The Big Picture

I take off my glasses and, ever conscious of the growing circles under my eyes that my glasses strategically hide, I think to myself, "the people around me must think, 'she looks really old now'."  I spend a lot-too much-of my life thinking about what other people must think, especially about me.

My back aches from way too long of practicing not-so-good posture.  But I don't fix it, though I sit here writing about it.

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders.  Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander.

Everyone in the next 3 rows in front of me is sitting at a solo table facing me.
They are not facing me, but my mind perceives the fact that they chose to face the back wall of the coffee house when they sat down, instead of the door, as a personal matter.  I think my perspective has always been skewed like this.  Maybe I never outgrew the egocentric nature of early childhood.

There is a halogen light flickering in the reflection of my computer screen behind me, giving off a stroke-inducing green glow to the glass-encased room behind me.  I can't un-notice it now.


I don't know about you, but life has been really busy lately.  Maybe it's a season, maybe it's this stage of life, but whatever the reason, it's easy to get caught up in the details and lose sight of the big picture.  A while back, I was driving down highway 85 and was reminded of how God first brought me out to the Bay Area, what seems like a lifetime ago now, and how even then, He was setting in motion plans for a much bigger picture than I could have understood then, and probably still bigger than I know even now.


When I first moved to the Bay Area, more than 10 years ago, it was a series of events that brought me here from Texas, the only place I'd ever called home to that point.  Looking back, it's kind of amazing I didn't get here sooner.  According to any awareness on my part, the journey began my last summer of high school, when my aunt and uncle brought me out to look at colleges.  My inner hippie was very much alive at that phase of my life, and I quickly fell in love with Santa Cruz and the UCSC campus, with all its gorgeous redwoods.  Plus, how can you not love a school whose students chose the banana slug as their mascot?  I went home determined to get accepted there and make the move to California, but when it came time to carry out my plans, I fell prey to a horrible case of lazy senioritis and only applied in state.
During the latter part of my college career, I learned about a program at Chico State for training to work with at-risk youth, which was something in which I had become quite interested.  I spent a good bit of time seriously researching the program, but in the end, I stuck with my comfort zone and chose not to apply.
By the time I graduated, I had so firmly rooted myself in my comfort zone of a familiar town, church, and friends, that on top of not being able to find gainful employment in my field, in a small town with two large universities, it took getting refused by our church's mission board for my proposal to return to Guatemala as a young, single, inexperienced missionary-alone, and later, a break-up, followed by my parents moving out of the only house I had ever called home, to finally uproot me from all the things I clung to.
In an effort to become a sort of stateside missionary, and earn a paycheck, I began applying to work as a house parent in several group homes across the country.  In the end, it came down to The Hershey School in Pennsylvania and Advent Group Ministries, in San Jose, and the Hershey School never called me back.

That was one of the most difficult years of my life, as the Lord used that opportunity to shape and mold me for things then and things to come, through what felt like refining fire.  In my lowest point, the Lord provided an amazing community that became like a safe haven on my days off, and I met some of my closest friends for years to come, setting the stage for my next arrival in California.  After my contract ended, I traveled to Guatemala for a couple of months, then returned to raise support to move back to Guatemala indefinitely, to work as a dorm parent in a children's home, with the high school girls.  The Lord provided, through connections in that same community, for a temporary job, housing, and vehicles, as well as fully-funded support.

I thought I was leaving California for good then.  Later, when I met and married a Guatemalan man, who was fully involved in multiple ministries in and around Guatemala City, I doubted I'd ever return to the US, but a few months into our marriage, our mission agency strongly suggested we secure residency status for my husband, to protect our family should a conflict arise in Guatemala.  We embarked on that journey, again being blessed by the provision that came through the same community back in the Bay Area.  That was another long road, and a story for another day, but God brought us through it, and made us stronger by it.
A few months after my husband was able to finally join me in the US, we decided to move back to Texas.  We both had family there, plus it offered a much more affordable cost of living!  On paper, it made sense, as well as to the world, and God brought some wonderful blessings and friendships out of our time there, but He also made it obvious that He wanted us back in California.  Nine months after we left, my husband was hired at a church in Los Altos, and I got my old job back.  The Lord made it pretty obvious.  He was being gracious to us.

In that time, we were blessed to become parents to our firstborn, a sweet baby boy, and we managed to stick around for 2 years, really feeling at home.  After our son was born though, I had quit my job to stay home with him, and my husband was working a couple of jobs to cover our rising rent.  Considering again how far away our family was, especially now with the baby, on top of the cost of living, we determined it was best to make the move again.  It seemed like the obvious choice, and it may have been best at the time, but God was still not done with us in the Bay Area.
We had a somewhat rocky start back in Texas, but got to make up for lost time with family, I was finally able to get my teaching credential that I had considered for many years, and start a regular (and thankfully, transferrable) career, and we found a wonderful community of believers with prayerful hearts for our city, my hometown.  It seemed like we were set.  In January 2015, after we'd been back almost a year, we learned we were expecting a second baby, so now we really felt rooted, and thankful to be closer to family.  We weren't planning on going anywhere.  The only thing was that with my husband's job, while we were really thankful for the provision, it was really taking a toll on him.  We had been able to start building the youth group at our church, but his schedule often pulled him away from youth events, and I could see the struggle in him, and his heart to be in ministry full time.  Around that time, he was contacted by a Chinese church in the Bay Area, asking if we would ever consider moving back.  When he told me, we both just laughed.  "Ok Lord, sure," we said, looking back at our track record of moving back and forth. "Lord if you want us to move, ok."  But we didn't really take it too seriously.  "We'll just see where this goes, and if God wants to do something here," we decided.  Every time we left California, it was on our terms, and every time we returned, it was on God's.  This time would be no different.
On August 18th, my husband was scheduled for an interview with the pastor of the church, and I was scheduled for a routine prenatal appointment.  We learned that day that our baby girl's heart had stopped.  Then it seemed like everything else stopped too.
A couple of weeks later, I was still out on leave, but my husband had already gone back to work.  He had been getting called in to cover for people who weren't showing up for their shifts or to deal with crisis -type situations late for a several of the past few nights.  I could see and hear from him how frustrated he was to be pulled away from his family at night, which seemed to magnify the other frustrations regarding his job.  He left with a heavy heart, and in a moment of selfless love, I cried out to the Lord that He would provide for him to be able to work in ministry again full time, to fulfill the desire the Lord had put in his heart.  It was selfless because, in my moment of grief, I didn't want to leave.
But God heard that prayer and began working my heart too, stirring up a desire to go and return to the Bay Area-again.
Quickly, the details came together.  We came out a couple of weeks later to meet the leadership team of the Chinese church in person.  During that visit, we prayed together, seeking the Lord's direction for how to move forward, and it became evident to my husband and me (and apparently to everyone else too!) that this is where we needed to be.  Not long after we returned to Austin, the church staff contacted my husband to offer the job, and the wheels were set in motion for us to move again.
But then again, the wheels were in motion long before that.  God is doing something much greater here.  We joke that we need to stop leaving the Bay Area, because every time we leave, God brings us back.  I think it's time we take that joke seriously.  Being reminded of what God is doing in the bigger picture helps me keep perspective, despite the busyness and craziness of life's details right now, and it makes me thankful to remember all God has done and how He has taken care of us through all we've been through.  Finally, it makes me hopeful for what God is working out now, that we've yet to see, and for what He has in store.



God is gracious, merciful and almighty.  He works out His plans through us, but in the times that we do not follow His leading, He so often gives us second, third, and 50th chances.  And if we still don't chose to follow and obey Him, He will work out His plans anyway, despite us, sometimes mercifully including us anyway, and sometimes without us.

The Potential Gross Cost of Slight Inaction

Sometimes I sit around and think about all the bigillion unwritten posts I have rolling around in my head. I seriously walk around drafting bits and pieces, one-line catch phrases of would-be blog posts, as I go about my regular business on any given day. That's how this one started; however, the "Ginny, just get your butt up off the couch, and write!" motivator hasn't been so effective in manifesting results. This got me wondering: how many projects and ideas have not just been scrapped, but floated off into the great abyss of never-to-be-shared, unrealized production?

Honest self-reflection on my own part will reveal I alone have allowed hundreds, maybe more, over the course of my lifetime, of these ideas and inspirations to raise their sails and catch the first wind of distraction or laziness to carry them away, never to return. Everything from blog posts to business ideas, songs to community events, they were all well-intentioned ideas when conceived, but so few surviving to full-term. To be sure, some have not cost society at large any major loss, but some may have been great, had potential to make an impact on someone's life. Some may have touched many, while others just one or a few, though no less important for their more limited impact, as each individual is just as valuable as the next.

I am one person. If I alone may have had such an impact with these forsaken ideas, how many more, across the world, across all time, have been lost, and their potential for impact with them, all for a vote in favor of simple laziness, perceived inconvenience, and f-e-a-r? How many lives have missed out, because I-because we-have not acted on all God gave me (us): a gift to share? How now will I (we) live, humbly reflecting on the gravity of our potential impact and role to play, moving forward?

Changed

Somewhere along the way, 

I lost a piece of who I am,

or is it who I was? 

I'm not really sure when it happened. Maybe because it went down slowly, one major life event at a time.

With marriage, went a little bit: a change in my routines and the expectations placed upon me, a little loss of independence and of privacy, in exchange for love, companionship and a life-long partner in crime.

Ok, I can roll with this.

With parenthood, a monumental shift: the appearance of a near-complete loss of independence (was this what I valued most?); a total change in routines and the expectations placed upon me, with the seemingly sudden responsibility of caring for a tiny, vulnerable human being, who somehow, miraculously came out of me; and a brand new identifying role, packaged up neatly with a little blue bow, in three loaded letters: "M-O-M."

That one took some time to sink in.

With teaching, ironically, claiming anew a little something of my own (Moms, you know what I mean): a challenge-one of the most difficult ones in my life, up to that point-and a question answered, "Can I be both dedicated to my work and students, and still be a dedicated wife and mom?" With the help of an amazing, supportive husband, and an awesome, sustaining God, yes.

This change shifted me a little closer to the girl I knew before.

Then there were the moves, both ours and those of our friends, as we all began moving into different stages of life, pursuing new opportunities and settling down. In the midst of this, bouts of financial uncertainty, mixed with seasons of financial security, changes in the game plan, diet and weight flexing up and down, more alterations to schedules and routines, and just when we thought we had it figured out, a second baby on the way.

Then the loss. And everything changed.

To be fair, not everything.
The world kept moving, the grass kept growing, the days turned to nights, then back to days, all on schedule, all as before. Most everyone else's lives went on the same as they had the day prior. Even those in our families, church, and work communities, who came around us in our darkest hours of deepest need to support us with everything from food and childcare to shoulders to cry on and listening ears, as time marched on, eventually had to return to their own responsibilities and regular lives.

But our family was changed. We were different. I was different. 
Am.  I am irrevocably different.

And so, somewhere along the way, 

I lost a piece of who I am,

a piece of who I was;

yet I gained, in loss, 

perspective and the opportunity, 

ironically, for rebirth.