Strength Through the Limping

Writing today's date on our white board in the school room gave me a tinge of sadness. Today is five months until what would have been our 30th wedding anniversary. There are no plans being made for jetting off happily to Hawaii. (More realistically,) there will be no nice dinner out. Not even a quick trip to Taco Bell together. No looking together through our wedding pictures and reminiscing. No well wishes from family. No lingering kisses. No rejoicing.

We will limp towards the day, most likely still legally married. But, unfortunately, on the road to becoming another statistic.

God ordains marriage to be a covenant. He is in the midst of the two who are joined as one. It is a mystical, intangible cementing together of two individuals. Two souls becoming something new.

Tearing it apart is painful beyond belief.

And yet, God has His arms wrapped around me. He holds on tight, never letting go.

...I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4: 12-13 NIV

(I know this looks like a yellow board! It's just my camera phone...)

The Angel

It was God's grace that I "happened" to take the Beyond Consequences Online Parenting Class right now. Although it's designed to help us more effectively parent children who've experienced trauma, I find it's helping me as I navigate my own trauma of going through a divorce. I also realize that as I live with my pain, I understand my children's pain more vividly.

Lately, I have been anything but an angel. I find myself having great difficulty even speaking civily with my husband. I pray for patience, and yet I so readily fly off the handle. When he leaves, I calm down, see the error of my ways, ask for forgiveness from him and/or the kids, evaluate my behavior and try to learn how to be more polite the next time.

Beyond Consequences teacher, Heather Forbes, talks about the amount of stress we can take before we blow up. She calls it the Window of Stress Tolerance. To illustrate this point, I want you to think of a bucket. It's got some water in the bottom which represents your life. There are a few rocks in there too, collected from the various problems one has. Now, most of us can carry the bucket around without difficulty. Water and a few rocks get added every day, but we know to stop, take some rocks out, pour out some of the water, and go on with our buckets.

Someone who is experiencing/has experienced trauma, has a much different scenario. They have a bucket that is nearly full before they even get out of bed. As soon as they wake up, they know they must lug that heavy bucket around everywhere they go. They are tired of the water sloshing out onto their pant leg all the time. They dread the problems they know will happen today. They always do. The bucket will get too heavy. It always does. They will stand there. Holding on to the bucket with two hands. Crying. Yelling. Frustrated.

Maybe, just maybe, an angel will come along. The angel will gently take the bucket from their grip. The angel will pour out the water onto some flowers, and take the rocks out to line a garden path. The angel will give them a hug, a cup of tea, sit and chat, and then send them on their way with a manageable bucket.



Although I am carrying around my own heavy bucket, I need to be the angel to my children.

Maybe I can even be the angel to myself.

(photos: my daughter and our dog - June 2009; flowers at the Abbey - July 2009)

Beyond Consequences

I have been interested in learning more about adoption related abandonment issues. I recently heard of a 10-week online class about parenting children with challenging behaviors, and found out I could take the class for free if I promised to blog about it. Although in a round about way I'm being paid to blog, I promise to be honest about my thoughts on the course and the book we are using.

One purpose of the first class was to help us change our thinking about WHY our children misbehave. In order to do this we need to understand more about stress and how the brain works. A little bit of stress is useful, and most of us can cope with the stresses in our lives. If a car pulls out in front of us, we are sent into a state of heightened stress which enables us to react quickly and avoid an accident. After we slow down and keep a safe distance from the other car, we are able to modulate or regulate ourselves and get back to "normal".

But children who have experienced trauma in their lives can't deal with the same amount of stress. For them, the same car that has pulled out is like putting one of us in the middle of the race at the Indy 500. They quickly become overloaded or overwhelmed (dysregulated). If I were plopped into the middle of such a car race, there is no way I could observe the other drivers, glean from them how to navigate around the other cars, and blend in with the pack. And yet, often, I expect our daughter to observe others (or me), figure out how to deal with different situations, and just get with the program!, you know.

The author's contention is that if you peel back the misbehaviors, layer by layer, you will find at the core: fear. Fear of abandonment, for example, can be triggered by something that seems to have no correlation whatsoever. It's just that when the child is overwhelmed, they revert to their basic instinct of not being safe. A state of fear. The author also takes brain research from the past 20+ years and uses that to back up her claims of why the child automatically goes into a state of fear as a coping mechanism.

One of our homework assignments was to practice deep breathing so our bodies revert to it automatically when we are stressed. I have been teaching this to my children, and they've noticed the difference in their outlook right away. I want to keep practicing it when they're calm, in the hopes that it will instinctively be used when feeling overwhelmed.

I've read lots of parenting books in the course of my teaching career, and more recently as a parent. Years ago, I may have pooh-poohed this talk of fear-based behaviors. But experience has taught me that there's something to this...

The book:
Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control by Heather T. Forbes and B. Bryan Post
The Beyond Consequences Online Parenting Class is taught by Ms. Forbes.

(our happy daughter, playing her brother's guitar)

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

Romans 12:9-15

(My son took this photo while we were walking our dog last week.)

Slightly Less Putrid

Since we all have a tendency to hypocrisy, any hollow appearance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us, instead of righteousness itself. Since there is nothing in us or around us that is not greatly tainted with impurity, as long as we are assessing limits of human corruption, anything which is slightly less putrid makes us very pleased with ourselves.

Jean Cauvin (1509-1564)
The Institutes of Christian Religion

I've been praying that God would not let bitterness take root in my heart. All too often I revert to frustration which then turns into anger. It dawned on me that while I'm trying to shield myself from bitterness, it would be quite easy to become done in by something else. Pride, for instance? While doing some reading for our history study this week, I ran across this quote by John Calvin and found it worth sharing.

(Our dog, Lady, smelling yellow snow, which is "slightly less putrid" than eating rabbit pellets!)

Masterpiece of Nature

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


For our first dinner of the new year, I filled our home with friends. There were four families (including mine) who used to worship together, and it was such a blessing to sit around the table and discuss theology, movies, Post Modern America, and a myriad of other topics.

The other three women at the table have cried with me, laughed with me, prayed with me, and allowed me to pour out my heart. Good friends are more than masterpieces of Nature. They are gifts from God!

After they all left, I was gazing at the tree in our dining room. The lights sparkled, not only on the tree itself, but also shone in the reflection of the window. The ornaments hanging from the chandelier picked up light from it, as well as the tree lights. Even after my friends were gone, their love lingered and warmed my heart on a cold winter's night.

Thank you, God, for the gift of friends who help bear our burdens and shine light on our path.

Content New Year

I took this photo in the Abbey chapel because I liked how the rays of the late afternoon sun hit the floor. Some areas were completely shrouded in darkness. Other areas gave a hint of what lay beyond the sun's reaches. The light made an arrow of sorts, pointing forward.

My life goes on. Some areas of my life are shrouded in painful sorrow. Others spread out just beyond what I can see. Only the Lord knows what lies ahead for me.

I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4: 12-13 NIV

One of my goals for 2010 is to be content in any and every situation. Paul writes that the Lord will give me the strength to do this. May I graciously clothe myself with this strength to give Him glory.