Another angry sandwich maker

I'm a recovering workaholic, a Martha in remission. 

A month ago, the Martha symptoms were fully active. Rushing around from obligation to obligation, compulsively checking my phone, email, text, social networking. Saying "yes" when I should've say "no". Working at home, working at work. And quickly, I became resentful. Angry.

Then I rehearsed all the work I do. And I stacked it up next to everyone else's work. Some people beat me, but I usually won. I'm busy. I'm a mom and a social worker and a pastor's wife, a friend and roommate and some other stuff. So I can win. But win what? What a sorry victory.

That's when I am all out Martha from that story of Jesus' two friends. The story goes that one afternoon when Jesus was visiting Mary and Martha, the ladies went separate ways. Martha went to the kitchen to prepare food for the crew. Mary stayed with Jesus. She really liked Him. She wasn't really thinking about whether or not He needed something to eat. She just didn't want to miss anything He said. She plunked herself right down near his toes and didn't move. Martha muttered to herself as she slaps lunchmeat on sandwich bread, a bitter dinner from a grumbling heart.  Accusing her sister of laziness, she clanks around hoping to be noticed. And then she can't take it anymore. 

 

 "Jesus, when are you going to tell Mary to come help me?"

And do you know what Jesus says? It's not even fair. 

"“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42but only one thing is needed.^f Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Worried about many things? Yea, Jesus. I am worried about many things. Do you want to know why? Because no one else will worry about them. Who is going to organize the children's ministry, start women's small groups, or cook the new mother's meals? Who is going to visit all the sick people in the hospital? Who is going to encourage my husband and raise my son? Who is going to do my laundry and clean my bathroom? You're right. I am worried about many things. But if I don't do this stuff, who will? It has to get done.

Hear the anger. It's a stacking game, a competition. I have to stay ahead of all the other busy people, prove my worth by eliminating white space in my schedule. Rest is not a legitimate way to spend time. People become a means to an end. No more motivated by love, rest and creativity, I struggle along in survival mode, sleep-deprived and wondering why I signed up for this life I've got.

Then comes the explosion. The anger that can't be contained because no one notices how dry and tired and angry I am, how taken for granted, how busy and important and overlooked I am. No one can see. No one respects me. And I hate them all for it.

Then comes the wrestling with God, the illness because it literally makes me sick (most of the time) out of sheer exhaustion. I dig out The Way of the Heart. I remember the value of prayer, silence and solitude. I confront the fact that my biggest enemy is me. That I am afraid to say "no" because I absolutely hate that look of disappointment in your eyes when I can't do something you think you need me to do. I hate the fact that I can still be manipulated and controlled by fear, and that I try to use shame to control others.

And I go back to Love. I remember Him, that He does not need all my work. He did not create me for labor but for friendship, for Love. Breathing resumes.

Then come apologies. The sincere "I'm sorrys" to God, to the people my anger stepped on. The journal-etched plans to never do this again. The confession to my women's group that I should have made two weeks ago when things really started to get bad.

And gentleness and slowness return for a while. Because at the end of the day, I'm just a girl. With relative comparison to eternity, 30 years makes me young, a novice at kindness and living patiently, in love, with grace and gentleness. The disparity between where I am and where I want to be is painful. But Jesus is gentle with me and He wants me to be gentle with myself too. And then I can be gentle with the other worn out souls around.

Some day soon I know I won't fight it. I'll accept that I'm just a baby at this life thing, a tiny helpless baby just riding along, secured on the broad shoulders of Papa God. Held far above chaos and pain, much safer than I realize, and so so so LOVED. And then I can just lean back and enjoy the ride. 

[Photo courtesy of Rose Wheat Photography]

Insomnia

The irony is not lost on me.

At 3am this morning I was awake. Wide awake. John was crying because his room was too hot - poor kid. And I was awake. I thought about why I must be awake. Was I supposed to be praying for something? I couldn't think of anything burning. I thought. I tossed. I read. And John was up again. This time we both sat in his rocking chair and rocked and tried to make the time pass until he wanted to play, which was not at all what I had in mind. Back to bed for us both.

About 5:30 I fell asleep, only to be rudely awakened 20 minutes later by an alarm clock that claims it was "merely doing it's job". My attempts to resist coffee, which had been successful for the past week, were foiled. Was not going to make it through the day without it.

Insomnia does a number on the personal aesthetics. No wonder they call it "beauty sleep". [Slight exaggeration of facial features thanks to PhotoBooth.]

In some ways, I have an ideal job. Tuesday through Friday I work 10 hour days, teaching soldiers and their families ways to enhance their lives, connecting them with good stuff like churches and therapy and local social programs. But today is Tuesday. And on Tuesday I talk about sleep. I conduct an educational group or hold large group sessions for soldiers who forgot how to sleep during life stress or deployment or both and need to relearn how it works. So every Tuesday, that's me, at the ready with sleep science and stress management techniques galore. I've been talking about this stuff for two years. I know my material.

Until this morning. I laid awake for two hours, like I tell the guys not to do. I knew I should read, but I just laid there and fought with myself, like I tell them not to do. About 5:15 or so I finally read. Reading worked as the perfect mild sedative it always is. Why did I not do it before, like I tell the guys to do? Ah yes, the doctor is the worst patient, it seems.

Tonight I skipped my satellite group at Mike and Kim's to cuddle up home in the imminent storm, chili and tea in hand, dog in the kitchen, most of the house to myself. I may be asleep by 9 tonight. Hoping God will talk to me though. I really want to hear from Him, want to know what is going on in the world, in the nation, in our little Bethlehem of a city, and what He wants me to do about it. So much volatility. My goal: to be one of the sons of Isaachar. "From the tribe of Issachar, there were 200 leaders of the tribe with their relatives. All these men understood the signs of the times and knew the best course for Israel to take" (1 Chronicles 12:32). 

So incredible that we can be like that, knowing the seasons, the times. That God can wake us up - mind, soul, body, spirit - and teach us something, in the night, in the day, anytime. We only need to desire to know. And we need to listen.

If you're going to speak, Lord, wake me up any time.

Isn't He wonderful? Love this picture of Jesus. He is alive, a man, still speaking to us. Can you believe it?   [Photo credit: the child prodigy and personal friend of God, Akiane]

Living (and Dreaming) in Community

Our family snapshot at the moment.

As of today, we have 8 people living in our house: two parent students, one paraeducator, one student-photographer, one social worker and one pastor. And two little babies loving life. It's busy but I can't really imagine life any other way at this point. Really, I can't.

So here they are:

The Bowkers Three: Kelley, Megan and Wee Wittle Wiam

 Megan and Kelley serve on our core staff of leaders at church. So yes, we not only work with them, we also live with them. And we still like each other. Incredible, I know.

The fabulously squishy and charming, Liam Kohen Bowker. What a doll baby.

Emma (L) and Christy (R) are apparently about to get eaten by a snake at Hobby Lobby, of all places.

Our beloved photographer and pal, Emma, has been with us for the month while her hubby's been away for military training. We love Emma and an excuse to live with her is easy to make up. We're so glad she's been here this month and we will miss her when she leaves, even though she'll be 10 minutes away.

Christy has been with us since last year, September I think, and her short stay turned into weeks and then we all broke down and decided that she was going to be our roommate...again. :) (She lived with us right before John was born too.) She's working with some adorable littles at a local school, finding her calling involves some form of intense advocacy for women and kids - it's all taking shape before our eyes.

And of course, us. The Siders, Josh, John and the little Bear/Monkey/Puppy/Baby. Depends on the day.

Thing I've been obsessing over lately:

Adoption

Prayer

History and future of Manhattan

Babies and Mommies 

The connections of all these - there are many!

THANKFUL:

I've been so fortunate to meet some amazing women in Manhattan, to feel for the first time in years that I am living alongside some incredible peers who love me, support me and can read my mind too, as an extra mind-blowing perk. Because of them, and perhaps because of some of the maturity one is bestowed by turning 30, I feel able to dream bigger. I am in a season of thinking of things and doing them. I spent many years coming up with ideas and berating myself into inaction because I never thought I could actually succeed and follow through on anything great. I felt I had a great calling, but was stumped by my fear of failure. Well, I've taken on a heap of huge projects recently, and stopped early in the process of most of them: bought a website, started planning to write a book, and I don't know what else. But practicing failure was just what I needed, and when we hit 2012, it was clear: Manhattan needed 24/7 prayer and worship to accomplish all that God has for this city. So that's been my primary focus, with adoption right in the wings, just waiting and hoping for God to open the doors so we can take the plunge. Of course at the moment, with every room in our house full, that won't work. But I feel it will be soon. Or I hope.

My Dream Job:

I think I found my dream job. And Tracie Loux, is pretty much doing it. I didn't know I had a dream job until I found her. Tracie and her husband John have three birth kiddos and four adopted.  Tracie works for an adoption agency called Hannah's Dream. And Tracie's sister-in-law, Renee, is also an adoptive parent, and works with the Orphan Justice Center, who is sponsoring a local program called Safe Families for Children. Safe Families works with churches and families to provide a network of homes for children whose families are temporarily unable to care for them. In a way, it's a preventative measure to keep kids out of foster care or provide care for a family who doesn't have local support and needs a place for children to go while getting medical care, deploying, etc. I love this program! They don't have one in KS yet, but they're in the early stages of talking about how this could work within our child welfare system. I'm hoping to stay in the conversation on this program and it's movement west into Kansas. (I'm sure Sam Brownback would be excited to see the churches working to support families, as churches are meant to do, rather than the government trying to manage this deeply intimate and personal role.)

I'm just dreaming now. But if I could do anything, I would quit my job and run an adoption agency and pregnancy resource center, like Life Choice, who I volunteer with now. And I would run the Safe Families network for our region. And I would adopt. Adopt kiddos from the states and across the world. I would spend time fundraising through creative ways to support these organizations and our adoptions, and I would love on our adopted kiddos and help their little hearts get healed. This is what I would do if I could do anything. 

Dreaming is wonderful. Dreaming when you know that anything (with God) is possible is far better. I love knowing that God and I can come up with a great idea and actually make it happen. The people and the resources and the education and training and funding and everything we need to do whatever we think of is all right there. We just pray and agree with God for what He already wants to do and watch the thing materialize. 

[Much thanks to the men and women who sowed into this city and our lives in prayer and who, in their lifetimes, never saw the breakthrough. But we get to live in it now.  Thank you to you all.]

November

November was hard.  There were celebrations, the birth of our friend's baby, Florence, and the celebration of our guy's first year of life.  But there was community conflict, misunderstanding and heartbreak rampant in our tiny church family.  It was painful, a heart-stinging kind of ouch, the kind where you look at your own words and thoughts and actions and wonder how things could have turned out differently.  But November is over, and I'm glad to have all that in the history, not living it out, wondering on the outcome.  I want to look back with fondness, and remember the stuff that turned out well, the happy moments.  And that's the stuff I have pictures of, thankfully.

For the record, last November, this was me.  Whoa!

Then on November 15, along came the most adorable 7 pound teenie I'd ever seen.  And wasn't I just the most adorable post-birth mother you've ever seen?  Don't answer that.

This November was a different kind of celebration. One that required almost as much recuperation time, but thankfully, did not require 9 months preparation.  We threw our John a party, a big, huge, too-big-for-the-house party with guests all over the place - in chairs and couches, on the floor, in the bedrooms.  We had a blast.  And so did he.

Cake on his face.  This was only the beginning.

Maybe next year he will open his own presents.

Going for a cruise in the Cozy Coup from Grams and Gramps, with his larger than life Teddy Bear, who is still nameless from Aunt Steph and Uncle Aaron.

Growing up with John has been an adventure.  I'm more patient than I was a year ago, not as well-slept, but kinder, more aware of love.  I can sense this pleasure I have with my son at the smallest, tiniest things he does.  And I can transfer that onto God, that if I can love my son that way, look at his silly antics with such affection, enjoy him so immensely, overlook messes large and small, that God can enjoy me that way too.  It's the right way to live because it's true.

I am still me though, chock full of grand ideas that haven't seem to come to fruition.  I came up with this really great idea called "Get to know your neighbor November".  I was going to bake some kind of bread - that's where everything went wrong, I think, at the baking part - and take it to a neighbor three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. I would allow an hour to chat, although I knew some wouldn't have time to do that, and I was going to stand on the porch or sit in the living room, drink tea and learn their names.  I still hate that I don't know my neighbors, all these wonderful people with stories and lives and we're just tied up in our homes for fear of cold and closeness.  Someone has to break the ice.  Well, it was a great idea, but Josh said I had too much going on.  And he was right, so it didn't happen.  But maybe there will be a "Get to know your neighbor December".  And maybe I will blog about it.  You never know.