Processing Sad

Last Sunday we brought home new friends from church to share our lunch. We had a lovely afternoon, getting acquainted, watching our little girls play with their little girl and laughing about Addy and their three-year-old son who sturdily climbed up to the top of our ridge with the older boys… after we got over our fright at not being able to find them, of course.

We parted with comments about wanting to get together again. Yesterday I heard that the little girl, Jackie, went to Jesus after a frighteningly short battle with pneumonia. My mind refuses to accept that this could happen. I can think of so many reasons why she should have lived. But she is gone and we are left shocked and stricken.

My first impulse is to clutch obsessively at my dear ones, something I have battled with a lot in the past. Once more I have to come to the place of knowing that our children are safest when we leave them in the hands of Jesus.

The second impulse is to wail out the questioning WHY?

One side of me thinks of wispy-haired little girls sitting around the table and drawing crayon pictures of rainbows and butterflies and flowers after Sunday lunch. I watch them put their shaky five-year-old signatures on their perceptions of innocent happiness. While I rejoice to think that sweet Jackie can never be touched with the brokenness of this world again, yet I am desperately sad that she didn’t get to grow up. It feels so unfair that her devoted parents have to walk through this dark valley.

Last week Gabriel read us the story of David who fasted and pled with God for seven days for the life of his infant son. I marveled with the servants who watched David get up after his son died. They saw him wash and change his clothes and go to worship, and they asked, “What is going on?” David replied with those words of faith, “Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.” 2 Samuel 12

I have no way to process tragedy except through the eyes of faith, and even that grows pretty dim at times. When Hebrews 11 says that faith is the “conviction of a reality that we do not see, perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses,” (amplified Bible) I think, “No kidding!”

Yet I believe that there is something going on that is adding to a weight of glory somewhere, “as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2Corinthians 4:18) We are not asked to understand. We are asked to believe.

Oh, Jesus, in the sorrows of this world, give me eyes of faith!

Reasons Why I Don’t Want to Be Thin

The End. There are none.

I wrote this a long time ago, but I think I finally have the courage to post it. Parts of it are joking and parts are dead serious. You can decide.

Reasons Why I Am Not Thin… Now that is another story altogether.

For starters, I got the Miller gene, the one that is short and tends to rotundity. It will be a lifelong tussle for me, and I feel quite realistically resigned to this. But the Millers are actually exceptionally nice people and I am glad I sprang from them. My uncles and aunts are the jolliest, most kind-hearted folks around and I couldn’t love them more if they were ectomorphs. (Just a little friendly advice here: if you are an ectomorph and you want people to like you, do not mention things like being able to eat anything you want and never gaining weight.)

I am a terrible dieter. My philosophy that life is better when it is actually enjoyed tends to include things like occasional toasted bagels with cream cheese or actual sugar to sweeten my Earl Grey, or bits of real chocolate. I do not even feel guilty if I choose a piece of carrot cake not labeled THM, S, off the dessert table at fellowship meal.

Also I have a problem: whenever I cut calories drastically my body wails, “She isn’t eating enough! We are going to starve. Hang on to everything you have!” This makes weight loss very difficult and it makes me so grouchy that I just want to chew stuff. My husband does not like when I am grouchy, and neither do my children. “Mama, we don’t want you to get as skinny as _______. (Super disciplined lady we know and love.) We wouldn’t even know you anymore!” Haha. Recently I posted a picture on Facebook that my ten year old son drew. He is very suspicious of diets and suspects that thin women need nourishment. Do Trim Healthy Mamas feed their children well? he wonders. Then again, there is Pudge-o-saurus, whose salad is simply too large, or maybe has too many croutons and bacon bits on it. I am striving to hit a happy medium here.

My husband is a nurse. He talks sense to me about diet and lifestyle and how it is all about taking care of our health. If you are not living indulgently and cramming too many calories and junk all the time, thank God for the food and enjoy it he says. If you have health issues, look at your diet and make changes. I might mention also that he loves me and makes me feel beautiful, and he has always done this, even when I was nine months pregnant. This is a man worth having and a very happy place for a woman like me to be.

Lifestyle is a big deal. I stay home and in the wintertime I mean like really stay home. Sure, I run around after children and up and down steps and around beds when I change the sheets, but it is a pretty sedentary life. Every chance I get, I slip out of the house in the evening for a brisk walk by myself, thankyouverymuch, but that is more about sweeping the uglies out of the soul and restoring peace internally than about aerobics. I am grateful to be able to play tag and hike and bike with my children. What I don’t have time for is hours at the gym.

Last but not least, I have gained and lost about 120 pounds in the process of giving birth to five babies. I am not even a little apologetic about that, and I will not feel sub-par because I look like maybe I had a few babies. I refuse to bow to the popular opinion that the only woman worth anything is the woman who makes what she looks like her top priority in life. (Someday I shall tell you about the most beautiful women I know.)

So. There you have it. All my excuses. And here is a confession: Sometimes I do feel very envious and large beside ladies who manage to stay slender and I wish I had their determination. I would be happy to lose 20 pounds. I am working on it in my own private way, because I seem to be allergic to “in things”, even diets and chevron. The more rabid the following of a thing becomes, the more stubbornly determined I become to not join in. It is a bit of a problem, I know, but please just let me go. One more thing: if the comments stay quiet, I will never write such a thing again.

May I have some chocolate now?

Edit: I did try the THM stuff. I gained 4 pounds. This may be at the heart of my “allergy”. However I do applaud all women who have taken charge of their health by a diet and lifestyle change. I really do. Hats off to you!

August Potpourri

I was dragging my tail at 2 o’clock this afternoon, so naturally I made myself a cup of coffee. Now, at 11 o’clock, I am still feeling it. I can’t handle caffeine, I know.

The last 2 weeks were stuffed full of fun and relatives on both sides of the family. We spent a few days up north with Gabe’s family in the middle of August. His folks hosted a reunion for the Peight family, no small matter when you consider that there were 14 boys and 2 girls in the original clan and most of them had substantial families as well. Gabe has more cousins than you could shake a stick at! The Peights are notorious for not getting together very much, but when they do, they have a great time, especially telling tales of the old days. I have often wished I could have met the mother of all those boys. (Or wait, was it 12 boys and 2 girls? Pretty sure it was 14, give or take a few.)

We were back home for a few days before two of my siblings and their families came for a visit. My parents have guest quarters in their basement, so we spent most of our visiting time at their house. With our limited space, it is easier for us to host a crowd if the weather is nice so that we can spill out onto the deck. However, it poured on the evening that we had the crew at our place for supper. Gabe grilled sausages with a big umbrella over himself. Eight adults and twelve children in our living room felt nice and snug. 🙂 To top it off, I had roasted cauliflower in my oven. It tasted amazing but put off an awful stench that lingered the entire evening. Note to self: next time roast on the grill and let the zephyrs drift away.

Over this past weekend we also did some last minute socializing with Gabe’s SD brother and his family, sharing our popcorn and ice cream with them on Sunday night before they packed up to leave Monday morning. I would venture to say that we value time spent with them more now that they live 20 hours away than we did when their house was just a mile down the road!

We keep putting in about 3 days a week on school, in between all the mingling. For those who wonder about the social aspect of homeschooling…. It’s not a problem, truly. I was so worn out yesterday that I just feebly lay on the recliner with a book and let the children scatter Legos all over the living room. Eventually I bethought myself of the hampers flowing over onto the floors and we did laundry. That was all. Just that and a bucket full of green beans. Well, we cleaned some floors too, and mowed the lawn, but I had the troops busy and let me tell you, that is a huge asset!

Every year I like to adopt a motto when school starts up again. When I was a teacher I used to have a weekly pep saying or verse for myself in my plan book, but homeschool is a little different. I just need one to hang onto all year since I really don’t have time to rethink every week. :p I have been reading Hebrews and seeing a continual pattern of faith, of course. I had never noticed before how many times it is coupled with endurance, patience, and just general “do the next thing-ness”. As soon as I have time I want to paint myself a little sign for this year’s motto: FAITH and PATIENCE

It comes from Hebrews 6:11,12 in the ESV.

“And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”

And again in Hebrews 10:36 this idea is repeated.

“ For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”

I don’t know about you, but I really, really need endurance and so do my children. None of us are thrilled with hard stuff day after day. I explained to my boys how doing difficult assignments opens more neural pathways in their brains so that they can think better and do even harder stuff. “It’s like a mole tunneling new ways and making more connections for thinking to happen in your brain. If you never do anything that is hard work, your brain stays mushy.” They want the expanded tunnels but aren’t so sure about long division and summary writing to get them.

All the while I was explaining this to the boys, I was telling myself, “So quit trying to constantly make your life easier. Embrace the season and the mess and the hardness! Don’t complain about how everybody always needs you. Just wash the floor already instead of sighing at the remnants of fruit jello smeared under the table. Take the time to address that bad attitude instead of hoping it will go away while you sip your tea. Let it all expand your capacities…”

Oh, but Lord, it is hard sometimes…

And it is funny sometimes. We had a sign up sheet for a 24 hour prayer chain at church. Just a fifteen minute slot- that was all I signed for. Yesterday I made sure everyone was fed and happily employed before my 15 minutes. Predictably, there were calls for help in the bathroom, which I serenely ignored until my big boy came racing up the steps calling that there was water dripping from the basement ceiling. Out of the entire day, that was the time for my tot to clog the toilet with paper and flush repeatedly. And that is why there were 15 towels on my clothesline today.

Faith and patience.

This Side of Thirty

Am I same

or am I different?

It used to be so important to the girl in the mirror:

Same enough that my prickles were not too obvious,

Different enough to be acknowledged as unique me.

It was such a crucial balance.

That girl used to look at the women who just “let themselves go”,

(Whatever that meant?) and feel sorry for them.

Now I find, to my relief, that

Same or different do not matter so much

After thirty.

“Did that fabric fade, or was it always so ugly?” my brother teased.

I was incensed.

Now I laugh and wear the dress anyway.

It is comfortable and I like it.

I can change the way I comb my hair and no one says a word.

My identity is no longer tangled in my hair.

I like this side of thirty.

I like having accepted who I am,

Letting go of who I cannot be.

I am not same

or different.

I am more than the sum of what is seen in the mirror.

I have settled it in my soul:

I am a Beloved Daughter.

The rest doesn’t matter so much.

My Pre-Monday-Morning Pep Talk…

… from Oswald Chambers, that is. I certainly have plenty to learn about rising and shining. Today we had lunch with friends at our pastor’s house, and we ladies had a discussion about early risers, night owls, is it inborn or trained into us, etc. All of us admitted to leaning toward one direction or another.

I was amused tonight to read this from Oswald Chambers. He first stated that living beings go through natural cycles of depression and happiness; it is only inanimate stuff that has no soaring and crashing of feelings. While we are in this world, there will always be things that are “of the nature of death” that tend to depress us. Things we won’t have in heaven, like huge piles of laundry and long to-do lists and bed sheets that got wet on and mud could come to mind. (My loose paraphrase. Chamber’s is much more eloquent… and wordy. 🙂 ) Then he goes on to show how God gave so many simple admonitions. Take Elijah, sitting under a tree, wishing he were dead due to his unpopularity with the current king and queen. God’s angel came to him and just told him, “Rise and eat.” No profound revelations just then. Only simple instructions.

“He tells us to do the most ordinary things conceivable. Depression is apt to turn us away from the ordinary commonplace things of God’s creation, but whenever God comes, the inspiration is to do the most natural simple things- the things we would never have imagined God was in, and as we do them we find He is there. The inspiration which comes to us in this way is an initiative against depression; we have to do the next thing and do it in the inspiration of God. .. Immediately we arise and obey, we enter on a higher plane of life.” My Utmost for His Highest, Feb. 17 (and yes, I am aware that I am a few days behind. 🙄 )

Well, so there we have it… the way to soar tomorrow!

The Eyes of the Lord

Gabriel and I have started reading the Bible in different translations, especially the English Standard Version and NIV. If this offends you, I apologize in advance, but we have found it to be very refreshing. Both of us were raised in circumstances where all scripture was read in King James Version. I will go on record as saying that the KJV is beautiful, poetic, authoritative, and deeply meaningful to me. However I found myself with a tendency to read the familiar passages and skip right over some of the most amazing truths, which is why I like to switch it up and spend my devotional reading in a different version.

This morning I started reading some Psalms and after a while I started seeing all the references to the eyes of God. As a child I was taught repeatedly that God sees everything I do, “Be sure your sin will find you out” and that sort of thing. It took all the fun out of doing naughty stuff and probably kept my hand out of the cookie jar more than once. I was also taught that God can see in the dark and I don’t ever need to be afraid because He is with me and by some divine ability will never lose track of me. These are amazing truths that didn’t really sink in, especially over the time period where my brother and I were convinced that a scary person named Viola would come out of the hole in the floor of our room while we were sleeping.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.” Ps. 32:8, 9

“From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all humankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth- he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do”. Ps. 33:13-15

Obviously, this is not a comforting fact for those who really don’t want God to see what they do, but for those who want to be in a relationship with the Most High, it is the solid ground on which they tread: God sees me; He is with me. What I noticed for the first time this morning is the connection between His seeing me and my responsive looking up to Him. Many times this is referred to as guidance. David said, “So don’t be like the horse or mule.” Look up into His face. He can look down on you all the time but it doesn’t make a bit of difference unless you look up and respond. He won’t put a bit and bridle on you. You have a choice about following His guidance.

This is a very apt picture for me just now. I dislike intensely when I am trying to instruct one of my children and they continue what they are doing with only a mumble of assent. It is very frustrating when I ask my child why he didn’t do what I asked and he says, “I didn’t hear you.” I am trying hard to train my children to look at my face, repeat the instruction I gave, or at least make a verbal assent that they heard me. Does anyone else see the parallel here? I see my own mulishness quite clearly. I see that I can require from my children what I myself forget to do for my Lord. Just look up.

Here is what happens when I do this face-to-face, what-do-you-want-to-say-to-me attentive listening.

“I sought the Lord and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man cried and the Lord heard him; he saved him from all his troubles.” Ps.34:4,5

That radiance comes from seeing the love, the smile in His eyes. You don’t see that with a scurrying lifestyle of mumbling quick assent to what you think He wants you to do. You see it when you really look up and absorb His radiance. Oh, I do so want that!

Still not Feeling It?

I have a theory that the happiest people are the ones who think the least about whether or not they feel well/happy/accepted/appreciated. It seems like a preoccupation with my sensitivities is a pretty sure way to find something a little off. As I write, I am becoming aware of a mild headache that has niggled all day, a soreness in my shoulder that may be arthritic, and the way the laptop is digging into my leg in an uncomfortable way. I sense that I need tea to drink but I don’t wish to get off the couch to make it, so I shall have to just sit here and suffer. Oh dear, but I am starting to feel blah.

If you really want to know why I have been thinking about this subject, it is because it is February and that, for me, is synonymous with “not feeling it”. I don’t want to grouse about the weather, but it feels like winter has been long enough. I can’t even look at photos of the tropics without coveting a ticket on a flight south. 🙄 If I start getting mired down with how little I feel like making any effort, I start worrying that anything I do will be useless in the long run if I didn’t really feel like doing it and who wants to spend their life doing useless stuff?

Our world today is saturated with “I deserve to be happy” messages. The right to the pursuit of happiness is in our constitution, although I suspect that it had a nobler meaning than having my cheeseburger just the way I want it when I want it.

image source

Did you know you can “open happiness” by drinking a bottle of Coke? Or you can “let happiness find you” when you fly to Fiji. And if you could drink a Coke on the beach, now that would be double happiness! But if you can’t have that? What? You are doomed to be feel unhappy.

I started looking at God’s standards for my life. Does the Bible say anything about my feelings? There are lots of admonitions to not grow weary in doing good. It appears to be a given that we will be tempted to be swamped by how we feel. But don’t let it make you faint (give up) because you will reap the rewards for perseverance. -My paraphrase.

I thought of the parable of the father who had two sons whom he asked to work in his vineyard. The first one said, “I will not,” but then he changed his mind and went after all. The second son readily assented, only he never showed up in the vineyard. Jesus asked, “Which son did the will of his father?” It’s obvious, isn’t it? Was the father pleased with the son who really didn’t want to pick grapes that day, but did it anyway? Of course he was.

There is a verse in Proverbs 16:3 that has often guided me through a quagmire of negative feelings. “Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.” That is exactly opposite from how I think it should be. (“I wish I would just love to cook! Then I could enjoy this constant onslaught of hungry people.”) Instead of grumbling and sighing about how little motivation I have to cook this supper, I can choose to say, “Okay, obviously the people around here need some nourishment before hunger incites a revolution. God gave me this work, and I want to make something that they will really enjoy eating, so bring on the cookbook! I have a whole freezer full of beef…” I may feel silly with the line “God gave me this work” in the same line as “freezer beef”, but it is truth and it helps me get my heart in line. You see how the feelings just sort of meekly come along when the thoughts are established? Trust me, I have tried this both ways. 😕

I have come to the conclusion that

A. Feelings are an indication of being alive. In that capacity they are helpful in figuring out what is going on inside me, but they are not navigational tools.

B. Feelings are not evil, but the heart that they are born from can certainly be evil. Sometimes the violence of my feelings is an indication that something is terribly wrong, but it is wrong on a much deeper level than an emotional turmoil.

C. Feelings are not terribly important on their own. They are a direct result of the way I think. If I take my thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ, I will not need to worry overly much about how I feel.

Is that too simplistic?

But I Am Not Feeling It…

Tell me, quickly, on a scale of 1 to 10, how important are your feelings?

Do you feel that your actions have any merit if you don’t feel like doing the thing that duty insists you should do? “…Uh-oh, here we go again!” Hey, I heard that!

What do you say to your child when he doesn’t feel like eating veggies, turns up his nose at the green beans, preferring mac n cheese and chicken nuggets? If he gets force-fed vitamins, isn’t he still healthier than if he lives on artificial food? Suppose he doesn’t want to wear socks in sub-zero weather, but you are firm, and he wears them anyway. Are his feet warm or cold because he was unwillingly obedient?

What if you are in bed under the down comfort on a frigid Saturday morning and your children come stand beside the bed at seven o’clock and plead that they are starving and breathe jungle breath in your face? Do you suppose that God is displeased with you because you groan in your spirit when you slowly crawl out of bed to make pancakes and gravy?

Or maybe your husband asked if you could take the family vehicle to get an oil change and you really don’t feel like taking all the children in for twenty-minutes in the greasy waiting area at the Quik Lube but you do it anyway. Is it love if you didn’t really feel like it?

What if you are asked to teach a Sunday school class but you would much rather just listen to someone else teach instead of applying yourself to a job that is going to require some hard study? You say you will do it, even though you feel a bit unwilling. Can anybody be blessed by your reluctant obedience?

Help me out here. I can’t seem to find any verses in the Bible mentioning that how I feel is really important. Am I missing something?

I Don’t Wanna be an Island

Today a friend of mine is faced with the heartbreak of burying a beautiful little daughter. I try to imagine. I cannot imagine. I can only pray for comfort and the assurance of new life and resurrection to carry them today.

Recently I have heard so many stories of crushing loss: women losing their husbands to bullets, to other women, to mysterious illnesses. I feel so blessed, so unfairly blessed, you might say. I could wait around in suspense for the other shoe to drop. Or I could lift my head and thank God for what is given today and do what He says. “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Most of the other translations say “Don’t worry. Don’t be anxious.” One even says, “Don’t be concerned.”

I am really good at being concerned. How about you? I like to think of myself as a trustful person, but after all, one has to be wise and think ahead and make decisions that make sense, yes? But what about all the things over which I have no control? What about accidents and other people’s decisions and how they affect me? What about heartache and grief? Maybe I should just retreat to an insulated fall-out shelter with stores of food and water to keep me safe?

Blessings are a little like slippery soap, I think. The harder I grasp onto the favor, the more frantically I have to grip and struggle to keep it from falling to the floor. But if I open my hands to hold the good thing that has been given, there it is, lying on the palm of my hand. I become a picture of reverence instead of a portrayal of possessiveness.

I like this quote from C.S.Lewis about the heart.

If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

I observed my friend with her gorgeous little girl, her baby whom she knew would not live a long life. I saw her pouring her heart and soul into her child, fully aware of the ache that was coming, yet bravely living life with grace and a rare flair for joy. Today my heart breaks for her and her husband as they pay the price for living with their hearts wide open and vulnerable. The loss is staggering. The gain is staggering.

I want to dare to live like that. It’s not always better to be safe than sorry.

December, as it Happens

This month I have been a pen out of ink. I scratched a few paragraphs now and then, deleted the whole works, or left them to moulder in the drafts folder. Even the annual Christmas letter was a chore. I like pens that glide along smoothly without sputters and skips. Anything else is insufferable! So I can only thank the Lord that blogging is for writing when you enjoy it and that I have never imposed deadlines on myself.

All this time I was out of Earl Grey, folks. Two weeks in a row I forgot to go to the tea aisle in the grocery store. I drank coffee, which is a satisfying experience all its own, but sometimes a girl wants. just. tea! I have a whole shelf of boxes of other teas. My husband likes variety, and so does Gregory, my little tea drinking buddy. On Monday morning I was reading in the quiet when I heard Greg stirring around in the kitchen. To my surprise he brought me the steaming mug he had been concocting according to his Greg Standard of Perfect Tea. It was so liberally adorned with cream and sugar as to hardly be recognizable as tea. Later I saw that he had served me detox tea, which struck me as extremely funny, taking into consideration all the “bad stuff” he dumped into it. I walked over to my grocery list and I wrote it down nice and bold: EARL GREY. This week I bought a ginormous box, inhaled deeply the intoxicating scent of Bergamot oil, and was happy.

It is such a joyful season, yet I found myself praying, yearning with my heart in my throat for days as I followed the story of a family who was keeping vigil around a gunshot victim in the hospital. Yesterday he died. As I was wrapping a few small gifts, I kept thinking about what a sad, sad Christmas this will be for that family and for his friends. It took me back five Decembers when a beloved friend of mine, the wife of my cousin, lay on life support in a hospital. Her transport to glory left me with the anguished question, “Why? There are six little children here, Lord! Couldn’t you see that?” I have never faced a more severe attack on my faith. As the questions poured out, I received the beautiful assurance of the solid fact that Jesus is Emmanuel: God with us. Here in our mess and our hurt and our confusion, He is Prince of Peace. He came to give life, if we can only see that the passing of His friends is the ultimate giving of LIFE. I have seen the triumph of those who embrace this truth, who refuse to let it go in the midst of the most painful times imaginable.

He is with us! “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) That is all we need to know, really. There is a sturdy quality to such faith that confounds even the staunchest unbelievers. I hear my little girl singing her version of a children’s song: “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy… down in the guts of my heart!” Her siblings say, “Depths, not guts!” but she is sticking to her version. It reminds me that faith touches us in the visceral regions where logic and reason are no comfort at all. I see the impossible joy and peace blanket the soul and I say,

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!