Stayin' Alive

"...Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman

BAM!

BAM!

BAM!

Oh, don't worry about that noise. That's just life throwing lemons at me again. It's not really a big deal, you know. What life doesn't know is that I'm going to take those lemons and make an exceptionally delicious lemon meringue pie. Doesn't that sound fantastic?! Really, who doesn't like pie?

This semester, life decided to throw curve-ball lemons my way, BUT life has also thrown some yummy stuff to make pie with as well: sugar, butter, salt. Sugar and butter are great, sure, but you just can't have lemon meringue without lemons. So I will take my sugar, butter, salt AND lemons, and I will make an awesome pie that I can share with others and sustain life. I will take those bad life experiences and I will turn them into something that Christ can use to touch the lives of others. I will use those experiences (both good and not-so-good) and share them, learn from them, and grow from them.

A lot has happened in the past few months, and in fact, only one word could describe it accurately: chaos. Before you can understand why I'm making a lemon meringue pie, it's essential for me to summarize where I've been and what has happened in my life over the last few months.

While in Atlanta for the end of the summer Student.GO retreat, I received a telephone call from my mother telling me that my grandmother Margaret was dying. Some very caring friends on the Atlanta side made sure that I made my flight in order to go home and tell her goodbye. After being out of the country for most of the calendar year and in Virginia for the summer, it was a relief to see my family at the airport. They took me to the hospital to see my grandmother, which was one of the most heart-wrenching, gut-twisting visits and goodbyes that I have ever spoken. After seeing her, I finally went home and slept for a long while.

I stuck around Cape for a few days, and each day that I was there, Grandma kept improving. She was finally sent home on hospice, and I returned to Virginia to say goodbye to all of the LUCHA folk that I had worked with over the summer. I had a great time seeing my girls again, and Sue and Greg Smith had a cookout for Kyle and myself. I left F'burg two days later and drove home through West Virginia and Ohio.

Sadly, I had no time to recover before SEMO started the fall semester, and my other grandmother was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Thankfully, I have an amazing family and a couple of epic friends who helped me to cope with what was happening to my family and how disheartened I truly was.

However, this fall hasn't been a complete lemon. As the semester progre

ssed, I spent most of my free time at my grandmother's apartment watching Cardinals baseball (how unfortunate that they couldn't have gone all the way this year). Things continued to look up, and my relationships with my family and my amazing friends (one in particular) began to deepen. I also started working at Cross Point and SAQ again. Lindsey, Eric, Aaron and I started working with the kids on Wednesday nights, and Lindsey and I are still currently teaching basic Spanish at the Nazarene Church.

On October 28th, I had to have my horse, Little Bit, put down. I miss her terribly, and her departure has left a gaping hole in my heart.

Two days later, my SEMO advisor informed me that I should be gr

aduating in December....THIS December! That's only a semester ahead of time. Goodness, I'm glad they let me know about it. I'm also grateful that the Registrar's Office managed to figure out my life situation and accept my application to graduate. I'm only a few weeks away now, and I'll be extremely happy to have SEMO behind me.

So there you have it. Now you know why I've decided on baking a pie.... My grandmothers are still with me, I'm graduating in December, and the relationships that I have right now are deeper and stronger than they've ever been. I'm alive and eating a delicious life, I mean, lemon pie.