Wisdom from my walk

So last month I won tickets to the Rocking Worship Roadshow. Sadly the concert was on the first night of my college marketing class so I couldn’t go. So my 9 year old son, my husband, brother in law and his son went to the concert instead. It was actually a great way for the boys to get together and actually do something fun. Since Diaz’s passing, we’ve been spending more and more time w/ the family, which is great, but it’s still so hard sometimes to get past the sadness. So I thought they might need something fun to do, so I knew it would be a chance for them to do something uplifting, and what a great way to spend the night, worshiping w/ your sons! (and for free!) Thanks Star 93.3!

A few days before this, a friend sent Caleb a flat stanley. If you aren’t familiar with it, you do fun things with it (it’s a paper person) and take pictures, then write a letter telling of your adventures and send it back to the sender. Caleb decided it would be fun to take his Stanley to the concert. This Flat Stanley had come all the way from Columbia MD and was going to take a trip out past Dayton OH to a worship concert. How cool is that? And even better, this letter was going to get sent not just back to my son’s friend, but it goes to the friend’s school. So it gets shared with the class. So, my son is actually sharing his worship experience with a class of 2nd graders who may have no idea what worship is, and Zach will get the chance to tell them. I think that is the coolest thing ever! So, my eldest son Caleb, wrote this letter to his friend Zach in Maryland. I was impressed with his writing. He’s pretty witty, like his mom, when it comes to writing. I love to see what he comes up with when he sits down and just writes. He can’t always communicate well face-to-face, but if you give the boy the chance to sit and write, he can make it happen. Sounds like someone else I know….. Wanted to share.

PS

I love that he wrote a PS. Don’t know where he came up w/ that idea, or how he learned it!

Dear Zach,

I had lots of fun with flat Stanley. One of the coolest things we did was go to see a concert. The concert we went to see was the Rocking Worship Road-show.the bands that played were Mercy Me, Jars of clay, 1,000 foot krutch,and one more that I don’t know of .The first picture of Flat Stanley was when we were on our way to the concert. The second picture is of Me,Caleb,My dad ,my uncle Darin, and my cousin Wally..The two other pictures you can’t see him that well, but he’s there. Aren’t the lights crazy! If flat Stanley was there he would probably get a headache.Ok.I had lots of fun with Flat Stanley.I hope you can send him next year too, Zach .I’ll miss him a lot!

Your bestest friend,

Caleb

P.S.Flat Stanley is probably tired from the long ride home so make sure he gets a lot of rest.And tell him I miss him

Who would have thought a rock opera that I had to turn my eyes from because of all the blood and gore would leave me in tears at the end because of the complexity of the story line and lyrics?   About a week ago Dean and I watched Repo: The Genetic Opera.  I was actually really impressed with it, and despite the blood, still find myself thinking often about the music.   Today as I was driving and talking with my neice it reminded me that I meant to look up the lyrics to one song in particular because I couldn’t believe how perfect it was.  How fitting the lyrics seemed to be to how I felt so very often in life about my health.  It also speaks to the truth I believe firmly in, that despite circumstances, or genetics, we can overcome our past or present by the actions we choose to make, whether it’s the choose of inaction or by choosing to have a more positive attitude.   I admit as I struggle even now with daily pain and the difficulty of making myself get out of bed, that I do it because I know God provides me more than enough to do what He requires of me for this day and this day alone.  If I get too tired then I lay down and I know I am done for now, and if more is needed than it will work out and if not then it wasn’t all that important to begin with.   And just like today, everything got done that needed to and then some.   I served my family first, my church second, my family some more, then took care of my homework and am spending time relaxing with my husband.    All throughout my day I sang worship songs and prayed when I got the chance, and read when I got the chance.   I do my best, with what I’m given.

A few days ago while I was driving through downtown Cincinnati listening to the song “beautiful”  by Mercy Me which usually reminds me of how blessed I am to be loved, I kept looking at the city, as I had been driving down Reading Rd. for a good 10 minutes I had revelations about God wanting his city to feel loved and to lifted up.   Normally I relate that song to myself.  The lyrics go like this:

“You are made for so much more than all of this
You’re beautiful, You’re beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You’re beautiful

Praying that you have the heart to fight
Cuz you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you’ve held inside so long
But they are nothing in the shadow of the cross”

seemed particularly poignant as I drove down streets that were empty by day that I knew by night looked completely different.   Streets that held darkness and despair, for many who walked them.   I kept wondering how many of them had never heard this song or it’s message and never knew the depths of hope and what it could mean for them if they did.   It broke my heart as I drove farther and farther into the city that day.    I grew up in a city like this, well for part of my young life, taking public transportation from our home in the inner city to the better middle school a good 40 min bus ride at least on a good day maybe?  I can’t even remember how long the trip was itself, I just know, being young and having to wait on a public transportation bus stop alone and then having to walk to school from the bus stop.  One year there were frequent problems with violence on the bus stops.   I’m far from the city girl I grew up as, but my heart still holds the memories and we had it pretty good even.   I can’t imagine my 9 year old today doing anything close to this, he’s so spoiled he’d throw a fit at the first mention of walking to the end of the street let alone taking a public bus for an hour alone!  Nor would I let him because of what I did at that age and what I don’t want for my kids to go through.  I know families today have it worse I am sure, with the recession the way it is and the culture being so different, there are so many new challenges.  I am grateful my children are growing up in a stable home, in the comfort of a stay at home mom, a full time working dad.  But we also wish our kids knew a little bit more of the struggle we knew growing up.  Knew a little more of the diversity we knew growing up.  Knew what it was like to be a “city” kid.   Suburbia is kind of nice, but I don’t want to be content.  I don’t want to forget about those that send their kids to unsafe schools, unsafe bus stops, empty homes after school.   These are just some of the ways God reminds me of where I came from and keeps me from never getting too comfortable.
Other times I encounter God in the ways my children tell me about their faith.   More amazingly I see God’s creation and am amazed at how He could even allow us to damage this beautiful earth He created day in and day out, and how infrequently we stop to take time to cherish and respect his creations instead of demolish and destroy them.   But other times, I watch/listen to a secular, rock opera movie and hear these lyrics ring out true and can only see the redemptive story of Jesus in my life and am grateful for the hope and grace I have despite my failures and my past:

Repo: The Genetic Opera
Genetic Emancipation lyrics

“Years
It’s been so many years
Resenting the years, and my heredity

Oh, I have hated and loved you
I have hidden behind you
But I finally see

That you
I’ve mistaken for destiny
But the truth is my legacy
Is not up to my genes

True
Though the imprint is deep in me
It will always be up to me
Up to me

Woooooah-Whooooooah-Whoooooah
Free at last

Woooooah-Whooooooah-Whooooah
Free at last”

This week I started week 1 of Marketing. I love going to school. I love learning. I don’t know what, if anything I’ll actually use my degree for when I finish college. I am a student by nature but as life gets difficult I wonder why I am even going to college.

I haven’t worked a full time job since I was pregnant with Caleb in 2001. I stopped working shortly before he was born because I was unable to work due to health problems. I never went to work afterword because we moved right away due to Dean’s job transfer. When Caleb was almost 2 I went to work because Dean got laid off and we decided I’d try to find a job while he looked for one. We both worked for a while, but I got fired when I lost too much time off of work for doctors appointments when I got diagnosed with pseudotumor cerebri and the doctors were having me rush to get MRI’s, eye exams and wanted me to see specialists to rule out anything major. I never went back to work full time other than providing in home childcare because I was never healthy enough again. Surgery and meds fixed the tumor problem but a bout w/ meningitis brought the problem back and later on I developed more problems, more than likely resultant as of the meningitis or autoimmune issues in the family. Either way, the likelihood of me ever working full time are in God’s hands, and as of now I know it’s not possible.

As I look at my near future, my best friend is due to have a baby and my dad is having double by pass surgery all within weeks of each other, both within miles of each other, in Maryland, 500 miles away from me. It’s hard for me to focus on college and the fact that I don’t really need a degree when I may never be able to work full time thus never need a degree. My heart longs to be in Maryland with those I love and want to be supporting right now. My bank account says we don’t have money to put gas in the cars or food in the fridge til Friday, let alone go out of town. We know God provides and we know I will probably use our tax money to go to visit my family and friends in Maryland soon, the waiting and planning and staying focused on the here and now is the difficult part.

Sometimes I wonder when I’ll realize what I’ll do when I grow up, sometimes I wonder what will happen when I realize my kids are all in college and I’m still sitting around doing nothing with my life. There’s so much I want to do, and I’m sick of the physical limitations that I’ve been plagued with for so long, and not seeing an end in sight. I’m grateful for each new day and the chance to try again, and I try each day to do more than I did the day before. Sometimes I succeed, some days I fail miserably. Today I’m focusing on family, friends, and overcoming a mountain of laundry. If that’s not the here and now, I don’t know what else is!

Intrigued another new dr today by showing her my medical history. Wish I’d do that with a doctor who could actually look at it and not get all excited about having a rarity sitting in front of her, and treat me like a person who has all of those conditions and takes all of those meds and maybe needs their help! Needless to say, she eventually woke up from her shock and did just that!

At least for once,a new diagnosis is being treated and they are hopeful the results will be life changing. This time, I got to be in the drivers seat and make a difference for myself. Guess who told who what the diagnosis was? That’s right, after a lifetime of putting up with crazy illnesses, pain, (physical, emotional, mental and always life altering) and keeping track of how I felt and micro managing it all as best I could, I went to the doctor and said hey I think this is what’s wrong, they looked at my history, my test results and say hm-mm I think you might be right. For once they listen to the patient, and immediately started treatment.

Today I got news that if this med works I could ultimately feel the best I ever have, AND there could be hope for my kids too. Knowing what conditions you have always makes it easier to diagnosis hereditary conditions, especially when you are trying to figure out why your kids are acting the way they are. I’m a little more hopeful today, for a lot of reasons.

I believe in God and I know He can heal, physically and spiritually. For whatever reason, despite our prayers, this is something I’m suffering from and have been for a while. It’s something I believe our family has suffered for for a long time, but no one took the time to pay attention to because they were afraid of what it might mean if they did. I’m willing to wear a label to save my kids from growing up without one, if I can. I believe God gave us doctors and medicine for a reason, just like He has the power to heal without them, sometimes He uses other measures as well. Sometimes though, the biggest healing comes through our being willing to accept there is a problem to begin with. I’ve walked through that door, and already feel better about what’s on the other side. Hoping my steps to freedom not only save me and my household, but maybe frees our whole family from the generational curses that have been plaguing us for years. So much pain has been brewing in angry and sad hearts for too long, and maybe it’s time to realize it’s time to be free of it, even if it means admitting you can’t do it on your own. I serve a living, loving, freeing God and He wants me to be happy and not held down by anger and fear, I’m choosing to set my household free; what will you choose?

Joshua 24:15
“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Folks keep asking how Dean and my mother in law are doing; and how I am doing.   I always say, that each day has it’s own challenges and that we know that we are more blessed than others.   This past weekend Dave’s message mentioned several families who are mourning the loss of a loved one who died after suffering a long battle with cancer.    I know, at least for me, I am not angry with God about Diaz’s death.   I know Diaz did not die in pain.   He went to sleep and did not wake up.  God graciously took him from one life to the next.  I firmly believe, somehow, Diaz was done his mission here and we all know he left behind a legacy that we are all proud of and that God would be proud of.   This softens the blow that we have been dealt.  This does not make it go away.  I still cry.   We all do.   I realized that I still come back to my blog, because I know I had one reader that always followed up and truly cared about what I was writing.  I was waiting for him to leave me feedback.  I kept waiting.   And I realized he wasn’t going to come back.   In that moment I realized, I missed Diaz a lot more than I thought I would.  I knew it would be hard for all of us, I never realized how much I relied on him for his encouragement.   For his fatherly words of encouragement.  He would often call me to check up on me after reading my facebook status or reading a blog entry if he knew I needed help with the kids.  In fact, the day of the night he died, he had called and asked me if I needed him to come during his lunch break to watch the kids because they were home from school for a snow day and I had a doctors appointment to go.  Since I didn’t know how long I’d be and I knew he had limited time for lunch I told him Dean was going to do it, but I could tell he was having a rough day at work and also realized how much he wanted me to know he was trying to be there for me when I was having a bad day too.   I regret not letting him spend his lunch break with the kids that day.   His last day.    I’ll never forget that conversation.   He told me he loved.    He was always there for us, even when I was being a pain and the typical “daughter-in-law”.  Even though we’re joyful that Dad’s in a better place, we’ll always be a little sad for the hole we have in our hearts and in our lives.    I wish I had told him how I felt.   I hope he knew.

When I was in middle school I wrote poetry and song lyrics. I sometimes wish I knew what happened to those pages and pages of young creativity. Today as I was thinking about how to get my kids more interested in things they don’t want to do, and how to keep dinner time prayer time from being such a chore, I thought maybe I could do something to fix it. A friend gave us a prayer dice, you roll it and each side is a different prayer. You roll and whatever you land on is the prayer you use for that meal. The problem is, ironically, this same person taught our kids another prayer, this is sung to the superman theme song and the kids always argue over rolling the die or singing the “superman” prayer before we eat.

Today I wondered if I could pull off writing a few “prayers” that could be turned into songs that my kids could learn to sing at meal time and bed time. Problem is that the same issue I had in middle school is present now, I can write lyrics, but I can’t write the music to go with it. Anyone game for a project like this, who could take the words I write and set them to music you create? It’s been a long time since I’ve written, for something like this, but I know I make up enough silly kids songs several times a week to make my kids laugh that I can probably pull off something! 🙂 The things is, would it be good enough to put to music? I hate doubting myself, but hours ago this sounded like a great idea!!

Our kids are a lot like me, and sing almost all day long (must to Dean’s dismay) and Zeke and Bo now make up their own songs just like mommy does, to be silly most of the time. What if I intentionally put words together for a greater purpose? I grew up listening to my mom playing her guitar as well as occasionally writing her own songs. It’s something I’ve always wished I could give my kids; the encouragement to do so themselves, and the memories of seeing their mom doing the same. I have a guitar I don’t know how to play, I just need to learn. I have the words within me, I just need to write them. I have so much I want to do, but do I have the time and energy, and better yet talent to make it happen?

I always joke when we do something wrong that “now the kids are going to need therapy for sure.”  Well today we took Bo to an appointment with a “dr” to “talk.”  Turned out it was just Dean and I she really needed to see, and she’s referring us to Children’s hospital to get Bo tested for sensory disorders.   She thinks his irrational outbursts are related to over stimulation, and are not a “mental” problem.     I know he’s got a sensory problem, but I’m not sure it is all a sensory issue either, but we are not the experts.

We made Bo’s appointments weeks ago, while on the brink of feeling like we were one step short of driving him to the hospital ER because we just didn’t know what to do with his behavior.   Between now, then and dealing with the trauma from a few months ago, the loss of a dad, the thoughts of my dad being so near death for so long and now awaiting open heart surgery; I’ve been thinking a lot about my mental clarity.   For months I’ve been on the brink of something; sometimes it’s a melt down or sometimes it’s overwhelming joy that I got through a day without one more thing thrown our way.   While contemplating my reactions to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and how my son was dealing with his perceiving “injustices” in his small little world, I realized that how I deal with life is much the same as I always have.  I look at life the same way now as I did when I was 6, and sadly sometimes I react to it just like I did when I was 6.  I still sometimes throw a full blown temper tantrum.   Sometimes I am filled with so much excitement about something that I feel like screaming about it from the rooftops.  Other times, I am so devastated by the little things that I want to thrown myself on the floor in the middle of the room and say “woe is me” (like Bo did last week!)

Right after I left Bo’s appointment today, I went to my appointment with my new psychiatrist.   I was prepared with my medical history, neatly printed out from my home computer that included my current meds, past surgeries and current and past doctors.    As she asked about my medical history, she finally got to the meat of the matter and asked what brought me to her.   I told her while trying to process my son’s behavior and some recent trauma, and she had the nerve to interrupt me!   Well, I somehow managed to forget that sitting before me was someone who I was going to have to recant the thrilling tale of how I met a terrorist and turned him over to the FBI, all while trying to sound like I’m not crazy.   I realized it has been months since I’d told the tale and didn’t look at her until I was done talking about it and she was in shock.   She tried to keep on track about things and ask other health related questions but she kept coming back to it.  Finally she said, I’m sorry I have to ask, and she asked for details, not because they would help me process any but because she was curious.   I laughed.   I told her I was sorry and said, I understand, it’s shocking, I am just over it and I forgot it’s news to you.   So I let her ask questions about it, but I realized I was truly over it.   I wasn’t there to deal with the trauma  I’d be through.   I was there for something else, and I knew that.

Sometimes life throws things our way.   We can choose how we react to them.  Sometimes we can control if we throw ourselves on the floor and scream and shout about it, but for some of us, it’s truly something we can’t control.   A long time ago I realized there was more to my insanely clean house, and my inability to not leave the house without doing certain things or having things done a certain way, and more importantly, I realized I am sick of not having control over why I do things and why I can’t not do them.   I realized I don’t want my 6 year old to live the rest of his life feeling this way because no one took the time to listen to his cries for help.   I’m going to see a doctor for myself and for my family, and hopefully we’ll all get a little free in the process, and maybe our house will get a lot dirtier in the process too!  (and I won’t care)

The funny part was, I don’t which problem was the kicker, but she agreed I should talk to a therapist as well as see her for medication management, take your pick:

A) guest living in your house confesses to terrorism and you get him deported

B) your father in law dies

C) your estranged father comes back in to your life, but is extremely unhealthy and is awaiting open heart surgery so you don’t know how much more time you have left to get to know him or your kids to get to know him

D) Your parents divorced when you were 6, your mom re-marries when you are 10, 1st step-dad sucks (need I say more?)

E) you have 3 kids, you are trying to juggle college, taking care of the house, and volunteer full time, while dealing with chronic illness

F)your friends made fun of you when you were younger, um whose didn’t!?

H)High school – I am not even going to mention all the details….

G)really I have to pick just 1!?

Thing is, we can’t expect life to be easy.   In fact, if you are doing things right, the more wrong things tend to happen!  We can control, to an extent how we react to our circumstances.  To the best of my ability, I’ve tried to respond positively to the situations I’ve been through, but at some point we can’t do it alone.  I just wanted to share because I wanted my friends, and family to know it’s okay to need and accept help, whether it be medically, or just from a friend’s listening ear (or a pastoral one).   There’s always going to be ups and downs in life, but at some point you can start to take responsibility for how you react to things.     We’ve had more than our fair share of bad things happen in the last 12 months, and we’re doing our best to keep on going and to keep being an example to our kids, but sometimes there’s not much you can do when your body and brain are working against you.   So we’re keeping our head and hearts in the game as much as possible, but it’s not without a little help from our friends (and doctors!)  Don’t think any less of us, but I thought it might help some of you who also might be suffering in your own silent way to know it’s okay and that you are not alone.   Also, if you are suffering and need help, to know it’s okay to seek it out, and it’s better to ask for help publicly than to suffer in silence.