An Open Letter to Cancer

Dear cancer,

Thank you.

Not for the terrible disease that you are. Not for the pain that you bring to so many individuals and families. Not for taking away precious weeks that I should have been spending enjoying my newlywed life. Not for the sleepless nights or the countless tears shed. Not for the feelings of helplessness or confusion. Not for the many hours spent in hospital rooms. Not for the emotional toll you take on the lives of those affected by you, or for the nasty way you cause physical pain to your victims.

Thank you.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to love more deeply. Thank you for drawing my family close together during a hard time. Thank you for the community of other cancer victims and their families that you have introduced me to and allowed me to garner support from and provide encouragement to. Thank you for reminding me to put all of my trust in God. Thank you for allowing me to feel God’s comfort and peace in a new way. Thank you for showing me how to count my blessings in the midst of suffering, and for teaching me to choose my family and my faith over my own conveniences or desires. Thank you for teaching me to focus on the positive and for teaching me how to be strong in the face of adversity.

Thank you for showing me what love in a marriage is – it is standing by each other’s side on the ugliest of days, the hardest of days, and the best of days. It’s clinging to each other when you don’t know what else to do, and never taking a day that you have for granted. It’s embracing his pain as my own and working together to overcome something difficult. It truly is “in sickness and in health, til death do us part.”

Thank you for reminding me how amazing my friends and family are. From meals to hanging out to prayers, our friends and family have proven to be incredible people. And my God has reminded me how faithful He is. And those are things you can never take away from us. No matter how many times you bare your ugly teeth.

Cancer – thank you for the good things you brought to my life. But don’t take this as an open invitation to ever make yourself comfortable in my life or my loved ones’ lives again.  I can thank you, but it doesn’t mean I have to like you.

 

(disclaimer: everyone in my family is fine right now. Just using this as an outlet to express some thoughts)

Scars

Praise God we don’t have to hide scars
They just strengthen our wounds, and they soften our hearts.
They remind us of where we have been, but not who we are
So praise God, praise God we don’t have to hide scars

These are lyrics from Jonny Diaz’s song, Scars. There’s a very good chance that I’ve written about this topic before, but hey – there are no rules saying I can’t talk about the same thing twice. This is my blog, after all.

Self-image is something I struggle with, and it’s not an easy thing to admit. I’ve dealt with skin issues for the last 8 years that have left scars on my body, and there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about them and wonder what I would look like or how I would feel about myself without them. Most of them don’t bother me anymore since I’ve come to accept most of them as a permanent part of me, but anytime I get a new one it takes a very long time to get to the acceptance phase. And sure, I worry about my hair and my body and all of that too, like most girls, but for the most part it’s my skin that consumes my thoughts. And it’s made worse by the fact that doctors don’t really know what’s wrong with me – name the cream or pill and I’ve probably tried it.

The good thing about scars, like the song says, is that they don’t “remind us of who we are”, and they certainly don’t define us. The song focuses a lot on emotional scars and how they strengthen us, but I think physical scars can do the same thing. They may not physically strengthen us, but they can emotionally strengthen us.  I remind myself every day that I’m beautiful in God’s image (and my boyfriend seems to agree), and having the scars forces me to focus on this truth more than I would have to if my skin was flawless. I am constantly reminded that God looks at the heart, and not at my physical imperfections. Sure, my heart isn’t perfect either, but sometimes I forget to focus more on making my heart and my mind healthy and beautiful because I’m so consumed with my outward flaws. So in that sense, I can not only know that I’m beautiful in God’s eyes, but I can also be reminded to make sure that I’m keeping my heart clean and healthy and beautiful as well.

While I still wish they were gone, I am learning to thank God that I don’t have to hide my scars, because I am not my scars. I have scars, I always will have scars, but they don’t define who I am as a person. Scars won’t keep me from loving people, serving people, serving God, or going out and enjoying all that life has to offer. The scars remind me of the physical and emotional pain I’ve gone through, but every day I can wake up knowing that I’m beautiful and I have a loving God who looks beyond them and sees me for who I truly am. And while not all people will do the same, I know that I am surrounded by friends and family who truly know me and who love and accept me regardless of what I look like.

To end, scars are not only reminders of what we have been through, but scars are what have healed me and saved my life. My savior has scars, and He took them upon himself so that I might live.

There once was a King who so burdened with grief
Walked into death so that we could find peace
He rose up with scars on his hands and his feet
By them we are healed, by them we are healed.

Counting my blessings

This week I somehow came down with a staph infection, on my face.  Staph infections are never pleasant, but having it on my face left me incredibly self-conscious and really down all week (because it’s not exactly pretty!).  Today I went for a run like I do almost every Saturday morning, and I realized that I’ve been so down and upset over this skin-deep blemish on my face that I have overlooked every other blessing in my life.  I’ve been too focused on the negative and not enough on the positive.  So I decided to stop and take a moment to count the blessings in my life, and I felt like sharing some of them here.  And while my infection is still bothersome, at least I can know that it is only temporary and there is so much more to me than a spot on my face.

• I’m blessed with an amazing education at an amazing school in an amazing city
• I get to play with Moon rocks. I mean, come on. That’s pretty cool.
• I have family and friends who love and support me, even when I make mistakes (or complain too much that my face hurts!)
• I am otherwise very healthy – I have two arms, two legs, functioning eyes and ears, and I can go for long runs in the park on beautiful spring days
• I have a roof over my head and plenty of food in my pantry
• I have a great church and a great church family
• I met this wonderful guy back in November who has been one of the most encouraging and supportive people I’ve ever known, and he still thinks I’m beautiful.
• I have a family to hang out with this Easter (the boyfriend’s family) – always a blessing since I haven’t spent an Easter with my own parents since high school
• I have a dog who loves me on my good days and my bad days

There are many more I could list, but I think you get the point 🙂

Happy Easter everyone!

Living For Now

“We are always getting ready to live but never living.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’m a busy person. I have always thrived on having a lot of things to do and participate in.  I have also always been a goal-setter – I need something to be working towards.  I love the feeling of accomplishing something I set out to do. I love the adventure that comes with pursuing dreams and goals that may seem too lofty to some. I love encouraging people to go for their dreams, to set high goals and work towards them ,and to never be discouraged. 

I have found myself very focused on how my every day tasks and decisions will affect my future.  I’m always preparing for the next chapter or big event in my life. I am going to graduate in a year and a half, and I need/want a job. I am constantly finding ways to improve my chances of getting the best and most enjoyable job possible.  Who should I network with?  What causes do I need to be invested in?  What extra tasks can I accomplish to set me apart from other job candidates?

Even while I’m preparing myself for my future job, I’m thinking about how that future job could lead me towards my ultimate goal: becoming an astronaut.  What kind of attitude do I need to have? What skills do I need to add to my skill set? What is my plan in case I’m not selected? And then while I’m thinking about all of the things I need to do to become an astronaut (get my Ph.D., get SCUBA certified, exercise, etc.), I’m thinking about what I will do when that part of my life is over.  I want to work in a management office and help select and train the future generation of astronauts.  What do I need to do to get to that point?

Then there’s the non-career part of my life.  What about my family? What do I need to do now to learn how to be the best wife, mother, grandmother, friend?  How will my career choices affect the people closest to me? What kind of financial choices do I need to make now in order to support myself and my children? How can I balance career and personal life?  How can I serve my church and community all while being an employed wife and mother?  These are the questions that are always in my mind.  These are the things I live for.

But there’s one thing I haven’t been living for enough: right now.  I have found myself so focused on preparing for the next thing in life, that I often miss what is happening to me in this moment.  Who are the people around me now?  Who should I be serving now?  What great opportunities and memories am I missing out on because I’m so focused on making sure my future is solid? 

I am not saying that preparing for the future or thinking about the future is bad.  I still plan to make choices and decisions that will hopefully positively influence my future career and my personal life.  But I want to spend more time focusing on the people and events around me right now.  God has blessed me with a great family, great friends, a wonderful boyfriend, a great grad school program, and He has always provided for me.  I know I can trust Him with my future while still enjoying my present.  I want to learn to live, rather than spending all of my time preparing to live.  And I want to learn to slow down.  Enjoy life.  Because we honestly can’t control the future, and we never know what it truly holds.

“We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.”
― Bill Watterson

On Being Single…and happy.

Alright, let’s talk.  I’m 26 and single – and I get asked the question “are you ok?” in regards to my singleness quite often.  Yes, most of my friends are married or are getting married.  But believe it or not, I am truly happy for them.  I don’t feel “left out” or jealous or depressed.  I don’t sit in the back row at the ceremony sulking in self-pity and wishing that I was the one in a beautiful white dress getting married to my prince.  I don’t see engagement notifications on facebook and get angry and think about unfriending the happy couple because it’s “just not fair.”  Sometimes I don’t even notice when I’m the only single person in a group of my married friends!  Which says a lot for my married friends too – I appreciate the ones who don’t let marriage stop them from occasionally hanging out with their single friends.  Because trust me, single people need examples of good, healthy, strong marriages, and we actually like hanging out with married people!  That’s a message for another blog post though.

Don’t get me wrong, I very much want to get married, and I very much don’t want to be a whole lot older when it happens. And sure, there are some nights when I’m lonely and wish I had a male companion other than my dog to share my day with.  But I don’t sulk in those moments or let those desires drive me to settle for someone who is only half-decent or who only sometimes thinks about treating me like a princess.  Some people say my standards are too high or that I’m too picky – but I don’t think it’s wrong to think I deserve someone who treats me right and who I would actually enjoy spending the rest of my life with.

I know that often times the “are you OK with being the only single person in your friend group?” question is often asked in innocence and not meant to be hurtful, but I do ask that if you are thinking about asking someone that, pause and think about how it might make them feel. I’m sure most single people are aware that they are single, but that doesn’t mean that we are unhappy being invited to weddings/baby showers/etc.  And sometimes it’s the question itself that gets us upset, because now we feel like people are concerned for us or feeling bad for us when they have no reason to.  And please stop acting surprised when the response is “I’m perfectly happy for this set of friends and their new life together” – because that statement is usually 100% true and not a cover-up for self-pity.

I’m not going to use this post to ramble on about what I want in a guy, or complain about why I don’t have a knight in shining armor on my front doorstep – this isn’t an advertisement to say “hey! I’m single!” – it’s just a rant about my thoughts, because that’s what my blog is for.  I’m happy waiting as long as God wants me to for the right person.  I’ve trusted him for the first 26 years of my life and that has gone pretty well, so I’ll wait another 26 if that’s what it takes to find the person who will treat me like a godly man should treat a woman.

Rant over.

Rest

I realize it has been over a year and a half since I last updated this, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I’ve realized I best express my thoughts when I write them down.  That and it always makes me feel better.  So I’m going to try to blog occasionally again. I’ll write about exciting life events, as well as thoughts that I might be having on that particular day.

This week was a bit rough, but I’ve had to re-learn what it means to trust and rest in God.  Sometimes I think God puts circumstances in our life just to make us see that we need to lean on Him and rest in the peace He gives.  Making hard decisions is a lot easier when you have prayed and can rest in the peace that only God can provide. Oh, and when you have awesome family and friends to provide support, encouragement, and prayers.

I’m starting up Year 4 of grad school next week – goodness, where has the time gone?! Right now I’m on track to graduate with my Ph.D. in ~May 2015, and I plan to keep it that way!  I love grad school and have been very thankful for this experience, but I’m also ready to move on to the next thing in life (aka, a job!).  Being a student can be tough at times, because life is constantly changing.  New friends are made, old friends move away, classes and responsibilities change, moving happens way too frequently, there’s always a window of “I’ll be leaving this place in X number of years”, etc.  I love being a student because I love learning, but I’m ready to settle down.  I’ve watched many close friends move on to the next chapter of their lives, and I’m ready to do the same.  I forget what it’s like to live in one place and not know that you will be leaving after some set amount of time.

Although I have a strong desire to move on to the next phase of life, I’m trying not to miss what God has for me here, right now.  There are still friends to be made, experiences to be had, and assignments to complete.  I don’t want to be so focused on the future that I miss the present.  I choose to rest in the great things God has placed in my life here in St. Louis, and enjoy them to the fullest.  I’m also not ready to start paying back my student loans, so I’ll appreciate being a student a little longer 🙂

~ Ryan

At JPL participating in the Planetary Science Summer School!

What’s in a Friend?

So I’ve had a bit of a rough day, which means I’ve done a lot of thinking – and then I realized I haven’t updated my blog in forever so I figured this would be a good place to express my thoughts.

I’ve been thinking about friends today – not because I don’t have any or because I’m mad at any, but just because.  I’ve been wondering what makes a friend a true friend, and what are the different categories of friends that we end up having?

I’ve realized that the people I consider my closest friends are the ones who truly know me.  They’re the ones who know my heart and my flaws and yet still want to be my friend.  The people who help me through the hard times and who help me work on my flaws.  The people who I can sit down with when I’m having a bad day and pour out the deepest parts of my heart and really get at the core of what is causing me to feel the way I do.  Or the people I can have coffee with and talk about my dreams and desires and life goals and not feel like I’m being judged or interviewed.  The people who know what truly makes me happy and what motivates me.  The people who know how to handle me when the not-so-flattering sides of me come out.  These people might as well be family.

I think we all have friends that we like to hang out with and who we think are fun, but yet they don’t really know us.  We just feel like we have to be fun when we’re around them and not necessarily let the deep parts of our heart come out.  And not every friend needs to see that deep into our heart, but we all need at least a few who we can pour ourselves out to.  These aren’t bad friends to have…it’s always good to just have some people you can go out and have fun with.

Then there are the “friends” who just take advantage of us or take us for granted.  The ones who have figured out how to make us do or say the things that benefit them and work to their advantage, but then never give anything in return.  I tend to be a very nice person (or so I think), so I’ve had several of these people pop up in my life.  Somehow they always seem to think that I don’t realize what’s going on, but I’m not stupid.  These are the people who constantly ask you for things and then never give anything in return or show appreciation.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love doing things for people without expecting anything in return.  But I also hate being taken advantage of.  But as much as I hate being unappreciated, I have to keep reminding myself of Galatians 6:9 – “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

OK – thought process is fading so I think this blog post will as well.  Sorry for anything that seemed incoherent, I tend to just write as I’m thinking.

And to all the close friends I had in Florida – I really miss you guys.  Like, more than you know.  

Summer Ups and Downs

So there’s only about a month left for summer break, so I figured I should send out another update.  It appears that my last update was mid-June, so I’ll try to pick up from there.

Around the end of June, I was really starting to get lonely and sad.  I hadn’t seen my family since Christmas and was missing my friends from Florida since I haven’t been able to find a strong Christian community here.  I had a lot of lonely evenings and got a lot of movie watching done! Luckily I was able to convince my advisor to let me go home for the 4th of July, which was a much needed trip.  About a week later I traveled to CA for a conference, then again to Indiana to see my grandpa who isn’t doing so well.  I think all the time away helped me feel better.

I still struggle with loneliness on occasion, but not nearly as bad.  I enjoy hanging out with my friends from school, but I am still longing for a Christian community.  I’m working with a guy at church to start up a college group, so I’m praying that will take off soon.  It’s been moving very slow, but I’m trying to be patient.  I also put in an application to be a leader for the new youth group my church is starting.  It looks like I would be leading weekly Bible studies with middle/high school students if I get the position.  I’m really excited about the chance to work with youth again!

I think I’ve found one of the things that makes me truly happy.  I just absolutely love doing things for other people, for absolutely no reason other than to make them smile.  There’s no greater reward than knowing you’ve made someone happy.  I hope that I can spread a little of God’s love just by doing little things for people every now and then.  I think that’s one thing that’s really kept me going this summer.  I’m really trying to make it a goal to let people know how much I appreciate them as well.  I know how it feels to not feel appreciated, and life is too short not to let people know that they mean something to you.

Well school starts soon and I’m sure I’ll get super busy again, but I’ll try to update a little more frequently.  God has been continually blessing me, and hopefully I can share His blessings with you!

~ Ryan

P.S.  Boys are really confusing.  Just sayin’

 

Dinosaur cookies I baked and decorated with some friends!

A Long Overdue Update…

Well it has been an immensely long time since I updated this, but I figure now that the semester is over and I’m looking for another distraction, now would be a good time to jump back in.

So I survived my first year of graduate school!  And I loved it.  Yes, there were stressful/hard times with little sleep and lots of frustration, but it was completely worth it.  I still know this is where I’m supposed to be, and I’ve had so many great opportunities already.  Just to name a few:

• Traveling to San Francisco
• Traveling to JPL for the MoonRise site visit and meeting some famous/awesome lunar people
• Possibly Going to South Africa in October!
• Playing with Moon dirt (that will never cease to be exciting)

Of course, I’ve also made new friends and started getting plugged in at my new church.  However, I’ve been struggling with loneliness quite a bit since the end of the semester.  I haven’t seen my family since January, so I miss them alot, and I miss the group of friends I had at FIT.  I miss having a close group of Christian friends, and having people to talk to about life and to keep me accountable.  I pray every day that God will bring me more friends like that, so I’m just having to learn to trust and be patient.  It gets hard sometimes though, especially since things are less busy in the summer and I find myself with more time to think and alot more time to just sit alone at home.   I just need to find a hobby…

So in case you didn’t see on my facebook, the mission I worked on last summer did not get accepted to fly.  It was somewhat crushing honestly, since I was potentially going to see an instrument I helped design fly to the Moon.  And my advisor (who was the head honcho for the mission) worked so hard, so it hurt me to see him disappointed.  And now I’m not sure if I’ll get to go to South Africa or not.  But this is the nature of competition, so I’ll just pray for another opportunity to come up soon.  And I’m still aiming to be the first woman on the Moon, if we can find a president who will support the vision of returning to explore our nearest neighbor (I’d talk about that subject more, but that’s a blog post all it’s own).

I also didn’t get the JPL fellowship that I applied for, which would have let me do some awesome research at JPL for 3 summers.  But I’ll try again next year, I’ve decided not to let myself get upset about it.  God’s plan has always been greater than mine.

I’m working on trying to move right now, but I haven’t heard back about the place I applied for.  I want a place with a fenced in yard so Riley can have more freedom.  I found a nice flat that is walking distance to school, so after stressing for an entire day I decided to apply for it.  I’m slightly worried about money because it costs more than the place I’m at now and I will have to defer my fellowship next semester, but I’m trusting God that if it’s where He wants me to live then it will work out.  He always provides.  I also hope to find a roommate to help split the cost, but that’s been a little hard right now.

Well I’m sure I could go on and on, but I’ll stop there for now.  Happy Friday everyone!

Open Doors

I’ve been back in St. Louis for 2 weeks now, after spending a great Christmas break at home in SC and an awesome week in Florida at a NASA workshop.  And God has only been blessing me more and more since I got back!

First, being able to go to the workshop at KSC in Florida was completely God’s doing.  I found out about it 2 weeks before it was supposed to be held, and it was going to be during the first week of classes.  I frantically started sending out emails and looking at plane flights between SC, STL, and Florida to figure out how I was going to get there and if I could afford it.  Well long story short, the faculty told me they would actually be disappointed if I didn’t go because of classes, and told me to take extra time off so I could drive to FL instead of trying to figure out how to get to St. Louis first and then down to FL.

The workshops were great.  I met some really important people in my field, and just happened to meet probably the one guy I needed to talk to in order to get some of my research going.  And God totally renewed my passion to work at NASA after seeing all of the amazing things at Kennedy Space Center again.  More than ever, I know that I’m where I need to be right now and I’m doing what God has called me to do.

So then I get back to St. Louis….

First, I finally find a community group at church to join.  PRAISE GOD.  I need a Christian community so bad right now.  I have some good friends at school, but I miss sitting in a Bible study and having Christians to talk to and keep me accountable.  We have our first meeting tomorrow night 🙂

Over break I spent a good bit of time working on applications for summer positions.  I would ideally like to go back to KSC or JPL because I liked both places and am comfortable in both areas.  But I have put it completely in God’s hands because there are other NASA centers that I could potentially end up at.  Well Friday I got an e-mail saying I made it to the interview round for a program called NASA Academy at Ames in Northern California (or possibly Goddard in Rhode Island).  The amazing thing is, I thought I was ineligible because I didn’t get in all of my letters of recommendation and had mentally crossed it off the list of possibilities.  God is good.  The great thing about this program is that they pay my travel, housing, and give me a food stipend on top of paying me.  It’s not at one of my top NASA centers, but I’m not going to rule it out because I don’t know what God has planned for me, and He has taken care of me so far so I know whatever He ends up doing will be best!

Then on Sunday, I find out that I got accepted to do the next step of a fellowship application for NASA/JPL that I had applied for.  I have to write a research proposal by March 1st, and if I get accepted I will get a possible 3-year fellowship, along with a summer internship at JPL.  And I’m going to write about doing research in some lunar “sandboxes” that have been built with lunar simulant at JPL.  Who said research isn’t fun??  So prayers for that would be great – it’s the one I want the most right now, but again, I’m going to trust God no matter what the outcome.

Finally, on Monday I was talking to my advisor (who is also the head guy for the proposed lunar mission I worked on this summer), and found out I may get to go to JPL in April for a meeting where NASA Headquarters comes and asks a bunch of questions to the mission team as part of the selection process.  I was part of a student project for the mission, so I may have to give a 5 minute presentation discussing our instrument design (the alternative will be making a poster with another student at Wash U who worked on the mission…I would ideally like to bring her and let her give the presentation with me!).  Yes, I would be nervous beyond belief, but I am super excited about possibly having this opportunity.

God keeps opening more and more doors, and it’s so humbling because I don’t feel like I deserve any of it.  It just reminds me how much He loves me, and how trusting in Him and following your dreams no matter what others may say or think truly pays off in the end.  May I never forget to give Him all the credit and all the glory.

**Update!!** Literally as soon as I posted this blog post, I got an e-mail saying that a paper had just been written and my presentation from a conference 2 years ago was cited (that’s good)!  Feels good when you see your work (and that of your mentors) cited for the first time!