The Mixed Emotions of Good News

This morning I received a wonderfully sensitive email from a dear friend wanting to lovingly, but carefully, inform me of the wonderful news of her pregnancy. I've known a lot of women over the years who, like myself, have struggled for long months and years with infertility. Some have eventually gotten pregnant and some haven't. But each one understands the mixed emotions that a woman in this struggle goes through when the good news happens for someone else. Again. 

On the one hand, and on a good day, I am overwhelmed with excitement for that person, especially if I know it has been a long, prayer and tear-filled struggle.  Before we went through this I had no idea the highs and lows a woman could experience through the course of each 28-day wait. The impatience, the anticipation, the careful and sometimes rather unromantic planning, and the waiting. The never-ending, gut-wrenching, disappointment- anticipating waiting. So, when a friend gets pregnant, I am sometimes overwhelmed by positive emotion for her. The waiting is over! And if she didn't have to wait long, I am thankful for her lack of struggle. Mostly.

On the other hand, and more acutely on a bad day, I am consumed with jealousy.  I am more aware of my empty arms than her full womb. I mourn again the loss of our own precious second baby, lost so early on and never known this side of heaven.  And I wonder anew if this will ever happen for us. I become so inwardly focused and then angry with myself because of it. Nasty cycle, really, because self-loathing only drives me further from community and more into my own self.

I was struck this morning as I sat in deep thankfulness for my friend's sensitivity and good news, while at the same time shedding some tears of my own, at how incredibly the gospel intersects this. The gospel should always be what it is; good news. But on some days and in some moments, I think I have trouble receiving it as such. I would rather be steeped in the mucked-up reality of who I'm struggling or striving to be then let the good news be what it is.  Just as sometimes hearing the joyful news of a new gift of life into the world causes me to see my own lack of a pregnancy, sometimes hearing the gospel does the same thing to my soul. Rather than seeing the deep generosity and fullness of grace and new life that God has given me freely in Christ, I only see the ways I can't measure up, the failures in my life, the ways I want to try to earn my good standing before the Lord.  I'm tempted to reject it for the perception of control I maintain if I am driven and defined by my own abilities and desires. Dependence is hard. Receiving good news and perfect gifts is hard. I want to deserve them. But, that's not how it works.

So, this morning, as I spend some sweet time with my little boy, I want to be able to freely and thankfully receive the gift of who he is and not let his lack of siblings determine my day. I want to fiercely cling to the awesome truth that no matter how junked up my heart might be when I hear good news, that God himself only sees the perfection of Christ and longs for me to let the Spirit transform my own messed up and mixed-emotions into pure joy. I know it is only He, in his love and grace and holiness, who can do this.

      

P is for Pisghetti

We don't get a lot of mispronounced words around here anymore. In fact, our child says crazy things at this point like, "Mom, I'm ok, I just got something caught in my trachea for a minute. It's gone now." Right.  Maybe it's statements like these which make me feel like I've got a 4 going on 10-year-old that sometimes tempt me to cling to some of those hilariously wrong earlier toddler words.

So, when my son, who is recently obsessed with articulating the first letter of every word he says, said at dinner, "Mom, P is for pisghetti," I unashamedly shook my head yes and told him he was right. In fact, pisghetti does start with P so I wasn't lying. I just can't bring myself (and my husband feels the same way) to tell him the word is actually 'spaghetti'. Some part of me wants to hang onto at least a few small parts of young childhood.

As I was thinking about this desire to maintain some vestiges of toddlerhood, I found myself in the middle of a conversation with a parent of a baby. He mentioned that he really treasures the time he has with his son at 4 am in the morning. In my head, I was thinking "This guy must be totally unhinged!" Maybe his kid sleeps well for the most part or is what one would call a low-maintenance baby but about the only thing I treasured about 4 am time with my son at that age was the fact that I had some small, if delusional, glimmer of hope that he might go back to sleep at some point and I wouldn't have to be in a total coma the next day. 

I can honestly say that I did not have big philosophical musings in the middle of the night or think about how much I would miss it some day when he didn't need me in the wee small hours. I waited for those days, I longed for them, I prayed for them. And now they are here. And they are everything I dreamed they would be.  I don't look back and miss middle-of-the-night feedings, I rejoice now in the fact that I'm pretty well-rested most of the time and usually, if I'm not, it's because I've made that common parental mistake of treasuring my quiet evenings so much that I extend them way too late! I'm very thankful for the now of parenthood.

So, yes, I'm going to hang onto pisghetti for a little while longer, but I'm also grateful for the little man that this kid is turning into. His thoughtfulness, his concern for people(he could barely play soccer this morning after one of his Tiger teammates got hurt because he wanted to make sure he was ok), his random and heartfelt declarations of how he feels about family and friends, his incessant need to know the right word for everything and exactly what that word means and his total obsession with anything lego. I'm in no rush for him to grow up like I was when he was a baby.  And while I'm occasionally tempted to regret not treasuring his infancy a little more, I've given myself a lot more grace in parenting in recent years and let myself just admit that while I may not have been the best parent of an infant, that God has given me some pretty great gifts that mesh well with my 4-year-old.

So, bring on the legos and the Mighty Tigers...bring on the nights full of sleep and the ridiculously complicated conversations over pisghetti and meatballs.  I'm loving this.

Calling in the Shermans

There's this really memorable and nail-biting scene in Band of Brothers where Easy Company finds themselves on the front lines of a battle with German forces soon after D-Day.  They are being pummeled by Tiger Tanks and artillery and the battle just seems to go on and on with the Americans on the point of defeat. Then, there's this fantastic moment when huge explosions come from the German lines and there they are: the Sherman tanks. One character sums up the emotions of the moment when he yells, "You beautiful babies!" The fight becomes equal, the Americans are saved, and Easy Company moves on to fight on another day.

I've had a month. You know what I mean, one of those long funky spells where something is just not right. No amount of exercise or counting of silver linings or trying to enthuse my way out of said funk has worked. Prayer has felt difficult and draining, loneliness has been a prevalent emotion and I've found myself exhausted and irritable. It's hard to say where it came from, but it has lingered on in a way to which I am unaccustomed.

I was reminded just this morning of the title of this blog and how far I have come in my own understanding of myself and God since I started writing almost a year and a half ago. And that reminded me that at that point in my life, I felt like I was constantly doing battle. That I was fighting my way back into a healthy place with God and others, hitting pitfalls along the way, jumping into foxholes when necessary and forging ahead when possible.  At some point in this busy season of working again and trying to discern my own future when the future I had planned initially isn't happening, I've forgotten to be alert for ambushes.  And as I spent some time in scripture and prayer this morning and then some sweet time with my son for the rest of the day, I realized that that is exactly what happened to me this past month. An ambush. It's been a time when all the lies I am tempted to believe about myself seem more believable, when everything I try to do feels like it comes off mediocre, when clarity about decisions feel foggy and when the things I hope for seem elusive and tiring. It's been a very effective ambush because it has essentially made me want to hide from those who love me, including my God, rather than moving forward by taking some new risks and letting people come alongside me.  Back to the old tendencies, I suppose.

So, this morning, as I sat before the Lord wondering what it was that had caused this (because I'm definitely the kind of person who wants to think through any emotional trauma and solve it, rather than actually feel it) I felt this sense of needing to let go of my obsession to know the "why" in this case.  I felt compelled to remind myself of Ephesians and the passage on arming ourselves and being shod with the readiness of the gospel. And I preached myself up a little sermon, slinging some arrows and wielding my sword so that the great deceiver would know that this child of God is no easy target and that I am definitely not outnumbered.  Lies are just that: lies. Fear of mediocrity is my struggle with perfectionism all over again. Uncertainty of the future is that pesky lack of trust issue. And yes, while the things I am hoping for do still seem elusive, ultimately my most fulfilling hope is secure- I can rest in what Christ has done for me and whatever earthly dreams don't happen, that security cannot change.  

For the first time in weeks, I felt refreshed. Not because I had run 3 miles and pumped my body full of endorphins or because I had woken up with some big project on my mind and conquered it, but because I was reminded of the truth.  God called in the Shermans this morning, letting His word remind me that the ultimate war is already won but that in the meantime, it's a good thing to call in reinforcements.  

Herding Cats and Other Absurd Scenarios

There was a great commercial a few years back for a company named EDS. Admittedly, I did not actually see this video until last week when I commented that I wondered if coaching my child's 4-year-old soccer team would feel like herding cats, in response to which my husband rushed to youtube to show me said commercial. Low and behold, a ridiculous and hilarious short video depicting cowboys trying to get a herd of cats to market.  I laughed but assumed that probably I was not giving the 4-year-olds enough credit after all and went into our first practice with a good combination of enthusiasm, clearly structured plans and optimism.

Turns out that the enthusiasm was the only really useful tool. Within about 10 minutes of practice, flashes of the commercial were zipping through my brain.  Instead of kids dribbling, mass group of children were chattering at the moon that had risen early. Instead of shooting drill, kids chasing birds. Instead of listening to my very well thought out explanations for drills, one boy interrupting to tell me that he liked the color of my soccer ball and one girl asking me (ironically) if cats were my favorite animal and another boy sharing that the Steelers were his favorite team and could we please, please, please name our soccer team after them?  We tried to do a lap around the field with them following me- when I turned around there were 13 children in various states of disarray, some on the ground (I still don't know why), some who had surreptitiously grabbed their balls and were playing with them instead of jogging, some who did not understand the concept of following a leader in an oval and had to be chased down and brought back to the field and one kid playing with a stick. Right.

I've got a week to plan for practice number two and I'm trying to figure out how to reinsert some of the optimism and planning into the reality that is herding cats, especially cats of varying degrees of listening ability, personal spunk and soccer skills. 

A few things I learned today:
One, 4-year-olds are super cute and they know it.  They will use this against you.
Two, if you can make a high-five a part of every drill, do it. They love it.
Three, set the bar low and enjoy watching flocks of birds with them. It's not worth trying to get their attention back until they've flown on. 
Four, parents of children this age will inevitably stay for the whole practice and watch your every move, occasionally chuckling. I don't know if they are laughing at me or the whole situation.  Probably both.
Five, take myself less seriously. (OK, pretty much everything in life is trying to teach me this. Possibly someday I'll get it)
And six, herding cats might be insanely chaotic, but it was pretty fun chaos and I think I'll probably learn at least 6 lessons each week from these kids that'll make me a better parent and person in general.

Now, on to making some possibly less structured, realistically optimistic plans for week 2 as well as contemplating whether it would actually make sense to name our team "The Cats," as requested. 
 

No Girls Allowed

Many women can point back to situations in their lives when they weren't allowed to participate in something or when they were made to feel like their presence was a nuisance or comical. Many can point to gym class and remember being picked last or to that obnoxious guy who would tell everyone to move in closer when she was up at bat. Some can think to times when there were exclusive guy cliques in the neighborhood and they weren't welcome to play capture the flag or manhunt at night.  Some can remember being subtly told their place was not in a math or theology class.  I do have a lot of those memories myself.  For the most part, though, as an adult I have been largely thankful to be in situations where I am treated in a way that embraces my gender and appreciates it, where I am approached simply as me and am rarely made to feel like my gender is some kind of liability.

Today, my sweet son and I had a wonderful day planned. We woke up, ate breakfast, watched Dinosaur Train (the brilliance of a show geared towards 4-year-old's that combines dinosaurs and locomotives astounds me daily) and then made the trek to Raleigh to check out the children's museum. It was about time.  About an hour into our time, we ended up at the life-sized pirate ship.  (Let's not even get started here on why we have glorified a trade that employed murderous brigands and why we then encourage our children to pretend to be them- that's a whole other blog post.)  So, there he was, running around this ship, mostly just enjoying the fact that he was on a big boat when I heard it: "No Girls Allowed." Some little kid, I'd guess around 6 or 7, was fully dressed as a pirate and running up and down the deck screaming this phrase. And he wasn't laughing or even sort of sing-songing it. He was finding little girls on the ship and screaming it in their faces.  He was actively trying to get other little boys to jump on board with his crusade. He was mean. I, and several other parents at this point, were obviously craning our necks to find a parent who might admit to siring this child and intervene, but to no avail. No parent stepped in, no teachable moment was grabbed. 

Now, other parents will know that you take your life in your hands if you tell someone else's child to do anything, especially if you don't even know the kid. Seriously, it's amazing how parents will react if you even, God forbid, ask another kid to stop hitting your own child. So, most of us stood there helplessly, hoping that our own children wouldn't either be screamed at or pulled into this crazy's kid's pirating antics. Josh, who doesn't really care for kids who scream for no apparent reason, self-selected himself out of this situation and (after walking the plank) rejoined me on dry land.  He didn't say anything and I'm not even sure he even knew what this kid was yelling. For me though, the phrase has rung in my head for the rest of the day.

"No girls allowed." Do I believe that there are perfectly appropriate situations in which men-only or women-only groups are relevant and helpful? Sure. But this brought back all those times when I was younger that I was either excluded or was the victim of an assumption based solely on my gender and, I have to tell you, I didn't like being reminded of the feeling. I largely feel like I've grown a lot in this area, that God has done a lot of healing. But the anger that this little kid brought up in me surprised me.  Anger at whichever parent was not intervening  (and most likely hiding) during this situation. Anger that this kid, at such a young age, could have such a clearly defined hostility and exclusive mentality based on gender. Frustrated that I was reminded, on a beautifully intimate day out with my son, that I have to always be on my guard (even at a childrens' museum) to help him understand that a lot of what he hears from people around him will NOT be reflective of the God who loves him and has created men and women beautifully in his image to live in non-competitive partnership with each other.    

I sometimes forget how young it is that kids influence other kids.  I have no idea what happened after that child went home today, whether or not his parents spoke to him about his behavior or how he responded if they did.  I did crack up when, just before we walked away, a kid who was probably about a year older than the yeller walked up to him, looked down his nose and asked him, rather incredulously, how old he was.  Clearly, the kids on the boat who were aware of what was going on were also less than impressed with the situation.  Even though I was frustrated at this surprising interruption in my day, it was probably a good reminder about intentionality.  My son is going to hear a lot - that's inevitable- but what is he going to hear first at home?  What kinds of things are we saying about gender and race and class that are going to prepare him to be a young man with a voice for justice when he grows up? Five years from now, will he be the kind of child that will intervene and speak truth into a situation like this?  I hope so, but I can't know.

What I do know is this- he certainly won't be posting any "No Girls Allowed" signs on his clubhouse. Not on our watch, anyway. 

Signs of Life

As winter lingers on here in North Carolina, I've really started to miss my old office at the University of Richmond. Not because it was warm and cozy- in fact, my officemate can testify to how closely she hovered to our extra space heater on the coldest of days. No, the thing I miss is the walk from my car to the door right around this time of year. It was the first place in all of Richmond where I'd  get a reminder that no matter how tired you are of the winter dreariness and icy rain, that spring is indeed coming. You see, right around the beginning and middle of February, those first little crocuses would pop out of the ground, sometimes even blooming through a snowfall. Purple, yellow, white- little buds of life that provided just the boost I needed to get through that last month of cloudy days and frigid nights.

This year, in the midst of a winter that has felt a little more blustery than usual, I'm longing for those crocuses. I'm longing for what follows them, for months of digging deep in the mud, coaxing forth life from the earth, enjoying the aesthetic bounty of blooms from bulbs planted last fall and waiting eagerly to be able to plant the vegetables that will feed my family and friends this summer.

While waiting for this elusive spring, each week on campus this semester I've been taking a prayer walk. Mostly, God has been leading me to pray for the racial situation on the campus I'm on. Hundreds of years of racial tension, much of which has never been dealt with, have culminated in what feels like a largely apathetic student body when it comes to this issue.  I wonder how many students are actively thinking about the issues of race and multiethnicity in the church or exploring their own racial identity?  I know that when I got to college, I certainly wasn't thinking about these things.  No one had ever asked me about it and I'd had almost no experiences in my life that caused me to question my own understanding of racial identity. I was "privileged" to grow up without even having to engage the questions. I'm glad that changed in college and beyond and that these issues have become such a big part of my journey with God.  As I've been walking this campus I've been wondering what it is that God is up to and hoping for encounters with students who want to engage it.

As I was walking the campus earlier today, I felt drawn over to the botanical gardens on campus.  It is no small thing to be working on a campus where I can detour to any meeting through a beautiful garden, possibly even dancing Sound-of-Music style through the arboretum tunnel, which I'm almost always tempted to do. But as I walked around and was praying for this campus that God has placed me on, I began to be aware of little signs of life in the flora around me.  A small forsythia bud here, a daffodil spear there and even a number of small pink blossoms on a cherry tree. God reminded me right then that no matter what I don't see happening on campus, that He is always at work under the soil and that there are always these little signs of life to behold.  Immediately my prayers turned to ones of thankfulness- for the conversations that I have had with students, for the privilege of being a staff on a racially diverse campus, for the multiethnicity life group that's having these conversations on a weekly basis, for the opportunities my students have to interact with these questions in their classes and for the myriad other prayers being prayed over this campus by people who are grateful for God's work and excited for what He has for the future here.

It's amazing how even the tiniest glimpse of color can change your whole perspective on the day. What was a frustrated cry to see change quickly became a humbling reminder of God's power.  If the scrawniest pink bloom can force it's way out in the dead of winter, I am reminded that, with God, anything can happen.  

Killer Bunnies

Several years ago, my husband and I learned a game called Settlers of Catan. We were running with a group of friends who were, I'll say it, totally obsessed with this game and so we learned it quickly and played it often, even descending to new realms of nerdiness and taking part in a tournament.   I'm not gonna lie, it was a total blast. 

Now, my husband and I both really like to win games, not just play them. We're both competitive.  So, with the increase in game playing came the increase in potential for conflict. And, you guessed it, it happened. After several games that left us barely speaking to each other, we decided we needed to do one of two things. One, stop playing games altogether, which would've seriously changed how we spent our time with a lot of our friends or two, find some way to be competitive and still speak to each other by the end of the night. We went for option number two and settled on prayer as the way. Seriously. Before we'd go to a game night or have people over, we'd just spend a few minutes focusing on what was important and making sure our marriage was a bigger deal than who got to 10 points first.  For the most part, it worked.

A few weekends ago our good friends came over to play games. This is nothing new. Much of our social life, especially post four-year-old bedtime social life, involves these friends walking across the street to hang out with us.  Our repertoire is no longer limited to Settlers and these friends are always learning new games and teaching us. That night they brought with them a game called Killer Bunnies.  This is a card game that basically takes zero skill, lots of vindictiveness and random luck to win.

When I found myself stuck for a half hour without any ability to make a move, I got pretty frustrated. Bored. Annoyed at the game. When finally, after this frustrated, bored and annoyed waiting, I was able to make a move, my husband promptly killed my bunny and sent me back to the land of waiting. Though I'm not proud to admit it, I threw my cards at him. I did. I was so angry. So mad at his stupid killer bunny.  So unimpressed with a game that so totally pushed every kind of organized and controlled button in my personality. Needless to say, the night's tone changed. Maybe some men would enjoy their wives throwing their cards at them, but mine didn't. I know he loves me for my passion, but I'm pretty sure, at that moment, he wasn't thinking how dear that particular personality trait was to him.

After our friends left, we stayed up talking for awhile. I apologized, we hashed it out, I reflected on the fact that this was probably NOT a great game for us to attempt to play together given my personality and we realized that at some point we had stopped praying together before our game nights. Maybe we got too cocky- after all, it had been years since we had had a big blowout rooted in some game changing angst.  At any rate, we came to the conclusion that maybe it was time to bring back our pre-game.

It's funny how even silly things like a game where crazy bunnies kill each other can make you see how foul your heart can be.  I couldn't stand to be helpless, to watch each turn pass me by because I was just unlucky at drawing the right card. And I couldn't stand to lose the tiny little ground that I had gained to what I perceived as a heartless move by my spouse.  After I threw those cards, though, I realized (not without the help of those at the table) that you just have to let it go. To go into the game knowing that you have no control, that the game is all chance and just ride it out, hopefully killing other peoples bunnies in the process. Sounds a little like life: Not the chance part or killing other people's bunnies part, but the part about going into it knowing you really have no control and just riding it out.  I come back to this again and again. Waiting is hard, not knowing outcomes is difficult and risky and frustrating. Not having control over life can put me at my most fearful, but giving into those feelings of frustration and fear usually only brings out the worst of my heart, only makes me hurt the people around me more easily because I become so self-focused.

The riding it out part can only happen when I'm trusting.  Trusting not in a possible win but in a God much bigger than myself and thinking of the ride as something not just to be endured but to be experienced and embraced and, yes, often enjoyed, even when I don't know what will happen next.   

And I can comfort myself with the fact that in life I can, at the very least, be sure that I'm unlikely to be attacked by any killer bunnies anytime soon.