Struggling

I am struggling. Today I am struggling. Usually, it is okay. I can usually muster up enough hope, enough self-encouragement, enough strength that living with a husband with a chronic illness is fine. I can usually see the glass as half full. But today, I want to throw the glass across the room in defiance of the very question. I am tired of the glass and whatever is in it. I am just so tired of this struggle and tired of hanging onto this hope that, like some carrot on the end of a string, constantly teases and always alludes our grasp.

To give background for those who don't know, my husband has Lyme disease and has struggled with various related health issues for the majority of our marriage. And today, I am sick of it. I wish I could fully trust in God. I wish that the words, "God has a plan and we are thankful for this sickness," would always be right there on my tongue. But they are not. I am thankful for the days that they are. And deep down, I know that He does have a plan and that this patchwork-life will be beautiful in the end, but for today, I struggle with the emotions of trying to reconcile God's hidden plan with the reality of the fully-exposed ugliness of sickness. Today, it is hard to see through the ugliness.

I look at pictures of when we dated and I long to go back and cherish those times of innocent, naive hopefulness and promise. I long to relive the false "knowledge" of a perfect life...the life where my husband comes home from work, sits down to dinner...the same dinner we are all eating...and enjoys conversation with his family. I long for surprise dates and romance. I long for simple evenings of peaceful reading together and sharing thoughts and dreams. I long for weekends that include the husband/father of this family. I long for a man who has the strength to do all the things he wants to do, for a man who does not struggle just to make it through one day.

And then in all this longing, I feel the guilt of self-indulgence, the guilt of a self-focus that forgets that I am not the one suffering. And that our "suffering" is so minimal compared to what others go through. I forget about all the promises that God has kept through the struggle...that He will never leave us or forsake us. I forget about how blessed we are that Jon has never had to go on disability or missed long periods of work. I forget how blessed we are that no matter how exhausted and incoherent he is, he can always work on a computer in genius ways that astound those who work with him. I forget that he is a shining light of God's grace and provision, not just to us, but to those who most need to see that light. I forget that God shows himself faithful, even when Jon cannot do everything he would like to as a husband and father. God picks up the slack.

I know all these things. But, friends, I still struggle with the days of longing that make my heart feel empty and pained. And today is one of the hurting days that my heart could use more hope, more faith. Because, quite frankly, as much as this trial makes us long for heaven, I just want us all to experience "normal," just a taste of it, for at least a little period of our lives together here on this earth.

Artists are Funny Specimens of Humanity and Children Need to Not Slam Doors

We artists are funny specimens of humanity. We are "irony." In all our (I am being generous here with the use of "our," as I probably don't fit this stereotype) strivings to be unique, we become typical, usual in our uniqueness, common in our uncommonness.

[I interrupt myself a moment to interject a real "ponderance" that parents have undoubtedly pondered since time's beginning...or rather since the beginning of doors. Why can children not seem to close them quietly? Why must they be slammed, no matter the amount of pleading and shushing to shut them properly? This slice of reality brought to you in part by my door-slamming children.]

But back to artists and conformity masquerading as non-conformity. I looked at a picture of a group of artists and was struck by the oddly-red hair, the various Flat Caps (or Scally Caps or Salmon Hats or Smack Hats or whichever other name you should choose of the approximately 30 options for this type of cap), the poodle with similarly frizzy-fur-haired owner, and realized something. I didn't need to be told what profession these colorful (sometimes literally) aberrations belonged to. They were artists, naturally. Perhaps, then, an artist would do well to achieve uniqueness-success by being distinctly and decidedly normal...if the end-goal is simply the high rank of uniqueness, that is.

For me, the end goal is not uniqueness. Maybe I am unique and maybe I am yawningly mass-produced humanity. All I know is that I do what I do because I am who I am in Christ. If I'm a little odd or off, that is just the God-created me. If I'm not...well, that is just another part of me...the comfortingly normal part.

And that's all the musings and puzzlings I have about we artists...at this moment in time, while I await another slamming door, alerting me to hungry children ready for their dinner.