When Baby Steps Are All You Can Take

Several years ago, a boyfriend and I went through a bad breakup. After a few agonizing weeks at home, feeling constantly sick and distressed, I packed my bags and drove to visit my mom for the weekend, who was then living in Louisville.

When she opened her apartment door to welcome me, a look of concern crossed her eyes, and her first words were a disturbed, "You've lost weight." I had been too down and broken to maintain any kind of appetite or take decent care of myself. When I stepped on her scales, I realized the toll my anguish had taken on me. I had lost several pounds, which placed me at what would be about 17 pounds less than my current weight.

Untangling Broken Zippers

I remember snuggling into it on that cold winter day. Was I five or six years old, maybe? It was my favorite winter coat, blue with a fuzzy lining, a warm hood, and those mittens that ran on a string through the sleeves so they didn't get lost. My favorite aunt sat at our kitchen table visiting my family, and I bundled up in my room to proudly show her my favorite coat before going outside to catch my breath in the brisk, cold air.

I happily buttoned my hood around my face and excitedly began to zip up my coat when---uh-oh---the zipper was stuck. I tugged---and tugged again--- but it wouldn't budge. I looked down at my coat and saw that a tiny bit of that precious blue fabric was hung in the zipper.

What If Jesus Didn't Look Like That?

A few years ago, I played music for a small campus worship service nearing Easter time. I loved the pictures of Jesus shown on the screen, which portrayed him as deeply dark-skinned---not the fair-skinned, blue-eyed Jesus with golden-brown locks flowing over his shoulders.

And I wondered how people might be changed if we could view Jesus outside the typical portrayal of him?

I recently saw a picture of Jesus laughing. And I love pictures of Jesus smiling and laughing, expressing a personality. But this particular painting slightly turned me off by the drastic unlikelihood of his appearance. This Jesus boasted a huge square smile, the kind teenagers have right after their braces come off, as if he'd just had it manufactured right there at Palestine Orthodontia---Jesus after he'd completed his Hollywood look with Crest 3D White Strips. And I wondered again:

Inspiration on Blah-Mondays

That was exactly how I felt when I woke up this morning--blah. That was exactly how I felt when I went to bed last night---feeling the blah Monday before the day had even started.

After a few days off work spent out-of-town with family---some of that time hectic, yet some of that time relaxing with a mother's home-cooking---I was not ready to return home. Not ready to face a busy schedule of work and deadlines. Just not ready to get back in the groove of things.