Wherein I, the Flee-er, Fought

I am having a time-stands-still, remember-it-forever, validating parenting moment. Just now, when given the option to write or braille her homework, Madeline chose braille.

That means that right this second, I get to acknowledge that I chose right for my child.  Too often parents don’t.  In fact, we almost never do.  We don’t know what would have happened had we chosen, taught, or encouraged differently.  We just know that we’re doing the best we can, and somehow, against all odds, kids mostly turn out okay.

I fought for braille.  And I’m not a born fighter.  When it comes to fight or flight, I’m a flee-er.

So many special needs moms are bulldogs.  They call, and fight, and advocate.  They march into offices and make fusses.  They say, “This is not acceptable.  You must do better for my child.  My child is a hero and an overcomer and he can do one hundred times more than you are presently imagining.  He deserves more and better from this system.”

As much as these moms are my friends and my sisters, I often feel less-than when I’m around them.  I find myself thinking, “I am not a bulldog.  I am not a fighter.  I don’t have what it takes.”

But I fought for braille.

I fought the system. When they said, “Maybe she would do better in a special needs classroom,”  I said, “That is not even close to her least restrictive environment, so absolutely no.”

I fought the odds. When they said, “We can’t give her that many hours/that summer instruction/that specialist,” I said, “That is unacceptable.  I will do it myself.”

I fought really well-meaning friends and family. They said, “You know, she can SEE the page.  She doesn’t need braille.  Technology!  iPads!  Magnifiers!”  And I said, “Braille = literacy.  She can choose when she’s 18.  Until then, I choose.”

I took classes. We brailled grocery lists, and Christmas cards. In every school, at every meeting, at every pass I said, “More hours.  More braille.  Equal time, equal exposure.” I blindfolded her when she practiced. People wondered if I was forcing it.

People said, “She can read the words.” And I said, “But she won’t be able to read them in 2nd grade.  And H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS if I’m going to wait until she’s 3 years behind to start teaching her the alphabet.

I fought for braille.

And tonight, when given the choice between print and braille, Madeline chose braille.

She chose it because it is easier for her to form letters with her fingers than it is for her to form them with a pen.

She chose it because she could.  And she could because she learned.  And she learned because I fought.

This is what she wrote:

I cannot even.

And listen, I may have fought, but I only fought because of the amazing, passionate, dedicated educators that fought alongside of me for the good of my child.  Educators that pulled me aside and said, “I can’t say this as a teacher, but as a parent…”  And, “You didn’t hear this from me, but…”

If I fought, it’s because they equipped me to fight.  They gave me the buzzwords, the loopholes.  They gave me the courage; they EN-COURAGED, truly.  They texted and called and emailed.  They said, “Fight for Madeline.  Keep fighting.”

Our teachers and vision teachers and braillists and specialists are our heroes, and this success is theirs, too.

I cried tonight.  I cried because I got to see the  fight pay off.  It’s not theoretical anymore.  It’s tonight, right now.  My baby knows braille, and she likes it, and she chooses it, and I did a good thing.

As the great philosophers of The Fray said, “Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same.”

Honesty

Illustration by Lisa CongdonI think that honesty is the door through which lies every good thing. Health, help, connection, intimacy.

Honesty is the door through which lies every real thing.

If you want something true, you're going to have to walk through that door.  The door of telling the whole truth.

It's terrible that honesty is also the hardest, scariest, most painful thing.  I hate it.  I did not sign up for this.  I hate that honesty leaves me exposed and raw and gritting my teeth, bracing for the fallout.  I hate how it opens me up to judgment and ridicule and hurt.

But I love how it opens me up to mercy.  And connection.  And sleeping at night.

We tend to believe honesty will isolate us - that if we tell the real, honest truth everyone will jump ship, lest they be marred by association with our dirty selves.  But that's the fear talking.  Honesty never isolates as much as lies do.

It's the lies that build the wall.  It's the omissions that lay the bricks.  It's the giving up's and the rationalizations and the self-preservation that walls us into solitary confinement.  It's the hiding and the masks that chain us there, in the dank loneliness.  We are like Poe's poor Fortunato, thinking we've found a cask of fine amontillado, but instead we've found our tombs.

I hate this, but I believe it.

If you want to be healthy, tell the whole truth. If you want help, tell the whole truth. If you want camaraderie, tell the whole truth. If you want intimacy, tell the whole truth.

Anything less might work okay, but it isn't real.  If you have to hide things to be loved, YOU aren't loved, your image is loved.  If YOU want love - to be seen and known and loved for WHO YOU ARE - you're going to have to tell the truth.  You're going to have to let someone see you.

Donald Miller said it this way, "Telling the truth is the slow, mundane, difficult route to a meaningful life.  Anything less is cheating."

I'm trying to tell more truth to the tribe of people that I do life with.  To have the courage to start conversations that matter.  To, as Teddy Roosevelt said, tell the truth, even if my voice shakes.  To be vulnerable, which, as Jon Acuff noted, gives other people the beautiful gift of going second.

I want to be full of grace - yes - but also full of TRUTH.  What a sloppy, messy collision - grace and truth.

Jesus was full of grace and truth.  And of every other good, real thing that I need.  He's what I'm after.  And the real, applied, lived-out Christ-life lies through the door of humble, radical honesty.  Just like every other good thing.

Tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.

Bubble Violence and Sunday Morning Demons

The 3 Irrefutable Laws of Motherhood are:

1. It is harder and better than you think.

2. People only stop by unannounced when your house is STRAIGHT NASTY and you are bra-less at 3:00 in the afternoon.

3. The entire universe conspires to keep you out of church on Sunday mornings.  Sunday mornings are, ironically, the sixth circle of hell.

However much hitting, punching, glass-shattering, appliance-breaking, things exploding, tantrum-throwing, food-spilling, and violent diarrhea you think is inherent in parenthood, triple it.  And on Sunday mornings, triple it again.

My children are overachievers.  They adopt their Sunday morning alter-egos on Saturday night, like overly ambitious Black Friday shoppers.  They want to make sure they have time to fit in ALL THEIR CRAZY.

A few weeks ago, Henry went to church with a large Band-aid straight across his forehead, connecting his eyebrows.  It was covering up the fresh gash that maybe could have used a stitch, but we judgment called it and figured he’d be fine (third kid).

Tonight, we were blowing bubbles when things got violent.  If you don’t understand how bubbles can turn violent you have less than or equal to one child.

So my kids are inching closer and closer - in order to be the first in line cluster to pop all the bubbles before his/her siblings - until they are all standing there with their fingers shoved INSIDE the bubble wand, and soapy syrup is running down their arms and all over my legs, and they are giggling like scary little Christopher Nolan versions of The Joker.

So I said, “EVERY ONE BACK. UP.”

And they did.

Until I blew the next wand-ful of bubbles and they stampeded towards me, shrieking and waving their hands in the air like they just didn’t care.  And Henry, Henry is one year old by the skin of his teeth.  I saw it happen in slow motion, like watching Mufasa get sucked under the hooves of crazed wildebeests.  They knocked him over forwards, then straight trampled him as they leapt around in their unbreakable bubble-trance, COMPLETELY UNAWARE that a LITTLE PERSON was underfoot.

That was the end of bubbles, and now Henry has a cut on his eyelid.   His left eye is all puffed up and pink, and he’s going to church AGAIN looking like Rocky Balboa.

You should also know that Madeline had to give herself a schizophrenic pep-talk to pipe down during story time tonight.  I am not making this up.  After the fifth interjection on the FIRST PAGE, I snapped, “MADELINE.  STOP TALKING.”

And she said,

“Okay, I can do this.

No, I can’t.

Yes, yes I can.   I can do hard things.

No, I can’t do this.

Yes, I can be quiet.”

I stared at her, unable to make sense of what was happening in front of me.   She has to have a conversation WITH HERSELF to mentally prepare herself to stop saying every single thing that pops into her brain.  You don’t even know.

The moral of this story is that I need something warm and chocolatey in the most serious way.   And that moms with herds of offspring should get preferential parking at church.  Because we have done mighty battle.  We have exorcised the Sunday morning demons.  We SHOWED UP.

And also, the childcare workers should just turn a blind eye (PUN INTENDED) to my little boxer tomorrow.  He's fine.  He just had a nice Saturday evening blowing bubbles.

Are Sunday mornings your craziest mornings too?   Why do you think that is?    What keeps you showing up?  

Because He Lives (& Yoga Bird)

In light of Easter, I wanted to share with you a meditation I wrote for Yoga Bird last month. The significance of the resurrection is so infinite - we can talk about the love of Jesus, the cost of sin, Jesus in our place, God's power over death, the ultimate apologetic on which hinges the entirety of the Christian faith...

...but for me, this is where the rubber meets the road.  The resurrection doesn't just matter because it was miraculous.  It matters because Jesus is alive.  A dead god can't help you any more than a box of rocks can.   But a living God - a living God sees and loves and sustains.  Easter is the biggest deal because a living God is the biggest deal.

"The days are uncertain, to be sure.  When I think too long on Hollywood, or the beauty industry, or sex-trafficking, or congress, it is difficult to feel much of anything but despair.  I can’t imagine anything more daunting than being asked to raise a girl in our culture – until I think of raising boys.   And vice versa.

Then I realize that I believe Christ to be big enough for anybody, anywhere, no matter their plight or their hurt or their sin – but not big enough for me.

Not big enough for my parenting deficiency, not big enough for my immaturity, for my short-sightedness, for my brokenness and pride.

Of course he can redeem a life shattered by abuse. Of course He can sustain through unimaginable loss. Of course He can bring joy and peace to a life entrenched in the daily ache of poverty. Of course He can lift the drug addict out of the pit, He can lift the alcoholic out of the mire, and set their feet on solid rock.

But me?  And my kids?  And my depressingly average, messed up life?  I don’t know if He is big enough for that.

This is, of course, insanity.  It is illogical and untrue, but I believe it – my worries betray me.  My despair tattles.

“In what way am I damaging my children?”  I wonder.  “What will they say about me in therapy?  Will they turn out okay, in these uncertain days?  Will I?”

There is a song – a hymn – that I sang in a little Baptist church in Alabama.  I sing it now, too.  On almost every single one of these uncertain days:

“How sweet to hold a newborn baby To feel the pride and joy he gives But sweeter still the calm assurance This child can face uncertain days because He lives.

Because He lives I can face tomorrow. Because He lives all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, Life is worth the living just because He lives.”

Corrie Ten Boom said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”   The days are uncertain, but God -  God is certain.  He is the most certain thing there ever was.  He is the Rock of Ages.  Immutable and unchanging and certain.

And He is for me.

He is alive, full of power and grace.  His arm is not too short to save.  He is for me, and this child can face uncertain days because He lives.  Some days “this child” is my child, and some days it’s me.  But here’s what I know – we can face uncertain days.  Oh, what blessed power and hope!  We can face uncertain days!

We can face uncertain days because He lives."

(You can listen to the meditation here.  My words have been put to original music, and every meditation includes a time of silence and reflection.)

//

Besides blog and books, I have a few other projects going, one of which is writing meditations like this one for Yoga Bird.  Yoga Bird is a wellness website that offers on-demand yoga classes with Christian meditation.  I first subscribed a few months ago and poked around the site for over an hour - there is a huge library of poses, beginner and advanced classes, quick office breaks, a blog, and a library full of meditations (which are nice for a quiet time too, if you want to switch things up).

If you want to go exploring, here is a coupon for 10 free days!

Other cool thing:  They beautiful heart behind Yoga Bird is my very dear aunt.  You will love her. And for the curious, this welcome video explains what they're about:

We can face uncertain days because He lives.  Happy Easter. Kate

It Is Finished

It's been a few a years since I said anything about Good Friday.  It's been a few years since I've even said anything ON Good Friday.   I usually can't because every thing I ever thought to say sounded vain or trite or both.  There's nothing anybody can say that could add to the miracle of what happened on this day, and I always fear to cheapen it.  Or to make it about me or what I think.  Or to act as though I have some deep understanding, or that I am some very-enlightened, always-humble, spiritual soul.  Because I'm not. Good Friday takes my breath away every year because that's what happens when you get the wind knocked out of you.  When you fall flat on your face and start feeling less "humbled" and more "humiliated."  It takes your breath away.

This year I'm thinking a lot about what Jesus said on the cross.  He said, "It is finished."

It:  The work of love. The work of salvation.  The sacrifice.  The ransoming of billions and billions of souls.  The thing that Jesus came to earth to do:  save us.

I'm listening to this song by Matt Papa this year.  I hope you will too.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyKwgYhP6I[/youtube]

"The earth shook and trembled The sun bowed it's head The veil of the temple was opened for men As Jesus went down in the cold of the grave, Defeated the darkness when He overcame The keys of the kingdom were placed into hands Of children and priests and of fishers of men Throughout generations his voice will be heard Creation resounds the victorious words!

'It is finished' It is done To the world salvation comes Hallelujah We're alive! Hell was silenced when you cried.. It is finished."

(The official music video contains scenes from The Passion of the Christ.  If you think you might find this troubling or too difficult to watch, maybe just listen.)