I have been reading a lot of beautiful stories lately of redemption. Stories where God takes the blackest night of the soul, the most unthinkable tragedies, and turns them into something beautiful and life giving. The brave women who have recorded their stories have sifted through ashes and growth and greater intimacy with God, and gone on to gift us with their stories.
I have recently been praying that God would allow my writing to expand to the degree that it would serve His kingdom and glorify his name, but truth be told, if I have to give up my whole and healthy family, if I really have to go through the fire to have anything worthwhile to write about, I'll keep my peaceful life, thanks.
It's sort of like that with us and God a lot, isn't it? Grateful though I am for my mediocre run of the mill hardships that have refined my character, if I were authoring my own story, I wouldn't write in any more of them. Thy will be done, I can say, but if God were to have a sit down with me and say, listen, it will glorify my kingdom and contribute to your personal growth if you get a debilitating disease, loose your husband, and your house burns down. Are you in? I know you are, because my will be done, right?" Am I really the sort of Christian I say I am? The one who would say yes? I have known a few amazing people who I'm sure would answer him yes, resoundingly, people who have been his hands and feet even at great personal cost, as we are all called to do, but I'm not there. Maybe I don't know God well enough, or maybe my heart is too weak and selfish. In an Abraham moment, I don't have what it takes.
Intellectually, I know of course that God sees the much broader picture, and that He has my best interest in mind, but it still feels some times like playing junior high trust games with an invisible participant. While I know in my mind that he knows best, I find I am often much like my children, who generally know I love them and am wiser than they, but still feel rather put out when I discourage them from putting bobby pins in the outlets.
It's a good thing that I don't have a choice, and can't see what I'm actually praying for when I pray that prayer. I want to pray for His will, I want to mean it, but I'm glad I don't get to see what I'm asking for. It's a good thing really that I'm not on the decision making comity, since I'm clearly biased and untrustworthy. I'm glad, for the most part, that it's a step by step journey. Of course that means I have to trust in the destination when I'm in the pesky uncertain middle, and I don't know what the end looks like. This trust is one of those things that's a lifetime journey; no shortcuts.
Maybe if we see his redemption enough, his hand working in enough little ways, in our own lives and each other's stories, it will slowly take hold. I'm thankful that along the way I get plenty of grace and do overs; that he meets me right where I am, even in my doubt, for his grace is sufficient for me. Today my prayer must remain, "Lord I believe, please help me with my unbelief."
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Seasons
It is nearly the end of February, and it's snowing outside. Fat Harry Potter snowflakes. Usually this time of year I am so itchy for spring to arrive that I am coaxing seeds to life in jiffy greenhouses by now, in anxious anticipation. I am not a winter person.
This year though, perhaps because of my cheerful fireplace, or all the work to be done inside, or being out of town so that the snow stays fresh and crisp instead of becoming filthy black city snow, I am finding the pause restful. I am still looking forward to cotton soft skies, unfurling leaves, and the waking of the land, but for once, I don't have that cooped up restlessness. I can wait for it. I can enjoy the season of now.
As I rock my son, swaddled in his blanket, with his chubby pink cheeks and soft baby hair, and listen to him tell me baby secrets, I have a rare moment of peace with the season of my life too. I am excited for the season of mobile kids: no nursing and naps tethering us to home, times of camping, and bonfires, and first wobbly steps, but I can wait for that. I can rest here, drinking in baby skin and a son who doesn't wriggle away from kisses.
I wish I was like this more often; better at sucking every ounce of joy from each day, like a kid licking Popsicle sticky fingers. I wish a held the secret to unhurried joy. But I have it now, like a February snowflake on my tongue. I will taste it while it lasts, and smile at the memory when it goes.
This year though, perhaps because of my cheerful fireplace, or all the work to be done inside, or being out of town so that the snow stays fresh and crisp instead of becoming filthy black city snow, I am finding the pause restful. I am still looking forward to cotton soft skies, unfurling leaves, and the waking of the land, but for once, I don't have that cooped up restlessness. I can wait for it. I can enjoy the season of now.
As I rock my son, swaddled in his blanket, with his chubby pink cheeks and soft baby hair, and listen to him tell me baby secrets, I have a rare moment of peace with the season of my life too. I am excited for the season of mobile kids: no nursing and naps tethering us to home, times of camping, and bonfires, and first wobbly steps, but I can wait for that. I can rest here, drinking in baby skin and a son who doesn't wriggle away from kisses.
I wish I was like this more often; better at sucking every ounce of joy from each day, like a kid licking Popsicle sticky fingers. I wish a held the secret to unhurried joy. But I have it now, like a February snowflake on my tongue. I will taste it while it lasts, and smile at the memory when it goes.
Friday, February 21, 2014
How I came to blog
The fire was lit almost two years before it began, back in the dark days. I started weaning Morgan when she was one, and finished a couple months later. Since we knew we didn't want more children right away, my practitioner suggested a more effective birth control. At this time, Lance was working long hours, not getting home until 8 or 10 at night, I had exactly one real friend with kids (and even that was in the developing stages), and though I was investigating Jesus, I hadn't given him the reigns. So I was alone.
It was in this period, against a grey winter backdrop, that I became angry. I mean soul searing, put your kid in the bedroom and go outside before you do something you regret angry. It was as though an outside force had taken possession of my body, and I was powerless to control it.
Mostly, we battled over sleep. The sleep neither of us were getting. Hours followed hours of frustrating rocking, but when I would lay her down, she would wake, and scream, and we would begin again. I felt so bone crushingly tired, like I had been scraped out hollow and shriveled up, and left to wither away, in a world where my sole companion's only communication was limited to raspberry blowing.
Lance knew I was struggling, but I don't think I wanted him to see how deep it ran; how bleak my inner landscape had really become. After all, nothing was wrong. We had a good relationship and a good life. I wasn't unhappy with anything, I was just unhappy.
It was this desperation that drove me to google. "Depressed housewife" I typed, and there she was, "The World's Worst Housewife" (in which our formerly competent heroine struggles with nearly every aspect of child rearing and home making). She was dark, funny, and most of all she said the things I was thinking, all the furtive little secrets motherhood, right there, out loud (figuratively of course.) I was no longer alone.
I checked for new posts every day. I clung to her words like a bobbing life buoy, adrift in a sea of put together MOPs moms. After a while though, she started talking about marital trouble, and soon she slipped beneath the waves and quit blogging all together. Again, I was treading water alone.
In the void where her blog had been, I began to journal, and though I never published those entries, an ember had ignited inside of me that refused to go out.
Finally, Lance said to me, "I know this isn't you. We need to figure it out, and I think it's your pill." This was a revelation to me, a small glimmer of possibility that I wasn't just totally unfit for mothering. And sure enough, all over google, validation: story after story of women just like me, on this pill, seething with unidentified rage.
After I stopped taking it, color seeped back into my world. I started to recognize myself again, but an idea had taken hold in those dark days, a hope that I could one day be that hand in the dark, dragging a gasping mother up for a breath of fresh air when she most needed it. My blog was born, and on it's best day, that is my hope for it.
It was in this period, against a grey winter backdrop, that I became angry. I mean soul searing, put your kid in the bedroom and go outside before you do something you regret angry. It was as though an outside force had taken possession of my body, and I was powerless to control it.
Mostly, we battled over sleep. The sleep neither of us were getting. Hours followed hours of frustrating rocking, but when I would lay her down, she would wake, and scream, and we would begin again. I felt so bone crushingly tired, like I had been scraped out hollow and shriveled up, and left to wither away, in a world where my sole companion's only communication was limited to raspberry blowing.
Lance knew I was struggling, but I don't think I wanted him to see how deep it ran; how bleak my inner landscape had really become. After all, nothing was wrong. We had a good relationship and a good life. I wasn't unhappy with anything, I was just unhappy.
It was this desperation that drove me to google. "Depressed housewife" I typed, and there she was, "The World's Worst Housewife" (in which our formerly competent heroine struggles with nearly every aspect of child rearing and home making). She was dark, funny, and most of all she said the things I was thinking, all the furtive little secrets motherhood, right there, out loud (figuratively of course.) I was no longer alone.
I checked for new posts every day. I clung to her words like a bobbing life buoy, adrift in a sea of put together MOPs moms. After a while though, she started talking about marital trouble, and soon she slipped beneath the waves and quit blogging all together. Again, I was treading water alone.
In the void where her blog had been, I began to journal, and though I never published those entries, an ember had ignited inside of me that refused to go out.
Finally, Lance said to me, "I know this isn't you. We need to figure it out, and I think it's your pill." This was a revelation to me, a small glimmer of possibility that I wasn't just totally unfit for mothering. And sure enough, all over google, validation: story after story of women just like me, on this pill, seething with unidentified rage.
After I stopped taking it, color seeped back into my world. I started to recognize myself again, but an idea had taken hold in those dark days, a hope that I could one day be that hand in the dark, dragging a gasping mother up for a breath of fresh air when she most needed it. My blog was born, and on it's best day, that is my hope for it.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Home
My parent's home is filled with things; solid things filled with history and memory. My mother has spent a lifetime gathering them to her; an act of holding on in a world bent on speeding forward, as if through them she can bring back loved ones and simpler times. Perhaps it is from my mother that I have come by the notion that our homes matter: that the things we chose to fill them with reflect deeper parts of ourselves and our values.
Lance and I are in a time of home transition. We recently built a home, and are preparing to put our former home on the market. It is a bittersweet season for me, closing this chapter of our life together, and opening the next. Though that house never quite fit me, like wearing clothing that just isn't "you", it captures a part of my heart as the first home we shared, the place we decorated our first nursery and brought all of our babies home to. I did so much becoming in that house. I became a wife, a mother, a Christian, someone who feeds people. One day after another passed, and somehow I became a real grown up woman within those walls....walls that are now bare and small feeling, since the life within has moved forward.
It is a beautiful gift though, to be able to forge a life with the one you love; to breath life into a house and fill it with beautiful meaningful things. Our home now doesn't feel like a building at all. Every knob, light, color, and texture was chosen to reflect who we are. They are mingled with our hopes for our family, so that the house feels like a physical manifestation of our love.
A part of my heart will always long for the farm that formed me as a girl, but Lance belongs here, so we had to create our own space and tradition. I imagine with great anticipation long cricket filled summer evenings on the porch, long sweat filled days making our land a place of beauty and productivity; a rich space filled place where my children can grow, a placed pieced together like a mosaic of scavenged treasures, a place of deep nourishing roots, a place to come home to.
Lance and I are in a time of home transition. We recently built a home, and are preparing to put our former home on the market. It is a bittersweet season for me, closing this chapter of our life together, and opening the next. Though that house never quite fit me, like wearing clothing that just isn't "you", it captures a part of my heart as the first home we shared, the place we decorated our first nursery and brought all of our babies home to. I did so much becoming in that house. I became a wife, a mother, a Christian, someone who feeds people. One day after another passed, and somehow I became a real grown up woman within those walls....walls that are now bare and small feeling, since the life within has moved forward.
It is a beautiful gift though, to be able to forge a life with the one you love; to breath life into a house and fill it with beautiful meaningful things. Our home now doesn't feel like a building at all. Every knob, light, color, and texture was chosen to reflect who we are. They are mingled with our hopes for our family, so that the house feels like a physical manifestation of our love.
A part of my heart will always long for the farm that formed me as a girl, but Lance belongs here, so we had to create our own space and tradition. I imagine with great anticipation long cricket filled summer evenings on the porch, long sweat filled days making our land a place of beauty and productivity; a rich space filled place where my children can grow, a placed pieced together like a mosaic of scavenged treasures, a place of deep nourishing roots, a place to come home to.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Chronic over sharing is my spiritual gift
One thing about giving up singing was that I just didn't feel good at anything anymore. I am functionally proficient at a lot of things, but not outstanding. I am plain; mediocre. And once I was swallowed by the uncertain vortex of early motherhood, my equilibrium was dashed against the rocks. I am no one, I have longing, but no purpose.
6 years later I want to be a writer (what my mom always thought I should be by the way), and I am scared. I am scared because I am not a great writer; I suck at the revision process, I am prone to run on sentences, I use tired cliches. I am scared because it is so vulnerable to truly want something. I am scared because I do not want to charge blindly into my own ambition again, without being sure that this is what God really wants for me.
The bible says when you become a Christian, God gives you spiritual gifts, but for so long I just felt sort of skipped over in the spiritual gift department, but then I'm left with this nagging feeling that God doesn't give you longing to be cruel. I think He wants me to be a writer, even though I'm not fantastically witty and eloquent. I think he wants me to be a writer because spiritual gifts are meant to bless others, and what I most want from writing is to rummage through the every day experiences of life and motherhood and tell the truth about it in a way that says we are in this mess together, in a way that exposes His strange and marvelous hand at work in our everyday experiences as women and mothers. It turns out I didn't get passed over in the spiritual gift department after all, as it happens, chronic over sharing is my spiritual gift (lucky you, right?)
I don't want this to be a pretty church girl blog with neatly wrapped advice about things I know about God, and good thing, because I don't know anything about that. I want this to be a place where you nod your head when you're reading, because you've been there; where maybe you laugh a little, and cry a little, because it is so healing not to be alone, because it is so refreshing to be real with one another and ourselves. I want this to be a place where we strip away the veneer and are exposed as real and honest women, flawed and unruly, but learning to live in His grace.
6 years later I want to be a writer (what my mom always thought I should be by the way), and I am scared. I am scared because I am not a great writer; I suck at the revision process, I am prone to run on sentences, I use tired cliches. I am scared because it is so vulnerable to truly want something. I am scared because I do not want to charge blindly into my own ambition again, without being sure that this is what God really wants for me.
The bible says when you become a Christian, God gives you spiritual gifts, but for so long I just felt sort of skipped over in the spiritual gift department, but then I'm left with this nagging feeling that God doesn't give you longing to be cruel. I think He wants me to be a writer, even though I'm not fantastically witty and eloquent. I think he wants me to be a writer because spiritual gifts are meant to bless others, and what I most want from writing is to rummage through the every day experiences of life and motherhood and tell the truth about it in a way that says we are in this mess together, in a way that exposes His strange and marvelous hand at work in our everyday experiences as women and mothers. It turns out I didn't get passed over in the spiritual gift department after all, as it happens, chronic over sharing is my spiritual gift (lucky you, right?)
I don't want this to be a pretty church girl blog with neatly wrapped advice about things I know about God, and good thing, because I don't know anything about that. I want this to be a place where you nod your head when you're reading, because you've been there; where maybe you laugh a little, and cry a little, because it is so healing not to be alone, because it is so refreshing to be real with one another and ourselves. I want this to be a place where we strip away the veneer and are exposed as real and honest women, flawed and unruly, but learning to live in His grace.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Say Anything
So these days I have been reading Shauna Niequist. I love Shauna Niequist; she is like reading a wiser more eloquent version of me (perhaps I flatter myself). Anyway, today's chapter was about how when she has gone through really difficult times in her life, what hurt her the most was not the people who said awkward unintentionally hurtful things, but the people who didn't say anything at all. Then, I went on to my bible study, which was about Esther, and when to keep silent and when to speak up. God calling me out much?
So it got me to thinking about when I haven't said things I have felt called to say, for fear of saying the wrong thing, and I realized that when we hold our tongues because we don't want to be uncomfortable, it's really about us, our potential rejection, protecting our own vulnerabilities, than it is about loving each other. I really don't want to be called out by Jesus for being a chicken, when I had the opportunity to poor His love out on somebody, and I chose to play it safe instead.
Years ago, I had a dear friend who was expecting a baby on the same day as I was expecting Baylie. I was so excited to share my pregnancy with her, and walk through the early baby haze and mamahood with her, but almost half way through, she miscarried. Throughout the horrific ordeal, I tried to be the best friend I could, but I didn't know how. I don't remember much of what I said, but I remember doing what I do best, which is loading people down with casseroles, in hopes to cover over the cumbersomeness of conversation. Soon, she stopped returning my calls, and politely declined my invitations. I was never sure that the pregnancy was the reason, since she assured me that she was happy for me, but when I was in the hospital with Levi, one of my caregivers that happened to also be a friend of hers and pregnant at the time told me that she had a similar experience. Maybe I had no choice, but I let my friend drift away, uncertain how to say, "I don't know why this happened to you and not me. I know it must hurt to see me pregnant and having a healthy baby when your baby should be here too. It's okay if you sometimes feel mad at me. You don't have to tell me it's okay. You don't have to be happy for me, or pretend. I know it isn't fair, but if it's okay with you, I'm just going to love you anyway, and when you're ready to be friends, I'll be right here." So I said nothing.
So anyway, I have had some things ping ponging around in my heart that needed to be said, and maybe I will say them in the wrong words, and maybe I will sound foolish, but I do not want to be a veneer person, smooth on the outside, and something else entirely within, so I will try to say something, something sincere and honest, and probably terribly awkward, but it will not pretend that things are fine, and it will not be nothing.
I wrote my friend a card today, just to say she is in my prayers often. If she doesn't respond, I will feel sad about our friendship, just like I already do, and that's okay. I think I'm learning, it's not about me, or how I feel.....Now, if I could just master that pesky part about when to keep silent....
So it got me to thinking about when I haven't said things I have felt called to say, for fear of saying the wrong thing, and I realized that when we hold our tongues because we don't want to be uncomfortable, it's really about us, our potential rejection, protecting our own vulnerabilities, than it is about loving each other. I really don't want to be called out by Jesus for being a chicken, when I had the opportunity to poor His love out on somebody, and I chose to play it safe instead.
Years ago, I had a dear friend who was expecting a baby on the same day as I was expecting Baylie. I was so excited to share my pregnancy with her, and walk through the early baby haze and mamahood with her, but almost half way through, she miscarried. Throughout the horrific ordeal, I tried to be the best friend I could, but I didn't know how. I don't remember much of what I said, but I remember doing what I do best, which is loading people down with casseroles, in hopes to cover over the cumbersomeness of conversation. Soon, she stopped returning my calls, and politely declined my invitations. I was never sure that the pregnancy was the reason, since she assured me that she was happy for me, but when I was in the hospital with Levi, one of my caregivers that happened to also be a friend of hers and pregnant at the time told me that she had a similar experience. Maybe I had no choice, but I let my friend drift away, uncertain how to say, "I don't know why this happened to you and not me. I know it must hurt to see me pregnant and having a healthy baby when your baby should be here too. It's okay if you sometimes feel mad at me. You don't have to tell me it's okay. You don't have to be happy for me, or pretend. I know it isn't fair, but if it's okay with you, I'm just going to love you anyway, and when you're ready to be friends, I'll be right here." So I said nothing.
So anyway, I have had some things ping ponging around in my heart that needed to be said, and maybe I will say them in the wrong words, and maybe I will sound foolish, but I do not want to be a veneer person, smooth on the outside, and something else entirely within, so I will try to say something, something sincere and honest, and probably terribly awkward, but it will not pretend that things are fine, and it will not be nothing.
I wrote my friend a card today, just to say she is in my prayers often. If she doesn't respond, I will feel sad about our friendship, just like I already do, and that's okay. I think I'm learning, it's not about me, or how I feel.....Now, if I could just master that pesky part about when to keep silent....
Friday, February 7, 2014
Landslide
In 2006 I was working as a CNA at St. Vincent Health Care when my cousin Shane and his young family were in a terrible car wreck. Shane and his 6 month old baby Elllie did not survive. His wife Casey was brought to us at St. V's. Shane was a pastor, and a man of great faith and passion for Jesus, and the strength of Casey's faith is and was awe inspiring. Through her terrible journey to recovery and healing, I witnessed daily as God's provision literally gave her her daily bread, minute by minute He gave her what she needed to survive her loss and endure the grueling physical therapy required for her healing. Each day through gritted teeth she patiently did all that was asked of her with praise for her savior on her lips. She was a light of Christ in the darkness, singing praises to her Lord even in the blackest nights of the soul, through which I began to glimpse His awesome power, and began to crawl my way toward Him. Casey recently submitted a book proposal for her story, and I cried tears of joy at the redemptive power of our God, and how many people will draw near to Him because of her bravery in sharing her loss.
It got me to thinking about His pursuit of me. The way he sent me what I needed at different times in my life. The way he protected me even before I came to Him, because I was His. Often, his presence came in the form of Christians. Even long before I was ready, He sent them to me. First, when I was 6 my mom had a friend name Dean Quam who introduced me to Jesus, and took me to Sunday school, then, He gave me my real dad and his family the Ewens, who gave me a foundation, then in college on a anthropology rafting trip a girl named Lilly Huth who read her bible every day, who wore her passion for God openly, answered my questions and ministered to me, then my friend Nicole when I lived in Washington, and then Chelsea Czeczel, who invited me to Harvest. Most of them have drifted from my life, but I never forgot them. They became (to quote the Lord of the Rings) "the small stones that cause a great avalanche." Casey was the beginning of the land slide in my heart.
These Christians didn't try to convert me, they reflected the love of God, like the moon reflects the light of the sun. It is a grey rock, but illuminated, it becomes an unforgettable beauty. Evangelism isn't one moment or conversation. It is evidence of God's relentless pursuit throughout a life time. It isn't one persons push, but many people's openness, availability, and love that you remember in the hopeless moments. It is these who lead you to Him in His own time. Many of us are shy about proclaiming Jesus. We are afraid to be pushy or awkward.
The story is being written, and only the author sees it's completeness. Though your part in someone's life may be large or small, never underestimate the impact you may have. You may be holding the last stone that can cause an avalanche of redemption.
It got me to thinking about His pursuit of me. The way he sent me what I needed at different times in my life. The way he protected me even before I came to Him, because I was His. Often, his presence came in the form of Christians. Even long before I was ready, He sent them to me. First, when I was 6 my mom had a friend name Dean Quam who introduced me to Jesus, and took me to Sunday school, then, He gave me my real dad and his family the Ewens, who gave me a foundation, then in college on a anthropology rafting trip a girl named Lilly Huth who read her bible every day, who wore her passion for God openly, answered my questions and ministered to me, then my friend Nicole when I lived in Washington, and then Chelsea Czeczel, who invited me to Harvest. Most of them have drifted from my life, but I never forgot them. They became (to quote the Lord of the Rings) "the small stones that cause a great avalanche." Casey was the beginning of the land slide in my heart.
These Christians didn't try to convert me, they reflected the love of God, like the moon reflects the light of the sun. It is a grey rock, but illuminated, it becomes an unforgettable beauty. Evangelism isn't one moment or conversation. It is evidence of God's relentless pursuit throughout a life time. It isn't one persons push, but many people's openness, availability, and love that you remember in the hopeless moments. It is these who lead you to Him in His own time. Many of us are shy about proclaiming Jesus. We are afraid to be pushy or awkward.
The story is being written, and only the author sees it's completeness. Though your part in someone's life may be large or small, never underestimate the impact you may have. You may be holding the last stone that can cause an avalanche of redemption.
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