Seasons

I took this picture yesterday when my soul friend was over for a coffee date and I marveled a bit at it today. To an outsider, it just looks like two friends on the couch together talking. But it represents so much more than that about my life and the season I’m in right now. I’m holding this photo as a little moment of remembrance of all the places I have traveled as a woman.

Right now, this picture is meaningful because I don’t have people over during the day for coffee dates very often. I am a small business owner and I have two small, part-time jobs that I work as I build my little corner of the world. I have a generous amount of flexibility but also a list of to-do’s that order my days.

There was a time when I worked a full-time job and had a nanny (which cost me basically 3/4 of my salary-let all the working mommas say ‘amen’). I would listen to my SAHM (stay-at-home momma) friends tell me about their days and I longed for their experience even as I felt the tension of that longing because I also loved my job. It was a dream job I was so grateful for and the confusion of that time is still easy to access as I think about that season.

There did come a time in my life when I and my friends (and their children) filled my home and we filled theirs. I remember the sweet chaos of those times as we lived life as mothers together. I can touch the gratefulness in my heart that I got to experience both sides of life as a mom; full-time working Mom and full-time stay-at-home Mom.

As my kids and I grew up together, I slowly added part-time work and volunteerism into my days. For a season, during the day, I can remember when my home was my own space. Quieted with kids at school for a few precious hours, time felt expansive to me. Time is not expansive now. What a rich gift it was to slowly re-enter a workforce while still being flexible enough to manage my family life and their needs too.

Life looks so different today! Jeremy works from home full-time and has done so for almost 5 years now. That’s just weird. It took tremendous adjustment for us to learn how to organize the days together in the same space with such different needs; we still don’t have it all figured out. Time is not expansive but filled up with work and drive time taking kids to all the places, managing who will be home and who can pick which kid up where.

Today, as I considered posting my sweet pic of my friend and I snagging precious time together for connection yesterday on IG (#latergram), all these memories of the places and spaces I’ve been in rose up in me. It feels more like a cherished moment in time to remember where I am, where I have been, where I used to long to be, and even what I hope for as I go forward.

I’m so grateful that I have had the opportunity to experience the many facets of motherhood and work so that I can share that with my kids one day from a space of having lived it. I have been poor and wealthy, I have been afraid and courageous, I have been proud and poured out. I am grateful for each lived moment in both pain and comfort.

I don’t think one way is more right or wrong than another when it comes to the challenging decisions of being a parent and working in some way. Each season had its own pros and cons for me. So if you are navigating those pathways as a young parent, blessings to you as you choose! If you have already navigated those spaces and have time to give, comfort and encourage someone else as they make hard choices. If you are still waiting and longing and hoping to get to make those kinds of decisions one day, may you find gratefulness for where you are now in the longing that you feel, and may it point you to what is good.

Unwell…

As my life has unfolded before me, there are certain authors I’ve clung to and learned from who have impacted my views in hindsight and my hope for my future so deeply that I couldn’t untie myself to their work if I tried.  I have found so much freedom from Dr. Dan Allender’s work as a therapist, teacher and author. I’ve read the majority of his works and I listen to his podcast on a regular basis.

I think what I love about Allender-beyond the healing and help his work has offered to me-is how honest he is about hurt. In one breath he can cry curses over the pain of this life, the evils of this world, and in another he can proclaim the richness of God’s beauty and goodness. I am still learning how to hold both pain and joy to the glory of God. Allender’s work is an encouragement and a guide to how to do that humbly and hopefully better with time.

For all of you Parks and Rec fans, I do realize I sound like Chris Traeger discussing his therapist, Dr. Richard Nygaer. (Thankfully, I have other authors I love too like Brenee Brown, Shauna Niequist, Beth Moore, Ruth Haley Barton, Richard Foster, Tremper Longman, John and Stasi Eldredge,….you get the picture?) But joking and amazing sitcoms aside, Allender is an amazing resource if you are a Believer in Christ looking for a book about marriage, parenting, leadership, abuse, trauma, finding your path and more. I’m beginning to think the only thing Allender hasn’t written about is fly fishing!

In one of the most recent podcasts from The Allender Center, he discusses how communities of believers hold one another when we are not well. More specifically, the discussion focuses on the person who is admitting that they themselves are not well to others.

It’s so easy to be the one to step in and help when trouble and hardship loom, but it often takes even more courage to be the one admitting that you are not well and you need help. I’ve shared my story here about how God began the good work in me of teaching me my need for control and how avoiding my need for help was a hindrance to my health and spiritual wellness. The post I linked to was a pivotel moment in my life that I will never forget. God used that time to teach me how to begin to be honest with others when I am not well. It began the long journey of allowing other people to help me and to acknowledge and receive such a gift.

From the podcast, “Not Doing Well” Allender and Clinton discuss the difference between powering through a hard time and admitting the truth of being unwell when the desire is to either withdraw completely from community or self soothe with a variety of potential addictions; “In so many of these patterns there is a false nobility. Whether we’re trying to shoulder all our pain and carry the weight of the world, or we’re removing ourselves from others, convinced that our absence is better for everyone when we are unwell. This sense of nobility and martyrdom is intimately wrapped up with our most well-worn structures of addiction and sabotage. Dan: “The process of disruption is the gift that actually begins to stop you.”

I’ve experienced that disruption that began to stop me from martyrdom and the sense of nobility withdrawal and self soothing brought to me.  I’m so grateful for the gift that it was in my life. It altered the path I was on in large ways that will forever impact my future path.

Holding the realities of both the deep beauty and joy of this Earth as well as the profound brokenness we carry and enact as broken people is not something a heart was designed to do alone. We need people who will be brave and disrupt us in our addictions, sabotaging, willfullness and martyrdom. This podcast that is available is only part one and I am intrigued to see where Allender and Clinton take the next episode. But for all of you who might be unwell, who might be in a season of deep sorrow and sweat pants, I want to offer you some interruption with gentle love and care. As another favorite author, has said, “Tell the people you love what you need.” Brenee Brown.

Blessings on you as you walk with Jesus, even when you are unwell. Thank you Jesus, that you are the Healer.

https://theallendercenter.org/2019/03/not-doing-well-1/

Other works by Dr. Dan Allender:

To Be Told
The Wounded Heart
The Cry of the Soul
Leading with a Limp
Bold Love
The Healing Path
How Children Raise Parents

B

Seen and Known

Two weeks ago our friends, the Metcalfes from Seattle, joined us in the freezing mid-west for a fun extended weekend together. We haven’t seen each other for almost one year! It was so good to be with them – because we have 10 years of history together. They have done life with us through some of the hardest seasons of our lives and they know how new things affect us as a result of that knowledge.

Wading Through Summer

It hit me the other day as I packed up to go to the pool with my crew; we need a lot less stuff than a few years ago. (REJOICE!) I remember days feeling like a total sherpa (you know, the guys who carry all the gear on donkeys up mountains for a big climb?) with all the life protecting gear, food and toys and “just in case” items; not to mention towels and shoes and clothes for everyone.

Today I played with my ancient bestie who is providing respite care for a baby while her foster family is on vacation. She has two boys who are the same age as mine, so this child makes three. It took her 3 trips (with help) to get back and forth from the car to the pool where we hung out today. She had baby formula and pureed food on her shirt and pants. It all came back to me as I helped her and watched her do what comes naturally to us as Mothers. The loving and the caring, the helping and the serving, the sacrifice and the struggle.

On the one hand, I am so glad to be passed that stage (of carrying their stuff) with my kids, but on the other I miss those baby days!  They are so precious and fleeting.

My brain still feels like a plate of spaghetti most days, just as it has since my children arrived. Only now days I feel as if I need to make an excel spreadsheet for all the things I’m trying to keep straight as the worlds of each individual in my family collide, overlap and co-habitate. Life as a Mom is so BIG and so encompassing.

Our transition this summer was much faster than usual into summer chaos. It wasn’t like I thought it would be. They didn’t even need two weeks! There has been little drama in fact. Everyone seems to be getting along and genuinely enjoying all that each day holds. We’ve reveled in eating dinner on the back porch and sat in awe and gratefulness as the sun sets and our kids run around the yard squirting each other with waterguns.

Life isn’t perfect over here. The sink is leaking, there’s a mouse in the basement, sales are slow to come in at my husbands job and I’m juggling summer child care for my side job. There are broken relationships that weigh heavy on my heart, sorrow and despair that friends and family are wrestling with and so many other things not worth mentioning here.

I’m challenging myself to be grateful for the beauty, to find my sense of awe and passion in what life holds right here and now. God is there, in those details and pathways.

Today a young friend said, ” I wish we didn’t have free will. It would be so much better if we didn’t.” I responded, “No, it wouldn’t. Without free will there is no awe, there is no worship.” My ancient bestie added, “there would be no sense of beauty”. Life is a gift to discover. Even in our pain and our sorrow they remind us and point us to what is good and true and lovely.

Today I am grateful for my lovely friend who has opened her heart to a baby whose story is already difficult and sad. I am grateful for kids who can put their own shoes on and help me carry our stuff. I am grateful for mouse traps and a second french press and bowls to catch the water from leaky sinks. And I am thankful for a God who sees, who knows, who names and calls us to himself.  #longlivesummer #glorytogodinthehighest