THE POLISHED PICKLE. PART TWO.

An out-of-state drive was the only cure for the anger that had built in my bones. Oh, I was angry. Hit the walls with a pillow and yell, angry.

I remember exploding in my disappointment and sorrow like clockwork. How could such a sublime, substantial happiness shatter with a small tap? I was happy, then I was angry, then I was happy again.

That was homeschool. 

I found consolation in the freedom of schedule, that we really could pick up and leave Oregon without missing school. I knew a visit with my dear Jemayla could help me find my peace again, so off to Idaho in what felt like time-travel back to early college life.

I am comforted as I speak to other women my age. As we discuss our hearts, our minds, our struggles and weaknesses, I realize that I am not alone. Other women are hitting the walls with pillows. Women everywhere throw throw pillows. 

In Idaho children choreographed fine ballet downstairs while women wept upstairs. Upstairs we read our scriptures and tried to understand Jesus storming the temple in wrath. We dissected our disenchantment with our roles and sought to become new creatures in Christ. It was in that spirit of self-analysis and repentance that the Lord opened a doorway that had been closed to our family, nailed shut.

I'd been pondering my emotional instability and I'd been considering starting a treatment of taking birth control pills as I've often been counseled to try. Turning to God I prayed something like, "Father, my children are unhappy and I am angry. The contention is more than I can bear. The lack of emotional literacy, the abundance of negativity, our crippled distress tolerance abilities are the definition of misery in family life. I have so many weaknesses and I'm afraid that they're keeping us from the happiness we seek. Father, I humble myself before Thee, I give myself to Thee. Should I start taking birth control pills?"

Clear as glass I felt the answer, "You are to have another baby." And that was a ridiculous answer.

My list of reasons why I refused to believe the Lord would say that...

1. Matt had a vasectomy seven years earlier, so it's like impossible.

2. I can barely care for the children I already have!

3. If my mental health is bad now, what will it look like during pregnancy?

No, no, no. Surely that was just me thinking ridiculous things. That was my biological clock speaking. That could not have been the direction of the Lord.

I prayed again, "Lord, I'm having trouble understanding. If there is anything I must know wilt Thou make it abundantly clear?" And then I opened my scriptures at random.

"Seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works." (Jacob 4:10)

The spirit hit my heart as a sure witness. Absolute truth, the kind that cannot be refuted with lists of objections and justifications. The Lord had spoken to me and despite any initial doubts, from that moment I knew...

1. God could help us conceive a child.

2. Somehow this would help our family to overcome the trials we were facing.

3. Even if I was to suffer greater afflictions in mental health, it was His will and He would be with me.


(Our family pictured with the missionaries in November 2018)

I delight to relate my current contentment.

Here we are, less than a year from this Idaho epiphany, having traveled through a diagnosis of thyroid disease that was causing horrible symptoms (including those angry episodes), after changing our family diet completely to better treat multiple mental health issues, beyond continuing counseling with a couple of our children and working tirelessly on distress tolerance skills, after Matt's costly reverse-visectomy by an amazing OHSU surgeon, following a year of dedicated homeschooling that brought us closer than we could have imagined, and on the tail end of miracle after miracle, I'm almost 7 weeks pregnant and due in May with our four happy children enrolled in the wonderful Montessori school of our choice.


(Our family pictured August 2019)
And that is the immediate goodness of God in our life.

He is real. He is wise. He is merciful and He wants to help us even in our weaknesses and shortcomings. He loves us. He has a plan for each of us. I know it. I know it.