Life is Beautiful…and Delicate: Embracing Precarity

bigloudupsidedown

I don’t have doors on my kitchen cabinets.

Let me back up. This post is about a really important word, but it will make more sense if we start with cabinets.

We bought my grandmother’s home 8 years ago and have slowly been making it our own. One of the first things that I wanted to do was transform the kitchen. But there was no extra money, so DIY it was!

We took down the half wall dividing the kitchen and dining room, put in a countertop, and laid that click-together laminate floor that was the manager’s special at the local hardware store. I took down 40 years’ worth of wallpaper layers and patched and painted the walls. The facelift was quick, inexpensive, and notable. But my grandmother’s original 1970’s cabinets stared more boldly at me, surrounded by fresh coats of paint and shiny new floors. Cabinets were definitely not in the budget, so I turned to the next best thing: cabinet paint.

Cabinet painting is quite the process. It involves taking off and labeling all the doors and storing them with their hardware. There’s so much cleaning. There’s sanding, filling holes and cracks, cleaning again (did I mention how much cleaning there was?), and priming. I finally was able to watch the transformation as my paintbrush covered the old wood with strokes of farmhouse gray. Ah…everything was going well in my world. All I had left to do was paint the doors and reinstall them.

But I put my project aside because I started to get sick. What I thought was just a stomachache that lasted for weeks turned out to be our sweet Lael Joy taking up residence in my belly. I suppose I could have finished painting, but I wanted to be careful. I wanted to give her the very best chance of being the very healthiest. So, I put aside my project. I rested. I ate so carefully. I exercised and stayed calm.

And that May we welcomed her into the world with a surprise extra chromosome, a hole in her heart, and a blood disorder that we quickly learned was a form of leukemia.

It was then that I learned of the word precarity. At it’s core, precarity means the state of being uncertain or a state of persistent insecurity. This word was most popular 100 years ago, but as is the case, was replaced by words like hazardous, perilous, or risky. But those substitutes don’t quite do the word justice. There’s just no other word like precarity. Precarity doesn’t truly mean any of these things at all.

When Lael entered my world, I became a student of life’s precarity. I never would have considered myself someone with rose colored glasses, but any rosy tint to my lens was washed away that day with no hope of returning. We always say there are things in life we cannot control, but we never truly consider that those “things” could happen to us. Not really. I found myself constantly living in a state of being uncertain. And before you think that’s a bad thing, I would counter that it’s actually a very healthy thing. It’s “the” thing that keeps us from getting too comfortable, from settling, from growing stagnant.

You cannot truly experience life without precarity. There is an unexpected delicacy to every aspect of this existence. One minute we are planning the perfect kitchen, the next we are welcoming an unexpected baby, and the next we have signed up for a lifetime of caregiving to a child born with vastly different abilities than our others. Ok, that’s my story, but you have your own. You don’t have to be a special needs parent to be able to point to a moment when you had to abandon your own cabinet doors because life handed you something unexpected. And some of us have never gone back to those doors because of how delicate that something turned out to be.

But life is beautiful because it is delicate. Only in the balance of experiencing the good and braving the brokenness, do we find true beauty and purpose.

If I could go back to the woman who was painting the kitchen cabinets, I would take her face in my hands and tell her to celebrate all the good, ordinary, mundane moments…like, really celebrate them. Make a cake for no reason. Stay up late and play a game with the kids. Sleep in and start the day later than expected. Go for a walk. Go to the park. Call people. Love radically. Because there are times and seasons when you cannot do these things. And that’s o.k. too. I would also tell her to not rush those seasons. Settle into those. Not for the purpose of staying there, but for the purpose of cultivating courage, embracing challenges, and learning something new about this fragile life that we’re gifted.

We walk this tightrope every day, teetering between joy and pain, happiness and sorrow, hope and despair. We are all vulnerable to the unpredictable twists and turns of life, and the beauty and brokenness that comes with it.

We cannot fully appreciate the beauty without experiencing the brokenness of life.

Precarity gifts us with this contrast to embrace. The contrast of the immeasurable joy of holding a brand-new baby while grieving the life you had hoped and dreamed for her. The contrast of watching your child succeed at something they love to do while hustling every day to make that something happen. The contrast of being surrounded by your loved ones while having seasons of letting them go. We all know precarity. But few of us embrace it.

My sweet girl that taught me about precarity will turn five in just a short while. And my kitchen cabinets have remained in the corner, primed but not painted. My cabinets hold my dishes without doors to cover up them up. And it drives me crazy. I want order and perfection, but they serve as a reminder that it’s o.k. to not always be able to follow through with our best intentions. It’s o.k. that priorities change. It’s o.k. that our lives can look completely different from one another. It’s o.k. that we do all the right things, and we don’t get the intended result. It’s frustrating. It’s irritating. It’s mind-numbing at times. But it’s o.k. It will be o.k. And then it won’t be. And then it will be. Because life is full of precarity.

Friends, I hope you’re in a season of beauty. I hope you can take out the good dishes tonight, even if you’re just serving pizza on them. I hope you can sleep in freshly washed sheets and take a hot shower. I hope you drink your coffee while it’s still hot and you find yourself getting out your mixing bowl and favorite dessert recipe just because. But if you’re not, I hope you know you’re in an equally important season where the tears are food for your soul and the prayers through clenched fists and sometimes screamed in the car are heard and working something beautiful in your story. I hope you know that you can sit in your pain as long as you need to in order to find the strength and resolve to elevate and ascend again. I hope you know you’re not in the valley because of lack of faith or some wrongdoing. We all spend time there.

But the flowers that grow in the valley are breathtaking. The streams are cool. And there’s shade to rest in.

So whether you have fancy dishes or cool streams, know you’re right where you’re supposed to be. And it’s perfectly fine if you never have doors on your cabinets again because you might have more important things to tend to first.

Finding Purpose in the Mundane: Lessons from the Woman at the Well

bigloudupsidedown

I love thinking about all the many, many normal moments that we have as humans in between our incredible highs and super lows. Those extremes may show up on our highlight reel, but it’s the ordinary, messy moments that develop our character, whether by shining in our times of triumph or rehearsing resilience in our times of adversity. Those extremes may show up on our highlight reel, but it’s the ordinary, messy moments that develop our character. It’s the “what happened before actions” and the “what comes after actions” that make us who we are.

To face adversity head-on and find true resilience, we need to do some serious heart-work behind the scenes. The secret to drawing from a deep well in hard times is to be faithful every day, even when life is easy. That’s how you fill the well.

Likewise, the view from the mountaintop is exhilarating, but it’s what happens after we come back down that really counts. If we want our peak experiences to have lasting impact, we have to let them change us from the inside out. When the hype dies down and reality sets in, our day-to-day choices matter more than ever.

My Mundane

Late last night, I found myself waist-deep in laundry – the never-ending nemesis of every mother on the planet. I think laundry is so mentally taxing because it is a multi-step process. By the time I get to the putting away part, I give up, and we live out of baskets for…well, forever!

But I’ve recently had to change my ways and stop living out of baskets. My sweet Lael is in a phase where she wants to help. That extra chromosome makes her super sweet, but also super stubborn. Lately, she’s been “helping” by putting away all our folded laundry. And when I say “putting away,” what I really mean is hiding it. We’ve found socks in the linen closet, t-shirts under the couch cushions, and my personal favorite, underwear in the dishwasher. Sigh.

So my ordinary, messy moments are spent playing hide-and-seek with stolen laundry, refolding and redistributing it, and doing it all quickly and quietly so my little helper doesn’t keep throwing away sports uniforms!

As I reflected on my life with Lael, I realized that during her life, I’ve experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. But in between those extremes, there are countless ordinary, messy moments that make up the bulk of our days. Like the times when I’m chasing a giggling little girl who’s wearing every piece of clean laundry she can find. It’s chaotic and exhausting, but also full of joy and laughter. And it struck me that if I didn’t learn to appreciate these everyday moments and draw strength from them, I’d be missing out on so much. After all, it’s these messy, imperfect moments that shape us and help us grow. So even as I’m playing hide-and-seek with stolen laundry and trying to keep up with my wild child, I’m also filling my well for the moments when I’ll need refreshment and strength.

The Woman at the Well

I couldn’t help but think about the story of the woman at the well in John 4. You know the one: Jesus and his buddies were on a road trip, and they stopped at a well in a place where they weren’t exactly welcome. While the disciples went off to find some lunch, Jesus stayed behind and waited at the well. And wouldn’t you know it, just then a Samaritan woman showed up to draw water.

Now, this might not seem like a big deal to us, but back then it was a pretty scandalous thing for a woman to show up at the well by herself in the middle of the day. It was also pretty taboo since 1. she was a woman, 2. she was a Samaritan, and 3. she was a Samaritan woman. But Jesus didn’t care about societal norms or expectations. He saw right into her heart and knew that she had a hard life, with hard choices and a reputation that wasn’t exactly sterling.

And yet, he spoke to her with such kindness and compassion. He saw all the things that had led her to this moment, all the “what happened before” actions that had shaped her life. He must have seen her actions not in isolation, but as part of the greater story where what others judged her about was only just a page. He didn’t judge her or condemn her; he simply offered her a drink of living water and a chance to start over. He loved her in the middle of her mess and brokenness. Not only that, but he felt she was worthy to reveal his identity to her. This woman was the first person that Jesus revealed himself as the Messiah to. This just blows my mind. He didn’t wait for her circumstances to change. He didn’t wait until the end of her story, the mountaintop of her testimony, or the apex of her self-realization. She was still living with a man and married to another. She came to the well in the heat of the day because she was the topic of conversation among the other women. She could feel their eyes, hear their whispers. So, to guard her heart, she suffered physically to save herself emotionally.

I think Jesus came to her in spite of her messy circumstances because he saw her heart. She was in the middle of her mundane. Literally and emotionally.

It was in the mess, in the mundane, that Jesus gifted her the courage to hope. He told her the biggest secret in history and it changed everything. John 4:28 tells us that she was so excited about this news that she ran back to town, leaving her water jar at the well. What a small, but significant detail.

What Comes After Mountaintop Moments

We don’t know much about this woman after this encounter. We know she told everyone she could about Jesus, and that she led them back out to him. But that’s it. That’s all we have.

But we know that people saw her differently that day. She didn’t shrink away. She didn’t hide. Instead, she came running and she unapologetically shared her excitement about meeting Jesus. Jesus. Yet another man. This could have been so scandalous, but when we encounter Jesus, there’s no room for worry. There’s no time for fear of what man can say or do. When we encounter Him, we run towards our purpose, leaving our past behind.

We know that she became known as the woman at the well that day. We know that John, the disciple, took great care to catalog her past in his gospel, but he called her by a different name than most in the village probably called her. She may have been known as a scandalous woman, that girl, the one to keep away from your husbands. But for the rest of history, she wasn’t called by the name of her lows, but by what happened in her mundane. She became the woman at the well. The one who saw the Messiah. The one whose course was changed. When we encounter God, He calls us by our true name.

And the most interesting thing to think about is that we know that she still had her life to return to. She still had this man she was living with and this husband that she had been unfaithful to. She still had people in her village that would probably not believe who Jesus was, not believe in her change, and not believe that their opinion of her could shift. She still had her own trust issues to work through.

But she saw Jesus and that was enough to carry her through the “what comes after moments.” Those are the ones that were significant. Those are the ones that secured her name as “the woman at the well.” We can guess that she transformed that day. We can guess that there were many after moments that were radically different after she left her jar behind. When the hype dies down and reality sets in, what will our day-to-day choices be?

We can be stuck in our mundane tasks of life, not ever really waking up to realize that hope is sitting right in front of us. We don’t realize that we can leave our own jars of water behind and joyfully run toward our purpose. We don’t realize that there will always be circumstances, nay sayers, self-doubt, and insecurity, but there is a God who calls us by name, sees our hearts, and speaks courage into us. And while that doesn’t take away any of our mundane, messy things in this life, it repositions them in our line of sight.

Those ordinary, chaotic moments can be the ones that define us. Not because of the task we’re engaged in, but who we engage within those moments.

Remember the woman at the well? She left her water jar behind when she met Jesus. What is your jar and what does it hold? What will you leave behind?

Whatever challenges you face right now, they’re just a page in your story. Use your previous experiences to fill your well. Draw from it during those messy moments. And get ready, because you’re only one encounter away from leaving your jar behind and running towards your purpose.

Shouting Friendship!

bigloudupsidedown

When I was in high school, I had this amazing, silly friend who made life so much fun. We would constantly be doing off the wall things to make each other laugh, often in public. One day we were cruising home from school in her little red car and someone shouted an obscenity out their window. We gasped and quickly decided that we were not about to let the negative people of the world win. So we started countering his negativity with positivity…we decided to spread love and friendship in a world who could so desperately use it. We rolled down our windows and when we saw an passer by, we shouted, “Friendship!”

My friend and I spent the spring of our senior year shouting positivity out the window, catching most everyone by surprise and bringing smiles to a lot of faces. I told my kids about this practice and the window shouting has continued on to the next generation. Everyday, I hear them shouting “friendship!” out the car windows on the way to their sports practices and I still can’t help but smile.

The point of this website is to shout friendship out the window.

This world is a juxtaposition of negativity and fake perfection. We exist in a world of stark contradictions, where we are simultaneously fascinated by the darker aspects of humanity and striving for an unattainable perfection, capturing and sharing the moments we want to remember, while ignoring the beauty found in unexpected struggles.

But the truth is, life’s most beautiful moments are often those that catch us off guard and test our strength and resilience, much like the thrill of speeding in a little red car with the windows down, the wind in our hair and the joyful sounds of Lauryn Hill’s Doo Wop mixing with our own voices shouting positivity into a world filled with chaos and negativity.

Pain is a shared experience that we all must endure at some point, but it need not define us. My hope is that my writing connects with each reader on a personal level, offering a sense of empathy and support. Conversely, joy is something that we can choose to cultivate in our lives. I hope to succeed at conveying a sense of authentic happiness that transcends the polished, filtered facade that we so often see and crave from social media. As I write from the messy middle of my own journey, I pledge to offer candid and vulnerable reflections, and to seek out the beauty and goodness that can be found even in the darkest moments.

When I woke up one morning with the words ‘Big, Loud, Upside Down’ ringing in my head, I knew it was a sign that my love of writing was meant to play a central role in my life once again. Writing has always been a powerful tool for me, helping me to process and heal from the challenges and traumas of life. With these words, I felt a sense of excitement and purpose, knowing that I was meant to approach life with boldness and a willingness to break convention. I knew it was time to roll down my windows again and speak into the void of cynicism, spreading raw hope and unfiltered joy.

Big. Our family of 9 is what some might call “big” these days. With 7 kids, we have a treasure trove of hilarious stories, life hacks, and reflections that have come out of raising our lively tribe. Just imagine a giant, white, 14-passenger van rolling down the street with several little voices yelling, “Friendship!” Plus we have an adorable golden doodle and 6 chickens, so there’s never a shortage of activity in our house!

Loud. In our home, the decibels can get pretty high! But more than sound, our lives are filled with a vibrant energy that comes from a full schedule of activities and interests we pursue. While it would be easier to simplify our commitments, we believe in allowing our kids continue to grow and develop into who God has made them to be. As we juggle it all – sometimes even successfully – our loud life depends on the love and support of our community. So these musings will include insights into how we embrace life and live it to the fullest.

Upside Down. In May of 2018, we welcomed our sixth child into the world – a beautiful little girl who surprised us with an extra 21st chromosome. Overnight, we became Down syndrome advocates and warrior parents. Our sweet girl has turned our world upside down, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. These reflections will explore the many ways in which her arrival has reshaped our lives for the better.

Here’s what this blog is not:

It’s not exclusively for parents of children with special needs. Though I certainly hope that fellow warrior parents will find us, connect, and become part of our circle, I also want to share our life lessons, reflections, and both the good and not-so-pretty aspects of our journey with those who are not raising a child with differences. There’s much we can all learn from one another, yet this connection is often lost or misunderstood, with special needs parents feeling isolated and typical parents unsure of how to break in.

It’s not an unrealistic, endless parade of encouragement. You won’t find cliches, canned responses, or overused expressions. I don’t ever want to slap a band-aid quote on someone’s pain or undermine their joy with an equally sugary sweet response.

It’s also not a dark, sad lament. While there are moments of hard, moments of sad, and stories of overcoming that I want to share, my goal is to share them from a place of learning, reflection, and vulnerability.

I am so excited. I have so much to share, so many things planned, and so much hope that together we can continue to spread positivity to those around us.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope to see you here again. I’d love for you to hop in the little, red car and speed along with me as I shout to the world from my big, loud, and upside Down perspective.