Epic Mommy Fail. Also, Fainting Goats.

I HATE being weak.
So I guess that explains why I was sprawled out on the bathroom floor at the doctor's office, knees under me, head down, both arms extended in front of me, as if worshiping the toilet bowl.

As I knelt there, doing my square breathing, I was wishing I was a normal mommy, one who doesn't feel faint when her child gets five shots in a row in the thin skin of the underside of his forearm, a mommy who doesn't get queasy when this adult-boy in a man's body takes a little break before the last three shots. A mommy who doesn't run away to the bathroom, where she can faint in peace.

Did I lock the door?
What if none of this works? The kneeling and breathing and the cold paper towel on the back of my neck? What if the nurse finishes and I'm in here unconscious, my tongue hanging out and my skirt tangled up around my waist?

I'd told her that I was going to get water, which was true. I'd had a sip. But then the hall started looking a little tunnel-ish, and I walked my feet in front of me, hoping I could make it around the corner before I crumpled to the floor.
At least the bathroom floor was fairly clean.

I'd been doing so well. I was fine during the whole exam, as she gridded off a map on his back. The panel of allergens was no big deal, just tiny polka dots, cooking under the skin like the last time we did this, bubbling up a reaction, hopefully. Something to make it worth the trip. Something to explain why he couldn't breathe.

It was the third time I'd taken him to the doctor since school started, and his asthma was getting worse, not better. This athletic kid who runs eight miles in the heat and humidity of summer with barely a raise of an eyebrow, now, in the cooler weather of the oncoming fall, felt his chest closing in on him. Running against the tightness was wearing him out.

Unfortunately, the allergy panel showed nothing. "It's time for fun with needles," the doc said.
Surprise, surprise. It wasn't fun at all.
And how did Mom support him?
By hiding in the bathroom.

It wasn't the first time.
I'd camped out on floors in doctor's offices and hospitals all across the eastern United States. When Sarah had her pre-op for her wisdom teeth removal, when Todd had his knee surgery. Even during a mammogram once.
(Be warned, it's not a good idea to faint when your boob is trapped in a vice. Heed my wisdom.)

But I'd never hidden myself away, until now.
It wasn't going very well.

And then I thought of the muffin.

Months ago, I had met my friends for coffee, and as we laughed, a crumb took a wrong turn. I started to choke a little, then held up my hand, as if to say "Don't worry, I've got control of this." I coughed and coughed, a lot at first, and then just a little. But the bit o' muffin wouldn't quit bouncing around my windpipe. The coughing wouldn't stop.
This was embarrassing.
I had the urge to leave, to go outside and hack out the muffin, so I did. I ran out the door and hacked myself silly, a cat with a hairball. Not pretty.
Finally it stopped, at the exact moment Susie opened the door.

"I was about to come help you, whether you wanted it or not," she said. "You know that's what people do before they choke to death, don't you? They run off, just like an animal, burrowing away to die. They don't want everybody looking at them, so they go away and choke to death. It's a real thing, Becky. It's in studies."
How I love my friends.

I finally relaxed enough and stopped thinking about needle pricks and blood enough to get up and check on my boy. What did we learn from eight shots and a panel full of polka dots?
Nada. Rien. Nothing.
But we're trying a new inhaler and we'll see what happens.

And what did I learn, personally?
The age old lesson that when we try to hold onto our pride and a false sense of control, when we hide our weaknesses from others instead of letting them care for us, we just may end up cheek to cheek with the bathroom tile at the allergist's office.
And also that I could be related to Myotonic goats.

Have a wonder-full Wednesday, y'all. And tell me, is it hard for you to be open about your weaknesses?
I wish you easy breathing!
Love, Becky

PS. If you know my son, don't ask him about it. It's a touchy subject, as you can imagine.

Photo by rcameraw, creative commons

Loaded Suitcase

Last Tuesday, the UPS man left a big box on our front porch.
How exiting, I thought, tearing it open. I hadn't ordered anything.

It was a suitcase. Who had sent us a brand new suitcase? Why?
I opened the envelope tucked in the front and read the title.
Million Miler? According to the note, my husband had logged over a million miles on Delta, so the airline was rewarding him with a suitcase and a card.

"Where's my gift?" I harrumphed. "I'm the one who deserves the present."
For over twenty years of parenthood, Todd has worked for Michelin. It's an international company, and most positions required him to travel. A lot of travel. Over a million miles, apparently.
That's a lot of dinners out, while I'm home making macaroni and cheese.
A lot of quiet evenings in the hotel, while I was changing diapers, staying up with sick kids, refereeing arguments. That's a lot of solo homework duty, of managing the drama of adolescent friendships, of navigating the fears and tears, not to mention all the household drudgery he's missed.
Where's my present, Delta?

As I dragged the suitcase through the kitchen, a memory popped into my head.
It was a Saturday night and Todd had just come home from another trip overseas. We had gone through our family ritual of opening his carry-on bag, pulling out the sack of pastries he'd bought at the airport 19 hours ago, the magazines for Sarah and me, the candy for Ben and Sam. We sat down at the table to eat dinner together, to celebrate Todd's homecoming, after a week and a half away.

As we passed the food around, Ben spoke up.
"Evan's dad asked where you were at soccer, and I said you were on a trip again. He said that he just couldn't do it. If he had your job, he'd have to quit, cause he loves his kids too much to have to travel with work."

Todd's face fell. I could see the pain in his eyes as the comment hung in the air.
"What a thing for him to say" I barked.
"Yeah," said Sarah. "Daddy loves us every bit as much as Mr. Johnson loves his kids. Probably more!"
"I know!" Ben said. "I didn't say anything, but I wanted to tell him that it's just how Daddy's job is. He can't help it that he has to be gone sometimes."

The memory dissolved, and I looked at the suitcase.
I'm sorry, Todd.
My flurry of resentment and envy hijacked my brain, blocking the view of the beauty in my own life. Of all that I've been lucky enough to experience. The closeness we both have with our children. The treasure of being present in so many everyday moments.

The resentment and envy felt familiar.
It reminded me of the mommy wars, the judging words I've heard fly between moms "who work" and those who stay home. I've participated in that too, from both sides at different times.

I've heard women say, "I just love my kids too much to let somebody else raise them," and I've nodded along.
What loaded words.

When I was back at work full time, waving goodbye to my 4 and 6 year old, the same words wounded me.
I'd insist on helping my four year old get dressed, even though he could dress himself, just for an excuse to touch his little body, to smooth his hair, to straighten his shirt. I didn't love him any less than anyone else. I needed to work. I wanted to work.

Yet, at times, the envy and resentment I felt towards others blocked the view of the beauty of my own life.

God, help me battle envy and resentment. Give me the strength to resist the attraction to negativity, to turn my focus to the beauty you have given me in my present circumstances. Help me, once again, keep my eyes on my own paper, Lord. Help me remember to live in my blessings--and to celebrate them!

Are any of you wise or sensible? Then show it by living right and by being humble and wise in everything you do. But if your heart is full of bitter jealousy and selfishness, don't brag or lie to cover up the truth. That kind of wisdom doesn't come from above. It is earthly and selfish and comes from the devil himself. Whenever people are jealous or selfish, they cause trouble and do all sorts of cruel things. But the wisdom that comes from above leads us to be pure, friendly, gentle, sensible, kind, helpful, genuine, and sincere. When peacemakers plant seeds of peace, they will harvest justice.
James 3:13-18

What about you?
Do you ever battle resentment? Do you long to live where the grass is greener? What helps you in your struggles?

Have a wonder-full weekend, y'all!
Love, Becky

Photo by Robert S. Donovan, creative commons

Welcome to Chemistry Class

Flickr photo by oooh.oooh, creative commons

So much can happen between two people in a split second.
Walls can materialize or fall, Jericho-style. Each person can step out on trust, gingerly placing a foot on the water, or refuse to get out of the boat, clinging to the suspicions she's secretly believed were true.

School starts Monday here, and a classroom memory has spent the week fluttering around my brain, begging for attention. It was one of those pivotal, split second moments, one that doesn't exactly make me proud.

Perhaps you've had a moment like this. Sometimes I've stood at the fork in the road and chosen well, and other times, like this one, I haven't.

I was teaching chemistry at a high school, and it was the first day of class.
I decided to start the year by doing a strange thing, strange, at least, to the other teachers and teens at my school. At each change of class, I stood outside my door in the noisy hall, and as students tried to duck their heads and dart into my classroom, I stopped them. I introduced myself to each student over the din and asked his name, welcomed him to the class, shook his hand, and showed him where to sit according to the seating chart on my clipboard.

Within seconds, a long line of young men and women had formed outside my door.
"This is weird." "Why is she doing this?"
Why was I doing this?
Partly to welcome them to my classroom. Partly to show my respect for them, the respect they got for free, respect that I required back. Partly to show dominance. I'm in charge of this class. It is my home (thus the curtains on the windows and the flowers on my lab table.) I will respect you, but you must act like ladies and gentlemen in my classroom.

The teens watched me, watched their friends interact with me, waiting for something to happen. I knew this was strange for them. I expected that a few would try to amuse each other, tell me their name was SloMo or DreamBoy, or tip their hat in fake formality, cushion the awkward earnestness of my handshake with sarcasm. I'd experienced it many times before and had learned to meet it head on, to set a businesslike tone on day one, friendly enough, but firm.

So far, the kids had been great.

Then a tall, red headed boy to the front of the line, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"I'm Mrs. Ramsey," I said, thrusting out my hand. "Welcome to chemistry class."
The boy shook my hand, a corner of his lip turning up, as if he were about to spring something on me.
I waited for his name. He said nothing, just kept on shaking my hand. What was he doing?
"Now, tell me your name."
"I..I..." he said, looking hard at me. "My..." His mouth was open but nothing came out. Kids behind him snickered. "Go for it, Dan," one boy said.

Time stopped.

What kind of a joke was this?
I could feel my body tensing, anger rising. So he was one of those, huh? There's always at least a couple every year, needing to impress their friends. Start things off by showing me what a pain they'd be until I wrestled them into control.

Other kids were watching. I'd give him one more chance to straighten up.
"I believe I asked for you to tell me your name."
More open mouth.
"Now." I barked, my voice dampened by the noise of the hall.
The student squinted his eyes at the floor, "Da Da Da Dan," he said. "Dan At At At Atkinson."

My heart jumped into my throat.
What have I done? He was stuttering.

He wasn't being rude or a smart aleck. He was struggling with a speech problem and I had exacerbated it, calling attention to it in front of everyone.
"I'm glad to meet you, Dan," I said, trying to recover, wanting to shrink into the linoleum. "You're in the third row from the door, 2nd seat."

Dan was doing his best, and I had assumed the worst.
Over the next few weeks, I quickly learned what a lovely person Dan was. I still think of him from time to time and wonder how he's doing.

I'm not teaching this year, and I think I've grown a lot since then. (At least I hope I have.) So why has this memory been haunting me this week? Is God trying to tell me something?

Maybe it's all about fear. Fear makes me do things I regret. It makes me hold tight to what I have. It keeps me from being generous, from going for the life God has for me. Fear stunts and shrinks. It keeps us from loving others and fully experiencing God's goodness.

Or maybe the memory is about the fallacy of being in control. We're not in control of anything, really. Just our own selves, the way we react to others, the choices we make to love or not to love.

God, help me let go of control. Free me from fear and the way it binds me.

What about you? Do you wrestle with fear and the need to control? What helps you?

Have a wonder-full weekend, y'all!
Love, Becky

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
1 John 4:18

Washed

Flickr photo by smlions12, creative commons

Do you remember your baptism?
Maybe you were just a baby and you have only the memories your parents shared with you. Or maybe you were older and were pushed into joining the church. Or maybe not. Maybe it was one of your most powerful experiences of your life, or maybe the meaningful part came later, when your faith grew, and you learned what it really means to be take your part in the church, your place in the family of God.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my baptism, probably because I just wrote about it over on the Being page of this blog. I hoped it might work as a way to introduce myself to newcomers here, to give a feel to who I am and why I write. And I hope it will encourage folks to keep coming back, to sit down in the circle and share your own faith stories.

As you can see by my own account, my baptism had a slightly shady/weird/embarrassing beginning, but it turned out to set me on my faith journey in quite a powerful way.
That's not so surprising, I suppose. Baptisms tend to be moving, powerful experiences.
Every single time I watch one, whether it be a baptism of a baby or an old man, in a church or in a swimming pool or creek or river, I say to myself, "That's got to be the most beautiful one I've seen yet."
And don't even get me talking about my children's baptisms. I'm all out of Kleenex!

So today I'm hoping that you'll share some baptism memories of your own. They could be of your own baptism, or others you've witnessed.
I hope you'll share!

Have an awesome weekend, y'all!
Love, Becky

PS. Enjoy this beautiful song, Been to the Water, by my friend, award winning songwriter Kyle Matthews.

Mommy Scorecard

Flickr photo by Tasayu Tasnaphun, creative commons
I was standing in the parking lot at Target, melting into the asphalt as Sam ran back to the car for his wallet, when I realized that a young woman was talking to me.

"I hate those things," she said, nodding at the stick figure family decal on the back of somebody's SUV. She must have thought I was staring at it.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Mommy scorecard."

Mommy scorecard? I'd see those decals all around town, stick figure mommies and daddies and lines of kids. Sometimes they'd tote soccer balls or wear ballet tutus, and cats and dogs always trailed behind.

Now, before we go any further, please don't think I'm stick family hating!
If you want to celebrate each member of your family, I say, why not! Peel and stick away!
It's just that for me, mommy scorecard strikes a spinal chord.

Too often I've sneaked glances at other people's papers as I've lived out my life. I've pulled up next to them in the parking lot of life and checked out how we compare. Did we have the complete package, the happy couple, the full set of kids? Smiles on their faces, pompoms and flutes in hand?

When I was a younger mom, home with a two year old and a newborn, while Todd traveled constantly with work, people would see Ben spitting up on my shoulder and Sarah tugging on my jeans, and say, "I don't know how you do it, night after night by yourself."
I'd paw a foot at the floor and do my best Aw, it's no big deal, and then casually see if I could work in a comment about the grad school class I was taking or the volunteering I had to do. It made me feel good for a moment, for someone to recognize my hard work and exhaustion, the perfect picture I was trying to project. But I'd always end up feeling a little empty when the conversation was over.

We want people to see us as complete and successful.
Sometimes we tout our own completeness and success and possessions loudly-we sneak them into conversations or wear them like sandwich boards- because underneath it all, we're scared. We know the truth, that we're broken, we don't really have it all together. Life isn't the perfect picture we want to paint.

As I tuck the scorecard in my purse, I also wonder about those of us who don't match up to the picture on the window, whether through choice or circumstance. The single person, the couple that doesn't have the urge to go forth and multiply. The pair that wants children desperately, but life is cruel and won't cooperate. The families that fall apart.

I hope they know the truth that I took years to find. That God loves us as we are, whether we match the world's ideal or not, whether we do the volunteer work or just sit in front of the TV. That our sad little efforts to mold ourselves to the perfect picture in our heads won't make God love us any more than God already does. He only asks us to do what Galatians advises.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that... Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.
Galatians 6:4, The Message

Do the creative best you can with your own life.
That's a tall order, but one I think I can handle.

What does doing the creative best with your own life mean to you?

Have a wonder-full Friday, y'all!
Love, Becky

Thirty Minutes in a Paper Gown

Flickr Photo by cafemama
"You'll need to undress down to your panties," says the nurse, handing me the paper gown. "It opens in the back. And any make up you're wearing will have to come off. She's got you scheduled for a full body scan, so she needs to see your bare face. There's soap and gauze by the sink. Here's an extra paper sheet for your legs, just to keep you comfortable."

Somehow I don't think the paper sheet is going to do it for me, but I take it and thank her.

This is how I pay for the sunburns of my life.
Fair skinned people should not spend their teenage years marinating themselves in baby oil and sunbathing on aluminum foil blankets. This may sound obvious to you, but would somebody please travel back to 1980 and show me the paper gown?
Thanks.

I wipe off the makeup, strip to my undies, unfold the gown and put it on, then climb up onto the examining table. There are pamphlets on a side table for Botox and Latisse. There's a mirror on the wall and I see my crows' feet. I make a smile at myself, just to see how I look, and wish my face didn't have to be naked too. I look at my feet, pointing my toes in the mirror like a naked ballerina. My toenail polish is chipped. I should have redone it.

I sit on the table, waiting for my dermatologist to get things rolling, to walk in with her skinny self, her blond hair, her pointy toed shoes. I sit in my nakedness and wait.

You'd think I'd be better at this. I lived in France, for goodness sake, where I became friends with my body. I even wrote about it in French By Heart, how the parade of naked breasts helped me become more bien dans la peau, comfortable in my own skin. At the moment, I'm just comfortable with the gown. In France, I'd have to sit naked as a jaybird on the table and stay that way even after the exam was over, while the doctor talked to me from his desk.
I remember all of this to distract myself.

The doctor comes in and the nurse follows. No crows' feet on either of them. Do they give Botox to each other after everyone else has gone home?

She puts on gloves and starts to work. I find myself sandwiched between paper, like a chicken breast in a parchment packet. She pulls up one chicken leg/arm from my side and runs her eyes over it, as if she's part machine, scanning my arm from shoulder to fingertips.
Hmm, she says, and I feel myself tense. She pulls down the scope attachment to her glasses, closing in on a freckle on my forearm. I relax as she moves on, pulling apart my fingers and examining them like Ben used to do whenever he was bored at church. She turns my arm and scans the pale underside.

She slips my arms out of the sleeves of my gown exactly the way I used to undress my dolls. She lays the paper aside and I close my eyes and imagine half of my naked Raggedy Ann chest out for all to see, its embroidered I LOVE YOU candy heart exposed. She moves parts of me and prods and pokes, then walks around to the other side of the chair, and starts the practice all over again.
Does this bore her or is it kind of fun, treasure hunting for disease, for things to freeze or snip? She touches my knee as she scans it, and I explain about the blue scar, how I accidentally jabbed a pencil lead into my leg in third grade and isn't it funny that I've been carrying it around the sliver all this time.
"Uh huh," she says. "Nothing to worry about, it's graphite, not lead." I know that already, but I don't say so. I don't tell her that I'm just trying to make conversation here, to soothe the awkwardness of being naked, of being poked and prodded.

She guides me to turn over with her gloved hands, and my brain entertains me with a vision of her trying to grab me with a giant set of tongs, to flip me to the other side.
As she examines every last square inch of me, the skin hidden by my underwear, the backs of my knees, the bottoms of my feet, I wonder how I compare with other women my age. Am I just another skin-wrapped body walking around to her, or does she find me odd in any way? Will she talk about me to her husband, or give the nurse a knowing look while I'm standing at the front desk, handing over my credit card?
I know she has to do the looking, that it's the whole reason I came, but still I wonder.
How do I measure up?

It's a human question, one I ask too often.

I feel the lamp light on me and hear the scrawl of the pen on paper as she surveys my land formations, and I'm not scared, just uncomfortable.
She gets out the spray can of liquid nitrogen and aims it at a couple of spots on my legs.
This is nothing, I know, but I get squeamish easily, so I try to think of other things. I tell myself that I'm beautiful and whole and healthy. I ask myself what God would say to me here in this room. Psalm 139 comes to mind.
Of course. It's perfect.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely...
For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed...
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Psalm 139: 1-4, 13-16, 23-24

I think about God, who knows me from head to toe, every inch of my skin, every freckle, every scar, who sees the parts of me that I hide, the parts of my heart that I keep to myself. Other parts that I let some people see, but not everyone.

God, scan me thoroughly. Help me root out disease, the unhealthy ways I sometimes think, the way I compare myself with others, my need to measure up, my hunger for applause. Help me learn other ways. Heal my weaknesses.

Does any bit of my experience resonate with you? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have a great weekend, y'all! And wear sunscreen!
Love, Becky

Superboy Speaks

Sometimes kids really do have superpowers.
Like the Saturday morning years ago when I stumbled into the kitchen, still in bedhead mode, my old bathrobe dragging the floor.
"Yey! Mommy's up!" Sam said, climbing down from the kitchen chair perch he'd pulled up next to the griddle. "Look what Daddy and I made you," he said, pointing at a mountain of pancakes. "Daddy said I could take your picture while you eat it. I'm going to do it all by myself."

"Just a sec, hon. Let me at least brush my hair first."

"Oh no!" Sam said, and threw his arms open wide, dramatically blocking the hall to the bedroom. "You have to stay just like that."

"But honey, Mommy's hair is all sticking up."

"I like it like that. It looks pretty. I like you in your pink robe on and your glasses all crookedy.

"Oh yeah?" I laughed and looked at my husband.

"Yes, Mommy, I'm serious. You look good. Don't move. I'm gonna take a picture."

I sighed, smoothing out my hair.

"Stop," he yelled from behind the camera. "You're messing it up." He held the camera steady but then put it down, smiling at me, as if as if trying to behold my bedheaded beauty.
"Mommy, I gotta tell you. You look HOT!"

Part of me wanted to grab that boy of mine and kiss all over his sweet baby face, and another part wanted to cancel cable and go back to PBS. And still another part of me was scratching my head that as much as I do to make myself look presentable (I don't do that much, really,) the child preferred me with no make up, my hair in Whoville mode, stumbling through the kitchen.
I've savored the sweetness for years now.

I guess my my tee shirt, bathrobe, and bad case of bedhead signaled to Sammy that I wasn't going anywhere. I was still dressed for snuggling, for lazing over a breakfast of syrup coated carbohydrates, for reading books and talking. I was clearly not ready to race out the door and strap him into the minivan for soccer or church, and I wasn't just hanging around the house, waiting for someone to ring the doorbell. My rumply hair meant that nothing was on the calendar except being with my family, for listening to whatever the boy and his siblings and his daddy had to say. For looking in Sam's eyes and eating his pancakes. And for posing for a picture that the blogosphere will never ever see.

Over the years I've replayed this memory countless times. I can't seem to let go of it, partly because it captures Sam's sweetness, and partly because it whispers something bigger to me.
I think of the way I run through life, not wanting to be slowed, and I'm sorry for the times that I wasn't present for others, in too much of a hurry to cross off my To Do list. Sometimes I'm the worst at this with my family, thinking they'll understand or that I can make it right later.

I think of the One I want to imitate, who always made time to really see the people around him, to be fully present, to touch them and give them time.
I'm so thankful for a God who is ever present to me, who sees me with my sticky-up hair and all my miserable imperfections and couldn't love me any more. Who wants to just BE with me. And I'm thankful for Superboy, who's great at reminding me of this very truth.

God, help me see the people around me and be fully present with them. Help me be ready to put aside my itinerary and be the loving presence of Christ for them.
Or maybe just be Mommy.

Do you ever struggle with being fully present with those around you? When is it the hardest? The easiest?

Have a wonder-full Wednesday, y'all!
Love, Becky

The Boss of the Cornfield

Flickr photo by Bulsti, creative commons
If it'd been up to her, I'm sure Janice would never have hired me. She needed a girl with arm muscles, someone tough enough to tramp through cornfields in the blazing summer heat, to dig holes eighteen inches deep with only a hand auger, collecting thousands of samples of soil to analyze for Janice's graduate thesis. Janice had trained for the work, lifting weights and running up hills in her work boots.
At 17, my most athletic moments were the times I was accidentally hit by a ball while walking across the high school gym.

But Daddy and her advising professor were friends and colleagues, so there I was, my thighs stuck to the vinyl seat in the state owned truck at 4:30AM, smelling the diesel and her coffee as we headed off to yet another cornfield of eastern North Carolina.
With temps in the upper nineties, 100 % humidity, and at least 250 holes to dig each morning, Janice and I were always on the road early, racing against the elements.

"Eat a pumpkin muffin; it'll help," she'd say, and hand me the paper bag. Besides the hippies I babysat for down the street, Janice was the only person I knew in 1981 who ate yogurt and bought whole wheat flour. "Your body is a machine," she'd say. "You've gotta give it the right fuel."

Janice baked? How interesting that this lady in the tank top, shorts, and steel toed shoes could be such a bizarre mix of my mother and my father. She did research with a team of men, yet she made up recipes of her own? Would I be like her when I was a worldly woman of 23?

Janice was a patient teacher, up to a point. She taught me to follow the maps she'd sketched off on graph paper, to count our paces as we walked down each row, the leaves slapping our faces, making paper cuts on our eyelids and cheeks.
She taught me to squat as I twisted the auger through the soil, to use thigh muscles I didn't know I had. And on the few occasions when I didn't sweat out the gallons of water we downed, she taught me how to find a tree at the edge of a field, grab onto it, squat again, and pee.

When the days were especially unbearable, Janice would help me make an ice hat. We'd pack our floppy hats with ice and salt, then quickly turn them over and tie them on our heads. An hour later, we'd get punchy and fall over laughing at the sight of each other with the water dribbling down our necks, our faces smeared with dirt, our shirts soaked with sweat and melted ice.
She'd tease me about turning from Little Miss Weakling into Wonder Girl, and I'd feel myself walk taller. And at the end of the day, when I'd dance around the truck, lost in the ecstasy that comes with finishing something hard, with pushing my body to the brink of exhaustion, I'd catch a smile on her face as she turned away, forcing herself to hold back the sarcasm.
She was proud of me. I was sure of it.

But work with Janice wasn't all daisies and ice hats.
Janice also taught me how to properly receive a cussing. Of course I'd heard plenty of curse words before, but never by nice people. And no one had ever cussed at me. In fact, nobody had ever even yelled at me, except my parents, and they certainly had reason.
Janice welcomed me into a brand new world of profanity.

One day she cussed at me for fifteen minutes straight, combining cuss words in arrangements I'd never even heard before. We had just finished our second field of the morning, (the SECOND field,) and I was in the throes of ecstasy. We both were, laughing and singing and jogging back to the truck. The Lighthouse was only fifteen minutes away, a meat and three restaurant with the coldest, sweetest ice tea in the entire state of North Carolina. When exhaustion hit us at hole #403 of the day, we kept each other going with descriptions of that icy cold tea.
And then I tripped.
Maybe it was my own size 9 feet and my adolescent clumsiness, or maybe it was a fallen cornstalk or a root, but as I went flying, so did the crate. It flew, and with it flew each of the 250 soil samples, the clumps of soil scattering in the air, the tin caps flying.
Then the words flew.
How could you be so *#$ stupid and so @^*%*#@ clumsy?
She cussed as we fumbled around in the dirt and gathered every one of the 250 canisters and lids. She cussed as she carried the crate back to the truck, she cussed as I sat in the truck and cried dirty tears. Janice saw me crying and just kept cussing.

And then she stopped.

After a quiet moment at the back of the truck, Janice returned to my side, fished the graph paper map of the field out of her back pocket, clipped it back on her clipboard, and said, "We better get started. Got your water?"
We headed for flag #1 and started over. That was the end of it.

It's funny. I've worked in laboratories and in high schools, in a kindergarten and in churches, but I count walking the cornfields with Janice as one of my best training grounds ever.

Janice taught me that my body could do amazing things, that I could work harder than I ever thought possible, for longer than I ever imagined. I learned that my sensitive nature was resilient too. Words were just words, and a person could be funny and loving in their own way and still cuss a blue streak. I learned that women can be tough and soft and hard and kind, all at the same time-- or maybe at different times.

But the best lesson I learned with Janice was that I can find joy and maybe even God in working my hardest at a difficult task, even if it's digging holes. I'm still trying to figure out how that works. Is it because we come from God? That when we push ourselves to really dig for strength and the abilities God gave us, we get more in touch with the Source of strength? That God's own traits become more visible? Maybe, I'm not sure. But I am certain that whenever I discover more about my true self, I discover more about the God who made me.

Thank you, Janice, wherever you are!

This post is part of the writing project on "Bosses," over at the High Calling Blogs . Starting Monday, July 5, hop over here for links to more stories about bosses.

But before you skedaddle, would you share about a favorite boss you had? A crazy or funny or scary boss? I'd love to hear from you!

Have a super weekend, friends!
Love, Becky

PS. Enjoy Janice's Pumpkin muffin recipe!
Janice's Pumpkin Muffins
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1/2 cup raisins
1/3 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 beaten egg
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup milk
Sift together first 7 ingredients. Add raisins and stir to coat them. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugars, and then add and blend remaining wet ingredients. Stir in dry ingredients. Bake in a greased muffin tin at 375 for about 20 minutes.
Makes 12-18 muffins, depending on how high you fill the tins.

Baptizing Dishes and Other Weird Ways to Pray.

Flickr photo by seizethedave, creative commons
I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm really bad at prayer.
Whether I try to pray as I pull up the covers at the end of the day or give it another go after morning coffee has jolted me into speed mode, mere seconds after I force stillness, my mind drifts. I start thinking about tomatoes or why the vacuum cleaner doesn't work anymore or the fact that I never sent that graduation gift and it's been a month already. Sometimes I play Prayer Policeman, constantly pulling myself over for a lecture, then returning to the road to drift again. Other times I just fall asleep.

Prayer is hard work. Some people are better at it than others.
It even wore Moses out once in a while.
Want to hear a story from one of the TOP TEN WEIRDEST BIBLE STORIES EVER?
Sure you do!

God's people were fresh out of Egypt. Moses had asked God for food, and He treated them to manna and quail, and then water from a rock. Life was looking doable.
Then the Amalekites attacked. Moses had Joshua pick men for the battle and climbed to the top of the hill, taking along his brother Aaron and buddy Hur.
Yep, I know this doesn't sound that strange so far. Hold tight.
The weirdness cometh.

Moses stands on the hill and raises his walking stick into the sky.
Remember the stick? The one he threw down in front of the king, and they watched it turn into a snake? He holds it high where everyone can see, and he keeps it there.
For hours.
And hours.

We assume he's praying, since this was a common prayer stance in those times.
His men are fighting, he holds the stick, and he notices that something weird is happening.

"As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning."
Exodus 17: 11

Crazy, huh? It's like a cartoon. Up, down. Up, down. Up.
He better not stop praying but his arms are so tired. Aaron and Hur step in to save the day.

"When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset. So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword."
Exodus 17:11-13

Ever since I've read this story, I've been trying to figure out what it means.
What do you think?

Here's what I've come up with:
1. For the God's people to succeed here, they needed to fight AND Moses needed to pray.
Prayer + Action can lead to the fulfillment of God's will.
2. It encourages people to know that they're being prayed for. God can use that encouragement to heal them or their situation.
3. I need people in my life to bring in the stone, to hold up my arms, to support me in my relationship with God.

Today I'm thinking about Point #3. It's so helpful to see the different ways my friends connect with God. I find it all over the blogosphere and right in my hometown, with my neighbors and friends. When I see that there is more than one way to be still with God, I think, hey, maybe I'm not a prayer failure after all.

Barbara Brown Taylor reminds me too with her exquisite, arm lifting words. Until I devoured her book, An Altar in the World, I thought it was a little weird that I connected best with God while doing mind-numbing chores.
It sounds corny and silly and maybe a little Pollyanna to find God in mundane housework, and I'm really not so Betty Homemaker (though my family and I wish I would be!) but it happens that way quite often for me.
So when I read Barbara's words that pinning wet laundry on a clothesline made her think of hanging out prayer flags for God, that housework could actually become a spiritual practice, I heard myself sigh with relief.

Maybe I know how to pray after all!
So what if it sounds crazy that as I dip my dishes in the sudsy water and lift them out again, my brain flickers phrases of being washed clean, burial and resurrection.
So I baptize my dishes. I'm enjoying God and celebrating who He is.
(And I see myself in the baked on grime. The kind that requires a scouring pad!)

I clean the toothpaste flecks off the bathroom mirror and a voice pops up, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face" "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast." I enjoy the scripture, wipe the mirror, and feel my brow relax.

Sometimes it happens when I'm not cleaning, too. I'll watch my boys dip Oreos in milk, and a wafer and chalice will spring to mind. I pour myself a glass and join them. ^"For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." I don't have to bring up God. I know He's there. Ben and Sam and I joke around or just enjoy the cookies, and I thank God for His presence and for blessing me with these kids.

And today I'm thanking him for one of the weirdest Bible stories ever.

I hate to admit it, but it made me think of the video below. (Sorry, Moses, but it does.)
Enjoy the weirdness. And then, if you feel like it, I'd love to hear from you.

When and where do you best connect with God? In your garden? While driving? In a quiet time? Or maybe in desperation at Chuck E. Cheese?

Have a great Wednesday!
Love, Becky

What's In A Name?

Do you like your name?
Is it a family name, or did your parents just like the sound of it?

Names are important. Almost twenty years ago, when I first started looking up baby names for the little sprout in my womb, I wanted to pick a good one.
I knew how important it was. For my entire childhood, I dreaded the first week of school. Seems like every year the teacher would butcher my last name. How hard could it be to pronounce the word Skaggs? Yet they always managed.
Rebecca Scabs.
Yes, Scabs. Or Scrags or Snags. Scalawags, once, when a doofus gym teacher felt like being funny.
Kids would giggle and my face would turn red.
On my first day of high school, a girl laughed so hard at my name that she fell out of her chair.

I grew to dislike my family name, which filled me with all kinds of shame and guilt.
How could I not like my own last name? The name attached to the people I loved most?
I talked to Mom about the teasing and she comforted me, but how could she really understand? She and Daddy had grown up in a town where the name Skaggs was more common than Smith or Jones.

Eventually I grew less self conscious, but occasionally, when I wasn't expecting it, the response to my name still stung. Like the time a favorite English teacher signed my yearbook, "To Becky, the beautiful young woman whose name is so wrong."
My name wasn't wrong. It was just fine.

I grew up, and eventually I became a Ramsey. And four years later, grew a little Ramsey who needed a name. Someone gave me a baby name book that gave the meanings of each name, and guess which name I looked up first.
Surely, after all I'd gone through, Rebecca must mean princess, or maybe light or beauty or kindness.
I found the page.
REBECCA, REBEKAH: one who ensnares.
What?
Ensnarer?
I was Ensnarer Skaggs Ramsey.

I didn't want to believe it, but the meaning kind of made sense. After all, Rebekah was the mom in Genesis who dressed up her favorite son Jacob in goat skin, trying to trick her hubby Isaac into giving Jacob his birthright, instead of his hairy twin Esau.
Rebekah ensnared him. She was a trickster. Besides that, what kind of mother favors one son over another? I had to share her name?

But then a few weeks ago, I found something that stunned me.
Somehow, all these years, I'd missed the scripture that explains that while Rebekah was pregnant, God said to her,
"Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger."

So when Esau was born first and Jacob second, she remembered God's words. Esau will serve Jacob. Jacob must have the birthright. It's part of God's plan.
Rebekah was tricky for a holy reason: to ensure that God's message was followed!
Twenty years after my first search in the baby book for Rebekah, I wanted to know more. Google to the rescue!

"The name denotes merely a tying up of cattle, both for their own protection, the establishment of their home and to keep them from wandering off. Within this name lies the notion that individuals are placed together by something higher or smarter than they.
The name Rebekah literally means Tied Up but more specific (and more friendly) is Secured."

Rebekah was the one securing God's promise. This changed everything. How I love my name.

How do you feel about your name? Do you know what it means? Do share!

Have a wonderful weekend, y'all!
Love, Becky

Your teeth are as white as newly shorn sheep. Really.

Flickr photo by Cameron Chamberlain, creative commons
When kids begin third grade in my church, our congregation gives each child a Bible, embossed with his/her name. Sarah was so excited to get hers that as soon as she got home, she ran to her bedroom and started reading the passage from Sunday school that morning.
It seems that the teacher had left a few things out of the lesson, in order to make it rated G.

She stormed into the kitchen, waving the Bible at me.
"Mama, do you have any idea what they put in this thing? No wonder they make you wait 'til third grade before they let you have it!"

When I was a little, the Song of Solomon gave me a similar shock.
Did my parents know what they wrote in there?
All that steamy talk about breasts and thighs? A man at the door, when she's already undressed?
It was perfect for a curious Baptist girl. I'd hide in my room and read it, and when Mom wanted to know what I was doing in there, I'd yell, "I'm reading the Bible, Mom."
Nice!

Over the years I've read it again and again, sometimes to appreciate and soak up the passion that God has for His people, Christ for His church. And sometimes to snicker over the lines like the title of this post, and the verse that follows.
"Your teeth are as white as sheep that have just been shorn and washed. Not one of them is missing; they are all perfectly matched."
Try that pick up line next time at the gym.

A few weeks ago, I was started my writing day as usual, listening to Garrison Keillor's lovely voice reading me The Writer's Almanac, when the poem for the day caught my attention.

Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth;the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.
My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.
Song of Solomon 2:10-14

It took my breath away.
I can hardly stand the beauty of the promise, that every morning when I open my eyes, God is there, running to me, pursuing me.
Saying to me that yesterday is gone and everything is new again, and lush.
He calls to me as I plunge into the busyness of my day, asking me to show Him my face, to speak to Him, telling me how beautiful I am.

I just love that. I think I might have to print that out and tape it to my mirror.
It'd be great to read daily, but especially on days when my hair isn't dancing like a flock of goats.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, y'all!
Before you skip on out of here, like gazelles, racing down the mountain, be sure to say hello!
Any Song of Solomon thoughts?

Love, Becky

We're Breaking Outta Here!

Flickr photo by "The Wanderer's Eye," creative commons
Hey chicks!
Yep, you're in the right place. Welcome to my new coop! I hope you like it.

It's funny how attached I can get to the way things are. Is this true for you? I find myself even holding tight to silly, unimportant things like a blog header that an artist made for me two years ago, or where I put the spoons and forks. Would you believe that I moved my silverware drawer back in March, and my hands still reach for the handle on the right side of the oven instead of the left? It's true!

I suppose when we do something over and over again the same way, we program the fleshy computer part of ourselves. Of course, sometimes this is a good thing. I don't want to have to go on mapquest.com every time I need to drive Sam to school, but it sort of scares me when I pull up to the curb to let him out, and I don't even remember the drive. Does this happen to you? Maybe it's human nature. (Or maybe you're glad I don't live in your neighborhood!)

I know I do this on a deeper level as well.
I have a certain vision of who I am, the way I behave with other people, the risks I take (or don't take,) and I tend to stay on my route, where it's normal and safe, where I know I won't fail. Where people won't notice and murmur to each other, "What's the deal with her?"

Sometimes it takes a kick in the pants/skirt/capris to realize how much we're missing when we go with what's always been.

Check out these verses that kicked my bahonka the other day...

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you."
Romans 12:1-2, The Message

I'd always read the part that says Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture as meaning the American culture, of which I certainly want to be wary. But now I'm thinking that God might also be saying the Becky Ramsey culture. The culture that I've created for myself. The one I sometimes confine myself to, really out of fear, if you get right down to it.

So I'm throwing everything up in the air, and I'm going to try to do this daily. I'm going to try to toss my Becky Ramsey Way of Living up in the sky, open my arms wide to catch what is meaningful, and let the rest of it fall. And when I find myself in new, uncomfortable places, with my hands reaching for a comfortable drawer and mapquest nowhere in sight, I'm going to remember the line that God seems to say to just about everybody who talks to Him: Fear not. I'm right here.
And I just might hum a little Diana Ross, too.

I just had to live
And I want to give
I'm completely positive...
I'm coming out...

So what about you? Do you ever find yourself in a self designed rut, like a comfy couch you want to stay in forever? Do you look for new life directions and throw yourself in, or are you more likely to test the water with a toe first? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have a terrific Wednesday!
Love, Becky

Muddy Knees

Flickr photo by mcmrbt, creative commons
As I remember it, she was around 19 or 20, about my age at the time, and as she led us through the military cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, France, past the thousands of crosses to my grandfather's grave, I sort of wished she'd just hand over the map and let us find it by ourselves.

First of all, there was the awkwardness of the language barrier. (Life would bring me back to France for mongo lessons on this later. Did it ever.) She spoke English but so quietly and with such a heavy accent that we could hardly understand her.
But mainly I was concerned about my mom. This would be the first time since she was a bouncing baby that she'd be mere feet from her father's body, now bones and dust under the lush, green grass, and I didn't want her to have to think about keeping her composure just because a stranger was there.

Will she cry? I wondered. Of course she will. In my dream the night before, she'd lain face down over her father's grave, and when the camera shifted to a cross section scene, I could see my mother lying over her father, and five feet below, his face looking up at hers through the soil.

Would I cry? Would my brother or my dad? I walked faster, hoping to get Dad's attention and maybe signal him to take the map and send the girl back. But he was too busy looking at Mom and I couldn't catch his eye.

It started to drizzle and I hoped that maybe now she'd go back, hand us umbrellas and let us go on our own. But no. She walked on, ignoring the weather, carrying the bucket of wet sand that she'd taken time to get before we started out. Couldn't that chore, whatever it was, have waited? I shivered in the wind, glad to have my jacket, and noticed her bare legs.

Finally, there it was, my grandfather's cross. My father inched closer to my mother, who stood still, transfixed by the name. Now she'll leave, I thought, but instead, she knelt before the cross, her bare knees sinking in the wet ground. What? She dipped her hand into the bucket, pulled out a clump of wet sand, and begin smearing it all over the cross!
Wasn't my father going to do something? The cross had been beautiful, and now it was a terrible mess.
Before I could say anything to my dad, the girl picked up a clean cloth, and with slow deliberate strokes, wiped it clean. Gleaming white, except now Glen Kuhn's name stood out in bold brown letters. The cross had been just one of thousands, and now it proclaimed my grandfather's service, for all to see.

As I tried to catch my breath, the girl rose, her knees muddied. She thanked my mother for her father's service and left us to be alone.

I've thought of that girl so many times over the last twenty five years. I've remembered how she gathered her skirt and knelt on the wet ground, how she stroked the cross so reverently, how she honored my grandfather and then honored our privacy. She wouldn't let the awkwardness of a language barrier stand in the way of her focus on our family. Maybe it was her job, but she did it as if it were more than that, as if it were a holy mission.

This French stranger became a model for me of what it means to be a servant: to show up, put away any concerns or thoughts of yourself, and be willing to sink your knees in the mud for someone who needs it.

I picture her, and another servant comes to mind, kneeling before his friends, washing their feet, saying,
"I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another's feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you. ...Now that you know this truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice!"
John 13: 14-15, 17

Today I'm wondering who has muddied their knees for you. I'd love to hear about the servanthood you've experienced in your life. I hope you'll share!

Love, Becky

Ambushed

Do tears ever catch you by surprise?
They kept sneaking up on me Wednesday. If I hadn't known better, I would've blamed it on my hair-mones, as my daughter used to say, but no, that wasn't it. It just happens sometimes.
This particular time, I was picking up dog hair tumbleweeds in the den, while Sam was watching Ellen Degeneres interview the twelve year old youtube sensation Greyson Chance. Before I knew it, I was all afluffle and Sam was doing his nervous laugh that means WHAT DO I DO NOW MY MOM HAS LOST HER MARBLES.

I promise, you might have lost yours too. If you're out of the loop, let me just say that Greyson is a fresh faced, normal boy, gifted with a shockingly incredible voice. He was clearly delighted to chat about "Miss Gaga" and how he knew something big was happening to him because the people at Bahama Ice named a snow cone after him and tons of people go there. Then Ellen went and yanked every one of my heartstrings by showing clips of his principal hugging him and his music teacher bragging on him, and that was all it took. Messy tears. Red face.
And this was the second tear ambush of the day!

Just five hours earlier, I was delivering food to a new client on my Meals on Wheels route when the tears surprised me. Mr. Blevens wore slacks and an ironed work shirt with a patch with his first name on it, and as I walked up his front steps, he looked as if he wasn't sure what to do with his hands. I introduced myself and as I gave him his meal, he looked at it and said, "God bless you, ma'am. Thank you. It sure is a good thing y'all do."
"You're welcome, Mr. Blevens. We're happy to do it."
"Uh huh," he said, trying to find a few more words. "It's awfully nice, but I tell you, it doesn't hardly feel right to accept it."
"But Mr. Blevens," I said, searching for what to say, "I bet you've spent your whole life helping people. Now maybe you need to let others do something for you for a change."
Instantly, Mr. Blevens' eyes watered up, and before he could catch it, a tear ran down his face. "We really..." he struggled, and his voice got all gravelly, and I felt my own tears come. "We appreciate this. And you."
He patted my hand and I tried to walk back to my car like a normal person. I waved and went on with my route, feeling like we had shared something holy.

So what are those ambush tears about? The happy tears and the sad tears that show up when we least expect them? The knot rising up in your throat, threatening to embarrass you at work or with friends or total strangers aren't certain of your mental stability?

Maybe ambush tears are actually powerful messages that our souls say to God, prayers that burst out like sneezes, involuntarily, because our bodies can't hold them back anymore, or because the feelings are so big that our pitiful brains can't keep up. Perhaps the tears pray for us, saying, "How beautiful, thank you God, for letting me see this," or "This is grace," or "This grief is too much for me to bear by myself," or "I'm hurting, please help me." The tears speak our prayers to God before our feeble minds can even understand our own feelings.

But God understands them. God speaks that soul language, and more than that, God treasures every salty drop.

You have kept record of my days of wandering. You have stored my tears in your bottle and counted each of them.
Psalm 56:8, Contemporary English Version

How wonder-full that even when we're running around picking up dog hair, just trying to get things done and handle life on our own, knowing God is in the background but not thinking too much about it, God lets our child souls speak up to Him, ambushing us with the prayers He knows we need to express.

You know, I think I'm going to try a little experiment. Want to try it with me?
The next time I'm ambushed with happy or sad tears, I'm going to pay attention to those drops in the bottle. I'm going to back them up with a spoken prayer, and try to put words to what my inner soul is crying out for, whether it's thankfulness or grief.

So today I'm thanking God for giving us gifts that we don't even ask for or feel we deserve. For a beautiful voice and a chance to share it, dropped on the lap of a normal boy. For the chance to accept a meal for free, when you've worked hard all your life long. For a chance to be the one who brings the meal, when you had nothing to do with preparing it or paying for it. For a chance to witness the involuntary prayers of strangers and friends-to-be. For holy, salty, messy tear prayers that speak when my words can't.

So what about you?
I'd love to hear about the last time you were surprised by tears. Did it carry a message, or was it just hairmones?

Have a super weekend, friends!

Much love,
Becky

I WILL CONTROL YOU.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russellheistuman/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

YOU WILL BRING ME A FOOT LONG TUNA FISH SUB. AND A DIET COKE.

Just kidding.
But I would take some chocolate, if it's not too much trouble.

Lately I've been thinking that I might still have an issue with control. Do you?
When my friend May wrote a post about her fear of dying, I commented that I don't have so much a fear of dying as a fear of leaving my children to live without my help. But even as I commented, I realized how self centered that sounded. And that I was presuming to have much more control over their lives and futures than I actually do. I can't control their lives. I can't seem to control much of anything, really.
In fact, I could make a whole list of things I can't control.
I think I shall.

THINGS I CAN'T CONTROL:
1. The publishing industry. How long it takes to make decisions and birth books.
(Publishing industry, if you're listening, you're beautiful and I love you.)
2. When people get sick. And whether or not they get well.
3. What my children do or say when I'm not around. Or even when I am standing right beside them, as I was that joyous time I picked my baby up early from kindergarten and he turned to his friends and said, "See you later, suckers."
Nope, I can do my best at training them, but they continue to surprise me.
4. The Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina.
5. Fellow drivers on the road when my teens get behind the wheel.
6. My husband's steamy love affair with the History Channel.
7. The economy.
8. The amount of spam email I get advertising medical help for body parts that I don't even have.
9. The poverty and pain I see in my own hometown.
10. How my book sells. (I happily work hard to promote it, but I can't seem to master mass hypnotism. Do you know how? Email me.)

You'd think I'd have this control thing figured out by now.
I was formed in the womb as a Type A girl, and little by little, life has stretched and softened me. Having children helped, but France struck the greatest blow. How can you control things if you can't even communicate properly? Our French life was just what I needed in so many ways.

But lately I've been learning that maybe my lessons aren't over.

As a person of faith, I know I'm supposed to "let go and let God." I'm sorry, but I hear that expression and secretly roll my eyes. It makes letting go of control sound too easy, and it's so difficult to do. Sometimes I wonder if even my prayers are little messages sent up to try to control God, to beg God to see it my way. To align God's wishes with mine, even if I add in the part Your will be done. Even if I really mean it.

But then I think of so many amazing moments in my life that have been complete surprises, totally out of my control. If I had as tight a rein on life as I might sometimes wish for, they would have never happened. I would have never imagined them. They were gifts, completely free.

So until I figure this out, I guess I'll stay best buds with the Serenity Prayer. And I'll keep my Sudoku book handy for whenever Todd turns on the History Channel. It makes for good snuggling, and we're both happy.

Have a wonder-full Wednesday, y'all!
Love, Becky