Category Archives: Family

Living in the Tension

Posted on by
1

When my husband was four years old, his mother gave birth to triplet daughters. All three of the babies died within two weeks of their birth. This sent his parents on a grief-filled tailspin that still affects them, their relationships with others, and their relationship with him and his sister to this day. One painful part of that experience included facing the attitudes of their fellow believers, who all had different theories about why God had “taken” those babies from them. One woman told his mother that they must have done something wrong that made God punish them by taking their triplets. The preacher must have agreed because he re-baptized them to absolve them from whatever sins they had committed that brought God’s wrath on them in this way. I wonder how their story would have been different if someone had allowed them to feel sad and grieve instead of blaming them for the deaths.

Suffering, pain, and grief have been part of the human experience since the beginning of time, and modern people are no more exempt from it than our ancient ancestors. Human suffering takes many shapes, but no matter its form, it creates anxiety in our lives, often forcing us to question its meaning and purpose, the goodness of God, and our ability to survive it. The presence of suffering causes us to live in the tension between believing that God loves us and wondering why he does not intervene to prevent difficulty in our lives.

The burning questions in the mind of the sufferer revolve around why suffering happens. Why do babies die and children experience chronic illnesses? Why would a believer in Christ live through a painful injury or broken relationship? Behind the question of why suffering happens stands the even more critical question: why would a loving God allow it to happen? Does God bring suffering upon people to teach them a lesson or to prove something? If he does not create suffering but is all-powerful, why would he allow it to exist and allow it to plague both the righteous and unrighteous? These difficult questions do not have any immediate answers.

Suffering is a universal experience. No human being, no matter upbringing, gender, socioeconomic status, or ethnicity, is exempt from suffering’s tax. Even those who lead relatively comfortable lives and escape physical difficulty encounter suffering in the spiritual and emotional realm. Despite the fact that verses sprinkled throughout the Bible allude to the idea that the righteous will be spared pain and turmoil, we often see the opposite play out. People reading the promises of blessings upon God’s people sometimes teach that we will be blessed, and life will go well for us if we joyfully follow God. When they experience pain, they wonder what they have done wrong to bring this punishment from God on themselves. If he blesses those he loves, does their suffering mean God does not love them or that he has turned his back on them?

 In working with people whose children have died at the children’s hospital where I am a chaplain, I have been questioned many times about God’s involvement and possible orchestration of the deaths of children. As I told one grieving grandfather, “These types of events don’t line up with who I believe God is. I don’t know why he allows it, but I do know he’s here with you during it.” I can tell him that God knows more than we do, which I do believe, but that does not help him resolve the questions he has. I can tell him that God has healed his grandchild and made him perfect and whole but that we have to wait to witness that ourselves when we meet again in Heaven, which I also do believe. However, to him those answers feel hollow in a moment of fresh grief. All I can say is that God still loves him, he will always be with him, and none of us really understands the reason behind his grandson’s death.

I do not believe that God brings death and pain into our lives. To believe that makes God cruel and heartless, and I do not think God is either of those. I do believe he can and will use those circumstances to teach us about himself and to draw us closer to him and to one another. As for the misguided belief that the righteous are given blessings and that blessings indicate God’s favor, I point to the words of Jesus who said we would have trials of many kinds in this world, but we must remain hopeful for he has overcome the world (John 16:33). I remember the experiences of Paul and the other apostles, whose lives were full of trials because of their choices to follow Jesus, and yet they remained faithful because they knew that God was with them throughout.

The Easter season always casts light on the tension between suffering and restoration. We remember the suffering of Jesus as he died, the panic of his disciples during the days following, and the joy they experienced when they discovered that he had conquered death. As believers, we hang somewhere in the tension between knowing God is all-powerful and waiting faithfully for his power to be displayed. For the parents in the hospital whose babies are ill, for my own in-laws who have suffered unnamed pain for decades, and for my own painful life experiences, I pray that God works in the midst of our suffering, that none of our tears go unnoticed as we join the legions of those before us who have suffered and persevered.

Perspective

Posted on by
5
Twenty years today!

Today Andrew and I are celebrating our twentieth anniversary. Our plan: taking our youngest and her friend to see the live-action version of the movie Aladdin. While that doesn’t sound too romantic, it is a bit sweet since watching the cartoon version was one of our first real dates twenty-six years ago. Not only have I been married a really long time now, I’ve recently begun to realize that at forty-seven years old, I am smack dab in the middle of mid-life. If I live as long as my grandparents, I’ve got anywhere from thirty-two to fifty-four more years left. I am at the unique point of having enough time behind me to have a little perspective but enough time ahead to implement some of that perspective and see how it plays out.

The Past Perspective

I grew up in a conservative Christian church. I went to a Christian college. When I graduated, I moved to Ukraine to be a missionary/teacher. As I got to know Ukrainians, I began to hear their perspectives on things like how American politics affected their country. I learned that many people there did not like Ronald Reagan, who was a hero in the part of the US I came from and in my own family. I had hardly met anyone who did not like Reagan at that point in my life, but when I moved to Ukraine, I learned that many of people there blamed his policies for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the political chaos and extreme inflation that hit Ukraine as a result. I learned that the public sentiment toward Mikhael Gorbachev was also negative for the same reason, although people here in the US had favorable attitudes toward him.

Living in a different culture did not just lead me to question what I believed about my country, though. I attended church every week in aUkrainian church similar to my own in America, but as time went by, I noticed some differences. They took communion from one cup, which they passed from one person to the next. I often tried to sit near the front during a service when communion was served in an effort to get the cup when it was still fresh! Not only that, but they used wine in that cup, so I had my first taste of alcohol in church. This differed greatly from my church at home, which taught abstinence from alcohol so thoroughly that they used grape juice in communion. Many of the Ukrainian churches we worked with believed that women should cover their heads in worship, taking that cue from I Corinthians 11. (Look it up and ask yourself why we don’t practice this.)

Luba, my Ukrainian roommate and me. This photo was taken in 2011, so, no, I did not have that much gray hair in my 20’s…although I had quite a bit. And, of course, Luba never changes.

Change of Perspective

Experiences like these pushed me to question things I had always blindly accepted, both politically and spiritually. If these beautiful Christian people I loved believed it was acceptable to drink wine in church and expected women to cover their heads in worship, were they right? What exactly did the Bible teach about these things? More importantly, what was necessary for me to hold fast, and which of my beliefs could I loosen up on? What was cultural and what was essential? My beliefs had not been tested much until that point since I had surrounded myself with people who thought a lot like I did.

When I returned to the US, the same process happened in reverse. Suddenly, I was bombarded by teachings and opinions that seemed mired in American culture. I saw my own people slavishly following cultural norms instead of true Christian principles. To this day, I continue to hear vitriol disguised as piety, and I live perpetually amazed at how this can happen in Christian circles. I see politics mixed so intricately with faith that it becomes almost impossible to tell them apart. I hear independence and freedom preached to the extent that we forget the value of community and interdependence.

Essential Perspective

I have spent much of my adult life trying to discern what is cultural and what is Christian, whether in my own country or another. I have struggled to apply what I do think is essential. Most of all, I have struggled a great deal to love people who do not question their beliefs, people who do not see that their culturally-defined religion often is used to bludgeon those who differ.

What is essential? The very core of my answer I take from the mouth of Jesus himself, when an expert in the Jewish law asked him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:35-40).

I fear even typing this because I know there are some who will chalk me up as one of those mamby-pamby Christians who preaches all love and no truth. However, love is not mamby-pamby. It’s not weak. Love is not a cop-out. Love is fierce. Ask a mother who spends every day, all day sitting at the bedside of a chronically ill baby. Ask a dad whose girl is late for her curfew. Ask a husband whose wife struggles with debilitating depression or a wife whose husband dies unexpectedly. Love is strong; it fights; it holds on forever. Most importantly, it wants the very best for its beloved. That’s the love we need to have for Jesus and for others. That love drives the gospel. That love empowered Jesus to sacrifice everything, and that love can push us to examine our dearly held beliefs.

So on our twentieth anniversary, Andrew and I will take our thirteen-year-old “baby” to a movie and sit in comfy theater seats eating too-buttery popcorn. We will remember two much younger versions of ourselves who had much less defined perspectives on life and faith and the world and realize how we’ve grown since then and how far we still have to go. Maybe we will remember to let other people mature as well, to let them experience the love of God, the space to grow, the freedom to question, and the power that comes from the knowledge that they are loved.

Wind Beneath My Wings

Posted on by
1

Some-things-you-learn-best-in-a-storm.png

I’ve been in storms, but tonight…this storm beats them all. The two oldest kids had a band performance scheduled for 7:30, so we made our way over to the stadium where we were supposed to watch it. By the time we got there, it was raining a little, and they had cancelled the performance. Andrew and I decided to wait in the car until the kids finished practice. We had books, as all good nerds do, so we were completely satisfied just to sit there and read.

We’d been sitting in the car about 20-30 minutes when the sky got really dark. The rain started pouring, and the wind picked up. I called Hannah to tell her not to come outside, and at about the same moment she picked up the phone, the wind got so bad that I basically yelled “Stay inside! Don’t come outside!” and hung up. Andrew told me to get out and run inside. Forgetting all about the running car, he got out. I reached over and turned it off and we started running into the building.

The tornado sirens were so loud! I’ve never heard them up close like that. I guess their close proximity combined with the extreme wind made me think the sirens were instead a tornado (you know how they always say tornadoes sound like a train?! I guess tornado sirens do, too!). I kept yelling, “That’s an actual tornado!” a fact that probably freaked out my southern-born husband.

About halfway into the building, the wind blew me so hard from behind that I actually felt my feet start to leave the ground a little! Before I knew it, I was lying on the wet grass! I looked over, and Andrew was, too! We managed to get to our feet, despite the extreme wind pushing us from behind, and scramble the rest of the way into the building, holding onto each other the whole way, just in case.

I looked at Andrew when we got into the high school. He had no glasses on his face! I thought to myself, Whew! I’m glad I still have my glasses…wait a minute…why can’t I see anything? I lost mine too! The wind blew us down AND blew the glasses off our faces!!

19225060_10154995844027182_3830845768482232288_n

Andrew and me, alive but still lacking spectacles!

We hurried down the hall to the band room to find our kids. We managed to find them, found a safe hall to sit in, and waited out the storm with all of their bandmates. I was afraid we’d have to get Hannah to drive us home because neither Andrew nor I had our glasses, but we actually managed to find both pairs on our way out. In the grass, not far from where we fell. Along with the keys to my office, which, hey, I didn’t even know I’d lost!

 

I could spend some paragraphs comparing storms to problems in our lives and how God works it all out and yada yada yada. I’m not doing that. I’m sure you can figure it out yourselves. What I will say is in a moment like that what I wanted most of all was to find our two kids. Once we found them and saw them safe, I just felt extreme relief that kid #3 was in Hawaii with my mom and sister and not home alone or something! Oh my! At least she was safe! And when it was all said and done, when we drove home, we saw the downed trees and branches and neighbors spilling out onto the street and I suddenly felt such an appreciation for the people in our life. We’re safe and dry, and we even saw a nice rainbow on the way home!

19225784_10154995844022182_1488702417513522355_n.jpg

Mother’s Day

Posted on by
Reply

Seven years ago, these three were pretty cute on Easter morning.

A few weeks ago, a local organization, Papillion Parent, asked me to write an essay to read at a fundraiser they were hosting. The instructions simply said, ” to write [a] hilarious or heartfelt 3-5 min essay about motherhood and read it out loud at the event.” Last Sunday night was the night. Since Andrew and the kids went to Hannah’s final band concert/awards ceremony, I asked a couple of friends to go with me. We enjoyed an evening outside at a local hangout listening to moms writing about their different perspectives on parenting. I loved spending time with them and meeting other writers and moms from the area.

In honor of Mother’s Day, here’s the essay I wrote:

A Normal Mess

Before the birth of my first child, I showed a coworker an ultrasound picture and told her I’d decided to quit my job to stay home with the baby. She asked if I’d be doing any freelance work. I answered that I’d need to see how I felt about freelancing when things went back to normal. She laughed and said, “Honey, things are never going back to normal.”

Fifteen years and three kids later, I’m not even sure what “normal” is!

What did I expect motherhood to be? I’m pretty sure that whatever I may have thought it was going to be, it hasn’t really been that. When my husband kissed me goodbye and drove away the first day he went back to work after our daughter’s birth, I sat in a silent house holding a tiny stranger and listened to the sound of nothing. I felt overwhelmed. Somehow I adjusted, but it wasn’t without a struggle.

My daughter was born on New Year’s Eve, and I spent that entire first winter in the house, seeing few people, and crying at 6:30 am because I hadn’t slept and knew I had 12 more hours to care for her before I could put her to bed again. I stood in the living room, holding her and peering out the picture window in hopes of seeing the mailman’s footprints in the snow because that would mean I could check the mail. Maybe there’d be news from the outside world for me!  A hunting magazine or Field and Stream or ANYTHING would do! Or maybe even I’d get to talk to the actual mailman. Imagine that!

My second child, a boy, really didn’t talk until he was about two years old. I worried constantly that I wasn’t giving him enough opportunities to talk or wasn’t talking to him enough to teach him properly. Of course, when he started talking, he spoke in complete sentences. The first words I remember hearing from him were “I want to pinch your neck”. Guess we know what he was thinking all those months. Maybe he wanted to perfect his language skills in his head before trying them out!

After the birth of my third baby, I was so tired that I fell asleep sitting up in bed while holding her. I woke to the sound of her crying and the sight of her lying on the hardwood floor next to my bed. I had dropped my sweet newborn!  After a trip to Children’s Hospital, wandering around in the dark forever trying to find it while she slept, I felt reassured that she was fine, but I’ve never truly been the same since.

My understanding of “normal” has changed many times over the last decade and a half. I hear people tell moms to cherish those baby and toddler days and hold onto every moment, but I’m going to tell you that I have mostly been relieved when one stage passed and we could speed on to the next.  Now that they’re older, though, I love seeing my kids become interesting, funny and articulate people. I look forward to seeing them as adults. I can hardly keep up with their almost-adult schedules, but I love watching them live them.

This year they were still sweet on Easter morning!

As a mom of teenagers who is just about in the final stages of parenting children, I will say that these years are without a doubt my favorite so far. I can look at my son when I hear something funny and know he heard it, too, and we can laugh together at things that really are humorous. Not some I’m-laughing-because-I-don’t-want-him-to-know-his-knock-knock-joke-wasn’t-really-funny kind of funny, but a truly hilarious kind of humor. I can listen to my oldest daughter talk about her boyfriend and say “Oh yeah! Can you believe guys do that?” and really relate. And I can watch my youngest girl primp in front of a mirror and offer some outdated and unsolicited fashion advice. These are humans! And they’re interesting and fun, and finally I can start to see that putting them in time out twenty times one afternoon when they were three was worth the effort.

When they were very little, I worried all the time that something I was doing would ruin them forever. I wondered if I’d measure up as a mom, if my parenting would somehow scar them for life.

I have a confession about how much I needed reassurance when my kids were babies. I haven’t told anyone this. I don’t even think my husband knows it. I sometimes used to call the pharmacist in the 24-hour-pharmacy near our house in the middle of the night. I didn’t do it to chat, although at times that might have been nice. I often didn’t really have a medical question. I called for reassurance that how I was treating my children’s illnesses or what I was doing for them was good enough.  I only called a few times, but when I called he actually did give me reassuring advice. I wondered if he had a wife and kids at home and knew the uncertainty that parents of babies sometimes experience.  Or maybe he was really bored because hey—24-hour pharmacy in the middle of the night.

Somehow in the midst of all of the pressure and uncertainty of parenting young children, I began to come to peace with the fact that I was indeed messing them up. I also learned, though, that we’re all messed up and all parents do make pretty big mistakes of one kind or another. Maybe the real key isn’t raising kids without scars but teaching them how to heal.

I’m still figuring that one out, and my kids are still young enough that I haven’t seen how they’ll turn out yet. I know this, though: I do not know what normal is anymore, but I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got!

Lonely People

Posted on by
Reply

 

A few weeks ago, a friend started a blog/website “to encourage young people who are still waiting for their life partner, or people who are just content being single, and the difficulties that entails.” She asked if I’d like to contribute as a person who’s been there and knows what it’s like. Of course, I said yes! I love stuff like that.

I think loneliness is something we all struggle with at some point. Most people I know, whether married or single, feel a sense of loneliness at some time in their lives. You can read what I wrote here, but I think it’s also worth visiting her site because it’s pretty interesting and already full of stories and advice. Click here to go to her website (Letters to Lonely Humans) or keep reading for my letter to the lonely.

Dressed up

I heard someone once say that you can’t expect to find someone to take away your loneliness but may hope to find someone to be lonely with. Here’s my lonely companion 🙂

Lonely Hearts Club

April 17, 2017

Laura McKillip Wood

I got married in my 28th year, which is late for a girl who went to Bible college. I graduated, moved halfway across the world, and lived on my own for four years. When I moved overseas, I came to terms with the idea that I probably wouldn’t ever get married. I didn’t really want to marry someone from another culture. I thought relationships had enough challenges without adding cross-cultural ones to the list, so I thought I had pretty much eliminated my chances of marrying. I really was ok with that. I had a lot of friends and a lot of support, and I decided I didn’t need a husband.

During those years, I sometimes did get lonely. I taught elementary school, so my weeks were full of kids and lesson preparations. On the weekends, though, I had many hours alone. During school breaks, I had more than enough time to long for human companionship. I found ways to fill those needs with good friends and activities, but somewhere lurking in there I still felt a little lonely.

In my fourth year, all of a sudden, an old boyfriend moved to the same country where I lived. Before I knew it, we were engaged! I didn’t realize it then, but looking back I see a part of me believed that after I married him I wouldn’t be lonely anymore. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to go? Find your soul mate! Your life will be full of companionship after you marry him. He will understand everything about you and love it all.

After our wedding, Andrew and I moved to a new city where neither of us knew anyone. Suddenly loneliness hit me like a ton of bricks. Andrew was quiet. Very quiet. Much quieter than I was. Too much interaction overloaded him. I needed other people, but I knew no one in my new place. I think most of the people I knew from before assumed we were in that honeymoon stage where everything is so wonderful that you don’t want anyone outside to bother you.  My mom and grandma told me how relieved they were that now I had someone to be with me so I wouldn’t be alone so far away from home, but I felt more alone then than I ever had before the wedding.

My expectation of someone else filling that lonely place in my heart didn’t hold up, and I felt afraid and even more alone because of it.

I’ve been married nearly 18 years now, and I can say without a doubt that this has been a struggle nearly every one of those 18 years. I have begun to learn to expect less from my husband and to rely more on friends. I have started to learn that his need for solitude is a God-given personality trait that allows him to think deeply and understand things I will never understand. I have tried to learn that his quietness doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me and, in fact, has nothing to do with how he feels about me. I haven’t mastered those things, but I’m working on them.

Most of all, though, I have learned that loneliness is a human condition that is not resolved by other humans. Friends can dull the ache. A spouse can mask the effects. Children can keep you so tired you sometimes forget about it. Deep down inside, though, it’s still there. Loneliness is just part of being human and can remind me that my life isn’t complete here on earth. There’s something missing that other people won’t really ever completely fill.

So for anyone reading this who feels lonely sometimes, I tell you the same thing I try to tell myself: don’t blame your loneliness on your situation. Don’t be angry at the ones you love for not perfectly filling your need for companionship. Let your loneliness point you to God, remind you that you’re never completely whole this side of heaven, and drive you to him for fulfillment. Easier said than done; it’s probably a lifelong project!

1845

My most adamant loneliness-busters. Look at those cuties!

Boys and Men

Posted on by
3

Today I was in a gas station with my 13-year-old son, Alex. I heard an older lady talking to herself while struggling to use the ATM. She couldn’t figure it out and was getting really frustrated and anxious. I hesitated to help because I thought she might feel like I was going to take advantage of her, but then it became more and more apparent that she wasn’t getting it. I asked if she needed help and she said yes, she did, that since her stroke she’s had a hard time understanding things. She was appreciative of my help, very sweet and friendly. 

As we worked on it together, Alex came down the aisle on the other side of her. I saw her look at him and felt her pull back, fearful. I looked at him from her point of view: a tall young man, hovering nearby, trying unsuccessfully to look inconspicuous. Suddenly I realized the inconvenience of being a male in that situation. We talk about women feeling afraid, but what about men, even helpful men, who want to do something nice for an older lady but are seen as threatening? I saw Alex and remembered my little guy who liked to cuddle and hug and play drums on the pots and pans, but she saw Alex as a man taller than she was, sidling up beside her to steal her cash. 

If only she knew that he looked at her slyly from the corner of his eye because he is shy and embarrassed and doesn’t quite know whether to talk to her or not. If only she knew that not long ago he stood in the living room hugging his big sister as she cried about the death of her guinea pig. If only she knew he has shaved fewer times than he can count on one hand and still feels nervous about going to the high school for band practice with the big kids since he is just in middle school himself. 

“Oh, that’s my son. Hey, Alex!” I said, and she visibly relaxed.

I won’t always be there to help the older ladies see him for who he is. I hope he can do that for himself. I don’t think he’ll have a problem. He’s pretty sweet. But I had just told him a moment earlier that if he heard someone struggling like that he had to think through whether to help her or not because she might feel scared that he was trying to hurt her. 

I know that because it’s happened before to his dad. Andrew has a particular appeal to older ladies. I don’t think he’s ever met a woman over the age of 50 who didn’t love him within minutes of meeting him. But once he was in a grocery store where an older woman was having a very hard time with the ATM. He watched, thinking about offering to help, when her friend appeared out of nowhere and started yelling at him. Accusing him of trying to steal the woman’s pin over her shoulder, she wouldn’t listen to reason. She called a security guard over. Finally, they worked it out, but I had to warn Alex of the potential for misunderstanding.  

How sad that we live in a world where a vulnerable person has to be suspicious of a 13-year-old! In a society where a kind man tries to be a gentleman and is punished for it or treated with suspicion, how can we teach our boys to make a difference to those in vulnerable positions? We instruct our children the best that we can, but in a fallen world we must face the fact that even people who are trying to help others can be hurt or can hurt them inadvertently. The man who wants to help a woman, the friend who tries to protect her, the boy watching innocently as his mom assists someone. I’m not sure a lot can be done about this, besides leading our children to care for others and be wise in the way they approach that caring, but I hope a consistently kind and loving, godly presence in society will somehow make a difference. I have to believe it will. 

Beginning and Ending

Posted on by
Reply

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m getting ready to make dinner. It’s a special dinner, as it is every New Year’s Eve, since it’s Hannah’s birthday dinner. I told a friend today that our New Year’s Eve is always pretty boring, except for that one New Year’s Eve when we had a baby. That one was pretty exciting.

img_4211That particular New Year’s Eve, we were in the hospital early in the morning, and Hannah was born around 2:30 pm. We were supposed to go to a party with our small group from church, but instead we called them and told them we were in the hospital with our new baby. They all spent the night at their party and came to visit us in the hospital the next day. We were the first of the group to have a baby, so everyone passed her around, talking to her and cuddling her. Those are special memories.

The Beginning and the End

img_4212We had no idea how having a baby would change our lives. We had a cerebral knowledge that everything would be different, but we didn’t know how that change would feel on a day to day basis. I remember telling a coworker I’d decide whether to do some freelance work “when everything went back to normal” after the baby was born. She just laughed and said, “Nothing is ever going back to normal.” How right she was!

I had no idea how it would feel when absolutely no decision  would ever be made again without first considering how it would affect that little being and her siblings. Every single decision now gets filtered through the how-will-it-affect-the-kids filter.

The moment she settled her little self into my arms marked the beginning of the difficult process of thinking about someone else on a consistent basis. That moment ended my ability to live for myself while at the same time pretending to myself that I was living for others. This is something I never learned in Bible college, didn’t learn in ministry, had only begun to learn in marriage at that time. Each step in life has taken me deeper into the project of thinking about others, a huge endeavor to say the least, but the step into parenthood was like stepping off the high dive and jumping into the deep end of a pool of lava. Trial by fire!

img_4213I spent my whole childhood and young adulthood preparing for and doing ministry. I was 100% in when it came to my work. I loved living overseas, loved teaching, loved the kids I worked with, loved my friends there. I loved it all! Having a baby, we decided we’d be staying in the US for a long time. We decided I would stay home with the baby instead of trying to find a job that paid enough to cover childcare. I guess I thought motherhood would be my thing, but over time I still missed other things. I had trouble figuring out what my niche was in this new state of affairs. Besides childcare, did I have a purpose?

 

For a long time, I struggled with this. I felt alone a lot, and I resented my husband for getting to go to work and sit in a quiet office where he did things like read books and write lesson plans. Alone. With hours and hours at his disposal and an endless career to feed.

New Life

Gradually I got used to parenting, to thinking about children ahead of myself. Gradually I adjusted to being home with them, and eventually I did start working again. I earned a masters. I got jobs and now even have a career. Over time, I learned that being a mom can teach me more than I ever thought I could learn. I have learned a lot about sacrifice and trust. I’ve learned about patience and how my words and actions affect others. I’ve learned a lot.

I’d like to say I learned those things well. I’d like to say I loved it all. I’d like to say I didn’t struggle most of the time. I can’t say that, but I can say I’ve made it so far, and I can say that now that they’re almost all teenagers I enjoy parenting. That’s something, right? I love spending time with them and joking around. I like having intelligent conversations about truly important topics. I like sharing real insight and hearing theirs. I love seeing their interests and thinking about the people they’re becoming, wondering what they’ll do in their lives. I love those kids in ways that I could never have understood on that New Year’s Eve fifteen years ago.

Today my girl Hannah got in a car and drove us to the mall. Legally. And today she planned her whole birthday, including that trip to the mall with a friend. Today she made herself a birthday cake for fun with her boyfriend. I listened to them laughing in the kitchen and smiled at the fun they were having. Maybe we did ok after all!

fullsizerender

Unexpected Ways

Posted on by
5

Pretty-Church

Random church picture

My husband and I both grew up in pretty conservative churches where we sometimes both got the idea that we were required to do certain things to maintain our status as Christians: read the Bible every day, invite people to church, volunteer for or participate in every event the church had to name a few. As an adult, I see the value of these things and I realize that my thinking as a child may have been black and white and not allowed me to fully understand the church’s teaching on these topics. However, I also understand that they’re not essential to my faith. For example, reading the Bible every day can give me guidance and help me know Jesus better, but if I don’t do that I am not somehow condemning myself forever. I may be cheating myself out of a deeper relationship with and understanding of God, but I’m not less valuable to God because of that.

A few months ago, Hannah came home feeling guilty because she hadn’t asked all of her friends to church yet. She’d received instructions in Sunday school that every Christian should ask all of their friends and the people they come into contact with to church if they really cared about them (at least that was what she understood the lesson to mean). I told her that the Bible never tells anyone to ask someone to church. I can’t think of any instances of Jesus telling his followers to invite their friends to the synagogue. Sure, they invited them to him, but they did that because their lives were changed from being with him, and they wanted their friends to experience the same radical love that Jesus had shown them.

This is way more than just a perfunctory invitation to a church service. I told her that we show our friends Jesus by the way we act, the way we love others, the way we care about people who are in difficult situations. We talked for a long time about how our life makes a statement and can draw people in or push them away and how truly caring about a person is more important than inviting them to church. I told her I think that you only have probably one chance in our culture to invite a person to a church event, so you shouldn’t squander it at the very beginning by giving them the idea that you’re only being friends with them to add one more notch to your Bible belt. I also emphasized that when we do care about them this way, we earn the right to talk about things that are important to us, and we have natural opportunities to tell them about our faith.

IMG_1804

My lovely, happy girl, Hannah.

Not long after the Sunday school lesson and our discussion of it, her school let out early. In true junior high fashion, great swarms of students went down the street to our local Runza, a Nebraska fast food favorite. Of course, the place was packed with middle schoolers without parents. She and Alex waited a long time in line. When they finally got their food and sat down, Hannah noticed a group of kids causing a lot of trouble and making a mess of the place. After plenty of complaints, the manager came out and told them to leave. They mocked him and laughed at him, threw ice and food on the floor and tables. When they finally left, they stood outside the window and laughed at him as he cleaned up their mess. Hannah saw it happening and got up to help him. She picked up ice from the floor and wiped down the tables with a rag he gave her. When they finished, he thanked her and gave her two coupons for free meals. (Note: Alex says he didn’t notice any of this happening, and, while that seems hard to believe, knowing the boy’s capacity for living in his own bubble, I believe it!).

Right about the same time, Alex, who had an obsession with Rubik’s cubes, had one at church. That day, a woman we know told him her brother loved Rubik’s cubes when he was younger and had one that was left solved at their mom and dad’s house. Sadly, her brother passed away in a tragic and unexpected accident as a very young man, and her mom kept the Rubik’s cube on a shelf to remember him. Unfortunately, a visiting kid grabbed the Rubik’s cube and messed it up, and her mom felt sad now that the reminder of her son was gone.

IMG_1803

Alex, with a Rubik’s cube, of course.

Our friend from church asked if Alex would mind solving the cube if her mom brought it. He agreed, and a few days later we found ourselves at the store where the woman works, meeting her mother. As Alex started working on the Rubik’s cube, I watched him, 13 years old, just a hair taller than I am, at the very beginning of being a young man. I wondered how that mom felt when she looked at him. Did she remember her boy when he was that age? I wished I had told him to give her a hug when he finished because I thought how nice that would be if I were in her shoes. Within a minute or two, he had solved it and handed it back to her. And lo and behold, with no instruction from me, he hugged her.

Those two events, so close together, they hit me hard. I watched our two oldest children live out their faith right in front of me. They did what they could and used their talents and interests to right injustice and relieve suffering. Even though they didn’t invite anyone to church, offer to stop and pray with someone or quote Bible verses, they showed them what Jesus’ love means in action.

Living our faith can be more difficult and tricky than the traditional instructions for living that Sunday school taught us. Living God’s calling may be less about deciding at church camp to be a missionary and more about committing whatever we do to Christ, looking for ways in our everyday life to right injustice and demonstrate the kingdom of God on earth.

IMG_1758

Gratuitous picture of the third child, who was left out of this blog in every other way. Poor little thing 🙂

Still Here

Posted on by
Reply

21340696319_79ef710807_z

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” –Willa Cather

I have a memory of Andrew that surfaces once in a while. It happened before we were married, when we were on a hiatus in our relationship. We had dated and broken up several times, and he had already broken my heart more than once. Still, despite the break ups that seemed to come out of nowhere, I could not escape him. No matter where I went, he eventually turned up. No matter how many times I decided not to love him, I always did again. So this particular memory happened after one of those times I’d decided not to let him back in my heart but to protect myself, to hold back. I had moved to Ukraine, and, of course, I ran into him there.

We started talking again, and I could tell there was still something between us. I went to a worship service at a Christian student fellowship of some sort. I sat near the back of the room, and he sat in the front row. I don’t even think he knew I was there. I saw him standing there. The room was dark, but lights on the stage lit the shadows enough that I could see his silhouette. He raised his arms and sang and praised God in such a pure and sweet way that I just thought, This man is someone I want in my life.

That one memory has stuck with me through some really difficult times. I’ve remembered his sincerity, his dedication. Knowing him better, knowing his struggles, his depression, his uncertainties, I still remember that man who praised God with such depth and innocence. At times when I’ve seen him question himself and his faith, seen him pull back from relationships and withdraw into depression, I’ve thought back to that silhouette and known that man is in there.

Today I went into chapel at the college, a dark room with lights shining on the stage. I scanned the audience, knowing that he usually sits at the back. This time, though, I saw him standing in the front row, praising God with that same stance and that same sincerity, and I instantly remembered that almost-20-years-younger version of him that has lived in my memory. I caught my breath. I know that man. I know the struggles and the pain those years have brought, and I know he stood there praising God with a lot less innocence and a lot more depth than he did the first time I saw him. I know that, despite his bouts with self-doubt and doubt in general and his bent towards depression, he is still here, still persevering.

We’ve struggled a lot in our life together. Some of it’s because of his issues, some because of mine, some because people just do struggle. I look at us and wonder why we can’t just be content. Why do we wallow in self-pity at times or argue or punish each other or whatever it is that we do? One of the students told me they hoped when they got married they’d have a relationship like ours, and my first reaction was to think, Oh my, I hope maybe yours will be smoother and easier. On second thought, though, I think she would be lucky to have a relationship like Andrew’s and mine because we do not give up. We might get to the end of our rope too often, but at least we tie a knot each time and hold on.

If there is one thing I’m proud of so far in my life, it’s that I haven’t given up. I may not have dealt with every situation in a healthy and productive way, but I haven’t thrown in the towel. We are committed , and when we get to the end of our lives we are going to be able to look back and see that it was worth it. We’ll see how the storms made us who we are. We’ll see how waiting out the hard times brought us to good times. We may not be able to point to our relationship as the most lovey dovey one, the most happily-ever-after one, but we’ll be able to say that we had grit, that we held onto what was important, and we’re proud of how far God has taken us.

 

Broken Arms and Changed Plans

Posted on by
3

FullSizeRenderYesterday I complained before leaving work because I had to take my youngest to open gym at the gymnastics place last night and would have to sit there for an hour and a half waiting on her to do her thing. Later that evening during open gym, my girl asked me to come in the gym and play with her. Apparently other parents were in there showing me up, so I dropped my book and went in to watch her balance on the balance beam and practice her moves (and she was super cute and surprisingly athletic, if I can brag on her for a minute). While I watched and “helped” her, I snuck a few texts to a friend, commenting on how much lessons cost and how could we ever afford this? And I dreamed about what I’d do after all of the kids went to bed and the evening stretched out before me, free and open for Netflix or knitting or writing or whatever.

Open gym was almost over, a fact I knew because I kept a watchful eye on the clock on the wall, when she lugged out a springboard thingy. Running down the lane leading to it, she jumped on it and sailed a few feet into the air in an attempt to do a cartwheel. She is actually pretty good at gymnastics and cartwheels, so I didn’t expect what happened next. She landed wonky on her arm, and I knew the night wasn’t going to end for a loong time.

I ran over to her, all thoughts of time and clocks and what I’d do that night after she went to sleep already vanishing. All I could see was that arm hitting the ground. I had flashbacks of another time I watched that little arm, a lot smaller that time, as she jumped from playground equipment at the age of four and landed on it the same way. That time she broke it, and I believed she had this time too. She looked up at me stunned and said, “It got black and I saw stars for a second.” And it hurt a lot.

My little girl’s pretty brave, but by the time she got to the car she was crying, and I headed toward the emergency room. She held up well. She put ice on it. She looked at the aquarium in the waiting room and exclaimed about how much it looked like Finding Nemo, which it did. In triage, the nurse asked her how much it hurt on a scale of one to ten with ten being “I just got hit by a semi truck.” She said seven. I was surprised. She didn’t seem to be at seven pain level, but maybe she hid it well. She asked about shots. Would she have to get a shot? The nurse said, “You won’t have to get a shot unless you need surgery, and then they’ll give you an IV.” All fear of shots left her as she looked at me in panic and said, “I might have to have surgery?!”

A couple of hours and some x-rays later, and it turned out to be a pretty bad sprain. No IMG_0969surgery. No shots or IVs, a fact that relieved her greatly. She did get a splint and instructions to follow up with an orthopedist in five days just in case they missed a break. Today she proudly showed her arm to her brother and sister and explained what happened. They were in bed at the time and didn’t know we even went to the ER. She secretly told me that even though surgery would have been horrible, it would have been a good way to get some extra attention. My response: “Girl, if you need attention, I’ll take you out to ice cream! You don’t have to get surgery!”

As I lay down in bed last night at 1:00 am, I realized I’d done none of the things I’d planned. I’d had no free time. I’d watched no Netflix and knitted no scarves. I thought of how fast things had changed. In that one 30-second time span, I stopped caring about how much I accomplished and whether I had any time alone. All thoughts focused on my daughter, with a few stray thoughts thinking how much will this cost? (I know, I know, I’m materialistic and petty.) But as I drifted off to sleep, I also thanked God that it was only a sprain. Not a break. As Emma said, “I could have landed on my head!” How quickly things can change. Thank God it was only a small change!