On the Morning of a New Day

On the morning of the first day of kindergarten, I got up early and wrote my little girl a letter. In it I said that I loved her, that I was so proud of her and that our lives would never be the same after that day. Up to that point, the kids and I had spent most every single day of their lives together. I knew every morsel they put into their mouths, every song heard on the radio and each friend they had. I was mourning the loss of our time together as a whole unit. I knew we would never return to what we had been, and I was right.

My sunny little girl went on to school that day, skipping through those big doors without even looking back. She was ready, even if I wasn’t. I don’t think I got anything accomplished that whole week, just feeling the shift, the loss. What if she needs me? What if something happens? What if….

That was 13 years ago. I have watched that sunny girl turn into a beautiful woman who continues to skip through big doors without the thought of looking back. There are many words I can use to describe my girl, but my favorite one is brave.  I recently heard a quote, ‘bravery can only come when you have something to be brave about’*. She has walked through a few fires all by herself, with her friends, and with her God. And she has done it with her head held high and her eyes fixed ahead of her. I hope to someday be as brave as she is.

So, this is the morning of her last day of high school. I’m not sure why I feel surprised and unprepared for this fact; I’ve known it was coming ever since that first fall morning, many years ago. The word bittersweet has taken on a new depth I didn’t know before. You see, this is my child who sees the whole word and its injustices and wants to do something about them. This is my child who can’t stay close to her Momma and be true to her heart and calling at the same time. Sometimes I really hate that we cultivated this in her, but I know her bravery will serve her well.

I could write my girl another letter on this last day, telling her that I love her, that I’m so very proud of her and that our lives will never be the same again after this day, but instead I think I will make her pancakes for breakfast and watch as she skips through another door. I love you, Baby Girl!

*Katherine Center from “What You Know Now”

Two by Two

Our dog Jade came into our life from a rescue organization about eight months ago. She is a German Shepherd with the typical long, lean body and stern gaze. Her bark makes her sound like she could rip you to shreds, and maybe she could, but she doesn’t know it. Apparently Jade was abused terribly in her first few months, and as a result is afraid of ….well, life. If it moves, it’s a threat and her response is to flee.

When we adopted Jade we had an old yellow Lab who was very sociable and she helped Jade navigate through the day, but we were warned that the German Shepherd would always need a friend. We decided to cross that bridge when we came to it. Last month we hit the bridge. Gracie died a very quick death and left us with a confused, mournful, broken dog. She was worse than when we had first gotten her, content only when she was hiding in her kennel, away from the world.

We waited several weeks so that our family could mourn the loss of our 10 year old lab, and then we began putting feelers out for a companion for Jade. The same organization that brought us our German Shepherd contacted us, they had found the perfect playmate. Last week Crosby came to live with us. He is young and smart and has never met a stranger. Within minutes of them meeting, the two dogs began playing together, and I don’t think they have stopped yet.

Crosby brings an ease to the relationship, eager for interaction and willing to play; Jade brings discipline and a need for structure. Together, they are the perfect dog. This process has reminded me that we are all made to be in relationship, needing someone else. Whatever our strengths are, they only matter when paired with another’s weaknesses.

I can be lulled into thinking that I can do things myself, I don’t need the help of friends or the shelter of my guy, but that isn’t true. Like my dog, I need someone who pulls me out of my comfort zone and shows me that there is more to this world than I would believe by myself. Life is so much more interesting when it is shared with another.

Blast From the Past

Last Christmas I received a text from a number I didn’t recognize, from a state I haven’t resided in for more than twenty years. It was a friendly holiday greeting that I didn’t have the time or energy to acknowledge immediately. Several days later I replied with a similar greeting and asked who had sent the text. It was from an old friend from high school, a boy I had briefly dated who was two years older than me. We were ‘friends’ on Facebook, and apparently he got my information there.

I was delighted to connect with a name from the past, so we communicated back and forth for a while, catching up on where we were and how life had turned out. I had moved many times over the years, living in at least seven states while he had stayed in his own backyard. After all the basics were covered, he asked if “we” were okay. I didn’t know who “we” were. He reminded me that we had left our relationship on bitter terms in 1984, him breaking up with me and me saying terrible things to him in his senior yearbook. I was pretty dramatic back in the day. I had no memory of this whatsoever.

Apparently old boyfriend was convinced I hated him, and had been carrying around some amount of guilt over this for the past 28 years. He was so relieved that I was willing to chat with him, and had been stressed ever since he sent the first text. I remember getting mono from him and being incredibly sick, but that’s about it! I carefully tried to assuage his guilt, letting him know that I was no longer upset, and there were no hard feelings. He kept apologizing until I felt that I needed to completely let him off the hook, admitting that I hardly remembered dating him at all.

Is there someone in your life (or past life) that you feel you should apologize to? Is there a relationship from your past that needs acknowledgement? I wish I had known what kind of hardship I had created for this guy, and helped to alleviate any guilt or remorse years ago. If this seemingly insignificant relationship was this badly damaged, I know it means there are many more for me. There’s always more work to do….

Lesson in Love

Like most people, my family likes to pitch in and help when there is a need. We take food to neighbors when they celebrate, heal and mourn. We help move families into new homes and babysit so couples can connect. When our children grow out of their clothes, I like to hand someone bags of dearly loved, gently worn items for their own kids. It brings me such joy to hear of a need and connect someone with a solution. It’s all part of living in community and loving your neighbors, and it feels good to help others.

A few years ago I realized that I am pretty awful at accepting these same gifts that I enjoy giving. While living in Minnesota, our house was hit by a fall tornado that no one could have predicted. Many were more harshly affected, with one family actually losing a child in the storm. Our roof was lifted off of the house and moved over a tad, causing serious water damage to half the house. There was a sign posted on the front door for weeks with the emptiest word I can imagine: UNINHABITABLE.

We were incredibly fortunate throughout this entire ordeal; out of town when the storm hit, a neighborhood of people who came in and rescued our pets, a church full of people who moved the contents of half of the house to the dry half and hired a cleaning service and contractor before we even had returned from our trip! There were many more instances of help that we received over the months, because it was a crisis and we needed all the support we could get.

 I struggled with the position of humility that this put us in, needing sheets and towels, paper clips and school supplies. The hardest part for me personally was when the seasons changed and we were unable to get access to our winter coats and gear. We had three school aged children in Minnesota – they needed this stuff immediately! Our neighborhood had been invited by the local emergency assistance organization to come and take whatever we needed. I humbly took our children to the warehouse filled with items for those in need and let them choose their winter coats for the year. I was so grateful that no one talked to us about our situation or even made recommendations, they just let us take whatever we needed. This was the very same place that we had all volunteered at in the past, and given to many times over the years.  

It took months for us to climb out of the shock of that ordeal, but would have taken much longer if we hadn’t had so much love and support from our community. Sometimes we extend our hardships because, out of pride and self-sufficiency, we refuse to accept help from others. My question to you is this: when the time comes that you desperately need something that you cannot provide, will you be ready to humble yourself to accept it from someone who can?

How Can We Do This Better?

After the bombs went off in Boston, but before the two men were caught, the news media made it clear that the FBI was looking for young men of color as suspects. I have a friend who is light-skinned, married to a man from India and they have two wonderful sons with dark eyes, hair and skin. These two young men are exceptional in many ways; highly intelligent with sensitive hearts who love Christ. My friend fearfully lamented on Facebook that the FBI was racially profiling, and that her boys would fit the description perfectly if they had been in Boston that day.

I sat back in my chair and considered this. My first inclination was to reject the notion, I know these boys and it’s so obvious that they don’t fit that mold….but the FBI doesn’t know them. Then I thought about it in a different context, what if they were searching for tall redheads with light skin and eyes? My heart sank. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to worry about your children because of the way they look. Believe me, this wasn’t the first time she has felt this fear and frustration; her sons risk racial profiling all the time, while walking in the neighborhood or driving around town.

I wanted to have an answer. None came. My only response to her was, “How can we do this better?” Obviously there is no simple fix, but I believe my friend knew that I was sitting with her (miles away) in her anguish, willing to ask the question. I truly desire to help her find the answer, to help this world feel safer for all, not just the majority. We didn’t come up with anything that day and now we all know that two young men who fit that description were at fault for killing and terrifying many in Boston. This fact probably doesn’t help my friend at all.

Often when I am faced with an injustice my inclination is to gloss over it with generations-old ideals, or to remain ignorant to the details due to lack of time and passion. Instead of allowing my defense mechanisms to automatically rise up and iron out any concerns, what if I approached the situation with an open mind, a willingness to hear, and a simple question: How can we do this better? What if we all did this?

Get Off the Monkey Bars

For years my life was incredibly busy. I won’t bore you with the details, but I call that period of my life living monkey bar to monkey bar; as your hand is leaving a bar the other one is firmly grasping onto the next, with little thought of where you have been or where you are headed. The whole point was not to fall.

This worked for several years, I would make time for someone by dropping something else and I was always running late, once I had squeezed out all possible down time with busyness, all good stuff, I realized I had zero margin. I would drop into bed at night and sleep without moving until morning, only to go hard at it again.

I don’t think I could have stopped myself, so God moved us to another state. I’m not saying that God moved us because I was too busy, but I do believe it was a contributing factor. I have spent the last 15 months doing about 20% of the activities of my previous life and it has been wonderful. I have known that it was a season, but I have really enjoyed it.

Lately I have been putting more on the calendar and committing my time to people and organizations, and I want to remember this feeling of having the luxury of time.

Time to invest in myself and others.

Time to be creative.

Time to be what my family needs.

I want to chuck the monkey bars for good, to be present in the moment and to know where I’m headed.

What Do You Do?

I’m in Investments, you? I actually said this recently as I was meeting someone new. There is pressure to have a title ready when asked what you with your time; a concise declaration of who you and what matters to you without too much information attached. My education isn’t in the area of business, and I am horrible with numbers and data, so the irony is rich here, but honestly my passion is in the area of investing.

I invest my energy into my guy by caring about his work, asking questions and even making suggestions when requested. I want him to be successful and fulfilled and part of my job is to help make that happen, by making life at home easier for him. Recently we had to make some major changes in our diet to improve his numbers, and I eagerly took on the challenge. This is my long-term investment that gives me huge returns.

For years I invested in our children by being home with them full-time, these days they are teenagers who still need someone on their sides, in their courts day in and day out. My main responsibility at this point is to listen to what is said and especially to what is not while cooking dinner and encouraging homework. I have the privilege of driving a couple of them daily still, and I’m watching those minutes dwindling down to seconds. Motherhood is the job I am quickly working myself out of, with excitement and dread. This is my riskiest investment because there are no guarantees, but the joys of the rises and falls has made it so worthwhile.

Over the years I have looked for people and places to invest my time and energy; I worked with a dear friend for years who had a start-up company and needed a partner in crime. I invested hundreds of hours into ministry at a church on a volunteer basis.  I offered someone with a message I strongly believed in, one day a week to use me however she could to further her work. I went to graduate school to prove to myself that I could, even after years of being at home with kids. Lately, I am working as a server in a restaurant without fully understanding why, but it feels clear to me that I am where I need to be at this time. These have been my short-term investments with smaller gains that have huge potential.

The truth is we are all investors; we give our limited resource of time to whatever is important to us. I think regret comes when we realize this too late, and believe we have not invested wisely. I want to be found as using this resource to the fullest, no matter the return.

Pick Two

Funny, right? But so true.

We throw ourselves into so many directions, when the truth is that it cannot all be done well. It’s not possible. Let it go.

Incidentally, which two would you choose, and would your spouse agree?

 

Suspicious Minds

For a long time, I thought that sex was a cat and mouse game played by husband and wife. I’m not sure where I got this idea, but it seemed to me that it was the man’s job to chase the woman around the kitchen, flirting and persisting, until the woman became worn down enough to give him what he wanted. Seriously.

During the first few years of marriage, I was always suspicious about my guy’s motives; I knew he was willing to help with cleaning the house because he wanted one thing and I didn’t want him to think that he had outsmarted me, or had gotten away with something. Now I think back to that time and respond with: so what? Is that a bad thing, that he wanted you so much that he was willing to do whatever it took to get you?

Women, we seem to think that his desire is our burden. We often view sex as an obligation, when it could be seen as an invitation. Men need sex in order to feel loved. What if your guy was simply trying to show you he loves you the best way he knows how? Instead of trying to teach him to view sex the way you do (needing love in order to desire sex), why not allow him to show you just how much he loves you?

Drop the suspicions, the accusations and shaming. Assume that what he really wants is you. It really could be that simple, if we will just allow it.

Know Your Worth

Years ago my guy and I decided that I would stay home full-time with the kids. We didn’t know how this would be possible financially, but felt convicted that it was the right thing to do. Sixteen years later, I still believe it was the best decision for us, but to this day l cannot tell you how we did it. The first several years were touch and go, and on paper you could never say that we could  afford for me to be home. My husband was very stressed for most of this time, but was committed to making it work.

Over time my guy has worked very hard, climbed the corporate ladder and we have made several key moves to facilitate his career success. I can’t imagine how I could have changed careers with all of our moves, but that isn’t why I didn’t work; we chose for me to stay home so I could be with the kids, and take care of many details around the home that can easily be neglected. Have I enjoyed every minute of it? No. Was I fulfilled by the challenges of the day? Not usually.

There are times when a person of my station can feel ‘less than’, like when I’m asked what I do for a living while talking to a group of professionals, when making a significant purchase that requires paperwork and my signature, and each time I receive my Social Security statement – you know, the document that details every dollar you have earned throughout your lifetime. Mine came in the mail recently, and I can be tempted to feel very small as I am looking at the pitiful numbers. Or I can remember that my worth isn’t defined by a yearly income.

My worth is in these three healthy, happy teenagers who are well-fed and listened to. My worth is in this incredible guy I’ve been blessed to live with, who works hard outside the home so I can be inside. And my worth is in the eyes of my Creator, who assures me I am doing the right thing. My guy has thanked me many times for spending my time investing in others, and has said that the work I do is so much more important than his. If only I could fit that into a job description!

Staying home with the kids is not the answer for everyone, but knowing your real worth is.

As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worth of the calling you have received. Ephesians 4:1