Category Archives: Finding Home

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.

Margin…

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(my finds from the weekend)

My Facebook status from this weekend read something like this:

Tommorrow- me, myself, and I- coffee and thrifting. ♥ Much needed breathing room!

I had the most “likes” I had ever received on a status update. I got the giggles in the middle of a dusty antique booth as my phone kept making its’ “alert” sound notifying me of another email…realizing how many people were liking the status. I couldn’t decide if that was because you all like thrifting, coffee, and antiquing, or if you all simply resonated with the idea of breathing room.

Later that day, I walked in my wreck of a laundry room turned office- glanced down the hall to the completely non-functional basement/play room, panned over to the garage that was overrun with boxes (from work)…and got inspired. An hour and a half, two hours later, and my entire downstairs space was well on the way to order and usefulness. All I had needed was the chance to change my perspective for a bit- able to come back to this truly pressing problem with clear vision.

It’s making me think. As an artist, I crave margin, white space, and breathing room in what I create, and it feels very strange to me- the work is incomplete or cluttered- if there isn’t plenty of it. I’ve never, ever, felt the need to apologize for that. It’s not like I hand someone a piece I did and say- “I’m so sorry, I just felt like this big swath here was necessary.” It sounds a little ludicrous, actually- to say something like that to a buying customer of your work! Chances are, the reason they are even remotely interested in it is because perhaps they crave margin, whitespace, and breathing room too, and the piece ( I would hope) blesses them with some of that.

Why then, do I feel such shame in needing margin in my life? My job as mama is miles above in importance to my art, and the results are eternal, not fleeting paint on paper- and if I need margin in my art—how much more do my children and I need for me to have margin in my mothering?

I have to back up here a bit. The whole downstairs thing has been weighing down upon me for nearly the entire summer. When we moved into this house in March, I was three weeks postpartum, still quite ill, (and would end up remaining so well into the middle of July), and honestly, could not fathom the wheres and whatfores of how to arrange the new spaces. Most of our rooms sat in a barely unpacked state for months as I struggled to find my footing. It wore upon my creative soul. I delight in nesting and making my space beautiful; to live with blank walls and spaces that did not work for my family was akin to torture.  It affected my work. I could never find what I needed for work- I could never find clean clothes- I couldn’t find any serenity with the tumble-down-ness of the upstairs because we practically lived right on top of one another, all day long. But every time I walked downstairs, I’d just get overwhelmed, and that would discourage me more- needing to do something but not really knowing how or where to start.

All it took was a morning trawling antique stores and flea markets and one cup of coffee. It is making me wonder what other things I’ve shoved up against time and time again that just need a little perspective. And this isn’t about time away from my kids either. I think it is a state of mind, margin in mothering- a place where things have room to breathe. Room to think. I think it goes as much for the children as it does for me. I am really good about making sure that Isaiah gets some quiet nest time because the lack of such is so glaringly obvious as to not be ignored. I am not so good at helping the other kids find that space because they can deal with it if it doesn’t happen….but I am not sure that is a true statement though, because it does “show”…in the long run.

Sonya did a post about Charlotte Mason’s schedule the other day that has woven itself into my thoughts about margin…ways of resting through out the day, both for my children and for me. What are you doing in your days to find margin?

Finding Home: What’s this all about?

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I’ve been writing a series of posts headed under “Finding Home”. In typical fashion, however, I started somewhere about the middle and lurched forward, sort of leaving ya’ll wondering just where I was coming from. And yes, I just dropped a ya’ll. I’ve decided to own my not-so-Yankee-anymore twang. And I may confess my deep affection for chocolate, ala Lora Lynn. Just warning you.

I’ve been writing this blog for over five years, and somewhere along the way I stopped being ‘me’ in the way I wrote, in what I talked about, what I shared. I started writing towards a perceived notion of what people wanted from me. Unfortunately, it’s also a metaphor for my real life, where I just about lost my sense of self. I don’t mean this in a self-centered, narcissistic sort of way “it’s all about me! It’s about what I need!” blah blah, new age pop psychology. I mean it in a “I forgot Who I belong to” sort of way. There were very specific callings and dreams that were placed upon my heart, and I spurned them. I thought I was ‘doing the right thing’.  I was being a good [insert description] here.

It’s a weird combination of being a first-born people-pleaser peacemaker and, unfortunately, being a total adultescent. I never really reached maturity, but was thrust into a very adult life as a mom and wife and a young age. Being a “I do it myself” “I do my best” first born carried me for a while. But I really didn’t know what it was to be mature or make mature decisions. I had never answered the question, either, of what does God want me to do with my  life? What is He calling me to? I’ve just been muddling along, not really focused, for years and years and years.

This was most telling when crisis fell like rain. I did not/have not handled it well. I’ve said some pretty self-serving things, I’ve lashed out, I’ve blamed everything on everyone else (in typical adolescent fashion)…I’ve basically been just an overgrown toddler out for a fuss. And, instead of realizing that I was the one who knocked the blocks over, and that I ought to pick them up, I’ve sat in my temper tantrum. It’s rather absurd when I think back about some of the stuff that has happened. Oh my goodness.

And then, in very childish fashion- or perhaps first-born fashion- I began to take over the blame for everything. I am nothing if not going for extremes. Sheesh. The most common phrase that comes out of my friends’ mouths? “Don’t be so hard on yourself.” This too, is immature, and grasping at pride. It’s just a more insidious form, martyrdom. It looks all good and holy on the outside, and inside, it’s just rank with filth.

All of this combined, particularly over the last four years, has left me in sort of a deep paralysis way out in the boonies and edges of life. I’ve had an out-of-body feeling for years while I watch people go on with their life, and here I am, stuck.

In this last year, though, some people were willing to love me a way out in the boonies. These women, just by being with me, by sharing their lives with me (whether virtually or face to face) have helped me to see that it is time to grow up. And yes, Tonia and Elizabeth (and Aimee and Andrea)(and Bekah and Sue and Donna Rae)—I want to be like ya’ll when I grow up!  I wanna glow like them. :) They are helping me to understand what it is to be a godly woman as opposed to a godly girl. There is a vast difference. My little flame has been hiding under a basket way out in the boonies, and it’s time to glow.

My Finding Home series is just that- my processing of all these lessons that are finally clicking for me, a train of ‘aha’ moments. I want to scribble them down here so I don’t forget. I am becoming so passionate about the things in my life again, and this blog is one of them. I want to give it my best. Emily said so much in her post the other day that I’ve been chewing over- which is why, I am holding back the other Finding Home posts I’ve written. I’m trying to organize it into a more cohesive whole. I might pull down the posts I’ve already written and come back to the beginning and start aright. But I will write; I can’t not, which is a wonderful feeling that has been missing for over a year.

It will be nothing if not entertaining. Heaven knows I’ve got a lot of growing to do, but now, hopefully, I am trailing along the right trellis! A bit chocolate smeared, but none the less… Sally talked about cultivating our souls in her post today, and I’ll leave you with this. This is where I am headed:

A wise woman will always be growing, learning, stretching. Now there are seasons when just surviving seems to be the way of life. Yet, I have seen, that I must be responsible for my own life and that means planning and incorporating wisdom as a part of my every day–reading books, articles that stretch me in the direction of excellence. Feeding my soul on scripture, on writers who stimulate me to love God, to serve others, biographies that inspire me is what gives me ideas to discuss, thoughts to lead my heart and wisdom to share. It does not come from a vacuum–we must invest in what we hope to become. What we sow we will reap.

Sally Clarkson, “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?” August 11, 2011

Finding Home: Money is NOT your master, but you do have to mind it.

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This is a continuing series. You can find the rest of the series here. The first part of the money post is here.

In the last post, I talked about the college debt crisis and how it has formed the last ten years of my life. I wanted to talk a bit more today about the nitty-gritty day to day money life, and some of the things I have learned the hard way these last few years. Before I dig in, this post from Mothers and Daughters is something I revisit often. I encourage you to go read it if you, like me, face issues related to your debt. It has helped me keep perspective.

Money is not your master, but you do have to mind it. This probably seems self-evident and obvious to those of you lucky enough to understand how to use money as a tool. For the rest of us, this statement can be pretty overwhelming. This is particularly true for those of us who were deep into debt before we realized what was going on; the end of the tunnel seems a long way away, and we’re not even sure if we want to be on this train! :)

It is unfortunate the money is so connected to our emotions. It is so hard to see clearly. In my case, my failure to manage my money oppressively feels like a personal failure. “I should have known better” often comes out of my mouth. The more I have thought about it, though, the more I think we do ourselves a disservice when we think this way. In talking to a friend, she mentioned to me that I did not understand what I was doing, and was forgiven for it. This has been so freeing for me. I’ve approached it now like I’ve approached teaching my children to tie their shoes: no one taught me how to ‘tie’ my money shoes, so it’s completely understandable that I’ve gotten into some pretty knotty situations. Instead of constantly berating myself, I am learning to say to myself “ok, I goofed up this time. Which step did I miss?” and really, truly trying to move on and try again- and try not to get overwhelmed.

First, you have to understand what you are dealing with. You’ve got to learn to tie your shoes, so to speak. Money is somehow both complex and simple at the same time. The math is simple, but how we use it is (and can be) very complex, and boy, if it doesn’t seem like a crushing maze at first! In my situation, I had already massed a lot of debt before I really understood what I needed to live on- what was normal, etc. There are tons of people who swear by this guy and that gal for their money advice: Dave Ramsey, Suze Orman, take your pick. We personally benefitted immeasurably by partnering with Crown Financial Ministries- listening to their podcasts, using their free worksheets, visiting with one of their Money coaches. Who you deal with is not important.  Find someone to teach you how to tie your shoes! And keep trying until you find someone that speaks to you in a way you can understand. Dave Ramsey threw me for loops, and I struggled to understand. Other people swear by his advice. He spoke their language, but he didn’t speak mine. Keep going, keep reading, until you ‘get’ it. It has taken me almost two years to truly understand how and what I needed to do with my money to get out of debt. This leads me to my second point-

Get real(istic). I’ve watched others, and have myself, tried to make a budget and ‘get out of debt’ before they’ve truly understood how money works. It’s sort of like using a teaspoon to bail out a boat almost full of water. You’ve got to fix the hole first. If you don’t understand what is ‘normal’ for a family of your size and income, you’ll keep trying to catch up with the Joneses. This is where Crown Financial Ministries really helped us. They have a form that explains the normal percentages for different line items in a budget are- you know, how much for housing costs, etc in proportion to your actual income. This is so important. It may seem like you should be able to support a $450 car payment- because that is what everyone else is doing- but it really isn’t true. You can only support a $200 car payment, and by taking out a loan for higher than that, you are forcing yourself into a situation where your outflow will not match what is coming in each month. Does that make sense? In our case, our proportions were just completely off the chart crazy- we held nearly 80% of our total income in debt. We kept making decisions that reinforced that ratio, too, because we didn’t understand.

Now that we understand much better what we should be spending, how, and where, we have made a zero sum budget- that is every dollar is designated and put where it belongs. We’ve done much, much better at staying within our boundaries. Budgets are such great tools once you understand how to use them- and they help you find the problem areas much faster. You know where your money is going and what it is doing. You can see clearly, and you don’t have to guess.

In addition, we have a couple we are accountable to. We chose them because we knew how well they have managed their money. This is vital- I hope you can find something similar if this an issue for you. Having someone to be accountable to serves two purposes: they’ll encourage you and cheer you on, but perhaps more importantly- they will say the hard things that need be said, and speak truth into your life when you need to hear it. That kind of support is priceless.

Our thinking used to be along the lines of we need this (a car, etc) and we’ll just “find the money somewhere”. That is backwards; we should have 1) evaluated if truly was a need and 2) evaluated if we could afford it/support it within our budget. Even worse, a used car/clunker was not an option- we needed a new car. Most of my friends whom I’ve talked to about this have admitted a similar mindset. It is truly unfortunate! I encourage you to get creative, think of ways around a problem that might not be obvious at first! We currently are down to one car, and when my husband needs a second, he drives a fifty year old almost-clunker with no air conditioning and questionable innards. He’s doing it because 1) we really want out of debt and 2) he can’t wait for that day so that he can fully restore and love on his vintage, red, 64 1/2 Ford Mustang, that fifty year old car with no air conditioning (and only one seatbelt!). We can see our goal so clearly! Make your goals visible if you need to. Ours is built in, but maybe there is something, a reminder, that you could print out and post on your fridge or mirror that reminds you why you’re going through this craziness?

I’m not going to lie- getting out of debt is tough and can be very discouraging at times. It will be discouraging and get you down the whole time if all you are focusing on is what you don’t have because of it. On the other hand, getting out of debt can bring joy in ways that aren’t necessarily obvious. Snowballing your debt means that you have to get creative and be flexible; at first I resented the fact that I had to shop at thrift stores and antique second-hand shops, but the thrill of the hunt is a gift itself, even if I don’t find what I need and don’t spend any money. It’s downright fun! Some of the frugal adventures we’ve created as a family are our most memorable and fun. I encourage you to find the little joys in this adventure. The biggest joy of all though, is the deep breath of free air as those debts roll away, to watch the numbers tick down and pay off a card or two!

Finding Home: Money is NOT Your Master, the College Edition

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 I can’t answer whys or wherefores until I double down on this: Money is NOT your master. Money makes fools and hamsters running on wheels; money is why it took an emergency admission to the hospital for me to finally understand a lesson I’ve been running from for nearly ten years.

You’re not going to get lots of dollars and sense in this post. Well, maybe you’ll get sense, but not advice on how to stretch a dollar. There are plenty of bloggers to find that can explain it all so much better than I can. What will you get is a full confession. I’ve had more than a few friends tell me to write this: I dive in with trepidation.

When my husband and I were married, we entered into our marriage with absolutely zero understanding of how money works. We came from a legacy of bad money management in both sets of our parents (and they would freely admit this, so I do not worry about mentioning it here): both sets are now entering retirement with no real savings and a legacy of high debt.  As far as money education went, we had only the basic ideas of how to balance a checkbook. Budgets sort of made sense, but we’d never seen how one worked- we were pure babies.

We met in college. Herein is where the lesson lies- if you leave this page with any take away- this is it. TEACH your children. GUARD their finances, particularly as they enter college. LET THEM TRY in a safe setting, where the consequences aren’t catastrophic. KEEP HELPING until they get it. DON’T make money emotional; if they blow it on a Wii game, teach them to try again until they get it, while they are still safe in the harbor of YOUR finances. KEEP IT SMALL, and then let them try at bigger things, like paying the household bills from your checkbook as you watch over their shoulder.

Why?

Because I’ve been walking this road for ten years, and I’ll be dogged if I’m not gonna put some road signs up for travelers following after me.

I’m not blaming our parents; they had as little money education as we had, so it’s no surprise they made many of the mistakes we were doomed to repeat. The only mistake our parents made was to make money an emotional thing, but hey- it’s a mistake we all make because we all forget that money is NOT our master. Money is heavily laden (pun intended)- it represents us, whether we want it to or not- we measure ourselves by its dollar signs- are we worth it? It is mine, isn’t it? I want to drive that car, I need this house, because my worth is measured by the money that I (or my husband) makes. We cringe to realize we don’t make as much as Joe; we smile to realize we make more than Jane. It’s so ingrained. And frankly, I am not sure how to break that cycle- and I’m preaching to my own self here…but…in both our parents’ case…money was a deep dark mysterious thing that One Never Talks About. It’s kind of right up there with the Birds & The Bees talk.

By the time my husband and I married, two years into college, we held around $20,000 dollars in student loan debt, and about $3000 in credit card debt. Neither of us had held more than a part time job. The scary thing is? This happens on every college campus in America, every day. Looking back, I can’t believe how absurd this is. Seriously- could you or I walk into a bank right now and get a loan or a credit card with no credible income? Do you know that college students walk into Financial Aid everyday and sign their lives away, often to the tune of often $50, ooo plus? It’s a shiny little thing called the Stafford Loan, subsidized by the government. It’s got really decent rates- usually 4 or 5%- and a LONG lifetime. Terms start at 20 years. You can’t ever lose it, either- it stays even through bankruptcy proceedings. You’ll be on the hook for it no matter what.

When we graduated, my husband and I had over $98,000 in student loan debt. That was combined; ours is actually kind of low for your ‘typical college grad’ these days. It’s not unusual for one student to have those kind of numbers. Our mortgage was less than that; it was $94, ooo at the start, and by the time we sold the house, it had worked into the high $80s. We held nearly $10,000 in credit card debt at absurd rates- 24% was the average. I can still walk on my old alma mater and get accosted with credit card offerings in about ten minutes. The temptation is absurd and the balance offerings high.

Without getting into the nitty gritty details, which no one wants to read, I’m sure- our debt to income ratio upon my husband’s graduation was over 80%. Imagine a pie chart  3/4ths full and then another fourth- that’s the money we actually lived on; the rest of the pie went straight to student loans. Our car payment, mortgage, food, gas and everything else came out of the last little chunk. Does it make your stomach spin? Imagine what your finances would look like, those of you who have been around for a while- if you carried that kind of load? BUT that is precisely what is happening to college students on a daily basis. They have no idea that they are signing their lives away. Well, some lucky few might, but they still feel like they HAVE to because everyone needs a degree to get a job. I laugh sardonically as I write this, because has anyone seen the economy lately? Thankfully, my husband is in a good field with decent pay; I can’t imagine what it would be like for your run of the mill student with a humanities degree (not teaching) , or heaven help them, a business degree…

If I were to walk in a bank right now, prove my income, have my credit checked (and the same probably goes for you, dear reader) what loan or credit card you received, if at all, would be directly dependent on that little debt to income ratio. They’ll turn you down or charge you extremely high fees if that ratio is too high, because there is a real danger that you might not be able to pay. Why on earth, then, do we give students absurd high loans- with payments that might run into the thousands at the end, when they have NO idea what they’ll be making after graduation, or if they’ll even have a job? Even now, our student loan payments together are almost double our rent, and we’ve been paying the loans for five years or more.

We would have never, ever, ever, taken out those loans as students if we had even the smallest inkling of what they actually meant. And I hope, by telling my story, I’ll save someone else from heartache. I’ll explain more of the lessons I learned about money NOT being my master in the following days.

 

 

 

Finding Home: Life is NOT an Emergency

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Slow never killed time, only the rushing and racing, the catching up that tries to catch up to time, this is what kills time. Why keep wounding eternity?

Ourselves?

-Ann Voskamp, The Gift We Can’t Afford to Refuse, June 11, 2011

When I finished up my post yesterday, I clicked over to my Reader, and wouldn’t you know? Ann always seems to put words and thoughts clear and true to what’s circling around in my head.

This is the lesson I keep speaking to myself, over and over and over again. This is the lesson of my year. Hard lesson, this. It goes against everything I know.

About this time last year, I began working full time for a company in the publishing industry. I started this job for many reasons. I’ll explain why in subsequent posts. It’s supposed to be a perfect fit kind of job; I work from home, make my own hours, and they support both family and homeschooling. It is okay for those things to come first in my days, so long as my work is done well and on time. But the nature of the beast when it comes to publishing? Everything is an emergency. There is always a deadline that is not being met. There is always a crisis of some sort or another. Emails race constantly regarding this issue or that problem. All of our resumes should read: good at thinking fast and solving problems in a creative way. On one hand, the rush of figuring things out is half the fun; on the other hand, you never take a breath. By the time one issue is to the printers, we’re already ramped up on another issue, piecing out the puzzles.

It was a deadly development for me. I have always tended towards overclocking in my personal life, never knowing when to slow. The skill of slowing is a learned one, valuable, and elusive. It requires perspective. An ability to see both what is ahead, and what is behind, and find the balance in the middle; where time is held loosely in both hands and treasured for what it is. One of my biggest struggles is in vision: I either see the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest. I will go racing like a madman towards one or the other and get shocked when I am utterly, totally lost, because I was never sure of my bearings in the first place.  In some ways, that’s what makes me good at what I do- latching on to an idea and running with it, exploring all the posibilities- what would happen if people didn’t do that? We’d still eat by candelight. Creativity thrives on innovation.

November came. I was thirty six weeks pregnant. The company was smack in the middle of a promotion, one that required long hours and careful attention on my part. Thanksgiving was days away: my family was coming, my house was trashed, and I was exhausted. How in the world was I going to get it all done? As if things weren’t stressful enough, everybody got sick with a cold, miserable as could be. Little Mrs. Overclocked was not happy. I cared for them with a begrudging heart, coughing myself, running around with kleenexes, to the computer in my office- sidestepping box after box for the promotion, stuffing envelopes- back downstairs again to the kitchen (which in the barn house was completely disconnected from everything else–a very big hassle in our large family). Not pretty. I cringe when I think about it now. I had latched on to the publishing way of life: crisis. Emergency. These Things Matter More than This. While it may be true for publishing, it is not true for my life. That I ever confused the two breaks my heart.

By the time the weekend dawned, I could not stop coughing. I had heard someone sounding like this before: my husband. His asthma attacks took the form of coughing fits- he’d begin to cough, and unable to stop, would no longer be able to speak. If he went much longer, he’d start turning blue around the mouth while his breathing took on a belabored whistle- still coughing. In my typical way, I noted this development. I was Highly Annoyed. I had Work To Do. Forget my family at this point. I could’ve cared less about that. The only thing in my head was crisis, crisis, run, run, run. By Sunday evening, I was taking a turn for the worse: I popped the meds in the nebulizer, blaming the dust cloud I had walked through earlier that day for my bad breathing, even though I myself had not had an asthma attack in over ten years. I was reading some spreadsheet while I sat with the neb; the numbers began to swim.

Monday came, and I could no longer be in denial. I literally could not breathe. I couldn’t speak either. A visit to my doctor meant an automatic admission to the hospital; do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars. Straight to jail. That’s all I could think. The hospital? Now? I don’t have time for this! By Monday evening, it all didn’t matter. It all faded as I simply fought to breathe. The things that should matter finally mattered- the baby in my womb, the lungs that were struggling to fill with air, the thought of my family, husband, and the final realization that something was terribly wrong.

Why did it take an emergency to teach me that life is not an emergency? Why, in all of my adult life, did I not understand this? Ten years of crazy striving. After what?

Finding Home

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I keep thinking about Art. Home. The two intertwine- when I am participating in the act of creating, I feel at home. Peace, joy, and calm come to me; I am at rest. I could feverishly be scribbling lines, slapping paint in thick strokes, beads of sweat forming along forehead, active; but at rest. A strange upending of the laws of inertia.

I believed the lies of the tyranny of the urgent. This life does not take time for art, because art is not productive, not practical. It is not worth pursuing because the end result might not be proven. The irony at the crux of it: inertia took over. Objects at rest stay at rest. They don’t move. The journey stopped. The dust collected, the neurons established new pathways. I started driving through life asleep at the wheel.

I found myself in the hoary dark forest, jade green, jeweled undersides of evergreens, lights barely glittering above, a path of wreckage behind me of a life that was supposedly being well lived, absolutely lost as to how I had landed here, so far away from the life I thought I was living…illness at my right hand, confusion and surprise at my left. It was wholly different from the depression I had suffered in earlier years. Depression for me dulls the senses, colors everything over dark like an ink wash left to sit too long. This was a searing nerve-pain of reality like an arm cut off and suddenly the message got to the brain.  Bright red pops of pain fireworking across consciousness.

When art was still a part of my life, those fireworks would play off into purples and golds, chartreuse and turquoise, something beautiful wrought as I processed through the journey- abstract gathering but profoundly meaningful to me. The act of writing would bring me clarity, even if I wasn’t writing directly about a situation I was in. It was as if the act of putting words on page about something I knew would help my brain find the words to describe what I did not know. Poetry would sing to me of other lives, other hopes. Painting, shuffling patterned pieces of paper around, finding the pleasing arrangement- these were all ways that I made sense of things- how I lived my interior life out loud, so to speak. They were my tools for dealing with my reality.

And I had laid them down, my map to me- no wonder I was lost.

I wonder what it is for you, dear reader, that helps you process your world?

For my husband, he fixes. He puts back together for all the things he can’t fix and can’t put back together, all the broken pieces he sees and deals with on a daily basis. Fixing things helps him find his way back to his compassionate center when all he wants to do is give in to the brokenness.

I don’t understand why I refused the gift of art that the Lord gave me. What gift are you refusing because it doesn’t fit practical? I think of Ann, of Tonia, of Elizabeth- dear friends each- what would happen if they laid down their words because words didn’t bring bread and butter? What if Rebecca never entered her studio? What if Stephanie didn’t bring photos and words, pattern and color together in a story of life that makes us all sit up, take notice, appreciate more? What is it you have laid down because it doesn’t fit into practical and useful?

Join me on my journey back to home? I’ll be talking about this for the next few weeks, finishing up with Ali’s A Week in the Life project. I look forward to hearing about what has been on and in your heart.

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