We had a wonderful Mother’s Day. The kids and I went to church in the morning. Our new pastor has started using different services from the hymnal. Today we did Divine Service Setting II. In Hoyleton we used to do it where the services matched whatever week of the month we were on. The first week was setting I, the second week setting II, the third week was setting III, etc. My favorite of the divine services is setting four.
God was merciful and blessed us with a relatively open Saturday yesterday. The game that was supposed to be close to two hours away was cancelled due to rain. We had a Saturday like we used to have, in what seems to be now a former life season, where everyone pitches in and helps clean up the house and makes it look nice. After church we lightly tidied up again before joining up with Grandma and Papa for lunch.
A passage from Lamentations stood out to me this morning in church: “For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men (Lamentations 3:31-33)”. I’m thankful tonight for the ways the Lord brings us back from where we were cast, that we might live with him today in peace.
Spring has been doing what spring does. Anymore I don’t even think about plants or flowers until May comes around. The weather forecast predicts temperatures next week in the high 80’s and even low 90’s, which I find almost laughable in these expanding days of 40-50 degree drizzles. This evening, my daughter and I paused by the flowers and herbs in the outdoor tent beside the local County Market, but not for long.
Regularly stored bathroom items were in need of replenishing. Also on my list was mouthwash, floss sticks, toilet paper, and ice cream. Most of that we picked up at Walgreens, along with another round of vitamins, which wasn’t on my list until I saw them and remembered the ones I bought last month were already almost gone. My daughter eyed a bag of dried apricots, then put them back. We skipped the ice cream.
We walked through the grocery store, picking up a few personal snacks. There is a phenomenon of food not lasting long enough to stay full. I remember the knowing of similar days. I told her she needed to talk to her aunt Jess about marking your territory when sharing a fridge with other food consuming people. She was always better at recognizing her need to be separate, writing her name on food in permanent marker.
Into the cart we placed bananas, oranges, granola, yogurt. One of the sets of bananas was more yellow, and the other more green to hopefully last a little longer. When we were loading bags into the car I once again thought about the ease with which I swipe this card and money is just there to buy whatever it is I’ve brought to the counter. I told her that girls need to be spoiled sometimes. I meant more to say that she was loved.
I didn’t see the college aged girl politely waiting for me to finish loading so she could get into her car. I moved faster, climbing back into the passenger seat. The Christian radio station played as we maneuvered out of the grocery store parking lot. We commented on the occasional radio predictability. I opened up my phone to put on Nichole Nordeman. It wasn’t long and we were home. Dad carried for me the heavier bags.
The boys and I took another field trip this morning. Our pastor’s daughter had a birthday today. They invited a few homeschool families to join them for a concert at the local college, and then lunch and games at a nearby park. It was an absolute thrill to hear a live symphony orchestra. The music was combined with a screen show and narration teaching about our solar system. With each planet they also featured an instrument from the orchestra. They weren’t able to cover all of the instruments.
As my kids have gotten older and started moving on to high school, we’ve had less of these kinds of homeschool “experiences”. I wish now I had written about and recorded more details from those days. Most of my collection of pictures I had was lost one day when my phone shut off and wouldn’t turn on or charge. It was a replacement phone from another one I’d lost, including more pictures, and something about the replacement one would not allow pictures to upload to the icloud. There was a way they told me I could do it manually on the computer but I never took the time to do it.
Obviously covid contributed to the end of more official outings. Recently our piano teacher had to drop the boys and I as students after picking up another job. It was disappointing to lose her as a teacher. I don’t know what this means for further lessons for the boys. I wish I had the skill to teach them myself. As for me, I’ve wondered if the piano playing dream and desire is just another one of those things I need to let go of in order to peacefully go on with my life, though some things just nag at me if I’m not doing them. The boys don’t fight it, but the need for them to practice comes with a weight. I keep thinking I could teach myself if I was dedicated and practiced every day.
The boys had a good time today too. It made me happy in the auditorium to look over and see them enjoying the show. I momentarily wished I’d taught them more about music and instruments, whatever more general knowledge I had from my own school field trips, band experiences, and music appreciation classes, so I was thankful when the show included the featuring of the instruments. I know better not to get too bogged down with the mom guilt from all the things I haven’t done. If there’s something I’ve done wrong, I can ask for forgiveness. Otherwise I remember that God has his own story for them that he is writing. I knew with homeschooling that I’d be exchanging the inclusion of some good things for others. I’ve also much more deeply learned that the bigger things in life that I’ve actually done, always came with the help of other people to make them happen.
The past few nights have been late. Yesterday I had my final exam for my in-person Abnormal Psychology class. It took me most of the 3 1/2 class hours to finish it. This afternoon we left around 3PM for a track meet and returned home a little past 10PM. I stayed on the bleachers for most of it, but went back to the car once it had been sprinkling for a little while. These days I try to keep from becoming overly chilled.
My sentimental side wants to cherish the family outings and the high school years that are flying by. At the same time, my practical side says kids these days are doing way too much, which mostly has nothing to do with what makes up life in the real world. Homeschool parents can be viewed as sheltering the kids, but I tend to see the traditional school route a kind of sheltering too. Kids are kept away from reality.
We stopped by Sonic on the way home for supper. On the drive home, with sore legs after a longer and immobile day of sitting, I considered whether or not it would’ve been better for me to stay home and work on my paper this evening. Ultimately am glad I was there to share in the memory and to be able to talk about the kids’ races they’d ran. It’s true these are the little moments real lives are made of.
We recently met again with the couple who hosted last summer’s marriage intensive. Every quarter or so we’ve been following-up with them in their home. It takes a pretty dramatic change for me to be able to call something a “game-changer”. When I find or experience something that makes an actual difference in my life, that actually helps me with eliminating or reducing problems, that is actually able to change me, I am not only amazed. Something even more miraculous happens: I’m convinced and I’m loyal.
That’s what our marriage intensive was for me. So far, so good, right? God intervenes in ways beyond my work and activation, and I become a better, more stable, and more grateful person because of it. Yet still the all of me returns, and familiar inner struggles come back into view. One description, the one I find more personally practical, is that the cycles regularly occurring in waves, to continue on for decades or for however long the heavenly books are written, is like the time when we visited Cape Cod as kids.
The tide went out. Water that had once been up to our knees receded to reveal the rippled valleys of the sea floor. To this day, all these years of fascination later, I still can’t explain how exactly the tides work. But I think of that sea floor on a regular basis, imagining all the hidden things I could find in the once submerged, but now exposed sand. I could do without the pain but I’ll have heaven for that. And so I’m left with the wrestling, the tired revelations saying, “What am I supposed to be letting go this time?”
In Cape Cod we saw ripples and found more shells. There was nothing man-made, no sign of anything dead or sharp. For a period in time we could see the sandbars and landscape. The shore disappeared and dared us to chase it. We marveled when the covering returned to its place. The God who commands the tides of the ocean and created the body surely knew what he was doing. He is the only one who loves all of me, and I return to no one else. I don’t curse the body or the mind God gave me. I offer it back to him.
We didn’t know what we didn’t know, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get a chance, in God’s grace, to know now. I’m seeing more and more ways in which my own love was tainted, but am also able to remain in love’s embrace without shrinking away. It seems to me that little by little, God does help us to re-understand the things we were trying to know before. I again know his love, as he burns away the collected impurities getting in the way of its fullest expression.
The evening calls me to stay up and listen I can hardly handle you today, the pull toward the word, the love, the sky, And I want to say, “Look–“ there is nothing anymore for me up there.
So why do you keep me here? Of all the good things I could say of today You bring me back again to the night Refusing to let me go to my bed until the sun sets fully on what you told me
I’m still awake, still at home in a world that never stops to know why you whisper the loveliest sounds knowing all my intuitions are nothing to love the sinner you were back then
The ants, ticks, and snakes will soon be making their appearances. I prefer those appearances remain low as far as my own human eyes are concerned. In other words, I like it better when I don’t see them–not, God forbid, as the result of being blind, but rather because our paths do not cross. I already found ants in the garbage this afternoon. This morning we started giving the indoor/outdoor cats their tick treatments. It seems sufficient to give it to them 1-2 times in the spring, and often once in the fall.
I’ve taken five naps in the past three days. One on Monday before lunch, then another before I had to leave for class. One yesterday morning, and then another before leaving for the track meet which I went to while the others went to the baseball game. And then again today, this afternoon, before walking down to the lake where the boys were picking up sticks to clear the grass for the mower. I honestly can’t say whether or not these naps are something my body needs or if they’re just something I’m giving in to.
It feels needed anyway, and I do feel better and more awake when I get up. We’re starting our Grief Share group tonight at church, which I am looking forward to, but haven’t really processed. I don’t have a clear idea yet of what exactly my role is, but am comfortable with showing up and discovering it. Each session last two hours, with announcements and weekly review on the front end, a 40-45 minute video in the middle, followed by additional group discussion along with any closing thoughts and prayers.
Time continues to pass. On Friday afternoon I met up with a dear friend for lunch, one who I haven’t seen in over a year. We enjoyed a meal by the window, catching up on each other’s lives through the exchanging of words and the sharing of pictures. We’d met almost halfway between her home and mine, and decided again we needed to do this more often. Friday evening brought more food and fellowship. A man from church had bought the pastors and their wives tickets to attend the Lutheran High School auction. I bid on a succulent plant that I originally thought was fake, thinking I could put it on my living room bookshelf. When I found out the plant was real, I decided to bring up to my mom for her birthday.
My cousin was having a baby shower up north. Without the presence of my dad’s parents holding us together, I feel more pulled toward the opportunities to see relatives. I originally wasn’t going to go, as the kids had a track meet and a baseball game that day and I thought the accomodation of the schedules would be simpler without the added element of me going away. We ended up only having a track meet, which Josh had the boys for along with my mother-in-law who usually attends the sporting events with us. My father-in-law, entering planting season, took one of the boys to the field with him.
We had a wonderful visit. I was able to see cousins, two aunts, my parents, all the siblings except for two including my sister-in-law, and my grandma. Our family is entering into another transition, with more spreading out into different directions. My parents have plans to move closer down here, about an hour south to where we live now. My brother and his wife are moving back to Iowa, where her parents live, and where he recently found a new, salaried job with full benefits. My littlest sister is transferring colleges to attend in Michigan. I’m going to miss the house where my parents are currently living.
The landlord they rent from is needing to sell. They looked around for houses closer to my two sisters in the northern part of the state. The prices however were more affordable down here, once you got into the more southern portion. This move is hitting some of my siblings hard, as it’s taking my parents farther away from the shorter drive that’s allowed for some more accessible years. I haven’t really had too many feelings about things. My grandma is still living with them, and the house they found already had a beautiful built-in ramp that leads up to a deck and into the back door. My grandma told me earlier this month that she thinks she’s on a countdown to go see Jesus and Dad.
I left earlier this morning to meet Josh and the kids a little more than halfway back home. He was filling in for one of the local pastors. We met back up at a restaurant and enjoyed a mid-morning breakfast catching up on the weekend. It brought me joy to pull into the parking lot and see them standing under the overhang out of the rain. I asked if they wanted to come sit in the cars until a table opened up and it was time to go in. One of the kids said it was more adventurous this way, and for brief times like this one, I can see that it is. The weekend was a good combination of enjoying the time away then being glad to come home.
Yesterday’s post inspired me to make supper before I left. I had plans to meet up with a church friend at a restaurant in town, something we’ve been making an effort to do once a month. I’ve known of women who before they go away have to write out detailed lists of what to feed the baby and where to find the food. They leave instructions on how long to thaw and bake the frozen casserole she already had made up in the freezer. My personality and marriage partnering has not required this of me.
I washed the sweet potatoes and took two more white potatoes from the pantry. My plan was to have the potatoes baking and the leftover ham from Easter dinner warming in the oven when I walked out the door. Before I could get the potatoes loaded, my husband came into the kitchen and asked me what I was doing. I told him I was making supper. This behavior of me making supper before I left undoubtedly was not the norm, was not what he or I had gotten used to over the past 18+ years of living in such close proximity to another person. We’re aware of the truths that marriage can bring.
Sometimes when I write here, I get this feeling like I haven’t said the right thing. I fear something I say is going to be misinterpreted to mean something I wasn’t intending to mean. For example, when I think more about my “heavenly” version of studying, I fear that might be taken to mean I’m somehow not happy with the ridiculously beautiful life and lifestyle I currently have. I cherish every day I have with my boys, and they are in no way hindering me or giving me any frustration in regards to my own responsibilities with school. My heavenly version of studying happens right here in my living room.
I don’t know where I developed my obsession with change, but something I’m discovering and becoming more at peace with is that when we’re ready to change, we make those changes. With the exception of God almighty, you absolutely cannot force change on a person, including yourself. My friend and I were talking about this over supper last night. She had her things. I had my things. There’s simply no sense in beating yourself up or anybody else for that matter. If something within the realm of my personal control bothers me enough, I can make the choice to do something about it.
Another thing we wondered is why it takes us so long to learn these life lessons. So much suffering and heartbreak, how much could’ve been avoided if we’d simply known the ways and had the wisdom beforehand? This is another area of life I’ve been having to make peace with. Are there things I would go back and change about my choices, behaviors, and beliefs that would’ve made life better or easier on myself and my loved ones? Yes and no. Obviously we can’t go back in time and change things. The world is screwed up, and the people who live here are screwed up along with it. There’s an element of sin and dysfunction that’s simply unavoidable due to living in a fallen world. I can take knowledge with me into the future, but God is the one who redeems our past.
If I could fix it myself, then I wouldn’t need God. I’d be missing out on the stunning ways in which he works to restore his beloved creation, including the children of man. Even my eager and headstrong attempts to redeem myself yesterday fell short. He had no idea I’d just written about my heartfelt desire to do him good, but the words were still very fresh in my mind. As I stumbled through my explanation of what I was doing, as my confidence began to sink among the invisible air waves of his apparent confusion and suspected displeasure, he responded in a way that brought back the old pain. I knew they’d be fine and could do it without me…I knew not everyone is a fan of sweet potatoes, that’s why I’d gone back and gotten the…I barely attempted it.
I left before he could see my tears. I went into the bathroom and starting picking up the crumpled pieces of toilet paper overflowing from the garbage can. Of all the things in marriage that are essential for the promotion the two partners long-term safety, security, and happiness, the needed way for their whole life long is the holy act of speaking to one another in a tender and respectful tone of voice. He came back to the bathroom and asked what I was doing in a way that helped me know he knew he’d done something that unintentionally or not, had hurt me. I stood up and told him I was cleaning the bathroom.
“Hey,” he said, in a way he does that now signals to me that this is my time to not not forgive.
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