But I recently read a fiction book I couldn’t put down: The Weight of Shadows, by Alison Strobel. Alison is a friend of mine, and when she said she’d be doing a blog tour to help promote her new book, I volunteered gladly. At the very least, I thought, it would be a fun excuse to read a fiction book.

When my copy arrived in the mail, I was really excited, and I couldn’t wait to crack it open. Later that evening, I read about half of it in a few hours. Now, yes, I do read quickly, but more than that, I wanted to keep reading so I could find out how these characters would develop and change. They were so real; after a while, they stopped being characters and became instead like people I really knew.

And that’s when I had to take a break. The book was so full of genuine emotion and life, and these characters so real, that I had to stop. It started feeling uncomfortably close to home.

You see, one of the central characters in the book is a young, widowed father who has a little girl he’s trying to raise by himself. And reading how he and his daughter process elements of his wife’s death was really hard. I still think about what would have happened to Brett and Elanor if things had turned out differently when my heart incident happened, so it was very hard to read about this dad and his little girl.

After I took a break for a day or two, and picked the book back up again, I couldn’t put it down. I felt compelled to finish, to find out what happened.

In addition to the dad and his daughter, there were two other central characters whose stories wove together. I wanted to see how all of their seemingly very different paths would cross and become intertwined, including a great plot twist at the end that I just did not see coming.

I won’t give you many plot details, because I don’t want to give anything away, but I’ll quote the summary from Alison’s website instead:

After a difficult childhood, Kim has built a successful life for herself, but she’d leave it all if it meant being rid of the guilt she harbors over a tragic mistake she made years ago. When she meets Rick, she finds everything she needs—including a way to pay for her sins every time he hits her. Kim and Rick’s new neighbor, Joshua, knows more than Kim realizes about Rick’s abusive behavior, but Joshua has battles of his own to fight. Soon to intersect Kim’s and Rick’s lives is Debbie, who has saved countless women from abuse through the shelter she runs but might be as desperate for love as the women she serves. Meanwhile, as Rick’s wrath extends to their baby, Kim must decide if her penance is more important than protecting that innocent life—and if she should dare leave Rick when he has the power to bring her hidden crime to light. A gripping, gritty novel, The Weight of Shadows explores how the risks we take for those we love can touch the lives of others forever.

Another element to the story is the way Alison includes faith and Christianity. In so many Christian books, this is done with a heavy hand, and with a preachiness that is really annoying. The Weight of Shadows is so far from that! The elements of Christianity flow out of the characters in a really natural, beautiful way. Reading the book strengthened my faith, and reminded me of the huge amount of grace God has given us.

I really loved this book. It stands apart in the world of Christian fiction (and I’ve read a lot of Christian fiction!), because it’s real, and true to life. It doesn’t trivialize the characters’ problems, and it doesn’t portray an in-the-box, boring version of Christianity.

I think you’ll love it, too. And that’s where the giveaway comes in!

If you’d like to win a copy of The Weight of Shadows, just leave a comment below before June 27 at midnight, and tell me one thing that makes a book so good you don’t want to put it down. I’ll use a random number generator to choose the winner, and Alison’s publisher, Zondervan, will ship the winner a copy of the book when the blog tour is complete.

Also, iPad, Kindle and Sony e-Reader users can download a copy for free! See this page on Alison’s site for details. The promotion was originally scheduled to go through 6/19 but as of this morning (6/21), it’s still available for free download!

And, if you aren’t the winner and you don’t have an iPad, Kindle or e-Reader but you still want to read the book, here’s where you can buy a copy for yourself. You won’t be sorry!

Oh, and one more thing, this directly from Alison herself: “On July 18th, which is one week after the close of the tour, I’ll choose one commenter from a randomly selected blog to receive either autographed copies of my first three books or a gift card to their favorite bookstore.” So comment away — even if you don’t win the copy from my blog, you could still win!

We’ve visited a few churches, and found them to be okay, but not exactly what we’re looking for: Bible-based preaching, good worship music, people we can identify with, and views on children and child rearing that line up with ours. It’s a tall order; I know.

We’re not sure when we should just settle down and go somewhere that we don’t feel is the right fit, just so we’re going to church, period. But a large part of why we want to be in a church is to get to know other people in the church, and if we’re just going somewhere to go through the motions until we find the perfect fit, we probably won’t get to know people very well.

Plus, Brett still works on Sundays, and Elanor’s at an age where she still won’t go in the nursery but isn’t big enough to sit still in church yet, so it’s just kind of hard all around. And I’m not going to lie, I’m a little gun-shy about going to church at all with Elanor these days, because of what happened when we got kicked out of church back in July.

I just keep telling myself that this is a season, and that it will pass, and that we will find a church here eventually. I hope that is true; I’m beginning to really miss that time of worship every week. So, I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: if you know of a church you’d recommend in San Francisco, let me know!

• Writing: A post manifesto piece about our child rearing ideas. It’s gotten really, really long. It may wind up being a series of posts, actually, but, then, that would be great if I do NaBloPoMo again. So keep your eyes peeled for that. No promises on when I’ll have it done, but I’m hoping in the next few weeks. It’s morphing into something way bigger than what I intended it to be, so I’m just going to let it lead for a while and see where it takes me.
• Reading: Some more of the books from my childhood that my mom brought me when she visited. Two of my favorites were in the box she brought: “Nickel-Plated Beauty” and “Hail Columbia” by Patricia Beatty. They take place in the Astoria area around the turn of the century and they are funny, heartfelt books. I love them just as much now as I did when I was younger.
• Cooking: Not much. I have been a very lazy cook lately. I did make two apple pies last week, which was fun, but other than that, I’ve been mighty negligent on the cooking front. It’s getting close to being soup weather here, though, which should help. I always feel more inspired to cook when it’s cold outside.
• Looking for: Some more work I can do from home. I am not super eager to do this, as I don’t want a repeat of how stressful it was for me in Seattle when I was working from home, but our budget needs to be expanded so I am looking and praying God will provide the right thing at the right time.
• Thankful for: Our home here and the friends we’re making. I still just love our apartment, and I’m really enjoying getting to know on a deeper level some of the people I’ve met. (I’m looking at you, Emily, Emily, Laura, and Sarah.)
• Loving: Elanor’s increasing verbal ability. It’s astonishing to me! She says something new every day, and I love it. She’s getting to be such a kid! And yet, at the same time, she’s still such a baby. What a fun and exhausting challenging stage this is!
• Anticipating: That Brett and I are going to be an aunt and uncle again! Brett’s sister Amy and her husband Seth are expecting in March. We’re thrilled, and we can’t wait to meet the little he/she!
• Learning: More and more about myself every day, as I work through the things I’m writing about in the piece about our child rearing philosophy, as I realize that I have long had issues with anxiety, as I continue to learn about how Brett and I function as a couple, and as I learn to trust in God’s provision.

Anyway, that’s us these days. Nothing terribly exciting, really. The weeks have their ups and their downs, but for the most part, life is good: full of good food, new friends, good coffee, a comfortable home in an awesome city, and a great husband and kid. I can’t really ask for anything more than that.

The conversation was very civil, and very calm. He apologized for how we were treated, and said that he was glad I’d taken the time to write. I thanked him for his apology. He went on to say that someone would definitely be talking with the woman who treated us so rudely, and that what she said to Brett was not okay and it would be addressed.

However, he said that their policy is, indeed, that they don’t allow children under the age of 6 in the sanctuary at all, at any point in the service.

He said that over his years of being a pastor, he’s decided that this is the best policy, despite the fact that he has four children. He said that their sanctuary is so small and intimate that one, they don’t have room for kids, and two, when a sensitive moment arises and, he said, “the Holy Spirit is moving,” that a child can distract people due to the size and intimacy of the space.

Huh. And here I thought the Holy Spirit (that is, you know, GOD) is powerful enough to work in spite of a child’s voice.

Anyway, he said that my letter also brought to his attention that they probably do need to say up front that children aren’t allowed in the service. He also said that their entire “family room” program is in transition, and that it used to be a section of the church that they opened to the sanctuary during the worship, then could close during the sermon. But because they have had a lot of people attending lately, they turned that area into regular seating and are going to build a different family room off the balcony, he said. The room we saw was a temporary solution. Shrug. Whatever. Either way, that’s not okay with Brett and me.

I thanked him for his call, and for his apology, and said (very nicely) that clearly, we had a fundamental difference of opinion, and he could explain his rationale about not allowing children all he wanted but I’d still disagree with him. I told him that I was disappointed, that his church had seemed to be a good fit in every other way, but that it was not the place for us if that was their policy.

The conversation was actually really anti-climatic. I’m not really sure what I was expecting, but at least it did provide us with clarity that it is not the place for us.

Sigh. So it’s back to church shopping…that is, if Brett can get a Sunday morning off or if we can find another church with an evening service, which is proving to be really hard.Frustrating, but I’ll just keep trying to trust that God has the right place for us.

Yeah.

It happened again. Only this time, we didn’t get kicked out of a coffee shop, we got kicked out of a church.

*jaw drops to floor*

I know! Me! Getting kicked out of church! CHURCH! Haha. It’s so absurd that it’s freaking hilarious.

Anyway, I can’t believe it’s happened again, that we got kicked out of somewhere because of Elanor. And, like last time, she wasn’t even being a problem. I was already paranoid about her being a disturbance when we’re out in public; this is going to send me right over the edge. Oh, well, that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway, here’s what happened.

We really loved our church in Seattle, and the one thing that made us nervous about this move was the fact that we didn’t know of a good church in this city. But a friend of a friend gave us a list of churches to try, so we checked out the websites and have been going down the list.

Before I get any further, I should add that Brett works on Sundays, so it’s been hard to go try churches. Occasionally, he’ll be able to get the time off on Sunday mornings, but not right away and not every week. So since this church has a Saturday night service, so we decided it was at the top of the list of churches to try.

This is the second church we’ve been to. It seemed to be a good fit for us doctrine-wise, and from what we could tell on the website it seemed to be right up our alley style-wise.

We knew going into it that there isn’t an official children’s ministry at the evening service, which is fine as Elanor will never go in the nursery anyway. We figured we’d stay together as a family during the singing, then I’d take Elanor out, hopefully to a place where I could still hear the sermon, once the message started.

We walked in and people greeted us in a friendly way. The atmosphere was great and we were both looking at each other and thinking that this might work. As we were trying to find a seat, a man approached us and asked us if we wanted to go to the family section, and we said okay, thinking it was an area of the sanctuary or maybe in the balcony.

About four flights of stairs later, we arrived in a room with a TV screen and some folding chairs, with a couple of pre-teens sitting in them.

Brett and I looked at each other. I asked the woman working in the room if the service was broadcast on the screen, and she said yes. Brett and I had an awkward exchange of asking each other what we were going to do, and then he said he was going to go back downstairs. After chatting for a minute with the lady working in the room, I said that we were going to go down and worship with Brett but we’d be back later, I was sure. She cheerfully said that she’d see us later, and Elanor and I walked out. I left our stroller and backpack there.

I went back down the stairs with Elanor and saw Brett sitting on the end of the back row. The first worship song was about halfway through at this point. I started to sit down, but before I could even sit down all the way, a woman stuck her head between our heads and said something like, “I’m going to have to ask you to take your daughter out of the service.”

At this point, Elanor had not made a noise. Not a single noise. She was in my arms and we had not even sat down. Literally, she could have been asleep for all the disturbance she was creating.

I said, “Excuse me?”

And she said, “We don’t allow children in the service. There’s a room upstairs.”

I answered, “Yes, I know, we’ve been up there already but we wanted to worship as a family.”

The conversation went on, and I don’t remember the exact words. Sometime around this point, Brett kind of flung his bulletin at her and said, “Fine, if she’s not welcome, we’ll leave.”

I handed Elanor to him and said I’d go get our stuff, and he went to stand in the doorway to the foyer.

I asked the woman why I had to take Elanor out.

She said something like, “Children distract people from being able to commune with the Lord.”

And I said, “Well, I want my daughter to learn how to commune with the Lord.”

She said, “Yes, and she can in the appropriate class.”

I said, “She won’t stay in one of the classes. All I was going to do was worship with her here, and that’s not okay?”

She kept reiterating things about how they don’t allow it and how children are distracting.

At this point, I could feel my blood beginning to really boil, and I could see Brett getting antsy, and this woman and I were standing in the sanctuary arguing, and things were getting heated, so I just basically told the lady to forget it and went upstairs to get our stuff.

As I was walking out, Brett said, rather loudly, “Sorry to be so DISTRACTING!” It was a shout, I guess – above regular talking but not a scream or anything. I doubt that the people in the front heard it. I cringed in the moment, but now I’m proud of him for saying something. (And I also think it’s pretty freaking hilarious. We both laughed for a long time last night when we remembered it: one of those giggle-pause-exchange glances-giggle-snicker-guffaw kind of tension-breaking laughs. It was great.)

Anyway, I was on my way upstairs then, so I didn’t hear what happened next. Apparently the woman came over to him and said, “Those aren’t very righteous words, are they?”

!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously? SERIOUSLY!??! Who SAYS that? Who judges a visitor, or anyone, really, like that?!? I mean, as my mom said, she would maybe say that to her child, and MAYBE to a very, very close friend, but certainly to no one else.

Anyway, their conversation continued on from that point and Brett said he couldn’t remember exactly what was said, but that the woman kept saying things to him like, “Jesus wouldn’t want you to say that,” and “Would Jesus want you to act that way?” He said she was self-righteous and stuck up and that she kept saying things to him about how Jesus didn’t approve of what he was doing.

Their interaction did culminate in him saying something to the woman that, well, let’s just say Jesus sure wouldn’t approve of it. I don’t, either, and I told him as much. But to be honest, in the situation, I don’t blame him one bit for saying to her. He has since said he feels really bad that he said it and has prayed about it, but like I said, I don’t blame him. He was pushed to the very edge by this woman. Who wouldn’t snap?

But then? (This is the best part.)

She called security on him.

She called the two bouncer-type ushers in from outside and told them to take him outside and not let him back in.

To church.

While he was holding Elanor.

There aren’t words. Well, okay, there are words that I want to type here but I won’t, because they are not really appropriate. Kind of like what Brett said to the lady. Yeah. So I will refrain. But SERIOUSLY?!

He said that the guys were really confused and asked him what was wrong. He told them that we’d been asked to take Elanor out of the service so we were leaving. One of them offered up the family room, and Brett said that we already knew about it but she won’t stay in a room unless one of us is there, and we wanted to sing together.

He said the guys kind of shuffled around awkwardly and didn’t know what to say.

So I came back downstairs to find him holding Elanor on the sidewalk. As we walked away, the bouncer/usher guys called after us, “I’m sorry, man!”

I felt like calling back, “Yeah, you should be!”

Anyone who knows me knows that as soon as Elanor made a peep, I would have gotten up and gone upstairs. I was armed with chocolate Cats Cookies for People in my pocket and I fully intended to take her up when the preaching started, anyway. All I wanted to do was to be able to fellowship, for only a few short minutes, WITH my husband and daughter, not in a stuffy upstairs room, watching a video feed with my husband several floors below, sitting alone among people he doesn’t know. If we want to sit in a room and watch a video of a church service, I can do that in the comfort of my own home. We need to meet other Christians, and experience corporate worship, which is why we are going to church in the first place.

But what’s been bugging us, too, is that if this no kids in the service thing is such an integral part of this church’s belief, then why in the world didn’t the woman in the “family room” say something to me? Why didn’t the usher who took us upstairs in the first place? Why didn’t the greeters?

At least we are Christians who won’t let this turn us away from Christ altogether. We will keep persevering and will eventually (I hope) find a church here, but what if we’d been unbelievers? How did that woman know? She didn’t. For all she knows, we could have been unbelievers who were treated with coldness, rudeness, and judgement in a situation that could have so easily been used to show Christ’s love. As a Christian, I’m ashamed she acted that way. It is completely against what I believe Christianity means, and against what Christ preached.

Supposedly, it’s also not in line with what this church believes, either. From the church’s own doctrinal statement on their website, I quote in italics:

We believe that grace, healing, love and service are essential components to any viable witness of Christ (Micah 6:8, James 5:14-16, John 13:34-35, Mark 10:43-45)
How was her witness of Christ at all filled with grace, healing, love, or service?  It was filled with condemnation, dissention, and judgement.

We believe that our posture towards the lost and unbelieving is to be one of humility and compassion, not mean-spirited or arrogantly judgmental even as we seek to embrace the Christian message with intensity and passion (Mark 10:42-45; I Peter 3:15).
I think mean spirited and arrogantly judgmental pretty much sum up how she behaved: the opposite of what this church claims to espouse. For all intents and purposes, we could very well have been lost and unbelieving. (And, anyway, shouldn’t any Christian treat everyone, not just the lost and unbelieving, with humility and compassion? I’m just sayin’.)

Our desire… to create an environment of worship where people can experience God’s love and tender mercies
I didn’t have a chance to experience God’s love and/or tender mercies. I didn’t even get to sing one note of the song. All I experienced was the self-righteousness judgement of a Pharisee-like woman.

Reaching out… to introduce others to the love, grace, and mercy found in Jesus Christ, through His sacrifice on the cross
Her actions contained no love, grace, or mercy. None.

Needs… helping to heal and restore the broken and the hurting
What if we had come there in crisis tonight, over our marriage or our relationship with God or over anything? What if we had been broken and hurting and seeking healing and peace? What then? All she did was shove us away from the healing love of God that they claim to uphold on their website.

I’m just appalled, really. Stunned. Angry. Flabbergasted. This was a church that seemed to be a good fit for us, doctrinally, musically, stylistically.

Listen, I’ll be the first to admit that some of my parenting philosophies are kind of extreme, but am I really that whackadoo to think it’s okay to have my child, who was content and quiet, in the service during the singing? Or, more to the point, is it really that out of left field to incorporate your child into your worship experience?

What were those pre-teen kids stuck up in that “family” room supposed to be doing? If they’re going to be expected to listen to the service over the TV screen anyway, then why in the world do they have to be banished to some weird room to do so? Why wouldn’t they just, I don’t know, SIT WITH THEIR PARENTS to hear the service? It doesn’t make any sense.

I mean, for goodness sake, at our church in Seattle, the entire back wall is lined with moms and dads holding or wearing babies, and standing and rocking, or pacing, or what have you. There are families whose preschool or early elementary age children sit on a blanket on the floor in front of the chairs and just read or color in the service. And parents are encouraged to bring their children into the service for worship and communion. Heck, there isn’t even Sunday school for kids over elementary school. They’re encouraged to attend church with their parents and to learn and worship together.

We asked each other last night what we’re supposed to do. Not go to church for a few years? Abandon our child to cry in a room with a stranger while we worship God? The God whom I believe I am supposed to model in my parenting? Well, would that God leave me, as His child, abandoned, terrified, and alone in a strange room to cry for His familiar, comforting presence because I supposedly need to learn, or I need to get over my extreme attachment to Him? No. He would come along side me and love me and reassure me with his presence. So I am not going to leave Elanor to cry. If she needs Brett or me nearby to feel safe, then I will provide that safe haven for her. She won’t feel that way forever; eventually she will be able to go to Sunday School or school or anywhere without me and feel fine. I know this. I am happy to let this happen in her own time, when she is ready. But until that day comes, I am not going to force her.

So Brett and I have just accepted the fact that she won’t stay in the nursery, and we’ve tried to make the best of the situation. The solution we’ve found so that we can still spend some time worshiping together and not distract people too much is that that Elanor will join us for singing and communion, and one of us will take her out (hopefully to a place where we can still hear the sermon) during the preaching. At least then we can fellowship together for a few minutes, and take communion together.

I’m going to write a letter to the head pastor at the church after I mull this over and pray about what to say for a couple of days. I know that at every church I’ve ever been involved with, the pastor would want to know if a visitor was treated this way, so I think it’s worth doing. I just need to know how to communicate my anger – ahem – righteously.

Also, there’s a part of both Brett and me that feels like we should go back after we hear from the pastor. Aside from this woman, everything else about the church seemed to be exactly what we’re looking for. So depending on what the pastor says and whether he even replies, we may try it again. It sounds crazy, I know, but we’re going to pray about it and see how God leads us. If we feel like He’s telling us to go back, then we will.

I’ll let you know if I hear back from the pastor. And if anyone out there knows of a good church in San Francisco, please let us know!

Brett got a new job there, and he starts on June 1st. So it’s all happening very, very quickly, which is both good and bad. Good because money coming in is good, and bad because, well, packing an entire house in a week is really hard. But we’re making progress, thankfully, and I think we can get it done.

He’ll be working at a coffee company there, and we’re really excited about it. We went down last week, over my birthday, to check it out and talk to the people at the company and, ultimately, look for an apartment.

We found an awesome apartment; it’s in the Sunset District and has everything we had put on our apartment wish list, except that it’s not on the ground floor. But that’s okay! It’s the top floor of a two-unit building, and it’s huge. We think it may be almost as big as our house now, which is fantastic, because everything else we saw was tiny. It was built in 1920 and has beautiful built-ins, hardwoods, bay windows in almost every room, a huge kitchen with washer/dryer hookups (yes!!!), and even a private two-car garage so Brett can have a studio and we can have a place to store our bikes and mopeds, and Elanor’s stroller.

This wasn’t something we’d planned a long time in advance; it’s not like we’ve been cooking this up for a while and just not telling anyone. It came up right around the time he was laid off, and we decided to pursue it because, hey, a job is a job, and it’s with a good company in a great city, so we figured it would be worth moving. And so far, it’s definitely proving to be worth it!

The plan is that we’ll get the truck this Saturday, and leave Seattle on Monday. Brett will drop Elanor and me in Portland and pick up his dad, and they’ll drive our stuff down. Elanor and I are going to stay in Portland until June 3rd, and then we’ll come back to Seattle for my annual cardiology checkup, and fly down to San Francisco from here.

That’s the story. It’s all happened within a week or so, but so many things have fallen so perfectly into place we know it’s right. We asked God before we left to make it crystal clear if moving was what we were supposed to do, and He really did. We both have an amazing peace about all of this, and as sad as we are to be leaving our friends in Seattle, we’re really excited about what the future holds for us.

If you’re the praying kind, you could pray that our house in Seattle rents as soon as possible. We’re not breaking a lease, but we’ll get our last month’s rent back if it does, and that’s a big chunk of money. You could also pray that I find some work in San Francisco. I think I’m going to look for something outside the house: Brett will have a set schedule, so he can watch Elanor, and it will let me get out of the house and meet people.

Well, I have a ton of packing to do…I need to get moving!

I’m not going to delve into the specifics, but it’s been kind of a long, drawn-out process that we’ve seen coming down the pike for a while now. That said, even having known that it was, at some point, probably inevitable doesn’t exactly make it a walk in the park.

We’re dealing with the news surprisingly well, I think. Who knows, maybe it does have something to do with the fact that we knew it was probably coming and we could kind of brace for it. For the most part, we’re pretty peaceful and are trusting that God is going to continue to provide for us now as he has in the past.

That’s not to say I don’t have my moments of panic. I have had a few, and I’m sure that until we have a steady income stream coming in again, they’ll continue off and on. But that’s okay. I think it’s one thing to have peace about it, and to trust God about it, and it’s entirely another to be completely devoid of worry about it from time to time. A little panic seems warranted; at least that’s how it seems to me.

I can’t help but think that it does suck, though, to have this happen right now, right at the one-year anniversary of my heart thing. It seems ironic, really. Maybe it’s supposed to be that way, though, to let it fall within the same calendar year. Perhaps these two events are the bookends to one hellishly difficult year: near-death on one end, job loss on the other, and a whole lot of other crap in the middle. Maybe it’s not a boring and stress-free 2009 we should be hoping for, but rather a boring and stress free mid-May to mid-May. I don’t know.

At any rate, I am bummed that this means we can’t do something really special for my birthday-non-death-day. I had hoped we could go out for a really nice dinner somewhere, but alas, expensive dinners out are a pretty big no-no when there’s no money coming in.

I haven’t been blogging here lately because, up until now, I really have been pretty stressed out about all of the details surrounding this. As I’ve told a couple of people, it’s as though before last Friday, Brett and I were carrying both the weight of making ends meet and the stress of his job situation. Now that one of those stressors is eliminated, and it’s almost a relief.

I really want to write more, to blog more. I know, I know, I say it all the time, but I really do. But for me, it’s quite hard to blog when there’s an elephant in the room that I can’t talk about. I’m such a transparent person, and such a terrible liar (or truth-concealer, anyway) that it is nearly impossible for me to just blog about mundanities amid something that is, in my own heart and mind, a Really Big Deal.

Anyway, we’re managing, and we have a plan in place. It’s not a very concrete plan yet, but it’s a plan nonetheless, so that makes me feel better. Hopefully I can share more details about that soon.

Until then, part of the plan is that I’m taking in as much at-home work as I can while Brett’s home to hang out with Elanor. This week has been a little hard, trying to find our stride with Brett being home all day and me trying to do roughly double the amount of work. I know it’s only been a few days, but hopefully we can find that rhythm sooner rather than later.

That’s the update. Not exactly encouraging, certainly a little dramatic, and kind of depressing, honestly. But like I said, we’re handling it surprisingly well, thanks to God’s grace, and that is definitely something to be very grateful for.

There’s not a whole lot I’m going to say about how I feel about the results. I play my political cards pretty close to my chest, because I really don’t want to debate about politics with people. It’s not something I care about enough to have relational conflict over.

That said, I’m definitely interested to see what the next four years will bring for our country, good or bad.

One thing I’ve enjoyed about today is — and this sounds kind of crazy — watching everyone’s Facebook statuses, and how varied they all are in terms of their support of the different candidates. The variation in people’s opinions is fascinating to me, especially among groups of people where I’d expect them to feel differently than they do.

For instance, it’s been surprising how many people I know from Christian environments have declared themselves as being Obama supporters. I’m just so used to people from Christian contexts being all about whatever Republican candidate is running that it’s been a surprise to me how many are behind Obama. It’s eye-opening, for sure. I’m just glad so many people voted! It’s an important responsibility we have as citizens of this country. It’s nice to see people taking that responsibility seriously for a change.

Brett and I sat down on Sunday night and spent over two hours reading through the voter’s pamphlet, discussing the issues and candidates, and then voting together. It was a very enlightening experience for both of us. I enjoyed spending the time with him, and I enjoyed talking with him about things we’d probably never discuss otherwise.

As much as it was nice to take our time voting and to really talk through the issues and candidates as we did so, I do miss actually physically going to the polls. I remember, as a child, going with my parents. I remember that the occasion was treated with solemnity and seriousness. And I remember looking forward, with great anticipation, to the day when I, too, could vote.

I want Elanor to have the same desire. So maybe I’ll change back from absentee status to where I have to go to the polls. At the very least, that means I’ll get an “I voted!” sticker!

Being alone with a baby for, sometimes, 18+ hours in a day is not easy. Of course, it’s what I want to be doing, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Well, maybe it makes it easier but it doesn’t remove the difficulty entirely. 

I don’t like being so worn out. For one, it makes me nervous health-wise. I do not want to get myself to the brink again, like I felt before my heart thing happened. It’s scary. And for another, being tired makes my emotional fuse very, very short. I find myself getting weepy over the dumbest stuff these days, and I find myself snapping at Brett a lot more, which is not cool.

I’m learning, though, what I need to do to get out of this tired, short-fused place. I have been trying to think through what would help me, and here’s what I’ve come up with. (I always feel better when I have a plan in place!)

1. I need to get Elanor to the place where I can leave her with someone else for even an hour so that I can do some of my at-home work, or do the laundry, or blog, or even just sleep. Right now, if I leave her anywhere or with anyone other than Brett or his sister Rachel, she flips out. Not cool. I need to change that. We’re working on it, but it’s not easy.

2. I need to relax my standards for my house and not be so focused on getting my to-do list completed every week. Part of what’s hard is that I make myself a list to finish every week, and it never, ever gets done. Ever. And then I feel frustrated that I haven’t finished it and that isn’t good. I am trying to, at the bare minimum, pick up the toys in the evenings, do the dishes every day, and keep the living room/kitchen/dining room swept. Oh, and keep up with laundry. And do my work. And blog. And, you know, be Elanor’s mama. (No wonder I’m tired. I just re-read that sentence and realized that it sounds like a lot. Perhaps I need to further refine the “bare minimum”.)

3. I absolutely need time to connect with Brett when he’s home. I hate feeling like we’re two ships passing in the night. It’s not good. So I am trying to make an effort to shut my laptop and put the cleaning/laundry/etc aside until later, and when he’s home, hang out with him. That said, I’m very excited for the next few weeks. We are going to get massages together this weekend and then are going out to dinner. (Rachel will be visiting and she’ll watch Elanor, so I won’t even have to worry about whether Elanor is okay or not.) And next weekend, the three of us are going on a family vacation to the Oregon Coast. It will be wonderful to just be together, the three of us, with no distractions, in a beautiful and significant place.

4. Instead of just snapping and flying off the handle when something is upsetting to me, I’m taking time to think it through and pray and find the root causes of my frustration or anger. I’ve been working on writing a few things, processing through some big issues, and it feels really good to be getting at the heart of things and not just be slapping another band-aid on an old wound.

Anyway, that’s me these days. Tired. Sleep-deprived. Sometimes overwhelmed. But trying, in the midst of it all, to maintain a calm, loving, Christ-like demeanor and trying to be the best mama and wife I can be.

~~~~

I’ll leave you with something lighter. Brett came home from work and told me this joke today.

What do they call pallbearers in Oklahoma?

…

wait for it…

…

Karaokes.

Get it? Carry-okies?

Badum-bum.

Yeah, okay, sorry, that was pretty bad terrible. Sorry about that…

However, the main reason behind my funk has to do with the fact that I set a definite date to return to work: April 9. (If you hadn’t guessed, that is the thing I mentioned in my last post that makes me cry when I think about it too much.)

I knew when I got pregnant that I’d have to go back to work full-time. I also knew that God would provide people to care for Elanor when that time came. Thankfully, it looks like either one of her grandparents or aunts or else a handful of our close friends will be able to care for her until the fall — a huge relief off of my chest, knowing not only that she’ll be with people who love her but also knowing that most of this care will be free, allowing us to sock away as much as we can can in savings or toward debt over the next several months.

Still, knowing that I’d have to go back and actually doing it are two wholly separate things. It’s going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even though for the most part I enjoy my job and truly like my co-workers. While I’ve had jobs I’ve liked before, I have to say that staying home with Elanor beats every single one of them, no contest. I love it. It is everything I’ve ever wanted to do. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I really feel like this is what I’m meant to do in this life: be with her every day and see to it that our home runs smoothly. I just don’t know from a financial standpoint how that’s possible, though.

Really, it comes back to trusting God, I suppose. I do trust him. I know that he put the desire in my heart to have a baby. I know that he redeemed the miscarriage through Elanor. I know that he made her arrive beautiful and perfect and healthy. I know that he has provided amazing people to care for Elanor. I know that he has put the desire in my heart to be home with Elanor, and any other children we may have. So what I ask myself, then, is that doesn’t it follow that he’ll provide a way for me to be home with Elanor more? Verses like this one make me think that it does. “Trust in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” (Psalm 37:4)

And, if for whatever reason that doesn’t happen, and I don’t get to do what is the desire of my heart and be home with her, I will have to trust him anyway, to provide the strength to get through the long 11 hours I’ll be away from this sweet face each day.

Note: I don’t want to jump into a SAHM vs WOHM debate with this post. Just know that it’s how I feel — that I want to be home with her and I can’t be, at least right now. It is in no way an indictment of those who could be home and choose not to.

Note #2: An update on the fun thing I mentioned in the last post is forthcoming, probably this week. It’s exciting, I promise!! Well, at least I think so, anyway. :p