Shep: An update

11 / 9 / 1711 / 9 / 17

My kids have left for school and I am home in a quiet house cleaning out my desk. It’s cluttered with school papers of ABC worksheets, and Halloween drawings depicting scarecrows or dancing skeletons underneath a disco ball. (Shep likes a good party.) Char’s big, lopsided, circle faces of our family stare back at me from the page, and my heart tightens. I feel that same feeling every time I watch her skip confidently into school from the car pool line. I am desperate to get them out the door, already aggravated from arguing over messy hair and brushed teeth. But I miss them as soon as they leave my sight.

We are in a good routine now, but this summer parenting left me at a new low I didn’t know I could reach. Personalities were hard, and schedules were loose. I found myself at the end of my rope and grasping at straws trying to understand why one of my children was so angry, seemingly every day. It was a terrible feeling. Dealing with crisis with your babies is traumatic, but dealing with big feelings and angry words on a daily basis drained me in a new way. I was failing…something wasn’t working and I couldn’t find the ways to fix it. It was a whole new type of defeat. Finally, I found help in the form of a sorority sister who happens to be a family counselor. She propped me back up, gave me some new tools and honest feedback. She reminded me that I am my kids’ mom for a reason and I knew what I was doing even when it never felt like it. The things I learned from this summer I’ll try to change over the next one, best I can.

It’s crazy watching your babies grow up. Shep’s reading abilities are slowly gaining momentum and I’m breathing a giant sigh of relief after parent teacher conferences. The kids are alright. My Shepherd boy is alright. We intentionally withheld all information about Shep’s drowning from his teacher and his new school. We wanted a clean read on Shepherd, without any pre-conceived opinions. After 3 years of wondering, I always knew Kindergarten would be my biggest litmus test and I feel like we passed.

I see patterns forming in his behavior, the randomness of ages 3-5 giving way to distinct personality traits. His passions are defined: Science, Legos, family, nature. Encouragement is his gift to others. He gives his heart away without reservation and is learning he won’t always get it back the way he thought. He’s an observer, quick to pick up on words not meant for his ears. Brutally honest, Shep will rat himself out any day of the week but he still manages to be a master manipulator of a situation once he’s pinpointed a weak spot. Our boy loves people but still does what he wants on the playground regardless of who does or doesn’t join his game. His imagination is still his biggest asset.

Brother sister dance off. Shep is sticking by his signature move: The Robot.

Nearing 7, his dance with faith is beginning to take on a rhythm of its own and the steps are becoming more complicated. Nothing slips by him. In a moment of intense frustration he furiously tells me he believes in God, but he doesn’t think He’s listening. His prayers have gone unanswered. All I can do is nod my head. “I get it buddy, I’ve felt the same way. But I know enough to know he’s listing now, so I’m going keep praying because this is a particularly difficult situation we’re in and I could use some help.”

I realized yesterday, praying will soon become my number one parenting recourse when things are going sideways. Erron and I will still encourage, set boundaries and enforce consequences, but once you send your kids off to school and they start finding their own friends, you rapidly start loosing some of the control you didn’t even know you had. It’s terrifying but also exciting to see them work out who they are….I day dream about flying Shep around the country and taking him to different science museums. I’m so curious to see how school will play out for him. He remains complicated, deeply loving, thoughtful and intense. Parenting him will never be boring.

This summer I walked though the wilderness as a Shep’s momma but I also know he’s too old now to share the details of our journey. All that matters is that we came out the other side and our path is much smoother now. This won’t be the last time we’ll get lost in the weeds but that’s ok. Like I said before, parenting is our favorite adventure, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.

Old Habits Die Hard

5 / 2 / 175 / 2 / 17

Master Bath, Before Pic. Also, not even clean. Someday, that will be a free standing tub, there will be tile on the floor, marble on the counters and sconces. The wood paneling will be MIA. Not pictured: Current ant infestation.

I have abandoned my little blog accidentally on purpose in these last 5 months. I mean….I’m busy…ish. Work, two kids, the house. Trying to keep the house looking clean in the middle stages of a remodel is like trying to apply make up in the shower. It feels very “What’s the Point-ish.”

However:

When I was really into this blog, I made space for it. Space in my day and space in my head. My mind used to be writing all the time. I would be propelled out of bed at 12:00 AM desperate wrestle stuff out of my head and heart so I could fling it on to paper. That same itch would lay claim to an entire day without kids, me editing at the keyboard, dirty dishes left untouched in the sink. At 2:00 in the morning, I could hit “Save” then crawl back into bed, relaxed and calm. Handing over all my thoughts to the page released me from them, even if the break was temporary. I would wake up relaxed, light hearted and clear headed. Walking through the aftermath of Shep’s accident was so emotionally heavy that I could feel a physical difference before and after a blog post. I still feel better after writing, only now, the situation is different. I write when I process things, when things get sticky and complicated between my head and my heart, I work them out on paper. Only now, there is no trauma or even its aftermath to pin the struggle on. To my dismay, there is still uncertainty and restlessness, annnd character defects. I’m sure no one is really that surprised, except I kind of am…and I’m a little miffed my old habits haven’t kicked the bucket like I thought they might after walking through so much fire. Or if they have, those habits have just decided to reincarnate themselves and comeback as the 2.0 version of Allie’s Most Common Hangups. They’ve upgraded. So for the last four or five months I’ve just ignored it. Except then we moved—-and the buzzing is getting harder to tune out. For sure, I’m not the same person I was before Shep’s drowning, but the shadow of that girl is still there and she’s been staging a comeback in the last several months. I don’t exactly love this version of me, so I haven’t wanted to fully engage in what this comeback might mean. Writing about it felt annoying, like re-writing old chapters again only never being able to change the ending. So I just didn’t. Instead I got “distracted.” I am SO talented in this department. It plays out something like this:

THE SCENE:
Me, staring intently at the walls of my living room, turning the lights off and on, agonizing over 4 different shades of white paint samples. My kids are asking me to play with them. I am having none of it. I am FIXATED on the paint samples. In fact I am getting kind of angry because my walls aren’t even primed yet, so the “paint” stage of this Reno is actually further away than I care to admit.

INNER VOICE: (In my case, I blame Inner Voice on… you guessed it, The Man Upstairs and his BFF the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I can’t really tell the difference if it’s me or Him. Either way, I’m annoyed. For all practical purposes we’ll call this voice “V.”

“V”: Hey, Allie. Psst. HELLLOO. Just a friendly reminder: You CAN enjoy your life before your walls are painted. This is not what it’s all about. You know that right? Yeah, you know that. I know, you know. NOBODY cares that your walls are bare. The kids DO NOT care. Your baby sitter tonight, she won’t care either. Does your cable work? Perfect. Then she won’t care. Chill out…go play.

Me: Shut up V! Can’t you see I’m trying to decide between Egret White and Off White?! I have a legitimate chance at getting this drywall painted in early 2018 so it’s obviously critical I make this decision today. I NEED TO BE READY. Go bug someone else.

V: I’m just saying….you’ve been kind of a B to every member of your family lately, your slavedriver tendencies are showing. I can hear Erron’s prayers for a break you know. He told me you didn’t smile at him last week unless he was holding a power-tool. But seriously, your discontentment is palpable. Recalibrate.

Me: Drives to Sherwin Williams to buy more white paint samples.

Other phenomenal ways of hitting the mute button on V are detailed below:
1. Re-watching the entire series of the Office.
2. Instagram
3. Running comps on MLS.
4. Window shopping on Wayfair, Houzz, Joss and Main and Birch Lane.
5. Eating mass quantities of dark chocolate brownie dough.
6. Realizing that I do not metabolize brownie dough the way I did 3 years ago, and going to the gym.
7. Deciding which cosmetic, non-invasive procedure I should try first, and who will do it. Set up consultations accordingly.
8. Faaaaacebook.

I have more, but you get the general idea.

So, apparently I’m not super holy even though I walked through a holy experience. I know, it shocked me too. Kidding. Sort of. The truth is, I do know better, I’ve had an up close encounter with “What Really Matters.” And this remodel Is. Not. It. But right now I am a walking talking version of the Chris Janson country song “Buy Me a Boat.” I keep thinking money will save the day here if I just had an excessive amount of it at my disposal. Except I wouldn’t buy a boat or a truck to pull it. I’d buy a professional painter, a stainless steel gas range and sectional. Also, about 4 new light fixtures and an electrician to install them so Erron wouldn’t have to. It’s that dang champagne taste. Unfortunately for me, unless Erron and I want to spend all our extra dollars to get the house looking sparkly, (which we don’t) my current budget for our remodel will actually buy me a couple La Croix.

I know these wish list items are not the magic key to life. I might breath a sigh of relief when I look at painted walls, but it will not bring me any joy and that’s what sticks. Playing with Shep and Char while they still want me around and enjoying Erron are the big ticket items. My heart knows this but my head keeps dropping the ball and forgets every 10 minutes or so. I will have days where living in a totally unfinished house is PERFECTLY FINE. It’s great! It’s an ADVENTURE. And what an amazing example this is for our kids!! They will be Home Depot babies and learn how to do cool and useful things like hammer a nail and not expect instant gratification. (It’s a reach, I’m aware.) Three days later the charade comes crashing down when I want to murder someone because I don’t have a dining room table to host anyone for Easter Sunday. I mean, it’s basically a sin to not have a dining room table. For Easter. You know, for hosting. Because I’m so spiritually in-tact and what not.

So there it is. How’s the remodel? It’s slow. It’s sometimes super fun and lots of times hard. It has revealed some of my bigger suspicions. That I still struggle with materialism and my house is still a gigantic part of my identity. I still need grace for behaviors I thought would fade away after being so intimate with God and almost losing something so heartbreakingly irreplaceable. But it will be beautiful someday, it’s a work in progress. Just like me.

Front Exterior-Before Pic. Inside gets tackled first.

Entry way into Den. Bedrooms on the left, formal dining on the right. Our entry rug came with the house.

The Den. (Erron has now dropped in can lighting and all the walls in the living areas have been retextured to a flat finish.) To come later, new floors, a big chandelier, painted brick and cabinets, cedar mantle and planks on the ceiling. I actually just got tired typing all that out.

Eat in dining off kitchen. 3rd full bath, laundry room and mother-in-law sweet down the hall.

Eventually, floors will be ripped out, that wall behind the sink will come down, and become a large island opening up to the den. Cabinets will be replaced and fur down ceiling removed.

Formal living/dining. This was taken halfway through opening up entrances and retexturing the walls.

Sun room! We’ll switch out the floors and light fixtures. Paint the exposed brick and maybe put up new drywall, but maybe not. It’s currently the kids’ play room which means their junk has a place. So it’s my favorite room.

Decisions, decisions….

6 / 13 / 166 / 13 / 16

Think back to when you were faced with a really big decision. Maybe it was choosing where to go to college, whether or not you took that job, bought that house, or tried for that 3rd baby. A decision you intentionally made that had potential to significantly impact you or someone you loved. How did you make it? How much time did you spend on deciding? While I’m throwing out rhetorical questions, I’d like to add: Why are these decision so hard to make?

My obvious guess is because we can’t see the future, we can only imagine outcomes. The true reality of a decision is hidden from us at the time we make a choice. So we are constantly hedging our bets. For the most part I’m SO glad I couldn’t see what my future held for me, I appreciate that God designed life to work that way, but it does makes decision time challenging, especially when there’s not an obvious “Most Right” decision.

Erron and I are in the process of making one such decision and it has been DIFFICULT. We desperately want to do the most right thing by all parties involved. We want the effect of it to be positive. We want to be sensible, above reproach, and true to our hearts…except we’re still not exactly sure what our hearts are telling us. It’s a sensitive decision, with lots of complicated emotions attached to it.

The cherry on top is that as a couple, Erron and I could NOT be more opposite in how we approach big life decisions. I’m dangerously impulsive, swinging dramatically back and forth depending on the day. When it comes to hard decisions, I’d rather rip it off like a band-aid. The more I think about it it, the further away I get from a decision, and the less I can be trusted to be secure in it. On the other end of the spectrum is Erron. Infuriatingly methodical, he logically calculates in each and every possible factor. He will not be rushed and once he makes a choice, it’s made. The End. So, you know, that’s super fun for both of us…Oh, Marriage: You think you’re so funny.

Anyway. Together we’ve sought out council from people we trust and respect, we’ve consulted scripture, and we’ve been praying. Then just when think we have it nailed down, we learn new information, and find ourselves back to the drawing board, most our options changed, new ones we didn’t even know existed popping up.

Eventually however, we will be forced to choose, and then we’ll have to step out in faith and trust that even though we picked a path, The Man Upstairs directs our steps. One thing I have to remember when dealing with all parties involved, is that God knows our hearts, he knows what matters to us, and I pray he appreciates the struggle. Some decisions you make never knowing if you made the right one, that’s why they call it hindsight. Lots of times you never learn if a decision led to the “right” outcome, you made a choice, and now life just IS what it IS.

A good friend put it this way: At the end of the day, we are not as powerful as we think we are. It was such a perfect thing to hear. Together, Erron and I will chose the path we think we need to go down, and then it’s out of our hands. We don’t have control over much after that, our decision could lead to lots of different outcomes, and our lives are not quite as up to us as we want to tell ourselves. I will make a thousand more decisions that affect my family, and I have to keep believing God is the underwriter. He drives the plot line so the only decision I need to really focus on is, “Am I actively pursing a relationship with Him?” Waaaay easier said than done, I’m preaching to myself. But I’d like to point out that some pretty big players in the Bible made some really dumb decisions. God stuck around for them, so even if I get this one wrong, I’m counting on Him doing the same for me.

Anxiety: A confession

5 / 6 / 165 / 6 / 16

Did you know May is mental health awareness month? I had no idea until it crossed my screen the other day, on Instagram or Facebook. I scrolled by it so quickly, barely acknowledging it at the time. But then it got me thinking. I’ve avoided writing this post for months, afraid to be this transparent. But as usual, if it takes up real estate in my head for too long, it’s at high risk for getting written out, and I think it’s important. So, I have a confession:

A few months ago, over Valentine’s weekend, Erron and I had a ‘Come to Jesus’ conversation that had been boiling over for weeks. We were driving back from a weekend getaway with friends where we spent the majority of the weekend separated; guys fished, girls talked. It was probably for the best because Erron and I had been treading on thin ice anyway. I was totally exhausted. Like, turn on a show for the kids, napping in the middle of the day kind of tired. (I never nap.) Work wasn’t busy but I could barely keep up with the house. Thinking about cooking dinner made me want to cry. (The daily responsibility of feeding my people can still have this unfortunate affect on me;) Around that same time I wrote this post, documenting my memories of Shep’s accident making a fierce comeback and reeking all kinds of havoc. The point is, Erron’s words on the drive home from Valentine’s Day confirmed what I already knew. As much as I wanted to be, as much progress as I had made… I hadn’t really recovered.

And I was sinking.

Since Shepherd’s drowning, I’d filled my life with positive distractions, a new career, new community group, volunteering, this blog….and sometimes that worked….But I had to fess up to the truth, things were not going so well. I was defensive, agitated, and mostly, I was just So. Freaking. Tired.

I knew I had anxiety. I knew it. But I kept wanting to label it as temporary, conditional. I continued to blame my exhaustion on Char’s terrible sleep habits, when the truth is I was out running hard and pushing a double Bob stroller full of kids only 8 weeks after having Charlotte. She certainly wasn’t sleeping through the night then either. It wasn’t adding up. And when I REALLY took stock, critically looking back over my adult life, it was glaringly obvious that I’d always danced with Anxiety. The tempo just ebbed and flowed depending on circumstances. I took Anxiety to work with me on my first job, fighting panic in the middle of classroom when things where moving sideways on me. I thought if I changed jobs I could leave it behind. But I unknowingly packed Anxiety up and brought it with me to my second job in Highland Park. Anxiety followed me around like a shadow dressed as Standardized Tests and intimidating standards. After a rocky initiation into motherhood with Shepherd’s extra early arrival, I was over it. I made it one more year, then ran out of the classroom as fast as I could, vowing I would only feel that anxious over my own kids from that day forward.

And for a while Anxiety took a vacy. Then I had Char, and 9 months later, I found myself back at the doctor running all my labs, checking my thyroid desperately trying to figure out why I was so tired all the time. My levels came back fine, and my doctor looked into my eyes and asked me straight out “Could you be anxious, or depressed?” I fought back my tears and shrugged my shoulders. I had NO reason to feel anxious, or depressed. But something wasn’t working. After weeks of hearing me doubt my mothering skills, my Dallas community group asked me the same question. Still, I wasn’t ready to own it. Soon after, we got distracted by Erron’s new job, and moving to Oklahoma. Then Shep happened.

Flash forward to the Valentine’s Weekend drive home with Erron. It was messy. And painful. I was going down and Erron was going down with me. He was at a loss. I’d known I was running out of options before the weekend even started so I’d already scheduled an appointment with the same doc I’d seen right after Shep’s accident. I’d tried medicine for anxiety then too, (I had felt justified in taking it to combat the awful memories) but the prescription put me in a fog and I‘d quickly bailed, preferring to talk it out with our counselor. That helped, SO much. Yet it was clear Anxiety had made a massive comeback and was pulling out new tricks I hadn’t seen. I was finally at a point where I was ready to not only own it, but hit it with the big guns. So I sat in the doctor’s office and laid it all out. “It’s like I’m spending every second of the day, capturing a thought Anxiety is feeding me, then having to pin it down and say, “You’re not true.” Or, “That won’t happen.” And I think it’s wearing me out.” He agreed, if you’re doing that all day, no wonder you’re tired. We decided to try something new.

About 10 day’s later, I finally felt a shift when I realized I wasn’t SO tired for the first time in a long time. I made it back to the gym for the first time in a year and half. When work picked up and I had to negotiate deals and write contracts for the first time, it became clear that a glass wall had been put up between me and Anxiety. I could see my anxiety through the glass, buzzing like a hornet trying to sting, but this time, I could choose whether or not to engage with it.

Game Changer.

There are a lot of opinions on this, especially in the Christian community. I know the verses, trust me…I’ve said them to myself over and over when I fight off images of Shep poolside, blue, still, and staring. I pray them at night when I’m stressing out about Shep ever learning to read, or us having enough money to pay for private school long enough to get him reading. I pray them with my littles before they go to bed. There is power in those verses, God is big enough to take my anxiety. Jesus swallowed Anxiety up whole when I should have been tucked into a ball on the hospital room floor. But that doesn’t mean that the daily battle with anxiety, or depression isn’t legit, or that it sometimes doesn’t take some help to push through. Sometimes, it does. And I did. And it’s working. Hallelujah.

The Shut Out

4 / 12 / 16

The Weig babies are back in swim lessons. Char is crushing it, (no surprise there) but Shep still has some fears he has to conquer at the beginning of every lesson. It’s hard to say what his fears are based on. Shep was scared of swimming even before his accident. The summer before he fell in I did Mommy and Me lessons with him in a backyard pool and they were a total disaster. If Shep is afraid of something, it’s a whole THING, until he alone decides he’s not afraid anymore. So, I’m not taken totally off guard by his apprehension over lessons, even though this is round two. But I do wonder if a memory has resurfaced. I always will.

While Sister napped, a tearful Shep and I discussed his upcoming lesson and I tried to get a read on him. He’s afraid of sinking, he says. “Shep…did you remember something about falling in the pool?” It’s not the first time I’ve asked him, but this time the conversation feels a little different so I decide the question is warranted. I gently push a little more than usual, trying to see if there is anything else my normally forthcoming little man feels like offering up. There’s not. It’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, so we drop it and look up funny videos of him and Char instead.

It dawns on me though: This won’t be the last time I’ll be blocked from crawling inside my child’s head to sort out what’s going on in there and make it less frightening. He didn’t want to let me in today, and that’s going to happen again…and again. I don’t love this annoying truth about motherhood. But’s a reality I am unable to change. I tell Shep if he ever wants to talk about it or ask us any questions, we are here and have some answers. I throw up a silent prayer that Shep will come to me if there’s something he needs to work through and I feel surprisingly better about the whole thing. I can model honesty, but I can’t force my kids to tell me things. Instead, I can consistently pray they will use me as a sounding board, and that I’ll be ready for it when they decide it’s time to start talking. For now, we’ll be sitting in bed watching slow-motion home videos. Not a bad way to pass the time.

Speaking of miracles…A conversation.

3 / 29 / 163 / 29 / 16

Until now, we have not let Shep in on just how close he came to loosing his life. He knew he got REALLY sick when he fell in the pool. He understood that he rode in an ambulance, that doctors and nurses worked incredibly hard to make him better. He likes to talk about how mommy and daddy, all of our friends and family, and a ton of people we didn’t even know where praying for him to get well.

But the fact that he almost died, that death was supposed to be his outcome, has never been mentioned.

Erron and I knew we’d let him in on the details eventually, but we figured we let much of that play out naturally, and offer up more detailed information organically as conversations arose.

Last Thursday, on the way home from school, Shep started asking me about the story of Lazarus. He was quizzing me on all the details until I finally just told him to chill and I’d read it to him straight from the source. When we got to the house, I quickly tried looking it up in his Jesus Storybook Bible. I couldn’t fine Lazarus but I found the one about the Dad who goes running into town desperately searching for Jesus to save his daughter from dying. Before they get back to his house, Jairus, the father, hears he’s too late. They didn’t make it time to save his daughter. Everybody’s devastated. Except Jesus, because he knew the story wasn’t over yet. Instead he walks into the girl’s room and wakes her up as if she were only sleeping. P.S.:She’s hungry, can somebody please get this girl some food? It defies logic. A total miracle. Can you imagine how Jairus felt? I have an idea.

As Shep’s question’s continued, it became obvious it was the right time to let him in on some of the more difficult truths from his drowning. We talked miracles and I revealed to Shep that he was our own miracle. “Did I die?” Shep asked me. “No…but you came really close.” The doctors did great work, they did everything right, but God was the ultimate player in that game. I have no reservations saying this because it’s what every doctor who’s had professional experience with Shep’s case has confirmed. Before Shep was discharged, our favorite super doc from Children’s PICU told us he could count on one hand cases he’s seen like Shep’s. He just did not see it turning out the way it did. He’d done his best to consistently to prepare us for the worst, or at the very least, a different version of Shepherd… until eventually it was undeniable. We had gotten Shep back.

Having that conversation with Shepherd wasn’t difficult, even though some of technical “why” questions were hard. All in all, I’m impressed by how easy it was, and how appropriate it felt. The opportunity basically fell in my lap, and the fact that it led up to Easter, a time dedicated to the ultimate defeat of death, made the conversation feel special instead of painful.

I can’t truthfully tell you what I’d be like if we hadn’t gotten our miracle. When I really think about how our story should have ended, I’m honestly not sure I could’ve survived it. Even with Shep’s incredible recovery, I nearly fell off the deep end last year more times than I’d like to admit. But I believe that because of Jesus, death is not The End and I’m banking on the fact this belief would have stayed true for me even if Shepherd was not mine to keep. In fact, I’m counting on it being the only thing to get me through an unimaginable loss like that. This belief, this hope in something unseen, was the only reason Erron and I made it through our first night in PICU without loosing our minds. We had a peace that was greater than our circumstances. It was bigger than us, and bigger than Shep. As time moves us further away from Shep’s accident , it’s a feeling that’s undeniably harder to grasp now, but I will never forget it and I know I didn’t make it up. Nothing about it made sense, it just was.

Like that father in the Bible, I’m so thankful for my second chance. I’m just as grateful for a God who prepared a way for Love to trump death. I adore Shep’s storybook bible because it makes that point so clear. LOVE is what wins that battle. I know not everyone subscribes to this belief, maybe they are made of stronger stuff than me…but there’s no question, I couldn’t get very far without it.

Shep Easter 2016 — Shepherd Boy-words cannot describe how we feel about this kid.

Strep took our family down Easter weekend, so this is the best, and only family photo I got. — Strep took our family down Easter weekend, so this is the best and only family photo I got. I LOVE this crew.

Learning to listen

11 / 30 / 1511 / 30 / 15

Monday’s are rough. Monday’s after a holiday=near death experiences. But this Monday came with a sweet surprise.

I am one of those annoying people who blows holidays out of proportion. I build them up in my head, what conversations will be had, all the feelings that will be felt and the memories that have to be made. It’s a recipe for disaster, obviously, and Erron usually gets the brunt of it when it all implodes. I’ve been this way since I was a kid, it’s still in work in progress.

Last Thanksgiving was not my favorite. Clearly, we had everything to be thankful for but it was a little too surreal for me and the whole experience was just overwhelming. I ended up hiding out in my closet, hyperventilating at how close we came to a Thanksgiving without Shepherd. This Thanksgiving felt a little strange for the exact opposite reason, Erron was tired coming off a crazy work week and I was feeling high maintenance. There was little talk about what we felt thankful for, and while the food was amazing, and family was nice, the whole thing just left me feeling unsatisfied. This is a personal problem, I could have changed the course of conversation, I could have lowered my expectations to something realistic and I could have admitted it was my attitude that was the most out of joint. If I’m telling the truth, I haven’t been feeling thankful lately, I’ve been anxious…then I feel guilty for feeling that way when I know better, I’ve experienced enough to know better….but it is frustratingly easy to forget sometimes. The whole emotional merry-go-ground just makes me annoyed, but I can’t always figure out how to step off it quick enough.

Erron and I are in a season that is kind of low-grade stressful all the time. I’m pretty sure it’s just a season, but it feels like it’s been a long one, and we are over it. We are ready for a change in the weather. Erron and I were both feeling the weight of our situation yesterday when we finally went to church. I say finally, because we both volunteer first service, but we hardly ever go to second service ourselves. (I coordinate a team of sweet volunteers for Shep’s age group and Erron drives golf carts) Anyway, once we get done with our jobs, we always panic that we might be stretching the kids past their limits. Usually, we are so late getting out the door we don’t even feed them, so we grab them and bounce, opting for lunch instead. But yesterday, we randomly decided to go and it was a sweet relief. I sat there next to Erron, feeling annoyed that I wasn’t feeling grateful. I finally looked at my husband and said, “This will work out, we’ve been through way more stressful things.” He nodded. He knew. And my heart started to thaw out as the service continued. Last night I went to bed in prayer, pleading for a change of heart and asking for trust instead of anxiety.

Now, I am not a girl who hears from The Man Upstairs directly, but when I woke up this morning the verse about not being anxious and instead being prayerful and thankful was rattling around in my head. Literally on repeat.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ~Philippians 4:6

And then it happened. I pulled out my wallet after coffee and began making the calls I needed to make. All the doctors’ offices that I had been putting off. First call in, our biggest bill…the woman on the other end tells me it’s been run through the system incorrectly and re-adjusts. Our mega bill is cut in half. Then I check on our med-flex account to make sure they received the payment they needed and hear there is enough money in there to cover the rest of the bills. Like, all of them. Paid in full. I thought we had drained the account months ago. This morning was such a gift. And completely unexpected. The timing couldn’t have been sweeter.

Since my experience with Shep, little by little I’m learning how God can sometimes whisper in your ear by laying words on your heart. I have to say, it’s my favorite lesson so far about the nature of The Man Upstairs.

Being human

8 / 22 / 15

“You haven’t written anything spiritual in a while, “ Erron asked me recently. “Everything OK?” I tried not to get defensive. “Yeah, well…I just haven’t had anything to say….” I stammered back. “….and I can’t write it if I don’t mean it.” Erron nodded in understanding, “Just checking.”

It’s a mysterious thing, this journey of faith. The lows in life can lead you to your greatest spiritual highs, and that’s definitely where I found myself last year. But nothing lasts forever, it’s the nature of being human. Not to say my relationship with the Man Upstairs isn’t still a central part of my life, but it seems less obvious now than it did in crisis mode and I’m trying to get used to this new arrangement. I’ve got friends who seem to hear from God often and clearly. That’s not typically been my experience although I felt His presence tangibly last summer. It was faith in Jesus and a God of Good that brought undeniable comfort, carrying me through June and well into the following year. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the closeness…I know nothing has changed, but now that I’m standing steady on my own two feet things feel different.

Life is starting to pick up speed at the Weig house. We’re in the warm-up lap before the starting gun fires and everyone takes off sprinting. September’s coming and with it all our new commitments. Erron and I start a 10-week class at church. We’ve been out of play for a while, but now we are serious about finding community and know it’s going to take some doing on our part to make it happen. The kids start a new school that requires Shepherd to be there by 8:30 every morning. This in itself will require an act of God. And the biggie…. after months of deliberation, I finally pulled the trigger and am on the road to returning back to work part-time. I’m in the middle of my real estate class, in fact, writing this post is a conflict of interest; I should be studying. Somehow, I’ve got to pass this test, and then find a place to hang my hat. Even admitting this new plan on the blog is nerve-wracking…I worry people will think I’m nuts to even chase this dream down. Anyway, in September, Char resumes dance, Shep starts soccer, Erron wants me to join the PTO at the kids’ school…the list goes on. Let’s just say, I’m starting to sweat.

I am the first-born into a family of ‘Get it done’ people. Total grinders. My parents are warriors. No challenge is too big, they just put their head down and power through, rarely asking for help. It’s an admirable quality, if not a little intimidating. This week was hard on me, I had plans to get through this entire real estate book before my weekend class met again, then Shep ended up in the hospital and I just couldn’t make it happen. I was whipped, and I started to doubt my abilities, my decisions, and instead thought of all the ways this new job path could blow up in my face. ”Just how am I going to pull this all off?” was my dominant thought. This morning I woke up needing some encouragement. I’ve admitted before that I’m not great at reading the bible on a regular basis, but in the last year the words on the page have touched my heart in a way they never have before, and I needed some of that truth today. I opened to 1 Corinthians, and got stuck on the same verse I was hung up on the last time I cracked this book open. Only this time, it sunk in.

“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many of you were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. “ 1 Corinthians 26-31

I hadn’t been willing to admit my weakness, and didn’t think allowing myself to feel insecure was going to help me get to where I needed to be. After all, I got goals to reach, so I kept reminding myself that I was capable, and if I worked hard enough, I could make it all happen.

Paul continues his message with this:

“…When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God….I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.”

It was such a relief to read. Paul’s humble words reminded me it’s OK to be weak, and to feel unsure. In fact it’s a gift. It allows us to get out of our own way and let God do his thing. After all, it was God who designed me with a love of people and an obsession with homes, so I kind of owe Him the credit in the first place. If God chooses to use me in this line of work, I’m ready and willing, but my success will ultimately be His, not mine. It takes some of the pressure off knowing it’s not really all up to me. And killing it at work is not even the point. I’ll do my best, I’ll learn from my mistakes, and I’ll thank God for the opportunity to try something new. That’s about all I can do. After all, I’m only human…but the Man Upstairs can work with that.

Weig’s reclaim the day

6 / 25 / 15

Last weekend was our Reclaim the Date party and it was everything I hoped it would be. Lots of family, so many friends, and we threw in Pistol Pete for good measure. Everyone who came mattered to me: our families, friends who drove in from different cities and states, Shep’s swim teacher and his nurse from Tulsa…everyone there contributed in making this year move forward for us. We had a blast seeing them all in one place, meeting each other, making connections, and enjoying life.

I felt like I was at a wedding, I couldn’t move around fast enough, greeting, hugging, catching up. I was in heaven. Erron and I agreed, it was a perfect day.

The next morning, Father’s Day, and the actual one-year anniversary of Shepherd’s accident, the four of us drove down to Great Wolf Lodge and spent the rest of the weekend playing in the water. I’d like to say it was just as dreamy as our party, but reality kicked in and that actual day was a little more…complicated. Erron and I let the kids go down one of the big slides. In a last minute change-up, I went first, Erron sent down the littles one by one, then was to follow behind. As soon as I got to my feet I turned and prepared to catch Charlotte, who was “iffy” about going down in the first place. Looking up, I saw Erron gesturing from the top of the slide, clearly pointing down, but I second guessed, and thought maybe he needed me to come get a terrified Char from the top of the stairs. I moved a few feet away from the slide, and missed her. I turned around to check the slide again just in time to see a stranger helping her out of the chute; she was scared and confused, caught near the jets. My heart sank and I rushed to get to her. Erron was frustrated; without telling me, he’d foreseen a similar scenario play out in his head and wanted to be the first to go down. He also couldn’t comprehend how I miss-read his cues when they were so obvious. I was….how shall I say… I was not pleased. I felt like I’d repeated a really bad day all over again on a much smaller scale and to say I was ticked would be underselling it a bit. However, we recovered…we worked it out, moved on and enjoyed the rest of our time there. Great Wolf did not disappoint.

And that’s how it goes. Erron and I aren’t perfect and neither is life, but this weekend served its purpose. We had fun in the water, we gave thanks, and we showed June 21st who’s in charge. We survived one hell of a year, thanks to incredibly supportive families, rock star friends, and some amazing people we’d never known before this journey started. Our faith that God is as good as He says He is has been tested, and proven true. Hitting the one-year mark doesn’t magically make all hard feelings about what happened go away, our slide experience is proof of that. But it has brought lots of perspective…we are all together, we have everything to be thankful for and we believe we can handle whatever life has to offer. It’s time to just enjoy the ride.

Shep and Pete — Pistol Pete arrives on the scene. If you were 8 or under, this party just became legit.

Parents meeting swim teacher — My family meeting Megan, the fabulous swim teacher.

Party- babies — Prayer group girls…all the babies and their crazy “look over here” mommas in the mirror.

Journey of Sarah: The Choose Joy Project

6 / 18 / 156 / 18 / 15

In a few days we will hit the one-year mark of the day we found Shep in the pool and thought we would loose him. To mark the date, we are having ourselves a little party to re-claim that day for good. Might sound like a weird thing to do, but to me it’s necessary. If I didn’t have something fun to look forward to this weekend, something to remind me to celebrate and feel grateful, I might go dark. So we are choosing joy. Which is exactly what my friend Sarah is doing next month to mark the second anniversary of her husband, Joel’s, last day on Earth. This post is about her and her gift for choosing light over dark and finding ways to celebrate life in the midst of great sorrow.

Sarah and I have never met in person but I count her as a friend. She and I connected after we were both initiated into the “Our Child Should Not Have Lived” club in the same year. Sarah has been on a wild ride the last couple years and she writes all about it over at journeyofsarah.com. To make a long story short, before loosing Joel to cancer two years ago, he told her, with 100% certainty; they would have one more child, a girl. And they would name her Ellis. After Joel passed, Sara decided to use their last two remaining embryos from an earlier IVF treatment and was blessed with sweet baby girl Ellis. Just like Joel said it would be. But weeks after Ellis was born she contracted bacterial meningitis. Sarah and I have mutual acquaintances, and Sarah’s petition for prayer was all over my Facebook feed last December. I remember being glued to her updates, agonizing with her, begging for a miracle, clearly the only way Ellis would survive. Doctors took Ellis off her ventilator and a broken Sarah prepared herself to say goodbye to someone she loved, again. But survive Ellis did, in the most incredible way…. you can read about here, if you haven’t already heard that part of Sara’s story. It’s astounding.

Sarah has gotten really good at choosing joy instead of sorrow. In fact, she has created a whole movement out it with her Choose Joy Project, which will take place July 23^rd. It’s the perfect way to honor Joel’s life and the type of man he was. The concept is simple. On Thursday, July 23, choose to do a random act of kindness, big or small, in honor of Joel. Buy someone a meal, leave an encouraging note for a friend…you get to decide the “who” and “how.” But that’s not all. Before June ends, email Sarah at choosejoy@journeyofsarah.com to get your Choose Joy cards. (Your email info is confidential and will ONLY be used for the Choose Joy Project.) Include your card (which has a link directing recipients to Sarah’s family story) in your random act of kindness. If you can, email a picture of your random act of kindness to Sarah, or post it on your social media using the hashtag #choosejoyproject. Sarah will be posting all the pictures she receives that day on her blog. Last year Sarah had 80 families participate in the Choose Joy Project. Her goal this year is 100. The message you will be spreading is that hope and faith can shine light and joy into hard things. And let’s face it….if you don’t choose to find joy in the middle of hard, what other options are you left with? Choose joy friends, and pass it on.

Check out Sarah’s Choose Joy Project here.