Family Holidays for the Childless Couple

The day I met my husband, he asked if I would consider entering into a courtship with him, That word, "courtship", conjured a few thoughts. One, that I would have to ride in a van with 8 biological homeschooled children. I didn't even want kids. Two, I knew that I would be well taken care of by a good man. The latter has proved true beyond what I imagined.

He was excited to be a family man someday and was looking forward to the prospect of children in his life. While we were still dating, I convinced him that having kids was just a terrible idea, and he began to share my cynicism.

A year into our marriage, I got the "mommy bug" and decided I could hardly wait to get pregnant. It didn't take the Mr. that long to come back around to the idea. What stood in the way was my personal health and our finances. I was brokenhearted at the prospect of having to wait so long.

Of course there is always something in the water, and while I waited, newly expectant women were popping out of the woodworks. Pregnancy announcements made me weep. I felt left out.

We finally decided to start our family. It was everything I wanted and I'd been planning hard for it for a year and a half.
My reproductive health has never been in a perfect place, and three years of marriage have not changed that.

This is an emotional journey filled with hope and disappointment, expectation and cynicism. Thinking for three weeks that your life may be about to change in a radical way, and spending the next two weeks reeling from the disappearance of those dreams is something that happens month after month, and it is exhausting.

After three years of marriage, after passing another Mother's Day, by Father's Day my light has dimmed. I know that we won't get pregnant easily, and perhaps not without outside help.
We are beginning to accept that we may live without children. Perhaps not forever. That children may cost more money than we have to even conceive. I always said I didn't want to "be one of those people" who was 25 before starting a family. This is a paradigm shift causes us to restructure how we have expected our lives to turn out.

The acceptance of being a childless couple is not with interruption of that hope that is unbearable. The body is a tease. Even though you know you most likely will not conceive, there is that monthly wait that holds out "maybe this time", preceding another 3 weeks of expectation, followed by another two weeks of reeling, followed by more acceptance, and then all over again. I cannot find acceptance while always interrupted by hope. It is too exhausting emotionally to go through it, but I do it, again and again. This is why it is nearly tempting to prevent that hope altogether with a birth control pill.

I feel guilty for not giving this to my husband. I feel too bad to say it to his parents that want to be grandparents. I want to give that to my mother. I want to give it to me.

People don't understand. We have heard, "It will happen fast!" "Children will come, so do other things now". No. No, no, no, no. That is not our story. That is okay. But one more cheerful parent of 32 children says this to me and I will punch them in the face.

And that is where I am.

All About Those Books

Read ALL the books!

Some of these have to do with having an eternal perspective. It's something that's been coming to light more for me. This video of Francis Chan showing a demonstration of eternity with a rope is particularly powerful.

Additionally, as we have been covering eternity in church, this Scripture was pointed out:

 "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come."

Also pointed out was Wycliff's goal to have the Bible translated into every language by 2025. 

I'm an excellent procrastinator, but my time is precious, and I am seeing the need to live out an eternal perspective now. Not all the books below are directly about an eternal perspective, but it is ever so, and there is a theme there.

One Thousand Gifts:

 http://www.amazon.com/One-Thousand-Gifts-Fully-Right/dp/0310321913/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424409361&sr=8-1&keywords=one+thousand+gifts

I was told I was supposed to have this book, which makes so much sense because it deals with some of the things that I struggle with. Well, it's in my possession now because it was a book Zane was assigned to read during the internship this year. Anne Voskamp writes beautifully.

"We look and swell with the ache of a broken, battered planet, what we ascribe as the negligent work of an indifferent Creator (if we even think there is one). Do we ever think of this busted-up place as a result of us ingrates, unsatisfied, we who punctured it all with a bite?"

Another thing I've never forgotten was when I was sharing some of my struggles with a friend in our church. It was extremely helpful when she suggested looking at the awful situations of this world with an eternal perspective. I can think of a couple examples regarding when children die, or others have less than me. When I grapple with all of the injustice and loss in this world, I filter these things through this perspective and sometimes it really does help. Other times, I continue to contend with God. And I will continue to read this book.

This Momentary Marriage

Piper. Need I say more? Well, I will.. John Piper has some beautiful things to say about marriage- like how marriage is not the point of marriage. He says that when we get to eternity with Christ, we will get to experience what this (married life on earth) has been all about. Piper, who has been in "covenant-keeping" marriage with his bride of 40 years, preaches that "the ultimate purpose for marriage is to put the covenant relationship between Christ and His church on display for the world.
I have enjoyed listening to him speak on the subject and i would definitely like to read his book, which desiringgod.org has made available as a free pdf file. You can access it here:

http://cdn.desiringgod.org/website_uploads/documents/books/this-momentary-marriage.pdf?1414777989

 

You and Me Forever

 I ordered this one!

Francis and Lisa Chan are all about living with an eternal perspective. They devote their marriage to serving God and people and it is beautiful.
Francis Chan actually did that rope/eternity demonstration that is posted at the top of this page.

http://www.youandmeforever.org/

 One great thing about buying this book is that ALL the money goes to charity. This is further explained in the video.


There you have it. Books on my horizon. :)

Honorable Mentions:

Pilgrim's Progress- My husband has never heard of this book. "Whaaaat????" - My response. Granted, I never actually read it myself. I think I watched some children's cartoon portrayal of the story when I was little. But my sister in law mentioned in a fb post recently that they had been reading the children's version with her littles.

Captivating- I have just not been.. uh.. captivated by this one. We read "Wild At Heart" by her husband, John Eldridge, and Zane LOVED it. I had asked if anyone had a copy and one of the lovely gals at church lent me this one. It's lower down my list to read, but I think I should give it another try.

Dreams.

I used to dream alone, or with my mother, or with my girlfriends Joella and LeeAnna.

Back then, the Deal girls and I dreamt that we would further our lives as musicians, or that we would purchase the family youth center in Joseph and make it into a big house that we would share, excepting the kitchen, because LeeAnna and I simply cannot share a kitchen. Also, no boys allowed. The rules began to bend regarding the boys, however, when LeeAnna decided that her boyfriend (now husband) should be let in and allowed that Zane should too.

Well now that I've let a boy into our house, I have begun to envision my life with him, my new dreaming
partner.

That windy wedding day

Ready to start dreaming!

We have our own little list of dreams and goals, some of which have been crossed off the list, and some towards which we continue to work. 

Some crossed-off things..

One dream fulfilled is that we were married June of 2012, on his parents ranch in Cove, Oregon, on a very windy day surround by our friends and family.

We also wanted a home to share exclusively where we could be alone and not have any people around ever.Well, except that a cat had been on my list a very long time.. It hasn't been until our third move that we finally adopted a grumpy introverted homebody kitten into the Gray family. Now it's us on a Friday night, watching favorite shows and splitting Chinese takeout. Even Gwen watches sometimes. This is perfect.

We've had Christmas trees and a garden and a dishwasher and gone to the coast. We even went and saw Wicked, thanks to my mom and stepdad.

Still on the list..

When we first met I didn't want to have children. Now my fear is that it won't ever happen and of missing out. But one major dream is to have littles and be a family. As soon as we can (after paying off dentist, getting more dental work done, paying off taxes, paying more dentist, doing heavy metal detox because of previous dentist, doing Chinese cleanse on the instruction of our super homeopath dr..) after all that.. I'm anxiously waiting to jump on that train. I'm getting discouraged because that may all take a while. But that will just have to mean living engaged in the present, and not, as Rapunzel puts it, "waiting for my life to begin". 

Travel. I've never been anywhere outside of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho-- and I'm 23 this November.

I don't want to see more of the same though (mountains, trees, lakes). Instead, I want to see things I've never seen in real time before-- white sand, clear blue water, tropical trees and tropical fruit in it's own environment. I love aquatic mammals. 

I also love cats, including those big ones I've never seen before.. Tigers, cheetahs..some are just big versions of my Gwen and I want to meet them. Also kangaroos. 

Speaking of dinner, I'm so bored with food. It is all the same, especially fried. I want to go somewhere where the food is different. Another small dream is to eat at a really fancy restaurant for dinner, the kind where you get really dressed up like penguins.

We had a garden at our house, we live in an apt now, but a garden is one of our favorite things and we will be doing that when we move again.

Dreams.. Marriage, Cats, Christmas trees, new food, dog, travel, new home, garden, friendship, hats winter coats and boots on Gray children, sandy beaches, dishwasher, broadway, home birth.. There are other dreams I won't share right now. Maybe when they happen I will.

But for tonight, keep dreaming.

Ashley

"One does not end a sentence with a preposition", says the teacher interviewee on Road to Avonlea, in that episode titled "Another Point of View". That being said, what should I blog about?

I posed this question to Zane and he gave lots of suggestions..

Marriage. Music. Food. Health. The want of babies. Christianity. Christian ladies. Relationships. Media. Baby boy clothes. My love of all things regal and old. Musicals. The Bible. Superhero movies. Boys vs. Men. The love of beards. Cats. Specifically our kitten, and how her cuteness and her evil are perfectly balanced. What it's like to be a new adult (it's exciting and it sucks). Gluten free is the way to be. Autumn and all things pumpkin spice. My mom. My family. Sitting through guy stuff (Star Wars trilogies, my husbands friends, the big-lug presence of men). Vitamins, minerals and supplements oh my. Housewifery. Coffee (the perks and the regrets). Fuzzy socks. Afgans. Baby showers and tea parties. Somewhat British heritage. Anecdotes of being a younger sister (Zane's favorite being the spice/poison smell test given me by Eric). Wine. Chocolate. Chocolate wine! Movies. Love of food. Christmas/Autumn/Winter. The dream of a garden. Trying new things in the kitchen. Quest for non-boring food. Avonlea (their old-time way of living and thinking, my "kindred spirit" Felicity and hero Aunt Hetty). Want to for white sandy beaches, clear blue water, and tropical fruit. Smart phones. Holistic wellness. The compleixiy of this issue of discipline. Not being a senser. Being a feeler. Les Miserables (and that parody adaptation that followed). Mama Natural. Ina May Gaskin. Russel Crow. Meryl Streep and how she reminds me of my mother. Unexpectedly romantic movies. Being remarkably untraveled. Spyro the dragon. Grammar. Take the  Oxford comma. I've held the unpopular opinion that it is not necessary nor is it attractive. Perhaps my resolve on this has wavered. Also, just ignore the lack of punctuation/proper grammar use/fragment sentences throughout this post.

It was late autumn. I was just in my mid-years of highschool. One evening I found an old class cook-book to which I had contributed in early elementary school. I pulled it from the shelf, snatched a hot drink and a warm blanket, and snuggled beside my mother to reminisce.
We flipped through the pages, remembering each student pictured beside their recipe, wondering where they were and what they were doing now. Most I didn't care to see again. Then my eyes fell on a photo I'd grown to love.
Zane Gray.
That face warmed my heart. The memories I had of him were pleasant. He had been friendly to me when others had not. In fact, I had many year preceding this night decided that I was very fond of him. I loathed the school I'd attended kindergarten through 1st grade. My days there were so miserable I ended up home and private schooled for the rest of my academic education. Still, he was my favorite memory of the place.
That night, I determined aloud to my mother that someday I would find him. And we would be friends.
I looked at his picture a while longer, smiled, and turned the page.

Rewind to first grade..

I sat at my desk, buried in my own projects. For some reason or another, seating arrangements had been modified, and I was sitting next to a boy with whom I did not usually interact.
He was in a jolly mood that day, chattering away and making paper airplanes, all of which he gifted to me after each was finished, one by one in succession. I wasn't much good at making conversation, and like usual, chose not to on this particular afternoon. Though normally I felt uncomfortable/intimidated faced with small talk, this was different; It didn't matter. He had quite enough to say for the both of us. And I liked that.

Since I did not know how to make paper airplanes, he promised that he would have more for me the next day.

Fast forward to my first semester of college. I was toiling through the rudiments of the "adult world" when I re-met my Zane.
It was through facebook, more specifically through the "mutual friend" Nathan Brazil (he was just an innocent bystander in all this) that I had found him.
I say to him, "You know Zane?!?!?!?!" He says to me, "You know Zane?!?!"
And so on, and so forth.
So I befriend Zane and write him.
We become friends, and after a couple seasons of discourse via skype, we become kindred spirits.
When he came to Pendleton to re-meet me for the first time, he brought with him a hand-crafted colorful gift- a paper airplane.

Illness struck the morning I was to meet him. I was very sick when he arrived at the door. So sick, I actually texted and asked him to let himself in. I felt too unwell to crawl out of bed, and at this I felt worse, as I desired to be a good hostess. I didn't have to move. He pulled out a chair, sat nearby, and was contented to chat. Of course he was. Eventually I made my way to the couch, but not much farther. Because of me, we weren't going to go out on the town or do anything fun. I hoped he didn't think I was a stick in the mud. That turned out to be alright- we sat and talked for hours- me, resting miserably on the couch, and Zane, a respectable distance away in my grandmother's rocking chair. He was such a gentleman.
 By the end of the night, he expressed interest and asked if I would permit him to court me in the future.
Court? Oh no. I pictured myself as a conservative soccer mom with a van full of kids. I grew up a homeschooler, I knew this language. People who use the word "courtship" always have van-full's of kids. I don't think I want that many kids. My life all but flashed before my eyes. But still.. I also knew that the wife of anyone who used the word "courtship" would be well taken care of, respected, and would be under the gracious headship of a husband who was sure to be faithful. He was that very kind of person I'd dreamed of being with throughout my junior high "girl-for-God, princess-of-purity, daughter-of-the-King" craze days. Though, through the course of my college days, I had shifted from that mindset and become all but a perfect heathen- and I didn't think I still deserved someone like this. The decision hinged on this: By the grace of God, one of those "godly guy"s I had so wanted was making an offer, and as strayed as I was, I knew this kind of person would only be before me once. The "godly guy" doesn't just come along every day you know. And if one did, the way my life was going, any one of these guys wouldn't want to marry me. And so though I didn't know him, I couldn't let the opportunity pass.
Come on, Ash. Say something. He's waiting.
"Uh.. Okay. I guess you could. If you.. wanted.. to.."

When he left, I immediately emailed/called all of my close girlfriends in hysterics.
Guess what just happened. Yes, I made an idiot of myself. Yes, I was sick all night. He'll change his mind. No, he will probably never come back. Yes, I want him to.

He did come back. When I saw him again, he gave me a white rose. Roughly two years later, he gave me a ring. Now we are married. I am happy and in love. Zane is my best friend- I made the right decision and even the thought of a van full of kids doesn't scare me (though I emplore you to not speak that into our lives , we are just kids ourselves you know).
Although the initial decision to let him pursue me was a split decision made out of practicality and risk, I fell in love with him over the course of the last two years, and I fell hard.
Even now, I can't wrap my brain around it. Often, throughout the day I'll pause and try to let it sink in, hoping it will one day click.
"I can't believe I married you. I married Zane. From the first grade. MY Zane. You really are him, aren't you. I can't believe I ACTUALLY married you."
And so on, and so forth.
That is my fairy-tale story.
Until the morrow,
Mrs. Zane Gray

Salvation- To Simple To Be True

I am under the impression that the reality of salvation is basic, so simple that it is difficult to accept- even so that long-time Christians and the wandering alike, cannot accept it without strings attached.

By it's own nature, salvation is simplistic; "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."- Romans 10:13

It goes against our mental capacity to think that one can be redeemed without pension, because we understand that any sort of redemption is birthed from pension.

When we live in fear as if it is still necessary to work away our pension, we spit in the face of the crucifixion, because that WAS our pension.

To work any further FOR our redemption apart from or in addition to our pension (which has been paid by Jesus) is madness.


Not to say that one should not live a holy upright life, but it should be done in order to work out one's salvation, but not in pursuit of attaining or "keeping" it.


"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
-Philippians 2:12 


Note that working out salvation is not working FOR salvation. As Reverend Bruce Goettsche writes,
"Working out our salvation means that we are to bring our salvation to a practical expression."


Also well expressed by hubpages Jason2917,
"By working out your salvation, you are not attempting to add anything to the finished work of Christ. But you are remaining attentive to His love and continually preaching the gospel to your own heart reminding yourself who God is and how He saved you."


"May the mind of Christ my Savior live in me from day to day
By His love and power controlling all I do and say.
May the Word of God dwell richly in my heart from hour to hour
So that all may see I triumph only through His power."
-Exerpt from "May The Mind of Christ My Savior", a favorite hymn. : )


Blessings on your way,
~Ashes

The last few moths have been stressful and exhausting, particularly these last couple of days spent at home in Wallowa, walking through some very rough waters alongside a family dear to my heart. Seen a lot of ugly, January accident, custody battle, experienced loss, felt fear and seen grief. Enough that my hair is falling out. This world is broken enough that at first glance it just looks ugly. I've found comfort though, in the concept of Gratitude. Been meditating on this song and it's concept for the last few days. It's so rich. Surely, to be a child who is part of the Covenant is to be a person that is taken care of.. I am thankful, And the world is beautiful again:

Send some rain, would You send some rain?
'Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink again
And the sun is high and we are sinking in the shade

Would You send a cloud, thunder long and loud?
Let the sky grow black and send some mercy down
Surely You can see that we are thirsty and afraid

But maybe not, not today
Maybe You'll provide in other ways
And if that's the case . . .

We'll give thanks to You
With gratitude
For lessons learned in how to thirst for You
How to bless the very sun that warms our face
If You never send us rain

Daily bread, give us daily bread
Bless our bodies, keep our children fed
Fill our cups, then fill them up again tonight
Wrap us up and warm us through
Tucked away beneath our sturdy roofs
Let us slumber safe from danger's view this time

Or maybe not, not today
Maybe You'll provide in other ways
And if that's the case . . .

We'll give thanks to You
With gratitude
A lesson learned to hunger after You
That a starry sky offers a better view if no roof is overhead
And if we never taste that bread

Oh, the differences that often are between
What we want and what we really need

So grant us peace, Jesus, grant us peace
Move our hearts to hear a single beat
Between alibis and enemies tonight

Or maybe not, not today
Peace might be another world away
And if that's the case . . .

We'll give thanks to You
With gratitude
For lessons learned in how to trust in You
That we are blessed beyond what we could ever dream
In abundance or in need
And if You never grant us peace
But Jesus, would You please . . .

-Nichole Nordeman