the rest of the story (aka how life really is)

I haven't blogged for a long time, but I've thought lots about it. I've wanted to tell about how Rachel hates getting her diapers changed (sometimes to the point of screaming for 5 minutes before she'll lay down!) or funny things that the girls say or post pictures of them, but never got around to it. I think the reason for it is that I tire of blogging when it is just about the good things in life. Happy pictures, pretty pictures, superficial chit chat. In the past I have blogged about hard things and feeling lonely, but not for a while. So, here's a post to make up for lost time. Hm. Now where to even begin.

To start with, Mike and I have been married for almost 8 and a half years (wow that sounds like a long time!). Marriage is challenging on its own, but then add in 3 kids, 4 years of grad school, plus 2 more years of thesis writing, plus remodeling a house, plus moving to 5 different homes in those 8+ years, plus financial stress, and all together you get a recipe for disaster. Absolutely by the grace of God, we are still married and have wonderful children and pay the bills. Through it all, though, God has been working on me. Changing me. Getting rid of the junk and making me more like him. But let me tell you, this is not an easy thing. Not easy at all. Why not? A lot of it has to do with my tendencies to perfectionism. In my humble opinion, I don't think that a perfectionist can ever be happy. Even if I were married to a perfect person or had perfect children I would probably still get crabby at them because of times when I wouldn't get my way or when I would be proved wrong, etc. etc. So, a lot of the changing that God has done in me is to learn to not be a perfectionist (which to learn this you have to admit being wrong, look for your own fault in situations, and be ok with getting a C+ in a grad level class - I've had to do the first two things many times, but thankfully only one C+:) I was comfortable in Minnesota, though -- with our house, church, friends, etc.

OK, so that is a bit of background. Then enter the move to Chicago. I was kind of excited about it at first, but basically lots of it has sucked. I write that with a bit of a chuckle because even if we'd stayed in Minnesota I'm sure that life would have still been crappy in some ways so it isn't just because of the move. But, figure this -- with the move I lost my comfort zone. That comfort zone being habits of shopping at certain stores, going to church where I knew everyone, having friends that we could call on a moment's notice to do something, having driving be effortless because I'd driven that road hundreds of times, etc. So now, going to church becomes stressful because you have to make conversation with strangers, I spend lots of time investing in chit-chat relationships when really what I want is just a couple good friends who I can bare my soul to, I rarely drive anywhere unless I've been there before, and I have to think about what I will buy from where because I consider how it was purchased/produced, etc. I dealt with some of those things last year when we lived in a nice place, close to school. But, that neighborhood is expensive so we down-styled from the nice 2-bedroom loft and moved to a 100 year-old house with crooked floors, squirrels in the attic, back porch stairs that smell like dog pee, and very little green space in view. Quite a change from our house in Minnesota -- brand new kitchen, 2 new bathrooms, a nice theater, and a huge yard. If we were trying to live the American dream then we never should have moved.

So then over this past summer, as we were moving from the loft to this house, I'm working 3 days a week on my thesis. By August I was exhausted! (On a sidenote, one very bright spot in the whole summer, though, was a week long trip to Idaho to see my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It had been 7 years since we'd been there and it was absolutely incredible to be around people who have known me for my whole life. Yes, I did have to small talk some because I have no idea what they do now or even who my cousin's kids are :) but to just be known and accepted and loved and not have to tell my whole life history to them, was absolutely wonderful. It was balm to my soul.) Having a week of very little stress and lots of sunshine, though, made me realize how nice it could be to be married and have kids! So, come mid August, I stopped working a week before Mariah started school because our daycare person went to college and after that, I absolutely crashed. This is what I have avoided blogging about. I was so exhausted that the girls and I went up to my parent's house for almost a week and I slept and laid on the couch and talked to my mom almost the whole time. After being there I said, well, it's no wonder I'm exhausted. She was busy all day long with cooking, laundry, dishes, and diapers, it seemed!

Alas, I had to come home, though, and the past three months have been hard, but good. I pretty much have only cooked, done laundry and dishes, and picked up toys (somedays:). Sometimes I don't even check email or facebook for days on end! I've taken lots of naps, and only three weeks ago did I pick up working on my thesis again. So, what have a learned through it all? That God is steadfast and that He is really all I need. Many people have said it, but it really truly is only when you come to the end of your strength and admit that you are weak, then and only then can God's strength permeat your life. For so long I've tried to do it all -- marriage, kids, school, etc -- but I think that so much of that was done by me living on my own strength. Not that God didn't want me in those places at those times, but I know that some of it was my trying to earn approval via my perfectionistic nature. Oh, along with way, I'd get sick and realize many times that I had been trying to do too much, but I could never stop. I could always phsyically keep going, but now I just can't. I'm figuring out the medical side of it, which is a whole blog post by itself, but right now I am just treasuring the spiritual part of it. Some days are still frustrating and exhausting, but I know that my choice is to either sit around, get depressed, and feel sorry for myself or I can claim God's word and the biblical truths about me -- that I am a child of God, I am Christ's friend, I am a saint, I am a part of the body of Christ, etc. I may not always feel valued, but I know the truth (that I am loved by God and that even if I were unable to do a single more thing in life, he would not love me any less - a pretty hard thing for this old perfectionistic/approval-seeker to grasp!) and it is this truth that sets me free.

So, that is the gist of where I am at right now. Now you probably know more about me than you ever wanted to know, but I'm so sick of putting on a happy face. Yes, I have joy and contentment, but that's only part of it. I couldn't have gotten to this place without trials and as a Christian I know that becoming the person that God wants me to be will entail struggles. So, in closing I shall just share something from church this past Sunday. In observance of Thanksgiving, there were post-it notes and pens up in the front of church and everyone was invited to come forward, write down what we were thankful for, and put the postit on the cross, the altar, the woodwork, etc. This is what I wrote: I am thankful " for trials and tribulations that show me the faithfulness of God, for children, for spouses, for family." Yes, i am thankful for a house that is warm, doesn't leak when it rains, and has new kitchen cabinets, but those would not mean a thing if I did not have God or the people closest to me. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. Amen. :)