Monday, July 15, 2013

On being wanted...{Lord, do I gots issues}

Disclaimer #1 - Mom, if you're reading this, this is no way a reflection of our current relationship {all good!} but is a brutiful-ly honest look inside my issues.

Disclaimer #2 - Despite my seemingly confident and capable exterior, I'm a rather raw ball of paradoxical emotions at any given time.  If you're reading this and you know me in the IRL, I probably don't want to talk further about what I'm about to write - unless you're cut from a similarly broken cloth and wish to say, "Hey, me too."  This is for the people who haven't opened up yet - to let them know they are not alone, as I feel an odd compulsion to bare my soul tonight.

Ok, now that the legalese is out of the way...

From my earliest sense of awareness, I always felt unwanted.

Maybe it had something to do with hearing the words "mistake" or "accident" when the question of my conception arose in conversation.  Maybe it had a lot of something to do with, at age 5, hearing the family lore of how my Real Dad left town, having stolen my 16 y/o mother's paper route money to get the hell out of Dodge, just a day after I was born.

Shortly after my mother's younger sister {then 11} dropped that bomb on me, my biological father returned to town and approached my mother about wanting to see me.  I can't recall if he was clean yet and my mom had doubts or if she knew for sure he was still drugging it up, but regardless, she told him no, and then tried her best to warn me that he wanted me, but couldn't have me because he had done some bad things that made it so he couldn't be with me, especially alone.  He might take me, kidnap me, and that would be very, very bad.  All I knew of him at that point was the 9th (?) grade yearbook picture of him, in which he was wearing hideous seventies fashion and had longer hair than I'd seen on any man I knew personally.

One night, I was playing at my grandmotherly next-door-neighbor's yard.  Her daughters were the same ages as my mother and aunt (which was unusual in that there is a 10 year split in age), but at this point in my life, I was only aware of her 12 y/o daughter, who would play with me on occasion.  The elder daughter and her husband were visiting, and being close friends of my mom's from the past, they knew me, but my six-year-old self did not recognize them.  When her husband said, "Hello, Heather" and began walking toward me talking about how big I'd gotten, all my terrified little brain could say was, "Unknown Man Knows Your Name And Is Gonna Kidnap You!  RUN!!! SCREAM!!!!!"  So I did, horrified at the prospect of being wanted enough to get stolen.  The nightmares began shortly after that, in which my yearbook-picture father would break into our house, freeze my family members into stone (like Medusa - yes, even at age six, I had a major interest in Greek mythology) and leave with me, kicking and screaming into the night, which is usually where I'd wake up.  I vividly remember having these nightmares repeatedly for at least a year.

So on the one hand, feeling unwanted was lonely and painful and yet, a feeling to which I grew accustomed; on the other hand, being wanted was a terrifying and sinister thing to avoid.

I know the sense of being unwanted was heightened as my siblings came along; I was not my stepfather's child, but they were.  Later, this sense rose to a climax for me when I was 12, and my mother had been gone one weekend with nary a word to anyone about where she was.  Upon her return, when I tearfully asked her why she would do such a thing, why she would have scared us so much, she told me I was the reason why.  That because I was born when she was still so young, she hadn't gotten to fully live and have fun, so she took the chance to do just that. She was still flying high and didn't mean it.  Or at the very least, she didn't mean to actually say it aloud, but her inhibitions were out the window.  And some things just can't be unsaid, particularly in a young girl's head.

Implicit in all of it was that I was a burden, that while I was unwanted, I was still there and dealing with my needs was an obligatory drag.  Exacerbating these feelings was the fact that all the family drama and dysfunction often left my parents unable to meet many of my emotional, and sometimes physical, needs; over time I arrived at two mantras to live by:
1. Nobody wants you
2. The only one who can take care of you is you
So I set out to make people want me by way of achievement.  For many years, the praise of my teachers was, in large part, what fed my need for love and acceptance.  I was strong and confident because I relied on myself to feel good and make things happen for myself.  {Later, a keen awareness of this pattern's unhealthy extension into my adult life, by way of my career path, was ultimately what lead me to quit working out of the home and work on just being with my God, husband, and children.}

While still a perfection-seeking, worth-is-determined-by-merit-thinking slave, I met my would-be husband, and through him, Christ.  Just like in my marriage, my walk with Christ is often {needlessly}complicated because of my brokenness and life-long patterns of distrust in others' ability to give me what I crave: acceptance and a sense of "I chose YOU."

I also run into trouble when I try to do everything myself.  It's not so much that I think God CAN'T do it, because uh, you know He can do the impossible {except that if I'm totally being one hundred percent truthful, that doubtful thought may have crossed my mind a time or two}, as much as it is I don't want to burden Him with my concerns and needs and risk Him looking at me with Reluctant Obligation as opposed to the Unconditional, NOTHING Can Separate You From The Love of Christ LOVE, {NOTHING!} He's shown me so freely over the years. I fear that He'll become one of the many who've let me down in life if I trust Him or bother Him too much.  Which is crazy, if you think about it.  He's Unending Love, Boundless Joy, and Abundant Life.  There is no obligation, no burden too heavy for God.  And over and over and over in Scripture we are told that He is nothing if He isn't faithful.

But there you have it - that is my default, maladaptive coping mechanism, to bottle up and soldier through with the insistence that I CAN SO DO THIS MYSELF BECAUSE I'M AFRAID YOU'LL LET ME DOWN IF I LET YOU  SEE THE CHINKS IN MY ARMOR.

So, when we started to struggle with finances this spring as a result of my job loss - I hit the job seeking hard.  I would get a job and help get us out of this hole, and it would soon be a distant memory.  One month passed.  Two..  Three..... Four, and well, we've been really struggling with What Does The Future Hold?  Especially as we got behind on our mortgage....again.  {After the medical bills from four years ago peaked simultaneous to the impact from recession, we entered foreclosure status a couple of years ago and worked very diligently for 18 months to finally secure a loan modification last fall.}

Last week, we were pushing 45 days late with the mortgage when Seth got paid.  On Tuesday his paycheck was $1,000 less than his previous paycheck before it had been, roughly $500 less than the average we try to budget for. We were devastated. A few essential bills (car insurance, student loan, phone, tool payment) and groceries came out and 2 days later, we had $29 in the acct, plus a bit of cash ($40ish) to get us through the next two weeks.

On Thursday, independent from any job application or pitch, I got a call from a former consulting client asking me if I'd work with them.  I was thrilled and my psyche got a much needed dose of "they want me!"  I also was convinced that this was God providing just what we needed at just the right time.  I praised Him and shared with our elders and ministers just how dire things had gotten, how God had heard us and asked them to join us in celebration at His provision.

Then I got a second call.

Turns out there'd been a slight change of plans sometime between the staff meeting where the organization decided to invite my help wherein one of the staffers had been instructed to call me and the actual making of the call, but it never got communicated.  The higher ups decided to go with a PR firm instead upon further thought but had not yet informed their staffer of the change.

And just like that, my case was proven.  See, God, see??!!??  You let this happen, You got my hopes all up and then?  NO GOOD!  Why should I trust You?  You're like all the rest.

And He was like, Wait. For. It.....You'll see.

Whatever.  So I sent another e-mail, saying, roughly, "Well, no dice.  Uh, Habakkuk 3:17-18?  I dunno what's going on, but please keep praying."

Friday, I got a call from one of the recipients of my e-mails saying, "I hope you don't mind, but I told our benevolence folks about your needs.  We can help you, we just need a number."

All this time, I've been trying to get us through on my power.  Refusing to Just. Ask. For. Help.

Not out of pride as much as thinking our needs were too much and how dare I ask for That Much?  Also, the Hardship Olympics show up in my head, you know, when you do that thing that's supposed to cheer you up, but it really just makes you feel guilty and worse, when you think of people who have it worse off than you and need the help that much more? Yeah. I do that.  A lot.

Anyway, today I talked with our church's benevolence ministry leader, and told him our number.  It was large, and humbling to admit the level of help we needed.

But God provides.  Abundantly.

The key is to Just Ask.  Ask without shame.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
 Lord, I hear You saying, "See, my child?  I can give you what you need, want to give great things to you, just ASK ME.  I love you, my dear, for I CHOSE you.  Knit you in your mother's womb, it was no accident - you are because I wanted you to be."

I hear you loud and clear, and feel your love and hope you know how much I love you back.  I know now this whole job fiasco happened so you could show me this.  You had a purpose, and I get it.  Thank you for being faithful, for placing my feet on solid ground, and helping me to work through my weaknesses - through which Your Power is made perfect.  And thank you for all of the sweet friends who've been walking with me and my family at this time.  I love them all so much too.

You're pretty amazing - ya know?  Bet you never heard that before! ;o)

Friday, May 3, 2013

Notes to myself...

So, last week I passed the 2 month mark of being involuntarily unemployed.  And it's not for lack of trying.  

I've had 4 interviews, with 3 different employers, and later received the round of rejection letters from every. last. one. of them.  

Ouch.

That stings.

And because we decided to keep Christopher in the daycare/preschool to 1.) keep his routine, 2.) keep his care, and 3.) make me available to take interviews, we are still paying a cost that was originally carried by my income.  Only now I don't have that income, so despite all our debt paying down and budgeting....we have more expenses on one income with daycare than we did without daycare but with a car payment. 

It's always something, it seems, that eats away at any semblance of our financial stability.

And then that instability adds to all my other insecurities {that I yell too much, do too little, put back the weight I lost, etc} and I have a big, fat, meanie of a voice in my head saying: YOU SUCK!  All the time.  

So, I'm trying to quiet that voice and replace it with a calmer, gentler soul that reminds me of the things that are True.

Remember:

Including other versions of yourself, both who you may have once been and/or who you wanted to be.


I struggle with everything but the top one. 

YES!!  This is soooooooo me.  Er...WAS soooooooo me.  I'm going to be here, I'm going to be  here....












 

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

=

Yes, it's been a month since I posted my last post.

The social media dust has settled some regarding the supreme court's pending ruling on gay marriage, as people have changed their profile pics back to themselves from their equality symbol.

I never changed mine to an equality sign.  Partly due to my belief that slacktivist reactions such as re-posting and sharing pictures doesn't actually change things.  It was also partly due to my fears of upsetting people whom I love and respect who see this issue much differently than I do.  Knowing that has made me upset with myself, and to any GLBTQ friends I may have out there, I'm sorry.

I meant to follow up on my last post - meant to elaborate and use the adulterous woman, the Samaritan woman, the prostitute who washed Jesus' feet as parallels to GLBTQ folks in today's world.  I meant to ask some tough questions, and get some healthy dialogue going like Niki and Becky, because, honestly, like Joy, I'm not sure as a Christian how I feel about condemning homosexuality, even though I know what the Bible says.  But I also wasn't sure I wanted to say that I cherry-picked the parts of the Bible I adhere to, or at least be perceived as saying as much, like Glennon did in this post.

So, I didn't.

Partly because I've been busy (job-hunting is time-consuming, yo).  But mostly?  Mostly I was afraid it would make some people at church see me differently.  Which is ridiculous, you know?  Especially because LOVE, as in that perfect kind of love authored by Christ, does not entertain fear, does not breed it, doesn't even coexist with it because it drives fear the heck outta one.  At least, that's what my Bible tells me in 1 John 4:18.

But the topic just won't go away in my life.

It came up by way of Boy Scouts of America since Seth is a Cub Master for Colton's Cub Scout pack.

I can't tell you how many times we received an e-mail from National Council asking for us to complete a survey with a special indicator that would tell HQ that we had provided our input to the proposal they were considering regarding policies toward gays in scouts.  I'd say we got that particular e-mail 3, maybe 4 times, even though we filled the survey out twice.

Bottom line for us - we would keep working with Scouts regardless of their policy stance.  Scouting is not a publicly funded organization, thus, we respect their right to reserve membership as a matter of their freedom to do so.  That said, I felt it would be contrary to the BSA's call to be good citizens and treat anyone from any walk of life with respect.  I don't fear gay pedophiles infiltrating scouts and violating boys anymore than I do pedophiles who identify as straight; a fear which is virtually nonexistent due to the BSA policy of two-deep leadership.  BSA has strong religious roots, but they are not supposed to be sectarian, thus, I do not see how keeping gay Unitarians who do not feel they are violating God is in keeping with the organization.

I did get frustrated when the vote decided that scouts could be openly gay, but leaders could not.  So what happens to boys who advance all the way through, decide to come out, maybe have a family later or just wish to continue as a leader on their own, and they are denied?  What about the outdoorsy gay dads who have adopted (or have biological kids) sons who want to do scouts with them?

It came up at Pinewood Derby among some of the moms, and I was the minority regarding the matter.  Which is fine, I understand that people are going to have different ideas and we don't all have to agree.  And the opinion sharing was done amicably.  The part that hurt my heart, though, was when I asked what about men in leadership who have habitual sins in their life (i.e. pornography, lying, addictions, adultery, etc) that are still ongoing, how come that is ok, and basically I was told that in those instances, their sins weren't public and were between God and that man.

I guess, if that works for people to swallow that, but it grieves my heart that so many Christians have accepted this idea about secret sin, with its implicit teachings (because yes, your secret habits are totally visible in the way you act and kids pick up on these things, often embrace them too) as ok.  I don't follow that.  In fact, the overarching message I get from the Bible is that God wants, has always wanted, our hearts.  He's like that old Cheap Trick song: I want you to want me, I need you to need me, I'd love you to love me...  Our actions, public and especially private, extend from our hearts - Proverbs 4:23-26, Matthew 12:34 and Luke 6:45 - and it is particularly easy to publicly serve God, but if we say it is ok to sin when all eyes are off of us...then our hearts are not His.

Then there is the issue of same-sex marriage.  It was in my FB feed today b/c Colorado has passed legislation in favor of civil unions and there was a story by the newspaper being promoted.  It wasn't long before religion got brought up in the comments section.  Even if it was a universally held belief by Christians that homosexuality was a sin that absolutely had to be abstained from (as opposed to infidelity, gluttony, and other equally important sins that while classified as such, still happen from time to time and it's all good because grace, right?), last I checked, we are a democracy not a theocracy.  I don't get why the hullabaloo about giving same-sex couples the same rights that married men and women enjoy.  I don't understand why people do not see this as the civil rights issue that it is, and I also do not see why, despite Scripture's admonition for us to leave judgment for non-believers to God, so many insist on decrying that God's law is being violated.  Also, where was all of this religious mob when divorce laws became so lax that hetero marriage became a laughingstock in this nation?

And finally...I woke up with gay news on the radio this morning.  See, the husband's alarm radio is a sports talk show, and obvs the big news is Jason Collins coming out.  It was encouraging talk, accepting talk, and it just made me know that I needed to finally get this all off of my chest.

In the end, if nothing else, perhaps my Christian friends and I can leave my stance at 'a disputable matter,' (I'll even count myself as the one with weaker faith if it helps) and move on, together.  Because I still believe in Jesus, and I still believe that everyone's (big finger pointing at self) a sinner and needs Him, and that's what really matters, isn't it?

 

Friday, March 29, 2013

Mercy's Fool

This post has been in the makings for a LONG time....in my head.  Recent events have only convinced me that now is the time to write it - probably in a series as my thoughts are SO numerous.  This process is completely indicative of what I want HeatherInTheMaking to be, a safe place to reflect, grow, and revise as needed.

She was cold, trembling with shame as the telltale signs of her chill were exposed, visible through the thin linen underdress, the customary sadhin, that she wore.  "Will they punish me and call me a harlot for this as well?" she wondered.  She crossed her arm over her breasts to conceal the evidence of her discomfort.  The men had taken her without allowing her to put her outer robes back on.  Her thin, almost threadbare, sadhin was a woefully inadequate grasp at any remaining shred of modesty she could claim, and offered no protection from their eyes.

Though she suffered the painful awareness of every carnal need her body was crying out for - warmth, food, drink, and sleep - she remained quietly aloof.  She knew the risk of her actions…that she had willfully sinned against the law.  To become hysterical and beg for undeserved mercy would do nothing for her but subject her to further judgment and cruelty.  She was exhausted, but death was certain, and despite her captors' own periodic dozing, she resisted to sleep, reliving the all-too-few memories she had of feeling loved, safe, protected in her life before it would all be taken from her.

Clearly these 'men of God' had no interest in following the letter of Moses' law, or else Nachum would be here with her, he just as guilty as she.  Nachum, her beloved, who had loved her their whole lives, and mourned the day her parents married her off to that horrid old man she now called husband. Nachum, who had tenderly kissed away the bruises left by Jubal.  Nachum, whose scent still lingered on her skin.  Did he know of her plight, and despair, realizing death was unavoidable?  Or, the more cynical side of her wondered, was he sated to have finally known her, relieved to face no consequence?  That thought stole her breath away, striking her heart with a searing pain far more excruciating than any of Jubal's beatings. "No," she pleaded silently with herself, "Nachum is an honorable man."  He had told her that first night that he was prepared to face death with her if they were ever found out, that he would rather die in the sin of loving her than live a righteous life, without her love.  Hot tears slid down her face at the memory leaving wet trails in the dusty floor as they fell.


Yeshua.  Throughout the night, she heard the elders who were awake talking, most of it unintelligible, frantic whispering.  But that name kept presenting itself in their discussions.  "Who is this Yeshua?" she wondered.  "No matter," she eventually decided. "Dawn is approaching and my fate will be sealed soon enough."  As the men were selectively following the law, she wondered if she would even be given the requisite trial before they executed her for her sin....

The story of the woman caught in adultery has been on my mind a lot in recent months.  As illustrated above, I've imagined many different scenarios that could be the back-story to what we read in John 7:53-8:11.  In addition, I've done quite a bit of reading regarding the story's authenticity, as my Bible has a disclaimer above this passage: [The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53—8:11. A few manuscripts include these verses, wholly or in part, after John 7:36, John 21:25, Luke 21:38 or Luke 24:53.]  I believe to my core that this passage is authentic because it rings true with Jesus' reactions to the Samaritan woman at the well and that of the sinful woman's washing of his feet with her hair, tears and perfume.  It is a story of love and mercy, which is what Jesus is all about, and has been a go-to passage for me throughout my faith journey because it resonates with me so loudly.


Last quarter, my church had an amazing, thought-provoking, and controversial class highlighting the book UnChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity and Why it Matters  - which talked, among other things, largely about how in America, Christianity has become too political, too judgmental, and too homophobic, in the eyes of many outside and inside the church.  It spoke to my liberal-leaning heart and really caused me to stop and think, "Just what do I really believe and how do I live [or not] out those beliefs every day?"  Then we covered another book by the same author, You Lost Me: Why Young Christians are Leaving Church ... and Rethinking Faith, in which I saw myself described when the author described a group of people he called Exiles:

…let’s define exiles as those who grew up in the church* and are now physically or emotionally disconnected in some way, but who also remain energized to pursue God-honoring lives. They feel the loss, in many ways, of the familiar church environment in which they once found meaning, identity, and purpose. They feel lost, yet hopeful. (75)
…many of today’s exiles…feel isolated and alienated from the Christian community — caught between the church as it is and what they believe it is called to be. (77)
*I did not grow up in the church, but have walked with Christ {or let Him drag me, kicking and screaming at times} for almost half my life now.  

Huge plug for my church - we are asking the tough questions and testing the spirits rather than complacently regurgitating platitudes that often don't even have a scriptural root.  Though I sometimes feel lost and that my personal understanding of God is too different from many of theirs, I know that they love me, will love me, no matter what.  And that, friends, is no small potato.  I mean, I know this is true of God, but my fellow human beings whose hearts can harden with flawed understanding?

How do I know, like really know, deep within my bones, that these people have my back, and will always have my back?  Will always pray for me and love me even if my doctrine differs from theirs, even if I admit to doing heinous things?

I know this because last Wednesday over 100 of us, roughly 1/3 of our body, took time off work and drove 80ish miles round-trip to sit for hours in a courtroom to show our love and beg mercy for a brother who was admittedly guilty of a grievous sin.  It is easy for anyone to stand up for someone who has been wronged, but to stand up for someone who has done wrong, repeatedly and intentionally?  The prosecutor alleged that our brother had "bamboozled" us, and that was tough to swallow, but here is the fact of the matter:  For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Our brother did wrong, and he deserved the full punishment of the law, just as the woman from John's story was guilty of adultery in the eyes of the Law.  But we as Christians serve a God who says, "Let any one of you who is without sinful desires* be the first to throw a stone..."  * Yes, the original language apparently translates to sinful desires, as in wants and thoughts of the heart and is not necessarily limited to sinful things someone has actually done.  And mercy, like grace, is not earned or deserved, it is a granting of favor.  The difference is that mercy mitigates a punishment while grace is a gift.  The two are often co-mingled, especially in Christian theology.


Over the past year, we'd watched our brother work to right his wrongs, paying back as much as he could through the sale of his home, retirement account, and humble wages as a janitor.  We'd seen him atrophy and waste away with grief over the devastation his sin had caused for all involved parties, his employer, his family, and his community.  We'd seen him repent.  Those things are all bonus - as the woman in the story does not indicate remorse or changed behavior.  But, Jesus didn't require it from her before granting mercy, either.  He offered mercy to her where she was at, guilty, and then admonishes her to walk the straight and narrow.  He teaches us to first and foremost, examine ourselves and show mercy to others in response.  


That, my friends, is why we all showed up at court last week - not because we felt jail was undeserved, not because in all other aspects our brother was a good man, not because we wished to minimize his actions, not because he 'bamboozled' us into thinking a lesser punishment was warranted.  We showed up because we love him, will continue to love on him and his family during his imprisonment, and love always hopes, even when it is foolish to do so.  I've never been prouder to be part of my church than I was that day, because we embodied Love, the kind of Love that defies conventional understanding and seems radical to people on the outside.  It made me feel like less of an exile and more of a member, for sure.


I believe that God did hear our prayers and sway the judge to a merciful ruling, lessening it from what it could have been.  It was not absolute mercy, the lightest sentence available, but it was also not the maximum and there is something to be said for that.  Now, I'm just praying for beauty from ashes.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

The Big Existential Comeback

You know how in life you have friends in school, college, work, etc. that are your best friends during the time you're together, but then life events like moving, graduating, new jobs, new kids, new homes, etc., etc., take you away from each other and you drift apart?  But then somehow you cross paths again?  Whether it's a bump in to each other at Target with a college friend who just happens to live in the same town still, or it's the culmination of an obsessive hey-I-wonder-what-happened-to-so-n-so dig on Facebook, you reconnect and you pick up right where you left off {barring the fact that you now have new/different kids, spouses, careers, etc} and have the same relational vibe you always did before.

That's kinda what the blogosphere is to me - this space, these posts and the comments in them.  Problem is, so many of the peeps I loved seven years ago have either 1.) like me, left their blogs to fallow, hoping for a return to what blogging once was for them or 2.) gotten mad successful and wouldn't even know me, the blogger who changed her username and url a minimum of 5 times in the past seven years, if I did happen to comment on their posts again.

Unlike many blogging friends who've reinvented over the years, I've imported all of the early stuff to keep with me.  Good, bad, ugly.  Sweet, sad, and celebratory.  I've kept it, and I'm glad I have.  Oh yeah, the older, wiser me went through and weeded out the unwise posts I may or may not have made, but the general sense of what was going on and who I was through that?  I kept that as a reminder of both the progress I've made and a chronicle of the things that plague me year after year.

How could I know what a great mirror this place would be?  What a great place for me to come and SEE myself for real? But I looked back here and saw the shaping that God has done in me in the last seven years...saw that He has a plan for me and that I just need to keep on keeping on and He will bring it to me what I was made to do.  Waiting is hard - see the above reference about the things that plague me year after year?  Patience is one of those things.  It don't come easy, that's for sure.  {It pained me to write that b/c it's grammatically incorrect, but saying it properly didn't sound very poetic...soo....}

I recently realized, at the funeral of my husband's great-aunt, that I am NOT the one to take pictures at family events - that I'm not the one who captures evidence of family gatherings and later edits them into slideshows or scrapbooks.  But I have and can still capture the events, the emotions, the day to day {which is beginning to run together too easily into an amorphous blob of a memory that I can't quite grasp} happenings of my family.  So, I need to keep coming back, keep writing, and preserve something of the present for my children.

I'm ba-aack!  So I'ma gonna try and write more, and comment more and get this place back into what it was before.  Will y'all help me kickstart again?

 

Monday, January 7, 2013

riding the wave

So I closed 2012 out here on the blog with a lot of.....

Nothing.

Silence.

But it wasn't for lack of anything to say.

I got the job.  And waited to start until the week after Thanksgiving, which was for the best, really, but it made December kind of crazy, not to mention financially tight given that 1.) we were already behind on money, 2.) uh, Christmas, and 3.) because I'd neglected to ask about pay frequency, I soon discovered my new gig pays MONTHLY, and I'd started right at the beginning of the pay period.  Any working mom knows the trouble that presents with childcare being due in advance, but we made it, PHEW!  God has been so good to us in providing just what we need when we need it - not gonna lie and say I haven't gained new gray hairs over it, but when His providence appears on the horizon and I know we can abide in it, the joy and peace that comes is truly indescribable.

Additionally, we found ourselves smack in the midst of a new schedule that has Mom waking at 5:30 to get things rolling at casa del Meyer, working from 9-6, Dad picking up Christopher from his Montessori school, and a crazy evening routine of family dinner, cleanup, and residual homework all before bedtime at 8:30.  There've been some transition pains, yes, but overall, it's been good.  Thus, regarding the holiday, gifts were haphazardly purchased with mere days to spare, we got to spend a few hours with my side of the family, and we hosted Christmas for the Meyer side of family.  That said, I didn't get things together enough to make my homemade items for teachers, coordinate a Christmas letter/picture to send out to friends and family, or make goodies for the neighbors, per usual.

So, today, this last day of Christmas break, I'm finally going to take some time to breathe and do our family's  year in review for 2012 and try to bring y'all current.

2012 was a year of busy, hard work and lots of great times as a family for casa del Meyer.  We had lots of firsts in 2012, too.

At the beginning of the year, Seth was in the second half of his first year as Cub Master for Colton's Cub Scouts pack, and Heather was a novice coach for Kelsey's 5th grade Odyssey of the Mind team.  {Kelsey and Colton had both done OM in 2011 and this was their second year, but a first for Mom as coach.}  The spring was highlighted with the Pinewood Derby and the OM Regional Tournament where Kelsey and Heather were shocked {and thrilled} as their team placed 2nd and advanced to the State tournament in May!  We didn't place further at State, but what a great time we had and how inspiring it was to see a team of kids be creative together.

This year marked the year archery became a hobby for the entire family, when Heather got her first bow in the spring and we purchased a membership to our local archery range.  We've spent many hours over the weekend there learning the craft.

In April, Keith Lancaster came to our church to provide a singing workshop, and lit the fire in three of our men to attend his Worship Leader Institute in Tulsa that summer.  Come July, Seth boarded his first airplane and spent a full week at the Worship Leader Institute, learning how to really engage our congregation into giving our best to God in worship.  He had a wonderful time and the impacts of the instruction he received have been dramatically noticeable each time he steps up to lead worship at church.  At the same time Seth was coming home, Heather and the kids were leaving for a week of camp, making this summer the first time Seth and Heather have spent more than a week away from each other.  Camp was great, and we enjoyed a few more weeks of summer before school started.

This fall marked the first year that Kelsey and Colton didn't go to the same school, the end of one era as they began another when Kelsey started middle school.  She did her first organized sport, running with the cross country team, and has been learning to play her first instrument, the trumpet her daddy once played.  She continues to be a star student, if on the quiet side per all her teachers at conferences this fall.  Colton is in 4th grade and has been a busy bee with Colorado State history projects like his Mesa Verde diorama.  His teacher this year is wonderful and has really inspired Colton in the classroom.  He is in OM again {and Heather is coaching again - despite her hope to take a year off} and still very active in Cub Scouting.  Christopher is a joy, constantly hamming it up with his silly faces and voices to get the ready attention of those around him.  And not just that of our family; he has an attractive force about him, making teens at church, other Cub Scouts and students from the older kids' schools flock to him and see what new trick he has to show them.  He continues to speak in the vowel-heavy pattern he's long adopted where inflection changes "ou" from shoe to soup, which seems to add to his charm rather than raise any concern about impediments.  He started "heehaw coow" {horse school}, his first experience with full-time daycare, at a local Montessori school in November when Heather began her new job and likes to do his block work, take naps, and ride the horses.

While Heather enjoyed the balance of being home with the kids and working as a free-lance grant writer this past year, the feast or famine nature of self-employment did little to stabilize the financial struggles we've had shortly after Christopher was born.  In November, she returned to social work with an organization that serves youth demonstrating risky behaviors.  She is three-quarter time and thus enjoys Mondays off and half-day Fridays.

Seth spent a few weekends hunting with his dad during archery season again this year; and brought home a deer that has been so mild and tasty, it has gone very quickly!  He signed up to do his work's small-scale version of The Biggest Loser and put his heart {and soles} into his efforts as a new runner.  The more conscientious eating plan and 60+ miles he ran over 6 weeks paid off, as he dropped 20+lbs and claimed the highest percentage lost of his co-workers.  In a follow-up weigh in at the end of the year, he had lost another 5-6 lbs and still claimed first place, so we are all very proud of his efforts.

As we begin 2013, we pray for a year with fewer tragedies than the one we've just closed.  Between all of the shootings, fires and the tragic story of Jessica Ridgeway, we've held on to the hope that Jesus provides us.  We pray that God will use us to be comforters, teachers, and servants to those in need this year, that blessings abound to those whom we love, and that we get to share in them with you.