the Great Fears: the culture of texting and crashing patients.

the culture of texting and chatting. i'm not quite old enough not to claim it as my generation but as the rebellious continent-confused nostalgic francophone Lebanese, i never quite claimed it or enjoyed it.

to be truthful, texting does appeal to me as a means of conversation, avoiding all the necessary polite tournures de phrases before addressing the issue you just wasted seven minutes of your life introducing. i find it hard to relate, empathize and love over the phone so: straight to the point and saving precious minutes here and there, minutes used to knock down other essential items on the to-do list.

saving time, using time, sparing time, for the sake of…? what am i doing with all this time? worrying about time. do i know that i sound crazy? yes, but this is how most of the great philosophical debates and spiritual revelations probably started in history. at least this is how they start for me.

they sound even crazier when God sits me down to type them, or hand write them for the sake of further time saving 

when i was still using a computer that required ten minutes in its two step start up: turn on. three minutes later: hard disk not found. press hard on turn off button. wait two minutes. turn back on. your system shut down unexpectedly, would u like to proceed. yes. 

it was the system of deliberate un-expectation. 

just like waving the image of the man you like out of your brain to trick the Lord who made your brain into giving you what you're not really asking for. because the dark twisted portion of your brain believes that God is whitholding what you want. but i digress.

in the days of the old metal square that believed itself a computer, the typing the beginnings of my great spiritual debates was done with two thumbs on the instantly gratifying screen of an iphone.

all that to say that i fully enjoy the benefits of introverted conversation through  the veil of technology. never through a computer screen surprisingly, but i haven’t had enough time yet over the past six years that this specific symptom has manifested, to elucidate that non-inclination.

back to the main doleances and the intended topic of this post.

perhaps it is my french-nurtured-endless-sentences-with minimal-punctuation-and-twelve-jumbled-thoughts-literrary leanings.

i do not understand, tolerate or forgive multiple small texts sent in a chat-type fashion, in a systematic morse-like pressing of send, like that poor soul you see in catastrophic movies, pushing on his small beeping button, sweating his brain off, in an attempt to save humanity, through the frantic pressing and beeping.

it must be the stuff torture devices are made of. and it makes me almost cry of frustration as i hear more beeping  drilling into my soul in the five seconds it takes me to reach the phone in my tiny (but extremely well-decorated) apartment.

perhaps it is the most commonly unimportant topics usually addressed in chatting-qui-se-veut-texting, i thought. maybe i should address the selfishness in my heart for wanting to love people on my own terms, in my own time, and only on topics that i deem worthy. maybe it has nothing to do with the beeping.

but really if they.were.just.written.in.one.paragraph.

read in one sitting.

one continuous thought.

one nice large blue rectangle on my screen rather that ever appearing new bubbles, making the screen flicker, my brain startle and my heart sink ever so sligthly

and only.one.beep.

yes, i DO have tried changing the ringtone, thank you very much for the suggestion. maybe the same musical note, if repeated so very often, would have driven even Haendel to eradicate it from his Hallelujah all together.

maybe if changed to a traditional ring, the way God and Alexander Graham Bell intended it. #fail

maybe its an undiagnosed lack of affection for specific people communicating. tried and tested. most are deeply cherished face-to-face. or when they send a appropriately sized cyber-communiqué. so it's not the people, it's the bip.

i pray to be someone who loves people, who is quick to repent and willing to serve.

but i really do.bip.not.bip.believe.bip. that the intellectual trauma and the emotional breakdown caused by.bip.the.bip.incessant.bip.beeping. bip.of.bip.multiple.bip.small.bip.texts. is a heart issue.

en passant on the heart issue: if life-giving communication was meant to mimic the heart beat of life, we would have all been speaking in one.word.sentences.like.the.robots.with.the.nasal.voices.in.eighties.movies.

one of the godly women i look up to whole-hearteldly hates group messages. and she loves Jesus. there you go. justification through the spiritual mentor. Jesus never had to deal with group sms and the incessant exasperating bip. nothing to learn there so i'll take the next best example to follow.

 (Although we could arguably analogize that the most certain interruptions of his frequently irritating disciples to the dreaded bip. which disciples he didn’t turn off with a mighty smack of his hand. have i ever mentioned how thankful I am for the faithfully recorded irksomeness of the same disciples who were loved and sent to make similar disciples of all nations? but I digress again)

my inner therapist truly believes this is related to The Great Fear.

Of Getting Paged, that is, about a Crashing Patient.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while standing in line with other sleep-deprived people-studying-to-help-people, in the cafeteria twelve floors below, for the first meal in 10.5 hours, trying to grab the last stale salad before the grumpy lady at the cashier’s station decrees closing time.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while on an excruciating elevator ride with a bored- and confused about disease and death in a fallen world- child pushing every floor button.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while returning the last six pages of the last minute and the half.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while trying to softly communicate your medical point of view on a landline, all your senses helplessly witnessing the sinister beeping and the flashing arrows of multiplying unreturned calls grow increasingly bright and terrifying on the tiny pager screen.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while trying to phonecall a hello to your mother 3000 miles away (preaching to yourself that an eight hour time difference makes being awake at 3:49 am allright), pretending to call her to check on her while truthfully really just needing to hear a friendly loving voice on your seemingly eternal terrifying cold and eerie night.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while wrapped in a plastic sterile tent, because the hospital only carries extra-large sterile gowns, trying to focus on sticking a two millimeter wide vein in someone’s father’s neck through your blurry eyes and scratched eyeglasses.

The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while running in a reception-free hallway trying to return a page from ten minutes ago on your cell phone, while the terrifying beeping continues on the machine of death strapped on your waist, its radiations dangerously close to your ovaries-the kind of thoughts that penetrate your exhausted brain at 3:52 in the morning.

and to alleviate the drama and terror of the above descriptions for non-medical personal, The Great Fear Of Getting Paged about a Crashing Patient while trying to empty your twelve-hour-full bladder while simultaneously-and precariously- trying to hydrate for the first time in said hours.

if The Great Fear is the root trauma behind the trauma of the texting bip, la boucle est bouclée and brings us to the explosive knot in the vicious circle.

why don’t i just silence my phone. and stop complaining, and wasting analytical power and people's time. 

because The Great Fear is above all missing a text about someone crashing. in my life that is. because buried in the midst of all the blue bubbles and important-but delayable-topics may be a truly emergent message. unlikely you say, but not in my conditioned brain. not in the volatile middle east. (cf:explosive 3 lines above). not in a hospital's operating room for a last chance to say goodbye.

the unexpected chronicles of singleness part two: the statistical significance

are you tired of running inside the house at the last minute to put mascara on because you might run into him at the grocery store?

are you tired of the frustration of not running into him at the coffee shop after you just spent two hours pretending to read while glancing at both doors every time they squeaked? sitting on your judiciously positioned seat, stolen after the near-tackling of an old lady, with your bible sitting on the table but partially covered by a french essay on neo-impressionism, to broadcast how godly-with-a-hint-of-cultured you are?

are you tired of probing through every tainted car window, every restaurant patio, are you tired of probing through every piece of information and building a crumbling tower of certainties?

are you tired of running through the list of why this time, this one, it fits right, this has to be it.
the pieces fit. the pieces you know of fit. the pieces you may have made up fit. the pieces you are not choosing to ignore fit. the pieces minus the red flags fit.
this has to be it right? i mean you have overshot the quota of not-the-one a while ago. you are holding on to the statistical light at the end of the tunnel. your turn. your reward for being patient.


if there is a #guynumber(?) for you, God doesn't need to find him, God has already made him. If there is a #guynumber(?) for you, God can direct his steps to that café, or that art fair, or through that church pew. if there is a #guynumber(?) for you, God will place the desire to pursue you in his heart. if there is a #guynumber(?) for you, you don't need to manipulate his way into knowing you, God will make him learn you

God can choose from a trillion scenarios that you cannot even imagine, in perspectives that exist beyond your awareness, in colors you cannot fathom and words as clear and soft as a stream in the sunshine of a middle eastern summer day.

so stop. rest. exhale. turn off the turbines. recover your 15% of brain power from unlikely imaginary scenes, where your identity wobbles between a variety of women who are not you.

you know how they tell you to look-up-from-your-phone-facebook-stalking of  #guynumber1 because you may be missing your true love right around the corner?

as it seems i have committed to pursue this terrible and manipulative advice into the realm of truth, I would tell you. brutally. truthfully. lovingly.

#guynumber(?) may never happen

#guynumber(?) will not be your true love
your true love is not around the corner.

your true love is right here beside you
your true love is sitting across from you on that lonely manipulative table at the coffee shop.
he whispers poetry that pierces your soul and sings words of comfort that delight your heart and only in the embrace of his arms-stronger and softer than any embrace you've ever imagined- will you finally sigh in relief and safety and joy.
your true love loved you first, before you ever acknowledged his existence, before every disdainful look you threw at him as you were getting ready for your dates.
your true love has pursued you through valleys of death and darkness and has slain every dragon.

your true love has his jealous eyes on you, and he wants you.
you, all of you, without your makeup, without your flirty act and your personality adjustments.
your true love is zealous for your good.
you are loved, you are wanted, you are cherished, you are deeply known. you belong.

so trust His plan
trust Him who holds all your tomorrows.
even when it feels like it's not the story you would've written

after all, this is not your story.



many thanks to the women who have heard my stories, who have shared their stories and whose wise counsel was adapted above





 

the unexpected chronicles of singleness

yes i'll believe the Lord
His every word is true
and when i hear His voice
i will come close
i'll follow Him
and what He says i will do


how i wish my heart was less fickle. more true to my emphatic musical proclamations.
how thankful i am that He made this song stick in my head as i my brain drowns in a swamp of thoughts and doubts.
every season in which i fall in the auto-congratulatory mode over growth, obedience, and maturity, He is faithful to remind me how much i need the shelter of the cross.
He unrolls the scarlet carpet and gently reveals how i am ever running from Him in a weak remake of the same scenario. each clever attempt more hypocritically pathetic than the last. thankfully pathetic. praise be to Him who brings me back. pouty, ungrateful and irreverent child, stomping over her unfulfilled list of demands.

i run and tackle and hide and fall, and fall, and fall, and hurt: knowing that with one breath, He appeases and comforts and re-focuses the whirlwind. when he ever so slightly turns my face to look at Him, i forget the last two sleepless nights and the cyclone of my imagination. the happiness and hope that i have failed to find all afternoon on social media, are but fading shadows when my heart is filled with His gift of grace and joy.

how long do i have to wait, Lord?
i ask again because the jaded-attitude-of-a-busy-successful-career-woman did not bring the comfort it promised. (surprise!)
i ask out loud, because trusting you means i can forego my pride.
resting in your plan breaks the patterns of despair.
and if i've been silent about struggles to protect my self-confident, self -sufficient reputation and
avoid the aw-s and oh-s and empty words of comfort of the world, i now also ask on behalf of other single women.

if we single women who understand each other's struggles well, if we who just get it, if we don't point each other to Christ, to his sufficiency, to his eternal nature, to his extravagant love, to his finished work, to the example we should be looking for, to the God we are cherished by, and are being made perfect for; to the joy of worshipping Him, to the passion He enflames in our hearts when we look at His glory. to the single God-man who joined our sorrows, the single head of household who toils and weeps with us and is Himself the answer to this particular pain. who else will?


God's plan for you and me, is not about about you or me. i really am not equipped nor created for the weight of all creation to be revolving around me. and when i try to twist an atom of the world to revolve around me or fit the plan that i haven't double-checked with God, i become the twig that snaps.
He may have a man in store who may speak arabic or not know what the mediterranean basin is.
who may have dreads or be bald, drive a harley or an escalade (hopefully not, really. please).
who may love haitian kids or dream of climbing everest ( i wont be going with).

he may this or that: insert all your lists and bulletpoints and dreams and imaginary weddings and ring sizes, career options, musical preferences, physical appearance, geographical boundaries, food restrictions, spiritual gifts, clothing choices, parenting skills, worship styles, and the countless items on THE list we all keep editing, adding to and crossing from, depending on the level of hope placed in the list.


this list does not work. it produces anxiety, endless hours of analysis over maybe's, and shallow relationships defined only by the feeling of accomplishment in laser-ing off the "SINGLE" branded on your forehead.  it is tiring and disappointing and scary.
let's trust the One who made us, who made the world, who made them. let's trust His list.

and let's trust his plan for our lives, man or no man, list or no list. let's work for Him and obsess over Him because that's what we are made for. no wonder other obsessions leave us defeated and empty and exhausted. let's not believe the lie that we are alone or abandoned or forgotten. let's not believe the lie that a created being will love us and understand us better than He will. let us admit that there are things we crave that are missing but that He knows what we need. let us not believe that being single is our biggest problem and that a relationships will fix everything. let us pray to believe He is what we need most. let us not believe that something is wrong with us.
let us laugh together and struggle together and accept together that we don't and won't believe His promises every minute of every day. and let's encourage and point each other towards Him, every time we fall.
let us wish for a wedding waltz but let the ultimate hope always be the wedding waltz in heaven with Jesus.















 

shame and glory

well hello there. 

polite smile, and furtive glance.

re-reading old posts leaves me embarrassed, shocked and a little angry at myself.

what was i thinking, pouring excited, wannabe/think-I-am mature thoughts all over the web. tortured-fleeting-ideas-and-epiphanies. who-am-I-even-talking-to-except-myself. conceited, really.

what were my friends thinking? someone should have called me out on the incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo.

yes yes I know we are harder on ourselves than other people are. but really we're not.

today i am thankful that Jesus died in the muddy pit where i have merely calculated the judgments others may cast, the image, i may have projected and the reassurance i may obtain through the manipulation of re-evaluation.

today i sit looking back amazed at the mighty work He has done while i haven't been online (or onblog, please forgive the pun-ttempt)

a work of silence that i thought i controlled, because of the to-do lists that controlled me. a work of shifting perspectives. how is He going to, how He is using this very moment.

i rarely review the notes i write on fancy little kate spade notebooks.  it is easy to not reassess how misguided, immature and weak one's brain-one's faith : was-is. but i did re-read previous posts out of concern for an image. and He used it to show me that He has been at work.

should a potentially conceited public display of random thoughts continue on the transparent pages of the web, i will likely re-read in a few months-or tomorrow- and realize the immaturity of the now, that i am presently celebrating.

dead flesh wants to despair and lament that i will never be a complete work, an intellectual adult, a successful communicator et j'en passe...
new creation celebrates the Glory. the overwhelming Glory of One who is complete. for me. One who defeated the abyss and meets me in the muddy pit. who loves to refine and change.while i am busy kicking and fighting and neatly tying a blindfold around my head and my heart, the One who opens my eyes to what matters, to Him who matters.

months have passed and things have happened and i haven't kept up and guilt has crept in. where have i been? where have you been? have i arrived yet?can you change that too? i've done so well. when is my turn?

He has made me rely.
He has made me follow
He has used the wilderness and answered prayers and not answered others.
He has given gifts.
He has met me where i have questioned the number and quality of gifts, even the design of the wrapping paper.
He is meeting me where i know i need to grow, He is pulling me where i didn't know that i needed to grow.
He has molded, changed priorities, landscapes and foundations.

He uses my embarrassment for His glory.





 

what Haiti and moving away from KC have in common

you know how it is when you look forward to something? you know how sitting on that plane to Haiti, instead of being anxious you're comfortable and excited at the same time because you know what to expect? and it gets even better because you have a measure to compare your happiness to, the paralyzing anxiety from last time. you are not feeling the sleep depravation from a 3am awakening, that you despised and obsessed on the unfairness of last time.

you know how there is a small part of you that is worried that the first amazing time was a fluke and you might get disappointed this time?

you know how you tell yourself in the midst of it that it was a mistake to come back, that this time is not working, not at all, that you miss your friends from last time. you know how you get tangled in tired and angry-and hungry!- details five minutes before dinner...
you know how you come back and you tell yourself that this was amazing, and suddenly it hits you that it was so different from last time, so different from what you had imagined, so far removed from anything you are able to imagine.

you want to say it was better but you know better, you know it was incomparable.

we trust our memory, our plans, the friends-or just the people we know, even our imagination, but fail to believe that God can do different and do it well. we fail to trust that it could be good. We fail to trust that He is good.
 God changes your heart. for a long time, even after I realized Jesus was Lord over my life, i didn't know where to start. i knew that i needed to start. i wanted him to be lord but i didn't know how to change how I felt and what i wanted. I still didn't want Him. i didn't know how to love God and and how to obey Him.

it (or He) clicked one day in an warm, humid, loud and non-ventilated hotel room in Haiti. a woman i barely knew was speaking of her story and her life. and the joy and trust with which she opened her heart to women she barely knew was God talking into my heart. that evening, my over-educated, over-analyzing mind learnt the simple concept of "asking God to change my heart"

He had changed my heart already and i didn't know it, but He was also empowering me.  He taught me that i did not need to carry the burden of change alone. the strength of the how-to how comes from Him.
its not about knowing how-to, it's about trusting He does.  ok I had a really lame pun instead of this one but i will spare you. reallyyy? you want to hear it? how niiiiice. and brave. it went something like trusting how-He; or Who-He I hadn't decided. sorry. i've only had one coffee so far so bear with me. 

God can change my heart without me asking Him. He can change the world without my help but the offer of participation he extends to me is an invitation to witness and be a part of His glory.

when i want something, i still stand on the ledge, but His Spirit empowers me to not block off the images that the Spirit reveals.

images of fleeting joys followed by pain, images of my wants satisfied by letting go of Jesus' hand, images of death waiting in the precipice. it is terrifying to let go of Jesus’ hand. and i do it every single day to reach for a stupid shiny thing. sometimes i imagine the sarcastic look on his face when He extends His hand again to take mine, like my dad did. but it's probably not theologically accurate. i mean Jesus is funny don't get me wrong, and in my world funny=sarcastic. but i don't think that would be His time for sarcasm. i think He takes our hands over and over and over and over again with a beaming smile because we came back. i think the sarcastic smile is the one of shame i give myself. but his forgiving embrace stomps over my sarcastic smile of shame.

He makes me listen to His will. just as a faint whisper in the midst of the beating of the drum of my desires. but He makes me listen. i yearn for the day where no sinful desires are exhausting my heart. i crave and dread the refining fire He will carry me through because i know i will emerge on the other side of the embers closer to Him.

even as i wrote these words, i am praying to get the job i want and the boy i like, and the money to buy all the purses that i think i need, to fit the bohemian style that i let myself believe defines me.
i' scared to move and loose the friends i made in KC and never go to Haiti again and loose sight of God. I am failing to believe that He is in every city, on every plane and in the heart of new friends that i have not met yet. .

i am letting go of his hand and failing to believe that if His plans are different than mine, if this second time moving does not look like the first time ( for the sake of honesty insert here: the first time when i was paralyzed with anxiety-and anger-because i was moving to KC and then it turned out to be-well a gift from Him), if the other city doesn't look like this one, God can do different and do it well.  and He will do different because He is fighting for me and providing for me.  also you think i came up with this Haiti to moving parallel on my own? hey i was just typing blue fleeting thoughts and minding my own business and He showed up and showed me.

but the minuscule and yet so encouraging change is that He has tuned my heart to listen to His voice, listen to the shout telling me to slow down, to talk to Him about the things and the stuff and the cities and the boy and to sit down and trust Him. sit down and trust Him to go get what i need. He will bring what will be a gift of sustenance and not destruction. Sustenance in Him.

what Haiti and moving from KC have in common? God led me to both and God is in control of all the next times.

where i have been

the question is really who and not where i have been. a puppet on a wild string. an unpraying untrusting believer attempting to control her future with endless to-do lists. boards were over early october and the job search was on hold for lack of mental boxes to fit it in.

and then Haiti happened.

after being indoors and in-boards all summer, unsuccessfully hiding my irritation at the excitement that was squealed and posted about Haiti-the return, i also discovered that running away on a gateway-to-the-west weekend instead of resetting my brain at home is less than therapeutic at my age.

with less than 24 hours to pack, thankfully with much less debilitating anxiety than last year about now-familiar Haiti mechanics, i questioned the wisdom of booking this trip on a whim. (not that much had been weighed and measured and artfully planned in my life till now). my world was probably going to collapse during these five days, and i was too tired to care. so i just got on that plane.

and then Haiti happened.

flying into Haiti i was struck by how big, how powerful, how mighty the creator of all this is.



He holds the earth in the palm of His hand and knows each of us by name.

i didn't remember seeing all this the first time we were flying in. our plane was three hours late then and it was dark outside. i had been scared and tired, and my heart was still blind to the extent of God's love.

this time, i was excited (that had kicked in as soon as we left the kcmo tarmac) and missed the people who, while I wasn't looking , had crept into my heart and weaved the colors of friendship.

 

 

oh how He can use a storm and a plane delay to hide more of His glory for a little while longer, while he prepares and refines us. He knows that our hearts will fail to see the big picture, that they need to be led step by step and cared for, and protected from themselves.

 

 

God created these mountains diving into sparkly salty waters. He was in control when the ground shook and the mud overflowed. He cares for the land and for each and every one of their souls.

 

 

 my heart, the one where He lives and where they live is broken today, by the love that i 've received and the glory that i witnessed. broken by prayers that have been answered, and answers that awaken the awe of a God who listens and pulls you closer than you can imagine.

"I have been telling you that I love you, that I listen to you, that I will answer you. that I have given you life. that I have given you the most beautiful gift ever given, that I have given you myself, your creator. I will keep blessing you and giving you better gifts than you have ever imagined. I will open you eyes so you can see the gifts that I give you and I will look at your face and smile at your surprise and delight in your thanksgiving. why are you surprised, why do you still doubt?"

 

God had happened. in Haiti. and in Kansas City. and in His world, not mine. His world did not collapse during these five days. and who i am is someone to whom He keeps showing how beautiful His world is.
.

 

 

the Gospel on shuffle, stop, repeat.

i've been struggling with anxiety. i've been struggling with anger. i've been struggling with fear. i've been struggling with worry. i've been struggling with greed. i've been struggling with idols. i've been struggling with pride. i've been struggling with memories. i've been struggling with the uncertain future. i've been struggling with God.

so many mental and handwritten posts-born out of ire and despair- have gone unpublished, yet have led to more clarity, as muddy as clarity is.

a painful chiseling of my future, a determination of longitudes and latitudes, of dollars and friendships, of big cities or small towns, of shores or plains. He has made me in a way that i want to discover it all, He has made me in a way that i dread change. He has given me friends, He has made them become close enough to reach that point where ungrateful humans become annoyed with their friends. He has given me community when i only really needed Him.

He has carried me through nights and nights of blood and death and dread. He has carried me through miles and miles of trans-atlantic travels. He has carried my brain when paralyzed with fear, He has carried my hardened heart through grief. He has sent angels to protect me from myself, when i wouldn't listened to Him. He has healed the angel's wings, that i had torn apart.

He pursues, oh! how He pursues.  

the Cross that He planned, the Cross that he ordained, the Cross where He loved, the Cross where He forgave, the Cross where blood and justice rolled. the Cross that gave me life.

and despite the Cross, and despite the Word, i keep requesting proof, and signatures and assurances and promises. i keep requesting my way. i keep requesting answers. i keep requesting my crown and my scepter and my dues. i keep requesting my reward.
and i argue about my thoughts, and i argue about my motives, and my heart changes every five minutes, like a child who has cried for a red balloon and dis-interestingly lets go of it for a blue ice cream cone. i exhaust myself with my own thoughts.

thankful that He doesn't change like my inconsistent heart does. thankful He changes my heart although i still doubt it. thankful He has it under control even when i try to grab the wheel. thankful He loves, thankful He pursues, thankful He sanctifies the brat that i am. thankful He talks to me when i wouldn't want to talk to me. thankful He hasn't given up when i'm about to, thankful He nudges and thankful He makes me listen. thankful He reminds me to believe, as i doubt over and over and over again, as i doubt and believe, as i believe but what-if, like a never ending tune on a broken piano. thankful for His endless patience and grace.




 

i know what you're feeling

balancing two encyclopedias on its head,  realism walks ungracefully the dangerous line over the pit of fire, between objectivity and cynicism. i'm not sure i understand this self proclaimed statement myself. pin now, think later.

anyway.
just came back from Lebanon, an impromptu "vacation" that i spent helping out my mom. all dusty scraps of paper and invaluable antique items from a hoarder family inclusive. which explains the twenty day delay in writing a new post. i wonder if i'll ever run out of excuses?

a little-too-sweet taste in your soul of artificial self satisfaction when you've made someone happy.

all that was done out of love for someone who loves you back, cannot help but nudge a question of would-i-do-it-for-someone-i-care-just-slightly-less-about than my neat schedule of the day: my own personal charity, proceeds benefiting my social life, fitness goals and checklist of tv series to catch up on.
are you tired of hearing about my schedule? so am i. defaut de fabrication, deformation professionelle, obsession maladive et j'en passe! my ego always insults my id in french, its just something we do.
 
along with scheduling with a hand of steel, objectivity regarding palliative care is another feature that i thought was an attained goal of my profession (eternal medical trainee that is) 
they have really nothing to do with each other, but it makes for a nice transition, don't you think?

i've found myself drawn to, gifted at, and comfortable, at heart, with palliative care discussions with patients and families since early residency. my head somewhere is uncomfortable with this comfort and attempting to analyze its roots.

is it exposure to familial deaths so early on in life? i remember being surprised in college at a friend's unfamiliarity with death when her grandmother passed away. my bittersweet feeling of superiority, of 'death maturity'. i had all those feelings down, from the guilt, to the anger denying the grief, to where my spot in the line of condolences was.

is it the opportunity for blunt honesty that i crave (and i know they crave it too, after days of polite exchanges of hopeful uncertainties).  in discussions where most people don't want to be the ones saying these three raw words, the ones that answer all the unspoken doubts, the ones that liberate from excruciatingly unrealistic hope, three words can bring the liberation of answers, of closure, and let the light shine on comfort, on relieving pain, on bigger and everlasting hope.

i've bonded with daughters and prayed with wives and hugged mothers after the decision to relieve pain has been made. i've helped them make the right decision of selfless love in the face of certain odds. i've even answered the miracle question-nothing is impossible to God, He can still heal, what if we withdraw before He does. yes He can, and if this be His mighty plan, then no ventilator that i disconnect or no morphine that i order can ruin His healing plan. God's schedule will not be hindered by a timeline that i ordain in my icu kingdom.

and yet, i found myself become the patient's family, wonder if the outcome is certain beyond a shadow of a doubt, rationalize and minimize the amount of pain she was in, ask myself for a horrible second if i was deciding her fate to give myself some rest, so i could sleep again, so i would stop being terrified of what would happen and how she would die. i heard the guilty thoughts of betraying her trust, of playing god, of not searching for other solutions.
i've believed them for one brief second of "patient family" time. seconds that flipped the coin so i would truly know the fleeting thoughts in a daughter's head, after i've said my three words.

for the record i am talking about a cat. who was sick and not eating and still loving you with her (one)big green eye (under her likely heent tumor).for those of you who are or have been a pet's human, you will understand with no apologies needed.

i'm thankful for my teenage grief because i can understand theirs, i'm thankful for the years of training for giving me the ability to objectively recognize pain and certain outcomes, i'm thankful for the doubts because they convicted my intolerance of love's desperate what-ifs.
the agonizing few days' journey on a cat's palliative care blood stained couch made me a better doctor. God does really redeems everything, if you listen.
















 

"the accent is not the issue" and other changes

tonight is the big night where i mix my worlds and upload a picture to the blog. initially intended for instagram, with insta-sharing to facebook evidently.

i've recently started mixing my other worlds too.

-french world with a lebanese accent (lebanese, not arabic, and frenchie lebanese, make no mistake)
 -lebano-arabic world with a frenchie attitude rooted in an unorthodoxly deeply Lebanese family (we all think our family is unorthodox right? to avoid saying unique. intellectual people know that unique is dépassé, an ordinary unspecial desire).
-american world with a sorority wannabe accent, as my sister likes to call it {that really started when starbucks would not understand that i wanted a cup of water. wo-terr. i could've accepted the curious looks. or "unparanoid" the look for what it might have been: the tired one of an underpayed starbucks employee who couldn't care less about an accent. yet i now say waaate'. and Gad instead of God. you gotta follow the music}
.
and as many times as it has happened that a patient, or a consultant, or a nurse has appreciated me for my work, or alternatively has not appreciated bad work with no accent from another, i still can't get it into my head that the accent is not the savior, nor is it the issue. it is not the accent that pleases or turns people away.

that's all dandy, although let's leave the whole people pleasing, acceptance seeking (or really just strong opinion seeking) idol for another post. the latter might very well include how the accent has been a heart issue this whole time. eureka.

back to the picture

 

well that is not as great a picture as instagram would've made it to be. filtering away the ordinary into art.

 

but i'm keeping it since i announced a picture 

what am i going to do, delete all the above ramblings triggered by the picture announcement?

there's something you need to know about me. i don't do starting over. but i persevere. or evolve.

i wonder if starting over even exists. it's never the same bouncing ground, when you re-start something based on the lessons from your non-successes.

 

the picture says 07:55 AM.

which to some, is the time they come back from their run

some can run at 11 AM in 105 F and indulgently smile at my rookie, red, puffy and drenched face as they are expertly hopping out.

some people's warm ups are other people's half marathons.

 

some people's change of heart is the victory.

and isn't amazing how God just nudges your heart, just as little as He knows you can handle, to change what you didn't even imagine could be better differently. and He makes every change unique.

 

from idolizing sleep and despising early morning risers- if not early-rising for what the world has told us productivity entails-to what I consider uncoerced early rising for me.

i woke up willingly, no snoozing.

coffee and other addictions still require rising 45 mns prior. He will probably make me change that, and when i rebel, just change it Himself.

baby steps for big heart changes. 



 

A post that was not supposed to be about what it's about

i haven't posted in a while, busy with overthinking, overworking, overworrying, over to-do listing, over-medicining, overachieving.
i was mentally and physically exhausted by the end of two weeks of consults and two weeks of intensive ICU regimen. mixed with my first 5k run, a road trip to the symphony on the prairie, a road trip to southeastern Kansas for a lecture, and writing ever-renewing to do lists, shifting items around as if re-writing them on a new corner of a piece of paper somehow meant part of that job was done.

read between the words performance anxiety regarding the lecture, achievement anxiety regarding the to-do lists, fitness anxiety regarding finding time to run during all that, religious anxiety regarding not exploding in people's faces when I was tired- as my newfound insight had shown me i have been prone to do for the last 33 years.

oh and the women's conference. somehow in my unplanned post, the women's conference portion did not make my mental anxiety list. elyze fitzpatrick was speaking at church, over 2 days. too long, i just want to sleep! and i need to run! but i have to go. (have to is the most frequently used term in my family)
 
i had never heard of fitzpatrick. i thought attending a women's conference would be cool. (i don't know how i've evolved to this "hanging out with women is good" mentality after preferring male friendship all my young adulthood years, and avoiding overemotional, over analytical and overdramatic female friendships as much as possible. if there was to be any overdrama in my life, i'd be the one producing it. in case you're wondering, no that did not turn out well at all in any of my relationships).

i mainly attend all the events at church that i can to build deeper relationships and because i have realized how much i have to learn. speakers and conferences are an amazing teaching experience, but i have to admit that they cater well to my hunger for hearing about Jesus, mixed with a lazy reluctance to just pick up my Bible and read, or just pick up my brain and talk to Him.

back to the conference. i was physically exhausted but spiritually refreshed. a new baptism i felt. there is something to be said about listening to a woman state repeatedly and sing of Jesus' love for her, and her need for Him, a woman who has theoretically "achieved" all that you, in a dark dusty corner of your head, still believe that you need to make everything right.

marriage, kids, a carrier, peer approval. all of the above will make everything right culture tells us. what a horrendous lie.  i realize the devastating impact it has on my friends and coworkers and random girls i meet when i hear their stories and their longings. the prison it keeps them in and it had kept me in all these years. a lie that even after not-believing-it-anymore, even after putting out trust and hope and happiness in much more powerful hands, we still occasionally lean towards,

fitzpatrick is a strong experienced lady, who has the gift of preaching the Gospel in a slightly estrogen-laden sarcastic manner. the gift of guessing crazy convoluted women doubts and reminds you, again and again -because she knows you are a woman and need to hear things twenty different times and in twenty different ways- reminds you of His love for you.

not love "but maybe he didn't like me as much today", not love "because i did good and didn't explode in anyone's face today", not love "but i still remember all these horrible things ive done and it's weighing me down and i dare not look him in the face" UNCONDITIONAL, EVERLASTING, NEVER-ENDING, ALL-ENCOMPASSING, ETERNAL LOVE.

im not trying to sound like the jesus storybook bible. okay fine, maybe i stole a word or two from there. google elyze fitzpatrick and buy her books. youtube her, amazon her or whatever new app is available since my last techno culture check. it will change your life.  and the beauty of the modern age, is that macho-men-types-what-does-a-womans-conference-speaker-have-to-do-with-me-types (don't get me wrong, pretty attractive types they are) can order books or listen to her gender-clandestinely. i'm sure you have crazy convoluted men doubts of your own too.

what is amazingly obvious is that God tells you that He will change your heart when you start following Him. You don't really believe it. maybe you hope for it, but don't believe its possible. i mean yeah yeah sure he created the heavens and the earth blablabla but this is di-ff-rent, God. I tried to change on my own and couldn't now, could i? yes yes i know You created me and all, you can do all things, but let's be realistic. it's hilarious what condescending little creatures we are to the Creator.

just to say not only He changes you, but every time, you think you've got it, the whole creation/fall/redemption/restoration business, BAM- He slams it in your face in a whole new different way that leaves you panting with excitement all over again.
He knows when you need to be reminded of heart truths that you've packed aside, because you're an intellectual and too busy considering deeper theological or to-do listal issues. He is there in your to-do lists, your failed attempts at non-explosions, your missed runs and your lecture performance.

He is also there in a blog post that was supposed to be about "overthinking" and somehow ended up being about Jesus. hmmm. funny.

 

city girl and other short confessions

the maalouf sisters have had a great two weeks. first 5k, which also happens to be a social event on every colorful-mess-loving, awesome-childhood-reminiscing, curly head's bucket list.

discovering new KC breweries and bistrots might be a daily activity for lots of people. we have always had a different approach, being submitted to two sets of numbers: calories and dollars.

the amount of motivation it took to even place an insanity video in the dvd player, the agony of required 30 hour calls to deserve your salary, the torture in repeated fittings of the new dress that simply won't zip all the way to the top, the sense of victory sliding that credit card to pay for the 80% off teal leather designer boots just made us into less frequent frequenters of the overgreased, overpriced, over-tipped for, catastrophic heartburn and guilt producing fake authentic french cuisine.

symphony in the flint hills this weekend, another bucket lister, complemented by an apple maps mishap regarding the location of fort riley. once we got to the dirt road and met with another technology trusting lost citadine, we crossed "experiencing rural living" off of our to-do lists and came back to the highway.

it's sad really, i never wanted to be a city girl. i imagine myself being able to do hard physical work. and truly connecting with nature. probably connected to a crying point once it was time to separate the baby cows from their mothers. i only know that that is done because i read it in a romance novel somewhere. here we go, city girl again. i am the cliché city girl. not so cliché in the city are we? with curly hair flying around and an exotic accent? great, solved the cliché part at least in my head.
then the intensivist nature kicks in. i panic thinking about how much time do they have to reach a hospital if they have a STEMI. there is no way they make the whole 90 mns door to cath lab. do the hospitals even have a cath lab?? does 911 even answer calls here? what about babies, deliveries, online shopping, 5000 people mega-churches, podcasts, sepsis? do they have CRRT in their hospitals? what if the preemies need ECMO?
aaaah the arrogance... the false comfort of modern medicine and the illusion of online communities.. ...
yes i realize all the false comforts i rely on and the modern lies i have believed. first step.
 as far as the whole cowboy (yes boy, not cooking cowgirl) fantasy, i will just submit to the reassuring reality that God put us where we are supposed to be. i'm sure i'll find some hay to cut, or whatever, in heaven.






 

running; from a one night stand to an engagement.

Jesus satisfies all my longings.... the hymn is stuck in my head, and popped there during today's run.. (now yesterday's run. for more information on procrastination, please refer to post #1)

now what u need to know about today's run is that it was not craved but just on the schedule. the Q 2 days run intermittent with occasional insanity abs video and various older shaun-t videos schedule.

 

my favorites videos are when i feel my time is optimally invested, when more than two and the half muscle groups are being worked out (never mind that i am so exhausted that i end up vegging out in front of the Tudors, wasting a quintuplet of the time that i would have spent doing ten biceps curls), i am thankful for a cyber-trainer who understands my need for multitasking in a disorganizedly to-do listed life. 

 

anyway, that self inflicted workout schedule left me exhausted at the end of may, and excessive unrealistic ambition only reaped lack of  application.

it was not helping that the little clinical work i had to do at the hospital gave rise to endlessly eclectic to-do lists of studying, organizing my beloved closet, completing the shoe collection picture catalogue, updating my iTunes music collection into a multitude of playlists. all of the above currently half-done at best. the tragedy therein lying not in unfinished useful tasks, but rather the impossibility of crossing them off the to do list in brightly teal markers.

re-reading Romans that i just finished with my community group, and rewriting Romans notes mixed with a Romans study guide stolen from the laundry room in our st. louis apartment complex, started off as a to-do list and brought much joy and enjoyment, and has now got to find the time to fit into all of that.

digressing again r we? running, you're writing about running.

the whole running business started as i decided, one night with no moonlight, that i'd be doing the insanity videos one year from now. that sounded like a very maturely realistic time frame and far enough to alleviated any low self esteem ideas of i could never do that.

insight also kicking in about my poor exercise tolerance, and wanting to do the insanity videos, like all normal insane people do without pausing the video every 5 minutes. or maybe everyone does but the image in my head is the one I think I need to achieve, and not the realistic average of an experienced community. (average... i would refuse any such description on pure principle!...)

 i needed to increase my exercise tolerance and make myself breathe longer. VO2 max. i only leaned that term when it applied to me and not to my patients as a part of my education. i will treat you only of you suffer from a disease that interests me. or that i had time to read about in the midst of my life improving, God serving life. He couldn' t have possibly meant for me to serve him through absurd physics equations and boring disease concepts...

to make myself breathe better, i went for a run. low expectations and no experience made up my baseline of running for one minute .

hey at least i had overcome my worry of what people are going to think with the red face, sweat drenched, poor-form-one-minute-runner. yes i ran outside . i was already proud of that particular gutsy move

God might have been changing my heart from the time i used to make fun of 5-am-snowy-days-runners to that out-of-the-blue decision to Insanitize , to the ridiculous thought that running could be  just a bridge to that, and not a new love in itself.

changing my heart to the point of craving the next run twenty-four hours after the last run, apart from it being scheduled, (i only disobey the schedule for Jesus) or more accurately the set of one-minute-painful-slightly-faster-than-fast-walking-from-one-telephone-pole-to-the-other shows. 

to the point where i took a class, bought expensive running shoes , not on sale. i, the one whom without Jesus would be finding her identity in her elaborate outfits, and the pleasure of finding designer deals, mysterious discounts and colorful outfits.

today's run is that it was not craved but just on the schedule because my romance with running hit its first bumps on the road. but God redeems what He has created, and what he has deemed to be good.

running and i made up and are more in love than ever.
 

 

the conviction of brilliance

i'm not stupid. let's just start by stating that simple, accurate baseline truth, agree and move forward. as a corollary, we can also agree that i'm not very humble either. and as we're agreeing on character traits, i'm an incessant arguer. but i will not argue about not being humble.

its important to establish a baseline in the conversation.

now regarding my general absence of stupidity. (wait, excluding fits of anger at inopportune moments, some relationships i decided would be fruitful, and the inability to season food---salty only, i manage beautifully with sweets, coming from a long line of sweet-toothed stubborn diabetics).....
humm i wonder if i can call all of these something else and still claim intelligence, here i go again..


renaming the above: anger issues, discernment issues, extreme spontaneity, a conviction of being able to change, or better yet save people, and reluctance to put in the time to learn to cook.

but intellectually, I've had historical fits of brilliance.
of which i never actually understood the springing mechanism
acute and delicate insights one day, clueless the next
mastered my high school literature and philosophy class, unable to grasp the symbolism of a cult movie the next decade

so when i never understood the Bible, all of it, the writing style (not even noticing that "style" needed to be plural), the good news, the symbolism or lack thereof, the awe-inspiring Spirit, the punctuation, the what-i-thought-were-really-bad-bedtime-stories, the what-i-thought-was-a-lame-attempt-at-poetry, and the i-cant-tell-anyone-that-i-don't-understand-what-the-big-deal-is-all-about.

times of shame and arrogance.

in my mind, if i am brilliant, and by own doing, who else's?, and don't get this, it must be its fault

i mean, come on, look at me! i was reading great authors, had memorized exquisite poetry, was an avid cinephile of independent alternative movie-making.
i was slowly but surely on a path on intellectual and cultural eliteness.
slowly and painfully and exhaustingly and terrified of missing out on the next creative movement and be kicked out of the club.

a club where a pervasive sense of discomfort, lack-of-fulfillment, fear instead of satisfaction, were feelings that i had numbed down. and i had no time to decipher the Word of God.
i knew that was the right thing to call it, i knew the right answers because that is what an intellectual does. i was waiting for a feeling to kick in and make me magically understand this book BEFORE i open it. because i had no time to waste.

not that i was praying to understand it.
prayer was another right answer, a didactic accompanying an empathetic facial expression at funerals, or sessions of comforting friends breaking up, or neighbors experiencing health issues, etc, you get the picture...
prayer wasn't for me or by me. it was a word, a good sentence closure, a visit-ender, i'm praying for u, good luck with everything, bye! and a lie i recognized uttering every time i promised it to someone.

the shock that followed understanding the Good News still lingers.lingers in my head. my heart is at peace and at joy and at awe, and the journey keeps springing amazement at who God is. i dont know how He managed to pierce my hard stubborn, arrogant know-it-all heart, but that's what He does. He is amazing.

the shock lingers in my head still. the fact that with all my brilliance, intellect, years of church going, i had not comprehended a tiny, plain, simple sentence. Jesus died for your sins. what does that even mean?

that was a while back, and we've had a bumpy journey. where i was still kicking and screaming, and pouting in a corner and crossing my arms in refusal when He would hand me my Bible to read, and laughing at him when He would say the word discipline, and pressing play on a cult movie on Netflix when He would call me to talk to Him.

but i have learned discipline and i'm still learning. when i don't run away and actually sit and read my Bible, i am in awe and in beautiful shock and in adoration at what i'm learning.


see, working for an intellectual eliteness reputation is the biggest obstacle of all for asking questions.  because you cannot afford to look stupid when you are building your own kingdom. what does this crazy story have to do with jesus? you only ask the questions that will confuse others, and to which you have invented the answers to assert your intellectual superiority. and soon you will stop asking even yourself these questions, wait, why did jesus come to die again? because if you don't believe in your kingdom, then who else will?


The great lethal irony of misdirecting the occasional fits of greatness that He gave, and using them to judge His world, His word, and Him, building up from there to where you don't understand anything at all. what kind of Love digs into that, uninvited, to make all things new?