Pep Talk

Does anyone else give themselves pep talks? Like when you have a lot to do, "Just keep going, you can get through it all." Or if you have to do something hard, "Come on, you can do it."

I think I do this on a daily basis.

And I've noticed that when I pep talk myself, I call myself "Al." I've been thinking about this lately, and I wonder if it has something to do with my sisters. As kids, they mostly called me "Al." I wonder if subconsciously, I'm associating their encouragement and support with my effort to boost my own morale.

Confessions

I have a confession to make: I am an incredibly selfish person. It manifests itself in all kinds of ways. But there's one thing in particular that I feel should be so easy to fix, and yet it hasn't been.

When people say "Hi, how are you?", I almost answer with just a "good" and no reciprocal question. I first noticed this in middle school, and decided I needed to correct my habit. I thought it would be pretty simple to correct. Just teach myself to ask "And you?" Two little words to show I care. How hard could it be?

Well, seeing as it's been 13 years, I'd say pretty hard. Maybe it's because deep down, I don't feel like that question expresses genuine concern. But I don't think that's all there is to it. For example, the barista at Fireside Cafe recently asked me how I spent my weekend. That's a much more involved question that shows genuine interest, not a status quo question which will be answered the same way 99% of the time (regardless of the truth). (Though I hear in Japan they actually stop and have a conversation when someone asks a similar question.) Anyway...after telling her about my weekend, it wasn't until I was almost back to my desk when I remembered I should've asked her what she did over the weekend.

It's not that I don't care about people. It's just that I'm so selfish that I just get caught up in talking about myself. So I'd like to apologize to anyone I've offended by my behavior...and please know I really am trying to grow.

Identity

One morning when I was a freshman in high school, the vice principal came and pulled me out of biology class. He looked at me sternly and lectured: "You skipped detention yesterday. That was your last chance - now you're going to be expelled."

I was horrified. Here I was, this teacher's pet, goody two-shoes, and I certainly hadn't been given a detention, much less used up my "chances." With a panicked look on my face and a chipmunk voice, I cried, "I didn't have detention!" Something about my countenance made the VP quickly realize he'd made a mistake. Turned out there was a senior at my high school named Alin Bennett - pretty close to Alison Bennett - and they'd grabbed the wrong kid. Alin and I would never have been confused if you saw us together - I'm about as pale white as they come, and was a teeny little freshman girl, he was a huge black guy that could've (and maybe did) play linebacker for the football team.

A few months later I got called to the office for another discipline problem, but quickly brushed it off, saying, "Oh, you mean Alin Bennett." A couple years later, my mom saw him in the arrests section of the newspaper. Good thing the police didn't confuse us then!

On the other hand, there was a time in college where I had a couple books that were WAY overdue. Months. I calculated the fine at about $20. But when I went in to pay, they said I didn't have any fines. I later met a staff member named Alison Bennett, and in conversation found out she'd been slapped with my $20 fine. (Which she got out of when she told them she hadn't checked out a book in years.) That was definitely a good time to have my identity mixed up!

As I was reflecting on these experiences last night, I was thinking about identity. About who I am. (It's clearly much more than my name, maiden or current!) I feel like I have a pretty good grasp of who I am. I always have, really. Even as a kid I had a pretty set personality. When I liked something, I went straight to obsession. When I didn't like something, well, everyone knew that, too.

And while I know I have lots of room to grow, I'm pretty comfortable with who I am at my core. And even though I consider myself a pretty open book with the events of my life, my opinions, and my feelings, I think there are few people who really know me. There are times I've been hurt, feeling like once people have gotten to know me they realize they don't really like me...and I think as a result I kind of hide Me under a shell. No, I'm no Alin with his expulsions and arrest records...but I've felt from a young age that even though I like me, others don't find me likeable. So I wrestle with insecurity and confidence, all at the same time.

But ultimately, like it or not, I am who God made me. Accept it or don't, but I'm gonna be the me God made me to be.

Wonder

Recently I was working on a lesson for Buzz (Raiders of the Empty Tomb) about Jesus raising Jairus' daughter. I was reading through the passage, trying to brainstorm an interactive, meaningful way for kids to dig into the Scripture, and there was something about one of the verses that caused me to wonder about something.

And then God inspired me. What if that was what the kids did? After each verse, stop and think about what they wonder about it. What questions they have about it. So I read back through the passage again, pausing after each verse to do just that. And for every verse, I thought of at least 3 things I wondered about. I decided that would be a great way for 5th and 6th graders to explore the passage - especially since the point was about faith in God.

I absolutely love this method of reading Scripture now. It really gets you to think about what you're reading in a new way. Will you find answers to most of your wonderings? Probably not...but that's where the faith comes in. The enriching part of this exercise wasn't in getting answers, but in thinking about how much bigger God's plan is than what we can understand.

Treatments

When I was in 3rd grade, I started a Save the Animals club and kicked out my mom when I caught her spraying ants. But my love for creatures of the insect variety ended shortly thereafter. Hence my declaring war on Miller Moths.

It should come as no surprise if you know my Dad. But for those of you who don't, I thought I'd enlighten you.

When bugs landed in our pool but were still alive, squirming to get out of the water and be free...well...we didn't free them. We didn't even kill the mercifully. We applied a "treatment." Treatments were different torture methods my dad and I devised. Like taking the net and trapping the bug under it at the bottom of the pool. Watching him search for an escape until he suffocated. Or putting him in a plastic Easter egg with water, and soaking it in the sun until the water boiled him to death. Or putting him in said egg with just a little water, and shaking the life out of him.

My dad and I also enjoyed gathering the fake lady bugs into an envelope until we had like, 50, and then dumping them in the toilet and watching them all swirl together to their doom.

So when I was complaining about bugs the other day and my co-worker said that camping in my parents' backyard this summer would be buggy, I had to laugh and say, "Oh no. Not in my dad's backyard."

No...he's got giant traps to catch the horseflies, so that problem is eradicated. He has this special garlic spray to spray around the perimeter of your campsite, and mosquitoes won't cross it. And after many years of our annual "burning of the worms" ceremony (where my dad took a blow torch to their nests in our trees), those worm nests won't come near our property.

It should be noted that before my dad bought the traps for the horseflies, he walked around the yard wearing a hat with a blue cup drenched in sticky bug-catching stuff on it. Because horseflies are drawn to the color blue. He wore it when he mowed the lawn, too. He looked ridiculous - but it was all in the name of trapping horseflies.

So if you're wondering where the gene comes from to wage war on bugs...it's a Bennett thing.

Writing on the Wall

People often use the concept of "writing on the wall" to express a desire to have God communicate his will with them directly. There was one time where I experienced writing on the wall firsthand.

I was in college, in a relationship with a guy I shouldn't have been in a relationship with. He went to another college, Concordia St. Paul (aka CSP). It was far away, and I wanted to be with him so badly. So one cold winter night, I went on a walk to pray about it. And by pray, I mean tell God to make my way happen.

As I approached a playground, I asked God to give me writing on the wall to show me what to do. Then I frantically searched the snow for a message. Nothing. I decided to sit on the playground equipment. And when I sat down, my butt freezing to the metal, I was looking directly at one of those tic-tac-toe boards playgrounds sometimes have. Only for whatever reason, instead of Xs and Os, there were letters. And the letters were random in the first column. But the second column said ALI. And the third column said CSP.

Boy, was I psyched. I'd asked for writing on the wall, and I'd gotten it. Clearly, God's will was for me to transfer to CSP. Or so I thought. As it turned out, things didn't work out with the guy and I stayed at Wheaton.

But I was thinking about that recently, and about what the story in Daniel 5 is really about. So I looked it up. And I realized that the writing on the wall had nothing to do with God declaring his will. God was declaring his judgment, saying the king would lose his kingdom soon because he hadn't measured up. Daniel even says this: "You have not honored the God who gives you the breath of life and controls your destiny!" That about summed it up for me, too.

Looking back, I can say with confidence that the letters that spelled out ALI CSP were indeed God's writing on the wall. But he wasn't communicating his will for me to transfer; he was communicating his judgment at the life I was living. He was telling me it needed to stop.

It's so easy to taint God's voice with our own bias.

Roller Coaster

I haven't blogged in a long time, but I think I'm ready to get back on the blogging wagon. But first, I thought I'd blog about my life for the past month or so.

2011 has been a roller coaster year. Coming in off the tail of my Dad being released from the hospital after 3 weeks in the surgical ICU, I was rejoicing that January 1st marked 1 month since his aortic dissection. While he still had a lot of recovery to do, he was out of the most critical period.

January 1st (well, technically just a few hours before midnight) was also exciting because I won a Macbook at Group's Bombastic Bingo Bash. Yes, 2011 was off to a good start.

Fast forward 17 days. D-day. A nearly 10% lay-off at Group left me reeling as I lost many of my closest work friends and tried to figure out how to manage this new workload. Adjusting to a new boss, a new culture, a new team. Not all of it was bad, but it was a lot of change, and it was hard. It still is hard.

Then in March, we decided to get a new puppy. A third dog. But 24-hours into adding Biscuit to the family, Peanut got really sick and had to go into the ER vet, where she stayed for 2 days and ultimately had surgery. Dan and I worked to develop a routine that would accommodate house-breaking a puppy, monitoring his behavior, trying to keep our crazy recovering Nut calm, handling three different dog foods, and administering 9 total dog prescriptions, 3 times a day. And we did it.

Then just a couple weeks after Peanut was fully recovered, just as owning three dogs wasn't so crazy...Buttercup's heart gave out, and we had to make the decision to put her down. Two days after my birthday.

Meanwhile, I was battling stomach problems resulting from an antibiotic I was taking for my own health problem, and shortly after that I got a sore throat that turned into the cough that never ends. Which, it turns out, was the cause of me pulling something in my upper back and causing excruciating pain yesterday (which has thankfully lessened to mild pain today).

Needless to say, this is one roller coaster I'm not enjoying and am eager to get off. I was kind of down before Buttercup died, from everything else that had happened...but that set me over the edge. I've been dealing with anxiety, feeling emotionally overwhelmed, and motivation-wise, paralyzed. It's been taking so much strength to do each little task, and the slightest negative comment or set back pushes me over the edge. That's why I haven't been blogging. I had to eliminate all the unnecessary tasks I could.

And then yesterday something happened. I was in the shower and a song started playing in my head. It was "Let It All Out" by Relient K. The words filled my head out of nowhere: And you said I know that this will hurt/But if I don't break your heart, things will just get worse/When the burden seems too much to bear/Remember, the end will justify the pain it took to get us there.

So I put all my Relient K CDs in my car CD player and started listening to them on random on the drive to work, starting with that song. It's one of a few times in my life where I felt too weak to compose my own prayers, but music was a way to cry out to God, the words of my heart artfully composed by his musical servants.

I was different after that. I wouldn't say healed, but not so dejected. And then my boss called me into her office yesterday and let me know about some assignment changes that would ease my heavy work burden. The yoke is starting to lift.

I don't know what this roller coaster of 2011 has next. I'd like to think it's over. But I do know this: those song lyrics reminded me of a time I'd written them in my journal. Which reminded me of something else written in my journal, just before the lay-offs, when I knew they were coming and thought I might be a victim. I wrote about how I'd reacted when everything went so awfully for me at my old job, and how I didn't want it to be like that. I wrote, "So no matter what happens...I want to trust in God's plan and his faithfulness."

But oh, how quickly I forget.

Euthanasia

I can hardly start off a blog about euthanasia without sharing how my sister used to hear about the topic on the news, not really listening to the story, but just hearing the topic come up a lot, and think those kids in Asia were a real problem.

But really, I've been grappling with the topic myself since Buttercup's death. When we made the decision to euthanize Buttercup, it was very hard to do. But it was without a doubt the very best thing for her. She was in pain. She was dying, and there was nothing we could do to help her. We had the choice between forcing her to live maybe another couple of days, in agony, unable to eat or drink...or bringing her immediate peace. The vet assured us we were making the right choice.

And that got me thinking - people think that it's OK to euthanize animals but not people because people's lives are more valuable, or something. But I gotta say - we honored the value of Buttercup much more in euthanizing her than in forcing her to live in pain just so we could have a little more time with her. If we really value people, why do we make them live in pain when there's nothing we can do to save them?

Now maybe that decision needs to be made in a living will type of thing, because a feuding family might decide to put someone down just because they don't like them. But when I think about it, Buttercup was more than alert enough her last day that, if she could talk and reason, she could've told us what decision she wanted us to make. I imagine there are many situations like that, where people have an illness with no cure, where they're in excruciating pain, but have the presence of mind to say, "I'd like to be put to sleep now." Why don't we honor them the way we honor our pets?

Mr. Biscuit

In all the chaos of Peanut's surgery, I never did explain how we came to adopt Mr. Biscuit. So here's his story.

Biscuit, like Peanut, was an "oops puppy." Him even more than Peanut. We went to the pet store just to play with the puppies (which is dangerous unless you live in a place where you aren't allowed to adopt a dog...). There was this little brown one I wanted to play with, but another family asked to take him out. So as we stood around watching the other puppies and waiting for the family to finish, someone else finished playing with Biscuit and handed him to one of the employees.

Dan was standing by the employee, and she was trying to help another customer, so she just handed him to Dan to hold for a bit. We snuggled him a bit, then put him away and played with the brown one. Dan learned that Biscuit had been in the pet store for 2 months, and that made us really sad.

So we got him out and played with him some more. We liked how he was fun and playful, but mellow at the same time. We thought he'd be a good balance for Peanut. We weren't so sure about the cost of buying a puppy, but they told us they'd give him to us for what he'd cost them. Which was really cheap for a pet store dog.

We talked for a while, deliberating and playing with him past the pet store's closing time. He had this little pink blanky to chew on and play with. And in the end, obviously, we decided to get him. They even included the blanky, which will always be a nice memento.

When we got home, Peanut was curious right away. She was pretty excited that there was a new friend in the house! Buttercup just walked over to me and looked at me like, "What is WRONG with you people? Are you kidding me?" But she did end up warming up to Biscuit pretty quickly once she realized he could be pretty mellow AND could take some of Peanut's crazy attention off of her.

Heavy

I went grocery shopping today. I didn't get a ton, but what I got was heavy and/or bulky, including a big tub of ice cream, a watermelon, and a pack of 8 rolls of paper towels.

I hate making two trips to carry the groceries in, so I stuck all the bags on my arms, poked a hole in the paper towel packaging so I could hook my finger in it, and trudged to the door. It was a lot of weight, and everything felt so heavy.

And as I made my way to the door (and struggled to open it), I realized what a great physical metaphor that was for how I've been feeling emotionally. So heavy. Even before I lost Buttercup, but that just made things a million times harder. So I feel like I'm walking around with these heavy watermelon-filled emotional bags, and I don't know how to really set them down.

"Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." - Matthew 11:28