Sacred Mundane: The Blog

I am convinced that Heidi has a “blog-sensor”.  She was lying here sound asleep. Dutch is asleep. Jeff is gone with church stuff tonight.  Silence.  Seizing the golden moment, I pull out my laptop, load my blogpage, prep my fingers to type…WAHHHHH.  SHe wakes. She cries.  She wails.  Not the kind you ignore and it subsides. Wailing…

—Now she’s asleep again.

I learned this week that I need help being helped.    My precious church family, friends, and parents have me in awe by their amazing generosity and labor of love for us during this crazy season.  Next week Heidi will be one month old and I have not cooked a single meal since she was born…and I even have food in my freezer because some days more than one family brought us dinner so some had to be saved for later!  Today a friend provided dinner complete with Haagen Daz Cookie Dough ice cream (my favorite!!), sparkling cider (my other favorite!), and fruit for my monkey boy.  Another dear person went to Costco to get diapers for me today and came back with not only diapers but a few of those crazy huge coscto cupcakes!  I will say, the amazing generosity of people has made is a LOT harder to lose those those pregnancy pounds!  Last time I think only 2-3 people ever brought us food…I was skinny as a rail in no time. 🙂 

Anyway, all that to say  that so many people have been asking “How can I help you?” or offering to come pack boxes or watch Dutch or do whatever.  And it has been so hard for me, because I don’t really know how to be helped.  It isn’t that I don’t WANT help, but I don’t know how to be helped. Anyone relate?  And I think I’m so afraid of being needy, demanding, self-centered, that I push people away who truly want to serve and show their love in practical ways. 

In all of this I’ve noticed that people who have been helped know how to help.  I guess somehow learning how to be helped helps us learn how to help!  (how’s that for confusing?) 

So I’m learning.  My precious small group leader of my women’s BIble study group even emailed Jeff to find out from him how to help me.  They’ve even offered to come over and do my “move out” cleaning so I don’t have to–now THAT is some ministry!  So this week I’ve been thinking through and asking God to show me how to be helped.  I’m realizing that the fact that God’s got me in a needy season is a beautiful way that He is knitting Jeff and me into our new church family here at Willamette.  It’s like we’re so weak and needy that we quit caring about having everything together, and we begin letting ourselves be vulnerable and transparent…and helped. And when that happens, intimacy, deep relationships, connectedness, and true fellowship takes place.  And I’m SO excited to use everything I learn about being helped to help others down the road!! 

So this week I’m making a list of “ways to be helped”… I’m learning!  And, THANK YOU to those of you dear sisters who have blessed my life beyond words these past three and a half weeks.  Your love, notes, lasagna, cookies, and presence have blessed my life more than I can ever express.  Thanks, guys, for the help.

This weekend was my first time back in church.  What a joy to finally be back!!  I felt like this dry, crusty old sponge, the kind that gets pushed back in the corner underneath the sink and forgotten.  (At least that happens in my house).  But as I saw my church family, as I stood with my husband with lifted hands praising my sweet Jesus, as God’s Word washed over my soul, as I partook in communion…my dry soul soaked up every last drop and I felt alive again.  Thank you, Jesus!  In fact, all week I have been reminded over and over how God’s presence, His Word, His people, are the most restorative thing in the world.  Last night and this morning we sang, “We are hungry, we are hungry, we are hungry for more of you.  We are thirsty, O Jesus, we are thirsty for more of you.”  And tears filled my eyes (and do right now) because that is the cry of my heart right now.  I am so desperately thirsty for more of Jesus, for more strength, more grace, more of Him.  I’ve never felt so weak and in need of Him in my life.

But even as I write that I wonder if I’m exaggerating how weak I feel.  It is true–huge shocker here–I am prone to exaggeration.  Chalk it up to being Bill Zyp’s daughter.  I love stories, and love to tell stories, and when I say that Dutch spread the Boudreax’s Butt Paste over the ENTIRE coffee table (and his face, and his truck), perhaps it wasn’t the ENTIRE coffee table. It was only about 1/3 of it. So there, there’s the truth.  It was still a low moment, as it happened at the same moment I checked my email and found out the house where we lived had sold and I was sitting in shock of the realization that now on top of a toddler, a newborn, an internship and a busy husband, we were adding “move…somewhere” to our list of things to do.  But the reality is the moment passed and it was not the end of the world. 

All that to say that I’m convicted by how self-absorbed I spend the majority of my life being.  Right now I’m doing the Beth Moore study on the book of Esther in our Women’s BIble study at church.  (By the way, where has Beth Moore been all my life?!  She’s hands down the best female BIble teacher I’ve ever heard…I’d recommend anything you can get your hands on by her.)  This last week, we studied how hesistant Queen Esther was to make any move in approaching the king to act on behalf of the Jews, her people, who were to be annhialated.  You can hear in her voice–“The King has not summoned me in 30 days”–that she is in the midst of a personal crisis. Her husband apparently no longer has use of her, and it seems that now is certainly not the time for her to be used by God for a miraculous deliverance of any kind. She’s got issues of her own.  She also has been so shielded from the real world, during her five years as Queen, that she fails to recognize the severity of the situation. Massive genocide is ensuing, and she doesn’t want to risk her neck.  She really just wants Mordecai to take off his sackcloth and get properly dressed.  She was too shielded from true hurt and tragedy.  Beth Moore writes this about the situation:

Esther has also detached from the common man’s need. We tend to detach from the sights and situations that make us feel badly about ourselves–especially when we feel powerless.  If we think we can’t do anything about a bad situation, we’d just as soon not have to see it. 

HEre’s the trap, however: If we distance ourselves long enough from the real needs, we replace them with those that aren’t.  Pretense becomes the new real and suddenly a delay in the deliver of our new couch becomes a terrible upset. We are wise to force ourselves to keep differentiating between simple inconveniences and authentic tribulations.  The more detached and self-absorbed we become,the more we mistake annoyances for agonies. It happens to all of us.

Oh conviction rests on me so heavily! This is where I’ve been living.  The reality is that I’m in a season, a situation, with some invconveniences.  We had some disappointments this past week with four different house hopeful situations falling through. The reality is simply that I don’t know where we’re going to live and yes, there are quite a few things on my plate right now.  But truly, friends–these are not tribulations.  They are minor, very minor, inconveniences that only become tribulations if I let them.  And how detached I’ve let myself be from the real hurts and sorrow of the world that I’ve let my little inconveniences become huge tribulations.  Perhaps post-partum hormones play a role too. 🙂

The message at church drove home this point even further.  As we finish our study of Colossians, we went through chapter 4: 2-6, focusing on praying that the gospel message will go out, and that God will use us to speak boldly and clearly.  Pastor Joel shared how sad it is that we become so absorbed in our trivial little matters that we lose all focus on what matters–souls being added to the Kingdom of God.  Guilty as charged.  SO guilty as charged.

Anyway, I’m only half focusing on his post as both kids are awake, so perhaps it doesn’t all make sense. But I’m just trying to say, to myself, Kari–don’t let your mole hills turn into mountains.  God will not let you sleep in the street. He’ll provide a place to live, and I will survive this silly season.  He knows my weak frame, and He’s faithful.  Remember it’s inconvenience, not tribulation. 

God is so good. That’s the first thing I just have to say.  My life still feels a little crazy right now (a lot crazy), but on Monday God just gave me a big huge perspective change like only He can do. I really will share the rest of my fun stories with you, but also wanted to stay current and praise God for His Work.  Saturday-Monday we made three offers on houses and all three were rejected, and by Monday morning…

darn!  Heidi just woke up crying.  Ok, this post will wait.  I WILL keep trying to blog! I WILL keep trying to blog! Please don’t give up on me world! I want to share so much but need to be a mommy too… 🙂

*Warning, this post includes accounts of explosive infant poop.

First it must be said that my hospital stay was amazingly wonderful.  With Dutch I was so anxious to get home and in my own bed, eating my own food, and not smelling that wretched hospital smell that I couldn’t leave soon enough.  So this time I was thinking that as soon as they said I could go home I would.  The first night started out rough; Heidi apparently had lots of amniotic fluid/blood in her stomach so she was fussy/spitty/upset all evening. But the blessing was that a friend of mine, from church, is a labor and deliver nurse there at the hospital.  And, amazingly (coincidence? I think not!) she was on duty from 7pm-7am both nights that we were there (which was amazing because she had many days off before and then an entire week off after).  So she was there to help, to take Heidi for us, and just somehow made everything feel wonderful to me.  And I soon discovered, why on earth would I want to go home when I have my meals brought to me, constant care, a jacuzzi bathtub in my room, and a friend with me all night long to take Heidi so I can sleep?  Pretty good deal! Plus I knew a sick two-year-old was awaiting me at home…This time in the hospital, I had no complaints!  Hospital food?  It’s fabulous when it’s brought to you and you’re starving!  I was definitely less picky the 2nd time around! 

The second night Jeff went home to take care of Dutch, who was pretty sick and sleep-deprived by this point.  So he went and had Daddy-Dutch night and Heidi and I stayed. 

Coming home was a shock.  Dutch was still sick, and Jeff needed to get back to work that day.  So we came home that morning, Dutch went into massive panic mode only wanting MOMMY.  Wanting mommy to read, Mommy to hold him, mommy to give him his banana, mommy to carry him around.  Plus he was sneezing everywhere and coughing, so I was constantly wiping down him, me, hands, surfaces, with lysol wipes, and trying to keep him from touching Heidi or her blankets.  Amazing. By Wednesday night when Jeff got home, the house looked like a hurricane hit, and I said to please call my parents and ask them to come the next day.  🙂  They did.

And then it got so much better.  Each day has been better and better. What’s funny is that all week I said, “I”ll be ok as long as the house doesn’t show.”  So what happens? Late thursday night we get a call that the house is showing Friday. :-).  So we clean, then pack up and adventure out Friday afternoon.  Then, Saturday morning, we get a call that the house will show again that very day at 11:30am.  So Megan comes over and hangs with the kids while we straighten up, then we pack up and head to the park for the afternoon with a picnic lunch.  During this time Heidi and I stayed in the car, and she had the most massive explosive poops–three of them!  When I took off her diaper for the first one, it had gone all the way up her back to her neck :-).  Soaked through all her clothes and her blanket. I took off her diaper and started wiping, and she pooped again on me!  Just as I cleaned up that one with a million wipes, she poops out another one!  By now there is poop everywhere and all I can do is laugh.  Eventually we get her clean, back in her carseat totally naked (I ran out of clothes for her!) and we have our picnic lunch in the car.  It was actually an awesome memorable adventure! Then, as soon as we get home, I get another call from a realtor–the house is showing again tomorrow! By now I am laughing out loud. Three times in our first five days at home? What are the odds? Ok Lord, I get it.  You’re in charge. 

—I had to end this post and save it as a draft, and it’s hilarious looking at it now because the second week of HEidi’s life has been so much more insane than the first week I am now laughing.  I have much more to write now but no time to do it! The house ended up showing SIX times the first week of HEidi’s life, and then SOLD the day Heidi turned one week! 🙂  Wow.  I now have TWO unbelievable poop stories, a Butt Paste story that will horrify you, and just for the record, I’ve spent the last two hours crying. 

So, more to tell.  “The First Five Days” has turned into “The First Month” because we are now moving in three weeks! Ha!  And I’m supposed to start back at my internship this week, doing 10 hours of work each week. Hmmm. ANd I have no idea where we’re moving.  Did I mention both my kids seem to have exploding poop episodes more often than normal?  ANyway, many more fun stories to tell, just no time right now because Heidi’s needing me and the dryer buzzer just went off.  I’m perfecting the one-handed laundry-fold, dish-washing, typing, you name it. 🙂  Lots of fun stories to tell…the problem is that I have to live through them.

So there you have it. More to come.  “The First Month” will be nothing but fun stories that hopefully demonstrate God’s sweet mercy in the midst of a crazy season. Enjoy.