I love my morning commute–even in the rain. I feel like I get to the office in a better mood for having spent a few minutes outdoors, and I’m hoping the mile round-trip will help slow the typical post-wedding weight gain. Downtown is kind of a busy, bustling place, and not all of the buildings and people I walk past are picturesque. My six-block route takes me past five bars, two clubs and a recovery center. Within the radius of a couple of blocks there is also a rescue mission and Opportunity Council buildings. In the morning dark of winter, I noticed people re-packing bags or rolling up blankets after having spent the night in a doorway. I began avoiding the side of the street with the large, out of business retail building, because its overhang area often smelled like vomit or urine. At night, I avoided the same block because of the people loitering outside the bars.

There are a few panhandlers, but most people don’t ask for money, they’re just looking for somewhere dry they can stay for the night. Some look like they are on their way somewhere else, but others are regulars, with tents pitched under the bridge, or near the outlet for Whatcom Creek. People who work with the rescue mission tell me not to give money–that the people who ask for handouts are the ones who’ll just spend it on alcohol or drugs.

A few months ago I was approached by a tearful girl in her mid-twenties. She wore one of those puffy coats with fur on the collar, a wide-purple ear warmer, and her blonde hair was pulled neatly up into a pony tail. She didn’t look particularly homeless, that is, her clothes were clean, and she looked like she had just showered. She wanted two dollars (just two dollars) so that she could put gas in her car to get home. I tried to be kind when I told her I didn’t have any cash, but the thing is, I saw her before she saw me, and she didn’t put her cry-face on (didn’t, in fact, seem even remotely distressed) until after she spotted me.

I’ve seen that same girl more than a dozen times since November, and she often tells a different story. One morning as she was hitting up another innocent bystander, a man came charging out of a nearby Starbucks, shouting, “Don’t give her money! She’ll only …” I rounded the corner and missed the rest of the confrontation.

I’ve run the gamut of emotions–pity, anger, contempt. It wasn’t until a co-worker commented, “Well, Jesus said, ‘Give to the one who asks,’ not, ‘Give to the one who is telling the truth’” that I thought about Jesus’ response to an addict. My father-in-law, a pastor who works in both the county jail and the state penitentiary told me just to approach her, and ask to pray for her. To actually pray with her there on the street corner in front of the sporting goods store, if she’ll let me. My husband reminded me that money is only a temporary fix for her. What she needs is Jesus.

Since having those conversations with people I trust, I’ve seen her another three or four times. I keep losing my nerve. She always manages to catch me when I’m in a hurry, or not prepared to meet her. I feel a little inadequate to help her. I worry about her response. I’ve been troubled over the harassed and helpless of downtown for months, and now that I have a concrete task, I’m afraid to do it.

So we talk about our fears. “I fear snakes,” I say. “They have fangs, they are strong, they move quickly, some are poisonous, and others are very big.” To drive the point home, I add, “I am afraid of snakes.” Then I open the discussion. “José, what are some things that you fear? What are you afraid of?”

José* earnestly declares he is afraid of the dark, and later I wonder what has happened in his life to resurrect a phobia most often associated with childhood or very extreme trauma. He is the hundredth student I’ve wanted to ask, “How did you get here?” Not necessarily here to this class or this country. Really, I just want to stop and ask for his whole story.

Karina* is afraid of dogs, and also mice. Her husband Ivan*, a big Russian man, grins slyly at me, and says, “When I live in Bolivia, I own anaconda.”

“You mean like the movie? Or a snake?”

“The snake. He was small.”

“How big is a small anaconda?”

Ivan spreads his hands like a fisherman telling a one-that-got-away story. “Not too big,” he says. “Maybe 5 meters.”

“Five FEET? Or five METERS?”

Ivan insists his snake was 15 feet long, and I play up my actual horror as we launch into an impromptu lesson on comparatives. Humor can be hard to come by in ESL class. It can be a cultural thing, or sometimes (especially at the lower levels) students are working so hard just to understand, that a play on words is lost. So they relish the moment to laugh at this silly classroom aid who is afraid of snakes.

We move on, and I ask Binh*, a very slight Vietnamese man in his sixties, about his fears. Binh doesn’t like to speak in class. His accent his difficult to understand, with clipped-short syllables, and muddled consonants. But his handwriting is impeccable, and as the two elder-statesmen of the class, he and José have struck up a friendship. But Ivan isn’t done being funny. As Binh hesitates over his answer, Ivan pokes him and says, “Probably big women, eh?”

Binh looks sour. The rest of us explode with laughter.

—–

*Names changed to protect privacy.

Relatively easy, generic resolutions. Why are they so difficult to carry out? Two weeks into the new year, the gym is just as empty as it was the last time I went in November, which tells me that quite a few people have already quit on their fitness goals. I’ve come to realize that failure is part of my identity. It is also common social bonding agent, because success-oriented people are seen as self-aggrandizing fatheads. I’d rather commiserate with the people in the room who can never seem to get out of bed in the morning than stand around with a bunch of morons who are patting themselves on the back.

Successful people are threatening. I don’t know how to interact with them. They throw me off my game–even the endearingly humble ones. I’d rather hamstring myself and hang with the failers, because they are darkly funny, and I do so love gallows humor. Success is scary, because it’s different, and in order to achieve it, I must leave the comfort of my own country behind.

So. This year, I resolve all my standard resolutions, but I resolve also not to presume defeat. And I resolve to create plans for implementing change, not allowing my good intentions to stay in the realm of the undefined.

I resolve success.

Thank God also for friends who come bearing cookies, offers of help, and reminders that when the big day arrives, what matters is that we’re getting married. That everything else can fall to pieces, and as long as we vow to love and cherish each other for the rest of our lives, the wedding will be a success.

This is clearly something that every married person has been told on their own journey towards “I do.” I know this, because every married person who asks about stress follows their query with the same assurance. It’s like a mantra, and I have a sneaking suspicion it isn’t entirely true. Honestly, if the reception hall were to catch fire and we all had to evacuate before making it through the buffet line, I’d be grateful for the safety of my friends and family, and I’d be terribly happy to have my husband, but I would feel like the party itself was a bit of a failure.

I’m in need of a constant reminder that a wedding only marks the beginning of a new adventure–one with so many ups and downs. Is it okay if that realization doesn’t sink in until later?

The following is an excerpt a devotional I wrote for the upcoming May-June ’12 issue of Bible Study Magazine. You can subscribe to BSM through their website, or find the current issue for sale in Barnes & Nobles stores across the country.

I turned in my discipline card after a vegetable showdown with a 7-year-old, and enrolled in the business of bribery. Twinkies and potato chips supplemented Mac ‘n’ Cheese. Strawberry Nesquik purchased fickle, childish goodwill. While I liked my young charges, I didn’t love them enough to stand up to them.

Parents want to instill boundaries because they want their children to grow up into healthy, balanced people who can both give and receive love. They withstand the demands of their children and discipline them when needed. Proverbs 3:11 tells us why:

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.

The goal of discipline is not to punish. Though some people fail at this, true discipline isn’t an expression of anger, and it isn’t designed to cause harm. True discipline corrects, sparks change, spurs on growth, and helps us become better people. Parents, motivated by love for their children, actually endure the pain of enforcing discipline, while lesser mortals can’t be bothered.

Have you ever experienced that moment when conversation is elevated to an art?  The story teller hones in on the emotions of his or her audience, pausing, diving in, building tension, throwing in a brief aside that foreshadows the punchline, and bringing down the house with true-to-life details. Only a few people I know have that talent.

Perhaps some of them are naturals; instinctively finding their breath, tempo, and measure of words. I have to practice. I find my emphasis by trial and error— watching my audience to gauge whether I’m providing too much detail, or not enough. Am I rushing the ending, or letting it be carried by the momentum of mirth?With practice, it is taking me fewer re-tellings, and some bits come verbatim, the way a comedian will recite a familiar schtick upon request.

But, the success of a story still depends on the audience. And that’s the lovely thing about stories. A story is an exchange between teller and hearer, and both sides have to participate for the magic to happen.

I went across the world last month, and felt like I was in my backyard. It’s the oddest thing to wake up 16 time zones away and feel like we were only in Vancouver or San Francisco’s Chinatown.