Sickness & House Moms

I have been taken captive by the influenza virus.  I am not a normal captive to this hideous tyrant who demands control of every part of your body that can ache, but this year I fell victim.  Sick for four days, going on five.  I slept for 15 hours the first day I was sick.  Only today have I felt well enough to even pull my laptop downstairs and sit on the couch (lying down, because sitting up takes too much energy) and write this. 

Figuring that this is the last time I will be deathly ill and still under the cares of my attentive mother, I relished in the ability to have water delivered to my bedside, meals made for me, and movies put into the DVD player for me (complete with the remote handed to me while I lounged with my 101 degree fever).  I will be probably be very sad the first time I'm sick at home alone, my husband having gone to work for the day, and I'm having to drag myself to the kitchen to force myself to cook something to eat because otherwise I'll just lie in bed all day.  

And I keep saying this, but it is true: I had forgotten how boring being sick was.  Perhaps it was the nature of this flu, which the doctor says is one of the worse strains she's seen over the seasons.  Between the muscle aches, the joint aches, the nasal congestion, drowning in my own phlegm (too much information?), the head aches, and the sweating fevers, I had little space between the fatigue and the lack of brain function to do much of anything except stare at the television.  Reading has become something like writing to me: part work and part enjoyment.  Therefore, reading would require too much energy while I was sick.  So, there I was, watching movie after movie because I had nothing else to occupy my time until I got better. 

Quite depressing.  All this time...five days of it...wasted because I have no energy to do anything.  I was and am quite frustrated that all this time has passed and I accomplished nothing except to stay in my pajamas for probably the longest continuous time in my life.  I guess, that is a feat for some.  

Meanwhile, I've been watching my mother do her thing around the house.  Its interesting watching a house mom.  Little decisions can consume their entire day.  Suddenly feeling bothered by the dust on the floor can cause a flurry of cleaning, putting every thing else that was on the to-do list somewhere else.  Desires like cooking that chicken or finding that dress are now job tasks, not wishes.  They are things that have to get done, otherwise the paycheck doesn't come.  Not really, but they have more magnitude.  You wonder what they do from the hours of 8am to 3pm when their children are in school.  Sure, my mom also has her business, but most of that I see her doing in the evening.  So what DOES she do?

I guess when I become a house mom, I'll understand, since that is the plan.  I want to stay at home with my children.  I guess the job becomes a little more looney when the children start moving out and growing up.  I guess what I was observing these past 5 days was an empty-nester syndrome attaching itself to a once-busy house mom who used to have at least one toddler toddling around the house.  That would mean at least one eye was busy watching the kid.  Now, there are no toddlers, only teenagers and young adults, leaving the eyes with nothing to watch in the corner of them and only worries.

Being sick and quite bored, perhaps I am babbling on about nothing that is true since I've never been there before or perhaps the medicines are getting to my head.  Either way, its been interesting, and while I don't mind being able to sleep in, I will very much like to stop being held physically captive by all of this fatigue.  I can't wait to get something done.

Being Clay

Wrote this post and posted it on my writer's blog.  Enjoy!

http://cheryldwong.blogspot.com/2011/02/being-clay.html

I've been engaged almost three months, and this period of time has yield a lot of struggle and learning.  I feel like the clay in the Potter's hands, being molded and pushed and smashed and turned.  It's been a frustrating sort of pain.  You know that you are going to come out better, bolder, smarter, but you feel your insides turn at the thought of going through another round on that potter's wheel.  It hurts.  And even though the goal of a "better me" and a "better marriage" and a "better relationship" dangles above like a carrot, you can't help but focus on the pain at present and wish you could just skip to the end.

My sister took a pottery class in college.  She told us around the dinner table the first time she saw her professor work the clay on the spinning wheel.  She said the clay looked like water in his hands.  He moved it up and down, using his hands to mold and move the clay into various shapes.  He would knead the clay, stretching it and then putting it back into a lump and then stretching it again.  My sister is more show than tell, so she moved her hands, mimicking his movements and telling us how she remembered thinking, "I can do that."  It looked so easy, of course.

Her professor impressed on his students that just the right amount of water is needed.  Too much and the clay slides off the wheel when it spins.  Too little and it won't move when you press your hands to it.  He said the moisture of the clay is important to a good pot.

My sister then proceeded to her own wheel and naturally, she did not move the clay as easily as he did.  Some of her peers had flying balls of mush spinning off their wheels, but her clay was a rock.  She sprinkled more water, and it still didn't move.  How had her professor made it look so easy?  She pushed and pressed and punched and her clay remained a rock.

This turned into a discussion of how our Potter feels when He tries to mold us.  I can imagine that I'm much like the clay without enough water.  I'm stubborn and prideful, and those things make me immobile.  Not to mention I don't like change.  God patiently tries to mold me with His hands, and I resist, screaming, "No!  I don't want to change!"  I imagine others are like the ones with too much water.  They just spin off the wheel and run away.

These past few months have been full of spending time on the Potter's wheel.  Premarital counseling has opened up a lot of opportunities for change and growth, and while in my head I understand that I need to reform myself, I find that I am resistant to climbing out of my cozy little hole.  And I can't admit that I even dug myself this hole.

As I've spent time in this period of my life, I've begun to see insight into character.  We can't understand character unless we get to know someone other than ourselves.  Understand is a heavy word.  Its not just understanding; its understanding.  Sorry, poor English means having to use italics to make a point.  Let's put it this way.  One way the verb "to understand" is defined is "to be thoroughly familiar with; apprehend clearly the character, nature, or subtleties of". That is a definition with of "to understand" with an object.  Without an object, "to understand" is defined as "to perceive what is meant; grasp the information conveyed, to accept tolerantly or sympathetically".

To understand my husband-to-be is to be both thoroughly familiar with him and his character and to also know him so well that I can interpret what he says, grasp the meaning he tries to convey in the words he says.    I've been dating this man for 6+ years and this is still difficult.  More difficult now as we try to blend our lives together.

Everyone tells everyone else that communication is the key to a relationship.  True, of course.  However, I do not think it is as much the communication that is as difficult but the development of understanding.  Understanding has a lot of things built into it: sympathy, empathy at times, humility, and an ability to put one's self into a third person perspective.

As I've attempted (and failed) to understand my fiancé, I've begun to see how character is intricately more difficult than any other thing in a story.  To accurately convey a person in the confines of words, allowing for this complexity and reality.  Its something next to impossible to truly achieve.  People try.  And a lot of writers get quite close.  To truly accomplish it is something extra-ordinary.

As I've spent time on my Potter's wheel, I begin to see the intricacy of His creation, my own stubborn flaws, and opportunity to hold a richness of life that I have yet to tap into. 

The Power of Prayer

Double the Fun!

For those who do not know, I have an author's blog at www.cheryldwong.blogspot.com. It is what I update periodically for my potential audience as an author. The posts are mostly writing related, but one of my other writer friends encourages me to combine my personal and writer blog. Recently, my writer blog's posts have leaned more personal than in the past and I have a hard time figuring out what to post where.

I like my personal blog and my writer's blog. I guess its just not as much of a point to have both. But for now, I'm too lazy to make the transition to just one.

So, if you would please, you can follow both of my blogs as well as both of my Twitter feeds! My Twitter names are missweird13 and CherylDWong. Like I said, personal and writer feeds. Really should combine, but at this point, I'm like..."Why? When I'm just going to change my name soon and everything is going to have to change anyway?"

Haha...so, we'll see. Anyway, you can follow both for twice the Cheryl fun! If you can stand it. ;)

Engaging

It's been awhile since I've posted...a, ahem, long while. And so much has happened. Holidays, busyness, work, writing, smiles, tears, laughter. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, yes, even an engagement.

Can you believe it? I'm engaged.

I've been waiting for a long time, although now looking back in retrospect, I wasn't ready until this year. Even though I've been waiting for what seems like years, God knew that I had to wait. That I still had growing up to do. And I still have growing up to do, but I've grown up enough.

Its amazing what God can teach you from a haphazard relationship with a boy. Well, a man. Sometimes it boggles my mind how much I've grown in the past 6 years and almost 4 months. How learning how to love this person can teach me so much about myself, so much about God, so much about how love works. It doesn't operate well with selfishness or pride or arrogance (which I am slowly learning is different from pride) but demands humility, compromise, and dedication.

Something that surprises me is my lack of enthusiasm for the wedding. Now, don't get me wrong, I am DYING to get married. I am just a lot less excited about the wedding than I thought I would be. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm excited about the wedding. I like the dress shopping and the color picking and the idea brainstorming. I just thought that I would get more butterflies in my stomach trying on white dresses and veils and that I would feel more jitters looking at churches and reception halls.

But no, what gave me the most jitters and butterflies was walking around Kohl's hand-in-hand with my husband-to-be and choosing what color our bedspread should be. Selecting the items for our registry sent me into long moments of daydreaming about moving my things into his house and waking up next to him.

I guess that's a good thing. It's just somewhat disconcerting, considering that half of my life I've been daydreaming about my wedding day and preparing for my wedding day. Who knew that when the time finally came to prepare, that I'd be day dreaming about the life after. I guess that is because when you are single, all you can imagine is being chosen by someone. And then when you're together with someone, you don't want to just be chosen. You want to be one.

This might be too much information for some people. I always find it a bit awkward to read about other people's relationships, especially if the information is intimate. It's just something that I didn't anticipate. Maybe its just me. Maybe I've been dating too long. Who knows? All I know is that I'm not looking forward as much to August 21 as I am to August 22.

Character Studies

It frustrates me so much to see evidence of the Devil's work in the church. People don't like to talk about Satan much. His name just brings a sense of foreboding to a room. But I think its necessary to talk about him. The devil needs to be just as much a character as God is. We need to understand his tactics and his methods just like we need to understand God's. Why? Then we can understand when we see his work in the world.

Everyone says we need to study God's character so we can see God in the world and understand Him. Same for the devil, but for a different purpose. We need to understand him to avoid him, to point out his influence and rule him out of our lives.

Its worse when its in the church. You see the evil (yes, I said evil) and you are like, "Hello?!?!" You are waving your hands up and down but the Devil's got them good. Because he's smart like that. Yes, he's smart. He's brilliant. That makes him even more dangerous.

Not saying that God isn't all-powerful, but God allows the devil to have influence in the world because He loves the devil just like He loves us. And I believe that. God allows the devil to have free will. Someday, though, God will defeat him. In the mean time, we need to understand when we see the devil's influence and point it out.

I am frustrated...we're not supposed to see the devil's influence at church more than God's.

Still, small voice

Since my last post, much has happened and little has happened.

I'm working full-time now at my old job. It just goes to show that you can never anticipate what is going to happen next in your story. Never would I have guessed! Seriously. Work seems mundane now. I can't go back to it after having that one glorious week of writing. Now, its hardly as exciting as working on my novel every morning and having TIME. Oh, glorious time. Going BACK to work after having had time to do whatever I needed is definitely harder than it was when switching from school to full-time mode. At least that eased me into it. This was like time just got sucked from my life. Boo.

Fall has arrived and I am eagerly enjoying fall fashions and coats and boots and the rain. Fall is definitely the best time to go shopping.

So now, everything seems back to "normal". Sort of like the way I had imagined it would be prior to July. Odd, isn't it?

Last night, I was praying. I have to admit that it is hard for me to pray because I always feel like I'm talking to a wall. Or like I'm talking to someone on the phone that doesn't SAY anything back. Praying has always been about me, until recently I realized that I was praying only for my own benefit. Having ready Crazy Love by Francis Chan, a book which I recommend highly to any Christian, all of the sudden my world has been turned upside down and I feel somewhat uncomfortable in the place that I'm in because its too comfortable. I'm daring to make changes in my mind but fear has kept me only inching along.

Anyway, I was praying last night and I told God, "Please help me with the sermon I have to give on Sunday. I really want it to be Your words, not mine." Then, I thought instantly, "You should go over it tomorrow aloud to see how long it is." And then I thought, "You also probably could compare it to last year's sermon if you're worried about length." The tone of those two sentences were so gentle that it startled me, because I'm normally not very gentle with myself. Then something occurred to me. What if those brilliant ideas weren't mine but God's? What if...that was HIM speaking?!

All of the sudden I was frozen still. I whispered, "God, was that you?" No response. But there was something about the way those sentences had sounded in my head. The way they had gently slid into my conscious and felt like an instant good idea.

Whether it was God or not, I don't think it really matters. What I think is most important is that we often give ourselves credit for something that God has done. What if God has talking to me through good ideas this whole time? I'm worried about something and He gives me a solution, but I think it's mine. Plagiarism! That's what it is. That dreaded word that we all avoid in school. We're doing it with God. Wow. Doesn't that make you feel wonderful?

I'm pretty sure I've plagiarized God's ideas plenty of times after last night. I tried talking to God more last night, hoping to hear that exciting "still, small voice" which is definitely what it felt like, but God alas did not "speak" to me again in that way. I think I was trying too hard? I don't know. I don't understand why God talks or how He talks or what. I just know...I need to stop and listen more.

God does talk to us while in prayer and the concept had always alluded me because I was too wrapped up in my own words, the words that I had to desperately communicate to God. I've always known that prayer is supposed to be a two-way street, but how many of us actually take that to heart?

Pray = listening + speaking. Do it.

Wishful Thinking

First, I thought I had a stable job. Then, I lose that stable job. Then, I enjoy productive unemployment. Then I get that "stable" job back, being on call for a need basis, thinking its only part-time. Then, that job is full-time.

Ahh! So much work-related drama. Just this rollercoaster is giving me a headache. Every time something changes, I feel a mini headache coming on. Who knew that this job that I once thought was a great opportunity to give me a boost in the working world would work so much for and against me simultaneously.

Having spent two and a half months unemployed, I have to admit that I was getting quite used to it. Though it took awhile for me to find my work ethic, as you can tell from my last post, I was slowly becoming more productive and loving the simplicity of it all. It was just my novel, my family, my friends, and my church. I didn't have to add in the stress of a 40 hour work week.

Now, all of the sudden its back in full-force, but tentative. I'm not sure if the interview I had today will lead to anything or if I will be working at my old office for a considerable amount of time. I don't even know what I will be doing!

I know that God is probably teaching me something. Being so totally outside of my comfort zone is scary to me. I am paranoid and a control freak, I admit it. This whole work situation is putting me terribly outside of my element in all of those categories. My mom told me to take it just one day at a time, but I hate not knowing what I'm going to be doing tomorrow. What can I bank on?

I am beginning to see the joys of being a stay-at-home mom. Even if you work with a home-based business like my mom does, life is simpler outside of the workplace. Not to mention, life is simpler if there are less wealthy people surrounding you, aka your boss. Haha. I have nothing against bosses and employers; I've just been able to see first hand what wealth can do to a person.

As my 0-hour-work week is being a 40-hour-work week and I'm going back dragging my feet somewhat, I am trying to see the positive side of it all. When I was unemployed but still getting severance, it was like I was being paid to not work, which spoiled me to no end. That paycheck is going to keep coming now, and I'm going to have to work for it. This was never a problem before, but now I understand why its so easy to take advantage of Unemployment Checks. You don't work and still get paid? I know its supposed to just hold you over, but its an easy rut to get stuck in.

I have this strong desire to just stay at home and write in the mornings like I did just a week ago. I have a strong desire to have free time and to sleep for 8 hours a day. I like the slow pace of life at home. I know that I can't get spoiled in such an environment, but you must see how attractive it is and how hard it is to leave it. Its so tempting to just say, "No thanks."

But someday it'll all end anyway, and I'll be back in the job pool.

This post is making no sense. LoL

That's okay. I'm just wishfully thinking anyway. Being somewhat of a whiner today. Just needed to get it out of my system.

With Time to Spare

Unemployment has been good and bad for me. I've had time to use, but I've wasted a lot of it. I have told a lot of people that I've slipped easily back into summer mode, which is the truth. I've spent a lot of time doing things that aren't very productive except for the fact of relaxation.

It's been hard trying to find work, trying to keep working on a novel, and concentrating on what is important in life overall. All of the sudden my future feels empty, and I've followed complacency instead of determination in trying to fix that.

My novel is the only thing that has really benefited from my unemployment. Well, that and my room. It's gotten cleaner, and I've made my bed more often. But my novel has blossomed with time.

It is funny how God gives us time, something that He is totally unaffected by, to help regulate us. Time reveals so much in us because it is the only thing we are constantly spending and don't know how much we have left. It gives us a measurement with which to measure our lives by. Its a gift that we both appreciate, waste, use, overuse, and take for granted every day.

I enjoy being busier, at least busier than this, and having things to do. Having a lot of free time has revealed that even stronger and clearer than before.

How are you using your time? It is so important for us to use our time for someone other than ourselves. Its the one of the most precious things to give away, in my opinion, because that moment is one-of-a-kind, something you can never buy back. When you give someone your time, its the ultimate act of showing them you care. Your time is your life. When you give live for someone, it means just as much, if not more, than when you die for them. Giving your time is giving your life.

Something that has been running through my mind recently is this: life is not about you. Our world is so obsessed with telling us its about us, our life is OURS. If our life is ours, than so many other people have access to it. One of the problems with today's society is that we think our time is ours to own, and while that is true to an extent, time is something we are constantly giving away, meaning that life is not really ours.

Who/what are you giving your time to?

Some Questions for You

Why did you come to church today?

Did you come because you had to give a sermon, lead a Bible study? Did you come because you wanted to see your friends? Did you come because you always come every Sunday? Because that is how your parents taught you to live your life? Did you come because it’s a place to go? Did you come for your kids? Did you come so that people wouldn’t ask where you were? Did you come to hide? Did you come because you have this hole inside of you that needs to be filled? Did you come to sleep? Did you come because you wanted to hear what I had to say? Did you come to answer questions? Did you come to have your questions answered? Did you come because you want people to tell you what to do? Did you come because you don’t want people to tell you what to do?

Why did you come to church today?

Did you come because there was a game afterwards? Did you come because there is nothing else better to do on a Sunday morning? Did you come because you want to argue? Did you come because you want to chat? Did you come because you want to talk with someone else who has a relationship with God? Did you come because you want to talk someone about your problems? Did you come because you like the music? Did you come because you felt obligated to? Did you come because someone asked you to? Did you come because God asked you to?

Why didn’t you come to church today?

Did you have something else more important to go to? Did you wake up late? Did you have something you were struggling with that you didn’t want anyone else to know about? Were you trying to hide? Did you not have anyone to talk to at church? Did you have no obligations? Did you have a party to go to? Did you have a sports game to take your kids to? Did you not want people asking you questions and trying to tell you the answers? Did you not want people to tell you what to do? Did you not come because you didn’t like the music?

Why didn’t you come to church today?

Did you not like the music? Were there too many people sleeping in service? Did you argue with someone there? Did you come because you have nothing in common with the people there? Did you not come because you were asked to go somewhere else? Did you not come because church can’t fix what’s wrong with you? Did you not come because God didn’t ask you to?

Why didn’t you come to church today?