Missing Diamonds and Having Hope

I may have told you about my ring before, but it's a story that bears retelling, and I feel like it's time to tell you again. Do you ever get in a funk, feeling like you are stuck in a rut? Frustrated that that you have lots of friends but still can't get someone to come over for dinner? Or your friends are in different places in their lives and schedules just don't match up? Or you are lonely and don't have close friends in this season of your life? I'm an outgoing, social person, a "Tigger" personality, and it's hard for me to deal with being alone. It usually happens when my husband is on the night shift, when I look around on a Friday night and think, I have lots of friends. Where are they? On a fun family trip, or home with their own spouse, or too tired from their own busy week to do anything. Poor me, right? Suddenly I'm telling myself I have no friends, like a moody twelve-year-old girl, and there I am, in a funk. It's a pit I just dug for myself and then flung myself into, and I ought to know better, because my history is a minefield of these pits. They are dug by moments of self-doubt, self-pity, always because my focus is on myself in that moment. How can I get out of the pit? The opposite of digging a hole would be building something up, and the opposite of keeping my eyes on myself would be having perspective, zooming out, seeing the panoramic view of my life. The solution is stacking up the memories of when God provided for me and my family, looking back through my history and choosing to see those altar moments instead of the pits. God's people used to stack stones up in a heap to build an altar in remembrance of those moments when God provided for them in an unmistakable way, so they could walk by it later and remember that God came through for them in the past and would do it again in the future. Those altars, those stacked stones, brought hope. Our pastor talked about this very thing on Sunday, confirming in my heart that I needed to share it with you. He shared Psalm 77:11-12, "I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds." He also shared Psalm 37:25, "I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread." I can look back through my life and see all the times that felt frustrating or even hopeless, and remember that God came through for me and my family each time, so that we always were provided for: a place to live because a landlord agreed to accept less rent, money for bills that arrived in an envelope from people we barely knew, a job that provided for our family just in time after one was taken away, friends for our family after a time of loneliness. During a particularly difficult time in our family's history, my husband bought me a beautiful ring with my daughter's birthstone at the center and some tiny diamonds on the sides. Two days later, one of the diamonds fell out, and I asked him to take it back to the jeweler and have them fix it, since it happened so quickly. He never did take it back in, and my frustration with him gradually gave way to understanding, as I saw how much he was hurting at the time over outside circumstances, and I had to let it go. God came through for our family in an incredible way very soon after that, and we were able to sell our house quickly instead of foreclosing, a new job was provided, and we began a new life in Washington. I began to see that missing diamond not as a flaw that needed fixing, but as a reminder of that time when everything felt broken and hopeless, but we were still provided for and God sent just what we needed. That missing diamond is still my stack of stones, and I have shared that story with my daughters, with friends, and now with you to give you hope. Whether it's a time of loneliness, financial trouble, sickness, a hurting spouse, or any other difficulty, don't dig a pit to sit in. Build a stack of stones out of those memories of God coming through for you, and dwell in a place of hope instead. "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named it Ebenezer (stone of help), saying "Thus far has the Lord helped us." 1 Samuel 7:12, NIV.

For all the imperfect mothers out there...

Do you ever feel like a failure? I am definitely feeling that way today; the heavy-hearted,lingering ache that tells me I have hurt someone I love. It's a little thing, really, that started it, but doesn't it always start out that way? I forgot the tooth my nine-year-old daughter left under her pillow. She told me last night that she didn't think she believed in the tooth fairy anymore, that she thought it was me all along, and I told her that kids who don't believe might not get anything under their pillow. Why did I say that? I wanted her to keep believing, to stay little for just a little while longer, even though I can tell from everything else about her that she is growing up. I said that unnecessary (and, let's face it, kind of mean)thing, and then when there was nothing under her pillow, her world of belief and trust crumbled. She was so brokenhearted and angry. I am sure she felt betrayed. I took her aside, closing the door so my seven-year old would not overhear us, and I said, "You are right; there is no tooth fairy. It was always me. I wanted losing teeth to be fun and exciting, not scary or gross. I'm sorry." She then told me she was angry at being lied to. She was angry that she was right about the tooth fairy. She wanted Daddy. The tears kept on coming all the way to school. We did have a later conversation about how we know God is real, and she knows that in her heart. But I still feel like I handled it all poorly: I forgot her, I tried to make her feel like the failure was because of her unbelief. Ugh. If I could do it all over again, I tell myself, I would be better. It's times like these that I feel like a failure. Like when I have dinner ready on time and I'm so proud of myself, only to serve my family dry chicken and find out for the seventeenth time that they all hate rosemary. Or when my younger daughter just wants a snuggle from me without the baby, but I just have to put a load of laundry in, and when I finally sit down with her, the baby wakes up from his nap. Or when I forget to put a love note in my daughter's lunch but the one I wrote for her sister made it off the counter and into the lunchbox. God, please turn my meager, measly fish and dry loaves of bread into a feast for my family. I know I am precious, loved, redeemed by you. Why does it not gush out onto my loved ones all day, every day? As I drove home today, I forgot to look up at the mountains. I always look up at them, the morning fog that swirls around them in the fall too stunning to miss, but today I was lost in my thoughts of the morning I had ruined, my child's broken heart, my inadequacies as a parent. The mountains were still there, but I failed to look up. The analogy to my faith today is too obvious to miss. I feel like a failure because I'm too caught up in my inadequacies to see the One who made me, who sustains me, who cares when I am brokenhearted, who can make me enough for my family if only I will ask. Psalm 121:1-4 was written for a day like today: "I lift my eyes up to the hills--where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip--he who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." In my Bible, right under the heading "Psalm 121" are the words "a song of ascents." Let my heavy heart ascend today, let my eyes look to the mountains. Let me remember that the One who shaped them in his hands also shaped me and gave me this family to raise and love. Let me love them out of His grace and mercy, and let my trust and joy in Him be what shows them that, beyond any doubt, He is real.

An Anxious Mind and a Sleeping Cat

I have done it again. I seem to be unable to learn my lesson and I find myself again in a tangled heap of overwhelmed, disorganized, thrown-together chaos. Even people who know me well believe me to be a fairly pulled-together person. They would laugh at me if they could see this mess inside my head, this eye-of-the-hurricane moment I'm in. I am typing this post one-handed, slowly, picking at the keys, as I hold a nursing baby on the other arm. I have tried to use one of those nursing pillows to prop him against me so I can use both hands to type, but even in my desperation I can feel how ridiculous that is and I gave it up. It's okay; this gives me time to choose my words carefully and think out how to explain myself. There is a pile of bills I've just paid on one side of me, a hamper of clean laundry on the floor in front of me awaiting folding, and a sleeping cat curled behind my head on the back of our couch. It is quiet and peaceful in the house, a contrast to the whirlwind in my head. It was not enough to have a new baby, or to work on finishing the last touches of my book (my other baby!), or to try to begin a career as a freelance writer. We had to go and buy a house, too. Now there are documents to sign, giant, scary checks to write, deadlines to meet, and the lingering fear that this is too good to be true and something will fall through, leaving our sweet little family with no place to live (did I mention that we told our landlord to go ahead and rent out our house on May 1st?). And this last thing is just dumb, but it is the straw that is breaking my back: I finally bought this lovely home office machine that copies, prints, scans, and faxes, and where is it? In its lovely box, because the thought of getting it out and setting it up in the ten minutes of baby happiness that I can get at one time is overwhelming. Hence the whirlwind. I often feel like Alice in Wonderland, cards and the Queen and everything all spinning around out of control, except that she gets to wake up. What do I do? In the middle of my self-induced chaos, when I am calm on the outside but frantic on the inside, there is another sound, so quiet that I have to actually lean forward to catch it. It is the faintest whisper of a sound; I turn down the volume of my panic because I need to hear what it is. I catch it again, and it is words that were written so long ago but today are just for me. I feel the words I know, that I have read over and over in times just like these, when I have added too much to my plate and have erased the margins of my life, and God reaches in, offering peace and rest to draw my frantic, harried soul back to Him. His words resonate through my tired bones, my spinning head, and pull every part of me together with this one thought: "You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you." God, while holding together the whole universe, is concerned with keeping me at peace. I just have to trust that He is there. I have to tether my mind to Him like a horse to a hitching post, like a ship to an anchor, to attach myself to Him in his unmoving, all-pervading peace, and that peace will seep into me and fill me again like it has in the past. My problem was not that He stopped being enough, it was that I had let go of my anchor in the storm. God, help me. Calm me. Anchor me. This mess is temporary, passing, fleeting; You are eternal. The baby is now sleeping soundly against me, as is the cat. The house is still quiet. The bills, the laundry, the loan documents and deadlines, all of it is just external. Inside, the storm has passed and there is also quiet. Isaiah 26:3, etched on my soul in divine penmanship, is a reminder to be quiet and trust.

Kids, chores, and a good book!

"You can reach the cereal! I know you can!" "Make sure you feed the cat today. She can't get her own food, you know." "Could you please bring your laundry hamper downstairs? I know it's super heavy. Ask your sister to help you." "Please take all the sheets and blankets off of your bed and bring them to the laundry room." My kids have picked up a few new responsibilities in the last couple of months of my third pregnancy. At first they were excited to help out with some grown-up jobs, like sorting laundry for washing and learning how to put sheets on their beds. Then they began to protest a bit, as they mastered the new skill and it became a chore instead of a novelty. Around this same time, I began to worry that I wasn't doing the right thing; that I was going to cause them to resent me and the new baby by heaping responsibilities on them just because I was too tired and out of breath to do them myself. Things have a way of happening just at the right time, though. At bedtime we have a half an hour of story time in which I read to my girls from a chapter book. We just happen to be reading through the Little House on the Prairie series, and we also just happen to be reading Farmer Boy, the third book in the series that chronicles the childhood of Almanzo Wilder, the future husband of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author. Almanzo is a playful, cheerful, and mischievous little boy, nine years old at the book's opening, and while he does normal kid things like play outside on his sled and go to school, much of his life is consumed with... wait for it... chores. Feeding the livestock on the farm, breaking calves for pulling a plow, plowing fields for the crops, planting crops with his father, brother, and sisters, harvesting, milking, putting away food for the winter, building an icehouse, whittling farming equipment out of wood, you name it, he does it. Oh, and did I mention he always answers "Yes, Father" and "Yes, Mother," even when he would rather go out and play instead? He knows the cows and horses can't feed themselves. He knows that if he doesn't milk the cows on time, they won't make enough milk next time. He knows that if he doesn't get the seed in the ground the right way, and scatters it lazily, there won't be enough food in the winter. We talk about the book after we read, or at the breakfast table, and my eight-year-old draws the conclusion, "Almanzo does a lot of chores. I'd rather go to school than work at home all day. But he has to learn to be a man so that he can have his own farm one day." To which I replied, "Do you think that is why I am teaching you how to sort laundry, and put dishes away, and keep the house picked up? So you can take care of your home one day?" She quickly nods, "Yep. Because we don't want to grow up and not be able to do our own laundry!" Amen, there it is! I am not a lazy mom who passes work off to my kids because I don't want to do it. It is not just that I am hugely pregnant and need a little help. Come to think of it, I was doing a bit more around the house when I was her age, but that isn't the point. The point is, it is never too early to teach responsibility, in whatever sphere my kids are capable to manage. I am teaching skills they will need, not just to care for a home but to care for those around them. They are dependable, considerate, kind, cheerful, and very capable. They know to "do the worst first," to do what they have to do so that they can be free to do what they want to do. They are amazing daughters who bless me and others with their kind spirits, and I have every confidence that they will be successful in whatever they take on as adults: work, marriage, families, and adventures of all kinds. And they will be adventurous because they are confident, maybe even hearing my voice in their heads as they set off, "You can reach it! I know you can!"

Carrying the Stretcher: How to be an Emotional First Responder to your Police Officer

We are the first ones on the scene. Not a crime scene, like our spouses, but the emotional scene they bring in the front door with them. When my husband comes home late from an overtime detail, from a hairy domestic violence call, from a disciplinary meeting that isn't running according to policy, or just weary from too many days of the same old garbage, who is there waiting with the stretcher, the oxygen tank, the critical medicine that will restart his heart? I am. Just me. No formal training, no real knowledge other than experience, both good and bad, to be the balm he needs. Terrifying sometimes, isn't it? I want to roll back over, pull the covers over my head, and sleep for that precious last half hour before I have to get the kids up for school; I want to stay in the kitchen so I can get dinner on the table before 7 o'clock when everyone is starving and cranky; I want to keep on watching my rustic farmhouse-remodeling show. But when I am frustrated and angry, I want to be heard, too, right? I want someone to listen and sympathize with my woes, and then not tell me how to fix them immediately, but just let me feel like I am not alone. So let's start there. How to be an emotional first responder to your husband: 1) Ask, "How did it go today?" You know something's up. He will either start talking or shut down. If he talks, go on to #2. If not, give him time to unwind first, and then try again later. Don't nag! "Better to live on the corner of a roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife." Proverbs 25:24 2) Listen. Put down whatever else you were doing to show you are really listening, look at his face while he is talking, nod, and make appropriate affirmative sounds or comments to show you are engaged in what he is saying. Even if you are already judging his actions and think he could have done something differently, don't tell him in the middle of his story. He will get defensive and shut down, which is the opposite of what you want. Paramedics do not want a combative victim in the back of the ambulance, which is where you now have him, metaphorically speaking, so keep on listening. "When words are many, sin is not absent, but he (or she) who holds his tongue is wise," Proverbs 10:19. 3) If possible, such as if he is not pacing around the room like my husband does when he's upset, show physical affection, either while he is talking or afterwards. Rub his back, hold his hand, or put a hand on his arm or leg and give him a squeeze to show him you are on the same team and you are physically there for him as well as emotionally present. 4) Empathize with him verbally. Comments like "I can see how that would be so frustrating," "I bet that made you so angry," and "I'm so sorry you were put in that position," all remind him that you were listening and you are trying to see things though his perspective, whether you agree or not! "The lips of the righteous know what is fitting," Proverbs 10:32. 5) Encourage him. "Maybe they are assigning that job to you because they know you are good at it." "Maybe you are being groomed for leadership and they are testing you." "Maybe in a few years you can try out again." "It won't be like this forever." "Keep on doing the great job you are doing. Soon someone will notice!" Be truthful and sincere in your words, and keep it simple. "This too shall pass" is a great favorite in our house, and so is "a lot can change in just a few years." Proverbs 16:24 says "Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." Proverbs 15:4 says "The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life." This is your time to be the healing medicine he needs. 6) Offer him something comforting to eat or drink. Just like a trauma victim, he needs that fuzzy grey blanket and a cup of cold water, but it could take the form of whatever beverage, sandwich, or snack he enjoys, served up with a smile and a hug or kiss. It is just another tangible way to remind him you love him and are taking care of him. Every day we get a chance to build our spouse up, to encourage him and show him God's love in such a way that he will be able to face the world again. With our words and actions we can rip open the wounds he carries home, or we can be a balm that helps restore and speed healing. We can't do this alone, but God gives us the strength to set aside our own needs and agenda to be the first responder our husband needs in those critical moments. Just remember, in this metaphor God is the hospital! We can carry the stretcher or lie on it, as you have probably heard before. We can speak life or death into our marriage. We can be hope and healing, or hurt and bitterness. Proverbs 14:1 says, "The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down." We are police wives, and our responsibility is great, but we aren't expected to do it alone. "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word," 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17. May God strengthen you, encourage you, and fill the medicine cabinet of your heart with hope so you can go and be the first aid your loved ones need.

And I'm still laughing...

So, in my last post, I ranted about having to go back to school and redo all of my credential requirements. I was pretty frustrated, but I still felt that God would lead me to the right place at the right time. After all, I had a great teaching job ahead of me that I had not looked for, financial provision for our family to pay off all debt (car payments, credit card, student loans, all of it would be gone!), and the ability to be around my children and working at the same time. But in view of all the positives, I still felt a nagging at my heart that I was getting ahead of where I really wanted to be. I told a few close friends that I felt like I had gotten on a train that was speeding up faster than I wanted and carrying me quickly to a place I wasn't sure I wanted to go. Was I really ready to be back in the full-time workforce, hauling my kiddos off to school with me at 7:30 and arriving home after 5, just to make dinner, do homework, grade papers, watch a show or two with the husband after putting kiddos to bed, and then drag my weary carcass off to bed? Day after day? Part of me, a big part, longed to stay home and clean the house, catch up on laundry, make well-planned meals made from well-planned grocery shopping lists, have mental energy available to help with homework and patience left over to deal with everyone else's end of the day fatigue without being totally wiped out myself. I was romaticizing my children's preschool years, thinking I had so much more time and energy then, and maybe I did. But I was committed to going back to teaching, and really excited about it most of the time. That is, until I took the test. Not a teaching test. A little plastic stick, the kind you pee on and then pray a lot over. And when I saw the result, all the blood drained out of my head and I sat in the bathroom, in shock, for a good thirty minutes. Long enough for a child of mine to come and knock on the door, "Mom, what are you doing? I'm hungry!" I numbly went through the motions of making dinner, but all I could think about was what my husband would say, how he would react, how upset he would be. He wasn't upset at all when I told him that night over the phone (He was away on a guys trip), and actually, he seemed excited. He viewed it as a new adventure we were on, something new we were about to discover about ourselves and our family. Once I heard his response, I was able to relax, and that is when I started to laugh. I haven't stopped since. Whenever people I haven't seen in a while say, "You're pregnant!" I just laugh. When people ask what I am going to do with a new baby six years after my last baby, I just laugh. I can't help it. God is so funny! There I was, cherishing a secret desire to stay home again when I thought I should want to teach full time, and this was God's answer to my family's need. They all do better when I am at home. But I am stubborn, an unstoppable force when I get an idea in my head, and God threw out a massive roadblock to my stubbornness- a tiny, helpless baby, the one thing He knew I could not ignore. This is not to say no one should go back to work full time after having a baby. I have done it with my first child, and sometimes you have to. Sometimes you want to, although I think that is more rare. But you have to know what is best for your family. I know they need me here, at least for a few more years. Then when I have one in preschool or kindergarten, one in elementary school, and one in junior high, I'll have to decide again. But I know God is already there, opening doors and making the way for me, because for some crazy reason, He loves me. One of my daughters' favorite worship songs right now says, "I know who goes before me; I know who stands behind." He is here now, guiding me, and He is there guiding you if you have put your trust in Him. I can laugh at the days to come, I know because I already am laughing!

To Laugh

In the face of change, of disappointment, of stress and of conflict, it seems that I have just one option these days. To laugh. To shake it off, and say, with a few more wrinkles around my eyes and a few more grey hairs, "This too shall pass." Or, "I can do anything for four months." Or, most recently, "So all of my post-graduate work expired without achieving a credential, so now I get to do grad school all over again. Okay. What is the next step?" I want to throw a fit. I want to sob, to kick and scream like a two-year-old in the middle of the mall who is not now, and maybe not ever, getting that ice cream cone. But I have responded that way before, and all it got me was tired, red-eyed, and no closer to anything good. So, here I am, not yet old and wise but older and wiser than the last time, and ready to respond to this new bout of shift changes, work stress (both his and mine), and grad school Round 2 with a little more dignity. One of my favorite verses of all time, Proverbs 31:25, says "She is clothed with strength and dignity, she can laugh at the days to come." I'm choosing to laugh, not because I'm naive or foolish, although I have been both of those things. I'm going to laugh because I am putting on strength and dignity, and when I am wearing such armor there will be no pouting for me.