Do you spend more time with facebook than your kids?

Or, for those of you who profess faith, do you spend more time with facebook than Jesus?

I'm over at Dancing With The One You Love today confessing my addiction to social media. Would love for you to pop over and share your thoughts.

Friday Feature: Mothers be Good to Your Daughters, By Becky Daye

Big thanks to this week's Friday Feature Blogger, Becky Daye. Read more from Becky at her blog Daye by Daye.

My daughter is going into 3rd grade in the Fall. I am excited for this year in her life. This past year has been difficult for her and my prayer is that a new school, a new teacher and new friends will be wonderful for her.

She is strong willed. That might be putting it mildly! She is full of creativity and is constantly thinking of new things to do and act out. She talks nonstop and often shares her thoughts that she should probably keep to herself.

As her mama, it is tiring! I want her to express herself and be who God is making her to be. But I see the looks in friends eyes or I see those same eyes roll and each time I find myself trying to correct her speech or explain her actions to a bewildered crowd.

She's creative! She's intelligent! She's strong! She's a leader! But they see strange. A know-it-all. Opinionated. Bossy.

I wish there was a formula for moms- that just being good to your daughters was enough.

This past year of difficulty has taught me a ton about being my daughter's mom. I am learning to truly lay my concerns for her at the feet of Jesus. I am striving to pray more and correct less. I am learning to focus on the strengths of her personality and I am learning to trust God with her weaknesses.

The most important lesson that my Heavenly Father is sweetly teaching me is that HE is enough. HE is the one who made my girl. HE delights in her. HE has a plan for her.

If I truly believe this to be true, then I have to release my desires to change her and to make her respond the way that I want her to. As I release these things, I begin to see the work of the Holy Spirit in her life.

We had a sweet time together this past week as we snuggled in her bed at bedtime. She cried a little and told me that she was so thankful that I was her mommy. As I breathed in the sweetness of that moment, I thanked my Father for His work in my life.

HE is the one who is making me and shaping me into the mom that he wants me to be. I'm growing right along with my girl.

There isn't a formula for how to raise the perfect child. But there is a God who promises to lead us and guide us along the way. And every once in awhile, He has a way of reminding us that HE has the power to change hearts.

Thank you Father for your work in my life. Thank you for changing me and making me into the woman that you want me to be. Thank you for the work that you are doing in my daughter's life and for the sweet reminders that you have a plan for her! Amen.

Interested in guest posting at Pocket Lint for a Friday Feature? Email me at gillian@rcn.com. Let's talk!

"Balancing Expectations" in EFCA TODAY

My article entitled "Balancing Expectations, Listening to both church leaders and parents" is up at EFCA TODAY, the Evangelical Free Church of America's magazine.

The article touches on the proper perspective I shoot for as a mom to kids with special needs, the pastor's wife, and also the children's ministry coordinator at our church. Check it out and let me know what you think.

If you are a parent to a child with special needs, what's been your experience with your church and your kids?

Want to guest post on POCKET LINT? Now you can, with Friday Feature!!

What is Friday Feature?






Every Friday (hopefully!), Pocket Lint will feature a guest post.

There are so many great things in the world:
-Great people
-Great causes
-Great writing
-Great teaching

If you are interested in guest posting on a Friday Feature, double check the topics below, subject matter near and dear to my heart, and if what you do/want to do/should do applies at all to one of the topics, I'd love to have you.

Topics include:
-Down syndrome
-Special needs
-Adoption
-Parenthood
-Writing
-Memoir
-Christianity
-Being a pastor's wife
-Moyamoya disease (or some other life threatening illness to children)
-Chicago
-Ukraine

Don't see a topic you fit into but still want to guest post? OK, pitch me, I'm listening?

To get on the Friday Feature schedule, leave me a comment on my Friday Feature page AND email me at gillian(at)rcn(dot)com (note, two steps: comment and email :). Pitch me your post. If it is a go, then you need to have your post emailed to me by the Wednesday prior to your Friday Feature. As admin on this blog I reserve the right to ask you to change or delete something and can also opt not to publish your feature if it doesn't fit here at Pocket Lint.

If you guest post for a Friday Feature, I encourage you to do a couple things:
-Write well!
-Be open and honest
-Publicize yourself at the end of your guest post :) (facebook handle, twitter, the works, bring it on!)
-Publicize your guest post at Pocket Lint so new readers will check out my blog. (Blog about it, facebook, tweet it etc...)

I'm not sure how well this idea will take off. If there are many guest post offers, please be patient as your post may be scheduled a few months out. But if it fits for Pocket Lint, it will be published. Also, please alert me in your email if you want to write about a time sensitive matter. I'll do my best to bump you up.

Friday Feature! Yay!

Oh no, now I need someone for this coming Friday...

Good news! You're depressed.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, Major Depressive Disorder effects nearly 14.8 million American Adults and is the leading disability in the U.S. for ages 15-44.

I have been feeling off for a few weeks. Finally I went to the doctor on Tuesday morning. OK, full-disclosure, I went to a psychiatrist. I've been to my family physician a few times since Polly's stroke, but I need more help then she could offer.

I struggle with depression. Major Depressive Disorder.

I don't talk about it a lot, partly because it comes and goes. There are plenty of times in my life when I'm doing fine. I function. I'm a riot, actually! People love me :). My biggest times of depression have typically been connected with birthing babies.

Also, I can't stand the commercials about depression. "Depression hurts, Cymbalta can help." And there's a scene with a lady slumped on the couch or a man outside looking off into the distance. Yea, that's how I want you to think of me.

But mostly I don't talk about it, even when I am struggling, because there is a major stigma attached to depression. Especially if you are a Christian. How can a person be sad if she has Jesus in her heart?

Well, I'm a Christian, a former missionary, a pastor's wife, an active member of my church family, a MOPS Coordinator, a Children's Ministry Director and I get depressed. I pray, I read scripture, I seek help. I eat protein. I try to exercise. I've taken medication and I've been to a therapist. And I still get depressed.

The Bible is full of depressed people. Have you read the Psalms lately?

"You're sad? Why? Why can't you get over it? What do you have to be sad about? You have a great husband, awesome kids, enough food, etc..." That's what I feel like people would say to me if they know.

But here's the thing. I don't try to get sad. In fact, I fight to feel OK. Sergei and I know my triggers. If I'm starting to feel low, I get up, go for a walk, take a shower, pray. And sometimes, I still get depressed. My typical mood line, my starting point, if you will, is lower then people who aren't depressed, even if I am well.

One of the things the doctor said to me Tuesday was this. "Gillian, you are sitting here smiling through this session. And the questions you answer score you quite high for Major Depressive Disorder."

"Why are you smiling?"

Well, here's why. I've learned how to pull through. I've learned to smile when I feel like crying. I've learned how to fake emotion (thank you very much Mr. Keech and the rest of the Watervliet Fine Arts Department). Part of it goes with the job. If you a spiritual leader than people want you to be solid. If you are a missionary, you probably can't lie in bed for two weeks. If you are a mom to kids with special needs, you can't ignore important doctor appointments because you don't have the energy to go.

I'm not alone. There are 14.8 million Americans struggling with depression today. And most of them probably feel guilty that they just can't magically feel better like I do. So I decided to come clean. Because today I am sad. Yesterday I was sad. I may be sad tomorrow. And it hurts more and is helping less (both myself and others) to keep quiet about it.

Annie Dillard has this wonderful quote about writing that I think fits in with this post beautifully.

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all. Shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things will fill from behind, from beneath, like water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.” The Writing Life, pages 78&79

That's kind of my philosophy for life. I should shoot it, play it, spend it all, right away, every time. I can pretend I'm alright. I can pretend I'm someone else. But I know better. God knows better. 1 Chronicles 28:9 says, "The Lord searches every mind and understands every plan and thought." So what good does it do to pretend I'm OK when I'm not? It just extinguishes whatever little energy I have left trying so hard to hide how I feel.

If I keep this to myself, then I extinguish God's purpose in it. I think he wants to use this for his good.

I truly believe that.

"The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes."

I am a Christian, a wife, a mother, a writer, a friend, a missionary, a church-goer, and I am also a person who struggles with depression.

I offer this unsavory, unpolished, raw part of myself to you. I have to believe there is purpose in it, something more useful than hoarding ashes.

The kid at the piano

My friend Alyson (who is also married to a minister) shared this beautiful story/thought today and I asked if I could post it on Pocket Lint.

"i'm sure you've all heard the story about the kid at a famous pianist's concert who sneaks up on stage and starts playing a messy version of chopsticks on the grand piano. the famous pianist sneaks up behind him and begins to play too, transforming his banging notes into beautiful music, all the while whispering in the boy's ear, "don't stop, keep playing, you're doing great, don't stop." it's a powerful story and one of my favorites.

well, i feel like that kid lately. we've had a rough couple weeks both within our church and with unity with other churches in our community. my husband and i are trying to remain faithful, we are keeping at it, but feel like we are banging our heads against the wall.

however, all along the way, God has given us these blessings, sometimes really crazy things that are only explained by God's greatness and i feel like he is behind us at that piano whispering "don't stop, keep playing, you're doing great, don't stop." we're not doing great, our version of chopsticks sounds terrible, we're just banging on the keys. but God, in his infinite wisdom, is transforming our feeble attempt. and THAT makes it worthwhile."

This week I've been discouraged. I identify with the feeling of hitting your head against the wall on so many levels; our church, the kids, my writing...even my marriage. I need a good couple of weeks to catch my breath. I'd like to check in to a hotel and just sit and absorb the silence, to eventually reach for my Bible and gain perspective, encouragement, the pep talk as to why any of this is even necessary.

Right now I just want to crawl back in bed.

I so needed this piano story today. When I read Alyson's words my eyes teared up.

Life is as swift and high and low and curvy as Great America's largest roller coaster.

We played twenty questions today at our MOPS meeting. Someone was asked about roller coasters; fun or scary. The mom said that as a kid they were fun but as she gets older they get more and more scary.

Ain't that the truth?

I'll read and reread these words, Alyson. Thank you.

My grandmother's legacy

Last week my sweet 93 year old grandma went into congestive heart failure. Yesterday I got the call that she was in active death and I took off to MI to be with my mom and family.

This morning at 11:35am she died. I have to tell you...it scared the hell out of me to be so close to someone I love when they passed. It was just my mom and me and two nurses. I had been there for a while and had read some scripture (Romans 8 and Psalm 23) to her and sang a bit. Because of her pain she was on heavy meds and had not eaten or drank anything since last Wednesday (she was in a nursing home and under the care of hospice...they were wonderful, btw).

She started moaning and gulping for air. I literally hid behind my mom...crying... at one point I peeked out and yelped out...'love you gram'.

I know, wimpy.

But then, I sensed God...so strongly... I started praying asking Jesus to usher Gram into the presence of God... I'm generally not one of those Christians who breaks out into prayer with people I don't know. Probably should be one of those Christians, but, well, anyway...

I felt like I could cut the presence of Jesus in the room with a knife. When I finished praying and said "amen" grandma breathed out her last breath.

She was gone.

I am so thankful to God that he allowed me to be a part of that special time. It renewed my faith. God is. Jesus is the great I AM. Tonight I am rejoicing and look forward to seeing my grandmother again.

And I'm also thinking about the legacy Grandma has left behind.

It's not going to be noted in TIME magazine. Her legacy is not about wealth or power or talent.

Her legacy is her marriage, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. She was a sister to fourteen siblings, a wonderful aunt, a friend, a hard worker.

Memories from my childhood surface and glow in my mind. I will be doing the dishes or picking up a a loaf of bread at the store and a feeling comes over me. Something I can’t actually pin point. Sometime in my past that is blurry, but warm. I can’t remember if I was in first grade or fifth grade when it happened, if it was a sunny spring day or the dead of winter. But when I think about it, I feel good.

A lot of these memories involve my grandmother. Ask any of us grand kids about our grandma and our stories will be similar. We will tell you about playing with the tub of plastic red monkeys that hook one to another on the warm tile floor in the guest room, or about receiving a brown grocery bag full of presents every Christmas Eve. Someone will remember staying at Grandma’s house for a week in the summer, how she would take us to the dime store to pick out a toy. Her standing on the door step of the next door neighbors’ house, ringing the doorbell, coaxing the older neighbor kids outside to play. And almost all of us will talk about endless hands of cards, about five dice shaken and released, in the hopes of getting enough points to “get you on the board.” Someone will probably mention Mass with Grandma, the ominous Catholic Church…organ music filling the space so fully that we actually breathed the music in and out. Her faith affected all of us, whether we believe or not.

At grandma’s we ate what we were served. If she stayed with your family and happened to wake you up at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning, and quietly ask you to ride your bike to the corner store for a gallon of 2% milk, you did it, without refusal or complaint, astounding even yourself. And after you grew up and moved away, whether it was down the street or to another continent, once in a while you received a note, scraggly lines from her own hand, telling of mundane every day things. “God bless” or “Love and prayers” from Grandma.

Now we grandchildren are sprawled out like a spider web, in different towns and States. We are interconnected by wispy lines of our childhood. The lines are thin, seemingly non-existent, but strong like fishing lure. We can't break them. Believe me, some of us have tried.

All because of one little woman who lived well for 93 years, with dignity, faith and smiling until it was her time to be called home.

Love and prayers, Lil' Gram.

Snow storms and grace

Today we spent a lazy Saturday at home.

I read, Sergei made pancakes, we all slept in until nearly eight o'clock. The girls played upstairs. There was a lot of commotion in their play. They made a book store and then later, an orphanage. I took stock, realizing that my children have been changed by God's stirring in our hearts to adopt Evangeline.

At some point Elaina and Zoya took a bubble bath by candlelight in their bathing suits. Oh yea, we're fancy.

In the midst of it all Polly's glasses were lost, which is almost comical if they weren't so expensive; my attempt at making her look less like she has special needs (incidentally, we are finding more and more that she does not, indeed, have special needs) and we had just gotten them replaced under warranty.

Polly and I took a nap for an hour in the afternoon. I fell asleep feeling privileged to be her mother, marveling at all the lessons this little soul has taught me. Her birthday is in a couple weeks. I cannot fathom how far we've come in four years. Her birth is a painful memory. And yet, daily, she holds out her hands to us and offers joy. It's like texting with Jesus.

I went to Nohea Cafe on Roscoe for an hour to write and got so excited that it's a cafe run by Christians. I have this bad habit of deciding people are going to be my best friends without giving them the chance to get to know me.

Sergei fed all four girls dinner in my absence. I am blessed to have him as my husband. Seriously.

My brother's birthday is today. I've been thinking about him and a time in my childhood when he watched me after school. It was when my family lived in a small town in Michigan; it seemed like half of the town was family, but looking back, now I know that everyone was family. Justin would make us a frozen pizza and he'd split it down the middle and we'd each eat half (back when I could eat half of a frozen pizza without consequence). We'd watch The Munsters and he'd try to coax me into playing with a friend so he could meet up with his high school cronies. My brother is funny and kind. He makes people feel at ease and I've always looked up to him. Intuitively, I know he is a good father. When I was little he would use me as weights; I'd be his dumbbell and he'd lift me up over my head ten times. When I'm around him, still till this day, I feel safe.

It snowed today in Chicago, after a week of temperatures upwards of 50 degrees. Waking up this morning, the snow blanketing our neighborhood was a disappointment. Before I knew it, our little family of six hunkered down for our last winter hurrah. I revelled in being inside for one more day, watching my children imagine a new world in the playroom. Our cocoon was happy, safe, healthy. For today, at least.

Don't be mistaken, I'm ready for spring. The flip flops are staying out. But today, surprisingly, was sweet.

Tonight after dinner I did my in-home walking video. I walked 3 miles with Leslie Sansone, feeling middle-aged. Evie loves the walking videos. She dances and jives; it's worth it to see her get so excited about the beat. There's a point in the video where we do kick backs, with our arms raised, "Hallelujah." After the birth of Polly, my brother advised me to buy a double cheeseburger from McDonald's without fries, if I really wanted to lose weight.

Elaina watched me well into mile two. "You've been exercising a lot more recently", she noted.

"I just want to be healthy," I lied. I don't want to tell my nine year old daughter who is probably smarter than I am that I desperately still, four years later, would like to lose my baby weight. And I only eat a double cheeseburger with fries like twice a year.

I feel like our family has really gotten a day off today... I don't know if Sergei would agree as he manned the children more than I did.

But it felt nice.

And at the end of the day, after the walking video and Zoya's turn at Bible story time (another gripping account of Jonah and the whale); after three out of four children were tucked into bed, I rocked Evangeline to sleep, totally enthralled with her. We've really started to connect lately.

"I hope it lasts forever," I say to myself as I sip a glass of Chardonnay.

And I am excited about church tomorrow morning; honored that God gave me the grace to believe His gospel and that each week, while sitting at Christian Fellowship Church, a place where immortals merge and focus their attention on the Almighty for two hours, I am fed and stupefied. Where does my husband come up with this stuff? Why does God love me?

And the answer comes: Grace.

Tomorrow is World Down Syndrome Awareness Day. Elaina and Zoya both have plans to do presentations for their class on Monday to honor their sisters. To them, there is no difference; adopted or not. To them, their sisters are not disabled; they are simply Polly and Evie.

I, myself, am almost brought to tears to think about the level of awareness God has brought to our Marchenko lives.

I give Jesus all the glory, realizing that some people who read this will think I am absolutely mad.

All I can say is I'm thankful, that my belief is outside of myself, something that was handed to me by grace. I'm a fish who grabbed the bait.