Away with your noisy hymns of praise
I will not listen to the music of your harps (strings)
Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice
An endless river of righteous living.
Amos 5:23-24 (parenthesis added)
The first time I saw her, I didn’t have any children of my own.
Ben and I were at the Rock Opera with his youth group from Alamo Heights Baptist church. Some people had just handed out these folders that had African kids’ pictures on them, and Rebecca St. James was on stage talking about an organization called World Vision. I wasn’t really listening.
Instead, I was staring at Kedija Juhar, the little girl a woman had passed to Ben and me. She had brown eyes and wild hair, and I knew we would sponsor her before I even read that she lived in Tanzania and was the “water bearer” for her family and that her father had died of AIDs and that she took care of her brother and sister while her mother tried to find work.
I knew even before I saw that her birthday was the day before Ben’s and my anniversary.
Those eyes…they just wouldn’t let me go.
Six years ago we signed up to send $35 each month to this precious little girl across the ocean. She was 6. Didn’t go to school. Had no drinking water within a five-mile radius. Wore no shoes.
Today, Kedija is 12. Her favorite subject is science, and she’s not so good at math but she’s excelling at her native language. Her community has a well from which they draw water now. She saves her shoes for school.
Moses Mwesige came along in 2005, after we’d signed up to become World Vision Artist Associates. He’s from Zimbabwe, a part of Africa so ravaged by AIDs that World Vision leaders compare it to an “Asian tsunami every six days.” So many places in Africa are the same.
Moses has seen the destruction of the disease. His family has buried sons, daughters, parents and grandparents in the 12 years he’s been alive, and even in a community where death is almost commonplace, it is no less damaging. In his first letter to us, Moses wrote, “Thank you for loving me so much that you would choose to sponsor me.” His words made me cry the day I opened up that dirt-streaked envelope and unfolded the paper stamped with World Vision’s Zimbabwe seal. If I’m really being honest, they still make me cry today because, though simple and sweet, they are at the same time intense and difficult. He saw our love in that paltry $35 we sent every month.
How little I knew of the love that would blister my heart like the scorching dirt in Africa blisters their feet, the same love that would make my heart dance and laugh and sting and cry every time I saw “Zimbabwe” scribbled on an envelope.
How little I knew of its addiction.
We sponsored our third child three months after Jadon was born, when I found a little boy from Peru, Juaquin, who was born the same day Jadon was born in 2006. I saw his face, and I saw my son.
Juaquin is almost 3 now. His colored pictures hang alongside Jadon’s artwork on our refrigerator (which is getting a little crowded by now), and when Jadon’s old enough to write, they’ll be pen pals. When he has his own money, Jadon will help make sure Juaquin has enough to eat.
Philani Lugogo came along a few months later. He’s from a rural community in South Africa. His first picture showed a skinny 3-year-old with melancholy eyes and dirty feet. The picture we got a few weeks ago shows a healthy 5-year-old with smiling eyes and shoes to cover his probably-still-dirty feet. He just started school.
Maureen is the last of our sponsored kids. We just began our relationship with her two months ago, so the only thing I know about Maureen is that her birthday is on the day my grandmother died. Memaw would be glad to know that a little girl’s life was changed so drastically the day she died.
You may be wondering why I’m telling you all of this. Because they are my children. And, just as Jadon and Asa have done, Kedija, Moses, Juaquin, Philani and Maureen have taught me so much over the years.
Namely this: I. Am. Still. Selfish.
It took me a while to realize this, and even longer to admit it, but it’s true.
I eat half my oversized plate at Chili’s and I buy that overpriced organic chicken at H-E-B and I drink that oversweet Starbucks hot chocolate, and I complain about how my budget doesn’t seem to be working out this month. While the millions who live on less than $2 a day eat their beans and rice and, maybe once a week, that piece of almost-rotten fruit and walk those five miles to get that clean water, and they sing “I’ve got this joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart” and they mean it.
I sit in my three-bedroom, 1,988-square-foot house, with its centralized heating and cooling system, and I turn on my wide-screen television with more channels than I’d watch in a lifetime and I grumble about how the honey-colored book shelf that sits in our gameroom will have to be replaced eventually because my sons (and probably husband) have nicked some of the wood with their rough-housing. They sit in their houses made of cardboard or fabric or see-through sheets and thank God that they have shade from the burning sun.
I try to hold on, with cramping fingers, to the bit of comfort I have here…while my children—MY children—across the ocean are starving. Hurting. Dying.
I am so selfish.
So I’ve found myself begging God to break my heart for what breaks his, to show me what else I might do in my little corner of easy living, to make the lives of those millions just a tiny bit easier.
Back in July, Ben and I attended a worship leader’s conference in Leawood, Kansas. The idea that worship cannot be separated from justice had been on our hearts for a while, and it was reaffirmed at the conference.
While there, God urged Ben and me to start working on a project, which we’ve since titled “Heart Like Your Heart Project,” that will effect change in the lives of children and orphans all over the world. Progeny plans to go into the studio in March to record a brand new worship album, with brand new original worship songs, that will release sometime in April or May.
Here’s the important thing, though: all sales of the album will go directly to World Vision. Ten percent of the profits will be distributed to Progeny’s sponsored children, to purchase goats and cows and chickens in order to raise the communities’ economic status for their own good and the good of surrounding communities. The other 90 percent of the profits will go directly to the work of World Vision—building wells, providing food and clothing and shelter and administering health care to the ones who need it most.
Our goal is to sell 10,000 CDs, which will raise $135,000 for the work of World Vision (Visit www.progenyworship for more info on the project and e-mail ben@progenyband.com if you’re interested in hosting a house party or worship concert).
I’ve never been to Zimbabwe or Tanzania or Peru or South Africa. But I have children there. Children who go to bed hungry, children who raise their brothers and sisters because disease stole their parents. Children who want to know that they are worth the sacrifice of my monthly Chili’s tab.
Listen to what Leonard Sweet says in "The Three Hardest Words in the World to Get Right:"
“Everything we do—our learning, our strivings, our dreaming and daydreaming—needs to be shaped by the one in three people who live on less than two dollars per day. We need to be shaped by the ten thousand Africans who die of AIDs, TB and malaria every day, and the fifty million people who die of hunger every year. That’s why the condition of our souls has a direct relation to the condition of our neighborhoods and our nations. Something is wrong when the wealth of some depends on the poverty of others. Something is wrong when the ascent up the ladder for some depends on the descent down the ladder for others.”
Amen, Leonard.
So I say, let us run, dance, walk, limp, whatever it looks like to us, toward God’s heart in caring for the orphan and the widow and the foreigner. Because if we want to see Jesus—and I mean really, really see him—we’ll have to crumple our perfectly-pressed pants and roll up the sleeves of our Tide-white shirts and get a little messy. Because where the dirt-smudged children, the poverty-stricken foreigners and the not-exactly-aromatic homeless are is right where Jesus loves to be.
Break our hearts for what breaks yours, oh God.
(For sneak peeks of three of Progeny’s new worship songs, visit www.progenyworship.com.)
Monday, November 2, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Celebrate Recovery testimony, shared 10/13/09
I’m a believer in Jesus Christ who struggles with perfectionism, a skewed body image and low self worth.
All of this…messiness…began a long, long time ago. I grew up with a small town, in a two-bedroom house with my mom, my dad, my older brother and my younger sister. We knew everybody’s secrets in that town. They knew all of ours.
The first time I remember my dad leaving home was the day after I’d sung my first solo in church. I was 4. He drove off that day on a Harley motorcycle, to “go find work” in his home state of Ohio, while we stayed behind in Texas. I watched him with dripping eyes until that motorcycle was too far away to even imagine, and I remember thinking my solo is what made him leave.
He worked out of state for a month or so. Maybe he sent home some money, maybe he didn’t. I don’t really know. I do know that he came home with a box of Jones Potato chips (a brand of chips made only in Ohio) and the clothes on his back. Seemed like he’d never left.
Short absences—a month or two—were normal after that. When friends would ask about my dad, I recited what he’d told us: that the jobs were better in Ohio. They looked at me with skeptical eyes. Maybe deep down inside I knew it was a lie, too.
The next time Daddy left for an extended trip (I knew because he took a backpack of clothes with him this time) was the same day I found out I needed glasses. I cried and cried and cried—partly because he was leaving but mostly because I needed glasses, and if I needed glasses, that meant I could no longer be perfect for him. And that meant he would stay away even longer.
He did.
He was gone for two years. At the end of those two years, my mom packed us up and drove the night through to Ohio. We rented a house in Mansfield. I could count on one hand the number of times Daddy slept in his own house while we were living in the same town. So my mom moved us back to Texas. A year later, she got a letter from her sister-in-law saying that Daddy had a 3-year-old daughter and a baby on the way with a woman he’d been fooling around with for years.
I was 11 years old when my parents split up, when I figured out I wasn’t good enough to keep my dad at home. I spent the next 10 years trying to prove I was good enough.
My mom moved us back to where we’d spent our first few years in school. I got contacts. She got debt, bought a shabby house surrounded by corn fields. Everybody in that town knew why we’d come back.
I threw myself into school, focused on my studies, played sports, joined the junior high band, did everything I possibly could to make my dad, to make others, notice what a wonderful person I was.
We visited my dad the summer between my sixth and seventh grade years. It was the first time I met my half-brother, my half-sister and the woman who’d caused my parents’ divorce. After a rough month, my dad took us shopping for school clothes—his contribution since he never sent child support. I remember moving out of the dressing room to those big mirrors outside, just to make sure the shorts I’d chosen fit right. Daddy and my stepmom were there. He said, “I thought she would have lost all her baby fat by now” in a kind of off-hand, nonchalant way.
I stopped eating lunch my seventh grade year. Told all my friends it was because our athletics class was right after lunch and my food didn’t have time to settle. I cut out breakfast my freshman year in high school because I wasn’t “hungry that early in the morning.” I’d forget my lunch, too. Only ate dinner, and that’s just because my mom was there, watching me with eyes that said she knew what I was doing.
It got easier in college because those eyes weren’t there. I would limit myself to a small smoothie every day—about 600 calories—and obsessively worked off that 600 calories—and more—by running six or seven miles and lifting some weights. I made excuses when my mom came to visit once a month or so. The Texas State marching band was really hard work, and I couldn’t keep the weight on because of it. She knew better. I know that now.
It wasn’t just the body image, either. The desire to be the best, to be perfect, pushed me to seriously focus on my studies. I graduated valedictorian of my high school class, got a full ride to college and graduated with highest honors from Texas State University in San Marcos. I still remember crying when I brought home my first B on a philosophy essay. I never let it happen again.
My sophomore year of college I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment with roommates who saw my pantry shelf and the very few groceries that sat there. At the time, I was news editor of the university newspaper, and the excuse I offered to them was that my job didn’t pay much (it didn’t) and I didn’t have money for more than the can of green beans I ate every day.
I got more involved in the Baptist Student Ministry during my junior year. The director there asked me to be the worship leader, and I remember thinking, “He has no idea how messed up I am.” But I did it, even while I struggled through my relationship with God. Working out, counting calories, was way more important to me than spending time with a living, able-to-heal God.
Recovery began my senior year of college, when I finally found it in me to admit I had a problem.
The summer prior to that, I’d gotten a call from my dad. He lived in Florida now. He was sober, which was unusual at that time. He told me he’d made a mistake, that he didn’t mean to do what he’d done. He apologized for leaving us high and dry, said it wasn’t my fault or my brother’s fault or my sister’s fault, that the fault was his alone. I told him I forgave everything, that I didn’t hold any of it against him because I loved him. He cried. I sobbed. Healing stretched its arms around us.
A month later, Ben and I decided to pursue a relationship together. When he and I first started dating, I’d moved up to editor in chief of the university newspaper. I spent hours and hours every day in my office—writing, editing, editing some more—and because I still had trouble eating three meals a day, Ben stuck a note on my computer that said “skinny = beautiful” with a line through the equal sign. I looked at it every single day, and maybe deep down inside I started to believe it.
Things have changed since those college days. My relationships are different—because I no longer (or at least try hard not to) compare myself to my friends or try to measure up to some impossible-to-reach bar just to prove I’m good enough to like.
My relationship with Ben is deeper than it used to be because I know he loves me even if there are 10 extra pounds on my body that weren’t there when we married. Maybe six years of telling me it doesn’t matter what I look like have finally lodged those words into my stubborn brain.
My relationship with my dad has been restored, to a certain extent. He knows where we stand. I know he’s suffered more than enough for what he’s done. Contact is still spotty, like it was when I was a kid, but I call him every other month just to let him know I’m thinking about him. I still love him as much as I did before he made his mistakes. Maybe I love him more because of his mistakes.
I still run five or six miles a day. But the eating disorder is gone. The tendency toward perfectionism is still there, but maybe I’m okay with that because it reminds me how I need God’s grace every single day to dodge the shackles that chase standards like that.
Some days I look in the mirror and don’t think that what I see is beautiful or thin enough. Those are the days I ask—maybe beg—Jesus to give me eyes to see myself the way he sees me—because the temptation is still there, curling its icy fingers around my arm. But Jesus never disappoints. Never. And some days, I do see what He sees: imperfect-but-still-beautiful me. Psalm 139:14 says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You works are wonderful. I know that full well.”
It’s taken me 16 years to believe that I am one of his works.
People have asked me over the years if I would change anything about my past. My answer is no. Because my past has made me who I am, has helped me see things in a different way, has offered me an opportunity to minister to God’s people. I’ve written about my past in a book I shopped to agents last week. I’ve shared my past in the songs my band records.
No, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because God is glorified in what might look like my mess. He’s glorified in all of our messes, and that is the beauty in mistakes.
All of this…messiness…began a long, long time ago. I grew up with a small town, in a two-bedroom house with my mom, my dad, my older brother and my younger sister. We knew everybody’s secrets in that town. They knew all of ours.
The first time I remember my dad leaving home was the day after I’d sung my first solo in church. I was 4. He drove off that day on a Harley motorcycle, to “go find work” in his home state of Ohio, while we stayed behind in Texas. I watched him with dripping eyes until that motorcycle was too far away to even imagine, and I remember thinking my solo is what made him leave.
He worked out of state for a month or so. Maybe he sent home some money, maybe he didn’t. I don’t really know. I do know that he came home with a box of Jones Potato chips (a brand of chips made only in Ohio) and the clothes on his back. Seemed like he’d never left.
Short absences—a month or two—were normal after that. When friends would ask about my dad, I recited what he’d told us: that the jobs were better in Ohio. They looked at me with skeptical eyes. Maybe deep down inside I knew it was a lie, too.
The next time Daddy left for an extended trip (I knew because he took a backpack of clothes with him this time) was the same day I found out I needed glasses. I cried and cried and cried—partly because he was leaving but mostly because I needed glasses, and if I needed glasses, that meant I could no longer be perfect for him. And that meant he would stay away even longer.
He did.
He was gone for two years. At the end of those two years, my mom packed us up and drove the night through to Ohio. We rented a house in Mansfield. I could count on one hand the number of times Daddy slept in his own house while we were living in the same town. So my mom moved us back to Texas. A year later, she got a letter from her sister-in-law saying that Daddy had a 3-year-old daughter and a baby on the way with a woman he’d been fooling around with for years.
I was 11 years old when my parents split up, when I figured out I wasn’t good enough to keep my dad at home. I spent the next 10 years trying to prove I was good enough.
My mom moved us back to where we’d spent our first few years in school. I got contacts. She got debt, bought a shabby house surrounded by corn fields. Everybody in that town knew why we’d come back.
I threw myself into school, focused on my studies, played sports, joined the junior high band, did everything I possibly could to make my dad, to make others, notice what a wonderful person I was.
We visited my dad the summer between my sixth and seventh grade years. It was the first time I met my half-brother, my half-sister and the woman who’d caused my parents’ divorce. After a rough month, my dad took us shopping for school clothes—his contribution since he never sent child support. I remember moving out of the dressing room to those big mirrors outside, just to make sure the shorts I’d chosen fit right. Daddy and my stepmom were there. He said, “I thought she would have lost all her baby fat by now” in a kind of off-hand, nonchalant way.
I stopped eating lunch my seventh grade year. Told all my friends it was because our athletics class was right after lunch and my food didn’t have time to settle. I cut out breakfast my freshman year in high school because I wasn’t “hungry that early in the morning.” I’d forget my lunch, too. Only ate dinner, and that’s just because my mom was there, watching me with eyes that said she knew what I was doing.
It got easier in college because those eyes weren’t there. I would limit myself to a small smoothie every day—about 600 calories—and obsessively worked off that 600 calories—and more—by running six or seven miles and lifting some weights. I made excuses when my mom came to visit once a month or so. The Texas State marching band was really hard work, and I couldn’t keep the weight on because of it. She knew better. I know that now.
It wasn’t just the body image, either. The desire to be the best, to be perfect, pushed me to seriously focus on my studies. I graduated valedictorian of my high school class, got a full ride to college and graduated with highest honors from Texas State University in San Marcos. I still remember crying when I brought home my first B on a philosophy essay. I never let it happen again.
My sophomore year of college I moved out of the dorms and into an apartment with roommates who saw my pantry shelf and the very few groceries that sat there. At the time, I was news editor of the university newspaper, and the excuse I offered to them was that my job didn’t pay much (it didn’t) and I didn’t have money for more than the can of green beans I ate every day.
I got more involved in the Baptist Student Ministry during my junior year. The director there asked me to be the worship leader, and I remember thinking, “He has no idea how messed up I am.” But I did it, even while I struggled through my relationship with God. Working out, counting calories, was way more important to me than spending time with a living, able-to-heal God.
Recovery began my senior year of college, when I finally found it in me to admit I had a problem.
The summer prior to that, I’d gotten a call from my dad. He lived in Florida now. He was sober, which was unusual at that time. He told me he’d made a mistake, that he didn’t mean to do what he’d done. He apologized for leaving us high and dry, said it wasn’t my fault or my brother’s fault or my sister’s fault, that the fault was his alone. I told him I forgave everything, that I didn’t hold any of it against him because I loved him. He cried. I sobbed. Healing stretched its arms around us.
A month later, Ben and I decided to pursue a relationship together. When he and I first started dating, I’d moved up to editor in chief of the university newspaper. I spent hours and hours every day in my office—writing, editing, editing some more—and because I still had trouble eating three meals a day, Ben stuck a note on my computer that said “skinny = beautiful” with a line through the equal sign. I looked at it every single day, and maybe deep down inside I started to believe it.
Things have changed since those college days. My relationships are different—because I no longer (or at least try hard not to) compare myself to my friends or try to measure up to some impossible-to-reach bar just to prove I’m good enough to like.
My relationship with Ben is deeper than it used to be because I know he loves me even if there are 10 extra pounds on my body that weren’t there when we married. Maybe six years of telling me it doesn’t matter what I look like have finally lodged those words into my stubborn brain.
My relationship with my dad has been restored, to a certain extent. He knows where we stand. I know he’s suffered more than enough for what he’s done. Contact is still spotty, like it was when I was a kid, but I call him every other month just to let him know I’m thinking about him. I still love him as much as I did before he made his mistakes. Maybe I love him more because of his mistakes.
I still run five or six miles a day. But the eating disorder is gone. The tendency toward perfectionism is still there, but maybe I’m okay with that because it reminds me how I need God’s grace every single day to dodge the shackles that chase standards like that.
Some days I look in the mirror and don’t think that what I see is beautiful or thin enough. Those are the days I ask—maybe beg—Jesus to give me eyes to see myself the way he sees me—because the temptation is still there, curling its icy fingers around my arm. But Jesus never disappoints. Never. And some days, I do see what He sees: imperfect-but-still-beautiful me. Psalm 139:14 says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You works are wonderful. I know that full well.”
It’s taken me 16 years to believe that I am one of his works.
People have asked me over the years if I would change anything about my past. My answer is no. Because my past has made me who I am, has helped me see things in a different way, has offered me an opportunity to minister to God’s people. I’ve written about my past in a book I shopped to agents last week. I’ve shared my past in the songs my band records.
No, I wouldn’t change a thing. Because God is glorified in what might look like my mess. He’s glorified in all of our messes, and that is the beauty in mistakes.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
The beauty of messy love...
Overwhelming.
The love that bubbles in my heart, rises to my throat and lodges there when I look at my two sons, at their gem-of-a-man father, at their hands reaching for my face, my arm, my hair.
Overwhelming.
The panic that gurgles in my veins, claws at my throat and lodges there when I look at the mountains of laundry to be done, the piles of toys to be picked up, the layer of dust lounging on the tables and the bookshelves and the books that line them…not to mention the pages I need to design for work, the queries I need to write to agents so they’ll shop my book to publishers, the chapters I still need to write for my next book.
These emotions, so completely different from each other, live under the same roof. Sometimes it’s just…overwhelming.
Maybe you should know something about me. Maybe you already know it. I’m a perfectionist. Always have been…trying hard not to be.
But it sneaks in on days like today. Days when I look at that layer of dirt and wonder how we can even breathe in this house with two weeks of dust caking the ceiling fans that spin all night and the shelves my boys touch (and sometimes gnaw on, if we’re talking about Asa) and the beds where we sleep.
On days like today, I want to drop everything and clean until my hands fall off, until my feet scream for relief, until the whole house shouts, “Thank you, God, that she finally saw fit to pick up a duster.”
But on days like today, it is nearly impossible.
Because those boys (okay, and man)—a 2-year-old who would rather walk on toys than clean them up and a five-month-old who doesn’t even comprehend the word clean and a 27-year-old who seems like he should have been trained by now—are there, staring at me with eyes that say, “Stay here with me.”
So I do. I sit and watch Jadon pull out more toys and add to the pile that’s already out of hand. And I feel it growing inside me—the frustration, the horror, the panic of seeing my carefully-put-together game room becoming a tornado-went-through-here play room. I watch Asa stare at him, learning how to make a mess, and my eye starts to twitch a little. I watch Ben leave his shoes where he took them off instead of walking them to the closet where they belong, and my throat starts to burn a little.
And then I have to make myself remember something a very wise woman—my mama—told me just a few days ago: “There is no room for perfectionism in marriage or in parenting.”
No room for perfectionism. Oh, man.
But after the initial panic—“But if I can’t be perfect, what can I be?”—stops clawing at my face and my neck, I feel my shoulders relax a little, and I start to really watch the boys. Really watch them. And listen. I listen to Asa laughing hysterically at something Jadon has done. I listen to Jadon say, “I’m not a boy. I’m a man,” and I find myself thinking that he’ll make a fine man someday. I listen to Ben do everything he can to make Asa and Jadon laugh again, and I find myself thinking what a fine man, what a beautiful example, he really is (with the exception of the cleanliness, of course).
That’s when my heart starts to swell. That’s when I find myself remembering what started it all—this beautiful, messy life we four share together.
It was mid-September, 2002. I had just gotten home from singing the national anthem at a college basketball game. One of the assistant coaches had asked me out. I said no. Didn’t offer a reason, even though I knew it was because I’d written off dating, asked God to hold my heart until the right person came along. I drove back to my apartment, wondering if I’d made the right decision, and my roommate and her fiancé were standing outside, talking to this boy-man I had met before, had even been friends with for a while. The guys invited my roommate and me to watch a move at a mutual friend’s house. Something pushed me to say yes.
Ben and I talked during the whole movie. Six days later, God told me He’d given my heart to Ben. On Sept. 30, Ben told me he’d had a vision from God, a vision of his future wife. My mouth got dry until he told me the girl in his vision was me.
The next few months were sweet, sweet times. I was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper and would stay up at my office (Old Main on the campus of Texas State University) until 2 or 3 a.m. Sometimes Ben would meet me after work and walk me to my car because it was dark and dangerous, or so he said. Sometimes we would walk all the way to my apartment, enjoying the quiet of the morning hours and the way our hands fit together. Sometimes, when I was too tired to see, he would sit in my office keeping me awake while I did the final edit on the paper and sent it to press.
Two months after we’d decided to pursue a relationship, Ben asked me to marry him on stage at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio. We’d just gotten done watching The Nutcracker. His hands shook. My eyes leaked. We celebrated at The Olive Garden.
Oct. 11 will mark six years of marriage for us. I can’t believe it’s been that long since I wrote my vows and read them aloud for the 150 people crammed in that little historical church. He wrote a poem for me. I remember thinking, “I’m so glad I married a poet.”
I’m still glad, even if his dirty clothes do end up on the floor in the same pile as his clean ones (at least I’m not the one who has to do the “smell test”).
So this is the love that started it all. It’s that love, my love for him, my love for his children, that keeps me thinking—even when I look at the mess my sons can make in a matter of seconds—that I’m so glad I have a mess of toys to pick up. I’m so thankful I have five loads of laundry to do every week. I’m so blessed to have a sink full of dishes every morning.
Because it means they are here, alive and well. And I’m needed. Favored. Loved. That is what the mess and the disasters and the cries in my house tell me.
And that is what drowns the perfectionism.
Thank you, God, that they are here.
Asa talking to whoever will listen
Jadon sporting a mohawk
Asa
The brothers
The love that bubbles in my heart, rises to my throat and lodges there when I look at my two sons, at their gem-of-a-man father, at their hands reaching for my face, my arm, my hair.
Overwhelming.
The panic that gurgles in my veins, claws at my throat and lodges there when I look at the mountains of laundry to be done, the piles of toys to be picked up, the layer of dust lounging on the tables and the bookshelves and the books that line them…not to mention the pages I need to design for work, the queries I need to write to agents so they’ll shop my book to publishers, the chapters I still need to write for my next book.
These emotions, so completely different from each other, live under the same roof. Sometimes it’s just…overwhelming.
Maybe you should know something about me. Maybe you already know it. I’m a perfectionist. Always have been…trying hard not to be.
But it sneaks in on days like today. Days when I look at that layer of dirt and wonder how we can even breathe in this house with two weeks of dust caking the ceiling fans that spin all night and the shelves my boys touch (and sometimes gnaw on, if we’re talking about Asa) and the beds where we sleep.
On days like today, I want to drop everything and clean until my hands fall off, until my feet scream for relief, until the whole house shouts, “Thank you, God, that she finally saw fit to pick up a duster.”
But on days like today, it is nearly impossible.
Because those boys (okay, and man)—a 2-year-old who would rather walk on toys than clean them up and a five-month-old who doesn’t even comprehend the word clean and a 27-year-old who seems like he should have been trained by now—are there, staring at me with eyes that say, “Stay here with me.”
So I do. I sit and watch Jadon pull out more toys and add to the pile that’s already out of hand. And I feel it growing inside me—the frustration, the horror, the panic of seeing my carefully-put-together game room becoming a tornado-went-through-here play room. I watch Asa stare at him, learning how to make a mess, and my eye starts to twitch a little. I watch Ben leave his shoes where he took them off instead of walking them to the closet where they belong, and my throat starts to burn a little.
And then I have to make myself remember something a very wise woman—my mama—told me just a few days ago: “There is no room for perfectionism in marriage or in parenting.”
No room for perfectionism. Oh, man.
But after the initial panic—“But if I can’t be perfect, what can I be?”—stops clawing at my face and my neck, I feel my shoulders relax a little, and I start to really watch the boys. Really watch them. And listen. I listen to Asa laughing hysterically at something Jadon has done. I listen to Jadon say, “I’m not a boy. I’m a man,” and I find myself thinking that he’ll make a fine man someday. I listen to Ben do everything he can to make Asa and Jadon laugh again, and I find myself thinking what a fine man, what a beautiful example, he really is (with the exception of the cleanliness, of course).
That’s when my heart starts to swell. That’s when I find myself remembering what started it all—this beautiful, messy life we four share together.
It was mid-September, 2002. I had just gotten home from singing the national anthem at a college basketball game. One of the assistant coaches had asked me out. I said no. Didn’t offer a reason, even though I knew it was because I’d written off dating, asked God to hold my heart until the right person came along. I drove back to my apartment, wondering if I’d made the right decision, and my roommate and her fiancé were standing outside, talking to this boy-man I had met before, had even been friends with for a while. The guys invited my roommate and me to watch a move at a mutual friend’s house. Something pushed me to say yes.
Ben and I talked during the whole movie. Six days later, God told me He’d given my heart to Ben. On Sept. 30, Ben told me he’d had a vision from God, a vision of his future wife. My mouth got dry until he told me the girl in his vision was me.
The next few months were sweet, sweet times. I was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper and would stay up at my office (Old Main on the campus of Texas State University) until 2 or 3 a.m. Sometimes Ben would meet me after work and walk me to my car because it was dark and dangerous, or so he said. Sometimes we would walk all the way to my apartment, enjoying the quiet of the morning hours and the way our hands fit together. Sometimes, when I was too tired to see, he would sit in my office keeping me awake while I did the final edit on the paper and sent it to press.
Two months after we’d decided to pursue a relationship, Ben asked me to marry him on stage at the Majestic Theater in San Antonio. We’d just gotten done watching The Nutcracker. His hands shook. My eyes leaked. We celebrated at The Olive Garden.
Oct. 11 will mark six years of marriage for us. I can’t believe it’s been that long since I wrote my vows and read them aloud for the 150 people crammed in that little historical church. He wrote a poem for me. I remember thinking, “I’m so glad I married a poet.”
I’m still glad, even if his dirty clothes do end up on the floor in the same pile as his clean ones (at least I’m not the one who has to do the “smell test”).
So this is the love that started it all. It’s that love, my love for him, my love for his children, that keeps me thinking—even when I look at the mess my sons can make in a matter of seconds—that I’m so glad I have a mess of toys to pick up. I’m so thankful I have five loads of laundry to do every week. I’m so blessed to have a sink full of dishes every morning.
Because it means they are here, alive and well. And I’m needed. Favored. Loved. That is what the mess and the disasters and the cries in my house tell me.
And that is what drowns the perfectionism.
Thank you, God, that they are here.
Asa talking to whoever will listen
Jadon sporting a mohawk
Asa
The brothers
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Stories that make us who we are...
“Arise, cry out in the night,
as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to him
for the lives of your children.”
-Lamentations 2:19
This week has been beautiful.
I’m not just talking about the weather, although that’s a part of it. I feel fresh and hopeful and energized, like I could frolic for hours through the few leaves that have touched the Texas ground (Colorado had so many of so many different colors it was unbelievably gorgeous).
But it’s only Wednesday, and the week already has been beautiful.
I don’t say that about many weeks, maybe because I’m a realist (a pessimist, my husband calls it) by nature. But we just got back from a successful tour through Colorado with Progeny (successful not because we made a whole bunch of money, but because we got nine World Vision kids sponsored—changed nine children’s lives on the other side of the world). By Saturday evening, I had all the laundry done, the clothes folded and put away, the house completely clean, groceries in the fridge, a balanced checkbook and had spent some quality time with my family, just us. It was wonderfully beautiful.
On Sunday, Ben, Jadon and I went to Riverside, our church home. We hadn’t been there in a while because of our October travels (fifth anniversary trip to Florida and then the Colorado tour), so we had to catch up with many of our friends (Jadon did this in the nursery, showing off how he can now do somersaults over the sides of playpens). I heard so much baby news I wanted to cry for the joy that bubbled up inside…baby news from couples that have been trying for years to start a family and are living their dream now. It was…overwhelming.
I sat in church, trying hard to listen to my pastor, Scott Heare. It was so hard to concentrate with all the excitement and surprise and wonder churning from my heart to my toes. But Scott still managed to make me cry, even though I blinked the tears away before anybody else could see.
He talked about stories—stories that have made us who we are, stories that people have told over us, the few (hopefully few) stories that we are better off forgetting. He told us about how stories kept his grandfather, who had died when Scott was young, alive in his family for many years. He told us how his family would tell their stories and how later, when the stories had become a part of who he was, they would say, “You’re so much like your grandfather.” He told us how that burrowed into the person he became.
So this got me thinking about the stories that have been told about me and my life and what they have made me believe about who I am. Some might call me creatively efficient. I keep the checkbook balanced for my family, even though we make significantly less than the total of our bills every month. I manage my time like a typical person with OCD to get the most accomplished in the hours I have.
I’ve accomplished things that some might call great. Valedictorian is buried in there somewhere. Summa cum laude is stamped on my college degree. Writing awards are packed in a box in my garage, along with the hundreds of newspapers and magazines in which my stories have been published.
I’ve had some wonderful experiences. Five years ago, I married a man I still love. We bought our first house in May 2006. We welcomed our first child in November of that same year.
But none of that means a thing, not right now. I thought about this for a long time. And (as much as I don’t like it) when I thought about my stories, the only ones I could really remember—really, really remember—were the ones my dad told. The dad who left my family when I was 11, the dad who had spotty contact during my adolescent and early adult years (and even now), the dad I loved then and still love now.
It was the first summer I had seen him after my parents divorced, after my sister and brother and I learned that the woman he was living with he’d been living with for years and the children she had were his children, born while he was still married to our mom. I remember so clearly the visit that summer, the summer between my fifth and sixth grade year. I remember hoping, praying that this time I would be good enough for him. But I disappointed him that summer.
It happened a few days after my brother and sister and I arrived at the two-story house in Ohio, where we were all staying. I wanted to call my mom, to let her know we had gotten to Ohio safely, and for some reason (I remember we were driving somewhere else…maybe my grandma’s), I wasn’t able to. I don’t remember why. It’s not important to the story anyway. But I remember crying because I was so afraid that she would be worried. It was our first summer away from her, and we were all she had. I knew she would be worried. My dad turned around to me, glared at me from the front seat, and said, “You’re just like your mother. Sniveling over every little thing.”
Looking back, his words, “You’re just like your mother,” were not bad in and of themselves. My mom, I believe, is one of the most beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, loving and caring women I know. I hope I can be like her someday. But the way my dad said it that day, the meaning that crept into my consciousness even then, cut something deep inside. He didn’t like my mother, and he didn’t like me, either.
I’ve spent my lifetime trying to prove I was good enough to like.
That same summer, Dad and Shelly (my stepmom) took us shopping. Dad had agreed to buy our school clothes because Mom couldn’t afford it on her school librarian’s salary. I remember stepping out of the dressing room to look in one of the big mirrors, to make sure the shorts I had on fit right. Dad said, “I thought she would have lost all her baby fat by now,” to my stepmom. Maybe he didn’t intend me to hear him, but I did.
I stopped eating lunch my sixth grade year. Slowly I cut other meals out until I went off to college and was away from the concern that burned in my mom’s eyes. Then I let myself have one smoothie a day and nothing else. I made excuses when my mom came to visit once a month or so. The Texas State marching band was hard work, and I couldn’t keep the weight on because of it. She knew I wasn’t telling the truth, but there was nothing she could do. I needed to be thin.
It’s been a lifetime struggle. I’ve never seen myself clearly when I look in a mirror. Ben used to always tell me that. When he and I first started dating, I worked as editor in chief of the Texas State newspaper. Because I was in my office so much and still had trouble eating three meals a day then, Ben stuck a note on my computer that said “skinny = beautiful” with a line through the equal sign. I looked at it every day, but I couldn’t ever believe it. If I’m honest, I still don’t believe it today. Because I can’t forget that story.
So, as I was thinking about all of this, I realized that I have let the bad stories, the stories that made me something, someone, I didn’t want to be, overshadow the good stories, the stories that could have made me something better. The good stories are just a faint whisper among the shouts of condemnation and destruction that I hear when I really think about all of this.
I don’t want to erase or forget those bad stories because they are part of my bigger story. But I want to use them to build good stories, to help me remember how good other stories that have been told over my life are—because I know there have been good stories. I can barely remember my mom saying, “Your grandpa was always good with money. You must have gotten that from him” and my Memaw writing in a graduation card, “I know you’ll do well because you’re you,” and my Nana saying, “Your Grandad’n used to work at a newspaper. He was really good at writing, just like you. You would make him proud.” I want to remember those stories every day. I want them to make me someone better than I am.
The verse I wrote above came to me as I was looking at a running group’s Web site today. I thought about how important it is that we tell stories over our children that will help make them the men and women God intended them to be.
Jadon will turn 2 on Nov. 19. So hard to believe. We will welcome baby number 2 in April. I’ve been—Ben and I have been—given a wonderful privilege but also a great responsibility.
Oh, God, may we be the kind of storytellers that make our kids believe they can be beautiful, brilliant, life-changing people…because I know—and believe—they can be.
as the watches of the night begin;
pour out your heart like water
in the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to him
for the lives of your children.”
-Lamentations 2:19
This week has been beautiful.
I’m not just talking about the weather, although that’s a part of it. I feel fresh and hopeful and energized, like I could frolic for hours through the few leaves that have touched the Texas ground (Colorado had so many of so many different colors it was unbelievably gorgeous).
But it’s only Wednesday, and the week already has been beautiful.
I don’t say that about many weeks, maybe because I’m a realist (a pessimist, my husband calls it) by nature. But we just got back from a successful tour through Colorado with Progeny (successful not because we made a whole bunch of money, but because we got nine World Vision kids sponsored—changed nine children’s lives on the other side of the world). By Saturday evening, I had all the laundry done, the clothes folded and put away, the house completely clean, groceries in the fridge, a balanced checkbook and had spent some quality time with my family, just us. It was wonderfully beautiful.
On Sunday, Ben, Jadon and I went to Riverside, our church home. We hadn’t been there in a while because of our October travels (fifth anniversary trip to Florida and then the Colorado tour), so we had to catch up with many of our friends (Jadon did this in the nursery, showing off how he can now do somersaults over the sides of playpens). I heard so much baby news I wanted to cry for the joy that bubbled up inside…baby news from couples that have been trying for years to start a family and are living their dream now. It was…overwhelming.
I sat in church, trying hard to listen to my pastor, Scott Heare. It was so hard to concentrate with all the excitement and surprise and wonder churning from my heart to my toes. But Scott still managed to make me cry, even though I blinked the tears away before anybody else could see.
He talked about stories—stories that have made us who we are, stories that people have told over us, the few (hopefully few) stories that we are better off forgetting. He told us about how stories kept his grandfather, who had died when Scott was young, alive in his family for many years. He told us how his family would tell their stories and how later, when the stories had become a part of who he was, they would say, “You’re so much like your grandfather.” He told us how that burrowed into the person he became.
So this got me thinking about the stories that have been told about me and my life and what they have made me believe about who I am. Some might call me creatively efficient. I keep the checkbook balanced for my family, even though we make significantly less than the total of our bills every month. I manage my time like a typical person with OCD to get the most accomplished in the hours I have.
I’ve accomplished things that some might call great. Valedictorian is buried in there somewhere. Summa cum laude is stamped on my college degree. Writing awards are packed in a box in my garage, along with the hundreds of newspapers and magazines in which my stories have been published.
I’ve had some wonderful experiences. Five years ago, I married a man I still love. We bought our first house in May 2006. We welcomed our first child in November of that same year.
But none of that means a thing, not right now. I thought about this for a long time. And (as much as I don’t like it) when I thought about my stories, the only ones I could really remember—really, really remember—were the ones my dad told. The dad who left my family when I was 11, the dad who had spotty contact during my adolescent and early adult years (and even now), the dad I loved then and still love now.
It was the first summer I had seen him after my parents divorced, after my sister and brother and I learned that the woman he was living with he’d been living with for years and the children she had were his children, born while he was still married to our mom. I remember so clearly the visit that summer, the summer between my fifth and sixth grade year. I remember hoping, praying that this time I would be good enough for him. But I disappointed him that summer.
It happened a few days after my brother and sister and I arrived at the two-story house in Ohio, where we were all staying. I wanted to call my mom, to let her know we had gotten to Ohio safely, and for some reason (I remember we were driving somewhere else…maybe my grandma’s), I wasn’t able to. I don’t remember why. It’s not important to the story anyway. But I remember crying because I was so afraid that she would be worried. It was our first summer away from her, and we were all she had. I knew she would be worried. My dad turned around to me, glared at me from the front seat, and said, “You’re just like your mother. Sniveling over every little thing.”
Looking back, his words, “You’re just like your mother,” were not bad in and of themselves. My mom, I believe, is one of the most beautiful, wonderful, intelligent, loving and caring women I know. I hope I can be like her someday. But the way my dad said it that day, the meaning that crept into my consciousness even then, cut something deep inside. He didn’t like my mother, and he didn’t like me, either.
I’ve spent my lifetime trying to prove I was good enough to like.
That same summer, Dad and Shelly (my stepmom) took us shopping. Dad had agreed to buy our school clothes because Mom couldn’t afford it on her school librarian’s salary. I remember stepping out of the dressing room to look in one of the big mirrors, to make sure the shorts I had on fit right. Dad said, “I thought she would have lost all her baby fat by now,” to my stepmom. Maybe he didn’t intend me to hear him, but I did.
I stopped eating lunch my sixth grade year. Slowly I cut other meals out until I went off to college and was away from the concern that burned in my mom’s eyes. Then I let myself have one smoothie a day and nothing else. I made excuses when my mom came to visit once a month or so. The Texas State marching band was hard work, and I couldn’t keep the weight on because of it. She knew I wasn’t telling the truth, but there was nothing she could do. I needed to be thin.
It’s been a lifetime struggle. I’ve never seen myself clearly when I look in a mirror. Ben used to always tell me that. When he and I first started dating, I worked as editor in chief of the Texas State newspaper. Because I was in my office so much and still had trouble eating three meals a day then, Ben stuck a note on my computer that said “skinny = beautiful” with a line through the equal sign. I looked at it every day, but I couldn’t ever believe it. If I’m honest, I still don’t believe it today. Because I can’t forget that story.
So, as I was thinking about all of this, I realized that I have let the bad stories, the stories that made me something, someone, I didn’t want to be, overshadow the good stories, the stories that could have made me something better. The good stories are just a faint whisper among the shouts of condemnation and destruction that I hear when I really think about all of this.
I don’t want to erase or forget those bad stories because they are part of my bigger story. But I want to use them to build good stories, to help me remember how good other stories that have been told over my life are—because I know there have been good stories. I can barely remember my mom saying, “Your grandpa was always good with money. You must have gotten that from him” and my Memaw writing in a graduation card, “I know you’ll do well because you’re you,” and my Nana saying, “Your Grandad’n used to work at a newspaper. He was really good at writing, just like you. You would make him proud.” I want to remember those stories every day. I want them to make me someone better than I am.
The verse I wrote above came to me as I was looking at a running group’s Web site today. I thought about how important it is that we tell stories over our children that will help make them the men and women God intended them to be.
Jadon will turn 2 on Nov. 19. So hard to believe. We will welcome baby number 2 in April. I’ve been—Ben and I have been—given a wonderful privilege but also a great responsibility.
Oh, God, may we be the kind of storytellers that make our kids believe they can be beautiful, brilliant, life-changing people…because I know—and believe—they can be.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
I'm a daydream believer
“Until the time came to fulfill his dreams,
The LORD tested Joseph’s character.”
Psalm 105:19
Something about this verse gnaws at me.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about God’s plans and purposes and why he might do certain things in a certain way on a certain timetable. It’s so hard to understand sometimes. And then, every now and then, it’s clear enough to make me wonder if I was swimming in a see-through ocean all this time with my eyes shut, instead of wading through the muddy lake I thought I had jumped into.
I used to have so many dreams. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote all the time—poems, short stories, books. I’d written my first chapter book by the second grade. By fifth grade, I’d gotten my first story published in a magazine—a story about a girl who was paralyzed and suddenly begins to walk again. My mom still has all the manuscripts from that time, back when I really believed in the dream.
I wanted to be a singer, too. I started singing solos in church when I was 5. I sang someone else’s songs all through high school, became our school’s designated National Anthem singer. In college, I sang the National Anthem for Texas State’s baseball games and basketball games—but that was more to find the man of my dreams than anything else. And I did, too. He sat in the fifth row the third time I sang for the women’s basketball team.
My dreams seemed to fade a little as I tiptoed through each year, wondering if, hoping that this would be the year. Now their outlines are so faint I can barely see them.
I used to blame God for that. He took too long to fulfill the dreams. He made them too hard to reach. He disappointed me one too many times, made it too hard to believe. But I can see now that it’s my faith, or my lack of it, that is stealing the clarity of those dreams.
I don’t know where it all began. Maybe that’s not for me to know. Maybe knowing would give me the crutch-of-an-excuse, like all those troubled teenagers who break the law and then blame their parents for raising them poorly. I could blame my dad and the way he left when I was just on the brink of becoming a woman and how that made me feel insignificant and unloved. I could blame him for choosing another woman and the kids he had with her over the three he had with my mom and the way that made me want to be perfect so he would love me, too. I could blame him for making my mom work three jobs to raise her children while he evaded child support and the way that wounded me deep down inside.
But the thing is, it’s really up to me whether those wounds heal with or without scar tissue.
Ben and I were talking last night about the situation we’re in. Progeny has booked four solid weeks of camps in June. Ben can’t take a leave of absence from his part-time job, which provides our health benefits. He’s been told he’ll have to quit and then reapply if he wants to work after the camps in June. Which means we’ll lose our benefits.
At the same time, I’ve been asked to take over my boss’s job. The uppers told me they are “impressed” with my “work ethic” and “dedication to the job.” This after working 70 hours a week trying to keep the communication department at The United Methodist Church on its feet. I’ve got a list of 24 people who have left messages on my voicemail, but this week is a writing week, so there’s no time to call them back. Next week is my page design week, so there won’t be time then, either.
I haven’t seen my family in a month. I get home while Jadon is napping, and as soon as he wakes, we pack into the van and head up to my office until Ben picks him up at 7 p.m. I get home at 10:30, right around the time Jadon goes to bed.
So when the uppers even mentioned my “work ethic,” a red flag waved at me.
I still have a dilemma, though. I’ve been offered a promotion that would be great for my career. Progeny is moving in the direction of full-time ministry. The uppers are impressed with my 70-hour-a-week, sacrifice-time-with-my-family work ethic. Progeny offers no health benefits, no guarantee of a paycheck every week or two weeks or month.
My faith is having trouble. I keep looking back at this promotion offer and justifying my lean to accept it. It makes sense. God has gifted me with writing. I communicate well with people (even though my husband might disagree…). It has opened so many doors for Progeny.
But I can’t do both. I’ve realized that in the last few weeks. I’m so tired I feel like I might die of exhaustion. My head has been aching for days. I can’t be effective at both these jobs—and my responsibility at home as a wife and mother—because I’m just too tired, and I’m falling apart, becoming somebody I didn’t used to be, somebody I don’t even like.
So I asked God this morning to help me. I didn’t really specify why I needed help or with what exactly he should help. He sent me the verse above. And I feel like something has opened deep down inside, like the dreams and their fading outlines are being traced with a permanent marker by an invisible hand.
Progeny doesn’t make sense. Taking time away from a steady job to finish my novel doesn’t make sense, not in my practical eyes. Not when we have a baby and a mortgage and utility bills to pay.
But they are my dreams.
God never intended our journeys toward our dreams to be easy. He never meant them to make sense. I think sometimes we believe he did, and when it’s harder than we thought it would be or when people begin to look at us like we’re crazy, we chalk it up to another wrong step instigated by our fleshly nature.
God never intended it to be easy because there is no faith in easy.
So this is where my journey begins. This is where I can begin to pull out the thorn that’s been scratching me all my life, the thorn that keeps me from believing. It’s in there pretty deep, and it might take years—and many failed attempts—to get it out. But it starts here.
And when people ask me why I didn’t take that step up the ladder of my career, I want to say, “I did. I climbed off the ladder that had distracted me for a while and climbed onto the one that leads right up to the kingdom of heaven on earth.”
Thank you, God, for the hope that chases dreams and for the faith it takes to follow them.
The LORD tested Joseph’s character.”
Psalm 105:19
Something about this verse gnaws at me.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about God’s plans and purposes and why he might do certain things in a certain way on a certain timetable. It’s so hard to understand sometimes. And then, every now and then, it’s clear enough to make me wonder if I was swimming in a see-through ocean all this time with my eyes shut, instead of wading through the muddy lake I thought I had jumped into.
I used to have so many dreams. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a writer. I wrote all the time—poems, short stories, books. I’d written my first chapter book by the second grade. By fifth grade, I’d gotten my first story published in a magazine—a story about a girl who was paralyzed and suddenly begins to walk again. My mom still has all the manuscripts from that time, back when I really believed in the dream.
I wanted to be a singer, too. I started singing solos in church when I was 5. I sang someone else’s songs all through high school, became our school’s designated National Anthem singer. In college, I sang the National Anthem for Texas State’s baseball games and basketball games—but that was more to find the man of my dreams than anything else. And I did, too. He sat in the fifth row the third time I sang for the women’s basketball team.
My dreams seemed to fade a little as I tiptoed through each year, wondering if, hoping that this would be the year. Now their outlines are so faint I can barely see them.
I used to blame God for that. He took too long to fulfill the dreams. He made them too hard to reach. He disappointed me one too many times, made it too hard to believe. But I can see now that it’s my faith, or my lack of it, that is stealing the clarity of those dreams.
I don’t know where it all began. Maybe that’s not for me to know. Maybe knowing would give me the crutch-of-an-excuse, like all those troubled teenagers who break the law and then blame their parents for raising them poorly. I could blame my dad and the way he left when I was just on the brink of becoming a woman and how that made me feel insignificant and unloved. I could blame him for choosing another woman and the kids he had with her over the three he had with my mom and the way that made me want to be perfect so he would love me, too. I could blame him for making my mom work three jobs to raise her children while he evaded child support and the way that wounded me deep down inside.
But the thing is, it’s really up to me whether those wounds heal with or without scar tissue.
Ben and I were talking last night about the situation we’re in. Progeny has booked four solid weeks of camps in June. Ben can’t take a leave of absence from his part-time job, which provides our health benefits. He’s been told he’ll have to quit and then reapply if he wants to work after the camps in June. Which means we’ll lose our benefits.
At the same time, I’ve been asked to take over my boss’s job. The uppers told me they are “impressed” with my “work ethic” and “dedication to the job.” This after working 70 hours a week trying to keep the communication department at The United Methodist Church on its feet. I’ve got a list of 24 people who have left messages on my voicemail, but this week is a writing week, so there’s no time to call them back. Next week is my page design week, so there won’t be time then, either.
I haven’t seen my family in a month. I get home while Jadon is napping, and as soon as he wakes, we pack into the van and head up to my office until Ben picks him up at 7 p.m. I get home at 10:30, right around the time Jadon goes to bed.
So when the uppers even mentioned my “work ethic,” a red flag waved at me.
I still have a dilemma, though. I’ve been offered a promotion that would be great for my career. Progeny is moving in the direction of full-time ministry. The uppers are impressed with my 70-hour-a-week, sacrifice-time-with-my-family work ethic. Progeny offers no health benefits, no guarantee of a paycheck every week or two weeks or month.
My faith is having trouble. I keep looking back at this promotion offer and justifying my lean to accept it. It makes sense. God has gifted me with writing. I communicate well with people (even though my husband might disagree…). It has opened so many doors for Progeny.
But I can’t do both. I’ve realized that in the last few weeks. I’m so tired I feel like I might die of exhaustion. My head has been aching for days. I can’t be effective at both these jobs—and my responsibility at home as a wife and mother—because I’m just too tired, and I’m falling apart, becoming somebody I didn’t used to be, somebody I don’t even like.
So I asked God this morning to help me. I didn’t really specify why I needed help or with what exactly he should help. He sent me the verse above. And I feel like something has opened deep down inside, like the dreams and their fading outlines are being traced with a permanent marker by an invisible hand.
Progeny doesn’t make sense. Taking time away from a steady job to finish my novel doesn’t make sense, not in my practical eyes. Not when we have a baby and a mortgage and utility bills to pay.
But they are my dreams.
God never intended our journeys toward our dreams to be easy. He never meant them to make sense. I think sometimes we believe he did, and when it’s harder than we thought it would be or when people begin to look at us like we’re crazy, we chalk it up to another wrong step instigated by our fleshly nature.
God never intended it to be easy because there is no faith in easy.
So this is where my journey begins. This is where I can begin to pull out the thorn that’s been scratching me all my life, the thorn that keeps me from believing. It’s in there pretty deep, and it might take years—and many failed attempts—to get it out. But it starts here.
And when people ask me why I didn’t take that step up the ladder of my career, I want to say, “I did. I climbed off the ladder that had distracted me for a while and climbed onto the one that leads right up to the kingdom of heaven on earth.”
Thank you, God, for the hope that chases dreams and for the faith it takes to follow them.
Friday, March 14, 2008
finding room to just breathe...
It's been a rough few weeks…months. Or maybe it's been years. All this time, however long it's been, life has waved at me like I'm some old, almost-forgotten friend who missed the bus or the train or the carpool that takes people to places where they can really live instead of just exist.
I don't know when exactly it happened, but I lost myself somewhere in the middle of all that time.
It might have started back in college, when I balanced three jobs (editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, substitute teacher and freelance writer for the San Antonio Express-News) to pay my bills, a full semester of writing-intensive classes and an out-of-control pressure to maintain my 4.0 GPA.
Or maybe it was back in high school, when I turned 16 and realized my parents couldn't afford to pay for my insurance and the gas to drive the school, back when I landed my first job. Working wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that I played volleyball and tennis and ran track and was a drum major for the high school band and an all-state clarinet player and in the running for valedictorian.
Maybe this balancing act began way back then.
I used to think, naively, that God had gifted me with some crazily awesome time-management skills (how else could I get so much done in so little time?). But last week, while Ben and I were in the studio recording the songs for Progeny's second album, I discovered something about all those accomplishments.
Every one of them had pocketed a little piece of me, and I just sat back and watched them do it.
So when the MakeShift Records guys told me they needed me to add a little "personality" to my solo songs, my first thought was that I didn't know how to do it or what it would sound like or how my personality, as uninteresting as I am, could make any difference at all.
They stopped me halfway through my song, called me back into the main studio room. I remember how the room spun as I walked toward the black leather couch, how dry my mouth was and how my nose burned with tears that I couldn't let them see (but ended up doing anyway).
They said they needed something more from me, something that showed them I believed in the song, that I wasn't "singing karaoke" behind a studio mic. I told them I didn't know how to give them more, that Ben was the creative genius behind our song melodies, the one with the "big" voice.
But they sent me back into that little vocal room, told me I was just as talented as Ben is, that I didn't need a "big" voice to sing a great song. I just needed to show who I was.
I thought about that in the short distance between the studio room and the vocal room. I thought about how I had left myself behind all those years ago when time and all its demands first started smudging my face and my heart with this gigantic eraser. I thought about who I believed I was now and how different that was from who God says I am.
I let God speak. He told me he has gifted me with the voice he needed me to have, to reach the most people. He told me to have courage in it and to embrace it and to really believe in it so it can reach out the way he intended it to. He told me I am beautiful and wonderful and precious.
And then I sang. The song happens to be amazing.
One night last week, Jadon and I drove to my parents' house after I covered an event for the newspaper. It was late. The two-lane highway that stretches its arms from Beeville, where the event was, to Victoria, where my parents live, was unfamiliar to me.
As I drove out of town, a thick fog made me blink my eyes to make sure my contacts had not shifted to the wrong part of my eyes. It was so hard to see anything except the orange construction cones that passed my bumper every few feet. I drove slowly and carefully and shaking with fear.
I realized after our studio time that that's how I'd been living. Slowly and carefully and shaking with fear. But I'm tired of the fog. I want to see clearly…and take risks…and really, really live. I want to find the parts of me that I traded for another plaque on the wall, no matter how long that takes. I want to learn how to breathe again.
And along the way, I'd like to sing…and maybe bust a few moves here and there, too.
Thank you, God, for the fogs that always lift, no matter how thick they've become, and for the brilliant, eye-stinging clarity that comes once they do.
I don't know when exactly it happened, but I lost myself somewhere in the middle of all that time.
It might have started back in college, when I balanced three jobs (editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, substitute teacher and freelance writer for the San Antonio Express-News) to pay my bills, a full semester of writing-intensive classes and an out-of-control pressure to maintain my 4.0 GPA.
Or maybe it was back in high school, when I turned 16 and realized my parents couldn't afford to pay for my insurance and the gas to drive the school, back when I landed my first job. Working wouldn't have been such a big deal, except that I played volleyball and tennis and ran track and was a drum major for the high school band and an all-state clarinet player and in the running for valedictorian.
Maybe this balancing act began way back then.
I used to think, naively, that God had gifted me with some crazily awesome time-management skills (how else could I get so much done in so little time?). But last week, while Ben and I were in the studio recording the songs for Progeny's second album, I discovered something about all those accomplishments.
Every one of them had pocketed a little piece of me, and I just sat back and watched them do it.
So when the MakeShift Records guys told me they needed me to add a little "personality" to my solo songs, my first thought was that I didn't know how to do it or what it would sound like or how my personality, as uninteresting as I am, could make any difference at all.
They stopped me halfway through my song, called me back into the main studio room. I remember how the room spun as I walked toward the black leather couch, how dry my mouth was and how my nose burned with tears that I couldn't let them see (but ended up doing anyway).
They said they needed something more from me, something that showed them I believed in the song, that I wasn't "singing karaoke" behind a studio mic. I told them I didn't know how to give them more, that Ben was the creative genius behind our song melodies, the one with the "big" voice.
But they sent me back into that little vocal room, told me I was just as talented as Ben is, that I didn't need a "big" voice to sing a great song. I just needed to show who I was.
I thought about that in the short distance between the studio room and the vocal room. I thought about how I had left myself behind all those years ago when time and all its demands first started smudging my face and my heart with this gigantic eraser. I thought about who I believed I was now and how different that was from who God says I am.
I let God speak. He told me he has gifted me with the voice he needed me to have, to reach the most people. He told me to have courage in it and to embrace it and to really believe in it so it can reach out the way he intended it to. He told me I am beautiful and wonderful and precious.
And then I sang. The song happens to be amazing.
One night last week, Jadon and I drove to my parents' house after I covered an event for the newspaper. It was late. The two-lane highway that stretches its arms from Beeville, where the event was, to Victoria, where my parents live, was unfamiliar to me.
As I drove out of town, a thick fog made me blink my eyes to make sure my contacts had not shifted to the wrong part of my eyes. It was so hard to see anything except the orange construction cones that passed my bumper every few feet. I drove slowly and carefully and shaking with fear.
I realized after our studio time that that's how I'd been living. Slowly and carefully and shaking with fear. But I'm tired of the fog. I want to see clearly…and take risks…and really, really live. I want to find the parts of me that I traded for another plaque on the wall, no matter how long that takes. I want to learn how to breathe again.
And along the way, I'd like to sing…and maybe bust a few moves here and there, too.
Thank you, God, for the fogs that always lift, no matter how thick they've become, and for the brilliant, eye-stinging clarity that comes once they do.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
It's so hard to say goodbye...
I had to say goodbye to my Memaw yesterday.
I think it’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life…because she is everywhere in my memories. I can still see her handwriting, “I love you so much” scrawled at the bottom of my birthday cards. I can still see her face and her graying curly hair, and the way her eyes hid behind her glasses and drank in every movement that her grandkids and great-grandkids made. I can still hear her voice, calling me into the kitchen to eat dinner with her at a dining room table stacked with bills.
She is everywhere.
I’ve been a fragile mess since her memorial service yesterday. I heard the words offered by my great-uncle, a Baptist preacher, at the service, the same words the well-wishers echoed—that she’s in a better place, she’s not hurting anymore, she’s finally found the peace that eluded her here on earth. Maybe I’m selfish because it doesn’t ease my pain.
Memaw had a stroke back in August, two days before her 74th birthday. She spent her birthday in the hospital, bleeding internally without the doctors knowing. Before they figured it out, she had stopped breathing, and they scrambled to pump nine units of blood into her.
We’d already lost her back then, back when everybody was praying for a miraculous recovery that would shock the doctors. It did shock the doctors, too, because she lived. But she never really recovered, was never again the Memaw we all knew. She couldn’t walk or sit up or feed herself. She could talk, but only whispered words that were hard to understand. She lived in both the past and the present, sometimes knowing exactly where she was, sometimes thinking she was still working and living in her home by herself and waiting for the next weekend she would visit family.
I thought it might be easier once she died because it was so hard to see her trapped inside a shell of a body. I went to see her twice, and I remember praying that God would not keep her that way for long…whatever that looked like. He didn’t.
But now that she’s gone, a part of me has died, too. Ben says it’s the part of me that I gave to her. That’s easy to believe because the hole feels like it just goes on and on and on and has no end. I wonder if it ever will.
I couldn’t be there when she died. Ben and I traveled to New Mexico with our band to lead worship at a youth retreat. I debated going—because my junior year of high school, my paternal grandmother had died while I was on a mission trip. My dad had called before I left for the trip to tell me she was dying, but I thought I had time. She died the last day of that trip.
I had a feeling the same thing would happen with Memaw. But I knew her, and I knew she would have wanted me to go there and make an impact on those youth.
Mom called me the day we were driving back to Texas. She said Memaw had had a rough night but had finally surrendered at 6 in the morning Feb. 10. I felt my whole world grow dim, even after my mom told me she had passed away peacefully.
It wasn’t until the memorial service, though, that her death really hit me. It hit me hard. I thought about all the birthdays Jadon will celebrate without his Memaw. I thought about my future children and how they will never know what a wonderful grandma she was.
I thought about how little time I took to visit with her and just enjoy the simple moments, how few times I called her just to chat, how lonely she looked and sounded when we finally did visit or call. There’s so much I wish I could change.
I gave her a book a few years ago that asked questions about her life growing up and her marriage and her children. I wish she had filled it out, just so I could keep it on my bookshelf and let my children and their children read it and memorize her handwriting, too.
There is some comfort in knowing that the one thing Memaw always wanted, more than anything else, was for her family to be all together in one place. We haven’t been in years because of differing work schedules and the craziness of our lives. But we were yesterday. All of us, to say goodbye to a woman who had shaped all of our lives in ways that we can never forget.
If she could see it from heaven, I’m sure she smiled.
I love you, Memaw. You will always be here in my heart, even when it hurts like it does today. You will always be a part of me.
Remember
©2008 Progeny
Lyrics by Rachel Toalson
Summer nights, our first visits from home
Birthdays spent with you on the phone
Peeking in jars for hidden candy treats
Powder staining bathroom sinks
Christmas Eve such a long time ago
Trivial Pursuit asking things we don’t know
A wave that hid tears as you stood at your door
That ache when we couldn’t see you anymore
There’s too much to let go…
So I’ll remember
I’ll remember
I’ll remember you
Talking ‘bout work over home-cooked dinner
All those late nights watching Marvin Zindler
Weekend mornings you’d read the paper
While we clipped coupons to save for later
Piles and piles of bills on the table
Battling remotes that controlled the cable
Crossword puzzles and midnight Dr. Peppers
Shuffling to bed in your purple slippers
There’s too much to let go…
So I'll remember
I'll remember
I'll remember you
Love in your eyes as you rocked them to sleep
A new generation to protect and keep
Machines and tubes that took all you could give
Your whispered words, your battle to live
There’s too much to let go…
So I'll remember
I'll remember
I'll remember you
Talking and laughing and fighting and crying
I’ll remember you
Walking and breathing, your living, your dying
I’ll remember you
One of Nana's birthday parties. Memaw loved her mama.
Memaw, me and Ben after one of Ashley's choir recitals
Mom, Memaw and me after Ben's surprise 21st birthday party. Memaw told me my cake was awesome, even though it fell apart in the Texas humidity.
The family after my college graduation. Memaw was so proud.
Memaw, me, Ashley and Mom after eating at Jason's Deli in San Marcos to celebrate my college graduation.
My wedding, when we had four generations of women living. Memaw, Nana, Mom and me.
Christmas 2004, one of the last Christmases we were all together.
Christmas 2004
Memaw loved Jadon. This was the first time she got to see him, and she couldn't put him down. He loved her, too.
Memaw, eating lunch with us after Jadon's dedication to the Lord at Riverside Community, April 15, 2007. It was the last time I saw her well.
It's so hard to remember her this way. This was the last time we saw her...she couldn't take her eyes off Jadon. I know she would have loved to watch him grow...
I think it’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life…because she is everywhere in my memories. I can still see her handwriting, “I love you so much” scrawled at the bottom of my birthday cards. I can still see her face and her graying curly hair, and the way her eyes hid behind her glasses and drank in every movement that her grandkids and great-grandkids made. I can still hear her voice, calling me into the kitchen to eat dinner with her at a dining room table stacked with bills.
She is everywhere.
I’ve been a fragile mess since her memorial service yesterday. I heard the words offered by my great-uncle, a Baptist preacher, at the service, the same words the well-wishers echoed—that she’s in a better place, she’s not hurting anymore, she’s finally found the peace that eluded her here on earth. Maybe I’m selfish because it doesn’t ease my pain.
Memaw had a stroke back in August, two days before her 74th birthday. She spent her birthday in the hospital, bleeding internally without the doctors knowing. Before they figured it out, she had stopped breathing, and they scrambled to pump nine units of blood into her.
We’d already lost her back then, back when everybody was praying for a miraculous recovery that would shock the doctors. It did shock the doctors, too, because she lived. But she never really recovered, was never again the Memaw we all knew. She couldn’t walk or sit up or feed herself. She could talk, but only whispered words that were hard to understand. She lived in both the past and the present, sometimes knowing exactly where she was, sometimes thinking she was still working and living in her home by herself and waiting for the next weekend she would visit family.
I thought it might be easier once she died because it was so hard to see her trapped inside a shell of a body. I went to see her twice, and I remember praying that God would not keep her that way for long…whatever that looked like. He didn’t.
But now that she’s gone, a part of me has died, too. Ben says it’s the part of me that I gave to her. That’s easy to believe because the hole feels like it just goes on and on and on and has no end. I wonder if it ever will.
I couldn’t be there when she died. Ben and I traveled to New Mexico with our band to lead worship at a youth retreat. I debated going—because my junior year of high school, my paternal grandmother had died while I was on a mission trip. My dad had called before I left for the trip to tell me she was dying, but I thought I had time. She died the last day of that trip.
I had a feeling the same thing would happen with Memaw. But I knew her, and I knew she would have wanted me to go there and make an impact on those youth.
Mom called me the day we were driving back to Texas. She said Memaw had had a rough night but had finally surrendered at 6 in the morning Feb. 10. I felt my whole world grow dim, even after my mom told me she had passed away peacefully.
It wasn’t until the memorial service, though, that her death really hit me. It hit me hard. I thought about all the birthdays Jadon will celebrate without his Memaw. I thought about my future children and how they will never know what a wonderful grandma she was.
I thought about how little time I took to visit with her and just enjoy the simple moments, how few times I called her just to chat, how lonely she looked and sounded when we finally did visit or call. There’s so much I wish I could change.
I gave her a book a few years ago that asked questions about her life growing up and her marriage and her children. I wish she had filled it out, just so I could keep it on my bookshelf and let my children and their children read it and memorize her handwriting, too.
There is some comfort in knowing that the one thing Memaw always wanted, more than anything else, was for her family to be all together in one place. We haven’t been in years because of differing work schedules and the craziness of our lives. But we were yesterday. All of us, to say goodbye to a woman who had shaped all of our lives in ways that we can never forget.
If she could see it from heaven, I’m sure she smiled.
I love you, Memaw. You will always be here in my heart, even when it hurts like it does today. You will always be a part of me.
Remember
©2008 Progeny
Lyrics by Rachel Toalson
Summer nights, our first visits from home
Birthdays spent with you on the phone
Peeking in jars for hidden candy treats
Powder staining bathroom sinks
Christmas Eve such a long time ago
Trivial Pursuit asking things we don’t know
A wave that hid tears as you stood at your door
That ache when we couldn’t see you anymore
There’s too much to let go…
So I’ll remember
I’ll remember
I’ll remember you
Talking ‘bout work over home-cooked dinner
All those late nights watching Marvin Zindler
Weekend mornings you’d read the paper
While we clipped coupons to save for later
Piles and piles of bills on the table
Battling remotes that controlled the cable
Crossword puzzles and midnight Dr. Peppers
Shuffling to bed in your purple slippers
There’s too much to let go…
So I'll remember
I'll remember
I'll remember you
Love in your eyes as you rocked them to sleep
A new generation to protect and keep
Machines and tubes that took all you could give
Your whispered words, your battle to live
There’s too much to let go…
So I'll remember
I'll remember
I'll remember you
Talking and laughing and fighting and crying
I’ll remember you
Walking and breathing, your living, your dying
I’ll remember you
One of Nana's birthday parties. Memaw loved her mama.
Memaw, me and Ben after one of Ashley's choir recitals
Mom, Memaw and me after Ben's surprise 21st birthday party. Memaw told me my cake was awesome, even though it fell apart in the Texas humidity.
The family after my college graduation. Memaw was so proud.
Memaw, me, Ashley and Mom after eating at Jason's Deli in San Marcos to celebrate my college graduation.
My wedding, when we had four generations of women living. Memaw, Nana, Mom and me.
Christmas 2004, one of the last Christmases we were all together.
Christmas 2004
Memaw loved Jadon. This was the first time she got to see him, and she couldn't put him down. He loved her, too.
Memaw, eating lunch with us after Jadon's dedication to the Lord at Riverside Community, April 15, 2007. It was the last time I saw her well.
It's so hard to remember her this way. This was the last time we saw her...she couldn't take her eyes off Jadon. I know she would have loved to watch him grow...
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