My Joy

My middle name is Blaine. I named my brother in India Blaine. I want to name my first child Blaine. I love the name Blaine...

Blaine Madden is my grandpa. Blaine Madden is a gift to mankind, truly. And three days ago I came to see my grandpa, a gift, a pure joy... in the hospital.

It is hard to see the person I always saw so strong and healthy my whole life, just so weak and uncomfortable. I have been sitting by his bed side rubbing his back, handing him tissues as he coughs, and situating his blankets and pillows as he sleeps sitting in a chair. Yes, he sleeps sitting...His almost 90 year old body is shutting down before our eyes, and today I sat there as two ladies asked him how he wanted to live his last days on earth.

My grandpa is literally cuter than babies, and he makes me laugh with his adorable features, silly sounds, and funny stories. He has SO much.

So much good. So much joy. So much to GIVE this world. He has given so much and loved so much, and in return, the people that have met my grandpa have fallen in love with him.

My mom and dad told me that my grandpa has never raised his voice in his entire life, that is seriously impressive. His loyalty to God and the people around him is unreal. He is getting weaker and weaker everyday, but he will still (in a two minute window of consciousness) bring everyone together to pray.

I really need him. I really needed my grandpa this week, and I am glad my grandpa needs me too. Because the needing that is going on and the love that is being passed around this family right now, is what makes life beautiful for me in many not so beautiful situations I've been battling.

Right now, grandpa is on his way home with my mom and grandma, and he will be here as comfortable as can be until the day it is time for him to go.

As the two ladies were talking with him today, planning his next moves, they asked him what concerns he had for his life as it comes near to the end, and he replied "My only concern is my wife. She wants to go to Arizona next winter, and I want her to be able to go without me." That is who Blaine is...Not one time has he complained of being uncomfortable, or in pain, and in a time to be open about his concerns, he thinks only of the woman he has passionately loved for 62 years of marriage.

He makes the world a better place.

When I am surrounded by all my friends, there is really nothing else that matters at that moment. I have such a great group of girls that will do anything for me at any time, even if it's during finals week. We made dinner, funny videos, took a walk, slacklined, and posed for the camera MANY times. There are just SO many good things in my life, that let me know everything is really not just OK, but absolutely joyful. I can't wait to create memories with these girls!

Just in the moment where I realize a spiritual pause, God intervenes and it makes everything so real. The realness of the artist at work, is a comforting and peaceful thing, that I am most grateful for.

this is what it is about.

"Missions then is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there [...] You see God where others don't. And then you point him out. So the issue isn't so much taking Jesus to people who don't have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst. "-Rob Bell

She wanted a picture of her in the bathroom haha...

Last night I went to India.

Sojinia saw me and came running into my arms.

I jumped into a rickshaw to go see my Amma in Vempalli.

And then I woke up.

Amma, I miss you so much it hurts. One day I will be back there and I won't hurt anymore.

Division of the Fortunate and the Unfortunate.

I hit Division and it begins....

One stop light after another.

One homeless person after another.

I am aware and in the presence of their existence.

Division?

Yes, I think so.

I sit in my car and ponder the division between the person holding a card board sign gripped between two dirty, cold hands and myself.

I try not to make eye contact. If I do, I don't know if I should smile, because if I smile they might think I am going to give...Should I give? But maybe a smile would mean something to them. I wonder how they ended up the way they did. Drugs? Abuse? Lies? Abandonment?

Homelessness, is its own community. They all carry the same look-rugged, tired, cold, sad, alone, hungry, dirty, needy...

Where did it begin? Who was the first person to decide to steal a shopping cart to carry their belongings? Who was the first person to decide to hold up a sign? Why is it always cardboard?

You know what big questions I always have?

"What alley way, business, or dumpster did they find their cardboard? And more importantly, where did they get the marker? Did they buy it? Did they walk into a business and ask for a marker, and proceed to set their cardboard down on that table or desk, to write their humility on that sign?"

How does one begin to find a phrase that is so vulnerable, humiliating, worth money, and just a few words that fits on a space small enough to hold for hours on end?

For some reason...I am so stuck on that sign....

It's art.

Scattered Thoughts and Japan

America is blessed. Truly blessed. Sometimes it is hard to remember how blessed we are, when we don't see and experience things outside our home, school, state, country, or even ourselves. I'm blessed.

I know a lot of people who have seen many awful and heart throbbing things. I know I have... But sometimes even if we have or haven't been out of the country, or even stepped out of our own environment, we forget there is SO much more out there. Outside of me and my social life, outside my deep missing for India, outside my homework, outside my family, my boyfriend, outside spokane...

There is just SO much outside.

Sometimes, I get frustrated with people and their ignorance. I sit there thinking, "They don't even know..." Once I came back from India, I was so frustrated with America in general.

All the materials, petty conversations, and bad attitudes...

People who have been on a mission trip know what I am talking about...You feel changed for a split moment after you return, and then you struggle to reach that ultimate high of contentment and closeness with God (that you once experienced somewhere else) for the rest of your life, but it just doesn't ever quite get there.

It's hard to want to be in America, when I have felt such frustration towards it. It's just that feeling of always needing to "go" because when I am here I am not doing what I NEED to be doing.

But when I am not here, I miss it. When I am "out there" there are a lot of things I miss.

This might sound a little patriotic...but I really do love our country.

I watch the news and listen to the radio and whenever their is a tragic disaster, whether it be in our country, or in Haiti, or Japan, we really do come together.

We have been thrown into this crazy world, where we are constantly surrounded by ugly things, but it amazes me that our countries can use each other for the better, and honestly make the world a better place. The way God intended it to be. Now, that is absolutely beautiful.