The Velveteen Marriage

As I have mentioned in several times on the blog, facebook, and in real life, Ann Voskamp's books have been incredible gifts to me.  I recently read The Broken Way and am now in the middle of a six week Bible Study with the book as an aide.  In the book Ann speaks of a strained relationship with her mother (in her childhood) and the different ways we all fail as mothers.  She refers to the story The Velveteen Rabbit and makes the analogy that maybe when we become so worn through as mothers that's when we become the Velveteen Mother.  That's when we are REAL and loved.  I can certainly relate to that as a mother as I fail a thousand different ways everyday.  But God put it on my heart the other night to explore the idea of the Velveteen Marriage.  Sometimes when I look at old wedding photos I think of how nice and clean and new and neat it all seemed.  I appeared fresh and put together on the outside but I was a total mess on the inside.  You can't see that, though, because I didn't want anyone to see that, I don't think I knew it.  I didn't want to know it.  22 years later I'm a mess on the outside but much more put together on the inside (not even close to where I need to be, mind you, but much further ahead than I was). 

(Fr. Acervo blessing our new wedding rings in 2014 as we started again, this time with Jesus at the center)

Satan whispers the lies in my head, though, the lies that our marriage is tarnished for a variety of reasons.  Reasons that can't be fixed or undone.  The unkind words that I allowed to pass through my lips, the unkind, thoughtless and selfish acts that I gave into when I was angry or resentful.  I think often times in our society we look at the outside of things and if they look old or worn or used we toss them and start over even if they still work, perhaps they work better than they once did.  Or...maybe they don't necessarily work better but they bring comfort in what can only be described as a toxic society.   God spoke it to me the other night.  He told me clear as day that no one wishes to be remembered for their worst sin.  He convicted my heart just then and I felt shame for all the times I've brought up the past in order to shame Jesse or shut him up.  But God said to me not to feel shame.  Shame makes us hide from God, like Adam and Eve in the garden.  Instead I went to Jesse and asked forgiveness and vowed to try harder going forward. 

Back to the story, the Velveteen Rabbit.  The fur on the rabbit was worn through.  He looked shabby but it was in that worn look that he was made REAL and he represented what it is to love and be loved.  I know everyone's circumstances are not the same.  I am very blessed to have a husband that can look through my worn out exterior and know that what is in my heart is the real, the loved, the loveable.  The last few years has truly worn me completely through.  Whatever exterior that wasn't worn is now thread bare.  But for the first time I feel like our marriage is REAL. 

This Valentine's Day I have spent most of the day in bed sick.  We also  have several sick children.  All the pinteresty type (more like cake wrecks, probably, but that's a different post) plans I had are gone.  I had to ask Jesse to leave work and help with the kids and he did just that.  I am so grateful. 

I can now look back at wedding photos and instead of feeling anxious and pained about what the people in the picture are going to go through, I rejoice because I know that Jesus is going to wreck those two kids in the picture, wear them through, and make them real.

{Trying} To Trust God

I ordered a few things for the baby and now they are arriving in the mail.  During our morning chores Clare asks where to put the newest item.  I stumble a bit....I say up in my room, in his drawer, then I use his name.  "Put it in Jude's drawer." I say and almost immediately fear grips my heart.  What if...what if he doesn't make it earth side and I've given him a name...and a drawer.  Worse, I think, I've named him for them, the kids, they call him by name.  Josie has already declared that she will give Jude her bike when he's big enough.  But what if he's never big enough?  What then?  I wonder how my faith can be the center of my life but I crumble at the thought of believing for a minute that this baby will end up safe in my arms. 

Later in the day Jesse and I took a long walk downtown and I notice how very pregnant I am.  We attended the sacrament of reconciliation and the priest cheers me on - only 8 more weeks - you can do it, he says.  I didn't tell him that I have a hard time envisioning anything but disaster in these last weeks.  Every time this baby doesn't move for more than twenty minutes I'm poking and prodding and pulling out the Doppler.  I'm not even positive where this irrational fear is coming from except that I know it's not from God.  Either I believe He can get me through anything or I don't.  In the back of the dark church I try to envision myself handing it all over to Jesus - right at the foot of the cross.  I try to trust which is hard for me. 

That same day Hannah comes by for dinner and a visit.  As she gets ready to go home it's dark and I ask if she feels safe going home alone.  It strikes me then that even at age 20 I worry about losing her.  She's born and raised and married and still I want to protect her in a way that truly only God can.  What must the Blessed Mother have felt as she watched her Son persecuted and then crucified?  How much must she have trusted as Simeon told her all those years earlier the words that would pierce her heart? 

So in these last weeks of pregnancy and as I venture forward passing a quarter of a century of being a parent I know I have to look further into the heart of Mary and trust more.  I know all of these feelings and fears are a reminder to appreciate each day as it comes.  None of us is promised a tomorrow, born or unborn.  As Ann Voskamp says "we're all terminal".   That thought is somewhat comforting to me as I go through my daily life.  Another comforting thought comes from Jennie Allen's book Nothing to Prove.  Jennie says "in heaven none of this matters".  Of course that's a simplistic view but, for me, it was a good reminder that Heaven is the goal and there the little irritations and fears of everyday life fall away.  Jesus, of course, says it best when He says in John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Bad Moods and Starting Again

It was one of those days where you wake up in the morning and before your feet hit the ground you just know you're in a bad mood.  I drag my very pregnant self around to begin my day and try not to let the unsettled way I'm feeling come out on the kids but really by the time I make it downstairs it's too late.  Only three are up but they are fighting, there's laundry to put in the dryer, and dishes to do.  All before I make it to my coffee.  I begin each day with a rosary and had managed that but I hadn't allowed the Blessed Mother or the mysteries to change my heart.  I finally get my granola and coffee poured and sit down to do some more devotions as well as answer some emails but the whiny toddler wants me, my coffee, and my granola.  I hand over the granola but have the death grip on the coffee.  Things kind of unravel from there.  Spills and fighting over what to watch and who had that peg doll first and the kittens need food.  I reheat my coffee again and again, chase down the granola eating toddler and change his diaper.  He doesn't want his clothes on, he doesn't want his pajamas on, he wants his pajamas on, he wants his clothes on.  We go round and round, me trying to give him what he wants and him not knowing what he wants.  Cecilia asks to make eggs.  I hesitate but agree knowing that it's important for her to do these things on her own but also that it will mean more mess for me.  I was right on both counts and I try to bite my lip as she tells me about the one egg that broke, not in the pan, and I smell burnt egg on the burner of the stove.   I finally finish phase one of the kitchen and then the older kids come down.  We do our morning prayers together, I hand out morning chores, reminders of school assignments.  By 10 am I think I need a nap.  Jesse calls so we can do our marriage prayer together and has to listen to an earful of complaints.  Poor guy.  I'm trying to not be such a jerk but I'm feeling stretched thin.  And round.  I'm stretched really round. 

Franny (3) asks me to sit with her. She wants me to sit.  I agree, reluctantly, not because I don't want to sit with her but because I'm overwhelmed with tasks.  I wonder why some days feel this way while others just don't.  I try to make my way over to turn on some praise and worship music but that never does happen - not for the whole day.  I exchange texts with Brandon and Hannah, manage lunch and clean up, a dear friend comes by with lunch for me, gifts, and more importantly a smile.  Still I'm unsettled and annoyed (not at anyone in particular). 

Evening chaos commences, dinner, and I just desperately need some air so I take a walk with Jesse.  The sewing girls, they left a HUGE mess earlier today and it lingers after my walk.  Cut up fabric all over the floor and table, needles, thread.  My mind says it's not important but my mouth doesn't believe that and I kind of lose it on them and everyone who was enjoying leisure time before doing their chores.  I hate this part of me and I'm torn between wanting to do it all by myself and knowing that will only make me bitter and make them lazy and entitled.  I wonder what happened to the gentleness I had hoped to work on this week.  It's only Wednesday and it's out the door.  I think about the Bible Study I had planned to do tonight and suddenly feel unworthy to read one single word that is written by God.  I'm ashamed.  I go into my room and plan to sulk for a while when out pops a cheery 5 year old.  "I just wanted to clean your room for you, mom." she says.  My first instinct is to shoe her away.  Doesn't she know I'm angry and tired.  She told me earlier in the day, when I made her clean up a mess she had made, that people like me shouldn't have children at all.  Now here she was cleaning my room.  I sat down on the bed and she crawls up next to me in her freshly clean pj's.  "So, tell me the house rules" she says "because I don't really know them all."  I didn't have an answer for her so I said things like "clean up after yourself, don't be mean, don't burp loudly".  She looks at me with her huge brown eyes and says "there must be more."  I think for a while and don't say much about it.  She loses interest and asks if she can have a snack. 

A while later the whiny granola thief from 13 hours earlier comes up struggling to get on the bed with his basketball.  He's ready for stories so we read and he drifts off to sleep with his trains and a ball.  My mood hasn't changed a lot but my heart knows that for Jesus it's OK.  I can still do my Bible study, read my devotionals and start again tomorrow.  Or right then.  In that moment I can start again. 

"My transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity."

Job 14:17 

Three Months Come and Gone!

It's hard to believe it's been almost 3 months since I've updated the blog.  I kept thinking I would do it after Hannah's wedding, then at Christmastime, New Years.  Then I thought it really doesn't matter as life, like the weather, seemed grey to me.  So many changes happening, lots of wondering where I fit as an individual and where we fit as a family.  I say the words "we only have 10 kids living at home right now" a lot lately and it makes me pretty sad still.  Time is passing whether I like it or not. 

 

I've spent an enormous amount of time reading this winter.  My afternoons are generally spent on the futon with a few kids reading and drinking coffee.  It's really lovely.  Ann Voskamp's newest book The Broken Way was amazing.  A friend turned me on to Michael D. O'Brien's Father Elijah.  That one was an investment but well worth it.  I'm working through Lisa TerKeurst's Made to Crave and simultaneously reading Nothing to Prove: Why We Can Stop Trying So Hard. 

 

In an effort to keep things more positive I have been mostly fasting from Facebook.  It's been good for me in many ways.  The habit of "just scrolling through" was occupying more time than I realized.  It wasn't healthy for my psyche overall, I don't think, but with so many announcements and groups on Facebook it will be hard for me to cut out all together.  I'll have to use some temperance as I slowly go back in to that world.

 

Jesse has been spending his "down" time painting these amazing peg dolls and selling them through his Etsy Store.  Check it out if you like that kind of thing.  His Nativities are amazing.  I have him working on a Last Supper set right now in between some other things that he's doing.  I sometimes sit with him while he's working and read or play a game with one of the older boys.  It's just been a really quiet and laid back winter. 

 

 

Our spring is looking to be bursting with new life.  As baby Jude's due date approaches I find myself living a mix of excitement and anxiety.  This is our biggest gap between children since Brandon and Hannah.  I'm getting pretty lazy around here with so many older kids able to fend for themselves.  We are all very excited to meet this little guy, though, and appreciate any prayers you can give for a safe and healthy delivery.  This spring Clare will also make her First Holy Communion (on Easter Sunday!) and Jackson will be Confirmed.  Sometimes, when I think I'm in control, I panic about the timing of it all.  But then I remember that God's got this and it will all be perfect. 

 

So on this rainy February day I'm home with the three youngest kids doing not much, to be honest.  It's cold and they are a little loopy.  We are all ready for spring and park days and long afternoon walks again.  Lent is approaching so I'm working on my plan for that.  So far I'm doing Elizabeth Foss' Repent and Restore (I did Restore last year and was abundantly blessed by it!) and the Blessed is She Lenten Journal.   I love the Liturgical Year of the Catholic Church so much.  I can't wait to get into each season and really soak it in.  I think it's the predictability and stability of it all that makes me feel safe especially amidst all of the chaos and change in my everyday life.  The Church is such a gift to me in every season. 

 

I would love to hear what you all are reading now and doing for Lent both individually and as families.  Lunch time is calling.  And laundry.  And dishes.   Until next time....