PUT ON A HAPPY FACE

Maybe I need to stop being so positive.

When we were growing up, my brothers used to tease me about my "just smile and be happy" outlook on life. "Why can't we all just hug and be friends?" they would chime, in an over-the-top sugary voice with a plastered grin. Then they would try to convince me that I was unrealistic and that life wasn't that simple.

In those days I was obsessed with big yellow smiley faces, the kind they have on Wal-mart's "Low prices everyday" signs over bins of pencils and cans of green beans and other things that I didn't know I needed until I see that they're ONLY $1.99 each! Those yellow smileys became my trademark in my early twenties. I had a smiley keychain, a foam smiley-face ball on the top of my car's antennae, and huge round sun shades with yellow smileys to keep my dashboard cool in the summer.

Now that I think about it, I don't think I chose any of those smiley items for myself. Friends started getting them for me, and then somehow it became known that Michelle liked yellow smiley faces. Maybe it's because I always put little smiley faces at the end of emails or letters. Or maybe it's just because I smile a lot! I remember once in an English Composition class at the community college, a concerned classmate asked me when I walked in, "What's wrong, Michelle?" Taken aback, I said I was fine. "But you're not smiling," he persisted. "And you're ALWAYS smiling. So something must be wrong!"

I think I'm naturally a "glass-half-full" optimist. But I wonder how much of my always having a cheerful expression is a learned behavior. As the oldest child, as the daughter and grand-daughter of missionaries, I've often felt pressure (real or imagined) to keep up a certain image, to look like I have it all together.

Over the last three years I've been involved in the long-term 24-hour care of my centenarian grandmother - through the ups and downs of strokes, emergency room visits, hospitalization, home health care, physical therapy, and middle-of-the-night assistance for bathroom use. "I could never do what you guys do," countless people have told me and my family, shaking their heads. "You have such a gift for this." Or they say, "Well, God must know you can take it, 'cause He won't give you more than you can handle!"

That's when I start thinking that maybe I'm a little bit too cheerful and optimistic. And I wonder if I'm unintentionally giving the impression that I have it all together when I don't. Maybe I shouldn't always smile and say "We're fine" when people ask how things are going with grandma.

Because often I feel like I'm not handling it all very well. I get stressed. I get irritable. I get grumpy. And the truth is, I don't think I have a particular gifting for caregiving. (I don't remember that being one of the spiritual gifts listed in my Bible). My DNA isn't unique among the human race, allowing me supernatural strength and grace and patience for the particular challenges of caregiving. Neither is the rest of my family specially trained and perfectly suited for this particular season of life. We just do it because that's where we are right now. And you would do the same if you were in our shoes. Just like you take a deep breath, square your shoulders, and face the particular challenges of your life every day.

But I guess that doesn't mean I should stop smiling. I'm trying to learn when and where it's appropriate to humble myself and admit when I'm not doing very well and need help. It's true that God does give us the grace we need for each moment. That's the difference between happiness, which is based on circumstances, and JOY, which comes from the security of trusting in God's sustaining power. So though I don't have to feel pressure to "put on a happy face" just to keep up appearances, I know that in THIS moment, and in the NEXT moment, and in the NEXT moment, He will give me the joy of the Lord if I ask for it, which is my strength. And THAT's reason to smile!

PLAYING "TEACHER"

"Emily, sit over here! Emily, come NOW! OK, I'm going to count to three. One, Two..."

With a stern look and an authoritative voice, Tessa was an imposing figure. And little Emily seemed to have no alternative but to scurry over and plop down in the spot under Tessa's jabbing finger.

But there was something wrong with this picture. Tessa is only five years old.

I had been called in that morning to be a substitute teacher for the kindergarten class, but it didn't take me long to realize that Tessa thought SHE was the teacher.

In the morning as I gave instructions for the reading activity, Tessa stood up and started directing her classmates, "OK, everybody - put your pencils down and be quiet!" In line for the bathroom after lunch, she jumped in the middle of an argument and started telling both sides to apologize. And marching up to me at recess on the playground in the afternoon, she announced, "You need to put Jeffrey and Thomas in time out. They were fighting."

But Emily was her particular target. Maybe it was because they sat across from each other at the same table in the classroom, or maybe it was just because Emily would follow Tessa's commands even when no one else did. After the other teacher and I had specifically told the students that they could color their snowman paper any color they wanted to, Tessa took it upon herself to guide Emily step-by-step through their "free coloring" activity.

"OK, Emily, first get your pink crayon. No, not the dark pink. The light pink. OK, now color the stripe on the mittens pink. Don't color outside the lines! Good. Now get your purple crayon..."

All day long, I reminded Tessa, "You're not the teacher. I'm the teacher. I can handle it. I've got it under control." But apparently, Tessa didn't trust my abilities and felt that the kindergarten classroom would be run better if she were in charge, or at least helping police her fellow students and keep them in line.

What is it about this whole thing that bothers me so much? I reflected as I drove home at the end of the day. The light at the stoplight turned green and I moved on with the flow of traffic. And I realized that in five-year-old fireball Tessa, I saw a bit of myself. Though I may not always verbalize it, I often feel that I could do a much better job leading than whoever is in charge.

"OK, everybody, this is what we're going to do." I see myself as a little girl with pigtails, standing up on a chair, barking out commands to anyone within earshot. "Listen to me, everyone. I know best!" If people would only listen to my wisdom. If everyone would only follow my advice. If I were in charge of everything, the world would be a better place.

I even try to take over God's job sometimes. I seem to think I can handle things better than He can.

But eventually, like Tessa, I have to be firmly but lovingly put back in my place. "You're not in charge," I imagine my heavenly Father telling me, trying to hide a smile. "I'm in charge. I can handle it. I've got it under control."

And, like Job, I put my hand over my mouth.

CONFESSIONS OF THE SLEEP-DEPRIVED

I've discovered that it really IS possible to survive on only three or four hours of sleep a night, but it does strange things to your brain.

I'm a person who requires a lot of sleep, at least 8-10 hours a night. 12 hours would be even better. Even when I was in college, I could never pull all-nighters. Though I confess I did have a bad habit of procrastinating, but no amount of pressure to cram for midterms and finals could keep my eyes open past 1 am. After my forehead hit the page of my Political Geography book one too many times, I would finally give in and crawl into bed for a few hours of shut-eye, setting my alarm for 4 am to continue cramming.

How do mothers of newborns do it? I've often wondered. How in the world can they keep going day after day on the minimal snatches of sleep they get in between middle-of-the-night feedings and diaper changes? I would never make it.

But our bodies have an incredible capacity to go beyond what we think we can handle. Over the last few weeks since my 100-year-old grandmother fell and broke her right femur at the hip socket, requiring hospitalization and surgery to put in two pins, my family has been in crisis-mode, running on little more than adrenalin and desperate prayers. "Abuela", as I call her (the Spanish word for grandmother), now requires 24/7 intensive care. It started in the hospital, where my parents and my brother and I took turns doing shifts with her to answer the doctor's questions and make sure she got what she needed. "Sleeping" is a relative term when the activity takes place in a reclining chair in a hospital room with all the beeps and whirrs and flashing lights of the machines, and nurses and aides coming in every couple of hours to take blood pressure and check her pulse. Trying to work a normal day after a night shift at the hospital was like stumbling around with sandbags tied to my legs, blindfolded and with earplugs, in a thick fog, though which I could barely see and hear fuzzy shapes of people-like-figures that seemed to be attempting to communicate with me in some East African tribal language. My eyelids seemed to be extremely sensitive to the pull of gravity, and my mouth had this embarrassing tendency to fall open as I stared blankly at the person talking to me.

I can understand why sleep deprivation is used as torture in some countries.

Now Abuela is home again. But this means that it's up to my parents, my brother and me, plus a couple of friends who help out a few times a week, to monitor her every minute of the day to ensure that she doesn't try to stand or walk on her injured right leg, which would most likely crumple and the bone would shatter if she tries to put weight on it. But Abuela's dementia causes her to forget that she's injured and try to get up on her own several times a day and during the night. So we're all on high-alert all the time. Usually my mom does the night shift on a cot in Abuela's room to help her get from the bed to the toilet and back again. But I try to help out when I can to give my mom a break. The nights I've done night duty I haven't slept more than three or four hours. I hear every shifting and turning in the bed and my ears are perked for that particular sound of her trying to get out of bed, at which point my whole body jumps into attentive focus to deal with the situation.

But even when she's still I have a hard time relaxing, and end up having stressful dreams about toddlers wandering dangerously close to the edge of a steep cliff with no railing, beyond which is a sheer drop-off of thousands of feet, and I am the sole person responsible for the children's safety. I wake up more exhausted than before I drifted off.

Yet somehow we keep going. Of course there are days when I can sleep in or take naps to catch up for lost sleep. And most nights I get plenty of sleep, so I can't really complain too much. But I'm clinging to that verse that says "He gives His beloved sleep" (Psalm 127:2). I appreciate a full night of uninterrupted sleep more than ever. And the next time I see a mom of a newborn baby, I'm going to give her a hug.

EATING CRACKERS WITH A SPOON

“You can use your fingers to pick that up, Abuela.” I tried to intercept my 100-year-old grandmother's attempt to scoop up a Ritz cracker with tuna onto her spoon.

“It's OK to use your fingers to eat it. The spoon won't work very well.” Seeming not to hear me, my Abuela (grandmother in Spanish) continued to slide the cracker around the plate on the tip of her spoon, intent on her task. Finally I had to gently remove the spoon from her hand and place the cracker between her thumb and forefinger. “It's much easier this way! You can just eat it with your fingers.”

She looked at me a bit blankly, smiling weakly. But she quietly ate the cracker and tuna. Yet not more than twenty seconds later, she was once again chasing another cracker around the plate with her spoon.

Sighing, I tried to keep my voice cheerful. “You can just pick that up with your fingers, Abuela. It's much easier to eat it with your fingers.” This process was repeated at least six times – once for every cracker on her plate.

After about cracker number four, I was ready to confiscate the spoon AND the crackers. This was going to be a long meal.

Multiple strokes over the last few years and creeping dementia cause Abuela to revert to child-like behavior at times. When I'm getting frustrated with having to remind her something for the umpteenth time, I think about all she's lived through in the last century. Raising five children in Cuba, Spain and Morocco. Serving in missions with her husband on three continents. A faithful wife for over 60 years until my grandpa went to be with Jesus in 2004. A grandmother of seventeen, and a great-grandmother of eighteen.

How many nights has Abuela rocked her children and grandchildren to sleep on her lap? How many lives has she touched with her organ and accordion music in church services, or with her services as a capable secretary and accountant, or by her gentle smiles and encouraging words, or with her biscuits and roast beef and rhubarb pies cooked with love? My grandmother is a remarkable woman, and it's a privilege to care for her in the sunset years of her life. And if she wants to use her spoon to try to pick up her Ritz crackers, why shouldn't she? At 100 years old, she's earned the right to eat her crackers and tuna however she wants to!

Cheerleader

In 5th grade I wanted to be a cheerleader. Kimberly, who lived down the street, would come over to my house after school and teach me cheers in our backyard. We'd practice the jumps on our big trampoline. Clapping and stomping with the beat, I'd yell out the chants in my best cheerleader voice.

"BE a-GRESS-ive! BE - BE a-GRESS-ive! B-E A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E!"

Cheerleaders seemed so cool - with their cute flouncy skirts and big pom-poms. But I was too self-conscious to tryout for the squad. I was sure I would fail. I couldn't do the splits, for one thing, and I knew that was a requirement. So I nursed my secret dream behind the closed door of my bedroom, where no one could see me or make fun of me. And I kept practicing the one or two cheers I learned from Kimberly - just in case one day I was good enough to make the cheerleading squad.

"BOOM! We're dynamite! BOOM! We're dynamite! We're tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick BOOM dynamite!"

Though I never got to wear the flouncy skirt and shake the pom-poms on a cheerleading squad, I've come to realize that I AM a cheerleader. I love to encourage people who are struggling, to cheer on those who are doing good work, and to give someone an emotional boost when needed. By cheering for you, I'm saying that I am part of the team too. I'm saying that we're in this together. I'm saying that I believe that God is doing a good work in you, and He won't stop until He's finished!

And not only am I cheering for you, but Jesus is cheering for you (Rom 8:34)! The angels in heaven are cheering for you (Luke 15:7)! Abraham, Moses, Esther, Ruth, and Paul are all cheering for you (Heb 12:1)! What an amazing cheering section that is!

Who can YOU cheer on today?

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses... let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." Hebrews 12:1

Wai Guo Ren

"Wai guo ren! Wai guo ren!" The little boy pointed at me across the lobby of the Shanghai hotel.

Catching his eye, I smiled and waved. This prompted the boy to investigate the strange foreigner at closer range.

Coming closer, with his patient grandfather in tow, the boy continued to talk loudly about the foreigner, asking his grandfather what she was doing there.

Only a few feet from me now, he continued to state the obvious to his grandfather. "Wai guo ren!"

"Wai guo ren?" I acted surprised and turned to look over my shoulder. "Nali?" (Where?)

The boy's jaw dropped, as he pointed at me, "Ni shi wai guo ren!" (You are the foreigner!)

"I'm not a foreigner," I stated in Mandarin. "I'm Chinese! Don't I look Chinese?"

Now the boy was really confused. He looked at me for a moment, studying my blue eyes, brown curly hair, pale white skin with freckles, and "tall nose" (as they call Western noses in China). After a minute he nodded with satisfaction.

"Yes, you look Chinese," he finally admitted. Then turning accusingly to his grandfather, the boy said, "And YOU said she was a foreigner!"

Wisdom From Pooh

A few weeks ago I ventured into the depths of the attic of our old house, the one I lived in since I was nine years old. During my moves across the ocean and back again over the last several years, boxes labeled "Michelle's Stuff" (a.k.a. miscellaneous things that didn't fit in my suitcases) waited for me in the attic. One of those boxes had "Michelle's Books" scrawled in black marker on the side. It's a small collection, actually, of beloved books that I couldn't bear to give away but couldn't take with me to Asia or Europe. Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." Helen Keller's autobiography - "The Story of My Life." Corrie ten Boom's "A Prisoner And Yet..." And "The House At Pooh Corner" by A.A. Milne.

Adventures of Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Rabbit have been my nightly entertainment this week. I love the way A.A. Milne uses language and the way he captures the feeling of childhood. I love Pooh's poems about snow and fir-cones and honey-pots. And I must confess, I cried at the end of the book when Christopher Robin says goodbye to Pooh - "Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred." It just doesn't seem right that Christopher Robin has to grow up and leave all his friends and adventures in Pooh Corner. But I suppose we all have to grow up sometime. Even Pooh-bear, who is, after all, a bear of very little brain, seems to understand and accept this somehow.

Here are some of my favorite moments from "The House At Pooh Corner."

On Being Clever:
"Rabbit's clever," said Pooh thoughtfully.
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit's clever."
"And he has Brain."
"Yes," said Piglet, "Rabbit has Brain."
There was a long silence.
"I suppose," said Pooh, "that that's why he never understands anything."

On Writing Poetry:
"But it isn't Easy," said Pooh to himself, as he looked at what had once been Owl's House. "Because Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you."

One day, when Pooh was walking towards this bridge, he was trying to make up a piece of poetry about fir-cones, because there they were, lying about on each side of him, and he felt singy. So he picked a fir-cone up, and looked at it, and said to himself, "This is a very good fir-cone, and something ought to rhyme to it."

(Rabbit to Pooh, after Pooh has sung him a song)
"Did you make that song up?"
"Well, I sort of made it up," said Pooh. "It isn't Brain," he went on humbly, "because You Know Why, Rabbit; but it comes to me sometimes."
"Ah!" said Rabbit, who never let things come to him, but always went and fetched them.

(As Pooh is finishing reciting his new poem about Tigger)
But whatever his weight in pounds, shillings, and ounces
He always seems bigger because of his bounces.

"And that's the whole poem," he said. "Do you like it, Piglet?"
"All except the shillings," said Piglet. "I don't think they ought to be there."
"They wanted to come in after the pounds," explained Pooh, "so I let them. It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come."
"Oh, I didn't know," said Piglet.