Weather, Mood and Nostalgia

December 12, 2009 at 11:01 pm (Thoughts and Musings)
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It is amazing to me the things that are tied to memory.  I could be lost completely in being a middle aged wife and mother, tied up in the tyranny of the moment, but the second I smell sawdust I am twelve years old visiting my father at work.  The warm humidity of a tropical front always takes me back to our second summer in Georgia when Hurricane Floyd caused evacuations up and down the east coast and sent a collection of misplaced persons into the shelter of our church fellowship hall in Middle Georgia.

Today the temperature is hovering just slightly above freezing, the sky is the color of poorly washed socks and angry rain has been falling in petulant bursts all day.  The few seasonal lights around my neighborhood are trying bravely to engender peace on earth and goodwill, but they just look a little tawdry.  The road is glistening not in the friendly twinkle of a summer rain, but with the ominous sheen of potential slick disaster.  For a few moments today it felt like I was back in college, experiencing a Vancouver BC winter.  Just the thought makes me shiver.

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Do you dream in Capitalist Decoupage or a Fine Mist of Sweet Potato Puree?

December 4, 2009 at 6:53 am (Thoughts and Musings)
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I have two new reading obsessions that have me caught up in two incongruous – and yet completely equally unrealistic – personal fantasies.

The first one is my sister’s fault.  Every time I hang out with her she happens to mention once or fifty-two times how much she loves Design*Sponge.  When she was here for Canadian Thanksgiving, she pulled up this before and after post and all of a sudden I was HOOKED!  Tell me that this post doesn’t make you want to buy hundreds of broken down chairs and yards of fun fabric!  In fact, doesn’t this chair of mine just SCREAM “before”?   Maybe a little paint.  Maybe sew a new slipcover for the cushion.  Out of canvas I already have upstairs.  That I stamped in fabric paint with home made potato stamps.  Maybe.

Surprisingly, that isn’t the unrealistic fantasy.  Oh no.  Every morning when I read Design*Sponge I find myself dreaming of transforming my long narrow upstairs bedroom into a fun and funky craft room/office.  I’m envisioning walls lined with fabric covered cork board cut into great shapes, and my huge drafting table filling up one whole end as a table with hand built shelves for storage under it and hanging lighting above it.  I envision all of my craft projects and supplies organized and laid out for ease of use, and Jonathan’s painting supplies in their own bins and pretty jars on shelves.

And then, I read posts like this one and all of a sudden I want to transform my back yard into a hedged, vegetable garden, slate lined paradise.  Wouldn’t a hedge look nice replacing the fences at the front and back of my yard?  What about a rainwater garden along the back corner, and filling in the creek with large rocks and building a bridge over it?  And a raised bed vegetable garden?

In the evening as I’m feeding cheesedoodle his before bed snack, I am reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  I’ve started it seven or eight times, but now that I have it on my PDA, I’m almost finished it.  I am wondering, however, why people keep talking about the pursuit of the “great American novel”.  Clearly Atlas Shrugged deserves the title.  Every evening I drift off to sleep with dreams of writing a novel that presents the synthesis of Rand’s economic and political views with the spiritual depth and insight of the Puritans.  It would be the “anti-scarlet letter”, the capitalist, calvinist Narnia.  It would be my one great work, and it would fund my husband’s seminary career, and is necessarily CLEARLY a calling of God on my life. (By the way – please tell me I’m not the only person in the world who loves Ayn Rand, Thomas Watson and Design*Sponge!  Anyone?  Anyone?)

These are my fantasies – the wild concoctions that float, dart and pile up around my brain.  One afternoon I found myself in a  reverie in which I sat in my fully renovated office/craft room, writing my Greater American Novel while negotiating speaking deals.  I was snapped out of the fantasy by my very real son blowing a raspberry with a mouth full of sweet potato.  The mackerdoodle was giggling crazily, the dishwasher was making some weird sound behind me and I was covered in a fine mist of sweet potato puree and baby spit.

I realized that I’ve renovated two houses and the whole time I was doing it what I really wanted was to have someone who would spit food at me from a high chair.  I’m still reading, but right now I’m living the dream.

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Wordless Wednesday: 3 Months of Growth

December 2, 2009 at 7:29 am (Thoughts and Musings)

 

Beginning of August

 

Middle of November

 

 

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Snatching A Few Moments

November 25, 2009 at 4:05 pm (Just Life, Thoughts and Musings)
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My life right now runs full out non-stop from roughly 6:30 in the morning when my Cheesedoodle wakes up until 11:30 in the evening when I have welcomed home my husband and heard about his shift at work.  I feel like I’m always behind, and I just have to choose the things that get left undone.  Somethings choose for me. If I don’t cook, we can’t feed ourselves or the mackerdoodle.   If I don’t do dishes, we can’t feed ourselves or the mackerdoodle.  If I don’t do laundry we can’t dress ourselves or mac n cheese.  These are the very fundamental Proverbs 31 requirements and they are always at the top of my priority list.  But some other things are a little fuzzier.  How long can I let the toilet go unscrubbed before I’m just being disgusting?  When do I answer the phone and chat with family or long distance friends?  Do I play outside with my toddler (a good healthy thing) or stay inside and bake bread (a good healthy thing)?

As you’ve noticed, the blog has fallen to the bottom of the to-do list, and even that is a difficult decision.  I find myself using my blog archives to remember events in my children’s lives, which means I want to continue making my blog a priority, if for nothing else than to help me document my children’s young years.

So right now I have four different drafts in my folder with titles ranging from “Do all by self” to “But to whom are we thankful?  A thought on Thanksgiving.”  but the one that is being published is the only one I have time to finish:  the post about how I don’t have time to post.  I suppose that in itself is a documentation of my life right now.

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Theology With Tread

November 11, 2009 at 9:30 am (Thoughts and Musings)
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One of the primary tenets to which Jonathan and I hold is the sovereignty of God in all things.  It is a foundational doctrine upon which a great many others stand.  Ask us about our view of salvation and we’d say “Well, it all begins with the sovereignty of God.”  Ask us about our view of the continuity of scripture and we’d say “Well, it all begins with the sovereignty of God.”  You get the idea.  We believe that God is absolutely in control all the time and in all things, from the garden to the final judgment.  We believe it.

But sometimes it’s really hard to act like we believe it.

Our house listing expired Saturday.  The market here in our corner of the world has slowed – almost stopped – lately because of a number of local factors.  Our Realtor advises that we wait out the market.  This wasn’t our plan.

Jonathan continues to work the closing shift at Chick-Fil-A, making our budget an experiment in deficit financing.  This wasn’t our plan.

Our property taxes rose 40% this year.  This put our escrow account in the red, causing our mortgage payment to rise significantly beginning December 1st.  This wasn’t our plan.

It’s at times like this that we could forget that we believe God is sovereign.  In the midst of this we could be tempted to look for the “magic button of God’s will” : the magic prayer, the magic event, the magic emotional breakthrough that will “release” God to sell our house.  But God doesn’t work that way.  God isn’t bound by anything we do or say or feel.  He has mapped out all things for His glory and that means He has appointed everything from the worldwide economic recession, to the individuals who have looked, or not looked, at our unique home, and He’s done it for a purpose.

When our life feels so purposeless, it’s very difficult to believe in a purposeful and sovereign God.  During our miscarriage we grieved and hurt and suffered, but we could say that the Lord chose to end the pregnancy.  It was a difficult thing, but it seemed like God was active in it.  In this period of “treading water” it’s easy to feel like God’s forgotten us, or circumstances have caught Him off guard and he’s regrouping.  It feels like the sovereign God of the universe, the Lord of hosts, has put us on hold while he tends to other things.

The truth, however, is very different.  Despite our income being cut in more than half for the last three months, we remain current on all of our bills because of surprise (and in one case mysterious – thank you, if you were the cause of that) provision.  An active, sovereign God has provided for us in awesome (and humbling) ways.  We have had no emergencies or catastrophes because an active and sovereign God has been protecting us.  We love our church family and praise the Lord that we don’t have to walk this alone.

It is a challenge to remember what is true when we don’t feel that truth, but we’re trying to remember that while this isn’t *our* plan, it is God’s plan, and it is being done on purpose for His glory and our sanctification.  It’s times like this when our theology has to be so much more than theoretical.  This is where the rubber of our theology meets the road of life.

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How Quickly We Forget

November 10, 2009 at 5:53 pm (Thoughts and Musings)
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I remember 20 years ago.  I was 15, in the tenth grade and a Cold War child.  The Iron Curtain had existed for my entire life.  The USSR was that ominous lump on the map that straddled Europe and Asia like a malignant tumor.

In an effort one evening to avoid doing my homework, I turned on the old T.V. in our spare bedroom, and saw that both channels (yes, it only received two channels) were covering the same event.  Men and women from age 16 to 60, armed with pick axes and sledge hammers and crowbars were knocking apart the Berlin wall.  I watched as West Berliners reached down to help East Berliners climb the portions of the wall not yet dismantled; East Berliners stood in masses where only weeks before they would have been shot on sight.  Soldiers watched, impotently guarding a suddenly obsolete border.

I remember having two almost simultaneous thoughts as I watched the events unfold on the 12 inch screen.  The second thought was that the world I had always known was disappearing and something new and unknown was being built.  The first was that when my children asked me where I was when the  Berlin wall fell, I would have to tell them I was skipping my homework.

The Big Picture has a series of pictures commemorating the 20th anniversary of the wall falling.  As I looked through them (especially 12 – 15 which fade between then and now) I remembered thinking I would never forget that moment, and I remembered how quickly I forgot.

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How Discovery Health Made Me Praise the Lord

November 4, 2009 at 12:35 pm (Miscarriage and Infertility, Thoughts and Musings)
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The Discovery Health Channel had a T.V. show called “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant.”  It doesn’t take a Ph. D. to figure out the subject matter of the show.  For the most part I don’t enjoy watching shows about promiscuous college girls getting pregnant while on the pill, but every once in a while I catch a really neat story.

Last week I watched an episode in which a woman had been diagnosed with PCOS, the primary source of my infertility issues.  This woman went full term on a pregnancy without suspecting because she had been told her case of PCOS was so bad she would never conceive.  Going to the hospital with what she thought was appendicitis or kidney stones, she discovered that not only was she pregnant, the baby was crowning.

At the end of each episode they interview a doctor about the details of the case.  In most cases it’s a doctor trying not to say “basically this girl was irresponsible.  Please don’t do this.” but this episode, the doctor discussed PCOS and how its symptoms can mask the symptoms of pregnancy.  Then she said “but it is very rare for a woman with PCOS to conceive without an intensive fertility regimen.”

For those of  you who didn’t know, or have forgotten, the cheesedoodle, unlike his sister, was  conceived without any fertility treatments of any kind.

I just smiled and said “Lord, thank you for my miracle cheesedoodle.”

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Almost Speechless

October 21, 2009 at 6:28 am (Thoughts and Musings)
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When I got home from Bible study on Monday, I was greeted by a  piece of vile hate speech published by a neo-Nazi organization sitting in the driveway.   Once I got over the shock of thinking that someone thought I would welcome such a publication, I became so enraged at what I was reading.  Sure, the history and logic are laughable, but what was so disturbing was how moderate and reasonably toned both the newsletter and associated website appeared.  There is no call to arms or violence.  There are no burning crosses, white hoods or lynch mobs.  Instead, this is a well written, well reasoned – providing you agree with their flawed logic – piece of cold hatred.

I went through several stages of response Monday.

First I wanted to know who had left it and why.  Was it a response to a demographic shift on our street?  Had we given the impression that we may be open to such abominable rhetoric?  I looked at my neighbors with suspicion, slandering them in my mind until I realized what I was doing.

Then I began to want to debate them.  I wanted to point out their irrationality and foolishness.  I wanted to mockingly point out that it is impossible to claim an historic superiority for a group of people who were barely able to cook their own food while Egypt was building the Pyramids and China was inventing paper.  I wanted to ask them if the Jews  are so powerful, why are they the ones giving up concessions at every “peace” conference?  I wanted to use their own words against them and make them look like fools, until the Lord reminded me that talking to fools is always a waste of time.

So then I wanted to go out and get a picture of me with my friend Ira and my friend Patti and make it into a poster with the title “Red and Yellow Black and White, All are precious in His sight.” and hang that in my picture window.  I wanted to make a HUGE sign for my yard that said “We didn’t send out the newsletter!  We aren’t selling our house because two of our neighbors are black!”  I told Jonathan that I wanted to make cookies and take them to those two neighbors and tell them we didn’t have any idea of where that horrific publication had originated!  Jonathan told me that it was never a bad idea to reach out to our neighbors, but I should also pray for whoever had felt the necessity to spread the atrocity.

Pray for THEM?!?  I was appalled at the idea, and then I was horrified to realize that I honestly didn’t think anyone associated with this so called “National Alliance” was worthy of God’s grace.  I couldn’t imagine praying that God would save them!  I think of these people in the same way that they think of my friends Ira, Patti, Melinda and Irene; and I think of myself the same way they think of themselves.  They think themselves superior because of some genetic decisions made by their ancestors; I think myself superior because of the decision made by a sovereign God before the foundation of the earth.  Unlike them, however, my inclusion in a chosen race and a holy nation should give me an attitude of inclusion and grace rather than exclusion and hatred.

I was horrified to find on my own front steps the sort of publication I had always associated with other times and other places, but I was also horrified to find myself reflected in the cold and “reasonable” hatred contained within.  Will you join me in praying that whatever person/family/group felt the need to disseminate this publication to my neighborhood will be confronted with the same Jesus that saved the Apostle Paul from a life as a religious mercenary, and the same Jesus that saved Ted Bundy as he sat on death row, and the same Jesus that saved me.

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A Cheeseburger Chronicle

October 7, 2009 at 9:21 am (Thoughts and Musings)

My dad calls my mackerdoodle “punkin” (and her youngest cousin is “muffin”, making them two punkin muffins.) but as my cheesedoodle is only 3 months old he hadn’t garnered a moniker until late in the last visit when inexplicably Dad began calling him cheeseburger.

In a lot of ways it’s a better name than cheesedoodle.  My little guy is a lot more substantial than a single snack twist.  At 3 1/2 months old he’s already in 6 month clothes and almost too long for them.  He’s not exactly a doodle.  In fact it feels like he’s trying to catch up with his sister.  He’s a month ahead of her development  in gross motor skills – already trying to climb out of his bouncy seat on a regular basis.  He’s grabbing his sister’s clothes and hair which only seems to mildly perturb her at worst and amuse her at best.

He’s also a shameless flirt, smiling and giggling at select women at church (Allison and Jawan being his current favorites).  He will often stare up at the mackerdoodle hoping for some sort of response.  He has never been disappointed.

He is anxiously chewing at some tender nubs on his top gums and prefers mama’s fingers to any teething toy offered.

He is his own little person, so I don’t know why it surprises me that he does things differently to the way his sister did it.  Sometimes it’s a happy surprise.  Sometimes, like when he was awake from2 am to shortly after 4 am Monday morning, I want to say “Your sister NEVER did this to me!”

So no, he’s not exactly a doodle.  He’s becoming a fully drawn portrait in his own right.

But he’s still my Cheesedoodle.

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Epiphanies and Realizations

August 31, 2009 at 11:01 am (Thoughts and Musings)
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I have been telling people that the reason this period of uncertainty and transition has been hard is because in the past I have always had the option of going out to get a job to carry us through.  I suppose that’s partially true, but looking back I realized that every time we found ourselves in a period of financial struggling, we would say “Well, at least we don’t have children.  This would be harder to do with children.”

To some extent it was whistling in the dark, but to a large extend it reflected an error in thinking that I have just realized I thought.  Every circumstance paled in comparison to my infertility, so when I considered my future with children I had assumed that once God solved THAT burden of my heart, every circumstance would be easier.  I would have never articulated the thought.  In fact I would have vehemently denied that I believed it.  But here I am at another uncomfortable circumstance and I am realizing that I am caught off guard, having expected God to have ended our struggling when he provided us with children.  It is a faulty view of God and a faulty view of circumstance.

God provides trials to strengthen us and to make us perfect in increments.  Sanctification (the process of making us perfect) is a lifelong process, and therefore, so are trials.  Just because the Lord saw fit to remove the long term trial of infertility, doesn’t mean that he is removing ALL trials.  So this particular trial is is designed for my sanctification and God’s glory, just as all the others have been.  Rather than wondering how God could be so cruel to put us through a very minor inconvenience after giving us children, I should be praising the Lord for continuing to work out the promise of making me like His Son, rather than being so cruel to leave me in my state of imperfection.

While that thought was percolating around in my brain, I stopped by an estate sale in our neighborhood.  Our family has a circular route we have walked in the two years we’ve lived in our home, and on that walk, half a block from our home, is a large rambling white brick house.  We would approach it from the bottom of a small hill, and look up at it from one side, then wind around the house, and end up looking down at it from the other side as we continued on our walk.  It has always had the aura of a home occupied by someone old, and I found out on Friday that it had that aura because it was.  The old woman who lived there alone died recently, and an auction company was hired to sell the entire contents of the house.

I stopped by in hopes of purchasing a 2nd set of twin sheets for the mackerdoodle’s big girl bed.  As I wandered through the house and saw the furniture, kitchen supplies, five (5!) sets of fine china, linens, Christmas decorations, books, videos and varying odds and ends all neatly tagged and assigned a value, I thought to myself, “I don’t want my life to boil down to this.  I don’t want my life to end with strangers pawing through my accumulated goods looking for bargains.”  It put the current circumstance into perspective for me: making just enough to get by (and if we could sell the house, Jonathan’s job would be just enough to get by) should be sufficient for me.  As long as I can provide nourishment and housing for my children, everything else is storing up treasure here on earth, where eventually it will become a burden for my children to sort through and dispose of.

Coming home from that estate sale, I looked around and had two more realizations.

My baby is no longer a new born; he is officially an infant as of this week, and his three month self is almost in six month clothes.  So many milestones happen in the first two years!  I don’t want to be so consumed with worry that I miss enjoying these moments.

As I wiped milk, pasta sauce, grape jelly, mud, spit-up, and home made popsicle from my hardwood floors, I began to think that my habits will have to change drastically if the Lord provides housing with (gasp) carpet.  To quote my nephew: “I not like to think about that.”  This house I am so anxious to sell has been a tremendous blessing in a lot of ways.

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