All Things Beautiful

It started off with me thinking that it might actually be okay this time.

"We have an appointment this morning sweetheart" I told her in the morning when she came to me, curling herself up like a kitten, like a still small baby like she used to. I'm so glad she still does.

"It's for a needle sweetie, just one poke...it's no big deal" I reassure her and she nods because I've been doing this all along too. Reassuring her.

I learned long ago when she was still a small babe, that the stronger I was, the stronger she could be. The calmer I was, the calmer she would be. So I trained myself to be still and calm and strong and hold her steady through the screaming and writhing and the tears and she'd be okay.

I'm trying to train myself in this in other ways too. And sometimes I fail. Miscommunications happen on the telephone and emotions run strong and I am the one with tears and a raised voice and the overreaction to pain and I forget she's there, watching and soaking it all in....little sponge that she is.

And sometimes I fail in the hot seat itself. I have her little body braced in my lap, but it's going to be three pokes not just one and my reassurances look like lies. And the needles themselves; they're huge. Three times the size of those when she was here last, 18 months old and so much more trusting, so much more forgiving and forgetful. A smarty could still fix the tears last time. But this time there fear and my singing isn't penetrating it. My gentle rubbing of her back isn't fixing anything. She's wild eyed and shrieking and breaking my heart as she begs and pleads for it to be over, but there's still two more to go and I fail her. Because I forget to pray.

I forget the source of all that calm all that peace that transcends human understanding and I leave him out of the room when he is needed most. I forget to draw on the well that is the only thing that can help and I am instead left doing a pitiful job in my own strength.

She knows it and I know it, and she cries all afternoon. Cries from the soreness and the stiffness and the fever that follows that night, the trip to the bathroom because her stomach has turned sour and she cries from the sight of the blood and the bruising because I didn't hold her still enough through her panic. Mostly she cries because she feels betrayed. Her face is puffy until the next morning. 

I don't know who feels worse.

There was a lot of emotion yesterday, and eventually it was sorted through. A slow untangling and straightening out. Things returned to normal...no better than normal. Because at the end of all the struggle there is something better, something that may protect from the storm again next time. There's been lessons learned and the biggest one is to not leave the arms of the one who is holding me tight through it all either. My heavenly father is there with me braced in his lap, holding my hand, holding me still and I forget. I writhe and shriek and turn away. I try to do things on my own with a counterfeit serenity that helps no one. And I can't afford to hand the same counterfeit to my daughter. She needs more.

Later in the afternoon, I suggested we pray. She shook her head fiercely.
" I don't want to! I don't know how!!! It hurts too bad".

I know the feeling, I've said those words myself.

"Alright, well why don't you pray with me and you can repeat my words"

You can follow my example.

And she does.

I made a resolution this afternoon to be a better mom. It was right around the time I had finished sewing up the first of two decorated cloth envelopes so my kids could awaken tomorrow morning and have fun opening them to find all manner of little loving goodies. My plan was to write a love note to each of my children so that there would be some lasting token of my affection for them long after the candy wrappers had been thrown away. I thought about those little notes I wanted to write and all the heartfelt things I wanted to genuinely say and I made a firm vow that I was going to really be that mother all of the time from here on out. No more nagging, no more frustration leaking into my voice, no more inconsistencies, no more unfair judgement calls, no more being tied up on the telephone or internet or sewing machine. I was going to do it all from now one better.

I made it about two hours ...most of which my daughter was at school and my son was sound asleep....sigh.

An hour or so after that I was standing on the side of the road with my toddler in my arms trying to soothe him whilst he cried from the bite of the cold wind. "Don't worry little buddy, I know you're cold.  Her bus will be here any minute....any minute now....any minute...oh dear Jesus please help her bus to come now!"

Finally, we had to admit defeat and retreat back to the house, where I frantically dialed her bus driver wondering what had happened to make her a half hour later for our usual pick up time. All sorts of scenarios ran through my head, and this isn't the first time the consistency of the bus system from her school has fallen through. (let's just say, it's not the most solid rock I've got to stand on).

Within moments of course, I received a call back from the driver assuring me they were en route but had been stopped by a large accident on the train tracks that split our town in half.  Very soon, my sobbing five year old was in my arms, while my frazzled nerves worked overtime to comfort us both.

Then the baby cut his mouth and dinner hardly got cooked and my picky little one's deigned to sully their forks with any of the veggies and then there were fights and screaming and children being hard of hearing and cupcakes that had to be made for the next day and the second cloth envelop almost didn't make it, (which would never do) and I found myself a distracted, harried, ungracious mother far off the mark I had set for myself short hours ago...

Earlier today I had fallen in love with the words and music of a classic hymn I had never heard. More than anything the message stole me completely. "Abide with Me", Henry F. Lyte  pleaded of  God as he lay dying in the middle of the 17th century.  His words resonated deeply with me even today, here is a small excerpt:

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and other comforts flee
Help of the helpless; abide with me.


I need thy presence every passing hour
What but thy grace can foil the tempter's power
Who like Thyself, my guide and stay can be
Through cloud and sunshine; abide with me. 


Upon the sweet truth of this hymn is the secret to finding a rest, a stillness, a peace and a strength I so often lack. I lack it most when trials come or the day feels long and bleak or my heart turns to ice as I look down the road and don't see that expected thing coming to me, anxiety creeps in and takes it's hold and I am not abiding. I am struggling and this too must be my prayer, that when other helpers fail and other comforts flee, that the Help of the helpless might abide with me.

I failed today, miserably. But thankfully, the presence of God doesn't depart from me based on the merit of my behaviors or attitude. The measure of my patience is out of step with the measure of His for me. Tomorrow I will wake up and I will resolve again to do my very utmost to love my children and be the mother they need for me to be. Only I won't be able to do it on my own strength. The wonderful thing is that I don't have to. Grace, Forgiveness, Mercy, Wisdom, these things are in limitless supply from the one who  abides with me.

I will awake to my responsibilities anew, and with fresh determination I will throw myself into this business of being a mama. Together we will cut paper hearts and eat cupcakes, make mistakes and have meltdowns and I will write them letters of love from the bottom of my heart that they cannot understand at this age. Because I have first been given a love that I cannot fully understand, and it is abiding with me....always.

I dislike labels as much as the next person. There's a ton I've had to fight being put under and putting on myself.
I bristle at the idea of being coined as a "pack rat" and yet here I am trying to find a way to downsize my life by about half  of what I own and it's no small task. I'm not a hoarder that's for sure, but I do have a tendency to hang on to stuff I really don't need to, and in conversation with my sister the other day, I came up with the reason why...unfortunately it's a label that fits.

I'm a just in case keeper. I keep all manner of useless things just in case. I have multiples of multiple things because, you never know when you'll need it again. But this is ridiculous because no one needs as many pyrex dishes as this woman's got. I did need them once upon a time when I was 8 months pregnant and went nuts filling my freezer with more casseroles than any family can really stomach...but since that time they're just taking up space. And that's space that I'm really not going to have in another year or so.

There's a freedom that comes with finally hauling out all the bits and sundry that are cluttering up the corners of my life, but there's an anxiety too and that's a problem....one I needed to get to the heart of.

Thankfully I am the child of a Heavenly Father who is in the business of getting right to the heart of me and his timing is impeccable. No sooner had I decided to join my husband in throwing our well- laid picket fence plans by the way side for the next five years than I picked up a devotional book by Priscilla Shirer that hits the ground running with a tough talk on contentment.

Now contentment is something I thought I had...but I don't think anyone with true contentment should be so anxious over getting rid of  some baby clothes she doesn't need or feel like what she has already isn't enough. In fact, this statement from the book hit me pretty hard between the eyes.

" You can always tell people who operate from a position of perceived lack and deficiency. They're stingy with their time. They're selfish with their resources. They're tight fisted with their energy. They're reluctant to sow of themselves into the lives of others because they're afraid they don't have enough to it with and still have enough left over for themselves."

ummm...ouch. Excuse me while I crawl out of view...because yes, that is all too often me in spades. And I'll tell you why....

Because here I am agonizing over getting rid of some bins of baby clothes and I am right now fully aware of FOUR brand new babies that are going to be coming into this world just shy of two months from now, needing exactly what I have stashed away in my basement for some imagined just in case scenario.

A page earlier Priscilla had hit me with this as well,

" The more you believe that God's grace to you is overflowing, the more you'll be convinced that you will always have everything you need. And the more certain you are that you'll never lack, the more willing and able you'll be to give of yourself and your resources when called for because you'll be certain God will always replenish your supply."

and how can I be sure that God's grace to be will overflow?

"God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work." (2 Corinthians 9:8).

Oh. That's how, it's right there in the Bible.

ahem.

So here's the way I'm looking at it... and this isn't to pat myself on the back. I share this because it has literally hit me with the profound truth of all of this...not because I somehow hold the corner on how this all plays out.

I don't need probably half of what I have.

Someone else needs some of what I have.

God wants me to use what I have for his glory not my own

If I don't have something it's because I probably don't  really need it.

If I do have something  it's because I probably need to help someone else with it somehow.

If I end up truly needing something else later on...God is able to fix me up...again....like He obviously already has.

I know it seems pretty simple but it can still be pretty hard to wrap my head around.

I'm not saying we all need to rid our homes of everything but toilet paper and water. Having things is not wrong, aquiring new things is not wrong... selling the old things instead of giving them away is not wrong...wanting things is not wrong....keeping things is not wrong.

What is wrong is hoarding things all to ourselves when really we will be so much freer if we just hand all those imagined just in case scenarios over to a Father who is able to supply them if they come to pass. What is wrong is being tight fisted and stingy and letting anxiety make us selfish.

and so now, my living room looks like it's thrown up....but you should see how clean my basement is.

A week can bring a lot of things to pass. A week ago life looked quite a bit different than it does this morning. A week ago we were reeling from tragic news, headed off for hospital tests and hunkered down in -47 degree weather.

This morning I'm finally back at my computer, sitting in the sunshine of what promises to be a mild and beautiful day and although there's still broken hearts this morning there's also some closure and the memory of such a beautiful service and 800+ people who came to comfort and celebrate Auntie's life.

I know I feel blessed this morning. Coming off of such a wake of fear and uncertainty with my health, I am beginning to realize how richly blessed I am to have the life I have and how lucky I am to have my health for the most part.
Something about not being able to really function and take care of one's family is very demoralizing and frightening and now that I am having some days that are free of headache pain and dizziness I am feeling like anything is possible and everything is just stretched out before me waiting to be done. What a blessing that is, and one I never paid any attention to when I was taking my health for granted. Like everyone else I procrastinated and put off the chores I didn't want to do. I grumbled and complained about all the monotony and the sacrificial tasks done for my family that no one sees or appreciates.

Take away a mother's ability to do those things and suddenly they are all she wants to do.  Last week I had to make some sort of snack for my daughter's kindergarten class and she wanted to use the horse-shaped cookie cutters I had put in her stocking for Christmas. A few weeks ago if you had asked me how jazzed I was to make 23 horse shaped sugar cookies on a Sunday night, I might not have had a very enthused answer. But I was determined to give this to my daughter, to let her see that life was still normal and she still had a mom who could do normal mom things because the previous week there'd really been just a whole lot of mom being unable to do pretty much anything.

As we mixed and stirred and sifted those cookies however I ended up being hit with such a dizzy spell that I had to lay down on the kitchen floor and send my little girl to go and run for her daddy so he could help finish the job. While she skipped off to do my bidding I lay on the floor and cried frustrated tears, so upset and afraid of what it meant to be a mom laying on the floor rather than rolling the rolling pin.

I am so blessed and happy to say that tentatively every day I seem to be climbing away from feeling that badly. Will it come back? I don't know? But for today I am able to wash my dishes and start my laundry and make supper for my husband.

A lot can change in a week. I have learned this before but my head is thick sometimes and it takes hard lessons to reteach this simple truth. Learning to let go and be unafraid, to take each day as it comes and to be thankful regardless of the unknowns...can I live like this? Overwhelmed simply by the fact that I am not in control but am being carried? Humbled and filled with gratitude to be able to work and serve?

Any given day of the week, I hope to say yes. Come what may.

Some days are just bad days.

Yesterday was a bad day.

Worse for some other people who are close enough to me for my heart to be hurting for them so badly in the wake of tragedy hitting them unexpectedly.

Yesterday as I fumbled around my house fighting the worst dizzy spells I've had yet I got a phone call from the School Bus driver who was sitting at my daughter's bus stop wondering where the heck I was and when I was coming to pick up my daughter.

"Seriously?" I looked at the clock, I have been having a hard time keeping track of certain things but we were trying to get out the door. I thought I had more time.
"Am I late?"

"umm...yes, you sure are." came the snippy reply.

I wanted to burst into tears and tell her that I was having a hard time even walking around my house and that my son was running and laughing from me while I tried to wrestle him into a snowsuit so I could walk to the bus stop to get my little girl. I wanted to tell her that the whole world was falling apart for members of my husband's family and that I couldn't remember the last time I had felt so low...mostly because I couldn't remember things very well these days. I wanted to snap back and tell her not to be pissy with me. I wanted to tell her she should rearrange the bus schedule so she could drop my daughter off right at home instead of 2 blocks away. But instead I stuffed my tears inside and mumbled that I was on my way and I proceeded to shuffle and stumble down the street with my baby boy in tow crying in the minus 30 wind chill.

I blubbered apologies to the bus driver and took Ava by the hand who immediately burst into tears. Everything she said was technically true and hopelessly skewed:

" I didn't get to be the big helper today at school because you didn't come and it was the worst day ever! It was such a bad day and then you forgot me at the bus stop!"

It was true, I had swapped helper days with another parent because I could hardly function and even more importantly my mother in law had to fly to New Mexico that morning and she needed to do that for the family emergency that was happening and that meant I needed to stay home with my son.

None of that mattered to my daughter's world. The grownups had let her down and that was NOT what grown ups were supposed to do.

Then she realized I hadn't brought the vehicle at about the same second that she realized it was really cold outside and more than a block to your house.

"C'mon" I urged her taking her by the arm of her coat. " Baby's cold, mama's cold, you're cold, let's just get home"

She wrenched away from me.

"NO! I'm MAD at you!",her hot tears freezing instantly on her cheeks.

I sighed heavily and got down on her eye level, steadying myself on the ground with my mittened hand, feeling faint.

"Look, it doesn't help to blame people. I'm sorry that this was such a hard day for you, I'm sorry that you had a bad day, but you can't blame me. It isn't my fault, now please let's get inside the house."

She started shuffling along with me as the little boy started fussing and crying cause his poor little face was turning red in the cold.

She let go of my hand and I continued to hurry along. She sobbed that I was leaving her on the street, that I didn't care about her.

Finally at the end of the drive way I turned around and yelled, "GET IN THIS HOUSE THIS INSTANT! YOU ARE BEING A BRAT!"

So I guess my tantrum wasn't any better than hers. I hauled her into the house and all three of us stood and sobbed and caught our breath and angrily threw our toques and mittens on the floor.

Later we talked and apologized and hugged and cuddled and had a bubble bath and all the things that make a bad day a little better. We went to bed early and held each other while we cried over sad news on the telephone. We said prayers in choked voices and felt humbled by the weight of how precious each and every day we have really is.

Whether we get to be the big helper or not, or get left on the school bus, whether we feel healthy or not, whether it's a freezing blizzard or a warm breeze, whether we are scared or frustrated or tired or overwhelmed, whether we are separated from loved ones or forced to say good bye. Whether we know the future or are facing the unknown, whether it was a good day or a bad day....

It was a day and we made it through it and we will make it through the next one too, That is my prayer for myself and for those I love who are hurting, that you will feel the presence of God and love that encircles and encompasses you, that you will be filled with a peace that surpasses all understanding and find the strength to make it through the worst days and the ones that follow.

I started writing this post a few days ago and kept quitting half way through. I lacked the perspective to be able to put everything I wanted to say into words. I wouldn't say I have that perspective now either, but at some point in all it's imperfection, what rolling around inside me just has to find a way out.

It's a terrible feeling to be 26 and face something chronic, unfixable and barely manageable. I've fought this for the last few years, telling myself I would be one of the lucky few people who just needed some simple solution that had been overlooked, that some miracle cure was going to come along and fix the migraine disease that instead of getting better, seems to bullying it's way into more and more areas of my life and my healthy well days seem to tipping in the balance on the wrong side.

It's a hard thing to admit that one's body is not trustworthy, that it is letting me down when I need it most, that it is not reliable and not easily fixable either. A condition like mine takes a lot of patience and investigation; I suffer from complicated migraine disease with Aura and Hemiplegic Migraines. Which basically means a long with the debilitating symptoms I have been suffering the last few years (extreme pain, loss of vision, nausea, vomiting, an inability to function and stroke-symptoms) last week I had my first fake seizure.

I had just come home from a promising doctor's appointment that morning; I had a referral to a specialist, some new medication to try and some promising leads to help me get a bit of my life back  from these painful and frightening attacks. I've been suffering migraines since I was a little girl with only a few breaks here and there in my life, some lasting a couple of years, in the last 5 years, only a few months here and there that were migraine free. But that was the first time I'd suffered a hemiplegic migraine and it really shook me up.

I was frustrated and deflated, overwhelmed at how I could feel so encouraged one moment and only a few short hours later be struggling  to form the words to talk to my daughter while laying on the couch unable to feel the right side of my body or move it. Once the feeling came back to my face I realized I'd been crying, so upset at why God could seem to be answering my prayers and then still hand me this heavy load of struggle. The anxiety of attacks like this has complicated my condition further, creating a vicious cycle of panic attacks that trigger migraines and migraines that trigger panic attacks. Being stuck between a rock and a hard place doesn't begin to describe how I've been feeling. I feel strung out and worn out and very low on my faith and optimism.

On one hand I wonder is their some solution that's still eluding me. Am I not exercising enough? (thanks to my generous In-Law family giving me a treadmill that belonged to my husbands grandmother, I've been able to run 5 times a week again which does help) Is there something wrong with what I'm eating? (Another vicious cycle to not feeling well, is not having the energy to properly prepare foods for myself).
Or is it more intimate than that? Is it my faith that's lacking or sin that needs weeding out? I don't really think so, but believe in the dead of night when nothing about this makes sense I have cried out to God to reveal to me, what I can't seem to see clearly myself.

It's hard not to feel desperate and despondent, ignored and uncared for. I identify with the Psalmist crying in Chapter 6: 2-3 "Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed, But thou O Lord, how long?" (KJV)

I keep praying that I will see some way that God will glorify himself in all of this, that I will find the elusive mystery to "counting it all as joy". I have decided t Psalm 73 :26 will be my life preserve for now, the tether that keeps me somehow grounded so that  when my head is filled with pain and confusion, when my limbs feel weak and shaky or I can't feel anything at all, I can still the rising panic and  have something to whisper back to the pressing darkness.


It sometimes seems like I only have half of the answer to my prayers, Sometimes it seems like I see less than half of what is really going on, and I know I see much less than a fraction of where this will all lead or how God will bring help to me. But in the deepest part of me I will cling to my faith that indeed He will and He will prove himself sufficient for me; a strength to not only my body but my heart and He will be a sufficient portion to me.

Even if it feels like only a small piece to me.

Can it still be peace?

I pray that it can.

I wasn't quite ready to put everything away when the Christmas Tree was heaved out and hewn up last week. I couldn't part with all the touches that adorned the house, reminding me how only days ago, all the world seemed to still with a wonder and mystery almost tangible in the air.  I guess I wasn't ready to let go of the "magic" of Christmas yet. I was suspended and didn't want to slough it all off, trudge back into the work-a-day attitude of the new year. I wanted to linger here, where my heart skipped a beat and my throat caught a little. Where my eyes felt misty and the stillness seeped into the fabric of my heart.

Sometimes it's easy to get let down when all the waiting comes suddenly to an end, when the calendar page turns.


So I kept the Nativity up a little longer to celebrate Epiphany this year. I stayed longer upon the story of the small family of three and the story of the wise men who traveled in search of something they couldn't understand, but knew was worth their risk and their adoration.


This new year of 2012 I feel already that I am clinging to the Scripture that claims that "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him". (James 1:5 NAS)

I'm looking for my own epiphany I guess, and I feel I'm on a journey following what often feels like a faint star in the distance. Opening my eyes, my ears, and my heart to be lead to the feet of majesty, to lay my own gifts before God and be directed where He wills.

I'm surrendering to His timing more, I'm submitting to the call of that which I don't completely understand and I'm placing one foot in front of the other with more faith as he grants it to me in grace.

I'm humbled by the story of epiphany, they may not have been kings, and they may not have been from the orient and we have no way of knowing that there were only three of them, but of course that's not what matters about their story. What matters is that they set out and headed for a mystery that was worth following and what they found was worth all the searching...is worth all the searching of today.

And that's a wonder and majesty that doesn't get forgotten just because it's time to pack all the tinsel away. It's an inspiration that I want to last all the year, a light in the darkness leading me always closer to King of the Universe made Emanuel...