too much, not enough.

Most of my life I have struggled with feeling not enough, or too much. Two extremes, but I think most insecurities can be placed in either category. Too emotional. Not neat enough. Too loud. Not contemplative enough. Too intellectual. Not healthy enough. Too lazy. Not skinny enough. Too much crying. Not motivated enough. And now that I’m a mom, I have a whole other category of insecurities to tack onto the list, and it gets even more irrational. Too uptight. Not uptight enough. Too laid back. Not laid back enough. Too tired. Not able to make the right foods. Too detached (vs. attached parenting). Not able to care about nursing long enough. Too lazy. Not natural enough.

It’s really hard not to live consumed by the fear that by not co-sleeping, or not nursing long enough, or not fermenting certain foods, or letting my child continue drinking milk from a bottle past a certain age, or not teaching her the alphabet by age two, or letting her watch a cooking show with me even though she shouldn’t watch tv, or preferring not to play with my child every second of every day, or not being able to cloth diaper even though everyone else in the world can, or not caring about natural childbirth even though everyone else in my world does….that by doing or not doing these things I’m somehow failing, or irreparable damage will be done to my kids. Terms like gut health, emotional stability, separation anxiety, food sensitivities, all-natural, superfood, and the like fill me with dread and guilt.

And you know what? It’s all bullshit anyway. (Sorry! I know, I just said bullshit.) But it is. I mean, to an extent. I will admit that all of these things are important, especially when it’s something that you care about. But the fear and the insecurity and guilt that comes along with the over-discussion, and the hype, and the trends and the fads, and the pressure, and the terms that get thrown around, are complete bull…oney. So my style of parenting doesn’t fall into one of the “methods”. So I can’t handle making my own yogurt just yet. So Eliza doesn’t get cultured everything, or fermented anything. None of the moms I know or can handle interacting with are putting pressure or guilt on me for not doing these things. But I feel it nonetheless. And that‘s where it all becomes a load of crap.

Because these things, while important, are and always will be secondary. I can and will try to do my very best, but my best cannot save my kids. I could do everything right, and they could still die. The fear I feel over these things of secondary importance is a trap and a lie, a ploy to distract me from that which is of first importance. Eliza needs Jesus. And God is the one who has numbered her days, and knew her before the world began. Not me. She could have the healthiest gut in the world, but have a heart that’s far from him and that’s all that really matters. I also know that, for all my lack of method, I am exactly the mother my children will need. God chose me to be their mom, and them to be my kids.

So I don’t really know where to go from here. I still want to do things better. I wish I could learn to be free from insecurity by being able to do all the things I want to do, perfectly, and just simultaneously being able to trust that God knows the days of my children, and he will protect them from both my failures and my successes. I hate that learning to trust God means needing to trust him, because I can’t ever seem to do this as well as almost everyone else I look at. (I know that everybody else feels the same way, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still convinced that my house is the dirtiest, etc.)

So I’m just hanging out here, feeling like a failure, but trying to live free. Let’s live free from fear. Let’s care about these secondary things, but in their proper places. Okay?

1 Timothy 4:8 “For physical training (or healthy eating, or attachment parenting, or gut health, or natural childbirth, or a clean house, or…whatever) is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

consistent.

Eliza has started throwing tantrums on a daily basis. It started last week when she was sick for most of the week, and we were probably a little overly sympathetic to her every whine and moan. The tantrums are not big ones, but she prefers whining, crying, or screaming as a way of getting her point across, and it’s getting old. The most ridiculous part is that they literally have no cause other than the fact that she does not always get exactly what she wants. This morning she worked herself into a sobbing, screeching mess within 30 seconds because, while I succumbed to her desire to be held, I did not immediately get up and walk in whatever direction she arbitrarily pointed her finger. Really?

I’ve been realizing lately that this parenting business is about to get REAL. Today I popped her in her bed to let her work it out, and I think I’m going to have to start consistently doing that. Consistently providing the consequences to her misbehavior. The scariest part about that is that me and consistently anything don’t usually go hand in hand.

frankenstein’s monster.

Sometimes my passion for literature, and the correct citing of it, can be a downright curse. For example, there’s this really great song, which I would absolutely love, were it not for the fact that it incorrectly calls Frankenstein’s monster by the name Frankenstein. Many people get this confused, so may I just say, once for all, that the monster has no name! Frankenstein is the name of the scientist who made the monster. So when the pretty song goes into the chorus: “I feel like I’m some kind of Frankenstein/waiting for a spark to bring me back to life” I cringe every time, and mentally add ” ‘s monster” which completely ruins the flow of the song, but renders it a more accurate reference to the book.

Just a little peek inside my mind. Aren’t you glad you don’t live there? Happy Friday!

the scatterbrained list.

I want so badly to take a nap right now, but Eliza is loudly talking to herself in her crib, so a nap is out for the moment. Writing it is! And in everyone’s favorite format: the list! (Chill out with the exclamation points, Rebekah!)

1. This morning Eliza sat on the floor with a book and “read” it to herself. It was amazing to watch. She jabbered a little for each page, and turned all of the cardboard pages herself. So fun. I can’t believe she’s already pretending to read to herself. She is only one-year-and-three-weeks old! It doesn’t seem like she should be so…old. But then, a half hour later, she tried to stick her finger in Henry’s bottom, so that, in a strange way, comforted me. She’s not so very old yet. (And a cat’s behind is so bright! Especially when he’s black everywhere else.)

2. I recorded a song yesterday, which I’ll be contributing to a compilation of songs for Ascension, which is a day in the church calendar when Christians remember Jesus’ ascension into heaven after the resurrection. I rewrote a super old hymn by a German Reformer named Johannes Zwick. The hymn was probably written in the early 1500s–super cool. I had the most fun recording yesterday. I think I am becoming slightly more confident and opinionated, in a good way, so recording was not overwhelming, and was just a blast. Plus, the more I listened to the song, the more I liked my melody, which was a nice bonus! Stay tuned for that recording sometime soon.

3. I’ve been commissioned to write a song for an organization that works with artists in the city of Indianapolis. They want to branch out in the kinds of art they have that are inspired by this city, and asked me to try to contribute. I’m really nervous, and up to this point, I have been feeling like quitting before I start. I am desperately afraid that I will hate whatever I come up with, and right now, just not writing anything feels like the better option. You can’t fail if you don’t try, right? That’s a saying, right?

4. I have a little bit of birthday money, and I am really excited to hit up Target and Goodwill, and hopefully stock my maternity wardrobe for the summer. I wore the same dress literally every day last week, because it’s the only one I had. I should probably fix that, so I’m not disgusting all summer. Or at least, not quite as disgusting. Because I will always wear my clothes longer before washing them than some people.

the primitive side of pregnancy

Matthew and I were talking yesterday about how sometimes it strikes us how odd pregnancy is. I’m letting a person grow inside me, and that person is beating the living daylights out of my insides. It’s even weirder to think that this is still how we do this…like in this day and age, with all our advancements, this is still how humans come into the world. There’s only so much you can improve upon, right? And with all the medical advancements, and all of the help available for conceiving, etc., humans, in all our glory, still grow on the inside of somebody. Still come out bloody and yelling.

It’s really funny, for some reason, for me to think about the fact that every woman who has birthed a baby has been pregnant. I know that sounds like a “duh” sort of statement, but think about it! No matter her level of sophistication, or her importance in world politics, or her scholastic achievement, if she’s given birth, she’s been pregnant, which is, you know, weird (even if it is beautiful and natural, etc). And if she’s been pregnant, she’s either pushed a human out of her *ahem* or she’s had it cut out of her belly. Talk about the great leveler. Nobody’s sophisticated at that point. Chanel and pencil skirts, forsooth! One time, you had somebody growing on your insides. I’m onto you.

dear jesus, can you help me

This is my latest offertory. The lyrics are by Fanny Crosby, one of her approximately 8,000 hymns. Can you believe that? Granted, she only wrote the verses, not the melodies, but still. That is one prolific lady. She is quoted as saying, “It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me.”

I have never done a hymn rewrite before. In fact, this week my initial feeling was that it was a cop-out. I had no idea what to write, and the song list was due at noon on Wednesday. So Wednesday morning I decided to read through some of Fanny’s hymns, because I find them (and her) very inspiring. I had never read these lyrics before, and when I read them, I picked up the guitar and immediately began singing them to the tune you hear in the recording. No false starts, no major changes…it just came out the way it is from the get-go. I figured that if it was what I needed to hear, maybe other people needed to hear it too, and there was the offertory. I still think I cheated, because it was so easy, but the song was a real encouragement to me this past week.

It was especially meaningful because in some way, I felt connected to Fanny Crosby while I was singing it. Wondering what she had been feeling that prompted her to write it, over a hundred years ago, wondering if the whole “great cloud of witnesses” thing is for real, and maybe she could hear me play its new melody, and know that her work is still relevant and affecting people today. It’s so simply and beautifully written. I love it.

Hope you like it!

Dear Jesus Can You Help Me

P.S. I am changing the restrictions on the songs so that you can download them. Hopefully that works…having trouble telling if it’s actually changed or not. Let me know!

dreaming.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately (I think most of my posts begin with those words) about purpose, and living a meaningful life. I used to imagine an adventurous life, maybe that of a missionary, or of a modern-day Francis of Assisi…you know, live in poverty, not really have a home, wander the world with my friends. I used to think that maybe I would live in another country, or a bunch of other countries. Or maybe I’d really pursue music, and travel the country singing my songs. Most of my plans involved major sojourning.

Then, for the last two years of college, I lived in a big old house with a bunch of girls, and for the first time got a taste of life in community. Suddenly, I realized I wanted to have a home base. Maybe I’d still be a vagabond most of the time, but I wanted to have some place to come home to. I thought maybe I’d always live in community, but in a more purposeful and meaningful way than I experienced in college. I loved to have a safe place into which I could invite other lost souls. A home for the homeless, even if they were just homeless on the inside.

Then I fell in love. Got married. Moved into a new city. Found a new church. Built new community. Had a baby. Got pregnant again. And even though there’s still the same thirst for adventure in me, I think I’m realizing that adventure is not just the big stuff. It’s not only to be found in a new country, or in a wandering lifestyle, or in a grand, sweeping life choice. Not only that, but the mandates of scripture for the believer are geared more toward the quiet, the every day, the mundane. I’ve begun to realize that a purposeful, meaningful life lived completely wrapped up and immersed in the gospel and faith can be adventurous and mundane at the same time. My ambition is no longer to seek adventure in the far corners of the earth, but to live a quiet and peaceful life, loving the people around me as best I can. And I don’t feel as though I’ve traded my adventuresome side for the boring life of a homemaker, either.

That’s what’s cool about finding your place in the life you have right now. It may not look like the life you dreamed of when you were 19, which is not to downplay the vast, scheming dreams of youth. But simply because my life is not exactly what I expected doesn’t mean it’s not exactly what I want, what I need, what I’m called to do. I still dream of the future, what my life will look like when my kids are in school, graduated, on their own. Maybe Matthew and I will get to go abroad someday. Maybe we will move into the country and have a little farm for our grandkids to visit. Maybe we’ll plant a church in the country when we move. And until then, I work and dream and live in the content that comes from knowing that growth is always an adventure. Even when the growth is measured in crumbs swept from my kitchen floor.