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.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
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.
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