I Got You.

For a few nights in a row, I have tossed and turned in bed. Feeling my heartbeat like a horse galloping on my chest, thoughts racing so fast in my mind I can scarcely catch them… thinking, thinking, thinking. About one thing. Or rather, a million things about one thing.

Ever been there?

I long to be the kind of person who flexes my faith in the midst of uncertainty. One of those people who just tackles the obstacle without missing a beat. Sometimes I am. But sometimes I just bake a lot, try to take naps (though I am so not a napper), play Uno for hours with Cohen, and generally avoid the thing (and anything connected with the thing) that I am non stop thinking about.

It’s a great strategy, right?

Well anyway, last night morning at 2am, I realized I’d been staring at the clock on off since midnight. I laid my hand on Adler’s chest. Yep, still breathing. I pulled on one of my husband’s sweatshirts as I tip toed out of our room into the kitchen. I grabbed some water, my laptop, and all the sleepy determination I could get my hands on. And I did some digging, sent some emails, wrote some things out. By 4am I was almost giddy with relief about what I discovered and all that I got done. Cohen was asleep on the couch in the living room, so I snuck by him and went upstairs and treated myself to an uninterrupted baths. (Holla, mamas! You know how rare that is!) When I slipped back into bed, wet hair and all, David opened one eye and smiled at me. He would soon be getting up, so I only whispered a little of the good news I was sure he’d be unlikely to remember later. It didn’t matter. I would be all too happy to tell him again later.

Later in the day (you know, during those normal waking hours), I had an appointment. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but from the moment my name was called in the foyer, I knew it would be alright. And really, it was better than that. Better news than I’d dared to hope for.

More relief.

I’ve been catching waves of it all day.

Which is probably how I have it in me to sit down and attempt to blog though both of my beautiful boys are awake. Co is playing after killing me in Uno and Memory earlier. And Adler is happily bouncing and saying “da-da DA-DA”. I even lit my favorite fall candle.

Last Thursday was David’s 31st birthday. The week before I kept thinking it was Wednesday and I had Co all jazzed up about it only to have David tell a very excited four year old Tuesday night that his birthday was actually not the next morning. Oops! So we made the cake Wednesday as we’d planned anyway. (Co has school Thursdays) It worked out well since we made an ice cream cake and those things have to freeze for awhile anyway.

It was eating Co up, though…. knowing that the cake was in the freezer that whole time. But we made it.

And what better way to celebrate your spouses’ birthday than by spending the weekend remodeling the kitchen… right? any takers? I know what you’re all thinking… didn’t they just remodel that whole house? Why, yes. Yes we did. When I bought this house in 2009, I tore out all the walls with a sledge hammer (good divorce therapy) and re-thought the whole place. I moved the kitchen to the dining room and the dining room to the kitchen and opened up everything I possibly could. There was just one thing I thought we couldn’t work around… this old chimney. My dad feared it was supporting the house or might collapse something into the basement, so we left it. We ran water lines up beside it and walled it in.

It bothered me. Leaving it there bothered me. Not really because of the kitchen. But because the chimney presence in the larger upstairs bedroom made the room an awkward shape.

So David and I took out the chimney on the second floor. It proved to be very easy because it was in such bad shape. We literally took it down brick by brick. It left a hole in the floor that was easily patched and at some later point, we swept some other debris in the room down into the rest of the empty chimney left on the first floor.

After all we didn’t think we’d be taking out the chimney on the first floor anytime soon. It had the water lines running right next to it and to move all that… well, would be a lot more work than just undoing some some bricks.

….Yep, a lot more work. Just ask my husband, who spent the “holiday” weekend moving said water lines (and a few other utilities) to regain 30+ square feet in the kitchen. Oh, and the bricks? Not nearly as pliable and easily removed as the ones from the floor above.

Go figure.

My in laws had asked to have Cohen for a two day play date so Saturday morning we got up and started taking out the walls. We weren’t removing much, actually, but it took all day. At some point during the evening Saturday as I was taking out pantry shelves, I heard David laughing.

Now, since a lot of you don’t know my husband, you’ve never had the pleasure of hearing him laugh. He has one of those deep, gutteral laughs.I will never forget the first time we talked on the phone in the spring of 2010. The sound of his deep voice and the umpf! in laugh warmed me to my toes. David says laughing is victory.  I tend to laugh quietly and cover my mouth. But not David. He laughs like he means it.

“Here it is!” He said after third time I’d asked “what?” and had given in and started laughing myself even though I didn’t know why.

He handed me this:

I smiled. I tweeted it. And deep inside, I felt the happy contentedness I am learning being his wife.

A note like that put into an old empty chimney, that’s so David. He put it in there just hoping someday I’d find it and know he had been thinking of me then. This is the same man, who on our first anniversary, gave me a card he’d written to me on our honeymoon. It was a happy anniversary card with a picture of Lake Tahoe. He’d written it then, knowing it’d be sweeter still for my knowing he was, even on our honeymoon, looking forward to celebrating our first year together. That’s my husband.

“Of course, I didn’t think we’d be finding it quite so soon,” he said with a wink. He was covered in dirt and dust from working hard all day, but his green eyes were glimmering. Then we looked at the date. May 31, 2010. “Wasn’t the first time we hung out the 23rd of May?” I thought for a second. Then I laughed like I meant it. “Well, you can’t say you didn’t know what you were getting into! We’d been hanging out for one week and already I had you remodeling!”

Like everyone it seems, budgeting is necessary part of our life. We are nearly done with our house, but there are other expenses and a condo we need to sell (anyone looking to buy in Westerville?) so Christmas and the birthdays this winter/spring will be modest. For David’s birthday he wanted a date. And ice cream cake. Check. Check. To go with our new bedroom (which is finished- photos coming soon!) and our new headboard (made from old doors! photos coming soon!), I painted two canvases that together read, “I GOT YOU”. I bet David’s said that phrase to me a hundred times in the last year. He says it like a man who has conquered the world, won the princess, and who has plans to live very happily ever after.

I am not going to lie…it makes me blush. It used to make me roll my eyes and mumble something very appreciative like, “whatever”. So, I’m improving. The truth was that it made me uncomfortable. His glowing gaze and the intensity with which he said it sort of unnerved me.  As women, don’t we all want to be pursued and wanted like that? But wow, when someone actually loves you like that, it can make you feel all kinds of unexpected things. Like, for instance, unworthy.

There are nights that I crawl into bed with wet hair (because the first chance I got to shower was after the kids were asleep), wearing some old sweat pants with paint stains and tears at the heels where I’ve walked on them too much, no make up…and David will say “hey pretty lady” like he means it. I am starting to outgrow the eye rolling and “oookkkayy” in those instances too.

I’m starting to believe him.

I am starting to believe those precious words scrawled onto some kind of building material dated exactly one week after our first date in 7 years.

I’m starting to trust him more fully…to see that he’s got my back… that he’s in my corner come what may…. that it really has nothing to do with how well I perform the duties of wife and mom and homemaker. Even when I am in my sweatpants and have spit up on my shoulder, or worse, am short tempered or exhausted at 6pm or use my abrasive, sarcastic wit to say exactly what I mean when I should’ve been quiet…. yes, even then, he loves me. It doesn’t make sense.

On those blue canvases, the words “I GOT YOU” are cut out of pages of an old Bible of mine. They are (if you were to look real close) pages from the book of Ruth. David is my Boaz. And, I, one once alone and uncertain about my future and who would care for me, am a very blessed Ruth.

This afternoon, when I left my appointment and the waves of relief came and kept coming, I thought of the only prayer I’ve been able to muster lately, “help, help, help”. I have whispered it a thousand times under my breath. I have cringed at it. I’ve thought it while lying under the covers, trying to escape the thumping of my unsettled heart. I’ve heard it rolling around it my thoughts. I’ve meant it desperately. Felt it in my guts.It has been ever on my lips… “help, help, help”.

I felt overwhelmed when we took down the first wall in the kitchen. David had said, “no turning back now! are you ready?” and then once we were in the thick of it, I wasn’t. I’ve been feeling that same way about life lately. Are you ready? No turning back now. Now’s the time to dig in. But I just haven’t felt ready. I’ve felt a little like I wanted to curl up in a ball and hide my face until it was all done and everything is put back together.

Monday I came back to the house after being gone with the kids all day, avoiding the dust. David had the washer and dryer hooked back up, the walls framed, the utilities moved and he’d even attempted to sweep a little. It wasn’t pretty, but it was okay. There was progress. He’d taken care of it, like he always does. He’d stayed up nearly all night working tirelessly. He had it under control. On Sunday I had started to panic, started to question his methods…then I heard myself say, “I trust you” and knew I meant it. I knew he’d come through. I knew he’d finish what he started. I knew he wouldn’t back down or stop until it was put back together and made right.

Staring in the kitchen Monday evening I could see the bones of the rest of the kitchen, all put together right, all in impeccable order. When the drywall gets done and the cabinets go up, its going to fabulous. We aren’t there yet, but we aren’t far off either.

And in my life, I’m not there yet either. There are some things still undone. There are situations that aren’t as buttoned up as I’d like. But I stepped out of that office before noon and took a deep breath of this cold Ohio air and I thought about how God had heard my prayer. He had my back. He was and is working it out. He’s not tired. He’s not going to abandon the project before He’s brought it all to the complete redemption He’s meant for it. And none of this is because I’d been having regular “quiet times” or praying as much as I could have or being a particularly good anything.

It doesn’t make sense, really.

But He has me in a way I can hardly wrap my mind around…and He loves me. He is the same every day- faithful and true to His word- regardless of where I’m at.

What a relief it is to find myself falling into that truth today.

Be blessed my friends. And if you can, somehow get a hold of the fact that God loves you.

Always has.

Always will.