Terrific Two

Our Pearly Girl turned two recently. We can hardly believe she's grown into such a big girl already! Here she is almost a year ago (notice the short locks):

...and here she was this summer. She loves her girly stuff, like having her now LONG hair brushed and accessorizing with shoes and scarves, but she LOVES being outside and getting active (and usually dirty. Even eating dirt)! 

In our first substantial snowfall this fall, she and I ventured out into the white stuff. Even when her hands were freezing (and most of the rest of her was, too), every time I asked if she wanted to go in, she'd say, "No!"

A few weeks before her birthday, I finally took her in for a trim. I've learned to have no expectations when the kids go to the dentist or the hair stylist, and Pearly Girl surprised me even so. She sat very still and wasn't bothered in the least by the scissors close to her head (Sam, who cut her hair, was very nice and gentle, so that probably had a lot to do with it. Thanks, Sam!). Her trim looks great, too!

Her birthday fell the day before our annual open house, so she spent most of the day helping me bake. She's a big helper in that department! We enjoyed a nice chicken dinner later and a Ree Drummond chocolate cake just for her, too, along with some snazzy gifts.

Just a little help from Mommy with the candles
(and her brothers, who were blowing from across the table).

With three little boys in the house, we really cherish our little girl! We look forward to watching her grow even more in the days and months and years ahead. 

Hiccups

When Little Professor was in utero, he often got the hiccups. I'm still mystified by the biological machinations that make this possible, seeing as though he floated in amniotic fluid and received oxygen directly into his bloodstream via God's wondrous creation, the umbilical cord. Yet there he was, maintaining an impressive esophageal rhythm that kept me feeling like my midsection was a strong second-hand on a tightly wound clock. Amazing, yes, but also just plain weird.

Small Dude repeated this feat, and like his oldest brother, has kept up the habit now that he's breathing oxygen through his windpipe. Such a small yet uncomfortable thing. He'll get a bad case that practically lifts him out of the bouncy seat with each hiccup, and I'll simultaneously snicker and sigh in sympathy, thinking of how he's nowhere close to drinking water or standing on his head to remedy his discomfort. But he'll outgrow it, and in the meantime, he'll squirm a little more and scowl and work 'em on out.

We're experiencing hiccups here, too. Some is Normal Family Adaptation to New Baby Mode. This resembles a roller-coaster ride, complete with careening turns, yelling, and a necessity for seat-belts, both literal and emotional. Some of it, though, seems more like a terminal case instead of a momentary change. With the addition of Small Dude, I'm finding the "hiccup" of his transition both routine and predictable as well as precarious and somewhat terrifying. I know the disruptions of newness will fade eventually, as will the sometimes overwhelming events that occur in a household with four children under six years of age. And for now, I'll trust that God will help me embrace all of the changes, their disquieting discomforts with their humorous additions. After all, hiccups often happen after belly-shaking laughter. And He knows our Small Dude--and Little Professor, Superman, and Pearly Girl--are big joy-givers.

Thankful for His times given

Today, I give thanks for many things.

Mostly, I give thanks for my family--my messy, loud, amazing, ever-changing family. 

God knows the worth of what He gives far more than I ever could. 

So, take and use Thy work, 

Amend what flaws may lurk, 

What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim! 

My times be in Thy hand! 

Perfect the cup as planned! 

Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

~From "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning

Who dun it?!

We have a mystery at the Olson homestead. In the midst of making brownies, Papa discovered that someone filched the mixing spoon. Do you have any idea who it might be? We're thoroughly and seriously investigating this chocolate confiscation. And if you've got any leads, we'll save a delicious dessert for you!

By the way, has anyone seen our little Pearly Girl?

Dough-NUTS!

Does anyone else resent those humongous glazed donut packages that are discounted at the grocery store? I mean, heroin has nothing on these things. They look ridiculously unhealthy. They literally drip with killer amounts of sugar and carbs and other unhealthy preservatives. And yet, and yet. Lord, help me.

Running the Neatness Marathon: The Help

...who make life's work possible.
BTW, read this book.

Last year I blogged about beginning my years-long dream to declutter. Here we are, thirteen months later, one more baby later, and what do I have to show for it?

To be honest, I'm not finished with the project yet. But however slowly, decluttering has happened in bursts, small jumps, and after long interruptions of illness, travel, and life in general. Ultimately, I've learned that some of the biggest forward-moving parts of this process have involved the help of other people. And I don't mean "help" in a weasel word kind of way; I mean it in a "we couldn't do any of this stuff without the time, physical labor, and generosity of these people" way. We can't maintain God's gifts to us without help from our neighbors. Ooooooh! I'm sensing a wider lesson in all of this. Can you smell, too? (Go ahead. You can grin at my silliness.)

I'll give more details about the Olson family decluttering project later. I think you'll understand, though, if I first give credit where credit is due. So without further ado:

• Let me strike that "I" for a "we." If Papa wasn't on board for this long project, then progress would be infinitesimal at best and, um, negative at worst. What's negative progress, you ask? That would be moving backwards into a dung heap of squalor. It would be decline of the one-step-forward, twelve-steps-back variety. Without him, our floors would remain dirty because he would ignore the mop and vacuum or our children so I could clean. But to his awesome credit, he wields mop, vacuum, OR kid duty. Plus, he jumps in with gusto to our heavy duty declutter projects (i.e. he does most if not all of the heavy-duty physical labor). He initiated the steam-cleaning project, in fact. All this on top of his normal yard/garden/outdoor work--he's hauling leaves right now as I type and feed Small Dude. One word for this amazing husband: swoon!
• Another huge contributor to our project, though she doesn't know it, is my mom. She's visited a couple times this year, always at times where we desperately needed full-time assistance (i.e. after Papa's emergency surgery and after Small Dude was born). While she didn't sit and sort old papers or move furniture or tag items for the yard sale, she did wash dishes, clothes, kids, floors and generally keep our house spic-and-span so that once she was gone we didn't have to recover our house and so we could do other purging projects later. This is one of those small-but-huge gifts. If you get the inherent paradox.
• Then there's Dan, who moved furniture with Papa out of our house for our yard sale and a few things back in, all for a measly plate of sweet treats. I don't know about you, but people who move furniture without major rewards are self-givers of the heroic kind. 
• As are people who gift us their time and energy to watch our children! My friend Devina deserves a shout-out here. She, in her great conscientiousness, heard and remembered my lament last spring on my stalled cleanliness project and in her great kindness offered to take the three older kids (I was still pregnant) for an entire day so I we could clean. Then, when she had to reschedule the original date, she showed up an extra day and took all the kids--including her four--to the park! 
• In that category also there's also Gary and Carmen, who took Little Professor and Superman overnight and for a whole day so that Papa and I could steam-clean the carpets, move furniture, hang pictures on walls that have been bare for years. The same day, the uber-awesome Terri watched Pearly Girl, even when she and Joel had a relative coming to visit. Because of that one night and full day, Papa and I got stuff done that can only happen without little ones around (even hanging frames without pictures in them because if it's going to survive long in this house, as all parents of little tykes know, it cannot. be. on. the. floor. Or anywhere remotely accessible. Which means if Papa and I don't see it, it don't get done). So thanks to these awesome folks' help, we were kidless on that productive day. I mean, except for Small Dude, who was blessedly quiet and only needed feeding when I really, really needed to sit down anyway.

Such help like this is humbling because it reminds me of my inadequacy to do everything myself. Yes, "smart" as I might be, I actually fool myself into thinking far too often that I can actually accomplish everything on my list single-handedly. Which is ridiculously impossible. And so I give thanks for all of these people and their time and efforts, who--whether they knew it or not--were giving us the ability to run the neatness marathon in front of us.

A Little Peek at a Small Dude

Today we mark the one month face time arrival of our newest blessing, our son Daniel Luke Michael. He arrived on Saturday, September 28, a week ahead of his due date, and managed to give us all enough of a heads-up to get his siblings some awesome care and for Papa to make it to both services on Sunday. He weighed in at a solid seven pounds, fifteen ounces, and measured twenty inches long (and by six days post-partum, he'd shot up to eight and a half pounds. Good eater, this one). We were surprised but pleased to see his full head of blond hair--no bald baby this time! I'll share more about his watery births--physical and spiritual--later, but suffice it to say God is merciful and we are very grateful for our son. Say hello, Small Dude!

I'd say more, but the little manny is hungry, and I still haven't figured out how to breastfeed and blog at the same time. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers! Our cup runs over.

Oh, and happy belated October, all, and Go Cardinals!

Fruitfulness, Round Four

Last week, post-yard-sale and some back labor excitement, Papa picked tomatoes from the garden. This is what the counter looked like after I'd cleaned half of the take from three five-gallon buckets.

As they say up here: Uff-da.

Suffice it to say, we've had a bumper garden harvest this year. Since early August, I've been freezing green beans, sweet corn (not from our garden but from three different church members--sweet corn had a good year here, too), preparing eggplant and squash and cucumbers, and this month we've been tackling the pepper and tomato haul. Yes, it's been a lot of work. We're also very thankful the garden has borne such bounty, especially considering the late spring and the fact that we were gone for four weeks after Papa planted. So Nancy, if you're reading this and still at all concerned that your watering efforts in July went to waste, please, PLEASE fret no more. God used your efforts to great success. In fact, our tomato load last week was the fourth round of our tomato haul. The first resulted in twelve pints of hot salsa and seven quarts of tomatoes in their own juice. The second begat twelve pints of mild salsa and multiple quarts of peeled, frozen tomatoes. The third produced over twelve gallons of frozen tomatoes (see how my energy with each round diminished?). The fourth round, by sheer size alone, demanded extra effort.

So last week when I decided to make tomato sauce with all two-thirds of Papa's latest picking, I had a lot of time to think about garden harvests and familial blessings. Sitting in the kitchen, destemming and slicing up countless tomatoes for what turned out to be over ten quarts of sauce (which, if you've done this before, means roughly sixty pounds of tomatoes were involved), and wincing every time Baby decided to make his presence known (the guy's running out of room!), I pondered the mysteries of fruitfulness.

Papa's planted a garden every summer we've been here, and we've had some good years. He's rotated placement, Miracle-Gro-ed, swapped out different varieties of produce, tried different spacing. He's tried onions and radishes with little success. This year, he tweaked again, but not enough to account for the haul. Our backyard neighbors planted a few tomato plants scarcely twenty feet from our garden and didn't get a single tomato for their work. Yet we planted and basically left the little green squirts alone and now find ourselves inundated.

It's not fair, in the whole scheme of things. I'm ten months pregnant. Why all this work at this particular time? But what a silly response. I could dwell on the effort such bounty requires to preserve and sustain, but that seems beyond ungrateful. It doesn't even make sense. Gardens by their very nature are supposed to produce. And when they do, we give thanks. On the flip side, our bounty seems unfair to all the gardeners who spend this month wondering what went wrong. It would seem judicious if everyone got at least a little something for all of their gardening efforts, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. Sometimes the rabbits and birds wreak havoc. Sometimes the weather soaks or scorches. Sometimes seeds and seedlings just don't take due to soil or weeds or for causes we can never determine. Experts have spent and still spend countless hours attempting to explain why things grow and why they don't. But even finding reasons why things don't grow can't suddenly make them grow. Even having all kinds of scientific answers as to how and why life can happen can't actually create and sustain life itself.

Gardens are one thing; families and children quite another. I think of my friends and others whose arms and hearts ache with emptiness, from children desired and children taken to Jesus. Like agricultural scientists and researchers and farmers, doctors and specialists can only explain so much. This is not to diminish their God-given expertise and aid in any way. It is only to say that they are not God, and they cannot act as Life-creater. Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking they can be, that technology or drugs or some combination of scientific theory and practice in the hands of certain people can do what only God can do. But we also see too much suffering and tragedy to believe such a lie. Seemingly healthy children die young. Healthy women are infertile. And children who should not statistically survive do. My sister and I are such exceptions. We were born over thirty years ago at  twenty-eight weeks gestation. We were given less than a ten percent chance of survival at birth, but we both did. And only God knows why. We can speculate, of course. But the truth is that we don't know. And we can only trust that God's ways are best, even when we don't know His reasons for life or for death, for fruitfulness or for barrenness.

Such may sound glib or callous, an easy write-off for unanswerable burdens that provides no comfort. Instead, it is a life-saving trust in a sea of loss and suffering. We pray a meal prayer sometimes that begins with verses from Psalm 145: The eyes of all look to You, O Lord, and You give them their food in due season. You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing (14-15). We give thanks for the nutrients God provides us for our bodies. We acknowledge that only He can give us what we need, when we need it, be it food or health or children or any number of gifts. And ultimately, whether we like it or not, we bow to the inevitable scarcity or abundance that He provides, as He sees fit. We don't like this, because it means our efforts mean, well, nothing in the face of whether God withholds or blesses.

But we also know that His gifts are always good. His good gifts always satisfy our greatest need--that we need Him, that we are, in fact, completely helpless apart from Him. And He provides for us in multiple ways, too, just not always in the forms we desire or expect. Neighbors bring extra asparagus and apples (or get five-gallon buckets of tomatoes). Some years are corn-heavy and tomato-light. Some arms hold one child or two or many, biological or adopted, and others hold nieces or nephews or godchildren or congregational children. Regardless, we receive. And--this is a hard truth--if God ordains that we should bodily starve or bear the cross of barrenness or loss, we trust that His ways are not our ways, His care not ours. This is a terrible truth, but one on which our very lives depend. Abraham wielded a knife over his only son. Mary watched hers be pierced and nailed and suffocate and die. Both wept and ached and suffered. But none more so than He who made them to begin with, Who bore and bled and died and rose to give us life that would never end, that would never stop giving.

Our family waits and prays in these days for God to bless us with another child, who is our fourth living one. This baby has grown unseen and mostly unknown, though we cherish our time with his kicks and his hiccups, even his sunny-side up turn. God knows the days He has prepared for this little one, and we trust in His promises for us and for our child, that He will never leave us or foresake us, though we all will pass someday from this veil of tears. And so we give thanks for His mysterious bounty, in all of its forms. Bless us, O Lord, and these Your gifts, which we receive from Your bountiful goodness. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

We are still here. Promise.

To the few of you who read this blog but don't see us everyday (or a few times a year, or are friends with us, particularly Papa, on Facebook), relief is finally yours: we are still here! No kidnappings, computer stealings, phone snafus, etc. Just plain old summer craziness.

In the midst of three summer trips since late May, two conferences in July, roughly three thousand miles of travel (I don't actually know how far we went, but with all of the flights and driving, that's probably pretty close), vacation recovery--including fixing an interior water leak from an exterior hose, which is almost almost ALMOST totally cleaned up!--hitting homeschooling hard (we're into Week Four), and my insane nesting drive of this month (rummage coming up in September! Oh, and six weeks out from Baby's due date!), we've been,er, busy. And, obviously, unplugged. But hopefully this is a sign that we're replugged. At least on this our blog. Thanks for hanging with us!

If only I could slip a newborn baby pic in here somewhere...

Old Socks

For years, I've kept old socks for cleaning. That's about the extent of my creative capabilities to recycle productively. Anyway, as I scrubbed the bathtub with an old sock this morning, I was overcome with a quiet bit of contentment at using that old, ratty thing for something helpful. And it got me thinking: have you ever used something old in a productive, satisfying way? And using old people doesn't count here.

Maybe someday.

Snips and Snails*

Other than my own suffocatingly slow reflexes when it comes to blogging lately (that's a really lame excuse for an apology for my absence here), we've been moving slower here generally in the Olson household. The temperature outside finally rose above freezing, so we've been lounging and soaking up the sun outside. We've also been sleeping like rocks at night due to all the fresh air time. Last Thursday, I sprained my ankle when I missed a step. I am very thankful that I sustained only a few scrapes, bruises, and a minor sprain, and I'm already moving much faster than I was a few days ago (does sitting on the couch for hours qualify as movement? Please say yes). Baby's complied by kicking me more since Thursday than I've felt yet in this pregnancy.

Anyway, beyond some physical snail-ness (excepting Baby), we've been waiting with patience for today's prenatal ultrasound. Because we found out today that Baby...is...a....

You didn't think I'd just spit it out like that, did you? Patience, patience!

All of us went for the appointment this morning. I asked the sonographer if she would only tell us the gender if she was really sure. I explained we know some recent instances of people finding out their child's gender, only to find out on birth-day that--oops!--Baby isn't a girl but a boy. Or vice-versa. She said she only shares what she's absolutely sure of (don't they all say that?). Then she said she knew what sex our Baby is. At that point I'd been lying on the table with the gel on my belly and Baby's picture up on the monitor for about five seconds. So Papa and I were a bit surprised that she said that. Then we both thought the same thing: that must mean...

Sorry for all these ellipses! At the same time the sonographer continued with her normal measurements and picture-taking (Brain! Heart! Stomach! A-maz-ing!), and we explained to the kids what we could see. "There's Baby's face! Do you see the heart beating? Look at Baby's kicks!" Superman said, "There's the eyes!" while we looked at the brain. We obviously haven't covered any biology yet. Then he said, "It's dark in here. Can we turn up the lights?" I was laughing at all of their comments so much Baby looked like an earthquake was happening. It was awesome.

So the boys were impressed to see Baby. Pearly Girl was impressed by the swivel stool in the room. After a few minutes, Little Professor abruptly told us that he thought Baby was a boy. He's been telling us for months--months!--that Baby was a girl. Surprised, Papa and I talked to him about it for a little bit, and then he or Superman asked the sonographer what she was doing now. She said, "I'm writing that your new baby is a boy." And she did. And he is!

Did you like how I snuck that in there?

Papa and I have been thinking for awhile that Baby is a boy. To have that hunch confirmed was still surprising--I suppose the difference between thinking about winning the lottery and actually winning it. I admit I felt a momentary let-down. We'd both hoped that Pearly Girl would get a sister. But then we both got really excited. A son! A son! Three sons! The sonographer then said, "And he's not shy at all." Boy, was she right. While Pearly Girl was modest to the point of us almost not finding out that she was girl until her birthday, Baby hid nothing in that all-important department. I'll refrain from including a tell-all picture here, but suffice it to say, we saw a little, er, "snip" that told all. :)

The little man was more shy when we saw him in the 3D. But we still got a peek at his face!

When we realized Baby is a boy, we celebrated. Little Professor said he was excited. Papa and I grinned at each other and expressed our joy. Pearly Girl smiled because we all were. But Superman got upset. "I don't want a boy," he kept saying. "I want a girl." He even put his head in his little hands and leaned against the table where I lay. We had to talk to him about how much fun a little brother will be, but he was still pretty despondent. I was surprised because he's never expressed a strong opinion on the subject (while LP stuck with his "sister" guess, Superman would change his mind every day), and his dejection was unexpected. He's a thoughtful one, our S. I don't know if he saw another brother as a competitor or really wanted a little sister so Pearly Girl would have a buddy. I suspect the latter. Superman is very aware of other people and shows an acute conscientiousness for his age (asking open ended questions to adults with no prompting, for example. Then again, he also yells at his brother and pushes his sister on a regular basis). My guess is that over time, Superman will come to love having a younger brother. And before he went to bed tonight, he told us, smiling, that he was excited about his little brother. So he's recovered somewhat.

And we have, too. Every life is a gift, as we've been reminded so clearly in the last day since the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma. Whether we expect what we get or not--and truly, who actually gets exactly what they expect?--God knows what is ultimately good. We give Him thanks for His gifts of life and salvation, comfort and steadfastness, and for our Baby Son.

*The phrase "snips and snails" is taken from an old nursery rhyme entitled "What are Little Boys Made of?" So no real sneaking going on here!

Sweet Quiet

What sweet quiet

is soft rain

through open windows

and the flutter of an evening breeze

and a few nesting birds

and the wordless murmurs of a young boy

quickly wakened, and relaxed,

drifting back to sleep.

Love That Never Sleeps

So Superman is just a super, nearly-three bundle of energy. He also can go to the bathroom on demand. Doesn't matter if he's just gone fourteen times in the last hour. He can always, always, always squeeze something out.

So I've been annoyed in the last few months when he gets out of bed at least once right after going down for quiet time or bedtime. "Mommy?" his little voice murmurs down the hall from the doorway. "I gotta go potty." And I roll my eyes and go into the bathroom, get him all situated, and try not to sigh in exasperation (usually because I just want to nap or get things done, and I can't until he's asleep).

This happened the other day, just as it's happened hundreds of times before. Except Superman, who is incredibly sensitive and insightful, looked me in the face. When I caught his gaze, he said, "Mommy, I love you." My heart melted. I said, "I love you, too, Superman." And then he said, "Even when I'm sleeping, I love you."

In all of his little boy innocence, Superman spoke a sanctified truth. Love, real love, never sleeps. My boy might relax into slumber with his arms stretched and mouth open, his mind and body deep in nocturnal rest, but he understands that love extends beyond wakeful conscientiousness. I can't love my own children with eternal care, but Christ can. He loves all of us with a love that never sleeps. And thanks be for His undying charity that extends even to sinful moms and restless little boys.

 

Because sometimes they sit still long enough for me to take their picture

Sometime in the distant future, I'll blog about learning progress this year. But for now, I'm pleased to share that our Little Professor has taken to reading books to Superman and Pearly Girl. Without being asked. And they actually sit and listen to him. I snuck into Pearly Girl's room at the beginning of quiet time and found them this way. I love Pearly Girl's expressions. The boys were totally absorbed in the book. (And oui, oui--that's a French dictionary that Pearly Girl loves to cart around. She's our cultured one.) Here's to many more sibling read-alongs in the future.   

Our Snowy Fun

Early Thursday morning, this is what I saw outside our front door.

And this gave me a blog-relief moment. Why? Because I've been sitting on pictures of the kids in the snow from, well, when it was still officially winter. And now I feel sanctioned to share them. "But--but--but snowfall in April?" you sputter. How about ice and sleet, heavy-dump white clod free-falls when tulips should be popping up in our front mulch bed instead? Ah, no matter. For I can give thanks in this circumstance--that snow, for the second/third/fifth time in two weeks, including just a few hours ago, hath extended my negligence from guilt into comfort. Besides, when life hands you snowstorms in April, they say, make hot chocolate. And it's about time for more hot chocolate, I say.

"Can't we go outside now, Mom? PLEEEEEASE?! Okay. CHEEEEEEEESE!"

 

"Here's my snowball. Can I go back and play now?

Can't...stop....eating...snow... 

C, thinking: What are you doing?!

We all looked! Amazing.

After making his sixth snow angel. Note the white stuff in his ear...and the smile!

"I'm cuuuuuld."

Best buds.

No sledding pics but this one. Papa's got the rest filed in his memory.

Superman, who seemed to prefer this kind of snow-pose.

AND...

Yes, she made it outside to play in the snow! Once!

She loved it.

You can't hear her, but she's humming. Yep, a Minnesota girl. 

Broken Bones and Celestial Skydiving

What the last few months of our lives have contained.

Have mercy on me, O God,

according to your steadfast love;

according to your abundant mercy

blot out my transgressions.

² 

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

    and cleanse me from my sin!

Throughout Lenten services this year, a dear friend and I sang Kenneth Kosche's lovely setting of Psalm 51. The words have rattled about in my brain and in my heart; they have settled in my bones and in my stomach and even in my womb. Miracle of miracles, God's Word worked the way He says it will. It does what it says.

 

For I know my transgressions,

and my sin is ever before me.

Against you, you only, have I sinned

    and done what is evil in your sight,

so that you may be justified in your words

    and blameless in your judgment.

⁵ 

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,

    and in sin did my mother conceive me.

⁶ 

Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,

    and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.

During one of the last pre-Lenten weeks, I suspected that we were pregnant. Ecstatic and apprehensive, I took the test, mostly because Papa told me I should (I think my unknowing, near-constant speculation might have motivated, however slightly, his insistence er, encouragement). Filling the dishwasher as I waited on the results, my hope for a child suddenly vanished, literally struck with worry--worry about costs, worry about the baby's health, worry about our family's adjustment, worry about my varicose veins in pregnancy. Yes, even that. And I felt terribly guilty. I was, too. Here my sinful heart had already rejected even the possibility of a good gift because it turned selfishly, twistedly inward. In my terrible blindness, I could not even accept a gift without suspicion or grudging.

And then the test was positive. As I fought my conflicted feelings, Papa's face lit up and the boys squealed with excitement, especially our eldest, the Little Professor. When we told him the pregnancy test was positive, we asked him if he knew what that meant. "Yes," he said without hesitation. "It means Mommy can go skydiving."

After we laughed in surprise and perplexity, he explained that Mrs. Duggar had been pregnant, and she had gone skydiving, so naturally one was connected to the other. Actually, in that old episode of 19 Kids and Counting he'd just happened to watch a few days before, she hadn't gone skydiving because she suspected she might be pregnant. But no matter. Little Professor was more right than he knew.

 

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;

wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness;

    let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

A week or so later, on Sunday, February 10, during a snowy storm day, Papa and the snow blower belt tussled, and the belt won. Papa had to have emergency surgery on two broken, mangled fingers of his left hand that night, which went well. The anesthesia won that round, too. But thankfully, we expect him to make a full (if somewhat ugly and scarred for a time) recovery.

I teased Papa after surgery that he'd have a great topic for an Ash Wednesday sermon: that we all return to dust, sometimes one little piece at a time. He smiled (what a nice guy to take my pathetic humor at such a time).  But then said, "No, I think it'll be about pride."

And, of course, he was right. We all fear our physical death, our bodily decomposition as every hour and year passes. But we also fear our spiritual death--that we mean nothing, that we will disappear into a dark, endless, terrible void when our earthly lives are over. Dust is bad in all forms, from mangled fingers to decomposed flesh to meaningless lives. Snow can appear so clean--that day, I had marveled at its cleansing power on a dead, wintry landscape. But snow only magnified spilt blood. It highlighted brokenness. Papa needed far more than snow to cover his injury. And so we need far more than a surface covering to heal our spiritual death.

As we stumbled, narcotics-laden, pain-filled, nausea-and-fatigue burdened, in the first weeks of Lent, the Psalmist's words kept coming back to me. "Let the bones that You have broken rejoice." Who would? Well, we did. We were so thankful for the excellent medical care Papa received, for the surgeon's knowledge and skill, for all the friends and relatives who supported and cared for us. In our weakness we were reminded of our complete helplessness. Christ sent people to care for us physically and emotionally. He blessed the prayers of those who prayed for us. Yet only One could bear our spiritual helplessness. It was a difficult experience for me to see my husband suffer. I know he will not live on this earth forever, and neither will I. Neither will our children. We cannot prevent their suffering or ours. But even so, joy and gladness exist. We hear it and anticipate it. And this is a mystery.

 

Hide your face from my sins,

and blot out all my iniquities.

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

    and renew a right spirit within me.

¹¹ 

Cast me not away from your presence,

    and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

¹² 

Restore to me the joy of your salvation,

    and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
    and sinners will return to you.

Through Lent, our circumstances kept reminding us of our true state. I could not force away the debilitating fog of early pregnancy, its physical or spiritual manifestations. My condition was light compared to many others--including Papa's!--but often I could only think of my own burdens. At one point, I naively thought, "Okay. If Jesus could fast in the desert for forty days and endure direct temptation from the devil, then I can handle another day of this." But I couldn't. I realized, again and again, my complete and utter helplessness and my utter worthlessness in the sight of God.

Thank God in His Son, Christ Jesus, Who suffered physical pain and spiritual torture for our sakes, and Who knows exactly what our sufferings are like. While we can feel chagrined or silly or downright dumb for mistakes or choices we make, feel guilty and damned for rejecting good gifts and even hating them, our fatal flaws that no doctor or midwife can ever fix plague us still more. Despair and guilt bury us, for we know we are ill with an illness that ends in the grave. But we do not suffer without any hope. For we can rest in the knowledge that Christ heals all things--from fingers to selfishness to pride to sinners--through His suffering, death, and resurrection.

Why do people skydive? For exhilaration, for excitement, I suppose. But people who do it implicitly communicate trust--trust that they will be safe, that the parachute or diver to which they're affixed will keep them from harm. And Christ, in rising from the dead, has affixed us not to a descending fate but to an ascending one. We will all suffer in this life and die, unless He first comes again. But we trust that He will uphold us, that He will not cast us away. He who has made Himself our Brother and His Father our Father names us in baptism and cleanses us. He has already won all things--for Papa (and even unto his fingers), for me, for every one of our children, even the littlest. And even as we live in uncertain, unknown worldly days, in his scarred, resurrected hands we leap, and we rest. Happy Easter.

On Marriage: Why 'Clarity and Mindfulness' Is Not Enough

So I just watched "The 20-Something Marriage Divide" on WSJ.com. The brief summary of the interview was this: "Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute asserts that women in their 20s should seek stability in marriage before childbirth. WSJ's Wendy Bounds asks why." (You can watch the entire video here.)

The fascinating study "Knot Yet: The Benefits and Costs of Delayed Marriage in America" that Hymowitz and three others co-authored came upon a startling, problematic pattern: while fewer teens are bearing children out of wedlock (a good thing), more twenty-something women are bearing children out of wedlock. And many of these women lack a college education and thus the opportunities to pursue middle- or higher-income positions. The typical pattern, as Hymowitz puts it, is that these women have a child, usually while they're cohabiting with the father, two years prior to the parents' marriage (if that even happens). Two-fifths of these relationships end in the first five years of the child's life. Then the parents typically move on to other relationships, involving the child in the myriad confusion of step-parents and step-relatives, including half-siblings, sinking the already low-income child into a hard-to-escape life of upheaval and usually poverty. Hymowitz explains that long, long, long studies of children's social, emotional, and educational development have shown that children benefit from stability, namely the stability of one father and one mother who are married to each other.

Bounds pounces on Hymowitz with series of anecdotal comment-leading-questions, from the extreme conclusion "So you're saying women should get married young and have children young, even if they don't really know the man they're marrying?" to the weirdly defensive "I have many twenty-something friends who have no desire to be married" (I'm paraphrasing quotes here). And Hymowitz has to respond with comments like, "No one would want women to get married just for the sake of getting married" and "Well, eighty percent of twenty-something women we interviewed said they'd like to be married someday." Bounds throws in a few comments about how families now are varied and ultimately makes a common, relativistic statement about American families, insinuating that no one can judge any non-one married father and mother family as problematic in any way. Hymowitz didn't get to respond to Bounds' last comment.

While all of this speaks indirectly to the topics so prevalent at the moment (SCOTUS, anyone?), I was first riveted by how intent Bounds seemed upon criticizing the Knot Yet conclusions. She didn't realize that so many of her anecdotal comments inherently excluded the very population that the study authors noticed, namely, the non-college-educated "Middle America" woman.  Bounds' responses weren't unique, I don't think; she seemed to be saying what any successful, educated, urban American woman would have said in response to Hymowitz's comments. I sensed that Bounds chafed at the criticism inherent in the study's conclusions, mostly because they showed how when people choose to have sex out of wedlock and a child results, the child inevitably suffers from the parents' choices. Even though the study stayed pretty far away from criticizing well-educated, middle- to upper-income women and parents--even going so far as to saying the later marriage age for college grads has helped women--the sting hits close. No woman wants to think that her choices, particularly her sexual choices, can be negative in any way. Even if the consequences of her choices, like children, are hypothetical. She knows, deep down, that children are a natural result of sex, and any criticism of her non-marital coitus is ultimately a judgment on her.

Our culture is idiotic when it comes to children. We hold up children as possessions, thinking we can trash them when they don't fit our lives or that we can manufacture them the way we manufacture toothbrushes when we want them. And any reminders that children result from a very basic, yet very mysterious biological union apart from our controlled circumstances--from faulty contraception to even perfectly-executed but failed fertility treatments--just remind us all the more powerfully that children are a gift. But we don't want to believe that. We want to believe that we can decide and choose in what instances children can be borne and raised, and then we believe that we can decide and choose that whatever instances in which children result we can deem good and successful (and immune from criticism). We have distanced sex and marriage so far from childbearing that we honestly get really confused and riled up when real people connect the three. And it's particularly difficult when the real people are children, stuck in real, chaotic, hybrid family situations. We typically ignore marriage altogether in those situations. Even Hymowitz, specifically studying marriage, could only retreat to a hollow definition of how a young woman should approach marriage if she's "serious" about having children: she should use "clarity and mindfulness" when considering and entering into marriage and think of her future child's best interests first. And who knows what a young man should be thinking.

And isn't that the problem? People cohabit for many reasons, and I'd venture a guess that precious few of them have "seriousness about my future child" or "my future child's best interest" as one or either of them, let alone words like "clarity and mindfulness" as they apply to potential children. People want sex. They want lower rent or mortgages. They want companionship without legal hurdles. They want to do what they want to do without getting "serious," which is a lazy way of saying they want to have a relationship their way, without sacrifice. Of course children in these situations would get the raw end; they're unwelcome, uninvited intruders to inherently selfish lifestyles. Parenting and sacrifice go hand in hand, and if parents of a child have never committed to sacrifice to, for, and with each other in the life-long bond of marriage, itself an institution about sacrifice and submission, their child will certainly be the one that does the sacrificing--socially, emotionally, educationally, you name it.

Where does a child fit in this picture?

The original descriptor of the interview, "20-somethings should seek stability in marriage before childbirth," only begs the question "why?" when we think marriage is ultimately and only about two people. Otherwise, the study's conclusion seem so obvious as to be ridiculous: one plus one equals three, not two. Even most of the conversations about same-sex marriage seem to miss this point. People get that marriage is important, perhaps even sacred (whatever that means to you). People even get that marriage as an ideal concept is a relationship to be desired, notwithstanding Bounds' friends. But marriage is about two people, a man and a woman, bonded together in the only relationship known in human history to be the most consistent, healthy way for children to live. Once people pretend that marriage is wholly separated from childbearing (and homosexual couples by default contend this), child-rearing, and child-maturing (even adult children of recently married septuagenarian parents are affected, after all), then of course marriage can mean whatever two emotional people want to make it. 

Any close reading of my comments here obviously indicts heterosexual couples who are married but who adopt the me-centered view of marriage. Even a couple biologically designed to enter into marriage can and--news flash!--does mess it up. So where does that leave us?  

Marriage requires philia and eros. Even more, it requires agape, the kind of love that foregoes self and unconditionally forgives. Of all groups, Christians best understand marriage because we see and confess how Christ loved us first. By recognizing our sin and our need for forgiveness, and by repenting and receiving Christ's forgiveness, we can connect Christ's love for His church to marriage. He loves us and forgives us, and then we can love and forgive each other, particularly our spouse and any children we receive. Vague, even well-intentioned clarity and mindfulness about marriage, and pragmatic choices and emotional decisions, aren't enough to make or define or sustain marriage. Sacrifice and forgiveness between husband and wife, and Christ received by both over and over and over again, are.