Back to before?

I'm having a hard time believing that it's been just over a month since the last time I was able to post.  I'm not sure why since it's been non stop since then, but I'm guessing it's because for that entire month I have had one blog thought after another come into being without an ounce of time to pursue it.  That said, a couple of things happened this week that have made me take the time to finally click it out...

This past Monday evening, Jason and I had the opportunity to have a mini date night and go listen to an old friend from high school perform with the Kalamazoo Symphony at Kindleberger Park.  It was great to be at a concert without children because it gave me some much needed quiet time to reflect on what I was hearing beyond the music.  The selections for the evening were Broadway and/or motion picture related.  One of the pieces was selections from The Phantom of the Opera.  I've seen Phantom twice-once in Toronto for my 13th birthday and once here in Kalamazoo for my first mother's day after Kailynn was born.  The craziest emotions were stirred while listening to this performance.  It really caught me off guard considering that I was sitting in a lawn chair at a park!  Like we're talking emotions were brought to the surface that a) I didn't even know existed in my soul and b) even if I knew they were there, only a licensed professional should have known the questions to ask to bring them to the surface!  More importantly, it made me aware that I have still been suppressing some very significant abandonment issues.  Let me see if I can tie this all together...

When I was in eighth grade, my parents planned a trip to Toronto for my 13th birthday.  The highlight of this trip was for me to go see Phantom.  That should stick out as the big 'thing' from the weekend.  What actually sticks out is the fact that my parents, instead of taking me to Phantom, sent me to Phantom with some close family friends (who had traveled with us) while they went to Mis Saigon, because they had already seen Phantom that summer....

The mother's day Phantom performance was a big deal to me.  Jason not only got the tickets, but also took care of arranging childcare for the evening which as a mom is a HUGE deal!  It also gave me a glimmer that the man that I had married was still buried underneath the workaholic, often distant person he was becoming.  Maybe he wasn't so far gone after all.....

Growing up an only child apparently made me fear being alone, being left behind and a whole miriad of other things.  My one consistent escape was music.  I would play.  I would listen.  I would drift off into my own world where I felt untouchable because it was only accessible if I let you in.  It still plays a huge part in maintaining my sanity.  

So shortly after hearing the selections from Phantom on Monday evening, our friend performs "Back to Before' from Ragtime.  As I'm sitting there, still caught off guard by these crazy reflective emotions, the lyrics start speaking to me (sounds crazy, but this happens to me on a regular basis, I swear!).  The whole song talks about how things used to be, but how you can never go back to before....  

Ah ha.  That was it.  There was something deep down in me that was longing for the good times/things that surrounded the early Phantom memories.  However, God has not designed our lives to work like that.  It is such a blessing that He's spoken to me about the fact that He alone is everything I could ever want in a mother and a father.  In other words, He was with me  at that Phantom performance when I felt alone and abandoned by my parents on my 'special' birthday trip that no longer felt so special.  And He was with me when it felt like my spouse had left me to handle life with our daughter on my own.  He was also with Jason in making plans that He knew would reach out to me-something I desperately needed.  

What I know now, is that no matter how it seems, I could never go back to a life of 'befores'.  Even in the moments where, like right now, God seems distant and like He's not hearing my prayers to sell our house or He's communicating with me with direction for everyone except for us, 6 months or 15 years from now I know that I will hear some song that takes me back to before.  Only my hope is that then I will know that before is not where I need to be.

It's not easy being green...

"Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf." 

Proverbs 11:28

So this got me thinking.  Actually, it was the thinking that led me to this verse.  Anyhow, I've been thinking for several days on this one before blogging it which has been good, since in the meantime many a situation has presented itself to further my questioning (God knows I love it when he provides me with 'in your face' examples!)  What my question comes down to is this: What does it mean to be rich?

I realized as soon as I boiled it down to a 'simple' question that there is no simple answer to this.  The complexity led me to Websters Dictionary:

Rich: Having abundant possessions, and especially material wealth 

There are several other definitions, but it was the synonyms that really started to open up my mind and channel me in to what I had been picking up on in the last few days.

synonyms rich, wealthy, affluent, opulent mean having goods, property, and money in abundance. rich implies having more than enough to gratify normal needs or desires rich through shrewd investing. wealthy stresses the possession of property and intrinsically valuable things wealthy landowners. affluent suggests prosperity and an increasing wealth affluent society. opulent suggests lavish expenditure and display of great wealth, more often applying to things than people opulent mansion.

I added the bolds to share where my eyes and mind go.  Is it really all about the 'things'?  I'm so drawn into this right now, because the journey that we're about to embark on, with Jason going to seminary and our family having at least a year with no true income, feels incredibly rich.  However, that suddenly feels like a funny word to use when describing it!  Our seminary life will be ANYTHING but abundant with money or goods or property!  I seriously doubt that, in the next three years at least, I will be blogging about having 'more than enough'...unless of course you look beyond Mr. Webster...

It's so cliche', but the one thing I've learned over and over again since November 2007, is that it's not about the 'things' in life.  Please don't get me wrong, I like-no LOVE- having nice, even lavish, things and experiences, but I've come to realize that those things are like medicine for me.  Brand names, vehicle types, big, expensive gifts, dinners out, kid's toys, a bigger house, nicer this, newer that-you get the point.  When my life turns to that-to seeking more than what God has given me right here, right now-what am I after?  Do I really need to keep up with the Joneses that badly?  Why am I running from...me?

It has become my long term goal to be the face of the 'new' Jones family.  To get back to basics, per se.  Do we need that second car?  That second job just to feed a lifestyle?  Brand new or second hand?  5 bedrooms when 4 will do?  Honda Accord when a Civic will do?  Ground sirloin when I can drain the mess out of ground beef?  You get the picture!  Jason and I talk a lot about the 'things' that we desire-"Hey I really want to get _______ (fill in the blank with you name it)"-but when it comes down to it, when given enough time to think it through and really sort it out, we typically will come to realize that we're just fine with what we already have.  My hope is that our girls pick up on this and that they will always feel abundantly rich with the love and experience our family provides them more than any toys and clothes that they may have.

So that brings me back to this:

"Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf." 

Proverbs 11:28

Hmm, I have to say that I'm struggling with the 'righteous' part because it's not my goal to be 'righteous' in this process.  I think maybe the goal is, however, to live in a way that makes us thrive so much, that it truly encourages others to have more abundance from less.

I'm just not sure...

I'm not sure how to gracefully dive into this one so I'm setting grace and likely tact aside for the moment while I try to figure out why not speaking is a repeated means of 'dealing' with issues.  Of course this notion hasn't just come to me.  I, of course, have a very specific instance in mind, but it's really just a repeat of history for most everyone that I know.  Myself very much included.  For me, it's learned behavior.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and it is especially true in this category.  However, before I go on, let me say that I have spent many an hour in therapy working through the lack of communication issue, and I think that my husband would say that those were dollars well and successfully spent.

My father is a good man.  This is especially true when you do as he instructs, agree with his opinion and generally go with his flow.  This is complete truth when you're in line with the aforementioned guidelines and your decisions and actions are solid, sound and normal fitting within his guidelines.  

And then there's me.  The 5th of his 5 children who really isn't feeling all that.  I'm a learn from example kind of girl.  Hence why I hated school until I excelled in the Cosmetology classroom.  But I'm still trying to figure out what it is that I am supposed to 'learn' from this, his, example.  

The latest in a long list of his antics mostly has to do with me expecting baby #3 at what he doesn't think to be the appropriate time.  My immediate reaction is to exclaim "Who died and made you God?"  but I'm fairly sure that response won't get me anywhere.  So in a typical show of his disapproval, he stops talking.  Normally it's just to me, but I've noticed that this time it's to Jason as well which I think pretty much indicates that he's holding him responsible for 'doing' this, as well as a host of other changes (moving, seminary etc), that he doesn't understand or approve of.  This leaves the girls caught in the middle, without them knowing, and me pleading with God for grace, forgiveness and understanding at the top of my lungs.

Up until now, it's been much easier for me to just speak my peace to him when the opportunity finally presents itself.  But my level of irritation on this one is HIGH, like exponentially elevated and it's not coming down.  So I'm blogging.

More and more my feelings lean toward just not needing this roller coaster 'parenting', if you can call it that, and I often find myself wanting our current state of silence to be current forever.  I'm done and over it, but I also feel that such a decision should bring about more peace and less questions than it has.  Mostly the questions surround where does that leave my kids from a relationship standpoint?  Although my stubborn side answers back with 'you can just continue to drop them off without speaking to him and that would be completely okay until they figure this man out for themselves and come to you looking for answers.'  And I think I'm okay with that.

I think the bigger issue in this, for me, are all the things that I wish my father would be saying or asking right now to fill the stale silence that fills the air.  Or how it is that I can attempt to move forward when all I can think about is a day rapidly approaching where I am supposed to say "Happy Father's Day" to a man with whom I am not happy and does not feel very fatherly on any day right now.

New Beginnings

Suddenly this feels like the right time to start this blogging business again.  As I've been pondering the possible reasons why, I seem to continually come up empty...

Pregnant with #3?  Food allergies?  Crazy preschooler antics?  Trying to sell a house?  Pending move?  Husband leaving his job?  Husband starting seminary?  No clue where living expenses will be coming from?  Moving?  New beginnings?????

Ahhh, there it is.  New Beginnings.

While laying in bed the other night, freakin EXHAUSTED, but unable to fall asleep for hours-literally- I began to wonder when our new 'normal' would start to feel 'normal'.  It's been nearly 19 months since Jason got hurt.  I remember then thinking to myself, since we had been down the road of a severe back injury 5 years before, "Okay self.  You've done this before.  It's long.  It can be crummy.  However Kailynn might think it's really fun to paint daddy's toenails blue (something that may have taken place last time) and eight months (the length of Jason's previous recover period) isn't forever, right?  Self??  SELF??  Where did you go.....

After, I don't know, maybe week 18-yes I really started to look at it like pregnancy-when the doctors started pushing back follow up appointments from 1 month to 6 weeks to 2 months, with a nursing 5 month old who would not take a bottle (she was 6 weeks old when he got hurt), a 2.5 year old who was PISSED that not only was she having to share her momma with a new baby sister, but her daddy, too,  and a chronic pain enduring spouse on my hands, I wasn't so sure that I was equipped to handle any of this forever.  Once again 'self' had left the building.

I knew, even then, that everything that was going on around me just couldn't be 'it'.  That all the craziness and emptiness and distance and tears that we experienced, individually and as a family, on an almost daily basis was not the new norm for the Goot fam.  And I was right.  

Even the suckiest, yes that is a word, of moments were all a part of a plan.  A much bigger plan than any of us knew while we were fighting through the storm.  When you've weathered a storm and come out not just standing, but actually laughing and dancing when the rain has cleared, you know that life is good.  HE is good.

Ecclesiastes 3:9-14 reads: 

"What does the worker gain from his toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on men.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity on the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.  That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.  God does it so that men will revere him."

Has this family toiled? Um, yeah.  But man-o-man is our life so much more beautiful now that it ever would have or could have been without all that toil.  We never knew that a life filled with much less, could be much more.  That is a gift.

So here we are.  Filled to the brim with 'new beginnings'!  I'll be blogging for weeks :o)

Blessings and Grace