Lessons learned after a year of marriage

One year of marriage! 

One year ago last week, I said "I do" to my husband before God, our families, and many friends. In one year of marriage, I have certainly not learned all there is to know. But perhaps sharing some reflections on this past year may be helpful to others who are just starting out on this journey. 

I have seen my own self-centeredness in new ways; learned the love of God in new ways; and learned how my heart does not default into being a loving, Christ-honoring wife. Even when I am ostensibly serving my husband and my home, how often I have realized that really I am serving a false image of being the perfect homemaker! Oh readers, the action may look the same but the heart is very different. And the fruit is different too: when I am cleaning my kitchen and baking bread in order to be the ideal housewife rather than out of love for God and for my husband and a desire to be the servant of all, I am more likely to grow frustrated with my husband for making messes or feel insecure if dinner isn't ready on time.

If you are about to become a wife, you'll have to learn for yourself where your vulnerabilities are and how to depend on the Lord in them. But from one beginner wife to another, here is some advice I would give after one year of marriage.

• Let go of your idealized version of marriage as soon as possible. This may not be possible before marriage, because most likely you feel that you have no idea what marriage will be like, and your expectations are unconscious rather than acknowledged. But once you are married, work to identify where frustrations may be arising due to the gap between the marriage you have really got and the one you imagined you would have. For me, I realized that I had thought marriage would look like sitting in bed at 9:00 peacefully reading our books side by side. When my husband preferred to stay up till 10:30 working on programming problems in the living room, I felt unreasonably frustrated. He wasn't doing something wrong, but this didn't fit my pre-marriage fantasy. Readers, swapping out fantasy for reality is always a change for the better, because it is real.

• Lose the idea that communication is "unromantic," that there are some things that your husband should just "know." He loves you, but he is not inside of your brain, and it's not fair to expect him to be a mind reader.

• Learn to not keep score. Even if you feel your accounting is quite fair and accurate and therefore you have good reason to feel like your marriage is "unequal" (you put in more hours at work, or make more of an effort to keep in touch with extended family, etc.), the scoring is flawed from the outset, because marriage is not about equality! We are called to outdo one another in showing honor, not to show up only as much as our spouse does. What if God was like this? What if he kept track of how much we were doing "our part" and whether it was truly 50-50 in our relationship with Him, and promptly stopped contributing if the scales tipped too far in His direction? Thank the Lord that He does not treat us as we deserve! 

• Let your husband be his own person, but don't give up entering into his world. What do I mean by this? Sometimes I want to connect with my husband only on my terms — I want to mold him to fit into my image and enjoy my preferred activities, on my timeline and in my way. When I recognize that I'm becoming controlling, the easiest solution is to disconnect entirely: you do you and I'll do me. We can peacefully live separate lives in the same house. But the goal of marriage is not to be good roommates who have no conflict. Instead, enter the tension of compromise and self-sacrifice. It is better for my marriage when I don't try to make my husband's decisions for him — choosing his hobbies, schedule, etc. — but rather seek ways to join in with what he has decided or to make choices together.

• Relatedly, don't forget that all relationships need intentionality, even when — perhaps especially when — you live in the same house and share life together on a daily basis. Again, it is much easier to be roommates than teammates. Keep seeking ways to connect and prioritize time just to be together, because it won't happen by accident. 

• Recognize the difference between sharing marital challenges with other people in order to confess your own sin, and sharing marital challenges in order to complain about your husband (whether in seriousness or in jest). This can be tough, because women slip very easily into the latter, both intentionally and unintentionally, and it is so easy to just chime in with your own frustrations. But it is never worthwhile to tear down your spouse to other people.

I am thankful for our first year of marriage, the many sweet moments and the hard ones. I am still in awe of the Lord's plan in bringing us together. The best is yet to come, my dearest.

On justice

How is it that "justice" is such a popular buzzword in our culture, and yet our concept of it is so meager? That there is much more truth than we'd like to admit in the phrase "justice for you and mercy for me"? And really, that phrase doesn't even fully capture our hackneyed, distorted idea of what is just and good. We have our consciences for a reason — God has put his law on our hearts — and yet we are in desperate need of having our minds and hearts renewed to truly distinguish between good and evil (there is a dividing line between the two, despite the recent trend towards portraying the world in gray instead of black and white).

What has prompted these thoughts? I just watched Where the Crawdad Sings. There are many reasons why I would not recommend this movie/book (I did not read the latter but have heard the movie was a very accurate rendition), but the most important and, to my mind, most neglected is the moral worldview it presents. I am deeply troubled by how many people love this story (it has a 4.4 star rating on Goodreads), including many Christians, because it testifies to the level of moral depravity of our society.

Spoilers ahead, FYI. 

In this story, a girl with an extremely traumatic past has two extramarital intimate relationships (sequentially, not at the same time), and experiences great heartache because of these. The second turns out to be particularly nasty, as the man is concurrently engaged/married to someone else and quite abusive as well. To solve this situation, she murders him. She then goes on trial for murder and her lawyer manages to convince everyone that not only is she innocent, that they should feel bad for even suspecting her because of their prejudice against her. And she goes along her merry way, reuniting with Boy #1 and living with him until her death.

Now, let's be clear: she did have extremely traumatic things happen to her. Her family gave her no solid foundation. Boy #2 was horrible. And the townspeople were prejudiced and mean to her. But while these make her choices understandable, it does not make them okay. A lot of the heartache she experiences in these two relationships could have been avoided if she had made different choices. 

Somehow it seems unpopular to acknowledge this — because of the things that happened to this girl, pointing out her own sin issues is considered insensitive or even completely false. I know lots of people would defend her actions by focusing on the hard things she experienced: she was just taking care of herself, she had to do it, she's been victimized her whole life and now at last she's standing up for herself... But as a perceptive online commenter said, "It's not girl power if it's premeditated murder." 

Still other people will try to take the tack that the girl herself does: nature doesn't have right/wrong, good/evil. It just does what it has to do in order to survive. Morals are just a societal convention. Marriage isn't necessary if you love each other. Killing another person is okay if you felt you needed to do it to take care of yourself. The mild version of this philosophy — where "good" people justify their not-so-good choices, because they are "good" people overall — is not unfamiliar in movies. What made this movie so shocking was that it actually took this belief system to the extreme of justifying and condoning cold-blooded, premeditated murder. And more disturbing still, the majority of people reviewing this story seem to have accepted that justification.

However, no one thinks the infidelity and assault of the two men in the book is "okay," even though these things happen in nature. How far are we really going to take this logical train? Living life by no other compass than following our own desires and urges is a destructive path. "They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity — for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." (2 Peter 2:19) I need to have my desires and urges restrained and redeemed — that is freedom.

If I got anything positive out of this movie, it was a reminder that God's path for our lives and his justice really are perfect. Submitting to his pattern for our lives bears good fruit, while rejecting his good plan will sooner or later lead to our own destruction. And that our sin has consequences is also good. The ending where the murderer gets off scot free is not a good ending. I didn't want the girl to get the death penalty, but neither could I rejoice that she was declared innocent. If we reap the fruit that we ourselves have sown, that is the just and right reward. If I I'm tempted to see God's justice as unjust, it's my vision that's the problem, not him.

In other words, I need Jesus's death for my guilt because I fully deserve my condemnation. It is just. But praise be to God! He does not treat us as our sins deserve (Psalm 103). He has paid the price in full. And as I trust in him more and more, he continues to redeem and renew my will and my conscience, so that I can see that his will is good, pleasing, and perfect (Romans 12:2), and life according to his plan is the life I want to live.

His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. (I John 5:3–4).

...

I will run in the path of your commands, for you have set my heart free. (Psalm 119:32)

2023: Year In Review

 What-ho, readers!

It's been a while since I wrote a New Years post (or let's face it, any post), but 2023 was a year full of happenings and "firsts" for me, and I wish to preserve a record of it. There were highs and lows but mostly such a sense of awe at God's provision and his perfect plan, which is so much better than I can ask for or imagine.

So tally-ho and away we go!

January

My study buddy

The events of January were largely shaped by the previous December. On December 20, I got engaged! My sweetheart proposed on a very, very cold Tuesday by the small lake on our town's college campus. (It was a surprise but I knew it was coming—how many "complete surprise" engagements are there, really?) We celebrated our engagement and Christmas with family and friends, then jumped into wedding planning in January. As our engagement season coincided with the final semester of my master's degree (in history!), this month thus inaugurated a very busy but very exciting season. I'm honestly still not sure how it all got done, frankly!

Planning a wedding was bizarre. For so much of my life, I attended other people's weddings, and wondered, as girls do, what mine would be like and what the colors would be and what dress I would wear, etc. etc. And then even once it became clear that we would soon be getting engaged, getting married still seemed like a far off and even perhaps impossible event. Once we were engaged — and I was the person trying on dresses, and we were the people calling churches in search of availability for our chosen date, and every weekend seemed to hold some new wedding related activity — it was all rather surreal at times. (I mean, even now when I look back at wedding pictures and have visual proof that we were the bride and groom — not to mention the physical evidence in the form of my husband sitting next to me on the couch as I type this ;) — it feels not quite real.)

February

Wedding planning continued into February as schoolwork ramped up. I spent many hours in the library basement scanning through newspapers on microfilm as part of my research on the 1931 Citroën Trans-Asiatic Expedition. Though this topic kind of ended up in my lap (as in, I asked my advisor, "What should topic should I pick for my spring research paper?" and he told me), the deeper I went, the more interesting I found it. I certainly experienced "senioritus"; it was hard to feel that my university studies were all that consequential when graduation, marriage, and a break with academia were only a few months away. I particularly felt unmotivated to do my non-research classwork (i.e. to read two books per week and write miscellaneous papers). But for all that, I enjoyed my research.

Sometimes you find funny things in old newspapers.

March

March was a traveling month. It started off with a trip to my then–fiancé's hometown for an engagement party. That was a sweet trip — our first time getting to hang out with his immediate family since our engagement. They all joyfully put so much effort into making the party fun and special. It was a testament, if I needed it, to how amazing my in-laws are, and how blessed I am to officially be part of their family now. 

We rapidly returned home, and then I dashed off again to Detroit (pictured!) for my first serious academic conference. I say "serious" because I have attended a few other academic conferences, but they were more tailored to students rather than scholars, whereas this was most definitely aimed at specialists in French history. I had mixed feelings about this conference. I was glad to have the chance to go; I like French history and attending the conference gave me the confidence, for the first time in four years, to unapologetically identify myself as a French historian. I enjoyed presenting my work and getting to discuss it with others outside of my university circle. On the other hand, I also experienced a weariness with the topics that are "hot" in academia and with the carefully constructed language that humanists employ. That's a bit vague if you're not a scholar in the humanities; I guess I just felt that certain topics and even phrases are so in vogue in history that I could guess what people were going to say before they said it. The research angles that used to be clever and provocative are now rather canned. I felt that it is time to challenge postcolonial interpretations instead of claiming your research is new because you're copying and pasting the same old thing into a new place. And, eventually, that is what I realized my paper on Citroën's Trans-Asiatic Expedition was going to do (the former, not the latter).

April

An early spring morning (or maybe a twilight evening?) on campus

April was the month where everything was due. Presentations had to be given and final drafts had to be submitted. I was also spending hours making phone calls about silverware rental and messaging random people on Facebook Marketplace about tablecloths. Apparently I wrote a blog post, too.

I have only spotty memories of April. I know I sent those messages because we had tablecloths at our wedding and I know I wrote my paper because I graduated, but I do not remember doing so. I remember feeling surprised that there were already flowers on campus and then being surprised that the early spring flowers were already gone. I do remember many early mornings sitting in the sunny spot in the library before anyone else had gotten there, drinking coffee and reviewing my many wedding spreadsheets.

May

May inaugurated the season of parties, starting with... Graduation! What a strange feeling to be on campus the last day of finals, in a completely empty library.

Pictured: A spot you usually have to fight over

I did my master's immediately after my undergraduate, which meant that I spent six consecutive years at my university. It was exciting and also bizarre to realize I wouldn't be coming back the next semester — that I might never be in contact with some people in my department again, after years of running into them in hallways and seeing their names on emails. It was also amazingly freeing — six years is quite enough to spend at one institution, if you ask me. :P I was ready to move on.

Plus, I didn't have all that much time to indulge in graduation reflections, because the weekend after graduation, we traveled out of town to attend a wedding, and the following week 1) my mother-in-law to-be visited, 2) I turned 24, 3) my mom and sisters hosted a bridal shower for me, and 4) my fiancé traveled out of town (I made four trips to the airport within seven days).

The English tea theme gave me an excuse to wear my enormous garden party hat.

The shower was a beautiful, English-tea-themed celebration. As I once wanted to have a high tea as a wedding reception, it was kind of fulfilling in a way to have a tea-shower. And the care my mom and sisters lavished on the details (scones! fresh flowers! Jane Austen soundtracks in the background!) felt so special.

June

The last weeks before the wedding went rapidly. We traveled out of town again to attend another wedding, I packed up all my belongings to move from my childhood home, and the final preparations were made. The last week was rather emotional. I had spent six months longing for the wedding to arrive, counting down the days until I would be Mrs.— and at last start our days of marital bliss (:P). I had prayed, too, that God would help me to make the most of the engagement season — to recognize and appreciate the things that I had in that season that I wouldn't have once I was married. And yet, still, I had a feeling that I had failed to appreciate fully the time I had living at home, going downstairs to chat with my mother and have long dinners with my father. I had spent so much time with my fiancé, and yet had lamented more over not getting to see him more rather than lamenting the dwindling days left to live with my family. All of a sudden it seemed very short and my parents very precious and my marriage very exciting and yet unavoidably sad, too.

I guess this is how weddings are. And the day did arrive, ready or not. It is hard to express just how sweet that day was. How blessed we felt. How overwhelmed with the love of so many friends and family who shared our joy and traveled from afar and helped set up and ironed tablecloths and brought food and coffee and prayed and cried and were in our wedding party and shared their talents and reflected the love of God in their actions. So since it is hard to put this into words, I will share some pictures instead, and maybe you will get a glimpse of how lovely a day it was. :)

July

After a few days in the mountains, my now-husband and I returned to our [new to me] home. We spent about two weeks there before it was time to pack up again... for Europe! We spent two months on the Franco-Swiss border for my husband's work. It was terrible to have to leave so soon after our wedding and head to a foreign country.

C'est une blague! (That's "it's a joke" to the non-francophones). My husband and I have both spent time in France for work/school before we knew each other, and ever since we started dating we dreamed of going back together. Though it was quite a squeeze to leave so soon after our wedding (in those two weeks I also caught up with multiple friends, prepared our house for short-term renters, and unexpectedly applied for a job), it was such a very special and memorable way to start off our marriage.

Before settling into the small French town where my husband had work, we got to honeymoon for about ten days in Switzerland and Austria. It was my first time in the Alps! That has been on my "next trip" list since my last time in France. We had a blast visiting many places, trying to understand Swiss German, taking long hikes, drinking much espresso, and experiencing so many new things together.

August

August started out with more travel. After spending a few weeks at our temporary French apartment, I took a quick trip on my own to Vienna to visit a friend I hadn't seen in several years. It was a sweet time and really delightful to get to catch up.

Apart from going to Vienna and a few weekend trips, August was fairly quiet. It was quite a change of pace from the busyness of the spring. I had a little work (remote/freelance translation and editing), but also had time to read, try French recipes, make near-daily trips to the bakery, and pray. Our evenings were generally open, which left us to take walks, hang out, and go to occasional swing dances. It was extremely hot (Europe doesn't do AC — they like to suffer), but I made lots of iced lattés during my long afternoons in the apartment, and that helped.

A weekend trip to Annecy, where the lake offered relief from the extreme August heat.

We also were able to get to know a Russian couple at the church we attended, which was nice. All in all, it felt like a restorative, restful time, and I felt so fortunate to be back in a country that will always be near to my heart, and to get to start our marriage there.

At the end of August, I got word that I'd been offered the job to which I'd applied before leaving the States. To my great surprise, my university had an opening for a lecturer to teach European history (my specialization) and had encouraged me to apply. I got the job! It really felt like such a gift from the Lord — the opportunity had come to me without me doing anything. I couldn't have predicted it. I didn't deserve it. But all of the sudden I had the chance to teach my favorite subject at my alma mater. So all that stuff about leaving my department forever? Guess not!

September

In September, we packed up again to return home to the US. On our way back, we made a quick stop to visit Paris, my host family, and the city in Western France where I'd lived in 2021. I really enjoyed those couple of days — I got to meet coworkers in Paris whom I've only ever messaged online when we work together, got to show my husband places I'd spent so much time in, and got to remind myself that spring 2021 really did happen and I did live in France, even if it now feels like a dream. It was sweet to reconnect to my host family, too, and all in all was a reminder of how French and France will always be part of me, even if I never go back (though I think I will).

Bonjour, Paris!

Then we had reunions with friends and family back home, and what felt like the "real" start to our marriage: building a life together here in Kansas. 

October

October was the month of settling in to being a housewife. Truth be told, this was a harder transition than I expected. I wasn't unhappy; it's just that going from having a full and busy schedule to virtually no structure was quite the switch, plus I was still in the transition-from-single-to-married stage. My freelance work was also slower than I'd expected, and I discovered that interacting with clients is not my favorite part of my job.

Two more "firsts" at the end of the month: I had an academic article accepted for publication, and I made my first loaf of sourdough!

The article was a two-year+ process, and till the last I had no certainty it would be accepted. One more example of how I cannot predict how God will work in my life! Publishing the article — based on research I did in France — feels like a nice culmination of my academic endeavors.

I have wanted to try sourdough for many years, but it always felt like a project for the next Christmas/summer break (that would then be pushed to the next one). I was nervous. It sounded worthwhile, but hard. Then I learned that half the women at my church make sourdough. Okay, that's a big exaggeration, especially as 2/3 of the women are college students and probably not in the sourdough club, but suffice it to say, enough women do it that I felt the confidence to try. I got a starter from one of them, fed it a few times, and baked a loaf! It wasn't so hard after all!

I've now made many successful loaves of bread, plus cinnamon rolls (my favorite), crackers, bagels (a husband favorite), rolls, brioche (needs improvement), brownies, cookies, naan... basically, if it looks like it could be made of dough — or even if it doesn't — I've put sourdough in it. My husband got quite tired of the word "sourdough." (maybe you are too, by now). But he liked the bagels.

November

November brought a mind-numbing proofreading project (800+ pages!), lots of prep for my European history class (writing lectures!), and our first holiday as a married couple. My family ended up celebrating Thanksgiving on Sunday, which meant my husband and I had three days to be at home together: taking walks, drinking coffee (I'm suddenly realizing this is a theme of the post), enjoying time with our cat, and resting. I know if/when we have kids these days together won't be so peaceful... but can we celebrate on Sunday every year??

Mirab moved from my parents' house to our home in October.

I also reflected on the responsibility of homeownership in November. I realized that pre-marriage I didn't expect homeownership to feel like a responsibility. I already did much cooking and cleaning at home, and I just expected it would be doing the same things, but in a different house. However, owning a home does feel different. There are lots of things that can "go wrong" in a house — leaks and rot and termites and fire risks and electrical outages and mildew and who knows what else. There are the fun updates — like painting — and then there are the updates that sound fun but also like so much work and so many $$$ — like redoing a bathroom — and then there are the updates that no one hopes will come their way — like having to deal with insect removal or replacing a roof or repairing water damage. 

Fortunately, we have not had to deal with any of these things yet (except the painting, and I volunteered for that one). But we have various uncertain signs that could indicate some of these scenarios, and I didn't realize how the stress of that would weigh upon me.

But I also didn't realize how I would have a partner to share in the burdens of home-keeping and life decisions and cat-feeding and dish-washing and all of it. That is, I didn't realize how much of a blessing it would be to share these things with my husband and how he would support me through them and carry the burdens with me. I am so thankful for him. 

Lastly, I didn't realize that homeownership — more specifically, the fun part of homeownership, i.e. home design — could cause ugly reactions in my sin nature. I have really enjoyed hanging pictures, organizing the kitchen, unpacking our books, and generally making our house into our home. But I have realized that for me specifically, it is a slippery slope in my heart to go from home design — motivated by a desire to make our home a beautiful and comfortable place for ourself and guests — to covetousness, impatience, and discontent. The actions may look the same! (Scanning FB Marketplace, checking sales on picture frames, looking at Pinterest ideas, etc.) But in my heart I know the difference when I switch from one place to the other, and I have had to take time away from home design when I realize that my attitude is changing towards it.

December

December is the Christmas season... I guess? It didn't feel very "Christmasy" this year (whatever that means). I did an Advent reading plan, which I enjoyed but didn't start till the middle of the month and didn't end up finishing. I don't like the description of life as "busy" (especially when I know I am so much less scattered than the previous spring), but my life is/was FULL, between freelancing, bread baking, housecleaning, and etc.

I struggled to explain this to other people — struggled to answer the question of what I'm "doing" now that I've graduated college. The thing is, I love it. I love the rhythm of making my husband's lunch and baking bread and doing editing work with a cup of tea in the afternoon and then making dinner so it's ready when he comes home. I feel so amazed and in awe that this is my life. Why am I so blessed? I do not deserve it. I don't deserve my husband. I don't deserve my church. I don't deserve any of these unexpected, sweet blessings, but I have them.

Despite all that, I struggle to tell people I'm a housewife doing part time freelance work, because... I think they'll think I'm lazy? Or patriarchalist? (I do have unashamedly complimentarian beliefs, but that's different) Or something? I'm not sure why. I'm working on that, because I think I am failing to give the honest and simple answer and withholding myself from people by doing so.

Christmas brought my first ski trip (!) and first Christmas without my family. I love my in-laws, but I had some sadness, nonetheless, and not a little stress over trying to make it down the bunny hill. However, skiing did get better, and the trip was so restful and a really nice time with my husband's parents.

As mentioned at the beginning of the post, there was also some grief in 2023. I experienced an ongoing separation from a really dear friend, and witnessed from afar as she walked away from the Lord. More heartbreaking revelations about her life and choices came in December, and I spent so many hours in tears.  Again, I am so thankful for my husband, who was present with me as I processed these griefs. More, I felt the presence of God and of his heart. When love for people causes us great grief, we experience his grief, and his love for us and desire for our good is so much greater than we can understand. Though I long for redemption in this friend's life, and for our friendship to be restored, I am comforted knowing that the Lord loves them no less and grieves for them more. He is sovereign, good, and trustworthy.

I don't know yet what 2024 will hold. This week, I will start teaching European history to undergrads, continue baking bread, and watch a football game with my church family. Beyond that — it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. And if 2023 taught me anything, it's that his purposes are better than mine anyway.

Bonne année 2024, readers.

Nostalgia and looking towards the future

Well, hello. It's been a while since I opened Blogger, a while since I felt the urge to form my thoughts into words that I'd consider jettisoning onto the internet. But today, on a Tuesday afternoon where I have 193+ other things to do (as is always the case when I feel the urge to blog), I am feeling nostalgic. 

I am about to complete the last semester of six years at my university. I didn't like being here, for a long time. I only reluctantly embraced the identity of being a college student and a Jayhawk. I resented my fellow students for being too loud, for making the "traffic" worse (in quotes because we really have nothing to complain about in my little town), and for not having the maturity of 35-year-olds and the interests of 75-year-olds (not a very rational expectation of under-twenty-five-year-olds).

But somehow, I've grown fond of this place in spite of myself. Changing my major helped (tremendously!) but also the incredible people I've met here, students and professors alike (and maybe a pretty neat postdoc, but more on that later). I am beyond excited to graduate and enter my next season of life, which will involve a little less coffee and a lot more exercise, but I also can't help thinking throughout this semester of how I can perhaps count on one hand how many more times I'll see a classmate or my advisor, and how their lives will continue on but my academic pursuits at this university stop here. 

God has been so gracious to me. He has given me a heart for this campus that goes beyond the generic hope for the salvation of nameless individuals I usually preferred not to be around, which is what I had when I started here. Though sometimes I am still impatient with my classmates, the Lord has given me eyes to see college kids with a compassion that I did not have, and a desire to see the people in my cohort walk in freedom.

I don't know what that looks like when I leave KU. To be honest, I haven't been sure what that can or should look like while I'm here, either. But I don't want to underestimate the time that I have left as a student (31 days, but who's counting?). If I have two minutes or two hours with a person, I want to be present, open, and oriented towards their needs and not my own. Jesus said that the greatest person is the one who is the servant of everyone. Is that how I live in my department? Viewing my role as the person who is there to serve, just like my king?

It's a pretty busy season right now. Each day is split between wrangling the research article I am writing, skimming books as rapidly as possible, translating articles for clients, and preparing for my wedding in June. (Remember that postdoc I mentioned? :)) People keep saying how fast time is going — truly, it does seem that someone is holding down the "fast forward" button on the remote. But most of the time, I wish time would fly even faster, to skip past the work and get to graduation and then my wedding. I know marriage won't solve all my problems, but it's difficult not to feel that things will be a little easier when I'm no longer a wedding planner-graduate student.

But work is good, and I don't want to rush past this season. It's okay to wish my work load wasn't quite so full (it won't always be) but I don't want to reject work just because it's work. That, too, is a gift, just like the rest that God also gives us. So I will set this post aside, and go back to The Seventh Member State (there's a plug for you, Megan Brown. It was nice to meet you at the conference last month). À la prochaine, readers.

A holy coincidence

I recently ran into a former English professor, whom I've been reluctant to tell about changing my major. It may be silly, but I felt awkward about it because he wrote a recommendation for my application to the education program. When I told two separate family members about it, they had different reactions. One said, "Well, just explain that education wasn't challenging and you wanted a challenge. He'd understand that." The other said, "You could say, 'I want to teach but I didn't like the system they were teaching us or the way they were teaching it.'"

What is interesting about these two reactions is that both said their comments matter-of-factly, as if they were just putting into words something I already knew. But the fact is, I wouldn't have used either of those two phrases to explain why I changed my major. Both reasons are true, but aren't comprehensive enough. I actually don't know what one or two sentences I could say, however, to simplify the massive (though fast) process that took me to a new major . When I tell people, I say something different every time.

I apologize ahead of time if this post (ok, let's be honest, it's going to take more than one) is just overly lengthy navel-gazing. It is often said to write what you know, but not often enough said that we really write to know. I suppose the main reason I want to write this out is so that I can figure out that phrase or sentence that the answer to "why I changed my major" really boils down to. (yes I just ended a sentence with a preposition.)

To start at the beginning...

My imaginary future self

I went into college certain that I would never change my major. There were multiple reasons for this. Because I love children and am passionate about education, it just seemed to make sense that I be a teacher. Sure, the public education system makes me crazy, but all the more reason to have good teachers in it, right? I knew I loved history, but I didn't see that as a career. Therefore, teaching seemed like the only job for me and thus elementary education the only major. I realize now that it was also based on pride; I wasn't going to be like "those people" who change their majors as often as they change their socks. I knew what I was doing and I was not going to take more than four years to do it.

Hahaha. Pride goeth before the fall. Only in this case, God was merciful enough that I fell off my high horse and into a green valley (mixing my metaphors here. I know.)

On September 25, in the middle of the fifth week of school, I felt myself to be a mass of tensions barely contained within a human frame. Since starting college two years ago, I have never had much school spirit. I've never felt like I belonged or really enjoyed college. Yes, there have been some professors I liked and a couple of good classes, but in all, it was a difficult time. I struggled to keep myself grounded in the present and not pine away missing high school or longing to be a stay-at-home mom. I prayed that God would use me in the place he put me, that he would enable me to love my classmates who made me feel like a two-headed alien, and that I would not just pick up a degree but actually grow as a result of these four short years. And yet, in July I told my dad that "School drains the life out of me," and really believed it. I went into this year feeling discouraged, that despite my prayers I had complained my way through the past two years, squandering them.

So it's not like school had been a picnic so far, but on this day the tensions began to come to a head. I felt both a strong desire to be a good student, to pursue my assignments and readings not "because I have to" but to actually learn from them. I didn't just want to speak enough in class to get a good participation grade, but to listen to my professors because I respect them. And yet it felt like half of what we were doing was just pointless busywork. I also vacillated between wanting to please my professors and not make waves, and wanting to completely rebel against the ideologies and structures that they pound into the heads of education students as gospel truth (while simultaneously saying there is no truth...). Should I do my best in classes whether they're meaningful or not, or scorn the entire program? And to what extent is it good and healthy to examine the situation and release tension by talking about my feelings, before it becomes complaining?

Into that mix add the tension resulting from my own background colliding with the established education system, which would no doubt be taught in any university. Even schools that explore alternative education models to some degree are still highly systematized. You are told, again and again, that for children to learn, you must have a lesson plan. Any good lesson plan must have an objective. And any objective must have a way of measuring it (e.g. a test or other form of assessment). If you just do fun activities that are disconnected from assessments and objectives, your children will not learn. While in class, I could start to nod and think, That makes sense. Then I would leave class and it was like a veil was lifted from over my eyes: I would remember my own schooling and that of the children I grew up with. In my entire educational experience up until college, I am certain my mother never wrote out lesson plans and objectives, let alone conducted regular assessments. We did do fun activities like visiting an organ company when studying Bach, "just because." And yet somehow I managed to learn or at least retain just as much as my public-schooled classmates. So how could I accept the mantra that students will only learn when they have objectives and assessments?

On this particular afternoon, after viewing "a few clips" (15 minutes of video) my professor had sent out for the next morning's class, which overlapped and just repeated information from our previous discussions, I texted two of my dearest friends, "WHAT IS THE POINT. WHY AM I HERE. Switching to engineering looks pretty good". At this point, however, I didn't seriously think of another major as an option; "switching to engineering" had been a running joke in my household since I started down the education path and found it lacking. After venting about all my various conflicting feelings to the same friends, I wrote, "I don't know that I would choose education if I was a freshman today but I'm too far in to change majors."

Underscoring these tensions was the contrast between my classes. Since I started college I was a history minor. My one history class last fall was the best 150 minutes of the week. This created yet another tension, with my love for my history classes contrasting with my general resentment towards my university in general. Three weeks into school I was already mourning the end of this class. I had one class left for my minor and I decided that I would do whatever it took to make sure I was taking a class from the same professor the next semester. Because of student teaching, education students can't take any non-education classes their senior year, which meant I had to finish my last history class in the spring semester.

The morning after my day of tensions, the spring schedule came out. I was reading my Bible, a little after 6:00, when I remembered this. Like the good, focused Christian that I am, I couldn't contain my curiosity and set my Bible aside for a minute to pull up the class schedule. I quickly put my professor's name in the search bar. Only to discover that he wasn't teaching any classes. Well, folks, this is a good reason not to let distractions come into your devotional times. The rest of my quiet time I had a hard time focusing because I was just crushed. My history minor, the only thing that had ever meant anything to me at KU, was coming to an end. Not only that, but my last class would have to be something just squeezed into my schedule, not a joyful and wonderful experience.

So, feeling rather dejected, I went to my 8 am class. I had started to actually make some connections in my education classes. I don't remember if I told my acquaintances that day about being sad about having only one history class left, but I did spend most of the next four hours with them chatting. During these two classes, we had a lot of space for "working" or for discussion, which meant that most of the class time was not spent learning class materials and a lot of time could be spent doing whatever one wanted. Thus, I had a fun morning in laughing with my classmates, though I felt a niggling sense of guilt for not being a "good" student.

That afternoon, I met with a student who was interested in joining a campus organization in which I'm a leader. She was a pre-law student and told me about how she likes reading about cases and studies legal documents in her free time. And it struck me that I don't download articles about ESL methods to read for fun. When I'm researching for a history paper, however, I get distracted by non-relevant but interesting articles and download them to read in my spare time. And if it made so much sense for her to be studying the thing that got her blood pumping, might it be possible that I should study history?

I went back to campus for my last class, at 5:00. Some of my same classmates were in this class, but for whatever reason the people I had laughed and chatted with in the morning were no longer interested in talking. By the time we got out, I felt sad, tired, and lonely. At almost 7:00 pm, I stepped on a bus to go home. And then I saw Amy.

She was the TA in my wonderful history class and we'd ridden the bus together before and chatted a little. I didn't know her that well (this was only the fifth week of class, remember), but when she asked how I was and I said "Okay" and she said, "Really?" I let it all out. I told her that I was in education and it was frustrating and I was maybe kind of sort of considering changing my major to history, except that I was concerned that if I did history I would just be doing it to enjoy college and would regret it later because I wouldn't end up with a job. We rode the bus to the same stop and then stood outside her apartment (she lives across the street from me) talking for another twenty minutes. She listened and reassured me and gave me great advice and encouraged me to talk to my history professor for his perspective (which I had wanted to do but I didn't want to bother him). And when I left the conversation, I thought clearly, "This was a God-moment, a holy coincidence. Whether I change my major or not, that was the hand of God." At the end of a weird day, filled with all kinds of emotions, it was exactly the ending I needed.

An Inspector Calls: Movie Review

I used to review movies because I really liked them, or because I couldn't find any other reviews that touched on what I consider the important points (e.g. faithfulness to a book or era, level of "mature" content). I no longer have time to write reviews just because I like something; rather, there has to be something I feel the desire to talk about. And this movie definitely fulfills that.

To give a brief summary, An Inspector Calls is about the visit of an inspector (the one and only David Thewlis) to the home of a typical British upper middle class family in 1912, after the suicide of a young lower class woman. It is important to point out that this is not a murder mystery. He does not ask them "Where were you at 5:18 last Tuesday?" and the movie does not end (spoiler alert!) with hauling off a hardened criminal to prison. Rather, though this movie does not quote scripture, it explores the question "Am I my brother's keeper?"

All of the members of this family would be described as "good people" by their own set and seem like an ordinary bunch, but it is revealed throughout the movie that each of their lives intersected with that of Eva Smith, the dead girl, in some way.

Each of the characters had an opportunity to do good to this girl and each instead put their own interests first. Without wanting to give too much away, this includes doing direct harm as well as looking the other way when a fellow creature was in need. Once again, I would note that most of these characters would not be described as "criminal" or seen as some kind of aberrant monster. They simply chose to act out of fear, pride, spite, and selfishness instead of loving their neighbor.

I also think it's interesting that the play this movie was based on premiered in 1945, directly after the end of World War II. At this moment in history, the world was grappling with the question of complicity in regards the horrible genocide in Europe. How much were ordinary Germans (and Europeans generally) who never held a gun responsible for the destruction of their neighbors?

It's clear that the person releasing Zyklon B into the gas chambers is guilty of murder, but what about the manufactures of the poison? What about the guy driving the train filled with prisoners? What about the townspeople who lived close enough to concentration camps to hear what was going on but did nothing?

These aren't easy questions. History is messy and there are no cut and dried answers because people are messy. I mean, I can't always fully tell you my motivation for actions I took yesterday, even if I wanted to be honest and leave a clear historical record.

Which is why I appreciated this movie. It (and, I presume, the original play) doesn't wrap up in a nice and tidy ending. Half of the characters are concerned only about covering up their involvement in the life and death of Eva Smith. The other half are filled with guilt over the part they have played in driving her to her own destruction.

This is not to say that they "as good as murdered her" or to excuse her for any sin that she committed or to lay the blame for that at their door. Yet, the Bible does say that it is better to have a millstone tied around your neck than to lead another person into sin, which seems to me to say that we do have a weighty responsibility to our neighbors and can have an effect on whether or not they choose sin. And certainly we have the responsibility to pursue justice for the vulnerable — God even tells the Israelites that bringing him sacrifices and following ritual laws means nothing if we are participating in injustice.

It also struck me that so many of the situations in this movie were related to the fact that Miss Smith was a woman. Because she was a woman she was paid less. Because she was a woman she couldn't find a job. Because she was a woman she had little choice in becoming a man's mistress because she didn't have any other option. And further, because she was a lower class woman, she couldn't make a good marriage or live a life of idleness. In that time of the world — and in many parts of the world today — the powerlessness of her gender intersected with her class to create a no-win situation.

And then this speech:

"Eva Smith is gone. You can't do her any more harm. You can't do her any good either. You can't even say 'I'm sorry.' But just remember this: there are millions and millions of Eva Smiths and John Smiths still left with us, with their lives and hopes and fears and suffering and chance of happiness, all intertwined with our lives and what we think and say and do. We don't live alone on this earth. We are responsible for each other."

It reminded me rather of A Christmas Carol. Ebenezer Scrooge can't go back and marry his sweetheart. He can't change the past. But he can choose how he treats Bob Cratchit.

I cringe as I write this, lest I come across sounding more like a moralist than a Christian. To be clear, I don't think it's possible to live our lives putting the other at the center instead of ourselves. And I hope that no one reads this and finds themself in the position of going from selfish motivation to motivation of guilt, "ought to," or duty. We have the power to choose selflessness and love and humility and even our own death only when God is at the center of our lives, not ourselves or our neighbors (wow, a lot of italics in one sentence). Because we love him, we can obey him and love other people. And we get to love him because he first loved us.

What is the conclusion to this philosophical sketch? I'm not sure. What does it stir in you? Where in your life are you brushing past the other, are you leaving an unexamined impact?

One thing that comes to mind for me is my purchases. Friends, it's really expensive to be healthy. Yes, processed food costs more than bulk ingredients, but there are times when it is simply a lot more expensive to choose the zero-waste, organic, ethical choice. And it feels like, is it really worth it? Can I justify spending twice as much on this item because it feels somehow better?

To be clear, not everyone has the budget to go plastic free and organic. I don't have that budget. I guess all I'm saying is that yes, it is harder to choose the road less travelled. It is way easier to buy clothes made in a factory run by slave labor. It is always going to be cheaper to buy conventional produce. But the point is, "We don't live alone on this earth." My choice to buy jeans from a thrift store or Target affects someone else's life. And when I weigh the many factors that lead to that choice, I hope at least one of them is Eva Smith.

Don't cry over spilled milk

...even when it's precious raw milk.

Well, internet world, it is Labor Day, and being that it is only the second week of college, I have a respite from homework. While I have more posts in "drafts" than I care to see, I thought I might take the chance to write one I've been pondering today.

However, I feel little motivation to write here anymore, because I simply wonder if anyone reads this.  What, indeed, is the point of jettisoning one's thoughts into the atmosphere if no kindred spirit will be edified, amused, or at least have the pleasure of recognizing mutual feelings? Why not simply journal? (Especially if I'm writing a soul-searching post like this one; I'm a blog reader, too. I know the witty reviews get more reads.)

And yet, a part of me feels guilty for abandoning this corner of cyberspace (does anyone use that word anymore?).

In fact, guilt drives more of my behavior than I'd like to admit, or that I am always conscious of. I read about the keto diet, which restricts carbs so severely that bananas (which are obviously very high in sugars) can not be consumed. For a few months I stop buying bananas in preparation for this diet. Then, even when I'm not following the rules of the diet, I only reluctantly and guiltily start buying them again. To make green smoothies. And feel an inward shame that I'm destroying my health by doing so.

Another example: Today I made yogurt. I started buying raw milk over the past couple months to make my own yogurt, because grass fed yogurt is basically liquid gold. Well, I recently found a grass-fed, organic raw milk source, and that stuff is liquid silver (or maybe copper; the point is, it's not cheap). I believe it's worth it, but I'm pretty conscious of what I'm using it for and making sure I get the right amount. Well, in the process of making yogurt, I spilled rather a large amount on the counter, because our large glass measuring cup doesn't pour the best when it's very full. Now, this is a frustrating thing, because every bit of milk becomes delicious yogurt, and I hate waste. It's natural to be a bit annoyed or distressed. But I didn't just feel a bit put out; my feelings quickly escalated to anger and taking offense at everything around me. All glory to God, the Holy Spirit was quick to point out the shift in my attitude, and I was able to reorient myself, in his strength.

Later on in the day, I was making a big batch of hummus, and realized I had less than 1/2 cup of tahini, an essential ingredient. Again, I felt more than a little frustration, beyond what was reasonable about having to make a quick trip to the store (about a 5 minute drive).

As I analyzed my reaction to these two situations, I realized that it wasn't about the wasted time or money — at least, only at a superficial level. Friends, I'm sure I spilled less than 1/4 cup of milk. At $8/gallon, this comes to the equivalent of about $0.13 wasted. So, yeah, I think our budget will be able to handle it. Ha.

The point is, both of these situations jabbed at my false self, my worldly identity. I desire to be an efficient, capable housewife, and in many ways I'm fairly good at this. Thus, it's easy to mistake my human confidence and positivity for the secure identity that is only possible when rooted in the unchanging love of the Father. Because everything else is changing, friends. It doesn't matter if I made a great batch of brownies, homemade yogurt, and cleaned the bathroom, if I can't even pour out of a measuring cup. It doesn't matter if my last several grocery trips were well planned and I got the best deals if I forgot to buy tahini. The authors of a popular book on budget meal planning say that the one best practice is reducing your grocery trips — if you don't have an ingredient, it's better to change your plan than to make a trip just to get that one item. Thus, in the rules-driven, guilt-ridden mind of a Katie, it doesn't matter if I planned to make hummus weeks ahead so that there would be lunches for the week; it doesn't matter that I soaked the beans from dry instead of using cans; it doesn't matter that I live five minutes away from a grocery store: I failed in planning, and thus in housewife-ing, and thus as a person, because I forgot tahini.

Writing this out, I can't decide if it sounds pathetic or like a subtle form of comedy. I suppose it's a little of both. Sometimes, I have to actually write out my fears to recognize their foolishness; I have to tell myself "I'm practically on the shelf," in order to laugh myself out of insecurity about lack of a suitor.

But while it may be funny (because really? no one in my house cares a pin whether I have to go to the grocery store twice in a week or twice in a day. get over yourself, girl) it is built on an insidious lie, that my identity is based on what I can do, that I'm only worth what I'm able to accomplish, cook, clean, earn, write, or prove.

These words remind me that, yes, who am I, compared to the Living God? All my good deeds, my attempts to prove myself, are like filthy rags. Yet, in the glorious riches of his love, I can sing that I am who he says I am. 

P.S. College is busy. Long posts are hard. So if I maintain any kind of presence here over the next nine months, I'm thinking about doing mini-posts. I can't do a full fledged review of a movie with thirty pictures (that was probably too long in the first place), but I could do a ten-bullet-point comparison with my three favorite costumes. Etc. So look for that. Maybe. Haha.

Thoughts on health and cognitive dissonance

My diet has evolved greatly over the years. 10+ years ago we were a typical bagels-and-cereal family. Pop tarts were a rarity and we bought the plainer cereals, so I thought we were doing pretty good. Early in my elementary years, my mother began to read more about health and the bagels all but disappeared, while [now organic] cereal was relegated to Sundays. We began adding things like buckwheat porridge to our breakfast fare and reducing prepackaged dinners. Fast forward a few years (with various minor diet changes) and my mother decided to try an anti-fungal diet, which involved eliminating all sugars completely (I mean, seriously, you could only eat green apples and berries. Occasionally.). I put up a fit about this, but adjusted. Then we became friends with a passionate vegan. Not only is she passionate, she is educated. She showed us documentaries, articles, and books all demonstrating the detrimental effects of animal products and the revolutionized health of those who decided to eschew them. I began to feel that, while I would never want to be a vegan, it was no doubt the ideal state of being, if we only had the will power to live that way. We ate less and less meat, and, never being a huge meat eater, it became unappealing to me. For several years, I was pescatarian (I never gave up fish entirely). Along the way, I had picked up the idea that if the National Dairy Council a doctor suggests you eat something, you should definitely do the opposite. 

Then our diets changed again, by necessity this time, and it became clear that avoiding meat was simply too difficult. Not that I ever started craving meat, but it was one of the few things on the menu. I had really become a vegetarian by habit; I was sure there were good reasons to avoid meat, but I couldn't really explain it. I remembered reading that the highly-touted calcium in milk wasn't actually abled to be absorbed by the body, though I didn't know the exact mechanism by which this was explained. We were also gluten-free at home, but this too had become habitual over the years, and, without a good reason to avoid it, I continued to indulge in wheat when traveling, with friends, etc. 

For a while, I had an "everything in moderation" philosophy, and just generally tried to avoid engineered food or eating the same thing more than three times a week. I tried dairy free a few times, but often ended up caving in to eat my favorite breakfast, yogurt and granola. So I just ended up with a lot less diary and a lot more guilt. 

Through all this, I've been what most people would consider "healthy." My weight is fine, I don't have any serious health concerns, etc. But I have had persistent skin issues, and lately, my teeth have become seriously demineralized. Of course there is a place for conventional medicine and diet alone cannot change every problem. However, I have tried conventional medicine, to no avail, and I also believe that what you eat each day is either healing your body or the slowest form of poison.

Not wanting to face my first cavity or pump my body full of fluoride, I read the book Cure Tooth Decay by Rami Nagel. Similar to the paleo approach, this book is based on the research of Weston Price in the early twentieth century, when he studied the diet of primitive populations who had excellent health, especially oral health. He found that dairy and meat were not the culprits: many of the societies he studied consumed meat, eggs, and dairy on a daily basis. By contrast, grains and sugars were either absent, or extensively prepared, by soaking, cooking and/or fermentation. In reading this book, I have come to the reluctant realization that my nearly-vegan, high carb diet was either the cause or collaborator in destroying my teeth.

However, this causes a lot of cognitive dissonance. After believing in the value of veganism for so long (at least believing that animal products should be consumed in small quantities), it is hard to accept that all of that wasn't true, at least for my body. Wait, you mean I should be drinking milk daily? So is the medical profession actually right about this? What about other things?

Now, if you look a little further into my diet plan (modified paleo/keto), you'll see that it's a far cry from the Recommendations By American Medical People. Yes, I'm accepting the need for milk, but I don't think it should be pasteurized or antibiotic raised. Contrary to the mainstream acceptance of combining sugars with added vitamins, I believe in getting nutrients straight from food and eliminating sugary foods not found in nature. And most revolutionary of all (to me), I'm going to drastically decrease my grain consumption. What if vegan advocates were looking at the Standard American Diet and thinking the animal products were the reason for such ill health in America, when really its the grains that are the culprits? (Plus the opioid epidemic, the antibiotic age, vaccinations, GMOs, pesticides and over-processing of food).

Going grain-free works out, since my mum has been working towards keto. I've been decreasing the grain content in our meals already (looking at you, almond flour and spiralizer!). But oh my goodness, friends, no oats in my yogurt??? I did without yogurt for more than six months. Now that we're back together again, I'm not sure I can break up with my oats.

Summarizing the tooth protocol I have been following, then:

• Using remineralizing toothpaste from Wellness Mama
• Oil pulling (I'll be starting this in June, when I'll have more time in the morning) 10-20 minutes a day
• Eating nearly grain free, and for those grains I do eat:
• Brown rice: soaking to remove phytic acid. Soak brown rice in water 16-24 hours. Reserve 10 percent of soaking liquid (discard remaining). Cook rice with clean water. The next time you make rice, add the 10% soaking liquid reserved from last batch. Repeat this cycle. As long as you have some starter on hand, almost all the phytic acid is removed.
• Oats. The author does NOT recommend oats in any way, but he also made a point of saying that if you ARE eating grains, you can somewhat balance the effect by making sure you have a healthy fat with it. For me, this means yogurt/granola, yogurt in pancakes, etc. If I'm still not noticing effects I will *gulp* eliminate it completely.
• Eliminating most sugars
• I was already doing this for the most part, but I'm going to stick to these three added sugars: honey, maple syrup, stevia. 
• Avoiding high sugar fruits as much as possible and combining with a healthy fat (e.g. green apples and cheese)
• The author pointed out that teeth can drastically improve from just one good meal a day, even when the other parts of the diet are unchanged. This is encouraging to me, because the thought of overhauling my diet is intimidating, even as a person who has done this multiple times! Luckily, as mentioned above, my parents are starting the keto diet, and several of the protocols (emphasis on healthy fats and protein, grain free, avoidance of high-carb fruits) match up with the remineralizing recommendations.
• Upping my vitamins C, D &A and calcium uptake through broccoli, bell peppers, sauerkraut, cooked green vegetables, grass fed dairy products, and cod liver oil
• Bone broth as much as possible. I haven't yet felt comfortable drinking this by the glassful, but that is one of my goals for June.
• Possibly trying blotting: curetoothdecay.com/blotting

I'm excited about the possibility of healing my teeth, but also tentative. I don't doubt the ability to heal oneself through diet, but I doubt my ability to read my body and know what is best. It seems like there is so much contradictory research and debate, along with real life stories of healing on all sides. However, I'm also super excited about combining my dietary experiments with homeopathy! My mother and I have started a homeopathy group to learn more about this fascinating, time-tested medicine and I have been so encouraged to hear the stories of people who have been healed. If you've never heard of it, I suggest you check out https://studygroups.joettecalabrese.com.

That's all for today, friends. Because some people might go into shock if I post three times in two days. : )

P.S. How do you feel about home birth?