Risky Business

Yesterday, a friend of mine relayed a comment made by a famous woman who's in the process of reinventing herself at midlife. The gist of it was that women need to let their daughters see them taking risks...and even see them fail (and of course, this goes for sons as well). The "gift" of failing, after you finish nursing your bruises, frees our most-loveds to fail themselves and learn that it's rarely fatal.

For anyone who knows me, it should go without saying that I'm not referring to heliskiing, mountaineering or deep-water scuba-type risks. I'm talking about starting that business, moving to another state (or country), living alone even though you're scared or lonely, giving so much that you're always living on the edge, going back to school...at 50.

I've always tended toward the orderly and predictable, preferring life to be on the neater side (if anyone had bothered to ask). But I'm also a very strong woman on a lot of levels. So why, then, do I want to show my daughter only the clean side, the pain-free side? Often, it's because I want her to feel safe, and that is a good thing...to a point. Because we live in an unsafe place where bad things happen to innocent people and longings go unanswered and people up and die, there's only so much safety I can provide. Do I want her to think well of me (by keeping everything neat and in control) or would I rather she think well of herself ("If Mom can do a face plant in life and keep going, so can I")?

The older I get, the freer I get, and the freer I get, the more I can share the real me with my girl. I'm less afraid of telling her the times I've been terrified; I'm no longer searching for the perfect answer, instead telling her I've often been unclear. This frees her to go through life wondering, questioning, marveling. Risking. The way we were wired. Life is indeed risky business--how are you living it?

For Giving

"You may be the only Bible that people are reading," our guest pastor said this morning, referring to the fact that we're supposed to be *living* our faith in the world. We've got the guidebook, but how we do it and what that looks like is up to us.

I haven't been to church in a long time, but I heard to go this morning, and that pastor may have well as thrown an NIV upside my head. How often do I forget that people watch me, listen to me, hear when I'm snarky, complaining, cursing or despondent? Do I come across as hopeless...or hope-filled? Victim or redeemed? Compounding the issue is that he also said we need to be reconciled to whomever or whatever needs it, in order to be authentic. Real. And sadly, this involves the often painful experience of forgiving.

This last year has, frankly, been tough. There's been a lot of loss--of people, relationships and support. I've been adrift, questioning and feeling pretty lonely and forgotten. But if I take this morning's words to heart, then I need to take steps to make that right with the people involved if I want my parenting, my writing and my work with Eve's Daughters to have the scent of authenticity to it...vs. the stink of withholding, of unforgiveness, of bitter disappointment.

During my divorce, a wise friend taught me that often people who've hurt us don't deserve our forgiveness, but that I deserved to be a woman who forgave--that I was made for giving. Most days I forget that. I'm at that critical crossroads yet again: Forgive and make progress, or don't and stay stuck.

And although I am heavily into reality, I confess today that I am caught in the stink...even as I sit here, mere minutes away from gladly preparing a meal for some 40 single moms, their kids and our volunteers. I will happily pour into these women...but I also know I've got some hard interior work to do to make this meal--and the next and the next--all the more real.

My desire to be right, to be vindicated, fights with my desire to be free. But for now, I'm trying to be "willing to be willing"--to loosen my fist a bit, to relax into an imperfect ending. To go prepare a meal and serve it with imperfect grace. And I know if I stay willing, forgiveness will come with silent steps when I least expect it--when I suddenly find I'm no longer in this tight-fisted place, when reality shows up with wide, hopeful spaces.

Anchors

I have been blessed with some of the finest women friends available--some long-term, some for a season--and all of them have somehow kept me tethered while encouraging me to still go deep. While in Chicago for my dad's memorial, I was able to catch up with four of my bestest high school girlfriends. It was fabulous because these amazing women--some of whom I knew in junior high--hold parts of my history that no one else knows. So in addition to being reminded of incredibly embarrassing things we did, we were able to catch up seamlessly and it felt like we never missed a beat.

In and around some abysmally poor service from a waitress who--how shall we say??--was not operating within her area of gifting, we got to spend a few blissful hours laughing, remembering and encouraging with a side order of some good-hearted mocking. Who knew--seriously?--we'd end up where we are: a long-term married with college kids; a married ER nurse with two adopted kids; a newer mom with two young girls at home; a professional w/o kids, and a single mom. We've worked, we haven't; we've had kids, we didn't; we've had relationships, we've been single...You'd think we wouldn't have much in common, but you'd be wrong. And with one who couldn't hear too well, two sharing reader glasses to scan the menu and a couple of us saying how the aging snuck up on us, we were a funny buncha broads if I do say.

These are some of the finest friends money can buy, and they have anchored me seemingly for a million years. There's no telling where I might have landed if I didn't know--really, truly know in my bones--that they would be there for me, long-term. We all can go crazy amounts of time without talking and pick up where we left off. And that is an amazing gift.

We want to create those kinds of deep relationships--those anchors--in Eve's Daughters. Getting these babies raised well take a long time and a lot of energy, and who better to walk alongside than someone who knows the landscape? I am grateful beyond measure to the women who help me, step by step. Come join us, be a beacon for others...and then take a minute to thank your anchors today.

You Are Here

I had an interesting conversation this morning about how churches often scramble to get as many people as possible through their doors but often fail to do the even-harder work of helping those people get as whole (and holy) as possible. My friend said, "Yeah, it's like getting people to clamor through the gates at Disneyland only to find there's no map to the good stuff inside."

The comment struck me. In a separate conversation yesterday with a newly single mom, I asked how she was holding up, how her kids were handling visitation, whether the exchanges with her former spouse were livable. She sighed and said, "It's so good to finally be able to speak about these things." She'd been on the side of the road too long, and I got the feeling she was searching for her map, as we all do, after finding our worlds turned upside down for one reason or the other.

In times of confusion, crisis, introspection, grief, even joy, it seems we need to anchor ourselves in relation to the landmarks around us: God, friends, family, work, kids, hobbies...whatever it is that keeps our footing sure. Each of our maps vary, as each of our landmarks are deeply personal. But all of them have the spot with the X that says YOU ARE HERE.

More than anything, I want Eve's Daughters to be the X on the map--where a woman can know without a shadow of a doubt that they can learn to do the single mother gig with strength, grace, humor and health. I don't want to simply build our numbers, having women streaming through our doors, without a map to what's inside. But the irony is that these maps can't show a list of directions to follow; rather, they become apparent over time, footprint after footprint, conversation after conversation, friendship after friendship. We invite you to explore being "Here" with us.

Fatherless But Fathered

I just came back from a long, hard, good trip to Chicago, my hometown. The occasion was my father's memorial service, with some catching up in and around that event. This trip, more than any other, cemented the fact that "home" is gone and I don't get a do-over; however, only during this trip, too, was I finally OK with that ending.

I loved my earthly dad but in the end, I could not have a relationship with him. It cost us both too much. I love him still and hope more than anything that the restless man I knew is at peace. I have worn my fatherlessness since last November, when he died, like an ill-fitting garment. Sometimes it chafed, hitting too close to home. Sometimes, it was too airy with the unsettled differences still hovering between us. It's taken some getting used to but I've tried to keep my eye on God, tried to keep asking and listening and moving. Tried to keep living.

I smile to think I now have two Fathers in Heaven, totally, wildly different. I have ached to have a last conversation with my dad, one that worked, but now I just kinda of talk to him during the day, as I do with my other Father. I wish I could hear something back from either party, but I think it was Oswald Chambers who wrote that we grow to the point where God trusts us with His silences. Generally, I wish not to be so trustworthy in these types of situations, but for now, silence it is.

And in the midst of all this processing, life keeps happening: we continue growing ED in fits and starts, people come and go, my daughter gets taller and wiser, things are breaking left and right, friends suffer and celebrate and we keep shuffling left right left. But something has shifted in this latest process: I *know* without a doubt we're being watched over. Silently, with eyes that don't tire. The old vulnerability is gone. And I think that's one of the smallest and biggest things we can hope for in this world: To matter to someone else, but to also know the cost of aloneness and, therefore, develop the empathy to want to help pay someone else's way.

And that, in itself, can give life.

A lesson from graduation

It’s over…high school graduation that is! My son is officially done with his K-12 education…he is an adult…he is off to college.

I made it…high school graduation that is! I raised a respectful, intelligent, and compassionate young man…ready to take on the world.

Retrospect is an amazing thing. Today I realized that I spent most of the graduation season looking back (going through old photos for the graduation poster and photo album) or looking to the future (how will I cope with him away at college…what will our life look like in this next chapter?). In between the past and the future, I spent some time in the present.

I had a barbecue to celebrate my son’s graduation. As my gift to him I vowed to not freak out about the condition of the house, the imperfect backyard, the lack of time to do all the special things I wanted to, and the inevitable chaos surrounding food prep (for the most part I kept my vow…mainly because I asked for help and I graciously received it). Instead I focused on enjoying each moment. I laughed, cried, shared, loved, and observed. I watched my son as he navigated the crowd…making sure each person there was talked to…was made to feel welcome…was appreciated. I participated in all that he is.

Perhaps that is the biggest lesson I can take away from his graduation…I need to enjoy and revel in the “right now”. It isn’t about surviving the thought of “empty nest”. It isn’t about questioning why the years went by so fast…it is about appreciating where we are.

I have spent the last 18 years worrying if I did enough of the “right” things and fretting about what comes next. While I think it goes against our human nature to spend 100% of our time in present moment…I need to consciously choose to engage in life as it unfolds.

I wonder if a post-it note or a string around my finger will help me remember…habits are hard to change. - Cathy

Your Average Single Mom...

If normal is just a setting on the dryer, then perhaps average should be relegated to baseball stats. Cathy forwarded some November 2009 US Census Bureau statistics from a study* that were pretty eye-opening about the “average” single parent. Approximately 13.7 million single parents in the US today are raising some 21.8 million children (approximately 26% of children under 21). While there are many custodial dads out there, here’s what the “average” single mom entails:

• Approximately 84% of custodial parents are mothers
  
• She is divorced or separated (45%), never married (34.2%), widowed (1.7%) or now remarried (19%)
  
• She is employed: 79.5% of custodial single mothers are gainfully employed, with 49.8% working full time, year-round, and 29.7% working part-time or part-year


• She and her children don’t live in poverty (73%). A minority receive assistance (22% receive Medicaid, 23.5% receive food stamps, 12% receive some form of public housing or rent subsidy, 5% receive TANF)
  
• She is 40+ years old (39.1% of custodial single mothers)


• She’s raising one child (54% of custodial mothers) with 46% raising two or more children
  

As fascinating as some of these stats are, what we’re finding at Eve’s Daughters is there is no “average.” Certainly, there are commonalities, but each woman has a story as unique as her fingerprint.

I confess, years ago, that I struggled with my prior “picture” of a single mom. It wasn’t pretty, partly based on where and how I was raised. That picture worked for me…until I became one of them. Then it became personal, and it forced me, humbled, to edit that image. And that’s developed a far greater humility in me to not be so quick to judge, across the board—that I don’t know, can’t know, every person’s back story.

Now, with our organization, maybe that’s why we feel so strongly about developing relationships first and foremost, versus assuming a cookie-cutter approach. Because when we take the time, what we’re hearing goes far beyond average…often into the extraordinary.

Is there a single mom in your life that deserves a second look?

*United States. Census Department. Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2007. By Timothy S. Grall. Census, 2009. 26 Feb. 2010