Candice

Can I brag on my sister-in-law for a second? Guys, this girl is amazeballs. I don’t quite know if I’ll be able to adequately explain why I am so in awe of Candice, but I’m going to try. Cause it needs to be said.

First of all, this girl prayed that her husband would want to go to Africa. Her heart was filled with the desire to go to Africa and do something significant for God. But she took one look at her precious 8 month old, and precocious 2 and-a-half-year old and realized, sadly, this wasn’t quite in the cards right now. And instead of resigning herself to her fate, a little resentful of her needy small children and overall tied-down lot in life (as I would have done…) she starts praying that her husband would want to go to Africa and do something significant for God. Because, as she sees it, it’s kind of a two for one deal. They’re a team and if he goes, it’s her adventure too.

And of course, as God works in these ways, a few months later a trip to Africa presents itself. Her husband, unaware of her prayers, thinks maybe he might like to go…on a two-week trip…to Africa…leaving behind his wife and two small children. And instead of saying, “No way are you leaving me alone with two small children for two weeks! No way are you going on the adventure that I dreamed up! NO WAY are you leaving me behind!” (as I would have done…) she excitedly said, “YES! Go! Have fun! Do amazing things for God! We’ll do whatever it takes to get you there. I’m so behind you on this one!”

And then he goes. And instead of pouting and whining and hibernating for two weeks with two small children, feeding them whatever take out she fancies and ordering whatever she wants on amazon.com, because she deserves it (As. I. Would. Have. Done.) she decides to spend the two weeks with her friend Bethany whose husband is also in Africa. So she can help Bethany out. Bethany and her three boys.

While her husband is gone she decides to take her two small children four hours north to her husband’s family farm weekend. By herself. And on the way home from this exhausting weekend where she was a single parent her precocious two-and-a-half-year-old gets sick all over herself. Candice has to pull over on the side of the road, strip her down, clean her up, and get her back in the car, waking the eight month old in the process. And instead of losing her cool when her husband calls from Africa a few minutes after this fiasco, yelling at him for leaving her behind with the aforementioned fiasco which is somehow his fault (AS I WOULD HAVE DONE) she is thankful that he called at that moment instead of a few minutes earlier. Because if he had called when she was cleaning puke, she wouldn’t have been able to talk to him.

Candice is cut from a different cloth. When I was in the hospital having my baby she cleaned my whole house and washed my sheets. When I had to run our church’s VBS Candice came with her then sixteen month old (and sickly first trimester pregnant self) to watch my 8-week-old son for the week. While staying at Bethany’s this week she cleaned her bathroom and weeded her garden. She doesn’t sit down. She is always doing something to help someone. Candice has unlimited patience for her kids. Unlimited patience and sweet, sweet love. She is respectful and patient and loving. When I am telling my kid to knock it off and quit crying like a baby she is calmly and lovingly explaining to hers why it’s not ok to cry when you don’t get your way and that it hurts her ears to hear those cries. In short Candice is amazing. I don’t know very many people like her. She is humble and a true definition of servant hearted. Unfortunately these gifts often go overlooked and underappreciated; it kills me because every time I think of her I’m overwhelmed with gratitude.

Truthfully, Candice is pretty much everything I’m not. I would always rather sit and chat instead of do dishes. Or sit and surf the Internet. Or lie down and nap. I don’t want to clean my own bathroom much less someone else’s. And if what I do is going to go unnoticed or underappreciated…I’m not likely to do it.

One thing I am sort of good at is using encouraging words. So I write this to honor Candice and hopefully make sure she knows that all she does is noticed and appreciated. Cause seriously guys, she’s amazeballs.

The Whistle

When Monster was a newborn I heard the sound of a crying baby everywhere. Even when he was dead asleep I swore I could hear him crying. Even when I was at work and Monster was miles away with his beloved Granda, I heard him crying. My husband says he heard it too so I know I’m not crazy. Or maybe we’re both crazy.

These days I hear the high whistle of hearing aid feedback. No matter where I am, no matter if Monster’s aids are turned off, batteries out, I swear I can hear that whistle. The whistle, when I am actually hearing it and not imagining it, is a sign that something is not right with Monster’s aids: they aren’t sitting correctly on the back of his ear, the mold isn’t pushed into his ear canal tightly enough, or, most likely, he has pulled them out in protest of boredom while strapped into his highchair/stroller/car seat. The whistle screams attention to the problem and pulls me into action to fix whatever is wrong. The whistle is actually, kind of, a good thing.

Except when I hear it all those other times. When Monster’s aids are tucked away for the night, turned off and resting in anticipation of another day of amplifying sound for my son, the whistle screams attention to what? My inadequacies? My failures? The fact that I constantly forget to incorporate sign language during the day? Or the guilt for the hour spent at the pool that could have been spent elsewhere with Monster’s hearing in tact? The looming sense that something is still not right? That something else will go wrong?

Just like Monster’s imagined cries were a constant reminder of what was not going right at home, the damn whistle is my reminder that I’m still afraid. The whistle I hear everywhere raises my level of stress, sends my blood pressure skyrocketing and leaves me frantically searching for the root of the problem in need of a solution, neither of which I can identify.

I hate that damn whistle. I hate not knowing the future for Monster. I hate learning sign language. I hate that I am already stressing about whether or not Monster will wear his hearing aids in school pictures. I hate that I even care about school pictures! I hate wishing that this wasn’t our forever permanence. I hate that I’m still mourning things that I didn’t realize I had to mourn.

I hate the whistle because it interrupts the normal moments with a reminder of what is our “new normal.” Family meals are interrupted with cleaning food off of his aid and reinserting it back in his ear while saying loudly and sternly, “NO! Hearing aids stay IN!” and Monster shakes his head no to show he knew all along. Quiet moments in the car turn into stress-filled minutes trying to wrestle the hearing aid out of my son’s mouth while still keeping my eyes on the road. Moments snuggling and wrestling with Monster are broken by the whistle when the contact jars his aid loose.

I know it will get better. I know his aids will someday simply just be a part of him. I know, I know, I know we are truly so blessed. This is minimal. This is a small price to pay for my son.

But I still hate the whistle.

Why U2 was the Most Worshipful Experience I've had in a Long Time...

This summer I went to the U2 concert. (I know, I know. Yes, you should be jealous, ‘cause it was freakin’ awesome). I’ve loved U2 since I was 16 years old and my first real boyfriend (who was not my boyfriend yet) danced with me to “Sweetest Thing” and later declared it to be our song. I don’t usually tell people that this is when I first fell in love with U2. Usually I tell people I fell in love with U2 when I bought their “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” album in the era of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Those guys were actually singing about something. Clearly the latter story seems like a bit “deeper” reason to love U2.

I thought about this as we waited for the concert to start, watching the giant screens flash statistics. How much money was being spent world wide on illegal drugs, how many people had died unnecessarily of hunger while we sat their sipping beers, how many children had been born to members of the crew while on tour (17 by the way). At this moment one of the women in our group turned to us and said, “That’s the one thing that I don’t like about U2, all their political stuff. Sometimes I just want to sit back and enjoy my rock concert.” Hmmm. That’s actually one of the things I love most about U2. They care. They aren’t just self-involved rock stars. Or maybe they are and they’ve just kept up an incredible act all these years. Either way, they are beckoning their fans to a higher calling. They don’t let their concert goers sit idly by resigned to their role as mere rock fans. They think more of us. They invite us to care too. All while enjoying an amazing rock concert. I don’t mind paying $10 for beers to participate in all that.

And last week I discovered another reason why I love Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam. The U2 concert was perhaps the most worshipful experience I’ve had in a very long time. From the moment I sat down in my seat my heart fell into anticipation of God’s presence. I found myself noticing Him everywhere. Soldier Field felt as though it was brimming with hearts that cared about the same thing God’s heart cared about. As I sang along to Pride I was singing about Jesus, the one man who came in the name of love. Belting out “in the name of love/what more in the name of love”, I realized these words were worshipful. I was singing those words to God. The warm, perfect summer air was thick with God’s presence. Sunday Bloody Sunday was my heart’s cry to God.

And it was at that exact moment my mind began to articulate this idea of feeling closer to God, filled with more adoration and worship of Him than I had in a long time that my husband’s cousin Becky turned to me and said “This is better than any church service I’ve ever been to.” And all at once I felt both wholeheartedly in agreement and deeply conflicted. Hadn’t I just been thinking the same thing? And yet, this wasn’t a church service, and while I don’t know where Becky stands with God, I do know her conflicted relationship with the church. And it made me sad. It made me sad for her and the thousands of others in this stadium that sang along without knowing the power behind those words. And it made me sad that people, myself included, are finding a more powerful experience with God at a rock concert than they do at church.

I work in a church. I’m not in charge of worship I work with students. But I am constantly trying to help create experiences that draw my students closer to God. And I’m constantly trying to convince them that God is, in fact, at church. And, I’ll admit, sometimes I have to convince myself of the same thing. Why is it that my heart feels more in line with the heart of God at a U2 concert than it does at church? What are we doing wrong? Why did God feel closer at Soldier Field than He has at church in a long time?

Maybe it’s just my church that feels irrelevant. Or maybe it’s just me. Lately I’ve had a hard time singing worship hymns that feel so dry when everywhere I look I see things that make my heart long for God’s intervention. There is so much hurting, so much pain, so much corruption and evil that I’ve never in my life wanted so much to see Jesus move in actual, tangible, concrete ways. I read the Gospels with a desire to see how Jesus would respond today. What would he say to our modern day Pharisees? (And whom would he identify as one?) How would he heal the woman next door who’s so addicted to drugs and alcohol that most days she barely functions? What would he say to the girl who was kidnapped, trafficked and now sells her body because she knows no other way? The more I learn about injustice, the more desperate and useless I feel. The more I see what is dirty and rough and hard in the world, the more complicated I understand the situation to be. I have more problems to bring to God and fewer answers than I did when I became a Christian 10 years ago.

And perhaps that’s why U2 was such a jarring experience for me. For the first time in a long time, I felt myself crying out to God straight from the depths of my heart. And my voice wasn’t alone. I was in a stadium full of people asking God the same thing. And that felt really worshipful. “How long, how long must we sing this song?” How long indeed.

Ears to Hear

As I stood in the parking lot of the children’s hospital, moments after the life changing words “severe hearing loss” my mind got stuck on all the words of love my son had never heard. Thirteen and a half months worth of sweet whispers and “I love yous.” Thirteen and a half months worth of messages my heart sought to speak.

Today, Monster has hearing aids, and I’ve wasted no time making up for the months of silence. I say I love you in as many ways that I can, as many times as I can. I tell him he’s good and he’s loved and he’s treasured. I tell him all the things he didn’t hear for the first year of his life.

However months into his diagnosis bedtime is still the part that breaks my heart. Perhaps it’s because just about every “going to sleep” moment of his short life involved a routine that was inundated with sounds. From the Rock-a-bye Baby! U2 album that my husband and I swore was completely necessary in Monster’s ability to fall asleep, to the bedtime stories I just knew were filling him with rich language and imagination, to the prayers for his character and heart for God, all of these rituals were as much for me as they were for him. There was comfort in those sounds, in the routine that sent my son into slumber. For a few nights after we found out he couldn’t hear I still continued to press play on the stereo even though it wasn’t at a decibel Monster could hear. It felt so wrong without it. Too quiet. Too empty.

I think, though, that the larger reason that made bedtime so difficult had to do with the words I had always chosen to leave my son with. Since he entered my life I have laid him in his crib with words that spoke to his worth. We love you. Mom loves you, Dad loves you, Nona and Granda love you. God loves you. You are good and sweet and kind hearted. You are loved so, so much. For thirteen and a half months silence resided where I thought had been powerful words of love.

I wasn’t the only one sending Monster off to dreamland on affirming words of love. Unbeknownst to me, my dad, Monster’s primary caregiver on days that I work, had also spent the last months giving Liam a message of worth before he went to sleep. As he puts it, “The last thing he should know before going to sleep is that he’s good and he’s loved.”

And that right there is why bedtime is still heartbreaking. Monster doesn’t wear his hearing aids to sleep. He is unable to hear anything just before I lay him in his crib. In those last fleeting moments before I leave him for the night silence resounds. We have a new bedtime routine. Now we read our stories and say our prayers and then take his aids out. We go upstairs and turn off the light. And I hold him close and kiss his ears three times. And then we rock back and forth as I continue to say those same words I always said. I know he can’t hear them, but for some reason I can’t hold them in. I can’t bear to not say them. I have to believe, someway, somehow Monster has ears to hear what I need him to know. Maybe his physical ears can’t do that, but I continue to communicate these words of love that hopefully he’ll feel in his depths, words that his heart will hear. For myself, and for him.

And now in a display of total randomness...

I was asked to post this on my friend Catie's blog. I enjoyed writing it, so I'm adding it to the blog. It's part one of the Epic Prank war we had in high school.

The Epic Prank War’s Humble Beginnings

For years the following events have traumatized me, but as we’ve just passed the decade mark since this all transpired, I think I’m finally ready to speak about it. “It” is the horrific kidnapping and brutal murder of my snap bracelet. Also referred to as a slap bracelet, for those of you not well versed in popular accessories of the late 80’s/early 90’s this is a slap bracelet. I had a snap bracelet when I was 8. I wore it with my neon outfit and triple layer socks. It was awesome.

I had recently acquired from a local gas station the most awesome of all awesomeness…a snap bracelet. Which of course I showed off to everyone I knew. Cause, duh, it was awesome. Well two future convicts in training who henceforth will be referred to as “the hoodlums” (JON MILONAS and KRIS JOHNSON I’m talking to you!) decided to begin their lifelong crime spree by stealing MY snap bracelet, affectionately known as Snappy. Now this part is a little hazy. I think, in an effort of self-preservation, I have blocked out the actual kidnapping. It is unclear to me how exactly they got their hands on Snappy. I mean obviously I was wearing it at all times.(BTW, I recently got in touch with one of the hoodlums (JON MILONAS) in an effort to clear up this blocked memory. I appealed to his sense of humanity asking him to please confess his crimes in the name of justice, but he claimed to have no memory either. As if.) At any rate Snappy was kidnapped and the following day I received a ransom note and these pictures.

Despite the professional disguises I immediately knew the identity of the two kidnapping hoodlums (JON MILONAS and KRIS JOHNSON). I could not just sit around and wait for the kidnappers to give me further instructions. Like Liam Neeson in Taken I had a very particular set of skills; skills I had acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like them. I would get them where it hurts. I would kidnap their metaphorical Snappy.And that metaphorical Snappy came in the form of a Home Alone poster. It was one of the hoodlum’s prized possessions. And I would take it until Snappy was returned.

Now I’d like to stress that what transpired next was NOT my fault. I laid out a plan for a safe and secure removal of the Home Alone poster. Exit routes were secured, back up was enlisted.However security for Operation Snappy’s Revenge was compromised and the hoodlums were informed of our plans. They attempted to halt the poster removal and in the scuffle that ensued the Home Alone poster may or may not have gotten a little torn. Like, the tiniest piece came off the corner. It could have been easily put back together with some scotch tape and a careful surgeon’s hand.

However, because we were dealing with madmen of epic hoodlum proportion (JON MILONAS and KRIS JOHNSON), this miniscule snafu sent them in to a murderous rage. The tearing of their metaphorical Snappy had been an ACCIDENT in retaliation for an even graver deed. It wouldn’t even have gone down that way if they hadn’t tried to rip the Home Alone poster out of my hands. So really, it was their fault if you think about it. But because we were dealing with hoodlums of the worst kind no amount of reason would have talked them out of what they did next…

This is what I received, on Valentine’s Day no less.

In case you can’t tell, this is a picture of my dear, faithful Snappy, being cut into a million pieces (or 32) amid a tray of Valentine’s cookies. The photographic evidence of their heinous act was delivered along with Snappy’s remains, in a heart shaped box. My eyes well up as I think of Sweet Snappy’s broken body.

And then, as if that wasn’t enough the two hoodlums enlisted the rest of their hoodlum pack to continue their Inappropriate and Unnecessary Revenge Tour by infringing on the most sacred of rituals, the ALL GIRLS SLEEPOVER. Which brings us to where Catie began the tale of the Epic Prank War. I won’t spoil the end, but let’s just say that for Snappy, justice was served.

But those who hope...

I'm in week two of the belief project (or whatever the heck I'm calling it). I'll be honest, I've been distracted and not quite attentive to what God is doing. But, nonetheless, God is reaffirming his promise and reminding me of the part I play. Here's what I discovered today...

"but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength."

Isaiah 40:31

I looked up the definitions of the Hebrew words for hope and renew in this passage. Hope means wait, look for, hope, expect. And renew? Among other things, to go through, change, grow up, alter, or change for the better.

I've asked God to change me. I'm being stretched in a belief that God would create a real change in me, a change deep down in my character and my heart that manifests itself in my words and actions.

And today God reminded me that I need to look for him and expect him to do that if I want to see a change in me for the better.

Praying for divine expectation...

My Unbelief Part 2

I think God wants to help me overcome my unbelief… All signs point to this theme in my life and I work through a Beth Moore Study called “Believing God.”

These were my prayers today:

Lord I confess: I doubt that you will transform my parents’ and siblings’ understanding of and relationship with you. I doubt that you will capture the hearts of my friends in real ways. I doubt that you will bring Tommy and I closer together to each other and in our relationship with you. I doubt that you will create any real change in me.

Oh Lord I am sorry. Please, please help me overcome my unbelief! I don’t want to be this way. I grow more cynical and I am less amazed by what is truly amazing. Give me a spirit of awe, a spirit tuned into what you are doing and the incredible nature of your work. Help me to believe that you can create a change in me.

Help me overcome my unbelief. Please don’t give up on me as I muddle through this. Don’t give up if I miss signs that you are working- or if it takes me a really long time to notice your blessings. Please don’t give up if my heart is hard and cynical. Soften it and give me awe for you.

Help me overcome my unbelief.

A few days ago I identified two areas of my life that I really needed to believe that God would show up and move in. One was in my own mindset. Maybe it’s a little bit of postpartumish blues, but I think mostly it’s just my own attitude and need for adjusting; at any rate, I’m unhappy more than I’d like to admit. I am carrying a chip on my shoulder and with it a sense of entitlement. I let my mind tumble headlong down the rabbit hole of how hard I’ve got it and how much I deserve a break, how hard I’m working and how little everyone else is, how no one else can understand because no one has as difficult a life as me. And you can see, of course, how this kind of thinking lends itself so easily to selfishness and self-centeredness. And at the core of it is a general inability to recognize and be happy with the many, many blessings I’ve been given right now. So I’m asking God to change this. To change my mindset. To help me believe and see how he is working in and blessing my life. To help me believe that he can create a change in me and that I won’t be stuck in this wretched, selfish mind forever. Somewhere along the way I got cynical. I stopped seeing the awesomeness of God, I stopped being amazed by him and what he’s doing. I want that to change. I want to be amazed by God.

The second area I’m asking for belief in is in my marriage. Lately I’ve felt like Tommy and I have been disconnected. Marriage has felt like a burden and we haven’t had fun together in so long. I feel like we are not loving each other and listening to each other in ways that the other person recognizes. And I am taking out all my unhappiness on him. I need to see Tommy with new eyes, to see the things I fell in love with again and to enjoy him more.

So I am choosing to believe that in the next ten weeks of this study God will show up in these two areas. I am praying that God will help me pray with faith for these two areas and that I will be given eyes to notice and a heart that appreciates the ways he is working. And even though, quite literally, no one reads this blog, I’m going to use it as a space to document this challenge. Maybe I’ll let people in on the journey as I go, but for now it will, at the very least, be a place where I can go back to see how God worked in my life that one time I took a leap of faith and chose to believe that he could and would show up in real ways.