Author

Lois Flowers

The Antidote to the Sour Burn

by Lois Flowers October 9, 2014

by Lois Flowers

There is a way I feel when fear and anxiety are crouching at the door of my mind and heart. It’s as if a mixture of lemon juice, vinegar and a splash of Sriracha hot chili sauce is seeping through my muscles, creating a sort of burn that is mostly sour and a little hot.

What I’m describing is just a feeling—a nasty feeling, to be sure, but not something chronic or requiring professional treatment. It comes on suddenly, and later—just as suddenly—it goes away.

Even so, I hate feeling this way. It saps my energy and makes me wander around aimlessly—even on weekend days that are absolutely perfect for gardening—unable to do anything at all productive.

I used to feel this way a lot; lately, not so much. Recently, however, there were a few weeks when the burn was back, with a vengeance.

I’m not exactly sure what brought it on. It might have been a delayed reaction to the changes of autumn—kids going back to school, adjusting to a new routine at home, that sort of thing. “All good things, all good things,” as the snowman Olaf says in my daughter Molly’s favorite movie. But change is change, and in my world, it tends to be hard.

A nasty sinus infection that kept me feeling bad long after I took my last antibiotic may have been the culprit. It might have had something to do with depleted hormones, or launching this blog—the excitement of starting something new coupled with the nervous anticipation of baring my soul to some tiny percentage of the online world.

Or it could have been some areas in my life where no news was definitely harder to deal with than bad news. Oswald Chambers wrote that the “nature of the spiritual life is that we are certain in our uncertainty.” I’m sure he was right. But few things bring on the vinegar/lemon juice/hot sauce burn for me like waiting for an answer that may or may not come.

There are antidotes, of course. A 30-minute run on the treadmill. A short nap. A brisk walk in the sunshine. Lunch.

I tried all of these (especially lunch), and they all helped. But this time, the thing that brought the most relief were the words of an ancient shepherd-turned warrior king—the psalms of David.

I don’t care much for poetry. I can’t write it, and I usually don’t like to read it. But David’s verses—those speak to me. I love how he pours out his heart to God, holding nothing back, and how that always leads to praise.

“God is my helper; the Lord is the sustainer of my life.” (Psalm 54:4)

“When I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God, whose word I praise.” (Psalm 56:3-4a)

“This I know: God is for me.” (Psalm 56: 9)

“I call to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me.” (Psalm 57:2)

“But I will sing of Your strength and will joyfully proclaim Your faithful love in the morning. For You have been a stronghold for me, a refuge in my day of trouble.” (Psalm 59:16)

These words? Sweet, peace-filled relief, more powerful than any combination of fear and vinegar.

I saw a friend in the bathroom at church on Sunday. She asked me how I was doing, and, after briefly considering various answers, I told her.

“I’m hoping this week will be better than last week,” I said.

And you know what? It was.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with Crystal Storms at #HeartEncouragementThursday and Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart.

photo credit:John Mueller via photopin cc

October 9, 2014 12 comments

The Light in the Laundry Room

by Lois Flowers October 7, 2014

by Lois Flowers

We recently remodeled our basement laundry room. Picture sunny yellow walls, crisp white wainscot, perfectly lined up squares of industrial-looking floor tile. It’s all just too lovely for words. Or at least for a laundry room.

But my favorite thing is the lighting. A total of 520 watts of pure incandescent brightness, baby.

The size of our basement laundry room is about 100 square feet, or so my husband tells me. When he first said how many lights he wanted to install, I scoffed. Why in the world do we need eight recessed 65-watt floodlights in a space that small?

Sure, it’s in the basement and sure, there are no windows, but really? Eight lights seemed like overkill.

My husband, who loves all things relating to stage and theatrical lighting, stuck to his lumens. Turns out, he was right.

Eight lights isn’t overkill. It’s heavenly.

Dirty laundry is the bane of housewives and mothers everywhere. When I Googled “piles of laundry” the other day, I got 2.67 million results. Once you slog through all the how-to articles, I’m guessing a hefty percentage of the rest are blog posts lamenting this dreaded chore.

Not in my house.

Dare I even say it? Thanks to the light, doing laundry is a joy. Yes, a joy.

I love light. My favorite room in my house is the living room, where four huge southern-facing windows flood the room with light most of the day. It makes me happy just to be in there.

The opposite also is true. When I drive down the street near my daughter’s school—the one with the canopy of trees so thick no sunlight gets through at all—I can barely breathe. I can’t wait to turn the corner so I can head for the roundabout where the sun shines through the branches. It’s physical and mental and emotional, this thing I have with light.

I didn’t like the laundry room before, for many reasons. The HVAC/water heater closet that was missing a wide louvered door. The uneven concrete floor. The red, white and blue plaid wallpaper and barn-red woodwork. The lone fluorescent light fixture in the stained tile ceiling. The lack of windows.

I didn’t like it for these reasons and more, but I didn’t realize how dark and dingy it was until the light came.

When we turned on the lights for the first time, it was as if the gates of heaven opened and a celestial choir burst into the Hallelujah Chorus.

This was before anything else had been done in the laundry room, mind you. Everything I just described was still there, in all its stark ugliness.

It was the light that made the difference.

October 7, 2014 4 comments

When You Decide to Stop Taking the Easy Way (Part II)

by Lois Flowers October 2, 2014

by Lois Flowers

Days before running club practice started last fall, I thought about the 5K my daughter Molly and I would be training for, and I imagined myself crossing the finish line.

Having never run in a race of any kind (unless you count those three-legged races we used to have on field day in elementary school), the power of that visual nearly brought me to my knees.

The highly effective Stephen Covey thought up his “begin-with-the-end-in-mind” habit a long time ago. But it’s not something I’ve ever done much before. I either do things, or not. I sometimes imagine myself at future events—my daughters’ weddings, a parent’s funeral, that kind of thing—but I don’t spend a lot of time casting visions for myself or anyone else.

But that picture of me crossing the finish line—and what I imagined I would feel when I did—stayed with me for the next several weeks. It kept me going as I plodded through 90-degree temperatures, personally redefining what it means to “sweat profusely.” It motivated me as I wondered how we would ever survive a 5K when Molly kept missing school (and running club practice) because she kept getting sick. It gave me confidence, as race day approached, that somehow Molly and I could both jog the whole way even though neither of us had never continually run more than two miles outside before.

Two days before the race, after a couple of good practices, I strained to keep moving as we ran along the trail. I thought it was supposed to get easier, I groaned to myself. How am I ever gonna finish the race on Saturday?

But even as I struggled, something amazing was happening to Molly. After spending our late afternoon practices mostly walking with her friends and complaining about being hot and tired, she suddenly kicked it into overdrive that last week. She ran like she’d never run before. She peaked at exactly the right time.

And I thought, If she can do it, I can do it.

The day of the race was perfect. It was cold and dark when we boarded the bus that took us to the race site, and the atmosphere at the starting line was electric. And you know what? I loved it. Every bit of it.

I had not expected that at all.

I hadn’t expected how much fun it would be to weave through race traffic, holding tightly to Molly’s hand so we wouldn’t be separated. I hadn’t expected how thrilling it would be to jog past groups of walkers, beaming with pride that we were going faster than they were. I hadn’t expected how exciting it would be to see spectators all along the race route, cheering us on with signs and voices. I hadn’t expected how exhilarating it would be to have Molly actually running next to me the whole time.

After about 35 minutes, we started to see a few people who had already finished coming toward us, looking for friends who were still running. And that’s when it hit me. We were almost there. This thing that I’d put off for so long, feared so much, worked so hard for—it was almost in sight.

It wasn’t about the time, it was about finishing. Together. And we did. At exactly the same moment.

I love the video of us at the finish line. There was no big emotional release, as I had imagined there might be. Just a quick hug, and then off to find daddy and big sister. Subtle, like me and Molly, and perfectly priceless.

• • • •

The day after my 43^rd birthday, I once again did something I had never done before. I made a pot roast. Out of a 3-pound hunk of beef. With potatoes and everything.

It tasted great. Better yet, it felt great. There was no cloud of witnesses in the kitchen, cheering me on as we took the first bite. But there was something just as nice. A husband and two daughters who are proud of me for trying something new, who will love me even if the next attempt at something new ends in dismal failure.

I could get used to this, this new habit of doing things I don’t know if I can do. I will get used to it.

It’s not about me anymore. And in this race we call life, that makes all the difference in the world.

October 2, 2014 1 comment

When You Decide to Stop Taking the Easy Way (Part I)

by Lois Flowers September 30, 2014

by Lois Flowers

One month shy of my 43^rd birthday, I did something I’ve never done before. Ever. Like, in my whole life.

I ran a race. An official 5K, with thousands of other people. And I actually ran the race (well, jogged—but in my world, the two are the same). And I actually finished. Not in record time, but under 40 minutes, which was good enough to put me almost in the top half of participants.

I go to a church of marathon runners. On any given Sunday, if the pastor asked the congregation how many had run some kind of ridiculously long race, hands would go up all over the place. These are the kind of people who have as their life verse the one about running the race, keeping their eyes fixed on Jesus, with the great cloud of witnesses cheering them on. You know the one I’m talking about.

Let me be clear. I am not one of them. My favorite part of that passage is the phrase about God being the author and finisher (or “editor,” as I like to think of it) of my faith. (I’m a writer, not a runner. Of course that would be my favorite part.)

Let me clarify some more, in case you’re not getting this. I don’t run races. I have a bad foot. I’m slow. I don’t like to run outside. I’m afraid of doing things I don’t think I can do.

Ouch. Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter. The uncomfortable story behind the story, so to speak. It wasn’t just all those physical limitations that have kept me from doing something I’ve always wanted to do.

It was fear.

It’s silly, really, this tendency of mine to avoid hard things. Silly, but life-long.

It’s not like I’ve never done anything difficult. I was an honors student in high school and college. I’ve written two books published by bona fide publishers. I completed the paperwork that resulted in two successful international adoptions. None of that was rocket science, but it did take considerable effort.

But too often, I took the easy way. I made decisions about what I was and wasn’t going to do based on whether or not I thought I could do it. And if it seemed too hard—if I didn’t think I could—I didn’t.

It’s something I’ve been forced to admit to myself and to others lately. It’s come into sharper focus for me as I observe people in my house who do not shy away from hard things, who do not give up at the first sign of struggle, who do not allow fear to rule. I greatly admire these dear ones who possess such tenacity, even as it exposes a character flaw in me.

But here’s the thing. There’s something about this incriminating piece of self awareness that literally explodes me into action: the thought that my daughters might pick up this debilitating pattern from me.

Not on my watch. Not if I can help it.

It’s not about me and my fears anymore. It’s about them.

So when my younger daughter Molly recruited me to participate in her school running club last fall, I could hardly say no.

There’s more to this story…look for Part II later this week.

photo credit: Noeluap via photopin cc

September 30, 2014 6 comments

What I See Now That I Never Could Have Imagined Then

by Lois Flowers September 23, 2014

by Lois Flowers

I became your mama a dozen years ago today.

At a Holiday Inn, not a hospital. In a Chinese province unfrequented by foreigners, not somewhere familiar and close to home.

I had no idea what I was doing back then. There are plenty of days when I still have no idea.

But I do know this. Being your mother has been and always will be one of the great joys of my life.

Before my dream of becoming a mom was fulfilled—and for several years thereafter—I never thought much about the future you. Oh, I definitely prayed for your future—your heart and growth and spiritual development. I pondered the way the world was going and wondered how everything I was teaching you would ever stick.

But while I occasionally dreaded the days when you would enter seasons that were hard for me, I never really looked ahead to what those days would actually be like, to what you would actually be like when you reached them.

Maybe this is because I’m a recovering worrier and thinking too much into the future is hazardous to my health. Whatever the case, nothing could have prepared me for what I’ve seen unfolding right before my eyes as I’ve watched you this past year.

Before we met you, the people at your orphanage told us three critical facts about you: You played hard, you slept hard and you showed excitement at food.

Let me just borrow a phrase from Mel B. (your favorite America’s Got Talent judge) and say this: they were spot on.

When you were younger, you ran non-stop. It wasn’t until you went to school fulltime in first grade that you stopped taking naps every day. And your metabolism was off the charts, which explains the amount of food you used to eat and the speed at which you consumed it.

You were always in a hurry and always hungry—for food, for motion, for fun.

We’d look at the work you brought home from school, complete with large, sloppy letters, misspelled words and careless math errors. “It’s better to be right than fast,” your dad would say. We didn’t realize, back then, that you were developing the ability to be right and fast.

Just last summer, when you were serving on the student leadership team of your ballet school’s end-of-year show, the production coordinator told me that working with you is like working with three people. Beautiful girl, you’re only 12, but you flat-out know how to get things done!

With you, though, it’s not really about the process. It’s about the people. You love people. When you were little, you would always find some other kid at whatever playground we were at and ask the scariest question your introverted mother can imagine. Not, “Do you want to play?” or, “Can I have some of your goldfish crackers?”

It was always, “Will you be my friend?”

You gradually gave that up as you got older, but you still find friends everywhere. And you are a good friend, too. You look out for your pals, you draw things out of them, and yes, you call them out when necessary. What I would have given to have a friend like you when I was in middle school!

One morning, as we drive by the high school, you tell me how you can’t wait to go there because “there are so many more people.” As if the 750 students at your current school are not enough. I scratch my head and shake it in wonder at the same time.

Before you could talk, I never would have imagined the conversations we’d have some day—in the minivan, at the kitchen island, high above the giraffes on the sky tram at the Omaha Zoo. You may roll your eyes at the “life lessons” I’m always teaching you, but you are learning them. I can see it in how you relate to everyone around you, from your classmates and elderly grandparents to strangers at Wal-Mart and the preschoolers next door who adore you.

Just the other day on the way to school, you were marveling at how similar various members of our family are even though we’re not related by blood. You’re right, you know. That’s how this miracle we know as adoption works.

We waited so long for you and prayed so hard—that you’d be healthy, happy and just right for our family. And the verse we put on your adoption announcement pretty much sums up how we felt about you—then, and now: “We prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted us what we asked of Him.” (I Sam. 1:27-28)

Photo by Lettricia Spell

September 23, 2014 0 comments

A Writer Writes Again

by Lois Flowers September 16, 2014

by Lois Flowers

I used to make my living writing every day. As the business editor at a small daily newspaper in Bentonville, Ark., and then later as a business reporter at the statewide daily, I wrote stories about everything from chicken processing plants and commercial construction to new bank branches and anything related to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

While the newspapers in that part of the country were fairly competitive back then, it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a cutthroat environment. But for me, it was tremendously stressful. I worked with some great journalists, many of whom also were wonderful people. I enjoyed interviewing people and learning their stories, but honestly, the daily deadlines and ever-present pressure and competition really weren’t for me.

After several years, I moved on to something much more fun—writing for a magazine on the cutting edge of the faith and work movement. It was wonderful. I loved my job and the people I worked with so much.

I wrote one book for this group (Women, Faith and Work: How Ten Successful Professionals Blend Belief and Business), and then another on my own (Infertility: Finding God’s Peace in the Journey).

Eventually, though—for reasons I will share later on this blog—I stopped writing.

For many years, all I could manage to write were prayers and an occasional press release for my church. As luck—actually, more like divine providence—would have it, my years of extended writer’s block were the same years Facebook grew huge, the blogosphere exploded, Twitter took off and self-publishing became popular.

The whole time, I thought about when I would start writing again, but I never actually did.

My foray into writing again began, quite beautifully, with a project I had put off for six years: My second daughter’s adoption scrapbook. When another friend went to China to adopt her son, I took that as my opportunity to get Molly’s book done. As I read the blog my friend’s twin daughters wrote about their trip and relived the adventures she herself described, I wrote a story for my daughter about how she became part of our family in the Guangdong province of China.

Another toe dip came when I applied to be a reader columnist for the religion section of my local newspaper. The submission that got me on the writer rotation for the year was perhaps the most vulnerable thing I’ve ever written for publication, and for me, it was a clear indication that my voice had changed significantly during my years of extreme writer’s block.

Can I let you in on a little secret? While it’s true that I’ve been a writer all my life, I’ve never been someone who lives to write, or can’t not write, or truly loves to write.

Until lately, that is.

Lately, the words have been flowing rather freely, and the joy they’re bringing my soul is something new entirely.

Which brings me to Waxing Gibbous. Honestly, I never planned to start a blog. In fact, until a few months ago, just thinking about it wore me out. But plans change, as do hearts and minds, and now a blog seems like a good next step.

If you like what you read, please enter your email address on the right to follow this blog. Then, if you think it might encourage or challenge the people you know, would you be so kind as to let them know about it, too?

I would be forever grateful.

September 16, 2014 4 comments