Trust Me

Having received a phone call from the school principal to make an appointment to discuss testing for my daughter, I was reminded of a couple of blogs I had written a few years ago. Sometimes we have to just remind ourself to trust Him:


Monday, September 21, 2009

I used to think that premature babies were fine once they made it home from the hospital.  That is until I became a parent of a premature baby myself and have learned that this is a huge misconception.  After a complicated pregnancy and months of bed-rest, McKenzie was born at 33 weeks weighing just a mere pound and a half and measuring twelve and a half inches long.  She spent 67 days in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit before coming home at 3 pounds 13 ounces.  They were hard days in the NICU and I was on an emotional roller coaster.  When she came home I thought our worries were over and she would catch up like doctors said most premies would by the time they turned 2.  This however was not the case for us.   She has had physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, daily growth hormone shots, various genetic tests and diagnosis, surgery for tongue tie, hearing loss, ear surgeries, and scoliosis.  She has been to orthopedic specialists, gastroenterologists, geneticists, endocrinologists, ear, nose and throat doctor, and we have even taken her cross country to see specialists.  After all this, school decisions seem a small thing, but are still a big deal when you are in the midst of them.

After a great year in preschool, McKenzie’s grades fell dramatically in Kindergarten, and it was not until the end of the school year that we realized she had lost her hearing.  She had surgery to put tubes in her ears, and her hearing was restored.  We realized she had missed a lot of her schooling due to the hearing loss and worked hard with her to catch her up.  She struggled through first grade and again lost her hearing and had to have surgery for tubes.  This year we changed schools from the private school that we were sending our girls, to public school because of our concerns for McKenzie needing extra help that the private school could not offer.  We started McKenzie in Second grade and worked hard with her again.  Every night we were spending two and three hours completing homework and doing extra work to help her to catch up and keep up with her class.  We had one parent teacher conference after two weeks of school and another during the fourth week.  We thought we were going in the second time to begin evaluations for McKenzie to start a special education program, but instead decided to do what had been my worst fear, my worst case scenario, hold her back into the first grade.  We had already started McKenzie to school a year late due to size and development, and now she would be two years older than others in her class.  It had been the decision we had run from and fought so long to avoid, and now we were making it and I yet in the midst of it, I had the peace about it being the right decision for her.  Breaking it to McKenzie was painful.  She did not want to leave her friends, and we both ended up crying and I had to tell her “McKenzie, you have to trust me, you have to trust me and your daddy that we are making the right decision for you.”  As I said these words, it was like God highlighted the “Trust Me” and echoed back to me that I had to Trust Him with the decisions he has made as well, this was not just our decision, but His, and I can trust Him that while we do not know what the future brings, He does.  We have trusted Him for years and he has never failed us.  His word says “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” As parents, we try to make the best decisions for our children, though we may not always succeed in doing so.  As our Daddy God, He is making the best decisions for us and he never fails.  I am thankful that in my uncertainty and my unknowns, I can trust Him and his certainty and all knowing power.


Monday, October 5, 2009

My last blog was entitled “Trust Me” and was about Trusting God.  My husband and I had struggled in the past and fought the decision to hold our daughter back in school which ultimately did hold her back.  We worked long hours after school on homework and extra studies to help her keep up in such a way that exhausted the whole family and was beginning to cause her to resent school as a whole.  It was a month ago that we finally made the decision to hold her back into the previous grade. We urged our heartbroken daughter to trust us in the decision as we trusted God in leading us to that decision.  Once again, He hasn’t failed us.  Since changing classes she is getting good grades and reading so well that she has moved up in reading groups.  She is now excelling and has a new found confidence in herself.  What happens when we trust and follow God?  I answer myself with the fact that life gets easier!  It’s one of those answers where I just want to smack myself and say “Duh”.  Why am I surprised?  Why did we fight this so long?  As emotional humans it can sometimes be scary, painful, humbling and just plain hard for us to give in and trust God.  Of course, we may not want to admit that with the fear of sounding unspiritual, but it is the truth.  However, no matter how scary it may be, we have to allow our faith to guide us rather than our emotions.  Do we honestly believe that God would lead us somewhere to hurt us or for us to fail?  Again, His word says “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”  So no, He isn’t going to lead us into harm.  Even when it’s scary, risky, and painful, we have to step out and sometimes jump out in full fledged faith that we know his plans are for us and not against us.  As a parent, I love my children and want the best for my children.  Part of my love is protecting my children and I would never lead them into danger.  As our Daddy God, He loves us even more and holds us in the palm of His hand.  He protects us even when we are unaware of the danger around us.  When we can’t trust in anything else around us, we can trust in Him.

What's in your pocket?

A few nights ago I sat to dinner with my step-mom and daughters when I barely heard music playing in the background. I hushed my girls and tuned my ear to hear it playing ever so faintly, but could not pinpoint it's source. I muted the tv in the adjoining room to help direct me to the location of where the music was coming from, but still could not locate it, nor could anyone else hear it. I began to question my sanity as I heard what sounded like a music box playing. Finally, one of my daughters agreed that she could hear what sounded like a jack-in-the-box playing. Yes, I'm not going mad, or at least if I am, my daughter is going to join me in our own private world of LaLa Land. As my step-mom and other daughter sat in bewilderment, I jumped up and quietly tip toed in and out of rooms of the house trying to follow the direction of this music playing. Here I was with pictures of haunted house movie scenes playing in my mind as I searched each room, pausing in further wonder as I opened and shut closet doors. Donna joined me on my search as I came down the stairs and we stood there quietly listening again when she asked me,"it's not your phone, is it?" Not thinking it was the source, I pulled my phone from my pocket to find that a game had somehow turned itself on and it was the background music I had been hearing all along. Here I had spent all this time looking for something that was in my pocket....yes, we all have idiotic moments, and this was just one incidence in my very long list. We laughed off the moment, went back to our meal and I had put the whole thing out of my mind.

This morning I thought about the music box search and laughed at myself once again as I reminded myself that it was in my pocket the whole time. While my search lasted only a few minutes, I thought of how many other things we go on searching for that we forgot we had in our pockets. No, I'm not talking about spare change, keys or pocket lint, what I mean is our hopes, dreams and happiness that we have the ability to access anytime, but we are too busy spending our time looking and chasing other peoples dreams, desires and expectations that we forget, it's in our own pocket. In opening and shutting doors, we forget all about reaching in our own pocket to pull out what hurt, rejection, insecurity, enemies and other oppositions caused us to hide our vision and dreams in our pocket. The thought made me question myself and what things I have placed in my pocket and forgotten about, what do I need to reach into and bring back to light in my life? The thoughts have be rolling and repeating in my mind and there are a few things that I am trying to pull back out and let breath and live in my life. Now, what's in your pocket? Think on it, let it roll over in your mind. There are plenty of "fulfilling your dreams" and "determining your purpose" books out there, I'm not writing one, I only had a few minutes on my lunch break to jot down this thought. But what is it, What's in your pocket?

Riding the Roller Coaster

I recently read, reread, and again read a confessional blog which had my brain on an incessant processing of the words and honesty contained within it. I was deeply impressed not only by the honesty, but proud that this blogger would put herself out there as vulnerable as she did. I read her words and was inspired by the evaluation of herself. 

Being a blogger now myself I realize how encouraging comments can be in response to the emotional purging we do on the world wide web for anyone and everyone to read, critique and use against us at any given time. Compelled by the blog's complexity, I posted a comment. I reread my comment only to find some encouragement for myself as I have my own emotional and behavioral baggage I am trying to sort through, organize and deal with as one would their wardrobe as seasons change. What fits, what doesn't, what do I gravitate to out of habit and comfort but looks nothing but terrible on me, what can I donate, and what do I need to bite the bullet, accept the loss and toss in the trash despite the cost, time invested and sentimental attachment. Am I still talking about emotions and behavior or clothes? The choice could apply to all three, but here I am focusing on the emotions and behaviors we have to deal with throughout our lifetimes. If you aren't dealing with something in yourself, you are either lazy, in denial or perfect. If you chose perfect, your true answer is denial because perfection is a complete fantasy as we all have shortcomings and room for improvement.

So, no matter where you are or what you are dealing with, I hope my comment can encourage you as it did me, though I did polish it up a bit before posting here:

I believe it is good to analyze yourself and evaluate yourself all through life. There are always things we can learn about ourselves, habits that need breaking and behaviors that need attention. That said, we can be our own worst critics, especially when we are also perfectionists and expect more of ourselves than anyone else could ever imagine. It's important to look at yourself clearly to encourage yourself to do better while being careful not to get out the magnifying glass which makes small things bigger than necessary and beat yourself into a state of emotional defeat. The balance between the two is very hard to attain and even harder to sustain. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We need to allow ourselves the honesty to encourage and catapult ourselves in a positive direction.

Often, the hardest thing to do is to conquer our insane default modes of continuing the same behavior over and over again and instead make the changes necessary to achieve success in moving ahead. Life is a continual roller coaster: there are highs, lows, curves, tailspins of nausea and the occasional vomit. It's okay to have all these emotions on the coaster, but when we find ourselves in the lows we have to stay in the car in order to embark on the next climb which may be the one that will have our hands raised in the air and voice screaming in excitement as we conquer another mountain or obstacle in our life.

Enjoying the Prepositions of Life

I've been having one of those incredibly busy weeks where it seems as though I am caught in this whirlwind of problems, complaints, and unnecessary drama. Yes, it's been one of those weeks of feeling like I can't win, despite my best efforts, and there are too few hours in the day to accomplish everything on my list to please anyone, including myself.

It's one of those times where I want to give in and raise a white flag of surrender to all the forces that seem to be defeating me, but I can't find a flag anywhere and there's no one in Walmart to direct me to the white flag aisle. And then I think about this blog and what I might write about and I have nothing.

Well I could write about something but it would probably cause more problems, complaints, and unnecessary drama and as much as I like those things (that was sarcasm) my quota is full and overflowing. So I thought I would pass on writing something fresh and instead utilize the right click button of my mouse and "copy and paste" an old excerpt from a blog I wrote in a couple of years ago for our church women's ministry. I pull up the website and read my own words from two years ago:  

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

This morning on my way to work, I began thinking about prepositions.  Don’t ask me how prepositions come to a person’s thought process in car line at 7:20 in the morning, but for some reason they did.  If you recall from middle school, prepositions are a linking word that relates the words in a sentence to each other.  Teachers always helped us remember what they were by thinking of a log, “anything you can do to a log is a preposition”.  They are the words like; above, below, in, off, over, through, under and upon.  Being a driven and goal oriented person, I have always defined milestones with accomplishments and reached goals.  I began thinking how in my life, I have always focused on the log, as an obstacle or event.  I have been so caught up with getting past the “logs”, that I have failed to enjoy the prepositions.  I have failed to enjoy the moments under the log or going through the log, when these are the moments that have been the key times of shaping, growing and learning in my life.  In reality, these prepositional times have been the actual milestones of God making me the person I am now.  While goals are great at keeping us focused on moving ahead, I think I am going to take a few extra moments along the way to stop complaining about the time, effort, and hardships and to really reflect on what the preposition is there for.  Maybe there is a sifting inside of me, a lesson to be learned, or a relationship along the way that He wants to work on.  Let me encourage you, as I encourage myself, when you see a log in front of you, enjoy the preposition.

Wow, did you just hear that? I think I just experienced the sci-fi theory of time travel and slapped myself in the face from two years ago. I'm currently going through things that I want to be through with and then I read my words reminding me to "enjoy the preposition"? I am not enjoying my "log" moment here. Honestly, I want to cut the log up into a bunch of pieces, set it on fire and roast marshmallows over it knowing the log is over and done with and I will never have to see the log again. At least in that scenario I could enjoy the rich chocolate and gooey marshmallow of a 'smore or two provided by the fire of the said log.

Sadly, there will be no bonfires today. Some logs are just harder than others. Instead of going through or over them, sometimes I feel like I am the preposition beneath the log and straining to get out from under it's weight.  Sometimes when we get through the log we find a couple of evidential splinters that take even more time and effort to remove and protect ourselves from impending infection. 

With the sting of the slap of my words still in my mind, I am going to try to enjoy my preposition. I'm not happy about it, I still want the log gone, but I am hopeful. Knowing that I'm going to be a better person because of it is much more inspiring that thinking the problems will never end, right? So it's all about the focus of my vision and I'm going to try to see the "shaping, growing and learning" that is happening to me during this preposition. So now, as I arm myself with tweezers and a few band aids in preparation for any splinters, I encourage you as I continually have to encourage myself to "enjoy the preposition."

A Table For One

As a busy wife, mom, employee and ecetera, my spare time it extremely limited and I find that which I call "spare" dwindles everyday. I find it is hard to make time for others, and even harder to realized the time we need to make for ourselves. It has been in the past year that I have hit the "bottom" so to speak of the "barrel" of what I can give out and was forced to realize my own needs and the necessity to take time out for me, by myself, not doing, not going, not accomplishing...but just being still, quiet, and alone.

One of my favorite places to do this is on the pier at my parent's house. Just sitting or laying there, eyes closed, feeling my skin absorb the warmth of the sun's rays. A gentle breeze in the air and a methodical slapping of waves against the pier or the hull of their boat. It is a peace like no other and I can just let my mind rest and it seems as if the sound of the water can speak to me and allow me to meditate on the the weights in my mind and give me a clarity that can't be found by any friend's advice, motivational quote or bumper sticker. As much as I love these moments on the dock, they are very few and far between as it's hard for me to relax when there is so much to do.

I have found that the easiest time I can make for myself is in an hour lunch break during my Monday-Friday work week. I am used to carving this time out for lunch dates with friends to foster those relationships, but have not until recently realized how much my inner person needed me to set a few of these lunch dates aside for myself, without a companion, without a project, errand, facebook status update or a computer in front of me. Up until this past year, I did not understand the person sitting at a table alone, nor would I ever be the one walking into a restaurant by myself to be that person. I used to look at others sitting alone and feel sympathy for them not having anyone to sit and share a conversation with as they ate their meal. If I was eating alone, I was perfectly content opting for the drive thru lane and taking my to-go bag back to my desk. It wasn't until recently that I pushed through the self concious nervousness of sitting alone in public. Yes, it's stupid, but true. I would get nervous to sit by myself, so much in fact that I would have panic attacks that would force me out out of the restaurant with the all too common to-go bag once again. 

Well, somehow I learned to get past the attacks, the nervousness, and the rule in my head that said you couldn't dine alone unless you had no friends or were infected with a contagious disease. I'm kidding about the disease part, but you get the idea. I had this "loser" mentality created in my head about eating alone. I'm really not sure where it came from, but would guess it was probably derived from the unspoken rules of the common school lunchroom mentality we learn as children. No one wants to sit alone and you always want to be sitting at the "right" table with the "right" kids. Well, finally in my thirties, I am able to deconstruct that childhood lie and realize that the table I am sitting at by myself is "right" in every way possible. I have come to realize that lunch by myself can be a luxury of disconnection from everything else around me and reconnection with my own thoughts, a luxury I have mistakenly cheated myself out of for all these years. I'm on my lunch break, off work, the kids are at school, my husband is at work, and for this one hour I can throw off all weights of responsibility to everyone but myself. My phone is normally quiet because it's lunch time and people are busy eating, not texting and calling. In the rare instance that it trys to distract me, I have found this rarely used button that surprisingly turns the phone off so even it can't interrupt this all too important time. I am for this one hour able to slice myself out of the world and have some time to not have to give to anyone or anything but myself and my thoughts. I have found that these alone times are just as necessary to my mind as the food I am eating is to my stomach. I have found solitude, serenity and refreshment sitting at a table for one.