But somewhere along the way, I get distracted.  Or discontent.  Or dissatisfied, disheartened, disillusioned…something.

I am not proud to say that this has been somewhat of a pattern in my Christian walk.  For example, God laid it on my heart several years ago to read the Bible all the way through.  I have since read Genesis no less than 26 times.  Because the only thing I do better than start is start OVER.  And the more times I start over, the more I begin to subconsciously believe that I won’t finish.

For me, the message this past Sunday could not have been more God-sent or more timely.  You see, I have realized recently that one of the primary reasons that I am such a poor finisher is because I have, somewhere deep down inside of me and generally just outside of my conscious awareness, an overwhelming fear of failure.  And as I listened to the Sunday message and heard Mark repeat the words “It is finished,” I realized, for the first time, the magnitude of these words and the Power behind them.  And I was struck with the realization that Jesus finished the work on the cross.  I have work to do, but Jesus finished THE work.  The work that makes me right with God.  The work that makes me unconditionally accepted, unconditionally loved, and eternally secure.  And I found myself wondering, “How would my life look differently if I REALLY GOT THIS?”  If deep down inside, where my fear of failure lives, I truly understood the reality that where I stand with God is not related to my performance or to my ability to please others, but is already decided by Jesus’s finished work on the cross.  And I realized that when I truly GET this, truly understand it with my heart instead of just with my head, then I will be free to fail.  I will be free to take the second step, and the third, and the fourth, rather than just the first, without fear of failure or rejection, because I will be secure in the knowledge that falling down does not alter my status as a child of God one single bit.  That I could fail at everything I ever try from this point forward and my worth would not diminish.  There is great freedom in this realization.  And if I am free to fail, then I am also free to succeed.  Not to succeed by the world’s standards, but to succeed by finishing well.  And I CAN finish well because, and only because, Jesus did.  I cannot finish well in my own strength.  But I can in His.  Because His grace is sufficient.  And what does He ask of me?  Only that I take one step, and then another, closer to Him and deeper into His will for me.

(Written for my church’s blog, Live Oak Roots, on 4/21/11.)

My cousin Lacy, in response to my Aunt Linda’s attempt to provide very complicated directions, which she assured us would shave at least 3 minutes off of our journey to the store:  ”Mom.  Shortcuts never work.  If they did, they would just be called THE WAY.”

My friend Joanne, when offered a hot dog:  ”No thanks.  I don’t like side food.  You know, hot dogs, tacos, corn on the cob – food that you eat from the side.  I also don’t like spaghetti, because it slaps you.”

My friend Amanda, while watching her 8-year-old daughter’s soccer game:  ”ELLIE RUN TOWARDS THE GOAL!!!  RUN THAT WAY!!!  RUN!!!  RUN!!!  RUN!!!  YOU’RE RUNNING THE WRONG WAY!!! (*sits down and takes deep breath*) “NOT THAT IT MATTERS, HONEY.  IT’S ALL ABOUT DOING YOUR BEST AND HAVING FUN!!!”

My mother, when I followed up after asking her to do a favor for me:  ”Oh, I totally forgot about that.  Right after I decided not to do it.”  (Bwahahahaha…)

A great guy whom I supervise at work, during a recent staff meeting:  ”Sorry, it’s not that I’m not listening to you.  It’s just that you have the thermostat set on hell in here.”

My awesome supervisor, during a conversation where we were expressing different opinions:  ”This is not about winning or losing.  It’s about me being right.”

My 15-year-old friend Shorty, referring to a somewhat-out-of-control youngster:  ”That kid needs a bully.”

My cousin Jill, in response to my telling her about a difficult thing that had happened to a friend of mine:  ”The worst things always happen to the nicest people.  That’s why I’m such a b—-.”

My cousin Lacy (again), after being told by my Aunt Linda that she had taken food over to our aunt and uncle’s house following surgery:  ”Oh my gosh, did you cook for them?  Wow, kick ‘em while they’re down…”

My cousin Lacy (once more…), exasperated after being teased by another family member:

Aunt Linda:  ”Lacy, he’s just full of B.S.”

Lacy:  ”He’s about to be full of bullets.”

And…my personal favorite…

My precious friend Hannah, age 7, as we were walking to the car after her soccer game:

Hannah:  ”Aunt Laura, your hair is sticking out from the side of your cap.”

Me:  ”Okay, can you stick it behind my ear since my hands are full?”

Hannah:  ”Yeah.  Here, lick my hand.”

Although the Catholic mass differed from the church services I attended regularly on Sundays with my parents, there were many commonalities between the two as well.  Communion was also a weekly occurrence at our church, although it looked slightly different.  The pastor would stand at the front of the church and would read the Scripture passages from the Last Supper.  Before serving communion to the congregation, he would read the passage from the Bible that says, “This is my Body, broken for you, for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this in remembrance of Me.”

I did not come to know Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior until I was in college, and if I am honest with myself, I have to say that most of the hours spent in church as a child were spent daydreaming, intermittently napping, or flirting with some cute boy in the youth group.  But as I have come to understand that God began working on my heart long before I knew He was doing so, I believe that there is a reason that these elements of my childhood church experience are so deeply etched into my mind.

Over the past year, I have gotten a new glimpse into what I believe the Body of Christ is intended to be.  About 9 months ago, I went through a very difficult time, which although short-lived, managed to totally turn my world upside down.  In a very short time, relatively speaking, I went from being an upbeat, funny, energetic, focused person, who counsels other people for a living, to being in a very dark place.  A place where I did not have the energy or concentration to complete basic, daily tasks.  A place where I was not able to heal my own mind, let alone be a part of the healing of another’s.  A place where the independence, self-sufficiency, and self-reliance that I take such pride in (and I mean the word “pride” in its most ungodly and destructive way) evaporated before I even knew it was happening.  A place where my identity was stripped away, and I was left with nothing but a sense of overwhelming fear and hopelessness that threatened to consume me.

Despite the darkness that had taken up residence in my mind and heart, God kept His promise to me when He said “I will never leave you or forsake you.”  And indeed He did not.  Instead, He  strategically placed people in my life who were the very hands and feet and arms and legs and mouth and heart of His Body. And as God in His infinite mercy has been teaching me what His love truly looks like, I have often heard the words of the Catholic priest and the pastor at my childhood church over and over again:

When I would have nothing to offer my friends, and they would respond with, “It’s okay.  Your worth is not determined by what you can do, but rather by who you are in Christ” – THIS is the Body of Christ.

When I was not funny, upbeat, or energetic, and felt that I was simultaneously letting down everybody in my life, and my church family would gently remind me that my identity is not found in my personality, ability to make people laugh, or any other characteristic that I might possess on my own, but in Jesus’s perfect love for me – THIS is the Body of Christ.

When my friends would call and say, “It’s going to snow, and you don’t have any groceries – I’m going to pick some up for you at the store” or “I want to spend time with you whether you’re ‘yourself’ right now or not” or “Just hang out on my couch, even if you don’t want to talk, because you will be fighting the tendency to isolate” – THIS is the Body of Christ.

When those same friends would continue to call and check on me, even when I wasn’t doing a very good job of returning phone calls, even when I would have nothing to give, and all I could do was apologize over and over for the abysmal job of friendship I was doing; when those friends responded by placing no expectations on my being able to “hold up my end of the friendship” at that time, and instead responded simply with, “I love you” – THIS is the Body of Christ.

And finally, when my friends in Christ would have the courage to be with me in my brokenness, while continuing to point me to the One who is the Source of all hope and light, walking with me, not giving up on me, and consistently reminding me that the pain is not forever and that He who began a good work in me will complete it – THIS is the Body of Christ.

To my friends who continue to walk with me, patiently holding my hand as I come to the end of myself and learn to turn my eyes to the One who brings true healing – thank you for carrying out the words of Jesus (and of my childhood pastor) – “This is my Body, broken for you – do this in remembrance of Me.”

A couple of weeks ago, my blog crashed.  I had just written a post about my top ten current favorite things about my job (top ten lists are fluid, and they change frequently as life adds to them), and when I posted it, the site crashed.  With some help from my Cousin Jill, the Ninja Blogstress, the blog was able to be repaired, which made me happy, because writing has been a really fun thing.  So tonight, as I go to rewrite the post, I’m realizing that a couple of work-related things have happened in the past week or so that are also list-worthy, and that I need to add to my original top-ten-current-favorite-things-about-my-job list.  So, here we go.

Top Twelve Favorite Things About My Job

1)  The chance to be a part of a team who is deeply committed to each other and to our patients, and the fact that we can laugh at and with each other to the point that it causes physical pain.

2)  The necklace given to my fellow social worker, who is courageously battling cancer, by our Medical Director.  It says, “Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed.”

3)  The fact that our Utilization Management Director hung up on me from the get-go when I called him with a question earlier this week, simply because he did not feel like talking to me at the moment.  This elicited the physical-pain-causing laughter mentioned in #1 above.

4)  The fact that this same above-mentioned Utilization Management Director has Christmas balls hanging from the ceiling above his desk, for no apparent reason whatsoever.

5)  My dear co-worker who assists our patients in obtaining funding for their medications.  Although she has a progressive muscle disorder that limits her mobility, it does not dampen her sense of humor.  Everyone with whom she comes in contact is better for having encountered her.

6)  The giant, taller-than-a-Volkswagen (my Volkswagen, to be specific), mound of ice that was strategically placed behind my car recently, resulting in my having to wait until it melted down before leaving the hospital.

7)  Our Activities Therapy Department, who help our patients to find expression and amazing creativity within themselves that they often did not know existed.

 The fact that my friend and Crisis Team coworker actually rubbed Campho-Phenique on my sunburned feet a couple of weeks ago after I spent too much time in the lazy river.

9)  The giant, economy-sized bottle of Germ-X in our hospital administrator’s office, which exists for the purpose of keeping us all squeaky clean.

10)  The fact that when I called our Crisis and Forensic Services Director to get the name of a contact person from her, she not only provided the contact, but drove up to the hospital to help me with a difficult situation.  On a Friday night.  Before a holiday.  In the pouring rain.

11)  The bowl of warm nuts given to me by our Medical Director when I brought some papers to her home for her to sign while she was working from home recently.  Warm nuts are really good, turns out.

12)  The occasions when we get to see our patients leave the hospital with more hope and a greater sense of dignity and value than they had when they arrived, and the honor of being a small part of their journey.

In addition to loving laughter, I also love to make other people laugh.  It feels like giving them a gift, and it is so much fun to watch them “open” it.  I don’t mean this in a cocky way or in an “oh, wow, I’m funny” kind of way.  I just mean that being goofy is sort of my thing that I do.  I can’t sing, or cook, or dance, or stand on one foot, or plant flowers that live more than 2 days, or wash clothes without shrinking them, or refrain from eating carbs late at night, or draw faces that look even remotely human.  Or a thousand other things.  But I can occasionally make people laugh.  And that’s fun.

In addition to loving to laugh, I also love to write.  I’m rusty at it – I used to write a whole lot as a kid and as a college student, but adulthood came around (chronological adulthood at least), and life got busy, and it just sort of faded into the background.  I had teachers in elementary school who encouraged my love for writing, and I will be forever grateful to them, despite the fact that I think they probably encouraged me to write because it kept me sitting in my chair for more than the customary 5 minutes I could usually maintain inertia.

So last summer, assisted by my cousin Jill, who is much more of an expert in all things world-wide-webbish than I am, I decided to do a blog, and to combine two things that I loved – making people laugh, and writing.  And I did it.  And it sucked.  And that was that.  I didn’t enjoy it – it felt “forced,” and I had to make myself write, and then I found myself wondering if other people thought it was funny.

Over the past six months, God has been teaching me much about who I am in Him.  It has been a time of growth for me – a difficult time, but I am learning that my identity is based solely on who I am in Him, and not on anything I can do – including make people laugh.  And I have found myself writing again.  But this time, it’s different for me.  I feel the desire – actually it’s more like a need – to write, because there are things on my heart that I want to write about.  And I’m not so much concerned about whether people think it’s funny or not – because I’m not sure it’s always going to be funny either.  It probably will be at times, because there is just way too much bizarreness out there to not write about it – I don’t think I can help it – plus there’s light and fluffy stuff to write about too, and I’ll have to do that sometimes – but it is probably going to be a bit deeper at times too.  And if people want to read it and chime in that’s wonderful.  If not, that’s okay too – they can always go to www.feelfreetoreadanotherblogthatisfunnierthanthisone.com.  (Hee hee hee that’s not really a website…)