Thanksgiving

4 Hours of cooking with these boys:

Deep Fried Sriracha Turkey:

Nothing got lit on fire:

Our turkey was mad delicious looking:

Starting the carving process:

Just SO much food: (Not pictured pie, Matthew, and Rob)

Followed by hours of Settlers and watching The League.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Cling

I found myself looking at the waves and the wind instead of at Jesus in the boat. 

And I realized I was sinking, sinking into the dark empty nothingness. So I grabbed on to the tiny rafts that floated by. I clung on to find some safety. Safety in the others clinging on with me. "I can help you!" they said and grasped at my hands. I held on because they were a danger I could see and know, and what swam beneath me was a danger unknown, a darkness unfathomable. So I would float with first one, and then when I knew they could no longer help me, I swam to another one, and another, until I found someone who could tackle all the other rafts out at sea. Someone big enough to fight all the others away, big enough to keep my feet dry. 

But no one was big enough to cover my own darkness. 

And I realized what was swimming beneath was the depths of my dark and empty soul. The darkness of those around me was nothing compared to what circled, grasping at my feet, wrapping itself around my ankles. It was not the fear or horror of the evil around me. It was the fear and horror of what churned inside me.

In my fear I forgot that my options are never just two. The choice is not to either sink in the depths or cling to drifting logs tied with string, the choice should always be one. To stand in the waves and look up at the face of Jesus and have Him rescue me.

Because I want so badly to believe that I can accomplish life on my own. But on my own I always will sink. And I can cling to those drowning with me or I can cling to true life. So I looked up expecting the emptiness that I had always seen around me. Expecting Jesus to be gone in His boat, off to save someone worthy of saving as I had discovered I was not. But when I looked up I realized He had been there the whole time.

Saying to me "Why do you doubt?" And my heart finally began to believe what I had known in my head all along: that He loves me now. Not tomorrow, not after I stop making a mess, not when I realize that I am a mess. Now. And yesterday, and the day before, and all those years of clinging to the lives of others. He loved me, He loves me. And the waves don't seem so big, the wind doesn't howl so strong, if I cling to Him. I am not so cold, and I am not alone, if I cling to Him. So that is who I will cling to, the only thing that will not fail, when all else around me does. 

I will cling to Him.

Scared 6th Grader

Inside me lives a scared sixth grader.

Once upon a time in sixth grade a girl named Sabrina had to leave in the middle of the year. This was not uncommon, in first grade our teacher unexpectedly left in the middle of the year and in every year someone left and someone new came. Our classes were small and I knew Sabrina pretty well; she was amazingly nice and soft spoken and seemed more mature than the rest of us. Even though I knew her, we weren't best friends, and we never saw each other outside of school.
But when she announced she was leaving, I unraveled.
Not just normal tears, but a continual aching sob. It was the middle of a school day and I was back in the bathroom at the end of our class sobbing. I couldn't stop. I couldn't breathe. I was hyperventilating, over heating, having a full meltdown. I was crying so much that my teacher, who was sweet and calm and put up with a lot of crazy things from a bunch of multicultural sixth graders, came back and told me I had to shut up and get it together.

The closest I had come to being that sad was when I left America to go back home to Taiwan after a year of fourth grade in the states. A classmate showed up at my house, once again a girl who was nice, but I wasn't that close with, with a little glass dog to give me as a parting gift. I still have the dog. And we cried on the front lawn while our mothers waited. But even that time, it wasn't that bad, I eventually stopped crying.

In sixth grade I couldn't stop. All the grief of years past, filled with the knowledge that it wasn't going end just overwhelmed me.

I had never cried that hard before, and I never have again, but every time someone leaves that scared sixth grader begins to creep up. When I stand in an airport with all that I own in suitcases, that little girl lurches inside. Because inside is all that grief, all that loss, that I thought was normal, that I thought all people constantly dealt with, piled up inside me. And when the loss of a best friend in third grade fades away, the loss of a best friend in seventh grade happens, and when that begins to fade, the loss of my school, my home, my culture, my security happens. And once again, the grief remains inside of a shaking sixth grader hiding in the bathroom.