The earliest birthday I remember was when we lived in the dust bowl of Laredo, Texas. I would have been turning four or five years old. I remember it because my mom made me a homemade cake, and I think it was shaped like Grover. Or some other Sesame Street character. I remember feeling so special that she would take the time to make me the cake that I wanted.
One of the other birthdays that sticks out in my mind was a birthday I had when we lived in Virginia. Ten or so of our friends went out to eat with Maile and I to an Indian restaurant in Ashburn. It made me feel loved and appreciated, that so many of our friends would set aside that night, find babysitters, and join us in toasting the fact that I was alive for another year.
Birthdays: the celebration of being.
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Yesterday my daughter gave me this birthday card. Yes, it was one day before my birthday and, yes, it kind of looks like I’m wearing a large yarmulke. But you can’t beat three balloons with the number “37” on them, and you certainly can’t beat having a daughter who thinks you’re the best dad ever.
Whenever I have a birthday, I’m reminded of Henri Nouwen’s words:
Birthdays are so important. On our birthdays we celebrate being alive. On our birthdays people can say to us, “Thank you for being!” Birthday presents are signs of our families’ and friends’ joy that we are part of their lives. Little children often look forward to their birthdays for months. Their birthdays are their big days, when they are the center of attention and all their friends come to celebrate.
We should never forget our birthdays or the birthdays of those who are close to us. Birthdays keep us childlike. They remind us that what is important is not what we do or accomplish, not what we have or who we know, but that we are, here and now. On birthdays let us be grateful for the gift of life.
I think that comes from his book, Here and Now.
It is good to be reminded of this, at least once a year, that what is important about me is not the books I write or how many (or how few) people read them, not the things I own or the fame and accomplishments of those I know. What’s important is that I am here, that I exist, and that I get to enjoy this existence with all of you.
Thank you for your friendship, and for so consistently reading the scribbles of this now 37-year-old ragamuffin.
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There is a winner in this week’s book giveaway contest and her name is Colleen Butler Coar! Colleen, please message me with your mailing address and I’ll get those books out to you.
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I’m reposting one of my favorite blog posts ever over at Deeper Church today. If you’ve ever felt like giving up, you’ll want to check that out by clicking HERE.
When I first got married, it was mostly because I thought Maile was smart and gorgeous and she loved to read as much as I did. And also for the sex. Seeing as how I was brought up in the Puritan ideals of abstention, the sex was a major consideration.
But now that we’ve been married for nearly fifteen years, there’s something else I love about her: her honesty. She is my most loyal critic, as well as my greatest supporter, and in a world that will all too quickly inflate you with meaningless praise, an honest, loving critic is worth more than I ever could have dreamed.
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I spent two solid months this summer writing a novel for my children, a book about the things that concerned me when I was a kid, a book about friendship and adventure and dying (I was a melancholy child). I poured myself into that book, to the point that I was emotionally exhausted when I finished. Mentally worn out. And slightly depressed that it was over. Someday, I hope you will read this book.
But I have a fatal flaw for a fiction writer – more than one actually. In real life I avoid conflict, and that carries over into my writing. I protect my characters. No matter how hard I try, they get along too well with one another. They make responsible choices. They lay low.
This is not a good recipe for creating engaging fiction.
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When I returned to blogging about a month ago, you all welcomed me back with open arms. I was away for nearly a year, yet you came back, too. More importantly, I’m enjoying myself again because at some point during my break I got over my obsession with numbers. I no longer get panic attacks if I don’t have a post lined up for the next day. I no longer feel the heart-rending disappointment when a post flops.
Still, I felt a sense of unease. This isn’t really what I want to write, not forever, I told myself at night, staring at the ceiling high above. I want to write fiction. I want to be a novelist.
But a sneaking suspicion had begun to grow in my mind, one that I pondered ever since finishing the book for my kids. And when I didn’t have the strength to say the words out loud, Maile said them for me.
They came after I expressed my novelist frustrations to her one morning. We were making the bed. I went on and on, complaining about my weaknesses as a fiction writer, my unhappiness with the plot of the children’s book I had written. Then she said something, something that I had been thinking but did not have the strength to admit out loud. Something that, if I had let it, could have hurt me deeply.
“You might not want to hear what I have to say,” she said in a kind voice.
“No, go ahead.”
“Maybe,” she said, “just maybe, you’re not a novelist. Maybe you’re a nonfiction writer. That’s your best writing. That’s what people respond to.”
I took a deep breath. Sometimes the truth about ourselves hurts. Sometimes it isn’t exactly what we want to hear.
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” I admitted.
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I wonder how many of us spend our lives trying to be what we want to be instead of embracing who we are? I wonder if this contributes to the truth behind Thoreau’s famous quote that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Maybe we’re desperate because we’re dishonest with ourselves and with each other about who we are.
What would happen if we were honest with ourselves? What would happen if we listened to the loving voices that speak into our lives, the voices of those who love us, those who can sometimes see what we cannot, or will not, see?
Of course there’s a flip side to this coin, the truth that life is a struggle, a journey, and that anything worth having takes some work, some perseverance. Don’t give up on your dreams. Etcetera, etcetera. But maybe the one thing standing between you and the life you were meant to live is a dash of humility, a small measure of honesty, and a mustard seed of hope.
The hope that who you are, who you were created to be, is enough.
During a recent trip to God’s Whisper Farm, I woke up in the morning to discover that our four kids had invaded the bed.
After a few hours of waiting, I sent my wife a text message.
ANY NEWS?!?!
The phone rang moments later. I picked it up. I felt like I was in a movie because suddenly, surprisingly, the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. Eventually, I asked, “So what happened?” But even before she said a word I knew what the results had been.
“They couldn’t find a heartbeat,” she said through quiet sobs.
“What about a scan?” I asked. “Could they get you in for a scan?”
“Not until Tuesday! I can’t wait until Tuesday,” she cried to me through the telephone. “If I have to wait until then, I think I’ll lose my mind.”
I thought about the previous fall, when Maile had miscarried her last pregnancy. I thought about the tiny mound of rocks and the barely-held-together cross we had made out of branches. I thought about the tiny box now buried in the cold ground under the snow, the box that had “HOPE” inscribed on the top.
I thought about how we had just about finished paying for that last miscarriage. The last monthly bill had arrived from the hospital, and the balance would be gone after one more payment. Not that this had anything to do with money, but the irony was sharp, that in the same month we finished paying the bills associated with one miscarriage, we could very well begin paying for the next one.
“Just come home,” I said. “We’ll figure something out.”
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Do not be afraid.
How many times do those words appear in the Bible? God says that phrase to Abraham multiple times, reassuring him of the promise. Joseph says it to his brothers when they discover his identity. Moses said it to the people. God said it those same people. Nearly forty times that phrase appears in the Old Testament.
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
Do not be afraid.
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I told the kids while making their macaroni and cheese.
“They couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat,” I said. Their eyes opened wide. “But that doesn’t mean anything, not yet. Sometimes it’s hard for doctors to find the baby’s heartbeat when it’s this small.”
“I don’t want the baby to be dead,” Sam said, now on the verge of tears.
“It’s going to be okay, Sam,” I said quietly, delivering the four bowls of mac-n-cheese. “But Mama is kind of sad, so she’ll need some hugs when she gets back.”
A few minutes later, I heard the car pull down the lane, tires crunching over cold stones.
“C’mon,” Lucy said to the others. “Mom’s home.”
They ran to the door and when she opened it they engulfed her. The cold air blew in around us.
“It’s okay,” she said, holding them close, forming a huddle. “It’s going to be okay.”
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The last instance of Do not be afraid appears in Revelation, as John falls prostrate after seeing the source of the voice speaking to him. The Bible says he fell as if dead.
But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me,“Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.
Do not be afraid. I am the beginning and the end. I hold the keys to death.
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After a few calls, we found a medical center that could do a scan for us that evening. We drove straight there, passing houses at that particular time of night when Christmas lights are coming on. I dropped Maile off and took the kids for dinner. The sun set over white, snowy fields. Cars crept into town, towards the malls and the shops.
We sat in the sandwich place and the kids chattered and ate and laughed. Then, out of no where, Sam looked at me with sad eyes.
“I don’t want anything to die,” he said.
“I know, Sam. I know. It’s going to be okay.”
Then, much quicker than I expected, a text came through from Maile. I didn’t want to look at it, but I had to.
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We’ve mourned a lot in the last year, lost friends (too young) and a grandmother and seen things I hoped I’d never see with my own eyes, seen things I’d hoped I’d never be this close to. Only a year ago I wasn’t sure if I could keep writing for a living.
But there have been moments of peace, too, peace that cannot always be explained. There have been small patches of joy that, when stretched, surprised us and became more than adequate to fill the gap in the cloth.
This is life, isn’t it? The goods and the bads. Ground gained and lost, and, sometimes even worse, the battles that stretch on for months and years without any sign of a clear winner. But this is life.
Celebrate with us today, will you? And, when we need it, as I’m sure we will again, come alongside and hold us up.
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“We have a baby!!!!!” the text message said.
The kids and I pulled to a stop outside the medical center. It was nearly vacant, and a lone individual stood along the curb, smoking a cigarette. The van smelled of sandwiches and a cold winter’s night.
“I know!” Lucy said. “When Mom gets into the car we should all scream for joy.”
We watched through the glass. They practiced their scream. Then we saw her. She came through the dark night, opened the door, and held up the ultrasound photos, smiling like I hadn’t seen her smile for many years.
The sound of those kids’ joyous rapture was quite a sound to behold. It probably scared that lone smoker nearly to death. To me the sound was as good as a host of angels, and words came to my mind, through the cacophony.
“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
“So there’s going to be a number five,” I said, grinning. But my voice was drowned out by another round of cheers from the back.
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I’m currently running a Christmas giveaway (ending Wednesday at midnight) where you can win an advanced copy of my upcoming book with Tim Kreider, Refuse to Drown, as well as copies of five other books I’ve written or co-written. You can enter the drawing HERE.
Today’s your chance to win five of my books as well as an advanced copy of my upcoming book with Tim Kreider entitled Refused to Drown. You can enter to win in the Rafflecopter contest thingy below. I think it’s self-explanatory but if you have any questions, leave them in the comments section.
I’ve played the waiting game. Looking for a job, waiting out a rough one. Trying to connect, to put down roots that take. Some days parenting is an exercise in being fully present, in not just waiting for second shift when Dad tags in, bedtime, or tomorrow’s new mercies, sweet Jesus, please.
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More real than rankings or refund numbers. More real than sales or royalty reports. The people – the ones in the pages, the ones who walked this earth before me, the ones who read – they are my focus. Always.
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It’s enough to make you scream and shout and weep and fall apart, and if you do, I want you to know, it’s okay. Everyone wants to act like the holidays are the time to have our ish together, all charming and cheerful like a freaking Norman Rockwell, but we all know it’s never really like that, even on our best days, right?
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I wasn’t really alone during that time in my life—I had my daughters, at least most of the time. And most of the time I didn’t feel lonely, even when I was actually alone. But at dusk, in December, there was a weight of melancholy that pressed on my chest, spreading through me in a thick, slow ache.
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God is a midwife to His laboring world. He holds us, reminding us to breathe, He props us up and leans in to keep us from sinking. We bare down, push too hard and He whispers quiet, but firm, “s l o w–breathe“.
Through the thin, winter trees glazed over, I could see splotches of color toiling up the hill behind our house. I watched through the window. It was warm, there where I stood. Then the colors, so out of place on that white winter day, slid down the hill. I could hear the screams and laughter through the glass. I smiled when they lurched and rolled to a stop.
There’s something beautiful about watching your children enjoy the snow, about life in the cold.
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I walked down the lane, staring at my feet, choosing the places where the stones came up through the ice. Maile had driven away with the girls and I traveled slowly back towards the house, where Sam was napping in all of that natural light and Cade was reading Lloyd Alexander.
Then a voice whispered, Stop. So I did.
And I stood there and I looked around and I listened. I pulled up my hood because of the dry cold and I stood there without moving and suddenly the day I thought was so silent and barren came alive. I heard ice falling like glass from the frozen trees, sent plummeting by the wind or squirrels or time. Dry, dead, autumn leaves scratched their way along the brittle snow. A far-off wood-pecker thudded hesitantly, curiously, at some solid tree.
There’s so much to be heard, if we’ll stop. If we’ll listen.
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I wonder if there was a young man my age out walking on that night a few thousand years ago. Maybe he had some white beginning to show in his beard, and a few children sleeping, their mouths hanging open (because I’m sure children slept that way, even a few thousand years ago). Maybe a voice whispered, Stop, so he did. And maybe, in the silence of a dark night, he heard the first screaming of a newborn baby, shrill and fresh, emanating from the edge of the village.
What would I have done, if that would have been me? How long would I have stood in the darkness, in the silence, and listened?
There’s so much to be heard, if we’ll stop. If we’ll listen.
The earliest birthday I remember was when we lived in the dust bowl of Laredo, Texas. I would have been turning four or five years old. I remember it because my mom made me a homemade cake, and I think it was shaped like Grover. Or some other Sesame Street character. I remember feeling so special that she would take the time to make me the cake that I wanted.
