Relatives

Even dunces who keep quiet are thought to be wise;
as long as they keep their mouths shut, they're smart.
Proverbs 17:28 (The Message)



I know that, in life, it's honestly all relative.

For instance, the frustration felt by the housewife who is trying desperately to run a household which employs four gardeners and several housekeepers, battling the pressure to keep up appearances of perfection and the loneliness of isolation, can be crushing.

It's almost impossible to avoid the commentary that must address that, though: I should be so lucky to have the frustration of managing my housekeeper. I'm happy to pay all my bills this month, one woman says. I think I could make myself get over the whole "keeping up with the Joneses" thing-- let's see that lady deal with sucking up your pride at the grocery store when you run out of money at the cash register because you just knew you stuck two twenties in your purse, but there's only one.

Lady One argues back (in my mind), You don't know what I feel. You don't know the horror I deal with daily. At least your husband is home. At least he loves you. At least you know for sure that he's not sleeping with his secretary.

Lady Two considers her luck in that area, but barks back, At least your husband has a job.

And it can go on and on.

So I recognize that so many things are relative-- one person complains about their crappy car situation while his neighbor wishes getting his car fixed was the only thing on his list of things to do after dialysis. The guy with dialysis guy complains about his health while the woman in the butt kicking dream car next to him just lost her job, her home, and her best friend.

I'm not trying to bum anyone out. I promise. It's just kind of what I've been saying to myself about complaining lately. But then, I was listening to this woman talk (I didn't know her, so if we're friends and you had this same tirade in a grocery store lately, don't worry!! It's not you!)-- granted, she really seemed to have a lot on her, but I wanted to hit her in the face. I wanted to scream, "Shut your stupid mouth" and pull her hair.

Surprised? Sorry. I've only ever thought about doing things like that...

That woman was complaining about the curse and burden her two lovely children were to her today. She was tired. Her youngest son, an infant, has been colicky lately, and she was spewing complaints all over, wishing that he had a "mute" button (I've heard that one several times in the last two weeks-- so weird).

You know where I'm going with this...

That woman probably has other stresses that she's not as comfortable blabbing about in a public forum, but the anger I felt listening to her was directly related to this. "YOUR BABIES ARE ALIVE," I wanted to yell at her. At least your son has living tear ducts to cry from! You can hold him to your heart, lady, and he will eventually calm down, and I know you're tired, but you sound like a spoiled brat. You sound like that girl on Willie Wonka that everyone cheered for when she blew up (is that right? It's been so long since I saw that movie... I just remember that I hated her and we all clapped when she came to an end). You have everything, everything, and you want to mute your child?

Sigh.

But it's all relative. Maybe her husband is a jerk. Mine's pretty great. Maybe her living situation is rocky. Mine is stable and comfortable.

Or maybe she just doesn't know what she has.

Okay, I'm convicted. I'll pray for this stranger, that she will know as deeply as she has ever known anything that she is a mother who is richly blessed. And just like I need to cry out to the Father to help me remember how extraordinarily blessed I am, I will pray for her that she will remember the women who long for babies to comfort.

How different would this place be if we stopped complaining? If we were ever aware of how bad it makes us sound, and how it sometimes serves to highlight what other people lack? How amazing would this life be if we focused on the things that inspired our gratitude instead of the things that inspire our grief?

There's a key to something eternal here. If God is the point to everything-- every day, every mundane thing, all of our breaths and blinks of our eyes-- then it should all somehow lead back to Him.... My friend Matt used to say that the secret password into the Holy of Holies is "Thank you"....

4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
And His courts with praise
Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
5 For the LORD is good;
His lovingkindness is everlasting
And His faithfulness to all generations.
Psalm 100:4-5

Communication, or "I SAID, the baby died"

I'm listing this as an "overheard" because I am positive that there are some people who will be talking about overhearing this exchange this weekend...

Don has been telling me for several weeks that I need to get a pedicure.

Seriously.

My feet got so crazy swollen and dry during the last couple of months of my pregnancy, in addition to the fact that my brother and I both have hardcore outdoor-feet. I could walk on pine cones and feel no pain as a kid. Anyway, lotion wasn't helping at all and Don was threatening to break out an industrial sander so I wanted to go get a pedicure. I got Mom, Melissa, and Paige and off we went.

The place was packed-- it was about 96 degrees outside on Saturday, so I guess that's pedicure weather. Sliding into the pedicure throne, I saw my 19 year old pedicure girl eyeing Wanda curiously.

I felt the need to explain.

"Um, I just had surgery. This is just a you know, a thing..." and let my voice trail off. Hopefully my response to her questioning look was awkward enough to help disuade further questioning.

She nodded.

"Oh, you have surgery? What you have?"

This is where I should have just made something up. Look, I don't mind talking about Ben, but the reality is, saying "my baby died" is an unecessary bummer that people are NOT expecting when they ask me about what I had surgery for (which is why I need to say that I had an appendectomy or something in the future). There's no casual way to say it ("But it's okay! We're over it now!") and there's no easy response ("Okay, well... good luck with that").

But we had something worse than social ettiquette between us.

Serious language barrier.

So, looking around, I saw that we now had the attention of two or three of the people sitting close by at the manicure desks. Openly looking at us, they were waiting for my response. Hm. Quietly and quickly, I said, "Um, it was a C-section" --and really wanting to stop her from her embarrassing next question, I quickly tagged that with "and the baby passed away."

I know that translators hate working with me-- when I had to speak in YWAM with a translator, I was always told that I had to slow down for real. I talk FAST. I was counting on the girl being uncomfortable with asking me to repeat myself, nodding at me and smiling.

But no.

She waited a couple of minutes, working away on my tough-as-nails feet, humming quietly to herself. She looked up at me and asked,

"So, what kind of baby you have?"

Um. Dead?

"Um, it was a boy. He passed away."

Smile, nod, keep scraping away on feet.

"How your baby?" This was starting to be funny.

I glanced over at Paige, who was trying not to laugh, and suddenly it was hysterical. Again, I quietly said, "He passed away" and did not look up at the faces watching us. I don't know why I wasn't thinking about the fact that my phrase was not translating to this young Vietnamese woman, or if it did, she simply could not hear me. But she wasn't getting it and I was about to start laughing. I looked at Paige and she leaned down toward the girl and said, like she was talking to a 98 year old granny,

"She SAID, the baby died."

Let me just tell you about the quietest, best pedicure ever.

Baby pic again!

Okay, here you can see his little head and his little hands, which he was moving all around. He actually turned toward us and I was hating that this wasn't the 3D scan, but no big deal: we'll see him for real in just a few weeks. I'm officially 8 weeks from my due date... oh my gosh. That's huge.

I'm off to bed for now, but I've been thinking on some things lately that I want to jot down. I'll be back in the next couple of days to do that.

Until then, let this bit of freshman wisdom tide you over: Did you know that Indians (Native Americans) did not bathe because they were afraid of water? Yes, according to my girl Ericka, that's the "God's honest truth."

One of my boys advised me to put that down on my list of dumb things freshmen say. Done, Hunter :)