Sometimes Life Is Hard, a.k.a. "Why I Will Never Write for Hallmark"

                                                    

    Here's to the years that don't meet expectations.  

   

    The years that scratch like crumpled shirt tags 

    and pinch like too-tight shoes.

                                 

 Here's to the years that pull the curtain back and 

 shine a light onto things we'd rather not face--the 

 perfect imperfections of life that cause us to stop

 and catch our breath, lean into one another a 

 little, and gather our scattered blessings like 

 diamonds.  

 Such was this year, and from it comes this 

 slightly unorthodox, but very heartfelt 

 holiday greeting from our family-- with a picture 

 to match:)

                                              December 21, 2016

Christmas Greetings,

Normally when I sit down to write our annual letter, I am safe in my comfortable home, surrounded by the joyful sounds, scents, and sights of the season, which makes it easy to launch into the joyous retelling of events from our past year—accomplishments of the children, milestones reached, miles traveled, experiences enjoyed.

This year I wrote my Christmas letter in a hospital waiting room, while anxiously awaiting a doctor’s explanation for why Jamey had been unable to swallow normally for the past month.   

My original thinking was that it would be a quiet, uninterrupted place to write, and it that it would also help me keep my mind off how concerned I was about Jamey.  

But it didn’t work that way.  The waiting room was packed full of tired, worried faces, and after Jamey left to be prepped for his procedure I just sat there for a long time, wedged into a corner seat with my laptop balanced on my knees, staring blankly around the room as my blank computer screen stared back at me.  

Lest anyone be alarmed, let me say right here that Jamey’s scope and biopsy results came back clear and the problem was able to be treated with medication, but at that moment, I did not know what we would hear and I couldn’t think of a single notable thing to write about.

As I watched, I saw one person after another get up, hand their belongings to the one(s) who had come with them, and then pass through the double doors at the end of a sterile hallway.   

Here it was, the week before Christmas and all of us were sitting among strangers in a room full of uncertainty, contemplating a future full of question marks.  

And one word kept coming to my mind.  “Emmanuel!”   It was both a statement of what I knew, and a desperate cry from a heart begging for reassurance.  

“God, You are with us.  Please be with us!”

And suddenly I knew what I wanted to write.  And I wrote it.  But before I share it with you, I want to say that I hope the tone of the following letter does not strike people as too heavy.  

 My intention was not to pull everyone’s spirits down, but rather to say this:  Some years are more lighthearted and the focus of the holidays can be on the fun and frolic.  Some years are weightier, and actually I have found the Advent season to be even more precious in those times because the truth behind it comes like a lifeline into a dark sea.  

 

Truly, “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light!”  And so, here is my waiting room Christmas card--

“It is the week before Christmas, and the short update on our family is that we are under the care of a wise and loving God.  We spent the year learning better how to love and serve one another, growing in grace and knowledge, discovering things about the world and about ourselves, and adapting to the road before us.  

We also spent time disappointing each other, forgiving each other, attempting new things, and sometimes backtracking.  Like everyone, we made mistakes and (hopefully) learned from them, experienced joy, laughed at each other and ourselves, and cried over hurts and disappointments.   

Jamey and I continue to be amazed by what God teaches us through our children.  They are a delight to us and we are grateful for what they have added to our lives. 

 I continue to be amazed by my husband and his ability to balance the ministry of medicine with his family and civic responsibilities—all while navigating a fairly constant stream of health-related setbacks.  Talk about bearing the burdens of others!  He has been a beautiful example of this to all of us, and we are so grateful for him.

This brings me to today.  Some events clear your thinking.  Some cloud it.  Some put things into perspective and some make you change your perspective entirely.  This particular setback in Jamey’s health is one of those events.   

Among other things, this has been a week of trying to protect my children from the possibility that this day could radically change our lives.  As I went about the business of making lunches, explaining math concepts, laughing at jokes, listening to problems, mediating disputes, marveling over accomplishments, doing laundry and doing hair during the last few weeks, I carried a boulder on my shoulders.   

It was made of “what ifs” and “what thens”, pain, fear, sadness, and as I looked at my children’s happy faces, I wanted nothing more than to be sure that none of that weight fell on them even one second sooner than it had to.  

Because I knew it might have to.  Even as I write, I know it might have to.

For me, everything is theology.  And theology is very often mirrored in the mundane.  It just so happened that the season of Advent, the season of “Emmanuel, God with us”, hit perfectly for me this year.  My month of carrying a lonely burden so that my children wouldn’t have to reminded me so much of the way God shoulders the weight of things that would crush His children.   

He took on fear and sorrow and flesh to carry the weight of my guilt and sin.  He took on death to deliver me to life.  He took on shame to give me an inheritance of mercy and grace that I could never have earned.  

He gives me His Holy Spirit to comfort, guide, and instruct me when I don’t know my own mind.  He veils the road before me so as not to overwhelm me, allowing me to –like my children this week—have real joy even as He holds the knowledge of impending sorrow, struggle, and pain.  

And when I do have to walk through the valley, He stays by me as my comforter, protector, and friend. 

 This is not wishful thinking.  For anyone who does not know the beauty of being loved by the God of the Universe, I pray you will find Him, know Him, and learn to love Him.  His love is real.  His power is absolute.  His goodness is perfect.  And I can say that even when my future is full of question marks, because He has proven Himself to me as my Abba Father from the time I was a little child, and I trust Him to carry me through.

In John 10:10-11, Jesus says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.” 

This is my story.  He is my life, my hope, and my true home.

 We came from somewhere.  We are here for a purpose, and the business of life is to find it, and hopefully find the One who can make sense of it for us, and ultimately bring us home safe to Himself.  

 If you are curious, or skeptical, or cynical, or maybe you just need a reminder about the One whose birth we are celebrating this season, would you take a few moments, open the book of John and just read?   

My hope is that you would open your heart this season to the God who gave up heaven to come to this tiny, pain-wracked planet—this terrestrial “waiting room”-- to give us good news. 

***********************

So there you have it.  

In His mercy, this year our fears did not become reality, but when someday they do—and that day WILL come for all of us--those truths will remain the place where we can stand.  

As you gather your dear ones to you this season, will you remember all those who did not get good news this year, as well as those who are living in persecution, poverty, loneliness, and pain?   

The truths of this season are for them, and we are the ones called to bring the good news and to love them as Christ has first loved us.  May that be our story this year, and every year!

For anyone interested in following the Birmingham clan’s daily adventures and misadventures, please friend us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, or check out our family’s blog at:

jdbirmingham.blogspot.com    

Or just stop by!  Jamey will make coffee, I’ll pull up some chairs or take you on a stroll through the gardens, and if you’re lucky Rebekah and Christina will bake you a pie.   

Also, Isaiah and Kaiden will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Cadillacs, Ford Raptors, and Dodge Chargers, Keira will draw you 10 pictures, Elijah will introduce you to Brutus, and Jude will probably show you a frog.   

Come anyway;) We’d love to see you!

Much love from the Birminghams 

 

Galatians 4:3-7

“So also, when we were children, we were enslaved under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those under the Law, that we might receive our adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, you are also an heir through God.”

John 3:16

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

****************

The Sacred Art of Standing in Line

If there is one good thing to be said about government offices, it is that they often provide ample time for one to take a break from the busy pace of life.  

Yep. Ample time. 

All you have to do is grab that little paper number and stake out one of the comfy stacking chairs which inhabit almost every government office, and that busy pace of life we all work so hard to maintain will crawl into a corner of that sterile and cheerless room.  

And die.  

As I was thinking the other day as I basked in one such office, it's sort of a Christmas miracle to have an hour of free time to myself this time of year!

When I say "to myself", I of course include the lady with tuberculosis sitting to my left who keeps coughing into my purse.  

And the kid kicking the back of my seat.

And the guy across from me who smells like Woodstock and french fries. (Incidentally, it's amazing how long some people can stare at you without blinking!)

Really.  There's no place I'd rather spend an afternoon.  Lovely place.  There is even a nice televised loop of free public service announcements about how to buckle a seat belt and the importance of filling up your tank with gas BEFORE leaving for a trip.   So helpful!  

And so here I sit, contemplating the universe. Well, actually right now I am mainly contemplating numbers.

Like the vast expanse between the numbers 27 (just called) and 53 (mine), and the number of things on my to-do-list that grew up, got married, and had babies since I got here, and the number of gray hairs I will have when/if I ever leave.    

OK.  Just in case you didn't catch the sarcasm thus far, let me spell this out.  I loathe the way our government sucks the productivity out of my life every single time we interact.

It makes my throat constrict just thinking about it.

Be that as it may, after much contemplation I cannot agree that standing in line (or sitting in line, or rocking back and forth while curled into the fetal position in line) is in itself a bad thing.  

It seems to me that God has allowed many, if not most, of our human interactions to be some variation of standing in line.  Either we are standing in front of someone, impeding their progress, stealing their time, and forcing them to rearrange their priorities--a "service" I performed for my parents for the first 20 years of my life and which my children are currently performing for me--or we are standing behind someone, making accommodations for them, as I began to do when I got married and have done more and more as each one of my seven children arrived.

At age 22, I believed I was a generally benevolent, kind, and altruistic person.  At age 42, I can say that I have only begun to plumb the depths of my selfishness and the narrowness of my heart for others.  My change in perspective was made possible by the gift of having my progress impeded, my time stolen, and my priorities rearranged on a regular basis for 20 years as I "stood in line" behind the needs of my husband, children, friends, family members, and fellow congregants.  

You could say that this sort of waiting has little to do with the queue at Walmart or the doctor's office, or the Department of Motor Vehicles, but I disagree.

When you start to look for them, lines are everywhere.  

They almost seem designed into the process of being human (for Biblical examples, think of the waiting endured by Moses and Abraham, Joseph, Sarai, Elizabeth and Zechariah, David, and Jonah, to name a few).

Human beings need to have their fingers pried off the illusion that they can control the events and relationships in their lives. God has means of teaching this to us in the daily sacrifices we make for the people who cross our paths--both those we know and love intimately, and those we share space with for a small time.

Lines are just a tiny way of saying "my life for yours" as we watch a cashier check a price for the gentleman in in front of us at Walmart, or as we say a prayer for the patient who is holding our doctor in an extra moment of conversation...

...or as we share a wink and a smile with the little tyke who is doggedly kicking the back of our chair at the Department of Motor Vehicles:)

Lines put us behind and before each other and make us stay there long after we want to, facing both one another and ourselves.  I have had conversations at Tim Horton's, in the waiting room at my car repair shop, and at the airport that I never would have chosen had I not been held captive by the persistent proximity of a line of strangers.  

With enough practice, I hope to meet the prospect of a long line with a hint of expectation instead of a load of irritation.  Between those small inconveniences and the larger ones provided by the little (and big!) ones whom I know and love, maybe I will one day achieve the kind of graciousness I see in people like my mother.  

She took care of my grandmother in her home for eight years.  During those years, Mom took her whole life and the place she could have traveled with my dad, the events she could have attended, the skills she could have honed, the gifts she had been given, and she put them all in front of a tiny, frail lady with dementia and said, "I will wait right here."

And I have rarely seen such love, except perhaps from a God who lived in perfect freedom outside the bounds of time for all eternity, and yet voluntarily bound Himself into the suffocating linear constrictions of minutes, hours, and days to show us how to walk in a line with each other--face to face or shoulder to shoulder, one slow tick at a time, one divinely appointed interruption after another.

He could have chosen to relate to us from a distance at His convenience and in His element, but instead laid down His rights and entered into history at one of its most inconvenient and unpleasant points, pressing His great power and majesty into a humble lifetime, measured day by day in big and small sacrifices for the lost ones who needed to see how it was done. 

Perhaps He wanted to show us that the real adventure of life lies in the unexpected pacing and surprising plot lines that keep popping into the comfortable and convenient narratives we try so hard to write for ourselves--or maybe I am just trying to comfort myself in the face of all the hours I have spent waiting for things that didn't happen on schedule, happened differently than I expected, or never happened at all.  

In any case, Merry Christmas!  

May you have enough lines in your holiday to make you stop the bustle, look around, and purposefully connect with some of your fellow sojourners down here in the waiting room of life. 

And may God, in His wisdom, continue to confound our plans and make us wait on and for each other as He sees fit!

*******

Philippians 2:3-8

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, existing in the form of God,

did not consider equality with God something to cling to,

but emptied Himself,

taking the form of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross.

Sanctifying the Saturday Sideshow

Saturday is cleaning day at our house.  

It has been so for a decade at least, which means that some of the residents of the Birmingham household were born into that reality and the others have had ample time to adjust to the expectation. 

This may be why I am always surprised by the looks of dismay and incredulity which greet me each week when I start passing out the necessary buckets, brooms, and bags.  

After the shocked expressions dissipate, it is as predictable as clockwork that the housecleaning which does occur will be punctuated by frequent intervals of squabbling, dawdling, procrastinating, prevaricating, disappearing, loss of hearing, and slap-dashery.  

Funny.  The work part takes my kids by surprise, but everyone seems to fall into his/her role in the chaos that follows my announcement.

Even funnier than that is the fact that this reality takes me by surprise. 

Every. Single. Week.

How else do I explain the unfounded optimism with which I meet each Saturday morning?


"We could be done by noon and go to the pumpkin patch/have a bonfire/take a bike ride/go sledding/have a picnic at the lake!" 

"If everyone works hard, I should have time to...plant my garden, catch a nap, read a book, work on one of a thousand projects."

No. 

No, Sandra.  Let's go over this again.  These people do not generally accomplish their work in a timely manner, being otherwise engaged in such things as wrestling in piles of clean clothes (folding laundry), bopping each other with pillows (changing sheets), arguing over the spray bottle (cleaning windows), chasing the dog with the broom (sweeping), and playing tug-of-war with a wet rag (mopping).


I also have several roving children whose self-appointed task it is to critique and micro-manage the rest of their siblings who, it turns out (shock!) don't seem to care for destructive criticism.

Then there are the magicians, who disappear from the work site and magically reappear in bathrooms and closets with Calvin and Hobbes books in tow.  

There are Pied Pipers leading stray members of the crew to join them outside, or in the pantry, or by the Lego bin.  

And there is the Press Corp, who scramble to be the first to report to me on the shoddy work and/or deplorable working conditions found among their fellow citizens.

I say this not to rat out my kids.  Honestly, not everyone is goofing off or checking out at the same time.  It is just that I have enough people in my house to pretty much ensure that someone, somewhere in my house is sinning or being sinned against at any given moment.  

Fifteen years into this parenting gig, I should know that to be the case, and also know that my first job is not to achieve a clean house, by hook or by crook, but to disciple the hearts under my care by modeling hard work, responding to interruptions with patience, mediating disputes with grace, bearing with the weaknesses of my young brethren, instructing wayward hearts with wisdom and covering all things with the love of Christ.

Because this endeavor involves people, it isn't going to be an exercise in efficiency, and if I expect it to be, I am likely to become an angry steamroller instead of a nurturer of hearts.

After last Saturday, two things come to mind:

1) If I come to any activity or interaction which involves other human beings with efficient job completion done to my personal specifications as the primary goal, I will likely not end up dealing with people in an entirely Christlike manner.  

Cleaning my house is a worthy goal, but should not ever be placed ahead of the needs for discipleship which arise in the process. As Colossians 3:12 says, "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience."  

That is, toward people, not toward my agenda.

2)  We all bring certain limitations and blind spots to the table.  If we know a person any length of time, their limitations will become evident.  As Christians, we are called to deal with one another as we'd want to be dealt with.  Romans 15:1-2 reminds us, "We who are strong ought to bear with the shortcomings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.…"

How unfair it is to know that a person struggles in a certain area and then add the burden of my expectations to them!  

If I know that child "A" is consistently tempted to go AWOL during a work project and then, because I want an efficient and interruption-free work day, I leave him completely unsupervised with only a few verbal instructions for accountability, then I'd better not act surprised when I come back in two hours to find nothing has been done.

If my spouse struggles to notice that his socks have fallen off in the middle of the bathroom floor--and he has for 20 years--why in the world would I pull out my indignation every morning of my life instead of covering his oversight with the same sort of grace I would want applied to me?

If there are church members who lack tact or friends who consistently disappoint me in one area or another, why would I waste my time fretting and stewing over their deficiencies instead of focusing on the good things they bring to my life?

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to sharpen one another and "spur one another on to love and good works", but the temptation is to become so focused on how the people around you have failed to meet your expectations that you miss the small beauties of what they do well.  

Especially with my children, I am called to bring them up in nurture and admonition.  I am not to exasperate them.  

For my scatterbrained guys, that might be not barking out six commands when their heads can only hold one instruction at a time.  

For those who are tempted to shirk, it means slowing myself down enough to become consistent accountability for them.

For complainers, it means modeling gratitude.  For instigators, it means pulling them closer so that they will not be tempted beyond what they can bear.  For fault finders, it means being an example of encouragement--and being willing to stop my work long enough to help them mend relationships whenever they have fractured them.

In my Saturday cleaning, I was given a smorgasbord of struggles--a feast of human frailties, including my own--and with it, a window into grace.

Grace of the kind I am given on a daily basis by my gentle Father, who loves me with great patience, disciplines me with love, and waits for my heart to respond to His kind correction.  

 How can I offer any less to my children than He offers to His?

**************

1 Thessalonians 5:14

"And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone."

Galatians 6:1-2, 9-10

 "Brothers, if someone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him with a spirit of gentleness. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the Law of Christ...

...Let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due time we will reap a harvest, if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to the family of faith."