10 Years Later, #8 Prepared for What’s Next

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 3 Comments

I wrote this post four years ago, in July 2020, just a few months into the pandemic. It’s the first in a series of five posts that chronicle my decision to return to the classroom after six years away. I’m posting it again now, to affirm that the passion I felt in that season remains strong today. I am getting ready for another, less dramatic, transition, and in the spirit of this 10th year of writing this blog, I’m looking back to remind myself how far I’ve come and to celebrate some wins in the hope that that energy will carry me forward.

*Warning, there’s a teaser at the end of this post to get you to keep reading, so I will put links to the following four posts at the end.

Six years ago this week, I said goodbye to my classroom in St. Louis. I was depleted and sick, and I was certain that I would never have a classroom again.

I’d been struggling with joint pain, systemic inflammation, and fatigue for a year and half — I had difficulty making it through a school day, let alone driving home at night. When I arrived home, I would plunk on the couch or in my bed and accomplish little else until I had to drag myself back to school the next day.

It was a difficult time. Our family had long been experiencing trauma that began with a drastic change in lifestyle caused by a geographical relocation during which my husband went to grad school and I began teaching full time. Our children entered a totally new culture with inadequate support from their parents who were doing their best to fill the demands of the new roles they had assumed. In the years after that major change, our family felt the first hand effects of bullying, social class disparity, eating disorder, depression, anxiety, and sexual assault. All the while, I just kept producing lesson plans, grading papers, and bringing my best to the classroom day after day after day.

Finally my body had had enough. If I wouldn’t sit down of my own free will and assess the damages, mourn the losses, and begin to soothe the hurts, my body would simply crash. And crash it did.

And when, in the midst of that crash, my husband took a new position in Michigan, my medical team suggested that rather than jump right into something else, I should take six months to rest.

Rest. Period.

So I did. I came here to his little house by the river near the end of a beautiful Michigan summer. I took long walks in the park, read books, watched too much TV, put together puzzles, organized and re-organized, and rested.

I didn’t prepare any lessons or grade any papers, but I did begin to write. It was during that period, six years ago, that I began this blog. In the beginning, I wrote every single day as though my life depended on it. In some ways, it did. I had to reacquaint myself with my internal life, had to start hearing my voice, had to start listening to what was happening in my innermost places.

I wrote about my illness, I wrote about coming back to Michigan, I wrote about loss. Many of my posts were a reflection of a renewed commitment to my faith journey, which had also been relegated to survival mode during what I’ve come to call the soldiering years.

It was my writing that started the healing, and through it I chronicled the other steps I began to take — exercise, dietary changes, building community, therapy, and myriad medical and peri-medical approaches like yoga, massage, and homeopathy. I wrote about the ups and the downs — the days when I felt strong and the days that I crashed. I’ve written about victories and grief, sorrows and joy.

And all the while I’ve been healing, and I’ve been preparing for what’s next.

I’ve often told my children and my students that all of life is preparing you for what’s next. Crawling prepares us for walking; school (at least in theory) prepares us for work. Warm-ups prepare you for exercise; practicing scales prepares you to make music. All of life’s experiences are preparing us for the experiences that are yet to come.

Before we moved to St. Louis, I completed my Master’s degree in English education which prepared me to take the position I held at Lutheran North for nine years. Before I met my husband, who had experienced divorce, I had had my own experience as a child of divorce which gave me empathy and prepared me for my role as a stepmother. God has a way of weaving our life experiences together, like a Master teacher, layering lesson upon lesson so that we are always equipped for what comes next.

It about killed me to wait six months to find a job, and I will confess that at about month four or five, I took a proofreading job for a guy working on his master’s in education. His research resonated with my heart for equity, and I loved speaking into his ideas. The feedback I got from that small job gave me the confidence to promote myself as a private tutor where I supported students who struggled with English — reading, writing, speaking.

Many of these students were English Language Learners or were raised in two-language homes, so they needed support with the nuances of English grammar. In order to meet their needs, I became much stronger in my ability to articulate the rules of sentence composition, the parts of speech, and the role of punctuation. This came in very handy when I found myself teaching a developmental composition course at Concordia University — a part-time gig — where I helped freshmen become more comfortable with writing paragraphs and essays.

After I’d been tutoring for a while, I randomly found a job posting on Craigslist to be a ‘tutor’ at Lindamood-Bell. That ‘tutoring’ position tutored me. It allowed me to start part-time while I continued to experiment with treatments for what was once called psoriatic arthritis but which I now refer to as ‘unspecified autoimmunity’. It gave me opportunities for advancement when I felt (and even when I didn’t feel) that I was ready. It challenged me, it stretched me, and it reminded me of the mettle within me that carried me through nine years of teaching high school juniors and seniors. By meeting with students one-on-one, by utilizing a variety of online materials and platforms, by writing instructional plans, by following instructional design, by mentoring other instructors, and by supporting my colleagues, I have been prepared for what’s next.

While I was tutoring, then teaching at the university, then working at Lindamood-Bell, my health slowly improved. As is chronicled in this blog, I have found the best health I’ve experienced in years through specific dietary choices, daily yoga and walking, weekly visits alternating between chiropractic care and physical therapy, monthly Hellerwork appointments, and twice yearly pain injections. I’m healthy, strong, and ready for what’s next.

This whole past six years has been preparing me for what’s next — first the pause, then the dabbling in tutoring and adjunct instruction, then a full-time job with ever-increasing responsibility.

So what’s next?

Could it be that God is planning to use everything I’ve been learning over this six year period of healing and growth in a position that is focused on educational equity — my long-time passion? Is God that good?

He’s that good; it’s almost as if He’d had it planned the whole time.

I’ll tell you more about that in my next blog post.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

If you’d like to read “the rest of the story,” I’ve included links below.

Changing Course, pt. 2

Changing Course, pt. 3

Changing Course, pt. 4

Changing Course, pt. 5

A Different Kind of Summer

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

I went back to work this past week after what was a very unusual summer — a summer that started with a week of dish washing in the desert of Arizona, transitioned to supporting some of our parents through their health crises, included my 40th high school class reunion, and ended with me transitioning into a new position at my school.

It was such an unusual summer that my suitcase stayed in some state of “packed” for the entirety of June and July, our garden was given over to monstrous intertwined vines of squash and cantaloupe bordered by overgrown rhubarb and zucchini, and I was rarely able to move my writing from my morning pages– scribbles of to-dos and emotion — to anything resembling a blog. My regular rhythms were disrupted.

It probably needed to happen — this season of go with the flow that included so many trips up and down the state of Michigan — which is breathtakingly beautiful in the summer — lazy hours on the beach, playtime with our granddaughters, laughter with former classmates, dozens of phone calls with parents and siblings, and a looser hold on all the anchors I’ve been gripping for years in my physical recovery — regimented bed times, a consistent morning routine, strict dietary guidelines, and a deep commitment to not only writing every day but also posting every week.

I think I needed this summer’s less-regimented experience to see that a looser grip is ok. I can relax a little bit. If I generally follow the routines that I have found work best to keep my inflammation and pain at bay, I can veer off that path from time to time and be fine. I’ve been a little afraid of that since I’ve been dealing with autoimmunity — afraid that if I don’t do everything correctly, I’ll end up in a flare. It’s a valid fear, because that sometimes happens (and it did happen a couple of times this summer), but holding too tightly to systems and regimens can also cause the anxiety that might lead to a flare. Maybe, I’m learning, taking a breath and veering off the path for a moment can be ok.

Because I veered off the path, I had countless hours with my mother as she cleaned, organized, and prepared her home for my stepfather’s return from an extended hospital stay. I had the opportunity — many times — to sit in my stepfather’s hospital room — witnessing his vulnerability, providing some consistent communication (even if I got on his nerves a bit), and watching him become someone I didn’t recognize, and then, someone that I did. I had time with my in-laws who are also navigating difficult waters — joking a little with my father-in-law and sharing some private moments with my mother-in-law. We enjoyed a few precious days with our granddaughters, feeding alpacas and goats, walking to playgrounds, watching movies, and reading stories until we heard, “I’m so tired, can we go to bed now.” Finally, my husband and I enjoyed four quiet days away — alone, just the two of us — to explore nature, breathe clean air, and celebrate the miracle of thirty-four years of marriage.

I didn’t get every weed out of the garden. I didn’t, as I’d hoped, dive back into The Artist’s Way, and I didn’t meet my writing goals, but I logged so many memories that I will be carrying with me as I head into the school year.

This summer was all about remaining flexible — going with the flow, changing plans at the last minute, missing a day or two of yoga, living without a decent cup of tea once in a while, staying up a little later, getting up a little earlier, and being mostly ok.

And, when I haven’t been ok, I’ve used the tools I’ve learned over the last ten years to recover — epsom salt baths, lots of water, ice packs, Motrin, and rest.

I know the value of staying on the path, I’m learning the richness of wandering away from time to time, and I know the potential outcomes of both ways.

I’m mostly back on the straight and narrow; I need to be as I learn my new role at school — more on that next time.

10 Years Later #7: Reviewing Observations

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This blog began when I left the classroom in 2014 because of the symptoms of an autoimmune disease. This post was written 1 year later (June 2015) when I was struggling to re-enter the work world. It’s interesting to look back now that I’ve completed 4 years in my classroom in Detroit. While I was often sidelined in those early days while I learned how to read the signals of fatigue and how to attend to my body’s need for care, I have now found some strategies that keep me going. Posts like this one serve as a reminder of how much healing I’ve experienced in this next chapter and how mindful I need to be as I move forward.

Last June I resigned my full-time teaching/school administrator position to relocate to Michigan from Missouri. I did this because a) I love my husband; and b) I have a life-style changing auto-immune disease. I took six months completely off and have been gradually introducing more and more work into my life since January. I’m almost a year into this grand experiment, and  I’m ready to review some of my observations.

After the initial dust settled from our cross-country move, I spent a significant amount of time on the couch watching Netflix, in my bed resting, at the gym exercising, and on my computer blogging. I really needed that time to recover after over 20 years of parenting, schooling, and working at or above my human capacity.  It was lovely — I had time to make friends, I began to listen to my body, I reconnected with my love for writing. It was healing physically, yes, and also emotionally.

For the first time in twenty-two years, my husband and I were living alone, enjoying a slower pace, and sucking up every minute of it. But, I couldn’t quite rest easily because I didn’t have any students in my life. I know, I know –over the past umpteen years I have fussed and fumed about the kids that have sat across the table from me — they are egocentric, they don’t meet deadlines, and, indeed, they smell bad. But, you know, I love them. I can’t seem to get enough of them.  

Something magical exists within each of us — an innate ability to learn, to process, to interact and be changed — that will never cease to take my breath away. I had to have students back in my life.

It started with just one guy — a graduate student who needed help on his dissertation. What a joy that was! I got to have a text-based conversation with him about educational practices and how they impact learning! That taste just whetted my appetite, so I moved onto a retired writing instructor who had written a novel and just wanted a final proof for grammar and punctuation errors. That led me to set up a profile on an online service connecting teachers with students for one-on-one assistance. In six months I have logged over 120 hours with almost twenty different students ranging from sixth graders to graduate students. I’ve worked on research papers, vocabulary lessons, dissertations, speeches, and test preparation.  

Each lesson is different, each student a challenge. So why didn’t I stop there? While tutoring independently, I could still maintain my exercise regimen, still build friendships, still find time to rest. Why did I have to push the limits and take on a job that will soon be at forty hours a week for the duration of the summer? Because I had to know. I had to know if I was imagining my limitations or if they were real. Maybe I was just burnt out from teaching and sorely in need of a vacation. Maybe I had imagined all my symptoms.

Surely I didn’t have that much pain, that much fatigue, that much stiffness. How could a regular job be too difficult for me? Because it is.  

This week I worked thirty-two hours at the agency and an additional seven hours tutoring. Not quite 40 hours in all, but it was a bit too much. Yesterday, at the end of an eight-hour shift, I met some friends for drinks and dinner. I called one of my friends by the wrong name — twice!  This is a friend I have known since the fall! I was mortified. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, but I was home before nine and crawled straight into bed — no reading, no television, no nothing. I was entirely depleted. This morning I woke up crabbily.  I can feel the inflammation through my body like an electric current.  It is as if I am an electric blanket that has been turned up to ‘high’ —   I can feel all the wires as they heat up.  My lips are dry and tingling. My back and hips ache. My eyes are screaming, “If you think you are going to put those contacts in, think again!” Yup, it’s too much.  And, just to be sure, I am going to push it a little further.  

This week will be a little lighter because of a trip I am taking for the second half of the week, but then I am certain I will be working over forty hours a week for the duration of the summer. Why don’t I just walk away now? Because I know me. If I walk away right now, I will rest up for a few weeks then start thinking that perhaps I was imagining my fatigue, maybe I didn’t really have all that pain, maybe my symptoms weren’t real. Nope, I’m not going to walk away right now. I am going to finish the experiment all the way to the end to be sure I come to all the right conclusions. My hypothesis is that I am going to be utterly exhausted and ready to slow back down, but I’ve got to complete this experiment to be sure.

10 years later…

It feels like I’m still experimenting. Right now, as I lie in bed, I can feel that electric current in my hips — I sat a lot yesterday — and I know I need to do some yoga and that an epsom salt bath is in my near future. I do still get exhausted, but I know how to take rest and how to recover, so I’m gonna keep going, keep meeting new students, keep finding that innate ability within them (and me) to learn, to process, to interact, and to be changed.

That is my current — 10 years later — review of my observations.

Ten Years Later #8 Low Batt.

~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

After writing White Flag Warning! earlier this week, I was scrolling through some old posts when I saw this one from early 2016 that reminded me how far I have come in my health journey. Where now I might end up on the couch once every few months, I used to end up there almost daily. The reason why I am doing so much better is exactly what I mentioned on Monday — my life style routines which include not only dietary choices and exercise and regular visits to a variety of practitioners but also regular attention to how much battery life I have and what kinds of things help me recharge.

In 2003, Christine Miserandino explained chronic illness to a friend in terms that are now widely referred to as “The Spoon Theory”, see it here.  Since that time, people like me, who have chronic illness, have been thankful to have a way to more accurately describe what it feels like to be totally depleted, or “out of spoons”.

We were away this past weekend at a basketball tournament in Chicago, and, having used all of my spoons, I shared the analogy with my husband. I told the story, as best I could remember it, and he said, “Hm. I like the analogy.  I get how spoons can carry, or hold, energy.”  Yesterday I was talking with my daughter after almost two days of trying to replenish my store of spoons. She was trying to understand how a whirlwind trip to Chicago took me out of commission for most of two days. My husband prompted me to share the spoon theory with her. I did. She said, “so can you store up spoons in advance?” I replied, “No. You can borrow some from the future, but you’ve got to pay them back. That’s what I’m doing now.”

So, if you got this far without clicking on the link above, you are probably scratching your head and trying to decide whether or not you are going to continue reading this cryptic post or if you are just going to close the window. If you clicked and saw the page-long “spoon theory” you might have said, “Well, I’m not gonna read all that and this blog post.” I know. That’s why in the past three or four years I have only shared the spoon theory a half a dozen times. It’s an effective analogy, yes. But it takes some explaining.

So, I was going through my motions this morning thinking to myself, “is there a more accessible way to convey how I am feeling?” I mean, people with chronic invisible illness find themselves in this position rather often. People look at us and think, “She looks alright to me!” They don’t understand when we “can’t” stay to watch the second round of games in the tournament because we have to go sleep. They don’t understand why we always make plans “tentatively” because we might feel like crap on that day. They wonder why we didn’t make it to Bible study in the morning, but we were able to teach a class in the afternoon.

Maybe we could think of it in terms of limited battery life. We all carry devices around with us wherever we go, don’t we? They all rely on batteries. To make sure that our devices are functional all day long, we plug them in every night at our bedside. Some of us have chargers in our cars. In many public places — airports, malls, libraries –we can now find charging stations. We push our devices to their limits. They get depleted; we have to plug them back in or they will be rendered useless.

Most people have internal “batteries” that can keep them running for twelve to fourteen hours with a minimal recharge sometime during the day. They might be up and out the door before seven, sipping a cuppa joe on the way to work. They might need a brief pause around 10 o’clock and some kind of a lunch break, but then they are good to go for the rest of the day. They might even have enough battery life left to get dinner with friends or attend a play or a concert in the evening. In fact, they can keep up this pace day after day and even get away on the weekend occasionally without fully depleting their battery life.

Not me. Not any of us with chronic illness. Our batteries have been rendered less effective. I might have up to eight hours of battery life per day. If I start off at 7 am and don’t take a break, I will almost certainly be done and in my pajamas at 3 pm. So, I don’t usually function that way. I use 20% of my battery, then I sit down and try to ‘re-charge’. I may get 5-10% back if I sit down, put my feet up, have a cup of tea, or close my eyes.  In that way, I s-t-r-e-t-c-h eight hours of battery life into twelve to fourteen hours of wakefulness, if not usefulness.

Occasionally, I throw all caution to the wind and decide that I am going to take a chance, push my battery to the limits, attend a basketball tournament out of state, and suffer the consequences. That’s what I did this last weekend.  I had already had a pretty busy week — I had tutored twelve hours, taught the first two classes of the semester, arranged for doggy care, done laundry, tidied the house, purchased new jeans, and packed — before we woke at 5:30am to prepare for a journey to Chicago that would begin at 7am. We arrived in Chicago around 11am CST, found the gym, got some lunch, then watched two basketball games. Of course we “sat” at the top of the student section, so, because they stood for the whole two games, we stood for the whole two games. All of this was a physical drain on my batteries. And then there was the emotional drain. All emotion drains battery life — positive and negative. While at this tournament, I saw many former students and some former colleagues. There was so much hugging and smiling! I loved it, but it drained me. By the time we headed back to the hotel at 5pm, I was done. I put on my pajamas, crawled in bed, and began to read student papers. (Yes, I realize that I said I was done and then I continued to do more — I’m telling you, I threw caution to the wind!) My husband and the others went out to get food. When he got back, I had barely enough energy to chew. I ate my dinner, then fell asleep before one episode of “Modern Family” could play out.

Then I slept for TWELVE HOURS.

We got up at 8:30am, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed back to the gym for more reunions, more hugging, more standing, more yelling, and more cheering — four games worth! Then, at 9:30pm, we started the trek back to Ann Arbor. Since my husband was driving the van following two charter busses full of students, I wanted to stay awake to keep him awake and alert. So, we drank caffeine at 10pm and chugged along. It was like I had purchased an external battery pack. I was wide awake on purpose. We blared music and sang. We talked and laughed. Finally, at 2:15am, we arrived home. Of course I couldn’t go straight to sleep. I had to run out that external battery, which was, of course, disposable, not renewable.

I found that out halfway through my sleep, if you can call it that. Having depleted all of my own battery, and the external battery, my body didn’t even have enough energy to sleep. It started to scream from the inside out — a burning sensation filled my gut, my joints ached. No position was comfortable. I thought I would have to run to the bathroom to be sick.

Have you ever run your phone battery down so low that the phone actually shuts off? When you first plug it in, you get that image of a battery with a thin red line showing the depravity of life you have allowed your phone to deplete to? Guys, I had a screaming red line.

For all of Sunday I whimpered, whined, and convalesced while my husband, dear man that he is, carried my charge cord around and kept plugging it in — he brought me scrambled eggs and toast, which at first I couldn’t even eat; he ran me an epsom salt bath, which I gladly soaked in for an hour; he brought me tea, and water, and ice; he watched a movie with me; he endured an emotional meltdown; he encouraged me to go to bed at 7:30pm.

Then I slept for TWELVE HOURS. AGAIN.

It’s now Tuesday morning, and I’m pretty sure my battery is at about 70%. I’m gonna go amble off to the gym, hobble onto the treadmill for a few minutes, then sit in the jacuzzi. After that ‘workout’, I will meet with three students and prepare for tomorrow’s class. I hope I still have 15-20% left at 7:30pm so that I can sit in on a board meeting conference call.

But if not, I’ll just have to crawl into bed and sleep some more. That’s the price of throwing caution to the wind when you have limited battery life.

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Isaiah 40:29

White Flag Alert!

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

Well, you probably could have called this one.

That’s right — my body started waving a white flag. Not insistently, not wailing in pain or gasping for breath, but nevertheless, waving that flag. I was leaving one parent and driving to the next before a planned holiday celebration with another relative when I first felt a tapping on my shoulder, heard a subtle clearing of the throat, and then turned to see it — the small square of white moving back and forth in my periphery.

I waved it away — I had one more stop before I arrived at fun, and I was determined to get there.

That “stop” was not glorious — it involved some demanding (from me), some literal bile (from the patient), some apologizing (from me), and some explaining (from the medical personnel).

Sigh.

I stayed until the situation was resolved then climbed back into my vehicle which has seen a lot more of me lately than is typical. “Come on, Tina Turner,” I said to my smoking hot Cayenne Chevy Trax, “let’s find some coffee and get to the fun.”

Now, some of you who have been following along just felt an involuntary raise of your eyebrow. Coffee? you ask. I thought you don’t drink coffee because it interferes with your homeopathic medicines.

Sssshhh! I’m enjoying my delicious oat milk latte over here!

Sure, I should’ve been chugging more water, doing some breathing exercises, and finding other ways to offload some cortisol, but wouldn’t you prefer an overly priced coffee beverage, too?

I have been slipping away from my regimented life just a bit as of late. Sure, I had intentions of getting back on my Artist’s Way journey — reading and writing every morning and taking artist dates. Yes, it’s summer and I have a break from my school workload and the freedom to implement routines. But, starting the summer off with a trip followed by multiple shorter trips to my parents’ has probably created a little space in which I could choose routine or impulsivity.

And, when left to my own devices, I am probably going to be impulsive. When my sister-in-law texted to see if we wanted to join them for dinner at the local Mexican place, my mother and I said “Of course!” When my brothers ordered oversized Margaritas, I did too! When I drove past a Starbucks, I pulled right in and got my fix! These things might seem small — a margarita here, a cup of coffee there, but when combined with the added stress of family illness, and some inconsistent sleep patterns, a person like me is probably going to get a few symptoms. And, typically when I get a symptom or two, the best way to resolve it is to head to the couch.

I’ve written a lot about my time on the couch as a person who lives with autoimmune disease, but I imagine every body has its limit and is prone to admit surrender if pushed too far.

We do demand a lot. We expect our bodies to be able to work, exercise, shop, garden, socialize, support our family and friends, and still put a meal on the table most nights. And, our bodies, amazing as they are, typically step up to the task and deliver — day after day after day. They can handle stressors such as difficult seasons at work, typical family crises, and other breaks in routine without much difficulty, but even for healthy bodies, stressors can accumulate and force us to take rest.

But when I initially saw that white flag, I was not interested in rest. I wanted to have some fun. So, clutching my steaming drink, I finished my drive to the destination, walked in the house, and settled in with my brother- and sister-in-law. We’d had this celebration scheduled for a while, and I had been looking forward to it. We chatted and caught up, we ate delicious (as usual) food, we played a game, we drank wine, we stayed up late, and I woke up in the morning with a big white flag waving over my bed.

“Fine,” I said. “Gimme a minute.”

I crawled out of bed, did a little yoga, grabbed my phone and headed out on a short walk. I checked in with my parents, then, dialed the number of my primary care physician. I gave the symptoms and the person on the other end of the phone said a nurse would call me back.

I glared at the dude with the white flag, “You happy now?”

He receded from my view, and I headed back to fun — coffee tasting, a delicious breakfast, more chatting and laughing, and then back to Tina Turner and another hour in the car.

When I arrived home, I took care of a few responsibilities and was headed out for another walk when my phone rang. It was the nurse asking to review my symptoms. She ordered antibiotics, extra fluids, and — of course — rest.

And that’s what I did all weekend.

It is annoying to be sidelined, of course, but it is also a good reminder. I have routines and rules because they keep me feeling well. They keep me healthy and able to manage the everyday demands and — usually — the unexpected stressors that often show up in life.

It’s really not unreasonable to get regular sleep, eat a healthy diet, get a little exercise each day, and avoid the foods and beverages that tend to give you a little trouble. And, for the last many years, I have — with a few diversions off the path — been following a pretty regimented life course in order to stay healthy. When I veer off the path too far, I get a weekend like this to remind me to get back to it.

Now, I’m not saying I’m not gonna occasionally enjoy an oat milk latte — I mean, I found the best one ever midway between my house and my parents’ house –nor am I going to always turn down a margarita — despite the excessive amount of sugar contained therein — but I am going to be mindful of the accumulative effect of these choices, particularly when I am managing more than typical amounts of stress.

That’s the thing, isn’t it? When we are under stress, we want our historical comforts — ice cream, peanut butter and jelly, warm coffee, a drink with friends or family — and they can, ironically, make us feel “cared for”. And really, I’m not at all saying those things are wrong. In fact, during times of stress, we should care for and even treat ourselves. We just have to remember how our body responds to stress and what it needs to stay healthy.

For me that means a lot of routine: water, daily vitamins and supplements, a probiotic, green (and occasional black) tea, a gluten-free/dairy-free diet, daily exercise including yoga and walking, writing, reading, and plenty of rest.

So, I’ve been spending a few days lying around, dabbling in the garden, eating fresh fruit and veggies, drinking a small amount of tea, watching movies and reading books, and my body is recovering. It’s taking a little longer than I’d hoped, but I’ll be ready to roll again pretty soon.

And hopefully, when I get rolling, I’ll stay on course for a while — and my oat milk latte can continue to be a treat.

Shhhh! A girl needs at least one extravagance every now and again.

Role Reversal

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

Since I returned from my stint as dishwasher during A Week in the Desert, I’ve been leaning into another role — that of daughter. Of all the positions I’ve held in my life, I’ve held this one the longest. I’ve been a daughter since the day I was born, but the role today looks nothing like it looked on that first day.

On day one, I was totally helpless and in need of almost continuous 24 hour care. I was the third of four, so by the time I showed up on the scene, my mom and dad already had a two year old and a four year old to tend to, but somehow they found a way to protect, feed, diaper, rock, clothe, and otherwise care for me in those early days.

And their work became a gradual release of responsibility — to show the four of us how to move through life without harming ourselves, to teach us first how to eat solid foods and eventually how to prepare them ourselves, to manage our own personal hygiene, to find our own ways to deal with the challenges and disappointments of the world, to find, make, or buy our own clothing, and to eventually care for ourselves and then the others in our lives.

And in these last few years, our responsibilities have shifted our gaze back to where we began.

This is the way of life, of course. Many of us get the opportunity to parent our own children, to move them through the phases of less and less dependency on us, and some of us also get an opportunity to witness our parents as they gradually lose their independence and need us to step back into their lives to lend a hand.

We are there right now, and although our parents appreciate our willingness to step back in, it is not without some annoyance at their need. Last week, after we returned from Arizona, I made my way first to the hospital to check on my stepfather who had had a major surgery and was in the beginning stages of recovery. He wanted me to visit, but he also wanted me to leave. I can’t get inside his mind, but I can see that he is rather helpless — dependent on hospital staff to bring him ice chips, to help him move from the bed to the chair, and to change his dressings. He didn’t likely see this for himself — he didn’t see cancer, surgery, or an extended hospital stay, and I can tell he’s not a fan. He has never minded others making him food or refilling his drinks, but being in this compromised situation is somewhat humiliating, somewhat depressing. So, as I check in, I remind myself to be kind, to be respectful, and to help where I can, and I have do things I’ve never had to do before. I have to tell him what day it is, remind him that he won’t be going home for a while, assure him that I will go care for my mother.

He reaches for my hand as I leave — this one who’s never been super emotionally demonstrative — and I promise him that I will call, that I will be back in a few days.

I leave and drive to my mother’s, watch her take the rollers out her hair and apply lipstick, stand closely when she makes her way down the stairs, help her into the car, buckle her seat belt, walk slowly beside her when we enter a store, move away to give her some freedom, but stay close enough to make sure she is safe. While she appreciates me being there, she does not like to role shift. She has been fiercely independent even during times when her ability to be so was quite limited, so to depend on her children — the very ones who she has spent her life fighting to provide for — is quite uncomfortable.

But depend on us she must. Because of her limited vision, she can no longer drive, yet she has myriad doctor appointments and her husband is an hour away in the hospital and will likely be there for a couple more weeks. We take turns showing up — fixing things around the house, vacuuming the floors, driving her to appointments, helping pay the bills.

She thanks us over and over and over, and sometimes she says, “Now go home. You have your own things to do. I am fine,” but as she says them, she seems a little unsteady on her feet, a little weary, a little unsure.

Nevertheless, I leave. I drive back to the hospital. I sit next to my stepfather as he swallows the ice chips he’s been allowed for the hour. I find his phone charger. I listen to his nurse detail his progress and the goals they want him to meet before he is discharged to rehab. I sit next to him as one of the Bourne movies plays silently on the wall-mounted television. I hear his roommate snoring. Then, as I stand to leave, he reaches for my hand.

I promise to call. I assure him that my brothers are checking on our mom. I say I’ll be back in a few days. I walk away.

Back in my car, I call my mother to see if she’s taken her medication, to give her an update on my stepfather, her husband. I admit I’ve walked away with her charge card in my wallet. I promise to be back in a few days.

She thanks me over and over and over, and I finish driving home.

And today, I’m headed back — first to the hospital, then to my mother’s house.

It’s a gradual re-connecting. It’s beginning to hold more tightly to what was once let go.

She sees it as a burden. I see it as a privilege.

Not everyone gets to place a warm flaxseed pillow behind their 82 year old mother’s neck. Not everyone gets to clip the fingernails of a stepfather who has been at times annoying, disappointing, and problematic but nevertheless present throughout my life.

I’ve been building muscle for this role my whole life, and I’m thankful to have the strength to show up now.

Honor your mother and [step]father… Exodus 20:12

A Week in the Desert

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 1 Comment

I’ve spent this week in the desert — the literal desert.

My husband, who is both an ordained pastor and a licensed therapist, is serving this week at Shepherd’s Canyon Retreat, outside Phoenix, Arizona. SCR is an organization that exists to assist Christian ministry leaders who are navigating a season of difficulty. Several times a year, eight participants come to the retreat and are served by a chaplain and two therapists who guide the participants through group, individual, and couples therapy.

Why am I here? Well, the chaplain and the therapists are allowed to bring a spouse for the week! When my husband suggested I come with him, I was thinking, that is the first week after school dismisses! Wouldn’t it be great to escape to the desert to read, write, and recover from the school year? I can sit poolside, and simply let my body heal from the strain of the year. Great plan, right?

I thought so, too!

About a month before our scheduled arrival, we received an email that asked if I’d be willing, while here at the retreat center, to volunteer in the kitchen. Well, I thought, I will be eating everyday, of course, and even if I were at home, I would have to spend some time in the kitchen — cooking, doing dishes — and really, I reasoned, I don’t mind helping out a little each day. So, I responded to the email, “Of course, I’ll help! I love washing dishes!” And, I do! I really do love the rhythm and the industry of bringing order to post-meal chaos.

So, last Monday, we left our home at 4am EST, traveled to the airport, boarded our flight, stopped off for a change in aircraft, then landed in Phoenix many hours later. From there, we were picked up in a van and driven another hour, past mountains and hundreds of enormous saguaro cacti to a small town where we stopped to eat and gather whatever snacks and provisions we would need while staying — in the middle of the desert — at the ranch for the next week. Finally, about thirteen hours after we left our home, we arrived at the retreat center, were shown our rooms, and received some orienting information about where to go for meals, how to use the in-room humidifier, and why drinking water is so important.

Then, a little before dinner time, as I had been directed, I arrived at the kitchen and received my initiation to the crew. I was kind of in a dazed stupor, since we had been awake for over 16 hours by that time, but I followed directions, did as I was told, and even learned how to operate the kitchen’s dishwasher. When I walked away from the kitchen a couple of hours later, soaked to the skin across my belly and noticing the raisin-like quality of my fingers, it became clear to me what I had signed up for.

It took me a minute to adjust my vision of what the week would hold, but it wasn’t difficult. While I wasn’t really ever in the same room with the participants, I saw them coming and going from the dining room. I didn’t know any of them, but I saw familiarity. I saw clergy, missionaries, and other professional church workers who looked as I have looked in the past — weary and perhaps a little wary about what this week held for them.

I briefly flashed back to seasons in our lives when we could have used a week away in the desert, where someone else planned and prepared our meals, where we left dishes sitting on the table for someone else to clear, where snacks were mysteriously restocked, and refrigerators were continuously filled with cold drink. More than once in our lives of ministry, we would’ve benefitted from getting away from it all with some trained professionals who might’ve helped us navigate the unthinkable, process the traumatic, and begin to heal what Ann Voskamp calls our “unspoken broken”. Because of the careful confidentiality SCR practices, I don’t know the names of the participants or, of course, the issues they are navigating, but I do know that most professional church workers suffer from overwork and unreasonable expectations and many have been betrayed by their leadership, suffered personal family trauma that they don’t feel they can process in the public eye, or are journeying through their own personal struggles with mental or physical health.

The five of us in the kitchen, two paid staff members (both professional church workers), and three volunteers (all of us educators and two of us pastor’s wives), remarked early in the week that each of us have “been there”, and then got busy with the task at hand, preparing and presenting meals, and attending to the associated housekeeping tasks — dishwashing, packaging leftovers, vacuuming floors, and quietly attending to the needs of the participants.

After each “shift”, I would escape to my previously scheduled activities — daily journaling, re-engaging with The Artist’s Way, sitting poolside, reading an enormous novel, and taking daily dips in the pool. Then, I would make my way back to the kitchen, to join my “crew”. Together we chopped vegetables, arranged beautiful salads, poured condiments, and told stories about our lives. One has partnered with her husband in camp ministry for almost forty years, and it shows. She has endless cheer and positivity and a tireless ability to pivot when the propane tank runs out of gas before breakfast, when five of the week’s participants have specific dietary challenges, when there is no way that the baked potatoes will be ready to serve on time. Another has also spent her career in camp ministry and is one of those people who can chat about the difficulties of her life while browning ground beef or making French toast, and then stop everything she’s doing to show you a photo of the most beautiful sunset she’s seen in her months here in the desert or to tell you about the local movie theater’s habit of showing cowboy or alien movies on Tuesday nights. One woman joined us this week just because she loves the place. She paid her own airfare to come from Alaska and sleep in a camping trailer for two weeks, helping out in the kitchen for almost every meal. Another is the wife of the chaplain for the week. She not only worked in the kitchen three meals a day but made it her job to walk around in the the heat (of the desert) with a bucket of soapy water, scrubbing down any chair or bench that had become soiled.

Over the week, we have worked as a team, learning little known facts about Alaska, sharing stories of foods we like (or don’t like) to make, and laughing at one another’s silliness, and mostly making sure that the participants got what they needed when they needed it.

And, (you might have seen this coming), I got what I needed, too. When I was explaining to my colleagues that I was going to Arizona the week after school let out, I said I was looking forward to the abrupt transition into summer, a break in my school year routine, and an opportunity to detach from reality a bit. I got all of that, and I got another thing that I almost always need — a sense of purpose, of mission, of teamwork, of collaboration.

Even more, I’m walking away with some new lifelong friends — my kitchen crew — may we meet again, here or elsewhere.

‘Come away with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:31

*If you or someone you know is a ministry leader navigating a personal, family, or ministry challenge, check out Shepherd’s Canyon Retreats.

**If you’d like to support this ministry, check out their latest newsletter for current needs.

Attending

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

At my small charter school in Detroit, attendance is always an issue. I very rarely have 100% of my students present in class, and when I say very rarely, I mean that in the last four years in this position, I have probably had perfect attendance in any one period fewer than five times.

As a school, we are doing well when we have more than 80% of the students in the building.

There are reasons for this, of course.

We have students with housing insecurity — they may not be in school because they are in the middle of a move, because they are “in between homes”, or because they have some other housing related issue such as the power or the water has been cut off. I know students who have moved every year (or multiple times per year) for much of their lives.

We have students with transportation issues — they might not have a ride to school because they live outside of our school’s bus route and maybe their family doesn’t have a vehicle at all, or the one vehicle they have broke down and they don’t have the money to get it repaired, or maybe the one vehicle that they have was needed to get someone to work or to an important medical appointment, or maybe they just didn’t have money for gas.

We have students who have to carry adult weight within the household — they might not be in school because their parents had to be at work and there was no one to watch a younger sibling, or they had to care for an ailing parent, or they had to drive a parent or sibling to an appointment, or they had to appear in court. I have one seventeen year old student who lives in a house alone — I’m not sure why, because he hasn’t been in school enough for me to build that kind of relationship.

Myriad reasons keep my students away from school, so it is remarkable that this past week, after finals were finished and students really did NOT have to come to school, many still did.

I arrived at school on Thursday morning, went for my daily mile-long walk around the building with a coworker, then took my station at the door of the gym. I stand in this position every morning, “holding” students in the gym from the time they enter the building until the designated release time after teachers have had time to arrive, prepare, and position themselves at their classroom doors to receive their students.

The gym was far from full, but students trickled in. Some found basketballs and started shooting like they do every day. Others sat or stood on the periphery of the gym, watching the activity on the court, or chatting, or scrolling on their phones. By the time I released them, I would have guessed we had about thirty of our two hundred or so underclassmen. (The seniors finished two weeks ago.)

But, Thursday was field day — a day where students had been promised burgers and dogs on the grill, popcorn, nachos, cotton candy, and, more importantly, a water fight — so the trickle continued, even after the morning bell signaling the start of class.

And when I say “class”, you need to broaden your definition a bit. Since our finals are finished, and we are introducing no new curriculum, the day is spent quite a bit differently than a normal day. The teacher across the hall, a conscientious and well-prepared science educator, who normally is engaging her students in goal-related content, had a video game projecting on her classroom screen, and a huddle of students sitting close together around the ones who held controllers.

A few students sat at the end of the hall at the table where the vice principal sits throughout the day. They weren’t in trouble, they were chatting, ready to receive and follow through on instructions such as, “Please help the custodian take that trash to the bin,” or “Would you help take down that bulletin board?”

Two of my second period students entered my room and saw that I was playing the video of the song from High School Musical, “What Time Is It?” where the final school bell rings on the last day of school and the students throw their papers in the air and start dancing, and one of them asked, “Can’t we switch this to ‘The Cupid Shuffle’?” and so began a whole period of watching videos and dancing along.

Later in the day, I had one student show up to class, and she and I sat quietly at a table working on sewing projects for forty minutes. I had brought my sewing machine to school to show students how it works, and she had determined to make a headband.

After a long day of such playful pursuits, the whole building emptied into the parking lot and the field behind the school. Music was pumping through a speaker as students lined up to grab snacks and then check out the activities. Some opted for games such as Uno under a tent, others raced through a blow up obstacle course. One teacher and one student spent a large chunk of time flinging a frisbee back and forth. Everyone ate, and many broke into momentary dance when “their song” came on.

The highlight for everyone, was, of course, the water fight. A staff member enlisted students to fill water balloons from a hose at the back of the school. Students and teachers wrapped up their hair, slipped out of sneakers, and secured their valuables. They knew what was coming — first water balloons, but when those were exhausted, people turned to the hose, grabbing any kind of container that would hold water, and then lugging buckets, Rubbermaid totes, and such in pursuit of their targets. Few were left un-doused. Shrieks and laughter and “you betta not”‘s filled the air.

And then the clean up, the arrival of the busses, and a couple attempts at end of the year scuffles over year-long beefs. The staff, hot, damp, and exhausted, found another gear to contain the potential for violence, to guide students onto busses, and to ensure that everyone had a way home.

And still, we had one more day of school. Surely after all of that, certainly after the big hurrah, students would not come to school on Friday. It was only a half-day after all, and — again — no intention to touch curriculum, but yet, they came. A very weak stream of students it was, but they came.

I again took my post in the gym, and saw a few bouncing basketballs, some grabbing the packaged breakfast that is provided each day, and a couple wandering over to me to tell me who they were mad at, what they were hoping to do today, and what they were worried about in the coming weeks — a cross country move, a conflict with a friend, and the like.

I released a couple dozen students into the school — that was it, just a couple dozen. They hung out in classrooms, shot baskets in the gym, and then, near the end of the day, we had an impromptu dance party in the hallway.

I try to pay attention on these days — to see who is here? why did they choose to come? what are they looking for? what do we have for them.

And what I see — every single time — is caring adults.

I see one of our custodians sitting next to a junior. He looks very serious when he says, “I am about to be a senior; I need to start acting my age.” The realization of his reality is sobering up this goof-ball.

I see a school leader ask a group of students to tear down a hallway full of bulletin boards. They eagerly comply — first demolishing a hallway and then cleaning it up and disposing of all the trash. A little later, I see the leader quietly slipping each of the students a five dollar bill to thank them for their efforts.

I see teachers hugging students. I see the whole staff walk the students to the door, out of the building, and onto the busses. I see the staff waving goodbye as the busses pull away, and I see high school students from inside the busses — not rolling their eyes, not looking away, not sneering, but smiling and waving back.

All year long we focus on instructional standards, and students being in class, completing their exit tickets, and turning in their assignments, but on these last few days, we loosen our hold on the shoulds and we lean into the opportunity to love on a small group of students who would rather be in our building than at home, who are soaking up a little bit more time with friends, leaning into a little more guidance from adults that they trust, and savoring the last few moments of what — stability? safety? belongingness? connectedness? — before two and a half months away from us.

We can’t be sure what the summer holds for each of our students, but as we smile and wave goodbye, we lift silent prayers for their safety, we ask that they would be provided for, we place them in the hands of One who knows every bit of their reality and who has loved them much longer than we have.

May He bless them and keep them — and us — until we meet again.

10 Years Later #7: Play Ball!

Featured ~ Kristin ~ 2 Comments

I wrote this post in May of 2015 when I was newly employed at Lindamood-Bell, six months after leaving the classroom. My confidence had taken some blows, and I needed to talk myself back into the game. I’m sharing it again here, as part of my 10th anniversary series because, as any teacher will tell you, May is when our spirits are flagging and we [and possibly you] need some encouragement to just keep swinging.

I am not too proud of myself at the moment. I’ve had a series of less-than-stellar performances, and I’m starting to feel like I’m going to get put on the bench.

Last week I had a dud of a session with one of my students. We were working on ACT prep and making very little progress. We kept getting stymied and bogged down in words. I was frustrated and so was he.

I left him to go to another student. She and I worked for an hour and a half on an outline for a research paper she is writing. We referred to the teacher’s model, we attended to his rubric, and we created a finished product. Her mom messaged me the next day — the outline earned a 60%.

This morning I worked with a student on reading comprehension. We were pouring over college-level text that involved math. I am not inept when it comes to math, but I am rusty. Very rusty. We each read the text silently creating notes at the same time. We compared our notes, then I asked her some higher order thinking questions about the content. Without getting into the gory details, let me just say that my student became acutely aware that I was out of my comfort zone. I could have left it there. I didn’t. I asked a colleague, in the student’s presence, to help me understand what I did wrong. And I didn’t just ask once, I blathered on and on, joking about my inability to set up a proportion correctly. That doesn’t sound like a horrible sin, but I had been told before working with this student that I should not reveal that I was a newbie — the student is very intelligent and needs to know that I am qualified to do this job. I  blew it.

The colleague pulled me aside and reminded me that this student’s success is contingent on the fact that she trusts our credibility. That’s when I remembered the explicit instructions.

It was time for me to go home, so I clocked out and walked to the car feeling a physical sensation I haven’t felt in years. A dull ache was settling in my throat and through my chest. I couldn’t take back what I had done. What if this student didn’t want to work with me any more? What hardship would that cause for the agency?  What would it take to rebuild her confidence in me.

Really, I was a mess.

I texted the colleague expressing my grief. When I got home and realized she hadn’t texted me back, I started to draft an email about how devastated I was at my failure, etc. That’s when I heard the ‘ping’.  My colleague texted me back: “Don’t worry about it! It’s all part of this crazy steep learning curve!”

We texted back and forth for a few minutes and I began to breathe more regularly, to release the tension in my muscles, and to prepare for the student that I had later this afternoon — the same ACT student that I tanked with last week.

I have had a lot of successes as a teacher.  I know I am capable, but lately I feel like I’ve been falling a little (or a lot) short. I don’t cut myself much slack. I expect to hit a home run every time I get up to bat, but even the best batter in the MLB isn’t getting a hit even half of the time. I don’t expect my students to get a hit every time they are at bat either, yet they, too, get discouraged when they strike out.

They often want to throw the bat, stomp to the dugout and sulk. That is how I felt today.  I was sure I would collapse on my bed when I got home and cry for a while — I know better! How could I make such a novice mistake!!

And I just made another one, didn’t I? My last post, Trajectory, was about how success is often related to how well we are able to adapt, bounce back, take another swing.

And so I’ve got to take a step back for a minute.

So I’ve had a few rough spots in the last week. Who hasn’t? I’ve said from the beginning that working with students is as much about lessons for me as it is about lessons for them. Why would I be surprised when my learning gets a little uglier than I am comfortable with. It happens for my students all the time. And yet they keep swinging.

I can learn a lot from these kids.

So, let me pick up this bat and head back to the plate. Before long, I’m bound to knock one out of the park.

…we count as blessed those who have persevered. (James 5:11)

10 Years Later #6: Trouble Drives the Narrative

Featured ~ Kristin ~ Leave a comment

Written in May 2018, this post remains a favorite of mine. Today I’m adding a voice recording.

Every story worth reading is built around a problem — forbidden love, mistaken identity, murder, theft, robbery, and the like. I doubt many of us would even bother to read a story in which everything goes smoothly or in which the main character never faced a challenge. What would be the point?

If when Mayella Ewell accused Tom Robinson of violating her, someone had stepped up and said, “Come on now, you just want to accuse an innocent black man because it’ll make you feel better about yourself,” and Mayella had said, “Oh, you’re right. Sorry about that,” To Kill a Mockingbird wouldn’t have been a story. Sure, we all would’ve preferred Tom to have gone free — he was innocent after all — but Harper Lee builds her story around this fictional trouble to reveal a real-life trouble of the time. And that trouble drives her narrative.

In the story, Atticus Finch wrestles with racial injustice. We see him take risks to stand up to prejudice, shoot the symbolic rabid dog, and try to explain the harsh realities of life to Jem and Scout — and those are the reasons we love this story! We don’t love the ugliness of racism, the trial of an innocent man, his conviction, or his death. No, we like the character who recognizes and stands up to injustice, who doesn’t lose his head, who is able to speak truth and maintain hope. We don’t love the conflict, we love what the character does in the face of the conflict.

Without conflict a story hardly exists.

In fact, from early grades, we learn that stories have an arc — the exposition in which the writer provides context and sets the stage for the action, the rising action that introduces the conflict, the climax where the outcome of the conflict becomes evident, the falling action during which the loose ends get tied up, and the resolution that enables us to close the book and move on to the next story. The heart of every story is the conflict — the trouble drives the narrative.

The trouble, however, is not the story; the ways in which the character faces, weathers, endures, or learns from the trouble — that is the story.

Real life stories, too, consist of ups and downs, twists and turns, successes and failures, joys and disappointments. We expect these rhythms in the lives of fictional characters, but when we are living out our own life stories, we get can trapped in the mistaken belief that life is only good when it is free from trouble. When conflict is introduced — divorce, crime, illness, addiction — we can be tempted to believe that our story is over. Any writer knows that the introduction of conflict is the very beginning of the story.

The Wizard of Oz opens with a tornado that lifts Dorothy’s home off its very foundation, hurls it through the air, and lands it in a far away land with an impact that kills an evil witch. Talk about trouble! The story, however, is not about the tornado or the traumatic journey through the air or even about the witch, but it is about Dorothy’s ability to take step after step down the yellow brick road in a quest to find her way back to the people she loves.

The trouble is not the end of the story; it is the beginning.

Each of us has faced trouble. My close circle of friends could sit sipping coffee and share tales of betrayal, abuse, illness, financial ruin, scandal, and broken relationships. In fact, as we get to know one another, it is not typically our successes that we share but the troubles that have played out in our lives. Why? Because these times of trouble shape us. Just like Atticus’ defense of Tom Robinson revealed his integrity and his ability to keep his cool when an angry mob confronted him in the middle of the night, our experience with trouble exposes our inner grit — that strength that lies dormant inside of us until a moment of crisis requires it to surface. Dorothy would’ve never known that she was capable of standing up to the Wicked Witch of the West if she hadn’t been hurled through the air and found herself in completely foreign territory.

Trouble reveals what we are made of.

In the smooth sailing sections of my life, I have been tempted to think that I know all there is to know. I have lived with the mistaken belief that I have it all together — that I can handle life all by myself, thank you very much. I’ve even been prone to judge those whose lives are not sailing smoothly — certain that their trouble is the result of some fault of their own.

However, when crisis arrives in my life — and it surely does — I have to admit that I don’t know everything, that I can’t work things out by myself, and that trouble comes with or without my help.

One thing remains certain: times of trouble shape me.

That’s what conflict does. It allows the character in the story to be transformed — to be dynamic — to be reshaped. Dorothy arrives back home with a new gratefulness for the people in her life. Scout, having watched Atticus navigate the trial of Tom Robinson, gains a new compassion for those who have a different experience than she does. Me? I learn humility and reliance on God.

Trouble brings me to my knees and forces me to admit that I am poor and needy. From this position on the ground, heaving with sobs, I hear a still small voice: Be still. Know that I am God. I will never leave you or forsake you. My sobbing softens. I remember that I am but dust. I am not exempt from suffering. No crisis has afflicted me that is not common to man. And certainly this trouble is not the end of my story.

I whisper a thank you as I wipe my tears and push myself up to standing. I remember the words prayed over me many years ago, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”  That is my grit. That is my inner strength that sometimes lies dormant but never fails to surface in times of trial. The strength of my character is not in my ability to have all the answers but in my realization that I have none of them. That realization keeps my pride at bay and allows me to turn for guidance and strength to the One who knew me before I was born and who has written every page of my story. He is not surprised by the trouble; He is using it to re-shape my character.

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33