Would I Choose God?

One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD.... Psalm 27:4

What do I want?

If we could have one thing granted just for today, what would we choose?

Seeing a friend?

An hour to myself?

A happier marriage?

My stress to go away?

More obedient children?

A clean house?

Enough money to pay the bills?

A day off to relax?

The house I've always dreamed of living in?

My head to stop aching?

My schedule to calm down?

One last visit with someone I love?

My dear one's devastating disease to be healed?

The pantry shelves to be organized?

Or would I choose God?

His Presence to overshadow my life and my wants and dreams and hopes and fears and annoyances and needs?

Days When I Hate Being a Midwife

It's been one of those days when I hate being a midwife. If I wasn't an adult, I would have jumped up and ran out of the office today and said I wasn't coming back.

Why do mamas who don't have many years left to have a baby and who've tried so hard to get pregnant for years and years and years have to be so bitterly crushed and disappointed... told that the little one growing inside them is no longer alive or growing?

And why do I have to dread answering my phone when I see it's a client... hoping that certainly, certainly nothing ELSE could have gone wrong today?!

And why do I have to hope that this woman's husband isn't abusing her and the kids behind closed doors?

And why does it seem like the whole world of mothers and babies and midwives is falling apart today? {I know it isn't really.}

And why do I have to meet with a doctor who hates midwives' guts and try to convince him that I DO care about these mothers and babies?

And why do liability and legality have to matter when all that should matter is if a mama and her baby get the best care for their situation?

And why did I ever want to do this in the first place??

Because I love them too much not to.

{Sometimes I refrain from signing off professional emails to them as "Love, Mary"}

I guess that's why my clients' awful days leave me heartsick, too.

When My Needs Are Worship

It seems that I've had a lot of needs in the past couple of years. Things that send me crying to my Heavenly Father, begging Him for help, for wisdom, for what I need. Sometimes I don't even say what. I just sigh and say, "God, you know..." Some things in my heart are just beyond words.

Sometimes I feel ridiculously needy and wonder to myself, Does anyone else have a heart that wanders as much as mine? Does anyone else find themselves needing the Lord Jesus to change their heart as much as me? Does anyone else beg God for so many things? Does anyone else have so many loved ones with so many big problems that all need prayer?

Sometimes I feel like I should pull myself together and be a triumphant Christian, not such a desperately needy one... One who fails so often. Doesn't God wish that I'd come to Him more often with as a joyfully obedient Godly Christian, instead of being the always-nearly-falling-apart-person? Doesn't He wish that I had more days of smooth sailing, of radiating His Grace and Love? Doesn't He wish I had less of the days where all I can think is, "I need God... so much!" while I stumble through the moments and the problems and struggles and try (and fail) to speak and think as He would have me to?

Several nights ago I was driving home from a long day at the office, tired but happy with a mostly successful day of prenatals behind me. As the miles rolled by and the stars shone overhead, I was listening to the Gospels when the little word "worship" jumped out at me.

Speaking of Jesus: "There came a leper and worshiped Him, saying, 'Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean'! " (Matthew 8:2)

The wretched leper-man didn't come and ask Jesus what he could do to show God's glory to his generation or kneel down and tell Him he would dedicate his life to service in the temple.

He didn't come to Jesus for his friends.

He came for himself.

He came, consumed by his messed up, broken life and his sad heart, living the life an outcast. He wanted his own skin made whole, the ugly stumps of his fingers to work again, to caress someone, to tend vineyards and build houses like other men did. He wanted to walk the streets without calling out, "Unclean! Unclean!" as little children screamed and ran. He wanted life again, not this existence.

He couldn't will away the ugliness that pervaded his life, and maybe his soul.

Was he a bitter man because of what had happened to him?

He came to the only One Who could make his life better.

He came because he thought Jesus could.

Bringing his own needs to Jesus was worship.

Because He came, acknowleging God as the One who could meet His needs!

In all of my beseeching God for wisdom and begging Him for things like knowing what to do with difficult relationships and cars with problems when I'm alone on the road at 2 am; things like keeping babies alive and stopping hemorrhages and dealing with people with severe mental problems; things like not knowing how to interact with certain people and knowing when to say "no" to people that never stop taking and seemingly wasting my time and energy; things like not knowing what to do for or say to friends who are going through horrible things in their marriages and families and homes and churches; things like feeling irritated with people and begging, "Help me to be nice, anyway, God!"; things that are deep in my heart.... aches, hurts, nagging worries...

In all of this asking, I don't tire God?!

He calls it worship?!

He delights in it when I see myself as the mere mortal that I am.

When I come as such, falling down at His feet, broken and hurting and worried and lost,

begging....

because, and only because

He is GOD!

He knows I'm just a broken, messed-up person anyway. We all are, if we'd admit it.

He never thought I was successful or victorious... He knew that I wasn't anything, and all I needed was Him.

When I fall down at His feet and utter, "Help me, Lord! My heart is so wrong today!"

He calls that worship.

Happiness Is....

... A new book stand in the kitchen window so I can sing all 21 verses of "Immanuel's Land"

while doing dishes

... Watching a friend in love

... Seeing my little sister grow up into somebody really sweet and Godly

... A brother who is tender and thoughtful and misses us so much

... A sister with a swelling belly full of wiggly baby

... A whole quiet day at home by myself (bliss!)

... A new blue dress with brown polka dots that I adore

... Godly men who live lives of faithfulness day in and day out

... Not answering the phone sometimes

... Reading many chapters a day {it's been too many years since I've read much}

... An office assistant who is so reliable and prompt and cheerful

... My mom... here, alive, happy

... My dad, faithful as clockwork

... Pens that work well

... Laundry all done!

... Jana's homemade cheesecake ice cream

... Clean floors

... Miles to run and walk

... Friends who love me more for pointing out how off-track they've become

... Friends who exhort me, instead of just flattering

... Whole nights of sleep

... A car that has been running without a problem for over two months!!

... Really hard, scary births that end really well

... People that understand schizophrenia and cancer

... A strained checkbook, reminding me that less money isn't less joy, happiness or living

... People that come over and love you even when you're hot and sweaty and the house is a mess and tomatoes are all over the table and floor

... Really old holey bathroom floor replaced with new

... Things that make me think, like: "Whatever humbles me, helps me."

... And for all of the other things that are horrifying, depressing, overwhelming, scary, and worse than I even imagined ~ God is still the same unchanging, just and merciful God.

The Saddest Thing - According to a Hippie

I wrote this last summer, and then never posted it.

It's kind of pointless, I guess, but it amused me. :)

~ Mary

Yesterday I was running errands, going to home visits all over the rural Ozarks.
I ran out the door at 7 am, with a rice cake and a date cookie to sustain me for the day.

Now it was early afternoon and some food sounded good. Maybe Subway? Except there was no such a thing in any of these little towns... I passed one after another. Most of them had a dozen houses and a post office. I would be doing good if there was a gas station that sold some candy bars and peanuts - certainly not a sustainable and reasonably healthy lunch.

As I passed the stop sign for the next little town, it looked as though perhaps there were more than just a few houses down the street. So, I pulled off the highway and wandered through small-town America for a bit. It was all so classic - a few little antique stores and handcraft shops; an old man leaning against the wall under the awning of a little shop smoking a pipe.

A few old cars and battered pickups rattled through the town. But nothing was open. This was a Monday, and all the stores had signs taped in the windows that said, "Open Tuesday-Friday."
I sighed, wondering why the whole town decided not to do business on Mondays.

And then I saw it - a little health food store set back from the crumbling sidewalk! A faded orange "OPEN" sign hung in the window. Maybe I would find some lunch here! Certainly they would have plain yogurt or.... something. I pushed the creaky door open and stepped inside. As usual, the smell of herbs, spices and bulk foods permeated the atmosphere.
Nobody was in sight. At the counter, a few papers hung here and there proclaiming, "Fresh organically raised lamb!" or "Homegrown vegetables - Call Marla."

Then a little lady appeared out of the back. Thin, stringy white hair hung down her back over her organic hemp blouse. Her Birkenstocks looked worn and well-loved. Her flowing skirt looked like it belonged in a field of daisies. Most notably though, her little brown face looked aged and etched with care. It was thin as was the rest of her.

"Are you looking for something?" she asked helpfully.

"Oh.. no... I'm just... looking. Nothing in particular," I replied, hoping that she wouldn't expect me to buy something if I didn't find lunch material among the bags of stone-ground rye flour and packages of dried mango.

"Do you live around here?" she inquired a bit puzzled.

"No, I don't. I live over by ___."

"Oh!" she said, this time with just a bit of interest rising in her slow, tired voice. "So you must know ___ ?"

Actually, I didn't know her aquaintance.

She sighed again. "Oh..." as she continued watching me glance across the shelves.

I tried to make conversation. "So... have you been in business here for a long time?"

"Since 1974. We - well, I mean my husband and bunch of other hippies - all moved here back then and started this kind of stuff. There was a whole bunch of us - we all lived together. Just a caravan of cars and buses, and we lived out of those. We all lived on wheat germ and vegetables and homemade bread. We were all healthy, and spent plenty of time in the sunshine and fresh air. But it's all changed.... " and her voice trailed off as she looked out the health food store window wistfully.

"It all changed. I'm the only one who hasn't changed. Everyone else eats white bread and has a pot belly. It's the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life." Each word seemed to drop heavily, wearily, sadly.

I suppressed a chuckle and stared hard at the basket of freshly dug sweet potatoes at my feet lest she see my amusement.

She tapped her hands on the counter. "Yes. The saddest thing I've ever seen... It's the old hippies who used to eat alfalfa sprouts with me who are sipping pepsi and beer now. They don't even care about healthy bodies anymore." Then her voice rose to an angry pitch: "And they're the ones who know better!! It's really depressing to go on with life when nobody else lives for your ideals anymore."

And then her phone rang, and customers walked in and needed her help, and I had to buy something for lunch and leave lest I be late for the next prenatal. I wished that there would have been time for me to say something - anything - about the essence of life and what really matters and is worth living for. But, she was busy and I had to go, so I left the little wiry brown lady in her store full of stuff to keep her fading earthly body together a little longer.

I just had to chuckle as I drove away. What a perspective. The saddest thing she knows of in life is pot bellied people eating white bread and drinking pepsi.

Maybe sometime I'll see the her again, or maybe I won't. I honestly don't even remember the name or location of the little town where I found her health food store.

But I remember her. I still think about her sometimes. And I still wonder if she weeps over her white bread eating friends.

A Summer Away From Facebook

I'm sure some of my friends wonder what happened and why I left Facebook for now, after being a prolific Facebook poster for several years. There really wasn't (and isn't) any stunningly huge reason, other than that I simply felt the Lord asking me to do it. It was amazing how simple it was for me to give it up, too. I just said, "Okay, Lord" and actually began looking forward to life without Facebook for awhile.

It started this spring, as the Lord began convicting me of attitudes and habits in my life that didn't please Him. And chief of all sins, was that my habits and ways of wrong thinking didn't bother me enough to change them. I wanted to change them... I'd resolve to do better... but so soon I'd be living the same old busy, self-absorbed, God-forgetting, people-pleasing way.

Which meant that I really wasn't very serious about changing. People who say they're preparing to be professional athletes or musicians and can barely squeeze in a little time each day to practice show by their actions what really matters to them in life. They can say whatever they want to about their desires and goals, but it's obvious to everyone where their priorities lie. So lived I my life.

God brought it up to me over and over. I was miserable - trapped in a life of pressing needs and clamoring noise, knowing I needed God more, but living a barren inner life. How can one give God to others if you aren't full of Him yourself?

My dear sister-in-law gave me a book on Brokenness that I managed to read in snatches over Spring. The Lord used that book to show me how wrong, dead wrong my heart was. I was existing as a Christian, looking like and acting like one to all the world around me, but not living, fully living - drinking at the Springs of Living water, every day, all day any more....

The difference between doing and being something is so vastly huge! I realized that although I still looked and acted much the same outwardly as I did back when my heart was right, inwardly I was withering. I'd lived the Christian life long enough, that I could get up every morning and "do" it... be kind, servant-hearted, cheerful, forgiving... but did I love God with all my heart? Did I crave Him? Did I still know and walk with Him as I used to?

I then spent a few days at a Bible conference, seeking God. He kept peeling back the layers of my heart with every message I heard, every chapter in the Bible that I read, and every time I sought God in prayer. Showing me my heart, probing into the corners... reminding me that He resists the proud but gives grace to the humble and that He is near to the brokenhearted.

Did I really care more about living a life that people agree with and being a person who they like, or did I care most about what God wanted from my life? ...All so elementary, but all so fresh again when your heart is all wrong and you didn't even realize the half of the ugliness of it all!

There was also another situation going on in a friend's life that had been heavy on my heart for months. During this time, God pointed His finger at my heart as the prophet Nathan once did to King David and said, "Thou art the man!" All of the grieving I had done over this dear, dear friend of mine growing cold towards and then leaving her husband and children.... God showed me that she had done it to another sinful human being... but I had done it to Him, my Creator, Redeemer, the Holy, Almighty God. I no longer loved him like I should, not because I had any reason not to love Him, but just because I was busy and full of everything but God. I can rarely remember being so convicted and grieved by my own sin and my own heart as at that moment as I realized that God's words from James 4:4 rang true in my own life: "Ye adulterers and adulteresses...!"

God brought me to a point of desperation to again have a pure heart, a broken and contrite heart before Him, a heart that I wouldn't exchange even a little piece of for anything in all the world or in all of this life.... A heart desperately hungry for God... to love Him, to know Him, to delight in Him, and Him alone!

All of these things I've always said in my head. There's never been a day in the last twenty years, when I haven't thought these things or wanted my relationship with Jesus Christ to be like that.

But living these things is different. It's one thing to resolve to know and love God as He is worthy of. It's an entirely different thing to roll yourself out of bed an hour or two earlier after only a few hours of sleep to seek Him until you find Him, instead of just functioning on fumes. It's one thing to realize that you need God more than anything else in the world. It's an entirely different thing to live that way - to let urgent work pile up and cancel fun events because there is nothing that needs to be done more than to commune with God and listen to His voice.

As the Lord humbled me and crumbled every last little thing that I might have thought I was doing "good" or right, I began to desperately want to bring Him pleasure, and the slightest care about what anyone else thought or approved of faded. It has become one of my goals this year to live for an audience of One - God, and Him alone.

Which brings us to Facebook. Sometimes Facebook makes me feel like I live in a viewing tank with many folks visiting my life and sharing their opinions. It's not all bad, in fact, often it's helpful or nice. My goals for Facebook have always been to encourage and inspire others to seek what matters most in life; to make them think; to be real and honest about myself, and if nothing else, to just make people smile. But, in my quest for seeking the pleasure of an audience of One, I thought that might be easiest without the distraction of other people's commentary on my life or opinions. :)

Facebook hasn't taken up a ton of my time in the last year because I rarely log onto it when I'm on the computer. I usually just Facebook from my Blackberry while I'm waiting in line or elsewhere have 2 minutes with "nothing else to do."

Nothing else, that is... except seek God. He can be sought anywhere. I don't ever see myself having a slow-paced life and easy routine that makes it easy to seek God and spend lots of time in His Word. I don't have slow mornings in my jammies with tea and my Bible. I have 2 am calls from frantic mamas who need me now.... or if I wake up in my own bed in the morning, there's an incredible amount of things to be done around here, like my own mother needing my help. Evenings are no better. Days are non-stop. Sometimes there just are a hundred things that HAVE to be done.

Mothers of little ones find this true. You can't wait to nurse the baby just because you haven't spent some time with the Lord yet. The toddler wakes up at 5:30, crying that he's wet again... and the four year old wakes up throwing up, regardless of whether you've read your Bible or had enough sleep. Sometimes you just have to be a mom. Some days I just have to be a midwife, and a sister and daughter and caregiver....

But above all, I HAVE to seek God. I have to love Him. I have to know Him. I have to live for Him! THAT is the cry of my heart. If my heart is desperate enough, I will seek Him daily and above all else in life!

I plan to come to back to Facebook and I'm not making a lot of other major changes to life... except that regardless of what else happens, I need God.... enough of Him to fill my heart to overflowing, every day. And I intend to live that way!

Grace Like.... Taco Salad

While I'm publishing stuff that's sat in draft form for way too long, here's another old post that I never published.

Re-reading it brought a smile to my face.

I hope it does the same for you. :)

Today's been quite a day. But it's been full of grace... grace I didn't deserve. Not only is God far kinder than I deserve, but so are people in my life!

Today really started with yesterday, when my car broke down as I was leaving an emergency ultrasound appointment with a client. The car started acting funny, then funnier, then downright scary when I managed to jerk into a nearby church parking lot before it totally stopped working. Dad and Sam were so kind to come to my rescue and bring me over to Mom and Dad's 31rst wedding anniversary celebration that I was missing!

Today, Abe loaded up the car and hauled it home. The days of the good old green car may be numbered. (I bought it less than a year ago.) It seems like the transmission AND an axle decided to have major problems at the same time. Oh yes... and the brakes. That's after the $500 repair on something else last month.

I do drive the poor thing a lot.

Anyway, my dad graciously agreed to let me use his car til we can fix mine (if it's worth doing that) or figure out a Plan B. So, he unloaded his tools from the work car this morning and handed me the keys.

My mother kindly made the seven trips from the house to the car loading all of my birth and prenatal bags, charts, oxygen tank and all of the other midwife supplies that have to accompany me everywhere I go. I was upstairs, replying to urgent legislative emails when she brought me a fresh fruit smoothie before I ran out the door. My mom doesn't have to be that nice. She just is.

I headed off to do prenatals, finding that this car has all of the quirks that Dad warned me about, plus a few other problems. But it runs, and it works in drive and reverse. I learned that the brakes work minimally and one should start braking a block away from the upcoming stop light. Thankfully, I learned that on a gravel road this morning when a large cow trailer stopped suddenly on the road in front of me and I slid gently into it, stomping hard on the brakes.

Dad's car looks so awful that it's almost hilarious! I definitely look like a charity case or a drug dealer (take your pick) pulling up at people's house.

So, away I went in my lovely car. I stopped by a former client's house to return some books she'd loaned me last fall. She looked soooo happy to see me, and scooped up her sweet little girl and put her in my arms. "Isn't she beautiful?! I've missed you!!!" and a hundred other things tumbled out of her mouth. The client who never chatted or said much beside the necessary stuff at prenatals. I thought she didn't particularly like me. Some days I wondered if she just wasn't the emotional or friendly type. But today, she almost cried that I had stopped to see her, and she had to show me all of her baby's pictures on her digital camera. I realized for the first time that she really did like me a lot, and she counted me among her good friends.

My happiness was short-lived though, when I arrived at my Amish client's house to find that she wasn't there. With no phone to call her and re-schedule, it could be tricky to catch her at home in the next couple days. So I wrote her a note and left it on the kitchen table.

I got a text from another client: "Did I have an appointment at your office at 10?"

I groaned. I must not have wrote her appointment down in my schedule book after we'd be emailing and she had rescheduled it... great. Now, she had driven a long way for her appointment, and had taken off work. This was just not .... good. She'd have to sit there all morning waiting for me to get there from Amish country and she needed to get back to work.

I thought fast and told her to go back to work and I'd make up by coming for an evening home visit. I knew she wasn't happy and I had just messed up her whole day. I apologized. She said it was okay, but I could hear in her voice that it wasn't okay. I felt horrible. But, there was nothing left to do... So, I went on with the day's errands and headed to the office.

One of my clients told me that she wanted me to keep the extra $200 that they'd paid me. Really?

Then I did initial visits for several new clients - and I love them!

And then regular prenatals. A baby that has been breech for awhile is now vertex! Grace.

Thank you, God.

And then I met my sister at the sonographer's for her ultrasound. Some of it looked better than we had hoped. Some looked a little concerning. Grace.

Then I rushed to the town where my client lives who'd come to the office in vain that morning. She invited me for a dinner of taco salad with her and her husband. A much better choice than fast food or the handful of almonds I still had in my car. Grace. I'd just missed her appointment this morning, and she had felt horrible the whole day, and the drive had made her feel worse... and yet, they served me taco salad with a smile. And we talked about her upcoming birth, and her mom, and her hopes and fears. Grace. Big grace.

And then I drove the old white boat of a car home, listening to the Ipod that another client gave me several years ago. And I thought about Grace...

Getting what I don't deserve. That's me. That's my life. That's my God!

Early Morning Gratitute

I went for a run in the already warm, sticky, sun-coming-up-over-the-hills morning and

I found myself grateful for

a healthy body

great running shoes

an Ipod full of lovely music and thoughts and words

summertime

creeks babbling over polished stones

sun-dappled country roads with trees forming a canopy overhead

An hour alone without my phone ringing or people trying to talk to me

Liz back at home, singing and making breakfast

And most of all, my mind focused on the phrase:

"... the God of Hope..." (Romans 15:13) -- More on that, coming soon.

Butter, Scraped Over Too Much Bread

"I feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread."

~ B. Baggins

Isn't this a much more interesting way of saying, "I'm busy and tired"?

I thought so. :)

Rainy Days at Home

I LOVE rainy days at home! I can't remember the last time when I've had a whole long rainy day to do nothing but sleep in, spend a long quiet time with Jesus, be with my family, make pizza from scratch for lunch, do a pile of laundry and work through my to-do list.

These are the days that keep me sane! :)

Thank you, God!

A Week of Grace

It's been quite a week!

It started with the transmission in my car going out on Sunday.

So, that meant that I've been begging cars off people to drive all week. My dad has been really generous and let me drive his old clunker on prenatal days. For some reason, all of our other nicer, newer vehicles break down and have problems at least occasionally. The old white beast that he bought at an auction ($300) for the younger kids to learn to drive in? It never, ever breaks down. The door handles don't work, and the windows don't roll up and down, and it's hard to start, and the gas tank is weird, and the speedometer doesn't work, and the lights and wipers take special talent to operate... BUT it runs, once you get it started. And it sure turns heads! You'd think I was a drug-dealer or something...

The Missouri State Medical Association seems to be pulling some fast tricks on us this week. I received a really bizarre email from their main lobbyist and several of the other ladies have been getting weird phone calls. Basically, they all decided overnight that they all love midwives and they want to expand our practice in Missouri, instead of encroach on it. They want us to all sit down and tell them what we dream of for the future so they can help us however they can.

Yeah, right. I wish it could be true. I so wish it was true.

In a way, it's a good thing to hear, coming from them because it means they're desperate and out of all tactics other than trying to be our friends. We just have to figure out how to respond. "Wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" has come to mind so many times today.

I just can't get away from politics...

Then there's been other things - lots of situations and stories and happenings. All in about a week's time, there have been two shootings or murders in the news - children murdering their own parents. And we've known the family, or close relatives of the family in both cases. It makes me pray for the hearts of each child in our family. And Japan's earthquake... it could have just as easily been us. Sometimes life is just tragic, ugly, uncomprehendable.... it is what sinners make of it. But God, who made life is always good, true, just, all together lovely.

Through the whole week of car problems, insincere politicians and lobbyists; unspeakable violence and tragedy, there's been Grace. I've thought about it all week. When my car broke down, I saw Grace in my dad handing me the keys to his car so freely and kindly. When I had a couple of nights of very little sleep, I saw Grace as my already over-worked mother came to my rescue and helped me pull some things together. I saw Grace as people were nice to me when I didn't deserve it. I saw Grace when someone I don't even know sent me a gift of money (just in time to pay a bill). I saw Grace when all of my breech babies turned back to head-down! I saw Grace all week, around every corner and under every stone in my path!

...Grace to cover all my sins, and grace to cover all the things I like and don't like. Grace to be cheerful and keep working and smiling when I am utterly exhausted. Grace to rest and know that it is God, not me that will accomplish that which He pleases in my life. Grace to trust that I'll have the money I need when I need it, and not waste energy fretting over unexpected big bills. Grace to believe that some of the most awful, shattered things could some day be a trophy of God's grace. Grace to believe that my God is always good, and to believe it enough that every day is a new morning of tender mercies and a reason to rejoice!

This could have been considered a "difficult" week... but instead I consider it a happy week ~ one full of Grace!

"When morning guilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, May Jesus Christ be praised!"

Be Careful What You Wish For

Be careful what you desire and seek after in life.

You'll probably get it.

People I Can Tell "the Sad" To...

I was sitting at one of the tables with a dear, dear friend. I've known her for a long time. But I've come to love her even so much more in the last year as we've went through some of the same struggles together.

People all around us were chattering, laughing, catching up with old friends, meeting new ones. Both my friend and I knew quite a few of the people milling about the room. So, we leaned close and she lowered her voice. She was telling me about her day, her week.. the real one. Not the, "Oh, I'm fine" one. It had been emotional, draining, exhausting. Things had happened at work. Almost the same thing that had happened to me two years ago at my work. The medical field is hard... sometimes hard things happen. Then she'd seen someone she had loved and lost. It was awkward. It was hard, she explained. I nodded. Totally understand the feeling of tears welling up, things you wanted to say and yet didn't or couldn't, biting your lip, leaving... wishing that somehow that chapter of your life could have gone on, wishing you could forget it, wishing it wasn't, wishing it still was... Suddenly, I was lost in her world, feeling the pain of what had happened at work, what had happened at the Christmas party...

She apologized for only having negative things to talk about. "But that was your life this week," I insisted. "I wanted to hear about your real life... what's really happening! I didn't want to hear about the pretend life where everything is fine with you."

She might have thought it was depressing, but it reminded me that someone else walking the road of life has had the same experiences as I have. And if I told her about what happened to me at work two years ago, she'd really, truly understand. She'd grasp the enormity with which it left me reeling and unsure of myself for a long time.... I loved just knowing that somebody in the world would understand if I explained. Maybe I'll tell her about it someday. There's not many other people that would know what to say.

The other day one of my friends sent me a email, telling me her problems and how everything in her life seemed to be falling apart right now. How to hold it together, how to go on being a Christian, being a wife, being a mom, doing the additional things that she and her husband are sure God has called them to do, being so much else that she is.... that was the big, unanswered question. How? It wasn't working for her. She couldn't go on living this way. She was feeling suffocated and like few people even cared if it happened to her. She ended her message with, "I'm sorry this is all sad. But thanks for being a real friend that I can tell the sad to... I don't tell many people."

I've had plenty of the "the sad" this year. In several completely different areas of life. I can relate to the "I don't tell many people." Who is there to tell? About some of it ~ sure. But other things few people can relate to or need to know.

I certainly don't want to depress the rest of the world with the sad. Who wants to know while they're in labor or nursing their 3 day old baby that their midwife's life has been awful this week? Or sweet little girls that come up to me after church and hug me and ask me how I am... Of course I'm "doing good" ~ because God is always good. Is there any reason to try to explain to them why I tried not to cry through church, even though I almost never cry... before this year? I can smile. I will smile. I will go on living life and being grateful, because there are far more things to be happy about than there are things to be sad about.

Then there were other friends that I tried to explain some of "the sad" to, and the responses I received felt anything but compassionate or understanding. Sometimes that was good for me... to remember that regardless of how I feel or who has any idea of what "I need" or what a wreck my heart may be at that moment, my actions and responses must be out of love, not ungrateful reactions because all I was seeking was to have my own needs met.

And then there was the friend who said, "Let's go to the park. I'll bring a whole box of Kleenex and let's just sit there all afternoon. You can tell me the whole story."

Or the friend who texted me nearly every day for months on end to say, "How's your heart today, Mary?" and sent me cards. I knew she hurt with me. Because she was hurting in the same way herself. And I got to text her every day, too, and say, "How's yours? God is still good!"

And the midwife who I didn't know even knew what all was going on in my life and family who handed me a little envelope one day after a midwives meeting. When I had a chance to open it and look at the little piece of folded paper, torn out of one of her notebooks, it read, "Mary, it's well past 2 am, and I just can't stop thinking of you... I have no idea why your life had to hurt so much in so many ways this year. But I love you, and I cry for you and I pray for you..." I had no idea she even knew all of it. She must have known more than I thought she did. I cried and stuck the little note in my purse. And I found it the other day and stared at it with tears welling up in my eyes all over again to know that she knew and she cared.

And today. I stumbled across someone's Picasa album of photos online. I spent way too long looking, and remembering. Thinking about it consumed the rest of my day. 'Twas one of those things that very few people would understand. But God does.

And I talked to my little sister and she told me about her own heartaches while she washed dishes and I made cinnamon rolls tonight.

Cinnamon rolls because tomorrow another sister is coming over for brunch. Because tomorrow (well, I guess today now... I'm typing this well after midnight) was the due date for the first niece and grandchild in the family. A due date for a little girl who was already born months ago. All the traces left are the little metal marker pushed into the pile of clay and sod at the graveyard down the road and a few blankets and clothes we dressed her in after she was gone. Christine. She would have been being born, a chubby 7 or 8 pounds right about now. Our baby girl, just in time for Christmas. But she came in August. We're glad she came at all. We're glad Josh and Jemima had a little girl and that she still lives... in heaven!

And I think about my friend's email, "I don't tell many people the sad. Thanks for listening." I haven't had a chance to reply yet. But I'm glad she can tell me the sad. Because I do feel for her, and I pray for her.

And I'm glad I have a few friends who I can tell the sad to, who don't try to make it all better. They just put their arm around me and sit there with me.

And I'm glad I have sisters who say, "I'm glad we can talk to each other, even if nobody outside of our family would even understand this."

And I'm glad I have a mother who senses when I come home from a long day of prenatals with so much more than prenatals on my mind and says, "I found this verse today that I thought was just for you: 'O the depth of the riches of both the wisdom and knowlege of God! How unsearchable are His judgements and His ways past finding out.' " (Romans 11:33) Yes, Mama... You're right. God is wise, and He's always right. I can trust Him.

And I'm glad I have a dad who calls me when I have a long drive home just to see if I'm staying awake and to say, "Drive safe! I love you!"

And I'm glad I have a brother who's had his own share of struggles this year who comes home once in awhile and says, "I know it's midnight, but ya wanna walk a few miles and talk?"

And I'm glad for the other people in my life who care and hurt and pray with me. And people who love me enough to tell me when my responses to what life brings aren't Christ-like.

Most of all, I'm glad that Jesus knows and interceeds on my behalf before the Throne of Grace. Somedays even the nicest and best people in the world don't understand or they don't know and it wouldn't be right to burden their day with my heartaches.

But God wants to hear them from me. Psalms is mostly the troubled heart of David being poured out honestly before God - exalting God rightfully, but not hiding his hurt and confusion and longings.

It's not like God doesn't already know every thought on my mind. It's just that He wants ME to remember that HE is the Source of my life and HE is the reason I get up and go on and again and again and HE is bright Hope for the future! He waits for me to come tell Him about my joys and sorrows.

He delights to show me that He loves me by sending little boys with smushed fistfuls of weeds to my car with adoring little sisters by their sides who say, "Miss Mary, you look lobely today!" when I show up to do a home prenatal visit.

Or when I catch a snatch of the song my sister is singing at the kitchen sink: "ALL I have needed, Thy Hand hath provided... GREAT is Thy Faithfulness, Lord, unto ME!!" Or when I dig through my pile of mail (bills) and discover a card from a dear friend telling me she's praying for me.

On Accusing God...

I came across this quote the other day while reading "The Pursuit of Holiness" and found it so thought-provoking that I had to text it to several of my friends who have been living through many of the same things I have been.
It's one thing to say God is right. It's yet another to really feel in the depths of your heart that He IS right, no matter what He chooses to do with your life.

"To complain against God is in effect to deny His holiness and to say that He is somehow not fair and just. It is less injury to Him to deny His being than to deny the purity of it; the one makes Him no God, the other a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God...He that saith God is not holy and right speaks much worse than he that saith there is no God at all."
~ Stephen Churnock, 17th century

Ten Thousand Beside!

"...Strength for today, and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!"

What a life, what hope, what joy, what a future, what a God!

It's Not That I Have Nothing to Say...

It's not that my life has been quiet and calm and boring.
It's not that I have nothing to say.
It's not that I don't want to blog.

Sometimes there's just too much to say.
And never enough time.
Or there's too much to say, but here isn't the place.
Or I don't even know how to make sense of what I'm thinking.
And I have no idea how to put it into words for all the world to read.
Or if I did, I don't know that I'd want the world to read it.
Sometimes it's all just to raw and fresh and tender to share.

So, I say nothing.

Except this, the words of Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn writer:
Jesus doeth all things well!

I say that in blind faith today.
I look forward to being able to say that some day with hindsight.

Because my God is wise, and kind and good.
He's the God that has led me all my life long.
And I believe that He will continue to lead me to good,
as He always has.

The Married People Come for a Visit

All the siblings together when Josh and Jemima came out for dinner the other day.

Coming Soon ~ Wedding Pictures!

My, my! It's been over a month since my blog has seen my presence.

My sister got married and has settled down to housekeeping in their darling little house. Babies have been born, and a whole lot of other stuff has occurred. Enough to keep me constantly living life and not finding time to tell you about it. But soon, but soon... (I know, I keep saying that.)

There are so very many wedding pictures to post just as soon as we get our computer back with Adobe Photoshop. Blogging is on my to-do list, I promise. Today you'll have to be happy with this one sneak preview picture... Jemima and all of her sisters. :)

For now, I shall have to let this little post from a laptop without wedding photos suffice... Because there's so much to say but not nearly enough time to get started tonight. Because the soup for tomorrow's church lunch is cooling just a bit longer and I need to clean up the table littered with cake-baking mess and see if I can get to bed before it is tomorrow.

"Oh how great is Thy goodness, which thou hast wrought for them that fear Thee; which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee.... Blessed be the Lord: for He hath shewed me His marvelous kindness..." Psalm 31: 19, 21

Puttering On the Porch of Eternity

"Fight for us, O God, that we drift not numb and blind and foolish into vain and empty excitements. Life is too short, too precious, too painful to waste on worldly bubbles that burst. Heaven is too great, hell is too horrible, eternity is too long that we should putter around on the porch of eternity." ~ John Piper

Anybody Can Make a New Ending

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,
but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”- M. Robinson

I came across this quote today and loved it. So often, people despair because of the way things started. But, the beginning is not the end! Start anew with whatever it is that you should do better!

And now, I shall hustle off to the kitchen to make a better ending to the day. Not that the day started badly... actually, it started quite splendidly with me waking up half an hour before my alarm clock. :) I got spend some extra time reading and meditating on the Sermon on the Mount, and for a change, I managed to stick to my to-do list today and check off an awful lot of things that needed to be done.
But now it's time to make a feast for Noah's 19th birthday! I'm the only person home at the moment, so I'd better hurry to get the cake baked and turned into a big bowl of caramel trifle and get the hamburgers cooking!