August has been a powerful month for me. Andrew and Audrey turned 1 on August 6, and we celebrated with red smash cakes that left their high chairs looking like a scene from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It was all in good fun. Aside from cakes and birthday parties and presents, it was a true blessing to me to celebrate their lives and to celebrate the love that we’ve all four developed for each other as a family.

As a parent, it is my job to teach Andrew and Audrey the things they need to know. But they also teach me things all the time. Andrew has this way about him where he works really hard at learning something. Right now he is working on learning how to walk. He will stand and look at you, and then carefully take a few steps before losing his balance and careening into your lap. He almost always then stands back up with a big smile and has a clapping celebration for himself. He is so proud of those few steps he took and he doesn’t let the fall at the end get to him. A couple of months ago, a new job with more responsibility came open at work. I thought about applying for it, but I was filled with fear and doubt. I thought and thought about it and doubted myself that I had enough experience to do it. But the more I kept thinking about it, I realized that I was letting fear be a factor in my decision. Throughout my life, I have refused to bow to fear. This would be no exception. I applied, I waited, and I was granted an interview. I learned that two other much more experienced, slightly older men from our team had also applied. I went through another round of doubt and fear. And then I decided that I was tossing doubt and fear out the window. I was going to go for it with everything I had to give, and I was probably going to fail, but I would learn something about myself in the process. Last week I flew to St. Louis to interview with 7 different people, and when I walked out of the last one, I thought, “WOW, who was THAT girl?” I had no idea whether they had loved or hated me as a candidate, but I found that I loved the effort I had made. I had never been so open, so driven, and so real in a job interview before. It was an empowering day, and I learned a lesson about what I’m capable of when I put my mind to it. Ultimately, I did not get the job due to my lack of experience. What I did get was a whole new realization about myself and where I want to go with my career. So instead of wallowing in rejection, I’m having a clapping celebration for myself and the things I learned as a result of putting myself out there and really owning it.

On a completely different topic, when we were on vacation in July, I learned about the drowning death of a 3 year old boy. His mother and I had a mutual friend on Facebook. His mother began posting updates about his death publicly, and they showed up on my feed. I began to think about her and pray for her a lot. She has the most incredible writing talent and she has written some of the most beautiful, sad, amazing things about her love for her child, her family, and her faith. She wrote about how she felt in any given moment. Her ability to express herself so truly and so publicly has changed my life. I’ve begun to hug my kids tighter and more often, to take the time to sit down and play with them instead of loading the dishwasher. I’ve begun to think about how happy I am to have them in my life, especially in the moments where they scream and cry and I’m frustrated. I’ve begun to think of their birthday as not just another task to do to plan a party, but a true celebration of their life, a year lived healthy and happy and together. I’ve begun to realize that if she can lose her child and turn to God for strength, that surely I can build a stronger faith within myself.

As most of you know, I’m a very determined person. When I was 20, a good friend of mine died in a tragic way. I went to his funeral and looked into his parents’ eyes and I decided that I couldn’t find a way to believe in any God who would allow such pain on this earth. I turned away from religion with a fierce determination. As part of that determination, I looked for every flaw that exists within the church, within any Christian I knew, to help support my case. And, of course, because no church and no one person is perfect, I found plenty of flaws. I spent most of my 20’s feeling disappointed by people claiming to be Christians, sometimes I was downright angry over their seeming hypocrisy. I continued along this fault-finding path, noticing Christians being judgmental, hypocritical, downright nasty, and unethical. I believed that you can be a good person without a God in your life. I still believe that. But, during that time period, I reached my own low point in life and I decided to give up my struggle against religion. It was a conscious decision. My husband walked into my life the next day. That was five years ago, and it is almost as if love has multiplied exponentially in my life ever since.
While I made a conscious decision to turn my face towards God, it has not been an easy decision. I do not have a religious background to fall back on and I find myself, even now, uncomfortable with some of the aspects of Christian faith. None of it comes smoothly or easily to me. It is hard work, during which I often feel awkward. Which brings me back to the grieving mother. When we came home from our vacation and went to church, I wrote out a prayer request for her family and submitted it. I have never done that before. I decided to sing the hymns in church, hoping her dead son was up there somewhere listening. For the first time, I cast away my insecurity about how truly awfully I sing. It didn’t matter, because I wasn’t singing for my own self. While I have been taking steps for the past five years to attend church, to reach out to others, to read about religion and the Bible, to ask questions, and to even get baptized, I have struggled to really feel faith deep down inside. I have struggled with doubt and with questions. All of the sudden, a complete stranger has shown me faith greater than I’ve been able to reach on my own. If that isn’t God at work, I don’t know what is.

This brings me to Audrey’s lesson. When I watch Audrey playing with her toys, she picks up these small pieces and she turns them over and over in her hand, really studying them. She looks at all the pieces of them and really takes it all in. Some of the small toys she discards as she crawls away. Others, she likes what she sees and she keeps with her as she moves through her world. I’ve begun to see others in that way. Everyone on this earth is imperfect and they (and I) sometimes do things that set bad examples. I want to work harder at taking my time to inspect each person and to find the pieces that really mean something good. I want to carry those pieces with me as I move through my own world, instead of discarding an entire religion because of the flaws of a few imperfect humans or an imperfect church.

In early August I began running again. I’m now about 30 pounds overweight, and so running is a fair bit of work for me, but it is slowly getting easier. I keep reminding myself of Andrew’s lesson, to keep at it with hard work and celebrate the successes. I’m able to run 3 miles now without stopping. I look forward to sticking with it this fall, because if Andrew can stick with his hard work, then his mom can too. The other day, I hopped on the treadmill at the gym and cranked up the speed to my usual running pace. I got about 2 minutes in when my zip-up sports bra came unzipped rather suddenly and my “girls” came blasting out with violent force. Thankfully, I was wearing a tank top, but it was a bit awkward as I tried to thrust my purse in front of me and get downstairs to the womens’ room to put myself back together while laughing to myself rather maniacally.

Our summer has officially ended and we are all back to work and day care. It’s been a beautiful summer of family time. My parents will soon return from their adventures in Alaska and we look forward to seeing them as they stop here on their way back to Florida. Fall will soon be upon us with the joy of cooler weather, Texas fire pits around the pool, pumpkin patches with the kids, and general fun. I can’t wait!