Joy not swallowed up by grief
Due to the nature of having two babies at two different developmental stages, we need a lot of help. And we have had help. The help has been mind blowing. My sister and mom, our friends, my friends' moms, my friend's aunt, people I've met on Facebook who became friends through the beauty of donated breastmilk for our first born... I mean community has built itself around us in ways I am honored to witness and be a part of.
Last night our almost-6 month little man woke up ready to party at 11 pm. Husband had just gotten home from a 10+ hour day of work. I was feeding our 3 week little man so it was up to Daddy, like it constantly has been, to care for and comfort our first born.
Essential oils, gripe water, 6 ounces of milk, yoga ball bounces, and two+ hours later our first born was out cold in Daddy's arms and the two of them crawled into bed sometime after 1 am.
I pray so hard during these moments. I beg Jesus to give Loren strength, ounce by ounce, as his exhausted body and mind perpetually bounces to soothe our precious little one. I ask Jesus over and over again to help our little man fall asleep. I ask Him to give us ideas as to what he needs and why is he awake and what do we do and how do we serve him?
It's not a rare thing for my eyes to well with tears. As the ice cream server at Cloudy City confirmed with our pal Seth last night as I teared up over gluten free waffle cones: I have a lot of emotions. And that is no exaggeration.
Recently a lot of people have been encouraging me that it's okay that being a mom is hard and it's okay to not like it.. I often don't know how I feel about these comments. Because being a mama has been the very best thing for my soul. It is hard, like a lot of things are hard. But I am not sitting around grieving the fact I am a mama. I have wanted this, we fought for this, and it is a gift and I am grateful, even when it isn't glamorous. But I will share that there are certain aspects to my particular and current mama journey that are of utmost difficulty.
Due to the nature of having two babies at two different developmental stages, we need a lot of help. And we have had help. The help has been mind blowing. My sister and mom, our friends, my friends' moms, my friend's aunt, people I've met on Facebook who became friends through the beauty of donated breastmilk for our first born... I mean community has built itself around us in ways I am honored to witness and be a part of.
But my word is it hard on my heart. My heart is constantly breaking into fragments while being blessed while experiencing joy and cracking wide open with love. Other women are wearing/carrying/comforting/feeding/snuggling/putting down for naps/caring for my sweet first born (almost 6 months) while I am doing the never ending cycle of feeding and changing my newborn 3 week infant. I have never struggled with jealousy so much. Don't get me wrong: I love the cycle of caring for infants. It seems spoiled, living this life as a mama. But the reality that I am not enough has never set in so deeply.
It's this dance of being enough in the sense that I believe fully we were made to do this thing of raising these sweet boys so close in age, while acknowledging that we are not actually enough at all..and only Jesus makes us enough. Only with His constant presence of I Am With You can I bring any confidence to the table of being these boys' mamas. Because I am not enough. I can't serve them both with one hundred percent of myself, and even if I could give all of myself, I am still not enough. The prayer that my first born's attachment to me isn't all screwed up is perpetual in my heart; the prayer that our second born doesn't feel less than because he never had Just Us is a thing I'm sure all mama's pray when a second is added.
I created a Facebook group for mamas of Almost/Artificial/Virtual Twins / Twiblings. I needed some mamas who have gone before me to tell me that I'm not a horrible mama for accepting help and allowing other women to essentially join me in being my sons' mama. Because that is what this feels like: it feels like I have had to rip out parts of my heart and allow other women to share this precious, so wanted, so longed for position of being their mama. It hurts. It's hard. One of those mamas said to me, "Things will always slip through the cracks. Hopefully they are small things. But know that God is in the cracks too." She encouraged me that God wouldn't haven't given us these kids if He wouldn't provide a way for us to do it well. She blessed me with the permission to grieve what I need to grieve surrounding many things, one of them being the impossibility to care perfectly for infants that are at two different developmental stages.
Don't get me wrong: These days are filled with a lot more joy than grief or sadness or pain. These days are overflowing with laughter and giggles and a deeper sense of gratitude than I have had in a long time. These days are wholly undeserved and I am soaking them in, because though it is difficult and painful to choose between two crying babies, soon I will look back and miss these late night rocking chair snuggles. I already miss them. I already cry over these boys becoming toddlers. It's silliness I am sure. "I don't want to be 100 years old," (have you seen that video...? If not this is awkward). And I am sure that when they become toddlers and then kids and then teens and then young adults, I will have many more reasons to give thanks. They may not want to be snuggled all night long, but there will hopefully be other heart-filling adventures.
Merry Christmas, from us.
The knitted stockings have been hanging for a month. The tree twinkles with colorful lights, topped with a star so simple, discretely hiding a few wrapped presents begging to be opened.
The morning has arrived and it is perfect. By many standards, one may snicker at my calling this perfection: the windows drip with condensation, inviting mold to make its home in ours; the tree leans a little to its right, inviting your head to tilt as you gaze upon it; the twinkling lights don't match - there is a literal red strip in the middle as we ran out of the multi-colored; crumbs pile high in the corners of the kitchen, despite my husband's faithful sweeping; and the place our hearts call home is filled with chilled air. But I love it and it is perfect and my heart is warm. I am with my husband, he with me, together we sit cozied up on our love seat, under grandma's quilt. Grandma makes the coziest quilts.
As we wipe sleep from our eyes, our hearts are happy, warmed, because: Emmanuel. He is with us. God himself - the Creator of all things, the universe, you and me - He squeezed Himself into the body of a baby. The most helpless and needy form of humanity: a baby. It is our third year as newlyweds, our third year reading the story of Jesus together on December 25th. Though most of America's today is filled with chaos, presents, and more more more...I hope you'll spend a few minutes to read this entire story - the story about Jesus, His birth.
I cannot imagine the awe, the reverence, the fear Mary must have experienced when the angel said these words to her:
"'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. What's more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God!'
And Mary responded, 'I am the Lords servant. May everything you have said about me come true.'"
Luke 1:35-38
For nothing is impossible with God. The entire story of His birth recorded in the book of Luke is mysterious, bringing stinging tears to these joyful eyes. This deep feeling heart can only imagine the heavy presence of glory that was revealed that night; and as I imagine, my heart burns with passion and I am forced to raise these hands and this heart in awe and honor and acknowledging that He is greater and He is with me and He is for me. For you, with you, rooting you on. Yes, violence and war still rage on...but in this brokenness we have access to hope, joy, freedom. Emmanuel.
Jesus. I fall madly in love with You as I read the words You spoke, the heart You shared, the way You cared and drew people to your Father. I cannot help but love You more, because of the way You love me. I cannot help but want to be near You, pulled in close to Your chest where I can lay my head to rest, so fully, so deeply, so real-ly. You are with me. You are for me. You inspire me.
We hope that you find His heart for you - we pray that you experience His deep and very real, life changing love. What a powerful day today reminds us of, the birth of our Savior.
Merry Christmas.
I'm choosing joy. Will you?
I feel the joy again. Once again, it is penetrating the very seams of my being, pulsating through my veins, coursing through my arteries. It had escaped me; or maybe I had left it, the moment I gave in to ingratitude. Too often, my perpetual mistake of allowing ingratitude to pierce through my complaining thoughts of dark, my permission to let unrighteous anger sizzle beneath my skin, my choice - and it is a choice - to crush joy with bitterness...I neglected to see how I was choosing to follow the "Prince of Darkness". In choosing a simmering bitterness or authorizing someone's jab to offend me with stabbing aches, my soul was blaspheming in choosing the angry way of Lucifer because I subconsciously think it is more effective - why else choose ingratitude & impatience? Why else allow such deep resentment to dwell within my soul, to act out in quick thwarts? Is it because I think complaining and resentment will bring me the full life I want? Why else get angry? Lies. I do not want that. That is not a life full.
My swollen impaired eyelids are slowly being torn open to see through this mess. To see without being blinded - or maybe I hope to be blinded by the glory of God, so that is all that I see?
The joy has seeped back into and through my pores, cleansing the filth that rampaged through, all too discretely. It has been a very conscious choice, a working effort and an endless discipline of daily work. But isn't that how the Israelites were fed? Day by day the manna poured...day by day, I choose to pick up the manna God provides. Gifts. Joy.
This journal I started. This dare I read in a book. This list of One Thousand Gifts. It is changing my life and ushering joy into my soul. Erasmus said, "A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit." I am striving to replace the habit of ingratitude with the beautiful habit of gratitude, which escorts joy. It wasn't until I purchased a journal specifically for this task, this dare, this challenge, this invitation, and began the catalog of One Thousand Gifts...it wasn't until I named the gifts that the joy flushed my heart and set my soul ablaze.
"In naming that which is right before me, {as gift}, that which I would otherwise miss, the invisible becomes visible. To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it." -Voskamp
"To name is to solve mystery." Voskamp expands on this through her book One Thousand Gifts; but please let me sum it up. To name is to bring fulfillment. To name is to live fully. To name is to recognize the gifts surrounding me, drowning me in grace. To name is to accept the gifts God has given, thus accepting and diagnosing Gods love for me. To name is to be entered into the throne room of grace, to be filled with joy and awe and wonder...and reverence. To name. Even in the hard thanks, in the darkest of days when all seems hopeless and you ache to be in Heaven...to name.
As I record the gifts yesterday and today, my heart burns with joy, time slows, and I absorb the moment. Hurry no longer seems appealing. My eyes are being remade, my hearts lens is transforming. And it's beautiful. I want it for you, too. This is why I share. I invite, I challenge, I dare, I invite you - because it is truly an invitation to blessing, wholeness, life as full - to start recording the good gifts only a good God graces you with.
Imperfect but transforming, attempting to give thanks in all circumstances:
Natalie
133. husband serving coffee with cream, dancing.
137. tomatoes, juicy and red, shining bright around the ends.
Thank you, Ann Voskamp, for truly & deeply inspiring me.
Choosing to live fully: Happy New Year
Good morning January 1, 2014! I woke up with the cold hanging onto my body with the grip of a dying man, fearing the unknown. I had forgotten it was January 1, until I opened my beautiful bible to Ezekiel 36:26:
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will remove from you the heart of stone, giving you a heart of flesh."
My heart has been slowly turning to stone. Last year kicked me in the butt and kind of wore me out. There was much to celebrate and enjoy, which we did. But the stabbing pains led me to slowly shut off my heart to others, a mode we call self-protection. I struggled to confuse my calling with my identity which brought me straight into battle with giving into ingratitude. Ingratitude. Is that not the catalyst of so many of my sins in life?
As I processed what I had read this morning in Ezekiel, I asked what a raw, gnawing, beating heart of flesh would look like. What would it look like for the year of 2014, to have a heart pumping with 3,000 stallions?
Our fall was, has always been, and will always be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other. Standing before that tree, laden with fruit withheld, we listen to Evil's murmur, 'In the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened...' (Genesis 3:5). But in the beginning, our eyes were already open. Our sight was perfect. Our vision let us see a world spilling with goodness. Our eyes fell on nothing but the glory of God. We saw God as He truly is: good. But we were lured by the deception that there was more to a full life, there was more to see. And true, there was more to see: the ugliness we hadn't beheld, the sinfulness we hadn't witnessed, the loss we hadn't known.
-Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts
A heart of flesh. Jesus' heart was "flesh." The last night before He went to the cross, He did what? His heart chose to give thanks. What about Jesus standing outside of Lazarus's tomb, and John 11:41 reminds us of His thankful heart, "Father I thank you that you have heard me." And then a dead man rose. Thanksgiving raises the dead, turns a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. An empty, stiff cadaver surging with veins full of blood, arteries flushing with life. Giving thanks.
"How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?" Asks Ann Voskamp
The only place we need to see before we die is this place of seeing God, here and now, through it all.
This year, I choose to give thanks. I choose to purchase that notebook I've been wanting and fill it with one thousand gifts of grace.
Happy day.
1,000 gifts part two
Read part one of 1,000 gifts here. You know how it's November? And people's Facebook statuses are all about what they're thankful for? I love that; I completely believe that if you're truly giving thanks, your heart changes. It transforms. The way you perceive life is different...it becomes joyful and positive. It brings strength when you feel completely weak: why? Because you're giving God glory, you're recognizing you cannot live this life alone.
This morning I read Psalm 92. After I read it through I went back to verses one and two:
"It is good to give thanks to The Lord...it is good to proclaim Your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening."
As I've stated before, I believe that all gifts are acts of grace from Jesus. I am continuing my quest of making a list of 1,000 gifts that I am deeply grateful for.
7. I am thankful for quiet mornings, rain storm happening outside, a time to sit in silence & soak in the peace of God.
8. I am thankful for the sales at Jo Anne's.
9. I am thankful that I get to welcome a very random (yet not so random) group of people into my home & feed them Thanksgiving dinner.
10. I am thankful for our patio, as well as the garden we planted.
11. I am thankful for medicine and doctors.
12. I am thankful for Allan Peterson's belief in and support of Loren and I. A complete encouragement.
13. I am thankful for true prayer warriors in my life (to name a few: Haley, Kent, Lindsey, Allan, Mike).
14. I am thankful for early morning Psalms.
15. I am thankful for the growth that has happened through having a very broken family.
16. I am thankful for fearless leaders who have sacrificed so much for the sake of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ. (to name a few: Mike & Heather, Ben & Bethany, Melissa, Loren, Anthony & Emily, Russel & Emily, soooo manyyyy moreee )
17. I am thankful for the church family I am part of.
18. I am thankful for conversations with Stephanie Bean.
19. I am thankful for a sewing machine.
20. I am thankful for the ability to communicate with my sisters-in-law who live far away.
What are you thankful for? Have you started a list?
1,000 gifts
I 100% believe that all gifts are products of grace. From the smallest gift of morning shadows on a hard wood floor to huge gifts such as a husband who fears The Lord & leads me closer to His feet. I have started a quest, an excursion of recording 1,000 gifts of grace. I was given the idea by a speaker at a women's conference: 1,000 Gifts of Grace.
So far, I have 6. 1. I am thankful that Loren can work 20 hours less at Trillium each week. There are only two of us to provide for & I am so grateful for the opportunity to serve our church community even more. 2. I am thankful that my mom comes to our church. 3. I am thankful for the church community that has been built through Corvallis Church. We are truly living life together, and I do not want to take this time for granted. 4. I am thankful for foggy, fall, crisp mornings. Something about them brings complete joy. 5. I am thankful for Kent Smith. For so many reasons.
Over time, I will record these gifts that I am ever so grateful for.
Today, in Canada, I thanked God for His word, His written love letters. I was reading in Psalm 78 and verses 21, 22 settled in my soul with some thanksgiving.
"When The Lord heard them, he was furious. The fire of his wrath burned...for they did not believe God or trust Him to care for them."
For they did not believe God, they did not trust Him to care for them. And that made Him furious. I don't know about you, but so often I find myself distrusting, worrying, anxious, not believing Gods written promises. Has he yet to break His word?
6. I am thankful that I have a trustworthy caretaker, life giver, creator, savior, king, and God. A trustworthy and caring friend who comforts and gives strength, boldness, peace. I am thankful for His grace and acceptance.
Will you join me in honestly pursuing gratefulness for the gifts of grace? What are you grateful for?
