The Graduate Wives

Last night I remembered at 6:05 that I'd been invited to a 7:00 dinner for graduate wives.  I met one of the  women through her blog, The Graduate Wife, but hadn't actually met in person.  Feeling unsure about yet one more event where I was the newbie, I quickly called a new friend to see if she'd like to come along. We made a quick plan and in 10 minutes I was out the door.  Right before I left Olivia said, "didn't I hear you say this was a "heels" event?"  I told her it was, but I was comfortable just the way I was and didn't really want to change.  She told me that my shirt (which was plaid) "just says...... country.  I think you should change your shirt at least." Which I did.  How can I have my 14 year old daughter giving me fashion advice and then not take it?  But it didn't stop there.  She said now my shirt really didn't go with my jeans and "do you have a darker wash of jeans?"  Which I did, so I put them on.  I put my boots on (which counts for heels) and she wrinkled up her mouth and said, "well, it's not the greatest, but it'll work."

I met up with Joy and we walked to Noodle Nation to eat dinner with 8 strangers which felt more like friends.  It was the first time I'd been with this many Americans for months.  As we talked, someone else was lamenting the fact that it gets dark at 3:30 in England during the winter so I told this story:  the day after the time change several weeks ago, I had a massive headache so I took a nap in the afternoon.  When I woke up at 4:45, the street lamps were on and the moon was bright and high in the sky.  I immediately started to cry.  The thought of the sun leaving me so early in the day was too much for me to take that day.... and the next.  When I finished telling the story, one of the girls said, "Can I ask you a strange question?  Is your husband doing the OCCA course at Wycliffe?"  (He is.)  She told me that her husband had come home the other day from work and told her that he'd had lunch with these really cool people (those people were Jeff and I) and they should really get together with them.  Now here's that story:  I was still crying about the sun going down way too FREAKING! early when Jeff called to see if I wanted to meet him for lunch.  This was a rare opportunity so I gladly threw my shepherd's pie in the trash and ran out the door.  We went to a little shop on North Parade, just a little ways down from his school.  Behind us in line was the guest professor who'd just taught Jeff's morning class.  He ordered his food in another language then asked if we'd like to eat together.  It was one of those moments that just wasn't an accident.   He and his wife are American and have been in Oxford for a couple years doing research and teaching.  We felt encouraged as we listened to him talk.  It wasn't just one thing he said, it was more like the feeling that God was giving a little more shape and definition to our story.  So anyway, at this lunch we talked about the sun going down so early and I told him my story of waking up at 4:45 in the dark and promptly crying and he smiled knowingly then told us "When you live in England, you just have to learn how to do dark.  Do you ballroom dance?"  He went on to give us lots of other ideas (not that we'll have time for any of them)... although I wouldn't mind giving ballroom dance a try.  Most of the colleges here have beautiful ballrooms and you can take lessons at many of them.  Now the story goes back to Noodle Nation... so this girl told me that when her husband told her about these really cool people they should get together with, he also told her the story of the girl waking up in the dark and crying (me).  It was the second time she'd heard the same story in a matter of two days, so she just had to ask.  So... we met the husband, and a few days later, we met his wife. The coolest part is that they live right across the street from Max's school, so we look forward to getting together.  

The night at Noodle Nation was great, hearing others' stories, laughing and just feeling connected. Being away from everyone I love has really caused me to think again about how important relationships are and how good it is to feel "known" by someone.  It has been strange being the foreigner, being in a land where all this stuff we find weird is actually completely normal to these people and WE are actually the weird ones. People are carrying on with their lives as normal.  Because of the transient nature of Oxford, locals are used to people coming and going all the time.  They may be carrying on as usual with friends and schedules and routines and may hardly notice that I am a fish out of water.  There are fish flopping everywhere, so paying attention to one special fish is not on their agenda.  It has caused me to think about my desire to be known and I can't help but think that we all have this desire.  But what do you do when you can't make it happen?  As much as we crave human love, we actually have a love that is much more steady and unchanging.  Being in Ohio in the same neighborhood, church, schools and with the same people for 10 years, I understood my relationship with God in that context.  It may seem strange, but when we arrived in Oxford I had to realize that although everything around me is different, my God is not.  He is completely unchanging.  He is the same.  He's still my provider and my comforter.  He still speaks to me (with an American accent).  He is deep and abiding.  I am still learning this.  For the first few weeks here, everything felt jumbled up and upside down, like we were Dorothy and little Toto caught in a tornado and had landed in a foreign place.  It has taken some time to to re-orient, to get our bearings.  But I am grateful to be learning that He is the same God for us here in Oxford as he was for us in Westerville.  He's the same God for you at home and at work and at the store as He is for you at church.  He's the same God for all of us as He is in the Bible. Those crazy stories we read are not a fairy tale.  I know we know that, but we don't act like it.    He really did put spit on people's eyes and heal broken bones and hearts. He touched the unlovely.  He made them feel known.  Sometimes we remove ourselves from the narrative of scripture because we just don't see ourselves in the pages.  We forget that He came to put his healing spit on our spiritual eyes so we can see.  He came to break off our bondages and release us into a life of freedom.  He longs with persistent desire to heal our hearts and our bodies.  He touches the unlovely, them and me and you.  He makes us feel known.  And being known tends to change your life.