Author: Heather Davis Nelson

an open letter to my daughters: reflections on three-years-old

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 4 Comments

To my favorite girls ever,

It’s hard to believe that our lives together began three years ago (yesterday) in a hospital room where you were delivered remarkably fast after 10 weeks of bed rest and waiting and hoping you wouldn’t arrive too early. You came right on time, 35 weeks and the day after I said to a friend, “I just don’t think I can wait much longer. I’m big,uncomfortable, and bored.” Well, now. That was certainly the last time I said I was bored (no comment on the other two). The past three years have been anything but boring. Four days after you were born, when we were nicely settled at home, you girls had to head back to the hospital for a week to gain weight and stabilize. It ripped out my mommy’s heart to watch you being poked and prodded, and to only be able to touch you through the holes of an isolette. Even the word itself is so isolating. You both rallied under the watchful, kind care of the nurses and doctors at CHKD, and that week allowed me to get a little bit of rest (a whole 5 hours each night) and to manage my post-partum pre-eclampsia that had caused me swelling, fatigue, and increased blood pressure. My mom and OB/midwife took care of me while I tried to take care of you, and Daddy tried to take care of all of us. And finally we were all home (again).

Then begins the happy-yet-exhausting blur of the next six months of feedings, pumpings, diaper changes, middle-of-the-night smiles, little laughs, gazing into each other’s faces, learning each other. Lots of help from grandparents, aunts and uncles, our church community, and faraway friends who showered us with prayers and welcome gifts. And then you were six-months-old, and it was time to teach you to sleep through the night (ugh) and for you to be baptized (beautiful).

The next six months were a bit calmer; and I blinked and you were turning one with a ladybug party; and I blinked again and you were walking and talking and throwing tantrums and getting into trouble and I felt overwhelmed. The period of time between 18-months-old and 2 ½ years old was not my favorite, I’ll have to admit. I felt quite out of my element; baffled by all of the advice from different approaches on all of the variousmajor transitions you were experiencing (together): transitioning out of a crib, dropping the morning nap, potty training, solid food, becoming independent thinkers, developing wills of your own that were tested in opposition to mine. And I felt all of this more intensely because I tried to do too much. I was missing “life before kids” and the time when I felt “sidelined” during pregnancy and the first year, and I tried to jump back in too quickly. That didn’t help my dilemmas and my exhaustion and my anger in response. I needed space and quiet and rest. Soul rest. Heart refreshment, but I wasn’t sure how to get it in the 60-90 minutes you might simultaneously nap in a day.

And so God rescued me, a long and slow process during the past year or so.* You have been very patient with me, often much more so than I’ve been with you. You have been quick to forgive me when I’ve blown it yet again. You have accepted the times when “Mommy needed a break” and I escaped into a coffee shop or my room or a friend’s house for a chat, to write, to read, to breathe and exhale and make sense of me as a mom and you as my daughters. I began saying “no” to things outside of my main calling to be your mommy and Daddy’s wife. I had to remember. To bring life into focus again. To say “yes” cautiously to what God was leading me to instead of jumping in toescape what felt difficult at home. And I learned to say “yes” to what I needed from God to be refreshed so that I could say “yes” to being the mommy you needed. A mommy who wasn’t angry all the time and frustrated constantly. A mommy who, instead, sought to lean in to this stage of unpredictability, to trust God as the one controlling my time, to listen to God and to you and to friends, to go slower and be more intentional. A mommy who’s learning that writing helps me process and savor these days with you, days that do go by fast when glanced at retrospectively in terms of years but which sometimes seem to creep along immovably when experienced as minutes on a sick homebound winter day. For both the fast and the slow moments, there is grace. Amen, Hallelujah, and Cheers. Here’s to the next 30 years together …

Love,
Mommy

*posts that describe this process more fully:

Confessions of an Angry Mom, part 1, 2, & 3
A Prayer for Potty Training
Tears and Transitions
For the love of poetry
Identity lessons from “Angelina Ballerina”
The one voice that matters most
Mind the gap

on the eve of preschool

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 6 Comments

Tomorrow. Tomorrow it begins. Enter the song from “Annie,”

Tomorrow, tomorrow,
I love you, tomorrow;
you’re only a day away!

Tomorrow my almost-3-year-old twins will enter preschool. This DAY I’ve longed for, that felt too far ahead into that distant Future which I couldn’t see through the hazy, sleep-deprived gaze of newborn days and toddler tantrums. Friends who’d journeyed there said the oft-repeated and often-frustrating-when-you’re-in-the-midst-of-it cliche of, “the days are long, but the years are short.” I find myself repeating that phrase myself to friends with weeks-old newborns, who are struggling with finding their way through the maze of feedings, advice, sleep(lessness), diapers, and colic. I’ve said it to friends who are still a few months away from welcoming their first babe into their hearts, and who feel alternately daunted and excited by such a venture.

As I thought about this post, I wasn’t sure whether to camp out in nostalgic-how-did-my-babies-get-so-big, or to join Glennon in the ranks of “hallelujah! Free at last!” I offer my story, which is a combination of both. Only this morning, I have felt both extremes. When my blue-eyed blonde beauties look up at me and say, “I love you, Mommy!” followed by a melt-my-heart hug; when one says, “Daddy is my best Daddy ever!”; when I see them creatively playing and sweetly cooperating with one another, I think that I am going to miss this. Granted, I will still have plenty of it (they’re only going two mornings a week), yet I know this is sort of the beginning of School. We are probably not going to go the homeschool route personally (and I have great respect for those of you who are), so School will likely mean that the next 15 years will include fostering their academic pursuits outside of the home. That’s terrifying when I realize that I am giving over the reigns of control to someone else, even for six hours a week. Will they be ok? What will I miss in terms of small moments you can’t capture? What if they are holy terrors for their teachers or their fellow students? [disclamor: I have no reason to believe that they will be since they are always MUCH better behaved with those other than us … but you never know …] Who will help her if she can’t figure out how to get her lunchbox open or if she skins her knee? Can I bear the thought that it will be someone besides me?

Well, yes. I can if I remember the part of me that can’t wait for tomorrow. I am looking forward to preschool because I want them to learn to play with other kids, to do wildly messy and creative art projects that I won’t have to clean up, to learn to be under another authority besides me, to be guided in their curiosity about this world by teachers trained to do so. This sounds quite noble, and I wish I could stop there. But I won’t. Because I bet there are others out there who, like me, also cannot WAIT for the break. The break from being a referee/personal chef/activities director for two seemingly impossible to please toddlers. Parenting has been as much my journey of finding out who God’s made me as it has been nurturing my children into who God’s making them. And a few things I’ve learned about myself these parenting years set me up for preschool being a lovely break at precisely the right time:

  • I don’t enjoy arts and crafts. In theory, yes, but the actuality feels too messy and frustrating most of the time.
  • I’m not naturally a playful mom, meaning that getting on the floor and doing lego towers for hours (or even 10 minutes) can feel tiring. I do it still because I love the girls who love legos, but it’s just hard for me. Same reason that I don’t really like playgrounds either.
  • I am most refreshed by time alone or with a few friends with whom I can connect on a deep level. To say that’s been a scarcity in these first three years as a mom is an understatement.
  • I am passionate about what God’s called me to outside of my home, too. I enjoy teaching women the beauty of the gospel found in God’s Word; mentoring younger women in their faith journeys; counseling those in difficult places; and writing. The freedom of two mornings a week without my children will free me up to pursue these a tiny bit more than I’ve been able to before now.
  • I am a better mom when I have a regular break to anticipate and in which to find refreshment. I’m not saying that God has not met me in the midst of the trenches of these past few years, but I am saying that I’ve found that I am able to love my husband and children better with regular breaks. This may not be your story, but this has been mine. And I suspect there are many of you in the church especially who have not felt free to admit this. Admit it; ask for grace in the midst of each day; don’t demand breaks in order to be a better mom but DO take breaks as you can, for spiritual and emotional refreshment. Take a break in order to re-engage those God’s called you to in self-sacrificial love.

Will I be a tearful mom tomorrow as I send off my big girls with their tiny backpacks? Of course. Will I be a joyful mom who will feel like three hours is a blissful luxury not to be squandered lightly? Equally so. I expect crying and rejoicing to each be present in this mom’s heart. And for both aspects, I am thankful for a God who weeps with me and rejoices with me and who goes with me and with my daughters as we’ll part for three hours. I imagine that I’ll blink and be writing a similar post about college. Oh my. That may really get the tears going, so I’ll stop while I’m ahead.

what I learned in August

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

This is a fun link-up I’m enjoying on a monthly basis, from Emily Freeman over at Chatting At The Sky. Love her blog, her book, her link-ups. Love that she’s also a mom of twins and that I have some teeny tiny connection to her through her friendship with my BFF, Katherine.

1. Roasting broccoli is delicious but fills the house with a pungent odor that lasts for days. Enough said. Don’t expect roasted broccoli if I ask you for dinner.

2. Arbutus is a type of tree. This may not rock your world as it did mine. Explanation: I’ve been using this word as part of an address to a friend I frequently write. And I had no idea it was a tree until coming across the word in the book below.

3.  North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell is not about the Civil War era as I assumed before picking it up. Actually it’s written in the Victorian era in England.

4. Pecorino Romano cheese is pasteurized sheep’s milk. Who knew? 

5. Hippos have built-in sunscreen. Thanks, Dr. Seuss’ PBS TV show, where I learned such interesting facts.

6. Foie gras is frog’s legs goose liver! (Thanks, Ann and Rikki for correcting my misinformation.)It’s considered a rare (and expensive) delicacy. That seems a bit strange to me, but I’ve never tried it myself.

7. A pound cake is named so because it required a pound of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. (at least in its original version, which I found a recipe for here.) No wonder it’s so rich! My grandmother from South Carolina whose baking is fabulous enlightened me.

8. A two-night getaway with my husband feels like 400% more time away than one night. If you’re not sure, it’s a very very worthwhile experiment to undertake for your marriage, particularly if you have young children at home. It was the first time in the three years since we’ve had kids that we spent more than one night away. So wonderful to actually have a full day with no deadlines. But the adjustment back to reality … whew, rougher than I thought. I hope to write about that another time.

9. When preparing to speak at a retreat (when preparing any talk for that matter), inviting others’ input is immensely insightful and constructive. I am speaking at a women’s retreat in a few weeks at a local church, and after working for months on these two talks on wisdom, I felt stuck. I emailed a few friends to ask them to be a wisdom “think tank” for me, and many of them were in my living room discussing these talks over coffee the next evening. What a gift to have such friends and such collective wisdom!

Five Minute Friday: worship

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

Sunlight streams in through stained glass on a Sunday morning congregation, hands raised in praise as they worship. Yet it’s oh so much more. A daily direction and orientation of my heart. I am always directed somewhere – something I want, what I fear, what has captured my attention is what I am worshiping.

All-encompassing attention; caught up in what is bigger than me. And when that is God, my heart is happy and right and joyful and full. And when it’s something less than my Creator – a created thing – my heart shrinks to the size of its worship object. I am hungry, never satisfied, always wanting more. More, more, more. For nothing will fill my worship-sized soul space like the God who made me. Who made the stars as they twinkle on the blackest night in the country. Whose vast, immense, eternal presence is merely reflected in the infinite horizon of ocean meeting sky or mountains majestic. Oh, for my soul to meet this God of my heart and our world! It too will rise up in praise with all of its might, joining the chorus creation sings unceasingly day after day. 

****

I’m participating today in Lisa-Jo’s “Five Minute Friday” where you write for five minutes on a topic, unedited. Fun way to get a quick blog post and stir the creative writing process.

laundry and grace

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

I fold laundry
in my weary attempt
to organize my thoughts
hoping they will be sorted
so easily
into piles

tidy, categorized by type
with shelves, drawers, or cabinets
to call home
and rest there
till they’re needed.
Then back through the cycle
of use, wash, dry, fold, return.

Is this what your grace is meant to do?
Restore, cleanse, sort out my heart
When I am used up by love?

Celebrating Seven Years of a Perfectly Imperfect Marriage

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 5 Comments

Davis Wedding 049

It’s been seven years of learning to listen to love’s loud message through his quiet, strong, dependable actions. A cup of coffee on a long afternoon after a sleepless night of feeding newborn twins around the clock. His quiet absorption of venomous words spoken rashly. Words of “I forgive you,” spoken as soon as my stubbornness softened to remorseful regret and repentance. Light bulbs changed; garbage taken out; air filters exchanged for new ones; month after month after year after year. Home improvement projects of old floors turned new and showers replaced and woodwork of an old home restored. Bracing himself for another desperate call of a mom in distress and offering the peace of his presence and his words and his prayers. His willingness to listen, to learn, to love through all the twists and turns of our seven years – some planned for; others not so much.

A perfectly imperfect marriage forged through that shaky first year of a wife learning how to be a counselor; of a church imploding; in a claustrophobic one-bedroom apartment; and two seminary students working two part-time jobs to keep  afloat amidst the financial strain. Raging selfishness and two stubborn people learning to add our strength to one another instead of fight to win against each other.

Two graduations – a move from Pennsylvania to Virginia – new jobs; new responsibilities; new life in between us. The day we learned with disbelief that what God had birthed within my womb was TWICE the planned-for new life. The scramble to adjust accordingly; to find our first home. And then the shock of bed rest and premature labor at the fragile time of 25 weeks. Ten tenuous weeks of trust and hope and prayers and work on the home that would welcome these two new lives. My steely man turning tender as he held our newborn daughters. Tears of joy and of frustration and sleeplessness of those first months as parents twice-over.

And then a settledness. No major changes in our lives for the past three years, but a deepening and absorption of all the transitions in the four years prior. A developing into the husband, father, pastor he is becoming in Christ; and the wife, mother, counselor/writer that I am becoming in Christ. Christ as the One who keeps us connected in these disconnected years of raising little ones; of nurturing one another and two small daughters; of helping to build the Church and our city.

It is Christ, the Perfect One, who has kept together our imperfect marriage when it’s frayed with our sin and brokenness and burdens of life. It is He who has loved us perfectly when we have failed one another amidst our imperfection. It is He whose perfection is our hope for many more years and decades of imperfect love and marriage and parenting and ministry to come. His is the Perfection we hope to reflect more and more with each year – a Perfection that comes as we admit our lack thereof; a Perfection that comes as we are being perfected into the image of the Perfect One through our marriage; a Perfection whose glory we will imperfectly reveal in our love for each other.

I close with a quote from my favorite marriage book of all time, The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason:

God’s love is, in a sense, the courage to go on living in the face of our sin, in the full knowledge of who and what we are. 

mentoring lessons from Beverlee

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

It’s been over four years since I last met with Beverlee in her living room over a cup of steaming Lady Grey tea and chatted about life, ministry, and relationships. She invested in me, a just-one-year-into-marriage new seminary graduate beginning to counsel and serve on staff with a church plant, from her place as an older woman with decades of experience in ministry including overseas missions and full-time campus ministry. She was not strong but weak during those two years that we met weekly. We did not know it, but she might have: those were the last two years of her life and she suffered from complications of diabetes that often robbed her of sleep and forced her to be homebound. Yet she taught me more about mentoring/discipleship/gospel-centered friendship than almost anyone else in my adult life so far. Her legacy of gracious, selfless love and care for others even in the midst of her own pain lives on while she lives in Glory. And so I hope to continue that legacy by sharing with you some of what she taught me.

  1. Gospel mentoring flows out of weakness, not strength. She was physically weak for most of the two years that we met together. She easily could have complained and focused on her own pain and ailments, seeking my comfort and prayers. I certainly did pray for this dear woman and seek to comfort her, but it was not because of her complaints. The pain was written on her face, and yet she repeatedly asked me how I was doing; what she could be praying about; and entered into what seemed like my petty struggles (in comparison) of a new counselor and wife seeking to find my way in marriage and ministry.
  2. Offer what you have. She could not leave her house, but she reached out to me through phone calls; invited me weekly to come for tea to chat and pray; followed up in tracking me down in my busy, cluttered life of overcommitment. When I first began mentoring/discipling younger women, I was a college student with more free time than I realized. I met with a small group of younger women weekly for 1-2 hours of Bible study and prayer, and then sought to meet individually with each woman weekly outside of that time. After graduating from college, I volunteered with a campus ministry and discipleship/mentoring took a very similar shape then, too. Fast forward 10+ years, and my life as a pastor’s wife, mom to twin preschoolers, and part-time counselor does not allow me to devote the same kind of time to mentoring. Yet it is freeing to remember that mentoring involves offering what I have. And what I have is much less than before – but I still have something to offer. Meetings now take place in the evenings, during naptimes, or on weekends. Sometimes they include meeting somewhere where my kids can play. If I meet with a younger woman even once a month, that’s my “regular” during this season of my life.
  3. Mentoring begins with prayer. She prayed for me when I wasn’t with her, and we prayed together when we met weekly. She followed up about what she was praying for, and there was no secret to the source of the power she depended on herself. Only Jesus sustained her during her most painful days and nights.
  4. Mentoring at its simplest is being intentional to care for another. She initiated getting to know me when I first came on staff with the church plant she helped to start, and she intentionally “took me under her wings,” so to speak. She would call me if we hadn’t seen each other for awhile, and she invited me to meet regularly for the soul respite I so desperately needed.
  5. Gentle challenge embedded in love is an essential part of mentoring. When I had a petty complaint about marriage, she gently challenged me to love. She gave examples from her own life about love as thinking of your spouse often during the day, and then telling him about things that brought him to mind. She shared everything with her beloved Collier, as he did with her. And she encouraged me to do the same – speaking words of reproof into my life as needed.

Do I follow Beverlee’s example perfectly? Far from it. And she herself would be the first to remind me, if she could, that she was not perfect herself. But the call of following Jesus in the ministry of mentoring is a call to lay down your life – as it is – for another. It’s a call to find the grace and strength needed in the midst of my weakness in the cross, not my false notions of self-sufficiency. It is to offer to another the Life I have found and to encourage her to seek Life from this source with me. Until the day when instead of seeing dimly we will, like Beverlee now, see face-to-face the Glory to which we witness. [1 Corinthians 13:12 – “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”]

when mentoring exposes your idol of being needed

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 3 Comments

Sharing the gospel is inextricably tied to sharing other aspects of life with those we’re mentoring. Consider what the apostle Paul says: “We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us” (1 Thessalonians 2:8). Biblical mentoring requires engaging the whole person for more than just a scheduled time each week or month. It includes meeting for lunch or coffee, showing up for an important event in the life of the woman you’re mentoring, inviting her to be part of your life or family, serving together, and even enjoying together the seemingly “frivolous” activities such as watching a movie or going shopping.

Life-on-life ministry comes quite naturally to many of us women as we love to care, nurture, and share emotional intimacy. Yet as in every other relationship, there is danger that I find my identity in mentoring another young woman and so become enmeshed in an unhealthy relationship. My definition of “unhealthy relationship” is a relationship where one of my idols takes the central place that belongs to Jesus. In mentoring, this can happen when my idol of being needed replaces Jesus as what I am worshiping and serving in our relationship.

Warning Signs

What does this idolatry look like, and how can you establish healthy biblical boundaries?

[… Read the rest of the article here at The Gospel Coalition Blog where I’m a guest writer today.]

what’s not to love about Maine?

/ Heather Davis Nelson / 2 Comments

We are back home. I’ve missed blogging and routine, and after 28 hours of travel by car, I agree with Dorothy that “there’s no place like home.” But what a beautiful trip we had to Maine and then to grandparents in New Jersey. There will be more on all of that later … for now, a post that is an ode of sorts to Maine. It was lovely. In case you don’t believe me, some pictures to prove that. 

We trekked up the East coast to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and two bright and handsome nephews who live in Portland, Maine – their home since my doctor-brother started residency there. It was a brave and bold choice to make three years ago as a couple with a one-year-old who had basically lived their entire lives in South Carolina or Georgia. But they love it there, except for wishing the winter to be shorter and family to live closer.

After our second visit to Maine in the summer (and this time with older twins and a string of gloriously sunny days), we have caught the passion shared by all who love “Down East” (as Maine is known to true Mainers). A few highlights from our trip, under the category of what we love about Maine –

  1. There are bike paths through woods even in a relatively metropolitan area. And they take you to beautiful destinations, like this lighthouse below.20130819-233807.jpg
  2. People fly gigantic (the biggest I’ve ever seen) kites at the field by this lighthouse. In fact, they have a kite club that meets every Saturday morning, which we gleefully happened upon.20130819-233839.jpg
  3. Downtown Portland, Maine, feels like Europe. Diverse people, cobblestone paving, street musicians who are actually quite talented, dozens of foodie restaurants and cafes beckoning me to come in with a book and my journal. Strange though it may sound, being there reminded me of my summer in Ireland.
  4. The weather. Cloudless blue skies, long days with early sunrises and late sunsets, allowed us to explore the beautiful outdoors to our heart’s content (well – almost – at least as much as we could within our four preschoolers’ limits, of course).
  5. The people! I’m sorry, South, but you ain’t got nothing on a Mainers’ neighborliness. Kids gather on the streets to play after dinner while their parents sip drinks and bring out tikki torches and music. One evening my sister-in-law and I were sitting on the front stoop, and a neighbor brought over a plate of homemade salmon cakes and aioli for us to enjoy as an appetizer. Their neighbors met us and greeted us each time we were coming or going. They have mowed my brother’s yard for him and offered A/C units on a (rare) hot summer day. They lent us bikes so that we could have a two-family-with-four-kids bike ride to the lighthouse (see #1). Community? Um, yes, please!
  6. Water, water, water. Everywhere we went there was a harbor or a port or a lake or a coast. It is Portland, after all. A highlight was the ferry ride we took to Peaks’ Island. Perfect delight for the 4-and-under crowd particularly! Especially since I’m pretty sure my daughters were thinking “fairy” ride v. “ferry” – added a magical element to the experience for them.
  7. Holy Donuts. You have not tried donuts until you’ve tasted a homemade HOLY DONUT from this local shop. Flavors included chocolate sea-salt, bacon, pomegranate, lemon, maple, and blueberry (of course).
  8. Farm-style dining. We sat outside on picnic tables in the midst of a field of wildflowers and herbs to eat gourmet fresh-from-the-farm food that was perfectly portioned and so delicious I don’t have words to describe it.20130819-233924.jpg20130819-233938.jpg
  9. A picnic of pizza at a park overlooking the port. Look at that alliteration. As wonderful as it sounds.
  10. My family. I know that without them living in Maine, it wouldn’t have the same appeal. We had days filled with lingering conversations over meals; fun cousin play; stories read by Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Nicole; faith and life sharing; and much laughter. I am deeply thankful for such friends who are also family. My heart is full in that joy mixed with grief kind of way. Joy for the time spent together; grief that we are so far away from them. Until next summer, then … ?!

links to love, linger, and learn from

/ Heather Davis Nelson / Leave a comment

It’s just about vacation time for us, which will involve an inordinately long time in the car with busy 3-year-olds, about 200% more potty stops than we’ve had to take before, and some quality time with family which will make it all worthwhile. It will also include a small blogging break. In my absence, I leave you with the following posts to enjoy –

Read this about the writing practice of “morning pages” on Chatting At The Sky

Need an internet break? Glennon bravely leads the way here.

My life in the preschool/lego stage in a quote by Gretchen Rubin

As one born and raised in the South, I say – “Can I get an Amen, y’all?” to this article on the Gospel Coalition Blog: The Kind of Churches We Need in the South

on motherhood:

On the importance of not rushing through life: The Day I Stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up’ And a good follow up on how to savor the summer on Simple Mom: Be like the sun. One final link on this theme, connecting how anger and hurry are tightly connected: Slow to Anger. Obviously a message that I need to hear!

For those of you who, like me, love your kids but sometimes struggle with what you’ve “given up” in terms of career/education/conversation depth to be a mom: When you’re not sure if you want to be a mom

The title says it all: a prayer for the mom who’s worn

And one last one to send us (and perhaps you?) on your way – 4 tips for vacationing with your family