It’s become legend in my family–the night I went to see Hedda Gabler at my university as a freshman.
Somewhere in Act II, I think, my friend Paul came on stage wearing a painted-on black eye. And that’s when I promptly began to feel lightheaded. I was thinking, Janel. It’s makeup. read more
As part of the premise of this blog, I commit to uncomfortable conversations worth having. And the onus of that falls on me—toward authenticity in the midst of my own doubt and weirdness.
So today, I’m opening the convo with something I regret.read more
Anyone else out there go through these seasons when you’re struggling to find hope around one of your kids?
Gnawing on this recently, I realized I’ve gone through seasons of this with each of my kids. Some more than others, sure. But there was that year when I was deeply concerned about my daughter’s manipulation. Or my son’s ADHD taking a wrecking ball to his relationships. Or that kid whose ego I could see splintering him off from listening to God.read more
There was still snow regularly fluffing up the ground when I pulled out my seed starter this past winter. I enlisted my kids to extract seeds from little packages with technicolor images, and I was a little giddy with the vivid pictures in my head of a blooming porch and deck. For more than a month, my little sunroom was overtaken by pots, sitting there like kids waiting for summer vacation.
But then, I traveled for nearly a month, leaving my kids to maintain watering. Oh. And then there was a drought, to the point that the wooden Smoky the Bear stationed next to the highway held a sign reading the fire danger was “extreme” (and indeed, resulted in at least three area forest fires). In no shortage of irony or demise to my ailing plants, last week brought five afternoons of hail, plus area flooding that shut down the main highway. I was dumping water from the peonies I’d purchased, their two limp, torn leaves a far cry from the pink globes in my head.
I must have been seventeen. I still remember the room and where I was sitting in it. Sadly, I don’t remember the exact nature of the trauma that had come upon one of the youth group members, which was explained as we listened in relative silence that Sunday morning. I do know someone had died. But I remember the youth leader giving us advice about how to help those around them, and I specifically remember this: Here’s what not to say. Don’t tell them this was God’s will.
One of the unexpected delights of our final couple of months in Africa was the arrival of a college friend who’s known my husband and I since the beginning. She watched us meet, cautiously date, giddily become engaged. She played the piano when the two of us spring chickens said “I do” forever. Later, I stood with her as she spoke her own vows beneath a spreading tree. And when she visited us in Africa and we stayed up entirely too late, she gave us this gift: I told my husband, “I love that she reminds us how good we are together. That you and I together are a really good thing.”
My family and I are headed back from Africa, which twists my heart in all sorts of new ways. But with that, my kids will be attending school for the first time—American school. Any of you mamas out there imagine the ways that messes with a mama’s heart?
So many of my prayers are poured out like water over their adjustment. Over finding just one solid friend. Over teachers and my son’s learning disorder and my kids’ abilities to be kind in the face of insult. And I think this is as it should be: asking God’s generous favor, slathered all over our kids.
But there’s this. I was reading Brene Brown last night, who occasionally helps me get my emotional head screwed on straight. And she reminded me of this: “Hope is a function of struggle. If we want our children to develop high levels of hopefulness, we have to let them struggle.”read more
The headlights wove through a mountain pass tonight as a few tears plopped on my lap. My husband had encouraged me to get out for some time alone; he and the kids shared shish kabobs at home. Usually I’m getting out for a relief from, well, motherhood. In the car it was blissfully quiet, blissfully alone. But my wanderings through the stacks of the used bookstore had struggled to lift what sat on my chest.
Remember the ’99 Julia Roberts flick, Runaway Bride?
Roberts’ character has a bad reputation for landing at the altar and, well, taking off. (Spoiler alert, here–) Turns out she’s been a chameleon of sorts, being “supportive” to the point of wholly adopting her not-so-future mate’s preferences, hobbies, and lifestyle: She likes her eggs the same way. She dons a large (fake) tattoo. She prepares to climb Everest for one of her (not-gonna-happen) honeymoons.
The fiancés are left clueless and bewildered as she turns from each of them, minutes from matrimony. I adored her! And yet, apparently none understood how little they’d actually sought out her soul, or cherished her uniqueness apart from what she contributed to their own interests.
The dust, fine and red, coats the plants lining our roads. Sweat beads on my upper lip. Last night as my children lay awake in bed, I stuck my head in and reminded them to keep guzzling plenty of water, after a friend of theirs landed in the clinic for dehydration. Cooking in the warm afternoons in my kitchen, with my hair twisted off my neck, I’ve been praying, coaxing the weather. C’mon, rainy season.