A Mixed Bag

Topping my thanksgiving list every year is family and, I'm ashamed to say, food.  There is nothing like sitting around a big old table with family and friends enjoying a big feast together.  That is one of my favorite occasions of the whole year, when true communion and fellowship happen in the home.

At the same time, I know for many of us the holidays come with a mixed bag of joy and melancholy.  Thanksgiving brings the annual "Why, oh, why can I not find cranberry sauce or canned pumpkin?" and "Why do turkeys have to be so expensive?" all the while anticipating the delight of sharing whatever we can find to serve.

But beyond that, a big family dinner only emphasizes the absence of other loved ones who are dear to us, but not near at all.  I'll be praying for each of you over these next few weeks as you sort through what's most important, and as you enjoy the family (or adopted family) you have, while trying not to excessively miss the ones who live far away.

For me, it's either feast or famine.  This week my son and ddil, who are teaching at the local MK school, are with us, along with ddil's parents who are visiting from Illinois, plus our three teens.  That brings us up to nine, which in the good old days is the number we used to have around our table on a daily basis.  Then of course we have a few other friends who will join us, including the surrogate grandparents next door who will be missing their own family.

Christmas, however, is going to be our time of famine.  None of our married children will be with us, and our two older girls are making an enviable trip to Great Britain over the holidays, leaving us with only the 14- and the almost-16-year-olds at home.  Four people sitting around a table for Christmas dinner seems a bit lonesome to me.  We'll have to come up with an alternative somehow.

My challenge is to focus on the blessings in front of me without being distracted by the if-onlies, and to enjoy the Thanksgiving feast without thinking ahead to the Christmas famine.  Staying in the present is an ongoing struggle of mine.  I am purposing in my heart to live for the moment.  I hope you will, too.

IRL* Surely I am not the only one.... How are you handling the mixed bag the holiday delivers?

Drastic Shift in Perspective

The party’s over.  A sensational week with my granddaughter and all my children has come to a close.  All I’ve got to say (well, not exactly all I have to say, but with every attempt to keep this post brief) is that things sure look different waving bye-bye from this side of the security gate at the airport.

When we used to kiss my parents goodbye, taking precious grandchildren far away, I never fully understood the anguish I was causing.  Now I get it.  (I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again.)  Boy, do I get it.

Another thing I want to add is how much easier it is to trust God for protection and provision in my own life than in the life of my adult children.  Back when we were driving around the Guatemalan countryside in the midst of a civil war, was I concerned?  Not much.  We were all together, and God was there to protect and provide.

Now that my kids are the ones driving through Mexico on their way to serve as teachers at the MK school close to us, it looks a bit different.  Are you sure that’s a good idea to drive instead of fly just so you’ll have a vehicle once you get there?  Okay.  (Never mind that we used to drive all the way to Guatemala through Mexico with quite a few children.)

Suddenly I’ve had this drastic shift in perspective, and it’s making me think and trust on a whole new level.  I guess that’s a good thing.  Come what may, I have chosen to simply trust God.  Just because I’ve started gaining victory over some pesky sins doesn’t mean I have to make way for new ones.  Worry is a sin.  I hereby vow not to go there, at least not regularly.

Ugh.  Either I can trust my kids in His hands or I can’t.  It seems so ironic to start worrying now after all we’ve been through.

How about you?  Have you found certain things you used to take in stride are suddenly triggers for serious concern or even alarm?

This summer while in the States I watched an old rerun of Leave it to Beaver.  It’s funny how I used to identify with the kids on that show, but now I watch it as a mother and grandmother, and it’s a different show entirely.  Those dumb kids.  What are they thinking?

When it comes right down to it, I’m more comfortable reading the seemingly-dumb-kid side of the script than the reasonable-adult role. 

Either way, I think it’s much easier to be the one boarding the plane than the one waving good-bye from the other side.  That’s my opinion, and I’m sticking with it. 

IRL* Thanks, Mom, for loving us long-distance all these years.

The In-Between

One of my most memorable prayer letters started out with the shocking announcement that Jim and I were splitting up and leaving the children at the orphanage.  The truth is that while I was going to Canada for a son’s graduation, Jim was making a trip to South America, and a friend in Mexico was keeping the youngest kids for a few nights in the children’s home where she worked.

This summer is sort of like that.  The family is split up and all over the place.  I’m getting a small preview of the empty nest, which has its benefits to be sure, but it feels so unnatural.  The girls have been visiting their niece and older siblings for a few weeks, and Jonny, our youngest son, has been working with an older brother in another state.  We are all over the place geographically.

Meanwhile I am spending four consecutive weekends in four different states during this whirlwind summer tour – slash- “home assignment.”  Jim and I welcome the simplicity of traveling together, just the two of us, but it still just feels odd.  When I think of it, nothing feels right any more.

Next week is our designated time to have all the kids “home” again, although we aren’t really going to be home, but in at our temporary home base in Ohio.  Even having all our adult kids back together isn’t exactly natural.  I trust it will be wonderfully fun, but it’s just not the norm any more.

After that I will be in Dallas for a long weekend visiting with my mom and siblings in the house where we grow up.  We can’t wait to be together again like old times, but nothing about it will seem normal either.

A side of me just wants to fast forward and be home, at my own house in Mexico, looking at photos of the summer, sorting it all out in quiet devotional times.  Right now I am getting weary of too much food, too little exercise, too many thoughts and too little solitude.  Summer trips to the U.S. are like that. 

My heart cries out for normal, but as my international friends keep reminding me, “Normal is just a setting on the dryer, and most of us don’t even have a dryer.”  There is no such thing as normal.  Not until much, much later.

What I am experiencing this summer is sort of the in-between phase between big family and empty nest.  What I am living here on earth is this unnatural in-between thing between earth and heaven.  I feel it strongly.  My heart yearns for a normal that doesn’t exist outside of heaven.  For now I only get glimpses every now and then.

Scripture says that all nations will hear the good news, “… and then finally the end will come.”  I’m clinging to that truth.  That’s what keeps me going when the kids are scattered all over the globe and home doesn’t feel like home any more.  That’s what gives me strength to be so far away from my precious grandbaby and aging mom and dmil.

Like you, I desperately long for the end to come, but at the same time, I want our loved ones overseas to hear the good news before He returns.  Until then, I keep striving ahead, muddling through the unnatural junctures of life, and embracing the reality that I am doing something worthwhile.

One lie saying I keep hearing this summer is “It’s all good.”  It’s not true yet, but it will be someday.  No one can convince me that “it’s all good” to be so far away from so many loved ones.

IRL*My diet this summer is like my life, it’s not all good, and it’s not all normal or natural, but it’s all for a good purpose.

Zest that Exudes

When I die, just put me in the box as is, or is it as am?  As I will be? 

Some women beg their friends to promise there will be no open casket when they die.  Why?  Mercy, they say, what if my hair isn’t done just so?  What if they put on the wrong color of lipstick?  Ew, what if I look gross?

As for me, I say put me on display for all to see.  Don’t bother with my hair or make-up.  Let everyone comment about how horrible I look.  Maybe people will finally appreciate all the effort I put into looking presentable at this season of life.

At the same time, tell everyone that for the first time ever, I do not care about my appearance.  Finally I will be free from my mortal body and sin nature that always cared too much how I looked and what people thought. 

Then I will be truly beautiful inside and out with no vanity or wrong motives.  Let my decaying body be a reminder to all who see it that I am not there!  Don’t waste money on embalming and beautifying my corpse.  Let my pale wrinkly old face serve as an object lesson.

I’ve shared before about my ongoing struggle against becoming a frumpy missionary, but as I grow older and wiser I wonder why on earth I fight the inevitable.  Money is precious, and worldly beauty is costly.  How can I rationalize the haircuts, the makeup, the clothing, and the shoes? 

Yet I look in the mirror, and I shudder to think what my family would be seeing all day if I didn’t touch up the results of a restless night’s sleep. Lord, help me to find balance!

This past week I met an exuberantly vivacious (is that redundant?) old woman who epitomizes true beauty.  I want to grow up to be her.  She radically changed my definition of loveliness.  True beauty has nothing to do with glamour, jewelry, clothing, hairstyles, or even teeth. 

If there were a missionary magazine looking for a centerfold of the most beautiful woman on earth, I would submit Valentina.  She has curiously split ear lobes, no teeth, failing eyesight, wrinkles galore, unruly gray hair, feet that shuffle, posture that stoops, and a voice quality that warbles and squeaks.

But you know what else she has?  Valentina possesses an inner glow, a zest that exudes joyfully from every pore of her being, even though she lives spitting distance from a cemetery and within sniffing range of the city dump. 

She is the me I want to be when they put me in that pine box someday. 

I want people to stand around and tell stories about my life, not about my decaying body.  I want people to smile and remember the real me, the radiant me who reflected God’s beauty and glory, just like Valentina.

What made me chuckle is that even my hero, Hermana Valentina herself, attempted to smooth down her long gray braids when she saw the camera, braids that were once carefully tied with red satin ribbons.  Vanity is an issue even among the world’s most astonishing beauties.

IRL* When I grow up, I want to be a Valentina who still acts young, not an old person trying to look young.

Who's that in the Mirror?

Who are you making fun of? I feel obligated to warn you that you are systematically being transformed into the very characters you used to mock. At least I am.

Back in Guatemala when I was the new kid on the block, a young 20-something with few enough children to call each one by the right name most of the time, I used to snicker at Mrs. (you-think-you-have-it-bad) Missionary Mighty Woman with her eight (what was she thinking?) children. She was notorious for publicly correcting her husband, saying, “No, dear. I’m sure you are mistaken. It couldn’t have possibly been 1950-whatever when that happened, because I distinctly remember that I was pregnant with such-and-such a baby that summer….”

Ha! How I used to laugh over that, until I stopped finding it funny. In fact now I find myself (horrors!), not saying it outright (usually), but often mentally correcting my own dh’s faulty time lines. I now calculate dates and events based on how many children we had at any time in question.

Once upon a time I vowed to never evolve into that Mighty Missionary Woman for another reason, but darn if I don’t see glimpses of “You-think-you-have-it-bad” staring at me in the mirror. Maybe it was inevitable, I don’t know, but it does seem that you fresh young 20-somethings have a much easier go of things than we did back in my day, and certainly have things easier than the generation before me. But I will keep my mouth closed and try hard not to say it out loud, though my pen might get careless at times.

When you turn into me someday (just you wait!), or worse, into your mother, which we all seem to do for better or for worse, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Oh, and another confession, while I’m on a roll. I used to secretly and sometimes openly tease a missionary friend who suffers from something akin to narcolepsy. Poor thing. She randomly drops off to sleep whenever she is in a comfortable chair (which of course is not a daily occurrence in this prickly land of rustic and hard furniture). Ha, ha, ha. How I used to laugh, until I had Dengue, and now it’s Jamie Jo sitting in the chair falling asleep without notice.

I’m telling you, beware! Watch whom you tease. She’s lurking in your mirror even now.

IRL* Maybe if I intentionally mock all the skinny ladies….

Those Songs

Is it okay if I just admit that I HATE, HATE, HATE goodbyes? Seeing it in print is no more of a consolation than saying it aloud.

Why can’t everyone just stay where they belong?

"Pomp and Circumstance" and the "Wedding March" are equally sad tunes, and for the same reason. Both signify the passing of time and the shaking up of “things as they are.” How well I remember sitting in Three Hills, Alberta crying at my ds* and ddil*-to-be’s graduation from the Explore Program at Prairie Bible, witnessing the cap and gown procession down the aisle to that dismal march.

That’s when my son’s dmil-to-be looked over at me with tears in her eyes and asked, “Isn’t this silly? We are crying because they graduated from (pause) – mountain climbing?” At that we exploded into giggles, and poor ds thought for sure we had both lost our minds.

We both understood what ds did not. “Pomp and Circumstance” was just one small step toward the inevitable “Wedding March” we would be hearing one short year later. Now ds and ddil live 2700 miles away. I knew instinctively that song would bring me sorrow.

Next week I will be at the Oaxaca Christian School playing "Pomp and Circumstance" on the piano, provided my eyes aren’t too blurred to see the notes. The added kicker is the reminder that I might have had a child in this high school graduating class of 2011. We lost two babies in Guatemala that would have been due either in January or July of 1993. Just when I thought I was over it, the memory returned with a fresh wave of grief.

Once upon a time, I grew weary of forever saying goodbye to friends who weasel their way into my heart only to leave the field and never return. My heart began to crust over that tender spot so that I no longer felt the acute pain of parting (and miscarriages). The trouble is that you cannot selectively block certain emotions. In blocking pain you inadvertently block joy.

Being alive means experiencing both the happy and the sad.

Through the years, God completed the restoration of my soft heart, and now I can freely bawl through weddings again, plus graduations, Hallmark commercials, and even animated movies like Up and Toy Story 3 (watching Andy go away to college and leave his toys behind … waa!).

The flip side is that I can now grieve with those who grieve. The best part is that I can also deeply experience the joy life brings.

While I still cry over the reality of loss in life, I am rejoicing in the news that, Lord willing, I am to become a grandmother later this year! What jubilation I might have missed if things had “stayed the same” like I thought I wished. I can’t imagine life without my two precious ddils, whether they ever give me grandbabies or not.

IRL* May future “Wedding Marches” kindle hope rather than despair.

Mistaking a Mercedes for a Toyota

In the midst of a crazy week, humor reappeared unexpectedly, providing a few laughs for unsuspecting bystanders. Last Monday while running errands in the city, I almost ran off with the wrong husband. The sidewalk was extremely narrow, and when a car pulled up close beside me, somehow I got it in my scattered brain that my dh* [see "Jamie Jo Speak" in sidebar] had arrived to pick me up.

It's a good thing the door was locked. A man in another car further up the road, who turned out to be dh, was honking to divert my attention just as I was leaning down to see why on earth my husband-who-wasn't-my-husband was refusing to unlock the passenger door. A handsome middle-aged man shrugged and smiled apologetically, instantly shaking me from my daze.

On Thursday, dh and I were telling a friend about my many episodes of not being very observant when it comes to cars, how in high school I offended a rich boy by mistaking his Mercedes for a Toyota, and how not so many years ago I drove my mom's new car to the grocery store without noticing the color or make of the car in the dark garage before leaving, only to panic in the parking lot after shopping when I realized I no clue which car was "mine."

The very next day after recounting these embarrassing stories, Friday night, I was helping the same friend with a Mother's Day outreach to pregnant moms at a Christian birth center. She lent me keys so I could get supplies from her car. Going to the street, I went straight to the car with the Texas license plate (something I do notice!), and was frustrated that the key did not fit in the lock. Figuring I only had the ignition key, I squinted (minus reading glasses) to locate the unlock icon on the key ring (a handy trick I learned when I lost my mom's car). Even that didn't work.

As I stood there obviously perplexed, an amused spectator kindly pointed out that each time I pressed the unlock button, another car—a red car nothing remotely like the one I was attempting to open—would flash its headlights. Oops. What are the odds of having two cars parked on the same street in Oaxaca with Texas plates? The man, however, looked at me like I was nuts. Who in the world doesn't notice the difference between a red and a.... I still couldn't tell you the color of the first car. It was some strikingly non-red color like blue or silver or gray.

A while back we were discussing the question "How do you keep from losing you?" We were referring to the person we used to be before going to the field. Incidents like these prove that maybe I haven't lost "me" as much as I thought. I've grown and changed through the trials and challenges life has supplied, and hopefully the essence of who I am is more Christ-like than before, but deep down I am still the same space cadet* I was as a teen. Like certain pesky sins, some traits plague us throughout our life, no matter where we live.

IRL* Then again, maybe it's a wonder I haven't lost myself; I lose enough other things!
*What we used to call scatterbrains before they invented ADD.

Introspective Mini-Funk

Who am I fooling? Here I had promised to be “real” with you, and then I find myself tippy-toeing around the issues I’m facing, tempted to sugarcoat them. Frankly I am feeling swamped. Too much to do, too little time….

Maybe some of you experience that this time of year. Thanksgiving is over, and the rest of the year flies in double time and ends before you’re ready. Particularly in December I become nostalgic and just want to scream at the clock to STOP, if not just slow down or even rewind a bit. At the very least I want time to stand still for an hour or so while I recover from the jet lag of zooming through seasons of life so fast.

Last week my baby turned twelve. That alone was enough to throw me into an introspective mini-funk. After 25 years of being a mother, I am beginning to see the end in sight. Just like the month of December, I know it’s going to speed by in fast motion. Meanwhile I am mourning the loss of four children who have grown up and moved on.

With so many serious crises in the world and people dying without knowing our Savior, it seems petty to complain when my life is so blessed, but that is the reality. It still hurts to face the holidays with only a partial family. I am thankful my two college kids will join us, but still, only seven of us around the table for Christmas dinner? That seems tragic somehow.

Now I understand how my own parents must have felt when I flew the coop for foreign lands. They never complained or made an issue of it, but mercy, this stinks! Back when I had four children under six years old, I used to laugh when those older missionary ladies would sigh and tell me, “Enjoy them, sweetie. They grow up so fast.” It made no sense back when my one goal was to teach them to tie their own shoes, but they were right.

Now that I have whiled away the morning whining over what can’t be changed, I really must get back to the “to do” list. The trouble with time speeding up all of a sudden is that I can’t find enough hours to properly prepare the Bible study in Spanish for Fridays. What was I thinking when I committed to do that?

Then there’s the progressive dinner for the MK teens I volunteered to help host, and the chime choir to direct for different Christmas programs, the short story I had hoped to submit for the WOTH Writer’s blog, and the prayer letter that needs to be written and sent before the end of the year. I expect some of you are in the same dilemma. Maybe you aren’t even reading this until weeks after it was posted. I understand.

IRL* Like it or not, December has begun, the fastest month of the year.
Another book suggestion for your Amazon wish list: A Lantern in Her Hand, by Bess Streeter Aldrich, my all-time favorite book. She “gets” the too-fast passage of time as well as the challenges of settling far from family and friends.

Time Travel

Why do I find it so difficult to live in the present?

Maybe I'm just not busy enough, or maybe I'm not disciplined enough to remain in the here-and-now. For some reason I forever find myself either rewinding the tape to relive, examine, and critique scenes from my past, or else I am fast-forwarding it to pre-play future events, trying out different possible scenarios.

For instance, I picture myself staying here in Mexico, growing old together with Methuselah*, and having grandchildren take turns coming to visit during the summer. I'll show them all the places their parents used to play, and read our favorite stories to them. (At this point in my pondering, if I'm ever careless enough to wonder aloud, Jim, I mean Methuselah, will jump in with some ridiculous comment like, "What will you serve for lunch that day?" or "What outfit will you be wearing?") Argh.

An alternate ending I dream up (usually after he bursts my bubble with some stupid remark) is of me as a widow living out the remainder of my old age in some unknown location. This particular ending gets less frightening the more I preview it. There is no terror in facing the uncertainty of the future because whenever I fast-forward the tape, in spite of all the blank scenes and potential tragedies, the one constant feature is that Jesus is always by my side. I take great comfort in that.

I used to joke about writing my entire life story in advance and then complaining about my kids' refusal to follow the script! (They were all going to be the perfect kids, and I, of course, the perfect mom....) Actually it's twice as fun my way, because I can dream and imagine one ending, and then enjoy the real story as it unfolds. God's story is always better than my imaginary one. Imperfect kids and mothers are more colorful and genuine than perfect ones.

How about you? Have you ever done mental gymnastics like burning your house down and then imagining which things you would miss if you lost them forever? Have you ever peeked into the future, not liked what you saw, and then made some changes to avoid turning into that person, or to avoid facing that preventable problem? Or just flitted to the past or future simply to find joy that eludes you in the present?

Then again maybe the rest of you are too busy to play these zany games. In your defense, living one day at a time is actually scriptural. And look hard enough, you’ll find plenty of joy and even hilarity right in front of you. No time travel required. Maybe I’ll try living in the present tense for a while, and stop dreaming about driver’s licenses I don’t have yet.

What a novel idea.

IRL*fast-forward or rewind, I'm still pushing "play."

*please refer to sidebar dictionary [Jamie Jo-speak] for the definition of starred item.