The Three F Words ~ Julie

No. Not that F word.

The last five years have been so hard for the folks in this country. Lots of endings, lots of fear. It’s easy to believe that it will never get better, never be different. It’s easy to wait for things to change.

Maybe there’s another way to see it, though. Maybe, instead of waiting, we should be jumping at opportunity.

We know that God has a plan. What if we were brave enough to ask God and ourselves this question: What is it that we really want to do?

Meet our friend Julie. In a few weeks, she and her husband and her three year old daughter are making an amazing and brave and thrilling life change. Julie asked God the question and then she embraced the answer. We hope she inspires you as much as she inspires us!

I believe in two “F” words: Faith and Fate. Is this belief strange for a Christian? Maybe, maybe not. I believe everything happens for a reason, a reason we may not understand, but maybe we’re not supposed to understand why somethings happen. Sometimes a third “F” fuels the other two “F” words to work hard in one’s life: Fear.

Around this time last year, my husband and I were making a lot of life changes that included: moving houses, adding to our family, and learning to live on one income.

We were moving houses as a temporary situation to save money for a year and I was excited. It was going to be an opportunity for me to stay at home with my daughter for the year, but also to be able to see my mom every day. It was an especially exciting time for us as we learned that we were expecting our second child after trying for almost a year.

While I had happily taught English at the high school level for six years, I needed a break or a change. I also couldn’t believe how quickly my two year old daughter was growing and how much I was missing, so I made the change that many people couldn’t imagine taking in this economy: I took a leave of absence from a career I loved.

Some people looked at me like I was crazy or even dissatisfied with my school (which I really wasn’t), but I FELT something. I felt like God was sharing His plan with me. That’s what faith is, isn’t it? Trusting in God’s plan when you just can’t conceivably understand how it will fit together. So, I fearfully/faithfully took a leave of absence from work and trusted in Him.

On June 9th, 2012 among moving boxes and Dora birthday presents, I took a test that revealed I would be carrying a second baby in the year I had chosen to stay at home. It was an exciting and surreal moment. I felt like I understood why God had aligned everything so perfectly now, it was all working out!

But, things don’t always work as expected because three weeks later, I lost the baby.

To say I was devastated is an understatement. I questioned everything, and unfortunately, even God. This is where the three “F” words come in. From my FEAR, grief and sadness over losing my precious baby, I prayed for understanding. When tested, our FAITH appears and we start to understand our FATE slowly.

After losing the baby, I became like a hermit. I didn’t want to leave the house and so I started to surf the net and also reminisce about happier times, which led me to the summer of 2008. My husband and I had traveled to Rio do Janeiro as a way to visit family and experience a new culture.The pictures were beautiful and filled with happy and carefree times. I wanted that again; I wanted to escape to a new life where I could start again. So, while my heart was slowly starting to heal, I tried for a new beginning by applying for jobs in a country thousands of miles away.

It’s beautiful, isn’t it? They call it “CidadeMaravilhosa” or the Marvelous City because of its constant motion, sounds, smells and friendly people. People from all walks of life are active throughout the day, usually near the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, or even Leblon. It’s going to be a busy few years for this city of roughly 6.5 million people, as they are hosting both the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics.

I started remembering everything I loved about my mother’s native country and the memories gradually started putting me back together. I started emailing and researching a few schools in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And slowly, it started to become a true possibility. After a few months of making a dream into a reality, we did it…

We attended a job search in Atlanta, Georgia for educators interested in teaching or working in Mexico, Central, South America and the Caribbean. It really seemed as if God was pointing us in the right direction again. Once we were finally inside the meeting area with the schools, we were informed that only two of the four possible schools we had been interested in, (very few of the schools had positions open for both English and Math) still had positions for both of us. And when it was time for us to interview with a school, there was only one, Rio’s American School (the one we really wanted) who still had our positions. It was if the lord was narrowing down the choices for us. To make a long story short, they called us in January to offer us the jobs.

We don’t know what we’ll encounter or even if it’ll be easy for us, but isn’t that what faith is? When I asked my husband why he wanted to do it, he answered, “Why not? I mean there’s so much out there. There’s so much to explore and so much to see. I want our daughter to be the kind of person who wants to see the world and not be afraid to take risks.” I agree, hubby, I agree.

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Julie will blog about her new life in Rio at expatsparadise.wordpress.com

The F Word ~ Lesley

Lesley is my person. And my cousin. When her Canadian husband stole her to Toronto almost ten years ago, it was a thing. Luckily, Brian is a very good man. We have survived by never letting 365 days go by without seeing each other.

When she called and told me this story a few weeks ago, I knew she had to write a post. This is a SUPER parenting win, and a reminder for all of us that a little bit of prayer and thought goes a long way. I always listen carefully to her parenting stories, since she has been a mom longer than me–three whole weeks longer. She is wise.

Enjoy! ~ Jen

My seven year old is my sensitive child, deeply aware of everyone’s feelings, especially his own. He’s also a rule follower, like his dad. So, when he steps outside the rules, he is very affected. In this case he was curled into the fetal position on my lap, head buried in my neck, making a confession that was broken and choked with breathy sobs.

“Mom, I have to tell you something.”

“Ok, babe. What has you so upset?”

“I accidentally said the F word.”

“How do you accidentally say the F word?” I ask. “Saying a word like that is a choice. And where did you hear this word?” I cringe, waiting for him to say he heard it from me. “Are you trying to be cool? That word is not cool.”

“I know. I am so sorry.”

I think.

“Wait. When and where did you say this word?”

The whole truth comes out. He tried it at school with some friends that he refuses to identify. They are not encouraging him to say it but he has used this language on the playground. And he confesses that he just said it in our basement before he came up to talk to me. My first concern was that he said it to his younger brother or sister. But he was alone. He could not explain why he said it but he knew it was wrong and came to tell me.

It is one of those moments. I need my son to understand that he has made a bad choice and there are consequences. But the only reason I know he used the F word is because he told me.

I breathe. Acknowledge that his conscience works. Celebrate that he came to me to unload his conscience. Provide meaningful discipline.

Ugh.

There are several feelings in this for me. Pride that he came to tell me, and that he has chosen to keep his friends out of it and only stand on what he did—no deflection to anyone else. Shock that my angel faced boy is walking around using this kind of language. Longing for the days when Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was a part of his present, not his past.

What to do? I decide to pull a page from someone else’s Momma-wisdom and use it as my own. I believe that if a Momma shares a bit of wisdom with you, that is implied consent for you to use it as you own. I took this page from Glennon at Momastery. I’m sure she would approve.

I tell him “Babe, you know how your heart is hurting and you are so upset? That is God telling you that you made a bad choice and to come talk to me or Daddy. I’m really glad you listened to God. That is hard to do sometimes, but it is very important.

“You made a bad choice. That language is not allowed in this house. I understand there are lots of words you will hear from your friends and you will know some of them are not ok to use. You can always come talk to me. But the rules don’t change and so bad choices have consequences. What would be a consequence for this?”

He chooses, bravely, to lose his favorite possession—the DS. We spend a few minutes talking about if losing his DS would help him make a better choice the next time. There was not a good answer for that, from either of us. I used my favorite Momma card and deferred a decision until I could discuss with his dad.

I believe that bad choices are necessary for good choices to happen. But that can only be true if the consequence includes a mix of humility and a better understanding of the impact of the bad choice. It is not always easy to find a consequence that meets these criteria, but I do think the big lessons are worth a minute of reflection to find one.

My son and I had had a big important discussion. It was an opportunity to grow. I knew that losing his DS did not feel like the right consequence. So I percolated, which in our family means I let it bubble gently on the back burner while I went about my business. I have superhero guardian angels who help and guide me. I knew the right answer would arrive. I just needed to make some space for it to come in.

Sure enough I became aware of that voice in my head, chewing on the issue. Foul language. Ugh. Garbage. How do I keep my babies from that? And…there it was: If my son was going to dirty the world with garbage out of his mouth, he could pick garbage up to make it clean again.

Cue the hallelujah chorus.

My son spent the week picking up litter all around his school and taking out garbage for his class. It took me a few minutes to write the needed letters. My son provided the letters, with his own explanation for why he was asking to do these tasks. His principal, teacher and after-school care providers were all onboard.

Humility, check.

Then we talked again about how using curse words makes the world an uglier place. We talked about how some words hurt and why it is important to know what the words you use actually mean.

Which, thank God, did not lead me into the definition and explanation of his chosen curse.

The F word. Ugh.

I Fainted at my Wedding. So? ~ Jen

The story starts like this: I opened my eyes to the sound of my mom calling my name. I saw my dad’s face and realized I was looking up at him. He’s not supposed to be on the altar, I thought.

“Did I just faint at my wedding?” I asked. Then “I’m going to puke.”

Moments earlier, I felt it coming. I leaned over to my cousin and whispered “I think I’m going to faint.”

“No, you aren’t,” she said with a sunny smile, and turned her face back towards the priest.

So I leaned over to my husband. “I’m think I’m going to faint”, I told him. “Ok” he said. That was it. Next thing, I’m looking up at my dad.

I was not drunk. I was not pregnant. And I was not scared.

I was hot. And kneeling. And trussed into my dress like a dang rump roast on Christmas Eve.

I enjoy telling this story to people. The reactions are fun. Some people laugh with me. Some shake their heads. But it’s the ones, usually single women, whose faces collapse in horror and pity that are my favorite.

It becomes a learning moment.

I fainted on the altar at my wedding. So?

“What do you mean so?!” one of my students asked me once. “All that money! All that planning! Ruined! I would be humiliated!”

I’ll admit that I had to do a magnificent job of shaking it off, a la Scarlett O’Hara: I’ll think about this tomorrow. I could have let it ruin my day.

But I didn’t. Look at the pictures. If you didn’t know I fainted, you wouldn’t know it from the pictures.

Beautiful, happy bride. Beautiful, happy day.

But most important of all: Almost nine years, three kids and two dogs later, beautiful, happy marriage.

That’s what a wedding does—it begins a marriage. Despite the wedding industry’s best efforts, we don’t say “We’re having a wedding!” We say “We’re getting married!”

Besides, a wedding is just one day. Not even the whole day. I waited eleven months for my wedding day and spent too much money on the details of making it lovely. For what? A blur. One moment I was fainting on the altar and the next I was lying on a beach in Mexico.

And I’m not saying that weddings shouldn’t be big and sparkly and fun. All of the weddings in our family have been big and sparkly and fun. We love weddings!

But that day, when you wear the crazy expensive dress and feed people food they will not remember, pales in comparison to the day you hold your baby in your arms.

The love you feel for your fiancé at your wedding is nothing to what you will feel when your spouse gets up with that baby at 3 am.

You think it’s the best day of the rest of your life? It’s not. It’s just the first best day.

We learned lesson #1 about marriage at our wedding: It wasn’t perfect. It was human and loving and beautiful. There was a moment it went a bit left, and then the moment passed, with the help and concern of our family and friends. Which is exactly what happens in a marriage.

When I look back, I regret nothing. Especially not the fainting. Because when we got home from our honeymoon and watched the video, we saw a church hushed with concern. My mom’s good friend Lu, a doctor, walked up the aisle to see if she could help. My bridesmaids held hands and prayed for me. Except for my sister in law, who crawled underneath my veil, hairdo be damned, and loosened my dress so I could breathe. When I finally was up and seated on a chair, wobbly, teary, embarrassed, everyone applauded.

I fainted on the altar at my wedding. So?

Brides and Bridezillas, don’t plan a wedding. Celebrate a marriage. It’s a very different thing.

The first lasts a day. The second lasts a lifetime.

God Made the Giants ~ Jen

Last weekend, on a family trip to the Kern River in Central California, we went to the Trail of a Hundred Giants in Sequoia National park.

Giant Sequoia trees are some of the largest and longest living creatures on earth, and can only be found on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada range in California. They are massive glorious beautiful trees, so tall that you can’t see the tops of them when you stand beneath them. You have to back way, way up to get one whole tree in a picture.

The air was cool. The chickarees called from the tall branches. My dad and I were standing together on the path and he looked at the nearest Sequoia and said “That tree was here when Christ walked the earth.”

And before. The oldest known Giant Sequoia is 3,500 years old.

When I go to places of natural beauty, I always feel small, young and insignificant. I comprehend the enormity of time that has been and will be. I know my footsteps join countless others over thousands of years. And that we have all looked at the same thing. That blows my mind. It reminds me of my space. Just a small space in the Grand Scheme.

It never makes me feel sad or futile, though.

It makes me feel loved. God is always there to meet me at the foot of El Capitan or on the edge of the ocean or in a grove of ancient sequoias. He is there in the massive rock formations and the crashing waves, in the breezes blowing through the tree tops hundreds of feet off the ground. He says “Look at this world, this thing of beauty and grace. I made it for you, for this very moment. So you could know that I love you and I am your God.”

It was Divine Inspiration that we preserved these places in a nation where we are usually so quick to claim and conquer. That was the hand of God staying the ambition of man.

I always come back from the beach, or a trip to a national park, with a better sense of my priorities and a renewed commitment to simplicity. I feel more connected to God and what’s important. I feel good as a mom, bringing my kids to places where God can be found.

(Even if Kate hasn’t quite caught on and thanked God for s’mores in her evening prayers)

I want them to feel what I feel in these places: small, young and insignificant. I want them to be humbled in the face of something so much bigger and stronger and wiser than they are. Then they’ll know what I know, what anyone with an open heart can know in these places.

God made the waves. God made the rocks.

And God made the Giants.

A Quiet Whisper ~ Dana

Me, Dad and Derek at Hotel Del Coronado in the 80s.

The days following the loss of a loved one are some of the hardest days that we live in our lifetimes. In the past few days, following the death of my sweet daddy on Saturday, mornings have been the hardest. I wake up and for the briefest of moments, I’ve forgotten. Then I remember.

Monday morning, Jen published a post about her Mother’s Day. I knew she had included something about my weekend, but didn’t know what. Turns out, Jen and her family headed to Hotel Del Coronado for the day. It also turns out that for years when I was a child, my family and I headed to Hotel Del Coronado for our vacations. My dad loved it there. It reminded him of a European hotel, and in those days, was an intimate place with impeccable service, and bellhops and waiters who met you upon check-in and greeted you by name during your stay. Right up dad’s alley.

My dad didn’t really like to sit on the beach for very long, his fair skin burning too easily, but he passed his days there playing tennis, strolling the grounds, and reading on our balcony overlooking the sand and sea.

And last summer, when dad was too weak to take our planned trip to New Orleans, we retreated to the shores of The Del once again. Instead of the Mississippi River, we walked along the Pacific Ocean, hand in hand, talking of everything and nothing all at once.

Whether it was God, fate, Universe, Spirit, or just coincidence that led Jen and her family to Coronado, I don’t know. Maybe it was a quiet whisper from my dad that things will be ok, even though right now it doesn’t feel like things will ever be ok.

But for the rest of my life, I will listen for his whispers, see his hand watching over us, and always remember my sweet dad with a tearful smile.

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