Veggies Make Us Strong

A throwback I wrote probably around 2007 or 08:

 "I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and put their trust in the LORD." Psalm 40:1-3

This verse seems to be an autobiography of my life lately. The only thing I would change to make it pertain to me even closer is that the Lord waited patiently on me rather than me waiting patiently on Him. I was in the slimy pit and He was with me the whole way through, patiently waiting for me to make my God given free will choice to let Him pull me out of the mud and mire. I was so far gone that I had a hard time praising God during worship at church. I finally got to the point where I said "No! I will not praise you any longer. You let painful things happen in my life and I feel that you are no longer worthy of my praise!" Yes I said that (and it was terribly shocking for James when I told him!). But through the whole time I knew it was a matter of my choice to come out of that attitude.

Whenever people from church asked me how I was doing, I, being the bluntly honest person that I am, told them exactly what I was feeling. What I did find shocking on my end was that none of them got the vapors or fainted or had to pick their eyeballs up off the floor. Yes, I was slightly disappointed, I love shocking people. But, instead, several different people on several different occasions said "That's alright, He can handle it." My response at the time was, "Well, good, because He's going to have to!" (Keep in mind the bad attitude I was in, I'm not always like that.) It was so amazing to have the support of those people that, instead of telling me that, oh you shouldn't feel that way, said "Lets pray." They cared about me to the extent that they could handle the hard time I was going through and even appreciated my honesty.

Satan wants us to think that we're all alone during the hard times and that we're horrible people for thinking the things we do. But when we try to ignore those feelings (as opposed to taken them captive), it usually hurts us more as time passes. That stuff has to eventually come out in some form or fashion and the longer you wait, the uglier it gets. What happened to me was that that attitude allowed the devil to have a foothold in my life. Because I opened that door, it was opened for any-ol-thang to come in. Things that I struggled with in the past came back and the longer I let it fester and build up, the more I strayed from the place that I actually really really wanted to be. The worst part was that I was deceived into thinking that I could have this attitude indefinitely and choose to come out of it whenever I wanted to and could automatically go back to the happy person I used to be. But, even now, I struggle to get back there.

There have been many times that I've heard people refer to having heard from God. I've wanted that more than anything in my Christian walk. Wouldn't that be so easy? For God to just tell me what He wants from me would be awesome. What I've learned lately is that it's not always a traditional conversation - he said she said blah blah. But God usually speaks through the "still small voice," the Bible, and through other people. God's got lots of ways to speak to us and unfortunately it's not always a "Here I am Lord" kinda situation. Well, He spoke to me in that still small voice. My revelation was that TRUTH is TRUTH. I remember hearing the words in a song at church: "Holy God Almighty." I suddenly realized "Hey, He IS Holy God Almighty - no matter what I'm feeling or believing." The fact is that veggies make us strong and healthy but children don't always believe it to be a fact. Just because we don't feel like believing something is true doesn't mean it's not true.

So, just like I choose to love James (and there are times that I don't feel like it) I also chose to praise God because I know the truth of God. I was having a spiritual conflict. I believed in my salvation and that God loves me and that He sent Jesus to die for me. But that conflicted with my feelings that I was choosing to have - that God could have prevented my pain instead of allowing or causing it. When I chose to start praising Him again on the basis of what I knew to be truth - that He is Holy God Almighty, that truth was what healed my heart. "He put a new song in my mouth" and I am able to sing to and for Him again. To say that God even allowed suffering in my life is ridiculous. God is the God of love and has no connection what-so-ever to pain or sin. He is completely separated from bad. But we live in a crappy world and unfortunately sometimes life happens. Blame it on Adam and Eve if you must, but God is not the one who deserves that blame.

I don't pretend to be "arrived" by any stretch of the imagination. But when we're at the very bottom of that infamous back slide sometimes the best place to start is with praising our Lord.

In the middle of the night . . .

10:45pm on a Friday night in a small town. Not much traffic. Quiet. Cold. Headed into work for my first night shift in a long while. What are these feelings I'm having? Dreaded anticipation at the fatigue I'm about to go through? 

Nope. 

I'm excited. I feel my body begin to wake up. The wheels in my brain begin turning and ideas start bouncing around. I begin to think of all of the things I can do in the next EIGHT HOURS I have all to myself. Journaling, reading, watching some netflix . . . ok maybe that's it, but I really love doing those things. Fellow parents: can you even imagine what you'd do with EIGHT HOURS of time when you're at your absolute best mentally and you HAVE to sit at a desk?! It's unfathomable!! 

As a child, I dreaded the middle of the night. There was nothing scarier, sadder, lonelier, or more depressing than 3am. I'd lay in my bed in the dark sweating under the covers from a heightened adrenaline - but not be able to kick off the covers to cool off due to the fear. I wasn't afraid of monsters necessarily - just the vague notion of "something bad." And I'd stare at the clock and figure out how many hours of sleep I'll get if I fall asleep NOW . . . or . . . NOW . . . You know - we've all been there. Your own brain is NOT good company when you're depressed . . . 

I very very frequently couldn't sleep at night. Hours were spent in the dark, frightened and depressed and lonely. 

The time it took for the fear to turn towards excitement was an interesting journey. I hated the middle of the night. It was when I was supposed to be sleeping but couldn't. I was supposed to be sleeping. SUPPOSED to be.  So I finally asked why. Why do I have to be tired when everyone else is tired and sleep when everyone else is asleep? 

And so the night owl was born. But not without some side effects. Shame, embarrassment. I didn't really share my odd schedule with others. It seems that you're viewed as lazy if you get your rem cycles at different times than others. 

BUT NOW - I don't care. I LOVE being awake in the middle of the night. It's when my brain works best. It's when I feel the most creative and the happiest. Forcing myself to try to sleep when I was designed to be at my best was HURTING me. When I gave up trying to fit what I thought I was supposed to be - that's when I became who I was supposed to be. It's pretty cool to feel comfortable with the way you naturally are.  

If you can figure out how you work best - embrace it. Don't try to force yourself to be like someone else because they've figured out how they work best. We're all so very different and it's good. We're all a part of a big puzzle that makes a complete picture. We're a body with many parts. We all work differently and we're all completely necessary to be whole. 

Apparently I sound like a hippie in the middle of the night . . . geez. Promise I'm not drunk . . .

A little tune as we part ways:

River of Dreams

How I Met Billie

Sooooo . . . Where to start . . . I'll go the chronological route. :-)

Around noonish on Friday I noticed my water had started to leak. I took a few hours a few hours at home to make sure and we headed down to Stanford to check for sure and hoped stay. After the nurse and my midwife confirm my water was leaking they admitted me. They wanted to start me on penicillin right away (for Strep B). Since it needs to be in one's system for four hours before the baby's born my midwife, Jamie, decided to wait to break my water. She also started me on a low dose of pitocin that would progress me a little but not crazy. That all worked out ok.

Jamie came back to break my water about 1am. It's was pretty massive - you could just about see my stomach deflate. :) Over the next hour-ish my contractions did finally begin to progress a lot more substantially. I then requested my lovely lovely epidural. At that time the nurse checked my dilation - which was 6cm. She then went to call in the anesthesiologist.

I then decided that it would be a great idea to empty my bladder so that I wouldn't have to "go" while I was having a needle stuck in my spine. So I waited for a contraction to end so I'd have as much pain-free mobile time as possible. I was still able to talk through the contractions at that time.

James helped me to the bathroom. I couldn't "go" though. And then another contraction started and never stopped and just got worse and worse. I was going through more and more pain and apparently getting louder and louder. This is super awkward to mention but I'm not sure how else to explain it - I thought I needed to have a BM and was having a contraction at the same time. I didn't want to call a nurse because the thought of saying "it hurts to poop" sounded pretty weird. Since poop wasn't happening I stood up to try anything that would make the pain stop. Around this point (I think) my mom went ahead a called the nurse it - thank goodness.

At that point something was happening down under. I felt and it was about half the baby's head!! This was the first point that I realized I was giving birth and that it wasn't a contraction that would go away.

I'm not sure how I heard the nurse tell me to lay down on the floor to push but I heard her and somehow did so while yelling "I CAN'T!!" (There was a lot of that line going on.) I somehow managed to kneel and roll onto my back without sitting on the baby's head. It probably went quicker than I thought but I eventually got it into my head that if I didn't push the baby would stay put and the pain would continue. I'm not sure I would have been able to push more than the one time that I did.

And so Billie was born. My first view of her was her on my stomach with the back of her dark haired bloody head in my sights - it was beautiful. James cut her cord and then they took her over to her warm bed thing to give her some smacks to get her making noise. She was pinking up but not being very vocal. Meanwhile I was still laying on the bathroom floor in what my mom described as a CSI scene. Poor James was standing then with his bloody wife and quiet baby. He was awesome though - very level and helpful and awesome.

I've never been more serious about this: I really thought I was dying and I've never been more frightened or in more pain. I'm sure the intensity would have been not as bad if I'd realized sooner what was going on. I'm told that Jamie could hear me over the phone at the nurses station when they called her.

So Billie was born about 10-15mins. after I was at 6cm. Almost while I was standing. Thankfully not in a toilet. In fitting with the theme of her birth she pooped on me twice during kangaroo care. One could say it was a "crappy" birth experience. But I was a million times better after she was out. I think we all were!

I'm A Quasi Jerk

Did it tick anyone else off when, in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Esmerelda picked Phoebus instead of Quasimodo? We all know why she picked Phoebus - he wasn't really that great compared to Quasimodo's kindness and sacrifice And this is only from the Disney version. In the book, Esmerelda is obviously disgusted with Quasimodo's appearance without knowing anything else about him (although he is pretty loony in the book version due to his personal issues) - and Pheobus is kind of a creep. Anyway, I definitely think she should have gone with Quasimodo in the Disney movie (and no one in the book!).

So, that was just a rant that along the same theme of what I'm actually going to talk about. ;-)

It doesn't take much for me to get onto certain trains of though and I suppose this one won't be the most originally insightful revelation I've ever had. But it definitely has made me take note of how I think about things and how I would want my kids to think about things.

It began with seeing on the news the pictures of the two young adults suspected of the Boston marathon bombing. My first thought was "Wow. They don't look like 'bad guys'. They're just a couple of young good-looking boys." And, because I saw this right after a night of Disney on Ice, it made be think about how "Prince Charming" is always portrayed as very handsome. It would be inconceivable for Snow White, Cinderella, or any other "princess" to be pursued by a physically unattractive fellow. (Maybe The Princess and the Frog is the best anti-example of this - they fell in love as frogs!)

It made me realize that I don't want my kids to grow up and fall-in with people that they think are good because they "look" good. And I don't want them to miss out on something wonderful in a friend or potential spouse because a person may not be aesthetically pleasing or look like Prince (or Princess) Charming. I want my kids to see that beauty isn't in the EYE of the beholder - but the HEART of the beholder. AND in the HEART of the . . . . beheld? Beholded? You get the picture: We need to look with more than our eyes.

When it's put into words I've always felt this way. But I didn't realized it's in my heart until a thought like what I had crossed my mind. I guess it's somewhat ingrained in me to look at a picture of someone and judge their heart based on their mug. I'm going to try to stop doing that.

Time and Will

"Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate."   - W. H. Auden 

I never know what in the world will me me happy.

I purposefully avoid watching certain shows or reading certain books because I don't want to be convicted about who I am and feel like I need to change something - because I will certainly fail at it. I've never watched Biggest Loser because everyone is always talking about how it makes them change their eating (or want to at least) and to exercise more. But, not only do I not want to eat healthier or exercise - but I know I don't have the self-disciple to follow through with it and then I'll feel guilty and stupid and like a big failure. So I avoid anything that will convict me about it.

I have to admit - I've done that with Bible reading as well. Talk about the biggest thing that can ever convict a Christian! So I avoid that gold edged book sometime frequently and something infrequently. But when I do pick it up - I discover it was a big fat lie. When I crack those intimidatingly thin pages it refreshes and encourages me and whatever corrections it reveals are just at refreshing and encouraging as any of the rest of the experience.

So, my most recent non-endeavor has been a certain book. Sacred Marriage. Of course a sacred marriage is a great thing . . . but you haven't heard the subtitle yet: "Maybe God didn't intent marriage to make us happy but to make us holy." (Or something to that effect.) Well dang. Of course I want to be holy . . . but I really REALLY want to be happy!

I bought the book though, I guess in hopes it would absorb into me or something . . . . When that didn't work, I went ahead and read the first chapter last night. Shocker of all shockers: It made me happy. APPARENTLY becoming more like Jesus and building your character and contentment makes you happy! Who would have thought?

I suppose I've read so many Christian marriage books that just plain piss me off - that tell me what I should be doing (but I always fail at), or worse, they tell me how to be based on the way women typically are thought to be - but I'm not like "normal" women at all. I usually identify with the man advice in those books - which presents it's own set of problems regarding my identity.

But this book doesn't tell me what to DO. I thought it would present a sort of "deal with it" mentality. But the way the concepts are presented freed me rather than chained me further to ideas that have never worked for me. It simply looks at marriage from a different perspective and it ended up being the case that I was already the kind of person that does that! I have just thought that it was wrong - that I was wrong. My mentality wasn't wrong because it was wrong - I just thought it was because I wasn't like everyone else.  I'm not a romantic; I'm not ooey-gooey; I'm not a crier, a snuggler or a sentimentalist. It was refreshing to read a perspective that says that's not what makes a marriage work. It's not about the "spark" in your marriage - it's about staying, about attitude, about choices, about perspective.

It's about being like Jesus. If he can take the bad parts of life and work them out to where good comes from it - where good wouldn't have existed otherwise - then I can do that too. With him. And it makes me very happy.

I'm not sure I'm ready for Biggest Loser yet . . . but I'm ready for my marriage. I've got time and will.

"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."

- Orson Welles

"My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy, if not, you'll become a philosopher."
- Socrates

"When we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy."

- C.S. Lewis

The S Word

I'm pretty sure that anyone that knows me just a little bit wouldn't be surprised to know that submission is not something I'm naturally good at. I've been greatly challenged in this area of late. But for the first time ever I think I did it right. Here's how it went down:

James made a choice. I one hundred percent disagree with this choice . . . but I'm going along with it. I've done that much before - but this time I added some prayer and some friends prayed with me and I made a choice of my own . . . and something in my heart adjusted. It's the sort of adjustment that you know only God can make because all I wanted to do was yell at James for a few days and then leave for a few months.

I think it was the combo of the praying and the choice on my part and the power of God Almighty that has caused me to love my husband so much the past few days. The choice I made was simple - it was to stay with him. Then I figured that staying and not making the best of being stuck with the fella forever would be a waste. The point of marriage is to show the world the love of Jesus and the unity and all that stuff. Our marriage should be such that we're better together for the furthering of the kingdom of God than we are apart. So if we're going to be together we might as well be beneficial for the great commission. 

Are you with me? :-)

So my realization today is that I actually submitted properly to my husband for, quite possibly, the first time ever. Submission isn't agreement. But I think it's kinda sorta going along with something you aren't necessarily a fan of, not arguing about it 'til you get your way, being at peace, not letting it affect your happiness, and most importantly for me - loving your husband beyond your own strength when you think he's wrong. This is a peace that only comes from God and it's a peace that I could only have found by my husband making the wrong choice. (In my own ever so humble opinion of course.)

It's a very weird experience for me. I've decided to trust - and it's not a trust that I have to have in every single one of my husband's choices (because it usually comes down to a matter of opinion) - but it's a trust that I'm taken care of - a trust in God that he has entrusted me to James. To now be at peace instead of angry frees me to see that James loves me and actually makes decisions that he feels are right - even though I may think they're stupid. I mean God used a lot of crappy people to do his work - and James is way better than Paul started out. I like James, he's a great guy, but it's really hard to let even a great guy make choices that affect you so much and then not be a big brat and make 'em pay for it. I actually want to be happy with my husband and if it means keeping my snide comments to myself and thinking of him above myself and being kind to him when I want to punch him in the face - then I think I'm starting to be ok with that sacrifice.

Of course, I'll need to keep the prayers going and keep making decisions in my heart constantly to not just stay physically - but to stay in every way that one can stay. To decide to be united instead of at war. Better yet - to be at war but not with each other. I have to admit - I need a war on one front or another. James is someone good to fight on the same side with - he's actually an excellent fighter. I'm impressed that someone as gentle as him can be such a good fighter. You should hear him on the phone with the credit card people.

So, submission. It's not completely terrible. I just hope James is making the right choices because I know I'm covered - but, as the leader, he's straight under God himself and God might smack him upside the head if James is taking the whole family down the wrong path. That will be so awesome. But it'll also be awesome if James is right and everything turns out just fine. 

 Note to James: remember at the marriage conference how you said that one of the things you were initially attracted to in me was my outspokenness? Hahahaha!

The Sacred Journey

This is a book review for The Sacred Journey by Charles Foster - a book I received for free from BookSneeze in exchange for an objective and honest opinion.

First I have to say: this is an extremely dangerous book to read. Read it at your own risk. The risk is to your comfort zone. Foster writes this book to connect the idea of physical pilgrimage to modern day Christianity - especially the cushy stuff-filled convenience we're familiar with. He points out that we spend our lives "walking" with Jesus, spreading the gospel "movement," and we're on our spiritual "journey." But many of us are unwilling to get off the couch. He presents the idea that physical. movement is directly connected to spiritual growth. And as I read, I came to agree with him.

Jesus himself was nothing like the modern Christian. To follow Jesus you had to actually drop everything and GO. The very act of the disciples going with Jesus physically showed repentance in leaving behind their old selves and completely changing their way of life. Jesus spent very little time in what then urban society and much of his time traveling and in the wilderness - after all, Jesus was a shepherd, not a farmer. The first thing he did with his brand new resurrected body was to go for a walk. Foster shows us what we've known all our lives but (I for one) haven't made the connection: Jesus doesn't just move in us, he moves us to move as well.

Jesus also had a strong preference for people that weren't in the cities but were on the "fringe" of society both in the physical and non-physical sense.  Who was one of Jesus' very favorite people? The freaky-deaky, desert dwelling, bug eating, bathed only by baptism John the Baptist. Jesus' entourage consisted of societies least favorite people. Tax collectors, sinners, ill-reputed women, even <gasp> Gentiles.

Foster first establishes that moving is good. He then processes to tell us why it's good. As Foster points out "It's impossible to point to an epic hero who's a couch potato." The hero isn't a hero without his journey. We live in fleshy bodies that were made to move. To not move them defeats the purpose: to GO into the world to subdue it and to SPREAD the gospel of Jesus. We go for two main reasons: to get rid of the junk we've accumulated (the physical "stuff" and the heart "stuff"); and we encounter God.

Foster goes on to share where to go (anywhere) and what to bring (nothing). And that's where the issue of the comfort zone arises. When we become what we have, that's when we need to leave it all behind and go to meet Jesus. "Your arms are lighter because you're not carrying so much, and they lift more easily." If what you bring can cushion the journey then leave it behind.

Focus on the journey, not on the arrival. Talk to weird people and go out of the way places. Be vulnerable, not a tourist. Find out that hardships aren't so hard after all - or that they are and laugh at them - or better yet: rejoice in suffering! Cope. Walk. Answer the questions that the road demands answers to - answers you can't avoid because you have nothing to keep you busy.

Then go home. As with the prodigal son, the beginning and the destination of the journey turned out to be one and the same. When you get home you find that you haven't reached a destination but started a new journey. Home is where you apply what you've learned about life, yourself, and God.

As I said already, this is a very dangerous book to read. But for me it was more than just a danger to my comfort zone. It actually stirred up something in me that the author didn't intend to stir up. It can be very easy for someone to take the good spiritual lessons in this book and twist them just a little bit to give yourself permission to run away. I felt very stagnant in my life when I began the book. Thankfully, Foster does make a point to make sure you're not skirting responsibilities and "leaving others to mop up the mess that you have left." My husband has enough to mop up already!

However, if life has become much too comfortable to satisfy; if your spiritual walk is best described as "stagnant" - read on and be inspired into mobility. Read on to experience an exodus from your couch. Read on if you're ready to drop everything and GO.

"Salvation is by grace, not by pilgrimage. But pilgrimage can help to create the conditions in which grace can work best."