Andrew was lying on his stomach on the floor this morning, all high centered and pissed because he couldn’t reach the toy that he wanted. Suddenly, his screaming changed to squeals of joy as he spotted a half-eaten rice puff under the chair. He pushed himself up on all fours and took off, bypassing the toy to joyfully eat the rice puff.

It was the first time he has ever crawled.

Moments later, Justin called to me from downstairs and asked me to do something for him. I yelled back, “what’s in it for me?” and when he mentioned something about his mints that were down there, I jumped up and ran to help him.

Like mother, like son.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Well, it is 5:04am on Christmas Eve and I am awake and thinking about death. I haven’t been sleeping well this week at all. Maybe it is because my hormones are all off kilter and they are making me crazier than usual. Maybe it is because Andrew has been spending a few of the nights at Grandma’s house and I am worried about him. Maybe it is because I have had too many Christmas sweets and I am so amped up on the sugar that I can’t calm down. Who knows?
For someone who claims to believe all that I claim to believe, I have a huge fear of death. I fear the actual process, or more accurately, the moments right before the actual process, I fear what might happen to the people around me without me (because apparently I am indispensable and they are utterly incapable), I fear being alone after the people around me die.

It is not as though I am unacquainted with death.

I have seen it be a blessing - a release for those who were suffering and wanted to go home to their Savior. My grandma who had a stroke and complications from diabetes. Grandpa who had lived with muscular dystrophy for 30 years and was so tired. My aunt who fought breast cancer while it spread through her body. These people lived fully to the last minute, and when it was time to go they were at peace. I am sure that they had regrets, fear, reasons to want to stay, but they knew what was happening and they trusted that, in spite of their fear, everything was going to be okay; that God’s plan was greater than their own and that they were going home.

I have seen death come as a shock, one that left everyone reeling and seasick. Sarah being murdered on her way to school. Joel, Pierre, Todd and Nicole, dying in car accidents, high on chemicals, alcohol, youth or fear. Brandon the cross country runner whose heart failed at age 18. These people were my friends and I now remember high school through a lens of tearful phone calls and stunned rumors sweeping through the stands at a soccer game, a concert, an English class. Kids and parents trying to explain the letters sent home and how this could have happened to one of us. Awkward teenagers trying to find the right way, the cool way, to demonstrate grief and failing, causing more pain. Burying the truest parts of grief deep inside and contenting each other with platitudes and one-upsmanship.

When I was a child I had horrible nightmares about one of my parents dying. The worst one, and the one that re-occurred most often, involved my mom drowning in the ocean while I watched from the beach and tried to convince my dad that she needed help and he assured me that everything was fine. And now I have nightmares about my own death, or the moments right before, where I think about all my regrets, all the things I should have said to the people that I loved, all the things I wish I had done differently. And now, when I am awake in the middle of the night, or I am alone in the middle of the day, I think about Justin’s death, or Andrew’s. I am consumed with fear.

I spent many sessions in therapy trying to deal with this fear. I read books about people who have had near death experiences and lived to talk about them. I repeated mantras like, “I made the best decision that I could with the information that I had at the time” (even though I know that is a lie). And, more recently, I substituted, “God has already considered everything that you are worrying about, and His sovereign plan includes the end of this story.” But still the fear remains, and I wake up in the middle of the night and think about death.

For the past four years I have been aware of the need to find balance in my life. That elusive place that seems this close and then, just when it gets within reach, something else spins out of control. I think that one of the reasons I have had such a hard time finding (or keeping) balance is that I don’t know how to properly define it.

Is balance the same for everyone? If not, how does one find the correct balance for their life without stepping over the lines of indulgence, rationalization, relativism, or selfishness? Where is the line between the honest need to take care of yourself and the desire to use certain personality traits as an excuse for rebellion and disobedience?

Is there someone in essentially the same place in life as I am that has balance? Is it even possible at a young age, with a young marriage, and a young child? Are these circumstances just a cop out for not finding balance?

Are balance and boundaries the same? Or is it more analogous to peace or contentment? Is it something that everyone can see, or just something that you know you have, thus making life less overwhelming?

Does anyone else expect me to have balance? Should I care what anyone else expects? Is my obsession with what others expect of me one of the major reasons that I don’t have balance? Or am I setting unreal expectations for myself so that I can create further proof why I am inadequate when I don’t live up to them?

These and other questions came up yesterday as my husband and I drove home from church to pick up our son at his grandparents house. The reason Andrew was at his grandparents house is because, apparently, the kid cannot handle being in the nursery at church and I am getting very tired of driving two cars to church, putting him in the nursery, sitting down and trying to learn something, or at least get my mind out of the gutter, and having someone come and tap me on the shoulder twenty minutes later and say, “Andrew is inconsolable.” And then driving home again. In my opinion, if that is the situation, there is really no reason for me to get out of my pajamas on Sunday morning.

Yet, I know that this is an area of imbalance in my life. Quite possibly, the area that leads to much of the rest of the imbalance. And so the questions come:

What are my responsibilities as a parent in this situation? Is the need for us to try and worship together as a family greater than the need for my sanity on any given Sunday? (Because I still can’t deal with the out of control crying. I wish I could, but it makes me want to do crazy things and Justin’s position is that I should avoid anything that makes me want to do crazy things no matter what.)

Does Andrew need to learn to deal with the nursery at any cost? Or is dealing with playgroup, community group (which he sleeps through), and the occasional visit to a friends house enough at this age, for this kid?

What are realistic expectations for my child? How can I expect him to be anything other than a homebody when that is all that his parents are? How can I provide a safe place for him and not coddle him? In my quest for provide a safe place, am I coddling him or myself? If I know my child, and my family, and they don’t look like other people’s children or family, is that okay because we are individuals or is it a sign that something is wrong?

Should I take it on a week by week basis and make my decision based on the morning that he has had so far - even though that seems to have no effect on his ability to handle the nursery?

Should I stay home with him and use that nap time to listen to last week’s sermon so that I am only one week behind instead of six?

Should I leave him with my parents, thus taking away any slight chance that they would go to church, so that I can participate in the body?

The hardest part is that I know there are no clear answers to these questions. I try to evaluate the facts of the situation and all I can see are contradictions. He is a tough kid. I am an obsessive parent. He doesn’t do well in the nursery. I need to go to church. My parents need to go to church. Justin needs to go to church. We live far away from church. I love where we live. I know that there is a balance somewhere in all of these statements, but I can’t find it.

I don’t know how much I can write tonight because of the insanity that is my life right now, but I wanted to get down the two song lyrics that have been floating in my brain all weekend because I think that they are important and that I need to capture these thoughts, the good and true ones, and remember them when the crazy comes back.

“…all of my life/I held on to this fear/these thistles and vines ensnare and entwine/what flowers appear/it’s the fear that I’ll fall/one to many times/it’s the fear that His love/is no better than mine…” -Andrew Peterson

“…and the art of all my problems/is in how they’re resolved/I try until I’m hopeless/and then a hand so soft/is brushing back my hair/where its clinging to my face/from crying, God, I live in/such a weak and desperate place/and you lay me down/you whisper somehow/I can feel it when I’m very still/you don’t ever touch me/or take away the chill/but someday soon, you will…” -Don Chaffer/Waterdeep

for their kids who are going to play with it for two weeks and then start whining again because something better just came out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any better when married to a technogeek who spends the whole year dreaming of the newest gadgets he can get with his Christmas money and then, when he gets them, starts talking about the next, best, thing.

I think it irks me so much because I was one of those kids and, as an adult, I love getting on my soap box about the evils of consumerism and then benefiting from the super cool new things that are in my house (6-disc DVD changer? So you are telling me that I could sit on my ass and watch all three extended versions of the Lord of the Rings without ever leaving the couch? GLORY!!)

So, for the last three years of our marriage, we have not had a Christmas tree. They are messy, and a hassle, and we usually end up contemplating divorce in the process of getting it aligned in the stand correctly, and we have a million more reasons not to have one. But this year, after being out in the garishly decorated stores with Andrew and watching him try to twist his head around like an owl to see all the lights I started to reconsider.

Maybe having a child would help me find an appropriate balance between a childish holiday mania and detached ambiguity. Maybe I could see Christmas the way it is supposed to be. Maybe I will just turn my child into a whining brat who needs every single thing he sees on TV. Maybe I should get a Christmas tree.

So I did. I got a little, four foot, fake tree and put it up while Andrew screamed in his crib because I was trying to get him to take a nap early so that we could go Christmas shopping at an appointed time with my friend Jessie. Merry fucking Christmas.