What I'm Reading

So, I'm one of those people that has a stack of books on her nightstand and beside her nightstand at all times.  It's hard for me to wait to finish one book before I start another.  I contradict myself, I know.  I am a perfectionist who has a hard time with unfinished tasks, but for some reason, books are a different monster.

I love them.  I can't get enough of them.

It's like chocolate.  If I've got in front of me a piece of Ghiradelli dark chocolate with caramel, M&M's, Dove dark chocolate and a Baby Ruth... I'm gonna have to have a bite of each one in order to be satisfied.  There's no choosing just one.

Books are the same for me.  There are so many wonderful choices, I just can't choose.  I have to dip into several at a time.  Occasionally, one will be so good that I am compelled to SOAK and finish it on its own. But that's rare these days.

Don't get me wrong.  I finish my books.  Most of the time.  It's not often that I put a book down never to pick it back up again.

That's where my perfectionism kicks in.  Leaving a book unfinished wears away at my soul.

For instance, right now I'm about two-thirds of the way through this...

It's killing me.

I'm a Dickens fan.  And it's killing me.  Let's just say it was appropriately titled.  I've put it aside for now.  I WILL get back to it.  But I may watch the PBS mini-series for inspiration before picking it back up.

I'm also reading this...

Again, about two-thirds of the way through it and it's truly wonderful.  But it's also brutally enlightening about the plight of the African people (a story about the Lost Boys of Sudan) and I can only take it in spurts.  When I read it, I feel compelled to DO something and yet, quite honestly, I'm not sure what to do.  So I put it aside, think, mull and pray.  Then I pick it back up a bit later with the hope that I will find a way to participate in bringing hope to the African people.  

And yes, I know that my pocketbook is a very good resource - and I use it.  But I want to do more.

My book club is reading this right now...

I'm loving it.  I'm only a few chapters in, but I find it fascinating.  I love books that immerse me in another time and place - one that's completely foreign to me.  I love learning about the experiences of other people groups around the world.  It challenges me and reminds me of all I have to be thankful for here in America.  This book is set in China in the 1960's and 70's during the "re-education" of the intellectual population by Chairman Mao.  Young boys (teens) are sent into the mountains, away from home and any chance of an education, in order to suppress this particular demographic.  Crazy.  I find myself thinking of what I was doing when this was happening in China.  

I find myself thinking of what kinds of things are going on in remote areas of the world while I go about my very comfortable existence - and it make me want to pray.  It makes me want to ACT.  And it makes me grateful.

Another book I'm reading is...

I'm reading this with two of my BFF's.  It's pretty challenging stuff.  Trying to replace chocolate with God.  That's not easy, my friends.  At least not for me.

And this one...

Three Moms and a Podcast http://threemomsandapodcast.podbean.com/ is currently in the middle of a discipline series and this book was mentioned several times by several moms in our discussion thread... so I picked it up.  Wow.  I wish I'd read this when Morgan was born.  I am being challenged to be a better parent.  I am learning to pull back and give my kids space to make mistakes (FAIL) and learn from them.  It's a good read.

Finally, I'm pretty much reading whatever good material on back surgery I can find.  Right now, I'm devouring this one...

Love the way this surgeon puts chronic back pain (and all the possible medical approaches to it) into layman's terms so I can make the best decision possible for me and my family.  It's the best one I've read so far.

I've got a couple more on my summer reading list and I'm hoping I can get to all of them.  I do have four children.  I am preparing to homeschool Jackson and Charlie (5th and 6th grade... no small challenge) this year.  One of those four is a busy toddler, the other a busy teenager.  And let's face it, they're all busy.

We'll see.  But here they are in case you're interested...

Yes, I'm an overachiever.  But surely that doesn't surprise you.  It's what makes me ME.

Fourteen

My daughter.

My oldest.

My Morgan.

She turned 14 last week.

This girl is a bright light.  She is wise beyond her years.

She brings me joy.

She comes down the stairs in the morning ready to share a cup of coffee with me and ALWAYS asks me if I slept well the night before.

She dances with her baby brother.

She sings.  All the time.

She's the perfect mix of girly and tomboy.  This grown-up tomboy is so grateful for that.

She deeply cares about people.

She is beautiful.  Inside and out.

Happy Birthday, Morgan.  I love you very much.

Colorado

We just returned a couple of days ago from a week long visit to Colorado.  Can I just say I LOVE this place?  It's funny because we didn't really do that much this time around - not really practical to camp, white water raft, climb mountains, etc... when you have a toddler along for the ride.  But, there's just something about BEING there that's good for my soul.

Maybe it has to do with the beauty that's all around me when I'm there.

Or that when the sun goes down, you pretty much need a sweatshirt or a fire nearby in order to stay warm... even if the temps have been in the 90's during the day.  LOVE that.

Or that this is the place where Mark and I met and fell in love.

Or that this lovely lady lives here... friends for 22 years.  So thankful.

Or that my "baby" brother and his family call this place home and I love them very much.

But I think mainly it's because being here reminds me of how small I am... and how big God is.

And I feel more thankful.  More peaceful.  

More connected with the One who made me and understands me.

Thank You, God, for making Colorado.

And Just Like That...

He's TWO!!!

TWO!!!!!!

We celebrated his birthday "simply" with family.  He's not big on parties.  Not yet, anyway.  He will be.  He's a Steele.

I can't believe he's two.  

We're enjoying him so much.  His language has been a bit delayed, but the explosion of words is beginning and it is SO MUCH FUN.  

I love the "Nigh, Nigh, Mommy's" and the "Hi, Sissy's" and the "Joosh's" - I love baby talk.  Especially when I can understand it.  

As the Big Three grew and developed through the toddler and preschool years, I mourned each milestone.  

Especially with Charlie.  He really was the cutest kid on the planet.  Seriously.  

I mean, come on.  It doesn't get much cuter than this.

Or this.

O.  M.  G.

Seriously.  I'm crying.

I think the "milestone grieving" came because deep down in my heart I just wasn't done.  There was a desire for another.

With David, I find myself enjoying him immensely but CELEBRATING each little step he takes towards independence.

Guess that means I'm done.  

Here are a few birthday pics so you can revel in David's cuteness.  

Birthday present!

Playing at the park

Hating the birthday song

REALLY hating the birthday song... and the birthday cupcake... and the birthday candles.

And back to the cuteness!

Persistence and Perspective

Most of my friends would say I'm stubborn.

I prefer to call myself persistent.

When I want something, I'm pretty tenacious about making sure I get it.  When I set a goal for myself, I push and push until I reach that goal.

This works out pretty well for me.  I'm by nature a doer and so I'm internally motivated to "do" until it gets done.  That makes for a lot of personal gratification at the end.

And I really like feeling gratified.

It's a little trickier when my tenacity is connected to my belief system - especially when what I believe isn't really working for me.

It's hard for me to let it go.  Change my perspective.

I find myself hitting my head against the proverbial wall, if you will.

I've been doing a lot of that lately.

For the last ten years I've been fighting to stay off an operating table.

I have a lousy back.

I have tried just about every conservative approach to my problem (a MILLION chiropractors, acupuncture, yoga, exercise, pain management, physical therapy).

I have believed I could find a way to lift the limitations on my life that come from chronic back pain.  I have believed that the harder I worked at therapy, the more I would be able to do what I want to do.

This hasn't happened.

And I've found that another (less lovely) aspect of my persistent and tenacious (read:  STUBBORN) nature has a tendency to kick in when things aren't going the way I think they should.

When things don't go my way, I pout.

Yes, I'm the snotty-nosed kid crouched in the corner with her arms folded and her lips sticking out.

Ugly, isn't it?  Sometimes the truth just is.

So, the other day one of my therapists, Maegan, pretty much stopped me in my tracks when she said, "I think you need to get some perspective."

After I swallowed my pride, pulled myself out of the corner, unfolded my arms, and did some deep breathing, we had a little talk about reality.

It's not easy being told hard things that you don't want to hear, but there's something a little freeing about it, too.  Perspective, for me, helps define my place of peace.  There's a release that comes with acceptance - even in the midst of grief and disappointment.  I can move forward with some reasonable expectations and that helps me move towards peace.

"You will never be pain free."

"Even if we're able to reduce your pain, you will always have limits on what you should physically do."

"Surgery isn't something you should take off the table."

Yeah, these are cold hard facts.  I don't like them.  I've cried many tears over them.

But here's the thing... this big dose of reality got me thinking.

My persistent nature might come in handy if I applied it more readily in my prayer life.

I was reminded yesterday of the parable of the persistent widow.  The Bible says that Jesus told this parable to the disciples so that they would remember to "always pray and never give up."

It's funny that someone as stubborn as I am about pretty much every other thing can be so quick to give up on prayer.  On what God can do.

I'm a bit jaded, I'll admit it.  I don't like the vulnerability that comes with laying it all out before God with the hope that He'll come through for me the way I want Him to.

I'm more of a "sure thing" kind of girl.

But that widow kept going back to a judge who really didn't care about her at all - finally driving him to the point of exasperation so that he did what she asked of him.

And I absolutely know that God cares about me.  He's done a really good job of that all along.

It was risky for the widow to go back again and again and again.  I'm sure she worried that at some point that guy was going to blow up all over her.  But she kept going back anyway.  She wanted what she wanted that badly.

I don't know if my back will ever be better - be healed.  That's hard for me - and praying for something different feels risky.

But I want it badly.  I'll keep trying the things on earth that I can try - and I'll try to adopt the perspective of the widow and be as persistent with my prayers as I am with my actions.

Loosening my Grip

Leaving town when you have four children is a big deal.

Especially when you are leaving said children behind.

Because of this, Mark and I haven't taken many "just the two of us" trips in our almost 17 years of marriage.  

But after weeks of planning, we headed to the airport last Friday morning for a four day weekend in Boston.  It was my brother's graduation from Boston University and I wanted to be there.

I won't go into the layers of family history that made this event even more important to me than it would be to any devoted sister, but it WAS a big deal and I VERY MUCH wanted to be there.  

I knew we would be cutting it close when I booked our tickets.  We had an arrival time in Boston of 2:30 and the ceremony would begin at 5:30.  We would make it - as long as there were no major delays. It would be close.  But we would make it.

We arrived at the airport in Tulsa in the midst of a massive thunderstorm.  As we checked in, Mark noticed our bags were only checked to Dallas and pointed out the mistake to the attendant.  

"Ummmm, ma'am?  Our bags are only checked to Dallas and we're going to Boston."

"No, you're not."  She replied.  "You're going to Boston tomorrow."  

We laughed nervously and rechecked our tickets.  

"No, we're going to Boston today,"  Mark insisted.

The flight attendant checked her information and informed us calmly that our flight to Boston had been cancelled for today.  

My heart sank.  As she began working to try to find a flight that would get us where we wanted to go at some point in the next 24 hours, I felt a surge of disappointment well up within me.  

At that same moment, a still, small VOICE spoke to me...

"I want you to hold everything loosely today."

Calming me, even in the midst of my sadness, I knew at that moment that He saw me and understood me.  

He also knew I wasn't going to make it to the ceremony.

Throughout the day, a long day with one travel delay after another, I wrestled with disappointment, frustration and sadness, but was consistently calmed by following the Father's instruction to hold my plans loosely.

Interesting lesson to be learning in my early forties.

I was the kid that did calendar countdowns for events I was anticipating.  In fact, I often worked myself up before a special event so much that I would become sick (literally) and end up missing the whole thing.  I spent MANY moments lying on my bed in despair as my mom delivered the news that I was too sick to do whatever it was I was looking forward to doing.

I have always held my hopes and plans closely - TIGHTLY.

There is a sense of security that comes for me when I make my plans because - I gotta tell ya - I make a GOOD plan.  I feel in control when the plan is MY plan and, even after all these years, it's easy for me to believe that if I make the plan it is less likely to fail.

Yeah, I'm broken.  I'm a broken person.

I love how the Father recognized this broken place in me last weekend and literally COACHED me through the letting go ALL DAY LONG.

I trust that He will continue to do this as I learn to loosen my grip on my "best laid plans."

And learn to surrender to Him - as the Great Planner.

And the best part?

Even though we missed the ceremony, we celebrated with my brother, his wife and his little girl in a big way the next day.  It was a wonderful day.  Perfect, really.

And I didn't plan it.

Unplugged

Once again, an unfaithful blogger is back online and attempting to write something worthwhile.

I have a good excuse for my latest blogging lapse.

Last week our entire family "unplugged" as a Lenten exercise the week before Easter AND as a chance to get a good glimpse of how plugged in our family has become.

It was fantastic.  Difficult, but fantastic.

No Facebook (oh, how I love Facebook).  No television (oh, how we all love television).  No video games (Dear Lord, how my boys LOVE video games).  No music (my poor daughter thought she was going to die).

Actually, we did listen to some worship music on occasion.

And David didn't suffer.  On the contrary, WE suffered through his repertoire of Baby Einstein dvds just like we always do.

Mark read three books.

I read two books.

My daughter is now reading FOUR books... at once.

Jackson and Charlie discovered a new series of books and began to devour them.

We played Monopoly.

Scratch that.  We STARTED playing Monopoly.  That game never ends.

We played Bananagrams.  Ever played this?  So.  Much.  Fun.

Mark and I played cards when the kids went to bed.

And we talked.  A lot.

Not that we don't talk around here.  We do.  But we talked more.  And we were more thoughtful in our conversation.  Loved this.

Jackson commented many times over how much he was enjoying the week and how he could see the hold that video games had had on his heart and mind.

That alone made the entire exercise a success, in my opinion.  Remember, he's ELEVEN.

So, I think we all agreed (except for maybe Morgan) that this was a good exercise and one that we should observe more often.

At least once a year.

Kidding.

And last night Mark and I broke our weeklong screen fast with the season finale of Parenthood.

Sigh.