Yesterday is gone
it is swept away like dust
yet I dwell too much

Tomorrow is near
but not here, not yet, not NOW
I will myself: STOP!

Sleep so elusive
it comes in fits and starts
so wrong, so unfair

All this battling
all this energy wasted
it is now 4 am

My Eirene place
won’t be found by my effort
but by surrender.

I already know
but I have not learned it well,
not my nature…yet. 

Please go and read:

My faith only seems to equal misinterpretation and misconception. I think this yesterday when I hear that she died suddenly, leaving behind a four year old, a four day old, and a husband. I think this last night surrounded by friends and a long, hard conversation. I think this driving to work today, shouting along with David Crowder again: Are we left here on our own? Can you feel when your last breath is gone?

You won’t regret.

Eirene,

Jen

On my “To be read” list is a book entitled “Margin” which, I believe, details how to successfully create spaces in your days during which you have down time.

I haven’t had time to read it yet. Which is unfortunate given today’s dare.

Dare 6 has me examining areas in which I can add margin in my life. It also asks me to list out my wrong motivations. Somehow this is supposed to plug into reacting to tough circumstances in my marraige in loving ways instead of irritation. Again, I fear that I’ll be fumbling through this and Hubby will glide through carried by his own pure heart and angels wings.

So. What does Margin look like anyway? Perhaps I have something to start on and don’t even recognize it?

About those wrong motivations: Can I just put down selfishness and be done with it or do I have to detail it all out? 

As much as I am struggling with this book and it’s challenges to me, I do believe we are already experiencing some fruit. For one, I think we are both concentrating on the dares which gives us a greater sense of being on the same team. I start joking about it sometimes and he joins right in…it’s been a long time since we’ve had common goals for our relationship (outside managing household, finances and children). So that is nice! I like this feeling of being teammates rather than opponents. 

We had THAT talk the other day…the three things he does that irritates me and vice versa. It was very illuminating. AND surprisingly, his list was three things that I did not expect to hear. I was expecting the worst. Really. He had just cause to bring up some very horrible behavior of mine. And while his list touched on those things indirectly, the fact that he’d thought about them enough to go further down to the root of the matter impressed me a great deal. I’d been wandering this house thinking that maybe he just didn’t “get me” when in fact he gets me better than I get myself most days. I don’t give him enough credit 90% of the time. 

So this idea of margin and motivations may be elusive to me now, on this side of the dare. But I will make my list and be mindful of how I am acting and reacting to difficult circumstances. And what a day in which to practice! We are having an electrician do some work on our house, it’s Monday, school is delayed for the kids, and I’m in the middle of review cycles at work which means extra work tonight when I get home! His schedule is packed this week, too.  Good times for working through how we manage and treat each other during difficult circumstances.

On this day, eleven years ago, my only son entered the world.

Wow. Eleven years.

Eleven.

How has it gone by this fast? How is it that when I think I get a handle on this growing up thing the kids do…another birthday blows my mind out of orbit.

I’ve tried for half an hour to articulate how I feel about him, only to fail miserably. I love this kid like nobody’s business. He challenges me on all fronts: wit, humor, intellect, compassion, spiritual awareness. He’s the monkey wrench in my parenting style–sometimes needing constant guidance, and sometimes being such that I could take some lessons from him.

I’m botching this tribute terribly. But he, if he were here, would say “That’s ok, Mom. No. Really. You can stop.”

I’m counting on seven more years of him in my home. I might go broke trying to feed him, I might get clobbered by the limbs that he seems to have less and less control over, and I might stay confused by his Y chromosome. But I certainly plan on soaking up these last seven years.

Love ya, monkey boy.

Just a little progress note on our 40 days of the Love Dare:

Not that I am keeping score, or being competitive or anything, but Hubby is rocking this thing like you wouldn’t believe. It seems being patient and kind and generous and caring all come very easily for him. Lucky me! Right?

I, however, am a big fat Agape-love-challenged pinhead. I’m not trying to be self-depreciating and cute here. Ok, maybe I am trying to soften the blow of this particular truth a little with humor, but it’s still a very big slap upside my head.

I have learned over the past couple of days that I default to selfishness and self-seeking just about all the time in our relationship.

Truly. How has he put up with me for so long?

Also, he’s a diehard romantic. I am a dyed in the wool realist. So while he is really trying to go “all out” for me, I’m struggling to come up with a single idea for each of the dares. 

I’m lame. But I keep trying. Please pray for us. Please pray for me. I have a feeling this is the begining of some serious soul-work. And that thought is both simultaneously welcomed and dreaded.

Eirene,

Jen