The Persian Rug

My uncle is Persian. 

His house is adorned with beautiful Persian rugs.

If he asks us over we usually eat fabulous Persian cuisine. 

My uncle is very generous as is my aunt, and last year in a moment of extreme kindness and desperation to make room for yet another lovely rug, they decided to relinquish one into the clamoring hands of the extended family masses. 

Biggest mistake of their lives.  

From that point on the rug has worked a strange magic on our family, one member at a time. 

It starts as a burning desire, "I must have the rug". You nurse this feeling for a week or two, or months as  you wait to see if you're next in the line up of lucky folks to get the rug.

 It's like the lottery.

 And it's serious. 

Be that as it may, for some reason unbeknownst to me the dang thing never stays in one place for very long...  

Then comes your glorious day. Oh, day of all days. You have the rug in your possession, it is your own.  

Your precious. 

Bask in the short-lived glory. 

It is at this point that the rug's magic turns sour.

You start to wonder..."what if this is actually from Ikea, this tag could be forged" or "What if an Aztec pattern would have looked better with my decor..." 

You  also start thinking things along the lines of "holy-toledo-batman, this thing is roughly the size of a small aircraft carrier". And then, once again - the rug loses its shine, it is rejected and sent on to the next house of heartbreak. The next lottery winner. The next person to fall under the spell of the Persian rug. 

It's a sad tale, folks. It's an orphan rug in a foreign land. It has been stored in three garages in the last year. It has been accepted as a gift and subsequently rejected.  

This is a mystery to all since the rug is for one thing, beautiful - for another thing, huge and thirdly, free. 

That's a triple threat. 

I won the lottery today... the rug is mine for the time being. It's sitting nice and snug in my living room and I actually think I might have made it through the process without becoming disenchanted.

 It's hard to wrap my head around using the word "snug" about something the size of a small swimming pool.

Anyway, I'm off to burn a Christmas tree and sit on my rug. 

xo,  Rae 

This & That

sibs, minus one. 

I caved. 

After giving some thought to the fact that I have an endless list of things I can stand to improve on I decided that my stance on resolutions could use some work. 

Cool how I can make my mind up and change it, right? Yeah. Don't hate. 

So that's my list. Plus one more thing and it's a big one...It's one of those resolutions you make and then consider hiding in a dark room until next year so you don't have to experience the embarrassment of failure. 

But here we go... 

There are times when I can't even remember what peace feels like. My Achilles heel (besides salty/sweet combinations) is fear. 

This is my dragon to fight... fear and anxiety. It always has been, some of my first memories are of being anxious and frightened - I was that kid who had a first class royal meltdown when my parents left me at my grandparents or at a friend's house. I needed a closet and a blanket and I could get it together in a few minutes...sometimes.  

Anyway, this is my struggle - one of many and I fail more often than not. I worry, and I churn and I analyze and reanalyze things I have no control over. I get comfortable with being in turmoil and all the while my focus shifts and shifts again from Christ, from others, from giving and outpouring, to self. It's hard to see others when I'm transfixed with my own reflection, my own fears or struggles. 

That's the funny part... I would tell you that I love to serve others and I really do, I love to give, I love to listen and when it comes to empathizing I can roll with the best of them, but it's a double-edged sword because all of that energy, all of the time and effort it takes to do that for someone else can just as easily and often is spent doing it for myself. What happens then is this train wreck of reasons I'm justified in my fear.  

 I'm not trying to get all cryptic, I can only handle so much intensity without feeling the need for some comic relief, that's the 12 year old coming out in me I guess (seriously guys...). But there are things I'm afraid of encountering this year. As excited as I am, as much as I anticipate learning new lessons and experiencing growth, that struggle pipes up and ticks off a list of reasons I shouldn't move forward. What about loss? What if growth means separation and growth away from people I love? What about disappointed hopes? What about death? The list stretches on and on.

Truth saves. Truth is light in darkness and a truth that comes to mind is that fear and faith cannot abide together.

 I'm fearful, I'm afraid I always will be. There's the comic relief. Couldn't resist, moving on... 

That fear will follow me constantly, or so it seems, but something I want to remember this year and every year after for that matter, is that fear may follow behind me but faith is what causes me to climb. Turning my face to Christ and having faith through difficulty is a life-giver while fear sucks the joy out of tomorrow. I forget, I become fearful about things beyond my control, about change and about the passage of time but I want to grow and I guess that's my biggest resolution of all. 

xo,

Rae