I've been reflecting on waiting with the Christmas season. When I was a kid, December seemed to pass incredibly slowly. My brother and I had advent calendars we would open every year, and it seemed to take months before we would get to open the doors for 24th or 25th. But as an adult, December is a whirlwind that I feel lucky to just survive. This year, on top of the usual busyness of getting out Christmas cards, buying Christmas presents, making cookies for neighbors and going to holiday parties, we had 9 different birthday parties or dinners for family or friends. At this point, the thing I'm looking forward to most at Christmas is resting, something I probably won't get to do in earnest until all the holiday stuff is over.
Just as I've experienced the Christmas season at very different speeds depending on my stage of life, waiting in general can go at very different speeds, depending on what you're waiting for. Things you want never come quickly enough, while things you dread always seem to come expeditiously. Some things we anticipate for short periods of time (a good meal, the next episode of a favorite TV show), others for much longer (finishing school, for example). In the Christmas story itself, people wait for things for very different lengths of time. Given all of the turmoil of Mary's pregnancy, I imagine those months went by fairly rapidly for her and Joseph. John the Baptist's gestation may have dragged bit more for both of his parents, given that his father couldn't speak through the whole thing. The shepherds had to wait very little, apparently, between when the angels announced Jesus' birth and when they met the baby; they "hurried off and found him" right away, it would seem.
The people whose waiting strikes me the most are Simeon and Anna. Both were waiting for the "consolation of Israel", something that both knew they might not see completely fulfilled in their lifetimes, even though Simeon at least knew he would see the Christ before he died. Both did get to experience some of what they were waiting for, but only after decades of waiting and even then, what they saw was a baby, not the complete "redemption of Israel". That kind of waiting, hoping for something that you want without knowing when, how or even if you'll really get it, is as different from my childhood anticipation of Christmas as reading a long, intricate novel is from glancing at a one-panel cartoon. The process is as much the point of the activity as the end is, in many ways.
I relate to Simeon and Anna's waiting a lot more these days. As the two-year mark approaches for Midi and Nathan's deaths, there is a way that what I'm waiting for has changed. Some of the peace and joy I had wanted and anticipated from life doesn't seem possible any more, at least on this side of heaven. So I'm now waiting for something from God that may not come during my lifetime, at least in full, just like Simeon and Anna never experienced the consolation of Israel fully in their lifetimes. But waiting for the delayed good does not necessarily mean the present is bad. I don't think Simeon and Anna would feel like their lives were wasted spent waiting for the Son of God, although their experience of Him was so short. Neither do I feel that I am condemned to a life of misery, even though I am certain that complete joy will be reserved for the time when I will be in the presence of God. The journey there can have its own moments of peace and joy; the process can be as valuable as the end.
I have spent most of this year in a fairly deep season of depression. It has lifted somewhat the last month or two, and while I am not sure if that is a permanent or temporary shift, I am grateful for the mercy of things feeling easier for a time. But even with that lifting, there is still a sense that things will never feel the same as they did before Midi and Nathan's deaths. I may experience good things, see God at work in me and around me, I may live a full life of following God, just as Simeon and Anna did. But I think, like them, I will spend my life waiting for a more complete consolation.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Margins
Even though I've been "back" at work after my sabbatical for exactly a year now, it has continued to be difficult to integrate my inner world with my daily responsibilities and roles. Internally I continue to grieve, to feel a loneliness that is both missing Midi and the reality that I no longer have this person who was so a much a part of how I was known and cared for, to feel some amount of disconnect with Jesus, to wrestle with how life feels difficult and disappointing most of the time these days. Externally I either spend my time leading a ministry to college students, being focused on things like vision, evangelism, leadership development and pastoral care, or caring for two young kids, shuttling to soccer games, interacting with other moms, washing clothes, making meals, and working hard to be both compassionate and authoritative with them in healthy ways. Neither of those roles either lend themselves to mourning or internal struggle readily or leave much practical space for those kind of things.
Two things have proved to be helpful, though. The main one has been creating margins for myself. I need more time to just be, to pray, reflect, read, to have space for things like exercise or just resting, than I used to. Perhaps some of that is just getting older; I can't function at high RPMs all the time anymore without serious burnout. But I think a good deal of it is simply that I need more space of the internal stuff to come to the surface. Rushing around the house or the various campuses I supervise does not give me enough room for the deeper issues to come up, but if I don't make space for that surfacing, it becomes even more painful at times. So as difficult as it has been for me logistically, I'm trying to get better at giving myself margins at least weekly, if I can't manage daily.
The other thing that has been helpful is being able to go deep, to be fully myself with people. This is no easier logistically than having margins; the people I'm closest to have as many competing responsibilities as I do, and it takes a work of God sometimes to have schedules converge for a deeper conversation. Even with David, the window where we have time and energy for depth can be pretty small some days. It doesn't really work at the dinner table to share our struggles with each other; conversation there tends to focus more on homework, Star Wars, and the like, and by the time the kids are in bed and we both have finished other responsibilities, the level of tiredness doesn't lend itself to prolonged sharing. But I've noticed that I am more down the months I haven't been able to connect deeply with anyone. It doesn't help that I don't feel like initiating as much as I used to. But as difficult as it's been to make space both for myself and for deeper conversations, they both have been elevated to the level of needed spiritual disciplines that make the rest of my life more feasible.
Two things have proved to be helpful, though. The main one has been creating margins for myself. I need more time to just be, to pray, reflect, read, to have space for things like exercise or just resting, than I used to. Perhaps some of that is just getting older; I can't function at high RPMs all the time anymore without serious burnout. But I think a good deal of it is simply that I need more space of the internal stuff to come to the surface. Rushing around the house or the various campuses I supervise does not give me enough room for the deeper issues to come up, but if I don't make space for that surfacing, it becomes even more painful at times. So as difficult as it has been for me logistically, I'm trying to get better at giving myself margins at least weekly, if I can't manage daily.
The other thing that has been helpful is being able to go deep, to be fully myself with people. This is no easier logistically than having margins; the people I'm closest to have as many competing responsibilities as I do, and it takes a work of God sometimes to have schedules converge for a deeper conversation. Even with David, the window where we have time and energy for depth can be pretty small some days. It doesn't really work at the dinner table to share our struggles with each other; conversation there tends to focus more on homework, Star Wars, and the like, and by the time the kids are in bed and we both have finished other responsibilities, the level of tiredness doesn't lend itself to prolonged sharing. But I've noticed that I am more down the months I haven't been able to connect deeply with anyone. It doesn't help that I don't feel like initiating as much as I used to. But as difficult as it's been to make space both for myself and for deeper conversations, they both have been elevated to the level of needed spiritual disciplines that make the rest of my life more feasible.
Philosophy of Parenting
The following is a piece on parenting philosophy I wrote for the ministry I work with, aimed primarily at new moms.
Before I had kids, I found it interesting on an intellectual level that there were very different parenting philosophies out there. On one side of the spectrum was “attachment parenting”, basing parenting behavior on cues from the child, with Dr. William Sears as its most well-known proponent, and on the other end was “parent-directed parenting”, where parents set the structure for life with a baby/child; Dr. Richard Ferber and Gary Ezzo (author of the Babywise books) have popularized the latter approach. It seemed to me that both ideas had merits, and I more casually wondered which methodology I might prefer as a parent.
It was a little less interesting and a little more disturbing to me to realize that amongst many parents, value was attached to how much particular philosophies and parenting practices were adhered to. The vitriolic is such between the two camps that libel lawsuits are not unheard of, and devotees have been known to do things like hiding the “enemy’s” parenting books in bookstores or sticking notes on them warning people against buying that particular book. The internet abounds with attacks, comments and blogs galore about the problems and evils of the opposing philosophies.
Perhaps less surprising but even more disturbing was the dawning awareness that it wasn’t just out-there, emotionally-out-of-whack people debating these philosophies with such heat, but this dispute was taking place primarily within the Church. Both camps have books explaining the Biblical basis for their particular view. Dr. Sears’ The Christian Parenting Book advocates for “what (they) believe are the three primary goals of Christian parenting: to know your child, to help your child feel right, and to lead your child to Christ." But Gary Ezzo’s Babywise series also proclaims itself to be “Biblically-based parenting”, arguing that Christian parents need to train their children in obedience, starting from infancy. The whole Christian debate over the “right” way to parent bothered me, mostly because it was full of such anger and critique that none of it felt particularly Christ-like. However, within the larger church culture, I could kind of shrug off the way others were debating each other. Perhaps these angry Christian parents simply did not come from the same stance of theology and praxis that I did.
But then came the real shock. Friends and mentors ahead of me on the journey of becoming parents, many of them on staff alongside me in InterVarsity, held as strongly to parenting philosophies and practices as they did the theological tenets and spiritual values that I held in common with them. Colleagues and peers who would be in total agreement on such potentially controversial subjects as the motivation for obedience, Biblical authority or the socio-economic implications for Biblical justice had almost as strong but quite divergent views on things like co-sleeping with infants or how to feed their babies. This was quite disturbing to me. If the people I most closely lined up with in terms of theology, spiritual values and ministry practices couldn’t agree on what constituted “faithful” parenting, what hope did I and my husband have to figure it out? Some amount of desperation got added into the mix once our children came. When your one month-old is waking up every two hours at night, and two different camps are telling you if you pick their particular “Biblical” parenting style, they will eat and sleep better and longer, your interest in picking the “right” parenting philosophy rapidly moves from theoretical to practical.
Of course, parenting philosophy isn’t the only controversy to navigate if you are a working mom, not to mention a working mom in Christian ministry. There is no shortage of people happy to point out why whatever you happen to have chosen for yourself and your family is ignorant, wrong, selfish, arrogant, enabling, un-Biblical, or even just plain evil. Women are particularly guilty of judging and critiquing one another, but our society in general is full of strong opinions about the roles of women/mothers. Personally, I had had to do enough work just to get in a place of confidence about who God had called me to be as both a minister of the Gospel and a woman that I really was not excited to have to do it all over again when I added the role of “mom” to my life. I had the responses already prepared for why I felt it was Biblical for me to be in ministry, but I wasn’t as ready to explain to other stay-at-home moms why I thought it was Biblical for me to work as a new mom.
In the interest of sparing other new moms, and in particular women in ministry like myself, some of the angst of sorting through all of these various voices and opinions about parenting styles, I offer some suggestions. While I certainly have my own opinions of the merits and faults of various parenting philosophies and methodologies, I think it is more crucial to come to a place of peace and ownership over whatever parenting style you end up landing on, so these are recommendations more about making those choices.
1. Have grace with yourself/be flexible. All of the advice that I received as a new mom that I found most helpful in the experience of having kids boiled down to one basic idea: figure out what you would prefer as a parent, but be prepared for things to not work out that way. Whether it was about having a birthing plan, when and if to go back to work, or even how discipline your kids, it is helpful to have a plan but to not hold on to it too strongly. There are elements of both grace and wisdom in that advice. The wisdom is indisputable; no matter what you may want, kids have a way of messing up the best laid plans! They get sick, they have emotional needs very different than what had anticipated… they will inevitably poop in their diaper or pee in their pants the moment you are loading them in the car on both metaphorical as well as the physical level! That’s where the grace comes in. If you approach parenting having done some work to vision for what you think would be best for you and your family but still have the flexibility to change those plans when it’s clear a change is needed, you will probably be in a better position to enjoy the ride, even when things go awry.
2. Know yourself. While the experience of having children is inherently chaotic, a good amount of planning and decision-making is also required. Where will you raise your children? How will you discipline them? How will you balance family and work? Having some sense of how you operate as a person will come in handy as you discern what choices will be best. We had thought before my first child was born that we would have our daughter sleep in the same room with us. It took maybe two nights for me to realize that I was not a sound enough sleeper for that arrangement to work well. Every little grunt or shift would wake me up, fueled in part by new parent anxiety, I’m sure. Having an extra wall between her and me, however, insured that I actually slept when she did at night, making me much more functional than I would been otherwise. Any ideals I had about co-sleeping were quickly out-weighed by the necessity of having more than an hour or two of sleep each night! When my second child arrived, I installed him in his own room with no qualms about what would be best for both of us!
3. Know your child. You can vision for what you may need as a parent before your child comes, but only after you begin to get to know your child will you really be able to figure out what is going to work best when it comes to parenting styles. Some kids really need and thrive in a more structured environment, while others do better with more responsive circumstances. And what works for one child may be a total wash with another. My husband David and I are opposite temperaments, and so far, it appears that our daughter and son have taken after their same-gender parent. My daughter wants to know the plan for the day, delights in following rules, and is very reasonable and goal-oriented. If negative consequences are explained to her, she is quick to modify her behavior, and if anything, struggles with people-pleasing rather than defiance. Her brother, on the other hand, is more happy-go-lucky, is more motivated by empathy than reason, and has no problem with defying others, particularly his parents. Their needs for structure and discipline couldn’t be more different at times, and any parental technique that works for one of them usually will not translate to other. We have needed to be thoughtful and child-specific in how we parent each of them. And I would say in general, a parenting philosophy that takes into child temperament rather than just abstract ideals will most likely be more effective than one that doesn’t.
4. Take circumstances into account. We can plan, vision and philosophize all we want about the best way to rear our kids, but sometimes certain things simply aren’t possible. Personally I think co-parenting, having both gender parents equally involved in childcare, is a great way to raise kids. But David’s more inflexible job schedule in the corporate world does not allow us to share duties to the degree we would like most of the time. He’s still more involved than many dads are, particularly given his job schedule, but whether we like it or not, our reality will probably never totally match our ideals in how much we share parenting duties. Similar to being flexible and having grace with yourself, knowing ahead of time that circumstances may not always allow you and your family to have the same options that others might can create some amount of freedom for you to make decisions that fit with the circumstances surrounding your family.
5. Work through judgment issues. There is nothing like parenting, and mothering in particular, to bring out people’s critical side. Others judge us, we judge them, and maybe worst of all, we judge ourselves. No matter how you decide to raise your child, someone will probably find fault with it. So getting to a place where you are secure in the choices you are making is vital. Be prepared to brush off some well-meaning (and perhaps some just purely disapproving) parenting advice.
6. Find people who can be voices of encouragement and support to you as you make parenting decisions. One healthy way to filter the myriad of judgmental voices about parenting is to pick a few people who know you well and whose wisdom you value to help you sort through your decisions and feelings in regards to raising your children. Certainly your spouse should be one of those people, but it can be very helpful to have someone outside of your family, someone who is clearly “for” you, to encourage you as a mother. I met with a spiritual director for a season shortly after my second child was born, and one of the ways she helped me was to affirm that it was fine for my life with Jesus to look different while I had young kids. A sample of her advice: prayer times didn’t need to be hour-long devotionals to be effective; short prayers throughout the day while changing diapers or rocking babies could be equally vital times of connecting with the Lord. I met with her during a season where I was experiencing a good amount of conflict and criticism, and she was a definite blessing to me in affirming me as a mother and a minister. Hearing that kind of encouragement from someone other than a spouse can go a long way towards helping us knowing that God affirms and values us both in our parenting and ministry vocations.
There is a great movie from 80’s called “Parenthood” that likens raising kids to riding a rollercoaster: crazy, unpredictable, a little scary at times, but a lot of fun if you learn to enjoy the ride. May your experience of motherhood be one where though the ride may be stressful at times, the Lord is with you in it, and you are able to experience joy through it.
Before I had kids, I found it interesting on an intellectual level that there were very different parenting philosophies out there. On one side of the spectrum was “attachment parenting”, basing parenting behavior on cues from the child, with Dr. William Sears as its most well-known proponent, and on the other end was “parent-directed parenting”, where parents set the structure for life with a baby/child; Dr. Richard Ferber and Gary Ezzo (author of the Babywise books) have popularized the latter approach. It seemed to me that both ideas had merits, and I more casually wondered which methodology I might prefer as a parent.
It was a little less interesting and a little more disturbing to me to realize that amongst many parents, value was attached to how much particular philosophies and parenting practices were adhered to. The vitriolic is such between the two camps that libel lawsuits are not unheard of, and devotees have been known to do things like hiding the “enemy’s” parenting books in bookstores or sticking notes on them warning people against buying that particular book. The internet abounds with attacks, comments and blogs galore about the problems and evils of the opposing philosophies.
Perhaps less surprising but even more disturbing was the dawning awareness that it wasn’t just out-there, emotionally-out-of-whack people debating these philosophies with such heat, but this dispute was taking place primarily within the Church. Both camps have books explaining the Biblical basis for their particular view. Dr. Sears’ The Christian Parenting Book advocates for “what (they) believe are the three primary goals of Christian parenting: to know your child, to help your child feel right, and to lead your child to Christ." But Gary Ezzo’s Babywise series also proclaims itself to be “Biblically-based parenting”, arguing that Christian parents need to train their children in obedience, starting from infancy. The whole Christian debate over the “right” way to parent bothered me, mostly because it was full of such anger and critique that none of it felt particularly Christ-like. However, within the larger church culture, I could kind of shrug off the way others were debating each other. Perhaps these angry Christian parents simply did not come from the same stance of theology and praxis that I did.
But then came the real shock. Friends and mentors ahead of me on the journey of becoming parents, many of them on staff alongside me in InterVarsity, held as strongly to parenting philosophies and practices as they did the theological tenets and spiritual values that I held in common with them. Colleagues and peers who would be in total agreement on such potentially controversial subjects as the motivation for obedience, Biblical authority or the socio-economic implications for Biblical justice had almost as strong but quite divergent views on things like co-sleeping with infants or how to feed their babies. This was quite disturbing to me. If the people I most closely lined up with in terms of theology, spiritual values and ministry practices couldn’t agree on what constituted “faithful” parenting, what hope did I and my husband have to figure it out? Some amount of desperation got added into the mix once our children came. When your one month-old is waking up every two hours at night, and two different camps are telling you if you pick their particular “Biblical” parenting style, they will eat and sleep better and longer, your interest in picking the “right” parenting philosophy rapidly moves from theoretical to practical.
Of course, parenting philosophy isn’t the only controversy to navigate if you are a working mom, not to mention a working mom in Christian ministry. There is no shortage of people happy to point out why whatever you happen to have chosen for yourself and your family is ignorant, wrong, selfish, arrogant, enabling, un-Biblical, or even just plain evil. Women are particularly guilty of judging and critiquing one another, but our society in general is full of strong opinions about the roles of women/mothers. Personally, I had had to do enough work just to get in a place of confidence about who God had called me to be as both a minister of the Gospel and a woman that I really was not excited to have to do it all over again when I added the role of “mom” to my life. I had the responses already prepared for why I felt it was Biblical for me to be in ministry, but I wasn’t as ready to explain to other stay-at-home moms why I thought it was Biblical for me to work as a new mom.
In the interest of sparing other new moms, and in particular women in ministry like myself, some of the angst of sorting through all of these various voices and opinions about parenting styles, I offer some suggestions. While I certainly have my own opinions of the merits and faults of various parenting philosophies and methodologies, I think it is more crucial to come to a place of peace and ownership over whatever parenting style you end up landing on, so these are recommendations more about making those choices.
1. Have grace with yourself/be flexible. All of the advice that I received as a new mom that I found most helpful in the experience of having kids boiled down to one basic idea: figure out what you would prefer as a parent, but be prepared for things to not work out that way. Whether it was about having a birthing plan, when and if to go back to work, or even how discipline your kids, it is helpful to have a plan but to not hold on to it too strongly. There are elements of both grace and wisdom in that advice. The wisdom is indisputable; no matter what you may want, kids have a way of messing up the best laid plans! They get sick, they have emotional needs very different than what had anticipated… they will inevitably poop in their diaper or pee in their pants the moment you are loading them in the car on both metaphorical as well as the physical level! That’s where the grace comes in. If you approach parenting having done some work to vision for what you think would be best for you and your family but still have the flexibility to change those plans when it’s clear a change is needed, you will probably be in a better position to enjoy the ride, even when things go awry.
2. Know yourself. While the experience of having children is inherently chaotic, a good amount of planning and decision-making is also required. Where will you raise your children? How will you discipline them? How will you balance family and work? Having some sense of how you operate as a person will come in handy as you discern what choices will be best. We had thought before my first child was born that we would have our daughter sleep in the same room with us. It took maybe two nights for me to realize that I was not a sound enough sleeper for that arrangement to work well. Every little grunt or shift would wake me up, fueled in part by new parent anxiety, I’m sure. Having an extra wall between her and me, however, insured that I actually slept when she did at night, making me much more functional than I would been otherwise. Any ideals I had about co-sleeping were quickly out-weighed by the necessity of having more than an hour or two of sleep each night! When my second child arrived, I installed him in his own room with no qualms about what would be best for both of us!
3. Know your child. You can vision for what you may need as a parent before your child comes, but only after you begin to get to know your child will you really be able to figure out what is going to work best when it comes to parenting styles. Some kids really need and thrive in a more structured environment, while others do better with more responsive circumstances. And what works for one child may be a total wash with another. My husband David and I are opposite temperaments, and so far, it appears that our daughter and son have taken after their same-gender parent. My daughter wants to know the plan for the day, delights in following rules, and is very reasonable and goal-oriented. If negative consequences are explained to her, she is quick to modify her behavior, and if anything, struggles with people-pleasing rather than defiance. Her brother, on the other hand, is more happy-go-lucky, is more motivated by empathy than reason, and has no problem with defying others, particularly his parents. Their needs for structure and discipline couldn’t be more different at times, and any parental technique that works for one of them usually will not translate to other. We have needed to be thoughtful and child-specific in how we parent each of them. And I would say in general, a parenting philosophy that takes into child temperament rather than just abstract ideals will most likely be more effective than one that doesn’t.
4. Take circumstances into account. We can plan, vision and philosophize all we want about the best way to rear our kids, but sometimes certain things simply aren’t possible. Personally I think co-parenting, having both gender parents equally involved in childcare, is a great way to raise kids. But David’s more inflexible job schedule in the corporate world does not allow us to share duties to the degree we would like most of the time. He’s still more involved than many dads are, particularly given his job schedule, but whether we like it or not, our reality will probably never totally match our ideals in how much we share parenting duties. Similar to being flexible and having grace with yourself, knowing ahead of time that circumstances may not always allow you and your family to have the same options that others might can create some amount of freedom for you to make decisions that fit with the circumstances surrounding your family.
5. Work through judgment issues. There is nothing like parenting, and mothering in particular, to bring out people’s critical side. Others judge us, we judge them, and maybe worst of all, we judge ourselves. No matter how you decide to raise your child, someone will probably find fault with it. So getting to a place where you are secure in the choices you are making is vital. Be prepared to brush off some well-meaning (and perhaps some just purely disapproving) parenting advice.
6. Find people who can be voices of encouragement and support to you as you make parenting decisions. One healthy way to filter the myriad of judgmental voices about parenting is to pick a few people who know you well and whose wisdom you value to help you sort through your decisions and feelings in regards to raising your children. Certainly your spouse should be one of those people, but it can be very helpful to have someone outside of your family, someone who is clearly “for” you, to encourage you as a mother. I met with a spiritual director for a season shortly after my second child was born, and one of the ways she helped me was to affirm that it was fine for my life with Jesus to look different while I had young kids. A sample of her advice: prayer times didn’t need to be hour-long devotionals to be effective; short prayers throughout the day while changing diapers or rocking babies could be equally vital times of connecting with the Lord. I met with her during a season where I was experiencing a good amount of conflict and criticism, and she was a definite blessing to me in affirming me as a mother and a minister. Hearing that kind of encouragement from someone other than a spouse can go a long way towards helping us knowing that God affirms and values us both in our parenting and ministry vocations.
There is a great movie from 80’s called “Parenthood” that likens raising kids to riding a rollercoaster: crazy, unpredictable, a little scary at times, but a lot of fun if you learn to enjoy the ride. May your experience of motherhood be one where though the ride may be stressful at times, the Lord is with you in it, and you are able to experience joy through it.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
You make my heart super-duper happy...
One of the things that has amazed me in this whole season is how well the kids are doing. We've basically been in some sort of crisis of one form or another since just after Soren was born: David's dad dying, unemployment, job conflicts and transitions, Midi and Nathan dying, etc. For David and I all of these things have brought up deeper issues for both of us, so we're wading through internal stuff on top of the crisis-management mode it feels like we've been in forever now.
The relationship between the two of us certainly has been impacted by all of this. It's not that we're doing badly; we just celebrated our 11th anniversary, and in some ways, I think we've weathered everything farily well considering. But we're tired and more prone to not make life worse for each other rather than to be a cheerleader in all that we're wading through.
And that's where it amazes me how well the kids are doing. They are generally cheerful kids, engaging with others, articulate for their age, and loving (the "you make my heart super-duper happy" quote is something Soren has taken to saying to David and I; I was admittedly more touched before I found out he's quoting a cartoon, but it still melts my heart a bit anyway...). They certainly aren't perfect; there's a fair amount of yelling, whining, and teasing that goes on in our house. But that they are as wonderful as they are despite of how much stress their parents have been under for most of their lives seems like an act of God's goodness to all of us. David and I may work on being good parents, but we are acutely aware of our weaknesses these days, and certainly can't take credit for all of who they are at present. And as stressful as it is sometimes to be dealing with grief and other issues of depth while parenting young children, it does help to those smaller arms flung around you every so often in spontaneous affection.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Slogging it out
I'm not even sure anyone is even checking this anymore because I haven't posted anything for so long. It's been hard to know what to say the last few months. Pretty much since the anniversary of Midi and Nathan's deaths in January, I've been mildly depressed: tired, not wanting to initiate or even be around others much, withdrawn, etc. Really the whole first year I was much more in reaction mode, shock perhaps, emotionally reeling from what happened and processing things in a more intense fashion. But at this point, I've stopped reacting and perhaps have internalized a bit more that I will never have Midi and Nathan back in my life. And with that has come the more depressive state.
While I think this is a pretty normal grieving stage, it's been exhausting coping with life while feeling like this. With young kids and a job in ministry that requires lots of emotional output and care of others, it's been hard to have my internal world be down more and to still having to engage with others all the time. Counseling has been helpful, particularly as God has been bringing up deeper issues for me in the last month or so in the midst of the depression. My husband, who is naturally of a more melancholy disposition, has been very sympathetic. But it's been an adjustment to us, after 16 or 17 years of relating to each other in one form or another with me as an extrovert, to have both of us just lumping around the house. We've actually had to make a point of setting aside time to talk to each other because otherwise neither of us has the energy for it!
I've been re-reading Jerry Sittser's book A Grace Disguised, which has been helpful. It's about his own grief process after losing his wife, mother and daughter in a car accident. He similarly describes falling into a depression at the year anniversary of their deaths, much more deep than mine, understandably so. As he put it, "(Depression) rarely follows immediately after th eloss. It occurs at the end of th efight, after the denial yields to reality, the bargaining fails, the binges lead to emptiness and the anger subsides. Then there is no will or desire left to resist the inevitable and undeniable." Several of his other comments have also resonated a lot with me.
"Those who suffer loss live suspended between a past for which they long and a future for which they hope... Memories of th epast only remind them of what they have lost; hope for the future only taunts them with an unknown too remote even to imagine."
"Catastrophic loss is like undergoing an amputation of our identity... Loss thus leads to a confusion o fidentity. Since we understand ourselves in large measure by the roles we play and th erelationships we have, we find ourselves in a vertigo when these are changed or lost."
"Loss forces us to see the dominant role our environment plays in determining our happiness. Loss strips us of the props we rely on for our well-being."
While I think this is a pretty normal grieving stage, it's been exhausting coping with life while feeling like this. With young kids and a job in ministry that requires lots of emotional output and care of others, it's been hard to have my internal world be down more and to still having to engage with others all the time. Counseling has been helpful, particularly as God has been bringing up deeper issues for me in the last month or so in the midst of the depression. My husband, who is naturally of a more melancholy disposition, has been very sympathetic. But it's been an adjustment to us, after 16 or 17 years of relating to each other in one form or another with me as an extrovert, to have both of us just lumping around the house. We've actually had to make a point of setting aside time to talk to each other because otherwise neither of us has the energy for it!
I've been re-reading Jerry Sittser's book A Grace Disguised, which has been helpful. It's about his own grief process after losing his wife, mother and daughter in a car accident. He similarly describes falling into a depression at the year anniversary of their deaths, much more deep than mine, understandably so. As he put it, "(Depression) rarely follows immediately after th eloss. It occurs at the end of th efight, after the denial yields to reality, the bargaining fails, the binges lead to emptiness and the anger subsides. Then there is no will or desire left to resist the inevitable and undeniable." Several of his other comments have also resonated a lot with me.
"Those who suffer loss live suspended between a past for which they long and a future for which they hope... Memories of th epast only remind them of what they have lost; hope for the future only taunts them with an unknown too remote even to imagine."
"Catastrophic loss is like undergoing an amputation of our identity... Loss thus leads to a confusion o fidentity. Since we understand ourselves in large measure by the roles we play and th erelationships we have, we find ourselves in a vertigo when these are changed or lost."
"Loss forces us to see the dominant role our environment plays in determining our happiness. Loss strips us of the props we rely on for our well-being."
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Gospel of Ruth
I've been reading a book called The Gospel of Ruth by Carolyn Custis James. While not earth-shattering, she does a good job expositing the book of Ruth in Scripture. And one of the themes of the book, dealing with suffering and difficulty in life, has, for obvious reasons, resonated with me. A couple of quotes I've liked:
"The bible doesn't teach us that God is working from some divine balance sheet and will eventually even up accounts so that we recover our losses and our sacrifices are repaid. It's obvious to anyoe who has experienced a sifnificant losss that the sorrows of this world and the wounds they inflict in our souls cannot be compensated no matter how much good fortune and propsperity come our way."
"The dark night of the soul is an awful place to be, but that's where God trains his best warriors. Although Naomi looked and felt as if her life was being dismantled and she was being put out of action, God was actually raising her up and equipping her for a mission-critical assignment in his kingdom. No psalm bears the name Naomi as the lyricist. But traces of her theology are scattered all through the psalms of David (whose grandfather Obed Naomi helped raise)."
"(God) does not coddle us, for he wants us to be strong. He takes us through deep waters so we will learn wisdom and know him for ourselves. Our lives are not perfect. We have empty places in our hearts. But we are grounded in the truth that he loves us, and that' what keeps us going. He is changing us. He wants us to change our world."
The deep water imagery has continued to be an apt description of the grieving process for me the last few weeks, although my day-to-day experience is often more of bobbing along on the top of the water. It's unclear to me if things are actually getting easier when it's not as heavy, or if circumstances just propel me upwards by default; kids, ministry, just getting everything done that needs to be attended to no matter how I'm feeling... these don't leave me a lot of space to be in the heavier, deeper places emotionally. So I'm trying to carve out more time alone than I needed in earlier seasons of my life, to make time for being by myself with no agenda, to visit the cemetary where Midi and Nathan are, to just be so that whatever emotions that don't get expressed when I'm on the "surface" can come out. Hence having the time for reading The Gospel of Ruth, which struck a helpful chord with me.
"The bible doesn't teach us that God is working from some divine balance sheet and will eventually even up accounts so that we recover our losses and our sacrifices are repaid. It's obvious to anyoe who has experienced a sifnificant losss that the sorrows of this world and the wounds they inflict in our souls cannot be compensated no matter how much good fortune and propsperity come our way."
"The dark night of the soul is an awful place to be, but that's where God trains his best warriors. Although Naomi looked and felt as if her life was being dismantled and she was being put out of action, God was actually raising her up and equipping her for a mission-critical assignment in his kingdom. No psalm bears the name Naomi as the lyricist. But traces of her theology are scattered all through the psalms of David (whose grandfather Obed Naomi helped raise)."
"(God) does not coddle us, for he wants us to be strong. He takes us through deep waters so we will learn wisdom and know him for ourselves. Our lives are not perfect. We have empty places in our hearts. But we are grounded in the truth that he loves us, and that' what keeps us going. He is changing us. He wants us to change our world."
The deep water imagery has continued to be an apt description of the grieving process for me the last few weeks, although my day-to-day experience is often more of bobbing along on the top of the water. It's unclear to me if things are actually getting easier when it's not as heavy, or if circumstances just propel me upwards by default; kids, ministry, just getting everything done that needs to be attended to no matter how I'm feeling... these don't leave me a lot of space to be in the heavier, deeper places emotionally. So I'm trying to carve out more time alone than I needed in earlier seasons of my life, to make time for being by myself with no agenda, to visit the cemetary where Midi and Nathan are, to just be so that whatever emotions that don't get expressed when I'm on the "surface" can come out. Hence having the time for reading The Gospel of Ruth, which struck a helpful chord with me.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
In the Deep
Things have continued to be harder for me this month. I am grieving on a much deeper level than I have thus far, which, since it didn't feel that "light" before, is somewhat unexpected. It's as if much of the last year was spent swimming in the breakers- a hard enough task in its own right, full of struggle and intense effort. But now I'm deep under water. It is a somewhat more peaceful place to be in that I'm not working through or against anything anymore. There's really nothing to be done. Prayer, time with friends, counseling, reading books on grief- those all still have their place and haven't stopped being helpful, but they don't make it all better either. While I do think I won't stay in this particular place of grieving forever, I'm not waiting for it to get better either.
So the peace that can be found in the deep water is also a difficult one. I may not be hopeless, but there's not a whole lot I'm hoping for either. I am overwhelmed with missing my friend alot of the time. My emotional margins are pretty slim, and my kids usually take up whatever's available there. I still feel less up for initiating with others. Given that it's usually my husband whose the melancholy one in our relationship, we're a rather morose pair these days.
I may not be drowning in the deep, but I definitely feel weighed down by where I am right now. Comfort, hope and joy all seem far away. May they come near sooner rather than later...
So the peace that can be found in the deep water is also a difficult one. I may not be hopeless, but there's not a whole lot I'm hoping for either. I am overwhelmed with missing my friend alot of the time. My emotional margins are pretty slim, and my kids usually take up whatever's available there. I still feel less up for initiating with others. Given that it's usually my husband whose the melancholy one in our relationship, we're a rather morose pair these days.
I may not be drowning in the deep, but I definitely feel weighed down by where I am right now. Comfort, hope and joy all seem far away. May they come near sooner rather than later...
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