Freak-out threshold. Know what yours is?
Wednesday night our family set out for a concert in the park for some fun and relaxation. Our expectations went unmet when our four-year-old cracked her chin open on a cement caterpillar. (Gotta watch out for those cement caterpillars. They’ll get you every time.) After pawning off our two older kids, Kevin and I spent the next hour driving our bleeding Brooka and her hungry baby sister over the river and through the woods looking for an urgent-care center. At long last, we finally found a doctor who sewed four cobalt stitches into Brooka’s chin.
This is not an unusual experience for a parent. It was actually our first real emergency of any kind, which is the most unusual thing about it. The most memorable part is that Brooka never freaked out. At the moment of impact, Addison ran Paul Revere-style through the playground screaming, “Bloody Chin! Bloody Chin!” Brooka, though looking somewhat dazed and confused, didn’t cry once. Not even a tear through the whole three-hour ordeal—including when the doctor fired multiple shots into her messy open wound. Reclining on the hospital bed with her ankles crossed, she even sighed, “This is the life.”
That moment confirmed a fuzzy hunch I’ve had all along: Brooka has a very high freak-out threshold. Like the rest of us, she occasionally gets miffed when things don’t go her way, but we don’t ever see her thrown into full nuclear meltdown. One or two of my other children, whose identities I will protect, do not share this quality. One in particular requires a high level of order, structure, information, and familiarity. Anything out of the ordinary is questioned and viewed with reserve (at best) or panic (at worst). The freak-out threshold here is extremely low. Even a simple request to remove shoes in public could send this particular child into a two-year-old frenzy. Maturity and life experience have helped immensely, but the freak-out bar still hovers low to the ground.
I can’t just file away interesting kid moments. I have to study them and try to see what I can apply to my own adult life. So I did a quick check of my own freak-out threshold. It’s gotten a whole lot higher with each new baby. Surpassing the national average of children has taught me more about letting go of control and embracing chaos than anything else. But I can still get plenty upset—at least inside my head—when life feels like it’s spinning out of control. I think that’s why God gave me the picture of a four-year-old laying there getting her chin sewed up. She closed her eyes, gently squeezed my hand, and thought about her favorite thing, tigers. That got her through it calmly and patiently. Thinking about my favorite things, remembering how hugely blessed I am, and trusting that the God of the universe has His hand wrapped around mine is what I want to do the next time I feel my freak coming on. I just wanna be like Brooka.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
What I Have in Common with a Single Girl
I’m reading another great book. At first glance it’s not real relevant to my life, because it’s called Revelations of a Single Woman. I’m pretty much everything that’s the opposite of single. But the subtitle, Loving the Life I Didn’t Expect, hits pretty close to home right now.
I had planned to work at The Navigators until they rolled me out of there in my wheelchair, laptop still glued to my wrists. I had planned to have insider information on our organization’s search for a new U.S. director and be deeply involved in making his (yeah, it’ll be a man) announcement public. I had planned to organize and celebrate 50th birthday parties for two beloved coworkers this fall. I had planned to be part of video shoots and morale-building fun days, important meetings and spontaneous heart-to-hearts over bagels in the common area.
Connally Gilliam, the author of the book I’m reading, had planned to marry the man of her dreams, grow into maternity clothes, and be the first-grade room mom by now. Still unmarried in her early 40s, she’s realizing that our plans don’t always turn out like we had hoped. Yet her unwavering trust in the One whose plans always turn out best is a powerful example to me.
She includes a chapter on letting go—specifically letting go of old friends as they marry off and transition into a different place in life. She writes with jarring transparency about feeling left behind, left out, left alone. How weird that I—a woman who married well at 24 and lives one of the most fulfilled lives imaginable—can relate to those feelings. But letting go is a part of life for all of us, the fulfilled and unfulfilled alike. And letting go, for me, is excruciating.
God has used Connally to teach me about letting go graciously. She believes that all the investing in and letting go of relationships has actually served to plow the field of her heart, making her more fertile to new relationships as they come along. (I'm not usually one for agricultural metaphors, but that one really works for me.)
I had planned to work at The Navigators until they rolled me out of there in my wheelchair, laptop still glued to my wrists. I had planned to have insider information on our organization’s search for a new U.S. director and be deeply involved in making his (yeah, it’ll be a man) announcement public. I had planned to organize and celebrate 50th birthday parties for two beloved coworkers this fall. I had planned to be part of video shoots and morale-building fun days, important meetings and spontaneous heart-to-hearts over bagels in the common area.
Connally Gilliam, the author of the book I’m reading, had planned to marry the man of her dreams, grow into maternity clothes, and be the first-grade room mom by now. Still unmarried in her early 40s, she’s realizing that our plans don’t always turn out like we had hoped. Yet her unwavering trust in the One whose plans always turn out best is a powerful example to me.
She includes a chapter on letting go—specifically letting go of old friends as they marry off and transition into a different place in life. She writes with jarring transparency about feeling left behind, left out, left alone. How weird that I—a woman who married well at 24 and lives one of the most fulfilled lives imaginable—can relate to those feelings. But letting go is a part of life for all of us, the fulfilled and unfulfilled alike. And letting go, for me, is excruciating.
God has used Connally to teach me about letting go graciously. She believes that all the investing in and letting go of relationships has actually served to plow the field of her heart, making her more fertile to new relationships as they come along. (I'm not usually one for agricultural metaphors, but that one really works for me.)
That doesn’t mean you can’t weep on your bathroom floor when letting go is hard. It doesn’t mean you don’t occasionally indulge your feelings of left-outness. But it does mean you don’t get to push people out of your life just because being around them reminds you that they’ve moved on. It does mean you can’t cling so hard to the past that you miss what God’s doing with your present. Relationships will change and awkward moments when my friends are all talking about the hilarious thing that happened at work will surely arise, but through all that I get to trust that even though this isn’t the place I expected to be, it’s the place I’m supposed to be.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Things I Learned from Braden's Week at Camp
• The human earlobe can hold a lot of dirt.
• There are some socks too foul to spare.
• The “sanitary” setting on my washing machine is a God-send.
• Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder. I’ve never seen my kids love on each other the way they did when Braden came home.
• A homely stuffed squirrel wearing an Eagle Lake t-shirt is never as special as when it’s given to a four-year old girl by her eight-year-old brother.
• Being the oldest child is a big deal. Addison assumed the role with vision and zeal.
• Despite all evidence to the contrary, Braden deeply cares for his sisters.
• I love watching my kids do the things they’re good at. I’m even prouder when I watch them keep trying when things don't come easy .
• Just as important as the fun of camp is the hardship of camp.
• Little boys were made to shoot rifles, bows, and baskets.
• To a little boy, even a pine cone is a weapon.
• Eight-year-old boys can survive quite nicely without anything electronic.
• You can’t put a pricetag on watching your kid learn how to turn his attitude around.
• It’s worth the extra 50 bucks to send your kid to camp when it’s actually summer. In Colorado, that means the last week of July.
• Ziplines are fun for kids and frustrating for mothers who are bad with cameras.
• Eagle Lake is more personal and more professional than I ever knew. They also make the boys bus the girls’ trays. Enough said.
• College students have as much energy as toddlers and don’t drool as much.
• I would make a lousy camp counselor.
• I make my best parenting decisions when I’m using my common sense, not following my heart.
• People named Tiny are rarely tiny. Kids find this amusing.
• Being invited to join one game of Nuke-em can change a kid for days.
• Our job is not to rescue our kids from difficulty but to direct them to the only true Rescuer.
• Camp teaches parents just as much as it teaches kids.
• There are some socks too foul to spare.
• The “sanitary” setting on my washing machine is a God-send.
• Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder. I’ve never seen my kids love on each other the way they did when Braden came home.
• A homely stuffed squirrel wearing an Eagle Lake t-shirt is never as special as when it’s given to a four-year old girl by her eight-year-old brother.
• Being the oldest child is a big deal. Addison assumed the role with vision and zeal.
• Despite all evidence to the contrary, Braden deeply cares for his sisters.
• I love watching my kids do the things they’re good at. I’m even prouder when I watch them keep trying when things don't come easy .
• Just as important as the fun of camp is the hardship of camp.
• Little boys were made to shoot rifles, bows, and baskets.
• To a little boy, even a pine cone is a weapon.
• Eight-year-old boys can survive quite nicely without anything electronic.
• You can’t put a pricetag on watching your kid learn how to turn his attitude around.
• It’s worth the extra 50 bucks to send your kid to camp when it’s actually summer. In Colorado, that means the last week of July.
• Ziplines are fun for kids and frustrating for mothers who are bad with cameras.
• Eagle Lake is more personal and more professional than I ever knew. They also make the boys bus the girls’ trays. Enough said.
• College students have as much energy as toddlers and don’t drool as much.
• I would make a lousy camp counselor.
• I make my best parenting decisions when I’m using my common sense, not following my heart.
• People named Tiny are rarely tiny. Kids find this amusing.
• Being invited to join one game of Nuke-em can change a kid for days.
• Our job is not to rescue our kids from difficulty but to direct them to the only true Rescuer.
• Camp teaches parents just as much as it teaches kids.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Camper Boy
My son’s fearlessness is baffling me. He leaves today for camp, and from what I can tell, he’s not taking a single worry with him. No anxiety, no butterflies in the belly. Nothing but his wide-eyed, eight-year-old self.
Like camp mothers before me, I lovingly washed and labeled each piece of his clothing yesterday. While pondering the odd sensation of writing with a Sharpie on Superman underwear, I also thought of the two-year-old boy who howled and sobbed when we dropped him off at the church nursery for 90 minutes. We bribed him with everything imaginable, but when at last he thought to bring his Pooh Bear along—combined with just the right teacher who eagerly included Pooh in all the snacks and crafts—his screaming subsided and we were able to go to church peacefully.
I thought of the one-year-old little boy with a death grip around my neck at our “Mommy and Me” swim class. Now he’s counting the minutes until he can be launched off the blob, into an icy lake, by some portly 11-year-old. He smiles at the idea of riding the zipline—the longest in North America, I might add—over this same lake.
I also thought of the sequence of events in my own life that have brought us to this day. I visited Eagle Lake Camp for the first time in 1994. Many days in my 20s were spent writing stories about camp for The Navigators and interviewing parents about their children’s experiences. And with just a blink of an eye (and 31 hours of labor), I’ve now become one of those parents.
I thought of Dawson Trotman and Lorne Sanny—the first Navigator leaders who started Eagle Lake in 1957—and their passion for ministering to young boys. They knew this is where you reach a man’s heart—inside the body of a boy. I thought of the many men I’ve met through The Navigators over the years, men with such depth of character and sold-out commitment to God. These are qualities I pray for my son, and I know they take root early on. Kevin and I do all we can to nurture that process along, but the investment and influence of a 21-year-old godly dude on a zipline will go further than I’ll ever know.
The undies are labeled now, the clothes are packed, alongside Braden’s Bible and a little notebook he requested to use as a journal. I tried to throw in a comb, but was told, “If you pack that, I’m not gonna use it.” (This journey is as much about me letting go of control as it is about Braden, I think.) The only one around here who seems wrought with emotion is me, even though I know he’ll be fine. My friend Craig, who used to run the camp back when I was writing about it, used to come down the mountain every August and say, “Well, no one died and no one got pregnant. It was a good summer.” I’m fairly certain neither of those things will happen to my boy, either. Much more likely, he’ll come down the mountain with a new sense of adventure and confidence, a jumble of incredible memories, and a heart more sensitive to the God of the universe. Not bad for $350 and a little separation anxiety for mom.
Like camp mothers before me, I lovingly washed and labeled each piece of his clothing yesterday. While pondering the odd sensation of writing with a Sharpie on Superman underwear, I also thought of the two-year-old boy who howled and sobbed when we dropped him off at the church nursery for 90 minutes. We bribed him with everything imaginable, but when at last he thought to bring his Pooh Bear along—combined with just the right teacher who eagerly included Pooh in all the snacks and crafts—his screaming subsided and we were able to go to church peacefully.
I thought of the one-year-old little boy with a death grip around my neck at our “Mommy and Me” swim class. Now he’s counting the minutes until he can be launched off the blob, into an icy lake, by some portly 11-year-old. He smiles at the idea of riding the zipline—the longest in North America, I might add—over this same lake.
I also thought of the sequence of events in my own life that have brought us to this day. I visited Eagle Lake Camp for the first time in 1994. Many days in my 20s were spent writing stories about camp for The Navigators and interviewing parents about their children’s experiences. And with just a blink of an eye (and 31 hours of labor), I’ve now become one of those parents.
I thought of Dawson Trotman and Lorne Sanny—the first Navigator leaders who started Eagle Lake in 1957—and their passion for ministering to young boys. They knew this is where you reach a man’s heart—inside the body of a boy. I thought of the many men I’ve met through The Navigators over the years, men with such depth of character and sold-out commitment to God. These are qualities I pray for my son, and I know they take root early on. Kevin and I do all we can to nurture that process along, but the investment and influence of a 21-year-old godly dude on a zipline will go further than I’ll ever know.
The undies are labeled now, the clothes are packed, alongside Braden’s Bible and a little notebook he requested to use as a journal. I tried to throw in a comb, but was told, “If you pack that, I’m not gonna use it.” (This journey is as much about me letting go of control as it is about Braden, I think.) The only one around here who seems wrought with emotion is me, even though I know he’ll be fine. My friend Craig, who used to run the camp back when I was writing about it, used to come down the mountain every August and say, “Well, no one died and no one got pregnant. It was a good summer.” I’m fairly certain neither of those things will happen to my boy, either. Much more likely, he’ll come down the mountain with a new sense of adventure and confidence, a jumble of incredible memories, and a heart more sensitive to the God of the universe. Not bad for $350 and a little separation anxiety for mom.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Perspective: The Gift of Time
Last Thursday, May 29, marked the 20th anniversary of my dad’s death. I was finishing up my last week of finals during my junior year of high school when he succumbed to his two-year fight with cancer. "Surreal" is the only word to describe my whole junior year. When I look back on it now, I wonder how I maintained such a dual life—acting the part of a carefree teenager by day but coming home to a father whose body was so riddled with bed sores that his flesh was literally rotting off his body before our very eyes. The fact that my dad was also my high school’s football coach made our private pain all the more public and the duality of my existence harder to hide. That memorial day in 1988 brought a lot of relief with it—an end to the suffering, the wondering, the fear of the worst. The worst happened on that day as I stood in the dark hospital room with my mom and brother, holding my dad’s hand as he slipped away, but I now see how it was really for the best.
I’ve written an essay about my experience with my dad’s life and death, and I’ve told most of the people who know me well all about it. There’s no need to rehash it here, but suffice it to say that my 17 years with my dad shaped my views of grace, forgiveness, and family as much as anything in my life. My dad was a flawed human being whose flaws spilled out all over me. His determined search for success and significance made my childhood unstable and lonely. His struggles with rage and discontentment made me fearful and resentful. But that was when I was a child.
I now see him as an adult. I’m only seven years younger now than he was when he died (and I remember thinking, at 17, “Well, at least he lived a good long life and made it to 44!”), and I have been separated from him long enough to see him as a man instead of as my dad. I can see a lot more good, like that he was a lot of fun, he had good friends, and he did everything with passion. As a football coach, he was also a powerful influencer of the young men he coached and invested in. And in the end—the very end—he was even the kind, caring daddy that every little girl longs for.
Everyone wonders if it would be best to die suddenly or to battle a horrible disease yet have the time to say goodbye. In our case, the time to say goodbye was one of the biggest blessings of my life. Cancer is an evil monster. It smells and debilitates and destroys, but for my dad and me, it healed. I can see now, as an adult, that God used his sickness to transform his life, and to transform mine in the process. My 20-years-later perspective gives me firm footing on Romans 8:28 as I see how God truly is working for our good, even through our pain and unanswered questions.
I also mark this anniversary with a heavy awareness that my everyday words and actions are making a permanent impression on my children. I pray they will extend much grace to me as they look back on their childhood years. I am a flawed parent as well. My flaws are different from my dad’s, but they are stems from the same root—a struggle to find my way, get my way, and have others see things my way. Parenting, unfortunately, can bring out the worst in us all. When this happens in our house, I pray I’m not messing them up too much, ask for forgiveness, and trust that God will continue working for our good even when I'm at my worst. It’s also these times that fill me with more grace for my own flawed parent and make me most thankful for the merciful gift of time and perspective.
I’ve written an essay about my experience with my dad’s life and death, and I’ve told most of the people who know me well all about it. There’s no need to rehash it here, but suffice it to say that my 17 years with my dad shaped my views of grace, forgiveness, and family as much as anything in my life. My dad was a flawed human being whose flaws spilled out all over me. His determined search for success and significance made my childhood unstable and lonely. His struggles with rage and discontentment made me fearful and resentful. But that was when I was a child.
I now see him as an adult. I’m only seven years younger now than he was when he died (and I remember thinking, at 17, “Well, at least he lived a good long life and made it to 44!”), and I have been separated from him long enough to see him as a man instead of as my dad. I can see a lot more good, like that he was a lot of fun, he had good friends, and he did everything with passion. As a football coach, he was also a powerful influencer of the young men he coached and invested in. And in the end—the very end—he was even the kind, caring daddy that every little girl longs for.
Everyone wonders if it would be best to die suddenly or to battle a horrible disease yet have the time to say goodbye. In our case, the time to say goodbye was one of the biggest blessings of my life. Cancer is an evil monster. It smells and debilitates and destroys, but for my dad and me, it healed. I can see now, as an adult, that God used his sickness to transform his life, and to transform mine in the process. My 20-years-later perspective gives me firm footing on Romans 8:28 as I see how God truly is working for our good, even through our pain and unanswered questions.
I also mark this anniversary with a heavy awareness that my everyday words and actions are making a permanent impression on my children. I pray they will extend much grace to me as they look back on their childhood years. I am a flawed parent as well. My flaws are different from my dad’s, but they are stems from the same root—a struggle to find my way, get my way, and have others see things my way. Parenting, unfortunately, can bring out the worst in us all. When this happens in our house, I pray I’m not messing them up too much, ask for forgiveness, and trust that God will continue working for our good even when I'm at my worst. It’s also these times that fill me with more grace for my own flawed parent and make me most thankful for the merciful gift of time and perspective.
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