Effortless Effervescence

You may have already heard about Brielle Garrison, the baby born last October without eyes. I just heard about her last week from a friend at work* and I’ve been thinking about her ever since. One of the big to-dos about the story is that Brielle’s condition was unknown and undiagnosed prior to her birth. Her mom, Taylor, had adequate prenatal care, including at least one ultrasound, but this rare condition is almost never diagnosed in utero.

Frankly, I’m a little weirded out by the media’s focus on the “Oh my GOSH, can you believe the doctors missed this?” angle. Perhaps I’m reading a little too much between the headlines, but there seems to be a subtle implication: “If only the mother had known about this ahead of time, she could have had it taken care of.” Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.

I don’t know what choice Taylor Garrison would have made if she’d known about her daughter’s condition ahead of time. However, I am encouraged by one of her statements to the press, because it echoes my own feelings on the situation:

“A lot of worse things could have happened and thank god they didn’t,” Garrison said. “I see her just as any other baby. She does everything any other baby would.”

She’s right on. Some babies are born without hearts or brains. A child whose life ends just as it’s beginning is a profound tragedy. Blindness isn’t a tragedy - it’s a disability. And a disability is not the end of the world.**

I think those of us who are able-bodied tend to forget that not only is it possible to live without sight or hearing or the ability to walk or an Ivy-League I.Q., it is possible to have a GOOD life without those things. People do it every day, and have done it for as long as human beings have existed. Some of us have overwhelming physical or mental challenges, but those challenges cannot keep us from enjoying life unless we let them.

I have never had to make the incredibly difficult choice of whether or not to continue a pregnancy after learning that I’m carrying a special needs child or a baby with a fatal deformity. One of the reasons I’ve decided to forgo many of the common prenatal screenings is that I don’t want to be faced with that choice. You know the old saying that it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission? Well, I think it would be better - not easier, but preferable - to deal with a problem at birth, when all that can be done about it is to love my child as best I can. At least, I think that’s what would be better for ME - many other mothers would want time to think, to grieve, to prepare themselves before welcoming a differently-abled child into their family. Some other women may decide that they don’t have anything close to enough strength or patience to care for a child whose needs may, at times, be overwhelming. Those moms need as much grace as Taylor Garrison does - perhaps more.

This is one of the issues that makes the sharply defined lines between pro-this and pro-that blurry and gray. Regardless of what we each believe to be true and right objectively, most of us can think of a scenario that would challenge us to make a choice we’re not proud of. I’m glad that Brielle has a mother who loves her, who is grateful to have a perfectly imperfect child. And I hope that I will love my own child in the same way - without condition, with complete abandon.

Also interesting and heartwarming: another family welcomed a baby girl with a similar condition last year. Her parents are blessed to have a church family that has supported them and their daughter Faith from day one. Follow their story online at Super Baby Faith.

* As a general rule, I’d recommend NOT telling a pregnant woman about babies with rare deformities, because many ladies would FREAK OUT about it. Thankfully, I was having a good week, and I was able to think about the story rationally (very rare condition, probably won’t happen to my baby, and even if it did we’d all be just fine) but there’s no telling what kind of hormonal mess I would’ve been on an off week.
** I recognize that it’s really easy for me to say that a disability isn’t the end of the world, since I’m not disabled and I’m not a caretaker for anyone who is. However, I’ve heard more than a few disabled persons (and caretakers) express this sentiment: Dude, don’t feel sorry for me - feel sorry for someone with REAL problems.

What can I say? I’m a giver. And I’m on a sugar high from birthday-cake-for-breakfast, which makes me feel jittery and generous.

I read some awesome blogs, y’all. And it seems that I add to the list every single day. As I told a coworker yesterday, I’m a bit of a Blog Addict. But unlike heroin or cigarettes, which will kill you or at least give you wrinkles and a sallow complexion, blog-reading addiction causes very little trouble in one’s life other than keeping one up much too late at night. Drinking alone is no fun (and generally frowned upon) and neither is solitary blog-consumption, so I am here to share with you some of this week’s best of the web. Or, at least, best of the parts of the web that I read.

Betty Duffy, who is clever every day, shared some marital insight yesterday that really resonated with my soul:

My husband and I have always positioned our bed under a window, and one summer night, the bats were out, flying very close to our screen. We both jumped up to our knees to look out the window. It felt like we were two children, suspended for a moment by our mutual fascination in something other than ourselves–matrimonial innocence, like two lovers before the fall.

It was just a little taste of the sweetness that ensues when we quit treating one another like a trick pony: I’m here. Talk to me. Other couples talk. Why don’t we have anything to talk about? If we can look outward together, we are bound and united by our mutual experiences and labors. We don’t need to talk so much.

Lenore Skenazy of Free-Range Kids: fame, posted an update to a recent post about pregnant women being driven crazy with worry about Every. Little. Thing. They. Do. (Not that I can relate to this AT ALL.) What you’ll notice about these two posts is that Skenazy is sharing insights from her readers and leaving the table open for other readers to comment on the issue and talk amongst themselves. I think the best kind of blogs are those that faciliate interaction and connection, and Lenore gets an A+ for drawing her readers into a lively conversation every day.

Jessica Gottlieb, who strikes me as one of the sweetest and most loving mommies that ever lived while simultaneously being the kind of person that my mommy wouldn’t want me to hang out with, tells a hypothetical story about getting stoned and forgetting where she - or, er, the hypothetical heroine of her story - hid her pot. And worrying about her kids finding it before she does. If you’d like to laugh until you cry, check out her most popular posts. Fair warning: don’t consume any beverages while reading.

No, really, put the soda down.

I’m sure everyone else on the internet already knows about The Bloggess, but if you don’t, YOU SHOULD. The Bloggess is another writer who makes me weep with laughter and gets me in trouble when I read her posts while I’m at work. My cube-mate was understandably disturbed by my reaction to yesterday’s post about Google’s “helpfulness” - I mean, it is rather disconcerting when the person next to you is alternately guffawing and sniffling, right?*

I don’t think I need to say this again, do I? Put the soda down.

It occurred to me the other day what an incredibly diverse group of blogs I have hanging out on my Google reader. Food-focused, natural-living-focused, family-focused, Jesus-focused, and… um… F-word-focused. Well, you get the idea. I suppose this says a lot about my diverse interests, but it also calls attention to what’s MISSING from my blog roll. I don’t read any GLBTQ or feminist blogs regularly, nor do I really follow “current affairs,” unless you consider People magazine a reliable news source.

So, I’m hoping that my readers will be willing to give me a few NEW blog recommendations. It is my birthday, after all. If a blog challenges me to think, I’ll likely follow it; if it makes me laugh, I’m sure to adore it. Thought-provoking AND hilarious is the Blog Holy Grail as far as I’m concerned, so if you have a link of that ilk, I’d love you forever.

* The same thing happened when I first discovered I Can Has Cheezburger. I scrolled through several pages one afternoon - you know, taking a much-needed and much-deserved break from worky-type things - and later that year ended up with THIS on my annual review:

Disclaimer: Any links within this post to Amazon.com are “affiliate links,” which means that if you purchase the product I’ve recommended, I will receive a small portion of the profits. That shouldn’t deter you, though, because I’m a good person. I’m such a darn good person that if you knew me well you’d want to give me the money outright!

In the past few days, I’ve seen the following status update posted by a few of my Facebook friends:

America: the only country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed without eating, elderly going without needed meds, and mentally ill without treatment - yet we have a benefit for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations. If you feel the same, copy and repost this.

My initial response was, “Amen! Isn’t it a shame that it takes a huge disaster in another country (or in the case of Hurricane Katrina or 9/11, another state) to mobilize Americans to help their fellow man? Why aren’t we doing more every single day?” But then I began thinking (my husband would say OVER-thinking) this issue of international generosity and how it relates to the problems in our own backyard, and I got a little worked up.

Yes, America is a hot mess, but I don’t think it’s because we’re so damn busy making life easier for everyone else on the planet. I think the problem is that we’re painfully stingy with our fellow citizens, often because we feel that they “deserve” the misfortune they’re experiencing. Most of us don’t agree with Pat Robertson’s they-made-a-pact-with-the-devil theory, and in our minds, the folks in Haiti were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and we should help them because they didn’t do anything to bring this on themselves. The less fortunate in America, though, are just suffering the consequences of their own stupidity, so why should we feel obligated to help them?

For instance, the hungry and homeless should just get a damn job already! They shouldn’t have been so stupid with their money. They should have saved more, and spent less on frivolous things. (You know, the same things we tell ourselves we deserve to have because we work so hard for OUR money.) They shouldn’t be too proud to ask family or friends for help, and shame on those friends and family for not having their doors open wide. Never mind that some of us would rather see our siblings sleep on the floor at the Union Mission before asking them into our home; our family situations are different, of course. And our house is much too small to open up to a friend in need! Our bank accounts are stretched too thin as it is putting food on our own table, so when the annual food bank drive gears up at our workplace, we donate the dented cans and expired boxes from the back of our pantries instead of buying a few things from the store that we’d actually consider giving our own children. We are careful not to make eye contact with the homeless man who hangs out at the supermarket around the corner, or better yet, we ask the police officer who lives down the street to do something about him, because he freaks our kids out. We protect and insulate ourselves from the very things we think someone should do something about, because we assume that “someone” can’t possibly be us.

If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that they’re tired of working hard so that their tax dollars could support some lazy good-for-nothing (because, after all, every person on welfare, unemployment or disability is actually a con artist working the system for a fixed income that’s well below poverty level), I would have… well, a lot of nickels. I am not saying that there isn’t such a thing as fraud, or that our government doesn’t need to reform many of our social assistance programs, or that I am exempt from the line of thinking I’ve described in this post. I’ve used the pronoun “we” because I’m guilty of this peculiar stinginess myself, of thinking that what separates me from those less fortunate than I is shrewdness, a good work ethic, or personal sacrifice. In reality, the only thing that makes me different from a woman sleeping in her car tonight is blind luck. Rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous, after all.

So yes, it is a shame that people in our country suffer every day, that they’re not getting the help they need. So what are we going to do about it, America?

What are you going to do about it, Emily?

So I was walking into work this morning, chatting with a colleague. Somehow we got on the subject of kids, and I asked him how old his daughter is now.

“She just turned 22.”

“And what does she do? Is she in school or does she work?”

“No, she just got out of jail.”

This guy and I often joke around, so at first I thought he was teasing me. “Really?”

He laughed. “Yeah, really!”

“Aw,” I said, semi-joking. “You must feel like you really messed up.”

“No, I don’t! You don’t blame Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents for what he did, do you?” [I'd like to interject that I find it rather disturbing that he compared his child to a serial killer who ATE HIS VICTIMS. Unless of course his daughter was also a serial killer who ate her victims, but I highly doubt that if she's out of jail now.]

“Actually, I do. Although in crimes of extreme depravity - like serial killers - there’s usually an element of off-the-charts madness, there’s also usually an element of abuse when the killer was a child.”

“I don’t agree,” he said. “And let me tell you a secret, mommy-to-be. Some kids are just bad.”

So what say you, gentle readers? Are parents without ANY responsibility in their child’s crimes? If YOU had a child that chose a life of crime instead of being a contributing member of society, wouldn’t you feel - even a LITTLE bit - that you did something wrong?

Personally, I think there are a great many factors that contribute to a person’s development. I don’t think you can blame nature or nurture 100% - and certainly, a child’s peer group has a lot to do with how he or she turns out! - but without a doubt, some parents do manage to screw up royally when raising their kids, and the rest of society bears the nasty consequences.

Get out your soapbox, tell me I’m way off base - or that I’m brilliant and Oh So Right On The Money - and debate amongst yourselves, but please keep it civil.

By the way, did you know that Dahmer later claimed to have become a born again Christian? If that doesn’t test your beliefs of God’s grace, I don’t know what will.

Read my pre-review warm-up here.

I didn’t believe in Jesus as my literal savior; I believed in him as an expression of god, one of many - none of which could be fully trusted or leaned upon. What I leaned upon was the truth of my experience, the exhilaration and devastation that go hand-in-hand when you live a life of faith. I refused to let anyone to tell me what to believe; I’d been led astray once, with disastrous consequences, and I’d rather be wrong of my own accord than follow someone else’s dogma.

Until this past summer, when I became online friends with someone who asked me some frank questions about my faith, and who responded with indignation when I made an offhand comment mocking the Christian scriptures. Not only was I embarrassed and horrified that I’d offended someone by speaking without thinking (something I do All Too Often, though I think I’m getting better with age), but for the first time in a long time, I realized that I needed to think critically about who Jesus was to me. As I did, I realized that my so-called beliefs were thin and weak, based more on suspicion and long-held grudges than on objective reasoning about right and wrong. I decided that I needed to figure out Where I Stood, if for no other reason than to be able to answer intelligently when someone asked me, “What do you believe?”

Reading The Case for Christ was part of that quest, one of many books that I’ve picked up and read in whole or in part to get an idea of where I fall in the broad spectrum of spirituality. I had something of a panic attack early in my research, while reading Strobel’s equally compelling book, The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity, which addressed the cognitive dissonance that keeps so many people from putting their faith in Jesus - or having any faith at all. “If God is love, why is there so much suffering in the world?” is the first question Strobel tackles in Faith, and as I read his arguments - which were not perfect, but more than satisfactory - I began to freak out. “I know this is right. I believe God is real. But I can’t become a Christian again. I can’t be that unkind again. I can’t be that vulnerable again. I just CAN’T.”

You see, my experience over many years has taught me that God is real and good, but that human beings are capable of doing just as much evil in his name as good. My studies over the past six months have taught me that the evil people do doesn’t change the reality of God - and it doesn’t relieve me of the very difficult choice I have to make in response to Jesus’s question, “Who do you say that I am?”

This is why I bought a used copy of The Case for Christ, and reviewed the “Reasons to Believe” that I’d learned more than a decade ago. Strobel’s book is effective and interesting, and usually has the effect of blowing a first-time seeker’s mind wide open. But it’s not the last word on the subject; a Google search of “review case for christ” yielded this site as the top result, which answers Strobel’s arguments more than adequately. This confirmed what I’ve known for a very long time: many brilliant minds have believed in Christ, and have offered good reasons for their beliefs. And many brilliant minds have NOT believed in Christ, and offered equally good reasons for their unbelief.

So here is the source of my conflict: my visceral fear of becoming once again enslaved to a man’s idea of God was - and is - at war with my heart’s longing for Jesus. And intellectual arguments only buffer me back and forth over the line: Yes, I believe. Wait! No, I don’t. As a good friend of mine said recently, “proving Jesus’s existence may be a matter of science and history, but proving his divinity is a matter of faith.” And faith is not something we can manufacture all on our own. So I don’t recommend The Case for Christ as a definitive answer to all of your questions about this person named Jesus. I don’t have all of my questions answered - I’m not even sure what all of my questions are! - but I’ll keep you posted.

Source: Camp Cocker, a Los Angeles based cocker rescue group who specializes in rescuing dogs from high kill shelters.

A friend on LiveJournal posted this sweet story. It made me cry (good tears!) and I think it will move you, too. I’m sharing it because I know folks often think that their little gifts are so insignificant. Making dinner for a family who’s lost a loved one, $5 to the local homeless shelter, a holiday card to a lonely neighbor - sometimes these small gestures are all we can give, and we feel as if it’s not enough. Perhaps we’re tempted to give nothing at all, because what difference will it make in the grand scheme of things? Well, this story will hopefully convince you that you don’t have to be Bono or Oprah to make a difference - those little gestures add up! So don’t wait until you’ve won the lottery to reach out. Give what little you can, out of the fullness of your heart, and be blessed by the good you do.

I finished The Case for Christ: A Journalist’s Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus a few nights ago, and although it’s been entirely too long since I last posted a book review, I hesitated to write one for this particular book. Don’t get me wrong - it’s a quick, engaging read, and I’d recommend it to any skeptic who insists that there’s absolutely NO historical evidence to support the worship of Jesus - or to any Christian who has ever felt their faith was weak and thin. Strobel provides a good starting point for further thought and reflection on the subject, but he certainly has not written the final word on the subject, and that’s what’s got me in knots. If you’re going to understand why I’m so conflicted about this book, I need to share some background from my spiritual journey. So let me pour you a cup of coffee, and we’ll chat a bit.

I grew up going to church and was “born again” at the age of three, but in eighth and ninth grade I had a serious crisis of faith and ended up rejecting the teachings of Christianity. When challenged by schoolmates about my religious beliefs, I realized that I had no solid arguments to distinguish the Bible from any other holy book - or, for that matter, from Grimm’s fairy tales! Though I wholeheartedly believed in a god - I could not fathom that our planet and the many thousands of species living on it were a cosmic accident - I wasn’t sure who this god was. For a few years, I was a devout deist. Surely god was “out there,” but his existence caused no ripples in my life.

Until…

My senior year of high school, when I found myself suffocating in a deep depression. I had no idea where to turn, but I knew that I needed help, and bad. I happened to mention my mental state to a friend, and she invited me to her church’s youth group. Now, maybe I AM a raging narcissist, because I dared to believe that this coincidence was nothing but. Maybe god wasn’t just “out there,” maybe he was present in our world and interested in my life, in ME. Perhaps this god was actually the God I’d heard about as a child, and in his love had arranged a way out of the darkness for me. Although my rational mind still suspected that this Jesus stuff was a load of hooey, my emotions compelled me to take a leap of faith, and I re-converted that winter.

The first few months after being born again again, I swung back and forth between a religious elation better than any chemical high and overwhelming doubt more painful than any midday sugar and caffeine crash. Then Lent came, and in preparation for Easter, my pastor preached his annual “reasons to believe” sermon series. To say that I was “blown away” would be completely insufficient in communicating my amazement and gratitude. Though I grew up going to church, I’d never heard any apologetics teaching, and my first exposure was exhilarating. Though I still had doubts about whether Christianity could work for me, I had no doubt that Jesus was the real deal.

Fast forward six years, as my faith grew strong and my relationship with Jesus became as real as - ever more so than - any other friendship I had. I began serving at my church and was to many an example of God’s love and power. As the years went by, though, my pastor’s deteriorating mental health and his crushing demands on me and my peers slowly ate away at my confidence in myself and God.

In 2003, our pastor was fired following allegations of spiritual abuse, sexual misconduct and thievery, and many people assumed that with his exit, all that was wrong in our church and our lives would immediately be righted. But healing often takes a great deal longer than we suspect. Having seen - lived! - a perfect example of how Christianity can be twisted to control the faithful, I again reached a crisis point. Objective historical arguments meant nothing to me; my subjective experience had taught me that theology in practice could be a very dangerous thing.

Fast forward another six years. I’ve been traveling a long, winding road, trying to figure out where I belong spiritually. I think I considered atheism for about 2.5 seconds; still, I cannot give up the idea of god. And if god is real, he must be good - I was certain of this. But I didn’t know what to call god. So I tried on different belief systems, looking for one that fit. Nothing fit. I finally decided that all religions were a myth, and that the myth of Jesus was the one that resonated most deeply in my soul, so that was the one I would lean into. I didn’t believe in Jesus as my literal savior; I believed in him as an expression of god, one of many - none of which could be fully trusted or leaned upon.

Until…

(Photo credit.)

In Part I of this special edition of Seven Quick Takes, I talked about seven lessons I learned in 2009. Today I’m going public with my seven resolutions for 2010. If you’re hankering for more quick takes, head over to Conversion Diary.

My Big and Small Plans for 2010

I have learned that New Year’s Resolutions such as “live a more healthy lifestyle” or “be more responsible with money” or “improve my marriage,” though well-intentioned, are too vague. Their scope is so large that it becomes overwhelming and discouraging - for instance, you may be living a more healthy lifestyle by quitting smoking, but you haven’t got your exercise routine down yet and you’re still eating a lot of junk food. Have you failed? No! But you may feel like you have because only one part of your lifestyle is more healthy. I think that’s what leads to a lot of folks giving up around February 1.

So although I have some Big Hopes and Dreams for the year ahead (get organized, get my spending under control, get healthy) I wanted my resolutions to be small, specific, and measurable. They may not look like a lot to you, but I think if I can get myself into the habit of doing these seven things over the next twelve months, I’ll notice a marked difference in my quality of life.

1: I resolve to use cash for all purchases (unless I’m buying something online). By “cash” I mean literal paper money. When I use my debit card, I have a tendency to let myself go over budget due to impulse buys and bad math, and that leads to problems like hefty overdraft fees or running out of toilet paper three days before payday and not having any money to get more. Not only are these problems embarrassing and inconvenient, they’re unnecessary! When I use cash, I physically see my financial stores dwindling away, and I’m a lot more stingy.

2: I resolve to make a weekly menu each payday and go grocery shopping just once a week. During my shopping trip, I MUST pick up some fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains and low-fat dairy. This resolution kills a whole buncha birds with one stone: planning ahead helps me save money and keeps me from wasting time by going to the store three or four times a week. Plus, if I force myself to buy a handful of healthy items each week, I’ll be less likely to resort to crappy packaged foods when I’m hungry and in a hurry.
(Photo credit.)

3: Speaking of groceries - I resolve to make a price book. There are certain items I buy so often that I have a pretty good idea what they normally run at all my local supermarkets, and I know a good price as soon as I see it. For instance, my husband only drinks Coca-Cola, so I’m really good at spotting a deal on flavored sugar water. Other things I don’t buy as often, and between all the different sizes and varieties out there (which is cheaper per ounce - the small carton of orange juice or the huge jug?) and sneaky marketing plans (why $3.97? why not just $4?) I sometimes wonder if I’m getting tricked into thinking I’m being thrifty when I’m not. Which is why I’m going to start writing down the different prices I see, so when I’m flipping through weekly store flyers, I know whether something’s REALLY on sale.

4: I resolve to floss every evening (Monday through Friday) before I go to bed. My teeth are in pretty good shape even though I’ve had more than my share of cavities, but I would really like to avoid getting up-close-and-personal with the dentist’s drill EVER. AGAIN. I know that flossing regularly will really help me with that, but I always have an excuse to slack off. No more! I am a new woman, and my good intentions will be clearly observable by the state of my gums!
(Photo credit.)

5: I resolve to crate-train the dogs and get them on a feeding schedule. Ever since we got Ana, we’ve been leaving kibble out all day, and Milo’s gained a few pounds - something that’s just not good for such a little guy. Ana’s puppy ways have also been a bad influence on Milo, who we used to crate during the workday but who outgrew his separation anxiety right after we moved into our new home. They’re both brutal on the furniture, and I think we lock ‘em up during the day, at least until Ana is older and has more self-control.

6: I resolve to do one load of laundry (wash, dry, fold, put away) every morning. I’m tired of trying to play catch-up on my chores every weekend, and I’m tired of having piles of dirty, clean, and I’m-not-sure-let’s-just-wash-it-again clothes all over my bedroom. Also, I’m thinking of the future: I’m planning to cloth diaper our little person, and I figure if I’m already in an established routine when he/she arrives, I may not feel quite so overwhelmed by the piles of poopy diapers.
(Photo credit.)

7: I resolve to get to bed by 10:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. I’m usually good about getting to bed at a reasonable hour (and the pregnancy fatigue has certainly helped!) but there are still too many times that I let myself stay up til midnight or later and really suffer for it the next day. Although a newborn will likely upset my schedule, I think that making a conscious effort to get myself to sleep at the same time every night will be good practice for trying to get the sprog in a routine. See? Thinking ahead.

Now tell me: What are your resolutions for the coming year?

In this special edition of the Saturday Evening Blog Post, Elizabeth Esther has asked her faithful fellow bloggers to pick their best post from 2009. I’ve chosen my Blogging as Prayer post, for a couple of reasons. Not only do I consider it an example of some of my finest and most honest writing, but several of my readers were deeply touched by the subject, which always makes me warm and glowy inside.

Why not head over to EE’s place and share your best post of the past year? She said it herself - the more the merrier!

(Photo credit.)

There’s more quick takes over at Conversion Diary. Check ‘em out!

Earlier this week, Jen posted seven lessons she learned in 2009 (I guess she really likes the number 7) and got me thinking about all I’ve learned and done this year. Bethany Hudson invited us to share ten resolutions for 2010 and I started thinking about what I want to accomplish in the year ahead. So this week’s Seven Quick Takes is going to be a little different, and it’ll be a two-parter. Today I’ll talk about the past, and tomorrow I’ll talk about the future.

1: It’s okay to feel angry/hurt/disappointed/sad. I don’t know where it came from, but I used to feel guilty for being angry with a loved one. I used to try to talk myself out of it. “She didn’t mean to do that. She’s under a lot of stress. I could have handled the situation better myself. I shouldn’t hold a grudge.” This year I realized - actually, I think it was actually a revelation, if you believe in that Holy-Spirit-woo-woo stuff - that being upset doesn’t make me a bad person, and it doesn’t mean I think the other person is bad. I gave myself permission to step back from relationships when necessary and deal with my negative feelings honestly. I think this lesson was very important in helping me in learning a lesson I’ve been struggling with for years: setting and maintaining boundaries.

(Photo credit.)

2: Along the same lines, I also realized that it’s okay to be tired, and it’s okay to rest. Getting pregnant helped with this - or rather, forced me to accept the truth of it - because for a period of a few weeks, I wasn’t capable of being ZOMG!productive. I could barely get through the work day and do a couple of chores before and after. By 7:30 every evening, I became a TV-watching slug; sometimes I just went to bed. I often felt guilty for not multitasking or checking things off my mental to-do list, but I was literally unable to function! So I let myself read for pleasure. I watched lots of movies. I ignored the dirty dishes for a day or two. I napped. And it felt GOOD.

3: God’s not done with me yet. I began 2009 thinking of God and Jesus in a very abstract sense, and with a lot of residual anger toward a nameless, faceless horde of people that I labeled, “THOSE kind of Christians.” While I think I came into that anger honestly (being spiritually abused will do that to a person) I hadn’t realized I’d become so hateful until I hurt someone I really like and respect, who happens to be a Christian. Though I didn’t think of her as THAT kind of Christian, she pointed out to me that my negativity towards people who shared her beliefs still hurt her, and that it probably hurt God. She also challenged me to consider what it is I believe in, and what kind of believer I want to be. It’s not enough just to say, “Oh, I’m not one of THOSE Christians,” because that just begs the question, “Well, then what sort of Christian are you?”

That was over six months ago, and I’m still not sure what the answer is. However, spending these months studying theology, reconsidering the things I’d dismissed as useless dogma of human invention, praying, discussing, wondering, seeking… well, it’s been quite exciting and a little scary. I’m not sure where I will end up faith-and-religion-wise, but I believe that God is at work in my life, that He has things to teach me and ways he wants to use me. That’s very cool.

4: I’m ready to be a mom. For years I’ve waffled on this subject. Do I or don’t I want to have children? Am I too selfish, too busy, too screwed up? Reading Rebecca Walker’s book Baby Love let me know that I wasn’t alone in this agonizing indecision. And like Walker, after feeling uncertain and a tad bit schizophrenic on the issue of children, I finally decided that yes, I’m ready. I may be selfish and busy and screwed up, but that’s never stopped anyone from having kids before. I wouldn’t let fear of my neuroses keep me from having the family I longed for.

5: Then I met my husband’s son this summer and realized that I already AM a mother. C.J. was important to me from the moment Jon and I started dating. I was intensely concerned with his well-being and prayed for his mom and dad’s difficult (sometimes VERY difficult) relationship. After Jon and I got married, I made C.J. a priority in our financial plans, and delighted in sending him cards and gifts throughout the year.

But it wasn’t until we spent a week with him in July that I realized - to my surprise and delight - that I could love someone SO MUCH without being related to him by blood, without carrying him in my body or even knowing him very long. I knew I still I wanted to have all the things I’d missed out on with C.J. - the hormonal craziness of pregnancy, the late nights and exhausted days, diapers and potty training, first words and first steps. If that never happened, though, it was okay, because God had given me one incredible little person to love.

6: If you’re going to “trust God” with something you REALLY want, be prepared for some surprises. And be prepared to find out how difficult trusting can be! After many months of debating with my husband about whether we could afford another child, we decided to “pull the goalie” in mid-August. I firmly believed that putting off inviting a new little life into the world because of money was dumb. Would my retirement fund snuggle with me and ask me to read it another bedtime story? NO. And I reasoned that if God wanted us to have a baby, he’d provide for our needs.

Besides, it could take us years to get pregnant, right? I mean, I’d been on hormonal birth control for nearly half my life. We’d just wait and see what happened, and “trust God” with the outcome.

I’ll tell you want happened: I got pregnant less that two months later. And I found out that this trusting God thing is a lot easier to say than do! My daily prayer (kinda wild-eyed and desperate as I try to figure out how we’ll budget when the mini arrives) is, “Lord, you wouldn’t have given us this child if you weren’t going to provide for him or her. So it’s up to you God - take care of us!”

(Photo credit.)

7: It is possible to have too many pets. But we didn’t let that stop us from adopting two kittens and a puppy this year. Even though we’ve spent many millions thousands of dollars on food and treats and vet visits, even though our living room furniture is embarrassingly stained and torn, even though I’ve lost five pairs of shoes and three books to the destruction of puppy teeth, and even though I haven’t had a week go by in Idon’tknowhowlong that didn’t involve cleaning up some form of excrement… I still love our menagerie. Somehow, the snuggles and laughter makes it all worthwhile.

Pretty girl!

Napping with Randall and Milo.

So tell me: what did YOU learn in ‘09? If you don’t know where to start in your reflections, take a few minutes to visit Michael Hyatt’s blog and answer his Seven Questions. (There’s that number again…)