In January, I wrote “Gratitude Lists and What to Do with Pain,” reflecting on the tendency I see in Christendom to call bad things good and claim to know exactly why God allows those bad things. After several years of relentless, almost frantic striving to find answers to my Why questions, I’m finally able to rest, to mourn the bad, and call it what it is. Gratitude lists are a help, but neither are they a miracle cure.

My husband and I also joined a new Monday series begun by Seth and Amber Haines called “Marriage Letters.” We’re writing to each other and sharing those letters with all of you in hopes that sharing the struggle and joys of marriage will encourage each of you to fight the good fight for your relationships. I couldn’t pick one favorite, though! We wrote about “secret fantasies…. for the future,” our nightly rituals, and then a plain ol’ ordinary love letter. This coming Monday, we’re writing on “opposites attract” and we’d love for you to join in!

What was your favorite, most popular, most controversial, or most whatever post for January? Link up with Elizabeth and share!

Saturday Evening Blog Post ~ Best of January 2012 is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

Stale cigarette smoke dripped off every surface in the dimly-lit trailer, its yellow tinted even deeper by the sun filtering through the curtains. She shuffled slowly back to her bedroom as I settled my little ones on the floor with some toys.

“Stay here and play, ok? Mommy will be down the hall for a few minutes helping our friend. Here are your toys. Don’t touch anything else. Do you understand?”

I stole a glance at them as I hurried down the hall after her. “Please don’t break anything,” I murmured. My footsteps echoed dull on the old carpet, exposing the cheap subfloor underneath.

She had removed the old bandage and cleaned her wound as well as she could. I dabbed gingerly at the angry raw skin, apologizing each time she winced.

Read the rest on Deeper Story, where I’m posting today.

I Am Not My Holy Spirit is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

***

Many of us have the gift of moving through the grief process as we find a way — often after years and years of remaking — to put grief to a restless slumber.

Anne Lamott writes,

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”

It only takes something small … maybe a smell, a scent that reminds us of our loved one; or a picture; an activity to cause an overflow of the deep well of tears to burst forth from the depths.  Even after years, grief is always at the surface. Tears we had momentarily forgotten about, feelings we had buried with the everyday activities that we’ve used to help us move on, and then it happens.  Our buried, bruised soul awakens.

Grief sleeps lightly; ready to be awoken by the slightest touch.

But there’s a grief that doesn’t sleep.

A grief that has no beginning and seemingly no end.   A grief that may never heal.

****

I walked into the hospital, carrying my toolbox-sized brown box by the handle.  Dressed in my suit, tie, and dress shoes, I get awkward glances from the observant staff as they process “A man dressed for business … carrying what appears to be a toolbox … in a hospital.”

I walk into medical records, Maria the secretary recognizes me from previous visits and she asks, “Who are you here for?”

“Baby X”, I say.

She tells me to take a seat as she rummages through her files.

After a minute or so she arises from her paperwork, finds what she needs and makes eye contact with me, signaling me to come closer.

“Here’s the release.  I’ll call the security guard”, she says.

“Great!” I say cheerfully, thankful that process seems to be going more smoothly than expected.

“One more thing … who’s going to sign the cremation authorization?”  I ask.  “I was told that the case worker was going to sign it.  Is she here?”

After another minute of rummaging and five minutes worth of phone calls, “No, the caseworker’s not here.”

“Here comes the obstacles” I think to myself.

I explain what’s going on, making sure Maria fully understands the situation: “The mother’s in jail, so she terminated her rights to her newborn ….”

Maria interrupts, “I understand the child lived for an hour.”

“ … being that the mother is in jail, with no money and no family who wants to give the child a funeral, we were asked by the mother’s case worker if we’d cremate the child pro bono.  We agreed … but I still need a signature for cremation authorization from whoever the rights were given to ….”

“Okay.  Let me make some phone calls.”

Ten minutes later I was walking to the morgue carrying my little brown box by the handle, having resolved the situation.

As I entered the morgue, and gently placed the dead infant in my box, I couldn’t help but think about how the mother of this child will process her grief.  It will be an apparition.  Here and there.  Such a short beginning with no closure.

****

These thoughts have haunted me over the past couple weeks, so I want to do something right here and now, with you present.  I want to remember this short life by offering the only act I know to do.  I’d like to write an obituary.

Baby X, passed into and out of this world on Sunday, January 8^th, 2012 at the Chester County Hospital.  He is survived by his mother, who cared for him for nine months, had the chance to name him upon his birth and who has been thinking about him ever since.

Although your time was short on this earth, you have not gone unremembered.  Today, I remember you.  Today, we remember you.  In our silence, we remember.

 ***

Photo credit.

Every Wednesday we take our masks down and show the real, imperfect, messy side of ourselves. We share how life really is and in that honesty, we come alongside each other and give one another a hand through life.

If you wrote anything bare, honest, and messy in the last week, feel free to link it here. Make sure to use the direct link to your post. Please try to visit at least 2 other blogs and leave a comment (I know how hard this is — I am not able to visit everyone’s posts each week either. But I visit at least 2 each week and try to leave a comment.) Feel free to grab the button for Life: Unmasked, too.

The Unremembered (A Guest Post) ~ #LifeUnmasked is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

Once upon a time when I was on my college’s debate team, I had to defend the statement that the character of a politician was insignificant when assessing his qualification or performance in office. (This was right in the thick of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal.) A few months later, I had to defend gambling as a valid and not-harmful form of fund-raising for a state. When I first heard those statements, my kneejerk reaction was, “How on earth will I ever win a round when I disagree so strongly?”

I’m a competitive sort, so each time I dug into the research with my teammates. What surprised me each time was how every issue we debated really did have pros and cons. It was never as straightforward as I thought initially. A few months into the debate season, after hearing all sides of the matter debated by skilled teams, I’d settle on my own personal position. In the examples above, I changed my initial position on one but not the other. In both cases, I had much more well-thought-out reasons for those positions. I also understood how someone could make a case the other way and be neither insane nor ignorant, thus my respect for those with opposing views grew.

These experiences removed my fear of seeking to understand other positions on issues. They taught me that there is always more to learn, and that it’s ok to change my views on things in light of more information. In the years since that time, I’ve discovered how rare that is. Very few people seem to overcome their fear of the “other side.” Our society has grown increasingly polarized, in large part due to our refusal to acknowledge the weaknesses of our own position and the strengths of someone else’s. When we refuse even to try to understand other positions on issues, we cannot avoid oversimplifying their claims, exaggerating the flaws of their position and the merits of our own, and losing our ability to respect people who disagree. It creates unnecessary conflict and animosity.

One of the areas in which this tension is most pronounced is the subject of beginnings. Christians must labor to understand the stories given in the ancient book of Genesis, and it can be even more difficult to make sense of those stories in light of what we know about the world, life, and the cosmos today. Science is our human attempt to describe, explain, and predict what we see in the physical world. In a many ways, religious faith is a similar effort to describe, explain, and predict. It should be an act of worship, not an act of treachery, for a Christian to interact with the world that God made by working in and affirming the sciences.

Unfortunately, some Christians, because of the way they interpret either science or the Bible or both, do not believe that they can reconcile faith with science while maintaining intellectual or spiritual integrity. They seem to fear science as a threat to their faith, instead of embracing it as an expression of the creativity and complexity of God.

If God created the world, then God is the author of science. Science and faith harmonize and synthesize. They are not in competition. If we think we’re being forced to choose between them, we’ve got something wrong and we need to go back and study again.

This is what Dr. Peter Enns attempts to do in the book “The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say about Human Origins.” He looks at one component of the Genesis account of creation, Adam, and examines the cultural, religious, linguistic, and academic context surrounding him, (the Bible mentions Adam surprisingly infrequently, which is worth noting), adjusts our expectations of sacred Scripture accordingly, and then proposes that more reasonable expectations allow us to better harmonize faith and science.

Dr. Enns is the author or editor of nine books and is professor of Christian studies at Eastern University. His credentials are impeccable: he studied at Messiah College and Westminster Theological Seminary and earned a Ph.D. from Harvard. His academic interests include Old Testament Theology, Biblical Theology, Wisdom Literature (esp. Ecclesiastes), the NT’s use of the OT, Second Temple literature, and “the general issue of how the historical context of Scripture affects how we understand the nature of Scripture within Reformed and Evangelical commitments.”

Dr. Enns is a committed Christian. His books are not an attack on the Christian faith; rather, they are a defense. He wrote in the introduction, “My Christian faith is summed up in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, which are expressions of broad Christian orthodoxy. More specifically to the points that will occupy us below, I believe in the universal and humanly unalterable grip of both death and sin, and the work of the Savior, by the deep love and mercy of the Father, in delivering humanity from them. …I wish to be crystal clear at this point—respecting at the outset differences of opinion on this matter—that the issues I raise in this book and the conclusions (exploratory and tentative at some points) that I reach are an outworking of my Christian convictions of what it means to be a responsible reader of Scripture in my time and place” (emphasis his).

In “The Evolution of Adam,” Dr. Enns begins his study of the biblical Adam with this presupposition: “that the most faithful Christian reading of sacred Scripture is one that recognizes Scripture as a product of the times in which it was written and/or the events took place – not merely so, but unalterably so.” He proposes that God conveyed truth into the ancient human context, communicating via the ideas and perceptions they had about the world and using their idiom. For example, if common understanding at the time was that the sky was a dome holding back water and held up by pillars, God didn’t correct that when expressing truth about God or the cosmos.

Dr. Enns spends much time discussing the cultures surrounding ancient Israel and how that affects how we understand the Old Testament and what we should expect from it. This includes ancient understandings of human origins and suffering. He also spends much time delving into Second-Temple Judaism, Jewish thought and scholarship, and how the New Testament authors interacted and reinterpreted the Old Testament in light of Jesus Christ.

I’m still forming my own position on human origins (I expect that will always be in process), thus I’m not necessarily in full agreement with every one of Dr. Enns’s assumptions or conclusions (in some cases, I just don’t know – I have much to learn about both modern science and about sacred Scripture). Because I’m still learning and seeking to find the harmony between the study of God and the study of God’s creation, “The Evolution of Adam” has aided my efforts to better understand the original setting and thinking behind the Bible and its human authors.

Of particular interest to me was Dr. Enns’s description of a theory regarding the time of the writing of Genesis (and in fact the whole of the Pentateuch). I had always been told that our best guess is that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible. I’d never heard of other theories regarding its authorship before reading Dr. Enns’s book. He explains that according to most Old Testament scholars, the best theory in light of current historical and literary evidence, is that the Pentateuch was edited after the Babylonian Exile. This was a time when the people of Israel were grappling with what had happened to them and questioning how they could be God’s chosen people in light of the captivity and destruction of the Temple. The theory says that someone acted as an editor and compiled all the writings and oral tradition into the books we now know as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, with a very specific purpose—to show how Israel has been God’s special nation from the very beginning. This theory, paired with what is now known about ancient cultures and literary conventions,  answers many of the questions we find when reading these books.

I think it’s important to mention who Dr. Enns identifies as the audience for this book: he wrote in the introduction that his intended audience is Christians, “of whatever tradition or stripe, and so respect Scripture and recognize that what it says must be accounted for somehow. …Second, these same people are convinced, for whatever reason, that evolution must be taken seriously. …My aim, therefore, is not to convince people that the Bible is important, nor is it to make people see that evolution is true. My aim is to speak to those who feel that a synthesis between a biblically conversant Christian faith and evolution is a pressing concern. And my purpose here is certainly not to undermine the faith of those who see things differently.” (emphasis mine)

Finally, a note regarding the title, “The Evolution of Adam.” Dr. Enns does not argue that Adam himself evolved. Instead, he contends that our understanding of Adam must evolve “in light of scientific evidence supporting evolution and literary evidence from the world of the Bible that helps clarify the kind of literature the Bible is—that is what it means to read it as it was meant to be read. Furthermore, all this can be done in a way that respects and honors the authority of the Bible. Indeed, reflecting on the nature of Scripture like this is the very expression of honor and respect.” (emphasis mine)

You may or may not agree with Dr. Enns’s theories regarding Adam, Israel, the Pentateuch, and Paul’s letters. However, whether you identify yourself as a young-earth creationist, an old-earth creationist, or a theistic evolutionist, you will find this book has great value as you seek to better understand the people who wrote/received/heard the sacred Scripture – how they viewed the world and themselves and how they interacted with sacred Scripture, particularly as contrasted with how we do.

P.S. If you, like me, are concerned about how to teach your children the context of sacred Scripture, be sure to check out Olive Branch Books.

I am participating in a blog book tour hosted by Brazos Press. Be sure to stop by their site and enter to win their giveaway. The Grand Prize is a book package including:

• The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns
• Inspiration and Incarnation by Peter Enns
• The Bible Made Impossible by Christian Smith
• Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible by John Polkinghorne
• The Mind and the Machine by Matthew Dickerson

Five runners up will receive copies of The Evolution of Adam by Peter Enns.

***

I received a complimentary copy of The Evolution of Adam. All opinions stated in the above review are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

“The Evolution of Adam”: In Which Science and Faith Are Allies, Not Enemies is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

“Now that’s a hot husband – one who’s folding laundry!”

You laugh when I say it. I laugh too, but I mean it.

I don’t think you realize just how hot it is when you wash dishes, scrub down the bathrooms, help the kids clean up their perpetually-disastrous rooms, run the vacuum, and clear everything out of the way when you cut your hair so I don’t find bits of hair in my toothbrush.

Not every man will do that. I know this. But you do.

You know what your willingness to dive into the work with me says to me? It says that you and me? We’re in this together. We’ve got each other’s back, in spite of our quirks, flaws, and mistakes.

When I fail to balance the check book correctly and we run out of money five days after pay-day, you rolled up your sleeves instead of getting angry and bitter, and together we figured out how to get through.

When you leave your clean laundry in [neat…ish] piles on the floor for days on end, I smile and remember how my mom always says, “Even ‘cleanies’ have a place where they’re messy.” (Then I give serious eyes to my clothes pile, and my book piles, and my orphan-socks pile, and my grab-everything-off-the-counter-before-company-comes-over piles, and I remember that I have no room to criticize.)

You show me an episode of Wayne’s World and let me in on your secret – all your favorite lines come from those old Saturday Night Live episodes. I relish this glimpse into what makes you you. (Time for a little quid pro quo, I believe. Prepare yourself — we must watch Anne of Green Gables and Little Women next.)

Even though I give you a hard time about your little quirks, like insisting on washing the van before we take a road trip or talking about cutting your hair for days (sometimes weeks) before you actually do it or refusing to even try almond milk because “you can’t milk an almond,” I love those things about you, too. I love how you are able to get me to laugh, chill out when I’m getting too intense, and not take life so seriously.  I’m quite certain that your easy-going-ness is prolonging the life of this type-A woman.

I had no idea how much I’d love the ordinary little things about you. I’m the lucky one.

 ***

Each Monday, Scott and I join Amber and Seth in a weekly series we’re calling “Marriage Letters.” We hope you’re encouraged in your own relationships by these notes, and we hope you’ll consider joining us some week. If you wrote this week, link up below! Read Scott’s letter here.

A Plain Ol’ Ordinary Love Letter is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

In the interview (RSS and email readers, you’ll need to jump over to my site to view I think), we chatted about her new book, “Because I Can,” the spiritual journey that she’s been on, and the sudden turn it took after she was involved in a serious accident while on a family vacation in California.

While Janet’s story is very different from mine, the themes are very similar. I enjoyed reading her book because I recognized so many of the same questions, doubts, and struggles that she describes. I appreciated the candor with which she describes the challenges she and her family faced during her recovery: spiritual crisis, depression, communication in marriage, and chronic pain. She doesn’t gloss over the hard times or put pretty bows on top. Because of her honesty and openness, readers will find her an encouraging companion through their own hard times. You can purchase or download your copy of “Because I Can” here.

She will checking this post over the next couple of days, so if you have any questions for her, leave them in the comments. Also, Janet is generously offering a free copy of her book to one reader! Leave a comment to enter the giveaway by 9pm EST, January 30, 2012. If you’d like an extra entry, please share this post and then leave a comment for each place you shared it (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). We will select a winner at random and announce on Tuesday.

“Because I Can” – a Book Review, Giveaway, and Author Interview by the Most Amateur Interviewer Since Chris Farley is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

Today, I’m participating in the series “At the Lord’s Table: A Discussion,” hosted by Preston Yancy.

My post is one in a series of over 50 posts from varying authors about the beautiful, mangled Church. Rather than rant and complain about the failings and flaws of the organization known as the church, Preston asked us to find beauty and celebrate that in these posts.

Here is my contribution.

***

Church. For thirty-five years, I think of buildings when I hear the word. I think of white steeples, stiff formality and equally stiff pews, cerebral one-way lectures, that distinctive old-building smell, organ music, neck ties, panty hose, and patent leather. On a rare day, I also think of crisp sunrise services in a park at the foot of the mountains and the aroma of eggs scrambling on camp stoves mingling with perking coffee.

I hear through childhood that Church is people who love God and function in a harmony that mirrors a body, The Body of Jesus Christ. My parents remind me over and over that “Church” is not the building we spend our Sunday mornings inside. It doesn’t matter. I can’t stop associating the place with the word. I can’t wrap my head and heart around the expansive worldwide beautiful people-ness that is Church.

Read the rest of my post on Preston’s blog.

The Beautiful Every-Day Everywhere Church is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

***

“Did I tell you I’m asking Brad to submit some writing samples?”, he said as he sauntered out of the closet, eyes fully engaged with his smartphone and only half-heartedly trying to make conversation with me.

“Which Brad, and writing samples for what?”, I asked with probably a little too much zeal. My interest was piqued, and I felt my adrenaline begin to rush.

Was this the moment I’ve been waiting for? Were there really openings at the dream company we had packed up our family and moved 800 miles for my husband to work for? Were my secret dreams of someday getting to work there too about to come true? Were they actually hiring for what my college diploma proclaims I have been trained to do–to WRITE? To children, of which I have four? About the Bible, which I love and have been a life-long student of?

“Oh, Brad from our old church. We’re looking for some more male writers, we already have soooo many women.”

Message received.

A surge of billious responses lurched to my lips, which I pressed firmly closed to muzzle the hurt, as well as to help quell the flow of tears that were threatening to spill out of my eyes. Again.

My husband had no idea what his words had just broken, yet again, in this nine-second interchange.

I’m a writer. I have a degree. I’ve been a teacher and taught other people how to write. I’ve blogged. I’ve been paid to write. I’ve edited. I’ve volunteered my writing. I think in Helvetica. Yet, I don’t think my husband sees me as a writer. And it hurts beyond explanation.

This wound picks at the scab of a similar scar that was inflicted on me by another supposedly safe and sacred relationship, that of my church.

10 years ago, I sat in an interview for a new leadership position in our church called Servant Development. I couldn’t have written a job description that would have been more perfect for me at that time.

But as I was sitting in the interview basking in the glow of how uncannily well-suited my unique personality, skills and strengths were to this position, I was asked to explain how I line up with I Timothy 3:1-7. I opened my Bible, read through the qualifications and commented to each one how I either am or am not that person

After I finished, my interviewer then asked me to read verse two again, out loud, and to make sure that I fit all the criteria.

“An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,”…

My breath whooshed out as the realization sunk in. Despite being in a completely faithful marriage where we were one husband and one wife fully committed to each other, I was the “one wife” in this verse and not “the husband”. I stammered,  “Oh, …I’m not a man.”, and my interviewer morosely shook his head in agreement.

I don’t remember any more of the interview. There probably was not much more. It was over.

Message received.

I was so embarrassed and ashamed that I scuttled out of the building as quickly as possible with tears stinging my eyes. The interviewer had purposely led me to the realization that my gender was the disqualifying factor for this position. I felt patronized by the fact that he had made me say it out loud. This intentional entrapment shook me to the core. And something in me fractured in that moment.

I don’t understand why the church didn’t bother to state that they would only be considering men for this position, and why they went through the time and trouble to call me in for an interview when I clearly was not even going to be considered as a viable candidate.

10 years later, I have still not gotten over this hurt from the big “C” church. I think I am still in shock that the church, and not “the world”, would be the institution that would tell me that my gender would disallow me from doing what I was made to do.

All I really told my husband, who was finishing up seminary and had been newly hired by this very same church, was that I wasn’t right for the position. And although he patted me on the back offering condolences that things hadn’t worked out, I sensed some relief on his part. For half a decade, we had worked and ministered side-by-side, but all of a sudden it seemed like post-seminary he wanted to do his own thing and work somewhere apart from me. And my tiny fissure of doubt and lack of self-confidence silently widened into a crevice.

There are days when I literally encourage my spouse to live his dreams and embolden him to do what he’s good at through my gritted teeth masked in a smile. When on the inside I feel sunken in and empty, suffocating in the shroud of my perceived gender handicap and my complete lack of confidence in myself.

I try to cover up how painful it is for me to hear that his company–a Christian ministry– is hiring gender-specific writers. That my own husband did not speak up and mention that he’s married to writer–regardless of the fact that my gender doesn’t align with what they think they need. That instead of asking me to submit writing samples, he’s elatedly running down the list of the guy friends and acquaintances he’s soliciting. It slays me that he didn’t champion me for something that comes as naturally to me as breathing. And that he, of all people, wouldn’t understand that writing is genderless. That writing to children about the Word of God is for all people, just like the message of salvation is meant for all people and can be conveyed BY all people.

The worry and fear and doubt and all the questions are coming back harder, faster, and painfully deeper than ever. And like a typical girl, when I’m all by myself and no one will know about it, I sit down and have a gut-wrenching cry about it all. Again.

***

Link up your life:unmasked post here (make sure it’s the direct link to the post, not just the general one to your blog). I just ask two things — link back to this post so people can find Life:Unmasked and join in if they want, and visit/comment on 2-3 of the other posts in the linky.

Hurt ~ Life: Unmasked is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

“Yes, honey. But it’s just one little poke. Very fast. It doesn’t hurt like a shot does.”

“I don’t WANT to get a poke!” he yelled, thrashing in his booster seat. “I don’t like them!”

“I know you don’t like them. I know.” It was all I could do, just listen and let him be mad. I was mad too. We let him argue and cry as we drove. Once he settled a bit, I asked him about school, and he quickly forgot his tears.

He surprised me, staying calm when the hospital came into view, bouncing happily into the building. He was chatty and relaxed all through the checking in and the waiting. He climbed easily onto the platform and listened as the techs explained how their cameras would come in close but not touch him and that he needed to hold still.

He was his usual outgoing self right up until the second they pulled out the tiny butterfly needle. As soon as he saw it, he began screaming and thrashing. I told him to squeeze my hands as tight as he wanted, and Scott pinned his legs so he couldn’t kick anyone. The injection was over quickly, and he calmed down as soon as he saw that the needle was gone.

“No more pokes?” he asked, a tear still perched on his eyelashes.

“We’re all done. Just taking pictures now.”

He relaxed, eyes on the DVD player running Toy Story. We relaxed, too.

Until they turned on the camera. As soon the image appeared on the screen, we knew.

Tears burn, especially when you try to hold them back. They hovered just below my eyes as I watched the image on the screen and chatted with the nurses. Their answers to my questions only confirmed what we saw. The conversation turned to our children, and the tears spilled as we talked about Elli. We had heard those words, “There’s nothing we can do” in a room just a few dozen yards from where we stood.

“Where is the bathroom?” I asked, desperate for a moment to collect myself.

“Just behind you.” She pointed to the door.

Too close. I couldn’t let the sobs out so close to my son. I dabbed furiously at my face, yelling at myself in my mind. “Get it together, Joy. You can’t fall apart here.”

I yelled back at myself too (also in my mind, and yes, this probably makes me certifiable). “This SUCKS! I don’t want this for him. I don’t want another surgery. How will we tell him? How will we tell the other kids? They’ll be terrifed that he’s going to die just like Elli did. I’m terrified that he’ll die. I can’t bury another child. I just can’t.”

 Anger, grief, and fear wound into an all-too-familiar tornado in my gut… “Stress Stomach” – my secret to weight loss. I knew I had to walk back out there. I breathed deep, held wet paper towel on my eyes for a minute, pushed the tears and rage away, and walked back into the test room.

One of the techs looked at me. “Are you ok?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

I am fine: “Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional,” to quote Charlie Croker on “The Italian Job.”

The official test report confirmed our observation. The doctors have confirmed that we need to do something about it. More tests lie ahead to determine whether he needs major surgery or if we can cobble a fix together now to delay surgery a little longer. We should know in three months.

Three months. I have to figure out how to wait three months without going crazy. I’ve done it before — this is all too similar to the months between his in-utero diagnosis and his birth. I’m fighting the imagination that tries to take me through worst-case-scenarios and leaves me sobbing into my pillow as I envision another child’s tombstone in the cemetery and whether we could bury both kids close together. I cannot allow myself to go there. That is the path of insanity. I tell my imagination that’s a bridge we only cross if we must.

Meanwhile, I’m alternately annoyed with the boyishness of the boy, angered by his defiance, frightened by any little sign that something may be more amiss than we thought, and ashamed that I could feel anything but overwhelming love and affection for him no matter what.

I guess there’s a comfort in that — he’s still a little boy who acts like a little boy. And I’m still an imperfect human mother who sometimes cannot stand one more battle cry, whiny request, or tearful outburst. Focusing on handling these every day things better… that could be the secret to the waiting.

This post written and linked with Genevieve for “Emotions on Tuesdays” and with Heather of the EO’s Just Write. I’m intentionally vague to protect the privacy of my child, who may one day prefer that the blogosphere not know his medical history.

I’m F.I.N.E. – Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!

***

Dear Scott,

Late evenings remind me of our early months together. We were still learning the steps of this dance called marriage, stepping on each other’s toes, tripping when one or the other turned in an unexpected direction. We found our footing fairly quickly, I think, but our most striking differences appeared in our nightly rituals.

We moved through our evenings so differently. You could disappear into a project and enter a zone in which neither time nor sleep existed. On the other hand, I shut down sometime after 10pm, dissolving into an utterly useless and almost incoherent frenzy. I could ignore major tasks all day (usually of the cleaning-up kind), but come 10 o’clock when I reached a certain level of fatigue, I’d snap. Without warning, I’d fly into an illogical cleaning mania. You’d stand agape as I threw things around and raged that you weren’t helping. Very quickly, you made it your mission to get me to bed before The Snap (or as you referred to it, “Joy turned into a pumpkin”).

We don’t often go to bed separately, which means you spend a lot of time waiting on me. I have often marveled at how you just go to bed. You decide it’s bedtime, and that is it. I turn around, and you’re eying me from under the blankets.

I can’t. I can’t go to bed until I brush my teeth, wash my face, examine my skin for anything out of the ordinary, probe any anomalies, dab toner on my face, apply acne treatment (since my face persists in acting like a teen instead of the middle-aged mother of four that I am), find the right pajamas, put my clothes away (or more accurately, drape them artfully across the foot-board so they look halfway put-away), set my alarm, get up because I forgot something, and then grab my book. I may get up one more time if I hear one of the kids whimper. It takes a good half hour. Maybe more.

Yet you wait patiently for me. I don’t think you’ve ever once complained. It is perhaps a symbol of just how long you spend waiting on me that you’ve picked up my copy of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy to read in bed. (Which is hot, by the way.)

These days, we pour our energies into our marriage during the priceless hours between the kids’ bedtime and ours. Our late-night mania has dissolved into the fatigue of parenthood (I refuse to say middle age). Instead of hiding my wrestling, I’m sharing it with you so we can wrestle together. I read aloud letters like this one, thought-provoking blog posts, excerpts from books that I’m digging into. You’ve made it a priority to listen and I love you for it.

It doesn’t always go well. We’ve had some frustrating, tearful, going-in-circles-never-making-any-progress discussions about God, the Bible, the church, and my blog. (I know – my blog! Who knew?) In those moments, togetherness is almost painful. But this is what marriage is – it’s loving someone enough to tease out disagreement and misunderstanding, and keep at until you understand each other, even when you don’t like what you hear. It’s letting one another be who we are in that moment, and loving them, even when they’re changing. It’s daring to bare my soul in all its naked imperfection and trusting you to cherish and love me in that nakedness. It is also believing that when you identify my flaws, it’s out of love, not spite or superiority.

A marriage bed can be an icy place. Those few nights we’ve spent freezing each other out have been awful and rare (thankfully). But we know the value of taking time to cool off and regain perspective, and of calling truces until we’re prepared to listen and understand. We have also learned when waiting too long is dragging us into bitterness and resentment, and how hard it is to dig out of that swamp.

I have enjoyed making these new rituals with you. Our nights together are one of the best parts of being married.

I love you.

Marriage Letters: This Is Marriage is a post from Joy in this Journey and is brought to you in part by generous sponsorship from:
"Because I Can: doing what I can, with what I have, where I am" by Janet Oberholtzer - follow Janet on her journey from tragedy to triumph.
"Learning to Jump Again: A Memoir of Grief and Hope" by ANTHONY WEBER
Cinch. Simply a better way to lose weight. Get a free sampler pack!