How Grief Gives Me Joy

November 4, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 1 Comment

She said you carry them inside you, collecting them along the way, more and more and more selves inside you with each passing year, like those Russian dolls, stacking one inside the other, nesting themselves, waiting to be discovered, one and then another.

Shauna Niequist | Bread and Wine | 182

My Gramma had a set of Matryoshka (Russian) dolls. I remember carefully unlocking and lining up each new, smaller figure. The thin wood gave off such a distinct smell; I could almost smell the craftsmanship required to create that very set. Each doll had similar coloring and patterns but didn’t look identical to the one before or the one she held inside. Now, years later, I cannot think of a better picture of this process called life. Though the core of who God created us to be remains intact, we develop different layers as we mature. Each layer, like those stacking dolls, is still inside, making up our history, filling out the person who we have and will become. Our season in life and our circumstances help form the current shell, but we can unpack those former selves with some simple pressure on the seams that hold us together.

Sometimes I can’t wait to jump into a newer and bigger self. I’m all too eager to cover up my previous model and start filing out the roomy interior of my new circumstances. Although there were nerve-racking elements to the transition between high school and college, that was one time I was ready to move on. I wanted to explore a new place, stretch my intellectual, spiritual, and social muscles in a different arena. Distance and youthful energy helped me snap the college Emily shut over her high school counterpart.

Then there are the times I have a hard time clipping the newest doll over the old one. I’m not ready for the changes that come with a new season. I fear the old doll, my old self, will be lost, that everything embodied in part of me will be gone forever. The years following college were a bit like that. The seams of a new season were already pressed shut around me but I so desperately wanted to go back to what I knew best. I missed the structure and scholarly stimulation of higher education. I missed the freedom, with limits, that college afforded. My new responsibilities and the endless possibilities made me uncomfortable.

I’ve added a couple more dolls since then. I established a wonderful community of friends in California. I dated, then married, Tim. We moved to Idaho. We became homeowners. We began chipping away at developing a new community. Each of those new layer was added with mixed feelings, some more mixed than others. And now what seems like the biggest change of all, parenthood, is forcing another changing of the guards with my Russian dolls.

The adventurous, newlywed, Emily is having a hard time being shut into darkness. She keeps reminding me of the great things about herself – freedom, energy, possibilities – and the other dolls nested inside her. With such a drastic life change approaching, it’s difficult not to look back instead of forward, to see the things I am giving up instead of things I am gaining. I want to celebrate the things ahead, but am having a hard time letting go of the things behind. And that makes me feel guilty, especially because what lies ahead is truly a joyous thing.

But as I look back on those nestled dolls with sadness at what I can’t get back, I realize that too is part of the process. I cried over the loss of my intimate circle of friends when we moved. I cried about acclimating to a new church culture. Even marriage, something I had longed and prayed for, came with it’s own set of things to cry about as Tim and I adjusted to one another. I’ve shed tears about being pregnant, too.

I’m learning that grief is good. And because grief is good, I can let go of the guilt. Grief, without the guilt, is what makes us able to move forward with joy.

A vital aspect to living in the present is learning how to grieve and how to grieve well…When your life is going to change, there needs to be an acknowledgement of what is changing.

Kristin Ritzau | A Beautiful Mess | 144-145

My pregnancy wasn’t planned, but I expected my emotions to react like having a baby was all part of the blueprint I had drafted in my head. The quicker I tried to shove myself into this new season, the bigger and more unruly I became. Had I allowed myself to fully mourn the loss of my life plan, it may not have taken me so long to begin accepting God’s plan.

Twenty-six weeks in and my dolls are finally settling into their new home. I still have to process my new identity as a mom on a regular basis, but now when my former selves get angsty, I allow myself space and time to grieve with them. I acknowledge the changes ahead, open my hands for God to take what I’ve been holding onto, and accept whatever He gives to replace it (which is always better than I could ask or imagine!).

photo credit: backpackphotography & Rdoke via photopin cc

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Primitive Pleasures ~ October

October 31, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 3 Comments

Linking up with Leigh for What I’m Into!

Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. Purchases support Primitive Roads, with no extra cost to you.

Painted nails are a mood lifter for me. I use bright colors in Winter to banish the cold weather blues, but I’m loving You Don’t Know Jaques by OPI for Fall. It’s a lovely light brown that doesn’t look harsh against my pale skin (my mom might disagree on that point).

I’m a lip balm addict. My favorite is C.O. Bigelow Lip Shine, but Tim wasn’t a huge fan of getting a residual lip shine, so I switched to classic Chapstick, but I’m always on the lookout for new and different. In order to push my purchases past a coupon spending threshold at Motherhood Maternity, I threw in this lip balm by eos. It’s organic, which isn’t a huge selling point for me, but I love the egg shape.

Despite the fact that I have an ever expanding to-read list, I always love getting recommendations from other people – especially when they are one of my favorite authors! Shauna Niequist recommends 20 of her favorite reads from this year.

This guy is über talented. His rendition of I Need Thee O I Need Thee gives me CHILLS.

A convicting post by one of my fellow Kindred Grace contributors.

The temptation, when we discover our personality types and which categories we naturally fit into, is to give ourselves special consideration, to assume that our personalities exempt us from sacrifice.

Danielle Carey

Fall just might be my new favorite season. Coming from a sun-loving, SoCal girl, that’s saying something. I love the abundance of color and raining leaves and crisp air. I’m not, however, quite prepared for the cold Winter months ahead…

Earlier this year, Andy Stanley did a sermon series called Follow. I loved it. His most recent series, Starting Point is also fantastic.

Everything has a beginning. Every person, every idea, every journey starts somewhere. Whether it’s one small step in a new direction or a major event, from that point forward nothing is ever the same. It’s not always comfortable. It’s not always easy. But it’s a start.

While the sermons in Follow were somewhat stand alone, I would recommend listening to ALL 8 in Starting Point, preferably in order, or you may get the wrong idea.

PS – Andy Stanley is funny. I listened to almost all of this series via podcast on the treadmill at the gym. I’m pretty sure people wondered about the sanity of this pregnant woman who was chuckling to herself while trying to maintain her balance on a moving object…

Sacred Homeownership: what if owning a home isn’t about living the American dream?

October 30, 2013 ~ Emily ~ Leave a comment

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On November 15th, Tim and I will have owned our home for six months. To say that homeownership has been a process would be an understatement. We’ve repainted four rooms but still have unpacked boxes upstairs and random pieces of furniture jigsawed into our living room. We’ve been utterly mesmerized by the lifespan of our enormous grapevine and the abundance of stray cats who enjoy our backyard. We’ve been toilet papered, forked, and Saran wrapped all at one time but got cookies and a freshly mowed lawn out of the deal. Overall, I love having a house, but it’s certainly been an adventure.

If you hadn’t guessed by the post title, I recently (and by recently I mean this Spring. Parts of this post were drafted before my pregnancy blogging hiatus.) finished reading my first book by Gary Thomas – the author behind Sacred Marriage, Sacred Parenting, Sacred Pathways, and Simply Sacred among others. His books focus on the idea that God uses the ordinary to shape our souls. After about a week, I could attest that homeownership is one of those ordinary things that God uses to make us look more like Him.

I woke up multiple times during that first week wondering what the heck we had done. Paying for laundry, putting up with blasting techno music and our neighbors garish holiday decorations began to seem like a paltry trade-off for endless cleaning and unpacking. The first time we ran our washing machine, the bathtub filled up with chunky, gray water. After all the dollar signs involved with buying a house, that couple hundred we paid to have a plumber deal with the roots that were apparently choking our pipes almost put me over the edge.

Our first month of homeownership confirmed that a key to a new house doesn’t unlock the American dream. Homeownership has, however, been part of the refining process of our relationship and level of responsibility.

I wasn’t at my best during those first few weeks (and some subsequent weeks after) of homeownership. For this perfectionist, unpacking was almost worse than packing. I was stressed and tired and, come to find out, newly pregnant. All of which necessitated a huge extra helping of grace. I am still learning to humbly accept my energy limits and welcome Tim’s gentle reminders that resting is important.

Not only did the physical tasks of setting up our home stretch and strengthen our relationship, so also did talking through the philosophy behind owning our home. Our desire was to have an open-handed approach to homeownership, knowing full well that this house was God’s gift, not a right. In that, we needed to discuss where our priorities were: how we wanted to use the house and how simply we wanted to live. Communication is something I admittedly struggle with, so those conversations didn’t come naturally but continue to refine who we are as a couple and who we are as followers of Christ.

Our newest sacred-maker is more practical. We are in the process of redoing the flooring in our entire house. The emerald green carpet is being replaced with a nice neutral and the vinyl is being upgraded to a wood finish. But those aesthetic improvements come with a price tag. Money is often a source of contention for couples and though Tim and I see eye-to-eye on most financial matters, forking over large sums of money generally stresses me out. We had to revamp our existing budget (hooray for money dates!) and commit to a more reserved lifestyle to factor in this expense over the next six months.

More communication. More teamwork.

All this communication and teamwork has been beneficial – not easy, but beneficial. We’ve learned about stewardship and maintaining a healthy relationship under stress. I didn’t necessarily sign up for homeownership with those two things in mind, but God has a way of using the ordinary for His purposes.

More sacred.

Why I’m Not Doing 31 Days This Year

September 28, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 5 Comments

Let me just say that I love The Nester’s 31 Days of Writing series. I enjoy organizing and outlining posts for the topic, investing time and mental energy into said topic, and the challenge of writing something (public) everyday for a month. Participating last year was a great introduction to the blogosphere – a concept and community I was brand new to. I connected to wonderful people online (like Katie of Cardigan Way) and sweet parishioners at what was then our very new church by writing my 31 Days of Letters*.

We moved into our first house in May and my original plan was to write 31 Tales of a First Time Home Buyer over the summer. That didn’t exactly happen. I found out I was expecting in June and lost all my writing gumption (hence the summer silence on Primitive Roads) for the first few months of pregnancy.

When I regained energy and motivation for things other than couch-sitting, Kindred Grace, a blog I contribute to, was already planning for October’s A Peek Into Your Personality series. I jumped at the chance to review Quiet by Susan Cain (SO good!) and became immersed in all things introversion. All types of posts started whirring through my mind about introversion so I decided that would be my 31 Days series topic.

One small hurdle. Another week in NY was in my future for the beginning of October. I didn’t want to take my computer or write posts everyday or struggle with limited Internet access when i had friends, family, and fall to enjoy. So, I planned to write the first half of my series ahead of time.

And then I got super overwhelmed by schedules, projects, and ministry – life in general. I was overdue on posts for other people and I was eager to get Primitive Roads out of radio silence mode. Looking down the barrel of a September that was fading away so quickly, all I saw was stress. I realized my drive to participate in 31 Days was more about not being left out and the chance to generate some increased traffic to my blog. I was beginning to feel like a failure for not getting my posts pre-written. With some encouragement from those who know me way too well, I recognized that my boundaries were lacking.

So, I am not doing 31 Days this year. I don’t want to compromise time with my husband or time with my family in NY by perseverating about writing blog posts, something I am way too apt to do. That being said, I will absolutely be following along with people’s 31 Days series. Here’s some I’ve already got bookmarked:

31 Days of Simplicity by Jamie of Brown Paper Bags and Strings
31 Days of Unforgettable Moments by Lindsay Lea
31 Days To Earning With Amazon by Dawn Perkins of The Momma Knows
31 Days of Scripture Printables by Kayse Pratt
31 Days Inside WordPress by Gretchen Louise
31 Days of Artful Living by Emily P. Freeman of Chatting At The Sky

What can you expect from Primitive Roads during October since I’m not doing 31 Days? I’m still going to be writing about introversion. I have a couple great guest posts lined up for when I’m in NY. Plus, I’ll be sharing about the Bread and Wine book club my friend, Katie, and I are leading.

* I loved writing my 31 Days series last year. If you missed it, here’s the most popular of 31 Days of Letters.

Dear Jackie – a letter to my husband’s ex-girlfriend
Dear Southwest – a letter to my favorite airline
Dear Eustace – a letter to a reformed dragon
Dear Browned Butter – an ode and a recipe
Dear High School Gals – a letter to singles about waiting

Is Baby Gardner a Boy or a Girl?

September 27, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 3 Comments

It’s a BOY!

Tim and I are so excited about welcoming James into our home (he is already firmly planted in our hearts) in February.

Here’s a few of my favorites from the photo shoot we did this afternoon. Major thanks to my siblings-in-law, David and Holly, for braving the wind and cold to take these photos!!