Disappointment

Wow, what good thoughts you all have on disappointment.

Here is what I think, right now, at this moment in time and with the limited view that I have at this stage in my life. (I’ve lived long enough to eat more than a few words, so that little disclaimer is an acknowledgement that later on down the road I’ll say, “Wow, were you ever an idiot!”)

I think there are several different ways you can look at the question of disappointment. One is a practical, therapeutic approach. I find this approach helpful for a certain “level” of disappointment – the one that you feel is not so big, but it is interfering with your ability to relate to someone or your ability to be content with a small but nagging frustration.

The therapy approach is to change the "tapes" playing in your head. Disappointment and hurt cause stewing. You know the condition – all these emotional, irrational thoughts plague you and you stew on them. “If he loved me he would….” “She must really hate me! Why else would she…” etc. When the stewing starts, you have to confront that thought and replace it with another one. There are many choices here - you can choose a scripture about being God's beloved, or pray and ask Him for a new thought, or tell yourself a different truth about your spouse or parent or friend - that God put them in your life, that their love for you is not solely wrapped up in the unmet-desire-of-the-moment, that the relationship is more important than whatever it is they are not doing for you.

But there is a deeper approach that, while more difficult, also brings greater blessing. This way of thinking about disappointment is particularly applicable to marriage, as there’s just nothing like living with another person to bring out the whiner in any of us! (grin) Seriously, though, this approach is predicated on the truth that your spouse is your mission field, as you are his. I have long believed this, but I heard a sermon on a CD this week that affirmed it - that God gives us our spouses not for our happiness but for our holiness. Husbands are His chosen instrument for making us like Christ. This pastor said, "Most people get divorced just when the process God wants them to go through is starting to work!" (I said, "Amen!") Not that there's never a reason to divorce - but the point is that the difficulty - the disappointment - the not getting what we want - has a divine purpose, and if we try to escape that purpose by leaving the situation, or even by numbing ourselves to the disappointed desire, we are thwarting the real work God is trying to do.

So a deeper way to deal with disappointment is to ask, "What is God exposing in your heart that He wants you to let go of? Is there an idol rearing its ugly head in your frustration? An enslavement that is deeply embedded in your heart from which He longs to free you? A lie from your past whose wounds He wants to heal?" The weight of a human soul is too heavy for any other mortal to bear. Whatever it is that you want and are not getting may look like a surface desire, maybe even a “silly” one – but if it is producing that kind of deep disappointment in you, causing you to spiral into discontentment, then perhaps there is really a bulkier issue under the surface.

Our deep, deep need to be loved and affirmed and cherished was never designed to be met by our husbands (or wives). Only our Maker, our True Lover, can take it on. Trust that He is REALLY good. Tell yourself the truth about what you really want, about what your disappointment reveals. Take it to Him without fear. He will not condemn you. He confronted you about it in the first place, putting you in your situation to drive you into His arms. His love will transform you into a Great Beauty.

(And - lest we get too lofty here - like Patty said, I don’t do this well either. I’m a real baby when it comes to maturity in this area. But that doesn’t discourage me. As Dallas Willard says, just because you’re not a perfect disciple doesn’t mean you’re not a disciple.)

Question of the Day

BFF* Ruthie posed to me today a whopper of a question that I am posting here for two reasons. One, if I post it, I have to wrestle with it... there's a built-in accountability in blogging about something and leaving it unfinished. You feel like you owe it to people to finish what you started.

Two, I'm sure there are some of you out there who would have much wisdom to contribute toward forming an answer. Hence, this is also an invitation to jump in with your own thoughts.

My answer is percolating now but is not yet full-strength.

The question is this:

What do you do with your disappointment to keep it from turning into despair?

Think on this, cyber-friends. I shall return with some thoughts soon.

*BFF=Best Friend Forever, a title Ruthie has earned by sticking with me through the majority of my not-so-attractive times in life and living to tell about it. I use it here to let her know that I just finished reading Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and am also percolating some ideas on what it means to be a woman, a conversation we have been having for a while now and might someday make it up onto the blog as well. How's that for a related and yet not-related footnote?

Which Book of the Bible are You?

Corny, but fun: go to this link to find out what book of the Bible you are.

I am Ephesians!

Here's the tag. I like what it says about understanding grace, and I'm always happy to be labeled "a bit on the non-traditional side." Isn't that nice? Any quiz that tells me what I want to hear is okay by me! (grin)




brought to you by Quizilla

Bedtime Story

We settle into the papasan chair, the Chair of Goodness just big enough for the both of us that is tucked into the dormer space with sunlight filtering through the half-closed blinds. She is the mama; I am the sweetheart. Her 6 year old weight settles against my side and her hair falls onto my cheek. "Now, honey, I'm going to read you a story."

"Thanks, Mommy," I say. "Can it be a bedtime story? I'm sleepy."

"Sure, sweetie," she graciously agrees. So I close my eyes. She opens the book.

"Slam and Dunk and The Big Game. See that & sign? It means 'and.'"

"Oh."

And so she reads, faltering only over a few words, but not the hardest ones. She sounds out "basketball" and "game" all by herself, but she has trouble with "what." When we get to it, she says, "Now, honey, what does this word say?"

"I don't know, Mommy. You read it to me."

"No, honey, you can do it. Sound it out." (Ha. She got me.)

"Okay. W... whhhh... whaaaaa..... what!"

"Very good, sweetie. What!" And seamlessly, naturally, she continues the story. Slam and Dunk win the game. Mom wins 20 sweet, drowsy minutes with her eyes closed and her baby curled up next to her, practicing phonics. DD wins time alone with mom and the chance to be the mommy for once.

The best of homeschooling.

Finishing One Thing and Beginning Another

It's done!

We transferred the book file to the printer this morning.

I feel like I've given birth. All weekend long we were heads-down in editing... all day Friday (with exception noted below), all day Saturday, all day Sunday. At 11:10 last night, we finally pronounced it Good Enough. And this morning dh hit "Send." Now, whatever mistakes we've made, whatever errors we missed, will be reproduced in 2000 copies for the world to read. Que sera, sera.

The only fun thing we did all weekend was take a break Friday night to go to a picnic with ds's classes. One thing I guess I've never blogged about is the fact that both ds's go to a one-day-a-week classical program called - get this - The Classical School. (Original, yes. Also guaranteed to cause confusion when you try to explain to other homeschool moms that yes, you do follow the classical model of education at home, and yes, your kids participate in a program of the same name.) At this program they take notes, have discussions, learn a little Latin, and get some reading and writing assignments to take home and complete. It's pretty rigorous, but we've seen a big jump in both boys' abilities since they started there.

Anyway, Friday night was Family Night for CS . This is where every family who has a kid in the program (grades 5-8) meets at a Christian retreat center about 40 minutes north of town and has a picnic and schmooze. Parents and kids alike do the picnic and schmooze thing, then the parents go home and the kids and a few brave chaperones stay up all night for games of Risk and chess and such.

Two important things happened for us at Family Night. One, dh met and hit it off with another CS dad. They talked work, they talked theology, they talked church. And then when we wives joined them, we had an awesome conversation in which we discovered something pretty rare: commonality. Two suburban-livin', SUV-drivin', kid-raisin' families who feel like total misfits at all the churches that are anywhere reasonably close to our homes. Two professional, homeschooling, meat-eating, milk-drinking, non-grain-milling, nothing-alternative-about-their-lifestyles-except-homeschooling-and-being-entrepreneurs families who have visited church after church in their county and cannot find even ONE where the teaching is intelligent and true and full of the grace of the gospel. Youth groups abound... which is a problem with our current church situation. Community and small groups abound... another problem we seek resolution for. But how can we stomach the dead, dry, Pharisaic religion that goes with them?

Anyway - we and this other family - we want grace. We want depth. We want authenticity. And we want fellowship and activities for our kids, too, that's close to home so we can participate. It was so... validating. It's so nice not to feel crazy. I just wanted to hug them.

And the second important thing that happened Friday night was that oldest ds cut his foot open while playing Capture the Flag barefoot in the dark. By the next morning it was determined that he needed stitches. But guess what? Cool new friend dad turned out to be... a doctor. Who met us at his office on the way home from the all-nighter (where he had chaperoned) and stitched up ds' foot neat as a whistle and wouldn't take a penny for his trouble.

Now we have new friends. And a friend-debt that will be very enjoyable to repay. How many home-cooked dinners do you think will it take to even up the score? Yeah, I agree - a lot.

Shoulder to the Wheel (and red pen to the papers)

This week I am in full editor mode.

Mornings, I am editing little compositions... a fictional story featuring da Vinci and Michelangelo written by 7th grade ds. An essay on his favorite Greek heroes by 5th grade ds. Her first, middle, and last names, spelled correctly and properly capitalized, by 1st grade dd. And corrections of the number 9, which for some reason this week has become much more difficult to form correctly than it was last week. (Go figure.)

Evenings is when the real fun begins. I think I mentioned a while back that I've been typesetting. Well, what I've been typesetting is DH's book. This is a book we publish through our business and use in the classes we teach. It's been out for a few years now, but this year he had to rewrite it completely to make it compatible with new standards in our industry.

You would think that having written, typeset, edited, and published a book before would make it easier to do a second time. And yes... it is easier in the sense that there is less of a learning curve in figuring out how to do everything that needs to be done. And yet... the last time, there was no deadline looming. There were no middle school children whose school demands could not be put off. There were no other employees needing time and attention and no company to run and people to meet with and fires to put out. It was just us.

I had forgotten how never-ending this process seems. You go through what you think is your final copy with a fine-tooth comb... only to discover that your comb has, in fact, big ol' wide gaps between its teeth! You print out another copy, just SURE that this time you won't find any more glaring errors. Ooops, there's another whole area you just MISSED last time. Maybe you need glasses. Or more coffee. 'Cause it's going to be a loooonnnnnggggg night, again.

Sigh.... I sound more whiny than I actually feel. The truth is, as tedious as editing and re-editing is, I am very grateful to have a livelihood that lets us work independently and allows DH lots of family time. Sure, we are in a crunch right now, but these times are few and far between and we really can see the light at the end of this particular tunnel. And I appreciate knowing that I am making a real, tangible contribution to our family livelihood. Our business depends on all of us - dh, me, even the kids. (Ds 1 is our shipping clerk, and Ds 2 was just hired to help with book packaging and class prep.)

But... when all this is over and the book is delivered to the printer... I want a steak dinner. Or a spa day. Maybe both.

A little weekend fun

Ok, I stole this MeMe off of PuppDaddy's blog (who stole it off of someone else). I don't usually go for stuff like this, but it was fun to think through this stuff. So forgive the MeMe, I promise not to make it a habit.

Seven things that scare me

Car accidents and near-misses
Mean, growling dogs
Cancer
Pictures of me in my big-frizzy-hair days
Salmonella, e coli, and other threats you can’t see
Heights
Movies where someone gets trapped alive in a coffin

Seven things I like the most

Meeting someone and really hitting it off with her/him
Belgian chocolates (or Heath bars, in a pinch)
72-degree days in Georgia
Vacation
Bike rides
Learning new stuff or discovering a really great book, all on my own
Singing in the car with the music loud and the windows rolled down

Seven important things in my room

My bed
The dresser drawer where I keep things like old birthday cards and the kids baby teeth and locks of hair
A great view of the backyard
The door to the deck
The big, rotating stack of books on my nightstand
My banjo, kept under my bed
Candles that make the place smell good

Seven random facts about me

My fingernails are paper-thin.
I’m awesome at word-unscrambling puzzles.
I grew up in the same town where I live now.
I lost 20 pounds this year and only gained back 5.
I’m the oldest of 4 kids and we’re all close.
I started reading when I was 4 years old. I learned by watching The Electric Company.
I'm cold a lot these days.

Seven things I plan to do before I die

Visit Australia
Learn to scuba-dive
Paint a painting that's good enough to hang in my living room
Help my kids discover the grace of God
See the Grand Canyon
Volunteer somewhere on a regular basis
Live in a big city

Seven things I can do

Play a five-string (bluegrass) banjo
Bake killer chocolate-chip cookies
Tie a cherry stem into a knot with my tongue
Write a research paper of any length necessary
Speak stuttering Spanish
Talk people down from the ledge
Drive a stick shift

Seven things I can’t or won’t do

Eat beans of any variety
Sit through any more Quentin Tarantino films
Wear a bikini (ever again)
Break up with my husband
Send my kids to middle school anywhere but here at home
Let someone else tell me that I can’t… (whatever… fill in the blank)
Watch professional wrestling

Seven things I say the most

Now, honey!
That makes me nuts!
Yup.
How’s my girl? (or, How’re my boys?)
Tired, but good.
Mmmmm - hm! (Drawing out the first Mmmmmm)
Give me just a minute…
(Ds just added one more... he said, "You say 'We'll see.' A lot.")

Seven Celebrity Crushes

John Cusack
Ed Norton
Jon Bon Jovi
Bono
Alan, the Yard-Sale Guy (from Clean House)
Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice
DH (who is a celebrity in his own way! grin)

The Teacher Becomes The Student

School lessons learned this week:

1. A single lesson in Saxon Math 1 takes about AN HOUR AND HALF to complete if you do EVERYTHING in the lesson... fill in the calendar, the weather graph, the number line. Count the coins. Write today's date - twice. Complete the number pattern. Do side one of the worksheet. Do the fact-drill sheet. Do the lesson with the pattern blocks and the master pattern-block sheet. Write your name on all those sheets (as if your teacher won't be able to tell which one is yours). HELLO! And we didn't even do Side 2 of the worksheet! Sheesh!

(Just fyi, I never do all the stuff in Saxon. It's just that on Thursday I found a little extra time to spend with dd, and I thought, let's just do the whole dang math lesson and see how far it'll go. Boy, was I shocked! It only confirms my decision to pick and choose, pick and choose. You can't let the lesson book be your master - YOU must master the LESSON BOOK. Can you imagine spending an hour and a half on every child every day? When would you get to any other subject?)

2. If you have a ds who labors to write, and if you relent after the first month of school and finally let him start dictating some of his writing assignments for you to type instead of agonizing over writing them out in his difficult cursive, you will be AMAZED at the results. Happy child, who composes almost effortlessly in complete sentences with extraordinary vocabulary. Happy mom, who is able to be finished with the school day before dinner time!

3. Mummies are a lot more interesting to a first-grader if you use a book with pictures.

4. Sometimes your children have hidden talents. It is a good thing to be surprised by them.

This week DH looked at me in shock and said, "What grade is (oldest ds) in?" I replied, "Seventh." He said, "Wow. I guess it's time."

I knew what he meant. For years, DH has said that when his kids get to seventh grade he is going to start them taking the SAT. Not because we have little budding Einsteins over here... no, just normal, grade-level kids in our house. DH just wants them to get very, very comfortable and very, very experienced in taking important tests. And it just dawned on DH that this is the year.

So we started talking, to each other and to ds, about what the test will require. We all know that there is much he has not learned and will not yet be prepared to answer. But when we started thinking through the big holes, the biggest one we saw was that he has had no geometry whatsoever. So DH decided to start working with ds on geometry. Nothing too formal. Just some basic principles. (DH is a math kind of guy, so he finds this fun. Why has he not been teaching math all this time, I want to know! Think of the needless tears and premature graying of hair!)

So ds has been learning a little geometry... and guess what. He likes it! He understands it! Who knew? I was encouraged... there's hope for all of us, yet. Not that ds has ever been "bad" at math. Just that for years it's been a struggle for me to teach and communicate with the (not-so) little guy on the subject. I don't think of him as a math whiz. But maybe I was underestimating him... maybe it was the teacher, not the student, who wasn't the whiz.

Happy schooling, y'all!

Word recognition

I was typing a comment in Melissa's blog today (where she has some mighty fine pictures of her multi-talented son), and the word recognition software had me type the following:

bmbfukze

Anyone want to hazard a guess on how to pronounce this one? I think it would make an EXCELLENT cuss word.

So much birthday cake. So little time.

Guess what I did this weekend?

On Sunday night, we hosted a birthday party for dh's best friend, who is turning 40 this year. (It was great fun. We built a fire in the backyard and had ice-cream cake from Cold Stone Creamery. Mmmmm.)

Last night, we went to my parents' house to celebrate my dad turning 70 and my nephew turning 6. My mom made ribs and my sis brought homemade birthday cake. Mmmmmm. (My nephew's instructions to her were that he wanted Spiderman on one half and Barbie on the other, so that no one at the party would feel left out. What a guy!)

On Thursday we will celebrate dh's dad's birthday. Dear sis-in-law is making pound cake. Mmmmm.

On Saturday night we will go to a surprise party for one of my dear homeschooling-mommy friends who, you guessed it, is turning 40 this year. I have no idea what dessert will be, but I have a feeling there is more cake in my future.

Good thing I had time to go running this weekend! If I survive this month with only an extra pound or two, I'll be lucky.

Stress

When I was a grad student (in counseling), THE most valuable class I took was called Stress Management. It wasn't my favorite class at the time... I was in my third trimester of pregnancy, working 20 hours a week, doing an internship another 20 hours a week, and taking two classes so I could finish my degree before the baby arrived. And this was a fairly demanding class - lots of reading, difficult tests, lots of neuroscience and brain chemistry and data from research articles... Lots of stress, ha ha.

But I've been so grateful over the years that I took that class, because that and Theories of Family Counseling are the two classes where I learned practical, every-day, real-life stuff that I could use to help myself and my family and my friends who come to me for help with bad situations. It's been 12 years since I took those classes, yet I still remember and use much of the information I gleaned from them. (Yet another reason for getting that degree even though I've never earned a dime from it.)

This week I am reminded of something helpful I learned in Stress Management.

For about two weeks now, this has been what every day has looked like for me: Get up before 7. Start school at 8:30. Do school straight through till lunch. Eat lunch at computer, catching up on other people's blogs. Go back for more school till 2 or 3 or 4, depending on how much the kids piddle. Run the errand for the day - say, the grocery store, or picking up or dropping off a kid somewhere. Come home and typeset for dh's company until dinner. Dinner is either leftovers or a quick trip out to the strip mall down the street that has either Mexican, Chinese, or Italian. Come back and keep typesetting until 10 or 11 or 12 at night, depending on how much there is to do for that day. Fall into bed. Repeat the next day. Only exception to this is weekends, in which we don't do school but I still do the typesetting, stopping long enough to throw a birthday party or go to church.

This, my friends, is a recipe for burnout.

Wednesday night I lost it. About 10:00 I finished the work for the day. And started yelling and bursting into tears. Not rational, I knew even at the time, just sick. of. everything. Tired of working so hard and never feeling done. Tired of having even more to do still hanging over my head. Tired of hearing myself snap at the kids and bite dh's head off, when they are working just as hard as I am. Just tired.

So yesterday (Thursday) when I woke up, I remembered some of the science of Stress Management that I learned all those years ago. Number 1, stress sucks all the serotonin out of your brain and makes you depressed. Irritable. Mean to people you love. To build up more serotonin, you gotta a) get some sleep; b) exercise; c) practice deep, rhythmic breathing. These are not new-agey Eastern religious concepts... these remedies have sound research to back them up.

So yesterday I took not one, but TWO naps. Short, but helpful. I went for an hour-long walk. Helped even more. I took about 10-12 moments out of the day and was intentional about taking, holding, and releasing deep breaths. Helped. And I read. (Haven't read any research on that, but a good book relaxes me. I picked up Nicholas Evans' The Smoke Jumpers, which was perfect light brain candy for the type of relaxation I needed.)

And I monitored my reaction to all these efforts. It was almost textbook: In the morning, I was still very jumpy and felt that terrible internal pressure in my heart and head that screams, "You'll never get done! Get back to work!" After nap and deep breathing, I felt a little ease of the pressure. After reading, a little less. After nap #2, a sense of something that reminded me of calm. And after my walk last night, I was downright peaceful. Even - dare I say, cheerful?

The deadlines still loom. But I have to stop and "sharpen the saw," as Thomas Covey used to say, so that I have the resources to keep going until this project is over.

One final thought - this morning after breakfast I finally emerged from the media-free cocoon I've been in all week to read some of the horrible accounts of the devastation and suffering in New Orleans. Now my heart is heavy again, for different reasons. Funny how God sends you just the reminders you need right when you need them. I needed to be reminded that my problems are just no big deal.