Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

managing your thoughts during a life crisis

As happens to everyone in all circumstances and for a variety of reasons, life has surprised us this week. We had for a nice long while been luxuriating in a sweet little season of ease and contentment, and now out of the clear January blue, Handsome and I find ourselves in the unpleasant thick of external stressors and a handful of hard decisions. 

It’s totally fine. I don’t mean to over dramatize anything; but this bears mentioning. One day this week all of it together gathered like a storm in my heart, and I ached and ached for hours. I went for a long run and cried almost the entire time. Maybe it was the surprise of it all. Maybe it was the sharp contrast of emotion, like the pop-up storms we get here in Oklahoma, when the skies have been so calm and sweet. Violent and shocking. I thought briefly that all of our hard-won peace was lost. (Not just for him and me, by the way, but for our most precious people too.)

Of course it’s not. I know better than that by now. But from time to time peace is ruffled and we have the job of maintaining composure and moving forward in Love. Remembering what is true and how to handle ourselves in crisis is vital. It’s not just about not tail-spinning and making a storm worse; it’s about the difference between surviving and thriving in the midst of it all. 

So that’s what I have to offer today: Some lessons I have learned over the years that this week I had to actively bring to the surface, thinking strategies that can transform a deeply stressful, scary time.

 

managing your thoughts during a life crisis sticker

 

Gratitude is so powerful. Take your pulse and breathe deeply. Carve out some time to look around outside of your pain and take stock of all the good things you see. Good things in the world at large, in your life overall, and in your exact situation. Name them. Focus on the most beautiful, amazing, magical details of whatever you are facing, whatever your circumstances are, both abstract and really precise. Even the ugly seeming parts can have hidden blessings, so give thanks for them too. Gratitude interrupts all kinds of anxiety, for starters, which feels nice, but it also has the power to literally transform the truth of things. You can invite light into a dark space with heartfelt gratitude. It’s a choice you can make even before you think you feel thankful.

Focus on the actionable details of your problem then shed all that anxiety and get moving, get out of your thoughts and trust God. I personally get a little paralyzed when faced with a big problem, but it’s unnecessary. That kind of fear is an illusion. Just look at the thing plainly, knowing it is a temporary crisis, just a problem to be solved. Identify the parts on which you can and should act, asking for divine inspiration and direction if needed , and begin. I find a lot of relief in the knowledge that I am only a part of the solution, that God is sovereign over all of it, even the unseen layers I may never see. Trusting Him with all of that makes seeing my part of the solution and acting less overwhelming. 

Ask largely and expect miracles. I have to occasionally remind myself of how much bigger our answers to prayer have been over the years compared to the problems we have faced. We have been shocked by grief, sure, but we have always been preserved in those times. More often we have been shocked by life-altering miracles, and because of this my underlying fear of “What if…” has eroded to almost nothing. I have learned to reign in my imagination accordingly, wearing blinders to the wildly negative possible outcomes. Instead, I force my thoughts forward and train them on wildly beautiful possibilities and amazing outcomes. Remember all those miracles and happy surprises from your past? Call them up to your mind. Convert your impulses to prayers, asking God for things bigger than you could ever do alone. I know in my bones that He wants to do big things for us and surprise us. 

Recognize that weird internal banter that robs your peace and mute it. Do you ever catch yourself arguing in your own head, either with yourself or an imaginary opponent or even just the situation you’re facing? It’s can be like a dress rehearsal, and I suppose that sometimes it can be useful to help you articulate your thoughts and prepare for a confrontation. But there’s a limit to this banter’s usefulness. I have learned to halt it, to silence the nervous flurry of arguments and deliberately aim my thoughts on something more productive. It makes such a difference in my overall sense of peace and therefore in how I can help my loved ones get through the crisis. Remember all that Worry Door business? It’s still very real. Cracking open that door is dangerous. Silent weird mental arguments counts as worrying. When you hear those demons whispering in your thoughts, mute them. You have power over them.  They have no place in your emotions or your decision-making.

Watch what you glorify. Do you spend a lot of time and energy talking about, or even just thinking about, how big your problem is, or how worried you are? Do you feel that common addiction to complaining about feeling victimized or overworked, etcetera? It’s a trap and a nasty one. Problems are real, but that don’t deserve our worship. Stressed is a real and valid condition, but it should only motivate us, not destroy us. Focusing on a perpetual state of being stressed and sad, weighed down by life, glorifying it instead of using it as fuel, only grows it and weakens us. Choose to glorify the healing forces in your life. Spend time and energy glorifying how excited you are about the brewing solutions and the future. Talk about and rest your imagination on how blessed you are, how capable, how far grown. Actively speak Love over the situation. Every detail of it.

worry prayers graphic

 

Thanks as always for checking in, friends. Handsome and I and all of the Lazy W characters are really great! Just taking our pulse in the midst of some very normal life changes. I hope some of this is useful to you for whatever crisis you are facing now or maybe in the future. Because life is certainly full of such stuff. But more importantly life is brimming with Love and beauty and miracles.

“Peace Be Still.”
XOXOXOXO

simply tuesday at the lazy w

Hello friends! How are you? And how amazing that anyone is still here, after so many long bouts of radio silence, haha.

I have landed happily on a Tuesday with nowhere to go and exactly two important deadlines remaining, not a slew of errands facing me nor seven deadlines looming as has been the case lately. That means that for all the delicious foreseeable hours, I get to be at the farm. Luxuriate in home-bodiness. Write and drink coffee. Do yoga when I can’t think of the words. Rub lemon oil on wood furniture, rearrange tablecloths and decorative pillows, and light candles named “tomato blossom” (you cannot believe how good they smell). For today at least, I get to putter around in the flower beds, crawl into the caged veggie beds, and try to avoid frogs. Today I’ll do more than snap photos of all the lush growth outdoors; today I will tend things too. Later, Klaus and I will be in the Apartment sorting through attic contents and clearing the shelves so that we can fluff up that guest bed just in case.

color snapshot may 2016

The farm is a feast for the eyes right now, either just because it is or because I am so in love with it all over again. Handsome and I have been nibbling at projects here and there, getting things more the way we want them, more aligned with how we actually live here week to week, and it’s been deeply satisfying. The funny thing about this kind of progress, though, is that is causes me to want to leave home even less than before. My home-bodiness is getting serious, okay, and more than ever I feel like the days are too short, although really they are lengthening as we speak.

Bring on the summer. But slowly. Let her creep up on us, spread her gossamer veil over us, and linger a long time. Somebody steal her car keys so she has to stay until next year. Let’s get up early for strong coffee and a four mile run. Let’s do cartwheels, write stories, and play in the garden. Let’s swim and eat too much watermelon, watch movies outdoors even if there is an Old Testament amount of frogs here. Let’s count stars and blessings and weave dream catchers out of hula hoops. It’s time for chick-hatching and burger-grilling. Time for convincing husbands to go to the office early so they can come home early and watch technicolor sunsets with us. It’s time for cilantro and basil and honeybee meditation. Cucumbers and horse snuffles and friends and family.

Last night, rather unexpectedly, I enjoyed the deepest, most delicious boost of faith. It was very much like the proverbial well water, just quenching and refreshing in every way. To say that I feel overwhelming gratitude right now is such an understatement. I also feel overwhelming hope, mostly for our children. Our oldest is living so well in Colorado, so happily, that my mama heart is as full for her as the day she was born. And our youngest, against all evidence, is quite near to us. She is held so firmly in our thoughts and prayers that no physical absence can move her. Funny, isn’t it, how faith can change hands and lend from one blessing to another pain… just the right amount of strength.

Faith that moves mountains. Faith has been moving mountains in our world for years.

In my Facebook memories this morning I saw this quote from a few years ago about our tornadoes that year. Some far-flung person had said of our beautiful state:

I know why Oklahoma is so flat. Your faith has already moved all the mountains.

Amen.

Okay, let’s go enjoy all the fresh herbs and rainy skies. Let’s do hard work and read great books. Cook food that nourishes both body and soul. Cuddle pups and romance boys.

Happiest of Tuesdays, friends.

“Slow down, you move too fast.
You gotta make the morning last…”
~Simon & Garfunkel
XOXOXO

(Thanks to Emily Freeman for her encouragement on small-moment living in a fast-moving world.)

 

dreams come true

When I was pregnant with her, I was only a couple of years older than she is today. That is a weird thought process all by itself. Month by month I dreamed of her face, sight unseen, and fell in love with her and all of her carefree somersaults and even my widening belly. She consumed my thoughts then, just as she does today. I was blessed with a truly healthy, happy, comfortable pregnancy, something I didn’t fully appreciate at the time.

I was in such a hurry to meet her that my doctor had no trouble convincing me to induce labor around our actual due date. He suggested it not for any particular medical reason; it just seemed to be a fad at the time. A practice of convenience. We both were healthy and she was full weight and well developed. He scheduled it, I prepared for it, and she was born without incident after a really easy labor. Still healthy and happy, and yet again I didn’t fully appreciate these blessings.

joc newborn me

joc studio newborn pic

 

When she was finally born on a bright and cool afternoon in September, I was not at all surprised to see her wide ebony eyes, her tiny rosebud mouth, her profile, her perfect olive skin. Everything about her was exactly as I had seen in those sleeping dreams. She was a beautiful baby then, just as she is beautiful young woman now. I am still so grateful for those dreams that showed me her face ahead of time. She was imprinted on my heart in a million silent, priceless ways.

Looking back, so many parts of me wish I had allowed her birth to happen naturally, to experience unmedicated labor pains and the thrilling surprise, the curious timing of the miracle of life.

I wish I had let her arrive in her own way, at her own time.

 

baby joc

Then this precious girl was gone for a while, for too many years, for reasons we are just beginning to fully understand. But she was never removed from my heart. Not even for one minute.

For a second time in our life together as mother and daughter, I found myself literally dreaming of her when I couldn’t see her. When I couldn’t touch her, hear her voice, or smell her vanilla-shampooed hair. In her long, sad absence these past years, I would sleep roughly but often catch phantom glimpses of her face in my dreams. Those same ebony eyes, her same small rosebud mouth, that same perfect olive skin that just glows. In this new set of dreams, instead of appearing as the infant I’d not yet held, she was appearing as her grown self or sometimes as a ten year old version of herself, whispering to me the secret that she was soon coming home. She was not just happy in these prophecied moments; she was giddy. Effervescent with joy. I would try so hard to stay asleep and whisper back to her all my love and longing, to cling to those stolen moments. But every time of course I’d wake up to the raw reality that she was still gone.

I Saw You Last Night

My baby in kindergarten. I remember thinking then how grown up she was.
My baby in kindergarten. I remember thinking then how grown up she was.

Do you know how wonderful God is? How far-reaching His Love is? He has seen into my heart all these nineteen years, the regret I have harbored over planning her birth and missing out on the dazzling unknown of His design. He took her away from me for a while only to bring her home, in surprising and unpredictable ways. During her absence He showed me when to push and when to rest; He taught me how to breathe deeply and fruitfully and when to wait. He showed me through those waiting years how constant and powerful Love is. He forced me (kicking and screaming at first) into a place of trust and kept me there until I wanted to trust, until that was my genuine and natural position. In time I became both vulnerable and strong.

It turns out He was working this complex miracle in her as well.

(Have you followed my discipline with the Worry Door?)

worry prayers graphic

 

Then one day she finally arrived (again). Quite out of the blue, in the surprising, thrilling, somewhat terrifying way she might have been born the first time had I allowed it to happen naturally. One day this past September (almost exactly nineteen years since her first birth) I got the overwhelming phone call that was very much like a rebirth. She was free, and she was coming home.

She showed her pretty face for the second time in my life, exactly as I had been dreaming of her while she was away.

 

joc

insterstellar quote with joc dusty photo

joc happy farewell

 

This strong, beautiful girl has possessed a slice of my heart and soul for almost twenty years now, and that will never change. This is just the beginning. I am once more living every promise of motherhood and every hope. We are seeing that not only is time elastic; Love is sovereign.

 

joc dusty

 

It’s mid-March now. Six months after her rebirth when she finally arrived in her own way, at her own time. She is peeling away from me and pressing close again, over and over, this time in the best possible, most natural ways. Finding her own legs and learning to walk (again). Squeezing me tight and boring into my eyes with hers (again). Letting me feed her mightily because it satisfies us both (again).

Making me proud beyond description. Always.

Thank you, friends, for every single prayer and every positive thought and word of encouragement you’ve offered, especially when you didn’t really know what was happening. She amazes us daily. She is on a good, strong path today, chasing her own joy and pursuing her own dreams, just exactly like a nineteen year old girl should do. And because of this she continues to benefit from prayer and Loving energy, so please keep it up.

Love is so real. Prayer absolutely changes things. And natural processes best. Don’t force it.

Fear knocked at the door.
Faith answered.
And lo, no one was there.
~Author Unknown
XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

Trading Wrath for Gratitude

   Today I cracked open our book club’s current selection, which we’ll discuss over dinner in June, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Just in case you don’t know, this is a novel partially set in my beloved home state of Oklahoma, during the brutal Depression and Dust Bowl. It follows the struggle of a native Oklahoma family who suffers from all the ramifications of the agricultural and economic failures of that time. This was a century ago, but how many bells are ringing in your heart right now?

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

   I sat down to start this papery adventure after a morning of cruising junk and antique shops that were as lovely as they were tiny and unique, spending a few dollars on perfectly frivolous luxuries. I bought a heavy turquoise pendant handing from an old shoelace; a super long chain necklace with a kitschy locked heart charm at the bottom that desperately wants to be gold when it grows up; a medium sized but tarnished silver tray with wooden handles, the kind you use to serve breakfast in bed or maybe decorate a vintage-themed outdoor wedding which is coming up in seven days; three threadbare cotton handkerchiefs; a set of pink seashell-encrusted salt and pepper shakers from Florida; and an opulently  matted and framed oil painting for my dining room. None of these things were expensive (though the oil painting really should have been), but I acknowledge that none of them are really necessary, either. My life is brimming with undeserved luxury, and I know it.

   In addition to the material bounty, it happens that I soaked up the first four chapters of Grapes of Wrath while soft, cool rain fell in steady showers all over this grand land and flowers bloomed in every available container.

   The stark contrast between feast and famine, parched and verdant, would not be lost on any reader.
   This year, today, in this entire lifetime, I am so grateful. For the rain which is nourishing us again and for the milder temperatures we are enjoying at the moment. For the fields that are stacked deep and dotted and dressed with hundreds of beautiful, golden bales of soft hay. For every lake, river, and pond that glimmers past its banks with clean water. For the animals and gardens that feed not just our bellies, but also our souls. For the people who drive and toil toward every paycheck, especially my husband who has my deepest admiration.
   I am so thankful for living, breathing romance and for solid friendships and for children with better memories than I had feared. I am thankful that for every heartache we see hope. That for every frustration we eventually find relief. And that for every drought, somehow, mercifully, we get to see green again. I am really thankful that my bees are happy and that my watermelon vines are blooming, you guys. You cannot even imagine!
“The unthankful heart… discovers no mercies; 
but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, 
as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, 
some heavenly blessings!”  
~Henry Ward Beecher
   I still believe very much in miracles. The small, nearly imperceptible sort that we sometimes call minutiae and also the most shocking, most unlikely ones, the ones that make headlines. Naturally tragedies continue and not every prayer is answered the way we expect. But unplanned joy and sudden relief are also facts of life. We just have to seek them out and then celebrate them when they appear. 
   Enjoy the lushness while you have it, however it looks for your life, today. Cultivate joy. Give thanks. Wear way too many necklaces that don’t match, it’s probably fine. Keep hope simmering on the back burner. It will nourish you from the inside out and ready you for the next lean year.
By the Way, Someone is Grateful for You, Too.
xoxoxoxo