As I write this, the weather is gorgeous. It feels like Spring and the sun is out. My heart wants to soar. But like many other such days, there are thoughts that snag me and hold me down. Thoughts I'm not even sure are okay, but I don't want to let them go. Not yet, anyway.
I don't know why, but on days like this I find my thoughts straying to Indian Summer days back in the Steel City. I most often recollect my trot down to the "T" station, down the hill, the many steps, and the platform. And other times I recall the jot home - up the hill and stairs, or up the incline and over the hill, past shops and apartments and the old shut down high school...I remember feeling not a care in the world. I was confident, comfortable, and content.
Why do the trees and fields not excite me the way sidewalks and glass windows did? Why do I enjoy the silent glow of city lights and not the empty light of the moon on a clear night? Why do I even long for something I know I cannot have? I have never loved another man, but I cannot help feeling that this is what it must be like...to have loved another once before but know you can never return.
I know that it wouldn't be the same. Even at the end it wasn't the same. I missed downtown, I missed not driving, and I missed walking everywhere. I missed my friends and going to school. And I know I don't want my kids raised in the city...at least, I don't think I do. But many times I think of all the places we could go and all the things we could do that aren't even available here in our rural dwellings.
Some people dream of sipping tea on an old porch swing. I don't mind that, but I'm more of a Starbucks person (if I were the kind who drank tea or coffee.)
And then there's the friendship thing. I'll get into why this came up later, since most days I'm able to push it way down until I forget it's there...
WHY is it I don't have a great Christian friend to do things with? A friend who wants to and sets aside time to get together at least every other week. Who can encourage me in my walk with God, and who actually understands me as a person. I guess I am lucky that Boom is all those things. He is my best friend and so much more, and I'm glad he truly "gets" me. But I want a GIRL friend, a mommy friend. Someone to joke with, cry with, stay up late and talk with. I know that "it's hard when you have little ones." But I don't buy that. I've made efforts - I've made the time, and I've made the phone calls. But I seem to have more time and more desire than anyone else, apparently. Or maybe I'm just boring and desperate, I don't know.
I have friends, per se. But they don't know the whole me. They don't save a place for me at get togethers. They don't call me up just to chat. The don't even invite me over. I mentioned it at a Bible study meeting I just joined, and as we discussed it, I thought, "Don't any of you even realize that I'm begging, pleading, here...and not one of you is volunteering to be a friend to me." They tell me I have to make the effort and that I need more than one friend, etc. Yet not one offered to be another friend to me.
What is it about me? Have I changed that much since becoming a mom that no one wants to be around me? The only mom's I had been friends with until they left me cold and crying with a newborn were women who were always taking from me...my time, my advice, my pity, whatever. They complained about spouses, boyfriends, etc. I listened, I felt better about my lot, but I got no encouragement for myself. Nothing to take home to keep me warm.
I truly want to give to others. It's what I used to do well. But I feel like I've given so much that there isn't anything left. No one's filled MY love tank. My husband can only do so much and hear the same stuff so many times. I get tired of telling him about it over and over. I want someone who can go shopping with me and tell me what looks good on me. I want someone who will go to a movie with me and discuss it afterwards. Someone to go to the park with, someone who trades days doing playgroups at our houses, someone who sees the world in a similar way as I do.
Apparently it's too much to ask.
Anyway, this Bible study is called Apples of Gold, it's by Focus on the Family, and Renewing the Heart, written by Betty Huizenga.
At first I was really excited. It's a class that teaches you how to cook, and incorporates a Bible study, and you learn how to open up your home and be good at hospitality. And since I discovered through a Networking class at our old church in Edinboro that I might have a gift for hospitality (which makes sense being as I love being around people, and I love entertaining) I thought this would be perfect.
Well, we had a good time, until the friend issue was brought up. But there was one thing in the study that didn't jive with me. And after I got home and skimmed through the rest of the book, it looks like many more things won't jive with me.
I don't know if it's because of my tendency of finding fault with things, or if it's something else, but now I'm not looking forward to hearing in the other classes all the stuff I'm not doing "right." With this book, frugality is almost out, looks are VERY important (which just doesn't jive with me), and she puts out the idea that if you don't do things just so, you won't really be honoring God when you entertain people in your home.
So now I'm wondering if A)I DON'T have a gift of hospitality after all, or B) if once again someone is taking an idea from God and adding their own ideas but it makes it sound like God is saying it, if that makes sense.
Similar to the way I see Dobson sometimes. I appreciate his stance on the family and Christian values, but there are so many things that I do as a parent, or don't do, that he basically says are being lenient and even detrimental (his word, not mine) to the development of my children. I disagree, and it angers me that people may think that GOD wants us to raise our children in a certain way, when in truth it's just Dobson.
For example, it's obvious that the author does not do a family bed (or room, as is our case right now) and that's okay, but she talks about how to make the bedroom a sanctuary to retreat to, and to have a lock on the door, etc. Well, our kids are in the bedroom, it's relaxing enough for us, etc. Same with my looks and that of my house. My husband is fine with both, and says so (Yes, I do ask him.) He doesn't mind me wearing sweats, as he wants to wear them at home, as well. He's more affectionate with me in the morning with bed head hair and "kitten" breath as he says, than when I'm all dolled up. Call me lucky, but my point is that I don't think making things look pretty all the time is necessarily a Godly thing. Not a bad thing, by any means, but not necessarily a command, if you will.
Especially with all my Crunchy Mamas and Unschooling ideas....which are SO far from outward looks and neat homes....I'm trying to find what I think is a good balance, and the minute I accept that natural is okay, I read this book and think, "great...so now what do I do?"
They used the example of what if Christ walked into your home...truth be told, I wouldn't buy a toothbrush in case he forgot (it happens.) If I don't have a mirror so he can see the back of his head, I'm sure he'll live. I'll have clean sheets (pretty, maybe not) and a fresh bar of soap. But to be honest, I wouldn't change anything else in my home because I'm pretty sure He'd be more interested in ME than my house.
Maybe I'm wrong (it's been known to happen.) I don't know.
And then I think about the fact that the author got this great calling from God to do this book and class, and I wish that God would speak to me like that. Because I feel that I'm supposed to do SOMETHING with my love for people. And now with clay, I may have found a way.
Similar to what she does, but focused more on the people (she says it's a pampering for the women, but when you feel guilty about how you do things, the pampering seems more like a scam...) I've thought of having a Clay party of some sort (what to call it, I don't know.) Eventually if it got going I'd have to charge for the materials and firing time, but at first I'd do it for free. I'd invite all my friends and let them play in the clay, showing them a few tips. Then they leave their pieces and I fire them. Then they return to paint their pieces, and again I fire them for them.
My idea is that somehow we just let our barriers down and talk. Really talk. About anything and everything, and I make some new friends. And I could actually incorporate a study into it, since it's pottery and the Bible has several verses about God being the potter, us the clay, and you can come up with so many cool allegories from that alone.
But then I wonder if it's just a stupid idea instead of a seed planted. And by criticizing another's obvious success with another similar program, maybe it's just jealousy.
So today I just kept thinking. And wishing. And hoping. And maybe someday I'll sort it all out, or it will all one day come together and be clear. But until then, I collect all my thoughts and store them once again in my mental Hope Chest, to be pulled out on another day such as this. When the warm breezes begin to blow on the parts of my that have grown cold...
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1 comment:
Girl, I linked to your page from a friend's blog. I know this post is old, but I felt that part about finding girlfriends so strongly that I had to respond. I had the same thing happen -- in a Catholic moms group -- and I just thought, am I being so pathetically needy that its driving people away?
Well, ask someone who knows me well and they'll say "Not Bloody Likely." I have, in the few years since then, developed some good friendships. But I too would love a friend who wants to meet for coffee and talk about movies, husbands, God, decorating -- the whole ball of wax. For various reasons my few fairly good friends are either not Christian or not into talking about faith (well, that describes most of the world doesn't it!).
Anyway, I regret that I don't live in PA, or I'd call you up! Instead I just want to encourage you that Crunchy, Quirky, Christian moms are out there, and I'm sure we'll find them where we live if we keep at it!
Blessings on your domestic adventures!
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