Beth Troy's Blog, page 12

Day Fifteen: Marriage

Matt and I have been married for 18 years today, and this is
not a post about marital advice (bleh) or how much I love him (private). I was
20 when we got married, and at this point, I can confidently say I’m pulling
from two toolkits in any situation – What Would Matt Do and What Would Beth Do.
Some situations call for more Matt than Beth, and when he’s not around, I can
slip into his persona. Not with ease, mind you, but the next time you see me wrestling
with my own mouth to keep.it.shut I’m going all WWMD on you.

He surprised me in Spring 2019, though, and it all started with a board. Scratch that, it started with a book (in 2018, sorry!) – Five Marks of a Man.

What’s so surprising about a book? Well, Matt doesn’t really
read. We don’t have a “book” line item on the budget for him (while we have two
for me – the books I buy and the books I return late to the library). He
definitely does not buy anything of the self-help/motivational/inspirational/spiritual
growth variety. But he bought this and read it to himself. Then he read it to
Jesse. Then he bought copies for his friends (and did not read it to them).

Then came the board – a group of four men he respected to counsel
him. He sent a calendar invite, made a PowerPoint deck, bought orange juice and
donuts and relayed the opportunities and obstacles he was facing as a man,
husband, father, church elder, and lawyer. They listened and gave feedback, and
he came home, resolved.

Two weeks from the end of 2019, and I can confidently say every area of our family’s life has been affected by Matt’s love for us and his leadership to put love to action. I always knew he was good. He has never wavered in his commitments to other people, and he has always found a way to help. When I’m confused, Matt is who I go to because he makes things straight. He tells the truth, and he has always made me laugh, especially when I don’t want to.

But he upped the ante in a big way in 2019. The other
morning (because he wakes up early now) he noticed I was prepping dinner. Mornings
are supposed to be for writing, but sometimes they’re not because … LIFE! But Matt
saw me, he thought about it during the day (introvert), and he came back to me
with a question. Would I like him to take on this area of grocery shopping and
meal prepping so that LIFE! doesn’t get in the way of my morning writing time?

Now what’s a girl supposed to do with that?

She says “Yes,” all while understanding this Matt is setting
a new pace for WWMD in the rest of her life.

Day Fourteen: A Gardening Interlude

My garden is my ignorance on display. I start with good
intentions. At the nursery, I’ll tell people what I know about the sun and
water patterns around my house. If they ask how big the bed is, I’ll remember I
was supposed to remember to measure the beds before I came. If they ask about
my landscaping plan, I say I figure it out as I plant. If they ask about soil pH,
I’ve got nothing.

All of this is to say that at the end of each season, the
ratio of live to dead plants is 1:2. The only live plants in my house right now
are the two I’ve had for the last five years and one new one from this year
(that’s the same variety as one of the other live ones – such a gunner). The
other four are dead.

I’m not discouraged. I aim to re-pot the house plants before
the new year, and I’ll plant the outside beds again in April 2020 without doing
any of the required research because as much as I like growing things, I am not
a gardener. I’m happy to tend for a bit, but I can’t really cultivate something
into taking and thriving – the children tapped that shallow reservoir dry a
long time ago.

I just want some messy, pretty spaces, inside and out, that let
me tinker in dirt when I want but can then exist when the rest of life calls
(in March and October, by the university clock, and July by the heat index).

So, I guess the garden is my ignorance on display … and my
entitlement? And maybe some other things, too. I don’t see this changing in
2020.

Day Thirteen: The Chaser

I tend to think in possibilities, especially when I’m standing in God’s promises. My lot felt so very spacious in early 2019. I’d run through the insecurities of publishing (see Notebook 1 for more on that), I’d settled into a groove of teaching at the university, and for the first time since 2017, felt ready to write the sequel to Lu.

That’s when the doubt set in. If you are a person who doesn’t
entertain obstacles most of the time, doubt is a mouse in the house. I mean,
you’re not stupid. You know your animal kingdom. You know mice are “there,” but
they don’t belong “here,” so when one shows up, it’s a surprise attack – one I’d
inadvertently instigated because my resolution for 2019 was “trade-offs.” In
this year, I had aimed to be a woman who made dozens of “no’s” for a few, bold “yes’s.”

As I made plans for my “yes” to the sequel, the “no’s” piled
up:

A “yes” to writing meant a “no”
to spending all my time with my boys on their summer break.A “yes” to writing meant a “no”
to working for Miami and a “no” to a paycheck.A “yes” to writing meant a “no”
to my savings account since I’d be paying for a babysitter and summer camps.A “yes” to writing meant a “no”
to any other big goal. I couldn’t write a book and …A “yes” to writing meant a “no”
to staying up late, sleeping late, and any other vision of a lazy summer
schedule.

Match this against where the writing was at the time. Basically,
I wasn’t. Match this against how Lu was selling at the time. Basically,
it wasn’t. Match this against …

Prayer.

Yes, the doubt made me scream and jump on a table (I’m continuing
with the mouse metaphor, here). And then I smacked myself upside the head. Every
time. This happens every time I have a moment. Doubt chases possibility. Had I
learned nothing in the last two decades about the interplay of faith and doubt,
the seen vs. the unseen, and what gets a vote and what does not?  

To distill it – God’s vote is the vote. There is no other. I
prayed into my doubt earnestly and expectantly. From my vantage, I saw cost for
no gain, and this would be fine if it was where God was leading because God has
a way of flipping costs and gains, but if it wasn’t, I’d be left with bupkis.

In a doubt chaser, simple prayer is best.

What do you want me to do? I will do what you want me to
do.

In prayer, we’re in God’s presence, but that doesn’t mean we
always get direction. That morning in early March, God was pretty clear (and I
wrote it down in my journal*):

Things are not what they appear to be. I have blessed
your hand with what you are to do. Now go do it with all your might.

And I did [a few months later].

*Which some might say is a “no” to burning the journals! That’s still a “yes,” people!

Day Twelve: Fulsome

What if the quality of our life wasn’t measured by the ratio
of in:out – with the goal of the “in” to ever-accumulate and the “out” to ever-scale
– but by receiving our lot with gladness of heart?

It sounds like Pollyanna (which I watched a lot as a child),
but it’s biblical (Ecclesiastes 5:18-20):

This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labor under the sun during the few days of life God has given them—for this is their lot. Moreover, when God gives someone wealth and possessions, and the ability to enjoy them, to accept their lot and be happy in their toil—this is a gift of God.They seldom reflect on the days of their life, because God keeps them occupied with gladness of heart.

Ecclesiastes 5:18-20

So, what is my lot?

To seek in the manner God
has chosen.To live few days. Which isn’t
so bad, since I live with a sense of eternity I can’t experience here. This
happens later.To experience all the times
(Ecclesiastes 3).To eat and drink.To find satisfaction in my
work.To receive what has been given.
There is no real adding here – just participating, with the quality of my
contribution directly correlating to the God who does the real creating.

And what does it mean to be “occupied with gladness of
heart?”

Well, less brooding for
one. More of an inward smile.Less thoughts about me.Better questions to God and
a steady dialogue with God to explore the answers.Empathy to see and hear the
people around me. Love to act on it.Amaterialism – happy to
have it and happy to not.More scripture on the brain
to chase away the dark places.Little-to-no concern over my
circumstances. They’re my lot.

Day Eleven: Excerpt [Journal 1, One-Quarter Through]

I’m sitting in a park overlooking San Francisco. It’s 1PM,
and there’s no appointments to claim me.

The houses look edible around here, but they’re nothing
in comparison to the hills against the sky, and beyond that, the sliver of the
bay. I saw the bay up close yesterday. The waves were constant against the
rocks; the water was more white than blue.

There’s no inherent meaning in that. I could chase the
water all day long, and I’d find no answers. So how to approach it?

With awe.

With gratitude.

As a reminder. My life flows in similar patterns. There’s a purpose to it, but not
apart from the God who set it in motion and sustains it.

Day Ten: Third Time’s a Joy

The first time I studied Ecclesiastes, I saw weariness. I
felt weary and verses about chasing the wind were on-point. Reading it was like
talking to a good friend – “good” because the friend tells you the truth. It was
an uncomfortable series of conversations, but necessary, leading me to a full
scrap of poor choices I’d made.

The second time I studied Ecclesiastes, I saw decisions. Many
people deny the presence of God, while claiming a greater purpose behind what
happens to them. This is a non-decision, and the writer of Ecclesiastes
dismantles it. There’s no deeper meaning in the horizontal absent of the
vertical to the God who designed it all. It’s a wise text and was helpful in
the book I was writing at the time.

On Saturday mornings, I meet with three women to talk about
the Bible. It’s low-key – no leader, no study guides – just a chapter to sift
through each week in our own way. It was my turn to choose the book, and I chose
Ecclesiastes. It had been a few years since I studied it last and almost ten
years since I studied it the first time. Much of the good I see now in my life
came from the full scrap after that first reading.



Which is all to say that the third time I studied Ecclesiastes, in
Winter 2019, I saw joy.

Day Nine: A Musical Interlude

Music on all the time isn’t a 2019 thing so much as it’s a
Beth thing. Tunes put me in broad, imaginative places.

My In Review 2019 Playlist is by no means exhaustive – just two-ish hours of songs I listened to many times for many reasons this past year. I’m still a superfan of 90s alt; “Everlong” doesn’t get old for me. My love for female singer/songwriters continues, though I’m making less angsty choices here. In 2019, I finally found some Christian music I like (thank you, Josh Garrels, thank you), and I went to my first concert in years (Leon Bridges – my heart). Then of course, there’s my consistent love of a good beat for when I’m doing dishes or drying my hair – I’m talking to you Phantogram and Franz Ferdinand. It’s probably too eclectic for anyone else to like, but each song is like journal page of memories, so the playlist makes the cut for my In Review 2019! I double dog dare you to listen through the whole thing and try to guess just what was I thinking …

Day Eight: A P.S. to Day Seven

If you want something, ask.

I thought about tagging this thought onto the Day Seven post because I learned it from Abby, but I was already at a page (and had made a binding deal with myself that none of these posts would go more than a page).

It’s an important point. It deserves its own post. It
deserves its own paragraph.

If you want something, ask.

Women have a problem with this. We have a problem asking for
help. Asking for what we want is a whole other level of play that we talk
ourselves out of all the time with excuses like:

I’m not qualifiedI’ll get rejected. It’s not the right time. First, I need to …How does it fit with …

Abby asked to read the audiobook. I don’t know if she would
say she was “qualified.” She’d done some theater and one voice recording. She
knew I might email back a “no thanks” but that rejection would put her no
further behind. It probably wasn’t the right time. We had to take a three-month
hiatus from recording in 2019 because Abby was writing a VBS script, editing a
Bible study, wrapping up her school year as an English teacher … and about 10
other things. First, there were probably a lot of things she needed to do
before sending me the email. But she sent the email. Audio recording probably
didn’t make a clear fit for Abby’s 1-year, 5-year, and 10-year-plans. But she
sent the email.

And she got the part. So … should I say it again? I’ll say
it again.

If you want something, ask.

Day Seven: A Gift

I came off the high of the January class to one another from
my Inbox.

So, I love emails from readers, and this was from Abby
Morris. Her cousin-in-law, Mika KariKari, had given her a copy of Lu,
and she’d enjoyed it. Abby had since lent her copy to a friend, but did I have
an audiobook?

I responded with a “thanks” and “no.” I didn’t have an
audiobook. I wanted to, but I was short on the time, talent, and money to pull that
off.

Abby emailed me back. Would I let her audition?

Sure, I responded, thinking there was no way I would like another
woman reading my book (similar to Matt coming home with another woman – that
kind of vibe). Wrong again (about the book. Matt must still remain monogamous).

Abby was amazing! I followed up with The Offer of 2019:

You got the part of Lu,
Audio Reader!I can pay you
basically-almost-slightly-above nothing.You’ll need to find
professional recording space,plus a sound person to edit
the recording,and both of these last
items must come free!

She did and Lu, the Audio Version, is releasing sometime in
2020.

What?

The next time I whine about the sloooooooooow organic growth
that is the work of a self-published author please remind me of this path:

There was a once a girl named Beth who wrote a book and
shared it with her friends. Her one friend, Joy, shared it with her friend,
Mika, who shared it with her cousin-in-law, Abby, who recorded the audiobook.

It’s a path formed from hand-off to hand-off. It takes time,
and it’s filled with names and surprises. It’s nothing for a girl to shake her
first at. Hopeful in 2020 for an open hand in this.

Day Six: Nuggets

I think it’s amazing we’re a click away from world-class
experts talking about anything. We’re also a cup of coffee away from local
experts.

My 2019 was a mix of both, with the locals taking the lead
toward the end because … you know? Entrepreneurship is a petri dish of
opportunity, which brings up all the hope and fear. When I’m freaking out, I
need to meet with someone who knows my name. I hope others would reach out to
me in the same way, and when we do this often enough, we build a community –
something I want to do even more of in 2020.

Here’s a sample of a sample’s sample from my January class journal. I’m floored by the wisdom all over again. Seriously, there are smart women all over the place. You should go to talk to some in 2020 (sorry to make resolutions for you, but sometimes I can’t help being A Boss).