Victory

The snow was melting into deep puddles of slush as I carried a fresh bouquet of flowers through the shrouded pathway that led to the grave of my grandma's parents and brother. The cemetery was full of the living bringing Easter flowers to the graves of the dead.

While my grandma paused for a prayer by the graveside, I stared across the cemetery at the hundreds of crosses that scattered the hillside. The names, the year of birth, the dash, and the death date. How sobering to think that all of life is merely the dash between these two dates.

In this particular cemetery many famous people are buried... people that impacted more than the lives of their immediate families or friends. Composers, Olympians, writers, scientists, war heroes. Yet death shows no partiality: both the famous and the nobodies succumb to its power.

I laid the colorful flowers onto the snowy, muddy gray of the grave, and noted the ironic contrast. The living among the dead. It seemed out of place.

I never knew these distant relatives, so going to their graves is more of a tradition, and out of respect for my grandma. However, in the afternoon we went to a different cemetery where my grandpa and his sister are buried. I was close with both of them, and in some ways their deaths greatly defined my teen years as I began to gain a more realistic view of the world... death, pain, and grief included.

We stood around this grave, and I stood where I stood over six years ago as my grandpa's casket was lowered into crypt. I remembered the bitter sting of death as tears squeezed out from behind my eyelids. I remembered how final it seemed when the top of the crypt was set in place, sealing the casket on top of my loved ones. I remembered the anger, the hurt.

And then.

Somewhere deep inside of me... a small, tiny peace that grew outwards from its epicenter until it stilled my whole shaking frame. The peace then escalated into a deafening silence. And then a whisper: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your victory? O Grave, where is your sting?"

Because just as out of place as it is for those living flowers among the dead... my Savior is not among the dead. He is risen. He is alive.

So I turned and looked down the long, paved driveway toward the distant hills, knowing this cemetery will one day no longer be a place of the dead but of the living, bursting victoriously from their graves... going to meet their conquering Lord... either with great joy or with fear and trembling. But ultimately... death is not final. Because my Savior has conquered death and He extends life and hope to those who accept His sacrifice.

 Death is conquered.

Life has won.

Happy Easter!

Public Transportation Wars

I'm used to quiet commutes to school in my little blue car... whispering soft prayers to the hum of the engine. I'm used to twelve minute rides of calm before starting my day in sixth grade.

But now I sit on a bus as it rattles and bumps along the road, sliding dangerously close to parked cars. I roam the crowded streets where no one makes eye contact (it's better that way). They look down at the gum-spotted sidewalk, mysterious puddles that cannot be from rain, and dirty, scuffed shoes. The wind blows extra hard in my face as a bus roars past. I race down the stairs to the underpass and emerge at the train station. I frantically search for the correct platform. People are used to these commutes. They know which train is theirs. I appear to be the only one even slightly confused. I board a train, heart thumping in my throat. I sit, arrange my bags. Then panic. What if it's the wrong one? What if I end up going to the wrong place? What if it doesn't stop where I want it to?

I look around nervously to see if anyone appears to seem kind enough to answer my question. The Hungarian formal tense cycles through my head before I clear my throat and ask the lady closest to me. She looks a little irritated at being called out of her silent reverie, but she's helpful enough for me to know I can stay on the train.

I leave the train, walk through another underpass filled with sketchy characters I'm trying to love, yet still find myself hurrying past. I scramble to get on the right bus, show my public transportation pass, and settle down for an antsy ride... peering out the window trying to figure out where I need to get off before the bus flies past my stop.

If we're keeping score, public transportation leads 5-0.

But my success lies elsewhere: wherever I end up, and no matter what mess I have gotten myself into, I have been able to figure out how to get home. Never once have I had to spend the night in the city (or have my grandma come get me), nor have I been late for school!

Using public transportation humbles me daily. It brings me to the point of being able to ask for help when I need it, to recognize that even in my independence I need to be willing to invite others in and help me. My Hungarian has improved significantly, and my anxiousness in using the formal tense has diminished.

I have also learned the importance of acting confidently. No matter how clueless I may be, I must move with confidence, otherwise I could become a target, especially if I let on to the fact that I'm a "foreigner." I must have mastered this, because each day people come up to me asking me for directions, which always makes me giggle inside.

Somehow, I am finding so much joy in my commute. Even though I spend almost 3 hours a day on public transportation, I love the opportunity to sit and people-watch. I love seeing even the sternest face light up when receiving a text from someone they love. I like hearing a harsh Hungarian voice soften into sweetness to answer a phone call. I like seeing the kindness of strangers who stand so a young mother and child can sit, who run after me when I leave my lunch on the train, and who help carry an old lady's suitcase up the stairs.

Even though there is noise and chaos around me, I find the same peace as I have in my little blue car. I still whisper soft prayers to the tune of sirens, honks, and other commuters' conversations. And after an hour and a half and a cup of delicious coffee I start my day in sixth grade...

Obstructions of Love

I am now in Hungary for the next six weeks as I finish up my student teaching.

Hungary and Budapest are familiar places for me... they are where I've spent nearly every summer of my childhood... they are where my brother and I became friends. When I inhale the smell of my grandma's house I smell the freedom of summer, laughter, ice cream, growth, and family.

But now my brother is an ocean away. All of the experiences I have so loved have been closely tied to him. While I enjoy spending time with my grandma in a new country, a new school, with new experiences, with my childhood memories... it's weird without my brother here. In some ways, when I hit a lonely spot, it's intensified because he isn't here. Everything I have ever experienced here has been with him.

Before I left, my roommates challenged me to reflect on the blessings and joys in the incredible opportunity it is to teach here. They know my tendencies to get stressed, overwhelmed, and lonely.
Since leaving, I have been actively counting my blessings. In fact, if you have followed this blog at all, you have probably seen significantly more blessing-counting here than perhaps actually happens in my day-to-day life. But this has been a habit I have tried to create for myself since last year, and I do it in joyful spurts, here and there, until I get too busy and push my blessing-counting to the side.

But I'm thankful that even when I get distracted from blessing-counting, I have moments where my routine is obstructed. Where I (figuratively) hit the floor in awe knowing I am not alone in this. I am starting to call these moments "obstructions of love." I do not have to pursue them. I do not have to find ways to make complaints into positives. Rather, they are points where I am stopped in my normal routine because I am overwhelmed by the little things that whisper  I have gone before you. I am with you. I love you.

They are things that settle my fears... strange coincidences that I know are more than that... they give me joy, help me keep going, knowing that I'm here for a reason!
The short list:
-After constructing a unit on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for sixth graders at a Christian school as one of my projects at Grace, I expected to never have the opportunity to use it. False. My supervising teacher here emailed me to tell me that's the book she was starting with the students...
-The first person I walked in with on Monday morning happened to be in the same graduate program as one of my professors at Grace... and knew her!
-While at Grace I had the opportunity to tutor English Language Learners in the Writing Lab. I now have the opportunity to work one-on-one with ELL students once more, this time 8th grade Chinese students. I love this time so much.
-Direct answers to prayer in my conversations with my grandma
-The Hungarian language floating off my tongue smoothly, especially when having a spiritual conversation. I stop, smile and continue because I know this isn't my normal level of Hungarian, and yet it pours out, fluidly.

These are the bigger things. But sometimes it's as simple as the rainy day clearing up for my long first commute home, fresh coffee already made when I can't handle my jetlag in the middle of school, or a British boy writing a snarky poem about Chinese-made Legos. 

Actively looking for blessings turns my complaining tongue into one of joyful thanksgiving. My thoughts, my heart, my mood, my attitude.
But sometimes I'm just too tired to search for blessings. Sometimes they literally have to hit me in the face.

So when I board the 6:30 bus in the morning, my heart races at the excitement of discovery: what obstruction of love will I find today?
Because my God pursues me. When I get tired of counting blessings, he sends me obstructions. So that they cannot go unnoticed. So that I stand in awe of His love and faithfulness.... in all the familiarnew this season holds.

A thousand hearts

I am finding that the more I give of my heart, the more it expands.

Nothing works like this. Except love.

Shakespeare knew it... in that famous play, Romeo and Juliet, he said (through Juliet)

"My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite."

Love grows when it is given. It is boundless, especially when given away.

My heart has grown in ways I never thought it could...

From the first day in sixth grade to some of my last, my heart is full of love for my students. Not just the ones who are easy to love. But also the ones that drive me crazy... the ones who unleash cuss words on those nearby, the ones who antagonize, and do things just to push the limits.

Sometimes I try to hold my love. Cup it and keep it to myself. I realize that I only become bitter, selfish, and withdrawn from those who desperately need to be loved and accepted.

On a quiet Sunday drive, my heart grew for the destitute who live in sunken trailers with broken windows, who know only a shadow of what I know, but who have experienced more than I ever wish to know... and continued to expand as I have encountered neighborhood after neighborhood where my students live... so different than my own.

My heart has grown in RTI meetings, scribing for kids on the ISTEP, and all of the exhausting preparation that goes into one day of school.

Because love is infinite. It continues even when physically I am ready to collapse.

My heart has grown for Hungary as I listen to my American sixth graders squealing with the excitement of learning about this far away place, and "weird" culture.

My heart has grown for learning as I continuously prepare and read up on what I'm about to teach next.

My heart has grown for my own teachers and professors who have invested similar time in making sure I grow and learn as I have.

My heart has grown for those dear friends who find ways to love me even when I am far from loveable.

As I prepare to leave for Hungary in just about a week for the second half of my student teaching, I realize that the Lord will continue to enable my heart to love. To love more students, to love more coworkers, and to love even the unknowns. And yet, I know that the places, the things, and the people I love here will not disappear just because I have more to love. In fact, my love will splinter and grow into a thousand hearts.