Girl... Interrupted

The last two weeks have been very trying ones around our house.  Two weeks ago today, I headed out of state to visit family with our 5 children for a "spring break" from our regularly scheduled programming.  15 minutes before we were to arrive at our destination, my 5 year old son vomited, and I don't mean a little carsickness.  I mean he vomited on people, in crevices, on pillows, blankets, coats, sisters, in bags of DVDs and yarn.  For some reason, my children think that a hand in front of the mouth might stop vomit from coming forth (because we all want to keep stomach acid mixed with partially digested food and virus in our bodies).  That hand actually acts as a vomit amplifier - propelling vomit in every conceivable direction... up, down, left, right, yes... even backwards.  There are those moments as a parent when I have observed a mess beyond the scope of my wildest nightmares and screamed to myself (silently in my head, of course), "Where am I supposed to even start to clean this up?!"  I felt so sorry for him as he stood outside the van without his vomit-covered coat.  (It had been 48 degrees when we left our own home only to find snow and wind chills of -20 three hours down the road.  As a result, his coat had been a vomit-casualty.)  I was standing behind him trying to keep the wind off his soaked body.  He started to cry, and I was trying desperately to find something that wasn't gross to put under his bottom and around his shoulders.  I was trying to find something to help clean up the mess.  I had been so happy not to have diapers on trips anymore, but there's a caveat to that - no wet wipes.  I dumped some things out of a Walmart sack and set it on his car seat, and he sat on it, and I drove as fast as possible to our destination.  (I figured that if we happened to get pulled over, one whiff of my world would get us a police escort to our destination.)

Well, I could elaborate on the rest of the sordid tale, but it went something like, "Hi, Grandma!  We brought vomit!"  3 loads of laundry, detailing vomit van in snow and  -20 degree wind chills.  "I feel better.  I was just carsick.  I can eat a full lunch and supper!"  3 hours of The Bachelor season finale that my father-in-law loves.  "Goodnight, everyone."  "Urp" (from the next room over).  Texting my husband on midnight shift, "Should we go home now?"  Waking up at 5:00AM with my daughter who isn't feeling well... loading up the van with buckets, bags, wipes, and Lysol on 4 hours of sleep to drive the long way home.  

We have since spent the past two weeks in stomach virus "hell".  We all know that stomach virus does its best work on children at night.  We went back to pull-ups.  We spent days passing bowls and washing hands.  We spent nights cleaning and changing bedding, washing vomit out of hair and clothes, and doing loads upon loads of laundry.  When I say "We", of course, I mean "I", because my husband has been away for work.  The one night a week he has been able to come home has been spent trying to keep him from getting sick too.  Oh, and our youngest ended up with a trip to the hospital and a 30 hour stay for dehydration. 

Yesterday was my birthday.  My love was home, and we went to church and then to lunch at a nice restaurant with our sweet kiddos.  A few months ago a friend of mine with two children told me that she and her husband always sit together when they're out with their children and that the kids sit on either side of them.  I thought, "Wow... must be nice."  We have spent most of our years together hearing, "I want to sit by mom," and "I want to sit by dad" and dividing ourselves as evenly as possible amongst five children.  Yesterday was no exception.  As we sat across from one another at a big, round table, we attempted to exchange a few words now and again consisting of "adult conversation".  When I say "a few words", take me literally.  Our older three children are 16, 11, and 9, and they rarely - if ever - interrupt our adult talk with loud stories about what they watched on Spongebob or what they named a new stuffed animal and why.  Rather, they contribute to it at appropriate times with appropriate conversation - which is an awesome part about having older children.  Then there's these two:

I say "is", because we sometimes refer to Levi (5) and Violet (4) as an entity - "Leviolet".  They are our youngest, and they like attention.  Namely, they like to interrupt adult conversation.  So our dinner went much like this:

Levi:  Mom, can you get me some soup?

Me:  Sure.  

Levi:  Why is this spoon so big?

Me:  It's a soup spoon, buddy.

Austin:  I doubt he'll be able to fit it in his mouth.

Me:  I'm sure he will.

Violet:  Daddy, I love you.

Mark:  I love you too!

Claire:  Can we go to the salad bar as many times as we want?

Me:  No.  Just once.  (to Mark):  What did you...

Levi:  (mouth full) Hey, mom, did you know when Squidward didn't like crabby patties that Spongebob said, (insert awesome Spongebob voice) "They're good for your soul." (Squidward voice) "My soul? I don't have a soul."  (lowest voice) "Muahahaha!"  It's so funny!

Me:  Oh, you do a good job with that, buddy.  (Pause)  (to Mark):  I was going to ask what you thought...

Violet to Mark:  (Yank, yank, yank at the arm...) And I'm going to miss you so much!

Levi to me:  And then Squidward started to like crabby patties, and then he was eating so many that Spongebob said (voice again), "No, Squidward, they'll go straight to your thighs!"  (Squidward voice) "My thighs?" And then his thighs exploded.  Hahahaha!  Isn't that so funny?

Me:  Yes, I saw that one I think.  (Pause) (to Mark - faster this time):  What did you think of...

Levi:  Hey, mom, I know which one of my stuffed animals you like the best!  

Me:  Yeah - the Walrus.

Levi:  Yeah, and I named him "Wally".  You know why?

Lest you think my children are somehow starved for attention, let me assure you... between homeschooling, no TV service, a daddy and brother who love to wrestle and roughhouse with kids, a mom who loves cooking buddies, and plenty of talking and snuggling from dawn till bedtime, they are loaded down with attention and interaction.

When I was a child, there were a few "cardinal sins" when it came to interacting with adults.  One was, "Don't interrupt adult conversation... ever... unless there is blood - lots of blood."  We haven't been as diligent teaching this rule to our last two children as my parents were with me (as evidenced by yesterday's lunch conversation).  I started thinking on the way home about why this rule was so important.  It didn't take me long to figure it out.  Here's the strange part about blogging.  When I write this next part, all of my friends are going to think I'm referring to them.  I have a lot of interaction with a lot families.  I'm not talking about you, and I am talking about you... in the sense that I'm talking about most of us.  Most of the time I can barely even start - much less finish - adult conversations without child interruptions - many times several of them - by my children or other people's children or both.  Sometimes, when in a large group of adults and children, I can be interrupted while talking with another adult by a child completely unrelated and sometimes even unknown to either one of us.  Being interrupted can be exasperating... particularly when it's an important or sensitive topic.  This often leads me not to even ask important questions or things that might end up in detailed adult conversation for fear that it will be eavesdropped or interrupted and, as a result, end abruptly or uncomfortably.  It almost leads me not to ask "caring questions".  The genuine "how are you" or "how have you been holding up" types of questions or to give the actual detailed answers to those questions when people ask them of me.  "Real" is pushed aside in favor of ease in dealing with children.  Helpful conversations that teach me something new or meaningful conversations that develop closer relationships that might've been had have many times been lost because my children think that their own immediate needs are more important than anyone else's, and I reinforce that by saying, "What do you need, honey?"  (And then am often met with a Spongebob dialogue reenactment.)  How nice to virtually say to a person, "I'd really like to hear about your heartache at the loss of your mother, but those crabby patties are really going right to Squidward's thighs."  

I think it's easy to become co-dependent with our children and to foster co-dependence in them.  We are so quick to throw out old parenting ideas that seem overly "tough" or not squishy and gooey and "loving" enough, but we neglect to investigate the reasons that traditional parenting worked for hundreds (if not thousands) of years when carried out by loving parents.  We forget that new ideas are not really new at all - (as is nothing else under the sun).  We forget that fostering artificial self-esteem in our children is not nearly as important as fostering genuine esteem for others.  Not everything my children do is new, interesting, and/or praiseworthy, but their self-esteem demands that I pay attention to it and praise it at the expense of everyone and everything around us?  What kind of beastly adult will that make them?  I think we all know those types of adults or teens who interrupt or dominate conversations every few moments with their own "self-actualization"... selfish motives.  We might even be or be raising those people.

Last week I had to make a difficult choice between being in the hospital with my youngest child overnight and coming home to be with my older children.  My oldest (Austin) is nearly 17, and he is well capable of taking care of his siblings - as he as proven many times before, but I hated that I had to choose.  I love being right across the hall from my younger ones.  Levi (almost 6) shares a room with his sister (who was the one in the hospital).  He tends to be scared in the rare case that she is not sleeping in his room.  As I was tending to my youngest in hospital, I looked at the clock and thought I should have told Austin to sleep nearer to Levi so that he wouldn't be afraid, but it was too late to call.  When I talked to Austin the next morning and asked him how things went, he said, "Well, Levi was scared.  So we talked, and I prayed with him and for him and told him that if he got scared to just call on Jesus, and he would be safe.  Then we practiced it a few times.  Then he was fine, and I went to bed."  I said, "Well, I was going to tell you that you should have slept near him or let him sleep in your top bunk."  Austin responded, "Mom, is it more helpful to give him me or to give him God?  God's always there.  People aren't."  Wow.  I know that.  I learned that - to the most painful degree I could imagine - when I was 26 and my husband of nearly 7 years left me with our two daughters and then started taking them away for weekends and birthday and holidays.  I learned that building my life around my girls or around my identity as a parent was not helping me or my girls be better people.  My girls and I found out in short order that the people we love and those we are certain will be there forever - for better or worse - will not always be there.  There is only One Who is always there and Who never fails.  Giving our children a false sense of security - yes, even in the infallible presence and perfection of their parents, is setting them up with an unhealthy dependence upon people to meet their needs.  They need to be secure in that both of their parents are present (Lord willing), that we will meet their needs to the best of our abilities (as God enables), and that we will provide a framework of support to help them prepare for life, independent from but forever and unconditionally loved by, us.  However, giving them an idea that we will always be there, will never let them down, and will always be their security blanket no matter what does not foster in them a sense of independence that is vital to the human spirit - not to mention survival.  

I am equally convinced that parents need to be a very present part of their early and formative years, because we are an example to them of God's loving, caring presence.  Unless we are present (in whatever capacity and however that looks in your home), we can't be an example of that.  However, problems arise when we go from setting ourselves up as an example of God's love to them to becoming a substitute god for them.  I once saw a parenting graph that showed that at birth a child is 0% responsible or capable of caring for self and that, therefore, the parent is 100% responsible for that care.  The graph showed that, at a steady rate, the percentages should become more even, level off, and eventually reverse.  In other words, at 5 a child might be 20% capable of caring for self and the parent is responsible for the other 80%, and so on until they are 20 years old or so and they are 100% capable and responsible for their own care and decisions and consequences.  The graph thus demonstrated that, over the first 20 or so years of life, the child is weaned off of being the parent's dependent and to being his own, independent person.  I would only add one thing to that graph, and that is that a child moves from being fully dependent on parent to fully dependent upon God.  I can't promise that I won't be hit by a bus tomorrow or develop a terminal illness or (as has happened to me in the past year) be in the hospital myself or with a sick sibling.  I can guarantee that God will always be present and is always present with them.  

I dread blogging on parenting topics, because they are always so controversial.  People get so easily offended as if by stating a parenting choice of your own you are saying that is what everyone who truly loves his or her children must do.  I was just reminded yesterday that it's okay to teach children not to interrupt adult conversations unless it is a true emergency, and, in those cases, to do it politely by placing a hand gently on an arm or standing nearby by not in between talking adults.

Hands Wide Open

The church in which I was raised was a hymn-only, piano and organ church from my earliest recollection.  No one raised a hand.  No one clapped a hand.  Honestly, that never bothered me.  I don't get caught up in fight over music worship styles, because worship is an attitude that comes from my heart... not from the music that is played.  If there's one thing I've learned it is that not everyone is as emotionally passionate as I am.  Nor should they be.  I picture a world overrun by people who get goosebumps during truck commercials, and it scares me to think that some evolutionary error would ever end up in there being 7 billion of "me".  It's funny how most of us would probably agree that we love the variety of people in the world, and yet we spend our lives wishing people would be more like us - trying to make them that way.

Over the years, our church has changed musically.  More choruses and worship songs have been introduced.  Now there is a worship "band" that plays a variety of instruments. This doesn't bother me in the least.  After all, it is still my heart that is either at worship or not.  No amount of distraction will steal it away if it is settled on God.  And any amount of distraction will steal it away if it is not.  I have to be honest - with a child whose sensory processing disorder can end us up in a screaming meltdown over a "borrowed" toy in the church pew in .5 second - I am often not as tuned into worship as I should/could be.  I am often distracted by our 4 year old wanting to stand up and see over the people in front of us or our 5 year old making car noises or yelling at his sister.  I am not a hand-raiser.  I never have been.  I'm not against it.  I just always feel self-conscious about it.  I don't want people to think I'm trying to portray some ultra-spirituality.  I'm not not used to it.  There have been times when I have lifted a hand - when focused, when moved, when really tuned-in to the sacrifice Christ made for me.  However, it's usually when I'm alone.  Sometimes I am even distracted by hand-raisers at church.  I am certain this is the opposite of their intention, but my eyes naturally follow commotion (as do most people's, I think).  I find comfort in their openness and envy their natural abandon and vulnerability.

Last week we sat behind my uncle and cousins at church.  As I looked down, I noticed that my 9 year old cousin had a pair of work gloves on his hands.  You know the kind.  They are bright yellow with red cuffs.  

He took them off and set them on the pew behind him during the singing, and I looked down at them.  I don't know if I'm the only weird person who does things like this, but I found myself trying to make my hands fit them from where I was standing - not touching them - just forming my hands into their shape.  I looked down at my hands and noticed that they were palms up and fully open - fingers spread gently apart and curved slightly toward me.    

I immediately felt self-conscious... as though my intentions might be mistaken.  People might think I was opening my hands in worship.  Self-consciously I closed them and put them back down to my sides.  Immediately I felt overwhelmed with, "Why?"  Why what?  "Why not open your hands?  Are you afraid people might think you need something?"  What does that have to do with anything?  Need something?  "You are in need.  When you open your hands, you acknowledge it."

After all, open hands are an international sign of neediness.  Looking for hand-out?  Looking for a hand-up?  In the self-sufficient way I like to be, those things make me feel messed up inside.  I don't want to need.  I'm in one of the neediest places in my life I can ever remember.  In the past 8 months I've had severe back disc problems and a broken leg.  I've needed help from paramedics, doctors, specialists, physical therapists, my family, and even strangers sometimes.  When a person is in crisis, he or she doesn't often have time to contemplate or grieve loss until it's getting over.  My health is not great, but it's much better than it has been.  I am able to walk without assistance on normal surfaces.  I can go up and down stairs.  I can't lift things of any significant weight, but I can do basic household chores.  I have gone from self-sufficiency, to crisis, to grief in a relatively short period of time.  I don't know if it's my age, my health condition, or something else, but I've begun to contemplate life differently.  I watch a person do something - bungee jumping, back flipping, auditioning for Survivor, and I say to myself (and sometimes to people around me), "I'll never do that."  My husband likes to ask, "Did you ever even want to do that?"  The answer is usually with a sigh and a groan, "No, but now I know I never will."  As a perpetually busy person, my physical therapist has had a difficult time keeping me down... which is how I ended up with a broken leg in the first place.  He tells me, "Take it easy.  Stop doing things."  When I would have to call off a session for a sore back he would add, "Don't lift any furniture!"  Why would he assume... well, he knows.  

I got another cortisone epidural yesterday.  These have become my only way of postponing the next disc herniation that will end up in another hospitalization and more weeks in bed.  They are also becoming a monthly need.  After my epidural I drove home to change for my husband's work Christmas party.  He said, "Are you sure you want to go?"  Between my insistence on high heels, the hole in my back, and the fact I had driven all over creation all day, he (always sensible - it's a good thing one of us is) thought it might be a questionable activity.  

I regretted it from before we even got out of the car.  My leg had started to swell to the point of numbness, and between that and the pain shooting down my back and into that same leg, I was ready to go home before we walked in the door.  I have started to acknowledge that our lives will probably always be hampered by my back and leg.  Did it stop me from going sledding with Mark and the little ones and sliding down the ice-covered driveway in boots 2 sizes too big with laces undone to get the mail this morning?  No.  I'm still a barefoot 8-year-old girl jumping out of a tree on the inside.  

I hate to ask for help.  I can't lift my Crockpot out of the bottom cupboard anymore.  Did I mention how much I hate asking for help?  Yet I stood there in church and closed my hands.  

My mom once told me that God can't fill hands that are already full.  At the time, my heart and hands were filled with what I wanted... what I thought I needed.  Basically - they were full of discontentment.  I am struggling once again with contentment.  This time it is discontentment with my physical limitations.  Yet I stood there in church and closed my hands.

Even though I am a firm believer that there are no coincidences, I thought maybe the gloves on the pew that day were coincidental.  They may not have been meant to teach me any deeper lesson.  As we came home after church, I passed through our laundry room and looked down at the top of the dryer, and this is what I saw:

Why there were even work gloves there I have no idea.  I suspect they were there to assure me that I wasn't meant to slough off the lesson I was on the cusp of internalizing.   I am fully needy before God.  I must acknowledge it and embrace it.  I am not supposed to try to get others to fill that need.  God alone is able to fill the need that the immensity of Who He is created in the first place.  He is love to the unloved.  He is companionship to the lonely.  He is peace in chaos.  He is rest for the weary.  He is health to the bones.  He is joy in sadness.  He is fullness in our emptiness.

Did you ever want more than is earthly possible?  Did you ever want to hug your child tighter than safely possible - just because you love him/her so much?  Did you ever want to be closer to your spouse than even making love can achieve?  There are a few things that my husband does that make me feel inexplicably full inside.  He holds me tightly and kisses my forehead so tenderly.  I don't know why, but in those all-too-brief moments I feel like I could live a thousands lifetimes in complete contentment.  I know you feel it too... the lack that this world has for us.  The fact we were created for so much deeper fulfillment than even the greatest earthly love can afford us.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 says,

"He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning  even to the end."

My closed hands tell a deeper story about me... about my heart.  Warm hands - warm heart.  Closed hands - closed heart.  Open hands - open heart.  God longs to fill the hearts and hands of those who are willing to open them - to acknowledge their deep need.  Whatever those needs may be - He has all assets as His disposal.  

I close with a portion of the book Epic by John Eldredge, 

"And they lived happily ever after. Stop for just a moment, and let it be true. They lived happily ever after.

These may be the most beautiful and haunting words in the entire library of mankind. Why does the end of a great story leave us with a lump in our throats and an ache in our hearts? If we haven't become entirely cynical, some of the best endings can even bring us to tears.

Because God has set eternity in our hearts. Every story we tell is our attempt to put into words and images what God has written there, on our hearts. Think of the stories that you love. Remember how they end.

This is written on the human heart, this longing for happily ever after.

You see, every story has an ending. Every story. Including yours. Have you ever faced this? Even if you do manage to find a little taste of Eden in this life, even if you are one of the fortunate souls who find some love and happiness in the world, you cannot hang on to it. You know this. Your health cannot hold out forever. Age will conquer you. One by one your friends and loved ones will slip from your hand. Your work will remain unfinished. Your time on this stage will come to an end. Like every other person gone before you, you will breathe your last breath.

And then what? Is that the end of the Story?

If that is the end, this Story is a tragedy. Macbeth was right. Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Sooner or later, life will break your heart. Or rather, death will break your heart. Perhaps you have to lose someone you love to be shaken from denial. The final enemy is death. It will come. Is there no way out? Do we have a future?"

Unless our present life is built on something eternal, it is indeed a tragedy.  That which our hearts long for is not a longing that is fulfilled upon death but one that can start to be fulfilled at any time in our present.  If we acknowledge that our open, empty hands need filled by God alone, then our days can take on new meaning, fresh perspective, and fulfillment that is all-encompassing.  Do we look forward to eternity?  With all our hearts - as a bride looks forward to wedding a beloved groom, but courtship is here and now.

Greasy Grace

I was on my way to my last physical therapy appointment earlier this week.  I was pretty excited to be winding down with physical therapy that was supposed to have gone on for another couple of months at least.  No longer limping and with pain becoming less acute every week, I was more than ready to be done with PT for the first time since July.

I was listening to the radio when a story came on about a man deployed in the armed forces who had e-mailed his wife's favorite local pizza place to order a pizza for her upcoming birthday.  He had said that he would pay for the pizza with a credit card by phone on the day it was delivered.  The pizza place, instead, took the initiative to send the pizza, along with a card and balloons, to the family's home the evening of her birthday- free of charge.  They took a photo of the man's wife and son with the items and sent him the photo by e-mail - which brought tears to the man's eyes.... which brought a few tears to my eyes.

I remembered immediately teasing my own mother when we were children about the fact that she'd cry at Hallmark commercials.  Like me, my mom is not a big crier.  I have friends who cry on a daily or weekly basis.  I am unlikely to really cry more than once or twice a year.  The older I get, however, I'm more likely to cry at happy/touching things than I ever was as a child or younger woman... when I would not have been touched by those things.  It made me wonder, "Why?"  I'm the same person.  Why would I be more emotional now than then?  Why more tender-hearted?  I'm not naive enough to think that hormonal changes don't play some role in my emotions these days, but there is something more.

Last night, my husband and I attended a visitation for a man in his early 20's who died of a heroin overdose.  Seeing the photos of him as a baby, a sweet toddler, a young boy with no front teeth, a cub scout, a young man in braces, a smiling senior picture of him next to a tree, an eagle scout... just like so many other photos of my children - my friends' children - my peers' children.  The story - the reality - was heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching - raw... a child of divorce - like our own children... whose parents now had to work together to plan his funeral - to grieve separately but with identical grief.

My last blog was entitled "Why do Good Things Happen?"  This blog brings me back to that concept.  What flooded my mind that day I shed a tear over a radio story was all of the other stories... the ones on e-mail and facebook that give you goosebumps.  These are the stories that show humanity in such a beautiful light that you doubt in your heart they could be truth but can't imagine someone evil enough to make them up just to manipulate the emotions of the masses for no apparent reason.  

When I was a child I thought the world basically good.  The worst things that happened were people smashing our pumpkins at Halloween or trying to steal a bicycle out of our garage.  As an adult, I am daily overwhelmed with the wickedness that overruns the earth.  The murders, the infidelity, the fraud, the greed...  None of these things would change with the passing of any laws.  The laws God passed to govern the human heart back in Exodus were called The Ten Commandments.  They were once posted in courthouses around this nation.  They were considered a good standard to live by.  Now they are considered inconvenient... irrelevant even.  Even Christians say things like, "Jesus came so that I didn't have to be under the law anymore."  I am the first person to be overwhelmed at the goodness of living under the abundance grace rather than under the requirements of law.  However, Jesus's purpose was to fulfill the law so that I didn't have to fulfill it myself - because I am incapable.  He paid for my many sins with his horrible death so that I can live as though the law never existed - having a great time - doing whatever my body feels is right?  Greasy Grace.  Greasy grace is not the lifestyle of a changed heart.  It's the lifestyle of a heart that wants to change the goodness of God's original intent to fit the evil of my own desires.  Was he really torn asunder in every possible way so that I could be selfish, greedy, and unfaithful?  Was his skin torn from his body with a whip so that I could lash out in anger at others?  Was he made a slave unto death and a cross so that I could enslave others to my own will or make them pay the penalty when they don't meet my expectations?   

My heart is wrung.

I used to cry about the evil I saw in the world.  My heart was immune to good, because I saw so much of it.  I took the good for granted.  Today, I am brought to tears by the goodness in the world, because I see so little of it.  My heart is becoming immune to the evil.  I take it for granted, because I see so much of it.   

A broken heart tries to humbly live a life that is somehow worthy of the indescribable sacrifice that set it free in the first place.

Why Do Good Things Always Happen...

"You know what?  I like you, Marcie.  You know why?  Because you make me feel good about myself, and I hope I make you feel good about yourself too!" exclaimed my boisterous physical therapist.  Boisterous is the best word I can use to describe the almost indescribably upbeat - to the point of infectious giddiness - person that she is.  I loves me some quirky people.  The quirkier, the better.  If ever I'm watching a movie with my husband or kids and an odd person is insinuated into the plot, they all look at me and said, "Mom, you like him/her, don't you?"

Harmless quirkiness lightens the heavy atmosphere of an often weary world.  Besides, anyone who can cajole me into revisiting these little beauties after a 15+ year break... better be optimistic enough for the both of us.

YES, they are lunges... which is a loose translation for "exquisite agony"...
or maybe they're just named after what you want to do to someone who makes you do them.

Oh, they feel harmless enough when you do twenty or so of them after said 15+ year break.  And that is the silent evil lurking in a lunge... Sure, go ahead.  Show your kids, your ex-P.E. teacher, your new personal trainer how many you can still do.  However,  when you can't walk two steps the next day without your knees buckling in pain... when you suddenly remember how ridiculously out of shape you are... when you decide you'd rather get down on your hands and knees than squat to get clothes out of the dryer for a solid week, when you wish for the sweet relief that being run over by a Mack truck would most certainly bring... you will know the punishment of the lunge.  These are a new part of my physical therapy regimen that a severe ankle and leg fracture and resulting surgery secured for me.  After 6 weeks of calling a wheelchair "my ride" long before I ever thought I would, I get the pleasure of more physical therapy.  After all, they had almost discharged me from my last bout of therapy resulting from a back injury when I decided I was all better and then broke my leg to prove it.  I recall with amusement the day I called one of the therapists from my hospital bed to tell him I'd have to cancel my last week of therapy on account of my broken leg, but assured him I'd be back - not to worry.  He was completely incredulous.  I had gotten over my own incredulity while lying on the ground saying, "This is SO stupid!" and begging my son not to call my husband (who was absent when I hurt myself).  I've often felt I might as well move in to the local physical therapy unit.  They'll miss me when I'm gone... if I'm ever gone.

"Why do bad things always happen?" I've heard so many people wonder - especially lately.  Drought, famine, disease, murder, and the list goes on and on... After all, we all - whether we'll admit it or not - whether we're religious or superstitious or not - know we were put here at the behest of someone who knows more than we do.  We'd have to be utterly ignorant or just plain stubborn to look at the complexity of our bodies (not to mention the micro and macro universe) and think it all happened by accident.  As a wise man once said, "If I saw a working wristwatch wash up on shore of a beach, would I assume it had just evolved into being?  That all its parts had been shaped and come together by random chance?"  I read a post on facebook a few days ago in which the poster exclaimed that people who murder others don't lack morality or religion - they lack empathy - and nothing more.  Insinuating that morality and religion aren't necessary to kindness.  I know some irreligious people who are very kind people.  Is it wrong to say that if I didn't believe in God, I don't think I'd be kind at all?  Why should I be?   I find it amusing that "survival of the fittest" would make any room for empathy... or any positive emotion, for that matter.  After all, how does feeling empathy for another person - putting myself in his or her shoes - ensure that the biologically "fittest" of the species survives?  Empathy would most certainly be a deterrent to biological evolution.  The more compassion one has, the less likely he or she is to survive.  How could empathy or compassion be considered virtuous - as if there is such a thing as virtue - in a dog-eat-dog world?

You know I believe in God.  So now I'll talk about that.  Theologians have debated for millenia about whether or not God provided for the fact that Satan would tempt man to sin, man would sin and become subject to death, and whether or not that was part of God's original plan.  The Bible makes it plain that God does not sin or tempt anyone to sin.  (James 1:13) It is clear, however, that if He is sovereign (in control of His creation), then he must know and have dominion over the course of it... including the wrong that happens.  He "allows" the bad.  WHY?  Is the eternal question.  Well, when man chose to sin... thereby causing sin and death to permeate what had once been a perfect world, why did God allow it?  I have a humble theory that rolls around in my head.  

We are primarily spiritual beings.  All that we think, all that we are... lives inside a physical shell that acts out of what is inside of us and experiences the results of what is in the spirits of those around us.  Why are we physical at all?  I assert that our physical existence serves only for us to understand spiritual truths.  I submit to you broccoli and lunges.  Broccoli - green and good for the health but not so tasty as let's say...  Doughnuts - fried and good for the cardiologist's paycheck but taste like angels dancing on my tastebuds.  Lunges - physically active and good for the health but make "misery" sound like good times.  Lying on the couch - not physically active, not good for the health but is, on the bright side, not lunges.  I hold these truths to be self-evident:  The physical universe reveals to us that what is fun and easy is diametrically opposed to what is good for us deep down - despite what the advertisers of the Ab Lounger would have us believe.  Conversely, it also tells us that what isn't as fun to eat (I can hear all you, "I like broccoli more than doughnuts," goody-two-shoes right now.  Your mom's not listening.) and what requires more physical exertion is always of more benefit to our overall well-being.

A beautiful princess is born into a glorious kingdom.  Her family welcomes her with open arms, and she is doted upon since birth.  Given everything she could need for positive development and prosperity, she lacks no good thing.  Then one day, a prince rides in on a white stallion, and he says to her, "I will rescue you from your present circumstances!"  She laughs and says, "Rescue me?!  What in the world do I need rescued from?  I have it all."  She does not need his love.  A lover cannot prove his love to a person who has never known that hate was possible.  Even more, he cannot prove his love to his beloved without making a grand sacrifice of his own.  He can say he loves her all he likes, but unless he has to give up a tangible part of himself in sacrifice to her, his words are meaningless and fall to the ground.

A beautiful couple is "born" into a perfect garden in a flawless universe.  They are wanted and welcomed by a loving Father.  They are given dominion.  Their every need is met, and virtually nothing is withheld from them.  They are loved perfectly, and yet they've never been without love.  They eat when they want to eat, but they have never known what it is not to be satisfied.  They enjoy perfect health, but they have never known what it is to be ill.  God says, "I love you."  And they think, "Yes, we know."  After all, He always says that, and love - like perfection - is in endless supply in this garden.  They say, without sacrifice, "We love you too."  

Somehow, I don't appreciate air conditioning in the winter.  If I haven't experienced oppressive heat, I don't value cool refreshment. I don't appreciate my furnace in the summer.  If I haven't experienced freezing cold, I have little use for the warmth a furnace offers me.  Had men not been taken in by Satan's lies (as we often still are), Adams and Eves would never have experienced anger, bitterness, hatred, lies, betrayal, slander, gossip, envy, pride, jealousy, adultery, sickness, greed, rage, murder, etc.   Nor would we have appreciated truth, forgiveness, friendship, happiness, courage, loyalty, charity, humility, health, love, and life.

Did we have a choice?  Yes, and we made the wrong one.  Was God wringing his hands wondering what Plan B was going to be?  No.  Jesus was always part of His plan - to send Himself - in the form of a man - to prove that when He said, "I love you," to us - he meant it at the expense of His own life.  What is written on the hearts of humanity is that it takes the sacrifice of one's very life (not necessarily in death but unto it) to prove the depth of love that one has for another.

I don't know about you, but I know how rotten humanity is - myself foremost.  I am not good.  Neither are you.  "Why do bad things always happen?" we may ask, but a better question might be, "Why do good things always happen?"  In a world filled with people who all want our own way, why and how do good things ever happen?  

In Colossians 1, the Bible says of Jesus, "

15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."

It says plainly that God is responsible for the holding together of earth.  A world where the presence of God was taken away would be dark, wholly evil, and wholly depraved.  Devoid of any good thing, not just where the possibility of bad things happening would be a likely prospect but a certainty... where a single good thing would never happen.  That would be what I deserve.  When I look around, however, I see goodness.  I see the best that humanity is capable of - far more often than I see the worst.  God has not yet abandoned us.  His presence is with us in the actions of His people and the Spirit He has left us as a counselor.

We live in a world of, "I deserve..."  We all think that it is somehow virtuous to believe that we are good people who deserve good things - the best the world has to offer even.  Truth tells us a different story.  We are not good people capable of doing something bad from time to time.  We are basically bad people incapable of making a decision to do good without some deep-down selfish motive (ie. to make me feel good about me).  God isn't an add-on to the basic "good me" package.  For me He is essential - the only One Who makes it possible for me to genuinely love and be kind... to give and be unselfish.  When I walk around as if He doesn't matter, my life shows forth in selfishness, negativity, unkindness, pride, and more.

I think I mean this to be an encouragement... on those bad days - when it seems we are overhwhelmed and disgusted by the fact that evil and pain seem to be overtaking the whole world, we can be glad that it is a temporary necessity that will end in the ultimate proof of the love for which we so long.  We can acknowledge that it is not without ultimate purpose, and we need not act like victims.  We can remember that - without the bad, we would not even recognize, much less appreciate or treasure, the good.  We can rest in the fact we are eternal spiritual beings spending a very short sojourn in a sometimes dark and often weary place.  We can rejoice that we are able - in Christ - to be a part of the goodness with which God blesses others.  We can choose to walk in the truth.

Driving Sticks and Super Heroes

I was 17, and he was probably 15.  He was a friend of my younger sister's and a sophomore and I a senior in high school.  I was driving us back from a sports game or tournament of some kind.  I can't remember which.  He looked at me and said, "You drive a stick better than any girl I've ever seen."  I smiled.  My dad raised three daughters.  He's a special kind of man - the kind that worked 25+ years at a white-collar desk job but built houses and fixed cars on the weekends and evenings.  I suspect he was a little disappointed that God had not seen fit to give him any sons to whom he could pass on some handy-man skills.  Well, honestly, I don't just suspect that he had really wished for a son.  He had picked out "Joshua David" for his first son's name before my older sister was born.  Suffice it to say that we ended up with an annoying parakeet named "Joshua David"after the birth of my younger sister.

My dad taught us all kinds of things.  I can't count the weekends and evenings of my childhood and early adulthood that were spent in a toolbelt or nail apron - hammer in hand - building house frames in a cold garage... or insulating buildings... or wiring outlets or switches... you get the idea.  When it came to our cars, things were no different.  We drove old, ugly "bumper cars", but we were to maintain them.  He taught us to check and maintain auto fluids and change oil and brake pads.  He taught us to change a tire, and how to drive a manual transmission vehicle.  Many of the cars we owned as I grew up were stick shifts.  When I was too young to drive, my dad would let me change the gears from the passenger seat as we drove to a hardware store or lumber yard.  It made me feel so grown up.  When we grew up, that was a prerequisite of getting our drivers licenses.  We had to know how to proficiently drive a stick shift.   These memories came flooding back to me when I saw this iPhone cover on zazzle.com last week.

Why did I pin it to pinterest?  Well, mostly because it was that kind of week last week.  (Warning - hormone talk coming up - boys feel free to stop reading - or keep reading and get some edumacation.)  I have generally had a slightly high testosterone level for as long as I can remember.  This caused infertility early in my married life and has caused a few other annoying side-effects but not enough to wish it away, because one of the nicer side effects has been a virtual lack of emotional outbursts associated with some more annoying hormones.  I am pretty even-keeled.  That doesn't mean I don't have personality deficiencies.  It just means that those deficiencies aren't exacerbated by hormone-related psychotic episodes.  I have even made known to my husband, on occasion, how lucky he is that I am so easy-going.  I have friends that turn into completely different people at certain times of the month.  Crying, yelling, etc.  Whew!  I was so glad that wasn't me.  Maybe they were exaggerating to justify irrational behavior?  

Maybe not.  Enter estrogen.  Apparently there has been some recent evening out of my own hormones as last Monday my evil twin made an appearance.  She has rarely reared her hideous head... only once or twice all through my child-bearing years, and maybe once in a delivery room.  We were starting back up with school early, and as I was reading to my older girls, the younger two boy (5) and girl (3) were starting to (as usual) get on one another's last nerve.  I had asked them to straighten up their room, and they were fighting over every, little thing.  That was getting on my nerves... a little.  They interrupted the schooling a minimum of a dozen times with arguments over who was or wasn't pulling his or her own weight in the cleaning department.  I had tried positive reinforcement right off the bat.  (You know, the ususual "If you guys work together and get a long and do a good job, mom will give you a reward.")  It took about 30 seconds for us all to realize that they were not going to be "bought" by cheap child psychology that day.  Sometimes they force my hand to go for the negative reinforcement.  Fortunately for all of us, that's rare and gets rarer the older we all get.  

They managed to get through the room-cleaning for the most part, and I don't want perfection - just presentability... okay, mostly I just want to walk through the room without getting my feet wound in a blanket or stepping on a lego or used overnight diaper.  Then I made the mistake of pushing my luck and asking them to clean the basement.  The children know that they all share a similar fear - a fear of all children with basements - fear of being left in the basement alone.  Like all children with basements, they use this fear against one another for the purpose of emotional manipulation.  Violet threatens to leave Levi downstairs alone if he doesn't do her cleaning for her, and you can imagine how well that goes over.  He tends to run high emotionally, and usually he and I are good for one another.  Monday was an exception to the rule. He was screaming at Violet so much that I couldn't be heard.  Against "good twin's" better judgment, evil twin started to scream over his screaming, and once she started she owned me.  As you can imagine... whatever I was trying to accomplish didn't get accomplished.  By the time he settled down enough to hear me screaming at him not to scream at people, he could only say, "But that's not fair, mom, because you're screaming at me."  Granted, I was once told that my version of "screaming" was more along the lines of a muted yell, but I was raising my voice to a decibel level that was the verbal equivalent of overkill.  I wish I could say that after that I started being totally rational that day.  I also wish I could say that Violet hadn't taken Levi's brand new Toss Across tic-tac-toe beanbag game and taken it upon herself to try to assemble it all herself by removing all of the orange X stickers and sticking them on every triangle block.  I wish I could say I hadn't gotten  CADD (cleaning attention deficit disorder) and gone downstairs to put some things away and decided that the basement toy boxes needed going through and organized - thereby biting off way more than I wanted to chew that day.

As I sometimes am apt to do, I got into the huge facebook confessional and confessed my sin of being hormonally horrific to my child.  I got quite a few "likes" and comments about the "confessional status" that mentioned something about us screaming, and that I was glad Walgreen's doesn't sell at-home ovariectomy kits.  I think it was because it was just plain honest - no sugar-coating.  One of the comments was from another mom-friend of mine who said she was glad I had confessed my faults that day, because she always sees me as super laid back.  I told her I didn't know that I put off the laid back vibe, and another friend commented that I absolutely put off that vibe.  I wasn't sure what to think about that.  As I thought on it, I started thinking of my alter-ego - "Laid Back Mom".  She'd make a great super hero, I think.  I can just see her now.  A big "LB" emblazoned across her super-hero chest.

I got married and had children quite a bit before any of my peers.  I didn't have a single person to watch go through parenting or ask advice from who was going through it at the same time I was.  I quit my job at the Illinois State Police to be a mom, and believe you me... I was not Laid Back Mom.  I was a wreck.  Sadie - my firstborn... she didn't sleep at night.  She was tongue-tied and couldn't nurse right (even though I had promised myself and her that she would get breast-milk).  I forced myself to pump-and-feed for 5 months before I finally just gave in to what I felt was a total mothering failure.  I was up-tight and worried about her health all of the time.  She had chronic ear infections, and she started to have epileptic seizures at about 4 months of age.  I was also worried about other things - dirty floors, for instance.  I swept the kitchen floor at least once a day - usually 2-3 times.  I was even one of those mothers who lays down a tarp under the high-chair to keep things clean.  (As if the tarp doesn't also need cleaning.)  I was on WIC, and got help from the local health department for groceries, and I took classes on baby-care there too, as I was certainly no expert.  I was a stickler for growth charts, time-lines, and keeping her "on target" milestone-wise with other babies her age.  I read books on every topic in child-rearing.  I sought perfection in parenting.  I wanted to be Super Mom - able to clean up sippy cup spills with a single paper towel... able to make my own diaper wipes and laundry detergent... able to weed a garden while wearing a baby and teaching baby's older sibling the fine points of composting.  I failed... miserably and often.

Three years after Sadie was born I was headed for divorce court.  My husband had left me with a three-year-old and 9-month-old to raise, and I was miserable.  Our marriage had been a difficult one at times, but I was not prepared for the awfulness of divorce.  It is truly inexplicably painful and awful.  Super Mom had never been attainable for any length of time, but divorce handicapped me on an emotional level in such a devastating way that I was lucky to even remember - at the end of the day - whether or not I had fed my daughters three meals that day.  Not only was I not super.  I was barely being a mom.  Well, it was during this season that Laid Back Mom became my norm.  Laid Back Mom - able to ignore a smudged window with a single glance... able to buy a container of wipes and jug of detergent without guilt... able to let the weeds and carrot plants in my garden battle it out for supremacy and hope for the best... able to listen to two moms converse about their compost piles and not feel pressured to have one myself.  How do super heroes become super?  Usually through some freak accident that leaves them maimed and genetically mutated to be super-human.  I became Laid Back Mom when I was maimed by divorce... finally not only realizing and coping with the fact that I could not ultimately control my circumstances or any one else's actions but embracing that glorious reality.  God showed me such grace, and I was able to bask in it.  I was not in control.  I didn't want to be.  I still don't want to be... in my spirit.  My flesh (the part of me that reacts - the part that battles my spirit) wants control, but I got much better at stuffing that part away in a corner and letting God do what He wanted to do with my life and circumstances.

I was once in McDonald's where I witnessed a young mother of one child of approximately 16 months of age.  She brought the newly toddling child into the Playland area, and started to use copious amounts of anti-bacterial wipes on the high chair, the table, and anything else her baby might touch while sitting at the table.  She struggled (as all parents do in the Playland) to get the child to eat a few bites of food, and she was obviously very frustrated by it.  She finally let the squealing toddler out of the high chair, and let the child walk around the Playland a bit.  She began cleaning up the table, and then she saw them... french fries... strewn about all over the padded Playland floor.  I saw the look of panic in her eyes as she dove - almost in slow motion - toward one that her baby was about to pick up off the floor to eat.  She stomped on it and just stood there - covering the fry with her foot.  Apparently she didn't want to pick them up herself - for fear of germs.  SO... baby went for another fry nearby.  Mom stood on that one with her other foot.  Persistent baby went on to the next and the next.  All the while, the mom was playing discarded french fry Twister to keep herself and her baby from the germy fries.  I couldn't help but smile and chuckle at how funny she was.  She was an obvious "rookie".  Had she even one more child she would never have had time to micro-manage the Playland.  She would have done what the rest of us do - hope for a few minutes of mom peace-and-quiet... which isn't really peaceful or quiet... just affords fewer interruptions than usual.  She would have finished her baby's half-eaten cheeseburger and fries, because she hadn't really wanted the salad she had choked down herself.  She would have thought about wanting to smack the kid who knocked her baby down and took away the ball she was playing with.  She would have looked around to try to figure out who was that brat's adult supervision anyway.  She might have even looked down at her phone and texted a friend she hadn't gotten to talk to in months - and rested - even for just 60 seconds - trusting that her baby would be relatively safe and less than 20 feet away on padded flooring at all times.

In the book Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge, they speak of the beauty of a woman.  They claim that a woman's truest beauty is in that of being at rest.  Women are pictured in some of the world's most beautiful artwork as reclining on a couch.  This doesn't hold true for men.  We see a man reclining and wonder why he's not out doing something more productive.  I don't think laziness is attractive in either sex, but I think that artists are more about capturing the spirit of a person and not just the physical attributes.  A woman who's never content and who is alway striving and trying to be something more than what God made her (and thinking you should be too) is essentially unattractive.  She could be the most beautiful woman in the world from a physical standpoint, but if she's counting her calories and yours, talking about her deadlines, fussing with her hair and makeup while badmouthing a co-worker, she has lost the beauty of a woman internally at rest.  Reclining Woman is restful inside.  She is happy with who God made her and happy that He's not done making her yet.  She truly enjoys others, and they enjoy her.  She has time to talk.  More importantly, she has time to listen.  She eats a piece of chocolate cake and offers you one too.  She sometimes wears a flowing skirt and a pair of dangly earrings, and her hair is often a bit out of place.  She is as comfortable in makeup as out of it.  She is remarkable.  I'm not her, but I'd rather be her than Striving Woman.

Super heroes aren't born.  They're made by pain and suffering.  They are the result of freakish accidents.  They are freaks.  By God's grace - giving me a gift called suffering - I became a freak of human nature.  I try to maintain it, and maintaining Laid Back Mom is so much more easily maintained than is Super Mom.  Laid Back Mom just smiles and remembers that sooner than she wants to admit she'll be Empty Nest Mom.

When I yelled at my children last Monday, I had a choice to make.  I could apologize and hope that my children would forgive me my faults, or I could continue on in stubbornness and anger.  By God's grace alone I opted for the first, and children are always so forgiving.  With a pat on the back and an, "I 'give you, mom.  You 'give me too?" from the littlest one, I feel like a million bucks again.

Baby Doll

As every mother knows, a mom rarely gets the chance to take a shower in a bathroom... all alone... by herself.  Recovering from two months of shower chairs and baths due to a broken leg and ankle, I was relishing my first chance at a "normal person" kind of shower when Violet came in to talk.  To know her is to love her - an ideal combination of stinker and cutie, she always has something interesting to say.  She likes to say rhymes like, one, two pick up sticks, three, four, pick up sticks, five, six, pick up sticks.  She calls Mark "your husmint" when she talks to me about him.  When he comes in the door after work, she says to me, "Mom, your husmint is here.  Don't you want to go kiss your husmint?" and giggles uncontrollably.   Like most girls, she has a big crush on her daddy, and her affection is not misplaced.  She and Mark have become quite inseparable over the past six weeks of my convalescence.  Mark said to me a few weeks back, "Maybe she wouldn't be so ornery if I just lavish her with attention," and so he did.  I dare say she is more in love with him today than ever, and I think it's a result of his efforts toward her.  I haven't seen a dad - ever - be as devoted to his children, but I am admittedly totally biased.

showing off for daddy

When Violet joined me this morning, she said, "Hey, mom.  Your husmint is downstairs."  I said, "Yeah?  What's he doing down there?"  She replied, "He's working."  (He was installing a component on our heating and cooling system.)  Mark later told me that Violet had been his "lovely assistant" earlier, "Until she got tired of me stepping on her toes, and that's how close she was to me the whole time," he said with a grin.  Fortunately, I think she got impatient before he did and decided to come talk to me instead.  She said, "Yep, dad is downstairs working."  I said, "He's so great, and he's my honey."  She said, "Yeah, and you're his honey, and he calls you 'honey' sometimes too."  I said, "Yep.  You know what else he calls me sometimes?"  She asked, "What?"  I said, "Baby Doll."  She laughed, and said, "That's funny!  Baby doll."

You know what?  It is funny.  What man calls a woman "baby doll" in the 21st century?  I mean, Mark has called me "baby doll" from the beginning of our love relationship.  I thought it was so odd and old-fashioned at first.  Then I thought it was unique and wonderful.  It made me fell all wrapped-up and warm inside when he called me that - as though I belonged to him... as though I belonged to someone who wanted to take care of me.  Call me old-fashioned, but that's exactly what I always wanted from a man... what I still want.    Mark and my courtship was so quick.  We met in January, were engaged on February 7th, and married April 14th of the same year.  We had prayed it through in every way, and God kept giving the green light from making the date clear (we had originally planned to wait a year), to having our parents completely on board without a single question or doubt and without our saying a word, to blending our families so well, to... THIS

What is this, you may well wonder.  I have to admit that, as I went shopping for a wedding dress, I wasn't a bit nervous, but I felt I had every reason to be trepidatious.  After all, I didn't know this man who called me "baby doll" very well at all... considering we were about to be married.  I had very little time to find the right dress.  As I wandered through the small, local dress shop, I stopped at a section for wedding accessories, and there it was... plain as day... a bridal purse with the words "Baby doll" emblazoned across the front in rhinestones.  I took a double and a triple take - standing and staring in disbelief.  What are the odds of this? I don't even know.  What I do know is that it was another sign that God wanted me and Mark to be married.  He had lavished me with another convincing proof.  When I say "lavished", I mean it.  It was totally over-the-top.  It might as well have been a bright neon sign that proclaimed, "Marry This Man!" God didn't have to give me such an obvious yet perfectly soft and soothing reminder that - not only was He in loving control of our situation, but that He had planned it out long before we had.  When I think about the series of events that would have led to a manufacturer choosing the phrase "baby doll" to put on a bridal purse, and that a tiny bridal shop in Milledgeville, Illinois, would have chosen such an interesting item to stock their meager accessory shelf... Things like that don't just happen by coincidence.  If you ask me, nothing does.  

I am awed that I serve a God who not only meets my needs, but Who lavishes tender care upon me in most unexpected ways.  I don't think it's wrong to ask Him for signs that you are in His will.  In fact, I think that the desire for a sign to know you're in His will is a great testament to the fact that a person truly wants to be doing what God wants him/her to do.  

Since the first "baby" doll uttered by the man who would later become my "husmint", he has loved all of his "baby dolls" in most precious ways.

with Sadie and Claire

with Claire

with Violet, Levi, and Levi's baby

When we took our trip to Hawaii this past summer, it was directly scheduled over a date that would have been my 15th anniversary if I had still been married to my first husband.  My first husband left at the 6 1/2 year marriage milestone.  At 6 1/2 years with Mark, we were enjoying the bounty of God's grace - learning to love one another better daily.  A day that sometimes comes with sad reminders was filled up with the hope that comes with knowing that our committment isn't something that started out with starry eyes and love-struck infatuation with a side of fireworks.  It started with hope - not in one another - but in God.  Our hope was that the One Who brought us to it would bring us through it.  The best kinds of love are the ones that start out as an ember and are fanned to flame.  

Mark's love for us is a reminder to me of the fact that, if a person can love so selflessly - wanting the best for his family, how much more does our Heavenly Father want to pour out His perfect love on our sorest circumstances.  He stands waiting and wanting to give us everything that He alone knows we need - for our betterment and for His glory.  Will we welcome Him?

Give a Man a Fish

Today I'm reminded of the old saying, "Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime."  This phrase comes to mind as I help a few of my girlfriends endure the heartaches of bitter divorce.  In both of these cases, church-going "Christian" guys with sweet wives and children and imperfect marriages (an affliction of every married person) decided that another woman would be a better life-choice for himself and his mistress and that his own happiness should take precedence over everyone else's in his family.  In each case, the husband chose a mistress and her child over work and dedication to his own marriage and family.

I struggle over this, and not only because the same thing happened to me but more because of what these men claim.  They stand staunchly by their "Christianity" and believe that God has led them to divorce their wives and live with their mistresses and that God is blessing their current lives - the proof?  "I know God's blessing me, because I'm so happy."  By the same token, they assume that because the wives they left behind are miserable and terrified that those women must be the ones in the wrong... that they are being somehow cursed by God for their wrongs.   Were the wives wrong in their marriages?  Yes, as we all are in relationships.  They have fully admitted their faults - even asking forgiveness and hoping for reconciliation and working toward it whole-heartedly.   Someone once told me that marriage isn't 50/50.  Each person has to give 100% to make it work.  Thus, when marriage fails - it is the equal fault of both parties, and I agree with that wholeheartedly.

As I watched one of my friends today agonizing over the fact that her husband is introducing their children to his mistress and her child, I remembered that feeling well... as though I was being replaced in the lives of my daughters.  I know now that no parent - however shoddy - can be replaced in the heart of his/her own children (a happy fact that I wish I had known back then.  It would have saved me a lot of grief).

My heart aches as I watch these situations unfold, because these moms are begging God daily - not only to take away their pain and protect their childrens' fragile hearts during this difficult time - but to help them treat their former (or soon-to-be) former husbands and mistresses with compassion and kindness.  All the while, they are being watched like a hawk by the husbands and mistresses for a slip-up in their behaviors.  In both cases, the wives have had weak moments of strong words with their husbands, and the husbands have the audacity to say things to the effect of, "Well, if you were really a Christian, you would be kind to my mistress and to me and be happy that we're happy."  If they fail to act sweetly in even one interaction out of 100, their religion is thrown in their faces, and they are told, "Well, if you were a real Christian, you would be nice - no matter what I do."  The husbands take it further to claim that they are the "real Christians".  These men who left wives and children for other women to make themselves happy... they have finally found the secret to true Christian morality and behavior - infidelity and abandonment of responsibilities.  Am I the only one who wants to scream at this?  Somehow the word "Christian" is supposed to translate to angelic, super-human self-control.  The whole world wants a Christian who is compassionate, sympathetic, and sweet-tempered while at the same time not able to have those same feelings hurt when they are thrashed verbally and emotionally.  They are supposed to have the presence of mind to forgive the swearing, screaming, abusive words of others and immediately respond with kindness and sweetness and unwavering self-control.  Does that happen sometimes?  Yes.  It may even happen 9 times out of 10, but it's that tenth time, when a person might snap and say, "Why are you doing this to me?  Why are you doing this to our kids?  That woman is ____ (fill in the blank), and I hate what the both of you are doing to us!"  Ah, then she has been the most filthy, anti-Christian ___ (fill in the blank) that the world has ever seen.  Would it be easier to just say, "I'm not a Christian," and that way have the right to say everything you are thinking/feeling inside?  I think so.

I mean, truly, what does a cheating husband expect his Christian wife to do?  Is she supposed to say, "I'm so happy that you're happy, and I promise that the kids and I will stay out of your way and let you have your happiness.  How can I facilitate it?  Can I help throw a bridal shower for your mistress?  I'll help you plan your wedding.  It'll be great fun!"

I watch these first-time single moms as they pray before interactions with difficult people and situations - that they'll be a good example to their kids and that they'll respond kindly to the people who are causing the most acute emotional pain they've ever experienced.  What are they learning?  Most people would say, "They're learning to be a doormat."  What they are really learning is to be more like God wants them to be.  They are learning to give over control.  They are learning to try to do the right thing - walking by what God wants them to do rather than what their human nature screams at them to do.  Sometimes we win that battle.  Sometimes we do not.  Does that make us hideous excuses for  Christians?  No.  It makes us humans full of sin - which is why we called on God in the beginning - for help... not to claim we're perfect, but because we know how desperately imperfect we are, and we at least want to try to rise above what our nature says to do.  Knowing it can't be done on our own, a Christian just claims - not his own righteousness (because he knows he has none to claim), but a Christian claims Jesus' righteousness as his own and tries not to tarnish that sacrifice by being an idiot time and time again.

It's taken me awhile to realize that every time I am faced with a difficult person or situation it's God showing me something ugly in myself that needs worked out.  When I was going through my divorce, I begged God to get me out of that awful circumstance... bring Brett home - anything to get out of the pain.  Immediately, I got a mental picture of me trying to teach my daughter to write her name.  She kept dropping the pencil in exasperation and saying, "I just can't.  I can't do it."  God challenged me with a gentle question, "If she says she can't, will you just let her quit?  Would you ever stop trying to teach her to write her name?"  My only response can be, "No.  If I let her quit now, she'd never learn anything else.  Writing her name is elementary and fundamental to the rest of all she'll ever do in school."  His response was, "Exactly."  I knew at that moment that if God let me out of that difficult circumstance - in which he was hacking away at my pride, my control issues, my selfishness, and so many other things, that I would just have to go through more of the same circumstances, because learning those lessons was fundamental to moving on to something else.  If you are continually beating your head against the same brick wall of broken relationships, painful circumstances, financial woes, weight issues, etc. it's because you simply are refusing to learn to "write your name".  You can't move on to the next lesson until you get the last lesson down.

I find it ironic that one of my friends' husband said that he knew he was in the right and that his new relationship was being blessed by God because he was so happy.  If our happiness alone is a measure of whether or not God is blessing us for good behavior, it's a poor measure indeed.  Does God grant His creatures happiness if they're doing the right thing?  Does God grant us joys and pleasures based on our performance?  Is God the kind of God that would give a man a fish (happiness) today and neglect to teach a man to fish (act in a such way that facilitates internal joy) for a lifetime?  The benefactors in these hideous divorce situations, although they aren't fully realizing it yet, are the women who are learning to be kind when they feel anger, to forgive when they feel offended, to be quiet when they want to scream angry words, and to find satisfaction and trust in God rather than placing all their hopes in momentary happiness.  God is teaching them - as they are willingly partnering with Him - to implement behaviors that will end in true, ultimate happiness.  When we treat others with kindness, when we put self-control into practice, when we truly love others with our actions, then we receive the deepest happiness - and not the kind that disappears when a date night goes sour or a vacation gets rained out, but the kind of happiness that contents itself in having managed somehow to honor the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross with right acts when everything inside was screaming at self to seek revenge.

Now, that's not to say that God doesn't bless people for just no reason at all.  In fact, I think that is one of His greatest joys, and I've been a recipient of those kinds of blessings more often than not.  However, those things are momentary gifts - not able to sustain a lifetime of happiness.

Somewhere out there are Christians who claim that they are better than others, because of their religion.  It's these Christians that make others have an expectation that Christians should always act perfect.  They imply, "A Christian should always have the right response, and "A Christian should always be kind."  In that world, it doesn't matter how hard you smack a Christian down, they are obligated to get back up and offer themselves for you to do it again... and with a smile and a "thank you".  That Christians are to flawlessly execute Matthew 5:39, in which Jesus states that we are not to resist and "evil man" but rather give him more than he asks ("turning the other cheek" to persecutors).  I agree that we are supposed to learn to respond rightly and kindly in every circumstance, but where is the practice field?  Life is it.  It's the practice field.  A person can't practice right response to a distasteful person or situation until faced with it, and then is likely to fail miserably many times before finally getting it close to right - and then will likely fail again thereafter from time-to-time.  Unfortunately, there is no other place to learn right response than real situations - when emotions are screaming, tempers are flaring, and pain has us to the breaking point.

No one - Christian or not - should ever presume to brag that he or she is above ugliness.  Our fallen nature makes every one of us ugly in many ways - physically and emotionally.  These are not excuses for bad behavior, and our ugliness is certainly not a surprise to God.  Isaiah 64:6 says, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags."  John 2:24 says, that Jesus refused to entrust Himself to the crowd around him, because He knew what was in the heart of a man.  They were singing His praises, yet He knew not to trust them, because He knew the heart of man is fickle and is prone to loving one minute and despising the next.  If anyone could obtain perfection like God, then we would cease to be human, and He would certainly cease to be God.  He knows we're incapable, and thankfully - even when we fail (especially when we fail), His grace is all-sufficient and covers our ugliness with the beauty of grace.

I don't know about you, but I'm glad that God not only gives me fish but that he teaches me to fish.