Dang Facebook

I  need to start out by saying that I am truly loath to write this post.  I have avoided it for weeks and weeks, and it won't go away. I'll preface it by saying that there will be nothing written here that hasn't been written a million times before. I am going to empty my head here and hopefully be done thinking about this subject.

At least for today. 

I hate to write this also because this post will definitely have an expiration date on it. 

I read another post the other day by someone who had a while ago written a post where they had at that time eschewed Facebook, and it rang hollow in light of this person's now fervent love for Facebook.

I don't want to do that either.

It's pretty simple, really.

I got off Facebook. 

It had started to be problematic for me. 

The first thing that was happening was I get getting my feelings hurt.

And I say that with the full maturity of a two year old, fully realizing how it sounds. 

It's true though, as much as I hate to admit it. 

I prayed through "why" and really tried to get past it. 

A lot of it was my fault for being too sensitive. I'll admit that. I confessed this to my very pragmatic husband and his response confirmed what I suspected: I probably needed to get over it. After further pondering it, though, I realized that it wasn't exactly just that. I think there are some things that go on with Facebook that never would go on in real life. We use it to manipulate people and situations and appearances to further our own selves. This was what I was getting tangled up in. 

And it made me really mad. 

I really tried to get around that but it became a glaring obstruction to anything good that Facebook offered. I never knew when I opened it up if something was going to jump out and hurt me.

Which still sounds ludicrous. 

I was talking over this with a friend, feeling her compassion and understanding even in the midst of the absurdity of it all. 

"You know that verse that says, 'be hard to offend'?" I asked.

"Is there one that says that?" her eyes lit up. "Really?"

I looked for it and couldn't find it. 

"No. There isn't. I thought there was..." I was a little relieved. I didn't like being hurt in these sensitive situations. And as I prayed through it, God showed me where my sensitivity is a good, positive gift and also where it fails me and makes me a pile of useless tears.

So that was good. 

I couldn't let it go, though. It wasn't just that. There is the time suck that Facebook is. And inevitably it leads to comparisons and sadness and frustrations and...

I also hated the thought of the time line. I have said a lot of dumb stuff, and the thought of it all being out there, laid out, seemed overwhelming. 

My friend texted me one day, before everyone had to have time line, and said, "Have you seen this time line thing? It makes it so easy to stalk people! I've been stalking myself for over an hour!"

And I did just that. I went way back in time to when her life was easier and I sobbed at the old statuses and pictures thought "if only she knew what was coming..."

And did I need to do this to other people? Did I need to do it to myself? And allow others to do it to me?

I felt uneasy about this.

I got so tired of thinking about it. 

And other things I won't even waste time putting here.

I just needed a break.

So I deleted my account. 

Unfortunately once you make a Facebook account, you can never not have a Facebook account.

That's sort of scary. It never goes away.

That made me feel uneasy too.

But whatever. It was done as much as it could be. The deleting, I mean.

And you know what the very first thing that happened once I selected "Deactivate Account"was?

I breathed a sigh of relief

How odd...

That told me that I had done the right thing. 

My phone rang with a ring tone that always makes me smile. I heard the familiar voice squeal of "Hi!" and I dissolved into a puddle. The words "I got off Facebook" poured out and I heard her catch her breath.

"God is wrestling with me there too..."

Is there any better feeling to know that you aren't alone? No matter how strange a spot, no matter how isolated a path, no matter how alternative the trek becomes, to have a single other person in that space is like a cool drink in a parched desert.

We talked it out for a long time, me pacing in the backyard in the sunshine in an effort to find enough peace and quiet to have a conversation. 

It was good. God's timing in offering comfort and confirmation was gracious and compassionate and absolutely stunningly beautiful. 

She said something that has haunted me relentlessly. My pastor said once that for Christians long ago, slavery was their "blind spot." (Among other issues. This is simply an example.) We look back into history and wonder how they could have ever owned human beings. His analogy was that blatant, flagrant, unrestrained and selfish materialism of today could likely be our blind spot. Generations later might indeed look back on us and wonder how we could have lived the way we do just as we look back on our Christian brothers and sisters and wonder the same about them.

I heard the sweet and gentle voice of this friend, referencing these analogies, say to me, "Amy, do you think that social media could be another of our blind spots?"

She went on to explain that a lot of what social media means and does to us could have ramifications that we simply don't see now or don't want to examine. 

I thought about that a lot. 

 Maybe the answer is "no."

Simple as that.

And maybe the answer is "yes."

I keep thinking about it. 

For the first days after I "pulled the plug," I felt lonely and sort of like I was missing an arm. 

That told me that it was a good thing that it was gone. 

 Then as the swirling settled down, I heard...

quiet.

It was quieter in my head. And in my heart. I didn't fear getting on the computer. I didn't feel the stress or trepidation or anything... things felt safe and happy.

That was really, really weird.

Then I felt the urge for real contact. I wanted to have phone conversations. I wanted to see friends. I wanted to text them to check on them. I felt more connected to fewer people. 

Adjustments. 

My sister had good insight. Her best friend had just deleted her account too. Her friend's thoughts were that instead of the gentle and natural rhythm of friends coming in to and out of our lives, Facebook keeps everyone we've ever known right in front of us all the time. Then, instead of us pouring into the people that are physically right in front of us, our time is divided as we put chunks of our time into a large pool of people that naturally would have moved out of our lives already. 

That made sense. I thought about if it was true and how it might have played into this. 

It also partially explained why I felt overwhelmed a lot of the time. It's totally my fault that I had 750+ friends. I knew every single one of them, and not all of them were active on Facebook, but still. That many people's thoughts and opinions and prayer requests and variety of problems and lifestyle choices and challenges were just overwhelming to me.

But I loved them and wanted to be a part of their lives. 

But not at the detriment of my own "real life" friendships. 

But then the fallout started. 

My mom texted me early one morning, "Dear, did you unfriend me on Facebook?"

I literally laughed out loud. 

"MOM! NO!!!!!"

I explained that I was gone. 

Someone said I should have told people I was leaving. Perhaps I should have. I honestly didn't want the ego stroke of even one person saying, "Oh, don't go..." This needed to be honest and real. I needed to just slip away, quietly and unnoticed. 

But there were repercussions. 

It made my sister in Idaho sad. Really sad. She felt connected to us this way.

 My cousin in England. This complicated our keeping in contact.

I used Facebook for email so much. 

I had far away friends that I kept up with. Sweet ladies I love so much. 

My old church friends. My old pastor was on Facebook. His sweet postings and his still deep and apparent love for the Lord brought tears to my eyes each time he posted.

A family member called me, "What the {&#*} did I do to {tick} you off so you unfriended me?"

Um. Nope. I didn't. But thankfully so or I would have been in big trouble, apparently. 

Or friends saying, "Well, how will you know when we're having an impromptu park date?" 

Or them texting, "Oh, yeah, so and so announced on Facebook last week that they are pregnant!"

Or getting texts and emails that say, "Oh yeah, I had to text you since you aren't on Facebook..."

Or "I had a really rough week, but it's all better now." I didn't know, or I could have been offering help and praying.

Or just the sweet friend saying gently, "I'm glad you are obeying, but I just miss you. I don't feel as close to you now..."

*sigh*

I struggled with these things.

I have found ways around some of these issues. My sister and I made up a very silly "AnnaBook" where I text her pictures and snippets from our days, and this makes her feel like she's here in a small way.

I am using real email again.

I Skype with my cousin. 

I miss a lot of information about the people I love, but I don't feel overwhelmed anymore. I get what I need to, I guess. And I'm trying to be more intentional about keeping in touch with them. 

Trying.

It's hard.

Facebook made things easier in a lot of ways.

But it took a lot from me too.

I mean, I was checking Facebook at red lights. 

Really? 

That's inexcusable. 

And for now, I'm enjoying the quiet. I'm enjoying investing my time in other places. No matter how responsible I was with Facebook, it still stole time from other things that were as equally, or more, important. 

I came across this verse in my study this week:

My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge... Hosea 4:6

Um, yeah. That's the Lord talking. 

And you can read it in context. It doesn't make it any easier to swallow. 

How does that correlate with Facebook?

For many people, maybe it doesn't. 

For me, today, at this moment, Facebook was something that was distracting me from Him.

And maybe that will change. 

I've thought through the changes I would make if I stepped back into Facebookworld. And maybe one day that will happen. For now, today, I don't even want to. 

And perhaps I'm trying to leave that door cracked so that if I tiptoe back in, there won't be any "Oh I thought you blasted Facebook back then and here you are again" type of responses. 

It can be a great thing, and there are things I still miss. That probably won't change. But for now, I'm sure this is what I'm supposed to be doing. I absolutely sure of it. And that's a good feeling. 

I'm enjoying doing more of these...

And fine... Some of this too...

source

Job and the Dandelion

The year 2011 was rapidly coming to a close. I was catching up on my blog reading one day, innocently lingering, enjoying the last of the break from school the holidays had to offer. There were posts full of yearly Bible reading plan recommendations, and I skimmed them rather absentmindedly until I heard the unmistakable nudging of the Spirit, "Which one would you like to do?"

Oh boy. 

I have studied the Old Testament ad nauseum and was really enjoying the time I was spending in the New Testament. 

But I knew what this meant. I needed to just do it. Obey.

Coincidentally, after a bit of research,  I chose a plan very similar to the one our church used to walk through the Bible chronologically year before last. I admit to having heart palpitations at seeing the reading plan again. As much as I am a type A/OCD person, and probably other letters that indicate further neurosis, as soon as I am saddled with a schedule, I tend to rebel. 

This is a large portion of my charm, I am sure. 

Part of me dreaded starting over again. I especially hated the thought of committing to a "plan."

 Then I decided for once in my recent past to just obey. So January 1, I flung myself into Genesis 1. 

And of course I was blessed. I learned and meditated and worshiped and thanked God at how He provides for me. 

He knew I needed this. 

I knew what was coming, though. Since this was a chronological plan, Job was coming after Genesis. And I'm going to be honest: I didn't feel up to studying Job. 

Even though the book of Job starts well and ends well, Job spends the majority of the book in a trash pile covered in ash and dirt.

And though I fully acknowledge my tendency towards being a drama queen, I feel like I've been sitting in my own pile of trash and ashes for a bit. 

And I wasn't sure I felt up to visiting Job in his.

I want to make very clear that I'm not equating my life with Job's. 

He lost everything. I have not. 

I do think that this book underscores and very clearly illustrates a believer's struggles with God. Trust through suffering. Dealing well with the difficulties of life while struggling with God. The unseen that goes on around us that we are completely unaware of yet figures significantly in our struggles. 

Did I say trust?

Oh yes. Okay. 

Trusting God. 

Nevertheless, Job came after Genesis on that blasted reading plan, so I plunged in, very nearly holding my breath. 

Oh, Job. 

I get teary at the mention of your name. I ache for you. It's not just that you lost. You lost nearly everything. I can't comprehend the magnitude of the loss you experienced. It nearly takes me outside of myself. 

source

I stared at this picture for a long time. I needed to grieve with Job, as strange as that sounds. 

I'm convinced that quick readings of the Old Testament deprive us of the depth of the teachings that it offers. These were real people who struggled in ways that most of us never will. To barrel through texts for the sake of checking off a daily reading plan will never teach us all that God intended for us to learn through His Word. We must linger over texts, sinking deeply into the stories, spending time with the people there. 

Maybe this is why I dislike those reading plans. And maybe it's why I'm decidedly far behind and it's only March. 

Anyway. 

Oh, Job. You lost it all. You crawled to a trash dump outside the city. You turned your face to the heavens and looked to the One who was supposed to care for you and provide for you and be faithful to you always and you asked, "Why?"

Haven't we done that? 

One doesn't have to go far to identify with Job. 

Haven't we all asked that singularly worded question?

Why?

I am convinced that you can be the most passionate and dedicated follower of Christ and still be taken to your knees in brokenness and pain and sob out to the Father, "Why?"

Why are you letting me suffer?

Why are you far away?

Don't you see?

Don't you care?

How is this best?

Why did you allow this path for me?

When will it end?

It's easier to read Job than to live our own lives because we know how it ends. You read the story with the benefit of knowing how it ends. If at any point you become overwhelmed with Job and his story, you can flip to the end of the book and see him restored. That's comforting.

But to visit Job in his trash heap, you feel his pain. It's palpable. 

I wept with him verse after verse. Chapter after chapter. I cannot see Job 13:15 through dry eyes:

Though He slay me, yet I will trust in Him.

And consider the last half of Job 23:

Behold, I go forward but He is not there,

         And backward, but I cannot perceive Him;

When He acts on the left, I cannot behold Him;

         He turns on the right, I cannot see Him.

But He knows the way I take;

         When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

My foot has held fast to His path;

         I have kept His way and not turned aside.

I have not departed from the command of His lips;

         I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food.

But He is unique and who can turn Him?

         And what His soul desires, that He does.

For He performs what is appointed for me,

         And many such decrees are with Him.

Therefore, I would be dismayed at His presence;

         When I consider, I am terrified of Him.

It is God who has made my heart faint,

         And the Almighty who has dismayed me,

But I am not silenced by the darkness,

         Nor deep gloom which covers me.

I've been there. I am there. As I continue to walk in obedience to Him, feeling Him stretch me and push me and use me, I squirm under the pressure. I plod forward, face turn upward, trusting and studying and praising and worshiping and working and resisting the urge to do what comes naturally to me:

I plant my feet and scream into the wind, "What are you doing?" I point to all the wrong and incomplete in my life and in the midst of the storm and the wind and the raging waves, I plead for Him to move. 

Yet, He knows the way I take. 

I feel Job's pain as he pours himself out before God, angry. Hurt. Exhausted. He pours himself out defiantly, honestly.

And then my favorite. 

Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind...

God answered all of Job's hurt and longing and pain and questions with more than sixty of His own.

These aren't my original words but they are true and I say them to myself a lot: In response to all of Job's questions, God only reveals Himself to Job. He doesn't answer Job's questions. He just reveals Himself.

Isn't that good? The Lord owes me nothing. He knows that if He gave me answers to my questions, I would only have more questions. The only things that satisfies me is Him. More of Him. The only thing that quiets the storm is Him. 

As God's questions start to flow from Him in chapter 38, I find it hard to breathe. Is He revealed anywhere in Scripture as clearly as He is here? Or is it just that my heart is so thirsty for Him after swimming in Job's pain for the proceeding 37 chapters? The tears stream reading question after question which evoke such worship. We are but nothing. "Behold, I am insignificant..."  He is all. 

Oh, the worship. 

I tried to picture Job's face. How quickly after God started speaking did his anger melt away? How quickly did he bury his face in the trash heap? Did he fall, prostrate? Did he regret questioning the Creator and sustainer of the universe?

And then God was done. 

And I love Job's response:

I know that You can do all things,

         And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

         Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,

         Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

‘Hear, now, and I will speak;

         I will ask You, and You instruct me.’

I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;

         But now my eye sees You;

Therefore I retract,

         And I repent in dust and ashes.

But what kills me is that nothing had changed for Job at this point. His children were still dead. He was still destitute. Homeless. His wife was still devastated. He was still covered with the most heinous sores. He was still deathly ill. He was still sitting in a garbage dump. 

Nothing had changed.

Except his view of God.

I can't get past that. 

Nothing had changed. 

On the outside. 

I can't control my circumstances. I can't control the world around me. I can't control what comes, or what doesn't. I can't control death or sickness or disaster or catastrophe or heartache or pain or loss or hurt.

I can acknowledge Who God is. 

It was a long couple of weeks in Job. So, so many tears. So many struggles. So much trusting and desire to trust and prayers begging God to help me trust. 

And as I stepped into Exodus, I still thought of Job, in his trash heap, questioning God. And hearing God. 

I kept thinking of God's response. All those questions. "Do you see how perfectly I wove the universe? Do you see how how perfectly I created it? Do you think I am doing the same thing in your life?"

And why don't I see it? I see His perfection all around me. Yet in my own life, I think He's making colossal mistakes. Because He's not meeting my demands. My longings go unfulfilled. And it feels like it's killing me. 

I wrestle with this day after day. 

I walked one morning, again, pouring out my doubts and fears to an ever patient, ever present God.

I noticed a dandelion, nearly reaching out into the sidewalk in front of me, dancing in the breeze.

I stopped and dropped to the cold, damp sidewalk. 

It had been a long time since I had studied a dandelion. It's perfect. Perfectly spherical. Each light, delicate white fluff anchored in the most perfect interval. Soft and beautiful. I studied it in the morning light for a long time. 

And you know what? It's a weed. A nuisance. We dig them up, mow them down, douse them in chemicals and tell our children not to enjoy blowing them because they will wreck our pristine yards. 

A weed. 

Yet God took such care to make them perfect and beautiful.

How much more care is He taking care to craft my life just as perfectly?

Would I have continued on by that dandelion that morning had I not been thinking so deeply about Job? And God's questions to him? 

I don't know. I took pictures of that dandelion. I made a picture my screen saver on my phone so that every time I saw it I would hear God start out His questions for Job by saying, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?"

I still struggle. Daily. But I know there are truths in Job that I must choose to believe. And there is no way to read Job 38 - 42 without worshiping and submitting to Him. 

There is just no way.

So I go back there often. I think of Job in that trash heap. He stays there in my mind. And maybe someday I will think of him happy and restored. But for now, he's there. Trusting. And waiting. 

And I'm there too. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"He doesn't tell you how long this particular episode is going to last. And so? You and I trust Him. We trust HIM. We wait. We serve Him. We keep our feet on His paths. We treasure His Word, and whatever God desires, He does. We keep leaning on Him, even though we can't understand what He's up to."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Everything that happens, including the things you cannot explain or justify, is being women together like an enormous, beautiful piece of tapestry. From this earthly side, it seems blurred and knotted, strange and twisted. But from heave's perspective, it has an incredible pattern. But best of all, it is for His greater glory. Right now, it seems so confusing, but someday, the details will come together and make good sense."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You couldn't piece it together if you tried. You aren't able to understand it and there will be times you won't like it. But as we're learning from Job, He's not going to ask your permission. And so? We trust God. Those who do that discover without trying to make it happen that they have begun to demonstrate grace under pressure." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The Lord was nailed to the cross; you can count on being nailed to the wall. It's helpful to see each ordeal that way - as being crucified with Christ... God gives us over to such bruisings because they are part of the process to make us what He intends us to be. The hurting makes us sweeter, more mellow, We lose the fear of losing out; we learn to let go of what we want. We're not so easily provoked to wrath by harm or reproof. We learn to absorb abuse without retaliation, to accept reproof without defensiveness, to return a soft answer to wrath. It makes us calm and strong." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Midlife Crisis (.) (!) (?)

The text came across my phone: 

Only 39 more days of being 39~

I laughed and asked what the plans were. It seemed a day worth celebrating, especially if you love numbers the way I do. 

My favorite text came from this same friend, literally minutes after the New Year had been rung in. 

Um, is this the year we turn 40?

I really did laugh aloud for a bit. It seems that in trying to forget how old we are, we truly forgot how old we are. 

Forty

It just doesn't seem possible. 

I blame my mother, partially. She was young when she had me, so my perception of age has always been a little skewed. She was forty when I got married. It really seems as if I should be further along on the path of life at this point. 

I've been preparing myself for some time, saying at every opportunity, "Well, I'm almost 40..." to which my friends have replied, "You are not." (I've done this for a couple of years.)

It has helped. I can say the word "forty" without hyperventilating.

Sort of.

A magazine yelled at me from the checkout line that "50 is the new 30" which of course means that 40 is the new 20. Except I don't want to be 20 again. I was a disaster in my 20's. 

And because I am who I am and I do what I do, I've been full of introspect about this impending birthday. 

Because truly, no matter how you gloss it over, dress it up, or package it, my life is half over.

My life is half over. 

The life expectancy is 80 for women in this country.

See? Half over.

That's a lot to take in.

It's taken a bit of effort to understand exactly why this has me in a pinch.

It could be simple vanity. Things aren't exactly how or where they were when I was 20. There are wrinkles and (lots and lots) of gray hair. I've been forced to recognize that perhaps I put more stock in my appearance than I'd like to admit. I never thought I'd be one of those women who refused to age gracefully, but I'm sitting here slightly aggravated that my body seems much more acceptant of this impending birthday than my mind does.

How silly.

More than this, though, is the constant ticker that runs in my mind, keeping an invisible yet incredibly tangible list of ways that I have failed God in my life.

I keep wondering, "What if my life ended now?"

I don't feel like I have half of a life's worth of gifts to offer Him.

It's not that I don't want to look in His face. I do. I just sort of feel like I'd be showing up at someone's house for dinner with an inadequate hostess gift.

Not to reduce heaven to going to a friend's house for dinner.

But that's what it feels like.

What do I have to offer Him? And why do I feel like I'm begging Him for more time to do more stuff to offer Him? And why now? Why does this birthday bring this to light in me?

Because it's HALF WAY OVER and I've only lived one solid good decade for Him?

This is when I hear a well meaning friend say, "Honestly, Amy, why do you wear yourself out with all this overthinking? Don't you get tired of it?"

Or I see my sweet friend in the midst of her cleaning the kitchen paused, with dish cloth in hand, looking at me and saying, "Amy, you are intense."

I blinked hard after that one.

I wasn't even doing anything other than quietly sweeping the floor. I guess she meant in general.

Intense? I don't feel intense. I thought I kept that bottled up pretty well.

Obviously not.

I hear the accusations, "You need to lighten up."

Think less. Chill out. Go with the flow.

Especially now. With this huge impending birthday coming up.

Maybe it's wrong to pause and take inventory, but it feels necessary. How did I mess up the first forty years? What would I like to do differently in the next forty? What would I change?

It feels like a fresh start in some ways. A change to get it all right and keep it right.

I don't want to mess up again. I don't want to live through another day of debauchery, much less another decade.

I feel resolve welling up in me. I just want to do this half right.

I read through Jonathan Edwards' Resolutions and find myself yelling, "YES!!!"

Resolved, that I will live so as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.


Maybe I should care less what people think. Maybe I should take intense as a compliment.

Maybe being forty is the decade in which you get to stop doing what you've done your whole life so that people will like you. Maybe this is the decade in which I do what makes me like myself.

Maybe being forty makes you care less because half your life is over and you realize you don't have that much more time to do what really matters - what really lasts, and you're done fooling around with the stuff that won't last.

Maybe I'll stop apologizing for thinking so much. Maybe I'll stop apologizing for being an introvert. Maybe I'll stop apologizing for wanting to study my Bible more than playing on the internet. Maybe I'll stop apologizing for being intense. Maybe I'll stop feeling guilty for saying "no" and for limiting abuse and not caring what people think. Maybe I'll start saying, "You know, that's not okay with me. You can't say that. Or do that. You need to stop." instead letting people do what they want and then feeling the effects of their actions.

That would be nice.

I'm not there yet.

But I'm still 39, so there's hope. 

Ode to Jude

I love all three of my children the exact same amount. 

I really do. 

I love the girl kid for so many reasons. I love her creativity, her love of books, the way she loves to write and draw, her girly love of fashion and fingernail polish, her kind way with people, her sweet smile and her deep thinking that also drives me nuts.

I love the baby kid too. In spite of the fact that he almost killed me in the early years of his life, he is now the most sensitive and kind of all three kids. He's funny and smart. He's the most loving and affectionate of the kids and he amazes me at the things he thinks about. 

And then there's the middle kid. 

He's eight today, by the way.

And since this is the anniversary of his birth, I have been introspective and reflective about this child of mine.

We joke that he was the easy baby and it's true. We got him quite easily, and my pregnancy with him was not marred by the anxiety of a first time mom. We had most of what we needed already and got bags full of blue hand-me-downs from sweet friends. 

An infection sent me into an early labor with him, and I ended up in the hospital in labor late one night, dehydrated and exhausted. After a bag and a half of fluids, it became apparent that he was actually coming three days before his due date. I was tired, but ready.

It was a relatively easy labor. I remember several parts of it vividly: The lady next door to me was having twins, and she screamed. A lot. And loudly. We cranked the praise music in my room until it was blaring down the hall. There was a violent thunder storm and the thunder seemed to rattle everything. I remember my friend Hayes' hands on my back, massaging me through the worst contractions. I remember the dim lights, the soft voices and the eyes on me. 

Finally, I was past exhaustion and the contractions were coming more quickly than I could stand. I couldn't get my breath and I couldn't get on top of them and I was done. I felt scared and out of control. I wanted it over. 

I panicked.

When you have an unmedicated birth, you ask for drugs a lot. One suggestion that we took before hand was to set up a code word for when you really meant that you needed drugs. 

I looked at the sweet nurse that had been so patient and kind. I was slightly crazed from the pain and exhaustion. 

"I want drugs."

She looked at Allen, who started to repeat the rehearsed responses to my requests. 

"No. I mean it. I want drugs."

He patiently started to encourage me when I grabbed his shirt and yelled the word we had decided on months earlier, 

"GRASSHOPPER!!!!!!"

His eyes got huge and he looked at the nurse and Hayes. 

"She wants drugs."

Hayes said to the nurse, "Why don't we start with a quarter dose of Stadol."

She added that to my iv and we waited. 

"MORE!" I yelled.

"Another quarter dose."

And we waited.

"AH! MORE!" I yelled again.

Hayes looked at me in the eyes, put her hand on my arm and said, "One more quarter dose."

I said okay.

A few minutes later, I was so.... happy. And drunk. But I didn't care. I could relax. I actually dozed off between contractions. 

Then I knew it was about time.. I looked around and my mom and one of my sisters and the doctor were gone. 

"Where'd they go?" I asked Hayes. 

"They're in the hall. They don't like to see you in pain." 

The doctor doesn't like to see me in pain? Good grief. 

I looked at the nurse who was at the end of the bed. I sat up and said to her, "I'm done."

She raised her eyebrows and said, "Okay...?" 

I pushed that kid out with one push. 

"Stop!!!" she yelled and said, "Go get the doctor." 

Jude's head was out. The doctor walked in and said, "That was fast."

"Where were you?" I asked accusingly. He laughed. "Let's get the rest of him out, okay?"

He sat Jude on my chest and kissed me on the forehead. "Good job, Mama." 

Allen hadn't moved from my side, and then this picture. The first one:

There was no anxiety this time. I held that baby boy whose name means praise and I did just that. I walked him in the dark quiet of the hospital, and with tears streaming down my face dripping on his tiny swaddled self, I thanked God for him over and over and over again. I couldn't stop. 

My son. 

He was so easy. He was a newborn and with that came all the hard work and exhaustion, but he was so gentle and easy. He would sleep for hours in his baby swing until I would go poke him to make sure he was still breathing. 

He needed me constantly and we were never far apart, but it was a sweet and gentle relationship. I didn't know then exactly how easy it was. 

He was only 15 months old when I got pregnant with our 3rd baby. The loss of that baby and the subsequent complications of that and then my pregnancy with the 4th baby took a lot out of me. I worried that it affected him too much. I tried to be what he needed. I will probably always worry that I wasn't the best mom during that period. I will always hope it didn't affect him negatively forever. 

He grew into a quiet, introspective kid. Gentle still and always easy. 

I still didn't realize how easy until the third baby was born. The stark contrast of them made me realize even more how quiet and easy this one was.

But then I started to see how this can be hard. Even harder than a kid who demands and receives. Jude would fade into the background and never demand anything. He wouldn't push his way to the front and his needs got overlooked. His voice wasn't heard and he was always the one who sacrificed his wants and needs to the "squeaky wheels" of the family.

I'm not sure I compensated for this very well. I would say constantly, "You okay, Buddy?" I asked too many questions to pull him out. I finally felt the Spirit's urging me to be quiet yet attentive. 

Parenting this kid is in fact harder than the other two. Being available in a busy, often time chaotic life for him to come to me, is challenging. To have enough quite for him to speak out. To have the restraint to not ask him questions to draw him out but to create an environment where he feels safe and comfortable to share his heart.

It's hard.

And to trust that he doesn't have to talk a lot. He is okay to be quiet and introspective.

He's a people pleaser. The baby kid will do and be what he wants with little regard of others. (I'm trying to bend that into a constant obedience to Christ.)  Not so with this middle kid. He goes with the flow. He blends and cooperates and complies. I want him to be stubborn in his love for Christ and determination to do what's right. I'm praying in that way. 

I also began to see a lot of myself in him. I tried to teach him that sometimes we have to step outside of ourselves and share and talk and communicate. 

It's ironic. God is teaching me through teaching my son. 

He's the quintessential middle kid. Just like my Dad and so much like my sweet middle sister. I see so many of the same precious qualities in them. 

This kid.

 He's uproariously funny. Possesses a quick wit. Smart and observant. Still gentle. Lover of animals. All animals. So much so that we call him the "animal whisperer." Reserved and quiet until things are just so and then he'll talk your ear off. 

He came to Christ all on his own. Told me shyly one morning that he was now a Christ follower. Didn't want to talk about it at length, but I believed him. He's the kid with a love of the Word. I'll find his Bible in his bed with him in the morning where he read it before falling asleep. He'll show me what he's been reading. He has a sweet love for our pastor and will even do spur of the moment impersonations of him that absolutely wreck us. He told me shyly once that he too wanted to be a pastor, and though that is firmly between him and the Lord, my breath caught in my throat when he uttered those words. I admit to having prayed that way since hearing those words, hoping God would be gracious and use him that way. 

I love this kid who looks just like his daddy and acts just like me. He even has an obnoxious laugh that still catches me off guard when I hear it. I love the time when he and I are alone. I feel  more at ease with him than most anyone. There are times that he and I lock eyes over the roar of our house, and it's as if he's saying, "Whew. These people are insane..."We have a common, unspoken language, he and I. When I offend or ask of him something he doesn't approve of, he will give me what he call the "stink eye." It kills me. 

I pray a lot for his wife. I pray God will give him someone who is tender and can be trusted with the gentleness of this person. Someone willing to care for him carefully and appreciate his tender ways. Someone who will allow him to be strong in his sweet, quiet leadership. I pray God teaches him how to be a strong, unyielding, unwavering, Godly man.   

His love for his big sister at times I think surpasses his love for anyone else, even me. They honestly never ever fight or argue. It's one of the most beautiful relationships I have ever seen. His baby brother makes up for the ease of that relationship. They are almost constantly at odds, but seem to love each other still. The older the baby kid gets, the easier it is. I beg Jude to hang in there. I pray he's learning coping skills that will last a life time. 

I could talk about this enigma of a kid all day. I could write of all the qualities he possesses that I so desperately want for myself. I want to be like him when I grow up. 

I still desperately thank God for giving him to me. I pray I'm worthy to be his mother. I pray that I can parent him well in the complexity of all that he is. I pray that God will use him in the most amazing way. 

I'm thankful that I get to celebrate him today. 

Acorns

Think of the self that God has given us as an acorn. It is a marvelous little thing, a perfect shape, perfectly designed for its purpose, perfectly functional. Think of the grand glory of a oak tree. God's intention when He made the acorn was the oak tree. He intention for us is "...the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." Many deaths must go into our reaching that measure, many letting-goes. When you look at the oak tree, you don't feel that the "loss" of the acorn is a very great loss. The more you perceive God's purpose in your life, the less terrible the losses seem. 

[I] am being asked to trust, to leave the planning to God. God's ultimate plan [is] as far beyond [my] imagination as the oak tree is from the acorn's imaginings. The acorn does what it was made to do, without pestering its Maker with questions about when and how and why. We who have been given an intelligence and a will and a whole range of wants that can be set against the divine Pattern for Good are asked to believe Him. We are given the chance to trust Him when He says to us, "...If any man will let himself be lost for my sake, he will find his true self."

When will we find it? we ask. The answer is, Trust me. 

How will we find it? The answer again is, Trust me. 

Why must I let myself be lost? we persist. The answer is, Look at the acorn and trust Me. 

elisabeth elliot

I read these words early one morning and have thought about them since. I soon found myself in a park, standing beneath a tree on ground littered with acorns. I crouched and gathered them until my hand overflowed. I needed to look at them and remember their willingness to be planted. Planted so they could become what God intended for them to become. Become what He created them to be. To be what He intended all along. 


Their willingness. 

And then these words to a song that I sing and think of the small acorn that I have come to love so much:

Oh I've been pushed down into the ground

Oh how I've been trampled down

So many feet on top of me

I can't help but sink, sink, sink

Oh I've been pushed down into the ground

Oh how I have been trampled down

Lord I put my trust in thee

You won't turn your back on me

Oh I am a seed

Oh I am a seed

I've been pushed down into the ground

But i will rise up a tree

Oh I can see it won't be long

Till I break free from what I was

Your river of grace flows endlessly

You won't turn your back on me

Oh I am a seed

Oh I am a seed

I've been pushed down into the ground

But i will rise up a tree

I've been burned up in so many fires

From these ashes I will rise

Lord your power has rescued me

For you I'll always sing

Oh I am a seed

Oh I am a seed

I've been pushed down into the ground

But I will rise up a tree

Oh I am a seed

Oh I am a seed

Won't stay long here in this earth

When you rain your love on me

Lord, rain your love on me

david crowder band "i am a seed"

Elisabeth Elliot

My friend Elizabeth walked in the door with a bag full of books one night early in October. My eyes grew big as she sat the bag down, and I wondered what collection of books was in that bag. To a book lover, there is no better thought than the chance to read a new book. She sat on the couch and grinned at me.

"Those are all of my Elisabeth Elliot books."

"Oh really?" I was intrigued. I was familiar with Jim Elliot, after hearing him referenced in church and then studying him with the kids in school. Elizabeth had mentioned Elisabeth Elliot to me several times throughout our friendship. Elisabeth has been a hero of hers, so to speak, and she had been reading and loving her books for years.

And now she had brought them to me.

"I can't get to them right now," I said sadly. "I have too much other stuff going on."

I did take 45 seconds to dream about a weekend getaway with just me, a pile of books and a good stock of hot tea. But I had to be honest -I had no idea when I'd get to read just one of those books, much less the whole bag.

"It's okay," she grinned. "No rush."

It felt like she knew a secret.

Our conversation turned to other things, but I kept my eye on that bag of books.

It would be the middle of November before I could even think of that bag of books again. A rough couple of weeks stretched out before me, and for some strange reason, I went to that pile of books. I had a vague idea of what kind of books were in there, based on what Elizabeth had told me, but how I ended up digging a book out of that bag was providential.

I won't soon forget exactly where I was, sitting in the kitchen, stool pushed against the cabinets to create a makeshift desk for me.

I took a moment to savor the weight of the book in my hand. It was a hardback book, my favorite. I smoothed the book open to the first page, and soon the words were blurred by my tears as a coolness filled my body and I found it hard to breathe.

It was the difficulty and the sweetness of seeing my own feelings written by someone else's hand. Then I laughed through the tears in thankfulness to a God to brought this stack of books to my house and let them sit, unattended, until just the moment that He intended for this book to be in my hands. For this time.

I wiped away the tears and read more. Then a thought sent me off my stool in search of my journal, where familiar words had been written months and months before.

Early in the year, I had read a book that changed things for me. In it I had read this quote:

I had repeated this quote to myself a hundred times in the days after reading it.

It was an easy quote to read, but exactly how did one trust God with the "next thing"? The unknown next thing was a large part of my anxiety.

Slowly God and I worked it out. For me, in this stage, the next thing was the tangible thing right in front of me. (Ignoring, of course, the looming and unknown larger next thing) So how did I trust God and do the next thing?

It usually began when my eyes opened in the morning and I thought, "I really don't want to do this day."

I would remember this mantra. God would whisper, "All you have to do is trust Me and get out of bed."

I could do that. Nothing more. But I could physically push back the covers and stand up.

Then He would say, "Trust me and walk down the stairs."

I could do that.

Then I would repeat to myself, "Trust God and make the coffee."

"Trust God and make breakfast"

"Trust God and spend time in His Word"

"Trust God and pour out your heart in trust and faith while you pound the pavement under the sky"
     (that was the hardest and yet my favorite)

"Trust God and make lunch..."

"...and pay bills, do laundry, clean the kitchen, go to the bank, do school, return emails, cook..."

"Trust God and breathe..."

and go to bed and trust that He will help you do it all again tomorrow.

That's how I learned to trust Him and do the next thing.

{the big stuff would come when and how He intended. it always does. He's in charge of that. not me, thankfully}

As these memories fell back over me, I turned my attention back to the book face down still opened to that first chapter and knew that Elisabeth Elliot and I were going to spend some precious time together in the near future.

And we really did.

I poured over this book with tears and hope. I scribbled reflection after reflection in my journal. I serendipitously found another copy of that book at the thrift store, just by chance of course, and poured over it with a friend, then another friend and then another.

And then the day came when I read the background to the quote that taught me how to trust God more:

From an old English parsonage down by the sea
There came in the twilight a message to me;
Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven,
Hath, it seems to me, teaching from Heaven.
And on through the doors the quiet words ring
Like a low inspiration: “DOE THE NEXTE THYNGE.”

Many a questioning, many a fear,
Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment, let down from Heaven,
Time, opportunity, and guidance are given.
Fear not tomorrows, child of the King,
Thrust them with Jesus, doe the nexte thynge.

Do it immediately, do it with prayer;
Do it reliantly, casting all care;
Do it with reverence, tracing His hand
Who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on Omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing,
Leave all results, doe the nexte thynge

Looking for Jesus, ever serener,
Working or suffering, be thy demeanor;
In His dear presence, the rest of His calm,
The light of His countenance be thy psalm,
Strong in His faithfulness, praise and sing.
Then, as He beckons thee, doe the nexte thynge.

--Anonymous


The more I read of Elisabeth's book, and the Word that it pointed me to, the more I felt that calm and peace and reassurance that I knew could only come from Him. That hard period of time I had dreaded faded into the rear view mirror, colored again by all the shades of His faithfulness made tangible by the gift of this book and the ones to follow.

And of course, as things seem to go in my world, things seem to appear in "random" places. Things that made me smile. Things the proved that this amazing woman's walk and subsequent ministry would touch more people than perhaps she ever dared hope:


There was this post  and this this one and this one. I read them and smiled, thankful for her love for Christ and dedication to serving Him.

And then I began to read more about her first husband, Jim. My thoughts about him will probably have to wait until another day. Suffice it to say that his passion and dedication to Christ and His mission occupy my thoughts frequently.

I think about them throughout my day, my new friends Jim and "Bet." And now that my world has once again gotten busier, I don't have the chance to read these books daily. I find myself missing this couple. I look longingly again at this stack of books which once again sit, abandoned by other more urgent studies. I'm happy to know that they are there, waiting for me. {and i sneak peeks here and there. I miss them too much to leave them alone for long} I'm thankful for what they have taught me. I'm thankful for how they have strengthened my own faith, my walk, my love for Christ and for His Word. I am thankful that they provide comfort in a world that sometimes, oftentimes, feels completely foreign to me, even though it's my own.