My Life in Boxes

I’m going through boxes. Nostalgic baby clothes. College text books. My grandmother’s heirlooms. Long-forgotten pictures. Old broken junk. School uniforms that my kids won’t need for another four years. I’m wading through it all, or at least trying to coax myself into it. This past week I stumbled on the “Really Old Stuff” box. It’s been nine years since I’ve sat down and looked carefully at the contents of this box, and I’m not sure that’s long enough. There are things in this box that should never be seen again—by me and certainly not by anyone else.

The problem with being a journaler and a saver is that you always have a record of what you journaled and saved. When you’ve been a journaler and a saver since the age of 11, this is not necessarily a good thing.

I like to think that I was a good kid, a smart, ambitious, not-following-the-crowd kind of kid. I have a nice collection of childhood memories tucked away in a dusty room in my mind, and when I glimpse in that room from time to time, I generally smile. But the box of Really Old Stuff reminds me of a different me. Inside the box I find a girl who insists on using the word “Barf!” in every sentence. Who is all-consumed with herself and complains ceaselessly. Who is critical of everyone around her—and it’s so obvious it’s because she’s in some way jealous of everyone around her. Her concerns are shamefully trivial, her aspirations no higher than getting some lame, pimply-faced boy to notice her. As hard as I look, I can find no redeeming qualities in her. Which is why I want to trash—burn—the box of Really Old Stuff.

But I don’t. For some reason, it’s easier for me to get rid of Grandma’s heirlooms than my seventh-grade journal. I think it’s because as much as I hate reading who I was, I love realizing how far I’ve come. How much I’ve been changed. The mountains, the oceans, all of creation may testify to the existence of God, but an even more powerful witness to His grace and mercy is the transformation I can see in myself.

I am nowhere near where I want to be on my journey toward Him, but I am much closer today than I was 25 years ago. And where will I be in another 25? Gagging at the journals of my 30-something self? Maybe. But I hope I'll also be marveling again that He loves me way too much to ever let me stay the same.

A Mom's Confession

I am grateful. God knows I am grateful. I couldn’t ask for better kids, and the greatest privilege of my life is getting to be their mom. I have chosen to be a joyful character in their story. Mostly. But can I just be honest for a minute? There are things about this whole mom thing that I am not going to miss. I preach the “savor every moment” message as much as anyone, but there are things that simply aren’t savory in any form or fashion. There are brief moments throughout the day when I dream of my late-50s utopia:

Doing the laundry minus the ever-present smell of urine.

A bathroom free of globby toothpaste remnants.

Getting out of a restaurant for under twenty bucks. (I know this is going to get much worse before it gets better.)

Just going to bed. No singing, reading, lunch-packing, tooth-brushing, diapering, watering, or warning. Just dropping into bed when I’m tired. I can’t even imagine it.

Having uninterrupted thoughts at some time other than 5 a.m.

No more gift buying for birthdays of random classmates or teacher appreciation day.

Finding stuff where I left it.

Driving a vehicle that fits into a “compact” spot and stays clean for longer than eight minutes.

Visiting only the grown-up section of the library, checking out a book for myself, maybe actually reading it, and—the icing on the cake—not spending two hours looking for it on the day it’s due back.

No fighting over who had the chair first. Or who loves the dog more. Or who fights less.

Going through a box of Band-aids a year instead of one a week. And not finding them, soggy and smelly, in the carpet a few days later.

Leaving the house with only my purse. (When I was still working, I couldn’t get out the door with fewer than seven bags. No really. I counted.)

I feel better just for having written it down. Of course the real reason I wrote it down is to read, and read, and read again once this is all over and I’m trying to remember why in the world I sometimes just wanted them all to grow up.

Stories, Part II

In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Don Miller argues that you become the character in the story you’re living. And if you want to find out what that story is, he says to take a good look at your ambitions. In other words, if my ambition is to go to a good college so I’ll get a good job so I can live in a fancy house with a flat-screen TV, that’s the story my life’s going to tell. It’s not really a bad story—it’s just not all that interesting. And if that’s the story I’m living, then the character I become is probably someone who spends a lot of time studying, working, mowing the grass, and watching TV. These are things that need to be done—well, minus the TV part—but am I willing to allow them to be my story? Is this the character I want to be?

No one gets to write their own story—we’ve all learned by now that nearly every circumstance, and certainly everyone else’s actions, are out of our control. But we do get to choose the kind of character we get to be. If you think about it, there’s a lot of power there.

I read a book about a woman who endured a nasty scandal with her husband. It was the kind of stuff most of us get sick just thinking about, and she did, too. But when the scandal broke, she didn’t have to spend a lot of time deciding how to respond. She had decided years earlier who she was going to be in her story, and nothing would change that. Her ambition was to be a faithful, forgiving, and persevering wife, and that became her story. Whether I agree with her decisions or not, I have to respect her unwavering conviction to being the kind of wife she had decided to be.

My own experience with this is less profound, but it has stuck with me for several years. I remember a time about six years ago when I would haul my big pregnant self to work all day, then drive an hour to retrieve my two- and four-year-olds from the babysitter, then come home to make dinner, do the dishes, and spend “quality” time with my family. The only thing I wanted to do was rant at everyone around me, take a bath, and go to bed. I did that on multiple occasions, until I realized that wasn’t who I wanted to be in my story. I didn’t have those words for it at the time, but I knew this was not what I wanted my young children to remember about me. So I changed my story—not the circumstances, but my words, my actions, my attitudes. Sometimes I was so syrupy sweet I thought surely my family would call me on it. They didn’t. It felt fake at first, like I was putting on a performance and not being true to myself. Sometimes that’s how it feels when you change who you are in your story. It’s not natural. But over time, it becomes natural. Over time, it becomes a better story, and we become better characters.

This is one success I had amid a million failures. But I remember it well enough to agree with Don Miller’s theory that you become the character in the story you’re living. We get to choose what that character will be like—grumpy, stressed out mom saddled with too many responsibilities, or grateful, joyful mom enjoying each one of her responsibilities. In a world in which so much is out of our control, it’s a question filled with power and hope: Who do I choose to be in this story?

My Thoughts Exactly

If you read nothing else this week, please read this, "Your Friendship on Facebook," another column from my friend Meredith. I am deeply fascinated (OK, concerned) with the issues she brings up here. In this new society in which a piece of hand-held metal is treated with more value than the person standing next to us, I am preoccupied with how to teach my children the value of real community.

Even if you don't share my concern, read it just for the clever blazer analogy.

Stories, Part I

I love people’s stories. Love telling them. Love listening to them. Love writing them down. I even love the funerals in my family because they bring out the stories. Some of my best memories are sitting in the basement of the Methodist church in my little home town, eating chicken casserole and listening to relatives I barely know tell stories about those I loved.

One of my favorite examples of good storytelling is the movie “Up.” While the talking dogs and wrestling geezers are entertaining enough, the part I love is the story that’s told in the introduction. In about six minutes, with no words, we get one of the most beautiful love stories ever told. But that’s not even the best story in the movie. The bigger story comes later—in the midst of the talking dogs and wrestling geezers—when the old man realizes one of life’s most important lessons: Life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans.

This was one of the rare movies I saw in a theater. I was the lone adult with seven children, and when Mr. Fredrickson makes this important discovery, I erupted. I shook and sobbed so hard that I scared the child on my lap. I have since—in the multiple home viewings of “Up” we’ve had since I ran out and bought the DVD—tried to explain the significance of that scene and why it affects me so profoundly. A story that changes the way you look at your own life is the most powerful story of all.

I’m reading a book right now about good stories. Not how to tell them, but how to live them. I’m thinking a lot about my own story, about what it would look like—up to this point, anyway—if it were captured in six minutes with no words. That may not be all that far off from how God sees it. To Him, the Bible says, a thousand years are like a day. (Does that roughly translate into 39.5 years being like six minutes? Probably not, but let’s just go with it.) And 1 John 3:18 tells us that God’s more interested in what our actions express than our words. So what about my story? Am I living a love story to Him, or a love story to myself? Something to think about.

Real Wisdom or the Conceit of Wisdom?

My children have a hard time grasping how I grew up without the internet. It’s sort of like saying to them that I grew up without water or food. And my kids are still too little to really use the internet much; in another ten years, they’ll compare me with people who grew up without indoor plumbing or lightbulbs.

The gap between my generation and my children’s is arguably the biggest in all of history. My childhood more closely resembled that of my grandparents than that of my own children. I didn’t even live in a town with restaurants (though I well remember begging my mom for a Happy Meal when a McDonald’s arrived about an hour away from us). I remember cooking with no microwave, and using pens, paper, and stamps to stay connected with my friends each time I moved. In my house, I was the television remote. It was a big day when we got that little clicker and I got to stay on the couch with everyone else when my dad wanted to surf our three channels. Ah, the memories my children will never have.

I’m a suspicious friend of technology. While I’m as fascinated by the internet as the next person—how cool is it that at a moment’s notice, I can find out if Robert Goulet is still alive or not?—I’m also leery of what it’s doing to our minds and our culture. I stumbled across this quote in the book Flickering Pixels by Shane Hipps:

“And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation of it without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.”

The origin of this quote? Socrates. About 2,300 years before the invention of the internet. (Yes, I looked that up on the internet and learned not only a lot about Socrates, but how a mom lost 21 percent of her body fat by obeying once simple dietary rule. Thanks, Google ads!)

The question is not if technology is shaping our minds and our culture, but how. Only time will tell if it’s for better or for worse. Like most things, it’s probably a mix of both. In the meantime, my job is to teach my kids to use the technology and enjoy it for what it is while not becoming controlled by it. And most important of all, to invest their lives in the pursuit of true wisdom over mere information.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.”

Me and Suicide Bombers

This week I’ve been considering how I’m like a suicide bomber.

I should explain.

I’m editing a book on the Islamic hadith. The hadith is a massive collection of instructions given by the prophet Muhammad that forms the backbone of what most Muslims believe today. With the Qur’an, it is a Muslim’s handbook for living. Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot.

I spent last week on Shariah law. I get up early to work most mornings, and it’s a unique experience to read about Arab thieves having their hands chopped off and hung around their necks while I’m eating my Cheerios. This week was jihad—a term, in the author’s words, that sends chills down the spine of anyone who remembers 9/11. The book quotes a Time magazine interview with an Iraqi suicide-bomber-in-training. Among other startling statements, the young man says this: “The only person who matters is Allah, and the only question he will ask me is, ‘How many infidels did you kill?”

Like all good thought-provoking comments, this one got me thinking about what I believe. I’m sort of a believe-in-it-so-much-you’ll-die-for-it kind of person. If I don’t believe in my core values enough to put my life on the line for them, do they really matter? Do I even matter? Or am I just here to have a good time like so many other people?

I agree to some extent with the suicide bomber’s reasoning. I wouldn’t say God is the only one who matters—everyone matters—but He is the one who matters most. The bomber and I have reached the same conclusion about whose opinion most drives our decisions—our Creator.

And what will He ask me when I meet Him in heaven? I’m not sure He’ll ask me anything, or that I’ll even be able to speak if He does. We know from the Bible that we will all have to give an account of our lives before God (Romans 14:12), but I can’t begin to imagine—nor do I really want to—what that will look like. But if it came in the form of just one question, what might it be? Unlike the bomber, I’m willing to bet my life that it won’t be about how many infidels I have killed. Jesus died for all infidels, for sinners just like me. But what about, “How many people did you love?” Or, better yet, “How many people did you love when you didn’t feel like it? And did you do it well?”

Now if only there were a training camp for people willing to give their lives for that cause. Sign me up!