Weak is the New Strong

So, folks, we're a month in.  For over 30 days, I've been juggling the multiple roles of graduate student, missionary, mommy and wife...and to be honest...it has not been flawless.  Not even in the slightest.

This last month has required a lot of vulnerability on my part, and a lot of grace on the part of my husband.  A lot of unwashed dishes and unfolded baskets of laundry.  A lot of NOT cooking...or eating copious amounts of leftovers...from Chipotle...all week long.  Namely, I am learning very quickly that I cannot do it all.

Now, what I mean when I say this is not that I cannot do it.

What I mean is that I cannot do it all...without asking for help.

This whole experience, even after just a month, has really shown me how I need to communicate more.  With all the exactitude of a emergency room surgeon, I've become very used to seeing what needs to be done and doing it without consulting anyone.  However, doing so many things at once has forced me to ask for help, has forced me to delegate out parts of responsibilities that I have become accustomed to doing myself--maybe, even, with a touch of pride.  I've had to let go of my penchant for perfectionism and let someone else take care of it, please.

After 30 days, I've realized: I need people.

As if my reality weren't already operating on a whole lotta people doing a whole lot behind-the-scenes, anyway.  It's always been that way.  It's not like my husband, or extended family, or friends, just suddenly turned really gracious.  They've been this way the whole time.  It's just that I've been too dense...and too much of a control freak...to really see them helping before, or to really give them meaningful opportunities to help.

Similarly, this whole time, I've had to fight the temptation to believe that my need to ask people for help is somehow indicative of weakness.  And maybe it is weakness.  And maybe my admitting that I don't have it all together and that I'm not some kind of superwoman is not weakness, but, in reality, a pretty darn tough thing to do.  

Maybe it's taken me this long to realize that I've been operating under an illusion of control for a long time.  Maybe this is how discipleship is supposed to happen in The Kingdom; people learn to serve not because I'm a CEO using my interns from a place of hierarchal authority, but, because I'm a real person with real challenges asking for help from those around me from a position of humility.

In reality, a CEO could be asking for help from that latter position, too.

And wouldn't that be so much more compelling?

Maybe weak is the new strong.

In Isaiah 41:13, God promises that He will help.  That we don't have to fear...be it the overwhelming circumstances, our ineptitude, or the lack of hours in the day.

Well, thank God.  Really.  I couldn't do this without Him...or without the help and grace of all the generous people that He puts in my life, again, and again, and again.  Thanks, friends.

All of You.

Every Little Thing

I'm tired.  I need to go to bed--and I will.  Soon.  But before I do, there is something that I've been struck by lately that begs mentioning.  On the other hand, perhaps begs is the wrong word.  Perhaps inspires is a better choice.

As I was simultaneously (now, for the cognitive professionals out there, I know that this was not necessarily neurologically simultaneous, but, for the sake of picturing my kitchen table at this moment) texting tomorrow's babysitters, arranging carpooling to my graduate classes tomorrow, organizing my lecture notes, sending off some emails and studying up for class tomorrow, I was talking to my husband about juggling the week's schedules together when he asked me...

Do you really think this is going to work?

Now, I realize that the above statement looks snide without the accompanying 94% of my husband's communication, so let me elaborate.  My husband is one of the most compassionate people that I know.  As a couple, we build a family on hopeful realism, and that said, he is also one of the only people who is able to bring the realism to my hopeful without sounding doubtful.  As he asked the above question, I thinking he was alluding to more than just schedules.  

I think he was referring to the intricately delicate miracle which is the fact that this, this schedule, this time in our lives, the fact that we're doing parenting and professional careers and ministry and graduate school and normal people stuff like making the bed and eating, does work.

I operate much of my life and work on the distinct probability that wonderful, restorative and lasting hope is not only possible, but exists, despite some of the most grueling circumstances.  And everyday, I see hopeful events occur in my own life.  Little events of grace, like, someone being willing to watch my highly active, two-turning-three son for free.  Like my son taking a really long nap on a day when I need to send a dozen--or more--emails.  Like somehow being able to pay the bills each month.  Like serendipitous things that we've really needed, like a second mode of child-friendly transportation, a bike trailer, showing up on Craigslist for scandalously cheap prices right around the same time that really generous people unexpectedly give us more than enough support to purchase said bike trailer.  

In fact, while I was flying to Texas recently to see some friends and raise some support for our ministry, as I was mid-air between Phoenix and Austin, I was empathizing with the highly anxious folks out there.  I know some of these people, and they are brilliant people who are capable of thinking about all the different ways in which every little thing could go wrong.  And it was in that moment that I was thinking about how every little thing was not.  In the 11th hour, the week before, several people called to say they'd be willing to provide support to help pay for the airfare to get to and around Texas.  As I sat on that plane, I thought about the sheer miracle of God that I was even able to afford sitting on it.  And, for that matter, it was miraculous that all the pistons and turbines and fuel injectors and various other aerospace technologies that I do not understand were not malfunctioning.  My comfortable, turbulence-free skip across the United States was a merciful miracle of God, as were the willing friends and church families who picked me up and fed me and helped me make connections.

Whether here or there, whether scrambling together a family schedule or planning an event with Damascus Road Tucson, our church, or somehow biking down the road with the kids in the trailer and not getting hit by a vehicle, those small miracles, the little things, are filled, from top to bottom, with grace.

And while that is something that I am entirely ill-equipped to schedule, I'm beginning to think it's something that I can expect, even if it's not on my terms.  

I'll sleep on that.

Fluffing Pillows

I remember talking with someone about "visitor etiquette" a few months back.  Y'know, like, what you do and how you behave when people come over to your house.  This person that I was talking to at the time made the comment that, when expecting company, a host should at least have the decency to fluff the pillows on the couch.

Without getting into the qualitative difference fluffing pillows would make on a home's overall ability to    woo the potential visitor, I am not necessarily advocating subjecting your guest to sitting on a couch glazed with two inches of animal hair, either.  At the same time, I think it's important to highlight the fact that having a guest over is the perfect opportunity to demonstrate who you really are underneath the fluffed pillows and the bang-up vacuum once-over.

Particularly if the fluffed pillows and bang-up vacuum once-over do not happen.

Y'see, I'm one week in graduate school.  I have, like, 16 chapters to read by Wednesday.  And an awesome job where I get to talk to people and listen to their stories.  And an amazing little two-turning-three-year-old who is fearlessly beginning to tell stories of his own.  And a talented and very busy super-teacher husband.  And groceries to buy.  And dinners to make.  And support-raising to do.

I don't have time for fluffing pillows, when it comes down to it.  And while I may make the attempt every once in a while, and while I may reward myself with a mid-afternoon coffee after doing so, it truth is, it may not just be okay that my guests see unfluffy pillows, but, a good thing that they do not.

Unfluffed pillows give us accessibility.  Unfluffed pillows offer us the opportunity to share where our time is going, and, similarly, grant us the honor and gift of humility when we say, My pillows are not fluffed!  How can we invite help if we don't admit need, if our pillows--whatever they actually are--don't show, even if a little sheepishly, a little oversight every now and again?

Here's to the foresight to admit our oversights.  Here's to unfluffed pillows.

The Big Rocks First

If you'd asked me a few years ago, I never would have thought that this would all fit into a schedule.  Marriage, motherhood, ministry and Master's Degree?  Are you kidding?

Sometime in high school, a motivational speaker came to to our gymnasium burdened with a modestly-sized tub and multiple bags of rocks.  He asked us if the several bags of rocks would all fit in the tub.

As high schoolers are adept at doing, we chortled with snark.  Of course the bags wouldn't fit.  Not even Santa Claus could make those awkward bulging bags of granite squeeze into that tiny tub.  No way.

And then...that smug motivational speaker proceeded to put the big rocks in.  And kicked the tub a few times.  And then, with a kick, he put the medium-sized rocks in.  And the little rocks, followed by a flourish and a shake.  And you know what?  To our utter surprise, the three bulging bags were empty, the tub was full, and our speaker was resplendent with triumphant glee at having disproved the snarky adolescent mass.

Next week, I add the final "big rock": Master's Degree.  Two weeks ago, I began my pre-requisite Statistics class at Pima Community College, dipping my toe into the waters of higher education who, mind you, has been unvisited for almost 10 years.  Next week...next Wednesday...I make my first trek to Phoenix to begin pursuing my MS MFT, my Masters of Science in Marriage and Family Therapy, at Fuller Theological Seminary.  I won't lie, I'm a little terrified at how many cobwebs need to be cleared from my higher-order thinking capacities, but, nonetheless, I'm convinced that I'm doing the right thing.

Pray that, with the help of my friends, my family, and God's grace I can hurdle this final big step in moving toward what I believe to be God's vision for myself and my family.