At any cost

I was cleaning the kitchen yesterday, which meant I was listening to a talk online. I've found that listening to sermons and speeches is my favorite way to get cleaning done. I almost look forward to a chance to mop the kitchen floor now (so much so, in fact, that the new floor has been mopped a total of errrrr .... one time .... since my husband installed it).

Anyway, the speaker was Elisabeth Elliot. I enjoyed her talk about Sulking (although I'm glad my husband wasn't around to give pointed looks) and continued to listen to a different talk.

In this talk, she referenced Betty Stam. I first heard about Betty Stam from my grandmother. I can't remember the connection, but I think it was that my grandfather knew either Betty or her husband, John.

When Betty was ten, she wrote the following poem:

"I cannot live like Jesus,
Example though He be,
For He was strong and selfless,
And I am tied to me.
I cannot live like Jesus;
My soul is never free.
My will is strong and stubborn;
My love is weak and wee.
But I have asked my Jesus to live His life in me.

"I cannot look like Jesus.
More beautiful is He
In soul and eye and stature
Than sunrise on the sea.
Behold His warm, His tangible, His dear humanity.
Behold His white perfection of purest deity.
Yet Jesus Christ has promised that we like Him shall be."

Ten years old!!

And then, when she was eighteen, she wrote the following prayer:

"Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept Thy will for my life. I give myself, my life, my all utterly to Thee to be Thine forever. Fill me and seal me with Thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send me where Thou wilt. Work out Thy whole will in my life at any cost, now and forever."

John and Betty Stam were young missionaries to China in the 1930's. They were beheaded. John was 27; Betty was 28.


Their newborn daughter, Helen, was rescued by a Chinese pastor and later raised by relatives.

And here I am, pushing the broom haphazardly, thinking how this is my son's job and not mine. I'm roughly shoving the washcloth across the table (daughter's job) and figuring my husband wasn't here to hear the talk about sulking, so there is no one to mock me about acting the martyr.

Only that's just it. I'm only acting the martyr. "At any cost"?

What cost is being exacted on me? The cost of a few minutes straightening the kitchen, listening to an enjoyable teacher, while my perfectly capable children are working hard (and, admittedly, weepingly) at their schoolwork? The cost of having a chance (which I squandered) of cheerfully demonstrating love (I John 3:16: "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers")?

At any cost?

The cost of seeing my husband die? The cost of having my baby taken away from me? The cost of seeing a stranger die for the life of my daughter? The cost of not knowing my child's future? The cost of my own life?

What about the cost of not being thanked? The cost of watching children gag on the mushrooms (again)? The cost of being so exhausted I cannot stay awake for the 41,839th rerun of "Seinfeld"? The cost of not ever being able to read more than 1/2 a page of my book without being interrupted? The cost of washing clothes I know were only thrown into the hamper because their owner was too lazy to fold them neatly in the drawer? The cost of stickers stuck to the floor? The cost of eleventeen temporary "tic-tac-toos" plastered to the arms and bellies of most of my children? The cost of hearing the twenty-fifth retelling of a superhero dream that I can't and don't want to follow?

The cost of smiling even when my proud self wants to argue that the smile is hypocritical? The cost of having my feet stepped on by baby feet every day for eleven+ years? The cost of not sighing when the child with the wet PJ's insists on climbing into MY side of the bed? The cost of letting my husband enjoy his sleep in the early morning, even when mine has been ended by [insert name of any child living here]?

I won't pretend it's easy. This life, even apart from actual terrorists and murderers, is not easy. But it's not the dishes and the laundry and the schoolbooks that complicate things.

It's my own heart.

It's that "I am tied to me."

It's that I don't take hold of the fullness that is life in Christ. I choose the filth and the self-pity and the wretchedness. Sure, I have been lavished upon with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus and have been adopted through Jesus Christ and have redemption through his blood (Eph. 1).

But I forget that. I choose to forget that. At least every day, I choose to forget the good and cling to the bad. Just call me an Israelite, and take me back to the luscious land of slavery.

Like David, I must say,

"Why are you cast down, O my soul,

   and why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,

   my salvation and my God" (Ps. 43:5).

And with John Stam:

"Afraid? Of what?

To feel the spirit's glad release?

To pass from pain to perfect peace,

The strife and strain of life to cease?

Afraid -- of that?

"Afraid? Of what?

Afraid to see the Savior's face,

To hear His welcome, and to trace

The glory gleam from wounds of grace?

Afraid -- of that?

"Afraid? Of what?

A flash -- a crash -- a pierced heart;

Darkness -- Light -- O Heaven's art?

A wound of His a counterpart!

Afraid? Of that?

"Afraid? Of what?

To do by death what life could not -- 

Baptize with blood a stony plot,

Till souls shall blossom from the spot?

Afraid? -- of that?"

Only it's not the death I seem to be afraid of ... it's real LIFE.

And that's what I'm pondering this morning.

Limited

(My response to this very honest question on the MOMYS forum: "How do you know when you've reached your limit?" She was speaking of number of children. And boy, do I know limits):

ONE was my limit. Seriously.

I don't have nine (well, ten counting the one kicking me from the inside) because I am strong.

I have ten because I am exceedingly weak and exceedingly fertile.

I am *not* of the mindset that everyone should have as many children as physically possible. I do believe that God is the Author of all life and has given us means to enjoy a break from pregnancy, should our current condition warrant it.

I think there is much support biblically for the idea that how we parent is far more important than how many we parent.

That being said, I know the swamped feeling. I know the "I can't DO THIS!!!" feeling. I know the guilt of fleeting intense desires to just have things back for an instant the way they were, pre-children.

And I know the well-worn path back to the cross. I know the Savior.

I know that each day, whether I feel capable or not, whether I have things in place or not, whether I *like* my children that day or only love them, whether I've slept, whether I'm prepared, whether I'm sick, whether I'm upbeat, whether I'm downtrodden, whether I'm up for the fight...

It's always Him. It's always Him. It's always Him.

There are days (moments?) where I am so aware of the gift that this mothering journey is. There are times when my cup overflows and I can barely breathe for what a blessing my life is. There are times when my menus are planned, the schoolwork is done, the floor is vacuumed, and the sun is shining.

But there are mostly times when my menus are nonexistent, the schoolwork is scattered and stained with hot tears, the floor is ... somewhere, and the sun only glares.

And in that mess, I am every bit as blessed as in the calm. I don't FEEL it. I feel frazzled and climbed on and stressed and fat and DONE.

And that's when I have to remember to stop looking at the mess. Stop looking at myself. Look up. Look at Him. Because it's always, always Him. We are never in control, even when we feel it. We are never capable, even when it seems that way.

Only He is. And He never fails. He never grows weary. He never lets us slip from His hand.

So when I feel like I've reached my limit? Really, it's just a glimpse of reality. "Lord, I see that I am so weak. You are so strong. Your grace is made perfect in my weakness. Please, please, please help me believe that. Help my children see that. Less of me, more of You."

And that's the long view I take. Take heart. He has no limit.

Home Sweet Home

I've neglected this online spot of late. It's not a sign that nothing has been going on; instead, it's a sign that much has been going on. Nothing monumental worthy of notifying the world, but plenty of good ol' fashioned "can't-catch-my-breath-much-less-these-toddlers-due-to-all-the-living-we're-doing." Do you know what I mean? It's the cycle of meals and cleaning up meals and making the next meal and cleaning that up to make the next meal. And the cycle of doing laundry so you have something to wear so I have something to wash so you have something to wear so I have something to wash.

 Only it's become much less burdensome lately. Maybe some of it is happy second trimester hormones. Maybe some of it is growing content as I grow older. Maybe some of it is my children growing older and more helpful. And mostly lots of it is a husband who rearranges our entire downstairs and makes this house finally feel...right. A husband who installs a new kitchen floor (vinyl plank flooring...a distressed barnyard grey...I LOVE it, and thank you so much for the suggestion, Jenny!), and installs it twice (oops, it came up on the first side of the room, let's take it apart and do it again). It's a floor so nice we installed it twice!



That room that we never could use well? The one that ended up being the catch-all for school books and craft projects and ugly furniture? A new-to-us sofa and loveseat, and a new-to-anyone set of slipcovers tailored by my husband with about 80 upholstery tacks, and it's suddenly a very functional, entirely enjoyable Family Room.

The room off the kitchen? The one that used to be our TV room with not enough seating for our family? A new-to-us set of matched Ethan Allen chairs and some furniture rearranging, and it's now our music/work/conversation room (we've yet to agree on a name: I like "Living Room"; he argues that that is interchangeable with "Family Room" and likes "School Room" but I say that's confusing because we used to call the other room that...).

The bonus of having the piano right off the kitchen is that I am much more aware of how much time children are actually spent *practicing* and how much time is spent *playing...around*. Much to their chagrin, the time spent practicing has dramatically increased (and, I most happily add, so has their ability).

It just feels...right. We've lived here almost three years. Finally I've gotten around to making the boys lined curtains (I have only one window to go...woo-hoo!). The girls finally have curtains (store bought...thank you Blue Light Special).



Every night I walk through this house, and I feel this deep sense of contentment and satisfaction. It all just feels so very ... us ... now.

It makes the meals and the laundry and the rhythm of the days so much more bearable, enjoyable even.

Sigh...18 inches of Not Spring

A new dozen to join The Remnant from our first dozen

It's good to be home.

The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of

Last week, I had a dream. I dreamed I was reading a fictitious blog. The author had recently checked out an audio book from the library. It was a 17-CD book entitled, "My Name Is Joseph," and it was the story of a Jewish boy growing up during World War II. In this blog post, the woman blogger was lamenting that she had lost 5 of the CD's. She had to buy the whole set in order to replace the library's copy.

She bought the set and gave it to the library. The next day, she found the five missing CD's.

The last line of her blog was, "I wept in Yiddish."

I woke up giggling. I thought the blog author was witty for ending her blog that way, and then I realized I was the witty one.

My husband didn't interpret my dream that way. He took the much more literal interpretation: "The night before, we went to the library. You checked out a book on the Holocaust. We are always paying library fines. And you always have weird dreams when you're pregnant."

This is true. My husband endures my retelling of dreams like one might endure a visit to the dentist or a seminarian's first sermon: "This is going to be painful, but let's just get it over with."

You would think he would have at least been grateful. Most of my pregnancy dreams involve rescuing him from some ridiculous scenario he's gotten himself into (one particularly vivid dream involved me rescuing him and our friend in the Marines from extreme danger in Iraq: THAT dream really wore me out).

And I'm not sure exactly what other interpretation could be taken from this dream. I mean, probably I could come up with something dreadfully mystical and heretical and borderline cooky, but honestly I'm too tired for any of that.

So we'll go with his interpretation. We did visit the library, we do regularly purchase library materials, and I am pregnant (so ... oops! when I assuredly told Kendra I wasn't. And also, Kendra? I'm so glad Rick is out of Iraq. Rescues are so tricky there!).

18 weeks. Due in July. Party of one.

And, please. "I wept in Yiddish" ... that's the best last line of a dream ever.

Stand Off, or How to Have Likable Children

I'm not an accomplished homeschool mom. None of my children have gone to college, none have been married off (and against much homeschool lore, I do think that's what college is for), none have written tomes decrying post-graduate degrees or primetime TV or two-piece bathing suits.

So, you know, just be aware of my shortcomings as I rant.

I have a bone to pick with parents. This time, it's not just with homeschooling parents but also with Christian school parents and public school parents. I've got my boxing gloves on, and I'm picking a fight.

My extreme frustration is with this: the tendency to defend your child at every turn to every upright being and then have the nerve to call it the "Mama Bear" in you.

You're not raising a cub. You're raising a weenie.

You're raising a child who is very quickly becoming used to seeing himself as a victim. You're raising a bratty member of society who thinks that the way to advance is to complain to his superior. You're raising a whiny, fussy wimp who is tiresome and inept.

Let me give you an example.

Last week, Ethan and I walked into a grocery store. In the entryway, a man with several middle-school children was looking at the newspaper stands. I pulled a cart from the corral and then noticed that the man's sweatshirt bore the name of the small Christian college that is my sister's alma mater.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but I just have to ask about your sweatshirt! That is the school my sister went to!"

"Oh, really?" he replied. "My daughter went there, but only for one year. She just had such a hard time." He went on to explain how she just couldn't fit in, how everyone had the standard so high, how it was terrible that a good homeschooled girl like her couldn't make any friends. He talked on. And on. I think it really turned into more of a whine. In front of his other children, he whined to me about how his daughter couldn't thrive in college because no one would bend over backwards for her.

My lip *may* have actually started curling. It was definitely twitching. As he continued, it became clear why no one wanted to be her friend, why no one would talk to her. I wanted him to stop talking to me!

She had never learned to fight for herself. She had never learned to assess a situation, scout out the battleground, and plan her position.

She had only learned to call Daddy and lick her wounds.

I'm sure it all begins innocently enough. They are babies, they are helpless, they can do nothing. We must do everything.

(Gideon and Salem, almost three years ago on my friend Sue's phone. The crossed eyes! The curled toes!)

But then, all of the sudden, they can do something. They can say, "NO!," they can run away from instead of to when summoned, they can stomp their toddler feet and put their arms akimbo and refuse.

 And here our parenting strategy must change. We must stop doing everything for them. 

We must stop excusing what is a very natural, predictable display of human sin. In the baby stage, we must clearly demonstrate that there is a necessary double standard between adults and children. Adults get to be the decision-makers. Adults get to be the stay-up-laters. Adults get to drink coffee, and eat dark chocolate at will, and turn on the TV without asking.




But it only starts here.

Then, when they are older and come home crying because "Ellie said my dress isn't pretty!" (and she did, too, in the first grade), we say with a gentle smile, "Pretty is as pretty does." Then we explain what that means. But we don't deride Ellie or call her mother or even give it too much thought.

Do you see what's subtly happening? We are teaching them that some battles are not worth being battles. Sometimes they won't even get to fight (you wave your fist at me and I, the adult, will swiftly end this battle), and sometimes they will have a choice to not fight. And sometimes they will have to figure out how to fight responsibly.



As a teacher, I certainly saw parents excusing their children. Time and time again, in conference after conference after conference with parents, we heard why Dick feels he needs to cheat and why Sally is a "chronic forgetter" and how Jane can't really be expected to tell the truth all of the time.

It was a Christian school, and "sinner" was spelled V-I-C-T-I-M.

Well, yes, they are victims: victims to their own parents' ignorance of the rules of engagement.

It is our job as parents to equip our children. It is our job to make sure they have the know-how and the weapons to fight. It is our job to NOT excuse them, to NOT jump into the fight unless it is absolutely necessary, to NOT "Mama Bear" our children into the Wusses' Hall of Lame.

When our children come to a standoff, sometimes we need to do just that: stand off. Close your mouth. Listen. Assess. Guide. Pray.

Resist the temptation to run to so-and-so with your concerns about how little Johnny is so misunderstood and ate too much of the one thing and not enough of the other and really, how can we expect him to do any differently?

Well, we start by...expecting him to do differently.

We start by leading Johnny to the Scriptures and to what God says about the situation. We freely give what they as children often lack: perspective and insight. We give this to Johnny. But we do not fight his battles for him. We do not tell his teachers that really, they don't understand, and really, our home life is currently so complicated, and really, he wasn't meaning to say that.



Give him the tools. In these matters that involve other adults  ("Teacher made me sit next to So-and-So!" or "Mrs. Minniver never calls on me on purpose!" or "Mr. Kramer told me I was interrupting!"), remind him that always adults warrant respect. Always. There is no negotiating this. And then help him figure out how to identify the real problem and deal with it. 

And remember that you are the parent, and it is your job to inject perspective and insight. Perhaps the real problem is that Johnny doesn't want to sit next to So-and-So and needs to learn to be gracious to those who are difficult. But you let him struggle with it. Don't you dare go talking and complaining to Teacher or Mrs. Minniver or Mr. Kramer.

When did parents turn into the saps instead of the sages? I know things have not always been so. I remember being in the third grade and complaining to my mother about K.D. and how I had to sit near her and she was fat and she wore blue eyeshadow and clothes fat people shouldn't wear and she lived with her single father (one of only two children I knew from a single-parent home) and nobody liked her and you know what? I talked myself right into having to invite her over for a sleepover. Can you imagine? My mother made me have her over, just her, to spend the night.

And that night, when I had to talk to her and couldn't sit away from her and couldn't avoid her, I learned a very important lesson.

I learned empathy.

I listened to her talk about my wild family and how it was so wonderful. I listened to her wish her mother was around to show her how to put on makeup and go shopping with her. I listened to her laugh at my stories and say I was funny and she wished she were funny.

For the first time, I stopped being jealous of her makeup and her skirts and the chocolate that was always in her lunchbox.

We were never best friends, but I learned to stand her. I learned to hold my tongue when everyone else was wagging theirs about her lunch or her clothes or her dad.

A lesson that I *never* would have learned had my mother sympathized with my plight, permanently etched itself on my psyche that night.

What would I say to the father of the miserable college student? I would say to do what my father did when I called and said I was DONE and would transfer or just leave but NO WAY could I stay in this hellhole called University.

He typed me a letter and stuck it in the mailbox. Four days later, I received fatherly wisdom, folded in thirds and encased in an envelope, that said this: "Your complaints are normal. Every college student has felt this way at some time or another. Stick it out. Nowhere is perfect. Do your work, carry on, and remember we love you."

And that was enough. That jolted me back to reality, out of my pity party and self-doubt. Stay the course! Finish strong! Keep on! And remember we love you.

Yes.

That's it. We need to fortify our children, not fight their battles for them. We need to offer them perspective and insight. We need to drag them from their selfish, limited view and point them to the truth.

And we need to be there to cheer them on in doing right. But in order to do that, we need to give them the chance to do right and not hide under their mother's apron.

Stand strong! Stand back! Stand off!

And leave Mama Bear out of it.

A Whiff of the Past

The other night, I opened a new bottle of face wash (bought mostly because I am a total Burt's Bee's addict and had not yet tried this product) and was instantly taken back about thirty-something years. I'm not sure what the fragrance officially is, but I can tell you it smells exactly like the Lemon Meringue doll I used to own, the one that was Strawberry Shortcake's friend. The one that when you squeezed its belly, it blew a kiss, a puff of lemon plastic air. The one that lost its hair that one fateful summer when my neighbor's granddaughter came to visit her. We ended up playing and she told me that my doll was one of those that after you cut its hair, you could pull on the ends and it would grow long again.

It was not that kind of doll.

But the memories that came back so strongly when I smelled that lemon plastic air! Memories of a summer spent playing with a little girl I hardly knew, hiding with her in her grandmother's attic four houses down from mine as we ate an entire package of Girl Scout Samoa cookies. I felt so uneasy, and she kept reassuring that "Grandma bought this for us to eat!" So why were we hiding, and why did I go home and have a nightmare? I dreamt that she and I were hiding in her grandmother's attic, the box of cookies between us, and The Incredible Hulk (the Lou-Ferrigno-as-the-monster one, not the Bill-Bixby-as-David-Banner one) was coming after us.

All from a face wash bottle.

I started thinking about smells. I don't usually. I mean, I'm thankful for the sense of smell sometimes and not-so-thankful at others, but I really don't think about smelling that often.

But I do believe it is this mostly-ignored sense that brings back the strongest memories. Memories that I don't even always know I have until I'm having them, and then "Oh, my goodness. I had totally forgotten. How could I have forgotten?"

You can't willingly tie scents to memories, at least I can't. If I could, then the scent that would be Grandma Hoeldtke would be chocolate chip cookies. There was a big crock (or two? I remember two) on our counter, and for the seven years she lived with us, she kept them full of chocolate chip cookies.

But chocolate chip cookies don't remind me of Grandma. Oatmeal raisin cookies do. We didn't even like oatmeal raisin cookies. And I'm not even sure she was the one who made them. It might have been Mom. But whoever it was, they made them very occasionally for Charlie Geoffrion. They were his favorite. They made them huge, with sugar crystals on the top. 

And every time I smell an oatmeal raisin cookie, I remember Grandma and her apron and her nursing shoes, a holdover from her RN days.

And then there are those smells that you can't even identify, but they bring a rush of nostalgia. As newlyweds, Ethan and I took over my sister's cat-sitting job one night while she went to baby-sit elsewhere. We walked into the cat's owner's house, and I stopped. "That smell! What is that smell? I love that smell! That smell reminds me of my Grandma and Grandpa Easterling! What is that?"

"That smell," said Ethan, his nose wrinkled, "is mothballs."

Mothballs.

And my mother. My mother, who has always cooked like she's serving a crowd and usually is. My mother, who knows the secret that most sickness can be healed through the stomach and can always fix the perfect delicious concoction for whatever ails you. My mother, who spends long hours at the computer and the printer and near Scotch tape and White-out and copy paper. It's not the smell of office supplies nor pastries nor even her own homemade eggnog (perfect for throats that won't swallow) that reminds me of her.

It's onions.

And I bet she wouldn't pick onions to remind me of her. Only I'm really glad they do, because I often find my hands smelling of onions and all of the sudden I'm reminded of getting tucked into the bed my sister and I shared, Mom at the side reading Heidi or The Chronicles of Narnia and singing "The birdies in the treetops Sing their songs, The angels chant their chorus All day long, The flowers in the garden Lend their hue, So why shouldn't I, Why shouldn't you, Praise Him, too?" and then that "Just one more" song we always got from her. I remember her leaning over to kiss us, and me complaining, "Oh, you stink! Your hands smell like ONIONS!"

I can't name the smell that is my dad. It's a very manly smell, a combination of shaving cream and aftershave and Ivory soap. He doesn't smell like that anymore. He still smells pleasant, but I think the brands and the soaps have changed. But very rarely, I will smell something that reminds me of when I was little and he was so big. Oddly enough, one of the strongest memories I have with this vague smell is one night when my mother was working at Pizza Hut, and he took me to the park. I remember swinging, him pushing and it growing dark and him saying it was time to go. I cried, and we still had to leave.

I don't even know if I was three yet.

And I am so curious. What will my smell be? In the future, what smell will make my children's eyes glaze over while they are taken back to the days I call the present and they will call the past?

It better not be mothballs. There is no reason for it to be mothballs.

That's it, really. I've just been musing over the wonder of the whole olfactory system and how it unlocks these pieces of history that would otherwise remain long gone.

I know, no pictures. My camera went missing and then it showed up with dead batteries and there you have it.

But maybe that's fitting. I don't have pictures of these memories, except for these very strong ones in my mind.

And I like them there.

Narcissism

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' into the future...

There's definitely a Steve Miller Band soundtrack playing in the background of my life.

Our oldest is now eleven. 11. One-ty one. It looks old no matter how I write it or how they say it.

And let's not even talk about how thirty-six looks. The common consensus around here is that it looks gray and washed out and puffy.

But despite that, I am very happy with life as I know it. Almost my entire life (all 36 years...see? It doesn't look any younger that way) I've felt like a little girl waiting to grow up.

And all of the sudden, I'm watching my own offspring grow up around me. I find that I know how to plan meals, learning is actually occurring in a systematic, planned fashion, and children are thriving on more than my good intentions.

I feel like a grown-up.

There's nothing earth-shattering or especially insightful about any of this.

I just find that I am thinking less and less about *me* and more and more about *them*. I wonder how they will change the world and marvel at how they have restructured mine.

I feel so sorry for those who choose selfishness over children. I mean exactly that. There are those who choose to not have children in order to pursue their own selves.

This is stupid, and it is so misled. The greatest gift you can give yourself is the gift of parenthood. It challenges you, it changes you, it rewards you a hundredfold.

Sometimes the gifts are subtle. You realize that you have been changing diapers every day for the past 11+ years, and that it doesn't bother you. Score 1 for the adult (or "a dolt," as my children say it).

Sometimes the gifts are obvious. A spontaneous offer to rub your feet or a first drawing that looks like a potato with stick feet ("It's you, Mama!!").

Sometimes you realize that this: this welling up of emotion at Mama Potato-head is in itself a treasure, and there you have it. 

Sometimes the gifts seem to further your sanctification. Sometimes they seem to question it.

But make no mistake: these children are invaluable. Gifts themselves, they are priceless.

Promotion of self? I've done you nine better. You can go out the front door, and don't trip on the bikes on your way.