Holding On

The days get better, the hurt is less sharp, but it's never really gone.  The anger comes over me when I least expect it and I want to lash out, retaliate.  I want to hide under the covers and never come out.  When someone says, "how are you?" I want ask, "how do you THINK I am?"  People say it'll be okay.  Well, it's not and it's not going to be for quite awhile.

How do I get through?  I don't know.  I'm doing a lot of things out of sheer obedience.  I know I can't go hide, I know that walking away from church isn't the right thing, and I know that God is holding on to me...

...so I'm holding on to Him.

"As for God, His way is perfect.  The word of the Lord is flawless.  He is a shield for those who take refuge in Him.  For who is God besides the Lord?  And who is the Rock except our God?"   -Psalm 18:30-31

Baby birds

It's finally warm enough to really get the garden going.  I went out this morning to do a little weeding, deal with the potatoes, transplant the tomato plants, and do some watering.  The pets like to come with me - the cats sniff around to see if any rodents have intruded, and the dog wanders the yard, looking for rabbit droppings (yes, it's gross, but that's what she's doing).

Today, the cats got really interested in something at the same time.  I wasn't paying much attention, but as they crept towards each other from opposite sides of the garden, I saw what they were watching.  A young robin was fluttering on the ground.  I'm not sure if it could fly or not, as it was right up against the fence.  I walked over to pick it up and get it out of the garden, because my cats are killers!

As I picked up the robin, it started to squawk...and then the parents started.  They squawked, they swooped, they were MIGHTY upset.  I gently tossed the bird out of the garden and it fluttered under a tree. The parents didn't give up immediately - they let me know what they thought of me picking up their baby.

As I chuckled at them and told them I was SAVING their baby from certain destruction, it occurred to me that I act like those robin parents.  My kids go through trials and troubles - sometimes due to their own choices, other times because of what others have done - and I squawk and I rant and I rail against God for allowing such a thing to happen.

Maybe, just maybe, God is rescuing my children from certain destruction, and the "trials" and "troubles" that my kids go through are just part of the rescuing process.  A process that can seem hard and mean and devastating, but that is infinitely better than what they were headed for - certain destruction.

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' says the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.'"   Jeremiah 29:11

"For the thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy..."    John 10:10

Light and Dark

This past weekend was awful. I've never had a worse weekend. I will not share details, but suffice it to say, I had a hard time seeing any light. We are not out of the "valley of the shadow of crap", as a dear friend called it, but I can see God's grace. Huge amounts. Enormous.

Here are some thoughts... I really can do nothing without Christ. I could not have spoken, could not have stood, could not have even breathed without Christ.

I have no right to pass judgement on anyone, anything, anytime. Ever.

Prayer is not the least that I could do - it is the most amazing thing to be done for anyone. It has been the most amazing thing to be borne up by the prayers of those who love me and my family.

My God is bigger than my problems and should be treated as such.

I am not an addict.  I had always feared that when really bad things would happen, I'd turn to food or alcohol for comfort.  I have not.  Praise God.  Addiction runs in my family, so I'm so thrilled.

My homeschool scheduling/curriculum needs to be portable and assumable by anyone who is watches my kids.

Ordinary

I am so very ordinary.  As are my kids, my marriage, my family, my life.  And that's all right.  I hear about certain people in the news and I briefly wonder if my life is special or important, or even necessary.  I read the Bible and wonder the same thing.  Peter, Paul, John, Moses, JESUS.  And here I am, little ol' me.

I get discouraged sometimes.  Am I living as I should?  Should I aspire to more?  Should I push the kids harder?  Should I expect more from our marriage?

And then I take a breath and I remember that there have been millions of people from the beginning of time, and we only know the names of a relative few.  But the reality is, the lives of the unknown are just as precious to God as the named.  Christ died for the rabble, not just the famous.  The Holy Spirit dwells in those who trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior, whether they're rich or poor.

Yes, I am ordinary.  But I am loved by the Creator of heaven and earth.  I think that makes me special.

Perfect?

I don't know how to do this without sounding prideful.  It's not meant to be, so if you start getting ticked off at me, please don't.

I'm a military wife that homeschools her four fairly well-behaved kids.  I make as much food as I can from scratch, because I think it's the best for us.  I garden, because I think it's important that my kids not only know where their food comes from, but how to grow it should the need arise.  I can and freeze produce from my garden every summer.  I grind my own wheat and bake my own bread.  I type really fast (it was 72 wpm in high school), I talk really fast, and I learn really fast.  I'm really smart.  I can read a book in a day (and that's when I'm going slowly).  I can play piano and flute.  I teach Sunday School with my hubby, and we host home group.  I'm not afraid to speak in front of large groups.  I try to work out three times a week.  I've painted several rooms in the house (including the really tall walls in the living room).  I've made curtains for the kitchen and play room.  I move heavy furniture when I'm bored.  I make a heck of an apple pie.  I use coupons and sometimes I walk out of the grocery store with the store paying ME to take groceries.  And this isn't even everything I was doing in the last place we lived (where I helped run a women's Bible study group, was on staff at church, and counseled several women).

I don't try to do all this.  I really don't.  I just do it because it needs to be done and I'm right here to do it.  I'm a big proponent of "bloom where you're planted".  But the trouble with these wonderful talents that God has blessed me with is this - people think I'm perfect...and worse than that, I expect myself to be perfect.

I'm not.

What you don't see is what happens on the inside.  All this "talent" can make me feel like I'm "wasting" it by being a wife and stay-at-home mom.  I don't say "no" to a lot of things because, as a friend once said, I CAN do it and I love the challenge of getting it done.  You don't hear the mean things I say to myself because I've yet again said something stupid, or not done something perfectly.  There's a song by Francesca Battastelli with a line, "perfection is my enemy".  It is.  I can beat myself up incessantly over the tiniest little thing that no one else would ever notice. My brain never shuts off.

So when I hear someone (several people, actually) say, "when I look at you, I see the perfect wife, the perfect mom, the perfect 'whatever'", I just want to be sucked in by the ground, never to be seen again.  I don't want to be the person that people don't like because "she can do everything,  why would she need me?"

I am the way I am because God made me this way.  I guess He knew that I was going to be a lonely little girl that needed to be able to make friends easily.... a military wife with a hubby who's gone a bit.... a homeschooling mom to four kids... someone who needs to be able to get it all done....but it's not me.  It's God.

It's God, it's God, it's God.  He is the only reason I can do any of this.

More than Enough

This is a note I wrote on Facebook back in 2009.  I was looking for it, because I was kind of feeling the rotten feelings pop up again and I needed to re-read this truth.  

I knew it with the certainty of a child. Not that one is no longer certain of things as an adult, but that certainty is less…well, certain.

I knew it was my fault my dad left, and this new man, who also wanted to be called “dad”, came into our lives…and it was also my fault that the new man and my mother fought constantly.

I have always – or at least as long as I can remember – been stubborn and smart – and everyone told me I was. I wonder if I felt a certain amount of power. Anyway…I remember nothing of Karl (my biological dad) from my childhood. Small wonder. As a Navy dad, he wasn’t around a lot.

I do remember, however, him coming to see us after the divorce. Or rather, I don’t remember him, but how I cried and begged him not to leave me again. I think we were living in South Carolina at the time. After that, my mom asked him not to return – it caused too much turmoil in our lives.

But, just the same, I was certain it was all my fault. Why he never visited, why my mom & new dad fought – it always seemed to be about me. The fighting actually was. I remember being woken up from a sound sleep to “participate” in the fight about something (again) that I had done.

I finally came to believe that it was not only my personality – no – it was my very PERSON that offended him (my step-dad) – even the way I looked. I am, and always have been, the spitting image of my bio father. I started to think that it didn't matter what I did – one look at me would set him off.

I was too smart, too stubborn, too bossy, too quick, too stupid, too careless, too irresponsible, too…. MUCH. 

And that’s how I defined myself – for a very long time.

I finally realized my need for something else to define my life in my senior year in high school. So much was expected of me. I would be at least in the top ten – but how disappointing to know I would not – could not – be valedictorian (really – next to Maciek? No one could!). I needed to be well-rounded for college applications – yet my activities’ schedules interfered with our “so-called’ family times – usually everyone cleaning a different area of the house.

I was an A-student, a drum major, ran track, had a job, in the school musical, on Steering Committee for Model Assembly, took ballet, played flute (band, All-State, and flute quartet), babysat, chorus. I was drinking Maalox and my joints were swollen for no reason. The one person from whom I needed to hear “good job” could no more have said it than I could have grown wings.

I hated myself and knew everyone else did too. So, I considered suicide. Wrote it in my journal how I would do it. My ex-boyfriend, Jody, saved my life. He turned me into my guidance counselor. I remember her saying a few months before this, “you look like you’re all together, but it’s being held by a band-aid, isn’t it?”

Long story short…I learned who my friends were. Jody, Marc, Prune, Bunny, Deed. Those were my real friends. 

I was required to attend counseling with the whole family. Stupid, pointless…I walked out. And the whole family followed – was I that powerful at 16?

My parents acquiesced and said I didn’t have to attend college right away – what a relief! Since I was 10, all I had heard was, “you’re going to college and you’ll have to pay for it yourself”. I had such potential, you see.

I tried for a few years to find someone who would love me for ME. That didn’t work so well, but God redeemed a few of those relationships. Out of the worst of those, I came to know Christ as my Savior – as someone who just loved me.

I believed with all my heart that Christ was the only way I was going to get to heaven. I knew how I was – I wasn’t that stupid! But I also knew I had a lot of work to do while I was still here.

Fifteen years later, we moved to West Virginia. No, not in a million years would I have chosen to live here, but yet, here we were.

Through this church, I have come to realize I am not TOO everything. I am Christ’s workmanship created to do good works that he has prepared in advance for me to do. However, these good works are NOT required in order for God to love me.

I want other Christians to see what they’re missing. They don’t have to spend their Christian walk performing for God, doubting Him. He actually loves me – really. He actually WANTS to spend time with me. He doesn’t just tolerate me. He wants to be kind – IS kind to me. He sings over me. He woos me. He loves me beyond all measure. 

I can believe Him – he has chosen, blessed, forgiven, adopted and redeemed me. 

I am, once again, certain – with a child-like certainty of who I am. I am Erin, whom Christ loves.

What I REALLY Want

I have an eating problem.  No, I'm not a hundred pounds overweight, so you can't tell, but I roam the house looking for food some most days.

For instance, this evening.  What I REALLY wanted was a bowl of Frosted Flakes cereal.  (We had a very late lunch, so we didn't do dinner.)  We don't have any Frosted Flakes.  So I had a piece of pineapple, a glass of water, a few jalapeno kettle chips, a glass of water, some cheddar & sour cream chips, another drink of water, and finally a slice of marzipan stollen.

None of those "did it" for me.  But I am full, even though I'm not satisfied.

Read that last sentence again - I'll wait.

How many times does that describe my body...my mind...my very soul.  I hunt around for "stuff" to fill me, but what I REALLY want, I don't get, usually because of my own personal choice to take something lesser.

I REALLY want to follow Christ ever so closely.  I REALLY want to know God intimately, trust Him, rest in Him.  I REALLY want to believe that God not only loves me and gave His son for me, but that He likes me.

What do I take instead?  Facebook postings to see who I can rile up or get a positive response from.  I escape in TV or a book.  I get my worth through my cooking, my "wife-ness", or my children.  All of those are idols, and all are filling, but not satisfying.