The Power of Yes

Just yesterday I discovered Jennifer Bricker’s gripping story online.  Born without legs, Jennifer was adopted by optimistic parents who taught her to never use the word “can’t.”  She was encouraged to follow her dreams and passions, and grew up believing she could do anything – gymnastics, baseball, basketball, you name it.  Born with an innate interest in sports and other physical activities, and blessed by her parents' motivating response to it - their yes - she did participate in those things.  And more.

As an award-winning tumbler, Jen especially idolized professional gymnasts, especially Olympian Dominique Moceanu who was six years her senior.  On a fated day when she was sixteen, Jen learned Dominique was, incredibly, her own biological sister. 

Dominique never knew about Jen, who was given up for adoption at the moment of birth by her father as a legless burden.  In fact, he never allowed his wife to even see the child, let alone hold her.

This same controlling father pushed Dominique to excel at gymnastics.  She was swallowed up by his rigid demands, and as a teenager she pressed charges to be released from parental custody.  At that point, her father had confiscated over a million dollars belonging to the young athlete, and his domineering ways had become abusive and demeaning.

To bring the story up-to-date, now these two young women have reconnected: Jen the physically disadvantaged girl who grew up with the advantage of loving acceptance and encouragement, and Domonique, the physically advantaged girl who grew up with the disadvantage of crushing, demanding possessiveness.

Both are strong, successful young adults.  But I can’t help but recognize what seems to be a major difference: the notorious disabled one continues to freely dream and accomplish beyond her wildest imagination, while the famous, fully able-bodied one is motivated to achieve by recovering what was lost in years of crippling emotional manipulation. 

How powerful are the words we speak to a child! Yes, you are valuable and endowed by passions worthy of expression, or no, you are unworthy of pursuing dreams except those forced upon you, or else no dreams at all.

Object Lesson: Overcoming

Sheets of rain suddenly poured from the sky yesterday afternoon: a hard, fast deluge. I hurried through the house shutting windows and wiping misted sills. Rival droplets chased each other in rivulets down the glass, while others pelted the lake beyond until its surface roiled.

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. Stepping outside into fresh wetness, I eyed my potted aloe arborescens plants on the deck to see how they’d fared.  These desert plants dislike wet roots.  Being under my care for the past 5 ½ years, far from their native land, they prefer our winter months when watered sparingly inside the house beside a sunny window. 

They’d been drenched. Drowned. Again.

Spiky leaves, 200 times more potent in curative powers than those of aloe vera, looked back at me dispassionately.  Rain-studded new growth pushed beyond sad-looking, brown-spotted leaves (evidence of overwatering since being moved outside in June). 

They only want to live.  They are determined to overcome.

Mercy and Courage

For the past four months we’ve been aware of deposits on the (internal) fronts of my husband’s eyes, a potentially serious side effect of one of his heart meds. Should these deposits develop on the (internal) backs of his eyes, they could cause permanent blindness.

After discontinuing the offending heart-rhythm-regulating medication in April, we waited for the drug to finally flush out of his body.  Would you believe it takes 90 days for this stuff to exit?  Bizarre.

Our optometrist examined him again this afternoon, and posted pictures on her computer screen for us to see. His retina flashed white hot like a tiny sun; blood vessels zig-zagged profusely like overlapping red and gold lightning. The inner space behind his blue-gray irises was surely another world, mysterious and beautiful.

His eyes appeared healthy.  The previously detected deposits had almost completely disappeared (even though this is not necessarily typical in all cases), and no new ones had formed.

While the good news continues to sink in this evening, I’m thinking about our journey this past year. We’ve been tempted to cave in to dark compulsions - worry, fear, frustration, confusion – and also have rejoiced with full hearts. Through it all, God has pressed closer, ever closer, His gracious mercy inspiring greater faith and courage in any and every situation.

I think I’m beginning to get the connection between divine mercy and courage. 

* * *

 “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified…the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." (Deut. 31:6)  “His mercy endures forever.” (Ps. 136:1) 

 “…courage shatters enemies attacking the soul from without, mercy those attacking it from within.” -St. Gregory of Sinai

Twilight

"Softly the evening came with the sunset."

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Foodie Doctor

Today my husband saw his cardiologist for a regularly scheduled appointment.  Our visits are always enlightening and encouraging, but today’s felt even more so than usual. My man recently “graduated” from the heart failure specialist’s office – evidence that his previously diminished heart continues to stabilize, and even improve.  Ripe with gratitude and hope, I entered the doors to the cardiology office.  I was primed. Receptive.

I invite you to picture the clinical scene: narrow look-alike hallways (you know, like rat mazes); professional white coats; posters and plastic repos of hearts showing chambers and valves and arteries; brash florescent lights. It looked like every other cardiology office.

And yet our cardiologist talked passionately about food, which is not so typical! We’re used to this, however – she is outspoken whenever a patient is interested in a nutritional approach to wellness, and she knows we’re on board. In fact, nutrition was a primary focus of our time together; she prioritized food and gut health at least as much as the expected topics, like my husband’s upcoming echocardiogram and the usual review of his medications.  “As your gut goes, so goes the rest of you, heart included,” she reminded us with a huge smile, her eyes filled with contagious light.  “I believe what you’re doing is making a huge difference.  Keep up the good work.”

At one point she shared a personal antidote. “It was time for me to re-take boards again recently.  I was in another city, and I chose not to eat restaurant food knowing it would not prepare me for my best performance.  I took fresh veggies and fruits, nuts and seeds, and a protein drink to my hotel room.  Ate like a bird, achieved like a scholar.”  Yep, she’s a believer.  She practices this stuff herself.

Since Christmas we’ve been eating her way - a serious but delicious way, a way that supports health at the cellular level.  This kind of diet decreases systemic inflammation, a root cause of all degenerative diseases. We’re not perfect in following the rules exactly (who is?), and yet I would guess we’re in a small percentage of the American population when it comes to making clean food choices. 

For example, here’s a picture of a meal on a muggy summer evening a few days ago.  It aroused my taste buds and looked so beautiful on my plate that I felt compelled to take a picture: broccoli salad, zucchini salad, baby kale salad with shredded Brussels sprouts and dry roasted pumpkin seeds, venison burger with and raw fermented sauerkraut as a condiment (continuing clockwise around the plate, starting at 10:00).

And here’s a photo of the dessert that followed that meal later in the evening: chia pudding (a high protein copycat of starchy tapioca pudding made with raw walnuts, almonds, chia, and almond milk - no dairy or sugar) coupled with chocolate mousse (avocado-based goo sweetened with raw honey).   

Perhaps one day if I do actually end up authoring an anti-inflammatory cookbook, our foodie cardiologist might be willing to endorse it for me.  Now that is a dreamy thought…..

Brokenness: An Open Door

Our solid oak chair is broken on one side, split top to bottom, and has protectively been set aside in order to avoid further damage. This old antique, precious because it belonged to my husband’s grandmother, has lost its function – for now. Repairing such a splintered (or otherwise compromised) piece of furniture is critical if it is to have purpose. 

With the old chair as illustration, this evening I’m pondering humanity’s inclination to fix things.  We like being fixer-uppers, since broken things have little function and hold less value than undamaged ones.  Fixing sometimes seems our calling, doesn't it?  Except when the core of a human person is involved.  In fact, in that case our attempts to patch and repair often fall woefully short. 

In the past year, I’ve thought (in quiet moments, sometimes by candlelight) about the human inclination to fix, and have come to believe that soulful fissures and even deep fractures can have important, if not also essential, purposes.  Brokenness of the human spirit has the great potential to open it for cleansing, for the “light bulb” of insight to shine with penetrating realities.  A broken person is unshackled by imposed ideals (self-determined visions and dreams), and is open to grace and enlightenment - to the literal presence of God.

And yet we are intuitively closed, bound up in our tight little worlds by cinched-up suppositions of what life is supposed to be.  Instead of trying to fix things, we would do well to open up and live here and now.  It can be freeing to release thoughts that we can and do know what is best, and that we should be able to pull the strings and capture it for ourselves - sort of like untying too-tight cords that were only assumptions all along.   

As I sit on the sidelines cheering for our friends and their son battling brain cancer, I pray for the Lord’s consolation, for His searching and saving love that exceeds earthly experience.  Even though the disease isn't licked, there is a greater reality: God's Divine Grace always shines in the darkness in proportion to the depth of suffering, healing the souls and spirits of those who bring their shattered hearts to Him. 

“How near You are in the days of illness;

You Yourself visit the sick.

You Yourself bend down to the bed of the sufferer

And the heart speaks to You.

In times of hardship and suffering,

You illumine the soul with peace;

You send unexpected help.

You are consoling, searching and saving love,

And to You we sing the song: Alleluia.”

-Akathist of Thanksgiving, Kontakion 8

The Three Amigos

The Three Amigos (our grandson and his two friends) headed out in the fishing boat with Grampa after dinner last evening.

It was almost dark when they returned.

Voila! Ten very large crappie hung from their stringer!

As predicted, they ate their fish (fried crispy brown, my job) for lunch today.  “I can’t believe we’re actually eating fish WE CAUGHT,” said one Amigo.  “I mean WE CAUGHT these fish!”

Their visit was a whirlwind, a total of 30 hours beginning at 9:30 a.m. yesterday and continuing until 2:30 p.m. today.  They didn’t waste a single second, and probably would have won the prize (if there were one) for the most hours spent in tubes behind the boat on a single weekend.

Hopefully they’ll return to visit us another time. These playful, energetic, all-boy thirteen-year-olds were also friendly gentlemen with exemplary manners.  We loved having them!