Category Archives: Ebenezer

Here’s to the dancing…

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Dear Lorelei,

  You’re in the throes of rehearsals for your first big recital. While in class, you are at turns both shy and goofy. Sometimes you get a streak, and become the loudest, wiggliest girl of them all. At the beginning of the year, you and your closest friend would stand stock still and follow directions so intently, first position, chasse´, back to center. As soon as Mrs. Emily would turn to change the music, you both would break from your statue characters and wiggle your hips side to side, bump your knees up and down, just to see the skirt swish around you. When Mrs. Emily would turn back, your chins would pop up, and you’d be all seriousness again. I had to tape it with my phone so that Mrs. Emily could see it, and we both laughed hard at the little-girl-ness of it.

Don’t ever lose that swishy, twirly feeling. Hold it close and revel in it. 

I’m not sure if I’m ready for this, dearest. I am used to your toddler self, giggly and sweet and lovely; and yet here you stand before me each class day, calm, collected, studious school girl face gazing on the back yard as I pull your whispy hair into the required two side buns, one each side. You hardly ever complain about it, even though your thin short hair always makes the endeavor an adventure. Rarely, they come out in passable forms and off we go; but more often than not, the hair sticks out at all angles and refuses to be tucked in, and then we have to pull it out and go at it again. The same with your shoes- they are properly tight, which means that you have to patiently pull them on and arrange the elastic and cord. You rarely ever get frustrated. By the time we’re done, you stand before me, transformed. My princess girl with dirt on her Tevas suddenly morphs into this girl of grace and poise and sometimes manages to look so much older than her years that I do a double take. A deep breath away and you’re standing there as I put your bridal veil on.

Please, dearest, always remember to be patient with yourself. Extend grace to yourself even when you feel like you’re the worst person in the world on the worst day. 

Mrs. Emily always has a time at the end of class when she puts music on and you all free dance. I’m always patently curious what you’ll choose that day. Some days, you are trying to imitate the amazing arabesques you’ve watched the Russian ballerinas do on YouTube. Other days you kick out your feet, looking for all the world like a little Scottish dancer. Other days you stand in one place and just shimmy and wiggle and throw your arms out. Whatever it is, you go at it with your whole body and in complete confidence. One step to the next, with complete and utter joy at what you’re doing and how your body moves. I watch you test it, play with how your arm is moving, your leg- and you smile so big at yourself in the mirror when you do something you tried to do. I watch you grin at yourself when you goof up something you are trying, and you just sort of do this sideways shimmy away from the missed step and into the next.

Always, always, always dance your heart out, baby girl. In life, in love, in hope. Trust that the Creator that made you is guiding those steps. Throw your arms out and spin. Revel in the joy. 

Love always and forever, from eternity to the stars and back again,

Mama

When desperation blinds you…

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I want to say this, before I forget…before it slips into mist and memory…

It wasn’t the job. It was me. And I would never call into question or judge a mother who pursues employment. That is not what is at issue for me here, at this way station in seasons.

Beware desperation.

I’ve whispered of it here and there, but we’ve faced a mighty battle with debt- particularly student loans. It was precipitated by two years of unemployment. All in all, our nightmare has lasted just about three and a half years. It began not four weeks after losing our fifth child to miscarriage. I have known the darkness, the inky black night, the shadowy whispers of pain that blind.

But He promised us that He was mighty to save. And He has. And He will.  Yet- somewhere in the middle, I kept company with Sarai and Hagar, Abram and Ishmael. I lost confidence in my Lord’s will, and I thought I could fix things. And so, as Sarai sent Hagar to Abram, I sent ‘a promising email’ to my husband, a job, a work from home position. My beloved had reservations. Many. And I, in my desperation, shoved past the red flags of wisdom crying out for attention. This is not to say that some sort of employment was ahead for me, or that He had provisions waiting for us if we had trusted His timing…but I can tell you even then, we knew this job was not the wisest course of action for our family. I ignored it.

I would spend the next year and a half trying to find a balance that could not be found. I lost perspective, lost purpose- I would care for our family from dawn until dusk, and then would work from dusk near to dawn again, each precious hour of sleep and clarity slipping into the darkness, never to be retrieved. Chronic exhaustion takes its toll; depression soon became my constant handmaiden and companion.

I cannot emphasize this enough, dear friends. I don’t care what vocation you pursue, but if you sacrifice the rest our wise and gracious God has ordained for us, something is not as it should be. If it’s a constant, instead of an occasional, occurrence, check your heart-call. I have serious doubts that the Lord would call you to a task that includes such a thing. His yoke is easy. His burden is light. In Christ’s ministry, there was always a balance between rest and action. Always. If things are ridiculously hard, if you’re making decisions that are totally contrary to your heart, maybe the Lord is creating the friction to call you back to His purpose.

I speak from my life. I should have heard Him clearly when I fell so ill last year. It’s almost laughably obvious. I fell so ill quite simply because my body could not run on fumes—and yet—I would go on to work for the company for another year. A year. And I could not understand why I could not heal, why I could not get well. But I wouldn’t stop. For another year. I have paid the price. I will probably never be as healthy as I was before I began this job, unless the Lord sees fit to restore what the locusts have eaten. I will spend the rest of my life caring for my body because I nearly destroyed it in desperation.

Oh, that I were not so stubborn! The Lord needed a two by four to smack me across the back of the head, and so, late at night on a family outing to a local Christmas light show, I missed the (rather obvious) hitch point protruding from the back of my fifteen passenger van, tripped…and shattered my wrist. My right wrist, my dominant hand. I could no longer work in any capacity- I could not type. I could barely dress myself, comb my hair. And then—I finally heard Him. I submitted my resignation within days. I will always see my deformed wrist now, and think of Jacob and the angel of the Lord and Jacob’s thigh… I will bear the mark of stubbornness the rest of my days.

I beg you, dear friends, to trust in the Lord and lean on His understanding, and acknowledge Him in all your ways. Don’t ever get to the point of desperation that you feel that you must trade your heart and body. Debt is awful, but it is never worth that. It’s never worth running ahead of God. But- if you have found yourself right-tangled, as I have, know that He is might to save, and He will not forsake you. Confess, repent, and trust. The storm will still rage, perhaps even for a long time- but He will be with you.

Here I stack these stones, mark an Ebenezer. May the Lord in His grace lead me away from this place of sorrow.

The Mad Wonder…

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(Self-portrait at 30)

I turned thirty on Friday. In typical fashion, it’s only four days later when I get to process what that means, holed away at a local Starbucks, working hard. I think the rate of staff members developing addictions to coffee this week is probably exponential. And yes, I am procrastinating at the moment. And saying hello to you, dear friends…I know I am not alone in saying I think about you all even if I am miles away from this poor neglected blog…and so grateful that I’ve gotten to know some of you in real life.

So Amber-girl. Mama to four- a new curled baby boy, Titus. She said it all for me earlier today, what this birthday means to me…go read the whole thing. But this-

With effort, a word can carry such gravity that it breaks breastbones and lets the artist out. The one you knew was in there when you tried to draw Eden but couldn’t.

I want to see you crack. I want to speak blessing over you. I want to watch you paint. Be art and mirror Artist.

This is the entire reason I’m here.

-Amber Haines, Sept 13, 2011

Cracked open. I spilled out on reading these words. 

I’ve had this strange wake-up, resurrection time the last few weeks, and the question I’ve wrestled hard: what do you do when you’ve spent the last few years shrouded? Grief is strange like that. You don’t realize you are asleep, and you don’t realize for how long the world has passed by until suddenly you come on, gasping for air and looking about in mad wonder at this amazing place you are in. And the strangest part- is knowing you were there all along. Faces long blurred show intimate in their lines, the snaggle-tooth boy man with the freckled nose–that wee thing that was curled on your chest just a few minutes ago…

It’s a crossroad place, dusty and dirty, this head-space of mine. Looking forward, looking back. Dreaming. Dreaming again. I had forgotten how. My faith, locked into a desperate holding-on to the end of the rope, shrouded darkness turned mosaic of light now, comfortable and familiar, joyous and true. My tumble-down circus life is making sense, so far from normal, but yet mine. Mine to live. I’ve always tried to force things into boxes, make them line up, ducks in row. I am learning the open handedness of joy, the crazy free fall of grace.

In it all is the passion- that blood thru veins throbbing life- that had long laid sleeping. I am understanding what it was that I needed to do, the thing I had forgotten. Priorities are shifting back to what mattered, the God-pursuit, the mama life, the art mirror and mirroring.

I never would have thought at 30, I’d be mama to six- or maybe even married, for that matter. I was going to travel the world, and no beloved figured in that. I’d been burned too many times. Somehow, I’m in the field I dreamed of, years back, when I was on the university track,  in ways I never imagined. I did not want to work while the children were young- I had made peace with where I needed to be in the moment. When it came out that I must work, I fretted. I literally struggled for six months to find balance. It was when I finally let it all go that the scales swung back. It always seems to be that way. Why I can’t trust the Lord’s plans for me, I’ll never know. I wish I wasn’t so doubtful or stubborn. I find that Ann is right- the counterpoint is in the thanks-giving. Counting with praise overflows all the dashes in the con-column, the one that feeds that desperate desire for control.

I think this decade is going to have someone else in the pilot’s seat. I’m looking forward with peace.

 

An ordinary day…

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I had just finished breakfast upstairs in the cafeteria at King College, and had come downstairs to check my mail. The mail person always left the radio on in the office behind the boxes, so you could hear the news or music playing all the time. This morning, I opened my box to hear an echo ricocheting that a plane had hit the World Trade Center tower. I glanced towards my boyfriend (and now husband, James) as we both ran towards the lounge, a few steps away. We watched in horror as the second plane slammed into the second tower, gritty, grainy, super-zoomed, so far away, the camera panned at an odd angle.  James and I had been one of the first people in the room that day. It would eventually fill past capacity as the entire college pressed into the one little room on campus that had a tv. James and I kept getting pushed closer and closer to the big screen tv.

I had been frantically calling my father (who was at the time serving in the Navy, at work, stationed at NAS Norfolk) and not getting through. The cell phones weren’t working.  When the plane slammed into the Pentagon, I ran out to the porch just off the lounge, literally gasping for air. I remember glancing across the Appalachians resplendent in their autumn finery off that porch and measuring the surreal nature of it. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing out on that porch, any more than what I was seeing on the screen.

The attitude in the room grew more and more frantic as us young-adults suddenly turned daughters-and-sons again couldn’t get ahold of anyone on the Eastern Seaboard. There were two groups: the students from NY, and the military kids. We were terrified for the girl who had walked those very streets, for her brother who was a firefighter—it would take almost 36 hours before she would hear from her family and find out that he had made it out alive, but many of his company had not. She was only 19, but in those thirty six hours, she was 91, her face drawn and aged. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes.

As a military child, I knew with the first plane we were at war. In my mind played out the procedures and steps the military was taking at that very moment, what the bases were doing, how they were shutting down to civilians…I could almost see it playing out like a slow motion movie in my head. The military kids had this immense level of both fear and conviction that could not be matched in the room. We knew everything was at risk. Once the Pentagon was hit, the question for us was whether or not this was a military attack or a civilian attack. A military attack meant that all the assets were fair game. That meant where my dad and thousands of others worked in the military/industrial complex of Hampton Roads….

It was so weird to be in that position. Calm. Explaining to others what to do. For those few terrifying hours until all the planes were grounded, we had no idea what would happen next. But us military kids–we had been trained, we knew. It was strange to realize that others were looking to us to calm their fears, soldiers of a different sort.

That whole day, all I could see, juxtaposed over all the other images that were burned into my consciousness that day—my dad, at attention, saluting. The only thing I understood on that terrible day was that we were at war- and that thousands of soldiers would answer the Piper, and walk to their deaths. For me, it wasn’t just the thousands that died that day. It was the thousands I knew would die because of it.

Just two days earlier, on Sept 9th, I had celebrated my first birthday away from my parents. I had been slightly homesick, but mostly, I was happy to be growing up, stretching long towards life. I would end up driving home that weekend just to see my parents, to see the base, to see the military gearing up, as if to reassure myself that some things had not changed. The opposite was true. Everything had changed. September 11 forever marks the day of my adulthood for me. It was that day that the veil tore away and I realized evil was walking in the world. I had a choice before me that day. I had to lift my head up to the horror before me and decide how to live.

Ten years later, I’m not sure I’ve made the right decisions. The life before me is not the life I promised to live on that fated day- but that is the horrible, weighted glory of it- I get to live. Breathe. Make mistakes.

It is strange now, to be a mother of six. My eldest, at nine years old, has never known peace. He has always lived in a world where America isn’t so safe anymore and soldiers go overseas and don’t come back. We have been at war for ten years. We have lived whole lifetimes since then. But yet- there is a part of us that lives forever on that ordinary day, September 11, 2001, gazing up at the towers, across the field at the cratered Pentagon, at the plane scarred in the eastern meadow mere feet away from an elementary school–at the television screens, our ears tuned to the radio, gazing up at a clear blue sky, this beautiful, beautiful autumn morning, in total misbelief at the visions we’ve seen.

We will never forget.

For life and love…

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After a very hairy night last night- tornadoes are exceedingly rare in East Tennessee- I can gratefully report that we are safe, as is our extended family- there is tremendous damage, and 16 reported dead so far- please pray for all those affected, particularly in Alabama (126 souls lost). My friend Sam, of The Homemade Dress, reported that much of her extended family, while alive and safe, have lost everything.

—–

Thank you for all of your lovely and kind words upon my return! I had no idea how many people actually read here in this place. What a joy to ‘see’ all of you. I’ve ‘peeked in’ at ya’ll’s places too- will try to get back to comment. I’ve truly missed our comraderie!

There’s just one thing I want to speak to, and then no more ‘grumpies’ in this space, as I tell my kids…

Emily gave me a right good kick in the pants. And then she delivered a roundhouse to all of my excuses. IF that weren’t enough, Kelly had to go get me ‘right in the kisser’, as my dad used to say. Here’s what she said:

I have known for a while that I don’t want to live my life the victim, but having been surrounded by pain coming from every direction, I’ve felt as though I’ve been looking around rather wildly for something normal to hold so I can catch my breath and remember what it means to be alive. But being alive means that I feel pain, whether from a stubbed toe, a death, or a broken heart. Life, as we know it, does have a core sadness, and there are times that I deliberately shut my eyes to it and try to pretend it is not there.

I read something last week, though, that stopped the ignoring that has become habitual. Someone was sharing a story from her life, and the similarity of this post to many of her other posts – and to so many of my own – suddenly made me feel so heavy, weighted down, burdened. I thought, “there must be so much more to her than this,” and then, “there is so much more to me than this.”

There’s so much more to me than this.

There it is, bald face, spelled out, just like that. That’s the feeling I’ve had for over six months now, and part of the reason I shut down the blog for a while. Somewhere along the way, I felt that an honest rendering of what I was going through (in an effort to encourage others that they were not alone) had ever so gently turned into a kind of Eeyore-ish place to be that just made me feel so heavy- and no doubt- perhaps burdened you, dear readers, as well.

It is no small detail that the near-exact length of my time away was from the beginning of Advent to the end of Lent and the dawning of Easter. He was calling me to Himself, and for once, I listened. (I’m extra-stubborn- another curse of Type A-ish-ness.) Advent has always been a favorite season of mine, for as long as I can remember- some of my first Christmas memories center around the wreath and candles. Just thinking about it brings me whispers of peace and joy. Particularly since I had been so ill- I was disallowed from going to places like church where large amounts of people (and lovely germs) might be. I spent the entire season at home, recovering. Celebrating Advent was my only link to the outside world- to the church- to life. It called me to a peace that I hadn’t experienced- and taught me lessons I will carry with me from henceforth.

When Lent began just a short month later, I faced the dichotomy of being to ill to participate in such things as fasting, but for the first time in my Christian journey, I actually had time to focus on Lent because all externals had been stripped away. There’s a certain measure of absurdity in that sentence. Time? Time? Really? As if I had not had time before? After much prayerful consideration and seeking council, I realized that my dedication for the duration was to pay attention. To learn. To not shove away the lessons I was learning, but to dwell in peace with them and seek to apply them as the Spirit ministered. I think the hardest part for Little Miss Type A this whole season was just to dwell. To be Mary, and sit at the Master’s feet, and let all the markers of (what I considered) being a ‘good girl’ fall away. And oh, how I failed! Therein lies the beauty of Lent, I think. It is in our failure to do something as simple as remembering not to drink coffee (or whatever the intention was) that we realize just how desperately we need salvation. If we can’t ‘accomplish’ something as small as that, which (in the larger scheme) has no bearing on our soul, how clearly we need the Master’s guidance upon the things which do affect our eternity!

But God had seen to it that I had a governor on my little car’s engine- the minute I started to try to get ahead of myself and race forward during Lent- my body would take over, and I would fall ill yet again. I think after the second or third time (why hello St. Peter- it took you a couple of times round with the Master too? I love that. It makes me feel kinda normal if he struggled- and upon him Jesus built the church. What hope there is for little me in my little sphere!) of suddenly getting smacked back into bed again, I started to get it. Be still. Be still and know that I AM GOD. Not think you know. Know. Deep down to your tippy toes know. Deep down tippy toes trust. And if that happens, He will change your life.

It’s not the rainbows and blue skys kind of change. I think that does us all a disservice. I think the the change is in the handling of it- we’re no longer bearing the burden if we truly know and trust. I will not deny for a second that life is kinda stinky right now. It feels a bit ridiculous, like something only a soap opera screen writer could conjure. But  it is my life, and there is so much more to me than this. That is the lesson- while I am going through suffering, it does not define me. It’s taken me six long months to understand that, to shake off victimhood and bitterness.

I remember a conversation where I felt like I was being too ‘real’ for the listeners, and sort of kicked myself in the pants for letting it out. Perhaps it wasn’t the time for that particular conversation, but reading Elizabeth’s post regarding courage made me realize that there is ever so fine a line between whining and complaining and having the courage to share a struggle- I hope that I will find a happier medium here than I have in times past.

So this is another Ebenezer, a marking on the journey- I am for life. And love. And dreaming again. To listening to the Master and what He has planned for me. Not cowering in the darkness of shame and guilt and bitterness over a past and mistakes that are in the past. I can’t help the medical issues, but I can help how I approach things. It’s time to really start living; to believe that there is more to me than this. To do anything less is to live on the borderlands of life and faith.

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