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Emma Grace

My sweet baby. My happy girl. My snuggler. You lay on my chest as I write, cuddled up against my heart, your soft body rising and falling with each of our breaths. Despite all my many efforts, you arrived right on time. In the wee hours of the morning, on your due date, you gently eased your way into the world. 

The day before, daddy and I arrived at the hospital for a schedule induction. I had never done it that way before. Your siblings had come early - spurred on by my stubborn will and deep desire to be done. But not you. You hung on. You waited. The nurse said things were unfavorable and was I sure I wanted to do this? I wasn’t sure. My new normal. Uncertainty. And then panic. I cried big fat tears of fear. What to do, what to do, what to do.

The doctor arrived. She sat right across from me and held my hands and looked deep into my eyes and told me I was a good momma. She told me unfavorable was not scary. She told me she would meet you before her shift was up. And she was right.

So we took a different route. We tried something new. I let go of the narrative I wanted to write, and let uncertainty be what it was. I took some medication and then a much needed nap. Daddy and I played cards and I ate hospital pasta in a giant tub. And we waited.

“Not much is happening.” That was the refrain. We told Mimi to wait. The anesthesiologist came and went. He was funny. I liked that. We joked. Then it was quiet. Daddy went to sleep. And then pain. Which isn’t how it’s supposed to work. If you brave the giant needle, you’re supposed to skip the pain. I pushed the button again and again and again. Nothing. “Not much is happening” the nurse said again. Agree to disagree. “The anesthesiologist is busy so we’re just going to have to hang on.” I talk the nurse into checking anyway. Just look. For kicks and giggles. Why not. 

And whatdya know. You were ready. Heck, we probably just needed to push a few times and you’d pop out. We shook daddy awake and called Mimi. She probably broke a bunch of laws to get there. The nice doctor showed up. She smiled as she prepared. She knew all along. You would come in your own time. Mimi walked through the door just in time for mommy to give a few good pushes and with great care, that kind doctor eased you out and placed you on my chest. I cried because you were here. It didn’t matter how it came about. You were here and we were together.

You entered a scary world my sweet. You entered a world at war - both literally and figuratively. It has always been this way, but it feels more acute these days. Everyone is angry. Everyone is afraid.

I have learned these past few years that we are addicted to control. We are addicted to the belief that we can choose our path, force our fate. We insure ourselves through whatever means necessary. We pray transactionally - trading certainty for a superficial fidelity. But that isn’t how it works. Even in induction, I had so little control over you my love. Your birth unfolded into my open, receiving hands and all I am left with is wonder and gratitude.

I do not know what your life holds my girl. And I cannot exert any real control over it. I will offer you what I can and you will become who you will become. But you were named for refuge. You were named that you would offer love to a broken world and that remains my prayer for you my darling. For us. May we offer our selves, in surrender, to those around us. May we place our stories in the hands of One who weaves a grander narrative than we can grasp. And along the way, may we find refuge and peace ourselves. I can’t wait to see how your story unfolds my little love. I am so blessed to be your momma.

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TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY and other thoughts on turning 30.

Remember that one time when Jennifer Garner made turning 30 a flirty thing about thriving? She did not turn 30 in 2020. That movie would have sucked.

Tomorrow is Thursday. Just another Thursday. 24 hours and I’m three decades old but I suspect I’ll feel the same. Murky. Murky and 30 and surviving. Instead of a disco dress, I’ll probably go for leggings and a sweater. 

Last weekend a friend asked me if I felt I was making any progress this year. That sounds like a pretty forward question without knowing that I had some mental health issues over the summer, was diagnosed with an obsessive compulsive disorder, and have done a lot of therapy since. #2020.

In context it’s a really great question depending on how you define progress. In answer, I told her I know a lot less than I did at the start of the year, but what I do know feels much more meaningful. What I’ve chosen to cling to runs a mile deep. And I prefer that to living in a world of loose convictions and black and white assumptions. It simultaneously makes my life richer and harder but given the choice, I would probably still choose to end up here.

I now know that brains are super complicated. This seems intuitive, but I now know it in a very tangible way. I’m also working on knowing that sometimes our brains go their own way and that is not a reflection of who we are but a reflection of the intricacies of an organ that does so much to serve us, but can go a little haywire when we ask too much of it. I am still learning this. 

I know that I have good friends. Some new and some old and some unexpected. Friends who show up with dinner when I can’t pull things together and friends who offer gentle reassurances and friends who give me the gift of going second by going first and being vulnerable about their murkiness. I have really good friends.

I now know what it feels like to experience crippling anxiety and depression. I know what it feels like to wonder if you can drown on air. And I know that the only way forward is to fling the door open to all of my demons and say “come on in!” Bear hugs for all of you. Because the only way to break that bitterly painful cycle is to stare it straight in the face and say “I accept.” I don’t like it, but I accept. I accept that the world is uncertain. I accept that bad things happen for no reason at all. I accept that I exist in a state of imperfection - caught up in the tension of living between two trees. I accept that the world is nuanced and complex and that right and wrong is not always black and white. And I accept failure because I want to be in the arena of my life. I want to be present to learning through stumbling. I accept making mistakes. And not even reframing them as successes or having a nice story to tell about them. Just mistakes. That was a stumble. I’m sorry. What’s next. 

In spite of all of that uncertainty I also know that I can still hold my hands out open in both faith and trembling. I know this very loosely, but that’s kind of the point. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called faith. And the real knowledge is that I’m ok with all that I don’t know. There is so much space for not knowing. And still, in all that space, I am learning that I can stand before all the crap of my life and be drenched in grace. That nothing needs to be fixed for me to be loved. And that grace and compassion must be fully received to be given. My ability to be reconciled outwardly begins with my ability to look at myself in the mirror and say “that 30 year old with the inside and outside scars and the baggy eyes, who’s hair is not the honey color it once was - she’s ok. I like her. She’s alright.”

I know that my marriage is sturdy. Which is a very unromantic thing to say. But it’s wildly meaningful to me. I know that I can throw some really ugly versions of myself at the person who committed to sticking around and I now know that he really will. Because he did. He held me at my very worst moments when I had so little to offer anyone and honored his commitment to be with me and for me. This knowledge is invaluable to me now. It’s worth all the marbles and cookies and chips on the table. 

And I know that I am Brave with a capital “B.” I am resilient. And I will be. Because it’s not over. Hardship is not a one time thing. It will visit again. Maybe a year from now or maybe tomorrow. It will knock and I will answer. Because I know that it’s still worth showing up. Stephen Colbert once said in an interview, “Every day we are volunteers.” We have that hanging in our play room because it’s true. Every dang day, we are volunteers in the life we want to have. Not necessarily the circumstances, and sometimes not even in the emotional and behavioral responses it turns out. But in the willingness to try - we are volunteers. So tomorrow, I will volunteer to turn 30 and I will keep going, keep learning, keep being open to the uncertainty and the what-ifs of being human, and infinitely grateful for the tiny miracles that still seem to burst into my life. 

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Unsensational

I’m going back to school next week. Pursuing an MBA at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Tied for 12th in the nation. Sensational! I’ve waited 7 years to formally go back to school. Filling in that time with silly certificates to quench the thrill of learning. I’m really proud of myself. But not for the name or the rank. 

I’m only taking one class at a time starting with statistics. I love statistics. Maneuvering data to make sense of the world. But I’m still apprehensive. Still wondering if I will be enough after all these years. I’m working very hard to care less and less about rank and title. But that doesn’t mean everyone else is. “It takes courage to defect.” Or so my favorite therapist says.

I have several now. Last year it was lawyers. This year it’s therapists. Cycling through professional arenas, I am. It feels like a lifetime ago I started. Poked and prodded a bit and then things got worse before they got better. And then even worse. 

I’m sure you’ve heard it’s 2020. Weird year, am I right? Really threw a curve ball for some of us pretending to manage our stress and anxiety. Keeping it in check before all the masks and the anger and the news. Freaking news. 

“I think I’m paranoid. Like, legitimately paranoid.” I tell my uncle. We talk more. I tell him about all the things I’m afraid of. Lead poisoning, our new house collapsing, someone mask raging at me. He recommends reaching out to a psychiatrist so I do. We try something. Because that’s what you do with psychiatry. Brains are insanely complicated I’m learning. It doesn’t work. It really doesn’t work. Things unravel. The sheer fear of being alive turns inward, wakes me in the dead of night, whispers the worst things to me, tells me I don’t belong. Worst week of the worst year. That was the week I was supposed to go back to school, but it’s very difficult to show up for class when you’re locked in your room sleeping all day, not eating, hiding. So I do the one thing I know to do. I ask for help.

And like I knew they would, they show up. My community shows up with meals and flowers and brain science. They show up over text and phone calls with tips and stories, normalizing my experience with their own. They come over and play with my kids and listen and nod and reassure. They bring groceries, and mini muffins, and hope. 

I defer. I ask for grace. Instead of learning about financial accounting, I enroll in a program for learning about generalized anxiety. Three times a week for two hours, I learn about mindfulness, emotional regulation, and distress tolerance. I ask questions and discover coping mechanisms. I am diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and a few pieces start to fall into place. I learn that the only way forward is through. I grit my teeth and lean in.

This morning I take my children to get flu shots. We are late and I feel it coming. The tightness, the heat, the dread. The drowning in air. But I don’t shout “go away.” I don’t give up and go back inside. I buckle everyone in and get in the car and shout inside my head “I ACCEPT THIS MOMENT.” I text tom. I tell him it’s hard. I didn’t sleep well, drank caffeine, didn’t do anything relaxing the night before. I acknowledge the context of my situation and it’s influence on me. I am not my thoughts. He texts me back “You can do this. Just another AFOG.” Another Forking Opportunity for Growth. Thank you therapy. 

We get our flu shots and come home. And the day continues. Life continues. If you’re unfamiliar, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is about uncertainty. It’s about dealing with our “what if’s” and our “unknowns.” It’s trying to solve for x when x is an infinite number of variables. Put another way, it’s about being a human person. What I’m learning is that the only way to handle it is acceptance so I am learning to accept. I am learning to accept the dissonance of the world, the unforeseen curveballs, the tension inherent in taking up space here. I am learning to make friends with discomfort and anxiety. My newest therapist says the goal is not to remove anxiety, but to learn not to avoid it. So that’s something.

I’m going back to school next week. Even though I don’t know yet what it will be like or whether or not I will do well. I am, however, legitimately pumped. Not for the ranking but for the opportunities for growth. For the leadership programs about learning how to lead as your authentic self, for the storytelling retreats where participants learn the art of sharing your story, for the kindness of the people I’ve met along the way who are proud of what they’re apart of in a gracious and inviting way. For the chance to do something that reflects who I am and what I care about.

And I’m stinkin’ proud of myself. Not for getting in, not even for going. I’m proud of myself for the work that I’m doing that really matters. This is a hard story to share and I’m going to share it on social media even though at this point I think social media is mostly garbage and a very significant source of anxiety for a lot of us. I’m sharing because others shared with me and it made me brave and this is what brave looks like. Because I know that I’m not the only one, but the only way to know that is to say it out loud. 

The story isn’t over. There’s still a lot of work to do. So much to learn about resting and being kind to myself. But I will do the work a thousand times over because it’s worth it. And I will do it with the people who continue to remind me that there’s still a lot of good in the world. It’s just not on the news. Stop watching the news. 

It’s tempting to isolate right now. To hide the things that make you feel off or different or afraid or ashamed. Please don’t. I know it’s hard. It’s so hard to show up. But that’s what we call success in my mindfulness class. Simply showing up is a huge win.

I’ve made leaps and bounds of progress in the last few months. And it’s mostly because of my people. Especially my teammate. My sweet, scruffy, supremely thoughtful teammate who leaned in with me. Who held me in the dark when I asked through tears if I was ok, who took time off to go to all of my appointments, who read the books and listened to me process and asked me what would bring me joy and then told me to buy it (that’s a joke). Every day tom boundy makes good on his vow to do life with me for Jesus and with Jesus for me and it continues to blow me away. Especially now. 

I met with my favorite therapist last week. We are working on defining my beliefs and values and it is magical and moving every dang time. Last week we talked about familiarity and being enough and we both cried when he told me his own story of realizing he was infinitely loved and known at the moment when he had the least human capital to offer. And I understood, just barely, what he was talking about. It reminded me of a quote by Mister Rogers who used to sing a wonderful song about liking someone just as they are. Not for what they wear, their material possessions, their degrees and certificates, not for who they’ve been or who they are becoming - who they are right now. He later commented on the song, saying, “And what that ultimately means, of course, is that you don't ever have to do anything sensational for people to love you.” 

Put even simpler, it says I am enough. Enough to be loved, enough to be seen, enough to belong. So I’ll just messily end with this, if you need to talk, I want to talk. I want to share this hard story and hear your hard story, and keep learning what it looks like to be brave and show up. Because even in the midst of this garbage year, it’s still worth it. 

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Boxes and Bubble Wrap and Muffins

I grew up in a yellow house with red brick and green shutters. When it snowed we built a sledding hill on the stairs that led from the yard to the green belt and in the summer we played in the ditch. When I was 18 I moved to the land of Barbie and Bugatti. I met famous people and homeless people and everyone in between. The next year I lived in Tuscany and I ate my weight in Tiramisu and Pesto. I met David and my best friend and myself. After a year of magical living, I went home and sold my magic for a job in retail and a little black honda. I drove that honda back to the beach and lived in a “stinky” apartment and ate quesadillas every day for a whole year. I spent a summer “interning” and sublet a room in a house with a girl that breathed daisies and moved back into an apartment on a hill that looked out over the most beautiful view of the pacific ocean. I ran the hill every morning and drank coffee every afternoon and read financial reports on the floor in the dark until 2 in the morning. I fought with a boy. I fought with a plan. I fought with myself. I fell in love with a boy. I graduated on a park in a cloud. I got an apartment that faced the 101. The washing machine broke and flooded the kitchen. I moved into the front third of a trailer and married the boy. I stored my clothes in a tetris of bookshelves and fought with the boy. I “slept” on the futon. I quit a job. I started a job. We moved back to a basement and my past. We started a PhD and made a new person. We bought a townhouse. We birthed a new person. The washing machine broke and flooded the basement. We made friends and celebrated. We found opportunity and moved next to a spaceship. We made another person. I vomited. Things fell apart. I cried. I fought with the boy. I fought with myself. I drove and flew and drove and flew up and down and back and forth. We came back. We birthed a new human. We bought a house. We sold a house. We packed amid a pandemic. Life wrapped in bubble wrap into boxes. 

I wrap and I tape and I remember. Growth is seen in hindsight. Faithfulness is backwards looking. Before the masks and the closed signs and the safer at home, I sat on a back porch in the autumn sun glancing at the kindest face I’ve ever seen and hearing stories told in a sweet southern accent. Some of the stories were beautiful and some were hard but they came together to form conviction. She knew the arc. She knew who drew it. She knew what it meant for the story left untold. 

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. (And it’s not.) But if you just look at a day or a week or even a month of performance, you can’t see the trajectory. You can’t really tell where you are or where you’ve been, least of all where you’re going. But if you back up and see the graph of 5 years, 10 years, 30 years, you start to see the upward trajectory. The story makes more sense. The movement upwards becomes more obvious. I remember the ancient stories and the promises. A blessing for a nation as numerous as the stars. “El Roi.” A God who sees. Even me. Promises fulfilled over thousands of years. A story with an arc only seen from a thousand miles away. 

When I was in high school I would make muffins the third Friday of every month. Muffin Friday. I would make two or three hundred mini muffins. The boxed mix kind: banana nut, blueberry, cinnamon streusel. I would bag them up and put them into a gift bag and take them to school to hand out. (This was before paranoia). Being a teenager is weird. I still don’t understand it. But growth is seen in hindsight. And I think what I was trying to say with all those muffins to all those peers was that I see you. Have a muffin. Be seen today in the tiniest, most insignificant way, but nevertheless - be seen. It’s hard to see right now. It’s hard to see others who disagree with where you’re at and what you feel. It’s hard to see where this is going and how to prepare or even just how to be. It’s hard to feel seen when resources like time and money are scarce. Even so, there is an arc to this moment. 

We made muffins this afternoon. Me and Elsa of Arendelle, situated on top of a step stool, apple juice dribbling down her chin and onto her sequined dress. We made them from scratch because growth - measuring ingredients into the bowl, gently folding in the fresh blueberries and shredded gala, sprinkling the oats on top. I hope when this is over and we settle back in to the “normal” of things I will remember. I hope I remember sticky fingers and spilt milk. I hope I remember endless hours of bad TV cuddled up to the one who settles me and long walks under the bluest skies. I hope I remember the friends who checked in and the faces of everyone who chose to be kind in midst of so much fear. I hope the story I tell is one of conviction in faithfulness. I hope I look back and discover that I was seen the entire time.

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Pressing Forward

I sit cross-legged on a checkerboard quilt in the evening heat eating pizza with friends. I see her little frame chasing after the big kids, dragging her little stuffed elephant, Zoe, behind her. I watch as an older girl grabs the soft, worn lovey and flings it across the grass. “Go get it!” the older girl shouts. My momma heart shears in two as I watch my sweet girl chase after Zoe. The older girl grabs the elephant again and I stand up to intervene, but my husband grabs my arm. “Wait” he says, “Let’s see how she responds. Let’s let her learn.” The interaction continues and I see the confusion on my girl’s face – torn between wanting so desperately to play with the big kids but also not wanting her precious Zoe to be tossed so carelessly. Eventually my husband decides that enough is enough at roughly the same time the other girl’s parents catch on to the situation. The sun is setting and it’s time to go inside anyway. I exhale the breath I’ve been holding in as my girl bounces inside. She is tired but happy. She is resilient.

My girl. Just like momma. So quick to placate, to give in for the sake of the status quo. I see so much of myself in her – letting my dreams and goals be tossed again and again – afraid to speak too loudly, too timid to be heard. But I am learning. It’s been of year and a half of learning the art of healthy confrontation and how to advocate for myself. Boy has it been hard. I think we often overcorrect when we discover a problem. Like the financial markets, we swing to the outer edges of the pendulum, struggling to find the delicate, peace-filled balance of resting in the middle. When the markets get too expensive, they sell-off too hard, and in the months and years to come, go through the steps of resettling. In the face of disappointment, I feel as if I have to smash plates to finally be heard. And yet, shards of broken glass don’t help anyone. And that’s not who I am anyway.

I want my daughter to learn how to take up space without having to constantly ask for permission. But I want her to learn how to do so without always having to shout. I want her to learn to advocate for her needs and her wants while still respecting the needs and wants of others, recognizing that sometimes our needs and wants are at odds with those around us and require compromise. In a world teaching her to win at all costs, I want her to learn the delicate dance of fighting for what she believes in without demolishing the dignity of those she may be at odds with. Insecurity is not the same thing as the true beauty of humility. Neither is arrogance a substitute for contented confidence. I hope she and I continue to learn that together.

For those of you who have followed my book and blog, I want to thank you so much for your support. I also want to let you know that journey has come to an end. As I relaunch and retool and embark once again on the process of starting anew, I find myself taking steps towards gratitude for the process. I am grateful for the journey that has brought me to this point and while I have chosen to follow a new path, I remain thankful for the road that brought me here and those that walked with me for a time. And I’m excited for what’s ahead and for the choices that I’ve made to advocate for myself and my family. In her book Yes Please, Amy Poehler offers some of the best advice that I am trying to take to heart: “Good for her. Not for me.” To me that seems to be the healthy middle part of the pendulum. I am choosing what’s best for me and that’s ok. And it doesn’t mean that when others choose something different, they’re wrong. It means we’re both advocating for ourselves and our needs and preferences and that’s a good thing.

Pressing forward, I remain committed to the beliefs that started me on this journey – beliefs that evolve as I do but will hopefully stay planted in the good soil from which they grew. With regards to my work, I still believe that wealth is simply a store for value and that what we do with our money is infinitely more important than how much we have. I still hope to offer the very best of my knowledge and resources to the women who choose to be a part of my journey and I’m excited to continue down the road together. If there’s anything I can do, to help you along in your journey – please don’t hesitate to let me know. I’m excited to share with you what I’ve been working on in the near future. May we learn to be smarter and more confident together. 

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Divots

“I’m looking for a dresser for a little girl” I text her. She is my 7th grade English teacher. I have always loved adults. Also, I have always been a suck-up. She has a dresser and a vanity – her daughter’s. Free to the right home. We go to see them. They are tucked under a tarp on the side of her house. Covered in teal and white paint, but the perfect size. As we examine them from different angles I can see the potential. Thank goodness for imagination. “We will take them.”

We listen to the Eagles and Billy Joel while we sand. Sometimes he sings along. I get my introversion from my daddy. Weekends and late nights we scrub the furniture, removing layer after layer of paint until we get to the wood. Slowly but surely the bones of the furniture are laid bare. Unlike the dresser I could have bought at Ikea, this one is made from real wood. One last sanding with fine paper and the wood is soft to the touch. I run my hand across the swirls of dark and light. I stop at a divot. The tiniest amount of teal paint peaks out from the little hole left behind. All the sanding in the world won’t fix every blemish. After weeks and weeks of prep, it’s finally time. I dip a worn washcloth into a little bucket of watered-down cream paint and slowly rub the side of the dresser. The dry wood drinks up the mixture, turning the surface a soft white but unlike painting the furniture, with washing the wood still shows through. I love it.

We talk about recycling a lot at my house. How to recycle clothes and food and houses and trash and metals and ourselves. I know what attrition means. Kind of. We wash our trash so it can be reused. We are recycling people. I am proud of my furniture recycling. I am a grade A Tombo wife. Or like a B- because I drive an SUV and shower a lot.

It dawns on me in the course of my furniture redemption that the wood and I have a lot in common. There are so many surfaces of my own life being sanded down these days. All the areas I have tried to control, plucked from my fingers one by one. Surrender, surrender, surrender. I feel the core of my character being remolded and reshaped even as my loyalist preferences for safety and security bemoan the tension. But you cannot stay as you are. You must hatch or go bad. And as time and circumstance weather my soul, I am again laid bare, dry and thirsty. I soak the rag in the white water and drink in the old lyrics in my head, “washed white as snow.”

But those divots. Still, they remain. And isn’t that the most interesting part. It’s not a one and done like I always thought and even still wish. The grain still shows through. It’s not a checklist but a process and I must learn to stop racing to the finish, lest I fail to rest in the journey. Washed white and yet still becoming.

She rolls towards us on her tricycle through sheer momentum and gravity, her legs too short to pedal. “Is my furniture ready yet mommy?” she says with her sweet toddler lisp. “Soon baby.” Soon.

God, give me grace to accept with serenity The things that cannot be changed. Courage to change the things Which should be changed, And the Wisdom to distinguish The one from the other.

Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, Taking, as Jesus did, This sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it, Trusting that You will make all things right, If I surrender to Your will, So that I may be reasonably happy in this life, And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

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Repurposed

I trip over the box of shoes coming in from the garage and curse under my breath. There are dirty dishes piled up in the sink and laundry in the dryer waiting to be folded and I’m pretty sure the pasta we’re having for dinner is expired. The baby is screaming from the other room for the zillionth time today as she streaks past me, arms loaded high with toys and stuffed animals and I just barely hear her exclaim “I am strong like mommy!” I pause with the box of diapers and feel the air catch in my throat. 

There’s a song on the radio right now about being broken and beautiful. It’s catchy but I disagree strongly with the sentiment. No one has ever looked at a car with a smashed bumper and called it beautiful. Without movement, without redemption, brokenness is just brokenness. Without recycling, that trash heap is just a pile of unwanted items that no longer work. On the inside I feel not quite broken, but stuck. For weeks, every hour refreshing my email, waiting for lawyers to give me permission to finally move forward, knowing deep down that simply having permission to work again won’t fix all of the disappointment or dissipate all the fatigue and frustration. I want so desperately to ascend the hill, move past this season of late nights and unknowns, but I guess it’s still not time yet.

This fall we turn five. Five is the wood anniversary which seems fitting. To celebrate, he says he wants to buy me a special table - a place for friends and family to gather and be seen and heard and, of course, a place to eat. A few years ago, the Rocky Mountains were attacked by beetles. They bore their way through tree after tree, leaving huge swaths of gray where there had once been green. This morning we visited a craftsman who makes the most stunning tables out of what has come to be known as beetle kill wood. It’s my favorite kind of pine - streaked with blues and grays from where the beetles had been. I run my hand over the smooth wood, eager for the day when we break bread over a table repurposed from death. “What was intended for harm, He has repurposed for good.” I wonder if my insides are streaked like that wood. Rivulets of blue telling the story of me. 

They say that when he was asked about his faith, Kierkegaard would say that he was “becoming a Christian” - having not yet arrived and still partially broken but in the process of being made beautiful. I know that she thinks I am strong because we tell her when I leave for my weightlifting class in the morning that “mommy is going to the gym to get strong.” She holds up her little arms and flexes to show us her strong muscles. And maybe that is the whole point. I am strong because I am still trying, still growing up, still becoming. I am strong for every morning that I choose to go to the gym instead of sleep in, strong for all the times I take a deep breath and hug them instead of scream in frustration, strong for all the times I turn towards my spouse when I want to say the hurtful thing and walk away, strong for all the times I kneel and humbly ask once again to be repurposed and made new. I hope the process, however painful it sometimes is, continues. I hope I remember to let her see it. 

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Dry Bones

It’s been almost three weeks since you got here. For once you are quiet in the backseat as we drive through the snow. We’re a little late, as is to be expected for someone in our situation, but you are tiny and precious and all is forgiven. The room is softly lit snd lined with pictures of so many faces of friends. A woman plays the guitar and sings soft, moving words in the corner. As we sit down to eat, the founders offer stories of their friends and the lives that have intermingled on the streets of Denver. Some stories are humorous, others painful. We finish dinner and move towards the center of the room to hear more. That is the purpose of the evening - to partake in shared stories.

The name of the organization comes from the book of Ezekiel - a story I’m familiar with only from the lyrics to the song Skeleton Bones. The speaker tells of how Ezekiel has a vision of a valley of bones and the Lord says to him “can these bones live?” to which Ezekiel responds “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” He could have responded based on what he saw. “No Lord, these are the bones of the dead and there is no hope for them.” Or he could have responded with great confidence that he had seen the Lord do mighty things and of course the Lord could raise up these bones. But instead, he responds in humility. Lord, only you know. 

I think back to a sermon a few weeks ago and a time of honest prayer. I confess that there are those I have written off whose bones I have proclaimed dry and hopeless. It’s not always the stranger on the street with the cardboard sign that I’m prone to look away from. Sometimes it’s the ones I know well whose deep value I am prone to forget in my own selfish impatience. 

The next day I look up the story the old fashioned way. No app or .com for me. I pull out the worn leather book and sift through the thin, crinkled pages that once shone with faux gold. The table of contents falls to the floor. Thank you toddler. And there it is, in the middle with all the weird stuff. “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” And then... “Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.” On first read it’s kind of creepy - a valley of bones standing up to salute - but I read further and the redemptive undertones are overwhelming. “O breathe, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.”

I simmer as the pediatrician tells us if the female child doesn’t get enough iron in her diet her IQ could be ten points lower. For starters, her iron levels are fine and I think she is brilliant, but who cares. What about her joy? What about her capacity for kindness? What about her ability to embrace humanity with humility? Is there room for those things? Is there more to her life’s value than intellectual success? 

In those rare moments between eating and sleeping your little blue eyes stare up into mine. I wonder about you. Who will you be? I pray that against all odds that you are kind. I hope that in a world pushing you to succeed in sports and school, bullying you to be handsome, well dressed, and wealthy, I hope that you would be kind. I hope you would have the humility not to proclaim judgment over others whose stories you do not know. I hope you would leave room always for grace. Lord, only you know.

As we pull out of our space at the grocery store I see her standing on the corner and I remember the stories from that night. “You’re not obligated to give me a quarter, but you don’t have to hate me with your eyes.” Her face is worn from years of exposure to the sun but she seems to be smiling. I roll down the window and hand her one of the grocery store gift cards that I keep in the console. And then I remember to smile. “Take care” I say and for once I mean it. 

“Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.” - Ezekiel 37

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Everett

Everett Tyler. You were born on February 6th - the same day as your daddy and your MAGs (Most Awesome Grandpa - yes, we let him choose his own grandparent name...). I tried to get you here the day before so you could share a birthday with Uncle Davis but I was not successful. Sorry Dave.

The night before you were born, I couldn’t sleep. I was stressing about all the things that could go wrong in life and trying to ignore what I knew deep down were contractions. I played this game for several hours before finally giving in and shaking your daddy awake. We filled up the bathtub and called the nurse hotline. I opened up the baby app and began timing contractions. Two minutes apart. Your daddy argued with the nurse who wanted us to wait. After an hour of increasingly intense contractions, we decided to ignore that nurse and follow our hearts. We called your grandparents who rushed over. We left MAGs with your sister and loaded up the car and headed to the hospital. It was time.

When we got there at 2am, mommy was already 6 cm. Way to go little man! The nurses brought mommy the laughing gas like she used for your sister and we proceeded the same way as last time. But of course, things never go as planned and unlike last time there was “a bulging sack of water” that kept getting in the way of your progress. At 6am we checked again. 7cm. Not as far along as we had hoped. And we were tired. Mommy was tired. She hadn’t slept at all the night before and she was losing the mental battle. A nurse suggested we break that “bulging sack of water.” If that meant things would speed up then by all means. Let’s pop that sucker! But of course, a doctor has to break that dumb sack and all of the doctors were tied up in an emergency C-section. It would probably be another 2 hours before anyone could come. 

It was at that point that mommy gave up. You should know that mommy does not like needles. She is not a fan of those things - so much so that she gave birth to your sister free-range. Which is why it was a big deal when she broke down sobbing and pleaded with your daddy for an epidural. And your sweet daddy looked her straight in the face and told her it was ok, that she wasn’t a failure, and that she could have one. Sometime later, a nice man stuck a giant needle in mommy’s back and became her best friend in the whole world. The next few hours were slow and quiet. Mommy, Daddy, and Mimi all took a nice nap while the snow fell. Finally, those doctors wrapped up all the emergency C-sections and one came in and broke that stupid “bulging sack of water” and wham bam - within an hour you had moved into place. 10 whole centimeters. The nice nurse told your mommy that you would likely come in two contractions. This felt like the greatest lie in the world, but she was nice so I pretended to believe her. She was right. We did some “practice” pushing (like that’s a thing) and several contractions later, you popped right out. I cried big heavy tears as they put you on my chest. Your daddy smile and your Mimi patted the nice nurse. You were covered in crud and it was disgusting. But it didn’t matter. You were ours.

The name Everett means strong and brave as a wild boar, but that’s not why we chose that name for you. Quite the opposite. The name Everett made us think of the mountains - of the world’s tallest peak or a town in the PNW. Your parents love the mountains. Your mommy is a proud Colorado native who grew up at the foot of the Rockies and loves the smell of pine. In another life, your daddy would have been a John-the-Baptist type monk - roaming the mountains full-bearded and barefoot. But he married your mommy so instead he has to settle for camping with Micah and Uncle Dave. 

All my life, the mountains have stood there - steady and quiet - humbling with their vastness and consistency. They stand there, firmly planted; immoveable - a reminder of a mysterious and mighty creator. It was on top of a mountain that God showed his faithfulness to Abraham and his glory to Moses. From a mountainside, Jesus taught us the upside down nature of His Kingdom and the types of individuals that are truly blessed. We see the mountains play a special role in the grandest story - a place where individuals have gone for centuries to be quiet and close to the Lord. And so that is our hope for you Everett - that you would be like the mountains: steady, humble, and near to God. In a world that seems to have forgotten what healthy masculinity actually looks like, our hope is that you grow to be a man of peace who knows who he is and whose he is. We hope you grow to rest in the solitude and solace of the mountains and the great God who created them, and that from a deeply rooted place of peace, you would have the strength and bravery to love others well. Your daddy and I count it one of the greatest privileges of our lives to walk this journey with you and we are so eager to know the man you will become. We love you our little Boundy boy mountain man.

“Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong, Let all that you do be done in love.” - Paul

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Just Because

We moved in March. Cars move slower with trailers. And babies. We got here at 1 am. Corporate housing and I have different ideas of what “furnished” means. We gave our money to Ikea and I told myself that rugs and pillows would make it better. I can do this. The weeks go by and the scruffy one and I argue. He likes the fruit. It is big and powerful. It is full of smart people and an abundance of resources. Inside, I am afraid of what that means. We fuss about the future. He tells me to be flexible and open to new possibilities. Being open is hard. I miss my people. I miss my home. I miss the way it was.

We travel. A lot. Brene crosses off her 30th flight in 15 months of life. A trip a month. I scramble to piece together childcare and hope that my brave girl won’t resent me too much for leaving her with strangers. It’s raining one morning. I sit next to a fire in a country club waiting for a board meeting to start that I have dreaded for weeks. It’s warm, but I am freezing. The meeting begins and I can’t breathe. My chest tightens and my vision blurs. Is this what death feels like? I hear myself telling them that I have to leave. A coworker takes me home and gives me something for anxiety. I miss my flight home.

A month later I receive an email from a lawyer. The subject line includes the words “cease” and “desist.” Someone else owns the right to give advice to girlfriends. This is my greatest nightmare - the grownup version of being called into the principal’s office. “It’s their fault” everyone says, “they should have caught this for you. That’s what you paid them for.” But it doesn’t matter. I feel embarrassed and ashamed anyway. But it has to be fixed. So I fix it. I retitle everything. Regroup. Rebrand. Pick up the pieces. Tape them back together.

The summer drags on. More travel. More talk of change. More conflict and tension. Brene discovers her feelings. They are overwhelming at times - those feelings. She expresses outwardly what I feel on the inside. I am tired and worn. We spend the days on the couch watching HGTV and Rockies baseball. Bryan Shaw and Wade Davis ruin many nights. 

Tom is faith walking. I can’t faith walk because I forgot to attend the retreat. But I am not deterred by such logistical obstacles. I walk alone. I have lots of free time to think about myself and how I view the world. I hone in on a particular preference for fairness. The more I ponder it the more I discover all the ways it colors my life. I think about how it secretly makes me happy when people get parking tickets for breaking the rules. I confess to my spouse that I resent him for the times he’s made me choose something less than I felt I’ve deserved. We argue about strollers and buying used cars. I follow the fairness story back through college, high school, all the way down to grade school where I discovered the transactional joy of turning hard work into awards. It’s a delicious power; a form of control - being able to force a desired outcome. I recall all of the times it didn’t turn out the way I wanted and the frustration I still have for those instances. 

I stumble at grace. An unfair transaction. There is no trade. Just a gift. Why? For the first time in my 20 something years of singing the songs and flapping around the good book I find myself truly and deeply puzzled. It doesn’t make sense. I still believe in the theology but I am less convinced of the personal, intimate relationship part.  It’s my understanding that the grace is given without regards to my awards or degrees or designations but I have relied on those for so long. That is who I am. If someone does not love me for who I am, then what do they love me for, if they even do at all?

Tom tells me to think about blessings so I make a list. It starts with dumb things like my job and my education and my possessions but deep down those are all still things I believe I have earned and deeper down and I know that it’s all rubbish. I move on to people. Surely family is unearned. But even some of them like me for my talents and skills. I move down the list and come to rest on her name. I see her soft face that hid such a stubborn will. I think of the gifts. So many lavish gifts - a piano, a downpayment on a car, a semester of college - all given without explanation, always in secret, left with a simple card that read “Love Grandma Fritzie.” I remember the times I was a brat to her, the times I shoved my brother and called him stupid, the times I demanded things and disrespected her. It dawns on me that I was entirely undeserving of her love and yet it was poured out on me so honestly and purely with no regard for my accomplishments or awards. Just because she loved me. The next day the pastor talks about mentors. At the end of the service he asks us to think of someone who has loved us well, to consider the gift that they are as a reflection of the love He has for us. How dare he corner me like that. Get out of my soul you Fred Rogers look alike!

A week later we sit waiting for the nurse. She is an hour late, but she is kind and thinks I am funny. I forgive her. She looks at my chart. Do we have questions? No, not really, though I’d like to stop barfing soon. She wheels the machine over and we all listen. She finds my heartbeat, a steady thump thump thump. It takes a minute to find the other heart - the tiny, fragile, newly formed heart - and I hold my breath. Then we hear it. A whirring. She leaves it there and we listen and I am undone. I love you stranger baby. Not because of who you are or what you will be but because you are mine, made in my image, created in my likeness. I love you just because.

And maybe that’s it. The whole story. The conclusion to the grandest, most extravagant tale ever told. All the covenants, so many sacred promises, a reckless people endlessly ransomed. The reason for unfair grace. You are loved just because you are His. 

It’s August now. In three weeks I get to go home. In 27 weeks I get to meet my little stranger baby. I feel empty; overwhelmed by so much uncertainty. The ground feels shakier than ever before. “Let go” a voice whispers. But it is difficult and it hurts. Letting go feels like defeat. I have given so much of myself to stability and achievement. What if I am nothing without them? I resist the urge to buy an “adulting is hard” mug. I wish the hot water heater would quit breaking.

I watch my curious, daring girl stumble at the park. She trips over a pile of mulch and faceplants into a bush. I race to pick her up, identifying with her situation in a million ways. But she is undeterred. I dust her off and whisper “I love you” before she takes off again. I love you. Just because.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up;    you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down    and are acquainted with all my ways.  Even before a word is on my tongue,    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.  You hem me in, behind and before,    and lay your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;    it is high; I cannot attain it.

 Where shall I go from your Spirit?    Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there!    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,  even there your hand shall lead me,    and your right hand shall hold me.  If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,    and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you;    the night is bright as the day,    for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works;    my soul knows it very well.

February 2019.  Three become four. I can’t wait to meet you little one. You are so very loved.

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Stuff

Oh this book. This dumb, annoying, butthole book. How you elude me. At every step, every decision-point you find a way to delay. This labor of love and hate. We are so close. But of course “we are experiencing a high volume of printing at the moment.” Two weeks instead of 24 hours. How you laugh in the face of my schedules and spreadsheets.

But it’s just stuff.

The house is cluttered. I spent the weekend on tiled floors, Powerade in hand. The bug catches me unawares and I leave all the energy I have left in that ugly porcelain bowl. There are piles of dishes and laundry everywhere.

But it’s just stuff.

327 unfiled emails. 15 hour work trips and 5 hour meetings. I need to pack. For three days, then a week, then 6 months all in succession. It’s cold in one place and warm in another. I have a speech to write and nametags to print. I hope we have enough diapers. But you know...

... it’s just stuff.

And I refuse to let the stuff rob me of joy. I refuse to lose out on the chance to giggle with my toothless girl and watch her grow and marvel. I refuse to miss out on the chance to sit with my scruffy guy and a bowl of peanut butter cups and talk about what it means to love the mourning and the meek, the persecuted and the peacemaker, the poor, the merciful, and the pure of heart - because they are blessed and stuff is not. 

The irony is that the book is about stuff. But only because I’m so done with the stuff taking advantage of the person in the worst of situations. And I believe the best way to deal with the stuff is to name and claim it. To steward it well, but not let it steward me. After all, we can only serve one master.

So. Hey you stuff! I am done with you! I accept that I cannot control you. I will deal with you when the time comes. But today I will remember and enjoy the not-stuff. The “good stuff.” The fresh air, meals with friends, restful naps stuff. Because she is no fool who gives what she cannot keep to gain what she cannot lose.

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Shallow Bowls

I kick up leaves as I run - leaves that were buried in white just a day ago. My thoughts race miles ahead of my feet. The night after tragedy I sat on the floor in the dark, watching her tiny body twist and turn in slumber. I force myself not to feel guilt; not to apologize for bringing her into this mess. I contemplate tying her up; hiding her away. It’s not safe out there! I can practically hear her time, ticking away as I sit.

I’m told I earned a bonus this year. I feel nauseous. I tell tom it’s too much. We have too much. I can’t possibly be worth any of it. We have to get rid of it. Quick. Give it all away. Not out of generosity but out of guilt.

It’s all too much and not enough.

I breathe curses at my rebooting computer. Deplorable Microsoft. Why is everything broken?  “’Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’”

I tell tom the Pastor says we are to be funnels - that the blessings should flow through us. He screws up his face and I watch him think, knowing how seriously he takes metaphors. “No” he says, “We are to be shallow bowls. We are to remain full as we overflow.”

I replay the words of a poem on generosity and remember the prayer of Agur. I wrestle with the concept of enough. I stand in the kitchen and vomit thought after thought on a new friend who made the mistake of bringing up risk and suffering. Her words echo long after she’s left, “The least risky place for us to be is doing the will of God.” I remember the grateful hug of a friend for a silly gift given - not knowing the full story of her week. And I am reminded that the opportunities to give are plentiful - that the risk of living is overshadowed by the abundance of grace. All is grace.

I run harder and the tears come fast, mixing with sweat. I remember a slow dance in a white dress - farther along we’ll know all about it/farther along we’ll understand why. I feel the fingers of my life relax, albeit in the tiniest of ways. The bowl cannot overflow if I try to protect what’s already in it. Clenched fists cannot receive. It dawns on me that blessings are different from rewards. I want so badly for everything to line up. I want rules and order; a life of cause and react. But abundance isn’t meant to be governed by rules. It’s meant to overflow.

And I don’t have clean cut answers. The wrestling isn’t magically resolved. But the joints in my knuckles are easing. For a moment, I rest in the certainty that I have eyes that can see and an abundance that is meant to overflow. It’s the only way my shallow bowl can be full.

On Generosity On our own, we conclude: there is not enough to go around we are going to run short of money of love of grades of publications of sex of beer of members of years of life we should seize the day seize our goods seize our neighbours goods because there is not enough to go around and in the midst of our perceived deficit you come you come giving bread in the wilderness you come giving children at the 11th hour you come giving homes to exiles you come giving futures to the shut down you come giving easter joy to the dead you come – fleshed in Jesus. and we watch while the blind receive their sight the lame walk the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead are raised the poor dance and sing we watch and we take food we did not grow and life we did not invent and future that is gift and gift and gift and families and neighbours who sustain us when we did not deserve it. It dawns on us – late rather than soon- that you “give food in due season you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing.” By your giving, break our cycles of imagined scarcity override our presumed deficits quiet our anxieties of lack transform our perceptual field to see the abundance………mercy upon mercy blessing upon blessing. Sink your generosity deep into our lives that your muchness may expose our false lack that endlessly receiving we may endlessly give so that the world may be made Easter new, without greedy lack, but only wonder, without coercive need but only love, without destructive greed but only praise without aggression and invasiveness…. all things Easter new….. all around us, toward us and by us all things Easter new. Finish your creation, in wonder, love and praise. Amen.” ― Walter Brueggemann

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What’s Not on the Facebook Wall

Did you see my anniversary post? The one with the super sweet picture of when I got married and Tombo and I were at the height of our attractiveness? Did you see the witty, clever thing I wrote about our perfect marriage? Wasn’t it great? Well it’s fake. At the very least, it’s not the whole story. And I think the whole story needs to be shared. Because otherwise I’m perpetuating the false belief that social media is where my perfect life can be lived and that’s a bummer. 

7.5 months ago we welcomed Brené Ruth Boundy out into this broken, wondrous world and we have come to adore her. She is fierce and wildly curious and from the beginning she wrecked us. She wrecked our notion of love and our bent towards selfishness. She also put a lot of strain on our marriage. We were expecting that and I’m thankful for that awareness, but it has nevertheless been the hardest year of our partnership yet. The things that used to be endearing became annoying. I swear the hours in each day dropped from 24 to 12. Between work and school and keeping Brené alive we fell out of rhthym. But as I wrote after Brené’s birth and as I’m learning more and more in all faucets of my life, the breaking precedes the miracle. There is a communion of sorts when something sacred is broken and out of the breaking, we are made stronger.

A little over a month ago, I had the great honor of “officiating” a friend’s wedding. When I asked her what she wanted me to talk about she sent the following quote:      

  “When over the years someone has seen you at your worst, and knows you with all your strengths and flaws, yet commits him- or herself to you wholly, it is a consummate experience. To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.” (Tim Keller)

This is what I want for my life - to know and be fully known. I want to truly see others - people who are different from me and disagree with me. I want to hear their hurts and their joys. I want to be able to share my full self with the people I love and as it turns out that is one of the hardest things I will do. This past year my imperfect self has said and thought mean, hurtful things about my spouse. I have walked out on arguments. I have gone to sleep angry. I have come face to face with the reality of who I am and it’s not all daisies and butterflies. I have been asked to change and give up parts of myself that I have selfishly clung to for so so long and it has been hard. There was a period of time where that was all I thought. “This. Is. So. Hard.” 

But by the abundant grace of a God who fully knows me and has chosen me anyway the story doesn’t end there. We choose to turn towards each other. Over and over again. We have stayed. We have battled it out. We have searched for the words needed to be vulnerable and we have tasted the miracle of forgiveness and through it all I have glimpsed what it means to be sanctified - made whole out of the brokenness. And I am reminded of what I know that is good - that I married a man who is smart (smarter than me thank goodness), and hardworking. A man who is absolutely smitten with a tiny, troll-haired, wild child who kind of resembles him. A man who takes care of me and daily challenges me to live differently - set apart. A man who genuinely wants to feed the hungry and adopt the orphan and give it all away. A man who’s heart is deeply committed to seeking hard after Jesus and loving his people. And when I remember those things I am broken all over again by all the ways that I am loved and truly blessed. 

So that’s it. A little niblet of the truth. Not the perfect, touched-up picture, but the messy reality. On August 31, 2014 a scruffy boy in a good looking suit that we bought on sale from a Nordstrom Rack promised to know me and to be known by me and with the help of our Maker, we try to live that out every day. We fight and we wrestle with our brokenness and we choose to turn back to each other when we could just as easily turn away because that’s the example we’ve been given. My best friend and my soul sister’s fb intro says “Anything good in my life is because of Christ and Christ alone.” I couldn’t agree more. Happy anniversary Thomas Boundy. I really do love you and like you.

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Today I Drove In Front of a Train and Other Thoughts on Self-Grace

This morning I woke up in a panic because I forgot to send the church email. Then I was late to meet a friend for coffee because my child had a meltdown. As I was driving to meet her the lights at the train crossing started flashing and I panicked because I didn’t want to be late but also I am a cautious person. I waffled. I braked and sped up and braked and sped up but then everyone else was driving through it and I couldn’t remember the rules and the arm hadn’t gone down yet so I sped up once more and drove in front of the train only to get yelled at by a man on a motorcycle on the other side who it appears was a policeman from the vantage point of my rearview mirror. I am so so sorry sir. I legitimately contemplated pulling myself over. I did all of this with my three month old daughter in the backseat because I am a bad mother and also a moron.

I have a really bad guilt complex. I will lose sleep over a bad parking job. This little stunt of mine will plague me for the rest of the week. I’ve already confessed to my husband and my mom and if we weren’t so new to our church I would consider calling my pastor to let him know what I did. It’s times like these that I wish I was Catholic. I would be excellent at the confessing part.

I’ve been learning a lot about brokenness recently. I just finished reading Anne Voskamp’s The Broken Way which has been really good for me in the “wreck your life perspective” kind of way. I’m grateful for that. But in some ways I’ve gotten so caught up in the brokenness that I’ve lost sight of the healing. I’ve forgotten about the grace that is meant to follow the breaking.

I read a beautiful article earlier this week about not shaming mothers who can’t breastfeed and valuing them and encouraging them instead. I’ll confess that this is not a personal struggle of mine. I feel like I misled some friends by re-posting that article so here’s another confession - I am still feeding from the tata, but I nonetheless appreciate the woman’s message that it’s ok however you choose to feed and care for your babe. This common thing that I’m doing - this motherhood thing - it’s really hard. It feels lame to say that because women do it every day but the truth is it’s so so hard. This morning my sweet daughter screamed at me while I ran around the house with wet hair trying to find the diaper bag and then I drove in front of a train and put both of our lives in danger and even now I can barely think straight my brain is so worn out. This is hard and I want so badly to do it right. I want her to be a great sleeper and grow to be a healthy, well-rounded person. I want her to learn to read early and potty train herself. And I want to excel at my job and be able to help out at church and finish my book on time and be a good friend and I keep adding plate after porcelain plate to this juggling act and am stupidly surprised when the whole thing comes crashing to the ground. Again. I bang my head against the wall because I am so ashamed of my failures. I punish myself for being a bad mother/wife/employee/friend because isn’t the message of Easter we need to have our crap together because instagram is real and outward appearances are how we judge success even though on the inside we are all bad eggs and everything is hopeless hopeless hopeless?

No silly girl. The message is grace. Where sin abounds grace abounds more. More grace. Always more. If only I will receive it.

And I must. Not just for myself but for my girl because she is watching and I will undoubtedly fail her and myself again. Hopefully not by driving in front of a train but I might drop her on her face or spill salsa on her little forehead or embarrass her in front of her friends or forget to maker her lunch or a zillion other things and she will take cues on how to live from how I respond to my failures. She will learn what grace and compassion are by how I offer it to others and by how I offer it to myself. I just keep forgetting to offer it to myself.

As I read the breastfeeding article and I thought about all the struggling mommas I wanted to hug and love on it didn’t occur to me once that a self-hug would have also been good. In a lot of ways it’s hypocritical. Grace for you, but standards for me. You are doing the best you can and that is great, but I must do better. I must do it perfectly. But I can’t and deep deep down I know that.

So today I am going to practice self-grace. I am going to try my best to let go of this morning. I am going to go for a walk and make myself a cupcake. I am going to read about why no one is hanging out with Mindy Kaling and I am going to accept that my house is a mess and my bed isn’t made and my makeup is only half done. I am going to rest in the knowledge that there is always more grace to be had. The well is infinite because the grave is empty “for from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace upon grace upon grace.”

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On Birth and Broken Bread

Apparently after you give birth you’re supposed to write up the birth story like a “what I did last summer” essay so you can cherish the gory details forever and ever. Luckily, I already have a blog set up from my more thoughtful days before my mind was overrun with sarcasm and cynicism. Plus it’s inauguration day which means I have nothing better to do.

Brené. You came into the world in the middle of a snowstorm while Obama was still president - both goals I was hoping to achieve. Check and check. The day before we walked and walked as the snow lightly fell. I made chili for dinner and we watched the remaining episodes of The Night Manager. It was very suspenseful. I woke up in the middle of the night with some serious cramps, but that was nothing new so I waited for them to pass. At 2 am they got stronger and I shook your daddy awake. We filled the bathtub with hot water and dropped in a Frankincense and Myrrh bath bomb that your Aunt Grace gave mommy for her birthday. It turned the water bright turquoise. The cramps turned into consistent waves of painful squeezing and I leaned into your daddy and we counted the breaths like they taught us in that super nifty birthing class. The waves got stronger and we began a strange, rhythmic dance of swaying and moaning while your daddy timed the pain. By 5am the waves were steadily rolling in and daddy called the hospital and your Grandma Mimi to tell them it was time. At 5:30 Mimi showed up in your grandparents SUV, ready to take on the snow and her and your daddy flung things into the car while mommy crouched on the floor of the kitchen. I don’t remember much about the ride except that it was snowing heavily and we got stuck behind a tow truck. I huddled in the back seat, crouched over daddy’s lap and discovered the power of chanting/screaming “I can.” Your Mimi nearly peed herself she was so stressed, but somehow we made it. They put your mommy in this really goofy super-sized wheelchair and took her upstairs where some nice ladies checked on you to make sure you were calm and doing your thing.  You were.  You little champ. We took another bath while we waited for the laughing gas. Things sped up from there. They brought the gas and I dragged in a deep breath, thankful for some relief. Your Mags showed up and sat next to Mimi. Daddy tells me he prayed for you the whole time. He’s a good Mags. At 8am I closed my eyes to focus and between waves of pain pleaded with your daddy to let me have the real drugs, but no one came and then it was too late. Your daddy is sneaky like that. The day dawned and mommy’s body began making moves to get you out. Your Mimi ran to get a nurse and they leaned me back. The next part was a blur. Mimi and Mags went into the hall to cry and pray and your daddy tells me a bunch of other people came in.  I don’t remember. I was too focused, eyes shut tight, high on the gas. For the next 20 minutes I screamed and pushed and screamed and pushed and someone named Dr. Figge calmly told me to quit screaming and hold my breath. Smart lady. That Dr. Figge suggested the possibility of bringing you into the world in the next two contractions. Challenge accepted. You came with one more. With what felt like an explosion of matter you were free. Swoosh. I heard you cry and then they placed your wriggling body on my chest and I stared at you and you stared at me. Two strangers meeting for the first time.

They say when you meet your baby the first time that you fall so deeply in love that you forget everything that just happened. They lied. It’s been five days and I’m still recovering from the trauma of giving birth. My hands were not pierced, but they are green and blue and purple from multiple failed IV attempts. My side was not pierced, but there is an overflowing waste basket of the blood that I’ve shed. My body is broken. In the darkest moments when I can’t give my daughter what she needs and she’s crying and we’re both exhausted, all I can think about is how broken I am. My body, broken for her.

I’ve heard the words a thousand times. “This is my body, broken for you.” I’ve tasted the grape juice, the wine, the Hawaiian bread, the gluten free crackers, the saltines set between two candles, but the meaning is different now. Before it was remote and superficial. Do this in remembrance of something that happened long ago; something distant and removed. I stare into my daughter’s face. Her little stranger face that’s a mashup of her father and I but somehow it’s own unique creation. I know so little about her. I’m still learning to love her. I struggle to feed her and meet her needs. I sit in the tub and cry into the phone. I tell my best friend through strangled sobs that I’m broken and she reminds me of the miracle of grace. He was broken for my brokenness. And, as Ann Voskamp’s eloquent words remind me, the breaking precedes the miracle. Without breaking there can be no healing; no restoration. Without breaking there can be no life-giving; no desperate cry breaking into the void. Without breaking there can be no forgiveness; no redemption. The breaking is the essential point, the great climax, the very thing my whole life hinges on. 

My sweet daughter. I was broken for you. I am breaking for you. I will heal and we will learn and grow together. We will figure it out. And one day I hope you will discover a greater breaking. One day, I hope you will learn what it means to be redeemed - to be fought for and won. It is my greatest prayer and my daily bread, broken for you and for me.

“I hold the broken Last Supper in front of me, a Jesus with broken hands. What did Jesus do after He gave thanks? “And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them.”4 He took it and gave thanks. Eucharisteo. Then He broke it and gave. How many times had I said it: “Eucharisteo precedes the miracle”? Thanksgiving precedes the miracle—the miracle of knowing all is enough. And how many times had I read it—how Jesus “took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people”?5 Eucharisteo—Jesus embracing and giving thanks for His not-enough—that preceded the miracle. But why hadn’t I been awakened at the detonation of the revelation before? What was the actual miracle? The miracle happens in the breaking. Not enough was given thanks for, and then the miracle happened: There was a breaking and a giving—into a kind of communion—into abundant filling within community. The miracle happens in the breaking.” ― Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life

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Guys Can We Stop Competing? Please?

Here’s the thing.  Can we just be honest for one sweet and saucy moment?  Can we stop competing?  It’s not a race and I’m tired of pretending like I’ve got it all together and figured out and tied with a bow.  If you’re not married yet, that’s ok.  Contrary to popular old lady opinion, you’re not a spinster.  I’m shocked to pieces that I’m married.  That wasn’t in my 5 year plan, let alone my 10 year plan.  If you’re not in a rush to have kids or aren’t quite ready to buy a house, that’s really ok.  If you haven’t started a company yet, and let’s be real, if you’re still figuring out what you want to be when you grow up, then I bet that really makes you part of the majority.  You just don’t know that because culturally, you’re not supposed to talk about it.  When you go out for drinks with your peers you’re supposed to talk about how quickly you’re achieving your life goals, or how many places you’ve traveled now that you’re a sophisticated adult, or how spacious your renovated uptown classy gal apartment is.  

I keep feeling like I’m behind.  I haven’t figure it out yet.  I haven’t finished graduate school.  I haven’t even started.  I don’t have any designations yet.  I’m so lame.  I need to catch up.  My life is passing me by.

What the fudge cakes you guys.  I’m 24.

I was talking to my mom they other day about it and she said it’s partly her generation’s fault.  They’re competing over whose kid is the best.  They’re putting pressure on their children to succeed so they can feel like they succeeded as parents.  What a bummer cycle.  As I enter that phase of life where my peers are starting to have children, it causes me to pause and ask myself, what if, Heaven forbid, my kids are just average.  What if they only make JV and not varsity?  What if they’re not in a single AP course and they make Bs and Cs (you know... average grades #whathappenedtothebellcurve)?  Is that ok?

A while back I was struggling with not knowing what I wanted to be when I grew up and was discussing it with my boss and he told me that if ever I was struggling with a major life decision to ask myself the question “what variable lasts?”

What variable lasts?  Jobs aren’t lasting.  My industry is literally built on the belief that everyone wants to retire.  Neither are smarts.  Eventually we’ll all lose our marbles. In 50+ years very few of us will be remembered for where we worked, or what GPA we graduated with, or how many places we traveled and how interesting we were, but we’ll be remembered for how we treated people.  People last.  That’s always the lasting variable.  How you care for others.

I hope I’m ok with my kid being average as long as he or she turns out to be a good person.  And if they want to work really hard to go to a good school or be a star athlete, that’s great too.  I am all about working hard to achieve your goals. I just hope they’re your goals, and not mine or society’s.  I hope first and foremost my kid knows that I’m really just interested in what kind of person they are.  The achievements are just icing on the cake.  I hope my friends know that too.  If you don’t like your job and you feel like being an adult is really messy and hard and you’re not sure what trajectory you’re supposed to be on, that’s ok.  Me too sometimes.  And if you’re crushing it and loving it, I also hope that I can genuinely congratulate you without any covetousness in my voice.  To my friends who worked really hard to get into medical school - I’m really proud of you.  And I’m thankful you’re willing to put in all that hard work to take care of us.  To all my teacher friends - what you’re doing is really important and I’m so glad you’re doing it. That’s awesome.  To my peers who are getting into top business schools - that’s really exciting.  I hope you build businesses that create genuine value for consumers.  To my journalist friend, I’m so stoked that you’re chasing your dreams, and to my friends in law school who want to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves - I’m so glad you’re working hard to make a difference in the world.  And if it’s too much or you change your mind and decide to do something else, that’s ok too.  IT’S OK WORLD.  Hear me roar.  You’re not behind.  You’re not a failure.  We’re friends because I like you for who you are, not what you do - that’s just icing on the cake and if you really love it then I want to wholeheartedly love it with you too and if you don’t, I want to help you find something you do love.  You’re the lasting variable.

“C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity makes a brilliant observation about gospel-humility at the very end of his chapter on pride. If we were to meet a truly humble person, Lewis says, we would never come away from meeting them thinking they were humble. They would not be always telling us they were a nobody (because a person who keeps saying they are a nobody is actually a self-obsessed person). The thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel-humble person is how much they seemed to be totally interested in us. Because the essence of gospel-humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less. Gospel-humility is not needing to think about myself. Not needing to connect things with myself. It is an end to thoughts such as, ‘I’m in this room with these people, does that make me look good? Do I want to be here?’ True gospel-humility means I stop connecting every experience, every conversation, with myself. In fact, I stop thinking about myself. The freedom of self-forgetfulness. The blessed rest that only self-forgetfulness brings.” ― Timothy Keller, The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness

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Why I’ll Gladly Go To Your Shower, But Seriously Consider What It Means To Go To Your Wedding

This summer I plan on attending several weddings.  I’ve attended one already and it was beautiful.  This fall I will celebrate my first anniversary.  I am a marriage newbie, but I am also a marriage oldie.  I am a product of rich, deep, life giving marriages.  I believe firmly in the sanctity of marriage.  

As a culture, we treat marriage like it’s an event.  Last year the average wedding cost over $30,000.  Pinterest basically exists because of women who fantasize about getting married, but the truth is that weddings have little to do with marriage.  A wedding lasts seven hours, but it is the starting point of something that should last a lifetime.  A wedding ceremony is much more than a parade of poetry, kind words, and mushy love songs.  It is a ceremony in which a covenant is made.  In the old testament a covenant ceremony involved walking through pieces of carved up animal to symbolize what would happen to the covenant makers if they broke the covenant.   We attend weddings because we are meant to be a part of that covenant.  How rarely we treat them that way.  When the wedding is over, we get in our cars and we drive home and the next day we wake up and move on with our lives.  

I have almost completed my first year of marriage and it has been rich.  I am blessed to have married someone I disagree with.  Often.  I am blessed to have married someone who cares about who I am becoming and has grace for who I am.  I am blessed with the ability to submit to him not because I believe I am a weak female, but because I am a strong daughter and I am confident in my value and trust firmly in my husband’s love for me.  And I am blessed with a community who cares enough about my marriage to continue to be a part of it.

When I first got engaged and began telling all of my friends about what was ahead, the absolute best conversation I had was with a close friend who asked me some very hard questions regarding whether or not this was a good idea.  I am eternally thankful for that friend because she loved me enough to find the courage to be honest with me and when all was said and done she made a commitment to uphold my marriage.  In retrospect I am blown away by this.  

Marriage is hard.  I believe in marriage not because I’ve observed picture perfect, fairytale marriages, but because I’ve observed difficult marriages.  I’ve watched spouses make sacrifices when all the lovey dovey stuff was gone.  And I’ve watched them endure, in part because they were held up by their friends and relatives.  

We owe it to our friends to take attending their weddings seriously.  I’m happy to go to the showers and wrap another guest in a toilet paper gown and ooh and ahhh at all the gifts, but when it comes to weddings I want to attend because I believe in the commitment that is being made. I want to attend because I am committed to being there when the wedding is over.  Caring about others means being gracefully honest even when it’s hard.  As part of our marriage counseling, we were asked to memorize 1st Corinthians 13 - the classic love excerpt.  The thing is, it’s not just about marriage.  It’s about living in community.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  Love protects, trusts, hopes, and it perseveres.  It allows us to be fully known.  I desire to be the type of friend that others can be fully known by.  I desire to persevere with the people I have committed to living life with.  And I desire to be honest with them, not in a way that belittles them, but in a life giving manner to the best of my abilities.  That is the covenant I hope to make in attending a friend’s wedding.

“Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically; it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Knowing Christ is more important than making a living. Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children. Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of material success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity. So it is with marriage. It is a momentary gift. It may last a lifetime, or it may be snatched away on the honeymoon. Either way, it is short. It may have many bright days, or it may be covered with clouds. If we make secondary things primary, we will be embittered at the sorrows we must face. But if we set our face to make of marriage mainly what God designed it to be, no sorrows and no calamities can stand in our way. Every one of them will be, not an obstacle to success, but a way to succeed. The beauty of the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church shines brightest when nothing but Christ can sustain it.” - John Piper