Snow Babies

Two days ago Paul decided to take us all out to the snow. He thought the kids would enjoy it. So did I and yet I was still not so enthusiastic because, well, snow is cold. Some elementary science for you there. But we went as a family and watching my kids gallivanting in the snow brought me so much joy. I was glad that we went. It was 50 degrees out with a foot of snow at least and we bundled them up and set them loose. And yet, Sonora Grace was not happy. 
She did not understand why we wanted her to play in this cold, white stuff. I tried to lift her into the snow, and she brushed me away. That’s just her and I don’t judge her because in many ways she is like me. She does not enjoy trying new things. It takes her awhile to warm up to the slide at the playground. She doesn’t want to try what I made for dinner until I shove a bite in her mouth. Only then is she hungry. She is careful. And patient. Always waiting for a situation to unfold before she jumps in. She is discerning and intentional and I love to see it all play out at such a young age. When she stepped into the snow, the first thing she wanted to do was tap her foot in it. All the while grasping to Daddy’s hand. Then she reached down to feel the snow and hold it in her hands. Daddy picked some up to hand it to her and she waved him away. I can do it. I love that about her.

Jake jumped into the snow head first. Not literally or anything, but his heart was in it from the minute we got there. He is older and he knows what snow is. But Jake tackles life like this in general. He doesn’t stop to think about snow getting into his boots. He doesn’t care if his hat falls off, or if his shoes are on the wrong feet. He just goes. He keeps us in sight but for the most part will wander off from where we are. He doesn’t just tread through the snow, he dances in it. He can’t help but to smile. Even when I wasn’t taking pictures he was shouting, “Cheese Mommy!,” and I’d fumble to turn the camera back on to capture his pose. I don’t want to miss anything with him because I know the minute we tell him to spread his wings, he will be gone. That’s just how he is.

 
So many times Paul and I will look at one another and wonder where our kids got some of their traits, especially the inconvenient ones that neither of us wish to claim for ourselves. But they are present and they are hardly moldable so we just try to make do. Our children are delightfully unique. They are precious and I think that every time I slow down and really notice them.

Tonight I was telling the Lord how much I want another baby. Sometimes it’s hard to be at the Pregnancy Center explaining that there really is no such thing as an “Unplanned Pregnancy” because God plans it all along. Believing that with all of my heart, I let myself get down when I swallow the cold, hard truth that He’s not planning mine. And that’s ok, trust me, I am at peace with it. The Lord has reassured my heart and urged me to put faith in His timing. I am a busy Mom right now, and extremely busy in ministry. Why do I even want another baby? I had to ask myself that question as I poured myself out to God. And the truth is because I am hungry for a miracle. I love pregnancy. It is incredible. When I am pregnant I know without a doubt that God’s hand is on me. And He’s with me this second, I know that. But I spend so much time now seeing ultrasounds, watching girls go from 9 weeks to 9 months, and then gazing into the eyes of an end product, a tiny human being, whom just like my kids, is completely unique and has been since the moment a sperm and an egg converged. I realize I am a reproductive nerd but it seriously blows my mind to consider the creativity of God.

(I blame baby fever on this little bundle of joy: my new niece Sydney!)

And I love the provision of God. I was telling one of the lady’s I work with about my testimony. She has had three abortions and now works with women to heal the effects of their abortion related trauma. And trust me, they exists by the bucket loads. I was telling her how I come from the Pro-choice side of the movement and really I switched gears when I got pregnant and called Planned Parenthood and knew I just couldn’t go through with it. Something changed in my heart. Not to mention Planned Parenthood was in Raleigh and I was in Greensboro and there was NO way I was driving to an unfamiliar town (so maybe I should thank my parents for not socializing me on the roads..). I was telling her all this and she said, “Well, sometimes God just protects and covers a situation.” It just made me so grateful. I thought about that comment all day. I thought about it this evening as Jake and I cuddled on the couch watching Despicable Me and he was so warm and soft and his face was all boyish and curious. I just can’t get enough of him. And I wonder, why me? Why Jake? It totally puts God’s grace in perspective for me. People have told me, “Good for you that you kept your baby!” But really, I see now that it wasn’t me. I am capable of horrendous things. I am so human that it makes me sick. But God’s grace is enough. He’s the reason that I am here with my soon to be 4 year old boy, and my little girl- both wonderfully made and matchless. Today Jake was praying and he said something that I thought was profound, aside from “Jesus, thank you for God…” (I wonder how Jesus receives such a compliment, or God, or…however that works…), but he said “thank you Jesus for ‘let the children come to me, Jesus said’” and I thought about how much I am thankful for that too.

Some reflections on marriage

It struck me as sort of coincidence when Paul walked through the door today and informed me that he’d heard through the grapevine about this couple who has decided to get a divorce. They have literally been married for 14 months, maybe. It really made me sad. I thought it was coincidence because the whole subject of marriage has been on my mind lately.

At church on Sunday we sat several rows back from an elderly couple. It was absolutely precious the display of their affection. I could not help but to stare at them. I’m a people watcher anyway, but this couple in particular kept drawing me in. She whispered something to him and I’m guessing she asked for her jacket because he so tenderly pulled it up over her shoulders, wrapped his one arm around her to straighten the front of the jacket, while using his other arm to pull at it from the bottom and loosen wrinkles. I thought about all of the years they had been together and how the husband helped his wife put a jacket on with all of his heart. It was like I could see the love as a visible substance floating over them. Weird, I know. I watched as she needed to get up and walk out of the service, how he held the small of her back and held her hand to lift her to her feet.

Then I let my eyes wander to a couple that I know. I love thinking about marriage, I’ve had the dream written on my heart since I was a young child. This couple is middle-aged, and as near as I can tell have been married for more than 20 years. They leaned into each other to share a whisper, their shoulders brushed, her head lay against his side for a minute. It was all so natural. And this lady that I know, she’s usually a busy, hardworking woman. But this Sunday she was dressed up with her hair pulled back in a sparkle clip. I couldn’t help but to think how beautiful she looked, how beautiful her husband probably thought she looked. Not just because of how she looked, or because of the rarity that she wears something overly feminine (and I know her..), but because they’ve been married for so long and there is just an underlying adoration there that lingers over them and around them. And I like to think about how it all works.

Most of the couples I know at my church have this way about them with their spouses and I often find myself thinking about what a beautiful thing it is. And trust me, it’s not because they are at church and they are supposed to be in love. It’s very real because you cannot fake the natural tendencies of affection. A glow is not something you can command your complexion, but I see it all of the time. I can only hope to have the same show, although I love my husband and you’ve probably gathered this about me, I love being married. But I still feel the process of oneness taking place. We aren’t there yet, in fact, many of the young couples I know lack the same intense display I gather from the older couples. And that’s ok. For me, it’s a worthy pursuit.

And this unique oneness, the beautiful mystery of the unity that takes place between a couple who has been married for awhile makes me think about sex, and that’s the truth. I almost didn’t say it. But it does, it makes me think about the way sex was designed, to be something mystical and majestic, and something that God intended from the beginning of time for a man and a woman to experience, to become one. I think about what a precious, matchless, intimate experience sex must be between a couple that is truly walking in that oneness. I pray that one day I’ll understand a half of what that means if my heart will ever heal from all of the years that I didn’t have a clue.

Marriage at it’s finest is under attack. Most never make it to see the things I described above because they give up. They can’t take it. No one ever told us it wasn‘t going to be easy. I’d lived through enough breakup, divorce, and attempted divorce to know it wouldn’t be but I thought love would fix everything. I know I‘m not the only woman to believe love conquers all. Yet I’ve learned that God’s love in us and through us conquers all, our love by itself is a mess of emotions.

So you get a mix out there. Couples that actually make it, 1 out of 2. Couples that make it several years and call it quits. Couples that can‘t forgive after a year of marriage. A Something Corporate song comes to mind here, “You marry a role and you give up your soul until you breakdown.” A common mindset.

Then there is the latter, the couple that is terrified of marriage. I know enough of these guys from the pregnancy center. You can read them all of the statistics in the world, tell them heartwarming stories of real love but they don’t believe you because they’ve seen too many times what marriage is really like. The way their parents modeled it.

Drunk dad beating the crap out of the mom. Detached mom cheating repeatedly on dad. Mom and dad living completely separate lives. Mom and dad happily married, and then separate out of the blue. These kids rarely recover. Especially if they never know the restoration of Christ. They meet a partner, move in together, get jobs, have babies, but they’ll never for a day trust each other. And their kids may look at them one day and see the resonance of devotion hover over their heads (if they stay together that long, odds are highly unlikely) but they’ll miss out on the unmistakable, unconditional love that I see in these couples who are completely committed to one another, for better or worse.

What a mess our culture has made of marriage. Divorcing after 14 months of marriage, that’s ridiculous.

And yes, it’s easy for me to say that. I married a fantastic man who is my soul mate and above all else loves God. I come second. That is perfectly fine with me.

But I made a choice too. I knew what I wanted, and I knew what I didn’t want. And I knew what God wanted for me and I went with that, nothing else mattered. It didn’t matter to me how long we dated, or what other people thought, or how much I could have made it work with others that I had loved. No, I went with the deepest longings of my soul, not the insane whims of my overly emotional heart. That’s the initial secret, I think. And then for the rest of it, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. What else is there?

"The Poppy Seed Dressing Phenomenon"

I am kind of an analogy/metaphor/title geek. I like to compare, narrate, nominate, and honestly, explain to the best of my ability. Recently I made a dinner combo I referred to as “Lady and the Tramp dinner”
    Yes, rosemary seared turkey burgers with roasted red peppers and onions on red leaf lettuce. With tater tots. Gotta please the kiddos, and husband, who corporately turned their noses up at lettuce wraps and went in for sandwich bread. Then it was just moved into the category of “Poor Man’s Dinner":  Burger and tater tots. Well, I tried!

      Then for my next anecdote, and yes it has a title: “The Poppy Seed Dressing Phenomenon” I’m going explain and then tie into a completely different narrative. I bought Poppy Seed Dressing recently in an effort to increase my likelihood of eating salad because the rarity that we eat green things in this house is something I don’t want to admit. But there you have it. So I bypassed the Ranch and French and all of the normal things you eat on salad and settled on Poppy Seed Dressing (I have to say, we had it at the Whitman’s house and have never looked back!). And I didn’t want a household brand, I wanted something all-natural and real because I wanted the real thing. Not like me typically, but I felt like salad might heal my body, or something like that. So I bought this nice dressing and ingredients for a jumbo, veggie packed green salad. And for dinner, I rationed out my expensive Poppy Seed Dressing to the children and to myself. I handed it to Paul to serve himself his allotment and he set it down. And no one saw it coming, but apparently Jake didn’t think his ration was fair because he took my new gourmet, all-natural, fancy sauce salad dressing and dumped it all over his plate. Paul swore to me he could salvage it, he started pouring it from Jake’s plate into the bottle and I pretended that rice particles and chicken weren’t joining the flow. Gross. I may have shed a tear or came close, but I wasn’t even mad at Jake because he’s 4, he didn’t plan the mess that ensued. So as we go through dinner, we hear crunch….crunch…crack coming from under the table. From a dog’s mouth, not entirely unlikely in our house. So Paul gets up from the dinner table to wrestle our dog and make sure another car or doll house piece hasn’t fallen captive. Just when I thought the dressing fiasco couldn’t get any worse, we realized that our dog was crunching and cracking up the salad dressing lid.

I know it shouldn’t matter. But this is what my expensive, high-class, oh-so-coveted salad dressing looks like now. Don’t feel too bad for it, it was completely empty after only two nights of use!

(And for your viewing convenience, I can only get this picture to upload sideways. And my husband is not here to offer up his technology expertise and until he is, this will have to do.  My apologies.)

That is a true story, and now here is my analogy that only partially works. I have been ill lately and I’m sure it’s no big deal. It feels like since all of this has come on, it’s been like the salad dressing. What started as something simple escalated into something more, and then something even bigger until I could hardly contain it in my spirit. I’ve been badly afraid that something terrible is wrong with me. Then I’ll listen to a good sermon and be reminded that I have nothing to fear. I know the truth, but the battle has been so great in my mind, it’s been hard for me to stand lately. I love my kids, and I love my husband. I love my life. But I shouldn’t even be thinking these weary, sympathetic thoughts, that is not where God wants me. I was thinking today about how if by chance my doctor is not a Christian she is never gonna wanna be because I’m shaking in my boots waiting for test results! I totally hate that about myself. Because when I step back and look at the whole picture, whatever I’m dealing with could potentially be simple. And it’s like I never stop to consider that. I make agreements all the way up the ladder because I don’t feel good and I lose sight of what God has for me.

But the truth is, when I settle my soul and breathe, I am not alone. God has a plan for my life. No matter how many people pray for me to break, or pray for me to be restored, I am going to be ok. I just wanted to establish that because in my heart I desperately want to bring glory to God through the road I’m treading. The road that could literally be a minor infection that is not going away imminently. Big deal. I am safe. No matter what happens, that is my answer.  I think that is the scariest thing, I feel like if I’m walking into uncharted waters and I really don’t know what to expect, than anything can happen to me and I won‘t be prepared. But I’m walking with someone who knows the future. I simply have no reason to be afraid.

So no excuses for me. I can see why I desperately need an increase of faith in my life. And I just wanted to confess my sin here, even though the fear seems so real I can hardly stand it. It’s just an old, familiar friend. But I know, somewhere past all the anxiety, and anticipation, that I am safe. Something about a hug from the husband that brings all of this mess to rest, and in that place last night I was thinking, I need to chill out, I am like that salad dressing that just spiraled into a downward frenzy!  I get some test results back today and if they say I have Mono or something that will simply trickle away on it's on, I'm going officially be done with fear...what a waste of my time!

The last couple of days...

     The last week or so has been a trying one. If you’ve seen my posts on facebook, you’ve know that for some unknown reason my health has been out of whack. One night I woke up with a low grade fever. Must be ovulating, I thought. But five days later I was still ovulating, apparently and I was running a fever of 100.5. Not typical of ovulation I must say. Then came headaches, and cold sweats, and a rapid beating heart. It was scary. I finally consented to going to see a doctor (not my favorite thing to do) where they ran some blood panels and basically came to the conclusion that nothing is wrong with me, except this ever constant fever that really doesn’t seem to break 101.5 and causes minor discomfort. Then came the fatigue, probably catching up to me from the fever. The day I went to speak to the high school I was praying for grace the whole time, and resting in between speaking. I was recently asked to move into options counseling at the FPC, but I had to miss my first day of training because I just couldn’t think of a day that I had gotten to rest. I can't help but to notice the sneaky timing that this health mess has fallen into the middle of.  Like the greatest ministry opportunities I've ever had....geesh, it's like the enemy planned this.  I can't shake this thing, whatever it is!

If you read my blog you know that we have been trying to cross over into a scheduled life. The first day went great, the fever hit the second day and we were totally off target. My schedule had about two hours of prayer a day for me, and I was excited at the pursuit. Now I am grateful if I can read the Bible for five minutes without dozing off. BUT, it’s funny how when one is in crisis the Bible becomes a lifeline, not just a rule of thumb, or routine. I’ve needed the Word of God, and even with it in my hands I find myself succumbing to fear of the unknown.

I was reading about Moses the other day. The Lord often uses these chapters in the Bible to speak to me, and I’m not proud of that. Mostly I read about the Israelites and think about how annoying they sound! I mean, God has never forsaken them. Once He comes to their rescue, He parts the Red Sea, and rains down food from heaven, and water comes from rocks. And every time He comes through they celebrate and soon after, they forget. I do not want to be that person. As I read this passage I thought about all of God’s miracles that He did on their behalf. Later I opened the Bible to a random Psalm and read,

“Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles he performs for people! He made a dry path through the Red Sea and his people went across on foot.” Psalm 66:5

I started thinking about all of the miracles I’ve seen in my own life. Hundreds, probably thousands if you include all of the circumstances God has rescued us from that we didn’t even see coming! God has never forsaken us, He has never left us in the ashes to pick our own selves up.
       I started realizing once more in my life, I am an Israelite! I’m that person. Despite the fact that He’s spared me so many times, and the lives of my kids, and my husband, I’m still waiting for Him to give up on me. But it’s not going to happen.

“O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water….I cling to you, your strong right hand holds me securely.” Psalm 63:1,8

I hate sitting in all of this fear. It is totally crippling, it’s like I forget how to pray from a place of victory because I feel so defeated. Not knowing answers breeds anxiety in my heart.

“…I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety, for you are my towering rock of safety, for you are my safe refuge.” Psalm 61:2-3

I am tired. Sometimes Paul asks me, “How do you feel right now?,” and I don’t know how to answer because I’ve been sleeping for days at this point! I get discouraged when I go a couple hours with no fever and just before I report a healing I realize I’m heating up again.

“I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from Him…He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken…Let all that I am wait quietly before the Lord, for my hope is in Him.” Psalm 62:1,5

So, at this point I can report no fevers through the night (that I know of, usually they keep me up but I slept soundly last night). Paul has skipped his Bible study and Revive to be at home with me and the kids so I can get rest. Today he had to go to the men’s Bible study meeting and for the first time in days I am trying two hours by myself with the kids. I would love to be in bed, but I can’t say that I am miserable. In fact, I’m going to go enjoy some time with them. I just wanted to share my latest journey, the good, the bad, and the ugly! I know I’ve been in sin as I dabble in all of my doubt. I don’t want to be in that place. God has been with me all along, and I know He’s not going to leave me. I am praying for healing. I am waiting (not so patiently), but I am trying. And I am constantly reminding myself of the powerful God that I serve. At the forefront of my mind today will be testimony after testimony of all the times that He has more than come through- I can hardly count them all.