Nathanael is thirteen today.  He’s seemed a bit more excited about this birthday than some others, probably because becoming a teenager is kind of a big thing to a kid.  I kind of wish there was more excitement in life to accompany the anticipation.  As it is, though, Nathanael is someone who generally appreciates routine and familiarity and stability.  Though willing to test limits, he’s also perfectly okay not doing something that disrupts his sense of well-being.  He’s just fine being the lone dissenter on suggestions for any family fun ideas that also involve a long car ride (“long” usually means anything more than 20 minutes, haha).  He’s happy to while away the afternoon hours with a book, but he is also an avid lover of games (board games, card games, outdoor games, computer games…really anything) and will happily take advantage of any opportunity to learn a new one.  He is a proficient baker, mostly because he loves sweets, but he can hold his own in most other cooking endeavors, too.

He is super smart (though grammar might be his achilles heel), funny, sarcastic, and deeply compassionate.  I know I’ve mentioned it often, but he still slows down to walk with whomever is at the back of the pack.  He’ll quietly take on extra tasks to help me if I’m having a rough day.  He’ll snuggle his littlest brother during movie time.  He will also come out with a smart-aleck response at inappropriate times, or sometimes laugh when being scolded (though, minorly in defense of this, he DID laugh in response to pain for the first five years of life), but is generally a good-natured kid in most situations.  He is a good conversationalist and a deep thinker.

I’m a big fan of this kid and I’m so thankful for these thirteen years we are celebrating today.

When I was a kid, I remember rides on these country roads, past rolling farm lands, feeling like the mountain-hedged horizon and too-close sky were trapping me in a life I often-enough wished was different than it was.  It’s the first I can remember feeling really claustrophobic.

As a college student, still a kid, experiencing my first tastes of independence and unwritten future days, in these same rural towns and mountain backdrops, I began to see this landscape as beautiful and brimming with promise of adventure and escape.

In the years after college, as we settled in a decidedly non-rural, non-mountainous area, I often longed for the opportunity to be back here, free from the chaos and congested roads and city skylines.

Then, ten years ago, we came back, and slowly the perceptions from my childhood and college years merged, though not due to the outward appearance of the place, but due to a more intimate knowledge of the place itself.  I can ride along the roller-coaster roads and find peace and rest.  When I see the mountain vistas, I can breathe deeper than in just about any other place.  But I also feel more trapped by this place than I ever have before.  I look around me and see lost hopes and buried dreams.  As out of place as I have felt my whole life, I don’t think I’ve ever felt as out of place as I do here and now.  While our culture and our churches preach belonging and acceptance (for different reasons), I have never felt less welcome when I step out my proverbial, and at times literal, door.

I have spent my life searching for a place I could call home, with all of the warm fuzzies and unconditionals that should come with it.  I have looked at the greener grass on the other side of the fence and thought, if only.  But I’m being reminded lately that though this longing for a perfect home is right and good, the answer for it isn’t to be found in this life. With every disappointment and dashed hope, I am forced to remind myself that His love is better than everything this life is or could be, and that His love should evoke praise even when this life makes it clear that there are many good things that it can never be.

I would have a hard time wearing a mask even if I wanted to.  I’m pretty significantly claustrophobic, almost exclusively due to being paranoid of suffocating.  I am a naturally shallow breather, and never breathe through my mouth without conscious effort, despite having difficulty taking deep enough breaths otherwise.  I can’t wear a scarf over my face in winter.  I can’t cover my head with a blanket.  I can’t even sleep with my face at all sunk into a pillow.  I had to don a mask for maybe two minutes at the dentist’s office today and I couldn’t have handled any longer.  But, I don’t have asthma, nor any other medical condition that I’m aware of that others would consider a “legitimate” reason for not wearing a mask.  As though wearing a mask is only unreasonable when a medical condition deems it so.

But, as I said, I wouldn’t be able to wear one even if I thought it was pointful.  I don’t.  I have read the details of several masking studies out there, and even when one ignores the many factors that are never taken into consideration (accumulation of virus on inside of mask, thus increasing viral load of the wearer; transfer from mask to hand to other objects to other people… a damp mask would be akin to licking your fIngers…;amount a person has to inhale of virus-infected droplets to become infected themselves…every study that addresses this concludes close proximity for a half hour or more is necessary…) the efficacy of masks In preventing viral spread is not shown to be anything  incredibly significant.  And then, even if it were, by and large, our bodies are made to be able to combat viruses.  In fact, one reason elderly people are having more difficulties with this is because they weren’t exposed to it when they were young when their bodies would have had a better chance of forming a defense (there is actually a specific biological function that this type of virus is combatted by, I just don’t recall the nitty gritty details)…so we are preventing the young and healthy from getting the virus when their (our?) bodies have a good fighting chance, in favor of resting all our eggs in the theoretical, some-day, untested vaccination possibility.

I get it, there are elderly and immunocompromised individuals we want to keep safe.  But the answer can not be to force an entire nation (world?) to “mask-up” every time they want to venture outside their home.  How about letting people choose for themselves?  A person who is concerned about getting sick can stay home and pretty easily mitigate what they come in contact with.  Even with a mask on, one can’t presume a risk-less experience when venturing into crowded spaces anyway, so why not let this thing run its course in less time (since almost no healthcare systems apart from NYC have been overrun at any point during this pandemic).
The “flatten the curve” mantra has been replaced by a notion of eradication.  It’s a dangerous notion, both in the costs it will incur now (which do include some severe health costs, too, by the way) and in what it means for our future when anything other than a virus-free existence warrants extreme prevention measures and justifies unchecked governmental dictates.
That is not a future I want.

I’m writing because I need to have some way to express my frustrations with this world.  I might not post this.  I don’t know.  If you read this, you might be bothered by what I have to say.  I guess, at this point, I don’t care.  But I don’t want to just spew my thoughts here, so I am going to avoid virus talk right now and just write about the race issues that are flooding our nation, the media, and I assume, many homes and thoughts.

First and foremost?  The horrific police brutality that resulted in the senseless murder of George Floyd, and many others over the years, is obviously and sickeningly wrong.  It is mind-boggling to me that such attitudes and actions have any place in our society and world.  Beyond that, though, are other realities that suggest that this behavior is not really a race issue, at least not solely and not even necessarily primarily.  Looking at the statistics for police shootings, there are many more unarmed white men (as well as armed white men) being killed by cops than there are unarmed black men (or armed black men).  And though the argument is that this isn’t significant because a much smaller percentage of the population is black, I’ve never heard anyone decrying the atrocity that well over half of all violent crime in our country is committed by blacks…which means police officers are much more often responding to crimes where the offender is black than those where the offender is white.  Additionally, the majority of police homicide against blacks is actually at the hands of black officers, not white.  What’s more, police officers are more likely to be killed by a black man than a black man is likely to be killed by a police officer.  While not justification for unlawful actions, this does give rationale for why police officers might have a heightened sense of fear when dealing with a black person, and might be prone to racial profiling.  An unfortunate, but truly necessary aspect of human nature is that we form heuristics – shortcuts, or generalizations – to save brain power and allow for quicker thought patterns in our everyday life.  In this case, a generalization might be seen as racist, but might also be based in the reality that an officer who faces a larger percentage of black criminals has to have shortcuts of thought to make what can be split-second decisions.  Obviously, this is not always the case, but my point is simply that it makes sense that the demographic with the highest crime rates might have a higher rate of police shootings.  No, this doesn’t justify outright heinous behavior from police officers, but it does suggest that it is likely that the large majority of police shootings are not the product of racist actions.  And as a side note, despite the much larger number of whites being shot by police, they have rarely (if ever?) made national news, have never fueled riots, and have never erupted in demands that the nation, if not the world, make the injustice a top priority in every individual’s thoughts and political position.

On a broader scale, though, there are a lot of voices raising issues of white privilege, exclaiming that a white person can’t ever understand a black person’s experience, and therefore has no right to any position other than to completely and blindly support whatever a black person says.  Do I believe racism still exists in our country?  Yes, without a doubt.  Do I think that racism is the only form of discrimination that results in fear, closed opportunity, financial hardship, and divided societies? Emphatically, NO.  Human nature, it seems, gravitates to similarities and belittles differences.  Ask  a conservative Christian walking around a liberal college campus how welcomed and embraced they feel by their liberal peers.  Ask the kid in high school wearing dirty second-hand clothes how people respond to him (or her) when they walk down the hall.  Ask the nerdy, socially awkward pre-teen who is getting beaten up and bullied why the school and parents stay silent and let it keep happening.  Ask the person who finally recognizes a cult for what it is why their “friends” won’t talk to them anymore.  Yes, ask the minority, but also the woman, and the elderly man, and the less attractive girl, and yes, even that privileged white man, why they got passed over for a job they were most qualified for.  Ask the introvert why their well-thought out input was overlooked in favor of the zealous input of the extrovert.  Ask the extrovert why they’ve been labeled as too shallow or too shoot-from-the-hip.  Ask the rich white boy about his father’s reaction when he doesn’t want to be a doctor or lawyer.  Ask the kid from the boonies growing up on welfare with an alcoholic father and depressed mother how much opportunity he thinks life holds for him.

We live in a world that’s full of broken relationships, broken ideals, broken dreams.  There are large groups of people that have animosity for other large groups of people (I can’t be the only person who has seen how painfully obvious this has been in our world lately?).  Sometimes it has to do with race, but I think much more often it has nothing to do with race.  So for a person who says “all lives matter” to be the subject of ridicule is absurd.  There ARE deep and troubling issues that many, if not most, people face…issues that are as much deserving of concern and action as the race issue…that will never get even a fraction of the attention that the race issue has.  Issues that hinder and scar and frighten people from all walks of life.  Just because these issues don’t necessarily manifest the same way that race issues manifest doesn’t mean they are any less harmful…or prevalent.

I am fully supportive of efforts to prosecute criminal racist acts.  I would love for people of all races and nationalities to feel comfortable walking in any neighborhood they might find themselves in (incidentally, I have had an experience or two being the only white person in a large group, and racism is definitely not just white to black…there is a cultural and social divide that is perpetuated both ways).   It would also be nice, however, if the narrative taught to every upcoming generation of black children wasn’t one of racism overarching everything, or at least not without the recognition that there are all kinds of discrimination in our world today and focusing on the marginalization that comes from racism without acknowledging that there are other people experiencing similar hardship in life for countless other reasons.  In short, demanding compassion from others who you think can never understand without purposing to extend compassion to others whose situations you don’t understand is hypocritical and narrow-minded.  I know that’s not everyone who is voicing concern over the racism that exists in our world, but it is still happening, and I find the one-sided nature of so many perspectives more harmful than helpful.

That’s all.

Isabelle comes racing into this birthday with so many milestones recently tucked under her belt.  She is a few math pages away from being done with her very first year of school.  She is using her newly acquired reading skills to read piles of books with great gusto.  And she just last week went from grumpily not even wanting to try her bike without training wheels to suddenly zipping all around as if she’s been riding training-wheel-free for months.

There are so many things I love about Isabelle.  She has the world’s best giggle, and paired with her half-moon laughing eyes and sweetest-ever grin, it’s impossible to not smile along with her.  She gives the biggest, tightest, never-gonna-let-go hugs, and though she is tall and strong for her age, she tries her best to curl up onto a lap as often as possible.  She is a helper and a do-er, and just can’t ever seem to sit still for long.  She will offer to do any and every task in the kitchen, clear dishes from the table, and carry heavy baskets of laundry to me for sorting…though she doesn’t love picking up after herself, which baffles me a little bit, but I think underlying it all is a real desire to serve and bless others and she hasn’t quite figured out how cleaning up her own messes accomplishes that.

Isabelle is an endless fount of questions.  She’s observant and curious and really wants to know so much.  And she is so articulate in her speech.  Some of my children have been less than eloquent in how they speak, but Isabelle has a natural ability to put words together clearly and creatively.  I truly look forward to reading her writing as she gets older.

She loves to dance, and will break into dancing whenever she hears music.  She is graceful and original, and as with so many things with our Sweetpea, my heart is so full watching her.

Some of Isabelle’s favorite things right now are playing dress-up, watching Pinkalicious, headbands, desserts, bike riding (!), playing Guess-Who (she has an uncanny ability to win at this), going for walks, and snuggling.  Her least favorite thing is cooked broccoli.

I am so thankful for Isabelle.  She lives life with abandon and loves fiercely.  She is encouraging and kind and so much fun.  I love this little girl utterly and completely.  She has been an indescribable gift these six years and I only hope that time will perhaps seem to slow down just a little so I can fully wrap my heart and mind around all the wonderful moments she will bring in coming years.

Time is a funny thing.  Sometimes, twenty years ago seems more like last year; other times, it feels like it was a lifetime ago.  All the time, though, I am indescribably grateful for the man who has been by my side for these twenty years.

It’s probably cliché to say so, but in many ways we are not the same guy and girl who walked down the aisle on that rainy Saturday, the day before graduating from college.  Growing up does that to people.  Life does that to people.  I mean, how is anyone to know how they would handle full-time jobs, endless bills, babies, sleepless nights, house projects, and so many obstacles and heartaches…much less how someone else will handle them?  And all of those things shape the person we are over the course of time.  But the person Tim is today is someone I am even more thankful for, more proud of, more in love with than I was on the day I married him.

I couldn’t have known, then, the extent to which Tim would go to provide for our family.  I couldn’t have known the depths of forgiveness he would show me, time and time again.  I couldn’t have known the scope of his intelligence, his capability, his ingenuity.  I couldn’t have known how he would be able to make me feel beautiful when nine months pregnant, or with stretch marks etched permanently into my abdomen, or with shoulders slouched with weariness, or eyes red and puffy from crying.  I couldn’t have know how unrelentingly he would put me first and lay his life down for me, in more ways than I would have thought possible.

There have been hard moments, hard seasons even.  For all of the things I love about Tim, there are still a few things that I just take because they’re part of the package…though at least some of them are more problems with me than with him.  So, I yell sometimes, and I criticize sometimes, and am generally unloving sometimes.  Sometimes, he tries to adjust and address whatever I’ve said.  Sometimes, he defends himself.  Sometimes, he walks away.  But he never yells at me in anger (occasionally, frustration, but there is a difference).  He never criticizes me.  He has never been unloving (occasionally, inconsiderate, but again – there’s a difference).  He is more patient than I deserve.  He is more gracious than I deserve.  He loves me more and better than I deserve.

I could write more about the amazing father he is…not just in his actions toward our children, but in his heart for them.  I could write about his integrity in his work, and his respect and humility shown toward his coworkers and bosses.  I could write about his unwavering principles and his willingness to stand up for right, even when it’s obvious that right won’t win the day.  I could write about the incredible strength he showed in the face of his incredible grief at the loss of his mom.

And there’s so much more, but I won’t focus on those things simply because today I am celebrating God’s wonderful gift of Tim to me.  I am taking time to treasure the very personal, unique ways that God has blessed me, and taught me, and loved me through Tim.  I don’t have words for how very thankful I am, or for how in awe I continue to be at God’s provision for my life in giving me Tim as my husband…at how He knew what I would need before I had any idea, at how He knew who Tim would be to me before Tim could even have known.  I married my best friend, but he has become so much more than that.  So, to say that these twenty years have been wonderful seems incomplete and insufficient.  They have been life changing, and I wouldn’t have wanted them any other way.

Lucas is a whirlwind, a volcano, a hurricane, and the brightest sunny day, all in one.  He has broken whatever mold there might have been for his older siblings, and is a force to be reckoned with (and I absolutely mean that literally).  This kid can jump five feet, from coffee table to couch (which is not sanctioned, by the way…but we pick our battles).  He can legitimately tackle his older siblings.  He can run fast enough that I actually have to run, not jog, to catch him.  It is just about impossible to wrestle anything from his grip. And he just goes, from the moment he gets up until well past what should be his bedtime.  This physical strength, endurance and persistence that Lucas has is definitely one of his defining characteristics, but he is so much more.

He loves to laugh.  He is silly and funny and actually really gets many jokes.  He hides just because he thinks it’s so hilarious (but it isn’t, kiddo, unless someone knows you’re hiding).  He makes goofy faces and weird noises, and imitates things that he sees others laughing at.  And he loves an audience.  If people are laughing at something he’s doing, it’s almost impossible to get him to stop.

He’s also persistently and oddly outgoing.  He will insist on going up to complete strangers to say hi, even when I (as his extremely not outgoing mother) try to explain why it isn’t a good idea.  But I do let him.  It doesn’t always work out great, since he’s still not the clearest communicator, but he usually seems satisfied with his efforts.  He has also, on occasion, made captive audience of random extended family members so that he can go into a long, not often very understandable, explanation of something.

Another notable characteristic he has is as a protector.  Whenever he deems someone is in need of help, he is insistent on rescuing them.  Seriously.  And unflappably.  Especially if it’s one of his two youngest sisters.  He will tackle, pry, pull, pinch, kick, and put himself in any amount of [perceived] harm’s way to protect and defend someone else.  [side note: generally, these are instances of someone getting tickled, or of a consensual wrestling match]

While Lucas is growing fast in many ways, though, he doggedly clings to his finger-sucking habit despite many efforts to convince him to let it go.  He also has no interest in potty training.  While he can make sure to find the quietest corner to do his business in his diaper, he will not ever head to the bathroom in those moments, despite promises of much-loved chocolate chips for success on the potty.  I think it will come down to a cold-turkey approach, which is obviously way more work for me…hence why it hasn’t quite happened yet. It will be soon, though.

Lucas also, obviously, has many favorites of various things.  He loves being read to, and his current favorites include When a Monster is Born; Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs; I Love it When You Smile; A Good Day; Guess How Much I Love You; and God Bless You and Good Night.  He fights over eating a lot, but some things he will eat as much of as he can get are cheese, French fries, chocolate, oranges and apples.  He is a huge fan of Scooby-Doo, and more recently, Toy Story and Cars.  He will occasionally prefer a Little Einstein’s video or a VeggieTales, too.  When it comes to toys, almost every preference comes down to whether or not the toy has wheels.  No matter what it is, wheels make it fun for him.  But he does also like to entertain himself with making shadows on the wall

Lucas loves people.  If he were allowed, he would choose to curl up next to a sibling every night.  He gives the biggest, strongest hugs and the cutest kisses on the cheek.  His smile is huge, endearing, yet almost always full of mischief.  He sings loudly even when he doesn’t know the words.  He says sorry if he thinks he has accidentally hurt someone (still working on when he intentionally hurts someone). He keeps us on our toes, and exhausted by the end of each day, but he is so fun and so loved and we are so thrilled to be celebrating his three years of life today.

Bethany is 14 today.  It’s getting real, this growing up thing.  More and more, the traces of my spunky, flighty (at times irresponsible and stubborn) little girl are fading.  She’s still the same girl at heart, but more articulate, less willful, more willing to do the work of being responsible.  She is growing in grace and beauty every day (in more ways than one), which makes me relieved and mortified all at once, I find myself praying more fervently these days that she will have wisdom, and that she will know how to guard her heart, and that she won’t be swept off her feet by the first guy that looks her way.  She has a good head on her shoulders, and a healthy sense of propriety, as well as a recognition of her God-given worth, so I do breathe easier knowing these things.

But while there are many changes, some things have only become clearer.  She LOVES animals.  She is fairly brilliant at math.  She is not a naturally good speller.  She’s great at understanding mechanics.  She is determined.  She loves shiny and sparkly and fluffy anything.  She makes chocolates and she dances and she loves music.

I love the maturing and refining that is happening in my oldest girl, but I am so thankful, too, that she is still so much who she has always been.  I love my Bethany and all her wonderful uniqueness.  She is a gift and joy to my heart.

Today, Caedmon is 16, and it feels like a big deal.  I mean, it is kind of a big deal.  We took him to get his permit first thing this morning, and although he aced his written test, I know the months ahead promise lots of learning experiences for him, and will foretell a shift in dynamics around here (Caedmon, can you run to the store for me?  Here, drive yourself to saxophone lessons, today (?!)…and so on).

It’s just one milestone in a list of milestones that keeps growing.

He finished building his 12-ft dinghy (rowboat) this past summer and proved it sea-worthy (or, at least, river-worthy). He took his PSAT as a “practice run” for next year, and scored in the 97th percentile.  He grew 3 inches this year, reaching and surpassing my height now, and not seeming to be finished growing yet.  He took on house projects, and demonstrated not only capability, but the determination and work-ethic to endure some messy, physically demanding, tedious conditions to see the jobs through to completion.  He has steadily improved in his saxophone playing, his Tae Kwon Do skills, and anything he has set his mind to.

But perhaps even more significant than all of those has been his persistence in assessing his own beliefs, opinions, and character.  He knows what he believes, in many instances, but he is refining those beliefs – in some cases bolstering, in some learning to afford latitude – by asking questions, processing what he sees and hears, and attempting more and more to frame his understanding with biblical truth.

There is so much about Caedmon that makes me proud, and so much that I will miss when it’s time for him to venture into whatever plans and purposes God has for him.  I might be biased, but I think he is exceptional, and I am so thankful for these sixteen years.  He’s not exactly my “little guy” any more, but I love him now as much or more as when he first made me a mom, and he will always be just as precious.

Yesterday, we celebrated 10 years with Elijah.  As I think about who Elijah is, I always first think of his sense of humor and love of laughter.  Even as a very newborn baby, he would often wake himself up laughing.  And now, he is always ready with a joke or a quick-witted reply.  Perhaps unfortunately, most of his jokes these days have a potty-humor bent, but nonetheless, it is impressive how sharp and creative his mind is in coming up with quips.

Elijah has also shown himself to be quite musical.  He has continued playing the trombone this year, and is making impressive progress.  He also can still sit down at the piano or pick up his harmonica and play reasonably well despite little instruction and not-so-frequent practice of late.  Somehow his rhythm was slower to develop than other skills, but he finally is able to reliably keep a steady beat now, too.

My Buddy continues to be both excellent and frustrating with his schoolwork.  He grasps concepts deeply and completely…eventually.  But, if he doesn’t focus on learning something, the easiest concepts in world will elude him entirely.  I’m sure attentiveness is the primary hurdle here, so we’re working on removing distraction and giving “doodle breaks”, but there’s still work to be done.  We aren’t too discouraged by this, though, since, as a fifth grader, he is already doing pre-algebra math, and getting excellent grades in it.  I just try to remind myself of that when I have to repeat the same science concept to him for the tenth time, haha :).

Elijah remains sensitive and athletic, and his naturally encouraging nature is even starting to show itself more, again.  He is usually a wonderful big brother – patient and kind – and he still greets me every morning with a hug.  While there are areas in need of growth and refinement, Elijah has many character qualities that are admirable and special.  I love this kiddo so much and I’m thankful to call him my son.