The story of John

I don't think about him much, but I have been thinking about him more lately.  I guess maybe it's the holidays, or the fact that this is usually as long as we go, or that I heard that he's single this year.  He doesn't do well single.  In the past I have always been like some strange platonic version of the 2 am last call call: not really what you want, but better than being alone.  Not this time though, because I have kids to think of now, and they don't deserve that sort of on again of again, convenience based relationship, and because my husband put his foot down. He isn't welcome in our lives until he says he's sorry; not only for the awful things he said during our most recent fight, 3 years ago now, but for everything.  That would be quite a litany of apologies, and since the last thing I can imagine emerging from that mans mouth is an admission of wrong doing, I guess this is the way it will stay.

I used to think that every parent, no matter how sick or twisted, had some sort of biological compulsion to love their child, even if only in their own sick and twisted way. My father dispelled me of this myth when I was a sophomore in high school; "My parents didn't love me." He said, "and I don't love you either.  That's life, so just buck up and deal with it.'

My parents married before they found out they were pregnant, and split up when I was 8 months old.  High time too, since my mom waited by the window for the unpredictable drunken arrival of my father, and then sometimes hid under the bed, for fear what that arrival might bring.  He never hit me, but after throwing ice water at me, she knew it was time to go. Ironically, he doesn't have any memory of this stuff. His alcohol saturated brain, recreated a much rosier picture. He suggested giving me up for adoption, siting that he didn't want me, and she couldn't afford me, but she refused, and so on we went; just the 2 of us and the learning curve string of boyfriends. He signed his parental rights away for relief from child support, you could do that back then, but she let him see me anyway, because she thought I would resent her if I didn't know him. When Christmases came, the gifts I received signed love dad, really came from his girlfriends or his business partner, who felt bad that I would not receive any thing from him. (Strangely his business collects Toys for Tots now, the irony.) The courage it took, for her to leave, to let me see him, to raise me alone, most women don't have it.

She remarried when I was 9, the man who is my real real dad. At just 21 years of age, he endured my hate and bitter venom, as I fought to protect my mom, our relationship, myself from rejection, from his authority. His endurance finally won out, but he still has hate letters in his drawer from my childhood self.  I wonder why he keeps them. My biological dad meanwhile, quit drinking, cold turkey, it's own form of extreme courage, but if you ask me, he was self medicating for much deeper things, so instead of improving matters, it made them worse.

After he told me he didn't love me, we didn't speak again until I was a freshman in college. When we started speaking again, I think I'd long since outgrown the expectation that he would change.  I just thought I could live with the way he was, and make the best of it, which I tried to do, until my children got involved. But then I just couldn't expose them to the hurt that I had endured; years of feeling like it was my fault, before figuring out that he had been damaged beyond ability to love; something that happened long before I came along, and had nothing to do with me. Years of getting my hopes up and getting let down, years of taking a backseat to everything until he got lonely. When he insulted my husband and daughter, lines had to be drawn. He has never met Baylie or Levi; I don't know if he knows about them or not.

I don't think of him too much, but when I do I have a strange subdued feeling, like those passionate feelings of childhood have been muted somehow. I don't feel anger, just pity, and a vague sense of loss.  You stop expecting, but a small shard of heart clings to hope. I no longer feel unlovable, you see, my name, which I never liked, was one of the few things my biological father gave me, only I think now that it was really God who gave it to me. Amanda: it means worthy of love, you see, it was my Heavenly Father, telling me that even if my earthly father didn't find me lovely or worthy, He did, like the way all the biblical names say something about the recipient. What a strange gift.

I believe my dad has a heart so hard, that it will never accept Jesus, because to do that he would have to shelve his pride, but far be it from me to put limitations on God, so everybody say a little prayer for my dad this Christmas, and who knows what miracles may be afoot.

My furry little marital problem says goodbye

In my marriage I have been fortunate enough to be with someone with whom I largely agree on politics, child rearing, and money.  We largely escape the typical banes of marriage, but we do have certain other, as our pastor calls them, perpetual problems.  Two to be exact.  And while these problems may seem to be very different in nature, they amount to the same result in each case: the offended party feels deprioritized and loved less.

The first thing I did when I got my own place in college was get a cat; actually I couldn't choose, so I got two. While I have always loved all cats, these two became my children.  They were there for me when I moved far away and didn't know anyone, when I was lonely, when I went through my divorce, when I started anew. They slept on my head, snuggled me when I read, reminded me I was loved when I felt only blackness. But Lance is allergic, VERY, and he gets chronic sinus infections from the allergies. If we hadn't gotten pregnant, I don't know if we ever would have decided to live together, because we couldn't see around me not being able to give up my cats, and him not being able to live with them.  Under what I felt like was duress, I agreed that within 6 months of buying our home together, I would find a home for them, but when my ex husband backed out of taking them, I just couldn't do it.  I got sick to my stomach every time I thought about it. So, for five and a half years, my husband has felt like he isn't really the most important thing in my life.

Last January 31st, after nearly 14 years together, my beloved Wynn (a runic name that means joy) died from complications of diabetes, and now my Berkana (also runic, meaning birch, for he is white as birch bark.) has a tumor in his face. I have to get him put to sleep, soon .He sits on my lap as I write this, as our time together ticks away, and with it, the opportunity to know what I should have done, weather I should or could have chosen differently. I can't imagine what I must do; hold his now frail body in my lap and kiss him goodbye, and feel him go limp in my arms, but neither could I imagine having passed this task on to someone who loved him less. I hate that it makes my husband feel like he was chosen over. Perhaps my choice was selfish, but now, for better or worse I can not take back that path.

For Lance's part, he hates to see my heart break no matter the reason.  He built beautiful caskets, and buried my Wynnie beneath the cottonwood on our new property where he will be with me always, and will do the same for Berkana. I wonder why God gave me a man who was allergic to cats, and yet perfectly made for me in nearly every other way. I'll be asking that one when I get there.

So, in a heartbreaking way, one of my marital problems is coming to an end.  I guess God didn't want it to follow us into the home we built together for our family; for those feelings to haunt my husband there. Certainly He is wise.

Our other issue must wait to be told another day, I just can't take any more sadness on this one.....

Learning curve

If, reader, this all sounds horribly familiar, and you are currently caught up in the tidal waves of new motherhood, it gets better.  And it doesn't. You meet some people who are moms, so even when it sucks, you can suck together. You learn to accept help, (or if you don't, do.  Just trust me on this one, I know it's tough, but really, do it anyway.) You find a routine that may not be perfect, but at least keeps you from the mental ward, summer comes, hormones recede, and the next thing you know they are growing up.  The fog begins to lift, and you realize you are still a person after all, and your name is not really mom. You have a history of rough days to look back upon, and realize you have a hundred percent survival rate. There is a flicker of hope.

That being said, every seemingly endless challenge is resolved and replaced by another. Your whole world can be consumed by the fact that your baby has colic or won't nap, and then suddenly, it's gone, and they are sick, or potty training, or back talking, or you have to juggle two, or.....

My Morgan has been one challenge after another for me since the day she tried to come early, or maybe the day she hid from the ultrasound technician. I think God made her a special key to all my buttons. That child can bring out my ugly faster than 8 jack and cokes. It never ceases to amaze me how you can love someone so intensely you would fight a gang of thugs like a mama grizzly, and yet want to strangle that same child yourself, and if you haven't felt that way, you either haven't been a mom very long, or else you lie like a rug, or I'll trade you kids (kidding). I think God made her special, so that I would a) appreciate my mother in a whole new way,  b) so I all my weaknesses would be out there exposed, and in the interest of not permanently damaging my child, I would try to fix them, and c), I would have to sink so low, that all I could do was learn to lean into Him.

I have a great husband y'all ( I don't really say y'all in real life, I just thought it would be fun), but he's human, and he can't be at work and holding my hand every time I'd like to break down, he can't read my mind, and he can't substitute for a good nights sleep, so by the second child, I was starting to figure out that I needed to depend elsewhere if I expected that kind of help. I leaned, and I prayed, and help came, in the form of grace when I was worn out, patience when I wanted to loose my temper, forgiveness when patience didn't come quickly enough, time on days that I gave Him some back, and in an army of women who must have a direct line to when I most need a break, or an ear, or a meal. It's a long way from perfect, to which the child mentioned above will attest, but I survived those first days, and I'm growing, I'm learning that sometimes strength doesn't mean going it alone, and we are both learning a thing or two about humbleness and forgiveness,. So hang in, new mamas, and have faith.

Motherhood is a Two faced .....!

My first foray into motherhood began with abdominal pains.  My friend Kayla accompanied me to the emergency room, where they informed me that I had a UTI, and a baby on board.  Not wanting to announce this news over the phone, I called my beloved and asked him to meet me there. White faced and looking very much like a terrified kid, he responded, "How did this happen?" Um....

Two weeks later, the UTI was gone, but the abdominal pains were not. The ultrasound technician investigating my plight found no evidence of a pregnancy. Though we would check again in two weeks, the doctor told me, sorry, but there is a 90% chance that you have miscarried, and the yolk sack has been reabsorbed by your body.  These things are quite common in early pregnancy, usually indicative of a problem with the embryo, and are in any case unpreventable. Sorry, and see you in two weeks.

During this nerve racking two weeks, we discovered that we very much wanted our baby, and were, after all, as ready as possible to suck it up and become parents together. Jaded by my own father,  I gave him the opportunity for an out, and let him know that under no circumstances if he took it, would he be offered another chance at being let back in.  He was all in. We did not want to loose our "speck", and so, we waited.

It turned out that our baby was well and healthy in there the whole time, but that the afore mentioned technician was just a relief person who just overlooked my baby....

We looked for a house to settle into as a family, and the pregnancy passed smoothly, until 33 weeks, when I went into early labor. After a harrowing hospital stay over Christmas and 2 weeks of bed rest, Kayla was on her way over for a movie, when my water broke.  5 hours later, I was catapulted into the world of motherhood. After 8 days in the NICU, they sent us home with our fragile little bundle and that surreal new mom feeling..."They are really sending me home, with this baby, to be alone with it? Are they mad? Don't they know I have no idea what I'm doing?"

The few friends that I had acquired since I moved to Billings were young, single, and childless. Lance worked two jobs so that I could stay home. It was winter, and I didn't want to take my preemie out where people could touch her; she could get RSV. We knew no other moms.  We were isolated. I had to set my alarm every 2 hours for her feedings.  I was  exhausted. I had new mom hormones. I was emotional.  I didn't know God.  I was desperate. In those days, I depended so much on Lance.  I'd be doing fine, and then exhaustion would sweep over me, and I could not see how I could possibly make it to the end of the day, I would call crying and beg him to come home. I worried about who I was, now that my whole life had been swallowed whole by the cavernous need of a newborn. Lance would come home wanting to be intimate, and he seemed, often, like just another parched drinker at a dry well. Though I loved them, I often felt I had nothing left to give, and nothing left for myself.

Oddly, all of this coincided with loving my life, my little family. I was introduced to the strange duality of motherhood; fatigue, stress, exhaustion, and guilt, being bedfellows with joy, gratitude, and love. Such was the terrain of my new world.

His mysterious ways.

My biological father came to Washington with a trailer to pick us up, and for the first time since I was eight months old, I went to live with him, until we could find work and save enough money for a rental. A few months later when we went to look at one, a beautiful little house with hardwood floors, I tried to image my life if I stayed in my marriage. I couldn't do it. I never loved him I knew, and so did he.  I never could; it was cruel and unfair to both of us, I thought, to stay.  I told him so.  He moved out of my dad's basement on his own, and a couple months later, so did I.

I was on my own for the first time, really, and it was wonderful.  I loved being on my own and having my own place. I worked at St. John's, and by night I sang karaoke while I tried to get together a band,  sang the national anthem at hockey games, boxing matches, and rodeos, or anywhere that would have me.  I got in shape and focused on preparing to move to Nashville, where I would never marry, or indeed need anyone. I dated a bit, but as usual losers or scum bags, or nice guys who bored me....

And then one day, headed home from work I thought I saw a friend of mine waving me down to the Wild West, just beyond where I lived. I could just say hi for a bit, I thought, but when I got there, he was no where to be found.  I was standing against the rail thinking about going home when a handsome Matt Damon look alike invited me to join him and his friends. I accepted.  He asked me to dance, and then for my number.  I didn't give it to him, he asked again, I said we'll see, and then he came in and joined them.  My future husband was clearly labeled, in a Hooters T-shirt that said Mr. Right on the front, (and Mr. Right Now on the back!).  He bought me a drink, he asked me to dance, he walked me outside, to the beautiful blue Toyota Tacoma of my dreams....

And I was done. My dreams of Nashville went through volatile death throes, but he was my destiny and I knew it. I was still young, immature, and selfish, but after I saw the bar scene was killing us, the drinking, and the attention I craved from my music was toxic, though he would never ask me to quit, I knew it was the only way.  It was one or the other.

Still, I don't know how we ever would have gotten on track if we hadn't gotten pregnant.  It seemed like a wake up call that no matter how much we loved each other, our relationship would never be healthy, and would eventually implode,  unless we grew up, quit drinking, and started making a life together. God was there, and though our choices had consequences, he was, even then using our sin for the eventual good. He was redeeming my lifetime of poor choices, and was about to give me a whole new life with the man he made for me.

My sin was a pathway to my redemption, convicting me, teaching me, wearing me down toward acceptance and surrender. I often wonder where I would be without that first marriage, all my bad choices.  Would I have ended up somewhere else? Not met Lance?  Would I have still become a Christian, without all those here who helped me along the way? Would I have succeeded in all my wildest dreams, to terrible moral destruction? I marvel at God's plan, how he uses things, how interwoven we are with each other, the far reaching effect of our choices....that all of this blessing came out of something so terrible; His ways are mysterious indeed.

Redeemed

It occurs to me that most of you who read my blog only know the now me, and I thought you should know that my story is a tale of the overwhelming redemptive power of God. A tale through which a rejected him and he persued me, I rejected him and he persued me, on and on until his relentless persuit met with my weariness and I relented.  For the glory of God, I will give you a brief overview of who I was.

It all begins with my mother being a fix it person....My mother was attracted to my alcoholic father the way a gardener is attracted to a weed infested vacant field.  Certainly it may be a little unruly now, but with a bit of nurturing, the good can be brought out, and the bad reigned in, (a feature I inherited, by the way). In this particular case the weeds won out, and she divorced him when I was only eight months old.  He suggested giving me up for adoption, which she refused, and eventually settled for signing away his parental rights, in exchange for not having to pay child support.  My mother however, didn't want me growing up not knowing who my father was, and therefore he saw me anyway. My relationship with my father and lack thereof is a story unto itself, but I shall suffice it to say that after many attempts, I eventually, for boundry reasons concerning my children, severed relations with him.

My mother continued to be a fix it person, to the extent that my first memories of her are with her jaw wired shut, due to another unrelenting weed patch of a boyfriend, until she met my step dad when I was seven. When old enough to date, or not, really, I found myself attracted to much the same types, until, at 20, I finally found one who adored me, was nice to me, and was not (mostly) a substance addict. I married him. My step dad had raised me in the church, and taught me about God, but being intellectual and rebellious, I experimented with religion like some people experiment with drugs, leading me to amature paganism, and finally, as a singer, my sole obsession was to perfect my craft to success and fame.  In short, I was very selfish. 

I will spare you the twisted inner workings of how these factors interwove to inevitable destruction, and will sum up by saying that at age 23,  having lost my job as a tavern waitress, and having no money left to continue college, I left my husband for a biker who had a secret room where he grew pot.

 Yep, bet you didn't see that coming.

In a darkness I could not see my way out of, I agreed to come to Billings, as a last attempt to reconcile with my husband, but mostly, I suspect, to escape the person I had become, whom I loathed.

Through these times, God waited on me.  He sent people into my life who made his presence known, and yet I was not ready to believe.  I had many doubts on rational grounds, and also I understood that I would never have a sit in the pew and go through the motions sort of faith, that if I accepted what I began to suspect in my heart was true, it would be a radical, life altering change, for which I was not ready. 

He continued to send me the Holy Spirit in the form of people, books, and experiences, such that when I became pregnant with my first child, I felt pulled to return to church, where I experienced Christ like in no other church before, and where, finally, I would surrender to Jesus.

When I look at the prosperity and peace that surrounds the mundane of my daily life now, and the undeserved second chances and blessings I have been given, it is hard even to remember the darkness from which I came, the hopelessness I felt, the depth of the enslavement of sin from which he pulled me.

A beloved family member of mine who knows of the roads which I travelled recently remarked upon me as a woman of faith. He knew the miracle that was within that. Every one of us has a journey which makes our faith our own, and sharing them shows what an awesome God we serve. Perhaps you will think a little less of me for where I've been, but think more of my God, because he can transform the life of even the most miserable sinner.

F'in Muslims

God is calling me to post on the recent tragedies in Boston, and this is a post I do not want to write.  Why am I fighting God on this, I asked myself, and as I thought about it, I determined that it is because I in no way want to belittle the struggles or grief of the victims, nor do I want to appear to be standing in judgment of any one's reaction to such horrific event, or appear to condone the actions of the perpetrators.  That being said, I feel convicted to say this: that what I have seen on social media and elsewhere, even among fellow Christians, is the tendency to simplify our enemy, to let hatred make him faceless, to categorize him." F'in Muslims." And then you can shut the door on it, and forget that those type of generalizations are what enabled him and others like him to look in the face of potential victims, yet overlook them to an extent that you can blow their legs off without a backward glance.

I also don't want to write this post because it seems that by suggesting that we follow the bible on this, by pointing out that God calls us to pray for our enemy and love those who persecute us, that I am suggesting that this should be easy and natural, which is not what I am suggesting at all.  I am suggesting that God loves this boy also, Jesus died for him, and if he should be lost, Jesus will grieve him, just as he would for you or I.  I am suggesting that he is obviously broken, and it is not for us to deny him a chance at redemption and say in our minds, "your sins are too great for mercy." Certainly his sins are more overt and obvious to others than my own, but I am sure glad that no one can look in my heart and say that to me. Some will be angry at me for saying these things, because we are more vulnerable when robbed of our hate, but I feel that if I allow these events to drive me to hatred, then Satan will have two victories instead of just one.

Easy for me to say, you say, because it was not my child killed, or myself with no legs, and that's true, but it is not only out of sympathy for the bomber that God asks us to pray for him, but also for ourselves.  Though I can not pretend to be in the shoes of those directly affected by this tragedy, praying for ones enemy is not new to me.  My uncle was shot and killed by a Muslim extremist, and it has been my observation within my own family, that those who have wrestled with God on this, and struggled to forgive and pray for the man who did this, have experienced grief, growth, and some degree of healing, whereas those who refuse to do so carry a much heavier burden.

But he smirked as he set a bomb down next to a little boy! Yes, he did. He clearly needs a savior, and what would God say to me on the day of judgment if I was, say, a caregiver in the hospital treating him, and as a member of the body of Christ I chose to judge and turn my back instead of offering kindness and prayer, and I missed my chance, maybe his only one, to show Jesus to this boy, because of hatred in my heart.  Am I any better off than he? My sins are private, but if I had no savior, I would be no less dead in my sin.  Am I better off than he? That I can refuse to do what God requires and pray for my enemy.  God knows he asks us to do things that are difficult, He will help us when we struggle, but it is when we refuse, and we willfully choose to live in hate, that I worry about us. My sins are many, and I often fall guilty of a judgmental heart, but the one who has the authority to judge has chosen to extend mercy, though for Him also that road led through pain.  I pray for us the ability to do as he does, for all of our enemies, and for ourselves.

Mama's spillin'

" Have you ever stopped to think about all the work that went into the place where you live?  The architects. The builders.  The construction crew. The designers-not just of the building but of everything it contains! Someone developed your flooring, someone built your walls....a lot of work went into the design of your home."

These are the words that greeted me as I opened up my bible study, a bible study I left off months ago. In fact, lately, I have been thinking about the work that goes into designing a home to the exclusion of much else. I burst out laughing and teared up simultaneously as I was hit with the humor, irony, and ultimately the presence of God. Between the discomforts of my pregnancy, bouts of family illness, and the consumptive nature of building a house, my quiet time with God has suffered, as has my church attendance, and time with my small group, as has my soul.  I have been feeling so out of balance, longing for God, without taking time for Him. I tell myself, of course God matters to me more than a house, which is after all no more than a shell, but when a moment of breath comes, I research siding colors, window reviews, and pellet stove options. When it's time for church, but the home show is this weekend and only this weekend, well, you get it. I felt so....off.  During one such moment of inevitable break down, I started to cry; as Baylie saw the tears rolling down my face, she says, "Mama's spillin'! (what she says, when someone cries, or pees on the floor), and, that's exactly what it felt like.  I might fall apart, spill out all over, not because my life isn't amazing, but because, God really did make the Sabbath for man, not man for the sabbath, and when you neglect God's way, you suffer, and sometimes, even when I know that, I need to spill all over before I really get it.

And God, He was right there, the whole time, knowing my thoughts.  When I was ready to return, He met me right where I was, with a lesson on how important it is to create a peaceful home that is God's, that welcomes others, meets them with love, and is alive with the Lord.  What makes a house a home, isn't anything I can pick up at Lowe's, and while I might need to do those tasks, I can't neglect the attention to "designing my home as a place of rest and renewal....that invites people to connect with God, and uses it to bless others." Let's hope it's a lesson I don't have to spill to remember.