Now what did Jesus say again?

I've always been the hammer. Hammer that truth in til it hurts and then cut them off at the knees and wonder why they are just screaming bloody murder instead of saying "you're right, I get it, I'm a completely changed person forever thank you for opening my eyes". Um... yeah. So while some of us literally revel in the glory of truth others revel in the freedom of interpretation. Awkward! So then Dad would say "you know you'll catch more bees with honey than vinegar Boogle." And I would say "sometimes the truth hurts." And he would say "I've been at this a little longer than you and you have to ask yourself what result you want, not focus just on being right." Then I would say "I don't have patience for that kind of approach." And he would chuckle. And it didn't bug me because he's my dad and naturally he knew what he was talking about even if I wasn't interested in accountability at that moment. Time to talk to Dad stretched on my horizon as far as I could see. How quickly things change. After losing Dad all of the fight just drained out of me in a puddle. And I asked myself who was Dad? The answer was the sound of a beautiful Irish Ballad or the sight of a beaming proud smile or the aroma of sweat and hay or the taste of sweet honey or the touch of rough perfect hands. The thought of who he was blesses me. And I asked myself what will I leave and I found myself reaching for more. I've rarely ever reached a persons heart with truth even though I know it well and it came so naturally to him. I'm on a new mission to find that tenuous balance between defending scriptrual truth and being guided by empathy and love; specifically to Christians who struggle with embracing the whole message of The Word. I think pride is my primary foe. If I long to make myself look good or right or smart or better or the best or PERFECT I've already lost. I've done that and it makes me look... pompous and arrogant and full of myself and a lot more like someone else than Jesus. I used to drive around and around a hayfield daydreaming of my dad allowing me to use a walkman so I could listen to Sarah McLachlan which would be a huge hazard and never allowed. Ironically he did compromise on my daisy dukes and tank tops and flip flops. Now I wish I'd used that calm productive vacuum of time to reflect on the beauty of first loving someone then sharing truth after they are secure in that love. What a gift that would be, to naturally style my life after Jesus and to do His will with a pure heart. I was reading about how to help a narcissist feel empathy. Apparently it's a real clinical disorder. through that article I gained empathy for narcissists. It was a crazy five minutes. I thought about everyone I've ever debated and what it would be like to reach a point of empathy with a struggling sister or brother in Christ before I ever utter a word of debate. To actually try to understand them. I wonder if I could ever go deeper than rhetoric like "well I know gay people and I like them" all the way to a heart message which might be "I have a deep fear of rejection from my very wonderful gay friend if I accept the Bible at it's word and try to live by it." That's transcending a roadblock and understanding fear. Then we might talk about the incredible personal spiritual significance for a Christian in living by the Word of God without imposing expectations from it on those of different beliefs. Then we could even talk about how important it is to be able to trust your gay friend, your agnostic friend, your atheist friend, your liberal friend, your Muslim friend to love you even if you believe in the Bible, just as you are called to love them exactly as they are. I see real peace in this for every Christian to truly live unconditional love with truth. We could probably even reach to the uncomfortable point of discussing the fact that gay marriage infringes on religious freedom because marriage is a religious practice performed by clergy and should never be dictated by government in compliance with separation of church and state.  Then we would have to come to a point of completion by discussing how lawmakers could go about protecting both interests because we all know that one group of people and their rights should not rank higher than another. Does that make sense? I used to want to bang people over the head with the truth and tell them to stop messing up Christianity and making us look like wimps but I was... well crap... I was WRONG and I got nowhere. 

On an extreme end of the love/truth spectrum, my friend debates her extended family's mormon faith regularly. She researches facts and squares off ready for battle. The fact is she found her way out of that heresy and I think it drives her crazy that any of them still hang on to it.  Recently she told me she's been left a copy of the book of mormon with notes for her read to help clear up her doubts and restore her to the mormon faith. She asked me the other day should she read the notes, should she set for another round and put on her religious boxing gloves? After all my years of churning my wheels trying to proudly say something just clever enough to throw someone off their high horse, I just weakly say no. It goes against all of my old habits. I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion if you get drawn into a debate on the semantics of another persons faith you have already lost. You are on the defense. It doesn't matter if you gather up verses and facts and knock them down to a count of three over and over, if you never reach their heart. It's as pointless as eating paper. It's a clanging gong. I know. I do it all of the time. Any victory you claim will not be the victory you wanted. I do know you can reach the heart of the mormon debater through prayer and patience and timing and love, lots of love. Ugh, sooo hard! But I'm inspired to think we can simply look to the amazing Jesus we so fortunately know. If we focus on an end goal of setting a heart free to be loved by Jesus wholly and completely unconditionally we will persevere. I really believe with a pure heart we will not err. Then we are wind chimes or a flute. Because Jesus didn't really seek indifferent people. He sought hungry people and his love was palpable. When he spoke, he lifted the heart, healed the body, nourished the person and he set them FREE. So I encourage my friend to love her Mormons for now and wait for them to get thirsty for Living Water.

Another friend has funny stuff happen. Her life is an amusing education to me. She lives in Jerusalem and hangs out with a bunch of ex-pats who are mostly Palestinian sympathizers and even has a Bible Study with several of them. So she has people try to lead her into convoluted debates which is torture for her. She hates to debate.  I think she has an advantage just being someone who dislikes conflict. I think it gives her the restraint to wait for the thing worth saying and I really admire how she channels Jesus and shows grace. She has plugged away for two years, sometimes gritting her teeth and sometimes wanting to lay in the floor and laugh hysterically for a release from the vise grip of conflict and verbal sparring. All this time she patiently sowed seeds of truth into each person who came into her life and asked God if this was the one she was to reach possibly even for the kingdom of Christ. I know there were two non-Christians she really hoped to reach. One time she even took some of her Bible Study friends to the Temple Mount Institute to see all of the things the Jewish people are making for when they rebuild the Temple and one lady asked four times why the Jewish people want a temple again since Jesus came.  She took each interaction seriously and one day she called me undecided on whether to reply to an email sent from a Palestinian sympathizer filled with biased propaganda. I think it's just crazy so I told her I'd just walk away. Why cast your pearls before swine? Right? From my limited vantage point it appears that she is dealing with hard hearted uninformed people opposed to Israel which is not even Biblical. Regardless of whether they are Christians, they appear to be missing out on a pretty fundamental piece of truth that could give their lives in Israel context and dimension. And it seems to me they are very deliberate in maintaining that doctrine. And that is where I err. I am so human indeed. After all her time there and confounding stories, I found her position so daunting I told her it sounded pointless. And then today... she told me that in the time she has been there... she's seen a softening a changing of heart in one of her Bible Study ladies and it was all confirmed just today. Yes she got to watch some scales fall off of a pair of eyes and it was EXCITING! She was already a Christian but all that time, regardless of what was perceived she was sifting through and searching for new truths. And that woman was the one I so scorned for asking why the Jews want to rebuild the temple. I felt so chastened. My friend said she felt blessed to know her time there had some spiritual impact for one person. She was used by God to open a window for someone to see more of Jesus and God's plan. Soon she will fly home from her grand adventure but she has patiently sown seeds of love and truth. I can see already that some has fallen on fertile ground. Honestly, that is all I aspire to be.

Hazel Ann

Jody and I have another child. A breathtakingly beautiful little girl named Hazel Ann. Somehow we never had the sense to ask God for her, so he gave her to us of his own volition to show us how wonderful His ways are and to bless us because He loves us so much more than we will ever truly comprehend. She is as calm and quiet as a morning after snow has fallen. She gazes into my eyes and her lips play with a smile then form a perfect O. Her head and cheeks are as soft as a peach and her toes are long and amusingly prehensile. Her fingers are delicate and refined; she holds them like a little lady about to play a pinafore. The overwhelming gush of raw love and emotion when she was born still sneaks up on me several times per day. Her squeaks and coos, her gulping as she tries to drink every drop of milk and her little hands grasping my finger, my necklace, my shirt. The desperate sucking on her hand as she anxiously waits to eat again and again and again. These are all magic. A magic I really never thought I would experience again in my life as a mother. I find it incomprehensible that I was content without her and amazing that God has given her to us.
Her birth was the most gentle and easy of my four children. I woke up a little after 4 AM on Sunday, October 23rd. I got up to go to the bathroom and felt little trickles of water running down my legs. I couldn't really bring myself to believe my water had broken but sure enough it had. I stared contemplatively at the evidence and couldn't quite believe it. After a few seconds I said "Jody..."
He responded as though he'd been awake for hours. "Yes."
I said "I guess my water broke."
He sat up and said "should I call the midwife?"
It set the tone for the whole morning.
I called Gin and texted Jen B. to tell them how sorry I was that they were going to miss the birth. They were both sad but gracious about it. I know Gin blamed me for starting the labor by having Eden's birthday party and going to the pumpkin patch but it was actually the easiest birthday party ever. I didn't even have to set out plates and napkins or make a cake or basically anything. The pumpkin patch excursion probably took 20 minutes and required very little from me, other than supplying the coupon code on my phone for my living social discount. I take comfort in the fact that the midwives believed very strongly that there had been a drop in barometric pressure causing me to go into labor. Either way, I really would have held on until the girls got here if I could though the end of pregnancy really is a miserable thing. I had not the slightest premonition that Hazel would show up 9 days early, but man is it a relief to be done being pregnant.
Jenny T. came over right away with her camera and we hung out and laughed about Jenn D. being completely comatose when I called her. I was having light contractions, Jody and I had the bed ready, and I was kind of twiddling my thumbs and wondering if I should eat something or if it would be puked back up in no time. Finally I decided to have some cheerios. At the time I thought it was goofy of her to take the picture but as I looked at the photo's it seemed like the natural beginning of the story.

A little while later the midwives came. Jeni checked me and I was 5 centimeter! I wandered around for awhile doing little things and I couldn't find the right place or position, so I'd grab Jody and hang on him since every other contraction was starting to feel uncomfortable. He makes me feel warm and fuzzy. ;-)

Jody went to wake up the girls and get things together for the birth and I just couldn't seem to find the best place to sit so I sat on a barstool in the middle of the living room. I think someone had drug it in there to set my drink on while I sat on the ball but it became my platform for the first half of my labor. While my friends lounged on the couch making funny conversation, I perched up on the barstool laughing and moaning.

Jody came down from upstairs and said the girls told him he was joking when he went to wake them up for the birth. I found this very entertaining. It didn't take five minutes for them to come down to check for sure.

My midwife Jeni had told me I could get into the bathtub whenever I wanted to but I wanted to wait until I was not coping easily with labor and wanting relief. Finally awhile later I went in the bathroom and got into the tub. I lounged in the water worrying to Jody that my labor wasn't getting hard and wondering if it was just going to take a really long time. Jeni offered to check me and I was at 7 centimeters. I remember locking eyes with Jody and saying 7 down 3 to go!" He smiled. The only thing hanging me up was how many birth stories had I read and how many births had I attended where a person progressed great and then stalled anywhere between 7 and 10? I was happy but not over confident. I continued to feel a niggle of fear that this could take all day. The girls came in the bathroom and Eden anxiously asked me how much longer it would take. I laughed about how present and excited she was. I told her I had no idea. I focused exclusively on a picture in my mind of my body opening wide up for the baby. With each contraction I would go limp and find that picture. I could feel my insides creaking as the baby came down. This is what they call "laboring the baby down." It was fun to doula myself through this process so consciously.
I had to go to the bathroom so I labored in there for awhile leaning into Jody, my ever present faithful one. He did whatever I asked, pushed on my knees, braced his arm so I could hold onto him. I remember yelling for God to help me and hoping to high heaven this wasn't going to last for very many more hours. I announced that I was getting shaky so they brought me some nasty sweet stuff to balance my blood sugar and forced me to drink it. Jeni said I was getting pushy to which I whiningly replied that I WISHED I felt pushy. She wanted me off of the toilet especially since the baby was in a +2 station as she didn't want me to plop a baby in there. I still maintain there was no danger of that happening but all of those dramatic people like to say "it's a good thing we got her out of there when we did" so I just let them say it. I didn't want to get back into the bathtub so Jenny T. ran out to Jeni's car and got the birthing stool and they set it by the tub. I sat down on it and hated it instantly but I felt the baby about to come out and announced that I would not be moving. It seemed like I waited forever for the next contraction and then I pushed, ever so slowly telling myself not to tear and holding my mouth ajar. Every time I felt it start to burn I'd slow down a bit and then let it rest for a second. It's the first time I've ever tried to control the pushing so that I would not tear. Very gently, the baby's head came out and the midwife said "the cord is loosely around the neck but it flipped over easily". By this time all of the kids were gathered around and though I didn't know it, Kearney was laying behind everyone and attending her first birth as well.

When they handed me the baby, I felt a rush of love such as I cannot describe. I don't remember having it with the other kids to such a magnitude. I was completely overcome by it. She was completely covered in vernix and incredibly beautiful and perfect in every way. I'm told it's the hormone oxytocin, but that seems to make it sound so much more clinical than it felt!

Kaitlyn was at my left elbow and everyone wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl. She got nervous and said it was a boy. I said, "lets check and see." We checked and I instantly wished I could take the words back and let them be hers so badly but I instinctively corrected her and said "it's a girl!" Nick seemed a little terrified of the baby, I think because she was covered in vernix and had blue skin but I reassured him and a few minutes later he was all over her, trying to give her a matchbox car.

Eden wanted to be a part of everything. She cut the umbilical cord. The midwife warned her that she might have to cut twice but Eden didn't wait for her to finish the explanation, she expertly snipped the cord and was complimented by Jeni who told her she did a better job than most adults.

Then she helped weigh, measure and dress her. Eden's very competent in a foreign setting. I wonder what she'll be when she's grown.

All in all, my labor lasted from waking up a few minutes past 4AM to 7:52 AM when Hazel was born. She weighed exactly 7 pounds even though she was 9 days early, was 20 1/2 inches long and her head was 14 inches. The average baby head is 13 inches so that makes my completely skid mark free delivery quite notable. ;-)

I could post a thousand pictures and make this story so long because I love to tell a birth story but I guess I'll stop here. Hazel's birth was amazing. The pain was never worse than a stomach flu and I honestly think if I'd known that it would go so easily and end so soon I probably wouldn't have bothered complaining for the 20 minutes when it was a bit of work and wasn't feeling so great.

Girlfriends and God

Last year I hit thirty and thought things would start to make sense. Who was I kidding? I still feel like a nineteen year old girl "playing grownup." People have always said that age is just a number and now that I'm thirty-one I think I have figured that one out. The question of where I'm at, now that I'm thirty-one is the most interesting contemplation, not the monotonous progressive counting reminiscent of kindergarten. A great discovery now that I'm in my thirties is the incomparable value of girlfriends and God. I'll be honest that I guess I'm a late bloomer in this respect. Most people seem to grasp the value of girlfriends fairly early on but I didn't. Managing relationships has never been my strong suit and I was not good at prioritizing or showing appreciation for my girlfriends at all. Through my twenties I think Jody and I explored the immeasurable worth of having a true connection with your spouse as you begin a family. It was great and I look back on it with a glow of satisfaction. But now I'm broadening and thinking about things in a little different way. My chum Jenn brought over Chinese and we had a four hour lunch today. When I was primarily focused on Jody, I used to sensationalize how grand it would be to go have lunch with him, and it is grand if he has the day off of work. On the other hand, if you go on a work day, he will be thrilled but distracted and you'll be lucky to have him 70% at attention for a little less than an hour. I'm not saying Jody is an abysmal lunch date. I'm saying it's not the best way to connect with him and it's not the most relaxing thing in the world that you can do for him. On the contrary, I feel like I'm slightly taxing him. I don't regret the effort, I feel we have nice memories from our lunches and I'm sure we'll still do it, but under close examination a good question is "What is the best way to love your man with meaning?" Around noon Jenn called to tell me she was running a bit late because she had tried to cram a little too much into her morning so she could be free all afternoon without chores. I laughed and told her I had done exactly the same thing. We were so focused on how great our lunch date was going to be, that we had crammed a ridiculous amount of effort into setting our entire afternoons free. And we were glad we did. We ate way too much Chinese and gabbed it up for the whole afternoon. It was kind of a dawning of a new realization for me. How nice to have my dream lunch and an animated discussion of things that would be physically painful for Jody. How nice for Jody to come home to a less than needy wife who had a great day and prepared a fine dinner. By the same token, how nice it was that he and I had a lovely breakfast together without my telephone or internet when he had a day off last week. I feel the same glow from both experiences and I'm glad that I'm learning how to tap into the "good times".
The other thing I'm exploring in my thirties is resuming my "best friend" status with God that I had in my teen years. It seemed like I just couldn't do it in my twenties. I had baggage from churches, choices and the overwhelming new job of wife and mother. I think finding God in the middle of it was just beyond my faith and organization level. It seemed like whenever Jody and I made a step in that direction we'd hit a spiritual wall and the Holy Spirit was elusive. I look at how reachable God is to me now compared to my twenties and I'm kind of flabbergasted and very thankful. I spent a worried and guilty decade wondering how I was ever going to get back to Him and here we are. I finally feel myself pulling back into a comfortable and familiar friendship that makes everything in life make sense. So yeah, I'm glad I'm thirty-one and I'm pretty sure I'll be glad to turn fifty-one and eighty-one.