What one writes about things unshareable

I can’t write about anything truly meaningful to me, of late.

No, I don’t have writer’s block.

There was a blog I used to regularly read, now defunct, but at one point, the writer said, “You know, I could be a lot funnier on here if no one I knew read this blog.”  I’m not often shooting for comic effect, but I have often remembered her words and completely understand her sentiment.

Given my druthers, I’d be completely an open book.  I’m probably much too transparent, and don’t often see the potential fallout from unwisely revealing the secrets of my heart.  However, so much of my life is tied into others’, and I need — for their sake — to be careful what I tell of their interaction with me.

That causes a mighty internal dilemma.

I had a wonderful 2.5 hour lunch with my dear friend Kathy yesterday.  Among many other topics of conversation, we spoke about writing.  She mentioned that she enjoys when I write about the struggle, the unfinished bits of life.  I enjoy that, too:  writing about the things that are pending, unresolved.  I can’t find it in myself to write about the (non-existent) shiny, perfect, tidily-wrapped events in my life.  I also don’t find any satisfaction in reading about The Pristine Life in others’ blogs, which means I don’t enjoy about 95% of the other “mom blogs” out there, because most women seem to post only the best pictures (in word and photo) of their lives.  I’m not like that.  I don’t envy the perfect lives of others;  if they truly exist, more power to them!  Or, more sparkles and smiles to them…

Does that sound bitter?

Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I’m not bitter.  I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone’s.

I do enjoy when something resolves wonderfully that was hard-won, and I’m likely to write about that, as well.

But most often, it’s the path to resolution that I find most intriguing.  I’m much more compelled to write about that.

I consider:  If a blog-reader saw me in real life, would she say, “Wow.  She’s so much prettier in her pictures.”  That’s why you’ll never see a Glamour Shot pic of me on here, make-up perfect, perfectly coiffed hair gently blowing in the breeze, some gorgeous and well-accessorized outfit on my frame…

I consider:  If a blog-reader sat down to dinner with our family, would they be aghast that we have trouble keeping Audrey head-up and feet-down, and keeping Grant from trying to treat everyone simply as ears for an apparent stand-up monologue?  That’s why I don’t blog about only The Good Parts of Mothering.

I like to keep it real.  Really, truly real.

But on the other hand, I do dearly want to be an encouragement, not a downer.  I want to impart true hope, and long for my words to be pulsing with true life.

It can be a tough balance, at times.

Still, it’s one for which I strive, and that makes it all the more difficult for me to write, when the things that are deep in my heart, about which I crave to write, are unshareable.  They’re just not mine to divulge, because they concern the lives of others, too, and blogging about it would dishonor them.

I semi-recently tried to write about a struggle involving another person, and thought I was vague enough to protect everyone involved.  I wasn’t.  It backfired, big time.  There was an explosion of hurt feelings, and oh! that was a difficult, bitter pill to swallow.

I am so often exhorting my six-year-old whirlwind, Audrey, “Be careful!  Be gentle!” but a huge part of me sympathizes with her exuberant bungling of pretty much everything, because I am that little girl, too.

Ah!  This post has not entirely gone in the direction in which I intended.  I was going to write about Jack the bulldog from Little House on the Prairie.

Next time, perhaps.

EDITED TO ADD:

Thought I’d post a non-Glamour Shot. Taken today. Barefoot, jeans, and a baseball tee. No make-up. Glasses. Coffee in hand. Current novel on the untidy counter behind me. The only thing not completely realistic is that I showered this morning, which doesn’t happen every day, so I might be a little cleaner than usual.

Dark nights of the soul and other chipper topics

I lost nearly two pounds yesterday*, and didn’t feel awful all day long.  I felt quite full, in fact.  I crave sweet stuff, so I wasn’t necessarily eating what I would PREFER to eat, but that’s different than being actually hungry.  I still got hives in the evening, the odd and troublesome symptom that brought on my current anti-Candida diet.  Additionally, I had terrible knee pain (which I guess can be a symptom of yeast die-off) last night, which persists today.  I’m taking aspirin, both to relieve pain and any inflammation, otherwise I just couldn’t function.

Though the world of Candidiasis and its treatment suggestions can leave one’s head spinning, I did a bit of reading this morning, and apparently, bentonite clay helps with cleansing from Candida overgrowth and helps to minimize the die-off symptoms.  So, I’m picking some up tonight.  I’m getting more colloidal silver, too.  Fi broke our large and expensive brand-new jar a couple of weeks ago.  A couple of months ago, in a fit of “I’ll try just about anything!” I rubbed some colloidal silver into her super-bad cradle cap/crust, and onto her chin (which has always been her most troublesome spot), and it helped somewhat, for reasons unbeknownst to me.  Well, actually, I was thinking it was colloidal silver’s anti-bacterial properties that was helping, but I guess it was the infectious opposite of bacteria — fungus — that was causing the problem on Fi’s skin…

Sweet Fiala, romping in our two-months-later-than-everyone-else fallen leaves. You can zoom in, if you care to, to see her sad skin.

This whole thing has made me think back to one of the first — and worst — doctors I saw for Fi.  She was eight months old, and one of the things he said was, “That’s impetigo!” on her chin.  I questioned him, and he said, “Well, I could flake some of that crust off, which would hurt her, to do a culture which would just prove it’s impetigo, or I can just prescribe the antibiotics for it.”  That was Fi’s first ever round of antibiotics, and I have kicked myself for the last 2½ years for not responding, “Well, hurt or no, let’s culture it to be sure.”  Because now, more than ever, I’m wondering if she hasn’t been struggling with yeast this whole time.

Or, maybe it was impetigo at the time, and she’s just been back and forth.  I really don’t know.

I am, however, feeling a little more upbeat right now, because it’s looking like we’re on the right track with this whole Candida thing.

On the other hand…. Candidiasis is a symptom, not a root issue.  Knowing her root issue would sure be nice.  But for now, I’ll rest in the encouragement of just even knowing how to treat her symptoms.  I feel better going somewhere, rather than just drifting.

I did rather need to drift, though, for a season.

I wrote this to a dear friend, yesterday:

I had a serious “dark night of the soul” for about six months right around the time when Fiala was one year old, when it became apparent that no one knew what was wrong with her, and it wasn’t making any difference how many doctors we saw, no one knew. I didn’t know. The one thing I knew is that if our Father simply glanced her way and said the word, she’d be healed. And He didn’t do that. That season was the only time in my life where I have seriously doubted the love of God, and been truly angry at Him. And I had to learn to absolutely lay that down, and say with all my heart, “Though you slay me (or my child), yet will I trust you.” And have His presence be enough. And not have my love or trust for my Father rely on whether or not He answers my prayers or heals my baby.

I read a true story recently of a man in Afghanistan who had become a Christian, abandoning Islam, and was imprisoned and tortured for his beliefs, and he had — truly — a dark night of the soul where he felt totally abandoned by God and questioned Him, “Haven’t I been faithful? Haven’t I done everything You have asked of me? Haven’t I shared your love with as many people as I can?” Like Job, he asked God to search his heart to find any wicked way in him, and he felt totally clean before God. He truly was a faithful and true servant of our Father, and He knew God had the power to say the word and remove him from the torture. And one night, as the man lay, beaten, on the bare stone floor of the prison, he had a vision of Jesus, and Jesus came into the room, laid down on the floor next to him, reached over, and held the man’s hand. And that changed him forever. That was enough. If Jesus is with me, with him, with you, holding our hand, laying down with us in our suffering, that is enough.

I had already had somewhat of a revelation of that before I read the story, but that SEALED it. We’re laying on a stone floor, and Jesus comes in, lays next to us, and takes our hand without a word, and that is enough.

By about April-ish of 2010, I stopped almost all of Fiala’s medical care, minus a few trips to urgent care, and a couple trips in 2010 to a family doctor, who eventually dropped us when we discontinued vaccinating.  We’d seen seven doctors by that point, and all of them had pretty much said either:

1. You’ll never find the source of all her allergies.  Have her eat a healthy diet, and here are eight prescriptions for her symptoms.  (Or fewer, though one doctor truly gave us eight the first time we saw him.)
2. Whatever food you notice that is bothering her, don’t feed her that.

Option #1 is bogus, option #2 is, “Well, duh.  I didn’t need to spend a $50 co-pay to figure that out.”

It was becoming very clear that I really needed to drop my incessant pounding at God’s door, “HEAL HER!  HEAL HER!!  DON’T YOU LOVE HER???!!??  WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER??!!???”  That was just not healthy or helpful on any level.  I stopped, too, my near-daily searches on the internet for cases that matched her symptoms, to try to find out what might be at the core of her life-long health struggles (literally — first symptoms showed up when she was two months old, and she is now 3 years, 2 months).  And, I’ve taken these last 20 months or so to just do the best I can with what I have, and work on not letting my trust in my heavenly Father and my love for Him rest on whether or not He chooses, in His sovereignty, to heal my girl.

And, I think I’ve come through that.  It took me a while… maybe a year or so.  But, I no longer feel rejected by God, and I truly feel His presence powerfully in my life, and that is enough.  It really is.

And, that is why I felt… clean and safe (with caution), to visit a new doctor.  I was kind of thinking it might be a pediatric gastroenterologist.  But, my hubby wanted me to go to a naturopathic medical doctor, though he still thinks an NMD is more like a “normal”/allopathic doctor who has a bent toward natural treatment (or extra training, beyond an MD).  That’s not the case.  No matter.  Through the friend of an acquaintance, I found a particular doctor of whom encouraging things were spoken, AND the only insurance she takes is the kind I have.  Voila!  Fi is now a patient of Dr. Jesika DiCampli, though it is still a $50 co-pay.

We go again on Friday.

Before our first meeting, I was cautious, and not even optimistic.  Now, I’m cautiously optimistic.  The doctor didn’t find the Candida — it was my husband who suggested it, as his father has struggled for years with Candida overgrowth.  We’ll talk with her about it on Friday.

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*Though my primary purpose right now is not to lose weight — it’s to lose what appears to be Candida yeast running rampant in my body — I would like to lose more weight.  Here’s probably more than you care to know about my weight.  I’m 5’7.5″, and before I got married, I was 138 lbs.  After each child, I have “settled back” into weighing 155 lbs.  After I had Fiala, though, I was pretty stubbornly stuck at about 167-168, pretty much losing NONE of my pregnancy weight gain, since I’d only gained 17 lbs for her pregnancy.  I went on a Total Elimination Diet while I was nursing her, rather than risk her reacting badly to very pricey elemental formula, since she was having severe allergic reaction to what was in my breastmilk.  The allergist had told me that if she reacted as badly to the elemental formula as to my breastmilk, she would end up with a feeding tube.  I said, “No, thank you” and embarked on an extremely restrictive TED.  I lost more than 30 pounds, ending up at 135, less than I did when I was married at age 21!  While I enjoyed trying on size 6 slacks and having them be a tad too loose, that was short-lived.  After I stopped nursing Fiala in January 2010, I rebounded, over the course of about eight months, right back up to 165.  Over the last year or so, I’ve worked — a little — on dropping weight, and now hover around 155-156.  Yesterday, I weighed 155.9, today was 154.1.  So, now you know. 

You can’t afford a baby.

Please read this post, a short-but-slightly-snarky response to Suze Orman, a financial adviser who recently told a couple that they couldn’t afford a baby, with its $700-1000 monthly expense.

I agree wholeheartedly with Connie, the author.

Having a baby in America CAN be expensive, but it doesn’t need to be.  I’ll never forget when I told a former neighbor that I was pregnant with my third and she sighed and said, “You’re so lucky.  I’d love a baby, but we just can’t afford it.”  It was all I could do to not let my jaw hit the sidewalk.  She and her husband lived — by themselves — in a 2500 s.f. house, had an RV, brand new vehicles, two ATVs, two Jet-skis, expensive mountain bikes, and who knows what else.  In other words, they could totally “afford” a baby if they got their priorities straight.  AND, yes:  it can be difficult and expensive if you have to have everything new and fancy and trendy, bottle feed, use childcare for when you go back to work at 6 weeks, and use disposable diapers.  But, heck.  Even name brand disposables will run you about $40-60/month.  NOT $700-1000.

Maybe this is inflammatory, but I also believe our American culture which values independence over community is partially to blame.  We’re disconnected from our extended families, we don’t root ourselves in a church family either, and we value income and material wealth over family.  Even things like baby showers and hand-me-downs are most often provided by our extended community, which we as Americans have less and less of.

Don't YOU need a $5768.89 crib??

I have a wooden cradle that is “making the rounds” between friends from church.  This DELIGHTS me.  I bought it for $40 from Craigslist, used it for my fifth baby (as I had given away a previous cradle), and now a third friend is about to use it for her her newborn, due in Feb. But, if you have to keep up with the Jones’ baby who had a $2,000 Bellini crib (or this $5,800 one!), you’re going to have a pricey infancy.  However, if you breastfeed, raise your own child, and don’t mind having used or hand-me-down things, it’s really quite inexpensive to raise a baby.

EDITED TO ADD:  One other thing… (can you tell this has struck a nerve???) I’m not suggesting that selling baby things is wrong, but I have learned that you get back what you give — sometimes literally, sometimes from elsewhere.  I have given away cribs, strollers, swings, clothes, countless other baby items, partly because I saw someone in need, and partly because I thought I was “done” with having children.  But, whatddya know??  It has ALL COME BACK to me. I have, in return, been given cribs, clothes, toys, slings — I don’t use swings anymore! — everything I need for a baby, when I did have need.  My youngest is three and the goods still keep pouring in.  Someone just gave us three bags of virtually brand-new girls toys — voila! Christmas for my 3 and 5yo girls. Whether you call it karma or attribute it Luke 6:38, or whatever, if you give, you will receive.  We are a panicked, hoarding society, and often fail to recognize that if we are generous, we’re going to be provided for.

Many thanks to my 100 Facebook fans!  If you haven’t “liked” OSC on Facebook yet, please do!  I often post updates, links to articles, book recommendations, LOTS of stuff that isn’t found on the blog.  And there is often more conversation on FB than here in blog comments.  Come join the fun!  Click on the graphic on the right ====> or visit http://www.facebook.com/onlysometimesclever and click “Like”!

Updates: Birth stuff (including a book review for Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering)

• Birth stuff:  I am so very excited about the natural childbirth classes I’m teaching.  The first class is tonight!  I’m sort of considering whether or not to publish my teacher & student notes from the class…  Well, maybe it’s too early to mention that, because I only have week one done!  What I’m doing is compiling info from various sources, writing notes, fleshing out a plan… then doing the final writing.  So, I only have the first week’s notes 100% complete.    Stay tuned.  I also was going to suggest that anyone who is personally interested in what I’m teaching to e-mail me for copies of the notes before I publish them… but that wouldn’t work right now, because they’re “stuck” on my computer which doesn’t have an internet connection right now, so I can’t e-mail them.  (I’m posting this from my husband’s laptop.)
• More birth stuff:  I was at the library on Friday, looking for a different birth book when I stumbled upon this:  Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sarah J. Buckley, MD.  If I hadn’t seen the book in “real life”, I am pretty confident I would not have been interested in something written by a medical doctor.  However, so far, it has been the BEST book on birthing that I’ve ever read, though I have not yet read the whole thing.  Buckley is a family practitioner who lives in Australia, and who has also birthed her four children at home.  The info is, according to my personal preferences and opinion, the perfect marriage of natural/”hippie” and medical/scientific.  The book itself is about 80% birthing and 20% mothering.  It includes more than 50 pages of endnotes, mostly from medical journals and medical studies.  There are 13 chapters and most chapters have well over 100 endnotes.  In other words, it is EXTREMELY well researched.  Oddly enough, though it has such a strong scientific anchor, some of the negative reviews I read of it said the book is too far “out there” and that the author is going to scare off curious, potential natural birthers by the side stories of her own experiences, which include a waterbirth that was 3 weeks after her son’s EDD, and the “lotus birth” she chose for her son — preserving the cord & placenta of one child until the entire thing fell off naturally…  Admitted:  the author is definitely “New-Agey”*, and some of her personal choices with birth seem a bit extreme.  HOWEVER, even as a committed Christian, I can easily see the value of the research and analysis she presents (especially as she does so in a very readable, engaging style), even if I don’t agree with some of her philosophy and religious views.  From my perspective, I see natural birth as the culmination of the beautiful and apparently opposite aspects of God:  He is servant and king.  He is rational and spiritual.  He is both concrete and abstract.  And, I can easily insert/replace my own viewpoints in the places where the author’s opinion differs from mine.  No problem.  Anyway, most of the author’s “out there” opinions are written as asides on gray-tinted pages, so they are easily avoidable, if they offend.

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*Example of the “New-Agey” feel of some of the author’s writing, from the side story of her son’s birth:  “Thinking back, I can almost feel a shimmer in the air;  some solidification of the spirit that would become our third child Jacob, who had now found the smallest crack in a previously closed door and was heading toward earth — toward us, his new family — at the speed of light.”

Next Post

As I type this, my mom is undergoing 12 hours of surgery to — among other things — resection her spine.  It is serious work and a long recovery.  Please pray for her body (which is quite frail) to be able to not just withstand the surgery, but to emerge triumphant.  Please pray for her surgeons (three directly involved, more on standby).  And for her family, emotionally, as we support her.  Thank you so much.

Karen the Birth Instructor — almost a reality!!

I have the thumbs-up to teach my first birthing classes!  No, I’ve never formally taught any birth-education classes before — just spent countless hours talking with other mothers-to-be to give them encouragement, help, and direction.  The dear, expectant couple is willing to grant me the experience of teaching classes, and in exchange, I will instruct them for free.

We’ll begin in November.

I will use a combination of materials from Transition to Parenthood, plus my own experience of naturally birthing five children, plus other birthing stuff I’ve gleaned over the years from books and bloggers.

I had so longed to teach the classes, but just this morning, I felt compelled to TOTALLY YIELD the outcome to God — that is, whether or not they would let me be their teacher, even though I have never done any formal classes before.  In my prayer journal I wrote, “…if it doesn’t work out for the two of them, just please help me keep learning and that I wouldn’t be waylaid by dismay, but that I would persevere.”  That happens way too often — becoming discouraged to the point of inaction when my Plan A doesn’t work;  by the grace of God, and His unwillingness to let me stay in that place, I am working to overcome that unhealthy pattern.

Not too long after I journaled that, the expectant mother called me to say that she and her husband had prayed, thought, and talked about it, and have decided to go for it!  Ha!  God does that so often with me:  Wait until I YIELD the outcome, 100%, to Him, before He answers my prayer.

In a follow-up e-mail I sent to the mother, I closed it out with:

Thank you SO MUCH for allowing me the privilege of sharing this amazing and important time with you and [your husband].  I look forward to you becoming amazed and blessed by God’s plan for the birth process, and to be able to go into your delivery with zero fear and enough information to be confident in yourself, and to come out of birth with a gloriously expanded appreciation for our Father, your husband, and in your own abilities.

After I wrote that, I re-read it and thought, “I need to rework that and turn it into a purpose statement for use in the future.”

My favorite book for any expectant mother.

 

Just the right amount

About a week and a half ago, a friend saw me dancing, and had a thought that she didn’t know at the time I would really need to hear.  She didn’t tell me about it just then, but about a week and a half later.

Since I was about 18 — it took me a while — I realized that I wasn’t nearly as girly as most other young women around me.  I had been a tree-climbing, kickball-playing, barefoot tomboy as a child, with absolutely no regrets.  It didn’t bother my mother, either, at least not that I know about.  I went to a small elementary and high school — a VERY small school — and there weren’t enough people to form cliques.  Pretty much everyone was friends with everyone, and no one got singled out.  I would be teased occasionally for my love of “weird” music, but I think that’s about it.  Unless I was clueless to others’ opinions of me, which is a great likelihood.

I think it wasn’t until I got to college and witnessed — from afar, by choice — the sorority rush season at the school I attended, Tulane.  And I lived in a dorm with a bunch of young women.  And I saw a wider range of girls than I’d ever been a part of, previously.  And it dawned on me that I really wasn’t interested in what about 98% of them were interested in, and I started feeling like I had somehow missed the instruction manual on How to Properly be a Girl.

I’m now 38, and I have carried that my whole adulthood.

Yet, I like my interests.  I can’t imagine not liking baseball, or hiking (a neighbor gasped recently, “By yourself?  Aren’t you scared?” which hadn’t even occurred to me).  I think I look better wearing make-up, but most days, I don’t.  I feel like a faker/poser when I wear anything fancier than jeans.   I wear a dress maybe six times a year.  My walk feels clumpy to me — I’m bowlegged, my feet point out, I have thick ankles…

Sometimes my felt lack of femininity — both internally and externally — bothers me, sometimes not.

But, there are definitely times where I feel a disconnect when talking with other women, and that troubles me.  I do a lot better now than I used to;  I specifically look for things in which I can connect, things in common, and when all else fails, I just keep asking them questions and don’t talk about myself at all.  Most women like to talk about themselves.    But, more often than not, I start feeling awkward and too aggressive, and less feminine… or that I’m missing cues she’s sending (because that doesn’t come naturally to me), or something like that.

When thinking about this post, I could come up with about fifty things, right off the top of my head, where I’m really not as girly as most women, or things I like that most women don’t like…  Then, I started getting depressed, and decided to stop making that mental list.

So, please imagine my surprise when a lovely lady, my friend Brenda, pulled me aside and quietly told me a few days ago, “I watched you last Sunday in SuperChurch while you came off the stage and danced*.”  It was the Cha-Cha Slide, which the kids love to do, and is loads of fun; the teachers will occasionally put the music on when the adult service is running long and they need to kill some time with the kids.  She continued, “My thought right then was, as I was watching you dance, ‘She is so feminine.’  And I thought I should share that with you.”

She did this because in a conversation on Facebook, I had made the comment, “I tend not to read books for women because I get discouraged about how… unwomany I am.”  A few responded with encouragement, a few with incredulity, a few with, “I feel similarly!”  Brenda never commented, but she told me that after she read it, she thought to herself that I’d probably appreciate her sharing her thoughts with me.

Which I did.

Then, she made it even better by saying that she was thinking about how to tell me, and she got the thought, “You have just the right amount of femininity.  Just the right amount for yourself, and just the right amount for your daughters.”

Tears welled up.

That was so significant for me.

It sunk in deeply, immediately.  I could feel how important this was, and that this was going to be a pivotal moment in my life.

I’ll never forget it.

It made perfect sense.  YES, I’m not all crazy-feminine with pink, lacy frills, talking about Coach bags and mani-pedis (I’ve never had either), and neither do I seek out chick flicks — I’ve never seen Titanic or The Notebook –  and I don’t think I’ve ever cried at a commercial.  I have NEVER watched Lifetime channel.  I’m low-maintenance, and I love sports and I don’t run from conflict (even when, perhaps, I should).  I don’t like to be the center of attention, and tend to shy from anything flashy or shiny.  I generally don’t ever fear for my safety, and I worry that my children will look back and think I wasn’t nurturing enough as a mother.  But, God knew what He was doing when He made me, and in His wisdom, He gave me just the right amount of femininity.

Just the right amount.

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*I had led worship for the 6-12 year old kids.

Dead, irrelevant, demonic. NOT.

I almost talked myself out of this post.

• “It’s too revealing.”

• “No one is interested in that.”

• “Even if they’re interested, it wouldn’t be useful or encouraging.”

• “Vain conceit, Karen, vain conceit.”

• “You’re presuming a lot to think that anyone would want to hear ‘wisdom’ from you.”

• “How can you teach what you only barely learned?  And did you really learn it anyway?”

• “Remember all the other blog posts where you thought you’d stumbled onto something deep and powerful, and you poured out your heart into it, and no one commented?  Yeah, this would be like that.”

• “Do you really need to turn every bit of your life into a blog post?  You spend too much time thinking about your blog.  You should keep some stuff private.”

After church on Sunday… well, let me back up a bit.

During worship on Sunday morning, I had a little revelation from God.  I love it how the same God, the same God who has been through all the ages, can whisper a a few words in my heart, and it is new, exciting, fresh, and just what I needed.  He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever, but fresh at the same time.

The revelation — those whispers — came after I had spent a good amount of time in awe, in repentance, on my face, with snot and tears dripping onto the carpet of the church.  Funny, that:  He seems to speak most profoundly, with spectacular, divine insight, right after I’ve repented.  Hmm…

After worship, I scribbled a bit of what He’d spoken to me on a scrap paper dug from the recesses of my purse.  The thought hit me, “I bet lots of women experience that same thing.  I should write a blog post about it.”  Immediately afterward came those questioning thoughts, and I put the plans for a blog post out of my mind as, “Well, God likely gave that just to me, for me, not to share.”

I left early from the adult service to go into SuperChurch to lead the 6-12 year olds in some worship that was deep and powerful and fun and rockin’.    (Helped exceedingly by drummer extraordinaire, Bobby Flanagan.)  When I got back into the main service, it was mostly wrapped up, except for a bit of ministry, with some live worship (led by my amazing husband, my favorite worship leader ever)…  Folks were milling around a bit, some praying for others, some standing or sitting, some — like me — participating in one way or another in worship, some just chatting.  I settled into a seat on the front row and closed my eyes, hands loose on my lap.  Then I remembered I had children, opened my eyes, and looked back at the clock.  “OK.  I still have five minutes before I need to pick them up.  I’ll just soak this in for a bit.  Five minutes…”

Then, a lady came up to me.  I know her just a little;  I was in small group with her for part of last year.  However, I don’t know her well, and she doesn’t know me well.  For instance, I’m pretty certain she doesn’t know I have a blog, or that I write.  And, I’m 100% certain that she had no idea, personally, what had been rumbling through my heart and head and spirit that morning.  She placed her hand gently on my shoulder and started to speak to me.  “Karen, I really feel like God wants to tell you something important.  He says, ‘Do not doubt the words in your mind;  they are to be encouragement for others.  I call that out of you, draw those words out of you.  They are not of your own strength, but of mine.  May grace be multiplied to you so that you can do what I have called you to do.’”

Ha!

Every time I read or hear about the prophetic being dead or irrelevant or even demonic…  It’s just like water off of a duck’s back.  How could I ever believe that the prophetic — when it’s really of God, and for His purposes — is anything but jaw-droppingly amazing and wonderful and need-meeting???  When you experience something like that, the negative things others say regarding the prophetic simply don’t matter in the presence of my almighty God, knowing my “stuff”, knowing my heart, seeing my need, and meeting it with another member of the Body of Christ (which brings up a whole ‘nother topic:  the beauty and power and purpose of the local church body, and the wider Christian Church).

I looked in her eyes and said, “Thank you.  That was right on and I so needed that.”  As she walked away, I pulled the scrap of paper from my jeans pocket and wrote down everything I could remember of what she said, so it would stay fresh in my mind and not be lost in the sieve of my memory, nor plucked from my thoughts by the enemy, who would surely assault these words with the same doubt as he did the first set of words.

And now, this is a post in itself, and I’ll have to save what I confessed, and what God spoke to me in return, for another day.  Hopefully tomorrow.

Reason #40967 why I love my husband:

After Martin had a few engaging conversations with a guy about old trucks, his mom questioned Martin’s wisdom in exchanging telephone numbers with him, as the guy is a felon.  Martin responded, “Everyone needs Jesus, and everyone needs a friend.”