Give a Little Bit

Some of my more amazing single mom faith times have come when God mobilized someone just so when I needed it most, whether it was a timely phone call, a gift card, an opportunity. And you know how it is...You cry and sigh and blow your nose and think, "OK. Maybe I can do another day." The contact is life-giving on a cellular level.

So my brilliant beautiful friend Melinda just blew my doors off yesterday. You know how a simple idea can take on Einsteinian proportions? Please read her blog on Modus Operandi: +1, in which she describes living her daily life...plus one. That means one extra prayer, one extra lunch for someone who needs it, one extra meal, one extra note of encouragement. As moms, a normal battle cry is, "I'M DOING LAUNDRY...DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO PUT IN?" So +1 is along those lines, but bigger: If I'm doing something anyway...how can we stretch this out and help someone else?

I know I often feel overwhelmed, and then guilty, about not "serving" as much as I'd like to. There are a million worthy causes and only so many hours in the day. But Melinda's M.O. is so...streamlined! As a multi-tasking recovering-Type A kinda gal, I love that in a life-giving, life-changing call to action.

So, work with me here: What could you do to +1 in your normal routine? Choose a person to pray for? Donate a little extra? Check in on an elderly neighbor? I got to see one of my daughter's favorite teachers last night and learned she's expecting. I packed up a bunch of mom books for her this morning. Easy schmeezy fresh and cheesy, as we say in this house. A few moments and it was done on this end. Will Em's teacher review those books months (or years) from now and remember that they came at an exciting, wondering time?

Please think about this...and let us know how you're +1-ing it at your house, in your community, in your heart's prayers. Because you have to know: this is one of those things that goes exponential. And that, my friends, is what it's all about.

Accepting grace

Sometimes I get the grace reminder from a friend. Today I shared my thoughts with my two faith buddies on a daily devotional I received from Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life, http://www.saddlebackresources.com/en-US/PurposeDrivenLife/FreeResources/TodaysDevotional?a=2787&z=1.

“When we don’t believe God is determined to love us perfectly, we end up living like our best choice is to take care of ourselves. And then, we become so busy taking care of ourselves that we have little time for authentic, transparent, loving community with others.”

I related how I felt I was living that way right now. I am so involved in solving the crises in my own life that I feel I am neglecting my friends and family. Why can't I do it all? I so easily take on the role of God in my own life…I must take care of everything myself. Part of it is a control thing, and part of it is that I have a hard time believing that God really wants to love me...help me.

Then of course, God surfaces in the words of one of my buddies. She pointed out that, “Being in ‘community’ doesn’t necessarily mean that Cathy has to give to others, it could mean that Cathy gets to let others love her!”

My expectations for myself are different than my friend's expectations for me. She cuts me slack...grace. What a concept. I am so used to giving, that I forget (and frankly feel uncomfortable) about letting others help me. I think it is one of the curses of being a single mom. Afterall, I am alone, it is just me. It is my job to take care of everything. I forget that friends and family are there to help me. I forget how to let them in, how to accept help, and how to let them love me.

This single mom thing is a two-way street. We need people to be a blessing in our life, but we also need to be able to accept the blessing. I need to remember it isn’t a sign of weakness. Letting others in is a sign of healthy community…give and take…it takes both. Aaahh, I am still uncomfortable…

Girly Man

During our recent storm here, I found myself a little anxious. This is a regular occurrence that I experience (and have heard from other single moms) when things are out of the norm...meaning power outages, snowdrifts, freezing temps, floods, (probably) locusts, etc., put us a little on edge. I find myself hypervigilant during these times, feeling like I especially need to protect my daughter from the elements, make sure I keep the household going inside and out, have emergency supplies, etc. It's just little old me against a whole bunch of bad possibilities.

Some people watch the snow fall, lazily nursing a hot toddy or peppermint chocolate: I spend my time looking furtively with an eye tic, thinking of the million ways we could die.

So during our severe weatherage, I had a pipe burst outside and, in the subsequent Three Stooges-esque scramble to get the water main turned off, among other concerns, I came to the conclusion that I make a lousy guy. I didn't know what I was doing and I was overwhelmed and, frankly, all the guys I know would not have started bawling in frustration as I did after one thing tripped another and another and another.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me feel especially alone, even though my ex was the kind of guy who would have just said, "Call a plumber." There is something to be said for having another adult in the area to which you could comment, "Doesn't this just suck?" And he'd say, "It sure does suck." And you both could eyeball the damage together and agree on the suckitude of the situation.

So...Cathy wrote about our looking to get that safety net established and firmly entrenched for ED. I am piggybacking on her blog entry here simply because my plumbing story is so incredibly common. And it's not just plumbing we're interested in--We're looking to share knowledge across the board. I'm a firm believer that we all have something valuable to share...it's just a matter of organization. It's the old adage of teaching a man to fish--do we solve an immediate crisis, or do we also instruct on how to prevent or fix something for the long-term? My vote is for both. There is a lot to be said for instructing and encouraging single moms on a number of fronts, from changing a tire to bleeding a pipe, from stopping a leak to starting a class. While we all may remain girly men, in the nicest sense of the term, we also become stronger women and moms who get that graceful balance of asking for help and showing our kids what we're made of.

What knowledge do you have to share?

Moving forward

The kids are back to school and life returns to normal…whatever normal is. This week my biz partner and I got together to discuss our efforts (or stalled efforts) with respect to Eve’s Daughters. We quickly came to the place of “we haven’t done enough, we aren’t moving fast enough, and do you think God is mad at us?” Despite all I read about God and how much He loves us/me, I still end up flogging myself.

This time I remembered my resolution about showing some grace in 2009. So instead of tar and feathering my partner and me, I asked a simple question, “Could it be that we did as much as we could humanly do in 2008? Given all that is going on in our lives could it be that just maybe God felt we made progress?”

I heard a loud and clear… “YES!” Of course we would like to be farther along…we would like to be fully up and running…we would like to be able to help all single moms the way we envision it happening…but it takes time, and God remembers that we are still single moms as well. So I am listening to God, I am taking it easy on myself, and I am showing myself some grace.

This doesn’t mean I am slacking off…it means taking one day at a time and making realistic goals for 2009. Last year we began spreading the word about Eve’s Daughters and we started getting a lot of requests for different types of resources. So this year along with submitting our paperwork for our 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, we are focused on developing a strong network of people and organizations to help single moms.

If you or someone you know can help us with our network of resources let us know. We are looking for all kinds of people and services…plumbers, lawyers, caretakers, auto mechanics, gardeners, handypersons, career counselors, accountants, and people with an open ear and strong shoulder to cry on…to name a few. We would love to connect moms to discounted services and products where applicable. The number one thing we hear from single moms is how alone they feel in facing the daunting task of juggling motherhood, career, and “home” responsibilities. We want to help by tapping into existing resources and creating new ones where none exist.

Let us know if you would like to join our network…or if you know of a resource that is already in existence…don’t assume we know about them all. Please help us help the modern-day widows and orphans.

Grace for the New Year

Why is it that every year about this time I start feeling as if I failed…didn’t get enough done...didn’t help enough people…didn’t make enough money…didn’t parent my children perfectly…didn’t write enough blog entries…

As 2009 approaches I am trying to figure out what is realistic…how should I measure my success as a single mom, daughter, sister, friend, employee/business owner…what should my New Year’s resolutions be?

What’s realistic for a single mom to expect of herself? Is it enough to get up in the morning, get showered and dressed; get the kids ready for school, make their lunch, feed them breakfast, and feed the animals; take the kids to school; run home to find the forgotten homework and drop it back at school; go to work and try and get something accomplished; take one child to the doctor, one child to the orthodontist, and one dog to the vet; run to the grocery store before heading to the day’s sports events to cheer on the kids; race home to make dinner, start a load of laundry and help with the homework; tuck the kids into bed, do the dishes, take out the garbage, clean the toilet and pay the bills…

Is the everyday enough? How can we add the car maintenance, home/yard maintenance, keeping up with friends and family, volunteer work, exercise, and quiet time with God? If we take a break, who picks up the slack? How do I add another resolution to what is already a 25-hour day?

I have been doing the single mom thing for 14 years…and I still haven’t figured out how to get it all done. It is easier now that my kids are 17 and 14…but it is still tough. Time that I gained from the kids helping out around the house is now spent trying to figure them out…life has gone from a physical stretch to a mental stretch. Case in point…

My daughter’s room is a pig sty. It is horrible. We signed a contract that said if I let her get a cat she would keep her room clean. We signed the contract because I didn’t want to fight about her room. Any idea what court of law enforces the broken “clean room” contract? I am in the dog house…I told her she couldn’t go to the movies until her room was cleaned up…she missed the movie. So guess what she is doing right now? Ignoring her room and giving me the evil eye!! I am wishing I had a spouse to back me up…to be the bad guy…to lay down the law…to enforce the contract.

So here I am, pondering New Year’s resolutions when my daughter’s room is a mess, when I can’t manage to enforce “the contract”, and when I am behind on laundry, bills, housecleaning, etc. Can I really expect more of myself? Can I really make another resolution that I won’t keep?

Instead of asking more of myself…I am going to practice a little grace…I am going to give myself permission to do the best I can. My 2009 New Year’s resolution is to show myself grace when everything is piling up. I commit to blog about the little moments of grace that I find in 2009. Some may be short and sweet, and some may be longer lessons…but I promise to look for them while living the life of a single mom…want to join me?

Wistmastime is Here

I always get a little wistful/weepy/whelmed at this time of year. Part of it is how I'm wired, and part of it is that it's just too much: too much to do, see, eat, buy, wrap, spend, plan. What should be repeatedly bumps up against what is. While I've made my peace with the fact that life is not like a Hallmark commercial, I do often long for the calm that is depicted (or manufactured, as the case may be)--happy kids, toasty fire, darling retriever.

Single moms can feel stretched even thinner than usual this time of year, not to mention stressed over commitments, finances, their kids' well-being, etc. For many years, I fell into a bad pattern of trying to really whip things into a froth for my daughter, so as to mitigate the fact that her parents were divorced. While I couldn't pull it off financially speaking (simply because we didn't have it), I did try really hard to "make some Christmas magic" on numerous occasions and, frankly, burned myself out: My wild activity added little to my daughter's well-being, and her lack of appreciation for my holiday gymnastics left me a tinge--how shall we say??--resentful.

I've learned to scale back--to lay out my mind's plans (usually terribly unrealistic) and cut them by about two-thirds. I push myself to call friends, especially other single moms, when I'm feeling lonely and loser-like for not pulling off the Traditional American Holidays (As Seen On TV). I ask myself regularly (like I did my daughter when she was young) Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? and then--what a concept!!--I try to take care of those basic needs. It's astounding how much more doable life becomes with a little protein and a 20-minute nap.

There's much we can do to make the season easier...the bulk of which happens inside us. How have you learned to de-stress the holidays?

Sun breaks

How can I be thankful when it seems the world is crashing in?

It has been a rough two months at my house. It feels like just as I adjust to the latest crisis another one is in the wings…kind of like the rain storms that line up off the Oregon Coast to keep Portland in the dark, dreary, rain-filled days of winter. The storms come one after another, with maybe a brief sun break in between the onslaught.

My task these days is to focus on the sun breaks. It is so easy to fall into the trap of looking at the crumbling economy, newly identified health concerns, ongoing parenting challenges, and inconsistent work contracts. But instead, on the eve of Thanksgiving…I need to remember the sun…the Son. I think sometimes all we get is a sun break; a brief moment of respite, a brief moment of hope in an otherwise dreary season of life. It is the hope that is important to remember today.

Karen and I often debate how much to include God in our blog. After all, Eve’s Daughters is meant for all single moms regardless of their faith. As much as I struggle with it, I can’t take God out of it. It isn’t possible. For me, God is the reason I keep going. I am committed to helping all single moms, and the only way I know how is to share my hope. Until God came into my life, being a single mom was one storm after another…no break in the deluge. Then I started asking questions about God…and one day there was a sun break, and then another.

So in the middle of my current string of storms, I am guessing (because I can’t really see through the fog to the end of the path) that God is preparing me for helping other single moms. How else can I understand if I haven’t experienced it? Now, I must admit, I was really hoping that I had done my time. It looks like there are more lessons, more experiences, more challenges. So I must focus…focus on the sun breaks.

Today I am thankful…

for my life…I am living
for my kids…they are smiling
for my family…they are my support
for my friends…they listen
for my home…it is warm and cozy
for my God…He gives me sun breaks