If I was ever part of a medical study, I would be the one that was convinced I had been cured by the placebo.
And this is why I believe that:
Lately, I've been drinking smoothies for breakfast. They started out as normal drinks. A banana, a few berries, Greek yogurt, and some ice cubes. But like any new thing I try, I became obsessed. It was longer sufficient to settle for regular smoothies. I had to master them, learn everything about them, and try as many different combinations as possible.
My research on smoothies (yes, I did legitimately research them) led to an amazing discovery. It is possible to throw vegetables into a smoothie...without making it unbearable.
For the past two weeks, I have bought more fruits and vegetables than I have all other food combined. I've added tomatoes, spinach, carrots, and cucumbers to my usual apple, pinapple, banana, berry base. I read that by adding these vegetables to a blended smoothie, the body can then absorb much more of the vitamins than it would normally absorb if simply chewed.
And I believe every single word of it.
I am convinced my skin is more radiant, my hair looks better, and my energy... well...would be better if I wasn't staying up so late. But just imagine how horrible it would be if I wasn't drinking my daily allotment of vegetables in the morning.

This past Saturday and Sunday, I didn't make them. I chose to drink coffee and have a piece of toast instead. And you know what? My skin looked duller, my hair limper, and I felt horrible. Coincidence? I think not. :)

Please, if I am ever sick (which will probably never happen again if I simply keep drinking these smoothies), somebody just give me a sugar pill and tell me it's an extra-strength antibiotic. My mind will do the rest... :)

I remember when I decided to come to Portugal I knew my life would never be the same. I knew I was making a decision that would rip my heart apart. I knew it would be dangerous...not for my personal safety necessarily...but for a heart that would probably fall in love with a people and place that isn't my home. I knew I would fall...

But I didn't know how hard. I didn't know how much I would fall in love with my church family, learning Portuguese, my students, my ministries, my friends, this culture... I had no idea how quickly my heart would begin to weave into the fabric that is Portugal. I didn't know how alive I would feel...how at home I could become...and how full my heart would be.

I know God has a plan for how this...this love. I know it won't go to waste. I know that regardless of where God puts me next, He'll use it.

Right? ;)

Rumblings...

I've heard that before a volcano erupts, rumblings can be felt. Tremors occur for days, sometimes even weeks before the actual eruption occurs.

Right now my life is full of tremors. Tiny rumblings that remind me that God is on the move. That He is not silent...and that He is working. These tremors aren't big. Some days they are subtle and barely noticeable. And just when I think perhaps things are calming down, and I've misread it all, I feel it. God moves in a way I can't deny as coincidence or circumstance...and I stop, slightly perplexed and fearful, and acknowledge that He is indeed up to something. And I realize that life as I know it is about to change dramatically.

God has burdened my heart to start praying very specifically in relationship to my future. I am praying He will show me two things by a certain date. Both of them terrify me. Both of them seem impossible. And yet I feel the rumblings of God about to work.

So be warned. It's coming...

RE:

Dear Pat Robertson,
The word was crushing. Or at least, I would imagine it to have been. I don't remember. I was too young. In fact, I don't remember very much about my grandfather at all. I remember tractor rides...and donkey songs...and falling asleep in chairs...but other than that, much of my memories with him were stolen by the word.
Alzheimer's.
The word conjures up images I'd rather forget. Every year things grew worse. Finally it was inevitable. My grandma just wasn't enough...he needed more care. We visited the nursing home as much as we could. I hated it. The person he was ceased to be. He didn't know me...and I no longer knew the person into which he was daily deteriorating.
I remember it bothered me. I would watch my grandma go every time hopeful...that maybe THIS day there would be a moment of clarity...a spark of recognition. And when we went with her, she treated him as if nothing was wrong. She told him about her day, about the garden, and the neighbors. And she fed him. Everyday. Month after month. Year after year.
It took me a long time to grasp what I saw...and to process the significance of it. It took an unsaved nurse to make me see the beauty of it all. She worked in my grandpa's nursing home and had observed my grandma with my grandpa. She watched her faithfully care for him...and at his funeral she said, "You taught me what it meant to love my husband. You showed me the definition of true love."
And that is the heritage I have been given. That love doesn't quit when it hurts, gets ugly, forgets, or ceases to be what it once was. That love always believes and hopes...even when it is beyond hope of a cure and has no doctors left to believe in. That love doesn't cease giving because it no longer receives. That love is not diminished by a diagnosis. And that love doesn't end when "happily ever after" does. It endures.
Alzheimer's may have robbed me of more tractor rides and stories...but what it gave me is far greater. It gave me a great respect for marriage...and it will be with a solemn and sincere heart that I say, "in sickness and health..." because I know what love through sickness looks like. I know what love through death looks like. And it endures.
I only wish you knew the beauty of a love like this...a love that had the courage to walk through the valley of the shadow of death
unscathed....a love that stood firmly behind every word that was promised in wedding vows long ago, never seeking a technicality for an escape.
Because this, Pat, this is what marriage is all about.

"Are these my glasses?"

Sometimes writing is clarifying. It is in writing that my mind organizes emotions, thoughts, and words. All day long I've felt like I need to just sit and write. As if somehow putting everything on paper or "screen" will make everything come together and make sense...but there are some things that I know are just meant to be blurry right now. In some odd way, I feel as if God has put glasses on my eyes that aren't my prescription. My eyes are straining terribly to make sense of the blurriness...but no matter how hard they try, they just won't bring the picture into focus. And what makes absolutely no sense in all of this is the tremendous peace I feel in knowing I'm supposed to be temporarily blinded. I know right now my vision isn't supposed to be clear. Things are supposed to be hazy. I'm not supposed to recognize the objects in my path yet.

I've spent today pondering Scripture. All day I've been craving it... and any free moment I've had I've been in it. I just feel like I can't move...can't function...can't do another minute without it. I wish I could say I was always like this...but more than ever I've been drawn to it.

I think more than any other point in my life I've been realizing that I have no hope and no future apart from God. I have no plan. I don't know anything. I don't even know what I want. He's stripped me of plans, dreams, and ambitions. And just when I thought I'd perhaps figured out one thing...he's shown me another that makes no sense...to me.

I'd love to believe that God is up to something big. That at any moment he's going to rip off my coke bottle glasses and yell, "Surprise! See what I've been up to?" But deep in my heart I feel like I've lost hope in that. Or maybe it isn't even a loss of hope. Maybe it is an acknowledgment that I don't deserve any dreams I've ever had. The clay doesn't ask the Potter to make it a vase. The sheep doesn't tell the Shepherd where to lead it. The servant doesn't tell the Master what he wants to do. So why should I even hope? Or plan? Or dream?

And that's my heart. Numb. Naked. With nothing but God's Word to cover, protect, guide, and lead it...

I think everybody has a wilderness. We might not spend forty years there (at least I hope I don't have to spend forty years in mine...), but at some point in our lives I think we all pass through. And while we have no promise or direction as to when it will end, we can be certain of this: We are never alone. And peace is promised.

So, I do what I know I am called to do today: Love God. Love people. Serve God. Serve people. And his peace, which far surpasses any minute claim to understanding I might make, guards me as I walk with coke bottle glasses through the wilderness.

Who is that girl I see?

Can I tell you something? Something odd? Something weird is happening to me...and I can't figure it out. Maybe you can. And maybe you can tell me what it all means...
Today...I went to church, tried to talk unsuccessfully to a visitor (I asked her a question, couldn't understand her response...and felt like I might do more damage than good by trying to follow up without understanding her), made lunch, went grocery shopping, unloaded my groceries, cut up another whole chicken (which...went MUCH better than last time), made more chicken stock, made muffins, made a pumpkin spice latte with real pumpkin, cleaned my bathroom, cleaned my bedroom, and then skyped with friends. My friends were in the middle of enjoying a weekend of shopping. As I skyped with them between stores...all the sudden I realized...I wouldn't trade my day to be there shopping and buying stuff. I actually enjoyed every part of my day. Even pulling the legs of the chicken out of socket (and that's saying something). What is that? And who am I?
This is not Erin Wahlstrom from three years ago. Or even one year ago. But you know...I like this me better. And I don't know what on earth this is all preparing me for...I hypothesize that I'll either be living in a foreign country the rest of my life, extremely poor, or somewhere far from civilization, or D...all of the above.
I guess time will tell...and only God knows. :)

Kids say....

I love teaching. Life is never dull...and I am always surprised by things my kids say and do.
Today during Bible class we were reading through Revelation 21 and 22 and discussing what heaven would be like. When we got to 21:22 where John describes that there will be no temple because then Lord is the temple, I asked, "So what is the significance of these verses?"
All the sudden one of my boys shouted out, "I know what that means! NO CHURCH! Sweet! I can never sit still in church...it's so LONG."
Heaven from the eyes of an eleven year old boy.
:)