Let Go

  Last week, the Lord spoke to me in Barnes & Noble.

  There was no still, small voice. No fiery foliage. No rending of upholstery. My eye was merely drawn inexorably to a particular set of words. They were so appropriate that I laughed out loud.

   All right, I'll admit it: I think God spoke to me through a rainbow-colored refrigerator magnet.

   *sigh* This is embarrassing. I would much rather receive divine inspiration from one of the gorgeous leather journals. But I was trapped in a never-ending line, contemplating the logic of owning seven cash registers while only using one, when my attention was arrested by the following pithy proverb:

LET GO OR BE DRAGGED.

 First, I really wished there was a comma.
 Second, I hate almost all pithy proverbs. Life is complicated, and I think true communication suffers a lack of potency when it's watered down into something that fits on a T-shirt.
 Third, I shivered at the awful simplicity of the mental image.

   Let Go, I heard the Almighty say, or be dragged.

   The last two weeks have been one smashing revelation after another, each one proving to myself (and any human being unfortunate enough to live with me), that I have a teensy-weensy control problem. My subconscious believes it inhabits an omnipotent being, and plans Life accordingly. Stressful events? No problem! Emotional upheaval? Be proactive! My conscious body hadn't had a solid night's sleep in over a week because my brain fought every attempt at sleep with a violent passion.
  I was still in control! I cleaned under the kitchen sink at four a.m. because even desperate sleeplessness couldn't make me unproductive. I stumbled through VBS, ignoring the nausea of sleep deprivation. I looked past the bright flashes in my vision which begged "MAYDAY... please... let us... go to bed..."

    I was going to be fine if it killed me!

    Today, it occurred to me that if I insist on a battle of wills with 'death' as my only parameter, against a God who knows the hairs on my head, I could very well lose. Sheer obstinacy is not a virtue. Self-control is, but not My-Self-Controlling-All-Things. I must either learn to live as a broken human, with limitations, with needs, or I will destroy myself in a folly of delusion.

   The Holy Scriptures do not tell of a God who is mediocre in His work of sanctification.

   .... so it appears that I had better learn to let go. I had better release all the things I cling to that are not God, because it will hurt if He has to pry my fingers open. And He will pry my fingers open, because His love for me is greater than my tantrums.




  The good news is that my dear husband took me to Barnes & Noble and bought three new books to keep me company while I'm in the hospital.  I'm almost looking forward to my upcoming surgery... !

Homonyms

 Spiderman was demanding my attention. "Mommy! Mommy!" he whispered, "Mommy! Mommy? Are you on the phone? Can I talk to Daddy? Mommy!"
  "Husband," I said into the phone. "I have to go and discuss proper etiquette and respect with our son."
   "Fair thee well," he answered - or something like that.
   I hung up the phone and turned on the eldest offspring.
   "You were very rude, demanding, and interrupting," I said. "Dear, there are conse-"
   "No!" he shouted. "I'm not!"
   "Do not interrupt-"
    "I'M NOT AN ANIMAL"
     I blinked. "I'm.... sorry?"
    "I'm not a deer!" He frowned. "Don't call me that! I'm not an animal."
     It took my several seconds to get it. Then I fell over laughing.

     He's a clever one. I never did finish my speech.

Princess: 1, Potty-Training:0

   It was Saturday, the kind of day when the husband mows the lawn while the children watch Thomas and the Mommy plots adventures. Today, we were Potty Training.
   The Princess is 2 + a bit, so there's no reason to continue sinking cash into bulk shipments of Luvs. She is interested in "potty", especially when anyone using one wants privacy. And this week, we purchased a brand new baby doll, who lives on the shelf behind the toilet and awaits the Big Girl who can Use the Potty. So this morning, Mommy prepared.
    We had the apple juice. "When you drink the juice, you will need to potty," I said. "When we need to go, where do we go?"
    "Da-Poddy!" Princess declared.
    "That's right!" I encouraged her brightly. I put her on the potty. Nothing happened. "Uh, wanna get down?" I asked. "We'll try again soon."
    "Yes!" She stepped back into her diaper, walked into the living room. Commence Accident One.
    "Okay," I said, undaunted. I put her in a fresh diaper. "Let's review. Drink Juice. Need potty? Use potty."
    "Poddy!" She grinned.
    "Diaper stays dry."
    "Dry!" she giggled.
    "All right. In ten minutes, we'll use the potty, okay?"
    Ten minutes later, the diaper was wet again.
    "Let's go outside," I said, changing tactics. "We'll wear big girl underwear, okay?"
    "Okay."
    "Mommy!" Spiderman cried. "She's not wearing pants!"
    "That's okay," I said. "We're going to play outside and use the little red potty."
    "Poddy!" Princess ran around in her pink straw hat and underwear. I prayed the neighbors wouldn't peek into our backyard and call Social Services.
    "Ready to go on the potty?" I called five minutes later.
   "Yesh!" She proudly sat down.
   "Wait! Stand up!" I took off the underwear. It was wet.
    She sat on the potty. "Poddy!"
   "Yeah..." I heaved a sigh. "Look, kid, there's one more strategy I've read about, and we could try it...." I scanned the yard. "You can run naked for a few minutes, all right?"
    "Juice!"
    "Yes, you drink the juice. You go on the potty."
    She sat on the potty. Nothing happened. I gave her a cookie anyway. "Good try, I said. "We'll try again in a few minutes, all right?"
    "Okay." She stood next to me and drank her juice while I read Agatha Christie.
    My attention was called away from M. Poirot by the Princess saying, "Is-DIRTY!"
    I looked down.
    "Well.... thank heaven you missed my foot," I said. "We really shouldn't poo wherever we're standing, my darling. Where do we poo?"
    "Is dirty in POTTY!" she declared.
    "Yes." I wiped her down and cleaned up the *ahem*.
    My dear husband opened the door. "Hey..." he said sheepishly. "You know those cookies you bought for the potty training?"
    "Yes." This can't be good.
   "Guess who just accidentally knocked all of them onto the floor?" He gulped. "It was me."
   "Oh."
   Silence.
   "I think we should potty train another day," I said.
   "I concur."
   I'm putting the kids down for Nap and going back to the Orient Express.

I Can't Do Nothing!

"You have several options," my doctor said kindly.
"But the best option," I said, "is to move. This is the plan. I have already started packing. I can move all our belongings to a new home in the next three weeks, have the surgery I need, recuperate for a few days, unpack, settle, and get my son started at his new school by August 13th."
"You... could do that," he said.
"You don't think I can?"
"I don't doubt your ability," he said. "But you need to realize there is more than one option."
"Very well." I scribbled 'Scenario #1' in my notebook. "What other option do you see?"
"You could do nothing."
"Come again?"
"Nothing," he said kindly. "You could not move. You could rest, in your home, for the summer while recuperating from - let me remind you - major surgery."
"I don't understand."
"You could do nothing," he went on, "and find another school option for your son."
I stared at the blank page. "What is this... 'do nothing' of which you speak?"


 Of the Seven Deadly Sins, I have never feared Sloth. I have feared Murder often, as when something gets in the way of my plans. And speaking of plans....
   
   I was going to move to Mooresville this summer. I was going to take Life by the throat drag it along after me while I gathered new piano students, sold a house, unpacked the china, chased the children, and prepped for my son's first year of school. *sniff!*
    I was going to do a lot of things.
   The only way that I learn, apparently, is for the Lord God to smack me with a 2x4. This week, I am picking the metaphorical splinters out of my teeth.
   On Wednesday, I took my children to church, and met with the babysitter who kept them busy while I decorated a room for VBS (with wall decals that I created myself). I met with my co-teacher, divided up the work for next week, cleaned up the debris, gathered the children, made a quick stop to deliver cookies to a friend, and grabbed Wendy's on the way home. Then I put my daughter down for her nap, left Spiderman to play chess with the babysitter, scrubbed the kitchen, tidied the downstairs, vacuumed, and showered in the twelve minutes remaining. Then I woke the daughter, loaded everyone back in the car, dropped the babysitter off with many grateful thanks, took the children to play at a friend's house, came home, and finished preparing for my piano lessons. Then I taught the piano lessons (and not like a brainless maniac).  And while I ate leftovers, I cleaned the upstairs bathrooms and picked up the kids' rooms because the realtor arrived to look over our house at seven. Then I looked over the paperwork, put the children to bed for the night, talked over our options, baked cookies, fed and thanked the realtor, waved goodbye when he left at nine, poured myself a glass of wine --

    -- and burst into tears.

   My dear husband had the good sense to stay on the far side of the kitchen.
   "Would you like a hug?" he asked.
   "NO!" I shouted. "I - am not - sad! I am angry!" I remembered that I needed protein and grabbed a knife and the cheddar.
   "Um..." he gently took it from me. "Let me slice the cheese all right?"
   "Ok-ay," I sobbed.
   "Why are you angry?"
   "Because!" I started to wave angrily and realized I ought to put the wine down first. "I can't do it all! I can't do everything in the next three weeks!"
   "I see," he said.
   "We are going to have to stay here another year!"
   "That does seem to be the wisest option."
   "I was okay with this stupid surgery!" I bawled (for new readers, let me explain that I am not a pretty crier. If you have ever seen a tomato sweating, it's about the same thing). "It was taking away my options, but NOW!" I hiccuped. "Now, it's messing with my - SCHEDULE!"
    "I see," he said, offering the cheese. "Let's go sit down."
    "I'm not sad yet," I fumed. "I'm still angry. My son won't get to go to the private school, and it's all my fault because I needed a surgery!"
    "I will point out, for the record, that your hysterectomy will in no way be your fault," the dear man said. "Spiderman will be just fine. He's not even five yet. We can home school for a year and reevaluate next year."
    "And you'll still waste two hours every day stuck in traffic! We were supposed to move so you wouldn't have the same awful commute for another year!"
   "I don't mind."
   "Well, what am I supposed to do?" I asked the universe in general. "What am I supposed to do... just... do... NOTHING?!"

    I really hate losing control. I hate crying, raising my voice, and spilling wine on the linoleum. What I want to be is that woman whose godly spirit shines through even in the worst of trials. Instead, I find that all it takes to bring the sin of Anger out of me is for circumstances to mess with my carefully laid plans.
    I write this, not to beg for your sympathy, but to beg you to whack me with a 2x4 when I start to slip into hubris again. Because the sin the Lord hates first, according to Proverbs, is Pride. I cannot seem to learn what it is to let go of my pride and ask only for faith for each new day, but I am very certain that my God will not stop teaching it to me.
   So pray with me, and for me, that I will learn whatever lesson I must (because I'm really, really tired of having surgery. The hospital apparently does not have a 'Buy Three surgeries, Get One Free!' policy).
   I won't really be doing 'Nothing'. I have a a son to read to, a little girl whose hair is in constant need of braiding, two cats who demand constant affection, a husband who appreciates my attempts at cooking, piano students who need to be scolded for their technique - the list goes on.
   Tomorrow, I shall not go "to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business "... because I will be busy teaching VBS.  More than that, I do not know what will happen tomorrow. I only know that, if the Lord wills, I will survive VBS. 
   And then I will survive the laundry and the coordinating of babysitters for a six-week recovery. And, Lord willing, I will survive the surgery and the long days of being stuck in bed. Lord willing, another year will teach me to bloom where I'm planted and will bring a host of blessings to our home.
   Don't whip out the address books, friends, because the Hodge B&B will still be here. At least, it is here for today. Lord willing.
    
    

The Adventures of Spiderman and the Princess: Internal Logic vs. Emotional Attachment

   My daughter, the Princess, is going through a blanket stage. I know that this is not unusual in a two-year-old, but it is new to me. My eldest son, Spiderman, is attached to a particular quilt, but only at bedtime. Princess, however, has taken to dragging her polka-dotted blankie Linus-style (i.e. everywhere).
   Unfortunately for the Princess, her brother has a finely tuned sense of internal logic. Things go where they go, and stay where they ought. This is so important to Spiderman that he routinely helps Princess to clean her room and put away her toys, even when she has grown wise enough to stand solemnly and watch him do the work for her. "See?" he says happily, "We are cleaning up!"
   "Yes," I answer, "You are." Then Princess rolls her eyes at me and puts one toy away.
   This modus operandi has worked well enough for Spiderman's four and a half years of life, so I haven't discouraged him. A healthy sense of logic can be useful -
     - that is, until one's baby sister starts dragging a blanket about in a fit of pure madness.

    I found them standing in the music room, caterwauling.
    "MYYYY! MYYYY!" Princess shrieked, hanging onto her fuzzy green blanket.
    "NOOO!" Spiderman cried, pulling the other end in a desperate tug of war. "IT'S A BLANKET! IT GOES ON YOUR BED!"
    "MINE!" Princess bawled. "LEGGO-A-MY!"
    "LET ME HELP YOU!" Spiderman wept.
    "STOP YELLING!" I yelled.

    I managed to separate them into two separate heaps of sobbing.
    "My!" Princess said.
    "You have your blanket," I said, "Stop crying."
     She sniffled in a beautifully pitiful fashion.
    "What are you doing?" I demanded of Spiderman.
    "I-was-helping-the-blanket-on-her-bed!" he stammered.
    "Well, she wants to carry it around," I said. "She has the right to misuse her own blanket."
    Spiderman began to cry again.
    "I appreciate that you were trying to help," I explained, "but girls react badly when you assault them and rip away their emotional attachments. You need to know this."
    "MY!" Princess stated and cried harder than her brother on principle.
    "Who wants to watch Curious George?" I asked brightly.

    Four minutes later, they were cuddled gleefully together while the Man in the Yellow Hat left his monkey unattended yet again. Irony loves parenting, for I was begged to bring the big fuzzy blue blanket at once. Then both Spiderman and the Princess insisted on my spreading it across the couch so they might share it.

   This week, I'm going to teach my daughter to clean up after herself. Wish me luck.