When dreams come true

When I was in college to become a nurse, I used to faint all the time, sometimes 20 times a day. I have a heart condition that is worsened by stress, affected by diet, and drastically influenced by the amount of sleep I get. As you can imagine, I wasn't very good at managing any of those factors as a college student. As a result, I suffered fluctuations in blood pressure and heart rates that caused me to faint all the time, and several times I nearly died because of it. From that point on, I lived life holding my dreams loosely, never knowing exactly how much time God intended me to be on this earth.

"There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off." (Proverbs 23:18)

Years passed, and I got better at living a heart-healthy lifestyle. I was also helped by advances in medical science that directed my cardiologists how best to treat my condition using medications, and finally, in 2010, a pacemaker became available that had a special function specifically designed for people with my heart problem. Life with my heart condition gets better with every passing year, and it looks like I might live a long and healthy life, as far as my heart is concerned.

One of the dreams I harbored deep in my heart, in a space surrounded by tears of grief whenever I fainted and the dream seemed to fade in the distant and perhaps unattainable future, was that of someday obtaining my PhD and teaching with my father at the very university I was a nursing student at.

 "But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded." (2 Chronicles 15:7)

Last week, my father carried boxes of books up to office 204 in the nursing building on the campus of the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, a short 5 minute walk from the building where he has worked since 1984. The very building in which I fainted all those times, but grinned and bore it, and, by the grace of God, graduated on time in 4 years with my bachelor of science in nursing. This was one dream, one of the dearest to my heart, one that sat right next to my longing to bear children and raise them, that God did plan to help me fulfill.

My office looks out on the historic Council Oak Tree that is on the University seal, and Little Niagara creek.

Today, with a heart that felt more like bursting than giving out, I began orientation to become a full-time professor at my alma mater. I have already been welcomed warmly by some of my old teachers and mentors, along with new faculty who have arrived in the 12 years since I graduated and embarked on my career as a nurse.

I return now with something more important than any career aspirations constantly in my heart and on my mind - a husband, a home, and four beautiful souls who are dearest to me of anything I have on this earth. They have already fallen head-over-heels in love with UWEC, in a similar way as I remember falling for it as a child, entranced with everything from my papa's hands that smelled of chalk-dust to the peaceful cool of his office, and the constant trickle of youthful energy in the form of the students who came to ask questions or talk about their ongoing projects. There is something incredibly synergistic about the education process, especially at the college level, where most students have honed in on an interest all their own, and are deeply invested in their own success.

My children love my office (perhaps partially because they are allowed to watch unlimited hours of Netflix movies on my 2nd monitor while I squeeze in some work). Caleb loves to work the lock on my door and unlock and lock my file cabinet, desk drawers, and explore the inner workings of my printer. Katy has set to work reading a text on philosophy (I do mean to get a shelf of more age-appropriate books set up - but perhaps it is better for her to read the college texts??). Rosy is busy creating art to grace my corkboard. Amelia likes to arrange my textbooks largest to smallest and then redo her work in the reverse. And they all love the trips to the vending machine, simulation lab, library, and colleague's offices, where they are always greeted with smiles and pieces of candy (note to self: get a candy jar for my office!). Caleb is already a building favorite, as he doesn't differentiate yet between acquaintances, friends, family, and gives each of my colleagues a hearty hug and kiss upon leaving!

Oh, how richly my Lord has blessed me! I am thrilling with excitement, waiting for the beginning of classes after labor day, when I will finally get to meet my first group of students in the four classes I will be teaching! I will still be homeschooling, as I was able (again with God's grace! and pray for me as the semesters go by, that I might be able to continue this?) to block my schedule so that I am gone from home 2 days a week, 3 days a week for one week per month.

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him." (Psalm 62:5)

Letters to Aaron: The Thin Places

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.

Delight > Fear

Every time my heart screams, "stop", I push my body for the "go". The children clamor cacophonous and my eyes squeeze shut against the knife in my ear. Sometimes I shout, hands shaking, to get their attention, to get them quiet. But then we dive in together, into whatever got them so excited. Last night, painting. The day before, constructing a fort.

My therapist calls it "opposite action" but I've learned to call it "delight". Half way through, I always find myself giggling with my kids, a kid again all wrapped up in the glory of whatever we've poured our whole selves into. In therapy, they tell you to do exactly what you're afraid of doing - for me, exactly what I'm afraid of failing at. For a year and a half, since we left our church, it's been these children. What if I am failing them? What if they were hurt for no good reason? What if I can't do this parenting thing alone, without a community of faith? What if I'm not enough?

Each "what if" slowly is replaced as the days march on and I do the opposite and find out I can.

What if I'm failing them? Of course I will. But not this moment.
What if they were hurt for no reason? The reasons are big. And they aren't as hurt as I thought.
What if I can't do this parenting thing? Every time I do delight, I build to the list of times I HAVE done it.
What if I'm not enough? Of course I'm not. But I am the RIGHT one. The only mother God gave these kids.

The Lord directs the steps of the Godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. (Ps. 37:23)

Linked to Lisa-Jo today

Necessary changes

(That's right. I'm blogging about school on a Saturday.

In case you hadn't noticed, by way of my 20 years of

schooling, I am a school junkie. I do school on Saturday.

That's just how I roll.)

At the very time she needs it most, school often gets pushed to the outskirts of our day. I'm sure it's an irony many parents have faced before me...the child with special needs is so overwhelming it is difficult to even attempt to meet them.

In November, Amelia was diagnosed with two things: Episodic Ataxia, a disease that causes her to lose balance, depth perception, and speech coordination at random times throughout the day; and a sensory processing disorder, which basically means that she either can't sense or doesn't react to stimulation (touch, smell, taste, see, hear) the same way you and I do.

Both of these issues mean that we've had to translate what was a very Type A mom, paper-and-pencil, books and workbooks sort of school into a very hands-on, flexible school that takes lots of breaks and only works for short periods of time.

Bring on the "manipulatives"! We are blessed to have a teacher for an aunt, so we get lots of great school supplies for very little expense. A math manipulative set means that, in the same 20 minute period, Katy can work on her fractions; Rosy her addition and subtraction; Amy her color sorting and counting skills; Caleb pattern recognition and numbers.

I think that, in hindsight, they're loving school more than ever before. The changes have been for the better for all four of the kids. My son will certainly be blessed by the changes we've made in how we "do" school, little go-getter that he is.

And so school keeps on going, in the cracks of the day, fit in when we have a moment, whether I just hopped out of the shower, or haven't even had time to shower yet this day. Sometimes during meals, and always it is an everyday miracle, it works even though I am desperate and overwhelmed, and the kids learn despite all my failings.

Amy's therapists have taught me that engaging her large muscles and using deep pressure help Amy engage in the many smaller, detailed tasks I ask her to complete as part of her rehab program. This "steam-rolling" activity is one of her absolute favorite school time-outs. Today it blended perfectly with what we were learning: the dimensions of objects - height, width, and depth. We had fun trying to turn the 3-dimensional children into paper dolls (Katy would quickly report that it didn't work. She *may* be a realist, Type A mom herself someday).

"Squishing" Amy's limbs with a balance ball.

At the same time I am finding new ways to help Amelia "engage" in learning, I am being forced to engage, too. I have always loved a good challenge, and this certainly is a challenge. The routine never gets boring, because we're constantly switching things up.

The parent is so often just a bigger picture of those she is parenting. Like Amy, I need God to speak through a megaphone in order for me to listen. Enter cancer and the suffering of Amy's illness. Like Amy, I need God to use deep pressure to help me focus on the details. Like Amy, I need frequent breaks, times when I can cry out my questions. Like Amy, the approach has to constantly change...so God forces change into my life to open my eyes to my sedentary faith. Just when I think I've got something mastered, He adds a new element for me to figure out. Just when I get comfortable at my current stage, He demands more from me.

And so, with a big God who cares to tailor my training program to my specific special needs, I will never stop learning.

Particles of sacrifice reveal untold beauty

Northern lights in the middle of the sky above rural Wisconsin

on August 3, 2010; visible due to an explosion on the sun's surface.

A storm opens our eyes to see, our hands to receive the starry nights that follow.  An explosion - damaging, fire-gushing, volcanic, erupting - on the sun's surface sent billions of particles toward earth.  (A damaging, painful explosion of God's wrath above the Cross snuffed the life out of the Son of God.)  As the particles of that great light-filled body in the heavens float through the galaxies down to Earth's atmosphere, the northern lights become visible all the way down to parts of New England where they are never seen.  (So grace fell like a million drops of the Son's light on my soul, revealing hidden beauty beneath the scars of sin as His light reflected there in my black heart for the very first time, and every time since, when I confess.)

The storms of the spring and summer where suddenly eclipsed today in a dark doctor's office that has held nothing but sorrow for me since March, 2008.  Storms eclipsed, for once, not by more storms - but with a heaping pile of good news!  He took my neck in his hands, and felt no tumor where there has been one since November of 2008.  He looked at my lab work, and discovered that, for the first time since cancer struck back then, my body is fighting back.  I have lost weight, almost miraculously and effortlessly, on my no sugar/no starch/no alcohol/no over-the-counter meds diet.  That is why my thyroid hormones are out of whack - I need less medicine than I did before, because my liver is functioning at 100% and I have gotten a bit smaller.  (Less medicine is, at least in my case, a very good thing!)  My tumor markers are slightly more elevated, but that is probably because my own immune system attacked a tumor in one of my lymph nodes, one in a very inoperable location, and exploded it into a million tiny pieces that now float in my bloodstreams, innocuous because of the new antibodies my body is making.

And so I dance (a quick jig before getting back to work on my exam) and thank God for good news on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday.  For lighting the night sky with green and red, for sending dancing light last night as a harbinger of dancing feet today.  For helping me find better health, for using better health to trounce cancer, at least for the moment.  For keeping me with my family until my next scan, which won't be until October or November now!  God is great!  That is all.

Click on the little images to see bigger ones - the lights are faint,

but they are there!

Milk

It's what Abraham chose to serve the angels that visited him to announce the upcoming birth of his son in Genesis 18.

It's how mothers have let love flow since the beginning of time.

It is a reward (Exodus), a blessing (Leviticus), and provision (Psalms).

In the Old Testament, the Law is compared to milk given back to children already weaned.
Who is it he is trying to teach?
To whom is he explaining his message?
To children weaned from their milk,
to those just taken from the breast?
So the word of the Lord shall become to them:
Do and do, do and do,
rule on rule, rule on rule;
a little here, a little there.
(Isaiah 28:9 & 13)

In the New Testament, these verses hit me hard.  I just failed my

comprehensive exam.  The doctoral degree that was just about

within my grasp...nay, my strong grip...seems elusive.  Whether

this latest bout is blessing, curse, punishment, or persecution, I

cannot say.  But the Word speaks, and I must bend to listen.

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. (Hebrews 5:11-13)

Do I know righteousness?  Have I allowed myself to drink spiritual milk too long? Have I ignored sins God was trying to squeeze out of my gently?  Will I ever be done learning the "elementary truths of the Word again", ever?  Is there an end to this learn, do, forget, repeat?

Robbie conducted a symphony for my camera, a silent song of mother's love and baby trust, provision and silence and awe and beauty and mystery.  A symphony of words, too, that came tumbling back from Scripture long ago read.  As I stumble through, trying to make sense out of latest catastrophes with a jumbled brain, I simply thank God for witnessing the symphony.

Praise be to the Lord,

for being here to see,

for seeing,

for hearing the Word whispered oh so softly, sweetly,

for a symphony,

for baby love,

for "milk",

for life.

Far from painful

You may imagine that I am suffering on my fairly strict no sugar/no starch diet. Much to my own surprise, I have found exactly the opposite is true! I tried a similar diet in college, in an attempt to control my fainting episodes, which at that time were thought to be linked to drops in blood sugar. I wasn't successful...I think probably because I couldn't afford enough protein to satisfy my insatiable hunger as a busy student athlete. Now...with a half of a cow in the freezer - all natural, primarily grassfed at that! - it is quite a different story.

Last night, my meal was steak, a large mixed herb salad with homemade buttermilk curry dressing, and steamed artichoke with yogurt-curry and drawn butter & thyme sauce for dipping. (cultured dairy products are allowed on this special diet)

Visual and gastronomic feasting! Better is a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. (Proverbs 15:17)

Smiles

We are knee-deep in cooking and baking in the Thul house. Every year, our small group hosts a fundraiser dinner on Valentine's Day, and this year I am once again the head chef. Katy and her friend Grace laughed all the way through mixing up a double batch of blonde brownies yesterday. They will be served in heart shaped pieces to the children in the nursery while the parents feast on Moroccan delicacies.

Her smile delights me. I know God looks down at me and thinks the same thing when I smile. Gut-wrenched by my tears and soul-lit by my smiles! Have you smiled for your Father today? I have - and plan to many more times before the day is over!


Jesus loves me, Him who died,
Heaven's gate to open wide;
He has washed away my sin,
let His little child come in.

We love Jesus, does He know?
Have you ever told Him so?
Jesus loves to hear us say
that we love Him every day.
~ Jesus Loves Me, Anna Bartlett Warner