Mittens. Mitts. Hand warmers. Snowball makers. Whatever you call them, they get lost. And if you have young children, they get lost a lot. And if you have more than one child and you are overwhelmed and feel like you are woefully ill equipped at mothering then you lose your perspective at lost mittens. That's it. Apparently, lost mitts are the threshold for sanity in my world.
Well, yesterday the threshold was lost mittens.
Today it's a whiny 2 year old.
Tomorrow...? who knows. Maybe something else completely predictable like a potty accident, or burnt toast.
Back in November I bought Carlon a pair of gloves and a pair of mitts. $20 in total. one month in the gloves were lost. Two days ago then go the mitts. Brad decided to let Carlon use Noah's mitts, which are 30% smaller, and I made a big deal about it.
"These belong to your brother.... DO NOT take them off outside"
Then back to arguing with Brad about what to do about it and Carlon, fighting tears, says, "it's ok, I won't use his mitts"
Cut to mom feeling like a jerk.
and she cried about it most of the day.
I don't remember my mom having these moments. Is is because she had three girls? Is it a gender issue? Or was she just better equipped at handling such attrocities? Or maybe she did have them and I don't remember, I hope for the last of those three. It gives me comfort to think my mom found mothering to be as hard as I do. And even more comforting to think that if I can't remember her losing it then hopefully my kids won't remember either.
But, when it comes down to brass tacks, I don't think that is the point. I mean to say that my reaction to the mitts has more to do with me and where I am at than how Carlon takes care of his belongings.
The reality is we have had a hard week here in superhero land. Brad has been carrying around a mountain of stress on his shoulders and it is wearing him down. He managed to take two days off this week which is good for him. I, on the other hand, have been an emotional train wreck since Christmas time, and have not found the pressure release valve.
90 percent of the time I feel like I have screwed up because I let my emotions get in the way of rational parenting. And lately, my emotions are about as stable as a souffle during an earthquake.
I have prayed. Believe me. I can see myself losing it and I say "God help!" and sometimes it works and sometimes it delays and sometimes it does nothing. This morning I was still burying myself in guilt over it that my day was trashed before it even started. And my two year old, Iain, is losing it. Like LOHOOHOOHOOSING IT. It was 10 am and I asked him if he wanted a nap? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! What's the colour of scream?
So, by 10:30, I was losing it. I tried shoving food in him, I tried carrying him around, I tried everything but he wanted it all and nothing at the same time. He was inconsolable. And I was ready to run.
But, I'm the adult here. I should be able to get a grip. shouldn't I?
.... I'm out of words. Maybe I'll be able to accept God's grace tomorrow and we'll have a better day.
Wednesday 21 January 2015
Wednesday 14 January 2015
selfish protection
Have you ever had that moment when you realize you are selfish? I think we are all selfish, but we don't like to admit it or accept it. But then there is that event that happens and it smacks you in the face and you look at yourself and say "dammit, what a selfish jerk I am"
Well, today... sucked. The night with the boys was hard, the morning was hard and as the day wore on, I was blind sided by a depression/lonliness/homesickness. It was overwhelming. Like, crying at nothing. laying on my bed trying to convince myself that the boys need me. It was not good.
Cut to me and the boys picking up a friend at the airport and being late to boot... Then the hammer falls... Brad has to go to the hospital because a former member is dying. This is the seventh person in three months. My husband is tired. Really tired. So much so, that when he told me about this new person he was fighting the tears. My husband is getting a crash course in death ministry. So let me add my selfish voice in here. Ministry is hard. Don't kid yourself, don't romanticize it. It is beat your ass hard. It is heavy yoke hard, people broken hard. And being married to ministry is even harder. You would probably take issue with that statement. Let me remind you, this is my selfish voice coming through but let me also explain. I can't take any of that burden from him. I can't visit those people dying, I can't run those funerals. I can't meet with those broken people. I can only watch. Watch as his shoulders droop, as he loses sleep... so my default is to protect him but keeping him to myself.
It doesn't always work... in fact, it never works.
If you don't like sharing then don't marry a pastor.
I have to share him with everybody and I hate it. His heart is big and he loves the people he serves and sometimes... all times his job comes first. We don't like to admit it but it's true. His job pays the bills and is a big part of our lives. As much as we would like to think that our family, or I come first, it's really not the case.
So here we are. This afternoon, We have our friend staying with us, it's the chaos of post school, pre-supper and Brad gets the call that death has come and he needs to go care for the family.
What?! No, They can wait. You are tired, you need rest. I need you to stay. My day was crap and our friend is here and the boys are crazy and I need you here. I need you here.
He looked at me and looked at his phone, and looked at me. He looks worn. He doesn't want to have to go but he's pulled. And instead of marrying a wife who would take him in her arms and pray God's strength over him and send him off commissioned and loved, he married a crazy lady who pulls on him to stay home. And she harbours jealousy towards these people that take them away from her.
And she hates herself for it.
And he comes home and tells her that the next of kin has mental issues and was rude to him. The family is broken and I was mad because I had a bad day and wanted my man home.... ..... geez
Where is the line? how do I support and protect my husband. And how do do that without being a selfish "B"?
So I pulled him aside. My Hawkeye, my straight shooter, cheeky, honest, big hearted love. I looked in his soft blue eyes and told him I was sorry, I was selfish, and I was wrong.
I love him and I love that he has the pastor's heart I just wish sometimes that he wasn't always so giving with that heart.
Selfish, protect, hard, burden, weary, tired....
Not romantic
Well, today... sucked. The night with the boys was hard, the morning was hard and as the day wore on, I was blind sided by a depression/lonliness/homesickness. It was overwhelming. Like, crying at nothing. laying on my bed trying to convince myself that the boys need me. It was not good.
Cut to me and the boys picking up a friend at the airport and being late to boot... Then the hammer falls... Brad has to go to the hospital because a former member is dying. This is the seventh person in three months. My husband is tired. Really tired. So much so, that when he told me about this new person he was fighting the tears. My husband is getting a crash course in death ministry. So let me add my selfish voice in here. Ministry is hard. Don't kid yourself, don't romanticize it. It is beat your ass hard. It is heavy yoke hard, people broken hard. And being married to ministry is even harder. You would probably take issue with that statement. Let me remind you, this is my selfish voice coming through but let me also explain. I can't take any of that burden from him. I can't visit those people dying, I can't run those funerals. I can't meet with those broken people. I can only watch. Watch as his shoulders droop, as he loses sleep... so my default is to protect him but keeping him to myself.
It doesn't always work... in fact, it never works.
If you don't like sharing then don't marry a pastor.
I have to share him with everybody and I hate it. His heart is big and he loves the people he serves and sometimes... all times his job comes first. We don't like to admit it but it's true. His job pays the bills and is a big part of our lives. As much as we would like to think that our family, or I come first, it's really not the case.
So here we are. This afternoon, We have our friend staying with us, it's the chaos of post school, pre-supper and Brad gets the call that death has come and he needs to go care for the family.
What?! No, They can wait. You are tired, you need rest. I need you to stay. My day was crap and our friend is here and the boys are crazy and I need you here. I need you here.
He looked at me and looked at his phone, and looked at me. He looks worn. He doesn't want to have to go but he's pulled. And instead of marrying a wife who would take him in her arms and pray God's strength over him and send him off commissioned and loved, he married a crazy lady who pulls on him to stay home. And she harbours jealousy towards these people that take them away from her.
And she hates herself for it.
And he comes home and tells her that the next of kin has mental issues and was rude to him. The family is broken and I was mad because I had a bad day and wanted my man home.... ..... geez
Where is the line? how do I support and protect my husband. And how do do that without being a selfish "B"?
So I pulled him aside. My Hawkeye, my straight shooter, cheeky, honest, big hearted love. I looked in his soft blue eyes and told him I was sorry, I was selfish, and I was wrong.
I love him and I love that he has the pastor's heart I just wish sometimes that he wasn't always so giving with that heart.
Selfish, protect, hard, burden, weary, tired....
Not romantic
Friday 2 January 2015
Hard Grace..
So, I was on facebook a couple days ago, feeling sorry for myself as I had suffered the fate all iphone users fear; my phone fell in the toilet, and as it sat in a bowl of rice on the top of the fridge, and as I held my breath at the hope of it's rescue it all seemed like the appropriate final close to my year. 2014.
On December 30 I went to bed seething at myself at the stupidity of it all. I know you shouldn't keep your phone in your back pocket, I know people have dropped their phones in the toilet. I knew better but figured it wouldn't happen to me because I was aware of the risks. So, I didn't sleep well that night, and the next morning I had no interest in doing what Brad and I had planned, which was a romantic dinner at home after the boys had gone to bed. I wanted to crawl under a rock and stay there. My day went on and as I was having a shower the boys coloured each other with red marker *sigh* and it just furthered my disgust with myself over this dumb phone and the stupid toilet and just everything else that had gone wrong for me this year.
Getting back to being on facebook... I was on my newsfeed and a question came up from an author I follow. "What word or phrase would you use to describe your 2014?"
Now I don't normally respond to people I don't know. I follow this author because she wrote an amazing book and it's the easiest way for me to access her blog. But this time, for whatever reason, I was compelled, or rather, propelled - as if I was being pushed to do it. And I responded that if I could take two words I'd say 2014 was hard grace. And not just 2014. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have had three hard years. Part of this roots in the fact that I am easily affected by the trials of the people I love and so things that were happening to my close friends and family were deeply affecting me to the point were frustration took hold, and weariness bore deep, my faith was thin and my patience short. I felt I was not given the opportunity to breathe and so frustrations from one day bled into the next and so on... Three years of feeling like I was barely keeping my head above water. From two near deaths, to cancer, to a best friend moving away, to undetermined tumours, and paralyzing anxiety attacks, high risk pregnancy, infections, eye surgery, unemployment... Everyone That was close to me was dealing with something intense and we were right in the thick of our own steaming pile.
Tell me, how would you find breath? When you start attacking each other, and your love for your children feels thread bare? You are so overwhelmed with it all that when you see that text come in from someone you just can't bear to look at it because you just can't handle one more thing. And you find yourself praying for just six months of peace. Please God, just six months where everything is ok.
On go the days, and weeks, and months, and years and people are recovering. No more near deaths, surgeries have happened and been successful, no more infections, the battle over anxiety is won. The people closest to me are healing, being repaired, and being restored. But me. Here I sit, still reeling from the years. These have been hard years. And yes, I know, there are harder times for other people, but this is where I am at. Still questioning why, still doubting myself, still refusing to let any roots dig in.
Hard grace seems like such a strange concept, it's an oxymoron isn't it? This author I wrote to responded to my comment recalling a book she'd read called Severe Mercy. Another oxymoron but in the lives of the faithful it is not so strange.
God hath not promised skies always blue,
flower strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain
But God hath promised strength for the day
Rest for the labour, light for the way
Grace for the trials help from above
Unfailing sympathy undying love
(Annie Johnson Flint)
So, Yes. I know this, like KNOW it. However, when you are drowning... when you can't breathe. In coming up with those two words I was forced to look back at those years and try to find God in the midst of it all. He was there. I know it. But truly seeing him, or at least admitting that he was there because when you are angry and resentful and regretful, you don't want to admit God was with you. It feels better to tell yourself that you had to do it on your own. But how heretical is that? We know he is with us He came to earth to DIE so he could be with us. Immanuel - God with us. That is his name.
So, he was with me the whole time. I know it, but I couldn't feel it the way I wanted, because I wanted to not have to feel anything. I wanted things to go smooth. It hurts to be torn up, it hurts to not be able to breathe. I shake my head when I think back to my days as a single woman and the group of people I would spend time with. Once a month I would gather with these people for a devotional, singing, fellowship time and one song we almost always sang was "Refiner's fire" When I think about those lyrics now I want to shout at my younger self. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SINGING!?" If we could all understand what that meant, being refined, knowing it would hurt, knowing it would tear and burn, even though we would know it means being closer to God, would we sing it? Would we?
So, I look back on these years and see God. And how do I see him? I see him as patient, sooo patient, and forgiving, and loving. I have been a total jerk. I know this. I have been a big baby. I know this too. And yet he is still there. I am thinking of Paul and the Romans and being more than conquerors, and if God is for us, and nothing can separate us... except maybe ourselves. I got in the way of my relationship with him and it's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last time. Continuing to die to self. It takes hard grace to learn this I guess. And God knows I have a lot to learn and maybe I'm the kind of person that needs to be hit over the head with it, or put in the corner to stew about it. Hard grace, severe mercy. The faithful take them both and praise God with them. I believe I will get there, I have to because I can't imagine my life without him.
On December 30 I went to bed seething at myself at the stupidity of it all. I know you shouldn't keep your phone in your back pocket, I know people have dropped their phones in the toilet. I knew better but figured it wouldn't happen to me because I was aware of the risks. So, I didn't sleep well that night, and the next morning I had no interest in doing what Brad and I had planned, which was a romantic dinner at home after the boys had gone to bed. I wanted to crawl under a rock and stay there. My day went on and as I was having a shower the boys coloured each other with red marker *sigh* and it just furthered my disgust with myself over this dumb phone and the stupid toilet and just everything else that had gone wrong for me this year.
Getting back to being on facebook... I was on my newsfeed and a question came up from an author I follow. "What word or phrase would you use to describe your 2014?"
Now I don't normally respond to people I don't know. I follow this author because she wrote an amazing book and it's the easiest way for me to access her blog. But this time, for whatever reason, I was compelled, or rather, propelled - as if I was being pushed to do it. And I responded that if I could take two words I'd say 2014 was hard grace. And not just 2014. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have had three hard years. Part of this roots in the fact that I am easily affected by the trials of the people I love and so things that were happening to my close friends and family were deeply affecting me to the point were frustration took hold, and weariness bore deep, my faith was thin and my patience short. I felt I was not given the opportunity to breathe and so frustrations from one day bled into the next and so on... Three years of feeling like I was barely keeping my head above water. From two near deaths, to cancer, to a best friend moving away, to undetermined tumours, and paralyzing anxiety attacks, high risk pregnancy, infections, eye surgery, unemployment... Everyone That was close to me was dealing with something intense and we were right in the thick of our own steaming pile.
Tell me, how would you find breath? When you start attacking each other, and your love for your children feels thread bare? You are so overwhelmed with it all that when you see that text come in from someone you just can't bear to look at it because you just can't handle one more thing. And you find yourself praying for just six months of peace. Please God, just six months where everything is ok.
On go the days, and weeks, and months, and years and people are recovering. No more near deaths, surgeries have happened and been successful, no more infections, the battle over anxiety is won. The people closest to me are healing, being repaired, and being restored. But me. Here I sit, still reeling from the years. These have been hard years. And yes, I know, there are harder times for other people, but this is where I am at. Still questioning why, still doubting myself, still refusing to let any roots dig in.
Hard grace seems like such a strange concept, it's an oxymoron isn't it? This author I wrote to responded to my comment recalling a book she'd read called Severe Mercy. Another oxymoron but in the lives of the faithful it is not so strange.
God hath not promised skies always blue,
flower strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain
But God hath promised strength for the day
Rest for the labour, light for the way
Grace for the trials help from above
Unfailing sympathy undying love
(Annie Johnson Flint)
So, Yes. I know this, like KNOW it. However, when you are drowning... when you can't breathe. In coming up with those two words I was forced to look back at those years and try to find God in the midst of it all. He was there. I know it. But truly seeing him, or at least admitting that he was there because when you are angry and resentful and regretful, you don't want to admit God was with you. It feels better to tell yourself that you had to do it on your own. But how heretical is that? We know he is with us He came to earth to DIE so he could be with us. Immanuel - God with us. That is his name.
So, he was with me the whole time. I know it, but I couldn't feel it the way I wanted, because I wanted to not have to feel anything. I wanted things to go smooth. It hurts to be torn up, it hurts to not be able to breathe. I shake my head when I think back to my days as a single woman and the group of people I would spend time with. Once a month I would gather with these people for a devotional, singing, fellowship time and one song we almost always sang was "Refiner's fire" When I think about those lyrics now I want to shout at my younger self. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE SINGING!?" If we could all understand what that meant, being refined, knowing it would hurt, knowing it would tear and burn, even though we would know it means being closer to God, would we sing it? Would we?
So, I look back on these years and see God. And how do I see him? I see him as patient, sooo patient, and forgiving, and loving. I have been a total jerk. I know this. I have been a big baby. I know this too. And yet he is still there. I am thinking of Paul and the Romans and being more than conquerors, and if God is for us, and nothing can separate us... except maybe ourselves. I got in the way of my relationship with him and it's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last time. Continuing to die to self. It takes hard grace to learn this I guess. And God knows I have a lot to learn and maybe I'm the kind of person that needs to be hit over the head with it, or put in the corner to stew about it. Hard grace, severe mercy. The faithful take them both and praise God with them. I believe I will get there, I have to because I can't imagine my life without him.
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