Tag: personal

Posted in musings

forced rest

Posted on by kristinabean

Everyone tells you to rest after you have a baby – to let your body heal, to bond with your newborn, and so on. This is especially true after a c-section or a bad tear, since significant physical healing needs to take place and won’t be able to do so as effectively if you’re always pushing yourself to your limits.

But rest is much easier said than done.

I don’t know if it’s just me or if it’s a wider cultural phenomenon, but I start to feel guilty and depressed when I just lie around all day, even when I know my body needs it. I see the boys running around and want to join them (despite the inconvenient fact that I can only walk at a slowish shuffle right now). I see the mess and disorganization from labor following hard upon the holiday chaos, and feel bad for not helping my husband sort through it all. Rest is hard. But my body needs it right now, for short-term and long-term reasons, and it would be foolish to deny myself that rest.

It has made me think about rest in everyday circumstances as well, though. I like to think I’m fairly good at giving myself opportunities to rest and relax – but really, most days the time I spend enjoying a good book or peaceful hobby is marred by the guilt of a hovering to-do list reminding me of all the things I should be doing instead. And a lot of time I get stuck in an indecisive limbo, neither resting well nor working well because I can’t do either without either guilt or exhaustion interfering.

Rest shouldn’t be a cause for guilt in any case, though! Even God Himself, who is outside time and has no need to rest, did so on the seventh day to mark that day as holy and to set an example for us in our rest and work. How much more, then, ought we to rest when we need it: to acknowledge the frailty of our bodies, minds, and spirits; to admit our lack of control over our lives; to be humble and small and at peace before God instead of continually striving to do everything in our own power.

So – I think I’m going to try to use this period of enforced rest as a training on how to rest intentionally and well, in hopes that it can carry over to normal life.

Posted in musings

waiting 

Posted on by kristinabean

I thought we were going to meet our baby girl today. I’d had contractions all day yesterday, and they started right back up with some intensity first thing this morning, so I figured active labor couldn’t be too far away. But alas, a check at the hospital revealed that the time was not near and my body was still just slowly working through its preparation for labor.

So it’s back to waiting, indefinite waiting. I hate the waiting.

But that is part of the warp and weft of Christmas, is it not?

Mary waited, as she journeyed with Joseph to Bethlehem, for the birth of her child, not knowing the day He would come. Israel waited, as they suffered under Roman oppression, for the coming of the promised King and Messiah to rescue them, not knowing even the year of His advent, much less the day or the hour. We wait still, now, for the One who will bring  eternal hope into the brokenness and despair of our world, lasting peace into war-torn nations and disconnected communities, true joy into hearts numbed by pain and wracked with sorrow, and genuine love into a world defined by systemic oppression and individual hate and indifference. It is a long and weary wait.

Christmas is coming, the King is coming – the One is coming who will set all things right. Just as I know this wait for our baby girl will be over eventually, with all the concomitant joy of new life that a birth brings, so we know that one day our wait for Jesus’s return will be over. It just doesn’t always make the waiting easier.

Posted in family life

on the first day of Advent…

Posted on by kristinabean

Thanksgiving pictures will be up a little late because I forgot my camera at my in-laws’ house and will have to wait a few days for it to be returned (my FIL fortunately works fairly close to our house, despite living rather far away – I don’t envy his daily commute).

However, life in our house has moved on from Thanksgiving to Advent with what feels like incredible speed. The downtown area where we live is fully decked out for Christmas, with a whole street blocked off for a three-story Christmas tree, photo ops, and continuously-playing holiday music. Even our church this morning (to my disappointment) was fully decorated and singing Christmas carols all service long, and I honestly felt overwhelmed by it all. I love Christmas – don’t get me wrong! – but I love Advent even more, and the abrupt switch from ordinary time to Christmas, without the slow build-up and growing anticipation of Advent in between, made me feel like Christmas was just being dumped on me at the expense of the specialness and wonder of it all. I can’t remember feeling like this in the past; for some reason I am just not ready for Christmas this year, and I’m hardly even ready for Advent. I need time to live the lamentation and longing of Advent, to prepare my heart for the unbelievable joy and promise of Christmas… maybe I just need to spend time alone in the daily readings for these next few weeks, immersing myself in the pattern and calling of the Church.

For now, though, I did bring out a few decorations and the Advent wreath (and discovered that I only had two whole candles, one purple and one rose, along with five or six candle stumps… ah well, our Advent may be interrupted by the baby anyway!). I had hoped to do the Jesse Tree this year with the boys, but I didn’t find/make a set of ornaments I liked in time, so we’ll just be reading the stories without the visible accompaniment. I did find a great children’s Bible with beautiful, well-written stories that are still short enough to easily add to dinner and the Advent candles, so we’ll be using that for our Advent readings as a family and keeping the Jesus Storybook Bible in regular circulation with our picture books – Rondel has been choosing it for his bedtime story for a few weeks now, and I don’t want that to stop! Anyway, this is our new one:

cogsb

The illustrations are done by different artists from around the world, and represent different artistic styles as well as different ethnicities and cultures – and they are all absolutely beautiful. I’ve read quite a few of the short (two to three page) stories on my own, and read the first one tonight at dinner; I’m looking forward to the rest! I’m especially excited that Ruth and Esther are both included here, as they are not in the Jesus Storybook Bible.

One thing that gave me hope for the season in the face of my own lackluster feelings so far was Rondel’s reaction to helping me pull out some preliminary Christmas decorations, and finding our nativity set amongst them. My plan was to introduce the characters slowly throughout Advent, like I did last year… but Rondel spent the whole afternoon playing with the people (pretending they were random Bible characters like King Darius and Daniel because we haven’t read the Christmas story for a while!) and chose the baby Jesus for his bedtime snuggle toy tonight. So that was significantly sweeter than my well-laid plans would have likely been, and a gift for me to see his delight in the season even if it isn’t rolling out perfectly and liturgically correctly. My goal is to meet him in that joy, and make the most of the Advent time we have before our baby comes, instead of morphing into my inner curmudgeon…

I hope your Thanksgiving went well and that you are entering Advent with a more Christ-centered and joyful heart than I have had so far!

Posted in family life

happy birthday, limerick!

Posted on by kristinabean

Dear Limerick,

Today, you are two years old.

You are very proud of this fact. You have been telling me for weeks that you are only one now, but that you will be two soon! The prospect of having a number “2” on your birthday cake is also quite tantalizing for you, ever since you found your old number “1” candle in the pantry. I won’t be surprised if you start asking about a number “3” candle in short order, though – you like keeping those numbers together!

It’s hard to remember sometimes that you are just now barely two years old. You speak in long, fluent, clearly understandable sentences; you can write all the letters of the alphabet in both lower and upper case; you can count up to 10 and write most of the numbers; and you have several books memorized to the point where you will sit and “read” them to me instead of the other way around. On top of that, you run, jump, hop, and wrestle right along with your older brother, and climb with incredible balance, coordination, and lack of caution (you’ve almost given me a heart attack several times, up on ladders and bridges higher than my head, but you’ve also made me proud of the way you focus on your goal and keep trying until you accomplish it).

Most of the time you seem like a fairly laid-back little guy – you take the yelling and pushing and bouncing dished out by your three-year-old big brother in good grace (and often provoke it with a big grin on your face!). You try whatever crazy new food I come up with, and usually eat a decent amount of it even if you don’t really like it all that much. If another kid takes the toy you’re playing with, you typically just find another and keep playing and exploring the world around you happily. You banter and laugh and do ridiculous things with me and Rondel and Daddy that make us all fall over laughing together!

However, you can be extremely intense when you’re concentrating on something that you want to be able to do! When you’ve decided that you’re going to open a door or pick up an object (no matter how high the handle or how heavy the item), you won’t give up until you’ve figured out some way to do it all by yourself. “You want to do it! You want to do it!” is the cry we hear all day long, since you’ve picked up Rondel’s habit of referring to yourself as “you” – and while it can lead you to great frustration, your perseverance and desire for independence also empower and strengthen you. “You did it!” I tell you: and the joy on your face at doing it, whatever “it” was, is deep and authentic and beautiful. In the same way, when you play independently, you are often serious and unsmiling, intent on the task at hand, focused on discovering or accomplishing something to which you’ve set your mind.

The physical world around you is your easel and paint, the clay in your hands, tools and raw material for you to work with and shape. You inhabit that world with an ease I still don’t have, absorbing its power and potential with uncanny natural ability, creating, building, making with talent beyond your years. It amazes me to watch you practice and develop those abilities even more, with no more motivation than your own internal joy in the process of it.

You are two years old today, little man with the deep blue eyes and charming smile, two years old, and I can hardly believe how much we’ve already gotten to do together! I can’t wait to see what all the years ahead of you will bring.

I love you,

Mommy

Posted in family life

learning character from Dr. Seuss on a hard day

Posted on by kristinabean

When your morning is characterized by yelling (from everyone), tears (from everyone), apologies (from everyone), toddler aggression (from both boys), strict boundary enforcement (from me), and overwhelming fatigue (probably from everyone but definitely from me), a blissful three hours at the library is a gift and an answer to prayer. Surely it wasn’t coincidence that we stumbled upon a Dr. Seuss book I’d never seen before, Bartholomew and the Oobleck, in which crisis is only averted by the remorse and sincere apology of the culpable character…

I am forever grateful for the forgiving love of my little children, even as they drive me up the wall, and I will forever try to pick up the pieces, start over, and love them as best I can in each moment. And when I lose it and they lose it and we’re all a wreck and the day feels ruined before it’s scarcely begun, we can remember King Derwin of Didd and admit our fault, say we’re sorry, and begin to rebuild together.

Posted in musings

to the “difficult” kids

Posted on by kristinabean

From eighth grade through college I volunteered every Wednesday night with the Awana program at my church, with the K-2nd grade kids. I loved it for so many reasons 🙂 But what I came to realize through that experience, as well as through the summers I spent as a camp counselor, is that my favorite children were almost always the difficult ones, the trouble-makers, the strong-willed and stubborn kids, the insecure and struggling kids acting out without even knowing why. They seemed to live in turbulent waters, when most of their peers were coasting by around them; the behaviors that should have been perceived as a plea for attention, connection, and love all too often simply served to push other people away from them. And I loved these kids, and sought to connect with them, and trained my defensive instincts in their behalf.

Then I became a mother, and one of these kids was my own child.

And I realized that no matter how much I had cared about those other kids, and gone through hard things with them and for them, I had never come close to loving them like I love my son. I had stood up for them against the negative perceptions their behaviors had led to – but I had never felt that primal physical rage in their defense that I feel when someone makes even the slightest off-hand comment disparaging my child. I wish I had loved them better. I wish I had been a fiercer advocate for them; I wish my heart had been more easily broken for them, my life more freely poured out for them. Because I know now, and I knew then, so I had no excuse, that most adults will see the negative behavior and never look past it to the child who may be scared, overwhelmed, overstimulated, uncomfortable, and just simply in need of love and guidance.

When does your heart bleed, as a mother of a needy child, a socially awkward child, a child who doesn’t fit in without that extra love and care?

– when you watch your son “playing” with a group of peers, and they’re all busily climbing and digging and talking and investigating the world, and he’s sitting on the side just holding a toy and watching them, trying to figure out what’s going on, like they all know this social script that he’s never heard of

– when you come to pick your child up from Sunday School and he’s trying to break into a circle of kids building, to be part of the group, and one of them says, “oh good, he’s going home!” when she sees him running to you

– when you glance at the activity/story pages coming home with your son and the only personalized comment is that he played with his tongue.

In the moment I read that comment I knew only two things:

  1. Since when does an adult who claims to love and represent Christ think it is ok to fixate on a “weird” behavior that a child has to the exclusion of all that child is as a person created in the image of God? Also, did they think they were enlightening me or something? Believe me, random childcare helper, I know my son better than you do. I know that he licks his hands when he’s overstimulated by the noise and chaos of a group of kids, when he’s trying to figure out social cues, when he’s excited by everything going on around him or worn out from processing a hundred different things at once. You don’t need to fill me in on that piece of information.
  2. One callous and ignorant comment is not sufficient justification to leave a church, no matter how strongly I wanted to in the visceral rage of my first reaction.

I just want the world to know that the kids who seem different or difficult are beautiful, funny, intelligent, sweet, unique individuals – just like the ones who fit in, make friends easily, listen well, and charm you with their good behavior. You just need to see them for who they are, to see the person who needs and struggles and wants to be loved, instead of stopping at the outward web of odd or negative behaviors.

Posted in musings, quotes

patriotism vs. the presidential election

Posted on by kristinabean

As the weeks go by, my hope for our nation in the upcoming presidential election is steadily eroding. We’ve narrowed the race down to two people who are known to lie and manipulate events for their own gain; one of them is, in my opinion, of significantly worse character and far more dangerous as a leader, but I honestly would rather have neither of them. I suppose the difference for me is that while I can find some things to respect about Clinton, despite my utter disagreement with her on abortion, I haven’t been able to find anything to respect about Trump. Being rich and marrying attractive women, his sole accomplishments in life, are not particularly worthy of respect in my opinion…

And the thought of Trump winning the presidency and representing my country on the global stage makes me blush with shame – to the point where I am tempted to abandon my country, flee somewhere else, attempt to build a new identity and integrate into a different nation, one that actually valued honesty, self-control, responsibility, and community. But these words keep coming back to me, the words of G.K. Chesterton that I’m sure I’ve quoted before:

My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyalty. The world is not a lodging-house at Brighton, which we are to leave because it is miserable. It is the fortress of our family, with the flag flying on the turret, and the more miserable it is the less we should leave it. The point is not that this world is too sad to love or too glad not to love; the point is that when you do love a thing, its gladness is a reason for loving it, and its sadness a reason for loving it more. All optimistic thoughts about England and all pessimistic thoughts about her are alike reasons for the English patriot. Similarly, optimism and pessimism are alike arguments for the cosmic patriot.

Let us suppose we are confronted with a desperate thing—say Pimlico. If we think what is really best for Pimlico we shall find the thread of thought leads to the throne or the mystic and the arbitrary. It is not enough for a man to disapprove of Pimlico: in that case he will merely cut his throat or move to Chelsea. Nor, certainly, is it enough for a man to approve of Pimlico: for then it will remain Pimlico, which would be awful. The only way out of it seems to be for somebody to love Pimlico: to love it with a transcendental tie and without any earthly reason. If there arose a man who loved Pimlico, then Pimlico would rise into ivory towers and golden pinnacles; Pimlico would attire herself as a woman does when she is loved…  If men loved Pimlico as mothers love children, arbitrarily, because it is theirs, Pimlico in a year or two might be fairer than Florence. Some readers will say that this is a mere fantasy. I answer that this is the actual history of mankind. This, as a fact, is how cities did grow great. Go back to the darkest roots of civilization and you will find them knotted round some sacred stone or encircling some sacred well. People first paid honour to a spot and afterwards gained glory for it. Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.

 – G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

What our country needs is not for us to wring our hands in fear, or throw them up in dismay, or give up in despair; what she needs is for us to love her and to labor for her restoration and beauty. It is a harder and a more painful task, especially when faced with the anger and resentment of so many who don’t love their country or their communities, but a necessary one if true and worthwhile change is to take place. And this is where the virtue of patriotism lies, not in praising our country or her leadership no matter what poor choices are made, but in loving her enough to care about even the poorest and least likable of her people, to make right the things that are broken and rotting in her systems and communities, to see both her beauties and her flaws and admire the one while acknowledging and working to change the other.

Posted in musings, quotes

looking up at the heights

Posted on by kristinabean

“Dear me! We Tooks and Brandybucks, we can’t live long on the heights.”

“No,” said Merry. “I can’t. Not yet, at any rate. But at least, Pippin, we can now see them, and honour them. It is best to love first what you are fitted to love, I suppose: you must start somewhere and have some roots, and the soil of the Shire is deep. Still there are things deeper and higher; and not a gaffer could tend his garden in what he calls peace but for them, whether he knows about them or not. I am glad that I know about them, a little.”

Like Merry, I have grown in a deep, rich soil; my mind, my heart, and my soul have been nourished well by the people, books, and experiences I’ve had. And I’m thankful for that! But sometimes I catch glimpses of the things that are deeper and higher: the beauty, the truth, the holiness that stands guard around the simple things I know and love, and sanctifies and transforms it. Can I see it fully, or remain there long? Not yet. But I am glad for what I can see, and hope to see more someday – and maybe grow into those greater things myself, at some point.

Merry’s deeper understanding of the great and true things around him leaves him not with a contempt or disdain for the little things and the simple everyday things that characterized his life in the Shire, and I think that’s an important point. It is a sign that we have strayed away from beauty and truth when we begin to feel that contempt, I believe, as Saruman did when he chose to pursue power, knowledge, and control instead of wisdom, goodness, and beauty; true growth will leave us instead with a deeper appreciation for all that was good and noble in what we knew before.

Posted in musings

an update

Posted on by kristinabean

I wanted to thank all of you who prayed for my supervisor’s son earlier this summer. He is back home from the hospital at last, having successfully made it through a liver transplant and avoided a bone marrow transplant despite the life-threatening complications that almost necessitated it. My supervisor is still clearly worried about his son as the recovery is at this point a long, slow process – but he’s also so glad to be past that time of acute danger, when death hovered overhead and shadowed every conversation. There was no brain damage as far as they can tell at this point, and he’s getting back into school and academic work even though he can’t actually go back in person until his immune system is cleared for that kind of germ exposure 🙂 So thank you again for your prayers! It is such a huge relief for all of us to see things steadily improving after such a long time of fear and unknowing.

Posted in musings

the unknown saints

Posted on by kristinabean

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the different saints of the church – how each of them lived in radically different times and places, struggled with different vices and temptations, encountered different obstacles and endured different hardships, and generally painted an incredibly unique picture of beauty and holiness. Each one is an inspiration, and each one points even more surely to God than to themselves (since humility is, after all, a characteristic of righteousness).

And then I started thinking about all the “normal” people, living ordinary lives, seeking to serve God in whatever obscurity they were born into – people whose names the church doesn’t know, who never sought the acclaim or praise of men, but lived simply for God. I’d imagine there are a lot of these men and women, whose lives were never marked by anything spectacular, but who, day in and day out, with quiet perseverance, strove to follow God and live by faith, pouring His grace into their families and communities through their words and deeds.

Right now, the humility of these unknown saints is a powerful example to me. I’m living a fairly mundane and obscure life right now: no one knows me at church the way I used to be known in the small church I grew up in, or seeks me out to talk about ideas and theology; at work, I’m an important part of the team but not an irreplaceable one, and my inabilities and weaknesses are constantly being pressed; in my family, life operates on a pretty steady turntable of playing with the toddlers, helping them sleep, changing their clothes/diapers, and making sure they’re fed. There is fodder for profound thought, but little time or energy to put into it; there are needs in the community around me, but the needs of my own little family often take all that I have to give. I’m not involved in any great cause or movement that is trying to change the world, tackle injustice, or combat oppression.

But in every moment of every day I have just as much opportunity – and just as much responsibility – to live faithfully for Christ as the people who are doing those great and visible labors for the kingdom. If I live for Him, if I lay my life down sacrificially in the little chances that arise everyday as a mother and an employee, it doesn’t matter if anyone else notices. The righteousness wouldn’t even be mine anyway, since it comes through the grace of God: why should I seek praise for it? And who am I to deserve or thirst for the acclaim of men, when I can see all too clearly the places in my soul that are far from being conformed to the image of Christ: the judgment, the resentment, the preoccupation with myself, the apathy toward spiritual things?

Oh unknown saints of the church, who lived and toiled out of the sight of those who might have remembered your names through the generations, but who lived faithfully for God regardless of the earthly fame it brought you, please pray for me, that I too might live faithfully, might care so much about pleasing God that the praise of men no longer seems a jewel worth striving for as long as He is honored. Please pray that I might follow Him unfailingly, through tiredness and trivialities, through the everyday challenges that give me the chance to love and sacrifice or choose my own comfort again.