My sister-in-law, Amber, shared this on Facebook a few days ago. It’s so poignant, and very accurately reflects the way I felt when we had Fay.

Here is an excerpt:

The earth shakes when the doctor places your firstborn in your arms. Your love for him is colored by terror because you are positive that he is going to die with each passing minute. You bring him home understanding that the Universe has made a mistake, that someone more qualified, more motherly will show up to retrieve him soon. So while you wait, you play house for awhile. You hold him with trembling, clutching, sweaty hands. You still do. You do not trust that he will be able to navigate his world. You eye his doctors, his playmates, his teachers, even his grandparents with great suspicion. Will they be gentle enough with him? He is so sensitive.

What you really mean is: I am so sensitive. I’m like Lazarus, fresh from the tomb, eyes burning from the sun’s brightness. I can’t handle the ferocity and fragility of this new love. Please be careful with us.

You think if you just hold his hand tight enough, read the right books, choose the right foods, choose the right schools … if you just hold your breath forever … it’ll be okay. You’re not sure what that is anymore. Maybe okay means you’ll succeed at keeping him and the world apart forever. Maybe it just means that you’ll both survive this love, this love so intense it threatens to consume you both like a fire.

He is a poor son whose sonship does not make him desire to serve all men’s mothers.  ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

I will join the circus. The Ever Pregnant Woman! I’ll be carrying him around when he’s a full grown adult. It’s going to be the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen.

In other news, Fable has hit her cuteness stride. She could kill a unicorn with one well-timed smile.

She is also now the Queen of I Don’t Want To.

“Fable, it’s time to put your sweater on.”

- “But I don’twaaaaanttoooooooo.”

“Fable, do you want a sandwich?”

- “I don’twaaaaaaaanttoooooo.”

“Fable, should we put an end to global famine?”

- “Noooo, I don’twaaaaantooooo!” (Apparently, I’m raising a monster.)

And so on and so forth. I find myself saying things only old people say.

“I didn’t ask you if you wanted to,” is the phrase that most easily escapes my lips when I’ve had a full day of whining. And that’s just a ridiculous way for an adult to respond to a toddler. Who has two thumbs and accuses a two-year-old of committing a logical fallacy? This girl.

But nonetheless, she continues to find ways to wriggle her tiny, warm little self into my heart.

She’s kind of like a puppy, only less furry.

Anyway, that’s it. Nothing profound or funny or new. Just waiting for this newest addition to our family to arrive. Hoping it’s soon.

Today was one of those days when I really wanted to distract Jesus with something shiny/someone famous so I could punch a bunch of mortals in the face without Him noticing.

I started to write a full-length post about it, but it only highlighted how cantankerous and crotchety I’ve become, so I decided against it. I like to present my most flattering angles to my readers, and it probably wouldn’t serve that end if I described how satisfying it is for me to imagine myself throttling people.

What’s that over there, Jesus?! Is that the Pope?!

*Punches self in brain*

I often say– whether out loud or in my prayers– that my life is a testimony to God’s grace, and the power of redemption. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. I’m honored to say that God has put to death so much sin in my life. I have been to a lot of funerals inside my soul.

The Bible also tells us that if we die to sin, we’ll be raised from the tomb with Christ. Praise Jesus that He doesn’t leave us in that dark tomb.

My marriage has been a vehicle for my redemption. Second to Christ, my husband has been the greatest facilitator of my salvation.

He saw me through my tumultuous, troubled younger years. He knew me for who I genuinely was as a teen; he witnessed the chaos of my family life. He believed that I was better than the labels I was enslaved by. He was among the first to issue my call to life. He knew my brokenness completely when we began dating, and with open eyes, he committed to being my husband. Can you imagine the humility?

I believe that he could have had almost anybody. (Except Salma Hayek. She’s way out of his league.) He has always been exceptional by all standards. And for as long as I have known him, he has channeled ALL of his talents into serving God’s kingdom. He truly is an example of doing “nothing out of vain ambition or selfish conceit.” Just as the verse says, he sincerely considers others to be better than himself.

What would a man like him want with a wreck like me? By the time we started dating, I had seen way more of sin– had my fill of it, been scarred by it, and partaken in a lethal dose of it– than most people do in a lifetime. Why would he choose me?

Because my husband is a man after God’s own heart. Because God knew how great the redemption would be. And because Doug wanted God’s will more than he wanted comfort, or a “good” wife.

We were married a little over four years ago. In that time, we’ve fought for our marriage tooth and nail. All the ghosts from my past have come back to haunt us. I have been the biggest violator of my marriage, and I have been the one quickest to consider giving up on it. But Doug has never once wavered. He has never done anything but love and admire me, even when I showed the worst side of myself.

Can you imagine? Can you even fathom that grace? Most people never experience the power of mercy, especially not to the degree I’ve received it. I have been loved beyond measure.

There have been times when I have believed that the sin inflicted on me, and the sin I’ve engaged in, had wrecked me beyond repair. I’ve felt shattered and wasted. But God’s love as exhibited through Doug’s constancy has proven me to be so much more than that. I’m strong because of the glue that holds me together. Like a stained glass portrait, I’m fragmented and intricate, and the picture I display now is one of wholeness.

I praise God every single day that Doug is mine; that he has promised to spend forever searching for my lost pieces and helping put me back together again. It’s my joy to tell a story reflecting God’s glory, and my husband’s goodness.

No matter where God takes us– no matter what He gives us, or what He takes away from us– I will be content if the end result is a clearer view of His face.

______________________________________________________________________________

The thing about manners is, it all starts at home. Manners are a lot like incest in that way. (It’s funny, how infrequently one has the opportunity to compare etiquette to incest…) Let me rephrase that: The home is a breeding ground for manners. One might even go so far as to say that it’s a veritable petri dish of etiquette and good behavior. Come to think of it, manners are a lot like bacteria in that way!

The issue of childrearing is a delicate one. Parents are often the subject of intense scrutiny—especially from their blissfully childless friends, who somehow manage to gain a wealth of knowledge on parenthood whilst shopping at Ikea.

Parenting is an enormously personal undertaking, and there are countless decisions to be made on subjects ranging in magnitude from tedious to tremendous. Should we co-sleep or not co-sleep? Are we the spanking type (aka: criminals) or the non-spanking type (aka: pushovers)? Are we proponents of attachment parenting, or should we go the more traditional neglect route? The subjects are infinite, and seemingly overnight you are expected to not only care about all of them, but to have a defensible position on them, as well.

It’s no wonder parents are among the most defensive group of people in the world, second only to Liberal Arts majors.

Seriously, parenting is a high-pressure job and the stakes are high. If you screw up an ice-cream sundae during the night shift at Village Inn, the world is none the wiser. You can simply discard or devour the delectable mistake, and life goes on as usual. But you can’t just throw away a child if you mess it up—let alone eat it. (At least not without having some serious PR work to do afterward.) A child is a glaring neon sign that never stops announcing your parenting weaknesses—or the fact that it has to go poopy– to random passersby. Aside from reality T.V. stars and anorexics, who enjoys that kind of attention?

Having said that, I do believe that we live in an era of rampant paranoia about, well, most things. And it has come to have a profoundly negative impact on our parenting as a society. Sound advice and guidance have been replaced by fear-mongering and all other kinds of mongering. It’s a topsy-turvy world out there, as any parent can tell you. The news would have us believe that criminals can rape and murder their children and walk away Scott free, while a well-intended parent can get 20 years to life just for spanking her child in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Who could function– let alone raise up a human being from scratch–under those conditions?

So what do we do? Nothing. And that’s the problem. We’re a herd of deer stuck in the beaming headlights of criticism, petrified of what others might think or say or report to the Department of Human Services. We’re too scared to ask for help from folks who might know a thing or two (if we could actually find people who met that criteria in the first place).

It’s quite the bind, really. I don’t envy parents. Except mine, of course, seeing as how I’ve always been such a shining example of good conduct and whatnot, with absolutely no effort required on their part.

So where do we go from here? I’ve got some thoughts on the matter. Obviously. That’s why I’m writing this book and all.

But you’re going to have to stick with me. What I’m about to say is going to sound as backwards as a nude photo of Robert Aragno. I promise there will be less confusion and backtracking when I’m done.

It seems to me that the problem in today’s parenting culture is that we’re too afraid—afraid of talking to one another, afraid of hearing what someone might say, and especially afraid of looking like just another one of the bloviating blowhards we’ve come to avoid at church on Sunday morning. So we turn a blind eye to things we really ought to address if we care about people and their kids, and our society on the whole. We don’t speak up when our friend’s kid dips his finger in our ranch dressing while out to lunch. We turn a blind eye when the same friend caves in to the zillioneth request for candy, after she has already said no. We bite our tongues when kids are blatantly rude and disobedient, because God forbid we offend our friend, who is already overwhelmed and over-analyzed anyway.

But are we really doing anybody any favors by living this way? Who are we helping by keeping our mouths shut? Sure, we avoid a potentially awkward confrontation for the time being. But we’re not fixing the problem either.

Oh, but you’re not convinced that there’s a problem? I’m sorry. I should have clarified. Let me back up a bit.

There’s a problem. And the problem, friend, is you. And your defiant, whiny, stubborn, wholly unappealing offspring.

There, I said it. And if you put the book down now, you’ll only be affirming what I said earlier, which is that parents have become debilitated and rendered impotent by their own defensiveness.

It’s up to you. Do you want to be the kind of parent who stops reading here out of an inflamed sense of pride? If so, put this book down and get back to paying minimal attention to your heathens. But if you’re interested in how we’ve lost our power as parents, and how we can restore some balance by reintroducing manners to our kids (what a mouthful!), then read on. I’m not promising you concrete answers. What I am promising you is the potentiality for some insight and growth. Oh, and laughs.

And definitely some laughs.

 I didn’t expect to find you here. I thought you might have moved on to prettier and younger blogs by now. I wouldn’t blame you if you did.

 Life is occurring at record pace in these parts.

 Doug and I have sort of unofficially gone into business together. We write and edit things and, big surprise, we make one helluva team. Doug outlines and drafts and I write the content, and then he nitpicks the content and I get crabby and say, “If you know so much, do it yourself.” And then he has to talk me off the ledge because I’m pregnant and am inclined to throw things at random. “YOU DIDN’T LIKE YOUR BOLOGNA SANDWICH?! GET OUT OF THIS HOUSE AND GET OUT OF MY LIFE!”

 Also, I’m writing a book. Well, you know, in my mind that’s what I’m doing. I’m putting it together. It’s got a title and everything!

 Mind Your Manners, A**hole: A Guide to Manners and Etiquette for Everyday Jerks Like You.

 Reserve your copy now! (You can advance me payment in the form of American monies and other currencies.)

Other than writing, I’m fully caught in the throws of pregnancy. I’m like a big, juicy hamburger of pregnancy, topped with the works. I vacuumed the whole house and shampooed the carpets tonight. It’s such a bizarrely delightful pleasure. You get to see all the crap rise up out of the carpet like Lazarus from the tomb. It’s probably just as satisfying for me as raising the dead was to Christ… I spent the rest of the night jumping around like an epileptic cat to avoid soiling the carpet. I’m downright giddy!

I can’t believe we’re about to have another baby in this house. I’m getting a little anxious. And, to be honest, I’m grieving a little, too. It probably comes as a shock to you to hear this, but I’m more than a little smitten with the result of my first go at reproduction. I’m fully convinced that I’ll love the hell out of Cypher, but… I don’t know. It’s just that I take so much delight in the dynamic of our family as it is. We’ve got a good thing going here. It’s changing for the best, I know. Our joy will only multiply and so on and so forth and other platitudes. But  I’ve never really liked math– theorems and hypotenuses and all that. I don’t know what that has to do with anything. I’m just trying to say that it’s confusing, is all. 

I’m not getting a lick of sleep. It seems like I wake up every 20 minutes and think, “I should polish the hubcaps tomorrow” and “When was the last time anyone cleaned behind the oven?” 

Also, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the issue of unemployment. Do you know how hard it is to be unemployed? Well, I don’t, either. I mean, I’ve never lost a job. I have stormed out of a job– once– while yelling, “AND HOW CAN YOU TREAT THE ELDERLY THAT WAY?” (I sold bathing suits at a Dillards, of all places.) But I’ve never been “let go.” That phrase makes me think of gigantic companies releasing people into the air like wayward balloons. And it feels that way, too. 

It’s hell, to be honest with you. It’s everyday agony to watch my husband soldier on like this. Good attitude and brave face and total willingness to be useful, because he so needs to be useful. I am bitter and more than a little mad. Sometimes I get angry when I see my friends who still work for Doug’s old company. It’s not their fault. My feelings are misplaced, but they’re angry and agitated and need a place to land, like a swarm of under-caffeinated bees. 

It’s disheartening. I want to take up my husband’s banner and charge into war for him. I can’t do anything except be supportive and mature, which are two things I’m not inclined to be at the moment. Because even though I admire everything about the way Doug has handled this season of our lives, I still need to sting somebody sometimes and so I sting him, which is downright shitty of me. It’s hard to be self-aware. It’s even harder to do something about what you see in yourself. 

Oh, gosh. 

Well, that’s life. Good and ugly; bologna and beehives. 

For now,

M. 

I am thinking about marriage. Always, I’m thinking about marriage. How it measures up to my expectations of it, how I measure up against God’s expectations for it, and so on and so forth. In sum, I fall pitifully far from the standard God has set for me. Big surprise.

In particular, I think of how often I take my husband for granted. He is sublimely patient with me, always giving me the benefit of the doubt and applying a heaping dose of understanding to my failures. Instead of responding kindly and out of gratitude, I often find myself with a haughty spirit and a bad attitude. It’s ironic that I’m only free to be a bad spouse because my husband’s consistency of character affords me such a luxury.

Poetic irony: never wasted on me.

I rarely speak boldly on the topic of my “former” life. I speak *often* on the subject, but hardly ever with the degree of candor I’m about to display.

It often seems like an overstatement when you hear a person describe his childhood as “abusive.” It’s as though the spirit recoils at the word, simply out of a desire to believe the world a halfway decent place. I know that it has been difficult for my family and friends to hear me describe my past life with that word. It seems unlikely that a person should be abused when she bears no lingering physical marks. “Raised in a dysfunctional home,” seems more fitting, raises less hairs, is more palatable. And so, for the longest time when talking about my family, I would simply say, “I was raised in a broken home.” I was once ashamed to label it as abusive, but something changed.

I had a child of my own.

I held a writhing, sticky, sweetly helpless being in my arms and the full weight of my past began to sink in. There is a stark contrast between what I wish for my child (or anyone’s child), and what I experienced in my childhood home. Any lingering doubts I once had about the quality of my upbringing were dashed when I saw the tiny, perfect face of my child. And then I realized that there is nothing for me to feel ashamed about– but there is plenty for me to fear.

I would like to say that I would never treat my child, my husband, or my friends in a manner remotely resembling that which I observed from my parents when I was growing up. But that would be a gross untruth.

I know the sin I am capable of. I have committed some of the very same, very severe sins against people I love that were committed against me. I remain shocked at what lurks within my heart. I am never deceived by myself. I know what I am capable of, and so it is with that lens that I say to you this: I was abused. I have, at times, been an abuser.

I would never recreate my childhood. I have few nostalgic memories to revisit. I wouldn’t wish the mental, physical, and emotional poisoning I endured on anyone. Yet, ironically, I’ve seen my own hand perpetuate variants of the same abuse. I pray and pray, as though praying is the only and best anecdote. Of course, it is.

The stakes are so high. What other choice is there but to be on my knees every day, praising God, appealing to the Spirit, and asking forgiveness?

God is interested in deliverance. Rather than labeling me as a broken, irredeemable mess, my husband has chosen to see what glory there is to be found in me. He praises my victories because he knows the price I’ve paid to achieve them. He is singularly focused on my salvation and redemption, and it brings out the best in me.

You may be reading this blog and the weight of my words is lost on you. I hope this is because you’ve never lived in a toxic, abusive home, and can’t relate to the sense that you are damaged goods. I sincerely pray that others find themselves unable to relate to the brokenness I’ve experienced. But I will say this: The degree to which I was damaged as a child and young adult is fully matched by the degree to which I am loved and cherished by my God, and by my husband. Every day I am astonished by Doug’s goodness toward me, and by God’s unfailing love for me.

I don’t write on this topic in order to evoke sympathy or make folks uncomfortable; there’s no novelty in that for me. I write on this subject today because it’s so very important to me to communicate the enormity of God’s goodness, magnified by the lens of abuse that has for so long covered my life.

My life is truly a testament to God’s power made perfect.

It’s like the Plague made its way to our house, ages and ages and ages too late.

Knock knock!
Who’s there?
BAM! FRICKINGINYOURFACE! IT’S THE PLAGUE!!!! 

So, if we’ve been off the map for a while, cut us some slack. We are disgusting right now. You wouldn’t want to see us, smell us, or talk to us anyway.

I’ll let you know when I’m ready to resume a real life.

- M.