take away the safety net, please

10 minutes of my day: realizing that my grandmother might be having a heart attack (#2) and then getting a phone call minutes later from my mom that...she just needed a few tums for her indigestion. my life is totally worthy of a reality TV show. within 10 minutes i was fearing the life of my grandmother and then i was thankful for...tums.



geico is right. life comes at you fast. take the massacre in Arizona. the isolated villages in Haiti where people are dying just because they don't get enough water. WATER. as in what most Americas wish they drank more, instead of reaching for the diet coke (me).

but then. take my sister, Emma. she's in Nicaragua on a medical mission trip and just wrote on her facebook wall that she just performed a pap smear (what...Emma, my Emma?) on a Nicaraguan prostitute (Emma Grace? my Emma?). im so proud i could literally burst.

as mom, dad, bear, kramer, & i were watching the CNN special on the massacre in Arizona and the villages in Haiti i was reminded by a quote i've heard over and over. matthew 16:24-25

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.

we are actually told here in scripture to be reckless. lose your life. jump out of airplanes and trust that your cape will open. go to a fourth world country after you've had back surgery. perform a pap smear at the ripe age of 19 on a woman from another country. lose your life, your safety net. because that's what a relationship with your Maker should do--free you, unleash abundant joy rather than restrain your every move. but MAN is that d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t DIFFICULT. every pore in my body assesses the risks: ABSOLUTELY NOT--YOU ARE BEING RECKLESS AND IRRESPONSIBLE RIGHT NOW. if we attempt to save our life by coloring within the lines...we will "lose life." bummer. i like being careful.

i can say that today was packed tightly with emotionally UPS and downs. "moral of the story" as anni always says is that life can be surprisingly joyful and tragically painful in one instant. the highs and lows of my day remind me of my humanity, and motivate me to continually pry myself away from my safety nets. to quote the philosopher george michael, "cause I gotta have faith-a-faith-a-faith."