But...but...what about ME?

As I've mentioned before, we didn't want kids for most of our marriage. We hung out by ourselves, were involved in lots of different stuff, and we've been slowly figuring out what we want to be when we grow up. Kids weren't part of the picture until they suddenly were. And it did feel sudden. Like, "Wait a minute here! I thought I was going down this road over here." A left turn.

I'm in seminary. I used to say that I wanted to be a pastor, even though I didn't know what kind. (Now I'm not sure I'll ever be a pastor in a church, but my call remains.) My call was nebulous, but I had a vague direction. As I felt my way through school and plugged myself into various ministry positions at church, I started feeling my way towards a more concrete direction, and that direction was high school students/college students/young adults.  Those are the people I want to hang out with, teach, and help. It came as somewhat of a surprise, but looking back, it really shouldn't have done. (I'm British now, yo.)

Then the parenting itch/call/bomb happened.

And it all stopped. The official college/young adult ministry had petered out on its own, but it was still very sad. Then I was overwhelmed by all the foster care stuff that started, and high school ministry was the only thing I could take off my plate. I was crushed. 

It didn't make any sense to me that once I finally started getting clarity, God gave me a big ol' nope. The good news is that, for a year now, I've been back involved with high school students, and it's better than ever. I feel like God gave it back to me and then some.

But..but..I've still tried to stay connected to graduates. I still want to walk with them and be part of their lives and "minister" to them. And I am still friends with many and get to hang out with a few, if not often enough. 

I have kids now. That is what my life is about, for the most part. I can't have people over like I'd like and can't go out with people as much as I used to. And I know that this is something I want and that parenting is the clearest calling I've ever had. I know this, but that doesn't always make it easy to let go of old ways you had of defining yourself. Of old dreams.

I understand that all/most parents feel this way about one thing or another or a whole host of things. I know that I don't have to let go of all my dreams and plans. I'm still plugging away at school and planning things and dreading things that have nothing to do with my kids. But it hurts my heart a little bit every time some of my friends talk about the young adult group they've started. "Wait! I'm supposed to be doing that!" "Can I help you?" I wonder if I read my calling all wrong (the old one) and I'm actually not good at it and wasn't meant to do it. 

I have 8 year old twins. They just moved in a week and a half ago. Seth & I will be quite busy for a long time. They are my focus, at least for a while. They need us desperately. I worry that as I spend time focusing on them, I will get older and older and this dream I barely had time to water will die or its time will pass me by. 

Parents: can you tell me about new dreams you got for yourself after you had kids or old dreams that you got to still work on or go back to? Especially those of you who may have been surprised by your kids for one reason or another. 

This Kidless Mother's Day- the life of a foster/adoptive parent in waiting

Hi there. I'm telling you right now that I'm going to try to not make this a total downer, despite the title of this post. I think I'll get hopeful, but you  have to bear with me.

Other than goddaughters (who totally count, don't yell at me M & A), last year was the first time I had kids on mother's day, and it was pretty awesome. We had our two sweet girls, who were 4 & 1, and I was so happy. Sure, dear husband dropped the ball a bit on making it special, but I loved our little family.

About three months later, the 1yo moved out, and the rest of us were devastated. Yes, she went to a fabulous home and we still see her (not as often as we'd like) and we're very good friends with her (hopefully forever) parents, but it was and still is very hard. She wasn't talking when she was with us, but I have to tell you that it doesn't bum me out one bit that for all our efforts to get her to say "Aunt Robin," I get "momma" sometimes. She knows me as one of the people who fulfill that role for her.

Then on March 14th of this year, our big girl moved out after 15 months with us. Fear not-- we still see her fairly regularly, and her situation is good. Promise. But that doesn't make it hurt much less. She was over here the other day, and while I was standing in the kitchen doing something, she kind of sighed a little and said, "I love you, momma." As I think I've mentioned before, she's down with complicated families and having multiple moms & dads. More to love!

What you see pictured up above is part of my vision board. I've always been a big fan of cutting out pictures I like and I've covered my doors and walls in pictures even as an adult, but I never thought of it as anything more than silly fun. But a friend from church who is an artist teaches classes on creating vision boards, and I was able to go to a short one a couple weeks ago. We looked through magazines and cut out pictures that called to us. I had a lot of fun and brought a bunch of pictures home with me, but I didn't start putting it together until last night, and that's when it hit me: a vision board is a prayer in collage form. (If you need help with this concept, one place to look is Genesis 30:25-43.)

Even if there weren't some biblical support for the idea, it is still a good tool for clarity. When I was looking for pictures, there were some that spoke to me for far-off, fancy dreams, but many were simple things that almost made me cry when I found them. And the realization I had when gluing/praying in the wee hours of this morning was that, somehow, over the past two or three years, being a mom has become the desire of my heart. (I'm not going to explain what everything on it means, FYI.) Look at the kids I have there: I think there are 14 in that small section, and I have other pictures that I didn't put on there. I figured I had made the point. The fact that I just cut out the word "motherhood" is a big deal to me.

So I don't know how tomorrow (Mother's Day) is going to be for me. I haven't seen my little girl in over a month, and my big girl has been sick off & on for the past almost month, so I've only gotten 3 hours with her in the past three weeks. We're making decisions about adoption and we're feeling pulled in a few different directions without having much we see that we can really do about it. How about this: just don't ask me how I'm doing tomorrow, okay? You can hug me, but not for too long. I'm so very sick of crying this week. But I know that today or tomorrow is not the end of the story. I'm going to be a mom. It doesn't look like the journey my friends are on, but it's good for me & Seth. As you've already been told: I was made for this.

I know, I know. I'm a terrible blogger.

I've just been overwhelmed. Sneaky carbonara post aside, the last time I wrote here was the day before I became a mom. On May 25, 2011, we got our first foster child. She was two and a half, super smart and cute, and we adored her. The first five days were extremely difficult, and I questioned our decision. I missed our old life and I didn't feel attached to her at all. Then it clicked, and I was in love. I felt like God had given me the child I had asked for (down to how she looked), and I was certain we would adopt her.

We had her with us for 9 weeks, and then she moved in with someone who had adopted her sister. She is there now, will likely be adopted there, and it is where she belongs. But our hearts were broken. Before I met the woman who is now her mom, I was prepared to fight it as much as I could. I wept and made phone calls and mourned and cried out to God for answers. Even though I know now that she's where she belongs and we weren't a good match, I could cry about her at any time at all if I wanted to. I haven't seen her since Halloween weekend, I have presents for her and her siblings in the corner of the living room, and I'm freaking out a bit about her mom not calling me for the past three weeks.

But I have to relax. One of the first things I learned as a parent was that God adores me and wants me to be loved and have wins just as much as I want those things for her. That was hard for me to grasp at first. I would pray for wisdom on how to react to her or think about how God would act, but I figured that I didn't deserve the same treatment since I'm an adult and should know better. Silly girl, I'm not an adult compared to God!

Even when I was in mourning, it wasn't as if I was worried about her. I was just so sad. My prayers started sounding a lot like her fits and crying jags. -Why are you crying? -Because I am! or -Because I'm sad! I'd like to think that I've progressed beyond the maturity of a 2-year-old, but apparently not. That's okay.

He is Risen Indeed!

It is almost 8am on Easter, and I haven't slept. I'm very tired, and I've been weepy.

I am waiting. We are waiting. I don't know what's in Seth's head. He's probably fine.

We're almost ready to start foster care with the intent to adopt. We have 2 weeks before we can have our home open for...kidness, I guess. That is because we are waiting on word regarding the family member we may adopt. Who I want to adopt. Bad. But I'll also be thrilled if she can stay with her family. That would be great. And I would mourn an idea.

So I wait. And even when I try to say, "Okay, let's move on. What do I need to do to get ready for a kid here?" I still get stuck. We haven't heard from adoptions for a while, which frustrates me. I'm sure they're waiting to hear from us about the family member, but I want all that stuff to be ready, too. If we're not going to be adopting my relative, I'll want another kid immediately. I want this. I wish we could have some foster kids even just in these next two weeks, just so something could start.

I'm sick of waiting. I think I may be getting an ulcer. My stomach hurts lately, I can't sleep, I'm exhausted, I'm depressed. I want to watch TV or read or be online because then I don't think. I feel fat and lazy, and I want to go run, but I think when I'm running. I don't want to think. I'm sick of it. I need distraction.

So. That's what's going on with me.

A break

It has been raining for days, so today when it stopped for a bit, I took the dog out for a walk that we both needed. The rain coupled with a very long cold I had has gotten me back out of the habit of regular exercise, and I hate that.

Since trying to become a runner, I feel like nothing I do is good enough. I need to do everything more often, faster, don't stop, do it better, you suck. When I take the dog for our half-hour walk, I'm still thinking about walking a bit faster to take some time off, or running a bit, or doing farther. I think about what my running friends are doing that day and I consider myself a joke.

I spend too much of my life thinking I'm not good enough and need to change. Too much time feeling guilty.

On today's walk, I was trying to walk quickly, and I glanced out the corner of my eye, thanked God for the beautiful hills, and almost kept going. But I made myself stop, turn and look at the green, and stand there for a minute, doing nothing. That's when I realized all this crap. Well, re-realized some of it.

This was heavier & longer than planed, and I'm sorry. I'm mostly in a very good place right now; today is just off. Lack of sleep.

Cross-Cultural Ethics

Sheesh!  I read a LOT today because I had to do pretty much all of my reading for this week's class & write a small response for tonight.  Everything has been fascinating, though.

The class I'm working on right now is cross-cultural ethics and it is just mind-blowing.  Most of the case studies and examples have to do with being in a foreign culture, but we can run into those here, too.  And it's good to have a broader focus and be aware of issues that could arise.

One of the main things the books were talking about was being aware of the entire context of any proposal or anything.  For example, a people group who believes that spirits are responsible for good or bad crops won't buy into your agricultural technology just because you say it will give them a higher yield.  You have to understand their values and the narrative they have written for themselves in order to create change. 

Another example:  we had to write about whether or not we would donate money to prostitutes at a hotel who weren't making any money that week because a Christian organization had bought all the rooms in the hotel (in the context of a country with a lot of sex trafficking).  Our professor challenged us to think of the corrupt structures and sins, not just focus on these women.  They are likely trapped.  He also referred us to Luke 20, when the Pharisees tried to get Jesus to say that they shouldn't pay taxes, thereby, in the case of Israel's Roman occupation, amounting to supporting a corrupt, oppressive regime. 

It's all very interesting to think about.  No actions are performed or rise out of a vacuum and none are value-free.  There isn't really such a thing as complete neutrality.  Lots to chew on, and this is just week 1. 

I guess I needed that.

I've been working so hard to mostly keep it all together lately, but I'm sitting here sobbing and it just feels great.  I needed it. 

Today has been a little heavy.  Just difficult with my rib pain, so I couldn't work out- but I did go to the chiropractor & I'll go back tomorrow.  And something could have happened today with the baby situation, but it has been put off for a month, which just stretches life thinner, in a way.  And we had our foster care class, where we talked about problem behaviors, including those related to fetal alcohol syndrome.  Just argh.  I was just thinking of my sisters the whole time and just broken for them. 

I bought a ticket to go to Michigan for three weeks in November/December, which I'm not exactly jumping up and down about, because it's just going to be really hard. 

I really want our new life to start.  So many things have to change for it to happen, and I know that God is doing his thing.  I KNOW THIS.  It's just that all this longing is so new, and as I try to move out in these directions of my own power, I keep being thwarted.  I am really having a difficult time finding a place for us to move.  We just can't afford the things we want, and so many people don't want dogs.  I believe that God has a place for us, but it is still disappointing when everywhere I turn thinking, "maybe" turns out to be a "NO."  Thinning the herd.  Narrowing the field.  It's okay. 

I got a great message on FB tonight, though.  One of my amazing high school students wrote to ask me about the court date so she could pray for me.  I'm going to miss being with them every Wednesday so much. 

info for noobs

Today is the first day of the fall quarter, so I spent a decent amount of time reading introductory messages from classmates, reading about my professor, and looking over the syllabus.  What's (possibly) neat is that we don't have lectures to watch/listen to for this class.  We're just supposed to read a bunch of stuff and write about it.  It could be good.  I didn't end up having time to start reading officially for class, but I *did* print up the list of things I'm supposed to read, so I'm halfway there, right? 

I also read a sign that I hadn't noticed my previous 2 times at yoga.  It was just a few guidelines for new attenders, and thankfully I hadn't broken any rules.  Phew!

As a noob teacher, I also read e-mails from people telling me how I should be doing everything differently.  Awesome.  I know that this is a part of life, and it gives me a lot more compassion for preachers. 

The best part of today, though, was that I had the inaugural session of my Bible study with college girls.  Tonight it was just me & one student, but we got to have a really good conversation.  I really don't care how many show up.  I'm going to make myself available & be there consistently, and they can show or not show.  Tonight we started reading Ephesians, and being that predestination is mentioned, we got to go off on a great tangent on things we find difficult & how to look at them.  It was a good night.

Other than that, I looked at insurance listings to see if a certain chiropractor I want to go to is covered.  I actually had 3 in mind: one that I found doing a search for "sports chiropractor" and 2 recommended by the local running store.  The one I found searching is covered, so I'm going to try to get into him tomorrow.  In addition to my usual back issues, my knee has really been acting up, and now I pulled a muscle in my ribs or something.  Yesterday I checked to make sure it wasn't breast cancer, today I checked symptoms of a cracked rib.  It's not cancer, fear not, and even if it is a cracked rib, there's nothing to be done about it.  I sure as heck ain't resting for long.

My apologies

Friends, I am sorry I have been remiss in my blogging duties.  I mean, I know that you really don't care, well, other than Sommer, but I care.  I really want to have the exercise of writing every day, but I'm just so scatterbrained lately.  And tired.  And did I mention distracted? 

Some days are good, like the one I mentioned in an earlier post.  The domestic days are good.  And I've started doing some intense yoga, and that's good.  But nothing is catching my attention with reading.  I can't concentrate on the studying I'm supposed to be doing for my teaching, and I start school next week!  ACK!! 

Dear Jesus, help me to FOCUS. 

So, I'm going to ditch the vampyre book because I just don't care, and I gave it way longer than I should have.  I'm not going to read World Without End right now because it's just too big to even look at.  I did plow through an issue of Entertainment Weekly yesterday, though.  Oh, and I read the adoption information that we got in the mail and sobbed.  About the pressure, about how almost everything about our life has to change, about wanting it NOW, about all the things that need to happen beforehand, about the kids we can't adopt.  It's a lot. 

So, keep praying for us.  We really need a different place to live.  That's the first priority.  Then a different job for Seth &/or a job for me, 2 new cars.  *sigh*

Jeremiah 29:11. 

Gah! I got nuthin'!

I almost forgot to blog, but here I am, and boy-o, are you glad!

Let me think if I read anything today other than twitter & facebook....hmmm...well...no...mmm...OOOH!  I did!  I actually read a little devotional book.  I was feeling down & like I needed some good, old-fashioned, health & wealth kind of faith talk, so read my devotional book by Kenneth & Gloria Copeland.  It's in Spanish, so I also get to work my skills while spending time with God.  Double-duty.

Anyway, it was really good!  It was about the parable of the sower, specifically the soil that is fertile but the rocks & weeds & the cares of this world come up and choke out the word.  This immediately gave me a new energy and a better attitude. 
a) I need to read my Bible or have intentional time with God much more often than I have been.  It's just ridiculous.
b) I need to figure out if the weeds & rocks are just my thoughts and I need to remember the word, or if I have too much stuff crowding in on me, which makes it hard to remember the word. 

It reminded me of the idea of having defensible space around your house if you live in a fire-prone area.  I need a defensible space around my life, my health, and my relationship with God. 

I may have just made a decision.

Vague is how I roll. Feel free to not read this entry.

Apparently, being up past my bedtime makes me a bit maudlin.  Perhaps I should finish the wine in the fridge to truly make it a banner evening.

Big changes are afoot, but what is difficult is that the catalyst for the afoot-ing isn't definite.  But we still need to invest in it quite seriously.  One day, I decide that life can go on, at least semi-normally, for the time being, then the next I get information leading me to believe that all must be turned upside-down ASAP.  And I feel like God is sending mixed messages.  Like he's thrown open a bunch of doors at once, and I'm supposed to go through all of them.  Or I've gotten a fair way down a certain path that I believe he's directing, and then there's this fork.  It's an important fork.  Maybe I need to go that way.  But leave all the other stuff? 

Maybe they'll meet up again.  Maybe I don't have to give up anything. 

I don't want to let go.  But I can only handle so many pressures.  I'm not real good at it.  Were I to let go of one commitment, it would both break my heart and not make a lot of sense to me.  But I don't see what else I can change. 

2011 is going to be the most different year ever. 

See? It happened again.

I start reading one of the ministry books, and I get about 1 page in before my mind starts whirring.  I stop to ponder; I create scenarios in my mind; I come up with ideas. 
So, as I tried to read more of College Ministry 101, I had to stop after a couple pages.  Too many ideas.  Too many thoughts about specific people. 

I love them too much.  And I know one of them is reading this- Hi, girly.  I love you and I want your faith to be strong and I want to encourage you to fight through the hard times and figure out what you should hold on to and what you need to let go of. 

I want others to figure out who the heck they are and stop wandering sooner than later.  I don't want to force anyone.  I don't want to guilt.  I want to walk with people.  I want to be an example.  Sometimes I just don't know what to do.

I am much older today than I was last Sunday.

Sorry for the short, melodramatic post earlier, friends.  I was going to post a real post, but I was just feeling overwhelmed & had a headache, and I just wanted to tell/ask someone to pray for me. 

So today, I finished up Perelandra and started on College Ministry 101.  Both hurt my head a little bit.  

Perelandra, the 2nd in Lewis's space trilogy, is not as engrossing a story as Out of the Silent Planet is, but, at least for me, had many more spiritual ideas to think about.  As in OOTSP, Lewis's descriptions can be a bit heavy-handed and long-winded, so much so that I ended up skipping most of the last 12 pages or so.  The book is very short, and I think that it would have been better served to not put the ending at the front of it.  It isn't really all that dramatic, and then, at the end, it just is kind of over. 

One of the things I'm trying to embrace is the Lady's view of going with the flow of what God brings to you, and not holding on to the idea of the Good you wanted or had, but enjoying the Good he's brought to you.  I'm going to try to look at most things I have and most situations I'm in as Good things that I can be thankful for and embrace, not longing for the past or a concept I had of what I thought I wanted. 

The college ministry book stresses me out.  It has lots of amazing concepts, but I feel like I'm just learning all the things we (as a church) have done wrong and that it all needs to change.  *sigh*  At least I'm not alone at all in this task.  I'm just afraid that we're going to have to do a major gear change or dismantle the scaffolding we've put up.  But maybe not.  We'll see.  I'm just trying to assimilate all of these ideas and figure out how to filter them down in a way that can be passed on to my teammates. 

Other than that, I'm still on an emotional roller coaster, which I'll tell you more about tomorrow, perhaps.  In the meantime, I'm excited about being home from the relatives and being out of school.   Tomorrow I plan on a run and CLEANING!  It will be quite, quite, very, mucho exciting.

I know, I missed 2 days.

I know.  Friends, you have no idea...well, some of you have some idea.  Anyway, big stuff is going on in my family and I just have been too stressed, distracted, and nervous that I haven't been able to concentrate.

I have my sexuality project due tomorrow and I've barely been able to work on it with much thought.  Thankfully, I have most of it done, with a few spaces where it says things like, "And then I'll be talking about THIS REALLY GREAT THING FROM THAT AUTHOR" or "And then I'll go through THE BIBLE VERSES THAT ARE RELEVANT TO THIS POINT."  So, you know, I just have to flesh it out a bit.  And I only checked out, oh, 10 books or so from the library.  I will be skimming, I say.  But I really do plan on teaching this series, so I need to actually do the work.

On top of the family stuff, I've been really flustered by the college students this week, so, on Tuesday, I freaked out & ordered 4 books on college ministry from Amazon.  They came today, and I went up to church to show them to one of my co-leaders &  we're splitting them up to read, for now.  One of them, Ask Me Anything, I started reading for my project, and I'm really loving it.  It's one of those ones that I want to either be able to download right into my brain or hand out to every student and sit them down & make them read it immediately, quizzing them for comprehension.  So, um, it's useful.

I hope to get my project done & turned in on time, though I've let my professors know that I may be a couple days late.  Pray for me, Seth, & my family, will you?  Thanks.

I have a suggestion

At our young adults group tonight, we were having a brainstorming session to see what subjects and issues the members of our group have on their hearts.  When we planned this, I think that we were a little afraid that people wouldn't really respond, and we also didn't want it to only be a list-making session.  We wanted some teaching content, too.  Reluctantly (I think), my fellow teacher offered to lead this session and try to come up with an introductory session and biblical basis for our as-yet-undefined series of talks.

She did an amazing job.  The whole night was powerful and awesome.  I love our group!  She had us look at Acts 15 and the Jerusalem Council, showing that circumcision was a HUGE deal to the early church, something which was a crucial, cultural issue about the direction of the faith.  Our discussion, then, was about how all the issues we face should be formed and informed by our faith.  Nothing should be compartmentalized, and we need to, as a group, contend with different topics and discern how to apply biblical principles to  our culture.  It was a fabulous, powerful segue into our brainstorming.

And the brainstorming really wasn't that:  it wasn't people thinking and pausing and tapping their pens trying to come up with any old thing to say.  It was really a sharing session.  People talked about what was on their hearts and what they're struggling with right now, and everything had to do with our Christian life.  I expected controversial things to come up or even political things, but everyone wants to talk about how to live out our faith, how to stay strong in the face of temptation, how to surrender to God more.  It was awesome. 

Oh, that's why I'm so busy

Whenever I feel overrun by life and have to explain to someone why I didn't return their call or something similar, I feel like a bit of a baby.  I think, "C'mon, what do you really do all week that you're that busy?" 

Well, I'm in ministry.  I just realized that this week.  I'm not paid, and I have friends on my team helping me, but I'm the main voice for the college students right now, so I'm sort of a college pastor.  I've known (lightly) for a while that I was a pastor because a)we all are, kinda and b)I'm actually involved in ministry.  But as I fret about events, about meeting with and connecting with students both high school and college, as I search the web looking for articles to read and things to study and resources for drawing college students to church, I realize that I'm already doing it.

For the past couple years, I've thought of myself as an unemployed, part-time student who volunteers with a couple things at church, so I always try to justify my sense of pressure or overwhelmed-ness.  But I'm in my career already.  It's on.  Even though I'm still in school.  Even though I don't get paid.  I'm one of the teachers for young adults, I'm taking on some teaching (really more like facilitating/leading) roles for high school, I love all of these teenagers and twenty-somethings to bits and pieces, and there is a weight on my heart for them.  I'm in. 

So, yeah.  I'm busy.  Part of me can't wait for school to be over (only 1.5 more years!) so I can concentrate on ministry & possibly be paid to worry & read books and articles and listen to podcasts and fret and plan & meet, etc.  Another part of me knows, though, that it (ministry) will grow to fill whatever time I can give it.  It will suck my brain power and my heart and my time, and having more time will just mean more work and more heartache. 

I'm tempted to have a cheesy closing line like, "But it will all be worth it," or something like that for closure, but I'm more blank right now.  It is what it is.  It is worth it, as long as I keep it in perspective, because this is where I'm called.  God is making a way for me and I walk in it with faith and a nervous stomach.  I know that there will be exciting times and worn down times.  I know that I have no idea what God has in store. 

As I move into this new space, I'll need to realign some things.  Shift my baggage around a bit to get comfortable for the journey.  Learn to look at myself and my life in a new way.  Me & God can do this. 

haunted

I may have mentioned this before, but we really want kids now.  Maybe I should take out the "really," because it comes and goes.  Today is a pro-kids day.  I see the assorted "First Day of School" pics on facebook, and while some don't do anything to me, others tug at me.  I looked at a family picture of a friend from high school, and in it, one of her three kids is kind of giving her a goofy look, and he's so cute and her husband is holding a baby and her older daughter is laughing and I just want that.  I wish I would have wanted it before or knew I'd want it now.

And then there are the days, like today, where I wake up from a baby/kid dream, and she (it's almost always a "she") haunts me all day.  One time it was a baby girl, but she was kind of big, and I was blowing on her cheeks and she was laughing and we were having such a good time.  I missed her all day.

Today, it was a little girl, probably 2, I think Hispanic, but maybe Arabic.  She is short and brown, with curly, dark hair.  In my dream, she was in a car with her dad, and he was waiting for someone to come watch her.  I looked at her for a bit, walked away, then walked back.  I sort of reached for her and said, "I'll watch her."  It wasn't much, but it was powerful.  I didn't think about her a lot throughout the day- just a time here or there, but then tonight, on the way home from the gym, I just really wanted her.  And I cried on my way home, and I'm crying now.  But it's late, and maybe I'm just tired.  But I don't like these days when I want kids so much and I can't do anything about it.  I just have to trust God and his timing.  And tomorrow, I may feel totally different and think that we'd be great continuing to not have kids.  I will admit, though, that the pro-kid days are multiplying.

It feels a little like this.

Not so bad

Today I read A Severe Mercy and it was nowhere near as bad as I thought.  See, based upon what I had heard about it and then after reading The Problem of Pain, I was starting to be afraid that Seth and I have been entirely too happy, so God is going to kill one of us or throw some horrendous hardship into our lives in order to strengthen our faith.  I don't know.  I realize that these aren't entirely new thoughts.  Sometimes, when I think about how great my life is, I get nervous, so I think about the list of things that have been hard or wrong or trying in my life, just to make sure they're there and I am not too happy.  It's messed up, I know. 

I thought it was done, but I guess that trusting God truly and knowing that he doesn't play mind games takes time.  As I'm writing this, I realize that this "too happy" nonsense had taken the place of the previous ingrained fear of "don't tell God what  you don't want to do, or he'll be sure to set you right on that course!"  You know, the old stories you'd hear about a man saying, "God, I'll do anything for you, just don't send me to Africa!"  And, of course, after kicking and screaming, the man finally goes to Africa, like God wanted him to, and all is great.  The is the kind of spiritual manipulation I grew up with!  I know I'm not the only one. 

So, the book wasn't all that bad.  I guess in my mind-games land, I saw that the couple in the book were actually quite obsessed with one another and worshiped their love.  We don't do that.  I don't know.  There are still things floating around in my head.  Once again, I'll let you know if I come up with anything concrete.

The Problem of Pain

Friends, I didn't write last night because I was tired & also because I was troubled.  I finished up The Problem of Pain, and one of Lewis's main ideas is that God gives/allows pain for our own good.  We get too comfy and think we're secure in our cozy lives, and we don't look to him at all.  He knows that what is best for us is to be surrendered to him, so he shakes us up a little.  Lewis also believes that we have to live by natural laws in order to have a stable universe, therefore miracles must be rare.  So, some things just happen, and some things (all things?) are allowed or sent by God to cause us to turn to him. 


This is all something I have to chew on a bit & work my head around.  It mostly makes sense, but then I get stuck again.  It's not as if the question of evil & pain is going to be completely solved, but I still want more.  One of the things I really like, though, is that he doesn't buy into that rubbish about it all being for God's glory.  When people offer that as comfort to someone hurting, it makes you think, "Well, bully for you, God!  I'm glad you're getting a kick out of this."  He points out that God is goodness and we are the objects of his love.  It is all for our good. 

Perhaps later, after my paper is written, I'll give you some of the gems I've come up with or the really great quotes from his books.  Later.

For now, I'm thinking I'm not going to meet all of my homework goals for the day again, and I think it's due to dairy.  Gah.  Yes, I'm getting over being sick, but it should be gone by now, and I think that gluten & dairy don't help. 

Huh? Oh, yes.

I'm blogging early tonight, friends, as I actually feel plucky & writerly right now, so I thought I'd get to it.

My mind is fairly clear, so I'm slowly working on The Problem of Pain, and as with much C.S. Lewis non-fiction, I'm alternating head-scratching with vigorous highlighting.  There are times when I just want to shake him (if shaking a dead man would produce any desirable results) and say, "What does this mean?!  I think that you're just using a lot of words and not actually saying anything!"  He's the pinnacle of academic mumbo-jumbo somtimes, I tell you.  Quite often, though, the very next paragraph makes me get out the pen and the highlighter, and I underline and star and copy into my notes and read out loud to Seth.  "Aha!" I think.  "This is the answer to everything!" 

Life with C.S. Lewis.  What I'm doing for my paper is taking The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed and comparing them, trying to get a picture of his theodicy over time.  I've read AGO a few times, and I love it.  It is what you read in the depths of despair because it comforts you to know that someone who seemed to have it all figured out felt many of the same things.  Screamed and cried and wanted to tear God apart out of their pain.  This is my first time reading TPOP, and I'm learning a lot from it.  It seems that maybe this is to read more distanced from the grief, either before or after.  Things to remember and hold onto when it's time to move on.  Time to get back into life and re-engage with God and his goodness.