It's Tough Being A Mom

I waited for so long to be a mom.  For me, the 4 years of trying to have a child of my own, and all the medical procedures we endured in that pursuit seemed like a never ending chain of negative events.  I cried a lot then.  That was 30 years ago.

Today I am the mom of 3 healthy and happy people.  I don't say kids because while they will always be my kids, 2 are living on their own now, ages 26 and 24 and my youngest is almost 16.  I can't believe how quickly the years have gone by when I look back. 

How did we end up at this point in time today?  By trusting God and following his lead, there is no other way to explain it.  After surgery, miscarriages and eventually accepting that my body could not make a baby, we pursued adoption.  As a very young, very poor, very far from home Air Force couple we contacted many adoption agencies in the Omaha Nebraska area and jumped feet first into the process of adopting our first child.  We ended up in an agency that would become like family to us at the time.  Our family name was added to the waiting list of folks who would randomly be drawn out of a hat for our home study that year.  MANY couples filled out the same forms we did to apply to be studied for placement of an infant through this agency.  On January 1st of each year, they would draw out about 6 couples who would begin the program to determine if we were fit to become parents.  Not only could my body not make the baby we wanted so badly, now others would decide if we were good enough to be given one!  It was a lot to take in, but we were hopeful.

About 10 days into the new year we received a letter in the mail from one of the agencies.  I had not heard a thing from anyone at any agency so I figured it was just a form letter saying "thank you but you were not chosen".  I carefully slit the top of the envelope open and sat down to read our "better luck next year" pep talk printed on the page. But that was not what was inside this envelope. It was words I still to this day can not believe were being written to us.  "Mr. and Mrs. Bankert, we would like to inform you that your names were drawn to begin your home study this year."  I blinked back tears and kept on reading, it was news too good to be true.  Not only did it say we were chosen, but our names were chosen FIRST!!!  We would be the first couple to begin our study this year with the agency.  Could we please RSVP to the agency if we were still interested in pursuing adoption with with this agency, and  also if we could attend an introductory seminar with the other 5 couples chosen.

Did I read that right?  I looked at the envelope a few times to make sure the name and address matched ours. I read the letter again and again before I realized this was news too good to be true but was true and meant for us.  I called my husband at work and read it to him.  He was just as shocked as I was and also very happy to finally have some good news in the family making business!  To us it felt like someone had told me our pregnancy test was positive and we were going to have a baby.  I called my parents and got them both on the phone.  "We won the lottery!" I remember saying to them.  They were confused of course and I explained the letter we got in the mail that day.  They were very excited for us of course and had lots of question I could not answer, like "When will you get a baby?"  But that did not matter at that time.  For us this was the start of our family.  Not the way most are started but non the less a very perfect way to start ours. 

Christina came home later that year to be ours.  She was a 5 month old bundle of red headed peach fuzz with a grin from ear to ear that revealed 2 new teeth.  She did not cry once the first 3 days she was with us.  She just smiled and accepted us as mom and dad that weekend.  Mike and Matt came to us a few years down the road to complete our family of 5 and each of their stories is just as unique and exciting as this very first step God took to begin our family. 

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." has become my life verse.  At the time it was not something I knew by heart, but God had written that verse on my heart long before I made it mine by memory.  He knew we would be parents in this special way. He had the gift of children already planned for us and I am so very grateful that He did.  When I look back over the last 30 years of our married life, I can see God was there many times with us, during good and bad times.  No road is made with out a few bumps along the way, but trusting God knows what is best has become my way of traveling.  I am so glad that way back then we trusted God's lead and turned down the road to adoption he was placing in front of us. 

The daily life of being a mom is not always easy, but anything worth doing is going to take some work.  Being a mom and some day a grandma is my life work.  God has placed me here to take care of my family and to teach them about unconditional love and support, and to teach others that they too can trust that God has a plan for their lives.  We just need to listen and follow that lead.  It all began some time ago, but I am so glad that God blessed me in this way.  I will continue to thank Him each and every day for my kids, and for the gift of the winning lottery letter way back when....
 

Mess to Masterpiece 

I am reading a book right now called Limitless Life by Derwin Grey.  It is a wonderful book that is helping me see that God uses our everyday life to draw us into a closer relationship with Him. Is it easy to see that in the middle of a mess?  No, not easy at all, but I am learning to trust God, as I wrote about last week.  And this new found trust has let me reflect on other times in my life when I thought “WHY GOD?”  And he was saying “TRUST ME!”

2010 was one of those years.  We had been living in different parts of the world with the Air Force since 1986.  Most of my immediate family still lived in or near Wisconsin, but Brian and I had not called Wisconsin home for a long time. I wondered what would happen if we had a family emergency.  Would I be able to drop everything and go back home?  Fortunately the answer was YES that year.  I was a full time preschool teacher at a small school that believed family came first. Brian and I also lived so that we could do what we needed to do to pick up the slack at home if the need arose for one of us to be away. Both of my parents experienced major health problems in 2010. 

January found my mom in the hospital suffering from complications of a long term illness.  We thought she was going to die. I flew home for 3 weeks to care for my dad at their home and mom in the hospital, during that time.  My dad was having on going heart problems and a visit with him to see his cardiologist revealed he needed a valve replacement surgery as soon as possible or he would die.  Mom recovered much to our surprise and came home by early February.  I went back to my home in Virginia, to my family and teaching job for 3 weeks, and then flew back to Wisconsin to care for my parents again while my dad had his surgery the end of February.  That was another 2 weeks of missed school, being out of my classroom and being very grateful that I had substitute teachers, two teaching assistants who jumped in and helped lead the classes for me, and a husband who, despite his own jam packed life, could manage without me once again.   I finished out the school year with my two preschool classes beginning in March. I went back in the fall of 2010 to a full time teaching position again, a morning and afternoon class, and thought PHEW… that is behind us, all is well.  

Then I got that dreaded phone call in October of 2010.  My dad was very sick again.  He had a heart infection and had possibly had a stroke.  Mom was still in recovery mode with a fragile immune system and could not be in the hospital environment with dad on a daily basis.  So I asked my job again if I could fly home to deal with the crisis.  I was gone for an extended period of time no one could have predicted when the first phone call came.  Dad seemed to get better, then he had another stroke and more open heart surgery.  We were told he could recover, but he never did.  One month later he died.  I had stayed to care for my mom driving hours back and forth each day from her home to the hospital to also coordinate the care for my dad.  I arrived back in Virginia 5 weeks later, after his funeral, to a very difficult situation at my teaching job.

I loved teaching.  I loved my kids and my classroom. I had been gone a long time and complications arose this time from my extended leave.   I was asked to give up my afternoon class and only teach part time the rest of the school year.  I agreed at the time, grateful for all they had done to cover for me for so long.  It broke my heart, on top of losing my dad; I was losing something else I loved and my identity was under attack I thought.  It was hard, I felt lost, like part of my life had been taken when I lost dad, then another part when I lost my afternoon class.   Then in January of 2011 I was told I would not get to teach full time anymore, all staff would only be allowed to teach part time.  Again, I did not understand.  I felt like I was being punished for making the hard, right choice, to put my family first.  I was there, my dad was gone, and we doubted something like this would come up again. My mom was doing really well health wise.  But I was being punished I thought.  I asked God WHY?  He told me to trust him, but I had a hard time with that.  I was angry, sad, confused.  It made no sense to me and I could not trust that God had a plan.

But God opened another door for me that spring. I started to work 5 hours a week for my church helping to lead our Christian Education program.  I learned a lot very quickly that spring and jumped right into a full summer of planning and helping lead Vacation Bible School, setting up the fall programs at church for families and learning new and valuable skills.  The Christian Education job grew to about 15 hours a week,  while I worked teaching preschool part time the next 2 years.  Could I see how valuable this new opportunity was at the time it came along?  NO!  I was sad, confused, wondering why I was being punished for taking care of my family.

But GOD KNEW.  He took my mess and used it to prepare me for our new life here.  I learned so much about church life from a staff perspective. While Brian was going to class, interning in a church and finishing Seminary, God was teaching me, helping me learn what I would need to know to be able to jump in here and help our new congregation.  I gained much more as I learned to lean into God and not fight the changes in my life.  Hard life lessons, taking me away from a me centered life to a God centered life. To a place of trust and not so much control over what I thought I should be doing with my life.    

Our memory verse in our study this week, speaks to me about this time of my life.      

“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago." Ephesians 2:10   

Could I see that God was taking my mess at the time and leading me to a new place? Not a chance.  But… He knew what He was doing. I learned that my first identity is not teacher/educator, wife or mom but child of God. 

I am not teaching anymore right now, I am a full time volunteer.  And that has opened so many more doors for me to grow and learn and serve. Will I teach preschool again?; perhaps! Only God knows right now.  But I do know that what was a mess at the time in 2010 turned out to be a growth opportunity and a time to learn to trust God. He knew what he was doing, so why did I doubt?

Afraid to Courageous

Change, the word alone starts my heart racing.  Change?  Change what? 
My hairstyle, my outfit, my plans, my life?  What do you want me to change?  

Then the next question is WHY?  I am comfortable right now, why does something have to change?  

Change, that one word alone can bring to mind so many negative thoughts for me.  Why do I look at change as negative?  Why can’t I see change as positive, an adventure, as something to look forward to? 

 

I think the reason is that change equals NEW.  A newness in some way, a break from routine, from the same old day to day activity, the comfortable rut we get ourselves into.  Change means something will be different and that means I will be different too.

And if I have to be different, then I am  AFRAID! 

So how do I approach CHANGE with more COURAGE?

It took me a long time to find out how to do that, a lot of years fighting change, fighting plans shifting in my life, and years of wondering how I can stop change from happening.  You would think I would have been used to change.  We were an Air Force family for 20 years.  That meant changing where we live, our assigned locations, many times.  I got used to that change.  Moving meant a new home, a new city, new church, new friends, but still the same me.  I got to be a wife, a mother for my 3 children over the years, the same me.  I knew I had years of being at home, raising them, a few part time side jobs for some extra cash for our family, going to night school to get my degree, but there was a plan.  It all led up to post Air Force life, moving back to a location we liked most of all and Brian still working 9 to 5 doing something related to what he had been to school for and trained to do during those 20 Air Force years. It was all working just fine,  I thought we were moving toward the ultimate married life plan, growing old together with our kids and then grand kids around us, in a nice home, someplace out west, we liked the mountains, and we would have free weekends, weeks to travel during the year, a COMFORTABLE life.

Then God threw us a curve ball.  See HIS plan for my life was not my plan.

When Brian announced he was going, to go back to school to become a Lutheran Pastor the word CHANGE was like a neon sign flashing above his head in bright red!   You see God’s plan meant changing my life too.  It was a calling not just for Brian, but also for me.  I had to figure out what that meant for me, to be a Pastor’s wife.  While he had all those years of classes, Greek, Gospel, Leadership, I had my own classes, life lessons, many painful ones, God used to draw me closer to Him and to educate me on how to do the one thing he needed me to do.   TRUST HIM!

For me CHANGE needed to equal TRUST.  Trusting God had the plan, and I just needed to follow Him.  He would provide, he would show us the way to go and I needed to not fear CHANGE anymore.  Then he planted these verses in my heart.

Jeremiah 29:11-13  ¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹² Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³ You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 

I have studied these verses for years, realizing that verses 12 and 13 are the key to believing verse 11.  You have to Trust. You have to build a relationship with God and how do I do that? Verses 12 and 13: By seeking Him with my whole heart, by praying He would guide my steps each and every day.

Do I have it all figured out now? Of course not, but I am not AFRAID anymore. We have moved back to our home state of Wisconsin,(no mountains here). We are in our first church assignment here and it is a challenging call.   I am still figuring out what my life is about here.  But now I see change as an adventure.  When I find that old FEAR creeping back in, I tell myself to TRUST God and to let him lead.  To follow HIM with my whole heart because He knows what he is doing, and He has not let me down.  He gives me the strength to go on, and to face the future knowing HE will be by my side, night and day, showing me the plan, step by step.

So for me Change now equals Courage not Fear.  Courage to be ok with not knowing what tomorrow brings but being secure in knowing God has the plans, He will not leave me and I just need to Trust Him. 

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:7 (NIV)

Describe a time when the peace of God helped you through a stressful situation.

For me it was the day my dad died.  I had moved home to care for him and my mom who had been very sick that year.  He was in the hospital an hour from their home so it meant daily long car rides between the CICU where dad was after a heart infection and then a stroke and my mom who was back home.  I would listen to Christian music on the radio and talk to God each day while I drove each way.  The day I knew Dad was going to die was a very cold early November morning.  I left in the dark and started to drive south.  I was crying and asking God to help me because I knew I had to sign the papers to take him off life support, I had medical power of attorney for both of my parents.  I asked God to let me know that I was doing the right thing about a 100 times while I drove south.  And boy did He show up that morning.  The sun came up about half way there, and it was spectacular that day.  Pinks, blues, yellowy- orange… and the clouds were amazing, they were rows of wispy angel wings like I had never seen before.  I pulled to the side and sat looking at the sky and I felt a peace come over me.  It was God telling me that it would be ok, He was there and I could do this.  So I dried my eyes and drove on. 

 

When I got there, I parked in the familiar lot, same place I usually parked on the weekend, and walked inside.  I talked to the head nurse and he told me there was no hope, Dad had crashed during the night and he could not breathe alone anymore.  So I gathered my brothers and extended family, they brought mom and we said good bye.  I signed the papers, stood back and let them all spend time with Dad.  I had been there the whole month, we had a long good bye during those many hours the two of us were alone before the stroke, watching golf on the golf channel, and talking about the Packers season which at the time was not great (they won the Super bowl later that season), and then watching him sleep after the stroke, hours which turned into days and weeks of peaceful sleep for Dad.

I was stoic and strong that awful day.  I would not wish the task of signing that kind of paperwork on anyone.   Many people have asked me how I got through all of that and I often said I just did what I had to do.  But I also said, I had God with me, and that meant I was able to do the impossible.    He gave me peace that passes all understanding and he guarded my heart that day. And we grieved together later, when it was over and I was alone with God on the long drive back home.   

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. — Philippians 4:7 (NIV)

Describe a time when the peace of God helped you through a stressful situation.

Describe a time when the peace of God helped you through a difficult time. Describe a time when the peace of God helped you through a difficult time.

For me it was the day my dad died.  I had moved home to care for him and my mom who had been very sick that year.  He was in the hospital an hour from their home so it meant daily long car rides between the CICU where dad was after a heart infection and then a stroke and my mom who was back home.  I would listen to Christian music on the radio and talk to God each day while I drove each way.  The day I knew Dad was going to die was a very cold early November morning.  I left in the dark and started to drive south.  I was crying and asking God to help me because I knew I had to sign the papers to take him off life support, I had medical power of attorney for both of my parents.  I asked God to let me know that I was doing the right thing about a 100 times while I drove south.  And boy did He show up that morning.  The sun came up about half way there, and it was spectacular that day.  Pinks, blues, yellowy- orange… and the clouds were amazing, they were rows of wispy angel wings like I had never seen before.  I pulled to the side and sat looking at the sky and I felt a peace come over me.  It was God telling me that it would be ok, He was there and I could do this.  So I dried my eyes and drove on.  When I got there, I parked in the familiar lot, same place I usually parked on the weekend, and walked inside.  I talked to the head nurse and he told me there was no hope, Dad had crashed during the night and he could not breathe alone anymore.  So I gathered my brothers and extended family, they brought mom and we said good bye.  I signed the papers, stood back and let them all spend time with Dad.  I had been there the whole month, we had a long good bye during those many hours the two of us were alone before the stroke, watching golf on the golf channel, and talking about the Packers season which at the time was not great (they won the Super bowl later that season), and then watching him sleep after the stroke, hours which turned into days and weeks of peaceful sleep for Dad.

I was stoic and strong that awful day.  I would not wish the task of signing that kind of paperwork on anyone.   Many people have asked me how I got through all of that and I often said I just did what I had to do.  But I also said, I had God with me, and that meant I was able to do the impossible.    He gave me peace that passes all understanding and he guarded my heart that day. And we grieved together later, when it was over and I was alone with God on the long drive back home.