I'm a sap

Moments ago, I printed out a black and white picture of a sharpei-bulldog mix named Roger and hung it in my cubicle. Lord, help me.

I'm not certain when I became the lady who loves cute animal pictures. Surely, Lindsay of 2003 would be incredulous. The same Lindsay of stark reality who did not tear up during movies or even enjoy the kind of movies during which tears could possibly well. I, who believed that pain was beautiful. I, who devoured Russian novels. I, who held lots of bitterness against Nicholas Sparks, the creators of most suburban housing allotments (as well as the folks who name the roads in the developments), our country's president, Hanson, Celine Dion, and beauty pageant contestants.

Thankfully, while I'm still slightly annoyed by beauty queens, road names ending in brook or wood, and houses with matching roof planes, some bitterness has passed. I tear up at movies. I think I even cried during The Notebook. It's not just that I've become cheesier or more emotional. It's that I have experienced the actual touch of a loving God I had only previously read about and pondered.

A few years ago, I had a tough time enjoying things like beauty and love and loveliness because way underneath my theology and my positive thinking, I just didn't believe that love got the last word. I hadn't experienced it in my own life. I experienced a messed-up world where people were broken and love with cheesiness and cute pictures of puppies were just a false coverup.

Things have changed for me. I still believe that the world is messed-up. People are broken- and sometimes, cheesy love and calendar pages are ways that we hide and pretend instead of getting healed.

However, I've also come to understand that once we get healed, once we experience that love does get the last word, even this messed-up world full of broken people is beautiful because it can all be made whole. It is worth celebrating- and worthy of posting in black and white on my cube- in the form of a very wrinkly sharpei named Roger.