Royally Unforgettable

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"A royal wedding doesn't just happen every year."

The girls in my graduate program have been more excited about the marriage of Prince William to Catherine Middleton than all of England (including the couple and the Queen). They counted down the days, they finished homework early, they followed every update (dress design, wedding location, etc), and woke at 4am to revel in girly sighs and fluttery hearts on the TV screen.

Their excitement was contagious, though not enough to peel me from under my covers before sunrise. Unlike every girl in my program, I slept through a "not-so-often-in-a-lifetime" event. I know that next class I'll hear more details than the Prince's personal news reporter.
A royal experience may have passed me by in the morning, but come afternoon I threw on cleats and chased it down with a camera and baseball jersey. What I caught was, in my opinion, a bit superior to 4am royalty:

American royalty.
April 29th marked my flamboyant introduction to the Kansas City Royals baseball team. The Royals and I were a little awkward at first--unsure whether to shake hands or have a sunflower seed spitting contest. We beat around the bush until I finally succumbed to loud cheering and binoculars. The perfect mixture of sunlight and green grass equaled instant patriotism and cravings for a baseball cap. I welcomed it with open arms and a polished camera lens.

Prince William and his lace-bedecked bride would be hard-pressed to trump my first KC Royals experience. My "royal day" started with free parking, inexpensive tickets, good seats, perfect weather, and marvelous company. Then I received a free pop (Mountain Dew--they didn't carry Coke products), was given a baseball cap (that actually fit my pea-sized head), cheered my birthday number (27--Brayan Pena) around the bases, won a dollar, was announced (out of 31,407 people) as the evening's designated driver (and awarded a quality snazzy blue shirt), wore a giant jersey like a dedicated fan (while cheering like one), and had my face blown up on the jumbotron (the largest TV screen in professional sports--80 by 105 feet). My cherry on top was not the illuminating post-game fireworks display or the fact that the Royals won by a single run, but the joy of sharing the entire evening with a certain handsome gentleman dear to my heart.

Nope, Prince William and Kate ain't got nothin' on this. In the end, it's safe to say the KC Royals and I are on our way to being best friends.

Internal Reflection

Mirror, Mirror, on the wall.
Make me slimmer, make me tall.
Make me who I'm not at all.

The person I see in the mirror is a distraction. She never lets me see who I really am, instead she bullies the Internal-Nadine and makes her sit in the corner while she points out minute flaws that can only found in a pamphlet of the world's imperfections.

There are many days when I feel beautiful until I look in the mirror. Then my focus slips from my head like jello down a windowpane. I forget that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139). I forget that God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). I forget about the part of me that matters. All I see are my silly flaws sticking their forked tongues out at me.

"Well I think you're beautiful."
You're my mom/sister/best friend, you have to say that.

"Who you are inside makes you beautiful on the outside."
Yes, but that doesn't count.

Why doesn't it? Who was the first to stand up and say, "The inside of a person is a cheap card. That's a given."? Whoever it was must have been a great orator because the world believed them.

My old roommate, Julie, and I owned a shoddy full-length mirror our senior year at college. It sat propped on an overturned shower-caddy, draped with a tacky curtain that we couldn't fit over our single window. The mirror had warps and flaws in all the right places. No matter how groggy, frumpy, or grungy I felt, "the mirror" fixed it all. Just a glance in its spotted, smeared pane turned an XXL sweatshirt and holey sweats into a cute, flattering, study outfit. We were always thin and perfectly curvy in the mirror. No one was allowed to move it.
You and I both know it's reflection was fake. It didn't show how I really looked, but the confidence booster was enough to push me through the day with a smile. So why was I content with a lie that I didn't even believe?

We don't look in the mirror to see if our make-up is even, or if our hair is smooth, or if our smile looks genuine. We look into the mirror to judge ourselves, to fix already perfect things, and to tell God He messed up. To ask, "Hey, did You mean to make my nose crooked?" or "Did You know that my teeth aren't even?" or "This is the wrong skin. You misread my order."

If I had a choice, would I choose to be beautiful on the inside or the outside? Why can't I have both? Because one comes from the other, no matter what the world says. The inside transforms the exterior of a person. I know many people--men and women--who are far from super-model-stipulations, but they exude beauty beyond external understanding. Their beauty fills my soul. It makes me see God's creativity.

That is real beauty. It's not a "cheap given", but we've tainted the view of internal beauty. Inner beauty is Christian phraseology that allows us to judge actors and actresses. It's an excuse that helps us ignore our discontentment with our looks. We're missing the point (as we usually do). Internal and external beauty are holding hands, but we must talk to Miss Internal before we can understand Miss External's language. Then, and only then, will we see the whole. We're stopping at the exterior when the interior is screaming for recognition.

To uncover internal beauty takes effort. We're a lazy world. No wonder we resorted to easy fading beauty. Internal beauty transforms the exterior--we just need to put forth the effort to know each other. You'll rarely find deep beauty in first impressions. It comes through deeper searching. Through quality time. Through things that our hollow culture avoids.

We're a superficial nation not because we focus on the external, but because we're ignoring the internal.

Let that sink in. It's not because of our focus on the external, it's because we choose to ignore the internal--it's too complicated. Too time consuming. Too raw. Too real.
But everyone wants to be known. Everyone wants to be seen--really seen.

God has made me beautiful. He's given me a deep beauty. I know this because that beauty is Him. He is inside me and He is ultimate beauty. I distract myself from Him by reading the world's list on my mirror.

Mirrors aren't bad. It's my reflection that needs a firm spanking. I can't see past it, so I'm taking Internal-Nadine out of the corner and we're putting Reflection-Nadine in time-out.
No mirrors.
I'm covering each mirror in my apartment until my heart remembers I'm beautiful. My head understands, but that's not enough--not enough for me and not enough for God. I won't look into a mirror again until I'm certain my heart will see God's creation.

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Picture Hunting

In the early snowfalls of this Missouri winter, adventurous photographs started their migration. I caught them flying north with the geese, hiding beneath frost-laden branches, and skipping across the sun-reflected snow crystals. I ran to my closet, dressed in proper excursion attire, and retrieved my butterfly net.
A perfect day for picture hunting.

This is what I caught:

Super Villain Hero

Bissell. This name is synonymous to Hercules. Equivalent to Achilles. Comparable to Superman.
My new hero.

When I was a child, "vacuuming the house" was a torturous villain my sister and I hid from, fought against, and failed to destroy all our lives. We would have rather scrubbed the walls with pipe-cleaners (oh the drama). If you were smart, you would run to Mom on chore day and volunteer to dust. This not only made you look like the better child (volunteering), but it doomed your sibling to lugging a vacuum twice size up and down the stairs all afternoon (mild exaggeration).
I was never the smart one.

Two weeks ago, I made a significant investment. Thanks to the tax refund I'd yet to receive in the mail, I counted my chicks before they hatched and bought the Bissell Powerful Turbo Bagless Vacuum (yes, I welcomed childhood-villain into my home). It came with a mini attachment called the Turbo-brush. Anything with the word turbo should receive instant brownie-points. In the moment when we shook hands and I signed the receipt, I realized I'd misjudged Mr. Vacuum my entire life. Beneath his mask and oppressive growl sits a cape and a shiny "I'm Super" badge.

This monstrous dirt-eating superhero entered my home to replace my sad little sweeper. The sweeper had a cute heart and gave a little wheeze every time I pushed it over my paper-thin carpet. That is, until it's wheezer fell out.

I attempted to fix it multiple times, but to no avail. So, my dear apartment went for at least three months with no dirt pick-up. Don't judge. I'm a poor college student (in a year and a half, I won't be able to use that excuse anymore, so I need to play that card while I have it). Today, after abandoning the "instructions" booklet and assembling all three pieces of my vacuum, I turned on the Bissell-hero. It growled like a revving-Harley.
All the tiny dirt particles (and then some) bounced around my living-room floor like panicked ants. They knew they'd be eaten in mere moments.

Bissell-hero's eating habits sounded like a Beech Baron Twin Engine flying through a heavy rain storm. I don't expect you to know what that sounds like, but just know it was a more-than-appropriate vacuum sound. Its headlight (yes, it has a headlight) illuminated the miniature dirt-bunnies fleeing from its black-hole suction. They didn't make it.

My long-held loathing for vacuuming skipped out of my apartment like a rejected piper. I vacuumed his footprints off my doormat and told him to never come back. In the end, I dumped out two hair monsters and a pound of dirt (no joke). I've been walking on that. And sitting on it. And lying on it. *shudder* I owe many apologies to my clothing, mainly my socks. My living room looks brand new--almost as new as my vacuum. It sighs. I sigh. Summer suddenly peeks in the window and shouts, "Can I come in?"
Why yes, yes you may.

Bissell-hero waits in the corner patiently, mysteriously, and handsomely...eliminating one dust-bunny at a time with super-vacuum stealth.

This Ain't No April Fool's

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I had a miniature meltdown at school yesterday--possibly induced by lack of sleep or my choice of coffee for breakfast. It may have been an overreaction or just an overflow of pent-up emotion. Either way, it happened and there are witnesses.
A series of unfortunate UCM traits brought me to this point--sketchy charges, having to retake classes, conflicting schedules, unhelpful workers, vague answers.... All this led to a severe mixture of pure sharp frustration and deep soul-twisting concern for future speech therapists. I don't know if they can leap through all the pointless hoops UCM sets up and come out with any compassion or heart for speech therapy left.
After tears and an embarrassing explosion on a fellow clinician, I drove home and ate pretzels with cream cheese and two spoonfuls of Nutella. The repercussions of this coping strategy produced the following nostalgic letter:

Dear Biola,

I didn't realize what a good friend you were until I said goodbye and left you in California. We had our spats and arguments. I complained about you and you stuck by silly unrelenting rules, but you were always good to me. You sent me Godly professors who cared about their students more than upholding strict reputations. You pushed me to grow and learn. You stimulated imagination and passion. You went above and beyond what the average speech-therapy program demands. I didn't realize that, you sneaky undergrad university, you.

You and God have been in cahoots for over 100 years now. I should have seen. It's so obvious now that I'm not with you anymore, but isn't that how it always goes? Children don't appreciate their parents or family until they're away from them. Christians don't appreciate fellowship until they're in situations without a single kindred spirit. Speech-therapy graduate students don't see how wonderful you are until they're brought to tears in the middle of the clinic workroom five states away.

It's been almost two years since we last saw each other and I just wanted to say these words: Thank you for staying as true to Him as possible in this crumbling country. Thank you for housing professors and God-based classes that polished my life and sand-papered my soul. I'm two years late in saying it, but I deeply appreciate you and all that you entail. I miss you terribly. I wish you'd come and visit or teach UCM a few of your moves. I can't come back to you because God wants me here, but you will forever be on my "thank you" list to Him. I sincerely mean this. This ain't no April Fool's.

Yours truly,
Nadine