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.

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....

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.

Where oh where have my big girl panties gone?

After much trepidation and dread, the day has finally arrived for my husband to leave on his annual ice fishing trip.  I hate this trip every year, because in the 7th grade, my best friend's dad died during an ice fishing trip, and I can not seem to shake the sense of foreboding associated with it. (Read: I am scared out of my wits). This year, it is even worse than normal, and compounded by the fact that the baby is teething and has had some rough nights. There is nothing I hate worse that being tired. Excursions such as these always sharpen my appreciation for military wives, single mom's, and women with useless husbands.

My husband, being the wonderful specimen that he is, has made it as easy as possible for me, by doing things like: making sure I have enough pellets for the stove and gas in my car, filling up the water softener, changing batteries in nearly everything, and making sure the gun is readily accessible in case I need to shoot an intruder. So, I really have nothing to complain about, and besides, when my husband and I got married, though we said the traditional wedding vows, I silently and secretly vowed never to resent hunting and fishing, because these are who he was before we met. Though I have not been entirely successful with this, as it gets exponentially more difficult with each child, I was pleased with the more grown up way I seemed to handle it this year. Maybe I have finally learned what I have trying to teach my six year old: Tantrums are simply unbecoming; they never change anything.

My mom and sister are coming for part of it, and I have lots of projects planned for us, so that will help some, but not with the nights. I also plan on reading a novel. 

I always do this to myself; try to trick my brain into thinking of it as some sort of relaxing retreat, which I know is totally bogus, because who in there right mind would consider taking care of three kids with no husband a relaxing retreat? But it's all I've got, so I go for it.

It's strange for me to feel this way, I used to love living alone. Maybe having someone to depend on weakens a person somehow....

The time comes, and he kisses us goodbye. I try to put on my figurative big girl panties, but I've got a lump in my throat. It's going to be a long four days if I can't summon a stronger version of myself, but I've momentarily forgotten how. He is gone, and Baylie needs breakfast, and Colt needs to go potty, and I remember: the key is to keep moving, to try to immerse myself in the task at hand, so I do that. It will get me through until bedtime, where I will be alone with my anxiety, in my carvernous bed.  It's nice though, being with someone you miss so much it hurts, and I know it's good for him to go.  He deserves it. (Never mind that I could never say to him "I'll be gone 4 days around the 25th, have fun with the kids, see you when I get back." says the other part of my brain.....) Sigh.

Anyway, I have no sparkling wit to offer today, just a prayer request for safe travels and that I find my big girl panties ( maybe they are in washing machine oblivion, with the baby socks?)....In the meanwhile, I think I'll go put on some lipstick ;).

Jesus loves me, even in my sweats

Sometimes, the worse I feel, the more it seems I am barely holding it together by a thread, the more important it is to me to look put together. A little lipstick goes a long way sometimes in plucking up my courage to face the world.  Maybe I'm tired, but if you can't see it, it's easier to get through some how.  Even if no one sees me, it pulls me up and in, gives me back some sense of strength. 

I don't think this phenomenon is unique to me either, maybe it's a female thing, or just control freaks.  When I was in college, I had International Political Economy first thing in the morning.  I am not a morning person, but I never showed up with out full makeup and my hair fixed.  Why show up in your sweat pants and betray weakness? With three kids and a husband who prefers me without makeup, I am not as rigid about this as I used to be, but some days, I still find it makes me feel better, less frayed some how.  I look in the mirror and I say to my self, ugh you look like a dishrag, stand up strait, curl your hair, and put on some lipstick.

I suppose this comes from being such a performance based person.  I judge myself, and probably you too a little if I'm honest, by what I can get done. People who sit around just rub me the wrong way; part of my upbringing I guess. I find that I just don't feel worthy if I haven't accomplished anything.
I want to be able to Do something. Guilt is a constant companion of my to do list.

So it happens that I go rounds with the fact that God is not a performance based God. I don't have to Do anything, and I can't anyway.  He doesn't care if I mop today or not, he'd rather have me love on my kids.  The things he probably does want me to do, like get real with him about why I snap at my kids, or put loving my neighbor above my own schedule are not the things I have in mind either.  The deeply Lutheran part of me wants to bring you a casserole, and then, seeing progress,  mind my own business. I have put you on my schedule, checked you off my list, our relationship is tidy, but shallow. It is a realization that I have to come to over and over, that my worth is not about what I got done today. If I got short with my kids because they were interfering with my battle against the mini dogs that are spawning from the hair under my couch, then I have missed the point somehow. God's grace goes over my head like this about a million times a day.  The balance between the day to day tasks and the big picture priorities of what my kids are seeing about God in me is an ongoing see saw on which I never seem to gain equilibrium.

Life is messy. God sees under my lipstick, and he knows that I'm a mess, and I'm starting to see that friendship and love is more about getting up in each other's mess than I thought. And while  I'm not going to swear off productivity and become a couch potato, I need to let go sometimes; ease up, and try to see me the way God does, and to let others see me that way too. I used to have a deep belief that it is weak to let people see all that stuff, but I am learning slowly, that people who are too afraid of vulnerability to let people in, those people are scared, and that is the weaker thing.

Most often, my arms are too full of that neat little heavy package of put together, to receive unexpected moments of grace that only come when we are bare and honest and flawed, when I set down my casserole dish and my armor, and we talk, when I see the small things with my kids, when I align my priorities with God's.

Alas, this is a lesson I know I will have to learn many times over, but I hope today that I will make space for a little less perfection, and a little more love, I will dance in my kitchen, and cover my baby with lipstick kisses, and if you come on over to Soggy Bottom sometime, and I'm in my sweats, I promise I'll still let you in.

The soul's winter

I know I have a blessed life. I have to preface this post this way because I don't want to be a whiner.  I am blessed to have a love with a man who knocks the wind out of me with it's intensity, I have healthy children who color my world (sometimes a bit too literally), and we have had the enormous blessing of building our dream house together, in a peaceful quiet neighborhood where my children can have space to roam. But I have to write this any way, because I hope it will be a gift to those who know what I mean. In all the blessing, something is missing. The surety of knowing what I was made for has gone.

When I met Lance I was passionate and intense with creative purpose, but amid my days of motherhood, I feel my self shrinking to fit into the tiniest nooks and crannies of my life.  I long to do something meaningful, but my reality is such that if I have gotten to clip my toenails without interruption, it's a good day. How do you fit in meaning? And the longer time goes on, the less sure I am that I have anything worth while to offer.  The once contemplative parts of my brain are filling with the minutia of menu plans, to do lists, and school schedules. I long for deep friendships, but fear I have nothing to contribute, no ideas of substance, no vibrant energy, just a wrung out mom self who would just as often as not choose a nap over an adventure.

I want to write books like this, because when I read them, I cling to them like a shred of hope, a bright blue feather falling through a bleak sky, and it keeps that part of me from extinguishing. I want to do that for someone. To tell another mother, you are not alone, you are worthwhile, you are in there somewhere.

Levi was so crabby today.  He screamed and screamed as we took turns trying to sooth him.  The girls were fighting, and whining, and begging for something to do. Finally, to escape, if only momentarily from the cacophony of noise outside and inside my brain, I stole away to my front porch, where the only sounds were geese and distant cars.  The sunset was ablaze, making an ebony silhouette of my neighbor's trees, but all I could see out there was myself, in the way the trees were planted too close together, stretching upward into the glowing sky, just to find some room to be; in the way the blue was pressing down upon the fiery sunset, pressing it into submission, until it was only a sliver on the horizon, fighting a loosing battle against the dome of indigo above. And then I heard my son screaming through the window, and I went back to join the fray.

God made me to be with this man, as though it is his very rib I was made from in heaven.  These children were given to me to mother, but these things are not all that I am, and if that longing in me were to die, I would not be whole to be their mother and wife. I will clutch my feather like a secret, like a seed in winter, until the season comes when I can plant it, and it will bloom fearlessly.

Can't we all just get along

Today a childhood friend of mine and son of my former pastor, who is now a pastor himself shared an article to facebook entitled "Friends don't let friends read Beth Moore" in which the author took it as his charge to publicly rebuke Beth Moore and Joyce Meyer for their approach to the scripture.

Now many of you know that I was raised in the Lutheran Church Missouri synod, and have, after period of waywardness, returned to Christ as an Evangelical Christian. I see these type of posts frequently among my friends...evangelicals have the wrong hymns and liturgy, the wrong approach to children's ministry, you name it, we Evangelicals have got it wrong. As a long time Lutheran, I get it, making God about you, and church about entertainment,  misses the mark. And let me say as a disclaimer of sorts that my childhood friend is to the best of my knowledge a sincere and well intentioned Christian man, and that protecting one's flock and family from false teaching is indeed no trifling charge.  That being said, as I went about my housewifely duties today, I could not stop being disturbed by what this post and it's fellows represent.

As I mentioned, and as you well know if you have ever stumbled before upon this blog, I have been as far off the path as you can go, and were it not for the extension of grace shown to me by the Evangelical church, I would not be a Christian today, nor would my family. I have a fondness for the way Lutherans do things, but I also enjoy the worship style of my current church, and you know what, I think God does too, because he created us all as unique individuals with different gifts for expressing our gratitude in worship, and because he is the one who authored our creativity. The bible commands us to teach our children, not whether it should be in a Sunday school room or church service,  it commands us to worship, not how it should sound, it commands us to love one another, it commands us to cling to the word.  So what if the form it takes is different for different folks.  Most of the stuff that begets interdenominational squabbling is petty, trivial stuff. If a church is biblical, and people are coming to and remaining in Christ as a result of it, then I celebrate and thank God for that church, no matter its name.

Christian friends, we have a real and common enemy, and when we get distracted from that by finger pointing within the church, that is a device of that enemy. God never said, I don't want my worship to have electric guitars, but he definitely did say that we are One body, and that we are to work in harmony within that body for the Glory of God.

Of course it's a different matter if a church or ministry is teaching against Gods word, that's downright wrong, but if my take on accepting Jesus' salvation looks a little more warm fuzzy than fire and brimstone, or if I put my kids in a separate class to learn, or if I dunk instead of sprinkle, or if I sing my praises with a little bit of bass, so what, we're still on the same side, and we have a lot of work to do, it's getting ugly out there.  We need to stand together as Christ intended, and be a working, living body, and if we let trivial issues stand in the way of that, then we give power to the enemy. If we allow details and judgement to overshadow love, then we are being more unbiblical that those we are condemning, and that's a victory for the wrong team, so let's get it together, church.