Unanswerable questions, every last one. I was powerless. But as I stood on the front lines of these alarming battles, I heard the words of an Old Testament prophet: “Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you. . . . Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.”35
Hallelujah, God would be with me. The next day and the next and the next. It took time to unlearn my insufferable independence and self-sufficiency. I thought them to be noble qualities, proof of worth. But I’d missed the pride and insecurity that often festered as a result. Not to mention the isolation. Then self-sufficiency became nothing but foolishness.
A family can’t absorb three more children without help. Thus the reason God puts us in communities and even churches of flesh-and-blood people committed to share life. I needed help, of the daily kind, to help us manage a household filled with three new special-needs children. If the church is going to advocate for the orphan, then she ought also to advocate for the families who take them in.
But learning to lean isn’t just for mamas taking in extra children. It’s for the woman alone in a marriage falling apart. The childless couple who, for years now, have wanted nothing more than to grow a family. The unemployed family about to lose their home to foreclosure. And, heaven forbid, the widow learning to live her life without her husband.
For me, laying down my independence began with saying it out loud: admitting a need and asking for help. First a part-time college student to help with homework after school, only a few hours a week. Then a beautiful woman, Carla, who cleaned our house and prayed over our family as she did so. And yes, taking anti-anxiety medication for a season while my body and brain recovered from the war I’d waged. Even that was an ask for help.
The beautiful thing? I discovered life is far more beautiful — and endurable — when you don’t have to do it alone. Timothy Keller says it this way: “There is no way you will be able to grow spiritually apart from a deep involvement in a community of other believers. You can’t live the Christian life without a band of Christian friends, without a family of believers in which you find a place.”36
In the relinquishing of independence, I discovered community. My brokenness gave me connection, relationship. I thought asking for help was an admission of weakness. Instead, I discovered it a declaration of strength. Like King Jehoshaphat, it was in the laying down of my crown that I finally found my place.
With so many broken and beautiful others, each of us hanging on the promises of God.
Our God is a refuge for the broken, not a shelf for the display of the shiny. No more pride for those who have it all together, or shame for those who don’t.
Only stripped-bare humility, crowns on the ground. Together.
CHAPTER 21
Marker on My Walls
I don’t know what’s more exhausting about parenting: the getting up early, or acting like you know what you’re doing.
— JIM GAFFIGAN, Dad Is Fat
Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.
— ANNE LAMOTT, Bird by Bird
I STEPPED AWAY FOR A MOMENT. NOT A SMART MOVE, CONSIDERING my wealth of parental experience. Call it a lack of practice.
I’d forgotten the mother of all mothering rules: Don’t leave small children unsupervised. Ever.
“You can sit and color while I get a little work done. Okay?” I smiled as I passed out new coloring books and a Ziploc bag filled with fat crayons and markers. What’s better than a crisp new coloring book? Three little heads nodded and smiled in return.
Precious!
Confident they’d sit and color for a half hour (I could laugh as I write this), I left them in happy land and headed to my office. I had work to do, and I hadn’t yet negotiated the how-to of a career while mothering a new passel of monkeys. In the months since Christmas, I’d fallen way behind.
I sat at my desk and replied to emails, crafted to-do lists. With the French doors open, I could hear the sound of little voices, one room away, chattering about their in-progress masterpieces.
“I’m drawing a wace car. Vwooom!”
“Mine’s a rainbow!”
“Pink is my favorite color. What’s yours?”
Sweet. Musical, even. I’d forgotten how children’s voices could make a heart sing. God bless them. Snarky, adolescent-boy voices didn’t stir up the same kind of song.
Thirty minutes later (ahem, maybe an hour), I walked back to the dining room to check in on their art. I didn’t find any littles creating masterpieces. Instead, the coloring books sat abandoned. Crayons and markers littered the floor. And, to my horror, an unexpected masterpiece spanned my dining room wall.
Red, blue, and pink marker. Slashed across drywall and trim.
Blast it. I’d forgotten the second of all mothering rules: Don’t give preschoolers markers. Ever.
At this point, my heart song took on a different tone.
“Who did this?” I marched out of the dining room searching for suspects. I wasn’t using my happy voice. They peeked around a kitchen corner, eyes round and unblinking.
“Who colored on the walls?” I demanded, hands on hips. This is the go-to maternal stance when a crime has been committed.
Silence. None were eager to assume responsibility when the crazy woman in front of them had grown horns and a sharp, pointy tail.
So I waited. Interrogated them with glaring eyes and flintlike face. It took only a few seconds for two to turn on the third.
“It was Peanut.”
Aha! I knew it. I turned my attention to the littlest of the littles. The tiny, thirty-four-pound Wielder of Destructive Forces. And then I launched the question every mother asks and no child knows how to answer: “What were you thinking?!”
She stared at me wide-eyed, stuck out her bottom lip.
“You weren’t thinking, that’s what.” Another dose of motherly brilliance. “In this house, we color in coloring books and on paper. Not on walls.”
I went to the kitchen and grabbed a wet dishcloth. “You need to clean it up. Right now.” I wanted her to feel the sting of consequence so she wouldn’t do the same again.
If only it were that easy.
From the moment the littles joined our family, mishaps became a daily occurrence. A week or two after the marker on my dining room walls, the same girl found an overlooked pair of scissors in a kitchen drawer and gave herself a haircut — and by haircut I mean she obliterated every evidence of her bangs. By the end of the first month, the binding and hardcover of every child’s Bible we owned had been torn off and shredded. Toys, books, and DVDs likewise were broken, ripped, and snapped in two. It was as if the littles couldn’t resist the urge to destroy whatever they touched.
They pulled dresser drawers off their tracks. Slammed and broke bedroom doors. Shattered shower doors. Stretched and snapped window blinds and cords. They acted more like two-and three-year-olds at times; bloody noses and potty accidents happened with alarming frequency. Not to mention the lying, manipulation, crying, and defiance that accompanied the physical damage.
“It was an accident,” they said, again and again, with open hands holding the broken pieces like an offering.
These mishaps were only the barest beginning of our mess. Everything about my life felt in disarray. The frantic schedule and never-ending to-do lists. The cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundering, bed making, bathing, sandwich making, dressing, hair brushing, and shoe tying. From early morning until late at night, I worked harder than at any other time in my life.
What I didn’t expect, along with all the added parenting responsibilities, was the ridiculous amount of paperwork. Multipage school registration applications. Forms for individual education plans to address their learning disabilities. Applications for a private speech and language therapist. At least thirty or forty pages to register as a guardian with the county social serv
ices department. Triplicate forms for healthcare coverage. Then more stacks of medical-records paperwork once I tracked down the rare doctor, dentist, and optometrist who accepted said coverage. Not to mention transportation forms, childcare forms, therapy forms, and legal forms.
Sandwiching every individual piece of paper were hours of online research, phone calls, and face-to-face appointments. I thought it would never end.
I’d love to tell you how infinitely kind and patient I was during that first oh-so-chaotic year. How, after a hard day’s work, we circled up to play ring-around-the-rosy, sing songs, do family devotions, and hold hands.
It wasn’t that way for us. We had sweet moments, of course. And like a trail of bread crumbs, those moments of refreshment led me through our forest. In between sweet crumbs, however, it was all about survival. Plain and simple.
My house had been hijacked. Overnight, everything from my schedule to my kitchen plates had been disrupted and destroyed. The life I’d had before the littles came didn’t exist anymore. What remained I didn’t recognize. I felt out of place in my own house.
Like taking in walls covered in red marker, I looked at the mess and cringed.
Art often appears in the most unexpected places.
A short time after the marker on my walls, I stumbled across beauty in a place I didn’t anticipate. It started with a simple internet search. A couple of hours later, I learned something that changed my perspective.
In 1874, on the streets of an art-loving Paris, the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers decided to organize an art exhibition. This group of independent artists included notables like Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Claude Monet. Their purpose? To declare their independence from the more academic art world’s penchant for structure and style.
Instead of clean lines and soft shades, these artists used shocking color and blurred edges. They emphasized light and shadow, and pure, unblended color. This gave their art movement, spontaneity, and texture. At least in the eyes of the artist.
This new technique, however, made patrons uncomfortable. Critics complained their work appeared unfinished, sloppy. Merely an impression of what is, rather than a depiction of it.
Thus the birth of impressionism.
Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, part of the 1874 exhibition, remains one of the era’s finest. When standing close to the painting, maybe two feet away, the colors don’t blend well, appearing abrupt and unkempt. And the yellow-orange sun appears too shocking for the blue-green hues of the French harbor, Le Havre. Thus critics complained it was merely an “impression,” not a finished or complete work.
If the naysayers had taken a few steps back, however, I wonder if Impression, Sunrise might’ve become a place of imagination. With a cushion of distance, the slashes of Monet’s bright colors blend and move, causing the harbor to appear so real you can almost see the boats bob on the current. You picture an old man, bearded and gray, sitting in his vessel, oars in hand, and you wonder about his story.
Ultimately, your opinion of impressionism depends on where you stand to take in the view. You will end up a critic or a fan as a result of your vantage point.
I couldn’t help but think the same is true when a life endures a shocking change of events. Such as an unexpected cancer diagnosis and the addition of three children.
I have a bad habit of standing too close to my circumstances. Proximity provides me a sense of control. If I can roll up my sleeves, manage all the details, and mop up the messes, I feel better about things. I want structure and predictability.
But standing close enough to control also means seeing every brushstroke in point-blank detail. I see flaws with shocking clarity. Notice the way my missteps bump and bleed into others, and theirs into me. Rather than a story filled with possibilities, I see abrupt slashes of unwanted color, all of the many scenarios I didn’t expect and can’t control.
When I do this, stand nose-to-canvas to evaluate the art, the intensity is too much. I’m overwhelmed by my life. Disappointed in it.
This creates a fascinating paradox. Life, in all its shocking unpredictability, is to be lived up close, personal. We are to hover within arm’s length, interact and connect with real people and stories close enough to inhale, taste, and touch.
But although life is to be lived as such, its value can’t be measured from the same proximity. To do so will create an obsession with the countless errant details. Instead, to make peace with a life, to see it as art, requires a stepping back. With a gentle buffer of space, the slashes of color blend into the workings of an overall whole.
Only then do we see boats bobbing on the waves and a new sun rising in the sky. Spontaneity and randomness show evidence of artistic design. Though appearing undone, it hints that imperfection could turn into the makings of an incredible story.
And perhaps a breathtaking work of art.
I don’t recall any other time in life when I felt so exhausted. Most days were marked by my watching the clock move toward the littles’ 7:30 p.m. bedtime. And most nights I went to bed an hour after they did. Even so, when the alarm screamed at me the next morning, it was all I could do to drag my weary body out of bed.
By 7:30 a.m., day after day, the littles bounced into the kitchen with more energy and activity than a three-ring circus. I’m a morning person, through and through. But the volume was too much for me.
One morning in particular, the thought of enduring another day brought me to the edge of madness. Even after a full night’s sleep, I had nothing to give. Merely the thought of making breakfast made me want to collapse and cry.
I poured myself a cup of coffee, cradled it. Then, needing a pep talk even more than my dark roast, I opened my NIV Bible and the small Jesus Calling book sitting next to it. I needed something to hang on to, to give me a jolt of reassurance to make it through another day.
Through the words of Sarah Young, this is what he poured into my cup: “Glorifying and enjoying me is a higher priority than maintaining a tidy, structured life. Give up your striving to keep everything under control — an impossible task and waste of precious energy.”37
Not what I wanted to hear, but what I needed. My desire for a tidy life was simply that — my desire. This was the demand I made of myself and the people in my life, including God. But it was a demand God had no intention of meeting. Instead, he soothed my angst with a hint of freedom: I never wanted nor promised a tidy life. I want you. And I promised me.
In the span of two phone calls, I lost every semblance of order. Each morning I woke up to unknowns: Is the cancer really gone? What if it comes back? How long will the littles be with us? How will I do this for another fourteen years if they stay? And if they leave, how will I let them go? In the absence of answers to these questions, life turned anything but tidy.
From that vantage point, I saw a mess to maintain rather than a story to unfold. I wanted a mouth that didn’t hurt, children who behaved, a calendar I could count on. In short, I wanted structure and comfort, predictability and perfection. As a result, I almost missed the art taking shape.
My addiction to comfort and control — for both myself and my circumstances — had become both idol and crutch. It’s what I pursued and reached for, with both hands and endless effort. But all the striving came with a cost. In my attempts to manage my life, I missed out on the vibrancy of it.
I wanted to do right by the littles. I wanted to make up for all they’d lost, to be the mother they always needed but didn’t have. Even so, the grief I felt at my changing family was real and valid. Much was lost in the gaining of three children. This calling we accepted was neither easy nor glamorous.
Children are a heritage from the Lord, the Bible says. Yes. One thousand times, yes. The gain was a worthy and holy one. But to disregard the losses that came as a result is to dishonor the significance of the exchange made. And only in grieving could I free myself to keep living.
Like impressionistic art on the streets of Paris, i
t was all about vantage point. As I grieved, I had to step back from the canvas of my life — the flaws I resented in myself and the unanswered questions I couldn’t control — so I could see the movement of an incredible story. In changing my perspective, I discovered that my infernal perfectionism also provided me the energy needed to give my best to three children who needed it. My obsession with structure and schedules ended up being the safety the children desperately craved. And the cancer — the wretched cancer that paralyzed me with fear — ended up becoming the source of compassion for three children always terrified about tomorrow.
Against all odds, I started to see the flaws as a necessary part of the canvas of my story. Then, only then, did I begin to make peace with the marker on the walls.
And so, with revelation sinking deep into my flawed self, I stepped back from the canvas to take in the art from the vantage point of the Artist.
Coffee mug in hand, I read these words: “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy . . .”38
To him who is able to keep me from stumbling.
Days or weeks later, on yet another day far removed from the dining-room art exhibition, Princess bounced into the kitchen with another piece of artwork. She held it out, eyes bright as she waited for my approval.
“Look what I made, Mommy!”
Mommy. She called me Mommy.
“Show me. What have you got?” I reached for her art, placed it on the counter to take a proper look.
A white piece of paper, with flowers, grass, a big yellow sun, and eight stick figures drawn in a line. At the end, one black and perfectly drawn stick dog.
At the top of her paper, she’d written two words: “My family.”
Be still, my heart.
It took a child’s colored-pencil drawing for me to finally see. A story is more than a neat and tidy house with all the laundry done and dishes put away. And a life is more than the limits of my best efforts. A real family — a well-lived life — is found in the marker on the walls, the self-inflicted haircuts, and well-used books. Children who sometimes make too much noise and a mom and dad who sometimes lose their patience. Eight stick figures (and one stick dog) who hold hands in the grass and weather the mess.
Undone Page 18
