Hallowing Routines

As a homeschoooling family, we have the luxury of sleeping in.  I don't enjoy this luxury myself anymore for a couple of reasons.  Their names are Gabriel and Verity--middle boy and middle girl.  These two are my early risers.  They are also my noise-maker and talker, respectively.  I like to joke that I make myself rise early to enjoy my five minutes of alone time each day.

There are days I handle this better than others.  Sometimes (often) it just makes me grouchy.  I haven't had my coffee and there's a small boy whisper-screaming at the cat or a small girl wanting to tell me her dream or some other long, drawn-out, complicated type of story.

This morning, I wake up happy and the boy is up and he is singing.  Softly.  Which is unusual and beautiful.  And I don't feel weighed down by exhaustion.

I've come to realize how much energy or the lack of it accounts for my moods.  It's the end of December.  We are all probably burned out by now.  When I am tired for days, weeks, I can feel discouraged and hopeless.  I just have to remind myself that it will pass and when it does be grateful that it has.

I also have to remind myself to slow.  I have a tendency of wanting to take advantage of even the slightest bit of energy and get everything done, make up for the inactivity of my fatigue and do it all but then I wear myself out and it becomes a cycle.  I rush around the house if I don't deliberately make myself relax, slow my stride.  So, I practice paying attention to how the carpet feels beneath my bare feet, the sound of the water running in the sink, entering into whatever mundane task I'm performing.

This morning, I read of hallowing routines.   All of these small things throughout the day.  If I enter in, I could make these offerings.  I can say thank you for the song of the boy, the story of the girl.  I can watch the coffee pour from pot to cup and hallow the washing of dishes if I choose.  I can offer my weakness to God and I can also offer my strength by trusting Him with it.

Grounding

"For every man, the world is as fresh as it was the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them." -Huxley

For a while, several years ago, I woke up alone in bed every morning with gratitude on my lips.  I would look out the window at the backyard and my first thought would be, "Thank you, God, for Your loving-kindness." It began because I just fell in love with the word, loving-kindness and the concept.  I don't remember in which version of the Bible I read it but it's from Psalm 17 and David is asking God to show him His loving-kindness.  So, I started asking for that every morning and He started showing me in small and large ways throughout the day, then slowly the prayer turned into thankfulness regarding His kindness.  I practiced saying it first thing when I woke until it became a habit.

These days, it's not so  natural--if I remember, I say it before I get out of bed. Lately, (let's blame it on winter) I've been waking achy and rather ungrateful.  Still, thanking God for another day but maybe not with as much sincerity.

Sometimes, I wake up full of fear for no good reason, not even recognizing it as such until I've had time to sort my thoughts--and a cup of coffee. And if I fail to sort my thoughts and pray, I wind up losing moments, mornings and entire days to routines, as I like to call it, but really my 'routine' consists of rituals designed to occupy my mind and veer it off any course that might prove insightful, thus possibly painful.  It's cyclical and complicated.  A simpler way of wording it might be to call it 'avoidance.'

To avoid this pattern, I've been practicing grounding myself.  I ask myself, 'who, what,where, when, why, and how' and I run through the five senses.  Then I can hear the soft rustle of leaves in the trees instead of my inner voice asking if I should attend to my fingernails or my hair first.  I can quiet, for a moment, what I call my 'mean voice' that rattles off my to-do list, scolding me for slacking and points out that the coffee table is a mess.  The voice that whispers stupid things like, "The kids won't like their Christmas presents" and "Maybe David's cheating."  Yes, crazy-town.  And these are still just surface thoughts.  Beneath these are fears of the future; of my disease.

So, I practice being right here, right now, noticing.  Myself and my surroundings.  The birds this morning are quiet even, with just a chirp here and there.  Let my mind be like that more and more. Maybe, I'll never entirely be rid of the 'mean voice' but if I can learn to engage more and more the right now, maybe she'll speak less and less.  I may never have a nothing box like the men in my life say they do.  I can't even fathom such a thing, but I can direct my mind toward the scent of the rain, the breeze, and God's loving-kindness.

On Birth and Dreams

I dream of babies often.  Newborn baby girls.  I've read this represents a life dream but I think it might also just represent me being made new.

Last night, I dreamt I had a newborn girl, held her in my arms, close.  I had no stroller or sling to place her in so even when she fell asleep she was near me. Whether the baby represented a dream or a new self or both, I guess I am holding them near.

I need to be made new.  Daily.  Desperately. I need reminders that this is even possible. I need to hear God speak because I am so blind.  It is so hard to see what's right in front of me; the goodness, the miracles.

Life is hard for all of us and I think it's supposed to be.  So we stumble around in the dark, groping, afraid and then we give up, worn, weary, when we're certain we can't do it a minute longer.

I wake up in the dark, so often, grouchy from the start for no good reason.  Today, my right arm aching like weights are attached and all I want to do is go back to bed and I want someone to blame for the fact that I'm awake--the dog; the kid who's always up too early. Both strong-willed and difficult and loud when I don't have the energy or desire to deal with any of it.

These are the days I don't see myself as a new creation but I do see myself as a child--too young and ill-equipped to handle the gravity of this crazy adult life.  This life of mothering and teaching; bills, costs, patience, nurturing. This life that is not easy, the way you imagine it will be when you are a child.

On these days, I just need to know I've heard Him in simple ways like the noticing.  Be reminded that I wasn't blind this morning.  I watched the sky ripen from dark to plum to light and I  noticed.  I noticed that today the sky was purple, royal, in the in-between, not the pink of a fresh-born baby but violet like a king.  And that I felt Him in a breeze that was refreshing and not chilling.

These days, He is preparing the way and I am clearing a path and becoming new.  These days, Christmas is right around the corner but Christ is already always present. And He speaks.

Early Mornings and Contentment

For the past month and a half, I've been working on my novel, waking up early and editing or writing but prior to that I wrote my 'morning pages'--three pages of free-flowing thoughts. "Three pages of whatever crosses your mind--that's all there is to it. If you can't think of anything to write, then write, 'I can't think of anything to write...' Do this until you have filled three pages," writes Julia Cameron.

Some interesting stuff comes out.  Anyway, I thought maybe I could find time to blog if I did it like my morning pages, meaning, write it all out in the early a.m. in a lined notebook and transfer to the laptop later but spare you stuff like "I'm writing with a green pencil" and "the dog is licking his you-know-what."

But it is going to include things like, "I had a dream last night..."

Side note: My middle daughter the most, but all of the children love to ask first thing in the morning, before I've had my first sip of coffee, "Do you want to hear my dream?" And I'm thinking, No, not even a little bit because it's going to make zero sense and I'm pretty sure you're going to add details and storylines that didn't really occur in said dream and it's going to be really, really long,  but outwardly I nod and they proceed.

On another side note, we've decided to get the kids 'special' and 'meaningful' gifts this year for Christmas instead of the usual crap toys that break or only get played with once (my oldest is thrilled by the concept, let me tell you).  So...one of my gifts to the middle daughter is a dream journal and a pretty pen  Brilliant, eh?

So back to my dream.  In the dream, my husband and I were on a getaway from the kids, in a hotel room. The hotel room was box shaped and small and there were bunkbeds against each wall so eight beds in all and my husband and I sat on the floor in this tiny space, grading the kids' schoolwork. So, that's hot. But this one seems pretty easy to interpret.  I feel crowded, like I can never escape the children and even when I do, I am in some way attending to them, even if just in thought.

Last night, as a family we read Unwrapping the Greatest Gift by Ann Voskamp and we went around and shared about a hard gift, something that was difficult to be grateful for.  Middle daughter said she was grateful that when we were sick, we were all sick and could be together.  My oldest daughter sighed and pointed out that we are always all together.

It's amazing to me, and I suppose somewhat flattering, how the youngest three don't mind the constant company a household of our size provides.  Maybe, because they never knew any different? For my part, I grew up an only child.  I fantasized about having a large family with tons of siblings and then later couldn't wait to have a hoard of kids.  Cure-all for loneliness.  But now that I have that wealth of children, I realize I wasn't so much lonely as I was content.

Well maybe, that's not fair.  It's just that the siblings/children of my imagination were much quieter and a bit more well-behaved.  Not one of them possessed a strong-will; all were eager to please which is not, I've found, how real children are at all.  And as I type this, one of the kids has woken and the puppy (that was a grand idea) is barking but, too, it was dark when I woke and now the sky is pink.

And I am grateful for the most part that we're always together.  It's what I chose and we're close.  We love and like each other and I'm blessed to be able to stay home with them and teach them and also learn from them, which I do daily.

And also, I need a break, an escape once in a while.  My devotions this morning were from Mark and they started with, "In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there." -Mark 1:35 NASB. Jesus had somewhere to go.  I don't know where I'd go--somewhere without my gradebook and then maybe after some time alone and two cups of coffee, I'd be able to be a more attentive listener to my little dreamer who is also the big talker around here.

For now, I'll sip my coffee that's turned cold and take the dog out and say yes to whatever crazy question Verity (middle daughter) is asking--something about looking at and organizing the presents under the tree--and I will practice contentment.

Overcome

It's been a while since I've blogged.  A while since I've thought about blogging.  Several years ago, I blogged daily.  And then I tried to continue but I just couldn't. Sporadically, I added a few entries over the course of a few years but so much had changed--I couldn't get back in that space.

I was a different person then.  Married to a different man.  I had two less children. That blog, then, brought me so much healing.  It became a meditative place for me; a place of searching; a place where I felt close to God. I read those entries now and I almost envy aspects of my old self.  I can appreciate and even admire my own intense pursuit of God there, if that makes any sense.

In some ways, I feel as though I had a purer heart, more innocence. A divorce will straight wreck you.  I couldn't write much about it and I still feel like I can't.  Because I don't quite have the words. It's been four years and still, I can't entirely wrap my head around it. That blog was so much about married life and children and trying and searching and God.

Today, I'm married again.  I have two new children.  I'm still trying; I'm still searching and God is constant.  But I couldn't just pick up where I left off.  I've been so altered. Too much is still unprocessed; there are too many blanks--even for me--in my own story.

But I've missed that dedicated time with God; that longing, the comfort I found in writing in that capacity.  And the why of why now I'm starting a new blog is simply, that I guess it's just been on my heart.  It's terrible timing, actually, with the busyness of the holidays.  Too, I'm working on a novel I started writing in November that I feel rather committed to, there are the six children I homeschool which occupies most of every day and most all of my thoughts and there's the chronic illness which makes for bad timing with nearly everything in life.

So, I have multiple sclerosis.  I want to add something upbeat and cliche like 'but multiple sclerosis doesn't have me! Smiley face' but that would be bull sh*%.  Historically, I haven't shared much about my disease because it's kind of a downer and I don't want to seem like I'm looking for pity. But lately, well, it's been harder to ignore, I suppose.  Too, I've been thinking about how I need to read the words of others who suffer in a similar manner.  Somehow, it helps. So, I guess if I can do anything with this, I can share it as my story and what it looks like so others with chronic illnesses might not feel alone.  I can give a face to it.

My best defense for years was a good offense--there, I squeezed my cliche (I know how to spell cliche but I don't know how to add the accent :) )in--meaning, I did a lot of pretending.  I ignored it whenever I could.  I piled more and more on my plate in defiance to prove to myself that it was no big deal. But that's not as easy anymore.  Besides, I don't know that I was fooling anyone.

Last May, I was diagnosed with Valley Fever which is a b*%t#@  Blah, blah, blah.  Still have it.  Isn't helping a damn thing.  So, here I am, six months later, confessing my illnesses, I guess.  I want to tell you that it's still all good and it is in many ways.  I can walk and talk and swallow.  Just not as well or as easily. MS is a progressive disease.  It takes things slowly--at least it does from me.  It plays the long game.  I don't want to be cynical.  I pray I never have another symptom crop up in my life.  I try and practice positivity.  But I also need to work on authenticity.  With  myself.  Honoring my own truth.  And my own truth right now is that I feel like where other people have periods or days of sicknesses, I have periods or days or even only hours of wellness.  I feel like mostly I've learned to live sick.  And that's a bum deal.  And it pisses me off.  But...

And here's the crux of the new writing; the return to a place such as this: but...I have God.  I love God.  He chose this weakness or weaknesses for me for a reason and always, always it could be worse.  This disease brings me to prayer and that alone fills me with gratitude.  I am overcome.   This disease has at times overcome me, rendering me helpless, knocking me out, winning. But I turn to God and somehow, someway He speaks to me and I am overcome by His goodness and His compassionate love.

So overcome that I want to share it.