Took the Redeye. . .

Last Saturday I faced one of my worst fears: A woman was eating a cupcake, licking the frosting off her fingers, when she came at me, said I had something in my eye and stuck her finger in my eye.

I was holding a giant platter of cupcakes with both hands and was unable to protect myself.

By Sunday my eye was too red, swollen and throbbing to do much of anything, so I threw away my contacts and spent the afternoon laying in the grass, just listening to what God had been trying to tell me all week.

wow.

Two things I learned:

1. My worst fears are really stupid.

2. It's true that what God wants is just to spend time with us. Simple. People have been reminding me of this for weeks- same message from God, just different accents.

I love our God. He allowed my red eye just so I'd have to stop and rest. Maybe (sadly) that's the only way He could get my full attention.

And then all week the song "Red Eyes" by Switchfoot keeps popping up.

Ok, You got me.

Reaching for the other side- You. with red eyes.

Sprinkles, frost, and other sugary weather. . .

Last Saturday was rainy and dreary. It came after a really challenging Friday. The perfect antidote? A kitchen full of giggly girls, chocolate, and lots of sprinkles!

I was busy frosting a cupcake and my friend's daughter just ducked under my arm and made herself at home :)

I gave the girls a cupcake- blank stares. They were waiting for spoons. . .
Then we had an impromptu pizza party and watched Miss Congeniality in Thai (highly recommended. . . .) I think my favorite part was watching them all pile onto 2 motorbikes to drive home

Or, it could be this:

If you don't yet believe God changes people. . .

This is my foot. And the ginormous beast of a bug I confronted tonight. It hissed and spurted stuff all over. (eww!) And, guess what? I won ;)

To those of you who know this foot and the bug-hating girl it's attached to, you will understand why this is a miracle.

I have hope for the girls of SouthEast Asia when I see this

Their faces turned towards an open door, a light, a pillar. Someday you will hold up half the sky

Yes, you.

Phnom Penned

If you tire of life, go to a Cambodian village and teach the children how to play Telephone

Or, Musical Chairs

Some might look at you like this

And at least this one will be too distracted peeling a banana with a butcher knife

Or chasing chickens by the water pump

But they will escort you,smiling, back through the rice fields

And squeal in delight when you hi- 5 them goodbye

And you just might feel a mysterious contentment as your head lolls sleepily against the bus window, green after brighter green passing by.

Awaysick

A strange thought joined me at the corner of street 240 and. . . random unmarked alleyway. I didn’t ask his name. But he is a snappy dresser. I know who he is. It is the familiar-faced idea that perhaps I have been missing Cambodia for 23 years. And then we turned the corner into a whole new street- and I wondered how many countries I’m lonely for that I have never seen. I asked him. He has no idea.

God in the corners

What are the rice fields?

It reminds me of Walt Whitman:

*I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?

If all else fails, I'm going to live on a rice farm

They waft coolness- the sweetest clear air I’ve ever smelled- new, and soft.

I felt as if I had traveled to the oxygen farm and got to eat of it fresh dripping from the tree. It’s that new.

Their gentle whispers kiss your ears as you glide by on motorbike, beckoning you.

*Walt Whitman: From Song of Myself (1855)