Something's Gotta Give: Part 2 of 2

So in my last post I was talking about how there are times when life really, really sucks. I was eventually trying to get to the point that I believe something has got to give at some point. Something has to change. I have no idea what that change is for other people. I have some idea of what that change usually entails for Christians, though how it is experienced is different for each person. Now, if you’re reading this and you don’t subscribe to my God, that’s okay, welcome here, I just wanted to let you know that the rest of this post will be from a follower-of-Christ POV, and that it’s totally not my intent to alienate you, it’s just that it’s the only point of view I know, and so it’s the only one I can write from in this case.

To continue, It hasn’t been long since I decided to leave my metaphorical security rigged, deadbolted house. In fact, I’m probably still standing at the door. So there I was standing at the door, trying to get by when a group of people came out of nowhere and slammed the door on my fingers. It really freaking hurt. It hurt me personally. It further confirms my strong suspicions that people, especially my own gender, can be especially cruel (after that confession you’re probably wondering where the Christian POV is. lol). This is something I have a hard time with. And me, being me, I began stress over the human condition, among other anti-productive worries.

Thankfully, the night before this happened I was scanning blogs and I read one by Kelly Needham. In it she talked about the parallels between feeling discouraged and far from God with having idols before God. I had always thought of idols in a literal sense, like worshipping a statue of another god, or maybe even worshipping Justin Bieber instead of God (perish the thought, ugh). However, Kelly explained that we create idols out of our personal desires that we obsess over. When we are focusing on our desires, and depending on them to bring us happiness we are not focused on God. This is a huge problem because the most important command in the Bible is that we love our God with all our heart, soul and mind. When I am obsessing over things like how people can treat others cruelly, marriage and EMS, I am not giving enough of myself to God. It’s basically saying, “Father, I know that you’ve looked after me really well up until now, but I still don’t trust you worth a damn.”

As I sat in my car (I do a lot of thinking in my car) I remembered this new found truth and I wiped my eyes took a deep breath and picked up the phone. Being concerned with the human condition was not going to fix this problem. That night, at considerably late hours I talked to three different people, two of which I had never even met. Together we came up with a plan to deal with these door slamming people. By the end of the next day I had made a plan with six people. I now have an army behind me when I go to deal with the door slammers. I still hurt and I’m still a bit anxious about what will come of all this but by focusing on God and creating a plan I realized that these door slamming girls and their pettiness are not worth my heart, mind and soul. They are simply part of the human condition and I have something that conquers the human condition.

I’ve only been really working to turn my focus to God for a few days now but since then I’ve seen his hand everywhere, and it’s been a looooonnnnngggg time since I’ve really felt with certainty that he was speaking to me. I’ve had two random people come up to me to tell me how thankful they are for the work that I and my coworkers do, and I mean random - for one of those conversations I wasn’t even wearing a uniform (I was wearing clothes though . . get your mind out of the gutter). The other morning I was woken up by a massive clap of thunder. I adore thunder, the louder and more earth shaking the better. Every roll of thunder was incredibly loud and shook my house. I have not heard thunder that awesome in years. It may seem silly, but to me that’s a gift from God.

Today, my cousin Beth posted a quote on facebook from Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who hid Jews in her home until she was captured and taken to a concentration camp and survived when a clerical error saw her released a week before the group of women she was with at the camp were executed. This quote is perfect.

"If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. If you look at God you'll be at rest."

Your focus determines your feelings. This is my very new experience. I don’t know if my dark night is over or if this is just a reprieve but I do know that at some point, something has got to give. You may have noticed that I didn’t go into much depth on what the dark night of the soul or the law of undulation are. For some reason I feel that if I try to explain it on here, it won’t be as meaningful as going and reading about it yourself. Yes, I realize that doesn’t really make sense. I will leave a few links that you could try, and I would say that the best explanation of “the law of undulation” is in Chapter 8 of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Corrie ten Boom said a lot of really great stuff too and you should check her out. Mother Teresa felt that her “dark night of the spirit” lasted for the majority of her adult life, only receding months before her death.

I would also say that you don’t have to look far to meet people who are in a dark night or have been in a dark night. As much as I am predisposed to not like people very much or to think that we are extremely cruel to each other, I can still realize that the pain we cause each other is greatly due to apathy, misunderstanding and miscommunication. I don’t really have an all-encompassing way to end this post so I will leave a couple of other quotes that help when people make your life more difficult than it need be.

“Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something.”

~ H. Jackson Brown Jr.

“Everyone is only three questions away from tears.”

~Some very smart person, though I’m not sure who.

Kelly Needham’s Blog
http://kellyneedham.wordpress.com/

Quotes by Corrie ten Boom
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/102203.Corrie_Ten_Boom

The Dark Night of the Soul
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

The Law of Undulation
http://bama.ua.edu/~casey006/216/screwtape.html
(Go to Chapter VIII)

Something's Gotta Give: Part 1 of 2

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the phrases “the dark night of the soul” or “the law of undulation”. If you have, then chances are that you’re a Christian that has experienced a rough time in your life. I only draw that conclusion, however, because it seems that only Christians or those of a spiritual persuasion either create, or go searching for these types of beautiful flowery terms to describe those times in your life that seem to be an unending parade of unfortunate, unfair, very dark and depressing “WTF” circumstances of life that make you cry, wallow or otherwise pity your existence and fill your silent vocabulary with questions of “what did I do to deserve this?” “when will this end?” “when will I be happy again?” and my personal favourite, “SERIOUSLY???!!. . .(insert exasperated sigh here)”.

You know what I mean though, and if you don’t, you unfortunately will at one point or another (start preparing for a long metaphor. . .). Generally speaking, you’re doing your thing, probably with a lot of content satisfaction when something happens. That something that shakes your faith or your personal foundation. You start to cope with it, but just when you’re starting to make sense of it something else comes out of nowhere and blindsides you and you stumble around for a bit. Then maybe someone comes out of the shadows and shoves you to the ground and hey, that kind of makes you mad, so you get up looking for a fight, only to find that you can’t see them anymore, and then someone hits you from behind and you’re back on the ground. You try to get up but they kick you down again, and then again, and then again until you stop trying to get up and just lay quietly hoping that they’ll go away and leave you alone. It gets quiet and you’re pretty sure they’re gone, but maybe they’re just waiting for you to get up again. You’re lucky though, because you’re friends come along and find you pretty quickly. They help you get up and take you home and start to patch you up. They tell you that you’re safe, they call the police for you and say that they’ll catch the bastards that hurt you. But the police call you back to say that they have no leads, that this was probably just a random act of violence and you should go about your life like normal. “Ha ha!” you say with absolutely no humor as you order on-line a security system and four deadbolts to be shipped to you. You spend a long time fine-tuning that security system but never really feel any safer. You open the door only for those friends that were with you that fateful night. Absolutely. no. one. else.

The truth is, I could continue with this metaphor for a few more pages, but I think you know what I mean, and if you don’t know what I mean you probably have a weird mix of intrigue and disinclination happening. Hold on - I believe in using my writing powers for good and not evil, it’s about to get sunnier, just bear with me.

If you do know what I’m talking about, you know that there is no definite amount of time that this “dark night of the soul”, this “WTF?” time of life lasts. For some people it’s a month, maybe a few months, maybe a few years, maybe many years. That’s why it’s so chillingly scary. After all, this could mean that you’ll feel like the bottom of a plumber’s boot for the rest of your life. Luckily for me, I believe in Beatles songs, good luck rabbits (that’s the whole rabbit alive, mind you, not just its dead foot) the Monro-Kellie Doctrine and God’s love. This, in turn leads me to put a lot of stock in “the law of undulation” (no, you will not find this in the Bible, check out “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis). Basically, something is bound to change eventually.

In the last few days I feel like maybe, just maybe I’ve figured something out. You know when you have days where it feels like God is “speaking” to you? Perhaps others would call it those times when you felt in tune with the universe or maybe its what atheists would say is what happens when your sub-conscious meets up with your conscious or what have you. In any case, it’s not quite a revelation but it’s a little bit of peace that comes to your attention and then you start seeing it everywhere. I will continue the second part of this in a few minutes in a second post as I am fairly determined to avoid painfully long single posts.

In the mean time you may want to look up:

“The Dark Night of the Soul”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

The Law of Undulation”
http://bama.ua.edu/~casey006/216/screwtape.html

The Monro-Kellie Doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracranial_pressure
(Ya, I probably wouldn’t have read it all either if I hadn’t had to. Basically, if pressure is introduced into a fixed amount of space, like the skull, something has got to give.)

Awesome Stuff #1: Singing in perfect time at the grocery store

Have you ever heard of Neil Pasricha? If not, you need to meet his book - "The Book of Awesome". This book makes me happy when I'm down and makes me appreciate the little things in life. It's a simple and fantastical concept that I wish I had thought of first, but didn't. After that you should read his second book, "The Book of Even More Awesome". If you would like a taste of what you're getting yourself into first, visit Neil's website www.1000awesomethings.com. Now that I've completely convinced you that I am not trying to take credit for another guy's awesome idea, you can read my bits of awesomeness that I plan on interjecting into this blog as the mood strikes. Neil doesn't mind, he's all about spreading the awesome feelings.

Awesome Stuff #1: Singing in perfect time at the grocery store.

I like to sing. I don't really care if I'm putting effort into sounding good or if I'm just making noise to amuse myself, but I like singing and humming (not whistling though - I never mastered that skill very well and it's a bit obnoxious). I sing while I'm getting dressed, I sing while I'm drawing up drugs, I sing while I walk my dog and I most definitely sing when I'm driving in my car. I also like to sing when I'm grocery shopping. Why? You might ask.

Well, first because there's already music playing, and not half bad music either, they have a pretty good selection of songs at my local neighbourhood Sobeys. If you have decent accompaniment you might as well take advantage of it. Secondly, I have nothing better to do while I read through mind-numbingly long lists of ingredients on my quest to keep all wheat and its bi-products away from my GI tract. And lastly, because I like to, and I don't really know many people in town so I don't really care who thinks I'm weird. It's not like I'm singing at the top of my lungs after all.

So there I am, making my way to the baby food aisle, only because that's where they decide to hide the gluten free stuff, and I'm singing along with Kelly Clarkson and Jason Aldean's "Dont You Wanna" (I have no idea if that's the actual title of the song) when that super cheery Sobey's lady interrupts the song over the intercom to tell me how shopping at Sobey's will improve my quality of life and cure world hunger. I keep singing as best I can, hoping that I have the timing right. . .

Then it happens. . .the super cheery Sobey's lady stops talking. . .there's the small pause as the intercom recedes its intrusion. . .and then. . .the song continues EXACTLY in time with your own singing. You finish the song in harmony!

AWESOME!

My Mom's Story: Part VII - Extraordinary Women

What does it mean to live an extraordinary life? I highly doubt that my mother thinks that she is leading an extraordinary life - some of you reading may agree with her too. After all, you’ve read about how she had a regular childhood with regular childhood trials, met her husband and married him, had two children to make a perfect nuclear family, was a stay-at-home mom who later went back to work, and that she raised me - as you would expect a good mother to do. You probably think that it’s nice that I’ve chosen to write about my appreciation for my mom, that she sounds like a pretty awesome person, but that nothing she’s done is much different from what your own mother has done, or what you have done, or what your wife has done, or your best friend or your aunt or sister.

I hope you did think that at some point. Because you are right.

My mom has done in her life what many, many women do. But I want you to think about the attitude that these life circumstances were undertaken with. What makes my mom’s story extraordinary to me is how she has viewed her life, respected it and faced every day with determination and a positive attitude. How kindly she treats everyone, how much she loves my dad just the way he is, and how she supports my brother and I unfailingly. I truly do hope you can relate to this and I think you can. I scan facebook on a regular basis just like every other young adult caught in the social networking snare and I know that I have friends who can relate to my mother and that they too are facing their lives with extraordinary attitudes that in turn enrich the lives of those close to them.

I know I have friends and family who were teased in school, so much so that it is burned into their memories. Yet they still have learned to love themselves and trust others.

I know women who are living real-life love stories - high school sweethearts that are finally getting married, women who were making plans to travel and were not even thinking about a relationship when their love story hit them, couples that entered marriage based on fondness, faith and trust in God, women who spent years alone before finding someone to spend their life with.

I have a lot of friends who profess their love for their children practically every other day on facebook. Some of these friends were not expecting these additions to their lives and some have waited for a very long time to welcome them but all would give anything just to keep their daughters and sons safe and happy.

And how many of you have made sacrifices for careers or for your husbands? I have friends whose husbands had to work as medics up north for months at a time, or who were on 48 hour shift schedules at stations far removed from home, meaning they only saw each other a few days out of the week. I have a friend who married the man she loved but had to move to the U.S, leaving her entire family to be with him. I have friends with wonderful careers but who know and accept that they may have to change or alter these careers when they are eventually transferred with their RCMP husbands.

What about the courage it takes to re-enter the workforce when you’ve been away from it for years? I know nurses, teachers, paramedics, police and administrators who have all picked up the books again in preparation to return to the careers they put on hold and even more women who are starting from scratch with resumes, job training and interviews in the hopes of further developing themselves and their finances.

So you see, chances are that your life is extraordinary - you just don’t know it, probably because no one has told you yet. You can be sure though, that those women I mentioned above - I think you guys are extraordinary and I’m so blessed to have you as friends - and for inspiration!

Sure, these are all life events that many people undergo in their lives. But not all people do it well. Not all people get through tough times, not everyone stays committed to their marriage. Some people leave their children or worse, abuse them. Some people’s habits keep them from performing in the workforce, some people never seek to improve themselves or their life circumstances. These are not judgements, they’re facts.

We are born to be women, but we choose what kind of women we want to be. My mom chooses how to handle life circumstances, she chooses what kind of wife she wants to be, she chose how to raise my brother and I and she chose how she wanted to further develop herself and her career. This is especially extraordinary to me because these choices have influenced my own life - and it’s a wonderful life because of my Mom.

So, yes, maybe today you don’t think your life is extraordinary. Maybe you have regrets, maybe the kids are being brats today, maybe your marriage has seen better times or maybe you have no idea what you want to do with your life. When I have doubts, my mom says something along the lines of “hang in there, continue to make the best decisions you can and I love you.”

I figure she knows what she’s talking about.

Happy 50th Birthday Mom.

My Mom's Story: Part VI - Raising a Little Girl into a Capable Lady

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary."

~Dorothy Fisher


I’ve been writing this part in my head for days now. I want to talk about the biggest impact that my mother has had on my life. This is easier said than done. What has she not had an impact on? My mom has been responsible for everything from my table manners to my early 20’s financial success. When I think about it though, there are three things that my mom instilled in me that I am silently grateful for practically every day of my adult life. This was no small task for my mom. Not unlike my mother I was a very determined little girl. I knew better than to be disobedient in actions but this didn’t keep me from asserting to myself that I knew better than my mom in most things. This led me not only to talking back to my mother (which was ALWAYS swiftly punished) but also to develop an under appreciation for how much she loved me and what she was trying to teach me in the hopes of me becoming a productive adult.




To start, my mom has taught me to be a capable, independent “lady”. As a kid I kept many more friends that were boys than girls. Boys didn’t want to rename your dolls or come up with elaborate stories about your Barbies. They wanted to run and play real games. I might have been wearing dresses but it never prevented me from keeping up with the boys. However, I will always remember being in my early twenties, lamenting to my mom about how I didn’t fit in very easily with other young women, that I wasn’t a “girly-girl”. My mom was busy preparing supper as she listened but when she heard this she stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me as though I had said something completely ridiculous.
“Of course you’re not. I never raised you to be a ‘girly-girl’,” was her remark. It’s true, my mom raised me to be a capable lady. Being a lady meant having excellent manners, being a good hostess and being proud of traditional women’s roles. However, this is not where being a lady ends. To be a capable, independent lady means to be well-versed in all that life may ask of you. I watched and helped my mom as she wielded power tools, installed fixtures, cut-down tree branches, put up tents and started fires among numerous other activities that some women would prefer to leave to men. Both my parents believed in not limiting my education to gender roles. My mom taught me that as a woman you don’t leave a task undone because you’d prefer a man to do it. You do what you know how to do. If you don’t know how, you learn. If you’re not sure where to start, you ask. Then you try your best and if you need help, ask for it and allow yourself to be taught. Never let yourself be limited by your size or gender. This has been asset to me not only in my home as a single woman but also on my solo international travels, and most certainly in my career in what used to be a very male-oriented industry. I might wear a uniform and lift double my weight on a regular basis but I can also walk in high heels and sew and knit. I thank my mom for showing me a life where I am not the sum of my gender, that I don’t need to be afraid to learn and try new things and that I’m a well-rounded, capable lady and not a “girly-girl”.

Secondly, my mom raised me as a Christian. I would never, ever underestimate the impact this has had on my life. My mom prefers not to attend church. I think it is in bad taste to discuss someone else’s beliefs on their behalf. I only state this to show that raising me as a Christian was a choice. I’ve heard many parents state that they choose not to raise their children within organized religion because they think their child should have that choice when they’re older. I would take a different approach, but let me further illustrate my God-centered home life. One of my earliest memories is sitting in a church pew playing with the string on my white church hat, I would have been two, maybe three years old and it was the same church that my parents had me Christened in when I was three-months old. From the time I could talk I was taught to pray on my knees before bed and this usually entailed asking God to bless everyone I knew by name and their dog, quite literally. When I was living with my Grandma one of our favourite things to do was sing Bible songs together. We always said Grace before family supper, right until we moved out of the house. It was my mom who took me to church every Sunday. It was at church that I felt safe with my peers in contrast to the bullying I experienced at school. It was at church that I started my life-long-love of choir singing and it’s where I learned public speaking as I was encouraged to read scripture out loud to the congregation from the age of eight. It was my mom’s dedication to making sure I had these opportunities that led to me knowing in my heart, mind and soul that I am a child of God, that I belong to Him. When I was 12 I chose to kneel before the congregation and received the laying of hands that made me a confirmed member of The Church. This was something I chose. I wasn’t brainwashed and I wasn’t sheltered.
I would say that no child will ever regret being taught to purposefully think about the lives and hardships of others, that they won’t suffer from learning to be grateful for the food in front of them and if they do come to know God they’ll always know of the joy and comfort that comes from a life spent with Him. My mom is not some stereotypical, caricature uptight, Bible thumping, Sunday Christian. She’s the most open-minded, non-judgemental and giving person I know, and that, combined with her decision to raise me in the Church has given me to a very enriched spiritual life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Finally, my mom taught me how to fit into life. This probably sounds funny and I honestly don’t have a better way of explaining it. I would start by saying that we live in a culture that rewards extroversion and undervalues introversion. By definition of these somewhat limiting terms I have always been a hardcore introvert. If left to my own devices as a child I probably would have spent the majority of time alone reading books. Unfortunately, introverts have a harder time at life I think. They’re often mistaken for being reclusive, sullen and lacking communication skills. They’re considered not as much “fun” to be around, uptight or boring. Our society has a tendency to pass them over in favour of energy exuding extroverts. My mom (who also considers herself an introvert) was not going to let that happen to me. She taught me both through discussion and example that there is nothing wrong with being more inclined to introversion. This meant that I was reflective, analytical, empathetic, a good listener and excellent at thinking outside of the box among other good qualities. However, if I could work at developing more extroverted qualities and combine them with my innate ones I would open up so many more opportunities in my future. Over the years of choir, soccer, dance, cheerleading, piano, Girl Guides and numerous school groups I learned that being part of a team wasn’t so bad, that the satisfaction of performing for people was pretty fun and that if I thought carefully about what I wanted to say, there were people who actually wanted to listen. Back at home I learned from my mom invaluable pieces of social life like how to carry a conversation and that even if I think small talk is often ridiculous, it serves a purpose in making some people feel more at ease. My mom was forever reminding me to smile more - even if it doesn’t always feel natural. These skills require upkeep. I still have to be reminded to smile more, I still have to remind myself to initiate conversation. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to bring out my bubbly, charming side. It was Mom who coached me on the value of being able to flip the switch between introvert and extrovert. In essence, over the years my mom has made me an ambivert like herself and it has paid off immensely for me. My first serious job was as a newspaper reporter and then an editor. I was only 19-20 years old and I was calling up MPs and having lunch with MLAs. I was driving out and meeting people to hear their life stories. I had an opinion column that people actually read and I dealt professionally with people who didn’t like what I had to say. I talked with businessmen, teachers, police, teenagers, oil companies, politicians, virtually every facet of society and there is no way I ever would have been successful at that career if not for the more extroverted skills that my mom encouraged me to develop. Now I work on the ambulance which also allows me utilize all of my traits and skills. I’m glad that what probably seemed like my mom nagging or criticizing me at the time turned out to be one of the biggest assets my mom has given me. She’s made my adult life a whole lot easier and allowed me to envision far more opportunities than the little girl locked away in her room reading would have seen.

That is the impact my mother has had on my life. Long post, I know! There’s only one final entry left to write in this little series. If my mom’s story reminds you of your own story or of your mother’s story, if you’ve found it relatable, inspiring, comforting or just a little bit interesting I would ask you to do two things. The first is to comment. The second thing I would ask is for you to look for and read the final post in this series that will be coming soon!




To be continued. . .