A Valentine Message toWomen I Admire

A few years ago, I had a woman in my life, in her early forties, say to me, “I look to you to learn what it is to be a woman.” Wow, that felt like too much responsibility! But then I remembered being in that same state of looking for female role models when I was a mother and a wife at just twenty years of age.

Consider the skills above survival mode that some females may have absorbed through osmosis in their rearing – like how to apply make-up, when a slip is needed, how to set a proper table, how to make hosting look effortless...All these seemingly trivial proficiencies of refinement alluded me, growing up as the oldest girl in a family of nine children. 

During my childhood and adolescence, my mother, quite literally, was either pregnant or nursing a baby – or both! She was constrained to reside on level one of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, pretty much 24/7.

And so, as I shot abruptly into adulthood by marrying my high school sweetheart-turned-Airman 1st Class, I was a sponge for observing and imitating the female finesse necessary to achieve the desired healthy family life I pictured in my head.

An early subject of my self-study was my German landlady, Frau Wilhelm.

I can still hear her voice, calling up the stairs to our second-floor residence in their duplex, for coffee time in the afternoons: “Scherdee, comma to mia, coffee time!”

She modeled what it is (in a small German village) to keep a clean home. Things like getting on your hands and knees to scrub the cement sidewalk and stairs outside your front door. Or, airing your bedding out of the bedroom window at a respectably early hour each morning, to be observed and noted by the other hausfraus on the street. These traits earned me acceptance as the only American household on the street, but did not transfer when I returned to the States!

Next, I looked to a few females I had known pre-marriage who were about a decade older than me, for clues to raising two kids and being the household manager while my smart ambitious husband started a twenty-year career that would have him spending a lot of his non-work time commuting. I could call any one of them to vent, cry or use humor to get through the long days of no adult conversations.

And I don't want to overlook another source of learning the basics: my mother-in-law and her Lebanese side of the family. I have such fond memories of spending time in the kitchen preparing Middle Eastern classics for huge spreads on holidays. I learned some nuances as well as basics of cooking ethnic cuisines.

I'll never forget Aunt Carrie asking me to pick up a few lemons on my way to play prep chef in her kitchen where the walls had permanently absorbed the aromatics of Middle Eastern spices such as cumin and cinnamon. She took one look at the huge lemons I had handpicked and said with distain, "Ugh, look at the thick skin! They will have no good juice. They are useless!" Ha!

I came to know just how much food is love in Ron's Lebanese heritage, and how his female relatives loved me by teaching me how to cook the food that my husband would crave and request throughout our married life.

Also during this season of nurturing and growing a family, I had one of my best female-connecting experiences. The church we were attending was new and full of men and women of my age and stage of life. I started a weekly women’s group, called P & P (prayer and praise was the focus), and could never have anticipated the draw or fruit of this new thing. I quickly realized how pervasive the need was for a safe setting for young mothers and wives to be heard, known, validated, encouraged. I was not alone!

You know the ism: You never know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

As much as I drank in those precious years of P & P, when we all moved on into the age of older children and shifting careers, I looked back in awe of that irreplaceable time of deep connection with females. As I endeavored to replicate that safe place, my efforts all seemed to end in disappointment and missed expectations. Something missing in the chemistry just didn’t allow for the same bonding I had experienced in the church group.

But what I did go back to was being drawn to women who were in a season of life ahead of me. I craved that mentor-mentee relationship. I had been experiencing it from the side of being the mentor with some of the women in the P & P group, but still desired to lean on and learn from those who were ahead of me on the crazy journey of being a female in the ever-changing landscape of our very American culture.

On the other hand, I have definitely experienced being the recipient of solid wisdom from a younger generation of female. First and foremost, it has been my daughter who has poured into me a perspective that brings sage advice with a fresh, younger set of glasses. Yes, Heidi was displaying her inborn discernment as young as five. She would chirp into a convo her dad and I were having about a work issue for him, with reminders about what the pastor said last Sunday. Ha! I have learned to lean into her old-soul wisdom over the years.

Our age in numbers is not always the indicator of our age in wisdom. I have such admiration (and mother's pride) for Heidi's capacity to grow through what she goes through.

I’m now officially in the retirement stage of life (whatever that is supposed to mean!). And I find I still crave deep connections with females. I have a handful of those currently in my life, for which I have deep gratitude. Interestingly, most of them don’t live in the same city – or state, for that matter – as me. Never mind proximity; I will bend over backwards to have a phone or video chat with any one of them! And oh the joy when we can meet face-to-face! What a gift to experience what it is to feel safe and known by others. (My eyes well up with tears as I type...)

Approaching this Valentine’s Day, I would like to finish this post with a shout-out to all the admirable women I have encountered and known.

*Thank you for stepping out to receive me.

*Thank you for modeling humility and vulnerability as you invite me to enter into your private worlds.

*Thank you for teaching by example, and encouraging by words and generous offerings.

*Thank you for making space for the messiness of me and my story.

*Thank you for being open to the spontaneous and planned opportunities to share time together.

*Thank you for modeling how to wait – to be comfortable with silent pauses – in conversations, in replies, in moving from listening to talking, in moving from empathy to problem-solving, in landing on the best words for the situation, in waiting for God’s green light before acting.

*Thank you for the difference you have made in my life.

When I reflect on my family and work-focused decades, I wish I had taken more opportunities to mentor those coming up behind me in life seasons. It’s what I craved as a young still-being-formed female. My hope is it is never too late to play a role in the encouragement and development of other women. In fact, that was and is my heart’s desire for this venue of blogging: For you readers to feel accompanied on your journeys. You are not alone. And neither am I.

I invite you to ponder...

What has been a theme (or themes) in your female relationships over your life seasons?

Can you pick out the commonalties across the relationships you would call healthy, reciprocal, fulfilling?

Can you pick out a learning or two you have taken away from unhealthy female relationships?

Have you been in the role of being a mentee – being mentored by another woman? What about the role of being the mentor? What was it like for you?

What is an obstacle to experiencing more mentor-mentee relationships?

Is there a female that comes to mind if you were to consider playing the role of mentor in your current life season?

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the top and bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! But, if you run into tech obstacles when trying to post a comment, please feel free to do as so many of you have done: Send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the Perils & Pearls Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…Let’s grow it together! 

Blessed to play a part ~

g

Making Room for Growth & New Life

Advent means an arrival or coming

For this Christmas post, I just wanted to throw out something I have been pondering during this 2024 Advent season: Do you think Mary was like all other pregnant women, in as much as, she had the normal pregnancy symptoms, ailments and complaints? Do you think she dealt with the normal aftermath of delivering a baby – weight to lose, some post-partum emotions, and stretch marks? Having had two births, I can imagine Mary navigating all of this on top of the unfathomable weight of carrying the Son of God!

I received an Advent Devotional from a dear friend this year ( Making Room in Advent), and have been feasting on the refreshingly different focuses of the well-known accounts of the angel pronouncement over Mary and the  story of Jesus’ birth as described by the disciple Luke. That is where my curiosity about Mary’s physical effects of pregnancy got stirred.

When the angel visited Mary to tell her she had been chosen to carry God’s Son, I imagine her in a state of shock for at least a while. And once it sunk in, 

...she would have had to begin making room for this miraculous pregnancy that had no precedent. Hmm, Making room...It is a powerful, multi-applicable metaphor, don’t you think?

There’s the consideration of making room in her life – her season of life, her plans for her future, even her daily needs would have to change to accommodate being a mother. Then there’s the making room her body would go through to facilitate the growth of the baby over nine months. There’s also the making room in her mind – from accepting the angel’s announcement of God’s plan to use her as His very special vessel, to how people would react to the explanation of her pregnancy as an unwed mother: a miraculous conception?!

And of course, Mary would need to make room in her heart for falling in love with this baby, yet knowing this child would be carrying the mission of saving all of mankind!

No wonder God gives us mothers nine months to adjust to all of this needed change in capacity!  

This idea of making room for what is coming is the advent of His plans and promises. It was for Mary, and I believe it is so for us. God is gracious in giving us time to enlarge our thinking, grow our capacity, increase our resilience and strength ahead of the arrival of His next move in our lives.

2024 has been a very challenging year for me and my family. I hold deep gratitude for all the ways I experienced God’s presence, provision and peace within the storms that came. And I am reminded of one of the aftereffects of giving birth is the stretch marks that many of us women bear after delivering our baby(ies). Those marks speak to the necessity of having made room for our role as life-givers – sacrificing ourselves to bring forth new life.   

Metaphorically, I can feel my stretch marks, left by the room made for expanding my faith and trust in God through the trials our family experienced this past year, facilitating what new thing(s) God desires to bring forth in this new year for each of us.

Several decades past their making, I’m finding a new fondness for my stretch marks as signs of growth, enlarged capacity, and the reminder that He will help me make room for whatever He is bringing to me and through me.

 As I look towards a new year – and with my husband retiring – a new season of life, I desire to respond to His rescues by making room for more of Him in 2025. I desire to love better, to respond quicker to His whispers, and to better reflect the part of His character with which He imbued me even before my mother knew she would be carrying her third of nine children and her first of three daughters. Oh, imagine her stretch marks making room to be a life-giver multiple times over the course of a couple decades!

To ponder:

What have you had to make room for in this past year?

How did you welcome or resist the process of creating the needed space? Was it internal, external or both In nature?

Have you had a glimpse of what you may need and/or want to make room for in the new year? If so, what are you feeling about it? Do you have a safe place to share that?

May you have a joy & peace-filled Christmas, reflecting on His goodness and anticipating His good plan for you in 2025.

Blessed to be journeying alongside you ~

g

The Thrill of Adventure: Dirt, Water, and Scrapes Included!

The setting: Our (then) eight-year-old granddaughter and eleven-year-old grandson were visiting in July a few years ago. Our daughter and her husband, Brad, left them with us while they snuck away for a few days of mountaintown r & r in nearby Telluride. We had decided before they came we would take the g-kids on their first camping excursion in our little camper – just one overnight for a starter.

With just eight years to her young story, Sophie was already deciding how she wanted to be known as someone who loves to venture out and try new things. So once mom and dad left the scene, we announced our idea to retreat into the nearby woods and camp. Sophie was immediate in her excited response: “Yeah, I wanna camp, and hike and have a fire...!”

Once we had finished setting up our camper and site, we offered a couple of suggestions for what we might do next. Sophie was all in for a hike. Her brother, David, went along with the idea but under some protest.

During the hike Sophie and David crossed a stream, scampered up and down hills, climbed some boulders, saw some wildlife. But with each change of terrain, there was an outcome that Sophie did not like – even causing her to tear up. You see, Sophie has another side of her personality that is developing as well. She likes to look good – with coordinating outfits, matching hair accessories and statement shoes. Her mom says Sophie gets her fashionista flair from Gigi (that would be me). So as the adventure turned wet, dirty and a little bloody, Sophie was struggling to focus on the fun.

At one point, when she was sure her outfit was ruined, I stopped to get her eyes connected to mine and said: Soph, you’re an Adventure Girl, right? You love adventures, trying new things? She replied with a whimper, Yes, I’m an Adventure Girl! And that was my opening for a coaching moment:

Sophie, I’m an Adventure Girl too, and do you know what I’ve learned about that? Adventure girls get wet, cold, dirty, and sometimes a little bloody.

She looked back at me wide-eyed, like she was having an aha in the moment.

How precious it was to observe her taking in this cause-and-effect connection I was making for her. She seemed to be weighing the cost of being an Adventure Girl.

Seconds later, she snapped out of her trance and back into the moment. From that point until we rounded back to our campsite she took any further physical ramifications in stride and was back to logging the firsts she was experiencing.

Something I have seen to hold true through the decades is God wastes nothing. He is the King of efficiency! (A favorite word of mine as an Enneagram T3.) He will use one incident to speak to multiple people through various vessels and means. And so, I had to smile wide when recently He brought back this Sophie story to remind me of the costs and rewards of being an Adventure Girl.

The truth is I was feeling more than a little rumpled, crumpled and bedraggled after the chaotic, challenging year I have been through. I was more than ready to change my focus to the adventure to be had inside and around the difficult events I was coming through.

To say it’s been a rough twelve months for me – and our entire family – is an understatement. And one of the many challenges we had to face was moving from the home we had been renting for over six years because the owner announced he was selling it. When our landlord let us know we needed to start looking for another place to live,

I was preparing for surgery, and our daughter-in-law was starting chemotherapy treatment for cancer that had just been diagnosed. Trying to picture sorting and packing up a house, keeping the place show-ready for realtors, and finding another suitable rental on short notice was completely overwhelming.

Well, as we all know, the show must go on, right?!

Regardless of the feeling of overwhelm, I would have to muster my courage and move through these difficult events, dependent on God who certainly can stretch me to grow my small faith, but who has never failed me or left me in my times of need.

Meanwhile, my husband (also a Type Three) went into action with what he does best: seeing the big picture and creating visuals to express it to others. He put together a timeline, graphically, showing all of the overlapping events that were to take place over the next six months.  I immediately felt my heart-rate lower as I took in the future displayed in one PowerPoint slide, color-coded to distinguish the types of events and who was the focus of needed support in each case.

Months later...By the time we were packed up, I had recovered from surgery, our DIL was almost through her chemo and having good results, and a pair of our dearest friends in Durango had offered their home to us for the six months they would be residing at their second home in Tennessee. We could not have imagined these positive outcomes back when we were struggling to wrap our heads around what was happening simultaneously in the lives of our family.

But somewhere in the in-between – where life actually happens - when I felt all the uncertainty manifesting in my body – anxiety showing itself as sleep issues, neck and head pain, brain fog...I was bringing my anxiety to the Lord and He brought back that Sophie story of being an Adventure Girl. It was as though He was playing the role I had played with Sophie, asking me:

You’re an Adventure Girl, aren’t you? You love adventure, right? You love trying new things, hiking over that last hilltop to see what new site might be on the other side? That’s what this time is now: An adventure. Yes it also feels like uncertainty; but there is more for you to see, experience, and engage in around that next corner you cannot see past from this vantage point. Reframe it. When your mind feels uncertainty, embrace the adventure of it instead.

Ok, now with this divine encouragement, I was starting to play offense...One of my favorite quotes, describing how I am wired to approach life, is by Henry David Thoreau from his book, Walden:

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life..."

So, I asked myself a couple of coaching questions:

What would sucking the marrow out of this in-between time of unknowns look like for me?

If I stay in the moment, instead of thinking ahead, what treasures are there about the uniqueness of this time?

What came up for me in pondering these questions in the light of His-story woven inside of my history:

Find the joy and adventure in the different, non-routine of this time.

Like appreciating the beauty of jazz because of its asynchronization. Hmm...I like that... Or seeing with different eyes as I move about my days because my routines have been, at least temporarily, erased, leaving space for spontaneity. Like soaking in the opportunity to spend time chatting with neighbors as I walk in a new neighborhood, not concerned about keeping my gait time on target or making my to-do list the driver of my hurried pace. And experiencing joyful expectancy about what new thing God may be arranging for me/us as I/we wait for His plan to unfold further.

In the end, it was about perspective. It always is, isn’t it? Invariably in life, there are multiple ways of seeing things, people, situations; and the truth is some viewpoints are more life-giving – conducive to sucking the marrow out of even undesirable situations -  while other outlooks tend to suck the life right out of you.

Well, I believe this blog post was for me, more than anything or anyone else! Ha! I thank you for allowing me to process with you. Gathering my thoughts about this transitional season I am in, has brought even more clarity and assurance of where I need to land and stand, positioning myself for what will undoubtedly become yet another testimony to God’s faithfulness in my story.

May I leave you with one last thought to ponder? You know the phrase once in a lifetime? We use it to describe something we have recognized as rare, fleeting, and usually quite personally impactful in some way. Well, I got to thinking philosophically about that, and I asked myself this: Isn’t every moment ‘once in a lifetime’? As American cartoonist, Bill Keane so famously said:

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.

To consider:

Where might you benefit from a reframing in your life currently?

Is your perspective bringing you life or sucking it out of you?

Can you recall times in your history when what first seemed so scary because of the unknowns and uncertainties, turned out for your good?

It is good to travel this life with companions.

If you would like to follow me on this adventure, and receive notice whenever I post something new, please subscribe. (It’s simple – at the top and bottom of every page on the Perils & Pearls blog site. *No need to be a 'member.')

**A word about POSTING COMMENTS: I LV engaging with your feedback/responses to my writings! But, if you run into tech obstacles when trying to post a comment, please feel free to do as so many of you have done: Send me a private message using the "Let's Chat" option on the Perils & Pearls Home Page.

And if you know people who would benefit from the support, and/or enjoy the short writings, please share the site or a post with them. Heck, just share it on your social media…Let’s grow it together! 

Blessed to play a part ~

g