Epiphany - 8-5-10

Epiphany. Like, total epiphany. I mean, you look up the word in the dictionary and you’ll see this entry.

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I actually had it the first week of summer and just hadn’t gotten around to putting pen to paper about it.

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I do not want kids yet.

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And I haven’t changed my mind with my moods.

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I was at Rachel’s house helping her out with her four kids. We watched a movie and just chilled out. It was nice. And her kids really are adorable. Like picture-book adorable. Funny with the twins stealing every flip-flop they could find and Braedon totally absorbed in his DS game, and Savanna settling in my arms and resting her head on my chest as we watched the movie.

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And I somehow left there with the dawning conviction that I absolutely, positively did not want children of my own yet. Rachel’s kids are just normal kids. They’re not demons or completely out-of-control kids. But Rachel still had to constantly redirect them, discipline them, negotiate with them, explain to them, remind them, warn them – oh, my God, it’s what I’ve gone through every frickin’ day of my job for six years! I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. I don’t care that they would be mine and I’d think their poo was precious. It ain’t happening yet.

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Now let me clarify exactly why this is such an earth-shaking revelation for me specifically.

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Every woman I know has said they want children, just not yet. That’s all I heard from every woman who didn’t already have kids: “not yet.” “Someday.” “Down the line.”

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I never understood that.

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See, I’ve never known a time in my life when I didn’t wish I had kids right then. But I was always too young or didn’t have the man yet or wasn’t established in my own life. There was always a reason (or two or three) why I “wasn’t ready.” But I felt ready. So all I’ve known is being held back by life. Like life just couldn’t – or wouldn’t – catch up with me. Never have I really known contentment in my childlessness. I only knew resignation. I knew about the frustrations and fears and stresses and sleeplessness. I just loved and wanted my unborn children more.

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So now, to actually say and believe that I do not want children yet . . . well, I can’t get used to the feel of the words on my tongue. I keep saying it, hearing my voice wrap around the words. I do not want kids yet.

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And that wouldn’t even be so noteworthy, even knowing the background behind the statement, if this newfound conviction wasn’t so passionate. For a long time now, probably two years or more, I haven’t been able to find children cute or charming. When they do cute kid things like holding their jumbo marker in their chubby fist and scrawling out backward letters, or skipping words in their oh-so-adorable baby sentences, or giving you sticky kisses – doesn’t matter. If it’s cute, I turn away. And turn away with an angry disgust. The sheer vehemence with which I instinctively stay away from all children is Exhibit A in the case against teaching for me. It is evidence for how badly scarred I am by this profession.

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This isn’t normal. It isn’t right. And it’s not healthy for me, because I was made to have children. That certainly hasn’t wobbled. My children are still and always will be the reason I have gone through all of this. This life of mine is my legacy for them.

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I just can’t stand to think of them right now in all their helpless grasping and arguing and whining and disobedience. Can’t do it. Sorry.

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My love for children is merely lacerated ribbons of flesh. I am wounded down deep into my soul. I need more healing in this area, by far and away, than in any other area of my life. I need God to restore me, to rebuild me, so I can see a child and soften, so I can smile. And I know with all certainty – no question, no debate – that if I stay in teaching, I will not heal. In fact, every day I am around children at this point is more damage done that will have to be undone. Even committing this job to God as I did last year will only do so much to arrest the gouging, and there will be no healing. I have to get out, and get out now, to begin healing because it’s going to take time. I can’t see having children inside of several years, and I’m already 31. I don’t want to waste any more of my time with my children.

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So this all brings me to the most direct, visceral test of my faith yet, a test I needed this past year to prepare for. I truly believe I need to resign my job as a teacher and trust that Central Corp will take me on “at need.” This goes against EVERY grain I have, and yet I feel so good about it. It feels so right. As soon as I really considered the idea, my heart took flight in the rightness of this unforgivably foolish decision. I’ve kept thinking for the past several months, when Central Corp got stirred back into the mix, that if I stayed until October and then left for the Management Training Program, that would be harder on everyone: my principal scrambling to fill the position mid-year, my teammates who would have to renegotiate the team dynamics with an unknown, my kids who would have just gotten settled into the way I run things, the parents who would have started becoming comfortable with me, and most of all for that poor new teacher who is getting thrown bodily into the deep end. Because it would be a brand new teacher – at that point in the year, every experienced teacher would already be under contract and the bright-eyed young lemmings would be the only ones left to jump off the cliff. And this year is going to be hard enough with even more SOLs and more pressure on the third-grade team for the scores from last year. I can’t imagine how hard that already tremendously difficult year would be if that untried newbie had to hit the ground running. And I wouldn’t be there to mentor him or her like I did last year, and no one else is really good at that.

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So just from that angle, it would be best for the whole school, the third-grade team, and the class of unsuspecting demonspawn if my replacement, bless her ignorant heart, had a fighting chance. And a running start. Even if she didn’t have the common sense to use it to run for the door.

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And for me, I need to get out. Just as Jessica finally bit the bullet and didn’t renew her contract so she could be a free agent for other teaching jobs, I have to do this for my own health. Because my perspective on all children, including my own, is far from healthy.

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And one thing I have learned from this past year is that God is worthy of complete trust. Not provisional, not conditional, not occasional. Complete. And as John Eldredge says, “In the past year or so I’ve made a number of decisions that make no sense unless there is a God and I am his friend.”

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An email I received a couple of days ago seemed to foreshadow this idea: “If someone wants ‘A’ to happen, yet they prepare for ‘B,’ they will always get ‘B.’ Prepare for ‘A.’”

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That is exactly this situation. As long as I’m holding on to this job I abhor with every fiber of my being, when I know it’s not God’s will for me, simply because it’s “safe, then what I’m really saying is, “God I don’t really think you’ll make Central Corp happen. I don’t really think you can take care of me unless I’m taking care of myself first.”

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Central Corp is what I want. I have persisted for two years, longer than I’ve persisted with anything except this cursed job. And I believe God will meet me at the crucible of my faith. I won’t see him do amazing things until my actions correspond with my enormous belief. This is not coming out of some foolish, rebellious, prodigal-son short-sightedness. I have always been sensible. Never in my life have I ever even casually entertained the notion of leaving a job unless I already had another one lined up. That’s just foolishness. But isn’t there that funny paradox that the world’s wisdom can be foolish in God’s eyes, and foolishness in the eyes of the world can be the direct command of God? Look at Abraham. He was called out of Ur, the only place he had ever known, to a land he had never been – the wilderness – based on a promise and his belief in that promise. Do you think he had a lot of people slapping him on the back, saying, “Atta boy, Abram!”? Uh, no.

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I know that I know that I know that I can’t be in a classroom one more day. I also know that I know that I know that God is my friend and is waiting to show off in an impossible situation. And I know that I know that I know that this act is an “act prompted by faith” (2 Thessalonians 1:11), not an off-shoot of immaturity and folly.

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It’s what I need to do, and I’m ready to leap into the chasm of God’s blessings head-first and blind-folded. The time for my freedom is at hand!

Flip This House - 8-5-10

I think we can establish one thing very clearly: this past year has been about so much more than B____. Yes, he has been the jewel in my crown of hard-won, day-to-day faith, but this past year has been about a complete overhaul of my life, my faith, and my self. It’s really no wonder I’ve gotten so weary, that it’s taking a good bit of time to manifest my vision: goodness, there’s not one area of my life – physical, emotional, financial, mental, spiritual – that is being left untouched in this massive remodeling project called my life. It really doesn’t make much sense that I can’t make myself watch those HGTV flipping houses shows for the vicarious anxiety it dredges up: after all, my whole life is one big flip. I mean, budget concerns, great vision, messes galore, rotten foundations that have to be blown away, unexpected complications, going over budget for the tenth time in one sense or another, and the inevitable point when you’re standing in the middle of the rubble, totally unable to picture the soothing butter yellow you were going to paint the house, and thinking, “Dear God, what the hell have I gotten myself into?”

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And how to flips work? How do they actually happen the way you pictured it when all you see are gaping holes in walls and floors, gutted bathrooms, dust everywhere from the necessary demolition, and one more complication you just can’t see your way out of to just finish the damn thing?

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Faith. And faith. And still more faith.

Still Standing... - 7-30-10

Thinking on Ps. 27: 13, and how it says, “I would have lost heart had I not believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” It does not say, “had I not seen the goodness of the Lord...”

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Significant, that. It focuses on the belief as the reason for taking heart again.

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And Ephesians 6:13 about spiritual armor. It says, “...so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Seems redundant, but it’s not. It says you first “take your stand” – everything is clear, the prize is vivid in your mind, your muscles are fresh and ready for the fight. Then, “to stand,” when you’ve done everything you can do and your sword is dangling from your numb fingers. To stand.

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Utter exhaustion. Weeping in the dark, terribly alone in the struggle, wishing so desperately God would light the beacon: It is done. I’m so desperate for this to be over. And it’s not even the big things I’ve been belieing for that are cutting me down – it’s the little things that pluck quietly at you that finally break you. But I see that and I mustn’t break. I won’t. I can’t.

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Delayna posted on Facebook this quote:

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Between you and every goal you wish to achieve, there is a series of obstacles, and the bigger the goal, the bigger the obstacles. Your decision to be, have, and do something out of the ordinary entails facing difficulties and challenges that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.

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Ain’t that the truth. And I want God’s timing. I just can’t think right now of how much longer it might be. Because when you get right down to it, I’m overhauling my whole life. Every area. Big things and little things. And I can’t take a day off when I get too tired and need a break; I’ve tried that. If I’m not focusing on and visualizing my future, all I have to occupy the 60,000 thoughts I fill a day with is my present, and that’s a guaranteed slump of depression. My future is my only hope, my only pleasure. Not focusing on that is not an option. And this is going to take a while. I don’t do things by halves, do I?

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I’ve felt all summer that I’m on the cusp of finally seeing all my seeds beginning to sprout. Maybe that’s why things have been so hard lately – a last-ditch effort to break me.

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I’m so tired. I just want it to be over. All of it. Even the good things. For goodness sake, I’m sick of some of these goals – they’re thirty years old! Let’s have some new struggles, or oh, let’s not have any at all for just a little while. Let’s have a day or two or three where I get to just bask. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up and find it all easy. And even though life is not stagnant and you can’t float along in complete ease and harmony indefinitely, I need a little floating. I need a little ease. I need not to be alone.

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I did ask God to talk to me, to help me. And even though what I really want to hear, oh, Lord, how lovely, is, “It’s all over now,” I am sensible of his validation. Here is the order of my random flippings through my Bible:

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“He has alienated my brothers from me; my acquaintances are completely estranged from me. My kinsmen have gone away, my friends have forgotten me.”

- Job 19:13-14

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“What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all!”

- Romans 3:3-4

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“...we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

- 2 Corinthians 10:5

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“You are only looking at the surface of things.”

- 2 Corinthians 10:7

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“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.”

- James 1:12

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That’s God. That’s his message. Is it over yet? Doesn’t look like it. But I am not alone, and I have hope, though I can’t feel it now. Because I’m not standing my ground. I’m just standing.

Coincidence - 7-28-10

Coincidence is never just coincidence.

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This morning, I checked Facebook and Lacie had posted this:

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I’ve really been dwelling on Ps. 27:14. Read today in my Bible’s Lexical Aid that the Hebrew word for “be brave” is the same one used 12 times in Exodus to describe Pharaoh’s stubborn, stout-hearted refusal to let the Israelites free. Neat that the Psalmist uses that same kind of picture of stubbornness to describe what our hope and expectancy in the Lord should be.

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Same verse I found last night, different version. Lacie’s version was probably New Living Translation: “Yet I am confident I will see the Lord’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. Wait patiently for the Lord and be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

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So my stubbornness is being tested yet again. I should be used to this. Oh, well. Into the breach once more, boys.

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It did help, though. Thanks, God.

Nevermind, I'll Do It On My Own! - 7-28-10

Jeez. Seriously, why do I bother? What is it that keep itching me to share? Have I just been alone too long?

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I shared my Rumplestiltskin story I’d been working on every day for several weeks with my mother. The thing is practically writing itself. I had asked God if I would actually sit down and write, would he please help me with connecting all my ideas. After all, that was always my trouble with writing: waiting until I “felt” like it or knew beforehand what I was going to write. But one thing this past year has taught me has been not to worry about my last step, just my next one. And I’m tough enough and mature enough not to worry about the feeling and just get down to it. And God has come through. I’ve barely done any editing and it’s really knitting together. I know my target demographic and have read many books like this one, and mine could stand with them in this genre.

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And I get that Mom and Dad aren’t big readers and when they do, they prefer fast-paced, humorous spy thrillers. So I understand that this wouldn’t have been their cup of tea anyway. But my mom read all of it and just couldn’t find anything really positive to say. My dad didn’t make it past page 12 and had only critique. I don’t know which is worse.

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And it wasn’t even like I needed their approval to pin down my own opinion about my work. I knew exactly what I thought of it before even thinking of asking anyone else. And I couldn’t tell you why exactly I did decide to share it. Did I just want a little encouragement, an “atta boy”? Did I want someone, anyone to know what I’m doing with my top-secret life? Maybe I simply needed someone to support me, to believe in me so I wasn’t doing it all on my own.

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That’s 0 for 2. Not a great track record.

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And it didn’t change anything. What they thought changed nothing of what I know about my writing. But the thought that came to mind and felt good because it felt like truth was, “That’s okay; I’ve been doing this on my own this long. I can finish it up that way.” I do feel that way. I’ve been alone all along, I’m still alone, and I’ll be alone for yet another while. But a tickle between my shoulder blades hinted that that probably wasn’t the thought God wanted me to hold onto.

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But jeez! I have to wonder if I just want too much. I’m still waiting. For things I’ve waited, at best, a few years for, and at worst, my entire life for. I’ve never been satisfied with some. All has been my only option. Does that explain why I’m still waiting, dammit, for my life to begin, for the good life to reach me? If I had only wanted a little, would my wait be over? Is it just that I want so damn much that it’ll take my whole youth to arrange it all? That can’t be right. All along I’ve been standing on the truth that God won’t waste me, and if I spend my entire youth waiting, I’m sorry – I may have no choice, but that’ll be a bit of a waste. I may be utterly incapable of changing my nature to slake my hunger for the whole world with hors d’oeurves, but am I always to wait? And wait alone?

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Maybe I was right in sharing my journey and just incorrect in my choice of who. I’m beginning to suspect that through this whole separation experience when I’ve had no one to back me up but myself and God, when I’ve had no one who even knew anything about what my life had become, perhaps my parents and I have simply gravitated to different frequencies. How disappointed I’ve been, and how many disappointments those were stacked upon. Maybe there’s really no one yet to understand me the way B____ did. Maybe Mom and Dad just can’t help me because they don’t get me.

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It’s not their fault. It’s not. I should say Mom made a point of conceding her reading preferences and my superior knowledge of my audience. It didn’t keep her concession from seeming like a pathetic consolation prize. Her comparison with a previous scathing review by my aunt of another manuscript of mine didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. And she still didn’t mention the quality of my writing or the originality of my reinvention. So I guess all her concessions just weren’t enough.

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I’m still on my own and only God is holding me back from telling all the useless people milling about, “Go screw yourselves. I don’t need anybody.”

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“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”

- Psalm 27:13-14

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“Let us not grow weary while doing good for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”

- Galations 6:9

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“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Jesus Christ.”

- Philippians 3:14

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“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

- Hebrews 12:1

An Impossible Wish Come True - 7-14-10

I have a dog. Have had for a couple of months, just hadn’t gotten around to journaling about her. She is, quite simply, an answer to a long-standing prayer.

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Ever since Cinnamon died six years ago, I have wanted another dog just like her, even though that was nothing short of impossible since Cinnamon was a grade-A mutt. We never knew what breed she was, though we suspected. So how could there be another like her? What other dog could have fur just that length that lays just that way? A plumed tail like that? Fur at her little floppy triangle ears that crimps when wet? Delicate paws and liquid brown eyes? Not to mention all the indefinable quirks and corners of her personality that made her such a perfect lady?

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Well, the answer is this dog. Felene is like a little fawn in her grace and elegant little built. Except for being a bit lighter in color – a true fawn rather than dusky Cinnamon – and missing the little tufted feet, she is a dead ringer for Cinnamon. I even wanted a slightly larger dog than Cinnamon because I started running after she died, and this one fits that bill, too. She is lovely to look at and enchanting to watch, as so many of her behaviors smack of Cinnamon more than any other dog.

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As if the looks weren’t enough, her personality is perfect. She is far more intelligent than Cinnamon, which suits me fine, as I’m more rigorous in training her than I was with Cinnamon. She already seemed to know some commands before ever coming to me and is learning more. She is smart and spunky, sweet and loving, and pretty to boot.

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It is impossible that she should be sitting at my feet now, gnawing on her bone. She should not exist. There could only be one random mix of breeds that led to Cinnamon, but I’ve had two. My parents marvel at how like Cinnamon she is, she melted their hearts from the first. This is the Secret in action, you skeptics. It took six years of careful breeding to get just the right mix of looks and personality. She was made just for me – designed to order, specific in all her parts. And she came to me at just the right age – 9 months – so puppyhood and all its frustrations were fading and I’d still have her for almost all of her life.

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It is possible – to put an impossible wish out to the great cosmic void and have it return to me. And it took six years because it took such careful breeding. It dizzies my mind to think of all the care that had to go into the design of this dog. But she was worth the wait. As soon as she came into my life on May 24, I didn’t think any longer of the long wait. It didn’t matter. She was worth the wait and she was finally here.

Shame - 7-10-10

Wow. I officially regret sharing my journey. And isn’t it always the way that the attacks you expect never come but other attacks come from completely unexpected directions with deadly accuracy? Mom suspected the truth about B____ before she even got to those entries and shrugged, saying, “You love you who love.” But it was the entries about my darkest moments, my deepest recesses of despair, that gave my parents the most explosive ammo. Several days of their direst warnings never to share those things with my husband for the ammo it would give him, and to take my blog off the Internet now, and I’m wishing with all my heart I had kept it all to myself.

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I understand they’re reeling in shock right now and letting their fearful thoughts of how a few decisions can utterly wreck my entire life run wild, and I get that this is probably just part of the journey. I understand that at this point all they have are my weaknesses and haven’t yet seen the solid strength and toughness I have gained. Still, I completely own that my belief that I did get confirmation after confirmation that God wanted me to share this journey AND my feelings that I/he made a terrible mistake are currently irreconcilable. I’ll just have to suck it up and trudge through to the time when I see it actually helped matters that I shared with my parents.

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But here’s the thing. Hearing them warn me and admonish me about my choices then and now makes me feel, for the first time in a year and a half, exactly like I did at the time of those journal entries. My parents’ concern that I keep this from my husband stemmed from their fear that one day he might use that against me and turn his family against me and take my kids away. Wow. So no one would love me if they knew the full truth. If they knew just how weak I would always be. Never mind the fact that I am in no way the same person now, after only a year and a half, let alone after more years. Never mind that it is only those dark places that could help others in the same place relate to me, as I try to help and guide. Never mind that the testimony of what God has done in a life never broken or stained can’t compare to the beaming hope found in the testimony of someone who had reached the far reaches of hopelessness, despair, and brokenness only to have God somehow put that life back together even better and brighter than before. Never mind that there are so many broken people in the world who would slap my face as soon as look at me if I was Miss Mary Sunshine, but who may just hear God in my voice, see him in my skin, feel him in my eyes.

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Never mind all that. All that I believe. But boy, did they make me feel damaged again, as damaged as when signs of my despair were still raw and real. I felt damaged, wrong, ashamed, even as my belief was untouched. My belief that my life is a miracle of the first order, my belief that I am not who I was, that God has forgiven and cleansed and justified. Just now, that untarnished belief is buried under the feeling of being a second-class citizen, in the same manner as one who can’t share hopes and plans of family and marriage until she “gets a date first.” I feel like I don’t have the same rights as others to the life I dream of – my mistakes are too great, too dark, too irredeemable. I found I couldn’t look at my reflection in my rearview mirror on the way home, that I couldn’t watch TV or movies that had a hint of romance in it because I didn’t feel worthy of it, that I couldn’t even look God in the face, so to speak, because I felt so wrong.

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But you see, I am not so weak as I once was. I know how to take those thoughts captive and not let them build on themselves. I know what I know, and dammit, I know the truth!

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I know I have every right to the recklessly happy life I dream of and have been working towards for so long. I know my God has made me pure, looks on me in love, speaks of me with bursting pride. He sees no broken toy soldier, but a lovely china doll. I know what they say about my husband is so wrong I don’t even need to consider it. They are projecting their own newfound shame of their unforgivably weak daughter on everyone else in the world. Other people wouldn’t see me in a permanently yellowed light because of this. I know for a fact that God would not start this amazing work in my life, make me wait so long, just for a fair-weather man who would overlook all I’ve overcome to focus on one weak moment. I am so much safer than that.

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Not to mention I couldn’t love like that. My mother often cracks up at what comes out of my mouth because I’m so honest, even about myself, and I don’t hide my flaws or shy away from telling it like it is. That’s because that’s who I am. I couldn’t ever trust a man who didn’t know the worst of me because I would never know if he would love me “if he knew.” How many of us dread those three words in our relationships and as a result never let someone know the full glory of us? And I wouldn’t go years holding back a dirty little secret from someone as close as a husband, to have to be handy with an excuse if he asked about my scars. I can’t sustain that omission for a lifetime.

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And what they don’t know is that their point is moot. I already told B____, after a few weeks together when he was sharing his deepest wounds. I knew he needed to know at that point in the relationship so he could make an informed decision and leave me then before it went any further if he couldn’t be with someone with those kinds of experiences. Do you know what he did? He got up from his chair, came over to me, and kissed my wrist. He looked in my eyes and said he was so sorry I had to go through that. And he didn’t leave. And then later, in a completely separate conversation, he brought it up and said, “You know, when I see that, I don’t think how weak you were. I think what a survivor you are. You go into that same situation day after day, try to do a good job, you don’t quit.” And you wonder why I insist he’s the best. Who else would have done that? Who else would not have hesitated but offered such freely-given compassion from a good, pure heart? Somebody else who knows about wounds. Somebody who understands beauty is sometimes stitched together with jagged thread. Someone with great worth. This is how I know his worth.

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I defy Mom and Dad’s fearful belief. I defy their sense that all I have accomplished and gained is not enough to overcome my past, that in the end I am only worth what I can hide about myself. Despite their shame of me, and the shameful feeling it inspires in me, I stand tall with unbowed neck, knowing I am stronger than the both of them put together. They have always remained strong and hopeful, but I have reached depths they never dreamed of, every bone in my body broken or twisted, and still managed to rise to this point, where I can be just as isolated as I was before but know this time I am not alone and I am tough enough not to break. God’s love and great power will be clearly visible in my life because people will know how bad it can be, how hopeless, and God can still reach down and rescue you. No depth is too far for him to reach, no dark too thick for him to see. I am proof of that.

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So let them be ashamed, let them be alarmed. I will not cower, I will not cave. I will do things my way and my way is God’s way. I will demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive.

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This is by far the most cunning attack of the enemy, to use the honest concern of my dearest family, not to stop at making me feel unlovely and invisible, but damaged goods and ashamed of what I cannot help. But I recognize it for what it is, and I am not done fighting.

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I am Nicole.