Short answer: Stalking is not friendly.
Long answer:
Without going into details other than that I an a sinner saved by the grace of God, I was a stalker for a while. Not in a call-the-cops kind of way, but definitely in a that's-kind-of-creepy kind of way. And when I think about why I, as a bona fide nerd, have turned away from study of the Bible, the best answer I can come up with is that stalking is not actually the same as friend-ing.
I love to stalk ideas. Right now I'm on the hunt to find out what the latest and greatest is on multilingual brains. Exciting stuff. But when it comes to God, at some point I realized that rather than stalking God, I should accept the invitation to be his friend.
In my stalking God phase, I could geek out on Greek verb forms and textual criticism and commentaries and translations and I could tell you a lot about some passage or idea in the Bible, but there was a disconnect between that and submitting my life to Jesus as King. Kind of like knowing when someone would wake up and waiting for the light to go on in their window versus actually, I dunno, meeting up for breakfast.
Eugene Peterson writes books with provocative titles including Eat This Book about which I remember just about nothing except the encouragement to be nourished by the word of God. This for me is the much healthier way to engage the Bible. The Bible is not a mysterious text that I need to intellectually know and master. Instead, it is one way that the infinite God has chosen to reveal his work and nature to me.
First, there are other ways to interact with God; prayer, service, the sacraments like baptism, marriage, and communion, signs and wonders, the list does rather go on. As a cerebral person, I had to learn that God is in my life not my head. Second, God is beyond our comprehension so "mastery" of the Bible will not lead to mastery of God or mastery of our understanding of God. Instead, as the Holy Spirit guides our reading we can be drawn to know our loving Creator in an intimate, meaning close to our hearts, fashion.
This is not to say that no one should study the Bible ever. I have benefited greatly from reading the work of Bible scholars past and present. I assume they have been given a different grace than I and are not creepy God stalkers.
And I think that all believers would benefit from having a few tools to help them understand the Bible which was written long ago for a culture rather different from ours, and that's before you even step foot in the translation wars. A few tools is a world apart from having a dedicated detached workshop.
The great commandments are to love God with everything and to love others as ourselves. This may require the occasional in-depth study, but I think more often it is staying near God, saying yes to Jesus in big and small ways, day after day.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
The gear and the goods
So recently our church changed the translation of its pew Bibles which reminded us that we needed to figure out what Bible to get our children which reminded me of what the point is.
When I was learning about photography, I stumbled across this phenomenon where some people love photographic gear more than they love making beautiful pictures. They get huge thrills out of the engineering of the thing that makes pictures, that's their interest. And that's great and it takes up a lot of pages on the internet, but it's not photography. It's gear.
I did my senior thesis in college on Bible translation, and I'll say that for 99% of people any Bible translation done by a committee is fine. The issue, particularly for the big English Bible translations, isn't which translation? The issue is do you read the Bible? For 99% of people who are thinking about picking one translation over another the only question that needs to be answered is, "Will I read this?" The 1% are people who study the Bible. And honestly, for people who study the Bible, they need many translations including the Greek and the Hebrew.
So if you love the King James Version because Grandma always read to you in the KJV, if that's what'll keep you reading the Bible, read the KJV. If you are a nerd who likes awkward phrasing that reminds you that you're reading a translation from Greek and Hebrew, knock yourself out on the New American Standard (NASB) or English Standard Version (ESV). I'm a nerd, I like those versions too. If you gravitate to a version that's more like what you encounter in everyday language there's the New International Version (NIV) and the New Living Translation (NLT). Biblegateway.com and The Bible app are great places to review the same passage in many translations. Pick the one that you're ready to read a lot of.
Currently, I'm doing my daily Bible reading from a devotional called Seeking God's Face (my review of the book). I didn't even know what version I was reading until I looked it up today. Wouldn't have been my first choice (TNIV), but it's still be a great resource for daily Bible reading.
A second consideration is what are your friends reading. If you're in a situation where you're reading the Bible with other people, depending on the circumstances you might want to have the same version they do. Alternatively, you might be in a group where it is beneficial to have a few different translations on hand.
From there, onto children. For our kids, I'm looking for a sturdy Bible with large print that is easy on young eyes. That would be my primary criteria except that these are my kids. So it would be also nice for my kids to use the version that we're most familiar with and the version that I did most of my scripture memory in.
This is where things become tricky. I have done almost all Bible memorization from an out-of-print version of the NIV. It went out of print two years ago, before my kids started reading, before I knew to care about this. So now I'm stuck between learning verses with my kids in a new version or hunting up old versions of the NIV on ebay. What a pain.
If you're not in my boat, I would probably recommend the latest NIV version because it's a nice compromise between oddly contemporary and oddly archaic. (And it's in print.) If you want to see some kids' Bible verses in different versions, here's a pdf of Awanas verses for 3-4 year olds.
When I was learning about photography, I stumbled across this phenomenon where some people love photographic gear more than they love making beautiful pictures. They get huge thrills out of the engineering of the thing that makes pictures, that's their interest. And that's great and it takes up a lot of pages on the internet, but it's not photography. It's gear.
I did my senior thesis in college on Bible translation, and I'll say that for 99% of people any Bible translation done by a committee is fine. The issue, particularly for the big English Bible translations, isn't which translation? The issue is do you read the Bible? For 99% of people who are thinking about picking one translation over another the only question that needs to be answered is, "Will I read this?" The 1% are people who study the Bible. And honestly, for people who study the Bible, they need many translations including the Greek and the Hebrew.
So if you love the King James Version because Grandma always read to you in the KJV, if that's what'll keep you reading the Bible, read the KJV. If you are a nerd who likes awkward phrasing that reminds you that you're reading a translation from Greek and Hebrew, knock yourself out on the New American Standard (NASB) or English Standard Version (ESV). I'm a nerd, I like those versions too. If you gravitate to a version that's more like what you encounter in everyday language there's the New International Version (NIV) and the New Living Translation (NLT). Biblegateway.com and The Bible app are great places to review the same passage in many translations. Pick the one that you're ready to read a lot of.
Currently, I'm doing my daily Bible reading from a devotional called Seeking God's Face (my review of the book). I didn't even know what version I was reading until I looked it up today. Wouldn't have been my first choice (TNIV), but it's still be a great resource for daily Bible reading.
A second consideration is what are your friends reading. If you're in a situation where you're reading the Bible with other people, depending on the circumstances you might want to have the same version they do. Alternatively, you might be in a group where it is beneficial to have a few different translations on hand.
From there, onto children. For our kids, I'm looking for a sturdy Bible with large print that is easy on young eyes. That would be my primary criteria except that these are my kids. So it would be also nice for my kids to use the version that we're most familiar with and the version that I did most of my scripture memory in.
This is where things become tricky. I have done almost all Bible memorization from an out-of-print version of the NIV. It went out of print two years ago, before my kids started reading, before I knew to care about this. So now I'm stuck between learning verses with my kids in a new version or hunting up old versions of the NIV on ebay. What a pain.
If you're not in my boat, I would probably recommend the latest NIV version because it's a nice compromise between oddly contemporary and oddly archaic. (And it's in print.) If you want to see some kids' Bible verses in different versions, here's a pdf of Awanas verses for 3-4 year olds.
Little habits
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, all!
I haven't been writing here because one of my new habits has been doing some daily personal writing and that kind of wipes out my writing tank.
A couple big changes are in store for 2014. Last year, I really took a hiatus from something that had become routine in my life. Two big things were 1) leading a women's Bible study and 2) writing a paper with my old research group. I've picked both of those back up for this upcoming year and that in order to accomplish those I've had to re-order a few things.
First, for the past 17 days, when I wake up I write 750 words. It takes about 15-20 minutes to do during which my kids are usually downstairs playing with or screaming at each other. I write about anything I want. For the first week, I used 750words.com, but I realized I could do the same thing using WriteMonkey which is a program I usually use to write papers with.
In the past, writing has been a slow process for me and I've tended to turn things in late. Right now, my goal is to have a draft together by March. That is exceedingly fast turn around for me (because I am slow), so I thought this little habit would at the least prime the pump for writing for real. I usually do a bit of stream of conscious about stuff that happened the previous day, maybe some thinking about stuff I need to do that day, and if I've read some research articles, I summarize what I thought were the important findings and my thoughts on the issues raised. I've found the little habit useful so far, but the jury is still out on whether it will help me write this research paper.
Second, I cancelled my gym membership. Last year was my first year of gym membership, and it was great but devoting 90 minute blocks of time to travel to the gym and workout is a luxury. In order to take back on writing and leading, I gave up long gym sessions. Instead of 90 minutes 2-3 times a week, I aim for 15 min of weightlifting in the garage 5 days a week and two sessions of of loaded carries (take a heavy weight and walk around with it.) 15 minutes a day is very doable. I do it during the kids' quiet times. Even if the kids aren't being quiet, we all can live with me being unavailable for 15 minutes. There is, of course, a limited amount of work that I get done in 15 minutes, but for now, it's a compromise I can live with. And notice, there's no cardio. That's bliss.
The first two habits are well on their way to being established. The third is something that I've been a lot more hit or miss on. I'm trying to read two research articles a day. I was doing well for a week and then I kind of fell off the horse. It is a very productive speed to read at.
I haven't been writing here because one of my new habits has been doing some daily personal writing and that kind of wipes out my writing tank.
A couple big changes are in store for 2014. Last year, I really took a hiatus from something that had become routine in my life. Two big things were 1) leading a women's Bible study and 2) writing a paper with my old research group. I've picked both of those back up for this upcoming year and that in order to accomplish those I've had to re-order a few things.
First, for the past 17 days, when I wake up I write 750 words. It takes about 15-20 minutes to do during which my kids are usually downstairs playing with or screaming at each other. I write about anything I want. For the first week, I used 750words.com, but I realized I could do the same thing using WriteMonkey which is a program I usually use to write papers with.
In the past, writing has been a slow process for me and I've tended to turn things in late. Right now, my goal is to have a draft together by March. That is exceedingly fast turn around for me (because I am slow), so I thought this little habit would at the least prime the pump for writing for real. I usually do a bit of stream of conscious about stuff that happened the previous day, maybe some thinking about stuff I need to do that day, and if I've read some research articles, I summarize what I thought were the important findings and my thoughts on the issues raised. I've found the little habit useful so far, but the jury is still out on whether it will help me write this research paper.
Second, I cancelled my gym membership. Last year was my first year of gym membership, and it was great but devoting 90 minute blocks of time to travel to the gym and workout is a luxury. In order to take back on writing and leading, I gave up long gym sessions. Instead of 90 minutes 2-3 times a week, I aim for 15 min of weightlifting in the garage 5 days a week and two sessions of of loaded carries (take a heavy weight and walk around with it.) 15 minutes a day is very doable. I do it during the kids' quiet times. Even if the kids aren't being quiet, we all can live with me being unavailable for 15 minutes. There is, of course, a limited amount of work that I get done in 15 minutes, but for now, it's a compromise I can live with. And notice, there's no cardio. That's bliss.
The first two habits are well on their way to being established. The third is something that I've been a lot more hit or miss on. I'm trying to read two research articles a day. I was doing well for a week and then I kind of fell off the horse. It is a very productive speed to read at.
Friday, December 20, 2013
Treasure!
Something I've documented here is that my transition to mom-life has been rocky. But in a recent conversation with a new mom, I realized how far along I've come. I see my children as treasure, not stumbled-acrossed treasure, but hunted treasure.
The kids are now 4 and 2 and I'd say it took three years to come to this. I think a lot of it was sleep deprivation. We spent most of those first three years crazy tired. Another part of it was the radical shift for me from academic life to home life. And another piece was the developmental stage my kids were at.
At their current age, my kids are able to express themselves; their wants, needs, their highs and their lows. With practice, I'm better at listening, but they have also grown into better communicating. They are becoming their own persons with their own personalities which are distinct and different.
They are so much more independent. I have to make excuses to pick them up because their fine on their own two feet. Fine and FAST. They can and do find things to amuse themselves and for extended periods of time. And they can be more or less trusted not to kill themselves. They have the sensibility that outlets are not for play, that little pieces shouldn't go in the mouth, running in the street is a bad idea -- what a relief.
The bickering they get into drives me around the bend, but I can empathize. I sure did a lot of fighting with my own siblings in my day.
Both of them also had minor but significant health scares in their first couple years. Significant in that these issues had to be attended to. Minor in that we weren't dealing with cancer or something more nebulous requiring loads of doctor and therapist visits. So on this side of things where we have their health sorted out and are adjusted to their various food restrictions, wow are they precious to us. Wow are we grateful for good health.
We have two healthy children who run around and do kid things, who marvel at the world, play with passion, cry with greater passion, who fight and hug and kiss and make up, who jump up and down in excitement about anticipated wonders like grandma and grandpa visiting and waffles and going to the park.
People talk about loving their spouse more after many years together, but somehow mothers are supposed to fall in love with their child the first moment the lay eyes on them. I'm sure it happens for some, but for me, I am much more able to cherish my kids today than when I got them. They are treasure to us.
The kids are now 4 and 2 and I'd say it took three years to come to this. I think a lot of it was sleep deprivation. We spent most of those first three years crazy tired. Another part of it was the radical shift for me from academic life to home life. And another piece was the developmental stage my kids were at.
At their current age, my kids are able to express themselves; their wants, needs, their highs and their lows. With practice, I'm better at listening, but they have also grown into better communicating. They are becoming their own persons with their own personalities which are distinct and different.
They are so much more independent. I have to make excuses to pick them up because their fine on their own two feet. Fine and FAST. They can and do find things to amuse themselves and for extended periods of time. And they can be more or less trusted not to kill themselves. They have the sensibility that outlets are not for play, that little pieces shouldn't go in the mouth, running in the street is a bad idea -- what a relief.
The bickering they get into drives me around the bend, but I can empathize. I sure did a lot of fighting with my own siblings in my day.
Both of them also had minor but significant health scares in their first couple years. Significant in that these issues had to be attended to. Minor in that we weren't dealing with cancer or something more nebulous requiring loads of doctor and therapist visits. So on this side of things where we have their health sorted out and are adjusted to their various food restrictions, wow are they precious to us. Wow are we grateful for good health.
We have two healthy children who run around and do kid things, who marvel at the world, play with passion, cry with greater passion, who fight and hug and kiss and make up, who jump up and down in excitement about anticipated wonders like grandma and grandpa visiting and waffles and going to the park.
People talk about loving their spouse more after many years together, but somehow mothers are supposed to fall in love with their child the first moment the lay eyes on them. I'm sure it happens for some, but for me, I am much more able to cherish my kids today than when I got them. They are treasure to us.
Friday, December 6, 2013
Oh Come let us Adore Him
We have started singing Christmas Carols at church! I love it!
This week as we sang Oh Come Let us Adore Him, I thought about the "three wise men", aka rich foreigners of indeterminate number on a long trip to a backwater Roman province, and what it might have been like for them to visit toddler Jesus and bow to him.
Venerating a toddler is basically unfathomable for me. I can only grasp at it. I know that in Buddhism sometimes they have young deities. And I imagine that in hereditary monarchies people get used to the occasional young monarch or heir apparent. But I'm a Protestant American. If anything it is taboo to venerate people for anything other than their accomplishments. There's a vague notion of "First Families" but it's got a vague tint of unAmericanness about it.
But there you go. In Matthew chapter two, it says these "Magi" end up at Jesus' house, bow down to him, and present him gifts. I wonder what could have moved them to do that? It says they saw a "star when it rose" and they interpreted that as the birth of a new king of the Jews. First, how? and second, how does that lead them to conclude that what they need to do is take a long journey to find this new king and worship him which is what the text says they do? That's a lot of conviction followed by spending, the money, time and effort. I wonder what their servants thought about this whole hare-brained adventure?
Then I wonder what these guys thought when they discovered the new king wasn't going to be found in a palace but probably the village of Bethlehem? Like, is that ok? Do they question their quest at this point? A king? but not in the palace? (And I notice that Herod puts two and two together really quick and decides this new king is the "promised Messiah". This does not stop him from ordering the deaths of a whole bunch of toddlers in the hopes of getting this aforementioned Messiah dead.) But back to the Magi, in any event, they move on from the palace and a star leads them to Mary and Jesus.
As far as the text go, we don't know that Mary and Joseph had any special social status. But in the Magi go, into the house, and they bow down. Wild. Toddler boys don't look like much. Wide-eyed, with round bellies and stumping legs, they kind of hoover up life innocently. They are not worship material. They are barely contained chaos, don't-touch-that, don't-eat-that kinds of beings. Maybe toddler Jesus was special and glowed or something. But I like to believe that these foreigners simply had a God-given revelation that this kid was special and had special meaning for the world. In any event, however, they felt about the events that led up to that recorded meeting, they worshiped, and Jesus even as toddler deserved that worship.
As I look ahead to 2014, I am exploring whether to commit my time to a couple new projects. My thing with projects that involve people is that I like metrics but I believe in the value of people. So left to my instincts, I will pursue outcomes over individuals. But as I think about venerating a teething, drooling, pooping toddler, I'm reminded that just as Jesus deserved worship before he "accomplished" anything, that if I take on a project my first goal is not to fulfill metrics. Instead I need to live as a human being treating others as other human beings who have a Jesus-derived worth.
This week as we sang Oh Come Let us Adore Him, I thought about the "three wise men", aka rich foreigners of indeterminate number on a long trip to a backwater Roman province, and what it might have been like for them to visit toddler Jesus and bow to him.
Venerating a toddler is basically unfathomable for me. I can only grasp at it. I know that in Buddhism sometimes they have young deities. And I imagine that in hereditary monarchies people get used to the occasional young monarch or heir apparent. But I'm a Protestant American. If anything it is taboo to venerate people for anything other than their accomplishments. There's a vague notion of "First Families" but it's got a vague tint of unAmericanness about it.
But there you go. In Matthew chapter two, it says these "Magi" end up at Jesus' house, bow down to him, and present him gifts. I wonder what could have moved them to do that? It says they saw a "star when it rose" and they interpreted that as the birth of a new king of the Jews. First, how? and second, how does that lead them to conclude that what they need to do is take a long journey to find this new king and worship him which is what the text says they do? That's a lot of conviction followed by spending, the money, time and effort. I wonder what their servants thought about this whole hare-brained adventure?
Then I wonder what these guys thought when they discovered the new king wasn't going to be found in a palace but probably the village of Bethlehem? Like, is that ok? Do they question their quest at this point? A king? but not in the palace? (And I notice that Herod puts two and two together really quick and decides this new king is the "promised Messiah". This does not stop him from ordering the deaths of a whole bunch of toddlers in the hopes of getting this aforementioned Messiah dead.) But back to the Magi, in any event, they move on from the palace and a star leads them to Mary and Jesus.
As far as the text go, we don't know that Mary and Joseph had any special social status. But in the Magi go, into the house, and they bow down. Wild. Toddler boys don't look like much. Wide-eyed, with round bellies and stumping legs, they kind of hoover up life innocently. They are not worship material. They are barely contained chaos, don't-touch-that, don't-eat-that kinds of beings. Maybe toddler Jesus was special and glowed or something. But I like to believe that these foreigners simply had a God-given revelation that this kid was special and had special meaning for the world. In any event, however, they felt about the events that led up to that recorded meeting, they worshiped, and Jesus even as toddler deserved that worship.
As I look ahead to 2014, I am exploring whether to commit my time to a couple new projects. My thing with projects that involve people is that I like metrics but I believe in the value of people. So left to my instincts, I will pursue outcomes over individuals. But as I think about venerating a teething, drooling, pooping toddler, I'm reminded that just as Jesus deserved worship before he "accomplished" anything, that if I take on a project my first goal is not to fulfill metrics. Instead I need to live as a human being treating others as other human beings who have a Jesus-derived worth.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Cool Tools of 2013
--Camelbak water bottles: I wish there were plain ones without the weird graphics, but after having my son shatter several cheap water bottles, this is the one that has survived. The nibs got shredded every time he teethed, but I found the replacement easy to order online at Amazon. Now that he has all his teeth, his nib has remained intact. Over the same amount of time, our older child only wore out 1 nib.
--Real pipe cleaners: These have cotten bristles with some stiffer plastic? ones too. Clean the gross crevasses of kid things very well. Particularly the aforementioned Camelbak nibs.
--Kitchen timer: I know I've praised the kitchen time in previous years for kitchen things, but now we have an owl shaped one for the kids. We sometimes dole out "toy time" when both kids want the same item. 5 minutes each, for example. All too frequently, the first kid doesn't even play with the toy for the full time allotted, but at least the screaming stops. Other times, we give the toy itself time out and neither kids can play with the toy for a bit. I love my timers.
--Emergent Task Planner: I occasionally follow David Seah's productivity blog and found this there. I printout a week's worth of pages on Sunday and line up my calendar for the week. The big win for this thing is that I use it to keep track of what I can do in the nooks and crannies of time I have.
--MyFitnessPal: This year I tried this and the LiveStrong food tracker. I ended up mostly using MyFitnessPal, but I can't say I have a strong feeling between the two. Generally speaking, I found food tracking to be useful for hitting my protein goals for the day. But then again, I like data.
--Sanitaire Vacuum: Can't remember if I blogged this one already, but it's an inexpensive industrial canister vacuum for hard surfaces and low pile carpet which describes the most trafficked parts of our house. Works great particularly for this great price point of under $100. Not super awesome on regular carpet, but we don't have that much of that and we have lots of kitchen/living room cruft. And it is stellar there. Easy to change out the bag and an add on HEPA filter is available which we use.
--Google Calendar Reminders: N taught me this year that events added to Google Calendar can be set up to send an email a certain amount of time before the event. I check my email more than gcal, so this helps me make sure I get certain things done each week like restarting the sourdough. We've also started to use this to make sure to do other things quarterly or semiannually like calling the HVAC people for an AC checkup or changing the air filter periodically.
--WorksheetWorks.com: Alorithmically creates new worksheets in many school subjects. L is only able to do the simplest ones, but she likes doing them, and it's simple enough to print them out. Nice if your kids likes to "play" school. Probably would also be good for elementary schoolers who need more practice on certain topics.
--Local Library: This is the best place to deal with children's books. Children's books are hit and miss in quality. The library is a first line of defense against terrible books. Even then, the library sometimes gets sucked into having bad books. Fortunately, it was a collective taxpayer burden, and you can return the offending book. On the downside, if your kid falls in love with a book, eventually after all the renewals are used up, you have to return the book or buy your own copy. Hopefully, in the next year, I'll be able to go to the library with the kids again. Currently, it's too much to manage two kids in the kids' book section.
--Real pipe cleaners: These have cotten bristles with some stiffer plastic? ones too. Clean the gross crevasses of kid things very well. Particularly the aforementioned Camelbak nibs.
--Kitchen timer: I know I've praised the kitchen time in previous years for kitchen things, but now we have an owl shaped one for the kids. We sometimes dole out "toy time" when both kids want the same item. 5 minutes each, for example. All too frequently, the first kid doesn't even play with the toy for the full time allotted, but at least the screaming stops. Other times, we give the toy itself time out and neither kids can play with the toy for a bit. I love my timers.
--Emergent Task Planner: I occasionally follow David Seah's productivity blog and found this there. I printout a week's worth of pages on Sunday and line up my calendar for the week. The big win for this thing is that I use it to keep track of what I can do in the nooks and crannies of time I have.
--MyFitnessPal: This year I tried this and the LiveStrong food tracker. I ended up mostly using MyFitnessPal, but I can't say I have a strong feeling between the two. Generally speaking, I found food tracking to be useful for hitting my protein goals for the day. But then again, I like data.
--Sanitaire Vacuum: Can't remember if I blogged this one already, but it's an inexpensive industrial canister vacuum for hard surfaces and low pile carpet which describes the most trafficked parts of our house. Works great particularly for this great price point of under $100. Not super awesome on regular carpet, but we don't have that much of that and we have lots of kitchen/living room cruft. And it is stellar there. Easy to change out the bag and an add on HEPA filter is available which we use.
--Google Calendar Reminders: N taught me this year that events added to Google Calendar can be set up to send an email a certain amount of time before the event. I check my email more than gcal, so this helps me make sure I get certain things done each week like restarting the sourdough. We've also started to use this to make sure to do other things quarterly or semiannually like calling the HVAC people for an AC checkup or changing the air filter periodically.
--WorksheetWorks.com: Alorithmically creates new worksheets in many school subjects. L is only able to do the simplest ones, but she likes doing them, and it's simple enough to print them out. Nice if your kids likes to "play" school. Probably would also be good for elementary schoolers who need more practice on certain topics.
--Local Library: This is the best place to deal with children's books. Children's books are hit and miss in quality. The library is a first line of defense against terrible books. Even then, the library sometimes gets sucked into having bad books. Fortunately, it was a collective taxpayer burden, and you can return the offending book. On the downside, if your kid falls in love with a book, eventually after all the renewals are used up, you have to return the book or buy your own copy. Hopefully, in the next year, I'll be able to go to the library with the kids again. Currently, it's too much to manage two kids in the kids' book section.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thanksgiving: From life to death and the in between
This year has been so dramatic; it's really nice to wind down the year with a deeper realization of how much I have to be grateful for. Somewhat chronologically, here's my list:
--In the early part of the year, I was working my way through another episode of depression which we treated as seasonal affective disorder and changed up my meds. The new meds had bad side effects, but I did eventually adapt. Between them and a new therapist, the ship was righted. The transition back on the same medication this fall was much smoother and I'm doing way better than I was doing this time last year. I am thankful that depression is not my sword of Damocles.
--Our daughter learned to read before I expected her to. This freaked me out. I'm thankful I've since gotten over it.
--Our son was so severely underweight that he was tested for what seemed like everything under the sun, including cystic fibrosis -- twice. All the tests were negative! Shortly after testing, despite a negative celiac test, we removed gluten from his diet and he has since gained about a pound a month and is back on the growth chart. What an amazing relief! Praise God!
--I picked up a small contract position with Zoobean.com this year as a book curator. I select the best of the children's picture books I come across adding them to the Zoobean library and tagging them so they can go out in personalized book subscriptions for kids. This has been super fun and provides a little "egg money". I'm thankful my new interest in literacy has found a new (non-academic) outlet.
--Speaking of interest in literacy, I'm thankful my paper on mother-infant book interactions has been published. Actually, I only kind of care that it's been published. I'm more thankful that my husband supported my researching and writing a new paper.
--I am thankful for my in-laws. We had a great visit to their neck of the woods this summer. Then, when I decided to go ahead with shoulder surgery, my mother-in-law came to our place for 2 weeks and ran the house while I sat around in a drug-induced daze. They are also wonderful with the kids. One thing I really enjoy is that they regularly send postcards to the kids.
--We bought investment property this year. This was not part of the "plan", but we are thankful for good renters.
--In addition to unexpected surgery and unexpected property buying, my dad had an unexpected cancer diagnosis this summer. A large throat mass became a whatzit, became a we're taking it out anyways, became well, that was cancer. It was a hard period of just not knowing what was going on and having different doctors say different things, but on the other side of it all, we are so thankful this was caught early and currently does not require any chemo or radiation, just periodic scans.
--So my dad's thing was a reminder of the nearness of death. This summer, our daughter's namesake, a former missionary and a mentor of mine, passed away. I'm so thankful that in the past few years she's included our house in her epic road trips. It was a real privilege to have her in our lives.
--And just so we don't wallow in death, a life story! Our dear nephew was added to our family this year. He came 8 weeks early and scared the tar out of an already frazzled family. Thankfully, he was everything you could hope for for a preemie. He was born at a sizable weight with well-developed lungs. He was never in a scary situation during his hospital stay and was sent home before his actual due date. He makes great faces and is super cute.
--In these uncertain times, we joined the many families across the country that received no pay in October although our situation wasn't directly caused my the government shutdown it did coincide with that. During his "furlough", N looked for an found another job for better pay and a shorter commute. How about them apples? No pay is no pay and that was stressful, but we're so thankful for the quick resolution to that issue. So far N has liked the new job, and we're getting back into that work-groove after having daddy home with us for 5 weeks. I am also thankful N's work has nothing to do with healthcare.gov. Those must be some frustrated programmers.
--I should update on this in its own post, but shoulder surgery appears to be a success. I've been out of the sling for 2 months and I can do everything I want with it--household chores like laundry, mom chores like tickling and hugging, sleeping on it, and lifting weights. A good outcome was never guaranteed, so we're thankful that things have knit back together nicely.
I am not a naturally thankful person. I'm a naturally anxious person. Even in the list above, I have my what-ifs and but-that-could-changes, but if the drama of this year has taught me anything, it has taught me to bet on Jesus. I want to predict the worst possible outcome and rage against the "unfairness". But time after time, when I choose to trust, I see and tangibly experience that God is in control and can be counted on. Things don't go according to my plan, but that doesn't mean there isn't goodness to be found and life to be thankful for.
--In the early part of the year, I was working my way through another episode of depression which we treated as seasonal affective disorder and changed up my meds. The new meds had bad side effects, but I did eventually adapt. Between them and a new therapist, the ship was righted. The transition back on the same medication this fall was much smoother and I'm doing way better than I was doing this time last year. I am thankful that depression is not my sword of Damocles.
--Our daughter learned to read before I expected her to. This freaked me out. I'm thankful I've since gotten over it.
--Our son was so severely underweight that he was tested for what seemed like everything under the sun, including cystic fibrosis -- twice. All the tests were negative! Shortly after testing, despite a negative celiac test, we removed gluten from his diet and he has since gained about a pound a month and is back on the growth chart. What an amazing relief! Praise God!
--I picked up a small contract position with Zoobean.com this year as a book curator. I select the best of the children's picture books I come across adding them to the Zoobean library and tagging them so they can go out in personalized book subscriptions for kids. This has been super fun and provides a little "egg money". I'm thankful my new interest in literacy has found a new (non-academic) outlet.
--Speaking of interest in literacy, I'm thankful my paper on mother-infant book interactions has been published. Actually, I only kind of care that it's been published. I'm more thankful that my husband supported my researching and writing a new paper.
--I am thankful for my in-laws. We had a great visit to their neck of the woods this summer. Then, when I decided to go ahead with shoulder surgery, my mother-in-law came to our place for 2 weeks and ran the house while I sat around in a drug-induced daze. They are also wonderful with the kids. One thing I really enjoy is that they regularly send postcards to the kids.
--We bought investment property this year. This was not part of the "plan", but we are thankful for good renters.
--In addition to unexpected surgery and unexpected property buying, my dad had an unexpected cancer diagnosis this summer. A large throat mass became a whatzit, became a we're taking it out anyways, became well, that was cancer. It was a hard period of just not knowing what was going on and having different doctors say different things, but on the other side of it all, we are so thankful this was caught early and currently does not require any chemo or radiation, just periodic scans.
--So my dad's thing was a reminder of the nearness of death. This summer, our daughter's namesake, a former missionary and a mentor of mine, passed away. I'm so thankful that in the past few years she's included our house in her epic road trips. It was a real privilege to have her in our lives.
--And just so we don't wallow in death, a life story! Our dear nephew was added to our family this year. He came 8 weeks early and scared the tar out of an already frazzled family. Thankfully, he was everything you could hope for for a preemie. He was born at a sizable weight with well-developed lungs. He was never in a scary situation during his hospital stay and was sent home before his actual due date. He makes great faces and is super cute.
--In these uncertain times, we joined the many families across the country that received no pay in October although our situation wasn't directly caused my the government shutdown it did coincide with that. During his "furlough", N looked for an found another job for better pay and a shorter commute. How about them apples? No pay is no pay and that was stressful, but we're so thankful for the quick resolution to that issue. So far N has liked the new job, and we're getting back into that work-groove after having daddy home with us for 5 weeks. I am also thankful N's work has nothing to do with healthcare.gov. Those must be some frustrated programmers.
--I should update on this in its own post, but shoulder surgery appears to be a success. I've been out of the sling for 2 months and I can do everything I want with it--household chores like laundry, mom chores like tickling and hugging, sleeping on it, and lifting weights. A good outcome was never guaranteed, so we're thankful that things have knit back together nicely.
I am not a naturally thankful person. I'm a naturally anxious person. Even in the list above, I have my what-ifs and but-that-could-changes, but if the drama of this year has taught me anything, it has taught me to bet on Jesus. I want to predict the worst possible outcome and rage against the "unfairness". But time after time, when I choose to trust, I see and tangibly experience that God is in control and can be counted on. Things don't go according to my plan, but that doesn't mean there isn't goodness to be found and life to be thankful for.
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