Something

I have become quite used to my stay-at-home-mom life. While I could say some days I would much rather be back in Fargo or Minneapolis with a normal job, getting paychecks, enjoying the (financial) fruit of my labor, friday night celebrations of a long week, being home with Tosten is amazing.

I have realized that it doesn’t matter where I am or what I may be doing, there is always some type of dissatisfaction within, however. I think it is one of Satan’s favorite pitfalls for me.

While being at home is a beautiful thing and I know countless people and moms that would die for this opportunity, I find myself easily becoming more sheltered and more enclosed and on some rough days, more trapped.

Comparing myself. Comparing my road of life to others. Facing my own expectations of where I would and should be right now.

I think I get stuck on petty things too…things that I should be over with by now. I find in some of my quiet moments, the devil pulls me down roads I haven’t traveled in years. Feelings of failure, inferiority, insecurity in relationships. I know some women deal with these maybe forever, but I felt like I dealt with them and put them away. Maybe I label them as adolescent issues and way down deep I feel I should have graduated from these ridiculous emotions.

I think about my debt. Our money issues. I worry about how we will make it through another winter. I think about the health of my aging parents and the added responsibility that has and will continue to bring. I worry about Tosten’s sense of self and wanting only good things to form his little self-identity. My mind swarms and it is easy for me to say…silence can be evil. And in this life, I have a lot of silence.

Staying at home and not allowing many individuals to pierce that part of me, if really anyone, and those thought patterns can be all consuming. Soon my mind, and it can go as deep as my sense of self, becomes tainted and tortured and joyless. ..even a form of deadness.

But then something breaks.

As cliche as it sounds and as obnoxious as it is for someone to speak this to me, I hear in a much wiser voice than any other voice around me or any voice from my past, “This too shall pass.”

That’s not the answer I want. That’s not the happy ending or the hope I was looking for. I want it all to be fixed. I want the joy and contentment and complete understanding of the grand picture. I want to know the confidence and clarity I once exuded. How does that fix anything? I want something better than that…anything better than that.

But something indeed breaks and indeed shifts and somewhere between my soggy eyes and my blurry reality, a part of me is still excited for those Lily of the Valleys in the woods I have been waiting all month for. I’m excited for this almost 25 week fetus within and my smiling boy that acts more like his daddy everyday. I’m grateful that I can sit in our living room with eight huge windows open and hear only chattering birds. I’m happy I have a turkey and cheddar hotdog in the fridge to eat for lunch, exactly what I’m craving right now.

I’m okay. I can still find truth in the simplest of things. As soon as I shift my gaze on any other person other than Christ, of course my vision gets hazy. My life isn’t as dramatic and adolescent as I paint it. I allow Satan and the evil silence to take over when really they’re only whispering lies and stealing joy.

I don’t really have an answer to anything. I don’t have any closure or peace to give, but I have Jesus. I have what He says and I have His point of view of me and of my life. Who else and what else matters? He put me here. He has brought me to this slower pace of life and a life of thinking and questioning to bring about something.

I still don’t know what this something is. I’m not quite sure what His plans are and maybe it is good I don’t know…but I’ll just keep plugging along. Thinking. Wondering. Questioning. Letting God work His magic within. Someday this something will make sense…

Rejuvenating Drops

The rain doesn’t stop. Consistent ticking against my windows. The ash in our yard look the greenest they have ever been and I find myself feeling a similar rejuvenation today.

This fall and this winter were some of the most trying times I have had in years. I cannot decide if it is just because I have actually had enough time without working to slow down and ponder life or having children just put me in a different mindset. Really, both reasons are probably true. Whatever the reason is or was, I praise God for it.

I have learned to view life different. My desire to get the latest fashions or newest technology is so far gone. My drive to get any further schooling or pursue that high paid career has vanished. All of a sudden my role, right now, in this life is this – Tyler and Tosten.

What if the only reason I was put here on earth was for them? Is that too simple? Can God’s plan truly be THAT simple? Yes, I can be a witness for Christ all places I go and to myriads of people, if God wills it, but could it really be so simple as to be a wife and a mother? After all, who can have as much influence on a man and a child as a woman with these roles?

Looking back, I never thought I’d marry. I’m kind of independent and prefer to do things my way. To have a man (or anyone) tie me back would prove to be futile and fatal for that person. I was a strong-willed person that wasn’t afraid to plunge ahead. However, I always wanted children. ALWAYS.

I had given up on that dream of being a mom early in life (because of health issues). I would read scripture often that talked about the childless and found strength in knowing God still had a plan for my unwiltering love of children. I knew he would put me in places that would allow me to utilize my skills of working with kids and passions of seeing them change and grow…but I never thought this.

I never thought I’d have my own. The pure elation when I realized I was pregnant with Tosten is unexplainable. The doctor was shocked. Tyler and I were even more shocked. I went around with what felt like a million helium balloons holding me up, putting a leap in my step everywhere I went. I. Felt. Amazing.

Crazy is an understatement when describing the day he was born, but again,  I felt amazing. I think it took many months, and maybe in some respects, I am still realizing, God answered a prayer I really never was brave enough to ask.

Even now, I am still in awe of this little girl within. When I lost Rohan in August, I kind of lost hope of ever having a baby again…and if I did, it would be a long, gruelling process.  Just as I was floating high with Tosten, I feel the same way today about this little 23 weeker within. I feel her bouncing insanely in there and there is no doubt she is mine by her addiction to chocolate.

So here I am. Refreshed by every drip of rain…every drip of realization that this God that is providing this coveted moisture is rejuvenating his child too.

I like simplicity. I like my job as a mommy and wife. I like that this is exactly where I am meant to be and exactly what God has designed for me, for us, at this time.

I don’t miss the hustle of a career. I don’t even miss the luxuries of having a double income and having money to throw around (well, we never really threw it around…we just had bigger expenses because we figured we could afford more. Funny how that works).

Somewhere between this career-driven college student and this simple stay-at-home-mama, I became a softer willed woman with smaller dreams of a happy husband and adventurous and creative children. My hopes are to whisper inspiration and strength into my husband’s ear and to raise leaders that love and serve Jesus.

This is what life is about. So rain, by all means, keep coming.

Perfect Woman Married Imperfect Man

Ha. Yeah right. I think our first year of marriage I believed this. Yes, we sat through marital counseling with Pastor Jason and I knew I wasn’t a perfect person by the Bible’s standard, but man, I was going to be a perfect wife.

I walked into that wedding day with googly eyes and concerns of my dress that made my chest look too big and my funky, wind-blown hair. I worried that my hay bale couple on the corner of the wedding site wouldn’t be complete and that we wouldn’t have enough pie for all the guests. My mind was so far gone that I didn’t even stop for one moment to think I was entering something sacred with a man. I was entering a covenant with him and with God.

I know I’m not the only bride that has done this.

After the wedding and the honeymoon and the honeymoon after the honeymoon (so like a week), reality sets in. Here I was, the perfect woman, bride, and wife realizing I had married a careless, selfish, conceited man. What was I thinking?

I look back now and I know EXACTLY what I was thinking.

I am a spoiled daughter. I grew up with a chivalrous father. Every holiday, every momentous event, and even random days, my dad would find ways to romance my mom. Usually flowers, but sometimes little getaways to bed and breakfasts or a mini plant shopping spree for spring. I saw this. I could only look forward to when my husband did that for me.

He didn’t. He doesn’t. It doesn’t even cross his mind. Wasn’t there some type of class every man was supposed to attend to show them how to be (and remain) romantic?

Um, yeah. That would be the role of his father. Not a class, but just the watching and modeling of a little boy after his father. My dad’s dad was just as chivalrous as my dad is (and more). I’m not blaming Tyler’s dad. Oh no. But it is just the way it is. My mom’s dad was far from chivalrous, as was his father…so my mom was in for quite the surprise when she married this hopeless romantic. Ha.

Needless to say, our first year of marriage was far from beautiful. My perfection just didn’t match his imperfection. He did everything wrong and never thought about me. NEVER! Tyler’s favorite word from my mouth.

Then one day I realized something…he wasn’t going to change. Not only wasn’t he going to change, but I wasn’t either. He wasn’t going to remember the day he asked to marry me or sometimes even our wedding anniversary. I was always going to remember those days…even the date we first kissed and first held hands. We weren’t going to change.

And another huge realization, one I hate to admit, I wasn’t and had never been a perfect wife. In fact, the more I continued my false identity, the more turmoltous our marriage became.

So I did something that I am sure every couple has done at some level – I gave up.

Giving up was the best thing I could have done. Not only did our two imperfect selves relax and enjoy each other more, but pressure and arguments fizzled out and there was a comfortability. The things I longed for Tyler to do would sometimes happen without me even pouting for them.

I realized that though I may not have received a dozen roses or a sappy card for some special day, I got a kiss and I got to fall asleep in his arms. I never married a Romeo or a Casanova, but I married a John Wayne or Johnny Cash…a bit rough around the edges, but just as tender and sweet.

Disappointments still get me. I’m a hopeless romantic. But Tyler gets me too. I wouldn’t trade him for a million roses or a trip to Tahiti. Our imperfections and simple life of just letting things land where they may is perfect. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anna

Sitting at Knollwood Cemetery as May’s sunshine seeps through my Camry window. It definitely makes it feel like a hot spring day, but the chilly howls that bounce my car prove otherwise. As Tosten’s face falls in a stooped slumber in his carseat and the reverent cemetery hush surrounds, it makes me just want to think.

Today Anna would have been 30. I don’t think I’m mourning, but I don’t think I have come to the grips that this girl of forever sunshine has left this earth. Her bubbliness and always accepting friendship has changed me and for some reason, it seems illogical and stupid for God to have taken her so early.

I guess that is one fine reason I am not God nor will ever be a god because this world and this life just doesn’t make sense to me.

Alone amongst the clapping water and the speeding cars on 82, I can think here. Remember her. Smile at the red and yellow skittles scattered on the ground from the celebrating crowd an hour before me. Celebrating her life and the life she shared and gave to others.

I rejoice in the joy we shared and the overwhelming feeling of love I had whenever I was with her…and while I’m here at Knollwood Cemetery, 30 years after her birth and 8 years after her death, it still seems like a part of her is  still here, not in her entirety, but she’s here.

I’d like to think that life and death are miles apart and that it would take the hands of God to connect them, but in many ways, they are side by side, identical twins. It is only a breath that separates…and even that isn’t always so.

Anna is just as alive as she was when we took our McDonald’s happy meal mermaids and had them swim in her mom’s kitchen sink. She is just as alive as when we were playing by the jungle gym at McKinley and she reminded me that she was older than me by three months and that her birthday was May 11th…I still remember feeling the jealousy, whether she was trying to provoke that or not. Anna is still very much alive…just not on earth. At least, not in her fullness.

My joy today comes in knowing she is sharing her 30th in the best way possible…with the One that created her. While I would love to see that right now, all her friends and family are celebrating her earthly life down here and anticipating that grand reunion that will never be separated by death again.

Anna is here on earth still, but I don’t think as a being…why would she still want to roam earth when she has all heaven to explore and an amazing God to keep her company? But she’s here in her mom. Her brother. Her niece. Her aunts. I saw her in her Grandma Betty yesterday. And she definitely has some angels that like to leave dimes and pennies to remind us she’s still around…she’s been visiting my dreams on a regular basis lately too.

Happy Birthday, Anna. I am definitely excited to see you and can’t wait for you to show me all the great things in eternity. Take care of my baby Rohan up there and say hello to Tyler’s sister, Jamae. Someday we’ll finally get to meet her. In the meantime, love up on them for us…you’re so good at that. Love you, Anna Banana Ice Cream.