Monday Meet Up for the Desperate who Need to Breathe

I am desperate and cannot breathe. I am not alone.

Perhaps you have many little feet pattering around your home while taking care of an aging grandfather in end stage Alzheimer’s.

Did your child walk in, drop a bombshell, and blow the ground out from under you?

Has a family court judge stared down at you and declared your husband free to choose sinful selfishness over you today?

Have you made the harder choices in life believing one day the tipping point would come? It has come and tipped you into the depths of an abyss you could never imagine.

Maybe you have cancer, and your employer said you no longer have a job.

The depth of human misery represented in my community of friends alone is staggering.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Is chaos crouching at the door? Are you weary? Can you breathe?

Do you hear the voice of the accuser echoing in your heart? He’s good. He’s had time to refine his act. He’s been practicing his craft since he and creation’s Eve sized up that infamous, history changing tree together.

He whispers just loud enough that you must strain to hear him, but that’s part of his plan too. He’s reeling you in, closer. He mocks.

Who do you think you are? What right do you have to call yourself a person of faith? Look at your life. That dude on television said you could have your best life now. Is this your best? Really? Faker!

He stalks off leaving you to lick your wounds knowing if he can defeat you now, his job just got easier. He knows we live in a world filled with desperate folks who cannot breathe.

He looks over his shoulder snickering as he departs. If he shuts you up, how many will remain oxygen deprived?  

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative 

He uses your faith against you because that is your tender spot. He tells you only perfect faith, all spiffed up and television shiny, is the real deal.

Your faith is messy. Your life is messier. You are no match for him. Sit down. Be quiet. Hide. Under your blanket. It’ll be better that way.

The icy wind whipping down off the snowy mountain was no match for the icy wind blowing over my soul today.

I reached out from under my soul-hiding blanket to answer a text. Not long after, the phone rang. “Are you really o.k.? You aren’t, are you?”

One messy soul-faith sister reached out to another. A hint of air seeped into my lungs.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Strengthened by the call, I started to pay it forward. Before I could hit send, an incoming text popped up.

“Just checking in. I love you, and I am praying.”

“Weird,” I answer back. “I was just texting you to ask about you.”

“God,” she says. No further explanation needed.  

Emboldened, I text a friend I met a year ago. I did not expect to be forever friends. I never knew I would need her the way I did today – as desperately as I did today.

She lives on the other side of the continent. In this flat world, she is instantly available. “Pray?” I pour out my heart in 140 character bursts.

Before I can blink, her answer pours out of my text screen into my heart:

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

You have not failed your God. Listen to the Lover of your soul. He’ll whisper truth. He is at work in your life and in the life of your family. The truth: when God sees you, he sees Jesus.

Big ugly gasping breaths fill my lungs as tears pour down my cheeks. I can breathe.

I do not know who you are nor the cause and depth of the pain you bear. I do know that hiding under a blanket of protection  only serves to suffocate you.

It takes a while before you notice, but without warning there is no air. In those desperately, lonely moments when we cannot breathe, friends are God’s gift of CPR.

Our society makes it difficult to cultivate friends. I’ve said so often, the more interconnected we are, the less connected we are.

If you are looking for air, please consider joining the in(RL) community for a celebration of relationships on April 26^th and

Join us? 

27^th. Almost 500 groups are registered in 437 cities across the globe. So far, over 1,000 women are planning to participate.

Won’t you be the next one to join us? You never know when you may need a friend to help you breathe.
To see the trailer and register, click here. 

If you are gasping for breath, Desperate, Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe is chock full of wisdom and advice. To learn more: click here. 

Monday Meet Up - Wk. 6

“Hah. You gonna keep that place as clean as she did?” Her zinger hung in the air like stale, acrid cigarette smoke.

Within the question, my inquisitor hinted at her own guilt over personal failure and begrudging admiration for the one in question.

I was new, but I sized up the reputation of the previous lady of the house right quick like.

She rose at four in the morning, ran three miles, and did chores. She taught elementary school full-time, hauled twin boys to after school sporting events, and was at all her high school coach husband’s important events.

I met her twice – both times early on Saturday mornings. She had on big yellow work gloves and apologized for things not being spic and span. 

I had last seen her version of ‘messy’ the week before my two-year-old was born when I was cleaning out furniture crevices with a damp Q-tip.

Taking a deep breath before replying, I tried not to sound as challenged as I felt by the question or the new neighbor posing it.

1999

“We homeschool. That means we live in our house twenty-four seven. It’ll never look like hers did now that it’s mine. I’ll have a BH&G photo cover of a home again one day. I just hope I live long enough to see it.” 

In that moment, I felt as though the Stepford wives outnumbered me.

Most of my days consisted of dueling breathing treatments for two boys. The doctor’s office installed a revolving door just for us.

If we weren’t battling asthma flares and respiratory infections, I was trying to sort out the mysteries of sensory processing disorders, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and all the other complexities that colored our school days.

I’m not saying it was trench warfare or anything, but I woke up more than one sunrise sitting straight up on the sofa, a schoolbook open in my lap, and still wearing clothes from the day before.

Almost fourteen years later, that question still hangs in the air and turns my heart hazy blue with smoky self-doubt and regret.

I think of it every time another writer stirs the social media pot with the mommy war spoon. I look at something you do better than me and tell myself I’ll always be less than.

I see the frazzled young mom at the doctor's office or the troubled teen in the grocery store parking lot, and I think of that day.

1994

No matter what your heritage, this Facebook and Pinterest laden world can leave you in a state of despair. Who can measure up against those high bars?

What a comfort it has been to read Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe. The words resonate with me because the tone is one of mentorship.

Sarah presents a problem while Sally reflects on the times in her life when she struggled with similar issues and failures.

Both offer insight into their journey through the wilderness seasons of parenting.  And, if you are one, you know parenting is sometimes a wilderness!

How wonderful it was to turn the page to Chapter Six and see them deal with the issues of lack of training and perfectionism.  I realized that in any season of life, we can all feel inept and inadequate for the task.

I found comfort, encouragement and a challenge this week. Here is the challenge:

While there is some validity to that excuse [I wasn’t trained], it has an expiration date: the day you decide to make a change. (p.70)

Here is the comfort:

Your relationship with your children and their ability to enjoy the comfort of your home are gifts you can give your family by choosing to accept and appreciate the limitations of a full and lively house. (p. 71)

Those truths resonate no matter your life experience or age. We can choose change at any age and begin to address our shortcomings. 

2009

Once we decide to change, we can approach the journey in a way that fosters a spirit of joy and companionship as we go.

If you feel lost and alone and want a network of women with whom you can experience mutual mentorship, please consider joining the in(RL) event on April 26^th and 27^th.

Watch the trailer and meet Sarah, Sally, and a few other friends. I promise, if you watch it, you won’t be able to stay away!

To view the trailer: click here

To purchase Desperate: click here

Click here to read: Fear and Loathing at the Grocery Store

Click here to read: Monday Meet Up - Wk. 1

2 Corinthians 4: 16-18 (The Message)

Courtesy B. Creasy - 2010

So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.

Monday Meet Up – Week 2

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I was feeling pretty desperate to breathe today. The pace of life leaves me dizzy at times. Over the past three weeks or so, I needed great big gulps of air to keep checking things off my never ending to do list. What about you?

When I decided to start this Monday Meet Up series in preparation for the in(RL) virtual conference on April 26^th and 27^th, I had no idea how life would unfold today.

It’s been one of those days when I think God’s sense of humor has taken license with my life – if you know what I mean?

A month or so ago, a friend approached me with a business idea. It was courageous, gracious, and timely given my life circumstance.

We discussed my reservations but agreed we would move forward and work together to create a win-win for both of us.

Courtesy Aly Hughes

Neither of us had attempted a project of this nature before, so we weren’t really sure what the finished product would be. We gave it a courageous try knowing things would take shape as we progressed. 

Then, life began to happen. What looked good in theory became frustrating and cumbersome in reality. We backed up and took a run at redefining and redesigning our ideas.

Just when I thought we had come up with a solution for the issues that had perplexed us, I received news that blew our best laid plans to bits.

Given the news, I simply could not, in good conscience, commit to the plans we had hoped to accomplish.

It was heart-rending to face the music and break the news. It was even a little demoralizing to admit I was done before I had gotten a chance to begin.

As a people pleaser addicted to pleasing, it hurt even more to know I was letting down a friend. I chastised myself for letting my family down because the plan would have benefited all of us as well.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Even as I winced and wrestled with myself and God over the decision before me, I had a serene sense that he was in the midst of the details.

It was as if he whispered, “Your dilemma, the question behind the question, is what happens if you let go of better in search of what is best. This plan, as wonderful as it is, has come at the wrong season of your life. It is o.k. to let go. I am here.”  

As I re-define my life in light of the encroaching empty nest years and the present reality of a marital separation, I have looked at the future with fear.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Will my marriage heal? How does a woman in her fifties re-create a job history with current work experience when she has not worked full-time in over 2 decades? Who will I be when I am no longer the homeschooling wife and mother I have always been? 

How can I walk away from an opportunity like the one my friend offered when it seems to be exactly what would answer all those questions and more? Oh, the agony.

After my jangled nerves had stopped clanging like an old fashioned church bell in a belfry, I sat down with my copy of Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe. I took a deep breath. One of those cleansing breaths they talk about so much in Lamaze classes (which I failed by the way).  

I opened the book and re-read the first two chapters looking more closely at the things I highlighted the first time through. Do you see the humor I see in my life when I tell you that the first section is entitled: "The Dream Life . . . Altered"?

Today, my life dreams were refined. Again. I am the fraidy ‘bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ cat. I was prying my bony claws loose from the bird in the hand all day long. I read Sarah Mae’s words.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Many of my ideals were good, but the standard I set for myself to meet them was completely unrealistic. (p.5)

She was speaking of her struggles as a young mother to meet her goals for mothering. Yet, in her words, I saw my story taking place in a different season of life.

Mine is a fraidy cat story of being torn between better and best. What’s yours? What are the high standards, the unrealistic expectations of self, that rob you of oxygen?

I’ll be blogging a bit more about the first two chapters of Desperate by Sarah Mae and Sally Clarkson this week. Come back and bring a friend. You and I both know we are all struggling to breathe given the hectic lives we lead these days!

See you soon, fraidy cat? Don’t make me come looking! 

Courtesy  B. Creasy - 2010

Isaiah 41:10 (Amplified Bible)

Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.