Turquoise Gates

Vice and Victory

2012-05-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

Facing temptation can feel like a lonely battle. It happens mostly in our heads - the play back and forth between the idea and the resistance. We imagine we are alone, the only Christian to ever face this particular struggle, the only one who's ever been ensnared and enticed by whatever evil we are staring down.

Christ came to this world to resist temptation. If He'd never faced a test of faith, the purity of His life would have simply been divine, rather than the human/divine He came to show the world. We share with Him in victory when we face down our demons and emerge unscathed: though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (I Peter 1:6-7)

In these difficult days of first breaking the habit, I cannot stare down a single cigarette without succumbing to temptation. What would I do if I were on a mountaintop with Satan, offered power over all the world? (Matthew 4:1-11) I can imagine all the reasons I would justify my relent - I could bring the world peace; I could feed and clothe all the orphans; I could heal every crumbling marriage and protect every child from abuse. As I reflect on Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, it is unfathomable to me that He, using eternal perspective, knowing that all these small salvations would be accomplished in the greater Salvation of the cross, could turn Satan down and say, "Not yet."

“The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Saviour from Hell rather than a Saviour from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived…there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.” (A.W. Pink)

One cigarette craving at a time, I am privy to the grace of the Cross that not only saved me from hell, but daily sanctifies me with undeserved favor, undeserved strength that I can forever draw from the everlasting well of Living Water. When I feel alone, I call to mind the much greater temptations that Christ resisted for the love of my very soul. Would the Savior who suffered the cross on my behalf not hold my hand as I walk free of earthly temptations? Does He not desire freedom for all He loves? True freedom - the kind that eradicates temptation from our consciousness and sets our feet on the solid ground of the call and response of greatest Love?

When I sit on my swing in the clean summer air, longing for the deep breathing of the cigarette, longing for the physical release and the relaxation it brings, I call to mind the greater struggle that is faith meted out in the midst of our failures. Facing down the tangible and momentary reward of giving in to sin for the eternal reward is well worth it. Even when all I can muster is a caveat about the immediate health benefits, He is beside me, walking with me, and reminding me that even He walked this hard road once.

In Him, you are not your sin. In Him, you are not your dirt. In Him, you are hidden and your iniquity is made clean by your identity and your identity is in His purity — and when we are our worst, His white hides our dirt best. (from Ann, in her beautiful piece, When You Feel like Your Life's a Mess...The Real Truth About Your Dirt)

Vices and Virtues

2012-05-24T15:11:00.000-05:00

We line up our treasures of the soul, memories a string of pearls, moments like seashells on the rough hewn timbre of the past. All life is virtue or vice, high palisades of glorious success and deep valleys of sorrow, sacrifice, and succumbing. Under the microscope of our own conscience and the sharp light cast by the Holy Spirit on our soul, our vices loom large and clear. We pass the glory of our delights and our shining moments on to the Savior to whom we credit them. Yet we claim our failures as our own.

This double-edged sword of perspective can reduce we Christ-ones to hopeless peons in the struggle against sin. If we do not share in glory with our Creator, and wallow in our dismally dark moments, we are forever stuck in the mud of loss and lethargy. For how long can we struggle against the chains of sin if we never allow our souls to ascend to the mountaintops with Christ in our triumphs?

I started smoking last April, a desperate attempt to drown out the triple demons of flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety. The deep inhale, the slow exhale became the rhythm to which I dragged myself out of the emotional mire. The dirtiness of a soul whose dark corners remained unredeemed seemed congruent with the stink of the smoke I wrapped around me like a cape. And with the vapors of toxin, I insulated myself against a cruel world, pushing out other Christians unsure what to make of a daughter of the King wrapped in the shrouds of soot.

The time has come now, a year later, to walk away from this shroud. Tobacco was created by God, and yes, I think it was used by Him to help me through a tenuous time. But now it has become a vice - a habit unfitting for a temple of God Himself. I never struggled with the habit of it as an occasional smoker since my college days. But now that it is ingrained - especially as my relaxation, my joy, my moments alone - it is proving more difficult to quit. I glue verses to the doorpost, to the porch rail by my swing. Reminders of why the time has come.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have received from God? (I Corinthians 6:19)

It is time to put my money where my mouth is. To line up treasures instead of tortures. To claim freedom from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit, who liveth in me...for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).

Amy's treasures from the sea, lined up on the surf breakwater.

As I walk free from these chains of sin, will you walk with me? Post a comment here to tell me of your prayers for me, visit my Facebook wall in the coming days and weeks to encourage, send me an email with a personal prayer you've offered up for me? Do you have a vice you need to walk away from, too? Let's do it together - tell me how I can pray for you, either publicly or privately. I, Genevieve, your sister and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus...I want to stand with you and join you, that we may both go free from the chains of darkness and walk in the light together. (Revelation 1:9, paraphrased)

Linked to Imperfect Prose

and the Life:UNMASKED project

and Thought Provoking Thursdays

The least of these

2012-05-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Today I had to write a card to a dear friend. The same card I've been writing every year for seven years now. In which I try to express my gratitude and heartbreak to those parents, who suffer a million times more heartbreak and a thousand times more gratitude. Impossible words. There are certain affairs of the heart that will never pour out in writing.

Caleb was the last person, among many, who drew my husband to Christ. It was through the tiny example of 5-year-old faith, unwavering belief as he walked toward Jesus and away from his parents, that my husband finally understood the depth and breadth of grace. How am I to thank a grieving mother and father, arms still empty, for forever filling mine? For eternally giving me Aaron? Through their willing sacrifice, he was brought finally to salvation. When they laid their baby down on that altar, that funeral pyre, he looked on and saw the cross, beautifully and lovingly displayed.

I watched a hundred Marys as they walked their sons and daughters to that familiar doorstep. I stood by deathbeds and saw this passion played out, over and over again. What was a final knell for these mothers...a last touch...one more kiss...a precious child's body cooling under their caresses...that is what Christ conquered. Because of His sacrifice two thousand years ago, Caleb's mama and papa can look forward to a reunion someday in heaven.

Once again this year, I praise...through tears. I weep and worship. Remembering his hands, that gripped our hearts without thumbs, blue eyes that pierced us with their surprising joy, a tiny child who submitted so completely to parents and God that he laid still...stock still...under the most impossible physical conditions.

And I am once again led to deeper faith, taken by that tiny little hand and brought closer to the cross. Thank you, Caleb, for turning my eyes to Jesus in new ways each year as I remember your miraculously mature example of faith.

We are on the road, on our way home from South Carolina. I have to write this year's card when I get home. I've reposted this piece from the archives about my gratitude for Caleb, a little boy who died on my shift on the pediatric bone marrow transplant unit in 2002.

The emperor's new clothes

2012-05-22T06:57:00.000-05:00

That month of waiting, as May turned into June in my first year of cancer, still weighs heavy in my memory. Cancer in some ways seemed like an awakening, as if the Holy Spirit that I had inoculated myself against finally reached critical mass and began stirring inside in ways I could not ignore. Along with cancer awoke a dream for my life, a vision of the person I might become, goals and ideas that I'd never lent time to consider.

And when He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." He who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings; and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." (John 11:43-44)

I read this, and think, there were a few possible options here. It seems a bit absurd that Lazarus emerges still mummified in his grave clothes. They probably stunk, for one thing. For another, could this poor guy even see where he was going? Then Jesus commands the confounded family and friends to unbind the man - naked beneath - and let him go. Somehow I doubt they came to the tomb with fresh clothes for the dead relative they came to mourn.

Jesus, who raised him from the dead, certainly had the power to command the stinky wrappings to drop as Lazarus stood up for the first time since his death days before. But instead He allows the dead to rise wrapped in the reminder of that very death - the grave clothes and the cloying spices used to preserve the body in those days.

I am the same. He resurrected when He gave me new life...salvation from my sins. But the grave clothes clung, the spices still wafting pungent...shame, self-righteousness, old views about myself and about God, the tendency to seek after pleasure and joy in places that will never fulfill the hidden depths of my heart. As the years go by, He desires me to throw off those stinky old wraps, the vestiges of my death, now a thing of the past. This journal has been a safe place to become aware of the grave clothes still clinging, to begin the process of unwrapping.

Have you ever injured yourself and experienced the tangible fear that comes when removing the bandage for the first time? What will the broken limb look like, what about the stitches, or the old blood, or the decaying layers of skin? Have you paused as you imagined the pain of ripping the bandage, now embedded, from the sore wound? Wrinkled your nose to avoid smelling skin that hasn't been bathed in a week or a month or two? This is what it's like to take off grave clothes that have clung for a lifetime to your soul. Character traits that have been part of you so long you thought they were an integral part of you, not something you could throw aside. Yet Jesus says that we can throw aside those parts of ourselves that do not reflect Him - sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry...anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips - and put on His character like a set of new clothes.Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (from Colossians 3)

Just think. This is the the solution every person who bought a self-help book in the past was really looking for. But applying the knowledge here if you don't know Jesus, don't have the Holy Spirit living in you and renewing you, is as futile as trying to improve your sense of self-worth while you stay with the man who beats you to a pulp every day. You've got to get a new boyfriend. His name is Jesus. He is the Lover of your soul, and the perfecter of the weak, and the source for everything you've been searching for. If you're still battling the abuse of a love affair with yourself, or trying to emerge from addiction, anger, low self-esteem, loneliness...even if you think you're doing pretty well, but you keep hearing about Jesus and wondering what in the world I'm talking about: believe. Just choose it. Then trust Him to perfect the work He begins in you. (Philippians 1:6)

Here are a few verses for you to consider, and to enjoy if you have already accepted God's free gift of salvation:

Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. (Acts 16:31)

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. (I John 5:13)

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. (John 3:36)

I noticed recently that some versions of the Bible change the word in the familiar John 3:16 from "shall" to "might". I want you to see the difference between the two:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

"Might" seems so much less certain than "shall".

If you have questions regarding what I've written today, please contact me. I am putting my e-mail address right here, on the world wide web for anyone to see. Email me at gmthul@yahoo.com.

***a humble repost from the archives of 2010, during some of the very darkest days of my whole life, following our painful leavetaking from a beloved church

On Folly

2012-05-20T23:28:00.000-05:00

Today, sand castles, rip tides, a surfing competition, and winds that sandblasted us with the whipping gray dust.

Miraculous mundane

2012-05-19T23:09:00.000-05:00

It's been days of sandy feet and brown skin flashing in the bleak May sun of South Carolina. Afternoons lazing around the screen porch with books and the sounds of the birds over the marsh and the wind through the palmettos. A foreign climate and culture that's begun to tarnish to the comfortable feeling of home over the 5 summers we've spent here. This place is full of romance and familiar haunts, tattooed surfers striding home in the sunset and the smell of salt on the afternoon breeze. A magical place to make memories for little people.

Today we napped together, shivering in the air conditioning as the wind howled around the corners of the house on stilts. We went down to the main street late in the morning, and came home laden with beautiful shells, shovels, and inner tubes. The kids all wanted to ride the waves on the top, after days of body surfing and boogie boarding and being pummeled to the sandy bottom by the crash of the break. I gamely blew 20 minutes of breath into the tubes and we shivered into our suits, cursing the air conditioning that a few days ago couldn't eradicate the crushing humidity.

They piled in the back of the truck, and I in front, barefoot, with the hiphop blaring. We jived our way down to the far end of the island, the side we've never been too, I feeling adventurous and they always game for my hare-brained ideas. The beach was cold and deserted, lashed with 30 mile an hour winds, and only surfers in body suits could be seen out in the waves. None of this triggered my "mommy alarm", though, and we waded into the gray seas. I quickly realized they were gray because the break was only a short way out, and the sand was being stirred up into the water by the powerful waves. We shuddered in our line of fiercely gripped hand-holds, the waves driving the children past me even though we were all still on our feet. I pulled them as hard as I could, back to shore.

The little girls were screaming with cold, but their shrieks only grew louder as we scurried out of the water and back into the cold air. They talked (or shrieked) me into taking them back out with the tubes. I gripped their taught little bodies and propelled them back to shore over the tops of the breaking waves. Katy, the cautious eldest, stood on the shore screaming at us to come back to safety. Caleb was completely disoriented, and tried to get back out through the waves to me. Stunned by the force of nature whirling around us, I could barely gather my wits enough to herd them back to the sand. Someday they'll tell hilarious stories about the day their mother took them swimming in the hurricane (I learned from the weather station back at home that Tropical Storm Alberto is bearing down on the "Edge of America" as Folly Beach is known).

Somewhere between the shrieks and the howl of the wind, the aching beauty that is the tragedy and miracle of motherhood seeped through. The gray sandy feet pattering over the worn boards of the beach walk, the music throbbing through the speakers and four kids bopping in the rear view mirror, the goose bumps on my son's brown skin as I hold him close to warm him with my body... We know this dance of the sacred and the mundane, the beautiful and the drudgery, the sacrifice and the pay-out, we mothers. We feel it deep when words can't capture and memory can't hold the little joys of the everyday miracles. Our souls sing with the rhythm of life that plays out in detail before our eyes in the lives of our children. We live and breath hard work, yet in the cracks of life seeps that aching beauty: the blush on a baby's cheek, the smell of your young cuddled up to your neck, the 100 watt smiles of childhood happiness, the muddy feet and the bug bitten legs, the birdsong of little girls' laughter and the earthier burliness of our sons.

In our failures there is beauty...in our success there are shortcomings. Whether a failed beach trip in stormy seas that has our children shivering and shrieking, or a long lazy afternoon sitting on the dock listening to the dolphins talk to each other, it is beautiful, this dance and work of motherhood. The memories of our children will be highlight reels of the highs and lows of our family life. But I treasure a richer and fuller sense of the organic wonder of this mundane miraculous, a collection of vignettes that open the heart of the Father to my understanding, the wonder of His love and the tenacity of the hope we hold dear for those we love most.

Now I'm a Doctor (hood and all)

2012-05-17T17:09:00.000-05:00

I was hooded today in recognition of my doctoral degree by Dean Stewart of the College of Nursing and Dr. Teresa Kelechi, my research mentor.

I do not like being the subject of attention - especially the hundreds who attended the convocation ceremony! Stress ran pretty high, and I broke down emotionally once I saw my family afterward - it was a moment of feeling the weight of all the trials we passed through together on the way to this degree. Cancer immediately came to mind, and I was crying with joy that God allowed me to survive to see this moment.

After I got the tears out, I was able to have a little fun with my family, and my dear friend, Dr. Lisa Sternke, part of my original 2007 matriculating class at MUSC. We were trying to look studious - she did a pretty good job, but I just look mischievous. I guess I'll have to work on that expression if I'm going to be taken seriously as a professor! HA! I'd much rather have students who can laugh with me!

Thanks to everyone who took time to lend support in the form of comments, encouragement, and prayers over the 4 years it took to obtain my PhD.

A day at the beach

2012-05-17T07:15:00.001-05:00

Relaxation!

2012-05-16T13:13:00.000-05:00

We are relaxing at the beach house on Folly Beach. We got in late last night and we're enjoying a quiet, partly sunny day at the ocean today! I hope you're having a wonderful week as well.

Revisiting cancer

2012-05-12T17:20:00.002-05:00

Our 10 year old black lab, Tally, was diagnosed with cancer this winter. She underwent extensive surgery, and seemed back to her old self for several months. Now she is struggling with lymphedema, swelling in the leg and chest from her mastectomy, which is also a common complication in women who've undergone the same surgery. Overnight, she deteriorated rapidly, and seems to have aged years in just a few days.

Wanting the children to be ready, we talked about Tally's health and seemingly imminent death this afternoon. The tears fell fast and hard, and there's been a lot of cuddling for Tally. She's loving the extra attention.

News like this is even more difficult for children who've had a parent with cancer. Anything cancer related, even in their pet, brings out buried fears and grief from those cancer years of mine. They are afraid that if Tally dies of cancer, I might, too.

And so we make plans to take our beloved black dog on our South Carolina vacation with us, to form some last memories. I'm sure the time spent at the beach and on the river with Tally will loom large in their memories of childhood. We've wrapped her leg and chest to help relieve the swelling, and she seems a bit better this afternoon. My heart aches for the kids as theirs aches for their pet.

Birthing beings

2012-05-11T14:37:00.000-05:00

I watch her hold them, my niece and my nephew, in the turquoise twilight at the ball field. There is such serenity in this, the action of mothering, the cuddling and the skin and the stroking. How quickly those little fingers that were constantly entwined in your hands or your hair are bigger, browner, and busier!

Life's seasons are achingly brief. The whole of my children's infancy and toddlerhood is now a thing of the past. Only one seeks out my hand for comfort now, only one must have skin-to-skin time every single day. There is no changing table in my bathroom anymore. The kids fall asleep in their own beds. A small, unfolding miracle in the everyday here at the yellow farmhouse.

I think about how quickly it passes as I interview for jobs, the next step of the slow process of separation that begins when they're six months old and will probably still be evolving when they marry. I wonder if this was Eve's pain in childbearing - was it the groans of the physical labor to birth a baby only? Or did it encompass this birthing of beings into the world? The very individualism I cherish in my children also cuts to the quick as they become independent and different from me. In the cocoon of the nursing days, it felt like we were connected viscerally somehow, the nursing schedules, and the cat napping with baby on my chest, the co-sleeping and the feeding from my own breast. We breathed the same air, tinged with the sweetness that is baby breath and hair. Now there is more air between us and the children often smell like soil and grass, raindrops and wind. They come to me and we embrace, and there is this differentness about them, we are two others bowing towards each other but never quite connecting as we did in those earlier days.

Prompt "Identity" and "motherhood" from Lisa-Jo today

Interviews

2012-05-10T06:35:00.000-05:00

One full day of interviews done - today, another full day from 8:30 a.m. until after dinner! If you would offer up a prayer for strength, I would appreciate it! Who knew interviewing for a professorship was so exhausting??

Poopy Undies: Finding the Allegory in Everyday Mothering

2012-05-09T01:05:00.001-05:00

We have kittens here at the yellow farmhouse...the official harbinger of summer, this first litter of the year. Mama cat is our independent, skittish one, and she is alarmingly protective of her two tiny charges. We've just recently started retrieving the kittens from the rafters of the garage for daily taming sessions in the arms of the children.

It only happens with young mama cats, and usually only with their first litter: if you take the kittens away too soon, Mama will quit nursing them. The growing bond is broken, and just the smell of people on those kittens can cause the mother to abandon them.

I watch Mama Cat pacing up and down the porch while the children play with the kittens in the sunset. I wonder if I'm like her. I remember 2005, when my 2nd baby was a fuss-budget who learned to crawl at 4 months, a lot sooner than she learned to listen. Shaken by many near-choking scares as my mobile infant explored the house, and worn out with chasing two toddlers around, I brought up the subject of returning to work as an R.N. Aaron was decidedly not in favor: not only did it make financial sense for one of us to stay home, he felt the children were better off in my care, however worn out and frustrated I was feeling.

That one conversation turned into months of verbal battles on the subject. I had my 3rd baby when number 2 was only 18 months old - 3 children 3 and under. Faced now with sort-of triplets, I really started to lose traction. Then, when my 3rd was only 4 months old, I found out I was pregnant again. This heralded a maelstrom of grown up temper tantrums the likes of which I had never seen and didn't know I could throw. For some reason, potty training brought out my absolute worst as a mother - I found it frustrating beyond frustrating, and I was also grossed out by the whole process. I attempted to potty train my 3rd while her sibling was in utero because I thought the only thing worse than potty training was having two in diapers! Boy, was I wrong! Forcing her to train early meant month after month of daily poopy underwear, which are the world's most impossible item to clean - especially without gagging when you have morning sickness.***

That was my wake-up call - poopy undies. I was at the absolute end of my physical and mental resources, and I had to do something to get my temper tantrums under control. The wife of my pastor - a wise and very gentle woman! - talked about her own struggles and pointed me in the direction of some key Scriptures as I battled my frustration. I memorized Proverbs 29:11: A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control. I'm sure my girls will have hilarious memories of waiting in trepidation for me to reprimand them while I muttered this verse under my breath over and over until my head quit steaming!

Eventually, I gave up. On all of it. Potty training. Being supermom/Merry Maid/Julia Child. I even acquiesced about going back to work. After all, I couldn't imagine having the energy to keep clean scrubs folded for myself, let alone gather my wits to perform well at a job.

A few brief months after I waved the white flag in the employment battle, a graduate school opportunity landed in my lap, clearly providential. Next, I was diagnosed with cancer, and my treatment demanded separation from my kids (and household duties) for weeks on end. I stretched my intellectual wings online each day as I began working on my doctoral degree. And breathed an "aaaah" of relief when I got a mini-vacation from mothering.

I've often wondered if God wanted me to give in before He blessed me with opportunities to continue my career and life aside from my children. Looking back, I think I would've pulled a "Mama Cat" move if I had chosen to go back to work when Rosy was an infant: not only relieved, but feeling guilty for the relief, of the task and intimacy of at-home mothering, I think I would have pulled away from my children emotionally, and perhaps even physically. I think it was good to tough it out, learn to deal and control my temper. If I hadn't done the work then, I'd probably still be doing it. In the midst of that frustrating period of mothering, I had little hope for fulfillment of my prayers for my career. Had I acted on my wishes instead of waiting for God's timing, I may not have gone back to graduate school, homeschooled my kids, or had such a delightful time with them once I overcame my temper issues.

Thus says the Lord, "In an acceptable and favorable time I have heard and answered you, and in a day of salvation." (Isaiah 49:8)

How about you? Do you work outside the home? Do you or your spouse do full time childcare? How do you keep your mind engaged when spending a lot of time with children who can barely speak? Do you have career dreams that are (or have been) put on hold for the sake of family?

***I didn't get Amy trained before Caleb was born. The two of them were in diapers until Caleb was 10 months old (and Amy had just turned 2). And no, it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought to have two in diapers!

T-ball Trio

2012-05-08T08:34:00.002-05:00

We've been having a lot of this already this May...little kids, the sandy fields, the crack of the bat, coaches chasing children helter-skelter into positions. It brings back great memories of my childhood. Did you play a sport as a child? What do you remember about playing?

Letters to Aaron: The Thin Places

2012-05-07T06:36:00.000-05:00

Your daughters and your son, they bring me flowers every day in the spring. Whatever weeds are blooming in the ditches, they find their way into the vases on the counter. They always ask me the name of the flower, and I always ask them to ask grandma. She knows. I don't.

I've never been much of a labeler of delights. Their simple existence in the same space as me has been enough for most of my life. Flowers without names, loves without reasons, smiles without an explanation. I've known all along you're more structured, but the similar chaos of our apartments before the wedding convinced me that we'd fit together anyway. That you couldn't disappoint me, and I wouldn't you.

Some days our house is full of light and laughter, and we laugh together over the children's antics, and the afternoon sun bounces off the clean wood of the front room floor while I make dinner. As much as I have tried to believe that being a writer, a scholar, a breadwinner will bring me joy, it is in the organic delight of an afternoon housewifing that I come alive, and you breath. It seems impossible to me that I am writing those words. Admitting to the world a sacred but jagged edged truth about what makes men and women - or at least you and I - tick. As if the way to a man's heart is still really through his stomach.

Other days are dark and different. My heart quits ticking right, or post-cancer rises up to swallow me whole in a night full of sweats and night terrors, and I am nailed to the bed by exhaustion. You come home and sigh, get to work on the dishes, and make us dinner. You say you aren't disappointed in me, but regardless my fear swallows joy faster than the world spins, and I shrink away from you because I know, deeper than deep, in that moment I am not worthy.

But real love that stands the tests of time isn't about who is worthy. It's rooted in that holy love of Christ, the love that keeps pouring out into our broken and empty places. You've loved me through darker trials than we imagined, even with our jaded eyes that had seen babies shrivel and die. The sorrow that emptied me of hope was bigger even than cancer. You've held my hand when I didn't care to hold yours. You've held my body as it's shifted and changed from bearing babies and weathering cancer's storms. You kissed my gray hairs as if they are a crown to be treasured, my bald head bruised and bleeding, as if you really wanted to. You've loved me as our house descended into a mess beyond messy, when the bitter taste of tears was all I could offer in return.

I know things have to change. I know the house needs to be cleaned. I know I have to find strength to be a better wife and a better mother. Words like "remission" and "graduation" give me hope. That I won't be stretched this thin forever. That you won't have to fill in as a cook and a housekeeper for much longer. That I'll be a better lover again like I have been in the past.

But life could throw us another curveball. It isn't the hope of an easier tomorrow that makes me smile even as I write about all this pain, the pain the world doesn't see every day. You see it: you see the ugliness and the failure and the work we have to do, and you love me in spite of, no matter what, when the landscape shifts out of focus. Together, however broken, we've found our true north. You are mine, and I am yours, the best gift we've ever gotten. A gift to each other from the generations of family that built us, that loved and lost and struggled and broke. A gift from the only One who can give the things that really matter. And I cradle it like a precious and fragile jewel in the palms of my hands: this love for you that grows without sunshine or rain, that grows in the night and grows when it's ugly and grows when my heart is breaking. You are the most precious thing. My most precious thing. Years from now, when the children are grown, and the house is clean all the time, you'll still be my most precious thing. I can't name this love. It defies logic. It floats when we're sinking. It shines in the dark. Lit with the everburning candle of Christ's love.

I love you. Today. Yesterday. Forever. In spite of. I am blessed beyond words to live in the same space and time as you. Even when you are broken, angry, frustrated. With the grace of God, this one thing will never change.

A great idea of Amber and Seth Haines. Shared with Joy and Scott Bennett.
Forgive me - I had something specific on my mind this week - so I wrote before the prompt.

The Mommy Wars: At the Heart of It

2012-05-04T09:05:00.000-05:00

My kids start out life in a magic wonderland peopled by Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, and fairies of all kinds. Some of my Christian friends definitely disapprove. It's only one of a myriad of issues on which opinions vary widely.

Homeschooling is another hot button issue I often find myself in the center of. Moms landing on the public school side of things wonder if our homeschooled children will be adequately sociable, and whether they might not be too attached to their mommies. Homeschool moms wonder how the public school moms can send their kids away for an entire day, day after day, and often assume their children are receiving a superior education due to the small class size.

The truth is, as with any mommy war, our motivation is at the heart of the matter. Take the school debate for instance: public school mamas are often motivated by the fear that they wouldn't be able to keep up with their child's education, nor do they have the training necessary to teach. Homeschool mamas are motivated by the fear of bus rides and long school days, separation prematurely from their babies, and fear of a ho-hum education.

What if we refuse to be motivated by fear, and instead are motivated by love? When we give in to fear, we become defensive about our choices. If we are making a choice out of love, though, we can smile at the world, resting in the knowledge that we've made the best possible choice for our family.

If we are motivated by love - for our family, our community, and our world - the mommy wars will quickly be quieted. How can you change your perspective on your choices from fear to love?

How do you feed, diaper, and teach sleep to your infant? How do you train your toddler? What kind of movies/music do you allow your kids to enjoy? How do you educate your children? What kind of diet does your family endorse? Do you see any of these choices as a "one size fits all" solution? If so, maybe you need to re-evaluate your motivation and be sure you are treating your peers - and your family - with love instead of fear.

On Lisa-Jo's prompt: "Real"

In fields of silver

2012-05-03T14:37:00.002-05:00

They takes their walking sticks across the road, giddy with new-found freedom, and beat the dandelion heads until the seeds scatter like a silver cloud. I watch them playing in the long shadows of the late afternoon, and think this is a wonderful way to begin to live.

At the field's end, in the corner missed by the mower,

Where the turf drops off into a grass-hidden culvert,

Haunt of the cat-bird, nesting-place of the field-mouse,

Not too far away from the ever-changing flower-dump,

Among the tin cans, tires, rusted pipes, broken machinery, --

One learned of the eternal;

I learned not to fear infinity,

The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,

The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,

The wheel turning away from itself,

The sprawl of the wave,

The on-coming water.

A man faced with his own immensity

Wakes all the waves, all their loose wandering fire.

The murmur of the absolute, the why

Of being born falls on his naked ears.

His spirit moves like monumental wind

That gentles on a sunny blue plateau.

He is the end of things, the final man.

All finite things reveal infinitude:

The mountain with its singular bright shade

Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow,

The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;

Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,

A scent beloved of bees;

Silence of water above a sunken tree :

The pure serene of memory in one man, --

A ripple widening from a single stone

Winding around the waters of the world.

~from Far Field by Theodore Roethke~

Do your children spend a lot of time in unstructured play? How does this bless your family? Do you have memories of unstructured play as a child? Are those memories good or bad?

Linking up with SomeGirl to the new home for Thought Provoking Thursday

Warrior children

2012-05-02T10:53:00.000-05:00

You are my tumbleweed children, hurtling down the gravel of the country road in a fury of dust and dreams and flying off into the dandelion ditches when you hear the hum of car wheels approaching. It is that sweet mix of childhood, the daring-do of your young bodies coupled with the innate sense of vulnerability that scatters you far off the road if danger approaches. We've been vulnerable together, these past years, through the dissolving friendships following a church rift, through the darkness of depression when all your mama wanted to do was sleep, through the deep mid-winter of my cancer and your uncertainty whether I would live or die.

You know vulnerable as well as your own skin. I look at you, the fragile strong, and I wish I had been able to protect you from the knowledge that life is brief if beautiful, wish I had a shield that was impermeable to the dark darts of fear and trembling. We huddle like embattled Narnians on our homestead, lean hard into each other's warmth, and there is joy found in family although we are adrift from civilization. You gather "wish-lions", dandelions gone to silvery seed, and we blow a tornado of trouble off into the spring breeze with eyes squeezed close.

Perhaps it will be the family gift within the family curse, this early understanding of life's difficulties. When you are all grown through the stage of scrambling with fresh tears at night from your bed to ours...grown out of checking that Mama is still here when you wake alone in the dark...you'll be left with the fragile-strong, singing the Psalms as you face the brave new world of your own generation.

Let the weak say I am a warrior. The Lord roars from Zion, and the heavens and earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge to His people...(from Joel 3)

You are my hiding place,

You always fill my heart

with songs of deliverance.

Whenever I am afraid,

I will trust in You.

Let the weak say I am strong

with the strength of the Lord.

~Selah~

Linked with Emily for Imperfect Prose

To taste honey every day

2012-05-01T06:32:00.000-05:00

I remember the first time I checked a website from my smart phone. It was like stepping out onto a glass bridge...a step of faith, praying my data plan would catch me and save us from overuse fees.

Trying something new is always like that. The tentative stretching of the toes onto new territory, testing the ground underneath for stability before we put full weight on feet. Then we do it again, this time with more confidence, and soon what was once a leap of faith becomes the everyday mundane.

Practice makes perfect. It is so with grace. It feels so scandalous, that moment of salvation, when we take the deep breath and say in our hearts, Yes, this is what I believe. I believe I am not enough. I believe I cannot save myself. I believe Christ can do what I cannot.

With practice, there is less fear and trembling each time we accept grace. May it never feel like our right, but always the gift it is. When we stumble and fall (a million times a day), may we reach hands to sky and simply feel the love raining down instead of shying away and covering up the stain left by sin.

She is the scandalous spontaneous, the one who is still a toddler at 5 1/2. She reaches her pink tongue out to touch the stamens of the crabapple blossoms, and her grin is infectious as she urges us to try. It's sweet, like honey, she says. We all laugh - the craziness of this, tasting blossoms like honey bees - and then we, too, stretch tongues and sense sweet and dissolve into gales of giggles over our own silliness. We talk about this - faith like a little child - the child who reaches out to taste God's goodness and never stops to wonder whether it is a crazy idea or not. Trust is so simple, it terrifies and paralyzes us as adults. We ponder the consequences - what if He's not as good as He says He is? What if I should be working harder, what if I don't deserve this grace?

Just like the drops of sweet on the yellow tips of each cherry blossom, His grace just is. It exists and has already been given, whether we reach out to take the gift or not. If we don't, we will never taste the sweetness that stands waiting for us.

Practice radical acceptance. Be the little child, ready to try anything, leaning hard on the Rock of salvation. Simply believe. Simply accept. Simply trust. Throw off the weight of causality, because He undid the laws of the universe at the Cross, and begs us be free from the gravity of the world so that we can soar with Him even through these days scalded by the curse of the world.

What have you done lately to practice radical acceptance of the freedom of the Cross? What can you do today in belief of Grace?

Letters to Aaron: Skeletons in the Closet

2012-04-30T15:12:00.000-05:00

When you first led me by the hand back down the aisle on our wedding day, it was the beginning of a trust I couldn't break. Lord knows, I fought it sometimes. I didn't realize that our marriage certificate wasn't a get-out-of-jail-free card for all our past mistakes. You brought your dysfunctional girlfriends into our house when you entered, and I kept all the demons of my past.

During the honeymoon stage, we hid our scars well. I think we were so thankful to have found each other that we almost forgot how life had bent us in the years before. After all, you'd never met a woman like me, and I'd never before been able to love a man like I did you. The haunting of our pasts felt ephemeral in the sunshine of new love. I didn't know how cold the ghost town of our hearts could get after nightfall.

I never thought to tell you, in the beginning, that I'd been abused as a child. I think I had grown so uncomfortable with the memory that I almost didn't believe it had happened myself. Living in the skin with a memory like that nearly killed me, and so I thought I had kicked it out for good. There was still an impression, like the hand print on a slapped child's cheek, left in my soul. Almost like a stain that's gone through the wash so many times you can't see it while you're folding the clothes - it only becomes apparent when the fabric drapes off your shoulders while it's worn.

I guess I tried to compensate by having you fill the black hole left by that past. You were so good at loving me, I thought that was what a good husband would do. But the bigger my void became, the more you shied away, until we were like two molecules under intense heat, skipping off each other after the briefest touch. I kept running toward you, and every time you ran away, I ran faster and held you tighter. I think you were scared because you knew that, no matter what you did, it would always be the wrong fit for the size hole I was trying to fill. You were, in essence, damned if you did, and damned if you didn't. You felt it, and so you curled up into yourself. All for the sake of not hurting me.

Every time your rejection was even implied, it was like another nail in the coffin, sealing my secret up tighter and tighter, until I didn't even realize it was still there. I thought it had been buried and replaced with newer, fresher pains and joys. We even got to the point where we talked about the issues in our marriage - me demanding and you withdrawing - and you made your peace with the tenacity of my need for you, and I tried to avoid your triggers so you'd stay present. It worked for a while, but it was kind of like covering the stench of a dead body with funeral lilies. We'd just been in the room with the smell so long we'd quit smelling it. You'd long ago quit asking, and I'd long ago quit looking for answers that deep in the caverns of my heart.

Then the whole church debacle exploded the mine that had been laying underneath that coffin all along. The nails vaporized in the blast, and there we were with a dead body in our laps in all it's putrid reality. I remember the moment I watched your heart break in two as I told you about it. And I just kept scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing, seriously just seconds shy of true madness, trying to get the stink out.

It happened just recently, in the past few months: we're finally looking at a gravestone instead of an open grave. I don't know how to explain it outside of God's grace. Certainly it could be the year of therapy, the dozens of books I've read, the friends who've surrounded us with love, the pastors who've preached about the binding up of the brokenhearted. It's strange, as I look back on all of this - and wonder why I didn't just do the work sooner. But no one can plow a field in winter, and if you try to plant then, you'll fail. We had to get through the howling snowfalls to get to this season.

Grace is the glue of life. Under intense heat, molecules normally just skitter off each other, like we did early on. But there is a magic temperature for two elements, when all of the sudden, in a miraculous, instantaneous transformation, the two become one. For us, that temperature was extremely high. So high it nearly burnt this whole life of ours to the ground before it ever bonded us together. Now, on the other side of the Bunsen burner, I can look back and say, "That's what God was doing." He was making two into one.

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong [persons] stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.

(Rudyard Kipling)

This week's prompt: "Outside Influences" really hit me hard.
Joining Amber, Seth, Joy and Scott

Also part of Project 1:3

On tiptoes

2012-04-28T15:50:00.003-05:00

Taking time to sniff the flowers and give thanks for the spring rains this frigid late April Saturday. How about you? What are doing in your neck of the woods?

That in the fullness of time He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth. (Eph. 1:10 exc.)

Links for this slow weekend:

Memorize Scripture quickly and easily (perfect for both kids and adults) at Scripture Typer
Check out the return-on-investment statistics of your college (or one for your child)
Sign up for the upcoming American Cancer Society's Relay for Life
Check out the heart-wrenching video on The Best Job in the World from P&G
Listen to some slow soulful new music from Portland's Josh Garrels
Read about a student expelled from BJU for demanding accountability for sex crimes
Jamie, the Very Worst Missionary, writes here about short term missions strategy
Watch the most beautiful baby bath ever

The beauty of imperfect realities

2012-04-27T12:35:00.000-05:00

We take portraits by Grandma's rhododendron every spring. It blooms for only a week, and I always try to wait for the perfect light, but it never seems to happen. The blooms and the light are on different schedules.

My girls are at that awkward, toothy, gangly stage. They're also at the fake smile stage. All of this adds up to some pretty hilarious portrait session outtakes. Those are the ones I love the most - when their real personalities shine through the perfect smile.

Such a picture of my own life these days. I wear remission like a new-toothed smile full of gaps. But it's my real smile, this awkward one - days bubbling over with more hilarity, more joy, not the perfection of a practiced gesture, but the explosion of gangly, long-limbed cartwheels across the carpet of life.

It may not be very beautiful to look at, this life. But it's a joy to live in it's skin. Every day the kids and I laugh together over depression waning and cancer fading into memory. Some little sign of my continued healing is noticed each and every morning...yesterday, the walk we all took together through the windy afternoon. Today, the moments stolen laughing and cuddling in bed.

I remember my mama telling me I'd someday settle down in my den with these four cubs. I thought her wildly crazy, and kept gallivanting around to friends for play dates and long, lazy afternoons laughing at our children and their antics. But those friends went up in a cloud of smoke, and I found myself alone in the den with my children.

I feel guilty sometimes. As if I should make more of an effort to get out of this house and make some friends. It's hard on my kids sometimes, too. But we've grown together in ways we hadn't before, spending all this time together.

The truth is, my tribe is my community, in the truest sense of the words. We'll be together through thick and thin, and every ounce of energy poured into these family relationships will be worth it in the end. There's always time to make new friends...but my children will soon be grown out of the gangly, toothy stage and I'll have moved on past cancer, and we'll never get another chance to be together today.

Linked to Lisa-Jo for the prompt, "Community"

To everything there is a season

2012-04-25T08:04:00.001-05:00

Caleb wearing one of the gowns he wore as a baby

Last night, all four of my children took baths and showers. I didn't start the water. I didn't wash their hair. And I didn't have to dry anyone off, or find them pajamas. I only clipped thirty fingernails because my eldest clips her own now. This morning, I woke to the pleasant sounds of happy children getting their own breakfast. Later, they will make their own beds, brush their own teeth and hair, and get into clothes they picked from their drawers. I won't have to help them with their shoes or shoelaces, and I won't have to buckle them in to their carseats.

When I was drowning in diapers and nursing someone every hour, I never dreamed of this day. I had no idea that it would only take four years to come. It's an everyday miracle, the growing of children, the way they surprise you each day with something new. Yesterday, my Amelia had to show me that she can finally reach the tap in the kitchen sink. And take all her pills with minimal supervision.

I want to encourage you, younger mothers. The season you are in is so short! A few years, and you will be amazed at how much easier life is. The backbreaking season of hauling babies and toddlers and doing everything for them will soon be over. You might even wake up in your bed alone in the morning and actually long for the touch of little hands around your neck! As impossible as it may seem, you will look back on the work of today with fondness as one of the most beautiful seasons of your life.

I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life. And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 3:10-13)

Relief: Emotions on Tuesdays

2012-04-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

So many things to be grateful for these days! I picked "succeed" as my word for the year for 2012, and so far, it's living up to it's name. Dissertation approved, graduation just weeks away, cancer in remission...

A couple of mundane things have been the subject of many prayers around here. Amelia continues to battle an infection of unknown origin, and we are keeping a close eye on her as the doctors who've seen her think it could be a mild case of meningitis (again). She seems to be responding well to the newest round of medications, but if you could keep her health in your prayers, we'd appreciate it.

Our family vehicle hit the skids a few weeks ago, and we are searching for a suitable replacement. This means our first car loan in our 10 years of marriage, and it is a difficult step to take. Unfortunately, with all the expenses related to the end of my schooling, we simply don't have the cash to buy anything reliable. We've found a beautiful 2002 Suburban at one of the Eau Claire car dealers. The best thing about this vehicle is that it seats 9 people! This means it will work even after we adopt, and that there is plenty of space for cousins, friends, or grandparents. We're praying that God will clearly direct as we take this scary step.

Finally, I submitted a job application for my dream teaching job at the University my father teaches at. I'm praying hard that I will get a job offer there, as it would be a dream come true to teach alongside my dad. It will also save us about $15,000 in medical costs alone. If you could keep my job situation in your prayers it would be appreciated!

I hope you are having a blessing-filled spring as well! Leave a comment and let me know how I can specifically pray for you. My prayer list is kind of empty these days, and I'd love to add your requests to it.

This is our Emotions on Tuesdays link up. Link up to a post, old or new, about your emotions. Have you written about relief lately? Tuck the graphic at the bottom of your post, and come back to share your story with all of us!

Letters to Aaron: When I Am Sinking

2012-04-23T14:26:00.001-05:00

We didn't know we were dancing onto the minefield. At the beginning, it feels like the completion of so many promises now kept; how could we ever be sad again, when joy suddenly rides unbridled in our hearts for the first time?

We've lost so much. Innocence. Sometimes romance. A church and friends. Babies. You face it resolutely, gripping my hand in your warm, strong one.

But I fear the very clumps of our broken life you cradle carefully in your hands are the very ones I'm trying to break with my pickax of anger and despair. You are shoveling earth into the crater, but I'm shoveling it out just as fast. I didn't mean to be this way, depressed, lonely, frustrated. Just like you never meant to yell at me for it. I worry sometimes that I am the foolish woman in Proverbs, tearing down her house with her own hands. Without you, this life would have been in shambles long before now.

I cry as you lift away the dross of life. You tenderly held the clippers as hunk after hunk of hair drifted down to the tile floor. You lifted me up with love in your dark chocolate eyes when I couldn't face the mirror. You coat my ugliness in the beauty of grace.

I knew loss was inevitable. I tried to stave it off with optimism and hope. If you hadn't been there to catch me, the destruction of both my positive outlook and my tenacious dreams would have destroyed me, too. But you wouldn't let me drift into the abyss. Although I was drowning in the unfathomable depths of my own coal black soul, you never let go of my hand. I could always see your reflection dancing above me as I looked up through the water and tried to wave goodbye. The hands you held wouldn't wave, and you pulled me toward the surface.

I love that you fight off loss with both fists. You never let yourself drift down in the murky water. You're always treading, surviving, growling at fate with your deep bass, and, even though I'm underwater, your grit is what propels me back to breathe in air.

We went dancing in the minefields

We went sailing in the storms

And it was harder than we dreamed

But I believe that's what the promise is for

I do are the two most famous last words

The beginning of the end

But to lose your life for another I've heard

is a good place to begin

Cause the only way to find your life

is to lay your own life down

And I believe it's an easy price

for the life that we have found

So when I lose my way, find me

When I loose love's chains, bind me

At the end of all my faith

to the end of all my days

when I forget my name, remind me

Cause we bear the light of the son of man

So there's nothing left to fear

So I'll walk with you in the shadow lands

Till the shadows disappear

Cause he promised not to leave us

And his promises are true

So in the face of all this chaos baby

I can dance with you

~Dancing in the Minefields, Andrew Peterson~

Linked with Amber, Seth, Scott, and Joy for the Marriage Letters prompt, "Enduring Loss Together".