The Plague... or something like it!

Pain and sickness are the same. Outside of the situation, you simply do not grasp the entirety of the problem. Even if you have gone through it yourself! Take childbirth for example, in the moment you swear to yourself  that you will NEVER do this again! The pain and exhaustion and sheer overwhelming trauma of it are all consuming. However within a year, months, or even minutes for some brave souls... you think to yourself, "it wasn't that bad, I could do that again." Some part of us, deep down, knows that that is a bald faced lie. But for the most part, we repress the bad stuff and focus on the good.

Sickness is much of the same. In the moment I lose all sense of time. It seems to go on forever and my misery is palpable. I promise myself we will wash our hands more, bring hand sanitizer with us to the store, in our times of sorrow I even promise myself I'll never leave my house again. But the sad reality is that within a few days or weeks our lives resume as normal and we are once again injected to the heart of society and its vast arsenal of diseases. I am discouraged to admit a pattern has emerged. Yes I suppose it is unavoidable. Alas, I cannot lock us up in our house never to leave again. However during this horrible season of colds and flus we get better, then sick again, then better, then sick. The small joy of getting together with family and friends is quickly dampened with the stark reality of the germs that were shared and the ensuing infection that results.

As you may have correctly assumed, we are sick. Every single one of us. From baby girl crying in the distance, refusing to be put down and smearing her snot all over my shirt--to myself feeling faint and nauseous and like I am going to cough out my innards. My counters are covered in food. I suppose I feel as though if I simply leave it out I don't have to prepare it. Buns are left in bags and when the kids are hungry they simply help themselves to what they can find on the counter or in the fridge. Apple cores litter my floors, half-eaten stale buns are hidden in the folds of their blankets. Plates, crafts, play dough, and toys are strewn about the table and the floor. Diapers are tossed on the floor like land mines to be avoided in the middle of the night. A bath tub full of cold water sits brewing with yesterdays filth while pee from my potty training toddler is forming a dried crust underneath my toilet. Clothes lay in wild abandon throughout the house and the piles of laundry are forming a small mountain beside my unused washing machine. Cold cups of coffee sit about the house like glasses of water from the little girl in "Signs" (think Mel Gibson and alien invasion). Toilet paper sits in clumps around our beds and we all live in the blessed comfort of our pyjamas. The batteries on our phones and tablet are left on empty as the kids play them ceaselessly all day long. The TV rests in the "on" position and I am sure our eyes are somewhat glazed from the lack of outdoor air and activity. Yes, this is the residence of sickness, from the people to the resulting pandemonium that is my house we practically scream DISEASE!

And so it is that in the moment I beg with myself to never leave the house. I reason that this is not worth the sips of coffee as I visit with my friends whilst my kids swap spit on the nearest toy. I promise that grocery trips will be a team effort with the strategy of one adult sitting in the car with the kids while the other fills the grocery cart. That I will stock my purse with sanitizer and be a nazi with drinking our kefir each day. But the naivety has left and the veteran is in its place. And the veteran shakes her head in the sad but inevitable knowledge that in a week all promises will be forgotten and life will resume once more.

Happy flu season everyone! May your hygiene practises be vigilant and your intestinal flora be strong! :)

The Lonely World

I have long been struck but the world-wide view of Canadians as being "polite". We are the polite nation. Always using our please and thank you's, being so kind and caring and compassionate. People hear Canadian and they think "Due South". I wish they weren't wrong. Canadians are just as self-centred as everyone else. Always looking out for number one. Whether they be old or young, busy or not, it is rare to be offered a smile or a kind word. No, most often when I am out on my own with the kids I feel more alone than when I am at home in my house. Surrounded by people everywhere and yet either they can't look me in the eye or else they point and talk about me instead of to me. I was struck by this the other day. I have gone out by myself with the four kids since having Aliyah, but not shopping. If I have to go out I try to keep it to a simple thing, and the other day I decided to brave the big bad world on my own! Swimming lessons, shopping and lunch were on the agenda and I was determined to do it by myself. 

Trying to unload kids, get them to walk in some sort of unity across a parking lot and into a store is massive accomplishment. Doors slammed in my face as people tried to avoid me and I struggled through pulling my stroller behind me and holding toddler hands in front. As I hold a wobbly tray for lunch, people just whiz on by. Sometimes they see me struggling as I try to maintain control of my brood and pay at the same time or try to walk while pushing a stroller and holding a tray of food. But not one person will offer to help. They just watch me and I can't help but wonder what is going on behind those eyes. Are they pitying me? Are they judging me? Are they simply amused and watching to see how I will manage? I honestly don't know. But I can feel so alone, so cold and deserted in that sea of people. And in moments like that I don't see our country through the naive eyes of Paul Gross, instead I see us as selfish and self-involved. Too caught up in our own worlds to think about someone else. We're angry on the roads, honking horns and cutting people off. We are rude in stores, ignoring others and only saying hi when we can't avoid it. 

I may not be able to change the way I am treated when I go out with my little brood behind me, but I aim to change the way I treat other people. And even if I can't necessarily help them out while balancing my little circus act, at least offer a warm smile or kind word to make them feel a little less ostracized and ignored. And so tonight I challenge you to hold open a door for someone, ask someone how they are doing without walking by before you've heard the answer. It might not "make the world a better place" but it might make the streets of Kamloops and Chase a little less cold and indifferent for one person. 

Final Stretch

I am laying in my bed, slightly uncomfortable as always, with a quiet and yet incessant voice in my head (and my abdomen) telling me to get up and pee for the hundredth time. I try to ignore it. It persists. And so, I start the ever-increasing ordeal of shifting positions around my pillows in order to get my fat butt out of our memory foam sinkhole. It is then that I see my husband float through the door, so smooth and graceful, like a cat trying to hide its indiscretions. Calmly ignoring him, I proceed out the door to do my business and return to look at my clock. Alas, it is 5am. Did my dear husband work until 5am? No, he came home several hours earlier and watched TV for three hours. Does this upset me? You better believe it! I give him a huge lecture about taking care of himself (really for my sake because at this point in my life, I can't handle when he is grumpy because he refuses to sleep), and roll over in a huff. Such a huff, in fact, that I now have a 4 1/2 pound baby jumping in my uterus and a new, not so quiet voice, telling me to eat. I am no longer tired (although come 2pm I will be most likely a dead man walking) and decide to get up. Already planning on how I will blame my exhaustion on him later on today... I find myself wondering what to do with myself. My kids are still asleep, I can't do anything too loud for fear of waking them. So, I clean. Mopping my floors, tidying up toys, folding laundry. At last, the time came for me to sit with my green tea and do some much-needed devotions.

I have been trying to work my way through Beth Moore's "David" study. In nearly a month, I have watched the initial video and today I finally finished the first week of homework! But today was the story of David and Goliath, a favourite of all Sunday School children out there. I was struck by the wonder of it all once again as I read about David's courage and tried to imagine myself having the same faith, the same courage, the same boldness. I could not. One thing that she wrote really impacted me, and I decided with what little time I had left, I would share it with whoever still reads this poorly neglected blog.

"FAITH IN FAITH IS POINTLESS. FAITH IN A LIVING, ACTIVE GOD MOVES MOUNTAINS"

Now, turn off your sunday school brain that is telling you, "yes, sure, of course, didn't you know that dear?" and think about it. How often do we place our faith in our spirituality? How often do we feel discouraged or intimidated or even unable to complete a task because we are uncertain of our faith? Didn't we also grow up hearing "if you only have enough faith..." The problem with this statement that is stuffed down our throats, is that it leaves us thinking on our own terms, in regards to our own strengths.

"I can't do this because I am not strong enough, because I don't have enough faith, because I don't do enough devotions, or don't pray enough"

We may not put it into words like that, but I often feel discouraged, even in my day to day tasks because I just don't feel like I can do it. For example, right now I am 8 months pregnant. I feel big and uncomfortable. I have constant heartburn making eating a chore, bending over a literal pain up my throat. Sciatica so bad my hips pop with EVERY single step I take and shooting pains whenever I twist the wrong way. Varicose veins that throb all day long and get worse every time I can bear to look at them. I am irritable, impatient, annoyed, and most of all exhausted. I am so physically tired, I will look at my day, at a situation with the kids, at the clock even, and think to myself "I can't do this". I feel like I am failing as a mom every time I snap at my kids, but I feel like I can't help it, because no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to achieve more patience. So I sit in my little slump of the day-to-day, feeling sorry for myself and feeling like a failure.

Then I read this and I am once again reminded.... IT IS NOT ABOUT ME! It is not about my strength, or my ability to have more patience, or my ability to ignore my hormones, or my ability to have a better attitude, or even my physical ability to survive. I can't do it. That is the whole point. It is about God's ability. It is about his strength and his love for me and my kids, and his unwavering goodness that I can depend on. That I can lean on, that I can dip into like a well and drink deeply and say, "I can't do it God, help me". I often pray that prayer throughout the day like a drunkard on his last legs, "ahhhh! God, I need you!" But do I believe it? Do I actually give up trying to do it on my own strength and surrender to the Lord of my life? That is the key. Not saying it, but surrendering. And I never stop trying. I always think that now that I have prayed the prayer, I can just try harder and the strength will be there somehow.

And so today, dear readers, I challenge you to truly surrender to God. Put your faith in him, and stop trying so hard to do what we simply cannot do on our own. Have a victorious day! I am off to clean the basement before my little monkey's start clawing at me :)