Musings on Holy Saturday

Have you ever been stuck?
Stuck in a place you don't want to be?
In a place where the voices in your head are whispering "you'll always be stuck here. Nothing will ever change, and you'll never survive 40 years of this. or 40 days. or 40 minutes."?

I have. I get stuck in those kinds of places more often than I'd care to admit. But I know I'm not alone. You know why? Because I have imaginary friends.

Well, kindof, lol. I do have a hyperactive imagination, and so, when I meditate on Holy Saturday- the day between Jesus' death on the cross and the day he rose again, I think about the disciples and how they must have been feeling. Scared. Trapped. Devastated. Hopeless. The man they believed would fulfill all their hopes, dreams, and expectations for themselves and for their country died. On a cross, yesterday.

He's buried.

I can feel the quiet shock of terror in their hearts after the bombshell of grief exploded and turned their world upside down. I imagine them sitting still and heavy- unable to think or find motivation. Unclear about what they will do next. Where will they go? Who can they trust? Did they follow the wrong man? Clearly he cannot be the savior. How much danger are their lives in if they are identified as followers of Jesus? And a dull darkness overshadowing their brains as they struggle to concentrate on those questions but just. . . can't.

Those disciples did not remember all the prophecies about Jesus or the very words he had said to them- that he would rise again after three days. They couldn't. Honestly, I can't imagine how they survived that awful, death-shadowed Saturday.

But here's what I do know. They did survive. And Jesus rose from the dead. Things changed. They changed in a moment. And things do change, will change. I'm not going to tell you that your "Saturday"- whatever that situation is- will get better. I don't know that. Sometimes things get worse before they get better. But I do know that it will change. And while perhaps it's too much to ask that you or I believe that our situation will come to life again, perhaps we can cling to the belief that it will change. And maybe, just maybe, we can allow ourselves to risk that dangerous hope that our very own Sunday will come someday.

What Chickens are Teaching Me About Life

I am so enjoying having our chickens, and since the kids love being outside with them, I've had a lot of opportunity to observe them, and it's eye opening and convicting! Maybe I'm making too many connections here, but work with the word pictures, k?

The smallest chicken, Spot, gets picked on by the older chickens a lot. Some of this is normal for establishing pecking order, but then they broke the skin. Apparently blood attracts the other chickens and they will peck the bleeding chicken, basically, to death. Gross and disturbing!

So I've been watching Spot a lot, and letting her out of the coop during the day so she doesn't get pecked to death. In the afternoon, I let the other girls out to run for a couple hours before dark. One day, they were all obsessed watching Spot eat some leftovers I'd thrown out. The chickens were "whining" and were running back and forth and pecking the fence. Get this- the door was open behind them. They were free! But they couldn't figure that out because they were so focused on what they didn't have! I sheepishly wonder how often I'm so focused on my discontent and my envy (major personal defects!), and the door to what I want is wide open right behind me!

I've also observed that Spot really wants to be with the other chickens. One evening I relented and allowed her to sleep in the coop- her wound was doing better, and I smeared her up with petroleum jelly, hoping that the bigger birds wouldn't bother it. Nope, they picked at her again even worse than before- but she still wanted to be with them! I wonder what I am hanging out with that's "picking me to pieces"? I don't think there's any people that are bad for me; I'm thinking more about habits- ahem, facebook?

Finally,  I've been watching Spot run around, acting like everything is fine- eating, scratching, running around, hanging out with the other chickens- and she has a gaping hole in the back of her head! Do you do that? Do you act like everything is fine when you have a gaping wound in your head? . . . or your heart? Oh, that's just me? good, then I'm glad I've been hiding it.

Life Changes in a Moment

Life's disappointments are veiled love's appointments. ~Rev C.A. Fox

 

My child, I have a message for you today; let me whisper it in your ear. . . this thing is from Me. ~Laura A Barter Snow 

 

"There are some graces which would never have been discovered if it were not for the trials." ~Streams in the Desert 

I posted the last quote above on January 6th on facebook. It was a "grab the nearest book and quote the 2nd sentence from x page" things. As soon as I read it, I felt that it would be prophetic, and I think it has proved to be so.

Last week I went to the ER because I was bleeding too much from a miscarriage. I passed out and seized in the ER waiting room. I had two ivs and lots of fluids and a blood transfusion and a manual dnc. This is my second miscarriage in 6 months- the other one was much earlier in the pregnancy.

The hospital stay was hard. I prayed and thought a lot while I lay in that hospital bed. I prayed about how I knew the Lord was with me even though I couldn't feel his presence and even though he wasn't answering my prayers the way I wanted. (One of my #1 verses for comfort is from Hebrews 13:5-6. "Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.")

 I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to sleep. I wanted never to go to the hospital at all. God reminded me that He loves me in ways that I do not love myself. I want the easy road, the comfort, the convenience, the path of least resistance, even though I know from experience that challenges grow me and make me stronger, better, more compassionate, more empathetic, wiser, and draw me closer to Him. God loves me enough to put me through hard things that I would not, or even could not, choose for myself. God wants the best for me. It's a mystery to me how this experience can be what's best, but I rest in the knowledge that He will work to make it so. I chose Streams in the Desert for one of my daily readers this year, and it has so many amazing reminders of God's faithfulness in the midst of trials. Some of them I'm not sure I'm on board with the theological implications if taken to the extreme, but many of them are encouraging nonetheless. I'm including a few of the quotes that have encouraged me over the past week or so.

"The very fact of our trial proves that there is something in us very precious to the Lord else He would not spend so much time and pains on us." February 16th.

February 8th in Streams in the Desert 
 (the first thing I read when I came home from the hospital)

Lo, I am with you all the appointed days. Mt. 28:20

Do not look forward to the changes and chances of this life in fear. Rather look at them in full hope that, as they arise, God, whose you are, will deliver you out of them. He has kept you hitherto; do you but hold fast to His dear  hand, and He will lead you safely through all things; and when you cannot stand, He will bear you in His arms. Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow, and every day. Either He will shield you from suffering, or He will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then, put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.
~Frances De Sales
 Every time I read this, I mentally change "He will give you unfailing strength to bear it" to "He will be strong in my weakness".

I don't want to give the impression that I've got all the faith over here and that this isn't hard. I am sad. I am grieving these babies. I'm fearful about what this means our family will be. I'm angry that I was sick for 10 weeks and that we will probably spend as much on a traumatic ER trip as we would have spent to have a baby. I never want to be on an iv again. Ever.

I also feel a little bit of guilt. Not having another baby right now makes everything. . . simpler. Not necessarily better, just easier. I have to remind myself that's a fact, not something that I should feel guilty for feeling or thinking. I did want this baby, and recognizing that having a baby is hard and life changing does not mean that I didn't. Guilt is such a hard thing to deal with. As soon as I knew I was miscarrying, I immediately felt like it was somehow my fault. I had used a sinus spray the night before, and frantically started researching to find out if it was linked to miscarriages. Yikes! that's Satan's work right there, ya'll.

I'm starting to ramble, so I will wrap up. I'm doing well. I'm recovering rapidly. I got blood drawn today and my levels are going the right direction. I'm at peace about losing the baby. I'm trusting that God will fill that hole in His own way. I don't think I need anything- our church family at Midtown has done an awesome job helping with childcare, meals, and flowers. I just wanted to share this with anyone interested because 1. this feels like a big life event that I want my friends to know about (and I selfishly don't want to have to drop it on a conversation when someone asks what's been up with me) 2. I don't want others to suffer through this alone. I am hearing more stories about women who have had similar experiences. I think we need to talk about this. I had no idea what was normal bleeding for a miscarriage because no one has talked about it. I want to talk about it. (by my estimate, I lost between 2 and 4 pints the first day- that's not normal, apparently). 3. I don't want to be asked when we're having more kids or if we are. That's out of our control.

Gratitude List:

I am so thankful for Ben. He encouraged me to call the midwives back when they were taking a long time getting back to me. If he hadn't, I probably would have passed out at home. I am also so thankful that he was by my side- calm and collected the whole time. I remember hearing him repeat my symptoms to the trauma team in the ER when I was too weak and distracted to communicate- I think they asked him because I was keeping my eyes clenched shut! He also stayed with me in the hospital the whole time and helped with a variety of things. When we came home, he continued to be such a servant to the kids and I in so many ways!

Many thanks to Emily Humbert and the other ladies I texted who were willing to drop everything at a moment's notice when I said I needed to go to the ER- also for offering to put in the iv for me at home, lol!

Thanks to Jonathan Nash for spending the night with the kids and for coming over in the middle of the night when we went back to the ER :(.

Thanks to Shanna Kraii, Susie Nash, Matt and Catherine Singleton, Adrienne Pettersson, and the Humberts for all taking turns watching the kids and taking them out of the house so that I could rest. Did I forget anyone?

Thanks to all the people who have brought us food! The Nasheltons, the Wegners, the Kraiis, the Garretts, the Gants, the Jones, the Sundars, Valerie, and the Guileys and a few more to come! It's all been so delicious, and generous, and a big load off my mind!

I am thankful for my parents, especially for my mom who really, really, really wanted to come up and couldn't. They did come for a visit Saturday and brought me a desk and a chicken coop!

I am thankful for Ben's parents and other family members who offered to come and help if we needed it.

And I'm thankful for everyone who has expressed prayers, thoughts, condolences etc.

Finally, I am thankful that this happened. I know that sounds weird, but I want to learn to be thankful in all things, and I have been so blown away by all the support throughout this experience that I am thankful if for that reason alone.

Grace and Peace,
Gloria

Having a Baby vs. Running a Marathon

The thing still seemed impossible. But gradually something happened to him which had happened to him only twice before in his life. . . in both cases the thing had seemed a sheer impossibility: he had not thought but known that, being what he was, he was psychologically incapable of doing it; and then, without any apparent movement of the will, as objective and unemotional as the reading on a dial, there had arisen before him, with perfect certitude, the knowledge “about this time tomorrow you will have done the impossible.” ~ C.S. Lewis Perelandra 126

*spoiler alert* 

The Lewis quote is from when Ransom realizes that he has to kill the Un-man. This is exactly how I felt about giving birth to then-unknown Joseph: having a baby seemed impossible, but once labor started, I knew that in 24 hours, I would have a baby in my arms.                                                                        

Whenever I would tell people I’ve run a marathon (or even when I was just training for one), SO many people would say “Oh, wow! I could NEVER do that.” Until I had actually run a marathon, I didn’t really have a good response, although I suspected that in truth they probably could run a marathon- if they wanted. I’m not a good runner; I’m slow, and I’ve often been plagued by knee issues so I figured that if I could do it, so could they.

Now that I have given birth naturally and run a marathon, I just want to say to all those mothers out there who have delivered a baby without pain meds: giving birth is harder than running a marathon. Therefore, “you” could run a marathon. I’m not saying that anyone should run a marathon; just that all you ladies (and gents) should not sell yourselves short by claiming that you can’t. The actual pain of labor might not be worse than running a marathon, but giving birth was harder than running a marathon for me because  I was not in control, I didn’t know when it would be over, and because it took longer to have a baby.

One of the terrifying things about labor going into it was that I knew I would not be in control of my body. My body became a stranger to me and took over. While I know this is a natural process, it still freaked me out a little bit to be completely ignorant of what my body might do. In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago talks about his left hand being a traitor because it cramps when he needs it. I guess I felt a little bit like that.  Also, since I was not in control, there was nothing I could do to alleviate or stop pain. While running a marathon, there is always the option to stop, walk, slow down or even quit. There are no options in labor- not even quitting. *

Another way I struggled with not being in control was the “unknown” factor. I’m a very goal oriented person, so not knowing how long the labor would be or how bad it would get was a challenge for me. Obviously, the goal was to have the baby without medical interventions, but beyond that, I had very little to focus on. If someone could have told me “you’ll have the baby in 15 hours,” I would have been able to cope with the challenges of labor better. But, no one can predict those things, and I dreaded the possibility that the labor might drag on and on and on.

As I’ve entered a world of actually understanding labor and delivery terminology, I’m realizing the length of time one is actually “in labor” is extremely subjective. Some people count it from the first contraction, other people from a certain level of dilation, others from when the water breaks etc. I’m not sure I really care because for most people, it’s a long time! The hospital staff calculated that my labor was about 8 hours, but I felt like I was in labor for more like 12 or 16 hours! (because I was having steady contractions for that long.) My marathon was on trail and therefore longer than average- over 5 hours! (embarrassing. . .). Needless to say, labor- calculated as long or short- was a lot longer than my marathon.

Oh, and now that I’ve gained some distance from delivery, I would also say that labor and delivery takes a LOT longer to recover from. I played frisbee the evening of my marathon. I probably could not have walked to the car the same day as delivery. (In addition, I also experienced post-partum preeclampsia and had to return to the hospital for several days. I know that I could not have walked to the car after that- I had lost so much muscle! To the point that I had lost 35 of the 40 pounds I gained during pregnancy. Marathons don’t do that to ya!)

Now, this is not a motivational blog to inspire people to do marathons instead of have kids (my dad would kill me if he thought I were doing that ;).

Will I have more kids? Hopefully!

Will I run another marathon? Maybe.

I want to encourage you to go for your goals and not sell yourself short by saying that you can’t or could never do something. There are a lot of things in my life that I, as a teenager, never thought I would do. I’ve always been (still am) terrified of heights, yet I enjoy rock climbing, rappelling and even rappelling into caves (Natural Well on Monte Sano is a freaky rappel and ascension!). I’ve even done a couloir and climbed a couple 14ers. Turns out, I had to grow up a little to start doing hard and dangerous stuff, and I'm still learning and have ton more to learn about facing my fears.  The point is, if you want to try to reach your goals- try it! And stop wasting time saying you can’t.

They don't give you anything this adorable just for running a marathon.
 I do think the food's better after a marathon though. 

*some people may point out that there are opt-out options for delivery such as pain meds, epidural etc. I don't have anything morally against those, but there was not way I was going to use them, especially the epidural- needle yikes! I did have one "medical intervention" though: I let them break my water after I'd been at the hospital about 8 hours. I did not want my water broken to induce labor, but I'm glad I let them do it at that point in my labor (I think I was 4 cm or something like that). 

A Summer of Not Running. . .

Life has seasons, and sometimes we get shoved into those seasons without really knowing why or having much choice. This summer, I was planning to get back into running the second half of the summer, but I found myself in Laramie Wyoming, working with a group out there called Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries (http://srom.org). My husband and I have both instructed rock climbing and backpacking there before, and they suddenly found themselves short on staff and invited us to come out for a month. We got to instruct two rock climbing courses (one to City of the Rocks Idaho!), and a large youth group course to the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Pariah Canyon. These were awesome opportunities for us, and a great time to relax and get away from school, but not much time for running!

Since getting home in August, I've worked back up to 3 or 4 miles at a sub-10 minute pace, which is decent for me. But last week, I got some news- my running partner is moving! I'm still deciding and praying about doing a half marathon in November and then a marathon in December, but I really don't think the marathon is a good idea- I think I would need more training time.

In the meantime, there are several people in the process of adopting. If you're looking for someone to support, a friend of mine is doing a 10 mile SWIM to raise money for an adoption from China. You could check his story out at: www.patrickandpatty.blogspot.com

Other families currently adopting (not an all-inclusive list):
Jeff and Sheila Corbin
Nathan and Kimberly Neely: http://www.bringingthenationshome.blogspot.com/
Mike and Allison Barker: http://www.ugandainourhearts.blogspot.com
The Gygaxes


And then some pictures of my summer because that's what a blog is for, right? Posting pictures of myself. haha! I just think pictures explain better than words what I've been up to:

A Needed Rest

Since the marathon, I really haven't felt like running. I've tried running with the dog I'm "watching" during the day, and that's bun, but I really just prefer to walk. I'm also enjoying learning how to bike on a friend hybrid bike. It's fun and good exercise, but a little stressful- I'm always afraid I'm going to get runover, hit, or hit someone else!

I keep saying that I'm going to work on my arms for my sister's wedding in August, but I actually hurt my back a little bit playing frisbee. I jumped up for a catch in the end zone, but just barely tipped the disc and tried to readjust to catch it. I didn't, and I came down funny on my heels and then bounced onto my rear. I found out later that one of my former students caught it, and we scored the point! That was exciting, but it left me with a pain between my shoulder blades that made me catch my breath with any sudden movement or position change. Therefore, I took some time off.

I'm also having a lot of time alone with Ben at work. I get to do my Bible Study, read, and get ready for next year without having a million other things to do. Having this "quiet time" has been really good for me, and I'm really enjoying the time.

So, for the moment, I'm taking time off from "trotting for tots", but I am so excited to go to Wyoming for a brief time to staff some courses with Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries (http://srom.org/) where I was a student in 2007, worked in 2008, volunteered in 2009, and am now returning as a "guest" instructor. I'm so excited! This isn't exactly raising money for kids or adoption etc., but it is something that's near and dear to my heart. I'm passionate about people using their bodies in positive and useful ways. In our technological world, I think the body sometimes gets forgotten. I think it's ridiculous the way young people (and adults!) are so attached to their phones/ devices (for more read this: http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/family/articles/2011/03/27/on_call_all_night_can_leave_texting_teens_tired_out/?page=1)

  Also, it's amazing how quickly being in the wilderness strips people of their "crutches" and forces them to trust in the Lord- sometimes for the next step! Rock climbing often brings people face to face with their own insecurities and fears (usually in a good way).

For all these reasons, I'm thrilled to be asked back to SROM for a short time. I'm hoping it will help me refocus on teaching as ministry before I go back to teaching in August.

More later!

Gloria

Greg and I in Wyoming at Solid Rock during my year as an instructor!

   

Me rapelling as a student in 2007!

To finish is to win?

Perhaps I will think of more to say later, but below are some random thoughts and pictures from the race.

The difference between adopting (or parenting period) and running a race is that in any race, the finish line is an obvious end. Parenting never ends.

But thank goodness for the finish line of our marathon! The race was hard and painful. (I know some of you are thinking "duh!"). The race was touted as a "good for beginner's" race. We discovered that they meant a good beginner transition race for road marathoner's who wanted to start running trail. oops!

I definitely did not run the whole race- there were several uphills that I walked because of fatigue. The only injuries I sustained were cuts on my shins and a severely stubbed big toe. No falls!

But, I know that ya'll don't want to hear all about it- you want pictures! So here they are. . .

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed!

Some freebies we scored since the race was delayed a half an hour . . .

Finished! For the first time ever, I believe that to finish is to win. I used to think that was cheesy and lame (and sometimes it still is), but when I was on about mile 21-23, I began to realize that just getting to the finish line would be a feat.  

Only Marathon runners (vs. Half marathoners) got smiley faces so runners could scope out the competition . . . right . . .

Me- not sure how to stand up right anymore . . .

Dirt Line! Except- it wouldn't all wash off.



My poor toe! I don't know if you can see that huge blister, and the purple toenail isn't showing up well, but trust me, it's been getting more and more purple and swelling!