this may be the silliest thing you'll read all day

Today, I am glad for …helium. I’m glad for helium balloons that are a week old and not floating so well. Pickle decided to eat them, so before letting her pop them, I decided we’d have a little fun. And Laura had the brilliant idea to video it.

Watch our ridiculousness on Instagram @nataliejane1991.

Tonight was Ladies’ Night for Community. We both decided to stay home to write. And what do we do? Helium. Aye.

So that first sentence was supposed to say, I am glad for couples at the beach; people with their happy puppies; children learning to roller skate; and warm September evenings. I wish you could all see the dusk tonight, the sun spraying orange over the Two Brothers. If you did see it, I hope you stopped even for just a second and felt like you were melting in it.

That’s really all the longer I got to stop. Pickle decided we were going to run, and I felt up to it, so me and my flip-flops clopped along the walkway to the end of the bridge. We stopped and took a quick photo and continued to canter along until we found some friendly puppies to sniff Pickle’s butt. You know how dogs do. (Boy that helium must’ve messed with my head!) But seriously, three little dogs came over all at once. One of them was apparently a Chorkie (a Chihuahua/Yorkie for those of you, like me, who aren’t up on your breed mash-ups). Cute but weird (the dog, not the butt-sniffing).

MOVING ON. Everyone at the park was just so happy today. An Eastern European couple walked holding hands with their maybe four-year-old daughter as she learned to skate. Her feet slipped from under her, but they held her up. They tugged her closer as she tried to pull towards Pickle, exclaiming something in, I don’t know, Eukranian?, which I guessed meant PUPPY!! Everyone was smiling, like some scene from some movie that everyone talks about but no one has seen (I mean really, people describe things like being from a movie, but how many movies have happy scenes these days? (that aren’t animated that is))

Big sighs. So what is the point of this? The point is that it is okay to take an evening to rest. To enjoy the sun over the mountains and couples in the park. It is okay to be the single girl walking a crazy puppy. Or is it the crazy girl walking a single puppy?

I guess it’s okay to just write a short, silly post and not edit it too.

It’s going to have to be. 

1observation:1encounter

It used to take me a long time to write. I would need to set aside three hours to write a one-page journal entry. Now that I have a puppy, I need to set aside five hours for two paragraphs.

On the bus this morning, your average middle-aged man got on and sat next to me. He said thank you, although I hadn’t done anything.

“I like your hair. Beautiful.” Strange because I also hadn’t done anything to my hair.

I mumbled thanks with a small smile and pretended to read something on my phone because, admittedly, I was a little creeped out.

The bus was hot, and I had my sleeves rolled up. As I stood to get off at my stop, the man looked at my arm, disapprovingly, “Are you kidding me?! Tattoos?!”

Seems like as soon as I get to the Eastside, my tattoos make me an outcast, regardless of long sleeves all summer. 

dunked.

I’ve been dunked.

Leading up to it, I was so nervous I could hardly breathe. My hands shook, and my voice cracked as I read my testimony to a crowd of people along the water. I stood, water lapping along my knees and said it: said that I love Jesus. said that I am a sinner. said that I mess up. A lot.

It’s really hard to admit that you’re weak when you’re standing in front of a hundred people. Even harder when some of those people know you really well and some have never seen you cry before.

“Your story doesn’t sound like you, doesn’t fit you,” my friend said afterwards, “but crying made it seem more real.” I find this funny. There was only one other person he knew being baptized, “I would expect that to be her story. I didn’t expect yours.”

I wonder what this means, that I’m not transparent? That I’ve spent so much time hiding? That I’m still ashamed and afraid to bring it all to the light?

Regardless, I’ve been dunked. I resurfaced, glasses down my face, water down my throat, and a soggy piece of paper in-hand, and I tromped through the water to shore. The sun was behind the buildings now, and the shade and breeze were especially cool after the sudden plunge.

When the testimonies were over, I finally came to. I felt like what a newborn must feel, literally, no cliché intended. I was finally hungry instead of nervous, and the whir of people around me, loving me, was totally overwhelming. I kept taking quick gasps because I couldn’t formulate a deep breath.

I have nothing to panic about. I survived. Everyone still loves me, despite knowing my secrets and my sadness and my sin. And God  loves me the same.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. –Romans 6.3-4

here is my testimony. please take from it only that God has done amazing work in my life, and i am grateful.

testimony

I grew up going to church. I was baptized as a kid and brought up on the main Bible stories. And they were just that—stories. I did not believe them and left the church in middle school. I didn’t want their god.

Without even realizing it, I let my sin take full control. My worldview extended no farther than myself, allowing self-destructive thoughts and actions to rule my day-to-day. I felt like I had no control and could only rely on physical things, could only put my trust in what I could see and feel. I cut myself and often thought of suicide; I felt a deep failure at not being able to control my own death.

Late in high school, I started trying to believe in god again. I became a fan of Jesus the man while still not knowing Jesus, Son of the living God. I mostly shrugged off God because I had come to terms to believe that he existed, so I thought I didn’t need anything else. I thought that this in itself was what it meant to be a Christian.

In the midst of it, my cousin Derek was battling Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy. and it was progressing quickly. I was insistent that he would get better. My life circulated around him. My sister tried to talk to both of us about Jesus, but we laughed it off. A week later, on August 27^th, 2011, he died at age 22. He was my best friend. I held his hand at the hospital until they turned off the machines.

That last year of college, right after Derek died, was the most challenging in many ways. I spent the first semester half-commuting, half sleeping on people’s couches/living with two professors who graciously opened their doors. The family that I stayed with lived out Christianity in a way I had never seen before. This was the first hint of a need for faith in my life—faith in humanity, faith in something bigger than me, faith in God.

I was a point where I didn’t really want to keep living because I had so focused my life on Derek. I thought I had nothing left. I asked the cemetery to reserve the plot next to his. I would surely die or kill myself before the semester was over. But here I am, and in the past few months, God has used this experience to remind me that everything in this world is temporary.

I moved to Seattle a year ago. I never imagined I would live in a city but soon began to love it. I felt called to Seattle, and soon, I felt like I was being called to go to this church. I was reluctant at first; it took many invites before I finally showed up, but once I started going, I began to feel like part of the family.

I kept going back-and-forth from being “so close to getting Jesus” to wanting to totally give up and not come back. I couldn’t let up the anchor on my emotions.

One Sunday, it finally changed. The song “All my Tears” reminded me that everything is temporary but God. The dots connected—what is the sense in living only for this life? I need Jesus; he is the only Way to God. I prayed to Jesus; I prayed for forgiveness of my sins; I prayed for faith, and I prayed to trust Jesus in this new stage of the journey.

hebrews6.17-20 So when GOD desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for  God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where JESUS has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek

I still struggle with emotions, with control, with self-destructive thoughts, with relying on myself more than God, but now, even in the thick of my junk-clogged thoughts, I can lean on JESUS. The anchor rests in the hope of God’s promise, not in my emotions. Jesus came on my behalf; died on my behalf; sits on the throne of God on. my. behalf. so that I can call God “Father”, so that I can spend eternity with him. Because there is so much more than this life.

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.” –isaiah 40.8 

From the Emerald City to Oz

Sometimes God’s grace comes in the form of a hot air balloon on a foggy Saturday morning.

“It could sort of be related to the Wizard of Oz,” Laura hints as I try to guess the “birthday surprise” that’s been booked on my calendar for a month.

“Flying monkeys?!” A solid guess, right?

I’ve been studying impatience lately. My impatience. Reading through a devotional book with a good friend—a book on change, a book on hope. My focus is impatience. It’s my big weakness that leads to other weaknesses. It hits fast and hard, and before I know it, I am standing at the end of the bridge crying that I have no control over my life. Thank God I don’t! The funny conundrum is just that I won’t stop having these moments until I fully recognize my lack of control and stop trying to gain it.

Friday morning, I came in from walking Pickle. A bouquet of flowers awaited with a card that read, “Here is your hint: We live in the Emerald City; somewhere over the rainbow.” I had a guess, but it seemed too crazy, too extreme.

We woke up at 5am. On a Saturday. Dressed, drove, and arrived.

“Pull into the McDonald’s on the right,” Laura directed. McDonald’s? wha-? Then I saw them—two vans, each with a trailer pulling a large basket. My wildest guess was true! Hot air balloons.

The other passengers’ conversations purred in sleepy excitement. We arrived at the site, and the pilots sent a balloon up to check the wind. A few minutes later, the pilot came back, “We’re going to have to bag it, folks.” My heart sank. All of that excitement for nothing?!  The sky was heavily cloudy with a light drizzle of rain.

Disappointed, we drove back to Seattle. They called us later that morning to say they had flight openings that night. Laura had plans with Kyle that were really important to him. Impatient Natalie wanted to say, No! This is our only chance! But instead, I told Laura that was how I felt, but I knew that I was just being impatient. So I prayed about it and asked to trust that regardless of what happened—if we flew or not!—God’s plan is good, way better than I could plan. And it was the fastest answer to prayer I’ve ever witnessed.

That afternoon, they called again—we could fly the next evening when we were all available.

I have to admit, I felt pretty silly asking for God’s good plan to work out with something as inordinary yet first-world as a hot air balloon ride.

We arrived, watched them inflate the giant canvas, and climbed into the levitating basket. Soon enough, we were floating. In a simply smooth lift, we started going up. At first, I felt a panicked excitement: what is this that we are so high yet bound by nothing? What if I fall?

Once we reached our peak at 4,000ft, we were used to the feel of being in the basket. The evening was bright and clear with a SouthEast wind. Mt. Baker stood to the North of us; Mt. Rainier lay across the South. Seattle was like a little row of jelly beans sitting next to the water. We could see more islands than I could name. The sun was nearing dusk, displaying creation’s best colors.

We landed smoothly, safely—after our pilot patiently searched the upcoming miles for open land among the trees.

The pilots drove us back to our meeting place—not McDonalds this time, but Matthews Winery, where we enjoyed a complimentary tasting. Sipping Syrah and still envisioning the survey of land  & sky when I closed my eyes, I thanked God for such a beautiful day and for the patience to wait and the excitement that goes along with it.

So much better than a foggy Saturday morning. 

(Did I mention that I'm twenty-two. I think all of my fears that came with that number feel recovered by staring my own mortality in the face in the form of a 4,000 ft. drop with nothing to hold me in. Numbers are nonsense. When Derek turned twenty-two, we celebrated, not knowing it would be his last birthday. I'm celebrating too; here's to being twenty-two.)

death, i think, is no parenthesis (cummings)