What DOES success look like?

What a crazy world we all live in!  But what a crazy world I have chosen for myself.  Having such a big family is not for the faint of heart.  Lately it has been increasingly overwhelming with a son getting married and having a baby (healthy baby girl, YAY), and my second son struggling so much with harder high school and concurrent enrollment college classes.  My youngest kids keep getting sick, it seems that all the germs are ready to come out and play after so much social distancing and mask wearing last year.  And I have felt frequently overwhelmed and like I can't quite keep my head afloat without some serious help.

I have done a lot of thinking over the last few weeks about what success is.  So often, first world USA thinks of success as 1. a lot of money 2. a lot of nice things 3. a good job (often to help with # 1 and #2) 4. power, prestige, and influence and 5. lots of pleasure in our lives.  We sacrifice our sleep, our family time, our health, and all kinds of other things to achieve those 5 measures of success.  

But on a deeper level, what is success??  At the end of my life, not a single one of those things will really matter, except maybe if I used power and influence to help other people.  What REALLY is success? 

Here are some things I think are a truer, deeper measure of success.  1.  Love  At the end of the day, learning to love others and love yourself is a huge thing.   There are so many ways to learn to love others, but family is definitely one of mine.  So is serving others within my community.  Learning to balance sacrifice with self care is a lifelong skill and journey that is worth taking. 2. Happiness  I'm not talking about pleasure, that's not the same thing.  Happiness is deep, it's permanent, and it doesn't depend on the circumstances you're in.  I can be happy, even in the middle of intensely hard times or frustrating, overwhelming situations if I'm able to keep a perspective about it and remember to treasure and prioritize the most important things in my life. 3. Growth.  Growth comes in a bajillion forms, but the one I'm definitely NOT talking about is my girth. I'm speaking of intelligence and skills.  I'm talking about understanding yourself better. I'm referring to growing closer to the eternal potential you have.  Being able to forgive someone is growth, and that is success.  4. Creation  As children of the master creator (God who created everything) we grow like Him and grow closer to our full potential as we create things.  This can be anything--a great meal, a work of art, or even helping to create happiness in another person by being kind or thoughtful.  

Earlier this year, Simone Biles did one of the most amazing things I've ever seen done.  She withdrew from Olympic competition because her mental and physical health was struggling and she needed to be able to recuperate.  She has lots of signature moves named after her, but in my own mind, this is the most amazing and awe inspiring one of all.  She did a Biles and prioritized REAL success over "fake success".

She put first her growth, her balance of love and sacrifice, her long-term happiness, and set aside her opportunity for prestige and bragging rights.  She allowed others on her team the chance to compete without her, and cheered them on in their success, showing true love and giving them opportunities for growth and success they may not have had otherwise.

Today, I helped one of my sons drop a hard class that he was failing.  I wanted to cry, I felt like I was a failure for not pushing him harder and earlier to stay caught up.  He also seemed ready to cry as we discussed where he is and what needs to happen.  At times, I felt like we were giving up and that I'm not teaching him about perservering.  I worry that he feels like a failure because he has struggled to catch up with this very difficult class, and no matter how hard he works, it seems he can't keep up, and if I had been keeping him on track, he may have been able to do it.  As I discussed with his counselor the options that he has, I realized that I was forgetting about what real success is.  He has learned a lot about himself through this process.  He realizes now that he sacrificed the opportunity for growth in favor of temporary fun.  (Initially, we let him have more control over his time, and he squandered too much of it.  He watched too much youtube, played games on the computer, and spent too much time on distraction and got too far behind in many classes.)  Trying to catch back up, he has sacrificed sleep, mental health, social growth, and fun time, and those were necessary if he was going to actually get his grades and learning back to where it should have been if he had been keeping up and balancing things all along.  But at this point, his growth, balance of love and sacrifice, and his happiness are not worth sacrificing just so he can have one more CE class under his belt.  I wanted him to have the option to graduate high school with an associates degree, like his older brother.  But he is not his older brother.  And that is OK.  We are not all the same human being, and we are not all going to have the same bullet list of skills and accomplishments. So we are going to pull a Biles and pull away from this challenge so that he can do what he needs to do with the other classes and the other areas in his life.

Many times, I am sure people look at what they can see of my life: mom of 6 kids ranged from 18 years to 2 years old, (and now a grandmother to a tiny newborn), with no job (besides part time teaching piano lessons out of my home and tutoring math from home), no fancy cars, no prestige, no extreme wealth, no fancy clothing, and they think along the lines of "she has no idea what she's missed out on" or "I feel bad for her" or "she was brainwashed to be a stay-at-home mom and not have a career" or "why did they have that many kids?" Truly, there are times I question it too.  When I remember the things that are MOST important though, I remember that I have chosen a life that is poised and ready to help me grow in love, happiness, creation, learning and what I consider REAL success.  My children are still lacking in wisdom, and they do choose pleasure over real happiness far too often (as do many teenagers), but at the end of the day, deep down, they know what is real, and what matters most (and so many people do not).

Success.  To learn and truly understand about yourself and to be willing to make sacrifices for others but also for yourself.  To learn from your failures and from your good experiences.  To be able to spend quality time growing in love with the family and dear friends in your life. To have and take time to create, to grow, to find real happiness.  

Feeling all the feelings and being OK with it

This blog originally started as a form of therapy for me, I used it to write my emotions and my struggles and the things I learned as I dealt with the loss of our tiny Gideon back in 2014.   (Happy birthday Gideon!!) I have also found that it is helpful for me to write out my feelings, learning, and growth from other pieces of our lives too. 

Many of you who have followed along in my life and on my blog hear me share my good times and my bad, and sometimes they're the exact same moment--good and bad, heartwrenching and beautiful, growth and stretching that is painful but also strengthening and stimulating.  And I'm swimming through just such a time right now (and truly, sometimes it feels like I'm barely holding my head above water).

My oldest child is 18.  He's graduated high school and got an associates degree and we are so proud of him for working so hard to do so much while he's so young.  But he made some foolish decisions (which he admits, so I'm not just throwing him under the bus) and his girlfriend got pregnant, and we're disappointed that they didn't think logically and carefully about what they were doing.  However, he wants to give this child a home and a family and a life of love, and so does she, so they felt like they needed to get married.  Yes, married (I also had a little bit of shock about that, so if you're reeling, that's OK, it took me a while to process it too.)  They got married last week, and I'm so proud of them both for sacrificing and loving the baby before she's even born.  He's gone to every doctor's appointment with his wife so far, and I'm so glad he's trying to connect and understand all the things.  But I also think this is a whole lot they are trying to take on, and I worry that they're very unprepared. 

I'm sure you can imagine that my emotions are in a serious spin cycle right now.  I have felt like I'm broken as I experience all the highs and lows and topsy turvy emotions that there are to feel. 

I think I've felt all the things, and then wondered if there's something wrong with me for having such conflicting emotions. It's hard to watch my baby grow up. It's hard to watch the two of them work through the consequences of their choices. I'm proud. I'm disappointed. I'm embarrassed. I'm excited. I'm terrified. I'm hopeful. I'm nervous. I'm delighted. I'm hesitant. I'm happy and sad. I want to help them as much as I can without helping them too much.  I want to celebrate with them, but remind them to be responsible.  Some moments I feel totally overwhelmed, and others I feel very calm, and convince myself not to stress at all.  It's been quite a rollercoaster.  I know many parents experience similar rollercoasters as their children grow up.

So last week, besides planning for a wedding, I had the opportunity to go to girls camp with my oldest daughter.  It made for a very crazy week, but the time to just think, ponder, stretch, serve, and enjoy was a huge blessing amongst all the stressing and worrying and planning and preparing that I had been doing.  I don't know how many opportunities will pop up for me to be invited as her leader to girls camp, so I figured I'd better not miss this one.  (Which has its own beautiful lesson about seizing opportunities and making the most of them, which we are both grateful we did, despite a wedding happening at our home 2 days after we got back.)

While I was there, I did a morning yoga class with my daughter.  I am not a yoga"regular", but I have done it a few times before, (my sister first taught my children and I a mini yoga class) and I enjoy the strengthening and stretching, so we decided to go for it.  And my soul needed it.  Our instructor did such a great job of talking us through the emotional and spiritual side of yoga, besides the physical aspects of finding balance.  Push and pull.  Tighten this while relaxing that. Find tension and release it, etc.  Thinking about emotions in balance, I had a HUGE epiphany, which I REALLY needed.  I had been feeling like I was broken, stuck in this bizarre swirl of emotions: immersed in a tornado I couldn't escape.  Taking a few minutes to stretch and ponder, to feel gratitude, to open myself up to all the things I needed to learn from the trees and the grass and the world around me, I realized that I'm not broken and I'm not breaking; I'm growing.  Like a tree in wind, my roots are growing deeper, my limbs stronger.  Did you know that trees and plants actually grow stronger and better because of wind?  When they grew plants and trees in the biosphere, they found that they were too weak from lack of wind. (You can read about it here. The Role of Wind in a Tree's Life)

Trees grow slowly over time, but they have cycles of rapid and slower growth (which is what forms the rings in their trunks, actually.)  As I opened up my heart, I realized I am currently in a period of rapid growth.  So are my son and his new wife.  Growth can be stressful and it is often hard and painful, but growing is what life does. I don't need to feel like all these emotions are breaking me, or like I'm somehow less than my whole self because I'm experiencing so many emotions so often. I just need to keep trying to find my balance, find my push and pull, allow myself to hurt and rejoice all at the same time, to feel skeptical and hopeful and resilient and fragile and overwhelmed but also like I got this with God on my side.  And I'll grow.  And I don't really have control over whether they'll choose to grow or not, but I do hope they'll choose to grow.  Because I know that, for me, feeling like I'm growing feels WAY better than feeling like I'm broken.

Watching my daughter grow and try new things at girls camp was so awesome.  It was hard growth for her because it took her away from her comfort zone (even though I was there, she got pretty homesick.  Covid has not done my children any favors on being comfortable away from their home space.) But she stuck it out, and she ended up having a wonderful experience and feeling that connection with people and nature, finding new skills and hobbies and I'm so glad I got to be there to share it with her.  (On their turns, they each got to fire 4 arrows.  This turn, she was delighted that 4/4 hit the target and one nearly in the center.)

Listening to my son and his bride share their vows was a special experience I'm glad I got to witness. I hadn't shared on social media, because I wasn't prepared to deal with the conflicting emotions I knew I'd experience as friends and family sent me congratulations and also sent me "Wait, what is going on?" type messages.  Realizing that the conflicting emotions are going to be tricky to balance, but are necessary for growth, I'm much more ready to share now.  And if you have questions and want to reach out, go for it. I'll try to share openly and honestly. I am still working on finding my balance, so if I seem overly negative or too positive, know that I'm trying to figure it out, and I'm not there yet.  As always, I'm a work in progress. 

 I won't forget how cute they were feeding each other cake, or grinning at each other as they danced. 
I'm glad that her family has been so welcoming to our son.  I hope she feels welcomed and loved by our family. I am excited to love and "take in" more family members.  Of course I'm nervous for them, but I have learned from every person I have ever loved, and I'm excited to learn from these new people in my life, and hope for growth for all of us.  

So GROW, everybody.  GROW.  If you're having a hard time with anything going on in your life, it's OK to feel all the feelings.  Swirls of emotion help us grow, just like wind helps the trees.  And growing is what we're all here to do anyway. 

The parable of the M&Ms

 

I have this funny way of receiving revelation right in the middle of everyday moments; recognizing things that the Lord wants me to understand--things that should be pretty plain and easy to understand, but maybe I haven't fully grasped them yet.  I had this type of epiphany about how I react to the Lord’s proposed “surprises” or blessings for me when I gave my 19 month old daughter some M&Ms last week.

She’s still at the age where she puts different things in her mouth, especially if they look like food, but she’s also far more wary than she used to be. She’s had enough experience to know some things aren’t very yummy, and have consequences.

So the other day after lunch I gave her some M&Ms.  Only a few to try, maybe 5 or 6 total.  Well, I tried to give her M&Ms but at first she was not going to have anything to do with them.  I’m pretty sure I even told her they were chocolate. But she was very skeptical. They don’t really look like chocolate to someone who doesn’t know. So she tried them—kinda. She put them in and spit them out. They don’t really feel or taste like chocolate right away either. I tried to convince her it was really chocolate and have her keep one in her mouth long enough to figure it out, or to bite down on it and really give it an honest try.  But she just wouldn’t. 

I didn’t want to force feed her the M&M, and the beginnings of my “A-HA! moment” has sprouted; I had begun to recognize my own skepticism in her behavior, so I decided to break one in half and help her see what was really inside.  When she could see the chocolate, she was interested. Once it was broken in half, she willingly popped half in, and once she could taste the chocolate with that first half, then she was happy to eat the other M&Ms.

The Lord has given me some blessings coated in challenges, and I have sometimes reacted much as my daughter did to those M&Ms.  My own thoughts might go something like: “I know this is supposed to be a blessing, but it doesn’t look like a blessing. It doesn't feel or taste or smell like a blessing." If I gave the "blessing" (AKA trial) a half-hearted attempt, I felt like “I tried it”, (and then spit it out or rejected it as no good) when I really hadn’t tried that hard. It does seem like once I bite down and just get to what’s at the heart of it, give it a little time & effort and trust, the true nature of my blessing becomes much more clear. As I go through life's experiences, I am thankfully becoming more accepting of the M&Ms the Lord has to offer me, knowing that He gives good things, even if sometimes I can't quite recognize them at first.