylight on its heels. I must take my leave and let your mind take over where my words left off.

One thing

What's one thing that you don't care to have lots of people know about you?

I was going to say that I don't like to share my emotions. Even when something super happy or super sad happens I try to keep my feelings from showing. Keep them from showing in the usual way that is. I'll display them cryptically in a way that I might think is obvious but most other people do not catch on to. But this didn't answer my question really how I meant it.

One fact that I don't share with very many people is that I live in my head a lot. If life was like the daydreams I can dream up it would be quite amazing. Which is why sometimes I get upset at life because it is not often super amazing. It's often dull and mundane and can be downright ornery at times. And sometimes I get a little bit mad at people because of the same thing.
I also have trouble just living in the moment. One of my friends made the comment that extroverted people are generally happier then introverted people. Well yes I do believe this is correct from the extroverted side of it. And even I consent that it's somewhat true. Because people who are extroverted and even a lot of introverts live in the moment and have grand times. My head usually skips to the next moment. I wonder what is going to happen and whether it will be fun. The moments are whispering by unnoticed by me and I could be having fun but I keep thinking about the next one and what will happen with it. On the other side of it tho, sad is happy for deep people. I don't know how to explain that one but I know what it means to me.


What is one thing about you that you don't really care to have people know?

Did writing this and sending it out to the world actually help me in any way? I don't know. Now y'all know a bit more about me and why I act the way I do. And that is actually kinda freaky. Very freaky.

Be careful.

Give

This morning we heard about giving. It was brought to us in an unusual way, highlighting the sailors who rowed hard to try to get to shore instead of rightaways tossing Jonah overboard. They tried to help Jonah, giving their all to try to get everyone safely to shore. The question was asked- what are you giving? An example was brought about Christmas gifts. Sometimes you see something for the person who's name you have pulled and the price is higher than the price limit you have agreed on. But you buy it. That's giving. Going above and beyond. Not begrudgingly. But wanting to. What are you giving? What am I giving?? 

 Of course the first thing that comes to mind is Gallup. When I left I felt like I was giving 6 months of time time to help some needy kids. When I was done those 6 months I didn't feel like I had given so much of my time but I felt like I gained love and knowledge and inspiration. From those darling kids. From my new friends. From my 6 months in a different life.  
 During Christmas we as a youth do a lot of singing to old folks. And other people. One evening I was definitely tired of singing the same songs over and over again. I gave myself and went anyways. I watched them sing along with us. I smiled at a few. Later I went around shaking hands and one man thanked me for the smile I had given him earlier. I was taken aback. I've been going to sing at this place every few weeks for a few years now. I watched this particular man recover from something, graduate from listening to us awkwardly from a cot to being able to come in a wheelchair. And he took my smile and returned it and later thanked me for it. He gave it back to me, with joy.

  I met someone in the store the other day. This is on the opposite side, I didn't give first. I don't go to the same church as this lady. She's my friends' aunt but our paths cross once maybe twice a year, usually in a crowded church foyer. But his lady recognized me in the store and came over to tall to me. She called me by name and asked me about Gallup and when I had got home and that sort of stuff. Why should she care about me? I barely know her. But that's who she is. She gives. And the people getting what she's giving, in this case me, feel special because of it 
To me giving is getting. I don't necessarily think about it when I do small things like smiling at people but I think about what I get. Like a simple thank you. It made my day.

The Interesting Part Must Be Over

 Does anyone check this blog anymore? You probably do not care anymore because it will all be normal stuff about a normal girl. The interesting part is over. Short but sweet. Boom. Done. Bye

Would you do it?

I'm going to try to tell you about the life I lived the last 6 months. You've read the basics. But I have not been able to put absolutely everything into words. I still don't know how to do that but I'll attempt to give you a little bit more of a glimpse.


I watched one little girl learn to crawl and stand up and my heart cried as I watched her. I love her. I never wanted to see her leave. But where was her mom to see her reach these important milestones?

We got a call for two girls who had told their teacher they were scared to go home. In the end, they did not come to our home but my heart cried for these 2 girls I didn't know. Because little girls should not have to be scared to go home. To me the word 'home' means safety. And love.

I walked the dark halls one night- peering into each crib and bed, kissing soft, sleeping cheeks, rocking the crying one-year-old, fixing a bottle for the fussing baby. I leaned over the bassinet and saw the faces of 2 innocent, beautiful babies. And I cried. Because I can only take care of them for a few weeks. I can't teach them the necessities of a good life. And being babies in care already, they don't stand much of a chance.

I watched a 4-year-old make the whole house dislike him. I saw how happy everyone was when he left and my heart cried. Because he didn't know love til he came into our care. He didn't know what to do with the love so he turned it into hurt. And gave it back.

I admitted a boisterous, obnoxious 7-year-old whi apparently had been taking care of his sister for the last while. I watched him be super sweet to her and then turn around and taunt and bully and hurt the other kids without shame or remorse. I took him on my lap one day in the middle of an anger fit and he started crying and did not want to let go. And my heart cried. Because a 7-year-old should not have to take care of a baby. He should not have to have such nonchalance when hurting someone or being punished. He should not have to feel that the only way to get thru life without being hurt is to hurt first.

We had 2 children come for just overnight. None of their family would claim them. They had been to our home 3 times before and seemed resigned to their fate. And my heart cried for them because their lives will never be normal.

I sang the words 'Beautiful things in life won't come easy.' And I stared down at the soft little two-month-old face in my arms and I cried. Because the beautiful child I was holding already hadn't had an easy life. And most likely it will only get worse.

I heard the little 2-year-old call me 'Mom.' I heard her whispered words 'I love you!' and I felt her warm chubby hug wrapping round me. Three months later I watched as her birth mom came to pick her up. I saw this tiny child cry and cling to this life, the one life she knows. And I cried. I cried for the little girl who didn't know her mom. Who called me 'mom.'

 I held the unusually quiet, sleeping 4-month-old in my arms during church. I look around and see the 9-year-old trying to sing along to the songs he doesn't know, the 6-year-old standing proudly by Papa as he leads songs. And I cry. Because we truly sat in heavenly places in that small chapel. And I took it forgranted.



That's the biggest part about the life that I miss. It hurts me that I couldn't be there forever. But it made my life so much the better. It made me more thankful for anything that I have. And I have more friends.
 And what about the price I paid? I left part of my heart there. They say home is where your heart is. But part of my heart is there, part of it is here, part of it is with my little sisters - I've left my heart in so many places I don't have just one home anymore. That's the price I paid.