Day 7: Why can't I just make a to do list?

So, I've embraced a season of big life transitions.
I've gotten bold enough to step up and explore a new life and a new call in this season.

So... now what?

Tackling life is usually a matter of execution.
Figuring out the things that need to get done and doing them.
I'm good at that.

But this... this is different.

I was having a conversation today about "deep work."

Deep work is the work we do way down in.
The type that can't be measured in to do items or checkboxes or calendars.
Deepwork is the taking in of new ideas and processing them and churning and churning until eventually something is born.

Art. Work. Vocation.

We all have our deep work but life does little to create space for or honor this important work. We don't usually have anything really to show for it. And so, it feels unproductive.

I really hate being unproductive.

So, this is Lent. Me doing deep work. I have nothing to show for it.

Day 6: You are fully and wholly loved

Yesterday I was a communion assistant during church. I never think much of the role going into worship but every single time I do it, I am surprised by the profound impact it has on me.

During the last supper, Jesus took bread and broke it and give it to his disciples saying "This is my body, do this in remembrance of me." He took the cup, gave thanks and shared it with his disciples saying "this is my blood poured out for you."

Christian churches everywhere re-enact this meal to remember Christ's sacrifice and great love for mankind. We are invited to the table to be reminded that we are loved by God. We also remember that we are to serve each other.

Communion has always held a special place in my heart.
A time to be near to God.
To receive it, I am touched momentarily by God's hand.

My role in church was to hold the cup and pass it to each person saying "Christ's blood, shed for you."

In that I took the moment to look at each person.
To see their eyes.
To know that God fully loved them.

Old.
Young,
Disabled.
Men.
Women.
Babies.
White.
Black.
Asian.
Hispanic.
Distracted.
Tired.
Content.

Loved. By. God.

It's a simple message. But sometimes, especially on a Monday. A simple message is all we need.
so here it is...

you are wholly and fully loved by God.
just as you are.
right where you are.

Today, my meditation is to look at each person I meet and remember that.

Lent Day 5: A new season of motherhood (part II)

I came from a large family so I always sort of thought that I’d have kids at some point but when or how many was never that clear to me.

 I’ve always had my eyes on trying to understand my call.

What am I supposed to do and be in this world?
 What can I offer?

 My heart ached for the poor and marginalized and I constantly tried taking inventory of my strengths to understand where and how I could make a difference.

I poured myself into preparing.

 Getting married was a leap of faith. Opening my life to walk with someone else involved closing many doors. He was an engineer working on cutting edge biomedical research. I had prepared myself for a life of work in the poorest and most remote places of our planet. What call could God possibly have for the two of us together? 

And as I struggled with this, Eddie came into my life.

My first born. Motherhood carved into my soul. Teaching me new levels of sacrifice and love. Patience and acceptance. And call continued to nag at me. Raising Eddie was now certainly part of my call. Giving him wings to find his place in this world. But who was I now, as a mother?

We moved.
Bought a house.
 Had another baby.
 Started a company.

 In each turn, I followed life. I leaned into a path presented to me and gave every ounce of myself to it.  Motherhood was amazing and there were moments that I could see myself with 13 kids in a big noisy house that was full of love and learning and passion for all we could do together in the world. There were also times that were so hard, and I was stretched so thin, I wondered if really this was the path that I was supposed to be on. I felt lost and tossed by the waves of life.

 And then came Philip… I was terrified. Andrew was a hard baby. The startup was young and demanding. I was working all the time… how could I possibly have space for one more?

Grace.

God met me that Easter and reminded me that I am not alone on this journey and that I was in fact exactly where I was supposed to be. It wasn’t as romantic or exciting as running around the world, but there were deeper lessons of faith in store for me. Humility, acceptance, grace, forgiveness, and sacrifice. I was being called deeper. And deeper I went.

Along came Miles… as I welcomed him into our family, I realized how much I had grown. How comfortable I was in motherhood, and how it was almost easy to fall on my face and pick myself up again. I had learned a lot about getting over myself and leaning into love.

 After Miles was born, people often said “Wow, four boys, you gonna try for a girl?”

 Truth was I struggled with that. There was a piece of me that was happy where I was. Happy with my four boys and the new world of engineering and science that they were beckoning me into. I was 35 when I had Miles. It was a good age to be done. But I had overcome so much, laid down so much of myself, there was totally room in my life for another little person if one came along. And if I’m going to be perfectly honest, there was some tiny piece that did want a daughter. I’m so close to my mom and there are so many things that you can’t share the same way with sons – wedding dresses, births, planning family holidays…

So, we decided to do what we had done. Prevent pregnancy, but not close the door to it completely.

 In 2017, I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder. Doctors recommended a medication that suppresses the immune system as a way to sort of “re-boot” things. Miles was young and still full of germs, so I decided to delay treatment until he was a bit older.

Last year, I had quite a few flares and spent a lot of the year sick or in pain leading me to decide it was time to consider taking the medicine. I went in for the appointment with the rheumatologist who discussed options and plans and we put together a plan to start treatment following the flu season since there was no immediate needs to start sooner.

First item on the checklist she handed me was to determine a method for permanent birth control. The medications recommended cause birth defects and infertility and it is highly recommended that you complete your family before starting. It hit me a little hard to read that.

I realized that the piece of me that wanted another baby was a little bigger than I admitted to myself. Ulrich and I talked it over. He felt the same way. It was hard to actually say we were done. But honestly, we were both turning 40, life was finally getting easier. It felt like the right thing to do. So, we made our peace with it.

 Holidays came and went. We started potty training Miles and celebrated the end of diapers in our life. We started thinking about all the things that were coming our way – backpacking trips, science fairs and all the other things you do with “big kids.” I bought jeans and started thinking again about call.

What does God have in store for the 6 of us?

And with life finally settling down, I scheduled a series of appointments to start tackling my health. 

Then..

A month ago…

I woke up in the middle of the night. Overcome by the strongest sensation.

I knew I was pregnant. I can’t tell you how I knew. Maybe I’ve just been pregnant enough times. But I knew I was. My rational brain laughed as I thought through the actual probability of this – maybe 0.001% but didn’t matter what the chances were, my heart knew otherwise.

The next day I bought a pregnancy test. You are supposed to wait until morning, but I wanted to dispel the feeling and prove to myself that this couldn’t possibly be true so I took the test right away, in the middle of the afternoon.

PREGNANT

 A feeling of shame washed over me.
 I could hear a 1,000 voices yelling – how could you let this happen?
Don’t you know how to prevent this?

I wanted to justify how careful we’d been. I wanted to publish a brochure with all the information about effectiveness rates of various forms of birth control. I wanted to wear a sign that vindicated me.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell Ulrich.
I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone.
I couldn’t even bring myself to think that much about it.

In modern life, we assume control of things like life and death are in our hands. Medicine is amazing and we know so much about so much. So we grow arrogant. In some ways, we think we can take God's place.

We think we can control life and death.

Most people won’t get pregnant if they do something to try to prevent it and most people will get pregnant if they “try” to. So it’s easy to think that people who don’t follow this pattern have done something “wrong.” I’ve walked alongside so many people who struggled so long with infertility. They did everything right and odds were on their side that a baby would come --- but it didn’t.

There is not much you can say as they work through the heartbreak. Only hold space for the place they are in and all the feels that come with it. Shame is a common feeling. So is isolation. Feeling like their bodies are broken. It’s so hard.

On the other side, I’ve heard of vasectomies reversing and surprise triplets. Conceptions that have occurred on just about every type of birth control. When you run a website about sperm, you hear strange conception story out there. And trust me, there are things that happen that really defy science. There’s a lot of confusion and anger, judgement and acceptance that happens in those journeys too.

 Nothing in medicine is 100%. Life is a force to be reckoned with. Sickness, health, life, death, outcomes – these are all measured with odds. We want so hard to resolve uncertainty in our lives, especially when it comes to the big things. But miracles and tragedies happen and we struggle with that.

Medicine actually can’t control the process.
We are participants.

We can do things to shift odds in our favor…
 But life is a gift. It is a miracle. 

And to live and breath every day is a small miracle.
So are babies.

 And as I started to brush aside shame, fear and frustration set in.

I had just made peace with our family just how it is.

I am ready to move on, how could I start over?
Dammit, I just bought jeans.
What about all the big kid adventures?

What if this baby isn’t healthy? Odds of genetic defects rise by orders of magnitude as you get older. What about my health? This baby will be born just after my 40th birthday – which officially makes this a high risk pregnancy.

I gave myself a few weeks to let it all sink in.
 And peace came to me. 
I went in for a dating ultrasound.
I told Ulrich.
Then… I told Andrew.

 Andrew loves babies.

 He was over the moon. His eyes lit up and he was overcome with joy. He reminded me how joyful and amazing this whole thing is.

 And so, heading into lent, I had a new journey handed to me.

 And, as all my journeys to date, God walks with me and I couldn’t be more excited to see what is in store for us this time.

Day 4: A new season in motherhood (part 1)

4 years ago, Philip and I started a journey together. He was not developing as he should so we went through a series of evaluations and determined that he has autism spectrum disorder. And so began speech therapy, occupational therapy and ABA therapy.

Since about 2 years old, Philip has had the equivalent of a 40 hour work week to work on things that didn't come easy to him. He had a team of experts regularly evaluating him and there were oh, so many meetings.

This year, he started kindergarten. He's done amazing.

A few months ago, after school some moms had a post-school impromptu play date at the park. Philip and I had time and could go. I watched him run around with friends and I got a little choked up inside. There wasn't a therapist there. I wasn't worried that he would run away or hit anyone. I didn't have to explain and apologize to the other moms why he was different.

Last week, I sat down with Philip's therapy team and they recommended that we exit therapy on his birthday, at the end of April. We've talked about eventually fading therapy before. But this is imminent. they are writing a report to the insurance company and saying -- there is nothing to work on. Philip can fully function in his 5 year old world.

It was a my first glimpse of a new world. Life without therapy.

For the last 4 years, therapy has dominated my life as a mother.

Getting evaluations done,
re-organizing my afternoon so someone could come and observe one of my children,
afternoons filled with therapists coming in and out of the house,
often as late as 8pm, making sure I had the right toys and materials to support therapeutic goals;

I had resigned myself that therapy was a part of life for us.

But, I am now starting to imagine a life without therapy.

We still have a ways to go -- Andrew would likely be next, then Eddie, and lastly, hopefully, Miles.
But this experience with Philip shows me that there is a point where it does end, where we can go back to just being us.

It is liberating. And terrifying.

For 4 years, my parenting has been under a microscope.
For 4 years, there has been someone to ask when I didn't know what to do to help my children reach the next step.

And one day, suddenly, it will just be quiet.

My mind weighs the pluses and minuses. I think about the challenges ahead for Philip -- sarcasm, jokes, bullies, organization skills, managing a world full of inputs and expectations -- all the things that kids (and adults) on the spectrum struggle with. I also think about all the wonders -- the time to pursue interests, to live without pre-defined goals for who he should become and how he should turn out, freedom to be a kid and play.

As a mom, this is a new journey for me, with Philip, that will start after Lent. And part of this Lent is preparing myself for life after therapy.

But for today, I celebrate Philip...

Day 3: Embracing a new season at work

I've come to accept that my start-up is a teenager on the cusp of independence.

Anyone who has started a business can tell you, they are a lot like babies. In the beginning, they are simple but they occupy your mind and heart (and hands) most of the time. You stay up at night with them.  They need you to survive. You give your all and hope you have enough to keep them alive.

I remember starting our company. I was 31, bright eyed and full of ideas and dreams. I had no idea how any of it worked. How do companies find investors and raise money? How do you build a product and get a nice shiny box for it and sell it on the shelf at Target or Amazon? How do you launch an app and build a user base? How do you get your website top listed on Google? How do you get the FDA to approve something and make those official looking labels?

It was exciting. Like watching a baby's first steps, every milestone was a first for us and for the company. Our first prototype, our first blog post, our first pitch, our first FDA clearance. We did crazy things to make it work -- drive across half the country and sneak in the back door of a trade show floor to save money. Stay up all night running a marathon experiment.

Slowly, with every milestone, our start-up started to grow. We got employees, investors, a board and eventually hired a CEO and other management to help run the company. Like dropping your kid off at kindergarten for the first time, you wonder if these strangers are going to take care of your baby.

I worried.

They did things differently then I would have and I had to ask myself, is this just me being over-protective or is this something I need to stand up for. They knew what they were doing most of the time, but they didn't know or love my baby like I did and I winced a little every time the company fell down or faced growing pains.

I wrestled with this growth. It was a spiritual journey for me to let go. Of course, the minute it needed me, I was right there doing what I could. But sometimes, there were somethings I couldn't help with and it hurt. I also had to accept that people need to own the work to invest themselves in it and sometimes I had to take a humble road, serve in the lower ways and step out of the limelight. This, was hardest of all.

Now, I've come to a new peace. I fully accepted that the company is just about ready to go off to college. No more diapers or hand holding. My baby is all grown up.  I'm not done working there but I am no longer integral to its survival in this world. And that gives me back a part of myself that I need to redefine. I've changed and grown and learned so much over the past 9 years. I am not the same woman who jumped off that cliff all those years ago.

So, who am I now? and where does my path go from here?

Part of this Lent journey is exploring this question and listening for the wind to blow.

Day 2: Bilbo Baggins

I have been reading the Hobbit as our family night time reading. I forgot how fun the story is.

Last night, I was reflecting on my 1st day of Lent and I found myself feeling like Bilbo Baggins.
Initially caught up in the adventure of it all, then starting out and wondering "When is second breakfast?"

My lent practices are relatively simple -- deceptively so. The seem like no big deal. Totally manageable. And, I am glad to report, I did in fact make it through day one but it was harder than it seemed it would be and I'm looking at the long trail in front of me wondering if I should have ventured out of my cozy little hobbit hole at all.

Discipline 1: Drinking just water. 
This I knew would be the hardest. I love drinks. Teas. Bubbly drinks. All the flavors. Fasting from the flavor would through off meals where I have a favorite drink that goes well with the food. Think, milk and chocolate. Water instead just doesn't hit the spot the same way.

What I forgot about was that even though I'm not a coffee drinker, I do get enough caffeine in a day to impact me and yesterday... I had a headache. I also got heartburn. The water didn't sit as well. And all my hobbit self wanted to do was curl up with a hot tea and milk and feel better. 

Discipline 2: No Yelling
All the moms out there know that this is a tough one. I failed miserably last year and thought I would give it another go this time around. I realized I needed more preparation. You can't just say, I'm not going to yell and think that will work. Yelling actually serves a function. So, I needed to plan out alternative strategies for -- getting kids attention, getting kids to move when overly distracted, getting kids to stop when overly wound up, and blowing off my own steam when it gets to be too much.

Planning helped. I was able to use alternative strategies for most of the situations above. Although, this morning I briefly snapped  because I was trying to get dressed for an important meeting and Miles persistently climbed on me begging to be held (after I had held him for a solid 20 minutes). So to do list item for today. Find a way to emotionally release when I just can't deal. Any and all suggestions welcome.

Discipline 3: Daily act of kindness
This also should be small. It shouldn't be very hard to do something kind for someone everyday. But I placed a few stipulations.

1. Can't be anyone in my immediate family. I am supposed to be doing kind things for them all the time.

2. Can't be work that I would otherwise have planned -- writing a nice report for a co-worker also doesn't count. I'm supposed to be a solid team player and do good work.

3. Can't be planning an act of kindness. Looking at cute ideas on Pinterest for cards I might send my sister-in-law doesn't count. I actually have to send her a card.

So, taking time out of my day to do something wholly and intentionally for another person who is not in my normal sphere of influence takes some planning (doing things for people I don't see all the time) and presence (taking the opportunities to carry someone's groceries). So far, it's been, but I can tell that daily for the whole of Lent is going to be a tall order.

Discipline 4: Faith focused media consumption
Of all the practices, this will probably be the easiest.

Turning on my Pandora hymns instead of Meghan Trainer.

Reading devotions rather than clicking random "look at these people 50 years ago" articles on facebook.

Takes thoughtfulness but I feel will be overall a helpful practice.

I am not an avid media consumer. I don't have much time for shows or much other regular media consumption. But I do have 5 minutes for youtube here and there. The random articles and the radio in the car. And even that limited amount of media contains a lot of messages. A lot of additional thoughts to circulate in my brain.  And so, a bit of a fast from these things is a chance for my input to support the output.

39 more days...
No second breakfast or cozy hobbit holes to hide in.
Just an open road ahead of me. Calling me to experience the wildness of God.

Day 1: Who we are and why are we here?

A few weeks ago, my pastor gave a thought provoking sermon on the questions that serve as a central paradigm for our lives.

Who am I?
What am I to do with my life?

We all look to understand our place in this world. The meaning of our lives. Our greater purpose.

Some of us dive first into identity. If we can know who we are, from there we can figure out our purpose. Others of us start with purpose. If we can figure out what we can do in the world, it will define who we are and how we belong.

I've been thinking about this a lot coming into Lent this year. I've always been a "what can I do?" person. If I can do things, I can be helpful. If I can be helpful, then my life has meaning. And so I am always re-evaluating my priorities and trying to build in more and more ways to do.

But life, the past several years, has pushed back against that. Kids with special needs, a demanding job and health issues have pushed me to reduce.

Do less.
Be content with where I was.

It has been hard for me. I have the urge deep in to more. I've had to accept who I was and where I was and let go of all the hopes for what I wanted to do.

This lesson in humility has aligned well with the message of Lent -

I am dust, to dust I shall return. All we do is dust. 

Eventually, I found peace in this. To accept that all things fall away. All the castles we build. Everything is just temporary. I don't have to do anything. I actually can't make a real, permanent difference anyways.

And yet, in faith, even in this temporary nature of life, there is meaning. All of who we are and what we do is held in God's hands...and in this our lives have meaning and purpose. Just as I am, just where I am. I belong to God and I matter.

It took many lents for this to sink in.

But this year, as Lent came around, I felt space in my life and a different focus for my meditation.

I have felt slowly, slowly that life doesn't need to be quite so small anymore. There is more energy, more time and more of my heart available to give more to the world. And though I have learned to be content with trimming and letting go. All things have a season, and in this one I am excited because I feel new energy and changing of the seasons in life.

I feel called to new and different things. And if I dared again to ask the question -- what can I do?
I may be surprised by where it leads me.

In contemplating this, I've realized the world has changed a lot. The problems we face as humans are in some ways the same problems we faced 10, 20, 100 and 1,000 years ago and in some ways they are completely different. I feel compelled to re-learn and re-examine the way I look at the world. To put on eyes that are fresh and see things for the first time, the way my kids are.

What captures my heart?
What evokes movement in my soul?
Where can I do?
Where can I meet the pain and suffering, marginalized and broken parts of our world?

Usually, during Lent, I close myself off to impulsive decision making. I allow myself to sit and reflect the 40 days and reserve the season of Easter to allow changes and new direction to come into my life. But this year, I feel called to do the opposite. To turn and follow Jesus, if I happen to meet him walking down the road. This year, I will let faith be bold in me.