When Setting Boundaries Is The Best Way To Love.

November 26, 2019/in Identity, Relationships

We have big ambitions.

We want to love every last person on this earth.

We so badly want to reach out to those in need, to be the hands and feet of Jesus, to rescue the broken.

But sometimes guys, it’s not our job.

Sometimes the best way to love is to take a step back.

Relationships are powerful things.

Sitting in the presence of another is a powerful thing.

We are human beings, and we can greatly affect each other.

I have a tendency to melt into people.

I soak up their pain, their sorrow, their brokenness. I soak it in until it is weighing me down like an overfilled sponge. I am no help to anyone when that happens.

And so I am learning to say “no”. I am learning to know my limits when it comes to being in relationship with others.

When someone we love is in pain, we just want to fix it. We want them to know they are not alone, and so we do anything and everything we can to show them they are loved. That we will be there no matter what.

But at what cost?

Do we ourselves begin to crumble under the toxicity of the relationship? Do we begin to lose sleep, our own sanity?

You see, we can love without melting into the other person.

We can say “no” and still care for them.

We can hold boundaries that are necessary for us, and still be loving like Jesus.

In fact, Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31)”.

It is just as important to care for our own emotional needs as it is for the needs of others.

And sometimes that means trusting God enough to take a step back. To let go of our need to control the other person’s situation. And to trust God to lead the way.

It’s easy to get so caught up in what we think we need to do to love others, that we forget to listen to God’s voice. We say, “no worries. I got this”, but we forget that we’re not the ones driving the car.

Let’s stop trying to save the world on our own. Let’s stop trying to mend broken hearts in a frantic frenzy because we feel like we need to. Let’s sit back and be still every once in a while, and let the Savior lead us where he needs us.

Let’s relax into the same arms that are holding the world. He’s got this.

Motherhood Mentality.

September 8, 2018/in Identity, Personal, Relationships

It’s always been easy for me to share about my anxieties, my OCD tendencies, the negative thoughts that plague me on the hard days. But it’s oh so hard to admit that those things are a struggle for me as a mom.

I don’t want it to be true. I want the two to be separate somehow; the messy human version of me, and then the angelic supermom version of me. As much as I cognitively know the importance of my child watching me navigate my own emotions and humanity, I still so badly want to be the perfect mom for her. But on top of everything else, guilt over mental battles I cannot control, isn’t helping.

If Lilah is anything like her mama she will feel things deeply, observe closely, and internalize everything around her. Those things are amazing gifts but also very hard things to navigate in oneself. I want her to watch her mama do it with humility and honesty. And even if she’s nothing like me and calm and steady like her daddy, I want her to be able to empathize with the people in her life who are different from her.

So if I know the importance of living vulnerably for my child, then why is it so hard to let go of this “need to be supermom” mentality? The truth is it is all around us and while many of us are exhausted by the concept, just as many of us don’t even realize we’re striving.

It all comes down to this theme I’ve been wrestling with my whole life: resting in who we are and where we are. Accepting that we are not supermoms, superdads, superhumans, and instead embrace exactly who we are-even the knitty gritty stuff that sucks to know about.

This New Person

May 29, 2018/in Identity, Relationships

About 8 months ago I met two new people. One teeny tiny one that relies on me for everything. And one slightly bigger person who I’ve spent my whole entire life trying to figure out.

Me.

It’s interesting how you spend all this time preparing your heart and your home for this little person, and yet you can’t quite prepare yourself for the other person you will meet at the exact same time: yourself as a parent, and for me, a mom.

It’s not a negative, the exact opposite in fact. I thoroughly enjoy getting to know myself better. The ebbs and flows of life and constant transitions, though difficult, are also exciting. When I look back over my life, I see a series of new people sewn in with the old person I was, and what a beautiful tapestry it makes.

Now enough with the poetic writer stuff. My apologies. I expect you want the vulnerable, knitty gritty out of me right? Okay, I’ll do my best.

Trying to find your new sense of self while also taking care for a teeny person 24/7…not easy. Where I used to have a variety of ways to escape or care for myself emotionally, I now am only left with a few, and usually I am too tired to really pursue those.

Self love has taken on a little bit of a different feel these days. A warm cup of coffee in the afternoon, a nap while she naps, a quick workout before she needs to be fed again. Everything feels a little bit rushed, with a baby waiting at the end of every activity. I must try so very hard to rest.

Well crap. Because resting has never been my strong suit. I’ve never been a good napper, mediator, lie around all day-er. Productive is the only thing that feels right to me. Hilariously, now I am a mom, so productive goes right out the window. A day where laundry gets done but the rest of the house is a wreck is a win. A shower every three days is a win. A blog post written on a weekday is a win. A few moments journaling about my hopes and dreams-MAJOR WIN.

When I take a step back, I am the same me I have always been, with just a few little changes. And I have to work hard to remember that when it feels as though my life is nothing like it was, that I am a totally different person, I am just me, with a baby. And maybe the seasons of my life look a little different, and I have to spend my “free time” more wisely than I once did. But maybe it’s a gift to be forced into intentionality. To be given a reason to fight against day to day melancholy as I play blocks on the floor for yet another hour.

I’m still in there. There’s just a teeny person clinging to my hip. And I would take one toothy grin over a weekend on stage, or a 5 mile run, or a full night of sleep. Those things will come again, but for now, this is my beautiful, messy, exhausting life. And I am the same Lizz living in it.

Photography by Lexi Fazzolari. Cover photo by Ashley Sider

The Days Are Long

May 10, 2018/in Culture, Faith, Identity, Personal, Relationships

Veteran mamas always tell me, “the days are long, but the years are short”. I hate that they are right.

Here I am, with 7 months of motherhood behind me already. My little girl has a tooth. How did we go from tiny little peanut on an ultrasound screen to this? It’s surreal. And yet it’s reality. Time just keeps on ticking.

But the days are long. The early mornings, the singing my thoughts all day to keep her entertained, the random errands to keep us busy (that may or may not end in me crying because-social anxiety). Those make up some long days.

The binge watching Netflix days (you know the ones). Where you have a little one or two playing at your feet, with My 600lb Life playing in the background all morning because you can’t quite keep your sanity.

But more often than not, in this new season of motherhood, the lengthy days have very little to do with her and much more to do with me. The thoughts that plague my brain over and over. “Am I doing any of this right?”, “am I a lazy housewife?”, “am I engaging her enough? Kissing her and squeezing her enough?”. The googling what’s normal, what stage she’s in, etc.

Ok maybe, some of you are just feeling like this day got a lot longer just reading the thoughts of this type A, anxiety prone mama, but my bet is you’ve been there too. Because there’s no manual. It’s all new. I am learning who she is and what she needs every day. But I am also learning who I am now, what I need, how to do both. Doing both, that’s what makes the days long. Her little smile and giggle, and teeny tiny hands grabbing my feet, that’s just a puddle of joy amidst my own intense thoughts.

Maybe a few years from now I’ll check back in with a toddler and a baby and tell you to forget everything I said before, that the kids make the days long-the tantrums, and throwing food, the balancing both, and keeping everyone alive. But for now, It’s just me and her. And I’m doing my very best to learn how to let go, but also hang on.

The most beautiful, frightening, journey I’ve ever been on. Blindly walking in who knows what direction, holding this teeny tiny person as close as I possibly can, and hoping for the best.

Thank you to my support system. You people are angels. Love you.

Done With the Mom Thing.

March 18, 2018/in Culture, Identity, Personal, Relationships

My sweet girls’ smile, her excitedly kicking feet, her laugh, those big observant eyes. When I’m not near her I want to be, I crave holding her little body close. That same little person requires so much of my energy, time, and patience. The nap struggle, feeding from me like I’m a dairy farm, does she need more tummy time or less, google this symptom and that. The mom thing can be exhaustingly beautiful. And so when I need to I’m learning to say “I am done with the mom thing. ”

Heaven forbid that as mothers we choose to relinquish titles and responsibilities to spend time doing our own thing. GASP! Don’t worry, Lilah is well cared for when I take time off from mamahood. I never do so at her expense. But oh how desperately I want my little girl to know how to love and care for herself. And I can show her how by knowing when I need to be done with the mom thing.

Last night I went to a friend’s musical. And as I watched, I felt this passion rise inside me that has been resting for over a year. How I love to perform. And how I love to do so many things outside of my role as a mom. I might even argue that pursuing those passions in tangible ways is just as important as being there constantly for my little one. Because as much as she needs my attention and affection and my boobs, she also needs my example. The example of a woman who follows her heart, whose driven, and dynamic, and multifaceted.

So be bold my mama (and daddy) friends! Follow your dreams and your heart. Make your children a priority But don’t make them your entire world, because really that is doing them a disservice. To my Lilah lu, I hope that you always know how much your mama loves you and also how much your mama tries to care for herself. I love you little one❤️

Parenting-amazingly exhausting

February 13, 2018/in Fear, Hope, Personal, Relationships

It’s like everything worthwhile in life. Beyond amazing, yet beyond exhausting. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, and yet I’d give anything for just one day to myself.

When I look back on my life so far I see this pattern. The things that are most worth it are the ones that stretch my every limit and leave me wondering, “can I do this?”. Author Shauna Niequist would call it the “bittersweet” of life. The real, raw, intense, excruciating is also the most beautiful, the most rewarding.

I love the bittersweet in life. I love the challenge and the uncertainty, the deep joy, and peace. But I also don’t. Because anyone who knows me knows that uncertainty when it comes to what’s next is NOT MY THING. I spend a lot of my time clinging to the illusion of control (working on it).

So God gave me Lilah Grace. The most beautiful little person I’ve ever set my eyes on. She is pure JOY. And yet she fights sleep like I’ve never seen. She won’t take a bottle. She knows exactly what she wants and my schedule is out the window. It makes me chuckle. There’s that bittersweet again. All the best things in life have it.

And if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m unbelievably exhausted both physically and emotionally. And I’m ridiculously happy. In the same day I’m texting Eric to “please for the love of god get home right away I’m going crazy” and sending him videos of our little lulu cooing away. I find it amazing that the two can go together even at all.

When I hit the bittersweets in life I always know I’m going to be learning and growing. Here’s to parenting, the most bittersweet thing I’ve ever done.

You’re a Good Mom If…

February 1, 2018/in Culture, Faith, Fear, Hope, Identity, Personal, Relationships, Uncategorized

For years I have heard mothers labeled as “good moms” and “bad moms”. As a middle class white Christian woman, most of the people I know are labeled by society as “good moms” (which is a whole other issue of discussion). However after working years in foster care, I have also gotten to know the ones that many call “bad moms”. And oh it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that there’s this division between who is a good mom and who is not. A “good mom” is really one step away from a “bad mom” if we take away her resources. Could any of us really do it if we had a colicky baby in a one room apartment with no partner or family to support us, barely any money for food, and an addiction that has gripped us for years? And yet some of us have all the resources and struggle still.

Motherhood is NOT easy.

I want to scratch “good mom” and “bad mom” from our vocabularies. Because it produces shame, plants guilt, fosters hopelessness. I think many of us wonder if we are truly a good mom, regardless of how the world labels us. We wonder if we’re giving our little one everything they need, supporting their development, creating a healthy bond. But there are so many colors and shades of those colors when it comes to motherhood. We all do it differently. And that is more than okay-it is a gift.

You’re a good mom if you breastfeed or bottle feed, or whether you get milk from a donor whose producing like a farm cow. You’re a good mom if you vaccinate or don’t vaccinate-because both can be scary and the choices can feel hard. You’re a good mom if your baby sleeps on you all day or if they have a beautifully designed sleep schedule. You’re a good mom if your hair looks nice every day or if it’s in a greasy messy bun. You’re a good mom if your house is a mess or if it’s clean and organized. You’re a good mom if you lost all that baby weight upfront or if it’s hanging on for dear life. You’re a good mom if you struggle with a mental illness or if your seratonin functions like a champ. You’re a good mom if your kids have never had a Dorito or if it’s Dino nuggets for dinner every night. You’re a good mom if your little people get baths every night or once a week (if you’re lucky). You’re a good mom if your kids go to private school, public school, or are homeschooled. You’re a good mom if you’ve lived in the same house they’re whole lives or moved around a bunch. You’re a good mom if you back delicious treats for your kids or if you use your oven as storage. You’re a good mom if you’re up in the morning with a pep in you’re step or if you need 75 cups of coffee not to yell everything that comes out if your mouth. You’re a good mom on the days you have patience and the days you do not. You’re a good mom if your kid ends up in rehab, or if they struggle through a mental illness, or if they defy everything you’ve ever taught them. You’re a good mom if you love your kids and are doing your best-whatever that looks like for you. And sometimes that means dumping the kids on someone else for a few hours and crying under the comforter. Sometimes it means taking 3 buses to get to a one hour visit with your kids, trying not to cry as you wonder how you lost them. Sometimes our best is barely breathing. And sometimes we’ve got to pull up our bootstraps and do the things anyway. But we’re all different. Motherhood looks different for all of us. And at the end of the day all of our kids will need therapy anyway.

Mom Expectations-No Thanks

January 7, 2018/in Culture, Faith, Fear, Hope, Identity, Personal, Relationships

Yesterday I got out of the house AND took a shower! Double win! I spent my time out getting myself a 2018 planner because I’ve been without one for over a week now and I’m barely surviving (type A personality problems). When I am out on my own, I feel like I can breathe again. Lilah needs so much from me that sometimes I don’t even realize that I’ve neglected myself until there’s someone else watching out for her and I can just take a minute to be fully in my body. I don’t know whether it’s my own personality, or the pressure of our culture, or just this overall sense of fear that these moments will disappear and I won’t be able to get them back, but I often feel mom expectations strangling me.

It started when I was pregnant. The pressure to adorably capture every single week with a bump picture was suffocating. I never remembered, and part of me just didn’t care about doing it. But I would see other pregnant friend’s posts on social media and I would immediately panic because I wasn’t doing that. Was I missing something? Was I neglecting to capture these memories for my baby girl? And now she’s here, and the pull to capture every little moment, and document every smile, is even stronger. Sure I take a lot of pictures (have you seen that sweet little face?), and I journal most days and include Lilah milestones in that, but not a lot of planned memory capturing going on here. Of course I had high hopes going into this mama thing that I would create an organized online photo album and write all about Lilah’s day every single evening. But instead, our pictures of Lilah are hanging out somewhere in the cloud, and sleep is much more important to me at night than anything else.

Yesterday afternoon, after a particularly panicky moment in regards to my failure to organize my daughter’s memories, I found myself thinking about what is important to me from my childhood. My amazing mom kept journals and calendars for us and it really is fun to see what I was doing 2 weeks after birth, but honestly I can count on one hand the amount of times I have looked at those. But that picture of me running down the beach in my duck bathing suit? I look at that all the time. And that blanket I slept with until I was 10? It houses more memories than I can even explain. And above all else the most important things have been the things my parents taught me. The hours and hours a day my mom spent teaching me to read and write my name. The evenings when my dad would come home and wrestle with us until we could barely breathe we were laughing so hard. Those things above all else, I hold onto. The other stuff, while sweet and fun to look at, isn’t a must. I don’t have to do it, and Lilah will be okay, I will be okay.

When wrestling against a certain expectation, I always ask myself if this would be important to the Ingalls family (you know, Little House on the Prairie). And what I mean by that is, was it something that they needed to survive or be happy? It’s my favorite way of bringing myself back to the basics. What do I need here? What does Lilah need here? Is this thing I am obsessing over really all that important? Did Ma and Pa keep endless memory boxes for Laura and her siblings? Nope. They didn’t even have photographs then and yet no one cared that they didn’t know what they looked like as a baby. And I bet that Ma spent way more time experiencing and way less time documenting. And hey, that’s not to say that I’m not going to bask in the beauty that is modern technology, but I’m sure I can learn a few things from the way that they lived their lives.

While I know I will forever battle these expectations of momhood- which bottles to use, or if co-sleeping is safe, or should you really give an infant Tylenol before shots-I am working every day to create experiences whether I capture them forever or not. Documenting events will not be my obsession, but experiencing them. Lilah may not have a neat little picture album, and the journal of her first year of life may be filled with her mama’s own struggles and insecurities, but I will make sure that she has beautiful, challenging, comforting memories to hold onto for her entire life.

The Birth of Lilah Grace.

November 14, 2017/in Faith, Personal, Relationships

My blog has been under construction for over a year as I’ve been working to reset my heart and soul. I needed some time of silent reflection, and in many ways still do. But so many of you dear people have been asking me about Lilah’s birth story, so I’ve decided to share it here.

I used to find new mamas to be a little obnoxious-sharing their birth stories, posting a zillion pictures of their babes on social media, complaining about how nothing fits anymore. And yet here I am, wearing 1 of 5 pairs of oversized pants I wear in rotation, taking yet another picture of my little girl for instagram, and writing about my birth story! Who am I? But it’s true that once you become a mom your perspective really does change. The entire act of bringing an itty bitty human being into the world is humbling and amazing.

September 28th, my due date. No Lilah Grace. I had yet another doctor’s appointment. I was 4cm dilated and yet no sign of a baby. Going over your due date is like some special kind of torture. It is completely depressing. By 39 weeks you’ve been trapped inside your own body for long enough, your stomach hangs out of pretty much every shirt you own, and forget about tying your shoes.

DISCLAIMER: I had an annoyingly good birth experience and some of you may want to punch me as you’re reading this, so be prepared.

On Saturday September 30th I woke up at 4am with a new kind of discomfort, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But by 6am it was clear that I was in labor. I woke Eric up so he could help me get into the shower (because that’s what the birth class taught us), but having a contraction while standing in a slippery shower totally sucks, so back to bed I went. I called my doctor around 7:30 with contractions 3 in a row, every ten minutes. It was a weird pattern and he felt that I should wait to go to the hospital. But my body doesn’t really ever do anything conventionally, so around 8:30am we started preparing to go to the hospital anyway. I was afraid they were going to send me home, so I would scream “WE HAVE TO GO NOW” during a contraction and then sit on the couch and suggest we wait a few more minutes. Finally, when I was sure I was going to die, we decided to go. We arrived around 9:30am at the local hospital. It took us a good chunk of time to even get to labor and delivery because I insisted on walking, but had to stop every 2 minutes or so as my contractions got closer together. People passing in wheelchairs and rolling hospital beds looked at me with pity as I groaned my way down the halls.

When we made it into the initial exam room, the nurse began asking me questions about the kind of care I wanted, etc. I think I would have said yes to selling my child to her at this point, I was in no state to be in a conversation. The initial exam showed that I was 5-6cm dilated. My goal had always been to wait until 7-8cm for an epidural. Knowing how my body doesn’t follow the rules, and that it might take the anesthesiologist a while to get to my room, I elected to call him right away. No sooner were we up in my delivery room, he arrived. I was at 7-8cm.

It’s funny how much you don’t care about your own disgustingness during labor. I mean, it crossed my mind when I was sitting with my butt out towards the doctor, but he has the drugs so you get over it. After 3 minutes of complete and total hell, the epidural was in. By this point I was 9 1/2 cm dilated, it was 11:30am. Within another half hour, I was 10cm dilated (see, I told you it was annoying). However, my water had not yet broken, and I still needed antibiotics since I was strep B positive. So they started my IV and told me to hang tight…UM K? At this point my blood pressure started to drop and so did the baby’s, so in they came with an oxygen mask and some medication, speaking in doctor lingo. i remember tearing up a little bit, looking at those nurses hovering over me. I’ve never quite liked being a patient, and dislike even more not knowing what’s going on. But they were able to stabilize us and all was well. The transitional shakes started to set in. Eric said it looked like I was freezing cold, and was hard for him to watch.

For the next few hours we watched Home Alone 2 and waited.

2:30pm, my water breaks.

4:00pm, I begin to feel the urge to push.

4:30pm, In comes a midwife and off we go! I remember saying to myself “it’s just like a long run, just keep going”. I can’t even remember how many times I pushed. I had requested a mirror and so not only did I watch my baby girl’s head begin to crown, but I saw myself from a totally new and horrifying angle. Anyway, eventually she was close to being born and so I no longer was paying attention to the mirror and was pushing with all my might to bring this little thing into the world. And then at 5:18pm, out she came. Our little Lilah Grace. I wasn’t overcome with emotion like so many people say-I was kind of in shock. I remember thinking “what just happened?” “did that just come out of me?” “oh my gosh she looks exactly like Eric”. I couldn’t believe that she was mine.

When they put her up on my chest, I noticed how blue she was, and when her little body wasn’t pinking up, they took her to the table in the corner to examine her further. I watched as they put a little mask on her face. I felt uneasy, scared, sad that I wasn’t holding my baby. But I kept repeating to myself, as I have the entire 6 weeks she’s been alive, “she is a gift, not yours but God’s. have faith. deep breaths”. As the midwife stitched me up, I watched as a series of NICU doctors came in to inspect my baby. it was decided that she needed some help breathing and so off she went down the hall to the NICU.

A few hours later after I was fed and cleaned up and sewn together, Eric and I went to the NICU to see her. I had been there many times before, not as a mom, but as a social worker. It is a hard place to be. So many little lives fighting. So many mamas and daddys overwhelmed with sadness and fear. As they wheeled me over to my little girl, I was so humbled. So humbled that my little girl was okay. That she was born full term, healthily plump, and that she would be leaving the NICU in just a few hours to be reunited with us up in our hospital room. My heart ached for the mamas who would spend months visiting their babies in this sterile room, and ached even more for those who would never bring their babies home.

When the wheeled her into our hospital room a few hours later, I felt like I was really seeing her and holding her for the first time. Studying her little features, watching her chest rise and fall. This was the baby I had carried all this time. The little girl I had prayed over, sang to, talked to in the car on my way to work. Finally here she was.

So far on this mama journey that I have just begun, I am realizing that I will never survive raising my daughter if I cannot rest in the truth that God is in control and I am not. That no matter what may happen in this lifetime, no matter how much time I am given with my sweet baby girl, that God is good. I am doing all that I can to cling to that and to rest in peace and joy.