Stealing Smiles

A few years ago, I went to Washington D.C. with some friends to join the annual March for Life. My memory of that trip is sort of a blur of activity, but a few things stand out. Two of them:

1. COLD. So. Cold. But, hand and foot warmers are the bees' knees, you guys.

2. After one particularly late event, my friends and I found ourselves huddled in a burger shop somewhere deep within the metro/mall thingy that I can't remember the name of, sometime after midnight. 

Why is that relevant? Because out of the swarms of people I saw in those three days, I remember that waitress. And that waitress was C.R.A.N.K.Y. Her crankiness was making other people cranky. It didn't take long to notice some of the other tables being pretty rude in response to her rudeness, and vice versa. Not that anyone is just super peppy in the middle of the night, but really, it was getting kinda ugly. So I started being SUPER charming and nice, joking with her, thanking her, until eventually she would crack a smile every time she walked over to our table. People, it was practically a small miracle. I was so satisfied with myself over this success, I couldn't stop grinning, until one of my friends finally demanded, "What's so funny?" 

"Oh," I shrugged, smirking, "Just stealing smiles." 

Like my dad.

I don't know what he calls it, this thing he does, but in my head I call it "stealing smiles."

My Dad, he is a charmer. He's a real charmer. And as absolutely far back as I can remember, in all my advanced 25 years of life, he has done this thing. 

Waiters, waitresses, cashiers in Wal-Mart, the guy selling newspapers on the corner...my Dad sees them. He finds out their names and uses their names. He asks them how they are, and listens, He jokes with them until they cheer up. He thanks them for offering their service and tells them he appreciates them. He sees them. And, being seen, they change. 

They go from struggling through their day, feeling lonely, feeling invisible, to being known, even a little bit. 

When I was little, I thought it was like this magical thing that Dad did. He could steal smiles from even the most unwilling smiler.

Being older, I am positive, it IS like this magical thing Dad does. He can ALWAYS steal smiles from even the most unwilling smiler.

And I get a real kick out of trying to do it myself. I don't know anybody who does it like him, but I love trying. I've had conversations with my sisters, while we're out, and one of us does this, and we'll look at each other and say, "That's what Dad would have done!" 

Sometimes it doesn't work for us. I remember at least once where we shrugged on our way out of a store after an unsuccesful attempt at smile-snatching and said, "Well, I bet DAD could have gotten them to smile."

There's something very consoling about that: Dad could have made it better. Dad could fix it. Just knowing he could fix it practically fixes it. 

There are lots of things I love about my own Daddy. 

I love that he's practical. And I really do actually like this - I like that I can go to him with an emotional trainwreck of a situation and he will very calmly sort it out, and it will all make sense later on.

I love that he taught us to Take. Care. Of. Mom. If Mama ain't sittin' down, ain't nobody sittin' down. If Mama's still up working you better bet your as-yet-unspanked-bottom (Kidding! but also, not) should be up working to. When Mama says dinner is ready you better show respect for her hard work cooking and get your self to the table PRONTO. If Mama is doing laundry...wait, why is your Mama doing laundry?!? 

I love that.

I love that my Daddy taught us to be activists. And HOW to be activists. Some of my best lines when I teach other people how to sidewalk counsel come from my Dad: "It's good to have a sense of urgency. Just don't be frantic." (I'm not sure he even knows I got that from him, but I did. I definitely did.)

I love that he taught us how to be the kind of kids he wanted to have. I've had friends complain their parents pressured them into certain colleges or careers. My dad never pressured me into anything like that. He would just tell us it's not about whether you finish college or not - it's about trying to be ready and available to do what God is calling you to do.

There are lots of things I love about my Daddy. Stealing smiles is just one of my favorites.

The Yellow Phone

Alex likes to say things that seem totally obvious, except to me, until he explains and then I have about 3.7 minutes to think about them.

For example: while he was discussing with my mother something I had done, he finished up with, "It's just that red phone of hers!"

He had mentioned my having a red phone once or twice before. I thought it was weird. My phone isn't red. It's green. Actually, it's black, but the rubbery case thing is green. Really green. 

I made him explain to me what this red phone business was about. He said it was an expression that meant a person had a direct line to God, and God always answered it.

Sheesh, I thought, if I had known I supposedly had one of those I'd have used it loads more.

Alex kept mentioning it, so I kept thinking about it. I tend to think things to death, as it's been said. 

For another example: the blog name. Been thinking that To. Death. For a couple of months now. I knew that changing it was right, but what in the world was I going to change it to? I kept trying different stuff and the ideas just wouldn't stick. Praying about it lots, thinking about it lots, even googling "fun new blog names" or something like that. What can I say? I like thinking about things, until they settle just right into my brain.

So, when my beloved kept mentioning, as I said, this red phone business, eventually this happened in my head:

Well, if I did have a direct line, the phone wouldn't be red. I like red, but really? A red phone? That sounds like a perpetual emergency. Ain't nobody got time fo dat. Who wants to answer a phone that's always for an emergency? If God were going to give me a direct line, and always answer it, I'd want Him to be smiling when it rang at least some of the time. Goodness, if it were red and always an emergency maybe He'd be like, 'Oh, there goes that panicky red phone again. This kid..." So it can't be red. Since I supposedly have one I am totally going to start putting that to some serious use. I like this direct line to God business. That is just so cozy. But not a red phone. Eloise has a pink phone in the Plaza. But I don't want a pink phone. A really happy-looking phone would be...YELLOW.

Like a sunflower, yo. 

Of course we all have direct access to God, and of course we don't even have to wait for any phone to ring to know if He's listening or worry about whether He's going to go all smartphone on us and reject the call...but the mental image had an undeniably quirky appeal. 

I gots me a yellow phone, I thought grinning, and convinced a yellow phone had the capability of making God's heart grin, too, no matter how often I kept it ringing.

Maybe even because I kept it ringing.

And suddenly, the blog had its new name.

The Yellow Phone.

It expresses exactly the idea of what I was looking for: something joyful, something that just is. An open conversation with God. A chance to live in closeness with Him, to beat peacefully alongside His Heart as I learn to be the heart of the Alex Hanson home. 

A reminder to just be. 

So, the blog will be getting its little makeover soon. I've already designed the new header and I am SO excited about it...I can't wait to show you all! 

And you can think it's goofy all you want. I is what I is, and that's how it will be. ;)

Changing Names

I read somewhere today that half the abortion facilities in Texas have closed in the past year. I haven't snooped around on that number too much to verify it's correct, but based on what I've been seeing for the past year, I'd say that sounds about right.

Some of those closings felt like A Big Stinkin' Deal. They were all a big deal, but some felt closer to home than others. When I heard the facility in Bryan College Station was closing, my first reaction was disbelief. I never really thought I'd hear that news. It's still a weird thought. I saw a picture from the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life, a picture of the Planned Parenthood sign coming down and everything, and there I was still trying to believe it was actually shut. 

Sometimes I still forget it's gone. I forget there's a realtor's sign hanging from the fence where pro-lifers kept vigil for so many, many hours.

Then I heard the one in Beaumont closed. Again, my first reaction was disbelief. Even when I saw those pictures, I was thinking, "Really?!? Are we sure we're not missing something?"

Next I heard the biggest late-term abortionist in Houston, owner of two notorious facilities, was planning to shut down one of his facilities, and I confess, I still have trouble totally buying that story.

But on Monday, June 9th, I got a text from my sweet friend Katie.

Corpus Christi's lone abortionist was shutting down. 

Eduardo Aquino, a man whose name I was familiar with long before I'd ever even heard of HCL, (or, for that matter, Planned Parenthood) was closing his doors. For good.

I read that text, and I remembered kneeling outside that facility in the rain as a college student. I remembered standing outside as a pre-teen before my family uprooted and moved to Houston. I remembered marching to that facility with my parents when my younger sisters were still babies, and then I realized I didn't even know how young I was in my first memory of that abortion facility. It just seemed like it had always been there.

And I didn't believe it. I didn't believe it was closing.

More specifically, I suddenly realized I didn't believe it could be closing.

I realized that, and it pierced me to the heart.

"Isn't this what I do every day? Try to end abortion? Isn't this my whole career? My whole professional life? My whole goal? How can I not believe it's possible for the thing I say I work for every day to actually happen?"

Shot full of holes. 

I named my blog "Stalwart Heart" a long time ago because that's what I wanted to be. It's what I needed to be: a heart which "no tribulation can overcome." People who do work like this, really any ministry work, full-time have to have that. God truly knows - there's plenty of tribulation to go around. Many times you have to just keep flying anyway, even when you're shot full of holes. There are many people who have done and will do this years longer than me. But no matter what length of time you serve, it takes a certain amount of mettle. And that mettle is gonna get shot through. Full. Of. Holes.

Stalwart Heart is what I have needed, and what I have needed to be.

But not forever. There is, as I have hoped for a long time, really a season for everything. Seasons change, and they have different names.

My own name is changing. I'll go from Richardson, which I have loved, to Hanson, which I do love and will love more than I can even imagine. I thought about it a lot, and I realized I felt the blog needed to have a name change, too. 

Stalwart Heart has been an amazing season. A season that grew me in ways I couldn't have known were possible. And God's grace answering my prayer for a stalwart heart has kept me going much, much longer than I thought possible, shot full of holes and all.

It's just not who I'll be anymore.

I've thought a lot about what kind of home I want to be. 

You didn't misread that - as my sweet Gina friend likes to remind me Venerable Fulton Sheen says: "A man is a journey, a woman is a place."

Alex tells me that all the time, too. When we start our home together, in many ways, I am the home. So, what kind of home do I want to give my husband?

A joyful one. A peaceful one. A restful one. A nurturing one. I want our home to be an oasis for him. I want it to be a place where things are rightly ordered, where "the will of God is done, as He wishes, when He wishes, because He wishes." 

 

How am I going to do that?

Well, I'm not totally sure. 

But, I feel more and more lately that a really good place to start would be NOT having so much disbelief when God hears and answers prayers.

Amazed gratitude, heck yes! Disbelief? Uhmmm...no.

If stuff was happening just because I tried hard, and some other peeps tried hard, and we were trying hard together, that would be pretty mind-blowing. Disbelief would be okay for that, I think.

But if I try hard, and other peeps try hard, and we try hard together, and we all PRAY LIKE CRAZY, and stuff happens...I should have known that "hope does not disappoint." I should have known that. I should have known that when we cried out, He would hear us.

So, if I want to learn to be a good home, I need to learn to be. 

Not always striving, not always fighting, not always limping along even when I'm shot full of holes. Just being. Just resting on the fact that I do my bit, and then in and around and through that, God does a whole lot more. 

The seasons are changing. So is my name. So will the blog's...but for that, you'll have to wait a little bit longer. Just keep an eye out. 

Shot Full

I've always thought I would have a hard time finding a husband. For lots of reasons, but not least of all because I have a super great Mom. That might seem like a weird reason to be man-picky, but it's legit. My mom, being super great, understands me. I mean, she gets me, y'all. Sometimes, she knows me better than I know myself.

I expect that from a husband. 

Unfair, perhaps, but why would I leave my mom's house to live with somebody who doesn't get me?!?

No reason, that's why. 

Even if he was really, really cute.

But, then came one day I did find somebody really, really cute. Or, actually, he found me, and then he started chasing me, (hardcore, you guys, chasing me), and then another day he said something super insightful and I looked at him and I realized he'd been doing that a lot and then I realized, "This guy, he knows me...He gets me...like Mom."

Mind. Blown.

After that, what choice did I have? Well, several, I suppose, but the only reasonable one (and I love me some good reasonable-ness) was MARRY THE MAN. 

So, I thought I would. And so, I think I will.

One of the (many) insightful things he has said concerned my work. Once we decided to get married there were a lot of other things to decide, one of which was whether or not I'd be working once we moved to our new city. For years, I've felt I was called to be a homemaker, not just as a hobby on the side but as my vocation. I know that's not always possible, even for people who feel God has put that desire in their hearts. But Alex has gone to great lengths to reassure me that he wants to do everything he can so our new little family is structured that way.

In one of the conversations about this, I mentioned how there were a lot of people telling me they didn't believe I could "stay away" from pro-life work. 

"It's not about staying away from it," I was saying to my sweet fiance rather miserably, "I just...I'm...just..."

Except I couldn't find the words to express the feeling I was getting in the pit of my stomach over this.

Then, Alex. Being Insightful:

"It's not about staying away from it. You're like a (*fill in the blank with the super cool name of a plane which I only remember was from World War II*) plane that has been shot full of bullet holes."

I admit to looking somewhat stunned at this announcement.

"Shot full." He repeated seriously. "And now you're flying back to base. You've been flying out there a long time. You just need to go home for now."

I lost count a long time ago of all the times my mom put her finger right on an aching spot in my heart I'd been struggling to pinpoint. It was always such a rush of relief to feel like, finally, I know what's wrong with myself.

That was the exact feeling I got when Alex called me a plane full of bullet holes. And I knew instantly, it expressed exactly how I felt...how I'd been feeling for a long time. Shot full of holes.

That in itself isn't the reason I feel called to be at home for my husband after our marriage. I felt that tugging in my heart a long time before I started full-time pro-life work, and way before I met Alexander Hanson. But it has deepened, sharpened, intensified on every level I could possibly describe in my past 4+ years at HCL. I've tried to do my bit on the front lines. I really, really have. I have nothing but the greatest respect for the people who've done it years longer, and who will do it for years more. 

I'm by no means saying I'm never doing pro-life work again (pretty sure that isn't even possible, by the way). I look forward to being one of the volunteers I've had the pleasure of working with. Pro-life volunteers are the salt of the earth, and I have a lot of love for the ones who've been mine. 

But I also don't think that being a homemaker is by any stretch of the imagination a lesser vocation. I don't think I'll be "bored at home," as some genuinely loving people have expressed their concern. A wife and mother is the heart of a home...I need to learn to beat peacefully. 

I need to not be shot full of holes all the time.

More to come on this...this is all leading somewhere, but it would be a really long post all at once. ;)