Down come the ivory towers

It's all a tangled up mess of the best and the worst of times. I suppose any discovery is this way, as the familiarity of tradition and old persuasions weighs down the flight of the dream birthing into reality. Every time I think I'm tapping the glass ceiling on this new freedom I shatter right through beyond whatever wild imagination I conjured of this self-discovery thing. For a while I thought I lost my muse, so muted did the whirring of my thoughts become. There was nothing to write because I was just happy being myself.

Creativity does seem indicative of chaos. It is in the tornado and the hail and the typhoon that new beauty floats up like so much glittery dross from the holding tanks of life. You wouldn't expect something so rare to buoy up out of old filth.

I keep on stirring it up, looking for the diamonds in the rough that have been wrought out of all this...shit. Layer after layer old frowns peel off and when I am alone I am just me. It's the first time in my memory that I haven't had to lie to anyone to tolerate myself. Not even to myself. Honesty comes at a price, sure, but worth it, every penny.

Lamenting the loss of normalcy

Sometimes it just hits you in the gut like a ton of bricks.  There is nothing left in your life that is normal.  You watch, on Facebook, at church, through blogs and e-mails, as your friends and most of your family progress through a "normal" life, with fun pictures of holidays, updates about jobs, all the little details that make up "normal".  And you realize there is nothing left you can claim as normal.  I found a photo taken a few weeks before we lost normal.  What brings the tears the quickest is my children, my husband.  He looks so young.  I look at Caleb - just born - and Amelia, not even 2.  They don't remember "normal".  I see Katy's innocence.  I had never asked to learn to do laundry or cook a meal or clean a bathroom yet.  She has had to grow so fast.  And Rosy, so easy going and self-motivated and happy.  She just gets lost in the shuffle of the non-normal.  How can I make my peace with these losses??  How do I see this as a gift??

One of our last days of "normal".  Two weeks before my cancer was found.

Life was messy, and crazy, and hard work.  And wonderful.

Most cancer patients go through this, as their life gets ripped to shreds by cancer, its treatment and the treatment side effects.  An even smaller number continue to go through this for a long period of time.  That is where our family fits, once again in the statistical margins, defying the definitions and the predictions.  Even worse, it's not just cancer that has our number.  It's everything from infections to accidents, and "normal" life problems gone awry, like food poisoning and routine surgery or vaccinations.  Nothing goes "normal" for us.  Not in 2 1/2 years.

I walked into the bathroom today because I forgot.  I looked, for the first time, at the remains of the toilet.  It's not just broken.  It's shattered.  It stuns me, when I see what I hit and with what force, that I am typing right now.  That I have one hairline fracture and a small amount of bleeding in my brain and this will probably go down in life's history as a fantastical and horrific...yet short-lived...memory.  Just mire at the very bottom in the clear water of the rest of life.

I have to write it, this broken heart that longs for the day when I look back and realize no one has been in the hospital for several months.  The day when I realize that I have actually managed to care for my own children for a whole month without asking any relatives for help or spending any exorbitant dollar amount on childcare.  The day when I realized I've cooked every meal and swept every floor and wiped every nose and taken every picture and maybe even passed a test or gone on a real...restful rather than healing...vacation.

I know, deeper or truer than most, that life is a gift and every day, however flawed, is a blessing.  I know that my life is already a half-blown seed pod, and I need to be mindful of how and when and where I blow those seeds remaining.  But there is such longing to just be normal again.  I remember with longing a day I was frustrated because I forgot about dinner until 4 p.m. and had to rush to defrost something.  I look back at a day when I cried over the 10th poopy diaper and pleaded with God for an "out" from the drudgery of motherhood, and I laugh at my near-sightedness.  I recall a vacation when I fought with Aaron because of a difference of opinion about a leisure activity, and I wish I knew then what I know now.  I also know that, should God ever grant "normal" life to me again, I will forget all of this, most of the time.  I will take things for granted, and throw away blessed moments for the sake of my pride, and I will choose the wrong things to spend time on, and I will wound people and shock myself at how stupid I can be again so quickly.

A cross-processed photo from Mother's Day.

It is kind of like yearning for childhood as an adult.  This longing for something easy for a change.  It is like looking at photo and wishing you could cross-process it and bring out a new color that you know is there, you just couldn't grip it with your camera lens.  God says to give up my life to find it.  Okay, Lord.  You've got my life.  It's long been given up.  Please help me find the new one in the wreckage.  Please heal us.  Please rescue us.  And please let me never forget.

Works in the wasteland

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by His mercy He saved us! Titus 3:5a

It is January 17. And the stockings are still hung by the chimney with care. The Christmas tree, brittle and limp, sheds it's needles by the hundreds each day. I groan as I bend to sweep them before the baby puts them in his mouth...again.


The millionth tea party of the day for the three would-be princesses. The cups, fake food, saucers, napkins are stacked on my bedside table. Next to my unmade bed. "As if I need FAKE food to clean up!", I mutter to myself as I gather up the toys yet again, too worn out to prod them to do it themselves this time.

The laundry is no longer a pile and has long since been categorized as a mountain. It has overtaken both the washer and the dryer and heaves itself onto the shelves that hold the detergent bottles. All clean, mind you, but still...another task unfinished. An endless chore that is never quite complete.

Our house is shaking the dregs of the inevitable mid-winter stomach bug, and sinking knee deep into January doldrums. Whoever said "a mother's work is never done" knew a few mothers in her time! Today's thoughts stream from my frustration, my exhaustion, that age-old question that exploded from me today as I faced the endless work of motherhood, my husband facing his own mountain of infinite chores outdoors...do others face these same battles? Is this just the curse rearing it's ugly head -

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."

To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground..." (Genesis 3:16-19)

- does every mother have these days? I long for a more honest culture, one in which moms are less "super" and sometimes forget to shower and yes, get behind in their duties at home. For who among us really fits the caricature of über-organization, working, playing, and housewife-ing without blinking a well-curled and mascara'ed eyelash? Please tell me I am not alone under my mountain of laundry, picking up plastic tea-cups at 10 p.m., and sighing as I walk past the Christmas tree for yet another day!

At the end of the day, legs pitched forward as I collapse on the couch, ignoring the rest of the day's unfinished work, I praise God for grace. For honesty, realism, love, patience. That I can show Him my uncleaned closets and the piles of papers mounting on the end of my island and close my eyes and rest in His presence, authentic, open, and loved completely and unimaginably despite my shortcomings. I praise Him that He drowns me in work that completely sweeps cancer out of the furthest corner of my thoughts for days at a time. I praise Him that I can write, and laugh, and escape occasionally from the drudgery that sometimes surrounds me.

I thank God for forcing humbleness upon me - perfectionist and would-be super-mom as I am by nature. I see Him using the things that I despise in life to confound me, to remind me that all of my works are wood, hay, and stubble, and will burn before His glory if not done for His glory alone. (I Corinthians 1:26-28; I Corinthians 3:10-15)

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Colossians 1:16-17

Our hearts unfold before Your throne
The only place for those who know
It's not for us, It's all for You

Send Your holy fire on this offering
Let our worship burn for the world to see
It's not for us, It's all for You

~ Not to Us, Chris Tomlin

Lost in the details

Christmas pageant practice: kids sang (mother breathed, "Hallelujah!" under her breath).

Walmart on a Saturday just prior to Christmas: kids walked single file (mom silently rejoiced, "We survived!").

Hanging Christmas lights using dinky plastic hooks: kids played in snow, husband frustrated (wife wondering, "Why did I suggest this?").

We came in covered with snow, bedraggled and tired from the fresh air and a day too full. The toddler began screaming because her socks were on crooked. I lost my temper, and spat out a warning to stop fussing through gritted teeth, the whites of my eyes showing. She banged her little body down on the couch, intimidated and angered. I retreated to my room, the howls of three children echoing behind me.

The black arms of the trees against the winter sky whisper reproach. I approach the Throne tentatively. I hear the toddler stop crying, and come wandering through the house, quietly saying, "I done fussin', Mama". My heart melts. I open the door.

After I beg forgiveness, we lay on the bed, cuddled up, looking at the trees. We talk about the nativity we just put up, about Jesus, dying on the cross to forgive us as Amelia just forgave me. She giggles, then says, "I have buggers, Mama". I try to continue the lesson, buggers notwithstanding...to no avail. Every little lesson I sally forth is met with, "I have buggers, Mama". And I think, this is me! This is what I approach my Father with. He offers forgiveness, and I am more concerned about my buggers! I am the toddler tentatively walking through the halls of heaven, saying, "I done fussin', Papa."

I better grow up soon!