Enough

Just the other day I met a sweet friend for dinner, at Olive Garden.  While we sat visiting over our desserts, a large group of girls arrived.  They looked to be high school age, or possibly early college, and they caught our attention because they were wearing black dresses with pantyhose and heels, in spite of the snow and ice on the ground and the 5 degree temps.  And when it comes to those dresses, most of them were the little black dress variety, with the emphasis firmly placed on "little".

Most of these girls had opted for very short, stretchy, snug fitting dresses that just barely covered their bottoms.  From our table, we witnessed a steady parade of these girls making the arduous journey from their table to the restrooms, and back.  And it was an arduous journey.  Some of them were visibly limping in their heels, as they looked at their cell phones, tugged their dresses down, and tried so hard to look like they dressed that way all the time.  They were clearly not comfortable -- physically or emotionally -- with their appearance.  My friend and I watched the show, smiled a bit, thinking "Oh very young...", and making comments like "How did their parents let them out of the house dressed like that?"

But looking back on that black dress dinner on that frigid night, I can't help just feeling sad.  Isn't it sad that those young women felt compelled  to dress in such an uncomfortable, provocative way?

I recently read an article about a study that concluded women who wear high heels are perceived as more attractive by men, and get attention from men quicker.  Is that what it is about?  Getting attention from men? Or is it wanting respect and admiration from other women?  Or do women just want that badly to fit in?

I certainly have nothing against looking pretty.  Girls should be able to wear cute little dresses.  But there has got to be a line between looking pretty, and looking like like somebody's sexual fantasy.  A guy that doesn't notice you in some cute little ballet flats and modest dress that hits a few inches above your knee isn't a guy worth having.

Why can't we raise girls that are secure enough with their value as human beings and children of God that they can resist the pull of these superficial things, girls that are strong-minded enough to say "Yes, I will dress pretty if I feel like it, but I will be comfortable too"?

I have no answers for you.  Such a heavy burden rests on the shoulders of young moms and dads today.  If you are raising a precious daughter, realize that you are shaping her self image, and her standard of beauty, both by your example, and by the things you admire and aspire to.  Be sure you are sending the message:  "You are beautiful, and you are enough."

From my heart,
Joni

Do Nothing

I have a sweet and wise friend, a widow, who once said to me "Joni, the thing is, in life we all need somebody to just do nothing with."  It's so true.  Most of us have friends that would go on a trip with us, go out to dinner with us, go to a movie with us, that would be there for us in times of crisis.  But the majority of our lives -- our minutes, hours and days -- are not spent doing those things.  The truth is that we all have a lot time where we sit around just being lazy, or doing ordinary, unremarkable things.  You know, the things that are so mundane you would annoy your Facebook friends if you posted about them.  These are not things we would do with just anybody -- reading a book, watching the first season of Gilmore Girls for the 26th time, painting our nails, reading our Facebook newsfeed, sorting through recipes we hope to someday actually make, or the ultimate nothing, napping.  (Yes!!)

It takes a certain level of intimacy to "do nothing" with someone.  Usually these "nothing" moments are shared with someone who knows our whole twisted, meandering story, and loves us anyhow.  These people, these partners-in-nothing are our spouses, our sons, our daughters, our sisters, our brothers, or for a lucky few, a lifelong friend.  These people are the ones who are as familiar and comfortable as a soft old pair of jeans.  And even if they are faded, and have a few holes, we know they are irreplaceable.

As a single person whose children are grown and out writing chapters in their own books now, I look back and treasure those times of doing nothing.  When you next have the joy of doing nothing with your precious loves, just savor it and be grateful.

From my heart,
Joni

I have this dog...

No matter what you've done this far,

He's still chasing your broken heart,

He's never gonna leave you alone.

"Leave You Alone", Tenth Avenue North

I have this dog that lives with me.  I am always very careful to point out -- she lives with me, but I don't have a dog.  Puppy (I call her that even though she is 10 years old) and I are both victims of the same con, perpetrated by my youngest child.

At Christmas time, my daughter came home for a few days, bringing Puppy with her.  And Puppy has been here ever since.  Just recently I found out that my daughter adopted another dog, a 3 month old puppy from a shelter.  What??  Yep, I'm afraid that Puppy and I have been had.  I've texted my daughter, but she's ignoring me.  So here we sit, me and Puppy.  I'm stuck with her, and she's stuck with me.

I never wanted a dog.  But Puppy has lived with me the majority of her 10 furry years.  She joined our family in 2003 after my husband and I decided to give in to the pleading of our youngest, and give her the desire of her heart.  Earlier this year, my daughter, now finished with college, finally took Puppy to live at her house.  I was happy to have her gone.  Don't get me wrong, if you have to have a dog, Puppy is about as good as they get.  She's small, about 7 pounds.  She does not shed.  She never chews on things or destroys anything.  She didn't even do that when she was a puppy.  I can sit the groceries on the floor, and she will not bother them.  She's very submissive, very low maintenance.  She doesn't jump up on people, although that's pretty hard to execute when you are her size.  She's just a cute little white fluffball.  But I'm just not a dog person.  Never have been, never will be.  I don't enjoy sitting and petting her.  If she tries to lick me, I push her away.  I don't let her sleep on my bed because she bugs me.  I have no interest in walking her or playing with her.  And I am not a homebody.  I am on the run a lot, and I don't like being tied down by the obligation of having to go home and let the dog out.  I don't like that I can't go someplace overnight because I have this little canine responsibility that has to be taken care of.

Tonight I gave Puppy a both.  I HATE doing this, but she desperately needed it.  She has white hair that grows long, and it gets dirty, especially around her nose, mouth, and eyes, and other, well, parts....  Giving her a bath repulses me, for two reasons.  When she gets wet, she has a distinctive wet dog smell, and it reminds me of the smell of the feathers on the dirty, dead chickens my sister and I used to have to pluck growing up on the farm.  Not one of my favorite memories, to say the least.  And then the crusty stuff that forms in her fur around her eyes just plain grosses me out.  It literally makes me want to gag when I clean that stuff. It's stuck in her fur, and I have to cut it out, or scrape it out painstakingly with my fingernails.  Yuck! 

But still, I do this.  I'm not sure I can totally articulate why.  Partly it's me feeling a sense of duty, of needing to do the right thing.  It's also that I feel a certain compassion for this little dog.  She didn't ask for any of this.  Life just happened to her, and none of it is anything she can control.  I figure she deserves to be taken care of, like any other living thing.  Maybe I feel a certain kinship with her, being left behind in favor of a cute little puppy.

I began thinking that me giving Puppy a bath is a bit of a metaphor for the relationship God has with us.  The things we do to ourselves, and with our lives must really gross him out sometimes.  But He still picks us up, and cleans us up anyway.  Surely it makes Him want to gag at times, the messes He has to clean up in our lives.  But he never gives up.

From my heart,
Joni

(Update:  This was written some time ago.  You will be pleased to know that Puppy is now living the good life with my other dog-loving daughter and her husband, who happily pet her, let her lick them,  bathe her and love her!)

Strong In the Broken Places

Last night I went out to get some dinner and do some shopping.  I was by myself, and I stopped in to Qdoba to get their nachos.  I often eat alone, and usually I will pick up food from a restaurant and take it home to eat.  But this time I dined in.  I got my food and sat down at a table to eat. 

It was a gorgeous summer evening, and the restaurant was practically empty.  I picked out a table in an empty section and sat down.  I was able to spend a few minutes in quiet, reflecting on life, eating my brown rice, black beans and pico de gallo with just a bit of queso.  It struck me that this was nice, even enjoyable .  I felt grateful for the life I have, sitting there on a beautiful summer evening, enjoying a delicious meal, having money to spend, being healthy.  A couple of years ago, I would have found this same situation very uncomfortable.  It would have seemed like a highlighting of my single status, and I would have felt conspicuous and pathetic.  But I realized I really did not have any of those feelings.  I was surprised at this discovery, and I thought to myself "strong in the broken places".  

Music is something I love, that really resonates with me.  Life needs a soundtrack, so I give it one.  I tend to fixate on a certain musician, or CD, and play that music over and over as I drive around in my car, and on my Shuffle when I walk.  My daughters might describe it as ad nauseum.  (If overexposure to Amy Grant, Petra and White Heart at a young age is dangerous, my girls are doomed.)  So hearing music often takes me back to a certain time in my life.  One of those songs from the dark days of my divorce, "Faith Enough" by Jars of Clay, assured me that:

It's just enough to be strong in the broken places...

But back then, I wondered if I would ever get there.  People told me how strong I was.  But I was not.  I was broken and scared and tired and hurting.  And I was sick of hearing how strong I was.

For me, healing from divorce is a very slow process.  I will never be the person I was before, and there will always be scars.  I have learned that I have a very, very hard time with letting go.  And my journey isn't over yet.  But God is using the therapeutic benefits of time and people with loving hearts and hands to heal me.  Bad moments still come, but they come much less often these days.  And they are usually just that -- moments.  I used to cry so much I must surely have suffered from chronic dehydration.  I rarely cry anymore. And often I find that I am content, and at peace.  And just plain happy.

So this is a message of hope, for those who are struggling to keep their mouth and nose above the water of despair just to breathe -- there is healing.  You will survive, and eventually, you will do more than that.  You will have moments where you realize that you are peaceful, content, and maybe even happy.  In time you will have days like that too.  You will heal.  And be strong again.  And it's enough.

From my heart,

Joni

Thoughts On Alone

I have come a long way in 3 years.  But a divorce is an awful thing.  And for me, recovery will never be complete.  Wounds heal, but scars linger.  On the one hand, divorce liberated me from a life lived under the control of a negative person who belittled me and didn't want to be with me.  But it also devastated me.  I will forever see it as the ultimate failure in my life.  As a Christian, my own decisions are unacceptable to me.  How's that for internal conflict?  I’m often lonely, and long to have a partner in life.  It’s very wearing, doing life alone, day in, day out – not having somebody there to look to for help when all those little things come up, not having a companion to eat with, sit in church with, go to a movie with, go on trips with, make decisions with.  Not having somebody that notices or cares whether you come home or not.  Not having somebody to drive you to drop off your car at the garage, or drive you home from an outpatient procedure.  Not having somebody to turn to if the dishwasher doesn’t work, or the appraisal on the house you’re buying comes in low, or your car needs repairs, just to ask “What do we do?”.  Instead, it’s always “What do I do?”.  And there is no response.

I remind myself that this is better than what I endured before, and that is probably true.  At least now I have peace.  I don’t live with disapproval and criticism.  And I do treasure my independence.  I like the idea that I can make my own decisions and do what I want without answering to anybody.  But sometimes singleness is just overwhelmingly lonely.  Sometimes it feels like everybody in the world has somebody... except me.

I will never marry again.  For a whole list of reasons, I’m convinced it’s not the right thing for me.  But sometimes I think it would be easier for my girls if I did.  Then they wouldn't have to worry about me.  My girls love me, but they have their own lives, as they should.  And of course they are there for me in moments of need.  I have a sister that is a gift straight from God.  Seriously, she would do anything for me.  And I have a list of priceless friends, who are far better than I deserve, that would be there in a minute if I called them, and that love me unconditionally.  I'm very blessed, really.  But in that sense of someone that is in your life every day, that is there to talk to about the little frustrations and diamonds that happen in a life, I have no one.  I don’t have a guess-what-happened-at-work, can-you-meet-the-Orkin-man, please-hook-this-necklace-for-me, what-car-should-we-buy person in my life anymore.  I wish I had that.

I wish I had been more compassionate and loving in the past to women I knew who lived the alone nightmare.  I was oblivious to their plight.  I never understood before how it feels to be the woman left alone, whether by death or divorce.  I see now what my own mother went through when my father was taken from her by a heart attack.  I understand the utter agony that some precious friends lived through before me when their marriages were ripped apart, or their husbands were gone too soon to eternity.  I never got how marginalized it makes you feel, how your value seems somehow lessened by your single status.  I wish I had given more hugs, more of a listening ear, more of my time to these women.     

I know that Jesus is all I need.  But I am a long ways down the path from the place where that becomes my viewpoint. At times I see Jesus on the path up ahead.  Sometimes I lose sight of him when there are hills or curves on the path that block my view.  Often on the path where I am, it’s just me, and alone feels sad.

From my heart,

Joni