Once in a lifetime

Happy Thanksgivukkah!

(I figure it's the only time I'll ever get to say it, so what the heck!)

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. I am thankful for the childhood I was given, being raised without want in a peaceful community. I have never suffered poverty, hunger, or fear for my life.

This year has been one of great change for me personally and for everyone in my family as well. I am thankful for the kindness and love with which my family has faced my difficult transitions. Although we see this transition very differently, everyone who loves me has made sacrifices to try to understand and support me as I go through a year of metamorphosis back to myself.

I am thankful for a family of my own that is loving, accepting, generous and witty. Living in the moment this year has allowed me to truly appreciate the beauty of the quickly passing days of my kids' childhood. The snuggles at nap time, the crazy afternoons trying to get schoolwork done, the hot chocolate messes in the kitchen and the paint all over my kitchen island - they all are a testament to enjoying this stage to the fullest. 

My son showers me with affection so much so that I often have to introduce boundaries. (otherwise I might be kissed to death, truly) He is an original, this kid. I am thankful this year for a deepening bond between us as the difficult transition from spanking and punishment to teaching and rewarding is finally in the past. Although it is hard to accept just how long it takes this boy to enter new information into his long-term memory, we are making progress. I am thankful he is my friend and I am his. I am thankful for every opportunity to teach him, play Hot Wheels with him, and watch him grow.

I am thankful to have had Amelia for 4 years longer than expected. I am thankful for all the ways her difficult life has shaped her into a resilient, stubborn, caring and compassionate person. I love her sense of humor, her wild break-dancing, the volatility of her emotions, her "heart on her sleeve" way of living. This year, I am thankful for the educational leaps and bounds she's made - learning to read, mastering her numbers, beginning math drills, and beginning to use logic to solve problems.

I am thankful for my Rosebud, whose creativity and happy-go-lucky personality expand my horizons every day. I love every tinkly little tune she composes on the piano, the piles of paper penned with lyrics to her newest song, her burgeoning love of gourmet cooking and baking exploration, our mutual enjoyment of culture, most recently the ballet. She keeps me more light-spirited and encourages me to let go and let my imagination run wild. She is constantly proving to me that more is possible than I have ever dreamed. This year, I am most thankful for her kind heart and keen sense of empathy that sends her into my room often to comfort me and cheer me up!

My Katy is definitely a tween these days. She sleeps more, occasionally gets crabby with her siblings, needs her down time alone, and is even more helpful around the house. I am thankful for our shared love of books. Reading books together or one after the other has been a highlight of this year. Her depth of understanding of the world already astounds me and blesses me. Recently, we read a historical fiction piece together and she was able to identify all the cultural themes as well as the personal struggles of each character. This year, I am most thankful for her developing readiness to begin public school, her flare for drama, her storytelling, and her interest in my work. We have spent so many happy days discussing my lectures. She is going to be bored in nursing school when she's 19!

Mostly, I am thankful for this guy. This year hasn't been easy for him. It is his ability to be unapologetically himself, to love without boundaries, to see beyond labels, to imagine a world where very little beyond love matters…this is what has given me the courage to step fully into my own identity. He has continued to love me when I don't deserve it, forgive me when necessary, and to serve our family in ways I never dreamed a man would.

The one thing outside of my family that blesses me most on a daily basis is my job - or should I say, my coworkers and students? There is nowhere else I feel totally and truly myself and can give and receive openly and honestly. It is a place where I can restore my sense of hope in humanity and the world. It keeps me young, playful and relevant. It forces me out of my comfort zone constantly. It pushes me to be the best version of myself. It motivates me to be inspiring, authentic, and fair. I am so thankful to have my dream job and to find it is, indeed, my dream job!

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Walking in fog with both eyes open: Facing temptation armed and dangerous

“We were never meant to be completely fulfilled; We were meant to taste it, to long for it, and to grow toward it... The secret to living life as it was meant to be is... to befriend our yearning instead of avoiding it, to live into our longing rather than trying to resolve it, to enter the spaciousness of our emptiness instead of trying to fill it up.” (Gerald May, The Awakened Heart)

It was just last week that I sat on the porch with my mom in the pre-dawn and watched the fog rolling into our valley. Fog is a lonely weather, slowly, stealthily surrounding us with the mystery of mist instead of the flesh and blood, solidness of our real surroundings. It feels almost like a pillow you could fall into. But if you try, try to have it swallow you completely, you will find it a fickle friend. It will soon leave you to stumble through the harsh sunlight of a real world you no longer recognize.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! (I Corinthians 13:12 MSG)

About 9 months ago, just before I walked back into the fog of depression, something began to sneak up on me just like the fog. It was an old and familiar temptation, but I hadn't faced it in over a decade. As the vines grew in and began to entangle, I frantically hacked at the stems wrapping themselves around my feet, my hands, my eyes, my mind. At the same time, I told no one. I was embarrassed. The shame kept me walking in the dark.

Quietly this temptation came to the breaking point. A friend asked me a question deep in the two worst weeks, quietly - as if she were almost scared to ask: "Do you want to walk away from God?" It was almost a whisper through the miles of phone line. My answer, from the deepest places of my soul, buried under all the confusion, was No. And so, with one confession of His name, the Living Water trickled back in, drops at first, and soon a torrent. It washed the twisted weeds from around my limp and lonely form. I was able to move, to speak. To bring those I loved back in. To let the light in.

My mother's voice read with conviction, punctuated by my father's interruptions with another version of the Word, a word that made a difference.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man... (Romans 1:18-22 KJV)

The whole chapter read like a script of what I would be choosing if I chose to revel in temptation, engage it. Almost as powerful as a bolt of lightening came the realization that my choise was really very, very simple. The choice was between darkness and loneliness or light, joy, and my silence peopled by the children, husband, family I've been blessed with.

In that moment, I knew it to the core of my being: there is no one I love more than my husband and children. There is no thing I love more than them. To ever leave them behind to search for happiness in this vast and lonely world is foolishness. I am not alone. I am gloriously surrounded by the ones I love best. Would that I could give that gift to others trapped in the in-between.

And so, easily, the decision was made. The temptation was emptied of all temptation. I was turning around - that sacred act of repentance - from the wrong and toward the right. For me, at least, the path is sure and the choice simple.

Are you dangerously close to walking away from your life or your beliefs in some way? Do you know someone who is? Perhaps you can glean some helpful Truth from things realized through my walk through the valley. Can you ask yourself (or your friend) the following questions?

• Is the temptation threatening the very foundations of your life and routine?
• Why would you want to give up your life as it is now? Do you even want to?
• Do you think you might be able to "have it all", and that's why you keep pondering the temptation? Do you know anyone who has successfully balanced the two things you're deciding between and managed to keep both?
• Are you acting in a way that's congruent with your normal personality or are you acting like someone you can't even recognize (or even someone much younger than yourself)?
• Can you look backward to those "monument" moments of faith in your own life? Is this dilemma congruent to how you've acted in the past or is it contradictory to other seasons of your life?
• When you really get down to the core of yourself, do you think God is in this with you, or do you have that sinking, sick feeling that He will withdraw if you choose the temptation?
• Who will support you in the new life if you choose to change it? Can you manage to lose the people who would leave your life? Would there be anyone left? Would your choice change even those relationships that remain?
• Can you walk away from God? Do you want to? If so, why now when you haven't before?

I feel this will be on my mind for a very long time. That this choice was pivotal to the rest of my life. It will bear fruit. It has changed me to walk through this process. And I am not in the fog any longer but in the bright, warm sun!

"Lonely"

Abundance

Quietly counting gifts this weekend. My cup runneth over with blessings, miraculous everyday ways that my Savior cares for me. May you find peace today as well.

And Jesus said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:22-32 ESV)

Blessings from the little ones

These children, whom I've laid down my life for over the past 10 years, they are blessing me beyond belief. Yesterday, Rosy brought me breakfast in bed, 8-year-old style: butterscotch pudding left over from the night before, coffee, and daisies. This morning she brought me a card, marked "Joy Full" on the envelope. Inside, her creative script full of swirls and hearts, read, "God is wonderfull, like you." She tells me it's what she thought this morning when she read her devotions. I'm not sure how the story of the Tower of Babel led to this thought, but I was blessed by it regardless.

You work for years to get your kids out of diapers, able to dress themselves, ask for things without whining. Later, there are other things to teach: keeping your room clean, talking with respect to elders, building up siblings instead of tearing them down, not rendering evil for evil. In the midst of this stage, though, I see the twinkling lights of the end of the tunnel, as my children constantly astound me with their grace, compassion, and purity.

As orioles blazed orange on the lawn this morning, Amy ran to bring me my joy journal. The antidote for despair is joy; even in small doses, it begins to staunch the flow of sorrow from the heart. I am listing, listing all the little ways I am cared for and blessed. Many of those little bullet points of thankfulness include my children.

It's ironic: the very things that drive you to the edge of sanity are also your lifeline when you get there. My children are hauling me back from the abyss with their words and deeds of love.

Get busy living

Faith is a fragile thing. I close the soft covers of a controversial book with a slam, and dust rises in the sunlight glinting off my bed. Today is not a day to study my faith. Today is a day to live it.

Sun glints through the streamers on the rainbows hung from my kitchen windows, crafts left over from a "spring" birthday party, that warm day a memory now as we are buried in another foot of snow this mid-March. As the light gleams through the transparent paper, it is my faith I see, anchored to the rock, but tenuous, translucent, thin.

I don't know how to correctly interpret the Old Testament hermeneutically. I haven't read the latest from Rob Bell. What I know is this: today, if we don't praise God, the very rocks will cry out. And so that is what I will do today. Notice the gifts before me and praise the Maker for them.

Streamers in the sunlight, fluttering in the breeze of the warm furnace blowing. Children happy at schoolbooks. My Amy, exhausted of school, finding work for her hands, the clean wash water clear and pure in the afternoon kitchen. Oh, the gifts of each day, that crowd in bittersweet and make you want to laugh and cry all at once.

Today is for worship. Today is for gratitude that changes attitude. For joy that staves off darkness.

Happy birthday is my victory song

The back of my purple Survivor t-shirt from the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life says, "Happy birthday is our victory song." Surviving cancer has forever altered how I feel about aging. I will never be one of those women who is 29 forever. Every milestone reached is celebrated, because it could have been missed if my cancer hadn't been caught early, or my surgery had gone poorly, or my cancer wasn't sensitive to the treatments I received.

Everyday miracle. A birthday. Breakfast in bed from my 4 sweet children, who parade in with bagels and coffee on a cutting board tray, and Clementine slices arranged to make the numbers "34".

My morning devotions tell me that the time of singing has come. I am practicing living in the moment, being mindful of the moment, not letting my mind drag me off into the unknown future. This allows me to experience the joy of these verses, because in THIS moment, they are True, "See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come."

Perhaps this is the way you fight depression best: one battle, one day, one moment at a time. Stake your sword in the ground and claim this moment for joy. I can do that, one moment at a time. The insurmountable future is what I cannot face, as the rest of my life disappears like a timeline in the fog. Here, in the moment I can see, it is clear and bright and beautiful. I am 34. I have made it to 5 years post-diagnosis. Today is a victory, and I'm singing my freedom song right along with those who sing Happy Birthday over me.

Thank you, Lord, for today - this moment. Yes, the season of singing has come.

Joining community on the prompt, "Ordinary"

Joy vignettes

She is Esther, the beautiful brave. She walks humbly, asks her brother, playing King, to raise His scepter. I smile. The stories are seeping in.

The day is gray and bitter cold, and we pack swimsuits steaming and shorts and tennies and head to the Y. They master the climbing wall, perfect their Tarzan yells on the zip line, swim until they are too heavy to float any longer. I smile. I've done a good thing. They've been happy for hours.

It's past bedtime. It's like herding cats. Suddenly they all re-appear after a long silence in their bedroom. Apparently they weren't sleeping, they were staging a Weird Pajama Contest. Rosy wins. They trundle off to bed, and their laughter trickles down the stairs and fills the space between you and I with warmth instead of emptiness. It's been a good day. What else can you say when most days don't end this way? 

Joy comes in spurts and fleeting moments. I turn my mind into sticky tape and cling to that joy. Let the tears wash down the slippery side. 

Here's to the moments that make up "good days".

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Pr. 17:22)

Friends are the family you choose for yourself

We have known each other down to the marrow of our own grieving bones. We've known each hurt and heartbreak. Our tears have flown into a river together, yours and mine all mixed up. We've cried for sins, and depression, broken hearts, isolation, the broken Church, marriages and children and this whole broken world.

The miraculous is in the joy shared when everything dictates otherwise. We've laughed with tears still in our eyes, the laughter choking off the last sob in the throat. We've marveled together at the offspring that somehow share our DNA but oh what people they are becoming on their own. We've loved deep, for generations.

And sometimes it is a lonely path through the snow. Sometimes you're there to help people my wilderness. Sometimes now it's your daughters who come to my rescue.

We watch close as the next generation knits themselves into an unravelable thing called "beloved". There is no untangling this yarn that's bound us to each other since I was just a child. And here is the hands and feet of Jesus in the meals we've shared, the long talks, the knowing God together, deeper every day. There are thirteen of us now, caught up in this little everyday miracle. For is that not what you'd call a friend who is unfailing for 29 years?

Beloved.

Heart still beating but it's not working

It's like a hundred thousand voices that just can't sing

I reached out trying to love but I feel nothing

Oh, my heart is numb

But with you

I feel again

And with you

I can feel again

Happiness and Joy are Different

I don't want to be here again. But life doesn't usually go the way you want it to. One of the main difficulties I have with depression is that I can't figure out if it's the Potter's chosen way of shaping me right now, or if it is because of my inability to stay focused on Him.

But here we are. There's no denying that. Slowly, old coping skills are coming back, and for the majority of the day, I can ignore the rain cloud hovering over my head. One of the most successful ways for me to dig out of depression, get up out of my bed, and live normally in these seasons is something called Opposite Action. All you have to do is figure out something to throw yourself into 100% that will provide positive reinforcement rather than negative. I'm a mother first, and I carry a huge load of mother guilt, so Opposite Action for me often entails doing something crazy with my kids.

I grabbed a pack of suncatchers and paint at Walmart on the way home from work. Just after breakfast yesterday, I stayed out of bed, and we opened paint pots and set to work. The table was a mess. The children were in heaven. And for an hour, I forgot to be depressed.

After we finished, we packed up, got lunch in town, and went to the Y. We spent four hours, swimming, rock climbing, zip lining, playing basketball, running on the track. Once again, depression and it's invasive thoughts had no room to take foothold as we ran around the Y. We emerged, hair steaming in the sub-zero gray day.

My day wasn't gray at all. I believe this is the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is a passing emotion dependent on all kinds of external factors. But joy is stored within, and for those of us who have placed our faith in Christ, there is a constant wellspring of joy despite external factors. Ever since Amelia's illness in 2009, I Peter 1 has been the passage that has helped me hang on to joy even when happiness is entirely absent.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:3-7 ESV)

Opposite Action is, in essence, what Christians have been practicing since the beginning of time. Moses was a man with a temper problem, a murderer, and someone who took flight at the first sign of danger, but he stood up to Pharoah through all the plagues and led the Israelites toward Canaan although he often felt like giving up and told God so on the mountaintops. Noah had never seen rain, but he built an ark out of obedience. Sarah had no hope left of bearing a child and her sadness over this fact is evident in her response to God's promise when she is an old woman, yet she continued to be with her husband, and a child was born from whose genetic line Jesus would eventually be born. Even Jesus, who begged His father for mercy in Gethsemane, walked out into the garden to meet the soldiers when they came to arrest Him, and endured the cross even though He could have easily saved Himself.

Why did all these people go forward despite their misgivings, their pain, their fear? Because their joy was not predicated on their circumstances, but on the salvation they knew was coming. I see it too, on the horizon of every season of depression - rescue. Someday He will wipe away every tear. And meanwhile, I can REJOICE because, despite all appearances of this life, there is an inheritance imperishable, undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for me.

Merry Christmas, baby!

From Turquoise Gates to your home, wishing you the merriest of Christmases!

Unbridled joy...

Expressions of pure love...

All the magic of the season...

Deep connections with those you love...

And a little "rockin' around the Christmas tree"!

For unto us a Child is born,

Unto us a Son is given;

And the government will be upon His shoulder.

And His name will be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

~Isaiah 9:6~

A broken-hearted mother's Christmas

Advent is upon us with all it's hush and quiet. The ground is brown and the air fecund as spring, a warm breeze sweeping our part of the earth for a few days time before the frosts descend again. It reminds me of the stable smells of Christmas, Mary giving birth in the hay, a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Hope springs up warm and wet and earthy sweet from the frozen ground around us, and for a weekend, it's palpable....like the miracle of a forced bulb on a windowsill against a snowy backdrop, the virgin birth so out of place with it's surroundings every sound and smell must have been something magical, the moments creeping slowly by as she tried to memorize them, fix them forever treasures of the heart. 

How she must have turned them over and over again like smooth stones in the palm of her memory, once she had seen Him brutally murdered and then risen and then taken again - even if up to heaven. I have watched mothers after their sons go to heaven, I have ushered an unborn son there, too, and I know that it is faith alone that buoys you in their absence. Faith alone that they are comforted there and faith alone that you yourself will someday be comforted. The bittersweet agony of a mother's breaking heart soothed only by the whisper of belief that remembers, "Behold, I go to prepare a place for you..."

This season, though, is about that night of the brilliant shining star twinkling through the rafters of the stable, the warmth of the animals breathing moist in the air, the newness of skin fresh from the womb. All this is what I see and smell in our glimpse of thaw. And a glorious brown Christmas it is.