Forget Black and White...Finding the Beauty in the Gray!

I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately with patience. For some reason, I seem to have adopted the attitude of “Everything should be black and white” as of late, and I’ve been missing the beauty in the shades of gray. As my friend Brian put it… “God wants the gray so he can fill in the color!” My need for black and white has affected me so much so lately that I am continually frustrated and insecure when it comes to certain aspects of my life…The only area where I continue to have the patience of a saint and confidence in the challenge of uncertainty is at school with my kids…why I have the 2 different mind sets is beyond me…Its like I am 2 different people sometimes. I can only attribute it to spiritual warfare as I am confident in my abilities and passionate about working with youth and it would take a lot to shake me from something that I am so certain of as my life’s direction; but I guess the uncertainties, constant changes and lack of control in other aspects of my life play on my weaknesses and play on this need for the “black and white.” I have been reminded several times in the past weeks that I need to be OK with the fact that life is going to be messy sometimes, but ultimately in the end it will work out for good...and it is only in the messiness and uncertainty that we can truly appreciate the outcomes. I’m not completely sure why I’ve been neglecting this attitude because it has not always been this way for me, but I do know that God is making me work on my ability to be patient and be comfortable in the gray. It took a beautiful sunset, some unsettling and nostalgic situations, and a few unsolicited contacts of encouragement to open my eyes to this. You see, God keeps sending me little “God gifts” of confirmation in all this grayness…but I guess I’ve been too frustrated and self-centered to see the beauty in all of it, so my new goal is to open my eyes; and in doing so be confident that God is working out all of the situations that I am sooo worried about because they are not black and white. And as PT said..."Do and Do Not. There is no Try." I have to do more than just simply try...I have to force myself to do...and I hope to record those moments here to keep myself accountable. I hope some of my moments will offer you a little encouragement too… so here it goes…

I began day 1 of the New Year with much uncertainty about the future (my family issues, illnesses, grad school, relationships, etc). My New Years Eve was characterized by a restless and sleepless night with a million different thoughts going through my head about the year I as leaving behind…wondering if I had lived it right, and the uncertainty of the year to come. My Mom’s wisdom calmed me for a good part of the day, but peace didn’t come until that night. The day ended with a comforting quite time of prayer and thought of what my mother’s words of encouragement on a Gulf Coast beach as God gave me one of the most beautiful sunsets in recent memory. Talk about filling in the color! I was sitting on the beach, watching the magnificent picture being painted before me, listening to the waves role onto the shore, and losing myself the beauty of it all and I simply heard “I am King. I will lead.” God renews my spirit and speaks to me through nature…He always has…and finally in that moment, I found a peace that had been lacking for quite some time…simply because I decided to stop worrying, be still, and just listen.

The next day I had a frustrating experience at the airport as my flight was cancelled due to mechanical errors and the airline was only able to get me out of an airport 1.5 hours away the next morning; but due to my flight cancellation, I got an extra evening in Florida complete with a beautiful sunset in between rain clouds and a rainbow Again…the filling in the color. Did you know that rainbows appear in the Bible, only a handful of times, but as a symbol of God’s majesty, comfort and hope? There is one in the first chapter of Ezekiel and two in Revelation when God reveals himself ( a rainbow around him), hence the rainbow is a glimpse of his glory; but the image I am most drawn to is the appearance of a rainbow in Genesis 9. God has just destroyed the Earth with a flood, and I can only image what Noah and his family had going through their heads as they have spent the past few months watching the entire human and animal races destroyed so violently and then waiting for the waters to recede…perhaps they had afear of God’s wrath and judgment, uncertainty of God’s promise that He would save Noah and never destroy the Earth via flood again??? But God knew their fear, took compassion on them, and said “I have set my bow in the could, at it shall be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the Earth ~Genesis 9:13. It is as if He is to say, “I know things are messy right now, but look up. I am here and My love for you is Great. Be reassured.” As the scene unfolded, my mind drifted to the first time I studied the significance of rainbows in the Bible. I saw one as my parents were driving me to the airport in June of 2002 on my way to my first summer of living in San Diego and Tijuana. I was scared to death…going away for 3 months, not knowing a soul, fearful of what might come of that summer, uncertain of how and if my life would change; but to this day, I consider it one of my most life changing experiences that has molded me into the woman I am today… God comforted me with his symbol of hope and assurance then and worked it out that summer beyond my wildest expectations…and He was letting me know that He is going to work it out now.

The peace continued after I arrive home and God began to work out why I have been in this frame of mind lately. The Sunday before school started back was filled with chaos. I had learned early in the morning that the night before, my grandmother had packed herself a bag, climbed out her bedroom window and just began walking in the middle of the night. A couple found her several hours later several blocks away from her home lying in a field. Her body temp was 87 degrees. She had had a stroke a few days before which had affected the memory and speech part of her brain causing this confusion. I was completely worked up…worried about my grandmother…my parents had begun driving home…trying to figure out what was going on. The peace came as I spent a quite and comforting afternoon with a friend, mostly just sitting in stillness and silence, after a chaotic and confusing morning. Patience…not worrying about what I know God would work out. My grandmother is doing much better now…still bruised and quite a big confused about things, but her fiery personality is back and she is on the road to recovery. Thank you to those of you who had expressed your prayers and concern through the whole process.

Finally, Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, God finally set me on a course to help me dig out the root of my impatience. I was awakened at 2am to a conversation that completely changed the game in a certain aspect of my life that I had previously thought the direction was pretty certain. Of course I could not get back to sleep, so I spent the remainder of the wee hours of the morning in prayer and journaling through some issues that had been weighing on my heart. God really gave me a sense of clarity and revealed to me a wound in my heart that had been reopened over the summer and had not dealt with yet…and in doing so, I think I was subconsciously believing certain things about myself that are absolutely NOT TRUE (thanks Satan for that one) that were affecting me in several aspects of my life…it certainly is something that is causing me to feel the need for the “black and white” and causing worry and frustration when I don’t see it. Anyway, it was a rough but ultimately good morning sorting through a lot of garbage trying to get to the root of these feelings and trying to figure out how to regain my confidence and peace in the grayness. That is when I began really grasping hold this whole idea of finding beauty in the grayness. This idea was only confirmed by a completely unsolicited conversation with Brian Hunt Friday afternoon when he pretty much encouraged me with the exact words that had been running through my head in the days preceding (ps, friend…this is the 2nd time you’ve encourage me in recent weeks…remember Blackberries on Christmas Eve??? Remind me to share that story with you another time) Obviously the wound isn’t healed yet, but I’m well on my way to allowing God to fill that God-sized hole in my heart that I’ve been walking around with for the past several months with beautiful color.

The beauty in the grayness and patience lessons continued once back at school. Most days as a teacher, you never really see the yield from the impact (if any) we have on a child…I know this, and it is something that I don’t really worry about, but on Friday, a situation that started out as one of the scariest and worrying of my life came full circle…and of course it was God filling in the beauty of the gray! The Language Arts teacher gave the kids an assignment where they have to interview and write a paper on someone that they consider a hero or role model. I had about 25 kids ask me if they could interview me…which was confirming in itself, but 1 student in particular really made my day. You see, at the end of the school year last year, another teacher and I broke up a fight off of school property. The aggressor (for the sake of anonymity, we will call her K) severely beat up 2 victims (we’ll call them O and R). The fight was so violent that R was in the hospital for several days with major head injuries, and K was charged with assault and battery. It was an experience that shook me to the core…both the fight, and the fact that I had to give statements to the police about K and her mother (who was jailed on another charge for the evening), and eventually in September, I was subpoenaed by the State’s Attorney to testify against her in court. To make matters more weird, K, O and R were all going to be students of mine this year. O and R are in my lunch bunch (which means I’m like their school councilor…meeting with them once a week for lunch to support them in whatever ways they need it…obviously I got these 2 girls because of my role in this situation), and I was very leery about having K in my class knowing that this troubled kid might hold a grudge against me…so much so that I approached my principal about it, but there literally was no other Reading teacher that she could have. To my surprise, K has turned out to be one of my favorite students this year. She eats lunch with me every other week or so and when she has probation court hearings, she shares them with me…her fear and the results, and a lot about her life in general too. She has a rough home life with a non-involved single mom. I am so proud of her for staying out of trouble this year. But the WOW moment came when, for this hero assignment, she chose me as her hero. K’s teacher questioned her about the decision asking if she held any animosity towards me for the whole fight/testifying situation, and K simply relayed that I was her “favorite teacher,” she “really trusts me”, she thinks I’m “super smart about stuff,” and wants to be “as cool as me when she gets older.” I just about cried when I heard that. Again, God filled in the color to a situation that I was originally freaked with the lack of black and whiteness of it all!

God provided another example of being patient through the grayness this week as God walked me on a journey down memory lane. It started with a long overdue phone conversation that I had with an old friend Julie Sadhu earlier this week…one of my closest friends from high school…and really the first person to introduce me to the personal nature of God. Over the past 10 year, I had searched for ways to contact her, but to no avail. Med school had been keeping her pretty busy…but out of the blue, Julz found me on facebook, the reconnection ensued, and for 2 hours this night we chatted away about God, life and everything that has happened in the past 10 years as if no time had passed at all. Julz is someone who had a significant impact on my life all those years ago, and I was sooooooo excited to reconnect with her and share with her the yield of the seeds she planted oh so many years ago! It’s funny, because this weekend I was back exploring my old stomping grounds for a few hours… My niece is following in her aunt’s footsteps. Kathleen is on the freshman dance team at Lincoln-Way West and so I went to watch her perform at Central. She was so adorable! It was weird being back at LWC. The game was in the North gym and when it was all over, I went over and just walked the lines on the badminton court where Donna Thompson and Coach DeYoung spent hours preparing Katie and I for state, pushing though that damn knee injury that I should have gotten surgery for. Yes, my State picture is still on the wall for badminton, and several others have followed. As I walked the halls of Central, a lot of memories flowed of good friends, good times. Julie had told me that she considered me her closest friend back then which gave me a peace because as I walked those halls I also thought of how seriously shallow and flawed I was as a person back then, and of all of the silly hopes and dreams I held as an 18 year old. I couldn’t help but be thankful that I am NOT the same girl I was back then; but it was just a gentle reminder that to God…our whole lives are gray. God was working in me then, He is working in me now, and I can’t help but wonder how much God will continue to mold and change me in the next 10 years…So why on earth do I strive for the black and white???

The final confirmation and some sort of direction came yesterday…Cathy and I got back into the old routine of church and a Starbucks conversation. Boy have I missed that routine…Anyway, several points of PT’s wisdom really struck me, but the big one was this…I have been seeking out God’s will desperately in a few aspects of my life lately (What is my future role in Haiti? Do I spend $$ pursuing my Doctorate at Vanderbuilt...which the admin office so reminded me how much they've enjoyed corresponding with me via a voicemail and reminded me that my app is due soon...for a degree that I won't really use and only want for the personal satisfaction of knowing I did it when I could use that money to do good somewhere else? Do I need to stick around now that we found out that Cindy's remission was a false reading knowing my brother and the kids may need me close in the near future again...Now that my Grandma can't life alone anymore? What of my relationships? etc.), but how can I know God’s will, if I don’t know God’s character completely??? Don’t get me wrong, I know a lot about God’s character, but there is waaaay more that I don’t know…for example, I realized that I have barely read the old testament…and there is soooo much richness about God’s character in there that I have neglected (HELLO GRAYNESS)…so anyway, I’ve decided to read through the Old Testament no matter how confusing and boring it may get at times…because I will never really and truly know God’s will for me until I fully and truly understand God’s character…yes, a practical way that I can help myself see the beauty in the grayness.

All of the above plus some other random instances…(“Top Chef, not Top Muscles” Night thanks to the Wurz clan, the insight of Swanny’s comedic literary genius of a play, my phone call with Christine B who told me I was freakishly calm in a situation that other would be absolutely hysterical over) sent me riding a wave of laughter and confirmation this past week that I hope to ride straight through next week and beyond... Until then, I will continue to work on my ability to be patient, and not miss the miracle of the moment when it comes to seeing the beauty in the gray…