Her Hands

When I was young I remember looking at my mom’s hands.  They weren’t usually painted or particularly fancy, but I loved them.  I saw my grandmother’s hands when I held those hands.  Her long fingers, the knuckles a little knobby and her veins visible.  I still love my mom’s hands.  They have aged and are still beautiful to me.  They hold memories of all of my childhood in them.

When my own kids have sat beside me and taken my hands, usually in a chapel pew, or while watching a movie together- Each has examined my hands.  Sometimes they push my veins around because it’s gross, but most of the time they just look at them and comment on how old they look or how much they look like Grammy’s hands. They are great at making me feel young.  Today though… as Lainy held my hand I felt her bending my fingers, open close, open close… She said, “that’s weird, you’re fingers… they creak. I can feel them; they creak when I bend them.  You know, like an old door.”  Super. Creaky old door hinge hands.

I did get a bit of a rebound when I subbed in primary today.  Cute 4-year-old Michael sat atop my knee and held my hands in his.  I could feel that he was assessing them.  He asked me to clasp my fingers together and he lifted them up to his little face.  Then I heard him sniff, you just never know what will happen while holding a 4 year old boy. “Ooooh, your hands smell good” Sniff, sniff.  “Like peppermint” Thank you bath and body works, I’ll take it.  It’s certainly a step up from the creaky door hinge comparison.

Jayce has never been one for outward affection in the public eye.  (Ask him about the time I kissed him square on the lips in Walmart if you see him, I thought I was hilarious.  He did NOT) I love holding hands, and when Jayce was in the “middle” years, you know those years that teenagers get a little squirrely about being embarrassed by their parents?  I tried to reach over while we were sitting next to each other and hold his hand.  He of course, was not up for that., and pulled his hand away like I had tried to cut it off or something.  Then it evolved and became a game.  I would try and hold his hand whenever he was least expecting it.  Again, he was not a fan.  But there was a day once.  In the midst of a particularly hard time in our lives that he saw me.  He looked past all of his teenager lenses and saw that I was suffering.  I remember the feeling of him taking my hand, looking me straight in the eye and saying nothing.  He knew. He knew what that gesture meant for me.  These are the moments that make motherhood the best calling of them all. 

Doubt vs Question

Doubt is defined as "expressing or feeling uncertainty or lack of conviction; skeptical"
Questioning is defined as "the action of someone asking questions"

So many times has this idea of doubt vs questioning come up in discussion of religion.  Many times I have heard that doubting is bad, but questioning is ok.  I'm not sure that I can get on board with that.  I didn't spend any of my youth asking questions, I don't even remember spending any of my valuable teenage time considering any of it.  It didn't occur to me.  I was trying to keep the emotional roller coaster of youth on the tracks.  Sure, I went to church camps, educational religious events, and I learned and grew from them, but I don't remember really wondering if there was truth in it.  It just was what I knew.  In my 20's while a newlywed and having babies, I still attended church, listened and felt filled by the lessons taught and the lessons I was asked to prepare and teach.  It was my 30's that I finally began to consider God and religion as more than just something that I did.  So, I began to question.

For quite a few years I questioned off and on.  Mostly I was frustrated by the roles of women in the church, or the lack of it.  I struggled with the concept of polygamy, some of the early prophets and their imperfections, and little things that popped up every now and then.  But I never doubted.  I questioned.

Before several of my family members chose to leave the church, they spent a great deal of time and energy asking every question imaginable.  As those questions because to accumulate, doubt began to creep in.  I questioned and began to doubt as well.  And you know what?  That ok.  Doubting does not make any of us bad people.  It means we are human and imperfect, and we are using our gift of agency and choice, and isn't that fantastic! Isn't it ok to wonder and worry and panic when things start to feel shaky underneath our usually stable ground?  I think yes. I have been on my share of shaky ground having been raised in Southern California and it is a scary feeling to have ground beneath you move. And just as an earthquake shakes things up, eventually time continues and the ground stops shaking. You assess the damage, and start moving forward again.  I think when we spend so much time trying to remind others that doubt is scary and wrong we are misunderstanding the purpose of learning.

It's scary to watch someone we love make choices that are different than ours, especially if we know we have the truth.  Sorry to break it to you, but you can't make anyone's choices for them.  You can provide love, information, share your testimony and be an example, but you can't choose for them.  Most of us have somewhere between 75-85 years on average, to learn what we can in mortality.  It is not smooth sailing, you won't have a perfect journey, things will be hard, and you'll do your best.  But part of learning is time.  It might take one person a single year of learning something and they are solid in it. It wasn't a tough choice, they knew right away what their answer was and they stuck with it.  Someone else might take 40 years to learn the same.  Questioning, doubting, wondering, ignoring, coming back to and finally knowing.  Guess what?  That's ok.

I hope that those who believe differently in regards to religion or any subject - treat each other with respect, love, kindness and consideration.  Happy Sunday.

Raise a Hallelujah. C'mon, do it.

It happened again tonight.  That beautiful feeling we sometimes label inspiration.  It's been a hard week.  It seems like a one-thing-after-another kind of week.  Today I felt overwhelmed. It was that feeling where your insides are tense, everything feels overwhelming and your to-do list feels like it will never get done, and you have this unnatural drive to have it all done right this second.  I tried venting to my sister and even though she spoke calm and kindness to me, I still felt an intense need to yell at all the things. 

One weekend of every month we make a visit to someone we love who is doing amazing things on the path to personal healing. Like amazing stuff.  Like the stuff of miracles.  And it never fails, the week leading up to that visit is filled with chaos and stress.  Wouldn't you know it, our visit is this weekend.  

I went on a quick run tonight and decided that I would just listen to pandora.  I have all but given up on "normal" music these days. There is too much sifting to find something that isn't offensive, so I was listening to Christian rock while I jogged along to the beat of whatever came on next.  Sometimes I sing when I run. Out loud.  So I was singing and I was running.  And I was thinking.  Of all the crazy I had on my list to get done before our visit this weekend.  Then that beautiful feeling came as I sang these words to this incredible song by Bethel music "I raise a Hallelujah... in the presence of my enemies."  You might not know this little thing about me.  But I love a good "amen" "hallelujah" or "praise the Lord" during worship services.  Ok, so it's not a big thing in the LDS church around here, but I wish it was!  So, I say it in a whisper, but I love to say it! 

These weekend visits.  They are important.  This person we love, is doing things that will change many lives for good.  This person we love is a giant and is spreading love and healing.  So when I had that beautiful feeling... with a jolt, I sang loud, "I raise a hallelujah!" and said "not today Satan!" And I will continue to raise a hallelujah every. single. day.    

Running without a purpose

I post a lot about running.  It's because it serves to fill so many voids and calm so much chaos in my life.  I don't love the actual act of running.  Pretty much every single time I hit the pavement I have the thought that I'm doing such a repetitive act, and I hate repetition so why do I keep doing it? 

I finished my third half marathon recently.  I cursed the training.  It was a lot of hours, and months to prep.  With my finger pointed in the air, a slight bend forward, and an accusatory tone, I said too many times to count "I will take a break from running- so help me when this is over, for a month!"  Well, the race is over. And I am still running.  Let me tell you why. 

Yesterday was hard.  It was just a long day, and I had too many balls in the air.  Working all day, football practice, meal making, house cleaning, dog mourning (my little Flapjack is fading fast) and when the biscuits burned while I was folding laundry and cleaning up a spill... that was it.  I dropped everything, put my running shoes on and before my thoughts had time to catch up- I was running.  I ran past the hospital, down Main street and found myself nearly sprinting a hard right into the cemetery.  I slowed to a walk and pulled out my earbuds, feeling the reverence of that place.  Of every place where souls are put the rest.  I walked to the headstone of the only soul I knew and loved there.  I sat.  I talked. I told her it's not possible that so much time has passed. I told her about the hard things.  I cried.  I remembered.  And then I stood, grateful for her in my life, walked down the pathway toward Main St and started running home. 

That's what running is in my life.  Release and space to think.  There are probably hundreds if not thousands of miles that I have invested in the pavement of my emotions.  Anger, sadness, pain, joy, fear, elation, melancholy, and sorrow.  There is something about being able to physically work through the mess in your head through your feet, or pushing your lungs to keep up with the steady stream of thoughts you work through as you rhythmically pace your feet to the beat of the music. 

So, I still run. And I still love/hate it.   

Jared turns 13

A teenager.  My last baby to leave childhood on his way to adulthood.  He is the gentlest, quietest, let's be honest...sweetest one of all.  It takes a bit more work to see those qualities through the mist of the teenage barrier, but you can see it.  In our quiet moments, away from the world when he lets the walls down.  I am grateful to be the mother to three incredible souls.  But for today, I celebrate Jared.  He was a smidge of baby coming into the world nearly 4 weeks early at a whopping 5 lbs.  He was darling and sweet from the start, eating well, sleeping well, and just happy to be carted around.  It was his second year of life that he began to make things interesting.  After 13 years of it, I can tell now that it's because he has a busy brain.  He likes to create, build, tinker with, and destroy everything in his line of sight.  As a 2 year old that translated to chaos, but only in the hours he was awake...  One year all I did for a birthday post was list all the things he had dumped out and destroyed.  It was a very long list. These days you will find him on the football field, on a skateboard, a scooter, a bike or running on his own two feet.  But rarely will you see him standing still, he's just the best kind of fun. I love you kid. Happiest birthday to you my sweet boy. 

                                 

 

Profits and Losses

I can't decide if the year and a half spent preparing for, working on, and eventually the closing of the bakery- was a loss of a year and half of my life or the biggest growing experience of my life.  Maybe, it's both.  There was so much joy, excitement, drive and I'll be honest.. pride- involved the months leading up to the opening of that place.  Those quickly dissolved into survival.  I spent more mornings crying on my drive to the bakery (if I got to go home that night) than not.  I cried A LOT the first few months.  I slept an average of 3-4 hours a night.  I never saw my kids. I was a shell of a human and my role as a mother was pretty slim.  Ask my kids.  They willingly share their thoughts on the subject.  I sucked at life that year.  I gave everything to that bakery. 

From outside that bakery window looking in, people looked into my "life" and saw an entrepreneur, a working mom who could do it all, juggling work, life and family.  It took just 9 months for me to see the walls coming down.  My family life took a major turn.  Jason and I were staring down the barrel of divorce.  My kids were tearing at the seams.  Grades were down, moral was down.  Constant fighting at home and at school.  My kids were dealing with some major issues... alone.  Without their mom.  And they weren't dealing very well.  My life seemed to just come unhinged all at once. 

I looked up.  It was as if I had my head down and I was laser focused on making this bakery work. I looked up and at my life and I didn't recognize it.  I didn't recognize myself.  I knew I had to make a conscious change.  A choice.  There was no question at that point that my choice was my family. Yes, saying goodbye to the wonderful women who became part of my family that year was hard.  But I knew.  I knew this was the only option. 

A lot of changes have happened in the last few months.  There's a huge story there and someday Jason and I will share it together, but for now just know miracles do happen.  Marriages and relationships can heal, and I love that man more than I have ever loved anyone.  Ever. 

The biggest lesson, with no runner up even coming close, that I learned opening this business is that no matter what age your kids are- they need their mother.  The bakery has been closed for just over 3 months.  I am still working full time at another job, but I'm there when my kids need me.  It's taken this long to start to build trust again.  So when my14 year old daughter comes up behind me while I'm folding laundry, wraps her arms around me and just breathes... I stop.  I close my eyes and revel in the connection.  Motherhood is worth it.  So, it's both.  That year and a half was my biggest loss of time with my family, and my biggest gain of understanding.  And I am grateful.