Joy Belongs to Us

We were healthy the entire first week of December. Adalyn and I had just recovered from the stomach bug that wiped us out after Thanksgiving, and we made it all the way until the evening of December 7th before Adalyn came down with a fever.

That first week of December, we put up our Christmas decorations. We had a magically calm cookie decorating experience. We lit our first advent candle, the candle of Hope, and I felt hope that our life could actually be manageable. I sorted through the girls clothes, and our jumbled medicine stash, and eliminated unneeded kitchen items. We couldn’t really pack anything yet, but I did what I could to get rid of anything we didn’t really need. Purging brings me inner peace.

A surprisingly peaceful cookie decorating experience

But the feeling of peace did not last for long. The day we lit the second advent candle, the Peace candle, Nadia was already down with a fever. “It shouldn’t be too bad,” I thought. Adalyn only had a few days of cough and congestion, so I expected something similarly mild.

Instead Nadia’s fever continued, and she lay listlessly in our arms, half asleep. On Wednesday, I was worried enough to call the pediatrician. After Nadia submitted to her examination without any resistance, the doctor said she had pneumonia and a double ear infection. Her fever, heart rate, and breathing rate were all high, and her oxygen levels were low. The doctor had us start her on a high dose of antibiotics and keep a close eye on her. “If she gets any worse, she needs to go to the hospital for oxygen.”

Sad, listless baby

It was appropriate that this was the week of Peace, because I felt anything but peace. I was so anxious I couldn’t think straight. I tried to count simple numbers to figure out her breathing rate, but I could not make sense of them. I kept reminding myself to breathe. My head was pounding from headache and fear. Over the course of one hour, I sent 20 emails back and forth with my mom and doctor-sister trying to figure out what to do. I have never been so worried about one of my children before, as I listened to her struggle to breathe, as I watched her oxygenation numbers, as she lay listlessly across my chest.

At the hospital the next morning, the children’s waiting area was overflowing with sick children: babies crying, children coughing, some sounding even worse than Nadia. Dozens of parents and grandparents watched us curiously, ever the spectacle, but we were all in this together, worried and waiting.

The children's injection room at the hospital

We were happy to return home after a few hours, but we almost headed straight back when her oxygen levels dropped dangerously low that afternoon. What relief to see the difference albuterol made! After an exhausting morning, carrying Nadia all around the hospital, the rest of the day and night were still stressful, monitoring her breathing, trying to decide if she needed to go back to the hospital. Late that night her oxygen level dropped disturbingly low, and we were already out the door to the hospital when her breathing improved dramatically.

She finally got an inhaler like her sisters

We lost sleep over worry about her breathing, over waking up frequently to give her medicine during the night, and over the effects of the medicine – Nadia was so hyped up she was running around crazy at midnight. Instead of napping, she has been climbing out of her crib. But finally she was breathing. Her fever dropped, she started eating some, she played and danced and climbed on the washing machine to explore the medicine cabinet and grabbed a cleaver in the kitchen. Back to the normal worries about keeping her alive.

Yesterday we started the week of Joy. I struggle with joy more than the others. I am grateful for the promise of hope, I easily recognize the need for peace in the midst of my panic, but joy feels like a pressure. I should feel joy.

Joy belongs to those other people – the ones with the matching Christmas trees and prettily wrapped presents and smiling children. The ones who like the happy carols instead of the wistful ones, who run around doing fun Christmas activities, who are full of optimism.

Not the ones ready to sweep all the clutter straight into the trash, or the ones who whisper-yell at their children, “Go. To. SLEEP. Don’t you dare wake up your little sister!!” with angry eyes in the dark. Not the ones still scrambling to get presents ordered, or the ones with lights burned out two-thirds of the Christmas tree. Joy doesn’t belong to us.

Last week I thought, “You know, this December has still been better than last year.” Which just goes to shows how terrible the last one was. This time last year, as I sat covered by the blackness of winter and sickness and depression, I wrote about waiting for the light. I certainly wasn't feeling the joy; I was just hoping to survive a few more weeks.

Adalyn Lucia leading our St. Lucia Day procession last week. Lucia means "bringer of light."

And I remembered again: we aren’t the ones who have to make the joy happen. Anymore than we are ones creating peace or hope. A star bore witness to generations of hope finally fulfilled. Peace was not a silent night and an anglo-saxon baby who didn’t cry; He himself is our peace. The angel didn’t say, “Hey shepherds, get your joy on!” No, he came to tell them that joy had already arrived - joy in the most ordinary form of a newborn baby.

Next week is the week of Love. And for you and for me it may be a week of whining and snapping and arguments and comparison and imperfection. We can be pretty bad at loving one another. What relief to realize Christmas is not about our love, it is how great the love the Father has lavished upon us.

Sometimes we feel the joy and warmth and love. Sometimes we wait for it. At Christmastime, as nights reach their longest, the darkness seems to be winning, and some years the darkness steals straight into our hearts. But there is a Light that shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

We are the ones who wait. Expectantly, imperfectly, empty.

Joy belongs to us.


He did not wait till the world was ready,
til men and nation were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady
and prisoners cried out for release...

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

~ Madeleine L'Engle, Miracle on 10th Street

Sick

Once upon a time I thought that sickness meant being sick. You feel gross, you take medicine, you press through when you have to and get extra sleep when you can, you get better. Then I had children. And my children got sick all the time. And I got sick all the time too. And I realized that sickness effects everything.

Sickness is exhaustion. It is baby waking up every 10 minutes because she is too miserable to sleep. It is baby “sleeping” on top of you, elbow in your face, knees in your side, moving restlessly. It is middle of the night throw-ups: wiping faces, changing pajamas, stripping sheets, settling a pale child back into bed. It is daddy putting on new sheets while mama deals with crying child. It is the washing machine going in the middle of the night. It is lying in bed with children climbing all over you because you are too tired to get up in the morning.

Sickness is nursing and nursing and nursing. It is wishing you had stopped nursing by now. It is being so glad you are still nursing, when your baby or toddler won’t drink anything else and is looking increasingly less pudgy than a few days ago. It is nursing your almost 2 year old in the middle of the night, even though you finally got her night-weaned months ago, because she is so miserable and just needs comfort.

Sickness is an everlasting fever chart. It is peering confusedly at the medicine record, bleary eyed in the middle of the night. It is feeling that telltale hot forehead and knowing it is starting all over again. It is finally throwing out the fever chart and then reluctantly starting a new one the next day. It is owning 6 thermometers because somehow they never seem to work.

Sickness is trying to keep track of who is supposed to have medicine. It is managing to get your children properly medicated but realizing you forgot to take your own medicines, again, even though you really aren’t supposed to miss it.

Sickness is vitamin C and elderberry, probiotics and apple cider vinegar and essential oils and hand cleaner...and wondering if they will do any good against germs coughed directly into your mouth. Sickness is toddler who won’t leave your lap coughing into your food at every meal, and wiping her nose on your shirt, and drinking from everyone else’s water bottles. It is children who remember to cover their mouths...sometimes...and who use tissue to wipe their noses...when you remind them.

Sickness is coming down with your own sickness when already worn down from nights of comforting and days of carrying around a fussy, clingy baby. It is planning your day around possible naptimes. It is not having enough voice to read home school. It is dragging yourself out of bed to make chicken soup. It is children watching too much TV. It is everything you own exploded all over the floor.

Sickness is slowly getting better – itching to clean that mess which is driving you crazy, catching up on home school reading with a scratchy throat, dealing with the dire laundry situation. It is arms so tired, hanging up the clothes. It is dizziness. It is the decision whether to press on or to lie down and rest.

Sickness is trying to listen to your body, when it says you need to rest or you might fall over and die. But sometimes your body says, “What you really need is coffee. Lots of coffee and sugar and carbs.” And sometimes it says, “I hate you. Why are you so mean to me? How would you like some double pneumonia,” and you don’t need that kind of crap right now.

Sickness is wondering why there isn’t more public recognition of the monumental milestone of “learning to throw up in a bowl,” because it may be second only to “sleeping through the night.” It is when everyone has been throwing up enough you start to hear phantom throw-up sounds.

Sickness is toast and crackers and electrolyte popcicles. It is rejecting any food or drink. It is ravenous hunger before you are allowed to eat. It is excitement over the first real food – an egg or that blessed first peanut butter sandwich.

Sickness is asthma flare-ups and extra inhalers and that barky, croupy cough going on and on.

Sickness is lying in bed looking out the window at the waning sun, darkness falling over your room like a weight, like depression. It is the knowledge that you have spent almost all day in bed, and bed feels like a prison. It is summoning energy to get children to bed amidst the evening fever rise, feeling stale and dirty but too weak to shower, looking ahead to another sleepless night.

Sickness is the disappointment of canceled plans. Missing a rare party or your child’s performance or a date with a friend. It is staying home with sick children during the holidays. It is having to tell your child that she won’t be able to go to the party she has been talking about all week. It is your toddler insistently bringing you her shoes wondering why she never gets to go outside anymore.

Sickness is confinement. It is days without stepping outside the confines of the apartment. It is well-children going stir crazy, because you can’t even send them outside to play. It is well-children missing school because you don’t want to take the sick children out in the cold and pollution.

Sickness is anxiety. It is looking helplessly at your listless child who has hardly sat up in two days. It is listening to your baby’s rapid heart rate and labored breathing. It is the dread of having to go back to the local hospital. It is self-prescribing. It is finally going to the hospital...waiting in lines and lines with sick people who touch your child’s face. It is the 30 second check up and antibiotics you hope are actually warranted. It is the fear that it could be something serious. It is searching Google, even though it will try to convince you it is cancer or TB or the plague.

Sickness is kids who act like jerks, even when they aren’t the sick ones. It is being an even bigger jerk than your children, when you are supposed to be thirty years more mature. It is taking a while to even feel bad about being a jerk because the whole world is stupid and deserves your full wrath. It is parents snapping at each other, even though we know we are both just tired, so tired and not feeling well.

It is hoping your kids forget the jerk-mom and remember the one who put a cool washcloth on a hot forehead. It is cups of juice with bendy straws and crackers to nibble. It is making meals you are too sick to eat. It is realizing your baby would sleep if only you stood rocking her for the next 10 hours. It is little heads drooped on big shoulders, little hands wound through hair. It is finally seeing the shine return to their eyes.

If, of course, you aren’t too sick to notice.

So This is What Burnout Looks Like

“We are doing better than last year,” I told our member care specialist.

“Better than double pneumonia?” she asked skeptically, “I’m not sure that’s saying much.”

She had a point.

Last spring when I was recovering from pneumonia I thought, “You know, I’m really doing much better...Of course, I haven’t been outside yet. And I get out of breath if I talk much. And I have to rest every 10 minutes. And I’m still spending most of the day in bed... Hmm, I may be worse than I thought.”

That’s how this fall has been for us. Compared to last year, it’s not too bad. We haven’t been to the hospital yet! We aren’t sick all the time, but when friends ask if we are healthy, I find myself saying, “Yeah, I think we’re healthy. I mean, Kevin and I just had a weird virus that made all our muscles super sore. And Juliana threw up the other day but she’s okay now. And Adalyn’s allergies are causing her asthma to act up. But yeah, we’re pretty healthy. Nadia and I just have a little cold.”

We are functioning much better than last year. I am able to cook meals and clean the house, at least when I’m not sick. Most of the time I have had enough voice for home schooling. Kevin has continual headaches, but he’s still able to teach and handle what has to be done. But we haven’t been able get far beyond survival.

We toss around the word burnout a lot, but when I started reading about real burnout, I felt like I was reading a description of our lives. Frequent illness, frequent headaches, continuous fatigue, anxiety, inability to concentrate, feeling overwhelmed by needs, frustration and anger, emotional exhaustion, compassion fatigue, drop in productivity, questioning our calling… I could go on, but you get the idea. Check, check, and check.

I knew we were pretty burned out last year, but that was overshadowed by the relentless sickness and the darkness of depression. We were so far down in the pit of survival mode it was hard to see beyond keeping everyone alive for one more day.

This fall we’ve been able to see a little more clearly. We realize that some of the roles we have been in are not the best for us. In recent years I have often felt sidelined, unable to participate outside the home in the ways I would like. I am becoming more aware of roles I would like step into, but we have to get beyond survival before I can add anything else.

I have learned some important things about myself in the past year, like how I have been pushing against being an introvert and highly sensitive person, damaging and devaluing myself in the process. I have realized I have ridiculous self-expectations that will never be met – and don’t even need to be. I have realized that depression and anxiety will always be part of the equation, in lesser or greater proportion, and that prioritizing mental health is not an option.

For Kevin, team leading has been stressful, dealing with difficult people who may or may not get mad and hang up mid-conversation. He gets emails from the school at 10pm saying, “We need all of your lesson plans for the semester in two days!” (real example). He negotiates with the school, “I’m sorry but that’s impossible. We have never taught these classes before and have to make up the whole curriculum, but we’ll get you as much as possible by the end of the weekend.” Then he communicates the unwelcome news to the other foreign teachers, “Hope you don’t have any weekend plans...”

Kevin has also been the mostly-healthy one for the past couple of years. Since the beginning of my pregnancy with Nadia, it’s just been one mess of sickness and Kevin has been picking up the slack. He is tired. He has had a continuous headache for a year or more.

I knew this had been a hard season of life for me, but I am recognizing that the effects are longer reaching than I thought. My depression has definitely improved since last year, and I’d like to think I’m “over that” now, but the reality is I am not at all ready to stop taking medication. In fact, it would be a pretty terrible idea.  And I am tired of being sick so much, for no real apparent reason (except maybe stress or exhaustion or pollution or carrying around little germ magnets…). The kids are not even surprised to see me in bed because “mama’s not feeling good” is such a normal thing. That's not what I want them to remember of me.

We realize that we are yelling at the kids. Honestly, we’ll probably always yell sometimes because cute little people can be extremely aggravating. But we are frustrated and angry too much. We are not handling their emotional needs well. Things I used to enjoy doing with the kids, like cooking or doing anything crafty, just stress me out now.  This is not how we want our family to be.

And recently I realized, it doesn’t have to be this way. What if we could be healthy? Physically, mentally, emotionally. Not “okay” in the sense of “hopefully won’t fall apart in the next few months,” but actually well. Of course there will always be issues, but there have been times when we were really okay. We weren’t carefully measuring out our inner resources or questioning our ability to be here.

We planned to spend some time in the US next fall, but several wise friends kindly asked, “If you already aren't doing well, isn’t next summer a long time to wait?” If there is hope for more than survival, what are we waiting around for?  We talked it over together and with other friends and recognized that maybe our desire to stick to The Plan had more to do with pride and being in control than actual necessity.  Apparently it's not a good idea to stick it out until you are physically unable to anymore.

So we will be leaving this January to spend a year in the US. This fall has given us some time to think through what we need to return and do well here. We need to rest. We need to get in better physical health. We need to dig deep and deal with some long-term issues. We need to think through our roles and figure out how to find a better fit – doing things that are enlivening not just draining. Taking roles that we actually have a talent and passion for, not just ones that stress us out. We need to build into our family.

It is a hard decision, and I have been surprisingly sad about it. After all, we are used to leaving friends and “home” for a year or more. We say goodbyes all the time. And it’s not forever – we plan to come back. But we aren’t used to leaving China for a year. We have an amazing community – people we have known for 6 years - and we want to be a part of what is going on here. I feel sad that we aren’t doing well, and really haven’t been for quite some time. I feel sad that we have to completely uproot our lives and move to another country just to get the help and healing we need!

We will need to move our of our apartment, the only one the kids have really known as home, and find somewhere to store our things. We haven’t moved in over four years and two kids, so we’ve accumulated a good bit of stuff since then. I do love a good opportunity to purge, but I hate moving and transition.  I will miss our neighbors and our bright blue cabinets and the way the light fills our laundry porch.

But I also feel relief, knowing that we don’t have to keep pushing and keep pushing and hope we make it. I feel hope that we could actually be healthy and well. I feel hope for our future in China, that we could be effective instead of just getting by. And I feel hope for our future as people, which is important.

When I came across this song recently, I immediately loved it and felt like it was a theme for our current life. I have since listened to it enough that Nadia joins enthusiastically with, “I tust, I tust yooooooooou.”

Letting go of every single dream
I lay each one down at Your feet
Every moment of my wandering
Never changes what You see
I try to win this war
I confess, my hands are weary, I need Your rest
Mighty warrior, king of the fight
No matter what I face You're by my side

When You don't move the mountains
I'm needing You to move
When You don't part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don't give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You

- Trust in You, Lauren Daigle

Even If

When we returned home in August, our thick winter boots were still by the door, a silent reminder of the last year. I am very easily visually stressed, so I work hard to keep things clean and organized – as much as possible when living with a bunch of people who don’t value clean and organized. But this past year, the chaos in our home reflected the upheaval in our lives.

I got sick at the end of April, when the weather was still cool. By the time I was getting out again nearly a month later, the air was warm but my children were still wearing winter clothes. I hadn’t had the energy to find their short sleeve shirts. When the girls and I left China the first of June, I was barely recovered enough to pack. Putting away winter boots – or picking up the random toys still on the kitchen counter – wasn’t a high priority. A plate of sunflower seeds sitting on the counter, a stack of books piled in the corner of the room, a half eaten package of crackers left on the nightstand – forgotten three months earlier - made our house look rapidly deserted.

We were so comparatively healthy this summer that I was a little nervous about coming back. We had been sick every single day of May, our last month in China, but when we returned to the US we stopped getting sick. I think we had two colds the entire summer. Only two colds in 3 months! As opposed to 1 flu, 1 pneumonia, 2 stomach ailments, 1 cold, 3 fever/viruses, and a head gash in the month of May alone. Would we get sick again as soon as we stepped foot into our apartment?

I am happy to report that since we returned almost 4 weeks ago, we have had had just a couple of colds and some stomach troubles – plus of course ridiculous allergies. We are doing pretty well. I unpacked our American treasures, filling our freezer with coffee and tortillas and our cabinet with dried beans and Mac and Cheese. I organized our medicine cabinet to accommodate all the new medicines we acquired over the summer. I sorted through the girls clothes. I washed at least some of our super dirty windows. And yes, I put away the winter boots.

There is nothing like a horribly unproductive year to make normal life feel wildly productive. I cook dinner (at least sometimes)! I have been able to keep up with laundry. I get outside multiple times a week and have gotten in some semi-regular exercise. I have had enough voice to read Juliana’s home school books aloud. All of these are things that were incredibly difficult for much of the last year.

And yet, I still wonder...even though Nadia is FINALLY (mostly) sleeping, I am always so tired. Life still often seems overwhelming. I get so easily behind. I feel so limited in what I can do outside the home what with all the home school and children, or after 8pm what with all the missing brain cells. Is this all normal, just a part of this stage of life? Will I ever not feel tired and overwhelmed?  Will I always have to work so hard to be happy? Will my children ever stop screaming?

I’d like to think we could just leave the last year behind but past experiences cling to us and shape us for better and worse. This summer a friend said, “This year has been pretty traumatic for you.” It seems so dramatic, but that was exactly how I was feeling. It did feel like trauma, not just from all the sickness, but from the anxiety and depression and helplessness surrounding it.

When I feel a hot forehead...when I lie in bed with a welcome-back-to-China stomach ailment...when I have those weird, dark thoughts...when Adalyn is freaking out and Nadia is wailing - the emotions of the last year come rushing back. This feels so familiar. What if it is all starting again? How will we get through that again?

Believe me, I really want to move on and not relive the last year. We are doing what is in our power to say healthy. Buying a better air purifier, eating more vegetables, making sure exercise happens, taking all the vitamins. We’ve got probiotics and elderberry and essential oils. I am hyper-vigilant to the first sign of sickness.

I am trying to stay self-aware and recognize warning signs of depression, anxiety, and burn out. I am trying to make sure those healthy, preventive habits make it into my daily routine. I grab moments of quiet whenever I can, sitting in the sun on the laundry porch. I have cut out most caffeine 😢😢 but still drink plenty of decaf coffee because it brings out the joy in life. I try to get enough sleep, if there ever can be enough.

But I’ve lived in Asia long enough to be somewhat fatalistic. We do what we can, but there is so much we can’t control. We could do all the right things and still get sick all the time because whatever we like to believe, illness – physical or mental – sometimes happens anyway. Our minds and bodies are much too complex to break down to a simple formula.

We might stay healthy or we might get sick. Happiness may come easily or I may still struggle with the weight of depression (I’m gonna say neither my genes nor my temperament are doing me any favors in that regard). The last year or two was kind of terrible. But we made it through. We learned and grew. In the midst of affliction, I deeply experienced the consolation of God. We made it through - not untouched, but not worsened either. We may look a little worse – or at least older - on the outside, but inside we are deeper, truer versions of ourselves.

When I pin my hopes on things being better, I feel anxiety. What if it isn't better? I could say, “It will be better! Be positive!” But my pessimistic self isn’t so easily persuaded. So I lay aside the pep talk and honestly ask, “What if it doesn’t get better? What if we get sick? What if my depression hangs around?”

If that happens, we will make it through. We will learn and grow. We will experience the love and grace of God. For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in happiness and in depression, wherever the country or calling or season of life – He's in this with us to the very end.

I know You're able and I know You can
Save through the fire with Your mighty hand
But even if You don't
My hope is You alone

(Mercy Me: Even If)

Staying Alive

Each semester we fill out a self-reflection form on how different areas of life are going - daily responsibilities, family, interactions with the culture.  The end of the form asks you to complete the sentence, “What I feel best about this semester is…” I said, “…that we are all still alive.”

Honestly, in years like this one staying alive has really felt like a success.

I tend to have high expectations of myself. When I met with some counselors in Beijing last month, they asked me to write a list of my self-expectations as a mom, wife, person living in China. It was an easy homework assignment for me. I quickly typed up a list of very specific things I “should do” as a mom. I stopped when I reached 50 and realized this could go on or a while.

In general, if someone else is doing something healthful, useful, or admirable, I feel like I should be doing it as well. All The Things. Even contradictory things, like eating more meat and less meat. Being more organized and more go-with-the-flow. Having a spotless house and not being bothered by mess. It was helpful to think through these expectations - many of them were good ideas but completely unrealistic.

You know a pretty effective means for lowering your self-expectations? Being really sick and not able to do anything. Even as I have slowly recovered, I’ve had to focus much more on top priorities. Make sure everyone eats something. Make sure everyone has bathed in the memorable past and is wearing some manner of clothing. Dispense medicine.

The main goal has been to keep everyone alive and manage the current sicknesses. Will another day of peanut butter sandwiches and mismatched clothes reach that goal? Yes, it will.

This is what is called “survival mode,” and we have been living here so long I have almost lost sight of normal life. The kind of life where it doesn’t take a month to finally get around to taking out weather appropriate clothing. The kind of life where you don’t have to rest between each activity. The kind of life where your friends don’t greet you with cries of, “You’re alive!”

When I am healthy I can convince myself that maybe my ridiculous expectations are really possible. At least I could do better than I’m doing now. Fix more meals with the right vegetables. Do more creative activities in home school. Make an effort to interact more in Chinese.

When I am sick, when we are all constantly sick, these expectations are not even in sight line. We ate something commonly believed to be food? Excellent. We finally managed a math lesson. Good job. I went outside for a few minutes. Progress!

Of course I don’t want to stay in this sick place. It has been exhausting and relentless and ridiculous. I hardly recognize Nadia when she is healthy because her personality is so different. She runs around giggling instead of clinging to me crying all the time. Last week I looked at a picture of myself from a few years ago and my first thought was, “Wow, I looked so healthy.”

The other day when I was driving down the road I had this strange feeling of being in a foreign country. Apparently there is more to China than the view from my bedroom window. I sat in the heat under the full green trees and wondered what happened to spring. Weren’t the first buds just coming out? I think we were wearing jackets before I got sick, and now we are sweating in front of fans.

It seems like we were just getting into the rhythm of the semester. We had that one great month of health! Now suddenly we are leaving in two weeks and the whole semester seems lost. (But then, it wasn’t that great a semester anyway.)

I realize that many people live in this place. It feels disorienting to me because I don’t usually spend all my time going to hospitals and practicing breathing and trying to stay alive. Despite the constant sickness, we aren’t worried about piles of medical bills or if we will lose insurance. I don’t know how to get out of this sickness cycle, but I am pretty sure that at some point we will get better. We will get back to my vision of “normal life.” This is the privilege of the healthy.

The other day a friend was talking about the sticker charts she was using for her kids. It sounded like a great idea. I want to be organized! I want to do at least a few creative or clever things worthy of Pinterest. Heck, even worthy of a Pinterest fail. I want practically everything in life to work better than it does right now. I want sticker charts!!

But right now sticker charts are completely out of reach. There is no way I will remember to put stickers on charts. I am just trying to remember to brush teeth and get everyone to take their medicines.

The good thing was, as I contemplated sticker charts I wasn’t thinking, “I should do sticker charts. I am such a disorganized mom and my kids are out of control because I don’t do sticker charts,” Instead I was thinking, “I should not even attempt to do sticker charts right now. Sticker charts are not part of the survival plan.” Yay for lowered expectations! Long live mediocrity!

But honestly, I think it is less about mediocrity and more about realizing what success looks like in this season of life. Right now success does not look like lots of from-scratch meals and a spotless house and sticker charts. I want those things, but they just don’t fit with my priorities right now. Right now success looks like everyone eating something, taking probiotics, and staying alive.

Today we all ate, we all wore clothes, and we all stayed alive!  I guess it was a great day after all.

Good Gifts in Strange Packaging

When I texted a friend to let her know I was at the hospital, she asked “Did you bring someone to run up and down or you?” Clearly she has some experience with Chinese hospitals. I managed to avoid the hospital through one week in bed with flu, but when I started getting worse and having more trouble breathing, I knew I needed to break down and get a chest x-ray.

Fortunately, Kevin and a student were with me to help with the running up and down as well as translation. The process went like this:

1. Wait in long line to register

2. Be examined by doctor

3. Wait in line to pay for bloodwork and x-ray

4. Get blood drawn

5. Wait for x-ray

6. Get bloodwork results

7. Wait for x-ray results

8. Consult with doctor

9. Wait in line to pay for CT

10. Wait for CT

11. Wait for CT results

12. Consult with doctor

13. Wait to pay for medicine

14. Get medicine

These were actually all on the first floor, but there was a lot of back and forth and waiting in line. Fortunately the hospital wasn’t too crowded so we were in and out in three hours. The doctor seemed thorough and even told the others to wait outside the exam room. (When I saw another doctor a few days later, the small exam room was crowded with 17 people waiting to jump in and grab their turn. This is more normal.) She was willing to give me oral antibiotics to take home, instead of spending hours getting IVs or worse, having to stay in the hospital.

I was very happy to go home, but I wasn’t so happy about the diagnosis: pneumonia in both lungs. I was really hoping to avoid that. I had already been sick in bed with the flu for more than a week. I thought I was finally getting better.

The week in bed with the flu wasn’t so bad. I felt terrible, but being in bed wasn’t so bad.  Toward the end of the week, I opened my devotional book and read, “Consider what great things He has done for you.” Strangely enough, I immediately knew He was talking about the flu.

The day before I started feeling sick, I hosted a small group of women gathered here for a retreat put together by Velvet Ashes for women serving all over the world.  The main passage for this retreat was 1 Kings 19, when God provided for Elijah in the wilderness and then spoke to him through a gentle whisper.

As I read through the passage, I could relate Elijah’s feeling. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said as he laid down in exhaustion, “Take my life.” I haven’t been at the point of wanting to die, but many times this year I have felt Done. It has been such a long season of sickness, terrible sleep, more sickness, depression, anxiety, burnout. Sometimes I have just had enough.

But what I especially noticed was how God responded to Elijah.  He didn’t say, “Stop being dramatic. Get over yourself. Get on with being useful - you’re a big time prophet after all.” God just fed him. He provided food and water right where he was lying. Then he let him rest again and fed him again. He never showed impatience. He said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”

Isn’t it reassuring? God didn’t say, “I will never give you more than you can handle, so if you can’t handle this you are obviously need more faith.” He said, this is more than you can handle, so let me give you strength. After Elijah rested and ate - and rested and ate again - he had the strength to travel for 40 days to a place where God spoke to him.

As we contemplated this passage through the retreat, I knew that God was telling me it was okay to rest and allow him to care for me. It was okay that the journey is too much for me. I wasn’t quite sure what this would look like in practical life, but I certainly wasn’t picturing more sickness, after this year of relentless sickness.

Nevertheless, at the end of the first week in bed, when I read “Consider what great things He has done for you,” I knew God was saying the sickness was a great thing he had done for me. “In faithfulness he has afflicted you.” What a strange idea. But when else would I have the chance to stay in bed and stare at the wall, to disengage from life? I wasn’t able to take care of others; I had to allow them to take care of me. God was going to great lengths to give me rest!

The time was not easy on my family. Kevin was exhausted from taking care of the girls and doing what I normally do - on top of all he normally does. The girls were hardly showing their best sides. Okay actually they were being jerks. The house was a wreck. I was itching to get things back under control, under my control. I have some control issues.

“Thanks God,” I thought. “I’m glad I learned that lesson and am getting better.”

But I didn’t get better. Instead I got pneumonia. That wasn’t what I had pictured either.  “I’m grateful for the rest,” I said in my little talk with God, “But don’t you think this is a little overkill?? Also p.s. this is just making me weaker and more tired.”

Another week in bed, wondering if I was actually getting better. Wondering how we were going to get through this. Worrying the antibiotics wouldn’t really help. Worrying about Adalyn’s stomach problems and Nadia’s fever. Worrying about the horrible air as a huge dust storm blew through.  Getting up with Nadia every few hours of the night, as babies are no respecters of sickness or sleep. Almost forgetting what normal life felt like, the kind of normal that allows me to be out of bed for more than ten minutes.

I finished re-watching Downton Abbey. I read some recommendations from my book club. I stared at the wall. I spent too much time mindlessly scrolling Facebook. And God continued to speak to me.

Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it…

In the day when I cried out, You answered me, and made me bold with strength in my soul…

Did I not say that if you believed you would see the glory of God?...

Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows…

For he knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust…

I want to bring this lesson to a close. I want to be strong again. I want to stop being the needy one. Not just these two weeks, but these two years. Can it be my turn to have it all together now, to be the bold and daring and super-awesome-wish-I-was-her one instead of the one always going on about needing grace?

I want this season of sickness to be over. I truly do. But I have realized I don’t have to wait for things to get better to say, “Yay, he finally healed us. See I knew God was good.”

At the end of this long year of sickness, I realize God is not waiting to show his goodness through finally making us well. He is already showing his goodness through the sickness. He shows me that he cares for me even when I can’t do anything useful. He shows me I don’t have to be in control. He shows me that other people love me and want to help. He shows me he is faithful and strong and present. 

I am still sick in bed. He is still good.

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say...

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Matt Redman - Never Once

Grace in Retrospect

When I chose Grace as my “One Word” for 2015, I wasn’t sure how I would really go about growing in grace. I started reading a couple of grace-related books because how else do you go about learning something? I knew I needed more than head knowledge, but I didn’t know I would be learning about grace through forced-acceptance.

My year in review would look something like this.
- 8 months of pregnancy
- 1 violent stomach bug and 1 less violent, longer-lasting mysterious stomach ailment
- 4 months of mostly constant “morning sickness”
- 1 month of severe allergies
- 7 weeks of bad colds
- Lot of general pregnancy ailments like difficulty moving, digesting, sleeping, or thinking clearly

I spent a lot of time inside because I was sick or because it hurt to climb to the fifth floor or because I couldn’t go out without a mask and a large box of tissues.  I spent a lot of time on the couch because I was sick or because I didn’t want to throw up or because I felt like I really might die of tiredness.

If we actually had food to eat and nobody got buried under a pile of laundry or toys, that was probably a successful day. There were five students I saw on a relatively regular basis, and that was about the extent of my campus interactions. I taught Juliana as often as I had voice to do it. It was a year of great limits.

I spent a good deal of time feeling frustrated - not everyone has such a hard time with pregnancy, why me? I felt guilty for not doing more, for neglecting my kids and not spending time with students. I felt discouraged about feeling so bad all the time. I fought against the limits.

And then, eventually, I accepted them. I still got frustrated and discouraged (and did I mention irritable?). But I realized that actually, this was what I needed.

It’s impossible to accept grace when you still think you can keep it all together. Working hard to be strong, pushing through, thinking positive - that’s what you’re supposed to do as long as you possibly can. But sometimes, it doesn’t work. However hard you try to be strong, you still get sick. Pushing through means getting sicker. And pithy motivational sayings make you want to punch someone.

In the end, I learned about grace because I had to. It wasn’t an intellectual pursuit. I didn’t finish those books. I didn’t read through the Bible or even read through one book of the Bible. Instead I read the same passages, the same verses over and over again. I listened to the same songs over and over. I learned the same things over and over, and each time the truth sank in a little deeper.

When I think about what I accomplished - or mainly didn’t accomplish, it looks like a dormant year. I was a tree in winter: silent, stripped, waiting. But I think I will look back on this year as an important one. Not only because I grew a child, but also because I grew. In the deep, quiet places that cannot be reached in the busyness of accomplishment and self-reliance.

It hasn’t been my favorite year. I can’t say I want to continue in this period of sickness and pregnancy and limitation. But looking back, I am grateful. It has been a year of grace.

I haven’t yet settled on my One Word for the new year. It will be a year of newbornhood - of long nights and daily growth and constant neededness. It will be a year of potty training and the start of another three year old, God save us all. It will be a year of learning to read and changes at Chinese school and inexorbable growth. It will be long and full and exhausting and pass so quickly.

So I know my idea for the new year...something about seasons or slowing down and living the moment, about investing in what is right in front of me. But I haven’t yet decided on my One Word. But it’s only January. I’ve still got time.

[Linking up with Velvet Ashes: One Word]

It should have been simple, but then a hospital got involved

By Ruth (sorry - this is really long)

I was looking forward to getting into a normal schedule, but even though it's the first full week of classes, the "normalcy" part hasn't quite kicked in. To begin with, I missed my first three classes the week and spent half of Monday and Tuesday at the hospital. Don't worry - I'm okay. In the end, I was able to get some antibiotics to clear up an infection and everything seems to be returning to normal. It just took five tests and way too much familiarity with the local hospital to get there…

Day One

I was feeling bad on Sunday, so we asked a student helper (June) to go with us to see a doctor. Unfortunately, there are no doctors in the hospital on Sunday, so we had to wait for Monday morning. Monday morning is a very busy time at the hospital, and this day was extra busy because of all the parents bringing in their children to get tested for melamine. Hundreds of parents and children were stretched in a long line outside the hospital door (I'd estimate at least 300). The doctor we needed to see was on the same hallway as were all these parents were trying to go. The hall was so crowded we couldn't get through and had to find another door. Two nurses stood on chairs above the crowd yelling information through loudspeakers, but they were having little success establishing any sort of order.

We pushed our way into the small doctor's office, a 12x12 ft room that held 19 people. All of them crowded around the doctor's desk as one of the patients shared their medical problems. I thought about all the stringent privacy acts in American medical care. That's not so much a concern here. Kevin, June and I pushed our way back out into the hallway to wait our turn. We could breathe a little easier out there. When we were called back into the room, only about 8 people remained. I sat down on a small wooden stool as June explained my symptoms to the doctor. It probably should have been a little embarrassing to have all those people learning personal information about me, but for some reason it wasn't. Several people were sitting waiting on the examining table, and the doctor made them leave so he could examine me. That was nice of him. He said I should do the ever popular "pee in a cup" test, so we headed downstairs.

First stop, the pay station. Second stop, the table where a nurse handed out tiny, flimsy plastic cups slightly larger than a tablespoon. Third, down the hall to the bathroom, a squatty-potty which had not been cleaned in quite a while. There was no little metal door to put the cup through, like in America. Instead, you carry your little cup back across the hospital to the nurses station. A little awkward, except that I wasn't the only one wandering down the hallway pee-cup in hand. We had to wait 40 minutes for the nurses to do the test. Rather than standing around by the nurses window where little kids were doing their pee tests right there on the floor, June suggested that we walk to a nearby park. It was a relief to get outside of the hospital into the fresher air. By the time we got to the park it was time to turn around and head back to the hospital. We went back to the doctor to show the results and he said, “Nothing looks wrong so we will have to do other tests.” Actually, he must have said some other things since he talked for several minutes, but that was the part of the communication that came through translation. The rest of the time he may have been talking about how odd the foreigners looked or what he planned to eat for dinner or sharing some vital piece of information about my health. Who knows. He wrote a prescription for some kind of tea that will “clear out your system,” so to speak. I took it home, drank two glasses of the bitter tea, and waited for the system clearing to begin.

Day Two

With my system adequately cleared and myself feeling worse than before, we headed off for the hospital once again. I had spent the last day worrying a bit because the doctor said he wanted to check my appendix. While I didn’t appear to be having appendicitis-like symptoms, I was afraid it would end up being something bad. The last thing I wanted was for some Chinese doctor to start cutting me open. Our last experience of that kind is not really one we’d like to repeat.

Let me describe for you our progression around the hospital (which again was crowded with a slightly smaller crowd -- around 200 -- of slightly better organized parents waiting to have their children tested). Up to the second floor doctor’s office, down to the first floor payment window, over to the nurses window, back to the nurses window, up to the second floor testing room, across to the other side of the hospital, back down to the payment window, across the street to buy TP (I’ll explain in a minute), back up to the testing room, down to the nurses window, back up to another testing room, down to the payment room, back up to the first testing room, back over to the second testing room, back to the doctor’s room, down to the pharmacy, over to the payment window, back to the pharmacy and finally – out the door. For some reason, Chinese hospitals always seem to require this back and forth zigzagging puzzle.

So when we went to the first testing room where they did some kind of ct-scan but different thing, they told us to go buy a roll of TP and then come back. This made me nervous and confused. What the heck was about to happen? This is the part where we walked across the street, and when we came back, we waited for a while in the dim hallway. They often don’t turn on hallway lights in public buildings to save on energy costs. A doctor walked by with his face masked pulled down to his chin so he could enjoy a cigarette. There was something incongruous about that picture.

They finally called me into the testing room, along with June, my trusty interpreter. They unrolled some of the toilet paper to put down on the examining table and then had me lay down. So I guess they just didn’t want the trouble of keeping the table sanitary? Might as well just have everyone bring their own covering. Right. I won’t describe the whole process to you. Let’s just say it was…invasive. Extremely awkward both in essence and due to the fact that my poor student was standing by. But at the same time, it was hilarious. Though I was not enjoying myself at all at the time, I knew already that it would make a great story. Too bad I can’t tell you all the gory details. It’s much funnier that way.

Anyway, moving on, we went back out and waited for a while, then went to have this other test done. This was an ultrasound to check my kidneys. Eight or ten people were shoved up against the exam room door trying to push their way to the front. We pushed our way right in with them and got the test done. We took all the various results back to the doctor and he said a bunch of stuff out of which we gathered, “It is appendicitis, but not serious.” What? What the heck does that mean. He didn’t want to cut me up though, which is good, he just gave us a prescription for some antibiotic. Pretty much what I had been seeking in the first place, the day before. We got the medicine and gladly left.

When I got back I talked to my doctor sister who laughed at the “mild appendicitis” diagnosis saying, “There is no such thing.” We concluded that none of my symptoms seem like appendicitis or colitis (which was the other option they gave) or anything imminently threatening. So all those tests and hours later, I was pretty much back at the same spot where I started – except with antibiotics. I took the antibiotics. And now I am almost completely better. That wasn’t too hard. At least, it shouldn’t have been.