Confession of a Rich Girl

Recently, the Lord has really been leading my heart in thankfulness. And I've been so grateful for this gratefulness! (Ha!) My perspective on life and my expectations shift drastically when I start with a grateful soul instead of an entitled one. I wanted to share with you my favorite things that God has revealed to me lately.  :)

1. Grocery Carts
I'm so type-A, even my grocery cart has to be organized accordingly. And there's so much room to accomplish this! Then one day, it struck me-- how blessed am I that I live in a country where food is so abundant, I need an entire cart just to carry it all to the check-out and my car. And for only one week's worth of food! (I mean, yes, this normally includes 17 gallons of ice cream to satisfy our addiction but regardless...)

2. Chocolate
I think tucked inside of each and every day is a moment where I consume a piece of chocolate. :) Have you checked out this video? I will forever be grateful for all of those moments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEN4hcZutO0

3. Being able to hear my husband's voice
Have you seen any of the videos regarding cochlear implants and people who are hearing for the first time? In one of those clips, the nurse asks the patient, "Would you like to hear your husband say something?" Gosh, did that strike a chord in my heart! One of my favorite things is waking up in the morning to the soft whisper of my husband against my ear. Carrie? Sweet Carebear? It's time to wake up and hug your husband. (He's adorable). So much joy created from the ability to hear just one moment. How much more joy  would I have by adding up all the lovely words I've heard?

4. The ECO cycle on my dishwasher
I use it. Married to a Science teacher so we always "go green" when we can. But how amazing that I live in a country where I can decide to use less water while cleaning the dishes, instead of concerning myself with finding enough clean water to do the dishes in the first place?

5. My engagement ring
And my friend's and my co-worker's and my cousin's and my neighbor's rings. I (still) admire my ring all the time like the giddy-little-engaged girl did over three years back, and whenever one of my friends now gets engaged, what is it we all expect to see? A ring. I mean, these are flippin diamonds! And we can safely assume that (MOST) married women in our country will have one safely nestled on that left handed finger. 

6. Trips to the GoodWill
I get a little anxiety over owning too many things and buying a house has only furthered this. Suddenly-- you need stuff! Lawnmowers, tools, towels for the half bath, extra light bulbs. How amazing to have enough possessions that I can easily give them away. Check out this:
https://fstoppers.com/pictures/chinese-families-pose-all-their-earthly-possessions-5045

7. SnapChat
I love pictures. LOVE them. Memories are one of the things I cherish most. I look through old photographs all the time and I take my camera everywhere. And now we keep cameras in our back pockets and are so free with our photos, we'll send one to a friend with the intention of having it disappear seven seconds later. A teacher at the high school where I work recently shared with me some stories of time he spent teaching in Africa. He said in order to reward his students for good behavior, he'd offer to give them a picture of themselves if they were "good" for one quarter. 10 weeks. Of no acting out or foolishness. What did the students do? Oh, what a class of well-behaved students he had. Because photographs were such a luxury, so desired, and so rare. I think of this story all the time-- can we really imagine it? In our society of "Watch this, look at me, and see it, see it, right now!" No. Pictures. Whatsoever. No way to show friends what you looked like as a baby or to remember what your parents looked like after they are gone. This one, sweet, readers, I really truly cannot imagine.


So it seems that most of these have to do with where I live and the country I was born in. We really are so blessed!

But mostly, I hope that even with all these lovely reflections, I'll remember that I am always blessed, I always have reasons to be grateful, and I always have everything I need because God is my generous Father who has taken care of everything. Even if I can purchase no groceries to fill my cart, if I have no water for the dishes, if my husband went away and all my possessions disappeared, I've been given everything I need in Christ. 

And there's nothing more I can ask for... Because it is finished.

I would LOVE to hear about the things you've been grateful for lately!! :):)
I love ya'll!

Agape,
CC

Confession of a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Early morning on July 4th, after dropping my car off on the roof of a parking garage to secure our prime firework viewing spot for the evening, my husband and I sat at a Starbucks table on a hazy, city street corner. As usual, he read and I wrote. I wanted to share with you my journal entry from that morning as it wasn't only our country's birthday but mine as well. Maybe my heart's ponderings will resonate with yours, too. :)

July 4, 2014

26 years old today. At what point do birthdays become dreaded things? When the promise of friends who want to celebrate and share good food and make great memories isn't enough to ward off the feeling that life is dripping, draining, rushing away. Is it now, when college cannot, (no, it just cannot!) be farther away than the time it took to live it? High school went by slowly, perfectly. I had just enough time to make best friends and lose them and make new ones again. I grew, I changed, I became who I am. At the end of it all, they handed me a Prom Court sash and graduation cap and sent me on my way. College drifted by calmly like leaves on a river while I sat on the bank and formed relationships that felt like family, experienced my first real heartbreak, and eventually fell in love with the man I now call my husband. College promised so many things for the future-- every painting it portrayed was beautiful-- and the river pulsed at just the right pace so that by the time it was done, we were ready to move on. We wanted to climb into our own canoes, paddles tossed aside so we could never go back, charging towards the infinite ocean waiting at the river's end. 

But it was no ocean. Greatly fooled we had been.

It was a waterfall, relentless, thrusting all in its path away at an unforgivable speed. Instantly, college is four years ago but only feels like one. Suddenly, I'm 26 but when people ask my age, I want to say 22 because I still feel like a giddy young girl lost in her engagement and the prospects of new life. 

So, is "my whole life still ahead of me"?

Are there still "things I'll understand when I'm older"?

And sweet goodness, please tell my my "biological time-clock" isn't really ticking away...

I watched a friend lose his life during college and ever since then I've been fine with the notion of getting older. It's a privilege. A gift. Grace. Every year when the Fourth of July comes, I'm fine watching my years go up and up and up. What bothers me is how quickly that holiday comes around each year. The mothers in my life tell me about how fast their babies grow and I think really it's just life  in general that moves so fast, the waterfall raging, propelling all of us out to sea.

A downpour. A burst.

A firework. (It is the Fourth of July, after all. Surely it's only appropriate to include a pyro reference.)

The usual responses you'll hear after a firework display: That was beautiful! That was a great show! I really love the ones that shimmer. My favorite had the sunbursts at the end. It was awesome, just awesome.

At the end of the show, have you ever heard someone comment, "Okay, that felt way long enough. It really should have ended ten minutes ago..."? I surely hope not! If you have, please punch that person directly in the face.

But I think for today, a firework show is the most fitting analogy for my life thus far. It's had really hard times. There's smoke everywhere. I watch things explode. I watch things be destroyed. And if I step too close to the commotion, it only worsens-- hot ash raining down, little fiery pieces of debris from something that once promised to be beautiful.

Yet that promise was kept. Through the blaze and haze of smoke, there was a glorious, scintillating light, cascading over the sky, glittering off the city buildings nearby. I dare not look away, captivated and enchanted, my heart in a trance against the kaleidoscope above, each flash leaving and then coming so swiftly again. Awe-striking. Magnificent. And even though it's covered in fire and carnage, once it's done, all I want is more. It would never, could never, move too slowly, this prismatic concoction of death and vibrancy, which blinds my eyes and crushes my ears and leaves me in a daze. This birthday that came too quickly, this year that flew too fast, this life of bursts of florid light littered in wreckage. Rich, piercing goodness amid deep, abiding sorrow. Lovely, perfect moments among the taxing burdens we bear. Impenetrable, amazing grace flowing out of the garden that fell.

This is a life that captivates me, that will always move too fast. But as long as I have eyes to see, may I be thankful to sit on top of this parking garage and enjoy the show at all. 

Happy summer, sweet readers! Enjoy the show before you. :)

Agape,

CC

Thanks for celebrating the 4th and my birthday with us, sweet friends!!
(Click to enlarge)

Confession of a Lizard Person!

I went to the doctor's this morning. (Gee, Carrie, why did you go there?) Well… I have… a… wart! Oh, I know, it’s so gross! I feel like a lizard person or something. You know those ‘wart kids’ you were in class with growing up that were always picking at warts on their thumbs? Well that was never me. Never! And here I am at twenty three and the Lord apparently decides this is an opportune time to stick one right on my heel.

And wouldn’t you know, I learned something from it. Guess the Lord was right. Imagine that.

You need to know something about my dermatologist. He’s absolutely amazing at freezing warts because— oh how should I state this?— he has no mercy. He doesn’t use one of those misting guns, oh no no my friend. He soaks a q-tip in liquid nitrogen and then smothers it all over your wart. Like glazing a turkey or pouring syrup on pancakes. It kills! And normally the wart dies on his first attempt.

But today, I had the pleasure of receiving a fourth round of wart-marinating (lucky me!) My sweet husband Dan always accompanies me so he can help me hobble back down to the car afterward, and this morning as we were walking out together I thought about that little wart and how well it paints a picture of sin. My wart is barely the size of a dime. He’s a little guy. Yet when I leave him untreated for a few days pretending he’ll just disappear on his own, I find I can’t walk. The pain is too great and I have to limp around and put all my weight on the side of my foot. I can’t run or work out. I can’t walk around the classroom constantly like I need to be doing. Suddenly this little dime-sized bump is causing vast disorder in my life all because it’s situated in the perfect place to do so: my foot.

The same goes for sin. It may seem little and insignificant at times, like telling a white lie or casually slipping my needs in front of my husbands’, but the problem is that sin lives in our hearts, the perfect place to cause mass destruction. And if left unchecked, everything else in our lives is affected, not just work outs and classroom management but friendships, marriages, our priorities, our witness, and most importantly, our walk with God.

There is no dime-sized sin in the eyes of a Holy and perfect King. He wants it all frozen and killed, no matter how painful it may be to us. It never feels good to be stripped of our idols but the Lord always replaces it with Himself. We may hobble around for a few days, but He knows that once its healed, we’ll be better able to run. J




PS... I don't care how fun and 'touristy' it seems, never ever ever walk around barefoot in Fiji.


Agape,
CC