New Years "Aspie" Style

A few minutes ago, it was New Year's Eve, and for the third year in a row, we made an attempt to keep the boys up to see the ball drop in Times Square.  Last year, they made it until 10:30, so we were sure they could make it an extra 30 minutes this year. When I was a kid, I use to BEG my parents to stay up until midnight.  And when I was finally old enough, staying up to wait for the new year made me feel established and mature...sort of like the first day I went to school wearing lipstick. So I always assumed that staying up on New Year's was a coveted rite of passage for every kid.

But as Keith and I have learned, life on the spectrum doesn't always go as planned. For those of you that don't know, our oldest son, Sam, has Asperger's Syndrome.  I wrote about it all the time on my original blog, which thanks to Google's iron-clad security policies, I can no longer access. There was a changed email address and then I forgot my password...long story short--- your secret is safe with Blogger. But if you want the backstory on the early days of our journey on the autistic spectrum, you can find it here.

Kids with Asperger's are creatures of habit.  When Sam was little, his therapists encouraged us to keep a pretty consistent schedule to minimize frustration and teach him what to expect.  And let me tell you friends, it worked! We started putting our boys to bed at 8:30 when Sam was 3. To this day, well over 6 years later, he will ask to go to bed at 8:30 on the dot, much to the chagrin of his little brother. 

Bedtime inflexibility proved a bit of a challenge tonight. Sam-man was not the least bit interested in staying up. We tried to explain New Year's Eve traditions and assure him that it would be fun.  Despite our best efforts to get him pumped about the experience, distraction seemed to work better. As bedtime came and went, the boys played games for awhile and then retired upstairs to watch Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons on Netflix.  We called them downstairs so that they could watch the last few minutes from Times Square, and Sam was just miserable.  He wanted no part of it and we all ended up frustrated. He was in bed asleep by 11:05.

Sometimes I think I have a Clark Griswold complex about the holidays.  I want my kids to have these experiences and make memories, but not if I make them miserable in the process.  Maybe it's prideful that I want them to look back on their childhood and remember how much fun they had with Mom and Dad when they were little.  And even though I know it is a sinful attitude, sometimes I just want things with our kids to be easy...to not always have to think about who's going to wait in the hall at the movie theater until we get past the previews that scare him, or whether or not there will be bees at an outdoor wedding....sometimes I just want to hang with my kiddos and be, for lack of a better word, thoughtless.

But then I remember that God doesn't call me to be thoughtless.  He calls me to recognize my children as "fearfully and wonderfully made" just as they are. He calls me to esteem others as higher than myself.  He calls me to trust that His ways are higher than mine.  Even if that means that I ring in the New Year sans kiddos. 

My reluctant party animals faking smiles because they love me-- I'll take it.

5 Things I Loved About Thanksgiving with the Millers

Okay, so I came to this revelation that my blog had gotten altogether too serious.  To those of you that know me, you know that is not like me at all.  So in the spirit of lightening the mood, I thought I recap the Miller family Thanksgiving. We went to Tennessee to be with my husband's family, and every time I spend time with them, I am struck by what a blessing it is to be a Miller. Highlights of the trip...

1. Photos that make you feel  famous -As soon as we arrived, we met up with Keith's cousin, who prior to marriage was indeed a Miller. She is a rock star photographer! I mean it...she and her best bud really photograph rock stars, and country music stars, and the weddings of famous people, like Jay Barker and Sara Evans. But last Wednesday, she took it upon herself to photograph our little clan.  My boys are changing a little every day, so I was stoked to capture this moment in time.  Stephen even managed to hang on to those two front teeth for one last photo.  They are both barely hangin' on--can't wait for a "snaggle-tooth" Christmas!

2. Cousins!-  Keith has these three cousins...girl cousins... at least I call them the "girl cousins." I feel like this is an important distinction to make since there are supposedly no girls in the Miller family.  Ever since Keith and I got married, the joke has been that the only way to get a girl in the Miller family is to marry one or buy one on the black market.  Keith has two sons, a brother who has two sons, and a father who has one brother...you get the idea. The mommies tend to be the only women around here. Yet, there is one uncle with three daughters...the "girl cousins"--a mystery indeed!  When Keith and I started dating, there was an outing to the movies with these lovely ladies.  And before we went, Keith made it very clear to me that this event was all about getting the all-important "thumbs up" from the cousins.  He still married me, so I must have passed muster.  Over the years, we always seem to find our way back to the movies together around the holidays.  This Thanksgiving was no exception. 14 years, 2 weddings and 5 kiddos later, they still make me laugh so hard I can't breathe.

3. Exploding Dressing-- Thanksgiving Day, we all met over at Keith's uncle's house for Thanksgiving Dinner.   Keith's aunt, we'll call her "Silver Fox," is the sweetest, most unflappable Southern lady you will ever meet.  Case in point-- she accidentally turned on the wrong eye on the stove and the Pyrex dish holding the dressing exploded 20 minutes before Thanksgiving dinner.  Glass was everywhere!  Immediately, the family went into clean up mode because babies were also everywhere! (more on that later) Once that crisis was resolved and we had all made peace with the idea of a dressing-free Thanksgiving, the gravy got knocked off the counter onto the floor.  An hour or so later, a stack of dessert plates crashed down to the same exact same spot on the floor! Needless to say, we stopped putting things on the corner of the kitchen island. Although dinner was an adventure, the "Silver Fox" was gracious and immediately forgave us for all of the collateral damage.

4. Babies!-  At Thanksgiving this year, there were 3 babies under the age of 2, all adopted, all chosen by God to be members of our goofy family.  When I sat in the living room watching them play, I couldn't help but be thankful for God's gracious mercies in bringing them to us.  So many prayers were answered in the gift of these little ones.  They are spunky, sassy, charming, phenomenal dancers, and all three of them are more "tech-savvy" with an iPhone than me!

5. Grandparents-  Keith had four grandparents in attendance at our wedding. I had none. My grandparents had all passed away when I was younger, so I have always said that I lost my grandparents, but God gave me an extra set.  Two of them have gone home to be with the Lord since we married, but Mamaw and Papaw are still with us.  They are both in their nineties and have celebrated 71 years of marriage.  What a testimony of faithfulness!  This past weekend, we got one more chance to sit with them and soak up their presence.  I always learn something new when I am with them.  This time, I learned that even though Papaw is 97, he still looks great in a leather jacket!  And Mamaw taught me that there is nothing on my "to-do list"  that means as much as a few quiet hours invested in a good chat. Here's the boys with Mamaw, their great grandmother.  We'd all be blessed to have half her spunk when we are older.

Thankfulness...

For the first time in my life, I crave silence.  Maybe it is the outpouring of joy that I received from my summer sitting before the Lord.  The crazy lady who could never stop moving now craves quiet time with God like she craves air.  Transformation, for sure....

So it is Thanksgiving Day.  The sweet potato casserole (pecan topping, no marshmallows) is ready to go in the oven, along with Miss Daisy's Garlic Cheese Grits, a Thanksgiving staple in the Miller House.  And I have slipped away upstairs for a little time alone...

I want to enter this day with the right heart...pouring out humble thanks for the faithfulness and glory of God.  I want to raise children that approach their Creator with equal parts awe and gratitude.  So at our house, we have spent this month focused on thankfulness.

There have been over 20 days of Facebook statuses proclaiming our gratitude.  Then at dinner each night, we read scripture and record something we are thankful for on leaves that decorate our thankful tree (thanks, Ann Voskamp). All of these actions are part of a deliberate effort to create a culture of gratitude in our home.

But after a month of talking with my children, my students and my Facebook friends, it has occurred to me that most of the things for which we are thankful are fleeting.  So in these quiet moments alone, I am searching my heart for something deeper.  What are the things for which I am so thankful that I am not willing to lose them?  I have thought a lot lately about what I am willing to give up for the sake of Christ.  This quote keeps coming to mind:

"No man is a fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."- Jim Eliot

So today, I am thankful for a God who never gives up on me... I am thankful for the thousand ways that He daily draws me closer to Him and the salvation He gave me that I will never deserve. I am thankful for Him who draws me to seek the truth in His Word and never allows me to be satisfied with a half-hearted pursuit of His glory. And I am thankful that He has ruined me for this world.

"How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates.  I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can't I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, then I can enter the gates to glory.  Living in His presence is fullness of joy--and seeing shows the way in." 

 - Ann Voskamp

What I learned on my summer vacation...

I ended last school year exhausted.  I felt like I had lost the battle for balance between work and home and church and anything else that needed to be accomplished by the time I fell into bed every night.  Conversations at home were tense.  I was losing my patience with my children.  Things were just not "right."  My Superwoman project was an epic failure.

Just to give you a little background, I have struggled with perfectionism for as long as I can remember.  As a result, I tend to drive myself crazy attempting to be all things to all people at all times.  I have a passionate desire for people around me to be "happy," whatever that means and whatever it costs. I also struggle with contentment.  Most days, the soundtrack of my mind sounds something like this.  "If ______________ would change, then everything would be perfect."  You can fill in that blank with whatever you want...new house, new job, new baby, more money, someone else's attitude, etc.  Both of these struggles left me searching.  I wasn't really sure what for, but I was convinced that something was missing.

Enter our new pastor. At least once or twice every Sunday, Pastor Jeff makes the following statement from the pulpit.  Actually, it's from the Westminster Catechism, but he says it while standing in the  pulpit. ... He says, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever."
 
So that got me thinking. Maybe my priorities were off. Since I was a little kid, I have known that salvation comes from God.  I can't earn it-- it is a gift of grace.  But I lived like my salvation (and the fate of the universe) depended on the perfect execution of my lengthy list of works.  There was certainly no peace to be found in all the "doing,"  so maybe I wasn't supposed to be focused on the "doing" at all.

June 1st of last year, I gracefully bowed out of every ministry I was involved in and committed to a quiet summer of reflection at home.  We went to church on Sunday mornings, as always, but that was it.  The rest of the time,  I loved on my boys and committed myself to learning what it means to "enjoy" God.  For me, that started with learning to be still before the Lord.

Being still is not a part of my nature.  If you have met my youngest son, add some longer hair and "girlier" features and you have met me as a kid.  That part of me has never grown up. At any given moment, I am either up running around or resisting the urge to do so.  So learning to sit before the Lord  was not easy for me.  I don't know that I will ever master it.  But here are a few things that God showed me this summer:

I will never, ever be good enough and that is okay.  If I was, there wouldn't be a need for grace and mercy.  Therefore, I can admit my weakness and rest in the power of Christ. For a frantic, people-pleaser like myself, that is a beautiful thing.
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12: 9-10

Finding joy and contentment are choices that require obedience. This world is broken and it was never designed to be a place of comfort for me. But before Jesus left the earth, he promised to send the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit gives us joy. Accepting joy is a choice.
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4

Complete..not lacking anything...content.  I am not there yet, and I still have much to learn about enjoying God.  But for me, there is great freedom in knowing that God sees the depths of my imperfections and the raging battles in my heart and still offers grace. If that were the only reason for joy, it would be enough. 

Undone

“Woe is me, for I am undone!

Because I am a man of unclean lips,

and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;

For my eyes have seen the King, 

The LORD of hosts.”

-  Isaiah 6:5

Undone.  That was the reaction of Isaiah when he was met with the Glory of the Most High God.  

And that's where I find myself lately---seeing the beauty of Christ and the holiness of the Lord displayed in stark contrast to the darkness of my heart.

There is so much "backstory" that has brought me to this moment-- and I am happy to share as much or as little as the Lord allows.  I've always erred on the side of transparency anyway.    

What began as search to understand how to "enjoy God" has revealed vast discrepancies between the "theology" I built my life upon and the truths of Scripture.   I am deeply convicted by how little my heart longs for the things of God.  Conviction leads to repentance.  And repentance requires a turning.

What is undone must be rebuilt. 

With a humble heart, I turn to the words of Paul for comfort.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17

What will the "new" look like? 

I'm not entirely sure.  But I am sure that I can trust the unchanging, almighty God with the details. 

Soli Deo Gloria!