Go Southwest Young Skiffs- A miraculous journey from there to here part 1

One of my very favorite things to do after a stressful day is to take a nice long soak in my garden tub.  I pour in bath salts, run the water as hot as I possibly can, fill it as high as I can and soak until my fingers and toes resemble raisins left in the sun too long and the water has long since cooled.  Tonight was a night I needed a long soak.  As I lay staring at the small water stain on the ceiling, a reminder of the time a storm blew the shingles off of a large portion of our roof a few springs ago, I was hit by wave of gratitude.  You see, laying there soaking in that huge tub, was a special gift from God to me, a prayer answered, a promise fulfilled.  This is a story of God's incredible patience, love and blessing in our life.  This is a true life adventure story, that spans ten years and 1,300 miles. This is the story of our move to Texas.

My husband and I met at a small Bible school in Western New York.  My husband was from the area, so after our wedding it was natural for us to settle there.  We settled in, bought a house, and had our first four children.  Then the sky fell in.  To make a very long story somewhat brief, I fell down an entire flight of stairs when I was 25 weeks pregnant with our twins.  I was holding Sam, who had just turned 1 a week and a half before.  Miraculously, Sam came away with nary a scratch.  I, crushed my elbow and spent the remainder of my pregnancy in and out of the hospital, mostly in.  This long hospital stay coupled with my husband having to be on unpaid leave for the entire time (we had no one to care for Paul and Sam while I was in the hospital) left us pretty much destitute after it was all said and done.  We were a young couple, starting out (only married four years) so we didn't have anything to fall back on.  We did a short sale on our house. Then we moved to Virginia to start fresh, drawn by the promise of a better economy and the plethora of family I had there, who could help me with four babies, aged three and under.

The day we moved into our house, as my brothers and husband were unloading the moving truck, I said to my husband "The next place we are moving is Texas."  He looked at me like I was a bit crazy and asked in typical Usarian fashion "So should I load everything back onto the truck?"  I shook my head and said "I just have a feeling I shouldn't get too comfortable here.  We will only be here about five years."  I really think God had spoken to my heart because otherwise there would have been no prying me away from all my family that surrounded us in Virginia.

Our four and a half years in Virginia were the hardest of our marriage.  I was home alone, with five babies (we had Benny while there), while my husband worked seventy hours a week.  We were so broke we could not afford heating oil, so we heated our house with a wood stove.  Two of our boys were diagnosed on the autistic spectrum during this time.  My aunt, who was more like a sister to me because we were so close in age (we even shared a bedroom for a time), died after an excruciating fight with cancer.  My extended family was facing some huge challenges and our marriage was a complete disaster.  I became furious with God.  I could not accept that the God that I had spent my life serving in ministry and personally, could just stand by and watch our lives blow up.  What was his problem?!?  People tried to give me the typical Christianese answers "God works everything for good for those who love him and are called according to his purposes." "God won't give you more than you can bear" (that one isn't even in scripture) "You know God must have mighty plans for you." "We live in a fallen world" All of these answers just made me even madder.  I remember saying to a family member "I think God is a sadist."
 One night, as I was rocking a screaming Jamie in one arm (he had night terrors at the time.  He would wake up and run screaming throughout the house) and was giving Benny a bottle in the other, I turned on the TV. The only channel that had anything on at 2 am was PBS.  The program playing was a round table discussion with all the major religions represented by notable figures within each belief system. The moderator was posing different theological questions to each of them.  The question he happened to be asking when I turned on the show was posed to the man representing Christianity.  I don't remember his name but his response to the question posed changed my life forever.  The moderator asked him "If your God is real and all powerful, why do terrible tragedies plague the world?"  Honestly, I rolled my eyes, expecting him to quote the same scripture I already new backwards and forwards and give the same answers I myself had given a million times.
 Instead he began telling the story of C.S. Lewis and his wife.  Lewis married late and life and deeply loved his wife. She died not long after they were married from bone cancer.  Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed  "Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolation of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. The conclusion is not "So there's no God, after all" but "So this is what God is really like, the Cosmic Sadist. The spiteful imbecile?"  
My ears perked up at this point.  C.S Lewis, one of the giants of the faith, was basically saying what I had just said a few short days before. 
The man answering the moderator said  "Many people say this was a crisis of faith for Lewis, but I say it takes incredible faith to stand before the Almighty God and be completely honest with what you are feeling and thinking."  I had tears flowing unheeded down my cheeks and I cried out to God in all my grief, anger and brokenness "God, I don't care how you do it but I need you to prove yourself to me. I'm tired of all the Christian excuses.  Yes, we live in a fallen world, but if you are God and you are bigger than that.  The truth is you could have stepped into any one of the situations and changed it.  But you didn't.  I want to believe in your goodness, I want to believe in your power but right now I need you to show me.  I need to see you are all the You say You are."  
I had been a devoted Christian for 25 years.  I had gone to Bible school, been in ministry, done all I knew to do to be faithful.  Yet, despite all of that, this was the defining moment of my faith, this was me at my very rawest before God.
I am going to stop here, in my darkest night.  I promise the second half of this story is nothing short of miraculous but in order to appreciate where we are now you have to know where we came from.  I pray if any of you are in your own darkest night, you will be encouraged.  I don't have the answers you need but God does.  Don't be afraid to be honest with Him.  You are in my prayers-Kristine

The Anchor and the Kite

My husband has often described our very different natures like this "Kristine is like an anchor, sunk in the bottom of the Marianas Trench, buried deep and sunk in concrete.  I (Hubby) am a kite whose string is tied to that anchor.  I can blow whichever way the winds blow me but once I come to the end of my string, I ain't moving that anchor."

It is a good mental image of both our personalities.  I am not a follower or a joiner. I don't jump on every passing bandwagon.  I can lead but I don't have a need to.  I am very much like a barnacle crusted anchor, at the bottom of the sea; a solid, solitary fixture that is unmoved by the changing of the tides or the swells of the storm.   Many passing ships tie themselves to my crown when the storms of life are swirling viciously around them.  I don't mind, it's what I'm there for.

The kite, however, is unlike all the ships that come through needing the temporary stability the anchor provides.  Those ships untie and move on to other ports and destinations once the storms pass.  I don't mind at all.  I am always happy to see the exciting places the ships end up.  The kite however stays tied to the anchor.  The kite wants the anchor to come out of the trench every once in a while and fly to new places and experiences; to share the kites joy at all the cool new things he can see from his view way up high, to weep with, not just for the kite, when storms come and lightning strikes.  This is the brokenness I brought into our relationship.  This is the way my husband has had to accommodate me through the years.  

The very quality that makes me a bastion in a storm, is the same quality that makes me solitary, independent and intractable at times.   

I have written extensively on how Asperger's has affected our marriage.  You can read all about it here http://www.glimpsesofskiff.com/2011/08/so-i-married-aspie.html, and here http://www.glimpsesofskiff.com/2011/08/so-i-married-aspie-part-deux.html, and here http://www.glimpsesofskiff.com/2011/09/so-i-married-aspie-part-3.html, and here http://www.glimpsesofskiff.com/2011/09/so-i-married-as-aspie-part-cuatro.html.  Yes, it is a four parter. Yes, of course, it is wonderful, fantastic and worth every precious moment you'll spend reading it.  You'll laugh, you'll cry, it'll move you ;) (okay blatant self promotion now over;)

I have not written about how independent nature has affected our marriage.  Independent is really too mild a word for it.  Honestly, I don't know how to need someone.  Please don't read that wrong.  I know how to love people, I am a fabulous friend because I will be there with you through thick and thin and I really will love doing it. However, I honestly have no idea how to depend on someone when the storms of life come my way.  In a marriage this is a real problem.  Marriage is two lives becoming one, two hearts becoming intertwined, two people mutually dependent on each other, supporting and loving one another through it all.  What happens when one person has no idea how to accept support from the other? It is devastating to the relationship.

 I learned early on in my life to be strong.  I learned early on how to carry others and be responsible.  I learned early on how to continue to stand through turmoil.  I never learned how to lean on someone else, I never learned to just trust.  These are the lessons I am struggling to learn now.  This is my newest journey.  This anchor needs to learn how to fly a little.

In My Weakness

In January of this year, my good friend Dee and I were on the phone discussing our plans and "feelings" about what was to come in this coming year of 2013.  I remember telling her that I had an intuition that this was going to be a hard year for me.  I felt strongly that this was the year that God was going to do some deep heart work on me.  Dee and I have been friends for seventeen years (yikes! I'm getting old, Dee of course has not aged a day;) She is one of the few people on this planet who really KNOWS me.  She has walked through the most joyful moments of my life with me.  Conversely she has walked through the darkest, most difficult times too.  When I made my announcement about heart work she wisely said "Girl, I'm gonna be praying for you!"  Like I said, she KNOWS me.

Fast forward to March 2013. You may have noticed a lack of blogging on my part lately.  In truth, it has been intentional.  That journey of heart work has begun, serious changes are happening.  Normally, this would have me on blog overload but the truth is I have felt unable to talk about this stuff.  It is dark and painful and just plain hard.  I finally feel able to talk about some of the changes I have made.  I am opening up because I don't think I am the only woman out there who struggles with these things.  I refuse to let shame bury my light.  Shame, anger and depression thrive in darkness, they force you into silence and isolation.  That isolation creates more shame, anger and depression.  It is a vicious, ugly cycle.  It is a cycle I will not allow in my life.  

Most people read my blog and feel like I have been very open about my life.  I have written about our early marriage troubles, past abuse, unforgiveness, even about my suicide attempt as a teenager. All of that is the absolute truth but I have only written in the past tense, refusing to acknowledge the cumulative effect all that crap was having on my daily, every day life.  I said to myself, "I've dealt with all of this.  It is done and over.  I've forgiven.  I'm strong.  I'm a Christian and all I need to get through is Jesus." along with many other platitudes to convince myself that I didn't need any help.  The truth is, I am not alright.  The truth is I am too prideful to be seen as weak and vulnerable.  The truth is, I need help.

This all became abundantly clear when I realized I was terrified (not just a bit uncomfortable or a little scared but for real terrified) to lose weight.  Through out all my life, I would lose to a certain point but as soon as people began noticing me, I would gain all I had lost and more back.  I never realized what I was doing.  It was unconscious.  However the Dr started pushing for me to have weight loss surgery and I was running out of excuses for lasting change in my life.  Finally it hit me:  I was freaking scared.  REALLY scared.  So I put on my big girl panties and admitted I needed help.  I put myself in therapy.  For real, cost a lot of money, therapy.  The kind I inwardly scoffed at as only needed by weak people, people who couldn't just buck up and deal with life.

I admit it, I am weak.  I cannot handle everything on my own anymore.  I need help.  II Corinthians 12:9 says: And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. It is my prayer that as I walk out this year people will begin to see Christ strong in me, instead of me pretending to be strong on my own.
I know there are other women out there like me, who have been blown around and beaten down by the storms of life.  I know there are others who are too ashamed, prideful or frightened to ask for help.   Friends, I encourage you that you are not alone.  You need not walk alone any longer.  Reach out to someone trustworthy, someone who will pray with you and stand with you, someone who will encourage you to get the help you need.  Someone who will encourage you to become weak so that Christ may be strong in you.  That is my prayer.

What this means for this blog, I'm not sure yet.  I will write as I am able and as I am freed to do so.  I know this goes against everything they tell you to do to have a successful blog.  However, at this point in my life I feel it is more important that I be genuine than that I am successful.  I love each of you very much and will continue to pray God's best in your lives.  I look forward with great anticipation to see what God has in store for Skiffdom and am equally excited to share it with you as it unfolds.  Lots of love-Kristine

My Bro Joe

I come from a family of ten; eight kids, two parents and more pets throughout the years than I can count or even remember.  These pets include but are not limited to a cat named Heidi (who it turned out was a male cat, even though the vet swore he was a she), an exploding hamster, a tragically fated chick that thought I was its mother (until our dog got a hankering for chicken wings and ate it),  a guinea pig that was best friends with the transgender cat, a shopping dog (for real she would slip her collar and go wandering around all the shops downtown.  The shop owners more than once brought her back to us once she maxed out the credit card;)....the list goes on and on.  Yeah, we had a really full and crazy life.

I am the oldest of all the siblings, this of course meant I had all kinds of fun bossing the rest of the underlings (ummm I mean sweet, wonderful siblings of mine) around.  I was the twisted sister who wrote and directed plays.  My brothers and sisters were the unwilling stars of said productions.  They were masterpieces, I'm sure you'll be hearing of one on Broadway soon (didn't I mention I made them all sing too?;)  My idea of a good time, was pretending to be their teacher and forcing them to do actual school work. I had tons of fun and they were better educated for my effort (patting myself on the back).  Then, there was the time my sister, Jennifer, cracked her head open on our door jam while dancing.  My siblings love to tell how I "comforted" them by reading them everything Encyclopedia Britannica had to say about head injuries.  What can I say, I was just awesome that way.

My parents were more than a bit crunchy when I was little.  They made their own tofu, we did the all natural thing way before it was popular, we were home schooled for a while and my mom birthed the first five of us at home ( yeah majorly granola, loveyoumeanit Mom and Dad).  I especially remember the birth of my brother Joe because I was there for it.  

Joe was a beautiful baby, with great big brown eyes and straight, blond hair.  From birth on, Joe had all the ladies wrapped around his little finger;)  Joe is the fourth child in our little family of eight but he is the oldest boy.  That's right, my parents were smart and had all three girls straight off the bat.  Joe made an excellent living doll for us;)  However, Joe wasn't having any of that! He put in an order for some more brothers,ASAP! And boy did he get his wish, four more boys, one by one, entered our world (and I wouldn't trade a single one of them).  

Joe, like the rest of us, is all grown up now.  He has grown into a man of character, faith and integrity   He married his high school sweetheart, Stephanie, who is the perfect wife for him.  I love her to death :)  They have three beautiful babies of their own: Elijah, Abigail and Asher.  Today my brother Joe is graduating from the MD State Police Academy.  I am so very proud of him for his accomplishment but I am more proud of him and Stephanie for their journey to get here.  It wasn't easy and they both made big sacrifices, and that is only the part that I know.  I am sure there is more that I don't know about.  Yet, they held on to the dream, their faith and each other and made it through. 

I can't be there in person to hug them and wish them the very best in this next phase of their lives, so I am doing the next best thing. Congratulations Joe and Stephanie!!!  

My Fundraising Policy

  I feel it coming in my bones, the same way arthritic joints feel the coming of a storm, and I start to prepare myself.  Once it hits, it hits hard and hangs around for almost a month.  But I am strong, it has not defeated me yet.  I anchor fast my checkbook, tether my debit card to my wallet and wait.  Then it hits with a fury, five boys come barreling into the house waving big packets, feverishly talking over each other, their  darting eyes glassy ,as if they have been drugged. It is here, Fundraiser Season.

I refuse to participate in school /extra curricular fundraisers.   I know this makes me a terrible, uninvolved parent but as a good friend of mine says, sorry I have a policy on this.  Today I will give you the top five reasons that I will not sell crap or solicit pledges or jump through flaming hoops.

1) I have five children.  That means all my friends and relatives are getting hit up not once, not twice, not three or four times, but FIVE times.  This crosses the line from manipulative fundraising to racketeering.  I'm not willing to risk a conviction under RICO.

2) After every fundraiser pep rally, I have to deprogram my children, like they were in a cult.  They come home looking like they are on crack, raving about the free TV, or new bike, or million dollars they are going to "win" if they only sell $12,000 dollars worth of crap or get 150 pledges or jump rope 6,500 times.  After all, these are totally achievable goals for your average eight year old.  Ri-ight.

3) I did not send my children to school to be turned into Flim-Flam-Men.  I will support my boys in whatever legit career they so choose.  Hitting up friends and relatives for money are the skills needed to be jobless and living in mom's basement, playing video games, at 25 years old.  Since I don't have a basement, my boys are in need of a different skills set.

4) I will not be manipulated or guilt-ed into anything.  These fundraising programs work by manipulating children with unachievable prizes and loud rhetoric and/or guilting parents into spending time and money they don't necessarily have.   Let's be honest here, it isn't the kids that are doing most of the "work" involved in raising this support.  They can't sell at school and it is dangerous for them to go door to door.  This is just a way to rope mom or dad into becoming a biannual sales rep without having to pay them.

5) I do believe in supporting things that I feel are important.  If you want my support just ask me and
I will write you a check.  This saves us all a whole lot of frustration.

A Glimpse of Red

Today, as I was cleaning the dishes, I had a brief moment of pure joy.  I could claim it was the selfless act of scrubbing dirty, nasty dishes for my sweet, adoring family that caused my smile but alas I am not a good enough liar to feign such piety.  Nope, it was one insignificant thing that made me smile, I caught a glimpse of red through the bubbles as I scrubbed the offending crock pot clean. I lifted my hands out of the wash water and took a moment to admire my sudsy hands tipped with shiny, fire brick red nails.

 I am the lone woman surviving in this house of 6 males.....actually 8 males, if you count the cats (and believe me you SHOULD count those little spawns of Satan, errr I mean cute, furry bundles of joy).   Finding a place in our lives for me to experience the pure, simple joys of being a woman is difficult to say the least but that does not change the fact: I love being female.  I love all the wonderful things that go along with being female.  I love silk and lace and perfume  and lotion, and make-up and high heels and jewelry and  fire brick red painted finger and toe nails.  I love laughing until tears fall down my face at insignificant things with my girlfriends.   I love crying unashamedly in moves and TV shows.  I even like the soothing ritual of applying wrinkle cream (I loathe the need for wrinkle cream but that ,my dears, is fodder for another blog).  I got down right giddy when my floral print phone cover came in the mail. I mean who wouldn't get excited over that, especially when they saw the center of each flower was blinged out?!?  Okay, my husband and boys thought me a little crazy for being so happy about it but hey what do they know?   I dare say few, if any men, would get excited to have half their eyebrows pulled out of their face using hot wax and little cloth strips the way that I do.  Yup, I love being female.  It is fabulous.
My normal everyday life consist of  video game explosions, super hero movies, debates on which super hero is best ( it's Batman hands down;), Lego's, Mine Craft, zombies, guy food, more guy food, and less than well targeted toilets.  It is nice every once in a while to catch a glimpse of fire brick red fingernails.

A Glimpse of a S.O.U.S.

You may have noticed my lack of blogging over the past month.  I could claim that it was due to the busyness of the holiday season.  We had a fabulous holiday filled with all kinds of exciting things.  Our friends Rich and Cassandra visited us from Singapore/ China (they are missionaries in China but are based in Singapore), my parents visited us the week of Thanksgiving from Virginia (it is always nice to be surrounded by home during the Thanksgiving),  our son Sam celebrated his 11th birthday (time is flying by so fast), and we celebrated a wonderful, sweet Christmas and New Years with our children.  However, none of these are the reason for my unusual quietness.  This blog gives honest glimpses into our life.  I do not allow myself the luxury of pretense and facade, while still trying to maintain a sense of humor  because of this I am not able to write while in the thick of certain situations.  Some things require time and distance to be able to write about them with any objectivity at all.  Today I am breaking my silence even though we are still in the middle of it all.  This is the next step in my journey of transparency: writing (and posting what I write) while in the midst of the craziness and uncertainty.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!!  This pretty much sums up  December 2012 and so far January 2013.   The past month and a half has been fraught with unexpected, and quite frankly strange, emergencies.   At the beginning of December, I was sent to the ER for an over night stay due to what appeared to be heart problems.  Blessedly it was not my heart, but we found this out after an over night stay in the hospital and multiple tests and procedures over the next week.  Two weeks later, while my husband was cooking breakfast, a pan of oil caught fire.  It was not a minor kitchen fire (it melted the hood above our stove).  My husband received third degree burns on his right hand while bravely putting the fire out.  He is a computer programmer; so his work uses his right hand extensively, meaning he has been out of work for two weeks .  He is healing well and we are blessed that he has a job with good benefits so we are doing fine.  He will ,however, be out of work for another two weeks to convalesce and heal.  Finally, what we thought was my heart was in actuality a flare up of a disorder I have.  This flare up has concerned the Dr enough that he is going to scope and biopsy my esophagus once again on Monday.  This condition can build up scar tissue in the esophagus ,as well as, make the tissue very susceptible to tearing.  For this reason, I am on a very limited diet (think soup or soup like ) until he gets the numbers from my biopsy back.   This is the sum of of the past month for us.......wow it is even more crazy to read it all written down.
Throughout all of these situations we have been blessed by many people praying and caring for us.  A friend brought me to and stayed with me while I was in the hospital, another friend  baked my husband his favorite pie to cheer him up, my husband's co-workers sent him a cookie filled get well basket ( if you know my husband you know he LOVES cookies.  Actually, one of the first disagreements in our marriage revolved around the fact I made cookies to bring to church but did not make him his own dozen.  I now always make sure he has his own half dozen, compromise is everything in marriage ;), and family who have been checking in on us on a regular basis.  I have been overwhelmed with gratitude for each and everyone of you.
Every situation life brings our way can teach us or grow us in some way.  Funnily enough, what I have learned throughout the past month or so is that we are very, very blessed.  Even in the midst of chaos, we have a stability in our lives and in our marriage that was not there for many years.  Sometimes it takes a S.O.U.S. (Situations of Unusual Size ;) to see how far God has brought you.   Through God's grace, we have come a long way, baby!!  That being said, I am ready for a little bit or boring normalcy (well as normal and boring as Skiffdom ever gets;)
I pray each of you had a wonderful holiday season, prayerfully a little less eventful than ours;) Please know I am thankful to each of you who has stood with us through all the craziness.  Lots of love-Kristine