Month: May 2014

Duck Dynasty, my “Mommy Coworker,” and other Goings-on in my Crazy, Busy Life

lindseygendke4 Comments

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I am thankful this morning for unexpected good things, including my new Ford F150 (our first family vehicle) and Duck Dynasty. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write. I never pictured myself driving a truck as my primary vehicle, or watching those “silly” rednecks by choice. My main focus for now is still working on my book during naptimes—now I’m on to my book proposal, with a particular editor in view. But in the meantime, God continues to fill my life with other interesting stuff, and I’m glad for it.

For instance, I’ve made a new friend in my next-door-neighbor, who gave birth to twins two weeks before Sam was born. She has been such a blessing to this homebound mama, because she has become almost like a “coworker” (in the business of mothering babies) to commiserate with and compare stories. (We SAHMS miss that coworker/adult banter.) We take the babies for walks once or twice a week, swap books, discuss those books (a built-in book club! What could be better?), and text each other. Tonight we will attempt a movie night at her house once the babies go to bed. God has given me lots of friends over the past few years, and I love their awesome uniqueness equally, but there is something to be said for having friends, and family, close by. Logistically, you can do so much more with family and friends who are physically close.

Construction, and reconstruction, on parts of our house continues—now we are moving into month two. I skipped writing about it when it began, but the short version is that a plumbing leak led to gutting a bathroom and a hallway, and the resulting insurance money spurred us to proceed with other home improvements we’ve wanted for five years. So lately most days around here are noisy and messy, with subcontractors tromping in and out of my backyard and the back rooms of the house. Included in the work are new walls (to replace sliding glass doors), a new window, new carpet, and new paint. I’ll be glad to get this over with, but with the mess around me, my next home project may become purging more of our junk.

Duck Dynasty. I rolled my eyes a couple years ago when some family members described the show, but now my husband has introduced me, and I’m hooked. This is the only television I watch besides a half hour of morning news, mind you. I could easily live without a television. But this show makes me laugh at the end of a hard day; plus, I am encouraged by the Robertsons’ strong example of family togetherness and their un-ashamedness of their faith.

Speaking of faith, my new neighbor friend asked if I would like to read through the Bible with her in forty days to refresh ourselves on the big picture of God’s Word. I said sure, but it definitely won’t get read in forty days! More accurately, I read from two to five chapters a day (I’m almost to Leviticus, and I’m thinking of skipping it this go-round…anyone want to hold that against me?). The more I read the Bible, the more new insight I get. This time I’ve picked up on a couple new things. One example is in Exodus 20, where, directly after God gives the 10 Commandments, he repeats the injunction not to worship or make other Gods—making a special point to warn them of the exact sin he knows they are about to commit with the golden calf! In the instructions for building his temple, I am reminded that God pays attention to detail, and he cares for the details of our lives. In his instructions to hire skilled workers, I take encouragement for my book project that God wants us to be skillful in our trades, and thereby glorify him.

P90X. The weight loss effort continues, with s-l-o-w success. I am still twenty pounds away from my goal (pre-pregnancy weight). But I am working out 3 to 4 times a week after Sam’s bedtime, usually with one of these extreme workouts, so I resist feeling bad about the weight that won’t (yet) come off. I’m doing my part—also trying to eat right—and I can’t do more than that (unless I give up chocolate like my neighbor…and I’m not quite ready for that!).

What else? Sam is doing great. He’s had a few bites of rice cereal, so that will probably become part of the routine soon, to keep up with his nutrition needs. He is spitting up A TON…but I hope that will level off soon with him taking some cereal. Also, my one-day-a-week babysitter, my sister-in-law, is done now that her kids are out of school. So Sambo and I get lots of quality time! Hubby took Monday and Tuesday off for the holiday weekend (which was so nice for our family!), and when he had to watch Sam from about 2 to 4:30 one day (Sam’s fussy time), he asked me how I do this every day! Like with anything and everything else in life, the answer is with God!

This post has been a hodgepodge of goings-on, and I want to end by thanking my Creator (and Re-Creator) God for all of them. My life is so full right now I almost don’t know what to do with myself! But once upon a dark time, I didn’t even want to see the light of day. When I think of the depression he brought me out of years ago, there is only one conclusion to be made: God is worthy of my worship, every single day, and every single moment of this crazy, busy life!

 

 

 

 

A Writer in Retreat

lindseygendke4 Comments
My Pen by Lusi
My Pen by Lusi

I go through periods of retreat, often linked to times when I am deep in my writing. In another post, I blogged about how a writer’s retreat can be both a place (a noun) and an action (a verb). The verb sense especially resonates with me.

Right now I am in an active work state with my manuscript: the fingers are active at typing when baby naps, and the mind is active at work most other times during the day. I notice I have let other things slide, such as housework, friends, and Facebook. But right now, those things don’t seem top priority.

Having a baby hit home this truth anew: I can’t have it all, all at the same time. When I notice I need to take care of something— for instance, when I have an idea I just have to write down, or like now, when I feel God telling me I need to work on my book proposal—the rest of life slides into the background. After awhile, the fact that I’m neglecting relationships will bother me, and those will again slide to the front. So my priorities shift all the time.

Life is less stressful when I admit that I can’t do everything all at once, and accept that all areas of life (except, hopefully, close family and God) must go through periods of neglect.

Another factor making it easier to put writing first (during naptimes, of course; Sam is still first most of the rest of the time) is that my husband and I haven’t seen each other much lately. For various reasons—he works late, he has meetings at church, I have meetings at church, I’m trying to exercise in the evenings to lose the baby weight—we keep missing each other. The one relationship I long for at the moment (besides my relationship with God) is with my hubby. But I can’t do anything about our lack of time together, so it’s best for me to keep busy with my own work. I’m waiting on this holiday weekend, when he will have Monday and Tuesday off, to reconnect with him. I’ve even asked him to read some of my manuscript, and he said he would! A little slice of heaven, to have the most important person in my life take interest in my passion. So maybe there are moments when we can have it all. Maybe. We’ll see how Sam’s naptimes go this weekend!

The Writing’s Going Well

lindseygendke4 Comments

The last two weeks have hosted a flurry of creative work…during naptimes and on the days my sister-in-law watches Sam (thanks so much, Joanna!). I’m hesitant to publish my high hopes, lest I’m getting too confident…but, of course, here I go.

In the last two weeks, I’ve basically rewritten the last third of my book, or created 80 new pages. This is my first big change since I rewrote the first third of my book last fall. So, now I have a different book from what I had last August. Same story, different book.

I’m not all that sad to have hacked up the first draft. That draft was very repetitious and wallowing. I see it as having cleared the pipes for what really needed to come out. Plus, I’ve saved all that cut material in a word document, and I envision it fueling numerous short articles. This new third, which still needs some organization and editing, focuses much more on Jesus and my healing. It explains the prayer process that changed my life, and shows those changes through new scenes of me reaching out to and praying with other women.

Now that I have the scenes in place that I want in the final draft (meaning I have a reliable outline), I will proceed with writing a book proposal and polishing the first three chapters. I’m not going to set a hard date for sending out the proposal, but I’m hoping for within a month. (I will only be sending to one publisher for now—a press within my faith community which God has laid upon my heart.) While the proposal is being reviewed (or sitting in a slush pile), I will polish up the rest of the book, and possibly get one more edit from my excellent book consultant, Trish Ryan.

I have prayed long over this memoir, and I feel God has delayed its progress so that I could make the recent changes. Now, I believe my book goes beyond telling a sad story women can identify with to showing how Jesus can bring beauty from ashes.

Happy to Be a Mother

lindseygendke6 Comments

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I was married seven years before I decided I wanted kids. Don’t mistake me. I was not married seven years before I got pregnant by accident, or before we could financially support a child. I mean I was married seven years before God, one day, gave me a talking to, and utterly changed my plans.

One October day in 2012, I was simultaneously poring over my career options and getting flustered, as I did so often in those days. I was two months from finishing my master’s degree, after which I planned to get a doctorate and teach college…but I wasn’t happy. I hated graduate school, and the thought of four to eight more years of it constricted my heart like a vise grip.

“Okay, Lord,”I prayed, sitting at my desk, I need your help. Before me sat my list of possible graduate schools, and a blank notebook. These items represented the choice that had dogged me for months: grad school, or writing? Farther back in my mind was a third option, but I had never really been able to voice it. Deadlines were approaching. If was going to get my doctorate, I had to apply soon.

“Lord,”I muttered through clenched teeth, “This indecision has gone on long enough, and I can’t take it anymore. I’m asking you to please, make clear, once and for all, what you want me to do.”

Even as I spoke the words, I felt the answer thudding in my chest.

You know what to do, God said.

And as the tears started, I realized I had known for months.

“God!”I cried out. “This has been so excruciating! Why has it taken so long to decide?”

Fear, came the instant answer. You fear that Buc will die, or abandon you someday. You fear that one day you will be alone again, without support, without resources, and without a clear path.

“Oh, Lord!” I sobbed. “You know me so well. You know that my constant motion for the past few years had to do with protecting myself in case of future abandonment—it wasn’t just about being organized and ‘highly effective.’ You know that I’ve overextended myself at work and church to keep from feeling what was really underneath my skin. You know I struggled over the PhD because it led to a safe and predictable place.”

I stopped talking aloud then, and just sat, letting it all sink in. I was finally admitting to myself: my desire for the PhD was all for fear. It was never what I wanted.

I slipped to my knees and bowed at my desk. With tears still trickling down my face, I acknowledged and embraced my fear, and I prayed: “God, you’ve gotten me this far. It’s time to let you lead, fully. I can’t ignore my desires anymore. And it doesn’t make sense to try to keep forcing a shoe that doesn’t fit. I don’t want a PhD. Teaching I could take or leave. But writing? I can’t leave it anymore. It’s got to come out.

I slumped on the floor for several minutes more, as if held there by God’s hand, because I knew there was more to this prayer. There was something else God wanted to bring out of me, another fear he wanted to replace with his truth. And I knew I was finally about to articulate it.

After composing myself, I called Buc at work and urged him to come home early, saying, “We need to talk about our future.”

When he arrived home, I said, “Let’s drive to the state park and talk while we walk.”

I didn’t have a speech prepared, but when we started our nature walk, words started tumbling out of my mouth. I admitted to Buc that I was not going to find a PhD that would suit me, because a PhD—and the isolation that must come with it—was not the life I wanted.

Voice quavering, I told him, “Honey, I keep looking at my life in the last few years—how I’ve been running around, keeping so busy, trying so hard—and I just don’t know what I’m striving for anymore. I’ve lost sight of what I’m doing. I mean,” I added, voice climbing to hysteria, “I just don’t know who I’m trying to please anymore. Why am I trying so hard?”

Scenes of recent years flashed in my mind. My nose-to-the-grindstone approach, my endless lists of to-dos. My shuffling from here to there. My busyness. My endless pursuit of the next rung in my career ladder, my continual motion. The mere thought of it so exhausted me that I had to stop and catch my breath. Again, these realizations had hit me hard. But the one that next burst from my mouth almost knocked me over.

“I want to have kids!” I blurted.

Like a crashing wave this realization came. In all the years we’d been married, I had never been able to say that I wanted kids. The closest I’d ever come was to speak of it as a distant hypothetical.

“Is it possible,” I marveled aloud to Buc, “that all I’ve ever really wanted was to get back to having a family? To have kids? Is it possible that the one thing I’ve been so scared to embrace all these years is the one thing I’ve really just wanted to get back to?”

I was flabbergasted by the thought. As I talked about our future—a new future—I felt a weight lifting. Was it possible I was really letting go? Just letting the debris of my broken past settle, and finally settling myself? The thought was comforting, even as it brought new fear. To follow this impulse was to completely shift gears, to suddenly grind to a halt plans we’d been setting in motion for years.

I cringed as I looked up at Buc. Would he approve of this change of plans?

“Honey? What do you think?” I shifted my eyes down, as if to deflect a coming glare. “What would you think if I decided to stay home and write, and maybe have some kids?”

His eyes were soft. He clasped my hand. “Honey, I think that sounds nice. I like the idea.” And that was all.

Whoosh. My breath escaped in one glorious release.

“I just have one question,” Buc said, swinging my arm as we trounced through the brush. “Why now? Why after all these years are you finally ready to have kids?”

I thought for a moment before answering, letting the happiness of the moment sink in. Then I realized: happiness was the answer.

“I think I finally understand something.” I let my free arm drift across the tree leaves, feeling like a little girl again. “The best parents—I mean, the people who should be having kids—have them because they are already happy. They have them not to make themselves happy, but to share their happiness. To invite someone else into their special, intimate joy. They don’t ask their kids to bring their lives meaning, they ask to be able to share meaning with their kids.”

“Well said,” Buc beamed at me. “I think I’ve got a wise wife.”

“Not that wise,” I smiled back. “I’m just learning to take God’s lead.”

And that, I thought to myself, is something worth passing on to my kids!

 

Epilogue: A year and a half has passed since that day in the woods, and I thank God every day that he redirected my plans and gave me my (almost) four-month-old blessing, Sam Michael. Happy Mothers Day, Moms!

 

*This post was adapted from a chapter in my memoir manuscript.

When Writing Is Unhealthy

lindseygendke13 Comments

Since Sam’s birth fifteen weeks ago, a constant dilemma has been finding time to write. Last week I found an unprecedented ten hours, postpartum, to work on my memoir. Yippee! I felt fulfilled and accomplished; I was finally balancing writing and motherhood. Finally, I thought, this memoir is again making progress toward publication. But then…I realized there is a price to this progress.

"Tired Mom" at http://scienceinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/12/we-get-tired.html
“Tired Mom” at http://scienceinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/12/we-get-tired.html

How did I get so much writing done? I let Sam nap for almost three hours in a row on several days (good boy!). You can imagine how excited I was—Sam was getting rest, I was getting writing—until I realized that those long-nap days resulted in broken nights of sleep for Sam—and me. Sigh.

On other days when Sam is out of routine (his mom’s routine)—say, when he spends the day with his aunt, or on weekends—he takes shorter naps and sleeps a good nine to eleven hours at night, usually from 7 p.m. to 5 or 6 a.m. Yay again! But boo for my writing.

So, my current dilemma is whether to write or to sleep—in other words, do I let baby Sam take a nice long nap in the afternoon and use the time to write, or do I keep him awake during the day so we’ll both sleep through the night?

What a dilemma, huh? I feel bad for mentioning it, because I have a great baby, and I could have both writing and sleep if I wanted them badly enough. I could write from 7 p.m. until my bedtime, between 9 or 10—but that would also mean resorting to microwave dinners or takeout and giving up the fight with my leftover pregnancy weight.

That’s the tough thing about parenting, and really adulthood. You must make tough choices with your time.

As I sat writing this post yesterday (stealing a few minutes from my shopping trip for temporary “fat” pants—dear mother-in-law watched Sam), I decided writing is usually not going to come first—at least not anytime soon, and here’s why: In order to write as much as I want, I’d have to neglect my family’s and my own health. Much as writing feels like a necessity to my mental health, some things just have to come first, like sleep, nutrition, and exercise—my physical health. So I guess I’m choosing sleep.

Being an adult is tough. Lord, help me to put first things first, and also find some moments to write when time away from it becomes too painful. And thank you, thank you, thank you, for a baby boy who sleeps through the night!