Domestic Goddess/Program Director: Able to work under high stress with little to no sleep and eating times will be a chore. Able to multitask on a perpetual basis and complaining will not be tolerated, if you feel like complaining count your blessings then shut up. Weak and high maintenance people need not apply.
It dawned on me as I woke on Friday with excitement because it was Friday that this custom will have to temporarily die for me. My husband will be traveling frequently on business in his new job and that means that from time to time I am a “single” mother. Where we moved to I have no friends as of yet and so I don’t trust any one with my most precious Joshua. Sadly, this means for me that my down time consists of his naps, which occur less frequently.
With this revelation dancing in my head I rose out of bed to retrieve Joshua from his, he had decided it was breakfast time. I realized that I was dizzy, ugh, not vertigo. I’ve gotten bouts so bad in the past that I couldn’t go to work, I always hated calling in sick! Then I burst out laughing, there are no sick days in my new job either. Joshua always needs me no matter if I am dizzy or if I feel that I need a break. He needs me to love him 100% - 100% of the time that he needs me. It was at this point it hit me, working outside the home is easier! All this time I was thinking I was getting off easy not working in my old job. I thought I was shaming, as I took Joshua to the changing table to get ready for the day because his breakfast was over I wiped the sleep from my eyes, no more of that today. He looked up at me and smiled and I realized that weekends will still happen when Mark is home. I can have a bit of a break while he plays with the kids. It dawned on me that Mark would also be able to help if I got crazy sick, those benefits mean nothing. That smile I get to get a hundred times a day because I am home with him. I see the first time he coos a new sound, or learns he can do other things other than cry to get attention. I’ve gotten to witness his scoot morph into a crawl and I wouldn’t trade these and the many more I will get for all the sleep or sick days or “weekends” in the world.
People see me now who don’t know me and think,
“Oh, boring homemaker, we’ll have nothing to talk about but kids and who wants that.” I’m not used to this response and the automatic dumbing down of conversations, if they only took the time to get to know this homemaker they would find their assumptions are wrong. Making friends has turned out to be the single hardest thing about this career change and move. I marveled at the fact that I had seen this before! I’ve always loved homemakers because I wanted to be one. As a Marine I got the privilege to meet many homemakers and found them each fascinating in their own right! But I had seen others respond to these homemakers with the same blank eyes and dumbed down conversations. How little the society outside of Homemakers actually knows about Homemaking!
This fact further manifested itself in that when I was changing my career I had other working mothers say to me,
“You’ll get bored, I did! Couldn’t do it due to boredom!” I looked at them with shock, how? But because I hadn’t been a homemaker before I said,
“Oh, well, I hope not. I’ve wanted to be a homemaker since I was 14 but we’ll see.” I had resented the idea of homemaker for some years when I thought I couldn’t trust the husband. But God gave me Mark and I trusted him explicitly! So I was getting to be the career I always wanted with the exception of a few years. My hatred at being a woman during that time ran deep. I read 1 Timothy 2:15 and snarled,
“Nevertheless she will be saved in childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness, with self-control.” What does that mean? I am saved because of Jesus and am smarter than at least half the men-teachers this Paul is so proud of!” My flesh roared at that verse, how could I fulfill what seemed to be my calling when I wanted so much that my calling would be something else, to be a teacher! What does that mean? So when my career change occurred I knew I would have to deal with this verse again. I went back to it and reread it, I prayed that the Lord would help me understand it. I read the blue letter bible Chuck Smith commentary on it and was gob smacked! The saving Paul was referring to was not dying during childbirth! Why hadn’t I thought of that? My career now is the most important one I’ve ever had!? I was to teach my son and any subsequent children God blesses us with about Him. I was to be the helpmate of my husband! Why had I longed for a different calling? For something better?! I started to realize that I still listen to the secular worlds version of the meaning of texts in the Bible and I was going to delve into this thought more deeply later, stay tuned for that. . . .
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Thank God He keeps us growing!
Never Foresaking: A change in Perspective.
How dumb and insipid was I that for a moment I believed that Mark and I's relationship had been intimate before Iraq over cigarettes, beer and swearing? Are those the three words I would use to describe us and our relationship before Iraq? Heavens no, there was morning coffee and camping! There were long drives and the talks that happened on them? Adventures of a million kinds, why had I become so blind to that? Because I was focused on the death of fleshy Dani not on the butterfly I was becoming! Our relationship was so much deeper than that and since coming back it has continued to blossom into that flower I love resting on in the glorious sun! How much I had become so focused on the differences in myself and our relationship that I did not see the beauty of the metamorphisis. I am human so naturally I wanted it all to stay the same forever, no matter how much that would have meant my heart staying hard and closed off as is was back then!
The smack in the head came when I got the first speeding ticket of my life, that I have blogged about previously. When I told my husband on the phone, he cracked some joke about it had me laughing in no time flat. How Mark can always make me laugh! We talked about the ticket and the story around it and laughed at the I wish I could have said that phrases! Then we went on to talk about his day and what it was like. Then we laughed about Joshua bumping his head as he took a flying lesson in how not to crawl forward. We talked and talked and then it was time to say good bye! I did not want to get off the phone, it wasn't like the last two weeks where I struggled for conversation and there was none, it had been a lull. Lulls are okay, they are normal and I have to let them wash over me. Sometimes there is nothing new to share, just a quick I love you and miss you is all that is necessary.
I realized that I had lost perspective. I had forgotten that we were going to go camping when he wasn't on his buisness trip. That we were going to take family outings to the beach to play in the water and the sand. The biggest thing that I forgot was morning coffee. The time we try to wake up before Joshua does and sip coffee together and discuss the night and the coming day. I get to bring him his coffee in bed(he brings me breakfast in bed when I need him too, what a sweety) and we chat over life, love, liberty and the prusuit of happiness. hehe
God taught me through the little sioree with the local swine that I had lost focus, I had forsaken not only my first love, the Lord, too busy traveling apparently. That I had forsaken the sweetest moments for focusing on the lesser ones! Reading the daily My Utmost for His Highest( http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php ) I remembered that as much as God isn't going to forsake me, no matter how busy I am on my travels He isn't going to forsake me when I am floundering in my new career. As He isn't going to forsake me, I cannot forsake the sweetest moments by getting distracted by the hard or uncertain moments of my life!
I love my husband more than words can say and his patience with me as I floundered through this adjustment period(and I'm sure I may flounder some more) just speaks volumes about him as a man! Not only a wonderful husband but a wonderful father, taking care of me and Joshua like we are his royal family, I his queen and Joshua his princely son! I know that he will never forsake us either because he is as sure as the sun! I thank God every day for my family and pray continually for the Lord to keep me on track so I can be the best for them!
How dumb and insipid was I that for a moment I believed that Mark and I's relationship had been intimate before Iraq over cigarettes, beer and swearing? Are those the three words I would use to describe us and our relationship before Iraq? Heavens no, there was morning coffee and camping! There were long drives and the talks that happened on them? Adventures of a million kinds, why had I become so blind to that? Because I was focused on the death of fleshy Dani not on the butterfly I was becoming! Our relationship was so much deeper than that and since coming back it has continued to blossom into that flower I love resting on in the glorious sun! How much I had become so focused on the differences in myself and our relationship that I did not see the beauty of the metamorphisis. I am human so naturally I wanted it all to stay the same forever, no matter how much that would have meant my heart staying hard and closed off as is was back then!
The smack in the head came when I got the first speeding ticket of my life, that I have blogged about previously. When I told my husband on the phone, he cracked some joke about it had me laughing in no time flat. How Mark can always make me laugh! We talked about the ticket and the story around it and laughed at the I wish I could have said that phrases! Then we went on to talk about his day and what it was like. Then we laughed about Joshua bumping his head as he took a flying lesson in how not to crawl forward. We talked and talked and then it was time to say good bye! I did not want to get off the phone, it wasn't like the last two weeks where I struggled for conversation and there was none, it had been a lull. Lulls are okay, they are normal and I have to let them wash over me. Sometimes there is nothing new to share, just a quick I love you and miss you is all that is necessary.
I realized that I had lost perspective. I had forgotten that we were going to go camping when he wasn't on his buisness trip. That we were going to take family outings to the beach to play in the water and the sand. The biggest thing that I forgot was morning coffee. The time we try to wake up before Joshua does and sip coffee together and discuss the night and the coming day. I get to bring him his coffee in bed(he brings me breakfast in bed when I need him too, what a sweety) and we chat over life, love, liberty and the prusuit of happiness. hehe
God taught me through the little sioree with the local swine that I had lost focus, I had forsaken not only my first love, the Lord, too busy traveling apparently. That I had forsaken the sweetest moments for focusing on the lesser ones! Reading the daily My Utmost for His Highest( http://www.rbc.org/utmost/index.php ) I remembered that as much as God isn't going to forsake me, no matter how busy I am on my travels He isn't going to forsake me when I am floundering in my new career. As He isn't going to forsake me, I cannot forsake the sweetest moments by getting distracted by the hard or uncertain moments of my life!
I love my husband more than words can say and his patience with me as I floundered through this adjustment period(and I'm sure I may flounder some more) just speaks volumes about him as a man! Not only a wonderful husband but a wonderful father, taking care of me and Joshua like we are his royal family, I his queen and Joshua his princely son! I know that he will never forsake us either because he is as sure as the sun! I thank God every day for my family and pray continually for the Lord to keep me on track so I can be the best for them!
Dying to self with out myself Dying . . .
I have given up so many things for becoming a mother. Sleep, cigarettes, drinking(except a glass of wine with dinner now and then), partying, swearing and any other manner of activity that may hurt my gorgeous gift from the Lord, my son.
The change has been so severe that at times I feel like I am watching myself die day by day. I was sitting in a restaurant with my husband and his friend. They were both having beers and more beers and it was just assumed that I would be the designated driver because I'm the mother, the nursing mother so naturally I would be the responsible one. Looking at my husband get up and leave with his friend to go have a cigarette while I took care of the baby I was incensed! What makes him think that he can just assume that it is fine to carry on like he is not a father and like we are not back together again! Why does he carry on smoking knowing that Joshua is watching his every move! How dare he act like nothing has changed? Like our two year seperation isn't over and that our son has not been born. We have graduated into the next bracket of human development, why does he act like he always did? I was pushed to distraction and complete disconnection. We went house hunting and I didn't want to see any of them, I didn't care. What had I come back to? Someone stuck in the old days and this woman I didn't recognize at all and wasn't sure I could be her! Internally, I felt like part of me was dying. I wasn't sure I was entirely ready for her to die but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it, she had to die if I was going to be for Joshua what I needed to be. However, would the man in the smoking pit with his friend still want me, this new me I was fast morphing into that even I didn't recognize? Why would he like me, I was pretty sure I didn't.
I looked in the mirror in the bathroom of the restaurant after I had changed Joshua's diaper. I don't even look the same. My eyes are puffy and wrinkled from not enough sleep. My cheeks had become jowels due to the glorious state of post pregnant weight not coming off but in fact accumulating as perpetual exhaustion leads to desperate eatting measures. My hair was thinning because of hormonal something or other adjusting. My neck even had wrinkles and there are rolls where my beautiful abs used to be. I even feel physically overlooked by my husband and why not? This is what he has to look at! I would look past me as fast as I could.
I sat there in the car as we drove around looking at these houses, houses I didn't really see as I jostled Joshua and daydreamed of the old days. How I longed for the carefree me that I used to be? The Dani that would have been in the smoke pit with her husband joking and laughing right along with him. The one who could tell a story with just the right mix of swear words to make the crowd double over in laughter. The woman who could party the night away dancing and drinking the whole time with her husband and friend. Were we not going to be friends any more? Had our friendship lost its basis? Was it down to a partnership? A child raising survival business spear headed by myself and my husband?
I had tried to connect over the Lord with him, talk about the Bible and things the Lord had been teaching me, but he seemed to have very little to share. There was always crickets on his side of the conversation. This scared me, he was supposed to be the spiritual head of the house hold, was I going to always flounder for a male to talk about the Lord with and scripture with? Was there always going to be no one to excitedly share praises over learned lessons and scripture epiphanies?
So I started just talking about Joshua, I don't have anything else to share. I can only talk so much about the same topic no matter how wonderful Joshua is. I don't want to have one sided conversations about the Lord and I can't relate on any of the other topics anymore. I don't talk politics or people. I don't care about music bands or who is the up and coming singer. I don't even watch t.v.! Dani, pre-mommyD is dead. How do I let her die without myself dying with her?
Who is myself? What did I become while Mark was fighting for our freedom? I love to write and read the word of the Lord. I love to go to Calvary Chapel and hear all about the Lord and sing praises to Him. I love hiking and camping. I love dogs and I love babies! Most of all I love the Lord. That is a good way to describe me, someone in love with the Lord. Mark is no longer my idol, as he used to be. I know that I am very different from the woman that Mark married. And for how different I am, he appears exactly the same as the man I married, so what does that mean?
If Mark seems the same to me and I am extremely different, did I trick him? Get him to marry someone he has nothing in common with but I thought that we did and now I am holding him back. Perhaps expecting him to become something he is not and is not destined for? That is unfair, so I expect nothing. I expect him to remain Mark now and forever. I pray that the Lord gives us something, some kind of friendship even if it is so extremely different from the looks of the past. I pray that the Lord brings me a girlfriend I can talk with about the wonders of the Lord. I pray that the Lord keeps Mark safe and that Mark continues to be the wonderful man that he is and that Joshua gets to spend as much time with him as possible between his daddy's buisness trips. I pray that Joshua's Mommy, this woman I have become meets Joshua's
Father again on the level of intimacy they had before they were called Parents.
When people say that children don't save marriages they are absolutely right. They challenge them, they make sure that the spouses don't stay in the same place or at the same level. But the in between levels are so hard! I feel like I'm reaching across more miles than when I was reaching to Iraq! How can that be? Time and communication and prayer takes care of everything and it will this too but God help us in this level of the game called Life!
The change has been so severe that at times I feel like I am watching myself die day by day. I was sitting in a restaurant with my husband and his friend. They were both having beers and more beers and it was just assumed that I would be the designated driver because I'm the mother, the nursing mother so naturally I would be the responsible one. Looking at my husband get up and leave with his friend to go have a cigarette while I took care of the baby I was incensed! What makes him think that he can just assume that it is fine to carry on like he is not a father and like we are not back together again! Why does he carry on smoking knowing that Joshua is watching his every move! How dare he act like nothing has changed? Like our two year seperation isn't over and that our son has not been born. We have graduated into the next bracket of human development, why does he act like he always did? I was pushed to distraction and complete disconnection. We went house hunting and I didn't want to see any of them, I didn't care. What had I come back to? Someone stuck in the old days and this woman I didn't recognize at all and wasn't sure I could be her! Internally, I felt like part of me was dying. I wasn't sure I was entirely ready for her to die but I knew that there was nothing I could do about it, she had to die if I was going to be for Joshua what I needed to be. However, would the man in the smoking pit with his friend still want me, this new me I was fast morphing into that even I didn't recognize? Why would he like me, I was pretty sure I didn't.
I looked in the mirror in the bathroom of the restaurant after I had changed Joshua's diaper. I don't even look the same. My eyes are puffy and wrinkled from not enough sleep. My cheeks had become jowels due to the glorious state of post pregnant weight not coming off but in fact accumulating as perpetual exhaustion leads to desperate eatting measures. My hair was thinning because of hormonal something or other adjusting. My neck even had wrinkles and there are rolls where my beautiful abs used to be. I even feel physically overlooked by my husband and why not? This is what he has to look at! I would look past me as fast as I could.
I sat there in the car as we drove around looking at these houses, houses I didn't really see as I jostled Joshua and daydreamed of the old days. How I longed for the carefree me that I used to be? The Dani that would have been in the smoke pit with her husband joking and laughing right along with him. The one who could tell a story with just the right mix of swear words to make the crowd double over in laughter. The woman who could party the night away dancing and drinking the whole time with her husband and friend. Were we not going to be friends any more? Had our friendship lost its basis? Was it down to a partnership? A child raising survival business spear headed by myself and my husband?
I had tried to connect over the Lord with him, talk about the Bible and things the Lord had been teaching me, but he seemed to have very little to share. There was always crickets on his side of the conversation. This scared me, he was supposed to be the spiritual head of the house hold, was I going to always flounder for a male to talk about the Lord with and scripture with? Was there always going to be no one to excitedly share praises over learned lessons and scripture epiphanies?
So I started just talking about Joshua, I don't have anything else to share. I can only talk so much about the same topic no matter how wonderful Joshua is. I don't want to have one sided conversations about the Lord and I can't relate on any of the other topics anymore. I don't talk politics or people. I don't care about music bands or who is the up and coming singer. I don't even watch t.v.! Dani, pre-mommyD is dead. How do I let her die without myself dying with her?
Who is myself? What did I become while Mark was fighting for our freedom? I love to write and read the word of the Lord. I love to go to Calvary Chapel and hear all about the Lord and sing praises to Him. I love hiking and camping. I love dogs and I love babies! Most of all I love the Lord. That is a good way to describe me, someone in love with the Lord. Mark is no longer my idol, as he used to be. I know that I am very different from the woman that Mark married. And for how different I am, he appears exactly the same as the man I married, so what does that mean?
If Mark seems the same to me and I am extremely different, did I trick him? Get him to marry someone he has nothing in common with but I thought that we did and now I am holding him back. Perhaps expecting him to become something he is not and is not destined for? That is unfair, so I expect nothing. I expect him to remain Mark now and forever. I pray that the Lord gives us something, some kind of friendship even if it is so extremely different from the looks of the past. I pray that the Lord brings me a girlfriend I can talk with about the wonders of the Lord. I pray that the Lord keeps Mark safe and that Mark continues to be the wonderful man that he is and that Joshua gets to spend as much time with him as possible between his daddy's buisness trips. I pray that Joshua's Mommy, this woman I have become meets Joshua's
Father again on the level of intimacy they had before they were called Parents.
When people say that children don't save marriages they are absolutely right. They challenge them, they make sure that the spouses don't stay in the same place or at the same level. But the in between levels are so hard! I feel like I'm reaching across more miles than when I was reaching to Iraq! How can that be? Time and communication and prayer takes care of everything and it will this too but God help us in this level of the game called Life!
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
I don't like Bacon!
Jas 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.
Today that verse was driven home for me as I was pulled over for my first speeding ticket ever. After driving away, ticket in wallet I went through a few phases.
For the first twenty minutes I expounded on the Pig's lack of mercy and his complete inability to notice that I was a 30 year old woman, never before cited for speeding trying to get passed a car on a two lane road quickly so as not to endanger anyone and he is going to give me a ticket! I was incensed to say the least and considered from all angles the possibility that his parents were never married and that his short stature had contributed to my getting a ticket. He saw that I was taller and this set him off, he couldn't then just say, this is a warning.
After the initial 20 minutes of rage there came the justifications. Did he not know that I had been on the road for two hours and I hadn't been speeding at all!!?? Only this moment that I passed that stupid truck that had been driving iradically! What was I supposed to do? Stay behind him and put up with his dangerous driving?
After that 20 minutes I moved into, well, maybe God let him pull me over because something worse was going to happen up ahead if I was on the road so I needed to be slowed down by getting a ticket.
Then I went to, well, I was breaking the law, plain and simple. There is no mercy in the Law. That was the point of the Old Testament. Jesus is the mercy, I need Him for my salvation because I'm guilty of the whole law. He caught me breaking it, no matter if it was the only time that day, I had been speeding. . . No ifs, ands or buts. So I simply sighed and said good bye to 130 dollars that my wonderful husband was working so hard for so I could stay home and take care of our baby. God is great, Mark is good and Joshua is adorable and safe. Who knows what might have been and thankfully I just got a ticket!
Today that verse was driven home for me as I was pulled over for my first speeding ticket ever. After driving away, ticket in wallet I went through a few phases.
For the first twenty minutes I expounded on the Pig's lack of mercy and his complete inability to notice that I was a 30 year old woman, never before cited for speeding trying to get passed a car on a two lane road quickly so as not to endanger anyone and he is going to give me a ticket! I was incensed to say the least and considered from all angles the possibility that his parents were never married and that his short stature had contributed to my getting a ticket. He saw that I was taller and this set him off, he couldn't then just say, this is a warning.
After the initial 20 minutes of rage there came the justifications. Did he not know that I had been on the road for two hours and I hadn't been speeding at all!!?? Only this moment that I passed that stupid truck that had been driving iradically! What was I supposed to do? Stay behind him and put up with his dangerous driving?
After that 20 minutes I moved into, well, maybe God let him pull me over because something worse was going to happen up ahead if I was on the road so I needed to be slowed down by getting a ticket.
Then I went to, well, I was breaking the law, plain and simple. There is no mercy in the Law. That was the point of the Old Testament. Jesus is the mercy, I need Him for my salvation because I'm guilty of the whole law. He caught me breaking it, no matter if it was the only time that day, I had been speeding. . . No ifs, ands or buts. So I simply sighed and said good bye to 130 dollars that my wonderful husband was working so hard for so I could stay home and take care of our baby. God is great, Mark is good and Joshua is adorable and safe. Who knows what might have been and thankfully I just got a ticket!
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