He's Our...

Home Sweet Home.

So thankful to be back together as a family!

 

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Something Better Than President (To my Mom for Father's Day)

I guess in some ways it would've made more sense to write this post on Mother's Day. I could have, but I didn't. Because although you have been a mom to me these past 39 years, you've also stood where a dad should've stood all these years, too. When you're a single parent, you don't think about taking off the "Mom" hat to put on the "Dad" hat, do you? You just see what needs done and said and paid and corrected and kissed and tackled and you do it. All. Alone. Every. Day.

Last week, I glanced at our faces in the mirrored dining room when we laughed, not sure which was yours and which was mine. Our eyes, our hair color, our size, our smile. Have two mothers and daughters ever looked more alike?

It's no wonder I have a hard time telling us apart. A baby doesn't make itself and neither does a toddler, a preschooler, a student, a teenager, or a woman. So much of who I am, you have made me, and what I have, you have given me. I can't always sort out what's mine and what's yours on the inside either.

When my newborn hand first wrapped around your barely 19-year-old finger, you wrapped your love in determination and sealed it with a kiss on my tiny black-haired head. That kiss was full of expectations for how we would get through. Starting with the first time the babysitter would pry my little arms and legs from around you so you could go to work. You'd be brave, telling me and all my tears I could too and then run to your car crying on your way because you hated leaving me scared and sad. What hat were you wearing then? "Mom" or "Dad"? Or were you just knowing you had bills to pay and our mouths to feed and if you didn't work, who would?

You had expectations for me the summer before Kindergarten when we took a walk on Daytona Beach and you told me things would be different. I was becoming a big girl and would have to go to school and pull my chin out of my chest and make friends. And you knew I could do it. I believed I could too because you said so.

You had expectations for me when Amy, who had every toy she wanted, made fun of me because I didn't even have a dad. You didn't say all I'm sure you wanted to say about her, nor did you justify our situation. You helped me take pity on her because she had toys, all right, but she didn't have a relationship like ours.

You had expectations for me in 3rd grade when Carla said I looked like a chipmunk with my buck teeth hanging over my lip. You didn't rush to the orthodontist and throw some braces on me to boost my self-esteem or tell me buck was the new beautiful. You expected me not to take myself too seriously and suggested that I go with the theme and dress up as one of the chipmunks for Halloween. So out came the over-sized sweatshirt and paint for Alvin's signature "A". Trick or treat!

You had expectations for me in 5th grade (Stella's age) when I had to start setting my own alarm clock for school and getting myself out of bed, ready, and out the door on time. I couldn't miss the bus because you were already at work and couldn't leave to come get me if I did. I think I ran to the bus stop many mornings that year, climbing those bus steps panting and wind blown. I may have even chased it down a few times, running across Forest View Drive to the last stop in our neighborhood. (Punctuality was never my strength. Wonder where I got that from?!)

You had expectations for me in 7th grade when I didn't make the cheerleading squad in spite of being favored for a spot going into tryouts. The teachers picked the girls from "good families" and who knew what mayhem I might introduce considering the kind of family I came from. You gave me strict instructions that I was to be as glad for the girls who won as I would've been for myself. That I shouldn't dare talk badly about the judging or any of the other girls who beat me, regardless of what I thought of their "barely off the ground toe touches" and "horribly uncoordinated dancing."

You had expectations for me in the summers from 5th grade on. I was to be out of bed by 9 AM, check my to do list for the day, and get busy completing it before you got home that afternoon. I was also to read Five Little Peppers and How They Grew and list every word I didn't know the meaning of. Then I was to look up those words in the dictionary and write out their definitions. (Thankfully, you let this one expectation go after awhile!)

You had expectations for me in high school when one of my teachers, who by all other accounts was a nice person, had the audacity to say a woman could never be President of the United States because she would constantly be changing her mind about what color the drapes should be in the White House. (Even typing those words now still makes my blood boil a little too much.) I don't think I'd ever heard someone criticize and demean my gender like that because you had taught me, not in a man bashing way, nor in a we-need-men-as-much-as-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle way, women were as competent as men. Didn't everyone think that? I knew you couldn't care less what color the drapes were in the White House, but you were a woman who could capably lead our house and your office, with a multi-membered staff and several departments, because you were smart and decisive and strong. And you expected the same from me.

For 26 years under your roof, you told me what I should be and you lived it for me like a mom should and like a dad should've. My old high school teacher might be surprised that you raised me to be something better than President. God used all you invested in me and expected of me to help make me a Christian woman.

Happy Father's Day, Mom. For all the days you did what needed to be done, said what I needed to hear, worked your fingers to the bone, studied into the wee hours of the morning to earn your degrees, stayed up late to wash clothes and floors and dishes, and lived the expectations you held me to. You became part of who I am. And I couldn't be prouder to be so much you that I can't tell us apart.

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*Some names have been changed in this post to protect the guilty:)

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Stay on the Bike: A 13th Anniversary Admonition

I left her tough and tender hand for your untried one that Saturday morning.

You opened it up to me and I held on tight, in faith, to my husband-to-be, wondering what you would be.

Samuel Rutherford was right. This bride loved the beauty and simplicity of her white satin dress, but on that day, I was only eyeing all the handsomeness of your chiseled 22-year-old face. We looked like kids, but even kids can sometimes know what's up.

So we looked up, lifting our hopes and voices at the front of our church to the only One worthy of our praise.

"For Thyself, best gift divine,
To our race so freely given.
For that great, great love of Thine,
Peace on earth, and joy in heaven:
Christ our Lord, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise."

We let the wind carry us where it would and it blew us right into the city named after it.

I clumsily followed you around Lake Michigan on my bike too, trying to remember how to ride (and they say you never forget). We laughed, joking about pedestrians passing me while I was the one on wheels. But we stayed on our bikes, basking in the electricity of young married love, fed by a city as energetic and ambitious as we were.

You sat through My Fair Lady gleaning helpful knowledge about Spain and rain and Hampshire and hurricanes.

We went to a steakhouse and I checked my fruit and veggies at the door for my meat and potatoes man.

For breakfast, before our food, we each ordered dark black coffee and sweet and tangy freshly squeezed o.j., eyes wide over how tasty everything was, and over . . . the bill! Who knew we should've made a meal out of those drinks to stay within budget?!

Figuring out life together was a lot like my relearning to ride that bike. Couples passed us who had been at it longer telling us those molehills I made mountains wouldn't seem so big once we'd really climbed a few. Those expectations I had and demands I made would show that you could never be for me what only God could. And all those adventures you shared that I was so quick to reason our way out of and shoot down on the spot would highlight the fact that you wanted me to be a friend to laugh and dream with, not a legal counselor or risk assessor.

We needed space to have some wrecks and work things out on our own along the way, but we also needed examples to show us how it's done. To show us what it looked like to stay on the bike and to love God and each other more than we wanted to be loved ourselves.

It's 13 years later, and I'll be the first to admit I still have a ways to go. But I think by the way you've learned to love me, you've actually made me better at loving. You slow up for me as I still timidly pedal at times and push me to go faster and pedal harder when you know that's what I need. And sometimes I have to tell you that fast isn't everything. Half the fun is in how we get there - the journey - not just in arriving. The road is full of bumps and sudden turns, so in some ways we're still working it out one ride at a time. But in other ways, by God's grace, we keep pace pretty well with those older pros.

Photo Credit: Robyn Moore

So, to you young couples still new at this sometimes (often?) difficult marriage ride, trying to steady that bike from tipping or even thinking it would be so much easier to abandon it at the curb, could we ask you to stay on the bike? We are giving you space to fall and try to work it out together. But we're also here if you need a hand to help you up, to dust off the gravel, and to get back on.

Decorating 101

We've been in our house just over a year now. After hotel living for about a month, we were so grateful to have walls between us again, never mind if they were unfinished and the floor was dusty concrete in places.

I've enjoyed making this house our orange and yellow haven these past months. We are thankful for the unnecessary, but helpful, blessings of more bathrooms and more space.

Just before we moved in, I discovered Myquillyn Smith's blog, Nesting Place. Her mantra, "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful," helped me find contentment with our budget and provided some focused commitment to shop the house with new eyes to reuse and rethink how I could be creative with the decór I had. It was fun!

But this past month, probably in part because of my expectation that our house should look a certain way after 12 months of residence, that motto hasn't been cutting it. I still see some bare walls and floors and not enough or too much of you name it.

All the wise shopping and saving and minimizing and digging deep in still unpacked boxes has left me discouraged and even frustrated with my imperfectly beautiful surroundings.

A few Sundays ago, a friend from church texted and asked how she could be praying for me. I told her about my admittedly silly struggle with contentment regarding my house. She wrote back saying she could definitely relate and added, "I know I've had times when my head is just swirling with to-buy lists- it's hard to shut off." Spot on.

I knew I could run to Home Goods and pick up another $10 knick-knack to cross one thing off that "must buy" list. But I've worn a path down that road and knew in about 2 hours (if that) the problem would still be there with a new "needed" item now added to the list so I could complete the vignette I started.

The problem is that although most of the time I can see beauty in my imperfect surroundings and be thankful for what I have, my heart doesn't just crave beauty. It craves perfect beauty.

My problem, then, isn't solved by a bigger budget to buy higher end and better quality things. Nor is it solved by getting a more inspired vision for what I can creatively reuse. My problem isn't with my physical eyes but my spiritual ones. The eyes of my heart long to gaze upon something -or someone- who lacks nothing. Who isn't just beautiful enough. But beautiful completely.

So I take his Word and see him as the perfect satisfier of all my heart wants - yes, even what it wants to fill the dry walls and laminate floors of this brick edifice. Like Moses, I see all his goodness pass before me, and the eyes of my heart are captivated by perfect beauty. "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin." (Exodus 34:6,7a)

My heart is at peace because I find all it has been craving met in him. "He satisfies the longing soul." (Psalm 107:9)

Although I still have my list of wants and make use of Myquillyn's helpful slogan and practical expertise, these past days, I have reminded myself that the decorating primer I've needed and the kind of beauty for which I'm longing, aren't fixes I can make with my hands or see with my eyes, but instead, are apprehended with my heart.

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