Sometimes a fresh coat of pain does the trick~

(Previously a wine color)

I spent Labor Day weekend laboring.  The dining room and living room are fantastic new colors and have completely changed the feel in my house.

I needed something different.

Even with huge life change right around the corner and a new house in the mix of things, I still needed something to change right now.  Especially since I feel like myself again.  I just came out of a haze that has been the last few weeks, no thanks to the medication I was on, and can breathe. We decided to pause our treatments for a while- even perhaps until after our move to Rochester.  While the last few bits of chemicals were working their way out of my body I reached the epitome of all craziness.  Hysterical sobbing became my nightly ritual and by the third night I knew I wasn't going to swallow that crazy pill ever again.   Ever. 

(Previously yellow walls)

I don't understand why these cysts keep recurring, and my normal tendency is to examine and analyze what they mean- what's God trying to tell me, what do I need to be doing differently- the whole lot.  A friend asked me recently, "Tiffany, are you the type of person that analyzes everything or is a cyst sometimes just a cyst?"


Perhaps it's a literal "bump" in the road?  An opportunity to rest instead of get worked up into the stressful hype that is infertility treatments?  I needed this break- even though I fought against it for the first few weeks.  I was ready to be done with it all, even if Lee wasn't.  For the first time in 10 years we found ourselves in flip-flopped positions.  But it wasn't long into our conversation that Lee spoke some kick-me-in-the-butt truth into my life.

When 10 years is actually like 15 minutes

If a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day, then the past 10 years of my life are as long as HALF of a sitcom on television (15 minutes) and 3,650,000 years.  Somehow I can relate to both.

I was telling Lee the other day, "How is it that I can be dealing with the same stuff after all these years?  Why is it I can't see more progress?"  But I've also just blinked- and here we are.  Married almost 11 years with an almost 3 year-old. 

15 minutes isn't a whole lot of time for extreme makeovers- even the best make-up artist in Hollywood would have their hands tied.  But 3,650,000 years?  Honey, a whole lot can get done in that amount of time.  Hindsight perspective would show progress, but on a very slow, incremental timeline.  That's how I feel today, that as much as I've been willing to progress and desiring to move forward, I'm inching along through far-too-familiar poo.

I'm impatient.  I'm tired.  I don't want to do this anymore.  I can't stop but I don't want to keep going.  Ever have days/weeks/years like that?  God's completely at work in our lives right now, but I'm so stuck today on what isn't happening that I'm struggling to adjust my focus to what's is happening right now. 

We are moving to Rochester next year and are really excited about it.  When the call came about it on Sunday evening I wondered if we would be able to get good news twice in one week, but round 2 of fertility treatments failed today and I'm not happy about it.  I'm so frustrated that I can't even properly thank God for what He's doing about our move.

I should be better at this.  This is where frustration moves from my circumstances to myself and no matter where I look there's disappointment.  I'm not handling this like someone with 10 years of experience.  I don't want to walk forward with this lingering over me, so I want to deal with it.  Right now.

I have the next 3 hours before I go into the clinic and start the next round of treatments to let God absolutely do what no Hollywood make-up artist would ever even dream of being able to do. 
I'm going to let him completely re-work my heart. 
He's done it countless times before (plus the 120 times I HAVE been counting) and He will do it again.

Tried and true, Fernando Ortega's album, The Shadow Of Your Wings: Hymns and Sacred Songs is now playing on my computer as I continue to write.  Ahhhhh........truth from scripture that I can sing along to.

He is patient.  He does not tire.  He never wavers.  He remembers that in comparison to him I am like the grass that withers away in the sun, therefore has no expectations that I'm going to be perfect at this, or that after 10 years I should have this figured out to a science.  Whether it's one day, 15 minutes, a thousand years or 3,650,000 years, it makes no difference to Him. 

"So roll up your sleeves, put your mind in gear, be totally ready to receive the gift that's coming when Jesus arrives.  Don't easily slip back into the grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing.  You didn't know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness.  God said, "I am holy; you be holy."  1 Peter 1:13-16

"Just remember, the mess you make is the mess you clean up," was my response to Jeremiah this morning when he asked if he could cut with scissors.  We have this conversation every time. But no matter how many times I tell him, when he's finished there are small scraps of construction paper littering my dining room floor and his desire to clean up is nonexistent.
"Pretend to be a dump truck, Jeremiah!  Scoop it up and DUUUMP it out."
"No I don't wanna do dat."
"Okay, well you don't have to pretend to be a dump truck but you still need to clean up your mess."

What came next in the conversation was an expression of his new-found sense of independence.  I'll spare you the details, but it resulted in Jeremiah spending a little bit of time sitting on the step in a time-out.  Being separated from our company is heartbreaking and it doesn't usually take but about 30 seconds before he is saying, "I'm ready to be a good listener, Mom!"  I'm trying to recognize when the attitude in his heart has changed versus his attempt to exert control and say when his time out is over.  It's hard. 

I don't always get it right. Sometimes I make him wait the full 2 minutes, other times I respond immediately with our post time-out conversation.  I want him to learn that just because we're ready for something to be over, even if our hearts are in the right place, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will be over.

Tell. Me. About. It.

Today marks 10 years of our infertility journey.  I kind of hate the word "journey".  It seems redundant and overused and boring.  So 10 years into our infertility whatever-word-is-better-than-journey, I find myself facing a date that I NEVER thought I'd see and certaily hoped I wouldn't.  I was ready for this 'whatever' to be over, hmmm, about 9 years and 7 months ago.  But it's taken me every moment of the last 10 years to get to THIS place, where I can say that as difficult as it's been, it's also something I've been entrusted with. 

I was talking to a friend earlier today and she asked me if, since our diagnosis, I struggled with bitterness toward God or other doctors because of how common my issue is and if I wondered why this wasn't discovered 10 years ago. Honestly, I spent all of maybe 5 minutes thinking about it after we first met with Dr. Corfman, because I could not think that and look at Jeremiah without realizing that if it had been discovered all those years ago, he would not be mine. 

So when I think about the time I've spent walking in intense conversation with God, I realize what a privilege it all has been.  Crazy? Perhaps.  You should know by now that I'm not a pie-in-the-sky kind of gal but I can tell you this right now- I've spent far too much time trying to figure out what I needed to learn, or how I needed to change the condition of my heart (beneficial processes however) and not enough time accepting what I've been given, or been entrusted with.  I want to walk through this "assignment" well-and not just for the purpose of getting to the other side, but because I want to honor the One who gave it to me.

I'll let him decide when it's over.

"Each of you should continue to live in whatever situation the Lord has placed you, and remain as you were when God first called you." (1 Corinthians 7:17 emphasis added)

When dreaming of teak pergolas...

The smell of this crisp northern Minnesota air is changing as the summer is progressing.  Today it's raining and I can smell the promise of Fall.  Big changes might be coming for us in the next few months, the biggest one obviously being a possible pregnancy.  We also might begin the transfer process to another part of the state. 

Though we don't even know if we'll be moving, I've already begun the list in my head of all the things I'll do differently in my life, my house, my garden.  The list actually began shortly after we moved into this house when we realized how much space around us we actually NEED.  I'm not talking, "Oh, we've got so much stuff that we need a bigger house."  It's more like I-can't-look-out-any-window-of-my-house-without-looking-directly-into-my-neighbor's-living-room, kind of need for space.  I can't stand it, and the idea of living on 30 wooded acres with a possible river running through the property just sends me into an ethereal daydream I don't want to leave. 

It's hard to look at my life, my surroundings, and not think about all the ways that it could be better.  No 100+ year-old paint chipping off of doorframes and floors that have needed to be resurfaced since 1995, but maybe a back deck framed in a Teak pergola woven with wisteria and paper lanterns.  No more, "My back lawn isn't grass at all, it's just a dense ground-cover WEED," but maybe a rolling grassy lawn with a big maple tree in the middle where there's a swing and a treehouse with a collapsable ladder and a mounted telescope for late-night, mid-summer star gazing.

 

Doesn't that sound fantastic?  I can get caught up in it so easily, we all can.  "Keeping up with the Jones'", comparing our lives to others and what they have that we want, or even being motivated to work out harder because you'd like to have the abs of the girl on the Zumba video (guilty here of all counts, by the way).

But I was challenged many years ago, when we first started our journey of 'why-isn't-what-I-want-happening-yet', by my mother who asked me what pain I'd like to have instead.  Instead of complaining about the difficulites in my life, studying my discontent and basically telling God that He's not quite handling my life very well, that perhaps I should see my struggle in a different light.

Would I switch with someone else who was trudging through a different kind of pain?  Like perhaps the family on the news who's son disappeared from school.  His mom just hasn't been able to straighten the covers on her little boy's bed because he left it messy the last time she saw him- would I like to trade places with her?

So maybe the next time that my grief wants to swallow me whole, or when my relationships seem to be just a bit disappointing, or that roll of fat just WON'T go away, I'll remember that it's not about me- not about what I want and what's not happening for me- and I'll pull up my boostraps once again and gratefully walk forward.  Even if it is just out into my weed infested, uneven, clay-packed backyard.

Maybe this isn't about me~

Three months ago Lee and I decided to pursue our final option in this whole twisted infertility journey.  As much as we've pursued treatments in the past, we never felt like we were dealing with a doctor that specialized in infertility, so that possibility was always out there, floating around. 

It's been interesting, balancing this infertility-stuff with already being a mom, wanting Jeremiah to always know what an incredible blessing he has been in our lives. His existence has made me what I've waited my whole life to become, Mommy.  He is more than we could've ever asked for in our firstborn.  That's what he is-our firstborn, even if he wasn't born from my womb. 

We've always wanted a few kids, and as much as we would like to adopt again, the desire to be pregnant has never gone away.

I kept hearing about a doctor from the Cities, specializing in infertility, who made monthly trips to a clinic here in Duluth. The recommendations to see him where persistent enough that I felt like if I didn't just go and see him I would never stop hearing about it. I was going to go and just check it off the list and close the door forever.

I wasn't prepared to have hope come ripping through our lives again.

The diagnosis: 10 minutes into our meeting with Dr. Corfman, we were diagnosed with a very common, and very treatable condition:  Poly cystic Ovarian Syndrome.  We left that meeting with the most calming sense of relief.  Finally, after 10 years, we actually knew what the problem was.

The plan: One month of birth control pills followed by 6 months of relatively easy treatments (a combination of ultrasounds and medications).  Dr. Corfman said he didn't think we would even need to see him again, that confident that our problems would be solved.

This new leg of the journey started in April, and four months into the process I've just finally been able to actually start the treatments.  A completely normal cyst appeared on one of my ovaries which delayed treatments by 3 months.  I cannot tell you how frustrating it was to feel, at long last, like we were able to step forward only to be halted in our tracks.  After 10 years you'd think 3 months would be no big deal, but I struggled, thinking, "Haven't we had to wait long enough?  Why another complication?"

Round 1 was unsuccessful, and again I'm struggling.  My long-waged war with hope has crept up on me again. The flip-side to hope being disappointment, of which I've tasted for so long that I feel silly for hoping at all.

"Tiffany, did you really think this was going to work? Haven't the last several years proved otherwise?"

"Aren't you satisfied with the child that you have?  Isn't that enough for you?  How ungrateful are you???"

It's ridiculous, and these things that I struggle with are LIES- I know that- but it's my process month after month x 120 months.

This is the time when all I have left is to go back to the basics. 

What is faith?

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." (Hebrews 11:1 emphasis added)  
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." (Hebrews 11:6)


 Hope and faith are tied together.  I cannot believe that God is able to do something and not hope that He will.  That was my biggest struggle for so many years- I believed that God could, but that
He wouldn't for me. 

Why? 

Because of past sin in my life? 

Because maybe I was just being used, like a puppet, for God to communicate some truth to the masses (that just might be paying attention to my life)? 

Because I am just... that... slow... in learning what God was wanting to teach me before this would be resolved?

Or how about this?  Maybe this isn't about me.........at all.  The selfish person in me says, "How cannot it NOT be about me?  It's MY pain!!"  

But what if the affects on me are important by-products but not the main goal? 

What if all these years of waiting are actually because of God's intricate, love-motivated plans for my children?  Maybe all these years of waiting are because there's a specific timing for when all my children are born. What they are going to accomplish, or give, or motivate, or change in the world is delicately woven into this great story that just hasn't started yet for the rest of them. 

Jeremiah's has- oh, does that boy have a story about the importance of his existence, of that I'm sure, and I cannot tell you what a privilege it is to be a vital part of it.  This time alone with Jeremiah, before any other children arrive, is vital to what God is going to accomplish in his life. 

So as I prepare myself to begin Round 2, I am readjusting my thinking.  I walk forward, knowing that God is not in the business of wasting time.  I continue to hope, embracing the disappointment if it should come, and believing that God is making beautiful things out of this whole story all along the way.

Empty places to fill

I'm a recent subscriber to (in)courage, a fantastic blog written by extraordinary women I hope to have the privilege of meeting someday.  One story in particular really spoke to me as I read how a woman suffered the loss of her baby at 18 weeks, enduring the labor and delivery of her stillborn daughter.

I almost couldn't read it, the pull to return to my dark and scary places so strong that I had to read bits at a time, forcing myself to stay in the present.  It was actually a really good exercise for me, to stay in the now, where I seem to be spending almost all of my time these days.  What a relief to feel like I'm on the other side of the hump able to make continual steps forward.  A year later and I finally feel like myself again.

Do you know what the most interesting part of this process has been?  I actually feel blessed to have suffered- it's the strangest thing.  If you had asked me a year ago if I felt like it was a privilege to watch my long-awaited miracle rip from my body I would have spiraled into the deep.  Looking back though, I can say I've never in my life experienced a season where I've been so raw and vulnerable before God.  Never have I been more bare, more naked of soul.  To finally understand that I don't need to always "feel" God's presence to trust that He is not only there, but active. 

Easter had special meaning for me, especially as I read Arianne's post.  We spent the morning together as a family, revelling in the memory-making with Jeremiah and I wondered if my grief has made me a better mother to him.  That if in the whole process I've been able to show him how to cling on for dear life, to wait patiently with hope (my longtime nemesis and now friend), to cherish every incredible moment and milestone, to fiercely fight through the dark and scary places, but most importantly how to love the God that we don't always understand. To let God mold, especially in the suffering. 

I've been searching for significance in this whole journey since it started, more focused on how my desire would eventually be fulfilled than on what God is doing in and around me.  To have made our life, our pain, our story "public" means that others are watching and waiting with us and I can't help but think of the disciples after Jesus' crucifixion.  How their faith was tested when they had to see the God they believed in die, to wait while grieving their loss, to hope that loss wasn't the final chapter, to know that their process was so very public.  What must if have been like to see their broken hearts and yet their stubborn determination to see it through? 

So again my focus shifts and I cannot help but think of my incredible little boy, who is sponging up more of my life than I'm aware of and the incredible privilege it is to have him with us.  What I want Jeremiah to believe about God has to be lived out in my own life and with that I will continue to step forward.

So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

1Peter 6-7

*I've been motivated to make my blog a bit more interactive and with that I pose this question:  Are YOU waiting for something?  Perhaps you're trudging your way through your own dark and scary place- tell me your story!

Knots and Tangles

My life was changed a few weeks ago. Not anything drastic or really noticeable from the outside. I still throw my hair up in a ponytail far more than I'd like to (no glamour mommy, here), still haven't cleaned under my refrigerator since we installed it, can't bring myself to wear socks to bed even though my feet are always freezing , and only moved the Christmas garland from the porch railing to the porch floor 3 weeks AFTER Christmas. All of those things are the same as they've ever been for me.

My heart on the other hand, is different.

I met with a friend of mine at the beginning of December. 2009 was a difficult year for both of our families and I get a ton of comfort from sharing that with her. I am understood, no talking necessary. A few days before we met for coffee I had come to a startling realization while doing the dishes. Why that's thinking-time for me, I don't know, but monotony produces introspection. I was rinsing plates and loading them into the dishwasher when I stopped midstream, water dripping onto my toes when I thought: In all my beliefs of God's sovereignty and goodness, I realized that although I believed God COULD bless us with a healthy pregnancy I didn't believe that He WOULD.

For some reason I believed that it was my destiny to live in perpetual grief and unfulfilled desire just so God could show that He was in charge and I wasn't going to get my way.

When I told my friend this, it almost felt like a confession and saying it out loud was relieving. Doubt had been harbored in my mind and heart for the entire year and I finally leaked it out. I wasn't depressed by my admission, but it didn't feel like acceptance either- it was just out. Even though some relief came, it didn't feel like truth. Honesty perhaps, but not truth.

Not 3 days later our pastor preached about hope. I sighed and groaned internally throughout the message- not because I didn't like it, oh no, because it pierced me through and through.

A few days later I received a mailing from Chip Ingram's ministry, Living on the Edge. This is how it read:

Dear Tiffany,


NEED HOPE?---------------------> Romans 5:1-5


What do you do when you get discouraged? When everything in you just wants to give up, throw in the towel, or just flat out cry?


I have found that discouragement births in my thinking. Proverbs 23:7 says, "As a man thinks, so he is." The gate to your heart is your mind. What you allow yourself to believe about your circumstances may be the most important decision you make every day.


So what if you viewed your present circumstances- whether painful or pleasant- through the lens of God's wisdom? What would it do for your soul? Your emotions?


Get HOPE-------------------------> Romans 11:33-36



Hope comes when we choose to look at all of life through the lens of God's wisdom. The wisdom of God tells us that He will bring about the best possible results by the best possible means, for the most possible people, for the longest possible time.

Ever have those times where God communicates so clearly that you almost feel like an idiot because how obvious He makes it? I've known all along that the experience of this last year is full of meaning and purpose, that nothing goes to waste if I keep myself open to what God is doing. What I hadn't grasped was that the experience of this last year is God's PERFECT means to His PERFECT ends. If there was a calmer, gentler, more loving way of accomplishing whatever He's doing, THAT would have been my reality. I cannot tell you how many times I asked, "This way, God? Could there not have been a different way?"

But no, there could not, and I cannot be angry with him anymore. I cannot possibly understand how this all works together and therefore cannot tell him how to do it differently. I'm seeing knots and tangles, places where the yarn has been torn and retied, frayed a bit in some places, like-new in others. What I know is that God promises redemption-when I will see in full what He did with my life.

Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It's way over our heads. We'll never figure it out.

Is there anyone around who can explain God?
Anyone smart enough to tell him what to do?
Anyone who has done him such a huge favor that God has to ask his advice?
Everything comes from him;
Everything happens through him;
Everything ends up in him.
Always glory! Always praise!
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Romans 11:33-36