On My Heart: Mother and Daughter

When the ultrasound technician told us Brighton was a girl, I burst into tears of joy. I was so happy that she was healthy, and I really didn't care if we were having a boy or a girl... but a girl seemed like so much fun.

But on the way home, I started to panic. The relationship between mother and daughter has been painted as one of turmoil and drama, and I knew from my own experiences that the likelihood of Brighton slamming the door in my face and yelling, "I hate you" was closer in my future than I wanted to admit... because the relationship I had with my own mother was one of delight and fun until the age of 12. After that it was a full on war. 

I have always been fiercely independent, easily frustrated by those who tried to over manage me, and suspicious of people for whom negativity and fear was their everyday language. My mother was my opposite of me - slightly clingy, fearful of the world (you'll get car jacked if you don't lock your doors, you'll get malaria from mosquitoes, you'll poke your eye out with those scissors!) and most comfortable when giving me detailed directions and instructions. She did not trust that life can sometimes work out, and her fears brought out a sense of insecurity in her that led to a need to control. She clung to me too tightly and I fought it every step of the way.

I hated the way she handled me in my teenage years - I was a good kid, but because the world was a dangerous place in her eyes, I was limited and held back and monitored. Because I lacked the maturity to see the situation for what it was, I made life very hard for my mother.  It took years for us to recover from that season, and while our relationship now is fine, I still feel myself bristle when she says something that sounds overly irrational or gives me unsolicited advice.

I don't want that kind of relationship with my daughter, but my fear is that it's inevitable.

Sadly I have already imagined the future drama unfold in my head. Brighton is upset about something she nor I can control, or I set a limit she doesn't like, or I give an opinion that is contrary to what she wants me to say and she freaks out like teenagers sometimes do and we exchange words and actions that we will both regret one day.

I can see this scene because I lived it so many times. The overwhelming feeling of being misunderstood and scrutinized and suffocated by my mother and feeling that uncontrollable, hormonal rage and teenage despair that my life just might end based on what she had just done or said. It was all so dramatic and ridiculous, but at the time my life was so short and my frame of reference was so narrow. I did not know real struggle, or suffering, or pain. I was a spoiled, stubborn child who thought she should be treated like an adult even though she refused to take on all the responsibilities adulthood brings. 

I know Brighton and I will clash at times. It's human nature to have conflict and misunderstandings and for children to push the boundaries that their parents set for them. I get that. What I pray is that she doesn't resist me the way I resisted my own mother, and that I don't try to press her into being like me or thinking like me when she should be herself.

Maybe she won't be the child who slams her bedroom door in my face. Maybe she will never say, "I hate you". I hope that our relationship is more of a blessing than a burden.  I hope she will walk the beginning of this path I have laid out for her. Each stone I will set down is another piece of myself - another part of my heart and my mind that I have carved out just for her so she won't make the same mistakes I made. I know there will be times when she goes her own way and gets lost, or goes her own way and it works out better than we could have imagined. And there will be a day when I won't have any more stones to lay down and she'll have to forge the path on her own.

I am already mourning that day, the day when the separation between us becomes the norm and not the exception. It's inevitable and healthy and the right thing, but it scares me so.  I want her to be protected and safe and be treated with respect and kindness and care. I don't want her to fail like I did. I want her to have a beautiful life.

But there is nothing I can do to ensure that. All I can do is lay down my heart and my worry, stone by stone, and hold her hand until she won't let me anymore and keep saying, "Baby girl, this is the way."

On My Heart: I got you

One humid afternoon this past July, Brighton was running and chasing bubbles as they flew into the air. Suddenly her flip flop caught on a small dip in the sidewalk and down she went, landing on her knees and hands. She stood up as we ran to her, her lower lip pushed out, tears in her eyes and held out her hands, the tender skin scraped and red, her knees bleeding slightly. I wrapped her up in my arms as she cried, and whispered into her ear over and over, "Baby I'm so sorry. Mama is here. I got you. Don't be sad, I got you baby." Slowly, she stopped crying, wiping her eyes on my shoulder, and let me tend to her wounds.

Ever since that afternoon, every time she has fallen and cried, or was scared or worried, or needed to be comforted, the words that always worked to calm and reassure her were, "I got you. Don't worry, don't be sad, mama's got you. I got you baby."

One cold afternoon this past December, I sat on the couch in our living room reading a book while Brighton sat on the floor nearby, wrapping her baby dolls in blankets and changing their clothes. She wrapped one baby in a blanket carefully and cradled it in her arms. Then I heard her whisper, "It's ok baby. I gots you."

I watched her pat her baby doll's back, my heart swelling at seeing my child show such love and care as I had to her. I felt big, fat tears run down my cheeks and a sob rise up in my throat. Brighton looked up at me for a moment, noticing my crumpled face and asked "Why you crying mama?" I replied, "Oh it's ok baby. I'm ok."Brighton laid her baby doll on the ground and climbed into my lap, wrapping her arms around me, her little soft hands patting my back. I hugged her back tightly, trying to choke back my sobs and as I wiped tears from my cheeks with a hand, she whispered into my neck, "Aw, don't be sad Mama. I gots you. I gots you."

We forget how our every day actions, the little things that in the moment seem so insignificant, can shape our children's character. A moment of providing comfort and security to her baby doll and then a moment of providing the same to me reminded me that all those times I have held her in my arms and said the same things over and over mattered. Maybe even more than all the other things I have tried to teach her so far. Because maybe being there for another person when they need it and reminding them that you "got" them, is the best demonstration of love you can offer. I sure hope so.

On My Heart: The Unexamined Life

There was a season of my life where I felt a constant and burning emotional and mental exhaustion. I was in my early twenties, in graduate school and writing all the time to keep up with my thesis, in a long distance relationship, living in an apartment that frightened me (roach problem, creepy neighbors, weird sounds at night) and going to work at job that I couldn't stand. I was also tied at the hip to a group of other young, single women in the same scenario as me - busy, trying to find a career, or at the very least a job that paid the rent, wanting to do it all and trying to figure out who we were.

I had a weekly bible study with these young women and each week someone was going through a quarter life crisis - we all needed better jobs, different boyfriends, more positive attitudes, a deeper well of faith that it would all work out. We were always analyzing the root of the issue at hand - was it us? Was it God telling us to wait? And if it was us, what was wrong that we needed to fix.

Between the constant push of my religion to become less of myself and more like Christ, this bible study cum self-help group, and the own people pleasing critic in my head, I felt like I was over-analyzing myself constantly. My mind was a constant ticker tape of questions and what if's: What in me needed to change? What was I doing to offend people, or making them feel less than they should? Was I a good friend? A good child? A good employee? Should I do (insert goal) and if I do, what will happen? What if nothing happens? Would people stop loving me? Would I lose? Am I marriage material? Am I a good writer? Does God want me to do all of this or something different? What in me was keeping me from my definition of success? How was my heart?

Obviously I was trying to figure out too much at once. I would map out all the scenarios in my head then worry about the outcomes. I would struggle with the time it would take to get from point A to B emotionally or spiritually or whatever it was in me that was "wrong" and needed to be fixed or changed.

It was tiring and self absorbed season of life. Thankfully, all seasons end. I finished my thesis, broke it off with the long-distance boyfriend, found another job, another apartment, another boyfriend (who eventually became my husband) and slowly started to shed that constant stream of questions and anxiety that plagued me. I stopped analyzing every little decision and thing and situation that happened to me and just started living more. Part of it was the exhaustion of that season (because who can keep that up for long?) but most of it was that I felt happier than I had in a long, long time. I stopped thinking and writing about my life and just started living it.

Fast forward to now and I find myself feeling, well numb and out of touch. I cannot remember the last time I took stock of my heart and my spirit (outside of our struggle with infertility and our adoption journey, which is just one small facet of who I am).  What was going on in the emotional, mental and spiritual parts of me and what did I need to focus on to become a better version of myself?

I could blame social media for taking away my ability to focus. I could blame the job I had over the last year which gave me little room for imagination and dreaming and instead forced a sort of repetitious style into my every day. I could blame all the years of our infertility struggle which redirected all my energy towards one single dream. I could blame my child who brought me into the world of baby gear, sleep patterns and the incessant talk of labor, nursing, the color of my child's poo and the like.

I could blame a thousand things that had led me to a life of distraction and emotional apathy towards my own heart, but I know I am to blame. I had chosen the easier route for the last few years - go through the motions, pay the mortgage, go on the annual vacation, buy the holiday gifts, pick paint colors, choose the movie for Friday's night date, have the same conversations about celebrities and hair color and the weather over and over. It is my fault I am so detached from that part of me that wants to be something more.

I used to have this green notebook that I journaled in. I used it for a year, while I was a junior in college. I was a 21 year old Christian who was trying to figure out her own version of what faith looked like and a girl who didn't know who she wanted to be just yet. I wrote in that journal almost daily, pasted photos and letters in it, carried it with me to and from classes. Reading back over it now makes me cringe, but not for the reasons you'd suspect. I am not embarrassed of what I wrote then, or who I was, I am embarrassed at how this adult version of myself, 15 years distanced from that bright, hopeful young woman, is so out of touch. That journal contains the kind of emotional and spiritual analyzation of a psychologist. It was self-absorbed writing of course, almost a map of "finding myself" in a year, but it was also innocent, searching and open to finding the truth. I wanted to know the world and my place in it. I wanted to find love, but not lose myself in it. I wanted to thrive and change things for the better. I was fully committed to finding the meaning in everything, the small moments and the drama and the tedious everyday tasks of literature essays and listening to my roommates fight and folding clothes in the local coin laundromat.

I still wish I was that young woman sometimes. She was not afraid to ask hard, thoughtful, soul stirring questions of herself. She was not afraid to admit where she was good and where she lacked. She knew she was loved and felt a freedom in that love to have a teachable and humble spirit - to say, "I want more of myself and I'm willing to work hard to figure out how to get there."

I am trying to become something like that again - not the self-absorbed, worrisome version - but the one who is wiling to ask hard questions about her heart, her dreams and her decisions. There is a balance somewhere in-between the constant self-psychology and living an unexamined life. I'm just trying to find it.

On My Heart: Influence

In 2012, when the first Influence Conference came and went, I watched from afar and prayed for the leaders, hoping that it would go off without a hitch. I read some of the recaps from bloggers, looked at some of the Instagram pictures and made a mental note to consider going the next year. It seemed like a lot of fun and so many women said how much of an impact it had on their lives.

The tickets went on sale for the 2013 conference and I continued to consider it, but as more time went by, I mentally talked myself out of it. We had a new baby and I couldn’t imagine leaving her behind, even though she would have been over a year old at the time. We had financial goals to save for another home, to stock away more savings for emergencies and vacations. I made my excuses: I was not a big blogger, or a business owner, or crafty, or an expert on anything. Why would I need to go to a blogging conference?

But then in the days leading up to the conference, I found myself checking the speaker schedule, and reading tweets and feeling a twinge of envy mixed in with a healthy dose of regret. I should have bought my ticket, I should have been there.

Over the last year and a half, I have felt the overwhelming stagnancy of my heart, feeling as though I have lost a part of my voice in both my online world and the everyday world I live in. I am a storyteller and I felt like I had no stories left to tell. I am an encourager and I felt I had no hopeful words to share anymore. These were all lies I told myself because I felt small and insignificant in comparison to everyone else around me who from the outside looked successful and influential and put-together and accomplished.

I will probably never be a “big” blogger and maybe never have any of my real writing published, or start my own advice column; but I am called to tell my stories and to be an influence wherever I live, both here on the world wide web and in my sphere of every day real life. I wished I had attended the conference the last two years and become part of this network of women who want the same things I want – to make their online and everyday life mean something more.

So this year instead of wishing, I am doing. Tickets to the 2014 Influence Conference went on sale this week and I bought my ticket without knowing how much a flight or hotel will cost, or who I will room with, or who I will meet. I’m nervous and excited and a little overwhelmed, but I also know that investing in my heart and my influence is never a bad thing.

Influence Conference 2014 here I come. Who's with me?

On My Heart: I'm aiming for love

I had grand plans this past week. I was going to blog, finally finish Brighton's first year photo album/scrapbook, organize my closet, go grocery shopping and most importantly have a date night in with Matt. 

Then life got in the way. It always does. First Matt had stomach flu, then I did, then Brighton had a head cold that turned into a sinus infection. Then I caught her cold. Then we had church obligations, and I had a girls night, and a baby shower plus work and the laundry and cooking. Add to that all the drama in our community of friends and family that has taken on a life of its own and I just wanted to get through the week without pouring a bowl sized glass of wine for myself every night.

If I'm totally honest, I have not handled the past few months well. I've written about it before, but there has been a lot of terrible, tragic things happen over the fall and winter to multiple friends and to people in my community. There has been loss, but more than that, so much brokenness: broken hearts, broken relationships, broken trust, broken faith.

So much of my world right now is unpacking and processing lies. For the sake of my friends and family, I have to be vague on this blog, but this winter has unveiled a lot of deception, wrong-doing and manipulation. Top each of those with a lack of ownership for actively participating in all of it and a lack of conviction to confess, and a lack of courage to set things right and it makes for a tangled and ugly situation.

There isn't a how-to manual for handling situations like this. Do I forgive? Of course, but how much grace should be extended? And is extending grace covering up justice? How do we enable trust after so much falsehood weaved it's way into our lives? How do we love people while they are actively doing wrong and hurting others? How do we stand for what is right and not cause further loss, or dissension, or doubt?

I've been advised to be full of love, but to be careful. To not speak of what has happened, but to say what is right in the right time. To be a curator of peace and vulnerability, but to also be a tower of strength. It's exhausting to be all of those things in the midst of a struggle when everyone is just crying out for mercy and recovery. I hurt with them, trying to make sense of why we are often the creators of our own destruction, and why we have such a hard time recovering from our brokenness.

I am struggling with this season of winter and loss and doubt, which feels like it will never end.

In the meantime, my prayer is for courage and for perseverance. I'm trying to manifest a faith that does not waver in the face of fear. I'm searching for what is right and clinging to truth. I hope I can grasp even a sliver of that goodness as things splinter off, split and smash around me.

Above all, I'm aiming for love - real and unconditional love. The kind that reaches farther than you thought possible, and presses in when the ugliness of the struggle is bigger than you can handle. The kind that is only made real when tested and pushed and stretched.

Love is what I want this winter, for my friends, my family, my community and even for this long fight against all the loss we have endured together. Love seems to be what has been forgotten. So I'm aiming for love.

On My Heart: Away From Me

When I was a girl, there was nothing I wanted more than to be a grown up; and now that I am a grown up, there is nothing more I want for my daughter than to stop time and keep her small and innocent and with me forever.

It is ironic that your child comes into this world, totally helpless and totally dependent on others for survival, and within a year they can walk on their own, eat on their own, and even start to make choices for themselves. Wasn't it just a year ago that my baby couldn't hold her head up on her own?

Now I lean in for a kiss and she pushes me away, or smacks my hand away from hers as I try to assist her. She resists my direction and my guidance, choosing to go her own way. She walks away from me time and time again, her face against the wind, the sun at her back, not a care in the world. My view more often these days than I'd prefer, is the back of her head, her tiny feet taking her away from me.

This is inevitable, this time of her figuring out the world, and finding her place in it.

But there are moments where she will look back for me, extend her arm, wait for my hand to find hers, or lean in for a kiss. There are moments in the quiet of the morning when she lays her head on my shoulder and wraps her arms around my neck and settles in. There are moments in the dark of twilight where she leans back into me, her head on my chest and lets me bury my nose in her hair and kiss her until I am fulfilled.

Those are the moments I cherish, remembering that she always needed me, even if just for a little while.

On My Heart: Perspective and Healing

In the last few months, a lot of people in my community have suffered or had something tragic happen to them – major medical issues, deceit, lies, adultery, disrupted adoptions, divorce proceedings. It feels like the people I love are being hit again and again by drama and heartache and aren’t getting any relief.

Situations like these bring back the bruised places in me, the ones that are still tender from my own suffering. Seasons like this make me question everything. Life does not appear to be fair or full of all the things I thought it would be filled with – love, grace, kindness, justice. Over the last month, I have been struggling with understanding why bad things happen to people who are seemingly not doing anything to bring hurt upon themselves. I don’t believe that God uses struggles to teach us lessons, but I do wonder why terrible things are permitted to happen if my God is so powerful and omniscient and loving.

I could go on and on about this, my doubt, and my questions and my hurt for the people I love. I could continue to shake my fist at God and ask why. But I find that if I continue in that cycle, nothing changes and depression starts hanging around in doorways.

A few nights ago some of my girlfriends got together and told our stories. We talked about the hurt places in all of us, the ones that feel so broken you have no idea how you’re going to ever be made right again. We all agreed that acknowledging your hurt, then asking the Lord to heal you was the right first step, but we all seemed at a loss for what to do after that. For most of us, something had died or been lost - relationships, faith, a healthy sense of self-worth, confidence, identity. Grieving loss like that does not feel normal and there seems to be very little knowledge about what kind of practical tools you can use to cope and move forward. 

I too have always known to ask God to heal me when I'm hurt, but honestly that is not enough. I need more. I believe that becoming whole again after a tragic event is dependent on more than “letting go and letting God” – for me it’s a choice to change my perspective. Not to become a doormat and permit suffering into my life or let it continue because it will build character or make me more “godly”; instead it’s looking at the situation truthfully and finding my own personal peace within it.  That peace doesn’t change what happened to me, or how it shaped me at the time, but it reminds me that I am more than my suffering. My identity cannot be wrapped up in the tragic, awful things that happen to me because if they do, I will forever be a broken person.

When our adoption failed two years ago, I felt like I was hit by a bus. Our dream of parenthood had died at the hands of someone who had deceived us and it felt wrong and evil and so incredibly unfair. I did not believe that simply asking God to heal me would make things better or right. I needed more than that. I needed to know and accept the truth: we were matched with a person who was not fully committed to adoption, nor was she in the right mental or emotional state to make that decision. She was a drug addict, a compulsive liar and a master manipulator. She was broken and hurt and she did what she thought was right for herself. Once I accepted who she was, it helped me see the situation clearly. It helped me forgive. It didn't make the situation right, or make it as though it never happened, but it shifted something in me that allowed progression and healing in my life. By seeing the truth and accepting it for what it was, I could change my heart towards the person who wronged us. By changing my perspective I could become whole again, even if it wouldn't be a quick or neat or painless process. I wouldn’t be the same person, as tragedy doesn’t seem to permit us going back to the way we were, but I could be healed and ok one day.

When I see my community hurt and break apart and suffer, I wish I could draw them a road map so they could pull themselves out of the mire and be at peace again. That is not how it works though -

the process of healing is different for every person. For me, I think I have sort of figured out what works – seeking truth, forgiving what I am capable of letting go of, and then looking at the world a little differently because of it.

On My Heart: Balance, Weekends and Family

Matt and I don’t get to spend a lot of time together during the week due to both of us working and have a little one running around in constant need of attention and supervision. Last Wednesday, we scheduled a “business” meeting (side bar: for those who follow me on Twitter, you should read that thread; a few of my friends thought we meant something else because I put business in quotations, haha), and spent almost 3 hours discussing things that we needed to address. Some of it was focused on true business items – planning for our church small group, talking through some business opportunities for Matt, creating our wish list and budget for a new house (more on that later), health care coverage options, but the other portion was focused on us.

Before Brighton was born, Matt and I still didn’t have a lot of time to spend together. We both work a lot, as Matt’s business is growing and requires a lot of paperwork, estimates, meetings with clients and then the actual physical labor he does; and I was in a job that stretched me thin during seasons. We had the weekends to run errands and have dates, and it seemed like enough to sustain us and keep our marriage in a healthy spot.

Since Brighton was born, what time we had on the weekends was now filled with another person. We tried really hard to make sure that each of us got some alone time, and also some time with just our daughter, but that left little time for just us. This was fine at first, as we gave ourselves a lot of grace since we knew babies need their parents a lot in the first year; but over time I started to feel out of touch with my husband and out of touch with my marriage. There are seasons of ebb and flow in everything and this was a season of feeling like Matt was more of my roommate than my partner. I missed him and I missed the relationship and the time we once had, but struggled to reconcile how to get back to that place given so much had changed.

Last Wednesday, as we talked through boring topics like what health insurance plan we should choose, and mortgage rates, I felt like we were more in tune with one another – just through talking without distractions. As we moved to the topic of us, our family, what we want, it became easier to call things out that needed to change, and make some realistic goals to help us create the kind of marriage we want. We cannot go back to the place before Brighton was born, but our relationship can still be solid and healthy and encouraging and loving with our daughter in it. We just have to make time for us because in order for our family to thrive, our marriage has to thrive first.

So this weekend, we spent almost every second together, not running errands, but doing something fun. On Saturday morning, we travelled to Winston-Salem to go fall clothes shopping for Brighton (H&M hasn’t opened yet in Charlotte), and then spent the afternoon in their little historic downtown, eating a late lunch and drinking a few pumpkin beers at a local brewery. While we ate, Brighton slept in her stroller and it gave us a chance to talk face to face without any interruptions. When she woke up, we took a walk, admiring the flowers and the trees and the little storefronts, and just enjoyed stretching our legs and the beautiful weather. On Sunday, we went to church, and after Brighton napped we attending my company’s “family fun day” at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. They provided a free lunch and we were able to tour the grounds and walk on the track before the big race next weekend.

This weekend was a nice reminder of what I need to focus on – my husband and my daughter - but in a more balanced way. It’s something I know I will continue to struggle with, especially when obligations like work, laundry, bills and just life in general, pull me in a few different directions. But I’ve made the decision that more of my time needs to be focused on them – we need the quality time together as a family, and together as a married couple.

Cheers to the weekend!

On My Heart: My first year and perfectionism

It’s been hard for me to articulate how I feel about my first year in my role as a mother. I love my daughter so fiercely and my feelings are very clear about her and her life. But my feelings about myself have been muddled with disappointment and a little confusion too. Did I do well in this first year, or did I fail? Or was it a little bit of both?

 

I have always had a streak of perfectionism in me, and it’s a been a struggle my entire life. It has dictated my choices, my actions, even my relationships.  Perfectionism tends to stem (at least for me) from a sense of wanting approval, and that desire for approval comes from forgetting who I am and forgetting that I am already loved. My identity should reside not in how I look to others, but who I am to God and my loved ones. I have moments where I feel freed of it, and free in who I am, but as the chapter of parenthood began last August, this part of my personality became larger than I expected. It took over whole sections of my heart and seeped into other facets of my life where it had not been before and it almost made me crazy in the process.

 

Thankfully, there is little control with a newborn. I could not control my daughter’s sleep or eating patterns, her mood, or her budding personality. I could not control any of the circumstances that would throw a wrench into my ordered world  – sure I could plan and organize and anticipate, but there were things that happened that I had no preparation for and it was the best thing to ever happen to me. The perfectionist in me had created a system of rules and judgments and expectations, but when things were really, really hard and I was exhausted, or inpatient, or confused or my daughter was overtired, or teething, or sick, I did what worked to make it easier on both of us. I broke most, if not all, of my silly, unrealistic rules. Sometimes my actions disappointed me, but most times I felt relieved from the pressure of living up to this image I had created for myself. I could not be the mother I dreamed up, this perfect woman on a pedestal, no matter how hard I tried.

 

The breaking point of all of this came halfway through the first year of my daughter’s life, during a night where she was sick and woke up multiple times, crying and longing for her mama. As I held her in my arms and paced back and forth in her room in the dark, I was overcome with exhaustion and impatience due to her season of sickness and thought, “Am I a good mother? I don’t feel like a good mother.” She continued to cry softly and I joined her, hot tears streaking my cheeks and falling onto the top of her head. I so desperately wanted to be good at this thing I had waited so long to do, but I felt like I was failing left and right. And I hate failing, so I decided in that moment to change my definition of good.

 

I wanted to be more than good. Good was not enough. So I decided I wanted to be loving, patient, fun, balanced, and realistic. I knew I couldn’t be all of these all of the time, but it gave me a sense of relief and peace to know that I could aim to be any one of these things and it would be right for my daughter. Good felt like perfect, and no matter what I did I would never be perfect.

 

My sense of perfectionism died a slow, drawn-out and dramatic death as Brighton grew. At times it was extremely painful to let go of all the things I felt were so important to my sense of identity – a clean home, a well-behaved child, a picture perfect marriage, the ability to juggle multiple things at once, even looking pretty and put together. None of those items make me who I am and yet I clung to them like a lifeline through the storm of post-partum anxiety, sadness as I went back to work full-time, my changing relationship with Matt and the frenzy of new motherhood.

 

The first year of parenthood was exhausting, messy, filled with ridiculous, illogical guilt, but also hysterical and full of joy and love. Brighton was my miracle baby, the catalyst for a renewal of my faith in God. Her life brought yet another constant mirror to my world, where I couldn’t escape seeing myself for who I really am, flaws and all. Whether she wanted to become this or not, she became another iron in my life, sharpening me day by day, reminding me of what really matters. That perfect mother I wanted to be does not matter. I’m perfect for Brighton, and that is enough.

On My Heart: All Things New

Photo c/o Carrie Coleman Photography

This spring and summer have given us more rainfall than any other season this year. Each day the sun comes out, slowly, surely and within minutes the air is humid and thick. But every day as soon as I would get used to the heat on my shoulders and face, the wind would rise up, dark clouds would swiftly float in and the skies would open up. The storm could last a few hours, or just a few minutes, but it would surprise me every time.

And it was the same with my unhappiness. The last few months I have felt days upon days of fullness, joy, contentment; but as quickly as the warmth would envelope me, I felt moments of total despair, sorrow, even apathy. These moments would move in so quickly and without warning, so much so that I was shocked and frustrated and almost paralyzed by them.

It was like this for months - days of being fine, sprinkled and stained by moments of unhappiness. I was sure that everyone felt like this at times, but I felt utterly alone in my roller-coaster of emotions.

I searched for the reason I felt those moments of being totally unsettled - was it linked to being a new mother, or the weariness of the job I used to have, or the tragic events that my dear friends had experienced, or the inevitable change in my relationship with Matt? Or was it something else entirely?

I searched my heart for months and one morning in the darkness of our church's balcony as our preacher talked about the ambiguity of God, I heard the answer:

I had little to no relationship with God anymore.

Of course I still believed. I still loved him. I still liked him. I just didn't trust him and every time I thought about pursuing my life in faith again, I immediately felt an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. I was afraid of the life that included Him in it. And above all, it seemed the journey it would take to get me back to where I should be would be too daunting, too long, too full of over-analyzed thoughts and prayers full of tears. 

But I was reminded almost immediately that that is not how God works. He doesn't require some 10 step process, or a checklist to complete or a series of hoops to jump through, in order for me to be reconciled to him. His love doesn't work like that. It's bigger and better than that. He just asks that I leap into his arms and be covered in his grace.

And so in the darkness of my church's balcony, I bowed my head and closed my eyes to drown out the distractions around me, and I quietly whispered, "I'm sorry." I was sorry for the doubt, the fear, the anger. I didn't have the energy to say much else, but I mentally ticked off all the things I wanted to confess and release and before I could get through all of them, I felt peace. Someone once told me that peace isn't the absence of conflict, it's the presence of Christ. I can only attest that sense of serenity to God.

Everything hasn't been all kittens and roses since that morning a month or so ago. As much as God does not require a process for our relationship to be healthy and constant, I am human and flawed and feel somewhat compelled to filter through all the yuck in my heart. It feels tedious at times and on the other hand it also feels like the good kind of hurt - the stripping back of the hardness of my heart to reveal something new.

That is the hope in all of this: He makes all things new. So I leap once again, choosing to believe. 

"And he that sat on the throne, said: 'Behold, I make all things new'." Revelation 21:5

On My Heart: The aftermath

I celebrated my first official Mother's Day last Sunday. 

Matt let me go back to sleep after Brighton nursed and while she napped later that morning, he surprised me with a new bicycle, a gift card, a cute little sundress and donuts for a late breakfast. Later that day, we piled into the car and headed to the local green way, where we rode our bikes, pulling Brighton behind us in one of those amazing kid bike trailers, the sun on our shoulders. We ate a simple picnic under a large tree at my favorite park, pushed our baby in the swings, laid in the sun for a bit, then headed home. After Brighton went to bed for the night, Matt cooked us pork chops and roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts and we just enjoyed each other's company.

So it was a close to perfect day.

And while it was close to perfect, there was something nagging at me the entire time. While I enjoyed the presents and the food and the sun and my husband, and of course, my daughter's company, I kept thinking back to all the Mother's Days before this. Each one leading up to last year, felt worse than the last, and I felt all at once relieved to not be in the same place, but also guilty to not be in the same place.

There is a solidarity that comes with suffering. No one tells you this while you're in it, and it's hard to sense it because suffering is a tricky beast that makes you feel isolated. But when you find another human who has suffered in a similar way, you instantly feel a kinship with them. Infertility, while a horrible, shame-inducing, maddening disease, had it's own blessings - it brought about some of the most amazing connections, relationships and encouragements in my life. I have met so many women with the same diagnosis and to hear their stories was to hear my own heart spoken over and over again. Infertility became a weird sisterhood to me and there were times when I felt more connected with the women I knew through that vehicle than my closest friends.

When I became a mother, I felt like I broke that sisterhood. Everyone wants to be out of the infertility sorority because we all want to be parents, but there is a guilt factor that I didn't expect. I was elated to be pregnant, to have finally beaten my diagnosis, but as I celebrated and rejoiced in my miracle, I was also acutely aware of how hard this would be for my sisterhood. They wanted what I wanted, and they wanted me to have it too, but they also felt envy and jealousy and anger for every one of us who received it. I know because I felt all those things as I watched some of these women overcome the dreaded "I" word through pregnancy and I was left behind.

Let me be clear: I love my daughter. I love her more than I thought it would be possible to love another human being. She brings life to my heart every day, but her presence reminds me, more often that I'd prefer to admit, that I suffered long to have her with me. I would do it all over again if it meant she was to be part of our family, but I cannot forget what it took to bring her here to us. I feel guilty for loving her so much and I feel guilty for delighting in her in such a public way and I feel guilty for the gift of her life when so many women are not mothers and who so desperately want to be.

I know I have lost some of my credibility in the infertility community as I am no longer childless, but I am still haunted by it. Infertility was too long of a part of my life for me to so easily forget. I still look for that woman at every dinner party, at every coffee date, at every girls night out - the one that I can see myself in that cringes ever so slightly or fakes an interested smile when the conversation turns to motherhood, or birth, or breastfeeding or pre-school selection. I look for her and I feel the need to protect her because there is nothing worse than a reminder that hope is deferred and your heart is sick and it seems that everyone around you is totally ignorant as to how hard it is to not burst into tears or throw a plate at a wall every time someone brings up the subject of babies.

I used to be that fragile woman. At times, I still am. And so my burden is this: I loved being celebrated and celebrating the joy of motherhood on a nationally recognized holiday, but I hated that there are so many women out there that for whom this day is an awful reminder of what they do not have and why they do not have it.

No one ever talks about the aftermath of Mother's Day. For those celebrated it brings back sweet memories, but for those who have waited so long for that title of Mother, the day was just another of suffering, this time amplified by a thousand greeting cards, and Facebook updates and flower commercials and Instagram pictures of babies. Every year on Mother's Day while we were struggling through infertility, I lost my shit. I cannot help but remember the deep ache of longing, the self-induced shame and the constant tears. It was inelegant and ugly and I have been trying to come back from days like that ever since.

Mother's Day will most likely have it's difficult moments for me forever. I will enjoy it, I will treasure the appreciation from my husband and daughter, and I will thank God for giving me the chance to be a mama; but I can't forget all the Mother's Days that were filled with grief and I cannot forget that there are still so many, too many, who are struggling for the title of mother.

On My Heart: I am here

When I was a little girl and I was scared, or I was sad, or lonely, I would run to find my mother. She would be in the kitchen, cooking dinner or washing a dish, or sitting on the couch with a book or magazine in her hands, and I would call out her name in that desperate way children do and she would immediately hold her arms out, waiting for me to come to her.

And we would embrace, and I would pull myself into her, and succumb to her warmth and her love and her immediate and focused care. She would pull me up to her, my arms and legs a tangled mess around her and my head resting on her chest, my right ear against the beating of her heart, letting me fall into her completely.

And then she would ask me what was wrong. And sometimes I would cry. And sometimes I would just be silent. But no matter what, she would always let me stay in her arms as long as I needed and she would always say,

I am here.

In the fall of 2011, when our plans to become parents through adoption failed, I sat on my couch in the silence of my house and sobbed and I wanted my mother. And when she came over, I let myself call out her name in that desperate way that a child does and I wrapped myself in her arms and I wept in a way I had not in my whole life. She listened and she rocked me and she pulled me close to her chest so I could lay my right ear against the beating of her heart and she said,

I am here.

Now when my own daughter, who is too young to know real heartache, or sadness, or loneliness, cries out for me in that desperate way a child who really needs their mother does, I pull her up to me, her arms and legs a tangled mess around my body and she rests her head on my chest, her right ear against the beating of my heart. And I rock her and kiss her head and stroke her face and I let her stay in my arms as long as she needs me. And then I say,

I am here.

I know there will be days upon days when she does not need me like this, but she will grow and she will see small bits of the cruelness of life and she will fall down, or be treated with disregard. I hate that she will have those kinds of moments, the inevitable ones that mean she is growing up and learning and finding out how everything in the world works. And on those days when she feels scared or sad or lonely, I hope that she will continue to seek me out, and let me remind her the way my mother reminded me, still reminds me, that there is always time to be held and enveloped in love and to be told,

I am here.

On Letting Go

I waited so many years to be a mother and when Brighton was here I became immediately enamored with her. The desire I felt for her time, her warmth, her attention was all encompassing. I savored every moment I could in those six months at home with her, and the thought of going back to work and allowing someone else to care for her made me feel cold with anxiety.

As the last month before I went back to work ticked away,  I tried to enjoy every last second that I had with her. We went on extra walks and extra trips to the park. I held her more than usual (which is already a lot) and got in as many kisses and cuddles I could. I took more pictures and videos each day. I was super intentional about paying attention to every detail of her.

It was as though I was trying to squeeze all the love I could out of her.

And then my last week of maternity leave snuck up on me. Matt was headed out of town for an annual snowboarding trip that week so I had Brighton all to myself. I wanted to hole up in the house and just stay in bed with my girl playing and nursing and napping.

But I felt the need to go to church and the grocery store and outside so I could breathe fresh air. The Sunday Matt left for his trip, I got Brighton and myself dressed and we went to church, albeit 30 minutes late. I dropped her off in the nursery with a feeling of dread, thinking it was one more hour that I wasn't going to get with her that week. Keeping her with me in the sanctuary wasn't an option anymore.

I snuck into the service and sat in the back of balcony by myself. I had already missed 1/4 of the sermon. Our pastor was talking about entrusting God with the things we hold dear to our heart. He was telling us that God sometimes asks us to hand things over to him so He can take better care of them. I listened half hearted, thinking of my daughter the whole time until he read the story from Genesis 22 - where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac.

If you don't know the story, Abraham was married to a woman named Sarah who was barren. She begged God to give her a child and God did, but He waited until she and Abe were super old to bless them with a child. Isaac was their miracle baby. So you can imagine how insane it must have sounded to Abraham when God asked him to sacrifice his son.

Of course, God was just testing old Abe and He stopped him before any harm was done. I never understood why God would ask such a thing of a man who had waited so long for a child. But our pastor explained how our God is jealous of our hearts and He doesn't want idols in our lives.

And then it hit me. Brighton was my Isaac, my miracle baby that I almost worshiped. She had become my idol.

Of course God didn't ask me to do anything crazy like he did with Abraham. He simply spoke through a sermon, and let me chew on the truth and my weary heart.

Over the course of the last few months as I have had to leave my daughter in the care of others, whether it be a church volunteer in the nursery, or a babysitter, or a family member, I have been forced to face my own issues - my anxiety that they just won't care for her the right way, or know her needs as well as I do, or if I'm really honest, that somehow they are stealing time and memories and moments that were meant to be mine. I hate knowing that she has done something for the first time in the presence of someone who is not her parent. I don't like sharing her with people because I feel my time is already so limited with her due to working full-time outside the home. I get irritated when our babysitters take more than 5 minutes to leave once I'm home because I feel like every extra second they stay is another second I don't get with her. I worry that when someone gives her a bottle or changes her diaper or lays her down for a nap that they won't do it as well as I would and that will somehow negatively affect her in the long run.

I am jealous for her and riddled with irrational worries and I shouldn't be.

The harsh reality I have had to face is that Brighton wasn't created just to fulfill my desire to be a mother. She wasn't created just for me. And by gripping onto her life so tightly with my hopes and my fears and my pride, I was reducing her to nothing more than a shiny object I hid in my hands. I know the way I have felt, the way I sometimes still feel, isn't healthy. I know my heart has to change and it starts with letting go and forcing myself to trust.

This is all easier said than done of course. Every day is a battle, and some days I feel peaceful and thankful and know in my heart that Brighton will be just fine even if we are away from one another. Other days I feel prickly and ugly with fear and jealousy.

On those bad days, God reminds me to let go, and let Him take care of us. He understands how much I care about Brighton's every little detail, in the same way He cares about all my little details too. Brighton is His daughter too after all.

So this is my struggle: letting go and entrusting God with the thing most dear to my heart, my baby girl. I'm praying God keeps giving me the grace to do it, and the grace for when I fail.

On My Heart: They come over and sit.

Last weekend Matt and I spent our Saturday night in. We cooked dinner, we cleaned the house a little and then we laid in bed, ate Thin Mints and watched Lars and the Real Girl.

If you have never seen the movie, please forgive me - this post might spoil it for you. The story is about this incredibly quiet, socially awkward guy named Lars who orders a lifelike adult sized doll and introduces her to his family, co-workers and community as his Brazilian, wheelchair bound, former missionary girlfriend Bianca. Lars lives in the garage of his childhood home and his brother and sister in law live in the main house. When they meet Bianca they freak out and take him to a doctor who says that he is coping with something through this delusion. The doctor tells the family they have to treat Bianca as though she is real.

They do and weirdly the community embraces her as a real person because they care about Lars. It doesn't make sense, but they know it's the right thing to do. At the end of the movie, Bianca falls deathly ill (according to Lars) and a few older women from the local church show up to Lars' home, send his brother and sister in law to a movie, fix Lars a plate of dinner and conduct a sewing circle in his living room. As he sits down on the couch, his plate full of casseroles and jello, he looks around and the conversation goes something like this:

Crocheting Lady says, "We brought you casseroles."
Lars nods and says, "Thank you." He looks around at the other two women - one is doing needlepoint, the other is knitting. Then he asks, "Is there something I should be doing?"
Knitting Lady says, "No, just eat."
Crochet Lady says, "We came over to sit."
Needlepoint Lady adds, "That's what people do when tragedy strikes."
Crochet Lady says with a smile, "They come over and sit."

Over the last few years as tragedies large and small have struck so many of my friends and family, I have often wondered what to do. I've had grand ideas at times - fundraisers when money is needed, gifts, extra time or effort spent in the way the person probably most needs it but isn't asking for - but I have been paralyzed to move more often than not. Maybe it's because I feel I might be overstepping some invisible boundary, or causing offense by trying to help when the person is clearly not asking for it, or inadvertently hurting them, or making a bigger mess of the situation.

But the real reason I don't respond the way I really want to is because I am afraid. I am afraid that it's going to be uncomfortable, and awkward, and painful and weird and not helpful at all. I am afraid that by just being there for the person I love that I will make it harder for them then it should be, or make them feel like they need to accommodate me. I am afraid of the sacrifice loving them in their time of need will require. I am afraid to fail them and in my fear I fail them anyways through my inaction.

The truth is no one likes to be close to pain or sadness, or doubt or death. All of those things bring our reality into a harsh focus, amplifying the very things we wish we could forget. But if we really love someone, we must do the hard thing - be there even when it's uncomfortable and yucky.

When our adoption failed a year and a half ago, that is what our friends did for us. They loved us in whatever way they thought best. They asked questions. They didn't ask questions. They cried with us. They didn't cry with us. They hugged us, they patted us on the back, they kissed our heads. They said the wrong things. They said the right things. They cursed God with us. They prayed.

The point is there were there for us and they did the best they could. They loved us in the worst of times and I will never forget their kindness. I will forever be indebted to them for whatever love they showed us in our time of need. It wasn't perfect, but that didn't matter - they were there.

Last weekend our pastor talked about the women who waited while Christ was crucified. They stayed at the foot of the cross until he took his last breath. They watched him suffer and die. They loved him after all, so they chose to be there for him, all the way until the bitter end. To them, all hope was lost, but they stayed. They helped prepare him for burial and watched the stone roll over the entrance of his tomb. Then they sat and mourned. They did the hard thing. They were there for him when the worst was near.

Their story and the kindness of our friends reminded me of what we are called to do for one another - to be the sort of people who love deeply even when it's hard and it feels weird and awkward and messy and not helpful at all. I want to be like those women in the Bible and like my amazing friends and like the sewing circle in the movie.

They knew what to do when tragedy strikes - they come over and sit.

On My Heart: My Baby is Not A Robot

I am what you call a Type A personality. I like organization, routine, predictability and efficiency. I enjoy process and maps and clear patterns. I make to do lists. I clean my house the same way every week. 

I do not have any sort of obsessive-compulsive behavior, but I am wired to be a little more meticulous than is probably normal. I have always been this way as an adult. It's my Achilles heel - I like to control my environment.

So having a baby threw a grenade into my way of life. The entire first month there was no routine, nothing was predictable and I was the least efficient I have ever been in my adult life. Although I had read every baby book under the sun, there was no clear "map" on how to raise my daughter. It was a storm of exhaustion, spit up, poop, pee and tears. I could hardly remember to brush my hair or eat breakfast. And it drove me crazy. 

I did not have postpartum depression. I had postpartum anxiety. And what I thought would help with it, actually made it worse - my Baby Connect app.

A few days before Brighton entered into the world, I purchased the Baby Connect app for my iPhone. As I said here, it tracks anything and everything you could want for your baby, provides analytical charts and even sets alarms if you need them. From the very first real nursing session and diaper, Brighton's every diaper, meal and sleep time has been tracked. 

During the first month of her life, when I lived in a haze of her tiny new life, I hung onto my iPhone like it was a lifeline. I could track what she did and then compare it to what the pediatrician and lactation consultant told me. I didn't have to remember what side she nursed on last. I could easily spout out numbers and figures about how many wet diapers she had in one day, one week or one month. 

As she grew older and her sleep, eating habits and bodily functions became more stable, I started to look for patterns in the numbers. I studied her day by day, seeing how many more times I would need to nurse her in order for her to get within a range of the day before; or how many total hours she had slept. 

My anxiety came to a small standstill in the middle of all of this. She became somewhat predictable. I could easily read her cues when she was hungry or tired, or know when she would need a diaper change without even checking. We had a shell of a routine and it worked well. She was happy, I was happy and my anxiety seemed to be gone permanently.

Then Brighton turned three months old and all that predictability changed. In the span of one week, she went through a massive growth spurt and we took an out of town trip (the week I went to Arkansas) that threw her off what cycles she had. Instead of eating every 2.5-3 hours, she was now eating every 2 and was so distracted during our sessions that she would cry in frustration. Instead of napping 1.5 hours in the afternoon, she was sleeping only 40 minutes at a time. She had a hard time falling asleep at night and was waking at 3am ready to nurse. The routine I had for her naps and bedtime didn't settle her down like it had before. 

During that week I would look at my Baby Connect app and feel my heart start to race with worry - everything I knew about my child the week before was now gone. She was a totally different baby and I was stressed not knowing how much she should now be eating, or sleeping, or even acting. The charts and the graphs and the numbers were all over the place. 

One night as I was nursing her, I looked at the app and counted how many minutes she had eaten that day versus the day before. I felt myself tense up as I realized it was 10pm at night and she needed one more feeding to get within her "normal" range before she'd go to bed that night. My eyes welled up with tears and I felt my jaw clench up. I could feel a headache come on almost immediately and I started praying that God would somehow, supernaturally, help my daughter fall asleep easily that night without that last feeding.

And do you know what I heard as I silently cried and prayed? I heard the words, "Your baby is not a robot."

I don't know if it was God, or just my own brain telling me that. Regardless it was my "duh" moment in the haze of my anxiety. Brighton is not a robot and I was convicted to stop treating her like something that could be tracked and measured. She is not always going to be predictable because she is a baby - every month she is making massive developmental leaps and changing physically, mentally and even emotionally. She will not always respond to routine and she will not be efficient at anything for some time. No matter what I did, or didn't do, I could not control her. I had to let go.

I had convinced myself that if I could provide a sense of my Type A tendencies in my job as her mother, my anxiety would be kept at bay. Ironically, it made it worse. 

It took me a few weeks to transform from a ball of stress into a normal human being again. I still felt my jaw clench up as I watched the clock to make sure she was nursing close to the "average" time. I still found myself looking at those patterns and graphs in the app. I had to tell myself to relax when I fed her and when I laid her down for naps. I had to remind myself to stop boxing her in by counting all that she does on a daily basis; to stop trying to control her.

The postpartum anxiety went away eventually. I still feel it rear it's ugly head in days when she doesn't nap or eat well, when she is just having an "off" day as all humans do. But most of the worry is gone and I am thankful. Instead of measuring her, I am just enjoying her.

On My Heart: When To Listen and When To Speak

Have you ever had one of those moments when you see yourself clearly? Like you are stepping outside of yourself for a moment, looking into the scene - and you see yourself and it's just plain ugly?

I had one of those moments this year and it changed everything.

But before I tell you about that moment, I need to tell you about my girlfriends: I have a group of amazing friends. Most of us knew one another from a church we all used to attend at one point in time; and then the group expanded to include a friend from work, or a neighbor, or a sister in law. It grew into something wonderful - a bevy of young married women who could count upon one another in good times and in bad. These are the women with whom I have shared my heart fully. We became sisters, helping one another as we have tried to figure out adulthood and marriage and eventually parenthood. Over the last four years, most of that core group have become mothers as well. 

My girlfriends are diverse - although we are all in the same age range by a decade and in the same stage of life, we have somewhat different ideas about how to run our households, how to raise our children, how to have a healthy marriage. The differences aren't morally different, but they are different nonetheless. And these differences have been topics of conversation - we learn from one another by hearing about each others experiences and ideas, even if we don't choose those same things for ourselves.

So one night this past spring, on our annual beach trip as friends, I had that moment of looking into the scene and I did not like what I saw.

At the dinner table one night, one of my friends brought up a topic that is controversial in the "mom" community and while most of my friends were politely asking questions to the friend who brought up the subject, I made the (now regrettable) decision to share my opinion about it. I did not agree with the friend's decision or opinion and my words, although well-intentioned, came across as biting and somewhat condescending.

I was so ugly in that moment.

The table fell somewhat silent after I spoke and one of my girlfriends, who has no problem calling me out on my crap in a loving way, said something to the effect of, "Well she thinks this is the best choice for her." I was immediately convicted and humbled - I realized that I had opened my mouth unnecessarily, and my words had hurt someone that I loved. I apologized a few minutes later after the table was cleared. My friend forgave me immediately - she is a good friend like that.

My mistake made me realize that I needed to learn when to listen and when to speak. I have always been an extrovert, I have always had a passionate streak, and I have always had the desire to help people. While those attributes can be a blessing, they are also a curse - they have shaped me into a person who ends up sharing a lot of what she thinks in the moment (most of the time without a filter) hoping that it will help the people around her. Sadly, what I realized is that more than 50% of the time I am hurting more than I am helping with my words. I had become a lecturer more than a friend, and let's face it - no one likes a know-it-all.

Opinions that are solicited and asked for can be helpful, encouraging, even life-sustaining at times. But opinions that are not asked for can come across like arrows, like needles, even like a hammer. They can offend and hurt and sometimes cause massive damage, whether we intend for them to or not. What I have learned over the last few months is that I can get incredibly frustrated and defensive when people offer unsolicited advice and opinions to me - pregnancy and parenthood has brought so much advice and it drives me crazy (unless of course I ask for it). The ironic part of all of this is that while I was annoyed with those who were freely offering me their opinions, I was just as guilty as they were. I offered my thoughts to anyone who would hear them, without thinking about whether the person had asked or not.

Since that night this past spring, I have thought a lot about my words and when to use them. I still offer my thoughts, opinions and ideas; but I try to remind myself to only offer them when asked, or at least apologize if I know I have spoken unnecessarily or inadvertently overstepped my bounds with my opinions.

What I have learned is that while 99.9% of what I say is well-intentioned that does not mean that I need to say it. Although I have a voice that does not mean it should be heard all the time. I have always wanted my words to add value and matter in the moments when they need to matter; but unless I have the wisdom to know when they don't mean anything and when they're wasteful then I'm just a clanging cymbal, a loud noise and an annoyance.

It's humbling to realize and pinpoint the ugliness in ourselves, to see the version of us that others can see. I don't like being the kind of woman who is unwise with her words. I'm thankful that I've been lucky enough to see my flaws and have the sense to try to work on them. This has been one of the hardest lessons of my life so far.

I'm praying for the grace to know when to listen and to know when to speak.

I am thankful.

 It goes without saying, but I am especially thankful for my family today - my amazing husband and partner, Matthew and my precious baby girl, Brighton. 

Last year as we were grieving all that we had lost, I was reminded that a heart cannot easily despair when it is filled with gratitude. So every time I felt overwhelmed with sadness (which was multiple times a day for a while), I would list at least 3 things I was thankful for - sometimes it was as small as the shoes on my feet, a cup of coffee, a smile from a co-worker; other times it was something more significant like my relationship with my parents, the roof over my head, or my health. 

Making the effort to be grateful for all I had, both big and small, was a taxing effort in my season of sorrow, but it forced me to stop looking inward and notice all the beautiful things in my life. And choosing to be thankful slowly changed me - it helped mend my heart and ease my mind.

So today I want to say that I am thankful for my husband, my daughter, my parents, my in-laws, my friends, our church, our home, our dog and cat, my job, Matt's business, this blog and my readers, my restored relationship with God and last but not least, I am thankful for this past year of my life - this journey from heartbreak to joy and from loss to life. I am thankful for how this year has changed me, changed my marriage, changed my outlook, and changed my heart. 

I am thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving.

On My Heart: 34

Today I am 34 years old.

Over the last few months as I have approached this small milestone, I've tried to objectively reflect on my life, both where I am and where I want to be. I'm going to be candid here - I thought that I would have accomplished more at this point - finished a novel, maybe gotten published, traveled more, had more children. I don't have a formal bucket list, but there are dreams I want to see come to fruition in my lifetime, and for some insane reason I have convinced myself that I need to accomplish them before I turn 40.

My 33rd year of life was a significantly transformational year. Weeks before I turned 33, I experienced a massive personal tragedy and somewhat abandoned my faith due to my anger with God. Pieces of me split off and my heart hardened. I lost hope in people, in God, in possibility. Surprisingly, a few weeks after that, I received a miracle and it absolutely wrecked me. That dramatic shift, both from the loss and the gain, changed everything - how I viewed the world, how I viewed God and His promises, how I viewed my marriage, how I viewed my dreams, and how I viewed myself.

You can't help but change after a loss. There are days when you look up in the mirror and you can't recognize yourself. The light behind your eyes is different, there are shadows and lines where there were none before. Grief and the recovery out of it alters you; but what no one tells you is that the adjustments can be good.

Struggle can either break you, or refine you. I think this last year of my life did both - it broke me into a thousand pieces, splintering off what I thought was precious and worth saving. It was as though everything came into focus and God clearly pinpointed what should matter in the life he had given me. All those ambitions and goals and expectations I held so tightly to my chest, the ones I felt I had to obtain before a specific time otherwise I would be a failure, didn't matter much after all. By the grace of God, I let go of most of it, and the things that should have remained, remained. I regained hope, love, and my faith, this time rooted in something more solid - the understanding although I cannot always understand the will of God, his plans for me are always good. Life will always have its struggles, but God also always helps us persevere, which brings character, and then hope (Romans 5:3-5).

I was built back up slowly over the last year, sliver by sliver, regardless of my doubt and my fear and my anger. I became new again, whole. Something different. It was a painful process, but life now looks so crisp, so clear through these new eyes I have grown; my grief sharpened my view, but my newfound hope made it colorful and bright. I truly learned that even with all of it's jagged edges and broken pieces, life is beautiful; and that in bravely facing whatever it brings you, you can transform into something more, something better, something magnified.

Today I am 34 years old. I can recognize myself in the mirror again; some shadows and lines remain, but I am there, rebuilt, clear, strong and dare I say it, a little wiser. The transformation I went through last year won't be the last, but I'm thankful to have gained even a little knowledge from it. The things I am holding tight to my chest matter - my husband, my daughter, my family and friends and my hope in a God who despite my not understanding His will sometimes, never fails me.

Cheers to 34.

On My Heart: One Year Later

Today marks the first birthday of Baby M.

For those who are new to our blog, Baby M was the nickname we gave to the baby we intended to adopt last year. We were matched with his mother through our adoption agency in June 2011 and upon his birth on October 3rd, she changed her mind and the adoption was disrupted/failed. You can read more about what happened here and my reactions since here and here. 

It is hard to believe it has been a year since he was born. A year since my heart broke when I received that awful call early on a Monday morning. A year since my faith fell apart. A year since we lost our son to be.

I think about him, that tiny boy who would have been ours, all the time. I look at my daughter while she is sleeping, while she is nursing, while she is cooing at me and think that he has already been through a year of milestones. But who was there to see it?

I have no idea where he is, if he is being cared for and loved the way he deserves, as any child deserves. Although he was taken from his mother by Child Protective Services and placed into temporary foster care, I have to believe that by now, by his first birthday, he would be in a forever home with a family to call his own. I have to believe he is ok. I am still angry at how this story unfolded for him. He was the victim in all of this. 

For myself and for my faith, I am still at a crossroads. I do not understand why this all happened and although my precious miracle daughter is here with us, I don't believe that God would have taken one child away from us in order for us to receive another. I don't believe he works like that. I doubt I'll ever understand why this happened in my lifetime.

My heart has slowly started to mend over the last year. My pregnancy and the birth of Brighton have been the catalysts for substantial healing, but I still feel the depth of sorrow at times. In those quiet moments as I pace the floors with my baby wrapped in my arms, I feel the residue of sadness wash over me from losing a child, even if he was never mine. Part of me wishes I could have held him just once, seen his face, smelled his newborn smell. I wish I could have told him how much we loved him, how so many had prayed for his life. I wish I could have told him goodbye properly. Instead, I said it aloud through my tears, thousands of miles away from him.

Baby M will forever be our son, even if its in the theoretical sense. We loved him as any parent loves their unborn child and we lost him in a way that feels more like a kidnapping than a miscarriage. Right or wrong, this is how we feel about him and his story. Right or wrong, we will always consider him as part of our family; we will always love him; we will always wonder where he is and pray that he is happy and healthy. 

As for my heart and faith, I know I will continue to heal, but I have changed since that day one year ago. I lost a little of my faith in people, a little faith in God and His goodness. I don't know if I will ever be the same. How do you go back to the person you once were after something like this? I don't think it's possible. 

But this shouldn't be about me and my heart - it's about him, the first child I ever loved as my own. I wanted to make sure we honored him today, on his special day, even if he will never read this.

Baby M, I love you. I pray that you are in the hands of parents who love you as much as we did, and still do, and that your life would be filled with joy, hope and love. I desperately wish we could have been a part of your life, but we hope and believe the best for you and your years to come. 

Happy 1st Birthday darling boy. 

On My Heart: Fast Food and the Culture War

If you are an American, then you have probably heard a little (or a lot) about the recent controversy over some statements the President of the fast food chain Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy, said to The Baptist Press about what the company stands for - traditional family values according to Biblical principles, meaning traditional marriage between a man and a woman.

Those remarks, as well as some news about where the company donates their profits (to some anti-gay organizations) caused a massive firestorm in the media and among the LGBT community. It is a continuation of the culture wars between those who believe our American government and the world as a whole should live according to conservative/traditional (i.e. Christian) principles, and those who believe that one religion cannot and should not define our rights and privileges as people.

When all the drama hit the news and social media, I honestly didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it. (The constant political talk on Facebook alone is enough to make me want to delete my account.) Chick-fil-A is one of the only fast food restaurants we eat at and I was fully aware that the company is run on Christian values - they are closed on Sundays for pete's sake. But when Mike Huckabee dubbed August 1st as "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" and asked that all Christians support the company by buying their food in response to the backlash of Cathy's comments, I got angry.

Look, I believe in First Amendment Rights. Cathy had every right to express his opinion in that interview about what he and his company stand for, and his company is permitted to give their money to whatever causes they want to.

What I do not believe in is oppressing fellow members of my society through "supporting" a business or cause. What happened on Wednesday was hurtful to our LGBT community who live under the everyday scrutiny and oppression. Wednesday's events were not the expression of loving our neighbor, which is what Christians are commanded to do. Whether Huckabee and the "supporters" of Chick-fil-A intended to hurt others through their buying power is irrelevant - those who stood in line for 3+ hours to eat fatty fried foods because they also believe in traditional family values inadvertently and deeply hurt the LGBT community.

Maybe you were one of those who bought a chicken sandwich on August 1st. I assume you'll that say you were just supporting a company whose values match yours; or maybe you were supporting free speech; or maybe you stood in line because you love God and you felt the need to stand up for your religion.  Fine - but in your standing up for what you believe, you demonstrated a kind of hate that cannot be undone or forgotten. You might not have intended for your actions to be perceived as hateful, but they were to a group of people, our LGBT brothers and sisters, that God loves just as much as he loves you.

My wise friend Jenn summed it up perfectly: "When business and politics become more important than loving our neighbor, we have completely lost sight of the Gospel. When proving how "right" we are is more important than loving others well, we have completely missed the point."

So many missed the point on Wednesday. 

 As my pastor said last Sunday about "Chick-fil-A Gate", Jesus doesn't need us standing up for him, he needs us to stand up for the oppressed and marginalized. He needs us to love our neighbor as He loves us - unconditionally.  (You can watch the sermon "Don't Stand Up for Jesus" here - seriously it is so good). 

I'm so saddened by the actions of my fellow believers this past week. I know that for some of you, your intentions were pure, but it doesn't negate the fact that you hurt people I love. I don't understand why Christians continue to think that the world should and will live by our religious beliefs. 

We are not called to define our society and government by what we believe is right and wrong, we are called to be the embodiment and demonstration of God's love to all the world. 

And I don't think buying a chicken sandwich on a specific "supporter" day is the kind of love God is talking about. It is much, much more than that.

• He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. - Micah 6:8 
• "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  - Matthew 22:36-40
• "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - John 13:34-35
• If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3