Song of My Heart's Devotion

the bathroom fairy

Today I was looking at our bathtub and wishing the Bathroom Fairy would come and redo our shower surround. And fix the water damage next to the baseboard, and replace the floor vent with the chipped paint. Paint the walls to disguise the plaster cracks again, and while he/she was at it (do you suppose the Bathroom Fairy is a boy or a girl?) I have never liked that pedestal sink.

Well, I take that back. I did like our sink for a very short time and for one reason only.

It's wide and shallow, and when I brought my baby girl home from the hospital, she had her first bath in there because it was just the perfect fit. She didn't stay that little for very long, but I loved that sink during that sweet interlude. 

I haven't thought of that in years, but now as I stand in our bathroom with my mental list of all its deficiencies, I look at that wide, welcoming basin and remember running hot water first, to take the chill off the porcelain. Then draining it out and adding cool, until it was the perfect temperature for my little pink pumpkin. Instantly I'm transported back to the little excited jerk of her limbs, the way her black-olive eyes widened and how my voice soothed her and she didn't cry. I remember trying to keep my grip but not hurt her slippery little self. My fingers remember the rose-petal texture of her precious little folds and perfect little features. And how good, how GOOD she smelled afterward, just exactly like a baby should.

I stand in the bathroom and wipe the water puddle from where it always collects behind the faucet. I have done this many times a day for years now. Doubtless the people who "flipped" our house didn't level it correctly in their rush to get it back on the market. Or maybe it's an engineering design flaw that no one caught until it drove people like me quietly crazy over the course of a decade or so. No one but me ever seems to wipe it up, but as a mom I'm just thankful for the evidence that they washed their hands, and hold my peace as I sluice away the soap drips.

Oversized and ill-suited to our humble abode, the sink was there when we moved in, freshly installed, and we had no choice in the matter nor leftover money to change it after the fact. At least it was plain white and not some hideous avocado or harvest gold. With time, we learned to walk around it with just a certain sway so as not to catch the jutting corner with our hip. Call it the hula of the powder room--after fifteen years, we can do it in the dark.

Fifteen years that sink has stood there, ungainly but efficient. I washed my baby in the basin. Cleaned up after sick kids. Clogged the drain after an over-zealous buzz haircut. Sterilized the combs after a lice scare. Washed ink and paint and paste and glitter off my hands. Garden dirt from my fingernails, car grease from manly elbows, flour and batter from my little cooks.

That sink has watched my son learn to shave, seen my daughter's first lipstick applied and the countless trimmings of a certain silvering moustache that gives the best tickly kisses.

I wring out the washcloth and hang it to dry. My hand automatically straightens the towel, then I reach to flip off the light, taking care that my wedding ring doesn't gouge the wallboard again. I leave the sink and a faint, ghostly whiff of--is that Johnson's Baby Wash?-- behind me, in damp darkness.

I always did love that sink.

how I met your father

My children have heard the short version many times. It's one often told around here, the student and teacher who fell in love at first sight. I'll admit to a tingle of anticipation when awaiting my turn at parties where the topic of "how did you two meet?" comes up, because our story is a good one. I love to tell it.

This is the story of how I met your father.

I walked into Old Main at the university a couple of days before classes started for my sophomore year. And there he was, walking down the stairs to meet me at the bottom step just as if we'd rehearsed it for a play. A mutual friend introduced us, and the rest is history... quite literally. My husband is a history professor.

Because of the strict rules at our school, and my tender age (I was eighteen), we had to get permission from the administration and my parents, to date. It would make the story even better if he had been MY teacher, but I never had him for a class, which is good because I know they'd have denied us dating privileges, for good reasons.

But he wasn't, and so we did, and the rest is history. Our first "official" date was November 4th, which we remember now more because it became our daughter's birthday 8 years later. By Thanksgiving Break, I told my mother if he asked me to marry him, I'd say yes with all my heart.

When the audience is still interested, sometimes I continue with some other fun bits. My parents were highly suspicious of this supposed paragon of manly virtue, somehow still unattached at age 25 (unheard of in our circles, adhering to the Biblical injunction against premarital sex tends to help us get serious about choosing a mate early in adulthood). Something MUST be wrong with him if he hadn't been snatched up yet. But my brothers, both attending the same university, had met and liked him. The administration (mostly friends and fellow alumni with my parents) had nothing negative to share. And his pastor even went to far as to say that if he had another daughter, he couldn't be happier if she chose to marry Michael Zwolanek. High praise, indeed.

It's a good story. But there's more than just the couple of cute sentences we share at parties. There's a world of learning and loving and leaving that brought us both to that magical moment at the bottom of the stairs in Old Main. He'd been hurt before and wasn't excited to dive right in again. Rejection had made him start to wonder if there was anyone out there who would get his jokes and keep up with the conversation. Busy as a brand new teacher prepping for his first full-time gig, he wasn't looking for love that hot and sticky August afternoon.

That fall, I was still in the lingering throes of a romantic, forbidden relationship with a young man, sustained by long, passionate letters and the occasional anguished phone call. I'd told my parents I called it off, but it wasn't true, and for two years I had lived with the emotional strain of a big lie hidden in plain sight.

How love hurt in those days! Nothing about it was smooth.

My parents strove to honor God and asked for daily wisdom. I knew my mother had been praying for her children's future spouses since we were babies. Their objections were not slight or superficial, however badly I wanted them to be. I believed God would never ask me to disobey parents who were honestly following Him, but I let fear and loneliness stop me from severing the ties. Being in love, even unhappily, made me feel exciting and wanted. being urged to follow my heart was so tempting. But in the end, I couldn't do it any more. 

I wrote a final letter with reddened eyes, dropped it in the Student Center mail slot and hurried to leave the building.

And who should I instantly meet on the sidewalk except a certain handsome history professor.

My memory may be faulty but I'm pretty sure the heavens opened and a beam of light shone down on his head while beautiful music played. Ok, maybe not.

And I may have imagined the sudden flight of doves as well.

But you get an idea of the elation that filled my heart when I let go of the ill-fitting relationship I had clung to for so many lonely months, and accepted that God's dreams for me were bigger than my own.

I'd thought the counterfeit "love" I was experiencing was wonderful-- oh, wow--I had no idea what love could actually be like. I had no clue it could be so joyful, so pure, so certain.  Before, every moment of stolen joy was tainted with angry sorrow. Love with nothing sinful to impede it or cause concern is at once breathtaking and ecstatic and steady as a rock.

Michael and I just celebrated our twentieth anniversary last month. The love I had for him on our wedding day was a drop in the bucket compared to the love that has matured over unending bills, deaths in the family, scary diagnoses, the terrible weeks of early parenthood, intensely stressful times at work.

It deepened to a new level just last week, when my health issues caused us to cancel the trip of a lifetime, a free all-expenses-paid trip for two to Thailand, seven days before we were to leave. And he never uttered a single syllable of reproach or frustration. Not one.

That is love on a level that I can only hope to aspire to someday.

It's love that reminds me of my Heavenly Father,

Who welcomes the prodigal back with a party.

Who sits on the lip of a well in the dusty heat of the day to meet a woman who shamefully sneaks up to draw water when it's least crowded.

Who with two minutes to spare welcomes a repentant thief into Paradise despite an entire lifetime of utter waste and wickedness.

So that is the story of how I met your father.

And our marriage is the story of how he points me to mine, time and time again.

what I know is true

(Note from Lyssa: I began this post four months ago; not sure why I never finished it. Probably the adrenal fatigue "brain fog" interfered. Thankfully, I don't feel quite that wretched physically any more. My body has made the progress I wish my mind would make.

But here it is now. And here am I, still clinging to what I know is true: my God is good. My God is faithfully working all things together for good.)

____

So, it's been a rough couple of months. I feel "not good" about 75% of the time. On really bad days it's more like 90%, and what passes for a great day is more like 25% "not good." We talk in percentages because it's so much easier than saying, "Well, I had a bad night and woke up with the worst headache I've ever had, but pulled it together about ten a.m. Then after I ate lunch I felt good for about 15 minutes and then dizzy and lightheaded for three hours. I had an anxiety attack in the carpool lane after school, but by the time we got home I was fine again. I wanted to puke making dinner but it passed in about a half hour, until I had to take that pill that makes my blood feel like it's burning me. When is bedtime, again?"

I've spent a lot of time sleeping, a lot of time trying not to panic about the future, and a lot of time just wondering what in the world will bring this utterly annoying and exasperating time in my life to an end, so I can get on with things.

The truth? Things aren't going so hot. The longer this season drags on, the more I realize this may be something I have to deal with for the rest of my life. Yet, God is still good.

It's been hard to keep my focus on what I know is true, when anxiety-caused depression lies to me at every turn. I've never been more aware of the spiritual battle being fought behind the scenes. It's not the clashing of swords that fills my ears, but the whispered lies and twisted truths that attack me when I'm down. And as fast as I can beat one away, another takes its place.

 

Anxiety asks, what if it's like this forever?

Depression whispers, it WILL be like this forever.

What is the truth here? It may be I struggle with this humbling thorn in my flesh until Jesus comes. Who am I that I should be immune to trials and sorrow? No one gets through this life without scars and heartache. It could be this, it could be something else. Any weakness only serves as a setting for His grace to shine. "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." -- 2 Cor.12:9.

The truth is, I may not be ready to "glory" in this illness yet, but I can look for the good in it, and hope for someone else to be blessed by the way I choose to handle it.

 

Anxiety asks, my beautiful life is slipping away, what if it never comes back?

Depression whispers, your life is gone for good and it won't ever come back.

What is the truth here? I will never regain what I once held so tightly, and I honestly don't want to. It wasn't good for me and it so often didn't honor God. But there's a good life, a quieter one, yes, but one that brings glory to God in so many more ways than the glitzy Instagram existence I chased after.

The truth is, I wanted all the blessings without having to honor and obey the God from Whom they flowed. If that's what my life before illness consisted of, then it is better lost.

 

Anxiety says, I'm trying so hard and I just can't make these changes.

Depression whispers, quit trying so hard. Nothing will change.

What is the truth here? I can do all things through Christ, Who strengthens me. I must make the effort even when I don't see progress. I can never stop the struggle against sinful thoughts, against the terrible, ingrained pride that stops me from seeking help. And His all-sufficient grace will keep giving me the strength to continue even though the journey is long and the pathway is hard.

The truth is, I can't make these changes alone. It is not within my feeble powers to fight the good fight by myself and never has been. This illness just shone a light on that fact. But His strength shows up in all its perfection in my lowest, weakest moments.

 

Friend, will you pray for us? Pray for healing, yes, by all means. But pray that those of us who struggle with anxiety and depression will be covered in the day of war, as we fight a battle not of our choosing. Pray that we will be strengthened to respond with praise and trust and obedience instead of fear and discouragement and sin.

Pray for us to be spiritually and emotionally empowered to focus on what we know is true.

Our God is good. Our God is faithfully working all things together for good.