Good Plans & Perfect Timing

Thanks to the COVID 19 pandemic my entire team is working remotely. I'm having some email issues so I'm posting my weekly email here as a backup.

Hello everyone,

Several months ago, as I faced some decisions and uncertainties in my personal life, I wrote the following on a sticky note:

God’s plan is always right and His timing is always perfect

The note is still stuck on my computer screen at work, with a copy on my bathroom mirror at home. It is a much-needed reminder that even as I walk through unsettling times, God knows the full plan and will order all things for good.

We are in the midst of unsettling times right now. It might be hard to see a plan for your life, your unique circumstances, in the middle of so much general chaos and upheaval. You may be feeling that the good plans you’ve made for your life have been permanently derailed with no clear vision for what to do instead or what comes next.

I testify that a loving Heavenly Father and Mother are aware of you. They know every detail of your life. They want your happiness and joy—it’s the object of everything they do. There is a plan for you, and it’s a plan for good.

Over the last few weeks I have felt inspired to read and study the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. As you know, Joseph suffered greatly, and for a long time, because of evil decisions made by other people. There are so many lessons to be found in his story but the one overwhelming thing that keeps standing out to me is that there was always a plan for Joseph. Even when things seemed the darkest and most hopeless, God knew the plan that He had for Joseph. He knew the glorious future that was coming. He knew the great work that Joseph would do. Joseph didn’t always know or see the plan. I’m sure there were many sleepless nights, many tears, and a degree of emotional heartbreak nearly beyond my ability to comprehend. But none of that negated the plan or made God’s purposes any less sure. 

There is a humorous meme circulating that says something like “don’t worry--when God made His plans He already took into account your stupidity.” Rest assured that He also took into account global pandemics, school closures, earthquakes, and everything else that is rocking our world right now (see what I did there?). 

We will be okay. You will be okay. Just like Joseph, God has a glorious plan for you. There may be some rough spots on the way but you will get there. 

Hang in there. Keep looking out for each other. You do that so well. As we walk through these uncertain times together I can’t think of anyone I’d rather walk with than you guys. Thank you for rising to the occasion as we transitioned into working remotely with very little notice. To say that I’m proud of how well you are doing is an understatement. I am in awe of you. Thanks for letting me walk with you.

Choose Love

Each week I send an email to all of my student employees. It's a way to stay connected and bring a little bit of the personal into our professional day. 

This week I want to share the message with you, too. 

Buckle up, guys, it’s kind of a long one. It’s also maybe the most important weekly email I’ve ever sent, so pay attention!

Way back, a lifetime or more ago, I was a licensed foster parent. Before any of my kids were born, I fostered other people’s kids for short periods of a few weeks or a few months.

As you might imagine this came with plenty of precious and humbling experiences. It also came with some hard stuff and heartbreak. The deepest heartbreak came from those times when it seemed that I would get to become a permanent mom to the child I’d loved so deeply, only to find out that instead of adoption I had to hand the child over to someone else.

Even nearly twenty years afterward it is still hard to remember and talk about those experiences. The hand-off for one baby, 22-month old baby K, happened in the Salt Lake City airport. The agency workers had to pry him out of my arms while I cried too hard to speak. 3-year old Z was passed over in an agency parking lot. He must have realized what was happening because as he was carried away he was fighting to climb out of the social worker’s arms and come back to me, screaming for Mommy at the top of his lungs.

It was brutal.

After each disappointment I would think that I couldn’t possibly put myself through that again; the hurt was too terrible, the emotional pain was too great, and the risk was too high. And each time God would remind me that love is never wasted, and that He would help me bear my part of the emotional cost so that I could focus on helping His littlest ones who carried far more pain and hurt than anyone should have to bear, especially at such tender ages.

In that difficult crucible I learned that I was strong enough to choose love, over and over again. Even when I knew the risk for hurt was high, I knew that I would choose love over fear.

Fast forward to now, when as you know—because I overshare in these weekly emails—I began dating again a few months ago. It’s been every bit as weird and hilarious and exciting and awkward and fun as I expected. It also comes with a special brand of emotional risk, as most of you know, because you are either right in the thick of dating alongside me or only moved out of it recently.

Last week a relationship that I liked came to an end. It wasn’t my choice (doh!) and the abrupt ending made me realize that I was more emotionally invested than I’d thought. It hurt.  

It was so tempting, in the days after, to retreat back and take a pass on this whole dating thing. It was also tempting to hold back and not allow myself to become invested in other potential relationships, to play it safe, even though I know that genuine connection can’t happen without real investment.

Fortunately God reminded me that I already made this decision years ago.

I choose love.

Even knowing the risks and the sometimes inevitable pain, in spite of fears—many of which are quite valid—I still choose love.

This isn’t just because I’m hoping that at some point it pays off and there are rewards to equal the pain. None of us have any guarantees that our investment of time, energy, and love will pay off the way we want, whether it’s romantic love or otherwise. Just like with my little fostered babies, I choose love because they deserve it. They are worth my love, my risk, my hurt.

The alternative to choosing love is to close yourself off emotionally and stunt your own growth. It offers an illusion of safety, but you miss out on so much. I choose love because I deserve it. I deserve the stretching and growing and joy that comes when you go all in. I am worth the love, risk, and hurt of giving 100%.

Nearly all of you are probably in situations right now where you can choose fear or you can choose love. Sometimes this will be about romantic relationships but more often it will be about an annoying coworker or difficult roommate, a troubled sibling or needy friend. Choosing love doesn’t mean subsuming yourself to please others. Love isn’t codependency, and sometimes real love means honoring healthy boundaries and loving yourself enough to enforce them. Figuring out the line between healthy self-sacrificial love and unhealthy enmeshment may take years. Be brave enough to do it.

At the end of the day love is a tremendous act of courage and the most worthwhile thing you can do with your life.

I hope that when you have the choice you will always choose love. It’s the only way to live.

PS—I have a date tomorrow with someone new J. Don’t let fear win!

A Post in Which I Get a Little Personal

There is something that I've been wanting to blog about for a while, but I'm not sure exactly how to put it out in such a public forum. This post is my fumbling attempt. 

Duality has been on my mind lately, especially as it relates to us. Something tells me that peace and progress happen when we embrace our own innate duality and accept that we are walking, talking contradictions. Hotbeds of hypocrisy, that's us. Though maybe hypocrisy is not the right word--perhaps living, breathing paradoxes, each one of us. 

I'm in a period of intense self-study, trying to make peace with difficult parts of my life and see them redeemed by God to become a foundation for something good and beautiful. It's hard, sometimes gut-wrenching work and I know it's important--very important--and worth the work and tears I'm investing. 

One reason it's so difficult is that most of my life is awesome and I feel confident and competent and capable navigating that life. I like that feeling of confidence. It allows me to do good things. So when something challenging rears up and leaves me in fetal position crying on my closet floor, I feel anything but confident and strong and capable. I feel weak and vulnerable and I HATE THAT. 

The epiphany is that I was treating this somehow as a zero sum game. Those nights on the closet floor, I thought, negated all of the strength and confidence I have in the rest of my life. Conversely, I thought if I were truly strong and confident, nothing would throw me off. I wouldn't have nights on the closet floor because I'd be too tough for anything to shake me. I wasn't allowing for my own duality. I wasn't allowing myself to be both. 

I am strong and confident and capable. Most people who know me will only ever see that person, and that's fine. And I'm also a human--a flawed, hot mess of a human--who has been through some rough times and sometimes still battles demons. On rare occasions those uglier parts of my story knock me flat to the closet floor. I don't stay there; I get back up. In relation to all of the good moments those moments are so few and far between, and I'm grateful. I realize what a wonderful gift it is to live in a world, in a reality that is so filled with goodness and love and light. Yet those vulnerable moments are just as much a part of me as my strength. One doesn't negate the other. In fact, my strength is what allows me to face those darker things. And my vulnerability is what allows me to heal and move to something better. Both strength and vulnerability create space for intimacy, connecting with fellow travelers on this trip around the sun. 

Yin and yang, baby. Opposition in all things. The secret, I think, is in embracing both. 

That's easier said than done. We are all works in progress. And what a beautiful, glorious work. 

Thanks for sharing the journey with me. 

Reconciliation

Sometimes having teenagers is hard. Sometimes being a teenager is hard. Lately a particular teenager has been making choices that regularly (daily) put her at odds with mom, mostly because I actually care about her future, want good things for her, and hope she'll avoid decisions now that will lead to negative consequences down the road.

Even though it comes from good intentions, it sometimes strains our relationship more than I would like.

Lately that distance felt especially acute and I wasn't sure how to bridge it.

On an unrelated note, I pride myself on putting my Christmas tree way too early--usually before Halloween. When my kids were young they LOVED this holiday tradition. At some point in the last couple of years it became "weird" and "embarrassing" and "totally not cool, mom." I do it anyway--what is parenthood if not license to embarrass your teens--but this year I just hadn't gotten to it.

A couple of weeks ago I came home to find the tree up, decorated, and lights on. This same particular teenager was putting the last ornaments on as I walked in the door.

"Wha---? I thought putting the tree up so early was too embarrassing?"

"It is. I've already told my friends they can't come over to our house for a few weeks so they won't see how dorky this is."

"Why did you put the tree up, then? Maybe it's cooler than you want to admit."

"No. It's not. I don't like having a tree up before Halloween. But I know you do. So I put it up."

"Awwwww, you LOVE me! You really, really love me!"

"Ugh, mom, you are so cringy."

"But you wuv me. You wuv me."

"Not for long if you keep being so awkward about it."

If families are the lab where we practice being human together I'm pretty partial to these lab partners of mine. Healing strained relationships one awkward Christmas tree at a time, that's us.

Some Blessings Come Late

One of my most favorite things about being a mom was rocking & singing my babies to sleep. For some of them it came a little later--Eric was almost two when he arrived home, and Jack was already four. Some of them tolerated it better than others. Some were only good for a song or two (looking at you, Mia), while others would listen for hours and drift off to sleep (ah, Gracie!).

And then there was Annie.

Annie did NOT like being rocked or sang to, from day one and it never improved. She would squirm to get away, put her hand up over my mouth to block the singing, and if all else failed, turn her head away from me and shut her eyes as if to block this unpleasantness out.

So I didn't sing to Annie and rock her at night.

On the big scale of parenting joys and sorrows this wasn't even a blip. Annie is a miracle girl and I love being part of her miracle, even if it's in different ways than I anticipated.

A few weeks ago she climbed up on my lap in the rocking chair, cuddled in, and promptly fell asleep. Nearly every day since she has grabbed a blanket, pointed at herself, pointed at me, then pointed at the rocking chair.

She even lets me sing.

Granted, Annie is not one for lullabies and "I am a Child of God." This girl wants Baby Shark (aka, the dumbest song ever written), Carrie Underwood, and Imagine Dragons...so that's what I sing. If I stray into a song of my choosing instead of HRH's choice, that hand comes right up over my mouth to cut me off.

She's a big nine-year old with bossy opinions who prefers to dictate her own terms for snuggle time. It's not what I pictured. It's later than I expected. Right behind Annie's shoulder in the photo above is a framed print containing one of my favorite quotes:

"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come until heaven, but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come."

Soon or late, as I expected or wildly, completely different, I'm so grateful that blessings come.

Roots and Wings

You are going to your first college camp. You are so excited you are jumping out of your skin and I am so excited for you. It’s been a major topic of conversation for months. It’s a couple of miles from our house, at the university where I work. Your dorm is literally across the parking lot from my office—but this is big. You will have roommates. And stay up late. And meet boys. And take classes in real college classrooms. This is a big deal.

You ask me twenty times if I’m ready to go. You ask questions about everything—the registration desk and the fast food joints and why the dorms have six girls. You want to know everything…until we sit through an interminable orientation and you spend the entire time texting your friends.

I ask if you want me to drop you off or go with you to check in. You look panicked. Definitely come with me, mom. We check in and get directions to pick up your dorm keys. Again I ask if you are ready to for me to go. No, come with me to my dorm. So I do. At the dorm there are five other girls with the same nervous-excited look on their faces. Five other parents give their kids hugs and say goodbye. No, stay, you say. Come with me to orientation. You hold my hand as we walk and for a few minutes you are five again and I’m your mom and you are my girl.

By the end of orientation your head is swiveling around, trying to see all the people. We head for a get-to-know-you ice cream social. I am tired. I have to be up in 8 hours and I still have to go home and do laundry and take a shower and pack a lunch. No, you say. Stay for ice cream while I find my new roommates. Suddenly I see that you’ve got this. Totally, completely, got this. I’m your training wheels and you are so ready for them to come off. No, I say. It’s late and I’m tired and you’ve got this. You hesitate. Then you nod. Yes, you say, I’ve got this. You bounce away, grinning, with the unconscious grace and artless elegance that are so you.

I go back to the car and cry.

I’m not sad.  This is what I want. This is what I love. You--confident, happy, bright and shining and marvelous and good. I’m crying because I’m tired and it’s been a long week and I’m so lucky to be your mom and this whole thing of dropping you off at dorm rooms and watching you flit away in highs-top sneakers is everything I want even if I also want to pull you back on my lap and sing one more lullaby and play one more game and just have a little bit more time to soak in the wonder of mothering you. The moment you were placed in my arms at two days old was the beginning of watching you leave.

Today as I’m exiting work my phone rings. Where are you, you say. Leaving work, I say. Wait! I’m almost to your office. Why? Oh, nothing. We are just having dinner by your office and we are early and I wanted to see you. I’m already in the car, I say. I’m already driving home, I say.

Can’t you just turn around?

I consider. I came into work early so I could leave early. A long to-do list took over and instead of leaving an hour early I got out ten minutes early. Ten minutes is still early enough to beat the traffic and cut my drive home in half. I have perishable food in the car. I told the sitter I’d be home early. I planned to cook a real dinner for my kids after a week of fast food.

Fine. But only for a minute. I’ll just give you a hug and then I need to get home.

You are watching for me. Your long legs lope over to my car when you see me coming. I roll down the passenger window and you start a rapid-fire monologue about the boys you met and the pizza party you are planning with your roommates and the people who asked you if you are my daughter and the all-you-can-eat buffet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I smile and nod.

A boy calls for you to hurry up. You shrug and say you have to go. I tell you to be good and be safe. You roll your eyes—maybe only a little bit.

You bounce away and in the bright sun it looks like you are taking flight.

This time I don’t cry.

Birthday Season

It's birthday season at our house. Everyone but Mommy and Annie have birthdays in the spring, so it's back-to-back celebrations for a couple months.

Birthday season reminds me all over again how lucky I am to have these people in my life.

Mia, my newly minted 12-year old, how I love her mother heart! She is naturally kind, generous, and thoughtful, with a special gift of gratitude. She is discovering her athletic prowess and enjoying big girl activities with her best friends. She's not sure how she feels about YW yet, but Grace goes, so Mia is giving it a chance. She continues to be the resident family wit, seeing the ironies in everyday life and keeping us all laughing.

Jack just turned 6 and in his mind I think that's pretty much days away from full-fledged grownup, driving and voting. He is BIG! He tells everyone! For his birthday he opted to bring treats and birthday hats to his kindergarten class, for "my Mrs. Johnson and ALL my friends." Jack makes friends everywhere he goes. "Hi, I Jack. Who you are?" is his favorite opening line. He's also the king of TMI, informing old ladies in the checkout line that he has no daddy, that his mommy is fat,  and that his butt is itchy.

Mercie has had a very eventful spring so far, which I will write about in a separate post. This isn't how she planned to turn 11, I'm sure. She has stayed her funny, sweet self through some hard times lately, and demonstrated real courage and grace even when she's in pain. She is impressing everyone with her grit and toughness. That's my girl! I wouldn't wish for the trials, but it has been nice, I admit, to have more one-on-one time with my Mercie.

Eric is coming into his own as he approaches 11. He's an awesome cub scout who is currently the leader of his age group. In true Eric fashion he requires them to chant "Eric is awesome," sing a song about his greatness, and salute a flag that proclaims "Eric is great." He has very easy-going fellow scouts and a super cool scout leader :). He continues to whiz through all things academic, earning a few conversations with mom about how school won't always come so easily....

Grace has blossomed in junior high. No other words for it. She loves her friends, her classes, her violin and piano, her acting.....and boys. So far she has shown very good taste in her crushes. She likes boys who are kind and smart and funny. I hope this never changes! She's always on her phone, drives us all nuts with the karaoke machine she got at Christmas, and continues to be my right-hand woman. She can't wait to be 13 soon and get on social media.

And even though Annie's birthday isn't until fall, I'll give her a shout-out anyway. She is determined to be a big girl and get out of diapers, even if she hasn't fully grasped the idea behind potties. Not content with walking, she's now running everywhere. She continues to be the spoiled-rotten baby of the family who gets pretty much anything she wants thanks to her adorable smiles and heartbreaking "cry face," as Mia puts it.

My house is ALWAYS loud. Always. It's almost always crazy and chaotic and messy. But I get to come home to those faces. Luckiest mom in the world, that's me.

Jack

Yesterday I took Jack and Annie to get haircuts.

Annie needed surprisingly little mommy-intervention (unlike last time, which was an unhappy experience for all of us), sitting up like a big girl and grinning into the mirror. She loves being pretty and being fussed over, so she was in little-girl heaven.

Jack jabbered away a million miles a minute, making friends with all the stylists and customers alike. He ended up sitting down at one end of the shop, where he couldn't see me once Annie was done and I took her back to the waiting area.

"Hey," he exclaimed cheerfully. "I need my mom! Where's she go? I love her SO MUCH!!! I her boy and she my mom. Where is she?"

What kind of five-year old announces to the whole place that he loves his mom SO MUCH? This kid is one of a kind. Of course, he also informed the stylist that he wanted his hair cut SO long, so he can put barrettes and braids in it, and he wants his hair to look like mommy's hair.

He's a weirdo, but he's my little weirdo, and I love him SO MUCH!!!

Overheard at Our House

Jack's prayers:

"Dear Fadder, we thankful for eat and oranges and apples and not big apples, only little ones and night-night, lots and lots of night-night. Thankful eat soup and crackers and not broken crackers except Mommy like broken crackers but not Jack and Mei-Mei love her toys and lots and lots of toys for Jack and Mei-Mei, and Jack toys with songs. Thankful for naps and thankful for Eric and getting water bottles and in the fridge because I a big boy and cookies--one cookie, two cookies, Mommy say no more cookies.....and three cookies! Thankful for EricMercieMiaGrace, Thankful for TV and watching Signing Time and George and Barney, but not Mommy's movies, only mine. And piano. An toys with songs. And my new jammies. And Mei-Mei no crying because she is a baby. Jack a big boy. I four, like Caillou. I five on my birthday and go to school in August. And grateful for sun glasses and Jack's new sunglasses. And Grace. And Mia be quiet. And Mommy sew Jack shorts like cut, cut, cut, and BRRRRRRR (imitates sewing machine sound), all done! And more cookies. InthenameofJesusChristamen."

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Dinner Conversation:

Grace: "Why does Aunt Holly have big lips and the rest of you don't?"

Me: "I don't know. I guess she's just the lucky one who got all the good lips genes in the family and the rest of us got screwed."

Grace: "She must be a really good kisser with those lips."

Me: "WHAT????"

Grace: "Well, is she? Better than you?"

Me: "I wouldn't know. I sincerely doubt there is a person alive who could tell you how Aunt Holly & I compare in kissing."

Grace: "Why?"

Seeing Me

Like most of America, I'm overweight. Fat, even. I don't like it, and I always have somewhat vague intentions of doing something about it.

While I am quite confident in my intellectual abilities and my professional prowess and my social skills (well, mostly) and my mothering and even crazy things like public speaking and performing on a stage, I, like so many other women, have internalized the message that fat = something very, very wrong with me. Because of this I avoid pictures of myself. I don't necessarily avoid having pictures taken--I know my kids love me and my friends love me, and I don't let my image issues get in the way of the people I love having pictures of a person they love (me). But you can bet your sweet booty that I avoid looking at pictures of myself. Also, mirrors and doors and windows that reflect me back to myself. If I forget to look away in time and catch a glimpse, I wince.

So, in a recent effort to once again shame and guilt myself into getting with the program and back to the gym, I decided that I needed to face the photos. I decided to sit down and stare at every picture taken of me in the past few months and confront that dreaded fat lady. I just knew, in the back of my sad little brain, that I would be so grossed out and horrified that I'd be instantly motivated to cut out sugar and trim calories and give up my already-non-existent sleep to get more exercise time.

I braced myself.

I opened the pictures.

And I started to cry.

You guys, I love this lady. SO MUCH.

I didn't see fat.

For maybe the first time in my life I didn't start going through a mental checklist of everything that's wrong with me.

I saw happy.

I saw peace.

I saw brave. Tough, even.

I saw vulnerable, mixed with indomitable.

I saw loyal and kind and fierce.

I saw messed-up and kooky and sometimes just flat out wrong--but I also saw someone who gets back up and starts over, who has the guts to forgive and to seek forgiveness.

And I saw love. Oh my goodness, so much love. I saw a deep, deep reservoir of powerful, tenacious, so-intense-it's-almost-unhinged kind of love that takes down mountains and crosses oceans and changes the world because nothing can stand up against that kind of unselfish and unconditional love.

There are so many things wrong with this silly lady--and only a few of them are physical.

But there are so many things RIGHT.

I love her.

I have fought so hard to become her.

The fat will go away. I'll figure out how to incorporate a regular exercise routine into my crazy busy days. I will eventually start to get more sleep, and it will be a little easier to eat right and have energy and invest a bit more time in my physical self. I know this.

But I won't wait--until I'm thinner or my skin tone evens out or my hair has more volume or whatever flaw-of-the-day goes away--to love myself.

I'm plenty of awesome already.

There's a quote circulating the internet, whose provenance I couldn't find, that reads "If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies, how different our ideals of beauty would be."

Yes.

I regularly, nearly daily pray that God will give me eyes to see the good in people, to see them as He sees them, to catch glimpses of the Divine within us.

I never realized that He wanted me to start by seeing me.

*Mad props to Julie Roper and Sindea Horste for the most excellent photography skills showcased in this post. The love and happy oozing out of the photos is all me. The skill to pull it out via camera--that's all them. Very talented friends are one of my favorite blessings in life.