Broken but not hopeless

In reviewing a lot of children's books over the past year, I've been saddened by the messiness, grossness, the evil that my children need to be exposed to.

Today, I was coloring with my daughter and introduced her to coloring skin. We used a peachy pencil, and a dusty tan pencil, and a brown pencil and we talked about how people had different color skin. And we compared our arm colors, and we talked about other children she knew who were darker than she was. And it was just a fact. To her, it's like daddy has blue eyes and she has brown eyes. 

But we've read a number of books that share about the American history with skin color and how it wasn't so factual. One thing I've been impressed about a number of these books is how exuberant they can be in the face of evil. I'm thinking about books like Hallelujah Flight which tells about an early trans-continental flight by 2 African-American men or Willie and the All-Stars about a boy growing up during WWII who wants to play professional baseball only to be told he won't ever because he's the wrong color.

We've read a couple books about children with limited access to books and the librarians who trek miles to help them. That Book Woman tells the story from the 1930s of an illiterate boy in Appalachia who learns to read over the course of  the visits from "that book woman". The book made me cry. Waiting for the Biblioburro also talks about an itinerant librarian but is set in contemporary Colombia. The burros are charmingly named Alpha and Beto. Our house is filled with books, and our children are unlikely to experience the privation these books refer to. Yet they need to know. They need to know that it's not so easy in most of the world and hasn't been for most of history.

But I also want them to know that their circumstances do not define them. That's something I so value in the children's book genre; they are by and large hopeful. Though these none of these books are grounded in a theology of hope, I think the hope is there because in Jesus there is the truth of hope. In the Easter story, where Jesus dies and defeats death, the darkest hopelessness, hope gets teeth. It's not just wishful thinking. Evil doesn't win the war even if it wins a few battles. 

Our nighttime routine with our daughter is to read a devotional with her, pray some set prayers, and then we ask her, "What can we thank Jesus for today?" Lately, she's wised up and tells us "Everything!" so that we can get it over with and get on to reading a library book. While we do help her unpack what her everything is, I hope she can also see the truth of it, that we can be thankful for everything and in being thankful we are hanging on to hope regardless of the circumstances. 

Sink in

I am in the midst of another season of depression. This is the third time I've been aware of. It's not as bad as last time and certainly not as bad as the "first"* time.

One verse that has been illuminated for me has been from what's known as the Beatitudes in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted
~The good news according to Matthew, chpt 4

This verse has always been a throw-away verse to me. Yea, yea, God promises comfort to those who mourn, how comforting.

As I experience this round of depression without a therapist or psychiatrist, I've been reflecting on my interior life. Like what the heck am I doing when I sit in my favorite chair, staring out the window, "petting my pain" like a black cat in my lap? I mean that's kind of weird.

Depression scares the crap out of me. I hate it. I hate how dark a space it is. I fear drowning in the pain. But in this blessing, the promise is conditioned on mourning. What I'm hearing is, "press into the pain and don't fear the sorrow because I, God, am there to be your comfort."

I don't know if I'm hearing this right, and I don't know if I can sink into the dark place trusting the comforting presence of God. But honestly, this is the most hopeful thing I've come across recently.

*I likely had bouts of depression before my "first" time but didn't know it. What I count as the first time was the first round that I needed and got help for.

On clothing--Apropos nothing

Timed well with On Expecting's post on body image I suppose.

I finally went through my dresser and pulled out the winter clothes and the maternity clothes! Woohoo. I surprisingly fit back into my pre-maternity unmentionables which feels like a huge win, so I put the maternity ones away too. I also thinned out my closet of old stuff and stuff that never fit well.

At this point I have about three-and-a-half sizes of clothes. Maternity stuff for when I'm huge; big stuff for when I'm bigger than normal but not huge; normal stuff; and skinny stuff. There's not a ton of skinny stuff but I have a few items from when I inadvertently lost a lot of weight before my wedding. I'm currently wearing big stuff, but they are starting to be noticeably big. So I think I'll soon be back into my normal stuff. Hooray!!

Since things have calmed down with the baby, I'm willing to consider a third kid and I haven't got rid of all the big and maternity stuff. However, that'll be it's own day when all that stuff finally goes to goodwill.

I found a lot of t-shirts from college that I have a hard time parting with. And it reminds me that I need to "grow up" with regards to my clothing. And I fear that I'll go from a slouchy grad student right into a sloppy housewife. I definitely dressed better when I was teaching, so I'm trying to figure out where to land at this point.

I would like to eventually have a minimalist wardrobe of classic, quality clothing for summer and fall/spring--the two primary seasons here. But there are several obstacles: 1) a deficient fashion sense 2) a loathing of shopping 3) an aversion to spending money and 4) an unstable body size and shape. Currently, I'm using #4 as an excuse to not figure out ways around #1-3.

Anyways, we'll see. Right now I'll just revel in the prospect of fitting back into my old jeans soon.