Nicole K. Twedt

Being Brave When Life Is Hard

Christmas 2015

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Originally from December, 2015

It’s been a Year

I wasn’t going to write a Christmas letter this year.  I love doing it, but we’re in a busy season.  Also, it’s been a hard year.  I’m not sure how to include all that’s transpired over the last 12 months or how to write it well.  A bird’s eye view of 2015 would show deep heartbreak, but also such love and tenderness; a year rich in mercies and paramount change and healing in my heart.  I won’t bore you with all of the details because most are too tender to share and to be honest, I’m still processing.

The Husband and Me

Greg and I celebrated 10 years of marriage on January 7th.  By the time you read this we will have been married almost 11 years.  11 is nothing compared to 50 years, even 20 or 15, but for us 11 years is big and so we celebrate. It’s fun looking back at how stupid we were a decade ago.  Who fights over the correct way to enter and exit a shower, which grocery store is worthy of our patronage or how to chop a green onion?   (We did.)  We hardly have things figured out but we blindly stumbled upon a small part of the secret to a healthy and happy marriage, at least for us.  Just this November we learned that Greg is more than willing to accompany me to a show, and by show I mean theatre, and by theatre, I mean musical theatre, if only I would go to the local steakhouse with my date.  And they lived happily ever after.

The Twedtlings

The biggest little one is already a third-grader.  She’s a smarty, that one.  Emily continues with violin lessons and is super excited to be the Jingle Bells bell ringer in the 2nd/3rd grade winter concert next week.  Our girl is a Brownie this year.  If you are in need of a Thin Mint or Samoa fix during cookie season, you know who to call.  Really, please call Emily!  We can’t imagine she’ll sell too many Girl Scout Cookies in our mostly Gluten-Free / Dairy-Free / Paleo-Wannabe family.  Still, Emily is as determined as she’s always been.  Mamas and daddies with toddlers and babies, hang on!  It keeps getting better.  9-year-olds are worth the wait.  We promise!

As for the first-grader, it turns out that Steven-in-the-middle is an awesome soccer player.  We’re not sure if it’s good or bad, but our boy was christened The Beast by his assistant coach.  The Beast has a gift.  The Beast doesn’t get his soccer moves from his parents.  It’s trilling, watching Steven play.  I cried a bit during soccer season at how little his vision impairment affects his life (like not at all).  I never thought I’d thank God for sports, but I did. Every single game.  We’re still praying for healing for his eyes but until then, God has shown over and over that he goes before and after Steven in all his crazy kid endeavors.

Steven is not the only beast on the block.  After all, Lauren is a Twedtling and Twedtling preschoolers are not easy.  What 4-year-old is?  We never met a little one with such bold opinions about clothing, especially in regard to fancy party dresses and accessories.  Lucky for us, the Tiniest Tiny channels her dark side to a worthy cause.  She is whipping our dog Chloe into shape, getting her to mind better with the passing of each day.  With her hands on her hips, she demands, and not very nicely, “Chloe!  Go to your house!” And Chloe, tail down, does exactly what she’s told and heads straight for the plastic dog crate. I exaggerate only slightly because the beast in Lauren only comes out about 10% of the time, which is not bad.  Lauren really is a tender little girl, full of sweetness.  Life is a song and dance in her world.  She adores ballet with Miss Debbie and especially delights in “performing” with her plastic microphone at the old piano.

Being Brave

One aforementioned heartache worth sharing has to do with hearing.  It always does.  I took Lauren in for her annual hearing check in October.  On the way to Children’s Bellevue my phone was stuck on You Make Me Brave by Amanda Cook and Bethel Music, which is my current favorite since Courtney sang it last spring.  I didn’t realize I had it on repeat.  I guess the technical term is loop.  I didn’t even know my phone looped or that it could get stuck on loop or that I had a loop icon to begin with.  Come to think of it, it might not be called looping.  Maybe I made it up.  All I know is that I just completed an iOS update and everything was wonky with iTunes.  You Make Me Brave filled our van over and over, at least 7-10 times on our way to Bellevue because Lauren and I took the backroads to avoid 405 tolls.  As your love/ In wave after wave/ Crashes over me, Crashes over me/ For you are for us/ You are not against us/ Champion of Heaven/ You made a way for all to enter in.

I’m pretty sure God wanted me to know that his love for Lauren crashes over her in wave after wave.  He is for her, not against her.  You see, the Tiniest Tiny has lost hearing again, this time in her left ear.  This is not the same ear that hearing was lost and restored when she was little.  Her loss is conductive (mine is neurosensory) and is borderline normal.  Although she isn’t technically hard-of-hearing at this point, Lauren’s hearing is not what it once was in that ear.  We made an appointment for another hearing evaluation in 3 months.  Until then I was told to have her pediatrician clean out her waxy ear because one of the tubes is out but stuck in ear wax.  The audiologist is certain that a damaged eardrum will be revealed under all of the lovely wax.   Can I just say that my heart broke that morning?

I remember looking at my phone when we left Children’s. The loop icon, if it’s even called that, was not showing.  Yet the whole way back You Make Me Brave repeated over and over.  You make me brave/ You make me brave/ No fear can hinder now the promises you made.  It makes absolutely no sense.  It really doesn’t.  It’s really hard to be brave when there is something wrong with your child.  Despite all that, maybe even because of it, I think being brave means having the courage to believe that God is who he says he is and trust that he will do what he says he will do. And if we’re not sure how to pray and what these promises are, we should ask him.  The Bible is pretty clear about them.  I’m sensing in the deepest places of my heart that it is not the time for wishy-washy “heal her if it’s your will”  prayers.  It’s time to call on God to do what he promised even when it doesn’t make sense.  He healed her once before.  Why not again? It’s time to be brave.

Holding onto Hope

When I look back over these 12 months, and back further over the last two-and-a-half years, I have to remember the promise he gave me about Lauren during her first hearing crisis before he healed her.  In my deep place of hurt I wasn’t sure he was for us, but he led me to discover these words about himself, “He will cover you with his feathers.  He will shelter you with his wings.  His faithful promises are your armor and protection (Psalm 91:4).”  It didn’t make sense at the time, and it doesn’t always make sense now but I know him, I know him well.  This potential hearing disorder, it is not from him.

I risk ending this note with a faith story equivalent to a cheesy After School Special.  Yet I kind of have to.  I have to end in hope because what else is there?  It’s December and we are hopeful.  I took Lauren to the pediatrician to have her ears cleaned, to see if the tube could be removed.  Under all that wax was a perfect ear drum.  Perfect.  The pediatrician strongly believes that a combination of one very waxy ear and a tube stuck in wax resulted in a less than normal hearing test.  She believes that February’s evaluation will reveal perfect hearing once again.  It scares me to write this.  Not that I don’t believe Lauren’s hearing has been spared once again.  I don’t doubt it for a minute.  I’m a little worried that I will write about her healing and then it won’t happen and people will think I’m a nutcase.  More so, I’m deeply worried that someone will read this and think God loves Lauren or us more than he loves them.  Nothing is further from the truth.

I do know that God is for us.  God is for you.  Wether you are a carnivore, a dreamer, a Girl Scout, a soccer star or a ballerina and everyone, absolutely everyone in between, God is for you.  He is not against you.   He is for you, even if you have yet to see his promises fulfilled.  Hold on to his promises.  Let his waves of love wash over you as you hold on to them.  Merry Christmas.

Love,

Greg, Nicole, Emily, Steven and Lauren Twedt

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.