to be everything, to be one thing

You’ve probably never wished to be a fish.  Today, I am wishing to be a fish, for the first time.  I’m sitting in a quiet house with 2 boys sleeping and I have a whole hour in front of me to choose my activity.  If I were a fish, I wouldn’t have to choose.  A fish can just exist.  A fish can just be.  A fish is designed for one purpose (well in addition to sitting on my kitchen table looking cute), to swim.  To survive.  I’m sure there is a more ecological answer, but that’s the gist of it.  I want to have just one job!  And I want to be REALLY good at it!

If I could just be a [wife and] mother.  Just play with my children, teach them, love them, serve them.  But that would be ignoring a multitude of gifts I believe God has given me with purpose.  So how do we juggle them all?  Whether it be hospitality & hosting others, being a good listener & friend, doing acts of service for others, having compassion, living out justice and mercy for others, or the ability to teach well, lead well, sing well, play well- I think there is a constant pull and tension on a person’s life.  My husband and I have chosen a life for ourselves.  One that we have decided should serve others and put others’ needs before our own.  We are not perfect, we think of ourselves and our needs/wants/desires often- but we continually strive to live a life that goes beyond our personal agenda and preferences.  Our sons have been invited into that.  An afternoon at home building a fort is just as important as a trip to deliver food to a friend  though.

We have a superhero living in our house.  He happens to be three, and very special to me.  Sometimes I wish I was a superhero too.  If I had one power it would be this: the ability to compartmentalize my life.  I think it would be a horrible and freeing power to have.  When I want to be mom, I would have the power to be 100% there for my kids.  Not distracted by email, facebook, laundry, bills, work.  When I want to be wife, I could erase all the day’s experiences that had drained the energy and passion from me, and be 100% available to my husband, attentive and loving.  When I go to work, I could be so focused and un-distracted by the little voices replaying the morning toy fight, tantrums over breakfast, or tearful goodbyes as mommy heads off to work.  compartmentalization would revolutionize my life.

And yet, my life couldn’t be what it is without the constant ebb and flow, quiet and chaos,  sleep deprived and caffeinated conversations.  What is most exhausting about life, is also the most exhilarating.  What drives me bonkers also inspires the crazy dreams in me.  The love and affection from my family that is sporadic and desperate (almost always passionate) throughout the day is my lifeline.  The hardest thing about wanting to be everything, to use all my gifts well, is that I can get so caught up in the details and distracted by the hopeful end result rather than soaking in the process.  I might never feel like I do everything extremely well (in my own opinion), but I don’t think trading my chaos for the life of a fish would be all that satisfying.

I have come to my conclusion: I would not like to be a fish.  No offense fish.

p.s. I suppose the only way I would like to be classified as a fish is if I were to say my one job in life is to love Christ.  In that sense, I could be a fish.  But that answer wouldn’t have allowed me to process what I did just now, so maybe that is why I didn’t think of it until just now.

up above the world so high

On Sunday night I made another trip to Children’s Hospital…the place is growing on me…though there is a fine balance between loving a place that helps children and hating the fact that kids have to even be there in the first place.   This trip was to visit little Cash who was in the middle of his first round of chemotherapy.  He has been has been doing well, and his parents continue to amaze me with their strength and hope and reliance on something much bigger than themselves.  In my effort to be helpful during the visit I offered to take Cash for a walk for mom and dad to have some “alone time”.  To be honest I was a little nervous because taking this 16 month old for a walk involves tubes in his body and a pole with his chemo drip.  Was I responsible enough?  Well, I was up for learning something new.  So we put him in a little buggy and I began to push is toy car with one hand and his pole with the other.  Afraid of what he might do when his dad left I asked what songs Cash likes to since on these walks (he had done this several times already).  Dad said they usually just talk about what they see on the walls and in the halls- we were cruising the hallways was the SCCA (seattle cancer care alliance) floor.

Not a moment into Cash’s and my alone time he got a little more squirmy than I was comfortable with.  The quickest thing I could come up with to distract him was a rousing round of “the wheels on the bus go round and round”.  It worked.  He settled comfortable into his seat.  Not long after that we drove over some stars, and so I started singing “Twinkle, twinkle little star”.  And then, this is the part where I wish I had a tape recorder to share with you the sweetest sound in the world on that sunday evening.  Little Cash man starts singing, “up a bub ba ba ba  hi…”- on key.  I knew he could say a few words, but I didn’t know he could sing.  My heart started racing and for the next 15-20 minutes I proudly walked him through the halls passed all the nurses stations and we sang together, “up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky…”and the rest of the song, over and over and over.  I was that proud auntie grinning from ear to ear.  When I asked his parents if they had noticed this before, they said it was a first.  Ha!  Take that stupid brain tumor! No brain tumor could take that melody from his mind.   No brain tumor could takes those words away from his lips.  Nothing could take the joy from that moment.

I wish with everything Cash didn’t have a tumor.  I wish it would just go away.  I wish there was a way to alleviate the pain from this family.  I love what my friends said- “when we want to ask ‘why us?’ we have to ask ‘well, why not us?’ “.  God, who is bigger than us and bigger than our knowledge of him, is writing the story of this little boy.  And I am proud to report that in one little paragraph (maybe only a sentence) about his second year of life, a story will be told of the time Cash first started singing up above the world so high…and what a fitting song to begin with.  A song of hope about a little star that cannot be seen, but a star that is known.  I pray that star is Cash’s complete healing from this brain tumor.  Though we don’t see what the future holds, we hope for that star-like moment when his body is fully restored to health.

and time stands still…

you get a phone call that you weren’t expecting…and time stands still

an email sends your system into shock…and time stands still

life choices leave you burdened and confused…and time stands still

the future is entirely, freakishly uncertain…and time stands still

the words you say will either breathe life, or sound completely hollow…and time stands still

in the midst of a storm, either real or perceived, we are faced with so many options.  do i pray? do i cry? do i trust? do i lean? do i move? do i act? do i rest?

and in the midst of this said storm, of which i have no control, i can rely on my own ability to survive- to make it- to get through it…or i can rely on One whose whisper even the storm can hear [to guide it or stop it]- in hopes of finding an inner peace that lifts me above the storm to see it for what it truly is…and time stands still.