Elizabeth’s

We Got a Cat

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by Elizabeth

I’m in love with a cat. This revelation is as shocking to me as it is to you, if you’ve known me any length of time. I’ve never been an animal person. Dogs scare me, cats are scratchy, and fish stink. Rodents stink even more. So when asked what my favorite animal is, my reply has always been, “human beings.” And yet here I am, taking pains to care for a small furry creature.

Let me explain how I got here.

The kids have wanted a pet for quite some time. For reasons beyond my dislike of non-human animals, having a pet in our Cambodian row house was out of the question. As soon as we moved back, however, the requests started. It was clear the kids still wanted a pet.

We had to push the question of pet ownership further into the future while we continued living in temporary housing. (We did this for a total of 9 months, which makes me wonder if there’s some sort of birth metaphor hiding inside that number.) During that time, we were stretched thin trying do our jobs while also finding a permanent place to live. The housing search proved to be surprisingly difficult and illustrated to me in real time Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — but more on that in an upcoming post.

Once we moved into our new home, the rumblings began again. Nothing had changed — the children wanted a pet. And the father wanted to get the children a pet. It had been a hard year of loss for the family, he reasoned. Now we had a yard to host the pet in. We weren’t ready for the rigors of a dog (the bathroom duties of dog ownership, the higher costs incurred, and the potential for loud barking being the main reasons).

But he was sure we could handle a cat.

When he pitched the idea to me, I wasn’t sure I had a choice. I knew he was right; after all these years and especially after Last Year, the kids did deserve a pet. All I asked was that the cat not be an inside cat. I didn’t want to do cleanup duty, live in a house that smelled of cat, or manage the incessant furniture scratching. No, he assured me, the cat would stay outside. After all, he said, some of us have cat allergies.

So the non-animal-haters made a plan to visit the Humane Society. I instructed my children to listen to their hearts and choose the pet who was just right for our family. They came back with a half-grown orange-and-white tabby who needed mounds of fattening up. He’d been a stray before the Humane Society found him and cleaned him up. We called him Gryff, after the House of Gryffindor.

I didn’t love him right away, but I thought he was pretty cute, and I was glad the kids were so happy with him. Then the Snowpocalypse came to Joplin, and I worried about him freezing to death in the garage. I could not let this little kitty die in the cold! My children loved him too much. And I loved seeing them so happy. I drove to the store in the rain, just before it turned to ice, and bought him a carrier. That way he could sleep in the house without getting his dander all over it.

We lived this way for two weeks, because that’s how long it took before the snow melted and the temps inched above freezing at night. Now he’s back to the garage and the yard. I love watching him prowl around, play with crickets or catnip, or just lounge in the sun. I love watching my children cuddle him. Playing with the cat is a great stress reducer around here.

I guess we are cat people. I never thought I’d say that.

Gryff is still young, and sometimes he’s strange. Sometimes we call him our dog-cat. In the beginning he would follow Jonathan around like a dog. He even ran like a dog. He also had a tendency to run away and get lost. It’s normal for cats to disappear and come back later, and Gryff often left through an opening in the fence and came back. But once he didn’t come back before dark.

We went looking for him and found him in a neighbor’s yard. He’d jumped the fence into their yard but couldn’t figure out how to get back in to ours. Another time he disappeared for two days. After the first day, we got worried. I walked the neighborhood, talking to strangers and asking about our cat. No one had seen any sign of our cat. I walked the streets so long I got a sunburn.

I agonized over this situation. After everything our kids had been through this year, after all the loss they’d endured, getting this cat was supposed to be a way of healing their hearts. To think they might lose him too?? It was too much to bear. Some of us cried. Some of us prayed. For a cat.

I missed how alive the yard felt with Gryff in it. I couldn’t believe how empty it felt without him, after just a few short weeks in the family. Eventually another cat owner noticed him hanging around their house and found our information on his collar. Late one night, after we figured we would never see him again (after all he was still a kitten, perhaps not quite grown enough to figure out how to come home), a neighbor rang the doorbell and returned him. We were so happy. But we learned that no one really ever owns a cat. Not really.

Then one day just after breakfast he disappeared again. I didn’t worry quite as much this time, but I still wanted him to return. The next morning I was up early in my office when I heard the mewing. I ran to the back door, and there he was, crying for his breakfast. In that moment, I knew I could relax. Gryff could and would come back. He’d figured out where home was — or at least he’d figured out how to find the place where people feed him canned cat food every morning.

Yes, I know. I can’t believe it either. Somehow this cat sank his claws deep into my heart, and I buy him the tasty wet food. I know I don’t have to. The vet said we don’t have to, that people sometimes give their cats wet food on Sundays or special occasions. But after I watched this cat go bananas for a can of salmon, I decided he needed wet food more than once a week. Maybe every other day. Or maybe, every day? After all, he still needs some fattening up.

My husband laughed at me, the way this cat beguiled me. He never in a million years expected that. But you know what I think about my silly love affair with this cat? I think, at least it taught him how to come Home.

Remember the Old Days of Blogging?

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by Elizabeth

Remember the old days of blogging? I do, and fondly. I loved how blogging was like carving out my own online space to be creative, to express myself, to have conversations and connect with the people I loved.

But eventually blogging started to stall. People started migrating to Facebook and Instagram; these were the new methods of communicating your message. And they came with new rules. Provide shorter, pithier (and sometimes meaner?) content. Always include a photo. Maybe even build your post around the photo, instead of the words. Extra points if you can edit and improve the photo.

And so for a time, it became easier and simpler for me to just to pour my personal content onto the Facebook platform. After a while the photo requirements started to feel heavy. I’m not a visual artist or a talented photographer. I know nothing about photo editing. I tell stories through words, usually long stories. Even with all these changes, I still kept at it.

But years of this social media habit took its toll. Facebook began to stress me out. It wasn’t the light-hearted online gathering place it used to be. It was filled with angst and stress. But I couldn’t figure out a way to get off of Facebook and still be a communicator, because Facebook was where the people were. And if you want to have meaningful conversations, you need other people to be involved. And importantly, I loved the ability to keep in touch with friends who were far away.

But about a month ago, after reading a book and doing some personal reflection, I signed out of Facebook. I didn’t tell anyone I was doing it, not even my husband, because I didn’t know how long my decision would last. A few days later he asked me a question about something that had happened on Facebook, and I replied, “I haven’t been on Facebook for 3 days. I don’t know what’s happening there.”

He (and the rest of the family) seemed thrilled that I wasn’t on Facebook.

As the days and weeks went by, I found I was less stressed out. I didn’t necessarily think I was acting any differently, but my family told me I seemed happier. And every time I considered signing back in, perhaps to try to connect with friends or find out what they’d been up to, I was filled with dread. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was afraid of getting sucked back into the endless scroll again or being activated by triggering content.

This experiment proved to me what I had only previously wondered about: Facebook is a place of stress for me. At this point the stress is so intense that it’s not worth the gains of being on it. Once upon a time, it hadn’t been stressful. It is now. Even though I dearly miss catching up with far-away friends on social media, I’ve realized that taking care of my mental health in this way is the right thing for me to do in this season.

But what to do about the writers and experts I followed on Facebook? After some investigation, I learned that serious writers back up all their content on their own websites, and they have email lists for people like me who want their content but don’t want social media. I signed up for all the email lists I needed, and now I happily receive their content without the stress of social media.

This made me consider the idea that perhaps the future of blogging lies in its past. That maybe people are returning to website-oriented writing once again. Or that maybe in the future, they will. This blog is our own: Jonathan and I pay for the privilege of hosting our own online space. The content doesn’t belong to a “free” social media company that bombards you with pointless or offensive ads, or that is constantly monitoring your online behavior (read the aforementioned book if you want more insight into the monitoring).

Regardless of whether or not the future of blogging lies in its past (my prediction could very well be wrong), I’m choosing to return to my blogging roots. I don’t plan to get back on Facebook any time soon. If you want to follow my journey (especially as I repatriate to the States), following the blog will be the fastest way to see new content. (Simply click on “Follow trotters41” on the side bar if you don’t already subscribe.)

I’ll also plan to use third party aps to post to Facebook, but I won’t be around to answer comments on Facebook itself. And I’ll eventually make that announcement on Facebook, too, so my online friends know what’s going on with me.

I want to start writing again, and this is the place where I’m going to do it. It may be in fits and starts. It may be small updates at first. I might include longer essays at some point. I may share mundane things that are going on with me; I may share books that are helping me along my journey. I may suddenly share something really private and profound. I don’t know how it will unfold. I’m just going to begin again.

I’m going to let trotters41 be in 2021 what it was for me when we first transitioned to Cambodia in 2012: a place to share my journey and a way to walk into the future, whatever that future looks like. In a way I’m coming home. This is the place I first found my voice, and I intend to find it again. I hope you’ll join me here.

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When the Blooper Turns Into Something Bigger {Velvet Ashes}

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When I signed up for the Velvet Ashes’ “Bloopers” theme, I expected to write a light-hearted story poking fun at myself. After I wrote it, I realized the story was much heavier than I had initially thought. You’ll find the original anecdote in the first half of the article, with my further reflections in the second half of the article. ~Elizabeth

Trigger Warning: this post discusses violence and includes a story featuring a gun.

“Hit the floor.”

I learned that particular phrase in pre-field training. We had just gone through the first of two simulated hostage situations. As it concluded and we began debriefing the experience, one of our trainers instructed us to “hit the floor the moment you hear gunfire.” The two simulations impacted me deeply, and although I never had need of her words during my life abroad, I never forgot them.

Fast forward ten years to 2020, the year a tiny strip of RNA brought the world to its knees – and our lives to a screeching halt. Covid-19 may not be all-powerful, but it was still powerful enough to bring us “home” prematurely. My family is now living stateside for the foreseeable future.

A year of bicontinental transition meant living in four houses in the span of ten months. My pre-field training came flooding back to me just days after we moved into our third house of the year. We had just settled in for a family movie night, when all of a sudden a man walked around the back corner of the house.

Finish reading the article at Velvet Ashes.

Twenty Years of Comradeship

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by Elizabeth

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A friend asked last week, “If you had to get married where you met your spouse, where would your wedding have been?”

I smiled, because I would marry him at the church where I met him — which is exactly what I did do.

20 years ago today, we said our vows at the front of a church that turned out to play a pivotal role in our lives both separately and together.

At that place and with those people, I learned to listen to God and experience Him. In the late 1990’s, that was a revolutionary idea to me.

These were the people who helped Jonathan bury his mom a couple years after we met. They were the people who had helped raise him up to that time. In the wake of her death, they watched as our love story unfolded and then gathered together to witness my dad walking me down the aisle to him on a scorching hot July day.

These were the people who, a few years later, gave us our first paid ministry job, provided a spacious Parsonage to live in, and helped us bury his dad, a mere 8 years after he had buried his mom.

They were the people who watched us renew our vows 10 years in. That was 10 years ago now. Standing at the front of the church in maternity clothes, pregnant with our 4th child, we pledged our love yet again in the same place and with the same people.

They were the people who, 18 months later, sent us off to Cambodia, where we stayed for 8 years — and had intended to stay for 2 more.

20 years ago we didn’t say the traditional vows. We wanted our vows to be creative, personalized. These homemade vows of ours were full of love and good intentions, but they didn’t account for the better or the worse, the richer or the poorer, the sickness or the health that we would experience in our first 20 years of marriage.

And yet I have never once thought I would be better off without him.

I look back on these years with this man who is more like Jesus than any man I have ever known, and I see great hardship — and great joy. Joy and sorrow cannot be separated; they are conjoined.

So we laugh together, and we cry together. (And yes, we sometimes even fight together.)

At 38 years of age, I have lived with him longer than I have lived with my parents. I cannot imagine my life without him. I cannot imagine the person I would be without his influence in my life.

I cannot imagine what it would be like not to live with someone who daily lays down his life for me.

I once heard Nik Ripken (author of The Insanity of God) say, “This is what it means to be the head of your household: it means YOU DIE FIRST.”

I have seen Jonathan die first a thousand times.

Nik was speaking in the context of danger on the mission field, but the phrase stuck with me, because I think it applies to everyday life too.

Sometimes I sacrifice, sometimes he sacrifices, sometimes we both sacrifice. This is how you make it to 20 years: one death at a time.

The news is not all bad, though. After death, comes new life. And with new life, comes joy. You don’t get to 20 years of holy matrimony through sorrow and suffering only. You also get there through joy. (The help of a good church doesn’t hurt either.)

The last 20 years have been pure privilege to me. I hope and pray for 20 more, and 20 more after that. But I know that every day I have already been given has been a gift.

There is no one who makes me laugh more heartily, think more deeply, or feel more understood than Jonathan. You are the best friend a girl could have. I have always said “comrade” is the closest English word to what you are to me. I thank you for giving me the rarest of gifts — that of comradeship.

I love you: for always, forever, for life.

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Can I Love a God Like This?

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by Elizabeth

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“Does God love me?”

This is one of the biggest questions any of us will ever have to answer. It can haunt us for years. I know it haunted me. “Jesus loves me, this I sometimes know” is what I used to say to describe that struggle.

After years of seeking and searching, I know God loves me, and I don’t struggle with that question the way I used to. Over the last few years of my life, however, I’ve had to answer what, for me, has been a more difficult question: the question of “can I love God?”

When my prayers go unanswered for decades, when horrifying atrocities happen throughout the world, when a pandemic hits — these are the times I have to ask myself if I can keep loving a God who at times seems distant and uncaring.

I settled the existence of God long ago; I can’t disbelieve. I don’t have the luxury of atheism. Even in the midst of grief, if I get really quiet, my soul knows I still believe. So in the face of disappointment, I can’t just chuck all this religious stuff. I have to deal with the questions. I have to deal with my anger at this seemingly incompassionate creator.

Asking, “Can I love God?” is not the same as asking if you can obey or honor God. You can obey without love. But a life without loving God is a pretty despondent life. We were made to love.

I had been asking myself this question ever since we arrived in the States earlier than we had planned. I landed in America and couldn’t understand why all my hopes and dreams for the spring semester came crashing down.

I couldn’t understand why God didn’t stop this pandemic, because people were dying and starving all over the world. This is always happening, true, but the suffering, starvation, and death are much worse in the current global crisis. And there’s so much uncertainty about when it will end.

If God cared about any of these things, why didn’t He stop coronavirus? He could have. A God who forged galaxies with His voice and breathed life into dust could certainly stop a simple string of RNA from causing mass suffering. Add to that the thousands of years of suffering that God has also chosen not to stop, and I wasn’t sure I cold love a God who lets so many bad things happen.

God and I weren’t on speaking terms, to say the least.

This wasn’t the first time I had questioned my love for God. A few years ago I was struggling with some unanswered prayers. Decades-long prayers. The question I felt God asking me in that season was: “Even if I don’t answer these prayers, can you still love me?”

This question is different from the question of the fiery furnace, when we are asked if we will continue to worship and serve the one true God even when he does not rescue or heal. It is different from the question posed to Simon Peter on the beach, when Jesus asks, “What is that to you? As for you, follow me.”

God has asked these questions in the past. But they were not what God was asking me now. What He was asking me now was, can I love a God who is like this? A God who sometimes seems distant and uncaring? Even if this thing that I desperately want or need never comes to pass, He asks me if I will still love him.

I had to walk deep into the prayer closet to find out if I still would. It took hours. I wrestled through tears. Through tissues. Through cramped hands furiously scribbling in my journal.

In the end, after conversing with Job and Jacob and Lewis and Jesus himself, I knew I still loved God. But I wasn’t sure whether that made me happy or sad. Happy to know I still love Him; sad to know this is the God I love. I am yoked to a God who seemingly allows senseless destruction. And in spite of the suffering, I somehow still want this God. This is a great mystery, and I do not pretend to understand it.

I only know I don’t have to give God the cold shoulder anymore. I only know that on Sunday mornings when all seems bleak, I can sing again. I can pray again. For “though He slay me, yet I will trust him.” And “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

And “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Amen.