The Goodness of God

 

I have long enjoyed the song “The Goodness of God”. I love the idea reminder that God is ALWAYS faithful, and ALWAYS good and ALWAYS running after me. Especially when it is hard to see tangible reminders. So, I sing the song to remember anyway.

Four years ago I was standing in church singing this song with tears just streaming down my face. I could barely get the words out. I KNEW that God was good, that God had been good to me, but in that season I was struggling to see the good. It was one of those seasons that I knew was hard when I was in it, but I couldn’t fully grasp how hard it truly was until I looked back. But there I was singing the song because I KNEW in my heart it was true, and I so desperately needed to know that the goodness of God was running after me. One of the main reasons I was clinging to the promise of this song in that season was because of intense challenges with Peter, which is going to be important in a minute.

And then sometimes the goodness of God shows up in ways that you just can’t miss.

Saturday night I had the delightful opportunity of taking Peter out on a date! We planned it all week. Peter wanted to wear fancy clothes and go to the fancy mall….and eat at Panda Express (not so fancy). We dropped off his brothers and off we went for our adventure. Peter and I had the best few hours. We ate yummy food and ice cream, we bought Legos, we rode the escalators AND the elevators. The entire time I was thinking “I never dreamed of this”. Never in my dreams for Peter 4 years ago in that hard season did I think that we would have a normal outing to the mall when he was 7. Never did I think he could read all the signs we passed in the stores. Never did I think he would look at the mall map and find our way through the mall. And there we were in this space where I could all but reach out and touch the goodness of God.

Like I knew, that the song was true that even when I couldn’t see it; the goodness of God is always running after me. I had no way of knowing that within months of that darkest night when I was crying in church that Peter’s vision would miraculously improve. I had no way of knowing that God was about to do even more than I thought to ask that Sunday in church. We didn’t deserve it. We didn’t even ask. But God was always holding us in his hands and his goodness was always running after us.

Sunday morning, we went to church and I bet you can guess the song we sang? OF COURSE, it was “The Goodness of God” because God also just likes to wink at me like that. I thought I would cry when I heard the opening chords, but I never did. I just sang and sang with the biggest smile on my face! His goodness is still running after me.

 

Processing Endings Well

 

                                                                      (A picture from the evening, just because I felt like Cinderella)

My Saturday night was magical.

One time a year, my husband and I get FANCY dressed up and attend a fundraising gala for Encompass, a local pediatric therapy clinic. We go all in on this night. We arrange for overnight babysitting (thanks, Boppa and Grandmom-mom), we arrive to our hotel early in afternoon to rest and get ready for the evening event.

To be honest, the anticipation of this event has helped keep me going over the last few weeks. Weeks filled with some big challenges with kids, many medical appointments and tests for family members, and a full-scale review of an educational plan for one kid. All on top of daily life of a big family and the beginning of the school year. I just kept looking to Saturday night and dreaming about my dress and the fun and the food and the full night of sleep. On Friday I got my nails done and packed my bags, I had almost made it.

Then came Saturday and it was amazing, and I soaked in every minute of it. This year, I was gifted a stunning ball gown and I felt like Cinderella. I came home on Sunday happy and rested. (You can ask my husband about how he won half a hog in a silent auction sometime)

And it was over and all that was left of my fancy, long anticipated evening was the still glittery nail polish (which I am still looking at as a type). The event that had kept me going was done. Now what?

This is where all the work I have been doing on endings comes up yet again. Life has a whole lot of endings, so we need to learn how to handle them well. Otherwise, we can fall into two categories, one where we feel sad that it is over and then the sad gets attached to the event and we don’t even want to think about it because we think about the sad way we felt when it was over. The other one is where we decide it isn’t even worth it to anticipate anything because it always ends. Either way, our lives become generally more disappointing.

There is a healthier way to process the end of something we looked forward to and loved very much and now it is over. The key is we must process it. We need to finish well, even a Saturday night out may need some processing to finish well. And how do we do that? Here are some ideas:

Send a thank you. If there was a host/hostess of the event, send a thank you with an anecdotal highlight of your evening. Tell them how much it meant to you. Maybe send a picture of the event because hosts do not generally get to take many pictures. This doesn’t have to be complicated. In this story, I just sent an email with pictures attached on Monday.

Wrap it up. Do what you need to do to wrap up the event on your side and put everything away. Staring at a pile of unfinished business because you don’t want to think about the event being over is just going to bring you down. This is one reason I recommend unpacking as soon as you get home from a trip. In my story, I was given some phone numbers that I will need to follow up with in about a month, so I put the contacts in my phone and tossed the papers and cleared my desk. Just little things, but they all add up either to wrap up the fun or drag us down.

Find what’s next. A quote attributed to a few people goes like this “everyone needs something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.” I think these are words to live by and yet, the last one is not often done. If we are not careful, we just put our heads down and carry on. So, my last recommendation is to find your next thing to look forward to now that this one is over. My mom keeps a daily countdown on her phone to her next thing and she will reset it almost immediately, even if it is for 200 days later. She has her eye on the next fun thing to keep moving towards.

Having fun is important and on the hard days those things to look forward to and the memories once the event has past is something that we all need. Let’s process them well, remember them fondly, and look forward to the next thing…even when all that is left is the sparkly nail polish.

Marking the End of Seasons

 

For the past few years, we have had the opportunity to use a pool that is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Our kids love to swim so it has been our tradition in these years to be one of the last families out of the pool on Labor Day. Just how long can we make this season last, we ask ourselves as the shadows move over the pool. Then it is finally time to go and we head home from the pool for the last time that year. It is a time of transition between seasons. When we get home, I take a few extra minutes to clean out the swim bag (pro tip: IKEA bags make the best swim bags), putting away the sunscreen and hats, clearing out the leaves and wrappers. My husband asked why I take the time to do that routine in that moment. The practical answer is that when we swim the rest of the year, we do it indoors and we don’t need all the same things.

But the real answer runs deeper in my soul. It is a finishing of the season. It is a moment to put away, but also a moment to be thankful for a season well lived. It is a recognition of an end. As a society we seem excited for the next season, whatever that may be, but we don’t take as much time to think about the season we are letting go. Taking the time for this small physical ritual helps my heart with the more soulful feelings about the passing of time. To mark the end is just as necessary for my soul as it was to celebrate the beginning.

Summer is a hard season for me to let go. We live in a climate that has a short window of summer weather. I adore summer weather. Summer always feels too short. The ending of summer means shorter, darker days. It can mean my soul feels darker, too. But if I mark the ending and finish out my season by putting away and reflecting on the season, not to be sad that it is over, but to be grateful it was lived, I can let it go a whole lot easier.

In a few weeks I will change out the clothes in my kids’ dressers. I will make room for sweaters, setting aside the shorts. Not only does this ritual keep their rooms clean, their clothes easier to find, it helps me to process the passing of time. They may not wear these clothes again next year. It is as much spiritual organization as much as it is physical organization.

I have learned that if I take these moments to finish the small seasons, these yearly rhythms well, that I am better at processing much bigger life transitions between seasons. Our youngest child began Kindergarten last week. This is a big, exciting new season for her and our family. My parenting workload is undergoing a shift it hasn’t seen in years. I have been marking the end of the season of babies at home. I have done physical things to mark the end of the season, this summer I dropped my work and went to play outside as often as I could. And I have marked the end in my soul with much thinking and journaling about the last decade. It was 10 years well lived and I am grateful. My soul just needed to sit with those feelings and it could because of my small practices over time of marking the end of seasons. Seasons will always come and go, may our souls find comfort as they do.

The Night Before Kindergarten

We have been preparing for weeks, or months, well, truly, for years (read below). Tomorrow is the day. Peter will put on his backpack, make his way down the block, get on the big kid bus, and finally go to Kindergarten.

He is ready.

My head is ready.

My heart is so not ready.

I promised myself years ago that I wouldn't totally lose it when my kids would go to Kindergarten. There are so many parents who would give anything for this moment who won't see their babies until heaven. I get mine back by dinnertime.

And I have kept that promise, yet there is also a tug at my heart with all the feelings on the night before Kindergarten. Especially for Peter....

Because 5 years ago our world was rocked by his ONH diagnosis. I have written a lot about that journey, but this week holds a special place. One of the questions I asked early on, like any mom would even though no one can exactly answer, was "what will his life be like? "what will he be able to do or not do?". Like good professionals, no one had an exact answer about the future but the one "long term" goal that was noted was main stream, general education Kindergarten with support for his vision. As he got older we learned that would mean attending a different school than his brothers. That was fine, as long as he had good support. Then a couple years ago his vision made a big leap and he was no longer in need of his white cane or learning Braille. He progressed academically in leaps and bounds. So not only is his starting general education Kindergarten tomorrow, he will be at the same school as his brothers. I never even asked or imagined and God answered anyway! So my heart is celebrating!

But more than any of my other kids, Peter has been a full time job. We met his diagnosis with our heads held high. There wasn't anything I wouldn't try or therapy I would turn away for the first 3 years of his life. I researched, called, explained, tried out new ideas like our future depended on it. Because it did. And it worked. God made little brains to be very flexible and Peter's hard work helped grow his brain in new ways. Then tomorrow, someone else has Peter for the majority of the day and that feels very very strange after the last 5 years.

Peter is also my last little boy, and while Ellie will be the very last to school, this #boymom is feeling fragile tonight. So my tears are just close to the surface as I write this.

Peter is ready to go. Peter will do great things. I said when Peter was a baby that God had a special plan for Peter because God made Peter special. I know this in my head and my heart. So I will watch him get his backpack, walk to the bus stop, and head to Kindergarten knowing that the world needs a special Peter, but there will probably be a few tears in my eyes as I walk back home.

Joel and the God who restores

 I have been a mom for a little over 9 years. At this season most people would know me as being a mom of 4 kids. I come in with a (fairly well behaved) circus. It wasn’t always this way. There was a season where I was known more for being the lady who really wanted kids.

While I have been a mom (through the miracle of adoption) for 9 years, I found out I finally had a viable pregnancy about 8 years ago. We were still just thrilled God had given us ONE baby, yes, we wanted more but we were not going to ask for too much. Then this second miracle baby was on his way and we had to name him.

It would sound really cool to say that I poured over my Bible and found just the perfect name for our second son. It didn’t happen that way at all. The real story is we wanted a second name from the Bible, then sorted through names we liked or people we would want to name our kids after. That is how we came upon Joel’s name; we both respected a family friend named Joel and decided to name our son after him and it was just super convenient the name was also in the Bible.

Confession: I am not certain I read the book of Joel any time in the decade before I wrote that name on a birth certificate. I did look up the meaning of the name, “the Lord is God”, which seemed a fitting name for a baby who was such a miracle. So, there was that.

Fast forward a bunch of years and recently a preacher referenced a verse from the book of Joel. Not a common book to come up in a sermon. Fun fact, I learned recently in my studies that Bible scholars don’t even know enough about Joel to know what time frame he was even alive during the years of the Old Testament so he doesn’t come up much.

But that verse? I hadn’t found just the perfect name for Joel, but God had. The book of Joel talks a lot about bugs. Lots and lots of destructive bugs. Then, in Joel 2:25 God says, “I will restore to you the years the swarming locust has eaten…” (ESV). God will restore the lost years. The hard years. The years of so much sadness. God will restore them to Israel.

I love it! I had these years where I had miscarriage after miscarriage. I had no way of knowing in that season that I would one day give birth to three babies. The “years of swarming locusts” doesn’t feel like too dramatic of a spin for the depths of infertility.  Turns out God had a restoration plan for me, too.

Today I look at Joel and think “these are the restored years”. I didn’t really expect one biological child, much less three of them. Joel is my in-the-flesh reminder that God restores. When the current season isn’t going quite like I wanted, Joel is my reminder that God has a way bigger plan than my wants. I think God knew my faith would need some really tangible reminders, reminders I could actually hug and snuggle, that He is the God who restores.

Faithful

 

A good place to start writing for the year is my word of the year. I never push a word for the year, it either comes to me or it doesn’t, if it is forced then it is probably not a good fit.

In 2020, my word was “enough”. This started with a little sign that said “you do enough, you have enough, you are enough”. I was struggling with expectations, largely those imposed upon myself to be and do more. I had no idea what was going to hit the world! What I learned from my word varied as we moved through that unusual year. Our family was enough when we couldn’t see anyone else. Our home was enough when we were in lockdown. My stamina was enough to be there for my children all day every day. I didn’t accomplish what I had set out to do, but what I did do was enough. I think that was the overall take away. I really was enough being just me.

As we walked through an ever-changing year, it was hard to feel peace about the future and plans were impossible. As I watched a child fall apart, again, it was faith that kept me going to the next day. God has been faithful before and he would be faithful again. One of the songs I listened to over and over this year was “Goodness of God”. I love this song because I know it to be true that “all my life You have been faithful”. God has never not come through for us. God has always been faithful.

As life for my family changed, as my husband’s job changed and my kids came home for school, my focus shifted more into my home, rather than the speaking and writing out in the world I was expecting to do. At first it chaffed a little, in the middle I was just trying to stay afloat so I didn’t even think about it much, in the end I realized I was being faithful to my family. The very job God had given me to do. I did a reflection and planning retreat a few weeks ago. I wrote about what I wanted my life to look like a year from that day. The result of my thinking and writing was that I am moving forward on the path I need to be on. Really, that I need to remain faithful to my family, my faith, and the roles God has given me. There was nothing especially profound that came out of my retreat. Or maybe it was profound simply because it was simple and quiet….be faithful.

There was my word for the year in two places. Faithful. God has been and will be faithful for our family. He will direct our steps, especially in a season of unknows (when WILL school start again, anyone?). I will be faithful. I will lean in to the roles of wife and mother and friend and encourager. When I am chaffing against what seems like a lack of progress, I will remember that God is faithful and I will be, too.

On Redemption

Redemption is a beautiful concept. To take something, or someone, that was lost or broken or hurt and saving it or them. I can’t think of redemption without getting some tears in my eyes. I love the idea of something or someone being saved, being rescued. Maybe because I can so deeply relate to needing redemption.

I have had several moments in my life when I needed saving. Quite frankly, I need the redemption of Jesus daily. But some seasons stand out as a having a moment of redemption. When the darkness became light. When the valley path started rising to the mountains. When beauty rose from ashes and tears. Today is a day where I celebrate redemption.

It was eight years ago today that I became a mom.

It wasn’t at all the way I expected, but it was the path we came to be on. The path that led to redemption.

In fact, my plan, after a battle with infertility was to give birth on February 22, 2012. I had finally gotten pregnant in June the year prior and this was my due date. Until it wasn’t because I miscarried. Again. The events following that miscarriage showed us that the path we were to take to parenthood was the path of adoption.

The path of infertility and adoption was one of my lowest valleys. It felt dark. It felt lonely. It felt stagnant.

And then came the redemption. The saving. On the very day I thought I would give birth to a baby; one was placed in my arms. I felt the saving. I felt the weight of the darkness start to lift. I started to see the mountain path. My world had felt upside down and this little boy was turning it right side up again. I was a mom for the very first time.

The light was dawning and would continue to get brighter in this corner of my life. Parenthood would prove to have its own challenges (of course!), but my season of longing for a baby was redeemed. There was beauty rising from the ashes in my soul. My tears were tears of joy in the morning.

Adoption is considered a triad relationship: the child, the birth parents, and the adoption parents. We had a blessed opportunity to spend time with Isaac’s birth mother in the days before and after Isaac’s birth. We heard her story. We listened deeply. We cried with her. Yet, there was redemption. I don’t share her story or the beginning of Isaac’s story because they are not mine to tell, but I can say that the moment he placed was in my arms, there was a lot of redemption in the room. How could a mom not think about the woman who gave birth to her son on his birthday? She was first on my mind this morning. She gave me a gift. A gift of redemption. I hope she still feels redemption, too.

I love celebrating Isaac’s birthday. Today he opted to spend the day at home with his family playing with Legos. I am listening to him banter with his brothers as I write this. The story wasn’t at all what I expected when I wanted a baby. But this story has redemption and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Show Jesus, Make Cookies

"....there’s something transformational about showing love to someone without all the glitter and spotlights. The people who understand this make joy their reward."

I read that last week in Live in Grace, Walk in Love by Bob Goff. The first person that popped in to my mind was my Gram. Honestly, she has been close to the front of my mind a lot recently. Today would have been her 89th birthday, and it is her first birthday she is celebrating in heaven. I miss her a lot. I thought you missed someone less with time. I miss her more with time.

She taught me so much about the best ways to live. The best ways to show Jesus. The simple ways to show Jesus. She loved simply. She loved, as most people remember her, with cookies. There isn't a lot of glitter in cookies, but they sure taste yummy, and yummy cookies make people smile. It was that simple.

And she had joy. I think of the song that goes "joy unspeakable and full of glory". That was Gram. She was always singing about joy. She knew the secret (that really shouldn't be a secret) that joy IS the reward. The more we love, the more joy we have. Talk about a gift with a high return on investment.

I want to show that kind of love. I want to help others see Jesus. I like the idea of a joyful reward. So, I have been baking a lot more cookies. It really is that simple.

Thanks for lesson, Gram. See you in heaven.

On Angst

I don’t know if angst is really the topic I should be considering right now given my current state of mind about my own life, but the word came up this week in conversations with my kids and now I am thinking about the concept of angst.

In the context of discussing the inner turmoil of a young Peter Parker, better know to the world as the super hero Spider Man, one of my kids asked me to define angst. While I knew it has similar roots to anxiety, I was pretty sure it was of a deep pull than anxiety. So I looked it up.

Angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, and insecurity. Yes, it is anxiety, but it is paired with these other words that give it a little twist…like a feeling you just can’t shake. The first definition I read was that offered by Google….”a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.” In my own life, anxiety is often tied to a specific event or person. Angst is that all over apprehension and insecurity you just can’t quite get your finger on and that makes it much harder to find your way out of it.

Enter some interesting history of the word. Its use in the English language can be traced to the 19^th century and psychology (think Freud). That makes sense. The interesting part, at least to me, was that It had much more widespread use in general society in the 1940’s and 1950’s….when the world got a lot scarier with the atomic bomb now in play and the Cold War beginning. This is when the world was in crisis and quite scary, but most people couldn’t really DO anything about it. Enter angst. Deep anxiety about the world in general. Actually, sounds pretty reasonable.

I would argue that at this same time, we are faced with the new widespread information age with many homes starting to have television. Before this time, most people could worry about local events, but the world beyond that we were not getting anything in real time. News had a delay. Now all of a sudden, it is possible to have real time news in your home, but you still can’t DO anything about it. This is the breeding ground of angst.

Now fast forward another 60 or 70 years and it isn’t just when we go home and flip on the T.V. The news is in our very pockets. We can get real time updates on any political event anywhere in the world. Sure, some we can do something about, generally in a fairly slow way….send money to help in a crisis, vote for a different candidate, try to enact a policy change. Yet largely we are inundated with information we can’t DO anything about. On repeat. Every day. And then as it builds up, we don’t know why we feel anxious, our immediate lives and people are doing ok, but we have this deeper feeling of dread about everything.

This next part is hard. Is there anything we CAN do about this? Because living with a deeper feeling of dread is kind of poopy. I don’t think I have the answers. I would like the answers. Well, I have a couple things I have tried over the years that do help, but it probably isn’t the whole answer.

To start, I honestly believe this is where prayer comes in. We don’t have within our limited power the ability to fix every part of the world. We are called to pray for the world. This isn’t a last resort, this should be step one. And while we are there, we can pray for the peace that surpasses all understanding for our hearts and mind, too. We don’t have to live dread; we can give it to God.

My second one, is that I got a lot less angsty when I stopped following the news multiple times a day. I am not advocating burying one’s head in the sand here, but I don’t think we need a blow by blow of each crisis, especially in U.S. national level politics. Read a newspaper once a week and you will get the biggest take-a-way’s without the daily despair. Definitely limit news you get from social media as we all know the accuracy of that! When I was a child, a family we were close to did not have a T.V. The didn’t get the paper. They just didn’t want a daily influx of crud dumped on them. I never thought they were ill informed. And my guess, although I never asked, is that in the case of September 11^th they probably found out pretty quickly without even having access to media in their home. When trouble is big enough, word spreads fast. Don’t worry about missing something, if you need to know, you will.

That is really all I have for my own ways of avoiding angst in my own life. It isn’t much, but in a world where there is an onslaught of anxiety, apprehension, and insecurity, every little step helps.

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts about a little word with a big feeling!

Dear Joel: On your first day of Kindergarten

Dear Joel,

Today is your first day of Kindergarten! A few hours ago we held hands as we walked to the bus stop together. We didn’t say much. I think we were both nervous we would cry. You smiled bravely and so did I. You told me that you were most afraid you wouldn’t have enough time with mommy. I said we would find a way. I couldn’t say anything else. Then we hugged and you got on the bus and we waved and you were off to your adventure. I can’t wait to hear all about it when you get home.

But here is the rest of my side of the story. I cried more than I expected in the last few days. I cried after I put you to bed last night and we both said we were proud of each other. I spent most of last night awake praying. I prayed for you and the boy you are becoming. I prayed for your teacher. I prayed with tears of thankfulness, because there were so many years I didn’t think I would even have a you to put on a bus today. I prayed in thankfulness that I will see you at the end of the day when some mommas have said goodbye to their kids until heaven.

I spent some time last night feeling like I couldn’t let you go today. You are MY Joel. I am your mom. I love you more than anyone and I wanted to find a way to keep you. But that isn’t how the world works, is it? It isn’t about keeping you. It is about letting you go be you. The amazing one-of-a-kind you that you can only be as you spread your wings in the big wide world.

I had to let you go today because you were ready to go. You waited so patiently for this day. You have been watching all the other kids go. Because of your Fall birthday, you spent some extra time in preschool.  You can do lots of math already. You are so close to reading on your own. You are social and love to be around people. To keep you would be to hold you back. I love you too much to do that. You will shine in school. You will grow in school. I am excited to see it, even if my tears are flowing today.

There is another reason I had to let you go today. It came to me last night as I was thinking of all your amazing attributes. The world needs you. To keep you would be selfish. The world is a bit crazy right now. The world needs people just like you now more than ever.

You are kindhearted. If someone is sad, you find a way to help cheer them up. If they are lonely, you include them. The world needs you.

You are friendly. You make new friends everywhere you go. I know when you come home today you will have fifteen new friends (even if you don’t know their names yet!). The world needs you.

You have a smile for everyone. I know the teachers today will appreciate your smiles on this first day of school. You brighten the world with that smile. The world needs you.

You have a sharp mind. You are always thinking of how things work and ways to figure out a new idea or plan. School will help you learn to do that even more. The world needs a thinking you.

You help others. Some kids in your class will be very nervous and you will help them find their way. The world needs you.

You are a peacemaker. Kindergarten is where everyone learns a lot about how to get along with others. This comes naturally to you and you can show others how to do it. The world needs you.

See, the more I think about it, there is no way to keep you as my little boy home with me. You are ready for school, and more importantly, it is time to share you with the world. To share the hope that you will bring. The world needs you. You will go do amazing things. I know you will. All I had to do was let go.

But I will still be really excited when you get home!!

I love you,

Mommy

Changing perspectives: Leaning In

In early 2013, I had a toddler and had just found out I was pregnant with my second child. I owed a small business that did government consulting and, up to this point, had worked full time. But in that season, I was winding down some of my work and gear up to be more involved in the care and keeping of (soon to be) two little boys. I was thrilled with the direction my life was taking. As much as I loved my work, I loved being a wife and mom and running our little household.

At this same time a very popular book was released. It made all the morning talk show rounds. It was showing us a new way for women to look at their careers. It was a call to be more in the workplace. It was a call, as the title shared with us, to Lean In. Sheryl Sandberg’s book was a hot topic among my friends, especially working friends. It sent many of them in to a frenzy of how to, once again, figure out how to have it all. Whatever they did with their families, they better not “lean out” at work. To be honest, I didn’t read the book because what my friends were saying about it was stressful enough. I was clearly in the “lean out” group. It was where I wanted to be, but all of a sudden, with this new hit phrase of “lean in”, I was starting to question what value I would have should I continue down the path I was on to move more towards staying home with my babies.

Fast forward three years and I now had three little boys and had recently moved. Over the past year I had done very little paid work and was trying to decide if I would go back and look for more work. That decision was, in a way, made for me when we learned about Peter’s neurological condition and birth defect. I was definitely needed full time at home with all of his therapies and doctor visits so I closed the doors of my company. I had officially “leaned out”.

Lots of feelings and emotions and thoughts have filled the last 3 years since I closed the doors of my company. I love being a mom. I love being home with my kids. I miss making money. I miss interacting with the technical side of my brain. I don’t miss the politics of work or the stress of finding contracts. I still feel this little tug of guilt that I am not doing “enough” as a stay at home mom. How do you measure success? Accomplishment? Could another mom have “done it all”?

Then a trusted advisor handed me an article that reframed it all. On the day before Mother’s Day this year the Wall Street Journal had an article titled “Coming to Appreciate Stay-at-Home Moms”. It was written by a childless career woman who had recently landed on some hard times. She was amazed to find out that in her time of crisis it was her friends who were stay at home moms who had the time and space in their lives to help her, to listen to her, to care about her wellbeing. They were simply doing for her what they did for their families. As the writer put it “they were leaning in – to people, not organizations.” They were creating the most important ingredient for a better future…human capital.

Wow. That flipped my narrative from 2013 right upside down. I certainly had leaned out from the corporate table, but I have very much been leaning in to family. My last few years have been spent in countless therapies, preschool drop offs, playgroups, dinner making, Target runs, diaper changes, and many sleepless nights with, and over, the kids. I have been leaning in very very far. I have invested these years in my family, in raising good humans. And that is a very good and worth endeavor. I am leaning…exactly where I am supposed to be.

Praying for our kids...and their education

Those sweet kids are all heading back to school in the next month and that transition is high in my heart and mind right now. In the last seven and a half years since becoming a mom, I have received more parenting advice than I knew was possible. A couple of those actually stand out, have stood through the test of time, and have continued to help me be a better parent. Not surprising for something that has staying power, both were about praying, seeking and receiving God’s wisdom regarding our children. 

One of these best pieces of wisdom was from an older wise mom regarding how she approached the education of her children. I revisit this every school year as we are preparing our kids, minds, hearts, and home to begin the school year again. 

Each year this woman and her husband would pray over the method of education for each of their three sons for that school year. She knew each child was unique, and in a unique season of life, and that one style of education may not be right for all of them. She shared that one year she had a child in public school, a child in private school, and a child she home schooled (she was a busy momma!). She knew her children would grow and thrive in these spaces. I never knew if she had a preferred education ideology, if she had always planned to home school, or if supporting public education was a core value for her. It didn’t matter. She had prayed over her children and had each one where God said each one would thrive.

When our first child was a little over a year old, I was sitting a table full of moms and was asked “what will you be doing for school for Isaac?”. I had no answer. He was ONE! I must have looked shocked because the follow up was “you NEED to get him on the waiting lists now for the best schools”. Oh boy. I was then treated to each mom telling me the exact educational plan for each family. None of these families even had school age children yet but they had such an important sounding plan. The words I had heard spoken to me earlier came to mind, and not trying to be flippant, I said “well, my husband and I will pray over our son for each school year and place him where we believe God will have him thrive”. That comment took me right out of the comparison plan for education.

We have continued to pray specifically for the best way to educate our kids. Even though our oldest son is only heading to the second grade this fall, we have already made choices we wouldn’t have made if we were not specifically praying for each child each year. Even this year, I made a choice about one of our kids without praying about it, I made what I thought was the "logical" choice, and then it started to not feel right. When we prayed over the decision, we made a completely different choice...one that I can see will help that child thrive and grow.

And we know that God will work out whatever that best place is. Honestly, given our family resources, I am pretty thankful that public school has been a good fit so far. God gave us a home in a fantastic school district for our specific children before we even knew we needed what they had to offer. But, if God calls us to home school one of the kids or send them to a private school, we can trust that he will also provide the necessary resources to make those happen. I can pray with the assurance that God loves my kids even more than I do and He will show us the path He has for each of them and will provide the way to get there.

Jesus Loves Peter. This I know.

It has been a hard 10 days as Peter’s mom.

It has been a hard 3.5 years as Peter’s mom. It has been almost exactly 3 years since we learned that the symptoms we were seeing in Peter were the result of a congenital abnormality in his brain. Over time we adjusted and Peter is just Peter. He is more work than a typical child. But he is just as wonderful and perfect and loving as any little guy.

But sometimes it just gets hard for a season. Not necessarily because of Peter but because of the world he lives in. One that administrators seem to rule. A world where he gets the short end of the stick and he didn’t even do anything wrong.

So, it is hard to be his mom because I see the injustice and the hurt and the hard on my boy.

In the last 10 days there have been insurance problems leading to his therapy being cancelled indefinitely. There have been school problems where his heart and spirit were ignored, even by generally well-meaning adults. I have cried so many tears. I have made so many phone calls. I have fought so hard for him. Some I can fix and some I am still trying. I don’t really ever stop trying!

BUT, through it all I have to remember something.

That God loves Peter even more than I do. That God knows what Peter needs even more than I do. That God sees where this is all going and I just don’t.

The night we first got his diagnosis was one of the scariest of my life. I can recall those emotions in a heartbeat. I cried as I rocked him to sleep that night. And then through my tears I tried to sing his normal nighttime songs: You Are My Sunshine and Jesus Loves You. I barely got through the first one. He will ALWAYS be my sunshine. Nothing that the doctors say can change that. Then I sang “Jesus loves Peter, this I know” and I couldn’t keep singing. Because it was true. He does love Peter. Not Peter with a perfect “normal” brain, He loves Peter with a “not quite formed” brain. He loves Peter more than I do. I clung to that fact in that moment.

I have held that fact close for these years of Peter’s life. God knows what therapy Peter needs. God will help us find a way to pay for it. God will help guide the teachers at school. God has held Peter and God will not stop now. To believe anything less is to let the Devil win.

I still have a lot of phone calls and emails and forms. There is some work on the ground that has to be done. But I will continue to pray and ask for what Peter needs. I don’t know what his future holds (as much as I would like some answers even in the short term) but I know who holds his future. And the one that hold his future is the Jesus who loves him. This is I know.

Everything's Not Awesome

I don’t know about your house, but mine has been taken over by all things Lego Movie 2. My older two boys have seen the movie, we have the Lego's (yay, marketing!), we listen to the songs every.single.day. You could say it is the “thing” of the moment around here.

There is a song in the movie that is supposed to get stuck in your head. It literally has the line “this song is going to get stuck inside your head”. However, that is not the song that got stuck in mine. Right now, I am in the middle of preparing to speak to a group of moms about motherhood. I am not totally sure I feel like I am the right person for the job but last week my mom said “why not? You are THIRTY-FIVE and have FOUR kids”. Thanks for the reminder, mom! So, as I think about motherhood, I keep thinking about a song from the Lego Movie 2.

It starts out with:

Everything's not awesome

Everything's not cool

I am so depressed

Everything's not awesome

Motherhood right now, anyone? Winter. Snow. Kids you can’t send outside. Health issues. Marriage in close quarters. Anyone? Please tell me I am not alone. I already wrote last month about given up. This is a rough season around here.

BUT that is not where the song ends and it isn’t how we have to live. It doesn’t have to be either totally awesome or totally not awesome. The song goes on (and this is the part I love)…

“Everything's not awesome

Things can't be awesome all of the time

It's an unrealistic expectation”

Did you catch it? Read it again. “Things can’t be awesome all of the time, that is an unrealistic expectation.” I 100% agree with that statement. It just isn’t how life works and if we want it to always be awesome we are going to be disappointed and that won’t feel awesome so we will be disappointed in our disappointed feelings and it becomes a WHOLE NOT AWESOME THING. GIVE UP! GO BACK TO BED! DON’T EVEN BOTHER WITH HAIR OR CLEAN PANTS. EVERYTHING IS NOT AWESOME!

STOP.

Read the next lines…

“But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try

To make everything awesome

In a less idealistic kind of way”

Oh, well, that is a different approach. We could try to make what we can awesome. We can just try our best. We can still try to be our best selves. We can wear clean pants. We can fix our hair pretty. We can get up before our kids to have some quiet space (I will harp on this until the day I die. It is my thing. Not even sorry.) We can try in a less idealistic kind of way. It won’t all be awesome. It just won’t. We don’t live in that made up world. We live here in the messy middle life. But we can still try to influence our families and world for good (or, for awesome) when and where we can.

And some days we need the last line of this verse….

“We should maybe aim for not bad

'Cause not bad right now would be real great”

Some days are going to be just shooting for “not bad”. Some days your husband will be out of town, and you will wake up to the sound of vomit, and then your husband’s flight will be delayed and you will end up sounding like Oprah after school…You get a Kindle and You get a Kindle and YOU get a Kindle and YOU get a snack and YOU get candy! And just give mommy a few minutes to pee alone! So we aim for not bad and that is real great right now.  We cut ourselves the slack we would cut our girlfriends and we make it through a less idealistic version of our day but feel awesome because we made it to bed that night.

One final point. The bridge of the song shares an idea of how to pull this less idealistic version of awesome off…”We can make things better if we stick together, side by side, you and I, we will build it together…”. Together. In community. Together with our spouse we can build an awesome family. Together with our friends we can build an awesome village. Going it alone rarely works. We can and need to depend on others. I ask my husband for help. We work together when things are not awesome to figure out how to get back to some version of awesome. We have even sought out help to do that. I have spent pretty much the entirety of my children’s lives seeking other mom’s (of all ages) to do this together. I support them and they support me. Building it together will ALWAYS make it more awesome!

So go be awesome, whatever that looks like, today!

Getting past the fear of shame

Four weeks ago I spoke in front of two groups of ladies on the topic of fearless motherhood. I spoke about shame and judgement and how we called to be those that lift each other up as moms and women. It was incredibly well received. I was told the feedback was great and that many women were uplifted and encouraged by my talk. My talk had been the culmination of months of writing on the topic. I was really excited to move forward, continue writing and trying to find more avenues to speak.

Just days after that event, more than one person made a comment on the grammar and punctuation in a specific Facebook post I had written. All of a sudden, I was front and center for that judgement I had just spoken about. Two things happened as a result of that.

One, I cried for close to two full days.

Two, I stopped writing. At all. I am confessing here that I am immobilized by fear. Fear that I would make another simple (and, I would have thought, forgivable) mistake and someone would decide I needed another lesson.

Just writing this out is making my heart quicken. Tears are forming behind my eyes. I have been told I have great composure and every single time I think about what happened and trying to write again I lose all of my composure.

And it hurts. It still hurts. I went from being so excited to hiding in a home improvement project….see, I don’t have TIME to write, there are walls to paint!...all an excuse. Mostly I am hurt and scared and can’t figure out how to move past it.

Maybe that is the biggest confession. I am caught up in the shame. The shame I have been trying to help others to not dish out and I am having a terrible time rising above it. I am stuck and I don’t like it.

I recently heard the idea that the first step is awareness. Awareness that something isn’t right, awareness that you are doing something destructive, awareness that you are on a path that isn’t getting you where you want to be. So, for a few days I have just been aware. Aware that this pain hurts.

Today I am taking the next step. I am going back to writing…by writing about not wanting to write anymore, of being afraid of writing. I am moving forward even as my heart feels anxious. Even as the tears are kind of making me want to give up.

I wonder why even keep typing? Why put myself out there? Why? Well, those ladies I spoke to are one reason. I helped them and it felt good. I like helping women. I think I have valuable things to share. I can’t let shame stop me from what I believe was a passion put on my heart by God himself. If I stop, the devil wins. I won’t let that happen.

But I won’t say it feels good today. It doesn’t. I hope writing does feel good again. I hope that by writing out how I feel about this shame and judgement I can begin to move past it. That I can move past the fear.

Because I know that the help I was giving others is bigger than the hurt in my heart. Even if it doesn’t feel that way today.

Fifteen years later

Today is March 19^th. A day that always sticks in my mind.

I graduated from college on March 19^th.

Fifteen years ago.

Wait? What? How did that happen?

Honestly, I was a little shocked when I looked at the date today.

I can still remember the day. I walked out of the college of social sciences and in to the sun. The world felt really, really big. I felt really, really small. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do next but I do remember being very ready to be done with college.

But I didn’t just feel small. I felt like I was on the edge of something. The next few months would be my steps to what life would bring next.

Spoiler alert…it went almost NOTHING like I had planned!

Oh, I did a lot of the things I said I was going to do…but just as many didn’t happen. The biggest things that have happened in the last 15 years were not even in my wildest dreams (or nightmares, as the case may be, but mostly dreams). I did go to work in Washington, DC. I did do R&D for the government. I never did get that PhD I was heading for. I don’t live anywhere near Washington, DC now. I don’t spend my days using my college degree in the way I had intended.

BUT, I would like to think that the things I did end up doing were the ones that mattered and I know I am right where I am supposed to be (even if some days that isn’t nearly as glamorous as my original plan).

Of my plans when I left college, the ones that I have fulfilled the most are the ones regarding relationships rather than career. That feels good. What I ended up doing have been things that matter and here are a few of them…

1. I married a great guy.

2. We adopted an amazing son.

3. Through heartache, I learned a way to help others.

4. I owned a company that allowed my family to move forward in many ways.

5. I spend my days pouring my life into my four kids.

6. I am raising a child with unique abilities to be the best world changer he can be.

7. I have found a path to encourage and inspire other women in their roles as women, wives, and mothers.

Today is another sunny March 19^th. I took my almost 2-year-old daughter for a walk on the shores of Lake Washington today. Not where I planned to be, probably not who I planned to be with (the kids were all supposed to be in school by now in my plans 😊). I thought a lot about the journey and the destination. The journey has been good. The destination, unexpected, but still good…and I still have a lot of journey left to go.

In another 15 years I will be almost fifty-one. My daughter will be almost 17 years old. We may take a walk that day. She probably won’t cry about leaving the playground. I hope that on that day I stop to think about the journey. I hope I can say those years have been just as fulfilling for relationships as the last 15 years. I hope I can say I am still right where I am supposed to be.

Marriage advice from the Greatest Showman

However big, however small

Let me be part of it all

Share your dreams with me

You may be right, you may be wrong

But say that you'll bring me along

To the world you see

To the world I close my eyes to see

I close my eyes to see

Although we were late to the bandwagon, our family fully embraced all the music of The Greatest Showman once we saw the movie. The soundtrack looped here almost daily for months. Each of us has a favorite song, and mine is “A Million Dreams”. I love how it took the movie from kids to adults. I love the interaction between Barnum and his wife.

The more I watch the movie, I think it should be required viewing for pre-marriage counselling and for anyone who has been married awhile, too. Mostly because of the ideas shared in the song “A Million Dreams”. The main characters start life with little more than love and believing in each other’s dreams, and as we learn as the movie goes, that is worth more than anything.

The section of the song quoted above is sung by Barnum’s wife. I think it could be sung by just about any young wife. This is a young woman who believed so much in her husband’s dream she wanted to be a part of it all. The big. The small. She wants to be brought along.

There are some spoilers in this next part…as the movie progresses, Barnum starts to not talk to his wife about his dreams. He doesn’t share his dreams, which are pretty big at this point. When she finds out in a very hard way that her whole life was being pulled out from under her, because of her husband, she leaves very hurt. She says something that has stuck in my mind and played over and over. She has learned of their financial ruin and asks “Why didn’t you ask me before? I would have said yes. I never minded the risk but we always did it together.” And with that, she leaves.

It wasn’t the risk that hurt her, it was the fact that he lost sight of bringing her along. Of letting her be a part of it all. She left because she felt deeply the lost connection with her spouse. She later says, after he says he was wrong for losing all they had, “I never wanted anything but the man I fell in love with”.

All she wants is the connection with her husband. Every risk will be worth it if they are together in it. However big, however small, be connected to me. Trust my love enough to share it all with me.

I see so many marriages that are lacking connection right now. I see so many women who made that promise to support their husband but don’t even know what they are supporting anymore. Share your dreams with me is like an anthem call right now. Husbands are busy providing, and many are very good at it, but they keep their cards close to the chest about what it going on in their lives. These men are being the stoic boys they were raised to be. To keep their burdens to themselves. The problem is that their wives want connection. The wives want to be a part of it all, and when they can’t, they shut down, they may not physically leave, but they are leaving emotionally. The girls stop sharing their dreams with the boys. They turn to girlfriends for connection and support. The whole family biosphere beings to crumble. It certainly did for Barnum and his wife. The only way they got it back was to turn back to each other, both with empathy and a spirit willing to listen and communicate, to see that the most important thing they had really was their love and family.

This is all good in theory, but what are some practical ways to get back there? To regain that connection? I have found in the modern busy world I have to fight for time with my husband. Not fight him, but the schedules and kids and demands. We schedule time for dates to Starbucks, we put down our media (digital and print) after the kids’ bedtime and talk. I ask about his job. I listen empathetically. He asks about the kids and what is going on with their various challenges. He listens empathetically. Sometimes we brainstorm problems. Often it is just the listening the other needs. We talk about what we want to do next in life. Where we are going. Our dreams. But we can’t do anything of that if we don’t listen to each other and share our dreams.

My challenge to wives, especially ones with young kids, is to make that time to just listen to your man. Hear his dreams again. And men, tell the girl what is going on! She will be able to support you so much better if she knows. She is your wife. She is your greatest good. She loves you. Share your life with her. She wants to be a part of it all.

Giving up to make it through

The last few weeks have had circumstances that individually would have made life challenging. But these were not nicely lining up and waiting their turn, no, these circumstances were all punching at once. One friend asked how I was doing and I replied with “slowly losing the will to survive.” It was dramatic, of course, but I just could not get above the hits. Because I struggle with chronic depression, I am very careful about becoming overwhelmed. I have a lot of built in stops and self-care to manage my mental health. I couldn’t even access a good number of those given the circumstances.

One thing that I know about myself is that my first reaction to struggle is to try harder. This is almost a part of my DNA. I was raised by people with this attitude and I was raised in a culture of this attitude. Not only do I try harder on whatever is going on, if that isn’t possible, I try harder in other areas to hope to compensate in the area where I feel stuck. My most recent example of this was actually during the last week. I was literally stuck at home (too much snow to leave) with a sick baby and two other kids and I was sick myself. So what did I do? I finished painting Isaac’s room. No joke. I figured that even if everything else fell apart, I would have one thing accomplished. Truthfully, it did feel good and it helped me later in the week to have that done. So I won’t say I shouldn’t have done it, but it does sound funny to say I did that in the midst of all that was going on.

Sometimes when I am in these places, though, I end up creating extra work or anxiety just to feel like I am “doing something”. Last week, I tried a different approach to see if it would help with anxiety and mental health. I gave up.

I came up with the idea when I was thinking about the military term “embrace the suck”. The idea there is that you can’t change your circumstances, so embrace them and get through them, rather than fighting against it as you go. I couldn’t change the snow. I couldn’t change my child being sick. I couldn’t change myself being sick. I couldn’t change being “on” all the time. I couldn’t change my husband being out of town. And, really, there wasn’t much to do.

Normally in that time I would find something to do, and I did in the painting, but that didn’t take long. So I would turn to “well I can read and study for work I have coming up”. But this time I didn’t do that. I decided to give up on it all and read a novel. Just lose myself in a book as much as I could. Let the kids watch TV and sit next to them and read.

I started to think maybe I needed to give up to make it through. I had a mental picture of Devil’s Snare from Harry Potter….that struggling could actually make it worse. That I just needed to relax everything to get out of this space. I stopped reading non-fiction and finished 3 books last week. I didn’t make a real planned dinner for over a week. And this season of circumstances is still not over, but I do feel like I am making it. I can do this. Our routine will reemerge in the coming weeks. All the tasks will get done. My kids will eat regular dinners again. I will get my work and study done. But for now I am going to go read a book.

My Shift

Do you ever look back and see that there was a particular day, that was supposed to be an ordinary day, where everything shifted? Everything in your whole life swerved in that moment? Where you don’t remember thing events that were supposed to be big, but you remember everything about the moment when your life shifted? Even if at the moment, you didn’t know it was actually going to be the shift?

I am not talking about large scale things like weddings, births, trauma, deaths. But where something small started the ball rolling. You didn’t know at the time what the outcome was going to be, but it turned out to be huge and it was all in that moment.

I have one of those. It is my most vivid shift in my life. It happened on January 18^th, 2012. It was exciting at the moment but I really didn’t know it was the shift until it all came to past.

My job that day was taking me to Washington, DC. Which was not out of the ordinary and something I did every couple of months. It was so routine, it was almost boring. I read a Sherlock Holmes book on the plane (I only know this from a Facebook memory quote).

The rest of what I was there for is a blur. I don’t remember the content of the strategy meeting we were having that day. I can’t remember a word of the lunch meeting I had that I had fought hard to get with an older guy in my field who I was hoping would mentor me some and give me tips. It was a score to get that lunch appointment. It was going to boost my career. I remember none of it because none of that matters today.

What I do remember from that day was this….

I had a few minutes to kill at my hotel that morning after dropping off my suitcase and before I had to get to a meeting. There is a Starbucks in the lobby so I got coffee and a snack and decided to make a quick phone call. A few days earlier I had learned of an adoption attorney who was opening her adoptive families list to new clients. We wanted to be on as many lists as possible so I was calling her paralegal to inquire about the process of getting on that list.

What began as an inquire call quickly changed when I said we wanted to adopt an African American boy. She got excited. She said they really needed a family to show an expected mother and they didn’t have anyone that fit. In that moment, I learned about my son. We went through the logistics of getting on her lists. She went a little outside of protocol and sent me the redacted intake paperwork so I could learn more about the baby. He was due in a month. I had to cut the call short with a promise to speak later so I could get to work. But the shift had happened.

I don’t remember any of the rest of the work day. I was thinking about this baby boy and how, just maybe, he could be ours. I am going to add here that I remember it was super stressful to be so far away from Mark and unable to get him even on the phone right then. Mostly I just wondered if I should get excited or play it cool. We had just had one failed matched but it is so hard not to get your hopes up about these things. I wanted to be a mom. Could this be it?

The next day I would fly home and the day after that we would drive to Gainesville, FL to meet the attorney and officially be on the list so our profile could be shown. A week later, we would get the call saying we were picked to be the baby’s parents. Two and a half weeks later, we would hold our son in our arms…that day and forever.

He will be seven in a few weeks. He changed my whole world. He was my shift. It all started on an ordinary January day and my life has never been the same and I am thankful for that every.single.day.

Be anxious for nothing

Be anxious for nothing.

I am a naturally anxious person. It is just something I struggle with. I have a child with a diagnosed anxiety disorder…I don’t exactly wonder where he got it from.

It is nine days in to the new year and those have been some pretty anxious days. I want to say they have been anxious regarding things outside of my control but the problem with that is the control. What exactly is in my control? That might not be nearly as much as I want to believe, so maybe it is time to address the anxiety rather than the control.

This came up with my therapist this week. He said, to my face, I was an anxious person. Ouch, but fair, and not exactly a news flash. I just don’t like people saying it because that means my façade of control has slipped. He actually went one further. He said “she is anxious and probably copes with her anxiety by planning”. Hmm. It hit me that was a nice way to say “she likes to control stuff”. And I really, really do.

Much of my coping as a special needs mom is planning and controlling what I can. And to be fair to myself, there is a lot to plan and coordinate, but I may go overboard. Maybe. Ok, fine. I do.

And then something comes along that can’t be immediately planned and organized and I am a HOT MESS. Or maybe it isn’t mine to drive. I have to support instead. There may still be a role for a planner, but it might be slower than I want.

What then? My anxiety coping plan doesn’t exactly work well in those conditions.

It is dawning on me that I need to refocus and make some changes. I need to go back to the roots of the anxiety. I need to go back to “be anxious for nothing.” Not by planning but by applying more directly the next verses in the Bible….and, while I am at it, the one right before it, too.

After all, it is the very first Bible verse I can remember memorizing!

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice” (Philippians 4:4)

I think rejoicing is the first step in being prepared to “be anxious for nothing”.

Today I was reading Max Lucado’s book Anxious for Nothing and this is where he starts and this line knocked me back on the couch: “We are urged to ‘Rejoice in the Lord.’ This verse is a call, not to a feeling, but to a decision and a deeply rooted confidence that God exists, that he is in control, and that he is good.” Full stop. Am I living this? If I am coping with anxiety through control, am I living this? Probably not, much as I dislike even typing that. He goes on to write “anxiety increases as perceived control diminishes”, yet “we can’t take control because control is not ours to take”. Well, that shoots pretty straight at the matter. I get the feeling God nudged me to read this book today, in the middle of this week, at the start of this year where anxiety is trying to strangle me in just the first 9 days.

For the last many, 10ish I would guess, years I have tried to have a word of the year. Some worked better than others. I wasn’t exactly feeling the idea this year and I don’t like to push something “just because I have always done it” so 2019 didn’t have a word. Today I realized that it doesn’t need a word, it needs a whole phrase!

“Be anxious for nothing”

And then I need to work on changing what I do with anxiety, how I approach it, how I acknowledge the sovereignty of God at work in my family.

So, stay tuned because, of course, I can’t learn something new without writing about it!!!