I’ve been working on the signature wedding quilt that I started the week we traveled to New Zealand. This is my third time around using this pattern (with variations) and I thought I had come up with the best idea ever. The first time (Laura’s wedding shower) I made the whole quilt and left it on a table for people to sign. Some of the signatures ended up upside down. The next time, Mari and I assembled the top and closely monitored the signature signing. This time I left the pieces unassembled and left them on a table (with instructions) for signing. Not a good idea.

First of all, I neglected to made a detailed “map” of how I wanted the pieces to go back together so I spent a lot of time just trying to figure out the pattern again. Then, I found that I had a good number of upside down signatures as well as not enough of some squares. (I’m pretty sure the second design differed from the first.) I’ve done a lot of ripping and re-sewing, complicated by the fact that the best place to lay out my work seemed to be the first floor guest bed and my sewing machine and ironing board are upstairs. I’ve been pinning and marking, and still making more mistakes. What a puzzle–but it is coming together, slowly but surely.

Besides quilting, my goals for May included getting back into a regular work schedule and a road trip to see Mari, attend two family showers and spend more time with my Aunt Carol, and visit my Dad.

 

 

 

My work goals looked bleak at the beginning of the week last week. My “zero hours” status leaves me to fill in the “holes” in the schedule, and there weren’t many. I was only able to sign up for 3 days for the whole month of May and was discouraged by that. However, on Friday, my lead nurse called to ask when I might be available to work because there had been some sudden staff changes and now I could work as much as I wanted. The story behind the changes was both positive and negative, but I’m seeing it as an answer to (my) prayer. I’m sure it didn’t feel like that to others. I’ve worked three days this week and have three days a week scheduled after I return from the road trip.

The road trip seemed perfectly planned but ran into a quick detour when Mari’s brother-in-law died earlier this week. I quickly decided to just wait a day before leaving and found myself relieved by the extra time to work, sew, and organize myself. I’m leaving early tomorrow to drive across I-80 to Ohio, where I’ll head south and stop at a couple of quilt shops before meeting Mari in Bucyrus. Back-to-back showers on Friday and Saturday and then up to Detroit for Mother’s Day and a few days of rest and quiet with my Dad. I’ll drive back home on Wednesday and start back to work on Friday.

When am I ever going to learn that you can make all the plans you want, but life has a way of keeping us puzzled, with or without plans? The perfect quilt plan requires hours of seam ripping, work schedules change all the time, and a simple road trip requires flexibility. And yet, in the end, life works out. Maybe not perfectly, but good.

 

 

I want to add a couple more stories as a sort of postscript to the Puzzling blog. Stories from our trip, stories about plans that didn’t turn out quite the way I expected.

I made a Strawberry (Jello) Pretzel Salad tonight. I tried to make one in New Zealand for the rehearsal dinner and it didn’t work at all. First of all, where our grocery store has about 20 different packages of pretzels to choose from, New Zealand stores have either none or maybe one or two types. I never found stick pretzels at all, and finally settled on a very small package of another kind. That’s the first layer.

The second layer is made of cream cheese, sugar and Cool Whip. No Cool Whip in New Zealand, of course, or other non-dairy creamer. But I looked through the dairy section and bought whip cream and something like creme fraiche or maybe it was creme anglaise. Mixed together, it seemed to be a reasonable match so I spread it over the pretzel layer and put it in the refrigerator.

Next I made the “jelly” layer. The boxes looked pretty much like ours and said something about gelatin so I figured it was the same thing. Frozen strawberries (or any strawberries for that matter) were not to be had, however. I decided to just add a layer of jello and worry about the strawberries later (presuming John would bring some home on his trip to the store. Not.)

It didn’t matter because when I pulled the pan out of the refrigerator to see how the jelly/jello was setting, it wasn’t. It had all disappeared into the cream cheese layer. What the heck? I ended up dumping the whole thing. Anne said I should have kept it because even if it looked awful, it would still tasted reasonably the same. (She knew because she’d tried to make the recipe for 50 Capernwray students once and had the same results. I remembered a few panicked phone calls asking for help in the process.)

At the time (and a few other times) I assumed that Anne just didn’t know the stores or the supplies available. She had the same problem for awhile with pie crusts because they don’t carry Crisco. She has since learned to make butter crusts and/or to use Edmonds Pastry which comes in several varieties and works quite nicely.

I was looking forward to spending some time in the stores figuring out how to make substitutions for our recipes. I learned the hard way that it might be better to just use kiwi recipes. (I did that too, learning to make hokey pokey with golden syrup and baking powder and hokey pokey biscuits (what we call cookies.) As far as I can figure out, Americans don’t have the equivalent of golden syrup so it works both ways.

 

Minced meat is ground meat, what we call hamburger. Corned beef is a common meal, served up with a homemade mustard sauce. Tomato (pronounced with the emphasis on the “ma”) sauce is ketchup so you have to look for cans of tomato puree if you need sauce for the taco recipe.

Another plan that we had was to save the money on renting a car and use that money to help Anne buy one. We sent money ahead but they weren’t able to find a car before we arrived. Anne had borrowed a car that took care of our needs (and hers) during the pre-wedding week, but we felt that we needed to return that after the wedding. One of the bridesmaid’s Dad offered John the use of a car for the rest of our trip. (Josie and her twin brother, Scott, had visited Chicago in December.) We decided to take him up on his offer so arranged to pick up their car and drop the other one off before heading out for our day’s adventure. Brent had planned to lend us one of his company cars, but at the last minute decided to lend us Josie’s car and let her drive the company car. Good decision.

I was following John, my first time driving on this trip, as we made our way to drop off the other car. We came to a one-way bridge with a light at both ends. A biker started across against the light and John decided to follow. I was unsure of what to do and not really paying attention to the left side of my car (which spatially was not in my normal frame of reference way over there from where I was sitting in the right-side drivers seat.) I inched forward–smack into the concrete side of the bridge. I’d been driving all of about twenty minutes and I put a big dent into the bumper.

A day or so later we confessed our “sins” to the owner–who was extremely gracious–and made arrangements to have the car fixed after we left. $450. Later that week, John backed the car into a low post at Monavale and put another big dent in the rear bumper. (We felt like idiots and apologized profusely, but once again, the Martins smiled and commiserated with us.) Now we were up to about $1000 in repairs, the amount we’d send to James and Anne for a car.

A few days later, Brent offered to sell the car to James and Anne for just a bit more than that, so we decided (with them) to buy the car and hand it over to Anne. John spent an afternoon bumping out both dents and realigning the light. So it looks pretty much like the kind of car that Anne is used to, it drives well, and they can take their time choosing a better car when they want it.

(On John’s last trip, a hit-and-run sideswiping driver, left John with an additional repair bill of $1200 on the damages. We’re thinking that we should just budget about that much on future trips for accidents 🙂

Even small disasters can somehow work together for good. Life, driving and cooking will continue to challenge us, puzzling us, and teaching us to roll with the punches.

Many are the plans of a (wo)man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21

 

 

 

 

 

On our flight from New Zealand to LAX, I watched the first 30 minutes or so of the first Hobbit movie to review the scenes shot at Hobbiton. Several times our tour guide had pointed out where a particular scene had been shot and I wanted to see the scenes while the tour was still fresh in my memory. When the title appeared—An Unexpected Journey—I thought it would make a perfect title for my trip blog. As we disembarked I was reminded that our aircraft was a “Hobbit” plane.

When I purchased my ticket to New Zealand for this spring, I had a completely different trip in mind. I’d come through a hard year of cancer treatment and my mother’s death and bought the ticket to reward myself. I anticipated being done with all my cancer treatments and able to enjoy time with James and Anne, helping her nail down a few of the wedding details.

As I fly home, the wedding is over and Anne and James are celebrating what someone called an “Annie-versary”–three weeks of wedded bliss. They are settling into their first home, a farmhouse at the end of a half-mile dirt driveway off a state highway, surrounded by cow pasture. They have several new kitchen appliances (mixer, food processor, electric teapot, pannini grill and so on,) a bed, a table with two chairs, beautiful copper pans, knives, baking supplies and very unique flatware. The rest of their home is pretty empty but they are enjoying making it their own.

For me it was, in so many ways, an unexpected journey. I thought I’d carefully planned the timing to coincide with the end of treatment and the birth of our second grandchild. As you already know, the timing wasn’t simple at all and I felt pulled in at least three or four different directions all at once. I’d also imagined a fun trip, time alone with Anne and some extra time with James (to make up for the time I’d lost during his visit in December.) There were definitely some fun moments on the trip and times of wonderful laughter, but most of it was not fun. I hardly had any alone time with Anne, either in the pre-wedding days or (understandably so) while she was honeymooning and settling into her new home and life. Whatever time could spared from wedding activities or newlywed bonding had to be shared with John, Lizi and her maid of honor, who had traveled from Canada to be with her. I’d hoped to see Anne at work with her youth ministry and participate in a few of James’ ABS activities so that I could understand their ministries and pray better, but between pre-wedding days off and the New Zealand school holidays, I missed those opportunities as well. (ABS begins today 4/28.)

And I hoped to see more of beautiful New Zealand. I’d loved New Zealand on my first trip and dreamed about visiting for extended periods of time in the future, traveling to many more beaches, tramping some of their many DOC trails, navigating the roads and seeing places I’d missed on that first visit time around. I thought I was being realistic when I limited our travels to the North Island for this trip, but we still saw a lot less than I hoped. Lots of rain slowed down our sightseeing, plus our focus was just different this time.

I also didn’t realize that on that first visit, I was a tourist and being a tourist and living in a place are two very different experiences. Language acquisition is only minimally important for a tourist; it is crucial for a resident.  A month of living in a verbal fog, missing about a third of any group conversation and many of the jokes, was frustrating and lonely. I usually could manage fairly well in one-to-one or meal time conversations, but once a group got going, I was missing a lot of the conversation.

I’ve also taken an unexpected internal journey, both spiritually and emotionally. After weathering the year of treatment, I found myself struggling with discouragement and depression as my physical body healed. I understood the added blows I experienced, but thought it would get better in New Zealand. It didn’t, and in fact, probably deepened.

There were days when I felt like I was thrown back to issues I thought I’d settled years ago, days when I didn’t know who I was or where I belonged, when I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin. I worked hard throughout my time there to reframe my thoughts and work through to better attitudes, but I was only partially successful.

This unexpected journey helped me settle (I think!) an issue that has bothered me for awhile. My evangelical upbringing taught me that “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” When my life didn’t look very wonderful, I began questioning the premises of my faith and concluded that American/Western evangelicalism had taken a wrong turn at some point, turning faith into a focus on me, my family, my church and world missions. I figured out that I wasn’t the center of God’s story–not my family, my church, or my denomination(s.) I kept God at an emotional arm’s length for a long time, but gradually came back to trusting Him in the midst of my “not so wonderful life,” leaning on him and on His word for strength and encouragement as I walked through hard times. When I read scripture, I struggled with misinterpreting promises that were beautiful and uplifting, but possibly not mine to claim. I became a stickler for trying to discern when verses were taken out of context and misused in songs, sermons, and devotional writing.

For example, Anne shared a verse at her baptism that she and I memorized on my first trip to New Zealand. She had randomly come across Isaiah 43:1-3 and loved the promises that God would be with her when she passed through the waters or walked through the fire. She was facing, with some trepidation, her ABS term and was worried about how she would do. She has/d some specific fears around water so it seemed perfectly suited to what she was facing as she’d be swimming, kayaking, surfing and so on. I memorized the verses but added verses 5 and 6 because I could already guess where her friendship with James was heading: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bring your children from the east, and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, give them up, and to the south, do not hold them back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth…” I know that Isaiah was referring to the Israelites who were in the process of being exiled to Babylon and Assyria, whose nation was torn apart. But I liked imagining that God was speaking to me as well, though not necessarily promising that my son might return from “afar” or that my daughter might return from what felt like the ends of the earth. I never banked on either of those two things happening and I still do not.

What I’ve learned is that the beautiful poetry of Isaiah and of the Psalms can reveal to us the heart of God, whether or not specific “promises” can rightfully be claimed as our own. I’m not sure that there is any promise about me or my grandson becoming “oaks of righteousness” either, but what a beautiful word picture to hold up before him and myself, about the heart of our God. In Psalms I’ve been underlining nearly every reference to God’s love, mercy, kindness, joy, goodness, faithfulness, graciousness, and strength. And references to the hope, refuge, deliverance and help He provides. (My new Bible is pretty marked up.) Taken together, there seems to be overwhelming evidence that God loves personally, intimately, and faithfully. I’m still not the center of his purpose by any means and I have no sense that life will turn out the way I’d like. But God is truly good and can be trusted, even when I am sad or disappointed.

I’m pretty sure the “unexpected journey” didn’t end when we touched down in Los Angeles or Chicago, but this leg of the trip is complete. I’ve come back from Middle Earth but I haven’t yet made it Home. There are still adventures ahead.

P.S. Coming home to this:

 

 

 

 

and this:

 

 

 

 

was awfully nice.

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

[I wish I had a camera this morning to capture the changing sky while I sat and wrote this Easter morning.]

I woke up early and saw that the sun was rising across the estuary from our bach. We are on the west coast of New Zealand so I didn’t expect to see a sunrise but with all the convoluted roads along the coastline, I guess we ended up facing east.

I wrapped myself in my prayer shawl from Yorkfield (our church) and found a dry seat near the water’s edge.

[The sun was already officially up but shining upwards towards low-laying clouds.]

I wrote about the last few weeks. I am happy that Anne and James are married and seem so happy together. I am pleased by the family that Anne is joining here in New Zealand, gaining three big brothers who love to play and laugh and love (and their wives and girlfriend.) James’ parents love their family and have welcomed Anne into their midst.

However, I’m none too happy myself. My time here in New Zealand has been harder than I imagined and I expect to leave with an even heavier heart. I feel like a dream of mine has died here, or at least taken a severe beating. I don’t know if that dream would have ever been realized, but now it seems out of reach. I will leave my daughter behind, not knowing when we will see her next.

[About this point in my thoughts, the sun began peaking over the near horizon—dazzling bright.]

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

I began thinking about the book I’ve been reading—Bittersweet by Shauna Nyquist. From the back cover:

The idea of bittersweet is changing the way I live, unraveling and reweaving the way I understand life. Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful, that there is a sliver of lightness on even the darkest of nights, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak, and that rejoicing is no less rich when it contains a splinter of sadness.

Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. It’s courageous, gutsy, audacious, earthy.

This is what I’ve come to believe about change: it’s good, in a way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. I’ve learned the hard way that change is one of God’s greatest gifts, and most useful tools. Change can push us, pull us, rebuke us and remake us. It can show us who we’ve become, in the worst ways and also in the best ways. I’ve learned that it’s not something to run away from, as though we could, and in many cases, change is a function of God’s graciousness, not life’s cruelty.”

Someone read the above aloud and another concluded, “It’s the cup half full instead of half empty.”

No. No. No. (I wanted to say.) It is much more than that. It’s when life keeps hammering away at you, wave after wave, slam after slam. When you think you’ve weathered one storm and another one follows, and another, and another.

[Actually a pretty good description of the weather in New Zealand the last few weeks.]

Believe me. If viewing the cup as half full was a simple solution to the emotions battering my soul, I’d be the first to sign up. 1,000 Thanksgivings is a great book and a great discipline, but it hasn’t been an easy answer for my sadness this winter. I’m pretty sure that it is a cumulative sadness, a post-cancer kickback + mourning + surgery + changes in the wedding plans + adapting to a different culture + ?????

[About this time, the morning sky had mostly clouded over but the tiny rays still escaped a hole in the clouds, suggesting hope.]

Last October, around my 60^th birthday, I wrote a life sentence. I didn’t memorize it because I still am not certain that it fits. Essentially I believe that my life should demonstrate that God is good in the midst of life’s disappointments. I’m afraid that is a bit of a “negative” view of life and I’ve been told not what God wants for me. But it seems to be the life He has given me, and possibly his purpose for me.*

[At this point, the sky was completely cloudy but the sun kept popping through the clouds, slightly visible. Sometimes it would skid behind the clouds, visible as a sphere, just enough to remind me that it was still there, an apt metaphor for me to remember on days when no sun seems visible.]

At this point, I opened my Bible to read where I last left off: Psalm 139. I thought I knew the Psalm and would find it interesting, but the words leapt off the page speaking comfort and hope to my heart:

Oh Lord you have searched me and known me

You know me when I sit down and when I rise up

You perceive my thoughts from afar

You discern my going out and my lying down

You are familiar with all my ways

Before a word is on my tongue

You know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in—behind and before

You have laid your hand on me.

Such knowledge is too lofty to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there.

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn (this morning?)

If I settle on the far side of the sea (Anne?)

Even there your hand will guide me,

Your right hand will hold me fast.

Even the darkness will not be dark for you,

The night will shine like day for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I was fearfully and wonderfully made.

Your works are wonderful.

I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God. How vast is the sum of them.

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

…

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there be any offensive way in me.

And lead me in the way everlasting.

[As I read the psalm, blue skies and bright sunshine emerged along with a sense of hope.]

Later that day, I read the Psalm to Anne as we gathered for a pre-baptism gathering and I started crying before I finished the reading. And cried more as we prayed and watched John baptize his daughter in the estuary in front of the house.

[Clouds, slight drizzle and only one small patch of blue sky.]

Bittersweet is a perfect description of my Easter Day. While God touched my heart in the morning with scripture and sunshine and my daughter was baptized, my heart still broke, the bitter along with the sweet.

Yet, He is risen! He is risen indeed! Happy American Easter. (The New Zealand one is almost over.)

 

*The actual life sentence is this: Chris Hurni exists to experience (receive) the love and grace of God in a broken world, and share (honestly, openly, and joyfully) hope in this life and in the world to come.