Today was the first day of another staycation. We’ve got a few things planned to do together but really it’s a week for getting more things done. Josh’s dad has been struggling the past couple of weeks with his health. They’ve been in and out of the ER two times in the past week and almost went again today. If something doesn’t show up on a scan they send you home, even if the pain is rated 15 out of 10.

The kids and I spent some of the day going through clothes. With camp over I wanted everyone to clean out their camp bags and put things way. All of them were supposed to go through their drawers, which is something we didn’t get to do thoroughly when we rearranged and cleaned up their rooms. The kids like their rooms and I feel pretty confident that things will be able to stay picked up for the most part.

I can’t remember if I summarized already what got done. We had the upstairs bedroom that had the carpet taken out and new floors put in. We repainted the walls with a fresh lighter shade. That room is now very open and tidy. The two downstairs boy bedrooms are now as well. I also deep cleaned our bedroom and closet, pantry, linen closet, pictures, parts of the kitchen and schoolroom, and scrubbed both tubs.

I’m feeling very tempted to go back and delete a bunch of these posts that I’ve written over the past several weeks. There was a while where I did not do any form of journaling and I’d be curious now to see the kinds of things I would have written. Some posts from the earlier days of blogging I have deleted. I couldn’t imagine my kids reading them and understanding.

This was prompted by a reel I saw on Instagram this evening. It was a woman saying how much she loved being a boy mom, but then realizing that meant she would have to be somebody’s mother-in-law someday. The gist was that she didn’t like that idea. The people in the comments were not approving. On other reels she had they were telling her to go to therapy, saying she herself was a giant red flag, and accusing her of emotional incest. It made me self-conscious.

Some of this pain that I’ve been going through with my son has made me wonder if this isn’t just some kind of screwed up dysfunction. It doesn’t really matter. Whatever it is, God is fixing it, purging me, whatever it is he does that hurts. I said it already, but I’ve not felt this kind of deep mothering work since the days when I was realizing I was actually selfish and not just a saint.

It’s like this entitlement I didn’t realize was there. For however many years now, these people are the ones I have chosen to spend my life with more than anyone else in the world. They have been my favorite people, the people I have wanted to be with. I want to be friends with them, and sometimes it hurts that they’d rather be friends with other people right now instead of being friends with me. I’m just going to say it. I’m just going to own that I still am learning what love is.

Because I wouldn’t actually want or think it was good for my kids to want to be with me all the time, or even three-fourths of the time, or even half of the time anymore at this point. I feel owed for what I have done for them, and I don’t want to feel that way. I loved them because I loved them and for no other reason. God built the commandment to honor our parents into the creation.

So I know my feelings aren’t completely out there. But I also know that the love of God involves more than simply keeping the commandments. We of all people know we cannot keep them perfectly, and neither will my kids be able to this for me. And they have not even wronged me right now as I write this, they just spent the day at camp again, and one wanted to spent the night there too. I’ve been waiting all summer for him to come home. I love you, son, wherever you are.

My sister is here visiting with nieces and nephews. She brought them down for the 1st-4th grade mini-week. Today was the last day of camp for the campers. The counselors have chores to do before they leave. They help to clean up the cabins and camp buildings and get things set-up to do for the homecoming this Saturday.

We went to see Barbie in the theater yesterday. My niece and two of the boys came with. Going to the movies and getting the overpriced popcorn and sodas for the kids was fun. As for the movie itself, I didn’t love it. The most annoying part of the movie for me was that Barbie was not in love with Ken and they did not end up together.

I’m kind of over thinking about all the feminism stuff. One time I tried to write an article about feminism. I’d interviewed a girl from my husband’s graduating high school class that I knew he’d had debates with on Facebook. She was a professor with a phD in philosophy and a graduate certificate in Women and Gender Studies.

Basically I wanted to hear her story and get her perspective on the definitions and histories of feminism. I’d told her I was interested in trying to help others understand each other better, this case, wanting to help the anti-feminism Christian women see more of the perspective of where pro-feminism women were coming from. I conducted the interview via email and with the interviewee’s permission, submitted the questions, answers, and introduction to a blog where I thought it would be an easy shoo-in.

She said it wasn’t the right home for that particular piece. I had told the girl I interviewed that I would let her know when the article was published. I never went back and told her that it hadn’t been published and the reason why. Most of the time I’ve forgotten about it, but when I do remember, like in this moment, it bothers me that I never wrote back and filled her in on what happened. She was actually a really nice person and if no one else learned anything, I still learned from the answers she gave.

I never had these kind of mental obsessions with my other kids. As I’ve been thinking about all this, it’s weird how certain memories come back. A recurring memory I’ve had regarding my first time being pregnant was when I was working at an assisted living facility in Seward, Nebraska. One time I ended up needing to stay over night for a shift. I didn’t have to work, I only needed to be in the building.

I slept on the floor in the conference room next to the front desk area but without any sleeping stuff. I laid there in the dark thinking I couldn’t believe I was treating my child like this. I had recently found out I was pregnant. From the moment I knew there was a shift in my mind. I remember standing at the dishwasher thinking about this person who was now a part of my life. I thought about him constantly.

There’s a tiny piece of paper my mom and I started when she was down in the few days after we were home from the hospital. Neither one of us had much experience with breastfeeding and were up in the middle of the night trying to figure it out. For approximately 48 hours I wrote down which side he nursed on and how long. L-20 min. R-15 min. L-20 min. And so on. You almost never fed with both sides.

At least not at first because there was too much milk there. He would choke on it at times when it came down fast, spraying him in the face, disrupting our latch, and causing us to have to start the latching on process all over again. Important parts were hard as rocks, sore and huge. How you were supposed to get your anatomy soft enough to form anything resembling a baby bottle was beyond me.

And they were supposed to get the hind milk, because if they didn’t, then they would only get the overly sugary milk and not gain enough weight. “How do you know if he’s getting enough?”, my mom would ask sometimes. I had no idea. You just check if he’s peeing. They say if he’s having 10-12 wet diapers a day then that’s good. He’s going to have to learn how to feed himself there but I’m hoping again we will figure it out.

“And after years of hearing the heart-cry of women, I am convinced beyond a doubt of this: God wants to be loved.”
~John Eldredge, Wild at Heart~

Well, I took the advice of what others suggested and sat with someone else besides my family at the potluck. Josh was in Urbana filling in for a pastor. I sat with one of the couples who’d been in the marriage group that he and I led over this past school year. The flowers on the altar today were given in honor of this couple’s upcoming 49th wedding anniversary. In our group we had a semi-regular newlywed couple, along with four other regular couples who had all been married for 35-40+ years.

Earlier this morning I’d texted a woman from church asking if she wanted to come to the potluck. She and I have connected over potlucks before and the jokes we make about having to bring things. I told her I’d made an extra item she could have if she needed something to bring. She texted back and said she and her husband were in Canada on a cruise celebrating their 50th. I told her that was a good reason to miss, that there’d almost certainly be better food there, and to enjoy her time.

It was actually fine and I enjoyed my time too. This couple that I sat with was actually very instrumental in normalizing what I am currently going through with my oldest. On the night of our last marriage meeting, the topic of kids leaving the house came up. In reference to this, this husband said, “I remember there were lots of tears involved”. That opened the door for me to ask, “Can you tell me more about that?” And for the next half hour the wives shared stories of tears and the husbands affirmed.

I was very grateful for that night, because I think it increased my husband’s own awareness and compassion. He’s been very patient with my tears these past months, comforting me when I’m crying out of nowhere again. I know you’re not supposed to compare sufferings with others, but with myself I’ve started comparing seasons, wondering if this is worse than the time when they were all young and little. This is the first time since then that any season of motherhood has caused me to ask this.

From the time when my kids were very little, my heart was full of love for them. The things I did for them, the life I chose and lived for them, the life I chose to keep on choosing for them, the way I poured myself out for their welfare was done for one reason and one reason only–because I loved them. It was done without thinking about my own life or consequence. That did eventually start to come, but it wasn’t there in the beginning. I didn’t know what love was, what all the deepest of loves entailed.

Loving them was the first time I ever identified with Christ’s love. He suffered and gave his life, I was doing the same. I could look at Jesus and also see myself on the cross. Nothing else had even come close to that magnitude. Of pain. Of love. Of sorrow. Of brightness. For where Jesus was, my light was also. And I didn’t do it to be loved back. Loving them, just having them itself was enough. I do wish sometimes they’d love me more, and I can let that go too, because to love someone really is setting them free.

This is off topic, but I’d really like to serve the Lord. Whether up there or down here, I’ve got things I want to do. It’s interesting because when kids are little we talk about how forgiving they are toward our mistakes, and they are. We also talk about how much we lose ourselves, and we do. It can make me sad and make me feel like they did not fully know me. They know what they have seen, but they have not seen it all, because everything could not be seen at once, a fuller grace and truth for more than me.

The boys and I went to the beach this morning. We met a friend and her kids to have some swim time from 10-12 to beat the heat. Thankfully it didn’t end up being as hot as originally forecasted. Like I said, there really has been nothing to complain as far as the weather goes. My sister-in-law lives in Dallas and whenever I check their weather all I see is triple digit temperatures for weeks on end.

We had a nice time together. I consider inviting people to the beach a personal ministry. Really it is just the ministry of friendship and spending time together. Those two things together produce refreshment and joy. Why we don’t end up doing this more often is beyond me. Logistically I see the reasons. Maybe if we did it more often it would soon becoming indistinguishable from the rest of life’s demands.

The boys played volleyball the entire time. Her kids are younger than mine and needed much more attention. As they say in thoughts and movies, “I remember those days”. The regular play-date interruptions when trying to talk to a friend who also was being regularly interrupted by her little ones. There was a popular meme on social media quoting C.S. Lewis or somebody saying something like,

“Children are not the interruption to our work. They are the most important work.” Of course that resonates during a time when truly almost everything you do in a given day is for your children. It is hard to talk about then and now without sounding like grumbling. Words and thoughts are meant to flow freely, and our destined and desired state is wholeness and completion, not fragmentation.

Motherhood definitely made more of a feminist, not less. By feminist I mean someone who notices the personal and societal pains and burdens unique to women and in turn rallies to work and try to alleviate them where possible. I was just thinking that maybe sometime after this LCMS national convention they need to have a similar follow-up gathering for women but without the resolutions and meetings parts.

That’s probably asking too much, I know. And thinking like that for too long will be the actual thing that embitters your heart and wrecks your mind. I love how the Bible talks about bitterness in terms of roots: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that ‘no root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled (Hebrews 12:15).” A weed pulled up can often send dirt flying.

In other words, it makes a mess. But once the root is gone, once the weed is no longer taking up space, it leaves more room for the soil to breathe. The soil’s nutrients no longer are being sucked up by the roots that are only being used to feed and grow the bitter plant. In the case of the believer, God’s fruit can then grow there, of which there are many and various kinds. In the giver we feast from an undying tree.

This morning I stopped by the grade school to get the boys registered. At least one of them still needed their birth certificate on file, so I brought those along, in addition to an accidentally kept math textbook and two outgrown uniform polo shirts. It turns out the office was closed, but the principal’s son saw me at the door and let me in.

I know there have to be boundaries between sort-of friends and work and those messy times when things like this cross. I didn’t want to take advantage of anything, most of all her kindness or time. I quickly filled her in on why I’d come, collected the papers, asked her when the school’s summer office hours were (M-Th, 8-noon). She did copy the birth certificates to give to the secretary for when she would be in the office again.

She asked how I was doing and proceeded to share that she’d been crying lately almost every day. I’d been doing that too but it seems to have calmed for the present time being. We both have oldest children (boys) who are going to school. I’m kind of over talking about it now, it just seems like it shouldn’t be this big of a deal. I don’t really care to admit how much this whole thing has been messing with my heart in harsh ways.

There are definitely other issues involved. Like the possessive, clingy, insecure, desperate parts of me are affected by this. And throwing their fits. I’m too old for this, too mature for those qualities, and God can be a rough surgeon sometimes. It really is better just to own who you are without trying to hide it. It’s too much work to be anyone but yourself, especially when it comes to fessing up and dealing with your problems.

With me. Next to me. That is where I want him as I’ve been thinking about him night and day. Today I was imagining our hug before he leaves. I was squeezing his torso like a boa constrictor suffocating his prey, digging my face into his chest, crying, and I wasn’t embarrassed. Other times I imagine being more composed, mature, and saying a prayer with my arm around his waist in more of a side hug, praying like my dad did.

This really is silly. I have been thankful though for the women who have shared their experiences of going through this. Childhood really is broken up into trimesters like pregnancy was. You have the years through age 5 as the first trimester, 6-12 as the beautiful golden years of the second trimester, then the 12-18 ages as the final trimester with its fullness, readiness, and births. They have to leave you somehow.

His was the only birth that I had an epidural with. His also took the longest with pushing 2 1/2 hours. Looking back now I think the nurse was inexperienced and had me start pushing too early. For me pushing was always the hardest part. I think if I had to give birth now I would just take the epidural and pray it wouldn’t leave me with pain or unwanted side-effects. Some pains we simply don’t need to go through again.

The raccoons have not been seen in a while. I was kindly asked to stop feeding them over by the campsite bathrooms. It was fine until someone came and camped there for a week. Another RV couple also moved onto the property and have been staying here with their kids for the past couple of weeks. It made sense to not feed them there anymore, and they were getting big enough anyway to not need to be fed.

It’s crazy how I have this thing for raccoons now. This morning on Facebook marketplace there was a dog kennel for sale for $200. It would’ve been the perfect size for the original baby raccoons we had. My main reason for getting rid of them was not having a big enough space for when they got older. If the kennel would’ve been $50 and a little closer by, I would’ve bought to have for if we ever have raccoons again.

I know that my daughter at least has thought the same way. When we were cleaning out the linen closet and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, she suggested hanging on to a few older linens just in case we ever have another raccoon situation. I thought that was a good idea. Most of our hand towels disappeared in the short time they were here with us. We would use them for feedings and to pad their bins.

Speaking of Facebook marketplace, I made my first purchase today. It was a headboard and “like new” twin mattress, each being sold for $10. When I was doing the boys room I had looked at a headboard for the non-bunk bed. The one I wanted was close to $100 on Amazon. I didn’t buy it. The one I bought today was the exact color and style as the one I had wanted. We were also down a twin mattress, so that was a good deal.

I mostly joined so I could try to sell some of the bigger things I didn’t just want to drop at goodwill. I have a $300 food dehydrator that I bought back in 2020 and have never even opened. So I’m hoping I can find someone for that. Out of the nine school books I’ve listed on eBay, seven of them have sold and earned back some money which I turned around and spent on the listed books needed for the upcoming semester.

No, I don’t need praise for any of this. I don’t even know why I write this stuff out except for that it’s just what comes to my mind. There are so many other deeper thoughts I have throughout the day, but for whatever reason, this chatter recounting the daily things is what I end up writing about. I wonder sometimes if the deeper life things are being saved for later, like if it’s not actually what I need to be writing about now.

This morning I asked my husband what he’d do if I moved out of our house and got my own place. Like would he make it difficult for me to come get my stuff, what little I actually could say that is mine, or would he just let me take it and go? I was thinking specifically of the bookshelves I’d bought for the living room several years ago. They go together, but they were also not cheap at $175 a piece. Would he let me have them?

Because technically none of this has been my money. I am not the one who has earned a single penny, at least not of any recent or significant amount. He said, “Rebekah, you’re not moving out. Just relax.” He reminded me that this was the busiest time of the year and something about things getting better. It was somewhere in the four o’clock morning hour when I asked, the second morning in a row that I have needed to talk.

There is no amount of wisdom that is going to stop me in those moments. Yeah, you learn to speak your peace and let it go. Stopping then may seem inconvenient, but worth it. But sometimes, no, if I have been awake since 3AM, if I’ve tossed and turned, and gotten out of bed, and found my yoga block by the light of my phone, if I’ve stretched and moved on our new bedroom area rug and it’s still not better, I’m talking.

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
~2 Corinthians 1:5~

God really never stops loving us here. I tend to think sometimes that when it comes to sanctification, God takes us for a time, does his work with us, and then sets us free as purer beings. We go through a rougher time, or an awful time, and then it’s over. After such harder times of refinement or purification you might think, “That was enough to last me a lifetime. Surely we got through most of it then.”

Except as my dad pointed out today, that’s not how it works. Until the day we are called out of this world into the next, we are ever being renewed. The Bible even says it, “though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).” It’s not renewed every 4-5 years, or every 4-6 months, or once a decade. Every day the Lord is using our circumstances to draw us to him.

Closer to him and closer to who he is. I tend to associate and imagine being conformed into the image of Christ as suffering only. To be conformed to Christ’s image is to be put on a cross to die there as he did. So often I stop there, forgetting Christ himself did not stay on his cross, nor did he stay in the grave he was placed when he left it. His destiny is ours. His entire life, death, and great and everlasting joy.

I feel like I’ve lost my momentum with the cleaning. God granted me the focus and resolve I needed and now I’m opening back up again to be a little more involved elsewhere. The bedrooms are basically done, with the exception of mine which still has some clutter as well as a cubby shelf that I am wanting to better organize. It worked to keep me busy until about last week, where I hit the wall of being ready to just have some actual family time again.

The heat has gotten worse this week. It’s been a very mild summer weather-wise, so I really can’t complain. I wouldn’t even be worrying about it if it weren’t for the fact that I have a child who’s been having to do these pre-season running workouts that have gradually been increasing in intensity throughout the summer. There is not enough down time between camp weeks in my opinion. The extra activity and lack of time to get some decent rest in bugs me.

I really am a pretty negative person. When I write it’s like the things I want to write about are the things that are currently causing me worry, frustration, or sadness. It’s like it helps to get rid of the present negativity so that I don’t have to weigh anybody else down with it. I do have problems with complaining too much, but in general, if I get a chance to say what bothers me I do feel better. It does seem though like there are often more pains than smiles in life.