I sat in the hospital waiting room reading celebrity magazines, a guilty pleasure I rarely indulge in. My husband was in an operating room in Boston having a pin installed in his hand to help heal a fractured bone. In the great scheme of things, it wasn’t too big a deal.

Another family walked in and sat on the couches in a different corner of the room. We had a short exchange of pleasantries, after which one of that group said:

“Yuh not from around heah, ah yuh” – which, being translated, means: “You’re not from around here, are you.”

I told them I grew up in Illinois.

“You roll yuh ahhs.” (“You roll your “r’s.”)

After we had placed each other geographically by mother tongue, I learned that their loved one was having heart surgery. It was serious and life threatening. I settled back into my chair, and they carried on their own quiet conversation.

I started thinking about the room we were in. I had the sense that the walls and furnishings were thick with the love, grief, hope and longing absorbed from the intensity of all who ever had reason to be there. It was as though there were stories, weeping and prayers infused into the wallpaper just waiting for someone with “ears to hear” – if there were anyone who could bear up under the weight of it all.

This experience came back to me recently when I was given a new assignment as part of my morning shift at the Chicago temple. A new project was to train ordinance workers to handle office duties as well as the other mix of services we provide (from priestly functions to folding the laundry – all holy work in my opinion.) My assignment that day was to transcribe names from the prayer roll recording.

Besides being able to write down the names of dear ones with “afflictions” or concerns on paper at the temple itself, people can call the temple and leave names (spoken clearly, and spelled out, please) on an automated temple roll recording. Those names are then transcribed and made available with the handwritten ones for prayers on the altars of the temple.

As I transcribed the names that day I had a similar sensation to what I’d had in the hospital waiting room years before. Each slow syllable was potent and loaded with so many layers of love and concern and crisis. The voices varied (that day they were all women) – chipper, aged, matter-of-fact, anxious, many with Western glosses or Midwestern rolled “r’s.” Each of those voices represented loving, gentle thoughts or powerful tsunamis of turmoil on behalf of the person whose name they had just pronounced.

As I heard name after name after name, I felt a sense of awe. Of course I wasn’t privy to the particulars – just as the silent waiting room never shared its confidences. Each name I heard represented a specific child of God grappling with a challenge along the thorny spectrum of mortal experience. Each name was spoken by a thoughtful soul longing to connect that person with the energies of prayerful mortals and the compassionate Divine.

This litany became a prayer of its own – holy, charged, drenched in pleading. And that litany, that list of names – but so much more – made its way to the altars of our God, seeking the mercies of Him who surely “hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” (Isaiah 53:4)

Related posts:

1. Pray for me; heal my heart
2. That Thing That is of Most Worth
3. Sometimes, Always, at the Temple

My siblings and I did not leave the house for a date or social activity without hearing those words from my father. I believe it was a tradition handed down from his parents and was just as much a reminder to honor the family name as to be mindful of the name we take upon ourselves every Sunday. Being teenagers, we were likely oblivious to the full significance of both meanings. But there was still a power in those words and in the love we felt behind them.

Now, some thirty years later, I often find myself surrounded by even louder voices trying to make me forget who I am. Not so much in such a way as to tempt me to misbehave. But rather to cause me to forget or deny who I am: a daughter of a loving God, blessed with divine and eternal gifts with which to serve. The voices are everywhere. Not just an invasive and pervasive media and society that continually tell me that in every single way I am “not enough.” But also people in my life for whom, for whatever reason, I will never be enough.

As ingrained as my father’s words are, sometimes I listen to the world. I forget who I am.

A couple of Sundays ago I was standing outside the Primary room, waiting to greet the Primary children as they arrived from Sacrament Meeting. I was tired and also a bit beat up after that weekend’s encounters with the usual naysayers, which had been especially intense and hurtful. A friend passed me in the hall. We said hello to one another, I gave her a quick hug, and she walked on down the hall.

Suddenly, she turned around and came back.

The details of what she said to me, almost in passing, are not important. She simply mentioned something she loves about me and told me how she has known since the day we first met that this particular trait embodies the very essence of my heart. Those were her words, but her message was this:

“I know who you really are.”

As soon as she said them aloud, her words rang true in my heart. I recognized that the words were not just hers. I knew she was heaven-sent from my Father, with a gentle but sure reminder expressly for me, in that moment:

“Remember who you are.”

I am profoundly grateful for the people in my life who care enough about me to look upon my heart. To see me for who I really am and to remind when I forget. Or when God sends them on an errand to tell me so. I want with all my heart to be that kind of friend and messenger for the Lord.

And so, this morning, I’m telling you,

“Remember who you are.”

Seek out the people in your life who will truly know you and who will, when you forget, remind you of who you are.

Who are the messengers in your life?

What can we do to remember who we are, especially as the cacophony of naysayers becomes deafening?

How can we, as women, do better to look upon the heart?

Related posts:

1. Lyrically speaking
2. Oops, I forgot
3. Ere You Left Your Room This Morning

Popham Beach State Park, Maine

In a recent Worldwide Leadership Training Conference, attendees heard someone’s thoughts on “that thing that is of most worth to a woman in this life.” If someone asked you what that “thing of most worth” is, how would you answer?

Some years ago I went through a very tough time. Metaphorically speaking I felt like my ribs had been extracted. My pulses and rhythms still functioned, but my supports and protection were gone. My mother had just died. My kids were asserting themselves in creative and dumbfounding ways, following their natural call to become “agents unto themselves.” My husband was reorganizing his heart and soul, doing important internal work, but I had no idea where I’d end up when his “remodeling” was over. My soul felt like it was, to quote Yeats, “turning and turning in a widening gyre.”

In the midst of this untethering, our family joined another family for a week at a cabin in Maine. One day we piled into our cars and headed to Popham Beach State Park. As we pulled into the parking lot, the cassette player (yes, it was a while ago) blared John Rutter’s “For the Beauty of the Earth” loud enough to shake the minivan walls. It certainly fit the gorgeous setting.

The kids piled out of the car and dashed for the sand. My husband and my friend’s husband went off on a manly walk-about. My friend and I settled with the other sunbathers on beach towels. Since the tide was out, the water wasn’t that close. She read her book, and I—well, I stewed in the possibility that I could lose absolutely everything I valued. Not just in a cosmic way; it was practical, too. I was too far away to be of any physical use to my kids in the water if something dire happened. It wasn’t out of the question that my husband could decide just not to come back.

As I lay there pondering, praying, trying to keep breathing in and out (despite the lack of ribs), a passage of scripture came to my mind. It was Romans 8:35-38:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The first thing I noticed was the checklist of worries. I wasn’t too concerned about famine, nakedness, sword or principalities, but pretty much the rest of the travails seemed like present dangers.

Then I focused on the powerful bookend consolations: “nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord”. I let the meaning sweep over me like soothing tidewaters.

I found out as we headed to the car after our afternoon at the beach that the real tidewaters had been up to no good.

My 8 year old (who had only just had his first swimming lessons) told me he had been standing in the shallow waters but got knocked over by a good wave. After much sputtering and angst he righted himself. It was scary for him, but in the end it was a successful accomplishment that improved his confidence.

The other two, along with our friends’ son (all good swimmers), had ventured further out. My 11-year-old found himself unable to catch up with the older two and began floundering. An attentive lifeguard caught him, brought him to the other two and helped all three of them get back to safer grounds. “There are undertows out there,” the lifeguard told them. “Sometimes they’re impossible to fight.”

Those three older kids were snickering and poking each other by the time we got the story out of them, laughter being just a cover for the fright of their close call.

My husband came back with our friend no worse for the walk.

I thought again about that scripture and the fact that I really could have lost at least one child that day. God wasn’t joking with His litany of things that could occur. God wasn’t telling me, “Don’t worry. I’ll take all these difficulties away.” He was saying, “If everything you treasure gets stripped away from you or life takes you or your dear ones to unimaginably hard places, I will always know and love you, Linda. I will always love you. Hold on to this truth, this hope. Hold on.”

That thing that is of most worth for this woman in this life is to live the gospel with a sense of God’s unwavering and radical love for her.
Complete sentence.
Complete life.

Related posts:

1. a different sort of happily-ever-after
2. UP CLOSE: Living Single– Titanic Tears and Ministering Angels – Just Another Day Really
3. The Great Escape

Christmas is about Receiving

We are thick in the season of giving. Retail merriment may jing-jing-jangle our nerves, but many of us bask in thinking about our giftees and what might bring them joy. This is progress from our less-enlightened “gimme” days. Wonderful! We are learning to be good gift givers.

The flip side of this is that this is also the season of receiving. Just how enlightened are our receiving skills this Christmas time?

I used to think gift cards were bland and impersonal. It was hard for me to give them and somewhat disappointing to receive. Not so these days. Now I find a well-suited gift card (given or received) to be very satisfying. Maybe not gift cards to grocery stores, but I could be wrong.

Getting gifts from very young children is good exercise in receiving. In nursery or pre-school, kids may not even know how to hold a crayon yet. The tots likely aren’t thinking of Mommy when they make a “present” for her with a jot with the red crayon. However, their scribbled bits can be interpreted by an aware adult as evidence of the child’s growing social and motor skills. They stayed in nursery long enough to participate in the activity, after all. That affirmation is a joy to receive! It’s not the “masterpiece” itself we’re receiving and grateful for. Sometimes the meta-message takes some digging.

Speaking of meta-messages, “receiving” is a rich word in our Mormon lexicon. When we are confirmed we are told to “receive the Holy Ghost.” As a convert with a well-developed spiritual life before joining the Church, I can’t say I noticed a particular shift or infusion of new “oomph” with this charge. Sometimes I think of it like a tuner on a radio. The Holy Ghost will always broadcast; how good am I at receiving It? When I “receive” that Gift, I vow to put myself in a frequency to hear It, feel Its humming presence and proceed with the impulses and messages I sense.

In sealing eternal marriages the man and woman promise to “receive” one another. (If something is received, it must have been given in the first place. That’s my take on wording that isn’t exactly identical.) Is there anything more humbling, open and trusting than that kind of exchange? Marriage is a setting requiring equal (and extraordinary) measures of responsibility and vulnerability.

Receiving in most profound ways, I think, is best accomplished without a lot of (jingle) bells and whistles (although expressed heartfelt “thank you”s and/or notes should be somewhere in the mix.) Isn’t the meta-message of the gift of this season found in reflection, awareness, gratitude, and a blessed balance of humility and majesty? Phillips Brooks, author of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” said it well:

How silently, how silently the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming; but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.

How do you prepare to receive? Any memorable occasions of receiving gone grossly wrong or movingly right? What layers of meaning does “receiving” have for you?

Related posts:

1. What does it feel like?
2. Looking up
3. Milk before meat

Scales of Justice

Justice and Mercy walk into a bar.

Justice overhears a customer order “another Shirley Temple, please.” Barkeep reminds the customer that he hasn’t paid for his last two yet.

Justice grabs the customer by the collar, yells, “You can’t pay your bill? You’re outta here!” and kicks him out the door.

Mercy goes out and drags the customer back in, orders a Shirley Temple for him, pays for it and pays his back tab as well.

Then, turning to Justice, Mercy grabs him by the collar, yells “You may be right, but why do you always have to be such a self-righteous, retentive, heartless jerk about it!?” and kicks him out the door.

Then Mercy goes out, drags Justice back in, puts salve on his scrapes, and buys him – and everyone else in the bar – a free Shirley Temple.

Which do you think are true about this (little lame) anecdote?

A) Neither Justice nor Mercy behaved very well.
B) Justice and Mercy behaved exactly as they should have, with Mercy having more chutzpah than he generally gets credit for.
C) In the end the blessings of a Temple are available to all.

This little romp leaves me musing on a couple wrestles I’ve had with the concepts of justice and mercy.

I learned about one in our Marriage and Family Relations Class taught in our Illinois ward by my friend, the fabulous Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife. One of the many challenges she says couples face is the insistence on “being right.”

Maybe you balk at the idea of letting some ridiculous pronouncement come out of your spouse’s mouth without the appropriate – and just – correction being made. I mean, really. To just let something that wrong/irrelevant/ungrammatical/insensitive, etc. go by unchecked? Never! The cause of truth is at stake!

Or maybe one of you trots out a parade of your partner’s past gaffes or mistakes whenever any new evidence of imperfection surfaces. Gotta hammer home the proof: one of you is perfect and the other, obviously, is not.

Yet, these situations where “justice” constantly trumps, if not mercy, at least kindness can corrode relationships. Sometimes the notion that you have to be right needs to be slapped upside the head. Use judgment, of course, but seek for connection, not for needing to be right all the time.

The other wrestle springs from my quibble with 2 Nephi 2:27.  In this verse we learn that we are free to “choose liberty and eternal life….or to choose captivity and death.” For me, most of my choices are not so stark. They are not between a good choice and a bad choice, but between two good choices. As my  son used to say “Who would take who in a fight?”: Prayer or action? Certainty or faith? Personal responsibility or delegation? Leniency or demanding high standards?

And even Justice or Mercy?

What experiences have you had with holding on to or relinquishing the need to “be right” in a relationship? With choices between good and bad? With choices between two goods? And, in particular, with Justice and Mercy?

Related posts:

1. A Paradox
2. Justice, Mercy, and Other Mysteries (Also, It’s Time to Send Your Submission to Our Journal)
3. Practicing Grace

Valentine’s Day is coming up in less than a week. Mostly, I’ve been trying to ignore it (it’s not my favorite holiday), but my five-year-old won’t let me. For weeks now (literally) he has trailed me around the house, asking me to help him make valentines. In turn, I haul out the red, white, and pink construction paper, the markers, scissors—and, reluctantly—the glue. For ten or fifteen minutes he works happily, cutting out misshapen red paper hearts and gluing them onto white paper cards, before losing interest and moving on to other tasks, leaving a detritus trail of paper clippings in his wake.

Because I have also had this post on my mind, my son’s incessant reminders have forced me to think about Valentine’s Day and social conceptions of love. I don’t want to rehash familiar arguments about the loneliness of a “couple’s holiday” for single people; I don’t even want to criticize the glorification of romantic love (although I have more than enough to say on that topic). But I do want to talk about a kind of love that too often gets overlooked in the glamor of romantic love—the strong, affirming love that can exist between good friends, particularly between women. I’m not sure it was coincidence that Sunny posted about Relief Society yesterday (after I had written this post)—for me, it is this very connection between women that characterizes Relief Society at its best.

First, let me tell a story. In high school and college I had a good friend with whom I also had a strong (if unacknowledged) competition. Both of us were good students, but she was prettier and more out-going than I was. However, I consoled myself that I was, if anything, the better student. Eventually we drifted apart; she got married, and I left on a mission. While I was gone, mom faithfully fed me tidbits of news about my friend—about the essay contest she’d won, about the prestigious scholarship she’d just been awarded. Instead of feeling pleased for her (as I knew I should), I felt sick, as if somehow her gifts made mine less.

Unfortunately, this kind of invidious comparison isn’t an isolated experience (not for me; nor, I imagine, for most women). And I think it’s this kind of conflict that Patricia Holland addresses so beautifully in a 1984 address, “The Fruits of the Spirit”:

It seems tragic to me that women are often their own worst enemies when they ought to be allies, nurturing and building each other. We all know how much a man’s opinion of us can mean, but I believe our self-worth as women is often reflected to us in the eyes of other women. When other women respect us, we respect ourselves. It is often only when other women find us pleasant and worthy that we find ourselves pleasant and worthy. If we have this effect on each other, why aren’t we more generous and loving with one another?

I’ve thought long and often about this. I have finally come to suspect that part of the problem is the heart! We are afraid—afraid to reach out, afraid to reach up, afraid to trust and be trusted, especially with and by other women. In short, we don’t love enough. We don’t exercise to full capacity the greatest gift and power God gave to women.

Luckily for me, my own story has a happy ending. After my mission, I sought my friend out, catching her one afternoon after class in the dimly lit basement of the Jesse Knight Building on BYU’s campus. I told her how jealous I had been, and asked her to forgive me. She stared at me in shock for a minute, then said, “But I was always so jealous of you!” We both laughed—and cried—and have, in the years since, become better about not judging each other, or ourselves, quite so severely. This friend has been my confidante (although she probably doesn’t realize it) in more than one moment of spiritual or emotional crisis. I wish now that I had had the courage to approach her much earlier.

Patricia Holland goes on in her talk to offer three exercises for increasing our capacity to love for each other: to forgive one another, to love unconditionally, and to give love without expecting a full return on our investment. In the interest of time, I’m going to focus on the second, but I encourage you to read her powerful essay in full. Sister Holland suggests that a key step to loving unconditionally is to become aware of, and curtail, our tendencies to critically evaluate others (and, I would add, ourselves):

What we want most of all is the approval, praise, and unconditional love of others. Can we give less than what we desire for ourselves? . . . One day my feelings had been deeply hurt by a close neighbor. Feeling what I was sure at the time was deserved self-pity, I went to my room and poured out my broken heart in prayer. I remember specifically saying, “Dear Father in Heaven, please help me to find a friend whom I can trust, one with whom I know I’ll be safe, one who deserves my confidence and my love.” He did bless me—he gave me, for a moment, the uncluttered insight that can come only by the Spirit. He helped me to see that I was praying for a “perfect” friend, while he had generously surrounded me with friends whose weaknesses were like my own.

A good relationship is not one in which perfection reigns; rather, it is one in which a healthy perspective simply overlooks the faults of others.

I imagine all of us know women like this—strong, flawed women who are doing their best. These kind of women are the lifeblood of the church; they are mainstays in my own life. While this kind of love—accepting, forgiving, self-less—often gets overlooked or ignored in the mainstream press (after all, it’s hard to capitalize on it commercially), it is a kind of love for which I am profoundly grateful. It’s also a kind of love that I want to be able to offer more fully.

Today, I’d like to invite you to reflect on your own friendships, particularly with other women. How have these friendships blessed you? How do you exercise this kind of love in your own life? What can we, as women, do better to cultivate a more accepting environment in the circles we inhabit (at home, at church, in our communities)?

Related posts:

1. Trusting My Premortal Self
2. A Socially-Networked Spontaneous Show of Support
3. Vintage CJane–Sweet Cheeks

And the evening and the morning were the first day.

I ran 200 fewer miles in 2010 than in 2009.  I read 25 fewer books.  I spent a lot of time doing things I don’t enjoy like moving, volunteering in classrooms, baking (mostly) unsuccessful allergen-free breads and goodies, hosting parties and play-dates, and cleaning.  I gave up lifelong dreams.  I walked away from opportunities I thought I wanted.  I had another miscarriage, another D&C.  I continued to be terrible at things like Visiting Teaching (or any activity in which I have to use the phone), making deadlines, and mailing packages.  I spent more time alone.

In 2009, I took intensive German language lessons and attended the University and worked part-time.  This year?  Nothing.  When people ask what I do during the day, I have no answer.  I usually sideline their question by responding (with sass!) that I am a “lady of leisure.”  We laugh.  They then ask a question about my husband’s career and our conversation moves forward.  But I’m stuck in that moment just after the question leaves their lips when I realize (all kidding aside) that the answer to their question isn’t an answer at all, but just another series of questions.

During the week, I get the kids to school, walking them to their classrooms more for PR than anything else.  Face-to-face contact with teachers and administrators is important when your children are both the “new kid” and the “problem kid”.  I grocery shop daily.  I do pilates, I run.  I shower, do my hair, apply makeup.  Twice a week, I spend a few hours in the kids’ classrooms.  I clean for a couple hours of the day.  I cook for a couple more.  I clean up the mess from cooking for another hour or so.  I watch Hulu (a major advantage of moving back to the States) while folding laundry.  I oversee chores and homework.  I love my husband, holding his face in my hands when we kiss goodbye in the morning and hello in the evening.

I’m the last person to say that being a matriarch and mother is and should be all about sacrifice (as if every woman blessed with a husband and children is somehow not only a mother and wife but a martyr) because I don’t believe that.  I think motherhood, like charity, service, and love gives more than it takes, fills more than it drains; God’s math never being equal, the giver is miraculously always the receiver.  Zakes Mda, a South African writer, has said, “Our elders say that an elephant does not find its own trunk heavy.”

There are times when I see my own fleshy form as something that hangs on my soul, inhibits my progress, wiggles and shakes as I try to run it off.  AND there are times when my kids hedge me in, make me feel like I live a sub-human and cave-like existence, slave to their maniacal desires (we don’t call our oldest son ‘Fidel’ for nothing).  But they’re my kids, my spouse, my burden, my joy, my trunk and although I carry them everywhere I go (even when I’m alone), they’re mine and I’m grateful; so often uplifted more than pulled down and loved (always) more than I deserve.

As 2010 comes to a close, I’m sad to leave it behind.  In a strange twist of fate, I achieved less but became more.  I don’t know why I insist on keeping track of the numbers, I’ve never been good at math anyway.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Related posts:

1. To Hope For That Which Is Not Seen
2. The Dodge
3. Questions Answered

Right now we have the opportunity to help provide a place that is dry, a place that is warm, a building, a place where children’s lives that have been in grave danger won’t be.

Donate now.  Click on special instructions to seller and type ‘Segullah’ to be entered into the Bloggernacle’s crafty raffle.

Related posts:

1. BlogHer
2. Buried
3. Hearing Voices

Interestingly, I’d just prepared a lesson to teach the Beehives the next day, in which I was directed by the Supplemental Materials booklet to refer to the section entitled “Judging Others” in True to the Faith, which says, “Sometimes people feel that it is wrong to judge others in any way. While it is true that you should not condemn others or judge unrighteously, you will need to make judgments of ideas, situations, and people throughout your lifetime. The Lord has given many commandments that you cannot keep without making judgments. You need to make judgments of people in many of your important decisions, such as choosing friends…and choosing an eternal companion” (p.90). The booklet goes on to caution us to use “great care” when making judgments and advises, “All your judgments must be guided by righteous standards.…Approach any judgment with care and compassion. Whenever possible, refrain from making judgments until you have an adequate knowledge of the facts” (90-91). The Supplemental Materials booklet then asked teachers to pose this question: “The world asks me to be tolerant of everyone’s actions and beliefs. In what circumstances does the Lord ask me to make judgments of ideas, situations, and people?” (p. 8).

Hmmm. Before President Monson spoke last Saturday, a friend and I happened to be talking about judging and she said, “Righteous judgment is essential to living a good life. Everyone judges, and to think otherwise is to deny reality. I think nowadays there is such an emphasis placed on tolerance and acceptance that any tiny amount of criticism is immediately pounced on as ‘judgment.’” Because our children sometimes accuse us of being judgmental (usually if we have concerns about the kinds of friends they are hanging out with), she and I have been discussing this topic on and off for some time, struggling to figure out when it’s appropriate to judge and what constitutes being judgmental.

So, I was a little taken aback after Saturday night’s meeting when my friend emailed me and said, “I know I’m going to hell. Not even in a hand basket. Here’s hoping it’s a dry heat.”

I’ve been thinking about her reaction to Pres. Monson’s talk, especially in conjunction with the lesson I taught my Beehives on Sunday, and I’m wondering how the rest of you feel. True, we all need to work on being less judgmental. Like all of you, I’ve been stung by others’ unkind (and incorrect) judgments of me, and I’ve done my share of unrighteous judging of others. I don’t think any of us is exempt from this human weakness. Ironically, I’ve even judged others for being self-righteous and judgmental. Around and around it goes. And it prevents us—all of us—from developing real, Christlike charity. So President Monson’s counsel was much needed and appropriate. But was he saying that we shouldn’t make judgments at all? I don’t think so.

So, here’s what I want to know: How do you define “righteous judgment?” Do you struggle with knowing the difference between exercising righteous judgment and being judgmental? Do you think, as my friend suggested before Pres. Monson’s talk, that sometimes we err too far on the side of tolerance for fear of appearing judgmental? And, finally, how do you interpret Pres. Monson’s counsel?

Related posts:

1. Forget Not
2. The Rain Falls on the Just and the Unjust
3. I’m Trying to Be Like. . .

Friends who know our weaknesses but laugh them off and frankly forgive us?

Five days a week, for the last nine months we’ve carpooled with these sweet people. It’s part of rhythm of our days. I drive Gwen and Mary to kindergarten, Brad picks them up and each month we switch directions. We stop and talk to Butch the crossing guard every afternoon and the girls talk us into afterschool playdates at least once a week.

But at least once a week I call Brad in a semi-panic, “I’m downtown and I’ll never make it back on time.” “I’m at the doctor’s office– would you mind picking up and I’ll drive both ways tomorrow.” “Um yeah, I’m at lunch with friends. Could you…”

And every single time, he answers, “Sure. No problem. Don’t worry about it.”

It means a lot to me. In this world where people scream at others for making a wrong turn or choosing the wrong word or neglecting the tiniest detail, it is so refreshing to know people who say– “You’re fine.” “I know you’re doing your best.” “It’s OK.”

And I’m especially grateful for these people– Erik, Ben, Stefan, Hans, Xander, Gabriel, Mary– who spend every day with their flighty, forgetful, overscheduled, silly mom. They laugh off my quirks and work around my weaknesses.

I try to do the same for them.

Who gives you leeway in your life? Who accepts you ‘as is’? Isn’t it the best?

Related posts:

1. I’m not a detail person (except when I am)
2. A Short Biography
3. This is the stable . . .