Moving life from weedy patches to green fields
For her birthday, my wife got Brave.
No, she didn't jump out of an airplane or strap on the bungie cords. Brave is the newest CD by Nichole Nordeman, one of my wife's favorite musical artists. My musical tastes are a bit edgier than the Missus, but I enjoy Nichole.
My better half left the CD on the counter this morning, meaning to put it in the car but forgetting. So I pulled out the liner notes and started reading. And I read about me. Certainly, Ms. Nordeman doesn't know me from Adam and wasn't intending to write about me — she was writing about herself and her journey over the last couple of years — but it certainly rang a bell in my head.
Here are her thoughts:
I'm sure we would have had a child at some point in the near future, as we weren't exactly teenagers when we met, but we planned to wait at least a few months before trying. I doubt we would have started a business under any circumstances, but this was so drop-in-your-lap obvious that we couldn't ignore the opportunity.
It's funny how God allows us to make choices that may or may not be the smartest in the world, or allows circumstances to occur with no obvious reason in the short term, only to reveal the big-picture purpose down the road. Obviously, we never regrouped or recovered from the standpoint of finding our old lives, which wasn't going to happen, anyway, and was exactly Ms. Nordeman's point. Instead, we welcomed a baby girl into our lives, and — though we didn't recognize it at the time — signed up for decades of wrecking ball love.
In many ways, I feel like I'm still trying to regroup. I sometimes miss the days of freedom to do what I want. I miss the fact that my wife and I can't be spontaneous and drive out to the Gorge on a weekend, or go sit in a bar and listen to live music. I look down the road a couple of years when both kids are in school, and I know I'll have a lot more freedom, but we traded some of that freedom with the choices we made and the circumstances we faced.
As I write this, my 3-year-old is climbing on my chair as if it's a small mountain (and my head is the summit), telling me to woof like a doggy. Her grin is contagious — a combination of "look at me!" and "I don't know if I'm supposed to do this, but you're letting me get away with it, so let 'er rip!" — and reminds me of why I wouldn't want to recover my old life, even if I could.
When we knew we were expecting baby No. 2, I decided to take advantage of the flexibility of business ownership to work at home (I didn't want to pay daycare bills anymore, and didn't really want to put the kids in someone else's care anymore, anyway). It's nice to play with the kids, or to write a blog entry at the computer, but in many ways it contributes to another trait I share with Ms. Nordeman, my sense of being a loner.
And her solution is obvious, so much so that I knew it before I read it: learn to be a friend, and even how to have a friend. The nitty-gritties of acting on that solution, however, are more difficult. Not that I'm making five-minute phone calls to loved ones while rushing through an airport, or trying to convert a tour bus into home sweet home. But how am I reaching out to others? To neighbors? To acquaintances? To strangers? To Katrina survivors? To survivors of life in my backyard?
It's not all that difficult for me to introduce myself to a new person in church, or to chat with someone walking their dog past our house, but that's not "pouring myself into someone else's life," and that's the hard part for me.
And the concurrent thing that hit me about Ms. Nordeman's monologue: Even though I'm a believer, God has been hunting me down for years, and I've been running. He wants to remind me of that promise made 2,000 years ago through Saul of Tarsus — "Christ gives me the strength to face anything" — to show that pouring myself into the lives of others will come much more naturally if I just stop running and let His love make me brave.
No, she didn't jump out of an airplane or strap on the bungie cords. Brave is the newest CD by Nichole Nordeman, one of my wife's favorite musical artists. My musical tastes are a bit edgier than the Missus, but I enjoy Nichole.
My better half left the CD on the counter this morning, meaning to put it in the car but forgetting. So I pulled out the liner notes and started reading. And I read about me. Certainly, Ms. Nordeman doesn't know me from Adam and wasn't intending to write about me — she was writing about herself and her journey over the last couple of years — but it certainly rang a bell in my head.
Here are her thoughts:
I took some time off from the world of music making and touring, because God decided to take my very well ordered and comfortable life and blow it to smithereens by surprising us with a baby. I decided this might require some time for recovery and regrouping, until all the pieces were returned to their original (and preferably alphabetized) state. I'm a bit Type A like that.So what does this have to do with me? Well, around the time of our marriage almost eight years ago, my wife and I:
Anyone who's ever been down that road is laughing because of course, I never recovered. Or regrouped. I never recovered from the way my heart had to triple in size to make room for all the love (and fear) that would come roaring to the surface. I never regained control again. My life never resumed its clip, cloppy ordered pace. Love can be such a wrecking ball.
My time off also afforded me some great big, open green fields of space, where there had been small and weedy patches at best. Space for other people and time for relationships. I had a chance to learn how to be a friend again, or how to have a friend, for that matter. I learned that relationships don't exactly thrive on 5 minute phone calls, dashing through airports. I learned that a tour bus is not a substitute for a well-rooted home. I learned that the leaves of marriage don't stay green if the soil never gets any water and you stick it in a windowless corner. Barbra Streisand nailed it. People do need people. And God knew that.
So we were born to pour into each other's lives. These songs are the stories that were poured into and out of mine the last couple of years. I've walked into some dark places with some very dear people, and then back into the sunlight. And they, with me. This has been a real honor, and doesn't come all that naturally as I can tend to be a bit of a loner (Type A/loner...nice combo). Anyway, God really took this time...these big fields of space to show me through all these stories of pain and promise that His love is not at all passive. It is so relentless in its pursuit of our terrified hearts. The love of God will hunt you down until you finally spin around in exasperation ("okaaaaay!!!") and admit how cherished you are. It gives us confidence when comfort is MIA. It gives our stories context and hope when somebody else recklessly rips out a chapter. It fills in the blanks. The love of God hoists us up on the shoulders of Jesus and hollers out the promise of St. Paul, "I can do ALL things through Christ, who gives me strength!" It scoops us up and makes us brave.
- learned (with one day of notice) that the company I worked for was going out of business;
- decided (with a coworker) to start our own business instead of finding another job; and,
- found out we were unexpectantly pregnant.
I'm sure we would have had a child at some point in the near future, as we weren't exactly teenagers when we met, but we planned to wait at least a few months before trying. I doubt we would have started a business under any circumstances, but this was so drop-in-your-lap obvious that we couldn't ignore the opportunity.
It's funny how God allows us to make choices that may or may not be the smartest in the world, or allows circumstances to occur with no obvious reason in the short term, only to reveal the big-picture purpose down the road. Obviously, we never regrouped or recovered from the standpoint of finding our old lives, which wasn't going to happen, anyway, and was exactly Ms. Nordeman's point. Instead, we welcomed a baby girl into our lives, and — though we didn't recognize it at the time — signed up for decades of wrecking ball love.
In many ways, I feel like I'm still trying to regroup. I sometimes miss the days of freedom to do what I want. I miss the fact that my wife and I can't be spontaneous and drive out to the Gorge on a weekend, or go sit in a bar and listen to live music. I look down the road a couple of years when both kids are in school, and I know I'll have a lot more freedom, but we traded some of that freedom with the choices we made and the circumstances we faced.
As I write this, my 3-year-old is climbing on my chair as if it's a small mountain (and my head is the summit), telling me to woof like a doggy. Her grin is contagious — a combination of "look at me!" and "I don't know if I'm supposed to do this, but you're letting me get away with it, so let 'er rip!" — and reminds me of why I wouldn't want to recover my old life, even if I could.
When we knew we were expecting baby No. 2, I decided to take advantage of the flexibility of business ownership to work at home (I didn't want to pay daycare bills anymore, and didn't really want to put the kids in someone else's care anymore, anyway). It's nice to play with the kids, or to write a blog entry at the computer, but in many ways it contributes to another trait I share with Ms. Nordeman, my sense of being a loner.
And her solution is obvious, so much so that I knew it before I read it: learn to be a friend, and even how to have a friend. The nitty-gritties of acting on that solution, however, are more difficult. Not that I'm making five-minute phone calls to loved ones while rushing through an airport, or trying to convert a tour bus into home sweet home. But how am I reaching out to others? To neighbors? To acquaintances? To strangers? To Katrina survivors? To survivors of life in my backyard?
It's not all that difficult for me to introduce myself to a new person in church, or to chat with someone walking their dog past our house, but that's not "pouring myself into someone else's life," and that's the hard part for me.
And the concurrent thing that hit me about Ms. Nordeman's monologue: Even though I'm a believer, God has been hunting me down for years, and I've been running. He wants to remind me of that promise made 2,000 years ago through Saul of Tarsus — "Christ gives me the strength to face anything" — to show that pouring myself into the lives of others will come much more naturally if I just stop running and let His love make me brave.
posted by Ken @ 10:48 AM
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