Coming Clean in 2015

Over the years in my life, I have become a very skilled liar. I don't mean the kind of liar who looks you right in the face and fabricates scenarios, or embellishes details in order to fit the present need (though if you ask my mom, she will probably tell you I did my fair share of this as a little girl). I mean a very different kind of liar; the kind of liar that exists in some small way, in each of us. I had perfected into an art form the practice of lying to myself and of keeping truths to myself when they should have been shared with others. I would stuff these truths down into a dark corner of my soul, pretending that they didn't exist, and beating them over the head when they threatened to emerge.  Looking them square in the face felt too threatening, too scary, or too risky.

Adversity in life is a funny thing. Whether it is self-inflicted or inflicted upon us, it creates the same reaction. It lights a fire in our soul that burns so hotly that it can feel like we are being consumed. But eventually, if we allow it to, it purifies whatever it touches. The bigger the adversity, the larger the flame, and the greater its capacity to purify. Though I am no Job, I have seen my share of adversity in my life. Some of it is readily obvious. You need only talk to me for 10 minutes to learn about the basic details of it. Other trials I have endured require a much more intimate relationship to be revealed. These are only shared with a very exclusive group of people. Finally, their are struggles that are so private that I do not trust them with anyone at all, only myself. Suffice it to say, I have seen my share. (To those who don't know me well, please don't take this is a "woe is me" pity party. To those who DO know me, well,  you already know that I don't have a single pity party bone in my body. It is purely a statement of fact).

 With each adversity that I have experienced in my life, the flame has grown larger and larger, catching on fire everything that it touches. There came a point when it had burned for so long that I stopped to look, and realized I could see straight through myself and out the other side. Not to say that I was perfectly pure, but the heat had taken the gritty, murky sand of my awareness and turned it into crystal clear glass.  I could see my motivations, intentions, actions, and who I was with a clarity that took me aback. It was a terrifying experience, one that I had to introduce myself to in degrees, because as I looked through the new glass of my self-awareness, I saw the liar that I had become.

Dishonesty has more power than people give it credit for in our society of self advancement.  Its power is one of destruction and separation. The power of dishonesty is that it takes the parties in a relationship and it separates them emotionally. The greater or more frequent the dishonesty, the further the separation. If we are dishonest with our significant others, a rift is created that can leave us feeling like islands when what we should feel is oneness. When we are dishonest with our friends and colleagues, it becomes impossible to feel close and lasting bonds with them. And finally, when we are dishonest with ourselves, we rob ourselves of the most valuable relationship we can have on this earth, the one that is with us every second of every minute of every day.

Inversely, the greater our honesty with ourselves and those around us, the stronger the bond that is formed in our relationships. We become welded together in associations that can transcend what we ever thought possible in this life. This is the feeling we have when our hearts feel like they could burst out of our chests when we consider someone that we love.

At the onset of 2015, I gathered the courage to take a good long look through the glass that is me. Having worked so hard at being a liar, I had created a distant little island,  emotionally separated from all I had lied to, especially myself.  I realized what I had known for a very long time, that I was lonely. The saddest part about it all was that I knew exactly why and I knew that the power to change it was completely within my control. I say sad, but really it was liberating. Deliciously, terrifyingly liberating. And so I made a New Year's Resolution. I resolved that 2015 would be a year of HONESTY.  No more lying to myself. No more keeping truths from others.

This new honesty evolved and shifted, taking many different forms in my life.  Though I had committed to speaking my truth, I was still the same girl that I had always been. A.big.fat.chicken. I discovered a tool early on in the year that saved my resolution from dying a sad and untimely death. I discovered that the truth flowed out of me like water when I used the written word.

 I began to use this arrow in my quiver slowly and tentatively, realizing in layers the versatility that this voice gave me. I used it to blog about some of the most tender, sacred, or harrowing moments in my life. My goal was to share my truth so that others might benefit from a shared experience, but also because I knew it made me feel emotionally connected to my greater network of friends, family, and acquaintances. Each post that I wrote caused anxiety and several reconsiderations of whether to make myself that vulnerable to the outside world. As I was tempted to shrink from sharing, I remembered that vulnerability is one of the purist forms of honesty. Therefore, vulnerability, as terrifying as it inherently is, creates healthy emotional bonds. So, I shared.

I used my tool of writing to speak the truth inside of me to people who I was not yet friends with, but so sincerely wanted to be. Making friends has never come easily to me, and the dishonesty of keeping truths to myself that should have been shared had made it virtually impossible over the years. With my resolution, sometimes it was all I could muster to send a terrifying, child-like text that said "Hey. I think you are great. I want to be your friend". Other times I would write to tell someone a truth that I felt they needed to hear. These formed messages, texts, and notes filled with the amazing qualities I saw in the people around me. As I shared with them, I felt relationships grow stronger. Other times, the truth that needed to be spoken was an uncomfortable one.  There were times when someone wronged me through insensitive or blatant words or acts. The old me would swallow this truth, holding it in my stomach until it made me feel physically sick. As I found the courage to say these truths to the appropriate party in a mature way, I felt the liberation of honesty. True to form, miraculously, these truths created stronger emotional relationships as well.

I learned to be more honest with my husband and my family, my most favorite relationships that I possess. I said the truths about how I felt about them as often as I could think of them.  I allowed them to see me as I truly am, as difficult as that was at times. The discoveries we made along the way from being honest have taken us from the a place of futility and darkness to a place of light, hope, and progress.  

Being honest with myself was the hardest skill to learn. I am human, and therefore, I am made up of many beautiful and weak parts. I took myself apart, piece by piece. I owned the weak parts so that I could understand them for what they were and learn to improve them if I could, or navigate my life within them if I must. The beautiful parts were as hard to face as the weak ones. Probably more so, actually. Statements of truth about my personal strengths left me with "Who do you think you are?" feelings. I decided to push through, so that I could hone the talents that God gave me. As I learned to analyze these beautiful and weak parts of me, and see them for what they really were, the emotional bond I felt with myself increased ten-fold. I felt more mercy for my weaknesses and more admiration for my strengths. It sounds funny to say, but I found a greater friend in myself than I found in anyone else during this year.

As 2015 draws to a close, I raise my glass of sparkling cider in a toast to the things I learned this year. Here's to vulnerability, and raw honesty. They are game changers.  I look forward to the journey that 2016 has in store for me. One thing is for sure. Its going to be a wild ride.














 

Catching Up

Do you remember when we were dating and you took me on that date to Starbucks? You had to leave for Army Basic Training in San Antonio just a few days after we were engaged. We spent our entire engagement apart, only seeing each other a couple of times before our wedding. I thought I would die from the ache of being apart from you. You were so thoughtful when you called to tell me that you had come up with a way for us to continue to go on dates even though there were a 1000 miles between us. You told me you wanted to take me on a date to Starbucks. We both were deeply engrossed in a love affair with their Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino. You told me to go to the Starbucks in Mesa at 6pm and you would arrive at the same time at the one in San Antonio. We would both buy a drink, call each other, and then sit there and talk while we enjoyed our treat. I was convinced you were the most romantic boy on the face of this planet.

I spent the hour before our meeting time curling my hair, paying special attention to my makeup, and picking out an outfit that I felt complimented my "never carried a child", still super slim figure. Even though I knew you couldn't see me, I wanted to be in the right frame of mind to spend time with you. I arrived a couple of minutes early, ordered my drink, and settled into the modern sofa in the corner for our intimate date. We talked about your struggle to find your place in the Army, my cache of stories from my first year of teaching middle school, and plans for our upcoming wedding. After an hour had passed, I gave up the couch to the next customer and left feeling like I had connected with you on another level, despite the worlds between us.

We haven't gone on a date in a long time.

My mom randomly stopped by today and offered to watch the kids while I took Reagan to ballet. This gave me a 45 minute window during her class to spend however I wanted. I knew immediately what I wanted to do with this rare luxury. We were going on a date. I arrived at our Starbucks, ordered my Double Chocolatey Chip Frappuccino, and settled into the couch in the corner. I didn't touch my phone. This time was about you and me. I wanted to give you my undivided attention. I sipped slowly on my cold drink and thought about the differences in me since the last time we were in this place. I'm carrying 25 extra pounds, courtesy of 4 beautiful children. My hair was pulled into a messy pony tail, and I was wearing my mom uniform. Skinny Jeans. Black t-shirt. Tennis shoes. Nothing special here. I have several fine lines on my face that weren't there the last time we did this, and the little bit of makeup I put on this morning has since worn off.  Instead of having a single solitaire diamond engagement ring on my left hand, I wear a wedding ring on the ring finger of both hands. Sometimes I don't even recognize myself.

I closed my eyes as we talked about Reagan, how I don't think about you as often as I would like, and how you don't talk to me nearly as often as I would like. I squeezed my eyes tight to hold back the tears that threatened to escape, feeling the ache from the distance that separates us. I sat there, just you and me, a million miles apart, but somehow together at the same time. It was good to catch up.

Life is Beautiful

I stole quietly into my 14 month old baby boy's room this morning. I normally go in with a big smile, singing a little song. He greets me with his 5 toothed grin and as much bedhead as he can muster with the modest amount of hair he is sporting these days. Today was a little different because he wasn't awake quite yet, and I wanted it to stay that way. I just needed a few moments to stare at him, to drink him in. Though he can be VERY loud during the day, reaching octaves I thought were reserved only for Pterodactyls, in this moment he was peaceful. I wanted to focus on his life and how in a seeming blink of a eye he had welded his soul to mine. His life holds infinite value for me. It held value before I ever felt those quiet butterfly motions that were the first tangible sign that he was really, really there.

 

 I needed to start slow and thoughtful this morning. I had a rough night, to say the least.  I spent hours tossing and turning. Left side, right side, on my back, and repeat. I searched in the darkness for the time on my non-illuminated clock for what seemed like the millionth time. I could hear Ryan's slow and steady breath next to me. It was comforting, and yet still didn't apply enough of the soothing balm necessary to take away the thoughts that assaulted me from every angle. Images and words tore through my brain like a jagged knife.

 

That's what I get for watching the GOP debate right before I go to bed. I know. I know. I have a few friends and family members that will be inclined to shove their phone back in their pocket or slam the laptop lid shut and not read another sentence. I totally understand. I've done the same to you before (wink wink). Though I am a fiercely political person, I do my very best to avoid politics in the social media world. It is far too easy to forget how much we love each other during a debate that uses such an impersonal medium. Besides that, anybody can post anything and people will take it for fact. Never mind that it was probably written by a chimpanzee in a dark basement with nothing better to do than stir up controversy. An actual chimpanzee. 

 

But this post today, for me at least, isn't political. Some may take it as such, but that's not really my problem. This post is about something I heard last night that I may never be able to shake from my brain.

 

THIS..... (Warning. This is extremely graphic).

 

 

 



 

Obama fan? Clinton fan? Fiorina fan? I don't really care. Republican? Democrat? Independent? Purple Spotted Lizard? I don't care. Pro-Life? Pro-Choice? Caught somewhere in the middle? I DONT CARE. Try and listen to this woman's monologue without being moved. I dare you.  You see, I have very purposefully avoided any details in the Planned Parenthood controversy out of selfish self-preservation. I know me, and I know that my stomach literally wages war against me when I hear details like this. I know it is the one thing in this world that makes me more MAD than any other. I myself am anti-abortion in most cases. But I understand that abortion is legal and that's not going anywhere. I get that. I understand that there are times when it is necessary. The option was given to the mother of the son I am raising when she found out at 20 weeks along that she had an extremely aggressive brain tumor, and they would not be able to start treatment until she either gave birth or aborted him. It gives me nightmares to think on it, but I wouldn't have blamed her if she chose that path. I understand that sometimes a woman is so scared, ashamed, or uneducated about her options that she truly feels this is the only way out. I get that. This isn't about those women for one hot second. It's not even about the women who are none of the above.

 

I had an experience earlier this year that I feel like changed the makeup of my character. My husband's brother and his wife struggled to get pregnant for years. When they announced at a family party that they were finally able to conceive, the electricity in the room was tangible. We rejoiced with them when they found out they were having a beautiful baby boy. I felt gripping fear when she was admitted to the hospital only a couple of weeks later with an incompetent cervix. Her body was struggling to hold their precious baby in, and at 21 weeks along, the prognosis was grim. As her body went into labor, they opted for a surgery that would give them a one in a million chance of saving him. But it was not to be, and I felt deep to the core despair as I witnessed his daddy come into a hospital room where we all sat and announce that the surgery had not been successful. His voice cracked and tears streamed down his face as he reported that she would deliver their precious baby Pratt sometime in the next hour.

 

 



 

After his parents and older sister had time to process and spend private time with him, family was invited into the room to share what I am sure will remain one of the most sacred experiences of my entire life. I was able to hold him for a few seconds, see his chest rise and fall, and kiss his smooth baby skin. I witnessed the time that he slipped from this world.  During that short hour, my understanding of why we are here in this world and the intrinsic value of life, no matter how many seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years it has lasted deepened. 

 

This post isn't about abortion. It isn't about politics. It isn't about choices. It isn't about healthcare, or government funding, or women's issues. It IS about what Ms. Fiorina mentioned here in this clip. CHARACTER. It's about RESPECT for living, breathing, kicking "outside of the womb" HUMAN life and the organizations and people that support it and those that do not. And a question. A question that has as many different answers as there are people to answer it. What do YOU support and what do YOU value?

 

 

 

 

Tipping Points

"It was one of those moments in which history splits, and we define the world as "before" and "after."

Unknown

 -Editorial, September 12, 2001

 

 

Most days in my life plug along without much notice on my part. They are filled with the kinds of activities that I can do on autopilot. There isn't anything about them that causes me to take notice. Though they probably should, these days never make it into the journal of my life. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. It feels like the mantra of my life.

 

But there are some days when there is a different feeling in the air. It almost TASTES different. Sometimes these days are obvious, and sometimes, if I don't pay attention, I may totally miss that this is one of those days that will change my life forever. These days are my Tipping Points. They alter or set in motion the major events in my life.  Some of my tipping points are beautiful, awe inspiring. Some of them are painful, even excruciating. But they are all sacred. I  learned a long time ago that the root meaning of the word sacred was "to make holy". These days are holy to me because, whether beautiful or painful, they are woven together to make the tapestry of my life.  I may be biased, but I feel like this tapestry, with all its bright colors and intricate designs, is breathtaking. At the very least it is one of a kind. It is a gift from God, The One Being who knows me more intimately than I know myself. He is helping me to design the tapestry of my life. Because of that, I wouldn't trade it for any other in the world.

 

September 11, 2001

September 8, 2003

January 22, 2009

August 25, 2009

November 11, 2011

 

These are not the only important dates in my life, or even the most important. These are simply the dates that have controlled the major course of my life.  I find that these points are all interconnected. They are a few of my tipping points that have brought me to where I stand today, a place that I love.



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September 11, 2001

 

It started out normal. I was driving to my 7:00 am math class at Mesa Community College in my grosser than gross white 1989 Ford Crown Victoria. It had no air conditioning (feel sorry for me) so I had the windows down to catch the breeze. On the radio was one of the radio channels with the mindless prattle that I always listened to, but today was different. I could feel my brain switch from subconscious listening to very alert.  New York. World Trade Center. Airplane. Horrifying accident. These were all words that sunk into my mind, but I fought to make sense of them. They were so foreign to me.  As I parked my car and walked from the parking lot to class, I passed strangers who I knew were sharing the same feelings. We were all in the same boat together. Instead of learning math that day (would math ever be important again?), we all gathered around the one kid in class who had a portable radio with headphones. He relayed the information to us as he heard it. With each new bit of information, I became less and less sure of what I had felt was a very secure world only an hour before.  I felt fear. Real, true, paralyzing fear.

 

That night, in an effort to steady my rocking world with a little bit of the familiar, I got together with my best friend. We talked about the events of the day and how we were feeling. I don't remember much from that conversation 14 years ago, but there is one thing that remains burned in my memory forever. We seemed to sense that that day was a tipping point. We each had 2 brothers, and we both felt fear for them. I was fiercely protective of these boys, only 11 and 15 years old. We feared that our brothers would be asked to fight in a war that was a response to the events of the day. I feared that they would be required to make the ultimate sacrifice. I felt like there wasn't any way possible I could handle that. I KNEW down into my bones that this would affect me in some way, I just didn't know exactly how on that night.

 

September 8, 2003

 

2 years later, I was 21 years old. I was fighting to recover, sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much, from the emotional and mental battle of my life.  I had a boyfriend, but I already knew that it wasn't going anywhere. I went to the church that night for a ward activity, looking for a distraction. As I walked into the gym, I saw him. He was seated on the floor with his back against the wall. He had dark hair, green eyes (my weakness), and ears that stuck out just enough to keep things interesting. Even though he was seated, I could tell his lean frame was tall. Luckily, I had an excuse to talk to him. He was the little brother of a friend of mine, just home from finishing college. I can't say that I was overwhelmingly physically attracted to him, because I wasn't. Talking to him just felt like....home. And I KNEW. At some point, our paths would merge and would never be separated.

 

January 24, 2009

 

That boy. That goofy, kind hearted, adventure-seeking boy. We had been married for a little over a year. I was 4 months pregnant with our daughter, and he had been away from home for a couple of weeks trying to earn his "Expert Field Medical Badge". We had been stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington for a little over a year into his three years as an Army Physician Assistant. It was a Saturday, so I was home from work. I was finally starting to feel some relief from the constant nausea of the last few months. Things were looking up. The phone rang and I felt the twinge of excitement that comes when that's the only form of communication you have with your spouse for awhile. He was really excited. He had some news for me that he felt was a bright spot in his day. Newly inaugurated President Obama had announced that he would shift the focus of the War on Terror back to where he felt the original problem sprang from back in September of 2001. Afghanistan. He needed thousands upon thousands of troops to help fulfill his initiatives. Chess pieces in a strategic battle. Chess pieces with heartbeats. And personalities. And families. "Our brigade has been selected to help make the initial surge. Isn't that exciting?!" I knew it was a tipping point. The feeling in the air changed. Time slowed down. But he was just so damn excited. And so I said the words he wanted me to say. "Wow! Honey, that's really exciting". When our short conversation was over, I hauled my pregnant body into the shower, cranked up the heat all the way and then lay there curled up in a ball and sobbing until it ran to ice cold. It would be easy to blame this moment on pregnant hormones. But I KNEW.

 

 

August 25, 2009

 

Fast forward to 7 months later. Cory had been deployed for 5 weeks, and I was trying to settle into my new normal, a normal that consisted of mothering a 2 month old baby by myself in a state without a single relative. It was work, but I had found comfort in routine, and I was happy. One of our routines was to go on an afternoon walk. The Pacific Northwest air was already starting to chill, and I could feel the moisture coming off the Puget Sound a quarter mile from our house. We walked around the neighborhood, made a brief stop at the little library, and then headed home.  We settled into the rocker in her nursery so I could feed her. Then a knock came at the door. I quickly put myself back together, rushed to the front door, and peeked through the side window. There were two men in green army dress uniforms. I should have known, but I was an ignorant, uninformed, brand new army wife.  I must have known on some level, because as I let them in and chattered nervously with small talk, I felt an uneasiness and anxiety down into my soul that I just could not explain. I sat on the brown microfiber couch in our front room, painted red because I had a brain lapse one Saturday.  I invited them to sit down as well, but only one of them did. The other stayed standing, not 3 feet from me. Poor boy. Captain Harmon. I had never met him before this day, but I will remember his name until the day I die. He couldn't have been more than 25 and he looked as scared as anyone I have ever seen in my life. Then in a broken voice, his face lined with tears, he said "The Secretary of the Army regrets to inform you that your husband, Captain Cory Jenkins, was killed in action........". I didn't hear the rest. All I could here was the sound of my own voice thundering in my ears "Oh My God! Oh My God! Oh My God"! Over and over and over again. I felt as helpless as the baby I clung to. There was something deep down inside of me that split in two during that moment and I KNEW that I would never be the same.

 

November 11, 2011

 

It's an amazing, and beautiful, and complicated thing to understand how someone can become whole again after they have been broken. Somehow, mercifully, if we let it, it happens. There usually isn't a defined moment. It heals slowly, like a cut that is growing layers upon layers of new, pink skin in place of the old. There may always be a scar to remind us of the trauma, but we really can be whole again. That "whole" looks different for each person.  I had grown many layers of new skin before I ever met Ryan Walters. He was the opposite in almost every way of Cory. Yet somehow, this opposite felt like HOME, too. Funny how that works. We held hands across a beautiful white alter in a temple designed to be a House of God, surrounded by loved ones, both seen and unseen. I don't remember many of the words of the ceremony, but I do remember the feeling that I had. It was peace, and contentment, and gratitude, and awe, and love, ..... and pain. Pain because healing always, always hurts. If we aren't feeling brave enough to face it head on, we end up running the opposite direction. It was a beautiful hurt, because I KNEW that things would never be the same.

I and Love and You

I have four children. One of them is not like the others. Three of them have my blueprint written on their characters, their bodies. My blood flows through their veins. For one, it does not. For the three, there are parts of me in them that make me laugh, make me celebrate, and make me cringe. For the one, there is not. 

My relationship with the one began because of the choice of two adults, two adults eager to begin a life together. He was a little boy, barely 5, and was just along for the ride. The belief was that Our love would bind together our new little family. We hoped and prayed that eventually, that love would be felt naturally between and among all members of our family. 

I used the words I and Love and You with the one from the very beginning. At that time it was an exercise in hope. I hoped that I would one day feel for him the same way that I felt for those who were a part of me. That hope was almost immediately realized. It is easy to love someone when you are constantly serving them. When I dropped him off for the first day of 1st grade, I felt the lump rise in my throat at the thought of missing him. I stood among hundreds of parents during a school fun run, searching the little faces for the one that belonged to me. He ran past my place in the crowd with a red face and heavy breath, looking for the life of him like he was being tortured and wanted to quit. But he didn't, and my heart almost exploded with pride as the tears threatened to spill over.

I feel those words, I and Love and You, and so I say them often.  I have said them multiple times a day for 4 years. He almost always says them back, usually absentmindedly or as an afterthought, playing every bit the part of a 9 year old boy. But he has NEVER said them first. Not once. I have come to terms with this, and while I can feel it nagging me from the recesses of my mind, I understand that he never asked to be yoked to me. He is entitled to his own feelings and his own timing.

I drove the carpool to school this morning just as I always do. And just like always, I unconsciously listen to the random chatter floating up from the back of the van. I think the topic was Halloween costumes today. Just like always, I navigated the traffic jam outside the school and pulled up to the curb, hitting the automatic door button as I threw the van into park. Just like always, the kids poured out of the van and on to the sidewalk. But today, wasn't JUST like always, because I was distracted. I usually call out to them "Be kind! Be smart! Be brave! I love you!"  But today, I didn't, and as I shifted the van back into drive and prepared to pull away, I heard "Hey Mom.... I love you". I looked back, but he was already gone. Time slowed to a standstill, and I sat there for awhile as all the other minivans and SUVs pulled around me, because today......

HE SAID IT FIRST

The Talent of Compassion

I could hear his screams as I walked into the house from the garage. They were unlike any I had heard from him before, almost animal-like, and desperate. Coming from a child who rarely cries unless he has a great reason, I knew something was up. His older brother and sister hovered over him as he lay face down on the carpet, trying to offer him toys to calm his cries. They looked a little anxious, but not overly concerned. She immediately spoke up with a small voice. "While I was carrying him, I tripped, and we both fell down".

I scooped him up and carried him to the couch to ease his cries.  I am a laid back parent when it comes to injury, and usually assume everything will be just fine. I thought that my presence and comforting words would begin to ease his cries, like they usually do, but he only screamed louder.  I tried to sing him songs in low, soothing tones, rocking him back and forth. I tried "Pat-a-Cake" and "This Little Piggy". I offered him snacks and treats, which usually has a 100% success rate. 40 minutes later, he was still crying and whimpering inconsolably. Then a thought flashed in to my mind, like a lightning bolt of revelation. "Try to get him to stand". I hopped off of the couch right away, and supporting him with my hands under his arms, placed him on his feet on the floor. His left leg immediately gave way and his crying escalated a notch. I tried it two more times, and each time, he refused to put any pressure on his left leg. "Oh my gosh. My sweet, helpless, perfect baby. His leg is broken".

 I picked him up, careful to avoid any pressure or jostling to his leg and shoved a sucker in his mouth. His wails quit like they had been shut off with a switch. It was as if he knew that he no longer needed to cry for help because assistance was on its way. After calling his dad, I loaded all of the kids in the car and we made a quick trip to urgent care, where my suspicions were confirmed with an x-ray. Miraculously, he rarely complained for the rest of the night, stealing the hearts of the medical staff and prompting them to say they had never had such a happy baby in their clinic.

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10 years ago, I was preparing to leave on an 18 month mission. My Bishop asked me to give a talk on my last Sunday at church. He left the topic completely up to me, a gutsy move from a man who had met me in his office multiple times over the preceding two years to try and help me put back together the pieces of a very broken spirit and body. After a lot of deliberation, I chose to speak on "The Savior's Talent of Compassion". It was a topic that, given my recent life experiences, I felt like I had a very intimate knowledge of. I am glad that I didn't know then how much more intimately I would need to become acquainted with that compassion in the coming years.

My Heavenly Father sent me to this earth perfect and whole, without blemish. I am His child, His precious baby, no less related and connected than my children are to me.  His DNA is written on every part of who I am. His goal is for me to grow, learn, progress, and to become like He is. It's the same goal that every good parent has had for their child through the balance of time. There is only one problem: This earth that He has sent me to is ugly, filthy, and fallen. It is filled with innumerable ways for me to separate myself from Him, getting the ugly sludge of this world onto and inside of me. Add to that the countless daggers that can cause any number of wounds through no fault of my own, and I am sure my Father weeps as he watches me try to navigate my way.

By very nature of my being here, I have fallen no less than 5 million times. More, I am sure, I have just lost count. Each fall breaks a part of me, and pulls me down into the sludge. I have willingly and knowingly made choices that caused fractures to my soul, sometimes fractures so bad that they have broken through my physical exterior and are visible on the outside. I have also been the victim of other's choices on numerous occasions. These knife-like choices, some so scary they are the stuff nightmares are made of, leave me with open wounds so big you can see daylight through them. And so, at the end of the day, I am left broken, bloody, and crippled. We all are. It's not just me.

My natural reaction to my terrifying state, the reaction I have relied on for years to protect me and preserve what little strength I might have left, is to hide. I have viewed my fractures and gaping, bloody holes as so ugly, that I am afraid that the rest of the world will run and hide from them. From me. And so I covered them with hard work, with a clean house, with a smile, with extraordinary effort in my church callings. I hid them from the world around me. Sometimes, in my burning hot shame, I even tried to hide them from God.  After all, how could He love someone as broken as I am? I have made and continue to make choices in direct defiance of what he has asked me to do. It would seem to some that I am a lost cause, beyond repair.

Luckily, in the last ten years, I have slowly but surely learned a few more things about the talent of compassion possessed by my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Most recently, I have learned that He views my broken state, whether from my own actions or inflicted by others, the very same way that I viewed my precious baby when he broke his leg. All of his energy is expended to first, show us compassion and comfort. Then his sole focus is to help us figure out where the pain is coming from and how it happened. Finally, I believe that with everything He has, He turns to helping us heal and progress past the break, leaving us stronger than we ever were in the first place. But with all of his energy thrown into these things, it leaves Him no energy for shaming us. God does not deal in shame. Shame needs fear and darkness to thrive. Fear and darkness are the currency of another being, but certainly never God.  My Heavenly Father is a God of unconditional love. Unconditional means that it doesn't matter what I've done, how I feel, how I act, or what has been done to me. His love is there. This does not mean He is a permissive God, believing that it is impossible for me to break in the first place. It is a rare talent to be unconditional and not be permissive, but being God, He can pull it off.

I believe He expects each of us to view EACH OTHER in the exact same light. When we do not treat each other this way, there is fuel for the fire of shame. Shame causes us to withdraw and hide from the very help and healing we need to move past our wounds. Brene Brown, a researcher, and one of my very favorite wise people on this planet, said "Shame cannot survive empathy". I know that to be true with all of my heart. I pray for the strength to not hide my breaks, so that others will have the courage to not hide theirs. Only then can we all heal together.

Running the Race

Yesterday afternoon, our family was preparing to sit down for our family dinner. Ryan had just gotten home from work, a place that presents the same monotonous dragons to slay with each new day and is filled with people who refuse to take accountability for their obligations. Cap that off with a 40 mile commute in the sweltering summer from one end of The Valley to the other, and he was understandably exhausted. The kids and I spent the day at the museum. It was a ton of fun, but I am not naturally a get-up-and-go kind of parent, and these outings with 4 children take every ounce of energy I can muster.

 

I put the finishing touches on our cashew chicken with rice, and was gathering the last few items to set the table. As our children gathered around, a simple question about parenting was returned with a tired retort, which in turn somehow instantly threw up a wall so high that Ryan and I could no longer see each other. The only thing we could see was the wall between us. In addition, the air itself had changed in temperature and thickness. I knew our kids could sense it right away.

 

I grew up in a home with parents who did their very best to parent my siblings and me. But when they had disagreements or fought with each other, their walls would stay up for hours, sometimes days, and as a child who didn't understand that parental arguments are about the parents and not about the kids, I internalized the tension and found it hard to function.

 

Now as an adult, I CANNOT handle these walls. I just can't. They make my skin crawl and fill me with so much anxiety that I can think of nothing else. I can't function until the wall is ripped down. With a sledge hammer. I am not sure how Ryan feels about this particular trait of mine. Anyway, we found ourselves immediately in the other room, seated on the couch so we could be comfortable as we peeled back layers and exchanged tears (Okay. there wasn't much exchanging. It was all me.) I am so grateful to be married to a man who has never hurled an insult at me during a disagreement. I hope I can say I offer him the same. Life is too short to treat the Greatest Gift God has given me with anything less than complete respect. I am far from perfect in this, and will always be a work in progress. I am grateful for his patience.  Our dinner grew cold and we turned curious children away several times.  But none of that mattered.

 

You see, family-life is really hard. And parenting in a blended family? Fuggedaboutit. It is gut-wrenchingly hard. If anyone tells you otherwise they are lying through their teeth. The vulnerability and consciousness it requires can leave me feeling so raw and tired that I want to curl up in a ball, lick my wounds and never come out. Every once in a while, I have to remind myself "You chose this". And I did. It was a conscious, joyful choice to bind myself with these particular people, and specifically to be a parent in a complex blended family. It often reminds me of another choice I made a few years back.....

 

About 5 years ago, I allowed a friend of mine to convince me to train and run a marathon. I am not a natural runner. It doesn't come easy to me, and with my exercised induced asthma, it can get pretty ugly. Despite these things, running a marathon was on my bucket list, and so I agreed hesitantly to the task. I am no fool. Unless you are a freak of nature, marathons are an amazing feat of physical strength and mental stamina. I knew this. I was under no delusions that this was going to be a walk in the park. That wasn't the point.  Actually, that WAS the point.  I chose this particular task for the very reason that it would be incredibly hard. It’s a funny thing, struggle and reward. They are directly related; the greater the struggle, the more magnificent the reward.

 

On race day, I gathered what I thought was all the necessary equipment for success. When the gun went off, I began running with what seemed was the larger portion of the free world. There were thousands and thousands of them, as far as the eye could see. It was really easy going too. It didn’t require a whole lot of concentration. The further I got into the race, the more I could feel the effort that was required of me.  It was a lot of physical effort.  I remember hitting a point, around about mile 14, when I thought “Oh.my.word. This is soooooooo hard. What was I thinking?”  Every time it seemed like I couldn’t go much further, a fellow runner would chime in with words of encouragement. “You are inspiring me”. Or “Keep up the good work!” A more experienced runner would say “Just breathe through it. Trust me, it’s worth it.” These words would be just enough motivation to get me through to the next beautiful vista.

 

There came a point, though, that the stunning views and the cheers of strangers were not going to cut it. This was the point when the effort changed from physical to mental.  I found myself in a port-a-potty, stationed mercifully at mile 19. My muscles and joints hurt so badly that I COULD NOT physically get myself to stand up. In addition to that, my intestines were attacking me with a vengeance so sharp, that for the life of me, I could not think of why they hated me so much. I had so much salty sweat running down my face and into my eyes, that I was unable to open them. Like, not at all. To top it all off, my ill-fitting clothes were chafing me. I had rubbed a spot so raw and bloody on my back, that it was now seeping through my clothing. I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS!!!!!!! Wait. Yes, I did.

 

I had a choice to make. I could quit. People do it all the time. They had vehicles trolling the course for just such a purpose, to pick up those who could not, or would not, finish. It would be as easy as hailing a cab. Oh, how I wanted to! Everything in me wanted to give up. But as I considered this option, I remembered why I had signed up for the race in the first place. It was a once in a lifetime experience, one that I couldn’t get in any other way. The growth that I knew would come from it was something I expected would shape me for the rest of my life, something I could draw on when other situations grew difficult.  Finally, I knew the satisfaction that would eventually come, if I could just hold out strong to the end. I would be able to look back on this accomplishment with the fondest of memories.  So, I made another choice. The choice every runner has to make when the going has gotten so tough that they feel they may be torn limb from limb. To keep going.  To do my best despite the pain.  And I did.

 

I was right about that race. It HAS taught me life lessons that I couldn’t have learned anywhere else. I think about it all the time as I navigate this awesome, exhilarating, maddening, blended family of mine. Being in a family is an endurance race.  The views along the way can be so stunning they almost take my breath away. Many times, I am so bored I could gouge my own eyes out. During these times I am just going through the motions, waiting for the next view to break. But sometimes, I find myself in the port-a-potty of life. You know the one.  This is when, no matter the move I make, it hurts.  My vision is clouded and I find it hard to even think clearly. The effort I have put in up to this point has completely depleted my tank, including my reserve. At this point, there is nothing more I can do than grit my teeth, say a prayer, and make a choice. To move.  Usually in increments so small it seems I am not moving at all. But I am moving forward, and that is progress. And progress is good.