interlude

a note to my readers: i know i'm a little behind. i started grad school three weeks ago and have been spending all of my writing time on two longer papers for my class. i have been making notes as i think of them and promise to catch up soon!

memories - the fifteenth

i remember when he used to pick up hitchhikers as we were driving down the highway. his heart too compassionate, too generous to just drive on by. i remember ice cream on warm days and overnight fishing trips. his way of bonding. i remember my little hands trying to help with "handy man" type projects and then my grown up hands using what i had learned. his way of passing on something at which he was good.

i remember sitting in the same room and splitting an entire watermelon between the two of us, his portion slightly salted. i remember the day i was so excited that he was coming to watch my softball practice and the disappointment that followed when a grounder busted up my face while he was watching. i remember jean claude van dam movies and hours of learning to play penny poker, of course with his money. i remember (illegal) afternoon drives in the country, before i could even reach the pedals.

i could continue with the things that i remember as we have spent countless hours together, and to detail just how he's affected my life is difficult. he's compassionate yet brave. he's ornery yet wise. he's peaceful yet somehow he managed to fight for our nation. he's a hero, unsung; unknown to most. but a hero nonetheless.

i hope that as i grow older, i can reek of the same compassion, generosity, and patience that i have seen come out of him. i hope that in the rough times i can cling to faith in the ways that he has. i hope for his bravery, and his ability to sit peacefully in silence with the god he loves.

happy birthday, dad.

when god overrides jealousy: the fourteenth

there's yet another birthday of someone on my list today (maybe i'm drawn to people born in june), but these birthdays and occasions make it easier for me to chose who to write about.

this particular friend is one of the ones that i didn't like upon our first meeting. my dislike was unusual because most people couldn't help but love her and everyone wanted to be around her. in reality, it was my sinful jealousy that really kept me from liking her, but i would make up all sorts of reasons to convince myself that she couldn't be my friend. by my junior year, i found that she was actually quite a refreshing individual, but it wasn't until i found myself as her RA our last semester of college that i actually grew to love her.

sherami has continued to be a part of my life since then. every couple of months we find ourselves in a long conversation usually consisting of pain and boys. while our situations have not been the same, the feelings that they have produced in each other have been mirrors of each other. it has been comforting to have someone who understands the tears and can take to heart the life revelations as they come. she's rooted in jesus and isn't afraid to grow in the midst of struggle. in many ways, i greatly admire her beauty. yes, she's a handsome person, but it's her inside beauty that makes her outwardly glow. i'm certain that's why people are so drawn to her.

the counselor. number thirteen.

i'm convinced that everyone needs a counselor in their life at some point, but i didn't always believe this. during my high school days, i got to be part of this cool title nine program called upward bound which really has a lot to do with college readiness. there was an employee of the program whose title was "counselor", and when they plopped me in her office as a freshman, i refused to speak as i was sure she was just going to try to figure out all the junk in my soul. in truth she just wanted to help guide my teenage self in decision making processes and if the emotional came along, she was trained to do that too.

the good thing about michelle is that she refused to let my stubbornness affect the way she treated me, and because of that, our relationship has gone from that of a professional nature to one of friendship as i have become an adult. by mid-high school, i stopped looking at her as the enemy although i still didn't share with her, and started to listen to what she had to say. just when my heart had begun to change toward her, she announced she was leaving. but she never really left my life because she ended up working on the very college campus that chose to move to just one year later.

i didn't have daily interactions with her, but it was comforting to know that someone who knew me pre-college was just a building away. despite michelle being a counselor, i came to appreciate her insight and advice on the situation at hand. she never pushed me to talk yet embraced what i had to say. i really felt like her friend, and it's a friendship that i'm grateful for.

eleven and twelve

this year of all of my working years, i found myself incredibly blessed by the two bosses that god put into my working life. both share similar qualities at the core of which is their deep care for the person rather than the job.

tom is a visionary leader with a natural ability for carrying out the details, a very uncommon combination. there is something about him that exudes a humble greatness, and you can't help but wonder if you are standing in the presence of someone that is going to make drastic changes on this earth. he and his wife already did so in mongolia (click here to read more), and he's doing it again among college students in the midwest (more on this). god is using him to renew a dying region, and it's an incredibly powerful thing to watch. tom leads by example and with great regard for those under his leadership. often i conversation the first thing he wants to know is how the other person is doing. many of our conversations preceeding work have revolved around the personal going-ons of my life. tom has become one of those people that i look forward to seeking wisdom from as he has the ability to look at all sides of the issue. he is someone that i would follow in a heartbeat.

ironically, i'm leaving him....

john is very similar to tom in that he is very pastoral. although, he should be as he is a pastor by training. (can you really be trained to be a pastor?) john impresses me because he is so multigifted. one minute you find him meeting with donors and potential parents (of the school of which he is a principal) and the next he's installing the new basketball hoop or painting the new classroom. i love the way he is with children. he's patient and slow to anger, yet firm enough to be shown respect. he gets the gospel (believe it or not, not all pastors do), and he exudes grace. he encourages creativity among both teachers and students, and has had a great hand in facilitating a unique learning and working community.

ironically, i'm leaving him too...

tanya makes ten

i've written about tanya before, but usually it is full of jokes. while she is a fun and light-hearted person to be around, she deserves more than sarcasm this time around. tanya and i met eight yeas ago during an intense summer experience in an urban environment. for various reasons we didn't really like each other, but we survived the summer and went our separate ways.

three years later, we moved back to the city at about the same time, and the lack of knowing people forced us to spend time together. for some reason we liked each other this time, and a year of hanging out turned into two years as roommates.

as much as we liked each other, we really weren't great roommates. tanya was (is) a very laid back, go with the flow, last minute, whatever floats your boat kind of person. i, on the other hand, was fairly uptight, scheduled, planned, need to know everything that's going on kind of person. in a living situation those two extremes don't mix well without some compromising, and we were both still a little immature in that area.

unfortunately i didn't see the effects of our relationship until we decided to part ways, but in hindsight i see that living with her was the first step toward the freedom from myself that i'm experiencing these days. tanya was living proof to me that sometimes you just have throw your schedule out the window and forget what time it is. she taught me that sometimes it's better to silence your cellphone and pay attention to the one who is sitting beside you. she challenged the core of my personality just by being herself. i hated it, and i allowed it to create unnecessary conflict. thus began the unavoidable change. because of tanya, i started to let go, and because of the letting go, i'm a new person. i still like a schedule, but it's okay if 5 minutes late. i still need consistancy, but it's not a big deal if a pot gets put in the wrong spot.

and tanya, well, she now owns a planner. :)

california dreamin': number nine

during my freshman year of college, one of the first people i became friends with was a guy named russell. several months into our friendship, two of his high school buddies (that also happened to be brothers) came to visit campus. in order to show the guys a good time, russell got a bunch of people together for some game action one evening which is where i first met jake and joel. sitting in that laughter-filled room that evening, i had no idea that my future held good friendships with these guys. over the years to follow, i came to love their musical abilities, joel's humor, and jake's advice. but this post isn't actually about them.

it's about their parents, mark and lisa. i know i've written about them before (maybe even more than once), but these are people that have really effected my life simply by being themselves. joel ended up attending my college and we became fast friends. we went on the same spring break trip which was to return to campus before the end of the break so joel invited me to spend the weekend at his parents' house. as is the case with most people outside of this family, i came to love them within a short amount of time. mark and lisa consistently throw open their arms in welcome and with love. they have been known to put on events for their massive numbers of friends. you can read more about my adventures with the rohde's here:

chillin' with the rohde's
the rohde rave

the adventures i've had with them range from backyard camping to watching the super bowl to boogie boarding off the californian coast. they have certainly created life-long memories, but these are not the biggest reasons why mark and lisa are on my list of fifty. when i think about my future, the things i value, and what i want my life to be about, i realize that mark and lisa are living it. they raised four incredible boys. when the youngest one was just old enough, they downsized their lives, packed up what was left, and moved 1, 987 miles away. most people do this to retire. mark and lisa did it in order to create a welcoming home in another state, only this time it wasn't for their kids' friends. it was for children who didn't have a home; who lacked safety and reliability. in a matter of days, mark and lisa doubled the size of their family, and it now consists of "children" age 26 to 3, seven boys and one girl, and of multiple races.

i want to be like them. i want to be able to take risks that land me in the unknown. i want to do something right when raising children. i want to create a home where more than my own family can be. i want children from a wide range of backgrounds to be a part of my family. mark and lisa are not only inspiration, but a model to follow. if i can be half as great as they are, i'll consider my life a success.

the professor: the eighth

sometimes when i look back on the academic side of my college experience, i wonder what i really learned: how to complete an assignment pleasing to a professor; how to retain information just long enough to spit it back out onto a paper full of questions; how to write a lesson plan that shined on paper even though i couldn't make it work in a real classroom. really all useful things when working towards a diploma, but not so helpful in the real world.

there is one class that i remember doing this thing called learning in. it wasn't of my own accord, but because the professor made everything so intriguing, one couldn't help but absorb the information. you could argue that i was predisposed to liking the content, but it wasn't so. this professor's name was spoken all over campus by many a student, and his class was outside of my major. he made the text come alive and found ways of tapping into all learning styles that some of the education professors could have learned from. he was patient and wise and took time to meet with his students outside of the classroom. he was a natural teacher. he was well respected by both students and faculty, and his classes filled up quickly.

i had very few interactions with him outside of class as i had waited until my last semester to take it. the handful of times i was in his office, it was to discuss our group project (as a group). i don't even remember having any one-on-one meetings with him. i wasn't one of those students on the campus that stood out. i knew about 600 people, but i'm not certain that 600 people knew me. i was a pretty average (for our campus) student and was not an athlete (unlike 80% of the student body). unless you knew me well, there was really no reason for anyone to remember me. i spent one semester in this man's class. three hours a week for about sixteen weeks.

at baccalaureate, i was in between greeting friends and family, when this man found me. he congratulated me and told me he enjoyed having me in his class. then he said (and i quote), "i can say this to you because you have graduated and because i don't think you will take this the wrong way. if were twenty years younger, you'd be my girlfriend."

while some might take this in the wrong creepy way, i actually saw it as a huge compliment. this highly known, respected, gifted man saw something in me that, had he been in a completely different place in life, would have led him to pursue me. it helped me to realize that i'm really worth the wait.

ice cream and dancing: number seven

the thing i liked most about chelsey is that she brought pure fun to a room; or more specifically to our room on the third floor of gaass hall. she was innocently devious, creative, and curious. she loved to eat pizza and mac n' cheese with me, and i'm pretty certain she is the only roommate i've ever had that actually enjoyed watching lifetime movies with me. chelsey was a cross country runner which she put to good use...running to the grocery store...to get ice cream...for us...to eat. there were times when my stomach would ache from laughing with her.

besides helping me to relax and have fun, she taught me practical things like wrapping presents and dancing. although the present wrapping session usually ended in her just doing it for me, and the dancing resulted in her laughing at me as i was no where near the graceful ballerina that she was.

that she really was. a graceful ballerina, a runner, an ice cream lover, and one of the best roommates ever.

a friend from the cornfields: number six

a new baby was born today (of course). i'm specifically thinking of a little girl whose parents named her calla.

it's been a long time since i've talked to this man who suddenly found himself in a new role, but there was time when he was the one i talked to with as much frequency as possible. it's been said that my dad prayed him into my life as i had been pretty lonely and in need someone to call a real friend. others might say that we just drifted into each other's life, but regardless of how it came to be, it's a friendship that changed my life.

for various reasons, i spent much of high school feeling unvalued and unloved by my peers (i'm not going to argue that my feelings were totally valid, but they were my feelings nonetheless). i had joined this county-wide bible study consisting of teens from about five tiny towns. it was in this study that i met robert. he would tell you that he didn't want to be friends with some random girl from another town, and i would tell you that i thought he was cute (i was pretty boy crazy back in the day). despite his internal resistance, some kind of bond formed between us and we found ourselves together; "cruising" on friday nights, watching snl on saturday nights, star gazing and profoundly discussing life in the summers. we kept each other company at our respective school functions, and became advocates for each other's accomplishments in life. honestly, robert was my best friend.

through his friendship, i learned that i was lovable. i learned that my family was lovable. i felt validity. i found encouragement. i experienced a deep joy and a deep love. i think i can say that there is something mutually influential about our friendship as is caused robert to begin discovering just where he might be passionate; helped him to question the purpose for his immediate future.

as we got older life happened. college took us down different paths. he became a pastor, married an incredibly wonderful woman, and today, they became parents. i'm excited for this new life which hopefully means a new passion for this man.

when thank you isn't enough: persons number five

sometimes influence happens indirectly; like these commercials. thinking about these fifty people combined with processing information about "good start" and "bad start" in early life development has brought me to my number five.

they've been around my whole life (and longer), and while i have been effected by spending time with them, it's the investment they made before i was even conceived that has profoundly shaped the cornerstone of who i am.

they were a young couple answering god's call to plant a church in a small city in nebraska. church planting can be difficult so they took jobs to help financially. or at least i assume that's the reason brad found himself working at valmont.

another young couple moved to the same small city for his job. eventually, ron also found himself working at valmont alongside brad. i can't pretend to know the details of how their friendship formed, but i do know that there was something about the way brad loved ron that ron found intriguing. at some point ron and his wife, denise, found friends in brad and his wife, judy. and at some point, brad and judy brought jesus into ron and denise's life.

ron and denise became part of the church plant and found themselves being discipled by their young friends. eventually, the foursome became practically inseparable. they found in each other refuge, strength, and a friendship that nothing could destroy. i've heard stories about how brad and ron would do the things that ornery guys do and would get hurt in the process. about how judy and denise would scrape pennies together so that they could split a good housekeeping and a chunky bar. sometimes if they hit a gold mine, they would tell stories over chips and salsa at the local mexican joint.

thirty years later, a letter from one couple to the other read, "God looks down and pairs us up with soul mates, we believe, and you are ours; our spirits continue conversations whether we are in one another’s presence or not."

what a poetically beautiful statement.

i deeply admire the bond between these couples, and hope that i will have that in my life, but the effect it's had on my life goes beyond deep admiration. every once in a while, i try to imagine my life without jesus; without a savior to hope in; without grace to walk in. i can't conceive a picture because jesus has always been around, thanks to brad and judy. ron and denise: they are my parents. something about the way that brad and judy intentionally poured into them didn't just effect their lives, but made drastic changes at the core of who they each were, their life as a couple, and as parents.

there's so much more i would like to say, but the deep emotion of gratitude and love i have for this couple is impossible to express.

what do you do when thank you doesn't feel like enough.....

servant heartedness and a wedding: person number four

looking back on the summer i spent with the next person on the list, i realize that he gave me a glimpse of the person i was to become. he loved jane austen and classical music and could chop an onion better than most people i know. i know this little fact about the onion because he consistently gave up what little free time he had during an intense summer program in order to help me prepare dinner for a hundred people. he quietly served people in this way--taking out the trash, picking up a middle schooler at the end of a school day, working late into the night on woodworking projects for urban elementary kids to finish the next day, waking up early on a sleep-in day to bake for friends. the list could just go on and on. i think daniel was one of the most naturally servant hearted people i have ever met.

becoming friends with daniel taught me to let go and live with the playfulness of child every now and then. he silently pushed his way into my life in ways that showed me i don't always have to be strong; that it's okay to let others do things for me; and to depend on community every now and then. when he wasn't excersizing his servanthoodedness, he could be found running around with the kids, playing games, and using his boyish charm to put grins on the faces of everyone around him.

daniel got married today to an equally as wonderful woman named kimberly. i'm certain that together they are going to unintentionally wreck people's lives by caring for them in ways they never imagined possible.