Over lunch a while back, a friend asked if I was angry at God.
Close loved ones are going through trials that, while mostly not immediately life threatening, are a mixture of exhausting, sad, frustrating, uncertain, overwhelming and stressful. These things are not happening directly to me, but they are directly affecting me in ways that bear some of the same results.
A few weeks after I officially graduated from college, I had major surgery to remove a grapefruit-sized cyst on my ovary (and, it turned out, repair other damage from the severe endometriosis I didn’t know I had).
I had completed my coursework a semester early and was back living with my parents because my first “real” job didn’t pay much. This arrangement, while maybe not what I had hoped for, turned out to be providential because I was able to recover at home with plenty of TLC from my mom.
One of my fondest memories from this period in my life is sitting on a comfy chair in the family room, eating my mom’s Italian meatballs while an NBA playoff game aired on the TV in the background. (I had zero interest in professional basketball; I suppose I remember that detail because this scene is captured so beautifully in my mind.)
My mom is famous for her homemade pasta sauce. Over the years she taught many, if not all, her seven children how to make it, and she served it countless times when company came over after church on Sunday.
And the only thing that is better than her sauce is her sauce with meatballs.
I can almost taste them now, exactly as they were when I was eating them so long ago. I was somewhat frail and quite underweight back then, and the meatballs—infused with the perfect blend of fennel seed, garlic salt and breadcrumbs—were just what the doctor ordered to help me recover after my surgery.
It makes me hungry and cheers my heart just to think about them—especially this week.
It doesn’t happen in the life of every mother, but sometimes, after many years of raising children and running a household, the caretaker becomes the one receiving the care.
This has happened in my family over the last year, which is making this Mother’s Day particularly poignant.
There are many thoughts I could have about my mom and what’s going on during this season of her life. Right now, though, I’m trying to focus less on processing and more on being present. And for me, being present—for my parents and my own family—seems to have a lot to do with food.
My mom taught me how to make her meatballs when I was much younger, and this little culinary project still evokes feelings of love and home. Just a few weeks ago, in fact—when the stresses of life were swirling at an ever-quickening pace—the smell of pasta sauce with meatballs filled our house with warmth and comfort.
But it’s not just the meatballs that remind me of my mom.
Late last year, I felt the urgent need to learn how to make her Italian biscotti—another favorite staple from my childhood that I had always considered too difficult to try myself.
I tracked down her original recipe (she didn’t have it anymore but my sister did), bought the all-important anise flavoring and set up a little baking station in my parents’ kitchen. Step by step, my mom helped me through the recipe.
She mixed the dry and wet ingredients in the big green Tupperware bowl. She instructed me how to turn it out on the counter and knead it the rest of the way. She showed me how to fashion the dough into loaves, using her hand to make a series of indentations along the top of each one.
I had never done anything like this before, and it was kind of a sticky mess for a time. But although my first batches of biscotti weren’t perfect, they were good enough. And even better was the experience.
While we learn many things from our parents when we’re young, I don’t know how often an 84-year-old mother gets to teach her 46-year-old daughter how to do a new task from start to finish. It wasn’t just about making an heirloom recipe, either—at least not for me.
In teaching me to make biscotti, my mom was empowering me to try other things I’ve never done before. Successfully handling a big bowl of sticky biscotti dough gave me the confidence I needed to make homemade bread for the first time ever—something I had always wanted to do but had been afraid to try.
That led to the realization that yes, I actually do have what it takes to teach my 15-year-old daughter how to drive. And yes, I actually can sit by myself in a hospital waiting room while my husband has a scary sounding procedure on his heart.
I don’t know how to explain it any better than this. Somehow, it all began with the biscotti.
My mom doesn’t do much of what she used to do. But in her own quiet way, she’s helping me to be brave.
And what daughter doesn’t need her mother to do that?
♥ Lois
When Randy was having his heart procedure last week, I had big plans for my time in the waiting room.
I was going to get a good jump start on writing one or two blog posts that I’ve been pondering lately. Catch up on some email, peruse a magazine I had been saving just for this morning, maybe even read a book for a while.
What’s that they say about the best-laid plans again?
Randy’s heart had been doing its typical misfiring while he was being prepped for the procedure, so we had good reason to think this wouldn’t be like one of those days when you take your malfunctioning car to the shop and it refuses to act up for the mechanic. Plus, the nurse promised to call me every hour or so with updates.
Now all I had to do was wait. And be productive.
I got some coffee and sat down in a quiet corner. Shortly after discovering the hospital’s guest wi-fi wasn’t working on my laptop, an older man and his friend sat down next to me. The man’s wife was having a test run on her heart and the sweet woman with him was there “to pray” (she said).
It seems she also was there to talk to me, because that’s exactly what she did. I spent the next hour or two (I lost track of time) mostly listening and nodding while she discussed the widest range of topics I’ve ever heard in one sitting.
Although I’m an introvert, I rather enjoy talking to strangers. I’ve been known to strike up (or at least participate in) conversations at the grocery store, the DMV, in lines at amusement parks, at crowded polling places on election day, standing outside in the rain at the local Five Below store waiting to buy a Fidget Spinner—you know, all the usual scenarios where people might chat casually.
But this conversation stretched even me. She covered everything from vasectomies, the nasty sounding concoction she drank to relieve kidney stones and whether I’ve ever had a colonoscopy to how she can’t take Benadryl, how putting up mirrors in your bedroom helps to reduce anger and how her sister still holds a grudge against her ex-husband.
The nurse called me with her first hourly update (everything was going well so far), but I didn’t note the time because my neighbor started chatting again as soon as I got off the phone. At one point, I got out my Traditional Home magazine and started flipping through pages, hoping that maybe we could pause the conversation for awhile.
It didn’t work.
At last, the man and lady left and I was left alone in the quiet. It was only mid morning, but after all that, I didn’t have much energy left to write. So I just texted my friends, sisters and mother-in law, read my book and marveled at how calm I felt.
It’s true. While Randy’s heart was getting “zapped” with radio energy, mine was at peace. And I know it was because people were praying.
(Much later, it occurred to me that talking to the lady in the waiting room also may have contributed to my lack of anxiety. While the conversation was at times bizarre and even a bit uncomfortable, it did take my mind off what was happening in the cath lab. And I’m very grateful for that.)
As time went on, though, I started to wonder when I was going to get another update from the nurse.
It has to have been at least an hour and a half since I heard from her, I thought. I’m sure she’ll call anytime now.
And,
It’s been more than two hours. They must have run into complications of some sort.
Then,
Why hasn’t the nurse called me yet? What’s going on in there?
I wasn’t in panic mode yet, but I was getting antsy and impatient. When I start feeling this way, I usually text Randy and ask him to pray for me. Since I couldn’t do that this time, I decided to put some of these thoughts in writing. And when I opened the notes feature on my phone, this is what popped up on the screen:
“The Lord will fight my battles for me; I need only be still.”
Apparently, a personalized version of Exodus 14:14 was the last thing I had jotted down in my phone notes awhile back, and now here it was—just when I needed it.
I wrote about the conversation I’d had with the talkative lady, my earlier expectations about my waiting-room experience, and how the verse I just read had “hit me right in the feels,” as Randy likes to say. Finally, this:
“Whatever is going on in the cath lab, God is with me. He is with Randy. He will fight the battle for us. We need only be still. I feel at peace. I just want to hear from the nurse.”
That was around 11:30 a.m. At noon, the doctor (not the nurse) came into the waiting room to tell me he was done. The job was more extensive than expected, but it went well, he said.
Randy came home the next day. While the procedure seems to have worked, there a few lingering issues that need to be addressed. But that’s OK.
We ain’t scared, remember?
♥ Lois
P.S. I’m linking up this week with Purposeful Faith, #TellHisStory, Coffee for Your Heart, Chasing Community, #HeartEncourgementThursday, Grace & Truth and #DanceWithJesus.
Randy and I have a phrase we like to use when we are talking (or texting) about something that intimidates us or makes us apprehensive. I wouldn’t call it an inside joke, exactly—it’s more like a code between the two of us.
We might be discussing a difficult conversation we’re about to have. A problem we can’t figure out. An assignment we don’t like. An appointment we’re dreading.
As fears go, it was a little bit ridiculous.
I was afraid of yeast. More specifically, of baking with yeast.You won’t find this fear on any list of documented phobias. I know—I looked.
But as irrational as it sounds, it was real for me.
I’m a good cook. I don’t shy away from trying new recipes. As much as I loved the idea of making homemade bread or yeast rolls, though, I never once tried it—not in more than three decades of baking.
I didn’t know how to do it. I thought it was too hard. I thought it was a skill reserved for women whose mothers had baked before them, and their mothers before them.
What if my water wasn’t the right temperature and the yeast didn’t activate? What if I didn’t knead the dough properly, or long enough? What if the bread didn’t rise?
What if the whole thing was a complete and total disaster?
Honestly, it was easier to buy my bread at the grocery store and leave this culinary chemistry experiment to someone else.
That’s how I used to feel, anyway.
Then earlier this year, something happened. Another fear—one I’d harbored for quite a long time—actually materialized.
This was not a silly, irrational fear. This was the fear of a specific something hard happening to a specific someone I love.
I dreaded the possibility for years before it was actually confirmed. But as the reality of what was going on sunk in, I started to see a way forward. One step at a time, one visit at a time, one prayer at a time, one day at a time.
I began to do the next thing, and the next. Even when it was uncomfortable or difficult.
And somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t as afraid of it anymore.
The fear was losing its paralyzing power. And not just in this particular situation, either.
I started to look at other things I had always avoided in a different light.
What’s the big deal? I thought. Why I am I so afraid of that?
Suddenly, baking bread—facing my fear of yeast—didn’t just seem like an item on an ambiguous bucket list. It became something I needed to do. Something I actually wanted to do.
If I messed it up, so what? If the bread didn’t rise, who cares?
It wouldn’t be the end of the world. Life would go on.
I wanted to conquer my fear of making bread on my own, so I didn’t tell anyone what I was planning to do. Not even Randy, who used to work in a bakery, knew about my little project.
I found a highly rated bread recipe online and studied the helpful how-to video that accompanies it. I purchased yeast, bread flour and a thermometer to test the water temperature.
I can do this, I thought.
Then one morning when I had no other pressing plans, I got out all the ingredients and plunged right in.
I made bread—all by myself.
And it wasn’t scary at all. It was fun.
While the loaves were rising in the pans, I had to make an unexpected trip to rescue a sick girl from school. But even without me eagle-eying the clock, the bread rose perfectly. It baked perfectly. It smelled heavenly.
I did it.
These last few months, here’s what I’ve been learning about fear. We spend an awful lot of time thinking about it, being afraid of it, beating ourselves up about it.
Fear can almost become an idol, I think.
Then God, in His infinite wisdom, gently places us in a position where we have no choice but to face our fear. Shutting down is not an option. We have to move forward, straight into the thing that we feared so much.
Don’t let anyone tell you fear and faith can’t exist in the same place. They can. Nobody would ever take a leap (or tiny baby step) of faith if they did not.
But believe this too: God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7)
He’s also given us His presence. Right there in the middle of the fear. Right there in the middle of the mess.
His presence is what gives us peace. It’s what gives us strength to do the next thing.
It’s like following a bread recipe. You don’t start at the end. You start with the first step. And you keep going until you’re done.
“When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” (Psalm 56:3)
♥ Lois
The last day of school had just ended, and Molly and I were waiting to say good-bye to her fifth-grade teacher.
The following year, my little girl and her sweet bunch of classmates would be heading off to middle school. It would be a huge transition, for sure.
Molly’s teacher, Mrs. Miller, was retiring after many decades of faithful instruction, so big changes were coming for her too. For now, though, she was making the most of her final moments with her students.
The kids—some of whom practically towered over her—clustered around the front door of the building, waiting for their chance to receive one more hug from their beloved teacher. Many of the children at the school came from less-than-stable homes, and she had been a powerful influence in their lives, to put it mildly.
I watched as Mrs. Miller grasped the arm of one of these girls and spoke directly into her ear. Her urgency was almost palpable—it was as if she knew she had one last chance to speak life into this student’s heart, and she wasn’t going to let go until she was finished.
Mrs. Miller is an unassuming, soft-spoken woman, but when she encouraged her students, she was intentional. Intense. Unwavering. Fervent.
In a word, she was fierce.
And though she’s no longer my daughter’s teacher, I’m still learning from her example.
People everywhere are desperately in need of affirming words. I see it in the topics that resonate across the blogosphere, by the things people say about their struggles—online and off. I recognize it in my own quiet communications with loved ones—I wouldn’t call them cries for help, exactly, but they might possibly classify as subtle hints.
But even in this season of life when my own heart longs for encouragement, a phrase from Ann Voskamp’s book, The Broken Way, keeps returning to my mind: “The best way to de-stress is to bless.”
I know what I need to do. And thanks to Mrs. Miller, I now have a name for it.
Fierce encouragement.
It doesn’t matter if they’re young or old, rich or poor, educated or self-taught, married or single. The people who pass through our lives—at church, at work, in the produce department, on the soccer field, in the dance school lobby—have gifts, abilities and traits that are worth noticing, worth pointing out, worth praising.
And if we have the opportunity, we should take it.
Not in an annoying, look-at-me kind of way, but in a way that refuses to let them minimize who they are and what God has designed them to do. In a way that will not accept answers of, “Oh, it was nothing” or, “I could have done better” or, “Oh, this old thing” or, “But I’m not very good at …”
No, I think when I get this kind of response. You are good at that. I know, because I am not good at it and I see what you’re able to do.
Sometimes I say these thoughts out loud, sometimes I keep them to myself. I think I should vocalize them more, though, because they are worth emphasizing—repeatedly if necessary.
I don’t know about you, but I want to be intentional about speaking life to people. I want to go first, to be observant enough to sense what I need to praise, to not back down if people try to dismiss my words of truth-filled affirmation.
When it comes to encouragement, I want to be like Mrs. Miller.
Fierce.
♥ Lois