I write this, sitting on my bed, which sits at a 45 degree angle from the corner of my room, and allows me a perfect view of the backyard.
It is snowing.
The whole world is lost in a dusty whirl of snowflakes. There are just a few right now, but the day holds the weatherman's promise of heavier snow later today and tonight.
The snow is causing me to remember the post I keep wanting to write about seasons.
All my life I have wanted to live in a place with four seasons. I can't remember a time when I haven't wanted to see the changing of the leaves in autumn or the falling of snow in winter. I have loved living in Florida but have always wanted to end up in a place where contrasts were seen throughout the year, in the same trees having and then not having leaves, the grass being green and then brown, the air being warm and then cold, and all of the in betweens. I don't think I have a favorite season. I think my favorite part of each season is the beginning, when it starts to look like itself and unlike the last season. Each season, spring, summer, fall and winter, has its own distinct face and personality, and after living here for a full year now, I feel that we've been properly introduced.
Physical seasons always invite me to ponder spiritual seasons.
Recently, as I was in Florida over the Christmas holidays and spent some time with my friends there, I became very interested in the topic that kept coming up in different circles of friends. As I spent time with different girlfriends, eating dinner at restaurants, shopping and getting coffee together, we kept discussing the seasons of motherhood.
Like how you'll go through a season of the baby biting, or the toddler throwing temper tantrums, or even major sleep deprivation from the newborn's messed up sleep schedule, and you think it will never end and can't wait for it to do so. You pray for the end of those seasons. Much like I think most people pray for the end of winter, and smile holistically at the first signals of spring.
Beyond motherhood, there are many seasons we pray to see the end of, aren't there? When your husband is in school and working full time, or there are more bills than money at the end of the month, or a loved one is very ill or in danger.
Then there are those seasons that you want never to end.
The seasons that make you feel special, alive, young and needed. For me, one of those seasons was Saturday morning snuggle time. When the kids were tiny, almost every Saturday morning that we didn't have to be somewhere or Derek didn't have to work, we would sleep in and the kids would get out of their beds in the morning (or be freed from their crib) and they'd come climbing up into our bed to snuggle. Usually we'd lay there for awhile, all toasty warm, having silly conversations and tickling each other, and this would turn into wrestling with Daddy, while I dreamed up what I wanted to make for breakfast. Derek would make coffee and I would engage the kids in helping me with breakfast, which, since I like to cook, would usually be something yummy from scratch.
I have pictures of those Saturday mornings in my scrapbooks, photos that capture the fun and creativity of those moments in the kitchen, my family and me making scones, crepes, omelets, fresh bread, fruit salad and muffins together, usually in our pajamas. I look like a mad scientist with my morning hair and there is usually flour or food residue on at least one face in these photographs. There was almost always singing and dancing, and since Derek and I have different taste in morning music, whoever got to the CD player first got first dibs on what was going to be played.
We would cook and dance to Louis Armstrong, Anberlin, Taylor Swift or Michael Buble' (my picks), or Squad Five-0, Matt Redman, Tom Petty or Led Zeppelin (Derek's picks). Some of the heated debates over what everyone wanted to listen to and furthermore, what kind of berries to put in the scones, seem ridiculous now.
But they are among my most cherished memories of the times our family spent together when the kids were babies and toddlers.
That was just one of the seasons that was, for me, very hard to say goodbye to.
Of course, we still have Saturday mornings together, and we all listen to music, dance, and cook together all the time. But no one (besides Derek) is ever really interested in crawling up into bed with me anymore, and rubbing a cold nose up against my cheek, because there are cartoons and Legos, light sabers and a puppy to play with immediately upon waking up on Saturday morning. I usually sleep in and Derek usually makes breakfast now, either his fabulous pancakes or cheesy eggs. It's different.
It's not bad. It's just the natural progression of things.
But it's still hard to say goodbye to the really sweet seasons that I know must healthily be replaced with their betters.
That's right. I said betters.
As mothers, or even just as parents, it's sometimes hard for us to imagine that the next season could be better than the current one, or that the sweet, snugly season we enjoyed so perfectly could ever be outshone. We tend to think that as our children grow up, the sweetness and level of fulfillment in parenthood will deteriorate. But I'm finding that it's not true.
One of my verses for 2010 and 2011, Isaiah 43:18-19 is deeply reassuring:
"Do not remember the former things,
Nor consider the things of old.
Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert."
A new thing. Springing forth. Forgetting the former, losing interest in the old. Pushing forward, to the road He is carving in the wilderness, to the place of saturated life He is filling in the desert.
And the future can sometimes seem very desert-like, can't it? We don't know what to expect and we think it could never be better than this. How could it?
But what hope in this scripture! Not just that God wants to give us new fun and life at every bend in the road, but that He intends to do it.
As I spent time with my friends on one particular night, some very special mom friends I met and grew close to while in the early trenches of motherhood, we decided to walk from Kohl's to a frozen yogurt place, and while we walked we kept talking about saying farewell to the beautiful seasons of motherhood. One of us started up in song, being joined by some of the others after the first few words, "Oh, it's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday...."
I bet Boys II Men never realized their target audience should have been all the nostalgic mothers out there. Forget screaming, hyperventilating teeny boppers...
I'm not saying I'm good at moving on into the new. In my life, in every category, not just motherhood, it's at the bend in the road that I stop and hesitate, unsure of how to proceed, and let's just be honest, unwilling to move on, full of bittersweet reluctance, and with the tears wet on my cheeks. I have trouble trusting that what is to come will always outweigh, outshine, outsmart, outfill what has gone. It is a conflict of the mind and heart.
My mind knows it to be true.
Life was meant to be ever-increasingly fulfilling.
My heart longs to hold on, staying put in the warmth and glow of spring and summer.
But fall and winter have their own lessons to teach me, and spring and summer will be all the more greener and lush with the knowledge of those harder, and hardier, lessons. God builds, with seasons, the knowledge of His faithfulness in our lives, and the latter lessons that we are not ready to embrace until we have experienced the former.
What is the season you are saying goodbye to?
Maybe it's as simple as bidding adieu to the old year and embracing the new. Maybe it's a change in diet, or schedule, an addition of discipline into your already busy life. Maybe its the busy pace you are used to, that must be traded in for something a little more substantial and purposeful.
Or maybe you just need to come to terms with the forever closing of a particularly special chapter, one that has made you feel so very full of life. I exhort you to say goodbye. Stand at the bend in your road, knowing the scenery that you've smiled upon for these last months or years to be passing quickly out of view, hold that season dear and close for one more moment, and then let go. Open your hands, turn your back, and walk forward into the promising days to come.
Letting go of the old.
Knowing He is always up to something new.
When it happened, I was in the preliminary stages of a bad attitude.
You know the kind. One of those nasty, I'm mad at the world and so misunderstood, not to mention undeserving of all of these trials, and furthermore, if I had it my way...blah blah blah.
One of those attitudes.
And there was actually no reason for the change of perspective that seemed to be sweeping over me almost involuntarily. Life was good. We had been living in Tulsa for about ten months. I had just finished having coffee with a new acquaintance, a really nice woman and fellow mom that seemed to have major friend potential, fall was fully present all around me in a glorious display of color, and my family was thriving. But for whatever reason, hormones or lack of sleep (not for something justifiable like having a newborn or a sick child, but because I like to stay up until all hours of the night reading or being crafty when I really should be in bed) or even just because I was feeling a little lonely, my perspective had started to change, throwing up red flags and warning signs throughout the whole day.
It started in the morning when I woke up kind of blue and tried to make myself feel better by yelling at my daughter for not brushing her hair the right way. When she had tried her best and after all, isn't that what mothers are for? To help you with your hair when your little arms are too tired to get all the tangles out?
Then I got annoyed with the girl who rang me up at CVS and I was unaccountably snappish with her. Over chapstick.
Then there was the road rage in the early afternoon. Someone cut me off and instead of shaking my head and smiling sarcastically like I normally do, I shouted "What the heck!" at my windshield, throwing both hands up in the air, hoping the other driver saw me and my apparent I'm not gonna take nothing from nobody spunk. Worse still, the kids were in the car and in the middle of telling me about their day. Not that I was listening or anything. I was full of me-ness. Me. Me. Me. It's all about me.
So when Derek unintentionally and apologetically came home late from work, I freaked out. Instead of being grateful that he has such a good job, which goes hand in hand with needing to stay a bit late from time to time, or being so very happy that he never has to work weekends like he used to and almost always is home by 5:30, like he never used to be. The minute he walked in the door, I attacked, going on and on about being on time and being inconsiderate and food burning in the oven and so on. When I don't even have to work. He has never asked me to get a job. He has always thought it a grand idea for me to stay home with my kids if I wanted to. And he's never late.
So the day had been bad. I was working quite energetically toward Jerk of the Week status.
I think you know what I mean.
Most of us go insane from time to time, calling our very greatest blessings burdens, or worse, curses.
I think many of us struggle with depression from time to time too, although it seems to have a stigma of embarrassment that surrounds the admittance of it, which I think further alienates us from each other and the comfort we are meant to give and receive.
So after my poor children were in bed I went to coffee with a new chum and successfully mastered what I call the fake-out. I was sweet, witty and fun. I discussed my life lightheartedly, with depth and humor. I asked friendly questions and grinned from ear to ear. It was an Oscar-worthy performance. You would have never known I was seriously struggling, inexplicably so, with depression, ingratitude and anger.
Then I got back in my car and began to sink back down down down into the doldrums of depression, forgetting the ever present help in time of need that is promised to me (Ps. 46:1) and casually throwing aside the promise that I am never left, never forsaken, loved more than I can humanly comprehend and chased. I am chased, pursued like I'm completely lovely. No matter where I go, who I become in error, or what I decide in foolishness, Psalm 139 assures me that I can never escape the care and love of God. No matter what. Nothing separates me from His love.
Not even unfounded depression.
As I drove down 71st toward home, lost in grayness and quiet, full of dark inward contemplation, a light rain began to fall. The soggy lights of storefronts and restaurants whizzed past my car windows, distant in their light and cheeriness, the leaves falling off the trees whirled aimlessly down into the night and became mush under the wet tires of my car and the very air seemed to press down on me, exacting pressure toward my joy, causing me to feel a domino effect of sadness to the very marrow of my soul.
And then I saw it.
As I drove past the sign, it looked like someone had been in the middle of changing out the message and had given up halfway. The letters to the three words remaining were all askew, one letter even dangling. Perhaps the letter changer had been caught in the rain? Each word was on a different row of the sign, and with no symmetry, causing my eyes to instantly assume that whatever the message would be, it was in no way complete. It was a church sign, something old and made of brick with the white section for a message and the black letters that fit into the tracks on the top and bottom of each row. It was set out by the road, dimly lit in the rainy night, the accompanying building behind it dark and unoccupied. The three words remaining, in no regular manner were: It Gets Better.
It took a minute for the words to hit me, so lost was I in the quicksand of self-pity.
And then hit me it did, like a slap in the face.
On so many levels.
It Gets Better.
For me. That message was for me. It was intended for me to see as I drove home from something as hopeful as a new friendship, but with a poisonous attitude. How often has God's voice been so blatant in my life, reaching across supernatural mystery and the beauty of Creation, surpassing the sovereignty that I never understand and delivering a simple message. To me. In English.
How apt to single me out with three little words. And so full of grace, this message from Heaven. Call it what you want, but goosebumps travelled from my scalp to my toenails, as I experienced the personal kindness of God, complete with a sense of humor to interrupt my descent into the world of woe is me.
You see, I have been given one of my heart's desires in living here in Tulsa. And not only that, but the whole thing has been easy. Too easy. Supernaturally easy. There's the job Derek was able to get - and he loves it, the wonderful school we found for our children, the church we accidentally landed in that is perfect for us, the house we rented sight unseen and how it ended up being so right for our family, the timing of it all. Every detail of our transition here has been peaceful and joyous and exciting. There are the distinct fingerprints of God all over it.
So I should have known by then, as I drove home, that He has a plan. He knows exactly what I need. Jeremiah 29:11 tells me "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." All I must do is trust and follow, knowing that His plans for me will fit me perfectly, make me smile, laugh and sing, and will ultimately change me into a beautiful representation of His life and love.
It's true.
And those were the three words I needed that night. It was the only pick me up that would work. He spoke to me like a small child, petting my hair and crooning it gets better. He spoke to me like a coach, causing me to buck up and snap out of it with it gets better. He spoke to me as the planner of my future, the keeper of my dreams, assuring me that it gets better. And he spoke to me as a writer, infusing my imagination with the hope of a life that boasts a good plot. The It Gets Better sequence. Unless you're sadistic, I can't imagine a much better plot for one's life.
Pulling into my drive that night, I was freshly invigorated and ready to apologize. I jumped out of the car and raced into the house to share my experience with Derek. I had new eyes to see the great bounty that had been heaped in my lap, undeservedly. And God had spoken to me in a new way. He used a silly haphazard church sign in the middle of construction to speak simple truth to my heart like healing balm.
Maybe it's the truth you needed to hear too.
Such nourishment was not meant for me alone.
Know it to be true. The future trumps the past. God's plans for you are wondrous. And daily. They involve the ordinary, mundane things of life and they point the way to an extraordinary perspective. All of life takes on full color in the shadow of those great wings.
As you drive along, perhaps in the rain, with the scenery of your life flashing by, look up and see the sign.
It gets better.
I'm back!
Did you wonder where I had gone?
Well, offline actually. My computer of five years crashed in early December, forcing me to leave my poor little baby blog out in the cold for most of the month since we were going out of town for Christmas and wouldn't be able to focus on buying a new computer until we got back.
And now I'm back.
Don't worry, I still love you.
I've been thinking about you quite a bit. Yes you. My wonderful readers. I've been composing new posts in my brain while driving the 24 hours to Florida with my family in our cram packed minivan, tossing around new ideas for topics to explore in the new year while eating tons of bad food full of caloric emptiness at family gatherings, feeling a little frustrated that I couldn't put all of my Christmas inspiration into written form for you as I experienced it firsthand, and all around just missing the wonderful creative fulfillment I've found in parenting The Greenest Version.
So I'm back in the groove and feeling great about what this year might hold. I know it's going to be good. I'm happy to have celebrated the close of the old year in the place that I've always called home.
Florida.
Funny thing, that, because it doesn't feel like home anymore. I was shocked to realize this after being there for a few days, because in the summer when I was there it still did feel like the place that had always fit me. Not anymore. So I thought it quite apropos to say goodbye to 2010 in a tangible goodbye place in my life. I really got the sense of leaving the past behind me as we drove down the main drag for the last time in the town both Derek and I grew up in, Merritt Island.
My favorite chapter in the Bible, Philippians 3, states "not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal..."
(vs.12-14)
And that's pretty much how I feel about both the past and the future right now. I needed to go to Florida not just to see loved ones, but to realize how much I no longer belong there full time and I needed to realize the simple truth of being transplanted. I'm looking forward to the future. I'm ready for all that God has for my family. I'm ready to learn and grow, I'm ready to stretch, to trust, and to learn to see what I'm really looking at when I venture out into the world each day. I'm ready to continue to become who I was meant to be.
I'm pressing on.
I'm like a plant that switched pots. The old Florida pot was nice and comfy and then the new Tulsa one seemed so big, sophisticated and cold. But now, I have grown used to my perimeters in the new pot and the old one just won't do. I am now realizing the space I have to stretch and dream and grow in this new life I've been given, the wide open space that I never seemed to have in the old pot.
So I look forward to filling out my pot this year. I'm starting to love this particular mix of dirt I'm living in. I look forward to more growth, more faith, more blossom and beauty, new friendships, maybe some college classes, healthy weight loss, decorating my home and making it fun and funky and of course, surprises. I look forward to all the surprises, the rapid-fire curve balls that life is known to throw without fail.
Who knows, maybe Derek and I will even host a community group for our church this fall in our home. It's a secret dream of mine. I think we'd be good at it.
As I write this on my brand new, super cool, smarter than me laptop, our new puppy is racing around on the carpet at my feet. He's full of pent up energy from being in his crate for a little too long and then being put outside where it is quite cold. It has made him hyperactive and frisky. He's doing laps. Around and around the room he races, so excited he can't contain himself, and every now and then he lets loose with a flying leap.
I feel the same way about this new year.
Wildly excited.
Join me, won't you?
I'm juice fasting this week.
I woke up the other morning with a huge, unfriendly zit from all that terrible food I've been giving thanks with for the last week.
A Thanksgiving zit. How lovely.
So, realizing the need for some detox, and anticipating that the bridesmaid's dress I'll be squeezing into in a couple of weeks for one of my best friend's weddings may be a little snug, my meals for the most part this week consist of juice. Beets, carrots, celery, garlic, jicama, leafy greens, citrus, apples, cucumbers and ginger are piled up in my refrigerator and on my counter tops awaiting their final destiny within the blades of my fabulous juicer. I think they're proud to go out of this world in such a way. It is a most honorable death.
I've been doing a lot of juicing this year. I read some books last winter and Derek got me a juicer for Christmas so I could do my own experimentation at home, like the mad scientist I wish I was. Well, maybe not the mad part. When I started my juicing odyssey, I needed to lose 45 lbs.
I've lost 19 as of today.
So I have 26 to go. I'd like to lose another 10 in the next two weeks. I know that seems a bit extreme, but juice fasting is one of the healthiest ways to lose weight. Your body shuts down the digestion processes for the most part after a couple of days of fasting because the vegetable and fruit juices you are drinking are very easy to digest and don't require a lot of energy. So your body is able to take that huge amount of energy that is usually used for digestion and apply it to healing itself. At first, you lose quite a bit of old fecal matter, and I won't be gross, but it's quite encouraging to feel the lightening of your body by getting rid of old waste that has been accumulating in your intestines.
Then, because you are getting all of your nutrition from raw foods that are full of wonderful enzymes, your body starts to attack it's fat. Quite a bit of the toxicity in the human body is trapped in our fat. So as it is burning through the fat, causing you to lose more weight, it is releasing those trapped toxins and they are able to escape your body through your skin, saliva, stool, and sweat. Often you will notice that your body smells funny, your tongue feels coated and your skin feels funky. This is all the result of toxins making their way out of your body.
As the fast goes on, and I don't recommend doing more than a day to start with, and then moving up from there, you feel better and better. Often while I'm on a juice fast, I sleep phenomenally. My sleep is deep, restful and healing. I've also noticed that I have really good ideas when I'm on a fast, maybe because my brain is able to focus better, and I have incredible energy. My skin starts to glow on about day 2. Prior to this week, the longest juice fast I've done was 3 full days. I had amazing results. I lost 10 lbs. and have kept it off. I felt so much better after I had done it, not so sluggish and foggy. That optimistic and healthy feeling hasn't left me since I've started juicing so much.
This week I'm doing a five day fast. Fasting is so incredibly good for you. There are excellent benefits to be won not just physically, but spiritually and emotionally as well, by practicing regular fasting. It gives your body and digestive system a chance to rest and repair itself and gives you an opportunity to go without for awhile, brightening your perspective and inviting a whole myriad of healthy gratitude for the amazing body that God has given you. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made" it says in Psalm 139:14, and for me, juicing and juice fasting has been life-changing.
One of my biggest quests for this year as my children went off to school and I was left home alone during the day was to get healthy. I had gained about 40 lbs. over the last three years from when I was at my healthiest in 2007. Back then, my boys were babies, which required all kinds of work but for some reason I was able to keep a pretty regular running schedule and ate plenty of healthy foods. Derek and I were even able to somehow manipulate our schedules to include running some 5k's.
But as a result of some hard financial times due to some very unexpected and quite expensive home repairs and the crash of the housing market in Florida (and many other states too), we had a pretty stressful year and I did what I always do when I'm stressed out: I began to eat. I ate and ate and ate. Salt n vinegar chips with hot sauce, which is my favorite evil snack, tons of refined sugar and white flours and rices with heavy fatty "comfort food" sauces, frozen dinners, Chinese takeout, pizza, and on and on until, whaddyaknow, I had gained 40 lbs.
So frustrating. Talk about self-hatred. Not only was I disappointed in my inability to handle stress in a better way, especially when I knew better from all the health, fitness and nutrition books I'd read to get there in the first place, but I was mad at my lack of willpower. I couldn't run without breathing like an asthmatic. I couldn't eat healthy food without feeling it was the beginning of a long diet back and I didn't know if I had the resolve to do it again. I couldn't shop for clothes without leaving the store feeling like a fat lard and an abysmal failure. I started hating myself. Then I started lying to myself. I pretended it didn't bother me that I wasn't the best version of myself. For a long time, almost two years, I just gave up.
Sometimes starting is the hardest part of a journey we know we are meant to make.
But I truly, deeply want to be all that I am meant to be. I know it's not super spiritual to be ultra concerned about my physical health, but what I put into my body is an indication of the health of my mind and my spirit. After all, God made us physical beings, so while it's not the most important thing to be physically healthy, it is important. How can we expect to fulfill the calling and purpose He has soaked each one of our lives with if we don't have the energy, stamina and health to work hard at it?
I was putting crappy food into my body and acting as if I were a martyr for being overweight. Maybe you've done this too? Every time I would look in the mirror I would tell myself how ugly and fat I looked, but then I'd start to mentally list and catalogue all of my grand excuses for why this had happened, justifying my own unwillingness to move in the direction of change, however small. Every time someone gave me a compliment, I would cement into my brain the exact opposite message they had given me. They'd say you look nice and I'd think but I don't look great. My perfectionist tendencies combined with my self-torture made me a walking time bomb of negative criticism.
So I don't write this to point fingers, or act the know-it-all about health. I just want to be honest about my struggles, hoping that someone out there is given a little more encouragement or inspiration to take that next step in their own journey. Juicing has changed my life. It has helped me to see the energy level that is possible for me and allowed my body to get rid of the toxins that were making me sick and tired all the time.
It has helped me to better live my life, and though I'm not there yet, 26 lbs. from now I hope to have a huge sense of accomplishment and the energy and rest to keep up with the work required to make my dreams a reality. I know, with the grace of God as my constant companion and the willingness to work these life issues out daily for myself, it is possible to be, in every category, the very best version of myself.
