Home Stretch

We are in the final stretch of our year in Germany! We go back to the states at the end of THIS MONTH and I can hardly believe that it's passed as quickly as it has. 

At this time last year, I was full of nerves. I was excited to move, but also a little scared! I'd been to Germany once in high school and it was my least favorite place I'd ever been! Also, didn't the German language sound so angry and have words with a million letters each? I wasn't sure about the food - don't Germans eat a ton of sauerkraut? I don't like sauerkraut! Would we be broke, living only on a little stipend month to month? I was also so nervous for all the logistics - the packing an apartment into a storage unit, selling our car (which was a nightmare), figuring out what to do for phone service, forwarding mail, and a million other little things that added up to be quite scary for me. I had a feeling it would all work out, but a year ago I could really only hope for the best and prepare for the worst. 

Well, it worked out. I think that it's up there as one of the best decisions we've made.

I truly don't think it would have been as great of an experience as it has been, if not for the six and a half weeks spent in German language classes in Marburg, provided by the Fulbright. We made some great friends there through the Fulbright program and I think they'll be lifelong friends! That was truly the best start to the year here, and without it, we'd have been a little lost. Having someone to hold our hands as we did the initial paperwork to stay here for a year was so helpful (there is a LOT of paperwork), and of course learning German was really helpful too. I came to Germany knowing maybe ten or twenty words, and although my German now is really nothing impressive, it's improved 100% and I understand quite a bit (speaking is a lot harder for me than understanding what other people are saying). 

We've been able to travel waaaaay more than we'd have expected to travel. We thought maybe we'd visit one or two countries over the course of the year, but we've visited over ten! We don't have the normal expenses we would in the States and it's cheaper to travel once you're in Europe than if you were to fly over the ocean, but still! That was unexpected, and we're so glad that we've had these opportunities to see new places. Obviously that's not something we'll be able to do in our regular life, so I'm grateful that we've been able to make the most of it and to see more of the world. It's been fun to try new foods, visit places we've only read about in books, and to gain more perspective on the world.

Personally, I was a little worried that this year might not be great for Carson's and my relationship. We hadn't done much traveling in new places with one another, so I didn't know how that might affect our interactions. In addition to that, I wasn't sure that a year of being so isolated would be great for us. It seemed like it was asking a lot to expect that we would possibly be the only friend in close proximity, only English speaker nearby, travel buddy, brother/sister in Christ, and spouse for one another. It really seemed unwise to me and I worried that it would just be a lot of pressure on our relationship, so it's something I prayed a lot about before we even boarded the first plane. 

To be honest though, this year has been one of my favorites in our relationship. Not because of all the stuff we were able to do, but I feel like we "clicked" in ways that we hadn't before. Our relationship isn't perfect now or anything, but at times in the past we've struggled. We're both firstborns, both stubborn, and we have pretty different personalities to boot. The year hasn't been without its struggles, but I feel like we've grown more as friends in a way we just hadn't in the past, and like now we're more of a team. Perhaps that would have happened even if we'd never moved, but I think it's something about this year. I think all of this can be attributed to God's grace in our lives, because I think we are both pretty difficult people to live with most of the time (pointing fingers mainly at myself here).

We haven't always been on top of it when it comes to being healthy and exercising, but things have changed a liiiiittle bit for us in that realm. We eat (marginally) better than we did before, and we are way more active. Although we have access to local public transportation, we opt to walk everywhere, and just walking on a daily basis has changed us so much! Back home, I think I would have turned my nose up at walking a whole mile when I had a perfectly good car to me where I wanted to go. A car is not an option anymore, and it's been the best thing! I average around 45 miles each week over here, and because of just walking, I've definitely had to buy smaller pants (and a smaller belt!) twice. It's made me aware of just how inactive I was before, and I really hope to continue walking more often, even though it will be harder in the States! 

The year has been full of challenges to go along with the good stuff. Me not working definitely meant a tighter budget for us. I definitely miss trips to Target and pressing "buy now" on little silly purchases on the Amazon app, although those things were never really a necessity in our life in the US. 

More than that though, it was (is) really such a challenge working through another loss. My previous miscarriage was over three years ago, so it was something I thought about all the time, but it wasn't fresh. This year, it was. If I never have to process these emotions, fears, physical pains, and all that goes along with miscarriage, it will still be too soon. I had to brave doctors that spoke minimal or zero English, we had to figure out the whole medical bills/insurance thing, and even a diagnostic surgery. Those things couldn't have been planned on when we were preparing to move to Germany, so processing all of them has been a little weird. 

Overall, I'd call this move to Germany one of our best decisions. 

The logistics of moving here weren't for the faint of heart, and I don't think I'd be eager to do it again for at least a few years, but all in all, it's been a great year. It's given us new perspectives on the world (what a year for world politics, am I right?!), greater empathy toward outsiders who struggle with learning our language, certainly a better idea of world geography, and of course some really terrific memories. It seems like a dream world, sort of, that we actually moved to another country and lived there for a year. I think for the both of us, getting away from our normal lives will change some things about us once we get back (for one, we definitely want to be more active!). 

I'm looking forward to the conveniences of life in the good old USA, being within driving distance and in the same time zone as friends and family, and honestly to having our comfortable mattress back in my life. We're going to miss our time here so much, but we really are excited to be back "home" too!

Glory Baby: The Story of #4

On February 17, I was shocked to discover that I was pregnant. You wouldn't think that it would be a surprise, but since it had been nearly 36 months since my last positive test, I think my heart stopped for a second. I was at once overjoyed and terrified. I'd waited until over a week after my missed period, pretty sure that something else had to be going on. For the fourth time, I was pregnant, yet I have no living babies. My eyes immediately welled up with tears as those two bright pink lines showed up right away. I called Carson (on his way to work) and he came home in a split second. We stared at the test and prayed about the life growing inside me.

For the next few weeks, I felt very on-edge. I had pregnancy symptoms that were getting stronger by the day. I had food aversion and exhaustion and insomnia and was so thirsty and went to the bathroom like fifteen times a night (it seemed). We had our long flight to Cleveland planned and I was terrified that somehow flying would rock the boat and cause me to miscarry again. I don't think I've ever prayed so much about anything in my entire life, but every breath I took, every little thing that felt off or wrong or scary, and I was praying for peace and a healthy pregnancy. I had spotting from about six weeks on, and I was in a constant panic.

I was so nervous about making it to the 8 week mark, because that's when I've miscarried pretty much every time - I've never made it to 8 weeks and 1 day. I was supposed to hit that milestone on the day of the wedding, and so I spent that entire day doing my best to sit and rest and not do anything that might hurt this fragile life inside me. I felt a great relief at getting past that point, even though I was still nervous. I was and still am jealous of people who somehow find out they're already thirteen weeks, having made it to that magical date.

On March 17, I had my first doctor's appointment. I wasn't sure what to expect, because I've also never made it to a doctor's appointment in time while pregnant, and because of course, I was in Germany. The doctor thankfully speaks English as well, and because of my history of miscarriage, she decided to do an ultrasound and a blood test.

Being well versed in google searches, I know what an 8 week fetus should look like on an ultrasound. I knew that the image on the screen did not look like the images I would have expected. The doctor guessed that I was just off on my calculations and that all was fine. But you know when you know something just isn't right? Looking at the long awaited image, I fought back tears. There was a baby, on the screen, but even though the doctor tried to reassure me that all was well, the size of the image told me that it was not. They took a blood sample to check out my hormone levels and sent us home.

That was a hard, weird weekend. Carson found things on the internet that suggested that sometimes the ultrasound is off and the baby just measures really small from the get-go and everything is fine. He was a major optimist, while in this, I was absolutely the realist. I felt like we were just sitting around waiting to miscarry the child that was no longer living inside me, but I didn't know for certain. We both struggled. Carson went on a late-night run to get out some of his frustrations, and I camped out in bed, hoping and praying for a miracle.

The following Tuesday, the doctor drew my blood again to compare, having called to say that my numbers from Friday looked really high and good. She planned another ultrasound for that Friday, just to check to see if the baby had grown. I slept most of the day after we got back from the doctor's office, feeling strangely weak and weird.

I didn't sleep at all that night and at 3am, I began to realize that I couldn't sleep because I was in pain. The pain increased and I realized quickly that my body was contracting. I remembered my previous miscarriages as being painful, but they were nothing like this. I was absolutely nauseated, in immense pain, doubled over on the bathroom floor actually moaning. At around 5 in the morning on March 22, at what would have been nine weeks and five days pregnant, exactly three years since my last miscarriage, I miscarried our fourth baby.

The feeling is like no other, laboring in a bathroom to deliver a baby that you will never know in this life. There was extreme pain and extreme sorrow, with absolutely no promise of the joy I hear comes from a live birth. For hours, I sat in that bathroom, at my absolute worst, going through the process of delivery. The last time I miscarried, I was at work, which is also horrible, but this time Carson was by my side, trying to be helpful and clearly wishing he could do something to ease the pain.

It was the strangest thing, and I don't know how to say it well, but once I had miscarried, it was the oddest mixture of sorrow and also great relief. For weeks, I'd prayed for the health of this baby. I prayed that my body could protect it while it lived inside me. I was consumed with doing what I was capable of doing to keep it safe - eating right, drinking lots of water, doing my best to rest and not do anything strenuous. When I lost the baby, I felt a strange peace at knowing that it was no longer in my hands at all. I could not physically do anything more for that baby, and though my body failed me once again in this task, I knew that God was more than capable of taking this little life in His hands. I feel like my body is my own a little more than I did before, and I think about how I wish that wasn't the case. I wanted the nausea and bloating and all that went along with it.

Life now feels oddly normal. It feels surreal to think that I was actually pregnant just a little over a month ago. This is going to sound very pity-party of me, but life now is familiar territory. The emptiness is a little bit routine. There were a few weeks where we got to live an unfamiliar life and to navigate the world of pregnancy, and now it's a little bit business as usual.

We buried the baby under a tree in the backyard here, and Carson fashioned a cross out of some sticks. Two weeks after we buried the baby, we came home to the most beautiful white flowers on the tree. It feels strange to walk past that spot on our way to the lake, knowing a part of our family will always be there. It will feel wrong to leave our baby in Germany when we go home. In October, we will do something on the day our baby was due to remember this loss, and to remind ourselves to keep pressing on in the Lord.

This journey is hard, harder than I expected it to be, and longer too, and we still pray that one day, in some way, we would be given the opportunity to raise children. We can't and won't forget the four that we've lost, or this chapter of our lives, and I pray that all of this will make us better parents and more committed followers of Christ. 

A Difficult Surrender

In January, we chose a word of the year: joy.

We chose "joy" because we felt that we were relatively accepting of the life we'd been given. We deeply desire a family and this year will be our fifth of waiting on that blessing. Over the past few years, we've struggled with a variety of issues relating to this and I think that in a sense we've become content with where we are in this journey. I really felt sort of mentally pushed toward the idea of being joyful in all circumstances, not just accepting them but receiving whatever hand we're dealt with a sense of thankfulness and peace that only comes from God.

The one thing I both love and hate about choosing a word like this to focus on is that it seems like that gets tested right away. Nearly immediately after the year began, it became difficult to choose joy. Something that sort of rocked the boat happened, and my commitment to being joyful plummeted and my worry and fear took over. It seemed natural and logical at the time, but in truth, I was saddened by how quickly my desire to live out this characteristic and word faded away when difficult things happened. 

I was up thinking the other night about all of these things, and trying to make myself not worry while also making a mental list of more things to worry about, when Psalm 4:8 popped into my head: "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep; for YOU ALONE, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." My immediate reaction to that verse was humility. There I was, thinking of more and more ways to worry my way into slumber, when I have Someone who is more than sufficient to take these worries upon Himself. It is a difficult surrender. 

The other day I mentioned wanting to "pull the golden thread" to Carson, and he didn't know what I was talking about. It's a story I remember reading as a child in the Children's Book of Virtues (I remember so many of these little stories and was so glad to find a nicely used copy at a thrift store last summer). In the story, there is a young man who is frustrated by the time he's been waiting for something and so one day he happens upon an old woman who gives him a spool of golden thread with a warning: you can pull the thread to move ahead to events in life, but you can't put it back. So the boy pulls the thread to shorten his school days, his engagement, the difficult years when his children are young... and one day he looks over and realizes that he's an old man and has completely missed out on his entire life. He finds the old woman and asks her if there is a way to push some of the thread back into the ball so he could relive the parts that he missed. There is not of course, and he missed his whole life. It turns out that the whole thing was a dream, so when he wakes up, he gets to live that same life over but without any skips. (I found an adaptation of the story here, and the cartoon with the story I also remember from Adventures From the Book of Virtues on YouTube)

The waiting is hard, but worth it. I think sometimes if I had a golden thread, I'd like to pull it just so I could get to the "other side" of this, but maybe there isn't another side. Maybe there's more waiting, or more wondering, or something else that I' can't imagine. Either way, I feel pretty confident that the journey is going to be worth it in the end. And I'm very thankful to not have the temptation of skipping ahead.

Worry isn't something that is going away as a struggle of mine, it's sticking around for the long haul. It's going to be that thing that when I'm 90, I'm battling. But I don't want to get to 90, or 29 for that matter, and suddenly realize that all my life I've been holding on to being in control. I don't want to trudge through life looking for things to worry about and focusing on what I can't change. I'd love for my nights to be for sleep and not for worry, and to be thankful when things are hard and when they're good. I want to thank God for what He's given me and then surrender my fears to Him. 

It's so hard. It sounds really easy and simple and I think that's what makes it so difficult. It's very easy to say things to myself like "Oh, but you have to plan ahead!" or "Oh, but I'm only googling this so I have peace of mind" and to turn to little things like that while slowly turning away from putting trust in God and confidence in His plan. 

So, joy, thankfulness, trust. These are things that are a burden right now. They are the difficult surrender as I attempt to place my will in line with God's plan. When He says no and I want it to be yes, choosing joy is hard. When He says turn right and I'd like to go left, it's still not easy. I want the control. I want the knowledge. I want to pull the golden thread and zoom ahead to the good parts. But the joy is not just in the good. It is in the heart of the struggle, it is in the yoke of trusting God's plan. It is in the everyday of looking to the cross and running the race that is set before us. 

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication WITH thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:4-7)

Dachau

I think the most memorable place I've ever been was this one. It was chilling, sobering, horrifying, and yet indescribable. We visited on a bitterly cold, overcast January day. There was a little snow, and it made me wonder how on earth anyone survived that weather in this place. To suffer the conditions that so many people did with so little to protect them from the elements, while being treated in such a brutal manner... I'm in awe of the survivors of this place.

The doorway to Dachau reads "Arbeit macht frei", which translates to "Work gives freedom".

Dachau opened in 1933 for prisoners of the state, and ran until it was liberated by the Allies in April of 1945. It was built to hold 6000 men and when it was liberated, there were around 35000. So many men died in this place from all kinds of horrible things

This hallway held "special prisoners". Some of the rooms contain plaques describing things that happened in each room or who was imprisoned there. In the very beginning of the camp, people were taken there and then released. Several people were back and forth between their real lives and Dachau, while others never left or were shuffled to another camp. 

Those dark concrete slabs represent the buildings the prisoners lived in. I was surprised by the size of the camp and by how many buildings once stood here. On the other side of the trees to the right were more buildings just like these. There are two buildings that have been rebuilt to show how the prisoners once lived, but the rest are just representations of the buildings.

This plaque at the crematorium encourages visitors to "Remember how we died here"

The gas chamber and crematorium. They were open to walk through and it was a little eerie.

I've always enjoyed history, and have read biographies and stories of people who lived through the Holocaust. I read the Diary of Anne Frank, The Hiding Place, and many more stories true and fiction.

Being here was different though. It wasn't just a story, even a true one. This was a place where so many innocent people were murdered, imprisoned, tortured for a truly unjust cause. This happened. We walked in of our own free will and we walked out the same way, but that simply wasn't the case for thousands of others. It was hard to see a place like this and sort of weird to leave and just go on our merry way, but I am thankful that they've left Dachau standing and that people are allowed to walk around. It stands today as a reminder to never repeat what happened on this ground, and as a memorial to those who died in this place.

Never again.

On the Eve of 27.

I love my birthday. I always have, and I always will. Despite what my immediate family members might tell you, I am not OBSESSED with it and I don't think I force it upon anyone, but I do enjoy celebrating things and I love special days and I really love presents, so all in all, birthdays are pretty great.

This is the first year that I've looked at my new age and thought anything besides "Yay! A year older!" Despite the fact that I am nearing 30, honestly getting older doesn't bother me that much. I feel like because I look so young, I get more joy with telling people how wrong they are when they guess my age and they're WAY off. It's a secret (not anymore) pleasure of mine. People routinely think I'm 18, so when I mention the fact that I'm actually in my late twenties, I feel a weird joy in them being wrong.

The reason I've been feeling a little differently about this age, this year is that not only does 27 just sound much older than 26, but it feels like yet another year of unknown. When my Granddaddy was 25, my dad was born. When my dad was 25, I was born. I was sort of hoping to continue that silly little age gap thing because I love things like that, and also because when I was 23, I lost my first baby, so it seemed pretty reasonable to be pregnant again by the time I was 25. Two weeks after my 25th birthday though, I lost my third pregnancy.

It isn't about the age so much as it is the time that's going by. I got married young. I would have loved to have babies fairly young (I technically am fairly young still but in the eyes of my life-gameplan I am not). I'm 27. I've been married almost 6 years, and I don't have any kids. It feels weird that this is my life. It feels strange that I'm still in this place, nearly four years later than I thought I'd be.

The lessons I've learned in the past few years as I've lived in this season have been so valuable. Had I not known what it was like to grieve, I would not know God in the way I do now. I am thankful for that. I am thankful to have tasted the bitterness, because God's grace has been so sweet. I cannot deny, however, that it is difficult. I'm living a life that's really great, but it isn't a life that's anything like I thought I'd have, and that's hard. It's hard to know that as each day passes, that's one day more of mystery.

Twenty-seven in itself is a pretty unremarkable age. It's one year older, one day further along the road. Ten years ago, birthdays just felt a lot more special.

It isn't the big occasions that count the most though. It's the days. It's the moments that happen each and every day that will mark 27 as a good year or a bad one. I'd love to say that this will be a good year if my wishes are granted and we bring a baby into this world in my 27th year, but the truth is that it will probably be a perfectly fine year either way. It will probably pass as a year with unexpected events, unique memories, and both good and bad, just like most years seem to pass.

I think that this year will be a good one. I think I'll probably get to surprise lots of people with that fact that - surprise! - I'm actually almost 10 years older than you think I am. I think there will be lots of change. I think that I will grow in my relationship with Carson. I think good things will happen and bad things will happen. I think we'll begin good habits, break bad ones, and celebrate small moments like they're big ones like we always have.

I pray most of all that this 27th year (technically 28th year but that sounds confusing) will be one where I don't forget that God is good. I hope that I don't lose sight of the fact that He knows what's going on and that while to me I feel alone or forgotten or sad, to Him, beautiful things are taking place. I have a quote from GK Chesterton that I like that says "One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak". I don't want to focus so much on the beauty of motherhood that I miss the beauty of where He has me now. I don't want 27 or any other year to be so wrapped up in that one thing that I totally lose out on whatever it is He has in store according to His plan.

Here's to another year!

For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn.

There is an urban legend written that Ernest Hemingway once bet that he could write a short story in just six words. He supposedly won that bet with these words: "For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn". I'm not sure that that ever happened, but it is indeed quite a story. In just a few short words, it encompasses a lot of pain and sorrow. Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, which is also a sad name for a day. While to be honest I didn't remember that today was that day until I saw a post on Facebook, I wanted to write something in honor of this day and our own losses. 

Right now, I might be sitting here writing this post (albeit a very different topic) as my almost-three year old naps. I might instead be relishing in the quiet, just sitting with a cup of tea because my almost-one year old was also down for the afternoon. 

Instead it's just me, and I'm writing from the floor because that's where my computer was. It's quiet and I'm the only one in my apartment. There are all kinds of breakable things sitting out at the perfect height for a small child to grab and break. I don't have any outlet covers. Nothing is baby-proofed. 

I've miscarried all the babies I've ever held in my womb, three in total. The first would have been due in late January of 2013. After I lost that pregnancy I got pregnant again right away with a baby that would have been born in the spring or early summer of 2013. The third baby, I lost last March. He or she would have been due on November 1 of 2014. 

These babies are missed. They have been grieved. I loved them. I think about them all the time and I wonder all the time what our lives would look like if they had arrived when they were due. I wonder where we'd live - we were just about to move to Cleveland when I miscarried the first two, and I'm guessing we'd have made that move either way, but I'm not totally sure if we'd have made the move to Florida. I wonder what kind of mom I'd be. I wonder if they were twins and I didn't know it (I've always wanted twins). My highs would have been different and my lows wouldn't be the same.

But this is the life I'm living now, and it's one without children. 

There is a part of me that will always ache for those babies. I'm certain that no matter what the future holds, I will not forget this time when I longed for children and felt the sting of having others pass me by. While I hope to have this season behind me sooner rather than later, I never want to forget it. I have learned valuable things about waiting and about being a good friend when you really want what your friends have, and about perspective, and about God being good no matter what. 

And He has been good. I don't understand why He's chosen us to be in this season right now, and if I'm being honest with you I might even trade places with the naive person I was over three years ago that just thought these sorts of things happened to "other" people and not to me. Waiting stinks and grieving is hard. 

While I ache for them and while I think about them, I know that dwelling firmly in the past isn't wise. We are urged as believers to "press on", to "look forward", "run with endurance", "lift up our eyes" and countless other similar phrases. Wallowing in our pain and letting it be the core of our identity just isn't a symptom of the Christian life. Side note: ignoring our struggles and pretending like everything is alright and that we don't have pain or problems is not the alternative to this either. We can be "real" and also be looking forward, going through difficult things and yet not giving up hope. I feel very firmly that it is important to be honest about these things and to let people in on them without just putting a smile on it to cover up (hence writing about it on the internet.) 

I both love and hate when people say "God's got a purpose for this". On the one hand, it sort of feels like I'm being preached at or told to look at the bright side of what is in actuality not a very bright thing. On the other, I believe that He does have a purpose. I'm not certain I'll know what that is. It might be that one day I realize that "Oh, THIS was the reason I lost babies!" - which I doubt. But still I believe that good has come from this situation. I believe that God works all things together for good, and that includes this. 

I see God's goodness and grace in my life, and specifically in the area of motherhood. He has not given me my own children in this world, but He has given me other people's children. Carson's brother has five little girls, to whom we are aunt and uncle, but I have several close friends whose children call me (or will call, as many of them don't yet speak) "Aunt Lindsay". 

It is a great joy to be called that, to have little people to love and to send gifts to, to look forward to seeing. I know a lot about strollers and car seats and random baby equipment that I wouldn't know about if not for them, and I'm hoping that one day it comes in handy for me. That isn't to say that I don't struggle, because I do, and it's hard, and I do wonder if my time will ever come. 

Experiencing that pain is unfortunately very much a part of life on this earth. I believe that sin and death are a part of our world because this world is broken and fallen and I believe that miscarriage is absolutely a sign of that. In a perfect world, we'd never know loss, or pain, or anything bad, which is something I cannot comprehend; not really. I mean - how perfect is perfect? What does that possibly look like? Think about it!

My children know a perfect world. They don't know loss, they will never feel pain. They will only know goodness, perfection, perfect love, a world free from sickness and suffering. It's what every mother hopes for - a world where their child is free from all the bad things of the human experience. I don't grieve their loss; they are all the better for never having experienced what it means to have a sin nature or to enter a world littered with its effect. I grieve for me. For what Carson and I don't kno -- how they might look, what they would grow up to be, how their existence would impact and shape us. I may become a mother to someone someday, but I have missed out on parenting those three children. For over three years now, I've felt the acute pain of knowing that I'm missing something BIG. I miss those three people I never knew. 

As we look to the past, we grieve. We wish we didn't know what it felt like to love someone you've never met and never get to experience that reality. But we look forward. We look forward to the hope that is in Christ. We love Him and we don't know Him. But we believe that we will one day be with Him, as our children are already, and that that love will be made full. 

Small Glimmers

I still don't know what it feels like to feel a baby kick for the first time. I don't exchange nursing advice with fellow moms, or have a birth story to share. 

In fact, much of the time I feel pretty lonely. Three years later, many of my friends have gotten married, had babies, and some are on their second child in that time. This is not easy for me. It's hard living with this strange reality, where I want something good, and there's nothing I can do about it. It's hard to live with the questions that come up inevitably - did God forget? DOES He have a purpose in all of this? Waiting has gotten easier in a sense because it's normal, but the hurting doesn't stop. 

I remember June 11, 2012 vividly. The morning, waking up to bid my teammates farewell as I stayed behind for four more weeks in Ukraine. I remember the nap on the bus on the way home, and the way my heart stopped when we stopped for a bathroom break and I saw blood. It was red. It was not right. I knew that immediately. "Nonononono" I repeated to myself for the remainder of our drive, recalling things I'd read about bleeding, very few of them with hopeful outcomes. It didn't feel like something I was going through. I was numb, staring out the window with my mind racing through so many things. I was in another country, on a bus, and I was in this place for four more weeks. What and why and how and what should I do? 

I prayed, and tried to at least look calm. I was afraid, and I'd never been afraid like that before. 

I wish this memory were distant. I wish that there had been a happy outcome and that I barely remembered that day. The truth is that I remember it all. The blood, the pain, the sobbing alone in the bathroom and the backyard. If my memory were a movie, it would be shot with that shaky camera technique, because that's how it feels - vivid but also a complete blur. 

And it was three years ago. Three. 

Were I to have had a baby in the time since, I don't know how I might feel about this day, but right now, I look at June 11 as the very beginning of a chapter. A much longer season than ever anticipated. A black hole, perhaps. And while I do have hope, I wonder if this was the beginning of the rest of my life or if it really is just a small season. Will I feel that baby kick? Will I hear the first gasps for breath from a newborn? 

I feel like today I am still only picking up the pieces. I am still understanding what it means to hope in God while not getting what I want. I'm still not sure what He will have me do if not be a mother, and still not sure if I'll like the answer when it arrives. I still have a lump in my throat when I think very much about this, and still don't know how to talk about it without it sounding like a personal pity party. 

I still don't have answers, and that makes it all the more difficult to process. I hope and pray that at least the season of miscarriage has ended, or at least I think I hope that, as this is the only pain of infertility I really know. 

I think more than anything, I hope to really see a reason one day. I don't expect a shining beacon in the clouds, but I see small glimmers and I do hope to one day look back and say, "oh, because of that horrible thing (those horrible things), this other blessing has come!" It doesn't take the pain away, but it somehow makes it beautiful, to know there's a reason. And I do know there is, and I am hopeful that I will see it and that I will use it and that I will praise Him. 

He brings beauty from ashes. Beauty from pain. 

Mother's Day Thoughts

Yesterday, I was sitting with my little niece on my lap and she said "It's Mother's Day, Aunt Lindsay! Are you a mom?" And I said no, starting to feel a little sorry for myself. Then she followed it up with, "If you're not a mom, are you a honey?" I have no idea what that means, but I found it funny and it kept my mind off the train it was going down when she asked the initial question.

I'm not a mom, in the strictest sense of the word, and I want to be, so days like Mother's Day are hard. Not sit-by-myself-in-a-dark-room hard, but difficult nonetheless.

Before I create a rabbit trail, I just want to say that the reason why I'm writing this post is because I wanted to tell you how I was encouraged on Mother's Day.

My phone buzzed several times during the day, receiving messages from various people who just texted to say that they were thinking of me. I wasn't expecting anything like that, and was actually doing okay emotionally, but each and every text was so meaningful. Friends wished me a Happy Mother's Day, told me they were praying for me, and that I was on their mind. I didn't need it, but I soaked it up.

God's blessed us with amazing friends and family in all the places we've lived and I'm incredibly grateful for all the sweet people who went out of their way to just send a simple message. It really meant the world.

Dear friends who have prayed for us and loved us in this long season of waiting and wondering - thank you.
Thank you for your tears, your hugs, your emails, your Facebook messages, your brownies and your cards. I am so thankful for you, and I can't really express how much your love means to me. It's been quiet, it hasn't been every day, but every once in awhile, like yesterday, I'm reminded that I haven't been forgotten. And that means so much.
It's strange to be the "friend-without-kids" and I find myself often unsteady with where I am in life, having deep inner struggles that I can't verbalize. It's been weird, but thank you for being there.
I am hopeful that this season will not last forever, but even if it does, I want to remember the goodness in what often seems so dark and painful. I want to remember that there were people whose tiniest text encouraged me. I want to remember that people prayed with me and for me. I want to look back on this time and not see it as a pit of despair but as a time where God was working, blessing, loving. I know He is, and I see it in you guys. Your actions might seem very insignificant to you, but thank you for making them anyway, because they are meaningful and full of the gospel and encourage me in the Lord. You encourage me to press on to know the Lord and to be hopeful and prayerful and faithful as I wait.

Thank you.

Grace for the Rule-Follower

Often times, I say things about God that I know are true, believe are true and sometimes have experienced to be true without any real feeling or emotion or "conviction". I am a rule follower and a rule creator and because of this I've always felt that things that are known to be true are things I must call true always. I think at times I've questioned my faith, but with caution, and with boundaries... "Is God good?" "Well of course. Does He seem good right now? No, but seeming isn't enough. Truth is truth and we must believe that at all costs, lest we become a stupid person who doubts in the one thing that is constant, the one Person who never changes".

I wonder if this sort of faith will always be mine. I wonder if I will forever be limited to a belief that doesn't waver, but also doesn't really move. Will I experience the God of fire, of passionate souls who wrestle and dig and do things with their faith that require lots of verbs, or does my thinking limit me in some way? Have I reduced the God of the Universe to a series of truths, of unchangeables that while true, create a narrow box for an infinite Person?

I don't want the sort of faith that fully doubts and strongly wavers, but I"m not convinced than a blind assumption of truth  and denial of anything else is good either. It seems so static, so lifeless. To press on to know the Lord doesn't mean that I will live a life of extremes, necessarily, but if it does, I don't want to shield myself from that. I want to know God, want to struggle while being transparent, to be REAL and vulnerable and to be honest with those things. I don't want a faith where I've made all the rules.

As a rule-follower, a person who "knows" things to be true and lives like they are true (in other words, an obnoxious, stubborn firstborn), I think I have the tendency to come off like I have it all together, like I don't do a lot of struggling, or feel much doubt. And generally, I guess in my handling of things that I believe to be true, I don't waver a whole lot. But where I do and when I do, I want to be honest. I'm tired of having an answer for everything, and pretending to when I don't.

I want to cling to things not because I'm supposed to but becasue I really believe it. I guess this is the downside of stubbornness. I desire to let grace in. I want a life where I'm letting God work, instead of moving along in my carefully constructed view of the world where I'm the one holding the puppet strings.
I shy away from the idea of a "moment", a dramatic experience with God, because it doesn't seem lasting. God works in ways that are beyond me though. He moves in lives in ways I cannot and likely will not understand and see.
A faith made of belief for belief's sake is not a faith. It's something else - a religious practice, a routine. It si one thing to believe and to be certain. It is another to follow a set fo rules because rules are good. Instead of a series of "this is what I believe and here is why" -- which is good, I want to believe and to know why not just follow the breeze -- I hope to open myself up to letting a little life in. A little airing out and putting into practice. A little searching for the answers in Scripture instead of just saying things I heard someone say once. When I speak, I don't want to just spout truths. I want to say, from a sure place, something that actually resonates within my soul. To have truth and to live a life of faith, from faith.

"Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth" Hosea 6:3

I Don't Miss Snow

It's December, and there's a high of 78 degrees today.

If you first thought was to think "Oh how sad, it doesn't feel Christmassy there!" please, don't. I can't even explain how thrilled I am to wear normal shoes outside, single layers, ONE coat when it's chilly. I don't even know where my gloves are.

A couple of weeks ago, it actually got pretty cold at night. It was below 30 early in the morning (which is when I work) and people were bundled up like the kid from A Christmas Story movie during the days, which hit maybe the high 40s or low 50s. I LOVE that that's cold here. It's great to be amongst wimpy weather people again. For over six years now, I've been bundled up, staying in where it's warm, and I must say, it's nice to be with people like me again.

Carson, however, is rather glum about the weather. "You know what we need?" he said the other day for probably the 12th time this fall, "we need snow!" He does admit that it's nice to go outside and do things that we couldn't do when there was a layer of white on the ground, such as going on walks or even backing out of our driveway without the fear of running into a snow bank (which we did a number of times last winter). I think it will probably grow on him, even if he'd never admit it.

If anything, it will be nice to realize that the pictures below are now a memory and not a reality.
Sorry, Cleveland.

On Being Early to Rise

Even in the times of my life where I've been more of a go-getter, I've never been much of a morning person.

It isn't so much that I don't like doing things in the morning; I probably prefer them. It's getting out of a warm, comfy bed that is somehow SO much better than it was when I got into it at night, and getting up when it's dark and chilly. Being up early is actually nice, when you can relax a little before doing something.

I slept in until 7 this morning, which is four hours later than the time I got up yesterday. Go ahead and do the math - I woke up at 3 in the morning three days this week and "slept in" until 4:30 on the others. I've been opening at work, or else I'd never find myself waking up that early. To me, anything before 5 is still nighttime; all the radio stations are playing at that time in the morning is "after midnight" broadcasts.

Surprisingly, as much as I hate dragging myself out of bed when it's still dark and still going to be dark for three more hours (thanks to Daylight Savings, it's not four), it's grown on me. I like that my drive to work is never full of traffic, and that I shave 5 or more minutes off my commute because every light magically turns green when you're the only car out there. I like that when I get there, I don't have to interact with anyone right away and that even when the first customer walks in the door, there probably won't be a line of people right away. I like seeing the sunrise every morning from the window at work (you can't see sunrises or sunsets from our little cave of an apartment). I like getting off work and getting to go visit my bed again because 4:30am shifts deserve a nap time.

This season probably won't be forever. I despair of it at times, because something inside me loves to make a big deal out of things that are not big deals, like interacting so much with people when I'm introverted. It's a season that has shown me that I CAN wake up early consistently and that I CAN go to bed early (going to bed has always been a struggle of mine and I can't figure out why). As far as work itself, it's shown me that I will survive talking to hundreds of people every day with a smile on my face. It's shown me that everyone is wrong, and I DO NOT need coffee to wake up early (I proudly drink mostly water at work, and sometimes a hot chocolate, but just because it's freezing and I would not enjoy drinking hot water).

In a month and a season where people are being more verbally thankful than other times of the year, I am thankful for my job. I'm thankful for the chance to grow in an area that is far from my strong suit in terms of a job, thankful for the character-building that getting up early provides, and thankful that I do have a job. I find that when I think about the positive things about my life, and particularly my job, instead of ALL the negative things I think there are, there's actually much to be thankful for.

I should make a list and hang it next to my warm comfy bed for the next early shift.

The Gospel is Greater

This is one of those "as I was thinking, I typed" kind of posts, which might make some sense, or it might not. I've written about a million of these, and usually keep them as drafts or delete them, but I wanted to post one, since I've gotten one or two comments on the topic recently.

--

I haven't shared about this specifically here, because I haven't really known how to do it, but since I've already begun, here we go. I lost a baby in June of 2012, which you probably recall. And if you read this blog but we haven't spoken about it in person, you've possibly wondered what's been happening in the last two years and four months in that regard. And the answer is... well, that wasn't my last loss. The most recent one is weighing heavy on my heart especially hard lately. He or she was to be due the 1st of November and a few of my friends are also due around this time, so I think the combination of it's been HOW long? and seeing their swollen bellies and thinking about what could have been is more real, because I have that physical reminder. Not that I'm upset by them, just reminded. If that makes sense.

Miscarriage is a strange, strange thing. I haven't been through enough in life to know what to compare it to, so I'm going to do my best. It's a loss, for sure. But not in the sense that you'd feel if your best friend died. Because honestly, you didn't know the little one. You never saw their face in real life, possibly never even heard their heartbeat. It doesn't really make sense that you would miss someone desperately without ever meeting them, but that's the paradox of miscarriage, in my experience. You aren't grieving what was, but what wasn't. And that's a strange thing because there's not a lot to compare it to to make it make sense in your head. It's difficult to talk to someone who's gone through that because you aren't sure how to approach it or if you should. And sometimes you just forget, because not having a tangible thing to talk to someone about or comfort them in is really, really difficult!

The things you miss the most are the things you can't actually miss:
You have no idea what they looked like, and you wish you knew.
You don't know if they were a girl or boy, although you may have felt one way or the other.
You don't know their real birthday, if you would have stuck with that original name choice once you saw them, how you would have reacted when they gasped their first breath of air.
You don't know who they might have become, or what they might have taught you.
You don't know first words, favorite colors, or if they would have loved books like you.

The whole thing is a mystery, and that's one thing that makes it so sad. There is nothing tangible but a pregnancy test I threw away long ago because that's gross. I long for tangible. I long to KNOW. Not only to know WHY, but to know who the child I've lost would be today. They would be nearly two years old at this point, which is crazy because my life is quite far removed from life would be as the mother of a one year old, and that makes me sad too.

A fear of mine in struggling with this is that I would lose my faith. That may sound strange, but I've heard of lots of people who have gone through something traumatizing (and we're talking serious stuff here) and then given up on God.

I see the reasoning. God is loving. God is good. God takes away (or doesn't prevent some outside source taking away) something good. ..God must not be good.

But actually that's not true. God doesn't arbitrarily hand out good things and bad things.

We live in a world that is broken. Death, disease, infertility, natural disasters, pain, hardship... these are all part of the collective human experience. Good has been broken by the bad. It's imperfect, this world. They aren't good.

But (I feel like this illustration has been done before), have you ever walked on a broken sidewalk before? The answer is likely yes. It's frustrating, because you have to look where you're going or risk breaking your leg, but sometimes there are little flowers growing out from the cracks. They don't fix the cracks. They can't make them go away, but it is such a neat contrast to me to see that little life springing up from the brokenness of the sidewalk.

This is when we bring Jesus into the picture, bet you saw it coming.

Jesus lived in this broken world. That's astonishing, if you sit down and ponder it. He's the Son of God and yet he entered earth the way we all do and lived almost like we all do. I say almost because he went through the same experience without sin. He was tempted, and didn't sin. And He died on a cross in His sinless state, giving the broken world hope. Why is this hope? Because a broken world can't be fixed with Elmer's Glue. All the green grass and flowers in the world can't cover up the fact that there are murderers and that there is pain and that things happen that shouldn't. They almost make it seem more hopeless, because they fail and show us what a dump we live in.

When Jesus died on the cross, He brought hope. The lives we were living before were hurtling toward a very bleak future. Brokenness that would end and become eternal brokenness with no chance of escape. Jesus' death doesn't offer to fix the broken sidewalk, per se, but a future hope of being able to live and breathe freely in a way we cannot understand. His death has given life to us, because although we only have a small glimpse of what lies ahead, we have something truly -- and in its fullest sense -- GOOD to look forward to - a world that is whole and perfect.

I cling to that hope because I feel that I have to. It's really all I have to go on in life, because without the hope that Jesus brought and that Jesus IS, I would be left in brokenness. I would be left not knowing, without the slightest hope that maybe one day all would be reconciled.

I hate brokenness. I hate that I experience pain, that I've lost a baby. I hate that you go through it too and that there are not only sad things, but terrible ones going on in this world. I despise what could happen in this world.

And yet I am not worried. I am not fearful for the future as a whole because I believe that Jesus is real. I believe that He is who He said He was and that He will bring reconciliation. There are temporary things we can hope in that bring comfort, but ultimately, I see putting my faith in Him alone as the safest thing I can hope to look forward to.

Whether I do have children of my own one day or not -- as much as I don't like to think about that -- God is good. I can't deny that. I would need to deny everything I've ever said about Him

Friends with Babies [Weekend in Beaufort]

I haven't visited Beaufort this much since I lived there! Living in Florida is making visits "home" so much easier and more frequent! This past weekend, I went up for a very special friend's special day, and got to spend time with another very dear friend. I'm thankful that the friendships begun while in Beaufort haven't tapered off even though I haven't lived there in six years. Both of the ladies I got to spend time with have moved around as well and our lives don't look quite as they did way back when, but somehow, we still find ourselves picking up where we left off and enjoying time together, no matter how much time has passed.

Brooke has been my friend since we were eight years old. We planned our weddings when we were ten (I wanted pastel butterflies to be released at mine... a fact which she shared in her speech at my decidedly butterfly-free wedding eleven years later), expecting then that we would be each other's maid-of-honor. We were, and we got married the same summer, only ten weeks apart (her wedding, more pictures). Suffice it to say, we'd discussed marriage and babies for years and years. On my birthday this year, I got a little envelope in my birthday gift from her with a picture of a positive pregnancy test and a note to "Aunt Lindsay". Over the following months, Brooke kept me updated on her pregnancy, but I didn't get to see her in person until recently. At the end of August, there was a baby shower for her in Beaufort and I was able to drive up for the weekend to be there. 

It was incredibly crazy to feel baby Kauffman kicking around in there, and to see my friend of eighteen years with that mysterious pregnancy glow. 

We had dinner that night after the shower in downtown Beaufort (at Plums) and took our "year" picture there (previous year pictures here).

We finished out the evening by sitting on one of the swings, enjoying the summer breeze over the water and talking about life.

Jillian is my only friend who still lives in the Beaufort area. She lives in Savannah, which is about 45 minutes away, and is close enough to see whenever we're up there. I got together with Jillian and her sweet little daughter Graceanna downtown after church the next day. We walked around talking and laughing at Gracie's antics. Jillian and I have been friends for ten years now, and though we weren't friends as children, she's been a significant part of my life for a long time. We started off in writing class together my sophomore year of high school; I drove everyone there since I was the only one old enough (my two-door Civic was named "the bus" because of that), and that class launched some great friendships. She and I have been to China and Ukraine together, taught a junior high Sunday School class together, spent the entire summer before we were married hanging out, and were in each other's weddings. She's visited me in Spokane and in Cleveland, I've visited her in Virginia, she is planning to visit me in Tallahassee, and no matter where we've lived, she has been a great encouragement. I love that she lives close to Beaufort now and is easier to see on a regular basis. 

Gracie and Jillian in front of the house where Jillian had her wedding reception four and a half years ago.

With a baby asleep in the backseat, we hit the McDonalds drive-thru for some ice cream - I was happy to accommodate my pregnant friend's craving.

The Church

Disclaimer: This post is sort of how I'm feeling right now, but not expressed perfectly, and not exactly what I want to say. If you have a grain of salt, take this with it.

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The number one thing that was holding us back from fully deciding if we wanted to move to Tallahassee or stay in Cleveland was our church.

I'm certain I've written about it before, but we never hunted for a church in Cleveland. Before we moved from Spokane to Cleveland, we were living in intern housing at our Spokane church. Some of our best friends in Spokane, John and Rachel, lived in that building as well, one apartment over. Rachel, it turns out, is from northeast Ohio, and her older brother Evan, it turned out, had moved back to Cleveland a few months earlier. Evan was willing to give us pointers on where to live in Cleveland before we'd ever met... and one day he called Carson and asked if I'd like a job, which is how I got my job in Cleveland. He told us about his church, which sounded good, but we weren't sure about it.

Well, Carson went to church there on our first Sunday in Ohio (I was a loser and slept, since I was in a wedding that weekend, just two days after moving, and EXHAUSTED). He came back and told me that he'd found the church for us. I didn't believe him, since I assumed that would be one of the most difficult parts of settling in.

I was wrong, and we never shopped around for churches because we really found a home there. It was almost a year old at the time, full of life and breathing out the gospel. We couldn't wait to be a part of it. We joined Cory and Jasmine's community group and made great friends there. We were sad when they asked us to leave that to start our own, which grew both of us and also made our experience at Gateway Heights what it is. Through the church, we were ministered to, able to serve, built great friendships, and grew to love the city of Cleveland. I cried more leaving Cleveland after a year and ten months than I did leaving Spokane, our home of four years. We loved our people in Spokane, but we felt like we were a part of something in Cleveland.

We knew that "church shopping" was something we'd do in Tallahassee, and we have. With the exception of the Sunday that we moved here and the Sunday we went to church in Ocala, we've visited a different church each Sunday. And... it's difficult. Though we look the churches up online and even listen to sample sermons, it's not the same as visiting a church in person.

The church is not a building. It's people, individuals with struggles and joys and different personalities and strengths. Searching for a church here has honestly been a little frustrating. We were hoping to find a church that loved Jesus and talked about Him before all other things. Instead, we've gone to a few that sugarcoat the gospel or make the whole thing out to be about humans. The people we've come across have largely been very friendly, and the preaching has mostly been okay.

With a TON of churches left to check out, I'm sure we will find something that exemplifies Jesus and encourages us to run the race well. And for the record, the ones we've visited haven't been "bad", but they really haven't given us much to be excited for either.

But all in all, it makes us very thankful for what we had in both Spokane and Cleveland. We don't want to go to church because that's what's expected of "good Christians". We want to be a part of a church that is living in light of the gospel. I am thankful for church leaders, and those who follow them, who pursue Christ in a way that makes others want to follow him also.

A Future Hope

It seems like so much has happened in the course of just two years. Our time in Cleveland hadn't even started two years ago and here we are, one week away from a move to Florida.

Two years ago today, we lost our first baby.

When I think about it, those long two years seem not so long ago after all. The pain and emotion of that day two years ago will stick with me forever.

Though I've lost three babies, the first has been the one I grieved the most. With that pregnancy, I had complete hope and almost no fear. I was excited and happy. With the others, what I'd experienced plagued the back of my brain. Every semi-abnormal thing became a point of alarm, to the point where Carson found me weeping on the floor one afternoon, terrified of what might happen. Crying again, when it did. It's been a good two years, but also difficult. Marked with more sadness than I've ever experienced in my admittedly easy life.

I never got to hold any of those babies, or even see them in an ultrasound. I wonder all the time, what would that have been like? How would I have felt at the first listen of a heartbeat, the first glimpse on a blurry screen, feeling those first kicks?

It's that way though, I think. When we grieve, we grieve the memories, the tangible. When an unborn child is lost, there isn't much to hold onto. It's the grieving of what might have been, memories that could have been made: first birthdays, first steps, loose teeth. All I've experienced of motherhood has been nausea, food aversion and sleeplessness, and still, I long for that again. Amidst those not-fun experiences was something greater. There was the hope that one day, I would see a sweet little red-faced baby screaming as his lungs breathed on their own for the first time, hold him close and calm him. For someone who never heard so much as a heartbeat, I loved, and I longed for the day when I got to see that love face to face.

I can't stop there without talking about the hope that I really have. Because of miscarriage, I have become more aware of the grace of God in my life.
I know that we live in a broken world. Because of this, there is sin, there is pain, there is loss like we shouldn't have experienced. I know that there is more. I know that through the brokenness, God desires to make new. I know that He heals, and makes complete. Through the death of His own perfect Son Jesus, God not only experienced loss, but He also made new. Because of the cross, I can rest in the promise that God will restore all of creation. The world itself continues to be broken and full of pain. But there is more waiting. I know that I will one day spend my days in eternity, and I'll see Him face to face.

Despite the sadness and the brokenness I've become more aware of in the past two years, I've also been more convinced of the truth of the gospel. I am more aware that God is who He says He is. I know that I have a peace and a hope in Christ that I find nowhere else. Two years later, I find myself still struggling, still having difficult days, but ultimately more aware that I live for a future hope found in Christ.

No storm can shake our inmost calm

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of Heaven and earth,

How can I keep from singing?

(song found here)

Life in Boxes

When it came to moving this summer, I just couldn't get my brain there. I mean, we WERE moving, but looking at houses, searching for jobs, even doing "lasts" here in Cleveland were the last thing on my mental checklist. Right after we decided on Florida, Emily and Jillian came to visit, then two weeks later I went to Florida, then a week later Carson's parents came and he graduated... and THEN I knew I would be able to focus on the task at hand.

But now that I'm mentally "there", this is a weird time.

I took the pictures off the walls the other afternoon and didn't cry, but felt like it, which honestly for me was a really big step. "It's now! We're moving now! This is it!" my brain said, making me sadder with each piece of yellow duct tape I tore.

Lots of people take the pictures down last because it feels like home right up to that moment, but I honestly wanted that. When we moved from Spokane, I didn't get emotional at all about it. I wouldn't let myself, so in a lot of ways transitioning to life in a new place was that much more difficult for me.

For years, it's been difficult to be vulnerable and open with my emotions. Even when alone, it's hard to sit there and cry without mentally reminding myself to "suck it up". One of many things I've learned in the past couple of years is that grief and pain and sadness are not bad. Dwelling on one's problems isn't a great way to cope with things, but neither is pretending that everything's great.

Our community group and church here has been such a blessing to me in this area. Having to be honest with my struggles has been a struggle in itself, but also a great point of growth in my life. I've learned that I haven't regretted letting people in when I was going through a hard time. It would have been really easy to talk about something that sounded good, instead of opening up and telling my friends what was really going on, but I'm thankful that I did. Before, I've put things I've thought about in writing only, as I'm not really a verbal processor, but my small group has seen me stumble through saying a lot of nothing to say what I mean. It's been good. The notebooks and random Word documents I used to confide in have nothing on real live people.

So honestly, as I sit here with dozens of piles of stuff to pack and dozens of taped boxes surrounding me, I'm going to admit that I'm sad to lose what I have here. I'm sad that the life I'm putting into boxes won't be the exact same life I live in Florida. Oh, I'll get over that. I'll meet people and hopefully have a great community there, but I'm sad to come to the end of this one. I'm sad that no matter how many times I visit, I won't be doing life with the same people I've been around. I'm sad that instead of people knowing me and sort of knowing what I'm NOT saying, I'll have to start all over with new people.

The truth is that we've done it before. When we unpacked our boxes in Cleveland, we thought that there was no way in the world we'd have anything close to what we had during four years in Spokane. In our almost-two years in Cleveland, it's true... we don't have what we had in Spokane. We had Cleveland. And I realize that sounds all kinds of cheesy. But it's a good reminder and something to look forward to.

We aren't going to have the same life we have here when we move. It might seem better, or it might seem worse, but it's got its own set of experiences. It's what makes life interesting, and it's a reason to be thankful for the seasons we've gone through and the chapters that have come before and are to come.

We Move in One Month!

With one month exactly until we leave this state, I've been reflecting a lot on our time here.

In August of 2012, we moved to the Cleveland area with a pretty good idea of how long we'd be around. We moved here purely for school, so we'd stay until the summer of 2014, after Carson graduated. Our plan was to pursue more schooling for Carson after John Carroll, and either go to a PhD program afterward, move overseas for some sort of fellowship program or look for a teaching position that was hopefully in a great place. We prayed that our short time here would be meaningful and that we'd make friends and find a good church, but honestly we went into the time here blindly because it didn't matter. We were here for school.

Our time in Ohio has been great. The winters were absolutely terrible and I'm sure that's something I will never forget, but as I think of our time here, that's not what I think about. My biggest prayer for Cleveland was for the relationships we'd make here. I hoped for even just one good friend, and a church experience we could look back on and not hate. My expectations were, clearly, quite low.

We never visited a church outside of Gateway Heights Church. Our initial impression was that the church was going to be "too cool" for us. The people were young, the music was good... but we learned quickly that young people and good music doesn't indicate a church that's shallow (we sound like we're 85 years old). The preaching was solid. The people were SO friendly and welcoming. The music wasn't just good, but the lyrics were worshipful and the style of worship wasn't overdone and too showy or emotional. We joined the church as quickly as we could, and I've never regretted that decision. After attending a community group for the first semester, we were asked to branch off and start our own because the group we were in was overflowing. I hated that we were doing that at first... but as you know, I've been so blessed over and over again by the group that meets in our living room on Mondays.

Cleveland has shown us the beauty of the church. When it was time to make the decision about Florida State, the ONLY thing holding us back was that we wanted to keep Gateway Heights. This is the thing I will miss the most about Cleveland.

Cleveland also provided lots to do. I can't remember what made me do it, but fairly soon after we moved here, I made a bucket list of things to do in the city. That list has continued to grow since we've lived here, and even when people have visited, we haven't been able to get to all the things we wanted to show them because there really is a lot to do. That surprised us, and as we finish these next few weeks, we have several things left to wrap up on the "Cleveland list". We've gone to baseball games, parks, Amish country, ridden roller coasters and driven up to Niagara Falls while living here. With a slightly more disposable income, our weekend trips could have been elaborate, but even for a graduate student's salary the things we've done have been pretty great.

All in all, the twenty-one months we've spent in Cleveland have been great. Our time here has been rich, and it feels like we've lived here much longer than we have because of the relationships we have and the things we've been able to do.

When the Grass is Greener

It's really easy to have the "grass is greener" mentality.

I find myself struggling with that a lot. We live in a way that's different from most of the people that we know. For our entire relationship, either Carson or I have been in school, and that's our plan for the foreseeable future. Since it's been that way since the beginning, it's just a part of life for us. Most days, I get to see Carson for only 10 or 15 minutes (and often it's the 10 or 15 minutes before I rush out the door at 6am so it's not really TIME), and that's hard, but it's also very normal.

We've had a few conversations about this recently, because we've caught ourselves in the mindset of thinking that we deserve to live our lives one way, when really, we forget that we're in a different place. And we don't DESERVE to live a certain way just because we think we should, since the world doesn't actually revolve around us (darn).

Being in the student phase of life while lots of people around us have moved on can be frustrating. Our free time isn't quite as free; our wallets aren't quite as open; our time together is often short and... not sweet, just time enough to say "How was your day, did you have time to do the dishes? No? I was at work/school all day please do them". And that's sometimes life. I would document that more often, but neither of us are in the mood for taking a picture in the midst of an argument about WHO ATE ALL THE PICKLES. Which hasn't actually happened, but totally would because we only fight about things that matter, and pickles are obviously very rare and hard to come by and that's a worthy argument.

It was a little easier when we were in the bubble of being in college. Our friends had classes at random times, tiny little budgets and crappy cars, just like we did. And now, lots of people we know have set schedules (we have never once had one so I feel like this would actually be weird for us) and paychecks that are both regular and decent.
We are provided for, and of course well off compared to a large portion of the world, but sometimes we see what people around us have or are able to do and wonder why we don't. Why do they get more free time? Oh right, school. Why do they get to go on weekend trips anywhere and we barely see each other on weekends? Oh yes, school. Why do they have two cars and we have one and it's old and doesn't have air conditioning? Oh yes, school (and really, it runs fine, it's just really ugly at this point).

It's very easy to look at the people around us and assume that they don't struggle like we do. And they might not in EXACTLY the same way, but I've learned that everyone has insecurities.

We easily overlook the fact that we are in this stage of life for a really specific reason. For some reason, God put a LOVE of higher education inside Carson. He walks to school reading a book (this is true - I haven't witnessed it but I have friends who have passed him somehow holding his book and journeying to school - don't bother mentioning safety) and spends his free time reading books and has piles of books in the basement and piles of books under the bed and shelves of books all over and books on the table all the time.

I digress, but God gave him not just a love but an unquenchable thirst - a passion - for learning, and he's been given the opportunity to pursue that. And not just to pursue it but to not have to pay for it, which is such a blessing, because we don't have to worry about that. In so many ways, we have been blessed in the life we lead, the very life we aren't always thankful about.

 God provided a great house that was bigger than we needed, and we're able to use it to host people every week. We have amazing friends and a wonderful community within a church that exceeded our expectations. We have a car that has miraculously lasted us 4.5 years, taken us on many trips, without needing major work. We've been able to see family several times since we live a little closer, we have never missed a rent payment, and I work in a place that gives me great benefits and flexible hours for when Carson does get a free evening.

When we look at the hand God HAS dealt us, it's easy to see that we are actually very blessed and quite fortunate. When we look at the lives He's given other people, we see what we don't have. That's a convicting thought, to realize that in our very noses are blessings far better than we deserve, but we're complaining about them, sad because we aren't "successful" by our definition. In reality, as Christians we shouldn't be making that definition up ourselves. Our hope is in Christ. Our lives are secure in Him. On top of that, we don't want for anything.