Spiritwick

I'm not really afraid to say or type "hell," but it's a lot more fun to use H-E-double-hockey-sticks, and I'm a fan of embracing the simple pleasures in life right now! I especially need to embrace the simple pleasures right now because this last year has been ROUGH. As a quick re-cap of the highlights (or really the lowlights probably), over the last year, I have been involved in 4 life-or-death situations with my immediate family and closest friends. All four of them required hospital visits and/or stays, and 2 of them required police assistance. I have been in the thick of dealing with lice infestations and parasite infestations. We heartbreakingly left our church of over four years, which was an agonizing decision involving many months and tears and attempts to reconcile. Also, my own health took a dramatic swan-dive, which was probably understandable considering the events of the year. This by no means captures all of the year's dramas, but they were prob...

For over a month now, I've been dealing with pain. Last week, it peaked into a labor intensity level of pain. My husband had to take days off of work to help. My children were asking if I was about to die and checking in on me occasionally because they were worried I'd already died. Medication has brought the pain down to tolerable levels for the most part by now, and more tests are being run to try to determine the cause of the pain. However, it's become clear to me that it is entirely possible the answers will be neither quick nor easy and that pain may be the new "normal" for me. To say this transition is stressful would be an understatement. I spent last Thursday pretty much crying or sleeping all day long. I can feel the stress and concern rolling off my loved ones in their looks and moods and even their nightmares. I can't imagine what they must be reading off of me right now. Part of me has wished for answers or for this to settle into normality faste...

I was talking to a friend the other day who was about to start homeschooling her children. In the course of this conversation, she said, "I know I'm not supposed to call it a 'blessing,' but I don't know how else to say it. I feel blessed that we have a 3rd paycheck this month just in time to help buy things we'll need to start homeschooling." Now, I'm not positive that  this blog post  is what my friend was referring to when she said she knew she wasn't supposed to call a paycheck a blessing, but it's what I immediately recalled. It's a popular blog post that I've seen on my Facebook feed several times. I've seen it posted by compassionate, thoughtful Christian friends, so I've read it several times now as it has come up in my feed. I may have even "liked" it at some point as I felt it pushed against the prosperity gospel, which I believe is an incredibly destructive teaching. However, it has sat less and less well ...

My house and head are infested with tiny, disgusting, blood-sucking creatures. I have head lice. I discovered this on Friday after I called my youngest daughter over to do her hair. As I began to comb, I noticed movement in her hair. I leaned in for a closer look and found several scampering buggies. Although I'd never seen lice before in my life, I knew what was on her head. I was beyond creeped out. For the next hour or 2, I suppressed tears, panic, and desires to shave all our heads and burn down the house. I'm not saying I suppressed them very effectively, but the full force of the internal freak out was slightly contained. I called my sister within a few minutes of my discovery, and she was soon letting herself into my house with an arsenal of weaponry against lice. I didn't even understand what I was looking at yet, and I was still beyond shaken. She immediately set herself to work on the scalp of my youngest, shampooing, sectioning, and combing. In between tasks, s...

It's true sometimes. I don't want to kiss my husband. I don't want to hug him. I don't want to hold his hand. Sometimes, I don't even want to be in the same room with him. Any of these anti-desires can come over me when I'm mad at him, but honestly they can come over me when I'm just busy too.  I'm reading a thread on Facebook. Can't he see that I'm reading something?  I'm getting ready to go to church. Seriously, we're going to be late if I stop for a kiss. I need to get into that store to buy something for tomorrow before it closes. This is not time for a leisurely stroll with you. If this were every once in a while, then it would probably be no big deal, but I'm sorry to say that this is a pretty regular occurrence for me, for us, for my family. I'm a task-oriented girl, and when I have my mind set on something, I rarely want to switch gears. I've got to do the thing. The person is a distraction at best, an impediment at ...

There are many days that I don't manage to squeeze in a morning Bible study and prayer time. Yesterday was one of those mornings. I woke up and remembered that we had a pool party to get to and that I hadn't set an alarm to allow for both a quiet time AND getting everyone to the party on time. We got to the pool party on time. My four year old almost died in one of the pools. We had spent hours at the party with everyone having a good time. I'd decided we needed to leave soon, but I was letting my girls enjoy it a little bit longer. My older 2 were playing in and near a pool in front of me, and my youngest was playing in a kiddie pool behind me. I don't remember exactly what the distraction was from that moment to the next. Maybe I was helping another kid with something. Maybe I was daydreaming. Maybe I was trying to determine how much longer I was going to let them stay. Maybe I was trying to figure out if we had everything ready to go. Whatever it was, when I looked...

I have spent most of my life in a southern state of the U.S.A. where women are not always valued beyond their ability to look pretty, keep house, bear children, and cook a good meal.  This is true even, and to my deep sadness, sometimes especially in the church. When women are praised here, it is usually for one or more of these acts, and although I like to hear women praised for their hard work in general, hearing over and over again how important women are because they support and raise up men, tears at me.  Here's why: This is my family.  This is a four generational image of which I am a part.  I am one of 2 daughters to my mother who had no sons, and my sister and I both have had 3 daughters each and no sons.  I love my girls, my nieces, my sister, my family to bits, but the thought that my existence could only have meaning to the extent that I influence a man behind the scenes left me begging God for an answer to the meaning of my life. Is my life reall...