Weak Spots

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Today was my son’s thirteenth birthday and we celebrated by going to the Smoky Mountains to play in the river. I had been watching the weather reports and it said it would rain, but by lunchtime, our city was sunny, so I was hopeful. But, as we approached the mountains, we could see heavy rain clouds covering everything. Ah well. The whole point was to go and get wet. What difference did it make if it was rain water or river water?

The rain actually helped us. We went to Metcalf Bottoms Picnic Area, which is usually full and very busy, and we found a picnic table right away, right next to the path we needed to go down, and right next to the restrooms. This never happens. But the rain was pushing people out. We put out some of our picnic stuff then headed down to the river, rain sprinkling down.

The kids had a lot of fun. There is a big rock with a deep pool beneath it that people like to jump off. The kids had fun jumping off the rock, riding the current down the river, climbing on rocks, swimming. I hung out with the three year old. He adopted a favorite rock in the middle of the river and spent most of the time playing there.

Later on the rain let up and we headed back to the picnic site to do birthday cake and snacks. Then, after cleaning up, back to the river. By the time we got back, you could see some blue sky and the sun was shining. A couple other families had ventured out now and were also jumping off the rock.

I observed as one father tried to get his young son (maybe two?) to jump off the rock. The child was terrified and was refusing. Screaming. The father finally picked up the child and jumped off the rock with him, the child screaming all the way down. After they resurfaced, the father turned in triumph to his son, See! It was fun! The child kept crying and the father insisted that he try to jump again. Later on the same dad made a comment to his older son (maybe nine or ten?) that he should STOP BEING A GIRL and do a flip off the rock. The son looked angry and sullen, but he didn’t do a flip off the rock.

This family eventually packed up and moved on and another family soon appeared. The contrast was amazing. The second family also had younger and older children. The father jumped off the rock then swam below. He held out his arms and called to his daughter, Jump! You can do it! The girl who looked around six or seven, hesitated a moment and then took a flying leap off the rock towards her father. Lots of cheers and compliments.

As I sat and watched all this, I thought about how we handle these things. Our general policy in the outdoors is, if you can do it by yourself, without help, then you are probably old enough to do it. We told our kids they could jump off the rock if they wanted to, the weak swimmers needed to be wearing their life vests. All the older kids launched themselves into the air. We told the five year old he could jump if he wanted, but he didn’t have to. He sat and thought about it for a while, then grinned and took a flying leap. The three year old also climbed onto the rock. He was getting close to the edge (he had his life vest on) and we asked if he wanted to jump. He looked down at the water…shook his head. Nope. (Smart kid, he takes after me.) My husband encouraged me to jump as well. I took a look at the drop off and the cold water below and I agreed with the three year old. Nope. That does not look like fun. I made an off-color joke about why I couldn’t jump and then climbed down the side of the rock with the three year old into the water. End of story.

And I wonder as I think about the Pushy Dad. Does he constantly live with a feeling of having to prove himself all the time? Prove you’re a man. Prove you’re strong and brave. Does he feel pushed into doing things he doesn’t want to do, cause he has to prove something? And does he push his own boys, because he has to prove they are brave as well? And I just wish I could say, Stop Striving! You’re enough! God accepts you as you are. God made you the way you are. No one’s keeping track of how many feats of bravery you did. No one cares if your sons don’t like jumping off high places. No one cares if they happen to like music and theater instead of football and car mechanics. They are individuals. You are an individual. Don’t feel like you have to conform to some cookie cutter stereotype. Be yourself, and above all, let your boys be themselves. Celebrate their uniqueness. Stop striving.

Then I have to stop and think for a minute. What weaknesses am I blind to in myself? How am I inadvertently passing these things on to my own children? Cause, I can be proud and say, I’m nothing like that dad I saw today, but in reality, I’m sure I’ve got my own stuff that comes out in its own toxic-parenting way. And I find myself praying for more grace as I observe the human race around me. Lord, open my eyes to see what I am blind to in myself, and give me grace when I notice the weakness in others.

It’s OK to be Sad

Do any of you struggle with feeling Big Feelings? I always feel like I need to apologize for being depressed or angry or sad. Like, these emotions are on the bad list and I need to switch over to Happy and Content and Peaceful as soon as possible.

This week has been a bit rough for our family. My kids have been dragging around and have been downright depressed. Do you want to go to the creek to play? No. Do you want to go to the one open playground that I know about? No. Do you want to go bike riding? No. And then they ask, when is school starting? When can we see our friends again?

We have talked about school, how it’s going to look different for the kids who are going to the actual school building. Social distancing! Masks! Don’t share things! The little kids who I’m keeping home to homeschool, want to know, again, why they can’t go to the building? And I’m tempted to just go and enroll them and hope for the best. Except that all the reasons I have for homeschooling still exist. I’m sorry sweetie. If school has to shut down for sickness, I don’t want you having to do computer school when you’re only in 2nd grade. But, if everything goes smoothly this semester, I’ll put you in school in January. We just have to wait and see.

And I realize, my kids are mourning. They are mourning their lives being turned upside down. School being different. “I hate the coronavirus!” has become a common refrain. A couple of my kids seem to have just closed in on themselves. Kids who always needed a bit of a push to engage, and now I have nowhere to push them.

And I’m wracking my brain, trying to figure out how to help them, and realizing I’m in the same boat. I’m feeling isolated and scared to make any plans because things might change at any moment. I will have three kids in the school building which means, there is the possibility, every single day, that I will get a phone call saying that one of my kids has been exposed to a positive case of Covid-19 and now we all have to quarantine. Not fun.

I think about needing community, and things to look forward to. I contemplate planning musical evenings, and poetry nights, and having people over. And I really want to, but I’m fighting the unease. What if I have a bunch of people over, and then a day later, I find out that one of my kids has been exposed and we have to quarantine, and now I have to call a bunch of people and tell them, hey, you might have been exposed. While I am not overly concerned about getting sick (as my husband says, it’s a virus, you can’t stop a virus, we are all going to get it eventually) I still feel bad about causing alarm to anyone else. And so, I drag my feet about planning gatherings.

And I realize that I am also mourning. I am mourning that I can’t send my kindergartner to school. He’s been looking forward to it for a long time. I have too. Yeah, he’ll do fine homeschooling, but I wanted him to have all those Firsts. First day of school. First time meeting your teacher and class. First time getting to go school with the big kids. I am mourning the fact that everything is uncertain. Yes, we will establish this schedule, but everything might change. You never know. I am mourning the fact that inviting people to my home now feels risky. Yes, we’ll have a cookout this weekend, Lord willing, and we don’t have to quarantine! I am mourning the fact that my daughter won’t be doing ROTC this year. My quirky son won’t be able to try out for the school play. My other son won’t be doing soccer club in the after school program. My second grader won’t get to see if her best friend is in her class again this year.

We are all mourning. And I keep feeling like I need to apologize for not feeling perky and happy.

So, No Apologies! This year has been hard! It’s ok to not have it all together. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to mourn.

My mourning is not hopeless. My trust is in the Lord. I know that he will bring good things out of the bad and he will carry us through this time. But, in the meantime, it’s ok to be sad.

Switched Off

Today marks one month of no tv for the family and no devices for the younger kids. Supposedly the teens and I have reduced our phone usage to two hours. But I haven’t got a good handle on how that’s going yet.

I decided that I had a tv/device habit that needed to be kicked. So, the tv has been removed to my husband’s shop and the devices are put away in a drawer.

Things I have learned since turning everything off…

I have been seriously dependent on the tv to calm my kids down, entertain them, give myself quiet time, babysit them when I’m gone, and just basically fill any gap that pops up in our day.

It has definitely helped me to be lazy in my parenting.

Let me just state for the record, there have been seasons where tv has saved my life. Even the last season we just came out of, I don’t know how I would have done it without being able to turn the tv on. Our devices have been a motivational tool during this pandemic that have gotten us through a lot of school work and chores with minimal pain. Tv and devices are good tools. As long as you are controlling the tools and the tools aren’t controlling you.

I think what has mainly been the deciding factor for turning everything off this time (cause, yes, I’ve done this before), is that I want to change the culture of our home. I want us to have a reading culture. I want my kids to know how to get creative when they’re bored instead of just whining to watch a show. I want us to have family time in the evenings where we have devotions and read books and poetry out loud and do music together. And somehow, I had let the tv take over the house and we had lost those things. So, we’ve turned everything off.

Mentally, it’s been a big adjustment. I am having to learn that instead of just sending everyone off to watch a show when they’re driving me crazy, I can send everyone to their rooms, or send everyone outside. In the evenings, instead of retreating to my room, I am learning to settle on the couch with a giant pile of books that we read out loud. During the day I am offering piano lessons to bored children, crafts, learning games, trips to the library. I am also trying to turn a blind eye to random forts and clubhouses that are popping up all over the house, toys littering my bedroom floor, kids digging around in my drawers cause they need paper to write a book or a play.

Honestly, I think turning the tv off has hurt me the most, not the kids. I have to be more engaged. Put up with more chaos. Deal with more messes.

But, overall, we’ve had good results.

My five and seven year olds have been keeping a list of all the books they’ve either read themselves or had read to them, and they are close to 100. The older kids have significantly increased the number of books they’re reading. My older boys have gotten very creative with their legos. My nine year old wrote a play. The three year old is sitting with books, pretending that he is reading, pointing at the words, making up the story as he goes. And, best of all, all the kids are desperately anxious for school to start. Me too.

I told the kids we would do this for four months. We’ll see how it goes.

“The Peace of Wild Things”

I am sitting by the lake, I’ve been watching my kids swim, but they have now moved on to playing prince and princess and are concocting some elaborate make-believe game. I only have the three youngest with me. My husband and five of our kids left at 4am this morning to go hike a mountain. I don’t expect them home till late tonight. My other two daughters are at their grandparent’s house, in town, a short distance away. It has now been twelve days since we left Knoxville on our vacation, and it has taken about ten of those days for me to finally be able to just relax. We still have a couple more days before we head home and I am thoroughly enjoying the wonderful feeling of doing nothing except some light household chores and watching my children swim in the lake.

It’s been a different kind of vacation. State mandates mean that we can’t go shopping or go out and be around a lot of people. We have seen basically just a few family members and had them do our grocery shopping for us. Aside from a day trip to the beach, we have just stayed in our little cabin and enjoyed the lake and the woods. And it has been wonderful.

My restless husband has been able to help his Uncle and Aunt with a remodel project, my teen girls have hung out with their grandparents and the little ones have practiced their swimming.

My brain has had time to process. Relive, rethink, reassess. And finally, it has just quieted down. I’ve read some good books, done “adult” coloring where there is an inspiring scripture and then a ton of elaborate details to color in. Not something I do often, but I find when I am coloring, the analyzing part of my brain shuts off, and I’m just thinking about staying in the lines, and what color should I use next? It has the same effect for me as playing scales on the piano, or re-reading a favorite book. Occasionally, I will stop coloring and just think about the verse. Meditate.

We don’t get to do this every year. More like every two or three years. But I am glad for these times.

As my brain has quieted and I have rested, I find myself getting ideas again. Getting excited about projects. I am even starting to feel excited about homeschooling some of my kids. I am plotting out schedules, and thinking about books to read and papers we will write and discussions we will have. Spelling charts for the second grader. Homemade calendars.

And this is the difference between stressed-out me and healthy me. The ability to dream and be excited about the future.

I remember in the flurry of having lots of babies, I went for years without having any dreams. I was too exhausted. Too overwhelmed. The future was too far away. I was just surviving today. This moment. This minute. This second.

The past months have been that for me. Survival.

And it’s good to feel that quieting down. To feel like the ability to dream is coming back.

I even told my husband that one day, when all the kids are grown, I want to get a giant fluffy dog. Like a St. Bernard. Or something like that. He immediately pointed out that big dogs are expensive. And I pointed back that all the kids will be gone and I will have money to spend on a dog. 🙂 He’s not over-excited about that dream….yet. I’ve got some time to talk him around. 🙂

Here is a poem I found.

“The Peace of Wild Things”

Wendell Berry

Listen

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Today, I am thankful for nature. For God’s creation. For the beauty he created that provides rest to all people, believer or not. It is one of his gifts to humankind.

And I’m thankful for the time he has given me to just rest.

Peace is a Verb

It has been days since I’ve last written and I almost feel a craving to get back to my keyboard. Our family is on vacation at the moment. Staying in a family-owned, small, rustic cabin on a beautiful lake that has entertained generations of my husband’s family. Tucked away in rural America, far from home, it is a wonderful escape from daily life. I have been weathering the shock to my system that comes from suddenly disconnecting from everyday life. No agenda. No plans. No schedules. The kids have been living in the lake. They have turned into little minnows. My only job is to keep an eye on them, join them occasionally, when the whim hits, and prepare three meals a day.

I’ll tell you what I have been thinking about the last couple days.

Peace is not a place. It’s also not a lack of movement or busyness. It’s also not being in nature. Or having complete freedom in your schedule.

Cause, if it was all those things? I’d be floating on a cloud of peace right now.

Instead, I am finding that I am having to fight for peace just as hard as I was when I was home, surrounded by schedules and appointments and work and busyness.

I am having to take my thoughts captive, train them to go in a better direction. I am having to be purposeful about being thankful and looking for the good all around me. I am having to mentally box up all the things that I can’t fix (world pandemic, crazy politics, the coming school year) and again say, Ok, God, I am leaving these things in your hands, my worry is not going to change or fix any of these problems. I am having to seek out scriptures, to remind myself of the goodness of God and strengthen my faith again.

I am hoping that the fact that I am on vacation will mean that I can actually be more purposeful about seeking peace. I am hoping that simply sitting in nature will eventually help my tense muscles to relax. I am hoping that the change of pace will be a time of bonding for our family and a time to simply have fun together. I am hopeful that by the end of this time, I will be recharged, ready to tackle the coming school year. These are my hopes. But, these things are not going to happen automatically. I am going to have to seek them, chase after them, pursue them. If I don’t, I will just spend this entire time fretting and worrying and stressing.

Peace is a verb. A state of being. Sometimes, it’s a gift that is simply handed to me, but usually, it is a purposeful pursuing. A conscious choice. And in my experience, what I’m pursuing is Jesus. More of him, less of me, that is how I get peace. It is an acknowledgment of his sovereignty, his goodness, his love. A moving of my thoughts so that they line up with what the Bible says about my life.

The good news is that you don’t have to be on vacation to have peace. While I’m going to treat this time off as the lovely treasure that it is, I know that the peace I look for during this time is something I can take home with me. It is always close at hand, whenever I’m willing to seek it.

You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.

Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)

This is What We are Going to Do

Well, our school district rolled out their plan yesterday for how we are going to proceed in the Fall. I will try to simplify it here.

If you aren’t comfortable sending your kids to school you have one week to sign up for online school. They will expect you to commit to that choice for an entire semester. The other option is to send your child to school (starting one week later than normal). Everyone will have daily temperature checks before entering the building and face masks will be required for staff and students. Lots of cleaning will occur. It sounds like each school is going to make their own call on how they do eating and group classes. There is no set in stone plan for dealing with a positive case of Covid 19 in the building. They will take each case as it comes and decide what is appropriate. It does say that a teacher who is required to quarantine will have to take that time from their own personal emergency sick days, and if they run out of those they will have to take unpaid time off. Doesn’t sound very fair. Also, every student is going to get a computer (and there are instructions on how to get wi-fi if you don’t have it) so that, if students get sent home for quarantining or any other reason, they will be able to continue doing school online.

I’m now going to tell you what we are doing and why.

My two high-schoolers are going to school as normal. They’re old enough to be able to handle wearing masks and if school ends up getting shut down for sickness, and they have to switch to online learning, I still want them to be doing that through their high school, not through me.

My seventh grader has asked to stay home and be homeschooled. He does not want to wear a mask all day, and he doesn’t want to be sitting in front of a computer all day. I said yes, we can homeschool because, first, he’s a laid back kid, easy to teach, and second, he’s a very good student and I am confident that I can keep him on track easily. I plan to teach him the same science subjects and history subjects that they are doing at public school so that he can easily return to public school either in January or for the next school year.

I did not give my 5th grader the option to homeschool. We have already established that we don’t work well together. He also said that he’s not interested in sitting in front of a computer all day and would prefer to be in a classroom. And he has no problem wearing a mask all day. Also, he is a very healthy, active child.

My fourth grader has also asked to go to school. Same reasons. She doesn’t mind the mask and she wants to be in a classroom. She is also a very healthy, active girl.

I did not give my 2nd grader a choice. She is going to stay home and homeschool. She has asthma, her immune system is a lot weaker than my other kids, and she goes into a complete panic any time she has to wear a mask. While online school would be an option, I feel like a 2nd grader should be doing hands-on work, not staring at a screen all day. She is also a good student that works well with me, so I’m not worried about homeschooling her.

I also did not give the kindergartner a choice, he is staying home and being homeschooled. While he could probably handle wearing a mask all day, I worry about the times that he will get sent home and have to do his work on a computer. I do not feel like computer school is appropriate for kindergarten. Again, I want him working with manipulatives, and working on his handwriting and coloring pictures and running around a lot. There is also the fact that I was already a little concerned about how he was going to do in kindergarten. He’s a dreamy kid who gets lost in his own thoughts often, not an ideal characteristic in a classroom. He’s also a smart little kid. We have already done a kindergarten curriculum at home this year because he whizzed through all my preschool stuff. He’s ready to start 1st grade level curriculum and I was afraid that he might get bored in Kindergarten. So, I’m keeping him home. Let me add that he is also a laid back kid who is easy to school.

I’m giving you all this information because I worry about moms feeling pressured both ways. Pressured to homeschool when they don’t want to. Pressured to send kids to school when they don’t want to. Pressured to make a blanket decision for the whole family, when actually, each child needs something different. Be encouraged. This year, there is no right answer for how to school your kids.

I would also encourage you to pray about it. Last night, my brain was whirling and I didn’t think I was going to get any sleep. I finally prayed, God, you love these kids, you know what’s best for them, you also want me to make the right choices for these kids. So I’m going to trust that you will give me a plan.

I woke up this morning and this was the plan that was in my head, to make an individual decision for each child depending on that child’s needs. So, happy decision making to all of you! And let’s have lots of grace for each other, as each person decides what is best for their family!

Goodbye for Now

Yesterday our time with our foster kids came to an end. And it felt like my heart walked out of my door. And I am frozen between conflicting emotions.

I love foster care, the chance for families to help children in need. I hate foster care, the need is too deep, too wide to ever possibly completely fill.

I am heartbroken that these kids are gone, they became part of our family. I am relieved that these kids are gone, my family unit is back in place again.

I am devastated that I can no longer pour into these kids. I am relieved that my daily burdens have lessened.

I feel desperate panic that their departure from my home is causing them even more pain. I feel comfort that the struggles that my birth children have been facing are now being relieved.

And I hate the messiness of it all. Why can’t life be a neat printed picture where we carefully color in the lines and everything is orderly and in place?

Why is love so painful? And beautiful? And ugly?

I feel like there has been a death in my family.

Goodbye my loves. I will always be here. I pray that there will be a time again when I can be in your lives and let you know just how much I love you.

Running on Empty

You know that phrase, “God never gives you more than you can handle” ? I am going to go on record and say, Bullcrap. That is not true.

Looking back at my life I can see times when all of my reserves have been full. I have had a lot of margin in my life: lots of stored up energy, an overabundance of grace and peace. And then there have been times when I have been completely drained dry, nothing left to give. I would compare those times to kind of like putting $5 of gas in your tank every day and then having to commute to work and run to the store, and every night, the tank is empty and you wonder if you can make it to the gas station with what you’ve got left the next morning. And you hope you can dig up another $5 for the next day.

Sometimes God throws jobs and challenges at us that are more than we can handle.

Giving birth to ten children within a sixteen year stretch of time, was more than I could handle. Raising ten kids was more than I could handle. Having various homeless families and couples live with us over the years was more than I could handle. Taking in foster kids was more than I could handle.

I find myself in a place now, where the phrase, “Give us this day, our daily bread.” really means something to me. I am in daily need of sustenance. Daily. Yesterday’s bread is gone and used up. I need more today. The phrase “My grace is sufficient for you..” has heavy meaning. Sufficient means enough, adequate. Note, it does not mean overflowing abundance. It’s just the right amount, none left over. Each day I need a new dose of that grace.

I have learned what living on empty means. It’s kind of like doing math all day. Here, you get 10 units this morning. Dealing with that conflict subtracts 3 units, running errands subtracts 2 units, stressing about bills? Minus 2. If we run out of units, then we shut down the day. Turn on the tv, take a short nap, go get pizza for supper…There’s some addition going on as well. Read your Bible in the morning? Add on 3 units. Shut the door to my room and do something peaceful and solitary for fifteen minutes, Plus 2.

And each night, I collapse into bed. Not dead. Haven’t completely failed at life yet. We’re still taking steps forward. The daily bread was provided. The grace proved to be sufficient.

God is still on his throne, and his hand is still upon me. And I will sleep and do it all again tomorrow, leaning heavily on my God.

And I pray that somehow my life will bring glory to God. That somehow this season of desperation is also a season of great fruit, a season of big growth, a season of close intimacy with God.

And I realize that despite the fact that I am living on the edge, it can still be a place of peace. Today my bible reading was in John 16. Verse 33 stood out to me,

“These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

This old hymn comes to mind…

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms

Alan Jackson

What a fellowship, what a joy divine