I read something startling recently, and it just keeps gnawing at me. I haven’t yet decided if I think it's true or not, but it sure is making me think.
Prayer is often a wonderful tactic to delay obedience.
Wow, could that be true? The example the author gives is this: A family with five kids went to their son’s baseball game one day and ended up bringing one of his friends home. For four years. Turned out the kid’s mom was a drug addict, and she and her son were essentially homeless. When they finally tracked her down, they offered to let him stay a few weeks with them. Weeks turned into months, and pretty soon the boy had laid claim to a sock drawer and a bunk bed and settled in.
The father of this family said that if he and his wife had thought and prayed about this situation, they never would have taken the boy in. The legal ramifications—not to mention their struggles to support the five kids they already had—would have stopped them. Yet they know they did the right thing.
The author’s point is that it’s the little, day-to-day things that make up the kingdom of God. Jesus said, “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near” (Mark 1:15). So near, in fact, that it sometimes comes in the form of taking in a homeless little kid—without analyzing it, agonizing over it, asking other people’s advice about it, or, maybe even praying about it.
I guess the idea is that if we’re walking as closely with God as we’re designed to be, our actions will be automatically aligned with His will. No need to stew and wonder; just act. Boy, that’s news to someone who spends a lot of time stewing and wondering. I don’t think that prayer is ever a bad thing, but I’ll admit that I’ve used, “Well, I’ll pray about it,” as an excuse to avoid making a decision. In some situations, maybe I need to be more bold, stop stalling, and just act. Anyone else?
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Friday, August 8, 2008
Acceptance Part II
I’ve had a lot of comments (personally) on what I wrote about acceptance, so I feel bold enough to write part two. Your self-talk—the tape you play in your head about yourself—is a good indication of how you’re doing at accepting yourself. I recently went to hear a dear friend of mine speak on the condemning heart, described in 1 John 3:19–20: “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”
When we’re already feeling low, own hearts aren’t afraid to pounce on us and finish us off with thoughts like, “You’re not as good as everyone else.” Or “The world would be better off without you.” We might hear, “You’re a failure as a mom/wife/employee/sister/friend.” (My friend contrasted this with legitimate conviction of the Holy Spirit, which addresses more specific issues: “Why did you lie to your friend? Why did you lose your temper with your daughter?”)
I don’t struggle a whole lot with negative self-talk. I’m usually the queen of the pep talk. But about two weeks ago, as I sat in the library minding my own business and trying to work, my condemning heart jumped me. I was feeling left out of things that were happening at my old job, and it stung. (Brief pause for a moment of self-disclosure: I hate feeling left out. I was the little girl who crawled out of bed in her nightgown to lay on the hallway floor when my parents had a party. It didn’t matter that no one knew I was there or if I feel asleep, as long as I wasn’t left out of the party.)
OK, back to the library. First I got billyclubbed with this one: “You’re insignificant now, without a job. Your worth has gone through the toilet.” Then came this blow: “No one outside your home needs you.” (I may be susceptible to lies, but I’ve got enough on-the-job evidence to know that I’m surely needed at home. Someone’s gotta cut all those apples and pour all that juice.)
I know enough to know that these are lies and the only way to combat lies is with truth. You can’t just say, “Shut up and go away!” to your condemning heart. It’s too loud to silence. Instead, you have to replace it with an even louder message, a message of truth. So I started in: “I have great worth. I am a child of God. I was created in His likeness. There is no one like me. Even if I were the only person on the planet, Jesus would have died for me and me alone. I have great worth—not because of what I do but because of who I was made by.”
Over and over, eyes closed, rocking back and forth in my chair. At the library. Fortunately there are a lot of homeless schizophrenics at the library looking to get out of the heat, so I sort of blended in. It was an all-day battle, but eventually truth won out and my mind was at peace. Then I had to apologize to Kevin, because when my condemning heart tells me no one needs me except my family, it’s an attack on him and my kids as much as it is on me. Darn right they need me, and there’s no greater needs I want to meet than those of my husband and kids!
God is greater than our condemning hearts. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And despite how well He knows us—because of how well He knows us—He accepts us.
When we’re already feeling low, own hearts aren’t afraid to pounce on us and finish us off with thoughts like, “You’re not as good as everyone else.” Or “The world would be better off without you.” We might hear, “You’re a failure as a mom/wife/employee/sister/friend.” (My friend contrasted this with legitimate conviction of the Holy Spirit, which addresses more specific issues: “Why did you lie to your friend? Why did you lose your temper with your daughter?”)
I don’t struggle a whole lot with negative self-talk. I’m usually the queen of the pep talk. But about two weeks ago, as I sat in the library minding my own business and trying to work, my condemning heart jumped me. I was feeling left out of things that were happening at my old job, and it stung. (Brief pause for a moment of self-disclosure: I hate feeling left out. I was the little girl who crawled out of bed in her nightgown to lay on the hallway floor when my parents had a party. It didn’t matter that no one knew I was there or if I feel asleep, as long as I wasn’t left out of the party.)
OK, back to the library. First I got billyclubbed with this one: “You’re insignificant now, without a job. Your worth has gone through the toilet.” Then came this blow: “No one outside your home needs you.” (I may be susceptible to lies, but I’ve got enough on-the-job evidence to know that I’m surely needed at home. Someone’s gotta cut all those apples and pour all that juice.)
I know enough to know that these are lies and the only way to combat lies is with truth. You can’t just say, “Shut up and go away!” to your condemning heart. It’s too loud to silence. Instead, you have to replace it with an even louder message, a message of truth. So I started in: “I have great worth. I am a child of God. I was created in His likeness. There is no one like me. Even if I were the only person on the planet, Jesus would have died for me and me alone. I have great worth—not because of what I do but because of who I was made by.”
Over and over, eyes closed, rocking back and forth in my chair. At the library. Fortunately there are a lot of homeless schizophrenics at the library looking to get out of the heat, so I sort of blended in. It was an all-day battle, but eventually truth won out and my mind was at peace. Then I had to apologize to Kevin, because when my condemning heart tells me no one needs me except my family, it’s an attack on him and my kids as much as it is on me. Darn right they need me, and there’s no greater needs I want to meet than those of my husband and kids!
God is greater than our condemning hearts. He knows us better than we know ourselves. And despite how well He knows us—because of how well He knows us—He accepts us.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Pregnant Men and Truth
OK, enough already with the “Pregnant Man.” Every time I turn on the TV or open my newest People magazine, I’m greeted by Thomas Beatie, a 34-year-old “transgendered man” (born female but now lives as a man, with the help of hormone injections) who recently delivered a baby girl. I have no stones to throw at this woman for the way she chooses to live. Sexual confusion is an understandable outcome to a tragic childhood—her mother committed suicide when she was 12. I feel bad for her and the struggles she’s surely had. I certainly understand her desire to live in a committed relationship and have children. And because her partner had a hysterectomy years ago, I suppose it was a logical next step for her to carry their baby.
What I don’t get is why anyone thinks this is a “pregnant man.” Has our society become so relativistic, has truth become so out of vogue, that something as obvious as the fact that men don’t have babies is now in question? Do we really live at a time in which you can ignore the “parts” you were born with and just decide to be something else and expect the world to accept that as truth? (At a time when “I reject your reality and create my own” has become a national mantra?) Call yourself whatever you want, but biology is stronger than words in this case. Men don’t have babies. That’s truth. Surely we can make room for truth as irrefutable as this.
And while I’m at it, I’ve got to wonder why our society is so desperate to blur gender lines that we’ll stop at nothing to sniff out anything that resembles a “pregnant man.” I enjoyed the old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Junior” as much as anyone else, but when it ceases to become a joke, I am concerned.
I finally broke down and sent an e-mail to People. Because I have a lousy track record of having my “letter to the editor” published, I include it here for my own small audience (and, let’s be honest, my own self-satisfaction):
Using the "equipment" I was given, like Thomas Beatie, I also gave birth to a beautiful baby. And another, and another, and another, and another. If America would like to see pictures of my babies, I'm happy to share them, although I'm curious to know why it's so newsworthy that a baby grew in a uterus and was pushed out of a vagina. It happens every day.
I almost added that I, too, have excess facial hair and a flat chest, but that doesn’t make me a man any more than it does Thomas Beatie.
And that’s the truth.
What I don’t get is why anyone thinks this is a “pregnant man.” Has our society become so relativistic, has truth become so out of vogue, that something as obvious as the fact that men don’t have babies is now in question? Do we really live at a time in which you can ignore the “parts” you were born with and just decide to be something else and expect the world to accept that as truth? (At a time when “I reject your reality and create my own” has become a national mantra?) Call yourself whatever you want, but biology is stronger than words in this case. Men don’t have babies. That’s truth. Surely we can make room for truth as irrefutable as this.
And while I’m at it, I’ve got to wonder why our society is so desperate to blur gender lines that we’ll stop at nothing to sniff out anything that resembles a “pregnant man.” I enjoyed the old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Junior” as much as anyone else, but when it ceases to become a joke, I am concerned.
I finally broke down and sent an e-mail to People. Because I have a lousy track record of having my “letter to the editor” published, I include it here for my own small audience (and, let’s be honest, my own self-satisfaction):
Using the "equipment" I was given, like Thomas Beatie, I also gave birth to a beautiful baby. And another, and another, and another, and another. If America would like to see pictures of my babies, I'm happy to share them, although I'm curious to know why it's so newsworthy that a baby grew in a uterus and was pushed out of a vagina. It happens every day.
I almost added that I, too, have excess facial hair and a flat chest, but that doesn’t make me a man any more than it does Thomas Beatie.
And that’s the truth.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Can I Accept God's Acceptance?
My frustrations with myself are mounting up. My fragile ego, relational neediness, lack of self-discipline to keep my house, my desk, or anything else in order, my constant struggle with losing things—including time—all conspire to get me down and make me want to take a long vacation from myself. Anybody figured out how to do this? Without the use of narcotics, I mean?
I’ve found a small bit of relief in a little booklet I’m editing. It’s called Acceptance. It was written around the time I was born and the Scripture passages are all King James, but I still managed to get a lot out of it. Here are a couple paragraphs that I can’t get out of my mind:
“God accepts me the way I am. He doesn’t require that I be the way I’d like to be, or the way I feel He’d like me to be, but He accepts me just as I am. I, therefore, must accept myself the way I am.
If it’s hard for me to comprehend that God accepts me the way I am, then it is really hard for me to accept myself. I have a problem accepting myself because I know myself. I make myself sick. I find myself thinking some of the most horrible thoughts. But if God accepts me the way I am, I am forced to accept myself the way I am. How dare I set up a standard of acceptance that is higher than God’s? If God accepts me the way I am, then I have to accept myself the way I am.”
It gets even tougher. He goes on to say that since God accepts everyone the way they are, we’ve got to accept them that way, too. Of course he distinguishes between acceptance and condoning bad behavior (I certainly don’t have to condone the actions of a child molester, nor does God), but my critical, judgmental mind struggles to accept anyone. I want my kids to be more responsible, my friends to be more attentive, strangers to be less clueless. God wants things for these people, too, but He doesn’t make them conditions for His acceptance. He accepts them the way they are.
He accepts me, too, even though I piddle my day away and forget to have a quiet time, or hurt people with my careless words, or think bad thoughts about the guy at the post office who lets the door slam in my face while my hands are full of children. God doesn’t just accept me; He loves me enough to improve me. And I like to think I give him a lot of material to work with.
I’ve found a small bit of relief in a little booklet I’m editing. It’s called Acceptance. It was written around the time I was born and the Scripture passages are all King James, but I still managed to get a lot out of it. Here are a couple paragraphs that I can’t get out of my mind:
“God accepts me the way I am. He doesn’t require that I be the way I’d like to be, or the way I feel He’d like me to be, but He accepts me just as I am. I, therefore, must accept myself the way I am.
If it’s hard for me to comprehend that God accepts me the way I am, then it is really hard for me to accept myself. I have a problem accepting myself because I know myself. I make myself sick. I find myself thinking some of the most horrible thoughts. But if God accepts me the way I am, I am forced to accept myself the way I am. How dare I set up a standard of acceptance that is higher than God’s? If God accepts me the way I am, then I have to accept myself the way I am.”
It gets even tougher. He goes on to say that since God accepts everyone the way they are, we’ve got to accept them that way, too. Of course he distinguishes between acceptance and condoning bad behavior (I certainly don’t have to condone the actions of a child molester, nor does God), but my critical, judgmental mind struggles to accept anyone. I want my kids to be more responsible, my friends to be more attentive, strangers to be less clueless. God wants things for these people, too, but He doesn’t make them conditions for His acceptance. He accepts them the way they are.
He accepts me, too, even though I piddle my day away and forget to have a quiet time, or hurt people with my careless words, or think bad thoughts about the guy at the post office who lets the door slam in my face while my hands are full of children. God doesn’t just accept me; He loves me enough to improve me. And I like to think I give him a lot of material to work with.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Talk
I’m pretty sure it was the summer after first grade, though it could have been kindergarten. I remember exactly where I was sitting—on the picnic table at the city park in Akron, Colorado—and I can picture the scene in my head like I’m looking at a Polaroid. I was there with my older brother, a few of his friends, and our babysitter. For some unknown reason, this high-school babysitter chose this moment to fill me in on where babies came from. She didn’t spare any details. I was slightly nauseated yet grateful that the older boys were off playing on their own and not witnessing my horror. Surely she was wrong, I thought. I hoped. But how would I know unless I checked with someone else, and I wasn’t about to do that. Huh-uh. Ick. Instead, I just spent the next several years wondering, until people around me started talking about it—until eventually they stopped talking about much of anything else.
I have recalled this experience in recent days as Kevin and I have discussed having “The Talk” with our oldest. He’s almost 9, going into third grade—it’s probably time. We’re pretty sure it will be news to him (he goes to a pretty unusual school), and we want him to hear it from us, not from some hormone-impaired sixth-grader somewhere. We’ve talked about who will say what and when we’ll say it. It seems it will most naturally come up on the annual father-son camping trip this summer.
I attempted a preface to The Talk about 18 months ago when I was great with child and had a built-in prop. I sought out the most recommended book for kids ages 5 to 7 but discovered it was too graphic for even me to bare. I turned instead to the book for 3- to 5-year-olds and still found myself changing some of the words. We didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of it all, mostly because I only had about a five-minute attention span to work with.
Jokes have been written and television shows have been made about parents sweating out The Talk. But as it becomes a reality in my own life, I’ve realized that this topic is so important and will have such power in their young lives that it deserves far more than the obligatory one-time Talk. (Yeah, I know everyone else figured this out long ago, but it’s pretty revolutionary to someone who grew up like I did. My parents never said a single word.) I think it will be less of a Talk and more of a perpetual dialogue. As foreign as that is to Kevin and me, it’s something we’re going to have to get comfortable with. Because the only way it’s gonna happen is for us to be comfortable. And calm. And real.
With four kids—and three daughters, Lord have mercy!—we’ve got quite the journey ahead of us. Boy, I don’t want to mess this up. Part of our family mission statement is that our home will be a safe place where our kids can learn to be all that God designed them to be. That includes being physically safe, but it also means a place where you can ask questions, work through your problems, and share your failures as well as your successes. It’s an open, comfortable place. That means I need to be an open, comfortable mom. They will grow into their own convictions and make their own decisions and likely they will not always be ones I share. But our job as parents is to lay the foundations now that help them form those convictions, and I pray we do it well.
I have recalled this experience in recent days as Kevin and I have discussed having “The Talk” with our oldest. He’s almost 9, going into third grade—it’s probably time. We’re pretty sure it will be news to him (he goes to a pretty unusual school), and we want him to hear it from us, not from some hormone-impaired sixth-grader somewhere. We’ve talked about who will say what and when we’ll say it. It seems it will most naturally come up on the annual father-son camping trip this summer.
I attempted a preface to The Talk about 18 months ago when I was great with child and had a built-in prop. I sought out the most recommended book for kids ages 5 to 7 but discovered it was too graphic for even me to bare. I turned instead to the book for 3- to 5-year-olds and still found myself changing some of the words. We didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of it all, mostly because I only had about a five-minute attention span to work with.
Jokes have been written and television shows have been made about parents sweating out The Talk. But as it becomes a reality in my own life, I’ve realized that this topic is so important and will have such power in their young lives that it deserves far more than the obligatory one-time Talk. (Yeah, I know everyone else figured this out long ago, but it’s pretty revolutionary to someone who grew up like I did. My parents never said a single word.) I think it will be less of a Talk and more of a perpetual dialogue. As foreign as that is to Kevin and me, it’s something we’re going to have to get comfortable with. Because the only way it’s gonna happen is for us to be comfortable. And calm. And real.
With four kids—and three daughters, Lord have mercy!—we’ve got quite the journey ahead of us. Boy, I don’t want to mess this up. Part of our family mission statement is that our home will be a safe place where our kids can learn to be all that God designed them to be. That includes being physically safe, but it also means a place where you can ask questions, work through your problems, and share your failures as well as your successes. It’s an open, comfortable place. That means I need to be an open, comfortable mom. They will grow into their own convictions and make their own decisions and likely they will not always be ones I share. But our job as parents is to lay the foundations now that help them form those convictions, and I pray we do it well.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Tears
I have a friend with the ministry of tears. She once sent me a card that said, “If you need someone to cry with, I’m here. That’s what I do.” She’s in good company. Jesus had this ministry too. We all learned when we were kids that the shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35: “Jesus wept.” Jesus wept because his friend Lazarus had died. Of course Jesus, being Jesus and all, had the advantage of knowing He Himself would raise Lazarus in a matter of minutes, but He still cried right alongside the other mourners because He had the ministry of tears.
I don’t so much have this ministry. I’ve been known to bring other people to tears (in love, of course), but I’m not much of a crier. When I do cry, I prefer to do it alone. God, however, wanted something different for me. He has tears for me to share, tears I didn’t discover until I lost Catherine. Losing a baby has given me the ministry of tears for other women who endure the same thing, particularly stillbirth. It may not be surprising that my stillbirth experience has had this effect on me, but I am always caught off guard by the intensity with which these emotions wallop me.
It happened again this week. It happens more often than I ever knew, though statistically speaking, stillbirths occur in only one in 200 pregnancies. But each “one” represented by that statistic is a lost first tooth, first step, first day of school, first date, to the parents who dared to dream such dreams for their child.
I was thinking of this as I drove around today, listening to my ABBA CD. Just then these words belted out of their Swedish mouths, from the song “The Winner Takes It All”:
“The gods will throw the dice,
their minds as cold as ice,
and someone way down here
loses something dear.”
How sad is that? If that’s really what I thought happened to Catherine—that some cold, uncaring, impersonal gods somewhere just threw the dice and struck her unlucky number, my unlucky number—if I thought that was what her life and death were all about, how could I go on? If I believed whoever’s running the show was really that capricious, who used us all like meaningless pieces in a board game, why would I want to go on? Where would my hope come from?
My hope comes from Jeremiah 29:11–13. “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me.’ ”
As much as it hurt to say goodbye to that baby and all my grand plans for her, I knew God’s plans for me, even without her, were far greater. His plans for Catherine were grander than any I could have dreamed for her. And I also knew that as I cried and cried for her, my loving God cried with me.
I don’t so much have this ministry. I’ve been known to bring other people to tears (in love, of course), but I’m not much of a crier. When I do cry, I prefer to do it alone. God, however, wanted something different for me. He has tears for me to share, tears I didn’t discover until I lost Catherine. Losing a baby has given me the ministry of tears for other women who endure the same thing, particularly stillbirth. It may not be surprising that my stillbirth experience has had this effect on me, but I am always caught off guard by the intensity with which these emotions wallop me.
It happened again this week. It happens more often than I ever knew, though statistically speaking, stillbirths occur in only one in 200 pregnancies. But each “one” represented by that statistic is a lost first tooth, first step, first day of school, first date, to the parents who dared to dream such dreams for their child.
I was thinking of this as I drove around today, listening to my ABBA CD. Just then these words belted out of their Swedish mouths, from the song “The Winner Takes It All”:
“The gods will throw the dice,
their minds as cold as ice,
and someone way down here
loses something dear.”
How sad is that? If that’s really what I thought happened to Catherine—that some cold, uncaring, impersonal gods somewhere just threw the dice and struck her unlucky number, my unlucky number—if I thought that was what her life and death were all about, how could I go on? If I believed whoever’s running the show was really that capricious, who used us all like meaningless pieces in a board game, why would I want to go on? Where would my hope come from?
My hope comes from Jeremiah 29:11–13. “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me.’ ”
As much as it hurt to say goodbye to that baby and all my grand plans for her, I knew God’s plans for me, even without her, were far greater. His plans for Catherine were grander than any I could have dreamed for her. And I also knew that as I cried and cried for her, my loving God cried with me.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Writing for My Life
It seems like I should have something profoundly patriotic to write about today. I don’t, so instead, I’m observing a celebration of my own: six months of blogging. Who knew I had so much to say?! I doubt that anything I’ve written has made the world a better place, but it’s certainly made my brain a better place—and that’s a good thing since I spend a lot of time there.
I find that I don’t really know what I think until I write something down. All day long, random thoughts snake their way through my brain matter, occasionally connecting to other thoughts or something I’ve read or heard that’s still sitting there in my short-term memory, waiting for me to do something with it. It’s a tangled mess, kinda like my daughters’ hair when they wake up in the morning. Writing is my detangler. It’s how I work out the knots, find the strands that belong together, and yank out a few that have served their purpose but need to go. It’s how I tame my static and smooth out my kinks. I can’t imagine how I’d ever have a well-formed, decent idea without writing about it first.
It’s also my therapy. When I’m lonely, I write and find solace. When I’m weary, I write and I’m energized. When I’m stressed, I write and I’m calmed. When I’m purposeless, I write and find new vision. When I’m hungry, I eat. Junkfood, usually. Still working on that one.
Finally, writing is my history. I started journaling in junior high and have a written record of two-thirds of my life. It’s not necessarily pleasant to relive the pity party that was my high-school existence, but it’s all there should I feel like settling in for a day of anguish and torment—and occasionally I do. Much better than that, I love using my journals to track answered prayer, growth and maturity, and silly ideas that never went anywhere. I highly recommend journaling, even for the nonwriters of the world. Even just a sentence or two every night before bed can serve to clear your brain, counsel your soul, and record your history. Give it a try for a month and see what happens.
Happy Independence Day, and thanks for making the trek through my brain with me. I hope you come out unscathed.
I find that I don’t really know what I think until I write something down. All day long, random thoughts snake their way through my brain matter, occasionally connecting to other thoughts or something I’ve read or heard that’s still sitting there in my short-term memory, waiting for me to do something with it. It’s a tangled mess, kinda like my daughters’ hair when they wake up in the morning. Writing is my detangler. It’s how I work out the knots, find the strands that belong together, and yank out a few that have served their purpose but need to go. It’s how I tame my static and smooth out my kinks. I can’t imagine how I’d ever have a well-formed, decent idea without writing about it first.
It’s also my therapy. When I’m lonely, I write and find solace. When I’m weary, I write and I’m energized. When I’m stressed, I write and I’m calmed. When I’m purposeless, I write and find new vision. When I’m hungry, I eat. Junkfood, usually. Still working on that one.
Finally, writing is my history. I started journaling in junior high and have a written record of two-thirds of my life. It’s not necessarily pleasant to relive the pity party that was my high-school existence, but it’s all there should I feel like settling in for a day of anguish and torment—and occasionally I do. Much better than that, I love using my journals to track answered prayer, growth and maturity, and silly ideas that never went anywhere. I highly recommend journaling, even for the nonwriters of the world. Even just a sentence or two every night before bed can serve to clear your brain, counsel your soul, and record your history. Give it a try for a month and see what happens.
Happy Independence Day, and thanks for making the trek through my brain with me. I hope you come out unscathed.
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