Chwazi

Rob and I decided this week that one of our favorite Creole words to say is "chwazi".  I like it because it is fun to say.  You know, the same reason I choose Gonzaga and Xavier during March Madness :)

This morning the word came back to my mind again as I continued reading, "One Thousand Gifts".  I am only in the second chapter technically...I read the first chapter three times in a row ;)  In the first chapter, Ann talks about making the choice to eat the manna that God sent/sends from heaven.

Do we choose the manna we don't expect?
Do we choose the manna when we don't know how it will fill us or how it will "benefit" us?

These are some of the questions that I have been trying to throw around in my head the past few days.

The second chapter of the book starts with Ann describing a nightmare in which she was told she had cancer and her chance of survival was slim.  She explains that when she wakes from the dream, all she wants to do is fully live.

"Funny, this.  Yesterday morning, the morning before, all these mornings, I wake to the discontent of life in my skin.  I wake to self hatred.  To the wrestle to get it all done, the relentless anxiety that I am failing.  Always, the failing.  I yell at children, fester with bitterness, forget doctor appointments, lose library books, live selfishly, skip prayer, complain, go to bed too late, neglect cleaning the toilets.  I live tired.  Afraid.  Anxious.  Weary.  Years, I feel it in the veins, the pulsing of ruptured hopes.  Would I ever be enough, find enough, do enough?  But this morning, I wake wildly wanting to really live.  How I don't want to die.  Is that the message of nightmares and dreams?  To live either fully alive...or in empty nothingness?"

We have a choice to DAILY live!

I was found this morning thinking of the word "chwazi" and immediately relating it to the choice that God gives us to love him.  That freedom that is found there.  In the past, I don't know if I have really grasped the magnitude of this.  I haven't really seen the power that has come in being able to choose God.

The choosing is not an easy road.  It is a commitment.  A DAILY commitment.  It isn't a simple choice, but comes with requirements of committing to follow through on that choice all day every day.  And because I am weak and my flesh fails daily, I find the need to commit myself day after day to the choice of loving God and receiving his love in return.  I also am discovering that within that lies the choice to put myself in the pit with the lions, to chase the Wild Goose, and to love in a CRAZY way!

Today I am seeking to embrace the "chwazi"...seeking to find how one lives ready to die, yet fully embracing the life that is right in front of us.