Word Therapy

Is Busy Bad? The 2018 American Mom

“If the Devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy” -Beth Moore

 

I was a brand new Christian the first time I heard Beth Moore say that. I was in the living room of my Mentor mom’s house (MOPS, Mothers Of Preschoolers, has “Mentor Moms” who are basically the sweetest women you will ever meet, and you get to have a whole year of having one of these ladies, who are usually grandmas, help guide you through those crazy, early mom years). So, there I was in Sue’s living room hearing Beth Moore preach about the “captivity of activity” and at the time, that concept seemed foreign to me.  I was literally looking for things to do every day, to fill the chasms of hours that seemed to stretch on forever while my 9 month old son and I just waited for Daddy to get home so we could see another face.

 

Fast forward 9 years and now I’m looking to pump the brakes, but I literally can’t even find them.

 

My days have become jammed wall to wall with all kinds of things.  Almost all of them feel necessary and good, but sometimes the sheer pace of it all feels like it’s sucking me dry.  I’m talking regular things here: Going to the gym, going to the store, Doctor’s appointments, counseling appointments, volunteering at school, gymnastics class, piano class, church activities, date nights, small group bible studies, haircuts, playdates, orchard work…there’s literally nothing that I would want to strike from this list of things that currently squeeze out all the whitespace in my ginormous mom-binder-planner.

 

Last night, as I was thinking about how utterly tired I felt, and how I felt like my mind was spinning because I hadn’t been alone with my thoughts in quite some time, I was left pondering this question:

 

Is this pace a problem, or is God working something out in me here?

In the past several years I’ve come to realize that my default mode tends to be to over-schedule, to strive, and to always try to optimize every situation for maximum efficiency (translation: I’m frequently innovating and almost always running late).

 

So, as I’ve been trying to flesh out whether or not my life pace is a symptom of my natural tendency to spread myself too thin, OR if this is simply a season of life where there are just a lot of demands and a lot of “scheduled maintenance” that must occur to keep our family running smoothly, I’ve found myself looking at the even deeper issues that run across our society as Americans in 2018.

 

For starters, we do so love our comfort. Is this feeling that I’m “too busy” simply coming from a selfish desire to have more down time, more leisure, more comfort? Is it possible that God actually blesses our efforts to work hard and to feel spent at the end of every day?

 

But then, I flip to the opposite extreme and notice how our culture, and myself, totally neglect the practice of God-given Sabbath.  Structured times of rest and absolute do-nothing-ness that were instituted by our creator to literally charge our batteries and keep us running. I do know that I internally fall apart if I neglect this. It’s often a slow fade, but I can usually sense the crash coming when I’ve been burning the candle at both ends for too long.

 

So, like most things there seems to be a tension here.  Every good truth, everything worth doing, seems to exist in the often difficult to navigate tension of ideals.  Yes, we are to be working hard, with diligence, creativity, and wisdom, BUT we are also to set aside time to be completely non-productive.

I guess for me, the hardest part is not the working hard, it’s the setting aside time to rest. The REAL rest that does not include Facebook, Twitter, or the Blacklist, but rather, naps, Bible reading, nature, journaling, praying. As a mom, sometimes it feels and really is impossible to even get a shot at the time alone, uninterrupted to accomplish this massively needed rest.  And there again lies a tension. God made us moms, and he certainly blesses that role, so He must have a way to meet us in the middle here and offer a glimpse of Sabbath in the 20 minutes we manage to wake up before our kids, or in the 15 minutes we get alone in our room in the middle of the afternoon (on a good day).

 

This is something I’m just beginning to understand and I hope to continue developing this practice of rest in little pockets of time, but please tell me how you find ways to make this happen! What are your favorite ways to rest? What recharges you? 

 

Motherhood is not easy, so we have to make sure we pay attention to self-care, and this issue of rest is no small thing!  

 

Wishing you a glimmer of hope and a window of rest today.

Fear or Faith? Thoughts on The Hiding Place

Have you ever read one of those books that, when you finished it, you felt like your life had just been forever changed? One of those stories with such persistence and otherworldly truths and experiences, that there’s no way you could read it with a “meh” attitude and carry on as usual?

 

I just finished The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.  I didn't really set out to read this book, but I was just browsing through the free kindle options on Amazon Prime when I was on vacation thinking I’d have some time to read (I didn’t. Vacation with kids, you know), and downloaded it.  I have heard her name quoted enough in sermons over the years to know that I should probably give this one a try.

 

I started the Foreword on our trip and then didn’t get to get into it again until we were home and back into a routine.  Also, we are taking a screen break in march at our house (including Social Media for me, which, incidentally seems to be linked to how many books I have NOT been reading), so I’ve had way more time to read.  

 

I finished it today and I feel like it’s one I’ll have to go back to over and over just to mine it for all the treasure in the pages.  Story after story of a faithful God, people who were pushed beyond the ends of themselves, and brutality and horror giving way to provision and beauty and redemption like I’ve never witnessed with my eyes in the time and space in which I live.

 

If you’re not familiar, Corrie ten Boom was an Dutch Christian who lived with her family in Holland during WW2.  Her family, from the start of the story, uses their watchmaking shop to their advantage as they risk their lives hiding any Jewish refugee who needed help.

 

As I was thinking about this earlier today, a couple of major points stood out to me as I pondered what this kind of bold, sacrificial faith would look like in our modern day.  It’s hard for me to even wrap my brain around a world full of war and rationing and hiding and fear amidst my days of driving my suburban full of kids to all of our fully financed first-world destinations and accommodations. I’ve never even known a fraction of the kind of adversity that was the norm during our world in the 1940s.

One thing that shows up over and over in this story of Corrie and her sister Betsey, was a very real, very active, very supernatural God.  Time and time again, the natural limits and resources would be exhausted and some sort of miraculous provision would show up. Safety when there should have been danger. Life when there should have been death. Corrie and Betsey prayed to God and heard God speaking back to them clearly, as if it was normal. This came easier for the sister Betsey, and she was more often the one who displayed great faith and had visions of what was to come, although Corrie did at times too.

 

What is troubling to me now as I look around at our current American church culture, is that there often exists great fear of these things like the ten Boom sisters experienced.  Men and women like to create a false dichotomy between the Supernatural and the Scriptural.  Woven throughout the biography of the ten Boom family, I see that it’s 100% both.  This was a family who read scripture daily. This was a family who lived a “normal” life, with daily times for bible reading and prayer. Until they didn’t.  Then, it was as if the words they had been reading daily for years were carried off the page and into explosive circumstances where God breathed life into them and delivered messages to them personally and at just the right time.

 

I have to add though, that this happened when this family stepped beyond what most people would consider to be safe, prudent, wise, or even reasonable or responsible.  Boy do we love to worship those things here in 2018 America.  Even in the church, often under the guise of fear and self-protection, we champion wisdom and responsibility at the expense of walking by faith. In 1940s Holland, people sacrificed their own safety, homes, and livelihoods for the sake of sheltering a wandering refugee.  In 2018 America, we have to make sure we “protect our own first, and then try to help others”. Sorry, but that’s not what the bible says.  When people start politicizing humans for the sake of safety and self-preservation, God will not show up. If we think we can craft an existence, a life, a country, that meets all of our needs without encroachment from those who might be needy, we have excluded God.  

 

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. -Matthew 5:7

 

I want to wake up, push back against the sleepy tide of comfortability, and spend my life walking with God and other people, in a way that pushes back the darkness.  I want to know Him, and tell other people about His love and grace. I shudder to think about inviting hard circumstances that will force me out of my comfort zone, but that’s often how He works.  

 

We are at a tipping point in our world.  We can either turn inward or turn outward.  We can choose faith or fear.  We can take God at who He says He is, or we can continue to try to box him in.  What will you do today?

 

Death by Hurry

So, we are halfway through January. I forgot to get a New Years journal. I didn’t set any resolutions. I didn’t make a “Top 10 books I read last year” list like I’ve done in the past. 

I didn’t choose a word for the year either. I see a lot of people are doing that, and i love the idea. I’ve done it before. Most memorably in 2015 i chose two words: LET GO. I’m still working on that for sure, but the letting go in that year in a particular relationship has produced a greater reward than i could have imagined. The relationship wasn’t let go in the sense that it dissolved, rather i quit trying to control the other person and now our bond is stronger than ever.

God has been making it clear over the past month that 2018 is going to require another shift. It’s optional; I can take it or leave it, but if I don’t take it I fear the consequences. 

I have to un-rush. 

As far back as I can remember, I’ve been in a hurry. Partly because I’m prone to disorganization, procrastination, over-commitment, and ever and always thinking i can just do “one more thing before we have to go”.

This has caused more mornings than i care to count where I’ve yelled at my kids. It’s caused me to brush aside my husband in favor of getting my tasks done. It’s caused me to feel a tightness in my chest that i know is anxiety.

So, I’m attempting to Hit the brakes. I don’t know if that’s going to look like all the time.

 I have some guesses as to what it might require though. Anything worth doing never comes without a cost. I know that I will likely disappoint people, I will have to say no when I feel incredible pressure to say yes, I won’t get to be the star A student that I’ve always desired to be. I won’t show up to all the things, and this may make some people think that I don’t care about them. My house will definitely have to be messy sometimes if not most of the time, and I have to remember that this does not define me. Clutter does not mean that I have failed at life.  This will mean that I will always have to be on the lookout for my enemy FOMO, and I will have to be extra wary of not making decisions through vicarious FOMO on behalf of my kids. It will mean that my kids may be late to school some mornings, and we will have to deal with that. It might mean that I don’t have all of my ducks in a row for birthdays, holidays, and all of the other events in life that require 1 million details and can overwhelm a person like me who is not detail oriented. 

 

As much as I am able to, I am committing to pay the price in all of these areas for the sake of taking really good care of the few relationships that are the highest priority. I cannot neglect my relationship with God, because He is the source of life. When I am busy, I forget to check in with Him and I live on my own terms.   Before long I am overcome with stress, anxiety, and little or no patience for the people that I claim to love.  I also recognize that I cannot do what I feel culture expects me to do and be a caring and attentive mom, wife, and friend. 

This quote from Dallas Willard sums up my goal this year:

Beauty in the Dark

I can see clearly now, the CLOUD is gone! 

 

Did you look outside today and clap to the heavens like I did?? My kids probably think I’m such a loon with how excited I get about non-foggy day. They literally didn’t even notice that we had been under an inversion layer for the past 5 days.  As we drove out the driveway to school, with the sun not yet peeking over the gigantic hill across the road from us, the skies were clear and painted with vibrant colors of morning; yellow, blue, pink, and not a hint of gray in sight.  I exclaimed “Look! The sun is out today! The fog is gone!”  “Fog? It wasn’t foggy.” was the reply from the backseat.  

 

The foggy inversion layer that we sit under for much of the winter does something to me.  I’ve often thought it was a personal weakness, or something that I could conquer with enough effort to get my mind over the matter.

Photo by Ales Krivec on Unsplash

This morning as I thought about it though, I thought maybe we experience great discontent and fatigue and even depression from being under a blanket of gray, because it’s actually a very true, very physical reminder of spiritual realities.

 

The fog obscures the glory…for a time: “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the works of His hands” -Psalm 19:1

 

The fog dampens the light…for a time: “The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them.” -Isaiah 9:2

 

The fog makes us weary and tired…for a time: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10

 

The fog makes us crave the day we will see the bright light again: “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away”- Revelation 21: 3-4

 

The fog robs us of our most readily available source of vastness:  As human beings we long for something vast; something eternal; something wide and gorgeous and filled with a hope that is bigger than our current earthly, dirty, painful circumstances. King Solomon says it like this: “He has made everything beautiful in it’s time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end” - Ecclesiastes 3:11

 

I’ve noticed that we basically one of two solutions: We can escape (temporarily) or we can endure.

 

Sometimes we will go to great lengths to stand under the clarifying brightness of the sun.  Maybe this means you book a trip to Hawaii, or if you’re too broke for that (because 5 plane tickets is a lot of plane tickets), you drive up to the local ski resort not to ski, but because the elevation is above the suffocating blanket of gray. So you just clear your schedule for the day and listen to music in your car and get up above it all.

Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

We can escape to somewhere without the fog created by the weather patterns, but if you have lived on this earth for any length of time you’ve surely come to realize that the other heaviness of life is inescapable.  It just is.  Although that doesn’t stop us from trying. However good the escape is though, it will always prove to be temporary, just like that 1 week tropical getaway in the middle of the winter.  We weren’t made to be escapers, we were made to be endure-ers. (*made up word alert*). But listen, if I can figure out a way to escape to a more southern location this winter, you better believe I’ll be first in line.

 

If we can endure, whether it’s the foggy winter of North Central Washington, or the ceaseless trials that seem to be parked over our lives like a heavy, wet, suffocating blanket, we will encounter God and see His glory in ways more beautiful than if we’d simply pulled the rip cord and parachuted off into some temporary sunnier circumstance. 

 

When my eyes found the tops of the familiar hills of our valley this morning, the same hills that had been hidden for nearly a week, I saw that the trees had undergone a transformation.  They went into that foggy spell bare green, but today I saw that in the pink gleam of morning light, they were standing in a statuesque covering of hoarfrost that made the whole landscape look like something from a painting.  More beautiful were they in white, than they had been in brown and green just a week ago.

I couldn’t see this transformation as it occurred because it was hidden.  It was obscured.  A good friend reminded me of a John Piper quote last night: “God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.”

 

We are so often unaware of the beauty that God is working in the dark seasons.  Had the fog rolled back after just a day, those trees would have likely still been green.  Pretty, but not transformed. If I had my way, I would have sunny days every day.  But then I’d miss out on some of the most beautiful, majestic things, that have only come from days, months, and even years spent in the dark.

So let’s endure well, remembering that God’s best work is often not even visible until after the darkness has passed.  And we can console ourselves with the fact that in the perfect New Earth, there will be no darkness and no night.  Not ever. Praise God.

 

Whole30 January

Aching joints.  Sluggish workouts.  Peeling, blistered, eczema marred skin.  Fatigue. Irritability. Stomach Upset.

 

That’s a fun list isn’t it?  Do you have any of those things?  I had all of those things before I did the Whole30 for the first time, and now, they are creeping back in.  I’ve been on a slow slide away from the über clean, very disciplined regimen of meats, nuts, fruits, and veggies that comprise the whole30.  

 

In part it’s been because sticking to something that counter-cultural with your diet is just dang hard.  All the on-the-go things, eating at other peoples’ homes, restaurants, and just the convenience of making something quickly, tend to go against the grain of a very clean eating routine.

(Actually you might grow to love it. Until you don't because there's cake. And chips)

It’s also been partly due to the fact that I love sugar.  And salty, crunchy things.  

 

And sometimes life feels like it should be celebrated.  A few weeks ago, Kevin and I got away for an exact 26 hours. We ate. We drank. We were merry.  In Chelan, we went wine-tasting and decided to order a cheese plate for lunch from the cheese counter in the winery.  This was my first encounter with cheese in quite a while, and I was feelin’ the love and I hoped for the best and decided this was “worth it” in the moment.

In retrospect, it actually was worth it, because I sat there and enjoyed such a nice time with my husband and a delicious red with a side of bleu cheese, bourbon-gouda, and goats-milk cheese.  However, in the following days I experienced the worst eczema flare up I’ve had in months.  With that deep dive back into the dairy pool, I was less careful with hidden dairy in foods over the following couple of weeks, and I’m back to feeling knee pain and toe pain each morning when I get out of bed.

 

So, with that being said, it’s time for another reset! I’m going to try to do my best to stay whole30/paleo-ish through Christmas and New Years, but I’m really going to set my sights on my total reboot that I’m kicking off on January 2.  The kids will be back to school that day, and it will be the perfect day for a fresh start.

Because I had such great results last time with the way my body felt, the way my moods chilled, and the way I ran through my workouts like I had a Red Bull mainline, I’m ready to take another crack at it, and I’m looking for friends to join me!

 

If you decide you want to do this with me, let me know by commenting on this post, and I’ll add you to a Facebook group where we can ask and answer questions, share tips and recipes, and get a shot of encouragement when we want to throw in the towel because we are so sick of eggs and zucchini noodles.  I’ll also share some of my shopping and meal prep tips I learned last time.  

 

It is a big commitment. It’s not easy. It takes planning, and sometimes you might feel robbed because you are in a situation where eating the non Whole30 thing feels like the only right thing to do. But, you can do it! If I can, you can.

 

So, who is in?

Failure, Love, & The Crucible of Getting Ready for School

See this little setup?

I’m pretty proud of it.  Very pinterest-y. As someone who struggles to cast a vision and then pull together all of the details necessary to execute it, I’m proud to say that it only took me approximately 3 years to finally get a “family values” placard on our wall. Originally I wanted to have some sort of custom hand-lettered pallet art made, but alas, that would require looking at shops and actually contacting people and making the decisions about what exactly I would want it to say.  I’m still recovering from decision-fatigue from our home add-on and renovation project of 2014, so custom wall decor feels a little like a bit of an overreach for me right now.

 

Thanks to Marshall’s and Hobby Lobby, my scaled back dreams of a values wall for our family were finally achieved.

 

Now, about what that sign says.

 

I’ve been failing at all of it this week.

 

I’ve not been laughing, I’ve been griping.

*

I’ve not been trying my best, I’ve been letting the victim voice in my head conjure up excuses.

*

I’ve not been patient.  Not even.  Like zero percent.

*

Have I told the truth? Well, when your life feels like a walking lie because you yelled your kids right out the door to school and then you plaster a smile on your face to carry on with everyone that you need to interact with that day, yeah that feels like a lie.  So even if I didn’t lie with my lips, I lied with my face.

*

While I want to support all my favorite people who live here, I find myself speaking words of discouragement rather than encouragement all too often.  Encouragement takes thoughtfulness and intention, while discouragement can feel like a native language.

*

Definitely could have used more hugs this week. I could have given out a lot more. The ones I remember felt really, really good.

*

I did make a ton of mistakes, so I’m winning at that one!

*

I haven’t given up because I’m clinging to the hope that God can redeem all things and that He is going to somehow work powerfully in all of our lives in a way that makes our failures fade like a vapor.

*

Forgiving.  That is something that our family seems to excel at, as we have an abundance of opportunities to practice it because we are so JACKED UP.  Seriously, if there’s one good thing about so much strife around here, it’s that my kids are getting their Masters degrees at Forgiveness University.

*

Promising to “do better and try harder” day after day is a cruel way to live.  In theory I always want to keep my promises, but in reality I can’t.

*

We definitely don’t always have fun.  There is homework.  There are dishes.  There is bedtime.  There is the crucible of getting all the things ready for school and getting bodies fed and ready to leave for the day and then getting to the car with backpacks and lunches and coats and OHMYGOSH.  “Fun” is not a word I would use to describe getting ready in the morning. In fact, there may have been some slammed doors and a basket of clean laundry dumped and real, actual tears this morning. I’m not naming names but good gracious, today was a doozy. I cried legit tears in the car over my failure and sadness about our perpetual morning fails after I dropped the boys off at school.

*

But above all we LOVE.  See, now this is the thing that’s going to rescue us. I just know it will. It has to. All the other stuff is a bonus, a by-product of love being made real in our home.  We are so far from nailing it.  We are falling short over and over, but we ARE making progress.  I know that the speed with which we seek reconciliation and forgiveness is shorter than it used to be.  Hearts go from hard and angry to soft and contrite at a much quicker pace.  I see us preferring one another over ourselves more than before. Not perfectly, not every time (not even close), but we are moving in the right direction.  

 

The love that has been poured into our hearts (isn’t that an amazing picture!?) from God is the only thing that will sustain us.  It’s our only hope.  His love into us and right back out of us onto the people around us.

 

And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. Romans 5:5

So on a week like this, when I’ve not been showing as much love as I’d like to, and I’ve been discouraging, and impatient, and full of mistakes and sin, I have to stop looking at my broken self and the mirror screaming “Do better, try harder!!!” and I’ve got to get quiet.  I’ve got to get back to that place where I remember and even discover anew, the vast reservoir of love that God has for me and each one of us, let that love pour into my heart, and then pour it out with reckless abandon.

 

All the other things will fall into place with that one thing.

 

And until I can get all those things on the sign right every time, I will continue looking at them as a reminder that I’m perpetually inadequate and I need to get back to the source of LOVE.

 

 

If Mama Ain't Happy...

Oops, I got busy and didn’t write for awhile.  Oh well, life happens.

 

Tonight…

I did it again. I inadvertently sabotaged what would have otherwise been a nice time with my family. Have you ever done that? Have you ever let stuff get to you so badly that you wreck the opportunity for connection and enjoyment that is right in front of you?

 

It seems to be a symptom of uptight-ness.  At least for me.  Tonight I was feeling frazzled because I spent the bulk of the day working on paperwork and business related stuff, leaving the house to fend for itself.  And as I’m sure most of you know, if you have any number of your kids in your house, it doesn’t take but a few hours for the wheels to completely come off and have it look like an F-5 tornado blew right out of Helen Hunt’s movie and into your living space.

(I have a hunch that when future generations talk about America in the 20th century, this movie will be hailed as the apex of cinematography. My husband may disagree )

Also, the last 2 days the boys have slept in way later than normal (and I’ve let them because they both seem to be fighting off various illnesses), which has meant that they don’t have time for orderliness in the mornings.  So we leave the house for school and it looks like a bomb went off.  And I’m still head-over-heels in LOVE with the crossfit gym so Leah and I head over there any mornings of the week when we don’t have to be somewhere else. And while I’m getting completely ripped and shredded (in a mom of 3, stretch marked and cellulited kind of way), all that working out is cutting into my home maintenance time.

 

So, as you can imagine, tonight looked like a sink full of dishes, a cluttered dining room table that had toys where we were supposed to be able to eat dinner, a floor with Nerf darts, crayons, shoes, leaves, and a random silver dollar, a living room with pillows thrown off the couch, newspapers on the floor, more toys, and 3 kids running through all of the aforementioned scene shooting Nerf guns at each other, screaming like banshees and causing me to have to don my earmuffs (not joking. They are the kind you wear at the gun range. Because this was obviously one of my life goals: have such unruly children that you have to wear ear protection made to withstand the noise of a chorus of SHOTGUNS).

(Photo by Asa Rodger on Unsplash)

As I sometimes do, I went into panic mode. Mom meltdown special. Freaker-outer of the week award right here.  “Milo, put your football gear IN YOUR ROOM!” “Nick, start walking around picking up all the darts!” “Leah, put these fake mustard and ketchup bottles back in your kitchen!” “I hope no one actually wanted to eat dinner tonight because there is too much clutter on this dining room table and I’m despairing trying to conjure up the organizational bandwidth it will take to put away 23 different kinds of things!” 

(Photo by Ashim D’Silva on Unsplash)

Meanwhile, my husband is looking at me lovingly, giving me a wink and saying “You’re nailing it, babe”. Actually he was super irritated with me, and rightfully so. I was acting like a crazy person, and a lesson I’ve learned but sometimes failed to heed is this: “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” (If I would have just LISTENED and believed the wisdom of the country songs of my youth, we wouldn’t be in this mess).

 

I absolutely can set the tone for our whole family with my words and attitude, and tonight I set a terrible tone.

 

I wish there was a do-over button.  Actually God kind of tells us that there is. We can’t have an exact re-do, but he does say that His mercies are new every morning.  We get a continual, reoccurring, no shame required, 2nd chance.

 

So tonight I’ll berate myself for a little while, about how I can lose perspective in about 5 seconds and morph into the mom that I don’t want to be.  And then I’ll let go of it because shame is a terrible bedfellow.  I don’t want to wake up with it shaping my attitude tomorrow.  I want to wake up with a clean slate, remembering that God CAN give me the best perspective if only I will listen.  If I will let go of the control, the desire for orderliness on my terms, and instead prioritize loving the people He has put me here with, then I know that I can possess a sort of happiness that will be contagious, and we can spend our time loving each other instead of yelling at each other.  We can claim the precious minutes and hours that we’ve been given and not waste them on worrying about eternally inconsequential STUFF.  The stuff will all fade, but these people we live with are ETERNAL.  Good grief, I need to get that painted onto a wall in every room of my house.  Maybe THEN I would keep my priorities straight. 

Until then, cheers to toys everywhere and the occasional set of earmuffs when times are tough.

On Learning to Listen

Listening is becoming such a lost art.  Soundbites, rhetoric, 30 second “debates” where no actual information is really exchanged, are the stuff we live and breathe. I mean, look at the National Anthem “to kneel or not to kneel” debate.  Whatever side you’re on, you’ve probably noticed that most people don’t really care to understand the viewpoint of the other side, they pretty much just want to pick a side and stick to it and make sure everyone knows it.

 

I was talking with a friend yesterday about something I’ve thought about often lately.  As I’ve gone from my 20s into my 30s, I’ve undergone several paradigm shifts in the ways I think about different things.  What we were talking about though, was this concept that we, as Americans, like to hold onto a narrative that if a person works hard enough and makes the right choices, that life will typically go well.  Some might call that the American dream, others might call that privilege. I grew up believing to my core, that I commanded my own destiny, and with the right combination of dedication, perseverance and hard work, I would have a life with no ceiling.  And honestly, I’ve circumstantially been given a great hand. But is this true across the board for all people?

 

More and more I’ve come to realize both through real life relationships, and through reading about different cultures and life experiences in books and other media, that my experience is really not as normal as I had hoped.  I’m learning that it’s a lot harder to create stability in your life when you don’t have health insurance. I’ve heard that it’s a lot harder to “just get a job” when you are trying to rebuild your life after you’ve been trapped in an abusive relationship and are now trying to help your children heal from the trauma.  I’m hearing that even though we like to believe that racism is a thing of the past, people of color in our society still experience it on a regular basis in everything from schoolyard slurs to being disqualified for a job.

 

It’s not as black and white as I used to think.

 

This has been one of the major ways I’ve been surprised by adulthood.  I thought we would all get here together and experience collective upward mobility; but instead I keep hearing stories of injustice, abuse, discrimination, and heartache, that cripple people.

(PC: Fransisco Moreno on StockSnap.io)

So this life plan of ‘graduate high school, go to college, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids, live the dream’ isn’t exactly an a+b=c scenario.  There are a whole lot of other factors that can rob people from getting to any of those American dream benchmarks, and yet instead of experiencing heartache alongside of them, so often we like to wag our fingers at them and say “See? You just need to ________.” or maybe “It’s because you didn’t __________” 

 

It’s a lot easier for us to feel justified in the life we’ve earned and crafted for ourselves when we are able to look at what everyone else is doing wrong and point the finger.  If we stop pointing the finger and instead look with compassion at circumstances that are bad luck at best and terribly unjust at worst, we might be forced to realize that our whole empire we’ve built for ourselves was not totally our own doing.  You see, if someone else’s American letdown is due to circumstances outside of their control, might also our American dream be due to circumstances outside of our control?  You know, like where you were born.  You didn’t really get to decide that.  Or who your parents were. Or the schools your parents placed you in.  Or the fact that you were protected from abusers in your childhood.  The trouble is, when we stop to consider all of that, we get to take way less credit.  And we LOVE to take the credit.  How we build our lives, how we manage our kingdom, how we achieve, achieve, achieve, is up to us and no one else.  

 

Or is it?

 

I’m not discounting human autonomy and the drive to improve our selves and our situations, or saying those are bad things.  Those are very, very good things.  I’m simply saying that there’s more to the equation than just those things.  So maybe if we could just stop:  Stop to listen, Stop to consider. Stop to empathize. Stop to understand. Stop to give some thanks for how much we’ve been given. 

 

Whole30...I did it!

It’s OVER. My first ever round of the Whole30 is done.

 

I can’t even believe I did it. I really think the game changer was that I announced to the world that I was doing the whole30 through my blog.  I hate public failure, so I could either finish out the 30 days, or fall off the wagon and then lie to people and say I didn’t.  Finishing seemed like the better option.

 

I’ve had lots of people ask how/why/what are the hacks.

 

• The WHY:

• I was waking up with daily pain in my ankle.  Both of my knees were starting to hurt. I started referring to myself as an old lady.  I had begun having problems with eczema again that I initially developed after my 3rd pregnancy.  I was tired, forgetful, grouchy, depressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and feeling like I was out of control with my eating habits.  I didn’t know it, but I was hooked on sugar.
• I have learned that I’m somewhat of an extremist. Someone I know says “Oh you just have to eat a little less and exercise a little more, you don’t have to cut out everything you like, just have less of it”. That’s a nice idea in theory, but if you give me an inch I will take a marathon.  I was just past the point of having good self-control, so I needed to do a “hard reset”.  Sometimes I need to do something with all the rules.  I need to do it in order to get me back to a place where I don’t need all the rules again for awhile, and I can self-manage in a way that is slightly above the level of a college student who has just discovered the freedom of ordering in pizza for the first time.
• The Whole30 seemed like the right fit to break my sugar addiction, and hopefully alleviate some of the physical symptoms I was having. Not to mention I hoped my clothes would fit better, because my fat pants were getting tight.

 

• The HOW:

Well, you basically give up everything you like to eat and drink.  I mean really, the first week feels a little scary.  No dairy. No grains of any kind (that includes quinioa, oats, brown rice, you’ll be having none of it).  No corn. No legumes (soy, peanuts, beans other than green beans). No SUGAR or any subsitutes. Not even paleo sugar subs like honey, maple syrup or coconut sugar.  Just…nothing.  No chemical laden coffee-mate creamer…this was actually my biggest concern that I thought would put me at the highest risk of failure. No alcohol, not even for cooking.

What this does is a few things:

• It forces you to go grocery shopping often because you’ll be eating all the food you buy because you aren’t swinging through wendy’s to grab dinner leaving all your groceries to sit in your fridge and go to waste.
• It creates a bit of a conundrum with restaurants.  I went out a few times, and the first time I just ate before I went because ordering something that didn’t have butter secretly cooked in, or canola or soybean oil used in the prep process just seemed like a far-fetched idea that was only accessible to normal people who were actually still enjoying their lives and not planning their every bite round the clock (Okay. I was a little stressed and hangry that first week.)
• It causes you to always have a few tricks up your sleeve.  You’ve gotta have something with you in case you are out and about longer than you planned and you can’t find something Whole30 compliant.  The day that I had to be the most creative was the day my sister had her baby. I was gone from my house from 7:30 am until 9 pm, and I packed lightly because I found out she had gone to the hospital and was in a mad dash to get the kids ready for school and get Leah to a babysitter.  I threw a bottle of Tessemae’s ranch dressing in my lunch bag, along with a couple of bananas, a couple of Lara bars, a Nutpod coffee creamer, and hoped for the best.  I was able to find veggie cups for sale at the hospital, along with hard boiled eggs, so I ate that for lunch and dinner with a hefty dose of the dressing I brought from home.
• It forces you to embrace what Melissa Hartwig (w30 founder) calls NSVs or “Non-scale victories”. Weighing yourself throughout the 30 days is not allowed.  In hind-sight, I’m so glad.  I psych myself out with the scale.  It was such a breath of fresh air to just focus on making good choices, working out hard, and paying attention to how my body felt for 30 days instead of worrying about a number on the scale.  I did lose weight at the end, but I’m glad that wasn’t my focus.  

 

• The HACKS:

• If you love coffee like I do, especially if you like it anything but black, then Whole30 might freak you out. I experimented and found a coffee creamer I really like:

Cinnamon Coconut-Cashew Milk Creamer:

1 can full fat (don’t mess around) Coconut Milk (Thai brand is compliant)

An equal part Silk brand Cashew milk 

1/2 a teaspoon of Frontier Organics Cinnamon flavoring

Shake it all together vigorously in a pourable container and continue enjoying your caffeinated life.

• Another coffee cream option is Nutpods, which I bought a 4 pack of for on-the-go.  If I get a kid free block of time, I love to go write or read at a coffee shop, so I would throw this in my bag and add it to my black coffee.
• Hardboiled Eggs.  Always these.  Top them with some Cholula Hot Sauce, and you are good to go for another 2 hours.
• Lara Bars.  To be used sparingly and as more of an “in a pinch” food because they are packed with dates which are pretty high in sugar, but still they saved the day very often when I was in town grocery shopping or whatever and realized I was running on fumes and had poorly planned.
• Food prep.  One of those things that takes planning and forethought and actual effort, all of which I excel at (not so much), but there’s just no getting around it here. Costco can be your friend with this. I love the container of already diced, ready to roast butternut squash, or the bags of cauliflower or broccoli florets.  They even have riced cauliflower now! But seriously, you have to get your food ready or you’re setting yourself up for failure.
• Read labels.  So many things seem like they would be Whole30 compliant, and then they are not because they have added sugar, or soy products, or canola oil.  You really have to pay attention.  Find a good variety of things that you like and that are compliant, and just stick with those things if you need to.  Don’t overcomplicate it, especially in the first two weeks.
• Get some Whole30 Mayo or make your own. Sounds intimidating but it's really not hard.  You can do so much with that stuff.
• Don't treat this like a "diet". If you try to scrimp on your fats you will fail. You will run out of energy and hate everything.  Eat avocados and mayo and coconut or olive oil with your veggies.  

Overall, I’m so glad I did this. I’m fairly confident that I have NEVER IN MY LIFE managed to stay the course on a healthy eating plan for 30 days without going off the rails at some point. It feels good to have some good boundaries with regard to food. I love that I don’t have heartburn several days a week. My skin is the clearest it’s been in years. It feels good to not be waking up with a sore ankle and sore back every day, and to notice that my knees are not aching from going up and down the stairs or squatting down on the floor to get my 2 year old daughter dressed. I feel great for my workouts, well as good as I can for doing Crossfit for 6 weeks after a good stretch of slothfulness (If you’ve never done Crossfit you should try it; those people don’t play) 

The other major selling point that’s really making me want to be careful about what kinds of foods I reintroduce, is the fact that my moods have been so much more stable.  I’ve had more patience.  I’ve long struggled with being an irritable mom, prone to anger and anxiety. That has dialed WAY down over the past 30 days.  It could also be from the workouts I’m doing, I’m not entirely sure. But if it’s even fractionally related to the fact that I’m not riding the sugar roller-coaster, then I’ve gotta figure out a way to keep going with this because I love my relationships with my kids more than I love sugar. 

If any of this is striking a chord with you, I’d urge you to consider doing it for 30 days! As I’ve just found out, you really can do anything for 30 days.  It’s so worth it.  You might be really surprised at how good you feel.  Or maybe you’ll hate me for recommending it and write me off as a crazy person, that’s fine too. I used to be that person. I thought only crazy people did the Whole30, so now I guess I’m even crazier than I used to be. I’m good with that.

Scary, Honest Friendship

Day 17 of Write31Days

 

Oops, I missed a few days.  I will chock it up to sheer exhaustion from a weekend full of football, church, and hosting a cider press/kid birthday party.  Sometimes you just pass out on the couch at 9:00 pm and all your writing intentions get lost amidst your snores.  It’s okay though. The achiever in me would like to write every single day of the challenge, but the part of me that’s still learning that people are always the priority, is taking solace in the fact that I was tired because I was busy being with and loving my people all weekend.

 

Anyway, something I wanted to talk about during this series about the surprises of adulthood, is the sometimes tender, land-mine filled territory of adult friendships.  I’ve had friendships that just sort of fizzled after mutual connection points changed, or as we changed as people and found that we just didn’t really relate all that much to each others’ stories anymore. There are also the usual culprits of busyness, stress, selfishness, fatigue, and a million other reasons why it can be hard to make and keep friends.  It’s not like in school where you had this habitat that put you together multiple days per week, where you could gravitate toward all the ones that were like you.

 

In adulthood, I’m finding that friendship, like everything good and worthwhile, takes effort.  You actually have to call people, or if you’re my friend, text people.  I’m much better on Voxer and texting that I am talking on the actual phone.  You sometimes have to get a babysitter if you want to get beyond talking about the weather, how crazy your kids are driving you, and what you are making for dinner tonight.  If a babysitter isn’t an option, you might have to find a time when you’re down a kid or two, so that actual conversation might be more of a possibility.  Then you have to find a day and time that works for both of you, which can be difficult, as I’m finding out as the kids get older and more busy.

 

Sometimes it can seem like more effort than you can handle.

 

But, as it turns out, it’s all very worth it.

 

This afternoon I got to sit across the table from a friend who gets me.  I confessed some stuff to her that has been weighing me down.  She knows my chronic struggles, and I can shoot really straight with her, without taking a ton of time to catch her up to speed and plead my case, hoping she will still love me.  She knows my weaknesses and reminds me of grace, every time. Sometimes she gives me a little truth nudge too when I need it. I told her today how thankful I am that we have this relationship where we even confess the ugly thoughts we have, the pride, the selfishness, and all the things no one writes about on their own Twitter account or plasters atop a beautifully curated instagram photo.

 

Freedom, laughter, and a deep sense of joy come from this place of being known AND accepted. I think every human heart really longs for that.  A lot of the time we settle for being accepted, but we can’t really ever let ourselves be known because then the acceptance might be retracted.  There might not be an atmosphere of grace where we can be raw and real and still find a friend who won’t shrink away in terror when we get really honest.

(photo credit: Alex Wong on StockSnap.io)

Our souls get bound up so tightly by our facades, our masks, and our hidden failures that we are afraid to let out into the open.  We weren’t made to live in secret, living superficial lives.  We were made to be first, fully known by God and loved in spite of ALLLL the dirt that covers our souls, and then to turn to each other and allow our friendships and honest spaces to give our stories a safe place to land.  Be brave, go first and you’ll be surprised how disarming honesty can be!