Grateful Introspection

Sometimes when a person is expressing gratitude, others call their words a "humble brag". Ty explained this to me. The person is actually bragging but contriving to make it appear as simple, and humble, gratitude. 

This phrase, "humble-brag", while it may be accurate, has a negative effect on other people. One cannot be truly grateful for something and express that joy without fearing how it might appear. This, in turn, leads to much less gratitude in the world. FOMO (another word from my children meaning "Fear of Missing Out") paralyses gratitude. Or at the very least, the expression thereof. 

There are moments in life (mine, at least, I cannot speak for others), when the thankfulness wells up and spills over. My friend, Quinn, told me these are moments of Shalom, when things are as they should be. 

I stood outside tonight as the sun was setting. I stood under the Party Tree, now well over twenty feet tall. I stood under this oak tree where the birds were flitting from branch to branch, where the shade was just so, where the small iron chairs from Uncle Don are positioned, and let the peacefulness of the moment soak into my heart. This is the tree I ordered from the Arbor Day Foundation and Chris planted when it was 12 inches tall. This is the tree that started growing when there were no other trees in the man-made hilltop of our front yard. This is the tree my kids used as their pivot point when riding their bikes. This is the tree we hung lights in for Brendan and Rhema's reception. This tree marks the starting point of our life in this house; a measurable, significant, assessable gauge of time. 

My childhood was chaotic and lonely with moments of tranquility. This is probably because my mother was chaotic and, I suspect, lonely, but with moments of tranquility. As I near my 49th birthday next week, I am introspective. I can't help but draw comparisons between my life and my mother's life. I cannot say what she felt on her 49th birthday, but I know it was only three years before she died in a way that gave me PTSD. I know she was mentally ill and angry and almost destitute. I know she exhibited a frantic obsession with leaving us a legacy. 

Today as I stood under our tree I looked at my house. The house Chris, with the help of others, built with his sweat and exhaustion. The house that is now over twenty years old. The house that Maggie said the front of was "#goals". And as I stood and looked around me, I couldn't stop my words.

Thank you, Father, for this house. Thank you for the gift of a home for my family.

Thank you for the flowers that you taught me to grow.

Thank you for the tree that towers over me and gives shelter to the birds.

Thank you for Uncle Don and the generosity of his heart in giving us these sweet chairs. 

Thank you for the cats and the dog who want to be near me.

Thank you for the grass that grows without prickles and is soft under my feet.

Thank you for the woods that surround me and shelter me from the world.

Thank you for the gift of family close by, volitional and other.

Thank you for the sidewalk that my grandchildren will one day draw on with chalk.

Thank you for stillness of the air and the blueness of the sky.

Thank you for this... life. This sweet, precious, peaceful life. This life that I could have never envisioned when I was young and lonely and confused. This life that is also filled with worries and cares and fears and opportunities to trust You.

Thank you, Father, for this taste of heaven until I can be with you in the true and complete Shalom. 

I am so grateful.

New Found Feelings

I am sure there is a post on this blog about laundry. I'm positive. I haven't looked for it but I'm sure it's there. I am equally as sure that it is not a happy post. It is a complain-y one. Bet your bottom dollar on that, my friends. My loathing for socks is well documented.

Today, my feelings are very different. I love a good laundry day. I love that my laundry days are Monday and Friday. I love emptying the hamper. I love hanging the clothes on the drying rack. I love the smell of the detergent. I love walking past the clothes and giving them a quick turn and check. I love the ease of folding them straight from the rack. I love the smell of fresh, clean sheets. I love putting them away.

But most of all, I love being at home long enough to complete this process and having the space and time for it in my life.

Gone are the days of a full load of laundry EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. I finally got into a habit years ago of the kids throwing their dirty clothes in the wash every night at bedtime. I would wash, then throw them in the dryer before I went to sleep. The morning would start with them folding their outfit and pj's. But mostly, I hated it.

I hated the sorting, folding, putting away.

That's probably because there were so many clothes. So many socks. So little time. My life was one long rush from one task to the next. It never ended.

My how different my life is.

I know you may be expecting me to say, oh how I miss the days... nope. I do not miss the laundry. Or the weird objects in the pockets. Or the torn door gasket from the pencils, etc. Or the constant pain of finding sock pairs. Not even a little.

Y'all. I even stain treat now. It's amazing.

I am adjusting to this new phase of life and finding the small joys in it.

HE CAME!

As I sit here in my bed at 6am, after a completely inadequate 6 hours of sleep, my mind is working hard. I just dosed Maggie within an inch of her life. She has a terrible cold. As I was gathering her medicine, Gracie came strolling in, followed by my Dad. When I peeked in Maggie's door, she was awake and watching a movie.

I'm not sure where to start this post. I have so much in my mind. Christmas, depression, grief, death, parenting...

Bill died just one short month ago. His loss is terribly fresh. So fresh, in fact, that it still seems a little unreal. I wonder if other people feel exactly as I do this morning. There is a fierce desire for Christmas to be uninterrupted, for it to continue on exactly as it has been. But that is impossible. One of us is not here. His loss is a tear in the very fabric of our existence. It has changed us.

I have four children. One is experiencing depression for the first time. One, who is normally stoic, is weepy and emotional. One is feeling bouts of protectiveness that give rise to sleepless nights and restlessness. One is fixated and terrified of every other person they love dying.

Merry Christmas to us.

Well, we can find comfort in our traditions, right? No, those aren't happening. I won't go into it, but the change puts a spotlight directly on the loss. Every one of my kids has felt a fresh wave of loss in the last twelve hours. My gut reaction to the ones causing the change is hurt, layered with anger. But everyone grieves differently and I am called to forgive and blah blah blah.

...

On the other side of my heart, it feels like, is the realization that Christmas has never really captured my heart. Sure, I've always said the right thing. I've read Luke 2 on the morning of, always with a little impatience if I'm going to be completely honest. Why has it never captured me? Why is my heart hard? I have prayed for God to reveal this to me.

...

I woke up to the Holy Spirit at work. It feels like he's taken a big whisk and begun stirring my heart with hard, beating strokes. Or like when I had second and third degree burns on my legs and the treatment required scrubbing them with a rough cloth and peeling the damaged skin away. The skin underneath is raw and inflamed and longs to scab over and be left alone. But for them to heal, they had to be disturbed and then soothed with the cooling antibiotic ointment.

The Gospel is my ointment this morning.

For me, the beauty of Christmas has always been in the comfort, smiles and joy, but this year, God brought me death. I want the ease and comfort, but God brought me the uncomfortable Truth of the Incarnation. Christ came, in the form of man, to accomplish salvation for a needy, fearful, weepy, depressed, depraved people... my family.

That sweet, innocent baby.. who I always pictured as in a nativity scene, maybe sucking on his fist and looking wide-eyed up at the shepherds... came to be tortured, tested, beaten and bruised, for me. He came. HE CAME. He was God, he was perfectly content, but he came. For me. For Bill. For my family. He came.

My heart aches for a different reason. Tears roll down my cheeks for a different reason.

HE CAME. He showed up. He entered in.

Death and sin abounded. But he came. He would go on to conquer death and pay for sin.

Christmas is not about this tiny baby who looked so cute in his feeding trough. The shepherds got it. The wise men understood.

There is no hope apart from Him. There is no comfort. There is no beauty. There is no eternal smile. There is no joy. This baby was The WORD. He was God. He was very God of very God. He was... the sacrifice.

My heart is captured. Dazzled. Devastated in a totally new and blinding way. I weep in gratitude. I weep in sorrow for my loss. I long for heaven and for my faith to be sight.

I have seen a glimpse of His glory this morning.

"The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin..."

At this moment, I don't even care about all the pretty gifts under the tree or the food in the crock pot. I want to sit and bask in the transcendent beauty that is my merciful and loving God... He came. For me. For you.

He came.

I pray that this truth, this hope, this cataclysmic event with capture your heart as it has mine. If it never has, ask him to show you His glory as Moses did, as I did last night. Beg for it until He does.

My Grief Letter

Well, he's gone. We were there with him at the end of all things, but that doesn't change the fact that he's gone.

My heart is broken. Simply aching with grief.

I know, I KNOW that he is heaven with Jesus. I know that he is healed. I know that he is whole and happy. I know God has a plan. I KNOW!

But what people don't seem to comprehend is that he. is. gone. He's not here anymore. He can't read his paper every morning and do his Sudoku. He's not here to cut out interesting and well-timed articles and the leave them on the corner of the kitchen table for me. He's not here to share a tidbit of wisdom about vikings or the civil rights movement or the scripture that says not to get tattoos. He's not here. He can't argue with me or turn his cheek up for me to kiss or tell me that I'm doing a good job. He's not here. And my heart is broken.

So, when someone tries to comfort me by telling me about Bill's present reality, they miss the point. I'm not grieving on Bill's behalf; I grieve for me. For my husband and my children and my wonderful mom-in-law and my brother-in-law. I grieve for all the people who knew him and will feel his loss.

I don't know how to accept the absence of his presence.

So...

Tell me you love me. Or that you loved him (if you knew him). Tell me you're sad for me or that you wish you could make it better. Or just hug me.

But don't tell me things that mistake my grief for unbelief. Don't tell me that he wouldn't want me to cry or that he's in a better place. Don't tell me how happy he is... in this moment, my heart is too tender and too raw.

 



I love you guys. I know people love with cakes, pies, meat trays and croissants. I eat them and am grateful. I know you hurt with us. I feel your prayers. And I am so, so, so thankful.

This season will pass. God will bring healing and my heart will not be so raw. God is very good that way. His mercy is new every morning.

Come, Lord Jesus

Ten Things on My Mind Today:

1. Just when my faith is low, God sends His love to me in a tangible way through His people.

2. Grief makes me feel like no one really understands how important Bill is to me. He has been a true second father to me. He has raised my husband with such love and faithfulness. He has always been so solidly present, foundational. How can my heart accept his absence? I cannot force my mind to imagine it.

3. Joy and sorrow can co-exist. My life is living proof.

4. Proverbs 27:6 says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend..." This is how I think of my friend Amber. God always gives her the words to say. She says them even though they cut me to the quick, but they come from such a loving place inside her that I can't be offended. I could give so many examples of this, but I'll just give one. I was mad about something one time, a long time ago. I was mouthing off about it and she finally looked at me and said, "Are you listening to yourself? Wow." In that moment, the Holy Spirit showed me my sin and boom, I was humbled unto repentance. I am thankful for her friendship.

5. Living in the house with someone who is waiting to die is a horrible and humbling thing. Every noise, every interaction, every smile is profound. Every moment is significant.

6. Comforting my husband is something only I can truly do. Others can hug him or speak the same words, but when I do it, he sorta melts into it.  And vice versa.

7. I am not good at sharing the gospel with selfish people when I am in the depths of grief. At all. I think I need to apologize to someone.

8. I am so thankful for my sister. She's got my kids and I know that they're being loved and taken care of the way I would do it. She's homeschooling them and feeding them and making sure all the rest is done. I am thankful she lives so close and loves so well.

9. I am thankful for my Christian family. All of them. Our home church in Moody and our congregation in Springville, plus my believing friends who don't go to my church. They are loving us well, bringing meals and sending prayers up to the Father. They are sending me verses of encouragement. They are feeding my cat and dog and cleaning out my nasty fridge to make room for the food that is coming. They are comforting my children. They are setting up my booth at By Hand Boutique and selling all the things the girls and I have worked so hard to make. I am blessed in a thousand ways.

10. I talked to Brad tonight. He reminded me of eternity. Ecclesiastes 3:10 says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." God has put eternity into our hearts but that doesn't mean he explains everything to us fully. I am reminded that this life I live is not all there is. There is more, a much bigger "more" that is unending. This eternity is WHY I lay down my life. It is why I follow Christ. It is why I do everything I do. There is more... it is a "more" with no tears, no pain, no goodbyes, no sorrow, no death. It is where Christ will be the very light by which we walk. It is where we will hold hands with our favorite person for ten thousand years and sing in harmony, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come."

Come, Lord Jesus.

A Week in the Life...

This week has been a bit crazy. My emotions are all over the place.

On the bad side of the scales:
1. A sweet 6yo local boy died this week after a long battle with brain cancer. We sat on Highway 11 yesterday and watched his funeral procession pass. This morning on Facebook, I reviewed all the pictures from the family's long journey and wept. Little Thomas J's casket was transported to the cemetery on a fire truck.

2. Yesterday my Dad's first cousin died. Alan was injured at his birth and spent the rest of his life with the mental capacity of a one year old. His mother, my great aunt Doris, died a few months ago. I remember when I was a teenager and Alan was in his thirties, I would sit and play "This Little Piggie" with his toes. He laughed every time. Alan was being transported from his group home to a routine doctor's appointment when, for some reason, the transport van left the roadway and hit a tree head-on. Alan died instantly.

3. I haven't seen my Dad-in-law in a week. He's been in a lot of pain and hasn't wanted visitors. I miss him. I hate knowing he's hurting.

4. I've gotten emails and calls this week from several friends asking for prayer for their children. Everything from drug use to school problems to rebellion. Some of the kids I know and some I don't, but their parents' heartbreak is real and profound and easily felt. I hurt for them, for their children and then fear for my own children's hearts.

These things are from the past week; in the past month I've held a friend whose son committed suicide. I've cried with a friend whose husband is struggling at work. I've listened to my own child struggle to understand why a supposed friend would try so hard to be hurtful. This kind of pain lingers in my heart, making me tender and raw.

But...

On the beautiful side of things...
1. Gracie got to go on her first Youth trip, a truly momentous occasion. She agonized over each and every outfit, folding and unfolding, repacking and rethinking. We bought her first floppy beach hat. We discussed boys and difficult friendships, doctrine and fear. I adore seeing my kids grow up and taking their first real steps to adulthood.

2. Jevon is here. We met him in England back in 2009 when he was just sixteen. He was our unofficial tour guide and sidekick. We kept in touch a bit, then on our second trip in 2011, a full-blown family connection bloomed. We have Skyped (the best use of technology ever!) and Facebooked and kept in touch. He is currently sitting at my dining room table watching tennis on his Mac and chatting with me.

3. Our friends took us to an Atlanta Braves game after we picked Jev up from the airport. It was really, really fun. Or as Jevon says, "proper fun". He had his first corn dog and enjoyed it. We took lots of pictures and laughed a lot!

4. We've gotten to eat out several times, which if you know us is kind of a big deal. Chick-fil-a, Charlie's, Wal-Mart deli, Del Sol. Yeah, that's a big deal.

5. Chris was off this week. I got to hold his hand and sit beside him and talk to him all week. *le sigh

6. Emma has come over and that always makes me happy. She is so open about her feelings, struggles, sins, victories, etc. It can hurt to see her hurt, but she is a gift.

7. John Ponder spent most of the week with us. I love that boy.

8.Gracie came home from the beach. Oh how I missed her!!!


As you can see, this week was full of ups and downs. I have wept and laughed, cheered and grumbled, struggled and exulted. When I said that to Jevon, he said, "Well that's real life now, isn't it?" So true. God has been good this week.

The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

My Current Thoughts on Motherhood

I woke up this morning thinking about Mother's Day, no specifics, just an awareness. I got on Facebook and post after post after post of people telling their mothers how wonderful they are and how they learned everything they know from their wonderful mothers.

I love my mother and sometimes I miss her dreadfully. When I miss her, it is always with the disclaimer: *but not the person she was when she died, but who she was when I was young*. My mother died of mental illness. Reader's Digest asked people to submit a 6 word tribute to their mother. Mine?

Good intentions. Mental illness. Mercy. Missed.

She did the best she could. There is grace for the rest.

It took me a few minutes of reflection to be able to put my mother to rest again. I remembered something a faithful friend said to me a few years ago. He listened to my mother-fears and pointed out that my children have a very different childhood than my own. This is so beautifully true. The poverty, mental illnesses, divorce, anger, etc are far removed from my children. I, on the other hand, am still close enough to smell it and hear it. This leads to my fear.

I sat on the side of my bed this morning and thought of my kids still sleeping soundly in their beds. I thought about their lives and their growing knowledge of the Cross. They see sin and sorrow, death and pain, but they have a different filter than I did.

When I entered high school, it had become childish and a "waste of my potential" to want to be a wife and mother. In 11th grade, my school offered a job fair and we had to declare "what we wanted to be when we grew up". Motherhood and marriage wasn't on the list. I had to choose something else. I chose physical therapy or teaching, but deep in my heart, I just wanted to be a homemaker. I kept it quiet though, on the down low. I'm a people pleaser.

I have a friend I knew when I was in high school. She knew everything about me. Recently, after a divorce and a death, we stood in the cemetery and cried together. She had many regrets. As we stood weeping together, she looked at me and said, "Please tell me you don't take your life for granted. You have everything you ever wanted. That is so rare, Crissy. Be thankful and don't take it for granted. Promise me." I promised.

This morning, I stood in my hallway and listened to my kids' silence and kept that promise. Mother's Day is not about celebrating my mother but forgiving her and knowing that she tried. Mother's Day is remembering to savor the fact that I have everything I ever wanted and more. I should get my husband and children gifts on this day, not the other way around.




I asked my kids to complete the six word tribute. Here are their results.

Wise. Loving. Strong. Excited. Funny. Ridiculous.

She's a loving but annoying mother. (haha Ty.)

Loving. Sarcastic. Smart. Pretty. Crazy. Creative.

There aren't words to describe her.

She's got a really great personality. (yes, Maggie was being funny)


Then I asked them, "What is the one sentence that I say the most?"

I love you.

Be quiet! Your dad is sleeping.

TY!!!!!!

Jeremiah 1:7

We had the most amazing prayer time tonight at church. Every other week, we meet in the evening to eat together and pray. We pray first. Tonight Rick asked Ty to open. I could tell it made him a little uncomfortable but I think he's used to it. Rick, and all the other men at the church, don't treat him as if he's just a kid or a "youth". They treat him like a fellow member, a peer of sorts. They involve him in conversations and let him have input. Most of the time he sits and listens. He plays with the other boys, the ones closer to his age. He plays with the little ones. Jack (age 4) especially adores him.

Two years ago, Ty prayed every night for God to bring a boy his age to Springville church. We prayed with him. I saw how much he missed his friends from Moody. I saw him grow more and more disheartened. Then I saw him give up. One year ago, Ty hated Springville. He was angry with God.

I saw something amazing happen though. I saw my son become part of a church. Not part of a youth group or part of a Bible study for people his age, but part of a church - as a whole. It took some time, a detox in a way. He was so accustomed to being consigned to his peers that he didn't realize he was part of a bigger body.

Tonight, Ty prayed not just the one time to open, but a total of three times. Maggie prayed. Gracie prayed. Three of the other kids prayed as well. Ty's prayer was not for people his own age, as he used to pray, but for "other Christians" who didn't have what he has. Who didn't have a church family... those were his words, a "church family that will love them."

I can recount a similar series of events for Maggie.

A couple of months ago my teenagers sat at the kitchen table and tearfully expressed gratitude. They love being part of a whole. There is something to be said for not having a traditional youth group. There is such a benefit in my teenaged daughter sitting in women's Bible study and learning, from watching and listening, how to be a godly woman. There is such benefit in my teenaged son working side by side with godly men who teach him, not just how to install siding, but how to live out the gospel.

I see so many youth who depend solely on their peers for spiritual support, who go to churches with sketchy theology just because they have good programs for kids their age. I promise, I am not anti-youth group. I think Stokes does a great job. But I think sometimes we, as communing adults, take it too far. We allow the presence of a paid youth worker to relieve us of the privilege of coming along side younger believers and investing in their lives.

Maybe I'm just expressing my own experiences. Maybe God has just been particularly gracious to my church planting children. Maybe we can have it both ways, I don't know. What I do know is that my children are growing and flourishing and really happy. Happier than I've ever seen them. They're not more comfortable. In fact, they feel more pain in the form of compassion and sorrow. They are, however, content and more aware of their place in a whole, as opposed to seeking their own pleasure.

Teaching our youth to have a kingdom mindset and heart for the lost requires them to know their place in the Kingdom. It requires them to know the rest of the body. What good is it to teach them how to resist peer pressure if they're not given a greater affection? What benefit is it to teach them how to relate to others if they're never around people who are different than themselves (in age, experience and struggle)? My children are part of the Body of Christ. They needed to know that. They need their covenant aunts, uncles, grandparents, and yes, peers. They need time together with people their own age, but they also need all of us.

November 1995

November 1995, one year almost to the day after my first pregnancy ended in a heartbreaking miscarraige, I tried to get comfortable on the hard table at the doctor's office. My bladder was filled to capacity; my back was aching a little bit and my heart was full of anxiety. The untrasound tech smiled when she re-entered the room.

"Ready?" she asked happily.

I took Chris's hand and nodded. "I think so."

I lay in the dark and made small talk, chatter really, to cover my nerves as she moved the goo around on my belly with the wand. Finally, she turned the monitor around and used the cursor to point to a fluttering movement on the screen.

"That's the baby's heart," she said.

"The kidney's look good," she said.

"The head circumferance is just right," she said.

"That little string of pearls is the spine," she said.

"Do you want to know the sex?" she said

We affirmed we did want to know.

"See that little equal sign there? That means it's a girl!" she said.

I watched in wonder and laughter as my little tiny daughter used my full bladder for a trampoline. It took a minute for the terror to set in.

A girl. A daughter. A baby daughter who would turn into a teenaged daughter. She was going to hate me one day.

For the next two days I agonized. I rubbed my distended belly and talked to my still unnamed daughter, begging her not to hate me.

I remember staring at my hand-sewn striped curtains next to my bed and praying. Then the Holy Spirit prompted a thought. Enjoy her. Enjoy her today, right now. And tomorrow, just enjoy her. Every day, enjoy her. Then by the time she's a teenager, you'll be so used to enjoying her, it will be second nature.

I really, truly tried to do that. Every single day of Maggie's life, the good and the bad; the easy and the terrifying... I have enjoyed her.

And she doesn't hate me.

And I don't hate her.

We are friends and she listens and respects me and I try to take that seriously and never be flippant with her feelings.

Today she is seventeen. Seventeen! I get to keep her for one more year, then she will follow the Spirit into her own grown up life. She is a constant joy, an amazing life and a beautiful soul. Her enthusiasm shines from her in waves and her heart.... oh, her heart. Her heart is turned toward the Father and toward the lost. God has grown her into such a beautiful, sensitive, articulate young woman.

I am so thankful. So very, very, very thankful.

I love you, my little pearl princess.