"Happy" New Year!

Yes, I realize that it's February, so it seems a little late for a post about the New Year, but it's not my fault that time keeps traveling faster and faster as I get older!

It's been far too long since I've posted here and I really want to become more faithful about posting. Because God is at work in my life, and I've always felt it would be selfish to keep His amazing work all to myself!

It's been a tough couple of months. Summer and fall of last year were good – I was happy to be at home, having more time to write and to self-publish a book on Amazon (yay me!). But as the holidays rolled around, money was extremely tight and cabin fever set in, our family was on edge, in an extreme way! I'm talking about unprecedented bickering, fighting, name-calling, slamming, and even some slaps and kicks. And that was just between Al and me.

Just kidding, of course, but our children's feuding was at an all-time high and I could hardly stand it.

As much as I try to avoid it, Christmas, unfortunately brings its own bit of stress with shopping and cooking and traveling. I didn't do very well this past Christmas. I had a few breakdowns and panic attacks, one of which kept me home from Christmas Eve Mass.

Christmas Day was peaceful, and the days following when we traveled to my parents' house, 400 miles north in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There were sixteen of us crammed into their little house on the weekend and it was great fun; the grown-up cousins went outside and played in the snow with all of my kids, and my sister even joined in, being the snow-lover that she is. We cheered for the Packers from their cozy living room and celebrated Christmas together just like the good-old days.

But, after five days in close quarters, everyone was just a little more tired out and certain teenagers with our last name were ready to snap. We began the trek back to lower Michigan, only to be greeted with this news when we were about 40 miles from home: my good friend and neighbor, whose son had been looking after our cat and getting our mail, called me on my cell phone and gingerly explained, “There's a problem with your house.” She proceeded to tell me that the upstairs toilet tank cracked and had been running water continually into a large portion of our house for at least 24 hours, since that was the last time her son had come in to check on the cat. (When he told my kids about finding the leak, he said, “It was raining in your kitchen.”)

Naturally, I turned to God in prayer and calmly said, “Lord, you are good and faithful and I know You can handle this.”

Ha! I wish! What I really did was freak out and cry and hyperventilate a little and then freak out some more about the $500 deductible, which isn't too much, but it's a lot for a family with two unemployed parents right after Christmas. My neighbor prayed with me over the phone and then got to work. I continued to pray with much anxiety, saying, "God, you MUST have a way for us to get through this!"

By the time we reached home, our neighbor had called our insurance company and she had also telephoned our good friend who is a builder. They were both waiting in our front yard when we drove up, and shortly thereafter, we were greeted by a man from the restoration company that our builder friend had called. Another few neighbors were on hand to help with whatever they could, and the advice of others in my mind-numbed state was priceless: “Keep track of whatever you throw out so you can get reimbursed, move this stuff over here, find another place to stay.”

What?

We were tired out and we just wanted to hang out at home with our cozy little Christmas tree and enjoy the remainder of the holidays. It hadn't even occurred to me that we would have to temporarily move out, but the extent of the damage was slowly settling into my brain – the kitchen ceiling had fallen in, the wood floor in the dining room was saturated, along with the upstairs stairway carpet. All along the walls that the water traveled, there was bubbling and peeling paint and parts of the drywall were simply caving in. And of course, the offending bathroom was unusable. That night, the restoration crew tore out our dining room floor and put in twelve industrial fans and three gigantic dehumidifiers. It was LOUD, to say the least.

We rushed to moved things out of the affected areas so that the work of drying and restoring could take place quickly. Then we put our cat and her food and her litter box into our bedroom, which was one of the few dry rooms. She was a bit shell-shocked to say the least and would hardly come out from under the bed. It must have seemed like the apocalypse to her with rain pouring down from the ceilings and pieces of the house literally falling down. But ultimately, she survived and doesn't seem any worse for the wear.

Kitchen ceiling (I didn't even manage to get the corner that completely fell)

Kitchen & Dining Room - the contractor put his finger right through the dry wall!

Kitchen in progress

Kitchen in progress

Dining room floor saturated

Dining room subfloor

Living room crammed with items from wet areas of the house!

(My son was attempting to play his new wii game from Christmas.)

  

 Pretty bathroom! 

But hark, there were blessings to be had.

ATTENTION: God Moment!

As we picked through the sopping wet mail that had been on our kitchen counter, I came across a simple envelope, similar to ones we've received in years past around the holidays. I carefully opened it and discovered a check for (remember how much our deductible was?) $500! It was from a lay brotherhood of men who are living single for the Lord. They've blessed us financially each year and prayed for our family in a special way, but this particular check was so perfectly timed that I laughed out loud and told God, “Okay, you can stop showing off now!” I paraded the check around to everyone in the house – neighbors, restoration crew, etc, because God's goodness should be shared and proclaimed, amiright?

It was then that I became excited about the fact that we were going to have a "forced renovation," even though I knew it would be very inconvenient for a while.

Anyway, that first night, which happened to be New Year's Eve, we stayed at our neighbors' house. They had plans, so it was just our little exhausted family sitting in their family room, eating whatever random snacks we could scrounge up without being too nosy, and drinking wine straight from the bottle.

The next few days were a blur, but we managed to get in touch with our insurance company over the holiday weekend and they made arrangements to put us up in a hotel. Now, I cannot complain whatsoever about the hotel – we had two apartment-sized suites, complete with separate bedrooms and kitchenettes. So the teenage girls got one suite to themselves, and it was a bit of fun for them to play house for a few weeks.

We ended up staying there for three weeks, which was a bit longer than we had first anticipated, even though the construction crew was quite expedient. Those weeks also blur together between meetings with the contractor and the insurance adjuster, and to make things more interesting, several trips to Urgent Care. The first one was on New Year's Day, and after that, everyone seemed to fall ill with this nasty upper respiratory virus that ended with a persistent ear infection and lots of coughing, and at least two cases of strep. There have been snow days and sick days aplenty since the beginning of our ordeal.

But now, we are finally back in our house with new walls, new paint, new carpets and hardwood floors in the kitchen and dining room, and life is starting to become “normal” again. Well, as normal as it will ever be.

So, I'll leave you with some fun pictures of the "new and improved" Yarrington house:

Kitchen looking into dining room - I am in LOVE with my new hardwood floor!

Upstairs bathroom with a new and hopefully long-lived toilet, and a new decorating scheme

We have new paint in our living room as well, but I'm not in love with it, so I won't post those pictures. Perhaps we'll pull out the paint brushes in the spring or summer and start over. Until then, we have much to be thankful for!

God is good.

Living in the Moment

They say you learn something new every day.

Well, let me share something I learned yesterday. First of all, let me share where I learned it.

I learned it in therapy.

Hey, at least now the title of my blog makes sense again. I haven't been in therapy since before Al's stroke. So, it was about time that I sought some kind of counseling again since I've been through just a little bit of trial and trauma in the past four years.

Without even mentioning the stroke and the myriad of appointments and interventions and therapies for my husband, I can compile quite a list of stressors that have invaded my life:  depression, anxiety, PTSD, fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, sleep deprivation, a nervous breakdown, multiple changes in jobs and insurance, and now, for the first time since the stroke, both my husband and I are unemployed, which means we're living just above the federal poverty level.

Oh, and did I mention that three of our children have been violently plunged into puberty, and one of them is currently learning to operate a motor vehicle?

You would think I'd have a therapist on speed dial.

But no, sadly, I haven't made time for therapy since the onset of these tremendous changes in our life almost four years ago.

This will be a story for another time, but I was unexpectedly thrust back into therapy yesterday. And I've already learned a lot.

You might think I should have known this already since I'm very well acquainted with depression and anxiety. But here's the wonderful little nugget of wisdom I learned today and I want to remember this, putting it into practice as much as I can:

Depression is dwelling on the past; 

Anxiety is dwelling on the future; 

Contentment is living in the moment.

Well, that seems easy, doesn't it? I suspect it will be harder to put a plan into practice according to this truth than simply absorbing the profound realization of that statement.

But it makes so much sense, doesn't it? When I get depressed about my life, it's almost always about my mistakes and seeming lack of ability to deal with all that life has thrown at me. However, Scripture tells me:

Forget the former things;

    do not dwell on the past.

19 

See, I am doing a new thing!

    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

    and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-19

God is always, always doing something new. And He is never surprised about our situations, our reactions, or our disobedience. He is always one step ahead of us (or maybe a thousand steps?), working it all together for our good and for His glory.

And if anxiety is worrying about the future, then what is my problem, exactly? Really? Okay, so I really do want some things in our life to change. And it is really scary to think about the lack of definition for our future when neither Al nor I have jobs. 

Of course, the answer to my anxiety is in God's Word as well:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, 

by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, 
present your requests to God. 

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, 
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. 
Philippians 4:6-7

So now, as I accumulate the proper tools, I will work on cultivating contentment.

Gratitude.

Trust.

Living in the Moment.

The Boundary Lines

Many years ago, I had an inspiration to claim Psalm 16 as my "Life Psalm," the psalm that would define, dictate, and comfort throughout my life. (In retrospect, I should have chosen 2 Chronicles 9:13, "Every year King Solomon received over twenty-five tons of gold." I'm just kidding, of course, because the Bible is always quick to tell us that money is the root of all kinds of evil. But I wouldn't mind finding out for myself!)

About six months ago, I had a revelation. For all of my life, I had thought I really trusted God. Probably because my life was relatively easy until then - no major health issues, I had a decent education, I got to do a little traveling before getting married and having kids. I found a good husband and had some pretty cute kids. Sure, I got all hot and bothered when they were little, thinking that I was failing as a mom and not trusting that God was using me to my full potential. But now, I can see better in hindsight, that God has given my children grace to grow in spite of my failings and my weaknesses. 

I usually trust God with money and material things, too. I just know that He knows our needs and the money usually shows up when we need it. I'm not saying I'm perfect in my trust for this area, but even when I get myself to worrying about it, I'm usually soon reminded of all the ways that God has been faithful in the past.

After Al's stroke, almost four years ago now, I felt the presence of God like I had at no other time in my life. He literally carried me through the darkest time in my life; when I felt I could hardly get out of bed because the weight of life was so heavy upon me, God gave me the grace to get up and go to work for yet another day, when some days, I honestly just wanted to give up and die. Somehow, over the past four years, my trust in God began to wane, and I blame that in large part on self-pity, when I started thinking, "Woe is me, God has left me to do this on my own." I felt very much alone, raising a family, paying the bills, working outside the home, with limited help from my husband due to the physical and mental damage done by the stroke. Basically, I felt like God promised me something, a happy life, an ideal family, and always enough to make ends meet, with maybe a few run-of-the-mill challenges thrown in to make me stronger or to help me train my children. But, as my priest once said to me, I felt like I'd been the victim of a bait and switch, and I felt like I had the right to be angry with God. And that's where my trust began to fail. God didn't give me what I thought He promised; he didn't live up to His end of the bargain, so why should I trust Him?

This past weekend, I went on a women's retreat, where I experienced a lot of grace to deal with this junk. Now, God is always giving us grace, but we aren't always in a position to receive it. For example, when I was folding my arms and stomping my foot like a little child, there wasn't a lot of room for me to receive His grace. So I repented. A lot. And then I asked God to just come in and do an overhaul in my heart. I felt like I had strayed so far from Him that I wasn't even sure how to get back, so I need Him to tug on my leash to bring me back to where I could at least hear his voice. (and yes, I did just compare myself to a dog.)

During a personal time of prayer, I was reminded of Psalm 16, my "Life Psalm." I began to read. I was stopped at verse 2: "I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord, apart from you, I have no good thing.'" And again at verse 4: "The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods."

There was my grave mistake: not living and acting as if God is enough. Not letting God be enough. I get impatient very easily, and I didn't want to wait for God to act anymore. So I just started taking matters into my own hands. The problem was that I didn't really know how to run my own life, and I certainly didn't know how to do it better than the Lord, so instead of living, I just escaped. I escaped into writing, surfing the web, reading, sleeping. I was trying to live an imaginary life vicariously through stories instead of trying to live the life God wanted me to, and being the woman He created me to be.

Verses 5 and 6 brought me to weeping: "Lord, you have assigned my my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places."

The heart of the matter was that I didn't like where the boundary lines had fallen. It sure didn't seem "pleasant" to me that I was trapped in struggling family, with both my husband and myself out of work and barely living from paycheck to paycheck, neither of us having any peace or direction for our future. I kept saying to myself, "Lord, this is not what I signed up for."

But while I was on retreat, God gave me the grace to accept the boundary lines. I also came to the realization that, as I've gone through periods of grief where God has gently forced me to come face to face with the pain, I've actually gotten through it, and now, hallelujah, I've arrived at the final stage of grief, the stage of acceptance. This is where He has planted me and expects me to serve. And He wants me to serve joyfully, peacefully, with a willing heart, not grudgingly. And here's the wonderful thing about the Lord - when He gives you grace to do something (and when you open yourself to actually receive the grace), He gives you the peace to do it as well. 

So, now the game has changed. Instead of grudging the fact that I realistically have to do more to carry our family along than most wives would have to do, I am choosing to trust that God is giving me what I need to do it, and that He is also giving my husband what he needs as well. My tasks won't be any different. My service to my husband and family will be the same. But hopefully, they will be done better and more cheerfully than it had been done before. Because I have made peace with living inside of my boundary lines. I have accepted my portion and my cup.

Verse 11 says, "You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand."

This is the path that God has set me upon, the place where He deemed fit for me to serve and to grow in holiness. 

This is the boundary outline of my childhood home, 

where my parents still live. This place is the epitome of peace for me. 

My prayer is that I will grow to find the Lord's boundary lines

 for my life to be just even more delightful than this place.