Good Silence

It's the most wonderful time of the year, and one of the busiest. Of course, there are the holidays, which line up together in close succession so it seems impossible to grasp one before it slips through your hands and the next one is upon you. In my family, there are some additional celebrations that cause there to be even less breathing room between events: my husband's birthday, my birthday, and our anniversary all fall within a period of time from less than a week before Thanksgiving to less than a week before Christmas. Life can quickly feel hectic instead of joyful at this time of year.

For a week or so I have noticed myself making "to-do" lists in my mind any time there's a moment of silence (when my two-year-old is not asking me "why?"), and even in the midst of conversations. Perhaps this busyness in my brain is the reason a small passage from The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle resonates with me so strongly. Along with L'Engle's character, I "underst[and] silence, that good silence comes from inside, not outside, and that little, unimportant things can break it more easily than the big ones."

I understand that inner silence, akin to peace, cannot easily be broken by things like "buses and taxi horns and ambulance sirens" (L'Engle), "big" sounds, but I let those insignificant things like worry about the meal plan or whether or not I have time to finish making a Christmas tree skirt or answering my daughter's twelfth "why" of the day barge in and destroy my mind's silence, "break[ing] it up into noise" (L'Engle).

Those insignificant things should not have the power to ruin the silence, the peace and joy, that can run through each day and color it with brilliance. In the end, we'll eat. Decorations come and go. My daughter is a person going through a stage of learning, and I can help her through it. My perspective on our circumstances will affect my approach more than the circumstances themselves, so why shouldn't my perspective be one of contented peace? Paul says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). Meditating on such a promise, founded in the truth of a good and sovereign God, my mind and heart can be at peace, resting in good silence, this season.

Weaning and Dreams

It's been a special dream of mine since my daughter was a few months old to one day tandem breastfeed my toddler and a new baby. At first when my daughter was born, nursing was extremely difficult because of some anatomical issues, and we had to use a hospital grade pump and supplement with formula for about a week or two. After that, she was able to nurse, but it was still quite painful for a while. When my husband, in his online research to try to help our situation, stumbled across a style of breastfeeding called "laid back," my world changed. Nursing became more of a pleasant experience that both my daughter and I enjoyed.

At some point after that, I learned that when breastfeeding a toddler (for those who want to let their children nurse until they are ready to stop or for those who just want to wean at some point later than the one-year mark), some women who then get pregnant and have an infant choose to nurse the baby and continue nursing the toddler. This style is called "tandem" breastfeeding (moms of twins do it, too) because the mother is nursing more than one child at the same time (not necessarily simultaneously, although that's possible, too). I read about how lots of moms experienced tandem nursing as a wonderful bonding experience for the older child and new baby, and that some even held hands while nursing together. This amazed me and touched my touch-loving heart (physical touch is one of my strongest love languages). I've been hoping to achieve this tandem nursing since learning of it.

Baby number two is on the way now, due in late January, and my daughter and I plugged away at nursing all through about the first half of the pregnancy. She had expressed no desire to stop just because she turned two (why would she?) and I was happy to continue. But then, as morning sickness and physical tiredness set in, I decided it was time to night-wean. The pregnancy turned out to be exactly the catalyst I needed to stick with this decision and make it through the rough nights with my toddler for a while, and in the end I believe this helped her start sleeping a bit more soundly, something our whole family needed. (As a side note, my daughter, just a few weeks ago, at about two years and four months old, started sleeping through the whole night by herself for the first time in her life.)

I began restricting nursing to three to four sessions a day, which was really fairly in line with what my daughter was doing on her own anyway. It seemed to me that this plan would be a good balance between nourishing a growing baby and maintaining the breastfeeding relationship. My midwife had mentioned that some nursing women experienced a dramatic drop in milk supply later in pregnancy, but I wasn't expecting my milk to completely go away. I also never expected nursing during pregnancy to be so extremely painful. I knew about "aversion" to nursing that many women experience during pregnancy, but the discomfort and irritation I felt while nursing my toddler, especially in more recent weeks, took my by surprise.

Yet these are the things that have happened. My sense is that my supply has gone away due to pregnancy, and that simultaneously my daughter has lost interest. Who knows whether her interest dropped because the supply dropped or if it was the other way around, or whether my restricting her nursing times caused her to gradually lose her desire to nurse? The nursing was so uncomfortable anyway that it became a relief to have her say "no" to it.

Whatever the cause (I'm sure it is actually a complex mixture of many factors), my daughter is effectively weaned now, at about two years and five months old. She still asks for "nurse nurse" occasionally, but then doesn't really latch on and leaves me after a few seconds. This is not what I ever expected, and I still don't know exactly how she will respond when baby arrives and the milk supply returns; she may see baby nursing and want to participate alongside (I'd love that!). Or she may have no interest at all by that point. In any case, my dream has to be held in open hands. The pain of nursing has helped me respond to the weaning process with much less sadness than I had anticipated feeling (and that lots of women feel) during weaning. My daughter seems perfectly content with cuddles and other types of connection time with me. All in all, breastfeeding my firstborn has been a satisfying experience, whether or not there is more to come.

Baby Girl

Growing Up

Beautiful Change

Recently I enjoyed the pleasure of re-reading the first two books of C. S. Lewis' space trilogy (some of my favorite writing ever, hands down). A passage early on in the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, stands out to me each time I read the book, probably because anything related to change strikes a chord with me - I've always struggled with changes. They just don't come easily to me.

Maybe you are a thinker and worrier, like me. You can understand the intricate thought-circles that go on in the mind whenever a change, no matter how small, is anticipated. You question possible outcomes. You wonder if you will feel overwhelmed emotionally or be too weary to handle everything. You don't want the way things are now to end.

Lewis' main character, Elwin Ransom, encounters a mind-bogglingly big change in the first part of Out of the Silent Planet: He travels unexpectedly and against his own will to a new planet. When he realizes where he is headed, he is understandably afraid (he's also led to believe there are malicious beings on the planet). However, when he finally views the planet for the first time, his mindset radically shifts: "Before anything else he learn[s] that Malacandra is beautiful."

Ransom had expected a harsh, alien landscape, and when he is surprised by the beauty of the planet, he analyzes his own surprise: "he even reflect[s] how odd it was that this possibility had never entered into his speculations about it." Ransom questions his own thinking and cannot come up with a reason why he should have thought the planet would be ugly or frightening instead of beautiful.

The expectation that a new experience will necessarily be negative or scary comes mostly from apprehension of the unknown. I know what my current circumstances are like, and so I feel a certain sense of order and control over them. When all I can see in front of me is a blank, I don't know what will happen, and so I expect the worst. Why should I think like this? Why shouldn't a change bring positive and good things into my life just as easily as challenges or hardships? Indeed, why wouldn't challenges in themselves become good things if I handle them through trust in a God who loves me?

A new situation in my life, such as bringing a new baby into the family or moving to a new city, may turn out to look beautiful or it may turn out to look like "rocky desolation" (Lewis), but either way, my anticipation of it need not be fear-filled. I might as equally well expect joy as depression, pleasure as sorrow, and smoothness as roughness. In reality, I've experienced that most changes bring a mixture of all types of emotions, challenges, and fun. In any case, when the sovereign God of the universe is the one bringing me through it, I can pass with an inner peace from the "now" into the "then" - He's going to make each chapter of this life beautiful in the end, anyway.

Homemade Mistakes

The other day I was able to finish sewing my toddler a new dress. I've made a dress using the same pattern before, so the process was not completely new to me, but I'm still no expert seamstress. While I was able to sew comfortably without making as many mistakes as the first attempt (during which I had to rip out many seams and start over many times, as well as contact customer service for the pattern I bought to ask a question about how to do one of the steps), I still could not execute the project as cleanly as I would have liked.

When sewing the slightly puffed sleeves onto the dress bodice (one of the most finicky parts of the dress, along with the dreaded placket), I could not get through without puckering parts of the bodice on the front of the dress. I had to cut out one part and start over, but then the same thing happened again anyway, and then again with the second sleeve. Frustrated, I held up the dress to my face to examine my error and sighed. Should I cut the threads and start again, probably with the same result?

pucker one

pucker two

before hemming

In a moment, I decided to leave the mistakes as they were and abandon my impulse to make the dress look "perfect." The dress is homemade, after all, I told myself. It has more character with a bit of mess-up in it. And who's going to notice these small puckers once the entire dress is complete and my goofy, friendly, sweet daughter is inside it?

Homemade life, by which I mean real life (not magazine or Instagram or Facebook life) has flaws. As much as I want to be in control, organized, and on top of things at all times, I'm human. This lesson seems to return to me over and over: I will make mistakes, it's fine to make mistakes, and mistakes can even be good as they teach me important things. Making mistakes shows me and the people around me that I'm a person just like everyone else; mistakes invite openness and trust. Can people be comfortable with someone whose life is essentially a Real Simple photograph?

Furthermore, as my mom always told me (and as experience has shown to be true), people aren't looking that closely at me; they are too busy worrying about themselves! If someone is getting close enough to see a tiny pucker in my life, I am probably returning the favor and we are having a constructive chat about our problems. If that person is secretly judging me in private, then it's not my problem at all.

However, if someone does look at my life, flaws and all, I hope the sweetness of the heart of Jesus can overpower any impression of my personal faults. I'm not perfect, nor can I be in this lifetime, but Jesus told His disciples to "be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). The perfection of God's intentions, desires, mindset, and plans should be visible through my own motives, mindset, and actions, even though I mess up. The puckers and ripped seams are mine; the finished beautiful garment, which will in the end be perfected (Romans 8:22-30), is God's.

The Former Student

Recognition swept across both of their faces as Callie stepped out of the elevator at the floor of her office and almost walked into the person standing there. Both simultaneously said, "Hey, how are you?" Then the older woman waiting to get on the elevator asked, "Did you teach this summer?"

"No, I didn't; it was a nice break," Callie answered with nods of emphasis.

"I know - I came to see you, but you weren't there - I figured you weren't teaching. Hey, what did you think of my 'Goodman Brown' paper?" Jane, confident, without fishing for a compliment, asked in her pleasantly loud voice.

"I thought it was good, really insightful, in-depth," Callie answered truthfully, though caught off-guard by the question, and having had a solid three months of break, having moved to a new city, and having planned for a new semester all since reading that final research paper.

"Oh, thank you! I just knew it was good. Thank you, Ms. Trindle!" Jane poured out the words with genuine delight, though her countenance displayed a sense of self-assurance and a knowledge that she was fine with our without this bit of affirmation. "Your class was my favorite class of all time, so far in my school," she added.

"Well, good; I'm glad you enjoyed it," Callie said, still taken a little aback.

"You're an awesome teacher," Jane continued, but with an air of ending the brief encounter so both ladies could move on with their schedules.

Callie, laughing, not sure how to respond, but wanting to do so graciously, said, "Thanks - you were an awesome student!" She really meant it, too, although that language, borrowed from Jane's remark, would not have been her own choice, she being such a deliberate and subdued teacher. Relating to students on a personal level had always both excited and puzzled her: how casual could she be? Could she let her guard down, or didn't she have to maintain that invisible boundary, for authority's sake? She was so young, after all, for a college teacher (in her mind, anyway): twenty-six, and just recently married, with no kids to add any of that almost intangible "mom-gravity" to her person, that gravitas that some teachers seemed to have, maybe since they were used to taking no nonsense from their own little 'students' at home. Callie did not reflect on all of these thoughts often, but her general picture of herself was definitely tinged with the drab colors of small, pervasive doubts and cautions.

The carpet and walls looked sharper as she walked back to her office after this conversation with her former student. Half-closed blinds and some buildings outside obstructed the view through the window at the end of the hallway, so that as she walked towards it, Callie could only see a small patch of what happened to be a bright blue sky.

Charm Bracelet Wisdom

I have a charm bracelet somewhere. It's silver and jingly and a bit too heavy to wear comfortably. All those memories! The problem is that I can't find it. Since I cannot remember the last time I wore or saw it, I am not sure if it would have been packed into a moving box from my college days, from the time my parents moved from my childhood home to a new city, or from one of my many moves since getting married and living in three different cities and several apartments. Is it tucked away in a little white cardboard box with gauzy padding? Is it hiding at the bottom of a drawer underneath assorted items unrelated to jewelry? Did I drop it in a random parking lot?

If my charm bracelet had been a staple part of my daily ensemble, I doubt that it would now be lost. It is such a noticeable piece to wear, due to its weight and the sounds it makes, that if it had fallen off somehow, surely I would have been aware immediately and been able to pick it up. During each of my many moves, it would have been packed with care and attention. I would have been able to unpack it and wear it again after settling into the new place.

The silver charm bracelet makes me think of the proverbs that compare wisdom with silver, gold, and jewels. Wisdom, personified, speaks:

Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. (Proverbs 8:10-11)

Wisdom and knowledge in themselves are more precious than tangible, physical wealth. Additionally, what results in a person's life because she seeks wisdom is more precious than riches: 

My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver. (Proverbs 8:19)

What are the results of seeking wisdom? Proverbs 8 mentions many qualities that wisdom possesses, such as nobility, truth, insight, strength, justice, and righteousness. To wrap it all up, wisdom declares that "whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord" (8:35) rather than "injur[y]" and "death" (36). Yes, life and favor from the God of the universe seem more valuable than silver! I would like to find those things more than my missing charm bracelet.

Proverbs further explains that the "fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (9:10). The way to start seeking wisdom is to revere and acknowledge the sovereignty of the Holy God who made us and knows what is ultimately best for us, trusting and submitting ourselves to His loving care. But Psalm 111:10 suggests that the fear of the Lord is not just a decision to be made in one moment and then forgotten:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

To seek and to attain wisdom, we must continually practice the fear of the Lord. It is an ongoing choice we must exercise as we make decisions, talk with people, and work at our jobs. The fear of the Lord should be part of the daily ensemble with which we dress ourselves. "His praise endures forever," and we can make our lives a part of that forever praise.

It is a big challenge to daily practice the fear of the Lord in my own life, with a toddler and a house to keep up with, and when even getting enough sleep is difficult to achieve. But I know that I don't want my relationship with God, and the wisdom and blessing that come with knowing Him, to be lost in a box somewhere. I want to keep these precious things close to me, like a piece of jewelry that I wear every day. I want them to be so habitual that if I drop them, I notice something missing. I'm praying that God will help me see the small and simple ways throughout the day that I can seek and honor Him.

Peppermint Lemons

Once when I was a kid my cousins from about eight hours away came to visit during the summer. My aunt, who happens to be one of the neatest ladies I know, gave us a special snack one afternoon while we took a break from swimming in the pool in the backyard. She cut holes into unpeeled lemons and stuck soft, fat peppermint sticks (the kind that dissolve easily) into the holes. The candy sticks acted like straws after we started to suck on them, because the acidic lemon juice worked its way inside and made holes through the candy. Those simple lemons became especially refreshing sweet and sour treats through the creative addition of sugary mediators.

My two-year-old daughter came down with a nasty stomach bug this week and was vomiting for a night and a day. She could hardly keep down even simple liquids. Ice chips saved the day that first day of sickness, keeping her hydrated, at least. The second day, she stopped throwing up and was able to keep down some liquids and food, though she was still zombie-like (definitely not her usual, energetic self). The third day, she finally showed signs of returning to normal levels of talking and activity, a huge relief.

Though the first couple of days of her sickness were trying and we lost a lot of sleep on the first night, I rather enjoyed the lazy and cuddly quality the days took on. My daughter and I spent a lot of time situated comfortably on the couch (which I now need to clean), either listening to music or watching a baby animals show, and dozing on and off throughout the day. We both benefited from the catch-up on sleep and rest, and I greatly enjoyed the way my daughter relaxed with her head in my lap or stretched out flat while I rubbed her back. Touch is one of my strongest love languages, and usually she doesn't sit still long enough for me to even brush out her hair.

Uncomfortable, sour-tasting events make us wince, like sucking on a plain lemon. But if we can find something sweet in the midst of the situation, our perspective can change. The hard thing may not go away, and we will still have to deal with it, and dealing with it may not at all be easy. But the flavor of the day can be transformed, even though we still have to eat the sour part of it.

Sweetness in the middle of sickness.

Rest when we needed it.

Cuddles make everything better.

Furniture Un-Success

September 30, 2016

I want a space to myself:
pink, with a blue desk that doesn't
smell like cigarette smoke.
Isn't almost-the-right-thing
worse than
nothing-at-all-yet?
And what am I to do
with the drawer that sticks
and stinks even though I tried
filling each cavity with the thick scent
of lavender oil,
using tiny, handmade sachets?
All that work
for nothing.
That drawer didn't stick
until I had painted the thing.
And it all sat outside for a week, collecting
extra bug parts and mysterious
white clusters of malicious, minuscule eggs.
Sun and air were supposed to work
magic.
Nothing.
And my husband says it's all in my head
anyway, but what does that matter
when you want a space
all to yourself,
pink, with a blue desk for the
sewing machine your mom gave you,
a space for silence and whirring and
needles?

Emptiness of a Clean Manger

Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox. - Proverbs 14:4 

I like to be tidy and organized. I wish my house were cleaner than it ever is (having a toddler running about making messes defeats my efforts most of the time). I desire orderly days and routines I can count on.

Change? No, thank you. Spontaneity? Only if it's planned.

Whenever there's a trip looming in my future, even just a short drive up to visit my family in a nearby town, I tend to feel stressed. The routines I have established at home will not be there and I am not exactly confident in what I can expect, so I worry. I'm currently in the midst of a travel-intense season, and each trip is for a wonderful purpose (visiting family and relaxing vacation), but I am a tightly-wound stress ball. I know our routines related to meals and bedtime and sleep will be disrupted, and I know emotional strain and tiredness will ensue, and I know there will be messy challenges. Long car drives with four small children (my daughter and three nieces) are hard, and airports are hard. No matter the approach, I know these trips will take lots of flexibility on my part.

In the first half of the proverb about the oxen, I get the sense that the writer is being ironic. How can one have a manger with no oxen? If one has no oxen, then what is the manger for? Of course one must need oxen if one has a manger or one wouldn't have built the manger in the first place. It's an odd image, an empty manger. But the manger is clean. Isn't that appealing? Also, with no oxen, one doesn't have the expense of feeding and caring for the oxen. That sounds easy.

But, as the writer states, how else can a farmer sow and reap an abundant harvest except through the help of the strong ox? The farmer desires an abundant crop, so he puts up with cleaning the messy manger. The benefits of having the oxen outweigh the challenges.

Similarly, if I desire an abundant life, I must deal with the inconveniences that come along with children, a spouse, family, friends, travels, cooking, etc. Relationships are messy, but they are worthwhile. Building a home focused more on flourishing lives than on sparkling cleanliness is frustrating at times, but can influence my family and friends for the better. Travels for the sake of spending time with faraway family and vacations that allow reconnecting with my spouse are challenging endeavors, but they also provide abundance: deep conversations, games, laughter, shared meals, new experiences, future memories, rest.

I could stay home, furiously maintain an organized, spotless house, and never change the routine, keeping the manger empty and clean. However, I would be robbing myself of the abundant life that I can have if I let in that ox, enjoy the feast from the bountiful harvest, and, with a grateful attitude, clean up his poo, perhaps with a grimace on my face.

Alternate Packing List

Everyday Basics:

• smiles
• laughter
• kindness
• patience
• songs

Must-Haves:

• prayer
• verses tucked away in hidden pockets

Don't Forget:

• flexibility
• deep breaths
• lots of hugs

In Case of Emergency:

• spare big-girl panties

Pruning

In my small group at church we've talked about pruning a couple of times now. In John 15:1-2, Jesus says, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful." The book our group is reading together, Trusting God by Jerry Bridges, discusses this passage a bit as a way of explaining some of the adversity that Christians encounter. Adversity is a way for God to "prune" us so we can become more fruitful. Even though pruning is not a fun experience, we are supposed to be glad when we recognize it because we know God has good plans in mind.

I know that pruning can take various forms. Perhaps God takes away an opportunity to do something I was looking forward to so I learn to rejoice in Him. Perhaps He makes getting enough sleep an impossibility for a while so I learn to rely on Him more. Perhaps He takes away my familiar surroundings and moves me to a new place with new people and a new job so I learn that my true identity is based in Him and not in my circumstances.

We moved to San Antonio just over a year ago, and I became a stay-at-home mom almost two years ago. Those two changes quickly removed me from settings where I felt comfortable and purposeful. I had friends there. It seemed to me that I was someone there. When I started staying at home with my little one and no longer had those stable routines about me, I felt like a dried-up, cut off version of myself. I didn't recognize myself or my purpose anymore.

When we moved into our new house, there was a mystery bush near the fence in the backyard underneath the shade of an oak tree. It was quite tall, about as tall as my husband. During winter it was just branches, but in summer it was covered with dark, pointed leaves. Finally this year my dad identified it for us as a Mexican fire bush. He hadn't recognized it the first summer because it had never bloomed. He told us that it needed sun in order to produce its bright orange flowers. We could move it and hope it started blooming if we took the trouble to dig out its root ball and dig a new hole for it in a sunny spot.

Well, a few weeks ago my husband got out the trimmers and shovel and started to cut and dig. First he pruned the long branches of the shrub so it would not be so unwieldy. Then he cut a wide circle in the soil around the base of the plant. Soon he got to the roots and discovered that those things were massive. We don't know how long some of the roots were because eventually he had to stop digging and simply chop the roots with loppers in order to get the bush out of the ground. The biggest root was about five inches across where he cut it. Finally, after much sweat and probably a few blisters, he was able to move the bush to its new spot, also dug out by him, in a sunnier place. A few days later, my husband reflected, "You know, after moving that fire bush, I feel somehow like it's more mine."

The bush still looks puny right now. It hasn't grown back to its former height, and it has yet to put on greenery for the summer, but we are hopeful that in its new spot it will produce not only pretty leaves, but gorgeous blooms, too. Maybe it will attract butterflies and hummingbirds. It could never have done those things in the old place.

When my Father, the infallible gardener, moves me to a new place, cutting off roots and taking away nice long branches that seem to be doing just fine, I can trust that His purpose is good. He plans for me to be more effective and beautiful, and to bring more glory to Him in the new place. Even if I feel less fruitful for a time immediately after the pruning, I know the end result will be a more abundant life than what was before. Also, as He puts me in new situations that cause me to recognize that my significance comes from Him, He is making me more His own.

Hold Her Hand

The Texas mountain laurels are blooming right now. Full-grown, they are gorgeous trees covered with purple blossoms that make all the air smell like grape sweet tarts. Wouldn't you want to be so beautiful if you were a tree?

photo courtesy of Matt Kolodzie

A few weeks ago, I held my daughter's hand as she took tenuous steps along the rock border of our small raised garden bed. Seeing her watch her feet and carefully step so slowly reminded me of something that happened to me about seven years ago, when I was in grad school and feeling extremely unsure of myself as a person. During the Christmas break I visited my mom and dad and went to their church for the Christmas Eve service. There in the peaceful sanctuary, when it was time for Communion, we had a silent, individual prayer time. My prayer went something like:

God, I know I need to be more like the woman who twirls around in big, flowing skirts at the top of bright green hills with blue skies all around her, her face shining as she looks up and laughs at the clouds. She's so exuberant and full of life. I need to be like that, and I'm not. I don't trust You enough. I'm so anxious all the time. 

Suddenly, in the midst of my insecure ramblings, a vivid picture came into my mind. It was a picture of a small girl wearing dark-colored clothes that fit her well but were not flowing skirts. The girl was walking along a pathway that wasn't lit very well, and the whole background was fairly dark, too. The girl was holding a hand, though. She was taking steps slowly while holding a hand whose owner was not visible. God reassured me with this vivid picture by telling me that, though I was going slowly and might not have an outgoing, exuberant personality, I was trusting Him and walking faithfully as the woman He made me to be. That careful woman was just as beautiful as the spinning woman on the hill.

When my daughter walked along the garden border taking slow, careful steps, she was trusting me to catch her and to guide her in this new adventure she'd just discovered. She was being completely herself and completely lovely in doing so. If she'd been running along recklessly, I'd have been a bit frustrated, and she probably would have hurt herself.

Some people are quick to settle in, establish "roots," find their niches, make friends, and adjust to new roles. Some are slower. The Texas mountain laurel is notorious for being a slow-growing tree that may not bloom for several years after being planted. We have one in our yard that we planted almost right away when we first moved to our new house in our new city. It's been a year now, and there has barely been any new visible growth at all, and certainly no blooming. My husband told me just the other day, when I was feeling a bit down regarding my ability to feel settled in my life as a new mom in a new place, that I was like the mountain laurel, slow to become established, but with potential for beautiful blossoms after a time.

Looking closely at our little slow-growing tree, I can see some brighter green new leaves at the ends of some of the darker green branches that have been there for a while. When I look closely at my life, I can see improvements and growth - perhaps small, but there nonetheless. Praise God, who always holds my hand, for causing all kinds of growth, whether fast or slow, big or small, joyous in purple blooms or deliberate in tender stems and leaves!

our small mountain laurel

Covenant Marriage: Freedom to Fight, Fight to Freedom

I first read about the concept that covenant marriage provides great security for the spouses in Timothy Keller's excellent The Meaning of Marriage a little more than three years ago, when my now-husband and I read the book together during our engagement. But I've never experienced the truth of the idea so explicitly as when, recently, my husband and I went through a couple of difficult weeks during which we got into a nasty pattern of fighting and being angry with each other over some fairly insignificant issues. I suppose that after three years of marriage we have reached a point where we are each trying to figure out what marriage and parenting look like and how we should navigate our relationship through the little trials that daily life brings. Sometimes, as I'm sure every married person knows, tension, tiredness, and frustration can spill over into shouting and resentment aimed at your spouse.

When this pattern of anger happened between us, my husband and I felt confused as to why it was happening and how to fix it. But we did not feel confused about one thing: we are married, which means we have a committed covenant relationship with each other. And that reality is not going away, no matter what we might feel. Having a covenant between us means we are not in this relationship "at will," leaving a back door open for either party to walk out. Instead, knowing we are together as long as we both live means we aren't thinking of leaving as an option. The only option is to work it out.

As we struggled through our bitter fights, we periodically reminded each other that we were still married, and that we still loved each other. I can tell you that we did not feel in love at the time! Far from it. But hearing those words, "I am with you. I do love you," from my husband meant that I had freedom to be myself and work through our fighting and the terrible emotions we were both experiencing without fear of abandonment. There is amazing security in the covenant.

However, the covenant commitment also means that we did not want to stay in our pattern of anger for very long. How awful would it be if we felt anger with no positive change or hope for the rest of our lives? Instead of resigning ourselves to the "fact" of our emotions, we recognized that, precisely because we are committed, we needed to work to make things better. What worked for us in this case was simply setting aside our complaints against each other for a time (not to sweep them under the rug, but as a temporary "truce"), and focusing on being affectionate through basic things like encouraging words and hugs. Maybe this sounds too simple, but it has been helping us. As we let ourselves (through choosing every day to be affectionate) have a break from the habit of bitterness, we found ourselves being more and more able to productively talk about what had been bothering us. Fighting to maintain affection is possible, and emotions can be chosen, though not always easily.

Let me say as a final note that my husband and I believe covenant marriage truly works only when God, who created marriage in the first place, is a party in the commitment along with the two spouses. In such cases, marriage is truly the best blessing and the biggest way God can shape a person into being more like Himself.

He Loves Me Even When He's at Work

In honor of National Marriage Week, I want to write about one of the lessons I've been learning in my own marriage lately (which is just an easier way of saying I struggle to handle this situation like an adult sometimes).

Due to the nature of my husband's job, he has some seasons of busyness that can leave me feeling lonely and even unloved. My strongest love languages*, the ways I most clearly receive and naturally want to give love, are touch and quality time. Needless to say, when my husband works long hours, I do not get touches from or quality time with him. As a stay-at-home mom, I instead spend most of the day (and night!) caring for a little one and feeling, at the end of each week, pretty well emotionally drained.

At those times when I'm feeling most lonely and in need of some simple affection from my guy, my awful tendency is to start resenting him and his job instead of remembering the plain truth that it is a blessing that I have such a loving husband in the first place and that he has a job that allows him to take care of our needs in the second place.

I should also remind myself during those times that my husband's love language is not the same as mine. In fact, his love language is most often acts of service. When he's at home, he loves me by taking care of the house and doing chores I may not have had time for that day. He also perceives his job as an act of service (and therefore love) for me. When he's working hard at his job, he's actively loving me. He hasn't forgotten me.

Let me also never forget that ultimately the meeting of all of my emotional needs comes from my Father in heaven, not from my husband (though I believe God uses my husband in many ways to meet those needs). God showed His great love for me by sending His Son, Jesus, to die for me even though I was not loving Him back (Romans 5:8). He loves me still even when I do get resentful of my husband's work and both totally disrespect my husband and sneer at God's precious gifts in doing so. He is always with me. He has promised never to leave or forsake me (Hebrews 13:5).

Let me speak truth to my tired and lonely heart even when I don't feel it this week: I am loved, and I am not alone.

___

*The idea of love languages comes from Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages.

Dillard and Hopkins on the Mystery of Beauty

In December I finished reading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. In her first of two afterwords, written eight years apart, Dillard calls this book a "theodicy," which is a "defense of God's goodness and omnipotence in view of the existence of evil" (Merriam-Webster) (I had to look it up). The book takes on this task, albeit in a complicated and indirect way. Throughout it, Dillard closely examines the natural world, observing and commenting on its intricacies, curiosities, beauties, and horrors. She certainly doesn't shy away from looking at the problem of evil, but that's a post for another day. She also expounds on some of the most glorious and abundantly good aspects of nature, one of which is birdsong. Specifically, Dillard raises the question, "Why do birds sing?" Scientists still haven't figured it out, she says. So she posits her own theory and invokes a poem ("As Kingfishers Catch Fire") by one of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins, to do so:

It could be that a bird sings I am sparrow, sparrow, sparrow, as Gerard Manley Hopkins suggests: 'myself it speaks and spells, Crying What I do is me: for that I came.' (Dillard)

Dillard goes on to clarify that she believes the proper question we should ask is not what the birdsong means, but why it is so beautiful. To Dillard, "beauty is something objectively performed" - in other words, it exists whether we see it or not, and its existence is not subject to the feelings of those who look at it. However, she also claims that beauty is a "language to which we have no key"; we cannot figure out what the "code" of beauty is attempting to communicate.

Strange supposition for a person writing a theodicy. I think Dillard's unspoken thesis of this passage is that the answer to the question "Why is birdsong beautiful" is that God exists, He is beautiful, and He created birds. The answer is implied, or else Dillard is remaining agnostic on this point. Maybe my own strong views on the subject are leading me astray in my reading of the passage. In any case, why would a woman setting out to defend God's goodness claim that beauty is indecipherable? Especially, why would she claim this just after bringing up a poem like "As Kingfishers Catch Fire," one that clearly supposes quite a particular key to the mystery of beauty and spells out what that key is?

Dillard quotes only just under two lines from Hopkins' poem, and fails to reference the major point that Hopkins is making with the entire poem, though his point could be taken as a direct answer to Dillard's question about the meaning of the beauty of birdsong (or any other beauty). The poem reads:

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame; 

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells 

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's 

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; 

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: 

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; 

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, 

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came. 

I say móre: the just man justices; 

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces; 

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is — 

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places, 

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his 

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Hopkins lists several things in the poem, each of which "speaks itself": kingfishers, dragonflies, stones, strings (perhaps instruments), bells. Indeed, "each mortal thing" exists to be itself, he says. In the second part of the poem, Hopkins extends the list to specifically include man, though of course humans already fall under the rubric of "each mortal thing." In the end, men exist to exhibit Christ, or, put another way, to reveal God. If men bear the image of God, as Hopkins believed, then this reflection of God "through the features of men's faces" makes sense. Men are like mirrors showing who God is to anyone who takes a moment to look and see.

I would argue that, for Hopkins, not only do the humans reveal God, but so do the animals and even inanimate objects listed earlier in the poem. First, as Hopkins moves from part one to part two of the poem, I believe he is getting more precise, adding more clarity, expounding ("I say more"). Second, taken with other poems of his, this one falls right in line with his frequent theme that the beauty in the natural, created world (and also in beautiful, man-made objects) reveals to us the nature of God. Take as one example a couple of lines from "God's Grandeur": "The world is charged with the grandeur of God" (1). Despite the mess humans have made of things (5-8), "There lives the dearest freshness deep down things" (10). Because God is still involved with his creation (13-14), His creation still reflects His beauty and reveals His nature. Take also the poem "Pied Beauty," in which Hopkins gives glory to God for the varied beauty He has created. After listing several things given by God to the earth and to man, including birds, fish, cows, landscapes, work, and even sounds and tastes, Hopkins concludes that all of these things "[God] fathers-forth whose beauty is past change" (10). Because God, with unchanging beauty, has created all of the beauty we experience in the world, we should "Praise Him" (11). It is clear from these and many other of Hopkins' poems that for Hopkins, beauty is from God, reveals to us God's beautiful nature, and therefore calls us to worship God.

Did Dillard miss this larger point in "As Kingfishers Catch Fire"? Or does she simply choose to ignore it and leave it out of her own writing? I am not sure. But to anyone looking for a clear defense of God's goodness and omnipotence despite the evil in the world, I suggest a reading of Hopkins. Dillard and Hopkins have something in common: both write with intensity in response to their observations of nature. However, while Dillard's defense of God is more elaborate and complex than Hopkins', it is also less direct, and I find that Hopkins' often exuberant language creates a sense of the thrill and awe we humans can experience when we observe nature with the Creator in mind.