Today is Mother's Day. I used to hate Mother's Day. I still don't care for it, really. I don't like days that put people on the spot. Days where you are supposed to have sentimental feelings and buy sappy cards and give the perfect gift to prove your love and appreciation. I am sure that there are people out there who see great things about Mother's Day (especially those in the greeting card, flower, and restaurant industries) but I see potential for so much pain: closed wombs, lost children, fractured relationships. This second Sunday in May is, to some, a reminder of loss and can be an emotional, if not visible, divide between the haves and the have-nots.
There were years that I dreaded Mother's Day. My mother and I had a rather tense relationship for a long, long time and, well, I have never been good at forking over the goods on demand. In her insecurity, she craved love from me and, in my immaturity, I found myself unable to give it, at least not on her terms.
My mother had grown up a lonely, only child. So had my father. She was a brown haired, brown eyed, stunning Southern belle and he was a blond haired, blue eyed dashing hardcore yankee and Navy pilot. They married right after WWII and spent eight years moving around the country. By 1954 she was ready to come home. My father retired from active military duty and took a job with her father's construction company and they built a family. There were four kids in all, with me as the last and bottom of the heap.
Somewhere along the way things went bad with their marriage and after 32 years, they divorced. My mother never recovered emotionally. By that time I was the only one left at home. Maybe one day I will tell my whole story but for now let's just say that life was hard and confusing for both of us. During my high school and college years, the harder I pulled away and longed for independence the harder she pulled back. It seemed to be my responsibility to meet all her emotional needs. And I have never performed well under pressure.
As an adult I wanted to love her and honor her in a biblical way but could never figure out how to do that without feeling caught up and trapped in a vortex of dysfunction and unrealistic expectations. I did the only thing I knew. I avoided her.
When I look back now, it breaks my heart to see just how much I broke hers. She died four years ago next week. God gave me nine weeks to prepare. I was there when she stepped from this earth into the presence of God. I think she knew I loved her then. I know she knows it now.
I myself am a mother of four and am still in the process of nudging my youngest two children through their teen years. Being a mother is much harder than I ever expected. I see how easy it is to take things personally, react poorly, and even run out of emotional gas and check out of parenting altogether. The fear of perpetuating the cycle of unrealistic expectations sometimes has me paralyzed. I so do NOT want to put upon my children the burden of propping up my fragile soul.
It is incredibly humbling to walk in someone else's shoes and experience life from a different angle. In some ways I love my mother more now than I ever did, perhaps because I understand her more. She was a person, just like myself, bumbling through the heart-wrenching boot camp called motherhood, with some successes and a good number of failures. But as time moves on, the bad memories fade to gray and the good ones grow more vivid and I wish I could wish her a Happy Mother's Day one more time. That was her language.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Repentance and Parenthood
I think we all have things we said we would do or never do as parents....until we became parents and we found that it was so much easier said than done. I had so many of them. Lists and lists and lists of them, if not on paper then at least in my muddled head. Some were mundane while others were harder to pin down but so much more important. Well, my kids grew older and my ideals fell, one by one, to the onslaught of reality. But through it all I was determined in this basic calling: I would never to use my children to meet my emotional needs. I know too well what it is like to be in that position and I never ever wanted to lay that burden on the young backs of my children.
There comes a time when you have to realize just how far you have strayed from the path. Yesterday was that day. For years I beat myself up, in front of my children, for my failings as a mother. My security, my significance, my value as a person, was so wrapped up in being for them all I felt I was supposed to be and doing for them all I was supposed to do and loving them in the way everybody said I was supposed to love them. Motherhood was an idol to me and my children suffered the consequences.
The other day I wrote about how I try to do God's job, which is a really, really bad idea. My kids were never created to do God's job either and it is totally unfair and downright wrong to expect them to. They have to be free to change and grow and run and stumble and climb and fall and try and fail without my fragile self-image dependent on their performance. They have to be free to relate to me in ways I don't always understand, and love me sometimes in "languages" I don't speak, without my whole being feeling threatened and crushed.
Placing any such huge burden on my children and giving them so much power over my own spiritual and emotional and, yes, sometimes even physical health is wrong. It is sin. What to do? Repent. Repent and believe.
Q. 87. What is repentance unto life?
"Turn from it unto God." "Turn from it unto God." "Turn from it UNTO God." This is turning from believing a lie to beholding that truth. This is relationship. This is turning from an idol that cannot save to a God who can. I can love my children without condition because God loves me without condition. Repentance is a beautiful thing.
There comes a time when you have to realize just how far you have strayed from the path. Yesterday was that day. For years I beat myself up, in front of my children, for my failings as a mother. My security, my significance, my value as a person, was so wrapped up in being for them all I felt I was supposed to be and doing for them all I was supposed to do and loving them in the way everybody said I was supposed to love them. Motherhood was an idol to me and my children suffered the consequences.
The other day I wrote about how I try to do God's job, which is a really, really bad idea. My kids were never created to do God's job either and it is totally unfair and downright wrong to expect them to. They have to be free to change and grow and run and stumble and climb and fall and try and fail without my fragile self-image dependent on their performance. They have to be free to relate to me in ways I don't always understand, and love me sometimes in "languages" I don't speak, without my whole being feeling threatened and crushed.
Placing any such huge burden on my children and giving them so much power over my own spiritual and emotional and, yes, sometimes even physical health is wrong. It is sin. What to do? Repent. Repent and believe.
Q. 87. What is repentance unto life?
A. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience
"Turn from it unto God." "Turn from it unto God." "Turn from it UNTO God." This is turning from believing a lie to beholding that truth. This is relationship. This is turning from an idol that cannot save to a God who can. I can love my children without condition because God loves me without condition. Repentance is a beautiful thing.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Doing God's Job
We have a phrase in real estate. If a system within a house (electrical, plumbing, roofing, foundation, HVAC, etc.) is doing its job, it is "performing the function for which intended." The roof was built to keep you dry and it should be doing just that and on and on and on.
I was created for a reason, too. To do things like loving God with all my heart, soul, and mind and loving my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22:37-39), and good works (Ephesians 2:10), and, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, "to glorify God and enjoy him forever." But I find that I really don't spend much time performing the function for which intended because I am too busy performing functions that God never, ever intended me to perform at all. I can't do my job because I am too stinking busy doing God's job . . . or at least trying to—with miserable results.
It is time to get this through my thick head:
I was created for a reason, too. To do things like loving God with all my heart, soul, and mind and loving my neighbor as myself (Matthew 22:37-39), and good works (Ephesians 2:10), and, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, "to glorify God and enjoy him forever." But I find that I really don't spend much time performing the function for which intended because I am too busy performing functions that God never, ever intended me to perform at all. I can't do my job because I am too stinking busy doing God's job . . . or at least trying to—with miserable results.
It is time to get this through my thick head:
- I wasn't created to build my kingdom on this earth. That includes having the house I want in the place I want it with the weather that I want around it and the stuff I want in it.
- I wasn't created to impress people and make them think highly of me and put me on a pedestal because that is where I get my worth.
- I wasn't created to worry about my appearance.. . . how pretty or fit or thin or young I look or what I wear.
- I wasn't created to defy gravity or the aging process.
- I wasn't created to get things done at the expense of loving other people.
- I wasn't created to work the system in my favor and "fake it til you make it."
- I wasn't created to so that the world could revolve around me.
- I wasn't created to come up with all the answers.
- I wasn't created to create my children in my own image.
- I wasn't created to be the Holy Spirit to my children.
- I wasn't created to believe in myself or follow my heart.
- I wasn't created to fear or huddle in a corner in self-protection.
- I wasn't created to fret while the nations rage.
- I wasn't created to have my life wrapped up in a neat and tidy box.
- I wasn't created to be in control of my world at all.
On Emotions and Instrument Panels
I am an emotional person. If you have read any of my other posts, you
will laugh at this and say that I am merely stating the way too
obvious. When I took the lengthy test for the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator, I tested out a high "F" (for Feeling, as opposed to
Thinking). In fact I tested out as high on the "F" scale as possible. My
husband calls me one bundled up raw nerve ending. Sigh.
Being
a feeling person is not without its benefits. I tend to be
compassionate and caring and understanding in an often dog-eat-dog
world. I guess God made me that way for a reason. But feeling things so
deeply can have its down side. Sometimes life just plain hurts.
I
think the hardest thing about feeling so deeply is that, at times, my
emotions can completely hijack my life and carry it off to some
umpteenth level of hell. What gives? There ends up being much more than
sheer emotion going on.
A few
years ago I watched a science video about flying airplanes. This video
went into detail about the difference between flying by sight and flying
by instrument. When the fellow started talking I assumed that he was
going to say that flying by sight is crucial to master because
instruments in airplanes can be wrong and you need to learn how to fly
without them. That's not the case at all.
Some
of y'all remember back in 1999 when John F. Kennedy, Jr., along with
his wife and sister-in-law, disappeared. John was trained to fly by
sight. It turns out that you learn how to do that first, before you
learn how to fly by instrument. People who fly by sight are to fly only
in daylight and only in clear weather conditions. Why? Because without
the visual cues, your body loses its ability to determine where it is in
space. It is called spatial disorientation.
A few months ago I read the book The Day John Died
by Christopher Andersen. In it he recreates the last few minutes of
John's life as he flew his Piper Saratoga toward Martha's Vineyard. He
describes what likely happened. The vertigo. The disorientation. The
plummeting plane. He describes how one instinctual move can result in
what is called the "graveyard spiral," sending the plane toward the
surface of the ocean at ninety-nine feet per second.
Interestingly, this is what Andersen says:
Even
as the Piper Saratoga dropped from the sky, there remained one slender
hope. John might yet regain control of the plane. It had been done
before. "If you believe what your instruments are telling you and focus
on getting your wings level, " [veteran military pilot Edward] Francis
said, "you can recover—even at the last minute. But the degree of
concentration it requires is total."
Well,
the wreckage and the bodies of all on board were found a few days
later. JFK Jr.'s confidence in his own ability to fly in poor conditions
and his ignorance of the instruments proved disastrous.
I
don't know if you are seeing the parallel yet, but I sure do. I seem to
spend my life flying by sight. I spend my life believing all the input
going on around me. Sometimes that input is coming from the world at
large, sometimes from my own insecurities or desires, and sometimes that
input is coming from the pit of hell itself. I get disoriented. I think
up is down and down is up. I jerk my plane right and left to no avail.
And sometimes I throw myself into the dreaded graveyard spiral. All
because I am failing to fly by the instruments.
The
conditions out there are bad. I can't do it on my own. These people who
say "Just believe in yourself" . . . I just want to say that is
bull****. I would use the actual word but some would be offended. But I
call 'em like I see 'em. No. I will NOT believe in myself. I have no
ability within myself to know when up is down and down is up. I can only
trust in what doesn't fail. Ever.
God
has given me an instrument panel. His very word. Truth. So when my emotions have run off with
me, I have to stop and ask if I have taken my eyes off the dashboard.
Sometimes I haven't and my heart just hurts because a lot of time life
just hurts. But other times I have gotten myself into deep trouble
because I am flying by the seat of my pants and trusting more in my own assessment of the situation than in what the instruments are saying.
Sure, there is pain in life. There are plenty of examples in the Bible of sadness and mourning and grief and anger. These are not wrong, in and of themselves. But there are also plenty of places where we are told NOT to fret, NOT to fear, NOT to worry. When I find myself doing just that, I'm not trusting the instrument panel.
So the next time my emotions run off without me and send me into a graveyard spiral toward the pit of despair, I need to stop and focus on the instrument panel. What is God saying about this? Where is the gospel in this situation? What is true? Maybe that is what Paul means when he tells us to "think on these things" (Phil.4:8).
We cannot trust our own perceptions and what seems right. That will prove disastrous every single time. Praise God he has provided a better way.
Sure, there is pain in life. There are plenty of examples in the Bible of sadness and mourning and grief and anger. These are not wrong, in and of themselves. But there are also plenty of places where we are told NOT to fret, NOT to fear, NOT to worry. When I find myself doing just that, I'm not trusting the instrument panel.
So the next time my emotions run off without me and send me into a graveyard spiral toward the pit of despair, I need to stop and focus on the instrument panel. What is God saying about this? Where is the gospel in this situation? What is true? Maybe that is what Paul means when he tells us to "think on these things" (Phil.4:8).
We cannot trust our own perceptions and what seems right. That will prove disastrous every single time. Praise God he has provided a better way.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
The Slippery Slope of Doom
Last Thursday I crossed a Rubicon of sorts. Until then I could still say that I was closer to 49 than I was to 50. Not anymore. I have crested the hill and am headed, lock, stock and barrel, full speed ahead down that Slippery Slope of Doom.
I haven't always dreaded aging so. Being the youngest of four siblings, I spent at least a couple of decades just trying to catch up with everybody else. Now I've turned and I'm trying to run back the other way, fast as I can, and it isn't working.
I entered adulthood still lookin' like a kid. So did my husband. People pointed and giggled when we were on our honeymoon and even after we had a couple of kids, people assumed we were just babysitting. Then something happened. I call that something THIRTY.
I remember quite well the day I realized where this aging thing was heading, and I didn't like it one bit. It was February 1994. I was sprawled out on the bed watching the Winter Olympics while Baby #3 did jumping jacks on my bladder and the rhumba on my sciatic nerve. The varicose veins throbbed to the rhythm of it all while there, right there on the television before me, were athletes. Skiers were skiing, and skaters were skating, and bobsledders were bobbing, and all over the place these sleek, fit, attractive athletes were doing all sorts of stuff that young people dream of doing one day when they grow up. And I was just lying there like a hormonally infused Jabba the Hut and it hit me. "I'll never do that." It was the technicolor thought balloon of reality speaking. "I'll never do that." There it was again. I wasn't a kid anymore. I was a 30 year-old mother of soon-to-be three children and my body was plum tired. All that dreaming of "someday" and those somedays had come and gone. Sigh. I was old.
That was over nineteen years ago and now I am even older. Time has marched on, without any orders from me, leaving its tracks all over my body, my mind and my soul. I waved goodbye to my uterus, watched in disbelief as my muscles turned to Jell-O, and sent out an APB when my hormones skipped town in cahoots with my brain cells. I don't like it. Not one bit.
Ours is not a society that embraces aging. It's just not ok to get old. And it is out and out wrong to LOOK old. The ads, oh the ADS. "How does Katie Holmes look so young? Find out her secret!" Katie Holmes looks young because she IS young, you idiots! Even "More," the women's magazine that targets the over-40 crowd, lauded some star who is "62 and still looking great in a bikini." When will it ever stop? No. When will I stop? When will I realize that it is OK to quit working and striving and trying so hard to be something that I haven't been for decades?
God tells us that there are good things in growing old. Even gray hair is considered a crown rather than a rag of shame. But the physical is the least of it. With age comes experience and wisdom and perspective and, strangely enough, humility. With age comes the good stuff. I guess that I don't have to dread that after all.
I haven't always dreaded aging so. Being the youngest of four siblings, I spent at least a couple of decades just trying to catch up with everybody else. Now I've turned and I'm trying to run back the other way, fast as I can, and it isn't working.
I entered adulthood still lookin' like a kid. So did my husband. People pointed and giggled when we were on our honeymoon and even after we had a couple of kids, people assumed we were just babysitting. Then something happened. I call that something THIRTY.
I remember quite well the day I realized where this aging thing was heading, and I didn't like it one bit. It was February 1994. I was sprawled out on the bed watching the Winter Olympics while Baby #3 did jumping jacks on my bladder and the rhumba on my sciatic nerve. The varicose veins throbbed to the rhythm of it all while there, right there on the television before me, were athletes. Skiers were skiing, and skaters were skating, and bobsledders were bobbing, and all over the place these sleek, fit, attractive athletes were doing all sorts of stuff that young people dream of doing one day when they grow up. And I was just lying there like a hormonally infused Jabba the Hut and it hit me. "I'll never do that." It was the technicolor thought balloon of reality speaking. "I'll never do that." There it was again. I wasn't a kid anymore. I was a 30 year-old mother of soon-to-be three children and my body was plum tired. All that dreaming of "someday" and those somedays had come and gone. Sigh. I was old.
That was over nineteen years ago and now I am even older. Time has marched on, without any orders from me, leaving its tracks all over my body, my mind and my soul. I waved goodbye to my uterus, watched in disbelief as my muscles turned to Jell-O, and sent out an APB when my hormones skipped town in cahoots with my brain cells. I don't like it. Not one bit.
Ours is not a society that embraces aging. It's just not ok to get old. And it is out and out wrong to LOOK old. The ads, oh the ADS. "How does Katie Holmes look so young? Find out her secret!" Katie Holmes looks young because she IS young, you idiots! Even "More," the women's magazine that targets the over-40 crowd, lauded some star who is "62 and still looking great in a bikini." When will it ever stop? No. When will I stop? When will I realize that it is OK to quit working and striving and trying so hard to be something that I haven't been for decades?
God tells us that there are good things in growing old. Even gray hair is considered a crown rather than a rag of shame. But the physical is the least of it. With age comes experience and wisdom and perspective and, strangely enough, humility. With age comes the good stuff. I guess that I don't have to dread that after all.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Zeal Without Knowledge
I have been on Facebook for 5+ years now. When I started out, Facebook seemed like a great place to reconnect with old friends, keep tabs on current ones, and spy on your teenagers. I discovered the status update feature and I fell in love. "Ginny Wilson Barker was attacked by a bag of frozen blueberries" and the like became the carefree and fun-filled banter of the day. They added the comment option to the status update and the fun took off, big time. I could connect with others via this level of informal chit chat and not feel so isolated in my work-from-home-if-I-have-work-at-all (this was about the time that the housing bubble burst) lifestyle.
But somewhere, somehow, things have spun out of control. No longer is Facebook a place for mutual encouragement and humorous wordplay. It has become a living, breathing bumper sticker theme park of warring factions and political and cultural agendas and there are days when I cannot stand it any more.
The divisions are huge now. The divide is wide. This doesn't just apply to politics. It applies to just about any and every decision you can make about your life and the lives of those you love. People will go toe to toe, fight tooth and nail, and go so far as to insunuate evil intention or pure old home-grown ignorance or laziness on the part of those who disagree. . . or who just don't care to jump on their particular bandwagon.
It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way. — Proverbs 19:2
Just today someone posted one of those photos on Facebook. It is of the back of a t-shirt with this gracious little ditty: "I take Aspirin for the headache caused by the Zyrtec I take for the hayfever I got from Relenza from the uneasy stomach from the Ritalin I take for the short attention span caused by the Scopederm Ts I take for the motion sickness I got from the Lomotil I take for the diarrhea caused by the Zenikal for the uncontrolled weight gain from the Paxil I take for the anxiety from the Zocor I take for my high cholesterol because exercise, a good diet, and regular chiropractic care are just too much trouble."
I understand the premise: We take too many meds to treat what ails us instead of choosing a healthier lifestyle. That may be true for a certain segment of the population. That may be true with certain conditions. But this very statement is a slap in the face for many people who live very healthy lifestyles and still, STILL need medication for one issue or another. The insinuation that people who take medication are just plain dumb and/or lazy is downright arrogant in its zeal without knowledge.
I have had to learn the hard way that there are very few bandwagons worth jumping on and that most people do what they do and believe what they believe for a reason. I know I have offended others with my hasty posts and I have had to ask forgiveness for airing my opinions rather than speaking the truth in love.
But somewhere, somehow, things have spun out of control. No longer is Facebook a place for mutual encouragement and humorous wordplay. It has become a living, breathing bumper sticker theme park of warring factions and political and cultural agendas and there are days when I cannot stand it any more.
The divisions are huge now. The divide is wide. This doesn't just apply to politics. It applies to just about any and every decision you can make about your life and the lives of those you love. People will go toe to toe, fight tooth and nail, and go so far as to insunuate evil intention or pure old home-grown ignorance or laziness on the part of those who disagree. . . or who just don't care to jump on their particular bandwagon.
It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way. — Proverbs 19:2
Just today someone posted one of those photos on Facebook. It is of the back of a t-shirt with this gracious little ditty: "I take Aspirin for the headache caused by the Zyrtec I take for the hayfever I got from Relenza from the uneasy stomach from the Ritalin I take for the short attention span caused by the Scopederm Ts I take for the motion sickness I got from the Lomotil I take for the diarrhea caused by the Zenikal for the uncontrolled weight gain from the Paxil I take for the anxiety from the Zocor I take for my high cholesterol because exercise, a good diet, and regular chiropractic care are just too much trouble."
I understand the premise: We take too many meds to treat what ails us instead of choosing a healthier lifestyle. That may be true for a certain segment of the population. That may be true with certain conditions. But this very statement is a slap in the face for many people who live very healthy lifestyles and still, STILL need medication for one issue or another. The insinuation that people who take medication are just plain dumb and/or lazy is downright arrogant in its zeal without knowledge.
I have had to learn the hard way that there are very few bandwagons worth jumping on and that most people do what they do and believe what they believe for a reason. I know I have offended others with my hasty posts and I have had to ask forgiveness for airing my opinions rather than speaking the truth in love.
We live in a world of zeal without knowledge because we are finite and cannot know everything. We cannot even know most things. Tomorrow, the tide may turn. The news may change. The evidence to support our choices may prove faulty. We might find we were wrong. There is so very little trustworthy information out there. Where will we put our trust?
We must hold to our earthly sensibilities humbly and loosely, and cling to what we know.
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. — 1 Timothy 1:15
That is good news, indeed. And news worthy of our zeal.
We must hold to our earthly sensibilities humbly and loosely, and cling to what we know.
Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. — 1 Timothy 1:15
That is good news, indeed. And news worthy of our zeal.
Brainless Wonder
Yep! That's me. A brainless wonder. I don't know how it happened really, I just know it did. It may not be fair but I blame it on my kids. Best I can tell, each time I gave birth it cut my IQ in half. Four kids later and I probably shouldn't qualify for a drivers license.
I wasn't always this way. In years past, like really way past, I was the smart one. My older sisters were pretty and popular but I was just smart. My favorite toy was our set of World Book Encyclopedias, 1965 edition. I would just pick up off the shelf and sit there for hours, poring over maps and charts and lapping up facts to my heart's content.
Of course, I spent my high school years making no use whatsoever of my gray matter, but I did manage to dig it out of the closet in college when I took to memorizing scripture, lots and lots of it. So much so that I was told nobody would ask me out on a date because my Bible knowledge intimidated them. This was not the result I was going for, I can assure you. God, in His goodness, eventually sent me a husband anyway.
But then something happened. I think it started around the time I got pregnant but, to be honest, I can't remember. That is just the problem. I can't remember anything and haven't been able to for well over 20 years. Basic grammar? Gone! Four years of college? Gone! Those Bible verses? Gone!
I know the real reason has something to do with oxytocin (AKA the "dumb" hormone). From what I was told, some women eventually get their brains back after the childbearing years are over and, well, some don't. I just assumed that my brain cells were sucked out during year after year after year of breastfeeding and that those missing brain cells are safely parked inside my offspring who, for their teenage years, assumed I was an idiot.
No, I never did get my brain back. Things have only gotten worse. I have gone so far as to look up signs of early onset Alzheimer's. I read recently that the only symptom of menopause to be documented across every culture and ethnic group is memory problems. The only menopausal symptom that cannot be remedied by hormone replacement therapy? Yep, memory problems. I think it is hopeless.
But at least I'm not alone. My husband is getting there, too. One day we came out of Wal-Mart and couldn't find our car. Every single car in the lot was either silver or gold or white. We stumbled around aimlessly for what seemed like hours, like a couple of old codgers freshly escaped from the dementia unit. WE ARE NOT EVEN FIFTY!
Oh, well. I guess part of growing up and growing old is making do with what you got....or don't got, in my case. I read the Bible. I really do. I just can't tell you a couple hours later what I just read anymore.
Whenever I begin to despair, one of the few verses I still remember is what the Psalmist says in Psalm 119:11, "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." I am thankful that I can still hide God's word in my heart, because I certainly don't have a brain.
I wasn't always this way. In years past, like really way past, I was the smart one. My older sisters were pretty and popular but I was just smart. My favorite toy was our set of World Book Encyclopedias, 1965 edition. I would just pick up off the shelf and sit there for hours, poring over maps and charts and lapping up facts to my heart's content.
Of course, I spent my high school years making no use whatsoever of my gray matter, but I did manage to dig it out of the closet in college when I took to memorizing scripture, lots and lots of it. So much so that I was told nobody would ask me out on a date because my Bible knowledge intimidated them. This was not the result I was going for, I can assure you. God, in His goodness, eventually sent me a husband anyway.
But then something happened. I think it started around the time I got pregnant but, to be honest, I can't remember. That is just the problem. I can't remember anything and haven't been able to for well over 20 years. Basic grammar? Gone! Four years of college? Gone! Those Bible verses? Gone!
I know the real reason has something to do with oxytocin (AKA the "dumb" hormone). From what I was told, some women eventually get their brains back after the childbearing years are over and, well, some don't. I just assumed that my brain cells were sucked out during year after year after year of breastfeeding and that those missing brain cells are safely parked inside my offspring who, for their teenage years, assumed I was an idiot.
No, I never did get my brain back. Things have only gotten worse. I have gone so far as to look up signs of early onset Alzheimer's. I read recently that the only symptom of menopause to be documented across every culture and ethnic group is memory problems. The only menopausal symptom that cannot be remedied by hormone replacement therapy? Yep, memory problems. I think it is hopeless.
But at least I'm not alone. My husband is getting there, too. One day we came out of Wal-Mart and couldn't find our car. Every single car in the lot was either silver or gold or white. We stumbled around aimlessly for what seemed like hours, like a couple of old codgers freshly escaped from the dementia unit. WE ARE NOT EVEN FIFTY!
Oh, well. I guess part of growing up and growing old is making do with what you got....or don't got, in my case. I read the Bible. I really do. I just can't tell you a couple hours later what I just read anymore.
Whenever I begin to despair, one of the few verses I still remember is what the Psalmist says in Psalm 119:11, "I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you." I am thankful that I can still hide God's word in my heart, because I certainly don't have a brain.
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