Recent Lessons

I've been doing a lot of worrying lately (what's new?), but let me pause for a second and instead of blogging about my worries...let me try to blog about what I think God has been teaching me lately.  I do need more of the listening/reflecting aspect in my life and a bit less of the fretting/talking bit.  Here are some thoughts, in no particular order:

• There is a point to all of this.  As much as I (for the most part) enjoy my job, particularly these days when it's not crazy, I often don't understand the point of being at my firm.  I often wonder when it will all make sense...and what that will look like.  But occasionally God gives me small, encouraging glimpses of parts of His purpose for my being there.... Like when I am able to be a good sounding board for TV or be there to offer her non-worldly advice.  Like when learn good litigation skills that will come in handy...when and for what purpose in the future? Not sure, but it feels right.  Like when, through the funky recruiting process, I have a chance to make some peace with a former co-worker.... the little pieces of shattered glass start to form a picture.  It's still a total, million-piece jigsaw to me.  But seeing parts of the picture--however small--is encouraging.

• I tend to think of myself as a good wife.  I adore Mr. Squire, laugh at all his jokes, pray for him constantly, worry about his health, speak truth to him in love, cook and clean and feed... but lately God has been showing me the little ways in which I demonstrate selfishness and put myself first in our relationship:  when I tuck my cold toes on the inside of his knee and half-jokingly call him my "personal toe warmer"; when I pile lots of dishes in the sink and don't do the dishes in the morning even though I have time to; when I schedule stuff with friends on the weekend without a second thought but then get (occasionally) upset when he keeps leaving me to play football on Saturdays; when I keep reading with the light on even after he has gone to sleep because I'm not sleepy yet and I really want to read in bed... I mean...none of these things are a huge deal.  But they are little ways in which I take advantage of Mr. Squire's easygoing, giving, and servant-hearted nature.  One thing I need to realize is this: just because he doesn't complain about it (or even think to) doesn't mean that I shouldn't think twice about doing it.

• God's my boss.  I know I mentioned this before, but... it bears mentioning again because it's an ongoing lesson for me.  I have to remind myself day after day that I serve--and should therefore fear--God, not man.  This means that a partner's praise shouldn't send my spirits soaring, nor should a partner's perceived displeasure sink me into the depths.  I'm allowed to have feelings, of course, but... ultimately, I serve at God's pleasure, and that should dictate my responses to all the stuff that happens inbetween.

• Last one:  God holds the future.  90% of my worries have to do with the future.  What job will Mr. Squire transition to?  When will we have kids?  Will we have kids?  Where should we move to?  Should I stay at this firm? When should I leave?  What should I go do?  Will I be qualified?  Am I getting the right experiences now?  If I left to do something that would enable me to spend more time with my family, would I be committing career-suicide?  Even if I did, would it matter?  What happened to my calling? Am I getting this wrong? Am I getting it right? How do I know?  Is God pleased?  What really matters? ... and in the end, one verse from Isaiah 26 keeps coming back to me:  "All that we have accomplished, You have done for us."  That is, all that we have--EVERYTHING--comes from God.  Not a thing in my life has been accomplished on my own or without God's blessing and enabling.  Same goes for the future... He will accomplish it all.  Somehow, that makes me feel very safe.

On Redemption

Every spring, I look forward to seeing this vine of flowering quince bloom on the iron fence of a brownstone along a cobblestone road in our neighborhood.  It is just so beautiful, with its mix of whites and pinks and magentas.  And it says that spring has come, that life has returned from the dead of winter. (Mind you, I like winter a lot, too.  But I like the magic of spring.)

What the flowering quince says to me about the renewal of life in nature, a man named Danny said to me about the renewal of life in mankind last night at an event hosted by Hudson Link for Higher Education.

I first became aware of Hudson Link during my clerkship, when I attended a brownbag at the courthouse, where they screened "Zero Percent," a documentary about how college programs in prisons here in New York are turning lives around--resulting in a zero percent recidivism rate among men and women who graduate from college in prison, and eventually leave prison after finishing their time.  Following the screening, I had a long conversation with Hudson Link's founder, Sean Pica (who himself earned his college degree while serving more than 16 years in prison), who invited Mr. Squire and me to attend the upcoming college graduation at Sing Sing, a maximum-security prison north of the City.

Our trip to Sing Sing is another story for another time, but in a short:  it was moving, uplifting, and life-affirming.  And it made me believe in this program fully.  So, I've kept in touch with the Hudson Link folks, and last night I attended a spring kickoff event that the Board's Young Professional Network hosted.  There, I met Danny.  Danny served 22 years in prison and was released 16 months ago. Since that time, he's been working as a life coach and personal companion of sorts to a retired Citibank executive, helping him to relearn skills and hobbies that he used to enjoy before sustaining a head injury after a fall.  Danny shared about his gradual transformation, from selling drugs even within prison walls, to turning his back on that lifestyle entirely, and pursuing higher education and a law-abiding life instead.  He now serves on the Board of Hudson Link and runs the alumni network for all Hudson Link graduates who have since left prison and carried on with their lives.  

Danny has lived multiple lives already.  He's seen so much, and yet... he is a brand new person now.  I was so encouraged. 

This is exactly the type of thing that the church should get behind, I think.  I don't think it's right to ask the government to fund prison college programs, when so much money is already poured into the criminal justice system--and let's face it, these people have committed crimes that have damaged society.  Whatever dollars the government has for education should go to kids, not felons. But, that having been said, the church should be carrying this burden because this type of program does save lives.  And indeed, it speaks in volumes about redemption and what that really looks like.  We who are sinners saved by grace should be the first to help others who have screwed up their lives, should we not?

I'm excited for more opportunities to get involved in the future, as such opportunities arise.  But for now...spring...redemption...grace. These are the things filling my mind today.

Thoughts on the Week

What a week.  First, the bombing.  Three dead, hundreds injured.  Then, the chase, riddled with bullets and sparking a city-wide lockdown.  Another fatality.  And then one suspect dead, and the other apprehended but clinging to life.  

Throughout the week, TV would wander into my office, glum in the face and down in her heart.  She kept waiting for the week to end, and asked me more than a few times how things like this could happen.  And, more importantly, why did they happen?

I told her that the world is broken, which means that it is filled with heartache and needless suffering.  It means that we confront deep sorrows without satisfactory explanations as to cause or reason.  This is, of course, not the way we were meant to live, and this is not the way the world was supposed to be.  But it is what we have for now, and one day all will be made new.  All will be made right.  God will renew the earth, and bring it back to life.  So amidst the madness, there is hope.

I don't think she believed me.  And that makes me sad, because ... I put myself in her shoes:  and how depressing would it be to live without hope of better things to come?  To not know that an all-powerful being IS in control, and He defines love itself, and all goodness flows from Him, and one day, He will exact justice on the world and truly draw order out of moral chaos, breathe life into the dead, hit the restart button and recover and restore the world?  Having to live without that hope would be bitter indeed.  How do we bring others into the fold, though?  I suppose only God can change hearts.  May He change hers...and continually change ours.

* * *

In other news, Mr. Squire has officially decided to quit teaching.  After four years in the trenches of public schools in inner-city Boston and Brooklyn, he'll be closing the classroom doors and walking away.  It makes me sad.  It makes me approach God with a voice of both curiosity and concern:  What is going on here, Lord?  I thought You had called Mr. Squire to this, and not just for a brief season, but for life.  Did we hear Your voice wrong? Or are we being disobedient?

More and more, I'm convinced that we are not presently being disobedient by turning away from teaching.  This teaching thing has taken such a toll on Mr. Squire, emotionally and physically.  He has gotten sick so many times these past four years.  And he is a totally different person during the school year, laden with burdens, perpetually exhausted, listless and often difficult to communicate with after a school day.  Sometimes I find him at home, just staring into space.  It's really sad.  And it has been a heavy burden for me to bear as well, because after working my own long day at work, I come home and continue working to bolster his spirits, get him to talk, get him to let out some of his feelings...and it's an uphill battle, every single day.  We have covered this decision in so much prayer, and... again, it makes me so sad to think that he will not be teaching anymore, but... I can't imagine that the prior existence was really what God would have called us to.

I'm not sure what lies ahead.  That is also scary.  What next?  Mr. Squire will be entering his third career at the age of 29.  I know that's not entirely uncommon in our generation, but the uncertainty is challenging.  We continue to pray.  If nothing else, all of this has certainly enhanced our prayer life and our overall posture of constantly looking to Jesus for direction.

Forty Pounds of Rice Ago....

Forty pounds of rice ago, Mr. Squire and I began our married life together.  And every moment--and bite of rice--has been awesome.  Marriage is a great gift from God.  

On to the next forty pounds (of rice)!

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

My terrible struggle with allergies aside, today was pretty much a perfect Saturday.  I woke up after a satisfying night of sleep, then read in bed next to Mr. Squire as the sun streamed in through our huge windows (our humble, 350-square-foot apartment has its virtues).  I love to read, and I love that Mr. Squire loves to read.  And I love reading together, burrowed down in our bed, with a couple stuffed animals in tow.  :)  Extra points when the sun is shining and filling our room with light.  During such moments, even Mr. Squire's untamed piles (which are pictured in part here...sigh) cannot vex me.

I paid a visit to the dentist, where the folks are very kind and obliging and efficient, read an encouraging email while waiting (thanks so much, Christina G.!), and headed to my weekly mentoring session.  I found out that my mentee was nominated for the Posse Program this past week, which puts her in the running for a full scholarship to any of a number of colleges when she applies next year.  I'm so proud of her.  She's come a long way since her childhood in war-torn Kosovo.  

After mentoring, came home to find Mr. Squire out playing basketball.  I was so happy to see that he was strong enough to be out there running around, and he came back excited about the guys he had played ball with.  I love hearing his stories from the neighborhood court:  he plays with a mix of our neighbors--Arabs, some African Americans, and some white guys--and I love how the basketball court is an equalizer and race-neutral, class-neutral zone for them.  Wish there were more such spaces and meeting points in our society...

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and into Chinatown after that.  It was a beautiful day to be out, the sun glittered across the water, and we looked over at the piers to see progress being made on Brooklyn Bridge Park (the piers closest to us already have turf fields and sand volleyball courts, and we're excited to see what the other piers will bring).  As we strolled, we talked more about our future, where we may want to move, why we want to have children, and just catching up in general.  I love how our marriage is just one big long conversation, winding in and out from topic to topic.  It never gets boring.  I feel so blessed.  

We saw signs of spring everywhere (such as the tulips pictured above, which adorned the SDNY gate entrance).  God makes all things new all the time--spiritually and physically.

Dinner was delicious abundance from Congee, and we had a blast picking our way through the produce on Canal Street (we snagged about 8 pounds of grapes at 50 cents a pound, plus strawberries at a dollar a pound!).  And now we're home, and I'm baking cookies before bed.  Eat, drink, and be merry--for tomorrow we die.  The Lord has always been very good to us, and on days like today, we feel His generosity most acutely.  Thank You, Lord.

Thankful for Mommy

This evening, as I was walking home from the train, I got caught in a terrible downpour of rain (it could have been worse, but I was pretty darn soaked by the time I got home, much to the semi-amusement of my neighbors...I think Ghizlan just missed me, but Salah watched me on the home stretch from under his awning and grinned), and all the while, I was semi-whining, semi-wailig to my parents on the phone.  Poor parents. 

Mr. Squire greeted me at the door, in my drippy and frazzled state.  He had called--a few minutes too late--to offer to walk me from the subway with an umbrella.  Oops.

Anyway, he tried to appease me by holding out a USPS package and saying, "I got something for you!"  but I knew better... that was a package from my mom!

And inside, I found:

-one package of dry mix for Red Lobster cheddar bay biscuits, which she has tested and liked

-one package of dried persimmon slices

-one big bag of El Milagro tortilla chips -- our favorites.  Seriously, though...she SHIPPED a bag of tortilla chips to us!

-best of all, a "Thinking of you and praying too" card, bearing three Bible verses (Isaiah 29:16, Psalm 34:4, Psalm 143:8), all written in her usual hand.  She had written the card when I was going through a particularly tough time at work, and she knew that "Mom's words are not as comforting, wise, [or] eloquent as God's at a time like this.... [but] Mommy, who walked close by you on your journey, is fully aware of how you feel now."  

And the thing of it is:  she does this ALL the time.  She sends us packages with all sorts of treats (one time it was different nougats from around the world, one time it was all sorts of dried fruits, sometimes it's my favorite candies and teas, other times it's pressed pennies that she has accumulated for me, and treats she wants me to try).  And she always sends cards bearing the words of God, and encouragement from the Greatest Source of Encouragement of all.  Mommy truly points me to God all the time, and I'm sure I won't appreciate her enough until she's gone.

But...let's try not to let that happen. I need to appreciate her fully now...and I do.  Thank You, Lord, for my mother.  And when I'm a mom, may I point my children to You just as Mommy does that for me.

Failure to Launch

Last night, Mr. Squire and I had a long talk about our work futures--well, mostly his work future.  He has decided, after many weeks of our praying and straining to listen for cues, that he will not return to teach next year.  This isn't what I had been hoping for, but it certainly didn't come as a surprise.  And I support him fully in this decision:  it is the product of much prayer and thought, and as much as I'd like to see Mr. Squire go back for just one more year to round it out to five years of teaching and more importantly, to see his kids graduate eighth grade, I more or less agree that one more year of teaching will adversely affect Mr. Squire's health and well-being.

Still, it makes me sad.  And it makes me wonder a lot about our lives:  what is God doing?  What is He up to?  He runs our lives, and that ought to (and sometimes does) bring us much comfort... and yet... right now, a lot of things just don't make sense.

Our bedroom wall bears a laminated set of posters that comprise a mock New York Times article that I wrote about us (in movie review format) after our first year of dating.  In introducing the main characters, I described Mr. Squire as a cog in the finance industry who was leaving finance to become a teacher in the inner-city.  I described myself as someone whose primary passions are criminal justice and compassion.  That is indeed who we were four years ago.  And at the time, we were both on a certain trajectory, preparing and aiming to launch into the social-justice skies that we felt God calling us to.  

Not sure what has happened since then.  The image that comes to mind (seriously, no desire to be political about this, it's just really the first image that comes to mind) is North Korea's 2012 missile, which was launched with great expectation, and instead landed in the sea.  We are left to wonder what our Commander-in-Chief has in mind, and to what end all of these events have taken place.  Mr. Squire struggles with this less: he understands it as God calling him to education in the inner city for a season...and finding that that season is coming to an end.  He doesn't know what lies ahead, but he trusts that God will work it all out.  And while he doesn't understand the change in seasons--or even the point of going through this last season--he doesn't question it so much...

Not the way I do, anyway.  All of this always makes me wonder, makes me second-guess myself and my sense of who Jesus is and what God wants from me.  Have I been listening all along?  Or have we been deluded?  Have we dreamed up our own plans?  How could the path be so non-linear?  Professionally I am not where I expected to be at this time in my career, nor do I see a predictable future.  It all looks murky, and foreign.  That scares me.  Not that I'm not in a good place, because I am.  This current working environment is the best I've been in since my college interning days, and I am so grateful.  But substantive-work-wise, this is not what I expected to be doing.

So we continue to journey, not knowing what lies ahead, not seeing what awaits around the corner.  It's an uncomfortable position, particularly given my type-A sensibilities.  But I have been asking God to help me learn what it means to trust Jesus...and at the very least, I can see that He is answering that prayer.

Gratitude for the Day

1.  Spring is here!  Well...actually, for today at least, pre-summer is here!  It will be 78 degrees sometime this afternoon, according to the weather forecast.  While I love winter, I also love spring because in every budding branch and blooming flower, we see renewal of life.  What once appeared dead and lifeless revives once again.  We don't have to look far to prove that God indeed makes all things new.

2.  I slept for ten hours last night.  Mr. Squire didn't have to get up until 7:30 this morning because he's getting a blood test done, so we slept an extra 90 minutes and it was good.  I could have slept another 2 hours, but I'll take the ten.  :)  Pretty awesome.

3.  I find myself worrying a lot about the future.  It's not what I'm supposed to be doing, and I am becoming more acutely aware of my tendency to worry and agonize over issues that haven't even materialized (but exist in my prescient imagination).  So...the worrying part is not the thing I'm grateful for, but the increasing awareness of it is--because I think that through the increasing awareness, God is teaching me to trust Jesus more and more.  Lessons from God are good, and I like the feeling that He is active in my life.  So I'm grateful for that.

Thinking Bigger, Doing More...But With the Right Heart

Mr. Squire and I love our friends.  We loooove them.  God has seen fit to bless us abundantly with various groups of friends:  

...friends who are fun and fill our lives with laughter 

...friends who care, and lift us up in prayer faithfully

...friends within our workplaces, who journey with us as we stumble through our jobs 

...friends whom we can serve, and meet their needs as they travel through tough roads, and show us what real faith looks like in the midst of trials

...friends who have walked the roads of marriage and children before us, and give us advice

...friends within our families, whom we don't call because we have to, but because we want to

...friends who remain close even though they are far, flung across the country and the world

...friends who inspire us to think bigger, and do more, and with the right heart.

I want to spend some time talking about this last category of friends.  This year, ten of our friends began a campaign to raise $100,000 during the 40 days of Lent, to build 10 wells in Tigray, Ethiopia, the poorest region in one of the poorest countries in the world.  Each well would provide lasting clean water for 5,000 people daily.  Our friends agreed to match every dollar donated, up to $50,000 -- for a total of $100,000.  And guess what:  partway through Lent, they reached the $100,000 goal, and made a new goal of raising $150,000.  Ultimately, they were able to raise enough to build 16 wells in Ethiopia, through donations from more than 240 people.  They did this through posting on their Facebook pages, maintaining a blog to share about why they created this campaign, and running an NCAA brackets pool to raise more money.  And in the end, they have 16 wells to show for it.  

Mr. Squire and I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the campaign.  We would never have thought of something like this ourselves (or...maybe I should just speak for myself. Now that I think of it, Mr. Squire created his own matching program--matching his friends' dollars, then using his company match to match the match, basically quadrupling each dollar donated--to raise $20,000 in aid relief following the cyclone disaster in Myanmar), but presented with the opportunity, of course we wanted to participate.  It seemed so fitting, to not only reflect on the cross during Lent, but also attempt to do even a bit of what our Lord would have done:  provide water for the thirsty, rescue the downtrodden, give to those for whom His heart aches.  I am learning that loving Jesus means loving those whom He loves.

I could feel my heart slipping at times, though... slipping away from the true heart vision behind this project, and merely getting excited about the fact of raising so much money for a good cause.  It wasn't even my project, but our donation made me feel invested...so I loved the fact that the wells were being built, but I couldn't at all times keep the focus on why they were being built.  And this, I see, is maybe why (and I realize I'm speaking very, very broadly and generally here) Protestants that I grew up with and know shy so much away from engaging in social justice:  because they are afraid of appearing too Catholic--doing deeds to curry favor with Christ, and lacking the heart of surrender and recognition that we are powerless to save ourselves.  I get it.  I totally get it.  At the same time...I wonder if we should struggle more to do both:  save the soul and the body--while realizing in our human weakness that it will be a struggle to maintain the correct heart-perspective as we seek to do this.  It would be worth it, I think.

So Lent has finished, and it's time for our friends to turn over all the cash they have raised and commence the building of the wells.  Mr. Squire and I were given the honor of drafting the text to be added to a sign or plaque on one of the 16 wells.  With my own struggle in mind, and with a view towards helping the well-drinkers to know why these wells were built, we decided upon the following:

With love, Project 1040

John 4:13-14

We were limited to 50 characters, so we couldn't spell out the whole passage, but hopefully someone will look it up.  John 4:13-14 reads:

Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Jesus is beautiful in His power, His humility, and His great love for all people.  May I always remember that I should view any good deed only as a mirror--not to reflect my own goodness, which does not exist in itself, but to reflect the goodness and love of Jesus.

Thanks be to God for friends who inspire us to think bigger and to do more...and to God for being patient in teaching me continually (I'm still learning! still struggling) to do it with the right heart.

On Time Travel

What a week it has been...went in like a lamb, went out like a lion.  Not work-wise, I'm thankful to say, but health-wise, both for Mr. Squire and for me.  It has been a bit of a challenge, one that has given me many reasons to reflect and be thankful for the fact that in general, both of us are in good health--and neither of us fight any chronic or long-term illness.

For several weeks now, Mr. Squire has been experiencing fevers on and off.  We don't know what that's about, and will be getting a blood test for him after he recovers.  On Sunday, things took a turn for the worse, and he suffered through it Monday through Wednesday, but then Wednesday night he started hacking up all this crap (I've seriously never seen a splat of phlegm so yellow) and he was absolutely burning.  It was clear he couldn't go to school, and when I left to go on a pre-work walk with my judge, he went to the walk-in clinic.

As I was heading to the subway after the walk, I happened to check my email and saw a message from Mr. Squire...it was actually a prayer to God, on which I was cc'd.  (He does his reflections on email, but usually doesn't send.)  He talked about how he went to the walk-in clinic, but they couldn't help him because the last doctor who did walk-ins had just left the clinic altogether.  Then he talked about how he felt God compelling him to walk down another street, where he happened to spot another clinic (that specializes in cardiology and internal medicine) and one thing led to another and he landed in front of a secretary who had pity on him and promised to squeeze him in that day.  Then he mentioned that he could barely walk and that his mind wasn't really clear.   

I didn't know what to do:  I knew I should go to work, but I also knew that I should stay home.  There was nothing pressing for me to do at work (the past ten workdays have been light -- billing 4-8 hours each day)...but...what if a partner walked by my office and saw that I was gone?  What if someone called me and I wasn't able to pick up right away?  Then again... what if Mr. Squire couldn't make it to the doctor's office on his own and passed out on the way?  What if he passed out at home and no one was there to notice it?  This was a real problem, and I called my secretary for advice, and ultimately I decided to head back home.

I'm so glad I did.  I was able to tend to Mr. Squire, make sure he was downing fluids (which was really hard for him because his throat is bright red and totally infected), and sit with him at the clinic as we waited for 3 hours to see the doctor.  It was good to be by his side, and I was able to do a bit of work while he was napping at home, and attempted to do some on my iPhone in the clinic.  Altogether, it worked out just fine.  It was a foretaste of things to come, I'm sure, though.  I question whether many other people at my firm would have made the same choice in terms of staying at home to tend to a sick spouse (granted, I wouldn't stay home if he were just sick with a cold, but he was in bad, bad shape).  And ultimately I think this will become an issue if/when God gives us children...and the same decision will pose itself, writ large.  I'm praying about that.

So Mr. Squire took Thursday and Friday off.  Friday was a good day at work for me, until around 3 or 4pm, when all of a sudden I realized that it was getting harder and harder to sit, and when I leaned this way or that, I felt a sharp pain in my back.  By the time I left the office at 6pm, my pulled back muscle had almost fully debilitated me.  It hurt to sit, it hurt to stand, it hurt to look down, it hurt to laugh, it hurt to talk, it hurt to lift or stretch out my arms, or lift anything.  It hurt to walk, depending on the incline of the road.  Yikes!  

And when I got home... well, Mr. Squire and I kept laughing.  Because...between his weakened state and my inability to move, we made a very funny-looking and funny-sounding pair.  We both moved with the speed of our ninety-year-old grandparents, and he kept commenting on the pain in his throat and his nausea and dizziness, and I kept yelping with pain with every move.  What a sight!  We had discovered time travel, and had advanced sixty years in the span of a single day.  It was quite amazing.  

We went to bed at 8:30.  It took a while to get there, because Mr. Squire had to help me somehow move from a standing position to a prone position, which involved painstaking support on his part and just a lot of pain on mine.  He was still fighting dizziness at that time, plus his fever started burning again.  At one point, as we lay there, he reached over and took my hand and said, "Honey, when we said we would support one another in sickness and in health, did you ever envision this?"  No, I hadn't... but there was no one else I'd rather be sick with!  I was suddenly thirsty, and reached for my jar of water that I keep on the bookshelf by our bed...but I couldn't reach it without pain, and looked kind of like a T-Rex with stubby arms, attempting to reach for it.  Mr. Squire started laughing at the absurdity of it all, as did I.

But this will pass... and I think of the friends I know who are dealing with long-term illnesses.  For them, some version of this is their everyday.  It's all they know by now, and it's a very, very different reality.  We have been blessed with good health, and we shall recover from this.  And I am thankful for this bit of time travel...this foray into the future that not only confirms again that God gave me the right partner in life (of course He did), but also reminds me of how blessed we are to know this is temporary.

These Last Few Days...

It is Monday morning again.  I am tarrying a bit because I found out that if I leave 20 minutes later than usual, I will arrive only 13-15 minutes later than usual...and still about 15 minutes before everyone else starts flowing in.  Why waste five more minutes on the train?

This weekend was full of activity.  Good things, blessings.  Good Friday service, time with friends, time in the kitchen, baptism for Mr. Squire's college friend, two Easter services, Easter dinner with our church family.  I am deeply grateful for the work-free holiday weekend and for the opportunities it afforded to meet with people, truly stop and listen, and absorb life.

Among the things I hear God pointing out or saying to me are:

• You spend too much time worrying about what may or may not come.  In doing so, you forget that I hold the entire world, including your past, present, and future.  Look at your past, and the many other times you worried about where you might or might not be today.  Look at your present:  do you not marvel at how I made things fall into place for you, and indeed, blessed you more than you previously could have imagined?  Now look toward your future:  do I not hold that future, just as I held your past and I hold your present?  Trust in Me.  I walk before you and will be with you.

• You are flawed, sinful, and stained - but I love you because you are mine, and nothing can change that.

On a totally separate note, as I've been attempting to reflect more on the cross these last couple weeks, one thing that has helped me a lot is sheep imagery.  The Bible often speaks of people as sheep, and what an insult! Sheep are wayward, wandering here and there, getting themselves into trouble, not particularly strong or self-sufficient, constantly in need of a guardian, helpless to save or direct themselves.  (In contrast, camels are strong, entirely self-sufficient, and never get lost. Go camels!)  I suppose sheep are a fitting description of mankind.  

During Good Friday service, we sang "Amazing Grace," and I was trying to really focus on the words because so many hymns are so familiar that I just sing along without reflecting on their meaning.  When we sang "I once was lost but now am found," I had this imagine in my mind of me as a sheep, frantically wandering around a mountain field, utterly alone and trying to find the rest of the herd.  In that moment, the world felt so huge, and I felt so alone--and so panicked.  Then I pictured Jesus the Shepherd, finding me, and felt a wave of utter relief and comfort.  That, times a million, is what happens when our souls are saved... let me not forget as we move on from Easter... and may I continue to reflect on what that rescue cost Jesus.  I still can hardly understand it.