Saturday, March 29, 2014

2014 so far

Well, friends, this has been a banner year already. I was fully planning to write lots on my blog this year. I was also planning to finish my book -- and somehow defy all normality in the publishing world by getting it published. I was planning to do a concert for the Great Easter Vigil, with all Pink Floyd music. I was planning this, I was planning that.

And then God tapped the DELETE icon on the iPad of Life, and everything changed.

2014 was just 13 hours old when I found out that my dear friend BobbieJean Baker had died in a car accident on the 580 near Lakeshore Avenue. Perhaps the one point of solace I find from her death is that she was on the way home from church and died with praise in her heart and mind. But I miss her. I miss her terribly. I know that she is singing amazing Gospel music with the saints who have gone before. But here on Earth, the void is painful.

I spent most of January in a daze, coming to terms with the loss of BobbieJean. Then school started.

And God tapped the SENIORITIS icon on the iPad of Life. Ugh.
And then there was the NEED NEW PSYCH MED icon.

Now, to be clear, there has been fantastic stuff too: I made my goal-weight with regard to the weight-loss from my Gastric Bypass procedure. I am working to settle into a "new" body that weighs approximately 174 pounds. By all accounts, it is a dramatic turnaround from this time last year. That's right, it was exactly one year ago this week when I tapped out at the highest weight of my life -- 343 pounds. To have lost 169 pounds in one year is nothing short of a miracle, yet it was a miracle born of intent. My weight-loss seems largely done, although I have been seesawing up and down in a range of approximately 3-4 pounds. Perhaps I will lose just another pound or two... I'm not particularly concerned one way or the other, but I do think it would be cool if I could stay at about 172 pounds because then I could say that I lost 50% of my highest body weight (343 divided by 2 = 171.5). But God has often sought to teach me not to get hung up on being oh-so-close to something. Rather than seeing myself as just not quite "good enough" to make the 50% mark, God is instructing me to focus on just what a success I have created in the last year. I wish I could simply say "lesson learned" but I know that it is one of my personal foibles... yes, I admit it: I am a perfectionist.

And the beat goes on.

I wrote a long piece about knowing God. I was going to publish it as a blog entry today, but I think I will wait a few days. It is time to continue catching up on my schoolwork before Spring Break ends. My last Spring Break before graduation. Sacrée merde: I graduate 8 weeks from this weekend, God willing. Oh, the things I could write about that upcoming experience.

O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!
-Job 19:23-27 (NRSVA)