Let’s just slap Melvil Dewey and the Library of Congress in the face

Introducing the new Southglenn Public Library

Ok – now I am going to grumble.

The closest library to us recently closed for a month while it relocated.  I was very excited about this. It relocated to the Southglenn Mall . . . just a couple of minutes from my home.  I use the library all the time.  A new library opening is a big event in my life.  I’ve been counting the days.  As much as I hate the “typical homeschooler stereotype”, a love of libraries and books is a part of who am I.  I do not wear denim jumpers. My girls do not wear dresses with tennis shoes. My kids cannot win spelling bees. (If you are reading this Kristin, I want you to know that I am extremely proud of your three who made it to the National Spelling Bee.) Baking my own bread is out of the question. So, other than having an abnormally large family and loving books, I don’t fit the stereotype.

What I found today was just . . . offensive.

I knew I was going to be in a hurry, so I found the call numbers of a list of books that I wanted before arriving.  I thought I would just take the list and pull things from the shelves.  It’s a library. Things are supposed to be pretty standardized.  They have ALWAYS been that way at EVERY library to which I’ve ever been.

Books are no longer grouped according to a number system in adult non-fiction. I had to go to a librarian for help.  (I would like to say that the librarians there were available and ready to help with pleasant attitudes. At least that hasn’t changed.) The librarian told me that they had arranged the books in a way to make the patrons feel like they were in a bookstore.  I can see where this kind of environment has a welcoming warm feeling.  It does look very nice.  IT JUST IS NOT PRACTICAL!

The librarian also looked at my list of books, which contained things like Romeo and Juliet, The Odyssey, Pilgrim’s Progress and Profiles in Courage. These kind of books should be the staples of a library.  Only one book on my long list was at the library. It wasn’t that the copies of these books were checked out. They simply did not carry those kinds of books.  It was kind of like a kitchen that didn’t have any salt.  This made no sense to me.

The friendly librarian went on to explain that this library wasn’t really designed for students or learning. She suggested that I go to another library if that was what I wanted to do.  WHAT!?!?!? If you can’t go to a library to learn, where are you supposed to go? She did say that I could request books online from other libraries and they would be delivered to this one. I will do that but what if I don’t know what book I want?  I guess the days of pondering over long shelves of books and finding something new and interesting to me will not happen here.

Columbine

Columbine is in the headlines again. I am amazed how quickly my heart and mind can travel back to the intense pain of that day.  We lived a few minutes away from that school when it happened. Gary had left the youth ministry a year before that but we had remained an active part of Littleton Christian Church, where we had been for many years. In some ways, we have not stopped ministering to some the kids in our youth group.  (Now Dan and Kerry Hoff, who were once in our youth group, are now our pastors.  We still see some of those ‘kids’  on a pretty regular basis.)  Many of the students in our youth group attended Columbine.  Many were inside the school that day.

Their stories haunt me. Sean was hiding in a pantry inside the kitchen. He could hear the killers shooting guns at the unexploded bombs in an unsuccessful attempt to set them off. Luke was one of the first to leave the cafeteria. He made it to one of his friend’s house and called his home. His mother was at the grocery store when it happened. She found out about the shootings by hearing his voice on the answering machine telling her that he was still alive. Another friend of mine, Cathy, had a much harder time than Luke’s mom. Her son Tim was on the last bus of kids to leave the school. She had to wait for hours, watching bus load after bus load of kids arrive at Leawood Elementry before she found out that her son was still alive. But he still alive – that’s what she will always remember. Debbie was sick that day. She remembers flirting with one of the killers months before that day. He would always smile at her in the halls. Afterward, she would question his thoughts. When he smiled at her was he thinking, “I’m going to kill you someday,” or “I like you, we should go out.”? She will never know the answer to that question. And there were many more that day. Each with their own story. Each with their own pain.

I was acquainted with the parents of one of the killers. When he was in grade school, they appeared to be very attentive parents. They were very active in his life and in his school. They both worked and I am sure their careers were important to them but I don’t have a doubt in my mind that he was more important. They are not bad people. I saw no signs of them being a dysfunctional family. And I was in an unique position where I likely would have seen some evidence of that. But there wasn’t any. Maybe that was one of things that really frightened me.

I cried uncontrollably every day for months. I would look suspiciously at teenage boys in stores and wonder if they would suddenly “go off.” Sometimes I would go to Clement Park and sit and pray and wonder. And gradually, I began to cry less. And I watched all of the kids in our youth group move on. I can now drive on Bowles, passing Pierce, and not even think of that day. I avoided that intersection for quite some time.

And I wish I could talk about some grand lesson that we all learned. Many have tried to do that. We have learned things. Law enforcement has learned how to deal much more effectively with these kind of situations. The leadership team of our very small school, Crossroads Christian Academy, has included a shooter plan in our safety strategy. We have learned to find hope, comfort and peace in places where they don’t grow naturally. And we have also learned that even ten years later, it can still hurt.

Joy in pain

Today in church Pastor John Leach talked about pain. He reminded us of all that pain does – it brings us closer to God, it humbles us and it puts us in a better place to help others that we may have not been able to help if we had not gone through what was put in front of us.

And then he showed a video of Nick Vujicic. Nick, a man born without arms and legs (whose story is found here) is an amazing example of all that God can do in you when you give yourself to Him.

My obstacles are different from Nick’s, but God is teaching me everyday how to live my life with joy through these obstacles. Lately, God has been renewing my mind, my heart and my strength. Yeah God! Maybe my winter is finally coming to an end. (?) I sure hope so.

Balance

I have balance issues.  There have been many times lately that Stina has come home very late at night.  She finds everyone in our house in bed asleep except for me. What am I doing? Working. Working. Working. Working. Give me a task and I am all about getting it done as quickly and efficiently as I can.  I make insane ‘to do” lists for myself. (I have an excel spreadsheet addiction in addition to the rest of my issues.) Each time my precious daughter catches me working late at night, she sits me down and lectures me. There is truly nothing worse than being lectured by your children when they are right.

But, she is doing more than lecturing me. Now, she is stinking holding me accountable. If she catches me up past 11:00 tonight, I have agreed to come under severe punishment from her. She is also concerned that I don’t drink enough water. If I fail to drink the agreed upon amount of water today, I have to go jogging with her on Wednesday. (FYI – It is now 1:00 in the afternoon and I have drank two times the agreed upon amount of water because I do NOT want to jog.)

I don’t understand why I just can’t let my tasks go. Why is this such a struggle for me? I love people. I love spending time with people, investing in people’s lives and playing with people. But all of these tasks really get in the way of all that. The world won’t end if I don’t do these things; I know that. Stina tells me that all the time. Why is this such a huge struggle for me? I can’t figure it out and I have really thought about it. It is not because I get my self worth from what I do. I do feel that the largest part of what I do is meaningful. I am very purpose driven. I just need to take control of it instead of it taking control of me.

Proposal Anniversary

Twenty-five years ago today Gary asked me to marry him. I said yes. I can’t imagine my life without him. It hasn’t always been easy but it has always been worth it. He is an incredible man and I am so blessed that he is mine.

Longing for Spring

Winter.  I am entering my twenty-sixth month now. Have you ever read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? In the beginning the land of Narnia is in a perpetual winter. Or perhaps you have read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book, The Long Winter. The family almost starved to death due to seven months of blizzards.

My winter actually started in a blizzard – December of 2006.  I had just become pregnant with our sixth child, David, in November.  (Being just over forty and pregnant is completely different from being just over twenty and pregnant.) In mid December it snowed, and snowed, and snowed and snowed. It seemed like the blizzards just came back to back until March.  There were weeks in which we literally couldn’t get a work truck out of the garage. I took a hard fall on the ice and landed on my head. My old, pregnant body just didn’t seem to want to bounce back.

And then David came in July. You don’t find many mothers who are as seasoned as I am with newborns. He had colic like nothing I had ever seen before. The first six months of his life were unbelievable. The unending screaming was unbearable. In that period I am confident that I rarely slept more than four hours in any given 24 hour period. And those four hours were never lumped together.  In August of that year, the husband of one my closest friends died after a two year battle with lung cancer. I also experienced the complete betrayal of someone I trusted during that time period.

Then I spent February and March of 2008 trying to run our office completely by myself (a job that six months prior to this was handled by one full-time and one part-time employee) while homeschooling two junior highers and caring for two little babies. As soon as I was able to hire someone to replace myself in the office, I found myself having to mediate two very emotional complex situations that were not related to our family or business. I had spent the past few years pouring myself out to a family that really needed some extra love. The teenage son got into trouble and we had to make some very hard decisions in order to protect other people. This caused the family to turn on us like a rabid wolves.

Then as soon as everything from that incident settled down, we had to face the consequences from the betrayal that happened when David was an infant. This meant sitting down with the IRS and making a payment installment agreement. This was one of the most frustrating and time consuming things that you can imagine. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. After that agreement was reached, the revenue agent with whom we were working decided that she wasn’t going to keep her end of the bargain. Even though our corporation has faithfully made EVERY payment in full and on time, she has decided to try to collect that same money on us personally.  The tax guy that we hired to help us with this mess has never seen anything like this in the twelve years that he has been doing this. We have an appeal set for the end of this month.

My soul is weary.

There has been very little rest emotionally, physically and financially these last twenty-six months. And one may ask, “Where was your God in all of these things?” And the answer clearly is right in the middle. He has been in the middle of it all.  Holding us. Teaching us. Strengthening us. Keeping us relatively sane. Loving us. His tender mercy with us has taught us how to be merciful to others. I am sure he is taking what was meant for evil and using it for His good. I have no idea what His plans are for us, but I trust Him. He is faithful.

But it is time for this to end. Time for rest. Time for us not to find a challenge around every corner. Everything within me is crying out for rest. Time for winter to be over and for spring to begin.

I HATE being lied to . . .

Yesterday a customer lied to Christina, my office manager/daughter. I had a conversation with this person a few minutes prior to the conversation that Christina had with this person. I unmistakenly and disctictivly told her something. This person turned around and told Christina I had said something other than what I had said. There was no “miscommunication” or “confusion” here. It was a lie. It wasn’t a big lie but it was still a lie. About a month prior to this I caught another person in a lie. I “called this person on the carpet” about what she had said and she refused to even acknowledge any of it.

Sometimes it is easy to guess the motivation of the person who is lying. I do my best to look at the person with grace. I try to put myself in their shoes and see the heart behind their words. But I still really, really hate it. I always teach my children that you can’t respect someone and lie to them at the same time. I know different people have different values. But when a person chooses to place his/her own pride above what is true or tries to get what he/she wants at the expense of honesty, it damages relationships. It damages people. And it makes me really sad. I think it makes God sad also.

Captivating

Rarely will it take me more than a few days to read a book when I am reading it for my own pleasure or growth.  A few years ago Christina gave the book Captivating to me for my birthday. As usual, I opened it and read it very quickly; not really taking the time that it needed to sink into my soul.

Because Sarah is the only one of my children that I am schooling full-time right now, I decided that the two of us would take the time to read it out loud together. We started in August and will finish the book this week. Since we are only taking small, bite-size pieces at a time, my creator has taken the opportunity to speak to the deep places inside me about what a woman is and about who I am. It has been both painful and liberating.

John and Stasi Eldredge spend so much time emphasizing the beautiful strength that women have and the irreplaceable and incredible role that God desires for them to play. From the beginning, the enemy of our soul set out to destroy Eve (and all her daughters) despising her beauty, her role in relationships and her strength; despising all of the image of God in which she was created. This book points out what Satan has stolen and guides women back to reclaim the real identity that God intended from the beginning.

And I don’t have to look very far to see beauty. God has surrounded me with four amazing examples of what femininity should be, my daughters. I saw them on many of the pages of this book. The strengths that they possess daily inspires me to be what God has called me to be.

I see Christina as Deborah (Judges 4 & 5). It would take much too long to recount the story here and I could not do it justice anyway. Christina is a marvelously courageous leader like Deborah. She wasn’t afraid to go into battle even when Barak was. Just like Deborah, Stina sees God’s hand instead of the obstacles.  They both clearly hear God’s voice and nothing is going to detract them from following Him. An undeniable strength surrounds Stina just like it did Deborah. There is something about Christina that draws people to her. She has an uncanny ability to bring people together. Christina’s beauty is stunning.

I see Elissa as Esther. Her strength is quieter than Stina’s but no less. Her strength is in her vulnerability. Over and over again, Esther did not put up walls of protection around herself when in trying and dangerous situations. Esther saved the nation of Israel through her willingness to expose her heart.  I know my first response when I sense that something may hurt me is to do whatever I can to hide my heart; I think the vast majority of people do exactly that. When you really examine it, it takes a massive amount of maturity and strength to let yourself be vulnerable. The willingness to stay soft even when you know that the world wants to harm or destroy you, takes strength of Herculean proportions and it is intensively attractive.

I see Sarah as Mary, the mother of Jesus. Softhearted and obedient. Sarah is willing to let God use her however He chooses, even if it involves great personal sacrifice.  Both Mary and Sarah are trustworthy beyond measure. Sometimes I think about how shocking it was for God to place himself in the most vulnerable of all positions, a newborn baby. And who does he choose to care of this infant? A young, teenage girl. A girl who was probably about the same age as Sarah is now. And just like Mary, Sarah has that same spirit. Her beauty is captivating.

And then there is Michaela. I can’t wait to see the kind of woman that God raises her to be. Watching her dance, nurture her little brother and come up with crazy ideas and ways to make those ideas come to life, gives me complete confidence that she will be every bit as beautiful as her sisters.

I have limitations.

I have limitations.

Even though, on the surface, that seems like it would be an easy concept for me to grasp, it certainly isn’t. My God has NO limitations. Since He lives in me, fills me and sustains me, I sometimes feel like I shouldn’t have limitations. This has become a problem in my life. Pastor John Leach preached a sermon today that really impacted me. It seems that I am not the only one with this problem. This is a struggle in his life also.

He gave the following illustration in his sermon: Our lives are like reservoirs. God fills us. He is the source. A daily, real relationship with Him fills us up. I have this relationship. God pours His grace and his love into me in amounts that constantly amaze and astound me. He is faithful. Then, people come and tap into this reservoir. And, for the most part, this is a good thing. I have poured myself into a lot people. Most of the time, they grow and develop their own reservoirs and feed others.

This is a good thing. But then more and more people/things start to tap in and this is what happens:

This is not about not letting God fill me up. He does, every day, all the time. He is faithful. This is about my own limits. See God doesn’t change the size of my reservoir. The more people that tap in, the less there is of me. It is very unhealthy of me to live at this level – spiritually, emotionally and physically. I have limits.

I need to be way more careful about how much I am pouring out of my reservoir. I am going to spend sometime evaluating where everything is going. I am going to take care of myself. I don’t know what this looks like. I probably need the help of my friends and family to accomplish this. But it must happen.

Warning: TMI

Warning: This post may contain TOO MUCH INFORMATION for some of you. If you don’t want to know personal information about BREASTFEEDING – stop now! Don’t complain.

I am in the process of weaning David – another two or three days and it will be over. This makes me both sad and happy. I love nursing. It is a special time that has always been precious. At times, holding my youngest two children has been a competition in my house. All of the older ones loved holding the babies. I often had to fight them off to hold my own little ones. But I could always pull out the nursing card – no one else could do it. It insured that I would have the time with them that they (and I) needed.

And now, it is almost over. I did some research and have figured that in my lifetime I have produced approximately 500 gallons of milk.  That’s crazy. That’s a lot of work.

David is now 13 1/2 months. This is the longest I have ever nursed a child. Stina has vowed to tease him about this when he is older. So, to save him the embarrassment that his older siblings will definitely inflict upon him, I have decided to stop. This season is OVER!