I am your #1 fan

We were talking to a couple the other night, and I heard myself say this to the woman: "You need to be the president of your husband's fan club".

If you don't agree, you may want to stop reading now. This is going to a shameless plug for being crazy about our husbands.

I don't just love my husband. I LOVE my husband.

                                                                                                             As I write this, my husband is at Superstore. Let me tell you quickly how much Shawn hates Superstore - for my American friends, Superstore is like a mix of Wal-Mart and Target - it is bright, big and prices are written on small little cards so you need to read the labels carefully and pick out the right combination of things, or you don't get the special prices.

                                                                           One time, I talked Shawn into going to Superstore with me and the second he walked in, he held his head and said "I have a headache. Like, instant headache. I need to go back to the car". Then another time we went, and I am not kidding, one of the bulk bins cut his hand wide open. Blood on the floor...the whole deal. He made a quiet vow that he would never return to the bright and bloody store.

But, tonight he went to Superstore for me because I forgot to redeem a coupon we got in the paper for a $25.00 gift card. So, let me paint the scene:

He is at Superstore, in the bright lights and heading toward the customer service desk. Now, Shawn is a good Canadian guy. Doesn't like to kick up a fuss, he would rather take the $25.00 hit than go and talk to a middle aged woman at the help desk. This is, as he would say, "a total cringer". But he went. He got the money back. He got scolded by said middle aged help desk lady, but he did it - like a boss.

I could go on and on.

Perfect? No. But my hero? Yes.

Everyday of my life.

It is always a mistake to tear the men in our lives down.

It is the much talked about image of men right now: Stupid, lazy, can't figure out how to work anything in the house, even the dog is smarter than dad kind of stuff. What do we benefit from being cruel and disrespectful to the whole other half of the human race? Power? Control? Respect? Since when do these attributes bring out the best in ourselves or others?

I understand that women have been hurt, sometimes by men who made and broke promises. Maybe it was abuse, maybe betrayal,          could be disappointment or a myriad of other things.

Those experiences are very real, and life changing. I can't really say much more about it here, but my compassion is so strong for broken hearts and I would never want to say something that would cause more pain. However, I feel like I need to shout from the rooftops that "ALL MEN ARE NOT A DISAPPOINTMENT!"

Maybe it is fear of seeming like we are rubbing it in that would keep us from bragging about a good man, especially if that man is our husband, but I just need to tell you...

This man of mine saves the day one day at a time around here.

Did you know that Shawn told me once that he actually likes it when I am having my monthly emotional spike (AKA - PMS)? Isn't that crazy? He is glad to know what I actually think, not the guarded, edited, downplayed version of my controlled emotions. Amazing.

When he came to ask me out - I laid out my deepest fear - "Do I intimidate you?" maybe that sounds like a simple question to you but to me it was the most vulnerable I have ever felt in my life. His answer: "Nothing about you takes away anything from who I am"

Just like that, every lie I had ever heard in my head:
"you are too much, no man wants to take you on, you are too strong willed..." on and on it would go, tormenting me and keeping me bound up in fear and anxiety.

This good man's heart, in one moment swallowed years of heartache and loneliness. He took all of it on his strong shoulders and with every fibre in his being he stood there and said, "I am not like those other guys".

Now, just Shawn's presence calls young men to a life of strength and integrity. Boys who don't know who they are gravitate toward him to be mentored, because they see in him what they want to be.

I am so incredibly proud of this guy.

Single girls - make sure you pick a man you can be proud of.

Married girls - be grateful for, and proud of the man God gave you.

Work for it, vow to build and not destroy. LOVE him, RESPECT him, TALK to him, and let him talk to you.

Please don't send me hate mail if you are having a hard time or if you don't like men, but if you love your man - SHOUT IT OUT!

Similarly Different - what adoption means to me.

I guess it was going to happen sometime. We were driving today and Emma said it again "My eyes are brown, and Alina's and Samuel's and Isaac's are all blue"

It is true. There are six people in our family, 5 of us have blue eyes. 

Shawn's mom has brown eyes, and we have been telling her that her eyes are like her Grandma's. That is true as well, and I don't feel bad for saying it. But that is not where her beautiful, brown eyes came from. 

They came from Lucille. Emma's birthmom. In fact, everything about Emma looks like Lucille. She has long, willowy legs, and the cutest little pixie face that you have ever seen. 

Don't believe me? Take a look...

She is four now. And she is starting to realize that she looks a little different than us. So, I am trying to weave this topic into conversation. "Hey Emma...do you remember that you grew in Lucille's tummy?"

"Yeah," she says, "and Alina, and the boys grew in yours"

"Hey babe, that is why your eyes are brown. You look like Lucille, and you are beautiful, just like she is"

"Ok, mom." and today, for some reason she said "Someone planned that whole thing out."

"Yes, honey, it was all planned out."

And it was. Down to the minute. By Lucille.

Four years ago, a very brave, young mother decided to do something indescribable. This 18 year old, planned the whole thing out. We sat in a meeting at the hospital with Lucille, her mom, the head nurse, a social worker, Shawn and me. She wanted a plan, a pattern in place so when the baby was born she would know what to do.

As very humbled recipients of this indescribable gift, we listened as she said "When the baby is born and cleaned off, it will be placed on my chest for a moment and then I will hand the baby to Keri"

This was a heart wrenching situation for all of us. Shawn and I had already walked through an adoption that fell through. That means that we left the hospital once, with no baby in hand, and packed up a prepared nursery, put away sterilized bottles and cried ourselves to sleep because there was no one to keep us up. We had done that, and we were not anxious to go through it again. But there we were. This one seemed different, but there are no guarantees are there?

So, the night came, the call came. Lucille was in labor, we raced to the hospital (there is actually a longer story of course, but I will skip that for now), and we met her there in the middle of a contraction. She was so brave, so strong, and doing something that I had not been able to experience yet: childbirth. In 3 short hours, Emma was born. They laid this new, black haired beauty on Lucille's chest, one kiss and then Lucille said "give her to her mom".

And that was it. Emma has been my girl, my beautiful, funny, smart, talkative girl ever since.

It still takes my breath away.

Lucille wrote her a letter while Emma was still in her tummy, a letter for a later date. When a more mature daughter can read it and understand. In it, my favourite sentiment about adoption stands out by a mile: "I didn't give you away because I don't love you. I gave you to Shawn and Keri because I love you so much that I want you to have the best for your life, a mom and a dad together" (it has been awhile since I have read it, but that is the gist).

This is adoption. In its purest sense. But, there are lots of other issues that can clutter the process.

I remember sitting in our adoption seminar and hearing stories about questions that people ask when you are an adoptive family. I think that multi-racial families get the worst of it: "how much did you pay for them?", "they must feel so fortunate to have been adopted by you", and other crazy statements made by people who simply do not know better. My personal favourite was said to me at a baby shower not long after Emma was born. A lovely lady, trying to be funny said "It must have been easy for you...you just went to the hospital and picked up a baby". Yeah.. that was not what happened.

I have to say though, in fairness to those who have not been on the adoption roller coaster, it can be hard to sustain small talk. This reality came crashing in on me when we were camping a few weeks ago.

We were in the pool with a lot of different kinds of kids in the pool. Different languages, different colours of skin, all families, all different. This didn't strike us as odd at first, but then as we watched, we noticed they all seemed to know each other. In our small talk with the other parents we came to understand that they were a support group for adoptive families. Small talk continued with great effort to not say anything stupid or insensitive, and one mom said this all important phrase:

"It is good for us to get away, and be together, the kids get to relax. We are all similarly different"

And I realized again that we belong to a beautiful community of people who have all been through incredible heartache, and incredible joy.

Sometimes people dream of adopting children from a young age, but I think most of the time adoption becomes a viable option when other options turn out to be different than we expect.

I never quite know what to say to someone when they begin to talk about adopting a child. I kind of want to ask them if they are willing to open their chests and let a stranger, usually a young stranger, take an in depth tour of all of your deepest longings and fears. To be willing to  share a supremely intimate season, when all things are disclosed and the outcome is unknown. It is one minute faith, the next minute fear. One minute hope, the next minute despair.

But then that glorious moment comes (and it will certainly come): "Give her to her mom"

And we became parents.

It was worth every one of those emotions.

She was worth it all.

She has her birth-mom's beautiful brown eyes, but she has our hearts wholly and completely.

Yes, we are different. But we are similar in our differences with many, many other miracle families.

We are similarly different. And very grateful to be so.

there are days

Today was a great day. My great husband had a birthday today, his parents took the kids so we could drive to Seattle and have lunch with my family. That meant about 10 hours in the car, going into a restaurant, shopping at Costco, and two stops at Starbucks without any emergency potty breaks, any Strawberry Shortcake theme songs, any diaper changes, and most of all no interruptions.

It was amazing. I am still smiling.

If you haven't noticed, I am an optimist. I strive to be someone who finds the good and tries to avoid talking about negative things. I guess I just figure that talking about it, at least in this format, doesn't really fix things for me. So, I tend to tell the funny things, or the heart warming things that happen around here.

This week though, I just wondered if maybe it would help if you knew that I had a rough go. There were lots of choices to be made this week: to be kind to my children, to actually listen to my husband as he told me about his day, to not get angry at the perpetual cycle of mess that my house seems to stay in.

We were fighting some kind of stomach bug all weekend. Three of the four kids were throwing up in the night. This is, for me, the hardest thing about taking care of kids. I handle it in the moment, but oh man! I just hate vomit and changing sheets and watching the kids feel so gross. It is also the lack of sleep, and not knowing how long they will be up, or if anyone else will be up. Then it is an hour of sleep here and there, with a looooonnnnng, tired day the next day.

This was the story on Wednesday. None of us had much sleep for a couple of nights. It was also Shawn's first day back to work, after a lovely summer filled with day trips and vacations. Having two parents, and other family around for a few weeks was glorious. But...Wednesday morning came, and it was just me.

And all 4 of them.

One of them is teething. My Isaac, when in pain, howls like a little wolf. He wants to be held. He walks around like a gorilla with his hands in the air waiting for me to pick him up so he can howl right in my ear. He must think I cannot hear him unless his mouth is two inches from my ear.

Alina and Emma were overtired, and they missed their dad.  There just wasn't enough of me to go around. They wanted to colour, paint their nails, fix their hair, have a snack, all at once. When these requests were not answered within the correct time frame, the request came again only louder and repeatedly until I answered (through gritted teeth) that "there was only one of me, and I can only do one thing at a time! Right now that thing is listening to Isaac yell in my ear! Grrrr".  I looked at the clock....

It was 8:30. Awesome.

With great effort I dressed each of them, packed a snack and put them in the car. I was in a full sweat by the time every one was in, but they are Harvey's and they like the car, so things started to calm down. I called Shawn, we have hands free in the car, so Emma heard the conversation.

"Mom? Are you sick?"

"No babe, just a little overwhelmed today"

"Cause I can help"

My sweet, insightful little girl. Who in one moment can be a dictator can, in the next moment be just what the doctor ordered. I love it when she is kind.

I guess it is easy to feel like I am overlooking important things, maybe missing the mark, or not being as deliberate as I want to be when I am with the kids. I used to feel like I was failing all the time, thankfully I don't really feel that way as often now. But I do worry that sometimes I am not being the best version of myself, or that the kids are not learning the virtues that we would like for them to practice.

Then Emma says something like that. "I can help". Where did that come from?  Empathy? Compassion? Either way, I felt like I got a big pat on the back by a recently turned 4 year old. She sees, and she feels what is going on around her, and she is trying to offer solutions.

That is a good life skill - things are looking up!

One of the strangest things that people say to me, is that I am making this look easy. I am glad I guess, since I don't like the alternative. I want to assure you that no matter what it looks like on the outside, this is not easy.

So if you are a mom, and you are having a hard day,

Or if you are just a human and you are being hard on yourself,

I want to say to me and to you:

Love never fails.

This is my go-to phrase. I say it all the time, to myself, and to anyone who will listen.

I fail every day, and you do too I am guessing. But love never does. It is love that reaches into places I can't touch in my kids hearts and lives. Even when I am being too hard on myself or them,

Love never fails.

In the end, that is all that matters. I am loved, I don't have to be perfect. I can have hard days, I think I can even have days that I am not the best mom. But it is love that makes up the difference, for every inadequacy, and every mistake.

Of course there are hard days that I wonder how I am even going to make it to lunch time. Somehow I make it to lunch, to dinner, to bedtime..and up to do it again the next day.

This is a marathon, and we are running it. My hard Wednesday morning turned into a beautiful day at the park meeting up with friends. Our kids all played well together, then all four of those little faces fell asleep in the car for about an hour while I drove in silence, prayed and asked for help to figure out the mess that was happening in my brain.

I got silence, even better peace, on a day that was spiralling out of control.

It does get better. We are in it together.

And hey Moms...if you love your kids (and I know you do) you are giving them the best gift they never even asked for.

camping

We just returned from a 7 day camping trip.

Let's be clear: I LOVED being away, and I enjoyed camping.

But, it is strange. Even if you are an avid camper, you have to admit, it is strange.

Our first destination was near Leavenworth, Washington. This was camping at it's finest in my world. They watered the lawns when the spots were empty, so there was lush grass and our campsite led into a little hole in the trees that opened up on to the cutest little stream. Cold water, straight from the mountains babbled sweetly to us the whole time we were there. For the kids, there was a  pool, for Shawn and I there was a nice little fire pit that we could sit by at night time and read our books. There were cute little towns to visit during the day and fun little shops where we could buy early Christmas presents. Harvey's and Buchanan's: Stay tuned for a wide assortment of jellies, BBQ sauces and salsas made out of cherries.

I was as happy as a gal could be.

I didn't mind that the campsite next to us was about two feet away. The back of our trailer hid their laundry and they kept to themselves. They didn't seem to mind that our trailer almost overlapped onto their picnic table, and we didn't ask.

We left my new found paradise after two nights. We exchanged the cool evenings in the mountains for a desert spot in the middle of Washington state. Things were about to turn.

It is important to stop here and explain some things.

When I was growing up, camping happened wherever we parked. We had a Volkswagon van, with a pop up top. So, we would take that van and go find a mountain somewhere and park in the middle of a field or something. But there was always an ice cold river near by that we would be talked into washing our hair in. Headaches always followed. My job was to pick wild flowers for the table. I see now that this was my mother's code for "go away for as long as you can so I can actually get something done or sit by myself without someone talking to me non-stop".

I am sure there were bathrooms at some point in my formative camping years. I don't remember any. I do remember learning to do my business by trees and trying to avoid getting poked by pine trees in my sensitive areas. This has all proved to be crucial information now that I am an adult. There was no complaining on these trips. We were there to have fun, and that was that. We did have fun, lots of it. In fact, the goal for all of us (Dad, Jamie and I) was to see who could make mom laugh so hard that she wet herself. She didn't appreciate this game. Not to brag, but I always won.

My dad had an incredible knack for finding a camping spot with a strong tree. As soon as we would arrive, he would set to work finding just the right branches to fashion a swing for my sister and I. This was a stroke of genius. We would play with that swing for the entirety of our time in the woods.

Shawn and his sister also have vivid memories of head aches from freezing cold streams. Theirs is a little funnier I have to say since, for sure, their water was glacier fed straight from the North Pole.

So, maybe this provides a bit of insight into why the next leg of our journey was a bit of an adjustment for me.

We arrived in our desert destination at the hottest point of the day. It was HOT. I am a bit of a heat wimp these days so I don't really like it. I was sweating within seconds of standing outside of the vehicle. When I looked around, I was surrounded by boats, inner tubes, RV's bigger than my house, and lots and lots of people.

I am talking to myself. "It will be ok. We will get set up, go for a swim, cool off, stretch out...it will be fine."

We arrive at our site to see that it is about 10 feet wide. We are parked next to a site with at least 15 teenagers and some kind of huge moving house they would call an RV, and no joke...a golf cart.

Ok.

We park. We unhook. Shawn takes one look at me and says "want to go for a drive?"

Um. yes.

Ok, so we drive to Coulee Dam. So cool. There is a great museum, lots of fun things to look at, and other than Emma picking up a sample of a big spoke from the dam on her foot and screamed blue murder in the otherwise quiet museum, and Alina wetting her pants on the ride in, things were looking up.

I am talking to myself. "It will get better. It is just not what you are used to. Shawn is happy about it, it will be ok".

We get back. I promise Shawn I will be much better after a good night of sleep.

At 2:30 in the morning, the room in our trailer lights up like a disco. What on earth? So, I open the door to find a family of 6 setting up their tents in the campsite next to us.

When I say "next to us", I mean like if I walked 10 small steps in Mother may I? I would be in their dining room.

At this little moment, in my nice trailer (which, yes, would be cheating in my past camping life), I am thinking "what in the world are we doing? This is so weird. Why are we sleeping within spitting distance of complete strangers???"

I kept trying to imagine this scenario at home. That someone would come, and set up a tent right outside my bedroom window. Then make breakfast and live their lives right there. Does anyone else think this is weird?

Our neighbors got set up. We went back to bed. I guess the joke was a bit on them when our girls got up at 7:30 and were ready to run free in nature.

The next day did get better, and the day after that, and so on. I decided to rely on good old Abraham Lincoln's knowledge when he said "Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be".

I made up my mind to be happy, and friendly with our new roommates. They were nice and proved to be quite helpful when a storm kicked in a couple of nights later and our awning flew up and almost off of the trailer. The dad popped right out of his tent and made sure that Shawn didn't need any help. See, you meet the nicest people when you camp.

So, we swam and rode bikes and made yummy food. We introduced the girls to Go Fish and Old Maid. Emma loved Go Fish, Alina just loved saying Go Fish, but she never could quite figure out why she was saying it. Emma wanted to play Old Maid again, but without the Old Maid, she didn't like the part that she lost if she still had her, so she figured it was best to leave her out all together.

The highlight of the trip for me came yesterday. We were walking, my Emma and I, down to the pool for our second swim of the day. She had her cute little bathing suit on and a turtle floaty toy wrapped around her waist. She grabbed my hand and said "Mom, you and me? We are best buds right?"

Yes, oh, yes we are my darling girl. And I told her to tuck that little truth deep in her heart so that even when she grows older and wonders who loves her best, she will know it is me: her best bud.

So, now we are home. We left our little boys in the very capable hands of Shawn's mom and dad. It was so good to hug their little necks and to let them lavish beautiful little hugs and kisses on us.

Now, we clean up and do laundry and get ready for the new school year. But,  I have hidden a little camping spot in my heart where my girls are jumping to me in the pool, laughing at their dad, walking around half-naked in the woods with chocolate all over them, and my husband's smile with his handsome, tanned face.

My own little paradise, that I shared with 500 people and their dogs, and bikes, boats and moving mansions.

The firsts and the lasts

The boys are walking. They have been playing at it for awhile, and even now when they are in a hurry they drop down and prefer crawling.

I don't mind if it takes them a little bit longer.

It is not that I want them to be delayed or stay babies forever or anything like that (well, maybe sometimes). It is just that they are the last of the Harvey babies.

Every time they do something for the first time, it is the last time I will see my babies do something for the first time. As much as I love progress, this is met with a little sadness for me.

I can honestly say if I was younger I would keep having children. Not because it is easy, it really isn't. But it is such a miracle every time. The reward so surpasses the sacrifice, even now.

I was so overwhelmed when I found out that I was pregnant with the twins. I confess that I cried (for awhile), not because I wasn't happy they were coming, I just had no idea how I was going to be a good mom to that many kids in such a short amount of time (Emma was 2.5, Alina was 1.5 when they came)

Even now, I am not sure how we get through some days without serious injuries.

When I was pregnant with the boys, I read an article about spacing your children out. If you can leave 2 or more years between your kids, they have a greater chance of being smarter or something trivial like that.

We always wondered what it would feel like to be able to say "We don't want to be pregnant right now, so we will wait a month or two so the baby will come in April instead of March". There are many blessed people who have normal cycles who can make those decisions. We just weren't those people. So, the idea of child spacing was foreign to us.

I remember thinking - "Well,  that is just not an option for us. I hope that our kids can spell by the time they graduate from high school"  (Shawn would say here "Keri, you worry about the weirdest things")

What I have observed since then has been very encouraging. It is true that I don't read to any of the 3 younger children as much as I read to Emma and I can really see the benefit to the reading I did with Emma. However, I like to think that our 16 month spaced children are learning other skills that may not stand out at first glance:

1) Survival - every day these children have figure out how to make it to the next day. They to learn how to get down off of the surfaces that they climbed up on, by themselves. Emma never had to worry about that, I would go and get her. Even right now, the boys have climbed up on the couch, I can hear them giggling about it. I am not even in the same room. For sure one of them is going to fall off and bonk their head.  I will tell you what my husband says to them every time: "gravity, no place for wimps".  See, they are learning science at this very early age.

2) Patience - there is only so much of mom and dad to go around. If two of them are crying, one of them must wait it out and hope that they eventually get that important soothing, or they soothe themselves and move on to the next thing. This is especially true for the older girls. So many times I have to say, "sorry honey, I need to feed the boys, change the boys, rescue the boys, etc.."  and this leads me to the next one...













3) Problem solving - So many times in one day a crisis arises. We cannot jump in to all of them, so creative solutions need to be formed. For instance, Shawn was watching all of the kids yesterday and Isaac got a hold of a dried up hydrangea from outside. He brought it inside, and then proceeded to smash it all over the living room. Shawn was in the middle of something, so the girls started trying to clean it up with a stick (thinking it would work like a broom). "See daddy, we are helping you". Of course it just made a bigger mess, but you can't blame them for trying.

4) Teamwork - The kids know that when we are out and need to get moving, that they all pile on to their designated spots on the stroller and dad can push through any crowd. The girls know how to feed the boys their bottles and they know to tell me if there is any damage to vital organs in the case of a big wrestling match. One of my personal favourites is when the girls will cheer for another family member. For example: I send them out to Shawn while he is BBQ-ing they chant "go daddy go! go daddy go!" , Alina has also been known to say to herself "go Alina go!" when she is working up courage to do something new. We all need encouragement in the little things right? They are learning crucial life skills.




I am sure if I spent some time on it, I would be able to think of more. Of course each family is different,  and each family will learn great lessons based on their demographic, but I guess I am just always working on the part of my brain that worries that we are somehow wrecking our children because we didn't do things according to the latest research. Mostly, I am learning to not read the latest research.

I love our family. I love that we turn heads every where we go. I know it is not just because our kids are adorable (and of course, I think they are). People wonder if we know that birth control has been invented etc...(people have actually asked me that if you can believe it). Most of the time, people just say "wow, you must be busy".

And I am.

I am busy and tired, and grateful, and exhausted, and exhilarated, and frustrated, and fulfilled. It all depends on the time of day, or the milestone that one of the children just passed.

I am alive. I am fully alive. I am stretched to capacity, I am running at full every day. I know I can't keep this up forever, but I waited for this. I begged God for this, and I can't complain about it now. I can just run to keep up with my promises.

And running is exactly what I will be doing once those little boys are not just kind of walking, but running. We are off to another phase, new challenges, nostalgia for the "little" days, but grateful. Very grateful.

(and a little tired)

This Woman's War

I attended a high school graduation last night. It all sounds so promising, and it should. Reach your indescribable potential, you are exceptional, your options are limitless.... you know, you have been to high school graduations too.

There is nothing wrong with these thoughts, I actually believe them.

I think that if I could sit one on one with each of those students I would whisper, shout, send smoke signals, rent a plane and write it in the sky:

DON'T GET BITTER

This whole thing of life is managing crisis isn't it? It is riding those waves of our emotions. The success the failure, the win, the loss.

I am forty something now. I like to think that I am at half time. God willing I have another forty something years or more left to be married to my husband, and to be mom to my kids, to the best of my ability be a voice of hope to the next generation. 

If this is half time - then my coach is up in my face right now shouting at me:

"Fix your attitude Harvey!"

"Get up off the mat! Start swinging again!"

"You believed this stuff once. Pull yourself together and reach again for those dreams!"

Why wouldn't I?

Because life has come and taken a big, shark size bite right out of my dreams from time to time. Never mind my dreams, it has taken a bite out of me. I have choices to make.

I was talking to an older lady in our church,  She has to be pushing 80ish. I was telling her how much I admired her joy and enthusiasm.  She smiled, and with all of her beautiful wisdom and kindness she said "It's a choice".

Bitterness is so deadly. It sets its traps everywhere.

Grief  - the ones we love leave us, through death or decisions.

Loss - Relationships that we thought would be with us forever, end or fade through erosion or betrayal. 

Financial Hardship - the slow wearing down of not having enough, or just enough to get by -day after day, week after week, year after year. 

Anger - opportunities that pass us by and are offered to others, the perception that everyone else is somehow managing to live a better, easier life than we are. 

Disappointment - Expectations for things to be different slowly wear down our resolve to hope for something more. 

Criticism - A heart entrenched in bitterness cannot celebrate what is happening in other people's lives. It hurts too much. It is easier to find reasons to bite in the same way we feel bitten. 

Resignation - The systematic numbing with all of its vices that lure me into settling for a mediocre life that is afraid to hope. 

You may think of more, but these are the main ones that I see. 

The storms come. I didn't get married until I was 33, my heart was shattered a couple of times in the waiting. When I did finally meet the man I would marry, it was one short week into our engagement when my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We endured 6 years of infertility - an eternity of waiting each month to find out if I would ever be a mom. Many personal struggles that cannot be mentioned. Then the day to day struggles that require all sorts of attention. Life takes its heavy toll sometimes.

Bitterness is waiting with it's crosshairs on every heart that wants to accomplish anything of significance in this life. 

Why? 

Because our hearts are beautiful. Valuable. Irreplaceable. 

If not, we would not be instructed to guard them above all else. 

Guard them from what? 

The poison of disappointment, fear, anger, all of it. 

I remember reading the verse "those who hope in me will not be disappointed". At the time, I was disappointed. Bitterly disappointed. But thankfully that was not the end of the story. It doesn't say "those who hope in Me will never be disappointed with anything". I think the implication is that if we hang in there, eventually things will work themselves out. I can certainly say so in my life. I am not even a little disappointed now. But 10 years ago? A very different story. 

The Bible calls bitterness a root. Meaning, we get our nourishment from the soil of negativity and unbelief. 

I am certainly not trying to simplify complex issues down to sheer will power - but there is a time that hard choices need to be made. I don't like the person I become when I choose bitterness. 

So, I must, in spite of all that is going on, choose joy. choose hope. choose life. 

Then, only then, can I smile at the days to come. Fulfill my limitless potential and all of that other great valedictorian stuff that fills us all with hope for the future. 

So here I go - 

I declare war on all that makes me smaller, meaner, more critical, less understanding, less hopeful. 

I declare war on the fear of failure or even success, the fear of pain and loss, the fear of set back, trials and opposition. 

I declare war of the enemy of my soul - The one who would stop me from becoming the  God breathed woman I am supposed to be.

I will be grateful - the cure, as far as I can see, for bitterness. 

I pray that in my sunset years, and all of the years in between, I will always be able to smile, laugh from my belly button, speak faith, encourage deeply, believe in impossibles, and love genuinely. 

My God is worth it, my husband is worth it, my children are worth it, my friends are worth it, my students are worth it. I will be a fragrance of freedom instead of a life swallowed in bitterness. 

Even if it is cliche - I will dream, reach for the stars, be extraordinary, you know the drill. 

Who is with me?  

Follow Me

Mark 1:16 - 20

And as He walked by the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”  They immediately left their nets and followed Him.

When He had gone a little farther from there, He saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the boat mending their nets.  And immediately He called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired servants, and went after Him.

There are so many things I appreciate about Jesus Christ. I appreciate that He is patient and kind, that He takes time for the sinner and cares about the outcast. I am a Christian. I want to be like Him. 

One of the traits that may not be commonly attributed to Him is confidence.  He wasn't insecure. He was fully God of course.  But He was also fully man. He walked in our flesh, faced the same temptation that I do everyday, and He died having defeated it all. 

I usually associate temptation with sexual issues, or indulgence of the naughty kind like alcohol, gluttony, drugs etc...

Today as I was praying it struck me into the core of who I was that He must have also faced the temptation to make His life all about Him. This is my understanding of insecurity having faced it for so many years in various ways. 

Insecurity is the total obsession with how others see ME, what they think of ME, how I  am doing in every thing I do. Do others speak well of ME? Do they think good thoughts of ME? Am I a good wife? A good mom? A good leader? A good example? 

I don't think these are bad questions necessarily. I do however,  think they can be a trap. As a Christian, there is a deeper calling to magnify the Lord and not me, my problems or my personality. 

As a mom, I feel the constant pressure to be a good one. Sometimes, I want my kids to behave so I look like a good mom. This too is backwards. No one can make me look like a good mom, a good leader, a good wife. I am or I am not. The fruit will answer the question in the end won't it? 

It is not comfortable to have a child going through a tantrum, bad attitude stage, but that is really their problem to overcome. In the end they have to choose to overcome or society will revolt against them and they will learn the hard way. It is not their job to make me look like a good mom. And it is simply my job to give them the best I have and believe that God will make up the difference. 

As a leader, I find myself looking over my shoulder to see if anyone is following. Will people sign up for discipleship? Do people still believe in the process? Are we doing a good job? 

And this is where that scripture hit me like lightning this morning. Jesus wasn't insecure about being a good leader, preaching the most relevant message, being cool enough to follow. He was Jesus, and He believed in what He came to do. He was simply a great leader, and people naturally followed Him. 

I enter this with a deficit, because I am not the Son of God. However, I do follow Him. I like everything He does (maybe not in the moment, but in the end He does make everything beautiful in His way). I am His biggest fan. 

When I follow Him, I don't need to worry about others following Him. 

He doesn't worry. 

He loves, He reaches, He is truth and He never changes. His truth changes everything. 

It is captivating, and irresistible. 

My job is to demonstrate that irresistible love, and through everything in my life cry out "following Jesus is the only thing that really matters or makes sense in this lifetime". 

That cures my insecurity. He has been in the business of drawing all people to Him since the beginning of time. I think He can handle this generation with all of its troubles, lures and traps. 

I can keep walking forward with the assumption that as I echo His call, hearts will change, lives will change, and generations will be forever altered because we heard His call and we followed Him. 

"Get to know them"

This was the simple advice I received when Emma was born - it was so simple, I almost missed it. She was only a week or two old, and one of my adopted moms came to see us. She has four kids, and a basketful of grandkids, so she might know a thing or two about being a mom.

"Your job, from here on out, is to get to know this little girl." She went on to tell me that the personalities that her kids had when they were small children, carries on to this day in different forms. One played by themselves, needed their alone time. The other ran the rest of the family like a miniature CEO. She described the rest...but you get the idea.

In my brand new mommy-hood, I didn't have a clue how much that little conversation would mean to me. I didn't know how many times I would refer to that conversation in my head, and apply to each of the other children when they came.

For some reason, before I had twins, I read an article about having twins. It said most parents feel like they "look between them", meaning never really looking AT them. I suppose it is easy to do that when you become a sleep deprived, feeding, changing diapers machine.

We have four small children. It would be so easy to meet their needs, make sure they have clean clothes, they are well fed, and they get outside for fresh air etc...

But for that conversation.

It is my job to get to know these children. To look at them, not just what they need for their bodies to run, or to look and smell right.

I want to pause here to say that I usually avoid the "advice" kind of blogs. I really feel like everyday is a learning curve for me, and I rarely feel like "oh, I could write a thesis on the foundations of parenting".

Yeah, I never feel like that.

I also avoid giving unsolicited advice because we all have such strong opinions about our kids - and well we should! So, if you decide to read on, do so knowing that I am confident that we are all doing the best we can to love our kids. We all need to do what we believe will be best for our kids. The thoughts that follow are my firm convictions for my family. You, of course, need to follow your own convictions for your family.

One of my friends, who is about about to become a mom for the first time, asked a handful of people for advice. What strollers to buy, what is our best advice, etc...

And this is it:

My job is not to raise children that make me look like a good mom.

My job is not to raise children that all fit into some tidy mold of good sleepers, good eaters, good mannered, good fashioned children (like the not parents yet, pins on pintrest:  cute kids in cute clothes - if they ever figure out how to get their three year old to wear that ever -so - fashionable hat for more than two nano seconds, I pray they would let me know)

It is not even my job to make my children Christians. It is my job to make Christ such a beautiful,  integrated part of my life that they want to know Him like their Mom and Dad know Him.

For sure, these are important things. We need to do our best to create systems that the kids feel safe in. But sometimes, principles fail because kids just don't fall into tidy packages.

My job is to get to know these kids. I need to understand what makes them tick, why things are important to them, why they cry, what makes them thrive and what makes them shrink.

I can say that the only parenting choices I see others make that get me in a lather are the "my way or the highway" kind of parenting style. I have worked with enough teenagers and young adults to know that many times, by the time they reach their teenage years they might just choose the highway.

In some ways, it is easier to have a one size fits all philosophy - you can get them to conform (I think, I am actually not great at this), but I guess I see adults having different personalities, and we all want to be understood within our context. Why wouldn't we think kids need the same?

I cannot expect an introvert to have the same needs as an extrovert - and sometimes when they are little it is easy to be unclear what their needs are.

It is my job to get to know them.

It would be easy to get frustrated at my oldest's need for things to line up exactly right. Sometimes, when things don't happen the way she imagines, she collapses on the floor - it is the end of her world. I know that my job is to teach her emotional maturity. As I write this, her pony tail is not tight enough, I tried to fix it, I didn't do it right and she fell apart. I have a choice to make: I can diminish her feelings, make her feel stupid for caring about her ponytail, and this would actually be the easier choice for me since I don't really care about her pony tail right now. Or...I can listen, tell her to be patient and to ask nicely so I can fix the offending hairstyle.

This is not a commentary on discipline or how to make your kids mind. I am definitely not wading into that pool!

It is more of a root question:

Am I doing what is best for me, or what is best for them?

It is hard to tell sometimes.

I do know that the priority of my parenting is to SEE my children. To discover them. To know what makes them tick, what frustrates them, what makes them laugh. How many hugs a day do each of them need to vaccinate them against that raging storm that waits outside our door?

I want to send them this message:

"You have what it takes to make it out there. You have a safe place here to be yourself. We love you. We love your personality. We love the way God made you and we want you to be the best you can be. This is a safe place to land. This is a safe place to make mistakes and to figure life out. Let's do it together."

For this reason (and I think I may offend some people here...) we never call our kids brats, divas, spoiled, etc..

I truly believe that the power of life and death is in the tongue - why would I call my kids names? I just don't think it is a great idea. I may not like their behaviour. I can call that whatever I want. But to call my child a brat - isn't that making a character assessment? It sounds kind of a long term decision about who they are, and I don't really want to raise brats. Why would I call them what I don't want them to be?

So, this is my answer to my friends question...it is simply the golden rule. "Treat others the way you would want to be treated"

I want to be seen. I want to be understood. I want the chance to explain myself if I said it wrong the first time. I want to be talked to with kindness and patience. I don't want to be pushed into a box. I want to be challenged to be stronger and better than I am today. You get the idea...

This rule matters most with those
who mean the most to us... our kids.

May we all do this with grace and patience toward ourselves and each other. So help us God.

reunions

I just received an invitation to a reunion for my first hometown in Durango, Colorado.I didn't actually graduate from that high school but I did go to school there until my grade 10 (sophomore) year. I confess that I hyperventilate just thinking about it.

Durango is a beautiful, little town in Colorado. This train left the station every morning on its way up to Silverton. This was our alarm clock.
We moved from Colorado when I was 15.  I highly recommend visiting there. I would love to return for a visit.

I am not sure that the visit will be wrapped up with a reunion however. Now that I am older, I see that the beauty of moving is re-invention. We moved enough that I got to re-do myself a few times. I didn't really like the Colorado me. There were some great memories, and some great people for sure. But yikes! Who wants to remember grade 7? or 8, or 9? I was awkward (I am going to guess we all felt awkward, but I feel I was superior at my awkwardness). I was irritating, and I was so lonely and scared in that season of my life. I really don't even like thinking about it.

I remember a speaker at an assembly saying "these are the best years of your life, I hope you are enjoying them", and I thought "dear God, I want to die"

Even scarier, I see the girl who was my famous bully in those grades on the invitation...I seriously just turned into a 12 year old. Her name has become legend in my mind (I am sure she is nice now, I am sure she wouldn't breathe fire and tell me to meet her at the dirt pit after school)  but still, my insides turn to Jell-O just imagining her stomping up behind me at my locker, or running to catch up with me on my walk home from school. A little shout out to my sister who would show up at just the right times and chase her off.

I think it all started when I wet the bed at a sleepover at the most popular girl in town's house. Yes, I think that was the beginning of the end. I was popular for a few minutes. Popular enough to get invited over to the cute, blond, popular girls house. Dumb bladder. And that was that.

I did have a few friends. Jenny Fitts (now Reynolds)- with her Cyndi Lauper bracelets and perfect frosted pink nails. We had awesome hair and we had each other.  Thank God for music. I hid in the choir and the drama productions once I got into high school.  The people there, I will always be grateful for. But the damage was done - in my own mind anyway. I felt marked by my own stupidity in many ways. It seemed I just didn't know how to say the right thing at the right time.

I think I slept through much of my grade 10 year. I think I missed more school than I attended. My mom must have known something was up with me, but she still let me stay home at least one or two times a week. How I passed, I will never know.

But then, mercifully, our family moved to Spokane, Washington (haven't we lived in beautiful places?). No one knew me, no one knew how my bladder had betrayed me on that fateful night. I got a new start.

I had friends - we were all choir/drama geeks, but it was a big school and there were enough of us to feel the strength in numbers. I loved those two years. So many great friends. I still stuck my foot in my mouth too much, but I had learned a little bit about keeping it zipped so that came in handy.

But even those Spokane reunions.... I don't know. I haven't been. I am such a chicken. What is my problem?

Maybe since I haven't discovered a cure for cancer (and haven't even tried), I feel like I am not worthy to appear. I feel like I look old, and I am not skinny, and I didn't just get back from Hawaii after spending the summer at my lake cabin.

Crazy.

Really, who cares? My current self doesn't.

But my 7th grade self seems to.

And my Senior year (Grade 12 for my Canadians) self seems to.

The good news is, those were not the best years of my life. These are.

These are the best years of my life.

I am married to an awesome man - I mean it, he is so great. He was bullied too - worse than me, and I wish the people who over looked him could see him now. He is the boss, he is a genius, he is favored and blessed. Take that high school success ladder - popularity structure thingy!

I have FOUR kids - and each of them have their own miracle story.

I get to live out my passion to lead and train young adults - and I get paid to do it.

I get the incredible honour of speaking from time to time at Ladies events - and I love every minute of it.

The irony of it all is how much time I spend teaching people diplomacy - the art of knowing what to say and when to say it. Let me tell you, that is its own miracle.

Anyway, I don't think it will be in the budget to pack up our family and trek to Colorado for this reunion. But I am glad for the opportunity to work it through and for the chance to talk to my 12 year old self and tell her that it gets so much better. The best part is, I get to use all of those lessons I learned in so many different ways. The most important being to never overlook a person. Never. You just never know when they are going to turn the whole thing around and become a home-run hitter.

I would love to see my friends from those seasons. I know that time will come. I will remember the good old days with them, and it will be wonderful. In the meantime - I am reconciling with my junior high self and using those lessons to make me a better mom, and a leader of young people. I am grateful. Even for the bullies, they all taught me something.

Let's all have a reunion in heaven. I don't think there are any lockers to get shoved into there.

protect your process

I don't know if we made this term up or not - but a couple of years ago we started saying that people were inside processors, or outside processors.

I am an outside processor - let me explain. It will only sound strange to you if you are an inside processor, but sometimes I don't actually know what I think until I start talking about it. 

Shawn is an inside processor. This means that he thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks about what he wants to say, how he wants to say it, and he will not say it until he feels that he has narrowed down all of the non-essentials to a clean train of thought. 

I am sure you can tell that the opportunities for offence and misunderstanding are limitless. In our marriage, I have learned to say things like "I am saying this stronger than it probably will be, but I am really frustrated about blah, blah, blah..."  or he will say "I need time to think". 

One of the main problems with outside processors is that they (we) feel that they have to talk and talk until we get to a solution. Sometimes to anyone who will listen, sometimes our stuff becomes our facebook status or a blog or a ranting session over coffee. You can see that this could become problematic. 

A very wise friend once told me "once words have left your mouth, you relinquish the right to determine what happens to them." There are phrases that sometimes I wish I was not accountable for, this is one of them. It is truth. I need to respond to it. 

Or, maybe you have heard the story of the pastor who took his church gossip to the top of a hill, handed her a feather pillow, cut it open and shook the feathers into the wind. Once the pillow was empty, he told the woman to go and pick up all the feathers. 

It would be impossible. It is also impossible to collect our words spoken in haste, in frustration, in anger, in judgement or gossip.  

Here comes the scriptures: 

Proverbs 10:19

When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable,

But he who restrains his lips is wise.

James 3:2-6

Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.

We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth.  And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches.But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.  And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.

I heard a great definition of gossip: if you are not a part of the solution, you should not be a part of the conversation. 

So here is the challenge for me - I am an outside processor. I need to talk to someone sometimes before I talk to another someone that is actually part of the problem. And this is the point of this whole topic for me: that person that I talk things through with needs to be chosen carefully. First, I should probably pray. When I get to a road block, I may need to hash it out with someone. This person needs to be a parent, my husband, a leader. 

This person should not be: my friends who will agree with me and take on my frustration, my children who are not prepared to hear this information and it will surely change the way they see the people involved, or eager people ready to hear information that could make them feel important. 

I need people who will walk me to a solution, thankfully my husband is great at this. I need people who will not just agree with me and get mad or hurt too. These people are worth their weight in gold. 

The thing is, we all go through very personal things. It is important that these personal things stay in a small circle of people who know me and will encourage me, but also challenge me if I am going off the rails.

The thing is, it is not always negative. Sometimes we just need to tighten our circle because we need to reduce confusion. 

I was talking to a friend recently about infertility. EVERYONE has an opinion about infertility. They say the craziest things..."Oh if you just relax and stop obsessing about getting pregnant, you will" Well, thank you, that clears it all up. 

Greif is another one. I have been through deep grief, but heres the deal... it is unlike anyone else's grief. When someone is sick, when someone has lost someone they loved, they are hurting, they are confused and they need lots of support. We need to be careful with the words we speak when someone is so vulnerable. Sometimes they just need someone to sit there, without a word, just so they know that they are not alone. 

My good friend lost her baby last week. She was 17 weeks into her pregnancy. She had to go through labor and birth that beautiful boy. 

My friend is hurting. My friend needs help with her kids, maybe copious amounts of cookies or popcorn. What she doesn't need is for someone to say "Well, at least you have two other kids". 

I think that I have digressed. 

My point is that we are supposed to guard our hearts:

Proverbs 4:23

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. 

I feel the pain of the outside processors - I am one. But if you are at the beginning of your life, let me save you some heartache:

Surround yourself with smart, honest people who will love you enough to tell you that you are wrong, or are willing to sit down until you work through to your solution without taking on your problems or offences. 

If you are in a personal process - like grief or infertility, or waiting for a relationship - be careful with the amount of people to bring into your inner circle. Too much talking  could lead to debilitating insecurity, confusion or fear. God loves you, He loves your process and He wants to teach you through the challenges you are going through. You need to hear from Him. Anything that brings confusion is not from Him. Even your closest people cannot hear from God for you. You need to get your marching orders from Him - THEN you can talk to people who love you and will echo what He has said.  

What you are going through is valuable. YOU are valuable. Your brain is meant to be a peaceful place where joy, kindness and faith are jumping up to handle life's issues. 

I don't have many regrets. I know I am forgiven, but if I could do some things over, I would be more careful with my process. So, I will write it here in hopes that I can save someone from wasting words or inviting trouble by using their mouth without restraint. 

Three cheers for wisdom, and lessons learned, even if it was the hard way from time to time.