Nicole K. Twedt

Being Brave When Life Is Hard

Archives for February 2017

Good News

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From February 11, 2017

I’m basically copying and pasting something I wrote as my Facebook status after Steven’s appointment.

To all of my friends familiar with Steven’s vision story: we received the best news from his pediatric optometrist yesterday.  For the next three months we only have to patch two, yes two, hours a day!  In almost eight years, minus the times we’ve had to use eye drops to blur vision or left a contact out to act like patching during infancy and toddlerhood, we have never, ever had to patch for only two hours!

You guys, this news is the best news ever!  I’m so thankful and excited and absolutely feeling every single feeling in between, and you all know I have big feelings.

Not only that, Steven’s behavior was nothing short of amazing during the exam!  He even held the door open for me several times.  He was polite and conversed well with Dr. P.  For those who know my out-of-the-box child, you know this was a day of double miracles.

The heart of this mama was dreading Steven’s appointment.  We’ve received such good news, but also much bad news during our visits with the pediatric optometrist.  I will praise God after each type of visit, but oh, what a relief!

In response to our good news, the Presbyterian girl in me can’t help thinking of the Doxology.  My voice is shot from this cold and I can’t breathe well enough to sing it, but I’ll write it here for you, after all, writing is my jam.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;

praise him, all creatures here below;

praise him above, ye heavenly host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

Hygge

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Originally a MOPS Mentor Moment, January 2017

I love words.  And I have a new favorite word to share with you.  I’m going to geek out a bit and introduce you to the Oxford Dictionaries’ 2016 word of the year: Hygge.  Hygge is a Danish practice that’s all about creating a warm atmosphere and enjoying the simple things in life with your people.  Instead of fighting against the colder months of the year, Hygge embraces them.  It’s the art of getting cozy in a difficult season.

Hygge is how I view motherhood.  The days are hard but filled with moments worth embracing.  The baby might be teething and the preschooler is having an epic meltdown, but we get to hold them in our arms and comfort them.  We won’t get to do this for long.   Just ask my now 10, 8 and 5-year-old.  They don’t want me to hold them.

Hygge reminds me of the verse “…Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right and pure, and lovely, and admirable.  Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8b).”  Paul wasn’t talking about winter or motherhood when he wrote to the Philippians, I know.  But his letter reminds me to cling to the hidden gems throughout my days and hold onto them during challenging moments.  I urge you to gather your friends, perhaps a few from MOPS, and embrace this season of life instead of fight against it.

Originally, I was going to end this little hygge/motherhood analogy with the “whatever is lovely” verse, give a few examples of how you can get cozy with your kids, and call it a day.  But I need to add something.  It’s okay not to feel the love all the time and cherish every moment of the season.   There’s nothing pretty about projectile vomit.  Potty training is messy.  Tantrums in the middle of Costco are terrible, I know, I’ve been there.  And sometimes, we need to seek professional help or find a safe person to talk to before we can truly embrace the season.  And that’s okay, too.  Because this season you are in, the season of raising little ones, it’s hard work.

You also need to know that God is there.  He is there in the Costco aisle when your kid is screaming from the cart and you want to scream along with him.  True story.  He is there in the ungodly hour of 3 a.m. when your baby has her days and nights mixed up and you haven’t slept since you can’t remember when. He’s close enough to hear a whisper.  He hears your battle cry, and the wail of your broken heart.  He sees your silent tear before it falls.  He collects it in his bottle.  That’s actually a verse.  Psalm 56:8 says, “You keep track of all my sorrows.  You have collected all my tears in your bottle.  You have recorded each one in your book.”

I love the idea of Hygge, of getting cozy and embracing the season, especially the season of motherhood.  I loved having tiny ones in our home.  But if I’m honest, I have to say I’m a little shell-shocked from it all.  My husband and I have battle wounds from raising children, mostly from strong-willed toddlers and preschoolers.  I’m giving you permission to look for the lovely in mothering but also acknowledge the ugly because life with littles is filled with tender moments but it’s also very hard.  And it’s okay to say it out loud.

Lord, help us rise to the task of doing what you called us to do.  Help each mama here take notice of the glories along the way.  Help us know we are not alone and remind us to cry out to you for help.  Restore us so we can go from here, free to love and care for the little people and the big people you’ve given us.   In Jesus’s name, Amen.

A Time to Mourn

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Someone I know lost a parent over the weekend.  Her father’s death was unexpected.  I can’t say I’m super close to this person, but my heart aches for her and her sweet family.   The Bible teaches that in Jesus’s resurrection, death has lost its sting.  Yet as I write, someone I care about is experiencing loss like nothing she has ever known.

This can’t be happening.

I don’t know what it’s like to lose a parent unexpectedly.  But I know grief, I know it well.  I find it next to impossible to untangle what I’ve tasted and seen from what she’s experiencing today.  After all, I’m an INFJ in the realm of Meyer-Briggs, heavy on the F which stands for feeling.  I’m starting to think I lack the skills needed to set my feelings aside, at least for a while.  I can’t seem to remove myself from the situation and focus on something other than grief, hers or mine.

Knowing that another family is experiencing grief is like an emotional tidal wave, as suffocating today as it was twenty-something years ago.  I’m drowning in it as I fold clothes, unload the dishwasher and prepare an afternoon snack for the Tiniest Tiny.

I can’t stop thinking about dad.

Dad suffered six years.  When his life came to an end we knew it was happening.  There were no surprises.  We had more than enough time to say good-by, everyone did.  Sanguine to the end, his life wasn’t over until practically every one of his neighbors, friends and family members stopped by for one last visit.

The song If You Could See Me Now, not Eminem’s version or the 1980s cruise jingle, but the one by Truth, was playing on the CD player in the living room when he died.  It was rather loud because these hard-of-hearing ears of mine needed help unraveling the lyrics from instrumentals.  It was the middle of the night.

The song speaks of walking the streets of gold, of no longer being broken, of no more pain.  It is a song about releasing a loved one from a place of suffering to come face-to-face with Jesus, strong and whole.  I was seated next to dad, but almost missed that splendid moment when he took his last breath and slipped from his cancerous shell of a body into Jesus’ arms, victorious and cancer-free at last.

I’m thankful dad is with Jesus, I really am.  But I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t want him back for a little while.

Dad knew I loved children and wanted to be a teacher.  I would’ve given anything for him to see me graduate from college and set up my first kindergarten classroom.  I wish he’d been the one to walk me to meet Greg at the end of the aisle on our wedding day, though I will always cherish the moment I spent with Dave.  He was dad’s best friend.

And our three babies, his grand-babies.  It kills me that our kids will never meet their Grandpa Steve.  They will never hear his hearty laughter or sit through one of the many tall-tales from his childhood on the farm near Mt. Spokane.  On this side of heaven, our son Steven will never know the one he was named for.

One Father’s Day, when Greg and I were newly dating, our pastor preached a moving sermon.  He charged the fathers of our congregation to rise up, to be strong in the Lord and lead their families well.  That’s the kind of dad I had.  He loved the Lord with all of his heart and all of  his soul, and oh, how he loved his family.

I’m a private person by nature.  But even I could not contain the desire after church to ask Greg, my then boyfriend, to take me to the cemetery.  Greg was as distant as any one of his Norwegian ancestors would have been.  He kept his Oakley shades on and stood aside while I had myself a little moment.  I’m not used to breaking down in front of others.  The vulnerability of that afternoon was as new to me as our relationship.

Even though I shouldn’t have, I remember turning to Greg afterward and apologizing for the awkwardness of my crying fit, the grief that came out of nowhere.

“Yeah, that was awkward,” was Greg’s response.  The cruelty of his statement was out of character with the man I knew so swell, or as well as I could after only a few months dating.

He then removed his sunglasses and revealed a face streaked with tears, tears for a man he’d never met and for a woman who really missed her dad.  I knew for sure that afternoon that Greg loved me, and in his arms I could grieve.

I started a blog last June.  I love to write.  It’s the most tangible way I know to praise God and better understand my world.   In my mind’s eye, I saw my blog as a place to write about life and to bring the hope of Jesus to others.  An encourager by nature, it’s what I do best.  I didn’t really want a mommy blog, but I knew I was going to sprinkle a few kid stories into my writing from time to time to keep things light and entertaining.

The thing is, I’ve been running from writing lately.  I’ve been running because he (and by he I mean God) is prompting me to explore grief and write about the hard things in life.  It’s not a fun subject to tackle.  But I have to say, this little corner of the internet is serving its purpose.  I’m learning to be brave in this place.  I’m learning to air out some of the grief I’ve kept hidden all these years, grief I didn’t realize I had in me because everything was fine except it wasn’t.

I’m starting to think maybe, just maybe, I’m honoring God and giving him glory as I learn to take his hand and let him unpack the beautiful mess that’s called mothering in the midst of grief.