Category Archives: Musings

Reflections on 20 years of marriage

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

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20 years ago today, I married my college sweetheart. In those two decades, we have had days of unimaginable joy. Days where I want to quote songs and lines from movies – You complete me! – You make me wanna be a better woman! – From this moment, I live only for your happiness! Marriage seems effortless on those days.

Then there are the days when we can’t even stand to be in the same room. I’m sad and disillusioned and while I love him, I certainly don’t like him. And because I usually love myself more than anyone else, if my needs and wants and desires aren’t being met, it makes me mad.

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December Fast

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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I’m not a huge TV person by choice.  I’ve been moving our family slowly away from time spent in front it — no huge TV, just a tiny one.  No cable.  Intentional choices to do anything but that.  Usually it’s not that hard since we run a pretty busy schedule.  Evenings are normally spent at small group, dance, Awana, or soccer.  If we have a free night, I’m working at our Allstate agency – but that’s where it gets dicey.  I feel guilty for sucking up our family time at work and my hubby has cable at the office (and a pretty big TV) so while I talk to clients for hours, my kids essentially binge on stupid Disney shows that teach them how to be sarcastic and rude.  I can just picture them a decade down the road in their college dorm rooms, binge watching Netflix and filling their minds with garbage that they can never un-see, all because I started terrible habits in their formative years.

On the other hand, I am a teensy bit addicted to social media.  My kids have been annoyed many times because my cell phone gobbles up the bits of time in my day between all the other stuff.  They feel like they are vying for my attention while I’m uploading pictures of what we just did, or a funny soundbite.  Not that I don’t think it’s a valuable way to stay connected, but I saw that it was causing a break in the connectedness with my kids.

Enter the media fast.  Christmastime always brings a fast of some sort in our house.  This December was screen time.  I talked to my kids for a couple weeks in advance, warning them of what was to come.  No TV, no video games, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Pinterest (except to get a recipe or craft project I had already pinned in advance), no internet except to look up things we really needed.  No random surfing.  I seriously adore my kids.  They took this like champs!  While there were skirmishes when determining the rules of the month, and one meltdown mid month, they were amazing.  They had the most beautiful attitudes toward my crazy, counter cultural idea.  I have tears just thinking about it!  Anyway, the ground rules were set.  We would have 3 pre-planned nights of television – 1 Spartans game, 2 Christmas movie nights.  That has been adapted a tiny bit since the Spartans made it to the Cotton bowl and they play tonight – Dec 31st.  We are totally watching them!  The kids wanted to know what they should do if they are at friends’ houses.  We determined that they should try to do play as much as they could first; however, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if a screen entered the picture.  Over Christmas we were guests in people’s homes, so we determined that gratitude and relationships trumped media fast, so they would choose other activities first but not exclude themselves from screen time. Continue reading →

Inspired

15 Wednesday Apr 2015

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I love when God uses my kids to bring conviction to my heart. My oldest son, who is 11, has worked toward something this school year that I wasn’t sure he could do. We use a curriculum for homeschool called Classical Conversations. He is testing for what we are calling Triple Memory Master, which shows that he has mastery over three years of material. Every question correct. Not one wrong. There were a small group of kids that even had the ability to try this – less than ten. The criteria we established was that they had to be in their last year of CC’s foundations program, and they had to have been Memory Masters of a single cycle before. Of that group, some said no right away, because they had too much on their plate, or because the goal seemed unreachable. The rest agreed to work toward it and came to the reviews. There were some that bailed early on in the process, once they saw the enormity of the task. Some made it almost to the end of practices, but couldn’t wrap their minds around how to accomplish something that big. One other child chose to go for it with my son. They pushed their current cycle’s Memory Master test up two weeks in order to give themselves a bit of extra time to study for the preceding two cycles. They worked their tails off, trying to bring this data back up to the forefront of their minds. They had extra study sessions together and spent hours studying alone. They made flash cards and pictures and all sorts of aids to help them remember the information. Today they became Triple Memory Masters. They finished well, striving for excellence, completing something few would even try.

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First Day of Spring!

20 Friday Mar 2015

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I don’t know when it happened.  Maybe it was after I read the book Making Ordinary Days Extraordinary.  Maybe it was my grandma’s words ringing in my ears “take joy in the little things in life because the big things don’t come along very often.”  But somewhere along the way, I began to celebrate little things.  It could be a paper chain hung or a favorite meal, a compost cake for Earth Day or a special walk in the park.  I noticed it this time last year on the first day of spring.  My husband and I had run away for the weekend and left my mom in charge of the kids.  I called her on this morning one year ago and said “It’s the first day of spring!  Can you please do something special with the kids?  It can even just be going out for ice-cream or a visit to the park, but tell them it’s to celebrate the first day of spring!”  For some reason, naming it makes it take on epic proportions.

My mom did great!  She went to Lowe’s and was able to procure free birdhouse kits from their last kids’ building day.  They went home and made birdhouses to welcome spring.  Then they headed over to Lumpy’s for ice-cream.  The kids were thrilled.  It was an inexpensive way to make an ordinary day extraordinary.

This year, my daughter noticed the flower I had drawn on the calendar signaling the first day of spring.  At the Awana store this week, she used her money to buy a birdhouse….”because Friday is the first day of Spring!”  There will be ice cream cones.  There will be a mini celebration because the calendar says that winter is gone and spring is here.  My kids will be content.  But mostly, I hope they will remember all those times we took joy in the little things, because the big things don’t come along very often!

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The great vaccine debate

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

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My children are doing persuasive speeches this week.  One is doing the speech on why we SHOULD vaccinate our children.  In an interesting twist, the other is doing the speech on why we SHOULD NOT vaccinate.  I encouraged them to do this for a few reasons.  The first and foremost is because of the great debate I see going on in social media.  Actually, I would call it less of a debate and more of a mud slinging, hate fest.  It is so sad and discouraging to see people trying to slay others in a social forum.  I have mostly stayed out of the conversation.  While I have an opinion, it has been drastically shaped by my experience in that arena.  However, I don’t want people to know me for that opinion.  I don’t want them to identify me by my opinion on our choice of education or the food we feed our family or breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding, or any of the other hundreds of decisions we each make and stand behind.  I research topics and choose what I think is best for my family and our unique situation.  I trust that other families do the same.

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I Still Do

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

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19 years ago, my dad walked me down the isle and I said “I Do” to forever.  I had no idea what I was doing.  My mind was full of 90’s wedding songs with lyrics like “From this moment, I have been blessed, I live only for your happiness” and movie quotes like “you complete me”.  I was full of feelings that Ryan would meet all my needs and be my soul mate, that I would be complete and I could live only for his happiness.  That lasted about 2 days into our honeymoon, before I found myself sitting on the slopes in Northern Michigan crying, while Ryan skiied down the hill away from me saying, “if you’re not even going to try to get up, figure it out yourself!”  Live for his happiness when he was going to be a jerk like that?  No way.  And that was when real marriage began.  It was the first hint that this thing was going to be way more than I bargained for.

A few years later I was sitting at a marriage conference called Love and Respect and the second day was spent talking about how marriage is more about my relationship with God than it is about my relationship with Ryan.  Was I going to love Ryan, forgive Ryan, respect Ryan when he didn’t deserve it, simply because God calls me to do that?  Was I going to take responsibility for my sinful actions toward him, when I felt like they were justified?  Emerson Eggriches stood up there and said something like — when you stand before God, you cannot justify your sin by saying ‘he hurt me first or he hurt me worse.’  My whole world tilted on its axis because I had never before considered that marriage wasn’t about us being happy.  It was the first inkling that maybe marriage was about us obeying God and loving when the other person is unlovely and forgiving when they don’t deserve to be forgiven and taking responsibility for ourselves regardless of feeling as if another person treated us unfairly.  That day, everything changed.  I began to see my marriage as a way that God was shaping my character.  In addition to that, it made me look at Ryan differently when I was being selfish and controlling and he chose to forgive me and love me anyway.  My respect for him in those moments grew by leaps and bounds.

I can’t tell you how much joy and peace and contentment and marital happiness comes when that perspective changes.  Because love is hard, but God loved me while I was his enemy.  Forgiveness is hard, but God has forgiven me of far more than I will ever forgive on earth.  And God uses this marriage to teach me more than I ever imagined.

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This is my favorite picture of Ryan and I, not because of how we look, but because of the back story. We had just been in a huge argument.  I was being controlling and selfish and a bit manipulative and Ryan was having none of it.  Two strong personalities.  Fireworks began.  Unfortunately, we had to get these pictures taken before we lost the light, so while we were still pretty upset with each other, the photo session began.  In the midst of it, Ryan whispered something in my ear that was hilarious and my dear friend and photographer* caught this picture.  To me, it’s symbolic of Ryan moving toward me and loving me and forgiving me even though I didn’t deserve it.  It was the beginning of moving toward reconciliation.

19 years later, I love Ryan more than I could ever have imagined on that warm February day.  I didn’t realize back then that my soul mate was God and that He and I were already complete, but that my husband would compliment that beautifully and be a joy and a delight that has been food for my soul.  I realize now that I need to live for his happiness, to serve him and love him, because God has called me to consider the needs of others as more important than my own– but that I cannot do that without the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of me and giving me the strength to do something that’s not humanly possible.  And now I see clearly what that long ago commitment meant.  It was a vow that two broken, sinful people made to each other.  A promise to obey God instead of pursue their own individual happiness…and through that comes real, true joy.

 

*Photo credit:  Amy Peterson Photography, Clarkston Michigan

Ice Bucket Challenge

21 Thursday Aug 2014

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I have seen the ice bucket challenge all over my Facebook feed over the last week or so. I thought nothing of it at first except that it was funny. Then I started to see articles about how terrible it was to waste a natural resource just to avoid making a donation to a charity. But in the same article, it showed that donations for ALS are skyrocketing over previous years, so could it really be all bad? Then I saw people who were doing the ice bucket challenge and saying on camera that they were donating too.  My first thought was “that is prideful to announce that you’re donating!”, but at least it seemed to make more sense than doing it to avoid giving.

Then last night I was stopped in my tracks.  I remembered clearly the day I got the call. I was standing in my dining room and my dad told me that he was diagnosed with ALS.  The time that followed that call was terrifying. I searched the internet and saw how ALS ravages the body in as little as two years and I was petrified. My dad did die less than two years later, but it was Pulmonary Fibrosis that left it’s mark, and now my life is forever changed. So this ice bucket challenge took on a new meaning for me. I could see the benefits of raising awareness for a devastating disease. I am not the same because of a disease that took my dad’s life. And so many others are touched by ALS, the disease they thought my dad had. Continue reading →

It’s more than meets the eye

10 Thursday Jul 2014

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This morning I realized I had pushed my kids too long. Too hard. For too long. With too little sleep. With too much junky food. We were a mess that ended in me throwing a binder across my hotel room (at nobody, just in frustration) and locking myself in the bathroom with my Bible and a lot of Kleenex. People have shared with me what they think my life is like by my Facebook pictures. But how do you post a picture of that?  That is the reality, though – that I lose my temper way too often. That I feel like I am a failure because when my kids are disobedient, I hear the words from the past echoing through my head, telling me lies that I don’t need to relive again. That I’ve spent too little time in the Word of God lately, which has led to too many apologies to my children. So when you look at your Facebook or Instagram feeds, think of this picture. Because this is just as much a part of my reality as what you see there….and I suspect I’m not alone.

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The days are long, but the years are short

30 Monday Jun 2014

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My kids took a nap today.  Partly because summer kids are tired kids.  Partly because mommy needed an hour to clean bathrooms and fold laundry while listening to classical music.  My almost 11 year old came down from his nap with those rosy cheeks that tell me that he, indeed, slept.  He snuggled in next to me on the chair and I saw his freckled nose and his sun kissed hair.  I felt his soft cheek against mine and saw teeth that are too big for his mouth.  I had a sudden realization that in the not too distant future, his face will be scratchy.  He will grow into those teeth.  His voice will change.  He will no longer fit in the chair with me.  It made me sad and I was transported back to the day when I was walking through the grocery store with him as an infant.  I woman stopped me to comment on his gorgeous eyes and then she said words that would change my life.  She said “the days are long, but the years are short”.  And as I remembered that, I held him a bit closer.

New Life

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

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It’s spring in NE Ohio.  The days are getting longer.  The sun is shining.  The birds are building nests.  After a long, hard winter there is great relief that comes in the form of spring.  I went out hunting in my garden today and was moving dry, dead leaves to see if I could find green shoots peeking out.  Suddenly, I was reminded of how much God speaks to me through my garden.

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