Friday, January 23, 2015

Good Mourning, Unapproachable Light

The intense sun beasts through our corner window in our main living space this morning.  It is freezing outside, but the hot sun is grabbing my attention to each outside element. Inside it reflects off the little 1/4 size viola. 

We let our nanny go this morning.  Objectively, good.  For our family, good. As a mom, tricky with a side of mourning, but appropriate. I'm grateful I am able talk now after a half-silent winter and think straight about these things!  As the nanny saw me getting stronger, my role switched from a "mam" to an enabling mother of a college student home on spring break.  The college student who does not know what she does not know.  I will pray for her future that she finds places to exercise her gifts and excel, and that she makes her family proud. One month and two days of her work was a good amount of time for me to understand what she can do.  It only took my Oma an hour. What I'd give for that kind of wisdom!

I have been praying for God to keep this door open or close it, with our nanny.  It was clearly closing throughout the week and we just had to shut it this morning. I was encouraged by Ben Kreps' sermon last week, reminding us that even positions of authority or servanthood, thrones and dominions, both human and spiritual are under the headship of God. Psalm 2:1-2. This is reassuring when setting up any infrastructure, with headship and subbordinate-ship, hiring and firing people, and allows us to remove our emotion from the objective decisions. 

According to my sermon notes, as God healed the rift between God and Man, we can trust Him that He is the superior creator, reconciler, and peace bringer.  These truths really assist a peace that transcends understanding when you are going through confrontational or less than desirable circumstances.

Very excited for what's on the horizon.

The King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 
1 Timothy 6:15-16 ESV



Link to Sermon References 

Monday, January 19, 2015

Suddenly Cellcept

Thankfully we were all home today.  Kids making fun and messes, music and laughter. Mike is home from work and plenty of down time.  As he just now left to pick up our nanny for the week, I will recount the events.

I am talking more these days, and able to flood into full dissertations to the children, rationalizing and explaining everything I can get my thoughts on.  Then blurting them out in some overbearing way.  Not quite the parent I had hoped to be.  I was convicted when I came across this page from a favorite parenting book, How to Talk so your Children will Listen & Listen so your Children will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.  Page 12 & 13.  Basically, I was the mom on page 12 today and one day I want to be the mom on page 13.

Instead of "Questions and Advice,"
images

acknowledge with a word, "Ohh, mmmmm, I see . . ."images

After that sad little jaunt, I decided to make stuffed cabbage today.  Clean and healthy eating, cancer avoiding cabbage rolled along the lines of a delicious grape leaf recipe. After tending to the entertainment cabinet in the playroom, organizing and dusting the wires, listening to excerpts from Civil War the Musical and Little Shop of Horrors, I made my way to the kitchen while Mike and the kids tackled the wooden marble run.  They were making roller coasters for the little spheres to ride on.  Once my request for "Suddenly Seymore" came on Spotify, Mike brought the Bose speaker into the kitchen for me to hear as I was cooking. Steaming cabbage leaves and rolling them up, I then wanted to listen to "Astonishing" from Little Women. I slowly started muttering a few lines along with Sutton Foster, and just joined her in the belt, the kind of controlled yelling that many of current broadway singers accomplish. Well wouldn't you know, I made it through. Not quite the finale, but definitely through the bridge and some of the parts that I haven't sung in a very long time.  It was very exciting for me. Rinsing my hands of the meat and getting the rice out of my nails, the warm water welcomed me back into singing, a huge part of my life.

I went out for a bit, going to a few stores before the gym.  Since I am on high dose prednisone,  for about 3 months, I have scheduled the gym for multiple times a week, and trying to stay ahead of the weight gain and weakness. During my errands, my doctor's nurse called me back.  We have sought counsel from many many people, both medical, natural, family, friends, praying for wisdom, and 6 rounds of teaching hospital physicians over 2 hospital stays since last October.  I basically had to tell the nurse, I choose Dr. Ahmed, and ask, when do I begin Cellcept?  As I moved through the still-over-priced-going-out-of-business furniture store, she started to discuss more in depth some of the protocols.  Timing of blood tests, supplements to take, etc. I needed to wait for another call of when to start the Cellcept. I made it to the gym, and just as my warm-up was complete, I got another call that the perscription was called in and I begin today.

I knew that. I figured I begin today.  I also know it is the right decision.  Even so, I still went through a mental gymnastics competition to actually buy the pills, muddle my way through the warnings and side effects, and actually set the timer on when to begin.  On my 2nd trip to the pharmacy, I bought the prescription and a peace lily. Thankfully David was dismantling the sun glass rack and Naomi was trying to help control him without bashing the kid version of a shopping cart into the display counter, so I was totally distracted in the moment of purchasing and just bought the stuff without over thinking. 

Perfect play-in to Idina's first solo, "What If?"  in If/Then, A New Musical. Over thinking decisions, hindsight. Not right but a very real wrestle.

The drama didn't end as I read through the package inserts throughout the evening and basically started to despair at the decision that I know is right.  Thank goodness for Mike, drawing me into the idea that I can speak now and I'm starting to get my life back.  I sang today, I am no longer just walking into a room  wondering if I can swallow or talk, or make it through the afternoon.  He reminded me of the benefits of medicine, that the risk of not taking this far outweighs the risk of taking it, and he's not just going to sit by and let "your humanity go down without a fight. You've got a lot of life left to live, and we are going to fight for you."  Spoken like a true angel husband.  Suddenly, my Seymore drew me out of the heavy thought, and back into the hope that this can help.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Go Ahead, Take Over

Humming a little tune is so refreshing.  For the past few months would save my voice for Mike to come home, or to explain something pertinent to the children, and well up with frustration that it fell on deaf ears, or even worse, that they could not understand me.  I have spoken over the past few months like I have a lasso around my tongue, a marshmallow stuck to the roof of my mouth, or talking through a muzzle. Such is the way the Myasthenia Gravis flareup has been, but thankfully I have a voice whether I have a voice or not. And I have been able to hum a tune and talk the past few weeks which has felt amazing.

I'm slowly starting to shift my glance to dread of medicine to gratefulness for medicine.  Don't we all need to be held up by something anyway, and what's wrong with a few tools, discoveries, and tries to get a fully-lived life back?  I'm shifting my gaze from doing millions of things for others and moving to the me, myself and I. A day does not go by that I don't want to connect a few people, amazon about 20 presents to people, or invite friends over to visit.  As I handed ideas over this week, they took flight in the hands of others who were passionate, and it felt very good.  This summer, I was instrumental in starting an upper school orchestra at the kids school, and that was just about as my illness started to take a life-consuming turn.  Peace filled my heart as Jesse called me last week and said that a current teacher at the school will be taking over the program.  He said it with such a kindness, hoping this would alleviate a burden on me and was sensitive that I may be upset at letting the program go.  My response inside and out was that I am more happy that the children will have consistency than I am disappointed that I cannot teach the class. Isn't that what teaching is about, consistency, giving students methods and tools to find their own role in the world.  I'm so relieved.  Another handful of ideas were handed over to the hands of people excited about them, and such is the visionary role I always hoped to have. 

It amazes me that I have slowed down enough, hired enough help, had droves of love and support from family and friends to be able to stop and realize that my favorite thing is being a visionary.  I haven't researched the title, but probably will.  Not the dooer, the grunt-worker, but my excellence is in the connection of ideas and concepts to push forward a vision and hand it over to other leaders who can make it their own. 

My memory was jogged back to my student teaching experience, as one of my former students just began this week.  The best thing my lead teacher said was, "Make this program your own." Floundering through rehearsals, lessons with some punk kid puffing on his saxophone for the 7th week in a row while I'm trying to talk, the other teachers left me in charge.  In the room alone with the kids lessons, teaching and teaching, floundering and teaching.  Then, the glorious day after 7 weeks that I looked the punk in the eye and firmly, and loudly (which is a challenge for me with other people's children), said, "Don't play while I'm speaking." Three of the music teachers in my sight-line must have heard me through the office glass and gave fist pumps to the air like I just rocked a concert hall. There it was.  They were trying to get me to raise my voice for 7 weeks in these abstract ways, and its not until you have a leadership role of your own where you really learn and have platform to excel.

Mike learned this in residency.  Once he was a SAR, he would hover over the interns and JARS, only to realize the feedback when he finally let them go and run their own patients and report, was that they gained confidence and leadership, and valued the experience, failures and all. I believe those guys and gals are better doctors now because of his teaching and giving them a leadership platform to excel on.

How are we supposed to build up each other if we are throwing down ideas and driving them at the same time.  How shall we be good counselors if we are offended that the receiver doesn't take our counsel? How can we be good leaders if we are not raising leaders to take our places and become better than our own self?

We can't.  You raise the bird and let it fly.  You work on ablating the heart and leave the beating and rhythms in the hands of God.  You pick the medicine to take with the least side effects and the most hope.  And you tell someone your idea and let them run. Without a patent or a harness.

My favorite part of my gym is that my personal trainers train like I used to teach musical theater and orchestra.  Kids, this is your show.  Learn it better than me. Do it better than I ever could.  Add in your own spins when you know it well enough and it will be fun. It is yours. Kids will blow your expectations away and run with newer and fresher ideas. Reign them in when they get crazy and you have a great show.

Fitness class, this is your body, you can do this.  You didn't want to get out of bed at 5 this morning, but you are here!  Come on, you can do this, need more weight? Is that challenging enough for you?

All the confidence in the world won't discount the blessed controller of all things.  Even if I let everything fall into other hands of leadership, I would have faith to say that God is still, in his perfect and wonderful plan, allowing things to happen. 



A helpful book on the topic of God's leadership in our many works is Calm my Anxious Heart by Linda Dillow (link to Amazon).


Friday, January 9, 2015

Marmee

Truly, we are not here alone, on this earth which is fallen with much sin and sadness.  But it must cross minds across the world as the nights plays on, as trials ensue, as people march on with their own lives in sought after independence, either intentionally or unintentionally hurting people and relationships along the way. 

I was always intrigued with a song from the musical, Little Women, called "Here Alone." The character is Marmee, mother of four, sitting down to write a letter back to her husband at war.  

Mindi Dickstein wrote these words for Marmee to sing, she begins, "My dear husband. . .  

Write a letter, be inventive
Tell you everything is fine.
Be attentive to the distance
Send my love with every line
Every word should bring you closer and
Caress you with it's tone.
Nothing should remind you
That I am here alone
I can't tell you what I'm feeling.
I can't talk about the war
How the peeling of the church bells
Brings the battle to our door
I don't know which part is harder
What I know or what's unknown
Or raising little women
when I am here alone
Counting days, Praying for news
Is this the life
We meant to choose?...
Do you know how much I miss you
At this hour of the day?
How I wish you were the twilight
Come to take my fears away
Can I manage four young women?
I'm not certain I know how
Will I be there when they need me?
Or do I fail them here and now?
I wish that you were with me
Wish that I could bring you home
The nights seem so much longer
Now that I am here alone.


I always admired the character for being so selfless and thoughtful, laying down her own trials to build up her husband, in an actual war. Across the world there are actual wars and the news is filled with snapshots of people being killed and oppressed, people fighting for their lives.  I see through those windows but have not experienced what war is like in a physical sense.  I think everyone, though, having experienced physical war or not, has experienced the wrestle, the inner war of the mind.  I believe it's the reason celebrities go bad, money corrupts, and relationships crumble.    

There is something I find interesting about the performances of "Here Alone," in particular.  As we have the luxury of YouTube, I started watching some videos of performances of it, from the amateur high school student to the national tour production.  I'll post a few videos below, but it struck me that more seasoned and mature the actor was, the more bitter and envious the Marmee was.  As the youth fled from the faces of the actresses, the sweet protection to not-burden-the-husband-at-war fled and developed into expressions of self pity and anger at him for leaving her "alone." 

Is this what life has become for married people?  We see plenty of it.  I know plenty of bitter young, old, and middle aged women who tear down their husband's character at a drop of a hat.  But I also know plenty of women, young and old, who stand as examples of a godly marriage.  Seeming to never tire of building up their husbands openly.  I am sure they still wrestle with thoughts, it would be un-human to not wrestle with negativism and bitterness.  But it is possible to not let it overcome one's self and fall into the forbidden, "well, this is just who I am." 

Mike and I have been married for about 11 years. We took a vacation last summer for our 10-year anniversary and had more fun than on our honeymoon.  The most encouraging part is that we met couples on their 25th, 35th, and 60th anniversary trips, and the consensus was that "the 35th is even better than the 10th!" and so on.  It is a story we do not hear often enough.  Grab a book on romance, and the scandal, affair, and backstabbing draws in your adrenaline.  I am not well read enough to even recommend exciting books about good marriages, but maybe one day some will come my way. I am talking about candid accounts of the day to day life of people living out godly marriages with the same depth of love that we have already lived out, which can only be the beginning of the richness and decadence to a fantastically designed relationship, meant to reflect the relationship of the God of the universe with mankind.  

I'll have to grab the new Francine Rivers book and see what she's writing these days.

So in these days of texting and grabbing each others attention multiple times a day, I crave those days of thoughtful communication, the letter writing days.  I got really good at thoughtful communication during residency.  Mike and I would need to talk about something, and I would put the issue on pause.  After a 36 hour shift, then a buffer day to work through or sleep it off, we could sometimes go until Friday discussing Monday's issue. I learned what was really important to bring up and what wasn't helpful in the time allowed.  I learned how to best serve Mike when he was overtired or his brain needed a respite.  I was not perfect by any means, and it came with a lot of trial and error, and prayer and counsel.  

To see the progression of bitterness settling in on a married life or age, you only need to see the first 30 seconds of each video.  I pray that in our real lives, the progression would be reversed. On account of the heaviness of wars in the world and in our minds, that we would be able to grow in tenderness and love towards people and not into a bitter facade of a common American expression, "I'm fine."

 Very soft and kind.  Gentle and loving.



Starts to get a bit bitter, softens a little 

Excellent acting.  Sarcasm.  What is her heart really saying?

 

The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out. Prov 17:14

A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot. Prov 14:30

It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling. Prov 20:3