Pandemonium (or - Where Did These Heart Palpitations Come From?)

Last fall was reminiscent of another decade or so ago, where real estate started doing strange things and ultimately our world tipped over on its side. Ken and a partner had incorporated a business in 2006, to begin building houses. We were working on two different banks and an investor; the 11 house plans for the neighborhood we were going to build in were firmly ensconced in my brain. I drove to Dunwoody for real estate school and pinned my license with a start-up in Dallas, along with my sweet Daddy (who was the epitome of care for his clients). The economy had been thriving, houses were being gobbled up (along with their crazy mortgages) and building was good. Ken had built several houses and was ready to go out on his own. 

When the bottom fell out, we had a mortgage, lots of doctor bills from a near-death experience of Ken's, and three of our four children still at home. God spared us, because we never actually started up our business -- we would have lost our home, for sure. It was about a four-year dip into hell for our family. There is no explaining how we came out of that intact, except to say that yes, Virginia, there is a God. 

I've since wrestled with the tension between trusting myself and trusting God. Trials can make you better or they can make you cynical, or worse. We all know that there's death, taxes, trials, and uncertainty...but if you live long, you figure out that you are not the master of the universe. There are so many things that we can't control. And even the things that we can, well, what's this with my back aching and all those new wrinkles? 

I've been running a marathon, no, not with my legs (well mostly, I have climbed about a hundred flights of stairs these last few months. But the scale definitely hasn't gone down). A two-year development deal that just won't close. Another friend's home (and their "new home" they are buying) over the last six months that just. won't. close. As I was sitting in a lawyer's office yesterday, getting one of my sons' home sold and a new one bought (with a new baby, homeschooling three verrrry energetic elementary children, and 10 Golden Retriever puppies to boot), I looked about. There was my daughter-in-love sitting by me, exhausted, trying to feed her feverish baby. My son, the effervescent youth pastor, keeping the room light and giving joy to all the people across the table. My mortgage lender gal, who is now my dear friend, situated on the other side, speaking kindness and showing up even though her husband is very seriously ill. During this three hours, I was getting texts from the friend who is trying to close the other deal, which seemed to be falling apart (it hasn't yet - hope springs eternal). We closed my son's homes and headed to their new house, giant Golden Retriever in the back...and pulled up to scads of people helping them unload. In short order, the trucks were empty and the house was full. 

I was exhausted. Emotionally, physically, mentally. Not really any help to anyone at that point. I took a break to sit down on the newly-placed couch in the living room. It was hushed, calm, cool in there, as everyone else ran around. My granddaughter Addison, her cute little 5-year old ginger self, plopped down beside me on the couch and chattered like a magpie. I looked at those sweet blue bunny eyes and remembered her Daddy at that age, which was what, last week? We had the sweetest visit. I thought about all the old ladies in my past life who would sit and talk to the children or maybe just sit. I think I might be starting to understand that -- and it's hard to think that at some point I might begin to disappear. Truth is, we will all disappear someday, at least to the people down here. I mean, do you know or remember your great-great-great Grandma? I doubt it. Did she matter? Yes, of course she did. Her wake follows her, good or bad, even though you don't know her from Adam. I believe in God and in eternity, but we got this tangled tapestry going on that can seem mighty crazy, earth-side. 

The week I've had defies description, with emotions, twists and turns. As I sit and ponder (yes, I'm sitting again and probably drinking, haha!), the many levels of commotion that ensued and things that undid folks (and I)... stuff that was just part and parcel of living on a cracked planet, what was precious, sweet and enduring was the thread of God's Spirit that I saw through the good, the bad, the ugly. I saw kindness, forgiveness, rest, even when things weren't resolved with a slice of cherry pie. There is grace. And once again, there is a Redeemer. I was blind, and now I see. 

The Best Part of Waking Up...

There's a lot to be said for the struggle. I can't say that I love to hurt or wait or fight through difficult things. It's hard for me to sign up for anything that makes me miserable. God sends enough of these lessons without me having to look for them, most of the time. That old adage: "Anything worth doing is worth doing well" makes me stop and ponder the times of struggle in my life. And then I remember the chickens...

I loved the 4-H club when I was a youngster. There were all the agricultural things you could do -- I was in the Poultry Chain. They would give you 25 baby chicks for free and then I'd have to raise and care for them. In the fall, the best of them would be shown at the county fair. I have ADOS -- Attention Deficit Ohhhh Shiny, so I am grateful that I had a good Mama who stayed after me to feed those babies. I have a sneaking suspicion that she might have fed them more than a few times, when I got distracted and such. Since becoming an adult, I can't abide the idea of anything going hungry, be it a chicken, dog or human. I have asked God to forgive me for ever slacking off in my storied past. When my chickens grew up, they'd start laying eggs and I'd let some of the hens set on them so we could get more chicks. After the requisite three weeks or so, I would anxiously watch for signs of the babies hatching. The first time I saw one hatch, I saw the little peep-hole in the egg, with the beak of the chick poking out. After what seemed an age, the egg would begin to crack and the soggy baby would roll out, exhausted and frail. Sometimes it seemed that something was wrong...the chick would get only part of the way out and then lay there panting. I would debate with myself, then decide to help the little fella out. I would pick at the shell until I released the prisoner from his bonds. I did this a few times, finding it strange that every time, the chick would die. I decided to quit trying to help them and found that they never died when I left them alone. Later, I found out that it's a scientific fact that chicks need the trial of getting out of the shell in order to live. It helps their circulatory system get moving and other things that I don't understand. Much like a baby human, when they wrestle their way into the world...the struggle is what clears the lungs, wakes up the brain, gets the heart moving. 

Our parents taught us the importance of working hard. Then the baton was passed along the way to teachers, coaches, mentors that were put in my path. In high school, I fell in love with the game of basketball. I was a clumsy, rangy-built kid with some height and a will to play, but I had to work at it in order to get better. I was not the natural athlete that my sister was. Daddy put up a goal on our driveway and I began working at learning to shoot the ball. My high school coach was like a drill sergeant. He pushed, ran, yelled, pushed some more and I loved him for it. Most days, even after practice, I would shoot and rebound and shoot some more at home. I ate, drank and slept basketball. I loved it so much, I'd lay in bed at night watching the night sky out my window, asking God if I was making basketball into an idol. 

Meanwhile, academics came easy to me, and I rarely studied. I'd do my homework on the bus and write term papers the night before they were due and still make A's. But basketball came hard to me, so I struggled. Studies, I breezed through. On the converse, my sister, Melanie, rarely practiced her basketball skills. It came to her like a duck to water. Our coach handed her three basketballs and she would juggle them during our pre-game warmups. School, on the other hand, was more of a challenge. She studied diligently, her notes fanned out in front of her. Term papers were done well in advance, neatly organized in categories. She worked at her studies, while athletics were no challenge for her to master. 

Time for college came and I was recruited by numerous schools to play. After much time and drama, I settled on a small school in Tennessee. I loved the setting and the philosophy of it. But what had I worked at, versus what I had breezed through, hit me up like a tsunami. Sure, the gals at the college level knew when to pass the ball, when to make it all sing. But this Georgia gal didn't know how to study, and most freshman kids away at college are basically idiots anyway. If I thought there were distractions before, I found all the sparkles once Daddy and Mama dropped me at the dorm doors. Melanie went to college and did fine; she knew how to study. 

Thankfully, time marches on and we grow up, well, maybe. It's the struggles of life where we learn the most. All the things where I have had to work, where I've had to force myself into difficult places...these are the things that I appreciate most and that seem to bring the most worth. My favorite teachers and coaches were the tough ones, who pressed me past my comfort zones. Even when we were homeschooling our kids all those years, I'd read books about calming down and being "the relaxed homeschooler." I never needed that advice. I needed "the tighten up and get your fanny in gear homeschooler."

 These days, with my empty nest and a world of opportunities in front of me, I still see that I have to push past my weaknesses and lack of discipline. The struggle is real but the rewards are many. So....who's up for coffee this morning?   

The Doctor and the Big Top

This afternoon, Ken and I went to a real doctor. We had waited for six months for a "new patient" appointment, because the quack that we had been seeing for incidental sicknesses was starting to scare me with their mistakes. Today, after being literally chased around the office by an aggressive front-desk employee who was convinced I had to put on a mask (although I wasn't sick and yo, lady, they don't help anyway), I settled in one of the back rooms. I asked the nurse to not make me go back up front for any reason. I had waited six months for this appointment and didn't want to commit manslaughter on the first visit. When asked what I was there for, I said PTSD and don't you forget it. I was just kidding, but my twitching eye might have given them pause. I want to know why it is that when you find a kind, excellent doctor, they always have Nazis policing their front office. Apparently they need to keep good fences around their practice. And maybe keep dangerous people like me out of their buildings...

After an exhausting afternoon of running away from people, then getting poked and prodded, I ran errands, did some real work at my desk and then plopped down on the couch when my shoulder started complaining, stressed and too cold. The cat curled up in my lap, purring and snuggling her warmth into my cold body. Before I could complain, I fell asleep. Time went by and my phone buzzed its irritating, mosquito-like siren song. I woke up with a start. I didn't know where I was, heck, I think I didn't know who I was. I used to do that, when my babies were little and I was basically a walking zombie. Maybe this is what happens when you get old and your mind really starts to leave...adventures in guessing who you are.

Back to the nice doctor... she asked me all kinds of questions and I gave her my summary: yeah, I basically hurt all the time and I'm learning to live with it and I'm just grumpier than I used to be. That is not good. They say that when you get stressed or pressed, that what comes out of you is what was in you all the time. There's that saying -- "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!" But what if there's other stuff parked up in them lemons and it comes out when they get squeezed? No amount of sugar can sweeten that mess. I say I want to look like Jesus; I want to be like Jesus when I get reamed out. I imagine I'm taking over, when I need to be letting Him run the show. In actuality, He IS running the show and I just need to get with the program.  There's a little thing called "surrender." I'll ruminate on that for awhile...  

Career Minded

My children gave me one of those books, a "Grandma's Memories" book. It has pages that I fill out, answering questions about my past and my life. I already have reams of journals, stemming all the way back to childhood, but it could be that this condensed version will actually get read one day. What I wouldn't give to be able to read my two Grandmothers' memoirs! Grandma Betty and Mawmaw, as different as night and day, and still so precious to me. I keep chipping away at the questions, and it's taking me awhile to fill this thing up. Today's questions involved my career life. It peppered me with all angles of the whole idea of "career," assuming that I had one. I haven't had one, I've had a dozen, with four or five of them being quite successful. Don't chain me to an office (except my own) or you will find me roaming the tundra, running, desperate and growling, with chain detached. It's not much fun that so much of my life now still involves a desk. At least it's my own and has beautiful woodwork and a 12-foot ceiling involved. 

The answers that I have been giving this Grandma project kept coming around to basically the same one: that my best and highest career was the years I gave my life to raising and home educating our children. There were those infant days, where survival seemed elusive and the most menial of tasks seemed endless. Everything revolved around feeding people and cleaning up diapers, grungy faces and bodies. Some people would not give it much credit. But those are the days that were slower and more intentional. I wasn't just going through the motions (most of the time); it was ripe with opportunities along the way. There were little feet and cheeks to be kissed, stories to be told, precious naptimes with lullabies and snuggles. Old ladies told me to cherish those times, so I did just that. I treasured the halting steps, the attempts at language and skill, the chubby hands that reached for me. The days were slow but the years were fast. Babies don't keep, and you only have a small window and then it's gone. The time flew by; it seems almost like a dream now. Our four children buddied up. Because they were homeschooled, they became each others' best friends. They were the Norton gang, notorious for being hard workers and full of sarcasm and fun, fantastic at being all-there when it came time to play.  I always felt I was the worst of teachers, but God had mercy. He gave them Ken for a Daddy, so they learned consistency and discipline. They probably learned how to pick daisies from me. They're all grown, with their own families now and working hard on every front. They make us proud every day. 

They grew up. I've always had all sorts of side hustles -- art, music, painting, decorating, even when we were homeschooling. I've made mayhem and money; I've been inducted into the sometimes silly (sorry if that offends someone) top-producer clubs of real estate numerous times (I don't even count them). Maybe it doesn't matter so much to me, because it's not nearly as important as that first career that I had, the one that really never ends until I leave the planet. The one that, by far, outstrips the importance of anything else I could ever do. My kids are launched...I can technically do whatever I'd like to do now; there's been time to explore new horizons.  I'm grateful for the good example of my own Mother, who valued her job as homemaker the most important one on earth and encouraged me when I went the same way. All those sweet years, I never felt like I was missing out. I thought I'd won the lottery, and indeed I had. 

Money, houses, fame, accolades, a fantastic career...they will all be forgotten in a generation or two. It's the people and the traces of our heart on them that we leave behind, whether they are blood relatives or not, that are eternal. Everlasting treasures, immortal souls. All that glitters is not gold.