Thanks. A Lot.

Yes, folks, it's time for my annual Thanksgiving blog post.  Try to contain your excitement, because this isn't going to be my usual Christian cheerleader message.

Don't get me wrong...in watching the sunrise this morning, and in contemplating what to say in this post, I remain convicted in my faith.  I believe there is a benevolent Creator of the universe that I call the one true God who loves every hair on my head, who created the oceans and my breakfast.  I believe the mystery of salvation through Jesus - I don't pretend to understand it, but empirical evidence and my own spiritual experience supports it enough for me.

I love him, and he loves me.  I know that to be true.  I know that a converted Jew from Tarsus who once hated Christians said that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, that I'm to be patient in affliction and that all things work for the good of those who love him. 

I know that Jesus' brother James said that I'm to consider it pure joy when I suffer trials because the testing of my faith produces perseverance, and that I'm to let perseverance finish its work in me so that I can be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Well, I'm not joyful or patient these days.  I'm sorry to be a buzz kill, but I'm just not.  And I can't muster up the energy to fake it - believe me, I've tried.

Here we are on the morning of Thanksgiving Eve, and all I can think about is being angry.  I know, I know, I have so much to be grateful for, and I'm an ungrateful wretch for dismissing the hundreds of daily blessings and focusing primarily on the handful of trials.  If I was really a "good Christian", I would quit my bellyaching and stop feeling so angry and pitiful.

In re-reading recent Babble and Caring Bridge posts, I see myself wrestling with this notion of "good" vs. "bad" behavior.  Everything is so black and white!  If I'll just be thankful, and do my daily study and meditation, then I will get rewarded for being a good Christian.  But if I give God the finger, do my own thing and ignore what He's got to say, then I'm an idiot who deserves every second of the pain I'm feeling.  And it's been my experience that even when I am faithful in study and prayer, the shit hits the fan anyway.

How much, Lord, and how long?  When I look around, it seems like I've gotten more pain than my fair share in the last 50 years. Yeah, yeah, I know the part about not judging my insides by other people's outsides, and everybody's got their own drama to survive, and of course I know that there are millions of people in the world who don't have what I have - materially, spiritually or otherwise.

And yet I am watching my husband s-l-o-w-l-y deteriorate right before my eyes, every minute of every day.  A heart attack, a couple of toe amputations, now kidney failure and it appears that blindness is not far down the road - all from diabetes.  Giant scary bruises where he's punctured six times a week for dialysis.  Teenage children in emotional pain that they don't understand and I can't relieve.  A church that is struggling desperately to recover from a tragic schism, and a job that I am terrified of losing.  A cluttered house that I don't feel like cleaning because I'm tired and depressed, a bad chest cold as I write this, an unwelcome return of thirty pounds and a half-constructed Christmas tree that I don't feel like finishing because the memories tied to each ornament hurt my heart.

I know I should be thankful, and most of the time, I am - for my husband and children, the church, the job, the house, my body, the food and the Christmas tree ornaments.  For a half-century's worth of a good and deeply-lived life.

I know I should be thankful.  I know that.  The part that makes me angry is that most of it isn't the way I scripted it, and while I'm intellectually aware that I am not actually the author of my life, I am still mad about it.

This should be the part where I see the error of my thinking today and promise myself to "do better" about gratitude because that's what a strong, healthy believer would do.  Sorry.  Not happening, at least not today.  If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I will actively and intentionally choose misery and self-pity until I'm bored with it.

The whole damn country is going to stuff itself silly tomorrow in "thankfulness" for bountiful blessings.  I am going to stuff myself silly because that's what I do when I hurt - gratitude has nothing to do with it. 

Waffling about actually hitting "submit" on this one, because it's full of vomit instead of joyful sunshine... but it's real and honest about where I am this Thanksgiving.  Sue me.

Little Sister

Today is my baby sister's forty-xxth birthday.  Last Sunday was my 51st birthday, so while neither of us qualify for spring chicken designation, I'm still the only one who's an AARP candidate.

How do I describe us?  To say we came from a dysfunctional family is a generous understatement -yet, to say that everyone loved each other anyway also falls short.  It takes a special kind of person to love a train wreck, but it's easier when you're related.

I thought about cataloguing our mutual tragedy - lord knows there's plenty of material - but instead I've decided to celebrate some major accomplishments that defy all odds.

 

1.  We are decent people.  True, we are still vaguely snarky and condescending to those with lazy hygiene, phony personage and/or government jobs, mostly because we've had all three.  Yet we still give and love generously and care for others and make sure that people who need stuff can have our stuff whenever possible.

 

2.  We are survivors.  While our aforementioned upbringing would make Tennessee Williams need smelling salts, the reality is that a good bit of destruction in the last 25 years is both tragic and self-wrought.  Blaming your parents has a fixed shelf-life.  Arguably, we came into adulthood with some effed-up coping skills, but regardless, one must rise above at some point and tend the roses instead of smelling the manure.  And here we are.

 

3.  We have faith.  Although Hal Lindsey's "The Late Great Planet Earth" was a favorite bedtime story when we were youngsters, and our maternal lineage espoused Southern Baptist AM radio (can I get an "amen-AH!"), we ended up loving God with our own individual faiths.  Growing up with fervent believers will plant something in your gut that is both frightening and hopeful, and if you're lucky, it eventually turns out to be made of nothing but pure love that goes beyond words.

 

4.  We are good moms.  It's a hard thing to say, but as messed up as she was, our mom was a decent mother.  Yes, we ate Captain Crunch for dinner, and we pinched her toes after she passed out on Thorazine because it would make her say some really funny shit, and we shivered in fear of the Infernal Revenue Service because they were coming to put her in Leavenworth any day.  And yet - she loved us more than breathing.  True, we learned a lot about being a crummy parent too, but mostly we learned that a loving mother can help you survive freakish and desperate circumstances, even if you cause them yourself or if she is one of them.

 

5.  We love each other.  This one is hard too.  In years past, we have gone months without speaking, and there are seasons of angry words that break my heart even now.  Nobody can hurt you like your sister, and yet nobody's affection has the same worth.  We are bound together by memories and DNA, and I consider every call and card and email and hug something grace-filled and sacred.  I know of other people with siblings who loathe each other because they can't resist picking each other's scabs - my sister and I have learned which ones we can help heal and which ones we need to leave alone because nothing good will come from rubbing salt in them.

In short - I love my sister and it both surprises and delights me that we have made it into middle age with affection and sanity reasonably intact.  And I wish her a lovely, joy-filled birthday - and I celebrate the fact that she is my sister.

Slow Learner

When I was in elementary school, I received regular praise for my intellect.  What a smart little girl! they said.  My little construction paper-bound report cards bore it out, too... rows upon rows of As (with an occasional B in gym class - I've never been one for working up a sweat.)

Middle, and then high school proved far less successful.  Granted, there were a few distractions in other parts of my life, which I wore as proud excuses for Ds, sort of like a girl scout badge.  I continued to do well in those things that came easy to me, but anything else received half-hearted effort if any at all.  There was much "tsk-tsking" from teachers and parents and other adults - "she has such potential - what a shame she's wasting it."

I once heard a speaker describe it this way:  "I don't know how to play the piano, but I've always wanted to play the piano.  I don't want to LEARN to play the piano, I don't want to have to PRACTICE playing the piano, I just want to sit down and play the piano." 

Regarding potential, he said, "I had plenty of potential...but it's MY potential and I'll do whatever I want with it."

I can relate.

**********

I want to be a great wife and mom;  I want to be healthy, respected, a friend to all, especially those in need - I'm trying hard to learn, practice and keep learning how to be each of these things.  I have the potential.

But if I'm honest, the thing I want most is peace. 

Contentment in all circumstances, is how Paul put it.  Peace.  Contentment.  All the potential in the world won't yield it because it isn't in our nature.  Not mine anyway.  It requires super-natural intervention, meaning something that is not of my own nature.

Yet for some reason, I don't appear to want to learn or practice in this area.  I just want someone to give peace to me.  Right now, right this red hot minute.  I want my life to be smooth and simple and full of everything I think will give me peace.

**********

I haven't had much peace lately.  There was a long stretch of time where I borrowed it from friends;  it was sort of like stealing cable TV.  If I connect with you, and you've got peace, somehow or another I get to use yours too.

But after a while, the cable company figures it out, and there are unpleasant consequences and basically everyone eventually has to pay for their own cable.  Likewise, I can only poach someone else's peace for so long before I start running into trouble and have to figure out where to get my own.

My church has been the source of my peace for several years now - I love these people like family.  But we recently went through a gut-wrenching schism and it became excruciatingly clear that I'd been depending on a pastor, a steeple and its people for my peace.

Time to pay for my own cable.

Overreaching the metaphor, I need to plug in directly to the source of peace, the only true peace I've ever known - my spiritual relationship with my Creator.

**********

I'm told and I believe this particular relationship predates my own birth, that He knew me and loved me before I was even an itch in my daddy's pants.  (Well, that's not exactly how it reads in the good book.)  As a kid, I heard about this love in Sunday School and from my parents, but mostly all I understood was about floods and bread and fishes. 

When you're little, you don't really know much about what's going on and who's really listening to your bedtime prayers other than your mom.  But still - I started learning the basics of how to have a reciprocal relationship with God - how to love Him back.  I think it made Him very happy for me to learn "Jesus Loves Me" and sing it regularly, whether for joy or because it comforted me when I was scared.

I began journaling around age 10 (yes, I had a diary, with a lock and everything!) and it wasn't terribly long before I started writing "Dear God" instead of "Dear Diary".  After all, what the heck was telling a diary all my junk going to accomplish?!  At least if I told God, He might intervene and make Bob Culver have a crush on me, too.

When I was old enough to truly decide for myself, I said that, yes, I was a sinner and that yes, I was all about accepting Jesus as my Savior, especially if that meant I'd get me some peace.  And over time, and through horrible seasons, and through some of the most joy filled moments of my life, I developed my relationship with God through talking with Him and reading His book. 

**********

But see, here's the thing.  Like any relationship, this one needs continual maintenance and work.  Continual learning and daily practice.  Not on God's part - He knows every hair on my head and every thought inside it.  (EEEK!)  And loves me anyway, unconditionally and endlessly. 

The problem is that I fall in and out of love with Him like a gold-digging floozy.  Sure, I will holler for His help when the feces hits the fan, and sometimes I remember to say "thanks" when I pause long enough to notice that my life is actually pretty darn good.

Yet there's no real relationship in that... and guess what?

There's not much peace, either.

In fairness to me, there truly have been long stretches of time in my adult life where I was diligent and faithful to our relationship - regular study, worship and prayer journaling.  So I do know how it's supposed to work, and the ball is always in my court.

But I've been so mad at Him lately!  Slowly, I've given up learning and practicing over the last several months.  And guess what?  No peace.  None, nada, zilch.  Now I can't even friggin' sleep.

I even began entertaining the notion that all this Jesus business was hooey cooked up by a bunch of Jews in the first century just to piss off Rome.  That this book I've been underlining and memorizing for the last umpteen years was just written by several centuries' worth of deluded sheep, and I'd been drinking their dopey Kool-Aid most of my life.

It hurts me to admit I have had these thoughts.  As if He didn't already know I had them.

**********

Still, I've kept my Bible and my journal on my desk, sort of off to the side where I can glare at them every day and fuel my guilt. No peace in that.

There's this bumper sticker I've seen and rolled my eyes about:  "No God - No Peace;  Know God - Know Peace."  Well duh, I know that already, I've lived it and experienced it and BULLY FOR YOU, bumper-sticker-person.

But knowing and doing are light years apart.

Lately I've found myself pulling away from friends, shoveling food into my face and shaking my fist at heaven, squarely perched on my pity pot.  And glaring at the side of my desk.

**********

Four days ago, I picked up a pen and opened the journal.  And I proceeded to write a long letter to God.  I can't really describe it as a prayer because it was mostly me telling Him off, with f-bombs and everything.

Three days ago, I picked up the journal, read what I wrote the previous day and then wrote an apology for being a selfish a**hole with a dirty mouth.

Two days ago, I started with the Bible first - I thought it might be better to hear from Him instead of me launching into the mood du jour.  And you know what He said?!  He said "My grace is sufficient for you" (2 Corinthians 12:9 - hey, didn't I quote that recently?) and that "the peace that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  (Philippians 4:7)

The peace that passes all understanding.  Now, I'd like to have me some of THAT.  My reply letter was that of a thirsty wanderer in a miserable desert who has just spotted an oasis in the distance and it looks to be the real deal.

Yesterday, I did the Bible-first thing again, and this time He said, "Peace I leave with you;  My peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:7)  My reply letter is dotted with grateful tear stains.  And I felt a little wave of peace pass over my heart.

And so - this morning He has said to me "do not fear, for I am with you;  do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."  (Isaiah 41:10)

Then Jesus said to me - yes, really, to me, right here in my basement office with the cat puke behind the desk - he said, "and surely I am with you, to the end of the age."  (Matthew 28:20)

He's here.  Right here with me, to the end of the age.  I know it, I believe it, and I have more peace in this moment than I've had in a year or maybe more.

Wonder what He will say tomorrow?

Toolkit

I joined a new Sunday School class this fall.  I'm taking a sabbatical from teaching a class myself, mostly because it is time for me to be a student again... but also because these days I am so empty by the time Sunday rolls around, there's not much left to give to anybody else.  (cue tiny violins)


We are doing a Kyle Idleman series called "AHA - Awakening, Honesty, and Action".  And it is seriously pissing me off.


I'm good with Awakening... I stay awake to my defects of character and behavior pretty much 24/7.  I even see stuff in this category that may not actually be there, or at least isn't as dire and degenerate as I see it.  But I am brutally aware of those things that are real.


I'm a tad better at Honesty now than in years past... I have found out the hard way on multiple occasions that honesty with others as well as myself can circumvent a whole lot of heartache.  (What can I say, I'm a slow learner.)  Honesty is like ripping off a bandaid that was covering a self-inflicted wound;  sometimes it hurts like a mother for a split second, but then it's over.  If there's still a bit of healing to be had, then keeping it aired out is probably the best remedy anyway.


Action.  Here's the next logical step to awakening and honesty - and it is my greatest stumbling block.  What do I DO with these things that I've realized and admitted?  If I know what they are, and I am honest about them, then what happens next?


I have a toolkit.  It has a divider in the middle and is filled with all manner of tools and tinkering implements with which I can take action. 


On one side, my favorites are the hammer and the wrench... perhaps I can bash the living hell out of myself or wrench my heart so tightly that I can't feel it anymore.  There's a giant bag of Reese's miniatures and a twelve pack of diet Cokes - the chemical combination of these two comestibles has a wonderful albeit temporary numbing effect.  Over in the corner, under a pile of good intentions, there is still an unopened airplane bottle of vodka.  Just in case I might want it tomorrow.


On the other side is a well-worn Bible, filled with various colors of highlights and underlining.  There are parts that I've memorized and still lots to be learned.  There's a journal into which I can puke out vitriol and plant flowers instead.  There are photos of my husband and children, photos of glorious simple joys, and a contacts list chocked full of phone numbers and email addresses for people I love and who curiously also love me.  There are beautiful projects that will help someone else.


I think I'm annoyed by this study series because it is making me take a hard look at my toolkit and decide which tools I want to use to take action on a daily basis. 


Wonder which set I will choose today?

Enough Already

That's enough out of you.
Haven't you had enough?
Enough is enough!
Do we have enough?
Did you bring enough for everyone?
Am I (good-attractive-rich-happy-fill in the blank) enough?

Enough.  Such a simple word.  Such a powerful, emotionally-charged word. 

The two American generations immediately before mine lived through economic and social conditions where large swaths of people actually did not have enough.  My maternal grandmother Mildred, born in 1916, came through the Depression as a little girl in rural southern Appalachia and most certainly did not have enough.  By the time WWII rolled around, she'd paid her own way and pushed herself through business school and into a lifelong career as a legal/political secretary.  She was, by God, going to make sure she had enough.

My mother Linda fared somewhat better; while she grew up in the same rural community as her own mother, Mildred would regularly send checks to my great-aunt Ruthie who was charged with raising Linda.  My maternal grandfather was mostly a phantom;  he was away doing construction in Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps for several years and was not part of Linda's life other than a random letter or two.  So - while my mother may have had plenty of fried okra and pretty homemade skirts, she did not have enough love, nurturing or attention from either of her parents.

The result was an insatiable need - a demand - for the affections of others, be it her high school boyfriends or her husband (my dad) or her kids.  And no matter how much she was loved, it was never enough.  Her depression and subsequently diagnosed schizophrenia amplified her craving for affection beyond imagination.  We could never quite love her or attend to her enough.

I always felt like if I could just do or be enough for her, then Linda would be happy.  But my hair wasn't clean enough and my short stories weren't funny enough and in fairly short order I was not well-behaved enough to merit approval.  As a pissed-off teenager, I decided she could shove her approval and I proceeded to dramatically and noisily not care about being good enough. 

I love my dad - always have and always will - but he finally had to escape and find happiness elsewhere.  There is no longer bitterness for me in this part of the story... but at the time, I thought it had something to do with me not being enough.  Kids are funny that way.  He got a new wife and family, and I was livid with everyone involved for decades.  Resentment aside, for years I harbored a quietly narcissistic suspicion that it all happened because I wasn't enough.  (Yes, I've since had excellent therapy.)

A mentally-ill single mother with two kids, Linda feared "not enough" more than anything.  I can't talk about it much without getting a little dizzy, but suffice to say that the reality show "Hoarders" is precisely how my sister and I spent our childhood.  God knows we had enough critters and clothes and Cokes and cigarettes and stuffed animals and books and prescription meds.   But we often didn't have enough money for school supplies, income tax payments or water heater repairs.

Enough of the autobio.  I just wanted to provide a backdrop

for my relationship with this business of enough.

Enough infers a comparative quantitative analysis of what we have against what we need.  Interestingly, what we have is generally fact-based, yet what we need is often subjective and sometimes even predicated on mood.  Impulsivity and addictions distort wants into needs - be it food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, gambling, etc.  Often I will tell myself I need something when the truth is I just want it.

I think most of us struggle with some form of enough-ness.  Good enough, healthy enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, rich enough, smart enough, kind enough, happy enough, loved enough, yada yada yada.  When, exactly, is enough ENOUGH?

I regularly wrestle my own enough-ness (actually my perceived lack thereof).  Am I doing enough to be a good wife and mother?  Am I serving my Creator and my fellow man enough?  Am I working hard enough at my job?  Am I fun enough, kind enough, generous enough?  I know I don't get enough exercise or sleep, and there are never enough hours in a day for me to do everything I think I should.

The doctrine of grace informs me that I can never be good enough to earn God's love or forgiveness.  This initially feels like bad news, sort of like "then why bother with God at all".  But, for me anyway, on the heels of that flippancy comes the conviction that He bothered to create me in the first place and all that's asked of me in return is... me.  If I give Him me, then I get His grace.  And I don't even have to shine myself up or be "good enough", because that's an impossibility anyway.

In his second letter to the members of the church in Corinth, Paul imparts a pearl of faith wisdom that stills the storm of "not enough"-ness for me.  And with one single word, housed within a sentence of hope that I believe to be a statement of fact, I am - in fact - enough.

But the Lord said, "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness".  (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Hmmm.  Sufficient.  Sufficient.  SUFFICIENT!!

Sufficient means "adequate for the purpose;  enough".  (dictionary.com)  By virtue of God's grace and limitless love, I am enough.  I have enough.  I may not have or be everything I want, but I absolutely am and have everything I need.  It is enough.

Not on my own, mind you - left to my own devices, I will always battle a nagging sense of not enough-ness.

But, placing my 50-year-old hand in His and glancing backwards down the path that brought us to this point in time, I can see that I've always had - and been - ENOUGH already.

MIA

I haven't blogged here in forever because I can't right now. But I will be back as soon as my new normal is established. At present I am holding it together with spit and snot and tears. Lots and lots of tears. Buckets maybe. 

Anyway, while I'm on sabbatical from Babble, feel free to visit caringbridge.org/davidrubel.  That's where I will be for a while - unless I decide to hold forth on something completely unrelated. 

Which is entirely possible. 

Mother's Day 2014

Last Mother's Day, I blogged an expository about the pros and cons of growing up with a crazy mother.  This year, I'm going with the pros and cons of being one.

Perhaps my diagnoses are not the same as my mom's were - pretty sure they're not.  But motherhood uploads a certain degree of neurosis that no therapist or self-help book can uninstall.  And you don't know that you're voluntarily enrolling when you're thrilled to see the plus sign on the pee stick.

We all bring our own special nutty-ness into the equation;  after all, "normal" is just a setting on the dryer.  But once the maternal hormones start flowing, we become a whole new kind of nuts.  These are familiar emotions - fear, joy, love - but it's like they're on crack or anabolic steroids.

**********

FEAR.

When I was eleven, my parents sent me to Camp Montvale for two weeks of summer camp, and I was against the whole notion.  I'd been a regular at Webb Day Camp since I was a wee little lass, but other than the occasional sleepover at a friend's house, I'd never been away from home overnight for any extended period of time.  And I knew my parents were headed for divorce (they were already separated);  like most kids at that age, I thought I could perhaps influence their decision or remediate the cause of it.

But they packed me up and off I went, full of anxiety about all the "activities" in the brochure.  Archery? There are pointy arrows, for pete's sake.  Canoeing? We could turn over and the piranhas will get me.  Hiking? Bugs and sweat.  Riflery?  DUH.  I was a hot mess by the time we pulled into the front gates.

Actually, I ended up having a great time for the first few days, but one day there was a tubing disaster on the river - a boy flipped and drowned.  A bunch of us were in tubes several hundred yards behind him, shooting down the rapids, yelling and laughing and clueless about the tragedy ahead.  As we got closer, one of the camp counselors grabbed my tube and swung me over to a large rock upstream, on the far bank of the fast-moving water.  She yelled at me to "wait here" - so I did.

Sitting on that rock, clutching my tube and shivering wet, I saw a snake twisting in the submerged roots of a nearby tree and I thought I would pass out.  I am sure the fear I felt paled in comparison to whatever went through that boy in his last moments, but this was the most frightening moment of my life.

until...

On February 19th, 1999 at 3:12 p.m., Dr. Jim Hays extracted another human being from my nether regions.  Sure, I was afraid of giving birth, but kudos to the inventor of the epidural and endless gratitude for Dr. Hays' bedside manner.  The event of my son's birth was magnificent (well, except for all the farting).  The truly scary moment - the one nobody could have prepared me for - came a few days later.

The prenatal classes at Fort Sanders' Teddy Bear University had been hilarious and enlightening.  All the prep work on postnatal care, breastfeeding, diapering, etc. - we felt we were ready to do this thing.  We'd been instructed to bring a car seat to the hospital on discharge day, so we would be prepared to transport this new little person to his crib with the Pooh motif.

Only... when the moment arrived, when he was swaddled up and strapped into his car seat and we prepared to exit the safety of the parking garage... I felt a panic, a paralyzing terror that I'd never experienced.  YOU HAVE MADE A MISTAKE! I wanted to scream back at the smiling orderly who probably did this several times a day.  If perchance we happened to make it all the way home without being crushed under the weight of an 18-wheeler on I-40/75, this poor child was doomed to a lifetime of fending for himself, foraging for food and affection, because I was a selfish cow who couldn't sustain a goldfish for more than a couple of months.

Yet, here we are, fifteen years later.  This boy is evidently well-fed and certainly loved beyond description.  I have felt new and suffocating fears as life's circumstances happen to him, and they don't bother to ask for my maternal permission or prepare me beforehand.

Two and 1/2 years after his arrival, we decided to give it another go and this time we were handed a little girl.  She has presented me with an entirely different set of fears.  But she too made it home safely from the hospital and into a reasonably healthy life.

**********

JOY.

To say that my children bring me joy is the understatement of the universe.  At the moment, they are fighting over who ate the last Pop-tart.  I thought briefly about telling them that I AM TRYING TO WRITE A %^&KING BLOG POST ABOUT HOW HAPPY YOU MAKE ME.

And it's true - if I can pull back the camera a bit, even the kitchen squabbling makes smile inside.  Frustrating?  Yes.  Irritating?  Absolutely.  But the joy of being their mother is worth the minutiae of sibling discord.  I know that one day - someday - they will be glad they have each other.

I had numerous experiences in life before motherhood that I would've described as joyous.  My parents' pride over good grades, the thrill of a phone call from my teenage crush, my first substantial paycheck, Tennessee's 1981 win over Alabama after a ten-year losing streak ... these are among the many moments that gave me a warmth in my soul that I called joy.

The occasion of my marriage to their daddy was certainly the most joyous occasion of my life up until that point - it was the first time in 34 years that I'd felt wholly accepted, loved and completely happy.  Walking back down the aisle as the Missus, I had laughter on my face that would've lit up a city.  And I've got pictures to prove it.

But nothing compares to the joy of mothering these two rascals.  I have laughed more in the last fifteen years than I did in the entirety of the thirty-five before.  My kids are the brightest, funniest people I've ever known and it thrills me to know that they got most of it from the unique recipe of ingredients contributed by their dad and me.

They make me happier than I'd ever imagined possible.  I pray that they will one day tell their respective therapists that their mom did all she could to make them happy, too.

**********

LOVE.

And now I shall attempt to articulate how much I love my children.  As if it's even possible.

My parents loved me, each in their own way.  I never doubted whether I was loved, but my experience of it was not the greatest.  She clung to me and nearly suffocated me, and even though I knew he loved me, he had to leave me behind.

I chased love through decades and time zones and bars and churches;  through friendships and Junior League and a bad marriage and writing and cleverness and through bad and good behavior.  If I could just __(fill in the blank)__, then I would have love.  I would love and be loved because I'd figured out how to catch it and keep it.  But every time I thought I'd caught it, somehow it would still get away.

Like I said before, my marriage to the father of my children on April 18, 1998 was the most joyous moment of my life up to that point.  That joy was rooted in a sense of reciprocal love I'd never ever experienced before.

And then we had kids.  Apart from the aforementioned terror, the overwhelming tidal wave of maternal love when they handed me my son for the first time.. well, it's almost impossible to describe.  It's visceral - it's like it comes up from way, way inside your guts, from a pool of something you didn't even know you had until that very moment.  Yes, it's joyous as well...but it's a feeling like no other.

I still feel that way now, and sometimes it sneaks up on me and suffuses my heart, bubbling over again.  Just a bear hug here, a silly giggle there, a boo-boo to be kissed or a teacher's conference to endure.  I love them more than words can say.

Much of my fear since then stems from being afraid of either somehow losing or harming or failing to protect these little people I love.  Even though one of them towers over me now, and the other is quickly catching up, they will always be my babies and I will love them unconditionally until the grave and I believe far beyond.

I know now that my own childhood experiences of parental love equipped me with a good field guide of what to do and what not to do - I will never leave them and I absolutely will shove them out of the nest when it's time to do so.  And, just as my own parents did for me, I will love them when they are happy and when they are in trouble and when they make me madder than a wet hen.  As Theodore Geisel might've said:  I will love them here, I will love them there, I will love them everywhere.

**********

Happy Mother's Day weekend, y'all.  

Gotta run now - gotta go get some more Pop-tarts.

Map Making

Posted a picture on Facebook yesterday afternoon, and I have more to say about it than I could cram in a FB post.

My sister found it in a box of old photos in Dad's attic.  It's a picture of me, circa nineteen-eighty-something, out on the lake, sporting a mullet and clutching a Miller Lite.  I'm certain there was a Marlboro just outside the camera shot - I wouldn't have had a beer in one hand without having a cig in the other.

This picture is by far one of the funniest snapshots of my entire life.

It's also one of the saddest.

Unlike most of my friends, who reserved this sort of thing for letting their hair down on a random weekend from time to time...this was me, all the time.  Party girl, drinking and smoking and yelling or singing, telling profoundly dirty jokes and chasing boys (many of whom were running the other direction. Can you blame them?)

Was I funny?  The life of the party? A trip, a blast, a really good time?  Absolutely!  I had so much fun, it nearly killed me.  But...was I happy?

Never mind - rhetorical question.

**********

Another question, less rhetorical... should I be ashamed of that season in my life? 

Honestly, I don't think so.

However, there was a time up until recently, where I would've begged Kim to shred or burn this picture, or at least hide it where it would never again see the light of day.  And I would never - EVER - have put it on Facebook.

What if my boss ever sees it, or my colleagues at work?  What about my pastor or my Sunday School class, my kid's principal...or, oh Lord, what about my KIDS?!!?  I've tried to become someone my kids could look up to, and now I'm going to let them see this?

Why yes.  Yes I am.

I pray regularly that my children don't choose to venture down some of the roads I once traveled.  Not because it would hurt or embarrass me, but because there is nothing to be found there other than bitterness and despair.  You can't see that from the head of the trail, which is why it is so important to listen to others who've been there and made their way back.

But if they are anything like me, deaf to wisdom and blind to what they don't want to see, then I hope they will remember this picture of their mom.  Not as a cautionary tale or a finger-wagging admonition - more like a mile marker on a map, the beginning of a journey back out of the woods.  A journey that can begin anytime, and for as many times as it takes.

Is this picture something I'm proud of?  Lord no... and it's almost like those first thirty years of my life happened to somebody else.

But am I ashamed of it?

No - because, as Tolkien said, "not all who wander are lost".  And I thank God for not letting me get completely lost during all that wandering... for taking my hand and leading me out of the lonely woods.

And besides... it is a REALLY funny picture.

Revelation

It is Lent 2014, and in keeping with recent tradition, I have abstained from Facebook for a season of prayer and meditation. 

I know how ridiculous it sounds, the giving up of Facebook, but it is a difficult thing for me to lay aside, to deny.

It has been harder this year than in the past - but for unexpectedly different reasons.

**********

You see, my preoccupation with Facebook has long been based on no small degree of narcissism.  

Yes, I wanted to show off my family, and yes, I wanted to write witty snippets that made people smile and be glad that they know me.  Yes, I enjoyed being the center of attention, even if for only a few passing moments in somebody's random newsfeed.  

Essentially, the advent of social media gave me a whole new way to make it all about me.

**********

It also met another need, one that was still centered on self and similarly cringe-worthy.

From the day I left my childhood home and moved into an apartment, I've decorated my living spaces with photos - photos in albums, in frames, on the walls and on tables.  Photos of a life full of friends, family and lovely places.  

Absent photographic evidence to the contrary, my depressive inner voice told me that I was a lonely miscreant gargoyle with nothing but tragic destruction to claim as a life story - and that everyone around me thought the same. (Not that I'm prone to exaggeration or anything.)

Facebook gave me a new way to examine and consider my life, by putting the past and the present out there in words and pictures for evaluation.  

Did I package things carefully?  You betcha - Madison Avenue has got nothing on me.  My primary, conscious-or-otherwise FB goal was to find everybody from my past and demonstrate that I finally became a contributing member of society with a normal, nuclear family and successful career.  That I didn't end up in a trailer with nine kids from eight different baby daddies and an ailing liver full of rotgut vodka.

Over time, though, the packaging has dwindled and it occurred to me on a few fleeting occasions that the pictures and words I share on FB are actually closer to the truth than the distorted misfit gargoyle.  

That maybe (just maybe) I'm not quite the disaster movie I thought I'd been watching for the previous forty-something years. 

Again - all about me.

**********

Previous Lenten Facebook fasts have created angst on a number of fronts.  What if people, especially my non-Christian friends, thought me a freak for doing this?  How could I manage to stay in the spotlight?  What if I needed prayers or a recipe or help finding a lost dog? What if everybody, including me, starts remembering the gargoyle?

Yet I've soldiered on each Lent for the past three years, abstaining from Facebook in a well-publicized demonstration of faith and growing awareness of a 24/7 relationship with my Creator - who loves me enough to tell me the truth about me.  

That, although I once flirted with and am still capable of remarkable self-destruction, He will never let me go over the cliff as long as I hang onto Him and not me.

And while faith in Jesus is the most intimate relationship of all... 

everything remained still all about ME.

**********

Now, here we are and it is the midway point of Lent 2014.  I am off of Facebook and am startled to realize why I miss it this year, more than ever before. 

I miss my friends.

I miss the YOU of Facebook, not the me.

I have friends around the world and down the street; friends who are sick;  friends who have new babies;  friends who are going through life's dark lonely valleys; and friends who are celebrating triumphant mountaintops.  

There are new jobs and lost jobs and big fishes caught and disappointments large and small - 

and I want to know how YOU are.  

I want you to know that I care for you, and that I miss brightening your day.  Not for the attention of it, but for the giving of it.  

Also unlike Lents of the past, I find myself spending more time in prayer and study.  I journal my prayers, writing long letters to God and then quietly listening to the Holy Spirit in my heart.  

I am fully convinced that it is He who has drawn me out of me - and refocused me on you.

**********

I don't know if this made any sense to anybody, and since I'm not on Facebook to advertise its posting, few will probably see it anyway.  And it doesn't escape notice that this post is yet again all about me.

But in a good way, I think. :-)

Q & A

Today's blog post is courtesy of a dear friend who cares enough to nudge me out of complacence.  (You know who you are, and as always I am grateful for you.)

My recent reticence is a byproduct of a constant state of busy-ness, combined with a gnawing sense of inadequacy - that I am not enough, that there is not enough of me to go around.  I am empty and depleted and it just didn't seem like good blog fodder to come out here and proclaim my self-pity.  

Except.

Maybe - just maybe - I'm not the only person who ever feels this way.

I've been listening to Andy Stanley's current message series, titled "Ask It".  Well, that's not entirely true.  I listened to the first two installments of the series, which pissed me off to the point that I'm not ready yet to hear the last four.  

The messages are centered around a simple question to ask ourselves in relation to all decisions, big ones or small ones.  Decisions like - should I buy that, should I do this, should I eat that, should I go there, should I say that, should I...you get the gist here.  All decisions.

The simple question is this: 

"In light of my past experience, 

present circumstances, 

and future hopes and dreams, 

what is the wise thing to do?"  

Not the "good" thing, or the "right" thing - what is the WISE thing to do?

At face value, it's an innocuous and reasonable question, one that frames a sound decision-making process. I understand how the question works - I am not confused by it.  If I'm honest with myself, I am pretty sure that I generally know what the WISE choice would be in most decisions.

I am irritated about this question because I am cross with myself and with Pastor Smartypants for shining a giant ugly spotlight on the frequency with which I intentionally choose the unwise over the wise. 

Returning to my aforementioned maudlin state of mind, it makes me even crankier to realize that much of my funk is my own handiwork.  (Self-pity is a heckuva lot easier to embrace and camp out in when you can claim victimhood.)

In fairness, my decisions are a tad less unwise than in prior seasons of my life, where chaos, debt collection and relationship disasters were familiar companions.  I chalked much of it up to bad luck and other people's meanness - much easier than eyeballing myself in the mirror and calling a spade a spade.

But being older and wiser doesn't automatically infer the application of wisdom, and like sin, it can be argued that there really aren't degrees of wisdom.  You either choose the wise answer - or you don't.  And waffling is pointless - as Geddy Lee once put it, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice". 

So I am faced with some hard truth here.  I choose to eat poorly, dodge exercise, procrastinate, watch crap on TV, stay up too late, use words like "crap" and "pissed off" and other off-color language, waste time, take on too much, beat myself up for taking on too much, and feel guilty for all my poor choices, big or small.  No wonder I am blue.

As if exposing the question wasn't bad enough, Stanley goes on to explore the facts that King Solomon laid out in Proverbs, circa 970 B.C.  That's three thousand years ago, people.  Yet Solomon's teaching is both relevant and clear - you're either wise, or you're a fool.  Not sort of a fool, or a little bit foolish - a fool who actively chooses his/her folly.  

I don't want to be a fool. 

This is the part of the blog post where I'm supposed to turn the corner and realize the error of my ways and cheerfully commit to a day, a week, a life of good and wise choices henceforth.

But in light of my past experience, current circumstances and future hopes and dreams, it would be unwise for me to lie to myself or to you, my patient friends.  It would be unwise for me to make such a commitment because I would be setting myself up for failure before I hit the "publish" button...thereby perpetuating a stale old cycle of defeat and despair.

What I can do, however, and what appears to be the wise conclusion is this:  just for today - and maybe only for the next hour - I can be honest with myself about each decision, big or small.  I can choose the wise or the unwise answer, but I can't really claim that I don't know the difference, or that I don't have a choice.  We always have a choice.

And as odd as it may sound - that, my friends, is good news.