Tell us about five people, places, or things that have brought surprising, healing joy into your life.

1. Both of my children bring unexpected joy, but I remember M’s ultrasound as a particular joyful surprise. We’d always planned to have two children and I somehow figured I’d get one of each. So when the technician said, “Ah! It’s a girl!” I remember my delighted surprise—she felt like this wonderful bonus. (For the record, I would have been delighted with a son, and wrote about my feelings about not having one here.
2. Along those lines, the joy of C meeting M was particularly sweet. We had been told by one of R’s clients—a boisterous Argentinian man with a large family—the secret to sibling bliss: “When you introduce the older sibling to the baby, you have the infant in the bassinet when she walks in. Don’t be holding the baby. You immediately sit the older child down in a chair and hand her the baby. That’s it. They’ll be friends forever after that!”

   We didn’t expect any miracles, but why not? We followed his advice, and I’m sure part of it is C’s personality, but she became very protective of her sister that day. “Give me back my sister!” she would say when others held her. And she is kind and nurturing even now. Did their first encounter make a difference? Ah, who knows.

3. Two of my joyful surprises have been dreams. The first was during a dark night of the soul. I dreamed that I was sitting cross-legged on a porch on a beautiful summer day, in front of a woman in a rocking chair who was braiding my hair. A voice said, “I have knit you together in your mother’s womb” (ps 139). When I woke up I felt lighter and knew that this particular dark time would soon end. It was also an important step in my journey back to God.
4. The other dream I actually wrote about here. It involved a dream in which I was told I would meet my soul mate. As I said in the poem, “the great thing about dreams is, you get to be surprised by the predictable.”
5. I remember the first time I preached, at the church in Houston where I had worked as a youth director, a few months before leaving for seminary. It was a difficult time for the youth—lots of transition, interim leadership at the church, membership loss. Not the best time to be a youth director, to be honest. I remember a parent whose senior daughter had decided not to attend youth group anymore. Not exactly unheard of among busy graduating seniors, but the woman blamed me: You don’t actually feel called to youth ministry, do you? Because I just don’t see it.

   That was hard to hear. I was used to being competent (if not accomplished) with everything I did. If I wasn’t gifted in youth ministry, I fretted, maybe I wasn’t gifted for ministry, period.

   But the experience of preaching was glorious and terrifying and one of the things I’d been put on this earth to do. It’s a privilege to be able to do it even today. Blessed be.