Bound and Gagged

It started with a phone call. Bad things had happened and more were coming. We rushed to be rescuers, but the damage was done. Life as we knew it was gone. 

The changes were huge and came at me quickly. I, who had so much solitude, suddenly was surrounded by others and had no place to hide. I, who was not a mother, was all of the sudden called to mother many. I, who had as a professional helped others through crisis, was suddenly in the middle of crisis. As much as I was prepared to help others through trauma, my own trauma left me feeling adrift. 

And almost immediately I lost my voice. There were no words to write. I could not even form an idea, much less find the words to express it. I used to lay my heart bare on a page and then share it with those travelers who stopped by. Now there was almost too much to share, but I had no voice. 

Had I even still had my voice, it could not be my own anymore. Every one of my words would have a profound effect on those who now wholly depended on me for safety and support. My story was no longer my own. The story of one had become the story of many. There was no way to separate any of us out from the plot line. 

How would I use a voice if I had one? The very ones that I must speak for are also the ones for whom I must also be silent. How would I use my voice for them if it came back? I cannot begin to imagine it.

There are some who view this as a necessary season of silence. Necessary or not, I feel bound and gagged. I wonder when this season will change. How will I recognize it? Will it start with a phone call? 

A Bad Country Song

Many moons ago, I had a college Speech professor who made everyone in the class answer a "question of the day" before we could move on to that day's lecture/activities. I always thought that hearing all of the different answers was fairly interesting.

The only question I remember after all this time is, "If you had to write a love song, what would you call it?". I don't remember the other answers, even though I recall most of us thinking that the married couple in our class got kind of mushy. However, I do remember my answer. 

My love song would be entitled, "Romance In A Blender". I do not have a way of explaining that now. You just had to be part of my life at that time to "get it". I never specified whether the song would be rock-n-roll, pop, rap, etc. I just knew the name.

For the sake of any small children around, I will not go into specifics on how my life after college began to resemble a very bad country/western song. In so many ways, I was the woman who did some poor ol' cowboy wrong. My redemption song would not be sung for a very long time, even though I had accepted Christ into my life as a young girl. 

I don't actually remember what triggered these memories today, but as I was thinking about it all, I wondered what the current title for a song about my life might be. This is what I came up with: "Some Families Are Blended, But We're Pureed". 

Do you have a song title that would describe part of your life? Please do share.

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Once again I am joining up with Jen and the rest of the Soli Deo Gloria Sisterhood over here. Why don't you come see what the rest of the girls have going on?

We Need A Hoot!

Many of you know that my husband and I have a very, very full house right now. For the uninitiated, we have my father, our youngest son, my sister, and my brother-in-law filling up all of our rooms. There are also ten dogs involved (we run two separate packs and never the twain shall meet). 

This is, of course, the type of situation that requires creativity and humor to survive. So far, God has blessed abundantly with both. I pray that He continues to do so.

A little ritual that my sister and I have developed to keep a positive, humorous outlook is giving our household new "mottoes". When we first all converged together and were trying to develop a workable family dynamic, our motto was simply, "Go team!". Whenever one of us did something helpful for the rest of the group, my sister and I would throw up our hands and yell, "Go team!"

Some mottoes have been so fleeting that I don't remember them. However, I do remember that we say, "that should be our motto" quite a lot. The day my sister was telling me about a show she and her husband watched about dumb criminals, our motto was "brilliance abounds". Imagine us saying that with plenty of sarcasm.

Today I was telling my sister - who has still not found gainful employment - about a job listing on Craigslist that seems to be a good match for her Human Resources background. The job happens to be in the music industry (which as the wife of a former DJ, she really loves). She looked at me and used that tried-and-true Southernism: "Wouldn't that be a hoot?" My answer was, "Yes, and we could use a hoot right now!". So for the next few hours, at least, our motto is, "We could use a hoot!". 

I desperately hope that God is listening. I do not know why His plan seems to include our whole family's finances becoming more and more precarious. While a job in the music industry would definitely be a "hoot", at this point a job in plastic-mushroom farming would be a "hoot" for several of us. We aren't trying to get rich. We just want to pay all of the bills. 

So if you think about it, please lift us up in prayer. All you have to tell God is that my family needs a hoot. He'll get the joke. 

Honor Thy Father

Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:1-4

I have struggled with deep, dark depressions for most of my life. Since my early years, I have been melancholy and had a hard time functioning at the same level as my peers. This means that, as an adult, I have often been living with my parents rather than on my own. I suppose having a roommate would have helped, but I never trusted anyone else enough to let them see the effects of the depression. In fact, letting my husband see the effects of my current depression fills me with shame and guilt. The only person I ever truly trusted to see me at my worst and still love me was Mama. 

Needing to be around Mama so much putting me in Daddy's orbit just as often. Living in his home came with the understanding that he could behave any way he wanted and I could like it or leave. Any rule he made was law. Any commentary he wanted to offer on my life was to be taken meekly. Any angry outbursts on his part were to be endured without fighting back. 

Somebody That I Used To Know

As people are getting settled into the new year, learning to write/type 2012 instead of 2011, and catching up with friends they hadn't seen over the holidays, I have noticed something that should be odd. I say "should" because it is familiar and wholly unsurprising to me, but my friends find it odd.

My friends have been talking about their holiday family gatherings. They mention seeing extended family. I hear about the traditions that they have been keeping since before they had memories. I have seen photos of several generations of a family gathered in a house you would not think could hold that many people. I have heard about my Northern friends' snowy encounters and my Southern friends' warmer pastimes. 

What seems odd to some of my friends is that I heard from almost none of my "close" family. A stark difference from when we, along with many members of our extended family, used to make a big deal out of Christmas. We even had a tradition of going to the Christmas Eve gathering of the whole community. This year there were very "close" family members that did not call, write, or text me. And to be fair, I did not call, write, or text them either. There just isn't much connection there anymore, except for faint, poignant memories of what seems like a different lifetime of a different person.

Grieving "With Hope"

It is the middle of the night. I have brought my little computer into Mom’s room so that I won’t disturb my husband or the dogs. It is not lost on me that my refuge at this moment was the home of the one who often gave me refuge from the storms throughout my life.

I awoke into one of those moments of terrible grief. I want Mom back so much that I can feel her arms around me. At this moment, that actually is more hurtful than comforting.

Several hours ago, my sister and I were talking on the phone about how sad it is that our family waited until Mom had passed to start learning how to take care of each other. Mom had even left a note with her final instructions about how the most important thing was “family UNITY’” [emphasis hers]. We agree with that now and sometimes say, “Mom would have wanted it this way.” Why was it so hard to do before? What a gift to her it would have been to show this type of caring when she was here to see it.

A Little Humble Pie

Let me tell you a little bit more about how we came to sponsor Kimenyi and how that relates to my journey in showing mercy.

The day it happened – the day God spoke to my heart – started with Charles and I having to consider committing to spend $45 a month on our grown children. We are already spending money regularly on several family members, so we are already stretched. But this would also really help them.

For those of you who don’t know me, you need to know that my earthly nature is to be extremely selfish and self-centered. Anything good that comes through me is purely Divine intervention. And that day, my selfish nature was just screaming. “Why don’t you just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do it yourself? Why do you keep getting yourself into these situations? When are you going to be able to take care of yourselves?” On and on. This is coming from the mind of a woman who has been constantly helped in many ways by family. So it was somewhat like the Bible story of the servant who was forgiven much but then turned around and did not forgive his fellow (Matt 18:23-35). And if this parable had been in my conscious thought at that point, I would have seen that the word “mercy” is mentioned again in that passage. But I wasn’t thinking of much more than myself at that point.

That same day I read a blog post by a Christian woman who pointed out how petty some of our disagreements are when we should be spending our time worrying about those who have far less than we do. She had a link to Compassion on her blog and I know that she has advocated for them as a sponsoring agency. And I felt heavily that hand of God on me right at that moment. I knew I was supposed to look at these children right then. I went to the Compassion home page to see what was involved in sponsoring a child. $38 a month. Less than what we were talking about giving our children. And I thought, “see there? God is saying that we should spend that money more wisely by sponsoring this child”. Now, that is not exactly what God was saying, but that was all I could hear at that moment.