Me, North Korea & Time to Retreat

I think I have been using a page from North Korea's play book. I have poured all of my resources into showing the world my strength while everything and everyone inside my borders suffers and knows we are not what everyone else sees. We are much weaker than we show.

As I try to figure out how to balance what I want to do, what I can do and what I must do, I am reminded that I still have such a striking ability to be a faker. Especially with myself.

I fake it because I can't believe a teeny tiny tick could wreak this much havoc.

I fake it because when people look at me, they don’t believe I can possibly be so sick.

It is one of the weirdest things about chronic Lyme disease - it destroys everything inside but leaves you mostly looking the same on the outside. I look mostly normal. Except when I don’t and I’m obviously not posting my picture to Instagram that day. There have been days when I see my reflection in my bathroom mirror or in the worried face of my mother-in-law and realize my outsides match my insides that day.

Exhibit A

I am ashamed to say I used to look at pictures of other folks with Lyme and see their posed smiles and think there's no way they could actually be feeling as sick as they claimed and still take a picture like that. Karma! 

I was in a lot of pain and trying to keep myself held together to attend Cara's little graduation. I went down hill for the rest of the day and ended up in bed. But none of that would be obvious from this picture.  

I fake it because I’m hoping the “fake it till you make it” philosophy will actually pan out for once.

I fake it because I’ve felt I don’t have a choice.  

We have bills to pay and kids who need to eat and get dropped off at school and have a normal life.

I fake it because I don’t want to be a whiner or a burden or have people’s pity.

I fake it because I don’t like depending on others.

I fake it because I want to pretend I haven’t lost things I really liked about myself.

I fake it because I don’t want to accept that many dreams for our family and life are shriveling up.

I fake it because my job requires that I put aside my own stuff to hold space for the stuff of others.

I fake it because I am really scared of having this mess up our kids or make them grow up too early.

I fake it because I actually do have good days and they trick me into thinking that maybe I can just make bad days good days if I try hard enough.

I fake it because it soothes my ego to pretend I am still strong.

I fake it because when I stop moving and doing, I start shaking and tremor-ing and twitching and it freaks me out.

I fake it because I am afraid if I slow down I might never be able to get up and go again. Ever. I am hugely afraid of this.

Ryan, Grief, & Love Batting Last

There is something about the capacity to love 
that is as connected to sorrow as it is to joy. 

Jane Herring

On Saturday, in the middle of her grief and mine, a friend and I talked about the strangeness of grief, and how gifts and losses live co-mingled in it. It is hard to wrap your heart around this when you are in it. She spoke of the strange, beautiful, comfort in a funeral where steel drums and weeping shared the space. It struck me that it was the perfect way of expressing the juxtaposition of grief and hope that somehow wrap around one another in mourning. The sounds of sorrow and hope, the weeping and the drumming, were more than enough to hold space for both the enormous heartache of the mourners as well as their seeds of hope. 

Time passed after his death. Her heart had softened, and she has grown strong. She will always be lonely here without him, but she loves her life again. That’s proof enough for me that love is sovereign, that most of the time, love bats last. And this is what we have to offer from our grief: a promise that we do endure, and that out of the wreckage something surprising will rise.  

Taken from Stitches by Anne Lamott

My brother died 12 years ago today. I miss him. Always. I miss his space in our world.
But I have also grown strong and gentle at the same time because of it. I have no doubt now that Love always bats last.

As the Dust Settles

Her life came apart at the seams in ways she had never agreed to. 

Anne Lamott

As the dust is settling on my Lyme diagnosis, I am scared. I wish I felt braver.

As we get information a little at a time about this long, crooked road in front of us I am just trying to keep track of the pieces that seem to be coming apart left and right so that we have them when it’s time for mending. Who really ever agrees to the ways our lives come apart at the seams? None of us. It’s not usually our choice. I suppose what is our choice is what we do with the pieces and how we mend them.

Fear has lost so much ground in my life. As a young girl, I bought into the lie that control can manage fear. I ordered my heart for control. But now I know there is only one thing bigger than fear: Love.

Still, fear has a cozy little familiar spot in me where it can get in and grow. Fear left untended grows much like the bacteria that is crippling me. It invades every tissue, every nerve, every joint, every vital organ. It can drill through my healthy places and burrow deep.

My Wasteland: Lyme Disease

In this wasteland

Where I’m living

There is a crack in the door filled with light

And it’s all that I need to get by

In this wastleland where I’m living

There is a crack in the door filled with light

And it’s all that I need to shine

(Need to Breathe, Wasteland)

Last week, we were plunged into a wasteland. It was like a sinkhole that opened up and swallowed me whole.

I’ve been hiding ever since. I’m not hiding because I don’t want people to know. I think I’ve been hiding because when the sinkhole collapsed around me, I realized I could barely breathe. I needed to breathe slow and steady. I could not afford to lose any oxygen screaming or panicking. Or fending off constant advice, misinformation, or well-intended minimizing of how serious this is for us. There is only so much air down here and we need all of it.

Tremors, Bike Rides & Learning to Leave

I live in the most beautiful country in the world, I thought. I seriously gulp in the air and my whole body does a sigh of longing and contentment. 

I was riding in response to the way my illness is changing my body.

The tremor set in again today. Sometimes it stays all day and sometimes a few hours. It disarms me. My head wobbles and bobbles unnoticed to others. But because its my head, I notice every movement.

I rode to remind my body, soul and mind of strength.

I rode to retrain my motor memory. Body, you are strong. Remember this. Don’t forget it.

I rode so not to lose the strength and mobility my body has now. I rode in response to fear of losing more.

I rode to delight in the day.

I rode to notice beauty rather than dwell on weakness and fear.

I rode to pretend I am who I always was.

I rode to distract myself from the shaking and the unwelcome firework show my nerves were putting on.

But I finally stopped riding and pretending and distracting. I sat on the rocks and watched the water and canoes float by on the river.

My body trembled and I didn’t try to stop it.

I thought about how I have always been a stay-er. In relationships, churches, jobs, with cell phone companies and difficult tasks. I have stayed way past when I wanted to leave. Maybe this is good for character. Maybe I should’ve learned leaving before now. Who can say? It doesn’t much matter to me now.

My illness is teaching me many things. Gentling me. It is also teaching me that this might be a season of realizing I have learned to stay. This is not a gap in my formation. I’ve been a stay-er. I am now learning about leaving and letting go. Maybe this is precisely because I have learned to stay. Richard Rohr talks about something similar here.
Its teaching me to live more open-handed perhaps. Sometimes I’m too weak for grasping.

But in this beautiful home, neighborhood, city, bike path, country – I’d like to keep on being a stay-er. You, beautiful places, give me somewhere to stay as I’m learning to leave.

PS. It was also fun to be a rebel :) and ride without a helmet. So much more relaxing and peaceful.

10 Years

August 2013 - Ten Years


 

10 years ago we promised things we couldn't possibly understand. This says less about our tender ages and more about the joys and challenges of marriage. It was 102 degrees and 100% humidity. Luckily, the refining fires of marriage produce more than just unbearable heat. 

10 years is starting to feel like a respectable number. Still young, still changing, still in the beginning stages of family life but marked by a love that grows firmer, deeper, and wider day by day, fight by fight, delight by delight, grace by grace. We've been through "stuff" now. Our love has logged some miles and been tested in hard places- physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and financially. Each time we come through a hard place, a 'fire', we can see the beauty and character that was being formed in our marriage, in us.

Like gold, our relationship feels fragile and vulnerable  in the middle of the hard place. Perhaps it is. Perhaps the pliability, malleability in the fire is what allows it to take beautiful shape or to break. By God's grace and our perseverance and commitment, our marriage has continued to be shaped rather than break.  There are many ways for a marriage to break without divorce. I've seen a few of them and its sad. We have continued to find each other in (or at least at the tail end) of the hard places and help birth something new in our relationship. I am proud of this. I am proud of us.   

Thirteen years ago when we started our long distance love story, we had no way of knowing that this relationship would be a central place of formation, of transformation, in knowing ourselves, God and others. 

Our first official date in March 2000 hiking up Sulphur Mountain in snow. This american city girl did not have a clue what I was getting into when I wore a hoodie, vest and runners for a 5.5 km hike in Canadian winter. I couldn't drink enough hot chocolate when we finally reached the top. My discomfort is more than obvious on my face. Pretty sure I was cursing Jason, the hike, the snow, Canada and anything else I could think of at this point. We took the gondola down. :)

Jason and I were recently back on Sulphur with the kids (we did not hike it this time) so we took a commemorative picture. This picture helps you see just how cold, snowy and cloudy it was when we hiked it in 2000. No mountain views, no lingering out on the observation deck to enjoy the beauty of what surrounded us. Our life together is a little like these two pictures. Now it is easy to see the beauty of our marriage. We can look out and see the places we've been. When we take in the whole view, it is breathtaking and beautiful. The peaks are glorious. Some have been jagged too.  

So many things about me have changed since that day ten years ago. There are some things we wish we'd done differently at our wedding, mostly more character and more relational. But as I took a look at our vows, they are still the words I would choose if I were marrying Jason today. Since words are important to me, this brought me joy. A gift. 

We took our marriage vows from a book Jason gave me for my 19th birthday, a few years before we were married, SoulCraft: How God Shapes Us Through Relationships.Ten years in, with what I know about marriage now, these words are still what I would want to promise and be promised. 

Shanna, do you take Jason to be your husband, and to live together after God's command in holy marriage? Do you promise to be his considerate, faithful, and loving wife and submit your life to the authority of God's Word? Do you covenant to love him, support and serve him, guide and cherish him in prosperity and in adversity; in sorrow and in happiness; in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, be united to him so long as you both shall live? 

Me: I take you and give myself to you. With deepest joy I join my life with yours. I promise to cherish and uphold you from this day forward as long as our lives shall last. And as a symbol of my promise I give you this ring, a celebration of our union in Christ, in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

These promises still resonate with my heart and I am committed to live them out in our marriage. But maybe now, after ten years of marriage, I know how much grace is needed to live these out in a way that honors Jason, our marriage and our God. 

A cord of three strands is not easily broken. 

Ecclesiastes 4:12

*********

 

This was not a moment I was meant to see but it just might be my favorite picture of all time.

I was on the floor playing Lego with Evan when I noticed Jason's grandpa doing an ordinary act of kindness (love). And it struck me as extraordinary after 66 years of marriage. Sheepishly, I secretly (not anymore) captured the moment. It made me think of this friend's post after 40 years of marriage. Bottom line: To have a marriage marked by true kindness is the best promise we can make and keep for our marriages. 

This is real marriage. Grandpa has probably done this act of kindness hundreds of times for his bride. It is not glamorous or romantic but something about it strikes me as profoundly beautiful, intimate, kind. A beautiful marriage is not running through airports or romantic getaways (though I would not complain about one:), it is about staying and committing and cherishing and laundry and laughing and cleaning bathrooms and bills and listening and nurturing and tying shoes when your beloved can no longer do this for themselves.

Loved this.

We enjoyed a night out to celebrate.
In September we will enjoy our anniversary gift from Jason's parents: a weekend at a B & B and a play at the Rosebud Theatre. Can't wait.

Thought it was fitting that our anniversary dinner had some Kansas City fare on the menu. :)

Chop's yummy version of a bellini. Check out that ice cube.

The cutest dessert I've ever seen: A mini white chocolate raspberry creme brulee. It was as good as it sounds.

Life Lessons from My Gardening Foibles

This morning, I sat on the front steps sipping my morning tea looking out at my little garden I love. Sometime ago when I wrote my Things I Do and Things I Don’t Do list, gardening fell squarely on the things I don’t do side. For all intents and purposes, I still don’t. A couple of years ago, I nearly lost my mind and uprooted our beautiful, healthy, 12 year old irises to plant a food garden. If you know me, you know this is funny bordering on insane. Because really, my indoor plants are an evolutionary experiment: survival of the fittest. I do well to throw an ice cube in the pot now and then (a trick my sister taught me).

It was also an insane idea because the many places of my life require, in truth, probably more than I actually have to give so though fresh garden veggies would be awesome, I probably ought not give my energy toward growing plants when I sometimes find it hard to grow children or my marriage.

I am no gardener.

Case and point: While Evan was in VBS, Cara and I decided to weed the front flower bed at the church. Everyone walking by commented on a beautiful flower growing there. Inevitably, they would ask me what it was (I had no idea). But I marveled at these beautiful flowers that had survived the early summer excavation to shore up the building`s foundation beneath it. Amazing, I thought. Now that’s a hearty flower. Before I could contemplate any deeper meaning ;), one of the ladies from our church came out and marvelled with me about their beauty. Then she told me she planted them. In July. They are annuals. A rookie mistake. Gardening is not in my wheelhouse.

But this little front garden/landscaping we put in lastsummer is manageable. I have come to understand just a little of why real gardeners say gardening is something of a spiritual, meaningful, experience for them. I have watered and weeded and waited for these plants to grow and bloom.  Healthy growth takes time and attention, changing seasons and good soil. When hail came last year, I nearly ran outside and sat with my favorites under tarps to protect them.  I held my breath to see if the worst hit would make it. Sure enough – they all did.

Here is what my little garden is teaching me now:

Gently wait. If you can’t wait gently, at least wait.

I have learned the hard way that grabbing scissors and cutting away what looks dead too early will stunt growth and beauty. The mullet on my potentilla testifies to this.

Potentilla with a mullet

I have learned that pruning away at the right time brings health and luster that would not have come if I had not trimmed away the fading branches. My Korean Lilac (my not-so-secret favorite) is reaping the benefits of my judicious trimming because it doesn’t have to put its energy toward the wrong thing (seeding).

I am learning rash choices that don’t account for the future will be costly down the road. I really wanted a Mugo Pine but the garden centre didn’t have a miniature at the time. So I asked the guy if I could just keep trimming off new growth once it reaches the size I want it. He shrugged his sixteen year old shoulders and said, “Oh yeah.” I didn’t get the sense he really knew what he was talking about but I liked his answer and I bought it. A few weeks after it was planted in a 4x4 spot in our garden, I saw a full grown Mugo Pine in a friend’s backyard. It’s an enormous tree. This little-gonna-be-mighty Mugo also teaches me to be careful who I invite to give answers to the questions of life I am wrestling with. Maybe even more importantly, to not simply look for answers that I want to hear.

I am learning that even when I nurture and care for something, it might bloom in ways totally unexpected and not always to my liking. My hydrangea has always been the most fragile. I have nursed it, watched and hoped it would become beautiful and healthy. Turns out, now that it is becoming heartier, it is ugly. The flowers are green! Green? I don’t actually want any green flowers in my little garden. I have enough green, thank you very much. Can’t you be yellow or white or pink or blue or purple? I don’t care. Just not green. What to do with this plant that I have nourished and protected only to find it isn’t anything like what I want? I read somewhere there are special techniques to change the color of a hydrangea’s blossoms. Possibly. Seems kind of wrong. Truthfully, I am tempted to rip it out and start over. Spend $30 and an hour and plant something that actually looks beautiful to me. Maybe I will yet, I’m not sure. When Jason used to frown at the pile of yellow and orange skittles I threw in the garbage, I would say “It is candy. I am eating it for pleasure. Why would I eat candy I don’t even like?” But I have a hard time letting go of my ugly hydrangea because I have given a little of myself to it and feel responsible for it, I think.

As I sat on my front steps this morning and thought about what I am learning in my fumbling gardening attempts, I realized they apply to my “real life” too. I came away with this self-insight that stuck:

I have always had a hard time giving up on things, even when they don’t please me or bring me pleasure. Especially if I have invested any bit of myself in it/them. I don’t have a clue if this is helpful or unhelpful to my life or others. It means my green hydrangea gets to keep on living and the Mugo Pine stays poised in its place to choke out my beloved Korean Lilac – the thing of beauty I actually LOVE in my garden. And I just wait. Unable to make a decision because I care about that little pine and the hydrangea too – even as its green blossoms continue to irritate me. 

For now, I wait and water and hope.