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The Worst Advice I ever Followed

Posted in GOD, Marriage, WONDER, tagged Advice, Marriage, Submission on May 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Advice must be the most free-flowing thing out there! There’s advice on our tellies, there’s advice at work, there’s advice from our computers, there’s advice from friends, hubby’s, and (of course) our mother’s, and, once one reaches the archaic age that I have reached, one receives (unsolicited) advice from our kids!

Sometimes advice is good, sometimes bad, and, mostly, ignored! (why is is that I always seem to ignore the good advice, and follow the bad? Will someone out there please give me advice … just realize I will probably not follow if it is good).

I live my life determined to NOT REGRET the choices that I make in life. That does not mean I do not make errors in my choice-making. It just means that when I make a decision, I believe that, in the end there will be good from it, even if the only good is character-shaping (and man, have I provided character-shaping from my life’s decisions). And, if I did make a rotten decision, with adverse affects on my, well, my mantra to myself is always, ‘suck it up buttercup’, or ‘you made your bed, you lie in it’!

There is one time, though, that still haunts me. It wasn’t just the advice that was the problem, but the source of that advice. And, every time I am reminded of it, I wish I could kick myself squarely in the behind!

It happened a number of years ago.

My hubby was in the midst of a period of professional decision-making, and, as any wifey knows, job-related decision-making by hubby will have a ripple-down affect on said wifey. And I was not in a ripple-down frame of mind!

It was becoming more and more obvious that he was ready to make his decisions, but that he was awaiting my frame of mind to swing to his side of the brain (a near impossible feat for any female brain cells to do). I always hate it when hubby is certain of a decision, because he becomes a not-so-subtle salesman, and I HATE salesmen! (just so you know, he is not usually in this ‘salesman’ frame of mind … only when I am on the ‘other’ side of an issue)

So, I sought advice from someone that we both knew, had enjoyed learning from, and he even had professional counseling experience. I told him my quandary, and awaited his words of wisdom …

“The Bible says for wives to submit to your husband, maybe this is an area where you need to do this.”

Okay, ladies … do … NOT … load … your … guns!

I do need to admit that I chose to say ‘obey’ in my vows. I am not against the concept of submission! As a matter of fact, in my idealistic, fully female brain (heart and soul), I do believe that marriage works better if submission is involved. But, what I have come to know and understand more fully, about submission, since taking the ‘bad’ advice, is that it goes both ways! It is mutual submission that is required of us, and that my requirement of submission to my husband, is as serious a Biblical and mariatial commitment as his requirement to love me … as Christ loves the Church!

Ladies, this is where we’ve got the easier part! And ladies, who are not married, if the love in your life (now, or in the future) is not willing to love you as much as Christ loves the Church (remember Good Friday? Christ loves the Church THAT much), dump him like yesterdays news!

Now, I’m gonna go off on a little ‘momma advice tangent’ here …

If he loves you that much …

-he will honor your body ’til he’s committed to you at the alter (HIS sacrifice … well, maybe yours too, but, if he’s really loving you like he’s supposed to … hands off!)

-he will not hurt you … period! Okay, hurts will inadvertently happen, but his decision-making will be focused on honoring you! And that, baby girls, does not hurt!

-he will desire to know you. Now don’t go, goin’ all biblical on me with the sexual connotations of ‘knowing’ you … he will strive to know you, better than he knows his favorite sport team, better than the latest political polls, better than the names of every vehicle that drives by … because Christ knows His church like the back of his nail-pierced hand! And your sweetie is required to know you like that!

-he will love you to the point of death. Sounds a little over the top, I know, but Christ is the example here, and that’s the distance He is willing to go for you.

But, I digress …

So the advice I took, and the advice-giver …

He was (probably still is) a very profession-focused, successful, well celebrated Christian man. Who, in the years following, after profession-seeking thousands of miles from his family (wife and children), was divorced. His children, I am sure, profoundly, affected.

In his drive to achieve his PERSONAL professional goals, which he did, he lost sight of the second part of the biblical reference he had quoted to me. And, in the meantime, lost the most intimate relationship, the most grand opportunity to follow Christ’s model. The one earthly relationship that Christ so values, that He uses most often as a metaphor His love for us.

So, I am still kicking myself in the behind, but …

So, my character is still being shaped, and I have no regrets, and I learned a lesson or two, and the bed I’ve made, well I lie in it … but it’s not so bad …

^“Wives,

understand and support your husbands in ways that show your support for Christ.

The husband provides leadership to his wife the way Christ does to his church,

not by domineering but by cherishing.

So just as the church submits to Christ as he exercises such leadership,

wives should likewise submit to their husbands.

Husbands,

go all out in your love for your wives, exactly as Christ did for the church

—a love marked by giving, not getting.

Christ’s love makes the church whole.

His words evoke her beauty.

Everything he does and says is designed to bring the best out of her,

dressing her in dazzling white silk, radiant with holiness.

And that is how husbands ought to love their wives.

They’re really doing themselves a favor—since they’re already “one” in marriage.”

Ephesians 5:22-28

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This is Home

Posted in canada, FAMILY, GOD, life, Love, The Kids, WONDER, tagged Future, Home, Life, Wonder on April 25, 2011| 2 Comments »

I write this on April 22, as I am looking out past the lanai, at the sun rising over the houses, reflecting in the pond behind out condo. It is 7:30am, and everyone else is asleep. Ahhhhh!

I have been here, with my oldest daughter, in North Port, Florida (the sunny, turquoise water, Gulf Coast), visiting my hubby, son and youngest daughter, for five sleeps now. They left home, on hubby’s sabbatical, to drive here (from British Columbia … can you see me making the ‘L’ for loser sign on my forehead?). We had all been apart for almost four weeks, when my oldest and I arrived.

In just one and a half sleeps (it’s one and a HALF because the flight leaves at 7am, meaning I’ll need to be at the airport at 5am, meaning the alarm clock will need to be set for … I so don’t want to entertain that!), my daughters and I will board a plane in Orlando, Florida and head back to the Northwest, land in Seattle, and then head to the great north, to the place we call home.

But what is home? Where is home? How can I be sure?

Recently there was a study released of the Best Place in Canada to live 2011. And the four places I have lived were on that list (I always check, because I have them prioritized in my head, but it is fun to see if someone else agrees with me).

Currently I live in Langley, BC … and it is so beautiful! And it was rated #44 … out of 180! I’d say that was pretty good for a place that has everything a person could need or want, in the Vancouver area, and is littered with farms and greenhouses … nice contrast. Our son, Ben, was born here. From the hospital, high on a hill, we could look down on the valley and watch the fog lift in the morning. This is all Ben knows of home.

Prior to Langley, I lived in North Vancouver, it was rated #98. I think it’s good marks must have come from it’s proximity to Vancouver, because it was certainly not it’s affordability! Nonetheless, in the summer, it is the most beautiful place to live (in the winter, you need anti-depressants just to get out of bed). Our youngest daughter, Cris, was born here, early in April, with Magnolia trees, full of blossoms, surrounding the hospital.

Then there was Orleans … and it was rated, for the second year in a row (as part of Ottawa-Gatineau) as #1! This is the home where hubby came to the conclusion that hell is not hot, but cold (-50 windchill will do that for you. Imagine, living in a winter wonderland where tobogganing could result in frost bite … before even taking one run down the hill). Our oldest daughter, Brytt, was born here, just across the street was the autumn colored, trees, lining the Rideau Canal. This was the home, that felt most like home, as so few in Ottawa-Gatineau are from there, so everyone is from ‘somewhere else’, and everyone strives to make it home, for each other.

And then, the only home I knew until I was 21 (and that was half a lifetime ago!), #11 … out of 180, Moncton, New Brunswick! Okay, so I didn’t actually live in Moncton, but a village (my kids think it is hilarious that I grew up in a ‘village’ … their only knowledge of ‘village’ comes from the Shrek movies … quite a comparison!), just minutes down the highway. Only about 1600 people lived in the village … and, believe me, everyone there knew everything about anyone there! It was a great place to grow up, with four distinct, equal seasons (maybe not so equal this year, though). And there are so many wooded areas, you never see bears while out for a walk! (or snakes, for that matter)

But, what is home? Where is home? How can I be sure?

Hubby and I have often talked about moving to sunny San Diego, California, once our youngest graduates high school. You see, we chose Langley as our home, way back when our oldest was in kindergarten. We liked what the community could offer to a young family. We thought it would be good to ensure our kids would grow up knowing, as we did, a sense of hometown. So, we chose Langley as their hometown, and have trusted that God would provide meaningful employment for us. And He has.

The rain, the dark, endless winters (aka. monsoon season) of the Lower Mainland drive me crazy! And I pray for release from this wet, dark bondage.

But, I am starting to see a flaw in our long range dream of moving to San Diego, once the kids are done school. We have worked so hard to develop ‘hometown’ for them, in Langley, BC, that if we move, they will probably stay. All of a sudden, we are faced with ‘home’ without our kids. Now that is not so unusual, nor is it bad, but …

what is home?

where is home?

At one point in our lives it was more narrow, more black and white. It was owning a house. Living in a nice community, that was safe, and family-friendly. It meant finding one school that all of our kids would graduate from.

Here, on the sunny Gulf Coast of Florida, with Palm Trees swaying in the breeze, I am coming to the realization that ‘home’ is where-ever we are, as a family. For this week, home is in a condo, in Florida. Next week, home will be in Langley, BC, for three of us. And from Florida, to Dallas, to San Diego (hello Legoland), to Oregon and everything in between will be home, for a time, for the guys in our family.

We have such fond memories of all of the places we have called home, and, in the words of Maya Angelou, “You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s alright.”

April 24, 2011

As a postscript, today, my daughters and I were driving North from SeaTac Airport. As our vehicle crossed the US Canada border this above song starts playing, and doesn’t go unmissed by any of us …

“And now, after all my searching,

After all my questions,

I’m gonna call it home.

I got a brand new mindset,

I can finally see the sunset,

I’m gonna call it home.

Maybe this is home … “

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Drinking in Their Scent

Posted in Love, The Hubby, The Kids, WONDER, tagged Adventure, dog, Life, Love, poo, Scent, Waiting, Women, Wonder on April 19, 2011| 3 Comments »

I have experience the longest four weeks of my life, with hubby, our son, and youngest daughter away on an adventure! The feeling has been similar to the expectancy of the birth of a baby, or the waiting for your wedding day! And, with all three of these times of waiting, they culminate with embracing, words of love and drinking in their scent, which you know so intimately as belonging to someone who is yours.

Kind of like … dogs. You know, you take your beast for a walk, and are walking towards another person and their beast. Both people say ‘hi’, and the beasts … well they go for the sniff and lick … seriously, THAT is something I can’t wait to get to heaven and ask God that most theological of questions … ‘why do dogs sniff each other’s butts?’ But I digress.

But really, the familiarity of a scent, that is the evidence of an intimate relationship.

To inhale their scent, that, to a mom, says they are mine. I remember one other time when hubby was away, and, on the phone I told him that I missed his scent. His response was to pass gas, so I could at least hear it … we are so from two very different planets! Believe me, there are some scents that, as a woman, I could never miss! (I know this is a universal woman thing too … a few weeks back, my daughter says, ‘Mom, I so miss having girls with me … my brother had a chili dog today … and I’m confined to the car with the effects of it!’).

bad smell

We may know many people, and we might even know their cologne, or perfume, or hand lotion, or even soap, but to know their individual scent … your relationship has to be closer, more physical, more intimate.

When I go to the East Coast to visit my family, it is not just my mother’s embrace that holds me to her, but her familiar scent. I cannot imagine anything forcing the memory of the scent of my mom from my mind.

I am sure I could be blindfolded, and still be able to identify those most intimately connected to me, by sniffing their necks (okay, it would also be easy to identify hubby, as his is covered with whiskers).

Now, don’t get me wrong, we are not just sitting around sniffing each other. We will talk, we will hug (we are ‘huggers’), we will play, we will travel, we will see sights, we will go to the beach (I wonder if the South East Beach smells like a North East beach? I swear I can still be one hundred miles from the East Coast, and I can smell it … home). But those first moments, those first hours together, it is our sense of smell that was and will be most keenly reunited.

“Everyday, you make me smile.

Everyday, you make me glad to be a mother.

Everyday, you make a memory I’ll never want to forget.

Everyday, I’m more thankful than the day before that you are my little boy/girl.

Everyday, I smell your hair and touch your skin

and wonder

how I ever lived my life without you.

Everyday.”

Unknown Author

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Unfinished

Posted in canada, FAMILY, GOD, life, Love, The Kids, women, WONDER, tagged Aging, Distance, FAMILY, father / mother, Fears, Future, Hope, Illness, Life, Love, Unfinished., Unknown, Wonder on April 12, 2011| 3 Comments »

This one is gonna be a long one, because it is the culmination of a handful of blog entries that are still only drafts, they are … unfinished. So grab your coffee, or tea (from the unfinished blog entry ‘Re-Boiled Tea’, oh, and that’s for you mom … everyone who blogs knows that if no other person on the face of the earth reads your blogs, mom does … and dad, so get your glass of milk), and, of course, chocolate, and snuggle into your seat, it’s going to be a long one (if I get it ‘finished’)!

Now, where do I start? I know how to finish (I can finish the cake, finish reading the book, finish the chocolate, finish the yard work, finish the candy, but I digress). But starting can be more difficult.

I am not a news-lover! As a matter of fact, with hubby gone now for two weeks, the TV REMOTE is gathering dust! Oh, I spent countless hours enjoying reno. and do-it-yourself shows, but, my (undiagnosed) ADD (this is from the unfinished blog entry ‘My Daughter says I have ADD’) can stand TV for only so long!

I do love good news, though. And, recently I heard really good news.

My dad has been sick much of this past winter. He easily gets respiratory infections, pneumonia anything to do with lungs and breathing, he’s had it! He’s been admitted to hospital, drugged through the winter season with an assortment of medications that have been equally successful and failure in improving his condition, and had a butt-load of medical tests and procedures to uncover the root of his problems.

When there is ‘stuff’ going on in the lives of my family, I am so keenly aware of how far the east is from the west (from the unfinished blog entry of the same name). They live on the east coast, and I, on the west. They can watch the sun rise out of the Atlantic, and I can watch it set in the Pacific. They ‘get to have’ (they do not necessarily appreciate this privilege, as they got snow on April 1st this year … April Fools!) snow in the winter, and I suffer (and everyone around me suffers in my vocal suffering) with a season called Monsoon Season. On the East Coast you can buy coastal properties for under $100,000, on the west coast coastal properties are too expensive to hotel at! On the east coast the humor is dry and sarcastic (from the unfinished blog ‘We Have Sarcasm Themed Dinners’ … Seriously!), on the west coast, humor is … shipped in from the east 😉 And, I digress, again!

Truly, living so far away is a sucky bummer (from the unfinished blog entry of the same name … you’re gonna love that one). There is no popping over for a ‘mom talk’, there is no being there for birthdays, and Father’s Day, and bumping into brothers at the mall, and having a house full of my kid’s cousins. There is also no spending occasions with cheek squeezing auntie (where I come from aunts is not pronounced ‘ants’. Ants crawl on the floor, but my aunts … hum, maybe this reasoning doesn’t work so well!), or that creepy uncle (lets face it, every family has at least one relative that is the personification of ‘creepy’) … hum, there are some benefits of living on the opposite coast 😉 .

So this week I heard good news, after all of the tests my dad has been going through, the results are in, and he is okay. No cancer (a relief, as his dad suffered with lung cancer before he died), no pneumonia, no nothing really, except for a virus that he had picked up while in the hospital, at some point. Apparently this virus will be residing in him, as long as he’s residing on planet Earth, and is not problematic unless it flares, but there is good, reliable medication for it that.

Ahhhhh! Good News is so Good!

And so, we all continue living our unfinished lives, in our temporary homes (from the unfinished blog of the same name). It makes me wonder, as I always do when confronted with news (good or bad) … what is the lesson, what is there to learn from this? I figure if something is going to get my heart rate up, or cause me to sweat, or make me laugh hysterically, or cry from the depths of my soul, or make me shake with anger … there must be something to learn from it (whatever ‘it’ is), that I can benefit from. Sometimes it is so much easier to see the ‘benefit’ than others, when it seems to only be a lesson, and a hard one at that.

It’s sort of like when a child touches something hot, after being told not to … that is a hard lesson, and, for the child, who is crying because her hand hurts, the idea of ‘benefit’ from the lesson goes unseen. But, as an adult, we can see that the lesson, although painful, has benefit, as the child will not enter into that danger again. Hum, I guess our experience provides a bigger perspective.

Kind of like our lives. But we are the child. We have ‘stuff’ in life that burns our hands, that burns our hearts, and hurts like crazy. We think there is no tomorrow (or wish there was no tomorrow, so that the pain, the agony the hard ‘stuff’ of life would be over). But, what we ‘children’ think we see as complete and whole … God, the bigger-picture seeing parent, sees as unfinished, and He sees a bigger picture.

I wish I had His lens!

But, for now I am thankful that my dad is okay, that his days are unfinished … I guess there is a lesson, something to learn from this … for me, for him, for all of our family. I guess we need to seek out the answer to that, until it is … you know, finished.

^“We don’t yet see things clearly.

We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.

But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright!

We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness,

we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation:

Trust steadily in God,

hope unswervingly,

love extravagantly.

And the best of the three is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:12-13

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A Tale as Old as Time

Posted in GOD, life, Love, The Kids, women, WONDER, tagged Beast, Beauty, Love, Plot, Tale, Wonder on April 8, 2011| Leave a Comment »

“Tale as old as time

True as it can be”

And so begins a song from a story that brings out “ohs and ahs’ in little girls, and makes the boys stick their finger down their throats in a choking gesture.

It really is a tale as old as time (minus the wretched ‘curse’). The person given ‘credit’ for writing this tale is Mme. Leprince de Beaumont, and the date of it’s publish was 1757! But the plot, the story, even predate that! In earlier versions the ‘beast’ is a pig, or a man with black skin who wants it white again (and we think racism is new?), or, get this, one version is called ‘The Girl Who Married A Snake’ … I can’t see that title being a big hit for Disney (and I definitely would not pick that book up)!

But, as old as the story is, the premise has not changed. A lovely lady and an undeserving, beastly man, meet. They spend time together, her loveliness rubs off, then she sees him in a new light, they fall in love … and live ‘happily ever after’ (imagine a sunset, pretty little birds fluttering, stars in each of their eyes … ahhhhhh).

Why does this story so appeal to us that it’s plot lasts hundreds of years? Do we females believe, as Diana in Anne of Green Gables, who said, “it would be nobler to marry some wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him”?

All this makes me wonder, why has this plot, this premise, not been duplicated with role reversal? In other words, would this story fly, would it ‘sell’ if the physical ‘beast’ was the woman, and the ‘beauty’ was the man? Would the man be able to see her beauty from within? Or would he never even give her a second glance? I know from my estrogen-filled body, soul, heart and mind that I would go to a ‘chick’ flick with that story line! This could sell … to females!

But could it happen? Because for such a story to touch us, to grip our very being, there has to be some element of truth in it, some element of ‘this could happen’. So, could it? Could a man choose to see beauty in a visually unappealing lady?

I wonder …

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I Miss My Baby Girl!

Posted in FAMILY, life, Love, The Kids, women, WONDER, tagged Adventure, Girls, humor, Lonely, Love, Wonder on March 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

So, it’s been a week since part of my family left. And, man, have I accomplished lots!

I’ve worked in the garden (freshly laid out grass seeds are currently being drenched by yet another ‘mini’ monsoon), organized ‘piles’ of stuff to put elsewhere (some of us are ‘pilers’ and some of us are … messy), taken a day trip with eldest daughter (you will so be hearing about that trip!) and cleaned the house (a very full, extremely heavy, garbage can was taken to the curb last night … not this morning, as is often the case, when another (male) resident of the house frequently chases the garbage truck down the street, with the can … name withheld to protect the guilty).

It has been a good week!

But the dancing through the house in my undies like Tom Cruise in ‘Risky Business’ (yet another indicator of just how archaic I am, AND an added bonus for those who know me is to now have been given FAR too much information, and a visual that they just do not want) is now past. And I am missing my Baby Girl 😦

It is not that she is the only one I am missing … I do miss her brother and her dad, but tonight when Skype was choppy (grrrrrr!), and she kept getting ‘offlined’ by Facebook … my heart just longed for her. It felt as though she and I needed to be together, and the big, bad technology gods were not letting it happen.

It was one of those momma-longings. I remember when she would be sleeping (finally … let me tell you the moments I am about to share were pretty much non-existent for the first two sleepless years of her life) and I would look in on her and everything within me wanted to pick her up and just ‘drink in’ her unique scent …

By the way, for those first two years I NEVER actually did pick her up … heck, I was so sleep deprived that I rarely checked on her if she was sleeping … sleep was a longing that this momma rarely ever had fulfilled.But, I digress.

Anyway, tonight as I ‘chatted-choppily’ on Skype with her dad and brother, I got this longing for her. Then, when she still hadn’t ‘appeared’ in the conversation, I realized that she might be struggling with the thunderstorm they were having, and I NEEDED MY BABY GIRL. Because, even if the thunderstorm was not bothering her mature Middle School person, it was bothering her momma here that I could not hold her in my arms.

I’m so glad times have changed, and that she doesn’t leave me sleep-deprived anymore (of course I recognize that surely that will re-occur in the years to come). I’m so glad that I am not scared to go and watch her sleep peacefully (this does not happen late at night, as I am old, and she is … adolescent. It happens anytime before noon, but after 6am, when I awaken). I am so glad that, even though she is adolescent (and I am … old) we both need to hold each other.

So, Baby Girl, whether you read this tonight, or tomorrow morning (or, in 10 years, because you think reading your mom’s blog is ‘lame’) I want you to know that when you were in Middle School your mom longed to hold you, and talk to you (and give you hints about what I got you for your birthday), and …

I miss you Baby Girl, sleep well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6QGTKrj97g

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Just a Regular Day?

Posted in FAMILY, GOD, life, Love, Marriage, The Kids, women, WONDER, tagged Hope, Life, Regular, Wonder on March 10, 2011| 3 Comments »

It has been ‘just a regular day’ today …

6am – alarm goes off (but what if it hadn’t?)

7:30am – kids awaken (but what if they hadn’t?)

8:30am – start work (but what if I had no work that I love?)

3:30pm – purchase produce (what if I had no means to do that?)

4:30pm – prepare dinner (what if the cupboards were bare?)

5:30pm – eat dinner with family (what if I had no family?)

10pm – dream bedtime (what if I had no bed?)

There are many ‘what ifs’ in each and every ‘regular’ day. They are the what ifs that, if they were different, if they altered, my regular day would be catastrophic, disheartening, life-changing. I spoke to a teen today, whose uncle (with young children) is dying. No day is ‘regular’ for him, anymore. Today his wife and children wish for a ‘regular’ day again. As an excitement junkie, I can easily become bored with all things regular. But today reminded me that ‘regular’ can mean real, beautiful, satisfying, worth-living-for … LIFE. And it’s better than the alternative.

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