This Little Light of Mine

Every year for many years, my mom has organized a county-wide Christian women's retreat in East Tennessee. When I've been able to attend, I've participated in various ways; I've photographed and sung and taught breakout sessions, and this past year I was a main speaker. The theme was fear. I went into the situation feeling like I had some thoughts to contribute.

Generally, I feel tired after speaking; in recent years, I've noticed I feel tired even after teaching, but the fatigue that set in after this event may have been unprecedented. I was motivated to drive home that evening (and was rewarded, later, for making that decision) but needed to stop several times on the three-hour trip just to stay awake. I felt exhausted and heavy, awkward and almost bruised, like I'd fallen or run into a wall.

As time passed, every time I thought about my part in the event, I felt...icky. I'm generally confident in my words, so my discomfort was unusual. I was sure I'd said the wrong things in the wrong way with the wrong spirit. I suspected I'd been controversial, possibly offensive. I tried not to agonize or even mull over the situation, but for months, it was in the back of my mind, bothering me.

Then I allowed someone's words to wound me. I don't know this person but had known for years that I disagreed with some of his theology, so I have no idea why I internalized what he said...unless because I was already so busy second-guessing myself.

Two months after the retreat, my mom came to visit. She happened to have with her the recording of the event, and I asked to listen to my part. I can't express how much I dreaded hearing myself but had been so unusually miserable that I felt sure I'd said something for which I needed to repent. I just wanted to identify it and move forward. I cringed as my mom pressed play.

Listening to myself was an interesting exercise because I heard nothing to regret. Of course there was room for improvement (There always is!), but I didn't hear anything like what I'd expected. Instead, I heard myself trying to find points of agreement and connection, taking special care not to disparage others. I heard myself sharing active pain and struggle, also some hard-won wisdom. I was especially interested in the points at which I'd gone off script because it seemed possible to me that someone really needed to hear the things I hadn't planned to say. What a relief! How much energy, I wonder, had I wasted by allowing my mind to play tricks on me?

I have always blogged to write myself down for my children, and if that's all I accomplish with this post, I will be satisfied. But this is what I want to share, today, and it's nothing new:

Let your light shine.

If you're in Christ, allow the Spirit within you to be your guide. Allow God to open your mouth and give you words. You will know when it's time to speak and what to say. No one can better advise or inform you than God within you. You will know if your message is true, and if it is, don't second-guess it.

Your pain is not off limits; in fact, your pain is your power. It just takes practice to know how to use it! If you practice enough, your pain will light your way into spaces you never imagined. You'll look around, and no one else will be there to do the work that needs done. There will be no competition; no one else will even want to do it. You may not want to do it, yourself, but you will know it to be your work, and you will be equipped to complete it.

Those who are wise in Christ know: in the Kingdom, we are short-handed. (The harvest is great, but the laborers are few.) There simply aren't enough willing hands. There is far more to do than what is being accomplished. Be inspired: you are desperately needed! Stay in the Spirit, and get to work.

Triggers, Weaknesses, and When It's Not about What It Seems

Here I am, on a Friday morning, eight minutes from missing my daughters' hair appointments. Last night, I missed my older son's high-school-band performance because I was giving a final exam and issuing final grades. This was more complicated than one might imagine because, at the school where I teach (blessed school), I record my grades in a green book; thus, I do the calculations. Nothing is automatic.

These students and I spent forty-five hours together over the course of five weeks. I spent another forty-five hours with a morning class: equally delightful but much smaller and without a student like the one who organized a feast for us so that--last night, as I was making calculations--I was eating undone empanadas, fried chicken tenders, and little squares of Cojack on a sturdy paper plate.

I start teaching again, Tuesday night. Between now and then, I'll wait tables three times, write a eulogy, write a research paper, and edit as many photos as I can. If you're astute, you'll have noticed no mention of my children, and trust me: they need my attention, too. I want to cry for having missed my daughters' hair appointments; each girl looks as though a mouse has slept in her hair and needs to lose the bottom eight inches. Homeschooling has been in the toilet since Christmas. Jim and I promised a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's as soon as he got a job, and he got a job, and my four-year-old is dismayed that it's looking like Monday at best.

But as of next week, my responsibilities will start to shift. I won't teach morning classes or wait tables. I'll catch up on photo editing (the events have been completely beyond me), reconnect with my children, homeschool, clean. I don't have words to express how excited this non-nester is to clean. 

I regret not having written more, over the past few months, about all the ways in which God has provided and even delighted. There wasn't time. There isn't time, now, but I feel the need to pause and reflect. I am stronger, faster, more capable of multitasking than I thought. I am more inclined to stand up for myself than I used to be, and in a more effective way. I bear a million stories. I become increasingly less afraid to tell them. 

Mostly, I enjoyed my work--all of it--except when I worked with strep throat, a cold, or a bladder infection. I could hardly generate a feeling when each of my sons underwent surgery. Jim spent a day in the ER with chest pains; I was glad for the excuse to call off work and vacuum under our couches. My dad spent a couple days in the hospital with some sort of mysterious blood loss; I was detached enough from the situation that he might have been a friend's dad, or no one's dad. A stranger. I could've almost had a feeling about not having a feeling, but there was no energy for such like. I just kept swimming.

Then, this week, I finally lost my shit. At the time, it was the strangest, most inexplicable thing. I was out-of-the-blue enraged. Jim was baffled. I've learned, finally, to pay attention to when he thinks I make no sense: not that he always makes sense, but overall, he's a pragmatic sort. I knew he was onto something, also that I wasn't prepared to talk about it; in fact, I kept hissing at him not to talk to me about anything, to just. leave. me. alone. I felt downright dangerous, murderous.

Yesterday, the call with the offer came, and I went from enraged to mildly pissed, a state in which I can have (as the song goes) just a little talk with Jesus. It's less talking, really, than listening: than prying my soul open like the shell of an oyster. In this state, I could see almost right away that my rage had been less about anything in the moment than a trigger. This is progress. 

Jim had been informed Friday that he would receive an offer in his range early this week. We were confident enough (and desperate enough for our apple cart to be righted) that I put in notices everywhere. Then the offer didn't come when promised. Without realizing it, I was cast back into the hell of my miscarriage. Mostly, I don't want to talk about this (and refuse to argue or defend it) but feel compelled to tell you: I read a book I cannot recommend that held a message I cherish, which is that healing is a tv word, that we move through life as people with holes. We do not heal so much as we learn to accept and even use our holes. 

Even very recently, I thought God wanted to heal me; now, I think Him far more interested in using me. His strength is made perfect in weakness, amen. Maybe the goal is to see weakness clearly and for what it is. Maybe the goal is not to overcome it but to push through it, by the grace and with the help of God, over and over again. Watch me put one foot in front of the other, perhaps with a tray on my shoulder. I'm not going to lie to you and tell you I'm not in pain. I'm going to tell you I love Jesus, anyway...and my husband, and my life.

My Father Is an Astronomer

I took the little kids to the library, this evening, for an event called A Starry Night. There were experts in attendance from the Science Museum of Virginia and the Richmond Astronomy Club. Inside, they explained about an evening sky map and star clocks, and outside, they shared their giant telescopes.

It was dark in the parking lot, so dark I could hardly see my children. I was straining, shushing, fussing, and periodically calling someone down from a hill after (s)he'd bolted. Meanwhile, without my realizing it, the line for a telescope formed just to my left and stretched behind me, so it took even longer for us to get to the front than it should have.

At last we reached the man with the telescope. He was short, older I think. I could just make out a glint from his glasses: his features, not at all. "I'm sorry," I said: "What should we see?"

"Oh, that's quite alright," he said, and he proceeded to say that we should see something resembling a cotton ball through the telescope. He called it an M15 star cluster, I think. He had several other things to say. I can't say what. I got lost in his voice.

In his voice, I got lost. It was a most ordinary voice: scientisty. His words were so devoid of variation and volume that his voice seemed barely-, hardly-there. Gentle. Factual without seeming matter-of-fact. It was as though he were very far away. I think I have tuned out similar man voices all my life; yet, I was completely arrested. Utterly entranced.

It was the greatest disappointment to walk away, to go back inside the library for cookies and cocoa. I wanted to stay in the dark, in the parking lot. I wanted to listen to a man I couldn't see tell me things about a cotton ball of stars in space.

Driving home, I thought to myself how I've changed: how I'm so done, so threadbare, so tired of yelling. How I hope to never again hear anyone, including myself, holler. How I want to spend my next life--not that I really believe in next lives--surrounded by people who talk like the man with the telescope.

I was wondering how different my life would be if that man were my dad. I was wondering; then, I heard it: "Your Father is an astronomer."

Untold Story #19: Unconditional Surrender

While we were in Sarasota, I hopped out of the minivan to photograph J. Seward Johnson's Unconditional Surrender sculpture. I had read that some Sarasota locals disapprove of it, thinking it kitschy, but of course, I love kitschy, also J. Seward Johnson's The Awakening sculpture at National Harbor.

The words on the sign:

The profound joy portrayed in this sculpture was prompted by the spontaneous surrender of the Japanese, thus ending World War II on August 14, 1945. Among the celebrants in Times Square in New York City were a United States sailor and a nurse embracing amidst the multitude of joy makers.

The merriment expressed the pride and relief of the military and the home front to have been part of this great victory despite the eleven years of unemployment and the hardships of the Great Depression; four years of horrific war; losing loved ones; the rationing of food and gasoline and the war production duties endured by the home front. This group is called the "Greatest Generation," which is a title they well deserve.

This celebrated moment in the history of our nation prompted preeminent American sculptor J. Seward Johnson to create this sculpture, which he named "Unconditional Surrender." After several years of intensive efforts, a proud veteran of World War II, Jack Curran, bought the sculpture, and with the outstanding support given by various Sarasota County veterans associations, he was able to donate the statue to the City of Sarasota.

The presence of this sculpture prompts viewers to never forget the "Greatest Generation" or the day when they demonstrated their "Unity"--August 14. 1945.

Of course, there's more than one side to every story. I photographed the sculpture in June, and in September, Greta Zimmer Friedman--the woman portrayed in Johnson's sculpture (and initially captured in photographs)--died. She'd been twenty-one in 1945. She'd been wearing a nurse's uniform but had been working as a dental assistant. When the news of Japanese surrender was announced, George Mendonsa--a sailor and stranger to Friedman--had grabbed and kissed her. Mendonsa's girlfriend (an actual nurse) had looked on and smiled (source).

In an interview for the Library of Congress, Friedman said to Patricia Redmond: “It wasn't my choice to be kissed. The guy just came over and grabbed!” (source). Friedman's son said his mother had understood why some perceive this to be an account of public assault, but that she hadn't necessarily seen it that way (source). Of course, times were different, then: impetuous celebration more commonplace (source). 

It's been thought-provoking to revisit my photos of this sculpture, these last couple days...to consider it in light of Donald Trump's words from eleven years ago. I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but--whether or not Michelle Obama was sincere when she said she hasn't been able to stop thinking about them--I am sincere when I say it.

I spoke with a friend over the weekend, a woman a little older than I, who talked nonchalantly about having been groped herself...and about her plans to vote for Trump regardless of what he said (or, in my opinion, confessed to have done). She's not the only woman in my life who intends to vote for Trump, next month. Their decision is baffling to me; yet, even as I write this, I feel convicted because I know I'd disregarded many of Trump's ugly words before they triggered me, personally.

Is that what it all comes down to? Are words only offensive if one is offended by them? Is assault only assault if one is outraged or traumatized by it? I've had similar thoughts, before, as related to abortion; it seems like the value (or type of value) placed upon a fetus/baby lies only in a person's perception of it. (Read my thoughts on abortion, here.) All of it is confusing to me. Is there a line? Is there a standard?

I want to believe yes...and Jesus. The trouble is: not everyone believes in Jesus. We have freedom of and from religion here. Isn't that part of what's supposed to make America great? And not everyone who believes in Jesus believes the same things of Him. Since I've announced my intention to vote for Gary Johnson, I've been shamed by Republicans, Democrats, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Where is the fair intersection between religion and politics? I've puzzled over this before, and I'm still puzzling. I'm still here, my heart feeling heavy as a rock inside my chest. What does it mean to be a true patriot? All I know is: if it comes down to thinking and praying and caring (obsessing), I've arrived.

The Girls at J. Seward Johnson's The Awakening, 2015

Untold Story #3: Scott County, Tennessee

My Mom. Photo by Ashley Nicole Baker. 

As much as I treasured my time with my nephews, the timing of this last Tennessee trip wasn't motivated by them so much as by 1) a women's retreat, and 2) a butcher. I'll tell you the latter story, later, but for now: the women's retreat.

For ten years, my mom has coordinated the Scott County Ladies Christian Retreat. If I have the story straight, she felt (and still feels) led to encourage greater unity among the women of various churches in my home county and beyond. With an attendance of approximately 125 women, this last time, there were more than forty churches represented.

I love the spirit of this event. I've attended three of the ten to teach and/or photograph, and I've been blessed every time...by the teaching, singing, fellowship, etc. The theme, this year, was "Laying Aside Every Weight." My mom taught a workshop on Alzheimer's: the disease to which we lost my grandma. Her sisters traveled down from Maryland to support and help, so I had some rare, beautiful time with my aunts while I was in Tennessee.

Aunt Ellie & Aunt Joyce - Photos by Ashley Nicole Baker.

Writing this reminds me that I need to get my mom's notes because--not wanting to get even more worked up prior to teaching, myself--I didn't attend her workshop. I attended workshops by Sherry Laymance (my sister-in-law's mom) and Stacey Bell. Both of these women have been in my life for a really long time, and I was amazed by the intersection in what they shared.

(L) Sherry & My SIL Sarah, (R) Stacey. These photos are mine.

I taught, this year, on the weight of emotional pain and focused on practical helps to manage anxiety and depression.

Me, Teaching. Photo by Ashley Nicole Baker.

My home county has grown so much in the twenty-four years since I left home. Not only do I recognize spiritual growth, but I see new businesses, institutions of learning, parks, and concert venues; I missed him, but Hank Williams, Jr. performed in my home county the night of the retreat! Scott County even boasts a wonderful museum complex, now, on the grounds of my old high school. Unfortunately, because someone was filming, we weren't able to visit the Learning Lodge portion of the museum complex the day we visited. Even so, there were a lot of things to see and do.

Dad went with the little kids and me to the museum complex, also to the butcher (in Kentucky), so on this trip, I spent much more time with him than with Mom. Mom is working full-time, these days, and she was completely spent following the retreat. Dad washed her feet, and she and Charleigh fell asleep right after.

But the little kids and I even managed to squeeze in a visit with our friends Shelly and Joslin (Joslin had grown so much since the last time!), so it was a wonderful trip on many levels. Stay tuned for my butcher story...then, for a dinosaur story.

My Girls with Joslin

Belated 9th Anniversary Post

"Come to Hatteras," they said, and I didn't want to go with you. It had gone bad between us, again. Nine years married, and there's been more bad than good, more hard than easy. We are weary.

I worry about what our children have learned about marriage. We have taught them all we know about it, but our understanding is a bag with holes. We've prayed, read articles and books, watched videos, met with a counselor; yet, we can't seem to get it together.

I've been an excellent learner all my life, but I can't seem to learn this: can't seem to break our painful cycles that are, in many ways, similar to the ones I witnessed, growing up. Sometimes, I'm tempted to blame my parents; other times, I'm tempted to blame yours. I've asked you to imagine throwing my daddy and yours into a sack and shaking it; what would be the outcome? Not good, and I'm not always sure who is who in this scenario; regardless, the truth is that we're the adults (the ones influencing children), now, and aren't we responsible for the choices we make?

It doesn't feel like it; I know. Our behaviors feel innate, primal, beyond the capacity of our excellent brains and kind, Jesus-loving hearts. I live with the fear that, down the pike, our children--our daughters, especially--will choose this: not because it's happy or healthy or normal, but because it's familiar.

We long for respite. We found it, for a few days, in Hatteras. With lights and nets, one night we walked to the sea to hunt ghost crabs.

I'd never hunted ghost crabs, before, and in truth participated this time only through the lens of my old camera, a T3i, which has limited ISO capabilities. It has a flash, but I wanted to see what I could get with ambient lighting. The resulting photos are blurry, but I love them; I think they capture both my wild excitement and my disorientation.

 

They also capture Charleigh's trepidation.

I took many beautiful photos while we were in Hatteras, but these are the ones I've studied over and over. I haven't been able to stop thinking about that night: the dark air so thick with salt that, licking my lips, I could taste it; the beams of the flashlights and lanterns; Charleigh's eyes, wide with concern; the delighted laughter of the other children and shouts of the adults ("We've got one; bring the bucket!"); the surf's occasional lap at my flip-flop-clad feet. Again and again, I have played the movie of this--the ghost-crab hunt--in my mind, until I could not doubt that there was something more I was supposed to see in it, write about it.

So I did the thing I do, sometimes, in which I force my spirit open like a pistachio nut left in the bottom of the bag: one of those we pick out and toss back in because it has an ungenerous gap, because it must be either pried open with something other than our fingers or cracked with a snap between our teeth.

After days and days, this is what I found.

Hunting ghost crabs is a perfect analogy for our marriage. We are haunted people. We are together but alone. We each carry a little light and benefit from the (little) light of others; still, we are severely limited in what we can see. It's dark, here. There are ghosts, here, but good on us if we're committed to capturing them: to seeing and accepting them for what they are and, ultimately, to setting them free.

Your beams illuminate my ghosts; my beams illuminate yours. Our power in one another's life is this and only this: illumination. Not eradication. Eradication is deeply personal. We have long been distracted by one another's ghosts. If there is to be peace and progress, each of us must commit to dealing with his or her own ghosts, also to giving the other space and time to do the same.

May we stumble ever closer to a better and brighter place; may we find one another there. This is nine years married. Hear me when I say: I love you, still.

Winsome.

I have so many stories to tell and so little time with which to tell them: no time, really, considering the lesson-planning and dishes I need to do. If it's a good story, though, I try to write it anyway and in spite of, and the best story I have to tell has to do with Winsome: a Christian women's retreat held in Mann's Choice, Pennsylvania.

I guess I first heard of Winsome while in Nebraska for a different retreat; certainly, that was where I met founder and host Kim Hyland. (You can read that story, here.) I thought from summer on that I was meant to go, but Jim lost his job in late July, and we were counting pennies. I said to God something about how, if He really meant for me to go, He'd have to make it possible.

Then, just before Christmas, I received a note and a check from Debbie, whom I'd met briefly at the other retreat. "What did you say to her," Jim asked, "that she would send us money?" I had no idea. 

If I'm being honest, Debbie wasn't the only person who gave us money around that time, but Winsome hadn't crossed my mind until just then. Because of Debbie's written words, the check amount, and how she and I had met, it didn't take long for me to look at Jim with awe and say: "I think this is for Winsome." Even so, I didn't deposit the check right away but, instead, held onto and prayed about it until I was sure. 

I was a little nervous, telling Debbie what I intended to do with the money; what if she thinks I'm selfish, I wondered, for spending it on myself? She seemed delighted, though, and I asked if she could attend Winsome and room with me. In the end, given that there's no airport particularly close to the retreat location, she flew into Richmond and drove to and from Mann's Choice, Pennsylvania with me. We had an adventure inside of an adventure, then: not only attending the retreat but also, while we were together, exploring parts of Winchester, Virginia; Schellsburg, Pennsylvania; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; and, in Richmond, Hollywood Cemetery.

There was a time, not so long ago, that I wouldn't have been able to imagine spending so much time with someone who was, for all intents and purposes, a stranger. I'm learning, though, and growing. I'm trying to actively, thoughtfully assume that I'm where I'm meant to be, with whom I'm meant to be, and if that's true, that I have things to learn and work to do. My time with Debbie was blessed. As for Winsome specifically, I connected meaningfully with several people and gained some clarity regarding what's next for me. 

I did retreat with some questions because--while Debbie and I were in route to Winsome--Jim called with details of a job offer that (after over eight months of his being unemployed) he'd just accepted. After the phone conversation, Debbie looked at me and said something like: "You know it's not a coincidence that this worked out today, right?" And yes, I did know. I knew that God had always known how it would all play out. Like we sang at the retreat, He's a good, good Father, for us and not against us, amen.

Debbie at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where her great-great grandfather was captured during the Civil War

Emptiness, Forgiveness

I'm sick. The little kids have all been sick, too, and sometimes I think it's kinder for everyone to go down at once, but it hasn't gone that way, this time; someone has been sick for weeks, and maybe it's the flu: exhaustion, body aches, light fever, and worst of all, a pervasive, hacking cough: the kind that doesn't go away with hot drinks, cold drinks, cough drops, or nebulizer treatments. The kind that makes your ribs hurt.

I could easily write a blog post about my physical sickness, but I'm more interested in thinking and writing about what happens to me when my defenses are down. I become every wounded age I've ever been. I feel as hollow as a wing bone, which is to say that I wrestle with a sense of emptiness. The fact that I can name it is progress. The fact that I can have conversations with myself about it is progress.

When I feel empty, I (think I) want everyone I've ever lost to come back. I (think I) want everyone who's ever hurt me to show up and say (s)he's sorry.

But I know I don't: not really. What would I do with all those people in my current state? I'm sick as a dog. I'm wearing neither make-up nor a bra.

The fact that I can identify that I don't really want everyone I've ever lost to come back--or everyone who's ever hurt me to show up and say (s)he's sorry--is progress. I used to take my (yet unnamed) feelings of emptiness and do dangerous, destructive things. Sometimes it worked out (kind of); for example, I reconnected with Jim in an effort to fill a (perceived) void. I didn't know it then, but I know it, now. I was in the throes of a break-up with another man, and Jim was someone I'd lost some thirteen years before. He was someone who had hurt me. (I had hurt him, too.)

But I've gone off course. In my physical sickness, my defenses are down. I feel empty, and so many difficult memories have come to mind over the last couple days. And this is where I want to go with this post: instead of doing dangerous, destructive things, I am learning to turn to God. More specifically, I am learning to ask God to forgive me for my unforgiveness of others. I came across this concept in Stormie Omartian's Lord, I Want to Be Whole. It rattled my cage to the point that I put the book down for something like a month. Really, God? You want me to confess when I was the person wronged? You want me to ask Your forgiveness for my unforgiveness toward these people who hurt me so deeply? And, yes. I do think that's what God is asking of me. Furthermore (and this really hurts my brain), I think He wants me to seek His forgiveness for my unforgiveness of myself. Because if He has forgiven me for something, who am I to hold and use it against myself?

I'm finding that it's one thing to say I want to forgive someone and another altogether to confess and seek forgiveness for my unforgiveness. I'm finding that it's still a process: that--for deep-seated hurts I've carried for years and years--I often have to confess and ask for forgiveness and help over and over. But I'm hopeful.

I'm not hopeful that everyone I've ever lost will come back or that everyone who's ever hurt me will show up and say (s)he's sorry. Even if that were realistic, it would be unrealistic to expect that I would be able to process the situation or words. Just after the holidays, in fact, someone who hurt me when I was a child apologized to me in a very sincere way (again). That doesn't mean I've managed to forgive him, but the work that needs to be done is mine.

The work that needs to be done is always mine. God is loving and merciful. He wouldn't make my healing dependent upon the actions or words of others. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden," He says, "and I [not another human] will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28, KJV).

O Lamb of God, I come.

Our Christmas Miracle

In the fall of 1992, I was a freshman at Maryville College and on work-study in the library. My friend Akiko was standing just on the other side of the circulation desk, talking with me, when a security guard approached and said I needed to call home. I hurried with dread to the payphone in the lobby, Akiko on my heels, and learned that my (paternal) grandma had died. I've never forgotten the comfort of my friend: how she walked with me to my dorm room, stayed with me as I packed. I've always believed that God sent her to the library to be with me.

I remembered this at the restaurant, last night, when I was hurrying to leave work and looked up to see Andrea and Vanderhoop just inside the front door. Am I dying? I thought, then: Whatever is happening, God has sent them. I've been here before.

My sister-cousin Andrea is a nurse. When I told her I was leaving work and why (more bleeding than after childbirth or miscarriage), she insisted not only that I go to the ER but also that I allow her to drive me. Jim and the four children had been at the zoo for the live nativity and headed toward the hospital. "Go ahead and check in," he said. "I'll bring the insurance card."

As I left with a nurse for triage, Andrea asked: "How do you want this to go?"

"I want you to take the children home," I told her. "I want Jim to stay with me."

And even as the words left my mouth, I realized: I already have my Christmas miracle.

I've been praying for a different one; Jim had a fourth interview, last week, and whatever the company decided, they decided, yesterday. They told him they would turn yesterday's decision over to HR and contact the candidate of choice early next week. I can't tell you how many times I've thought: Wouldn't it be nice if they called, this week, to say he has the job? 

I've been longing for my parents and brother's family in East Tennessee; I haven't been home for an entire year, and I guess I've never been apart from my mom at Christmastime. I haven't been able to bring myself to ship her a package. She hasn't been able to bring herself to put up a tree. Wouldn't it be nice, I've thought, to know Jim has that job...to just pack up and go home?

Our situation has not yet been resolved; yet, already I can say:

I would not go back.

I would not go back to where we were before Jim lost his job. We were with our third marriage counselor, and while he is incredible!, progress was painfully slow. Jim was so frustrated that he walked out of our last session. He lost his job right after; then, we didn't have the option to return to our (slow) miracle worker. We didn't have the $300/month to spare.

Trust me when I say: after Jim lost his job, things got much worse before they got better. But this situation has been like a jump-start, or defibrillation, to our marriage. I believe we will make it, now. I believe we will be okay. And I'm going to be okay: I was discharged from the hospital with a doctor's note for work and strict instructions to visit my OB/GYN, today. My body is changing. (There's a pill for me.)

My heart is changing, too, and Jim's. We are changing. God is at work, here. There has already been a Christmas miracle.

When Santa Sat in My Section

Jim's concerns were broader than mine when it became necessary for me to start working nights; I fretted only in anticipation of missing Cade (who attends school during the day) and certain nighttime events, especially holiday ones. I prayed about these concerns and tried my best to trust that whatever was meant to work out, would.

Halloween rolled around, first, and I love halloween. One year when Cade was small, I taught a composition class three times in order to accommodate all the students in a class I'd cancelled: a class I'd been scheduled to teach on halloween night. It was worth it, too, to take Cade trick-or-treating.

I tried to get halloween off, this year, but got scheduled to work. Rachel suggested that we trick-or-treat with her family (and many others from our small group) at Bethpage Camp-Resort the Saturday before halloween, and upon hire at the restaurant, I had requested that night off...but only because I'd been paid generously to take some family photos. To further complicate matters, I was hoping to catch Cade's band performance (which I hadn't yet seen) at the Fall Classic.

In the end (and I can still scarcely believe it all worked out), the family asked to be photographed in the morning as opposed to the oft-requested afternoon; Jim, the little kids, and I enjoyed Bethpage to the fullest; and I made it to the late (10 pm) band performance.

I worked halloween night joyfully and met a customer for whom I pray often. He's an older gentleman and was alone on a slow night, so I did a rare thing: I sat down with him. He told me his wife had just died.

Next, Thanksgiving. Travel was impossible given that I had to work the days before and after, but the restaurant was closed, Thanksgiving day, and Cade and I spent hours hiking together.

After all this, I wish I could tell you I had no trepidation about Christmas, but I wondered about Christmas eve; I did. The restaurant is closed on Christmas day, but Cade spends Christmas day with his dad, Christmas eve with me. This is how we all prefer it; Cade's other family has a big meal on Christmas day, while this family attends candlelight service on Christmas eve. Amazingly, management granted not only my request to have Christmas eve off, but also lunch, today, to attend Jesus's birthday party at church.

Friday night, I walked into my section at work only to realize that Santa and Mrs. Claus were seated in one of my booths. When I introduced myself, Santa said: "I already know your name. And furthermore, I know you've been a very good girl this year." I burst into tears right there at the table.

Later, I said to a friend: "I was way too emotionally disregulated to serve Santa Claus!"

He shook his head, laughed, and said: "You were the perfect person! No one else would've cared as much as you. You got the full effect of what he was trying to do. I think it's awesome!" And, yes. Awesome. Because there's something no one--neither Santa nor my friend--knew.

My recent prayers have included my asking God to help me trust Him with my little-girl self, and I received Santa's visit as a response, from God, to that prayer. It was as if God were saying: I hear you (all of you, including the little-girl you), and I care about you, and I care very much about your Christmas. I couldn't wonder if God had sent Santa for my children because my children weren't present. I was alone. But I am never alone.

The further I journey, the more fully I believe that a relationship with God is just that: a relationship. It requires faith on my part (and sometimes, the suspension of disbelief). It requires my seeking with expectancy. I could chalk everything I've just shared and more! up to coincidence, luck, serendipity, fortune, or---I don't know--an alien spark? But I find it so much more thrilling to believe I am blessed...that God is using all things to my good: even (especially?) the hard things. Because if that's true, I have nothing to fear and everything to anticipate with joy. Bad is good if He is with me, and He is. His very name tells it. He is Immanuel.

The front of the card Santa left me.

The back of the card Santa left me.

The Most Outrageous Story I Have to Tell

I was driving my best friend and her daughter to the airport, this summer, when her daughter (almost six, at the time) asked when she'd first met us. I answered that my daughter Clementine and I had flown to Chicago to meet her when she was three months old and Clementine nine months old. I proceeded to explain: the plan had always been for me to attend her birth, but life got in the way. Maybe one of my daughters will allow me to attend a birth one day, I said, I sure hope so.

The very next day, my friend Sharon called and asked if I'd like to ride with her to the hospital; one of her grandchildren was about to be born. I'd never met either Sharon's son or her daughter-in-law but love my time with Sharon and agreed to go. I imagined I'd be doing some waiting and packed a novel, also--with a fleeting thought of newborn photos--my camera.

At the hospital, Sharon's son came out to greet us. He and Sharon left me to enter the room where the mother was laboring. Within just a few minutes, though, Sharon returned to invite me into the room with my camera. One day after I'd said aloud, in my minivan, that I'd hoped to attend a birth.

This is the most outrageous story I have to tell: that I found myself photographing the birth of a baby one day after expressing, aloud, my desire to attend the birth of a baby. I hadn't discussed this desire with Sharon. There had been no plan for me to meet her son and daughter-in-law that day or in that way, but there I was--in that most sacred space, chillbumps running up and down my arms--watching a baby enter the world.

This is an example of why I believe in God.

I believe in God because I couldn't make up a story like that if I tried. I've had permission to blog about this experience for almost four months and have spent the entire time trying to wrap my head around it. The most logical explanation I can offer is that my Heavenly Father wishes to delight me. And He did. He does.