The Autodidact

     I have often wondered how some people can just let events roll off their back and emerge mostly unaffected.  My husband is like that, but I am not one of those people. It's a good thing we are balanced like that, but I am convinced I am more fortunate to have a steady person by my side than my husband is to have a bundle of emotions by his. I am profoundly affected by spoken words, good and bad, but as you can imagine, it's the bad ones that affect me more. Angry, mocking words- I feel they are hurled at me and I can never get out of their way in time to duck, and they are splattered all over me. And I can't wipe them off. They stick to me, like wood stain sticks to your fingers, and sink in, only to be removed by time. I try to not think of them, try not to rehash them, but there they remain, working their way out of my mind in their own time. I pester myself with questions, replaying what was said, as if I could change things. Was I wrong? Were my answers soft...

Joy, humor and laughter: most of the time they do not come naturally to me; I must choose them. Finding them in momentous occasions or milestones or in times of great blessings is easy. But what about the rest of the time: the daily routines, the chores, the little moments? It's not so easy then; and I find I am merely enduring life, rather than embracing in it. When the baby spills a vase full of water all over the dining room table and floor, I am not amused. Or, when I am stuck in a long line at a store, or receiving poor or, worse, non-existent service, I am tempted to sigh and complain. When one of the kids can't find something and comes to me to find it, I impatiently mount a search. And there is always the repetitive happenings: the scramble to find shoes at the last minute; the agony over how someone's hair or clothing looks; the squabbling over who gets what seat at the table or in the car. And as I bang my head against the wall, I ask myself: "Haven't th...

This time of year I am bombarded with the phrases: "give thanks", "be thankful", "with a grateful heart", and so on. And these phrases, although appropriate and heartfelt, usually refer to material possessions, or health, or happiness. And I am thankful for those things; I should be. Yet all those material things will eventually pass away like dust. I long for a thankfulness that's deeper, more meaningful, and not centered on me, but, rather, centered on eternity. Lately, I have been searching my heart for such things and have found a few. Things such as a marriage that God has placed me in, not for my own benefit, but to reflect the relationship of His son and His church, in order to benefit others. Or maybe it's sending me a child that I thought I was going to keep for my happiness, yet could not keep, in order to comfort other women who had suffered a similar loss. Could it be that all those children, upstairs in bed, were not just for my own f...

     For twenty years I have shared a home, a life, my heart, with one man. Twenty years ago, I pledged my whole being to this man, to live as one flesh with him. And yet the one flesh part remains a puzzle to me. It is real and physical, and yet elusive and mysterious. The physical union of a man and wife is easy to figure out, even when life intervenes in its implementation. But there is so much more to being one flesh than that, indeed a more important aspect than mere physical closeness.  It's hard to imagine how two flawed, selfish people can have their hearts, and souls, their very minds, knit together, becoming more than who they were before, and yet remaining individuals.      Sometimes it's steady. I feel it when he finishes a sentence for me, or knows exactly how I would feel about something. It happens when I just give him a look, and he knows what is in my heart. It was there when we suffered the loss of our first child, when parents sicke...

The morning rush is over. Breakfast dishes are cleaned up, teeth are brushed, children are settled down doing schoolwork. I sit with the 9 and 7 year-old discussing addition and multiplication, months of the year and the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit, and the 4 year old asks what 'less' means. The baby crawls into my lap and I bury my face in the back of her neck, inhaling her baby sweetness. The kids look out the window at a squirrel eating nuts, and a Blue Jay stealing eggs from the compost pile. The 4 year old asks what does 'adding' mean? I must start giving him more attention. They all need more of my attention but there is only so much of me that can go around. The 15 year-old is struggling with Algebra and needs encouragement to take on more leadership in a situation he is facing. The 12 year-old needs me to listen to her and smile at her more and help her with her writing. The 17 year-old doesn't think she needs me, but she does. All day, I will ...

I'm not a musician at all, nor any kind of a singer, and my children have all had to suffer with my singing to them as babies. But I love all kinds of music, and I love to sing, especially hymns and folksy type music. I often have music playing during the day, but there is another kind of music, a more important type, that I love to listen to: the music of my house. Sometimes I hear it when I am folding laundry or reading a book or cooking. I hear it when I am alone, as alone as anyone can be with a house full of 7 children. It's a song of life and love, of growth and change, of longing and dreaming and learning. It's someone practicing piano and singing along while others are watching a lesson on Latin, and the baby is babbling happily in her baby language. It's the 15 year-old practicing guitar in the basement while the four year-old is jumping off the couch in the family room to see how loud a thump he can make, and the 17 and 12 year-olds are in their room laughing ...