ENFJ crisis

I LOVE people. Seriously. All those personality test- I land heavy on extrovert side. I prefer people over task every day of the week. I could talk, meet, and be with people all day long and be recharged. Getting to know people, making friends: Adore it.

But lately, I've been feeling so frustrated with relationships. They are just so much damn hard work. Even the easy relationships eventually have to go deeper and stretch and grow and change. And I'm just tired of it. Today especially. Partially cause I'm just plain sleep tired, but also because I'm having to look at myself and my laziness and selfishness and the mirror of relationships is a particularly accurate/cruel one to assess your weaknesses through. I just get frustrated when friendships involve confrontation and then instead of getting better then get worse. I waste stupid amounts of energy thinking about other peoples business. I'm drained sticking my nose where is doesn't belong, trying to fix things I am rediculously under qualifies to solve. On days like today I just wish I could only work with people who are easy and simple and healthy all the time. People not all like me.

Additionally we just did a parenting seminar, which was amazing, but it sure made me bummed about parts of my relationship with my kids. Having to think about how often I say what I don't mean or worse- forget to say what I do mean, is a draining and disappointing endeavor.

Taking into account all my wife-ly shortcoming, makes me feel so murrose. Why are relationships so difficult?

Of course I know the answer to this and can take a positive spin of it, but as I've discussed that's not what this blog is for. This is not to be optimistic and brighter side and deeper meaning- this is to tell the truth about it not always being peach-y and edited around here. 

Hidden Brokeness

Imagine that you have this beautiful vase. It is ornate, large, and has the most gorgeous glaze on the outside- deep complex colors, rich hues, fine detailed patterns. It is your favorite and not just to display, although people always comment on what a excellent example of art it is, but also because it is practical- you can display things in it, it holds water, is actually pretty sturdy. Since this is something that you loved- wouldn't you want to know if internally it was broken? Wouldn't you need to know that it is just a matter of time before the thing crumbles to pieces or more likely slowly leaks water? I don't think you would love it any less if you knew it was compromised; I think you would fix it and until it can be fixed you wouldn't use it in the same, you would treat it more carefully, more appropriately.
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As a church community, I am sad to say that it becomes very easy to assume that the people around us are simply as they appear. Either perfectly functional and impervious to interior faults, or broken beyond repair and the same way they have always been. One of my goals for this blog was to help dispel the illusion that instagram helps us create. We take pictures, edit them, and post them of times when we are smiling, surrounded by friends, creating beautiful things, being dynamite parents, gifting our spouses; therefore it so easy to assume this is the all-the-time reality of each of our lives. Even though we know our own realities are far more complex, messy, petty, and down right broken. Why is this? We are smart people. We know what happens when you assume something. Yet still we continue, the mother with the pictures of at home crafts must be patient and brilliant all the time. The couple affirming and snuggling must have got the marriage thing down pat. The teenager who post scriptures must be impervious to peer pressure. The boy complaining always must never appreciate his blessings. But this is not so.
But these illusion, these assumptions keep us from seeing the better, deeper truths. It keeps us out and away from each other. In church this is rampant. This place- this church community- should be where we can all be open and honest and free to communicate our brokenness. To bring it from hiding, knowing that hidden brokenness doesn't get healing. When we hide our cracks it is too easy to assume we can continue to hold water, continue to walk around isolated from people who likely are the same.
I think there are two major things are play here: the first being that it is scary as hell to tell the people around you that you aren't as together as you seem. It is takes such courage to say, "I am smiling on camera, but I was yelling a minute ago." or "This marriage thing is hard, and I don't know what I am doing." or "I hope I am not trying my best to be a good parent, because this is going terribly wrong." or "I thought I had this addiction beat, but it keeps whispering my name and I am not sure how much longer I will ignore it." Those are some of the bravest words. They take such power and guts and trust.
And that is the second thing at play. Trust. I am not here to bash church or the church community; these I love. I am here to say I am going to be a part of a change to make this place a safer place for people to show their brokenness and pray like heck that God can use me and transform and heal. There is no other place that is [could be, will be] safer to open ones self up for healing. God's grace is big and powerful and we have all received it. We just forget. We forget that we too are [were/ will be] in great need of his forgiveness. We forget that those people around us who seem perfect have in fact been touched by healing, will be again touched, and might now be touched with pain and hurt and self-induced foolishness. We are all here at the base of the cross. And we are all in need of healing.

snow many memories

In case you don't live around here or aren't friends with Oregonians on Facebook- here in the Willamette Valley we have been having uncharacteristically wintry snow fall for the past 3 days. Maybe once a year, we get snow and it is usually- from my Alaska grown eyes- a poor representation of snow, but this storm- it is the real deal. Big fat flakes falling, covering everything in the pillow white that my childhood was made of. My parent took Gabe and my nephew Logan sledding this afternoon while David and I clean the house (and by that I mean David) and bake cinnamon rolls (and by that I mean me).
This has made me nostalgic. Quick Bethany fact sheet: I was born and raised in Fairbanks Alaska. I lived in the same house that my dad build about 4 miles out of town for the entirety of that time. In fact, my dad (when he isn't commuting and working from Salem) and sister still live in a version of that same house today. It has greatly evolved- when I was born it was in fact in an entirely different location and about 1/4 of the current size, but they picked it up, put it on a trailer and moved it to its current home at the end of Tekoa Trail where it has been renovated, added on, adapted, and generally evolved.
In Fairbanks, we do winter really well. Coming here to Oregon and experiencing seasons blew my mind. Oh, Thanksgiving is at harvest time and Easter actually is spring! Since Fairbanks is in the interior of Alaska, the temperatures are pretty extreme: moderately hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. Now to be clear, I loved living in Alaska while I was there, but I was not a sport-sy outdoors girl. My dad basically made me and my sisters go cross country skiing, we didn't have a snowmobile, and Fairbanks doesn't have mountains too close for snowboarding or downhill skiing. So when I was there the 9 months of deep snow and cold temperatures didn't necessarily fill me with delight. But it was my reality and all I had ever experienced and therefore it was good. And my parents really made my childhood fun. When people ask me about Alaska and whether I will go back to live, I am unsure- it seems unlikely, but I say, "It was a great place to grow up." When I was a kid we didn't have cable- no channels. We would watch movies every Friday night, but the rest of our time was not taken up with TV at all. So as a kid my sisters and I were forced into books and other creativity. The aforementioned cross country skiing was a favorite of my dads and so we did this pretty regularly. Although despite the occasional forced activity and absence of television, much of my time- especially as a middle school and as teenager was spent on the phone or reading or being with friends or wanting to be with friends. But there was certainly big chunks of my childhood where I was an classic Alaskan girl- out tromping in the snow, building caves, sledding, playing in the snowy sparse woods with our neighbor. And those I remember fondly. The way that moose in the backyard was normal, seeing gorgeous Denali from our driveway regularly, the pride and craziness of going to school always- even at 40 below, the way a hot springs is the best when it is super cold outside, the way it looks gorgeous and epic all the time. Even though come January I was so over the cold and was going cabin stir crazy. Even though the static electricity was horrible and you have to warm up your cars for 20 minutes before you could go anywhere. Even though it got so cold that you couldn't breath and your eyelashes and nose hairs froze right away. I am grateful for that being the place where so many of my memories exist and when I see the snow fall outside my Oregon window, I just love that glimpse.

Books

Lately I have been thinking a lot about books. I love books so much. That may be a nerdy, teacher-y thing to say, but I don't much care. They are just so wonderful.
In my current classroom I spend the first 15 minutes after the kids come in from recess with the kids gathered around me, reading a chapter book. We are fully in Kate Decamillo's gorgeous Newberry winner, "The Tale of Despereaux." I have read it perhaps 6 times to different classrooms by now; I just adore sharing it with kids. In some teacher circles this 'old fashion' simple read aloud is falling out of popularity, but I don't care. I read to them a 300 page chapter book with perhaps 12 books, without a clearly explained learning target, far above their own reading levels, with complex themes such as forgiveness, empathy, and heroism. I try to really do it justice as I read it a loud- bringing as much emphasis and voices to the complex characters. Truthfully I am pretty bad at a french accent, but the kids don't seem to notice.
One of my uncles on my dad's side- now he could do voices. When we were little he used to read to us. One of the clearest and more formative books Uncle Rich read to us was "The BFG" by Roald Dahl. My mind is fussy about how this really happened. He didn't live with us and I don't remember if being a weekly thing, but he must have come over multiple times and read us this great chapter book with the best voices. I remember being so captivated by it. It shaped me. There is this line is "You've Got Mail," that I love: "When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does." This is true for me of Sophie and her Big Friendly Giant; they became a part of who I am, how I see and treat people. They are joined by "Mike Mulligan's Steam Shovel," "The Babysitter Club" girls, Tock and Milo from "The Phantom Tollbooth," and hundreds of other books that were read to me until I could read them for myself.
We usually buy our books from Amazon, but for Christmas I got a gift certificate for the local bookstore fantastically 4 blocks from my house, and I just love going in there. There is something fabulous about a huge room full of books. I love browsing and perusing. To touch the spines, read the backs, smell the edges (tell no one I do this): it awakens the imagination, opens my eyes to the possibilities, broadens my perspectives- and all of this even before I have actually chosen one to read. That is when the transformation takes place.
And this is one of the greatest gifts that I cherish about my job. I love teaching reading. Don't get me wrong, the wonder that science brings to a child, the safety and predictability of math- all good stuff, but reading! The way a book can teach a child that they are not alone- someone else has felt the way you feel- and simultaneous teach them that there are things that other people have seen, experienced, felt that they never knew about: these are the things of value. How a boy in my class, who struggles reading on his own, follows very clearly the deep and implied plot points in the chapter book he listens to for 1/24 of his school day. I love trying to find that story or author or series that will change things for kid; that story that will shape them. I love helping them find the story they will read over and over again and then in 15 or 20 years reach for it to read to their own child.
I just love books.

A drop in the web

There are days when I am just in awe of all things human. It amazes me that despite the finite options of notes or cords- the music that people can create and are creating seems infinite. The creativity of people is amazing. The inventions/innovations that pop up all around me or that I use everyday that came from the mind of human is spectacular. So much of what I depend on was engineered by some brilliant and non-conforming mind. As a teacher, this is valuable to remember for me, I am lucky enough to sub so when I am not doing a long term job like I am now, I get to meet as many as 210 elementary students in a week. Spend a day with them, 30 at a time for about 6 hours, and let me tell you it doesn't take long to see their little personalities. And the tough ones, the non-conforming ones, I have to remind myself are likely going to be the ones inventing the next great thing, or creating music in a way that it has never been done before, or discovering cures for things, or performing on stage. This summer, for my friends bachelorette party, a group of us went to magic show. This guy was super odd and could do mostly math magic tricks. The whole time I was thinking- "I bet he drove his teacher nuts." I wanna be the type of teacher who really helps those kids- keeps them out of jail, or from medicating their creativity away, or help them realize their differences are important to us.

However, there are other days, when I feel like I have a great idea something to write about and then I look on Facebook and someone else has already written all about that thing I was gonna say, but they did it way better. Could it be possible that I might have something original to say in a time and place where I am surrounded by books, blogs, music, art, photography, plays, and movies crafted by millions of brilliant people? Is my voice worth adding to the deep, wide ocean of knowledge? To contrast my days of seeing all things as inventive, I also just think so many things are just being said over and over again- and sometimes just loosing their potency. In a shallow way, I have discovered just how unoriginal I can really be when I have use a hashtag on instagram thinking it is "like totally an original Bethany-ism" only to discover that thousands of other people must say that everyday. How can it be that the largest library in the world has 170 million items in it (British Library) and yet in America last year nearly 300,000 new books were published?! I am sure there are a percent of those publications that are saying the same thing, but even in writing my Master's thesis, I wrote some 100 pages, but so much of that was writing what other people had written in a slightly different way. But there is something great about creativity and humans that makes me think it really could be true that each new voice is worth the speaking, if not worth the listening to. And I so I will keep adding my drops to the big bucket that is the internet.

The year in numbers

I started a long and reflective post, but I've changed my mind- instead I give you 2013 remembered in numbers:

493 Instagram pictures or videos taken many of the hammock in my back yard where I relaxed my way into summer- lots of my two beautiful and fantastic kids- plenty of fabulous feasts

13 interviews half of which I really thought I had the job.

8 years anniversary of being a mom- Abby turned 8 in April. A crazy concept since 4 seconds ago I was wondering what she was going to be like when she was born.

3 schools I taught long term in- Scott 2nd grade- so difficult! Hammond 2nd grade- so easy! Hoover 4th grade- so fun!

48 tomatoes harvested- my first ever raised veggie garden in our beautiful backyard was so wonderful.

7 seats in our new minivan- taking us up to a 2 car family for the first time in 4 years. It has transformed our lives and was a gift!

10 years of marriage- a decade growing more and more amazed and in love with my dear husband. Celebrated with super fun trip to Vancouver.

5k I "ran" for The Church on the Run- such a fun thing to see come from idea in my living room to fruition. 

6 years of being a mom to a boy- the sweetest, most clever little toddler has grown into the sweetest, creative little boy. He tells me at least once a day that he loves me.

30 people in our house at one time- this was the year of "Johnson hangouts." A house packed full of people talking and laughing and sharing and praying. Although the season has come to an end for that, it was a big part of this year.

3 sister dates- getting away with my two sisters who know me more truthfully than anyone else and can do fun in ways no one else may understand heals my soul.

52+ youth events/retreats/meetings- I've certainly lost track, but oh how I love these teenagers and the team that gives their lives for them.

3 weddings- got to be in 3 fantastic events of love this year. The couples and their personality shone through in each one and they were delightful.

1 911 call- our house was broken into in June. All that was lost was that that could be replaced.

10,000+ blessings- minute by minute God was providing for us in ways known and unknown. Healthy kids, financial provision, wise council, mountains of forgiveness and grace, strengthened marriage, rich friendships, comfort and compassion.

My 2013 has been 1 for the record books.