Nancy Wilson's Blog, page 15

Frantic

If we really face the facts, it is true that my kids are growing up. I mean, I still have a one-year-old, and a three-year-old who work together to keep the time of the baby-toddles fresh in my mind. But the truth is, things have changed. Slowly, some of these wonderful kids have grown into the kind of maturity that can handle their own zippers, button their own pants, find their own socks, and they even do things like load the dishwasher, or fold a load of laundry on occasion.

I don’t exactly know when it happened, but it does feel like we have left the little years and moved into the middle years. And I love it here. It is still the challenging, wild, wonderful, messy, hilarious, and outrageous life I have come to know and love – but it is just a little more mature. Our family life is somewhere in the middle lands -like we have lost our front teeth and they are growing back in way too big for our heads, but we have plans to catch up to them.

But it wasn’t that long ago. Only a handful of years ago in our house, if playing in the toilet had come to a vote, I could have lost. The people could have spoken and called it all good fun. I was outnumbered, outsmarted, outrun, and seriously outdone. My days at home were blindingly tiring. I’m not exaggerating, and I know some of you are right with me here. Many of you are still in it. You are hanging on by a thread. You are puking in the bathroom for the 10th solid week in a row while little children whom you love dearly are running around the house largely unkempt and unruly. You are lying on the couch trying with all your might to eat a cracker and not smell anything. You are wary of people who smell like showers. Or onions. Or garlic in yesterday’s food. You resent people who talk about tortillas. You are holding your breath as you walk into the kitchen and fill a sippy cup against all odds. Or you might even be as desperate as I have been and tell children who certainly aren’t big enough to go ahead and pour themselves juice.

I recently spoke at a local MOPS group, and during the question and answers, a lady in the audience asked me about my coping mechanisms. And when I looked out to talk to this brave soul with her three under three, I saw it in her eyes. Oh, how I remember that time. It was a desperate time – and here I am, surprised as anyone to be looking back on it. But I want to write to you who are still in it and tell you a few things. Don’t believe that you have made a mistake that this is what your life is like. These little people were called by God to your house now. He knows what He has given to you to do, and in the middle of all this craziness is some profound mercy.

I have been surprised more often than not in pregnancy. And when I was surprised to learn I was expecting a number five, when the twins were still two – I knew enough to know that God was good and this was kindness. But one Sunday morning I was doing my hair in the bathroom, sick out of my brains, listening to the chorus of tiny people clamoring around the breakfast table. And then they started singing a new Psalm we had been learning. Those little voices, trailing down the hall, “For His merciful kindness is great towards us.” And I was standing, looking at myself, all sick in the face, and the tiny person in my belly, all merciful kindness. I don’t know that I can describe exactly what this meant to me, because it was more like the relief of heat on pain, or water to thirst, or warmth to coldness than it was a sudden understanding of anything. But I realized at that moment that this new life – this new uptick in what God was requiring of me wasn’t just a blessing in the abstract – it was mercy to us. It was kindness to us. She was His expression of love to us at that time. And she still is. Merciful kindness will always be how I think of my little Blaire girl.

But you know what else? While God gave us more children closer together than reasonable people would have – what He gave us was a profound gift. That time was incredibly hard. And sweet. And hard. But God was there with us. He was there convicting us and challenging us. He was there, pouring out His love on us as we sought to give our everything to these little people. His hand was in our every maturing. His mercy to us in every hilarious day of mayhem. Before the beginning of time, God planned that moment of accidents and pretzel salt, and broken eggs, and skinned knees, and a crying mother, and a disapproving neighbor – and He planned it for our good. God gave us these children in this outrageous way because He had a plan for us, and His plan for us was to not listen to our plans.

His path for us was not our path for us, but it was a path of mercy, and joy, and delight, and tears, and sweat, and growth beyond what we would have ever tried for. I often think of our children as one of God’s most amazing investment plans for our life. And because we are seeking to honor God, things get deducted automatically. We have signed up to give more than we ever, ever could have of our own strength. When you are up in the middle of the night, God is not letting your life go to waste. When you are up earlier than you ever should have been – God is telling you that He has a plan for this life of yours. If every moment of child care was voluntary – if you could put your kids’ needs on pause, or postpone that work for another month or two, we would all be doing it. We would want the DVR version of our children’s lives. Skip the commercials of potty training, and feeding them every hour, and the croup moments, and the snarls over toys, and the heaviness of worry. Skip morning sickness. We would skip all the things that refine us, because our flesh is weak. But God, in His merciful kindness, has more for us than our flesh would ever volunteer for.

I’m not so far out of the little years that I can talk like it is in the distant past. But I want to tell you who are still in that frantic phase – this is beautiful. And not because it is easy, but because it is impossibly hard. I would never go back and undo the horrible insanity of that time, because that was a time when God worked great mercy into my life. It was a time when God was putting some darling people in my life forever. And not as babies only, but as the  men and women He is growing them into. It’s not only a sentimental mercy. It is the mercy of a legacy, the mercy of making our lives forever change the world.

So continue to rely on Him. Live in joy. Believe His mercy. Know that your trials, lived in obedience, are yielding more profit and fruit in your life than anything else could, at least in part because investments from you are being taken against your will, and probably against your better judgment. You couldn’t be who God wants you to be without this. Your children would not be who God wants them to be without this, because this is what He has given you, and you are who He has given them. And when you know all these things, and you believe all these things, just hang on like crazy, and laugh.

Unloosed!

 

So many things about mothering are harder than I thought they would be. So many moments that didn’t sound hard in advance, didn’t sound hard at the time, and didn’t even sound hard when I was trying to explain them to my husband through tears. There are just so many opportunities to be surprised by your own weakness.

It wasn’t that I had a low view of motherhood coming into it – I knew it would be hard. I guess the thing that I didn’t realize was what kind of hard it was going to be. I got on this treadmill expecting a hard work out of running, and I had good shoes. I was ready! What I was not prepared for was being pelted with potatoes while I was running. I didn’t realize that the real struggle of motherhood is not the using of my own strength, but rather the exposing of my weakness.

I don’t think that this is unique to me. There is a reason that you hear mothers so often talking about being burned out, being tired, being lonely, feeling lost, being discouraged. There is a reason that women so often turn to doubting their worth as a mother or as a wife. There is a reason that we are so quick to feel inadequate, so quick to feel like we are doing the wrong things, and so quick to want to give up. There is a reason that we are so vulnerable to stupid fights about mothering methods, so quick to be threatened and hurt.

I also believe that this is, at least in some ways, unique to motherhood. Hard work is a part of every Christian’s life, or it should be. Challenges will face everyone as they seek to honor the Lord and lay down their lives for others. But the thing that really sets motherhood apart is our cultural expectations.

The things that we have come to believe about the value of life, the quality of life, the kind of work we should desire, and the kind of reward we should receive have been painstakingly imparted to us by the world. Our culture is a culture of self fulfillment. Motherhood is the business of self bestowing. Our culture is consumed with quick results. Motherhood is the long game. Our culture makes great pomp and ceremony over living your dreams. Motherhood is the business of making them sweet for others. Motherhood is not empowering, but it is powerful.

Back in the days of restrictive corsets, women would wear them every day, and through the years they would continue to tighten them so that they could look less and less like a normal and strong woman and more and more like a cake topper. I remember reading once about women who were so dependent on their corsets that they were unable to even sit up in bed without one. Through years of training they had disabled their abdominal muscles – slowly transferring themselves over to an exoskeleton.

I can’t help but feel like this has been done to us. We are a generation of women who grew up in a world that corsets young women with selfish desires, shallow ideals, visions of unattainable beauty, and a false understanding of success.The kinds of

muscles that we need to be a mother at home with a bunch of kids are seriously out of practice.

How bizarre is it that a woman with a brood of little people growing up in her care, with her love can regularly wonder what it would be like to do something important? How is it possible that we can easily get discouraged and feel like this work – this work of being everything for other people – isn’t enough for us? What has gone wrong that we can actually feel hurt by a stranger counting our children or laughing at our pregnant bellies? We are simply finding that we are unable to sit up in bed without the encouragement of the world.

And this is what I mean when I say that the true challenge of motherhood is meeting your own weakness.

If you have walked away from the support and approval of the world – if you are acting in obedience to God but not with the smile of the world cheering you on- then this weakness that you feel is a sign of great obedience. Taking off ungodly expectations and desires and stepping into a role that you know God admires is making the decision to care more about what God thinks than what the world says. And while this will reveal all sorts of weakness in yourself, that weakness is only there because you have committed to a real strength – one that can’t be put onto you, but one that has to come from within, and by the grace of God.

The strongest women in our world today are those who are as a group feeling the weakest. It certainly doesn’t feel like a blow for the kingdom to spend another nine months in a brain fog. It doesn’t feel like we are fighting for the future of our country as we drive strollers with one elbow so we can hold one fat defiant hand while sloshing coffee on ourselves with the other.

But His strength is made perfect in our weakness. He loves the obedience of the widows mite – the offering of the littlest thing that is our everything.

It can seem so petty and uninteresting when what you are putting in the offering box is giving up sleeping in. Or joyfully driving the mini van that you never wanted. Or spending Friday nights folding laundry and picking up board books. But God delights in that, and He delights in us as we obey.

Do we want to spend our time giving little things that delight our Savior, or trying desperately to please the world? The world might be pleased with us if we stood for hours in our stupid sneakers fighting for a woman’s right to kill her children, but they will never applaud us for being inconvenienced and actually carrying those children.

What we are failing to see is that this weakness haunts us so much when we want to rely on our own strength. But this weakness is His to strengthen. This weakness is the greatest offering that we can give – because it is the offering of obedience.

Declaring Glory

Since the heavens declare the glory of God (Ps. 19:1), and the firmament showeth His handiwork, surely we creatures can declare the same thing. The heavens are pointing to God, saying, “Look!” and our lives can and should do the same thing.

But how does this work? What are the heavens doing that we can imitate? The heavens, as far as I can tell, are simply doing what God created them to do. They shine. They obey His commands. The winds quiet down when He tells them to. They blow where He sends them. The sun rises and sets day after day according to His plan and purpose, and this is declares God’s glory.

So it follows from this that we creatures glorify God when we do what He has created us to do. When we assume the position to which He has assigned us, and joyfully embrace our duties, we are pointing to Him and bringing Him glory.

I think we want it to be more complicated. We want to do something fancy to bring Him glory, and the mundane doesn’t seem important enough. But that is where we go wrong. When I was fresh out of college, I “told” God that I would go anywhere for Him. “Send me to India. I’ll go to the ends of the earth. Just get me out of Moscow.” It sounded very humble to offer to go somewhere far away. But it was actually very me-centered. I had a condition for God! And of course, I’ve been (happily) in Moscow ever since. I had to get at that un-surrendered territory in my heart and offer it to God as well. I thought that serving God would somehow be more significant or important or meaningful somewhere else, anywhere else. But He wanted me at my post right where I was.

Restlessness, dissatisfaction, and discontent can keep us from glorifying God right where we are. Are you unmarried? Newly married? A mother of one or a mother of many? Are you sick in bed? Do you have time on your hands? Do you have way too much to do? Look at your duties right where you are and don’t offer to go somewhere else. Do these things cheerfully with an eye to God’s glory. Shine. Blow where He tells you to blow. And quiet down when He says to hush up. This is what brings God glory.

I’m So Far Behind!

A few more giveaways and reviews that I forgot to link to! My husband has been on business trips and a stomach bug came upon some of us. Well only one so far, but you can’t act confident just yet. And when I went to put this post up it autocorrected to “I’m So Fat Behind!” which basically sums up everything.

Anyways, these kind ladies are doing giveaways and reviews of Fit to Burst, so stop on by and check them out!

The first is at Aimee Byrd’s blog!

The second is at Savannah Berniquez’ blog!

And then, just for fun, one of the Femina readers who was tired of not winning giveaways just went ahead and did one herself at her own blog. Thanks Christie!

A big thanks to these ladies for their thoughts!

Intimidating Guests

From time to time older women will tell me that they are seldom invited out, but that they, meanwhile, are having people over all the time. They wonder what gives. Now this doesn’t mean that they are looking for a payback. They simply wonder if they are doing something wrong. I tell them that this comes with the territory. To whom much is given much is required. They may have bigger homes and resources than many of the young families they are having over.  Some are called to extend hospitality more than others. So I remind them to be faithful and not worry about it. In fact, if everyone was inviting them over, they might feel swamped!

My opinion on this is that older women can be very intimidating to younger women.  This came as a shock to me when I first realized it. Me? Intimidating? How could that be? It’s just me, after all!

When Doug and I were first married, he was in college and then in grad school. He was fond of inviting his professors to dinner, and I tell you, I was very intimidated. I was not a great cook. In fact, I think when we got married, I knew how to make soup (just put a bunch of vegetables in a pot and see what happens), and of course I could make a grilled cheese sandwich or fry a hamburger patty. I learned to make macaroni and cheese from my  mother-in-law, and I gradually picked up the knack of the crock pot. I honestly don’t remember what I cooked. Maybe meatloaf. I know it was some time before I knew the difference between round steak and chuck or how to cook either one.

Some of my intimidating guests included Doug’s Latin instructor (who turned out to be a jolly character), his philosophy instructors, his major professor and his wife (who were a real pleasure). Then there were the Mormon boys he invited (who were trying to convert us), and an outspoken feminist from one of his philosophy classes. Some of these were more intimidating than others, but I generally always felt way out of my depth.

So back to the intimidation factor. I assumed that since his professors were far more established with nicer homes and bigger budgets, they would not want to stoop to come to our home. We had a funky little apartment with gold shag carpet. (I think this was during the phase when I needed a side table for a lamp, so I covered a big cardboard box with corduroy!)

I think young wives (like I was back then) feel that they can have peers over, but older people might be too critical of their meager attempts at hospitality. Why would they want to come to our house to have sloppy joes anyway? The kids will act like kids, which won’t be dignified enough for such lofty guests. My bathroom is too shabby. My dishes are chipped.

Hospitality is much bigger than the menu or the furnishings. When Bekah was an adult, she met Doug’s old Latin teacher, who by that time was near retirement but was still teaching at the same university. He reminded her of being at our home for dinner back when she was just a baby. I was amazed that he still remembered (and I had completely forgotten)!  This made me realize that God was doing more in our hospitality than we knew, whether I was intimidated or not.

We want hospitality to make us feel like awesome hostesses and cooks. But the truth is, it’s not about us in that way at all. It’s about connecting with people around a table and making them feel welcome and fed. So if you have people in your life that you’ve thought of having over, but you feel too intimidated to try, do a little experiment and have just one. Make a meal that you’ve made a million times before. See how it goes. It may be that nothing magical happens that you can see, but trust God to use it to shape you and shape your guests.

Especially be willing to have those people from your husband’s workplace or school. Even his boss! These may be the very people who are seldom invited into anyone’s home. Then ask God to give you a spirit of peace as you set the table and offer it all to Him. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. Perfection has never been the standard, and it would be dreadful if it was.

Incomplete Answers

During the question and answer time at the Femina Conference, I received a question which I very incompletely answered. The question goes something like this, “How do I get my husband to help around the house and with the kids?”

This is far and away the most-asked question for me. What I realized when I answered it quickly is that I often rush past these questions because I can tell a long way away that this is complicated and tricky and nuanced. Because how do I know that the woman asking this is a reasonable person? I don’t want to simply assume that the wife is the one being hurt and that the husband is an incompetent slacker. For this reason I often just answer it flatly from one side. It isn’t the husband asking, and I am not going to turn a women’s talk into an exposition of the ways our husbands might be doing less than they could be. So I usually reply with a simple, “When you need, give.” This is great so far as it goes, but it doesn’t always go all the way out to the people who are asking.

So I decided to write a more thorough response, which will probably still be woefully insufficient. But I’ll give it a try.

1)  Many times wives wish that their husbands could experience the work that they do. They feel like he doesn’t know or understand all of the stresses that we experience – you laugh to yourself when you think of him in your place at home. But the truth is that this often goes both ways. When was the last time you considered the kinds of stresses that your husband is experiencing? What are the things that make his work days feel impossibly long and difficult? Do you treat his cares in a way that would make you angry were you talking about yours?

The answer here is prayer. Turn your heart toward your husband in prayer. Lift up his needs, his worries, his heaviness. Think about how you can minister to him and be his helpmeet in these things. Be thankful for him and his work. For his presence in your home. For his tiredness and distractedness. Your husband needs you. Realize that your husband comes home for refuge, for rest, for you. When he comes, do not greet him with a pile of things that he hasn’t done. If he needs encouragement, don’t meet him with complaints.

If you catch yourself milling over things that you wish he would do, turn your thoughts instead towards prayer for him.

2) Communicate. Look for times when you can talk with your husband and express the things that you need. It is unfair to hold him to a standard which he does not know about. To effectively communicate is a different thing. Do not think that you won’t bother until the whole thing gets so freaked-out intense that you just unload six months of petty grievances on your husband. At this point it would be really difficult for him to tell what actually mattered to you and what was just random ugly fluff that you used in the heat of the moment to build your case. Try to talk about it at times when it can be a completely calm and friendly “state of the union” discussion.

Just as it is important to communicate the things that you need your husband to be doing – tell him what the things he is doing mean to you. Tell him how much you love it when you see him playing with your kids. Tell him what it means to you that he always comes home for dinner. Thank him for the coffee even though he always makes it.

But also realize that your heart needs to be in a good place. If you want to be able to calmly discuss things that you wish your husband would do – are you willing to hear what he wishes you would do? Do unto others in this respect. Respond to his input like you are hoping he would respond to yours.

3) Mom guilt. This is a hot topic in the world, and it really can be a big problem for women. It is not such a problem for the men folk. When was the last time you heard a dad say to another dad, “Whaaat?! You don’t bathe all of your children every single night?! Oh my word, I could never live like that.”

The reason that it is relevant here is that often times women set a standard, freak out about not achieving it, yell in panic to their husbands to help them, and then their husband says, “Let’s not do this!’” and then the wife gets angry that her husband isn’t helping her with this all-important task. Well, surprise, surprise! Your husband did not feel that making your own soap was the first step in the basic care of your children. He did not think that you ought to stay up into the night making homemade granola. He said, “Let’s get a cake from the bakery for the birthday,” and you said, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

If you need his help with something, it is very likely that you also need his input. Maybe he would like to not have his wife feeling super guilty and crazy about the things that she is stressing out about. Take his counsel – listen to his ideas. Do not fire off like a bottle rocket of panic when he suggests that you are overdoing things. Maybe you are. Ask him what he thinks you should not worry about. This can be hugely relieving for all of you.

4) As much as you want him to be taking responsibility, let him. Often when your husband steps in to do something, we step in to say “no-can-do.” One of the funniest examples in our marriage would be my dealings with public toilets. My approach to public toilets before marriage was no approach at all. Go home, or find a decent one – Nordstrom’s is fine. Port-a -potties did not factor into my life at all. I am proficient in the use of elbows to open doors and feet to flush toilets and so forth. And then we have children. And I alert my husband to “Time to go! Right now! To the car! Someone has to go!” And he just says, “No- I’ll take her to the port-a potty.” All I can say is that God gives grace. My husband told me clearly that he was not interested in having children who were crippled by a fear of public bathrooms. So I had to get on board with that. It is true that they are not exactly the near-death experiences I had once felt.

I could have taken this as a reason that my husband didn’t care about our children, or how he was not responsible. But the truth is that he cares about our children – and to him it matters that they be flexible people with hand washing skills. I needed to follow his lead here and let him lead the family. That is right. I just gave a testimony about my husband leading our family to public bathrooms.

5) Be friends. If your husband is not engaging in your home life, it is quite possible that it is not fun or friendly to engage in. Try to laugh, try to establish contact with him in the midst of the craziness. Not a clingy, desperate contact, but a joyful, laughing one. He is the person you fell in love with. Treat him like that even when there are lots of children between you. Make eye contact. Smile. Kiss your husband when he gets home. Don’t hold back all affection until he earns it like he is a dog looking for a treat. He is coming to you – welcome him. You know, we all know, what it is like to shrug off your husband’s affection because, “Everything is really crazy right now, how can you not hear the children yelling, do you not see the baby’s messy face, did you not hear the child hollering for toilet paper, I have a headache, don’t you see I am peeling a carrot WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

Your husband may not be jumping into all the busyness with you because that busyness is the barrier that you have put up between you. Do not put yourself on one side of your life, and him on the other side, where you can only meet if everything in between has been done. And then you will be too tired to be fun anyway. You are companions. Be next to him, even in craziness. The tasks to be done should never be between you. The children should not be between you emotionally, although their physical presence is often between you. Fellowship together in the middle of things, because the middle of things is what you have.

6) If there are enough bad patterns, real sin, distance, and hard times between you to be causing a problem on a regular basis, then you need to seek specific counsel. Go to your pastor. Get help. The truth is that no good pastor ever was bummed out to have people come to him and have it turn out to not be a huge problem. Deal with things that are being difficult as they come up. Don’t muddle along in bad patterns making things worse. Deal with it as soon as possible.

 

 

Yet Another Chance to Win!

Here is another Fit to Burst giveaway and review!

Big Thanks!

Many thanks to all of you who came to the Grace Agenda conference and Femina seminar. It was like a big family reunion, seeing old friends and meeting new ones. A big thank you to John & Noel Piper and Tim & Helen Chester for making the trip to Moscow and for encouraging and blessing us all in so many ways. God answered our prayers and more. He gave us beautiful autumn weather, a great facility to meet in, safe travel for those coming from great distances, a team of cheerful and competent volunteers, and a spirit of joy throughout all the many events. May God continue to bless the good teaching we received and give us hearts to spread gospel presence through our homes and out into our communities.

Another Review and Giveaway!

A sweet review from a sweet lady – and a giveaway too! Head on over to Generation Cedar and check it out!

Satisfaction

So often when we enter a new “era” in our lives, like turning fifty, we can feel a little unsettled about what’s ahead.  Old age hasn’t gotten a lot of good press, so we might be tempted to think that we need to uncover some dark mystery about how to go forward into new territory.

But no matter what our age, biblical principles remain the same. Thankfully, we don’t have to discover a new set of standards for old age. The Christian life is the same start to finish. It is a walk of faith, no matter what part of the road we are on. It is still just putting one foot in front of the other, doing our duty, trusting God, believing His promises, and pressing ahead.

Living a long time is actually a sign of God’s blessing. It isn’t a curse! “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you” (Exodus 20:12). So getting older should be comforting to us, not worrisome. After all, God is blessing us.

It’s always good to return to basic biblical principles and review them to keep our perspective straight.Who are we? Where are we going? Where did we come from? These are as basic as it gets, and yet we can get muddled over them.

We are created in the image of God, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, forgiven of our sins, reconciled to God, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise (Eph. 1:13). That’s who we are no matter what age. We don’t have to “reinvent” ourselves. He is our Maker. We were created to be in fellowship with Him. We are His creatures, and He has prepared in advance the good works that we are to walk in (Eph. 2:10).

We are defined by Him, and not by what we do. We tend to define ourselves by our jobs or callings (I’m a mom, a nurse, a teacher, a designer, a grandma…). But these are all secondary. If we let ourselves be defined merely by what we do, then we can become confused when we are no longer doing those things. When our kids grow up, if we retire from our job, or if our husband passes away, we can suddenly feel like we aren’t sure who we are any more. But we are in Christ! That has not changed.

Women have basic needs. We need to feel that we have significance, that we are important to someone. If we find our significance in Christ, then we can offer up all those things we do to God, thanking Him for His goodness and kindness to us. But if we look for our significance in the things we do, we can feel restless. No job can meet our deepest need to feel significant. Only Christ can fill that need.

We need to feel secure. We can look for security in our husband, our children, our job, our bank account, our house, our friendships, or our dress size. But all these things are unreliable. Husbands are finite, children grow up, jobs end, houses get old, bank accounts fluctuate, friendships can drift, and dress sizes are very fickle things. If we put our trust in these things, we are in a perfect position to worry and grow anxious. But if we find our security in Christ, we are safe. He will never leave us or forsake us. We can cast our cares on Him, trust in His rock-solid promises, and find peace.

We all want to feel fulfilled or satisfied, and we can look for this fulfillment in family, marriage, worldly success, education, beauty, health or popularity. But none of these things can truly satisfy us. We were created to enjoy fellowship with our Creator, and all these secondary blessings come from Hand. It is in loving and following Christ that we find true fulfillment and soul satisfaction. It is not in a retirement package or a health insurance plan that we find fulfillment. If we are looking to people or stuff or positions to give our lives meaning and purpose, we will be unsatisfied and discontent. Only Christ can meet our deepest needs and give our lives true purpose.

If we let God’s Word define us, we know who we are and where we are going.