Enjoy the Show

Friday night was opening night of the Nutcracker.
This was Rose's fourth year performing.
Our whole family stood in line an hour before curtain and finally got seated in the middle, five rows from the front. 
The first half was flawless and intermission came with only minimal suffering for the brothers. 
The first number of the second half the stomach flu hit. Literally. It hit the floor of the stage and froze the dancers mid move. The curtain closed quickly and Dave and I exchanged amused glances over the heads of our children who were seated in between us. A man behind me muttered about "low income productions" (I wonder how a bigger budget could have kept her from vomiting?). Someone in front of me suggested just dancing over it.
My friend Amy, sitting across the aisle, hopped over to me and we started to laugh. 
After all, it wasn't our kid. 
But I'm pretty sure the director wasn't laughing. The stage was cleaned, ballet shoes were disinfected, and before you knew it, the dance went on.

When my head hit the pillow that night I thought, raising adult children is exactly like that.
For almost 20 years, I've been the stage director. I absolutely take my cues from God, but more or less, I'm in charge of the daily decisions. I've scheduled dentist appointments, trimmed toe nails, flashed biology termed flash cards. The foods they eat, the type of bedding they sleep on, the kind of deodorant they use, and whether or not they have clean socks have largely depended on me. I've given my life to this job of mothering. I've researched everything from allergies to cat litter. I've felt the weight of the responsibility of my choices. I've prayed. And prayed some more.
But now I have two adult children and my role is changing. I've done my job well and they know what they're about. They want to see me in the audience cheering them on, watching with wonder and delight as they dance through their lives. I know there will be moments of vomit on the stage, moments when catastrophe comes and the dance freezes mid move. And I can trust that the director has it under control and that the dance will go on. God is the one who has always been in charge, and now, it's just that much more obvious.
It is a hard transition from backstage to audience, a transition I am still maneuvering. But I have hope and a God who loves to teach me and stretch me in new ways. There are days when the enormity of this change engulfs me and I thrash about in fear. Fear for my children (it's a scary world out there) and fear for myself (will I still exist without children depending on me???) But God reminds me again, what I often forget, I haven't given my life to this job of mothering, I've given my life to HIM. That won't change no matter if I'm sitting behind or in front of the curtain. 
And after all that work, I have every intention of enjoying the show. 

Living the Contradiction

"So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it."

-Wendell Berry
taken from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

I thought of this poem many times in the last month. I've loved it for a long time. Loved the idea that we are not computers, that the very ability to do something that doesn't compute or make sense, is the very thing that makes us human. That our life can be a great big contradiction of sorts. A parable. 

So for years I've done things that don't make sense (I envision many nodding heads here). I filled my house with animals. I ran through every field I could. I danced when my feet hit sand. I drank out of china tea cups with four small children playing tag through my legs. You can fill in the rest.

But this year I took it to a new level. Our family signed up for foster care. I didn't feel like I could do much more than respite while homeschooling the kids so I thought I'd just get my feet wet. There is no such thing in foster care. Our first child came in November and was difficult and turned our family life on it's head. He was brutish and I decided we needed a girl next. 

So last month a little five year old skipped up my walk and threw her arms around me. 
Ahhh this is more like it, I thought. 

I wasn't thinking that the next day when she threw a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich at me. I wasn't thinking it when a water bottle brushed my head and she proclaimed, "I am little but I can throw hard." I wasn't thinking it when she screamed and spat and called me something to do with a donkey's anatomy. Nor when she laid her head on my counter and said in a little tearless voice, "My mommy hates me." Nor when I spent my nights stretched across the doorway into her bedroom so that Jason, Freddie, and Annabelle the murdering doll didn't get her. 

I was thinking, What am I doing? This was living a life that didn't compute with a vengence. Why would I bring this out of control, raging, terrified little child into my home? I have no experience with this. I have four children of my own. The only word that echoed in my exhausted brain when I asked these questions was "Jesus". The romance of living a poem worked very well when running through fields, but Jesus takes our gift of humanity, of non-computing, way further. I danced on the sand and Jesus walked on the water and that was the difference I was experiencing. 

The first 10 days she was here were long and hard for the whole family. But we all loved hard and gave generously and forgave quickly and we saw amazing fruits come from our little sacrifices. She started to speak the words that we were speaking. She joined in morning prayers with us, even asking if she could talk to God. She wouldn't let me out of her room at night without a Bible story. She hugged each of us many times a day (Rowan counted eight hugs one day, "And that's not including group hugs.") and told us she loved us. After 8 days the nightmares went away and I could sleep through the night in my bed again. She woke up on the ninth morning and said, "Last night when I was going to sleep an angel came in my room and hugged me and told me I wouldn't have anymore bad dreams." And she didn't. 

I don't naively think that we changed her life. Our home was a merely a stepping stone and she has many years of trials and healing yet to come. But we introduced her to God and His Son Jesus. We showed her what a life looks like that's been transformed by His goodness. We showed her ways to live that don't make sense. God goes with her where we can't. He is the parent that will never fail or abuse her. My prayers wrap round her instead of my arms now, and that's even better.

We don't always realize that each step in life is preparation for the next step. Running through fields and loving the children in my home and caring for others faithfully enabled me to love someone who, at first at least, was not very lovable. Years of chasing after God can land us in some interesting places, but it will always land us closer to God. 

She's living in a different foster home now with her two sisters. I miss her but know that she's where she needs to be. And I'm where I need to be, right here, preparing for the next thing God brings that doesn't make sense. In this world anyway.....

Windows

This morning I awoke to the sunrise. A fruity affair of mellow cantaloupe and tangy lemons with a mandarin sun.
I was confused. We are going on eight months in this house and I had never before observed the sun rise from my bed.
Our room has four large windows in it. Dave and I, being city folk, were a little wary of these windows.

Windows in the city, mean people looking in. One time, it meant someone actually stopping and talking to us from the sidewalk as we sat on our couch. So we meticulously closed the blinds on the windows every night since we've moved in, thinking that in doing so we were securing our privacy.

Windows in the country, mean people looking out. Several days ago we had the epiphany that we have no neighbors that could possibly look into our bedroom windows, not even with binoculars. All we were doing, in our fear and self-consciousness, was limiting our view.

All these thoughts floated through my mind as I watched the sun rise this morning and I had to admit several disturbing things. Our preconceptions had made us miss many glorious sunrises. The sunrises that I did see, I had to go out of my way to find, when they were actually just beyond my own bedroom window.

God reminded me again, through different symbols, what He has taught me so many times.

Live with your windows open.

 

Fear will not stop the sun rise, it will only hinder your enjoyment of it.

Preconceived ideas only limit our perception of what's good, be open to change when His Spirit

nudges.

Securing our privacy often means missing out.

Stay in bed as late as possible.

I wish I could think of more lessons because I have more pictures. But I can't. If you can, let me know. I'll post the pictures anyway.

Eclipse

This world is so beautiful.
This world is so ugly.
Once in a while, the beauty juxtaposes itself over the ugly in a way that brings me up short.
An eclipse of sorts.

As a home school mom, summer is essential to my well being. I have to rest in summer to recharge for the next labor intensive year.

This summer was the first time in 3 years that I had all four children at home together. My plan was to go to the cottage and enjoy my children. But there was company coming. Then family wanted Rowan for a visit. Then company came. Then Grant left for three days with Dave. Then three of us flew to Alaska to see Page and her family. Then company came. Then we went to the beach. Then company came.

And to be honest, connecting these dots, was not usually rest, but a preparation for the next thing coming (which in retrospect, should have included rest).

The cottage is almost a personality that I feel waiting for us. Puzzled perhaps, at why it sits still and empty in the summer sun. I sense the vegetation growing over the trails we forged. I am aware that I need to go rest and be at peace. It is as if I am very thirsty and the cottage is the sound of running water.

And then when I feel most empty and vulnerable I am confronted by the ugliness. I know ugliness and I've fought it before, in myself and in battle on behalf of others. But this. This stark fear and misery and torment. I have not confronted this before. Pain so deep it cannot be spoken. I feel my small reserves being sucked away in an instant and the despair tugging at my very soul, like I'm on the edge of a spiritual whirlpool.
All the beauty that I use to fight, nature and wise words and laughter are bottles empty, and I have nothing to pour on this fire.

But then, my mother speaks. Her words are not her own, she quotes His Words. She speaks God's truth to the pain and tears pour. Mom leaves for some water and I make eye contact with suffering and I too speak His Words. They come as mercy. With His Words comes His Heart into mine. A Heart of Love and Compassion. A Heart full of Living Water.

For four hours we sat in the tension of the eclipse. We sat in the mysterious beauty of the eclipse.
Then we went home.

I still am not rested. I still hear the cottage calling in the wind. But I do not fear that I will not be able to face the school year, for God has shown me the most powerful weapons I possess have nothing to do with location or even state of mind. My most powerful weapons are God's Love and God's Word. I must stay close to those two things, and maybe, when I hear the cottage and the mountain and the orchard calling, that is what I really want, God's Love and God's Word.
But His Spring is located everywhere,
even the center of tragedy.
And it never runs dry.

The Days That Pass

"I stopped there in my field and looked up. And it was as if I had never looked up before. I discovered another world. It had been there before, for long and long but I had never seen nor felt it. All discoveries are made in that way: a man finds the new thing, not in nature but in himself."

-David Grayson

 

 

I learned a lot this summer. And as summer revolved into fall I grappled with my knowledge, trying to own what I knew, desperate to apply it.

One life change led to another. Avonlea gone for two months became Avonlea home but at school every day. We don't blink at her gone for 7 hours a day because her mission trip accustomed us to life without her. The tragedy of seven hours absence is quelled in comparison to two months. She is her own responsible, independent, mini adult. That change was birthed on the mission field for her and for myself, it was birthed in an orchard.


Avonlea at the Colosseum

All summer long, I walked the orchard every night that we were up at the cottage. It was therapeutic to walk down row after row in prayer and praise and communion with the Maker of nature's fruit. Up one aisle, down the next. The kids would either be in bed or occupied when I slipped away, but sometimes they weren't. Sometimes they'd ask to come and I'd resist, I'd been with them all day, I wanted to be alone with the Lord. But they only learn what they see, so sometimes I'd take one of them. We'd take turns praying aloud. Up one aisle, down the next. And my heart would break wide open in the blessing of this. My child and I, side by side, talking to the God of the universe like He was walking next to us. A new faith was birthed in that orchard, a far costlier fruit than the pears that hung thick.

Dam building at the cottage

 

There was pain this summer. Physical pain. My mom fell down the stairs at our house, while we were gone, and broke her tibia. My husband had a tooth implant that got an infection that spiraled him into unbearable pain for 12 days. My mom and my husband, my support system, knocked flat by pain I was completely helpless to alleviate. I felt it deeply, my daughter was gone beyond my help or influence, my closest loves were suffering intensely, and I had no control. At one point Dave woke me in the night to pray...again...sleep was intermittent at best for over a week and we were both exhausted. I pulled myself up and told Dave, "God is sick of my voice!" But He wasn't. He isn't.

My voice calling out to Him in every situation is exactly what He wants. I experienced the truth that though circumstances made me feel out of control, I was exactly where He wanted me. That I am never so well provided for, so perfectly centered, as when I am out of my control and in His. That any time I feel in control, I am being hallucinatory.

So we swing forward into the next season and I struggle to live this every day. To teach it to my children. To make sure they know that no matter what, God's got them. They are His, He will never forsake them. Sometimes my love for them becomes my driving force and I have to mentally go back to the orchard. Walk with them, teach them to pray, remember the fruit.

 My life will never look like it did before this summer. The birth of one thing requires the death of another. I've known that before and now I know it again. This summer birthed a new era of our family and there is mourning sometimes for the era that is past. But my husband's mouth and my mom's ankle are healing, growing strong again, and I know that we will too.

 

And until then, He's got us.

 

And when we're thriving in this new now, He'll have us still.

 



Default

I learned my default early on. Default, the position my heart fell into when not consciously being deliberate in my faith.

Sixteen years ago, Dave and I spent our first Valentines Day up in a cabin in the woods. A group of friends came over and we went cross country skiing. After dinner they left to drive the hour or so back home. Not five minutes after they had gone, Dave realized one of them left their cross country ski rentals at our cabin. Dave is a man of action. He grabbed the skis in one hand and the car keys in the other and bolted.

I dimpled up at the thought of surprising him when he came home. I lit a myriad of candles in the living room, got a full fire going, and slipped into something less, well, less. I settled into a flattering position on a chair next to the fire, arranged my hair, and waited. And waited. And then I heard the sirens.

Unbeknownest to me, Dave was unable to catch his friend, so he just decided to go into town and find the ski shop his friend had rented them from, and return them for him. The town was half an hour away. Then were several ski shops that had to be located and inquired into. It took him a long time. This was pre-cell phone era.

Meanwhile, the fire's dying (literally and figuratively). At the sound of the sirens, tears started sliding down my face. My thoughts ran like this, "I am a 23 year old widow. Dave is dead. I don't have any nice black clothes to wear to the funeral. I am all alone. Forever. I'm too sad to go shopping but I don't have any nice black clothes. Dave is never coming back to see how cute I am sitting here. Poor Dave." etc.

Two hours later Dave came home to his bride. He had a blizzard from Dairy Queen in each hand.
He found me in fetal position, sobbing, swollen faced, and muttering something about black dresses.

Eventually I recovered enough to eat the blizzard.

I learned several things from that brutal Valentines Day. But the most important thing I learned was this, my default is fear.

If you recall, I said earlier that my husband is a man of action. With that statement comes the assurance that I've had many, many chances to reaffirm that, yes, my default is fear. Add children who largely take after their father, and yes, my default is fear.

But I've learned something else over the last 16 years of marriage, God can reset your default.

So I've made my homepage my Bible and the face book I peer into is the Book that shows me the face I want, the face of Jesus. I slowly trade in my fear for the peace and joy and faith that He offers. My default changes. My husband doesn't change, my children don't change, but my default changes.

We celebrated New Years this year up at the cottage. The children were asleep and Dave and I were playing cards when a storm came up. It was sudden and violent. Dave and I looked at each other in alarm. We knew that there were 3 very dead, very big trees directly behind the cottage. We weren't expecting a storm before we had time to cut them down.

"Let's get the boys. Stay away from the windows."

My husband is a man of action. Within minutes, we had the boys moved downstairs on cots, out of the vulnerable position of the room nearest the trees.

Rowan awoke in the process and wanted me to stay with him downstairs. I curled up on the couch while Dave went upstairs where the girls were.

The wind was possessed. Debris flew past the windows. The rain appeared to be horizontal. With every gust my default spoke like this, "God thank you for your protection. I know you will never leave us nor forsake us. Thank you for a roof over our heads. Thank you that you love these children even more than I do. Thank you for your grace that is always sufficient. Thank you for your peace that passes all understanding."

When we listen to God's Words more than our own words, more than our friend's words, more then this world's words, our default changes. The storms rage, but we don't.

The default the Lord offers is praise.
I open the Word and reset.
Daily.

Hurdles

Last spring my kids did track for the first time and I loved watching. That is I loved watching everything but the hurdles. They held a strange repulsive fascination for me. I wanted to watch those kids (not mine, mind you) try to glide over the barriers but at the same time I was terrified they'd fall. Fall hard. Fall hard and quit.

In my life I run at emotion, spiritual, and sometimes physical hurdles, because I simply HAVE to, they are in my path, blocking my way. But these kids were choosing to leap. Choosing to run at a blockade and challenge it. Why not choose the 100 meter? Seriously, run as fast as you can for about 30 seconds and have done with it!

Well, our first track meet of this year was last Tuesday. It started with the hurdles. I cringed and tried to look away, tried to ignore the sound of the starting gun, but I couldn't. I watched. What I saw amazed me.

It was 11-12 year old boys that sprinted forward at the shot. The majority of them cleared with ease, a couple of them barely made it. Next hurdle, one boy tripped, fell. He got up and tried again. Fell again. And again. Everyone had finished now but him. All eyes watched him fall over every. single. hurdle. The amazing thing was that he was laughing. Laughing. He put his arms up in the air when he got up from the ground. He delighted in the getting up and trying again. He finished last with a first place smile and the crowd went wild.

Last night Dave and I were talking over issues and I said, "I've got to get on the other side of this hurdle." My own words triggered a mental picture of that boy trying... failing. But wait a minute, I thought, was it failure? He finished the race. He chose to leap over something difficult and demanding and he ended up on the other side of the hurdle. Okay, maybe not perfectly, or gracefully, or in first place, but he did finish, and with joy.

So I attack my hurdles today with joy.
Not only because I have to, but because I really want to get over them.
I know that it is quite possible that I'll fall.
But by the grace of God, I will get up.
I know that it is entirely possible that I'll end up in last place.
But by the grace of God, I will finish.
With laughter.
With my hands raised in the air.
On the other side of the hurdle....

Holes

One of my first memories of a place, outside of my childhood home, is of my dance school.

I suppose the ballet room was fairly typical. One fully mirrored wall, barres on the other three walls, resin box in the corner, and a piano. But my first dance school boasted something that none of the following ones did, a wall of holes.

The idea was that a parent could watch their child without the child knowing it and therefore without being distracted. So, the studio directors cut out eye-sized holes all over the wall of the parent's waiting room. There were up high holes for tall daddies and medium height holes for mommys and a variety of lower holes for siblings. There were benches to help if you couldn't find quite the right height of hole.

Coming into the waiting room the first time I saw what looked like a bunch of people standing with their faces pressed to the wall. This was weird. Later, I was in my first class and I happened to glance at the wall, and I saw that it was covered in random eyes. This was terrifying. I have an older brother, so even at that tender age I knew all about cyclops. I was being watched by an army of them. I was paralysed with fear.

This week Grant had a scary experience for a child. The result was nightmares.

I held his hot shaking body on my lap and said, "Tell me a true thing Grant."

"God loves me."

"That is truth. What else?"

"He's always with me."

"Yes."

"Mommy loves me. Daddy loves me."

"That is true Grant. Keep them coming."

He comforted himself with truth and went back to bed.

The next night he came down again. He couldn't fall asleep, his mind raced with fearful thoughts.

I held out my arms and said, "Tell me a true thing Grant."

I waited for the truth that comforts, the truth that soothes, it didn't come.

Instead he looked me in the eye and said, "Mommy sometimes true things aren't happy things."

I stared at him in surprise.

He was absolutely right.

Truth isn't always happy.

Truth isn't always comforting.

My mind suddenly brought forward an array of truths that were anything but soothing.

They stared at me, a wall of cyclops eyes that followed my every move.

I sent Grant to bed and sat there in confusion.

If truth terrifies, what is there to trust?

And then I thought of the Truth who became man and taught us, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

The truth is that there is nothing to fear because the worst has already happened. Jesus was crucified. Death devoured Him instead of us. He submitted, He conquered, and He saved us.

The truth is that the Truth of Christ is so much more true than any fear we can imagine.

There are days, weeks, months, when the evil in this world winks at me through peep holes. When I see the sinful choices, unhealthy indulgences, and manifold consequences to myself and those I love, and I am paralysed. But I do what I did when I was a skinny thing in pink tights;

I remember the truth.

I experience the freedom from fear.

And I dance.