Day 7: Being who you are made to be

I think for most of us,  life is a journey of discovering who we are and what we were made to do in the world. 

My brother found his path in high school. He wanted to help people live better through the vocation of physical therapy.  He studied it.  He worked hard.  He is damn good at it. 

Some people are called. Some are passionate.  Some are uniquely skilled. Watching people discover their path is one of my favorite pastimes. The part of us made in the image of God - creative,  life - giving. To find our call is to find our best opportunity to reflect God into the world.

I've always wrestled deeply with this. Unlike my brother, I am a bit of an odd duck. Fueled by an intense passion to make the world better,  I've traveled many roads. A jack knife of sorts,  I have a lot of skills but none stand out as particularly stronger than the others. Sometimes along my way my call is strong. I know who I am and what I am meant to be in that moment.  Other times, it feels weaker.  I lose my place. I get out of sync with life and I need to step back and pray.

Softening my heart, I seek to allow myself be molded back into the creation I was made to be.  If I get my will out of the way enough,  perhaps God will work in and through me to shine light into the world.

Day 6: The desert

Where are we going?

I feel like when I look to encounter God,  the Spirit often calls me into the wilderness. The wilderness feels like a worthless place to spend time.  Why did Jesus go there for 40 days? Why did the Israelites wonder there for 40 years? Isn't there a more efficient means to tap into what God calls you to be?

A few weeks ago,  I took the kids on a brief vacation to the desert. It happened to be the only place ion the state where it was not raining. I've never really been a fan of the desert but I'll admit,  in the winter, early spring it's kind of nice. There were pockets of life shooting forth after getting a bit of water.

I wonder if that's the point.  Maybe the wilderness is a place that is empty and hungry.  So when the rain finally comes we are ready to spring to life... or maybe it is to teach us gratitude for all the bounty of the promise lands in our lives. 

Whatever the reason,  the wilderness is not usually a fun place to be.  It's lonely, confusing and desolate. But it is a necessary part of faith and so again I trod into the wild spaces of faith hoping and praying that the Spirit will meet me there.

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.