The number nine.

I have been in recovery mode lately:

• I spent several hours spanned across several days writing the essay on same-sex marriage, and am recovering from that. It drained me; a sign that I have been out of school for too long. I now have volunteered to write another semi-lengthy response on a documentary. It is a good thing I like to write.
  

• I damaged a disk in my back last Thursday and am recovering from that. I could barely get out of bed the next morning. My wonderful husband stayed home from work for a few hours to make sure I was O.K to be on my own, and he even cleaned the house on Saturday! I am much more mobile now, but still in a lot of pain. It happened in my upper back initially, but I think it has taken root in my neck. Tonight will be the first night I think I will be able enough to cook dinner.

Today also is brother, Luis', birthday. He would have been nine years old, fourth grade. I think about him a lot. There are a lot of sights, sounds, smells, and hidden thoughts that lead to his memory. I like to remember him and the immense amount of joy he brought to everyone's life, but inevitably those memories turn into the horrific days at the hospital. He has been gone for two years, but is still always at the tip of my tongue. I still have a lot of stories I like to tell people. For instance, one time we were walking home from school, having the typical sibling "argument", and out of nowhere (apparently in an attempt to end the "argument") he shouted, "YEAH?! Well, Abraham Lincoln was shot!!!" It worked. I shut up immediately and had a good laugh. There was another time where, upon viewing his Kindergarten school picture, my mom heard him sigh and say, "oh no... I'm brown. I think I'm Spanish. [he shouts to my mom] Mom! I think I'm Spanish!" He had such a lively personality, intricate imagination and was very kind. Like the one time the Pastor of my old church came to our house and Luis shook his hand and offered him a glass of water (he couldn't even reach the sink). He loved people and was often seen giving hugs to policemen who were posted in shopping stores.
I miss him, I wish he were still around, but am still very grateful for the God-given opportunity to experience his short, immensely joyful life.

of jen(ni)

I age every year.

If that comes as a shock to you, I do apologize, but I assure you that it is quite normal. For instance, this past Friday I happened to turn 19. No big deal, now, but if you would have said that to fourteen year old Jen, I would have responded with disbelief. At that age I had no concept of the future. I was completely and absolutely convinced I would not live past 16, much less 18. I thought a freak accident would knock me off the face of the earth and I was not scared nor filled with sorrow. I was content. Death would have been an easy way out of my pain. I was young, over-dramatic and I did not know how to handle my emotions. I was sad because of issues between my father and myself and I thought he hated me (what a horrible feeling). On top of that, high school was a bad experience. Hating high school was mostly my fault. I put myself in situations in which ridicule was to be expected from the vast majority of my peers. I made myself feel rejected to everyone but a few amazing friends (I am sad that things fell apart between us). Between my thirteenth and fifteenth year, I ended up with quite a few battle scars, was put through brief therapy, and was prescribed medication. The experiences of these few years revealed to me that I am a human and I fail.

It is depressing for someone to learn that he/she is a failure! When hard times come, we either want to depend on ourselves or, if we cannot make it, on others. It was obvious from those few years that I was not able to depend on myself. I soon found out that I could not depend on others either. Just like me, they are human and they also fail. Soon enough, I stopped trusting in myself or in others to help me get through life. As a result, I went through life not thinking about things very much; I merely felt my way through life as a blind man would, grabbing anything that made life interesting. That ideology was exhausting and, at the end of the day, I was still a failure and I still felt empty.

I later learned that there is one who cannot fail, but I persistently rejected him for a life of fleeting pleasures and care-free thoughtlessness. I was the type of person C.S. Lewis describes in his essay, The Weight of Glory:

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

I was ignorant to the "infinite joy" that is offered to us and content with "making mud pies in a slum" because I could not "imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea". God is infinitely more persistent than I am, however, and I joyfully lost to him.

Becoming a Christian has not made life easier for me, nor does it promise to. Shortly after I committed my life to Christ my brother passed away, I lost a few very close friends, and I still felt rejected by the majority of my peers. I had a lot of difficult things to learn. What changed for me, however, is that I could trust in someone who did not, could not, will not fail. I learned that the trials I would go through were no longer there to cause me emotional stress, but they were necessary (1Peter 1:6-7) and worked for my good (Romans 8:28). God gives both of these promises to those who, by his grace, believe and trust in him.

When I think about death I am still not saddened, nor am I filled with sorrow or grief; I am excited! If God's blessings on Earth are so marvelous and beautiful, how much more so are they in Heaven? How glorious that day will be! That does not mean I want to rush off and get myself killed, though. I enjoy life. I enjoy my husband, my friends, family. I enjoy fellowship with Christians, beautiful scenery, music, food. I enjoy the ability to receive these things daily from a wonderfully just God and am ever so grateful for my life.

Most of all, I am very grateful that God gave us His Son to die for our sins on the cross, that we may trust in Him and inherit eternal life.

of jen(ni)

Autumn has left us. I think.
For a while we had pretty cold weather, then yesterday happened and it smelled/felt like spring. Seventy degrees in December?! That cannot be correct. I heard that, back in my hometown, around four inches of snow fell. That is how it should be around this time of the year - snowy. Ohio is only one state away, why are they experiencing the wondrous snow and not us? I miss it! I hear it rarely snows in Louisville.
There is no use whining. I say I love snow, and I do mean what I say, but I know that every time it does snow, I complain. How ungrateful am I?
(perhaps I only complained because I had to walk over a mile in it - downhill - everyday)

I recently learned of a gallery hop downtown. Peter took me as a surprise for my birthday on the 14th. It was great news for me, having missed Columbus' gallery hop. However, though Louisville's hop was fun (free trolley rides and some neat galleries and antique shops), I still tend to prefer the hop in Columbus. It is smaller, more intimate, and definitely more weird. I like weird.

A funny story is this:
My mom bought Peter and me a small Christmas tree for our apartment from a "Vendors Only" store in Ohio. There was a little display that showed the Christmas tree sitting on top of boxes at the store. We figured the Christmas tree that was out was for display only, and pushed it aside while we grabbed one of the boxes under it which contained a buy-able tree. We went through the checkout line, purchased it (only $6.00... neat), and a couple of days later, Peter and I took the box back home. When we opened the box to set up our tree, we were quite surprised. Not only did we have one tree, but we had four trees! My mom and I did not know more than one tree came in the box nor, we assume, did the clerk. What a mess! Even more so a mess is that the store will not accept returns and it is all the way back in Ohio.
We are accidental thieves.

I am trying to keep this blog going, but I am not much of a blogger and neither is Peter. We are too busy being a young married couple (sometimes caffeinated) to remember the blog.
No worries; we end up updating at some point. =)

Merry Christmas!