Shields and Warriors

 I'm not at all sure when Anxiety became part of my every day life. I would love to say it was when Dean was little and we faced such big struggles with him. I would love to pin point and say "this was the moment it all changed for me." 

I can't though. It drives me nuts if I can be honest. 

Today, friends asked if we wanted to meet up at the Library, about 25 minutes away, a place we have been so many times, a place I used to work at. I could tell you how to get there. I love that Library. Today is also Monday and for the month of May you can get free coffee from Dunkin on Mondays (you're welcome for that one). It took forever, but we finally loaded up and got everyone in the car and I headed to get my free coffee before taking everyone to the Library. While on the way there, the temperature gauge on the van steadily crept higher and higher. 

All of a sudden it felt hard to breathe and I was having a hard time focusing. My leg started to do that leg jiggle thing it does when I get anxious. And all I could think was "I know I said I would meet friends at the Library, but I want to go home. I want to go home I want to go home." 

So we did. 

I pulled into the driveway with the kids and explained I wanted Daddy to look at the van before we did anything, that I just felt anxious. That sometimes we do hard things (even if seems simple to others) but sometimes we don't have to push ourselves and do hard things. We talked about how my body was scared and I didn't want to spend our time at the Library feeling that way. My wonderful kids climbed out of the van and act snacks on the front lawn in the sun while I texted my friends. I texted Blair. Any time the van acts off in any way, even if I know what to do, it makes my whole body feel off. It makes me panic. 

There are some things that struck me about this whole thing today though. 

One, I love my people. I love my friends, so much. I love that while I struggle with these every day simple things they have never once made me feel bad about it. They have all been amazing and supportive and honestly, I don't know how other people do their lives alone. I also appreciate that my friends, while they respect what happens in my head and what it looks like for my life, they challenge it. Sometimes it IS time to do the hard things and suck it up. I love that they can tell when those times are and when its ok to let me have those moments. "Come anyways, you need to", or "Well fine then, I'm showing up at your house" or "Hey friend, we understand, it's ok"...I can't believe these are my friends...

Two, I get frustrated with myself. I am simultaneously so happy we are home and so disappointed in myself...I don't want my life or my kids lives ruled by Anxiety. My own or their own. It doesn't get to win. And today it feels like it won. I have worked very hard for over a year to get a handle on some of these bigger feelings. I have been in therapy and I am unashamedly on anti-anxiety medications. I am openly talking about it when I can. And I am not glossing over the fact that this a war waged with the ruler of this world. Between me, Jesus, and the medicines and knowledge we have been given, I am fighting this. So the days when it feels like I'm not winning? I just want to sit and cry for a little while. 

Three, one of the best things about homeschooling my kids is that we have a lot of freedom. Field trips and day trips and whatever else we want, we can do it. I want to have adventures with my kids. I want to feel brave again. I don't though. I don't feel brave. I feel like the only reason I do take my kids places is because of those aforementioned friends. Driving any where over an hour from my house feels...impossible. The people who pay the price of this more often than not, are my own kids. This seems very unfair to them...

On these bad days I try to think about when this really started. This Anxiety that I held to my chest and begged God to take. I remember the summer when Dean was a baby and how scared I was that one mistake would kill him. I remember the injections and medication schedules. The immense pressure I felt as a mother to a small baby with a heart condition. Not to mention a not even two yet toddler. I remember those long days and the friends even then who showed up. For play dates, for support, to help me. I remember calling a friend for help during a panic attack, she showed up and gave me Rescue Remedies and helped me calm down so I could take care of my kids. I remember calling my mother...multiple times asking for her help. I remember the first family vacation we took and having a panic attack from one place to another because I was overwhelmed by how many people we were around. 

I wish I had gotten help then. I wish I had started therapy then. I should have. 

The course of my life has shifted and moved. We learn and adapt, we try new things and handle the next thing. This is just another part of my story. Just one more thing I am working through. Even if I have a hard time accepting that its ok. It's ok to need space, ok to need a moment, ok that some days I don't push myself to do the hard things. It's never been an excuse to me though, and I am more thankful for the people who don't let it become an excuse. 

I never in my wildest dreams as a teen thought that I would label myself as an anxious person. I never thought I would have panic attacks and I find it ironic that in my twenties I was put in places where I walked other people through theirs. I hate how out of control it makes me feel. How off my entire body feels during and after one. I hate the...triggers. I am starting to be able to pin point them and work to combat them, but some days they still get to me. 

It will not always be this way in my head. It will NOT. 

Above my sink, every day while I'm doing dishes, I see the verse 2 Chronicles 20:15 on a tin sign that my best friend sent to me when Dean was a baby. "The Battle is not yours, but God's."

I am, beyond grateful, for God who is in my corner, helping me battle this, and the friends He sends along as shields and warriors on the days I feel beaten by it. 

Anxiety can feel so stupidly isolating. 

But here is the truth, I am not alone in the war I'm waging on my own thought processes. 

And I find immense comfort in that...

The Gift of Authenticity

 I came down to my desk today while Daisy was napping to get some work done on some commission pieces. But I remembered I needed to send an email and then I remembered I had a blog in my head and now I want to write. 

Lately I have felt a stirring in my heart and soul. Something coming up, something mixing around in there. A call to be more involved, to be studying, to be reading. A shift in what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. Not only to disciple myself, but my children. I am not satisfied with Sunday Morning mediocrity right now. If my Bible isn't open in the days between Church, I just don't feel like I'm doing it right. 

I want more. For me, and for our kids. 

As I think more and more about what I want for my kids and for us as a family, I can't help but think about my own parents, my mom and my dad. 

Both would admit to not having all the answers, both would admit to being sinners in need of Jesus, just like me. Recently some conversations about authenticity have come up in my life. What does it look like? Who are the authentic people in your life and what characteristics do they have? What makes you want to be around those people? Would you consider yourself to be an authentic person? Would you consider me to be authentic? 

When I think about my parents and the faith that they each showed me, I would consider both of them to be authentic people. I'm not sure I appreciated it as much as I should have when I was younger. In my skewed sense and own misperceptions I'm sure I felt they were "hypocritical" at times. But then, I think I threw that term around like confetti at a party without really taking to heart what I was saying. My parents were the same person at church on Sunday as they were on a Thursday night. If you came to our house and Mama was mad? She was still mad. She didn't stop being mad because someone else was there and might see her be mad. My Dad was still the grouchy looking guy on Sunday morning that he was on a Friday night. I saw them be mad, I saw them cry with people who held grief, I saw them fight for people who needed someone to fight for them. I saw them pray. Deep heartfelt prayers to an audience of one. It didn't matter if we were praying before dinner or together in the living room, they were talking to Jesus, and I knew that. 

I don't know if my siblings feel the same way I do. They all have their own perceptions, opinions, and life experiences that I may not have. The parents that had my oldest brother are vastly different than the parents who had me or my youngest sister. Their ideas changed and they grew with each of us. Of that, I think all of my siblings can agree. 

Now I have kids of my own. And this has changed so much about me...but in all the best ways. I have benefitted so much from the way motherhood has shaped me. The mom I was when I had Ellie is different than the mom I am now with older kids who are able to do things on their own, but who still has two little toddler girls who require much of me, still. 

As Ellie gets older I am starting to think about who I want to be when she is  32 years old and thinking about her own childhood and her own memories. 

I want my kids to see me as the same person Sunday morning as the person I am on a Wednesday afternoon, or a Thursday night when I'm exhausted. I never want my kids to feel like I put on an act in Church on a Sunday morning. I long for and seek out authenticity. 

I want to pray over and out loud with my kids as much as I do my friends. I want to talk about the Bible with them, share what I've been reading and the way it shapes me. I want to make sure they know the deep truths of the Word, the way Jesus loves them. I can teach them math, and history, science and geography, how to read and write, but if I'm not teaching them about theology, and Jesus...am I really doing my job? Am I really being authentic? 

I am not perfect, nor do I want to be, the last guy who was, know what they did to Him? No thanks man. But I do want to be as like Him as I can get. He is good and kind and patient and gentle and had so much self-control. I want to be so rooted into Jesus that the fruits of that spill out of my life in the most beautiful ways, starting here in my home, with my kids. I won't do it right. That's not self-deprecating, its just the truth. 

I feel like there are all these things we try to do to give our kids a good future as well as a good childhood. There are plenty of things I do differently than my parents. I am not my mother, nor am I my father, but. I am thankful for the people that they were and are. For the way they taught me to be part of a community, to love, to feed, to welcome people in my house. For being the same person on a Sunday morning when they were annoyed with us all for making them late, to a Tuesday night when my Dad called us all into the living room to pray out loud with one another. For my moms tenderness, for my Dads strength of conviction. For both of them admitting when they were wrong and trying to learn better ways. For the laughter and the worship. 

I am thankful for the authenticity my parents gave us, gave me. And my prayer is that I can give that same authenticity to my children. In all my sin and mistakes and issues, I know that I can admit, ask forgiveness and move forward.    

My mom was here with us in March and something has stuck with my since she's gone back home. She came to our co-op one day, helped watch the babies, was there when we sang our songs, read our devotional, corralled children. She pulled me aside and told me "Your Daddy would have loved this, he'd be so proud." I felt disorganized and loud and silly and she'd seen me holler at my kids, and here was, telling me how proud she was, how proud he would be. That day, there didn't feel like there was anything for her or for him to be proud of. I was simply living my life...

Yet there is something precious about letting people get a glimpse into your life in a beautiful and real way. No changing. No pretending. No acting like I have it together when I for sure do not. 

So come on over, any day of the week. If there are crumbs from cracker packets on the floor so be it. If there are dishes in the sink, so be it. The person I am on a Sunday morning is the person I am here in my home, loud and joyful and silly and compassionate. When I raise my hands in worship on Sunday, I raise them in my kitchen too. When I pull you into a hug to pray for you at Church, I do the same for my kids in our living room. 

I decided I want my kids to see me live a life of authenticity, I have to be willing to be vulnerable enough to be that way. It's not easy. The desire to hide the messy is always there. Heaven forbid you know I'm grumpy at my husband (which happens y'all, I love him, but he's a man. And men are sometimes....well. They're just men!), or that I haven't folded the laundry, or I left dishes in the sink, or that I narrowly avoided a panic attack right before you showed up (that actually happened this weekend when a friend asked if she could come by!), or there is cracker crumbs literally all over my living room. It all gets cleaned, I promise. This is not me advocating a house that is falling apart on you, but for allowing the small bits that don't matter, to be that: small things, that don't matter. 

People won't remember the laundry or the messes. They'll remember being welcomed. They'll remember being fed. They'll remember being loved. The same way everyday, no matter where I am, or what I'm doing. 

I don't remember all the times my parents messed up. I know they did. I know sometimes they yelled and it was loud and people got upset. But I remember that there was never any pretense. We didn't actually have to pretend. 

That's what I want for our kids. A life of authenticity, where they don't have to hide how they feel, not even from me. Because when they learn to be authentic with me, they will learn to be authentic with their Savior. 

And I can think of no sweeter gift to give them. 

                                 

Grace Valley

 It's pretty amazing to me how long this blog has lasted. It's also interesting to see the way my life has ebbed and flowed, the years when I wrote all the time and the years that it was slower. 

Every now and again I go back and re-read some of these. That can be both good and bad. Memories are so incredibly powerful, our stories and our lives are shaped by the way they are carved into our hearts. 

Right now I wonder what I should even be writing about. What do I even have to offer?                 

My days are filled with mothering. There are still diapers to wipe, toilets to clean, there is always dishes and I don't understand why or how there is so much laundry. We still have a strict nap time, I'm still convincing my kids we have to bathe every now and again, and don't even get me started on the dinner time struggles I encounter. 

Nothing about being a mother is what I thought it would be like. The daily struggles, the worries, the issues and behaviors I am up against. Seeing too frequently an older generation that glorifies and romanticizes a time  that is past. Feeling so inadequate in the face of technology, emotional needs, and the constant unrelenting feeling that I am not measuring up. 

Also, I'm homeschooling, so if my kids are dumb, that's on me now too. 

As I talk with more and more friends, as we build our community I am in awe of how much I need real life friendships and face to face connections. The internet is not and never has been, enough. 

There is a comfort in Friday night pizza nights. With kids running everywhere, a hot stove, extra salad, and finding ways to love one another in hard seasons. The routines keep me looking forward, not just to the next week, but the next few years. I know that the friendships my kids make will be good and helpful, the same goes for me. When I am connected to these friendships I tap into the parts of Maddie who was Maddie before she was a mother. That part of me still exists, these friendships solidify that one day, when my kids move on from me, I will still know how to make and keep, friends.

Every week we meet on Thursdays for a co-op full of women and families that only God could bring together. There is joy and discipline. There is teaching and learning and stretching. Grace Valley is not just a place, it is a mindset, a comfort, a blanket of security and joy in a world that is shoving information down my throat. I find so much peace there amongst my friends. They help me to be a better mother in all aspects. I bake more, play outside more, pray more, and get down on my kids levels because of these women. Because of the strength and community I find there. 

There is a comfort in knowing that any of them are a phone call away. In knowing they showed up to an art show for me, in knowing I would do my best to show up for them. They make these hard days of mothering less lonely. Five women with such different parenting styles, homeschooling styles, and even life styles and we still make time to hang out together. 

This is not something I stumbled into either. I worked for it. I think I worked hard for it. As often as I have asked for help I try to extend a hand to any of them. As often as I have asked for prayer from them, I have been willing to offer up my prayers for them. 

People like to bring up how "it takes a village" and its true, I believe that. I also think we don't acknowledge how hard it is to find and make that community. How many tries it takes. How vulnerable you have to be. How you have to be willing to show up, on both sides, the giving and taking part of things. No one knows you need help unless you ask. No one will ask unless you show a willingness to help.  

As I went back today and looked at some old blog posts, I found a comment on one of them from my Dad. He said something he said a lot to us kids during his life...that Relationships are what are truly important. 

He was a smart man my Daddy. Because the relationships with my Grace Valley moms? Those are ones I'm taking to Heaven with me. And I couldn't imagine my life without them...