baby teeth

Last night one of my dearest friends came over to my apartment for a pajama party. We made quesadillas and ate fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies [read: cookie dough]. We created artwork and watched P.S. I Love You. We talked, and between fits of laughter, she helped me realize something incredible around two o'clock this morning.

Do you ever question the purpose of some past occurrence? The feeling I'm referring to is different from regret; I simply wonder why the Lord allows certain events to transpire - people or things that change us drastically if he knows from the beginning that they will end in heartache. I posed this question to my friend and she answered with wisdom. She suggested that the absence of pieces of my heart that I felt I had lost is creating space for new things - better things - that God wants to fill me with.

kind of like losing your baby teeth.

This morning I found myself wondering more about the concept of baby teeth. So, naturally, I googled it. This is what I found:

Baby teeth are widely found in the animal kingdom. Fish an reptiles continuously lose and replace their teeth throughout their lives, but mammals have just two sets of teeth. . . . Young mammals' skulls are small, and it's impossible for them to accommodate a full array of adult choppers, so juveniles have cute little temporary teeth to fit in their immature jaws. Once the bones of the cranium have developed to adult size, the tiny teeth start wiggling and fall out. . . . The process for initiating the formation of permanent teeth in humans is not completely understood. Normally, permanent teeth come in at about age six as part of a genetic development sequence whose temporal trigger is not yet known. Perhaps these teeth start jumping ship after being made to chew all sorts of stuff off the floor for the last five years. . . . As the enzymes break down the tooth's root and surrounding connective tissue, the tooth loosens until it's time for the old 'dad and string ploy' to provide space for the adult tooth.

I could take this metaphor so very far, but I will spare you. All I will say is that about a year ago I was (spiritually) walking around with a toothless grin.

In answer to the question of the purpose of baby teeth, I simply have to look at my little brother. Yesterday dad and I took him up to Dockery Lake for a quick 7 mile in-and-out. On our way home we stopped in Dahlonega for lunch and three chocolate-covered pretzels from the Fudge Factory. This is what happened:



Robby's baby teeth provide sustenance for him at this stage in his life, but he will eventually outgrow them. That is not only okay and normal - it's beautiful.

[definitely something to smile about]

pause

Check it out. I just wrote on my friend's facebook wall and had to laugh at the irony of my words. She asked me how life was, and I told her that it was busy but good - flying by - and that I often wish I could press pause.

Oddly enough, I used the same VCR metaphor in a slightly different sense on my second-ever Speculations post, Fast Forward, which I wrote on the last day of 2007.

Thankfully, 2008 has been a year of new beginnings.

basil, meet italian parsley and mint.

Given the title of this blog, I thought it would be appropriate to announce that I acquired two new herbs today, Italian Parsley and Mint, to add to my collection. I felt as though I lived up to my nickname for the first time since December, when it was first given to me. I had packed up my car to head home for the holidays and all three of my roommates accompanied me down for a proper send-off. In the passenger seat, they noticed a box of plants that were coming home with me, and Lindsey said I was like a plant lady instead of a cat lady.

Today on the elevator, one of my neighbors asked me about the plants in my hand. When I told her that they were herbs, she wondered if I used them for cooking. I told her yes, and that they made my room smell lovely as well. She asked if they were difficult to keep healthy. I explained that they like a lot of sunshine and just a little water. She said she was going to head over to Publix to get some of her own.

I guess I am kind of a plant lady.

fifty percent chance of rain

You know how when the sky starts to clear after it's been raining all morning on a day when you have something planned outside in the afternoon, and you're not quite sure if the sun is truly going to come out or not? And you know how sometimes in those moments, you hear a bird singing, and even though you don't speak bird, you somehow know that the song means that the sun is definitely coming out - that it's just a matter of time?

I like that.

sixty and sunny

Today I found myself sitting on the sideline watching my little sister's soccer game: the epitome of the American Dream. Nearby, a parking lot full of shiny gas-guzzling SUVs proudly displaying political stickers on their bumpers glistened in the mid-morning sun. I wondered how many hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on that specific advertising effore alone, and how far we could have progressed in the way of "fighting the war on terrorism" if we had devoted even a fraction of those funds to the education of boys and girls in Afghan refugee camps in Peshawar.

I listened to the coach, who happens to be a deacon at my church, SCREAM at the nine-year-old girls on his team. What? I mean, WHAT? It's soccer. They are nine. Keep your pants on, dude. It's October. It's sixty and sunny. Enjoy the day (and forgive me, but I've had a year to think about it, and the Love I share with the Living God cannot be likened to a baseball diamond by any stretch of the imagination).

To be fair, I was experiencing these events while reading the story of the first girl in Baltistan to receive an education beyond the fifth grade level. Her name is Shakeela. "I'd like to become a doctor, and go to work wherever I am needed," she says. "I've learned the world is a very large place and so far, I've only seen a little of it." My sentiments exactly, Shakeela.

After listening to the team mom pressure the couple sitting next to me into signing their daughter up for a tournament in Dahlonega next month when he'll be out of town on a business trip and she'll be struggling to find someone to keep the kids that night during her shift at the Ronnie Green Heart Center, I made a commitment to myself, the Lord, my future family, and a group of children not yet born on the other side of the world. I will abstain from participating in this portion of American culture.

So don't be surprise if I peace-out on the U.S. for a while after I finish school. The opportunity for an excellent education has been freely handed to me. I didn't have to fight for it, and nobody told me that a woman's place is to work in the fields - that it's a waste of time to fill my head with knowledge that I will never put to use. It will be a joy to see that others, less fortunate than myself, benefit from that gift: Grace.

"If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls." -Greg Mortenson

two years and four months ago

Occasionally, I get this sinking suspicion that I am trying to reinvent myself. I suppose much of this stems from the intermittent realization that I am, in many ways, quite different from who I used to be, though it requires an objective viewpoint - taking a step outside of myself - to see the differences clearly. An introspective survey of my last few years can be helpful.

Today I had my final advising appointment of my undergraduate career. That fact hit me like a ton of bricks as I sat in the waiting room of Student Services on the first floor of Aderhold. I remembered looking anxiously across the room at my dad who sat in that very chair at the end of orientation, flipping through course catalogs and C.O.E. promotional materials. I had impulsively decided to change my major to early childhood education, and after that ever-supportive father of mine bullied his way into getting me an individual appointment with an adviser, I had only to wait. That was exactly two years and four months ago.

When autumn came, I changed my major to speech therapy on a whim at best. I only allowed about one week to elapse between the time I first considered the option and filling out the forms in my adviser's office once again. I had absolutely no business making important decisions at that point in my life; I did not consult God and the thought of praying about it did not even cross my mind. After all, it was MY life, and I was free to make my own decisions (and mistakes).

So freshman year, I made the transition from an intended to an actual CMSD major, and like most of the girls, planned to work in an elementary school - the perfect occupation for a wife and mother. I totally deserved to have to start over with a new major - to have all the fruit of my academic toil rot in my hands as I held onto it so tightly, but my God is a compassionate One, and I truly believe that during that year when I closed my ears to the voice of the Holy Spirit, He was whispering into my heart the entire time.

Take all that you have
and turn it into something you were missing
Somebody threw that brick
And shattered all your plans
Yeah.
-Brand New, Sowing Season (Yeah)

Although my academic endeavors were allowed to remain intact, He desperately wanted my attention - my acknowledgment and love - He wanted me. So he caught my attention last November in what I've come to realize was really the only way he could have done so. My word, it was painful - and not just for me. Through the process of healing, He's redirected my career path, albeit just slightly, and given me the most precious of gifts: vision. He's reawakened the wild and free and adventurous parts of my spirit - parts that had fallen victim to the American Dream. These days, the girl I see in the mirror is forever ruined for that life she once so desperately wanted.

I will probably never be a soccer-mom-SLP that works in an elementary school. Instead, I have this picture of myself doing international mission work in some of the scariest places on earth... most recently I've become intrigued with the middle east. I'm reading Three Cups of Tea, and I've determined that, if ever I marry, it will be to the Greg Mortenson of my generation (the truly beautiful thing is, even if I don't, that's totally okay because I can't shake the feeling that I'm well on my way to becoming the female version of him one day). Sometimes I just burst into fits of joyous laughter when I think about the Good I get to be a part of in my life. I'm not reinventing myself, I'm allowing the Lord to show me who I am.

He is jealous for me