Dear Weary Mom: The Dichotomy of these Love Letters

Dear Weary Mom,

I'm weary of not feeling confident as a stepmother.

I think I may be far too paranoid and feeling far too childish. Far less equipped and far less ready.

Surely God must have meant for some other woman to come into these kids' lives, to fall in love with this man.

Because all I can see lately is failure on grand levels.

Surely God meant for me to stay in my hermit-like 1-bedroom apartment and live a solitary existence so I would not mess up any children with my insecurities and immaturity.

...Wow. Do you hear how awful that sounds?

First of all, that isn't a very kind thing to say about myself, is it.

Secondly, I am basically telling God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, that He messed up.

He got the wrong girl.

As if God could ever get anything wrong.

When self-esteem is floundering, take the "self" out of it and feel how you soar.

God esteems me.

When I am weary and burden-laden, when my identity gets thrown in the laundry with dirty and grimy clothes by the enemy of all of us, God whips me out, shakes the dirt off, claims me clean, and I start fresh. 

Like mountain-spring-fresh. Grassy-meadow-fresh. 

Hung-out-on-the-line-to-catch-the-spring-breeze-fresh.

And if I just let God be my launderer, maybe I won't get so weary or lost. Maybe I will realize the Truth, as I do on my good days when I know God has called me here to these children, to this husband, for such a time as this.

I love the story of Esther and I especially love the unlikely heroism of it all. 

I love how God chooses who we would consider the least qualified to do extraordinary things.

Do you feel weary?

God chose you to do the work you are doing BECAUSE of your weariness. No, not as a cruel joke, but because you show that you need God.

These Weary Mom letters are a blessing to each of us. They are not complaining sessions between mothers, they are love letters to God shared between women who do the hardest work.

They are letters of reminders, proclamations, clarifications.

You think God got the wrong girl?

Think again.

God intimately knows each person He calls and He calls each of us to something.

And He's just loving these love letters floating all around the internet, around the neighborhoods, over your telephones.

It's a dichotomy: be weary no more 

yet also continue to feel weary -

because both are a sign that we believe in God bigger than we believe in your own ability to carry it all.

**linking up today at Hope for the Weary Mom blog - I recommend the book of the same name, as well! Let's band together in our weariness and point to the God who gets us through it all!**

What the Heart Knows that the Womb Doesn't

This blog post has been resting in my heart and my mind for a while, ever since Lisa-Jo Baker posted this post the real-life definition of a mother.


Because I often think about the role I have in my kids' lives, Lisa-Jo's definition really struck home. Not in a bad way, just in a way that made me think. I know Lisa-Jo has had an "other mother" in her life so I do not pretend to think that she is really only talking about biological mothers here. But my mind often hangs on titles, so I wanted to write out my own "definition of a stepmother."

But I found I couldn't. Because I don't think there is one that can include all stepmothers. So I decided to write a definition of myself as a stepmother, as an other-mother, as whoever I am to these kids at this point in time. Because it's different for each child. To the eldest girl, I am a bother she doesn't want to admit that she loves. To the middle I am the mama she desperately wants to call on but feels scared and confused. And to the youngest, my little man, I am nearly as much of a mother as his own as I've been in all of his known memories.

So I set out to write a simple definition for myself which quickly became a tome of how my title of "stepmother" - and how these kids and myself - have changed in five years.

The following is my response to Lisa-Jo's blog entry and I ask for grace as you read. This is the story God currently writes in my life. Not every story is the same. In fact, our stories are not the same at all.

I thank you for reading and my hope is that the stepmother role and title can one day be taken out of the vaults of badly-depicted Disney movies and snarky women on soap operas.

**********************************************************************
My womb was expectantly waiting for children the day I met my love. My womb waited and waited until the truth began to settle like an emptiness unknown to fullness.

My womb would always be empty and so, I thought, would my heart.

But I became a stay-at-home-Something soon after meeting him and took the one and a half year old to Storytime, tried to nudge him to join clapping games. I kissed his warm barely-there-blond-hair on nights he slept over and, in the morning, held and rocked him upon waking.

But my stay-at-home-ness was new and foreign and on some days I didn't like it.

And I resented.

But there were days when I played trucks and made PB&Js and secured bandaids. The girls, still young enough to be amazed, repeated their requests for me to sing Ariel’s song from “The Little Mermaid.” Then the next day they'd fight with each other so bad that I wanted to stomp out in my own tantrum and slam my door behind me.

My identity wavered.

Now, five-ish years later, my identity is rooted in titles that defy true comprehension. Titles like “stepmother” that get written on emergency contact forms and titles like “Mom” to the in-the-moment-slipped tongue.

I do not ask for the Mom title. I don’t feel it’s mine to have, though I do the Mom thing.

I have made plates of waffles that would sink a ship. I have yelled at doors so loud the house shook. I have used the word Stop too many times and not said enough Go’s.

I have worn my own mother on my sleeve and allowed her anxieties to clutch these kids tight.

I have walked blocks in this neighborhood crying, wanting an “in” to this family to which I don’t always fit, and also sometimes wanting an “out” to everything I said yes to.

And then I am reminded.

The middle girl who twirls my hair as we sit together, who fingers my cross necklace as she buries her head in my neck, who wants me to braid her hair because I finally got this hair-thing right.

I am reminded.

The boy who I potty-trained four years ago now won’t let me see his naked bum because I’m a girl and I laugh because I made sure he aimed at the toilet so many years ago. He who asks me to sing my made-up song I sang to him as a baby - that he remembers! Every night, the request to sing, the request to rub his back.

And I am reminded.

The oldest, in all her drama and trauma, I am reminded even as she pushes me away and spits on my advances. Even as she is not with us right now and is in serious peril, I am reminded as she talks calmly to me on the phone when everyone else she verbally abuses. When I look around my bedroom at the kids’ drawings and I see hers from four years ago, naming me the “best stepmom in the world” who gave her “hope when [her] family broke up.”  I am reminded when I clean out her bedroom and I see the poem I wrote her not torn and tossed in the garbage, but put in her dresser drawer. For safe keeping or just out of the way - no matter. It was not in the trash can in shreds and my heart was not in shards. Even in silence and absence she reminds me.

I can do this.

I can relive my childhood as I watch them grow up and I can be okay with it all.

I can forgive myself for all the wrongs I did as I watch my kids do all the same wrongs and hopefully forgive them, too.

I can do so much forgiving all before we get into the car to go to school.

“I have lost it, yelled it, fought it, cried it and apologized it all before 9am.” - Lisa-Jo Baker

Yes, that.

I have spoken Truth to a little girl’s fears, empowered her with an emotional vocabulary, and watch it all fade away in the span of a day only to have it return in full force the next.

I have explained too much and also not enough.

I have nitpicked and critiqued.

I have not looked, listened, and felt in emotional first aid emergencies. And everyone knows you need to do that.

“I have been woken up, shaken up, thrown up, loved up, and shut up. I have never quite, completely, ever given up.” - Lisa-Jo Baker

And yes, that.

I am halfway to insanity on most days but still want to come home to the eyes of these children, the arms of my husband.

I would have never guessed this life for myself in a million years. My womb wants to fight me on this one. My womb insists it is still empty and on the bad days, it cries out for more.

I know better because just when I think they hate me they shock me with arms that reach for me.

I know better because just when I think I have done or said that thing to tip them over the edge, there is a knock on the door asking for one last hug goodnight.

I know better because God called me here and spoke to me clear and plain that these were the needy children I was to serve, not the ones in Honduras or Uganda.

And though wet towels left on the floor sends me through the roof, I can barely believe we own this beautiful house and live in this beautiful town and have the good neighbors and church families that we do.

I am amazed that after five years I can say to the kids, “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown.”

Stepmothers get such the bad rap and though I’ve been on the spitting end of hateful words and slammed doors and torn up pictures and scratched up gifts, I know that I love them with all the love that a womb can hold.

They are mine, too. Not born in my womb, but in my heart. And not right from the start, but in time. 

Our love for each other is by choice and earned intentionally. It hasn't been there “since their first breath,” but it’s grown over time and past shirt sizes.

“I am out of my mind and in my calling and desperate for five minutes alone and a lifetime together.” - Lisa-Jo Baker

Oh, and so much of that.

I want to slow down and listen to the wise words of other mothers around me, words to heed time and squeeze the small moments because memories aren’t as tangible.

I want a better sense of humor, to not be so weepy, but I want to teach the ability to let out the icky feelings and then be okay.

“These are the good days, the glory days, the slow-as-molasses days. These are the fast years, the wonder years, the how-do-I-find-words years.” - Lisa Jo Baker

These are days I want to stretch to infinity and stop all at once. These are days of contradictions and confusion, desperation and howling at the moon.

And I wouldn’t change any of it.

My womb might not have guessed I’d never bear children. But my heart always knew I would love them.

The Other-Mother Mother's Day

It’s hard to know what to say on Mother’s Day for women who care for and about children but don’t fit the typical title of “Mom.”

Aunts, grandmothers, sisters - they can be a mother. Neighbors, friends, mothers-of-friends - they, too, can be a mother.

And then there is the sort of mother that I am: stepmother.

What an odd word, “stepmother.” I used to think it meant that the 2nd wife, a fill-in mother for the weekend, was a mother who was always a “step” away from the children. Always second place. Always not-as-much. Not-quite-the-mom.

I had a wonderful stepmother growing up. She modeled independence and self-confidence in ways I still haven't digested. I know I learned a lot from her and what I did learn is still slowly coming out of me in bursts as I “stepmother” my own stepchildren.

I was not prepared for full-on-mothering my stepchildren, however. I didn’t know that was in the cards for me. I always heard of stepmothers who were on the peripherary. Side-stepping-stepmothers. Background-stepmothers. Stepmothers who had an invisible mask over their mouth so their ideas and opinions wouldn’t get in the middle of actual parenting. A mask, as though she had some sort of contagious illness.

Instead, I’m a stepmother who not only has no mouth-mask, but is encouraged to parent like a biological parent. I’m encouraged to be 50% of this household's parental makeup.

And I must tell you, with the world’s views of stepmothers, that is not an easy thing to do.

I’ve gotten all kinds of messages throughout my four and a half years of being in these children’s lives.

I’ve been told that I will never love them like a “real mother” does and I’ve been told that I am fully capable of loving them with a biological mother’s heart.

I’ve been told to back off and let my husband do all the parenting and enjoy the fact that I’m not the parent and I’ve been told to be grateful for a husband who respects me and wants me to parent alongside him.

I’ve been told these aren’t my kids and I’ve been told these are most certainly my kids.

Even my stepkids have been on this particular teeter-totter. When I first met them, they defied all the warnings I'd been given and all the horror stories I'd heard. They accepted me, even liked me. A lot.

But just as marriages have honeymoons, so, too, do kids and the new stepparent.

And I now know the stories of stepkids hating you because I've lived it. I've known the "you're not my Mom" because I've heard it. Mind you, this has only been from the eldest, but I sense the next one in line will come to that place all too soon.

My stomach sinks to think of it.

But through it all I have developed a wider definition of "mother." If the kids hadn't come to us full-time two years ago, had we stayed every-other-week parents and not become custodial, my love for them would have stayed confined by other people's perceptions of what my heart...and their hearts...could feel.

I am no side-stepping stepmother. I am not in any background, but rather in the foreground of the best and hardest calling I've ever had. I have no mask on and no illness to spread. My opinions might not always be agreed with, but my husband always listens and considers my ideas equal in importance to his.

I am in no peripherary, but, instead, in the thick of the teenage traumas, the torn mother allegiance, the frightening mental health.

In the thick of the little girl who vacillates between stuffed penguins and skinny jeans, who yells and screams at me one minute, then wants me to braid her hair and answer "one more question about Jesus, please" the next.

In the thick of learning "boy speak" as the toddler I met now says things like, "are you available?" and can't focus to save his life except in the case of Minecraft.

In the thick of emailing teachers to keep on top of school behaviors, monitoring homework and school concerts and karate class and play dates, worrying if she or she or he is learning the right or wrong lesson, being consumed with curiosity (sometimes trepidation) of who these children will turn into.  Wondering if I am doing all I can to teach them good things. Praying for them and praying that I point to God more than i point to them or myself.

I think of my role in their lives so differently now. I think of non-traditional mothers differently now: with more respect and, frankly, awe.

We are a special breed.

Mothers, biological, are celebrated this coming Sunday.

I don't want to forget us other-mothers, the mothers who might not get the Numero Uno title, but who do the work, have the love, who hold the children as though they are their own.

I celebrate that other-mother.

Because though my kids have a mother, I am confident in the role God has called me to and in the love I feel for them.

We aren't in this for glory.

Sometimes all we get are the guts.

I'm in this for God's glory and trying to juggle all He has entrusted me with.

So thank you Mom - Happy Mothers Day to my beloved mama. 

Thank you Lyn, my stepmother, Aunt Vivie, Sue Edison-Swift, Mary Fullerton, Nancy Broberg, and so many more women who have other-mothered me in my life. Happy Mother's Day to you all.

My prayer is that every person who has invested themselves in a child will be honored this Sunday.

The Most Radical Lullaby

Ann wrote today about radical faith. It's a theme she's been writing on and I've been riveted, as usual, by her insights.

I wanted to write a blog entry about what radical faith looks like to me and I had a million thoughts:

- I don't have time to sit and write a blog entry; I have to pick Eldest Girl up in 20 minutes.
- I don't know what I should say; I haven't felt very radical lately.
- My side still hurts and I don't want to get up.
- I am not qualified to talk on the subject.
- I'm weak and a faith-wuss.

Do you see the downward spiral? Once I heard the snaky hiss of that last thought, I stomped up and grabbed the laptop, logged in, and began writing here.

Sometimes, I have radical faith.

Sometimes, I don't have radical faith and I let my fears rule.

But I will count the ways I am radical in my faith, past and present and future, and I will list them as things I am grateful for - because living eucharisteo is the most radical thing I've ever tried to do.

I Am Radical in My Faith Because

I realize I don't have to do big, expensive things for God to love me and be pleased with me.

I realize that, in His upside-down Kingdom, the little turns to big and the nothing turns to something.

I know what God has called me to do - serve this family of mine - and I do it. It is a daily struggle and a daily joy and I am still learning how to live out grace, forgiveness, mercy, and love.

I am taking on my own kind of dare that is rather private and so I cannot share here...but it is between God and me and it is radical!

I invest my life into these stepchildren of mine - these children I did not birth by womb, but birthed by heart.

I sponsor two children and co-sponsor a third and am so blessed by each of them. I realize that it is the love that counts, not so much the money.

I have realized that if I pray, God, will you give me wisdom? then God might show me that I am wrong in my present thinking and I have to be okay with that.

I know walking a life alongside Christ is hard (In this world you will have trouble), but I feel secure and strong enough in my love for God to know that it will be all right in the end (but do not fear; I have overcome the world ~ John 16:33).

I have began memorizing Scripture with the Romans Project (see sidebar badge) and it is scary because I fear failure...but I'm doing it anyway. That is radical.

I am leading a DVD study on Ann's "One Thousand Gifts" and trying so hard to learn it out and walk it out and live it out. Such a radical notion, this give-thanks-in-everything. The Bible is so radical!

I am loving when I do not feel loved. I am serving when I feel jipped and unappreciated. I am forgiving when I don't feel forgiven. I am not choosing some battles I normally would choose.

I am slowing down. That is radical.

I am sitting here listening to Husband play with Son. And play is not common around here. Calm is not common around here. And my heart wants to burst out in tearful gratitude for this bit of time I carved out to remind myself that I can write about how hard things are over and over...

but God will constantly remind me of how He has us all in His palm.

Do you not know, Lisa, that if you take your hand out from beneath all of them, that My hand will not be there even moreso? (this the Lord said to me one day last year as I cried and clutched)

I am breathing. Heavenly Father, glory to You! - I am breathing!

This I haven't been able to do in months.

I breathe. I breathe the name that can only be breathed: {YHWH}.

On Ann's blog, she quotes Rabbi Lawrence Kushner as saying:

“The letters of the name of God in Hebrew… are infrequently pronounced Yahweh. But in truth they are inutterable….

This word {YHWH} is the sound of breathing.

The holiest name in the world, the Name of Creator, is the sound of your own breathing. That these letters are unpronounceable is no accident. Just as it is no accident that they are also the root letters of the Hebrew verb ‘to be’… God’s name is name of Being itself.”

I can finally be still enough to listen and breath His name..I breathe it like a song.

{YHWH}

...the most radical lullabies I've ever known. 

Not My Saving, but His: What I Know Now Thursday

It's time for What I Know Now Thursdays...

Photo credit: Wallflower83 / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

and what I know now, this Thursday, is a very difficult thing to know:

that my oldest girl's heart is broken, has been broken, and breaks nearly every day...and I can't do anything to stop or fix it.

Are you a parent who watches the child you love suffer either through growing-up painful circumstances or through circumstances beyond their (or your) control?

I understand.

I may not have given birth to these children, but my heart holds them as if my womb did. And my heart aches when their hearts ache.

And right now my 14-year-old, who isn't able to accept me as a mother-figure in her life right now, is hurting beyond belief, and, like my mother before me, I now share the ache-for-the-daughter.

What I know now and what my own mother had to learn through many hard, hard years...is that we can't do anything to get our daughters out of the train wreck they sometimes [must] go on.

We can't be there to catch them every time they fall.

We can't be there to fix everything.

All that is certainly known in the parenting community, but do we really know it in our heart? I'm not sure because I know that I still try to band-aid and fix it all up, anyway.

When my 8-year-old stepdaughter is angry, she will let me sit with her and hold her and talk it out. And when my 6-year-old stepson is scared of something, he'll climb into my lap and we'll sort it out together.

But there is that age, that fighting-for-independence-age, when your teenager pushes away all attempts to love and support, while, at the same time, secretly yearning to know that you are still there, despite it all.

So, that is what I must do. Be here. Loving her from afar, making myself available should she seek me out.

One thing I didn't know not too long ago was that, while I could not be with her 24 hours a day to rescue and comfort her, there is a God who can. This 14-year-old isn't quite sure how she feels about this God we introduced into her life, full-on, 2 years ago, and so she wanders around pinning God-like hopes on mere mortals. How I wish I could open her eyes to all I have seen in 2 years.

But that is her own path to walk and God has His own will to lay upon her.

What I know now is that God's plan for her is a good one. He wants hope and a good future for her (Jeremiah 29:11) and I need to trust that.

What I know now is that, no matter how much I want to, I can't be her savior.

But God already is.

Linking up with Sarah Mae, even while is on sabbatical:

How Owies Teach Me the Best Things

After my grumbling and groaning of the last blog entry, I find it funny that I sit here, befuddled at how my almost-9 Miss G just taught me the truth I've been trying to learn for years, the truth I wrote about in that last grumbling and crying-out blog:

How do we give the hard-praise? When life feels so rock-tough and you feel like you've fallen out of a tree and the ground gives you a good whack on the face, how do you look up and thank God, despite?

Miss G came home from her aunt's house tonight in quite a state. Husband had received a phone call from the kids' mom informing him that she was bringing home a very hysterical Miss G who had taken a tumble and konked heads with her cousin and thus bit her lip quite badly and was bleeding. Miss G cries scary and tortured when even the smallest injury happens so I hated to imagine what she was like at this point.

We were ready when the door opened. Husband ushered her in, took her bags and coat, and told her to get p.j.'s on as I followed her into the bathroom. She was crying badly, especially as she looked at her face in the mirror. Poor baby; her eyes were puffy from crying and just-waking-up-from-exhausted-nap-in-car, her lip was indeed hurt with a dark line beneath and inside with her lower lip puffing out a bit in an unintentional pout. It broke my heart. I held her as she fumbled to button her shirt and though I offered to do it for her, she just kept buttoning. I whispered, "it's okay," in her ear even though I knew it was not okay, the pain and the exhaustion she felt was not okay in my book, anyway, and I desperately wanted to go back in time and race up north and catch her when she did fall out of that tree and fell right on both her cousin and the unwelcoming ground. I'd do anything to take it away.

Trying a different tactic, I asked her to name one yummy food she had tonight and, through quieting sobs, she told me sweet potatoes. I asked her if they had marshmallows on them. She shook her head no. I told her that my Gramma introduced me to that kind and that it was yummy.

Husband brought the only first-aid-type thing we had to help disinfect the interior lip-wound: mouthwash. We knew this would sting badly and the way Miss G reacts when in pain made us want to wail in pain just thinking about it. We explained the whys and hows of the mouthwash to her and how I'd count 1...2...3....and on 3 she'd spit it out and ready? Let's just do it fast, we said. So she tipped a cup-full back and I counted 1...2...3...and she spit it out and...no sound. She turned to a towel and dabbed that face.

She made one slight "yuck" and Husband and I looked at each other as though the world had not, indeed, ended when it was predicted.

I followed Miss G into her room and sat beside her as she laid down.

"I don't know why God would choose me to have this owie," she said, talking the way one does with fat lip.

"Oh, honey, God did not give you this owie," I began.

How do I explain that sometimes God lets bad things happen because sometimes they need to....so we learn or so He is glorified....how do you explain that, ever hope to explain that to an almost-9-year-old girl who has only known God for 2 years?

Miss G interrupted my thought process as I panicked to make sense of this. She said, "Well, I know that sometimes we get owies because God wants us to pray to Him and to realize that we need Him."

I don't think I spoke or blinked or moved any muscle for 10 seconds. I just sat and stared at her form in the darkness.

Isn't this what always happens lately? I'll be putting her to bed and she will, out of the blue, say some awe-inspiring, sage-like, truth that I think she is way too inexperienced and too young to comprehend.

Husband happened to be in the room and, after the 10-second-awe-look, I met his glance with an astonished smile.

She was basically saying, in her young words which spoke old, wise truth, that she was grateful for the owie so she could pray to God and show that she needed Him.

Would she put it that way? I doubt it. But the irony of her pointing out the way God could be glorified by this hard thing was not lost on me.

She was giving God the hard-praise.

One day after I had written here,

"Does God treasure our hard-praises more than our easy-praises?"

Miss G, my almost-9 year old teacher, was giving me one of her lessons again. And right when I needed it.

God loves our praise. He asks for it many times. And when it's hard? He is so proud of us for pushing past the muck and the mire, pushing past the fat lip and the illness left unanswered, looking past the angry rebellion and seeing the glory that can only be God - how good it is to praise even when we are confused or angry or sad. How good it is to praise when we are hurting.

Miss G praised our God after faceplanting her cousin and the cold November ground.

She will have pain to wake up to and she will visit doctor and perhaps stitches, not sure, but she is praying.

And isn't praying another way to praise as well?

She prays and praises and pays attention to what God is saying when I sometimes close my eyes and ears.

It's a good thing God sends ones like Miss G into my life or else I might not ever learn.

Thanking Him for the hard stuff this night.

Thanking Him for all the blessings I have in my life - today and every day.

Thanking Him that His definition of blessings and mine aren't always the same.

There is beauty in my uncertainty and beauty in His certainty.

Hallelujah and Amen.

When The Odds Rise Against You

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businessman-removing-building-block-high-res-stock-photography/103033288

Two odds have stacked up; two very big facts in my life:

1. my body
2. my 14 year old teenager stepdaughter

Both are angst-ridden and angry, both are moody and stuck in a rut. Both are victims of circumstance and  victims of themselves.

Is that vague yet poetic enough for you?

To be more specific, yet still respecting privacy, let me try to explain a bit further.

My body has been fighting me for years, but has progressively gotten worse this year. Since March, I was in the emergency room three times. Urgent Care became my middle name and I formed long-lasting friendships with every on-call 24-hour-nurse at my clinic. They'd always be there at 3 in the morning to take my calls of pain and hysteria. They'd offer advice, suggestions, and sometimes just listen to me vent about how much pain I was in and how I couldn't get sleep.

After getting a common yet important procedure scheduled for January, my body made it known that it would not wait that long. The 3rd ER visit occurred and soon we had the procedure scheduled for four days later.

That was last Friday.

The procedure painted me as a healthy fool.

The doctors were perplexed.

Maybe you're too anxious, they said.

Yes. If you were going through this much pain and agony and worrying about how you were going to function every day and take care of your kids and husband and life-duties, worry about how many sick-days you were using up at work and were you going to lose your job over this...yes, I bet you'd be pretty anxious too.

So off I went to the specialist in my area of body-problem.

She was invalidating, plain-old-mean. She told me I was too emotional about it and wasn't the least bit sympathetic.

At that point, my normally-sweet and compassionate demeanor disappeared and I unleashed some wrath I did not know I had. Poor woman.

This got me to see a nationally-recognized expert in the area of my body-problem. I have to do another procedure this week and then get one x-ray next week and one on December 3rd. I'm told he will be able to tell me what is going on.

In the mean time, every day gives me pain, pain, more pain. I can't describe it without going into too much detail so you will just have to trust me.

Then there is my number two odd stacked against me: the 14 year old.

As with me and my health problem, she is full of pain and wrath. And lucky me, I am her target practice.

Actually, I don't think I'm "practice" for anything; I know she is very angry with me.

Yet I understand this. I'm not her biological mother; I'm the woman she lives with who is being the second parent in the house; I'm the woman who makes sure she does x, y, and z and gets on her case if she doesn't. I'm the parent who helps make sure her room is clean and that she gets picked up from confirmation and poms weekly.

But I'm also the parent who gets the "you're not my mom; stop trying so hard to be my mom."

I'm also the parent who gets to fight with her almost every morning about being upstairs on-time. About basic manners. About this or that. Name anything. We've covered it.

This girl adored me once upon a time. I have up on my wall a framed drawing that reads, "Stepmom is my favorite word. When you came into my life I felt hope in my family being broke up. I love you."

Was that only two years ago? How can a child morph into someone so different in two years?

And yet I love her. I am called to love her. God wants me to love her. And I do. I love her when I am angry at her, I love her when I act irrationally at her and when I act rationally (however irrational to her teenage mind). I love her when we bond over something and I love her when we fight (though, I admit, it's mighty hard to remember that).

So these two things: my 14 year old and my body...

they are both railing against me right now. They are wild animals howling in the night and they are in agony. They both want help but reject it. Granted, the 14 year old has more control about accepting or rejecting the help than my body does, but there are similarities none-the-less.

I feel like I'm being hated on...a lot.

This morning, after another tearful drive to work after dropping the kids to school (tears due to the tiredness of fighting with 14 year old every morning over something), I read through my index cards of Bible verses.

One stuck out in particular:

"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first." 

No, that's not the president talking nor is it my own parent. It's Jesus.

John 15:18 (NLT).

I sat in my car, transfixed by that message.

I felt God lean in close and tell me:

I love you more than she hates you. 

Wow. I haven't realized the true nature of God's love. I haven't realized that God loves me no matter what time He goes to bed or needs to be upstairs in the morning. If God sneaks someone into the house, God is still going to love me when I punish Him.

Okay, so I'm making a bit of a joke there, but I think you might know what I mean.

Feeling God say that to me made such a huge difference. So much that I do not fear anyone or anything hating me [on a good day].

God loves me more, immeasurably more.

"With your unfailing love you lead the people you have redeemed. In your might, you guide them to your sacred home." ~ Exodus 15:13 (NLT).

Unfailing love, that's what Moses wrote. Unfailing love is mentioned, in the New International Version translation, 32 times!

So...

the odds might be against me.

But God is for me.

And if God is for me, who can be against me?

I rest in God. I thank God. I sigh into God's bigger-than-huge love.

Deeeep breath.

5 Minute Friday: Roots

My first 5-Minute-Friday. Read about it here or click on the badge on the sidebar. I'm hoping I can be intentional enough to do it every Friday.

This Friday's word is ROOTS

GO
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photo from mike_tn at http://www.flickr.com/photos/21966325@N00/201221336

I think of roots and I think of family trees and the roots that hold the tree together. I'm missing my main root, my mama who will have died 6 years ago this next Tuesday, November 6th, and I have written about her so much these past 6 years, about her death and her life and my mourning and my healing so much these past 6 years, that it is blooming into my first real poetry book in 2013, God willing.

So much written about my Mom and yet I can't reach her. I have lost my grasp. I try and I try but I cannot recall what her voice sounds like and it shatters my heart. It shatters my stepmama-heart because I need my mama so much this year as mother-daugher/mother-son issues have exploded into my life, as I have truly morphed into these kids' other mother. I wrote about this on my stepmother blog that often goes untouched these past years. I wrote about how I wasn't a mother and then I was and now what do I do when the roots these kids began with are not my own? I do not share them, yet I feel these kids are my own. God gave me these kids and these years are the labor pain years.

But it is in these years that my love has blossomed for them. Why does it seem to take strife and pain to grow our love? I feel like their mother though I would never declare myself such a name to them, particularly the oldest who wants to put my name and the word "mother" as far away from each other as possible.

My roots are not theirs. My mother was a gentle, kind woman. She taught me about gratitude and acted very Christ-like even if she never openly professed herself as a Christian. She gave me forgiveness and grace and love. And when she died my life up to that point died along with her. I don't know how I survived. I almost didn't. But look at me now - I am married with three stepchildren who I consider my children (Husband and mine) and yes, I even call them "my kids" when talking about them. So does this increase in love through pain and hardship, this forgiveness and grace, make my roots intertwine with theirs? Maybe I can use that word-picture. Their roots might not be from my tree, directly...but I am certainly influencing them. I am making an impact that they will carry with them forever. So maybe roots aren't strictly blood-related. Maybe roots are love-related. Family trees don't just grow by water; they grow by love. And though we all certainly have our stressful days (years!), I am certain I love them as if they came from my womb.

STOP
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Okay, so that was a tad more than 5 minutes. I remember doing timed writing exercises a la Natalie Goldberg, my great writing teacher and mentor from my high school/college days, and I'd always go over because I couldn't stop the thoughts from pouring out - nor did I want to.

May this 5-ish Minute Friday be the first of many.

Thank you for your eyes that read and thank you for your heart, that I pray is full.

An 8-Year-Old's First Bible Study

Last night, Stepdaughter8, who I will call Miss G for storytelling's sake, asked me a whole bunch of very good and deep questions about God.

I chuckled because I did the very same thing to my mother when she would put me to bed: My questions were more psychological and worldly and not related to God (I didn't grow up knowing much about God). However, I have very fond memories of sitting on my mother's bed at bedtime and having what I called our "11:00 Psychology Talk." I did this as a preteen and teenager, not so much as an eight-year-old. At that age I was repeatedly asking Mom for a glass of water so she'd come back to my room for another kiss goodnight.

I swear Miss G has to come from my DNA, though, because the girl knows how to ask really good and deep questions. Already, we are no strangers to staying up a bit too late talking about "life stuff." To my delight, she has many questions about God that a child would have. Unfortunately, I can't spend the time I'd like to talking with her about it because it is bedtime, after all. I always promise myself to pick the conversation back up the next day...

but life usually gets in the way.

(But what life are you really living if you are too busy to talk about God?)

So back to last night: Miss G asked such good questions that I didn't want to "busy" myself out of them. I told her that we would talk about it the next day and, sure enough, right before bedtime we gathered at the kitchen table, she in her cotton, floor-length penguin nightgown, Bible in hand (the one given to her by our church) and questions ready to go.

One thing about Miss G is that she likes to talk. She is not always the best listener. And one thing about me is that when I talk I don't really know when to conclude. I usually make my point in circles.

So to focus us both, I made a list of four questions that Miss G came up with that we would try to tackle. This is what she came up with:

1. Why do they say "fear God?" Does it mean we ought to be afraid of Him?

2. Why does God have to stay up in the sky?

3. How did God never sin?

4. How was Jesus born?

Oh my goodness! Just looking at that list sent my head spinning. I asked her leading questions about #4 to see what all she knew about how babies are made in general...and decided that that question could wait a bit.

We talked about #2 first: Why does God have to stay up in the sky?

Slight diversion: my stepmother, when asked, told me that when I give my stepkids answers to tough questions, I am to be clear, concise, and to the point. I am to be as brief as possible. I hear this works.

Sadly, I do not work that way. Or maybe not so sad...because I think my stepkids are learning a greater vocabulary thanks to me. Either that or they are learning to be completely stumped by my strange metaphors, poetic and passionate language, and circular points.

Anyway, I gave her a succinct answer to #2:

God does not have to stay up in the sky, I said.

We talked about what Heaven was...we looked in her concordance...looked up verses that talked about Heaven...we talked about God's dwelling place....

but also how God is among us all the time. We talked how we can see God working in other people and ourselves - in how we love, trust, believe, serve, and act.

I know that is a hard concept for her to grasp. She wants to think of God as a person, asking how God was born...

we got sidetracked a bunch of times.

The second question we tackled was #1: Why do they say "fear God" in the Bible? Does that mean that we should be afraid of him?

I referenced biblegateway and looked up the word "fear" and all its meanings. Sure enough, I was able to explain it pretty simply. To fear, in a God-sense, means to respect, to show reverence for God.

Then I said something that wasn't on the docket. I knew it could go over her head...and perhaps it did...but I wanted her to start hearing it now because it is something I strongly believe.

I explained how we learn when we are young that God is all about love and forgiveness and joy. And yes, God is all those things. God blesses us with unimaginable gifts. However, I explained carefully, we ought to realize that we must also respect God and follow God's rules for our lives. God knows what is best for us. He is the Ultimate Parent - even more important than me and Daddy, I told Miss G. And while it is so important to know that God loves us, it is just as important to know that we have a responsibility to God to live our lives under His direction the best we can.

Sometimes you have to tell the truth even if it uses big words and grand ideas. 

In talking about respect, I asked Miss G: "how can you show respect for God?"

Her answer amazed me.

"By reading the Bible," she started. "And...going to church...and praying...every day...praying when you are sad or mad or when someone is mean to you or when you need something..."

I chuckled.

And then she said, "and you have to trust Him."

I stopped in my tracks.

I felt the Holy Spirit fill the room and I felt God whisper to me: take this opportunity.

I swallowed hard, prayed quickly for wisdom and guidance....

"All the things you said are great things," I told Miss G. "God certainly wants us to read the Bible, go to church, and pray every day."

She smiled, pleased that she had said the right answers.

"But what you said at the end....that is the most important, biggest, hugest, most gigantic thing of all."

Her eyes got big and curious.

"Because think about it," I said. "If you didn't trust God...and that includes loving Him...if you didn't trust that God was all-powerful and mighty and loving and all the things we know, would you want to go to church and read the Bible and pray every day?"

She was starting to catch on, but I knew I had to elaborate.

"If you thought the Bible was just a storybook, a fairy tale, just another cool book that parents read to kids at bedtime...would that make you realize how awesome God is? And then make you do all those things you listed before?"

She shook her head no.

We matched smiles and I continued: "It is so important to decide to love and trust God because then reading the Bible and going to church and praying will spring forth from that! It will be so much easier and more fun because you trust and believe."


It was getting late so I decided to end our lesson for tonight. I told her what "closing in prayer" meant and she joined me in thanking God for giving us this opportunity to talk together; I thanked God for giving Miss G a heart full of great questions and I asked God to continue to give Miss G strength to ask those questions, no matter what. I also prayed for Miss G as school would start soon and she would meet people who didn't share her beliefs. I prayed that Miss G would be strong in her love and trust in God and love those who were mean and to pray for them.

I could have gone on and on. I could have talked circles about loving, trusting, believing in God.

But I knew my little inquisitive 8-year-old girl had to get to bed.

And so I tucked her in, hugged, and kissed her goodnight.

I feel a glow inside me as I write this. I don't feel prideful or think, what a great stepmom I am. 

Rather, I think, what a great God we have!

I am so grateful that Miss G is who she is and I am who I am and God placed us together "for a time such as this" (Esther 4:14).

I am so honored by the role God has given me. Of course, I carry doubt and worry that I am not "qualified" to teach God's Word...that I don't know "enough..."

But God does not require us to have a PhD in Divinity Studies for us to share and teach about Him.

He asks us to love, trust, and obey Him.

And I think I did that tonight.

More importantly, with God's wisdom and guidance, I think I paved the way for a little girl to do just that..

****note: I realize that many could argue with the answers I gave Miss G. However, I feel I gave her the best answers for her maturity level that I could. Thank you for grace. ****

The Anniversary of Giving and Taking Away

I don't know how to start. Some moments I feel overcome with grief for what day it is: the 5th anniversary of my mother's death. The day my world stopped turning and spun out of control for many years. And then last year - on this day - I spun into the Lord's embrace and there have I nestled myself happily and gratefully. And yet some moments I rant and rail against God, asking him why? Why did He have to take my mother, my best friend, away from me? Look at what happened to me two years after her death: I got married and became a stepmother of three. So much happened in my life that she was not a part of.

Last night while sitting in the passenger side of the car, head leaning against the cold window with eyes searching the stars and moon above, I listened to the new Casting Crowns CD,"Come to the Well" and I was in an angry place. I wanted my Mom. I wanted her not just alive, I wanted her right next to me, holding me. I wanted to talk to her, to hear her voice, I wanted to feel her arms around me. And I was angry.

Then I remembered what I had heard in a Beth Moore Bible Study on the Book of Esther. She talked about "reversal of destiny." or peripeteia which is a fancy way of saying reversal of fortune - that is to say, a literary device and concept of a turning point, a change of circumstances. There are plenty of people in the Bible who have had reversals of destiny. Actually, that is what a lot God's Word is: the lowly, the least-deserving or the least-expected people turning out to reach the highest heights, become the greatest people, the wisest, the strongest. In the book of Esther, it was Esther, herself, who started out as the Jew, Hadassah, who rose in status to be the Queen of Persia. Such an "ironic" or upside-down turn of events is an example of "reversal of destiny."

I asked myself: what was my "reversal of destiny?" What became ironic in my life - born from tragedy which turned into something benefiting me or others?

I struggled with figuring this out until last night in the car, looking up at the sky. As I was venting to God how unfair it was that my mother was no longer with me, I began to feel a calm settle over my body. My mind stayed on thoughts of my mother, then drifted to thoughts of my stepchildren. And that's when the pivotal phrase hit me:

A mother mothering without a mother.

How ironic. What a tragedy turned into a blessing. Blessing, you ask? I often don't think so, but my stepchildren are in full-time care of  Husband and I because of an emergency situation that happened in their lives and thank God Husband and I had a stable home and life. It has been nothing short of total chaos trying to manage a life which includes a (fairly) new family of 3 kids plus husband...but I'm doing it.

And I know you probably don't understand this because you didn't know the dynamic between my mother and me, but I think I would not be as effective a stepmother if my own mother, though much loved, was still alive. Oh, of course I long for Mom to know my family, but for some reason, God thought it would be better for me to go at this without her earthly presence.

I don't pretend to know the mind of God, nor do I wish to. But this realization gave me some purpose for Mom's passing. And whether or not I am right about the "reversal of destiny" and my place in it, whether or not it makes sense to you or to me, it brings me a certain sense of calm and peace and on this day of days, the 5th year of her passing, I think that's a fine thing to think.

I'll leave you with this verse from Psalm 30:11:
  
Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;

I hope to feel that way some of the time. I say some because I know I will grieve, I will hurt. But I know the Lord makes all things new, that He loves and guides...

and in coming to Him, I have been made free (mostly, because hey, I'm human) of this anger at her death. 

I hope the verse comforts and inspires you. 

And I'm curious. What do you think about "reversal of destiny?" Google it. Wiki it. Look up what Beth Moore has to say about it. And get back to me. 

Happy All Saint's Day, as celebrated in my Lutheran Church today. 

God Bless. 
And Mom, I love and miss you.