Five Minute Friday: REAL

Every Thursday a one-word prompt will be announced here on my blog at 10pm EST (and continuing through Friday).

Those who’d like to participate in Five Minute Friday will write for five minutes on the topic of the week, post it on their own blog and link up the post here.

GO

Well there's a scary word.  REAL.  Who actually knows the "real" me?  And is our internet obsession and online presence ever truly real?

Facebook friendly: with makeup and hair done

I liked walls.  I liked to keep people at a distance.  I wanted them to see a version of myself, not the "real" me, and I was afraid of anyone getting too close and seeing behind the walls.  I found that sarcasm is a great wall-builder.  So is humor.  And lies.  And just plain being mean.  I worked hard to build my walls, and I thought of myself as dwelling in some fabulous castle behind my fortifications.

But then God showed up in my life.  He made His presence known.  And one very important thing to know about God is that he is a wall-destroyer.  Just look at the Battle of Jericho in the book of Joshua.  Those people did absolutely nothing but walk around for a week and play some music.  God is the one who made the walls fall down.  And He did the same for me.

Making silly faces with the boys

My choice would have been to open a door and let some people in.  Or to step outside the walls from time to time, but leaving them standing so I could retreat if necessary.  But God's plan for me (and His plan for you) is to demolish the walls, to leave nothing between me and Him, nothing between me and the people I'm meant to know and love.  Without walls, they can get to know the real me, and maybe they will love me when they know the real me.

STOP

Love and Marriage (10 Years In)

A few years ago, our pastor preached a sermon on marriage and told the story of Adam and Eve.  You know how it goes, right?  The world was created, then Adam and Eve were created to live in it and care for it.  They were made for each other, to be helpers, partners.  The Bible tells us that they were friends with God, that they were naked, and they felt no shame.  But then...then there was the forbidden fruit, the Fall, the Covering, the Curse.  The man and the woman hid from God and they made clothes to hide their bodies from each other.  I sat in my seat (3/4 of the way back, where I am most comfortable) and I thought about this story.  Like, really thought about it.  The end of the story, well, that all sounds very familiar.  Shame?  Secrecy?  Hiding from everyone, even God?  Oh yes, I know it well.  But back to the beginning.  That part sounds amazing, and impossible.  I wondered if that would ever happen for me and my husband.

I think every love story is a reverse of the first one.  We begin distrustful of the other--fallen, covered, cursed--yet we long for this person so much that we overcome our fears and we take that leap.  We imagine a Paradise, a personal Garden of Eden where we can return to that original state, and look at each other naked and unashamed.  But how do we get there?  What steps do we take, how do we change?

I've been married for ten years:  ten busy, stressful, happy, confusing, lonely, lovely, life-changing years.  By no means have we "arrived", nor would I call myself an expert.  But I've seen glimpses of what true partnership can be.  It is so good.  Turning to another person and having him meet my needs.  Telling the truth-the whole truth-and he listens and accepts me as I am.  Tackling tasks (whether it is the dishes or raising the children) together and realizing that it takes half the time and energy when we are both giving it our best.  This is how two become one.  By taking care of each other.  By supporting each other.  By working together and building one life, one family, one home.

It really hit me when I asked my husband to buy a new mascara for me at the store.  He was heading out to get groceries with one kid while I stayed home and entertained the other two (it's just easier this way).  I needed a new mascara because I lost the other one.  I found it a few days ago in a box of tampons.  Who knows how it got there.  When I couldn't find it, I assumed it had gotten thrown out by accident or eaten by one of the kids.  So Chris can get me a new one, right?  He doesn't know anything about makeup, but this is what I did: I told him the exact name of what I wanted.  I texted him a message so he could reference it when he got to the store.  It's in an orange tube.  He got there and called me to say they didn't have black, but they had black/brown.  Would that be an okay substitute?  Yeah, it's fine.  And he came home with exactly what I had asked for.  It seems like such a small thing (I mean literally, what's a tube of mascara?  4 inches?), but it represented something huge.  A milestone of sorts.  For the first few years of our marriage, he would go pick up sandwiches for us and I would write out exactly what I wanted, the way you do with your co-workers when everybody orders out.  And he would always bring home French Onion chips.  Why did you get those?  Don't you like them? No.  Oh, well I thought you liked something gross so I figured it was this.  Every.  Single.  Time.  For years.  And I was disappointed because I thought my husband at least should know the kind of chips I like.  It went both ways, truthfully.  I would buy the wrong candy (But I thought you liked this?).  He would buy the wrong shampoo (NO, the green bottle!).  I would pick a movie he hated.  He would listen to music at night.  And on and on.

I'm an independent kind of person anyway.  I know I can at least trust myself to do things the way I like.  And that's a great mentality for a single woman.  But it doesn't make a marriage work.  The partnership that we all crave (whether we say it out loud or not, you know it's true) is the Good Thing that we hope will happen when we say "I do."  But what I've learned over these past ten years is that you only get the Good Thing after you do the Hard Thing.  And the Hardest Thing is to trust.  To be open.  To say, "It really bothers me that you don't remember what kind of chips I like.  I want salt and vinegar."  And to be willing to figure out how to help him remember.  Maybe he needs a text.  Maybe he can only handle a list that has one item on it.  Maybe he needs to carry the empty bottle with him to the store.  (And, for the record, maybe he needs to be slightly less self-involved and pay attention.)  And that goes both ways.  Once you start getting the lunch order right, then you can move on to the bigger things.  The insecurities.  The fears.  The hopes and dreams for the future.  Honesty and vulnerability are Hard Things.

It's a Hard Thing to stand before another person, to bear your soul and your body and the rest of your life, to be naked and unashamed.  And how amazing for him to strip down too, to lay it all out on the table.  Not just that, but to accept you for who you really are, and for you to accept him fully.  That's the Good Thing we are working towards, what makes this all worth it.

Scabs, Wounds, and Healing

Michael fell a few weeks ago.  He was running barefoot at the pool (insert lifeguard whistle) and tripped on a little ledge and went sprawling.  I hurried over, knowing he would need me even before the cries began.  I held him and patted his back, I inspected his knees and hands, I kissed his and head and "I got ya, it's going to be okay".  He kept crying, which was strange, because I didn't see any blood.  It seemed like too much for just a bump.  Then I shifted his body and I saw it: a giant bloody toe.  I had looked in all the expected places for an injury, but it was his toe that had been scraped of skin and was bright red.  I took him to the lifeguard station and we did the usual, antiseptic wipe, pressure to slow the bleeding, a band aid.  I kept holding him for several more minutes, then he was ready to get back down and play with his friends.  We changed the band aid when we got home, applied some Neosporin, covered the foot with a sock so he wouldn't mess with it.

About a week later, he came to sit beside me.  His feet were bare again, and he was looking intently at his injured toe.  He touched it gently, and I noticed that a huge scab had formed over the cut.  "Does it still hurt?" I asked him.  He nodded, still looking at the toe.  "That's called a scab," I explained.  "The scab grows over your cut like a natural band aid and it stays there while the skin heals underneath.  Then, when it's ready, your scab falls off."  I was about to say, "And it'll be like it never happened," but I stopped myself.  That's not accurate, I thought.  I mean, he still remembers the fall and the pain a week later, and while he might forget about it over the course of his life, it's not going to go away.  It was a big enough cut that he'll probably have a scar , a silvery patch of new skin to remind him of the fall.  So instead I said, "When it's ready, your scab falls off and you'll have a little scar where you got hurt.  But once it's healed, it won't hurt you anymore."  He looked at me then.  "It won't hurt no more?"  Nope, it won't hurt no more.

I thought some more about wounds and hurts.  I thought of James, who hits his bruises, hoping it will make them go away.  I thought of my sister, who would pick her scabs too soon and bleed, who would pour nail polish remover over her cuts.  Thankfully she learned better wound care in med school, and when she performs surgery, she stitches and glues and pieces her patients back together.  But it's not just our physical wounds that we mistreat, that we run dirt into or pretend they don't exist. We do this in our wounded hearts, we use crude, ineffective means to cover and hide and our hearts just get mangled in the process.  There is only one way to wholeness, one course of treatment in our bodies AND our hearts to fully heal.  We have to flush our wounds, treat with antiseptic, cover with clean bandages, and we have to let our bodies do the hard work of rebuilding.  We need new skin, new nerves, new connections to grow under our scabs.  And we have to wait, to allow the healing process to complete itself.  Only then can our scabs fall off, our bandages be removed, our bodies and hearts be free to live fully.  Not as pristine as the original, but whole as our scars entwine us and help us to move again.

http://desertstream.org/living-waters/

Because It's Just a Phase

I went out for a date tonight with my husband.  It was sunny and cool and I was hungry, so we went to a restaurant and talked about the big stuff and laughed about the little stuff and shared our food with each other and held hands.  And somewhere between the mozzarella sticks and the ice cream I started thinking about my friends, so many of whom have become parents this past year.  I was thinking about you all and wondering if you're having trouble getting out of the house and leaving the baby with someone else.  (Maybe you are the one having a hard time, maybe the kiddo is screaming when you pass her off to Grandma, maybe it's a little of both.)  Whew, I remember those days.

First-time parents, 2007

I remember when James was just a month old and my parents came over at dinner time and they said, "Leave the baby with us.  Go meet Chris for dinner."  See back in those days, my husband took classes in the mornings and worked all afternoon and came home around 11pm.  I had just stopped working to take care of the baby and didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing all day.  (I watched old seasons of Gilmore Girls and read novels and took the baby for a walk most days.)  So with my parents pushing me out the door, I headed over to my husband's work and met him for his dinner break and we went to Taco Bell and stared at each other until finally he said, "This feels weird."  Because it had been just the two of us for a while, we'd done this plenty of times, but now we were three, and it felt strange to be without the baby.

First Father's Day, 2007

Those early days of parenthood are around-the-clock marathons of giving and sacrificing and bonding so intensely with this new little person.  And it took months, no--years, for us to be able to walk out the door without our little kid screaming and crying and chasing after us.  There were times when I changed my mind about leaving.  Times when it just didn't feel right, I didn't trust the person who was supposed to be taking care of him, so I didn't go.  But there were other times when I knew he would calm down and have fun, I just had to leave and let him realize that other people could take care of him for awhile.  I needed to realize that other people could take care of him too.

Imaginative Play, 2013

But tonight...the boys were invited to come make cookies with Nana, so we loaded up the car.  Everybody grabbed their shoes and socks, and with a little help from us, we were all ready to go.  We pulled in my parents' driveway and there were squeals of delight from the back seat.  "NANA'S HOUSE!!"  I got out of the car, but the kids were already through the door and shoes were off again and by the time I walked inside, they had all dispersed to different corners.  I said a quick hi and thanks to my mom for the opportunity to go out, and as I turned to go, Mikey came running around the corner.  "Hey buddy, I'll see you in a little bit!" I said.  "Okay Mommy, bye bye!" he called over his shoulder as he kept running.

Birthday Bowling, 2014

And it hit me.  You guys, it's just a phase.  Those days of guilt and ambivalence and crying every time you leave...it doesn't last forever.  Those summer afternoons of breastfeeding and napping and bleary-eyed everything.  Those days of camera constantly in hand to document all the amazing, breath-taking NEWNESS.  Those frustrating hours when you just want them to sleep a little so you can look at Facebook or read a magazine or take a shower.  Those moments of doubt when you're sure you're getting it all so very wrong because it just doesn't look like how you thought it would look, your kid doesn't seem to be doing all the stuff the other kids are doing, your hair is messed and all the other moms seem fashionable and put-together.  It's just a phase.  I promise you, just keep going.  You can get through this day and this hour and this moment.  You can do this!!  You are the only person uniquely qualified to care for this little person.  To him, you are the master of the universe.  You control the weather and you make the food and you carry him around and your smile is like seeing the face of God.  And it won't last forever, this 24 hour caregiving.  There will come a day when you drop your kids off at the grandparents' house and they barely notice you leaving.  There will come a day when they walk to the playground with their brother or a friend and you stay behind.  There will come a day when they start reading books to themselves at night while you sit in the other room.  And those are all good things.  Because it's just another phase.

Spreading His Wings, 2014