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word of the day: [          ]

My favorite scene from the book The Giver is the very first one. In anticipation of the night's sharing of feelings, Jonas spends the beginning pages of the story trying to land on the exact word to convey his feelings about the upcoming Ceremony of Twelve. He starts with frightened but deems it too strong an adjective. He moves through eager, excited, and nervous before landing on the one. Apprehensive. 

I have been attempting to do the same this week. Find one word to describe  exactly what I'm feeling in this current moment in time.

Then I realized there isn't just one word. 

This thought process actually began on a particularly lousy day in December. I snapped the following picture; Lily was blurry per usual, but she was making me smile. It was a brief reminder in that moment that I didn't have to just feel lousy. I could also feel joy. 

It came full circle for me this past week when I was reading about Mary.  She goes through a handful of emotions when the angel tells her she'll give birth to the Savior of the world.  She's first troubled, then confused, and finally speaks these words: "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; Let it be to me according to your word" (Luke 1: 38).

I highlighted those words around Christmastime because I wanted to respond in my hard times as Mary did in hers.  Total acceptance. She did accept her responsibility fully and joyfully, but what I realized this week is that I don't think Mary can be defined by her acceptance alone.  I think that she must also have been continually plagued by fear and and confusion as the days moved forward; she was a person after all. Yet, she remained faithful in spite of those things.  Pressed forward even when it didn't all make sense.  Treasured the moments and pondered them in her heart.
So, today there's not just one word.  There's only blank space¹ which serves as a holding cell for all the words that could be inserted.

It's easy to get hung up on the heavy words.  I can sometimes be a bottom dweller with the likes of anxiety, fear, and resentment, but in light of my rebellion against a single word tonight, I think I'll attempt to elevate to the good ones.

To the love.

Adventurous.

Excited.

Thankful.

Peaceful.

Reflective.

Joyful.

Also, as I side note, I fully intend on implementing a sharing of feelings around our dinner table at least once a week as soon as the girls are old enough.  I think I'll be less concerned about the preciseness of language, though.  In my world, you can use as many words as you want.

¹ Yes, that is a shout out to my girl, Taylor Swift.

sacrifice.

word of the day: sacrifice \ˈsa-krə-ˌfīs\ the act of giving up something that you want to keep especially in order to get or do something else or to help someone

This word has been stuck in my brain for months, but I keep pushing it back into the recesses of my mind.  It resides there with the memory of that one time in high school that I watched The Shining and slept with my light on for a week.  Oh and the sound of my alarm clock and any reminder to work out.  Basically, all the things I don’t particularly want to deal with.

But per usual, the record is broken and the word is on repeat.  It demands to be processed I guess.

The more I think about it, when you have a family, your life becomes a series of sacrifices.  You must, for the sake of your marriage and your children, give up certain things for those you love.  Most of the times it’s easy.  I didn’t mind giving up sushi and red wine when I was pregnant with Norah, and I’m over the fact that sleep is now harder to come by.  I’ll keep the television turned off in the morning for Jake and share two thirds of my banana with Lily.  Whatever.

Not all sacrifices are so easy though, and lately, I tend to get especially hung up on the ones that, I know, will be hard. 

And it’s in these moments that the lies start creeping back in.  The “I didn’t sign up for this,” and the “I don’t deserve this,” and the “This isn’t fair.” And then in the corner, I see med school’s big sister, Residency, bat her stupid, fake eyelashes at me, and I start to feel really sorry for myself. 

Then another voice whispers, “Season the season.”

Yeah.  It’s all coming together.  Especially after I read this today:

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
                          Psalm 51:16-17

I am reminded again that I have a choice, and the implications of the choice are weighty because the way I choose to proceed affects more than just me.  It affects my marriage.  It affects my children.  It affects every day of our life together.

I can face sacrifice selfishly and believe that I deserve differently.  I can wake up each day bitter, angry, and self-righteous.

Or I can wake up each day with a broken spirit acknowledging my need for God.  I can find satisfaction in the toil, do good, and be happy. 

Oh, for crying out loud.  You’d think I’d get the point already.

If you scroll down on the Merriam Webster page for “sacrifice,” you’ll find this definition and, subsequently, something that gives me great hope:

Act of offering objects to a divinity, thereby making them holy. The motivation for sacrifice is to perpetuate, intensify, or reestablish a connection between the human and the divine.

“Be holy, for I am holy.”   (Merriam Webster didn’t say that last part, thankfully.)

And so, I will keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Waking up and choosing joy even when it's easier not to.  Sharing my banana and drinking extra coffee because I haven’t had enough sleep.  Refusing to believe the lie that it isn’t worth it.

Because it is.

Oh, it is. 

season.

word of the day: season \ˈsē-z^ən\ noun: a period of the year characterized by or associated with a particular activity or phenomenon; verb: to give a distinctive quality to as if by seasoning

The word “season” has been on repeat in my mind.  It’s one of those words with many different meanings, and, as words tend to do, those meanings have taken root in my brain and begun to resonate in this current season of life.  Fitting.

“Season” in its noun form is a period of time.  Sometimes its specified in length other times not.  I find that while the four seasons change rather predictably, seasons in life follow a much less foreseeable pattern. This past year kind of falls into both categories, but I am, nonetheless, thankful to see it now in the rearview.  The long and short of it goes back to my love/hate relationship with medical school. While the year brought new life and exciting changes to our family, it brought far more in terms of distance and stress and tears. 

It’s just as Solomon references in Ecclesiastes 3, really.  There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.  The ebb and flow is ever changing.  There is bad; there is good.  There is hard; there is easy.  There are moments of both in any given season, and as much as I’d love to complain about all the bad and hard and painful, the glimmer of the good is ever present and demanding to be seen as well.  

“Season” as a verb makes things better which might be my favorite multiple meaning word yet.  

I never read past Ecclesiastes 3:8 before today with much intention; the verses following brought together the noun and verb for me.

“What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.  That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”

There is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.  To find satisfaction in the toil—that is the gift of God.  

Finding satisfaction in the toil? Maybe sometimes. Seeing it as a gift from God? Hardly.  I cried a lot, and I called med school dirty names under my breath even more (she deserved it). 

I don’t have any great theological ponderings, but my perspective has shifted.  Each season is bound to bring toil, and I can already see the next major challenge on the horizon. 

However, the choice in the response is mine (it’s certainly not easy, but it’s mine to make): Be happy, do good, and find satisfaction in the toil. I can't change the noun, but I can change the verb.

Season the season.  Or something like that.

And now, a few of the season’s best:

This is Jake trying to get Lily to look at the camera.  I agree, it's counterintuitive. 

isolation.

word of the day: isolation \ˌī-sə-ˈlā-shən\ the state of being in a place or situation that is separate from others : the condition of being isolated

Isolating.

I think if you were to ask a relatively new mom what it's like to have kids, and if you could get her to answer honestly, she might use the word "Isolating" in her response.

An "of course I love it and yes I love my kids and I wouldn't trade it for the world but at times it can feel very isolating" kind of blathering response.  

This word has been bumping around inside my brain for a long time now.  I keep thinking about it because it doesn't seem like motherhood should be marked by isolation.  In having children, you join the ranks of a community of many other women--women who, I've found, are ready to offer advice, encouragement, and support at any moment--and yet, the whispers of isolation (in my experience, at least) persist.  

It's like your life goes from making sense to feeling like you're a square peg jamming into a round hole.  And then, in the quiet moments of the evening when your kids are asleep, a small voice whispers:

You've been forgotten.

I hate to sound so melodramatic, but in the off chance that I'm not the only one to have believed this lie, it seems worth writing.  

I wrote once earlier this summer that it always helps me to detect the lie, and I recently put a name to this one.  The lie is that I am alone and forgotten.  And, as lies tend to do, this one has again caused me to remain motionless.  Taken away my direction.  It has caused me to place all of my focus on myself and, ironically, begin to forget about the people around me and how I am called to love and serve them.  

This week I was reminded of the story of the adulterous woman in John 8.  Her story makes me wonder if her sin was a result of feeling forgotten and like she didn't matter to anyone.  If somehow she convinced herself that nobody would notice anyway.  Not that that pardons the action; I just see now that when you're so focused on your own insignificance that you lose sight of what is really significant (it's always so ridiculously obvious once you're on the other side, isn't it?).  

I wonder if in that moment when Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you" she also heard, "You are significant.  You matter.  You have not been forgotten; go, and from now on sin no more."  

Venturing into parenthood shouldn't be an isolating experience.  Of course it is a challenging adjustment and of course I'll still, at times, feel like a square peg that can't quite fit into the round hole that is my new normal.  I see now though the need to embrace that daily identity crisis and choose to believe that I matter to God.  In doing so, I think I will love other people better and seek out opportunities to serve and belong in the community that already exists around me.  

Angie Smith speaks to this in her book What Women Fear:

We are significant in our insignificance, urged to have the faith of a child and the heart of a servant.  And be assured, friend, that you are loved in a way that is infinitely different than any love you could know here on earth.  It is the love of a Man who had the chance to exert His importance in the eyes of the world, and instead did exactly what he calls us to do. 

Serve, sacrifice, love. 

And be made great for His glory. (130)

thirty.

word of the day: thirty \ˈthər-tē\ the number 30.

Jake turned thirty yesterday, and (par for the course) I found myself more affected by it than he was.

I met Jake when he was 20.  A whole decade ago.  Back then, he wore bandannas and cut off dress shirts; I wore Crocs and ate vanilla pudding like it was a major food group.

This is the first picture we ever took together, and for the sake of authentic writing, you should know that it took me over an hour to track it down tonight.  Presently there is no direction to my thoughts, but because of the sheer effort I've already put into this post, it'll end up finished somewhere.

That picture is just shy of a decade old.  Since it was captured, I've celebrated 8 birthdays with Jake.  

I don't really remember any of them, though, which suddenly spins my thoughts into a totally different direction.  Let the stream of consciousness ensue.

(another early picture)

Jake is always saying that birthdays are just another day; he's never too hung up on the sentimentality of them or the need to make everything perfect for those 24 hours.  He just goes about the day per usual (although this year he did complain about some added soreness and loss of vision).  

I know that I've worked hard to make each of Jake's birthdays something memorable, so the fact that I can't really remember any of them makes me laugh.  

I guess for me, birthdays are starting to become more about the passing of time.  I find myself drawn to the thought that I've now known Jake for one third of his life.  In another decade, I'll have known him for one half of his life.  Then, from there, the time I've been with Jake will start to dwarf the time I ever lived without him, and those are the birthdays I think I'll really get on board with. 

Each passing year means one more that we get to spend together.  It's not about the specific day in time, I suppose, but rather about the fact that we're in that chapter, that moment, that season together.  That even though change is the constant that moves with us throughout each passing year, Jake is a constant, too. 

As is the white bandanna on top of his dresser and the two snack packs of vanilla pudding currently in the fridge.    

Old habits die hard, you know?

30-years-old.  Here's to more birthdays and gaining on those years before you gave that little homebody from Iowa a second glance.  It's going to be a good year, Dr. Flinkman.

end.

word of the day: end \ˈend\ a point that marks the limit of something : the point at which something no longer continues to happen or exist

I have decided that the worst thing you can do as an overly sentimental person is have kids.  Suddenly the “This-is-the-last-Saturday-of-June-in-2014” moments bear greater weight when you’re not only feeling the need to make the most of them for yourself but also for the little person grabbing on to your ankles. 

The end of summer makes me feel sad, but not necessarily because I have to go back to work.  It’s sad for me because it marks the end of a period of time that I will never again recreate.  Summer days of just Lily and me are now a thing of the past and the year ahead promises more change than I can sometimes wrap my brain around.  Those two things coupled together turn me into a little bit of a nut case as I try to squeeze every ounce of memories out of a few short days. 

In the past few days, I found myself wanting to do all these things to “end summer with a bang.”  Lily and I were going to spend whole days together and get frozen yogurt and go to the splash park and read books and take advantage of all the things summer is before summer is not. 

Then I had this moment where I let myself off the hook.  I reminded myself that one more trip to the splash park wouldn’t make or break our summer together and that we could actually still get frozen yogurt together once school was back in session. 

It’s all part of the same story, isn’t it?  Sometimes I think I’m so quick to think of my life as individual chapters that I forget to think about the story as a whole.  That in the future moments of my life I’ll probably look back and think, “I’d rather be right here.”

It has been a good summer though—a summer that, per usual, came and went slightly surreptitiously. 

So, in sentimental fashion and in honor of the summer’s end, I’ve been spending my evening looking through all the things we’ve done. 

And, I’m okay with moving into the next chapter because I see now that it’s really just a continuation of where we are now.   Change is good [said the small voice inside my head].

six.

word of the day: six \ˈsiks\ the sixth in a set or series

I've been thinking a lot lately about the vows Jake and I made 6 years ago.  You know...to have and to hold, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, in health, till death parts us...etc, etc. 

In all of the weddings I've been to recently, the bride and the groom exchange hand-written vows.  Words that are meaningful to them and promises that are unique to their relationship.  Each time I listen to them, I wonder why, given my love of writing, we didn't do that.  

Then I remember who I married and why we stuck to the plain and simple.  Not so much up Jake's alley.

I've been thinking about those vows lately because I've been wondering if I have inadvertently added to them.  Expected more of Jake than he promised me on that day 6 years ago and tried to be more than I promised him.  

I think somewhere along the way I gained this idea that Jake is meant to complete me; to be everything I am not.  That once I married him, all the gaps and holes of my personality would be filled and balanced.  

I was reminded this anniversary that Jake is not enough.  That he wasn't meant to be enough for me.  

(And there I go again with the heavy anniversary thoughts.  You'd think at least one year I could conjure up a lovey-dovey #sorrygirlsigotthebestone post.  Maybe next year.)

It's a freeing realization though, and one that I did not epiphanize (that's a word, wouldn't you know?) on my own.  Angie Smith talks about it in her book, What Women Fear:

When we depend on others to be our God, we strike out on a couple different levels.  We burden them with blame for their lack of ability and we forfeit what God could have done if we would have honored Him the way we should have.  

It all goes back to my daily identity crisis, really. Jake doesn't define me as my husband any more than that silly little tube of lipstick sitting in my purse does.  I didn't become a whole person 6 years ago when I married him.  I became better (and more sarcastic), certainly, but I still have voids of loneliness and inadequacy and fear that I see now I've been trying to get Jake to fill.  

But he can't.  And he's not supposed to.  He never promised that.  

And in doing so, I'm forfeiting what God should be and could be doing otherwise.

It's a good and timely realization for me especially on the cusp of what lies ahead for our relationship.  

So, here's to year 7.  For better. For worse. For richer. For poorer. In sickness. In health. 

In together.  In apart.  In joy.  In sadness.  In sincerity.  In sarcasm.  

To have and to hold and to recognize that neither one of us is enough for the other.