Up

Happiness

I love the warm days we've been having recently. Especially when the weatherman says it will be nasty and rainy. So this is a refection of that happiness.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

My London Story

Well, for those of you who haven't heard it... here's my train station story as I recorded it the day after it happened. :)

While I was in the UK visiting Brad and Rache, I decided to take a day trip to London to visit Caroline -- a good friend of mine whom I had not seen in years. We had a wonderful time together and even managed to see most of London in half a day!
As I was sitting at King's Cross Station, 30 minutes or so before my train left at 11:30 pm, it occured to me to check my tickets. I was to take the East Coast train to DOncaster at 23:30, and then, the next morning, I was to take the 6:15 train from Doncaster to Durham, where I would meet back up with Brad. We had thought the train was the same train all the way through, but I noticed that I had two seperate seat assignments. The trains looked to be entirely separate. But I couldn’t find anyone to ask about it, because information was closed down for the night. Then, when I got on the train, no one even came by to collect my ticket. At this point I was beginning to become afraid that I might have to sleep at the train station. Creepy. When we arrived in the seedy city of Doncaster around 1:30 am, I looked around for my 6:15 train to sleep on. No such luck. So I found the indoor waiting room to camp out in for the night. It looked warm, and inviting, and safe enough. I thought I could handle tht. But just as I reached out to open the door, one of the janitors approached me and told me that the room was locked up for the night… but if I went to the station master, she would probably be just fine with letting me sleep there for the night. But when I asked her, she told me that the station was closed and I was by no means allowed on the premised. I would just have to go find a place to stay of the night.
In my panic, I called Dad. In Idaho. No matter what, I thought, calling Dad is what to do in a predicament. And I knew that despite the distance, he would find a way to help. The phone rang and Dad picked up, excited and rambling, asking me all about my day in London. I don’t know what I said, but through my tears I tried to articulate to him what my problem was, while reiterating time and again that “it’s really not a big deal.” It was 40 degrees out. I wasn’t dressed for it. And I was shaking from head to toe. Another janitor ran into me while I was on the phone – a man this time -- and started yelling at me about how young I was. How incompetent. How I never thought about anything before I did it. “NEVER THINK!” he yelled. “ALWAYS ask!” But somewhere in there, after yelling back and forth with another janitor for a minute or so, they decided to let me stay. I told Dad. And that was that. Now…. I had 4 and a half hours to try and sleep. At least that waiting room was warm….
Just as I had calmed down enough to read a couple of pages from my book, a fourth janitor walked into the waiting room. Unlike his co-workers, he was quite a cheerful fellow, but he still gave me some bad news. “Ma’am, you can’t stay here. I’m sorry. We’re closing up.” I started crying again as I packed up my bag. “But where do I *go*? I don’t have anywhere to go!” He told me that there was a shopping center called Frenchgate across the way, and I could probably stay there. The hotels were a bit far out. He took me to the shopping center with two other guys who had gotten into the same predicament. One of the men was tall and sloppily dressed. His grey-white hair came just below his shoulders and was rather scraggily. He had a small mustache and beard, and the crinkle at his eyes softened his otherwise creepy appearance. He walked around, dragging his feet as if he had rocks in his pockets, and I decided that who wouldn’t look out of place in a bar with a nice stout glass of all. Henceforth, I will call him “The Bum.”
The second man was neatly dressed, decked out in a thin grey suit (tie, jacket, the works). His dress shoes were black and neatly polished. He was semi-tall, but rather smaller in build and he had mussed, dirty-blond hair. His expression was kind, but serious. He looked to be about 27 and he carried a small leather satchel that was scrapped and rather weathered looking.
These two men, the Bum and the Businessman, rode up the escalator with me to the second floor of the Frenchgate mall and found some comfortable enough benches to lay on. And no matter what else was wrong, at least it was somewhat warm. The Businessman settled in immediately, the Bum sat there looking a little shell-shocked. Tears still pouring down my face, I pulled out my Bible and read Psalm 91. And then, just as I had been afraid of, the last nameless janitor I encountered that night came up. “WAKE UP!! You cannot stay here. I’m sorry. You must go. Go now.” The Bum and I sat quietly, and the Businessman tried to argue. But it was no use. We were directed to “a small gap, down there. Between those doors.” We were up again and moved to our final spot for the night in a small rectangular space between two automatic doors, one leading to the outside, the other to the mall. I walked in and remarked half to myself, half to the men, “each place just gets colder.” The cove was roughly the temperature of the outdoors, and we were not dressed for it at all. The Businessman, the Bum, and I all took our respective corners, and sat down staring hopelessly at one another. I didn’t cry this time, because, honestly, the only thing left to do was throw me out onto the streets. And that wouldn’t have been much worse really.
I opened up my backpack and took everything I had in there out – a sweater, pjs, and a t shirt, and tried to spread them over me to keep warm. The tile underneath us was freezing. The Businessman had pulled gloves on and was curled up in a corner adjacent to me. The Bum has made his home across from me, and curled himself into a ball. I texted. The Businessman texted. The Bum stared. We all shivered.
Ten minutes into this, the Businessman took off his coat and choked out one word, “Cold?” “I’m sorry, what?” I replied. “Are you cold?” Of course I was, and he knew it. And no matter how hard I protested, it did no good. He handed over his thick black coat and stretched out to sleep on the cold tile. My butt was going numb. But I just sat there and tried to get warm. After about an hour of that, I decided to go to sleep. It was now 2:30 in the morning. After an hour of curling tighter, and shivering harder, I gave up on sleep. Looking around, it seemed that the Bum and the Businessman had given up, too. Both looked rather miserable. Especially the Businessman. He was grey and blue and was rubbing his arms and legs to get warm. He wouldn’t take the coat back.
3:15. We still had an hour and a half before the station reopened. I picked up my book, pulled myself into a sitting position and began to read. The Businessman was so cold at this point that his whole body was shaking. Thoughts crossed my mind about hypothermia. He didn’t look far from it, and I understood the feeling. Despite all this, I did find myself ridiculously amused by the automatic doors. The Bum would cross his arms. The doors would open. He would uncross them. The doors would close. It happened every couple of minutes and, I would laugh outloud every time. I began to wonder if the Bum and the Businessman thought I was mentally unstable.
The Businessman eventually decided that the book was a good idea, and the coat seemed to be a good one, too. So he shivered out a plea for sharing his coat, and scrambled over next to me to share it. We both sat there, thankful for books, coats and company. The Bum still stared.
15 minutes later, the Businessman gave up on his book and worked on not shivering. His whole body was convulsing, and in my ridiculously sleep-deprived state, I had to struggle not to laugh. We shared dreams about heat, getting to Durham, and cups of coffee. If nothing else, a cushion to sit on would have been very welcome. We laughed and shivered and counted down the minutes until 4:45, when the station would reopen.
The Bum still stared. Shivered, shuffled, opened the automatic door, and stared. Meanwhile, the doors open on purpose, and another bum (a real bum this time) stumbled in. His hair was mussed, and his eyes were puffy and bloodshot. His threadbare coat hung off of his too-thin figure, and a stench of alcohol accompanied him as he came in, asking some absurd question about the train, as he kicked the Bum out of the corner he wanted. He slurred together a few words about “moving over” and “matey,” but the Bum just got up (the doors opened again), and took residence in the last of the four corners. He didn’t bother sitting this time. It was too cold. He just stood and waiting for 4:45.
The scrapping of the metal doors was music to our ears. 4:45 was here! Heated waiting rooms! The Businessman and I had become fast friends, and as we walked to warmth, he told me his name was James and asked mine. 3 hours later, after water bottles, heat, hours of laughing and talking, histories of America and England, chats about everything from accents to schooling, from country folk to city folk, and a mutual experience that we would remember for a long time, James and I parted at Durham – he to his house for a couple hours of sleep before tutorial at the university, and me to a coffee shop to juice up on caffeine before what was to be the longest day of my trip. It was one of the most ridiculous and crazy and uncomfortable nights in my life. But God blessed me with protection, and even saw fit to give me a friend for a few of those crazy hours. And I will always remember that night as my run-in with the British – from rude janitors to bums to men like James. And it will always make me smile, and maybe even laugh.

Love,
Julie

That's Life

Dead tired.

Paper due on Monday.

Homework is overwhelming.

And my room is a mess.

Car repairs are really eating into my bank account.

Trying to remember to give thanks. Always.

It's really, really hard.

Maybe that's why it's a command.

Love,
Me

Because it Really Happened

A portion of a sermon Dr. Leithart gave a year or two back

"If [the Resurrection] really happened, then no situation and no person are hopeless. No marriage is beyond repair, no child beyond recovery, no pagan beyond the reach of the gospel, no sin beyond forgiveness, no womb permanently sealed, no one and nothing beyond restoration.

If it really happened, giving up is simply not an option, because if bodily death is reversible, so are all the other little deaths that we suffer in life. If it really happened, hope is not a delusion, but the driving power of abundant life.

If it really happened, then we've got a load of work, because not everyone has heard the news that God has conquered death. Jesus is King and Lord, and He sends us out to announce that He rules. He establishes the church to be the first form and bearer of His kingdom. He intends to overcome all evil and sin, all injustice and wickedness, and calls us in the power of His resurrection to share in His war against all that damages His good creation.

Go to the darkest shanty town of the darkest city on the darkest continent, and there too the Risen Jesus is king. Wade into the waste of the most ruined life, and there too Jesus is the Living Lord. Sort through the wreckage your own sin has caused in your own life, face it in faith and hope, and you will see resurrection life at work through the Spirit, and the liberating power of God's forgiveness.

Because it happened. It really happened."