Summer Daze
Chalk it up to the latent truancy that exists in parent and child alike, but I've been less than motivated these last few weeks. From the middle of May onward, I found myself slogging through the final projects, class picnics, and end-of-school year programs. I bought the ice cream, clapped for the perfect attendance awards, and sniffled through fifth-grade graduation. When the last bell rang, my kids weren't the only ones ready to be done.
No more lunches to pack...
No more homework to muddle through...
No more waking up in the middle of the night to remember what I forgot...
At least for the next 104 days or so.
I grew up in a teacher's home; in fact, it was a two-teacher home. Both my mother and father spent their days schooling future generations in the finer points of history and science. For our family, life existed in discreet increments of 9 weeks that gradually worked their way toward the ultimate goal of summer vacation. Dad often had to take odd jobs during his months off to make ends meet, but occasionally, every so often, there was a glorious summer when we had enough. He could stay with us, tend his garden, putter in his orchard, and simply enjoy working at home.
Of course, we still had responsibilities, even as children; but there was something marked about the sense of freedom we felt when school wrapped up. Instead of lesson planning and testing and grade books, our days were filled with berry picking, camping, ice cream, and lounging on the couch watching cartoons. We might go on vacation or travel to see relatives, but the joy of summer was directly tied to the fact that we didn't HAVE TO. Dewy June mornings evaporated into hot July afternoons which eventually gave way to the muggy nights of August. And all of them blissfully unscheduled.
At least, that's how I remember it.
Later in life, I learned that this wasn't exactly the norm. My sense of extended vacation was, in many ways, the result of both my childhood naivete and my parents unusual work schedules. Most of my friends didn't experience summer the way I did, especially if both their parents worked and they ended up at grandma's or in multiple sessions of day camp topped off with nightly VBS. In many ways, our family lived in a world apart, moving to our own rhythms, resisting outside forces. We did participate in church activities, offering up our service at Bible school or youth group camping trips, but for the most part, my parents felt no need to live their lives the way everyone else did.
For me, this meant that I carried some interesting expectations into adulthood, particularly that the world should slow down during the months of June, July, and August. In these times, you'd need only do the bare minimum outside your home. Certainly you must work. Those afternoons in front of the television often included snapping green beans, but somehow it was different. We were working for ourselves. We were investing in our own home and family. We weren't obligated to anyone else.
Eighteen summers of this will shape a person. So that even today, my heart seems to skip a few beats faster when June rolls around. June means freedom. June means family.
At dinner the other night, after a discussion of loose teeth, why ice doesn't sink, and the obligatory knock-knock joke, I leaned over to my husband.
"You do realize," I said, looking conspiratorially into those brown eyes that got us here in the first place, "you do realize that we are living in a Beverly Clearly novel."
A Beverly Clearly novel set smack-dab in the middle of summer.
I tell you all this to explain where I'll be for the next few months. The last bell has rung, and I'm taking the summer off. I might pop in now and again, but don't expect to see much of me. There may be some previously scheduled posts on FB or Twitter, and I might work up the effort to record a podcast or two, but for the most part, it's going to be quiet.
Somebody's got to teach these kids how summer's done.
Taste and See
You'd think after ten years, I'd have figured out a better way. You'd think that I'd have learned how to motivate, how to cajole, or how to simply avoid the conflict altogether But no. Ten years into this thing called parenting, dinner time can still be a battle.
Not every night, of course. The nights I serve up macaroni and cheese, chicken, or pizza, all is well and all manner of things shall be well. But the nights we're broadening our palate, the nights my husband and I enjoy a grown-up meal or attempt some exotic recipe, these nights devolve into protestations, stalling, and outright depression. I can never guarantee precisely how it will all go down--which food will be the stumbling block or which child will stumble--but I have noticed a pattern.
It begins with quiet resistance, moving the food around on the plate, sad looks, and barely uttered sighs. Perhaps all the other portions are consumed, leaving behind the one offending pile of vegetables or curry. My husband and I will have finished by this point. We will be ready to clear the table or have dessert, ready to move on. But instead, we stay. We stay for round two. We stay to encourage, to confront, and eventually to demand. We set timers, appeal to their sense of gratitude, and promise no other food until morning. Sometimes this works; sometimes they take us up on the offer.
After ten years, I should know better. Yet, each time, I continue to be surprised.
It's not that I'm unsympathetic. I understand their resistance to foods they don't like. I understand that we all have our own set of preferences. I understand that my husband doesn't like olives or carbonated drinks. But what I can't fathom is why my children resist foods they have never even tried. How can they know they don't like something if they've never even tasted it?
So while I'm willing to go through the process with them, go through the process we must. We insist that they taste. We insist that they try. We insist that they open themselves up to possibility.
It starts with a gathering of courage, putting a tiny bit on the spoon, hesitantly raising the spoon to the lips, closing the eyes, and tasting... And it. is. good. The eyes open; relief and surprise wash over the face. "It's good. No, mommy, I mean it's good. I'm not just saying that. I really like it."
After ten years, I should know better. I should know that my children are no different than the rest of us.
It is human nature to doubt. It is human nature to question. It is human nature to think the worst. Of course, I won't like that food. Of course, I won't like that change. Of course, I won't like what God is offering me. As I wrote recently at a colleague's blog: "We are helpless, flawed people and our inability to trust God is just one expression of this."
In some sense, we are all small children sitting at a banquet table with sorry looks and unuttered sighs, pushing the food of the gods around in circles on our plates.
But instead of demanding that we clean our plates; instead of setting timers and threatening no more provision, God simply invites us to "taste and see." He invites us to test him. To hesitantly raise the spoon to our lips, to close our eyes, to swallow.
I wonder if we expect more of each other than God himself expects of us. We want robust expressions of faith and confidence in God's plan. We want to see his children gobbling up the food that is put in front of them--whether it is a unforeseen trial or simply a change in life circumstances. We want to hear bold proclamations of faith that "all things work together for good."
But God knows better. He remembers our weakness. He knows we are but dust. And so, the perfect Father, opts to go through the process with us. Instead of demanding mature, perfect faith, he simply says, "Taste and see. Taste and see that I am good."
And so, slowly, hesitatingly, we obey. We open ourselves up to the possibility that his ways are beyond ours. We open ourselves up to the possibility that a good God might just give good gifts. We open ourselves up to the possibility that the Lord is indeed what he claims to be.
_______________________________________________________ ***You can read the full interview about faith and doubt here.
Holiday at the Sea
Two Sundays ago, my husband and I packed our Honda Odyssey with clothes, food, linens, and more beach toys than necessary, loaded up our three kids, and headed off to Virginia’s Eastern Shore on vacation. Unlike other coastal areas, the Eastern Shore is relatively underpopulated, with the exception of Chincoteague, a small island (9 sq. miles small) that thrives on oysters and tourism. You may recognize it from the Misty stories by Marguerite Henry, but the broader area also includes a nature preserve (neighboring Assateague Island), NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility, lighthouses, and miles of sandy beach.
We were lucky enough to find a cottage that was not too big, not too little, not too fussy and not too minimalist. It was perfect for our family and gave us an chance to sample island life for a few days. We took plenty of nature walks (for dad), investigated local history (for mom), and found ourselves at the water nearly every day (for the kids). On our way home, we even got to swing through Washington D.C. for a night.
Still, it wasn’t all fun and games. Being the conscientious (read: fussy) mother that I am, I worried about the kids missing a week of school. There were many reasons we waited until September to go--off-season rates being high on the list--but by waiting, I had to deal with the doubt of whether this was a good academic decision. (My husband had no such qualms.) Thankfully, it quickly became apparent that the kids were learning more than they’d missed, and just to prove it, here’s a sampling of the subjects we covered:
1. Ecology: Scientists tell us that coastal erosion is a serious problem—at one point Assateague beach was eroding a full 35 feet a year. And while there are many contributing factors, mothers know that one cause is of coastal erosion is simply that beaches are being transported further inland via cars, suitcases, tennis shoes, and sleeping bags.
2. Economics: When apportioned a certain amount of spending cash, children will inevitably want a souvenir that is just beyond said budget. Parents will inevitably find a way to make up the shortfall. The US government has been operating on this same principle since its inception.
3. Psychology: In order to ease the transition back home, you must end vacation in a place outside your comfort zone—like Washington D.C. Given the serene pace of island life, 0 out of 5 people want to leave by Friday. But, if you spend at least one night inside the Beltway, studies predict that 4 out 5 people will want to go home ASAP.
4. Cosmetology: Beach hair will only ever look good at the beach. The minute you re-enter civilization, your "waves" will simply look like you haven’t washed your hair in days. The only exception is if you’re a Hollywood A-lister, in which case, your Prada dress and Jimmy Choo shoes will signal that your messy locks are intentional.
5. Sociology: Family vacation is a vacation for the family unit, not the parents. In order for the parents to relax, they will need to book a cruise. (Sooner, rather than later.)
6. Linguistics: Reading can tell you a lot, but it cannot tell you how to pronounce the name of the area you are visiting. Consequently, you will spend several months incorrectly telling people you are going to “Ch”ink-a-teague, only to realize that it is pronounced “Sh”ink-a-teague. You will discover this the day before you leave the island, and as a result, take every possible opportunity to pronounce it correctly in an act of penance.
7. Human development: Even on vacation, children need structure and naps. Five-year-old children in particular.
8. Culinary Arts: If you decide to splurge on one dinner out—say, at a restaurant overlooking the water where you can sample the ocean’s freshest offerings for an exorbitant price—do not expect your children to join in the fun. Hot dogs are on the menu for a reason.
9. Statistics: Given the opportunity to play Ticket to Ride every night, children will ask to play Ticket to Ride 99.4% of the time.
10. Penmanship: The most effective way to learn your letters and numbers is by writing them in the sand with your finger. Unfortunately for our 5yo, writing your name on something (say, the beach) does not necessarily entail ownership of it.
In a day when it’s easy to project false images of our own happiness, I hesitate to post about my family enjoying one the most idyllic vacations we’ve ever had. I don’t want you to think that life is always this beautiful for us. But this week it was. And for that, I am grateful. We came home with our heads full and our hearts fuller for the time spent together.
And now, it’s time to get back to normal.
Faithful in Much
Two years ago, our family moved back to the rolling hills of southwest Virginia. My husband had been raised here, and even though we had literally traveled the world, he never could quite escape them. I grew up 300 miles north but have found that there is something very familiar about this area. The small communities. The strong sense of place. And family roots that run as deep as the white oaks’. Still, I’ve had a lot to learn in the last two years, to learn the stories that make this place what it is. Most recently, I’ve been learning about the unique price that southwest Virginia paid during World War II.
You may have heard of Bedford, VA, a small farming community that sits in the county next to us. When American troops stormed Omaha Beach on a cloud-covered June 6, 1944, many of Bedford’s own sons were among the first out of the boats. The first to be mowed down by German guns. But these “Bedford Boys” hadn’t signed up to be heroes. They were farm boys who had joined a local National Guard unit, simply looking for work. When WWII came, they shipped off to England and eventually found themselves part of the Normandy Campaign. Of the 28 who landed on the beach, only 6 survived. Today, Bedford is home to the National D-Day Memorial that commemorates the sacrifice of so many others like them.
But Bedford is not alone.Thirty miles to the west, nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge just outside of Roanoke is a little community that my family now calls home. According to the sign that greets you on Rt. 116, it’s Mt. Pleasant; but we don’t have a post office to prove it. We do have our own elementary school, a fire department, and a Rec Club. And we do have churches—Methodist, Brethren, and several varieties of Baptist.
If you turn west off Rt. 116, you’ll find a road that meanders away from the community’s center, rising and falling with the contours of the hills. It passes horse pastures, dilapidated barns, and neat brick homes built on family land. Travel this road far enough, and you’ll come to a small country church that was first named “Brook Hill Community Church.” True to her name, she’s flanked on her left by a brook, flowing through a cow pasture. On her right is a cemetery.
This is the church that my husband pastors, the one that brought us back to southwest Virginia.
If you walk through her front doors and up the steps to the vestibule, you won’t see anything much different from any other country church. A coat rack. A table stacked with Sunday’s bulletins. The doors that lead to the sanctuary. But if you’ve an eye for detail, you might notice an unassuming plaque that hangs on the wall opposite the water fountain. It is roughly two feet by three and holds the names of over fifty men. For the last two years, I’ve walked past it on my way to the choir loft, stood by it while waiting for the ladies room, and occasionally paused to read it with no understanding of its significance. Finally, one Sunday, I pulled a long-time member aside and asked her why it was there. She couldn’t remember exactly and we both agreed that we needed to find out before it was lost from our church’s collective memory.
Come Monday, I’d already forgotten.
But then, Tuesday night, the night of our women’s Bible study, another long-time member walked up to me and handed me a piece of folded paper. The front was emblazoned with a large patriotic crest and underneath it were the words “Unveiling of Plaque.” It was dated August 15, 1943 and the inside listed two columns of names—the same names that hung on the wall.
And then I understood.These were the “Brook Hill Boys.” Fathers, sons, uncles, brothers. Men from our little church and community who had left the familiarity of these mountains to wage war in Europe, Africa, and the Pacific. Realizing what it was, several of us formed an impromptu gathering around the plaque. And as we did, the memories came flooding back. One by one, they began pointing to names.
“This here was Brenda’s daddy.”
“And that’s Nadine’s brother.”
“There’s my uncle.”
“I don’t know this one—do you?”
And then someone pointed to a name with a gold star next to it.
“His ship was blown up.”
We fell silent, no one quite knowing what to say. Not simply because this one name had a gold star, but because so many others did as well. Because there it was: a story of life and death, of courage and sacrifice, of love and commitment—all represented by a single, unassuming, gold star next to a name on a plaque in a small Virginia church.
I don’t know if any of those men were on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944 with the Bedford Boys, but I do know that they were the same kind of men. They are the same kind of men who live in this community today. They are quiet, unassuming men. They are men who hunt and farm and work. They are men who’d rather be home in these mountains with the women they love than anywhere else in the world.
But they are also men who, having learned to be faithful in little things, became faithful in so much more.
Loving in the Moments
My husband and I recently celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary, and true to form, we spent it in a tiny NYC hotel room after a day of jostling three young children around the city sightseeing. We're still waiting for the official "anniversary dinner" by ourselves, but it will come when it comes. One of the things that you learn after twelve years of marriage is that you can't save up your love for special occasions. You'd better be loving right now in the moments if you're going to be loving at all. As author Anna Quindlen writes,
Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they come to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead no, that won't happen. We have to teach ourselves how to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live.
Marriages are made of these moments, moments--both big and small--that stretch over the course of the days, months, and years we spend together. It's easy to forget this in the midst of the chaos. In the midst of the laundry to be folded, the grass to be mowed, the children to be fed, the beds to be made--it's easy to miss these moments, to rush through them and never really make room for the very people we share them with.
But we must. We must learn to love in the moments. We must learn to love with the kind of love that the Apostle speaks about in I Corinthians 13. A love that is is patient and kind; that does not envy or boast; a love that is not arrogant or rude or insist on its own way; that is not irritable or resentful; a love that doesn't rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Because this kind of love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
So while, we often want to express our love in one big event, I think that the most dramatic expressions of love are often the ones that happen day to day. Love existing in small, ordinary ways. Love loving in the moments. So today, on this day several weeks after my anniversary, I want to contextualize I Corinthians 13 for the day to day. I've discovered that
Love means waiting patiently for you to finish your work and while I do, finding little ways to serve you each day--making your favorite mac and cheese, simply making the bed; Love means not being jealous when the children think you are the fun parent and not boasting about what I do to take care of you and them; Love means not speaking poorly about you to other people or saying belittling things when we disagree; Love means letting you have the remote so you can watch the US Open; Love means joyfully tackling the dirty dishes alone because you have to rush away to a meeting after dinner; Love means having the courage to approach you when you are caught in false thinking and rejoicing with you when you have the strength to overcome it; Love means laughing at your corny jokes; Love means believing in your dreams--even if I can't see them; Love means being a place of hope and light when the shadows comes closing in and all you can see is darkness; Love means living a lifetime of moments with you. Until death us do part.
The Abundance of Leftovers
Thankfully, I married a man who doesn’t know any better.
Growing up, my mother-in-law’s longstanding policy was that “Sunday is my day off.” To hear my husband tell it, she’d come home from church, put a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread on the counter, and be done with it. If they were lucky, there’d be leftovers from earlier in the week. So even before entering the pastorate, my husband had accepted that the best way to spend Sunday was to quickly change into comfortable clothes, race to the refrigerator to get the best leftovers, and then collapse on the couch to watch/sleep through an afternoon of football.
Little has altered for him, and this past Sunday was no exception. While he and the children were changing, I found myself rummaging through the refrigerator, praying that I would find enough leftovers to feed a family of five. Chili from Thursday? Check. Two slices of pizza? Check. One sweet potato and a minuscule piece of venison steak? Sure, why not? In the end, there was enough to go around despite the fact that everyone’s plate held a slightly different, “personalized” version of Sunday dinner. So when we bowed our heads to say grace, my husband--ever forthright--thanked God for “the abundance of leftovers.”
The abundance of leftovers.
And that’s when I understood. Those scattered bits of food--that last serving of chili, the single piece of cornbread, the dried-out tuna fish macaroni—those leftovers didn’t represent scarcity; they represented wealth. So much wealth that we couldn’t even eat an entire meal at one sitting. So much wealth that we needed a refrigerator to keep our food from spoiling before we got hungry enough to eat it again. So much wealth that someone had to invent Rubbermaid and Tupperware to hold it all.
So much wealth that our garbage is better than what most people will eat in a lifetime.
Theologians throughout history have argued that pride is the root of all sin—the lifting up yourself, the thinking of yourself as better than others, better than God even. Pride leads us to all sorts of evil because we can justify just about anything thinking that we “deserve” it. But if pride is the root of sin, ingratitude has to be its first blossom. The ingratitude that says that I deserve better than what I have. The ingratitude that fails to recognize that what I have is so much better than what I deserve. So that when we fail to acknowledge God’s goodness in our lives, when we fail to be thankful, we set ourselves up for a world of temptations.
And yet, we don’t fight our ingratitude with feelings of shame or by pushing away God’s good gifts. After all, the opposite of pride isn’t guilt--it is humility. And the opposite of ingratitude, thankfulness. So that even as we live lives of abundance—even as we indulge in the things that God has given--we do so with profound and utter humility. We do so with profound and utter dependence on His goodness. And we do so with a profound and utter joy in the abundance itself.
Even if--especially if--that abundance just happens to come in the form of leftover chili on a Sunday afternoon.
The Spiritual Discipline of Feasting
Still, if there’s one thing I’ve learned through those lean times, it’s the necessity of celebrating when you don’t feel like it and the importance of feasting when you think you can’t afford to. And to celebrate, not in spite of the difficulties or by tricking yourself into forgetting the struggles; but to celebrate precisely because of them.
Throughout human history, feasting has been the privilege of the rich, to be enjoyed by those who could afford it while fasting was the daily existence of the masses. Even today feasting and fasting are often little more than economic realities applied to the dinner table. But in his wisdom, our God turns even economic realities on their head--in his divine wisdom, he actually commands us to do both.
For those of us who are rich in this world, fasting becomes a way to remind ourselves of our spiritual poverty, of our dependence on Him for our daily bread. But for those who are poor in this world—whether in spirit or pocket book—it is the feast that requires more faith and is ultimately more instructive. For in the feast, in those fleeting moments of abundance, we remind ourselves that through His generous grace, we are indeed rich.
When Moses was instructing the fledgling nation of Israel about how to celebrate the riches of the harvest, he said this:
Before the LORD your God, in the place that he will choose, to make his name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always. And if the way is too long for you…then you shall turn it into money… and go to the place that the LORD your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you desire…whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. (Deuteronomy 14:22-26)
You must find a way--whether small or great—to mark this coming Thursday as a day distinct, as a day of thankfulness and dependence. And one way to do that is to dedicate yourself to the spiritual discipline of feasting. Roast the turkey, mash the potatoes, and heap massive gobs of real whipped cream on top of that pumpkin pie. And then sit down and delight. For one day, for one moment, feel no guilt, no worry, no fear about what tomorrow holds. And rejoice. Because in your poverty, in your loneliness, this is your sacrifice. Your sacrifice is letting go of the pain, letting go of the weight in your soul and reminding yourself through the briefest moment of luxury that your God cares for you and that he always will.
To My Baby Sister on Her Marriage
It’s funny to think of you getting married—not because I didn’t think that you would, but simply because baby sisters, by definition, are never old enough to get married.
I remember life before you ever existed. I was the only girl wedged between two brothers and while this was beneficial when it came to things like playing baseball and learning to wrestle, it left a lot to be desired in the realms of dress-up and fairy princesses. My solution was to pray for a sister, and so I began my personal crusade to convince God that an addition to the family was in order.
He agreed and you came along.
But I soon learned that the compliant, accommodating sister that I had planned to lead in playing house and dressing up had her own plans. Eventually, you and I found a way to bridge the personality and age differences and one night, before I left for college, I found you crying because you didn’t want me to leave. I tried to comfort you, to convince you that nothing really significant was changing, but with a perception beyond your ten years, you knew that family life would never be the same for us. There would be fewer and fewer dinners together, fewer and fewer television shows to fight over, fewer and fewer vacations, and ultimately the rhythms that had marked your young life would be gone entirely.
Life has a way of never staying what you want it to be. Just as you are savoring the moment, just as you get comfortable, it flies away and you find yourself entering a new normal. Soon you will enter one of those transitions. You will be married. I’m only eleven years into that journey myself, and while there are many things that I have yet to learn, let me take this opportunity to give you some advice. (I am your older sister after all--so just sit there and take it or I’ll tell Mom.)
The first thing that I want to tell you is that, despite what you think, you are not marrying Prince Charming. None of us do. Instead, I’ve discovered that you often marry someone better. And you learn this, not through candlelit dinners or romantic cruises, but through moments when
>He doesn’t want to you to make a big dinner when he comes home because he’d rather just spend time with you... >He buys you your favorite candy, just because… >He helps you fold the laundry while he’s watching the Steelers’ game... >He walks through the ups and downs of pregnancy with you and still thinks you are beautiful... >He packs school lunches at 9:30 at night because that’s when kitchen is finally clean enough to have the space to do it... >He gives you room to continue to grow and change as the years pass even as he grows and changes himself... >And through it all--despite the changes--he stays by your side for a lifetime.
No, you’re not marrying some storybook character. You are marrying a man, a good man. But even in this, you must remember that he is a man--a man with feet of clay, made from the same pitiful, earthy dust that you are. Because know this: whatever weaknesses you have, he will have them too.
And really, that’s one reason why we get married. It’s not because we’re perfect people, but precisely because we are not and God knows that we need all the help and support we can get to make it through this life. And ultimately He uses marriage to make us better people. Through every fight, through every disagreement, through every time that you humble yourself to ask forgiveness and every time that you extend forgiveness.
Some people think that the gospel is best displayed when we are doing a good job at being a wife or a husband. But I’ve come to learn that often, the gospel is best on display when we’re not. When you’re weak and selfish and he loves you anyway--just like Jesus does. Or when he’s stubborn and frustrating and you forgive him anyway--just like Jesus does. And when you spend a lifetime sacrificing for the good of each other, dying daily to your own desires, your own preferences, your own wishes—just like Jesus did. Because when you love like this, you can’t help but be changed and then the gospel will truly be on display through both of you.
But this is not an easy thing. So when you stand before us and make vows to love and care for each other for the rest of your earthly lives, understand this: you are not capable of keeping those vows. You need Someone bigger and stronger and more faithful to keep them for you. And He will.
Because even before you ever thought to make promises to each other, He had already made some of His own. He has promised that He will never leave you or forsake you. He has promised to uphold strengthen you and to give you joy and laughter along the way. And He has promised that even when things look darkest—when despite your best efforts, you still end up hurting each other—He will be there to pick up the pieces, offering grace and resurrection.
Perhaps in another eleven years, I can give you more insight—maybe you can give me some as well. But whatever road God leads you on, whatever path you take together, remember that I love you and I’ll be rooting for you all the way. And then maybe sometime, after the dishes are done and the children are grown, you and I will have time together once again. Time to catch up on all the years we’ve missed and time to play fairy princesses like I’ve always wanted.
All my love,
Hannah
The Given Life
“Mommy… (thoughtful pause) I just wonder, ‘Why am I me?’ Why don’t I have somebody else’s life? I mean, why can’t I see different things or do different things? Why am I me?”
I snapped to attention. Forget the Lucky Charms and blocked streets, this was a “teachable” moment.
“That’s such a good question.” I said. “In fact, people ask themselves that question all the time. I mean, why am I a Mommy? Why am I driving home in my van? Why do I have three children? These kinds of questions are the things that we all ask about our lives, and--”
“Not me, Mommy,” said my six-year-old son, quickly correcting me. “I never ask myself those questions--I like my life.”
Like most epiphanies, this one was quickly eclipsed by more interesting things—namely, arriving home and racing to see who could turn on the Olympics first. The moment lasted a bit longer for me though because it came on the heels of a conversation that I’d had with my husband the previous weekend. We were out celebrating our eleventh anniversary (apparently while the tenth anniversary nets you a Caribbean cruise, number eleven involves Chipotle, Starbucks, and back-to-school shopping). As is natural on this kind of occasion, we were talking over the years that had led us to this point. Because here we were in our early thirties, with three kids, living in yet another state, finally settling into our first house and none of it could have been predicted that day we first exchanged vows over a decade ago.
There’s a part of you that can’t help but wonder what would have happened if at any point you had taken a different route? If a particular street hadn’t been blocked and you had simply taken the road you intended to. And you realize that you could have been something--somebody--very different entirely.
This kind of backward longing is most tempting when things aren't as they should be. When life is difficult, when a marriage is struggling, when you feel like you’ve lost yourself along the way. And you being to believe that maybe, just maybe, you were meant to be someone else after all. That who you are today was not who you were supposed to become. And even if you were, in these times, you wish--like my daughter--you could be someone else entirely.
But the reality is that this life—the one that you are living right now—is a given life.
It’s not that we have no choice in the matter and it’s not even that our mistakes and failures don’t affect the outcome. It’s just that we’ve become too enamored with our own ability to shape our lives, with our own ability to control our destinies, with our own ability to be whoever we want to be. And we forget that today--who we are in this moment--is as much a gift as the day we first entered the world. We get so busy longing for the life we wish we had that we're not thankful for the one we’ve been given.
The given life. To live not just as if your first breath were ordained, but that every breath after it was as well. To believe that even as each choice presented itself, the hand that offered the choice was His. And to know--despite its twists and curves— He made the road run straight before you and led you exactly where you were meant to go.
This is where we must live. We must live in this moment. We must live as we have been called. We must be precisely who He made us to be.
Because once you reach that place, once you recognize that the given life, like all of His gifts, is a good one—well, in that place, it doesn’t much matter why you’re not someone else. All that matters is that He has given life to you, that He has ordained that you would exist, that He has made your life to be useful and reflect Him in a unique way.
And once you reach that place, you can say, with the confidence of a six-year-old, “Thank you--I like my life.”
Now We Are Six
This is the child who…
measures the circumference of his drinking glass to make sure there is enough room to dunk his Oreo (graham cracker, sandwich, carrots, whatever) into his milk.
assures me that he has two different sides to his belly--one side for good food and one side for dessert and that the side for good food is already filled up.
when the visiting preacher has us bow our heads in a moment of spiritual reflection and asks for people to raise their hands, lies with on his back on the pew and raises his… foot.
has an uncanny resemblance--both in attitude and propensity to danger--to Bill Waterson’s Calvin.
can barely contain himself during a movie when one of the characters asks whether you would pick between animals and people and blurts out “Animals!”
He also the child who confuses me the most.
When I was younger (read:naïve), I always thought I wanted a whole passel of boys because they “were easier to understand than girls.” But ever since this little man entered my world, he has done nothing but stymie me. Despite our distinct physical resemblance, we are nothing alike. He is quiet, shy, and reserved. He is happiest at home and needs very few people in this life but needs them to love him unreservedly and forever. He also never seems quite comfortable expressing his pleasure and only lets you know he’s thrilled by that ever so slightly turned-up corner of his mouth.
It makes my heart ache just thinking of it.
And yet, as each year passes, I find myself having to let go of who I thought he should be and learning to love who God has made him to be. To embrace the quirks and challenges along with the blessings and trust that in the Heavenly Father’s wisdom, they are all well within His plan. To ask, not that my dreams for him, but that His dreams for him will come true. And to pray that even now He might be crafting the perfect little girl—a girl who knows how to make blackberry pie and likes animals and loves to cuddle—to love him when I finally can’t.
Dinner Date
Now before you brand me the world’s worst mother, let me say a few things in my defense. I spend a tremendous amount of time with my children, homeschooled my daughter for two years, and even let her sneak into my bed while my husband’s out of town. But as far as dedicated, one-on-one time, I have to admit to being pretty delinquent.
I think it’s a combination of her being the oldest, the most competent, and quite frankly a girl--in a world where the squeaky wheel gets the grease, her brothers definitely get my attention. But when she “squeaks,” my first response is usually to want her to buck up, dig deep, and be a strong woman. At seven.
I suppose it’s also that I never was much of a girly girl myself, so I hadn’t thought to incorporate something like diner and shopping into our relationship. (For me, shopping carries overtones of Inquisitional torture. Forget the rack or burning at the stake, simply put me in a strip mall, with limited funds, and the need to find the perfect dress for a wedding. Yeah, the Spanish had no idea.)
But over the last few weeks, I began to notice that I was saying “no” to her more often than “yes.”
Her: Mommy, can we bake cookies? Me: Not right now, honey… Mommy’s busy. Her: Well, then can we watch a movie together? Me: Tonight’s a school night. Her: What about a craft? Me: It would be too messy.
Ad infinitum.
So with daddy out of town (and little brother with him), I decided I needed to finally make a date with my daughter. When I told her my plans, she melted and grinned from ear to ear in disbelief at her good fortune. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t felt so guilty that it took so little to make her that happy.
So after school yesterday, we picked out our outfits, did our hair in hot rollers, and pulled out the Lip Smackers. Once we dropped littlest brother of at a friend’s house, we were on our way. Now, I completely left the agenda and restaurant choice up to her, but to be honest, I did try to guide her to something a little more elegant than McDonalds. After significant discussion about the pros and cons of fast food, dine-in restaurants, and buffets, she solved our dilemma with one question: “Where can I get a hot dog?”
We ended up at Steak ‘n Shake.
This wasn’t what I had in mind. I’d have preferred someplace where I could have at least entertained the thought of a nutritionally balanced meal—if not for her, for myself. I wouldn’t call myself a whole foods freak, but after a breakfast of greek yogurt, fresh mango, and tea; a lunch of European multi-grain bread slathered in homemade hummus, cantaloupe, and a handful of raw almonds, my psyche wasn't exactly prepared for a double steak burger with a side of fries. But this was her choice. So we went.
Once we got there, she ended up picking the macaroni and cheese plate, baked beans and a chocolate-chip cookie dough milkshake. I resigned myself to a burger, arguing to my thighs and stomach that they shouldn’t hold it against me because I was doing it for the right reasons. I also promised them that I would feel guilty the whole time.
But the funny thing is that I didn’t.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, the moment when I let go of my food insecurities. Maybe it was when she asked me to help her with number #2 of the crossword puzzle on her place mat. (“What do you use to carry water and sand at the beach?—Mommy, I can’t figure it out--the word “pail” doesn’t fit. The word has to have a “U” for the second letter.) Or maybe it was when the waitress brought our food and she dove into her (obviously boxed) macaroni and cheese, declaring it the best thing she had ever tasted (“Oh, Mommy, you have to taste this *reaching across the table to put a forkful up to my mouth*—it’s just sooooo good!”)
But somewhere along the way, I decided to put aside my nutritional angst and receive that burger and fries with thanksgiving. Not because they were healthy for me, but because they enabled me to be with her. All that salt and fat and carbs—even those sips that I stole from her milkshake—allowed me to sit and experience joy with her. And in those moments, I finally understood how a simple prayer of thanksgiving can sanctify any food. Because although it wasn't what I would have chosen, it was good for me. And it tasted good too--like love and joy and blessing. So I savored each bite the same way she savored her institutional mac and cheese.
Because it was just sooooo good.
Mothering
It took me a while to figure this out, but I don’t think I’m alone in this. On Sunday, after I had fed, dressed, and dragged three children to church--only to have one of them wildly run down the hallway screaming “NOOOOO!!!!” as I tried to deposit him in the nursery--I found myself talking with two friends who are also mothers of young children. I asked what they had planned for the day and the first said she was hoping that the ground beef had thawed out because she was going home to make dinner; the other had a sick husband and child, was juggling two other children, and trying to figure out how to attend a family funeral over two hours away.
But no on seemed to care. None of us seemed put out that our Mother’s Day was spent mothering.
Don’t get me wrong—we were all tired. We would have loved to have had breakfast in bed, a spa retreat, or even the day to ourselves. But somewhere on the road to becoming the mothers we were, we had learned something. As wonderful as those things are, they really aren’t the point. You don’t mother to be praised, you don’t mother to be rewarded, you don’t mother for the recognition. You mother because you love.
But unlike common wisdom, this love doesn’t magically appear when you hold your first child. No, becoming a mother that loves happens incrementally, it happens through the sleepless nights, the temper tantrums (yours and theirs), and shared joys. It happens through the daily grind, from changing out winter wardrobes for spring, and extracting chewing gum from baby-fine hair. And through it all, motherhood changes you—in the sacrifices, you become braver and in the loving, you become kinder.
My sister-in-law and I were talking about this a couple days ago—we’ve been friends since college, friends before husbands, friends before children. So we’ve seen a lot of changes in each others lives, and we definitively, undeniably agreed that being a mother has been the most excruciating, most productive spiritual exercise either of us had ever experienced.
I think it's because mothering forces you to recognize things about yourself that you’d rather not have known: your helplessness, your inconsistency, you selfishness. All in one typical day, you discover that you can't make the fever break, you can’t make this child obey you, you are feeding them chicken nuggets while reading the blog post telling you how terrible chicken nuggets are, and you routinely think about all the things you’d rather be doing than cleaning up poop.
And in these moments, you have to cry out for something bigger and better than your own ability to be a “good’ mother. You have to cry out to Him. You have to find His strength and His patience and His love. You have to have His courage and His determination in order to parent like He does.
And that is what changes you. He changes you. He uses this temporary relationship with your children to produce eternal and lasting joy. He uses it to make us like Himself. So that in the end, I don’t know if I can guarantee my children will be better people because of my mothering. But I do know this—mothering them has made me a better one.
The Best Is Yet to Be
It takes everything in me to not jump up and scream at the top of my lungs, “You have no idea what you’re doing!”
I’m a great advocate of marriage (see here and here) but married life holds a lot of surprises. It’s much harder than it looks, some days it’s more struggle than gift, and just like war, no amount of boot camp can properly prepare you for what happens in the field. And that’s a good thing, because if we really knew what we were getting in to, few of us would. At the same time, I also find myself quietly smiling when a bride or groom says things like “Today I marry my best friend.” And again, all I can think--this time with a gentle confidence—is, “You have no idea.”
On my wedding day, I thought I was marrying my best friend. And in one sense, I did. There was no one I liked spending time with more, there was no one I had invested so much emotion in, and there was no one who knew me as well as he did. But when I look back on that friendship--as it was the day that we gave our vows to each other--it seems paltry and immature compared to the friendship that we have now. True, nearly eleven years ago, I married my best friend.
But today we are better best friends.
And it’s the kind of friendship that can only be gained through laundry and bills and moving boxes. It’s the kind of friendship that is strengthened by arguments and flourishes in reconciliation. A friendship says I still love you when you mess up—and better yet, I still like you. And ultimately it’s the kind of friendship that only comes from committing to live life together.
Fifty years from now, I’ll probably look back on my thirty-something self and laugh at even my current naïveté. Because by the time we reach that milestone, by the time we have grown old together, maybe I will have finally learned that even the best is yet to be. So to myself and all my newly and soon-to-be married friends, I have just this word of advice: you have no idea what you’re getting into.
Hallelujah, you have no idea.
Faith for the Good Times
As you can imagine, it’s a high point for us as a family. And it comes with a great job in my husband’s field and a move to a fantastic region that really does offer “all the amenities of city life combined with the tranquility of a mountain arts community.” I’ve also had some unexpected opportunities open up for me personally, and our children are a constant source of laughter, love, and joy. Life is good.
And I’m having a hard time with it.
Something complicated happens when you go through a difficult season like we have for the last several years. In our case, it was an extended period of un- and under-employment, complicated by devastating interpersonal conflicts and private uncertainties. Things were so topsy-turvy at times that we wondered if the world would ever right itself. Thankfully it has and slowly we’re coming out of it. But even as we do, I’m realizing that regaining our bearings isn’t going to be as simple as getting the dream job and finally settling down. It can’t be, because our circumstances weren’t the only things affected in that difficult time. Our souls were too.
I think it’s simply that when you go through hard times, you become so accustomed to being strong, to protecting the ones you love, to being on guard, that it’s easy to see everything as a threat--even the blessing of God. So much so, that when the drought finally ends, when the rains finally come, your soul has become so dry and dusty that the healing water can’t penetrate. Instead, with each drop, with each shower, you find yourself asking, Can I really embrace this from Your hand? Can I really let down my guard and feel again? Can I really trust You?
And you discover that embracing the goodness of God requires as much faith as enduring the time of suffering.
You find that you must actually learn how to bless the Lord as He gives as much as when He takes away; you find that you must learn how to be content in abounding as much as in being abased. And like everything else in this crazy life, you learn that it takes faith. Faith to believe He is good so that you won’t fear His blessings, always waiting for the catch. Faith to believe He is sovereign so you won’t rely on yourself, convinced that you made the rains come. And faith to believe that He loves you, so that you won’t keep protecting yourself, always defensive and aloof.
Ultimately it is faith--that when the blessings finally come—allows you to accept them with an open hand and simply say, “Thank you for this gift! I love it.”
What We Give Up
But no offering comes without loss. No sacrifice without pain.
So today, on this Thanksgiving Day, giving thanks means laying down our cynicism, our doubt, our need to control, our anger and fear. Laying them on the altar, taking the knife, and plunging a death-wound. Giving thanks means surrendering those things we’ve been holding—those things that we’ve been using to keep us safe. And instead, giving thanks means saying, “You are the One who cares for me, You are the One who keeps me safe. You are the One who holds my heart.”
And when we do this,
when we offer up our entitlement, there is room for blessing;
when we offer up our anger, there is room for forgiveness;
when we offer up our cynicism, there is room for hope;
when we offer up our doubt, there is room for faith.
And we discover that what rises from that bloody, twisted mass of sacrifice is an aroma of praise—praise and thanksgiving to the One who took them from us when we finally offered them up.
Tea Time
It was tea time.
Now to be fair, tea time meant more than tea; it could have been tea and a biscuit, tea and cake, or even “tea” as the evening meal. But whatever accompanied The Tea, everything else stopped. And in those moments, for those blessed fleeting minutes, it were as if someone had hit the pause button on the entire world.
Of course, here in the States we have our own ritual--the coffee break--but for whatever reason, it’s not the same. And I don’t think it’s just about our choice of beverage. It’s a subtle distinction and probably one (like most of my rambling philosophical thoughts) isn’t all that significant; but I couldn’t help but notice a different attitude in NZ, a different approach, almost as if those moments, those minutes were sacred. There, we were not so much taking a break from work as we were taking time for tea.
Remembering this, this weekend as I sipped my tea with a splash of milk, I was struck by the purposefulness of taking time, of setting aside a moment, of hallowing it. And I realized that this, this is how we must live. And perhaps just as significantly, this is how we must rest. Whether it’s fifteen minutes at work or one day a week or a period of extended sabbatical, we must rest with purpose and focus on what is happening in this moment. Not what we just completed or what will come. But what is happening now.
And that takes faith. Especially for those of us addicted to multi-tasking.
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon reminds us that “for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” (No, that wasn’t original with Pete Seeger or the Byrds, but go ahead you can sing it anyway –“turn, turn, turn…”) And yet, surprisingly, contrary to common perception, Solomon wasn’t talking about accepting the cycle of life so much as trusting the One who’s in control of it all in the first place. About trusting that these diverse moments, each with its own purpose, are His sovereignly shaped gifts to be used in the way He intended.
So when it comes to those “time for tea” moments, those moments where your efficiency is stifled, have enough faith to pause and enjoy your cuppa or your coffee (preferably with a Tim Tam). Have enough faith to savor the moment, to rest in the moment, and to bless God for His gift of the moment.
Promises
Ten years ago today, when my husband and I were young enough to be confident, we stood in front of friends and family and promised things to each other. We promised to freely give our love, our time, our bodies, and our wills. We promised that to the best of our ability we would model Christ and His Church.And it was beautiful.
Almost too beautiful, because little did we realize what we were actually promising; little did we understand that giving all those things actually meant sacrifice. And not in the poetic way we had used the word. No, it meant what it is: broken, bloody, excruciating death. It meant dying like Christ. It meant crucifixion.
And it meant failing because even our best promises that day were destined to be broken. Instead of loving, we have been selfish, we have been petulant, we have been angry. Instead of faithful, we have been faithless. We have suffered, not simply for each other, but because of each other--we have driven the nails into each other’s hands.
But there was another thing that we didn’t realize that day--Someone else was making promises too. Promises like,
I will never leave you or forsake you.
I am close to the brokenhearted. I rescue those whose spirits are crushed.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
I know the plans I have for you… plans for good, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
I am the resurrection and the life.
And it has been these promises that have brought us through the last ten years; it will be these promises that will carry us through even more. It is the promise that in the thousand deaths we have and will die, He will raise us up again; that when everything seems beyond hope, He will stretch out His hand with mercy and love; that He will be our resurrection and life.
So, today, I smile a bit to think how blissfully ignorant we were ten years ago, how utterly incapable we were of keeping our promises. But today, I’ll also laugh out loud with sheer joy to think that He wasn’t and He isn’t.
Seven
Wasn’t it yesterday that I was bringing her home from the hospital, looking over my shoulder the whole way wondering when the staff would wise up, realize that I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and try to stop me?
Wasn’t it yesterday that she was sick in the middle of the night with a fever and I held her, simultaneously praying for relief and raging at a world so unfeeling that it would continue to sleep while my baby couldn’t?
Wasn’t it yesterday that she discovered that dirt and water make one of the most glorious combinations known to mankind and that mommy really can’t get everything clean in the magic clothes machine?
Wasn’t it yesterday that “a” suddenly said /æ/ and “b” said /b/ and p-o-t spelled pot and then somehow unbelievably, blissfully, she was reading all day long and late every night and telling me things that I didn’t even know? ("The baobab tree swells up like a balloon because it keeps water in its trunk.")
No, it wasn’t yesterday.
It was yesterday’s yesterday, and each moment takes it further into the past and her one step closer to the future.
And I find some days it is almost impossible to keep from screaming, “NO!!! Stop! Please stop growing up; please just stay little. Don’t you understand – I need you to stay little. I need you to stay little because I need you to need me.”
But on the good days, on the days that I can see past my own insecurities and neediness, on the days when I love her best, I see that God has planned a bright, beautiful future for her and all I can think is how lucky and grateful I am to be part of it.