Monthly Archives: June 2012

Jun26

Thirty, Flirty, and Fertile (Part II)

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As I stated in Part I of this series, when people tell me that age doesn’t matter, I respond with “tell that to my uterus.”

My uterus and I have had quite a few problems in our relationship as of late. In truth, my uterus is pretty frustrated with me.

The argument she has with me all the time sounds like this: ”Kate, what am I good for if I don’t house a little baby for nine months? I’ve been sitting down here for over thirty years with nothing to do! I need a job, Kate! Go out there! Find yourself a man! Get married and get these eggs fertilized.”

I feel sheepish and guilty every time my uterus and I talk. Because she’s right. I do need to get “out there.” But it’s more complicated than it seems. I try to tell her that, and she says, “Why didn’t you go out with all those guys who liked you ten years ago? Why were you so picky?”

“I don’t know, Uterus. Life only makes sense in the rear view mirror.” That’s what I always say. Or maybe that’s a country song. Either way, it’s true.

According to the social norms, my uterus and I have exactly three years, eight months, and eight days to get ourselves pregnant.

That is the day that I turn forty. The day that my eggs shrivel up and die. Forever.

If they do by some monumental miracle of God get fertilized after that day, my babies will look like a cross between Jay Leno and Steven Tyler.

At least that’s what the people around me and society have told me.

I joke about my uterus and about roller skating parties, but the truth is, my ticking biological clock is a serious matter. If I can’t sleep at night, I am often thinking about the fact that I am getting older and might never do all the things I dream of doing, especially having a family.

Lately I am realizing how much this is culture induced, though, and that if we didn’t have such a thing as the label of age, I wouldn’t be so scared. Think of the countless references to turning forty that plant fear in all of us. Forty seems to be the marker in which we need to figure out whether our lives are meaningful or not in our culture. My friend who is a midwife in Portland says that half of her clients are in their forties. From the way our culture talks, you would never think that was the truth.

Often when I date someone, I will start out the relationship lightly, but then my fear kicks in. I try desperately not to be desperate. If I am not careful, I end up wearing my biological clock on my sleeve. I all but stand up on the table during a date and do an interpretive dance of the old DC Talk song “Time is Ticking Away” complete with my arms moving to the rhythm like a clock.

I am realizing that this is one of the biggest fears I have dealt with in the last decade. I have let it run my life sometimes, and I am tired of it. If I wasn’t so fearful of this age thing, if I were not so aware of the social label of age, I might be able to date someone without them feeling unnecessary amounts of pressure, without them inevitably taking on some of my own fear. I could date them for a good while so that we are sure about the decision and wouldn’t rush into anything simply because of how many years I’ve lived. It is something I need to work hard to overcome.

The only way that I can possibly get over this fear is to trust God. If God wants me to have a family, I will have a family. He has no time constraints. Nothing is too difficult for him. If I don’t have a family, it will be very hard for me to understand, as it is something that I believe God has promised to me. But I will be okay. I can choose to be a mother in other ways if that is what the Lord has for me.

In Ecclesiasties 3:10-11 Solomon gives us these words.

“I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. “

Let’s look at this verse a little closer. You read the first part -”I have seen the burden God has laid on man”- and you wonder. . .what is this mysterious burden that God has laid on men? To have to work to provide food and shelter for your family? The evil in the world? Mosquitos? Joan Rivers?

The next sentence that identifies the “great burden” that God has laid on us is very surprising.

Here is the burden: he makes all things beautiful. 

Why would God making something beautiful be a burden? That sounds much more like a blessing doesn’t it?

Read on and you might understand.

“He makes all things beautiful in its time. “

This great burden is not that he makes all things beautiful. It is that he makes all things beautiful in his time. In ways that are beyond our limited perception.

Some of us get angry at his timing. We do not like getting older. We don’t like that “Only Be With You” by Hootie and the Blowfish was written in 1995. (How can it possibly be that long ago?) We “cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Standing within the walls of time, we don’t understand.

Maybe we need a different perspective.

My friend Sam said to me the other day, “Kate, do you realize that if you had a child a few years ago, your baby would most like have had Lyme disease? (Lyme can be passed onto children in the womb.) Maybe it was not God withholding from you when he didn’t let you have a baby at that age. Maybe it was His grace. Maybe He wanted to wait for you to be healthy to let you have a child.” It had never occurred to me before that my having to wait might not have been God stealing something, but him waiting to give me something much better.

We can’t often see things clearly from our limited perception of life. Perhaps God stands above us, above time, as if we are in a parade, and he throws down love on us, like floating ticker tapes. He throws down love from that lofty window, seeing the bigger picture, and we don’t understand what he is doing from beginning to end. But the love still falls down on us, surrounding us as we march on, unaware.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for your grace. Whether I have a husband or not, whether I have children or not, even when I don’t understand your timing or my disappointments, I can trust this one thing.

You make all things beautiful.

Jun15

Never Really Alone

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As you might have gathered from some of my other posts, I had Lymes Disease for seven years. I got very sick, especially towards the end. I could go seven or eight nights without sleeping day or night. I barely slept through the night for four years. I had arthritis all over my body and was in constant pain. I had soars inside of my mouth and on my face, and sometimes I would spit blood. I had to take a year off of work. I lost 35 pounds in less than two months. My best friend has told me that she would sometimes cry when I left her house because she thought I might die. It was incredibly hard.

This was one of the most difficult seasons of my life to be single. I wanted a companion with me, someone who could care about finding a way for me to get better simply so I could rest. Someone who could hold me at night and tell me it was going to be okay. I wondered if I could ever have that, if anyone would ever love me enough to take on such a huge burden.

I remember coming home from a doctor’s appointment in which he had let me know how serious my disease was. He told me that if I didn’t get better I could pass it on to my children. I wondered if I should just opt out of having a family now. I wouldn’t want them to have to live through this. He also told me that with Lyme, my symptoms would probably get worse for the rest of my life.

I stood in my living room after that doctors appointment, my purse and coat still on, overwhelmed with the weight of responsibility on my shoulders. I was the only one in my life who could get help for this. I was so sick that I could barely walk into a grocery store, and yet I was expected to do the hard work of finding a cure to a supposedly incurable disease. (I did the hard work, and I am now cured, by the way.)  I had no insurance and probably could not get insurance with the record I now had. I couldn’t work, and the government would not give me disability as Lyme is not a very recognized disease. It was terrifying. I felt utterly alone.

The AA Big Book says “When we were faced with a crisis that we could no longer postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. Choose.”

I was in my crisis and It was time for me to choose. Was God everything or nothing to me?

One night I had a dream. I was riding up an elevator and the doors opened to a hospital waiting room. A middle aged man who was slightly overweight with the kindest face you have ever seen came up and gave me a big bear hug. I had the distinct impression that we had started out as pen pals, and over the years we had become very close. He was so happy to see me.

I said “how is she doing?” He replied, “She is not well.” He had so much concern in His face. I could tell that he loved her with a very pure love.

It was then that realized that the “she” we were talking about was me. The sick version of me. Suddenly, I was the sick me, in my hospital bed. I was in and out of a coma, and I was very very ill.

Every single time I woke up, this man was there. Reading to me, doing crossword puzzles, holding my hand. Sometimes I would wake up and he would be eating in the room. He never left my side. Most of the time, I was too sick to say anything. I would just look and see him there and know that I wasn’t alone. Then I would fall back into another coma.

Sometimes, he would pick me up and put me into my wheelchair. There was a huge outdoor garden on my floor in the hospital, and he would bring me to look at all the beautiful plants and flowers. He would touch them tenderly and tell me their names and about how they grew. He would take my weak hand and bring them up to the flowers. First a stunning red amaryllis, then a delicate white orchid, then a big purple iris. I could feel the softness of the petals on my fingers.

He would take me back to my room, lift me out of my wheelchair and into my bed, and I would fall back to sleep as he knelt there, praying.

When I woke up from the dream I realized that the man was not a future husband or a father or a friend. This was Jesus.

Our God has many facets. Sometimes He is riding on a horse with stars in His right hand and a sword coming from His mouth, His face shining like the sun.

And sometimes, He is a middle aged, kind man who reads to us when we are in the hospital. He is the one who kneels down and prays for us by our sick bed. He is the one who does not leave our side.

This dream helped me to remember that I was everything to Him. That made my choice simple.

He would be everything to me.

That dream helped me realize that even though I felt alone, I was really never alone at all.

Years ago, I wrote a song called You Are Not Alone. Here are the words:

Sometimes you get so weary that you run to forget

Keep yourself so busy, anything to cover up that sometimes life just don’t make sense

And the reason for your running is a longing to be known

By someone who says your life is worth it, someone captured by your heart- someone you gave up on long ago

But you are not alone- you are not alone-His love is all around- He holds you even now-You are not alone

He will not leave you orphaned- that’s a promise He has made

When others leave you empty and the world has left you broken, still He will not walk away

So come and lay down all your questions- lay down your striving to be free

He has loved you since you’ve breathed and He will love you for forever- really what more do you need?

You are not alone-You are not alone-His love is all around and He holds you even now-You are not alone.

(To hear this song, look for it on itunes, or click here to buy it off my website)

Jun7

Throw Away Your List (Or Just Rewrite It)

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I have a journal that I started when I was twenty one for my husband. I poured my heart out to this journal. What was in my heart at the time was a considerable amount of romantic nonsense.

I haven’t told many people this, but towards the beginning of this journal, I wrote a song for my future husband. It’s called “Made as One.”  I wrote the first verse and the chorus, but I never wrote the second verse. On purpose. You know why? My plan was to write the second verse on the day my future husband asked me to marry him. I mean, how romantic is that? How much would my husband swoon when I sang it at our wedding? To hear this beautiful song that had been written for him over time, ending with the crescendo of our perfect union?

I secretly had a good idea of what the lines of that second verse would be, even though I was waiting to write them.

They would go something like this:

It’s been two years since I wrote those words-

You asked me to marry you tonight.

I never knew my heart could feel like this

I never knew our love could take such flight

Or some such cheese.

But now, a lot of time has passed. That song would have to be different than I expected. And it would be less catchy…

It’s been many years since I wrote those words

Kind of funny we’re middle aged

If we had waited much longer dear,

You’d have to buy me some BenGay

I am not singing that thing at my wedding. No way.

And of course, tucked carefully away between the pages of my journal is the list.

All you females out there, and probably even a lot of the males, you know exactly what I’m talking about when I say that. You know what the list is because you have your own list that is most likely not that different than mine.

The list was a series of characteristics that we wanted in our future spouse.

Here is a composite of a few items on the lists of friends that I interviewed:

1) He must be taller than me.

2) He must be strong.

3) He must have black hair and blue eyes.

4) He must have nice nails.

5) He must look good in a suit.

6) He must not watch a lot of football.

7) He has to love dogs.

8) He has to have a college education.

9) He has to make a lot of money.

10) He can never use the term “lol” in his texts.

11) He must not have any hair in his ears or nose. Ever.

12)) He must have hair on his head.

13) He must be a fantastic skiing,TV avoiding, muscle flexing, chore doing, education getting, tons of money earning, model looking, eternal giver of romance and love and passion.

14) He can’t snore.

Lastly, under no circumstances will I ever ever be intimate with someone who wears novelty socks.

I have quite a few things that I would tell the younger version of myself, and this would be one of them:  marrying someone who has perfect table manners is not really going to matter in forty years. What’s going to matter is that my partner is kind and has integrity and we love being with each other. Habits can change through communication. You can express that you would feel loved if he tried not to show you the gumbo he is chewing. Trying to help tame some table manners might be helped in just a few conversations. Trying to turn a mean guy into a nice guy? That might take a lifetime. Which one do you want on your list?

When you are young, you have this idea that there will always be potential suitors, and that you need to wait for the perfect one. When you get to be my age you realize that dating should not be about finding someone perfect. It should be about finding a good match.

It is a little scary writing a book (which is almost done by the way!) because advice you give can potentially change the course of someone’s life. I don’t want people to say “Hey, that Sexy Celibate girl said that I shouldn’t be too picky, or else I’ll be thirtysomething and alone. So I better marry my loser boyfriend as soon as possible.”

Therefore, I’m going to make myself very clear. When I say that you shouldn’t be too picky, I am not saying that you should settle. It is incredibly dangerous to settle. I myself could have married quite a few men that would not have been good for me. It was not about being too picky, it was about being smart.

Even worse than marrying a man who is not a good fit is marrying someone who is toxic. Settling for a spouse that is mean or severely addicted can be the most devastating decision of your life.

We need to learn to not be  picky when it comes to the shallow things, and to be very picky when it comes to the important things. That is the balance.

We do need chemistry. It is what draws us to potential mates at first. But we also need to remember that hormones will wear off, while companionship will last a lifetime. When we’re in love, it is hard to be practical. But we must force ourselves to be practical in a decision that is this important.

One of the concepts I live by is that there is great wisdom in looking  for the fruit of something when it is still a seed.  If you see deep seeded character issues (such as someone who is unkind) that could be really difficult down the road, get out. I am serious. Out.

Where is the balance here? What is the happy medium between having totally unrealistic expectations for anyone you date and marrying someone who will most likely be really hard to live with, who might even be a nightmare to live with?

In my opinion, one of the best ways to deal with this is to rewrite your list. Pare it down to four or five non negotiables.

Here are the ones that I  have chosen for my own life, if I do decide to get married.

A) He must have a deep love for God and for people.

B) He must be kind. 

C) We need to really enjoy being with each other. Evidence of this would be laughing together, having good conversations, and dealing with conflict well.  

D) He needs to see the world as a place to explore and a place to bring hope. I want his vision to be bringing the kingdom of God to the community around us, whether that be in small ways or big ways. And he must be willing to support me in doing the same thing. I honestly could care less if we make a lot of money. That is not a priority for me. My priority is that we make the world a better place. 

I can’t think of much else that matters than the qualities on my new short list. Balding? He can shave his head. That can be sexy. Chewing with his mouth open? We can talk about that. Celine Deon? He can listen to her on his earphones all his little heart desires. Snoring? I can wear ear plugs. If he seems to have the qualities that are on my new list, I will go on some dates with him. I will give him a chance.

Try your best to look at the fruit of something when it is still a seed. And don’t look for a perfect person. Look for a good match.

Give your seed time to grow. That way you can consciously make a commitment in which you use both your heart and your head.

I think this can be summed up by an eight year old boy who was asked what he thought love was. He cocked his head and thought for a little bit. Then he replied, “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over to paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis. That’s what love is.“

Look for someone like this. Look for a seed that will produce this kind of fruit.  Not just a spouse that you are lightening flash attracted to.  Not just someone who says all the perfect things at the perfect time and gives you dozens of roses. Not just a man who fits everything on your ridiculously long, shallow list. But someone who will paint your toenails even though he has arthritis when you’re old.

Because that’s what love is.