no doubting duty.

How are you sure this the right place? she asked, stepping timidly into the small building.  With a sweeping glance, I observed the light pink walls, Asian-themed sitting room complete with red pillows, various plants here and there and the cheery women behind the desk.  My eyes fell on the fancy coffeemaker and the generous basket of assorted creamers and teas sitting next to it.  The framed cover of Delaware Today featured a woman with a stethoscope around her neck – she was smiling at everyone from her spot on the wall.  I turned around and looked at her… Oh, we are most definitely at the right place.

I walked up to the front desk with her.  They handed her a packet of paperwork.  We found a place in the sitting room and began to complete the documents.  Nurses walked in and out of sight, clipboards in arms and smiles on their faces.  Norah Jones played softly in the background.  A nudge.  What does this one mean? she asked, pointing her finger at one of the many lines of questions in her packet.  They want to know what you believe in, I explained.  Tell them that you’re a Christian.  Oh, okay, she says.  The scribbles continue.  A little girl bounds into the sitting room, followed closely by her mother.  They both brought books.  Another nudge.  And this one?  What do they want? she asks again.  They want to know what kind of things have caused you anxiety and stress, I say.  Her brow furrows.  How do I even explain that?  I’ll just tell them, I’m not writing anymore, she says while getting up.

Jennifer? they call.  We look at one another quickly.  Her smile appears before mine does – she is much stronger than I.  I’ll be here, I say.  I watch them walk out of the sitting room.  Norah dissolves into Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor, No.7.  And suddenly, I am alone with my thoughts.

I’m not afraid of the pain, she had said to me earlier that week; I can endure the pain.  My biggest fear is that he doesn’t know how to take care of me – and that he won’t.  I’m scared of being alone.  Her eyes suddenly focused on something very far away and she crossed her arms.  Suddenly, we are both transported back to that one day of summer a few years ago, when the burden became too much to bear.  Everything that she had shouldered came toppling down; every criticism that she had to deflect, every demand she had to fill.  The ambulance made it home quicker than I did that day; her heart rate had plummeted dangerously.  She called him while she was recovering in the hospital, weakened and scared; she did not know what was happening to her.  He was irritated, and wouldn’t come right away.  I’ll be there in a few hours, I have to finish some things at work.  She told me later that she was crushed; his work came first and that’s how it’s always been.  And that is her biggest fear – to be alone when she needed him the most.

As Chopin turned into Jardins sous la Pluie from Debussy’s Prelude Pour le Piano, I began to pray for strength.  Sometimes I hesitate to pray because I do not know what to say; life gets messier the more I get involved.  The words came – Lord I ask for strength, I ask for peace.  Make us brave.  We know that are in Your hands.  When I open my eyes, she’s standing by my side, that unwavering smile of strength on her face.  Well? I ask, unable to keep it down.

It’s not as bad as I thought it would be, she said.  Doctor is really nice, she is very good.  She was angry that I didn’t come earlier, the ultrasounds from a few months ago are outdated because they’ve gotten bigger, but how could I have come with everything going on?  My eyes expanded to the size of dinner plates – bigger?? I asked, raising my voice.  She shook her head and put her hand on her lower belly, towards her right hip bone.  They found the fibroid, it’s in a bad place.  They will need to take it out.  They found something else too.  Something else??? I asked, getting edgy.  They found a cyst, a really big one – she held her hand up and spread her thumb and index finger to show me – it’s too big.  They have to take that out too.  The whole thing?? I gulped.  She smiled again.  No, just the right one.  And the fibroids.  Only a few days recovery, not weeks and weeks, like I thought.  Only a few days, and I’ll be able to take care of myself after, no worries!  Oh, and these I do not understand, she said as she handed me a slip of paper with the surgical procedures scratched out by Doctor.  I read the note and digested the words on the paper.  Endometrial ablation, laparoscopic surgery, right oophorectomy.  I looked up at her.  God is so good to us, she remarks.  And with her coat in hand, she says, Let’s go home.

She calls me a few days later I moved in with Em.  They are scheduling me for the 4th, she says.  I know classes will start for you soon, and I don’t want to be–

“Mom,” I said, cutting her off before she could finish.  “I’m going to come home for you.”  There was silence on the other end; I knew that this time she would not protest.  “I’m going to come home and take care of you.  And Dad and Frank too.  Don’t worry, I’ll be there.   I’ll stay for as long as I can.”
“Okay,” she said softly.  “Okay, you come home… and take care of me.”

I stayed up watching Dust by Rob Bell with Ryan last night.  Rob talked about the duties of a rabbi’s disciples in the time of the Bible, and he related it to how Jesus picked the JV, the B-team, the Nobodies to be his disciples.  He said that the fact that Jesus chose his disciples proves that Jesus must have had faith in his disciples; Jesus must have believed that his disciples were capable of following in His footsteps.  He went on to say that as Christians, it’s not that we doubt what Jesus can do, but we doubt instead that we are capable of living out our lives the way Jesus lived, making the choices that he did and changing the world through things both big and small.  We forget that Jesus chose his disciples, his followers – he did not doubt that they (mere fishermen and tax collectors) were able to make the choices that he made.  As a matter of fact, Jesus believes in people so much, that he left the world to them with the charge: “go make more followers!”

Reflecting upon my own faith, I can recall many moments when I backed out of doing or saying something because I felt completely helpless.  I doubted my ability to make a difference, and I doubted my own humanity and capacity to love.  The thought of being accountable for someone I love frightens me, particularly since I have failed to do just that so many times in the past.  Doubt kills.  But Christ saves – if he believes in someone little like me so much to have commanded me to walk in his shoes and live likewise, then who am I to disbelieve that I’m capable of loving like He loves?

She wrote me an email this morning – her very first email.  In it, she says:
“I really enjoyed you being at home.  I can share so many things with you.  I thank God for giving me a sweet daughter who really cares about me and loves me.  Thank God for your strong faith and heart.  I learn so much from you.”

I guess she believes in me too.  Even though I feel incredibly small and can be plagued by doubt and fear of failure, Rob Bell is right – if Jesus had enough faith in us to begin with, we must be capable of doing something great with right motives.  In another week it’ll be her turn to receive, and it’ll be mine to give.  Sometimes I seriously doubt that I will be able to do it, to be held accountable to someone I love, but God doesn’t doubt it.  And to fill those shoes would be to do the duty of a disciple.

And that… is something that I wouldn’t miss for the world.

some punctuated modesty.

Human fathers aren’t perfect, nor are they really prepared for the huge responsibilities ahead of them. I can’t even begin to imagine the gravity of the paternal role, one that entails everything from providing to withholding; rebuking and loving. We love our dads when they tell us that we rock their worlds, and we resent them when they lay down the law. That can’t be an easy job, laying down the law. But someone’s got to do it. No discipline ever feels good at the time that it’s given, yet the benefits that are reaped from proper discipline are innumerable. Granted, there are fathers who blow discipline way out of proportion, just like there are fathers who never take the time to discipline at all. While my father had the propensity to take discipline to the max (think backhands and tree branches), I will always remain indebted to him for what is perhaps the most valuable lesson that could have been imparted to any young girl trying to navigate her way through adolescence. Amidst his laments on how insufferable of a daughter I was to him, he never ceased to push me to have character over charm. “Inner beauty produces outer beauty,” he would say with his stern voice. “Don’t waste your time and money being superficial, on being pretty and dolled up–it’s the beauty of your character that matters.” These are hard words to swallow for a girl at 13, at 14, at 15 years of age, but they are words that have made an indescribable impact on my life. They have made me into who I am today.

A month ago, I took a nostalgic trip back to my old high school with my roommate. We were nearly trampled on our way into the building by towering teenagers; girls whose legs were longer than we were tall and guys whose shoulders spanned the two of us put together. My eyes widened at how much skin the girls were willing to reveal despite the 30-degree weather; each and every one of them done up so nicely that I could’ve sworn that they were all candidates for modeling schools. I would’ve given anything to look like them in the 9th grade, but my father knew better. Yesterday, I walked into the worship service at church on Sunday morning and sat down by myself in a pew. A few rows over, our church’s high school girls were knit tightly together in fashionably-clad clusters, each and every one of them gorgeous in their own way, whether or not they’d believe me if I said it. Cellphones, cameras, bomber jackets and jeans; makeup and highlights and glitter amassed – altogether they would easily be worth more than $2000. I would’ve given anything to be them in the 10th grade, but my father knew better.

My mind races backwards to a familiar place in time, when all I wanted more than anything in the world was to be beautiful and loved. I had gorgeous and well-to-do friends who were given what they wanted; friends who spent more time on their looks than they did on anything else. I was shy and so awkward, and I didn’t believe that anyone would ever think of me as beautiful. I wanted so badly to look as good as the rest of the high school population did; I started buying what my friends bought and wearing what they wore. I did my makeup just the way they did theirs and started to avoid the foods that they avoided. My definition of ‘beautiful’ was totally appearance-based. It’s no surprise then that at this time, I was furiously engaged in a war against my father. But the battles were on his home turf – where no act of disobedience was to be tolerated.

I remember the first time I tried leaving the house wearing a low-cut shirt; he ordered me to change even before my foot hit the landing at the bottom of the stairs. And the time I spent a lot of money on those (really short) shorts – he looked at me furiously before launching into another speech about my improper attire. There were also school dances from which I was forbidden (and also that one particular dance during which he stormed in to “rescue” me from and sent the principal into the gym to look for me), numerous bottles of makeup paraphernalia thrown into the trash, and bags and bags of clothing that I was never to wear again. Along with those came the threats of how I would be sorry if I ever let a boy touch me, if I ever sat in a boy’s lap; how I was never to be alone with Boy, get in a car with Boy, do this with Boy and do that with Boy… My father yelled and got scary when I wasn’t polite and when I forgot to greet my elders with the proper title (Mr. and Mrs., Auntie and Uncle). He got even scarier when I would try to sass with him (I never got very far with that). Nothing angered him more than to see me choose image over intellect, philandering over propriety; my reputation and purity meant a great deal to him not just in words or presentation but in lifestyle and attitude as well. He expected me to have honesty and integrity over coquetry and allure; he wanted me to be made out of substance and not sweet talk.

There were a lot of tears and unspoken “I-hate-you’s,” many bitter pity-me parties and moments when I felt like I was the most uncool and unlovable girl in the world. Being the only one who wasn’t allowed to wear tight shirts, short skirts, lots of jewelry and makeup – somehow made me less valuable of a girl; being the only girl who hadn’t let a boy touch her like so or do this or that with her – made me feel ashamed. But I obeyed my dad (very contemptuously at first) and tried to uphold his expectations. Though I’d secretly defy him when I was far from his scrutiny, all I found at the end of those encounters were superficiality, heart hurts and disappointment – mostly in myself and with the rest of the world.

Coming to college was perhaps what tested my integrity the most: a chance to be free, a chance to start new; rediscover and re-identify. After a few compromising mistakes during my first semester at school, I found myself desperately in need of wisdom. My dad wasn’t around to pound lectures into my head, but I knew where I would be able to find what I needed to hear. I took out my Bible – the one that had been collecting dust from the shelf in my dorm – and began to read Proverbs 31. Verse 30 alone says, “Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.” I knew deep down that my dad had done his job by laying down the law for me and guarding my purity when all I allowed myself to see was what I was missing out by being modest. Suddenly, I was ashamed of the times I had scorned my dad for forcing me to change out of an outfit or put on another layer, and for fiercely correcting me when my behavior compromised my character. I was ashamed for snubbing him when he accused me of being garish and indecent. Suddenly, outward beauty didn’t weigh in as much as it used to, not with the way that I saw our world treat those who were only beautiful on the outside and not on the inside. I knew that only God would be able to give me a pure heart inside, that God and God alone assigns and takes value away.

It’s a little more than two years after that encounter with Proverbs 31 in my dorm. God has been and is still transforming every part of my heart from the inside out, and I love Him more than ever. I have since then, thanked my dad many times for the numerous times he protected a part of me that I did not value. I have also developed a hatred for the way in which our culture and our world warps the meaning of true beauty, how we tell young girls that they need to be thin to be gorgeous, to be coy and seductive and breast-baring and decked out in order to be perfect; how we tell older women that natural aging makes them ugly and that they need to inject themselves with needles in order to be beautiful forever. I have come to cherish what I didn’t use to cherish, and I’ve found that my pops was right after all – inner beauty really does produce outer beauty, in many more ways than one.

So here’s some punctuated modesty for all of you gentlemen thinking about becoming fathers one day. In no way am I urging you to interrupt your daughter’s first phone call from a boy and proceed to yell at him for 5 minutes (at least that’s what happened to me), nor am I suggesting that you rant for 3 hours about the dangers of whoredom to your future 14-year old when she comes back home wearing a tight shirt… but I am hoping that purity and integrity, honor and virtue are disciplines that you assume responsibilities over, while ensuring that your daughter never doubts for an instant that YOU, of all people, think that she is the most beautiful girl in the world. Big responsibilities indeed. But in a world that bombards our girls with mixed messages about beauty, your voice will be one of the most significant voices she’ll need to hear. Where my father stressed the purport of character, he lacked to tell me the latter. Our relationship suffered in other ways that are impertinent to this post.

And there is too much to be said to the ladies here on this note; perhaps one day down the road they will merit a blog to themselves. The Bible tells us not to cast our pearls to swine. So I’ll just ask the questions that no one else will ask: do the words that come out of your mouths reflect the kind of woman you want to be for God? Are you more concerned about loving yourself (ie: spending money on clothes and makeup, spending time with your group of friends) than you are with loving others? What parts of yourself have you given up – and what parts of yourself have you decided to save for your future husband? I will be the first to admit that my words don’t always reflect the kind of woman I want to be for God; that sometimes I get caught up in loving myself and forget to love others, that there are things I wish I would’ve saved for the person I’m going to love and live with for the rest of my life. It’s all about the choices you make. Will you choose to be fleeting and deceptive, or will you choose to be part of something that is eternal; something much more worthy to be praised?

If there was ever a lesson that I think girls our day in age needed to hear more, it’s that their worth in Jesus Christ is far more precious and valuable than any marketable beauty product or brand name, advertisement or boy will ever give them. A pure heart with its eyes turns towards God is most attractive, and true beauty is something that only God can create. The good news is, we can ask Him to create that for us – first in our hearts, and then in our lives for the whole world to see. I was blessed to have a papa who helped me see this truth – though done so in a… very unique way. If you haven’t gotten this message, this is me telling it to you now.

Just chew on it.

the sound of distance.

Four people sat down for dinner tonight.  I knew how the routine would go even before I closed my eyes for prayer, but I racked my brains for things to share with you nonetheless.  When I opened them again, it was like another wall had grown in the space between your place at the table and mine.  You had nothing to say to me, which was expected of course.  But you don’t even look at me.  I ate in silence.  It was deafening.

I walked into your study the other night, remember?  So I got to record today, a friend of mine returned the favor for all of the help I’ve given him, I said.  For how long? you had asked without looking up.  A few hours, I replied.  The silence started to creep over us so I changed the subject.  You weren’t that interested; you just chewed up your food and continued to stare at the screen.  You have no idea how much I detest how you’ve let that consume you.  You wouldn’t even be able to begin to imagine how much I would give for you to invest in me as much as you invest in your money.  But years and years of listening to you and not telling you how I really felt about it all has made me into a good actress.  I take the remains of your consumed dinner to the kitchen sink on my way out of your space.  Three minutes is better than none.  And this is the sound of distance.

I am reminded of the night I came home about a week before Christmas.  I was bold that evening and said some things to you that I had never said to you before.  Like how you weren’t there for us, how you were breaking promises all over again; how you weren’t loving her the right way and how you weren’t being the role model that he needs so much right now.  How you never cared about anything or anyone other than yourself, and how you were missing out on everything important right now.  The tears came unplanned but I didn’t care because I wanted you to see me for who I was and what I truly felt but you glared at me and commanded me to stop.  I did stop.  Just for you.  I felt like I was ten years older than I really was.

I’m bursting at the seams to tell you everything that’s been going on in my life.  I have so many questions, so many fears and uncertainties that I need to voice.  I don’t understand much about money and how to prepare to start living on my own.  I haven’t ever owned my own car and I definitely don’t know where to start if I ever want to buy one.  Do you know what my favorite color is?  Do you know what makes me laugh?  Am I a burden to you?  Am I a nuisance?  Doubt is probably the deadliest of all relationship-killers.  I hate doubting.  Yet it becomes so hard to avoid when efforts to love are met with absolutely nothing.

Tonight, we passed one another in the hallway going opposite directions without looking at one another.  You carrying your load and I carrying mine.  We each take our own load into our rooms and close the doors.  I thought families were supposed to help carry each other’s loads.  If so, then we’ve failed a thousand times.  Because after all, isn’t that what love is about?

Home has become for me a paradox of definition; a place of contradiction where I collide with those whom I have known my whole life.  Fighting with and believing in love can be so hard sometimes.  I want to give up so badly… but I know deep down that I won’t give up because God supplies me with just enough love to get through to him.  Especially for the times when I miss out on a perfect chance.

I don’t know why I wrote this.  Maybe one day I’ll have the guts to share this with you.  Maybe one day you’ll seize the chance to listen.  And on that day, maybe I’ll seize the chance to be courageous.  Until then, I’ll keep my hopes.

“…But hope that is seen is no hope at all.  Who hopes for what he already has?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” — Romans 8:24-25