Bashful

If you knew little Ashley, you probably would have described her as shy. I was actually typecast as Bashful in our Kindergarten’s rendition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. People were always asking me when I was going to come out of my shell, not stopping to think that I wasn't in there by choice. Now I know the thing I actually experienced was called Selective Mutism. I was walking around with an anxiety disorder and nobody knew. Not my family, not my friends nor my teachers and definitely not me. Nobody knew Little Ashley wasn't just shy, she was terrified. All the time. My stomach was so tied up in knots that I didn’t have regular bowel movements until I was an adult. I pooped my pants during my first sleepover at Snow White’s house when I was five. What a shameful memory. Until now. Now that I know it has a name and I can see that it wasn’t something I was doing wrong, it was something that was happening to me. 

I learned all this just weeks ago, right before my 40th birthday. Again I say it: my whole life, I never knew. Ever since I heard the words anxiety disorder I have been walking around with one eye on the rear-view mirror, thinking about all the times I couldn't say a word. Not just when I was a child, either. Well throughout college and into adulthood and even in the last few months when my husband will ask me a question that feels too vulnerable and I can't bring myself to speak. Now I can see it more clearly; now it makes sense.

Now that I know all this, there's a huge part of me that needs everyone to know. Not for me-- I have therapy, social skills, deep relationships, faith and vulnerability to see me through. I want everyone to know this part of me for the sake of the children. For all the shy kids. For all the kids who are dysregulated and either act out or clam up. For those kids who tell us their tummies hurt and we don’t believe them. For the kids who aren’t sleeping through the night. 

My husband and I really value mental health and we willingly and openly utilize counseling services. Still, we took months to find a child psychologist when one of our kids had been exhibiting disturbing behavior for a solid year. So I get it. We’d lie there night after night with pillow talk like, “we should probably see somebody,” and “poor thing, something is really wrong,” and “I don’t know if I can handle this.” But eventually we made the calls and put it in our calendar and it has been nothing short of life changing. Not only are we helping her, but she is helping me. I feel like I am, in some ways, witnessing the childhood I could have had. I feel like we are being the change we want to see in the world. 

"The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life, the stronger the daughter" Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

I want to challenge us to think of therapy not only as something we need when something is wrong. I think of it more as a professional service like a massage therapist or hair stylist. I know where to find one locally and I see them when something is a little off and they help me feel like myself again. Sometimes I go a few times a year and other times I go a few years between visits. We don’t need a disorder to see a counselor because we all have stuff to unpack. Just like we all need a haircut from time to time-- even our kids.

I read an article today saying a federal task force just recommended that children as young as eight years old be screened for anxiety, even if they don't have symptoms. Because a 2018-2019 National Survey of Children's Health found that 7.8% of children aged 3-17 had an anxiety disorder. And that was before the Pandemic. 

Our children could use a therapist when they transition to a new school year. When they see something scary in the news. When something embarrassing happened in public. When they ask questions we find it hard to answer. When a loved one or pet dies. When they are bullied. Eh hem, when they've just lived through a global pandemic [elbow, elbow]. The list could go on and on. Their little brains are more malleable and extraordinary than we can imagine and, if given the opportunity, we can help them to create neural pathways that will guide them for a lifetime. We can’t shield our children from the hard things in life. We can't fix our kids or change them— nor should we want to— but we can give them words. And words have the power of life and death. 

On my dad’s last day of life he confided in me that he was scared to die. I told him that I was scared to lose him and, in fact, I was scared all the time. He looked at me with pure shock and said, “really?” To his dying day he didn’t think I was ever scared. He didn't know I was hiding fear in the quiet spaces. He thought I was resilient and brave and amazing and in many ways I am, if not in spite of that persistent fear then because of it. But what if he knew then what we know now? What if he really knew me?  I don’t blame him one bit for not knowing but now that I know better, I’m going to do better. Not just for me, but for the kids. Mine and yours. 

walking girl

Waiting is not a passive thing. That's what I always say. And let me tell you, I have done some waiting in my day. None of which has been as longsuffering and heart-breaking as it has been to wait for this day. So today I welcome all the Alleluias! and Cheers! and good vibes because, dear friends, this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad! For today, my firstborn child, at two weeks shy of her third birthday, has started WALKING!

Honestly, there have been times I wondered whether I would ever be able to write this. I have had dreams about Petra walking and woken only to start crying because I doubted whether it would even be possible. Around her first birthday, Petra was barely sitting up on her own. She was doing PT for a few months and I was surprised at how slow things were progressing. By about 14 months, I was crying to her Physical Therapist, asking her to shoot me straight. Do you think there is something seriously wrong? I wondered.

For the next several months we had tests and appointments and a major surgery. Lather, rinse, repeat. A month before her second birthday I went to an outdoor event with my two-under-two immobile girls and cried quietly behind my sunglasses because I felt so, so sad about our reality and the darkness at the end of the tunnel. I hoped and prayed she would be walking by her second birthday, but she wasn't.

Then finally! At 27 months, she started to crawl. At 31 months she took her first steps. This is where it gets a bit confusing because when you have a little one who is taking steps, they are not really walking yet. This awkward phase usually lasts a couple weeks but it has been almost five months for Petra. Just last week I wondered how I would even recognize when she was "walking." On one hand, she does walk proficiently in her walker-- her "rocket"-- and she can take independent steps but on the other hand, she is obviously still not walking on her own. Like I said, its confusing.

Then this morning I walked around the corner and, like a magician's trick, I saw my girl standing in free space and taking steps. Not just steps, though. This was different. And in an instant I just knew. This is what I have waited for. I mean, action-verb waited for with a back-breaking perseverance. My offspring, my light, my Petra girl was walking. Just like that.

"All by myself," she said.

Most babies start walking at around a year-old. Fourteen to 16 months is still normal. People will think their kid is special if it happens earlier but I know my kid is special because she has waited longer and worked harder for this than anyone else I know. She is my hero.

uninvited guest

I mostly don't think about it because that's how I cope but when I do, it blows my mind that my dad has never met my kids. It was one of the things on my mind when he was dying: the thought of bringing children into a world without him in it. We talk about him but those moments of "your Grandpa Pete used to say..." and, "one time your Grandpa Pete..." seem mostly irrelevant, except for the fact that he was everything to me and I am everything to them. 

I love this photo of Dad with my niece, Phoebe. Especially now that my girls are that big (or little). If I squint, I can almost see him with Zoe. He was one of those special, humble souls who believed that having children and making a difference in the life of a child was more important than, well, everything. He would have loved my girls. Mostly, I think, he would have loved seeing me with them. Experiencing what he believed was the greatest thing in life: being a parent. 

Life goes on but grief is an uninvited guest that comes and goes as it pleases. I don't always mind, though. It beckons me to remember, to feel and to share. 

One of the greatest mysteries of God's goodness to me as I grieve is this: Even though my heart has been broken into a thousand, tiny pieces it somehow still works. And maybe even better than it did before.

Refugee

At this time in history our world is going through a refugee crisis, though no one would blame you for forgetting that, since America has different complaints today. Still, I cannot help but remember it as I reflect on the season of Advent.

If you pay attention to the media you will hear the mass exodus of people from the Middle East and Africa referred to as "migrants." This is important because while all refugees are migrants, not all migrants are refugees. The word refugee is a special designation reserved for those who are fleeing the unspeakable, ungodly circumstances of their homeland for the refuge and safe haven of a new land. Officially, a refugee is defined as this:

"Owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."

-United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),1951 Refugee Convention

And the difference is this:

"Migrants, especially economic migrants, choose to move in order to improve the future prospects of themselves and their families. Refugees have to move if they are to save their lives or preserve their freedom. They have no protection from their own state - indeed it is often their own government that is threatening to persecute them."

-UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency

A refugee is basically one who is faced with a choice, haven or hell, and chooses haven.

All this is important to me here and now because, well, first off it should matter to me. Even as I write this from my cozy, American bedroom, stockpiled with pillows. The refugees of today should matter to all of us who have so much.  We should give every bit of money and mercy that we can for their cause. But it also matters because this Advent I realize and confess that this place-- this world I live in-- is not my home.

Don't get me wrong because on one hand it is my home. I am so privileged to live here where I do, in comfort and security, surrounded by love and liberty. And I receive all that with humble thanksgiving. Still, though all of our hearts are migrant, prone to wander, choosing "to move in order to improve the future prospects of [ourselves] and [our] families," I realize that is not enough for me. My heart-- my broken heart-- knows that this place is not my home and it looks heavenward for refuge.

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country-- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." 

-Hebrews 11:13-16

Looking onward I cannot help but look back to the expectant birth of Jesus. Who was himself a refugee. Whose parents went to Judea for a census but stayed for Asylum.

O come O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear

And then there is Mary. Dear Mary. Pregnant with both hope and fear. Jesus: the hope the world and the fear that would provoke the very infant genocide from which she would be forced to flee. Though not before she would be reduced to giving birth in a freaking barn.

Mary Consoles Eve, art by a Sister at Our Lady Of The Mississippi Abbey

Let us consider the waiting of this expectant mother, who chose heaven for us all, who knew more than we ever will about the miracle of Jesus' birth. Let us wait with perseverance for all that's in store for those of us who hold on to the guiding light.

May our hearts be pregnant with hope. Even though hope, like our Savior, is often born in the most undeserving of circumstances. Amen.

Winning?

The other day I did one of the most dreaded things I can think of: I called customer service for my cell phone provider. You see, we use this pay-as-you-go company that is super cheap and so to compensate for these cost savings, contacting customer service once every year or two is like a modern form of torture. But alas, sometimes it has to be done. It's part of the deal. 

So I am on the phone with this delightful young lady in India and every few minutes she asks me to wait for "two to three minutes" while she does something to help me out, all of which takes more than an hour. I told my husband that I'll bet she has to be simultaneously chatting with five or six other people to help with their customer service needs while communicating with me. His theory is that she probably has extremely archaic internet access and spotty electricity. He is probably right. 

Every time I talk with this phone company's customer service I get so angry that I effectively turn into Medusa. I am coming from AMERICA in 2016, for crying out loud! You are supposed to be a tech company! My entitlements are threatened and so are my principles. I feel like I should be compensated for whatever inconveniences I suffer and I feel like it is ridiculous that they can't do more for me. Every time it goes like this. Every time I stick to my guns-- my principles-- and every time I end up feeling like I've lost. 

Then the other day I decided to play this whole thing a bit differently. I called in and Sweetheart on the other end is reiterating everything a dozen times, asking me to hold every few minutes, and casually mentioning how they've screwed up and how little they can do to fix anything. It's equally infuriating as every other time I call but I'm turning over a new leaf, here. Instead of letting the lasers fire freely from my eyes, I find my center and calmly reply to every pause and question with "okay" and "yes." For over an hour it goes on like this:

Sweetheart: We've screwed up, no apologies. We don't have this information, even though you gave it to us.

Me: Okay. 

Sweetheart: I am going to place you on a brief hold for two to three minutes while I look into this on my end, okay?

Me: Yes.

Let me skip to the end and tell you how everything turned out. Practically speaking, it was exactly as it would have been if I had gotten pissed. The phone company did whatever they could do, no more and no less. Emotionally, however, this time was like walking on sunshine. I felt myself thinking about Sweetheart and how hard her job must be, how little she gets paid, how difficult it must be to work for a tech company with archaic internet access and spotty electricity in the scorching heat. I found myself lucky to have the world at my smartphone-enabled fingertips for less than $50 a month. I was so pleasant that my husband didn't have to watch his mouth and hide from me for the rest of the night. 

I am a very principled person and this is probably one of the best things about me. But a few years ago I realized that when I let my principle become the principle thing--when I fight vehemently for the right to be right-- the loser is usually me. Because another thing about me is that I care about people more than anything else. Often, when my principle wins, relationships suffer and people lose. 

The simple truth about holding firm to my principles is that I must do it within the context of the world in which I live, while rubbing elbows with someone as different from me as the hemispheres in which we live. Usually this means that the most right thing is to live rightly with my neighbor. To find common ground and live there, only occasionally visiting the Principle's office, so to speak.

In this situation, did shutting my mouth and giving up my right to be right change what I believe? No. Did it change the outcome? No. Did it change who I am? Well, sort of. At least in that moment, in the eye of the beholder, it made me patient and kind. And when I step back to look at that big, beautiful picture, it seems like we both won.

The Vegetable of the Spirit

I don't know how familiar people really are with the term fruit of the Spirit, but I learned about it when I was a young Christian; a high school junior, I think. My Young Life leader went through that passage of Galatians with us in our Campaigners Bible study one Sunday afternoon and even though I didn't completely understand it at the time, it has stuck in my memory. It goes like this:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23.

The Bible talks a lot about fruit and trees and horticulture in general, really, and it is all very symbolic and beautiful. Fruit is the thing you see that reflects the things you can't see; things like seeds and roots and hearts. Fruit is the ah-ha moment when something that was growing has grown and is now visible and practical and delicious.

There have been several times lately when I have wondered whether anything is really growing in my life. Sometimes a lot of time goes by before anything changes very much and sometimes setbacks or conflicts make me question everything.

Then I started thinking about waiting and the fruit of the spirit. I was having a hard time making the two fit together because waiting is not the same thing as patience. Because patience is a fruit; it's the outcome. Waiting, on the other hand, is the thing you do on your way to the fruit. It's the path of most resistance, if you ask me.

I know from personal experience that waiting produces fruit, but the fruit of waiting is underground. It's underground fruit. So really, it's a vegetable.

Anyone who knows me for very long will, at some point, hear me say that waiting is not a passive thing. What I mean is that the act of waiting is far from doing nothing. Waiting is an action verb. At times it requires an active resistance and always it requires the embracing of the many unexpected things that happen in the meantime. I can look back on my life at the times when I felt like I was the most stuck, and I can see that that those are the times that I was really growing underground. That was the meantime. The place between the already and the not-yet. The in-between preparation and completion.

Not that I have ever been complete, don't get me wrong. I know that fruit is really just a beautiful, delicious seed; the beginning of something greater. What I am trying to say is that waiting is less like an orange and it is more like a turnip or beet. It's a root vegetable.

Whether the fruit of my life is high in the air, swaying in the breeze or incubating in the dirt really isn't the point. The point is that I'm growing. It may sometimes feel like I've got nowhere to go from here but up but maybe, just maybe, that's exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand... Many, Lord my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you have planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare. Psalm 40:1-2,5

This post was originally written in 2011 by a younger me. I like her stuff.

Good Grief

I'm not normally one to observe the anniversary of the death of a loved one. My mom died before I was old enough to remember her and yet I never liked the weird attention I would get on Mother's Day as a little girl with no mother, so I didn't especially like to bring up the random day of the year that marked her passing, either. I have friends who have lost loved ones who mark the day every year and wear it on their sleeve, and I always felt like that was a hard-to-navigate thing as a friend. What do I do? What do I say? What do they need? Even though I've lost more lovely, safe people than a young person should, I never really got it.

This year the anniversary of my dad's death came and went and though I still didn't want the weird attention and I didn't want to mark it, it still haunted me and I still couldn't help but sob into my cereal that morning. Because it turns out that even though this kind of anniversary is not the same thing as a birthday or wedding anniversary or anything else to be celebrated and shared, it is something that cannot be forgotten. It's like the way we paradoxically remember the death of our Savior with Good Friday; this is my Good Grief.

Since my dad died I am different. At least I feel feel different, and long after I've stopped accidentally crying in public. I don't know if it's that I cannot imagine a world without him in it, or that I can't imagine how I'll make it without him quietly lifting me up in the shadows or if it's just because of how his dying wounded me. I also don't know why I am saying all of this now. I definitely don't want all of the weird attention, but maybe it's not so much in what my friends say or do but rather in the knowledge that they understand. And the hope that they'll get to know the new, changed me and still love me, even though I coincidentally get cranky on the days I feel sad.

My friends have mostly known me as someone "with an eternal perspective," they would say. And they were right. I really could see the forest through the trees in most situations and it was my lifeline on many days. However, when Dad died I seemed to have misplaced that. It was so hard for me to really grasp the "better place" idea and the only time I would sense it was when I was painfully standing on Jordan's Stormy Banks. Or on my knees, rather, face in the sand.

When shall I reach that happy place, 

And be forever blessed? 

When shall I see my Father's face, 

And in his bosom rest?

A couple nights ago I had a dream that Dad was alive again but it was not like I though it would be. Because although I could see the life in his face and ask him things and tell him things, he was only alive to die again. There is no hope in wishing him back here because here is where there is ugly-crying, dying and death. He has made the painful journey to the Better Place, that I know for sure. And though it is a slow, arduous process, it is for me to stop wishing him back here and to persevere in wishing myself there.

"All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country-- a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." -Hebrews 11:13-16

My heart is a refugee. Amen.