Writing's a bit like cutting off a slice of your heart, setting it on your prettiest napkin then laying it out on the kitchen table for the world to dissect.
And I can't imagine ever not doing it.
I love Jesus, my big strong husband, the four kids God gave us, the people He puts in our path and the critters on this crazy little farm. It's my heart's delight and drive to write down the days as I journey with them all.
Be a friend to yourself. You might be the only one at times.
Keep true friends close and cherish them always.
Your true friends may be the ones you rarely see. That’s okay.
Not everyone who acts like your friend is. Protect your heart.
But live openly and honestly, trusting the good in people.
Jesus is the best friend you will ever have, and He will never leave you. Ever.
People in the church will disappoint you. Keep going. If you can’t stay at the church you’re at, find one that feels like coming home.
God will sometimes seem to disappoint you too, but He knows the whole story line and we don’t. He can be trusted.
Not everyone will like you. This is a hard pill to swallow when you are a likeable person. But not liking you is about them and not you. Suck it up and keep on keeping on.
Sometimes you have to make your circle small.
Don’t look back; you’re not going that way. Remind yourself of that often.
Love your people fiercely. They are all you have on this earth.
Let yourself rest. The older you get, the more you need to listen to this need and let your body and mind rest.
Push yourself though if you feel your mind and body getting lazy. Being productive flexes our creativity and is something we are made to be.
Mark one weekend twice a year (or each quarter if you can!) on your calendar with big black X’es. Don’t let anything encroach upon your Black X weekend. That is for you and your family to reconnect, rest, recharge. No outside commitments, only what you decide to do or not do. You might have to move your Black X weekend, but don’t let it get too far away.
The years of raising babies and small children will fly by in a blur, and when you come to the end of their childhoods, you’ll be left with an underneath, quiet ache so deep you’ll spend years trying to quietly get your bearings.
Your adult children will become some of the best friends you could ever dream of for yourself. They know the best and the worst of you, and they love you deeply, and you’ve loved them from the very first moment they were yours.
Stop what you are doing when you find yourself in a quiet moment with your children. Life can get so fast and so busy, we can forget that a moment to connect with the heart of our children is a gift from Heaven.
Well meaning experts and friends tell us to make it a priority to have a date night with our spouse, with each of our children, with our girlfriends…do that if you can. But if you can’t, don’t feel guilty about it. Sometimes a scheduled date causes more stress and burden than any relief or connection, so do what works for your family to have quality time together, whatever that looks like for you.
But don’t forget to make the people in your family feel treasured and special, and spend bits of time with each of them, building connections.
Invest in your marriage. Take time away when you can. Pay for the late check-out. Stay two nights. Go to the marriage conference. Or just go to coffee. Make the time. You have to. It’s worth it.
Spend time in God’s creation. Make time for nature breaks to clear your mind and your spirit.
There is no love like the love of an old dog.
There is no lesson from a book that will compare to teaching your children to care for animals and babies.
Don’t let your hangups about sex get in the way of a healthy and vibrant love life with your spouse. Work through it together and enjoy one another. It is the superglue in marriage.
Homegrown meat, produce, and eggs are the very best you will find. If you can’t grow your own, find you a source to buy from. And always use the bones from your homegrown to make stock or bone broth. It is healing for the body and the soul and will make the best soup you’ve ever had. The bones, water, and a big pot or crockpot are all you need.
Hire help if it helps you keep your peace. You don’t have to do everything yourself, and sometimes you just plain can’t.
Your beauty truly is on the inside. There are people who are physically beautiful, but a loving and loyal heart is more beautiful than any physical attributes.
There is a time to keep your silence, but don’t ever be afraid to speak up when you have something to add to a conversation.
Be an encourager. Life is so hard sometimes; the kind word you say to someone today may steer their course toward a better tomorrow.
Nurture people. Sometimes we all just need a hug and a snack.
Some people are adventurous, and some people like the familiar. Both are okay.
Set the tone. You have the power to set the tone. Use it.
Don’t be too busy or too self-conscious to smile. This world needs more genuine smiles, and they connect us.
Be a listener. Really listen when someone is talking to you.
People aren’t here to make you happy. It isn’t all about you. Don’t try to make it be.
Stay in your lane. Life, and traffic, moves so much easier when we all just stay in our lane.
Don’t be afraid to tell someone that you love them. It may be awkward to be vulnerable and share your heart, but people need to hear that you treasure them.
Be a critical thinker. Research for yourself. Our world and our news are both a mess. Do the digging and learn for yourself what a situation is instead of eating what someone else has regurgitated and fed you.
Read. Good literature, the Bible, biographies, poetry…just read. Our books are national treasures. Treasure them.
Read aloud to your family. Kids’ books, chapter books, poetry, the encyclopedia, biographies….read things your people enjoy and read it enthusiastically and with a learner’s mind. Never stop. Books are bonding for families.
Don’t ever be afraid to show your soft side.
But be ready to fight for what is right when someone needs your strength.
Don’t ever not be an advocate for those who need a voice.
Your home is your haven. Not your magazine perfect photo opportunity, but your haven. Make sure what happens there is restful, replenishing, and safe for all who dwell there.
Teach your children how to work hard. In their homes, on their farms, on their projects, in their jobs…kids need to learn to work: for their families, for themselves, for their money. Work ethic is imperative.
You will have times in which you feel completely overwhelmed and are not sure how you will do what needs doing. You will get it done. It will happen. Listen to your body, listen to your emotions, listen to your people, listen to the LORD. It will get done. You will survive.
Don’t give up on marriage unless you absolutely have to. Long marriages are rarer and rarer and are a true gift and blessing.
Treasure your spouse and never give up on learning about them and showing and telling them that you love and cherish them.
Life is a precious, precious gift. Every day won’t be easy, and some days will be just plain hard. But the days add up to weeks, and the weeks add up to months, and the months add up to years…and the more years that go by, the more you realize how short they really are, and that all of them added up make a lifetime, and it is a one-time experience and a gift that is to be stewarded and tended to and cherished and nurtured. Enjoy the gift of yours.
~
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Psalm 90:12
~
The Story – Brandi Carlile
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am.
But these stories don’t mean anything
When you’ve got no one to tell them to
It’s true, I was made for you.
I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I cross all the lines and I broke all the rules
But, baby I broke them all for you.
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do, and I was made for you.
You see the smile that’s on my mouth
It’s hiding the words that don’t come out
And all of my friends who think that I’m blessed
They don’t know my head is a mess.
No, they don’t know who I really am
And they don’t know what I’ve been through like you do
And I was made for you.
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am.
Oh but these stories don’t mean anything
When you’ve got no one to tell them to
It’s true, I was made for you.
Oh yeah, it’s true…
I was made for you.
~
To my beloved Matthew and our precious four children… it’s true; I was made for you.
We left before the sun came up and got home after it had slipped behind the mountains.
Fifteen hours for one menopausal mama and one introverted farm dog -both of whom who would probably prefer to spend the remainder of their days never leaving the farm- well, it’s a trek, and a really big deal, and an hour into the drive of our long day when he started breathing funny, I near turned my rig around to bring us both and back to the ranch.
Maybe it was a mistake loading him up and asking him to ride in the middle row of my rig for four hours one way through the mountains.
I’d laid out his special blanket across the seats, and my daughter had conveniently left a large wad of hay in the cargo area from the night before when she’d borrowed Mom’s SUV to haul her ram to a hot date with his new girlfriends.
Even surrounded by familiar smells of home, when his gums and tongue turned ashy, and his brown eyes searched mine questioningly as his breaths from the sweet, big white head propped tiredly on the backside of the passenger seat became short and shallow, I doubted my decision to take him to the big city docs and wondered through streaming tears what exactly my plan was should he die in my backseat while I traveled the empty, dark, mountainous, two-lane highway.
He pepped up when we stopped at the last gas station, and he peed long when I let him walk in the grass, and the two of us bravely navigated the big city and all its noises and loud cars right as the sun crested the mountain tops.
The sweet and precious vet with eyes that smiled at him and cried with me was an answer to the prayer i had hoping for a compassionate person who was knowledgeable and found quick and definitive answers to what was ailing our sweet boy.
She gave him tests and then she told me what I already knew:
His heart is too big.
This dog, this wonderful and beautiful gentle-hearted servant who loves me with every ounce of him, trusting me unflinchingly even after the confusion of being left at the shelter by the family he first served, even with all of his quirky insecurities and fears of the ceiling fan, and wayward balloons, and tall boys with long hair that carry guns…his heart is huge and he loves this farm and this family steady and there is no where he’d rather be than resting his soft head gently on the knee of one of his people or curled up in the cool of mom’s corner bathroom closet where he can nap and watch his people through his dozing.
Physically, his heart is not constricting properly, causing it to expand in volume and stay enlarged, quivering around in his barrel chest trying to do what hearts do, stay in rhythm.
Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) affects specific breeds as well as large and giant breeds of dogs. Had we known prior to him being symptomatic, there is a fairly positive prognosis that dogs can be treated and live years. That he was symptomatic though means he is in congestive heart failure, and the only treatment method is to keep the fluid off his heart and lungs, and medicate the heart in the hopes to help it work more efficiently.
So here we are again, our fifth dog in the thirty years of our life together that we will be loving on up to the end of their life, giving them the good love of a family as we keep our canine comfortable and cared for.
I’ve chosen a spot on the barnyard where I’ll have the fellas dig his grave before it gets too cold, and we’ve got a whole new medication routine to incorporate into his daily life. The wild salmon from my wild boy is keeping him eating each day, and now that we know exactly what is happening inside of him, we know what to watch for and how best to care for him.
Our sweet new veterinarian friend gave him a mild sedative for his long trip home, and after two hours into our return trek, he finally laid down and closed his eyes for some rest, knowing somehow that we were going back to the farm.
On our big adventure he visited a dog park at the vet’s office; he saw one of his favorite girls in the big city for a quick pit stop, he got to pee in the same grass twice at a busy gas station, and he met some of the most top notch professionals who gave us some solid answers and who are helping us to stay in rhythm with him while we do the same for his heart.
It wasn’t the best news we could have hoped for, but as I came home last night I thanked the LORD for letting me bring my dog home: Back then, those four years ago when we were called about this weird, strange breed at the shelter -the same breed I had been researching all winter the year our Annie died- this huge white dog who needed a new farm to guard; and then again yesterday, after the long trip up took so much of him and left me doubting myself and my decision to take him.
Just like I knew the minute I met him at the shelter that I was making the right decision to bring him home, I knew yesterday as we snaked back through the mountains with the sun casting a golden glow on each hillside that I had made the right choice to seek out answers, and I am so thankful to have some.
This is easier than cancer in some ways – the mass that was showing on the x-rays was actually fluid buildup, and while fluid is easy to take off, the outcome to both is the same.
We will one day soon have to say goodbye to our big white servant.
We will nurse him and love him and help him stay in rhythm, and one day soon we will lay him to rest here on the farm he so loves.
But until then, we will give him everything we can for him to fight each day, and we will love him.
I woke up this morning at 4 a.m. to a strange bark and when I got up and looked out the window, I saw his large ghostly white shape sitting between the stand pipes of the septic field, just sitting there tall and looking at the house as if he’d made it halfway down to check the pen where his old friend Sean the pig used to live, but decided to give up on his way down, instead turning around to sit a spell and see if the boss was up.
He’s my first LGD (Livestock Guardian Dog), and he came to our farm in a way that could’ve only been orchestrated from Heaven, and he is soft and sweet like a favorite childhood stuffie, and trembly and handsome and noble like Oz’s Cowardly Lion, and he loves Mom like I birthed him myself, and he is gentle enough to take to the nursing home after getting his Canine Good Citizen certification with the rest of Mom’s 4-H kids’ dogs, and all the while barking like a locomotive train at any sign or scent of danger to our farm in the middle of the night.
I called to him through the screen and the tall white shape just sat there, still and alert, watching the house. There was such a stillness and quiet, I wondered if the dark of the morning had my eyes tricking me and that maybe I was just seeing an extra tall standpipe I’d never noticed before, or one of my daughter’s devil geese.
I put my glasses on, and sure enough, it was my good old boy, sitting there with his noble body facing the house, staring straight at the bedroom window side of the house, on alert and just watching.
I plodded to the back door to let him in, looking down through the cracks of the back porch, still thinking I’d been mistaken and that he would come scooting out of his cool hidey hole under the steps.
I heard the Great Horned Owl hooting from his tree when I opened the door…that shyster that Levi named Owen way back last spring -hey, where have you been, old owl? We haven’t heard hide nor hair from you all summer long…and I called out to Woodrow, -maybe that really wasn’t him in the bedroom window?- and I still expected he’d come wiggling out of his favorite hiding spot there under the porch and bound up the steps as always, happy to get back to his favorite place, on the cool floor right next to Mom’s side of the bed.
He wasn’t under the porch, so that was definitely him staring at our windows, and after a couple calls, he came sauntering around the side of the house, and his normal leap was instead a quiet and determined trek up the steps, and he followed me across the house back to our room, leaving me to wonder what it was on the barnyard that had him staring so serenely at the windows through which his favorite people slumbered.
Last week it was just a pesky grass seed lodged in his throat when I took him in because of some discomfort in his breathing -it happens often this time of year I learned- but he’s been quietly telling us since then that there is something inside of him that just isn’t right.
He’s been staring at me all week, and instead of his normal big white head-flop into our laps, he’s taken to quietly standing beside me, looking intently into my eyes when I ask if he’s okay…
And why is it that the older we get, the more we live on the brink of just a breath away from saying goodbye?
Our precious vet team welcomed him in this morning, assuring me they’d squeeze him in between appointments to do some investigating into my concerns that “something is just off.”
After dropping him off, I hadn’t made it fifteen minutes up the road before Woodrow’s sweet doctor called and said she is not sure how he is still standing or still breathing.
The mass on his lungs has taken up three-quarters of his chest capacity, so big in fact, that his actual lungs were barely visible on the x-ray, and his heart was nowhere to be seen.
Euthanasia was the most likely and immediate treatment plan, and I took a few minutes to get my air, make the needed calls, and head back to pick him up.
How do we say goodbye to our best friend?
How do we let go a creature who is so part of our team…so part of our farm…so part of our family…so part of our hearts?
I drove back to the vet’s office and they all came to mind….Bo the police puppy…Annie, all shot up in the woods and carrying the world’s most-loved litter of pups…our other Beau, the big one, standing on his strong little legs for his girl every single day of his colic and not laying his sweet little big noble body down until it was time for him to leave this earth….Daisy, all swollen and sore and peacefully slipping away when we loaded her up and told her she was going home…Charlotte, surprising us with an unknown ailment that put her down in the mud so quickly we had barely enough time to haul her up and bring her to warmth before she left us…Todd and Opie, precious friends of our family who’d suffered all the loss all at one time…all the little critters my children have loved and that my husband has mercifully sent into eternity…
And now my Woodrow.
My big boy, my sweet boy, the one we brought home to guard the farm, but the one who instead decided he’d guard me.
My white floof of a giant who was destined to be penned next to the livestock while we took the hands-off approach so many LGD owners swear by before I found the folks who know the real way, the best way…the sister-family who taught me how to show him the love of a family and that in doing so, he would come to protect those who loved him and all that is precious to them.
How many will we say goodbye to over the course of a lifetime?
How is a dog so stoic and strong that a basketball grows in his chest and he never once whimpers?
How is it fair that their lives are so much shorter than ours that we know them for a fraction of our lifespan, just enough time to fall in love and develop a friendship like no other, and just in time to see the life of love slip from their brave and knowing eyes?
I brought him home today, and after his x-ray, our loving vet let him wander the office, gentlemanly and quiet, only showing signs of stress when my truck pulled back into the parking lot to retrieve him and he put his head through the screen on their window trying to get to me.
She saw his stoicism, and maybe she just saw my love for him, but it was more than likely her love for all creatures great and small that prompted her to recommend we just let him fight.
Because don’t all of God’s creatures deserve that?
“Let’s throw everything at him and pray I’m wrong.”
That’s what she said and isn’t that what we do?
I tell my kids that every single time…so many times when you’re a farmer and a lover of animals…
“We’ll do every single thing we can to give them a chance to fight for life.”
And then when the fight is done, they’ll let us know.
So I gathered up the meds she prescribed, and when a dog is of a size that they need to call one of his scripts into the local pharmacy, did you know that you can get your animal’s prescription right there at the little counter where you pick up your thyroid medication each month?
And a farmer will do what a farmer does, and if it takes too long to get the medication, she’ll just pull some of those meds from the family medicine cabinet.
Now both of the sweet old men I live with take the same medication, one just a bit more than the other, and my Reluctant Farmer doesn’t mind sharing his until the pharmacy can fill the script for Woodrow Rankin, K-9.
It was two years to the day those same two old men lounged, one sick on the brink of death, waiting for test results to tell us what was taking the life out of him, the other, a constant presence by his side, comforting…being comforted from the confusion of seeing his boss man down.
Two old fragile vessels, not china cups or a delicate piece like the Bible speaks of when we read “weaker vessel”, but tough old oaken whiskey barrels, bound by steel and strength and years of care and stoicism and oil, and all the years of love and care and time and the best of a family’s flavor.
So many times he’s walked by our side, or walked in front of us to protect us from what his thousands of years of guardian instincts tell him is a danger to his people: the screaming sow he stood in front of while my wee babe Levi walked by her pen…the cat today with paralyzed back legs that scooted herself across the floor to come say hi just to hiss at him when he got in the way of me petting her…the raven he’s growled at as she flew too closely to the geese who hate him…the countless black bear, moose, and coyote he’s prevented from coming onto our property by laying down a scent perimeter around the precious five acres that he has claimed as his people’s…
So many times.
He’s loved us, and in doing so, he’s protected us.
I didn’t know before I had an LGD what it meant to own an LGD.
I didn’t know that in letting him in to love US, that he would BECOME us.
I didn’t know that when he became us, he would become my best friend.
I’ve never talked to a dog like I’ve talked to a full grown adult.
My kids tease him about being a baby, about being a coward.
“He’s Mom’s favorite”, they joke.
“He’s such a baby”, they tease when he flops his head down on Dad’s knee, craving for the head rubs we all endlessly give him.
“He’s a chicken”, they say when he shies from the coyote standing in the yard after he’s alerted us to it and the gun comes out.
“He’s a scaredy cat”, they say when he cowers from the ceiling fan sixteen feet up as he scurries across the living room.
And the thing is, he is a baby.
He is a chicken.
He is a scaredy cat.
And while ALL of my babies are my favorite, he very well could be my favorite dog.
Because he loves us just as fiercely as I love him.
He might be my cowardly lion, but we don’t have predators on our farm.
Since Woodrow came to us that spring day four years ago, we haven’t lost an animal to predation, and while his favorite hidey hole is under the porch or in my cool closet, we don’t suffer from the threat of bears, or moose, or coyote, or eagles, or paralyzed cats or anything else that would harm his boss or the things that are important to her, whether it be animal or land or child or husband.
Today I visited a pot shop for the first time in my life, and I’ve added CBD to the regime of medication his precious and matchless medical team have given him.
We’ll put on hands on his body every moment we get and we’ll pray to the Father who gave him to us that the medication and the herbs will work to give us more time with the majestic creature He’s blessed us with.
We are thankful.
We love him so. I think as much as he loves us, although he loves us so strong, as only a good dog can.
We will try to show him we love him the same, and we’ll do it for as long as we have him.
As I took the morning to process what my Woodrow’s diagnosis means for him, for our family, I am mourning the fact that his 11-14 year expected lifespan has been cut dramatically short.
I am processing the loss of the people -and the animals- we’ve lost since bringing him onto our farm.
The loss my friends have suffered…jobs, animals, homes, family…
We get older and we’re not ready, and today I’m just not ready.
I’m thankful for the gift of life…the gift of love…
but I’m just not ready to let him go.
I’m not ready.
For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.I know all the birds of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine. Psalm 50:10-11
Sometimes when you’re stoic and stubborn, you might be a bit surprised when things take a bit of time to process.
One year ago today, Matt had been in the hospital a week and the battle to get him to a hospital Outside was underway.
While Covid held our hospital in its icy grip -the whole nation’s hospitals for that matter…thousands of patients isolated and alone in hospital beds without loved ones near…the team working on Matt was a hodge podge group of overworked, temporary medical workers; doctors, nurses, and case managers shipped up from the Lower 48, surgeons unwilling to do cardio thoracic surgeries due to not knowing the OR; case managers unwilling to do any sort of work that required a sense of urgency or that crossed time zones.
Matt was a low maintenance patient because even though the infection was actively ravaging his heart tissues, the hospital had already established they would not be doing the high risk surgery he was most likely going to need.
It was easy to start his round of antibiotics, monitor his vitals, and then forget about him.
That sounds harsh, but that is what happened. He was caught up in a quagmire of insurance approvals and paperwork sitting too long on desks…his last week at the hospital, he wasn’t even assigned a nurse. They put him on the roster of the charge nurse, who only came if Matt needed anything.
Because there was never enough staff, he went fourteen days without a shower.
The fight to get him to Mayo was a ten-day ordeal, and it wasn’t until the embolli of his infection started breaking off, entering his blood stream and causing his heart to arrest that his shambly medical team finally realized they needed to do what I had been begging them to, and they said “we gotta get this boy outta here.”
When God send a jet for my Matthew on my birthday, it wasn’t until I was taxiing on the outbound plane to Minnesota and got the text from his flight team that they were wheels down and Mayo-bound that my body let loose with quiet sobs of relief, and for the first time in nineteen days, I knew my husband was going to live.
The Mayo team had him studied from his hair to his toe nails that first week, and six days after he landed, one of the best cardio thoracic surgeons in the world used his delicate and brilliant hands to snip and stitch my husband’s rugged, pure heart and undo all the damage the infection had done.
I had to write about it all the while, and in writing I was processing. Sorting. Praying. Thanking.
When they finally let me see him ten hours later, he was heavily sedated and wanting to sit up and pull out his vent upon hearing my voice.
It took me and two nurses and another shot to quietly calm him down enough to sleep once again, and that was the saddest night I’ve ever spent in my whole life.
I won’t ever forget my big strong husband, helpless and hooked up to a million machines, a quiet tear streaming down his temple, just wanting to heave and ho like he always does, but not having control of his body enough to come up from the depths and see his beloved.
It’s funny what a writer’s heart remembers, and some smells, sounds, and moments will take me right back and I am almost there, reading the Psalms with Matt or visiting with the day’s nurse.
Just over twelve hours after his surgeon jump-started Matt’s big heart back up, the angels in ICU spent an hour of their shift packing their patient up for the 20-foot road trip, and he and his entourage started up the hall for his first walk on his new rebuild.
The brilliance and resilience God built into mankind will never cease to amaze me.
I flew home with him ten days later and we cashed in miles for first class, and three months to the day that he had received two brand-new carbon valves into his heart and some Bondo on his aorta, he was back to work in the oilfield, fixing up the oil rigs just like his surgeon fixed up his heart.
This month I’ve spent a lot of time in reflection and when I shared with one of my dear sisters that things feel off this fall, she knows me well enough to know that I probably didn’t take the time I needed to process the trauma of what we endured.
How long does it take though?
I have my husband with me while there are far too many who look at an empty pillow across the bed and long for their mate whose time on this earth was cut too short.
How long does it take for your feet to feel firm on the ground after coming off stormy seas?
A whole year and we have loved on our babies and my 4-H kids and our church family and each other.
He’s turned 50, I’ve turned silver, and we’ve long since turned our attention toward getting our normal back to normal.
Yet still.
Maybe it takes awhile.
Maybe being stoic also means being slower, and maybe being stubborn means allowing yourself the time you need.
To the fella in the nice blue Chevy pickup with the two kayaks on the roof… yes, you, gentleman who was so angry with me this morning when I waited a bit too long to turn there at the corner by the car wash…
I owe you an apology.
You might owe me one too, I’ll let you decide, but I wanted to take a minute and tell you I’m sorry for pausing to wait for that one extra car to go by.
I could’ve made the turn, heck, as you know, I could’ve probably made the turn three times over in those five extra seconds that you and I sat there in the left-hand turn lane.
I thought about just going on ahead and turning -even started to pivot my ankle a bit toward the accelerator, but then I didn’t.
Probably on any other day I would have, or if we lived in a different place, you wouldn’t have had to wonder in frustration what the slowpoke lady with big sunglasses in the silver Yukon was doing. If we lived in a fast paced city, or if it was any other day, I probably would have just zoomed on around the corner without that pause.
But because of where we live…and because of it being today…I didn’t.
I just sat there for that extra second because truth be known, I just wan’t ready.
I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready to make the turn, but if we’re being honest here, I could go back to early this morning when my husband suggested maybe I drive us to town today.
I wasn’t ready for that.
See, my man has been driving his princess around this world for on about thirty years now, and we’ve ridden in many chariots (our first being a blue pickup too, and while I will admit yours is nice, his holds a pretty special place in my heart, that big old beefy Ford he used to have to sometimes help me up into, especially when I wore that little jean mini skirt he liked to see his darlin wear).
There’s been a constant stream of old Fords since, and a whole bunch of SUVs to haul all these kids all these years, and then a steady stream of teenagers with their big feet on the gas pedal, and he’s taught them to drive those same vehicles too…but I’ve been his shotgun rider in all those rigs for all these years and we hold hands over the console and he wraps his big muscly paw around my littler one and he keeps me warm in the quiet.
But my man’s been pretty sick, and today he had a pretty important medical appointment, and the big muscles he used to use to help heft me and hold me are now being used solely to keep his shrinking frame upright…but we still held hands across the console, it’s just me keeping him warm now, his big paw getting smaller, but still much bigger than mine, so my fingers just wrap around his fist and that seems to be just fine with him.
So I drove today.
I wasn’t ready for that.
And while we’re talking about princesses, let’s talk about this one not being ready to pump her own gas on our way to town.
I’m not sure if that’s what I was thinking about there in that moment you and I shared in the turn lane, but it was on my mind quite a bit this morning.
How for the past thirty years my man has taken such good care of this woman, it’s been a rarity for me to ever pump gas.
I thought of how he always taught our boys that a gentleman carries heavy stuff and opens doors and pumps the gas for his lady…so with a house full of teens, how spoiled am I that I have almost forgotten what to do at the gas pump?
I pumped the gas today and I wasn’t ready for that.
I made a joke about how I’ve had that silver Yukon over a year now, the nicest vehicle I’ve ever owned, a limo to me really…my man drove himself to work and back every day for years in a beat up little Ford Ranger until it died just so his woman and kids could have a nice ride, a safe ride…and here just now today I didn’t know how to open the little door to put the gas in.
I laughed about it and made him smile, but deep down I was sad, because I wasn’t ready for him to not be pumping my gas.
I wasn’t ready.
I know you were upset. I knew I had kept you waiting, made you sit that extra five seconds there with me…that’s why I looked at you apologetically in my mirror.
I saw you shaking your head and raising your arms at me. I know what you were thinking, I’ve thought the same thing a thousand times in my decades of driving alongside people who have momentary lapses like I did this morning.
That is why I gave you a thumbs up. I was letting you know that yeah, I’m okay, I just spaced it for a second but I’ll move my ass along here as soon as this next batch of cars goes by.
I felt bad, hoping you weren’t on your way to work.
I saw your peppered gray beard and I felt like we knew each other for a second there, because there right next to me was another peppered-grey handsome fella, and how funny is it that he gets grumpy too with other drivers sometimes, and he’ll grumble at them, even as he’s forgotten to click on his blinker, or when he’s tailgating in a way that he knows drives me crazy.
You’ll like to know that right after I finally turned, he grumbled at me too when I drove like a dingbat into the car wash. He didn’t know it was because my eyes were a bit blurry and watery, and that the car wash was really just a diversion to postpone us from going to the next appointment and finding out what it was that they’d found inside him.
Because I wasn’t ready for that either.
I hope you don’t think I’m mad at you, becuase I promise I’m not. And this isn’t one of those snarky, sounds-nice-but-is-really-a-low-key-bitchy-post-to-prove-a-point post. I promise.
Because all we have to do right now is take one look at this world around us…those 13 gone forever…our nation crumbling…this virus run rampant…our people divided…and it could all just take us out at the knees.
We don’t need more negativity.
So when I saw that you were getting more and more frustrated with me, that’s when I blew you a kiss.
I know, crazy right?
I’m betting you had to share with your wife or your co-workers about the crazy lady blowing you kisses out her side mirror this morning, but hear me out.
One time a long time ago, I was at the post office and found myself in this weird stand off while I sat in my vehicle waiting to cross the little road. Along came a vehicle driven by a man who thought I was going to go the wrong way on a one-way alley way.
I wasn’t, but he didn’t know that, so we had about five seconds of waiting together, staring at each other, just like you and I did this morning.
He sat in his car and gestured at me.
I sat in mine and gestured at him.
I cocked my head in wonder.
He waved.
I shook my head in disbelief.
And then he blew me a kiss.
And I laughed and laughed.
I have never forgotten that silly little exchange because in that moment, me laughing, and then him laughing, and then both of us waving…our humanity connected.
I promise I wasn’t giving you the bird this morning.
I was blowing you a kiss.
I was, in that moment maybe somehow just trying to connect our humanity? I don’t know, it sounds so crazy you know, but it was just a reflex and a weird little action that bundled up all my fears and all my doubts and all my sadness and all my needing just a moment to find my feet up under me and take the next step…
I just wasn’t ready to turn yet.
I wasn’t ready.
I wasn’t ready to drive my man around, I wasn’t ready to pump my own gas, I wasn’t ready for the oncology appointment we were making our way towards.
So I paused a second.
I wish you would have waved and smiled at me.
I know, I know…crazy lady what are you even *talking* about?
I would have probably done exactly what you did; zoom around and let the slowpoke driver know that you had WAY too much to do today to be held up waiting for one more car.
I wish you hadn’t done that though.
I don’t want you to get hurt.
I don’t want your princess to be without you.
I don’t want her to have to pump her own gas.
I don’t want your big strong body to not be able to drive.
And if I were writing to make a point, I guess the only point would be is that…
sometimes a gal just isn’t ready.
Oh, I WILL be.
I know where I’m heading.
And I know where my fella is going to be too.
But when the preacher asked us all last Sunday Are you ready?, I had to sit there a second, my arm around my baby, my man back home resting, I had to just think about that.
Aren’t we always supposed to live as if we are ready to go Home?
The Bible tells us to have oil in our lamps and be ready to go any second.
Heck, even the inspirational signs at Walmart tell us to live every day like it’s our last.
But sometimes a little bump in our trail will make us doubt how well prepared we are for the trip ahead.
Sometimes one of our neighbors might be in a struggle they aren’t quite ready to talk about just yet but could still maybe use a smile and a neighborly wave as we drive by their house.
Sometimes the weight of a whole world, and the sorrow of all those parents can lay heavy on a heart and leave the senses a little raw with sadness, and the clerk at the grocery store could maybe use a nice word when the cash register makes us wait a while.
Sometimes a mama might just be a little dull in the reflexes and doubting herself and her ability to navigate traffic and the road ahead so she might just stand there a second too long.
I’m okay with you being mad at me, heck, I’d probably be mad at me too.
But I wish our humanity could have connected instead.
Because then you would’ve understood…
While most days I’m confident and decisive…quick and zippy those times I do drive…
This morning I just had a moment when the bump in the trail made me doubt my ability to walk the road ahead.
I’m so sorry that I held you up.
I hope you’ll read this and know that the lady blowing you a kiss really wasn’t crazy.
I just wasn’t ready.
Psalm 121
1-2 I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from mountains? No, my strength comes from God, who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.
3-4 He won’t let you stumble, your Guardian God won’t fall asleep. Not on your life! Israel’s Guardian will never doze or sleep.
5-6 God’s your Guardian, right at your side to protect you— Shielding you from sunstroke, sheltering you from moonstroke.
7-8 God guards you from every evil, he guards your very life. He guards you when you leave and when you return, he guards you now, he guards you always.
Long as I Can See the Light, John Fogerty…one of my man’s favorite songs.
In the 70s and 80s, a friend was someone who walked home with you from school, someone who came to your slumber parties, a partner with whom you grew up. A friend was someone who knew exactly who you had a crush on, knew what your first name sounded like matched up with the last name of every cute boy in class, knew your favorite colors, and was someone that dressed the same as you during Spirit Week.
Friendship is a state of enduring affection, esteem, intimacy, and trust between two people. In all cultures, friendships are important relationships throughout a person’s life span(Encyclopedia Britannica).
Dictionary.com defines friendship as
1 the state of being a friend; association as friends.
2 a friendly relation or intimacy.
3 friendly feeling or disposition.
If we fast forward to friendship in the 21st century, we are forced to look at a very different definition and are left uncertain as to the actual meaning of the word. The widespread onset of Facebook in 2006 began the process of redefining friendship. Whereas a friend once meant someone actually close in relation or intimacy, “friend” somehow changed from a noun into a verb, and with that change, so changed the definition –and authenticity- of friend. “Facebook has turned the word “friend” into a verb, but just because you’ve friended someone on Facebook does that make them your friend in real life? Not according to a study that found almost all Facebook friends are entirely fake.” (Cuthbertson).
If the definition of friendship was changing in 2006, it was completely turned on its nose by 2020. In 2020, our world was turned upside down with the worldwide shutdown from the onset of the Covid-19 virus, followed by the death of George Floyd and the ensuing riots nationwide, and then hitting the apex of chaos during the controversial and contested election for the president of the United States of America.
Having a social media account in the 21st century, and especially after the year 2020, invariably means that at some point, you will be “unfriended”.
What does it mean to be unfriended?
Is it ethical to unfriend someone on social media and still consider them a friend in life?
What is the purpose of unfriending someone on social media?
These are all questions consumers of social media are faced with more and more in this day and age, and issues one should take some time to consider as they maintain relationships online and in person. Social media has brought people so much closer, yet many times, causes vast chasms as the face-to-face aspect of friendships is more and more replaced by relationship maintenance in the way of likes and an occasional comment on a post or picture.
I have always utilized my social media accounts to maintain living, breathing relationships of both family and friendships. I’ve never been in the habit of friending random folks I meet at the grocery store, or co-workers I do not share an affinity for. People I “friend” are people with whom I share things in common, or who share a connection with me, my past, or my family. I have fully realized that some utilize their social media accounts with a sense of frivolity and casualness, but that has not been the way I have chosen to use my Facebook or Instagram accounts. I don’t hold it against anyone on my friends’ list for utilizing their friends’ list in different ways than I, but it has always been my standard to keep people on my friends list who are close to me or my family, or who have a relationship with me that is somehow meaningful.
Some of my closest friends and I have been able to maintain friendships on Facebook when we would not otherwise be able to get together in person, or even to have time for phone calls. Our family out of state has been able to be part of our children growing up here in Alaska while none of us has been able to travel often to see one another. I have been able to reconnect with old friends from childhood I may have otherwise just never been able to speak with again, all because of social media and the reach and connection it provides to those of us who utilize it.
During the year 2020, when all of America was in turmoil, -the whole world really- it became evident on social media that the circumstances surrounding us all were beginning to cause division among people, even the closest of friends. Political differences, opinions about masking, vaccinations, the election, the riots, BLM…these were topics, and continue to be, that put the fabric of friendships to the test, sometimes even to the point of unraveling.
Imagine the surprise this past year to have lost friends on Facebook.
Imagine the knowledge of having photos of our everyday farm life being reported by someone on our friends list for being graphic.
Imagine the division in a relationship to have someone you’ve known and been friends with for thirty years all of a sudden not show up on your list of friends one day.
Imagine the doubt that creeps around the corners to have older people from church who’ve once mentored you just be gone from your life online with no explanation or word.
Imagine the shock to have a friend from elementary school publicly proclaim on your social media page that you and your friends are ignorant and not worthy of your opinions being heard so she has decided to block you.
Imagine the conflict of it all.
The handful of folks who unfriended me were not just merely taking a break from Facebook like so many of us did this past year. They were not just making the size of their circle smaller while the world around us was so uncertain.
No, the folks that unfriended me were in direct opposition to things that I believe, the items and information I shared, and the way I utilize my social media account.
I was unfriended for my political stance.
I was unfriended for my religious beliefs.
I was unfriended because I utilize my social media account much like I would an open house where friends are present, sharing an open air exchange of respectful and civilized conversation, opinions, laughter, quips, and deep thoughts.
I was unfriended for how I think.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, friendship is generally characterized by five defining features:
1. It is a dyadic relationship… it involves a series of interactions between two individuals known to each other.
2. It is recognized by both members of the relationship…characterized by a bond or tie of reciprocated affection.
3. It is not obligatory; two individuals choose to form a friendship with each other…
4. It is typically egalitarian in nature…each individual in a friendship has about the same amount of power or authority in the relationship.
5. It is almost always characterized by companionship and shared activities…one of the primary goals and motivations of friendship is companionship…friendships often perform other functions…emotional support and providing opportunities for self-disclosure and intimacy.
Being unfriended on social media caused me to take a step back and evaluate the friendships I’ve formed over the course of my life and to really consider what it means to be a friend. What did my friendships look like in the 70s, 80s, and 90s versus today? What did it look like then to be unfriended? How is that different than what it looks like to be unfriended in 2020?
This question forces us to ponder how much the definition of friendship has changed between then and now. And if we take that question one farther, we could even ask if in today’s day and age, do we rearrange our definitions and expectations of friendship to accommodate for today’s culture, or do we rearrange our expectations of today’s culture to accommodate for friendship?
What carries more weight, the culture or friendship?
Some may think that question may be looking too deeply into the current state of affairs as they pertain to friendships. But if one were to take my simple example, that is of an ordinary American who simply shares her opinions and information in an innocuous and non-threatening way on her own social media page, only to have a small number of people who were once her friends make the decision to unfriend her for those opinions, can’t we argue that we are indeed living in a time when our culture, that is, our expectations of how our friends should talk, act, and behave— has become greater than what the friendship is?
Our expectations of friendship have been rearranged to accommodate for today’s culture. I would add that our responsibilities in friendship have also been rearranged and reprioritized. No longer are we a society that values friendship above differences in opinions. No longer are friendships held in the highest esteem, with opinions, beliefs, and political stances being secondary in relationships.
This is, thankfully, not the norm in all relationships, and could be classified as a bit of an over generalization. We all have wonderful friendships we treasure, with people who are our polar opposites. These friendships survive and are sustained because the friendship is elevated above the culture. The relationship between people is what matters, and the differences in beliefs and opinions are secondary. Those are the Spirit Week friendships; the slumber party friendships; the favorite color friendships.
I have come to the conclusion in this season of my life, a life that touches six decades, that it is imperative to put more weight on our friendships than on our culture. I have taken stock of the friends in my life, the differences among us, sometimes the stark opposing views…and I have realized that all of the differences pale in comparison to the love and respect we have for one another and the friendship we share.
Over the course of 2020 and into 2021, I have examined my heart as I looked at the hurt and confusion over being so quietly and easily cut out of the lives of a handful of people I had, until that point, shared a mutual respect and friendship. I have been forced to question years-long mentorships, decades-long relationships, and even life-long friendships. I have been faced with the issue of wondering exactly what friendship means today compared to what friendship once meant. I have accepted the fact that my beliefs and opinions won’t always align with others, and that in today’s climate, that may mean that I lose some that I thought were my friends.
Even just ten short years ago, this discussion would be perceived as petulant, self-indulgent, and attention seeking. To use the age old adage, “back in the day”, a conversation of relationship statuses on social media, or the separation of relationships, would be seen as high drama and would bring about dismissiveness and disdain.
Today though? To unfriend someone has become completely normal, and not just for reasons of family rifts or growing apart. Today, it has become completely common to unfriend someone because of differences of opinion or politics. And The Unfriending can happen in a way that everyone knows about it (cue community pages in which drama has its day), or on the flip side, maybe no one, not even you, knows about it (cue the going to drop a sweet line on your friend’s page only to discover you’re no longer friends).
I understand there are instances in which people find the need to omit someone from their friends list: family struggles that are just too emotionally intense to maintain; abusive relationships; personal crisis that brings about the need to dramatically reduce the circle of people one interacts with…there have been times and instances when almost every one of those circumstances has found me needing to remove someone off of my friend list after much thought and introspection. Just because someone is on our social media platforms, doesn’t mean that they should automatically stay there forever.
But in this climate of casually unfriending with indifference, how does “the unfriended” one respond? What reaction should one have when the unfriending was clearly in regard to politics, taking offense to a difference in opinion? What response should one have when they’ve been on the cancelled end of cancel culture? Should one carry on as normal? When running into the unfriender at the grocery store, should the topic be brought up? Should one make mention of it privately? Or should one just carry on about their business as if nothing happened? How does one reconcile the sting of having a friendship on social media scrapped while living in a world that places no value on those same social media friendships?
I feel like too often today we allow ourselves to be acclimated to the complacency of our culture, when even just fifteen years ago, cutting someone out of our life for having a different set of political beliefs would have been deemed drastic and extreme. It has become acceptable to just cut out what we don’t like, and in a sense, plug our ears to anything that contradicts our beliefs or that offends us, even if in the slightest way.
What happens in a relationship once it has endured an unfriending?
Is it still a friendship?
When friendships hit a snag in the 70s and 80s, the two friends might have a falling out, maybe even yell at one another, and then quit speaking for a spell. Being out of sorts with childhood friends is a normal part of learning how to be friends, and invariably, the two friends would come back together, agree that they still liked one another, and pick back up the friendship where it left off.
What happens to a friendship though when there’s a falling out on social media, or even just a quiet walking away of one friend from the other? That all depends of course on the closeness of the relationship to begin with. Maybe if the relationship is with an acquaintance or a casual business colleague, the unfriending may be inconsequential and a minute event.
But if an actual friend? Does that person remain a friend? Or does unfriending someone communicate to them that you no longer value their opinions, their thoughts, their beliefs?
If you block someone, are you plugging your ears to anything they have to say and are essentially telling them that their words and what they have to say do not matter?
When someone is unfriended, should they assume that you no longer care about them? That you believe they do not matter?
When did friendship come to mean that we all must think the same? When did friendship stop being a celebration of differences and loving others and their warts, bumps, and bruises? When did conversations and healthy debates quit happening? How did our grandparents make lives, make homes, make love with those holding direct opposing political beliefs and still manage to laugh and love and make a life, but today, we are surrounded by those who cannot maintain a relationship or even tolerate an opinion that is in opposition to our world view?
Being on the receiving end of this dismissiveness several times over the past year, I have had some time to think through how I feel about what it means to be unfriended for differing opinions by those I truly thought were friends. I have come to the conclusion that this is the world we live in today, and while I may not like it, and though I may yearn for the simpler, truer, and purer friendships of the past, this is just where we are, and I can only truly control how I react to it and how I treat friendships.
I have decided that I will continue to honor friendship. I have decided that I will continue to place the person that is my friend above the political opinions they may hold. I have decided that should someone’s posts become too frustrating or irritating to me, I will not block them or unfriend them, silencing them or cutting them out of my life, but I will instead do as friends occasionally do and take a short break from one another and to do this, I will use the “snooze” feature, which provides a pause in their posts, allowing me to focus instead on the friendship.
I have decided that in today’s political climate, if two people are on opposing sides in most everything happening in the world today, they probably aren’t going to agree on much, so they either need to agree to elevate people above politics and love one another in spite of the chasm between their opinions, or they need to agree to walk away from the friendship because of it.
And if that’s what happens, I have decided that I will have to be okay with that and not hold a grudge or self-doubt in my heart.
But I have also decided that because of the value I place on friendship and how important it is to me, to our society, and to our world, when I find myself on the receiving end of the unfriending, I will no longer allow myself to be purveyed by those who’ve deemed me and my opinions deserving of being silenced. Self-respect and honoring the value of oneself are foundational to friendships, and even in the modernized parameters of what friendship on social media means, appropriate personal boundaries are so important. I have decided to be kind to myself and not subject myself to anyone who has decided that I am no longer more important than politics. I am perfectly fine being in disagreement over politics or religion, but when unfriended on social media over these things, I will take that to mean you no longer wish to be part of my life, which means there is no reason for you to be on any of my social media platforms.
If friends are truly friends, that means they love one another in spite of their differences, and sometimes even because of them. It means they respect the differences of their friends: color, creed, beliefs, opinions, and politics. It means our differences make this world beautiful and our perspectives help us understand one another. Unfriending someone tells them that none of that matters to you anymore, and that neither do they.
When we take a look back over our shoulder to how friendships once were, we begin to see how much they’ve changed. But we don’t have to allow ourselves to continue with the complacency of our culture. We can remember what it felt like to dress the same as our bestie for Spirit Week. We can contemplate some of the funny and childish ways we argued and then came back together after a spat on the playground. We can ponder how speaking privately and transparently to a friend changes the course of a relationship that lasts a lifetime. We can marvel at the written word and how our grandparents maintained a marriage and a family by choosing the words they used carefully, and how each word was treasured, even the ones that may have caused friction. We can resolve to consider our friendships, our friends, and their value as a person before we opt to cut them from our lives and our newsfeed because we disagree with their politics. We can work to elevate people above politics.
If we are able to do these things, we may just find ourselves in friendships that are richer and deeper and wider. We may find ourselves listening to people more instead of being so quick to be offended. We may find ourselves coming together instead of growing apart, and we may find fewer people on the receiving end of the unfriending.
***
The Unfriending – Cassandra Rankin ENGL 270 April 2021
For months I’ve been posting to a special album on social media to share the funny memes my kids plop down on our family’s group text during random moments over the course of the week. My teens are politically savvy, critically thinking, conservative valued, liberty loving, sharp witted, free range kids, and the memes they send their mama are sometimes edgy, most every time family friendly, and always side-splittingly funny. They have provided me sanity-saving laughter in recent weeks, so naturally, it’s my inclination to share on social media with my family and friends.
I look forward to sharing each bundle and giggle all over again when I read the comments from my friends, smiling in understanding when someone invariably writes, “Thanks for the laughs, I needed that.”
Today is Friday, when I would normally post the week’s collection.
But there are no memes on the family thread today.
Somehow not much is funny this week.
Somehow, now that everything has settled some, there is a somber foreboding that pervades…in our home, on my social media, in our state, in our nation.
Even with the uncertainties of the election, I won’t deny Biden as our president like a good portion of our nation did for Trump during every single day of his presidency.
But I won’t hail him as a hero or the shining savior that so many are either.
#HeIsNot
He’s an aged, corrupt, lifelong politician who, instead of spending his first days in office to foster the unity he so emphatically urged America to practice, he used the first twenty-four hours of his term to mark his territory in the White House, lifting his leg to everything DJT did, even policies that were good for our nation and its citizens.
His press secretary is professional and well qualified, (am I the only one who smiled proudly when I saw her flipping through sections of her tabbed-up notebook in true Kayleigh fashion?) but she’s already lied and brushed this president’s rule-breaking under the rug, even as we’ve been bombasted with his criticism of anyone not following the same rules. She has shown us right out of the chute that hypocrisy will be the anthem of this administration.
#MaybeHeWasRight
This very well could be a long, dark winter.
Like the rest of the nation, I’m reeling from the events of the past eleven months, so I’ll try really hard to just continue to focus on being a light in a dark time. I will be praying and hoping that the those of us who carry that deep sense of foreboding right now are wrong.
Let’s pray for that. Let’s pray to be wrong.
Because if we ARE wrong, that means that our nation will be all right.
If we are wrong, that means we will not have found ourselves in the nonsensical, rabid clutches of a radical left government who seem hell bent on taking us down a road none of us ever thought we’d see in our time.
Eleven thousand jobs.
Equality for our girls.
#ItIsOnlyDay2
You can go on and unfriend me if you’d like.
Five people have since June.
Some of them I’ve known for decades.
Others I know from church.
While my favorite thing is to share the happy things of life: farm pictures, scriptures, life lessons, hearts…more hearts…and of course, the teens’ memes, there are times when politics and important things need to be touched upon.
The gift and sanctity of life.
The Constitution of the United States of America.
The treatment of our children and our most vulnerable.
I’ll post about those big issues when I see them, because as we all know, we’re not all seeing them.
#ThisNewAgeOfCensorshipIsFun
I’m not divisive. I’m not a pot stirrer.
I just love this country.
I love our freedoms.
I love Jesus.
I love my family.
I love my friends.
I love the voice I’ve been given as an American.
I love it that if I see lies, I can speak truth.
I’ve been censored, put in FB jail, quietly unfriended without a word said to me, have passively-aggressively been corrected or (wo)man-splained by some expecting me to change my view to mirror theirs, and I’ve had lifelong friends be hostile and block me because they’ve disagreed with something I posted.
Five may not be a lot; I know there have been folks who have seen their list of friends on social media shrink to a fraction of the size it was. I have friends with family members who will no longer speak to them because they are conservative.
This is all happening while the same people and organizations who are hostile toward conservatives say scathing, ugly, and uncivilized things about Republicans and conservatives, and even at times, try to bring about their ruin.
#CancelCultureAtItsBest
This is going to get worse, and the chasm of division is only going to get deeper if we let it.
We have to stay in the light.
I refuse to be hostile about our new president, even as I rebuke everything he stands for and intends to do to this great land.
I pray for him, his administration, and our legislators.
But I won’t stop calling out lies.
I won’t hail Harris as a role model for my daughters. They know history and the things that she has done to get the power she has been given. They admire truth, and know that integrity, character, and hard work are the things that bring the kind of success that is to be celebrated.
I won’t quit researching and learning about the politics of our politicians, and I will never base my opinion of them on their skin color or their gender.
How do they treat the members of our military?
How do they respect the working men and women who built this nation?
How do they ensure the safety of all citizens who call this land home?
How do they honor our elderly?
How do they value our children?
That is what I will always look for in our politicians.
My kids, their friends, any youth I am with…they will tell you what I always say every time it is time to leave a place. Restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, fairgrounds…no matter where we are, they will hear this from me when it is time to go:
“Leave it better than you found it.”
Shouldn’t that be the internal drive of every single human in every single corner of this earth?
When we are done and the time is over, whether it be a place…a person…a policy…a program…a population…we need to leave it better than we found it.
I am not confident that this administration plans to do that.
And because of that, I will continue to fervently pray. I will continue to join hands with my family and friends as we keep trusting the One who made us and walks us through.
I will continue to hope that truth will be so bright it blinds us to anything but.
I will continue to raise my children to research and think critically using the morals we’ve raised them with, their knowledge of God’s Word, and the worldview they’ve developed.
I will continue to love my neighbor.
I will keep on loving the Lord with all my heart and soul and strength.
And I will continue to use my voice, and pray for you to do the same.
Today is Friday, when I would normally post the week’s collection.
But there are no memes on the family thread today.
Sometimes too much time can go by and every passing minute and every passing hour and every passing day… hope gets smaller and smaller.
So when the sow labored in vain and our prayers weren’t answered the way we wanted them to be, the hope got small and the tension got big.
She tired and she weakened and try as she might, she just couldn’t get the job done.
And when the body doesn’t do what we want it to…and people we love disappoint…and when stress levels heighten… and finances cause strain…and when the unexpected hits…or when disease overcomes…or children break your heart…or prayers aren’t answered the way we hoped…and the world is just too much…
don’t we weaken and tire?
And try as we may, doesn’t it seem like sometimes we just can’t get the job done?
And then time just becomes still with hope too short and it all has just gone on too long…
too long.
We let her labor all day Tuesday and that sweet gal just gave us her friendly new-mama self and she walked and she shifted and she grunted when we’d encourage her and she’d tilt her rounded belly toward us to give my girl better access to both rows of colostrum founts.
A friend walked the hard and long with us on up til dinner time, cancelling gymnastics for all six of her babies to bring them over to play so she could go elbow deep into mess with us and try to help us find life.
She told us we’d know when it’d been too long.
We would know.
When this world is gross and messy and futile and straining, isn’t there someone who needs us to go elbow deep into their mess? Who needs us to help them find signs of life?
This was the second sow my daughter had troubles with in her new pig-farming venture. We’d already seen our lot of loss on the farm for the spring.
We hoped this one would be just like God and nature intended.
We prayed. We helped. We encouraged.
We trekked the snowy trail a hundred times in the dark.
Wednesday morning we knew.
It’d been too long and we needed to go after life and if we were going to find it, there had to be a death.
Too long.
We trekked the snowy trail one last time and my husband sent her humanely into eternity and together we all went after life.
We never lost hope and we worked and we prayed and we encouraged.
But there was a huge loss.
It had just been too long.
We gave it all we had but soon it was too long again and we knew it was time to stop striving after death, and when we were done focusing on death, we were left with one life.
She named him Sean, and I don’t know where you are in your mess of life…
if you’re just starting to strain or if nothing seems to fit or if you’re at death’s door or if you’ve just plain lost hope in the labor.
But what we’ve learned from one bitty pig named Sean is that as long as there is breath in the lungs, there is life… and when there is life, there is hope.
Sometimes nature doesn’t work in our favor, and sometimes God gives and sometimes He takes away and death will come for every one of us sooner than we ever want it to.
But when we turn from death and we focus on life, there is joy and there is faith and there is love.
And when we push and strain and labor and strive to focus on those…we’ll find the gift of life amidst all the death…
and it won’t ever be too long.
~
As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more. Psalm 71:14
Jesus loves the little children…all the children of the world! Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight…Jesus loves the little children of the world!
It sounds like such an innocuous, old lady thing, this “hypothyroidism”.
Hashimoto’s.
Like something that maybe grows on your foot.
Or something your mom would off-handedly complain about after she’s had a fuzzy navel or two…but would then dutifully take her medicine in the morning with all the rest of the pills that are there to “help”.
But now that’s it has been two whole years of walking with it…now that I can look back on that December afternoon appointment with my doctor and finally be thankful…
I have learned that this disease is anything but innocuous.
I have learned that the thyroid operates, regulates, or effects virtually every system in the human body and that there is nothing going on inside of me that isn’t somehow connected to that obscure little butterfly at the base of my throat.
I’ve learned that I must work harder than I’ve ever worked in my life to get through a day without running myself ragged, physically or emotionally.
I’ve learned that if I don’t make my health as big of a priority as my children, marriage, or finances, I may not be very effective at maintaining those things which are most important to me.
I’ve learned that I can’t do all the things I used to and do them well.
I’ve learned that some people will drain my emotional stores and that boundaries are essential to the health of my psyche.
I’ve learned that God is constant and quiet and a gentleman with my hormone swings and wild mood shifts. He never leaves me or gets sick of me, and instead whispers gently to my soul that all will be well and how to do the next thing.
I’ve learned that sometimes the best thing to do is just let something go.
I’ve learned that Western medicine places embarrassingly little focus on the thyroid and that you have to go looking hard for the answers to figure out how it’s all tied together.
I’ve learned how to know when I’m doing too much, worrying too much, working too much. That the ache over my kidneys and annoying buzz in my ears means something important.
I’ve learned not to hate my body, even as I still want to. It is fearfully and wonderfully made and will never be magazine beautiful, but it is a vessel from which my children came and it is soft and loved and warm for my husband to hold and for friends to hug, and it will become -is becoming- healthier and stronger, but never will be what it was. I have made peace with that.
I’ve learned that talking about hypothyroidism is boring and so I don’t that often. I have learned what I need to know to listen to my body, and I quietly learn and read and research to help me be all I can be, but talking about it makes other people’’s eyes -and mine- glaze over, so I try not to.
I have learned how to smile and serve even when it hurts my body to do so. There are days when I won’t push because I need to be kind to myself and take care of a setback or a particular challenge, but most times I’ve learned that instead of the outward, visible strength I’ve always exhibited, my strength is now quiet, and sometimes just between me and God.
I’ve learned that my family truly is the best gift and that they love me unconditionally.
I’ve learned that whole-food Vitamin C is a miracle and that my life looks so much brighter when I take it in high doses.
I’ve learned that sometimes the trip is a lot longer than what you thought it was going to be when you set out on the new road. Sometimes the destination is never even in sight and all you can manage is getting back onto the right road after a wrong turn.
I’ve learned that sometimes problems aren’t tidy or an easy fix. Sometimes you just have to let one sit for awhile and not mess with it.
I’ve learned to avoid soy but that my body can tolerate some caffeine. (Thank you Jesus!)
I have learned that my diligence wavers, my discipline gets dodgy, and that my disappointment in myself goes deep.
I have learned that I am a loyal and faithful friend in spite of not being able to maintain a social life.
I have learned not to take myself too seriously and to laugh more because laughter makes everything better.
I have learned that I am coming into myself.
I have learned I am so loved.
And so, two years to the day, when we had a flat and we were hit with one challenge after another while fixing it…I realized that two short years ago, an adventure of that sort would have done me in, made me cry, drained me and left me depressed (truly, that little gland, when hooked up with the adrenals, it has that much sway) and set my whole endocrine system into a spiral.
But this time, I had peace and I worked with my family and we laughed and we played and we got the job done and I was happy.
It sounds like such an innocuous, old lady thing, this “hypothyroidism”.
Cassandra Rankin 