Mother’s Day: A True Story

She sat at the paper-strewn kitchen table eating eggs (which she detested), tears streaming down her face.

I don’t know why my brain constantly turns my life into a running narrative, but it does.  This was the beginning of my Mother’s Day.  I had planned on having a family picnic in a historical little park I love, but spraining my ankle earlier in the week rendered this unfeasible.  And then J and I stayed up late talking about a challenging area in our marriage – yes, we have them.  And then I had trouble falling and staying asleep, something that has been happening a lot lately.  And then it was morning and M wanted breakfast.

She looked around at her house, eyeing the sink full of dishes, the crumb-laden counters, the pile of clean clothes on the living room floor.  She watched as a couple of Lego Star Wars figures battled to the death under the direction of her son, and she noted that the litter box needed attention.  She pushed the eggs away.

Staying up late is a way of life for me, for J, not so much.  He came stumbling down the stairs much later than normal; I was up much earlier than normal.  He made a beeline for the coffee pot, poured and doctored a cup, and then asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate “my day.”

She stared at him in disbelief.  “My day?” she echoed.  “Look at this house.  It’s awful.  We have to go to the grocery store.  We have to do laundry.”

He smiled.  “A very wise woman once told me that it doesn’t hurt to let things go for one day.”

“Yeah, well, that very wise woman feels like she’s the only one who ever cleans up around here.  That very wise woman feels like it’s stupid to have a day to honor her when the things she asks – like please don’t pile papers and junk on the kitchen table – constantly get ignored by the other two living in her house.  That very wise woman is going upstairs for awhile.”

And so up the stairs I went.  And I could not stop the tears.  For the better part of an hour, I laid on the bed crying, my mind racing.  I thought that maybe my expectations are just too high; maybe I shouldn’t even have any expectations at all.  I thought about what the vast majority of Americans do today to honor their mothers: make them breakfast in bed, buy them flowers, listen to a pithy homily extolling the virtues of the Good Christian Mother, take them to lunch; do I really want the “norm?”  (No, of course not.  Well, maybe the breakfast in bed part just because I’ve never had it.)  I thought about Hallmark and their ability to more or less create a holiday just by making a card for it (National Cat Barf Day, anyone?  We could keep them in business just celebrating that one).  I thought about Norman Rockwell, whose idyllic, sentimental paintings both speak deeply to me and aggravate me at the same time.  I thought about that old Mad TV skit, Lowered Expectations, which I used to find very funny while feeling slightly guilty that I did.  And then I was full-circle to “maybe I shouldn’t have any expectations at all.”

Okay, well, why?  Because then I’d never be disappointed.  Don’t expect anything and no one can fail you.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Hold on a minute.  While that idea seems logical at first, if you really stop and think about it, it’s very self-centered.  It’s all about me not getting hurt.  It’s giving a LOT of power to someone else to determine how I interact with the world, how I feel.  Or maybe it’s just assigning blame.  Either way, not a good perspective.  I think there may be a better way to look at it.

What if I chose not to have expectations in order to free people up to be who they are, do what they’re going to do?  This is something I’m pondering because I’m not entirely sure it’s wrong to have expectations.  Like, I have the expectation that my husband will never run off with another woman, and I think that’s reasonable.  I don’t even think it’s wrong to expect the people who live with me to do their parts around the house. But what if they don’t do their parts?  Can I still love them and act with mercy and grace toward them when they don’t?  Can I see the treasures in them when I’ve made the same request eleventy-billion times and they have not complied? Can I NOT get cynical and defensive and protective of myself and hurt and shut down when I think they’re not honoring me and my opinions?  When is the point when it’s okay to speak up and say, “Hey, I’m feeling dishonored, here”?  I haven’t got this figured out by a long shot.

Eventually, she went back down the stairs.  The kitchen had been cleaned, and the other two members of the house were on their way out the door to go grocery shopping.  She refreshed her coffee cup, sat down with her laptop, and began to write…

To be continued

My Yafa Chaverah

Someone who doesn’t know or understand me well was criticizing me to one of my friends once.  Among the things she said:  “That girl doesn’t even have any friends!  Every time I see her, she’s by herself.  She just sits there away from all of us  – what’s wrong with her?”  (This individual, quite the extrovert, was only correct in one of her observations – that I “sat there away from all of them” – but you should understand the context of this.  We were at a 50-hour worship event called Fire On the Altar, and I very much considered it me-and-God time.  I didn’t want or need anyone else around.)

I am, by nature, an introvert.  I am not overly expressive of my feelings, but this does not mean I don’t have them.  I do prefer being by myself to being with crowds of people, but this does not mean I don’t have friends.  The people I love, I love deeply.  And they know it.  I tend to open up a little more to people I am close to, but I am choosy in getting close.

Today I want to honor a woman I consider one of my very closest friends.  After the Lord and J, she is the person I turn to when I have good news, when I need prayer, when I need my butt kicked.  She is my yafa chaverah, my beautiful friend.

We met through a mutual friend at a gathering, where I was (naturally) sitting on the sidelines observing.  She radiated sweetness and strength at the same time, and I was quite drawn to her, something that doesn’t happen often.  She felt the same about me, and we began to forge a friendship by getting together over coffee and just talking.  It’s interesting, because she is a fair amount older than I, in a different stage of her life, and one of those people everyone loves.  But somehow, we have built a true and wonderful relationship.  Her husband travels a lot on business, so those chats over coffee have morphed into what I call our “slumber parties.” I’ll get out of class around 9:30 and head over to her house, and we will sit on the couches, bundled under blankets and drinking waaaay too much coffee, until the wee hours of the morning, talking  and talking. Her husband has asked what we can possibly find to talk about for 5 or 6 hours, and we just have to laugh.  We talk about what the Lord is doing, or about our families, or about Israel, or about all the dietary changes I’m walking through and why, or about politics, or about the constellations, or about dreams, or any number of other things.  It takes time to cover all this ground, you know?

One of the reasons this friendship is so valuable to me is because so many of my relationships are the mentor-mentee type, with me either pouring into another person’s life or sitting and receiving from someone more knowledgeable than I.  I love these relationships; each has its strong points, but there are times I need not to be in a “role.”  With my yafa chaverah, we are just ourselves.  We are two women who love the Lord and love each other.  I always come away from our time together so refreshed – and that really is the word for it.  I think it’s because there is absolutely no pretension in this friendship.  I’m not afraid to ask the “dumb” questions or admit I don’t know something; I’m not afraid of what she’s going to think if I tell her that my life honestly sucks right now or that I did or thought something less than Christ-like.  It’s a safe environment in which I can absolutely be myself with no fear of judgement or misunderstanding, and that is SUCH an amazing thing.  I think she feels she has the same with me, and that, too, is amazing, that someone would find a friendship with me to be a place of refreshment and safety.  We have given each other liberty to speak into the other’s life, be it good or corrective (which isn’t necessarily NOT good!) or concerned or questioning.  It’s a beautiful thing.

This woman is a good friend to everyone around her, and she is a good daughter: I have watched her navigate a not-always-easy relationship with her father, in which she has had to make some executive decisions concerning his well-being.  She has never treated him with anything less than honor.  In addition, she is a great example of the love of God: she feeds the homeless, puts together backpacks of food for undernourished children in our area, supports several worldwide ministries, and has a heart to see people moving in freedom.  She has a lot of wisdom, and I have benefited greatly from watching her in action.

I don’t need tons of friends, but it is lovely to have one like this one.  I am so very thankful for my yafa chaverah.

The Call

2004

It is a difficult thing to convey one’s thoughts well via the written word.  I spend the majority of each day attempting to teach tenth-graders to do just that.  In my classes, we talk about the mastery of our native language and all that it entails, and sometimes I may as well be speaking Esperanto to this group, whose own preferences run to text-speak and lazy grammar.  Nevertheless, I persist.  My students learn about literary devices and types, learn to avoid stereotyping and clichés in their writing as much as possible.  (I realize that stereotypes have their place – just ask Richard Dyer or Walter Lippman – but generally my teenagers haven’t got enough experience to identify that place and so overuse them.)  What a disappointment, then, to learn that I am still the Angry Abandoned Girl – and to learn it through The Phone Call that Changed Everything…

***

1973, late summer

Noise, so much noise.  The television shrieks for attention in the living room; the washer is off-balance in the laundry closet and THUMP THUMP THUMPs incessantly.  Brown, our scruffy mutt dog, is barking his fool head off at Mother, who is as unsteady as the washer as she hurls all her little porcelain knick-knacks at the dining room wall, one by one.  I lie silent under her bed because she won’t think to look for me in her own room.  Even after all the times she’s gone crazy like this, she’s never once imagined I would be bold enough to invade her sacred space.

It’s hot in here and there is a pink glow from the sheer curtains at the windows.   The air smells of the old-fashioned face powder that comes in a gold container.  “All the movie stars have used it since the 1930s,” Mother told me once.  Which, of course, is why she uses it.   As a girl, she had had dreams of leaving her small-town upbringing behind and becoming the next Hollywood starlet, so she painted her life with dime-store glamour and doled out kisses to all the boys for practice.  But all her effort got her was pregnant with me one night in a haystack in Bill Richter’s barn.

Mother was promptly shipped off to a relative in Georgia, and Bill joined the army.  After she gave birth, Mother went to night school and completed a secretary training course while my great-aunt looked after me.  I don’t remember any of it.  What I do remember is the day we moved into this little two-bedroom house.  I was three, and as we stepped over the threshold, Mother looked at me and said, “Damn you, I should be living in some mansion in California.  Not this shack.  And if it weren’t for you, I would be.”

CRASH!  “Jerri, where the hell are you?” Mother shouts as another figurine loses its head.  I recognize the pattern; she’s getting drunker by the minute.  Soon the crashes will slow down, and she’ll begin muttering – and then yelling – about Hollywood.  After that, she’ll fling herself dramatically onto the couch and cry until she passes out.  Then I will crawl out from under this bed and run barefoot down the dusty road to my Great-Aunt Vivian’s house, where my aunt will feed me and question me delicately about my mother’s “condition.”  It happens the same way every time, and I just want things to be different.  I want Aunt Viv to say something to Mother, to make her stop.  I want to stop feeling like I ruined my mother’s life.  I want to be loved.

***

1978

                “Jerri, the truancy officer came around again today,” says Aunt Viv as I let myself in her front door.  5 years of living with her, and I still consider it her house.  Not that she hasn’t tried to make me as welcome as possible, but at fourteen, I pretty much know that I don’t belong anywhere and nothing is mine.

“Yeah?  What’d he say this time?” I affect a bored tone.  Taking an orange from the bowl on the kitchen table, I sit down and begin peeling it, avoiding looking at her.

“Baby, you’ve got to go to school.  They’re gonna hold you back.”

“They can do what they want, Aunt Viv.  I don’t give a damn.  Maybe I’ll just quit and save them the trouble.”

“Jerri, honey…” she trails off.

“I know what you want to say.  You want to tell me that running around the way I do is going to get me in the same type of trouble as Mother, that I’m too smart to be wasting my time with a bunch of pot-head dropouts, blah blah blah.”  I actually feel a little bad talking to this kind woman in such a way, but I am so sick of everyone lecturing me.  Aunt Viv, my teachers, everyone is on my butt.  What they don’t know is that I don’t really hang out with that group, only once in awhile.  It’s just easier to let them think I do so I can hitch a ride to Atlanta without anyone the wiser.  There’s a quaint little bookstore there that I go to, to hide away from everyone I know.  The proprietor is an elderly man with gentle eyes and a quick smile who doesn’t mind when I curl up in a dusty corner with a stack of books and stay there all day.  He’s even brought me a sandwich once or twice.  If he’s aware that I’m skipping school, he’s never let on.

“Jerri, please listen to me a minute.  I wasn’t gonna say all that.  I wanted…I wanted – “ she takes a deep breath.  “Honey, I just wanted to say that I am so sorry your mother just up and left that day.  I’m sorry that she said and did the things she did.  I know you try to act tough because you’re hurtin’.  And I’m glad I was down the street for you to come to.  I love you.”

I stare dumbfounded at my Aunt Viv.  She has never once said anything like this to me since the day I moved in.  She made up a bed for me, gave me a dresser for my clothes, and bought me toothpaste and shampoo, but she didn’t say a word after I burst breathlessly through her door crying, “Mother is gone!  I climbed out from under the bed and came to see you and then when I went home, she wasn’t there.  It’s dark and I don’t think she’s coming back, and I can’t stay there alone.  What am I gonna do?”

“Aunt Viv…”

“Jerri, I just want to see you at peace.  I know God has a plan for you…”

I jump up.  “Aunt Viv, I don’t think God even knows who I am.”  I toss the orange peel in the trash and call, “I’ll see you later,” over my shoulder as I head out the front door.

***

1983

What am I doing here?  I think.  Why did I ever say I would come?  The only other time I’ve ever been in a church was last year, for Aunt Viv’s funeral.  I was uncomfortable then; I’m uncomfortable now.  My friend Martin is beside me, watching me with a small smile on his face.  I have taken to calling him Martin Luther because of a note he pinned on my dorm room door explaining why God loves me, and I suppose his easy friendship is really the reason I agreed to come here.   My sweet-tempered, boyish chemistry partner and I have had many a conversation over a Bunsen burner about God and creation.  Martin is convinced that everything in the universe shouts of His existence, but I can’t reconcile the thought of a loving Creator with my own horrible past.  Where was He through all of that?

“Stop staring at me, Martin.  What is it?  Am I growing horns?  Is there a lightning bolt above my head?  Or – horrors – do I have a booger on my face?”

Martin laughs.  “Jerri, I just wish you understood how much you’re loved.  That’s all.  I’m hoping you get it.”  The musician start playing, and he sits back in his seat, still smiling.

For the next hour and a half, I hear through songs and through spoken words how much God loves me.  It’s like there’s a theme running through the whole service, and I am a little irritated at its choreographed, almost contrived feel.  Still, though, the people around me look like they know something I don’t.  If I’m honest with myself, I find a part of me wanting to believe…

Two weeks later, late at night

It is 2:24am by the clock on the nightstand as my eyes fly open.  My entire body is completely alert.  From deeply asleep to wide awake – BAM – just like that.  What in the world?  I listen for a minute and hear only the normal night sounds – crickets outside the window, the occasional crunch of the icemaker, the slight squeak of the bedsprings as I turn on my side.  Then I begin to remember my dream.  Usually in my dreams, I am running from something or building a wall out of rocks or blocks, or some other easily-interpreted thing.  I don’t need a therapist to tell me that I’m emotionally damaged, commitment-shy; I know these things.  But this dream was different – it felt like it was actually happening.  I saw a man walking toward me, all in white.  He looked me straight in the face and said, “You never let anyone touch you.  Please let me hug you, just once.”

I said, “No way.  I don’t know you. Who are you?”  He smiled, and his face had a certain similarity to Martin’s.  He wasn’t Martin, and yet, he looked so very familiar.

“I know you,” he said.  “And all I want to do is give you a hug.”

Dreams are funny things.  I began to want to let him hug me, and I took a step near him.  “Okay, just once,” I said.  “But you really need to tell me who you are.”

He wrapped his arms around me without answering, and I was overwhelmed by a sense of absolute peace and contentment.  I felt my arms go around him in response, and it was like I had found where I belonged.  After a few minutes, I pulled back and looked at him. “Please,” I whispered.  “Can I always stay right here?”

I saw that smile again, and heard a single word: “Yes.”  And now I am wide awake in my own dark bedroom, and suddenly, I know who He is.

***

2004, end of the school year

After graduating college with an English degree, I worked at the little bookstore for a couple of years.  It was a good period in my life – the job didn’t require much of my attention, and I liked it.  It gave me time to oh-so-cautiously begin exploring relationships with people and with God, and I found the prospect much less frightening than it had been before my dream.  Martin and I tried dating each other and realized we really were meant to be just friends.  He eventually married a sweet girl named Janice, and I was his rather untraditional best man in the wedding.  I still see them and their three kids several times a year.

One day at work, Mr. Carver, the proprietor, said he wanted to talk to me.  He had become a sort of father figure to me over the years, so I listened.  “Sweetheart,” he said, “I’ve known you going on ten years now.  You’ve read every book in this store, and you have so much passion for words.  I see how you interact with customers, and I’m telling you that you need to be teaching.  Besides,”  he teased gently, “there are certainly other young people out there who hide out in bookstores instead of going to school – go find them and make school a place where the bookstore comes to them.”  He insisted on paying for my teacher certification exam, so I took his advice.  I began teaching high school English in the same school I used to ditch, and I have never left.

Now school is out for the year, and tonight a couple of colleagues and I will be honored for our years of service to the district.  It is quite a big deal in our town; we will be feted with a banquet and interviewed for the local paper.  I feel a little silly, as I’ve only taught for fifteen years and not thirty and thirty-five, as have the other two honorees, but it is nice nonetheless to be appreciated for simply doing something I love.

*

7pm

It turns out that a couple of news stations show up at the banquet, also.  Our school is among the highest-performing in the state, and the big-city reporters vacillate between lofty condescension and genuine puzzlement as they ask us how we accomplished such a thing.  They take their notes, shoot their footage, eye the banquet food dubiously.  They tell us the story will air tomorrow and thank us for our time.  I don’t give it any more thought until my phone rings the next night after the evening news .

“Hello?”

“Jerri, is that you?  I saw you on TV.”

I know the voice instantly.  It is an older, raspier version of itself, but I know it.  I am frozen, cannot move.

“Jerri, I – I want to talk to you.  Will you come to see me?  Please?”

“Um. Yeah, I’m not sure that’s really a good idea.  I mean, I don’t – “

“It’s important.  I’m dying, Jerri.”

Oh, God.  Suddenly, I am nine years old again, helpless and sure that any decision I make is the wrong one.  But she is my mother, and I have to obey.  Slowly, I say yes, I will come to see her.  She gives me directions to a hospital in north Atlanta and says she is looking forward to seeing me tomorrow.  I do not return the sentiment.  As I hang up the phone, I sink to the living room floor, and I am screaming, screaming.  Years of pent-up pain and anger tear loose, and all I can do is grab the blanket off the couch, wrap it around my shaking shoulders, and bury my face in its plush, green softness so the neighbors don’t hear me.

*

The next day

In the elevator on the way up to Mother’s room, it’s all I can do not to push the emergency stop              and stay suspended between floors.  I haven’t slept, and I hear myself pleading with God to help me, just help me.  I can’t believe my mother has been this close for so many years and hasn’t bothered to contact me before now.

The elevator door slides open, and I square my shoulders and walk down the hall to her room.  She sits propped up in the bed, a pink chiffon wrap around her shoulders.  She is frail, and I can’t see much of the glamorous woman I once knew.  I pull a chair over beside the bed, and I wait.  Minutes pass, and just as I have decided to get up and leave, she speaks.

“I never wanted you.”

“You know what, Mother?” I interrupt. “Let’s just forget this meeting.  I don’t need to be reminded again about how I ruined your life.  Next you’re probably going to tell me it’s my fault you’re here in this hospital, and I really don’t think I want to subject myself to that.”  I stand.

“No, Jerri.  Listen.  I was going to say that I never wanted you, and I was so stupid for that.  Please.  Sit down and let me talk to you.”  She is teary-eyed, looking up at me anxiously.

I’m feeling like the nine-year-old again, and I don’t trust her at all.  But I sit, warily.

“I was stupid, so stupid and selfish.  And I never knew it until recently.  All those years I was convinced that I had completely missed my future because I had you, and I was angry because Bill ran off and wanted nothing to do with either of us.”  Mother knots and unknots the ends of her wrap as she speaks.  It makes me think of the sheer pink curtains at her window in the old house.  I watch her hands intently.

Her voice picks up speed.  “That day I left?  I knew your Aunt Viv loved you so much more than I was able to, and I was so mad at her because she was so CONTENT, you know?  She was content just to live in that big house and love you – and, and I just didn’t think that was enough for me.  So I left and I went to California.  And I went after my dream, but they weren’t interested in me – I was too old, too Southern.  And I was angry about that, too.  I spent a lot of years being angry about that.”

I can hear the bitterness she carries still as it seeps into her words, but I cannot sympathize, and part of me wishes she would just shut up.  Why should I care?  Why do I need to hear that loving me was not enough for her?  But she will not stop talking.  I take a deep breath, determined not to let her see how upset I am.

“…and then I didn’t have anybody or anything, so I came home.  And there are two things you need to know.  One, I have leukemia.  Two, I met God, and that’s why I know now how wrong I was.  There is no way I can possibly make it up to you, but I don’t want to die without at least knowing you forgive me.”  Mother sinks back against the bed, exhausted from her speech, and looks at me hopefully.

I cannot meet her eyes, and suddenly I need to be anywhere but this room.  I stand and move toward the door.  “Mother, I am going to take a walk.  I will be back.”  Unlike you were, I thought, and then, Oh, God, am I really still so angry at her?

                I see a small chapel at the end of the hall and go in.  It is cool and quiet, and I sink into a pew and let my thoughts run wild.

Well, this is just fantastic.  My mother, who never wanted me, just pops back into my life out of the blue and wants me to forgive her for being so horrible?  She puts all the responsibility on me by saying I have to forgive her.  She says she knows God now – is that supposed to make a difference?  So do I – does that change the fact that she all but destroyed me AND accused ME of destroying HER?  Oh my God, I don’t even WANT to forgive her.  I can’t do this.  Why couldn’t she have called me twenty years ago?  Then I could have just walked away.  But now?  Now it’s not that simple.  I’m supposed to forgive, but I am SO angry.

                The door opens, and I realize that I’ve been yelling.  A woman wearing a long, flowing dress and carrying a Bible glides over to me, her face scrunched in concern.  “I’m Pastor Lawrence, the hospital chaplain.  Are you okay?”

I find myself telling her the entire story, speaking faster and faster until it’s all out in the open and I am so completely spent that I don’t have any more tears left.  She looks at me thoughtfully.  “Mind if I offer an opinion?”

“Sure,” I say wearily.  “But only if you don’t tell me just to get over it.”

“Oh, honey, I am most definitely not gonna to tell you just to get over it.  I don’t actually think you can, on your own.  This is one of those situations where your whole mind and heart are gonna have to be changed – transformed, if you will.”

“Are you telling me I need therapy?”

She smiles.  “No.  What you need is to see your mama the way God sees her, not through the lens of all the hurt you carry.  You need to choose to forgive, but not out of obligation.  God didn’t forgive you out of obligation.  He did it because you asked Him to and He loves you.  Seems to me your mama asked you to forgive her, and what’s missing is the love part.”

“Well, yeah.  She doesn’t exactly deserve my love.”

“What she deserves is not the point.  You don’t deserve God’s love, either.  But freely you’ve received; now freely give.”

“But I can’t!” I cry.  “I don’t know how to do that.”  The tears start fresh.

“Well, I won’t pretend this isn’t a process.  But here’s how you start:  You tell the Lord you need to see your mama through His eyes.  And you tell Him you choose to forgive her, and that you need Him to teach you how to walk that out.  And then you go back to your mama’s room, and you tell her, too.  Just start there.”  She fishes a business card out of the Bible and hands it to me.  “Here’s my number.  I’d like to talk with you in a couple of weeks, see how you’re doin’.”  She touches my face lightly and leaves the chapel.

***

Three months later

I wish I could say that everything turned out perfectly.  If one of my tenth-graders were writing my story, I’d have run back down to my mother’s room, flung my arms around her, and smothered her with kisses.  She would have been miraculously healed of cancer, and we would have been meeting for weekly lunch dates and becoming good friends until we lived happily ever after, the end.  But life doesn’t work like that.  You don’t get to make revisions until it reads to your liking.

I did go back down to Mother’s room, and I did tell her that I chose to forgive her.  After that, I went home and slept for two days straight.  And then I set about learning what it means to love someone you’ve hated.  Pastor Lawrence was right; this is a long process, and some days are far more difficult than others.  But then, some days are easier than others, too.

I’ve just received a call from the hospital, the “you’d better get here soon” call, so I am on my way to see my mother, perhaps for the last time.  I am not as sad at the thought of her passing as I am at the thought of all the time that has passed us by, wasted and devoid of love.  It cannot be recovered. But there is also a sweetness in knowing the redemption that comes with forgiveness: she will die unburdened by my hate.  As for me, I will live my life hopeful and free, the ending as yet unwritten.

I ♥ History Nerds

So much for bewaring the ides of March.  This whole month, starting at about 10pm on the 4th, has, in a word, stunk.  It has been one thing after another, without any real recovery time between incidents.  The funny thing is, no one incident has been all that big a deal.  But one on top of another, well…I told J a couple of days ago (during a minor meltdown) that I saw myself as a castle gate being pummeled by a battering ram.

Instead of commiserating or sympathizing, my dear hubby got a gleam in his eye and an alert, excited look on his face and commenced to firing question after question at me.  I should have known.  You see, I am married to a history nerd.

Do you remember how, on the Brady Bunch, one of the kids would approach Mr Brady with some problem, and he would proceed to wax pseudo-philosophic for the remainder of the show, while the kid sat there thinking, “I should have just run away to Alaska”?  Well, this is my husband and history.  Except that he really knows his stuff and, even though Alaska has been on my bucket list since waaaay before it was even called a bucket list, I don’t just sit there and tolerate his speeches.  I’ve found that many, many times, his love of history has shed light on something God is trying to show me.  Such was the case with my castle gate.

J wanted to know what the door looked like (dark wood with iron crossbeams and brads, arched, recessed, centered in the wall), what the castle looked like (dark grey, immense – I could only see the part where the gate was and a turret to the right), what the turret looked like (attached to the corner of the castle, red conical roof, no windows except those little cutouts that look like a chess piece), was there a moat (yes), was it dry or wet (filled with murky, dark water), and what did the battering ram team look like (little dark men paired off, battering ram upon their shoulders).  He took in this information, smiled, and said, “Your Germanic roots are showing.  And those are just Huns attacking.  No big deal.”  Then he began to tell me about the true construct of a castle gate.  Apparently, it’s only in movies that the battering rammers can bust through the door and – just like that – be inside the castle.  In a REAL castle, the wooden door is designed to give a bit so it can take a lot of damage.  Then there’s this room behind the wooden door where there are all these iron doors that fall down when the wooden door is breached.  And there’s a thing called the gatehouse, which has a wall in it that forces a 90-degree turn upon anyone who gets in.  But that 90-degree turn is a trap of sorts – the intruders get stuck in the room, the iron doors clang down, and all of a sudden, everyone’s taking a boiling oil (or lead) shower.  This, he said, was the gate that I am, not just a wooden door…because all of the stuff behind the wooden door is considered part of the gate.

Okay, but what do you mean, Germanic roots?  And how do you know those were Huns?

“Red conical roof and window configuration, and the fact that they weren’t using anything with wheels to move the battering ram, respectively,” said J.  I’m telling you, the man is a historian.   But not just that; he’s also wise.  His final words on the matter were, ” So where you saw an attack and being worn down, I saw protection and provision.  I knew what was behind that wooden door.”

None of this changes the fact that March has not been a good month.  But it does make me feel a lot better to know that the Lord has built me to withstand much damage and to protect and defend that which he has entrusted to me.  I think I want to study the Huns a bit and see what He’s saying there, too – know my enemy, and all that.  And I also know that when the attacks come nonstop, breakthrough is right around the corner, so I’m expecting April to bring newness in lots of areas.  Be encouraged if your month has been tough, too – it seems like almost everyone I know has had this same complaint – it’s almost over.  And if you need some light shed on something God has shown you, I’ll be happy to lend you my history nerd.

Honor Among Weirdos

My husband is the most amazing man I know.  This has not, however, always been the case; in fact, he started out taking the top slot on my “Most Annoying People EVER” list…

Seriously, he was a giant pain in the butt.  I met him in a training class for a job, and he thought he was the stuff.  He introduced himself to the class like this: “Hi, I’m J.  I like long walks on the beach and special times with my lady.”  Et cetera.  Blecch.  I remember rolling my eyes and thinking, “There’s one in every class,”  and he was definitely it.  While I sat in the front row, aced my lessons, and even wound up writing tests for the trainer, J sat in the back and flirted with every girl under the age of 20 who was part of our group. (I tease him to this day about his partiality for this one girl who shaved her eyebrows off and drew them back in.)  He was always butting into my conversations with other people, too, and making snarky comments.  The final insult came one day when he literally hip-checked me in front of the class and sent me flying.  I. Was. Ticked.  (And you know what his excuse was?  I found this out years later – he knocked me over so he could get his arms around me under the guise of “saving” me.  Sheesh.  And people wonder why I call him “Suavier.”)

[Not a very auspicious beginning to one of the greatest love stories of all time, that.  Enter those two most amazing words, "But God."]

I was prepared to ignore J for as long as we worked for the same company.  And then one day, we got paired up on a project that was supposed to take two days.  It took us two hours, and we spent the rest of the time talking.  This was where my initial attraction to him began.  Now, mind you, I was not even remotely physically attracted to him (though he did smell amazing and had great shoulders) because the man shaved his head bald and wore a goatee…probably my least favorite guy look of all time.  But boy, was he smart.  Being true to my very strong INTJ roots, I found this quite sexy.   All of a sudden, we were inseparable.  And then one day, the Lord told me VERY clearly (like, so clearly that I did a double take and looked around to see who was talking) – twice – that I was going to marry J.  It had to be a God thing because my response was, “Okay.”  No argument, no hesitation, even though he didn’t have a relationship with God, and there was no way I was going to be with someone who didn’t.  I just knew.  But I did not tell J what I heard…until about two weeks later, he sauntered up to me and said, “You know I’m going to marry you one day, right?”  Well, at that point, we had to talk.  I had to tell him I couldn’t even consider dating him and why.  It was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had, but I was totally at peace about it because I knew what God had said.

I’m going to skip over J’s journey toward God because that is his story to tell.  I will say that it was in no way because of me that he began pursuing God – God had been pursuing him for a good while – but I was privileged to walk alongside and witness the transformation.  And eventually, I did marry him.  Can I tell you that I am so, so, SO glad I listened to the Lord?  And can I tell you why I honor my husband so very much? (Um, it’s my blog, so I’m gonna.   Here goes. )

He is a man of incredible integrity.  I’ve never seen him tell a lie, shirk responsibility, or do anything halfway.  He does not exalt himself and in fact puts others’ needs before his own.  He is passionate about the Lord.  He is very gifted musically.  He has an amazing work ethic, going above and beyond at his job all the time.  He is a wonderful father to our son and has never seen child-rearing as “women’s work.”  He does laundry and dishes and bathrooms, too – really, any housework that needs to be done.  In fact, traditional gender roles don’t exist in our marriage…which brings me to an explanation of the title of this post:  We are weird.  He’s weird.  I’m weird.  We’re weird together.  I can’t even count the number of people who have told us how unique our relationship is.  We joke around that God put us together because no one else would put up with us, but the fact of the matter is that what seems VERY normal to us is quite revolutionary to others.

J likes me.  A lot.  Quirks and all – and those are numerous. He holds me in high regard.  He has told me (and demonstrated) that he will do anything I need him to in order to help me go wherever God has called me.  He doesn’t believe I have any limitations whatsoever on me.  He calls out the talents in me and freely acknowledges the things I’m better at than he is. He’s always telling me I’m beautiful and insists he will keep saying this the rest of my life, whether I believe it or not (which I mostly don’t). And he GETS me.  That man always knows the right thing to say when I’m discouraged or annoyed about something – and the things he says would make no sense to anyone else but are exactly the right encouragement for me.  He understands my need for alone time because he is much the same; consequently, he does everything he can to accommodate it and doesn’t get offended because I want to get away from everyone.  He pays attention to the the little things that make me happy – he’ll come home with lavender epsom salts or 81% dark chocolate or a bottle of Tempranillo just because I like them.  He trusts me implicitly – he is not threatened by my guy friends – and this is the one most people just can’t fathom:  there is not a jealous bone in his body.  When my dear friend whom I’ve known since I was 17 was home from the Army on leave, and it had been 6 years since I’d seen him, J sent me on a day trip to go hang out and catch up – and he sent his regards because this friend has stayed in our home and J genuinely likes him.  Heck, he’s even embraced my ex-in-laws as family (and vice versa).  He says if someone is a friend of mine, it’s for a good reason, and so he sees value in that person, too.

Sometimes I hesitate to talk about how great my husband is because it seems to annoy people.  They don’t seem especially happy about my happiness.  I realize this is their issue, but I don’t want to cast my pearls before swine, either.  Is J perfect?  No way.  He has a number of flaws.  But I truly like, love, honor, and esteem him.  I think he’s amazing.  Not a day goes by that I don’t get some little reminder of how great I have it in the husband department, whether it’s one of his thoughtful gestures, or (sadly) more commonly, it’s a woman complaining about her own husband.  One thing I will never do is speak badly of him to anyone else.  I believe strongly in the idea of the power of life and death in the tongue, and I will not dishonor or injure my husband by describing him in a negative light.  Besides, there’s so much good to talk about.

J, I honor you.  I am so thankful God put us together.  It is a privilege to spend my life by your side – and it’s a lot of fun, too.  Thank you for being wonderful and for bringing out the best in me.  Thank you for listening to God and striving to be all he has called you to be.  And thank you, honey, for shaving off the goatee and letting your hair grow out just a little.

 

 

WholeLife

Today is my official last day of the Whole30.  When I started it, I thought once this day got here, I’d be super-excited.  I am, but it turns out that the cause for my excitement isn’t what I thought it would be.  Instead of planning meals full of all the things I’m once again “allowed” to eat, I’m actually pretty excited about how great I feel.  And the weight I’ve lost (and am continuing to lose).  And how amazingly good real foods taste.  And how easy it is for me to identify when I’ve eaten something that my body doesn’t like since there are now so few potential culprits.

The bottom line is, 30 days truly is enough time to create a new habit.  It’s not like I had terrible eating habits to begin with, but I have identified a few things I’m much better off without…and I don’t want to go back.  One thing I’ve figured out is that even just a little bit of sugar really messes with me.  So why would I start eating it again?  (On that note, either the Texas Ruby Red grapefruits this year are exceedingly sweet, or by cutting out added sugars I can now taste the true flavors in them.  I tend to think it’s the latter.)  Same thing with most carbs:  I just feel better when I don’t eat a lot of them.

At the beginning of this thing, I was really missing milk and cheese.  Truthfully, that hasn’t changed all that much.  There are some times that all I want is a glass of milk, especially at night if I’m hungry but don’t want to eat anything. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to cut dairy permanently because it has never bothered me, but after the things I’ve learned, I will be a little more judicious with its consumption.  Also, after 30 days without it, my body very well could rebel.  Finally, dairy can curb weight loss and I’m currently about halfway to my goal. We shall see.

One very gratifying aspect of these changes I’ve made is that several friends have quit laughing and/or calling me crazy, and they’ve begun to scrutinize their own diets.  I’m getting a lot of phone calls and texts asking my opinion on the best source for grass-fed beef or how to make ghee or which coconut oil to buy or when the withdrawal headaches will go away.  I’ve also got friends who are seeing results from their changes, and that makes me so happy.  I think, more than anything I could say, the results speak for themselves.

So…I thought 30 days was going to be sooooo difficult.  And there were times it wasn’t easy.  But I can honestly say that not only am I proud of myself for completing them, but I’ve also made some changes for the better that I am pretty sure are permanent.  Whole30, for me, has become WholeLife.  And I feel so good about that.

Half30

Today marks Day 15 of my Whole30 program, the halfway mark, and I’m still alive.  I’ve learned a few things, been pleasantly surprised by a few things, and overall, found this a lot easier than I expected to.  Here’s the breakdown:

Stuff I’ve learned:

1.  All about the “carb flu.”  This is essentially the withdrawal that your body goes through as it learns not to rely on quick sources of glucose, aka carbs, for fuel.  You feel a little run-down, a little “off” for about a week, and then all of a sudden, everything levels out.  Some people have far worse symptoms than I did, probably because I wasn’t eating a lot of carbs to begin with, but those intense cravings for enchiladas and popcorn I experienced?  All part of it.  I mentioned withdrawal, and that’s exactly what’s happening.  Carbs, especially wheat, trigger addictive symptoms in your brain.  When you have carb cravings, it’s not because your body actually needs them.  It’s because it’s physically addicted and has gone too long without a “fix.”

2.  Dairy spikes your insulin 3 times higher than any other nutrient source.  Learning this pacified the zombie cheeses that were chasing me relentlessly and has made me re-think my dairy consumption post-Whole30.  At this point, I doubt I’ll forgo it completely, but I will definitely be more moderate.

3.  I hadn’t been eating enough. For the first week and a half, I would find myself feeling nauseated and my leg and arm muscles would feel very weak before I realized I needed to eat.  Interestingly, I never had hunger pangs to cue me.  I’m not sure why that is – maybe someone more knowledgeable than I can tell me – but I took to keeping a bag of snacks in my car with me (raw almonds/large flake coconut/dried cranberry mix, Larabars, pistachios, raw nut butter single-serve packs, nitrate/nitrite-free jerky, etc), and that has helped a lot.  Also, as I had read would happen, the further I’ve gotten into this, the more self-regulated my eating has become.  And I also have noted a correlation between a carb craving and the need to eat:  if I find myself thinking about crackers or tortilla chips or whatever, I know I’ve waited too long.

Pleasant surprises:

1.  Food tastes better than it ever has.  Seriously.  It’s like flavors have come alive; subtle nuances are screamingly obvious.  I think this must be what it’s like when a smoker quits and can suddenly taste food, but on a deeper level. Today I bought a box of organic strawberries, and J walked in the kitchen to see me standing completely still, eyes closed, savoring one.  I think it was the best strawberry I’ve ever eaten.  It’s so nice to enjoy real foods, things we take for granted or pass up in lieu of sugar-laden confections.  And I have found that I’m not a fan of finding paleo-friendly substitutes for most things.  If it doesn’t taste as good as the thing it’s trying to mimic, I don’t want it.   On the other hand, I’ve tried things I wouldn’t normally have tried before this and found that I like them.  Spaghetti squash is really good!  Organic coconut milk (the kind in the can, not the carton) is amazing in coffee.  Coconut sap crystals are just sweet enough, chock-full of amino acids and vitamins, and very low on the glycemic index, not to mention they don’t pack a carb punch at all and are completely natural.

2.  Stock – or as the paleo/primal community calls it, bone broth – is amazing at healing up gut issues and upset tummies.  I have now joined the British in enjoying their cups of restorative “beef tea.”   I can’t even explain this one, and I wouldn’t have ever thought (especially after making gallons upon gallons of the stuff in my culinary career) that I’d be excited about drinking a mug of warm stock with a sprinkling of Himalayan rose salt, but I am.  For a really informative article about the benefits of bone broth, go here .

3.  I need new clothes.  I had lost a few pounds after going gluten-free a couple of months ago, but the Whole30 has kicked that into high gear.  Well, maybe medium gear because it’s slow and steady, as opposed to a huge loss all at once, but I’m down at least 10lb.  Frankly, I’m okay with slow and steady because it’s the healthier way to lose weight anyway, and also, this is not at all some fad diet, so what I lose won’t be coming back.  This is a way of eating that our bodies were designed for, and just like putting the right fuel in your car’s tank improves overall performance, eating properly gets everything into alignment.  I’ve decided I won’t buy clothes until my birthday in May because I figure by then, I’ll have leveled out at the weight I need to be.  I’m not looking to be a size 2 – that’s not realistic for my body type.  But I am looking to be at my correct set point, and I’m on my way there.  (By the way, it’s a little uncomfortable but immensely gratifying when your husband scrutinizes you MOST clinically and says, “Your body has changed a LOT already.  I can see your progress and I’m proud of you.” )  In addition, my skin is healthier and my hair is growing like crazy.  Must be all the protein and collagen in the bone broth.

So, I have 15 more days to go.  At the end of it, I have promised M I will make gf cinnamon rolls and eat them with him because we missed his Muffins With Mom day at school.  So I will make them  – from manioc flour, which is the  gf basis for the amazing cheese rolls at Fogo de Chao, by the way, and also makes a phenomenal pizza crust and a reasonable flour tortilla substitute – and I will eat one with him.  But I have almost none of the already little sweet tooth I possessed before, and I am not a fan of intestinal upheaval, so I don’t see sugar becoming a habit again.  I will also slowly reintroduce some dairy and see if it halts my weight loss progress,  and I may eat some french fries from Elevation Burger.  I’ll write again at the end of the next 15 days and let y’all know how it all turns out.

***

PS – One of the best parts of this experience?  A certain friend of mine wrote that she was going to make soooo much fun of me as I called her, bemoaning my lot in Whole30 life.  I am delighted to report that no such call has taken place, and I actually feel great! 

Isaiah 43:2a is REALLY Appropriate Here

I’ve been meaning to blog about my experiences driving home from school last Tuesday night for, oh, a week now, but silly stuff like homework has kind of monopolized my time. The drive back tonight reminded me – by dint of its being sooooo different from last week – that I really needed to share.  So here it is:

Last Tuesday night, the 24th of January, Central Texas had a pending forecast of severe thunderstorms and flash floods.  My class runs from 6:30pm to 9:20pm, and when it ended, the skies were still perfectly clear.  So I decided to take advantage of the fact that the Alkek library stays open until 3am, and I traipsed across campus to finish a paper there.  I guess it could have been the fact that my ears were well-filled with the lovely voice of Misty Edwards, but I never heard it start to rain.  Oh, but start to rain, it did.  And it rained.  And rained.  And rained.  We’re talking monsoon rains and hurricane winds.  (It seriously took me back to playing outside during Hurricane Alicia in Houston in 1983.)  So around 2am, I was trying to figure out how I was going to get to the parking garage where I’d left my car, which was a good 6-8 minute walk away in nice weather…

[Before I tell you the rest of the story, let me ask you a question: If you've been a life-long reader like I have, can you remember back to the very first really nice storybook you ever got?  The one that had beautiful watercolor art that SO perfectly illustrated the story JUST like you saw it in your mind? The one that had a dust jacket that wouldn't stay on but indicated by its existence that this book was a Very Big Deal that Must be Taken Care Of?  The one that told a story in rich, expressive turns of phrase, so captivating that you found yourself completely immersed in the story and didn't hear when your mom called you from the dining room?  Well, Tuesday night was like that book for me.  It was such a clear, clear picture of the truth that God makes a way where there isn't one.  And the truth that He's always with us.  And the truth that nothing is too difficult for Him / impossible with Him.] *

…The security guard on duty in the library insisted that I call for an escort from the courtesy patrol on campus.  He reasoned that I pay for the service, so I might as well use it, and I agreed.  So I called, and 25 minutes later, the patrolman, who had been rescuing people walking across campus, finally showed up.  We dropped a couple of people off and then made our way to my car.  As we drove to the parking garage, the patrolman received word that the campus had closed the main road because of flooding.  Now, I don’t get to the main campus too often, so I don’t know any of the other roads that head back to the highway.  But the patrolman knew a way.  He asked me to follow him as he dropped off the last person, and he would then lead me to I-35.  So I waded through 8 inches of standing water, got in my car, and commenced to go blindly – if not gently – into that not-so-good night.

Perfect!  Except that it wasn’t.  The campus is situated along a river, so numerous small roads were completely washed out.  At one point, I got to experience the built-in safety feature my car has where the wheels become VERY hard to turn so there’s better traction – freaked me out a bit, except I figured out what it was – and at another point, we had to come to a complete stop and backtrack because the little one-lane road we were on had disappeared beneath a roaring torrent of creekwater.  But finally, an hour later, I saw I-35 directly in front of me.  God bless that patrolman because he really went out of his way to help me.  I have no idea how we got there, but he got me where I needed to be.

Oh, but then the rain decided to be fruitful and multiply.  And did I mention that my wipers wouldn’t work on high?  I couldn’t see five feet in front of me for virtually all 50 miles of the drive.  And when a semi passed by?  Forget it.  That was extra-prayer time.  I went that entire way going about 40mph and finally got to my front door at 4:10am.  And since I was wired from being in a state of high alert for two hours straight, I sat back and thought about what had transpired.  And I truly did see the hand of God in every last bit of it.  The patrolman who got me to my car and then got me to the highway.  The car doing what it was supposed to do in high water.  The fact that even when I couldn’t see the highway, I never veered out of my lane.  The fact that traffic drove remarkably well – I didn’t pass a single accident.  The fact that my sleepy husband called at 3am.  I pulled over to call him back, and he told me he knew I’d be fine.

I had been talking with God, pretty much along the lines of, “All right, Lord, YOU drive because I can’t see a cotton-pickin’ thing!” when J called.  And it was like the Lord answered me through the words my husband spoke.  I’m not sure if it’s actually possible to have every fiber of your body be quiveringly alert and be at peace at the same time, but the rest of the way home, that’s how I rolled.   Slowly, but I rolled nonetheless.

So, someone reading this blog needed to hear that God is completely in control in the middle of your storm.  Believe it, latch onto it, stay in that place of knowing.  DON’T give up.  He absolutely makes a way when we feel totally unequipped and inadequate.  Sometimes that way involves your participation, and sometimes it involves your surrender.  But there is a way.

* See Jeremiah 32:17, Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27, Luke 1:37, Luke 18:27, and a whole slew of other verses

Cheese, Not-So-Glorious Cheese!

A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what’s cheese?  Corpse of milk.
~James Joyce

Cheese is zombiefied milk. James Joyce pretty much says so, so it must be true.  Or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself for the next 30 days because I’m about to embark on the Whole30 (http://whole9life.com/2010/12/whole30-2011/) program in an effort to (healthily) completely detox my body from foods that are irritants to it.  Since I eat a fairly primal diet already, this isn’t too much of a stretch…except for one small detail: dairy.

Wait, what?  What’s Whole30?  The basic idea is lots of protein and fresh veggies, and some fruit. No processed foods, whatsoever.  No grains.  No sugar.  No dairy, including milk, cream, yogurt, ice cream, and cheese.  See the link above for a more in-depth explanation of the plan, as well as what I mean by irritants.

What’s primal?  Essentially, it’s eating the way people ate before the advent of agriculture.  So lots of proteins and fresh seasonal veggies plus some fruit.  No grains.  Sugar only from natural sources like honey or maple.  Limited dairy, but you CAN have it.

NO CHEESE?  Are you nuts?  No, but I can eat those on the Whole30 plan! 

Sigh.  The thing is, I really, really want to do this.  But I really, really don’t want to give up the cream in my coffee.  Or cheese.  So…in an effort to up the accountability factor, I’m going public with my plan.  (AND imagining festering wheels of rotted cheese rolling after me shrieking, “BRAAAAAAAAINS!” too.)  It’s only 30 days, and I know I’ll feel so much better at the end…and it’s a great exercise in self-discipline, which I freely admit I could use more of.  So.  If you’ve made it through this whole post, hold me accountable.  Ask me from time to time how I’m doing.  Ask me how I’m feeling.  Ask me if I’ve bitten any zombies…

My Blog, the Anti-Slam Book

If you were a junior high girl in the 80s, you’re familiar with slam books.  For the uninitiated (and non-girls), these are spiral-bound notebooks in which each page has someone’s name written at the top.  The notebooks are passed from person to person, and everyone writes whatever she wants about the person named on the page.  Sometimes the comments are nice, but generally, they’re the hateful things you’d never say to someone’s face but might have thought; thus, the “slam” in the books’ name.  I was definitely slammed a few times (which sucked), but I also confess to writing my fair share of mean comments.

Thankfully, that was many years ago.  Today I’m more interested in honoring people, seeing the good things in them.  So I’ve decided that 2012 will be a year of honor on my part, and from time to time, I’m going to use this space to write about a friend or family member. You’ve probably noticed that I never use real names in my posts, and these entries will be no different.  But hopefully the people I profile will recognize themselves  – or maybe even take a closer look because something I’ve said surprises them in a good way.

NOTE: If you aren’t comfortable with potentially being immortalized in print (!), please send me a private message letting me know.  I’ll honor you by NOT writing about you.

I’m looking forward to writing these posts!