I wake up in the night and the back of my left arm is irritated. Taped down against my skin is a small filament that measures the sugar in my interstitial fluid. This device is a medical marvel but at 2:30am the desire to rip it out is strong. I do it, knowing that within the next day I must recharge the transmitter and move the site anyhow. Lights bright in my bathroom, I pull out alcohol from the cabinet and lightly clean the slightly inflamed CGM site wondering how many spots like this will dot my body by the time the next tech comes out. Scar dots all over.

I’m up before the fam. Everyday I’m up before them, and now I contemplate where the next CGM site will be, rotating mentally from arm to arm to stomach (no), boob (giant no), and thighs. The company that manufactures my supplies doesn’t approve of the thigh, but it offers a lot of real estate. I also have to use this area for my once-a-month two-syringe stabbing for rheumatoid arthritis so, mindful of that unfun task, I swab with alcohol again, load up the sensor into a device, and click the button against my leg. I feel nothing.

I’m oddly proud of this process. The positioning, the taping, the looking for a green light, the applying of more tape. It was so hard to do at first that I would sweatily stand over a manual, flipping pages and breathing heavily before making the next move. As with any repetitious action, it got easier over time and today I only misplaced one piece of tape. I can now problem solve most issues on my own. And that I did this morning as my pump didn’t recognize the transmitter for awhile. I faithfully read users’ experiences with this system however. I troll a Facebook page daily, reading up on problems and solutions, and their wisdom (and folly) has kept me afloat. There’s an 800 number, a trainer’s phone number, an endocrinologist’s office also on standby, but I’d rather not call any of them if I can work it out. Today I succeed. Each success is like a little firework saying “I got this.”

I’m glad for those small fireworks because there’s so much I absolutely don’t got. For instance, the deeper I embrace medical technology equals my complete dependence on the company that sells me the parts. I play a game in my head where I whittle down my needs to the bare minimum. I could get by with insulin and a syringe and a glucometer. That’s the minimum. I’m far beyond that at the moment however; there are a lot of moving parts to my new bionic self. To get those parts, I must have great insurance and I must be involved in a lot of plastic and cardboard packaging. Why do I value independence so much? Why does it bother me that I rely so heavily on this one company and how they function? I think deep within my psyche I’m a survivalist, always looking to move freely and without damaging the land. Ha! It’s time to let that fantasy go, girl. I’m the opposite of a survivalist. In all those apocalyptic tv shows and movies? I’d just say “nah” and take off the blindfold or go hug a zombie or whatever. Type 1’s, even hopeful ones, are realists.

So now there’s a sensor and its accompanying transmitter taped down on my thigh. It’s Day One of the sensor—good for a week officially (and more than that unofficially if you’re savvy). Day One is nuts between transmitter re-charging time, a two-hour warm up time, multiple calibrations, and blood sugar checks. Reminder to self: turn off the pump’s audio during church. Last week I got a few nice alarms during prayer that I didn’t appreciate. I am grateful times a thousand for this technology, but I’m still coming to terms with it. I’m different because of it. I have a dedicated section of my brain to problem-solving all those alarms, and it’s intimately connected to the brain parts dedicated to the rest of diabetes. Basically, I have a mere 10% of my brain for the rest of life. So far so good. Despite all the challenges, every night as I sleep this new system charts something incredible on the screen of my pump: a flat line. We T1s joke that it’s the only medical flat line anyone actually wants to see. I sleep and my glucose sits between 100 and 120 all night long.

That never happened before.

This little system, so obnoxious with it’s alarms and unexpected moments of troubleshooting lets me fall asleep without being afraid of dropping into a low blood sugar and never waking up. I never even knew I was holding my breath with that fear until I used the pump to its fullest capacity at the start of December. Two months in and I am still marveling.

I’m dependent on insulin.
I’m dependent on my pump company.
I carry a bag everywhere I go.
And multiple sources of sugar are always nearby.
I don’t leave meals to chance.
I need to know how much exercise is involved in everything I do.

And yet, here I am. Dependently alive. Alive and happy to be so. Thank you, God.

Today I am grateful that the God of all creation—the one who made me as well as the grasses at Holmes Lake—loves me as a Father.

6 A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass,
and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
7 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
8 The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”
9 You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[c]
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
“Here is your God!”
10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
and his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
he gently leads those that have young.

– Isaiah 40:1-11

Anthony Bourdain ended his own life today. And Kate Spade—though I really only recognized her name at first—commited suicide a few days ago. But it’s Bourdain’s death that feels the most cutting to me.

I’m down about it. I feel shrouded in grief this morning and it seems so… dumb… in a way. I mean, I didn’t know the man personally. But something in me was formed through Anthony Bourdain. Maybe not “formed” but definitely more understood. At some point I began reading kitchen/restaurant/food books with a passion. I think it started with Ruth Reichl, but Bourdain was right in there among the first I read. I felt like I had this interesting window into the world of kitchen creatives. I loved hearing them talk about food, write about food, describe food, and I especially loved the remarkable communities built in kitchens. I think this is why Ratatouille is my favorite Pixar film. The toughness of kitchen workers is a trope built in reality, and it was Bourdain who revealed that life to me best. I like to cook just fine—it’s not my calling in this world—but I can read and enjoy cooking books like no one’s business.

I also love travel stories, and Bourdain has long combined his loves of food and traveling to open people’s eyes to the beauty of this planet. I’ve watched him travel all over, his lanky frame and kind-yet-rebellious attitude intriguing me as much as the locales he featured. He was always drinking. Always smoking. Very badass, but it was easy to see the heart underneath the gruffness. By the point I was watching his shows I was a full-fledged adult, so I could also see the heartache underneath the rough exterior. It almost felt too personal, this watching him be tough and insecure all at once.

When I woke up today to news that he had died, I immediately hoped for something reminiscent of Steve Irwin. Perhaps Bourdain died in a plane crash or a bus accident on location for a shoot. Maybe a bad case of food poisoning? No, it was a demon he couldn’t shake. Something that left him so hopeless that life seemed utterly unbearable. The man had been married twice, had a daughter who is only 11. I read a headline recently that he had a new girlfriend and seemed quite happy. No one who read Bourdain’s books or watched him on tv would be surprised that he had demons, but I think we’re all taken aback by news of his death today. What did he have to live for? Us. He has US. We toured the world with him, tasted street foods with him, drank too much vodka with him, and woke up the next day ready to get on a plane and do it all again somewhere else. He had us.

Suicide cannot win, folks. It just cannot win. In a message thread with my brothers I said that suicide reminds me of a book whose last chapters have been ripped out or set on fire. They just don’t exist. Suicide leaves a giant gaping hole where a life should have been. It’s absolutely wrong. It’s empty. You’ve got all the suddenness of a plane crash but the cause is… what now? It’s a lot of nothing. It’s the entire world looking at Anthony Bourdain in the face and saying, “You have us. We like you a lot. We see better because you exist. Now is not the time for you to be done.”

And yet, he is done.

The last chapters have vanished, and there’s only grief left to fill them.

————————————————

Suicide is heartbreaking and mental illness is no joke. Reach out to someone who loves you if you’re having darkness that you can’t shake, and if you can’t reach them or they can’t help you, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. You are worthy of life and love. Suicide is not the answer.

This winter is killing me softly with its song. And its song includes grey skies, continued snowfall and icy rains, and cold temps that make me long for a hot bath every night around 6 o’clock. I’ve run into multiple people who’ve informed me that “this time last year we had 70 degree weather.” This fact does not make me feel more chipper about our seemingly never-ending winter. I am aware that March is just around the corner and I’m holding fiercely to the fact that seasons will change quite soon. But sometimes you’ve got to find creative ways to dig out from the cold funk, and this is what I had in mind when I texted Renae this past week. Cameras in hand, we found some green. And then found some sushi. And my spirits were delightfully lifted.

All photos taken in the lovely and new-to-me Mulhall’s Greenhouse in Omaha, Nebraska. Not only did I get my fill of green and actually got warm enough to discard my winter coat, we also both came home with some cute little pots for succulents. This store is wonderful. Please go visit them and chase away your own winter blues.

Hooray hooray hooray! I finished my seminary semester yesterday morning with an exam (my cohorts were a-mazing and encouraging and we did a great job collectively!) and after having a celebratory lunch and a celebratory nap, I braved Super Target at dinnertime to both replenish our pantry and buy ingredients for dinner. We needed to eat something besides fast food, and my body felt sure it required a vegetable. And since I, the resident chef, loves soups, this recipe was a winner. I picked out Kale, Sausage & White Bean Stew from Jenny Rosenstrach’s Dinner: A Love Story and that was that. Livia did not exactly love it, but she ate it. She said the french bread tasted bitter—which honestly made me question my own taste buds and, man, am I losing my tasting abilities now that I’m 40??–so I dolloped some strawberry jam on her already-buttered slices and called it good. Feeding children is a game, right? I wanted to “win” by not having her ask for a snack before bed. It’s bean soup and bread or NOTHING, my friend. It worked, all was well, I had a mom win, amen.

One last thing… if you’re curious about the word “koselig” read my first blog entry in this series. Really, this series began as a justification for my Le Creuset purchase. It’s all worked out well, I’ll admit.

Kale, Sausage & White Bean Stew

1 onion, chopped
3 T olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
S&P, to taste
1/2 t red pepper flakes
4-6 links (about 1.25lb) Italian chicken or pork sausage, casings removed
1-32oz chicken broth
1-14oz can diced tomatoes
2-14oz cans cannellini beans, rinsed & drained
1 bunch kale, washed, stems removed, chopped into small pieces
Drizzle of red wine vinegar (about 2 T)
Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Saute onion in a Dutch oven over med-high heat until softened, about 3 minutes. Add garlic, s&p, pepper flakes and cook, stirring 1 minute.

Add in sausage and brown until cooked through, 4-5 minutes. Add the broth, tomatoes and beans. Bring to a boil. Add kale, simmer until wilted, about 3 minutes. Stir in a drizzle of red wine vinegar and serve stew with parmesan cheese and crusty bread.

**I substituted 1lb milk pork sausage for the links, and—gasp!—didn’t have any garlic in my pantry but made do with garlic powder.

Running late to a doctor’s appointment, I still had a folder’s worth of new patient information to fill out. A personality quirk of mine is that I enjoy filling out forms, so I was buzzing along at a breakneck pace, answering questions that had obvious answers, until I hit the one that always throws me for a loop. Occupation. My pen hovered above the form, hesitant at even knowing the correct answer. Birthdate, spouse, medication amounts. Those things all have concrete answers, but this one? What did I feel like saying today?

Photographer. No, I’ve reduced my photography work back to the very infrequent photoshoot and am now shooting for the sheer pleasure of it because…

Student. Is taking one class per semester a reason to fill in the blank with this word? I mean, it is a graduate program so it takes up a substantial part of my thinking power each day, but no, this doesn’t work…

Writer. Nah. Writing, too, is now simply for fun. Or for school. But it’s not a paid endeavor. Hmm, are there any paid endeavors for me right now? No, I actually pay people to teach me stuff.

Church volunteer. Probably the truest description of my days, but it feels awfully weird to put that on a form for the doctor’s office.

SAHM.

Those four little letters put together do not make me feel awesome about life if I am honest. When I am dropping off a 7th grader for a large portion of the day, dare I call myself a Stay At Home Mom? It brings to mind bon bons and The Price is Right. Being a woman of leisure who buys only the cutest in athletic clothing, but rarely uses it to work out. It’s perusing Target more times than makes sense, being a lady who lunches, taking luxurious naps after all that exhausting work of shopping and eating.

Uh, wait a minute. I do take naps. Scratch that last one. I also really enjoy lunches. And Target. Okay, whatever.

My fight with the SAHM term is a real one because I find it to be reductionistic. The only word I really love out of the four is “mom.” I’m not really a “stay at home” person and now that I think of it, I might be a very strong-willed adult because, DON’T TELL ME TO STAY AT HOME THANKYOUVERYMUCH. Still, I feel like it reduces me to something I am not, to less than what I aspire to, to less than what I actually do and produce each day. So I will take back the SAHM label and explain a few things about it.

Choosing to stay at home with Livia when she arrived was the greatest pleasure in terms of choices. Before she came, I dreamed of becoming a mother and I was dreamy about what my life might look like as a parent. I could not wait for the gift of a child, and I anticipated our adventures with excitement. It was absolutely what I wanted to do with my life and I was eager to quit working in order to be home full time. Though real life was a thousand times harder than my idealistic dreams, every time I considered going back into paid employment I reaffirmed my desire to parent Livia instead. I felt completely confident in my choice to feed her each meal of her day, to be the one to hold her hands while she learned to walk, to listen to her babbles and then words and then lengthy conversations. It wasn’t that my job was easy—no, the monotonous “at home” work of baby-rearing can be brain-numbing at times and then utterly exhausting at others. Rather, it’s what I wanted to do. I did not want for Livia to spend much time in a daycare; I wanted to be the adult around her for a majority of her waking hours.

The truth is this: I still want to be the adult around her for the majority of her waking hours.

For numerous reasons, it’s important that Livia is educated by other adults, but when she is not at school, I still want to be the person closest to her. I can feel the years squeezing away from us now. Everyone has said these teenage years fly by, and so far they are right. I feel hugely sentimental about my time with Livia—at least when I’m reflecting upon it while she’s away from me. It’s easy to feel the warmth of parenting when we’re in good moments—reading together, cuddling, talking talking talking, driving around town—and much harder when we rub up against personality differences or hard, stressful days. But still, I choose this kid. I’ve got one kid, and that one is enormously special to me.

So there it is. My pen hovers over the line, I curse the way “occupation” hitches me up, and then I quickly scribble “SAHM” and this time I think I threw in a “/student” to make me feel better about the direction of my life. Will anyone at the office even care who or what I am? Will their eyes rest on that line for more than 2 seconds before moving on to type insurance information into their desktop computer? I doubt it. My existential crisis means nothing to them, and so much to me.

I have a world of conflicting emotions when I say something that roughly half of my friends disagree with. There’s a desire to cover it up, like I want to post lots of frivilous kitty videos to make sure we’re all okay with each other. And yet, in my moments of strength, I’m willing to fight for the injustice I see with enormous amounts of conviction. That’s why I posted Michael Rose-Ivey’s press conference video this past week. I see injustice.

A lot of you see disrespect. I realize that allegiance to the flag means more to you—whether it’s a generational thing or an occupational thing—–than it does to me. I grew up saying the pledge in school, and I really love singing the national anthem; I take a lot of pride in it actually. But I don’t feel the same amount of frustration as many of you do when football players don’t stand at attention, facing the flag, with their hands over their hearts. (What I do see is some sad men who have listened to their consciences and are following through with a protest against our nation’s ability to turn a blind eye to injustices that they themselves are not experiencing.) While I wholeheartedly support our military personnel—today and in days past—I have heard over and over again that men and women died for the opportunity to live in a country where people disagree in a multitude of ways. And like it or not, the flag represents that freedom.

What I really see is that we have a trust issue at play in our nation. A lot of people don’t trust that certain black men and women are telling the truth about the way they’ve been treated by authorities. I recognize this trust issue, to a very different degree, because I have had people in my world who do not trust my ability to make good decisions for myself when it comes to my health. The fact that they question me, drill me, tell me they’ve found other methods for my treatment indicates a lack of their trust for me, as an educated adult, to seek the answers I need for my own welfare. Though race issues are different, I firmly believe we have a listening problem and a trust problem.

To my fellow Christians, or people who claim to be followers of Christ, we ought to be disturbed by our fervor for the flag OVER our fervor for Jesus and the very people he died for. In our nation and around the globe, Christians are being persecuted because they are Christians, and yet I’ve heard more outrage over the American flag and a song celebrating it than concern for those murdered during a prayer service in Charleston a year ago. Why is this?

A big thanks goes out to the friends and family who have dialogued with me this past week even as they disagreed with me. THIS is where unity begins, in dialogue, in empathy, in trying to see life from the other’s point of view. Surely we can figure out how to rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn, whether they live next door, on the other side of town, or across the world.

I read about a high school classmate’s successes the other day. It only took a few minutes—and yeah, a few Google searches—before the deprecating voices crept in.

This guy? He’s got his doctorate. He’s teaching and writing and researching and influencing how many scores of people in his field. And what am I doing?

It’s that last question that takes me down a really unhelpful and discouraging path. The path is littered with other questions, each rating my lack of measurable success and making me feel smaller and smaller. Where are the books you’ve planned to write? How about the children’s book you were going to photograph? The graduate degrees? The office with your title on the door? “Are you still unemployed?”

That last one wasn’t my own. I was on an insurance call not so long ago. It had been a really productive morning, I was cruising through life, getting it done left and right, and the question brought me to a screeching halt. “Are you still unemployed?” Well dang. Now that you say it… I guess so.

I let my self-worth, in that moment, be defined by the word “unemployed.” Three syllables of condemnation—to my ears, at least. I stopped and considered it and realized, Holy cow, I AM unemployed! My mind raced through all the ways I felt employed, thankyouverymuch. Sure, I take in a very small amount of money through my photography business at the moment. But money’s all we’re talking about here, right? If she had asked, “Do you work?” I could’ve explained the thousands of things I do on a daily basis and it would’ve added up to all kinds of labor the world sees as employable labor. I DO STUFF, lady. But what I really wanted to say was: I am worthwhile.

I had a conversation with a friend today where I learned how many birthday parties her kids go to each year. I can count on three fingers how many parties my child has been invited to in the last 12 months. I wasn’t grieved by the comparison because I know that my kiddo has a small friend set, but I paused internally and wondered if I should spend time being grieved by this. In the end, I think I’ve landed on a sweet understanding and it’s that birthday parties in grade school are equal to lines of resume earned by your 20th high school reunion. You can use these things to measure success, but—and this is a big but—you should not.

Friends matter. Degrees matter. Job titles and books and salaries actually do matter. But they are not ultimate things. They do not get to define a person. They are not what gives you value.

You are born valuable. Made in the image of an Almighty God, you are not worthy because of what you do, you are worthy because He made you. And He loves you. This love story has been around a long time, it was set in motion before the world began. It involves a Creator who is far more than a disinterested party somewhere in the universe. He made man special and he made man to be in relationship with him.

My takeaway is that I have a choice about how I spend my time. I want to put money and accolades in their rightful place. I want to use my gifts to serve the world around me—and sometimes that looks the way it looks today where I have this privilege to be UNEMPLOYED and yet not care because being unemployed does not define me. Whether I have three friends or fifteen, I want to love well. Whether I’ve written one blog post or five top-selling novels, I want to write well. Whether I volunteer for the PTO or for making church coffee, whether I am awesome at folding laundry or barely keeping us in clean clothes, whether I take my neighbor cookies or serve at the City Mission, I want to work with my whole heart. And I want to work from a place of worthiness; not because my work defines me, but because I am already safe and whole and loved by God.

**Blog title taken from the one of the most quotable movies ever, and one of only two VHS movies in our possession when we moved from Oregon to Nebraska in the summer before 7th grade. Do you know it?

Last night a pastor from a church in Fremont preached at Redeemer. In these four weeks of Advent our pastor Michael Gordon has been preaching a series on the “mothers” of Jesus, the women listed in Matthew’s genealogy. The series has been excellent (you can find the sermons here). Last night’s preaching on Ruth brought up a point that I had never noticed before—that Ruth in her first marriage never had children. In Ruth’s marriage to Naomi’s son, which the bible tells us lasted about 10 years, she was barren.

If you go on and read the entire book of Ruth you’ll learn that Boaz eventually marries Ruth and together they give birth to Obed, who is the grandfather of King David. Jesus is born in this same line, many generations later.

This weird thing happens anytime someone mentions the word “barren” in a sermon. I get hot. I feel like everyone must immediately be thinking of me with sorrow in their hearts. Yes, that is a very self-centered way to think, but it is also true that my dear, wonderful, beloved friends think of me when they hear a hard story of infertility. It’s the story that—for me—continues and does not end with biological offspring as many other stories do. If you’ve studied the bible or been listening to sermons through the years, then you’ve heard of Sarah, Abraham’s wife, as well as of Hannah and Ruth. Infertile women, all of them. God opened their wombs, all of them. And furthermore, God did great things through the children he promised them.

I itch and sweat in the pew as these women’s stories are told. I get uncomfortable. I want to hide. Because my story is not like theirs; my infertility has found no resolution.

So hear me loud and clear as I get something off my chest:
God has not healed me AND he is still good.

Do you believe that? Can you believe that? Can you see something and want something so badly, can you pray for something for years and years and years, can you see your friends receive the gifts that you are not getting and can you still believe that God is good?

YES. Yes, you can. And you should.

I believe in the promises of God listed in the bible.

I believe he is good and withholds nothing that I truly need.

I believe he adores me the way that no human being can ever adore me.

I believe he catches all my tears in a bottle, that he holds me in the palm of his hand, that he shelters me under the shadow of his wings.

I believe I can be barren, infertile, not have the tidy ending of a biological child and that at the end of the day I am the recipient of God’s goodness.

THAT is what I believe. My story is the perfect one written for Rebecca Tredway. It is not Hannah’s, nor Sarah’s, nor Ruth’s. It is mine. The ending is not told, but the hope of the ending is not found in fertility. It is not found in adoption either (as profoundly grateful as I am that adoption made me a mother!). The hope I have is found in Jesus who gave everything to make me his. It’s that kind of love that gives me peace, that lets me rest, that forces me to take a deep breath in the middle of a sermon that deals with a barren womb. All is not lost. I am healed in all the right places.

I had this trajectory in mind for my life, one where I’d gradually get wiser and more mature and more self-sufficient over time. I assumed that I’d age and develop all these great traits and that I’d need people less. Because, you know, I would have so much to offer people—and somehow that seemed to go hand-in-hand with being a pillar of self-sufficiency.

What I’ve discovered is that, yes, it’s true that maturity can come with more life experiences. And if one pays attention to those life experiences, there certainly can be wisdom gained. But it is absolutely not true that wisdom and maturity go hand in hand with independence. In fact, the opposite is true. In the Christian life, age and maturity leads to greater humility and dependence—first on Christ and second on people.

I first noticed my incredible need for others when we stepped into the world of foster care. We were thrust so far outside our comfort zones that I knew the only way we’d survive would be with the help of those around us. More than the hand-me-down clothing and more than the toys dropped on our front doorstep, we needed prayer. The spiritual truth of our fostering reality was that we were incredibly weak as we served children. In fact, I don’t know that we’ve ever felt weaker. Suddenly juggling the needs of foster children—and the many unknowns—we were also managing all the normal job, household and parenting duties as before. The need for others to pray, asking God for sustenance, felt huge to me. Somehow I knew deep down that I would need to ask for a lot, and thus I immediately set up a support circle who would pray when I asked them to.

A remarkable thing happens when people pray, and I can’t really explain it entirely because it still seems so mysterious to me. God listens. He engages, he dialogues, he answers. And in turn I’m drawn to see his hand of mercy in a new way. But when a need for prayer is opened up to an entire group of people, guess who else sees God’s gracious care? All those people. Together we’re drawn closer due to our communal neediness.

It feels really vulnerable to be the one asking for prayer. Sometimes I feel like a big burden when I ask those closest to me to pray for me. When everyone prayed for our foster kids, it felt easier on my pride because it wasn’t for me! How nice, right? If you know anything about my physical woes, then you know that I’ve had to ask for prayer time and time and time again. And if a large season of time goes by where I’m not asking, it’s because I’m not telling you something. That’s how many physical needs I’ve got going on—I need a lot of prayer. Each time I email a group of friends, it takes a huge dose of humility to press the send button. Deep breath in of need, deep breath out of pride. And in that need, God shows up. He shows up in the words of friends preaching the gospel to me yet again. He shows up in the acts of mercy shown to me by loved ones. He shows up in ways of healing that I’d never choose or imagine.

The trajectory of life isn’t one where I am full of so much strength and goodness that I never have needs. Rather, the trajectory includes my humility, which forces my knee to bow to God’s greatness and requires me to acknowledge the great depth of need I have in all realms. In this I get to see that God is good, all the time; all the time, God is good. And what a beautiful thing it is to see that goodness! I am sustained by his mercy.