Fall. Change. Resistance. Me.

~~~  Just rambles to help me work through change  ~~~

I am not ready for fall.  I am not ready for trees in charisma of oranges or yellows.  I'm not ready for fireplaces or blankets or s'mores on the hearth.  I'm not ready for pumpkin lattes or sweatshirts or football.  I'm not ready for fall.

I'm not ready for change.

Fall for me is different, this year.  Fall to me is big changes, swirling changes.  Fall to me is letting go.  Letting go of summer.  Letting go of my baby as a baby.  Letting go of my home.  Letting go of the last that was established when I was a "me" rather than "we."

This fall, for me, is letting go.  But my heart isn't ready to release to change.

My baby will crawl this fall.  She is animated and energetic and alive and squirmy.  Her legs kicking against the air, her arms writhing agains the floor.  She's ready to go.  But mommy is not.

My home was mine, as a single.  The last piece of what I did, as me.  Financially.  The last bit of pride in my work, my money management, my stake in providing.  Moving means letting go completely of that.  Of being provided for without anything financial to show.

Moving means letting go of the last piece of when I was decorating for me, and only me.  Slowly that was chiseled, when I married, when Camilla came.  So what was my "perfectly decorated cottage-style" home, is now a mesh of whites and dark woods, painted chests and bronzed antiques.  Its partially me, but not fully.  And moving means decorating with us three in mind, not just me.  But finding a way to blend my cottage-style with Mark's style with babies running in the house...  And I've a brain block, heart block, and just can't seem to formulate a new me-style with a new us-house to create a beautiful, homey, welcoming, airy we-home.  Letting go.

Fall seems to take dreams and the fullness of life and put it under wraps and hibernate all the energy of summer.

Without teaching, without schools and kids buzzing and schedules formulating and bells ringing, that energy that could-be fall instead feels damp and heavy outside my home.

I like summer.  I like beaches.  I like water.  I like walks and flowers and green trees and the colors of white and yellow and green and pink bursting everywhere in and outside my windows.

But fall looms upon me.  Its changing tide unyielding to my resistence, my protest.

And change will come.  It does come.  And someday I will find myself in our new home, under a blanket, snuggled with my husband on our couch, drinking red wine or hot coffee or brewed tea, with our baby crawling at our feet.  And I'll be okay.  I'll be a home with my three.

Women's Work.

I think of them, all huddled in dirt-made houses, caves, and kingdoms.  Ancient ruins today but alive and bustling in B.C.  I think of them listening, hurting, hugging, nursing, and loving their little ones.  Trading shifts and jobs and arms and tasks as new little bundles come and grow throughout the years.  Generations of women doing generations of women's work.  Loving each other.  Being community.  Being there.  Being real.  Being alive and active and serving in eachother's lives.

I think of me, sitting alone at my computer, parking lot outside empty of cars and people, all void to home to keep up with the hustle.  Independent. Just me and google.  A phone.  A computer.  A car.  A network of women, all scattered away.

I think of them holding, wet nursing the newest little pudge of wrinkle, mama's cooing and on-looking, waiting to see and hold or snuggle.  I think of them, some resting in Red Tents, the struggle of womanhood amongst women.  I envision great-grandma watching toddlers chase quail while bigger kids hear the distant matriarch voices lingering beyond.

I think of my woman, most moved away from family, longing for mentors and friends and women.  Searching for women who help them, care for them, nurture them, mature them.  Pining for peers to be colleagues in motherhood and womanhood.  Scrambling to search engines and books for insight on babies.  Needing women.

We used to do this together.  We used to be women, with women, doing women's work.  We used to be in community, exchanging aged wisdom and raising our homes and babies together.

Titus 2 is speaks of older women teaching women about womanhood, about the home, about mothering.  I can't help but wonder how different those B.C. and early A.D. cultures are from our postmodern days.

Is there a holy longing back for this, or is it just me?  For mothers, mothering in the context of community, in the surrounding of generations.  For women together, doing women's work.

Words associated with young mothering -- lonely, anxious, exhausting -- would look so different in the context of years gone by.  Possibly even eliminated.  Could they even be replaced with the images of gathered women?  Women sharing the joy and burden of motherhood with the context of generations and divided tasks and physical presence?

Oh, surely, there is much to be woad.  I know that.  The romantic vision of it in my head probably needs the proper balance of the B.C. mothers wanting to shut out advice, shun a relative, or find silence during naptime instead of participate in the hub-bub around, but still...

I think something changes for women, for mothers, when this context has community.  When their life has a circle, a knitting of those committed and communing.

Perhaps it can be done.  Perhaps it just takes a few women, committing to a few women, and growing their women together.  Perhaps it's just putting feet to Titus 2.  Perhaps it's just holding babies and making meals and showing hospitality and stepping in, and being willing to be stepped in to.  Being women, with women.

~~~

I can't help but feel a deep, engrained longing for this beautiful community.  It draws such attention to what I had and what I left, back home with family.  Like the Barlow Lake Day my Smith Aunts grabbed Camilla from her carseat and held her all day, loving me in such a way...  Now that is holy longing.  And a blessed giving.

~~

And a little PS -- this blog is NOT about gender roles or women in the work place or men staying home.  Its about hearts and life and community, and me, right now.

Everything I Want To Ask Her.

Questions and wonderings flitter through my head all day long.  With everything I want to ask her. Like butterflies they escape, purposely set out from open hands, knowing they can only be released, abandoned.  Butterflies liberate, lost in the wind.  My questions sink and bury; no sense holding on to them.  But I can't help but feel the weight some days of everything I want to ask her.

This is only freckles of everything I want to ask her.  Everything I can't ask her.  Everything I'd cling to her to know.  Her voice would help me trust my own.  Her hug would feel like safe embrace.  Rest.  Oh to be a mother, Oh to wish for my mother, Oh to know the answers to everything I want to ask her....

I'd ask her about connecting; what made me, me.  I'd ask her about walking early. And crawling on my knee.

I’d ask her about clothes size, and independent play.  I’d ask her about books.  And The Word along the way.

I'd ask her about pregnancy and nursing in the day.  I'd ask her about in-laws. And Connie/Deb Tea Day.

I'd ask her about drool, and then avoiding dairy. I’d ask her about bottles.  And growing mama-wary.

I'd ask her about waking gas, and wide-alert-eyes.  I'd ask her about schedules.  And thoughts on Babywise.

I'd ask her about crying, and sleeping through the night.  I’d ask her about cereal.  And waking morning light.

I'd ask her about jar food, and baby feet that sweat.  I’d ask her about sunny days. And wearing SPF.  

I’d ask her about teaching, talking what we see.  I’d ask her about making meals.  And deciding to have three.

I'd ask her about mothering, her without one too.  I’d ask her about empty holes.  And mentors that she knew.

I'd ask her about travel here, tomorrow and today.  I'd ask her about hugging me.  And telling it’s okay.

I'd ask her about Littles, see those bright blue eyes.  I’d ask her about Wiggles.  But in heaven she resides.

Hold To Love.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Walk in with empty hands and willing heart and hold that little life she loves.  Nuzzle close that babies neck, swing from hip, or sing to ear.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  She'll squirm and duck and say it's okay.  She'll act embarrassed because she needs you.  Slide hands to pink; release that mama from feeling both.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Tell her the beauty of little red curls.  Delight in tiny baby-coos and night-bath splash.  Hear that two-step giggle and shine because you do.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.   Hand dinner in the doorway and strut that mama-sway.  Take that crying cacoon from wearied arms then swap stories for empathy.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Let her bent body bent drop that bundle in your arms.  Listen to that baby-gurgle.  Rock that tiny whimper. And encourage that mama while you do.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Wiggle those feet and kiss those cheeks.  Swaddle that baby in arms so that mama can eat.  Tell her stories with your eyes; tales with your tongue.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Hold her baby so she can hold her man. To shower all-clean and smell all-afresh and dress all-neat.  Feel beautiful and shinny and strutting in heels.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  She just needs a break.  She loves that flesh she bore, that wrinkled baby-skin. But learning still she is, to reinvent the self within.

How to love a newborn mama? Hold her baby.  Jostle the colic, the crying, the child.  On sidewalks, knolls, and parking lots.  Neighbor the night-talk and walk the long afternoon.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Swoosh in to shush that squalling baby. Let love wrap arms around, rhythmic bouncing against breast. Stroke feet, massage limbs, slide fingers through hair.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Nest that little one while she naps.  Coddle that silk-skin while she sleeps.  Allow her to be weak.  To rest, relax, rejuvenate.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Carry away that backseat bundle.  With swimsuits and shade and strong-willed hands.  Dot on hair-bows while rest in chairs. Side-step in circles; show you care.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Cradle til mama begs her back; remembering to miss her. Let her wish once more for fullness in arms, warmth on chest.

How to love a newborn mama?  Hold her baby.  Love what she loves.  She loves that little baby.  She loves every roll-thigh and chubby-chin and arm-dimple. And she loves that you love that baby too.

Dancing With Daddy.

We left as two, a couple, a pair.  Husband and wife in covenanted unity, a marraige.  We came home as three.  Baby released from womb into our hands, our hearts, our home.  That first night, after we tucked her snugly in her bassinet, we moved to our own music, knitted hands in the quiet, warmth pressed between us.  Beside the baby who made us three, I swayed, Dancing with Daddy.

My parents believed the greatest gift you could give your children was a happy marraige.  The older I became, the more I heard this phrase from their lips, and the more I believed it. 

Being married now, I think of all the ways my parents created a healthy framework as a role model of marraige for me.  I think of the tasks they danced through, the way they ran our home like smooth butter.  Dad brought in finances and cared for the outside, and mom tended to the inside, and souls of her home.  Their roles seemed clear and seemless, and left little room for squabble. So the life of our family ebbed and flowed, with peace and freedom and laughter at the table.  

I think through those days with smiles and ease, and have found them often at the forefront of how I perceive parenting and marraige and everything in-between.  I think their love and mostly their joy and each of the ways this was modeled to me.

My parents loved and enjoyed each other.  Oh did they enjoy each other!  I remember coming home from Sunday church, Dad cranking on the kitchen stereo, swinging mom around in crazy circles, all of us children laughing.  I hear their hoots and hollars on the boat in pure freedom and release on a Saturday, bursting through Lake Michigan waves.  I think of them as empty-nesters giggling about how much fun they had tasting free samples at Costco and weekending in Traverse City.  I picture them holding hands across the car and in the church pew, and riding jeeps Jamaica and Ferraris in Hawaii.  I hear my mom at the piano, dad singing "I am a Promise" and the roar of a Vet, convertible in the breeze. My mouth tweaks to her eye roll, his compliment of cookies -- two a time, four times a day.  From Wednesday movies to Saturday morning breakfasts, from newlywed to empty-nest they flourished everywhere in-between.

Home was a safe place, a happy place.  It was a place where anger was not heard, where sharp voices were void.  It was a place where encouragement was present, support was plentiful.  It was obvious to all: in this marraige, Love lived there.  Their marraige was like a dance.  A slow dance, like the wedding first, where others watch with wonder and awe and hope for the same.  A model of steps, a series of movements, a swirl of love and life all through the rhythm of their home. They divided tasks and flowed in and out without correction or chiding, without second thought or worry, each trusting the other with abounding purity and confidence.  They set a foundation, created a haven, a waltz of motion that provided rest for me.

Over the years I've listened to friends and family share about their parents' marriages.  I've heard their heart cries, bemoaned their hurts, softened to their words.  I've watched them ache for something better, wish for models, remember the wrongs.  I've heard them recount the falling-outs, or seen them live the lies.  I've heard wives belittle their husbands, husbands cower to their wives, and both ripple the effect to everyone around.  I've witnessed expectations turn to curt words, hugs turned aside, and marriages staccato like roommate arrangements.  These unions feel like legal arrangements, without security and softness, safety and shalom, for the parents, the heirs.  Some notice their strain, others simply live without bother.  But the affect on the children - their homes, their hearts, and their own bonds, is woven through the daily, unyielding.

I've seen this in my own home.  In my dearest friends' home.  We unveil our stories and noticed or ignore the interactions we repeat. We play the unsaid roles we saw them generate, and the hope or harm that that creates.  I've heard woes over vacations, fear over dating, and judgement over gender display. I've smiled to praise in public, hands holded, and hotels booked.  I've watched couples encourage dreams, support hobbies, and embrace relatives.  And I've heard children learn to live the joy, or seek shelter from shame.  Some hide the past, afraid of the sins or choices, or being found as the same.  Others long to encourage their heritage, foundation faithfully set, and mimic the marraige their parent's made.

Gliding there, next to my daughter, was fresh reminder of this gift.  This marraige vow.  This initial created covenant under God.  It is under this umbrella of marraige that a family begins, blooms and blossoms.  It is in this embrace of husband and wife that children see the world as safe, inviting, enjoyable.  It is in this union that they learn their model, perceive emotions, and imitate roles.  This on my heart, our limbs in embrace, my heart felt such peace at what I prayed we'd display.

May our children grow up seeing me hold Mark's hand.  May they know I still enjoy the safety of his embrace.  May they see me uplift him with my words and support him with my works.  May they see us laugh together, adventure together, and enjoy each other.  May they see us wink across the table, road trip for weekends,  embrace after work days, and dream toward vacations.  May they know we sparkle about dates, kiss in the kitchen, and whistle 'handsome' and 'beautiful' -- even when we are fifty, sixty, seventy...  

May our children know their mommy still grins and flutters because of their daddy.  May they know their daddy still names her Love, every day.  May they know they are loved, and see love, when their mommy is found, always, Dancing with Daddy.

It Takes A Village.

It takes a village to raise a child, the old adage state.  It takes a village to support a mommy, I add.

It takes a village to throw showers, fill closets, knit blankets.  It takes a village to buy swings, deliver packages, and send cards.  It takes a village to weight and measure, to deliver and monitor after birth.  It takes a village to form playdates, soothe at church, and educate in schools.  It takes a village to cheer at sporting events,  wrap Christmas gifts, and photograph prom.  It takes a village to listen with, cry over, and hug during the hurts.  It takes a village to foster esteem, to shepherd in discipline, to share Jesus' love.  It takes a village to raise a child.

However, it also takes a village to raise a mommy.  It takes a village to freeze-make mac and cheese, buy books for the shelf, and to tend to all the fears.  It takes a village to FaceTime baby to sleep, calm the colic cries, to breathe a sigh of relief.  It takes a village to clean the house, fold the laundry, and deliver all the meals.  It takes a village to rock the child, buy the diapers, and find a cloth that's clean.  It takes a village to stroll the streets, to share the woos, to rejoice over every little thing.  It takes a village to calm, to quiet, to still the mommy who needs friendship and encouragement each week.  It takes a village to raise a mommy.

Thank you to my village: to Kelly, Rachel, Aunt Beth, Aunt Ruth, Amy, and the many friends and WLT who encourage, guide, listen, provide, and walk with me these new days.  Much love.

For This Child I Prayed.

I sat on the edge of the bed, Camilla swaddled in cloths and nursing in my arms.  Tears welled in my eyes as I held her, spilling to drop down my checks and patter on her soft pink cloth.  Overwhelmed with gratitude, my whole being felt the years of hope and wait, now knitted as her.

For This Child I Prayed.

My belly grew and grew.  It billowed within me, stretching and pulling, tickling and swirling.  Movement evolved like whismical fairies, then spooning and swooshing.  The precious pumping of her staccato heartbeat, the cross-legged sonogram, the labor which bore her into the world.

For This Child I Prayed.

We prayed that we would be able to get pregnant.  For this monumental miracle we could cherish together. That God would open my womb, blossom my breast, and create life from our love.  With a careful, cautious, hopeful, fearful heart, we bundled these bursting, fervent desires before the Lord.

For This Child I Prayed.

The bedroom now decorated with pinks and greens, whites and roses was but hope just years ago.  A townhouse I bought as a single, with purposeful prayers that one day, in one way, a child would reside in that room.  Trusting in his promise.

For This Child I Prayed.

A journal etched with letters.  Stories, prayers, words, and love.  Language used to share the wisdom; pages lined with thoughts and dreams and beautiful memories.  One day I would have a girl, His Spirit of Truth gifted me.  So purple leather bound are words that someday she will read.

For This Child I Prayed.

A heritage of faith, she told me.  That cannot be taken away.  Of aunts and grandmas and mothers and sisters, all linked with the legacy of faith.  A linage of godly women, scripture and prayers etched on their hearts.  Testimonies that He is faithful.

For This Child I Prayed.

At eighteen I'd hoped to be married, but God had other plans.  So through college and camp and classroom, I waited; curls and pigtails and bows aside.  The lure of a family still persistent, waiting as the years went by.

For This Child I Prayed.

Dolls at the dinner table; babies in the basement.  Cabbage Patch in my sleeping bag; Annie in my cradle.  Training years mimicking mom.  From braiding hair to plastic playsets, these younger years grew seeds.

For This Child I Prayed.

She coos in my arms and cuddles on my chest.  She cries for my warmth and cranes for my voice.  She coddles beside me, nestles into me, and nurses me.  Camilla Rose stretches and snuggles, reaches for daddy and raises her hand. What a miracle to behold, witness, know and live.

For This Child I Prayed.

Homecoming Day.

April 17.

Five years ago today was Homecoming Day for my mom.  Christ welcomed her home into his house of heaven, as she had made him the home of her heart her whole life.  Flowery words cover the details of that April 17 Day, but the matter of Heaven and Homecoming is what I will remember with newness this day.

Homecoming Day is given life today as Camilla Rose Stone was brought home this day.  She has already nestled her place in our hearts and now cuddles sleepily in our arms on Golf Ridge Drive.

The two most important and special females in my life share significance today.

For today, is Homecoming Day.

April 17.

Preparing A Place.

Soft linens cover the mattress.  Folded blankets of knitted patterns stack in piles.  Hair bows clipped to ribbon on shutters; verses hang like fresh laundry from twine.  Pink polka dots and floral bunches stamp femininity on a closet of little clothes.  Diapers are layered in drawers, books fill baskets, and frames prop empty for pictures.

Preparing a place.

Each little detail is thought through, each nail perfectly placed in the wall, each dress dotted over and laundered, and each chair sat in for size.

Preparing a place.

As a mother-in-waiting, there is much intention in preparing a place.  Prayers, details, planning.  So many hours of foreseeing the final presentation, then awaiting the use of the space.  It's a preparation of the place as well as a preparation of the heart.

As a mother prepares for the arrival of her child, so God also does for us. Jesus spoke the words, "In my Father's house there are many rooms... I go there to prepare a place for you"  (John 14:2).  How beautiful to think of him preparing and waiting and nesting for his chosen, his beloved.  How encouraging to know he too is in a season of waiting in patient yet anxious anticipation for the arrival of his child.  He is preparing a place.

There is communion with God even in this task, even in this waiting, even in this hope.  Even in preparing a place.

Fifty-Five.

Today is my mother's birthday.  Today is the day, five years ago, I handed her a letter, and in it, handed her my deepest heart, consumed with how much I loved her and how absolutely thankful I was that she was my mom, my role-model, my Christ-guide, and my friend.

So on this day, five years later, I post her letter once again.  As a tribute to her, and what she means to me.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For Mom, as you turn fifty ~

After three different card stores, sections from birthday to mother to fifty years, there was still no card that came even adequate to put words and texture to the legacy that your fifty years offers.  So instead, after scrolling their words and reviewing the pretty pictures on the covers, I thought I would put words to it myself, in the simplest form, in story.

I sat down at the retreat this weekend, enamored by the beautiful women of Crossroads and found myself flustered, wondering what I would have to offer them, and wishing I could almost shrink in the back.  But then, a woman came up to me and said, “I remember you from the last retreat, last fall.”

I looked at her blankly, rummaging my mind for a recollection, a name, anything to try and place her.  But instead, all I could present was a blank, polite smile.

But she stopped and continued, grabbing my arm.  “I remember you because of the story you told about your mother.”

And then it clicked – last fall, gathered around a table, discussing motherhood, that I shared about the woman you were.

This is not an uncommon intercession with people I know.  Surely, they remember me, but more often than not, they also remember you.  Not because they have met you, but because of the stories I have told about you, the pride I hold in my eyes when I think of you, and the gift I know I am giving when I share the way you live.

I share it often.  The way you work and talk and pray with Aunt Mil, the way you work with care to make a house a home, the way you tend flowers and give them away to bring beauty to people’s lives.  The way you send mail and packages, and did for me for five years straight.  The way you put faith and family first.  The way you and dad display your relationship.

I share these stories with people. 

At wedding showers, I am often asked to give a word of advice… and I steal yours and dads: Date your spouse.  The legacy you both have given your children is a gift we all hold.  I share your stories of Mom’s Mystery Trips, serving at the KCC Café,  lighting candles at the dinner table, sharing Bible Studies and coffee dates, making home a place of peace rather than argument, trips you planned and brought us joy through, and how you held your Bible to your chest when you heard of your parents. 

Even just this week I was talking to a cousin about marriage and suggested she talk with you, because you and dad have been so faithful and committed.  Funny thing is, she already knew.  She didn’t need my words, because she already saw both you & dad live your love so strongly that she had called you herself.

Your legacy in these fifty years is your life.  You live to shine to others and we see your light. 

I leave you with one more story.  This week you turn fifty.  And this week, your life will live as a testimony in one more home.  

On my women’s retreat, the speaker talked about women being the presence of the Holy Spirit in their homes.  Afterward, we gathered in small groups - a collection of strangers piled together to work and love as women for the weekend.  At the end of the small group session, I paused and took a breath and said, “I actually have a story to share to those of you who are moms.  Now, I know my parents aren’t perfect, but the legacy my mom left in our home still sticks with me today and I share it with you as a model and maybe as a way it can be done for you.  My mom was a sense of peace in our home all growing up, and now as a adult, I still remember specific things she did.  When I would wake up every morning, she would be praying.  You just knew it was mom’s prayer time, no thought given to it.  It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized my mom was unique in this.  She woke with my dad and then spent her time in prayer.  Then we would bundle for school and no matter how late we were running, she would gather us in the back room and we would pray.  We started our day that way, every day.  The school day would go on and when we returned home, she would be there.  She would set aside her ironing, put the dinner pot aside, tell the caller she would call back later, and she would stop.  She would bend over the island and ask about our day, take the time to be with us.  When dad got home, it was much the same.  They would kiss each other and shut the door for five to ten minutes, just being with one another and being together.  Sometimes this trait followed dinner too.  Even now, though we are all grown, she is still there.  She calls, we call, we gather.  There is something great about being a mother, a woman, and I offer you the story of my mom to help you be the presence of the Holy Spirit in your own homes.”

I left the small group with their eyes glued and thoughtful, though still wondering if I had said the right thing and if my words meant anything.  But from a small group of eight, four of which were moms, women came up to me to say thanks for that story.  Your story.  One tattooed woman with two little kids at home gathered us together with tears in her eyes and said, “Christina changed my life today and the life of my home.  Because of the story of her mom, I want to be that way.  I want to be a sense of peace for my kids and my husband.  I want to keep trying.  I am going go back home and remember your mom and try to be that sense of peace for my family.”

So mom, this week, as you turn fifty, know that you are a powerful woman.  You live a legacy to those you hold dear, to those you meet, and those you don’t even know.  Your one life has encouraged and inspired many.  You are a place of peace, a woman of shelter.  You are a cup of tea for a friend on a difficult afternoon, a partner in the jeep on a Sunday afternoon drive, a candy-holding story teller on a Monday night, a cookie-baking Grandma on a Tuesday morning.  You are a friend, a love, a light on the hill, a legacy.

Thank you for being you.  You are a blessing.

Love you always,

Christina Jill

Pickles and Ice Cream.

A rant, ode, and overview of pregnancy.... like pickles and ice cream, the salty and the sweet.

When we first announced our coming joy, I was asked by several if I would write about it, blog about it, journal about it.  I know their thought was wanting to be supportive and "listen in" about how this time was for me.  At the moment, I said no to their words for lots of reasons.  As this season has sprawled on, those reasons are an even firmer resolution for why.

Though I'm open about so many things, I'm also private about so much.  Writing is a way of seeping through that privacy, hearing the inner voice while unknown or unspoken words leak out.  Pregnancy, for me, as been a time about guarding, protecting, learning, seeking.  It has been a time where I have needed to build more and stronger hedges around my little family, and also a time where I have needed a few special friends within those hedges.  It's most intense moments are only known by me, and sometimes, shared with Mark.  Its prodding questions and concerns lay in the searching of Google and mini prayers, kept safely there.

For me, pregnancy has been about shutting out lots of voices.  Both those wanting to be supportive, and those who simply speak to speak.  Voices are overwhelming, opinions are often shared as if they are fact, women portraying their experience with pregnancy as the rule.  Supportive tends to feel suffocating when unprompted, or unasked, and creates tension between receiving the offered and blocking the invaded. Manny voices lend to insecurity or indignant me, remarking on belly growth, organic food, epidurals, sleep schedules, and clothing choices.  Still, a few voices have allowed empathy and comfort - laughing with Kelly over breastfeeding mortification, Kates' careful words concerning nurturing spiritual hearts, and mom friends who allow TV and cookies and spanks.

Then there is a separate cringing and shame from voices -- those who fluff pregnancy to be a billowing, lovely, spiritual experience.  It feels like pressure, hearing the women reminisce about their pregnancy with such awe and wonderment, like Anne Geddes angelic clouds floating around, while instead I really just feel fat and heave over the toilet still at 36 weeks.  Here's the honest inside: I hide most side-shot selfies because of the agnst I turmoil in seeing others'.  I've got compression socks on to keep my blood flowing, take pills to try to semi-control my restless leg, and chomp bananas to stop the muscle cramps in my calves.  I keep Tums at my bedside, my desk my purse pocket, and still swallow Zantac when its the worst.  I've got veins showing on my butt, toenails I can't reach to cut, and nausea pretty much every day.  I've thrown up in school bathrooms, grocery store toilets, and more plastic bags than I can count.  I dangle over the pew in church and have laid on the floor a few times there too.  I feel no warm fuzzy about baby laundry and this is is only the start of the things I'm willing to share...

Back to pickles and ice cream.  It's true.  I could devour an whole jar of Claussens in ten minutes in the first tri-mester, and now eat ice cream at least every night.  Add potato chips in, and the menu is set.  Yet, I see pregnancy woes as mostly myths:  I haven't craved anything crazy or sent Mark on midnight burger runs;  I haven't cried randomly or gone emotionally wacko or found hormones leading to my uncontrol;  I could have slept the whole first trimester, but now am energetic like a twenty-year-old at 37 weeks.  Mostly, I just try to tutor well, and watch a lot of HGTV.

My mouth stays pretty closed, my heart careful to share, because as a woman, I feel an authentic connection and privilege to quiet my complaints, minimize my voice, and trap my emotions regarding the whole situation, because life is messy, and pregnancy is messy, and sometimes our messes are less important than walking in the messes of others.

Pregnancy is like pickles and ice cream, fulfilled in salty and sweet.  After years of struggle, my sister rejoiced in Jaxson, but lost the second baby at 5 weeks, and Kaylin's twin after the ultrasound.  I think of a couple at church who lives in five years of hope, yet knows each years' deferral.  I think of friends who are just hoping and starting to "try" for babies, and want to be joyful with them, and also the friends who are waiting a while and need the freedom to enjoy that opportunity.  I think of the women who feel pressure to be pregnant to "keep up" with the couples around them, and I think of how God calls us all independently and his timing is the uniqueness to our stories.

I think of one week in February, when one friend brought home her baby girl after 40 days in the NICU and still faces the concern of breathing and surgeries to come.  Another friend had a healthy baby boy, while a third was told that her son wouldn't survive outside the womb.  Meanwhile, a fourth delivered a dark-haired little baby girl who nursed and came home just as planned.  These are the stories of pregnancy.  These are the stories of woman, both salty and sweet.

These are the stories which put puking into perspective, and people's gender preferences to my inner mocking and anger.  These are the stories curve shopping habits, and bring reality to fear and joy.  These are the stories which renounce hair and eye color preferences, and speak strength to prayers of health.  These are the stories blended into my pregnancy, creating the experience less individual than the whole.

Perhaps I'll have pregnancy dementia and look back on this season with more affection than I have, and perhaps I won't.  Yet, perhaps too, pregnancy is much like pickles and ice cream: the salty and the sweet.  The salty twinges of fear and anxiety, of voices protruding space.  Salty tears in sharing heartache or from nausea I just couldn't keep.  The sweet of friends blessing me at showers and pink softness hanging everywhere.  Sweet in honesty that allows reality and a husband who prays while I sleep.  Pregnancy, for me, is pickles and ice cream: lots of salty with hints of sweet.

Snow Days.

In light of snow days, here's a more light-hearted post about what warms my memory on days like these....

Snow days.  They start with that hopeful anticipation the days or nights before.  Kids all frolicking at the thought of snow trickling down from the heavens, bearing freedom to their school-weary souls.   So many glances out the windows, at school and home, looking for those white flakes of relief, those fluttering hopes of bliss in the sky.  As a kid, we know the wonder, the joy, the great "watching" of the skies.

Growing up in Michigan, snow days were a given each year.  And when a snow day came, it was really a snow day!  It meant mounds of snow had poured, back yards were filled to the brim, plow trucks were scraping intersections, salt was dotted along every sidewalk, and family pets were layered in white, rustling through the acers.

In my home, snow days were a glorious bliss of activity and rest.  We'd start with episodes of Saved By the Bell, syrup and butter oatmeal pancakes, and sit around in our sweatshirts.  By mid-morning we were bundled in snowpants with hats and scarves and facemasks and heat pouches in our boots.  We'd jump on the Arctic Cart and start the rumble of it's engine.  After a few rounds of tracing the 20 acers with lines of evidence, we'd grab the orange Ziffy Whompers and plastic sleds and tie ropes from the snowmobile.  Oh what fun!  Hours found circles around our property, our bodies smelling like fuel, and our hearts laughing as we'd see how high we could get the sledder in the air on the jump between the 10 back acres and the front.

We'd waddle back inside, our legs thick with snowpants and hands frozen with iced threads.  Time to stir the macaroni and cheese and warm our bellys and bottoms!  Come afternoon we'd haul out games like Clue or Life or Payday, or create a "village" downstairs, each with given roles to play.

Then it was time for activity again: layers of Columbia and Cuddle Duddles insiutated warmth while we rolled out of the driveway for the Middle School Hill.  Gigantic from a kid's eyes, it included handmade jumps and wipe outs and people from all over town.  From bright colored ski jackets to camouflage to deer-orange hats, what a sight to behold!  Dad's with kids lined up on old wooden toboggans, teenagers racing down on twirling red saucers, and mom's dragging two year olds back on the climb.  The celebration of snow.

In college, I remember Snow Days manifested into cafeteria trays-turned-sleds, twenty year olds on Olson Lawn throwing snowballs, and hours spent with milky cappichino in the D.C.  We'd spend quiet hours with movies on couches, girls piled in layers to see, and stir Easy Mac in plastic bowls.  One January was Euker played endlessly in the hallway, girls learning to crotchet, and Alias streaming from hand-me-down tvs.

My favorite "grown-up" Snow Day was dominated by bright yellow walls and blasting green carpet, in the old brick house on Hildebrand Street.  It was Angela, Marilyn, Jenelle, and me all snuggled inside under blankets and crumbs and relaxing in pjs.  We'd cued up season after season of Gilmore Girls, propped our feet up, and filled the coffee table with every junk food possible -- from Doritos to Dove chocolate to red Twizzlers piled near our feet.  The snow grew heavy, sheeted with ice, and we talked and sauntered and laid around to simply be.

I watched kids at school yesterday sparkle with the first flakes of snow.  The first evidence of arrived anticipation, assured hope.  They were giddy with catching flakes and tasting them on their tongue, awaiting the arrival of buses to go home.  Today, I imagine they're inside, ready to spoon in mac & cheese, cue up another NetFlix, and find mittens for playing with neighbors.  I'll sit here at the table typing with Mark, coffee both cupped next to our computers, still in our "scrunchies" at noon, and smile as I think, dream, and reminisce of Snow Days.

Daunting.

During wedding season, I barely looked through wedding magazines.  They were the dreams brides are made of, all put together with pretty invitations and elaborate centerpieces and lists of how-tos and planning guides and color schemes and bridesmaid dresses and veil styles and favor ideas and laced white gowns and ceremony suggestions and sentimental song lists and sparkling rings and...  Whew.  That's exactly how I felt.  So I set stacks aside and stayed with simplicity and myself.

And now I stare birth in the face.  It's the third trimester and today I hit a moment where those first few weeks just exploded in my psyche.  Mark and I have visited friends who were one-two months new parents.  These couples most seemed crazily overwhelmed, unshowered, and full of woes when it came to having that little one at home.  I can see their faces at church, or on their couch, or in a chair feel their fear and heaving forever imprinted in my mind.

As I look ahead I think of their emotions and all of a sudden everything feels overwhelming.  The "world" likes to prepare, warn, laugh or look with pity and throws its layer of words to the pile, making that little baby seem like depression already won:  sleepless nights, pain in breastfeeding, no couple time, etc...  Oh joy,  thanks.  Then there's the how-to books and advice and every woman's story, contradicting each other left and right...  (For a small taste of how this looks/feels read here:  http://www.charlottemomsblog.com/2014/01/07/sleep-advice/)

When I hear these words, think these thoughts, read this language I am frozen in fear.  Can I do it?  What if I can't get out of bed because I'm so exhausted and my baby just cries?  What if I feed her the wrong amount or at the wrong time?  What if I don't know what that cry means?  Its paralyzing, daunting.

When I approached marraige, the world spoke and warned of "ball and chain" or "institution" or "wait to you live with his quirks."   However, to create a wall between that fear and negativity, I  kept thinking of my parents' marraige and the love and joy they still expressed fully after 32 years.  Their legacy left no fear. Additionally, I remember one woman from church speaking strongly: "Marraige is great.  And don't let anybody tell you differently."  Ahhh, hope.

Today I picked up a pregnancy/birth book and after a few chapters felt so fearful and daunted that my insides started to squeeze.  And I thought back to those engagement days and the strategies and examples that helped make marraige a joy...

Which means today, I shut the book and grabbed sparkling cider.  And I thought of my sisters.  I don't know what it is about my family, but somehow everyone received a good dose of optimism and perspective and they live with a worldview that reflects that.  So I think about Melissa and Blake sharing Judd into Mark and I's arms and smiling about the birthing room and being relaxed about the new-parent days they were in.  And I think of Kelly who joined the Smith shopping trip two weeks after Jaxson was born and simply staying positive and having fun and joining in their general conversation.  These two women for me are the voices I need, the inspiration for starting parenting, and the reminder to not over-research or take everything too seriously.

So with that, Lord, lift my heart up and protect me from the daunting.

Shame On Skin.

I always thought I was a cute baby.  Little bald head with big brown eyes and easy, happy smile.  Soft, "olive skin," as my dad would say, with chubby little legs and natural bronze arms.  My mom would dress me up with little eyelet dresses and shoulder straps held together with bows.  Matching plush socks and tied proper shoes.  This image of my first years is proudly dotted; without restraint I swell and smile at my adorable baby-toddler self.

Recently though, comments have made that for the first time in my thirty years, result in shame.  About bald babies, or "less than cute" babies, or toddlers that don't quite meet the standard of the perceiver.  And I can't help but feel a sense of guilt for the hairless baby I was, though my parents never made me feel this way.  They laughed and bought with pink and beamed with pride at simply who I was: me.  Their child.  Their beloved.  Their "very good" just as God created me to be.

In such contrast, I can't help but lean back into Genesis 3.  I think about how words, verses, and feelings of pride are now juxtaposed with shame, and see the resemblance of the scripture pattern in Genesis 1 and 3.. In Genesis 1, God created humankind in his image, as his crown of creation.  His greatest!  Beyond the Grand Canyon, beyond Pagsanjan Falls, beyond the Alps.  Me!  Human!  The greatest majesty of his creation.  And the only part of his six day journey that he labeled not only as "good" but "very good!"  Oh what wonder!  What elation!  What joy! In his creation!  In me, as me!

Then Genesis 3 comes along, and Satan in all his sin-greatness slides through the beautiful joy and glory bursting, and raptures the words God, the holy one, the perfect one, spoke.  And Satan taints them, so humankind no longer is visualized, accepted, or rejoiced in as "good" but instead is punctured with sin.  In the Garden, humankind went from skin as their splendor, to skin as their shame, hidden and hurting behind make-shift coverings underneath masks of leaves and trees, with sin as a perpetual shield from full openness and relationship with God.

God's voice marveled and said it was good. Satan's voice mocked and said it was shamed.

Oh how our skin has spoken shame ever since!  How we ostracized based on color, remark based on tone.  How we compare in regard to its flaws, and flinch in regard to its measuring.  How we speak against its crackleing, and judge it according to texture.

And we hide!  We hide behind our coverings -- clothes, comments, cramped inadequacy pounded within.

As I walk around now, with skin bearing seven months of new life beneath, these revelations speak strongly in new meaning.  The sin pattern finds me hiding my flaws beyond blacks or embarrassed at growth -- my holy, blessed, God-endowed growth, but nonetheless embarrassed as sin has stolen the joy from me.  Comments of others lend no help and hinder, only draw attention to if I measure "right" in their eyes -- too big, too small, hardly showing, showing enough; then scaling a size due to height and width and bones structured thirty years before.  The assessment of my skin is spoken, though demoralizing, and only shame and anxiety and hiding result.  Surely not the words and truths that God had spoken, still stamping: "It is very good."

Then I think of my precious, beautiful, baby daughter.  Growing inside and forming and being made in his likeness.  I think of her possibly bald head and can't wait to hold it, caressing its softness and smelling its life. I sigh at the depth of love and meaning already held at the hope and desire to nestle her skin next to mine.  And then to whisper and coo and tell her she's beautiful, over and over again.  For she is created good, very good.

Yet, in great horror, I think of the the already-spoken judgements on her.  The sin that has already entangled her as the pressure to appear in the form of the perceiver has already committed her acceptable or non, based on blue eyes or blonde hair or brown curls.  And I inwardly weep and anger and fight already for my daughter.  Screaming inside to will sin's power and Satan's curses away from her.

Lord, let her come in Your Glory!  Let her know and feel Your Acceptance!  Your Love!  Your bounty of spoken words through Scripture about your joy in her, your glory revealed in her as your perfect creation!  Let the words she hears and feels and knows be, "And she is created good!  Very good!"

Oh to redeem Genesis 3!  To conquer sin, Satan, and the death it curses over souls!  Oh to hear God speak great adoration over my stretching skin, my pregnant body.  Oh to hear Him lavish his likeness over my daughter. Oh to bear and claim God's truth, it is good, against Satan's curse of shame on skin.

~  ~  ~

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."  Genesis 1:31

"God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; 

male and female he created them."  Genesis 1: 27

"Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt now shame."  Genesis 2:25

"Then the eyes of them were both opened and they realized they were naked; 

so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves."  Genesis 3:7

"I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."  Genesis 3:11

"You crowned them [humankind] with glory and honor."  Psalm 8:5

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 

your works are wonderful, I know that full well."  Psam 139:13-14

Truth and Relationships.

I've been wiggling lately in several conversations over coffee and couches and cell phones.  It's the same haunting that has prickled me for a few years, leaving me still uncomfortable, but justly so.  It's that grimace of listening to those in close relationship choose lifestyles, craft choices, continually complain, or create narcissistic, negative attitudes that leave little room for joy, deliverance, repentance, hope or health.

I find myself shutting down the phone internally, while it is still on, or closing the conversation while its still going, yet then rewinding and replaying the whole struggle internally for days afterward -- so much so that it is hard to separate the conversations or choices from the person or friendship.

Thus I've been praying about this strain the last few months, weeks, days.  Asking God to reveal to me what my role is in knowing and delivering Truth, in restraining from self-righteaousness, and in continuing to offer relationship while my convictions contradict the conversations.

I remember reading and listening to several reflections on this over the years.  My friend Emily and I once had a long conversation over the tension of how to carry this cross with strength and clarity.  Each time, there is one point that is consistent, one line that does not change.  And it starts with: is the person a believer held to the Standards of God, or if the individual does not claim to bow or live under his   care and guidelines.  This principal alone, I believe, sets apart the words and form in which we are to handle Truth and relationships.

If a person does not declare the Lord as their Savior or wholly surrender to His teaching, then there are provisions made to offer grace.  Relationship should always be extended, but judgment is rarely helpful in leading them toward salvation in Christ.  Instead, acceptance and generosity are offered as the work of the Spirit alone enables their receiving of the gifts and guidance He offers.

However, for those who profess to live under the surrender and instruction of Christ, the Will of the Father, and the choices that lead to holiness and righteousness, the Word speaks with clarity and conviction.  Since the Old Testament, God has marked out laws and guides, grace and Truths, that are meant to help lead the way to a life that is set apart under his care.  This noted, the Word is poignant in for role of believers. It reads, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" (Proverbs 27:17).  Ouch. But that friction of truth helps create in us a holy godliness that we must be willing to submit under.  He uses his people to prune, bring clarity, and offer insight into the roads we choose or the fruit our soul bears.

Moreover, the Lord says his Word is to be used to instruct, discipline, and grow his disciples. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful in teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness"  (II Timothy 3:16)  Paul's Epistles follow these lines and speaks forth as well as against false teaching, attitudes, and living in relationship.  Like Daniel, he uses "wisdom and tact" in discerning how God leads him to use Truth, but he still is willing to do so (Daniel 2:14).

A few years ago I was riding home from Asheville with my favorite "church" of roommates: Angela, Marilyn, and Jenelle, and we were discussing this very point: our struggle with the tension of delivering Truth while maintaining goodwill in relationships.  Riding back on 74, I remember their words distinctly, as if God gave clarity to the angles of this discussion:  "As believers, we are called under God to instruct and call out those in our life to live holy and blameless lives.  With careful words, we should talk to them about choices and honoring God according to the patterns he set before us.  However, it is that person's choice how to respond.  We offer relationship and friendship and grace in its fullness.  If they walk away from Scripture or us, that is not our prerogative.  We are to follow God first, model his grace, and leave the offer at their response."  It is not our call to fear their response, or duck because of it, or withhold a pruning because of our selfish desire to maintain a sense of harmony.

In his book, Boundaries, Henry Cloud gives insight to this concept.  He writes:  “There is a big difference between hurt and harm. We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow...  That is not harmful. Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.” Noting the difference between hurt and harm offers some relief concerning the principle and aftermath of sharing Truth in relationship.

Yikes, this is easier said than done.  When one reads or writes, the words appear simple and clearly Divine. Yet to picture delivering Truth to the caller on the phone or the coffee date across the table, to see their faces and feel the emotion of their reply, there is an altogether other sense of strain.  Nonetheless, God doesn't always call us to the easy or peaceful, but he promises the guidance and sustainability of His presence.  He also often prepares and tends to the heart of the listener, giving them the grace to accept the discipline or words or guidance.   For God too, cares about the deliverance, acceptance, and call to holiness in Truth and relationships.

And the Bride Wore White.

White rose petals blossoming in hand, I walked down the isle on my wedding day.  It was a day filled with flowers on vines, greenery arching sunward, candles glowing from tables, chattering murmured across white garden chairs, and monogrammed fans whisking the wind.  

It was a day of so many answered prayers; of years hoping and wishing; of friendships blooming around, gathering to worship at what the beauty and purity of marraige symbolizes in the heart of a believer, the heart of a woman.

At the same time, it was a day of such sacredness, of great culmination, of faithfulness and hope fulfilled. What great joy and peace echoed within me as I radiated the with exclamation the purity of what marraige was sacred to be.

During the season of engagement, the floral lace dress hung like a white symbol in my home.  The white dress was less of a trophy or prize or garment to be earned, but instead a gown to be celebrated in.  An outward expression of the inward purity I treasured so intimately inside. It's presence paralleled a phrase that cycled through my thoughts and heart.  Not so much as conviction or warning, but as pleasure and confidence, echoing all the goodness I felt inside:

And the Bride Wore White.

In today's culture, there is an illusion that wearing white is simply "bridal" or that waiting for expressions of love until marraige is a lost art, like Amish bread or handwritten mail.

However, in the stillness, in the quiet recesses of my soul, I desired so greatly to protect the grandeur of marraige that it was pride-filled, in a holy way.  I inwardly committed to set aside some physical acts or dating rituals or homemaking skills until that union was complete.  I wanted marriage to feel different than dating, and to have the small joys of hope that I had pictured to be unique to it - whether sharing our first breakfast at 'my' table or completing God's physical blessing.

As I watch friends enter holy matrimony, what difference in these marriages is exclaimed as a radiant joy on their faces when they come before their love with purity!  This fullness glitters on their faces as their gather their white wedding garments and father's arm and come before their Lord and the one that they love in full union during that holy ceremony.  There is something pure in the air, and most who gather can feel that purity sparkle throughout the space.  Oh what joy, oh what testimony that Spirit shares to those in the waiting spaces -- what hope to wait, what desire in union, what encouragement to continue to come together in their own marraige in celebration of what God has done.

Throughout my "waiting and hoping" years I'd heard friends talk, I heard pastors preach, I read books from I Kissed Dating Good-Bye to Passion and Purity to When God Writes Your Love Story...  Though they aided in my conviction, caused controversial conversation, and kept me hoping for one more day that pure love would come, nothing convinced me of the greater power and joy of purity than that season of engagement.  I kept glowing in the inward knowledge that I was coming before my bridegroom without scar, without fear, without heaviness, and was able to offer my Love this gift of freedom and honesty and the joy of intimacy.

I often reflect on Proverbs 31:12:

She does him good, and not harm,

All the days of her life.

It was circled and underlined and memorize and pondered for at least fifteen years before I ever understood the full impact of its message.  All the days of her life: her dating, her hoping, her high school, her college, her single, her engaged, her tears, her frustration, her unseen hope:  She does him good.

Oh my dear friends, if you are hoping, if you are waiting, do him good.  Create that beautiful white wedding dress in your mind and know it sparkles even more than you imagine when your heart is cleansed and joy-filled in purity beneath it.  Hold on to greater hope, engage in repentance, and trust in the goodness he offers to your faithfulness.  May, one day, your marraige be blessed and shine forth in full evidence of His benevolence.  May you walk down the isle in radiant testimony to what the Lord has offered as a covenant to his people in the union marraige, rejoicing to proclaim, "And the Bride Wore White."