When You're Yearning For Your Yes

Seattle has a gluten free, vegan bakery called The Flying Apron.  I call it my World of Yes.  Living on a restricted diet means I have to scrutinize menus and ask lots of detailed questions before I can eat something at a restaurant.  The Flying Apron doesn’t use anything that will make me sick, so anything they offer is a yes.  That is a super delightful place to be.

When I went to college, a lot of girls were focused on getting married.  I’d always wanted to get married, but I was awkward around guys and my desire to travel took precedence at the time.  Being in lots of weddings (have you seen the movie “29 Dresses”?) didn’t bother me.  Time passed though.  I had a few relationships, lived in China, paid off school debt, and even got a Masters degree. One of those relationships got very close to marriage.  Weddings weren’t as easy after that. 

Similarly, I was one of those girls who grew up playing with dolls and babysitting.  I liked kids and saw myself being a mom someday, but had never had the internal need for it to happen right away.  I was content to hold a baby and then pass him back to his parents.  A few years ago, I flew out to Washington DC to visit a dear friend with a newborn.  I spent many hours holding her son and absolutely fell in love.  I had turned a corner.  I felt ready to be a mother and knew I’d be sad if it never happened.  Even when I traveled to Uganda, instead of the usual “Auntie”, a couple of the school girls started calling me “Mama”.  My 20-something self would have rejected that name, but my 30-something self savored the sound.  More than that, I received it as hope.  My heart wanted to mother those girls, to nurture what God created in them.  Whether I ever had a natural child or adopted, I knew I was meant to be “Mama”.

Comparison is a slippery slope when your heart knows what it wants.  I never stopped being happy for people who were getting married or having kids. I could separate what God was doing in my life from the paths others were on.  I was grateful and wouldn’t have traded lives or anything.  I just didn’t know if the desires of my heart would ever be answered or if I would eventually reconcile myself to what felt like compromises. 

I showed up to celebrate with beloved friends, but I stopped lining up to catch the bouquet.  Baby showers were kind of weird sometimes.   I always tried to sit by that one other single girl in the room who didn’t want to talk about sore breasts.    I was trying to find the balance between celebrating the yeses in other people’s lives and accepting that those things were “no’s” or “waits” in my own.  I’d get upset with God sometimes, thinking that there was something wrong with me.  One night, I read a Facebook birth announcement of a friend who’d named her child one of my favorite names.  It stung.  I wept bitterly, on my knees, and repeated over and over, “God, please let me be a mama.  Please.”  The tears turned into prayers for myself and a close friend in a similar stage of life.  I texted her: “You and I are going to be mamas someday.  I believe it.”  She wrote back, noting God’s timing with my text.  She had just accepted another baby shower invite and her heart was feeling the ache.

In the last year, a world of yes has opened up in my life.  I don’t know why.  I didn’t suddenly become this amazing, marry-able person that I hadn’t been before.  God just gave me Jeff.  Then, we decided to be open to having a family whenever.  A very short time later, I found out I was pregnant.  It’s so very sweet and good sometimes that I can hardly process it all.  It’s not that my life was bad and now it’s good.  It’s that the deepest, most sacred yearnings are being answered.  Compromise is not any part of the equation.  If anything, I’m getting far more and far better than I asked for.

I want to celebrate.  I want to fully feel this joy and talk about it with others.  But also, I haven’t traveled far from that Brooke who had the no’s in her reality.  I haven’t forgotten those feelings.  People I love  have lost babies.  Or, they are waiting month by month, hoping to be pregnant.  Or, they are sick to death of blind dates and just want to connect with that one person who’ll choose them forever.  No one has to compare themselves to anyone else, but all these feelings are real. 

So, today, I want to say to all who love me:  please join me in celebrating my miraculous yeses.  Please share joy with me, thank God with me....if you can.  I acknowledge that some days, some seasons, you just don’t want to go to a parade.  Parades suck if your heart is hurting.  If it’s more nurturing to your soul to not participate in what’s going on with me, I want you to do that.  I love you and know you love me too.  To those who went before me, this is what was going on with me when I didn’t stand up for your bouquet toss.  There is a season for everything under heaven and I stand with each of you in hope of all the yeses God is bringing to pass.

Losing Control

A zookeeper trapped in a cage of screeching monkeys flinging poo at each other. 

That’s the best way I can describe how I felt during yesterday’s Reading lesson.  The third grade classes have a system called Walk to Read, where our students go to the class that best fits their reading needs.  I teach the kids who are just below grade level ability.  A lot of them don’t like to read and have inventive avoidance tactics including (but not limited to):  wandering, interrupting, arguing, excuses, and hyperactive shenanigans. 

Yesterday afternoon, I had my Reading class for the second time that day.  It was the last half hour of school.  This is when the disruptive behaviors from earlier in the morning morphed into what I call Crazytown.   I was not in control, the lesson was going nowhere, and I flipped out.  Sitting in our Reading Corner rocking chair with the kids on the floor in front of me, I leaned forward for more intense eye contact.  They were going to listen and behave, darn it.  This position put pressure on my ever-expanding pregnant tummy and my sweet son began to protest with thumping kicks on my bladder.  Not fun.   I thought, “Knock it off!  I do not need you to kick me right now!”  Note:  it’s a good sign that you need to step back and calm down when you find yourself snapping at your unborn child.

I went home feeling irritable and defeated.  I want to be a life changer; to teach in such a way that kids are magnetized to the content and don’t even consider misbehaving.  With some of these kids, it seems like nothing I do has any effect on their learning or behavior. 

As I cooked dinner, I listened to a Joyce Meyer podcast.  She’s not one for cushy sympathy, which would have been nice at the time, but her words were potent.   We can be at total peace in any situation because God is in control.  Our job is to pray and let Him work.  That’s it.

So, this morning, I prayed.  Nothing wordy or profound, just an honest acknowledgement of God’s wisdom and an invitation for Him to take over.  Just before the reading kids came in, I felt His nudge to talk to the main offenders proactively.  The word on my heart was “leadership.”  While the others read at their seats, we met in the Reading Corner. 

“Are we in trouble?”  Carlos wanted to know.

“Yep!  We’re the blurters!” Emilia grinned as if she’d just won a prize.

“I promise I won’t interrupt today, Mrs. Arkills!” Juan blurted, then slapped a hand over his mouth.  The others giggled.  I took a deep breath.

“You’re here because you’re leaders,” I said, “Leaders are powerful.  They move others forward.  I see that in every one of you.”

They went quiet.

“Tell me what qualities a good leader should have.”

The kids were thoughtful.  They brainstormed a list and I recorded their ideas.  In their eyes, a leader says important things, helps others know what to do, participates, and is doing what they’re supposed to be doing.  I had each student choose one of those qualities as a goal for the day and write it on a Post-It.  At the bottom, they drew a number line of zero to three, which we would use to self-assess at the end of class.  I reminded the kids that change is tough and even progressing from a one to a two today would be a positive step.

I’ve never seen such a miraculous transformation.  All that hyperactivity and rudeness from yesterday was beautifully channeled towards showing others what to do.  As the kids listened to our story CD, Leslie and Carlos gently nudged their peers to stay on the correct page.  Later, I was leading a small group while everyone else did seat work.  Marcelino finished quickly and then walked from student to student, showing confused kids what to do.  I couldn’t believe my eyes.  My thoughts were a continuous cycle of “Thank You, God….Thank You, God…..Thank You, God.” 

When reading class was over, my little group reconvened and discussed what happened. 

“Did you see how all the other kids followed your lead?” I asked.  “You are powerful and the whole class felt different today because of your hard work!”

Carlos and Marcelino both pointed out ways they hadn’t perfectly executed their goals.  They were kind of hard on themselves.  I told Carlos a specific way I’d noticed him communicating respectfully with another student and told him how proud I was.  He smiled and turned bright red.   This was the very same Carlos who gets sent back to his homeroom teacher nearly every day for disrespectful behavior. 

I know that every Reading class from here on may not feel as miraculous as this.  But, what if it did?  This could be my whole new approach to life's challenges.  God really, truly knows what to do.  The part that especially blows me away is how God’s way is so uplifting.  I have tried and tried to punish these kids.  Sadly, I hadn’t considered that they didn’t need to stop being so strong, but they needed to steer their stubborn, unyielding natures in a different direction.  Only God could have done something so amazing, and with such grace.

As I’ve been typing this, little boy inside has been having another one of his kick fests.  Keep kicking, dear one.  I’m at peace.  Mama’s learning how to pray.