Christmas Asthma-When You Need To Stick Your Head in the Freezer

I’ve been really getting on my own nerves this Christmas season. I have this constant urge to run and hide. It’s weird really, considering how much I love Christmas; the lights and candles, the Kenny G Christmas station, the smell of pine from the tree, the shopping and gifts and family time. But it’s become an increasingly tedious season, especially since motherhood, and this year I feel constantly short of breath. In part because: asthma. But there’s a gasping even the inhaler can’t seem to clear.

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The trickiest part for me is all the gatherings. I am growing more weasely about them each year. I get so cringy about all the small talk with distantly known relatives, I could cry. No, actually I do cry. It’s not that I don’t like these people. I (mostly) REALLY do. But there are so many of them all in one place, and so many questions that I can either answer politely or honestly, but not both. I’m no good at motherhood chitchat. I’m not going into adoption chitchat. I worry our family is a display, that the girls will feel they are treated as interesting artifacts to be admired, rather than the thinking, feeling humans they are. I get crazy tired before I’m even inside, and can feel myself vacillating between artificial enthusiasm about gingerbread houses and distant, short responses that likely get some raised eyebrows and whispered wonderings about my well-doing. I’ll clear it up for everyone, there are indeed some problems upstairs, but mostly I just don’t do gatherings well.

All of our extended family gatherings have out grown our Grandparents’ homes. This means a little more space, but it also means a little colder and a little lonelier. Without the sentimentality of my grandma’s kitchen and the chimes of Grandpa’s clock, it feels even more disconnected. It also means a new building with a passel of kids scattering hither and yon. Call it over-protectiveness or OCD, I can take it, (or rather, already have it), but I’m not super chill about sending my girls off in a new building with a clan of kids and not seeing them again until bedtime. I used to quietly disappear for a few hours after lunch; sometimes to the car where I’d stashed a book, sometimes to go home and “check on things” for a while (my bed needs a surprising amount of supervision), sometimes to take a walk or hide out in my Grandpa’s study. But now I need to remain present. And while I’m present, I also get to exercise swallowing my pride when one of my attendees has a moment that is beyond what I’m willing to explain to on-lookers, and proceeds to sit huffing and scowling, with occasional body flops on the table. I get to figure out how to either facilitate a nap in a strange building with endless interruptions, or attempt to pave the smoothest possible path for a 3 year old going napless, a delicate condition that can turn rabid on a surprisingly small grievance.

I told God if we were to have any illnesses in our future, I would be ok with pink eye hitting the week before Christmas. It was the most harmless contagious disease I could think of that would keep me home-bound. Then my mom reminded me of how hard it was to get rid of, all the mattering and oozing and free flowing germs and stuff. So I took it back.

I’m living these squirmy feelings to the fullest this year. This week, actually. I don’t have a How I Learned to Love Big-Gathering Small Talk eBook to offer. I’m just giving all of us wheezers permission to use an inhaler. Albuterol is good, but it doesn’t seem to reach the soul, so I’m taking some notes of what does help clear soul congestion.

For me, it starts with less. My decorations are minimal this year, and I actually love it. The few bursts of added greenery and lights are easier to notice with less clutter. I’m not committing to any fancy baking. I ordered about half the number of Christmas cards I usually do. I’ve turned down events, some I really wanted to attend and some I was glad to see go. With the declines went additional obligations that would have accompanied them. Learning how to gracefully say no is a muscle I’m shakily trying to build.

“You can set your own odometer. Whatever takes you further away from Jesus and love and generosity and goodwill, shelve it. The earth will not spin off its axis and you will not retroactively prevent the birth of Baby Jesus. Be healthy, be merry, and may this season be wondrous all over again, because unto us a child was born.”              Jen Hatmaker

The math of a well-chosen “no” is that it always adds up to a sum of more space for a yes. This year, our space has been dedicated to a few special events and opportunities to engage with the community. Advent reading is at the top of the "best yes" list this season. It’s harder than I can even understand to get reading in every night. The first week of advent I was already counting up how many days we were behind. And I got frazzled and frustrated until I stopped and smacked myself back to reality. The girls have no clue that we’re behind. I have serious doubts that Jesus has an eye on the calendar and an eyebrow raised at us. As if he’s going to catch us still reading in January and say “Enough with this belated birthday talk!” The time frame we put on celebrating God With Us is ridiculous. I can’t recommend Unwrapping the Greatest Gift highly enough. Ann Voscamp works her wonder in the words, and the stories move me to worship every time. You can find the book we read here. If you don’t have a good book your family is reading right now, order it and read it into January. It’s incredible. We all look forward to sitting the light of the tree and reading together. It’s a longer chapter than what we normally read at bedtime, and it’s good. More is good when it comes to reading.

And the most important part of getting some oxygen to the soul? Finding a way to escape whatever is suffocating, be it crowds, shopping lists, small talk, kitchen chaos, family drama, or the budget, and find some quiet. Some stillness, some fresh air that goes beyond the lungs and revives the mind and heart as well. Someone told me once that a quick remedy for an asthma attack was sticking your head in the freezer and inhaling the dry, frigid air. While I can’t say it’s ever done much for me, I’ve certainly tried it a few days that were thick with humid allergy air. If your air gets thick, find a freezer, and take a moment to go stick you head in it. For me, this looks like sitting at my desk most mornings and writing down some words by the light of my candle. It looks like walking the path along the woods and listening to winter bird songs and the rustling of grass under my dog’s feet. It looks like hiding out in the bathroom and getting lost in the plot of an audio book for a few minutes. It looks like pre-arranging with my extrovert husband for the girls and I to leave a gathering early, or for me to slip out and take a short nap or drive while the rest are busy playing games. For you it might look like 15 minutes in your favorite book while you sit in the school pick up line or a cup of hot tea after the kids are tucked in bed. Maybe it looks like saying no to an event altogether and finding another time or way to reconnect with those people. It definitely looks like honest conversations and compromise with our more-the-merrier socializers. Nobody is wrong in this equation, just different personalities with different needs.

I’m looking forward to catching up with my dearly loved cousins this weekend. Giving Grandma a hug, kissing a new baby I haven’t yet met, and laughing loud at some endlessly ornery uncles. And I have some exit plans in place, some breathing treatments to use as needed. For all of you emotionally short-of-breath friends, find your inhaler and use it liberally. Here’s to a Christmas of quiet moments trumping chaos. We can’t be messengers for the Prince of Peace, peace for our family or nation or world, if there isn’t first peace in us.

Let there be peace on earth And let it begin with me. Let there be peace on earth The peace that was meant to be. (Peace On Earth)

Motherhood Highs and Lows-Shake the Dust!

Most days when I pick Cypress up from school, after a few exchanges about the day we’ll talk about our “highs and lows”. I’ll ask about hers first, sometimes switching up the wording to “What made you laugh today?” or, “What was the worst moment of your day?” At times I feel some varied wording will help stir up fresh content when the high has been “I got to have recess” all week, and the lowest moment she can come up with is “at story time my arm itched” or, “my friend Alayna was really tired today”.

As amusing as first grade highs and lows can be, our little conversations have me thinking about some of my own, and I’ve concluded that mothers could dominate the high and low game. I don’t have any scientific evidence, but I’m 99 percent sure there is no other demographic so regularly exposed to such extremely heartwarming highs and calamitous lows within the same day, same hour, and sometimes the very same minute.

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I’m thinking a collective swap of highs and lows would be a great activity. I have a little writing project I’m working on, and I’d love (aka NEED) your participation in this. Here’s your opportunity to pass on the hysterical predicaments you and/or your kids have found themselves in, the crazy words that have been said by toddler (and parent), the sweetest moments that you never want to forget, and the frightening, horrific, and truly bizarre happenings that make you stop, shake your head, and audibly ask the dog, “What the HECK is this? What did they do with my life??”

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If you’re not a mom but have a good story from your mother or sister or friend, share it! Share individual moments. It doesn’t have to be a high and low from the same situation or even the same day, and if you have three highs to share and only one low, that’s fine too. Like Freeze Tag or Candyland or Chess, there really are no hard and fast rules to this game. The main rule is: don't over think it!

I’ll collect the stories of our highs and lows and assemble them for us all to read and laugh and eye roll and tear up over together. If your story is shared, your name will be in the credits but no revealing details will be displayed.

Consider this a way to shake the dust off motherhood. When we share our stories and laugh at the absurdities and smile at the preciousness, I think it helps us shake the dust of the mundane and frustration and shame and embarrassment that so often settles.

Before I go, here is a high and low from my list:

High: After a massive melt down that included, but was not limited to, stomping, kicking the floor, wailing, and shrieking over the utter difficulty of getting PJ’s on one night, said child finally appeared pajama clad, and said through intermittent sniffing, “See? I CAN do hard (hiccup) things.”

Low: Giving the kids a bedtime snack that was just late enough to cause my patience battery to die mid way through. I looked over to see things getting messy on one child’s plate and announced: “If I see you put your hands in your hummus again, I’ll eat all your food and send you straight to bed!” There was some shuffling in the kitchen where my younger siblings and Dave were eating their snacks. I overheard muffled snorting and choking as my husband quietly sang, “She’s a vile one, Mrs. Grinch.”

So, what are your motherhood highs and lows? Share your stories and shake the dust!

You can share in the comments, message me on facebook, or send me an email. I can't wait to hear from you!

Pockmarks and Audacious Grace

As I was making my way up the dimly lit porch steps, carrying dirty paper plates and left over apples and popcorn, the remains of yet another harvest dinner ate in the car, I had a strong knowing wash over me that I needed to pray with the girls.   We are far from a routine-oriented family, even on the slower days. We don’t have bedtime rituals of baths or stories or family prayer that we go through every night. Some nights we sit and sing songs. The girls taking turns choosing, or Dave and I suddenly belt out a chorus we know by heart from days gone by. Other nights we read a few pages from our Jesus Storybook Bible (My favorite!) or another book nearby. Many nights we’ve allowed playing or dinner time chatter to linger a little too long so we hurry them through the bathroom, wrap them up in blankets with kisses and quick back rubs and whispered good nights and hustle down to pack lunches and pay bills.

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During harvest, I fly solo at bedtime. It’s a season where everything gets stripped down to basic needs. There isn’t time or energy for extras. I depend on the girls to get their pjs on and clothes put away by themselves while I clean up dinner. I quickly brush Sami’s teeth and we hurry to grab sleep caps and dim the lights. If we’re not too far from our 8:30 target, I’ll sometimes scoop up Sami, all cocooned in her pink blanket, and we’ll go sit on Cy’s bed to spend a few final moments of the day together. I knew as I was carrying in the last load from the car, I needed to make time for such a moment, tired and irritated as I was. There had been a barrage of poor choices from one in our party through the day. I knew praying over her could accomplish what no amount of lecturing could.

  Once upstairs, I saw the clothes still strewn I had requested multiple times be put away. Sami was jabbering at a volume far higher than necessary for proximity, and managed to abruptly burp mid-sentence. Twice. The words “Just go to bed” were on my tongue. 13 hours and counting of meeting needs, and I was overdone. But something held them back. I sighed, desperate for the quiet of my room, but knowing only a few tiny minutes can sometimes make all the difference. The Kingdom of God is often revealed in a five minute pause at the end of a day full of faults.

  We sat in the dark on Cypress’s bed. The Bible app read Psalm 23 audibly from my phone. A curly-haired head rested on each of my legs, bodies under a mound of blankets. After the second time through the Psalm, I began to pray. I prayed for them by name, for their individual needs. That they would learn to love truth and become trustworthy. That they would be strong enough to ask for help and not potty their pants. I committed them again to God’s hands, where not even Satan’s slickest schemes can get to them. I applauded the work God has begun in each, the dignity and strength he is continuing to perfect in Cy. The security and compassion he is so beautifully working in Sami. And, as has marked every prayer of mine for the past 3 years, I pleaded with God to affirm in their hearts how loved they are by me, even when I’m such a mess at showing it. In my most used phrase of motherhood prayers, I asked him to cover every sin I’d committed against Cypress, and against Sami with his grace. As I said the words, a phrase of scripture I hadn’t thought of in a while settled in my thoughts. “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”.

  I’d never known abounding sin until motherhood. As I quoted the line aloud, I had a vision flood the darkness behind my eye lids. I saw a pockmarked ground, barren white, marred with ashen holes gouged from screaming anger, from sharp words, from rough hands, from unrealistic expectations. Into each hole was poured this golden sand. It didn’t just merely cover the holes. It filled the black caverns and heaped up over each hole, making shimmering mountains where once was a blackened crater.

  Tears poured from my face and onto the heads that were motionless on my lap, completely calm and quiet even though mommy’s prayer was getting some decent yardage to it. All this time I’ve prayed for my sins to be covered, which honestly feels like way too much to ask. To really expect a complete covering when I’m racking up errors faster than I can count some days is audacious. But the clear message to me in the dark was, “Carrie, I’m not just covering the mistakes, the wounds your anger and reactions have made in these girls. I’m filling them up and heaping them over. And not with cheap fill dirt, either. It’s gold. Glittering grace.”

  “It’s too much, too undeserved, too good to be true!” I said. “But I’m opening my hands. I receive it.” To even say the words and weakly believe them validated this grace, scandalous as it all is. The goodness and mercy that have been chasing after me, even through the long months of darkness when I refused to accept I could ever be loved again and was too strangled by shame and depression to accept the forgiveness and affection offered me, they have cracked open the cellar door of darkness with their persistence, loosened the noose of shame.

  And just for added proof, a tangible gift for my flickering faith, I looked down through my tears to two sets of adoring eyes. Two hands patting me, two voices whispering, “I love you, Mommy.” If that isn’t golden, glittering grace, I don’t know what is.

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But where sin increased and abounded, grace (God’s unmerited favor) has surpassed it and increased the more and superabounded. ~Romans 5

If the cellar door still has you locked in darkness, if you feel like you’re too big of a mess, too far gone, too much of a wreck to forgive, please know that you are not alone. Let me remind you that there is nowhere you can go that quarantines you from God’s presence. His goodness and mercy are relentless. Will you hold on to even a spark of hope today? When the door to your darkness cracks, you will have light to share with someone else. The hope I'm speaking today I may need you to speak to me tomorrow.

And if you have a story of abounding, scandalous grace, will you share it with us?