I See You

October 28, 2014October 28, 20151 Comment

I see you there in the grocery store with your child carrying on about wanting that toy back by aisle which-ever-it-was. I see you and I give you an encouraging smile.

I see you and I hope that my smile felt encouraging and not judging. I see you because that was me not but a few weeks ago.

Children all piled into a grocery cart that needs more seats than spaces for groceries and a mother that has set a boundary. I see you. You are not being judged.

I was you. I am you.

My smile means I am with you. My smile means I know those days when the battles are hard and the tears may flow.

I smile because like you I know you are doing your best. You are doing your best just like me in this uncontrolled environment of a grocery store, just getting your milk and bread and dealing with the other disapproving looks of passing customers.I see you because I am just like you: a mom setting boundaries and doing her best.

I see you in the parking lot losing your temper over the one child that broke the long line of hand holding and wandered into harm’s way. I smile at you too. My babies have wandered away from e in the parking lot far too often and this sin that is deep inside my soul causes me to lose my temper sometimes too.

I see you because if I am not you today, I was yesterday, or maybe I will be tomorrow and I will need someone to see me too. I will need someone to see me when I am the one standing there, temper flaring, only because I love my child and I am concerned for their safety.

In the parking lot. I see you.

I see you at church smiling pretending like the lost hours of sleep are not wearing on your soul. I see you. I know that face. You are smiling but you are one mention of sleep or feeding away from tears. Those first months are taxing and are parenting’s cruel, cruel initiation and I promise not to ask you if your baby is sleeping though the night or if you feel rested.

I see you because I have never had a baby sleep through the night sooner than six months.

I see you overwhelmed with love an under-slept all at the same time. I see you and my smile is simply an affirmation and an “I’ve been there too.” I know you are tired. We are in this together.

I see you where you are.

I smile because I want you to know our mom shirts put us on the same team.

I see you because I am you. I am with you.

Will you see me too?

The Biggest Surprise About Marriage

October 22, 2014October 22, 20141 Comment

I knew this information on an intellectual level but for some reason I chose to be in denial.

I was shocked the first time it happened; like I never saw it coming and then I cried and pretended like my marriage was over in response to the big surprise.

I cried. All balled up in the fetal position on my marital bed.

If you want to be married one day, if you are thinking about getting married one day, if you are engaged to the person of your dreams and are getting married on a certain-specific-pinterestified day or if maybe you are already doing this marriage thing: there is something that surprised me when I married my husband.

What I Discovered

I was surprised in those first few weeks of marriage when I discovered…

My husband is a sinner. (I say is and not was because he is in fact… still a sinner. I just checked. Really, he is a sinner.)

This truth seems simple enough. This truth is a basic foundation to the Christian life, we are all sinners. (Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.)

For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology of the Bible, (which was me just ten years ago so no judgement.. really, I just checked and still no judgement) to sin means to simply miss the mark; to go through life missing the mark in the middle of the bullseye of God’s perfect holiness.

It seemed like a simple truth. My husband is a sinner. My husband will not do life perfectly. My husband will miss the bullseye.

I am a sinner. (Again am and not was because I just checked and I currently am the worst of sinners.) I will not do life perfectly. I will miss the bullseye of God’s perfect holiness.

My husband being a sinner meant he would sin against me in those first few weeks of our new marriage.

Me being a sinner meant I would sin against him too.

Living together meant our sin would rub up against one another in that little apartment kitchen as we were putting away our new perfect dishes every morning, noon and night of those newlyweded days.

We would both miss the mark of that bullseye of God’s perfect holiness in that little kitchen as husband and wife and we would love each other imperfectly.

Why this basic Biblical truth about sinners was a surprise to me in my marriage still confuses me.

For some reason I believed “the gospel” would bless me, the worst of sinners, with a conflict free marriage. I really believed that Jesus would grant my husband and I, in a marriage of sinners, free from sin and conflict.

What I Was Missing

I would have spent a lot less time balled up in the fetal position on our marital bed if I had known I was missing what “the gospel” really had blessed two of the worst of sinners with in our covenantal marriage.

I was missing the piece that we are both forgiven sinners in our marriage together.

I was missing the piece that even though I fumed with anger about that water glass that sat there on the counter for days… there was abundant forgiveness for that forgotten glass and abundant forgiveness for my fuming anger.

I was missing the part of the gospel that says, “It is finished.” in John 19:30 It is finished for my husband and it is finished for me.

If you are unfamiliar with the words and the redemption story from scripture, I will tell you that from the beginning, in Genesis, the redemption story of God and His people is about God saying, “It is finished” for the worst of sinners. God is rescuing us from the truths we know at an intellectual level but fail to apply to our hearts. The truths we fail to apply to our husbands. The truths we fail to apply to ourselves.

Because of the gospel, none of us are ever granted a marriage free from sin or free from hurting. However, In Christ, we are all granted marriages full of abundant forgiveness for sinners.

“It is finished” for my husband the sinner. And that is where I have found freedom from the fetal position and the tears on my martial bed.

May “it is finished” be a theme for your marriage. May the gospel give you a marriage full of forgiveness instead of the surprises of sin in your first apartment putting away those perfect new dishes in that tiny apartment.

In Christ I am a sinner. My husband is a sinner.

It is finished for him and it is just the same finished for me.

What I Remember

October 5, 2014September 19, 20166 Comments

I remember coming home from school right before Easter and my mother sitting me down along with my two younger siblings in our formal living room.

“Mommy is sick.” Were the words I remember being said.

That was about all I can remember of that moment. Those words, that room and the blurry shape of my mother. I was seven when she told me she was sick for the first time.

I began to notice some small changes. My grandma would come to stay with us often and my mother would go for treatment about every three weeks to University of Cincinnati hospital.

I remember the meals.

I remember the hospital room.

I remember being allowed to spend the night with my mom at the hospital and we would play rummy until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.

I can remember when she lost her hair. I was eight then and she had a pixie cut right before she lost it all. My mom was a frequent volunteer in all my elementary classes and one week she came with her pixie cut and the next she came with her shoulder length wig. I remember not thinking anything of it until someone asked me how her hair grew so fast. I remember getting upset with her because at eight I didn’t really understand what “mommy is sick” really meant.

At eight you think mommy is sick will end with “mommy will get better.” When I was sick as a child there seemed to always be a way to heal me. At eight I thought mommy would heal.

I remember the sick going away and coming back again.

I remember never feeling like she was sick. Visibly she was sick. Her hair was gone, one of her breasts had been removed and I remember her wincing at the visible and painful canker sores in her mouth from chemo.

But I remember she never missed a beat for us. She was not lying around when I got home from school even if she could barely peel herself off the couch as the bus came up Thistledown Road. She never bought a halloween costume from the store, she was present in our schools, in our scout troops and I’m pretty sure she took on being the cheerleading coach one year.

image via indulgy.com

I remember feeling angry when I wasn’t eight anymore and the reality of “mommy is sick” was able to sink in deep into the corners of my heart.

I remember coming home from a sleepover one weekend to find her upstairs in her bed after the sick had spread to her brain. There were scrambled eggs all over her from where she had tried to feed herself but her brain could not help her move the fork from her hand to her mouth.

I remember sitting there with her in the four-poster king-sized bed after the eggs were cleaned up and I tried to help her clip coupons. I remember crying when she couldn’t tell me which one to clip so then she tried to point but because her hand eye coordination was so impaired it made it difficult for her to communicate and she wasn’t being understood.

I remember her being frustrated and I remember trying to be patient. I remember I felt so guilty for going to that sleepover. I should have stayed home and soaked up every last minute I had sitting with her in that four-poster bed.

I remember the day my sister and I got off that bus that came up Thistledown Road and my mother wasn’t there waiting for us. I remember running frantically from door to door and window to window with my sister. We both knew.

I remember my dad telling me she wasn’t going to make it. I was fourteen and I looked out the passenger window of our Chrysler minivan and said, “I know.” I remember trying to hold myself together because I felt the need to be strong for everybody else.

I remember sitting by her bedside in ICU and talking to her while she was in a coma. I remember trying to tell her about my dance competition without crying. I remember telling her I loved her and that was the last time I saw her.

I was at home when my dad told me my mom had exhaled her last breath. It was a school night, right before Easter, seven years after I sat on that couch and heard, “mommy was sick.” I remember leaving my house that night to spend the night with friends and I remember going to school the next day like nothing had happened at all.

These are pieces of what I can remember from my childhood with a mother battling breast cancer. These are just pieces of a story that I hope my children cannot grow up to tell of their own childhood thirty years from now. We have come a long way in breast cancer research since 1991 but there isn’t a cure for breast cancer yet. So for now I can only hope, pray for a cure, and share the pieces of my story to raise awareness.

Breast cancer not only takes our mothers, our sisters, our wives and our daughters but it leaves us here with broken stories. As I sit here typing my memories I hear those deep down corners of my heart screaming, “this is not the way it’s supposed to be!”

It’s not supposed to be this way – and hopefully it’s not for someone else in their story.

Lord, bring a cure quickly. For our mothers, our sisters, our wives and our daughters.

Raise Awareness. #october

Unraveled Marriage

September 10, 2014September 10, 20142 Comments

that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in with deceitful desires and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Just two weeks ago I brought two different running shoes for my long morning run. It was a complete mistake and I had no idea I had grabbed my old left running shoe and my new right running shoe. When I arrived at the trail I laced up anyway and tried to run. 8 miles was the goal that day.

It didn’t feel right running with those two different shoes that morning. My left foot began to ache sooner than my right and as I tried to push through the aches just began to creep up my leg… my shin, my knee… I knew it wouldn’t be long before my hip would begin to twinge so around the two and a half mile mark I decided to turn around.

I walked back and for two and a half miles I thought about how ridiculous it is to try to run in two different shoes. Not only does it look funny it also feels strange and after awhile you begin to feel physical discomfort when you wear the old and the new at the same time.

On my long walk back I thought about Hebrews 12:1

let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.

If you don’t get rid off all of the old… you can’t run. You can’t persevere.

I thought about 2 Corinthians 5:17

If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come.

The old has to go away for you to walk in the new way God is calling you to.

It seems as silly as my mismatched shoes for me to think about hanging onto my old self as I walk in the new. But I still struggle with my old patterns and my old ways. I still have so much unraveling to do. There are so many layers to me and I feel like daily, as I read God’s Word, God is saying, “Hey you, put that off, that is the old way you used to think about that, use my Words and walk in them.”

When the old gets tangled up in the new it feels funny. I feel confused, sometimes isolated and off balance. Just like in my two different running shoes, if I try to walk with Christ with some old and some new after awhile it will begin to affect me emotionally, spiritually and physically.

Recently I have been thinking about an unraveled marriage. What would it look like for me to recognize and put off my old patterns and transform them with the Words and Power of the gospel? Could we run with more perseverance towards Christ? Could we feel more comfortable and in step? Would we feel less achy and less off balance?

I think yes. But I think we have some unraveling to do as husbands and wives.

When you come into marriage you bring so many unknown patterns with you. Learned patterns from your own family, learned patterns from your friends, learned patterns from your favorite books and movies.

When I am hurting, it is my natural tendency to stonewall or shut down, cold shoulder, give a cold but bitter “nothing” if my husband asks me what is wrong.

I live with the old pattern tangled up in what I know is true from the Word of God.

If someone sins against you, talk about it. (Matthew 18)

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. (Isaiah 1:18)

There is a burr in my side to be like the popular Disney Ice Princess and “Let It Go”. Let the old fall away from the new. And feel free, one with the wind and sky.

As a wife, I love my husband and I want to treat him the way God treats him. I don’t want to have old patterns I have brought from learned ways of the world and have them tangled up in the way God has designed marriage in the words of scripture. It looks as silly as those shoes and it feels uncomfortable and unsatisfying. You can’t run. You can’t persevere.

Unraveling is not as easy as switching out your shoes or singing a ballad on the top on an ice mountain. Unraveling hurts. It hurts our pride to say we are doing it wrong, it hurts and takes work to pray and hear and apply God’s designs for living.

Unraveling doesn’t happen once in a lifetime.

Unraveling doesn’t happen once a week after a convicting sermon on Sunday morning.

Unraveling doesn’t even happen once a day.

Unraveling happens on the long hard miles of everyday life with your husbands, wives, kids, neighbors and coworkers. I hope you remember to untangle the old from the new. I hope you remember both of your new shoes.

Why I Have Been Politely Declining Your Dinner Invitation

September 9, 20145 Comments

For the last five years I have been politely declining dinner invitations to your home.

I know you have fabulous hospitality gifts and I want to eat your delicious dinners and scrape my fork on your gorgeous wedding dishes. I can picture your centerpiece, smell the candles and hear the hipster music playing in the background.

Then a loud, old-school record scratch wakes me up from the daydream of what I might think it would be like to come have dinner in your home.

I remember one large very important detail.

I have small kids. Four small kids.

I love them to pieces. I love the dirt under their nails at the dinner table, their loud burps followed by their giggles and their ‘scuse mes, I love their spilled chocolate milks and the food that seems to end up mostly on the floor instead of in their sweet little baby mouths.

I love them to pieces.

However, I have politely been declining your dinner invitation for five years because of them.

Most nights collectively, my children spend ten minutes sitting at the table before asking to be excused and swirling off like tasmanian devils (cute and very loved tasmanian devils). We send them outside or in the basement just so my husband and I can hurry and shovel dinner in our own faces before some else needs us.

Just two weeks ago I ventured out to your home with my kids for a church picnic. In the hour and a half we were there one of my children kept peeing in their pants. He went through three changes of pants. Three. I was in the bathroom changing pee pee pants three times in the ninety minutes I was in your home. One time while exiting the bathroom I found another one of my children playing your piano with his chocolate covered hands. Just as my panic attack was beginning to my make neck tense up and my head shake someone spilled water on your arcade basketball game and maybe tried to ride your dog.

That’s right. It was time to go. I shuffled my children out the door, thank youed and apologized several times while bringing my three pairs of pee pee pants home in my purse.

Just two nights later another you invited us over for dinner. I accepted thinking we may be able to have a decent time. Your family also has four kids so I thought we may be able to make it through the evening without the pee pee pants or my tense neck and shaking head.

We almost made it until my two year old began stripping all his clothes off down to his nude birthday suit on your back deck. My infant was crying and exhausted so I tried nursing her upstairs in your master bedroom but my baby kept screaming. She wanted her swaddle and she wanted her bed.

And lastly. We didn’t have pee pee pants but one of my boys was too scared to ask to go to the bathroom with the big crowd so he just pooped in his underwear instead. This evening’s consellation was poopy pants in my purse. My child pooped his pants at your house.

We had a great time but the drama. Oh the drama my kids certainly like to save it for their mama.

Last night, I invited you to my house for dinner instead. I thought in my own house I could control the poop and the pee and the chocolate covered fingers and faces. I thought while my kids played with their own toys I could look you in the eye and chat about your marriage, your job and ask you what God is teaching you. I thought maybe we could joke and laugh around my table of mismatched silverware and a bottle of red wine.

I love my kids to pieces but they brought slugs and caterpillars in from outside to show you at the table. I love them to pieces but two of them pooped in their pants together outside while playing in on the swing set. And then my oldest child barfed. Right in the middle of the kitchen, coating the hardwoods with the soup I just served everyone and reeking up the house so badly you couldn’t even smell that Yankee Candle I lit for you anymore.

I apologized again and thank youed you for coming as my kids blew kisses and chased your car down the road. They said, “See you soon” as they chased you.

Phew I thought. I don’t think I can do this again for a long time let alone soon the tension in my neck started to come as I thought about it.

I love my kids to pieces. But this is why I have politely been declining your dinner invitation for so long. It’s not how I feel about you, it’s how I feel about pee pee pants in your house. Maybe in a few years once we are beyond the pee pee pants and the strip shows can we look you and your husband in the eye and chat over dinner.

For now it will just have to be the hubs and I, shoveling the food in our mouths and living these crazy years with littles laughing together. We love them to pieces but we’ll keep them and their pee pee pants to ourselves at dinner time.