March 30, 2007
Recognition
Everyone likes to think that their parent/grandparent likes them best, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that my brother and I are favorite grandchildren. Maybe it's because we grew up so far away, or because her heart broke for us when our parents divorced. Who knows. But this means by extension that my grandmother has a little love affair with Michael. (Though really - who can blame her? He is a heart snatcher.)
On Saturday night - once Micheal and his parents had left and we'd all eaten dinner - my mother and I went over to MeMe's house to spend a little time with her while she watched the Gaithers. My mom could tell she was feeling down and asked her what was wrong.
"i just know he recognized me," MeMe said. "He knows who I am." She got very quiet and her eyes filled and she said, "I just wish I could see him grow up."
This is a sentiment she has expressed before, but it guts me anew each time I hear it. Life is not long enough and it is never short on people to love. Especially when there are people like her. Babies like him.
Sometime on Sunday night or Monday morning, my grandmother had a minor stroke. Perhaps it happened as my mother was driving me to the airport to fly 500 miles away. Perhaps it happened in her dreams. She told my mom that she felt her mother (my great-grandmother) holding her hand, pulling her along. "I felt my mother's hand," she emphatically replied when her daughters suggested perhaps it was a dream or simply the sensation of her brain misfiring, malfunctioning.
Time doesn't stop. Life circles on and on and on. Don't forget to remember that it's cycling right past you too.
Posted by hannah at 10:43 AM
March 28, 2007
(Re)new
Dell finally did the right thing and sent me a new laptop to replace the (brand new) one that went kaput more than 365 days ago. (Thanks Dell! You stink.)
So shiny new laptop (yay), which means I can update my iPod for the first time in forever. Searching through podcasts, I discovered that Dr. John Piper's home church, Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis, puts his weekly sermons online for downloading at no charge. After hearing Piper at Passion '07 I've become a regular reader of his Desiring God site and really enjoy his "brainy" style and to-the-point teachings.
Having access to my iTunes account also means I was able to finally purchase the available-only-on-iTunes bundles of Passion '07 songs and messages. Melissa chose two of those songs - "Oh, the Glory of It All" by David Crowder Band and "You are God" by Charlie Hall - as her wedding processional music, and it was incredible. (As if I wasn't emotional enough hearing them again and being swept back to that dark, God-filled arena three months ago, now I'll always remember walking down the aisle and seeing Adam's face as he watched Melissa walking toward him!)
Seeing her get married was more than just watching my friend embark on a new road. I witnessed a miracle. I saw the proof of God's grace and majesty. God changes life. He restores. He refines. He reclaims. He renews. It is the cry of my heart to praise Him forever because of it.
Posted by hannah at 06:57 PM
March 26, 2007
Wed
Melissa is married. She was one of the most beautiful brides I've ever seen, and the ceremony was unique and totally them. (Not to mention intense and a total sob-a-thon.)
It's a new chapter, another page. When I told my mom how Mo and I talked about the fact that we won't be going to Siesta Key just the girls anymore, my mom said, "Oh you might. In 25 years or so - when your kids are grown and off to school - you'll take girls' trips again." I sputtered, "Twenty-five years?!" But then I think, the past nine have sped by and they say the older you get the faster life flies, so perhaps we'll be back on the beach working on our old wrinkly 55-year-old tan selves before I know it.
Posted by hannah at 08:59 PM
March 19, 2007
Baby Bellies Everywhere
Tonight I went to a large Junior League event, and it seemed like every where I looked there was another pregnant woman, including the woman I manned a booth with for two hours. There were pregnant women pushing strollers, pregnant women with toddlers draped across them, pregnant women about to give birth any day, and even a teeny, tiny pregnant woman who told us she was only 14 weeks along.
I guess I'm just at that stage of life where most women in my age bracket are pregnant, either for the first time or the third or fourth. It's not so unusual, I guess. After all women have been pregnant since the creation of mankind, but when it's your generation - your friends - it seems both miraculous and crazy.
On Saturday night A and I had dinner with C, Teri and Adam and Adam is suddenly this whole person you can have conversations with. It's amazing, but also strange. A good friend gave birth to her first son last month, and two of my close friends are prenant right this moment - one about to give birth any dayand the other in her second trimester with twins (twins!), and it's all so exciting and grown up. When did all this happen?
Posted by hannah at 10:56 PM
March 16, 2007
Revolution Cry
"In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell
When we were in Romania, the pastor's wife, Rodica, took us on a tour of Timisoara and told us the Revolution Story and her part in it. We stood on the street corner where a man of God refused to denounce his faith and where a crowd of people refused to step aside and ignore the fact that he was being taken Away. A revolution was sparked. It was 1989 and there was no color in Romania; no smiles; no light. Gelu told us that they had a terrible time trying to hide American Christians who came to Romania to witness during Communism, because they SMILED too much. "You could just spot them," he said.
The Revolution Cry swelled in Timisoara during that week in December, and when we stood on the steps of the Metropolitan Cathedral and looked into the now-named Victory Square, it was hard to imagine the entire square filled with people who refused to move. People who refused to step back into their homes and close their doors to freedom. In her quiet manner, Rodica told us of being jammed in with thousands of other Romanians when they heard a woman whisper, "We should shout that there is God." Rodica said she and Gelu looked at each other, silently agreeing to verbally, publicly pronounce the thing they knew to be Truth, and then they said it, shouted it, "there is GOD" and the cry captured the crowd and thousands of Romanians publicly and verbally put words to the Truth in their hearts.
No dictator could crush the Glory of God. No human man ever could or ever will. Seventeen years ago a bloody square was washed white with snow the very day a dictator was put to death for crimes against his people. Every day someone stands up and speaks Truth. The only question that remains is, Will you listen?
"Feel it rising up
Cry of Revolution
Feel it rising up
Feel it rising up
The glory of the Lord
Feel it rising up
Cry of Revolution
As we lift high the name
Every Revolution needs a Revolutionary and His name is Jesus"
Revolution Cry - Passion Band
Posted by hannah at 11:17 AM
March 15, 2007
Who knows?
"If you want your laundry done right, I used to work at Abercrombie, so I'm a preeeeeeetty good folder."
- Andy, The Office, "Traveling Salesman"
Sometimes my life at the Brand feels like it happened to a different person, as if perhaps it was just a movie I saw once, a long time ago. I've been in Atlanta for five years now, which is the longest I've lived anywhere since high school, but yet it feels like I just got here; like I've been here for a minute.
That first year - when I was waiting tables and working six days a week - was hard, undoubtedly. Despite the fact that I was on my feet every day walking miles and miles across a restaurant's hardwood floor, I still managed to gain about 30 pounds. (Ranch dressing is the devil's nectar, y'all, and I've spent the past four years trying to work off its effects!) But it was honest work and I made friends there and I made the work work.
This summer, after Michael was born, I could barely stand living here. I felt far away and disconnected from my family and I didn't know how I would be able to stand it for much longer. But then something happened. I got into a good groove at work and my friend group at church grew exponentially. I finally found a small group that feels like family and it was as if God was blessing my life in Atlanta beyond measure; blessing the decision I made to listen to Him in the quiet and make the leap to move here without a net.
It's hard to know, sometimes, the right thing to do. Where you're being led; where you're being told where to go. As happy and as settled I am here, maybe this isn't where I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life. There is my family still 500 miles away, after all. As much as I love Buckhead Church, there are other churches. As much as I love Atlanta, there are other cities. As much as I love my friends, there are other people whose lives perhaps are meant to intersect with mine.
I try to listen. I try to pay attention to the signs and quiet moments. But sometimes you still just have to leap.
"And who knows but that you were created for such a time as this?"
Esther 4:14
Posted by hannah at 08:42 PM
March 14, 2007
Samoyums
I had Girl Scout cookies for breakfast. That is all.
Posted by hannah at 09:30 AM
March 07, 2007
Half a Year
It's been a little more than six months since Scout showed up on my porch, tail wagging and smiling. I should have known then that she was trouble. No one is that happy.
It's been a huge adjustment (I'd completely forgotten how hard puppies are), and I've had to change a lot of my habits. Now, on the nights I have small group, but want to go the gym in between, I have to go home on my lunch break. Montego could go three days sleeping on the couch without going outside (okay, not literally, but she can go from dawn to well after dusk no problem), but not Scout. Scout needs to JUMP. She needs to twirl and chase her tail and stop frozen in her tracks by a cat or a squirrel.
But it hasn't been all sacrifice. I picked up some new beneficial habits as well, like a two-mile walk every Saturday morning in the park with my friend Lauren before coffee and a few hours in the dog park where Scout can run free, free, free. She is always one of the fastest dogs there and Lauren and I joke that she is on Host Team, as Scout loves to hang out by the gate and welcome dogs into the park.
Last Friday I left work a bit early so I could take them on a decent walk before driving back up to Midtown for the "How Great is Our God" concert. My backyard is fenced in on both sides (neighbor fences), but not across the back (where it bleeds into woods) or across the front where the driveway is. But sometimes-when I'm feeling brave-I'll stand on the driveway and let Scout loose in the back. It was beautiful last week - sunny blue skies and warm breezes - and Scout sped through our yard like a maniac, picking up sticks and tossing them in the air and literally prancing around like a fawn who has just found its legs.
That night Chris Tomlin sang a song with a line about how every creature will praise God and I got tears in my eyes, thinking about Scout earlier that afternoon tearing around our yard, a representation of pure joy. I imagined her shouting, "God - you make the BEST STICKS!" And I realize that makes me crazy and weird, but it also makes me laugh. I wish I had as much joy as this puppy. As much praise for a God who not only made the best sticks, but who also made the best family and the best friends and the best stars and sky and the best life.
On Sunday my friend Mary hugged me and said that something must be going on with me, because "You're glowing and gorgeous!" My life is bursting right now and I can barely stand it. My brother and his wife are expecting (again!), and my recently-engaged cousin Colleen asked me to be her maid of honor. It is my greatest honor to be able to stand up for her as she makes this huge commitment and life change. When she asked me she told me that I am the sister of her heart and that no matter where we are in the world, our souls are connected. That makes sense, I suppose, as our mothers are tethered by a soul connection I couldn't begin to decipher or describe.
Because of Scout, I met a new person, and he is remarkable. That's about all I will say about that.
2007 left 2006 in the dust and I don't know what it is: this new decade of thirtysomethingness; this new puppy; new responsibilities; a renewed commitment to and passion for the Satisfier. I don't know what it is, but I like it.
Posted by hannah at 03:54 PM
March 06, 2007
30 Girls Club
Happy Birthday, Miss Doxie. Welcome to the Club.
Posted by hannah at 05:08 PM
March 02, 2007
Ninety-Nine
Josephine was born on her family's Ohio farm on March 2, 1908, the middle child of an eventual family of seven kids. When she was nine, her beloved daddy passed away from kidney failure. Her memories of him are sparse, but she speaks fondly of trips to town and how he always had candy in his pockets. She was named after him - a Jo to his Joe - and he wanted her to grow up and become a teacher. Ninety years later, she still grieves for him. She recently commented that she didn't understand why she let her older siblings die without asking them so many questions. "Like what?" I asked her. "Like what it was like to have a daddy," she told me.
Joe Morrow's death would alter Josephine's life in dramatic ways. Her mother remarried - what else could she do? - and her second husband was what we would now call a deadbeat, but what they called a shyster. He left her mother Rwilda with another son and not much else. By the time she was a teenager, Jo had been shuffled around - sent to her brother's sister's house in nearby Springfield and left to work the farm while her younger sisters attended school. When she was 16, still just a young child herself, she married her older brother's friend, Elijah.
They had two children in quick succession and lived with his parents on a small, nearby farm. Eventually, Lige had saved enough money to buy their own land. It was a small place, on Paint Creek, and he purchased it in 1926 from the Fishback family for $300 yearly payments. They moved in on her 18th birthday. On that farm, Jo would have several more children, including her sixth, my mother. Four years later, they moved to a larger farm within the same county, but Lige, ever the self-educated businessman, rented out the Paint Creek farm to sharecroppers, retaining ownership of the land. (On that land, two days ago, a fifth generation of Hall babies was born, Lige and Jo's great-great-grandson, Nathan.) On the Hall Farm - as it became known - Jo finally had a kitchen sink with running water and after a few years they put in an indoor bathroom. She was 41. That same year, 1949, their third child Wanda became engaged to a WWII Vet, Edward, and when Ed purchased a diamond ring with which to propose, Lige purchased one for Jo as well. He hid it in his roll top desk and when he asked Jo to retrieve something for him, she discovered the ring instead. It was their 25th wedding anniversary.
In 1950, Lige retired from farm life, leaving the daily operations of the Hall Farm to his eldest son Dick and his new bride. Lige, Jo and their three youngest daughters moved into a 1800s Victorian house in town, blocks away from their church and the girls' eventual high school. My mom speaks of those years with glowing fondness, as it was almost as if they were a second family. There were no more cows to milk twice a day and Jo no longer had to work a garden for profit; instead she grew tomatoes and canned jam for their own use. Lige could walk into their backyard and pick beets for his lunch, which he ate raw covered in salt and pepper. Jo and Lige lived in that house for 45 years. They saw their youngest children get married and become parents themselves. Their brood of grandchildren grew and grew and they were great-grandparents before they finished gathering grandkids. Every Christmas Eve the old house was filled wall-to-wall with people as the family convened to celebrate. Steam would pour out of the kitchen as Jo cooked and cooked, her daughters joining her as they arrived. After the gifts had been opened and the food was eaten, they would call those who weren't in attendance. Wanda in Athens, Ga. Judy in Spring, Texas. Bill in Cocoa Beach, Fla.
In 1995, after it was apparent Lige's health would continue to worsen with age, they made the extremely difficult decision to sell the home they'd occupied for 45 years and move 14 miles to a neighboring county to be closer to three of their daughters. They purchased a small ranch with a porch so tiny, it would fit neither the glider nor swing Lige and Jo had occupied every evening for the latter years of their lives. Back in Greenfield, they would spend their evenings on the big porch with the wide, white rails greeting neighbors as they walked by.
On Feb. 20, 2000 Lige passed away, his death closely following the death of their eldest son. In the subsequent years, Jo would bury two more of her children, as well as her remaining surviving siblings.
Sometimes she wonders why she's still here; why God has blessed her with such long life. But the answer is found in the redheaded great-grandson whom she cuddles and loves just as she cuddled and loved his daddy, 33 years prior. The answer is found in her church's young pastor who visits her monthly to offer her communion and to seek her counsel on issues close to his own heart. The answer is found in the women and families who have adopted her as their surrogate mother and grandmother; the young blonde whose wedding she attended a few months ago, honored as their matriarch though she was only their neighbor.
The answer is found in me, a granddaughter whose life could not be more dissimilar. She is my guiding star, my hero, my love. I could never stop singing His praise for not only making her mine, but for making me hers.
Happy Birthday, MeMe. Your blood is in my heart.
Posted by hannah at 01:42 PM
