OK With the Now

I love to be right. Not only knowing that I am right; I want other people to know I'm right and admit that they are wrong.

I am not good at slowly letting people come to their own realizations. I push. And push. Relentless until they see the error of their ways or until I am furious and frustrated, or both.

And I want others, not necessarily involved to tell me I am right too.

Is that too much to ask?
(I Think we may have discovered one of the beams in mine own eye!)


But what to do when you are at an impasse?

Is it Christian to agree to disagree? How do you respond when they are too angry? Angry enough to hurt others with words because they want to be right too?

I told my husband I don't want my attitude to be sinful. But I have no idea what that means. Or how to start if I did.

So I stopped pushing. I quit talking or texting the other party, long before I wanted to. And I asked the Lord what I needed to do and admitted I already had my own ideas. And I didn't try to rally others to my side too terribly much.

And I saw I was keeping score.

Take 2.

Ok. Do I have to/need to let them spend alone time with my kid (and future ones, if it happens)? Is it wrong to curb relationships if you feel genuinely insulted and belittled? And how do you explain it to the kids and the other party?

Is not being sinful synonymous with ignoring your own feelings about serious issues (values and morals)?

Or is it OK to proceed cautiously? Understanding that right now I don't have a comfort level? And that it’s OK not to. Being a Christian does not mean you are OK with everyone all the time, even if they are Christians too. And knowing it is OK to say “No” or “Enough. It is our family. Let us do it our way.” doesn’t make you any less in His eyes, even if it is hard for others to hear.

But I don’t think it is a final answer. I have to be open to change in the future? Knowing that we all change and grow. But knowing I want THE END, a resolution, RIGHT NOW? But learning to be OK with the now?

               

It is new for me, but I am trying. Learning it is OK to stand up for myself without beating someone else into submission…..and being OK with where it takes me…..that is what I’m learning today.

My mother, Ann Voskamp, and the Lord

My mother told me about this book she was reading, a farmer's wife with six children and finding joy in the every day. She couldn't remember the author's name but was really enjoying it. And I jumped on the bandwagon, downloading Ann Voskamp's 1000 Gifts to my phone and read it in one sitting.

And it was poetic, lyrical. And moving. So right there I started my own list. Even though admitting I was moved by something popular and culturally relevant was hard. My ego still longs to be a little special. I'm working on it, and God showed me this was one bandwagon to be on.

I've been keeping my list, marking beautiful moments in the everyday: my husband's bare shoulders next to me in the bed, my daughter's belting out Disney's latest when she is in the bathroom and thinks no one can hear her, the feel of our air conditioner as soon as I open the door from the 100 + degrees.

Focusing on the joy, the gifts, has reduced stress in ways I could never imagine.

Not to say I haven't struggled. There have been moments, more than moments of worry and question. But those are diminishing. And I am seeking to replace those moments with new blessings.

I don't think it is time to move on yet...I think I need to stay where I am, learning and enjoying. So this is where I'll be if you need me.

My house is on fire and a dark knight

I had new resolve. Vigor. Prayer. Sleep.

So I made a list.

1. Call Book Mart about using cafe for weekly church Bible study
2. E-mail John, Laura, and Hubs
3. Selection for Bible study
4. Assignment 1, Part 1
5. Assignment 1, Part 2
6. Paper 1

Work was interspersed throughout the day.

@ 3:18 my phone rang. My dad, who was the ultimate professional all those years, never called during work hours. Except once. Over 10 years ago. He had cancer. He is healthy today. Thoughts run to my mother. She is healthy too.

I am too cheerful when I answer, as if that can ward off whatever evil it is he has to tell me.

The house hubs and I own, six plus hours away from where we actually live, that is rented out to a great tenant was struck by lightning and is on fire.

IS on fire. They are on their way.

Husband and I wait. My phone calls the thirty miles away to his job, his building. No answers to tell. Just wait.

Call to the rental management company. Preliminary insurance phone calls.

Finally, the call from my dad.

No one home.
Fire was contained and extinguished. Extensive damage to two rooms.

Thank you, God. Maybe a little at first, that no one was hurt. But not much more.

The deductible on the insurance (not thank you God, I have insurance that pays all but what I spend on eating out in a month)

Does it nullify the lease (not thank you God, your provided us with a tenant these past 6 months)

I have three assignments due in 30 hours (not thank you God that I am able to go to school, have a family that supports me)

I am trying not to be DONE.

I am proud of myself that I finish (with some help) 5 of the 7 pages of my paper and 3/4 of one of the other assignments, that I contact the realtor, the disaster cleaners, the insurance agent, that I actively engage with my husband and daughter for a good thirty minutes.

I am proud of myself when I go to bed.

And then I wake up to the news that a dozen people were killed at A MOVIE.

Someone there had probably finished a summer school assignment to go; someone was taking their baby to spend more than thirty minutes with them.

And suddenly I wasn't that proud anymore.

Please God let me find joy and thanksgiving in everything, even those things I think I can't handle. Let me delight in them because my true joy is in You.

The World Was Made Wrong

There is a picture somewhere of my great, great aunt. (I think that is her branch on the tree.) She is straight mouthed and wrinkled, her white hair pulled into a bun. The caption underneath reads simply, "The world was made wrong. -Mrs. Smith" (Please note: my great-grandmother from this side was nick-named HIPPY GIANT. And with good cause. Despite this they are a wonderful family. Hello Mom and Aunt Jane.)

The world was made wrong.

And that was my day yesterday. A morning MD visit, lunch with the most handsome man in the world, and then an afternoon of self-pity, procrastination, and blahs.


No particular rhyme or reason. Just fleeting thoughts that in a couple of weeks I will have no job! That I will be covered under another person's health insurance. What will I be then? Graduation in 3 weeks. Assignments due tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.


I finally told my husband I was quitting school (please refer two lines above where I say that I am graduating in 3 weeks), not cooking, and.....


"And?" he said.


The words stuck. Huge statements caught at the back of my throat. "I'm tired and overwhelmed."


There I had said it. There went my pride.


No one came and took my superwoman bangles. My mom card was intact.


And my ego was a little smaller.


Prayer (which I had failed to do all day), sandwiches from Lenny's, help with a spreadsheet, and asleep before 10 all conspired to make the day end on a brighter note.


Lessons learned from Day 1 of stress-free week: Do things early. Get up and do something, anything. And sharing the load really makes it lighter.


Here's to a cumulative effect!

Do they make a pill for this?

Ahh, stress. My life-long frenemy. It is my public persona (some of the time) that I remain cool and collected even as your breath tickles the back of my neck.

"It's not stressful. You just take one thing at a time." Smile. Speak slowly. Solve problem.

Maybe it isn't the stress I like, but the feeling needed?

Or that I just have bad habits to cope with the stress?

I was going to try this week after I leave my job, but I decided cheating really isn't conducive to the Spirit of 7! And really, how stress free is a week of no work, kid at summer camp, watching whatever (Law & Order, Mentalist) marathon USA has on!

So, this week, I'm trying to really decide what things help me find my happy place

1. Prayer and spending time in God's word (currently I'm reading through Acts)
2. Watching stand-up comedy with my husband
3. Having baby girl curl up next to me
4. Resting on my husband's chest

And some things that will probably help me de-stress, but that I may or MAY NOT enjoy.
1. Exercising 15 minutes three times in 6 days (please, please don't send me any pictures of you running a marathon or 10k or 5k or to the mailbox)
2. Admitting when I'm overwhelmed and overwrought, no matter how much it is going to hurt my pride

And at the prospect of the above, I. Already. Don't. Love. This. Week.

Jesus had a step-dad

I know how much I love baby girl; it is something visceral, almost animal-like in its intensity and ferociousness.

I try to imagine if I would or could feel that way if I had only known her a year. Would I open myself up to her? Set-up at times for rejection and failure? Would I joyously go back time and time again, slowly chipping away at the walls she built? Would I take her to school and summer camp every morning? Would I bring her a bouquet of flowers or mail her a card because she worked hard and accomplished a goal? Could I love her because I was in love with her parent?

I don't know what kind of step-mom I would be.

But watching my husband diligently and quietly go about the business of parenting a little girl he met just 18 months ago tells the story of what kind of man he is.

Step-parenting is sitting through a Selena Gomez movie and teaching a giggly eight year old how to use chop sticks. It is making homemade popcorn and watching Wizards of Waverly Place, over and over again. It is playing Just Dance, checkers, War and Garbage. It is praying for her, taking her and her mother to church. It is turning the other cheek when a nine-year-old is trying to push you away. It is setting boundaries when you know she needs them. It is doing the right thing when she is watching and when she is not. It is loving her mother and loving her, even when they are not at their most lovable.

         

She has taken to raiding our closet, rummaging through his t-shirts, finding just the right one to wear. I warn him they may get ruined. He tells her to take anyone she likes. Morning after morning, his stack of memories dwindles, only to be returned covered with fingernail polish and glitter. Once he held up his college orientation shirt and said, "Did they slaughter hogs at camp today?" She wore yet another t-shirt the next day.

Success in step-parenting is an ebb and flow. There doesn't seem to be that one "Eureka" moment. It is a little forward progress, a step back, and resolve to push onward. Victory is the moment baby girl tells her friend, "L__ is fun in the pool, but he is so hairy. It's gross." It is the glance she gives him when she burps so loudly for the second time at the dinner table because she knows he will be a little amused when I am not. It is her waiting for him to open her car door because she has learned that, that is how a man should treat a lady.

I don't know what Joseph thought of being a step-dad. But I can imagine that worry crossed Mary's mind. How could a man love her child enough, if it wasn't his? Though I know Jesus was, by far, not the ordinary stepson; I believe God knew that in His plan we would encounter a similar situation...that families would blend. And though, the Bible doesn't tell us much about Joseph as a dad, it tells us he and Mary were worried when they couldn't find Jesus. "Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." Luke 2:48

Both worried.

There have been so many moments of my life I wanted a do-over, to make baby girl's road easier, better. Wishing her earliest years had been more traditional, less of my mistakes. And though in her early years she was fortunate enough to have my dad as a surrogate, I wonder if the perils I read about girls with absentee dads or split-up parents will befall her?

And then I remember that Jesus had a step-dad. That God knew centuries ago that He needed men to raise His children even when they didn't father them. And that being called to be a step-dad is not a consolation prize, but a role that the MOST HOLY GOD allowed in the life of his Son.

Being a parent is hard. Being a good step-parent, I imagine, is much more so. And I am thankful for the Josephs of the world, my husband especially, who father children that they didn't make.

Whip backs on concrete

It was a Memphis street, a tourist destination off of Beale, a boy of 11 or 12 sets out a large yellow bucket and proceeds to flip down the concrete. Back handsprings, back tucks, whip backs...at least a dozen in a row. Stopped now, grinning and sweating, in the thick 90+ temperatures.

People applaud and approach, drop change and loose bills into his bucket. Ask for more flips and off he goes. Baby girl and I watch, amazed. "Momma, it's a whip back on concrete!" And then, "What a cool job." Her stepdad hands her a ten and she shyly tells the boy that his flips are awesome and drops the money in the bucket.

I try to explain that it is kind of a job, that he is helping his family earn money and that because he is too young to work in any kind of store that this is what he does.

Then because I am a cheer mom and sometimes dumb, I quickly launch into my "Baby, you can do most of those tricks...you should get out there with him. It will be fun! Please. Pops can get some picture. C'mon"

"Will you give me money, too?” Ahhhh, greed.

She relents under the promise of $2. Does some back flips. The young boy comes and tells her she is awesome too.

Her stepdad hands her $2, and we find an air conditioned store and begin to pick out t-shirts.

"Momma, I'm going to go back outside with Nana." I only ask if she wants a t-shirt, mug, something. "No, ma'am. I'm good"

20 minutes later, husband and I are back outside, bags full of shirts we may or may not wear. I hear applause; the boy and his bucket are still working the street.

Baby girl sits on the curb, watching. My mom is misty-eyed, looking back and forth between them. And I know she feels badly for him.

She smiles, though, when I approach and whispers. "Baby girl gave him one of her two dollars."