And have a Nice Day

English. My mother tongue.  One I recognize and understand. 

One night at the end of my first year of teaching in Tokyo, I was lying in bed fitfully trying to get some sleep. On the street below, there was a lively party of people enjoying a dinner on the patio of a restaurant. Their laughter and chatter waifed up through my window and flowed into my room. I wanted to understand them or at least have their voices lull me to sleep. Instead I was irritated and annoyed because I really was feeling alone and homesick. It was a culmination of frustration from the many times I was shopping, going to the Doctor, ordering in a restaurant, asking for directions on the street or a million other times when my lack of the Japanese language impeded or halted my communication, my basic need to be heard and understood.

After a fitful night, I got up and readied myself for the day.  I walked to the train station and growled through the crowd as people pushed forward onto the early morning train. When I arrived at my stop, the crush of departing passengers spit me out onto the platform. I worked my way through the lines to the escalators and as I reached the bottom, a station worker noticed the only gaijin-me, and said “Good morning.”  It startled me and I whipped my head around and I said good morning back. Then he added “and have a good day!” My heart soared and my soul leaped for joy. He spoke English and added the caveat of “have a nice day.”  

How often in my struggles  do I go through my days and nights longing to hear the friendly, comforting voice of the Spirit? Do I recognize it at once and whip my head around to see who’s speaking? Am I quick to hear and answer back? Someday the wanting and craving for that familiar voice seems elusive. I’ve found that when the moment is right, when I’m ready to listen, I hear that voice speak clearly and plainly. I’m not forgotten, nor am I alone in foreign territories. He doesn’t forget me and then my heart soars and my soul leaps for joy. 

 Scraggly
On a snowy hillside in Thistle Utah, we hiked up the slope searching for a Christmas tree. Trees in that desert canyon were more scraggly, bushy like than the triangle shape pine tree that graced the picture I had in my mind of what our living room would look like on Christmas morning. The crisp air freezing our nostrils urged us to find a suitable specimen quickly. As my dad used his ax and handsaw to chop the juniper tree, the pungent scent of fresh cut wood drifted into the air and awakened our senses. After dragging the juniper down the slope, my dad tied it to the top of our 1967 Chrysler New Yorker. It clung to the roof, sprawling over the edges and down the rear window as we drove back to our quiet neighborhood in Provo. My mom got out her prized red- satin ornaments and we struggled to find firm enough twigs amongst the stabbing, prickly needles to attach them to. We discovered the bluish, purple berries peeking out among the bushiness and decided we’d just add a few of the red balls the best we could and let the berries be the natural ornaments. With a strand of lights circling around and through to complete the look, we stood back and declared, “It has its charm.”
On Christmas morning, we each had 1 present under the tree. The somber atmosphere was competing with the cheery tunes from Christmas with Ray Conniff playing on the hi-fi.
Mom served us hot cocoa and toast while we took in the scene that Christmas morning.
The tree, the family, the cocoa and toast, the music and the gifts.
That memory has been nagging at me to be written down. What’s the message it wants me to know these many years later? We didn’t have much financially at that time. My dad used to say, ‘we’re not poor, we just don’t have any money.’ We had moved three times in 2 years and were living in an unfamiliar house away from what was secure and familiar. We used to have a fine house full of five kids known as The boys, Barb, and the little girls. Now it was just Sally and me. The little girls. That year felt sparse as if it were missing pieces never to be whole again.
My mom had a calm way of seemingly combining our current situations with her steadfast faith into a sense of security and belonging to an eternal family with Christ as the frame. His grace and mercy filled in the emptiness and as we sat together near that scraggly bushy juniper, He became the natural berries, the perfect ornament that marked its beauty and transforms that memory of that morning into a piece of my faith as it continues to grow. He is the finisher of my faith as I cling onto this journey towards my heavenly home.