Test taking, the olympics and having babies...

In an hour I will be sitting in the library computer lab taking my Bible Content Exam, otherwise known as my first Ordination Exam. It's part of the joy of being Presbyterian. Today will likely be a two blog day because if I pass I will want to write about it and if I fail I will likely need to cry with words. I made a promise to myself that no mater what, I would under no circumstance take practice exams this morning. I would just do normal morning things. So now I am left wondering what to do with my time, I want to start the test already.

I am really nervous this morning, or maybe anxious. I am facing this test a lot like I did the delivery of my only child (so far anyway). My labor was induced so I knew about when I would be having a baby. This was the worst thing ever. We went out to dinner and then went to the hospital. There was no ouch I think this is it or my water broke it was like keeping an appointment. I also knew that having a baby meant everyone in the hospital was likely going to see my girl bits. Maybe even the janitor and the chaplain. So I walled myself up, shut out all the nervousness and went in like a stone, no over emotional reactions just sheer perseverance. This proved to be a good idea because it was a long 24 hours that ended up with a baby stuck in my pelvis and a surgery while still awake, one of my biggest fears. I don't know that this was healthy but it worked. I shut it all out and I survived. The baby was fine and she is now 3 and I can possibly consider doing it again, for the first time.

It's exactly how I am approaching this test, only I get to keep my pants on. I am shutting out the rest of the world and going into me take a test and pass mode. I hope it works. I hope by 10:45 this morning Noon the latest I can say I have passed.

I think this is the closest I will ever come to feeling like an Olympian, I have been training my brain for this for a long time and it is going to come down to what gymnastic commentators call muscle memory. I will never be an athlete, but this morning my academics are my athletics.

Today I am grateful for time to just be before I attempt my exam.

The Test

Tests generally do not make me nervous. I might have a little anxiety about them but I really don't worry about them too much. (Well unless it's a pregnancy test those always make me nervous.) Tomorrow I am taking a huge test, the Bible Content Exam, I have spent a good portion of the last two weeks preparing for it. If I fail it, I can take it again, so it's not that big a deal until you factor in I have to pay another $100 to take it again. It is a 100 question test, so that's a dollar per question and there is no prize money. Here's the other thing, I don't study for tests, but this one I have had to study for and it's freaking me out. This morning I am already a ball of nerves I can't imagine what tomorrow morning is going to be like. I don't know how to best make use of my study time today.

Here is one last complication, LG has been fighting off a back to school cold for a week. Guess who woke up with a sore throat and upset stomach this morning?  The stomach I am blaming on nerves or just the general irritability of my stomach. The throat though that's preschool germs at their best.

So if you are the praying kind, I would greatly appreciate your prayers as I take this exam tomorrow morning.

70 is not a grade I like but it is one I am striving for because it gets me the magic passing grade.

The good in all this is that I have spent a lot of time reading the bible the last two weeks. There is so much beauty and inspiration in there.

Today I am grateful for the inspired word of God which is still speaking, particularly to my heart.

We had Watermelon and it was ok...

Yesterday I wrote about my issues with gender and ministry and how I was struggling as a woman to juggle both roles of mother and church leader. I have to tell you what happened, I woke up yesterday at 6 in order to bake cookie bars for the lunch after church. At 9:30 they were cool enough to cut, so I got the plate and knife out and I started cutting them up. That's when I discovered they were raw in the middle, even though I tested them twice when I took them out of the oven. There was nothing I could do, we stopped at the food store on the way, bought a watermelon, found a knife and a tray and that was that.

It was alright that I brought a watermelon and not a home baked treat. We survived and no one knew the difference.

I am grateful for learning to relax a little bit more.

Gender Roles in an Almost Pastor's Home

It's Sunday morning. Church day in our house, which makes sense considering in two years I will be done training and hopefully serving in a church somewhere. Today at the church where I am interning, there is a big BBQ after church, where you bring a dish to share. This is a fairly normal thing at churches. So I am up a few hours before I need to be, baking. While my cookie bars are in the oven, I sit writing a children's talk. Today we also happen to have a kid with a cold. So that means I am leaving and Paul is staying home with her.

We joke frequently about Paul being the Pastor's Wife. However, being the woman in this relationship and the "Pastor" gets complicated because not only am I prepping for worship, I am up baking. Paul can bake but I really enjoy baking. However I think in the future Paul is going to have to add preparing potluck dishes to his Pastor's Wife resume.

This is highly frustrating as female (nearly) clergy, particularly when you consider we have kept some what traditional gender roles in our home.

Just some thoughts.

Today I am grateful for a sense of humor in all this.

This New World

LG started pre-school last week. She is adjusting well and seems to really enjoy school. Aside from a few potty issues she is mastering being in school every morning. Case in point, Lilia did you pee your pants again, No Mommy I pooped my pants. She wasn't lying. That was our conversation as I put her in her back into her car seat. I think it was pretty typical for motherhood at least for me.

Earlier this week we had some storms and I worried about where they take the kids in the case of a tornado. Tornadoes are still new for me and their inability to be predicted makes me nervous. Then as I was folding some laundry I realized I didn't have my phone on me, I ran and got it thinking if LG isn't with me then surely my phone should be. I am very comfortable with the staff at her school, I feel like she is in excellent hands. There is part of me though that gets a little panicky. Of course being me I didn't just let that settle I thought it through. What makes me nervous is that I am not there to protect her. Protect her from what? Well people sure do seem to be going into random public places and shooting them up. I think the chances of this happening at her preschool are pretty slim. I thought about writing this a few days ago, I wrote it off as paranoia. I dropped it, in my head, anyway.

Then right before I went to pick LG up I heard about the shoot at The Empire State Building. It all came flooding back. First off I live in a place where a good number of people are carrying guns and those that aren't have them, this makes me nervous to begin with. My train of thought started back up again. I don't think my mother ever worried that I would get shot while at school. I never worried about going to school and getting shot at, or going to a movie or the mall or a PLACE OF WORSHIP or anywhere. Don't get me wrong I don't loose sleep over this and I don't let it stop me from doing anything. Its just there in the back of my mind. I hate that there are times when I can't protect her.

What does it mean for older children who know that these things happen? Will she grow up afraid that she is going to get shot up by going to school or church? Right now she is oblivious what am I going to do when she understands and asks questions? How do I teach her to not be afraid but to be smart and aware of what is going on around her?

Today I am grateful that my LG is still too young to really understand any of this.

The Pastor's Kid

A few weeks ago I did my first "children's talk" in my church placement. LG saw the mic in my hand and freaked out. She clung to Paul the whole time screaming and Paul sat there as I tried to beg him with my eyes to take her out. He didn't see the begging. I had to press on, luckily I have ignored a tantrum or two in the past year. It was rough but this is exactly why I am starting to do things a few months before I have to, I needed time to get Lilia adjusted to the idea of mommy working at church and the routine during church. We are getting there the second children's talk went much better.

After her four alarm fit, someone came up to me and said, "Well she is a pastor's kid." I don't think they meant any harm but it stung. Pastor's kids don't always have the best reputation. I have only heard that word pairing used with a negative connotation. I have thought about that a lot over the past two weeks or so. I talked about it a bit and apparently there is a positive connotation to those words too, I just have never heard it. I am going through what I suppose could be called growing pains as I grow into my call and begin to take on the identity of "pastor". For LG to be a pastor's kid I have to be a pastor. I am slowly getting there. I am adjusting to what all this new title means and brings with it. That means I have a pastor's kid. It means I live essentially in a fish bowl where every word, action and deed is interpreted. Sometimes with out intention they are hurtful. Sometimes I fall short and sometimes I wish I could just act like any other person. The reality is this is the time to get used to the title and the new more public life. I am not sure I am ready but I am here.

Today I am grateful for LG, pastor's kid fits and all. I am grateful for this time to grow into what it means to have the title pastor.
May you be blessed by the words of another today.

Ten Years from Now

Paul, LG and I were cruising in the mom bomb as we so affectionately call it. Something came up and it had happened ten years ago. I asked Paul, "Ten years ago did you think you would be married to me, have a daughter and living in the 'ville while I trained to be a preacher." He laughed and said I was pretty sure I would marry you and that's about it. This seemingly random conversation that filled the space between the gas station and home of course got me thinking. If someone told me ten years ago that I would someday be training to be a pastor I would have laughed at them, maybe even a hardy belly laugh bringing tears to my eyes. I could have given a list of reasons why I would never be a pastor. That really though is when the journey started because I was also just going back to school to finish my BA. If you told me I would live in KY I would have laughed even harder maybe fallen over. Ten years ago I had very little clue where I would be today.

I dreamed for a long time that at this point in my life I would be married with three kids, own a home on a huge piece of property, a fancy car and have a powerhouse job in NYC media. Maybe even a helicopter to commute in, if I went really crazy dreaming. Those were my life goals by 30, which has come and gone. My goals now are completely different. I have to wonder will they be laughable in ten years? Maybe not and maybe so. I am no longer dreaming with childlike imagination, it's a more grown up imagination that has faced reality. Although there is still a whole lot of imagination that happens inside this big 'ole head of mine.

So our next conversation naturally was about ten years from now. What will be surprised about, what do we expect? Well we agreed that there will probably be more children in the mom bomb. We have no idea where we will be living or what our jobs will be. We live in a state of transition for at least another two years. I still have dreams they look different now, a great education for LG, time spend living in Uganda getting my hands dirty, writing that isn't self published, maybe a PhD, a brother or sister or two for LG, family vacations. The dream that is the equivalent of the helicopter one above would be getting to go around talking to women about a new vision of what it means to be a Christian family, but I would have to write the book first. Or how about living off the grid eating all natural and organic foods? Maybe living in community? I have always dreamed of living on a farm. I am up in the air about home ownership these days, as I slowly learn to value material things less and less I feel like owning a home would make me want more and more. I hope in ten years I have found the balance of my materialism and my desire to live simply.

Who knows what we will laugh about in ten years or what it is we aren't expecting?

Today I am grateful for all that has happened in the last ten years and all that is to come.
May you be blessed in your next ten years.