If Only for Today

I wrote recently about our non-move.  Moving from living in the downstairs level of this house while a very patient and gracious family lived upstairs; to living throughout the entire house once they moved on.  

I have painted some and have moved the furniture around, but my head has had a hard time wrapping around the potential temporary situation that this could be... yet again. When I was married and we lived in military housing, I was always in a place of awareness that each home was temporary. I jumped in to decorating with energy and excitement and had curtains and pictures hung before my kitchen was functional. Beauty, and comfort, and a feeling of 'home' was so important to me, and I made each home feel as much like mine as I could.  I got creative with what I had, and learned how I like to display my art and photographs.  I have thought over the last months that I would do the same thing in this house too… and yet here I sit.  No curtains, only a few sparse pieces of art hung, and not a single family photograph.  I am busier and a bit more tired than I used to be as I parent alone and work very hard to provide, but I know that those reasons alone aren't the issue.  I realized this week that my footing in my future is unsure, and it's been hard to allow my heart to really settle into this space when I have no idea if we will get to stay for a year, or three, or ten.  I'm getting on my feet as a single mom and figuring out how to make this life work for us, and my first step was to sign a year lease. I will push through and somehow find a way to make the payments month by month, but at the end of this year, it's possible that I will find that it is too much for me to handle on my own, and I need to find a place that won't stretch me as far, and it's also possible that the homeowners will choose to sell.  They are building a family, and the landlord business isn't as glamorous as it looks on television. But it's also possible that I will be ok, and they will choose not to sell yet, and I get to keep staying, and at the risk of sounding like the Perpetual Pollyanna that I am, it's also potentially possible that I could buy this house on my own one day.

So here I sit. In the tension yet again of what is and what might be… and try to muster up the motivation to pull the house together and make it mine.
I know part of the struggle for me is fear. I've faced a lot of that recently, as waves of different emotions cycle back and demand attention at various times in this process of moving on. I have struggled with anger (which for me is often an outward display of fear and lack of control) as I settle in to the powerful realization that this is my reality. My real, no escaping it, true life.  I am on my own. There is no backup when I'm tired of correcting the kids, there is no person to tap out to when I just can't be the one to make one.more.decision. There is no financial rescue with another adult to share all these expenses with, and there is no partner to laugh or cry with at the end of the day about the often ridiculous things that happen in this crazy parenting journey.  In many ways, I'm ok with this.  I've embraced it, and am blessed and grateful for the handful of amazing girlfriends I have who listen and encourage me regularly.  I have friends who offer to help or help get school supplies, or remind me that I'm doing a good job. For all of those gifts, I'm humbled and thankful.

This process of a dying marriage, and building a new life is planted on one common theme: I have zero control over anything.  All that comes my way is filtered through grace; and each dollar, each gentle and peace-filled moment are direct God given smiles and gifts to me as I learn that while I am alone… I can't do this alone.  I have to let people in, I have to ask for help, I have to allow my children to see me cry at times, seeing that my heart is sad too.  I have to embrace today, even if tomorrow we have to pack it all up and move to yet another home. I need to live with my heart all in… knowing that this is the only childhood my children will ever get- and the weight of making it as solid as possible rests on me.
So today, after a day of hiking and swimming in the river- a summer day built for childhood- I will come home and begin to pull out some photographs. To place our heritage on these walls, marking it as ours, even if only for today.

First… this.

I have been paralyzed from writing since the ISIS horror in Iraq has been so much in my face. Anything I could think of to pen seemed self serving, or petty, or small, in light of the trauma that is lying on top of a whole culture of people on the other side of the world.

But the reality is, I don't want to blog about it. I don't want to give my opinions or bleed my sadness across the page.  I still feel helpless, I still feel broken, and grieved, and heavy hearted.  The only remedy for that, as I sit a world away with little to offer my brothers and sisters in humanity as they suffer evil daily, is to pray.  I have been in women's groups where I've shared details. I've been in several prayer meetings where we talked, and prayed, and cried.  But I can't do it here. It might be cowardice or fear, but I have nothing to say other than to ask you to not forget. To not hide in your own daily stressors and pretend that you don't know. We DO know. And pray we must. If you have money? Please give. They're asking for our help. If you have extra time? Pray more. Educate yourself. Remember. Do not let helplessness and fear keep you from the power you do have- to give and to pray. Those things hold more value than we can ever know this side of death. 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -Edmond Burke 

*You can follow Canon Andrew White on FB. He is on the ground as a minister in Baghdad and gives info that is different than what the media shares. It helps to see his photos and read his updates and know how best to pray and give. You can find him here:

https://www.facebook.com/apbw2?fref=ts

Living in the Tension

Yesterday a few guys came to the house to help me truly move in.  The other family moved out in the middle of July, but I wanted to paint some, and needed some muscles to move around our furniture and to bring in some large pieces that I had in the garage.  Until yesterday, we were all still living downstairs for the most part. 
 I scribbled their names onto a box in my calendar for August 6th. They came to serve me with kindness and skill and in a few short hours, the house was looking like home. 

After they left, I sat at my antique farm table and stared out through the big front window.  The amazing reality of giving my children their own space again and moving into my own bedroom for the first time in 20 months was settling in.  I breathed deeply with the realization that we are truly on our own, and sat in the serenity for about 3.6 seconds before anxiety tried to barrel in with guns blazing. 

Nothing about my life makes sense on paper right now. Financially, my life is a mystery. I do the best each month with what I have, I do the work I'm given to do, and somehow, by some incredible miracle, each month everything is taken care of that we truly need. I have yet to get to the end of my resources and I haven't yet had to ask for help. We've been without my ex-husband now for 22 months. Some months have brought surprise money in the mail from friends who felt like sending me a bit extra. Other times, I've received food, or gift cards, hand me down clothing, or toys. Several times, I have even opened the mail box to find a care package filled with treats and surprises for me to encourage my weary heart.  Somehow, God takes the little I have and stretches it in such a way that there haven't been any cracks. But our minds can be a scary place to linger, and in that moment after the guys had left, and my kids had scattered to their own spaces, I began to rehearse how utterly ridiculous I must be to think that I could do this alone.  The joy of being in my own space was robbed by the anxiety that lurked, ready to pounce into massive disastrous thinking.  In the span of a few seconds, the track record God has in my life of providing for us was smashed under the weight of the fear I let descend upon my heart.  

I talked with a dear friend later in the day. She has been a single mother for several years now after a 25 year marriage dissolved when he chose to walk out.  She has been an example to me of learning to do with less than she ever dreamed and yet seeing her needs be met as she goes.  I told her that the fear of knowing tomorrow could hold complete financial disaster was a heavy burden to bear.  But as I spoke the words aloud, I finished the thought by saying, the reality is all of us are one moment away from disaster or destruction. None of us are immune to difficulty or struggle, it is just that living the lives that we have, we are more acutely aware of it on a daily basis.  We live in the tension of the now.  We don't have the luxury of planning for much, or banking the excess for future calamity.  We have the responsibility of weighing this day's choices and needs against the near future that we know will bring more want.  Just today I was faced with the decision of whether or not to buy the epipen I now need to carry as this year has revealed a bee allergy.  It was hundreds of dollars, and I've put off picking it up because the amount made me anxious. Today I had the money. So today I chose to get it.  I know that in one month I might wish for the money I spent today, but knowing the power in that life saving medication, and having the money for this day, I made the best choice I could make for today. I'm slowly learning the lesson of doing the best I can with what I have and trusting that I will get enough grace, enough mercy, enough provision for the next day, and the next, and the next.  

My Dad sent me this quote today, and it's an eloquent statement about living in the now, in that tension of living as we go:

"The heart of spirituality isn't safety and security. Instead, it is what Dorothy Day called 'precarity.' In the mind of most, precarity (or precariousness) is a bleak state of uncertainty and danger. The word connotes instability, poverty, marginalization, and the absence of a safety net....It also suggests radical dependence: the Latin 'precarious' is the state of being dependent on another's will, being upheld or sustained by another's force. So a spirituality centered on precarity acknowledges the radical uncertainty or contingency of human existence and our utter dependence on God." — Kerry Walters in Jacob's Hip: Finding God in an Anxious Age

The beauty of living in precarity is that I am faced with a simple choice. Either I trust that God is who He says He is, and He will provide for me and my family, or I fight it and try to conjure up miracles for myself. I don't have a good track record of creating something out of nothing. I haven't yet figured out how to open doors for work and influence when there seems to be no knob on the door. I do have almost 2 years and a notebook filled with line after line where I've documented the incredible ways my family has been seen, cared for, loved, and provided for. I still don't know how this will work. My rent is up now in this house, and I'm truly on my own. But each day brings what I need for that day. Each job I'm offered, each bit of mana I'm showered with has been enough. My Mother's heart longs to race ourselves out of this place of precarity, and yet the beautiful, miraculous story that is being written is one I would never have experienced otherwise. I'm learning to sit in that tension of precarity, and choosing daily to fling my hope and faith on the one who has seen me.