My grandparents have been married 72 years. 72 YEARS. They met when she was 12 and he was 14. They are now 92 and 94, respectively. I am so inspired by them and this lifetime of love and commitment. I love hearing stories from when they were dating and early married. My favorite is a story about a time when they had decided to break up and see other people...until my grandmother saw him kissing another girl, and she realized that was her man. She obviously won him back and the rest they say, is history.
Two years ago, my grandma was very sick and in the ICU for a couple of weeks. We didn't know if she was going to make it, and it was a scary time for all of us. This little 5 foot woman is loved fiercely. After spending hours and hours at the hospital, I did what I do to process. I wrote. Only this time, it came out in the form of a poem of sorts. A tribute to them in a way.
Love you, Gram and Pops.
he holds
Today he held his head with one hand. In the other, he white knuckled an equally white plastic bag all during the surgery. As we sat and waited, he held that bag like it was her life. Inside of it, were bits of her - her hair brush, hearing aids, and a tube of lipstick. He knows that when she gets better, these are the immediate things she will want. So, he holds them close because he can't hold her.
In the room, he holds her hand and strokes her hair. He pats her arm gently, almost awkwardly because he's not sure what to do. Seventy years together and in this sterile place, all these tubes and wires get in the way of what has been worn into their skin and selves all these years. Holding her hand has never been this difficult. He pats, shakes his head, chin trembles, tears well.
He has held her through so many seasons. Through war and peace. Through sickness and health. Through babies and grandbabies and great grandbabies. He has held her across miles and roads and bridges that map their life together in a beautiful web, criss-crossing time and space to the places and people they hold dear.
He has held the bricks that built their home, the worry for their future, and the cards she loves to play. He knows her head, her wrist, her back, her waist better than his own because he has held them for decades upon decades. Their curves carved into his own.
And he would hold her seventy more. Or even seven minutes more, because after all this holding, it's impossible to let go.
I've been thinking a lot about the phrase "Be you, bravely", and why that resonates so deeply with me. How God created each of us as unique and amazing in our own ways but most of us walk around as lesser versions of ourselves. I don’t know all of your stories, but I know mine and I would venture a guess that at some point in your life, maybe a distinct event or maybe just family or cultural pressure over time, you have been made to feel that you are not enough. Not good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, smart enough, loud enough, quiet enough...whatever it is. And the fear of not being enough makes us want to hide and blend in. I want to play it safe and be less bold and take less risk and in all honesty, be less me, because I don’t want to fail or feel that who I am is not enough or not ok.
Culture wants to standardize us...make us all the same size and shape and volume, but our Creator is an ARTIST.If you know any artists, you know that they all strive for originality and creativity and to create a masterpiece each and every time. You are not created to be like anyone else or even to be a lesser version of yourself, and when you try to be, you are no longer the amazing masterpiece that you are created to be. You can no longer bring into this world and this life what only you were meant to bring. And so, the rest of us all miss out on the beautiful impact that is you and yours.
If you speak truth into a womans life, encourage her, tell her the good and powerful things you see in her, her eyes will well with tears and spill over. Why is this? Because too much of the time as women, our inner voices tell us what we are not, where we fall short and don’t measure up. When we hear positive things about ourselves, deep down, we know it is true. We just needed someone else to tell us and give us permission to believe it about ourselves.
Every night, when my husband says goodnight to our kids, he says two things, “I love you and I believe in you.” I don’t know how that tradition started, but I do know that it will have a powerful impact on our kids as they grow. They know unequivocally that they are loved and that we believe in them, and we hope that knowing that will encourage them to live into who they are and not be afraid. I am so much more brave when I know someone believes in me. Can we be that positive voice for each other? Let’s look at each other and say, “I believe in you,” a lot this year.
Have you ever noticed that we compare our insides (the often jumbled mess of our emotions and our weaknesses) to everyone else’s outsides (the parts of them that make them seem confident and put together)? Why do we compare our behind the scenes (screaming kids, piles of laundry, and an exhausted mom), to everyone else’s highlight reel (Facebook and Instagram and that seemingly perfect mom with seemingly perfect kids). Let me be the first to tell you that my real life looks nothing like my Instagram feed. My real life looks nothing like the person you think you know.
Some days, I want you to believe that I am brave. That I have it handled. That inside I’m not a broken mess. I wear mascara and cute earrings, because, let’s face it, if you’re wearing mascara and earrings, you can fool anyone into thinking you’re ok. Broken people don’t wear mascara and earrings...but don’t be fooled. I’m here to tell you they do.
Other days, I want to be vulnerable and show you the insides of my wrists as a white flag surrender of my life and all the million little ways that I fall apart. I want to show you this because I know that you will say, “Me too,” and we will exhale and look at each other with wide eyes and start making a mosaic of all the shattered pieces. Because that’s what happens. Vulnerability begets vulnerability, which begets courage and uprisings, even if they are tiny. Women are amazing like that.
Honesty is the thing that keeps us from being alone. Where there is honesty, there is authenticity. Where there is authenticity, there is trust. Where there is trust, there is deepening. Where there is deepening, there is real relationship that is beautiful and hard all at the same time.
So, let me be honest and go first. My name is Amy. I have three kids. I fear what people think of me and that I’m not enough. I have multiple negative thoughts about my body every day. I struggle immensely with the transition to being a mom and my identity in that. I have survived postpartum depression and an eating disorder. I had a miscarriage that flipped me upside down. I yell at my kids sometimes. I can’t keep up with the laundry or cleaning the bathroom. I have trouble asking for and accepting help. I don’t cook with all organic foods. I eat chocolate in secret. And even harder for me to say out loud: I am strong. I love fiercely. I fight for my marriage. I show up for my kids. I have something to give and something to say.
In the 39 years of my life thus far, what I know to be true is that my greatest satisfaction has come out of overcoming my fear. My greatest joy has come when I have stepped out of my comfort zone. My greatest growth has come out of greatest loss.
Our lives unfold in proportion to our courage, and so I want to encourage you to live into all that you are created to be and be brave in all that you are and all that you do. Close your ears to all the negative voices that ring in your heads and fill your thoughts. Be truth-tellers and fearlessly authentic. Have the courage to dare greatly, knowing that you might fail, but you also might fly.
* This post adapted from a talk I gave at MOPS in October 2014.
Since high school, I've lived a pretty transient life. I've called 7 cities on the east coast, midwest, and now pacific northwest home. Each of these moves and places felt like a stepping stone to the next. We always knew that we would be moving on and that city, neighborhood, apartment was temporary. And when we left to go to the next place, our eyes were forward. Excited, and extremely anxious about a new start.
Two of our moves were halfway across the country, to cities in which we knew no one. One of these cities I had never even visited before we were apartment hunting. Starting from scratch. Clean slate. New beginning. Those were hard moves. Moves that took years to let the dust settle and begin to feel like home.
When we got to Seattle, we stopped looking forward and started looking around. We were home. Forever home. No more moves, no more having to build new community, no more learning my way around a new place. We planted our family tree right here and watered it and begin to watch the roots grow down and the branches grow up. The rich soil nurtured our tree and, in a few years time, we found ourselves with some amazing friends and a love of this emerald city.
Since we had reached what we hope to be our final destination, I naively assumed that everyone else here had too. Not sure why I did that. I secretly hoped that my small group of 6 girls would be the same small group for the next 30 years. That so much time and history and shared experience would knit our families together in ways I can't even imagine. I'm a dreamer. I know.
This group has been life blood to me. Family standing in. They have rallied around me in good times and bad, supported me through miscarriage, births, sickness, and the utter craziness that sometimes feels like my life. They are the women that have kept my kids and cleaned my house, brought meals and chocolate, written endless words of encouragement, celebrated good things, shared uncountable glasses of wine and commiserated over messy houses and messy hearts.
They are women who hem me in and call me out. We say hard things. We have each other's backs. We build each other up. We laugh, a lot. We send hail Mary texts to ask for help and rally around one another. We send pictures of our massive laundry piles and dirty kitchens and utter nonsense to brighten each other's days. This stay-at-home mom business can be lonely work, so we say, "Hey, you're not alone," in a million different ways.
Quickly and mostly unexpectedly, two members of our group are moving. These are good moves for them and for their families...exciting adventures that will lead to a new life somewhere else. I'm happy for them and looking forward to see what God has in store for them. These are powerhouse women, who live on the front lines of life and impact everyone around them for the better. These new cities are getting ready to get their socks blessed right off.
But I'm also reeling a bit today and sad. These girls are family to me, and it feels like my family and support system is breaking up. For the first time, I'm not the one looking forward and anticipating a new start. I'm the one watching someone else move on, and that feels strange and unsettling. I'm restless and want my own transition, so I don't have to go through the hard work that is staying put and plowing through. I'm going to miss these girls so much, and though I know it's what's best and we will still be in contact, it feels like a huge loss in my daily life.
For a person who's moved so many times, I don't like change. When I find a mascara or a pen that I like, I buy the same one over and over again, and it makes me so upset when they discontinue it. I get rattled when I update the software on my phone or computer and things work differently. Reality, though, is that the only constant in life is change. And in order to thrive, I have to accept each day and each person as a gift. I have to live in the present and be thankful for that moment, instead of assuming that it will always be there or even that it will be better in the future. So many moments to be thankful for with these women.
Mah girls, I love you. It's been an amazing ride. You will be missed more than you can fathom. I'll be cheering you on from here.
