Month: August 2016

Inner Chamber

On By LisaIn Faith, PlumLeave a comment

Matthew 6:6 But you, when you pray, enter into your inner chamber, and having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Because no one else was available, I was invited to attend an ultrasound yesterday. My not daughter-in-law, who is carrying not my son’s child, asked me to go and of course I said yes. This relationship has murky boundaries. I am not the grandma of this little girl on the way but I am of her brother. While I will have no claim to her, I have a responsibility to my Plum and to God to see that she has the advantages and the love grandma’s give. If family is a messy business, we may be the CEOs of a disaster corporation. I just keep following the mantra that I have to love who God brings and sort out the details later. Thus I went to the ultrasound. Initially I was a bit emotionally removed, holding back because I knew that I would not be holding this baby right away, that my claims to her would be secondary. I probably won’t have a brag book and won’t be notified of her firsts.  Or maybe I will. Murky. I don’t want to get too attached. I do have to protect my heart. The last ultrasound I watched was with my own granddaughter who I only visit during slumber. Raw ache revisited as I start this process again. Thus I stayed aware of my role: supportive detachment.

I held mama’s hand and watched the technician slide the wand over her belly, finding baby’s face, her hands, her feet. I praised God for His wondrous works, for giving mama another healthy child. Then the wand found the heart. Four beating chambers and I came undone. Tears streamed down my face, I watched this movement and knew God. I felt His Holiness. Why not with her beautiful little nose? Those tiny hands that waved? The baby bottom that wiggled in the womb? Those feet, those lips? None impacted me so greatly, so deeply as watching her heart, those 4 chambers. The wonder of it still makes me weak. I know that I will hold little Miss and whisper to her the moment I fell in love with her. The moment I saw God in her. I will whisper that I have seen her heart and it is God and it is good and great things are waiting for her. I will whisper these things as I sing her to sleep whenever I get the chance, if I get the chance. I will remind her of this as she gets older. I will be the one who is maybe not her grandma but my Plum will share so I can be her something.

Families are messy. Please don’t ask for details about how anyone is connected. Ultimately we have one Father. He is sorting out the rest.  Maybe someday when she is wondering just who she is she will come to me. I can tell her she is surely a child of God. I saw it with my own eyes. In the meantime, we will love who God brings, curse our lack of boundaries when we get hurt, and maybe buy a little photo book. When you see God, you save those pictures.

Growing into Me

On By LisaIn Plum, The Chef, TravelLeave a comment

I didn’t get in for a haircut before I left for my trip, a huge mistake I discovered. My family had worried that my weak neck would suffer under the weight of the helmet but the real issue became the itchiness when I got so hot. I imagined shaving my head bald during those long times between stops when I tried to stick a straw between the padding and my head, trying to scratch where my fingers couldn’t reach. Much like wearing a cast in the blazing sun, I was desperate for relief. As soon as we stopped, the helmet came off and I scratched furiously about my crown. I should have taken the time for a hair cut. I mentioned it at least 1 million times to my Chef in our daily calls. “Yes, my back is fine. My pelvis is still in place. I need a haircut!”  A minor thing became a huge annoyance, the mosquito effect.

The morning after our return I stopped at the first place open, a local men’s shop. I have gone there before since  a now wear my hair short. I am not huge on style anymore and the gal does a good job. I go with my Plum and Chef when they are getting styles, real ones. I skip the hot towel and shave. It has been working for me. Why would I think differently?  I ran in with no Plum or Chef. My gal wasn’t there. A new girl, who wanted to chat and I was still decompressing from the trip. Minimal answers to her questions. I am used to professionals understanding when I say cut the whole thing off knowing that this means they need to take control and just offer me some water. She asked those polite questions about why I had planned, I said I had just gotten back from a two week trip on a Harley and needed to figure out if my cats were still alive. I focused on the Olympics playing on every tv, regardless of how she turned my chair. She asked if I was into those. I said I hadn’t seen any coverage, needed to catch up. I really just wanted a haircut and some peace.

It turns out she just shy of shaved my head. It will be weeks before I can attempt at a style which I now think might be important. It occurred to me later that maybe she made an assumption about me based on the clues given, that maybe I was a lesbian. I certainly look for all outward appearances now as the stereotype. Not a lipstick lesbian.  I appear as if I should know how to use power tools. (This is the place where I say sorry to lesbians for stereotyping YOU!) My Chef who was so happy to have me home was quite taken aback when I got into the car.  “Holy Shit, ” I think was his supportive response. This haircut is not just a bad one, it is a statement. The problem is that for those who go to church with me, it is a statement that brings confusion. Did she mean to do that? Is there trouble in that marriage? What really happened on her trip? You know a haircut is bad when folks comment on your shoes. Shoes you have worn forever.

The deal is, I rushed, I didn’t tell the whole story and I got an identity that doesn’t fit. Someone else took pieces that I had laid out and made a choice of who I was and I have to live with that for a few weeks. Fortunately it’s just hair and it grows. Fortunately I don’t really care what others think of my sexual orientation except that has been a newsmaker in the past. Along about 1994, I stopped displaying any femininity. Baggy dark clothes to hide my body, no jewelry to enhance or draw attention, make up by the wayside, I stopped shouting that I am a woman  and instead whispered please don’t see me. I only recently started merging this other part of me back in, slowly, just a bit at a time. Putting in some earrings, wearing clothes that don’t blend into the woodwork. I am 52 years old and still working out my identity. I am still working out what I tell others affect how they see me. I know that I get to decide who I am but not telling also leaves them with little choice but to fill in the blanks.

I am learning, one bad haircut at a time. I am a Harley riding Grandma who loves cats and her family, not always in that order, who watches sports and sappy movies. I am a woman who is figuring out that earrings go with sweatshirts and mascara is ok. I haven’t worked up to lipgloss. What do you think of my shoes? My hair will grow along with my opportunities to be me.

Half A Pack of Mourning Daily

On By LisaIn Arrow, Faith, Plum, Stella, The ChefLeave a comment

I started smoking as an adult who knew better, at a time of huge stress, when I was locked away from my children. I continued this habit for a couple of years after we were rejoined, even after my kids complained. I knew better but was hooked. My son put Mr. Yuck stickers on my cigarette packs. They told me I smelled. I did. I tried the medicine touted as the best way to quit, I became a raging lunatic. Finally I just stopped. That was over 17 years ago, maybe longer. It was a good run.

Through all the crises of addiction and unplanned pregnancy, watching your child choose homelessness, fighting for security for the baby who didn’t choose any of it, I still didn’t stop at the gas station and buy a pack. I ate M&M’s, reverted to some horrible eating habits, prayed, cried, drank too much wine, managed. But I didn’t smoke. Then came my daughter’s wedding that I was no longer invited to, a day so crushingly painful I was sure I wouldn’t survive. Chef and I had traveled to the “paper wedding” in front of a judge where I was surprised to be a signing witness. The relationship was already incredibly strained at that point. I didn’t know what was ahead, I didn’t know I was truly losing my daughter, that the visit then would be the last time I would see her. Seven months later when the real celebration rolled around, I was too thin, too broken, every moment without reconciliation bringing me closer to madness. I went with a friend and bought a pack, as a lark, to get through the day, not realizing this crutch was going to get me through all the days. For two years.

I actually love and hate smoking. I hate the smell, hate that it pushes me away from everyone who loves me. No one in my circle smokes.  No one joins me on the porch with a nice glass of wine and has deep conversations with me. I sit alone and rush through the fire tipped reminder of all that is wrong. But there is a part that I love and it isn’t the cigarette. It is the very same aloneness. Sometimes I just need a time out. I need to pull away from the chaos and the chatter and get re-centered. I need to be alone with my memories and mourn for 5 minutes and then go back to being present in my day. I know why I smoke and I know why I shouldn’t. I tell myself with each purchase of a pack that is the last one but then myself laughs mockingly. I don’t believe me. I haven’t yet committed to letting go of my mourning period.

I never imagined I would lose my daughter. I have fought so many times to keep my son alive, the only way being to give him up to other authorities. My girl, though, always my closest person on earth, always the one who could make me really laugh out loud, I never ever imagined her not in my every days. My heart had no room for such a notion. Coping skills completely broke down, nothing worked on this heart ache. While I have tried extensively to bridge this gap, I haven’t tried to stop smoking. I realize I cannot control when she will come back into my life, if ever, but I can control when I will stop mourning with a lighter and an ashtray. That time is coming. My Chef is so stressed right now I worry that he can’t handle the definite crazy moody swings and nastiness that will result in my withdrawal. I worry that I won’t get my time away from everyone, no excuse for them all not to follow me. I worry that I can’t do it, just like I worry that I can’t really go on another day without a phone call, text, email from my Stella. But I do go on. So maybe I really can quit.

This might just be my last pack.

A Scrap of Paper

On By LisaIn Faith, The ChefLeave a comment

Plum asked me if golden is really a color, a question of high importance given this is number two on his favorite hues list. “Of course, sweetie, ” I replied while finishing up dishes. “But why don’t we have any golden in our house then?” I didn’t want to remind him that he had squirreled away in his treasure boxes under his bed all things golden, but instead explained that I prefer silver. This was shocking, who could do such a thing? Thus began my full explanation of my gold allergy, more shocking still. Grandpa had to be brought in for confirmation, still he didn’t believe. Much back and forth revealed the confusion, who could be allergic to a color? Still he decided it was pretty weird to be allergic to golden. Sighing, I shared that the list of weird things about gran is pretty long. “Nah, just a scrap of paper, gran.”

To be seen so honestly and still accepted, that is mercy. What a disappointment that his second favorite color makes me itch, that I avoid it at all costs. Could have been a deal breaker. He could have determined he need only try harder to convince me of the virtues of golden, convince me that itching was worth the joy of golden. Instead, he sadly allowed that I was weird but still ok. Mercy from a 5 year old is pretty great stuff. He knows I’m not perfect, still a scrap of paper worth of issues, but he loves me still.  Is it any wonder Jesus said to bring the children to Him? They are just smarter, kinder, hearts more accepting.

What if we all saw only the scraps of weirdness in each other, ignored the long list of offenses? What if mercy was our response rather than deep divide over such critical issues as color? What if we stopped trying to convince each other that our choice is better and let everyone decorate their homes as they chose? If we have some extra silver or golden, we could even share it. No pressure. It is easy to say a 5 year old hasn’t lived life enough to understand all the nuances but maybe adults spend too much time on those. I think kids get it. They talk it out, resolve it and move on to play cars and dolls and dolls in cars. They include until we teach them not to.

The list of my offenses is long except God and my grandson have already looked past those onto who I am today. I do the same for him. The fit he threw a couple of days ago is gone with our fresh start. We give those in our home. Each day, a new start. Sometimes we have to restart a couple of times, because we are worth it. We are all a little weird but just a scrap of paper weird. Nobody is keeping score around here, especially my Plum. I stopped my dishes, gave him a big hug, reminded him that he is my favorite. “I know gran, you tell me all the time.” What I did’t tell him is that he brings God closer to me every day, that he is my gold and I will never be allergic to him.

A Nest of Hope

On By LisaIn FaithLeave a comment

After the great garage clean out of 2016 where we claimed our space again and removed junk and old memories My Chef has been actively using his tools. Painting, plumbing, sawing, installing light fixtures, all tasks I had waited for years to have completed. Our home was neglected, it is now getting attention. These dark days of uncertainty and fear are at least producing results in our immediate environment. I watch him sinking lower, lower and suggest a project, remind him of a task and he gets going. He is missing the chattering singing giggling of our Plum especially, that child who raises the joy index with his very presence. The task of finding our own joy now rests with us, our homework, while Plum goes off to school and learns how to contain some of his.  I am a natural joy seeker, my Chef not so much. Which is why I think the bird chose our garage, deep in the corner but low enough for us to see, to build her nest.

Our property is graced with trees, beautiful arching limbs providing shade in the summer and delightful piles in the fall. Our neighbors have the same. I love our trees, I love our property with space to roam and plant, listen to roosters crow, watch chickens waddle on the hill a few doors down. Horses fill our pasture in the back. All this is to say a bird in its right mind would never choose our garage as the safe place for a nest. Not a quick decision either, considering all the trips in and out, gathering sticks and fluff, maybe some dog hair, arranging everything just so. And then waiting, laying those 5 gorgeous eggs, waiting. We discovered the nest at this stage. White with tiny blue speckles, 5 eggs left just long enough for mama to get some dinner. Now they have hatched into tiny little sweethearts who open their mouths at me whenever I dare approach. Which is more often than I should probably but I have cats also. Cats who go into the garage. We have to keep the door open for mama bird but that allows access for two hunters, a bit of nature I am not willing to allow on my watch.

Protecting this nest that never should be in our garage, peeking in to see this amazing new life, this is joy. This is hope in the middle of chaos. God sent this bird who surely complained about the location, explaining about cats and garage doors, pointing with a ruffled wing to all the more suitable sites, this bird who then chirped a bit and then got on with the business of building. God promised this bird that if she built this nest, He would send protectors for her young. God promised this bird that her job was bigger than just bringing babies into the world. Her mission was hope. Her mission was joy. God knew we needed a nest we couldn’t miss, we needed joy and hope and light in the darkness that would require our energy. God is smart like that.

We cleaned out our garage, sent our boy off to school, worked on the house, waited in the quiet. Then a chirping song echoed in our garage, leading us to God and a reminder of promises, a reminder to follow his lead even in the most ridiculous situations. It just might lead to hope.

 

Cautionary Cake

On By LisaIn Arrow, MomLeave a comment

Every August 15th I bake a German Chocolate cake even though no one in this house eats it. Well I do but I can’t eat the whole thing myself. I have taken to only putting the coconut icing on half so that my Chef will eat some of the cake, his aversion to all things coconut winning out over his love of pecans. I make the cake anyway, once a year and have since 1998. I make it for my older brother on his birthday, it was his favorite.

I’m not one for visiting gravesite, my sister-in-law is so faithful at this. She ensures my mother always has flowers and a grave blanket in winter, something that was really important to mom. She and my little brother go to all the graves and then send me pictures of their work. I went right after mom died, right after Joe died, but then rarely go back. They aren’t there.  So I bake a cake and remember my older brother, focus on the good times and try not to beat the eggs too roughly as my anger rises again.

Everything good in my little brother was missing in my older brother. I can explain it away by the high fevers he had as a toddler, the extra time he spent with our abusive father, the addiction that grabbed him as he hit his tweens. He was just a shit. He stole from us, mom’s keepsakes from her mother, my babysitting money. He introduced both his younger siblings to drugs and alcohol and then told mom on us, reaping the rewards of the confiscated goods and gaining points with her. He was a shit but God was he charming. Four years older than me, with a group of rowdy friends, always ready to party, always laughing. My friends thought he was gorgeous, wanted to be around him. I tried to escape him, his bullying and late night parties when mom went away. I loved him because he was my brother and hated that he was my brother, that I couldn’t turn my back all the way on him.

My mother learned to enable as a child with her own father, she hid his bottles from her own mother, told lies to protect him. She did no less for her son. Fresh starts broken promises money slid across the table. Leftovers always packaged for him to grab, no need for him to spend his money on food. This boy never had to grow up even when he fathered a child. We all stepped in and began to provide for this beautiful boy because my brother would rather buy beer than baby bottles. My sister-in-law raised this boy into man who has his own family and provides for them. A man to be proud of, a man my brother never got to know.

My brother killed himself in 1997. He finally gave up, stopped fighting his desire to use drugs and to drink. He wanted more and had no idea how to ever get there, at 37 years of age and most of his life high. Friends had gone on to college, gotten married, were raising their kids instead of hell. He gave up after dozens of times calling me threatening to do so, me talking him down. He didn’t call me this time. His life has been a cautionary tale for the nieces and nephews he barely knew. We can’t play with substances like other families. We have bad genes. His life was not wasted even though he mostly always was. I grew strength, resolve, to stand strong in the face of my own son’s use. I left him in rehabs while he begged to come home. When he made promises and pledges that I knew were lies and out of his control to keep, I walked away and into a parents group. I testified to judges about addiction and the need for help and not just incarceration. I have fought with and for my son.  I have fought the urge to enable with every breath. I have seen the outcome. I don’t want to see pictures of a gravesite my sister-in-law has decorated for me. I don’t want to bake a cake for him that no one will eat.

Every August 15th I bake a cake. By August 20th it is in the trash.   Wasted, no more candles ever. A cautionary German Chocolate cake. And I remember my brother.

Becoming Just Gran

On By LisaIn Arrow, Plum1 Comment

My Plum started kindergarten last week and left me home to look at cars and transformers and Lego and potential mud piles all by myself. He stepped right onto the bus and didn’t have the decency to look back and cry for me. He told me that I could play with his toys while he is gone, little comfort. His scooter sits idle, the dogs mope about. Dishes are always done, laundry is caught up, I wander about the house, annoyed at the quiet. Then my phone rings and his mama is asking another question about school lunches. She is terrified he won’t eat there, what if he forgets the ridiculous 5 digit number he has been assigned to access his account. Will they really send him each day to the nurse to get his dairy pill? I am more concerned about him going to the bathroom, this boy who freely pees outside my home behind a bush, delighting in how far his stream goes. Will he actually raise his hand in front of everyone and ask to go into the little room in the same classroom? What about all those other savages, have they been taught to wash their hands? I get the irony, don’t judge. Mama and I commiserate on the unjustness of taking our little prince away to an environment neither of us can control. This is good.

Mama came to us about 6 weeks into her pregnancy, leaving behind my Arrow and the world of addiction and chaos to live with people she hardly knew. She had nothing including weight on her body. We fed her, we loved her, we got her into school. Plum was born into our household and has been in and out all of his just shy of 6 years.When mama was struggling, she came back. Her room was put back together, his never taken apart. Tumultuous days hours minutes during these years finally resulted in trips through the legal system to establish permanency for our boy. Through it all, mama has grown from the unsure teenager to a young woman who fully fits into her role. I have slowly been eased out of granMother and back into just gran. This is good.

Second week of school now and some of the newness is starting to fade. I voluntarily gave up our weekday overnights to keep Plum in a nightly routine, just for the first month. We agreed that coming for a whole family dinner one evening a week could replace this and we would keep our weekends. It all made sense to us, adults with thoughts of bedtimes and consistency. It made sense until my Plum threw a tantrum last night like I haven’t seen since I had to let him go years ago and he tried to climb back through the windows on the front porch to avoid returning to his mama’s. I knew it was wrong then but was helpless to stop it. I know it is right now but hate the look that he gave me, the soul shattering look as he drove away, tears rolling, sobs echoing, restrained by a carseat that was carrying him away from his granMother. He wanted me and I wanted him but I used my most firm voice and stated we would absolutely not have this behavior and besides I would see him tomorrow. He rode away with his mama and I know it was good.

Mama called me after he went to sleep, about ten minutes later, to see if he needed $.50 for milk if he took his lunch or would they take off of his account. Mama called me because she needs me also, maybe because she wanted to make sure I was okay after letting go of our boy. Transitioning to being just a gran is hard, as hard as putting this child on a bus. I am trusting teachers and lunch ladies and bus drivers all to see that smile, those eyes, to see his heart and just know he is one incredible kid. I want them to know his story and to not know it, for him to have a fresh start. He is a regular kindergartner with a mama and a step-daddy, a new sibling on the way. I know mama is with me on all this, finally we are together. I will always be his number two and need to let mama be number one. Even when he looks at me like that. I look back with eyes that tell him it is okay, we trust mama also. Gran will see him tomorrow and we will play cars.

 

Waiting with Hot Chocolate

On By LisaIn Faith, Plum, StellaLeave a comment

Growing up in a sexually abusive home means my memory is sketchy. I don’t remember full stories like my little brother. I love to listen to him tell about our shared life, the good parts. He was mentally present. Instead I have snapshots, quickly grabbed photos in my mind that tell the bits of the story I can handle. Many years of therapy have created even more distance between those snapshots and my feelings. Of course horrible counselors insisted I dredge them up and attach emotions to them before I put them away for good. Mostly that works until a nightmare insists I’m not free of those memories. Until the devil himself decides my sleeping hours are his playtime to create such unrest I wake afraid. I awake so unsettled I want to hide again, put on heavy layers of dark clothing, ignore the birds singing their joyful songs, cower under blankets. I can’t hide from my own memories.

We read a book to Plum often about going on a bear hunt. He is afraid of bears. I have explained that bears understand our sign at the front door that says, “Be Nice Or Leave.” He believes me because he needs to. The book finds the family facing tall grass, mud, a forest, a snowstorm. The refrain repeats with each obstacle: we can’t go over it, we can’t go around it, we have to go through it. Together they handle what gets in the way of their goal, until they find the bear. Then they run back through each thing to the safety of their bed. The bear who has been following is left to trudge back to his cave, quite dejectedly. I tell Plum the bear only wanted to play and maybe have a bit of hot chocolate.

I think I need to go through the obstacles again. I want to go around, over, skip them but I can’t get to the damn bear if I don’t just go through. Except I don’t want to find the bear. I want to be left alone. I want to avoid the adventure and let the bear stay in his cave. Yet bears in caves are much scarier though than bears who want a bit of your warm drink, bears who travel over tough lands to play with your Legos. Bears who’s eyes shine in the dark seem so much bigger. Maybe if I travel a bit through all the mud and muck and memories to find the bear, the bear will let me get some sleep.

So, I remember. I remember not just those horrid times as a child but the horrid times as an adult when I felt like a child. I specifically recall sitting at the bottom of the stairs in a filthy apartment looking down, saying no. He was already at the top, saying yes. I said no. He came back down and grabbed my arm and pulled me up. Up to the end of my career, to the end of my marriage, to the end of being present for birthdays and Christmases and everydays with my children. I sat on those steps as if I was 3 again, as if I was 4 and my father had called me home from a play date while my brothers got to stay outside and my mother was at work and I had to go into the bedroom with him or into the shower and I knew I couldn’t make it stop. I sat on those steps until I didn’t and I was upstairs. In that time of climbing step by step my life was over and I don’t even remember climbing. I got to the top somehow to a stained mattress with no sheets to a room covered in old food in wrappers in dark in horror. I see her, I remember the crashing against her body. Then someone comes in and asks if she is ok. Why is she crying. He is gone then. It is over. I am over.

Climbing those stairs took me not closer to heaven but actually straight into the depths of hell. Every choice after was worse than the one before, choices made that never felt like choices. Survivor statements have awakened the national consciousness lately, outrage at light sentences gaining momentum for change.  Stockholm syndrome means you will say anything to appease your captor in order to survive, captivity may be an emotional state. I lost my daughter as I climbed those stairs even though doing so was the only way I knew to survive. Every choice afterward was the only way to save her and my son, saving them for a future that now doesn’t include me. Without being 3 year old me how can you understand 27 year old me who didn’t know how to run? Who only knew how to be silent and go into the bedroom when my father told me to, to go with the man my father told me to, to go, to go, silently.

I want to yell at my daughter that she is so strong because I made her that way. That I taught her to stand up and fight and to yell and to tell people to go away if they hurt her. I taught her those things so that she would never ever have to be silent. Now she is silent to me. She may never understand but at least I know she was always safe from ever climbing stairs or going into bedrooms where horror awaited.  Maybe it isn’t about the bear, maybe it isn’t about the mud and the muck and the snowstorm. Maybe it isn’t even about the nightmares that steal my rest. Maybe I just want to find my way around, though, over this estrangement to get to my daughter. I want her to read those survivor statements and see her mother. I want her outrage to include empathy for the lost little girl that I was, even when I was an adult. I want her to travel over, through, around her own mess to find her mother again and see that I am not a scary bear.  I am just the same mom waiting with hot chocolate.

God Drives an Old Chevy Truck

On By LisaIn Faith, The ChefLeave a comment

My deodorant decided to fight me yesterday. The spinner mechanism at the bottom came unattached to the stick that pushes up the actual white glob that keeps friends closer. After several attempts at overriding the spinner, pushing the stick, unscrewing, reasserting, my blood pressure rising, I realized I was in a battle. I actually have many battles waging around me, this one I determined to win. I removed the stick altogether and searched for something on the bathroom countertop that was about that size. I tried an emery board  but it wasn’t sturdy enough. I considered chopsticks but they were all they way downstairs and I wasn’t about to leave my enemy unguarded. Ah, my toothbrush. I jammed that right up the hole where the tiny stick used to go and pushed. Pieces of blue plastic flew around the floor. Headway. One more good push and the actual product rose out of its hiding spot, victory was mine. Until it fell on the floor.

These battles I fight often seem to go this way, just one push too far until I think I have won but ultimately have lost. I am much better at conflict resolution than in my younger days when I was definitely always right. Now I’m just mostly always right. I’ve been told countless times by professors and family members that I would have made a great attorney. This is maybe not a compliment. What I see as passion and clarity of an issue can often feel like a semi bearing down on others. This is something I just learned about myself, thanks to my brother and a very late night conversation. I am still hearing the echoes of someone who dared tell me the truth a day, a week later.

My Chef and I talked at length about this, a hard talk. I had to own some junk that would be better left at the side of the road. God enabled me to see both sides of a situation, process it quickly, sum it up and then determinate the best route, all in about 3.2 seconds. Perfect in a crisis but thankfully we don’t stay in crisis mode too much around here. My brain does though maybe, it goes too fast and I leave others in my wake. I am definitely not smarter, I just go faster. Chef said it is like I have a NASA computer while he has one from the 70’s with the old dial up, he is still trying to get his past the blinking light on the monitor and I am done. This is an ugly thing about me, it hurts me to know my family sees me as a steamroller. I am blessed that they still love me.

Going so quickly means I often leave God by the wayside as well. I may think I have included Him but I haven’t consulted Him. Being so sure all the time may mean I have fully considered my position, evaluated all sides, determined the best course of action but where is the praying part? Where is the being still part? I may win but the deodorant is still laying on the floor. God speaking to me comes in those quiet times. I think God drives a really old chevy pick up truck, I like to think it is blue since that is my favorite color. God’s truck has all the windows down, the tailgate flat. God drives slowly through the countryside, waving at friends, giving rides to anyone who ran out of gas. God has room in the front, in the back. God definitely would never drive a steamroller.

I am working on keeping my windows down, waving more, giving some rides, driving slower. The keys to my steamroller have been handed over. I have asked Jesus to give me a swift jab with my toothbrush if I try to reclaim them.This battle is between Jesus and Me. I hope to lose.

My Gift

On By LisaIn Faith, Plum, Stella, The Chef1 Comment

I took over 1,000 pictures in the two weeks I was traveling. I didn’t have time to look at them each day, mostly just click and go. I was pretty sure I was a genius though, I was amazed at my newfound gift. I was a photographer. I mean really who wouldn’t be with the scenes before me? The mountains clearly took up many of my shots but I became obsessed with the individual grasses of the prairies in Kansas, the tiny dots of color that made up the wildflower hills in Colorado. Cows have always been a favorite so their glistening skin definitely caught my eye and my viewfinder. Windmills, remnants of old mines, cables abandoned long ago all became art in my eyes and I was sure, in my camera.  I envisioned huge canvas prints of wheat, of cacti, of nature gracing my walls. Glorious.  Only not so much.  I was given amazing views but not amazing gifts as a photographer.

My daughter is an artist. So is Janet. They don’t understand that I am not, maybe that everyone is not. I have watched both take pencils, chalk, paint and turn paper into glory. I turn paper into indecipherable disasters, there is no art from my hands. My brain cannot communicate the beauty it sees to a solid representation. The road is blocked if it was ever built. Just not my gift.

At church there is a young woman who sings like God is pouring out of her soul.  I sing along with her but real quietly. God prefers it that way. So do all those sitting close by.  My desire is strong, my gift is not in singing. My children can attest. I loved when they were little and they knew no better. I sang rather loudly then, a very long time ago.

My chef can run through numbers and talk to anyone about anything. Neither of these are strong places for me. I am okay with math, not scared, actually more afraid of people than fractions.  Clearly my gifts are not found here.

Everyday I tell my Plum he is my favorite. “I know, gran,” comes the exasperated reply. “But how do you know?” I query. “Because you tell me all the time.”  I still figure it is worth repeating because soon enough he will figure out there are many things he is not so great at. He will search for his gifts in a world that pushes for conformity, being quiet, going along. It takes courage to sing loud, to try out and keep trying out, to paint and draw even when your pictures are different from everyone else. My Plum asks what I am good at. This gives me pause. I want to demonstrate for him positive self-esteem but I’m not good at that. I ask what he thinks. “You are good at being smart and being my gran.”Right then I realize I may never take a wall hanging worthy picture, may never doodle an identifiable tree, may always be awkward in social situations, but I have mastered the most important gift God ever gave to me. I rock as a gran. I might even sing a song about it. Quietly.