Shower Epiphany

About a year ago I stood in the shower and contemplated the blessings of my life.  I mean, I often (like you) think about all the good things that God has given me.  I, perhaps like you, live in fair comfort.  I have lived in significant want, and I have no doubt (nor do I have fear) that I might likely live in great want again in my lifetime.  However, that day... that day I was faced with one truth:  God has always been just as good as I know He is today, and I didn't even know it.  I had been completely unaware of how gracious He was to the undeserving wretch - me.  

If I have done anything right in my life, it has been rare.  I have seen in myself those who spit in the face of an anguished Savior... with no remorse.  I have been wrong so much more than I've been right.  I have hated God with my actions, and I have defamed His name carelessly.  Yet...

Yet... that was the moment when the tears came so effortlessly... so painfully... so gratefully.  I had heard tell of God's grace for sinners, but what about His grace for saved ones?  What about that grace? This was the grace that plucked me out of desperation and sin and death (yes, even when I was redeemed) and placed me in a wide open space... a green pasture - so lush and wide in its scope that I could not dare have dreamt it for fear of waking up in a dung heap again.

The deepest pain I felt at this realization that God did not take into account my past when He was planning my future was this:  I had spent 34 years being taught of God and His love for His lost and had totally missed His character toward and love for His FOUND.  Had I known, how different my life might have looked.

This morning I talked to a dear friend, and she shared with me that she had recently listened to a sermon series on grace and law.  The speaker had touched on a truth so simplistic and yet so deep that I had to go back into my mental curio cabinet and open it - just to touch that truth - just to make sure it was really mine now.  This is how it went:

The grace of which Christians so easily speak - which rolls off our tongues with great passion and fervor when we encourage the non-Christian that Jesus loves him or her lavishly (which is true but only half of the truth).  The speaker had announced that such grace (the kind of which we speak so poignantly about to the unsaved) is not truly meant for them at all yet but that it is meant for Christians - those who are "in Christ".  In turn, the law is for non-Christians.  The law is for the purpose of showing non-Christians their desperate need to be saved from their own nature for the purpose of encouraging them to become a recipient of the same grace.  After they come to know Christ's saving power then they are under the same "Amazing Grace" that we are.   We Christians tend to mix this up.  We tell the sinner, "God is gracious.  Come to Christ and He will take you as you are - no strings attached.  He loves you."  Then as soon as they come to know Christ (by His revelation at work within them) then we start to pummel them with all of their sins and give them the law (the do's and don't's), because that's how a Christian should act.  We tell them they're graced and should come to the gracious Christ, but then we sic the law on them as soon as they step foot in the church door.  We thrash other Christians for their sins... or because they still sin (gasp) even after salvation.  Where is the message of God's grace then?  Nowhere to be found.  

I submit to you that the opposite should be happening - we should be loving and living as the graced people we are - fully accepted in Christ and sure in that identity and making sure the world understands that they are subject to God's wrath as a result of their own sin (just as we once were) and that they would love being under grace - just as we do.  We should share hope.  What I see all over Facebook and all over Christian magazines and websites is Christians destroying Christians for their perceived faults.  Who in his right mind would want any part of a people that give each other NO grace... only criticizing one anothers' feeble attempts (as all of our earthly attempts are) at living out Christ's example on earth.  Half the time I want out of this whole thing myself.  We don't show the world the beautiful grace of which we are undeserving recipients, because we haven't believed it's true.  We haven't trusted God is truly good and that He truly has dowsed our paths in the richest scents of His grace - so deep that we are dripping of it.  We don't even know it... and thus we can't give it to others - Christian or non-Christian.  Well, we are under grace, because our lover (Christ) wants a bride who is lavishly loved and free to give him the same unconditional love  in return.  What a gracious God we serve.  What a blessing to be His bride, and how lovely to bask in the grace that is ours because we are in Christ and, better yet, give that hope and that grace to one another.

How to Fall in Love

About ten years ago now, I sat on the my basement stairs alone after having put my girls down to bed.  My younger sister, who had very recently met the man who would later be her husband, was calling me from thousands of miles away in a virtual panic. I’m pretty sure it went mostly like this:

“He told me he loves me!” she lamented.

“So?” said I.

“SO!!  I didn’t say it back, because I don’t love him, and I’m not going to say it unless I mean it.”  

“Well, good for you.  Wait, how do you know you don’t love him?”

“Because...because we just met like a month ago.  What the world?  You can’t love a person in a month.  He’s really nice, and he’s taken me on some great day trips, but I don’t love him.”

“Maybe you could love him, right?  I mean, give it some more time.”

“I don’t want to drag it out.  There’s no fireworks... no intensity.  That pretty much means there’s no future, right?”

The irony of the fact that she was asking a divorced single mom of two for relationship/love advice was palpable.  After all, my husband of 7 years had walked out on me and our daughters a few short months earlier.  In fact, I didn’t even know where he was living at the time.

“I don’t know.  I’m probably not the right person to ask.  I’m all about the fireworks, but then again none of my relationships have ever amounted to anything but pain.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ve only ever had fireworks at first, and I never wasted time with guys who didn’t inspire those, but obviously that hasn’t worked out very well for me.  I mean, if you start the relationship with the most intense feelings you can imagine, where do you have to go from there but down?  It’s kind of hard to improve on amazing.  What if... What if the relationships that last start with friendship, then a few sparks, a flame, and then the fireworks?  What if you could work to ensure that the fireworks moments - the deepest emotional (if not physical) intensity - happened in the years down the road?”

I was pretty much just thinking out loud, but I told her not to give up on him because of a lack of initial intensity.  The ability of two people to choose to love one another with their actions even if that person doesn’t inspire sleepless nights, sweaty palms, and butterflies initially is perhaps one of the most beautiful things of which humanity is capable.  

I am pretty much in love with the movie Picture Bride on Netflix.  It’s about a trend that happened in the early 1900’s in which Japanese men immigrated to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields.  Many of these men wanted to marry Japanese brides.  So they would send a photo of themselves to a matchmaker in Japan who would match them with a girl who was eligible and willing to move to Hawaii.  It’s a touching story of a woman who married a man who had unintentionally represented himself to be a younger man (by sending the only photo he had of himself - which had been taken about 15 years earlier).  She had initially been disgusted by him, and, despite his attempts to win her over, she remained determined to return to Japan as soon as she was able to save enough money of her own.  It’s based on a true story, and it’s truly touching to see how he sacrifices to win her love, and then how she ends up sacrificing her own identity in the end in order to begin to return his love.  Watch it.  That is all.

My sister called me back a couple of months after her first panicked call.  She said excitedly, “I love him!  I really do!  He asked me to marry him, and I’m going to do it!”  I’m sure she could tell you stories of how their love has grown and changed, but I can tell you that I had to take a big dose of my own advice about two years later.  I was seriously crushing on a man from Springfield.  He was handsome, and he loved God.  We had these deep, intense conversations that went on for hours.  By contrast, although I thought Mark was tall and cute... I couldn’t talk to him for anything on the phone.  He was so quiet and reserved, and yet he pursued talking to me relentlessly, and I avoided his calls for months.  I hoped Mr. Fireworks would work out, but relationships like that burn hot and fast, and it did.  My parents, all the while, encouraged me to give Mark a chance.  I dreaded his phone calls more often than not, because he was too good... too nice... too quiet... to be passionate enough for this notorious romantic - or so I thought.

I remembered that advice I had given my sister years previous.  I decided it was time to take my own advice, and, when he asked if we could meet just once to see if it would go anywhere, I agreed to meet.  I’ve told the story of our first date in previous blogs.  So I won’t rehash that sweet night.  It also started out pretty lame but picked up speed and, within about 5 weeks of our first meeting, we were engaged.  

Honestly, when we got engaged it wasn’t particularly romantic.  It was practical.  In fact, instead of a true proposal, Mark’s way of asking me to marry him was to tell me not to take a job that I had recently been offered because he wanted me to come work for him.  

“Work for you?” I had asked.  “What does that even mean?”  

“It means, you want to keep staying home with your girls.  Austin needs a mom.  I need a wife.  We both love God.  I think we should just get married.”  

Not the most romantic proposal for this girl, but we decided that, given our situation as single parents, we needed practicality way more than we needed desperate, passionate, feverish love.  (I’m not sure how we could have developed that in 5 weeks anyway.)  We discussed whether or not moving across states to marry was feasible for either of us.  We discussed that divorce would never be an option for us, because of the fact that our children needed to be able to be stable.  We discussed what kind of work I would do, and what school the kids would attend.  We discussed waiting until we were married to start our physical marriage.  We didn’t have time for fireworks.  Ours was *gasp* a marriage of convenience.  We were becoming great friends and dedicated partners in raising our children.  We shared an uncommon amount of like interests,  but we were certainly not deluded into thinking that our love would conquer all.  I imagine we had both experienced much more intense feelings throughout our lifetime than the love we felt for one another when we got engaged.  However, we agreed at the outset that the order of our priorities would be God, our marriage, our children, and others, and God shoved us through that door.  I cannot imagine ever being more overwhelmed or grateful for anything more than I am for that.

We will have been married eight years this coming April.  That is not a long time.  However, I can tell you that today I am on fire for my husband.  He is amazing. He is respectable.  He is strong.  He carries the load of responsibility that comes with our large family with dignity and integrity.  We search for one another’s eyes across crowded rooms.  We hold hands for no reason at all.  We text.  We call.  We kiss... a lot.  We laugh... all the time.  I have never had the kind of fireworks that have developed with my husband since we said, “I do.”  There have been plenty of trying times, but we have weathered them by God’s grace.  

So many singles look for “The One” that inspires goosebumps... the one with whom they seem immediately compatible and whom they “love” at first sight.  I think these unrealistic expectations lead to a lot of people overlooking a forever companion who is right under his/her nose.  I maintain my belief that the best of marriages come from being the best of friends.  The fireworks come along in due time, and they are the kind that last forever.  Marry your friend... your companion... your helper... your buddy, and you might just fall in love.

How I Learned to Like My Kids

  It will have been thirteen years ago this coming April, on a lovely spring day, when my husband and I brought home our beautiful baby girl.  Forty weeks of pregnancy, MAJOR stretch marks, preeclampsia, and thirty-seven plus hours of labor and she was finally here!  I remember the tears that had so effortlessly streamed down my face the second she was born.  I had never just loved someone so much whom I had just met.  It was truly an unfathomable, emotionally-dense experience.  

  Sadie loved the nightlife... like so many other babies.  She was seriously tongue-tied and couldn’t nurse at all.  Every feeding was a nightmare of her screaming and me crying. They had sent me home with a baby who couldn’t nurse, and I didn’t even know how to change a diaper.  I remember being flabbergasted that they had trusted me to take her home... without adult supervision.  I remember one night sitting up with her feeling so sleep deprived I felt like I wouldn’t be able to draw another breath.  She was crying.  I was crying.  I felt like a total failure, because of this one, scary realization.  I didn’t like being a mom.  I didn’t like my baby.  I loved her more than my own life, but I didn’t like her.  Rather, I liked myself too much.  I liked me, my body, my hobbies, my job, my routine, my peace-and-quiet, my solitude, and my “life”.  She had taken all of those things and turned them upside down.    The realization hit me hard: that I would never have another day, another hour, another minute when someone else’s well-being was not in the forefront of my mind and overtaking my sense of responsibility.  Mom-guilt was threatening to drown me, and it was certainly stealing any joy I had in the experience of motherhood.

Sadie at 9 months

     I had no other friends who were mothers.  I had just turned 23, and the only advice I received was from a very few seasoned moms.  Most of what I heard was from elderly women who looked fondly at my baby and told me how blessed I was... to “cherish those years, because they pass so quickly”.  GOOD, I thought.  Then maybe she’ll be able to talk and tell me what’s wrong with her!  Then the next moment all I could wonder is what was wrong with me?  What kind of awful mother was I that I couldn’t wait until other people offered to hold her... feed her... soothe her?  The conflicting emotions made me feel like a crazed lunatic of a mother.  I didn’t realize until later that I was experiencing what many would call “postpartum depression”.  Part of my problem was likely hormonal.  Most of my problem was selfishness.  

     I grew up a quiet child who mostly liked playing by myself.  I could play with other children for awhile, but then I liked to withdraw to my own make believe worlds.  I liked to read.  I liked school.  I liked adults.  I was not in the least socially awkward.  I had a lot of friends that I liked and who liked me, but I didn’t like younger children, and I didn’t like being expected to entertain younger children.  Babysitting was something I did for money and out of obligation, but it was not something I ever enjoyed or at which I felt easy.  I maintained well into my high school years that I would be a happy spinster who (despite the obvious impracticalities) would have a high-rise city apartment, lots of dogs, and a high-paying job.  I didn’t ever imagine wanting children.  However...things rarely turn out the way we anticipate.

     Claire was born in August two years after Sadie.  An experienced mother had wisely told me whilst I was pregnant with Claire that, since Sadie had insisted on being walked around the hallways all.night.long, that I should try rocking in a rocking chair while I was pregnant with Claire... hoping that it would cause Claire to enjoy the rocking motion and make it easier to transition to being rocked when she was born.  It worked... too well.  Claire was an easier baby... she was in a good mood almost all of the time - under one condition:  that she was being rocked.  Whether it was her swing or our rocking chair, she had to be rocking to be happy.  I felt so terribly guilty that first night putting her in the baby swing so that I could stop rocking her and try to get a couple hours of sleep in an acutal bed.  The home visit nurse came over a few days later and scolded me for putting her in the swing at her young age, but I just tearfully said, “I don’t know what else to do.  If she stops moving, she cries.”  It reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode I had watched years previous in which the lead character had contracted some type of illness in which he had to be in motion at a certain speed at all times or his head would explode.  It didn’t end well for Twilight Zone guy.  Only I felt like it was my head that would explode if I didn’t keep her in constant motion.  She slept in her electric swing every night - for a year.  Let’s just say I wasn’t winning any “mother of the year” awards that year.  (On a somewhat amusing side note, Claire fell asleep every time I put her in a swing at the park until she was well past 4 years old.) 

Claire at 2 minutes old

Claire's first Christmas

     Like it or not, by Claire’s arrival, I had at least become a little more confident that I might know some answers to some basic baby issues.  I didn’t feel quite as inadequate to the task as I had with Sadie.  I was in the midst of serious postpartum depression once again though when my first husband decided he’d had enough of our admittedly-difficult marriage.  That threw me into what I can only describe as more extreme selfishness than ever... as I could only think about how I was feeling.  I could only consider my daughter’s pain in relation to my own and how it affected me.  I spent several of the next few years making more poor choices than good ones.  I think people often think that self-loathing has one cure:  SELF ESTEEM.  Feel bad about yourself?  You need self-esteem.  Lonely and isolated?  You need self-esteem.  Suicidal?  You need self-esteem.  I submit to you that my self-loathing was just the flip side of the SELF coin that I was holding onto so tightly.  Self loathing is something one only experiences when he or she values self too much.  When we think constantly about what people are thinking/saying about us...  When we consider ourselves in our almost every thought - even to self-deprecate...  When we are feeling down and depressed and like nobody likes us or needs us, we are merely wondering why the rest of the world doesn’t recognize and acknowledge how very valuable we know we are.  

Claire, me, and Sadie during singleness

     Fast forward, and by God’s grace, I met and married a man who loved his own son with the most selfless love I had ever witnessed from a dad to his child.  Sadie was now kindergarten age, and my husband’s son was 9.  We put them in a local private school for a year, and I realized that they were gone... a lot.  Claire was home with me, and I was pregnant again, and I really liked my days - starting to feel like they were a little more my own.  I liked the solitude I got during Claire’s nap time.  I liked getting a couple of hours in a quiet house to use the restroom without interruption.  I liked it - maybe too much.  A year in school had Sadie loving her teacher.  I remember going to our first parent-teacher conference, and feeling this strange, “How does she know more about my own child than I do?” feeling.  There it was again - that “mom guilt”.

Mark and our kids one month after our wedding

Our Beloved Austin

     

Mom guilt happened to me every single time an older woman would tell me how lucky or blessed I was to have such a sweet family - only I didn’t feel so lucky many days.  I felt overwhelmed and inadequate, which had become a way of life for me.  

     I’m not sure when the idea of homeschooling came up between my husband and me, but it did.  I felt God was leading me to it, and I dreaded it.  I think that is often the way I know most certainly that an idea is not from my flesh.  If I begin to consider and contemplate a course of action that is totally outside my comfort zone and about which I feel the most dreadful sickness in the pit of my stomach, I know it didn’t originate with me.  Remember that self-coin I’m holding onto so tightly?  

     It became clear to me that unless I forced myself to spend time with my children, one-on-one, I wouldn’t choose to do it.  As I said before, I loved my children and, by God’s grace, was most often able to act in their best interest.  However, if love is a choice to act in another’s best interest I knew I would have to force myself to make a choice to spend time and energy with my children on purpose - a choice that I couldn’t cut out on when I felt too tired or too overwhelmed or too selfish.  So we dove head-long into the intimidating world of homeschooling.  

On our first anniversary - Levi's birthday

My all-time favorite of Mark and Levi

     Two more children and six years of homeschooling later, and the result has been one I never expected - I have learned to not just love my children but to like my children.  Much like every other choice a human might make to create a better life - choices like working out, going to church, eating healthier, or volunteering more time to worthy causes, the choice to be an involved parent was not easy.  It was not fun.  It was hard work that has paid off in dividends that will have immeasurable value to me forever.  Often I have been approached by a person at a store who comments on the 5-6 children crowded around my grocery cart or trailing behind me.  For years people would say to me things like, “Wow!  You have your hands full with all of those kids.”  I remember once uttering - by faith alone - a phrase that God has brought to my mind and mouth at that most difficult of times, “Maybe my hands are full now, but my Thanksgiving table will never be empty.”    

     Labor doesn’t end at 37 hours or 26 hours or 3 hours... it goes on for a lifetime.  By God’s grace, I have learned to choose to love my children with my actions, my time, my efforts, and my whole being, and I have come to like them more than anyone else on the planet.  These days, when I say I’m heading to the grocery store, although most of my children are old enough to stay home if they want, they offer to come, and I welcome the company and the help.  They carry bags and boxes.  They load and empty the van.  They are a joy and a help.  They have blessed me beyond my wildest expectations.  We laugh.  We play.  We talk.  We enjoy one another, and I am lost when they aren’t with me.  Much like people who exercise feel sluggish when they don’t get their exercise in, I feel lonely when I haven’t connected with my kids.  

     Most people would not have to force themselves to homeschool in order to achieve a goal of spending more time with and learning to like their children, but it was what I needed to do, and I’m so glad we made that choice.  Anyone can choose engagement or disengagement with their children on a daily basis, but I had to force myself to, in a way, “buy the membership”.  If you buy the membership to a gym, you are obligated to go.  You can’t skip out on it easily.  Through everyday interactions, I’m met with dozens more reasons to like each one of my children - to spend that self coin I have held so tightly on someone(s) better than me.  

     Psalms 127:3-5 says, “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.”

     Arrows they are, and I need God’s grace every day to help me like and love my children and, by directing them (as I would an arrow), they are not only my greatest earthly asset but my most treasured companions.  Liking my children did not come naturally to this failing mom, but I am so thankful that God is more than sufficient to love my children through me, and that He lets me reap the benefits.

Violet - the last biological addition to our family

Our complete family

Homeschooled Freak

“You might want to take those off,” I said to my then 12-year-old son about the sunglasses he was wearing.  

“Why?” he asked, incredulous that I didn’t see the magic in his obviously amazing sunglasses (a roadside find from his paper route).  

“Well,” I said quietly, not wanting to hurt his feelings, “just because it’s almost dark, and you won’t be able to see your way around the corn maze.  You know, honey, when you’re homeschooled sometimes you don’t know what’s cool (yes, that’s what we said in the 80‘s and 90‘s) and what’s not so cool.  I’m just trying to tell you what I think before someone else tells you in a not-so-nice way.”  

Well, he pressed on and wore them as the sun was going down behind the horizon.  As he exited the car and joined a group of nearby acquaintances, I waited with the windows down, and I heard, “Why are you wearing those?”  

“Because...” he responded semi-confidently.

“Because it’s dark, and it’s stupid to wear sun glasses in the dark,” said one of the group of kids.

“I know,” he responded much less confidently as he returned to the car to put his beloved sunglasses back.  

It probably was about a year later when we had the same conversation regarding a pair of sweet, weight-lifting, fingerless gloves he was so keen on that he wanted to wear them to his first basketball practice.  He stubbornly insisted, once again, that my fashion sense was thoroughly outdated.  I was, once again, vindicated by “popular” opinion.  You know what?  Fingerless gloves and sunglasses are cool... under the right circumstances and in the right context.  

The strange part?  I wanted him to be able to wear those things, because I wanted him to feel confident and good about who he was and what he liked.  Why did I advise against it?  Aside from practicality and (in the case of the sunglasses) pure safety, I was afraid of the cruelty he would almost certainly encounter at the hands of his peers.  On the other hand, I find him truly peerless.  

I was not homeschooled, but I remember those kids.  The boys always wore high-waisted high waters, polo shirts with the tiny alligator on the right pectoral (yes, just call me a nerd - I love it), and penny loafers.  The girls (and moms) wore the t-shirt, long jean jumper, and white tennis shoes.  I could see them coming a mile away.  It was almost like a nerd uniform.  They came to the private school I attended for standardized testing and sometimes sports - awkward sports.  Their bizarre way of not even seeming to notice or care what everyone else in the whole world was wearing and how they were acting was great fodder for jokes.  While everyone I knew was wearing Air Jordans, Oakley sunglasses, B.U.M Equipment sweatshirts, Guess jeans, and Paris Sport Club anything, homeschoolers didn’t even seem to know that they could buy a pair of $70 jeans.  They were really missing out - poor things.

Enter these 17 (as my oldest son likes to remind me) years later, and I am a homeschooler.  My older sister became one fairly recently and started to head up a local homeschooling group.  When the former leader of the group handed her the reins, she said one thing my sister laughed about with me later, “Homeschoolers are rebellious by nature.  So don’t be surprised when they buck the system.”  She thought that was hilarious... “rebellious by nature”?  That was truly the last thing she said she would ever think about homeschoolers.  I laughed too, but, honestly, I’m realizing that we are!  I don’t want to do anything I’m told to do.  I like my flexibility.  I like answering to God alone.  I like freedom.

We recently welcomed a foreign exchange student from India.  We love him.  His name is Joel.  He rooms with our oldest son, and he is truly becoming part of our family.  A stipulation of the organization through which he came to the USA was that he would need to attend school somewhere.  I thought this would be good for all of us - getting in a normal school routine... getting a dose of another reality - one that most people already deal with if they have school-aged children (and for which I truly applaud them).  I’ve discovered something.  I.hate.school.  I’m trying to figure out why.  After all, I went to school.  Many schools are great.  Many teachers are amazing.  I think I just really am rebellious.  I don’t like being forced to do things about which normal people don’t even thing twice - like having a non-flexible schedule, baking cookies, volunteering for various school duties, raising funds, signing permission slips...  

One of the biggest questions I field (and so do all other homeschoolers) aside from, “Who monitors you?” (as if I and my kids are a danger to society if our educational style isn’t monitored) is “How do you get them properly socialized?”  Well, as new homeschoolers 6 years ago, my husband and I were very concerned with making that a priority.  After all, we didn't want our kids becoming home-grown weirdos like all of the homeschoolers we'd ever seen.  I remember reading an article at the time in which a man mocked the idea that putting uneducated people who lack impulse control with other uneducated people who lack impulse control (children with other children) would somehow make both groups of people smarter and better... that this somehow constitutes "socializing" children.  His argument was that the best way to socialize children for maximum maturity and sociability was with more mature and experienced people - people with more confidence in their identity - people less likely to be harsh and unkind with them - namely adults.  I saw his point.  In general, I find that children who socialize often with adults are more easily able and ready to talk with me and feel comfortable just carrying on conversation with me as peers would.  I have had some of my best conversations with our kids’ homeschooled friends.  

I wear makeup.  I have since I was 11 years old and noticed that my mom and all the other girls I thought were “pretty” were wearing it.  I am still scared to leave the house without at least some measurable makeup on my face.  My girls could not be less interested in touching the stuff.  We went to a bling store the other day at a local bazaar.    Claire and I browsed all the cute, shiny hair pretties, clothes, hats, jewelry, shoes, and other accessories.  Out of all the things Claire could have purchased with her long-anticipated birthday money, she chose a plaid pink, green, and purple golfer’s flat cap and a matching green velour purse in the shape of a big flower.  She wears these with some cargo capris, a t-shirt, and brightly colored Chucks, and the kid looks like a million bucks in an outfit I would never have chosen for her.  Most of the time, she’s still just a kid... a marvelously unjudged kid.  She’ll wear two mismatching hair ties in her tangled hair, hole-ridden (and not stylishly or intentionally so) pants that are too short, a t-shirt that’s two sizes too big, and shamefully dirty shoes (to match her often shamefully dirty face).  These types of things used to make me cringe.  “What will people think?” I thought.  I love to see my kids coming into their own.  My handsome 17 year old and his “piece” as he calls the soul patch under his bottom lip... my cute adolescent daughters with not a self-conscious bone in their bodies, my young’n’s who wear whatever is their favorite color or is the most comfortable.  (Tonight Violet wore an old pair of secondhand pink stretchy pants, a totally different color of pink and black shirt, and dirty pink crocs.)  Nobody is there every day to make them feel like freaks if they’re not clones.  I’m not pointing at anyone else’s kids.  I was that clone... the one to notice the freaks that didn’t fit in with the rest of “us” in the “real world”.

One of my favorite things about the very diverse group of homeschooled people we know and with whom we associate is that they are largely uninhibited by social expectations and are, for the most part, unabashedly original.  It’s not uncommon to see kids in the local group we attend who have pink or purple hair, amazing/fun/original fashion sense, or unbridled passion for nerdery.  When we go to a group meeting (which is relatively rare), we will see kids with disabilities, a wide range of backgrounds and ethnicity, people who don’t “fit in” elsewhere.  In the home environment, they have the luxury of remaining "safe" and unjudged most of the time.

As Joel started his first week at the local school, he was confronted with the fact that he did not have a cool phone.  Smart phones were everywhere... in the lunch room, in the classroom, on the bus, etc.  Partly due to this, and for other unknown reasons, he found himself very lonely there.  We don’t provide a phone for our own kids.  We haven’t needed them to have one until they were driving.  When Austin began to drive, got a job, and paid for his own addition to our monthly contract, he got a phone.  If he messes up, his phone is our phone.  We wouldn’t let him have a smart phone even if he paid for it himself.  The rest of our kids don’t have phones either.  We make the kids leave technology of all kinds in the living room when they go to bed at night.  We want them to associate with God and with other humanoids.  We want them to feel a little lonely or bored at night.  After all, that was always when I did the best reflection on my day and my self and prayer about both.  If they went to school, a phone would likely be more of a necessity... adding mega cost to our bill.  What they don’t know other kids have, they don’t miss.  We don’t find it necessary to waste money on brand name clothes they’ll outgrow in 3 months.  We don’t feel obligated to spend on electronics and toys they don’t know exist.  Not until recently did I realize how much money we save by having the kids here all day and not having TV to show them what they’re “missing”.  After only a week at school, it was clear that if Joel did not have a smart phone, buy school lunch (instead of taking his own), and wear what the others were wearing, he would never be cool enough to socialize - no matter how original or fun or friendly he was.  He would always be set apart - and not in a good way but rather in a “freakish” way.  This would likely not be his experience at many schools, but it was in the one he attended.

Please understand, I know that there are people in all schooling options who display this type of originality, and I know some that come to mind as I write.  I applaud the ability of those people to stand out - which is much easier for us to do in the safety of our own accepting home-environment than it would be for us if we were daily faced with the reality of not fitting a mold.  However, I am embracing the fact that, at least for awhile, their originality is being appreciated and is growing unhampered by negative comments, embarrassment, or criticism from the outside world.  They may not always be able to remain completely oblivious to what is expected of them from the standpoint of society in general, but they know what we expect of them... to be kind, to respect others, to forgive, to ask forgiveness, to laugh, to work hard, to be a friend... to be a kid.  The rest will come soon enough.  Is that sheltering my kids?  I hope so.

A few years ago, my son and a friend of his watched a movie that contained the line, “I’m not some God-loving, homeschooled FREAK!”  Since then, they laughingly call one another and their other friends variations of that line.  “You homeschooled freak” has become one of the staples around here in such a funny way that Levi (5 at the time), actually called one of his friends that attends regular school a “homeschooled FREAK” in a not-so-nice way during an argument they were having over a video game.  It was so hard not to laugh that I admittedly burst out laughing really hard and said, “Um, Levi... you’re the homeschooled freak here,” and then I made him apologize.  I called this boy’s dad and told him what happened, and he laughed about it too.  After all, I think normal people all feel like freaks sometimes.  We feel deep down that inadequacy:  We’re not doing enough.  We aren’t enough.  

The Psalmist said in Psalm 139:13-14 that God created us, knit us together, in fact, in our mother’s womb... making us “fearfully and wonderfully”.  These things make me realize that - just like the rest of creation - after God made me, He looked at me and said, “This is good.”  That was before I ever did a thing.  If He was happy with what He made when He looked at me, who am I to be unhappy with it?  If He was happy with what He made when He made my neighbor, my co-worker, my boss, my classmate, my friend, my enemy... who am I to say otherwise?  Can I ugly up what He made good?  Yes, and I do every day.  Maybe I am even doing it right now.  I hope grace covers me.

When confronted with the idea of having to shave his beloved facial hair for a school dress code, Joel balked saying that he would look like a girl without it.  We tried to reassure him that he would not and that it was very common to have a shaved face in the USA, but he would not be consoled.  Austin said, “If you have to shave, so will I.  And look, the dress code doesn’t say we can’t grow some sweet sideburns.”  “Yes!”  I added, “That would be awesome!”  Joel was not as buoyed as we’d hoped and responded sardonically, “Yes, because I want to look like Wolverine.”  I said, “I was thinking more James Dean than Wolverine.”  Neither of them knew the screen legend to whom I was referring, and then it was my turn to be disappointed.  However, I realized that every culture has its expectations for appearance and behavior.  Not all of this is bad.  It's in us to want to fit in with other people... to be part of a group.  Emulating what has been accomplished by others is an essential bent of humanity, but it's what has never been seen before that truly has the power to move the human heart.  That is why originality is so essential.  We live in such a marvelous day and age - in which we can instantly see, via the internet and television, the amazing things people do... from over-the-top marriage proposals, to amazing rescues, to musical talent...  These things can be so pervasive that we forget that merely being the human God created you to be is truly amazing.

I hope I am encouraging you to not just encourage originality in your own kids and the ones you love but to help your kids appreciate it in others too.  If we see a rainbow mullet at Walmart or a giant red afro walking down the street or some sweet lamb chop sideburns, we are the first ones to stop and let the kids admire it... take it in... love it, and maybe even tell the person so.  

Voice in the Hallway

I have been walking lately with a neighbor who has given birth to 11 children - 8 of whom are still at home.   I talk marriage and motherhood at length with this seasoned veteran of both, and it is a great blessing to me.  This morning in particular she laughed at how often she hears people tell her that she must be a “saint” for having as many children as she does - eleven, to be exact.  She said, “I always tell them I’m no saint!  I only get through my days by the grace of God.”  Time Magazine recently ran an article about how many young adults are now realizing that parenting requires too much self-sacrifice and are opting to “have it all” instead of having children.  They can travel, have job flexibility, have more “me-time” and “couple-time”, and basically be more selfish without children.  

Men often come across as obnoxious when commenting on the number of children we have (five).  They tend to say things like, “Well, haven’t you been busy?” or “You know how that happens, don’t you?”  Women are usually much more polite than men about the way they comment on the same subject.  They usually say something like, “I don’t know how you handle it,” or “I wouldn’t have the patience, but good for you.”  I find this line of commentary far more flattering as it puts me in the light of a lady busy about her job and doing it well as opposed to a woman wandering around like a cat in heat and tolerating the unintended results.  That being said, I am laid back enough to have these children without fretting, but that’s mostly because I must not worry.  Why mustn’t I worry?  Because A) God tells me not to worry but instead to pray.  B)  I don’t have ultimate control anyway, and C) The more children I had, the less capable I was of being able to manage the details of their lives.  I am completely incapable of micro-managing five people besides myself.  In fact, I am completely incapable of micro-managing just myself, and I am ME (most of the time, anyway).  I have no doubt that were I to have five more children, I would become less worrisome and more laid back than I am today.  I think that’s why God didn’t create more effective birth control.  Maybe He knew that if women had enough time to dwell intently on just a child or two, we might drive ourselves mad.  I know I used to do that.  Worry is a way of life for most moms.  

While I was talking to my neighbor, she lamented that young women never ask questions of older women anymore - that we instead rely on Facebook, forums, blogs, and chat rooms to find mothering wisdom and advice.  Our autonomous society caters to our way of thinking and parenting by allowing us to never really have our ideas challenged about anything.  I rarely repost sayings on Facebook, because I often find them sickeningly trite.  The other day I read a post that said that there is no wrong way to parent because parents are as varied as children and we’re all a rainbow of different parenting styles to form-fit our unique children and blah, blah, blah.  This from the same site where a parent question the week before pertained to a “26 year old child” (and drug addict) who was still living with her parents... no job... no help with chores... no life... no sign of wanting one.  Believe-you-me, there are wrong ways of parenting.  I fight those ways every day.  The urges to overindulge my children, foster selfishness in them, and allow for (or contribute to) their laziness are all things that threaten to render useless my efforts to grow adults.  Those are wrong ways of parenting.  They don’t lead to the point of my children becoming productive members of society.  They lead to my children becoming entitled, spoiled, and useless... people of which the world already has an abundance.  Yes, my children are somewhat unique amongst themselves and require small tweaks in parenting methods within a greater general framework, but to assume that I know it all and require no advice from seasoned veterans in the field would be ridiculously narcissistic and hopelessly narrow-minded.  

My generation (and those after) do seem to generally feel most at-ease in front of a computer screen when seeking parenting advice.  However, let’s face it, Facebook parenting is not reality parenting.  I have friends who are on completely opposite ends of the "Facebook parenting" spectrum.  Some of them are kind of like “honor student bumper sticker” Facebook parenters.  Every status reads like a Christmas letter... every photo is with a trophy or report card.  Then there are "Debbie Downer" Facebook parenters.  Every status is about a massive headache/backache/heartache, children who are excessively needy, or housework attempts gone awry.  Honestly, those are harder for me to read than the other type, but I also respect the honesty and transparency therein.  I guess I fall into an “everything’s funny” Facebook parenter category.  Maybe my type are annoying to others too, but I find that sometimes parenting is either a “laugh or cry” kind of gig, and I prefer to laugh, and when others are laughing with me it’s that much easier for me to laugh.  Any of these styles (and more) are unrealistic pictures of the daily workings of the home - Honor parenters leave out the negatives.  Downer parenters leave out the blessings.  Funny parenters leave out the not-so-funny.  A combination of those things would give the most realistic picture of what all parents inevitably face.  The thing is, even if I did want to open up on Facebook and talk about a parenting problem, it would not only be inappropriate (and potentially humiliating to the child) to do it in such a public way, it would end in a variety of opinions and no hugs.  Hugs and tears are what women used to do together on this marriage/parenting journey.  Commiserating without the humanizing element of being near to raw emotions and response is not fully nourishing at best and is careless and unsympathetic at worst.  In other words, if you need to vent, want some advice, or just need a shoulder on which to cry, talk to a humanoid - preferably an experienced one.

“The Bible says that ‘women are saved through child bearing’,” this same sweet friend said to me this morning - referring to 1 Timothy 2:15.  Then she added, “What do you think that means?”  After a moment of silence, I replied, “I don’t think it’s talking about being saved from sin and death.  That’s what Christ accomplished for us on the cross.  No, if I had to say how childbirth has ‘saved’ me, it would be that it has saved me from myself.  It has saved me from being so self-centered and self-focused.  It has saved me from my 'self' more with each child who enters my life, and it doesn’t have to be by birth but more by interaction with children.”  She said, “Yeah, so, like women who haven’t actually given birth to a child can be preserved from selfishness by being a part of the lives of others around them who need a motherly figure in their lives.”  We agreed that child-rearing and involvement have changed us for the better by reducing our control-factor and boosting our go-with-the-flow factor.  

Please understand that I’m not saying that women who don’t have children aren’t blessed this way.  Being a woman, in and of itself, is a blessing.  Being a “bearer of life” isn’t necessarily a physical act.  It is a state of being.  It is a way of life.  I used to resent being female... especially in high school.  I hated all of the “special” aspects of being a woman.  Even in my younger years of marriage, I resented being saddled with the responsibilities of child-bathing, diaper changes, late-nights/early-mornings with cranky or sick babies.  I didn’t naturally gravitate toward a love of motherhood like some of my friends seemed to do so easily.  No.  It’s been a journey for me.  However, even just within the last month or so I have come to increasingly appreciate my position.  Women of all stripes are cursed with the desire to control our circumstances and those around us.  We want perfection for ourselves and others.  Look to any media outlet, movie, political organization, church, etc. and you will find women grasping for power.  We want to be president.  We want to preach.  We want jobs with equal pay.  We want the right to choose for ourselves and those around us.  We want... want... want POWER, and we won’t stop at “equality”.  I see women bossing their husbands and boyfriends constantly... and trying to control their friends and family.  The most common reason for mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflicts?  Both are trying to exercise control over some aspect of their own/each other's lives.  Neither mother nor daughter are surrendered, resting, and at peace with their past, present, and future.  

I will submit to you, now that I’ve recognized it in my own life, that motherhood is powerful.  It is the most powerful position a woman can hold on this planet.  I am the hub of our household.  I call myself “home base”.  The household activities and people in it revolve around my presence.  I don’t plan it this way.  If I’m at the computer and the rest of my family starts to watch a movie or decides to go on a walk, they won’t do it without my involvement.  Wherever I am, someone is always looking for me... to bandage a wound... to find a lost shoe... to tell them “what’s for supper”... to listen to a silly story... to bask in the beauty of a stick-figure art project... to hum a bedtime tune... to detangle and braid a doll’s plastic hair... to talk through a broken heart... to stand up to an injustice... to sew a patch on a favorite pair of worn-out jeans or un-stain a “lucky shirt”... even (for my boys) to be willing to be protected from perceived (or imagined) harm.

We had a "corn party" this week with my whole family.  Here in Illinois we have corn - a lot of corn.  Sometimes towards the end of summer we will get a large batch of sweet corn to shuck, boil, cut off the cob, bag, and freeze.  We spent two days this week completing this process on approximately 1400 ears of corn.  There was a lot of talking, laughing, "corny" jokes, and even some singing, but amongst it all there was a special conversation.  My sister and I began talking about the thoughts we had both had about adoption - specifically about special needs international children.  As a few of the other family members voiced doubts and concerns about the prospect, my sister said, "Well, isn't motherhood a lifetime commitment?  It's not just something you ever stop doing."  We agreed.  Motherhood is eternal.  Once I became a mother (even an expectant one), it isn't something I could have ever "unbecome".  I was immediately changed.  I would always be someone's most comforting presence.  I would always be someone's "home".  I would always be someone's most recognizable face and voice (for better or worse).  I would maybe even get to be someone's favorite face and voice.  I might even get to be the person someone is most comforted to see and hear in the whole world.  

My mother was quite involved at the small, private school I attended from pre-school to twelfth grade.  She coached sports.  She taught PE.  She was on PTA.  She was a presence in the building often.  I can still remember that, even as a high schooler, I could hear her laughter ring through the hallways, and it made me feel safe.  I felt home when I heard her voice.  I can’t explain it.  I don’t know why, but hearing that voice in the building brought me security.  Did we always get along?  No.  Did we always agree?  No.  Did she always love me?  Yes, and I knew it.  

I am that "voice in the hallway" for my children... for better or worse.  I have more influence over their lives and destiny than any one humanoid ever will.  I was there before their first breaths.  By God’s grace, they’ll be there for my last breaths.  They seek me out for approval, for nourishment and sustenance, for identity, for affection, for advice, for knowledge, for friendship, for help, for everything.  That is power and not to be taken lightly.  The daily question is, “How will I use that power?”  There is a fine line between influence and control, and I want to be very careful not to cross that line.  How could I go a day without asking God to help me know what they need and to give me the grace to give that to them... to give them freedom and accountability... to give them stability and adventure... to give them wisdom to make their own best decisions... to give them my prayers for God’s direction and then leave them in His capable hands.  God gave me power when He gave me babies, and He expected me to give it back to Him in the form of people who are prepared to and who desire to give Him glory.  

Look Down

A few weeks ago I actually read most of a Time Magazine article (yes, I wasn’t just covering up a People magazine with a Time magazine so people wouldn’t see me reading trash) that was discussing the newest generation - people who were born after 1994 I think.  What follows in italics are excerpts from that article:  

This article entitled, “The New Greatest Generation - Why Millennials Will Save Us All”, went on to say, “...in the 1970s, people wanted to improve kids’ chances of success by instilling self-esteem.  It turns out that self-esteem is great for getting a job or hooking up at a bar but not so great for keeping a job or a relationship.  ‘It was an honest mistake,’ says Roy Baumeister, a psychology professor at Florida State University and the editor of Self-Esteem:  The Puzzle of Low Self-Regard.  ‘The early findings showed that, indeed, kids with high self-esteem did better in school and were less likely to be in various kinds of trouble.  It’s just that we’ve learned later that self-esteem is a result, not a cause.’  The problem is that when people try to boost self-esteem, they accidentally boost narcissism instead.  ‘Just tell your kids you love them.  It’s a better message,’ says Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at the University of San Diego, who wrote Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic.  ‘When they’re little it seems cute to tell them they’re special or a princess or a rock star or whatever their T-shirt says.  When they’re 14 it’s no longer cute.’  All that self-esteem leads them to be disappointed when the world refuses to affirm how great they know they are...”

“What millennials are most famous for besides narcissism is its effect: entitlement.  If you want to sell seminars to middle managers, make them about how to deal with young employees who e-mail the CEO directly and beg off projects they find boring.  English teacher David McCullough Jr.’s address last year to Wellesley High School’s graduating class, a 12-minute reality check entitled ‘You Are Not Special,’ has nearly two million hits on YouTube.  ‘Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so that the world can see you,” McCullough told the graduates.  He says nearly all the response to the video has been positive, especially from Millennials themselves...”

“...Millennials are also stunted, having prolonged a life stage between teenager and adult...The idea of the teenager started in the 1920’s; in 1910, only a tiny percentage of kids went to high school, so most people’s social interactions were with adults in their family or in the workplace.  Now that cell phones allow kids to socialize at every hour - they send and receive an average of 88 texts a day, according to Pew - they’re living under the constant influence of their friends.  ‘Peer pressure is anti-intellectual.  It is anti-historical.  It is anti-eloquence,”says Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory who wrote The Dumbest Generation:  How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30).  ‘Never before in history have people been able to grow up and reach age 23 so dominated by peers.  To develop intellectually, you’ve got to relate to older people, older things:  17 year olds never grow up if they’re just hanging around with other 17 year olds.’ Of all the objections to Obamacare, not a lot of people argued against parents’ need to cover their kids’ health insurance until they’re 26.”

The article went on to say that, as a result of the things mentioned above, the newest generation is the most self-centered, egomaniacal generation yet with the lowest levels of social intelligence and intellectual development (because of being over-socialized with their peers and under-socialized with their elders).  They lack empathy and compassion for others on never-before-seen scale.  It can be summed up to say that we, as a society, have done a disservice to our children by babying them well beyond the ages they would have, in days gone by, been expected to have been matured to the point of adulthood.  We have socialized them with peers to the point of social retardation.  

I disagree with one thing about the above article (aside from this one thing, I think the article was right on the money).  I don’t think the narcissist generation started with those born after 1994.  It started well before that.  It gets worst with each passing generation of late, but I think that my generation has the fewest clues on how to raise well-rounded, caring, selfless individuals that will make for a better society because so few of us were raised that way. 

Even secular magazine articles declare that “self-esteem is a result, not a cause”, that self-esteem is a deterrent to long-term success.  Would it follow then that low self-regard and humility would be the optimal self-image for one to assume in order to become a contented, caring, successful individual?  I would argue an emphatic, “yes”. Humility, according to my computer’s dictionary, is: “a modest or low view of one's own importance; humbleness”  

Even more interesting to me were the synonyms in the thesaurus for humility:  modesty, humbleness, meekness, unassertiveness, lack of pride, lack of vanity; servility, submissiveness (emphasis added)

Proverbs 15:33 - “The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom, And before honor comes humility.”  

Proverbs 18:12 - “Before destruction the heart of man is haughty (proud), But humility goes before honor.”

Proverbs 22:4 - “The reward of humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, honor, and life.”

(emphases added) 

Where does kindness begin?  Humility.

Where does honor begin?  Humility. 

Where does exaltation begin?  Humility.

Where does success begin?  Humility.

There's a difference between feeling unworthy of Christ because of my sin (a usually false and ironically self-focused pseudo-humility) and feeling unworthy to approach the throne of Deity because of His utter holiness - his awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping betterness. He is infinitely better than I can comprehend. That is all I need know or say to Him. That is all He wants me to admit and, more importantly, of which he wants me to keep constant sight.  

People complain about the factions of Christian belief - the liberals, the conservatives, the denominations, etc.  These things are so humanity-focused.  The moment we start to think that we know who the true God is based on our personal experience, based on our inner knowledge, or based on some human-derived revelation, we have utterly lost the enormity of God.  A true Christian can know only one thing - that God is so enormous that He won’t be contained by anything - much less the tiny human mind and existence... which can’t possibly contain a fraction of Who He is.  Our strivings are dust.  Our righteousness... filth.  Our best efforts... worthless - every, last one of us.  Yet we still find a way to point a judgmental finger at the one next to us.  In a land where every person is equally irrelevant... equally unable to save self, we still strive to feel superior.  It would be as ludicrous as a banana peel in a garbage heap comparing itself to the sorry, worthless orange peel next to it.

The prophets understood this.  In a post Old Testament world... one in which Christians think the Tora is irrelevant and oppressive, we have lost the bigness of Deity.  Isaiah 64 says (in part), 

“Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,

That the mountains might quake at Your presence - 

As fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil - 

To make Your name known to Your adversaries, 

That the nations may tremble at Your presence!

When You did awesome things which we did not expect,

You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence.

For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,

Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,

Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him...

“For all of us have become like one who is unclean,

And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment;

And all of us wither like a leaf,

And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

My righteousness is filthy rags in comparison to His innate inherent nature. My greatest strivings and finest acts are childish scribbles on a scrap of tattered notebook paper in comparison to a Being altogether perfect by just existing. I can't even come close with all of my doings (believings, sayings) to what He attains merely. by. being.

The enormity of the plague, plight, and agony of humanity's error and condition is much too vast to be solved by a trite persona - a "friend", a "prophet", a "teacher", a "gentle character". "Sweet Jesus", "Precious Moments Jesus" might be enough to save a soft person... a "good" person... a nun perhaps or a docker-wearing accountant or a planet-conscious vegetarian.  He is not, however, enough to deliver the likes of me, one prone to darkness and consuming passions... let alone the desperate whole of humanity which I represent so thoroughly - the humanity that screams and groans for something strong and fervid - wildly consuming... ardently pursuing humanity in a way so profound that wildest human imaginings are incapable of capturing it.  And not only to deliver me but to liberate those same passions and fervor in me for one purpose - to give them back to the One Who granted them to me in the first place.  

I can't be satisfied by "hipster Jesus", despite his popularity.  He does not consume my waking moments.  As I watched some of the History channel's adaptation of The Bible, I found their winsome portrayal of Jesus attractive at points, but as he gently overturned a table or two in the temple during passover and wept so quietly about the state of "His Father's House", I was turned off.  Gentleness didn't lead Him to the slaughter; passionate purpose did.  His silence wasn't because of weakness but because of strength.  Every Christian song I hear makes Him sound grieved yet helpless in light of the sins of men... like a pleading weakling who begs me to do the right thing to others.  My greatest offense, however, I can't help but believe, is that I have no passion for Him.  I have no strength in my pursuit of His character.  I have no desperate desire to hold on for the ride of where He takes me and trust that 100% of what happens to me is His plan and that I should not only trust it but embrace it.  How can people have a passion for a dispassionate or weepy or mournful or whiny Jesus?  If I was owned by passion for Him and His Word, the natural result would be goodness, love, mercy, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, etc.  As it is, many cannot find a passion for a God who isn't dangerous, strong, full, gripping, and desperate to be glorified.  "If He isn't all about me and my worth and my self-esteem and my happiness, then I don't think He really loves me" is our silent attitude.  

To be perfectly honest, I have written this blog with much trouble.  The first part flowed, but there was more.  I woke up in the middle of the night, one-finger typing on my tiny iphone keyboard, the details of the other parts that consumed me at 3:00 AM.  I sit here adding the final touches tonight after watching a documentary on Francesca Woodman - a miserable American photographer who killed herself after not receiving the recognition she so desperately had searched for throughout her short, tortured life.  I am rent in two as I consider my own neediness and the neediness of humanity in general... the need to have something greater than self in which to invest our very lives.  The end of self-love, as Francesca Woodman found, is misery and wonder at why others do not see our obvious value.  The One Who assigned us our value, and the only One Who will ever truly appreciate and recognize it, is the one who bids us cast our worth at His feet so that He might finally be given His due.