When I was in the seventh grade, I was selected to be in the fancy all-girls’ concert choir at my school.  It was the only redeeming quality of middle school for me.  I had to wear a bright teal dress with a lace collar, and even that didn’t stop me from loving every minute of it.  For our Christmas concert, we performed, as the last number, the Hallelujah Chorus.  It was angelic.  The power built, and the crowd came to their feet, and it was all I could do to keep from weeping on the spot.  In fact, my voice cracked on the very last “…jah”.  I just couldn’t hold it together.  It was the first time I remember being truly moved by music.

And now, I’m 23, and 13 weeks pregnant, and I just watched this and wept.  You might not have the same reaction, if you’re not so into music, or if you’re not pregnant and hormonal, or if you have no heart.

You know the question.  ”What would you do with your life if money were no object?”  You know what I’d do?  I’d sing in a choir.

There’s never been a time when I felt more alive than when singing in a choir.  I can’t explain what it does to me.  I hope you know the feeling.   Maybe you get it in a different way, but I hope you know it.  Total elation, fingertips to toes.  Blood-pumping, gut-wrenching, heart-stirring elation.

And that’s my new year’s resolution.  Sing.  Be moved.  Weep.

Oh, and have a child.

Thursday.

Homeschooling, check.  Lunch at Long’s Drug Store, check.  Bananagrams, check.

I’m feeling ultra girly today.  I just painted my nails and am two parts enamored, one part nauseated by the Barbie-ness of them.  (Side note on the Barbie issue–I wasn’t allowed to have them.  I applaud my parents for keeping her ill-formed body out of my psyche.) The good news is, they match my scarf.  They’re about as pink as a thing can possibly be.  Here’s the thing about my nails.  When I was around seven years old, I watched The Parent Trap for the first time–the one with Hayley Mills.  Hayley Mills taught me to bight my fingernails.  I saw her do it, and I wondered what it would be like, and I haven’t stopped since.  It’s been sixteen years.  Thanks for almost everything, Hayley.  So I’m trying to stop.  It’s been five days.  So far, so good.

I think cold weather makes me want things.  Here’s my theory.  With cold weather comes Christmas.  With Christmas come gifts and greed.  Pavlog’s dogs and whatnot.

I suppose that’s it for today–painting my nails and wanting things.  Vapid.

And the Lord looks down on another day, and I stumble on through it.

Day one of homeschooling was a rousing success.  There were games and manipulatives and crafts, and best of all, reading–reading in a rocker, with two sweet little girls and an incredibly intelligent little guy at my feet, on big, colorful pillows.  When the kids’ moms, Emily and Amanda, were putting the classroom together, they  asked me for any input I might have on the sort of things they would need.  My response?  ”Um, I like sitting on the floor.”  Huh.  And they still hired me to educate their children.  Nonetheless, I stand by my pillow suggestion.  Big, comfy pillows are perfect for snuggling into for a good story.  And if I instill nothing else in these kids, I hope to foster a love of books–of words and turn of phrase and a good story.  And the tangibility of books, too–not a Kindle or an Ipad or any other new fangled contraption, but good, old fashioned, paper and print books, with yellowed pages and worn spines and musty scents, of libraries and home bookshelves and local bookstores with honey-warm wood shelves and people who can recommend a good book to follow The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  Pillows.  Yes, I think pillows are the way to foster that.

We read the first two chapters of the first book of A Series of Unfortunate Events.  I think the title sums up my view of my life right now.  It started with a string of misfortunes and culminated in the news of my grandfather’s inoperable lung cancer.  My grandfather, who I love so dearly, who looked so handsome when I saw him just a few weeks ago in his red plaid shirt, has a year to live.  And all is not right with the world because of that.  Never mind war and hunger and greed.  The real problem is that my grandfather won’t be around forever.  And I sort of always thought he would be.

And here’s the thing about God.  I won’t ever deny him.  I won’t ever lose faith.  But I have some serious questions.  I’ve cried out to him–cried out to him with such passion and grief and anguish.  I’ve approached his throne as boldly as I know how.  I asked him to put his hand on my grandfather’s body, and let it radiate shafts of light that would pierce the cancer that’s eating away at his lungs.  Because God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.  And crazier things have happened.  It happens to cats all the time, right?  Friends of ours had a cat that needed surgery after being run over by a car.  They had a benefit concert for the cat.  Really.  Members of their church and community gathered for the sake of this cat. And you know what?  When they took him back for the surgery, the vet said he didn’t need it anymore, that his body was perfectly fine.  And I’ve heard of it happening in humans, too, with cancer.  So why would God heal a crippled cat and a man with brain cancer, but not my grandfather?  I truly believe in the healing power of Jesus.  I believe without doubt that he raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, that he touched a woman who believed in him and made her stop bleeding.  The fact that I believe those things makes it harder to accept that, for whatever reason, he’s chosen not to heal my grandfather.  His eye is on the sparrow, but how many sparrows perish, right under the watchful eye of God?  It makes me think God is sort of twisted.  And I guess that’s okay–I guess it has to be.