It’s interesting how innocuous words can conjure up extreme emotions in folks one day and be just run of the mill words the next.  Undecided is one of those words right now.  A little under two weeks from now we will all proudly wear our “I Voted” stickers because everyone wants their voice/vote to be heard in this Presidential election.  The candidates are tirelessly working to reach every one of those undecided voters.   I see on the internet everyday the most contentious posts on Facebook.  I guess it gets heated every four years, but never before have we all had such quick and easy access to places we can blast our opinions.  One of the things that makes America truly great is our freedom to speak our minds without fear of retaliation by the government.  I am not suggesting that freedom should not be exercised, but I am suggesting people consider using slightly more tact and consideration.  A friend of mine on Facebook actually went so far as to tell everyone who was not voting for Romney to go ahead and de-friend him.  I think another thing that makes this country really great is our desire to be inclusive and non-judgmental of someone based on their religion, race, gender…  I would think political affiliation would fall in there as well.

This election I find myself in a different emotional and spiritual place than before.  I want to know that I am voting for the person God wants me to vote for!  I have spent a lot of time praying for the right answer, asking for a sign, doing my research, talking to friends and family I respect on the issues.  I have even read all those rants on Facebook trying to glean out anything that might be noteworthy.  I have a hunch God would want a person who is driven to help the poor (he does mention them in 2,100 verses of scripture in the Bible!) and I also have a hunch he would want a person with a goal to only use force/war when it is the last option.  What about the death penalty – that sure does seem like it should be left up to God.  I have no question how God feels about abortion.  I would think he is concerned about the Earth he created for us and would prefer a leader who wants to exercise control over its use and abuse.  I have spent time on the websites for both candidates and I have looked at how they spend their personal money (because as we read in Matthew 6:21 – where your treasure is, there will your heart be also).  Are we not called to be our brother’s keeper?  I know there are a lot of legitimate complaints about the rampant misuse of government assistance, but there is also rampant need.  Do we penalize everyone doing the right thing because of those who aren’t?

So, I find myself undecided with not much time left.   There are arguments (in my head at least) to support the platforms on both sides.  I am not worried about fitting in, or doing what my family is doing, or even what will be most profitable for me personally.  More than anything I just want my vote to be pleasing to God.

Today I listened to a video devotional series done by Mike Donehey of the band Tenth Avenue North.  The series is on The Lord’s Prayer and K-Love has been talking about it all week.  I am so glad they have continued to encourage me to go and check it out because it provided a much needed spirtual boost for me today and also brought back a really wonderful memory of my Dad. 

When I was growing up and would tell my Dad that I had trouble sleeping, he would suggest I try saying The Lord’s Prayer slowly, thinking about what each part meant as I closed my eyes in bed.  He told me that the prayer is so deep and meaningful and that falling asleep thinking about it will bring peace and comfort.  I am not sure if my Dad suggested this activity because he himself did it (my guess is he did) but it worked so very well!  I would rarely make it to the end before I was fast asleep – and what a wonderful activity to be engaged in as my mind drifted off and my body surrendered to it’s need for rest.  I intend to pick back up on this practice tonight!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im1BvWSFsIE&feature=bf_prev&list=PLYwAyIr4aZNOzAhZ-2XBARsUR36zPHllw

Last night the boys were out with a skateboarding crew doing some filming.  When filming is involved I know that the stakes are higher because the reward is greater.  It’s one thing to land a really awesome trick when just a couple of guys at the park will see it , it’s quite another to land a big trick when it is being taped and has the potential to end up on the internet or a video!  I respect that, and actually love it when those tricks are filmed because then I get to see them too, but the extra level of danger does cause me to stop and say a prayer that usually goes something like this: Dear Lord, please watch closely over Conner and Chase and all the friends they are with today.  Give them strong legs when landing the ollie over the nine stair or the gap, give them sharp minds as they roll up to the rail, make their reflexes quick when they have to bail on a trick that doesn’t go well, keep their ankles in the right position for the crook, the front feeble and all the other tricks they try.  Please Lord pay special attention to their necks and their heads and their spines  – those things that when injured could change their lives in an instant.  Thank you for the strong, able bodies they have.  Thank you for giving them the ability to do something that brings them so much joy.  Help them use that talent and skill to give glory to you.  Amen.

Sometime in early 2008 a sweet friend of mine mentioned that she and her husband were going to seek out a gestational carrier in order to try to become parents.  As she was telling me the steps they would go through to try to find someone, my thoughts were on another dear friend of ours.  This friend became an amazing parent because someone had been willing to carry his children for him.  Before I knew it I was offering to carry a child (or children) for my friend and her husband.  Initially she laughed, and thanked me, but left it at that.  I remember telling Chris about the conversation at dinner that night and he also laughed a little, telling me that was something he could see me doing, but not saying much more about it.  A couple of months went by and no one brought it up again – until one day she showed up in my office to ask if I had been serious.  I told her it wasn’t the kind of thing you joke about, and on that day we found ourselves starting to journey down a road that would twist and turn but would eventually lead to the birth of two perfect little angels.

As we started down that road we found it marked with legal contracts and life insurance and physiological questionnaires and blood work and medical exams and even a medical procedure.  Once we really got moving we found ourselves making multiple trips to Jacksonville, wearing hormone patches, giving ourselves injections and having conversations about how many embryos was the right number to inject.  The first attempt didn’t work out and that was heartbreaking.  We took a couple of months off and then started everything back up again in January of 2009.

There will never be a Valentine’s Day for the rest of my life that will just be about hearts and flowers and candy again because that was the day that I did a home pregnancy test (several actually) that indicated it had worked!  At the moment when I saw the positive result I felt the deepest joy for someone else that I have ever felt before.  I can’t even describe it.  All the things that my friend had been through in her life with her own medical struggles and all we had been through together to get us to that point disappeared into that tiny blue line.  I sobbed tears of joy like I have never done before and might never do again.  When I called to tell them the news I couldn’t even say anything more than the word positive – but that’s all she needed!

The months that followed required lots of blood work, lots of self injections, lots of ultrasounds and lots of extra sleep – but those little miracles were growing and thriving.  It was a tremendous honor to witness my friends as they fell in love with those little people on the ultrasound screen, to hear my friend as she would talk to my belly in the mornings at work and to sense her compassion and care for me as I helped make this happen for them.  It wasn’t always easy and everyday wasn’t ideal – but this wasn’t a road that had a lot of maps to help lead the way for us.  Sometimes we were on uncharted territory and just had to do our best to make it through.  I respect my friend in ways I don’t any other person I know because of what we went through together.  I watched her be as strong as a person can be on the days that were tough and I watched her manage all the details so I didn’t have to.  I got the attention she likely longed for as I got bigger and I can only imagine how hard that was.  I pray there was never a day that I did something that made that harder than it already was, but I probably did.  What matters though, is on delivery day she was a rock for me and she continues to be a rock for me to this very day.

If there was to be a map created of our delivery day it would contain a lot of u-turns and yields and again – uncharted territory.  At 37 1/2 weeks labor was induced because my blood pressure was all over the place.  I wanted desperately to give birth vaginally.  Throughout the entire pregnancy one of the babies was always flipping.  It seems like every ultrasound would find her in a new position – even up to that very last day she was constantly moving around.  The problem with that on delivery day was of course – where was her head?!  Some random complications from the medications to induce labor combined with those to keep my blood pressure down caused me to have a couple of seizure like episodes and when I came out of one of them I had temporarily lost my vision.  There was not much time to dwell on that though because whatever had just happened had also opened me up and it was time for the girls to be born.  Much of what happened next is literally a blur because of all the voices and the activity and pain and bleeding – but my Dad was there with me on one side and my sweet Chris was on the other.  My friends were standing by in another part of the room waiting to meet their baby girls.  I remember hearing the girls as they cried that first time – it was such a beautiful sound, and then they were gone.

I knew that was the plan, I didn’t have a problem with the plan – but to say the next few days were not full of tears of hormone release and confusion and sadness would be a lie.  I remember lying in the hospital bed staring at the place on the wall where the clock was, just waiting to be able to read it.  My vision was coming back slowly, but I had to have a lot of tests and see doctors that don’t have anything to do with giving birth to babies.  This part of the journey was not going as I planned and I just wanted it to be over.   Selfishly, I wanted to move on and get back to my family and my life but I think this part of the road might be what shaped me the most.

I love this quote by Robert Frost, “two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”  The road I walked down was the one less traveled, and it did indeed make all the difference.  My capacity to love, my perspective, my goals, my priorities, and most importantly my faith have all been affected by this journey.  As I reflect on it now, three years after their birth, I can’t help but get a huge smile on my face and thank God for the roads we are allowed to travel with friends and also for the roads we are privileged to travel just with him.

Recently Chris and I started meeting with financial advisers and decided we really need to try to refinance our home.  Part of that process required us to write a financial hardship letter.  I must admit, it seemed a bit dramatic  to lay out our situation in that way; we are blessed beyond measure and richer than so many people around the world – and yet, this is our story and recreating it for this process brought back a lot of painful memories.

Life was looking good in the fall of 2004 when we purchased our home on the north side of town.  Chris was a senior vice president at the credit union and they were in the midst of converting to a bank which would bring stock options and additional pay.  I was a year into my new career as a law office administrator and felt that this was a great fit for me and showed potential for increase in income as time went along.  We had our boys at a private Christian school in large part because the schools in the district we were living in were not where we wanted them to start their academic lives.  When we came across town to visit some friends we happened upon an open house and we fell in love with the neighborhood and the schools and felt certain we could afford the upgrade.  If nothing in our lives had changed – we would have been exactly right.  However, in January of 2009, amidst the financial recession and bank collapses around the country, Chris lost his job.  I remember naively thinking that the six months severance would be great because he would find a job quickly and then we could put the severance towards something else.  That’s pretty funny to me now.  Not only did we use that up to continue to pay the bills during that time, we had to get unemployment and tap into our retirement money.  Chris didn’t find a job for nine months and when he did, the job paid about a fourth of what he had been making.  About a year later – he lost that job.  We looked around us at people we knew and people on the news and we found some comfort knowing we were not alone, Chris had not done anything wrong to create this situation, and yet those facts didn’t change the truth of our reality and our need to figure out a plan. 

In February of 2009, the month after losing his job at the credit union, Chris decided to take a look at the big picture of his life and consider seriously what he would do if he could start over again.  He enrolled in a nine month, every week night, police academy in a neighboring town.  This meant that for those nine months we wouldn’t see one another except on the weekends!  (For more on that see post called One year ago…) It was so tough on us and was such a test of our resolve and our sanity!  Chris thrived in that environment – he was the class President and received the very prestigious Dale Green award at graduation.  He had found a place where he really could make a difference and now he just needed for someone to hire him!  Unfortunately, there were hiring freezes all over town and it wasn’t until August of 2011 that Chris was hired full-time by the Leon County Sheriff’s office.

So now here we are a little over a year later and we still aren’t back to where we started (hence the need to refinance), but maybe that was God’s whole point in this.  He didn’t want us to be where we were, he wanted us to be better.  He didn’t want us to coast along with no real sympathy or understanding of the stress and fear many of our friends, and certainly many around the country, are dealing with.  Maybe God didn’t like the direction our lives were taking, maybe (as I believe is always the case) he has much bigger things in mind for us!  I keep praying for the ultimate resolve – the one that allows a human to rest in the peace that “God’s got this”.  Honestly, I haven’t found it yet – I want to do the monthly budget and find that we have something left over, I want to buy my boys fun new things and I want to go on vacations more – but those are really just wants.  I truly do have everything I need.  I will continue to pray for that to be enough.  God’s got this!!!