My husband and I have a silly game we play with each other. I don't really remember how it got started except that he started it. It goes something like this: any time I complain about something I don't like about what he's doing, he says, "Yeah, you're husband's a jerk/insert-expletive-I-refuse-to-use. Why did you marry him anyway?" And then I'm forced to say something sappy but very, very true, which is I married him because he was (still is) the most honest man I knew. I married him for his character.
Now, anyone who knew me then must think I'm lying because I am not proud of how I was living at the time. I have repented for much of what I did. However, this one shining moment of recognizing what I wanted in a man I would call my husband stands out for me clearly in my memory and it brings to mind much of what I'm learning about having faith.
Having faith in something or someone is, in its very essence, a spiritual act. It is placing your self in something or someone else. There's a story that circulated on Facebook recently about how a little girl and her father came upon a rickety bridge they were about to cross. The father said to his daughter, "Hold my hand." She said, "No. You hold my hand, daddy. Because if something happens, I might let go of you but I know you will never let go of me." That girl is exercising faith. Faith in someone.
Daily, it is this kind of faith I seek. Daily, I am reminded of how far short I fall of it. Just yesterday for instance my Bible reading was about the Israelites coming to the Jordan river and Moses sending twelve men of the twelve tribes to go scout out the territory of the land God had promised to give them. They come back with a bad report. They look at the people there and are terrified. Instead of placing their faith in God's character, they place it in their present circumstances. They lose focus.
Last week, my husband talked about complimenting someone at work. Now, don't get me wrong. I have no problem if the "someone" he compliments is a man. But it was a woman. And wheels began to turn in my head. I was about to get seriously upset about it when he said, "Sweetie, why did you marry me?" He wasn't playing the game this time and he wasn't teasing. He was saying, "What do you know about me? What is my character?" I had to laugh. My irritation evaporated. I was at peace.
And then another thought came to me. God often asks me the same thing my husband articulated. He is often asking, "What do you know about Me? What is My character?" Isn't that why I read the Bible? To learn more about His character? I really, really must take time to remember, to reflect; I need to take time to answer Him. Because this is exercising faith. This is turning to Him and saying, "No, You hold my hand, because I know You."
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The Most Wonderful Time of Year?
That time of the year has arrived. I cringe a little more each year. It is also constantly thrust in my face in no uncertain terms. It’s always said tongue in cheek but it carries with it deep significance: mothers it seems are doing the happy dance that their children are now away at school and they have some time away from them. Relief floods their voice. Ever since we decided to homeschool, I try to steel myself against this day. And my children are not even close to school age yet. However, it still affects me. This time reminds me of my choices, our choices as a family, that we are not mainstream, that we have made some unpopular decisions and the consequences of those decisions give me less time away from the children, less time to develop myself (whatever that means) and a more insular life focused entirely on my children, my husband and our three bedroom home with its laundry, its cobwebs and its perpetually unkempt bathroom.
I now get why one of the homeschooling groups I know in Sacramento throws a “Not Back to School” party. It’s a reminder that we are not alone, that we do have something to celebrate. As my veteran homeschooler friend Jackie Ehtesham put it, “Why shouldn't the people who are subject to someone else's schedule and an assembly line curriculum (both at school and at home), feel as if THEY are the ones missing out?” It’s true and yet I forget. They are the ones missing out – they’re missing out on time with each other, missing out on a Christian education in the home (schools are Humanist if anything); they are the ones missing out on being able to take vacations when they want and learning experientially, creatively, at a pace that works for them, in an educational environment that is focused on their children individually. It doesn’t get better than that. Not for my children and not, as a mother who wants the best for them, for me. “And yet,” Jackie says, intuitively, “even in the face of wildly successful statistics on the social contributions and academic accomplishments of homeschoolers, we can still succumb to the fear put upon us.” Fear that the children aren’t being “socialized” as if we’re going to put them in the basement and keep them on a strict diet of chicken bones and algebra.
This fear however I think takes a back seat to the real fear most women (including me) have hidden in the back of their minds: the fear of a diminutive life, a life where no one notices what you do, a life where you do not matter. Feminism has done immense damage in this area, preying on this fear that is part of a normal person’s life – man or woman. The only antidote to this existential fear is Biblical. I might matter to no one else, but I matter to God. In the absence of God’s authority, however, and certainly in some circles in addition to God’s authority over us, feminism has convinced us that if a woman doesn’t have a job outside the home (or a home-based business) she isn’t really worth anything. Fear-mongering of this kind is even blatant in supposed financial planning shows where women are told to keep a stash of money hidden away from their spouse and be aware, be aware of how much money they have as a family if they choose not to do so and never, ever quit your job because, hey, your husband could cheat on you, leave you or, well, he might just up and die on you. I hope my sarcasm comes through because with all that is living in me, I reject this notion. This is not my truth. This is not my reality and I refuse to accept anything that would shove its way between a union God has created – that between my husband and me. My truth is a man who cares enough for his family to accept a life of unending work, who cannot go to school to further his education and start a new career path because the drop in pay at the entry level position would be a hardship on us. So much for the male chauvinist holding down his woman, pregnant and barefoot.
This existential angst, this reaching for the stars on our own, this fear that I will never amount to anything in and of myself has its roots in the Fall of Man. Throughout Genesis 1 and 2, we see order placed where there was no form, order where there was chaos, words of blessing, natural divisions between light and dark. And then, in Genesis 3 begin the lies, the deception and eventually the Fall.
When Eve spoke to the serpent in the Garden of Eden she was subtly deceived into misquoting God. She was asked, “Did God really say…” Doubt was planted in her mind. She should have exercised authority immediately. After all, man(kind) had dominion over animals in Eden - the serpent had no business questioning God’s commands. But she did not stop him. She refused to exercise her authority over him and in arguing with him, she misquoted God. In one statement, “Eve disparaged the privileges, added to the prohibitions and weakened the penalty.” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary edited by Walvoord and Zuck.) I can’t help but think that this is the way of all sin. Each time I am tempted to sin, this is the trajectory my thoughts take and this exactly the thought process that is behind me so-called role of being a boring, frumpy stay-at-home mom who homeschools her children.
Thank goodness (and God!) for sending me friends who get what I’m saying, friends who I can turn to for support and direction, who have been there, done that, felt that and have chosen the right thing to do. Kari Brautigam is one of them. I have never met her – she lives in Wisconsin and we have only “talked” through our blogs and Facebook pages. I complained to her about moms doing a happy dance this time of year and asked her how she felt about it. These were her words, “To be honest I hear you... your little ones are so little and dependent, I know what that's like! BUT (and here's my big BUT) DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!!!! They won't be dancing when their kids come back to them disrespectful and whiny, hurried and stressed. Don't think that sending them away will be better for you. They won't behave better if they get a break from you either, in fact, the opposite will probably happen. You are wonderful with your children. You have a grip on discipline that will be lost if you send them away. If you need to, set up play dates, trade childcare days with friend, make the time you spend with them fun... It's true, you may have to give up some of the things you enjoy, but it's only for a season!” Or in other words, according to Jackie, who I previously mentioned, “It's really hard to break out of that mold of comparing ourselves to everyone else, instead of looking at our actions from an eternal perspective and using The Bible as our measuring stick (incidentally, the word "Canon" means "measuring stick"). The Apostle Paul talks a lot about "keeping our eyes on the prize" so as to "win." We are never told to keep our eyes on the other runners.”
In a world where nothing beyond today matters and the best life one can have involves having the most fun or the most stuff, it is important to remember quotes such as this from G. K. Chesterton:
"When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."
So keep your dancing shoes on, those of you who are so thrilled to get rid of their children. But I will not be joining you this year or any other year when school begins. I will be rejoicing quietly in my work as a woman, a wife and a homeschooling mom in my three bedroom home with its laundry, its cobwebs and its perpetually unkempt bathroom.
I now get why one of the homeschooling groups I know in Sacramento throws a “Not Back to School” party. It’s a reminder that we are not alone, that we do have something to celebrate. As my veteran homeschooler friend Jackie Ehtesham put it, “Why shouldn't the people who are subject to someone else's schedule and an assembly line curriculum (both at school and at home), feel as if THEY are the ones missing out?” It’s true and yet I forget. They are the ones missing out – they’re missing out on time with each other, missing out on a Christian education in the home (schools are Humanist if anything); they are the ones missing out on being able to take vacations when they want and learning experientially, creatively, at a pace that works for them, in an educational environment that is focused on their children individually. It doesn’t get better than that. Not for my children and not, as a mother who wants the best for them, for me. “And yet,” Jackie says, intuitively, “even in the face of wildly successful statistics on the social contributions and academic accomplishments of homeschoolers, we can still succumb to the fear put upon us.” Fear that the children aren’t being “socialized” as if we’re going to put them in the basement and keep them on a strict diet of chicken bones and algebra.
This fear however I think takes a back seat to the real fear most women (including me) have hidden in the back of their minds: the fear of a diminutive life, a life where no one notices what you do, a life where you do not matter. Feminism has done immense damage in this area, preying on this fear that is part of a normal person’s life – man or woman. The only antidote to this existential fear is Biblical. I might matter to no one else, but I matter to God. In the absence of God’s authority, however, and certainly in some circles in addition to God’s authority over us, feminism has convinced us that if a woman doesn’t have a job outside the home (or a home-based business) she isn’t really worth anything. Fear-mongering of this kind is even blatant in supposed financial planning shows where women are told to keep a stash of money hidden away from their spouse and be aware, be aware of how much money they have as a family if they choose not to do so and never, ever quit your job because, hey, your husband could cheat on you, leave you or, well, he might just up and die on you. I hope my sarcasm comes through because with all that is living in me, I reject this notion. This is not my truth. This is not my reality and I refuse to accept anything that would shove its way between a union God has created – that between my husband and me. My truth is a man who cares enough for his family to accept a life of unending work, who cannot go to school to further his education and start a new career path because the drop in pay at the entry level position would be a hardship on us. So much for the male chauvinist holding down his woman, pregnant and barefoot.
This existential angst, this reaching for the stars on our own, this fear that I will never amount to anything in and of myself has its roots in the Fall of Man. Throughout Genesis 1 and 2, we see order placed where there was no form, order where there was chaos, words of blessing, natural divisions between light and dark. And then, in Genesis 3 begin the lies, the deception and eventually the Fall.
When Eve spoke to the serpent in the Garden of Eden she was subtly deceived into misquoting God. She was asked, “Did God really say…” Doubt was planted in her mind. She should have exercised authority immediately. After all, man(kind) had dominion over animals in Eden - the serpent had no business questioning God’s commands. But she did not stop him. She refused to exercise her authority over him and in arguing with him, she misquoted God. In one statement, “Eve disparaged the privileges, added to the prohibitions and weakened the penalty.” (The Bible Knowledge Commentary edited by Walvoord and Zuck.) I can’t help but think that this is the way of all sin. Each time I am tempted to sin, this is the trajectory my thoughts take and this exactly the thought process that is behind me so-called role of being a boring, frumpy stay-at-home mom who homeschools her children.
Thank goodness (and God!) for sending me friends who get what I’m saying, friends who I can turn to for support and direction, who have been there, done that, felt that and have chosen the right thing to do. Kari Brautigam is one of them. I have never met her – she lives in Wisconsin and we have only “talked” through our blogs and Facebook pages. I complained to her about moms doing a happy dance this time of year and asked her how she felt about it. These were her words, “To be honest I hear you... your little ones are so little and dependent, I know what that's like! BUT (and here's my big BUT) DON'T LISTEN TO THEM!!!! They won't be dancing when their kids come back to them disrespectful and whiny, hurried and stressed. Don't think that sending them away will be better for you. They won't behave better if they get a break from you either, in fact, the opposite will probably happen. You are wonderful with your children. You have a grip on discipline that will be lost if you send them away. If you need to, set up play dates, trade childcare days with friend, make the time you spend with them fun... It's true, you may have to give up some of the things you enjoy, but it's only for a season!” Or in other words, according to Jackie, who I previously mentioned, “It's really hard to break out of that mold of comparing ourselves to everyone else, instead of looking at our actions from an eternal perspective and using The Bible as our measuring stick (incidentally, the word "Canon" means "measuring stick"). The Apostle Paul talks a lot about "keeping our eyes on the prize" so as to "win." We are never told to keep our eyes on the other runners.”
In a world where nothing beyond today matters and the best life one can have involves having the most fun or the most stuff, it is important to remember quotes such as this from G. K. Chesterton:
"When domesticity, for instance, is called drudgery, all the difficulty arises from a double meaning in the word. If drudgery only means dreadfully hard work, I admit the woman drudges in the home, as a man might drudge at the Cathedral of Amiens or drudge behind a gun at Trafalgar. But if it means that the hard work is more heavy because it is trifling, colorless and of small import to the soul, then as I say, I give it up; I do not know what the words mean. To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labors and holidays; to be Whiteley within a certain area, providing toys, boots, sheets, cakes and books, to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone? No; a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute. I will pity Mrs. Jones for the hugeness of her task; I will never pity her for its smallness."
So keep your dancing shoes on, those of you who are so thrilled to get rid of their children. But I will not be joining you this year or any other year when school begins. I will be rejoicing quietly in my work as a woman, a wife and a homeschooling mom in my three bedroom home with its laundry, its cobwebs and its perpetually unkempt bathroom.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
The Discipline of Thanks
"It's hard...the discipline of thanks comes only with practice. I know. So many days, so hard. I want to give up, too. But give up the joy-wrestle... and I die."
I have just finished reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Blessings and it is hard to see the ways in which it has affected me. Good books do that - they seep in and are remembered later, much later when it really matters. The premise of the book is simple: we say we are grateful, but are we really? If we paint with wide brushstrokes the thankfulness for "everything," are we really noticing the everything we give thanks for? And, more importantly, when what we perceive as bad happens, can we still be thankful, knowing that the circumstance comes from the hands of a loving God?
Ann is no stranger to accepting tragedy. She recounts the death of her sister crushed in front of her parents, a brother-in-law burying two children of his own within eighteen months of each other. And the question remains: When what we see as bad happens, can we still give thanks? Can we take the hard bread that God gives, can we eat the mystery as the Israelites ate manna and let it sustain us?
The book brings to mind another: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, who hid Jews in Nazi Germany and was sent to concentration camps because of it. She recounts how they sat in a crowded room with other women, in unsanitary, unclean conditions, some sick, all malnourished and gave thanks for fleas because her sister reminded her that we are to give thanks in all circumstances. Corrie later comes back to this instance and remembers that it was because of the fleas that women in that group were able to hear the Gospel because the Nazis left them alone. Because of the fleas, "for creatures [she] could see no use for."
Give thanks in all circumstances.
Easier said than done. And yet, done it must be. In my own little way, I have started. I have begun a gratitude journal, where I try diligently to write things I am grateful to God for. I follow each sigh with thankfulness. Sometimes I see the blessing immediately. Sometimes I don't. But I have begun because I can see how gratefulness is a discipline. And naming things to be grateful for - that, Voskamp claims, is Edenic. Naming always is.
And for that little beautiful truth, I am especially thankful.
I have just finished reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Blessings and it is hard to see the ways in which it has affected me. Good books do that - they seep in and are remembered later, much later when it really matters. The premise of the book is simple: we say we are grateful, but are we really? If we paint with wide brushstrokes the thankfulness for "everything," are we really noticing the everything we give thanks for? And, more importantly, when what we perceive as bad happens, can we still be thankful, knowing that the circumstance comes from the hands of a loving God?
Ann is no stranger to accepting tragedy. She recounts the death of her sister crushed in front of her parents, a brother-in-law burying two children of his own within eighteen months of each other. And the question remains: When what we see as bad happens, can we still give thanks? Can we take the hard bread that God gives, can we eat the mystery as the Israelites ate manna and let it sustain us?
The book brings to mind another: The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, who hid Jews in Nazi Germany and was sent to concentration camps because of it. She recounts how they sat in a crowded room with other women, in unsanitary, unclean conditions, some sick, all malnourished and gave thanks for fleas because her sister reminded her that we are to give thanks in all circumstances. Corrie later comes back to this instance and remembers that it was because of the fleas that women in that group were able to hear the Gospel because the Nazis left them alone. Because of the fleas, "for creatures [she] could see no use for."
Give thanks in all circumstances.
Easier said than done. And yet, done it must be. In my own little way, I have started. I have begun a gratitude journal, where I try diligently to write things I am grateful to God for. I follow each sigh with thankfulness. Sometimes I see the blessing immediately. Sometimes I don't. But I have begun because I can see how gratefulness is a discipline. And naming things to be grateful for - that, Voskamp claims, is Edenic. Naming always is.
And for that little beautiful truth, I am especially thankful.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
A New Creation
If you're reading this through Facebook, it's because you haven't hidden my updates from your wall. First off, let me just say I appreciate that immensely. Secondly, if my Lose It! updates are beginning to get to you, you can hit the "x" next to my posts and then pick "Hide all from Lose It!"
Okay, with the disclaimers out of the way, I can now begin to tell you how much I am truly enjoying this weight loss/working out journey. The best gift my husband could have come up with, he gave our family last September - gym membership. Believe me when I tell you I was never a gym person. It freaked the heck out of me. We had made one attempt at going to a yoga class years ago and I even used their stationary bicycle once and then that was it. I was done. It was much, much more relaxing to stay home and drink wine and have a nice dinner. Much better than to be in a roomful of healthy, fit people all staring at overweight little me.
I cringe a little when I think of how much time I have wasted being afraid of the world and being ashamed of my body. I cannot pin-point an exact date all that changed but it had much (all?) to do with accepting Christ. Of that I am certain. I felt light and I felt free, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to run. I know. It surprised me, too.
Since last May, (I am dating May because I remember my birthday and how much I weighed - no other reason) I have lost 29 pounds and gained some muscle in the process. I have run my first 5k (3.1 miles), my first 4 miles, done many group classes in cardio-kickboxing, strength training, tried x-bike, learned to zumba and spent innumerable hours weight lifting as well as reading all I could get my hands on about sports nutrition and eating right.
In the grand scheme of things, compared to a real athlete for example, this is small, miniscule, but knowing where I come from and who I used to be, the changes I have made are truly remarkable. While I was never obese, I was overweight with almost no muscle and zero endurance. I couldn't run for more than two minutes. Today, I run two miles (at least) five times a week. I was weak, so weak my arms jiggled when I waved. Now I weight train with my husband three times a week and can bench 70 pounds, deep squat 65 and do tricep extensions with 45. I go to kickboxing and strength training classes twice a week and zumba classes once a week.
I love every minute of it. Every single, sweaty minute.
You may ask why I'm doing this. Is it pride? A desire to be beautiful? Strong? Or just healthy? Am I in a competition? Training for something? The answer to all these would be somewhere in the middle. The answer truly is, as I had shared with a close friend, is that I want to see what this amazing body God gave me is truly capable of. Not only is this an amazing, beautiful body He has given me, it is also God's temple. I am finally beginning to believe that. ("What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - 1 Corinthians 6:19) So, I suppose you could say that I am doing this as a testimony to God's grace.
Which is why, even though I'm a fan of shows like The Biggest Loser, it bothers me when they speak of "being selfish" and "doing this for yourself" and "loving yourself." No amount of telling yourself you're beautiful when the reality of sin is staring you in the face is going to make you believe it. No amount of trying to forgive yourself will work if you know you have broken God's law. We all know that, don't we? Aren't we all aware of something not being all right with ourselves? Maybe I'm delusional, but I think we do. No, I think I might just be a Calvinist in this one - I think unless the Spirit of God quickens us, we are dead. And I have been, for a long time. But I think I've been made alive and forgiven. I am a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Okay, with the disclaimers out of the way, I can now begin to tell you how much I am truly enjoying this weight loss/working out journey. The best gift my husband could have come up with, he gave our family last September - gym membership. Believe me when I tell you I was never a gym person. It freaked the heck out of me. We had made one attempt at going to a yoga class years ago and I even used their stationary bicycle once and then that was it. I was done. It was much, much more relaxing to stay home and drink wine and have a nice dinner. Much better than to be in a roomful of healthy, fit people all staring at overweight little me.
I cringe a little when I think of how much time I have wasted being afraid of the world and being ashamed of my body. I cannot pin-point an exact date all that changed but it had much (all?) to do with accepting Christ. Of that I am certain. I felt light and I felt free, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to run. I know. It surprised me, too.
Since last May, (I am dating May because I remember my birthday and how much I weighed - no other reason) I have lost 29 pounds and gained some muscle in the process. I have run my first 5k (3.1 miles), my first 4 miles, done many group classes in cardio-kickboxing, strength training, tried x-bike, learned to zumba and spent innumerable hours weight lifting as well as reading all I could get my hands on about sports nutrition and eating right.
In the grand scheme of things, compared to a real athlete for example, this is small, miniscule, but knowing where I come from and who I used to be, the changes I have made are truly remarkable. While I was never obese, I was overweight with almost no muscle and zero endurance. I couldn't run for more than two minutes. Today, I run two miles (at least) five times a week. I was weak, so weak my arms jiggled when I waved. Now I weight train with my husband three times a week and can bench 70 pounds, deep squat 65 and do tricep extensions with 45. I go to kickboxing and strength training classes twice a week and zumba classes once a week.
I love every minute of it. Every single, sweaty minute.
You may ask why I'm doing this. Is it pride? A desire to be beautiful? Strong? Or just healthy? Am I in a competition? Training for something? The answer to all these would be somewhere in the middle. The answer truly is, as I had shared with a close friend, is that I want to see what this amazing body God gave me is truly capable of. Not only is this an amazing, beautiful body He has given me, it is also God's temple. I am finally beginning to believe that. ("What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" - 1 Corinthians 6:19) So, I suppose you could say that I am doing this as a testimony to God's grace.
Which is why, even though I'm a fan of shows like The Biggest Loser, it bothers me when they speak of "being selfish" and "doing this for yourself" and "loving yourself." No amount of telling yourself you're beautiful when the reality of sin is staring you in the face is going to make you believe it. No amount of trying to forgive yourself will work if you know you have broken God's law. We all know that, don't we? Aren't we all aware of something not being all right with ourselves? Maybe I'm delusional, but I think we do. No, I think I might just be a Calvinist in this one - I think unless the Spirit of God quickens us, we are dead. And I have been, for a long time. But I think I've been made alive and forgiven. I am a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come. (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Blah (or the New Baby Blues)
Three days of rain in May and see what happens? My enthusiasm dips, my allergies get my head all stuffed up, I miss my morning runs a few days in a row, I start to feel pudgy and my joie de vivre is nowhere to be seen. Ugh.
Slowly I begin to notice women without children. How they have time to linger in grocery store aisles and actually read the names of ingredients, how they aren't talking in forced enthusiasm and raised voices to get their toddlers to listen to them, how they can drive without screaming at their kids in the back of the car, how they can actually pick up and go - on a whim - anywhere they choose without worrying about nap times and routines.
I whine and complain to my husband. I'm never alone, I say. The children are always with me. Even nap times are so... regulated. My life doesn't change. Every day is just the same as the last. And the last and the last. It's beginning to get to me. What I would do for a day (or a week) to myself!
These are the tough days, I guess. Motherhood wouldn't be such a high calling without it being difficult somewhere down the line. It's not all roses and hearts, no matter how much Hallmark makes us want to believe it. Rather, it's about trying to teach my children the right way to ask me for something when all I want to do is complain at God about how hard my life is. It's about recognizing that everyone is in the same boat in one way or another. It's realizing that I am the best prepared and especially chosen for this job even when I don't do it perfectly. My husband never complains that he is the one who has to go out and work and if there's a financial crisis he is the one we look toward to bring home the grass-fed beef. Then why should I?
And slowly a new mood begins to emerge. That woman who was poring over labels at the grocery store? Who knows if she's just turning the corner now into another aisle, buying a pregnancy test, hoping, praying, thinking, "I'm almost thirty-five. Please, please, please be positive."
No matter how much I complain, I have to realize this truth: there is nothing like motherhood to bring me closer to the heart of God.
Slowly I begin to notice women without children. How they have time to linger in grocery store aisles and actually read the names of ingredients, how they aren't talking in forced enthusiasm and raised voices to get their toddlers to listen to them, how they can drive without screaming at their kids in the back of the car, how they can actually pick up and go - on a whim - anywhere they choose without worrying about nap times and routines.
I whine and complain to my husband. I'm never alone, I say. The children are always with me. Even nap times are so... regulated. My life doesn't change. Every day is just the same as the last. And the last and the last. It's beginning to get to me. What I would do for a day (or a week) to myself!
These are the tough days, I guess. Motherhood wouldn't be such a high calling without it being difficult somewhere down the line. It's not all roses and hearts, no matter how much Hallmark makes us want to believe it. Rather, it's about trying to teach my children the right way to ask me for something when all I want to do is complain at God about how hard my life is. It's about recognizing that everyone is in the same boat in one way or another. It's realizing that I am the best prepared and especially chosen for this job even when I don't do it perfectly. My husband never complains that he is the one who has to go out and work and if there's a financial crisis he is the one we look toward to bring home the grass-fed beef. Then why should I?
And slowly a new mood begins to emerge. That woman who was poring over labels at the grocery store? Who knows if she's just turning the corner now into another aisle, buying a pregnancy test, hoping, praying, thinking, "I'm almost thirty-five. Please, please, please be positive."
No matter how much I complain, I have to realize this truth: there is nothing like motherhood to bring me closer to the heart of God.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Growth
I have glimpsed something today that I find hard to express in words and yet I must try because the truth of what I have realized is so seminal to my understanding of what it means to be a Christian. My knowledge lags far behind my experience and, often it seems, so do my words.
I fasted from red wine for seventy-three days. I fasted because I felt like I was making it into a idol. I am by no means an alcoholic, but I do like red wine. It is the only alcohol I drink and I truly enjoy it. So, why did I give it up? The short answer is above. The longer, and perhaps the more difficult answer, is that I lacked knowledge and therefore I lacked faith.
Why is it that as soon as one tries to approach God legalism gets such a strong grip? Why are we so gullible? So easily swayed by our feelings and what we should do than what God says? Brennan Manning calls this mask of trying to be virtuous and holy "the impostor." Maybe I was under the grip of such an impostor. Something about me constantly tries to earn God's favor while rejecting His grace.
I think that today I finally understood the reason for this. The reason is that I am spiritually weak. The reason for my spiritual weakness? I don't know the truth. And only the truth can set me free. Not how I feel, not what I think I should feel and not what I think I should do. There really is nothing I can do, besides walk in the path He has created for me. Recognizing that path requires freedom from shoulds and coulds and fear. Recognizing that path requires, in other words, a deep and abiding faith in God.
This faith can only come from a thorough knowledge of The Bible. So far, I have been satisfied with milk but my appetite has grown. Today I crave the meat of God's Word. Because only meat nourishes, only meat sustains; only meat truly satisfies. It ensures I will not go hungry or lacking. The truth is supposed to hold me steady, so I am not tossed around in currents of worldly philosophies - something I am especially vulnerable to, based on my past. And, as someone said to me today, the only thing worse than a shipwreck is to be tossed around forever aimlessly, not knowing which way one is going.
So, finally, I believe, I am ready. And I am hungry. And I know that I am growing.
I fasted from red wine for seventy-three days. I fasted because I felt like I was making it into a idol. I am by no means an alcoholic, but I do like red wine. It is the only alcohol I drink and I truly enjoy it. So, why did I give it up? The short answer is above. The longer, and perhaps the more difficult answer, is that I lacked knowledge and therefore I lacked faith.
Why is it that as soon as one tries to approach God legalism gets such a strong grip? Why are we so gullible? So easily swayed by our feelings and what we should do than what God says? Brennan Manning calls this mask of trying to be virtuous and holy "the impostor." Maybe I was under the grip of such an impostor. Something about me constantly tries to earn God's favor while rejecting His grace.
I think that today I finally understood the reason for this. The reason is that I am spiritually weak. The reason for my spiritual weakness? I don't know the truth. And only the truth can set me free. Not how I feel, not what I think I should feel and not what I think I should do. There really is nothing I can do, besides walk in the path He has created for me. Recognizing that path requires freedom from shoulds and coulds and fear. Recognizing that path requires, in other words, a deep and abiding faith in God.
This faith can only come from a thorough knowledge of The Bible. So far, I have been satisfied with milk but my appetite has grown. Today I crave the meat of God's Word. Because only meat nourishes, only meat sustains; only meat truly satisfies. It ensures I will not go hungry or lacking. The truth is supposed to hold me steady, so I am not tossed around in currents of worldly philosophies - something I am especially vulnerable to, based on my past. And, as someone said to me today, the only thing worse than a shipwreck is to be tossed around forever aimlessly, not knowing which way one is going.
So, finally, I believe, I am ready. And I am hungry. And I know that I am growing.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Finding a Voice
One of Jerry Seinfeld's greatest one-liners goes something like this: "The one thing people fear more than their own death is public speaking; which means that at a funeral, they would rather be in the casket than at the podium!" I was to give my testimony yesterday at our annual Tea and Treasures at MOPS. It was ten minutes of getting in front of seventy-five women and talking - okay, reading - what Jesus means to me and what He has done in my life since He became My Lord and Savior.
I could barely sleep the night before. Each time I woke up, I felt nerves and had trouble going back to sleep. It helped to know that everyone goes through this, even a "mentor mom" in our MOPS group I look up to and other women who had given their testimonies the year before. But I was still nervous and shaky. Each time I thought about getting up there to face the crowd, looking into their eyes while talking, I inwardly shuddered. No exaggeration.
On the day of Tea and Treasures, I remember the co-ordinator introducing me and me shuffling over to the front, taking my position in front of the microphone a bundle of nerves. My hands were shivering, I didn't trust my voice to carry me through ten minutes in front of a group. Ten minutes can be an excruciatingly long time when all eyes are on you. I would know. I had tried to give a real estate presentation before in front of a much smaller group and had fallen flat on my face. Metaphorically, of course, but still. Now, I tested the microphone, asked if it was too loud, took a long breath, even said something about my heart beating. Duh. Of course, my heart was beating - I was alive! What I meant was my heart was beating so fast! That should tell you something about my overall state.
I began to talk and that was when everything changed. Everything. An unearthly calm came over me. I paused - at the end of sentences as I had been advised to do, and looked at the audience. I was in no hurry to get done. I didn't need to even look down to read some sentences. I even - gasp!- enjoyed myself, sharing my love for The Lord, revealing things about my life that had previously been stowed away in the dark, hidden in corners of conversations only accessible to a few. I allowed the Lord access into them and He shined through. He shined through me.
I had read somewhere that He equips the called, but had never before experienced it in such a real and powerful way. He truly does. He is helping me find my voice. I can't wait to do it again!
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Weight of a Gift
Last evening, I saw a true show of extravagant, crazy love. It wasn't new and it wasn't earth-shattering. But it may have been the very first time I truly saw it.
I had been grumbling for a while now that there is not single thing in the house that is my own. Nothing that personally belongs to me and me alone. This desire strikes me as extremely selfish and yet extremely urgent at the same time. I rush to explain it. The thing I own wouldn't define me, I say. I make excuses, searching in the deepest recesses of my emotions for the reason for this unwelcome desire that seems to consume me.
Well, I cannot complain any more. My husband bought me a notebook computer - one bigger, faster, better than I wanted. One that slightly embarrasses me and slightly scares me because of the money we spent on it. One that, if I had been working, I would have struggled to pay him back for. Except, I don't work. And I have no way of paying for this laptop I didn't deserve but so graciously accepted. I didn't need it, per se. It was a gift, in the purest sense of the word.
I always thought people who said they didn't deserve things they received were lying, that their humility was false. Yesterday, I rethought that idea. Yesterday, as I went through the emotions of trying to reconcile receiving this gift - defined by dictionaries as something bestowed or acquired with no effort on the part of the recipient to earn it - with somehow paying for it or even deserving it, I realized: I don't think I had ever felt this way before. Ever. In my entire life.
The converse of this ugliness is that after receiving a gift such as this one, I still feel like I have to earn it, make up for it in some way, so that the scales are balanced on some cosmic level known only to me. I never thought I would be one who had a hard time accepting love, that I was one who feels she must earn it. But I am.
Psalm 103 comes to mind. It says God has crowned us with lovingkindness and tender mercies. I thought I understood it, but I guess I don't really. For all my entitlement, I suppose I am still lacking in understanding the true depth of God's love, a small measure of which I saw through my husband's lavish spending on me yesterday.
Perhaps that's why the world has trouble understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the weight of a gift is just a little more than we can bear to understand.
I had been grumbling for a while now that there is not single thing in the house that is my own. Nothing that personally belongs to me and me alone. This desire strikes me as extremely selfish and yet extremely urgent at the same time. I rush to explain it. The thing I own wouldn't define me, I say. I make excuses, searching in the deepest recesses of my emotions for the reason for this unwelcome desire that seems to consume me.
Well, I cannot complain any more. My husband bought me a notebook computer - one bigger, faster, better than I wanted. One that slightly embarrasses me and slightly scares me because of the money we spent on it. One that, if I had been working, I would have struggled to pay him back for. Except, I don't work. And I have no way of paying for this laptop I didn't deserve but so graciously accepted. I didn't need it, per se. It was a gift, in the purest sense of the word.
I always thought people who said they didn't deserve things they received were lying, that their humility was false. Yesterday, I rethought that idea. Yesterday, as I went through the emotions of trying to reconcile receiving this gift - defined by dictionaries as something bestowed or acquired with no effort on the part of the recipient to earn it - with somehow paying for it or even deserving it, I realized: I don't think I had ever felt this way before. Ever. In my entire life.
The converse of this ugliness is that after receiving a gift such as this one, I still feel like I have to earn it, make up for it in some way, so that the scales are balanced on some cosmic level known only to me. I never thought I would be one who had a hard time accepting love, that I was one who feels she must earn it. But I am.
Psalm 103 comes to mind. It says God has crowned us with lovingkindness and tender mercies. I thought I understood it, but I guess I don't really. For all my entitlement, I suppose I am still lacking in understanding the true depth of God's love, a small measure of which I saw through my husband's lavish spending on me yesterday.
Perhaps that's why the world has trouble understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes the weight of a gift is just a little more than we can bear to understand.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Self-pity, anyone?
My Macbook is broken and needs to be fixed. It's going to cost $280. You would think my world is coming to an end.
What is it in me that marches in lock step with the demon of self-pity?
I told my husband, "At least I'm aware of it and I'm aware that these feelings I have are not real." He says, "So a homocidal maniac knows he's a homocidal maniac. Hmm." Wish I thought that was funny. But at least it's honest. Argh.
I have spent much of the day going back and forth about keeping the old one for watching Hulu and Netflix (it works when attached to an external screen because it works fine but the backlight is out so you can't see the screen.) and buying one for my own personal use or just getting it fixed and keeping things as they are. My impulsive decisions in the past have usually been mistakes and so I want to wait to decide either way. I have prayed and failed to control my thoughts, prayed and failed. Over and over and over.
The answer I have received is to wait. If only it wasn't so hard.
At least I remembered to pray first.
For tonight, I think, that little change is going to have to be enough.
What is it in me that marches in lock step with the demon of self-pity?
I told my husband, "At least I'm aware of it and I'm aware that these feelings I have are not real." He says, "So a homocidal maniac knows he's a homocidal maniac. Hmm." Wish I thought that was funny. But at least it's honest. Argh.
I have spent much of the day going back and forth about keeping the old one for watching Hulu and Netflix (it works when attached to an external screen because it works fine but the backlight is out so you can't see the screen.) and buying one for my own personal use or just getting it fixed and keeping things as they are. My impulsive decisions in the past have usually been mistakes and so I want to wait to decide either way. I have prayed and failed to control my thoughts, prayed and failed. Over and over and over.
The answer I have received is to wait. If only it wasn't so hard.
At least I remembered to pray first.
For tonight, I think, that little change is going to have to be enough.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Criticism by any other Name
The old story about Indian crabs goes a little like this. There was once a man who passed by a fish market to buy some crabs. There he saw a vendor who had a few baskets of crabs. They were all covered with lids except one. Curious, he went up to the vendor and said, "Why do you cover the baskets?" "Because the crabs will climb out if I don't," the vendor replied. "What about that one?" the man asked, pointing to the one basket that was left uncovered. "Oh, those crabs will never climb out," the man said. "They're Indian crabs. As soon as one tries to climb higher, the rest pull him down. I never have to worry about Indian crabs climbing. Ever."
Sad, but true. Embarrassing, but real.
A very close friend of mine recently posted a happy, cheerful status update about coming out of one's comfort zone and trying something new. The barrage of comments she received were almost all disappointing. "Did you THINK?" one asked. "She probably just got out of bed!" another said. "Did you cook?" another asked. And these are her friends, mind you. In and of themselves, the comments were not accusatory or insulting, but lined up like that made me think of someone kicking a man who is already down.
I have noticed this behavior often in people from the east. My childhood is certainly replete with barbs and arrows coming at my brother who was doing far beyond anyone's imagination in his studies. His only consolations were his scholarships and my parents who stood by him. But the taunts and the insults hurled at someone so hardworking and painstaking in his work were just incredible. He heard things like, "I bet he can't climb a tree!" or "He won't last abroad one week! He's going to come running back. Just watch!"
The comments against my friend, who shall remain unnamed, were certainly not that sharp, but sometimes, it's worse when criticism and harsh words are coated in the veneer of, "But only I can say it because I'm your friend. It's endearing." For one, a curse is a curse is a curse. It does not serve the purpose of bringing people closer to one another or deepening a friendship. If anything, it silences. It cuts short joy, enthusiasm and certainly love. Secondly, the next time the person tries to do something new, he hears those voices. And stops. Another crab who will never climb!
The reason this is so frustrating is because I know I do it, too. This Lent, I'm fasting from name-calling in all forms. Jesus said whoever calls his brother a fool is in danger of hellfire. While fear is not driving me to do this fast, I am driven by the check I feel deep inside me each time I call someone a name. Words have power. Undeniable power. And I give them that power because I am made in God's image. God spoke the world into being. Jesus is referred to as The Word in the gospel of John. Paul exhorts us later in one of the epistles that blessings and curses should not roll off the same tongue. Lent has been extremely difficult this year. Partially because I have realized that it's harder in the company of people I love. It is in the company of people I love the most that I curse the most, am unkindest the most. It is the ones I say I love the most that I don't bless with my mouth.
How sad is that?
My husband completely bowled me over last year when I was complaining about our neighbors. I said something to the effect of, "I don't know why you're so careful around those people. They blast their music and they don't deserve any kindness!" I will never forget what he said. It was like Jesus spoke to me. "Shouldn't we be careful around all human beings? Don't they all deserve kindness?" Yikes.
Perhaps I thrived here in the United States because my husband didn't make fun of me, even to endear me to him. He even used the words, "You're right!" - something I had never before heard addressed to me. I drank deep from his encouragement in those first few months. I used to think, "If you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" was silly advice, but now I think otherwise. There are times when there is a need for righteous anger, but clearly, it's not as often as we think.
Sad, but true. Embarrassing, but real.
A very close friend of mine recently posted a happy, cheerful status update about coming out of one's comfort zone and trying something new. The barrage of comments she received were almost all disappointing. "Did you THINK?" one asked. "She probably just got out of bed!" another said. "Did you cook?" another asked. And these are her friends, mind you. In and of themselves, the comments were not accusatory or insulting, but lined up like that made me think of someone kicking a man who is already down.
I have noticed this behavior often in people from the east. My childhood is certainly replete with barbs and arrows coming at my brother who was doing far beyond anyone's imagination in his studies. His only consolations were his scholarships and my parents who stood by him. But the taunts and the insults hurled at someone so hardworking and painstaking in his work were just incredible. He heard things like, "I bet he can't climb a tree!" or "He won't last abroad one week! He's going to come running back. Just watch!"
The comments against my friend, who shall remain unnamed, were certainly not that sharp, but sometimes, it's worse when criticism and harsh words are coated in the veneer of, "But only I can say it because I'm your friend. It's endearing." For one, a curse is a curse is a curse. It does not serve the purpose of bringing people closer to one another or deepening a friendship. If anything, it silences. It cuts short joy, enthusiasm and certainly love. Secondly, the next time the person tries to do something new, he hears those voices. And stops. Another crab who will never climb!
The reason this is so frustrating is because I know I do it, too. This Lent, I'm fasting from name-calling in all forms. Jesus said whoever calls his brother a fool is in danger of hellfire. While fear is not driving me to do this fast, I am driven by the check I feel deep inside me each time I call someone a name. Words have power. Undeniable power. And I give them that power because I am made in God's image. God spoke the world into being. Jesus is referred to as The Word in the gospel of John. Paul exhorts us later in one of the epistles that blessings and curses should not roll off the same tongue. Lent has been extremely difficult this year. Partially because I have realized that it's harder in the company of people I love. It is in the company of people I love the most that I curse the most, am unkindest the most. It is the ones I say I love the most that I don't bless with my mouth.
How sad is that?
My husband completely bowled me over last year when I was complaining about our neighbors. I said something to the effect of, "I don't know why you're so careful around those people. They blast their music and they don't deserve any kindness!" I will never forget what he said. It was like Jesus spoke to me. "Shouldn't we be careful around all human beings? Don't they all deserve kindness?" Yikes.
Perhaps I thrived here in the United States because my husband didn't make fun of me, even to endear me to him. He even used the words, "You're right!" - something I had never before heard addressed to me. I drank deep from his encouragement in those first few months. I used to think, "If you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" was silly advice, but now I think otherwise. There are times when there is a need for righteous anger, but clearly, it's not as often as we think.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Big Things Come in Small Packages...
...but let me tell you that is not a small package. I came home today with a packing box full of clothes and toys for my children. It was our second MOPSwap of the year. About seventy women cleaned out their closets this last weekend and brought baby clothes, toddler clothes, mom clothes (including pregnancy wear), toys, books, CDs, bouncers, high chairs, baby gates, even rocking chairs with them to Christ Community Church where we meet for MOPS every second and fourth Tuesday.
It was beautiful.
The outpouring of love and sharing was tangible. I think we had about a dozen tables lined up. And not a single mom left empty-handed although there were a few things left that will later go a fundraiser called the Just Between Friends Sale.
Did I mention it was free? Or, well, it was $5, which we charge for each MOPS meeting, but seriously, you couldn't get this much at a thrift store for the same amount. It simply was not about money today. It was about moms getting together and truly sharing common experiences through baby clothes and toys.
I came home a little wistful for the little clothes I didn't look through because my children were growing so fast. I came home with a box full of things for their growing bodies and minds. But mainly, I came home thanking God for MOPS and His overflowing abundance.
I came home with my heart singing not for the things the box contained, but for the things it never could.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
MOPS is Not a Support Group
I always know when I am in the company of someone without little children. For one, they can begin and finish their sentences with the right inflections and appropriate decibel levels for adult conversation. Nothing like, "You know, I just think that for someone like you - NO! NO! PUT THAT DOWN NOW. NOW!!! ALL RIGHT, TIME OUT! For someone like you, NO! SIT STILL. For you... someone... what was I saying?" For another, they sit still for long periods of time and actually hold your gaze while talking to you. I've realized that lately I get uncomfortable when I focus on one thing for too long, which has helped me break my television habit, but it does make people think I am uninterested, or worse, uninteresting.
I just came back from a play date with three other MOPS - all Mothers Of Preschoolers. Exactly what did we do? Well, we had coffee, snacked on whatever we could remember to bring while packing our children into the car, we herded the children around, cheered at their little accomplishments of being able to walk a foot or two, or sharing their toys with each other or just being kind and creative. Quickly, we shared dinner ideas, gave advice about using a crock pot, encouraged each other to exercise, aired our grievances (mostly about ourselves), expressed joy at our children's small accomplishments and then left. No tears were shed, except by the children who were cranky and tired after playing so hard.
Yesterday, at the cash register of a grocery store, I told a woman who had a three year old to look up a MOPS group she might want to attend. What is it? she asked. I said it was a ministry. Then I said it was a support group. I ended by saying, "I have made some of my best friends there."
At this point, I really don't know how to describe what MOPS is and what it is we do there. And yet, it is my lifeline. I know what mothering was like without it and I never want to do that again. If you don't have family or friends living close to you, mothering is extremely lonely and difficult. But I hesitate to call MOPS a support group because we tend to think of women sitting around in a circle and crying. Yes, we do that sometimes. I am also loathe to call it a ministry because it sounds like we preach the gospel there. Yes, we do that, too. But I cannot call it a play group either, although, yes, our children do play there - as we do - and make deep, abiding friendships.
I tend to think of MOPS rather as the presence of the Living God Himself. It is so permeated by Him and so full of His very real, gritty love that I have to come to it, for sustenance, for support, for nourishment. And each time I come to it, I am reminded that there are other moms, just like me, who struggle with this calling of motherhood. These are not picture book moms with perfect families. They are real, living, breathing moms who feel the conviction of raising good children in a fallen world, moms who yell at their children when they don't mean to or want to but are pulled in too many directions, moms who would appreciate more time to read their Bibles but realize that diapers need changing and laundry must be done, moms who would readily throw themselves in front of cars to save their children. Moms, even in their brokenness, who strive to be like Jesus, whether they realize it or not.
So, no, MOPS is not a support group. And I will probably never be able to speak a sentence in the right tone for adult conversation for years to come. But what I have now in MOPS is a bigger blessing than hushed conversations.
I just came back from a play date with three other MOPS - all Mothers Of Preschoolers. Exactly what did we do? Well, we had coffee, snacked on whatever we could remember to bring while packing our children into the car, we herded the children around, cheered at their little accomplishments of being able to walk a foot or two, or sharing their toys with each other or just being kind and creative. Quickly, we shared dinner ideas, gave advice about using a crock pot, encouraged each other to exercise, aired our grievances (mostly about ourselves), expressed joy at our children's small accomplishments and then left. No tears were shed, except by the children who were cranky and tired after playing so hard.
Yesterday, at the cash register of a grocery store, I told a woman who had a three year old to look up a MOPS group she might want to attend. What is it? she asked. I said it was a ministry. Then I said it was a support group. I ended by saying, "I have made some of my best friends there."
At this point, I really don't know how to describe what MOPS is and what it is we do there. And yet, it is my lifeline. I know what mothering was like without it and I never want to do that again. If you don't have family or friends living close to you, mothering is extremely lonely and difficult. But I hesitate to call MOPS a support group because we tend to think of women sitting around in a circle and crying. Yes, we do that sometimes. I am also loathe to call it a ministry because it sounds like we preach the gospel there. Yes, we do that, too. But I cannot call it a play group either, although, yes, our children do play there - as we do - and make deep, abiding friendships.
I tend to think of MOPS rather as the presence of the Living God Himself. It is so permeated by Him and so full of His very real, gritty love that I have to come to it, for sustenance, for support, for nourishment. And each time I come to it, I am reminded that there are other moms, just like me, who struggle with this calling of motherhood. These are not picture book moms with perfect families. They are real, living, breathing moms who feel the conviction of raising good children in a fallen world, moms who yell at their children when they don't mean to or want to but are pulled in too many directions, moms who would appreciate more time to read their Bibles but realize that diapers need changing and laundry must be done, moms who would readily throw themselves in front of cars to save their children. Moms, even in their brokenness, who strive to be like Jesus, whether they realize it or not.
So, no, MOPS is not a support group. And I will probably never be able to speak a sentence in the right tone for adult conversation for years to come. But what I have now in MOPS is a bigger blessing than hushed conversations.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Cookies of Faith
One of the things I like about my MOPS groups is that every other month or so, our table of about eight women along with another table brings breakfast. Baked goods seems to be the obvious choice for me each time so that I can bake bunches of cookies and not eat them all. Today, after nine dozen or so peanut butter cookies, here is my testimony. (And a recipe.)
Peanut butter cookies, which I picked today, to be really mouthwateringly good, must be chewy. But there's a catch. When you're baking them, you have no way to tell if they're done. When they come out of the oven, they've expanded, but are still mostly soft. If you try to watch until the edges are browned, nope, that's too late as well. You just have to preheat the oven, set the timer for the time the recipe book tells you, and then get them out promptly when the timer goes off. Even if they're soft. Even if they look not ready. Allow them to cool and voila! They're perfect.
In other words, you have to have faith. Hebrews 11:1 says "faith is the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen." 2 Corinthians 5:7 reminds us that "we walk by faith, not by sight."
Even when the cookies don't look done. Even when I don't understand. Even when every single instinct in my body tells me to intervene, change something - this will never work. Even then. I will walk by faith, not by sight.
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
Beat together butter and peanut butter with a hand mixer. Add 1/2 cup of the flour, sugars, egg, baking powder and vanilla. Beat until thoroughly combined. Beat in remaining flour. Chill in refrigerator if necessary. Roll into one inch balls. Flatten with fork tines in a criss-cross pattern. Bake in pre-heated 375 degree oven for 7 - 9 minutes. Cool. Makes about 36.
Peanut butter cookies, which I picked today, to be really mouthwateringly good, must be chewy. But there's a catch. When you're baking them, you have no way to tell if they're done. When they come out of the oven, they've expanded, but are still mostly soft. If you try to watch until the edges are browned, nope, that's too late as well. You just have to preheat the oven, set the timer for the time the recipe book tells you, and then get them out promptly when the timer goes off. Even if they're soft. Even if they look not ready. Allow them to cool and voila! They're perfect.
In other words, you have to have faith. Hebrews 11:1 says "faith is the substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen." 2 Corinthians 5:7 reminds us that "we walk by faith, not by sight."
Even when the cookies don't look done. Even when I don't understand. Even when every single instinct in my body tells me to intervene, change something - this will never work. Even then. I will walk by faith, not by sight.
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
Beat together butter and peanut butter with a hand mixer. Add 1/2 cup of the flour, sugars, egg, baking powder and vanilla. Beat until thoroughly combined. Beat in remaining flour. Chill in refrigerator if necessary. Roll into one inch balls. Flatten with fork tines in a criss-cross pattern. Bake in pre-heated 375 degree oven for 7 - 9 minutes. Cool. Makes about 36.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Reading for Lent
I have come to believe that the Lenten season, even if it is followed imperfectly, changes much inside a person. I say this, not as a Catholic, but as one who came to Christ a little more than a year ago. I fell into Lent with a gusto last year, wanting to fix all my unholiness - every imperfection, every sin - once and for all. God may have smiled at my impulsiveness, but He did reward me. Richly. Extravagantly, as He always does.
I gave up red wine for Lent last year and struggled for much of the time. After a year, I have finally sacrificed all alcohol for a deeper relationship with The Lord.
Over the last year I saw the hold of shame and guilt fall away from me. I had always had a deep sense of shame about my body and no amount of telling me that it was a holy temple fixed it because the Living God did not occupy it. Once He did, He freed me not just from shyness, shame and guilt but also from various addictions to which I had fallen prey. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, "Without [Christ] there is no realization that the world is... without God. Rather, what is worldly will always try to satisfy its unquenchable longing for deification. The world... completely falls prey to itself, and ultimately will put itself in God's place." That was me, to a large degree. Idolatry of the heart comes so naturally to me that I can sometimes only find comfort in the words of Jesus, "I have come not to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners."
This year, I know I need to go deeper. There is so much in me that needs to be burned away in the holy fire of God's love. Maybe not cursing at other drivers while driving will be a good start? I have been convicted of that often lately and I think that is where I'm starting. It seems odd to say that I'm going to fast from calling people names (not just other drivers) but I'm beginning to see how it comes so close to casting a judgment on someone when I call him a fool or an idiot, even in my thoughts.
But then, Christ does not call us to an overt religion of ceremony but a heart attitude of love for God. Lent, I think, is supposed to be difficult. I hope in The Lord and "hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." (Romans 5:5)
Friday, March 4, 2011
In Search of Clean
I never thought I would become of those people but after watching "Food, Inc." and then developing all kinds of allergies and sinus infections to the point of not being able to have any perfume of any kind on or around me, (I'm serious - I use unscented aluminum-free deodorant and suffer at church) I'm a convert to the organic food movement.
It has been an interesting journey so far and not having finished the old yucky ground beef still in the freezer (we're working on it) makes me kind of sick just thinking about it. But I try not to, which fixes the problem for the most part. Okay, so it's short term. The beef will be gone soon and then we'll be true blue organic eaters.
One of the biggest changes eating organic forces on you is better meal planning. Organic food is expensive to begin with. Throw in trying to live on a grocery budget of about $400 a month with four mouths to feed (one very little and very hungry mouth) with two toddlers and you get the picture. I am blessed in that I have a husband who truly appreciates healthy food. He really isn't one of those meat and cheese guys and he actually likes salads. (And builds shelves - hey, hands off! He's mine!) Okay, so but seriously, we're committed to eating better.
The way it's been working lately is to get pantry stuff at Winco Foods. Also things like onions and pineapples - things with hard exteriors that are generally okay to buy "un-organic." (Read Health for Godly Generations by Renee deGroot for more pointers.) Produce is local and from the farmer's market. The farmer's market also tends to have fruit, eggs and grass-fed beef, which we buy as we need it. Someday I will have an extra freezer to store meat but for now, this works. I truly enjoy the farmer's market. I may be the only crazy one with a list there but the prices are not crazy, we're eating local and every once in a while there are pleasant surprises, like blood oranges - which I have never eaten before - and fresh dill. I always come back invigorated and in love with God's blessings - real, natural food!
Bread and snacks have been our budgeting hurdles in the past. So I have been making crackers and cookies/muffins at home for James to take with him to work and for us to snack on in general and today, I attempted French bread! The verdict is still out because we haven't had it yet but since I got my food processor, I can bake as much bread as I want. The next step is to make tortillas, so we can eliminate that out of grocery shopping trip as well. I have in the past and then didn't keep up with it.
That's how it's going so far. I have to say it's still very much an effort to stay on the budget. But the amount I am learning in terms of making things from scratch and the satisfaction I get from feeding my family home-made, healthy meals has been worth it. My mother was a great cook and if she can do it, I can too. Plus, there's just something so precious about watching Hucksley scarf down something I've baked. Yup, I come from a long line of mothers!
It has been an interesting journey so far and not having finished the old yucky ground beef still in the freezer (we're working on it) makes me kind of sick just thinking about it. But I try not to, which fixes the problem for the most part. Okay, so it's short term. The beef will be gone soon and then we'll be true blue organic eaters.
One of the biggest changes eating organic forces on you is better meal planning. Organic food is expensive to begin with. Throw in trying to live on a grocery budget of about $400 a month with four mouths to feed (one very little and very hungry mouth) with two toddlers and you get the picture. I am blessed in that I have a husband who truly appreciates healthy food. He really isn't one of those meat and cheese guys and he actually likes salads. (And builds shelves - hey, hands off! He's mine!) Okay, so but seriously, we're committed to eating better.
The way it's been working lately is to get pantry stuff at Winco Foods. Also things like onions and pineapples - things with hard exteriors that are generally okay to buy "un-organic." (Read Health for Godly Generations by Renee deGroot for more pointers.) Produce is local and from the farmer's market. The farmer's market also tends to have fruit, eggs and grass-fed beef, which we buy as we need it. Someday I will have an extra freezer to store meat but for now, this works. I truly enjoy the farmer's market. I may be the only crazy one with a list there but the prices are not crazy, we're eating local and every once in a while there are pleasant surprises, like blood oranges - which I have never eaten before - and fresh dill. I always come back invigorated and in love with God's blessings - real, natural food!
Bread and snacks have been our budgeting hurdles in the past. So I have been making crackers and cookies/muffins at home for James to take with him to work and for us to snack on in general and today, I attempted French bread! The verdict is still out because we haven't had it yet but since I got my food processor, I can bake as much bread as I want. The next step is to make tortillas, so we can eliminate that out of grocery shopping trip as well. I have in the past and then didn't keep up with it.
That's how it's going so far. I have to say it's still very much an effort to stay on the budget. But the amount I am learning in terms of making things from scratch and the satisfaction I get from feeding my family home-made, healthy meals has been worth it. My mother was a great cook and if she can do it, I can too. Plus, there's just something so precious about watching Hucksley scarf down something I've baked. Yup, I come from a long line of mothers!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
What Makes Good Writing?
Why the seemingly philosophical question? I picked up Mary Karr's Lit from the library a few days ago for my weekend reading. I had wanted to read it for a while now and was expectantly waiting for it to be Friday so I could put the kids down for the night and read, read, read. Unfortunately, it seemed like the excitement was misplaced - I went to bed a little miffed because it all seemed like a big letdown.
It took me getting about a third of the way into the book to even begin to warm to it and, while I would like to say that she redeems herself in the end, I can't quite say that. Some parts of the book are truly poignant, heartbreaking and make me want to linger over the pages, but sadly, in the end, the book is only passable. Nothing that would make me want to grab the person next to me to say, Read this!
Now I'll admit Mary Carr is a much more accomplished writer (read "published" writer) than me, so she really should not care what I have to say and she's got a great readership following her. I also have not read her earlier works The Liar's Club or Cherry and after this memoir I don't know if I will, although readers have noted distinct voice differences, so I may venture that way, albeit with trepidation.
So, what makes good writing?
The short answer is very short: it's something I enjoy - emphasis on I. The long answer is that writers and readers have been wondering the very same thing for a long time and will probably never answer it. Nevertheless, here's my attempt.
Usually, good writing to me is writing that gets out of the way of experience of reading what's on the page. It's almost invisible. The only good metaphors are the ones that fit and don't remind me that I'm looking at the world through someone else's eyes.
When I first started writing, my husband would read my work. Honestly, I don't know what I'm doing with a degree in Fiction Writing since I seem to enjoy writing (and reading) non-fiction so much more. One of the things he mentioned was that the central character needs to do something other than write. In other words, there has to be a world somewhere in the book that is real. The main character needs to have hard edges, a body, a life outside of his mind. As a writer, this is sometimes hard to accomplish because we can only write what we know and if you've spent all your life in a college or at home or in a classroom having done little else you don't have life experience on which to base your writing. I see that as an insurmountable problem.
Also, writing about writing, unless it's adding to the plot in a meaningful way gets tiresome and self-indulgent. Ms. Karr does this in Lit so many times, I want to reach into the page and smack her. I don't care what you're reading, I want to say, just get on and tell me your story! Writing about writing weakens the author's voice and perhaps that is one thing I struggled with the most in this memoir. She is so careful not to offend her critics it seems that for all the liberal cursing employed in the book, the true bravado it takes to write about faith in God that she does begin to develop later is enveloped in the cotton wool of rationalizations. Look, I'm not really crazy, she seems to say to the unbelievers, I see your point. See, I believe you as well. Please don't stop reading. This tendency to explain too much, say too little, escape into too many worlds at once and showcase the writing instead of the experience comes across as over-thought, over-wrought and just plain tiring.
Truly good writing is brave, I think. Truly good writing leaps off the page and says, Here I am. No explanations, no one backing me up. This is the way it is. This is my truth, my reality. I am making no apologies. Here is my perspective - my story - in all its naked honesty. I revere writing like that. I devoured Augusten Burrough's Dry, a memoir that deals with alcohol addiction as well, because it made no apologies and offered few explanations, if any.
I can see how brave, good writing is hard. Just look what we did to the writers of the gospels. Look at what happened to Apostle Paul. And if we're talking about speaking courageously about faith and God, consider the earthly ministry of Jesus and how much He was reviled for what He said. Words have power. Not just because they're strung together to sound pretty or because someone else agrees with them. Although a well placed turn of phrase excites me when it's perfectly situated in a sentence, unless a writer is willing to be brave, I could care less about the beauty of his phraseology.
If you're writing non-fiction, tell me the truth. Tell it fully. Tell it bravely. And, for goodness' sakes, are publishers charging for quotation marks or are they still free?
It took me getting about a third of the way into the book to even begin to warm to it and, while I would like to say that she redeems herself in the end, I can't quite say that. Some parts of the book are truly poignant, heartbreaking and make me want to linger over the pages, but sadly, in the end, the book is only passable. Nothing that would make me want to grab the person next to me to say, Read this!
Now I'll admit Mary Carr is a much more accomplished writer (read "published" writer) than me, so she really should not care what I have to say and she's got a great readership following her. I also have not read her earlier works The Liar's Club or Cherry and after this memoir I don't know if I will, although readers have noted distinct voice differences, so I may venture that way, albeit with trepidation.
So, what makes good writing?
The short answer is very short: it's something I enjoy - emphasis on I. The long answer is that writers and readers have been wondering the very same thing for a long time and will probably never answer it. Nevertheless, here's my attempt.
Usually, good writing to me is writing that gets out of the way of experience of reading what's on the page. It's almost invisible. The only good metaphors are the ones that fit and don't remind me that I'm looking at the world through someone else's eyes.
When I first started writing, my husband would read my work. Honestly, I don't know what I'm doing with a degree in Fiction Writing since I seem to enjoy writing (and reading) non-fiction so much more. One of the things he mentioned was that the central character needs to do something other than write. In other words, there has to be a world somewhere in the book that is real. The main character needs to have hard edges, a body, a life outside of his mind. As a writer, this is sometimes hard to accomplish because we can only write what we know and if you've spent all your life in a college or at home or in a classroom having done little else you don't have life experience on which to base your writing. I see that as an insurmountable problem.
Also, writing about writing, unless it's adding to the plot in a meaningful way gets tiresome and self-indulgent. Ms. Karr does this in Lit so many times, I want to reach into the page and smack her. I don't care what you're reading, I want to say, just get on and tell me your story! Writing about writing weakens the author's voice and perhaps that is one thing I struggled with the most in this memoir. She is so careful not to offend her critics it seems that for all the liberal cursing employed in the book, the true bravado it takes to write about faith in God that she does begin to develop later is enveloped in the cotton wool of rationalizations. Look, I'm not really crazy, she seems to say to the unbelievers, I see your point. See, I believe you as well. Please don't stop reading. This tendency to explain too much, say too little, escape into too many worlds at once and showcase the writing instead of the experience comes across as over-thought, over-wrought and just plain tiring.
Truly good writing is brave, I think. Truly good writing leaps off the page and says, Here I am. No explanations, no one backing me up. This is the way it is. This is my truth, my reality. I am making no apologies. Here is my perspective - my story - in all its naked honesty. I revere writing like that. I devoured Augusten Burrough's Dry, a memoir that deals with alcohol addiction as well, because it made no apologies and offered few explanations, if any.
I can see how brave, good writing is hard. Just look what we did to the writers of the gospels. Look at what happened to Apostle Paul. And if we're talking about speaking courageously about faith and God, consider the earthly ministry of Jesus and how much He was reviled for what He said. Words have power. Not just because they're strung together to sound pretty or because someone else agrees with them. Although a well placed turn of phrase excites me when it's perfectly situated in a sentence, unless a writer is willing to be brave, I could care less about the beauty of his phraseology.
If you're writing non-fiction, tell me the truth. Tell it fully. Tell it bravely. And, for goodness' sakes, are publishers charging for quotation marks or are they still free?
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Kathi Lipp's The Me Project - A Review
The Me Project - 21 Days to Living the Life You’ve Always Wanted
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
ISBN-10: 0736929665, ISBN-13: 978-0736929660
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Paperback: 224 pages, Retail: $12.99
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
ISBN-10: 0736929665, ISBN-13: 978-0736929660
Release Date: February 1, 2011
Paperback: 224 pages, Retail: $12.99
If you have reservations about beginning Kathi Lipp’s new book The Me Project, let me tell you that you’re not alone. However, after you’re done with it, if you’re not filled with a desire to truly live the life God wants you to live – with all the gifts with which He has blessed you – then you’re going to be very lonely indeed. I, too, was apprehensive about starting because, really, I like Kathi. She has blessed my family with her earlier book The Husband Project; I was probably more terrified than her that I would not like this book. I worried that it would unwittingly follow in the ranks of “me time” and other popular culture ideals I have come to hate with a feeling bordering on vengeance.
So, let me be the first to assure you this: it’s not. Yes, that’s right. You can breathe. Whew! Okay, now that that’s out of the way…
What the book holds is so much more meaningful than platitudes about getting things right once and for all by following a five point program. As Kathi says herself,
I never want to buy (or waste time reading) another book that says, “I have done this perfectly. If you want to do it perfectly, do what I say.” Rarely, if ever, does life work out perfectly in a neat, three-point outline for the people I know who are living out the plans God has for them.
Kathi insists that “God has not made a mistake with the gifts and talents He has given specifically to us.” Our job then is to find out what to do with those gifts and talents – and the twenty-one exercises in this book (twenty-two if you count first making a list of fifty dreams) help you do just that. One step at a time. (Those of you doing The Fly Lady routine, would call these "Baby Steps.")
Personally, this book freed me from chains I didn’t even know I had around me. Kathi Lipp, with The Me Project has taken God out of the box in which we keep wanting to put Him. Her testimony through it ultimately becomes that He is big enough, capable enough, creative enough and, ultimately, patient enough to see us through. And when we do live the life He has called us to live, He feels genuine pleasure. Sometimes, I tend to forget that. I forget God is infinitely wise, unceasingly creative and eternally loving. I forget that God is not opposed to my desires. He only seeks to be glorified in them. This book reminded me of that very important detail.
The Me Project gave me the liberty to dream and desire things for myself while still placing them under the will of God. And that to me is true freedom.
Plus, as Kathi puts it, it’s just fun!
Book Summary Has that rush to make (and break) New Year’s resolutions already waned? According to Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, taking small steps every day will not only help you stay committed to your goal, but will also help you ultimately achieve that goal when obstacles come up. Author Kathi Lipp wants you and your friends to live out those dreams—and have some fun along the way. As women, we forget the goals and dreams of our younger years. The busyness of everyday life gets in the way. To-do lists replace goals. The Me Project provides women with fun and creative ways to bring back the sense of purpose and vitality that comes with living out the plans and dreams God has planted in our hearts. Kathi Lipp’s warm tone and laugh-out-loud humor motivates women to take daily steps toward intentional goals. The end result? We get back our lives and enjoy living in the confidence of a purposeful life in spite of our chaotic schedules. This handy guide coaches women to do one simple thing toward achieving our goals each day for three weeks. A woman experiencing the exhilaration of a rediscovered life offers more as a wife, mother, friend, volunteer, career woman. Finding the balance between living day-to-day with purpose while pursuing the passions God has placed in our hearts is a delicate pursuit. In this refreshing, insightful book, Kathi lays out a doable plan that makes sense and helps make our God-given dreams a reality. Never stop dreaming, because women who dare to dream do make the world a better place. —Jean Blackmer author of MomSense: A Common Sense Guide to Confident Mothering Publishing Manager, MOPS International www.MOPS.org Author Bio | |
Kathi Lipp is a busy conference and retreat speaker, currently speaking each year to thousands of women throughout the United States. She is the author of The Husband Project and The Marriage Project, serves as food writer for Nickelodeon, and has had articles published in several magazines, including Today’s Christian Woman and Discipleship Journal. Kathi and her husband, Roger, live in California and are the parents of four teenagers and young adults. For more information visit her website: www.kathilipp.com |
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Earth Mother
As the smell of freshly baked bread fills my home and I sit here with my cup of decaf coffee, completely at peace with how my life is unfolding, I wonder how I fell so easily into domesticity.
Since I have been a wee little one, I have always wanted to teach and write. Odd how sometimes we take the playful desires of a child and turn them into careers. That's what happened to me, I think. As soon as my mother saw me play "teacher," she began to prod me in that direction. I was only too happy to go along because I enjoyed the subject matter but if you had asked me if that's what I wanted to dedicate my life to, I would have shrunk and said, no. I want a husband who is happy to come home to me and children that drive me crazy all day.
I know I do it, too. Oh, Bombie likes to read, maybe she'll be a librarian. Okay, so you know I'm kidding but only slightly. Why the push to concretize and harden what is pliable, beautiful and God-given in our children?
I enjoy teaching, learning, research, reading, study - and my passion is translating that into something tangible that can be grasped by someone else. A moment captured, however fleeting, an insight shared, wholly untouched by anything extraneous, gives me a deep sense of joy. I cannot explain it any other way.
And maybe that's why I am enjoying domesticity. Freshly baked bread tells my husband something about how my day has been. Putting away laundry with the children playing by my feet or having them do chores speaks about a life truly shared on a moment by moment, ordinary level. All the minutiae of keeping a home and blessing it with my presence and my undivided heart all day long is to me the very root of what a family is. It is giving myself, my deepest, best, most precious self - in its entirety - to them.
I have no desire to go back to work, to sow hours which others can reap and hand weary leftovers to my family. After years of searching, I am truly home.
Monday, February 14, 2011
What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder...
On St. Valentine's Day this year, I'm grappling with decisions about schooling the children. I really should say "we" are but James agrees that for the most part, I'll be making the day to day decisions. He simply feels strongly about the children not going to public school. Ever. As someone recently said, "Mom is the teacher and Dad is the principal." We might just stick to that adage around here.
My mind, though, is also dwelling on how often man does put asunder what God has joined together. St. Valentine, as we all know now, was a priest who got couples married even when there was a national ban on marriage when King Claudius hoped to get more men to fight his wars in ancient Rome. For this, he was martyred. Married people don't like to be away from their spouses, well, ban marriage.
What does this have to do with homeschooling? A lot, John Taylor Gatto would say.
My introduction to homeschooling has been different from the typical path. For whatever reason, I was drawn to it when the idea first entered my head when we left Pollock Pines. I was still pregnant with Hucksley and Bombie was one. Then I was picking up books at the local library when a homeschooling mom stopped to chat with me because she saw the books I was buying. She had her totally unselfconscious and confident children with her. She encouraged me to read Gatto and join an un-schooling network.
I hadn't the faintest idea what I was getting into.
Here we are about a year and a half later and I'm now trying to decide between charter schools or "pure" homeschool. Some places go as far as to say that if you're using a charter, you're not homeschooling, you're doing "independent study." I'm beginning to lean that way as well. Something inside me completely revolts at the idea of someone from a government agency walking into my house and "letting me" buy only what is according to certain guidelines. While the money is nice to be able to buy curricula, if I can't teach my children anything Christian unless it's "over and above" their usual coursework, then what's the point?
I also read while browsing various Charter School websites that the education specialist / teacher / state representative stops by to give you your ordered material and talk to your children about what they're being taught. I know, I know. I'm sure it's done in a completely non-threatening way and the representative is not personally the mean guy, so to speak, but the very idea of it gives me a visceral reaction.
So, I guess it makes me one of the others.
The truth is, my husband and I is very much aware of man putting asunder what God has joined together on every level - marriage for one and education for another. I read in a great article in a homeschooling magazine yesterday that the first family of Adam, Eve and God is the true model for education of children. That is how education was to be imparted. From the parents to the children. I had a reverence for my teachers that rivaled my reverence for my parents. Guess who won out in the end? By the time I was a teenager, what my parents said didn't matter a whit. Maybe if I had been home schooled, the story would have been different.
So we're going to do it. We're going to step out in faith and really, truly do it. We're going to homeschool. The Christian way. The way God intended.
I can't wait!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Yes, I Bribe my Children...
You know that stage when the youngest one can't walk yet (or can't walk well) and you have to carry him everywhere and then the older one wants to be carried too? So that you don your best apologetic look and shrug your shoulders and carry them in and out of the gym and wait, just wait for someone to say, "Well, it's a good thing mommy works out, huh?" Sigh... well, THAT stage has lasted in our home a little too long and I'm ready to get shoes on Hucksley so he can walk already!
However, ingenious mother that I am (haha...) I managed to snag a few cookies today from our breakfast table and saved them to give to Bombie when she got out of MOPS for the walk to the car. Ahhh. What a wonderful little walk we had back to the car. No fussing. No crying. No issues. No dramas.
There is a time for discipline, but there's also a time to just let them be kids. Now if only I could tell the difference every time.
However, ingenious mother that I am (haha...) I managed to snag a few cookies today from our breakfast table and saved them to give to Bombie when she got out of MOPS for the walk to the car. Ahhh. What a wonderful little walk we had back to the car. No fussing. No crying. No issues. No dramas.
There is a time for discipline, but there's also a time to just let them be kids. Now if only I could tell the difference every time.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
A Simpler Life
I want a simpler life. The thought has been bothering me lately, burrowing itself deeper into my mind, eating away at the last of my desires for bigger, brighter, shinier things. Somehow, I have bought into the idea that if a little satisfies, more will fill me up. And I'm learning that perhaps a little is all I need. A little nourishes; more overflows and overwhelms.
I want to learn to be satisfied with little.
I want to hold close to my heart the only things that matter, the things money cannot buy - satisfaction at a house cleaned well, a day lived within the family budget with three healthy meals, children who say "Thank you" on their own when you put food in front of them, a husband who would readily give up his Sunday morning to go with me to church because he knows it's important to me. I want to live in the simplicity of gratitude, untouched by worldly desires.
I'm not there yet.
But the desire has taken seed and something else inside me has been uprooted. The crown of this world does not fit as well any more. I am filled with a holy discontent and that is a good thing, I think.
I want to learn to be satisfied with little.
I want to hold close to my heart the only things that matter, the things money cannot buy - satisfaction at a house cleaned well, a day lived within the family budget with three healthy meals, children who say "Thank you" on their own when you put food in front of them, a husband who would readily give up his Sunday morning to go with me to church because he knows it's important to me. I want to live in the simplicity of gratitude, untouched by worldly desires.
I'm not there yet.
But the desire has taken seed and something else inside me has been uprooted. The crown of this world does not fit as well any more. I am filled with a holy discontent and that is a good thing, I think.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
A Decade and a Year
January 10th, 2011 marks for me a decade of coming to America and a year of coming to Christ. It's normal and customary, I suppose, to ask what I have learned. We assume we learn as we experience events, people, life. We're supposed to be wiser as we're older. My father used to say that his hair didn't get gray just because the sun shone on it. Nestled comfortably in my thirties today, I find a few gray hairs myself and wonder what I have learned, if anything.
Much happened in the past decade - I fell in love with a man I couldn't believe really existed, got married, got a masters degree, bought some houses, got rid of all but one, acquired debt, went from wanting to be a writer to being a real estate broker to landlord to homemaker, gained and lost thirty-five pounds twice over, had two babies - one with an epidural one without, learned innumerable skills from painting (a house) to knitting (a small square) to sewing curtains to filing taxes and other government forms to baking pretty much anything to gardening tomatoes and pruning geraniums.
Marriage in itself has taught me a lot. When I read about God's "covenant love" and how Christ calls us His beloved, it makes sense to me. I understand it experientially, I truly get it as a reality because that is the love James has for me. It is an abiding, everlasting love, but more than anything it is an honoring love. There is much about love as honor, love as work I have yet to learn from this man who still does not call himself a Christian, yet lives Christ's word.
Parenthood was not what I expected either. But then again, who really knows what being a parent is like until you are one? Who knows the joy of holding something that began as an orgasm and is now crying for warmth and comfort and food and diapers and will someday have legs that walk and a mind of its own? It's just like trying to describe what being married is like - it changes you, it makes you more giving, it reminds you of how rotten you really are and how far you are from what you really should be and yet, miracle of all miracles, you're there, you're enough... and you're needed, even loved.
A famous theologian once said, "Of what value is learning that does not turn to love?"And I think that's what this decade has been - a study of how to love. I'll admit I didn't have much of it when I first stepped on American soil. I was selfish, spoilt, always wanting my way, insisting on getting mine. Love, I think, was inside me but it was twisted. Manipulation, greed, guilt, depression, shyness, insecurity clung to me and their roots ran deep. Fear, the inability to forgive, anger, doubt - these were my friends for a long time. But I was in search of Truth and had been for a long time. (Aren't we all?) And some of my husband's first words to me cut through all that muck right to the core: "I need to be with someone who loves me." Truth has a way of doing that. Nine years later, another simple sentence by another Man: "I am The Way." Both answers to prayer. Both life-saving.
So don't ask me what I have learned. Because I am still learning to love.
Much happened in the past decade - I fell in love with a man I couldn't believe really existed, got married, got a masters degree, bought some houses, got rid of all but one, acquired debt, went from wanting to be a writer to being a real estate broker to landlord to homemaker, gained and lost thirty-five pounds twice over, had two babies - one with an epidural one without, learned innumerable skills from painting (a house) to knitting (a small square) to sewing curtains to filing taxes and other government forms to baking pretty much anything to gardening tomatoes and pruning geraniums.
Marriage in itself has taught me a lot. When I read about God's "covenant love" and how Christ calls us His beloved, it makes sense to me. I understand it experientially, I truly get it as a reality because that is the love James has for me. It is an abiding, everlasting love, but more than anything it is an honoring love. There is much about love as honor, love as work I have yet to learn from this man who still does not call himself a Christian, yet lives Christ's word.
Parenthood was not what I expected either. But then again, who really knows what being a parent is like until you are one? Who knows the joy of holding something that began as an orgasm and is now crying for warmth and comfort and food and diapers and will someday have legs that walk and a mind of its own? It's just like trying to describe what being married is like - it changes you, it makes you more giving, it reminds you of how rotten you really are and how far you are from what you really should be and yet, miracle of all miracles, you're there, you're enough... and you're needed, even loved.
A famous theologian once said, "Of what value is learning that does not turn to love?"And I think that's what this decade has been - a study of how to love. I'll admit I didn't have much of it when I first stepped on American soil. I was selfish, spoilt, always wanting my way, insisting on getting mine. Love, I think, was inside me but it was twisted. Manipulation, greed, guilt, depression, shyness, insecurity clung to me and their roots ran deep. Fear, the inability to forgive, anger, doubt - these were my friends for a long time. But I was in search of Truth and had been for a long time. (Aren't we all?) And some of my husband's first words to me cut through all that muck right to the core: "I need to be with someone who loves me." Truth has a way of doing that. Nine years later, another simple sentence by another Man: "I am The Way." Both answers to prayer. Both life-saving.
So don't ask me what I have learned. Because I am still learning to love.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)