Marriage: Learning To Ask Questions

June 2, 2015June 2, 20151 Comment

A few nights ago I noticed that the leftover boxes from the lunch we had eaten out that afternoon were not in the refrigerator. My husband had taken our four children home from the restaurant in our minivan and I had taken his car to the grocery store after lunch. It was his role that afternoon to get the kids home safely and get the leftover boxes out of our minivan to prevent them from baking in the hot garage on a humid, eighty-five degree almost-summer day.

Here we are at our rehearsal dinner nine years ago.

My husband and I have been married for nine years. Nine years of good fights and sweet moments of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.

For nine years we have been fighting to learn to ask one another questions instead of making accusations when the topics around here get heated. Usually we fight about things like leftover boxes (and also) hypothetical situations.

If I had noticed the boxes missing from the fridge and right away said something like:

You left the food in the car didn’t you?

That would have been a bad question. A very bad question. There are two yous in that question. Even though it is what I wanted to say… it hints at the fact that I know the answer. This kind of question would be an accusation. Which in marriage, I am learning, is a bad way to communicate with my husband.

Two yous in a question are very bad.

This is the kind of question I asked when we were in the earlier years of our marriage as I unraveled; trying to grow and walk in the gospel of grace but there were parts of me still tangled up in the roots of my past: hot fires of accusations and fists up ready and looking for a good fight.

In the middle years of our marriage I would have asked something like:

Is the food from this afternoon still in the car?

You see as a wife here I am getting better at asking a question but there is still a subtle hint in the direction of an accusation. No yous but there is still a hint of pointing the finger, especially with that sighed still thrown in the middle of the question.

Now, get ready for me to give myself a round of applause. Truly, if you knew my struggles in the area of asking people questions without already assuming the answer you would give me a round of applause too and if you really knew me you would stand up and encourage me to stand up too.

And if you were my husband you would want me to high five, rock fist and chest bump with you in celebration.

After nine years I asked a good question and it happen the other night over leftover boxes.

First step, I waited for the right time. After noticing the missing boxes I waited until the kids were asleep, the house was quiet and my husband and I were snuggled up on the couch watching our new guilty pleasure on Netflix.

I then waited some more and then sweetly asked…

Is the food from lunch maybe still in the car? Maybe it didn’t make it inside while you were bringing the kids in this afternoon.

Truly. The word maybe made my question non-threatening. My husband automatically said, “Yes, I forgot, I am so sorry.” And it was finished.

This whole thing got me thinking about asking questions and growing over time.

I am learning to ask better questions and I know I am not finished in this whole process. God is unraveling me and I am applauding.

Just think how good my question will be when we have been married for sixty years. I will probably just skip the question and retrieve the forgotten boxes once I find that they are missing. That would be completely accusation free. That would be complete sanctification.

And… will probably take fifty-one more years of sanctification. Or maybe longer.

Learning to ask questions has been part of the journey in learning to communicate in our marriage. We are both thankful for the process and thankful to have one another to walk with in the not-so-perfect jouney of learning communication in marriage.

God is able to do more than we could ever ask or think.

The “I Can’t” Days

May 8, 20151 Comment

There were so many days when I had a baby laying on my chest waiting to be nursed and a toddler pulling on the hem of my pants. There were so many moments when I was overwhelmed with all of the directions my heart was being pulled and all of the needs I could not possibly meet.

There were so many I Can’t Days in our little one story brick home. All the needs of those tiny people in my arms and at my feet overwhelmed me. There were tears and many disappointing sighs.

There were voices. “You are a smart, educated, with-it woman, why can’t you conquer… why can’t you be one step ahead of the runny noses and the diapers and the toys that need to be mended and fixed.”

There were moments when the “I Can’ts” were loud and the “I Cans” were soft.

Being a mom with little children is the hardest thing I have ever done. The boundaries of who I thought I was and the things which I thought I could handle have been nudged, pushed and eventually those boundaries stretched out wider and grew bigger in my young days of motherhood.

The “I Can’t Days” have made me into a better woman. It is horrible at the time, when your boundaries are being nudged, you feel like you just can’t give anymore. You feel like if someone stretches you any further, part of you might just break off. But over time, with that tiny baby on your chest and that toddler pulling on the hem of your pants, you learn that little by little you actually can.

You learn that you can stretch further than you thought. It hurts to grow in the process. I have grown with many tears. But in the hurt and the stretch you get stronger and you learn to punch the “I Can’ts” right in the nose. Right where it smarts.

Little by little and day by day you learn that you are more than you thought you were when you started this whole journey called motherhood. You find yourself loving in ways you once thought you were incapable of at the beginning of the journey. As you stretch in the “I Can’ts” you learn that you can.

You can care for one child. You can care for two… and then three… and four and beyond. You can survive on 20 minute bursts of sleep between feedings and children getting sick in their beds. You can love something when it is tantruming on the floor and acting unlovable. You can survive the long days while you are counting the years as short.

Motherhood changes you. It morphs you into a better version of yourself. You learn that you are more selfless than you thought, you learn that you can love bigger and your gag reflex slowly fades away. (See: Why I Have Been Politely Declining You Dinner Invitation)

You learn you can.

You learn you were made specifically for this journey.

And over time the “I Cans” become a little louder and the “I Can’ts” seem to soften.

You become thankful for the “I Can’t Days” because you know that those were the moments when God was refining you. Gently showing you that He made you for this journey and gently showing you that you can do more than you ever thought you could.

Happy Mother’s Day to every woman out there walking with me in the “I Can’t” days and learning, little by little, that we actually can love more than we ever thought we were capable of.

You were made for the journey.

You can.

The Things I Said I’d Never Do: An Unraveled Parent

April 25, 20151 Comment

There was a moment the weekend right before Christmas where I found myself cheering in a dark deserted parking lot on a chilly December night. I was cheering because my three year old was peeing in the bushes, outside and in the cold.

Really. I was rejoicing. This is something I’d never thought I’d be doing. Six years ago in my early parenting days, when my first son was about nine months old, my husband shared a story with me about a little boy peeing in the church parking lot and I said,

“I WILL NEVER let my son pee in a parking lot.” And I really believed myself. I was even reluctant to let my first son pee in the yard while we were potty training at two.

And there in December, I found myself applauding my three year old in the dark. I was so proud of him. This was same kind of pride I feel when one of my children take their first steps. Peeing outdoors has actually become an important milestone for me and after three sons, this “will never” along with many others has given me the opportunity to see myself unravel my wound up strings, breathe and let go of all those things I thought I’d never do as a parent.

A dear friend told me once, “parenting is actually for the parents” and I could not agree more. I can see how these little humans that I’ve carried, nursed, fed and cleaned up after are actually changing me more than I ever thought they would back at the beginning of the all the “will nevers”.

Parenting is for us. The parents. It’s funny how such tiny people have helped me grow and change. How these tiny people have helped me conquer fears, push the boundaries of who I thought I was and help me learn to love in ways I never thought I could.

I also said I will never let my kids watch Spongebob but when your stuck in a hotel room at 4pm on a rainy day with no Disney Junior you learn to let go on the tiny things that you think will corrupt your children’s tiny hearts and minds and you trust that God is bigger than Spongebob.

I said I will never own a toy gun back in those early days of being a new mom. My intentions were to raise boys that were not violent miscreants shooting everything and everyone they see. But looking back now I can see those intentions were ruled by fear and not trust. We now have multiple storage containers for weapons and nerf darts lodged into every couch cushion in our home. And so far- no violent miscreants.

I believe I may have uttered the words…

I will never let my children jump on the beds or the couch. Clearly I did not understand boys or children when this sentence came out of my mouth. This was also tangled up with the fear of my children getting hurt. I now actually sometimes encourage jumping on the couch and the beds, rejoicing when I hear them jumping and laughing and playing together the same way I was rejoicing when that little three year old was brave enough to pee outside in the cold.

I will never let my kids have formula. I am pretty sure I cried like a madwoman when the pediatrician told me my first son had lost too much weight and we had to supplement formula. The doctor’s eyes even bulged out a little at my overreaction. He wasn’t suggesting poison. Just formula. For supplemental purposes. And I was hyperventilating in my hospital bed uttering words of defeat, fear and remorse. When my fourth child was born I actually asked the nurse to give her formula our last two nights in the hospital so I could rest after having my fourth c-section. For supplemental and sanity purposes. All my kids have been nursed and given formula and despite my fears none of them has grown a third eye or eleventh toe… yet.

I will never teach my children the word MINE. I found myself correcting a friend a few years back when he was playing keep away with my infant son and using the four letter word, mine. “I don’t want him to know what that word is” is what I think I said. I felt like the word mine was the root of all selfishness. The word that in four letters can turn a sweet child into a monster. My desire was to teach my son that everything was given by a Great Giver and therefore help him learn to not use words which represented a heart of selfishness. But again, my good intentions were tangled up in fear and the unknown that a word does not produce a heart of selfishness. A heart of selfishness is naturally in all of us and selfishness will work it’s way into a home with or without the word mine.

I will never be able to survive parenting four young children, who happen to be within four years of one another. Look. It is true. Having little humans is tough. Tears on the floor, will I make it to nap time tough. I do not like to live in the unexpected. But having four kids so close together has taught me to learn to swim in unexpected waters. I am slowly learning to survive in the unexpected and learning to be comfortable when I can’t control every little thing happening around me. So far I am surviving. I haven’t lost anyone yet and everyone is still all in one piece. Things almost never go the way I planned them to go but I am learning to trust that God’s plans are greater than my plans. God is growing me and changing me, unraveling threads of fear and weaving new stronger threads of trusting in Him.

I am thankful when I find myself doing things I thought I said I would never do. It is there where I see growth. It is there where I see God making me into a better version of myself.

I never thought about parenting being for the parents. But it is. It changes you.You may even find yourself cheering for your children when they are peeing outside in the dark.

Hi, I’m Rachel. I became a follower of Christ one year before I found myself married to a man pursuing a seminary degree and on the road to become a pastor. That was nine years ago. We now have four kids, he is the head pastor of a PCA church in Mason, Ohio and I am figuring out how to be a mom, how to love my husband and how to trust God in the every day, one day at a time. I write stuff here and I try to keep it honest and encouraging as I have accomplishments and set backs. Follow this page on Facebook or add your email to the follow box on the right so we can stay in touch.

What Having Kids Really Does To Your Marriage

April 8, 2015June 22, 20163 Comments

Six years and four months ago my husband and I became parents for the very first time. We had no idea what we were doing when we brought our son home to our two bedroom townhouse with nothing but a bili-bed, some blankets and formula supplements from the hospital. There was no manual and very little instructions. We were both in disbelief that someone would send two twenty-five year old kids with no experience home with a human life to care for and keep alive. We felt like goldfish being tossed into a cold water tank just praying that the quick transition from the cozy comfortable waters of not being a parent to the cold, unnavigated and unchartered waters of being a parent wouldn’t lead us to become lifeless floaters.

Or at least leave our marriage lifeless and floating at the top of the surface.

I’ve heard it said that “having children can ruin a marriage” and I know this may be true for some but having kids has actually done many positive things in our marriage. Having kids has given us, those two young goldfish kids, the perspective that even though there were times we felt like goldfish years ago we were never destined to be floaters in that small pond. Together, my husband and I have been able to lead one another to deeper waters, experience deep challenges and actually find ourselves growing and thriving, especially in our marriage.

We brought four babies home from the hospital. Between the twenty-fifth year of my life and my thirtieth we brought home four babies from the hospital. Three sons and a daughter. Each time feeling the shock of the cold water as we were thrown into managing two children, then three and then four.

There were days and seasons where we felt like our marriage was on the edge of this ruin we had heard about before. There were seasons where I sometimes could see the life in our marriage beginning to slowly die and watch it begin to float to the surface.

We were so tired.

So overwhelmed.

My husband expressed jealousy over how much attention I paid to the children and I sometimes resented being at home all day.

We were barely able to manage the little lives that were graciously given to us and sometimes we found ourselves sacrificing us for them. Those were the times when I slowly started to see our marriage begin to float (lifeless) to the surface of our little pond. This has been part of the journey and it has not come without hard lessons and tough waters.

It was a hard lesson for us to learn to choose each other and bring life back into us and our marriage. There were many fights and many tears until we faced the truth that before we were graciously given these little lives to care for we were graciously given one another. We were graciously given the gift of marriage first and it was our job to learn how to put us and our marriage before them.

I can see how having kids could ruin marriage if you forget to choose one another first. I could see it in those moments when we failed to choose one another first and I began to see those lifeless seasons of our marriage. When we were so busy tending to them we forgot about caring for us.

So, two years ago we decided that we would fight to choose one another. That was always our intention going into this whole parenting thing but somehow we lost that good intention in the exhaustion, the diapers and the cheerios and we found ourselves desperately digging and turning over every crumb to get it back.

Now our kids are six, four, three and almost a year and a half and it is a relief to say we are through those challenging years of having new babies and all that exhaustion. And our marriage made it though. Four times. It is a miracle and a gift.

It is a miracle and a gift to come out on the other side of that hard stage in our marriage and see my husband with a new lens. It’s like the Michael I once knew was just a boy back then before the kids and now I find myself looking at a man.

A man who kneels beside the beside and prays with my children every night.

A man who gets lost in children’s literature with my kindergartener and keeps him up past bedtime reading just one more chapter.

A man who takes the kids to the doctor for their vaccinations when I am too afraid to do it myself because I can’t stand the sight of my sweet baby crying or being stuck by a needle.

A man who has taught my sons to love God, love fishing and who digs for bugs with them.

A man who sings to my daughter when he pulls the blinds up in her room in the morning.

A man who will come home if he has an hour between his daytime hours and nighttime meetings just so he can push kids on the swings and give me forty five minutes of quiet.

Having kids has given me a lens of tenderness, love and care to see my husband through and that lens has made my love grow more deeply for him.

Choosing to see him as the man he has grown into because of being a father has given me a stronger and deeper connection to him and a heart that is more tender for him.

Having kids has also given us the firm foundation of finding ourselves on a team. It has to be us against them. There are only two of us and four of them so we have to stick together. We find ourselves laughing on our team when our kids do crazy things like walk into the same bathroom stall as another kid and pee in the toilet with them, at the same time, all while casually sharing our plans for our family vacation to Florida. Even if this other child was a complete stranger. (That is only a glimpse into the crazy).

We find ourselves supporting one another when a parenting situation is hard. We need each other. I sometimes need to tag him in for awhile when I feel the wind in my sails fading over discipline or even homework.

Having kids has given us deeper unity together. Something that I hope and pray grows as we approach having four teenagers all at the same time.

Having kids has given us a common interest to invest our heart and souls into and it has also given us something to grow in and get better at together. We exchange helpful phrases and prayers as we fight to grow.

Having kids has given me a better friend in my husband than I ever could have dreamed of having when we were those two young goldfish in that two bedroom apartment with that newborn baby.

I never expected having kids to bring trials into our marriage and I never expected those trials to deepen my love for my husband. I know we have many more years of choosing one another and fighting to be us against them. But these early trials have brought us together and made us stronger which make me think if we can survive the little years maybe there is hope for the rest of our parenting days.

Having kids really can (and has for us) deepen the relationship between a husband and a wife. It has given us an unbreakable bond. Look at that husband, he is such a gift to me.

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Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

(James 1:2-3 NLT)

The Joy Of Making Memories

March 14, 2015March 14, 20152 Comments

Every day I have the opportunity to make memories with my children. Somedays with my little family can overwhelm me but then there are moments when I find myself stepping back and seeing a bigger picture.

Every day we are making memories.

It’s amazing to think that the task of creating childhood memories for four people is in my hands each day. Every day as I parent, I get the privilege of helping my children build the memories of their childhood. It is a privilege and a privilege I only have for a short time.

It brings me so much more joy to think about my days with my young kids this way. When I think about making memories for them it gives me a long term purpose for what I am building for them as their mother. When I think of making memories it gives me more joy than to look at an empty space of a day and think of tasks I can create to fill it up.

We make snow day memories, warm day memories, Friday night memories and Saturday morning memories. It is such a privilege to be involved in these moments that my children will one day talk to their children and grandchildren about.

Childhood doesn’t go on forever but the memories do.

I know because my grandmother still talks to me about the memories from her childhood.

When childhood ends, the memories will go on forever.

On Fridays we make movie night memories and pile the blankets and pillows all over the floor, sometimes we have pizza and popcorn on paper towels, sometimes cookies and apple juice.

When daddy is home from work my three sons make “man time” memories of swimming or going out to the park.

Some Saturday mornings we head to the doughnut shop in our pajamas.

“The doughnut shop in your pajamas with your brothers…this is what Saturday morning memories are made of.”

On Sundays after church we make memories to see who can race upstairs the fastest to put on their cozy clothes before lunch.

In the spring we make memories in the sand at the beach and in the summertime we make memories at my grandparent’s house on Lake George.

My favorite memories are the simple ones we make every morning when all my children pile up in my bed before we have to get moving for school. I sip my coffee and while they are all still little enough they all snuggle up close. I know these days will be over soon but what a privilege it is to make the memories while we can.

“My heart is full every morning to see my family wall snuggled up like this.”

I find so much more joy in my days with my children when I see the opportunity to make memories.

This day is the day we have to build the memories of childhood.

What a privilege we have as parents to help build the memories that will go on forever.