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  • Have Patience

    When I was little, my sisters and I loved to listen to records on our record player. We weren’t allowed to listen to music that could be categorized as a) current andb) secular and c) Michael Jackson (a.k.a. the trinity of unholiness) so our “playlist” consisted of a very eclectic mix for small children. There were John Philip Sousa marches that gave us that extra energy we needed to clean up our room. We listened to the Andrews Sisters as they sang their rendition of some hilarious polkas. (“We Have No Bananas Today” was one of our favorites.) My mom was crazy about The Carpenters. I can still sing every word of “We’ve Only Just Begun.” Although those albums were secular, they weren’t current so our sensitive ears were safe. We could also choose from a collection of Christian artists. There was the Bill Gaither Trio singing to us about how we’re all “kids under construction.” There was one really creepy looking album cover of a puppet named Little Marcy. Her puppeteer was sitting next to her at the piano. There was something unnerving about the exaggerated smile on her plastic face—like she was about to slowly turn her head to look at me, Chucky-style. It didn’t help that one of her songs was called “When Mr. Satan Knocks at My Heart’s Door” and she sang it in this tinny, superficial voice. We didn’t listen to Little Marcy very often but we did like to listen to “The Music Machine” album. It had a running storyline about some kids and a guy in a band uniform learning about the Fruits of the Spirit. The most memorable song was sung by a snail named Herbert. Being a snail, Herbert sang slow and low, an effect we knew how to create with any album just by switching the speed selector next to the needle arm. (If things had worked out differently, I probably could’ve been a DJ. It’s possible.) The chorus would drone on like this (imagine me singing the following like a depressed gastropod who is sliming slowly forward to his ultimate death): “Have patience. Have patience. Don’t be in such a hurry. When you get impatient, you only start to worry. Remember, remember that God is patient too. And think of all the times when others have to wait for you.” (I bet you never thought I was going to get to the title of the post, did you? Well, you have to have patience sometimes. See what I did there? Golden. This is deep stuff.) According to my own unscientific observations, patience is harder to come by than ever. With cell phones that can make lists, shop, email, text, and download entire books all while you’re waiting in the car line, we’ve taught ourselves and our kids that we don’t have to wait for anything. “Oh, you’re bored while we’re grocery shopping? Poor baby! How cruel to make you suffer through this errand that will eventually feed you. Here’s my phone. Watch Toy Story 3.” Do you know what my sisters and I did when we went shopping with our mom? We took turns pretending to be blind as the other sisters led us around, bumping into shelves and displays. We entertained ourselves. I rarely wait in any lines any more. If there is more than one person in the line ahead of me at Kroger’s I start looking up at the screen hanging above the door to see if they’re going to open another register. “This is ten minutes of my life and it’s wasted! I could be playing Scramble on my phone! Oh, wait, I can do it here in line. Never mind. We’re good. Take your time.” So here are some intentional ways to teach yourself to be patient. Grow a garden. This is a definite exercise in patience. Waiting for tomatoes to ripen can be painful, especially if you miss a day at your ripening vigil and the birds get them first. Walk—not drive—to as many places as you can. We walk to school most mornings and home again in the afternoon. It takes us fifteen minutes if we’re going at an easy pace. If I drive, I can be there in about ninety seconds. It takes some planning but the conversations I’ve had with my kids about the day they’re about to have and the one they just finished are priceless. Cook from scratch more often. For the most part, I enjoy cooking. There are some nights when things have to be quick but if I can spend an hour and a half or more listening to “All Things Considered” on the radio with an apron tied around my waist, I’m usually pretty satisfied. Recently, my most trying exercise in patience has been waiting to go and get our son in Africa. We were matched at the beginning of the summer and he’s been a constant in my thoughts ever since. He’ll be two years old in January. For some reason, I’ve got it in my head that I must have him home by his birthday. There’s always the chance that everything will get slowed down and we won’t be able to go by then but I’ve needed a date so that I can process the waiting—even if the date is wrong. There are times when I can understand why God gives me something to wait for so that other things can fall into place first or just so I can see that my personal schedule isn’t in God’s iPhone calendar. He may have a completely different timeframe. My job is to be patient and I hate it but He never said it would be simple or fast. He called Brent and me to bring a child home. It turns out that the paperwork and fingerprinting and writing multiple checks were the easy part. As Tom Petty once sang (Yes, I did eventually listen to more than polkas and The Carpenters), “The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you get one more card. You take it on faith, you take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part.”

  • Pet Peeves

    I’m a pretty easy-going kind of gal but like just about everyone else who has ever been in the same room with another human being for more than five minutes, I have pet peeves. Sometimes I let the little, insignificant habits of other people gnaw at my nerves until I want to plug up my ears and scream obscenities. (Ironically, screaming obscenities is one of my pet peeves. What a hypocrite!) I’ve tried to look at these annoyances with empathy and understanding but it can be really difficult. For instance, when I pull up behind a pick-up truck with “R.I.P. Tommy/ 1965-2007” written in Gothic letters on the back window I try to think about how nice it is that this driver has dedicated his Dodge Ram to Tommy but all I can think of is: why?! And why was the tribute placed so precariously near Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbs) peeing on the Chevy logo? I also have to whisper words of restraint to myself when I get around an effusively proud mom who is just waiting for you to say something that will let her segue into a treatise of her kid’s many glorious attributes. She operates like a search engine. If you say the right word, she’ll connect it with a brag: “Have I read any good books lately? Well, no…but Little Johnny is reading War and Peace. It’s true and he’s only 4!” Of course, every accomplishment of our kids reflects on us as parents. (The flaws are someone else’s fault. I blame pesticides in produce and the Liberal Media.) So it only makes sense for moms to recount their child’s heroics in the 1st person plural. “We are counting to 100 now” (It’s about time—you’re 30 years old.) “We just made a 100 on our spelling test!” (Okay, spelling can be hard for some grown-ups…) “Wepee-peed and poo-pooed in the potty today!” (Whaaa?!) Another one of my pet peeves is when people use the word “literally” incorrectly. Here are three examples that I have heard lately made by a reputable historian, an NPR newscaster, and an alpaca farmer: He was literally straddling two continents. (It was Africa and Europe. That dude had long legs.) Greece has literally killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. (I hope they made a Greek omelet with it.) When I saw my first alpaca, I literally stopped dead in my tracks. (Who knew alpaca were so dangerous?) I could go on and on with my list: there’s the dinner music of slurpy, crunchy eating noises made by dining companions; people saying “duh” when they hear something earnest yet obvious; drivers flipping the bird at fellow drivers; and so on. But the thing that really peeves me is when people always have to be right. We’ve all met Mr. Know-it-All. He’s the world’s foremost living expert and he wants to make sure that everyone knows that he knows everything. As a service to the community, he’ll correct you if he thinks you’re wrong. While I was listening to the radio the other day, I heard a news anchor report that a tractor-trailer crashed in upstate New York spilling several tons of yogurt on the highway. The man-on-the-scene corrected her saying that it was actually Greek yogurt and it was actually 18 tons. Thanks for the vital information, Poindexter. He just couldn’t let it go without having the last word. I asked my husband if he has any pet peeves and he said he couldn’t really think of any. “Sure you do,” I told him. “There’s got to be something that people do that really gets on your nerves.” He said there wasn’t anything. How is that possible? Half-joking, he said, “I just get along with everybody.” And I suppose that’s his key to contentment. He doesn’t let those little things ruin his day or make him mad. He’ll go a long way with that kind of attitude but I have to admit that kind of gets on my nerves.

  • Grandma’s House

    (Disclaimer: I want to be as true to life as I can but my memories of my grandparent’s house may not be totally accurate. Still, they have a fuzzy-edged clarity that is lacking in any other memories from my childhood. From these family trips, I can recall smells, sights, and sounds that I can match up to feelings of fear, wonder, and happiness. It’s a simplicity of emotion reserved mainly for children. For this reason, when my sisters and especially my mom read this they will most likely disagree with certain aspects of my recollections. To this I say: Get your own blog.) When I was growing up, my family would drive to Illinois once or twice a year to visit my grandparents. It was a long trip from Kentucky where we lived until I was seven and an even longer trip from Tennessee. I don’t remember much about the actual car ride but I do know it didn’t involve DVDs or iPods. We were happy just to listen to cassette tapes on our Panasonic tape player. (Ok…we probably weren’t exactly happy. We still drew imaginary boundary lines in the seat to emphasize to each other how unhappy we were to be in the car all day together.) We spread out all over our faux wood side-paneled Station Wagon—lying on the floorboards and sitting backwards in the rear. I could usually tell when we were getting close because the endless cornfields would begin to give way to neighborhoods that looked like my grandparents’ with grassy alleys in between modest wooden houses. And there always seemed to be the smell of burning leaves—a smell I still associate with Danville, Illinois to this day. When we finally arrived, my grandmother would be waiting for us at the back door. She’d reach down to hug and kiss us, then she would usher us into the hallway leading to the kitchen. The kitchen transformed throughout the day following the rhythm of hungry, active kids. In the morning it smelled like fried eggs with lots of pepper and hot coffee. The Today Show played on the small television set. A large mahogany and leather rocker sat near the doorway to the dining room. This was grandpa’s chair. He would sit there as he peeled an apple with his pocketknife and feed the peelings to our scruffy mixed-breed poodle named Rusty. At suppertime, the kitchen held in the warmth and scent of fried chicken and creamed potatoes. At some point during our week there, we would be forced to go through the door that stood innocently at the corner of the kitchen. This door opened to a set of rickety, wooden stairs that led to the (gulp) basement. It took up the entire underside of the house and appeared to have been carved out of a giant stone slab. As I cautiously made my way down the stairs, trailing my hand along the bumpy, dusty stonewall, I could almost hear it whispering to me that it wanted nothing more than to become my tomb. Grandma had her ancient washer and dryer down there along with a stand up shower. The walls were lined with Mason jars and there was one small door along the top near the stairs that led outside. (Note: Anytime you are in a room that seems to whisper to you about your impending doom, be sure to locate all exits. If people in horror movies employed this rule they would be more likely to escape.) We were in the basement because—although it was the mid to late ‘70s and early ‘80s and there was some kind of rule that everyone must have greasy hair—we eventually had to take a shower. Grandma always stocked the shower with shampoo displaying a picture of a green apple on the bottle that smelled like sweetness and sunshine—an ironic touch down in that dank basement. We showered as quickly as we could so that we could run upstairs to safety with wet hair. Other than the kitchen, the main floor held my grandparents’ bedroom, the only other bathroom in the house, the dining room with the large round pedestal table and the living room. I always felt like the living room ceiling was about a mile high. There were beautiful old books on the built-in shelves and Grandma had lamps on every end table. One of the lamps was made to look like a gnarled old tree. It had one of those fake birds you find in the floral section of craft stores perched at the top and a sleek, black panther stretched out in one of the crevices at the bottom of the lamp. It never seemed strange to me that this lamp should present a predator vs. prey story. I just liked to look at it. Grandma also had her old, worn KJV Bible on one of the tables. Once, I put my cup on top of the Bible and I was chastised severely for using God’s Word as a coaster. One of the things that my sisters and I loved to do was to hop along the thick sheets of plastic that covered the carpet and rugs in the living room and dining room. Grandma had created a track of these sheets to protect the high-traffic footpaths. The main goal was to only step on the plastic without accidentally lifting a corner of it revealing the spiky underside that kept the mats in place. If you stepped on the spikes barefooted you were definitely the loser. Off of the living room was the downstairs front porch. It was screened-in and housed a porch swing and metal chairs. We went out there to play a Holly Hobby board game and a game called Tiddlywinks. On the far side of the living room was an impressive staircase. It had a landing with a little window looking outside and a darkly, polished banister. I would start at the top and walk gracefully down, pretending that all eyes were turning to see the beautiful lady make a grand entrance into the room. Upstairs there were two bedrooms and an office with a twin-size cot. Off of the larger bedroom, there was a sleeping porch with a day bed and all of my mom’s old toys and books. We were allowed to play with her Barbies with their heavily lined eyes and fashionable outfits. We would dress them up as nightclub singers, nurses, and society ladies ala Jackie Kennedy. Grandma had also saved my mom’s paper doll set. It included two guys and two girls. They had names like Bob and Pam and we loved dressing them up. My daughters have several sets of paper dolls and I bet none of them are a complete set. It’s amazing how meticulously my mom cared for her things. We spent most of our time during our visit on the upstairs porch listening to 45s on my mom’s little red record player, dressing up dolls and reading or—if the weather was nice—playing outside. The house was built in the corner of the lot, creating large back and side yards. There was a neatly trimmed hedge that ran along two sides of the property. It looked like it fell right out of an episode of “Leave it to Beaver. “I could just imagine Ward Cleaver with his hedge clippers pausing to impart some bit of wisdom to his bungling, young son. There was a substantial garden complete with grape arbors in the back corner diagonal from the house. Next to the garden was grandpa’s workshop. My grandpa was a carpenter. Massive snowball bushes grew near the doors of his shop and they attracted every bee in town. Because of the bees, I rarely went near his shop and never got to see him in action. My grandfather died when I was in the fourth grade and my grandmother came to live with us soon after. I never got to see their house when I was old enough to appreciate the intricacies of grandpa’s workmanship inside or the architecture of the house outside. Now that I have no grandparents left living I have begun to understand what most people know only after it’s too late. My grandparents were real people with a long, rich history that I’ll never know. I’ve learned from my mom that my grandmother had a bleak childhood as a product of a broken home. When her parents divorced, she and her siblings were dispersed amongst relatives and she went to live with her grandparents. Years later she returned to her parents after they found religion and were re-married. My grandfather became the man of the house early on when his father unexpectedly died. His mother opened her home to strangers as a boardinghouse so that she could support my grandfather and his two sisters. When I was little, all of my grandparents were what they did for me or gave to me. My grandmothers were chocolate chip cookies and handmade nightgowns. My grandfathers were Filet-o-Fish sandwiches and wooden blocks. As I grew up and I began to realize that the world didn’t turn because I needed it to, I still didn’t appreciate what my grandparents represented. These elderly family members blended in to the background of my young adult life. Now that they are all gone, I wish so much that I could sit down with them and ask them questions about their lives. What did they wish to become? What were their greatest disappointments and accomplishments? Some day, I hope to be a grandma. I want to have that special recipe that my grandkids ask for every time they come to my house. I want to spoil them and tell them to sit up straight and read them Bobbsey Twins books and comb out their hair after they take a shower in my not-scary basement. I want them to feel safe in my wrinkled, liver spotted hands and know that I see in them something rare and precious that no one else can see. In that way, I will atone for the lack of acknowledgment I gave to these four individuals who were necessary to my existence.

  • Reflections Poolside

    We recently returned from our annual trip to the beach. It’s a weeklong adventure packed with reading piles of novels, slathering kids with SPF 50, and finding sand in the most surprising places. We quickly establish a routine during our vacation. Knox is usually the first one up in the morning. His eyes pop open about 6:30 regardless of when he went to bed the night before. Lucy is also up or soon after and then Ella stumbles into the living room to join the crew an hour or so later. They flip on the Disney Channel (I don’t let them watch it at home so this is a rare treat) and the three of them veg-out until Brent and I decide we should be responsible parents who tend to the needs of our offspring. The kids eat their breakfast (again, in front of the Disney Channel) and Brent and I take our bagels and books to the balcony. (I can’t eat and be in the same room with “The Suite Life” twins. Their upbeat and quirky yet predictable brand of humor makes regular digestion difficult for me.) After a while, we spot my brother-in-law and nieces at the beach. Our kids go into “we’ve-got-to-get-out-there-with-them-or-we’ll-miss-everything” mode and we prepare for the ocean. Bathing suits? Check. Beach towels? Check. Sand toys? Check. Swim goggles? Check. Boogie boards? Check. Snacks and water bottles? Check. With bags hanging from every arm we head for the beach. After about an hour digging giant holes and splashing in the waves, Lucy starts asking: “When can we go to the pool?” Don’t get me wrong—they have a really nice pool, but it’s the beach! We can go to a pool anytime! In spite of my pleadings otherwise, Lucy spreads her discontent with the majestic Gulf of Mexico to her siblings and cousins and we are once again packing our belongings to move to greener pastures. (I suddenly feel an empathy with the Wandering Israelites I’d never felt before. That is, if the Israelites wore tankinis and their wilderness looked like Florida.) We shoulder our bags (sunburn arms + sand + bag straps = ouch!) and mount the long steps that lead to the boardwalk. On the way to the pool, we must all stop to shower off the sand and then apply another layer of sunscreen. It’s at the large pool where I entertain myself with random observations: I play Brent’s least favorite game called “Find Someone With Abby’s Body Type.” He’s too smart to play it right so I usually just play alone. There are always newly breasted teen girls sporting bikinis. It’s like they’re not quite sure what to do with this new gift but they’re pretty sure it’s a gift meant to be shared. I will admit, in my former life as a carefree non-mother, I spent many summers preoccupied with the task of getting a well-dispersed suntan. But that’s nothing compared to the OCD tanners at our resort. They give a new definition to the term “working vacation.” They flip themselves every thirty minutes or so and stretch out their arms to make sure they don’t get that white stripe on their inner arms that lets people know you’ve been lying on a patio recliner doing nothing but breathing for a week. They take periodic dips but for the most part they are wholly focused on the task at hand. It’s grueling but satisfying—if you’re in one of the rings of Dante’s Inferno. We end up spending the week with the same families every day. We make small talk about the weather and our points of origin while sitting in water a foot deep in the baby pool but we never really scratch the surface of who they are. And since I don’t want to appear to be a stalker, I just make up their back-stories. My favorite families to analyze are the ones that are from other countries. The most obvious way to figure out where they’re from is their accent and language but I also love the more subtle distinguishing characteristics of these families. There are the thick-rimmed glasses and leather beach shoes of the German families. Then there are the highly revealing one-piece swimsuits of the South American ladies. The tiny Speedo swim trunks that I can barely glimpse under an older man’s hairy protuberance of a belly reveals something about who he is but I avert my eyes and try to look elsewhere. My sister-in-law and I will eventually compare notes about these families and we frequently come to the same conclusions. So as we creep along the interstate either driving to the beach or going home and we pass the reason for the utterly slow traffic, (A minivan pulled over to the shoulder so a three year-old can pee. Yes, that’s reason enough for hundreds of cars to rubberneck as we go past them.) I wonder if it’s all worth it. But I know these long car rides and inconvenient trips back to the condo to get pool floats and the cooking in an unfamiliar kitchen that has no measuring cups all are a rite of passage for my kids. They won’t realize it for a long time—maybe not until they have kids of their own—but someday they’ll see all that happens behind the scenes for parents. Someday they’ll understand the thing they know—that we love them enough to go to Florida just to play in a pool even though we have one in our backyard.

  • Church Camp

    I have had the good fortune to attend several different church camps over the years. I’ve gone as a pre-camper and a regular camper, a junior counselor and a regular counselor. Most recently I’ve been a counselor/Bible teacher/craft lady. (Space is limited at our camp so every adult has to wear a lot of hats.) It takes a ton of planning, packing, and preparing before; washing, itching, and airing out after to make a week of church camp successful, so why do we do it? I’ll answer that question with the following reminiscences: One of my favorite things about visiting different church camps is the variety of traditions. At the very first camp I attended, they had a special initiation for new campers. Without giving away too much, it involved someone in a tribal costume, a baseball bat, and a wet washcloth that the unsuspecting camp newby would eventually sit on. This same camp began every morning around the flagpole with the national anthem before breakfast. Then we couldn’t eat breakfast the second day unless we could present a stamped and addressed letter home to mom and dad. As a teenager, my family went to churches that had no youth group and thus no church camp so I went to camp with friends. One camp had a surprisingly serious cabin vs. cabin lip synch competition. I played a very believable Ringo on the drums in “She Loves You.” They also asked many of us to participate in The Dating Game. One night, I was the “winner” and was treated to a candy bar at the Snack Shack with my date. It was as full of romance as you would expect. That is if you expect romance 1) at the Snack Shack, 2) with someone who would not have picked you if not for an inconvenient partition wall separating the bachelor from his three choices, and 3) it’s romantic to be gawked and hooted at by your date’s obnoxious friends. When I was in college, I went to camp as a full-fledge counselor. I was so excited and nervous to slip into the shoes of people I had admired for years. Counselors who knew to bring playing cards and hair rubber bands and scissors and clothesline and shaving cream and dozens of cans of Deep Woods Off. (If you’re not sure what the above list is for, you may not have ever been to a real church camp.) So when I got the list of eleven-year olds that would be in my cabin, I made them each a hair scrunchie with a personalized note and a tiny sized candy bar. These were first time campers and I felt the weight of their apprehension on my shoulders. Then something natural and yet unforeseen happened. It began with one girl running to find me in the mess hall a day and a half into the week. She led me back to her friend who waited for her return in the latrine. “I’m bleeding!” she moaned to me through the closed stall door. I ran back to my cabin and found a maxi pad and a pair of her undies. I talked her through the application of the adhesive strip as I rinsed her soiled undies in the sink. This was her first ever period. Understandably, she asked to call her mom on the pay phone in the mess hall so she could come and get her. After she left, five more girls experienced their entrance into womanhood at the not-so-capable hands of Counselor Abby throughout that week. I think I would’ve rather that they passed around chicken pox instead. For the past two years, I have attended a church camp with my husband Brent and our three kids. Our camp directors do an amazing job of keeping the kids busy and happy. As I mentioned, one of my jobs at this camp is to help with the crafts. Watching kids ages 9-13 battle for craft supplies is a Darwinian case study. There’s a finite amount of brushes, paints, screwdrivers, etc and it becomes dog-eat-dog around the craft table. It may be true that the meek shall inherit the earth but I’m not so sure they’ll ever get that bowl of yellow paint. Older girls, buoyed with self-confidence and purpose, smile at younger campers and say, “Can I see that brush…just for a second?” Before you know it, she’s got the brush at her table and she might as well be painting the Sistine Chapel for the amount of time it’s taking her to finish with it. I assumed I was asked to help with crafts because I’m fairly crafty but really it’s because I grew up with two sisters, am raising twin daughters, and I know when you have to step in and help a sister out. As of this year, my favorite camp memory is actually something that didn’t happen at camp. Let me explain: About a week before camp, I had a dream that we were at camp and we got an email informing us that we finally had a match for our adoption. I told my husband and my fellow counselor about my dream. (She’s the camp photographer so I warned her, half-jokingly, that I’d need her to take pictures of the moment when we told our kids.) The more I thought about it, the more it felt like it might really happen. We’ve been waiting for a match ever since we sent in our paperwork in November so there’s no real reason to assume it to be that week—I just had a feeling. Brent tried to check email on his phone several times, but the service was spotty. When we got home on Saturday, we unpacked, looked at the bills and magazines, watered the dead flowers in the planters on the porch, and Brent checked email. Sure enough, we had received an email with attached photos and medical information for a precious 16 month-old named Philippe. It had come the day before and we had missed it. I’m not sure why the big reveal didn’t come out the way I had dreamed but maybe that’s just the way it is with church camp. You plan and prepare for nearly every contingency, but in the end you have to just go with it. Some of the most meaningful memories happen when a young heart is pulled toward Christ, new friendships are forged, or you find in yourself an independence that you never knew you had. And maybe none of that was truly planned. I’m so thankful for all my church camp memories and I pray that my kids will have golden ones as well.

  • Control Freak

    About ten years ago, I became a certified Control Freak. (Coincidently, it was also about the time when I became a mom…go figure.) Lately, I really feel like God is using my normal involuntary bodily functions to teach me that directing my own destiny is nothing but a delusion—there are some things that are just beyond our control. Here are some recent examples: I went on a tour of a dental office a few weeks ago. We were supposed to begin at noon and I assumed it would be over in half an hour. Unfortunately for my stomach it went on way past my regular lunchtime. The bowl of cereal I had eaten at 7:00 was long gone and my stomach started to make a hollow rumble during the tour guide’s informative lecture. “Here are our state of the art lab facilities…” “Grrrr…” I attempted to mask that sound with a tiny throat-clearing. “Over here, you can see our office suites…” “Grrroooowwwwlll…” Much louder this time. I had to fake a full blown choking cough. There was nothing to do but continue to growl and cough my way through the entire tour. My body was betraying me. I didn’t need to hear that I was hungry. I could already feel it! Recently, I went to a dermatology appointment. (I should say first that my dermatologist is wonderful and I completely entrust him with all my skincare needs. This is important information so that you won’t think he’s creepy when you finish reading this.) This was a follow-up appointment to monitor the results of the regimen he had prescribed for me. Using the back of his hand, he stroked my cheek to test the smoothness of my skin. This was a reasonable and effective method but I could feel a hot blush rise from my jaw line to my hairline. Nobody—not even my sweet husband—strokes my cheek like that. He continued to test the area and stare without blinking at my face. Then he said, “It looks good. Hmmm… I hadn’t noticed it at first but it is a little splotchy. Just a little reddening…” I WAS BLUSHING! Not that he should know this but I’m a splotchy blusher. The more I tried to stop blushing the worse it got until I could feel sweat running down my side. It’s hard to give up control. We live in “Make It Happen, Cowboy/Soldier/Under Dog” America. You don’t stop until you accomplish the task at hand or die trying. So how do balance it all? “Relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace?” I’ve had the most difficult time relinquishing control during the past year as we’ve tried to adopt a baby from Africa. We filled out the papers, had them notarized and mailed to anyone and everyone. We asked friends to write glowing recommendations and sent off for numerous copies of all our birth certificates. We did everything that was asked of us and now we wait and wait and wait. There’s no definite timeline to point to and no ever-increasing belly to measure. It all depends on the whims of African officials and a bureaucratic system that I couldn’t hope to comprehend. Or does it? I’m learning that God asks us to act but He doesn’t expect us to make it all happen. He wants us to step out in faith to do something big but though that first step may be done by us, He promises to provide for us all along the way. We may come upon the occasional Red Sea that seems insurmountable, but He’ll help us find our way across if we’ll only plant our feet on the dry ground He’ll provide. I’m struggling with the utter slowness of this process. I want to hear good news that proves that all of this preparation and expense hasn’t been in vain. During the few times that I’ve let God relieve me of the frustration, I can almost hear him say: “I’ve got this, Abby. You’ve got no idea how little you’re in control of anything. Please trust me. You’ll see.” That’s my prayer tonight. I pray that I will stop trying to strategize and organize all aspects of my life. I announce my retirement as Control Freak. Instead, I’d like to give the control to Him who can spin the planets with a twirl of his finger. He can depose kings with a nod. And He can make all the arrangements to place a lonely child in the arms of a loving family.

  • There’s No Such Thing as a Stupid Question, Dummy!

    It’s official. All three of our kids have now asked me that dreaded question. No, it’s not the one about where babies come from, though we’ve already been through that. This one is much more difficult to explain. You can use drawings and science to explain human reproduction but you can’t find any helpful visual aids for this question: Why does God let bad things happen? That’s the one that stops me in my tracks. My go-to answer usually sounds something like this: “Well, you know, if Eve hadn’t picked that fruit in the garden we’d still be living there. She disobeyed God and the world has been full of sin ever since.” I’ve used Eve as the scapegoat so many times that I’m pretty sure she’s going to punch me in the face when I get to heaven. “You’re Abby, right?” she’ll say, “Thanks for blaming me for tornados!” Then pow! That may not be fair to Eve. I’m not clairvoyant enough to guess alternative endings for the beginning of man but I’ve known quite a few humans over the years and I can say with some certainty that we would’ve found a different way to disobey and screw up paradise even if it didn’t involve fruit trees. What makes this question so difficult to sort through with my kids is that I don’t always believe my own answers. A God as mighty as He is could prevent death and destruction. Either I don’t believe in the extent of His mightiness or I don’t believe in the reach of His compassion. No matter how you look at it you come out feeling unsatisfied. At some point during this deep theological discussion with my six-year old I had to own up to the fact that I couldn’t adequately answer his question about God’s action vs. God’s inaction. I could give him Biblical corroboration and anecdotal testimony but no proof. Eventually I had to say, “Knox, sometimes we just have to trust God and be okay that we don’t have all the answers.” After I said it and Knox happily went off to do whatever carefree six-year old boys do, I actually felt relief. I wasn’t as frustrated by my own ignorance as you might have expected. I realized that I have a lot of questions of my own: Why do square envelopes require more postage than rectangle ones? Why do our goldfish keep disappearing and where are they going? Who keeps pooping on our pool cover? Those are just the ones I’ve asked in the last five minutes. I could keep going… As I watched Knox turn and run off to play, I understood a tiny bit why Jesus asked his disciples to be like the little children. They are often satisfied with answers that rely on God’s sovereign yet undisclosed plan for them. Maybe it’s because they have to rely on others (mainly adults) every day to provide all the basics that keep them clean, healthy, and happy. When you become the adult provider you start to assume that you must always know everything about everything and if they sell it at Target. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s okay not to have all the answers. It’s fine to say those three little words: “I don’t know.” It’s also great to ask questions that we can’t answer. I want my kids to keep asking even if I have to keep answering with a “let’s look it up.” Maybe if we keep talking they’ll teach me a few things. Right now I would be happy just to know who’s pooping on the pool cover.

  • Scars

    Like most people who have managed to make it past childhood, I have my share of scars. There’s the one on my chin from when I tripped myself jump-roping in gym class in the second grade. Unfortunately, I had the part of a graceful Sugar Plum Fairy (type casting!) in the school play the following night. The gigantic butterfly band-aid on my chin made it difficult for me to say my one and only line: “Hello, Santa!” I resembled a ventriloquist’s dummy when I attempted to open and close my mouth. I was so concerned about how I would be able to deliver my line that I accidentally said, “Hello, Daddy” instead. Hello, daddy. Good-bye, Broadway. I have another scar on my left shin from where I nearly met my Maker slipping down a steep gorge at Fall Creek Falls. I was there for church camp. I’ve never been very fast in physical endeavors (but I make up for lack of speed with endurance—I am the tortoise) so I usually gravitate to the back of the herd on hikes. That places me comfortably among children, the aged, and the infirmed. On this particular hike, a pre-camper was lingering near the edge of a sheer drop-off. I pulled him out of harm’s way and slipped part of the way down myself. I employed the babysitter’s second best advice: Do as I say not as I do. My shin was sliced open by a series of jagged rocks. It was a painful limp back to the cabin. Many of the scars I’ve collected as an adult have been through the misadventures of cooking. Years ago, I had baked two pans of coffee cake in glass pie plates. I wanted to see if they had cooked all the way through so—with hands awkwardly fitted with bulky oven mitts—I held the pan aloft above my head to check the bottom. The searing-hot pan slipped from my hands and my stupid reflexes kicked in. (Where were these quick-as-lightning reflexes when I was sliding down the side of a rocky ledge?!) I caught the pan in the crook of my arm, heard a slight sizzle, and let the pan fall to floor. It took me about two seconds to get a chunk of ice from the freezer for my arm before I joined my sister on the floor to eat the cake. (The three-second rule was in play so I had to put aside pain for the sake of coffee cake.) My most extensive scars are seen by just two people: my husband and my GYN. Those are my stretch marks. These smooth, purple strips of ripped-and-healed-over skin cover the front of my belly like I’m wearing an understated WWF belt. I can’t remember what my stomach looked like B.T. (before twins). I look at women at the beach who are called “mommy” by at least six children (and one of which is a newborn perched on mom’s slender hip) but wear a string bikini and have NO stretch marks. Are you kidding me? How is that possible? I have a friend who swears by a cream that she rubbed on her belly for all three of her pregnancies. I tried said cream but no luck. I think you either have skin that can stretch and draw back with the elasticity of a balloon or you don’t. I don’t. I’ve read books that have key characters with distinguishing scars. These scars define them as mistreated victims or resilient survivors or both. Sometimes the scar is defined by the other characters as beautiful and profound, but I’ve always thought it hard to imagine that the person with the scar feels fully glad to have it. But now, with a few years under my stretch mark belt, I’m starting to realize what a scar can represent. I may have busted my chin and flubbed my lines in the second grade play but it was my first taste of amateur theater and I was hooked. (In high school, I was more of a backstage person. You can have band-aids all over you and no one will notice.) I may have cut up my leg on that hike but I was eventually awarded a plaque that said “Most Inspirational Camper.” (It really should’ve said “Most Likely To Go To Church Camp Without Hooking Up With A Boy”) I have lost count of all of the times that I’ve burned myself in the kitchen, but I’m happy to say that I’ve become a moderately good cook in the process. I’m never going to be the stomach model for those antacid commercials that show an x-ray view of the churning acid that dissolves when you take Prilosec, but I carried my daughters to thirty-eight weeks. My skin stretched perfectly around them as they formed inside of me and I was glad to rent it out to them. (Though they won’t get their deposit back.) These scars make me who I am—the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m most convinced about the necessity of scars by the words of I Peter 2. “When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.”

  • Sunday School

    I teach a Bible class for four- and five-year olds at my church every Sunday morning. It’s my favorite age to teach. They are old enough to listen and understand the Bible stories but young enough that when I “roll the gospel chariot” they don’t look at me like I’m a total idiot. If you’ve never had the privilege of sitting in a folding chair with ten precious children surrounding you in a semi-circle at your feet, you’re really missing out. As a special treat for those of you who have never experienced it, here’s how a typical morning would go: (I’ve just read the story from Mark 7 when Jesus healed the deaf and mute man. I’m prepared for some questions seeing as how Jesus “put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Be opened!”’ The story only encourages five-year olds to go off-message.) “So what was wrong with this man?” I ask, pointing to the picture in my hand. “He was deaf!” The majority of the class rings out in unison. One boy raises his hand. “One time…” (Nearly every five-year old’s story starts with “one time.”) “One time my mommy was giving my daddy a haircut and she cut his ear.” “One time,” another girl chimes in, “My mommy dropped a glass in the sink and it broke into a hundred pieces. Then…” (Uh oh. Here it comes. This particular little girl hasn’t told a regular story all year. Every one of her harrowing tales must end with an unexpected twist. I wouldn’t be surprised if she grows up to be a screenwriter for a soap opera. Her best story ever ended in her own death. She apparently drowned when her mom threw her in a swimming pool full of sharks.) She continued: “Then my mom picked up the glass and there was a doughnut on it! (pause for effect) And she ate it!” “Me and my grandma wear our pajamas when we wake up in the morning but you know what my grandpa wears?” asks a different little boy. “What?” I ask nervously, hoping I’m not about to find out something very personal about his grandfather and his chosen sleeping attire. “He wears his regular clothes.” Phew! That was a close one. Another hand goes up. “Okay, last one,” I say as I point to the outstretched hand in the back. “Do you wanna hear how a dog laughs? Brrr-ha-ha-ha. Brrr-ha-ha-ha,” he says with all the seriousness of a professor giving a college lecture. All hands have been called on and the kids are ready for paper crafts and goldfish crackers. Another fulfilling Sunday school class is coming to a close. Next week they will return with more stories and animal facts. I will try to remain in charge of this lively group, hoping they won’t notice that the kids outnumber the adults and a coup would be all too easy.

  • Make Believe

    I have always loved to pretend. When I was little I would pretend that I had blue eyes and blond hair. It became so real to me that I remember being stunned one day to see a little girl with brown eyes and a brown bowl-cut staring back at me in the floor length mirror mounted on the back of my parents’ bedroom door. My sisters and I pretended every scenario we could think of. We were preachers, teachers, shopkeepers, and mothers. We “lived” in tree branches, under the front porch, and in blanket forts. We acted out scenes from TV show, movies, and books. But at some point during those tricky “tween” years pretending became childish. Instead of Barbie-themed birthday parties, I was invited to pool parties with Duran Duran on the invitation. When I had a friend over, we didn’t play make-believe in the tree house anymore. Instead we rode bikes around the neighborhood to see who was playing in their yard. I continued to use my imagination but I kept it locked away inside my head. I pretended what it would be like to have a boyfriend without actually having one. I pretended what I would do if my family died in a tragic disaster and I had to make it all alone in this cruel world. I pretended what I would say if a popular girl at school accused me of something and I had to defend myself. (Too many Sweet Valley High books. They’re like pouring gasoline on fire for an already dramatic child.) Even now, I can still create a completely fictional scenario in my head that will bring me to tears. Having kids is the best thing for a lapsed pretender. It’s like riding a bike—all of those skills come rushing back. I knew exactly how to eat and drink imaginary food when my girls got their play kitchen and we had our first tea party. I quickly realized that their level of fun increased the more I stepped up my pantomiming. (Tip: If you’re new to this, always blow on the cup of tea to indicate that it’s too hot. They love it. I also always accidentally spill my cup on my pants so that I have to wipe it up with an invisible napkin.) At church last night, I got to have a pretend picnic with a five year-old who has Down Syndrome. He has very limited speech but his imagination is amazing. When he drank invisible liquid from the miniature Tupperware cup, he made very realistic swallowing sounds. Then he picked up a plastic lemon and squeezed it over half of a plastic bun before eating it in giant Cookie Monster bites. He methodically placed plastic French fries in an empty plastic taco shell. As he angled the meal into his mouth, the French fries slipped out the back and fell onto the floor. He laughed until tears welled in his eyes. He was completely engaged in the reality of his pretending. Now that my daughters are nearing ten, I’m loathed to think that their days of playing house and school will soon be over. I love to walk in on them as they are chastising their imaginary students for being too loud during circle time. My girls call these ghosts out by name: “Polly…you can’t sit by Horace anymore.” They are completely serious. I want to freeze them here. I want their pretend tragedies to be manageable and brief. (Like me, they also love to pretend their family has all died. I blame the Boxcar Children series. I once overheard one of them say, “I wish I was an orphan!” It didn’t hurt my feelings at all.) They will eventually learn that life is full of painfully real tragedies that they can’t pretend their way out of. Life will turn them upside-down and make them yearn for days spent playing and dreaming. And then one day they will sit across a tiny table from their own children. They will blow away imaginary steam from a tiny plastic teacup and remember how good it feels to pretend again.

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