migraine moment

This lovely Friday morning in October - the last Friday of October, actually - found this friendly neighborhood blogger in the lovely E.R. for a migraine. For those unfamiliar with migraines, a migraine is not a mere headache. A migraine can best be equated to being trapped in the center of an F4 tornado. Your head threatens to explode with every minute shard of light, sound, or movement that manages to penetrate the pitch dark deprevation chamber you must retreat into. And this time, mine was accompanied by nausea so virulent it felt like I was a passenger on a ferry ride across violently turbulent, stormy seas. Pleasant, eh?

Aside from the randomness of the overall migraine phenomenon, this morning's doctor visit may have been my own doggone fault. I am prone to migraines. All said, I have averaged one migraine per month since I was 15. It seems to be at least somewhat genetic, as my mother and sister also have a well-established relationship to migraine. This particular migraine of mine began on Sunday night. Why I waited until Friday morning to seek treatment is a bit indefensible. The explanation involves a complex web of my own ridiculously high tolerance for pain, equally ridiculously high failure to admit when I am actually ill or hurt, and a smattering of false guilt over burdening my darling husband with caring for our children while I traipse off to the land of tongue depressors, antisepctic-scented rooms, and pastel scrubs.

When my doctor, after administering no less then 312 injections to my gluteal area, asked me if there was anything else I needed, I replied, "what is your return policy on craniums? I'd like a new one, please. You can have this one back - it's faulty." He laughed, bless him. He has been on brittle ice with me, as there should be a limitation on needles inserted into one person's body on any given day, but that laugh saved him. And made me feel better.

Even if I wasn't entirely kidding about the new cranium quip.

So for the remainder of today, please lessen your expectations on the products my mind is capable of creating. Right now, I am focused on the simple things. Today, being able to sit up straight and form semi-cohesive sentences without falling over from the narcotic effect of the multitude of drugs that are coursing through me is a huge leap for Lachen-kind.

By Their Fruits You Will Know Them

Author: Brigitte Gabriel, Lebanese Christian
Source: http://www.standwithus.com

Remarks of Brigitte Gabriel
Delivered at the Duke University Counter Terrorism Speak out
October 14, 2004

"I'm proud and honored to stand here today as a Lebanese speaking for Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. As someone who was raised in an Arabic country I want to give you a glimpse into the heart ofthe Arabic world.

I was raised in Lebanon where I was taught that the Jews were evil, Israel was the devil, and the only time we will have peace in the Middle East is when we kill all the Jews and drive them into the sea.

When the Moslems and Palestinians declared Jihad on the Christians in1975, they started massacring the Christians city after city. I ended up living in a bomb shelter underground from age 10 to 17 without electricity, eating grass to live and crawling under sniper bullets to a spring to get water.

It was Israel who came to help the Christians in Lebanon. My mother was wounded by a Moslem shell and was taken into an Israeli hospital for treatment. When we entered the emergency room, I was shocked at what I saw. There were hundreds of people wounded, Moslems, Palestinians, Christian Lebanese and Israeli soldiers lying on the floor. The doctors treated everyone according to their injuries. They treated my mother before they treated the Israeli soldier lying next to her. They didn't see religion, they didn't see political affiliation, they saw people in need, and they helped.

For the first time in my life, I experienced a human quality that I know my culture would not have shown to their enemy. I experienced the values of the Israelis who were able to love their enemy in their most trying moments. I spent 22 days at that hospital; those days changed my life and the way I believe information, the way I listen to the radio or to television. I realized I was sold a fabricated lie by my government about the Jews and Israel that was so far from reality. I knew for fact that if I was a Jew standing in an Arab hospital, I would be lynched and thrown over to the grounds as shouts of joy of Allahu Akbar (God is great) would echo through the hospital and the surrounding streets.

I became friends with the families of the Israeli wounded soldiers; one in particular Rina, her only child was wounded in his eyes.

One day I was visiting with her, and the Israeli army band came to play national songs to lift the spirits of the wounded soldiers. As they surrounded his bed playing a song about Jerusalem, Rina and I started crying. I felt out of place and started waking out of the room, and this mother holds my hand and pulls me back in without even looking at me. She holds me crying and says: "it is not your fault". We just stood there crying and holding each other's hands.

What a contrast between her, a mother looking at her deformed 19-year- old only child, and still able to love me, the enemy, and between a Moslem mother who sends her son to blow himself up to smithereens just to kill a few Jews or Christians.

The difference between the Arabic world and Israel is a difference in values and character. It's barbarism versus civilization. It's democracy versus dictatorship. It's goodness versus evil.

Once upon a time, there was a special place in the lowest depths of hell for anyone who would intentionally murder a child. Now, the intentional murder of Israeli children is legitimized as Palestinian "armed struggle." However, once such behavior is legitimized against Israel, it is legitimized everywhere in the world, constrained by nothing more than the subjective belief of people who would wrap themselves in dynamite and nails for the purpose of killing children in the name of God.

Because the Palestinians have been encouraged to believe that murdering innocent Israeli civilians is a legitimate tactic for advancing their cause, the whole world now suffers from a plague of terrorism, from Nairobi to New York, from Moscow to Madrid, from Bali to Beslan.

They blame suicide bombing on "desperation of occupation." Let me tell you the truth. The first major terror bombing committed by Arabs against the Jewish state occurred ten weeks before Israel even became independent. On Sunday morning, February 22, 1948, in anticipation of Israel 's independence, a triple truck bomb was detonated by Arab terrorists on Ben Yehuda Street in what was then the Jewish section of Jerusalem. Fifty-four people were killed, and hundreds were wounded. Thus, it is obvious that Arab terrorism is caused not by the "desperation" or "occupation," but by the VERY THOUGHT of a Jewish state.

So many times in history in the last 100 years, citizens have stood by and done nothing, allowing evil to prevail. As America stood up against and defeated communism, now it is time to stand up against the terror of religious bigotry and intolerance. It's time to all stand up and support and defend the state of Israel, which is the front line of the war against terrorism.

Thank you."

Online Dating his Afghanistan...

I'm sorry, but this is doggone funny!

My sense of humor is getting a little warped these days, I think.

Man Of The Year

On our date night tonight, we screened "Man Of The Year". While it is neither a cinematic masterpiece and it's plotline is full of moth-sized holes, the underlying concept and ideology invigorated me. An apolitical political comedy. The first and last 20 minutes made the dragging midsection forgivable. And it made me ponder running for President someday, myself.

Hey, stop it.

I seem to recall a certain Jesse Ventura, Sonny Bono, Clint Eastwood, and the Terminator in political office. Stranger things have happened.

clothing conspiracy

I am not sure what size clothing I wear.

Not because I have never bothered to look, or because I don't care, or because I have a secret-shopper-concierge-dude named Basil who shops for me and sweetly clips off all my tags before I ever see what size I am wearing.

Nope. It's because almost everything I have in my closet seems to have a different size on it's tag.

I know that there is only one me. I know that I do not dramatically balloon or shrink overnight. I know that my body is basically the same size and shape today that it was yesterday, give or take a rainbow sprinkled donut or a Pilates session.

I am the same size pretty much all the time. I have been, save for the latter trimester of two pregnancies during which I seemed to exchange figures with the Pilsbury Doughboy, have been the same size since I was nineteen. And since nothing in my closet pre-dates my college days, one would assume that all my clothes would be the same size. Or thereabouts.

My clothes, however, are nowhere near this homogeneous. On any given day, my same-size-since-I-was-19 body seems to manage to fit into items with sizes ranging from 6 to 12. How can it be that some of my sweaters, shirts, pants, and dresses are labelled "LARGE" while others are tagged "SMALL", but they all seem to equally fit onto my non-metamorphic body? May I please ask what the heck this musical-chair-fashion-sizing is all about? Is it just some agenda to keep women guessing about their own bodies? Or some elaborate conspiracy to mess with our sense of confidence? You don't see this same kind of mystery sizing with shoe size, or with men's pants, or with children's clothing. It seems only to affect the garments made for the frames of women from age 18 on up.

Good grief. Can we not come up with a simple universal sizing formula for women's clothing? I do not need to be flattered by thinking I am a size 6 if I am really a size 10, or be unduly worried that I have apparently ballooned because I can barely squeeze into a size 12 pair of pants at a store, only to breathe easier when the next pair I try on, that are size 8, fit me with room to spare.

Honestly, how hard is it to just universalize this whole sizing brouhaha? We put men on the moon, we can breathe underwater, and my 2.5 year old son can navigate my laptop with ease. And yet we cannot figure this one out?

On My Mind...

Baby

BABY

infant

little one

MUNCHKIN

baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby

peanut

bambino

BABY

and, you?

There are so many things that nourish my soul.

Today, it was the happy news of the birth of a friend's baby and my own snuggling babies under the cozy winter blanket. Yesterday, it was the scent of my beloved hazlenut coffee candle, burning lazily in the overcast autumn morning.

It is well with my soul right now and I wanted to pass it on. What is making YOUR soul content today?

Peace That Surpasses All Understanding

Because our family supports and is intimately involved with some rather cool Christian people who work to share the Gospel and live lives brimming with Christ's love all over the world, I am sometimes privvy to some incredible information about the ways God is working in the world that is not broadcast anywhere else. Certainly the news media seems incrementally less concerned with happening in the Kingdom of God than who has made the latest political blunder or what the stock market is doing at the moment. Toward that end, I received the following email forward. The email was initially sent from the former administrator of a local Christian School, T.R. (abbreviations used for privacy reasons) to dear friends of ours who run the Bridges of Hope in South Africa. Who then, in effort to honor the desire of the Amish to share their story with others, sent it to us.

You see, T.R. has very close, long time friends who are members of the very same Amish community whose little girls were maimed and murdered in their little Amish schoolhouse by a troubled and tortured man who then took his own life. She has been in regular contact with her friends, Racheal and Emanuel S., who wanted her to let people know how everyone in their Amish community is doing in light of these tragic events.

The information relayed in this email has gripped my soul and caused me to listen to God as though I have never heard Him before. Initially, I sobbed uncontrollably when I received and read this. And then I found myself in humbled prayer for several days, unable to put into words how profoundly my heart is being sandblasted by the faith of these children and their parents in the wake of a tragedy that would likely cause my human frailty to come to the surface, not - I am ashamed deeply to say - my faith.

I read about the reaction of the parents whose OWN SMALL CHILDREN were murdered in their classroom. And I realize my faith is nothing compared to theirs. Our Lord, our Jesus, our truth is the same. But their commitment to God above all else shines light into the dark places in my own life and reveals the weakness, the humanity of my own walk with God. It reveals the stark truth: that I truly have so far to go in this journey if my immediate sense was relief that this murdering guy is dead, but first reaction of the families whose little girls were gunned down is to GO TO THE MURDERER'S FAMILY, and offer their forgiveness, make them meals, and ask what they can do for that family.

Where I was despondent, they were faithful. Where I was angry and despondent and marred by profound sadness, they were loving, compassionate, and discovered profound joy.

The stories of the Amish families in this email humbles and changes me in ways I am not convinced can be expressed with words. This blog entry is my attempt at penning that potential impossibility.

Here is T.R.'s email:



Dear Friends,

I talked with Rachel. She said incredible things are happening and Jesus is being lifted up and the community is coming together like you just can't imagine. ALL are so thankful he killed the girls quickly before he did what he was planning. She knows the teacher quite well, and said she did exactly the right things to get the police there so quickly.

Michael W. Smith came for their memorial service last night - sang a song he composed with each of the girls named in the song, also "It is Well With My Soul," and one other. Blue Shield has donated 1/2 million $ to the families. Three of the girls are critically hurt, and another one died today. Tomorrow 3 will be buried, (two of them sisters) and Friday the rest.

The 2 families of two of the slain girls went to visit the family of the shooter, told them they forgave the family and even the man and offered to help his family any way they could.

She said one of the worst things is the press as they do not like publicity. But she said they understand, plus the press is being unusually sensitive to the Amish. The Amish will do OK, she said, for they have each other - it is the other family - she is worried about.

Rachel said, "Oh T.R. - we are in the last times! Evil is so much more out in the open. Those little girls are safe with Jesus. We have so little time to let everyone know about Jesus. This event is bringing people together like nothing else could and HE is being lifted up like never before in our community and actually in our world because of this horrible thing! Tell everyone who asks you that we are doing OK. It is tragic and we are grieving, but we know the end of the story and that brings incredible hope."

To encourage you further, I want to pass along the phone call I received a few minutes ago from Emanuel S. - Rachel's husband - in Lancaster PA. He asked me to pass this information on.

He was out delivering furniture this morning and said Rachel has left town for a couple of days with her sister and he just had to tell someone because he was rejoicing, about what he heard while delivering furniture this AM.

He said you won't read this in the press so he wanted us to have first hand knowledge to be encouraged with "how absolutely amazing God is." He met with the family who had two girls shot - one is in the hospital the other is now with Jesus. The funerals are today for those who died. The 13 year old is home from the hospital this morning and will have to go back tomorrow, but has been released temporarily in order to attend her sister's funeral.

She told this story to her Daddy. She said she remembers everything just as it happened.

When the shooter came into the school, he was very, very calm. No loud shouting, etc. He organized the children and teacher letting some go and keeping the 12 girls. He then tied them up. The little ones didn't understand what was going on so the older ones helped the little ones follow the man's directions. She said all was absolutely calm.

When they were finally all tied and he had barricaded the door, the 13 year old asked the man if it was OK for them to pray. He said "It is OK." She then said to him - "Don't you think you should pray?" He replied - "No I don't know God but you can pray." So THE GIRLS FELL TO THEIR KNEES and began to pray. All the while no threats were made, and all was very calm - just them praying out loud, their backs to him, on their knees.

All of a sudden, the gunman looked outside and saw the building surrounded and said "Oh well, I guess I have to shoot you now."

The 13 year old asked why he had to do that, and he said, "Now I have no choice."

She said, "I asked him to shoot me first - because I thought that might give the little ones more time and maybe help could get in. He shot me 4 times, then shot the others as we were down on their knees praying as he shot them."

When she told this story all the fathers of the slain and injured children were together and one of the Dads told Emanuel "We all relaxed and felt so relieved when we heard what she said - that our children were not terrorized." One friend, not Amish, who was with them as they were gathered, said "I am thinking - how can I teach my 5 children to fall on their knees and pray when the hard things come?"

The families are doing well, Emanuel says. Life is no different - the schools in the area were open the following day and the kids walked to school, etc., as if nothing had happened. It is all in God's hands they believe. Each school had a time of prayer and discussion, then got to the studies.

The groups of people in the area are just shaking their heads and saying what kind of God is this that can help these people? Emanuel said - "Isn't that amazing, T.R.?"

The Governor of Pennsylvania has closed ALL roads within ten miles, there is a no-fly zone to 10,000 feet, and he is allowing NO press in. When the press does occasionally run into an Amish person, they refuse to talk - saying only - "God is in control." The Governor has said that this is a private time and anyone who bothers the Amish will be prosecuted.

Emanuel said there is grieving, but such hope and such trust. The Amish people are surrounding the families, and the family of the shooter as well.

Emanuel is thrilled and awestruck at how God is using this tragedy to speak of His hope, power and sustaining comfort. Said - "only God could have used this to proclaim Himself like he has and I wanted to let you know so you can tell your friends what really happened as the press is only guessing with much of what they write."

Love you all and hope you are encouraged by this,
T.R.


Does that have you crying, too?

My heart is a mixture of shameful knots and incredibly renewed peace. Like Adam and Eve in the garden, I am newly aware of the nakedness of my own faith. I so clearly see the stark difference between my faith that is so often easily tossed by, colored by, or even dependent upon the events I face in my life, and the faith of these TINY CHILDREN who were praying for the man that was shooting them as he was shooting them. And their parents and community who have stood in solidarity to embrace the family of the man who murdered their babies, who are more concerned for the welfare of others than their own grieving , and who can express pure, unadulterated joy that their sweet children are safe at home with Jesus. The Joy Of The Lord is their strength.

And their joy has overridden this tragedy. God wins.

As I've digested and prayed through the email in the past week, I've come to one of those places in my life when I get a glimpse at the real truth that I am still pitifully journeying toward. For me, the veil is lifted and I have been able to gaze upon truth. I am one who loves that God has given us words and music, that we might weave them into lyrical choruses that reflect our thoughts. But since receiving this email, I admit to moments when even I ~ typically verbose to a fault ~ have simply sat in resounding silence. Pondering God. Pondering the faith of children and the beauty of simply loving others no matter what and honoring the truth of God above all else. Pondering the roadblocks in my own life that prevent me from living and loving as my Lord teaches me to.

The wisdom and peace I have only scratched the surface of in my relationship with Christ clearly directs the entire lives of others. These Amish children and their parents are teaching me volumes about Biblical wisdom and the pease that surpasses all understanding. I am learning more about the Lord I love by being in the presence of those who know Jesus and live Him in dilutiones without compromise or dillution. Who live the truth. Who love in the face of the mass murder of their babies. And in the face of the unyeilding faith of dying lifaithfulrls and their unflinching, faitful families, I realize how far I have to go.

May God continue to bless and deeply reward the Pennsylvania Amish for their faithfulness and example to those of us who stand in bewildered awe and newly transforming hearts as we witness the faith of the littlest among them.


Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

if only I could actually send this letter

To My Beloved Clients,

I, as your Realtor, would like to take this opportunity to clarify a few things. Eight, actually.

1.) When I have clearly communicated to you, written into the contract, and when my voicemail specifically states my office hours as 9:00 a.m. ~ 5:30 p.m, please respect that. Please do not inject your business concerns into my after-hours family time. Please do not call me at my home at 6:20 in the morning on a Sunday or 10:30 at night on a Wednesday to discuss the best way to manage your dog Squeakers during open houses, the placement of photos within your virtual tour, or to decide (from the photos you sent me on my cell phone) which of three shades of sage green you should paint your Master bathroom. To everything there is a time and place. And Squeakers needs to just give it a rest. I work seven days per week, do not get holidays or weekends off, and save for that two week period per year when I physically leave the area, do not have vacation days. So please do not interrupt my family time unless it is an absolute emergency.

2.) No, leaving your $300.00 juicer on the counter of your kitchen and calling me at 9:32 p.m. at night to ask that I drive 25 minutes to your home to set it outside for your son to come and pick up in the morning because you are at a Day Spa does NOT constitute an emergency.

3.) There are, in fact, actual professional cleaning crews that will come to your house, for a fee, and do all of the cleaning tasks you so often demand that I perform for you. And, as I've told you before, I do not have any idea how to remove pet urine from your carpets. That falls outside the limits of my occupational expertise.

4.) I cannot convince anyone to pay more for your house because you like it better than all the other houses in the universe. That reasoning fails to hold much realistic weight. Especially considering that most people don't particularly see the value in having a bathroom with no door whatsoever, three windows whose glass is taped to the panes lest it fall out, a family of king snakes living in the cellar, or a loose floorboard just inside the front door with a reverberating squeak so loud that many an unsuspecting Open House visitor has to fight the urge to stop, drop and army crawl to safety.

5.) Gardener = professional who is paid to maintain and cultivate the landscaping at a certain property. Realtor = professional who is paid to transact the process of marketing and selling a certain piece of Real Property. Can you see how these two occupations are vastly different, with duties that should not be expected to overlap?

6.) Continuing to pay your electrical, water, and gas bills during the escrow process is not optional. Particularly in the fall and winter months. It is darn near impossible to market the virtues of a house whose lights do not come on, whose dry toilets actually echo and smell a bit like your flatulent bulldog, and whose unregulated temperature hovers at a nice cozy 51 degrees.

7.) Please do not ask me to suggest ways to help you "get around" the I.R.S. when reporting the income from the sale of your investment property. I enjoy my freedom and don't particularly like orange jumpsuits, thank you very much.

8.) Please do not expect me to reduce my fee because you wish your property was worth more on today's market. I do not control the general or specific economic situation in the Real Estate world. I am here to help you navigate it ethically and wisely and to provide a professional service. You would not ask a doctor, grocery manager, automotive repairperson, or garbage collector to do the same job for you for less money. Likewise, please do not expect that of me. On average over the last 10 years, by adding my collective hours of work involved in marketing, selling, and closing any given property, after I deduct my expenses, I earn approximately $12.00 an hour to achieve an average profit for my clients of $320,000. Stop whining.


If we can both commit to an understanding and willingness to agree on these eight little clarification items, I am sure we will enjoy our working relationship during this process of buying or selling a home. Thank you for your attention to this matter and I look forward to working with you. Sincerely,

Your utterly exhausted, underappreciated, and taken-for-granted Real Estate Broker

Happy Anniversary to Me!

I love you, Copper.

And as we celebrate our first ten married years today, I can't help but marvel at how fast the time went by, how graceful and loving our God is, and how blessed we are to have one another.

Here's to a good 60 more years...