Day 5: mandatory meditation

The practice of mediation is to create quiet space to focus your mind and let go other worries.

Being sick is a form of mandatory meditation.  Typically, when I feel really sick my mind hyper focuses on the symptoms. The fever. The sore throat.  The upset stomach.  As I settle into bed and begin to rest,  the magnitude of my headache starts to go down.  When I stand up,  it comes back strong.

It dawned on me that my ability to focus on my body and my breath is much higher when I am sick due to this natural interest in monitoring my symptoms?  I wondered then,  if it were an ideal opportunity to pray.

Prayer is meditation where the focus is on God,  rather than self.  Could I take my meditative focus and lift it from myself to heaven. There was a deep quiet,  the rest of my mind was already clear. To turn to prayer in a meditative state was to approach God without a laundry list of concerns. It was simply to search the quiet for God the way you search your body for symptoms when you are sick.

I have not much prayed like this before.  Often my prayers revolve around words and thoughts.  A conversation with God, rather than a still silent moment to focus beyond myself to the mystery of the divine. 

Peace be with you. 

Day 4: Fail

I had magnificent plans for today.  Plans to be an amazing mother and wife.  The day laid out with time for each of my kids and a midday date with my husband.  At our date,  we had plans to reflect on life and lent and that would have of course inspired the perfect blog for this evening.

Instead,  my house got destroyed,  I got thrown up on 5 times and I lost my temper at least once.  The day went to complete shit. I tried to recover more than once but it was just one of those non- starter days where everything seems to move in slow motion and everything lacks energy.

I spent much of the afternoon pinned down as one child or another slept on me. I reflected on what i would write here.  Motherhood is inconvenient,  so is love.  We don't always get the option to plan ahead,  we just get up and take it, head on.

Jesus sent the disciples out... no money,  no plan.  Knock on doors and see what happens.

Just because you don't have a plan or supplies, doesn't mean you are unprepared.  Love can improvise.  My day went completely downhill but my guys were still loved.  I held them.  I cleaned up the mess.  I read stories. I did what moms do.  I did what love does.

It wasn't as flashy as my well designed plans for the day.  But, beautifully, it doesn't have to be.  Jesus asks us to love each other.  Often that means wading in to the normal,  mundane, crappy days and do the stuff that moms do... make food,  give hugs,  tell stories, fix booboos and clean up messes.  If we all did that, all the time,  pretty sure the world would be a much better place.

Day 3: Grace

Today,  I felt Grace. The unmerited gift of new life unfolded in front of me.

Last year,  about this time I began a journey with Philip,  my 3rd son.  He seemed to have difficulty hearing.  He never turned when you called his name.  Seemed oblivious to freight trains passing a few blocks away or fire engines roaring down the road. I had taken steps to address hearing issues.  He had fluid in his ears and we decided to get tubes put in.  Hearing tests revealed a marked improvement in hearing after the tubes.  I expected language to follow,  it did not.

What was particularly scary was not that he wasn't talking.  It was that he didn't understand.  Anything.  He was approaching 2 and my mommy radar went to defcon 12. I started playing close attention to what he could and couldn't do to look for clues as to why language wasn't there.  A friend suggested I contact the county. They had free language services for kids under 3. And so we began a journey together. Philip and I.

The first assessment was hard to hear.  There are many categories of language...use of gestures,  saying words,  understanding words,  making sounds,  etc.  His average language level across all these things was about 6 months old.  I was overwhelmed with guilt.  How could he be nearly 2 and so behind without me acting sooner?

I rolled up my sleeves and jumped in.  I learned everything I could about language development, I filled out piles of paperwork.   Went to appointment after appointment to try to get him help. I tried my best to become what he needed.  I saw progress but it was slow.  New waves of guilt washed over me.   I felt pressure to make every second count.  I felt guilty for going to work every day.  My pregnant belly was growing larger and worried about how I could possibly give Philip what he needed while caring for new baby.  It all felt impossible.

But this is exactly Grace.  Finding God at the end of your rope. In the midst of guilt and fear, a voice calmed me. Put one foot in front of the other.  Give him what you can and trust that God has a plan for him. 

Eventually,  I was able to get therapy that seemed to help.  I put the pieces together and figured out how to meet him where he was at and work with all the therapists to slowly,  but surely pull him out. He made progress and one day,  he called me mom. I felt hope that he was reachable.

The past few months have been an explosion.  Baby steps followed by leaps and bounds.  It made me hopeful that he was on the right path and I was ready to embrace whatever he needed next.  Today we had a meeting with the school district.  Kids with developmental delays are all assessed just before their 3rd birthdays to see what type of support our therapy they will need to help them prepare for kindergarten. I was excited for the meeting because the psychologist in our school district is amazing and incredibly insightful as to what will really bring out the best in kids.

We dove into the 2 hour assessment.  I talked through what we were working on in all his various therapies,  filled out more paperwork and watched as a number of specialists interacted with him to see what he knew and didn't.  What he could do and couldn't. He was happy. Smiling the whole time. I was proud watching him demonstrate new skills that he had just learned in the past few weeks. The preliminary result.... His skills were approximately 34 months across the board.  I was shocked. No delay... at all???

Grace.

The guilt.  The terrible feeling that won't go away wondering,  worrying. Pushing to try to do more,  to give more,  to be more.  To wonder if any of it is helping.

God was present with me today.  Present in the surrender that gave me courage to set aside my guilt and my pride to keep pushing forward for whatever Philip needed and present in news that what we are doing is enough.  God is present in our small and large battles to be who we can be. Present in the weaknesses we want to his from the world and in the victories of the human spirit.

God has been with me all along this journey and will be with me in the journey ahead even when I wasn't able to see or feel that presence.  Even when the guilt was thick enough to cut with a knife.

Philip has a long journey ahead.  I have a long journey with him.  Grace will continue to carry us along. 

Day 2: Why, hello God, thanks for calling

I have a close friend who I don't talk to near enough. We live on opposite sides of the country.  We are both busy with life.  But when we do talk,  it's like an old pair of jeans.  We pick up where we left off and the familiarity that comes with a friend who's known you forever settles in.

The interesting thing about this particular friend is that she is an athiest who is secretly agnostic or maybe,  just maybe more than agnostic.  She grew up catholic and has a place in her heart for lent.  So often,  this time of year,  we find ourselves lost for a moment in a spiritual conversation tied to practices and disciplines of the season.

A few days ago she called.  She has a lot going on.  Some of the heavy stuff.  Our conversation was meaty.  The only thing I could tell her about faith is that God is with us in life's trials, bringing peace that passes understanding.  It's easy to want a God that is like a genie in the bottle.  We pray and rub the lamp and cross our fingers that everything will go our way. But the God I have come to know isn't a genie.  Rather a presence inviting us to go deeper. To trust in the fog of uncertainly.  To let go of our expectations to embrace peace and love,  even in the face of sacrifice or adversity.

We talked a long while ... until my kids got antsy and she had places to be.  I hung up the phone.  The conversation has stayed with me. God was present there.  Reminding me of faith and inviting me to the table. I realized sometimes God just shows up -- for no particular reason, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you are picking up the kids from school.  

Sometimes you need to answer the phone and be open to listening. Thanks for calling, God. It was good to hear from you. 

Day 1: A fresh new world ahead

Ash Wednesday. The mark of the beginning of the Lenten journey. Strangely, I think this is my favorite time of year. It is never a fun time but I almost always feel the presence of the Divine touch down and carve into me shaping my heart and my path.

I meet this year with a lot of anticipation. It feels like God has a particularly interesting journey for me. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany have all shown up clearly in my life this year asking me to step up and step out in faith. In Advent, we welcomed new guests into our home. A family of three who are just starting out and needed a chance to get their feet on the ground. Epiphany found me in a new role at work and at home and after pouring my whole self into helping Philip, my 2yr old catch up to his developmental milestones, I began to see an explosion of words and engagement. Like a plant in the spring bursting forth with new shoots. The season of light brought deep hope into my life.

So, here we are at the cusp of Lent. The past few years I have dedicated myself to optimizing. Cutting back all thing unnecessary so that I could do a good job with the work I've been given. 4 small children and a start-up that is trying to bring a major change to status quo. I've had to let go of a lot of things to keep plates spinning. This Lent is a call to let go of some of that optimization. To cook more meals, create space for my health and most importantly to be quiet and create empty space to listen for the Spirit.

I can already feel the wind blowing. I do not know where it will take me but my soul is eager for water and so, gladly, I follow.

Day 36: Spring

I'm sitting at McDonalds just off the highway exit. It's one of the few places open before 6. I discovered that getting up super early and coming to work gives me time to focus and things done. Moms have to employ a level of creativity to scheduling to make life work.

Since daylight savings time, I've dreaded my early mornings. It's dark and cold and I just want to stay in bed. The up side of this is that every morning I get to watch the sun rise over the hills and see the golden light dance on the dew covered grass -- softening the vast landscape. Today is particularly striking. With the spring comes a magnificent greening of the world that reminds me of the resilience of life. The air drips of it and I breath deeply to take it in.

I feel the Spirit pushing me, calling me, guiding me on.

It's easy to get caught up in the surface of things. The list of things to do. The specifics of life's current situation. It's easy to focus on a struggle against the things that irritate, stress or hurt us in the day to day. It's easy to lose perspective and think that that's what life is.

But, there is more.

Sometimes if we breathe deeply and take in the wind of the Spirit, we can see life's circumstances as an invitation to something new or something bigger or deeper. Like the green of spring, new shoots may start to grow from the brown patches of our hearts when the warm wind of the Spirit breathes life.

 

Lent Day 35

It's one of those days that I have a lot on my heart but not a lot to write. I can't congeal my thoughts into something elegant enough to crystalize for this blog. I wish I could. Writing these posts often speaks deeply to my soul....today is a day I could use a good word.

I look out into the world and see so much darkness, pain, sadness. I read my facebook feed and my heart reaches out to people suffering with cancer or addictions. I read about couples longing for children. Children being torn from homes that love them. Loneliness. Isolation. Stress. Anxiety. Life comes with an arsenal of injustices.

And I look up and I see Jesus on a cross.

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense.

"The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words"