Just Faith, Everyday

This is going to sound gross--you’ve been warned--but today I nearly left a piece of myself behind: a broken toenail. I have this bad pinky toe, and it’s always been painful to consider removing, but today it decided to remove itself painlessly on the edge of a soft couch. I was grateful it didn’t hurt and took the ugly away! So of course I got to thinking about needless worry, about pain taken away, about the things we leave behind, the bits and pieces of ourselves. I marvel to think about the sheer amount of pieces--the bits I didn’t like, and some grudgingly taken away. I’ve left pieces with friends who needed consoling, bits throughout my graduate career at various classes and in various administrative offices, crumbs after capstone moments like graduations and weddings and baptisms, chunks after disagreements and gatherings. Giving myself to life, if I am really giving myself to it, involves necessarily leaving myself behind, both going into and out of the situation at hand. La...

I'm flashing back to childbirth, to the experience of pain. It was excruciating, but it was mine to have--I was bent over with it, then straddling bedside, stretching, rocking back and forth, and always, always breathing, breathing with stride. Exercising patience with breathing, with being present; with my husband's help, I was able to do both, and possess my pain. Hold it and practically admire it. Oddly, it was awe-inspiring even as it broke me down. I'll never forget that day--now it's been almost a year, and yet feels like a lifetime. Through initial feeding problems because of her cleft palate, litany of doctor consultations, surgery, fevers and colds, and then watching her learn to become human, we have come to know our little Peanut. Have I come to know myself in a new way? The answer came in the death of a friend, in the mundane of life. When our friend--our favorite lector at church and weaver of stories at social functions there--died, I felt the sorrow an...