Blessed Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The place on earth where I am happiest is a shallow stretch of the Big Sur river adjacent to river site 127. I lie in my inflatable boat in 12 inches of slowly-flowing water, a damp paperback in my hand, a cold drink tucked against one corner of the boat. The sycamores and redwoods are my walls and archways. The water on the stones is my music. The blue sky is my roof. 

On our annual late-summer camping trip, I make it a point to get into my boat and find a sunny spot on the river as soon as we have camp set up. Sometimes the kids play around me. Sometimes they take off with their daddy for the rapids up the gorge, and float past me, bound for adventures downstream. 

Last week, you could have found me in my boat in the late afternoon, drifting slowly; no need to tie my boat to a tree as in year's former, because the drought has lowered the water level. Late in the day, sunshine is scarce on the river, so I cherish the moments when I drift into a warm place, and hope I stick. One afternoon, after feeling a bit shivery as I floated through the shadows, I ran aground in just such a place. I took care to hold very still so as not to dislodge myself. I was happy, but a precarious kind of happiness, knowing all the time that one false move could send me downriver.

Five minutes into this delicate bliss, my band of merry boaters came loudly toward me: Jeff, our two girls, and our 10-year old friend Oceana. Oce was ahead of the others.

"Don't touch me!" I called out. "Nobody come near me! I am finally in the perfect sunny spot and I don't want to move." Oce looked at my curiously. Then came Sophia, my eldest. "Don't touch me! Don't dislodge me," I screeched as she held out her hands to me. Again, a curious look, slightly wounded. Down went the rest of the family. Peace was again restored to the river. 

About 15 minutes later, the sun shifted and I began to shiver. So I lifted my head to get up and realized something. I was totally and completely wedged in my spot. On the downriver side of my raft, I has hemmed in by a rock and two big logs, forming a triangle-shaped dam. No matter how I had wiggled, no matter which of the kids had bumped into me, I wasn't going anywhere. No wonder the kids were looking at me funny.

Had I ever so much as lifted my head out of the bottom of the boat, I would have seen this, and felt secure. And I would have received the disruption of my family with open arms.

What a fascinating metaphor. How often do I become reactive and irrational because I let fear or insecurity rule over me?

* My husband makes a thoughtless remark (simply because he's distracted, trying to be funny, or just being, well, male), and I allow myself to question his affection and devotion. 

* A friend fails to return a phone call and I imagine ill will on her behalf and fear the loss of the friendship.

* A week of high demands from my kids and I begin to imagine myself a slave, a drudge, a woman with no sense of self, no life of her own. The classic martyr. 

* A flash of doubt runs through my mind and I fear the loss of my faith, and disqualification from my life work and ministry. 

Were I to lift my head in any of these situations -- look at my Father, see the Big Picture of my life -- I would see that I am wedged tightly in a dam of goodness. It is built of solid stones and strong timbers. 

My husband chose me and will keep his vows.  I have solid friendships with safe women, not perfect, but built on the wise principles of the Bible, the best relationship manual there is. I am a competent, not perfect, mother, and my life is full and rich with mission and purpose both in the walls of my house and outside of them. And running under all of it is the strength of the faith handed to me by generations, which I've embraced since I was a little child. And under that, the love of God, which was mine before I breathed my first breath. He has promised nothing will shake it. He is the Rock I am blessed to be standing on, hemmed in by His love, goodness, and wisdom. 

How much less reactive, how much kinder and happier I would be if I remembered how secure I truly am, and stopped treating small disruptions like earthquakes. This morning, I am tired. We are home from vacation and there is no more river to lie in. My girls had a sleepover last night during which the favored game was Musical Beds. There will be a lot of demands today, probably tears, definitely reactivity. I hope I manage it well.

So I lift my head today and look up. I say "Thank you, Father, for making me secure. Hem me in on all sides."

Be Good

Around the time I hit adolescence, my mom developed the practice of following me to the front door whenever I was leaving the house and calling after me, "Be good!" If I was departing on a date, she sometimes went so far as to follow me and the teenage boy I was with to the front gate and shouting, "Be good!" as we  got into the car.

What she meant by this you can imagine. Don't drive too fast. Don't see a forbidden rated R movie. Don't make out in the back seat of the car. (Well, two out of three isn't bad, Mama.) I thought - and continue to believe - that it was pretty funny. But I also think it influenced me, that last desperate attempt my mom made to remind me who I was, what I knew was right and what was expected of me.

I find myself doing something similar now that I'm a mom. When I drop the kids off at a friend's house, or camp, or school, my version is, "Have fun and be good!" Or sometimes, "Learn something, have fun, remember your manners and be good!"

My girls, ages five and 9, already think it's funny when I do this, and not just because I often do it in E.T.'s voice with my finger outstretched. "Beeee goooood."

I want my girls to exhibit goodness: be kind, loving, honest, compassionate, just, generous. My instructions to them are always along these lines, and my prayers.

I find my prayers are also full of this odd request of God: I also say to God often, "Be good."

This sounds pretty ridiculous when I write it in black and white, but I'm concerned about God's goodness. Fundamental to my faith as a Christ-follower is that there is an almighty God who created the universe and told us about Himself through prophets who recorded what they heard. One of the main things God says about Himself that is that He is good. His goodness is His very nature, and also the way He acts: he does good. He is just, hating evil and righting wrongs. But also, abounding in love, compassionate, slow to anger, merciful. 

But I wonder about all these things. Or perhaps more accurate and honest is that I doubt God's goodness. Because this world stinks in a lot of ways. God is good. The state of the world is not. The Bible's more eloquent way of saying this is that the world is fallen, broken and groaning as a woman in childbirth until the time when God puts all things to right again.So I dialogue with God about what He is up to, and why.

It turns out I am not alone in feeling this way. It's recorded in the book of Genesis that Abraham asked God the same thing. God was about to exercise judgement on a city, and Abraham was afraid God might go overboard, judging people who didn't deserve it. Abraham asked him, "Can the Lord of Heaven do wrong?" God promises to save the city if there is even one righteous man in it, reminding Abraham that He is just.

Moses has the same kinds of conversations with God, reminding Him of His promises to Israel. So does David in the Psalms, urging God to defend His people, protect the righteous, right wrongs, show all the world who He is. In other words, David tells God to be who He says He is.

I'm grateful that these conversations with God have been recorded for me, giving me permission to talk to my Father this way. I beg God to be not only just but merciful. I remind God that He calls himself a father to the fatherless, defender of orphans and widows. That He is not willing for anyone to perish, but all to be saved. He is a God so big that the sun and moon obey him, and yet so devoted to His creation that He sees every sparrow and knows the number of hairs on each of our heads.

But of course, He doesn't need to be reminded. I do. I need to feel in my heart and believe in my head that God can be trusted with the universe, because I certainly can't make sense of it. One of my friends posted this scripture on facebook today:

Just as you don’t know the way of the wind
or how bones grow in a pregnant woman’s womb,
so you don’t know the work of God,
the maker of everything.
Ecclesiastes 11:5 

My understanding of how God's goodness is being played out in the universe is so limited, and won't be expanded much in the foreseeable future. So these conversations I'm having with are just about increasing my trust in God by giving Him the opportunity to reassure me. I may have quoted this passage in a blog before because I love it so much, but in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie, Laura marvels at her blind sister Mary's confidence in the goodness of God. Her faith transcends circumstances and gives her real peace.

Everyone knows that God is good. But it seemed to Laura then that Mary must be sure of it in some special way. 

"You're sure, aren't you?" Laura said. 

"Yes, I am sure of it now all the time," Mary answered. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want."

God, grant me that certainty. Be good.

I Stink at Lent

I had a lofty goal for the Lenten season. I gave up shopping for anything besides groceries. 

No seasonal home decor. No new clothes for myself or the girls. No sewing supplies. No plants for the garden. The one exception was buying my daughters new Easter shoes, because last year's won't fit on their feet and as holy as I was planning to be, I was not willing that my daughters should wear sneakers on Easter Sunday. 

People's reactions were interesting. 

"What about paper towels and toilet paper?" my women's pastor asked. Yes on toilet paper, no on paper towels.

"What about my baby shower?" my friend who is pregnant with twins asked. Don't worry, dear, I already bought everything for your invitations.

"Can you still meet me at the mall, because I want to shop for shoes?" my best friend asked.

"You'll never make it," said my mother. 

And my mother, as usual, was right. I didn't make it. 

Five days into my extreme sacrifice, my husband put paper towels in our Target shopping cart. I bought the girls Easter shoes, but also bathing suits, because we had a warm spell and last season's were literally transparent when wet. And I ran out of envelopes for my friend's baby shower. I did not, however, buy any shoes with my BFF at Macy's that night. But I did buy shoes eventually.

While shopping for Easter shoes for the kids, I "popped in" to TJ Maxx/Home Goods (my dark, discounted master), where it turns out they don't even carry children's shoes. While there, I bought a dress to wear to  my husband's 20th high school reunion this summer ("It's so cheap and if I wait til summer, they won't have summer dresses left!") And I bought a pair of shoes with my husband's permission (same excuse as the above) and he said I could just wait until after Easter to wear them. 

And then, while I was in TJ Maxx returning the wrong size of said shoes, I bought my mother an entire new spring wardrobe for the tune of about $300. She came to my house and tried on all of it, kept most of it, and wrote me a check. 

And then after all these rationalizations and compromises, I just went to Joann's and bought all the supplies I "needed" and then felt really guilty.

I may have a shopping problem. 

The reason I gave up shopping for Lent, was (1) because I like the idea of sacrifice as a means to focus myself spiritually in preparation for the most important holiday as a Christian, and to remember Jesus supreme sacrifice on the cross. And (2) because I want the sacrifice to be a meaningful spiritual discipline that will change me in the long term. I spend of lot of time running errands and  returning things, and I desired a sense of freedom from that circular habit. What would it mean for my life to live with less, and to rely on God for the emotional lift that buying stuff (our national pass time!) gives me?

But I blew it. It was way too hard. However, it taught me a valuable lesson about the way I relate to God. 

This weekend, our pastor Kenton Beshore gave a wonderful sermon on practicing religion versus having a relationship with God. He said that the human default in relating to God is religion: a system of rules and rituals that tells us what to do, how to be a "good" person, and how to get closer to God through our own effort. The problem with religion, he said, is two fold. 

Problem one: If you succeed at following all the rules, you get prideful, make the whole thing about you instead of God, and start judging other people who can't work as hard or be as "holy" as you are. This was Jesus main problem with the religious leaders of his day, whom he reprimanded more than any one else he spoke to (he called them "a brood of vipers" among other nasty things). They were externally holy about following religious rites, but they lacked mercy, compassion, humility and love. 

Problem two: If you fail at following the rules, you end up rationalizing and compromise the rules until they no longer have any real value ("The law isn't 'don't lie', it's 'Only lie if you really have to, and then feel badly about it.'").  Then, you spiral into guilt and shame, and either shrink away from God because you feel unworthy, or drop religion altogether because guilt turns to anger and resentment toward God and the church. This was the problem for the "sinners" in Jesus' day; they were outside the holy community of religious people, but God's message to them was to repent and simply follow him. He called them friends.

Boy, do I see Kenton's point. If I had succeeded at the "no shopping" season, I would have felt really proud of myself, and probably would have told people about it. Like, "I'm not wearing a new dress on Easter today because I gave up shopping for Lent." There's no way I would have kept that quiet. 

But since I blew it so completely, I did not achieve spiritual and mental freedom, as I hoped, but got tangled up in a lot of rationalization. "See I bought that dress for the reunion, but I won't wear it for Easter, even though it would be perfect for Easter; so that's actually the greater sacrifice. To have it, to know it's right there in the closet, but to not be able to wear it." 

My relationship with God really suffered when I was in this kind of accounting mentality; I would pray and ask forgiveness for breaking my Lent vow, but then I would still want to make myself right with Jesus by earning my way back into His good graces. How ludicrous, that I, by some effort or negotiation, could mirror the sacrifice of Jesus' life.

And there, right there, is the great gift that my "failed" Lent ritual gave me. I don't have to earn my way into God's good graces because God's grace is good. Religion is an accounting system (and y'all know how I hate accounting), and we default to it because we know we are in God's debt. In some translations, sin = debt. "Forgive us our debts, Lord, as we forgive our debtors," we pray as Jesus taught us. But the great transaction has been made. Jesus paid the whole debt. All of it, so I could be His friend. So I could walk with him in freedom. He has balanced the spiritual checkbook for me. How grateful I am! 

During the last 30-some days, I got lost and tangled in religion. But in other ways, I walked with Jesus. Jeff and I have had some wonderful times in relationships with people we love and care about in the last month. I've heard God's voice about what He wants me to do with my life when my current ministry position is over, and I have a profound sense of purpose and peace. I brought my daughter to a prayer service and witnessed her ask for prayer to be a better big sister (the tears come again just remembering it). We've brought some new friends to church with us (how we love them!), and we've seen other new friends in our small group get baptized. None of these beautiful experiences have come from trying hard to be religious, but simply following the tug in our hearts to do what Jesus would. 

So I'm celebrating Easter with a full heart this weekend. And I'm wearing my new outfit rather than being holy and sacrificial by leaving it in my closet. I wear it in celebration: I didn't measure up this month, but my debt has been paid.

The Year of Joy

On January 1, 2013, my husband tripped in the attic while putting away our Christmas decorations and put his foot through our upstairs bathroom ceiling.

I was standing in the hallway and saw his foot and calf come down in a hail of dust and insulation. I swore. My husband did not. Happy New Year!

This all happened about one hour before my parents were expected for dinner and five minutes after I had got a call from a neighbor. Neighbor asked if she could come over for a cup of tea and refuge from her chaotic house, where she was half-way through a kitchen rennovation. I opened the door for her just moments after the ceiling puncture and told her perhaps she had come to the wrong place.

Thirty minutes later, as I swept up toxic insulation dust garbed in my husband's face mask and safety goggles (see mess at right), I felt a wave a gratitude come over me. Gratitude because (1) Jeff was not hurt and didn't fall all the way through (a la Tom Hanks in The Money Pit); (2) Neither had he come through the ceiling in our bedroom, just a few feet away, which would have necessitated many loads of laundry, but rather in our easily contained bathroom; (3) It was Jeff and not I that had made such a critical slip, so I didn't have to feel guilty about it; and (4) we had the money to fix the ceiling so this wouldn't constitute financial hardship. (Not that this is the way we would like to spend the money but still...). Then, remembering the sight of the foot through the ceiling, I began to laugh.

We had had a beautiful, healthy, peaceful Christmas break. Throughout December, I felt God had been speaking something to me about the coming year: "This will be a year of joy." Now, that is a good message to get from God. Funny way to start off though, with at attic accident at the absolute end of a 10-day vacation. 

I don't actually have trouble, typically, finding joy and gratitude -- or at least humor -- in the trials of life. For some reason, I struggle more to experience joy when all is well. The externals of my life have been marked by blessing (Thank you, God!): physical health, healthy children, marriage to a good man, financial stability, a safe home, a wonderful community, a sense of mission and purpose in the world. And I am grateful.

But I have lived in seasons where I can see all that I have is good, and yet am unable to rejoice over my blessings. I have had a sense that under all the present goodness was something sinister, a dark truth about the universe and the nature of God that made joy impossible. It felt like a chain around my ankle, just like they show in those animated depression medication commercials on TV.

The reasons for this inability to enjoy a life that should produce joy are complex: a combination of brain chemistry, learned behavior, and a spiritual stronghold. The first I do what I can to manage. The second likewise. The third, I needed God to do the work.

What I needed was a dose of truth, and the ability to hear it. My daughters just memorized the statement Jesus made in John 8:32: "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free." Over the last few months, I've been asking God to speak truth to me, because books, teachers, friends, my spouse and psycholgists have, but I needed to hear it straight from Him. I believe He answered me. And I believe I am free.

Over the last three months, I've been having a running dialogue with God, and what He spoke was startling, never the response I expected.

 Dialogue Part First:
me: What more can I do, Jesus? I know my faith has so many holes in it.
God: I am pleased with you. Your faith is pleasing me.
I was expecting a review, Jesus with a clipboard, casting a critical eye over my life; like a spiritual life coach here to help me achieve higher potential. His answer shocked me into tears. I know it came from something (Someone) external, because it was the last thing I would have thought.  And this He followed with, "Your new name is Joyful One."

Dialogue Part Second:
me: God, show me what you are like. I'm still afraid you are not good.
God: You are precious to me.
me: Thank you. I think I know that, but that's not what I asked you. What are you like?
God: You are very precious to me. 
me: Really, is that what you want to say? That's not what I asked you!

Dialogue Part Third (this one God initiated, at 5 in the morning in December)
God: I chose to love you.
me: I don't like that word "chosen." I don't understand what that means.
God: I have the right to choose you. Be chosen. If I want you for mine, you'll be mine. Be mine!
me: I don't understand what that means.
God: I'm not going to explain it to you, sweetie. But if I did, I promise, you would approve.

After part third, I went peacefully to sleep, until my husband roused me almost two hours later. And I can't explain it, but something about the way God spoke to me, the tone and tenderness in His voice, took the fear out of me. I've been wrestling for years with big questions about the universe, believing I knew that God loved me, but wanting to know that He loved the whole world as well.

As it turns out, I didn't know He loved me. Not like I do now. And as it turns out, if He loves me (Me! Me?) enough to speak to me in the voice that I heard, then He loves the world. What is He like? He's the kind of God that loves me. And if he loves me, well, I trust him to love anybody. I don't understand God. But He's nice enough -- sweet, actually, gentlemanly, gracious -- to tell me that if I were able to see Him fully, I would like what I saw.

So joy. I've got it. And I keep testing to make sure, poking around thought pockets that used to be rubbed raw with fear and sadness, like you might poke a sore muscle to see if it's healed. And I think there's some scar tissue there, but it doesn't hurt anymore.

Meanwhile, blessings continue to abound in my life, and small, ridiculous trials are abundant as well. In the 24 hours since I began writing this, in the same bathroom in which my husband broke the ceiling 23 days ago,  I destroyed the floor. I dropped a shoebox full of nail polish from a high shelf.  One bottle -- hot pink, of course -- exploded. The rest fell in the toilet. I couldn't make this stuff up. I spent the afternoon scrubbing grout with acetone and sanitizing my nail polish collection in a kitchen colander (which then went through the dishwasher on hot). And I laughed.

The Bible says we will experience joy through trials. So the year of joy shall likely be an adventure. I'm expecting it. And expecting also to be surprised. Bring it on. And happy new year.

Status: Content

I was driving around in my car alone this week when I had a sudden rush of self-awareness.

What is this odd sensation? I thought. Why, I think it's contentment.

Despite my tearful posting in August (I literally cried on my keyboard) over my youngest child going off to kindergarten, I dropped her off on the first day dry eyed (see photo at left). And then, I found myself on about Day 7 of Both Kids in School to be almost entirely adjusted to this new reality, and pretty much loving life. True, I am only alone for three hours and 20 minutes while Livie is in school. But it's five days a week! If I don't get all my errands done by myself on Monday, and I do them on Tuesday. Or Wednesday! If I don't work out today, there is tomorrow. You see my point. 

 The sensation of knowing that I will have this time to myself on a consistent basis for the next, say, 13 years is like a physical presence in my body. Or more like a physical lightening. For the first time in eight and a half years, I feel that what I have to manage on a given day is actually manageable. I wasn't even aware how unmanageable life felt before (at least not all the time). I never even let myself imagine this era: Mom with Kids in School. 

And yet. You may notice that I have blogged only once in the month since school began. What have I been doing? Here's the answer: 

*Having coffee with friends who also have kids in school, or who have adult kids.

*Taking showers and going out in public in clothes that all match, and some that have "dry clean only" labels.

* Speaking at MOPS groups (four in the last three weeks)

* Reading ( I had a cold and I lay on the couch two days in a row and FINISHED A NOVEL)

*Frivolous sewing (my god-daughter is turning one and her big day would not have been complete without a custom party hat)

* Zumba

*Gardening. My pots are filled with cheap seasonal mums.

* Counting my blessings. 

And yet again. My favorite day in the last four weeks was spent with my friend and her three children ages 11 months to four years. I gave the two eldest horsey rides and put the baby to sleep using my mad infant skills. I thought about that sleeping dumpling on my chest for the rest of the day, and probably also into the night.

Meanwhile, I said "Goodnight, baby" to my Kindergartner a week into her public school career, and she said, "I'm not a baby! You don't have any babies, anymore, Mom. We are both big girls now." Gulp. Sniff. And then I spent the next three weeks having dreams about having babies, adopting babies, being given other people's babies.

So don't let my put-together appearance  and contented air fool you. I'm not made of steel. I am mourning the end of the early childhood in my own way. But I am available for coffee dates while I mourn. And if you have a baby you need held, bring her with you.

What Kind of Mom I Am

For the last several months, I have been locked in a mental struggle with myself over whether or not to send my youngest child with an early September birthday to kindergarten in the fall. You moms out there know that I had to start thinking about it months ago, because in order to sign your child up for school in the fall, you must pay money and fill out paperwork in the previous winter!

I knew (as moms do) that my Livie could do kindergarten at age five. What I didn't know is if she could handle being one of the youngest kids in class for the rest of her educational career. I didn't know if she could handle peer pressure as the youngest, handle being one of the last to become an adolescent, get her driver's lisence and on and on. If I waited, how would it be for her to be the tallest (she's a giraffe), oldest, earliest.

I felt either way I went, I was making a fear-based decision. Never a good idea.

So in my mind, I made my official position "undecided," enrolled her in both private pre-K (pricey) and public K (free) and asked God to reveal what we should do in his time.

This week, I believe he answered it. Jeff and I both came to certainty at the same time. We realized that Livie's future character and ability was unknowable: we couldn't predict what kind of a ten year old or sixteen year old she would be. But suddenly, and with clarity, I decided to ask the question, "What kind of mom am I?" Immediately I knew the answer to that, and also to the question "what kind of dad is my husband." We know who we are and what we believe as a family.

We believe that experiencing challenges builds character. Therefore, not necessarily being the brightest kid in the class for whom everything can be a good thing. With our eldest daughter, we've seen that, in fact, being an "accelerated learner" at the top of your class comes with challenges of its own; because most things are so easy for her, when she encounters resistance, it challenges her very sense of identity. I personally struggled with that kind of perfectionism all through school. Perhaps Livie will be freer from that.

We believe that our child's education is our responsibility. If she needs help in school, we'll get her help. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I have time to help with homework and give her the attention she needs.

We believe in believing the best in our girls:  in giving them the opportunity to rise to challenges. We have always done things with them before other kids are "ready": from taking them tent camping to riding roller coasters to eating out in fancy restaurants. And they have learned to not just cope but thrive in many things as a result.

We believe that their security rests not in their ability to be the smartest, tallest, prettiest, most talented people in their class, but rather in their identity as loved children of God, who helped, guided and sustained by Him. And we also believe that because our family, with two committed parents that love each other and love them, our children will be more equipped to  cope in the world than those that don't have that advantage.

This feels to me like a faith-based versus fear-based decision. And I'm not saying its the right one for anyone else but our family. But it feels good.

So...with some trembling, I am un-enrolling in pre-K and praying for my little Livie. Meanwhile, Livie is dancing around the house periodically and chanting "Kin-der-gar-ten" and pumping her little tanned fist in the air. I can't wait to see what God is going to do with her.

The Woman My Pastor Thinks I Am

For the last five years, I've been a volunteer leader in the MOPS program at our church. MOPS stands for Mothers of Preschoolers, and it's basically a trifecta cross between a parenting class, a Bible study and a support group for moms of children age infant to kindergarten. For the last two years, I was the coordinator of our group, which had 130-something members, and last month committed to oversee the total MOPS program at our church, which involves something like 40 leaders and over 200  attendees. 

Whenever the pastor to Women's ministries at our church, Shelly, introduces me to someone, affirms me at a meeting, or writes me a "thank you" card (which is often -- she is very supportive), she always says that she loves how much I love being a mom, and how much I love ministering to moms. 

I am always surprised that this is what she highlights about me. You know those bumper stickers that say, "I wish I was the person my dog thinks I am"? Well, I need one that says "I wish I was the person my pastor thinks I am." Because in reality, I have very ambivalent feelings about being a mom.

And I don't think of myself as ministering to moms. I think of myself as a minister to women. Who happen to be moms. And I think this is what makes me good at it.

Let me unpack this a little. 

I LOVE being married. I LOVE my kids. But being a mom is very complicated. "Mom" is a label you get when you give birth, and it never leaves you. And for many women, at least for a time, it erases every other label they previously carried. I think of a spoof "Saturday Night Live" commercial for "Mom Jeans" I saw several years ago. The voice-over extols their comfort-fit 9-inch zipper and the fact that wearing them says to world, "I'm not a woman, I'm a mom!"

I have a personal business card that I hand out to people (moms in the park, women in my Bible study, my sewing clients, my editors), and on it is my name, and after it this: 

"Writer, Quilter, Baker, Scrapbooker, Mom"

One time I gave it to a couple of women who bought some antiques in my flea market booth, and they asked me, in all seriousness, "Why do you have Mom on there last? Shouldn't it be first?" The irony: I write about my kids, I quilt for my kids, I bake for my kids, I scrapbook pictures of my kids. But still: shouldn't the word Mom come first?

And that right there is the issue. Moms struggle so much with priorities.Who comes first: husband? Children? Work? Hobbies? My self? When am I being selfish? When am I being too selfless? Am I giving my children enough attention? Too much? Am I involved enough in their pursuits? Am I living too much through their pursuits? It's a constant balancing act. It could turn into a constant identity crisis. It's a crisis of culture. Everyone is in on the debate: what should life look like for a woman with children? A mom can be judged for "letting herself go" or for spending too much time and energy maintaining her appearance. Nothing we do is off limits for judgement.

Which is why an organization like MOPS is so important. Because though their slogan is "Better Moms Make a Better World" (it used to be "Mothering Matters," which is also true), MOPS embraces the conflicted heart of a woman who loves, loves, loves her kids. Enough to die for them. Enough to kill for them. But who also sometimes wants to strangle them. The heart that sometimes hates being a mom: the constant monotony and uncertainty of it. The immeasurability of it; how can I track progress? The sometimes thanklessness of it. The fact that it is stress and boredom punctuated by moments of extreme joy.  

I need much more than motherhood in my life. I'm ambitious. I'm trying to write a book, and get more published in magazines. I want a speaking career. I have 100 quilts in my head that I want to make. My friends are very important to me. I like taking trips by myself. I like being alone in my car!

The fact that I can say this on stage in front of 100 women or more is probably my greatest strength as a leader, though I do it with fear and trembling, knowing that someone out there might judge me for not always putting my kids first. So it's incredibly encouraging that Pastor Shelly hears me speak, and watches me work, and sees that I love motherhood and the ministry for mothers. 

This week, I was having a five minute conversation with Pastor Shelly on the phone, trying to iron out the agenda for an upcoming leadership meeting. Livie was in the back seat of my car, and I was standing outside at the tailgate in the parking lot of a grocery store. Livie was blowing on a whistle she's gotten from a pinata. She'd been using it to give me whistle commands, signals for things like "get out of the car," "get into the car" and "March!" Which is why she was sitting in the car, and I was on the phone outside of it. 

When five minutes were up, I released my four year old from the back seat, and set off across the parking lot, still on the phone. "I can hear the whistling," laughed Shelly. "I better let you go be mom!" And in this, Pastor Shelly showed me her heart. A woman who sits on the executive board of the 10th largest church in America, who trains hundreds of leaders, who is in the business of healing hearts and saving souls, and who is also an avid runner and gardener and has her contractor's licence, is letting me off the phone. But on that laundry list of things she is, Shelly is a mom, and she loves being a mom. She knows what I'm doing is important. And you know what, I love it! I'm the woman she thinks I am after all.

Sometimes It's As Simple As Standing Up

This morning I woke up at 5:55 and knew I would not get back to sleep. At 6:05, I snuck down the stairs with a book I'm reading -- and obsessing over -- thinking I would flip the switch on the coffee-maker-that-changed-my-life, and read a quiet chapter and watch the sun rise. Unfortunately, I haven't changed completely, and had forgotten to set the coffee maker and had no ground beans. So I stood in front of my stove for a full minute trying to figure out how to get water hot to make tea (caffeine seemed important) without using the almost-as-loud-as-the-coffee-grinder microwave.

And then I realized that stoves are quiet, and they can heat water too. It was very early in the morning.

Five minutes later, with tea steeping in my yellow pot beside me, I sat on my back-door kitchen mat and read a chapter of Donald Miller's A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. The Chapter was called "The Thing About a Crossing," and was about how in a great story, whether in real life or in fiction, the most beautiful, memorable moments almost always come after a hard journey. Miller had just paddled across an inlet in the Northwestern ocean for several hours in pitch blackness, and just as he and his friends got to the shore, they discovered that bioluminescence was happening in the water beneath them.

It was four in the morning, but we were energized by the ocean. As we got closer to the other shore, there were a million fish swimming beneath our boats, each leaving a trail and the ocean was flashing from beneath us as though fireworks were going off in the water. "I've never seen it like this," one of our guides said. He said he'd seen the ocean glow when you splashed you paddle, but he'd never seen the fish light up the water from underneath. When we were a hundred yards from shore and paddling into the lagoon, the whole ocean glowed like a swimming pool. None of us wanted to get out of our boats. I paddled around in circles in the lagoon, watching the fish streak beneath me like a meteor shower.

Wow, I thought. I want an experience like that. I want beauty and awe and awesomeness in my life. This is what Miller's book is about: living a story with your life that is filled with memorable moments and meaning, and about how often we don't live those kinds of moments because we are just going through the motions trying to keep ourselves comfortable and secure.

I looked up at the sky at this point, and could see just a corner of pink in my field of vision. I wonder what it would look like if I stood up? I thought. But I was tucked in with a quilt and my hot tea and I didn't really feel like it. Then I realized I had just read about a guy who got to see bioluminescence at four in the morning because he was out kayaking and it was pretty pathetic that I wouldn't even stand up. So I did. And this picture above is what I saw. I took it with my crappy camera, so it was way more beautiful in real life.

I would have missed it if I was sitting on the ground, or worse, still in bed fretting over all the things I had to do today, the worry over which is what woke me in the first place. This moment was a little gift, a small reminder that beauty is here for the taking, and you don't always have to take a huge step to make a good memory. Sometimes it's as simple as just standing up.

Revelation Junkie

One of my Christmas dreams was fulfilled this year in the form of the Paper Source Art Grid calendar, a gift from my mom. I have wanted one for years, but as they cost $25 and don't go on sale after Christmas (or ever!) I have never bought one. Hurray for mothers everywhere who spoil us with precious little luxuries. It was a particularly wonderful present because the calendar I bought myself this summer is lost somewhere in my laundry room, never to be seen again.

As I was filling in appointments for the month of January on my pristine and beautiful grid, I noticed in red bold letters on January 6 the single word: EPIPHANY.

Well, that's groovy, I thought. Paper Source had determined that I shall have an epiphany on the first Friday in January. Knowing this wasn't really the case, I looked up Epiphany, which is actually a Christian holiday observed by various denominations throughout the world, celebrating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. Western Christians celebrate it as the day that the Magi arrived in Bethlehem to meet Jesus, God incarnate; Eastern Christians observe it as the day of Jesus' baptism, revealing him as the Son of God.

Apparently, the word, with origins in Greek, literally means "manifestation" or "striking appearance." Not being a Greek scholar or an Orthodox Christian, I have always used the word epiphany in the common, American sense, as in a sudden understanding of the "bigger picture." I spoke with my friend Wendy on January 6 and told her my initial thought at seeing the word on my calendar. After a chuckle, we both agreed to have an epiphany that day.

Here's what mine was: you can't plan to have an epiphany. Like a revelation of God, a sudden flash of insight comes not at will, like summoning a genie, but when you are least expecting it. However, you can cultivate a spirit that is open to revelation, a mind that seeks understanding, and a soul that wants to find beauty and meaning in the world around you. An epiphany lifestyle if you will.

Being a word geek, I'm going to hit you with one more definition. Here's one of dictionary.com's meanings for epiphany:

a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

Hot dog! Did that definition strike a chord with me! This is what my blog is about: the flashes of insight that come while slogging through the homely tasks of family life. I say in my bio, at right, that I am a follower of muse (open to inspiration in creative pursuits), but perhaps it should say that I am a seeker of epiphanies. It's my favorite thing about God, the first thing I almost always thank him for: that he reveals truth to us, through his word, prayer, friends, children, nature. So I keep my eyes and ears open because I am an epiphany junkie. My girlfriend Tris once said something to the effect of, "Your revelations happen so frequently I don't expect all of them to stick."

It's true, they don't all stick. But I'm still watching for them. In a sink full of dirty dishes. In a board game played with my daughter. In a conversation with my neighbor. In a comment made by my brother. Even in the cream colored grid of my stylish new calendar. Join me on this expectant search for insight, won't you? It's an exciting way to live.

The Age of Miracles

The age of miracles is not yet over, and that you may tie to.
--Susan, Anne of Ingleside

Having a baby is like falling in love. While you're waiting for both to happen to you, it seems everyone around you already has what you so desperately want. To those struggling with infertility, to lose "unlucky" in love: both feel like a right is being denied them.

But then when you fall in love, or you become a mother, you discover that both are a privilege you could never actually deserve. (Neither is actually as romantic as you imagine, either, but that's the subject of another blog.)

Before I "tried" to have a baby, I didn't think much about what it took to get pregnant, in terms of the inner biology, that is. The mysterious union of cells, all the ways that the right things have to happen at the right time? No, mainly, conception seemed like something that could happen at any moment and needed to be prevented. But then once I was ready to be a mom, I thought of little else. My first pregnancy happened fast. My second, well, it took about a year, one of the longest, most frustrating, face-up-to-all-my-control-issues years of my life.

Almost eight years into motherhood, and surrounded by women in their childbearing years, I now appreciate the miracle that each pregnancy and each birth is. And though we know a lot, scientifically, about fertility and biology, in my personal experience, babies often come without seeming to play by any of these rules.

Just a few examples from my inner circle:

*A mom who sought medical help to get pregnant the second time and was told that biologically, she shouldn't have even been able to have her first. The mom's reaction? Appreciate the first as a miracle.

*A mom who spent her life savings on IVF treatments, and through it had one son and then fraternal twins. And then got pregnant with Baby #4 by accident one year later. The mom's reaction? After the initial panic, she thanked God for the miracle.

*A mom who was "done" having children and using preventative measures, and got pregnant with Baby #3 anyway. Again, initial panic, followed by thanking God for the miracle and asking Him to now provide what she needed as a mother.

*A mom who spent years in fertility treatments, had given up, and then suddenly had her first. And then five more, in a span of six years. (That one is my grandmother.)

*A woman whose cycle was so out of whack that she decided there was no hope of getting pregnant without intervention. And then got pregnant without it that very month. (That one is me.) My reaction? To praise God for the miracle, Olivia Faith, named for the peace I found on my journey to have her, and the faith that got stronger for having walked that road with God.

On my personal journey, what I've decided is that if God thinks its the right time for you to have a baby, He gives you a baby, no matter what science or medicine says. I was thinking about this in church on Sunday, hearing the story of the angel Gabriel telling Mary that she was going to have a baby that would defy science -- even simple first century science -- altogether. And when she asks, well, how is that going to happen, I don't even have a man here, the angel tells Mary that even her "old and barren" relative Elizabeth is pregnant too, "For nothing is impossible with God."

It suddenly occurred to me that in bringing about the Messiah, the Savior, he performed several fertility miracles. It started with Abraham and Sarah, father of Isaac, who would become father of all Israel, the line from who Jesus would come. God told Abraham that his descendants would be as great in number as the stars, even though his wife was barren and was now in her "old age." When Abraham told Sarah, she laughed with incredulity. And God struck her mute for a while as punishment. "Don't believe I can do it, huh Sarah? Why don't you just be quiet and think for a little bit about who I Am?" God delivered on that promise, and then Sarah laughed for another reason: joy.

Then, thousands of years later, God blessed another "old" and barren woman with a baby, Elizabeth, who gave birth to John the Baptist, who Jesus called the greatest man to have lived. When God told Elizabeth's husband, he laughed incredulously too, and he too was struck mute for a while. "You know the scriptures, Zachariah, and you're still laughing? Now you go sit quietly and think for a while, too."

And then finally, God does his greatest fertility miracle yet: he makes a virgin a Mom. This is a stumbling block for a lot of people. This is too hard to believe. To some it doesn't even seem necessary to believe in the virgin conception; Jesus can be who he says he is even if he had a biological earthly father. But me, I think it is literally true, and falls right in line with what God was doing all along. "You think I can't do what I've promised? I brought the earth out of nothingness. Now, watch this."

I have walked the infertility road with a lot of women who love God, and this thread through Scripture of God blessing women in barrenness, conception, and motherhood touches my heart. I love that He chose to bring Jesus to us through women, through moms. I think he really loved those women, and he really has a heart for women today, whether they are mothers, or want to be mothers, or are mothers of spiritual -- if not biological -- children.

I love my mighty God, even though believing He can do anything -- absolutely anything -- challenges me because it means I have to still trust Him even when he chooses not to. I watched one dear friend face up to this just this year, a clear word from God that he was not going to give her any more children. She accepted this with faith, and came out the other end of her long struggle with a sense of satisfaction and a clearer picture of who her Father is than she ever had before. Another miracle.

I'm grateful for the miracles of my daughters, for the privilege, the unearned gift of being their Mommy. I'm grateful that the age of miracles is not yet over. Because though they have been conceived, carried and issued forth -- a process that challenged my sense of control at every turn -- I'm even more in need of God's miracles now that my kids are out. A lot of things seem impossible. How can I keep them safe? How can I teach them what they need to know to live in this world? How can I prepare their hearts for eternity? How in the world will I pay for college? I can't really do any of these things. But I'm waiting on God, because I know he's already said to me, "Oh yeah? Seems impossible? Just watch what I can do."

Lessons from the Campground

As promised in yesterday's post, today I'm finally writing out the small revelations that came to me on a week-long camping trip in Pfieffer Big Sur. With no cell phone and no laptop, I had nothing to do but think, float down the river, eat, and -- as you'll read below -- wash my children's underwear. All turned out to be worthwhile experiences that are resonating with me six weeks later.

Lesson One: Beauty belongs to everyone.
This is in stark contrast to the lesson of the luxury resort, which is that beauty can be mine only for a high cost. Once I have paid that high cost, the staff will treat me well, perhaps even call me a VIP. Nature at the resort is packaged with my tiny lanai situated to maximize the ocean view, the forest view, etc. The sheets are softer. The tub is cleaner. The shampoo smells better. But this is a life I have rented. It is not mine for the long run, and it whispers the whole time, "The life you are going back to is not quite good enough."

When I am tent camping for $45 per night, beauty is all around me. It includes river rocks, pine cones, and the scent of the redwoods. It may also include squirrels, blue jays, and raccoons (who might eat all the tortillas and grapes out of my cooler...but that's another story). This exposure to beauty trains me to tune into nature, not just on vacation, but all the time. I spent a lot more nights outside in my backyard than usual when I first got home. And because my tent is not as comfortable or clean as my condo, even while I'm on vacation I think fondly of my home and feel grateful to return to it.

Lesson Two: I have too much stuff.
Particularly in my kitchen, which I justify because the stuff all has a specific purpose. See, I need six spatulas because they are all used with different kinds of pans to turn different types of foods. Imagine my chagrin when I realized we had not a single spatula of any kind in our kitchen box on the camping trip. I went into three different "general stores" in the Big Sur area looking for a pancake turner that cost less than $10 (since, you know, I have six at home). Finally, on our last day, I made ham and cheese stuffed crepes using nothing but a Tupperware cereal bowl, a 7-inch fry pan from Ikea, and a thrift store fork. So take those silicone tipped tongs (great for frying scallops!) off my wish list for Christmas. I'll make due without them.

Lesson Three: All that work I do to keep my kids clean has an actual benefit.
My daughter Livie, who I will heretofore refer to as Pig Pen, is fond of dirt. Camping is, truly, hog heaven to her and she digs down into her play tent with a family of Barbies and gets compeletely covered in dust. Occassionally, she looks down at her hands and sees that they are brown, and licks them clean. Licks them! I'm pretty sure she also drank from the river. So, by the afternoon of Day Two, I was abruptly jumping from the inner tube as we floated down the river to find a cluster of trees for Pig Pen to poop in. Only to have her, five minutes later, say, "I pooped in my pants again." It was at this point, washing loose stool from my daughter's cargo shorts in a utility sink, that I asked Hubby if this was a vacation or an endurance test.

And yet, validation! It's not true that God made dirt so dirt don't hurt. If you play in the dirt, eat dirt, lick dirt, you get diarrhea. so all my house cleaning is not for naught. (Alternative lesson: stop cleaning so much so Pig Pen's stomach can build up immunities to a wider variety of microbes.)

Lesson Four: Television is a poor substitute for a camp fire.
I've decided that slumping in front of the television the second the kids go to bed is just a substitute for our primal need to gather around a source of light and warmth. TV also satisfies our culture's need to feel we are doing something, specifically something with a start and a finish: I will now be entertained from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. after which I will go to bed.

At night, when I am bone tired, the temptation to veg out in front of the tube is one I succumb to almost every single night. This practice had a threefold negative effect:
1. Conversations with Spouse are limited to commercial breaks.
2. What I watch is basically crap and often either violent, carnal or stress-provoking, and almost always shows people who are impossibly thin and living an unrealistic lifestyle. With these skewed images still swirling in my subconscious, I go to sleep.
3. I don't listen to my body. I don't go to sleep when I'm tired but when a show has wrapped up ("Yay, they caught the serial killer, now I can go to bed.") And I eat sugary foods without really thinking about it.

The campfire is a much more healthy centerpiece. I can relax and sort through thoughts from the day instead of having thoughts planted by NBC. My husband and I talk whenever we want to. My evening embroidery takes on a much more "in the moment" quality. And then, when we either get too cold or too sleepy to sit outside anymore, we go to bed. I've tried to implement some other kind of evening activity since we got home, but six weeks later, I'm becoming one with my leather sofa during prime time again. The desire for something better still smolders in me, however, and perhaps I will find a way to stoke the flames until I actually change the habit (Too much campfire metaphor? Yeah, you're right).

Lesson Five: My days are a breath; I'm a small part of a much bigger picture.
Here's a bizarre thought that struck me in the middle of the night: the river never stops running. I go to sleep, and it doesn't shut off like the fountains at the mall. Well, duh. But I get so locked into a small reality, driving down the street in my air conditioned SUV, that I forget how tiny I am in a great big natural world. And being on the bank of a river that never stops opens my heart to the idea of a huge universe that keeps spinning regardless of the small crises in my life. My brother wrote a brilliant song with a lyric: "the sun don't disappear every time that you blink." The even bigger reality behind my smallness: the Creator of all this vastest "who never sleeps, nor does he slumber" graciously cares about the small things of my life anyway. That revelation is worth seven days in the dirt.

Learn to Be Still

The first time I took a meditation class, I spent the initial five minutes panicking. I was at a resort spa in Arizona (part of my former life as a travel writer), and the goal of this non-religious form of meditation was to become an observer of your own thoughts: try to let your mind go blank, and then note your inner dialogue as your brain fought your attempt at quietness.

My inner dialogue went something like this:

I have to sit here for twenty minutes?
Uh-oh, there's a thought.
What if my butt falls asleep?
Ack! Another thought!
Wouldn't my boss be proud of me for meditating?
Don't think about your boss! Think about nothing!
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
That's better.
Yep, there goes my butt. Definitely some tingling happening.
Ack!

That first (and last) meditation experience came to mind this summer while on a camping trip with my husband and two daughters. We'd gone to Pfeifer Big Sur last year for three nights, and found it wasn't nearly long enough, so this year we booked six nights. This sounded lovely: sleeping under the redwoods with the music of the river constantly in our ears. In Big Sur we are completely unplugged: no cell service even.

But as the time approached, I began to wonder what I would do with myself for seven days in the dirt. I asked a couple of friends, "Do you think I could bring my lap top?" I didn't want to check e-mail, but when I get down time, I always am flooded with ideas and have an urge to write.

"Why don't you just bring paper and pen?" one friend suggested.

"No can do. I need my keyboard or my fingers can't keep up with my thoughts."

"Can't you just go and be?" the other friend asked. She's a new friend. She doesn't know me that well.

But her thought inspired me, so the laptop stayed home, though some embroidery projects did come along. My hands have to be busy, even if my mind cannot be. And I can still talk to the family and sew at the same time. Though the ideas did in fact flow in, until now, I have not written down a single one of them.

The first day of camping is filled with the business of setting up camp. I love it; it's like playing house as a kid. I imagine I'm Ma from the Little House on the Prairie series, an efficient and adventurous pioneer, sweeping up the dugout, gathering firewood. But about three hours in, when the last chair was set around the fire and the clothesline hung from the trees, a sensation came over me not unlike in meditation class. Camp set up? Check. Sat by the river? Check. Took a walk in the redwoods? Check. Uh oh. Now what? I have to stay here how long?

Sophia felt it too. She ran around frantically exploring all afternoon, but just as we sat down to dinner said, "Mom, I feel weird. What am I going to do for the next six days?" In fact, our family went through two days of busyness detox before we could truly relax. Then it became a wonderful experience, not just a vacation from daily life, but a life lesson. I began to like myself still, and I would chuckle on trips to the camp store when I saw groups of European tourists clustered around computers in the Wi-Fi hot spot next to the laundromat.

While I was trying to just be, I formed in my mind tomorrow's blog, "Lessons from the Campground." I've probably forgotten some of it by now. But return tomorrow, friends, and see if my inner dialogue among the redwoods was a little more productive and interesting than wondering if I was losing sensation in my derriere.

Miracle Milestones

Why do adults always say to children, "Look how big you've gotten?" I hear myself saying it all the time to my friends' kids and my nieces. It's obnoxious, but unavoidable. Here's why I think we do it. Once we ourselves have stopped physcially growing bigger, and reached an age where we don't really feel ourselves getting older or changing with much rapidity, the dramatic growth and development of childhood seems outrageous, unbelievable. Being in stasis ourselves, we expect the children around us to stay the size they were when we first saw them.

Imagine, therefore, what it's like for a mom, who has tracked her child from non-being into being. Who first began measuring them in inches and ounces. Who remembers them once being so dependent they fed off our bodies from the inside, and then the outside. It's a breath-taking, mind boggling, daily miracle watching them move from total dependence to autonomy -- a truth that happens gradually and then occasionally dawns on us like a smack in the face. My dear friend and neighbor, whose baby is turning 13 this month and celebrating his Bar Mitzvah, keeps making me look at how much hair her son has on his legs. She just can't get over it.

I anticipate and prepare myself for the big milestones: first solids, first steps, first day of school. But some of the small milestones sneak up on me. On Monday, I took Livie (formerly the Delicate Chicken) to the community pool, for the first time since she completed 10 days of swimming lessons. Together we discovered that she can stand up -- or "touch" as kids everywhere call it -- in the shallow end of the big pool.

Gasp. My -- sniff -- baby, can stand up in the big pool. I don't know why this shocks me. She is about 40 inches tall, off the charts in height for a not-quite four year old, so of course she can stand in the 3-foot section. On second thought, I do know why it shocks me. A month ago, after much coaxing, she'd enter the "big kid" pool only if she could cling to me like a baby possum: belly to belly, limbs wrapped around me. My goal was to be able to hold her at arms length by the end of the summer without shrieking (her or me). Getting her toes to the bottom seemed as far as the ocean floor: an insurmountable distance.

Now -- all hail the Woodbridge Village Association's extremely cheap "water exploration" swimming lessons -- Liv can crab walk the perimeter of the pool, climb in and out the side, dunk her head under, jump to me from the side, and is brave enough to stand in three feet of water all by her little skinny self.

So the abrupt change is both beautiful and heartbreaking. You moms know exactly what I'm talking about. Standing on dry land watching her bob up and down alone, I witnessed the beginning of the end. The end of dependence on me, the end of early childhood.

Sometimes I'm really grateful I discovered blogging, because without it, I wouldn't be commemorating this small moment, which at this moment, feels big, and perhaps have forgotten it. But now I will remember. I celebrate Livie's accomplishment in writing. And one day when she calls me to say -- sniff -- that her baby climbed her first tree or took her first steps or went down the stairs all by herself without falling, I'll send her a copy of this and say, "Baby girl, I know exactly how you feel."

Loss of Lipstick, Loss of Limb

A couple of weekends back, my friend Tris and I had a fabulous girls' morning out: a luxury pedicure and lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. The outing was a generous gift from the women on our MOPS leadership, and we had a pretty much perfect day. "Baby Love" nail polish on our fingers, vanilla and coffee beans scrubbed into our toes, and then just a little too much lunch followed by chocolate cake.

But then that afternoon, I chipped the "Raspberry" nail polish on my right big toe, a tragic flaw on the first professional pedicure I've had in a year. Then, on the way to my parents' house for dinner, I realized that my pink bag full of MAC lipstick that is always in my purse was not in my purse. Can I say, with shame, that at that moment I felt very strongly that we live in a fallen world in which tragedies are apt to befall us at any moment and nothing on this sad planet is ever perfect. Watching the news makes me know this. Losing my lipstick made me feel it. How embarrassing is that?

I spent 30 minutes on the phone with employees of both the nail salon and the restaurant describing my makeup bag, but to no avail. I calculated the monetary loss of my lipstick collection -- about $80 -- and realized there was no way it was getting replaced in full anytime soon. Driving home that night, I planned this blog, titled "Loss of Lipstick."

But then, I walked in the backdoor, and what should be laying like a chameleon on a dark plank of laminate flooring in my kitchen, but my lipstick bag! Immediate guilt for making the minimum wage workers search for it. And then -- joy! I was suddenly aware of what a blessed woman I am, how rich and fortunate: the owner of $80 worth of high quality lip pigment, a shade for every mood and season!

Weeks have gone by and I feel a sense of profound gratitude every time I put lipstick on, a true happiness at having what once was thought lost and now has been found. I'm trying to make this lesson in gratitude sink in deeper, hopefully transforming me into a person who can be grateful for her possessions, but who clings to them loosely, so she won't be crestfallen when they get lost.

A few days after the lipstick incident, my seven year old Sophia was walking around the back yard, observing the movement of her own limbs. "Mom," she said, "isn't it great that we can just walk without thinking about it? Wouldn't it be hard if we had to tell each body part to move, one at a time?" You should have seen the wonder on her face.

Our pastor gives a sermon each year on gratitude, and he always goes through a list of all the things we take for granted. On the list, the fact that we get out of bed in the morning, and our miraculous body moves without us even having to think about each motion. Sophia got that on her own, and, as children do, reminded me of this profound and simple spiritual truth. We take most good things we have for granted, and often don't realize how great they are until they are lost or threatened. I don't even think about having two good arms until I see someone who's lost a limb. I complain about how my legs look, until I see someone in a wheelchair and remember to be grateful that they get me where I need to go.

In his sermon, my pastor has a saying he always repeats: Grateful people want what they have and don't want any more. I want my lipstick. I want these limbs. And I'm grateful for this little, simple lesson.

Childish Ways

"Ca-preez-nee," my friend Josie said the other day, as we watched our children play together in my kitchen. Or at least that's what it sounded like to me. It was in Russian. (Josie, having fallen in love with Jesus and a man committed to foreign missions, in that order, is living out a decade of her life in Kiev, Ukraine with her husband and two young sons.)

Ca-preez-nee is the Russian word for "capricious," and according to Josie, a word you often hear mothers on the Ukranian playground say to one another when their children do something strange or frustrating: like refusing to eat a granola bar because it has broken in half, or insisting on wearing their shirt in-side-out. Capricious means (yes, I looked it up) subject to, led by, or indicative of caprice or whim; erratic. To be thorough, caprice means a tendency to change one's mind without apparent or adequate motive.

Without apparent or adequate motive. Yes, that sounds about right to describe a child four years old and under. If I'm understanding my friend's cultural assessment, this means that Ukranian mothers know how to shrug their shoulders over their children's whims and erratic behavior, without being plagued by the need to understand, correct or control them.

This is in stark contrast to mothers like me. Which would mean what? English speaking? American? Middle class Californian? Over thinking? Mothers in my circle are much more likely to assert rational causes for the reason a formerly compliant child suddenly refuses to get in a car seat or shopping car seat. "She hasn't napped in two days." "Her sister has been away at camp and she misses her." "He's getting a molar." "He's processing his anxiety over [enter trauma of choice here]."

These assessments give us mommies a sense of control. It would be nice to be able to explain why a child who ate onion rings yesterday will suddenly pick apart every food to make sure there is nothing remotely resembling an onion in his meal today. And I love it when I find the motive in a behavior that previously seemed without cause. Like when Olivia, who had never exited her bed during nap or after bedtime before, suddenly began creeping around the house, "for a cup of cold water" she would say when I found her in the hallway. I realized she had been obsessed with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," and she was absolutely astounded that Cindy-Loo Who had gotten out of her bed in the middle of the night. Perhaps I can do it too, she thought.

We are minute studiers of our children's behavior in my circle of friends, which is certainly better than the alternative: a mother who takes little interest in her child's development or ignores the cues that something is changing or wrong with her baby. But I remember the stress of my first-time mommyhood, and telling my husband, "I feel like Sophia is a problem to be solved." So there's something very appealing -- and also wise -- about a shoulder shrug of acceptance and a sense of humor about the caprice of children.

Caprice in mothers, on the other hand, is a bad characteristic. Not on the whimsical spectrum, of course ("Come on kids, let's go to get donuts in our pajamas for no reason!"). But in terms of rules and discipline, a mommy cannot be capricious. I can't suddenly start shouting at my kids for doing something they were allowed to do yesterday, just because I'm in a bad mood. A mother that habitually doles out discipline capriciously is one of the scariest kinds of parents, who raises fearful and ultimately rebellious kids.

This is the hardest part of mothering: the consistency. I remember telling my friend Jenni, when she had a three- and I an two-year-old, that our discipline has to be based in truth, not just on our mood. Seeing that three year olds are way harder to manage than two year olds, she probably hung up and went and pinned my face on a dartboard. I don't blame her. It's hard to be the one who has to act like an adult in the house when every one around you is acting like a child -- even if they are children and that's their job.

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church, wrote, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." You know what's fascinating? This verse is buried in one of the most well-known chapters of the Bible: 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter that defines the characteristics of the Greek agape form of love -- the unselfish form. You know: patient, kind, non-envious, not boastful, not easily angered, keeping no record of wrongs. It is hard, hard, hard to love your kids like that, especially when they persist in being capricious, unpredictable, exasperating. But on the other hand, who can love agape like a mother? Here's the rest of the definition: "Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Livie has been capricious in the extreme for two weeks and I am worn out, so here's what I'm praying for today: The ability not to "solve the problem" of her behavior, but to continue to protect her, to trust God, to have hope, and to keep persevering. Lord, help me put childish ways behind me so Livie one day can too.