Nicole K. Twedt

Being Brave When Life Is Hard

Sing Over Me

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I’m going to plagiarize myself in this mini-essay.  It’s partly from a Christmas letter I wrote back when I was pregnant with Steven.  I’m dusting it off  since I’m supposed to deliver a Mentor Moment tomorrow morning at MOPS and I’ve got nothing.   

The theme for today’s MOPS meeting is good sleepers.  It would’ve been really cool if I had my act together and had a mentor moment to go along with it.  I’ve got nothing.

But my ADHD mind specializes in making random connections.  The subject of sleeping babies reminds me of lullabies, which reminds me of the CD mom gave us when Emily was little.  It was called Sing Over Me by Bethany Dillon.  I loved the CD but the title track rubbed me wrong; it’s from Zephaniah 3:17.  “For the LORD your God is living among you.  He is a mighty savior.  He will take delight in you with gladness.  With his love, he will calm all your fears.  He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”   It’s a great verse, really it is, but the bit at the end bothered me.  I thought we were the ones who were supposed to rejoice in him, not the other way around.  And what does it even mean to sing over someone?  It’s kinda weird, don’t you think?

Someone smarter would’ve just googled it.  But I had a very busy toddler, and I wasn’t firing on all cylinders.   The Zephaniah verse troubled me, but it was more of a fleeting thought.  The verse would rise to my mind as I was driving around the silvery lake to the grocery store or while I lathered shampoo or conditioner into my hair in the steaming shower, which is where I do all my best thinking.  I’d ask God about the Zephaniah verse.  I wouldn’t get an answer.  I’d then forget about it.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

I was pregnant with baby number two around this time, and I was seriously freaked out.  My pregnancy was marked by fear because a dear friend had just lost her baby boy a month before her due date.  I had this irrational fear that something was seriously wrong with my unborn child.  Or everything would turn out fine with the baby but I would be hit again with postpartum depression.

One afternoon I was lying on the couch, feeling guilty because I was too nauseous to even pick up my Bible.  But in that moment on the couch the Zephaniah verse, the one that never made sense, fell from my head and landed firmly into my heart.  He spoke to my heart through a picture of me rocking Emily as I sang her a lullaby. That’s how he longed to comfort and nurture me.  All I had to do is run to his outstretched arms and lay everything at his feet.  Or in my case, I just needed to lay in fetal position on the couch as he rejoiced over me with singing.  At that moment I knew God was with me, calming my anxious heart.   He was with me in this pregnancy, and he would continue to be with me in childbirth and later as I learned to take care of a newborn again.  After all, he is mighty to save.   All I had to do is come to him.

Child of God, he delights in you, he longs to gather you into his arms so he can sing over you with joyful songs.  All you have to do is come.

Edited to add: On the way to MOPS this morning, about a mile from church by Albertsons, God reminded me of something that happened during the tender months following dad’s death.  Most nights I dreamed of music, of joyful songs in the night.  And these melodies were complete orchestrations.   In my dreams, I could hear each and every instrument and every single musical note from stunning symphonies that were new to me.   I play the piano but I’m not a musical person.  Add to it, I have a high-frequency hearing loss in both ears.  It’s impossible for me to experience the full effect of the orchestra when I’m awake and fully conscious.  I’ve always wondered about those dreams, and what they meant.  But driving to church to talk to moms about how God sings over us with great rejoicing sparked a connection.  He literally sang over me in the darkness of night with songs of great rejoicing.

 

 

Exploring Autism Essay on Kindred Mom

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Most nights, when I climb the creaky ladder to the top bunk for evening prayers, I find Steven, my blonde-haired, blue-eyed larger-than-life eight-year-old, hiding under a mess of scattered paper airplanes, Junior Factoid books and origami. Or Iʼll find him thrashing about the upper bunk, skinny legs flailing all over the place as he squirms to avoid momʼs hugs and kisses. Thereʼs a mound of blankets and pillows without cases at the foot of Stevenʼs bed. His bright blue quilt, the one from Target with the primary-colored cars and trucks and navy border, itʼs somewhere beneath the rubble.

If Iʼm lucky, Steven will settle down long enough to demand for me to fill his volcano-red Hydro Flask thermos with fresh water.

“It doesnʼt taste right!” he petitions. Next, heʼll try to tickle me. Or heʼll slap my arm and yell “Tag! You’re it!” followed by “Tag dad!”

Before I leave the room to search for my husband, I lean over and remind our son, like I always do, that if I could choose one boy out of all the boys in the world, Iʼd choose him, every time.

Inside, however, Iʼm waving a white flag in surrender. I love my boy, of course I do. Steven is a bright child, full of life, full of love. But itʼs hard being his mom. The older he gets, the quirkier he gets, the more difficult it is to raise him. Then again, parenting Steven has always been a challenge.

Head over to Kindred Mom for the rest of the story.

Writing Anyway

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Photo by Tetsuya Tomomatsu, Unsplash

I used to check email regularly.  When an email first appeared in my inbox, it was promptly read, replied to, and deleted.  An email was saved only if it were extremely important, like my correspondence with Seattle photographer Elke Vandevelde.  There’s nothing pretty about my inbox these days.   I don’t know why, but it actually feels like the walls are closing in on me when my emails won’t fit on the same screen, a silly response to a first-world problem.

Email isn’t the only thing I’ve let slide.  This blog, I’m sorry to say, has sat neglected like the cardboard carton of Thai Jasmine rice in the back of our fridge from the last time we had take-out.

You see, it’s been a few months since the morning I met Jody at the Panera at Renton Landing and nicolektwedt.com went live.  I knew then (and I know now) that having a place to write is more important than having a pretty blog.  Even so, I assumed that I would have this blog-thing figured out by now.

Dear friend, I still don’t have my act together.  Perhaps you’ve noticed.  There’s no way to leave comments on this blog.  There’s not even a way for you to contact me.  I still haven’t subscribed to Mail Chimp or Tiny Letter so you can’t read posts when I actually write them.    I wonder at times if I have what it takes to be brave and make this writing place happen.

Ah well, baby steps.

Perhaps being brave in this situation means to keep writing anyway.

There’s more  We’re going through something with our middle guy, Steven.  I’m optimistic about his situation, honestly I am.  All the same, at the end of a long day of parenting a unique child and his sisters, I’m done.  The last thing I want to do is work behind the scenes on this blog.   I just want to write.  Or binge-watch a series on Netflix with Greg.   Our read a few chapters of Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing while he watches yet another episode of Heartland.

And that’s okay.

This little online place will come together in time.  Thanks for being patient with me.

N.

Edited to add: I don’t know how I did it, but there’s a comment section following this post!