One is ten. Two is fifteen. Three is seventeen. Four is BOOM.

Four months into to life with four ex utero, and my days are a mix of peace, fulfillment, meaning. Oh, and nine parts anger, stress, and denial that this--this noise and chaos and bodily-fluid-and-rambunktion cocktail--is our relatively-newish normal.

In the last five and half years, Papa and I have weathered the new parent experience (an insanely high learning curve), the two-under-two juggle, the three-easing-in gig. Pearly Girl's arrival was smooth, and within three weeks I was thinking, "This is easy. Cool!" Deluded, I thought I was proving to be just the kind of mega-awesome mom I always knew I was.

But the last few months have exploded my self-satisfied smugness. No, I can't point to crime-worthy messes or even particular instances so much as my general feeling of physical and emotional exhaustion. And I began realizing a few months ago that this wasn't depression; it was life. And if this was what my life was like, then my understanding of myself was being blasted to smithereens.

I had a breakthrough last month when I struck up a conversation with another mom of four whose kids are roughly a year ahead of each of ours. "So, does it get easier?" I asked hesitatingly, half-giggling, hoping that she could hear, and yet hoping she would miss, the barely-disguised hysteria behind my generic question.

"Yeah, it does," she said. Then she gazed down at her one-year-old and helped me to some perspective. "But four is hard. Everybody said, 'If you can do three, you can do four, five six.' And three for us was cake. But four was..." her voice trailed off. She looked at me. "I had a hard time. I had postpartum depression, which I'd never had with the other three kids. But my sisters-in-law helped. [They have four kids each, too.] They told me four was tough for them, too, but that it would get better." She paused, steadying the barely-walking brave soul hanging on to her pant leg. "Now the baby wants to go off on his own, and I'm like, 'He's not my baby anymore!' and at the same time I'm like, 'Go! Go!'"

Empathy comes in many forms, and sometimes it trickles into our lives almost unconsciously, emerging as in-the-trenches shared experience. Mom-of-four Amy put into words what I had been struggling to admit even to myself--that four kids is somehow astronomically harder to manage, but in subtle ways, that makes the very difficulty in care somehow negligible. I had felt like I was slowly drowning--and in truth, I still do, many days--but I felt like I couldn't acknowledge it because, well, three kids had been easy, and so many people told me that "if you could manage three, then you can manage four fine." Maybe someday I'll start second-guessing gross generalizations about parenting and spare myself the unrealistic expectations and inevitable guilty fallout.

I also felt like I couldn't acknowledge what our life is like because to do so prompts many people to jump to an illogical, if tenaciously popular, way of thinking. It goes something like this: if I, a mother of four, say that being a stay-at-home mother is hard, then I'm admitting failure. If I admit failure, then I 1) should really look into doing something more productive with my time, like working at something away from my children that tangibly and reliably rewards my efforts (unlike my current routine, which swings from high highs and low lows, like a bipolar monkey. Yep, pretty much like that), and 2) should stop embracing life and being open to more children. Because who in her right mind wants more of what causes her stress, sleeplessness, and six days straight of no showers? (Okay, it's usually not that bad. I had to pick a number that started with 's.' And 'seventeen' would have just scared people away.) In the midst of this juggle, I didn't know how to begin to respond to these arguments. In fact, I wasn't sure that I could personally categorically reject them, though logically I knew they were flawed.

A few years ago, Glennon Melton, a blogger at Momastery, wrote a great post entitled "Don't Carpe Diem," which went viral. In it, she discusses this very conundrum.

Parenting is hard. Just like lots of important jobs are hard. Why is it that the second a mother admits that it's hard, people feel the need to suggest that maybe she's not doing it right? Or that she certainly shouldn't add more to her load. Maybe the fact that it's so hard means she IS doing it right...in her own way...and she happens to be honest.

I disagree with some points here: I'm not doing it right, and I can't judge motherhood by my own standard (more on that in a bit). But the honesty part is what struck me, both when Amy talked to me and I read what Glennon wrote to the blogosphere. What is this life but hardships? And why was I stressing so much about the sheer hardness of life with small children? When I spend more than two seconds listening to myself, I realize how often the wambulance wails in my head and how I really do need to kick the wimpiness to the curb. In Lutheran-speak, I need to confess and repent the real culprit behind my stress: my own pride. I need to banish the Pharisee of Superwoman who, in a different but related vein, tries to keep me enslaved to the belief that I can control my life the way I want--and show the world how I really can live the perfect parent-magazine-spread life and put all those other moms to shame. That I can, in fact, do motherhood right, and do it right all the time, perfectly.

I realize that I am staggering from one ditch of self-pity and naval-gazing to another ditch of self-glorifying Mommydom. Both ways leave me with zero comfort and plenty of pent-up anxiety. Worse yet, I am leaving the One who can actually steer the ship, right the course, calm my heart, and lead me and mine to the Way Everlasting when I insist on thinking all of these gifts are entitlements and rewards. And I end up buried. As hard as I pity myself or congratulate myself, the law written on my heart whispers the truth: I fail at this mommy thing. I sin against my children daily, hourly. And real pity doesn't apply to evil. The meek were truly helpless and deserving of pity; I'm a sinner worthy of death. And I dwell on myself to the exclusion of every real good gift, like a massive quantity of explosives simmering before a lighted fuse. As Chad Bird put it in this blogpost among many other fine ones, "Behold, the sin of the world, that takes away the Lamb of God!"

Struggling is not abnormal. Struggling is what we do in this life. But struggling should not excuse the sins that hide behind it. I am angry many times because I think God is unfair to make my life something other than an Emommy awards show, that my service to my children goes unnoticed by most of the world, usually including my children; that my efforts don't merit a paycheck or an impressive job title or an awesome alumni magazine write-up. And my anger is so incredibly sinful, so immeasurably petty and juvenile, because God Himself did for me what I so dimly, blunderingly do for my own children. He loves me first and puts Himself aside. And He did this in His earthly life with the ultimate humility and grace and endless love. And remarkably, He still does love me, the merit-less and worthless, and gives Himself to me still.

And for this I am eternally grateful. And I am reminded, however fleetingly in this frenzied life, that He carries my sorrows, even the silly ones; He was cursed for my transgressions, even from my most terrible hatred down to my most childish anger. Upon Him was laid the chastisement that brings me ultimate peace, and by His stripes, I--with the messy remnants of my pride and sins raining in and on and through me--am healed and cleansed.

Because explosions can be beautiful.

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.

Prayer “While Reading the News”

WHILE READING THE NEWS

I thank you

for this net that sweeps all waters

and brings me news of all the daily life

of all my neighbors

everywhere in the world.

Make me compassionate,

O God of all mercies,

with all my neighbors’ sufferings.

Teach me to know and feel

that distant anguish is

as aching as my own.

Teach me to pray,

“Thy kingdom come!”

as widely as Your Son

has willed it and meant it.

Teach me to do

what I can and must do

for all men.

Teach me long-reaching charity.

Give me faith to know,

when news is black as ink,

that Your hand is guiding all,

obscurely and unfathomably

but surely, surely

toward Your goal;

that when the world shakes

and Satan triumphs with short certainty,

Your Son, Jesus Christ, is Lord of all,

that He, the Lamb slain for our sins,

is opening the seals of Your book

and is working out

Your good and holy will.

Remember in Your mercy

the gatherers and disseminators of the news.

Protect them from all harm.

Keep them

from cynical and cheap success,

from a single taste for disaster,

from considered or deliberate distortion

of the sad and wondrous face of man.

From Pray for Joy, by Martin H. Franzmann (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1970)

Anger Management, Small-Child-and-Lent Version

"The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down. ... Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly." 
~Proverbs 14:1, 29

As parents a mom an extremely sinful mom, Papa and I learn every day how little patience and gentleness we I have. (Even if Papa agrees with this, it's not fair for me to lump him in with my admissions of guilt. He can do that on his own time in his own way, which probably doesn't include blogging about it. Hence all the crossing-outing.) I have a terribly bad habit of letting my temper flare and my responses to outsize the situation. This includes circumstances that warrant a response that is carefully measured. Take, for instance, yesterday:

--In which P decided to artistically decorate the bathroom walls with the skills only boys are blessed with. I was not happy.

--In which S found a ball-point pen, pushed a chair up to the kitchen counter, climbed upon said chair and proceeded to practice scribbling on top of every professional picture of C on the counter that I had ready to go into envelopes, all while I changed C's diaper. I was beyond not happy. I was so mad I cried.

Even the Packers can't fix everything. P at two months.

Discipline usually refers to the teaching of appropriate behavior to small children. It can also refer to life-long learning of truth, from history and literature to compassion and self-control. The boys received discipline and one-on-one talks about what they did and why they had to be punished for their very-non-appropriate acts, but I also (I hope) received discipline of temperament. 


I pray I may learn to react to my children as God reacts to me, His child, as this Litany collect so beautifully states.
 
Spare us, O Lord, and mercifully forgive our sins. Though by our continual transgressions we have merited Your chastisements, be gracious to us. Grant that all these punishments which we have deserved may not come upon us, but that all things may work to our everlasting good; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Postscript: Yuckiness in the bathroom can be easily cleaned, and so--it seems--can pen on pictures. After some rubbing with a clean white towel moistened with water, C's face magically reappeared, and S's practice strokes disappeared. Nothing short of miraculous. As is, when I think of it, the love God shows to us.

Benediction

The last few days have carried an absolute cacophony of news of life and death for lives touching ours. Yesterday in the wee hours of the morning, a sweet lady, Dottie, from my home church (that is, the church where I grew up) passed away. I learned just a bit ago that one of my best friend's father, Jim, died late last night night. He was to begin cancer treatments yesterday and was instead admitted to hospice. Though I know little about Dottie's passing, I know that Jim's was expected, but not quite so suddenly. These lines do nothing to emphasize the jolting shock of death to children, to grandchildren, even when those dying are old.

In the meantime, church members we know celebrated the birth of a grandchild and great-grandchild. In an odd and humorous twist, the parents had been informed that their child was a girl. But on Sunday, they welcomed a son instead. Rowan is healthy and strong (and, presumably, not going to wear all the pink waiting for a baby girl at home).

On Friday, a friend forwarded me a prayer request for the son of her friends, who've been experiencing a tumultuous pregnancy due to their son's major medical problems. At that time, Tim and Paige expected to deliver their son Issac today, not knowing if he would live more than a few hours. Instead, he was delivered yesterday, and he screamed and peed--despite the non-existent kidney function the doctors all expected--and wiggled. His prognosis is still being discovered, but Tim wrote that when he left the hospital, "Paige was awake and laughing."

Few joys are so acute as those that are miracles of life; few sorrows are so intense as those that are losses in death. As Christians, we trust in the hope that is Christ and His resurrection from the dead for us. We look to He who tells us, "See My hands and My feet, that it is I myself. Touch Me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39). He does--and we do--live, and will live. Issac and Rowan live on earth now until the last breath that God has ordained for them. Dottie and Jim have died on earth now and await their final bodily raising. But they are alive in Christ. They are in heaven, awake and laughing. And this helps us go in peace. 

Paper Chaos

My life in pulp.

I have a big box on the buffet of announcements and pictures and thank you notes that lie awaiting. I have blog posts stacked in cyberspace, twiddling their proverbial thumbs for pictures; short bloggy thoughts patiently queuing in my head; a big one stewing and bubbling on the back brain-stem burners. But all that must wait in the chaos that is Regular Budgeting, Catch-Up Budgeting, and--cringe--Tax Time Prep. Behind my laptop are currently six piles of varied and assorted bills, receipts, and catch-all, and that doesn't count the bin to my right on the floor with two binders full of Necessary Financial Stuff. I'm always so glad when all this is done, that is completed. It's important. It's vital to our family's survival. But paper chaos is poopy.

Seven Things I Wish I Would Have Known Before Becoming a PW

You can see this post--and even more wonderful conversations between PWs (pastors' wives)--at this blog.

 

We've marked that sacred date known LCMS-universally as "Call Day" in the spring. Now we've heard about ordinations and installations of candidates all over the country (and maybe in your neighborhood) throughout the summer. Due to these blessed events, I've been thinking about my experiences with that stressful, awesome process and, well, some things I wish I would have known before my wonderful husband (MWH) and I headed out happily into the mission field. After a lot of head-scratching, I came up with this list.

A few clarifiers:

My husband and I (both non-pastor's kids, or "PKs" as the mostly fond acronym goes) and our growing family have enjoyed five years in a church that was his first call out of seminary. This hardly makes me some sort of pastor's wife expert to women who are married to men who are near, either direction, ordination and installation, but lots of you pastor's wives reading this have much more insight, experience, maturity, and patience than I do--so please add advice and comments below! Our sisters--future and perhaps present--will benefit.

There's no particular order to my list here. I wrote them as I thought of them, so don't take the numbering too seriously.

1. Your life as a pastor's wife is not like your life as a vicar's wife.

Our vicarage year was honestly like a year-long vacation. Yes, it held stresses and crosses, but mostly it held joy, much MUCH support, immediate and sustained friendships with people who loved us literally on sight. It was everything anyone could want in a vicarage--which is how vicarages should be; safe, learning experiences. But life at a church as a pastor and pastor's wife is very different. The timetable is different, the responsibilities (seen and unseen) are different, the stresses are far different. And this is good. It's real life! But you can't expect a replica of your vicarage. (And for those of you who had an awful vicarage, this is really good news!)

2. Your congregation needs time to get to know you...

That's "you" meaning your husband, "you" meaning you, and "you" meaning your entire family dynamic. I thought friendliness, vivacity, warmth, and learning people's names really fast would mean people would warm up to and trust me, and us, fairly quickly. For a few (like a handful), it did. For most, it didn't. After almost five years and some really, really tough times, people are starting to really open up to us. Congregations are full of--news flash!--sinners, and sinners have wildly different ways of approaching and trusting others. I've learned that most people have to see, literally, that others care, and at least in our situation, that meant seeing that we'd stick around long enough to prove that we weren't just looking for somewhere else to go. Three years is about the max for young pastors in our area, and we heard that a LOT from members and non-members. "You've been here three years? I guess you'll be moving on soon, huh?" said one local to us a few summers ago, not realizing how clearly she articulated what many people were thinking. And every congregation's time frame for getting to know you is different, too. But I'd guess it's almost always in the multiple years category, not the multiple months category.

3. ...and you need time to get to know your congregation.I'm an outgoing person, and I'll have one terrific conversation with someone and think I really "get" them. I guess this is good in its own way. But it's not great for applying the time rule. The first people who really reached out to us when we first arrived--invited us over, helped us out a lot--are terrific people. In our case, they also were the ones who wanted certain actions or acquiescence from my husband that later turned into problems and, subsequently, a much more impersonal relationship with both of us. That was hard for us, and me in particular, who thought we were all friends! At the same time, people who were friendly but a little distant to us initially have become more and more close to us over the years. And I've learned that learning about people and what they're like over time--like, YEARS--is probably best. You want to try to meet everyone anyway (if that's possible for you), and you'll need lots of time for that. And it's nice to age with your congregation. It's special. You suffer together, you joy together. But none of that happens during a 30-second commercial break.

4. Together with your husband and family, establish what formal church involvement you will have.

I heard this from veteran pastors' wives before we arrived here, and this has proved invaluable. Many wives learn to say "no" after years of struggling with too much responsibility in the parish. It's much easier if you start out with certain parameters in place--that is, you stay uninvolved for at least six months, then converse with your husband and family, then slowly begin getting involved.

The opinion of most importance in determining your (and your children's, for that matter) involvement is your husband's. This is an extremely controversial thing to say, even to traditionally conservative Lutheran women! But this is true. Your husband is the pastor. He will know the church people and the various church organizations far better than you, even if you tag along with him frequently. He also knows you! I have been blessed by a husband who, at times, has told me he wants me to do something that I don't think I want to do, but, after doing it, I realize that it is for the best. He also has told me what organizations or participation he thinks I should NOT get involved with. He has saved me from much frustration and hardship and heartache by helping me say "no." So talk to your wonderful husbands and trust them! Then you can muddle through together.

I have found, as a mother with young children, that some of my most meaningful "involvement" is not formal; it happens with the occasional visit with shut-ins, sharing conversation with people over coffee at various church events (even really informal ones), standing in hallways (or store aisles) and updating, talking on the phone. We like to entertain and have people over, which we're not able to do as often as when we first arrived, but I recognize that my involvement at church--just like my life as a wife and a mother--will change over time and with circumstances. Yours will, too.

5. Your husband needs you to be his wife (and your children's mother) before he needs you to do anything else for him.

Not church involvement, not community involvement, not continuing your education, not advancing your career. Not anything else. This is controversial--and if I'd heard a pastor's wife say it five years ago I know I would have been offended. I thought then that I could do pretty much everything in my life well if I had the chance to prove it. That was laughably naive. Here's what I've learned: if you desire your husband to be faithful, to be dedicated, and to persevere through hardship, he needs you to be his rock at home. My husband says he does not regret that I went back to school almost as soon as we moved here and that I spent our first three years in the parish immersed in a graduate program. I can't change it now (and I'm not going to give back the fancy piece of paper I got for it, at any rate). But I look back, and for many reasons, I wish I would have waited. The most important reason I wish I would have waited was because I think my husband missed receiving my full support because my energy and focus were divided between him and our life at church and my own studies and teaching. Maybe other women can balance this successfully. I know that he, and actually both of us, lost opportunities in those years to talk and support each other in our marriage. Now I realize that my life revolves around my husband's need for my support--which has already changed over the last few years as he's learned a lot!--and our family. If God wills for me to pursue a career outside the home at some point, I pray He makes it really obvious to me and to my husband. In the meantime, I know He is strengthening our marriage by drawing us closer together as a family. And that can only benefit us--and the church!--in the long run.

6. Life is now in a fishbowl. Therefore, get a father confessor--for your sake and your husband's sake.

Vocations cross now in ways they don't elsewhere. It's not just that people can see what you do and judge you accordingly; you will be held to higher standards that can be unfair. It's also that your own individual lives get bound up in your husband's vocation as pastor. You can't go anywhere--especially in a small town--without knowing you'll be seen as a (or "the"!) pastor's wife. This is a sacrifice of individual autonomy for you that's inevitable. And you will resent it at times, and this comes out most often as resentment and frustration toward your husband--for not having enough time or energy for you or your children, for not making enough money, for not being in a field that gives you "me" time, whatever. And because of this, you need to find a father confessor, a pastor you can talk to or call to confess your resentment, frustration, selfishness, and all those other sins and receive forgiveness without having specific spousal issues get in the way.

My husband and I have relied sporadically upon a pastor that served as a mentor for my husband before his seminary days as a father confessor. We both have called him at different times; he's listened to our confessions and given us absolution. When we are in his area (he's in another state), we visit with him and his wife. I think a more regular pattern would benefit us, but for now, this is what we have and it is a blessing.

7. Be patient and pray for contentment.

I hate this one, because I'm impatient and a control freak. But God is teaching me patience over time, and in the process He is drawing me closer to Himself. Here's how it might play out for you:

You might love your congregation and want to stay forever--and God might call your husband elsewhere right when you think everything is how you want it. You might want nothing better than to move one thousand miles away--and God might want your husband to serve where you are for years--maybe a few decades. You might wonder why your husband doesn't seem to be doing as a pastor what you think he should be doing. You might wonder how your husband can be working so hard and trying so hard to pastor people and they don't seem to want his service, care for it, or accept it unless it's on their terms. But God wants your husband and you in this particular place. You might not know why now or ever, but He does. He also knows how much you both can handle, and if you are struggling with burdens that seem unbearable, He will guide you out of them. Sometimes this happens with time, or with another call, or with a resignation and a life elsewhere.

A very real truth little known or understood in the "outside" world is that many pastors and their wives suffer from depression. I understand now why the percentage of ministers and families who suffer from this is so much higher than in the general population. And I thank God He provides us with loving friends, experts, and resources to deal with this. Depression and its iterations are not weaknesses borne by the less-than-stalwart among us. They are crosses God, in his mysterious, infinite wisdom, that try our patience, test our commitment, and ultimately draw us closer to Him. And we can be thankful, even with the awfulness of mental illness, that He walks with us in this, too.

God also gives us joys as pastors' wives that far outweigh the burdens. The burdens can be hard, extremely hard. But you will witness countless examples of Christ's love from members to your husband, to you, to your children and maybe even your extended family. You will be privy to baptisms, catechizing and confirmations, weddings, funerals of saints called to glory. You will see Christ loving people from conception until death. Real life, real, intense, overwhelming love from our Savior to your dear congregation. And you get to witness it every week, every day. This is a miracle. Few people share this perspective--and those who do, like other pastor's wives, understand what you suffer and what you joy. And we are here for you!

***

A pastor's wife enjoys a wonderful vocation. For those sisters struggling in this vocation, take heart. Christ has already overcome the world for you. For those sisters just starting in this vocation, take heart. Christ knows the plans He has for you, and your husband, and your family--plans to prosper you and not to harm you! I, and so many others, am excited for what lies ahead for you. May God keep you in His wonderful grace always!

Giving Thanks for Life.

I've been struggling for a few weeks to deal with some thrice-removed stresses--that is, things that bother me that 97% of the time don't directly affect me or my family's daily life but which still matter to me because they deal with people that matter to me. I know worrying is wrong. Yet I've spent far too much time turning thoughts and comments and incidents over and over in my head, trying to understand them and, in a weirdly existential-cum-physical way, fix them by understanding them.

Then God smacked me with reality and perspective.

A dear, dear friend called last Wednesday. This friend and I have shared countless joys together--college achievements, engagements, marriages, the births of our children. One particularly poignant joy we have had is to share pregnancies--we've been pregnant at the same time with our kids. She just shared with me about a month ago that they were expecting again, so we'd be pregnant together again for the third time. We've joked that perhaps we'll actually hit the same due date someday.

My friend called to tell me that she and her husband lost their third child to miscarriage.

She told me she thought about waiting a day to tell me since we were planning a visit for Thursday. Our visit turned out to be vastly different than what both of us had anticipated--shared joy at being together, shared sorrow at the loss they suffer. And in the midst of our friends' incredible grief, they showed us how to give thanks for life.


Thursday night, my friend's husband led us in prayer. He began by reading Psalm 51. When he reached "in sin did my mother conceive me," his voice broke. Then he prayed with thanks for what God has given us and what He has taken away. And his simple petition reminded me that we are so thankful for all of life, from the long and full-lived to the short and not-yet-visibly lived. We do not see how God will use our friends' precious child's life to His glory. But He loves that child more than we can ever comprehend. And He loves our friends, and their broken spirits, more than we can ever comprehend.

My friend has been blessed with a vocation outside the home in which she serves others. And in the midst of her shock and wordless tears, she was able to see and articulate how God will use their loss for others' gain in her vocation--that she will now be able to better understand and empathize with women she sees and visits with who have also lost children to miscarriage. She essentially was giving thanks for her child's all-too-brief life, for that life will bless her with deeply insightful care for others that she otherwise wouldn't be able to provide.

God is mysterious. His ways are not our ways; His work in our broken world is hidden from us. And we can't even begin to understand or fix our brokenness. So the greatest mystery of all is that He gave His Son's life for ours so that none of us--our spouses, our children both born and unborn--would die. He has numbered the hairs of our heads and all of our days. He loves us with an everlasting love.

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!
 ³ For I know my transgressions,
   and my sin is ever before me.
⁴ 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.
 ⁷ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
   wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
⁸ Let me hear joy and gladness;
   let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
⁹ Hide your face from my sins,
   and blot out all my iniquities.
¹⁰ 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.
 ¹³ Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
   and sinners will return to you.
¹⁴ Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God,
   O God of my salvation,
   and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
¹⁵ O Lord, open my lips,
   and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶ For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it;
   you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
¹⁷ The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
   a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
 ¹⁸ Do good to Zion in your good pleasure;
    build up the walls of Jerusalem;
¹⁹ then will you delight in right sacrifices,
   in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings;
   then bulls will be offered on your altar.

                                                                        ~Psalm 51

Twenty-Week Thanks.

Twenty weeks! Thank You, God, for twenty weeks of life, of growth, of persistent heartbeats that only You can hear. Of toddler laughs and cries and screams and whispers that come at belly-level and tie a cord between siblings; of soft, practicing, getting-stronger kicks that tie a cord between Baby and (soon-to-be-both) parents. Of bumps, all kinds; especially the kind that now I cannot miss, I cannot forget, and as before I cannot begin to imagine life without. But I pray that life without will come in good time, and as Your time is always perfect, Lord, please help me bear these next twenty weeks with patience and with thanks.