“For our boast is this, the testimony of our conscience, that we behaved in the world with simplicity and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God, and supremely so toward you. “
~2 Corinthians 1:12~

Yesterday I was thinking that I could really use a maid. It’s been a long while since I’ve thought anything like this, where the situation I was in had nothing to do with my temperament, or time management habits, or disciplinary measures integrating kids into housework. It wasn’t for lack of trying. It was not about husband who sat around and did nothing. You hear those kinds of stories and you can’t relate at all.

This was a matter of sheer numbers. When you added up all the work, all the needs, all the time that was required to fulfill the present tasks and duties, the only thing making sense was that one person was not enough. You’ve seen it said at times, “I don’t really need a husband. What I need is a wife.” You never took the thought that far, but yes, you understood it. What you needed was a helper, a female servant like in Bible times.

I called a sister. Our sis chats have dwindled over the past several years. I was horrified thinking, “Was I the one keeping all that going?” I haven’t needed the same support. And then there are always the changing seasons, where life gets busy or people withdraw and are going through their own harder times. She didn’t answer, so I called another. We talked and then the other called back. We talked and then it too helped for a while.

But this morning I wasn’t done. I thought of another sister who I don’t usually call. Of all of them she and I are probably the least close, yet in some ways are also the most alike. I knew she’d get the part about feeling overwhelmed. I wanted to know how she was doing, how she was coping, like spiritually.

For that is how we have learned to cope–through spiritual means. And I have often tried to tell her, “Look, you can’t just keep falling back on these platitudes. You’ve got take action and responsibility. You’ve got to deal better with all the emotions.” Never once has that gone well. But there is something to the God stuff she speaks of, and I know that, and I want to hear from her.

Everyone’s hard is not the same. That’s one of the things that’s been hard for her. When your life has been hard in ways that other people’s wasn’t. Because it can feel like nobody would really get or understand you, and it can tempt you to covet the ease it looks like others have. Their money or health or time or whatever they have.

And you wonder why, like why did my life have to be hard in this way? I was telling her how you hear things like “God uses our stories”, and that “our pain is never wasted”. Who says? And how I have sometimes coped by thinking, “Okay, God can use these experiences. Because of them I will have more opportunities to help others.” But even that is not a divine guarantee. And I’ve wondered, what if it was just so God could minister to me?

Would that be enough? That God ministered to me and that was enough. For it to have been my life that God worked in. She said she thinks we minister to others by simply existing. Like that somehow our lives bear witness to God. People have come up to her randomly here and there, telling her how this or that ministered to them when she had no idea. It made sense.

“But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.”
~James 1:4~

One of my favorite journals is from a time when I went completely offline. No Facebook. No blogging. Just me and my reading and clearer mind. Besides the writing out of quotes is the same thing over and over. Talking about how discouraged I am. Amazement at how much of a dream come true this whole homeschooling thing is. How I’m so fulfilled as a wife and a mother. How I’m tired of dealing with all of this pain.

I see hints of the exhaustion taking over even then. I’d actually forgotten about it, how sometime by 1PM I’d be folding over, when I still was doing all of the dishes and cooking meals for lunch and breakfast. When a spousal fight was not something you quickly bounced back from, but rather it knocked you out for days. And it was the joy of my life, having them all here in this time. And your husband was around instead of long away.

And you wait for the relief, but of what? When they can walk and do more things for themselves. When the sibling bickering is not your daily battle for years. I wondered again today, what is it exactly that I’m waiting for? When everyone grows up and moves out of the house? When there is supposedly less work, less food, less cleaning. For my weakened body to be stronger? And I remember this. I remember the longing for Christ.

How else would I have ever known it? I found myself apologizing to the kids over supper. Guys I’m sorry I’ve been so tired over the past couple of years. Like the times I remember when I thought I was, when I wanted to be the fun mom, when my life lit up with joy at the sheer glory of another day with you. I wanted my life to be a powerful gift to them, I could feel the vast significance. But maybe blessedly for my eyes only.

For there has never been a day, not in a long time, where I am anything but daily baffled by my deep, profound limitations. Yes my life, my love was a gift, but theirs to me was infinitely more. I was thinking about all this yesterday while riding around from here to there. I did try to tell them. They don’t say much and I know not what’s comprehended. And perhaps this too is a gift. One I don’t always understand, yet is mine nonetheless.

The boys and I made it home a little after 5 on Saturday. Over the weekend I’d gotten a text that I did not have to come in for my Sunday day shift. They were accidently overstaffed. I’d picked up that particular one because I’m supposed to be working at least one weekend shift a month. The past two months I have only done half shifts but nobody’s said anything. Since this was on them I don’t have to make it up.

So I wasn’t as worried about preserving energy for the next day. We stopped once and the rest of the time just kept going. No one had the brain power or energy to unload the van. The mudroom is full anyway and I wasn’t ready for the influx of stuff. This morning when the kids and I went out to the van for church we were met with the back of the van still full. Two of them went with me and then my daughter drove the rest.

We had a nice Mother’s Day. Josh made a roast plus potatoes, asparagus, and rolls. After that we had some downtime. The day was warmer so we all went down to the beach for a while. I’ve been filling people in about my river swimming plans. For supper we went out to eat and it was nice to be together. We stopped by the farm to see the mowing and visited my father-in-law’s grave. The remaining evening was nice too.

Well the track meet did not go as any of us had hoped. He was hoping to stay and finally PR in the 800M after nearly a year of college training. Instead his time was even slower than his best time junior year in his first year of high school track. This is pretty consistent with how things have gone this year, with some good and exciting moments, but overall just a lot of wondering on why things are not going better than they did.

Many other teammates met their goals. The one runner who’d tried to break the 5K school record during the last meet we were at ended up with another chance and set a new school record (now 14:39) by 3 seconds. That was very exciting. Ethan and another teammate also did the triple jump like they had done in high school as something fun and different for the end of the year. After the second jump his nose started bleeding and he ended up scratching the event. I was right there in the lower stands just acting like it was the most normal thing in the world. I eventually did bring him some water and tell him to stay sitting down. The more you move the more the heart pumps.

There were about three hours between the two events so after the triple jump my younger son and I went back to the hotel room. I needed to fall asleep for a while. We left here again a little after 8 to be there in plenty of time before the running event at 9. There was hardly anyone in the stands where we were because we sat on the opposite side of the main ones. We talked a little bit in the parking lot and said goodnight until morning.

St. Joseph was too far away so we’re stopped in Chillicothe, Missouri. It’s about half-way between home and Nebraska. Josh is taking his mom to the airport tomorrow or more of us probably would have come. They had sectionals tonight and Elianna did well. I can’t believe we’re basically done with the season already. It seems like we were just getting started.

Ethan is running tomorrow as well. He stayed an extra whole week just to run in this one. The cafeteria has been closed this whole time so I’ve tried to keep my balance between being curious as to what he’s eating and wondering if he’s eating enough and just figuring that he’s going to figure it out. He and another guy have access to a stove and a fridge so that helps.

One of the boys came along with me. We figured this was about his sixth or so trip out. Two of others apparently would’ve rather gone to school and another wanted to make sure she was there to watch the weekend school play. They have a pool where we are staying and we have plans to try it out tomorrow. The meet isn’t until later. We had a nice supper together.

Josh’s mom took us out to supper tonight at MCL. Tomorrow night is the girls’ sectional track meet and the next day she leaves to spend some time with my sister-in-law and her family. They are working on trying to move closer. My sister-in-law has had about five different interviews in the past several months and it’s looking she’s going to end up somewhere close to and around St. Louis.

After supper Elianna and I went to senior awards night at Trinity. I’ve kind of enjoyed reliving all these end of the year senior moments. Afterward we talked to Miles and his parents for a while. We drove home and played music from my phone. We checked on the river before going back home. It hadn’t changed much since she and I had checked the last time. We stared in amazement at the grown tree being carried along.

The schoolroom and boys’ room flooded again. The fans and the dehumidifiers were going and need to be checked. I spent the morning with a woman who I asked if she could help me put together flower pots for the camp office door. The flower pot by our door morphed into a container for the baseball gloves and baseballs. I do like it for now. I still need to sweep, but the flowers are there.

Well I wasn’t catatonic but I did spend a majority of the day resting in bed. I don’t think it was the exercise, it was being out later last night for a track meet. After waking up and spending time together this morning, I fell back asleep until it was time to take the boys. I usually eat breakfast after returning home, and once I’d done that, I was going to drive to the river to see if the rain had caused it to rise any more.

But then I realized I was exhausted. I’d started to feel it about halfway through the meet. I remember lying in bed and feeling like I wasn’t colored in. Like if you had a coloring page with the lines but there was no color. Every time it started to come back, if I did even something smaller, the color drained out. It was like it was leaking out because there was nothing there anymore that was holding it in.

This is why swimming is still able to work. It’s because something holds my body up. The same thing with the bike. This is why running won’t work anymore, because with that you are the one who is holding up your body plus the other stuff you’re trying to do. I started a yin yoga video for stomach and spleen. I was just picking something. But I didn’t like it as much because it didn’t have the affirmations.

And she didn’t hold the movements long enough in my opinion. So I searched for Yoga with Kassandra who is the girl I’ve come to like. I found a new one I hadn’t done, Yin Yoga for Healing or something like that. The affirmations are statements she makes that you say as you begin each position or pose. I like them because it gives your mind something to focus on and think about while you’re being still.

There were several affirmations that stood out to me with this one. The first one was, “I treat my body with love and respect.” I have mentioned before that my body would have different reactions to some of these statements. With this one I was perfectly still and calm, nothing happened. But with the next one, “I allow all parts of myself to be expressed”, both my upper body and lower body shook again.

I’ll say it couple of times just to see if it does it again. It did. Here’s the thing with all this, I have not personally experienced yoga to be a cure. Obviously I’m still dealing with the effects of whatever it was that happened now over three years ago. I have my ideas, understandings, and hunches about some things, but other things are still unknown to me. I accept that there are mysteries and unknowns in God’s hands.

But it did something that somehow helped. So I’m a believer in whatever that something is that involves the bodily stretching and turning of the mind toward guided words. It gives me a chance to feel like the color is being given a chance to be colored back in. After doing the healing one I went back to the grief one I used to do. I wanted to hear again what the affirmations were for that one. I just listened.

“Today I choose to heal”

“I am willing to let joy into my life”

“I let go of my resistance toward this situation”

“I am surrounded by support seen and unseen”

“My heart opens up a little bit more every day”

“My tears are holy and healing”

“I trust in the goodness of life”

“I relax and allow feelings to move through me”

“I show myself great care and compassion at all times”

I’m still stuck on this river thing. Today I did look into it more and I feel like this is something that maybe actually could happen. After reading through some info, people’s opinions, and stories, I looked up the place where on the river we used to swim as kids. It’s a little over 1000M wide, probably closer to 1100. That’s not that far, and unless I’m completely underestimating or off about something, an hour seems like a good guess.

It motivated me again to move more today at least. We put air in the tires so I biked around for a while and down to the lookout tower and back. Some people had come to fish. I saw my daughter on a walk and asked her where she was going. She was heading down to the beach but didn’t have any shoes on. So I parked my bike and walked with her but we had to walk slow because her feet were sensitive on the rocks. By then the sun had set more and it wasn’t particularly warm so jumping in was not appealing.

“Well don’t overdo it”, he said, “We don’t need you catatonic for the next three days.” I was lying on my back on the floor in our bedroom, pushing an 8lb weight into the air. It was the one that was close. I admittedly have never swam in prolonged open water currents, so I do not know what that would be like. But that’s kind of what I’m wanting to know. What would it be like to swim across a running river? It’s at least fun to dream.

Yesterday I said that about wanting to swim across a river then later remembered I swam across the Rio Grande once. I’m not in the mood to write about it. But the part where I swam was never over chest or waist high. I am talking about a wider river that I estimate would take about an hour. That’s taking your time and not trying too hard. I was thinking about this last night when I was awake, how some people train for half or full marathons for whatever reason and how there’s no way I would ever do that.

But swimming across a river you wouldn’t even have to train for. You’d just make sure to have your boat alongside and the lifeguard tube attached to your body. I’ve never even researched if there’s a right way to do this. This afternoon I went down and jumped in the lake. This is the time of the year we’re getting around to our first swim of the season. Miles and Elianna had gone swimming down there earlier and said the water was actually pretty nice. I didn’t stay there long, just enough to be submerged.

And then I walked around for a while. I also tried to bike but it had a flat tire. There was nobody out at camp today which is odd for a weekend but also nice to have it quiet. Dad and the boys had gone back out to Grandma’s to finish mowing. A storm blew in not long after they arrived back home. It came down heavy for a while and has rained on and off for the rest of the evening. I can’t think of anything else to write mainly just because it’s getting late. We had a nice supper together and Saturday evening at home.

This morning we took a drive out toward the river to check for flooding. One of the groups had called and said they thought the back road was blocked off. It was, but not because of the water. The river was still contained in its banks but barely. I’ve always wondered what it’d be like to try and swim across a river. They used to have to cross rivers when traveling from the center of the country out West.

Sometimes men would be washed away while they crossed. And there would be no burials or searching for bodies. The rest of the travelers would just have to go on. The currents, even in a small river, seem like something you wouldn’t want to get caught in. It seems like it wouldn’t be that far or that hard, but all it would take is an invisible tree passing by underneath and the whole thing would suck you under.

Later when the boys were home we checked out the creek. It rained last night. You could tell by the mud and the puddles and foam. The windows were open which always makes the best sound. We looked at the water but didn’t stay long. I followed them all out of the woods into the wellfield, and then through the tree-line to approach the hill. The boys ran. We walked up and I raised my arms and took a breath.