Archive for November, 2008
advent: one
My song is love, love unknown. And I’ve got to get that message home.
“The Message,” Coldplay
Could we grasp the sort of love the Father, Son and Spirit enjoy…
Could we know that mysterious depth of love shared only between the infinite Beings who created all things known and unknown…
Could we utter the unutterable word of love the Holy Three-in-One sings in Their divine dance of intimacy…
Could we somehow glimpse these unsearchable reaches then we would know, without doubt, that the Father’s gift to us in the advent of His Son was the greatest message of love that angel or man has ever received.
We would know that we, in all our desperation and depravity, are the beloved.
No Commentshope (the best gift)
As I bid my twenties farewell and brave the uncharted waters of my thirties, I am at a loss for what to say or how to feel. I don’t feel much different on my last day as a 20-something than I imagine I’ll feel tomorrow when I wake up a 30-year-old. I haven’t really accomplished anything by turning 30. I can’t claim some great victory or brag about achievement. On the contrary, all of my life has been gift and grace, redemption and reclamation, mercy and blessing.
So, I’m in rare form today. My modus operandi is usually to revel in a week’s worth of celebration as I complete another year, garner gifts and well-wishes, and grow a few more gray hairs. But this year, I prefer something different, I crave something more. And less.
I think what I choose to steep in this year is hope. The hope that I will laugh more, worry less, and love generously in the decade to come. The hope that I will cherish my husband deeply, show my baby beauty and truth, and abide with mercy as I journey.
Most of all, I hope I can smile like the little girl I used to be, the girl in the picture. Because in that smile, in the heart of that red-hooded girl, is a fierce determination to be just who she is. And only who she is. Before lies and fear, insecurity and confusion, unbelief and perfectionism stepped in. So I’m giving myself a hope that I will, with the same determination, be just who I am. And only who I am – flaws, quirks and all. Because that is the woman God designed me to be, regardless of any scowls or frowns around me.
Hope: it’s what I’m giving myself this year. I suppose it’s the best present I can give myself, this year or any year.
4 Commentsto share turkey
“Now, I paid a deposit, right?” I asked the farmer as he handed me my 17-pound turkey and the accompanying receipt.
“Yes. You paid $20 on November 1 and the turkey total is $104. So, $84 total today,” he said with a smile.
“Right, right, of course,” I choked out, kicking myself for never once asking how much a fresh, free range, humanely raised, antibiotic-free 17-pound turkey costs these days. As I handed him all the remaining cash in my wallet, I asked, “So, uh, now do I have to clean the turk-”
“Oh, no ma’am. These have been cleaned for you. The neck and the giblets are inside in a bag. All you do is take them out, season your bird and throw it in the oven – 325 for just under 4 hours. Here’s a sheet with some hints and tips,” he said, sticking a folded paper in my bag. (Surely that accounted for some of the cost.)
I thanked him and tried to figure out how to get $100 worth of food out of the gobbler, concocting giblet casserole and turkey neck sandwiches in my head. At least the bird was fresh – no thawing. And it had been sufficiently cleaned. That was worth something, right?
I laughed out loud the entire way home from the farmers market shed at my hundred-dollar blunder. But just before I prepared to lug the beast three flights to our apartment, I actually became thankful.
“Thank you, God, that I can make a $50 or $60 mistake where Thanksgiving dinner is concerned…and that it doesn’t even phase us or blow our budget. Thank you for supplying every need…and then some. Thank you for the laughter this little miscalculation has brought.”
Because it’s good to laugh. And to be thankful. And to share turkey. (Should your turkey leftover supply run low, don’t hesitate to let me know.)
1 Commentnext time you’re pregnant
As I embark on my tenth week of pregnancy, few things have really surprised me along the journey so far.
I knew I would feel nauseous and tired and irritable.
I knew I would have to endure the uninvited advice of women who choose to share only their horror stories of pregnancy, birth and parenting.
I knew I would have to tolerate the annoying “It’s going to be hard” gazes of weary parents, to which I long to say, “If you think you’re the first person who’s told me parenting is to going to be hard, get in line.”
Most of all, I knew I would love this child before I ever saw his or her face. I knew I would cry when I saw the little heart beat on the monitor. I knew I would read and sing to him or her before ears were even formed.
But what I didn’t expect, what I could have never anticipated, what surprised me most were the men.
“Watch out, there. The weight’s easier to put on than it is to take off,” one acquaintance chuckled as I passed by him at the grocery store.
“And remember, you’re not really eating for two…that’s a myth,” another said as I hovered over turkey and mashed potatoes one evening.
There have been other comments – infuriating, moronic, dimwitted comments – by male strangers in regard to how big (or not big) I should get as well as how often and what I should be eating.
Now thankfully, having fully recovered from anorexia and after dealing with many of my body image issues, these asinine comments don’t leave me one bit insecure about my beautiful pregnant body, my healthy eating habits or my current weight (especially since I haven’t weighed myself in almost two years).
What their comments do is leave me enraged at the expectations men – in general – have for women. Their flippant statements about my body, my weight, my eating habits are quite telling and clearly reflect a bigger issue: the unreasonable standard set for women – pregnant or not.
Unfortunately, Western culture idolizes the stick-figure, paper-thin, two-dimensional women on magazine covers and movie screens. Somehow we have come to worship the airbrushed, perfected, concave stomachs and non-touching upper thighs of 88-pound models and celebrities. But, get this: 100% God’s honest objective truth be told, women were not created to look like porn stars and emaciated supermodels.
Believe it or not, this unrealistic and unrelenting expectation has crept even into pregnancy, where it is actually good and right and beautiful to have extra curves and changing shape and, yes, even an increased appetite (heaven forbid).
I don’t have the answer to this issue. I don’t know how to change the course our appearance-crazed, waiflike-obsessed society is on. I just know one thing: I love my pregnant, growing body. It is absolutely gorgeous. And you know what else I love? I love the new foods I’m trying, foods I haven’t eaten in years simply because I got in a rut of eating familiar favorites. Foods like avocados, Idaho potatoes, sunflower seeds, green olives, chopped walnuts, black beans and brown rice. Yeah, with healthy, vitamin-rich foods like that in the cupboard I’m gonna blow up as big as a house, aren’t I, fellas?
Here’s a deal for you, guys…next time you’re pregnant, let’s talk about your eating habits. About how much weight you shouldn’t gain. About how full your shopping cart is. About your cravings. About how you’re not eating for two. Yeah, we’ll do that.
Next time you’re bloody pregnant.
4 Commentsboth of us
It’s unexpected, I think, this thing that happens when a woman finds out she’s expecting. Of course, I can’t speak for all women who have experienced the miracle of pregnancy, but for me it only took a few minutes after seeing the second pink line on the home pregnancy test to fall madly in love with the microscopic life inside me. It only took a moment to dream a million dreams. It only took a few hours to start craving strange food combinations like kosher hot dogs with mango chutney. And it only took about a day to succumb to a million fears. But then something lovely happened – that little peanut, that little spark of life, taught me something.
You see, the day after I found out I was pregnant, I was driving after dark, tailed by a swerving, veering, speeding two-ton Chevy jam-packed with rollicking teenagers.
“Little shits,” I said, glancing in the rear view mirror as the car nearly rammed my bumper. White-knuckling the wheel, I pulled off the side of the road, breathed in slowly, and let the twerps and the noise of their rap music pass far beyond me. I clutched my abdomen in the hopes of comforting myself and the zygote inside but, in that moment, realized I would not now or ever be able to protect my baby from danger. From idiot drivers. From sickness. From risk. From disease. From any of the dreadful things we experience in all our living and dying.
Even as a new human being came alive in me, I couldn’t help thinking that, while I may keep many things from hurting my child, I could never fend off hazard, uncertainty, death.
But as I pulled back onto the road, soothed by calming breaths and a lesson learned, my shoulders relaxed and my heart rate slowed. The pressure fell away. The fear did, too.
All I would need to do was love this child, I realized. Just love. It seemed little peanut wanted me to know that as early as possible. It would make life easier on both of us.
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