It's not burned

I was making dinner tonight, three separate dinners. Before you become impressed, just realize one of those three dinners was a frozen pepperoni pizza from Walmart. The second dinner was filet mignon with a specific type of gravy that requires a hard boiled egg. The third dinner was a homemade pizza. 

This is due to the fact that my youngest two children (2 years old and 5 years old) only like my homemade pizza. My oldest two children (7 years old and 9 years old) only like pizza from the store. And my husband wanted filet mignon with mashed potatoes and gravy. 

First I cooked my homemade pizza. Easy enough, 500 degree oven for ten minutes. As soon as I put the pizza in, my four children crash into the kitchen hooting and hollering and playing and being children. 

“Guys, I'm serious, I can not cook these dinners with y'all in here. You need to go in your room and I'll call you when it's done.”

But they kept playing. 

Again I made my requests known in a louder voice. Now they obeyed. I take the homemade pizza out, and put in the store bought pizza. I set the timer to 15 minutes.

I'm also frantically stirring the gravy realizing it's too thick, adding more water, trying to get a good sear on the filet mignon without burning it, and the timer goes off for the pizza. I open the oven to see almost a black pizza. 

I had forgotten to reset the oven temperature down to 400, as per the frozen pizza instructions, instead of the 500 degrees I cook my homemade pizzas at. I immediately felt extreme panic and anger. How could I be so stupid? How could I ruin my children's dinner? 

Quickly I called my children to the table and served them their pizza. I frantically tried to get them to eat it as fast as I could, fearing my husband seeing the pizza and witnessing my utter failure. 

Then my husband came in. I served him his food. We all sat down at the table. 

“Mom burned the pizza but it's still good.” My daughter said.

“It’s not burned. It's better that way.” My husband replied. 

I couldn't believe it. This is the type of gaslighting which I actually welcome and appreciate. My husband is not shy to criticize my cooking, I even think he rather enjoys it– which is what made his statement so shocking.

“I accidentally cooked it at 500 degrees instead of 400. It's black.” I explained.

He told me how the last time I tried to cook a frozen pizza, it looked perfect on the outside, but in the middle it wasn't even fully cooked yet. He said it's much better to have a black crust and a fully cooked pizza then a perfect looking pizza that makes you sick. 

Suddenly I felt God placing on my heart to listen to the allegory in the experience. I thought about the burden in my life. The one burden I carry every day: not having a home. Living in my mother-in law’s house, against her wishes. Being a burden was the burden I had to carry. I always have the sense in myself of being a failure because of this. Like everything is completely ruined for me. I was the black pizza. Unsalvageable. I covet my neighbors house, and I'm jealous of other women and their homes. 

But suddenly I realized that, a lot of the time, other people have pizzas that look perfect on the outside, and inwardly everything is undone and unpalatable. On the outside it looks like something to be desired, but really if I had it, I would get sick from what's truly lurking inside. 

My life may look to others like a black, burned pizza, unsalvageable. It even seems that way to me sometimes. But what I learned tonight is that it's not. On the inside, everything is exactly cooked to perfection, exactly what it needs to be to be healthy. Yes, the edges were burned in the scorching heat, and maybe it would be better if they weren't. But thank God, and praise the Lord, at least the insides fully cooked and well done, despite looking flawed on the outside. 

Are you suffering through a burden in your life? Is there something about you that you consider irredeemable? Don't think that way. It's not burned. You're being put through the fire for a reason: to become better. And in the end, with your burned edges and your blackened cheese, despite how it differently it looks than what you envisioned: it will be better than it was before. It's not burned. 

2 Corinthians 4:18

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

1 Corinthians 3:13

Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire sh

all try every man's work of what sort it is.

Genesis 3:16

A worm
Imagery given through words
Undeserved
but nevertheless, its my fare
as a bird
My mother will feed it to me
From her mouth to my mouth
Dependent baby

A curse
Metaphor weaved into hurt
“The serpent beguiled me,”
That’s what she learned
Born to serve
An egg then a bird
Still can’t fly
And the lie
It works in our favor sometimes

Human sacrifice in history

The Metaphor of blood 

The headhunters and gods 

Parched for poison: it’s their cure

The disease: impure, as told by curse 

Desolate of the living water 

Only satisfied by the flow of something worse 

Not flesh and blood

When mankind has become the Bethel

What would you expect the Devil

To possess more than a 

fleshly vessel? 

Truly 

he inhabits humans

And preys upon the earthly seed.

What happens to the mortal mind

when nature turns the other cheek?

What happens when you blur the line

Between the Other and the Self

Not flesh and blood, that’s bodily

But the war is somewhere 

else 

Mother’s Day Poem

You were born 

To a storm of a woman

With wonderful timing

There a war in her mind 

(The flesh fights like

Jupiter rising:

Thunder and lightning)

You were born 

To a rose colored woman

With roots in the desert

Who at one time could not differentiate 

Between terror and pleasure, 

She had tragedy treasured

You were born in the winter

Yet you brought warmth to her

Like a summer 

You were born to a sorrowful sinner

And you made her a mother

Jael's Home Birth Story

When I found out I was pregnant, I took a cute picture of our shoes to announce the pregnancy. To get a due date, I googled when a baby should be born based on the day of my last period. The due date Google gave this baby was December 31, 2017. I put 2017 in the picture, then everyone told me, “You should have put 2018!” Then when I got my early ultrasound to get a due date for my midwife, they told me it was January 4, 2018. I tried to edit the announcement photo to say 2018 instead, but in my heart I really knew this baby was a December baby, and I told Ken throughout the pregnancy that this baby was coming in December, joking that she was coming to help us get more money back in taxes. 

So, I had an uneventful and uncomplicated pregnancy. I gained about 40-45 pounds, I got a couple new stretch marks, I learned about chickpea pasta and magnesium supplements. Then all of the sudden, it was time to deliver the baby, which I almost did alone without a midwife.

My contractions started at 7pm on December 30, 2017. From my first labor with Noah, I knew that I MUST sleep if I was going to be able to have the strength to deliver without an epidural. I was in denial about the contractions, and I tried to convince myself that this was just false labor or early labor and that it could last for days. I went to bed early and I laid in bed until 7am the next morning. I got 3 hours of sleep that night, I couldnt rest because the contractions were too painful, about 10 minutes apart.

At 7am I woke up and moped around the living room while my husband and 2 year old daughter stared at me with puzzled looks. Ken went to Whataburger to get me something yummy to cheer me up, but I just took 3 bites of it and went back into the bed. I could not move through my contractions, all I could do was just lay in bed, breathe deeply, and count to ten in my head to distract myself from the pain. Every time a contraction would end, I would try to think a positive thought like, “Thank you for bringing my baby into the world,” “Thank you for helping my baby come,” Something I had learned from an Ina May book or a Hypnobirthing mp3.

The contractions were never in my uterus or in my abdomen at all. I had ALL back contractions. If you have never had back labor before, it basically feels like a demon has entered your body, set your lower back on fire with the flames of the lowest hell, and then right when you cannot physically handle it anymore, they dig their demon claws down into your spine, almost snapping your entire body in half. The only way that I was able to cope with this pain, was by disassociating myself from the entire labor process. I wasn't mentally there.

Because of my disassociation with my labor, now I had no idea how far along I actually was. My husband kept entering the room, telling me things that I should be doing, I should be stretching, I should be calling my midwife, etc. Every time he spoke I just shushed him. I could not listen to any noise. I could not mentally be there. He eventually grew tired of me shushing him (he had no idea how far along I was in actual active labor, because all I had been doing was laying in bed in silence) that he took Noah (our two year old) and went to check his trapline.

Around noon I texted one of my midwives and I told her to please call me because I needed a pep talk. I didn't feel like I could go through with this and I kept thinking about my hospital birth with my older daughter and how great it felt to get an epidural and sleep. She called me and basically gave me instructions on how to maybe switch the babys position so I would stop experiencing the back labor. I could not physically move without excruciating pain, so I didnt do these stretches or positions. I just basically said okay thank you, hung up, and laid in bed in silence some more.

I remember at one point saying this prayer: “God, I can't do this. And I definitely can't do this alone. So you need to be here with me. I need to do this with YOU, or it wont happen.”

Around 1:30 I texted my midwives this text: “Can you guys come over to check on me? You dont have to stay.” Because I was in such denial about how far along I was in the active labor process, I really convinced myself that they were just coming over to check my cervix dilation and then they would leave, and come back when I was in active labor.

I had to pee really bad, and I wanted to do it before my midwifes got there to check my cervix. I stripped down and sat on the toliet, then I couldn't get up. I felt so much pressure, I felt like I was literally holding in the baby from coming out. I couldn't pee either, I just sat there helplessly, and every time I moved I was in immense pain. The contractions were right on top of another, I felt like I had literally no time in between them, I'm sure they were about every minute. Suddenly I looked up and my midwives were standing in the doorway to my bathroom looking like angels. They told me to get on the bed so they could check my cervix.

It took almost all my energy to stand up from that toliet. I still remember the way I walked into my daughters room and laid on the air mattress, with my legs apart, because it felt like the baby was so, so low. I laid down, and she checked my cervix.

“Chloe, you are dilated to an 8, maybe 9. You're going to have this baby within 45 minutes.”

I immediately wanted to cry, but I had no energy for tears, so I just let out a few whimpers and sniffles. My husband walked in and said “What do I do?!”

“Fill up the birth pool.” My midwife told him.

Ken says he ran into the living room, started blowing up the pool, then ran to the kitchen to fill the crock pot with hot water, wash clothes, and ginger. Then he ran back into the bedroom, asking what is happening.

My midwife told him nevermind about the birth pool, there's no time: I was about to push.

As my husband stood in the doorway, I felt my body pushing the baby out. It wasn't me pushing the baby, it was entirely my body. And that scared me, it was like I wasn't in control of my own body. It was doing this without me. I tensed up.

“Don't fight it Chloe,” my midwife told me. Her voice was so calm and happy, it was really relaxing to hear. She told me to push when I was ready.

I gave one push and my water bag came out and exploded my waters all over everyone. Then I gave another push. A student midwife was delivering my baby while my midwife was next to her, coaching her and I.

“Can you feel the head?” She asked my student midwife.

“Yes,” my student midwife said. “It's a hand!”

I gave another couple pushes and delivered the head. They told me to stop pushing so the baby could turn. I didn't know what that meant or why, and I had to keep pushing.

I gave one last push and the baby was out. She was born with both of her hands up over her face, which along with my incredibly fast delivery, bruised her face pretty badly. 24 hours later she was completely bruise-less, thanks to Arnica (anyone who does not have Arnica in their house, needs to go buy it asap)

Now my baby was laying on my chest and I am just in complete shock.

“Talk to your baby!” my student midwife told me, probably because she could sense I was confused and, like I said, literally in shock. I just delivered a baby on an air mattress in my 2 year old's room, for Pete's sake.

I looked at my baby and I was speechless. I had no idea what to say. The disassociation didn't just wear off as soon as she was born, I was still really “out of it”, out of my body, out of my mind—it took a couple hours for me to really come back inside myself and realize that I just gave birth to my daughter, Jael Kayleigh Sue Smith.

I called my midwives over to check my cervix around 1:30pm. Jael was born at 2:49pm.

“You almost had this baby without us!” My midwife joked.

I always see birth photography pictures of the mother crying, I bet it must be nice to really be in that moment when you first see your child, but I was not in the moment. I was still far away trying to “come back down to Earth”. Yet, I was still feeling emotion in the moment: I was feeling successful, and I was feeling grateful, and I was feeling relief. It was all over, I had a homebirth, and I had a daughter. It truly took hours to grasp this because I had been in such denial about it the past 18 hours.

Jael is the perfect baby, she sleeps all night long in bed with me, dream-feeding only a couple times from 8pm-7am. She loves being held and walked around the house. Noah absolutely loves her. At Jael's two week appointment with our midwife, we found she had already gained 1 pound and grown 1 inch! We are so happy she is here with us, and we thank everyone who prayed for us while I was in labor.

Jael Kayleigh Sue SmithBorn at home December 31, 20177 pounds 9 ounces20 inches

A Human Man, The Holy God

Mind: blown.

Emerald eyes

with hair as white as wool. 

Death will ride upon a horse 

like a serpent on a bull. 

A golden throne, elders, beasts, 

a book with seven seals. 

Enmity between two seeds:

 It shall bruise thy head and bite his heel. 

For Mary had a little lamb

A vessel quite divine: 

the Lamb existed as the word of God

before the spark of time

An honest soul
Meek and righteous
While his flesh is marred 

Existing as both eternally:

A human man

The Holy God

Secret scripture unmasked
Sometimes hidden is the meaning

To a fool, a parable is useless-

but to a child it is worth believing