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Talking

So I’m back.  I know, you’re like, what, I don’t hear from you for months and now you’re going on a tear?  I can’t help it, people.  When I gots to get it out, I gots to get it OUT.

Some people tell me I don’t talk very much; others tell me I’m a chatty cathy.  I think it depends on what I’m railing on about, frankly.  I have got LOTS to say about Jenny right now, for instance, because she is a total jerk.  (Jenny is the dog, not a person.  This may color your perspective of the following description.)  While she’s earning points in the cuddle department by wanting to be beside me constantly, she’s also tanking most righteously in the chewing arena.  Oh. My. Gosh.  She will pick up anything just to feel it in her mouth.  It can be a stick, a toy, a leaf, a wad of paper, a shoe, a pencil, a dryer sheet… she doesn’t care.  She is equal opportunity and she will pick up ANYTHING.  It’s like living with a toddler again.  “How in the world did you get that?”  “What does that go to?”  “Drop it!”  “Ewwwww.”  “Oh my gosh could you just STOP?!”  She doesn’t intentionally destroy things, she just wants to chew on something – but God forbid we chew on the rawhide PURCHASED AND MADE SPECIFICALLY for this purpose, these chewies that are covered in chicken-flavored-dog-crack or whatever the People At The Store said she would love.  No.  She does not want THAT, that foul-smelling, moist and sticky abomination I just stepped on that was slathered in a glorious mixture of pretend chicken-flavor and dog spit.  No.  She wants whatever she just saw out of the corner of her eye as she came careening around the corner at lightning speed, right before she crashed into the wall.  It’s a shoe, or a sock, or a book, or some other useful item – but good grief, it’s not the dog treat SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HER.  Lord save me from the puppy energy, because this girl’s got it.  Bless her heart, she’s a doll, but I cannot WAIT till the chewy thing is over.

I got distracted.  See?  I can talk.  I could tell you all about this little bundle of energy who is sleeping so soundly beside me right now, recharging her puppy-batteries and getting all stocked up for another day of playing Let’s-See-What-I-Can-Drag-Out-of-the-Recycle-Bin-and-Chew-Into-Tiny-Bits-and-Strew-Around-the-Yard.  Yes.  Or let me talk to you about the bread I made the other day.  You know, the bread I made in the bread machine with the recipe that sounded like it had a lot of yeast in it?  Yeah, that one, the one that smelled heavenly but apparently kept rising right out of the little bucket, reaching its little doughy self right down onto the sides of the bucket and all over the inside of the bread machine, before being baked and burned into a groping semblance of a loaf.  THAT one.  But I’m not going to tell you about that.  I’m going to tell you about talking.

This reminds me of Polonius in Hamlet, when he asks Hamlet what he’s reading.  “Words.  Words.  Words.”  A lot of words.  Words can be just that, innocuous little things when put in a story or a poem or a recipe.  They serve a function by conveying meaning, so what?  Oh let me tell you, words can be sneaky little bastards.  They can be like little irritable Chihuahuas with razor sharp teeth, ready to tear and destroy and rip the hearer apart; or they can be soft and comforting, like laying your head on your mom’s lap while you lie on the couch on a beautiful day when the windows are open and the breeze is coming in.  Words can build and words can destroy in a matter of seconds.  Think of it, how many times does the Bible talk about watching your tongue?  A lot.  (Here’s where being a pastor would be helpful but I’m not one so you’re going to have to google it yourself.)  All I’m saying, is that you would think that we’d watch these little buggers closer than we do, knowing their propensity to sink ships, destroy livelihoods, create euphoria, and everything in between. 

But I’m not talking about watching what you say lest you injure someone with your poorly chosen words.   I’m talking about really talking with people.  Investing in the people you know and love and making an effort to communicate about feelings, emotions, hurts, joys.   We waste so many of our words every day with mindless talking, and yet we don’t SAY the things that truly need to be said.  “How are you?” “Fine.”  Geez, how many times a day do I say that?  Not that I’m suggesting you unleash a torrent of feelings and emotions on the cashier at the Daily’s who just asked you that while she was ringing up your caffeine hit.  “Well, I was FINE until he put dish soap in the dishwasher last night and I woke up to a kitchen knee-deep in bubbles.  But now I’m NOT fine, and now I’m gonna WHACK him.”  I’m not saying that.  I’m saying, let’s think about the way we talk to our families, our close relationships, the people who mean the most to us. These are the very ones we hurt the most, either with the words we speak or the words we DON’T speak, and they’re the ones who love us best!  How messed up is that?!  But it works that way; how many movies have you watched where some little misunderstanding gets blown into epic proportions, and she believed this and he thought that, because the characters didn’t communicate?  That’s pretty much the plot line of every Fred Astaire movie, like ever.  (Just so you know, and now you don’t have to watch them.)  

I’m bringing this up because I royally suck at communicating things that make me uncomfortable, touch me deeply, embarrass me, or hurt me, or basically involve any strong emotion.  Yes; I was born a robot.  Pretty much anything meaningful I have a hard time expressing in words, at least to your face.  Dallas has gradually worn this part of me down over the years, and I’ve gotten to the point that I’m able to talk to him about stuff that bothers me, as well as HEAR stuff that bothers him about me without taking his head off.  The boy has the scars to prove it, I’m sure, but he has the patience of Job.  Kudos to his parents for developing this part of him, because the good Lord knew I’d need remedial training in this area, I guess.  I’m learning to tell the other special people in my life how much they mean to me and to take constructive criticism – something I may actually be able to do before I die.  Maybe.  You know me, and you know I’m awful at it, but I continue to pray for divine intervention.  And because I royally suck at communication, how many of you also may have this problem, and might I be your horrible warning for the day?

Do you notice how people tend to avoid the hard conversations, the awkward confrontations, the uncomfortable topics in life?  I know it’s not just me with this problem.  It can’t be.  Please tell me it’s not.  Believe me; I want to avoid any slimy sentences that explain some ugly truth and I DON'T want to be the one that has to tell you your skirt's tucked up into your underwear.  But I’ve also avoided the heartfelt, the touching, and the dear conversations that would heal and mend, if only I had the bravery to say them out loud.   What is this, that we avoid the extremes of emotion in our daily lives?  Are we so concerned with how we’ll be perceived if we’re honest and open with each other, that we’ll forgo being either one, in order to maintain some imaginary vision of peace?   If we just spoke the truth in love, wouldn’t it be uncomfortable in the short term but far better in the long term?

Here’s a prime example.  When I was about 14 or so – aaaand that tells you all you really need to know, right?  Teenage girl -- angsty, hormonal, emo -- whatever word you have for that divine stretch of adolescence where your ordinarily delightful child oscillates between snarky and sullen, immature and steadfast, garrulous one minute and as lively as a glop of vanilla pudding the next.  Yes, whatever you call that wonderful time.  I’m really looking forward to it with my own teenagers.  Anyhow, when I was that age, Mom and Dad and I spent a weekend camping.  I’d asked Dad to take me fishing, and we went out on a short boat with a couple of reels and a bucket of worms.  I thought we could talk while we fished, not like big-important-stuff-talk, but maybe quiet-tones-like-we’re-in-the-library kind of talk.  I knew you had to be quiet when you fished, like, don’t yell and announce to the fish that WE ARE HERE TO ABDUCT YOU but, I mean, fish don’t even have ears.  Never mind the absolute absurdity of the thought that a MAN would TALK.  I didn’t even know about THAT.  (Ladies, when you ask him what he’s thinking and he says, “Nothing,” he really means that.  There are no thoughts there, just wiiiide empty space.)   However, in my very teenage, very female mind, I misunderstood Dad’s silence.  I thought he wasn’t interested in me, or I’d probably done something wrong.  I thought I was ridiculous, making him come all the way out here just to sit in a boat and watch the water, because we sure weren’t catching any fish.  Here he probably had an entire weekend of something else he needed to do and I was wasting his time.

Yes, that’s asinine, but I didn’t know then that you don’t talk while you fish, and that men don’t think like women.  Seriously, folks, I did not figure this out till YEARS later.  Those are two VERY IMPORTANT points that would have made that day go a whole lot differently had I known.  But I, in my self-absorbed teenage girliness, was CLUELESS, and I got all mad at myself and embarrassed, and “got in a mood” and didn’t talk to him all the way back home.  Which, of course, he was completely baffled by.  “What the heck, we just went fishing.  She was fine and now she’s not fine and I have no idea what just happened.  Girls are weird.  Why do I have so many of them?”  But of course it’s all about me.  So I go in to the camper with my Attitude and Mom lets me have it – I’M the one who wanted to go fishing, remember?  And now I’M the one who’s all out of sorts about it.  So now I’m mad at her too, ‘cause she’s mad at me, and I know Dad’s totally confused about the whole thing and is sincerely lamenting the grievous lack of Y chromosomes in his environment right about now.

Instead of saying, “Are you upset with me?  Because you’re not talking to me and I’m confused,” I thought I knew what was going on.  It would have made me too vulnerable to be direct – because what if he WAS upset over something I’d done?  Then I’d have to admit I was wrong and feel guilty.  Or look like a fool.  Better not to bring it up at all, so I don’t have to feel that way.  Self-preservation at its finest.

And in so doing, I hurt him terribly.  My self-preservation was at his expense.  Then, by not discussing my feelings with Mom, she was left to her own devices to figure out what in the world had set me off this time.   But none of us talked; she went her way, I went mine, and Dad went his.  We all got over ourselves separately and came back together later, forgiven and forgotten and moved on, ready to start over. 

But oh, wouldn’t that have turned out differently if I’d just said what was on my heart?  Wouldn’t that day have gone so much better if I’d just asked why he wasn’t talking to me, and he could have just said, “Because I already used up all my words for today?”  What if I’d talked to Mom about my insecurities and fears, instead of leaving her to fill in the blanks with whatever might fit?  What if I admitted that I was confused, unsure, and also possibly a little mental?  She could have consoled me and advised me and helped me through my awkward weirdness.  Instead I shut her out.  Granted, this is an example from YEARS ago, before God, time, motherhood, wifelihood, and good sense had a chance to work on me, but is this not ridiculous?  Yes, it is, but how often since then have I missed the boat on saying something that could have bridged a gap?    

It took YEARS of me being a daughter, and a mother, and a wife, before I could understand how simply being willing to bare myself to another could be so freeing, or help them so much.  How being willing to admit that you messed up, that you DON’T have it all together, that you CAN’T do it all, that you ARE scared – how that can be the one thing that truly allows us to know and love one another. 

It’s tough to put yourself out there, to take the risk that you won’t be understood, might feel ridiculous, or might be wasting words on someone who won’t listen.  What if, by speaking up, you revealed how broken you are, how messed up you are?  That you don’t have it all together?  Guess what, we’re all messed up.  (BTW, I’m more messed up than you, as has clearly been revealed by this blog, so take comfort in that.)  So why don’t we allow each other to be broken, if we all know we are, and just be broken together?  (There’s a reason that song sounds so good.)  Let’s allow each other to see our failures, our fears, our insecurities, our doubts, if that’s what’s going to heal our relationships.  Why are we so afraid to hear that we’ve been wrong?   It takes courage to speak up, and it takes courage to hear.  But it also takes practice.  These are the people who are supposed to love you best – why shouldn’t we give them the opportunity to do that?

It’s hard to trust that by being honest about your feelings, that it will be well-received.  What if he won’t talk back, or she makes fun of you, or you feel like a fool?  All of those are probably going to happen at some point.  But I’ve learned that when I put myself out there, it shores up a relationship worth having and it proves out a relationship that isn’t going to work.  If you can’t be who you are with the person who’s supposed to love you best, what’s the point?  Who are they loving, then, if they don’t know you?  Who are you loving, if you don’t know them?  If I can’t hear what I’m doing that’s bothering them, how can I possibly fix it?  Friendships that stand the test of time are those that are based on honesty and caring, and knowing you can depend on one another.  Friendships based on superficialities are acquaintances.

How awesome would it be if we came along side each other and said, or heard, “I’ve been through that, and I know how awful it is.”  Or “I’ve never been through that; please tell me what I can do to help you.”  If you’re a mentor to a young person, “That happened to me when I was younger, and I felt like this.”  Yes, it makes you have to open up, to admit that you didn’t make the best choice, or you got embarrassed, or were hurt, and it will probably hurt again -- but how much could it help them through what they’re facing?  If someone’s hurt you, should you not give them the opportunity to apologize and realize what they’ve done?  What if they don’t care, or don’t respond, or hurt you again?  You’ve done your best.  You’ve held up your end of the relationship.  And you can decide whether to move forward with it or let it go. 

But oh, what if you wore them down, like Dallas wore me down?  What if by admitting your frailties, they had the courage to admit theirs?  What if they’re scared too?  What if you learned something that helped you understand their perspective better?  But I’ll have to admit something I don’t want to.  I’ll have to be vulnerable, and take a risk.  It’ll make me look weak.  OR, it could bring you closer together.  It could show you a relationship worth saving, or one that isn’t worth your pain and suffering any more. 

But I’ve MADE the effort, and I’m talking to a WALL!  How long am I supposed to DO this?  It’s easier if you’re a Christian, you can ask for help and it’ll come.  You can pray for guidance, or wisdom, or a change of heart.  You have Someone who’s going to guide you through this for as long as it takes.  If you’re not a Christian, well, I guess you have to figure that part out on your own and do the best you can. 

When we come to Jesus, he takes us just as we are; shouldn't we offer each other the same comfort?   You don’t have to “clean up your act” so Jesus will save you, or stop sinning so you can go to Heaven.  He already knows everything you’ve done or ever will do, and He knows exactly what you are because He made you that way.  He KNOWS you’re messed up.  He KNOWS I’m more messed up than you are, and that she’s more messed up than me, and that the guy over there is a straight up train wreck.  He KNOWS we’re all broken, that we’re sinners.  It’s not news.

So let’s also allow each other to be broken, to have bad days, and insecurities.  Let’s care for each other and give each other a safe place.  Well, that’s all well and good, but I can’t be the first one.  I can’t speak up first.  I can’t get through to her.  Then stick her in front of this blog and say “read this.”  Just throw it out there and see if it gets caught.  Resolve to be the kind one in this relationship, the one who made the effort, the one who keeps trying. 

I’ve come a long way since that weekend fishing, but how long has it taken?  How many baby steps did it take to get where I am, and how much further have I got to go?  A long long way.   But Dallas is everlastingly patient with me, and I pray for help.  Thankfully I have people in my life who are bigger than me and keep forgiving me when I’m a total arse.  I’m eternally grateful for that.  If you’re not a Christian then you kinda have to wing it, like I used to.  Knowing Jesus is infinitely better, I have to say; it just makes everything make more sense.   But even if you’re not, don’t let that stop you from really loving the ones who know you best and letting them love you.  It’s a risk, but it’s so worth it.

What is Love?

So I have stayed away from the bloggy world for a while.  But I’ve thought about it, frequently.   About what I wanted to tell you and what God has been teaching me.  I just couldn’t quite articulate it.   But today I’m going to give it a whack.

We all have these expectations in our heads, wherever they come from, of what things “should” look like.  Maybe our parents taught us, or we saw it in an ad, or on television, or a neighbor modeled it for us.  Expectations of what a family is, what a successful marriage looks like, how a grown man should act, what toys girls should like, how boys should dress, what a husband does, what a wife does.  “When I grow up I’m never going to do that.”  “When I can make my own decisions, I’m doing it that way.”  Whatever that looks like to you, you’ve got an idea in your head about that sort of thing.  And maybe you know that Leave It To Beaver is not an accurate representation of what a family is in real life, but you figure it ought to be somewhere between that and the Simpsons.

Well, for most of my life I’ve had very strict concepts of what I thought things were supposed to be.  At least, how I wanted things to be for me.  I didn’t WANT to spend my life being shuttled around the world at the Air Force’s whim and told which career I was going to have and which country of whom I was supposed to be killing the members of that week.  I have no issue if YOU go out and do that stuff, you go on your merry little way, but that’s not what I want.  So of course, when I had the opportunity to do that, I tried it and said no thank you.  I also had firm ideas, if not a trifle vague, about what kind of husband I’d marry, where I’d live, whether I’d have children, how I wanted to dress.  I thought, “This is my life and I am an adult now and I get to pick.”  If I don’t want to eat collard greens or rutabagas or beets, I don’t have to.  If I don’t want to wear long flowy dresses and makeup and whatever’s “cool” right now, I don’t have to.  (We saw how well that went when I chose to succumb to peer pressure in the form of parachute pants… oh my gosh, could I not have chosen to bow to major fashion trends when chunky necklaces or cute scarves were the rage?  Why did I pick parachute pants?)  I really thought that what was right for me was just right, and screw you if you didn’t agree with it.  This was me.  (Isn’t that just charming?  I mean, really, how could you not love an attitude like that?)

Enter God and his Agenda.  Yeah, just being a new Christian I didn’t realize He has one.  When I accepted Christ and said, “God, I have no idea what I’m doing in life, but clearly I’m screwing it up, could you just take it over for me?” I thought that was more like, “God, I don’t like where this is going so could you only send me nice pleasant things from now on?  Thanks so much buh-bye.”  Yeah…. Homey don’t play that.  When you choose to give your life over to Christ He gives you the things He knows you need, not the things you think you need, and sometimes those things are wildly different. 

In the very beginning of my shiny new Christian life, I prayed, “Lord, send me a love.  Somebody good.”  I’d had relationships before, but nobody who really blew me away, nobody who I really knew was “the one.”  So I gave it up to God and said, “Lord, if you want me to be married to someone, you are going to literally have to bring him to my door because clearly I cannot pick them.”  And I left it at that, and of course I met Dallas and the rest is history.  (Maybe he would say, “and the rest is all downhill from there.”  Or “and that’s where my life spiraled completely out of control into this nightmare.”  Couldn’t say, you’ll have to ask him.)  Certainly he wasn’t what I expected.  I had in my mind that I’d fall for a guy a few years older than me (Dallas is younger), much taller (he’s only a few inches taller), with a nice career (I made more money than him for a while), probably a lot like Dad (he is and he isn’t), not necessarily a hunk but someone who didn’t have warts and horns readily apparent (he’s a hunk, he’s mine, and keep your hands to yourself).  But I knew in my heart without a shred of doubt that this was the man God wanted for me, so down the I aisle I merrily skipped, while he was none the wiser to this wild bag of emotional, hormonal, and judgmental cacophony to which he’d just hitched himself.  FOREVER.  And ever.  And ever.

As we moved along together in this life, God was teaching me ever so slowly and patiently (well maybe not patiently, I know He’s got those oh-my-gosh-will-she-never-learn-this-FINE-let’s-do-it-again moments) that His ways are not my ways.  I’ve always thought my ways were pretty good.  Not perfect, but they were MINE, and if they were mistakes, they were my mistakes.  When God tells us to love our neighbor as ourselves I thought I understood that to mean the physical nature of serving people.  Like helping the homeless, donating clothes, caring for widows and orphans, sharing the gospel, etc.  And I loved people; I loved my family and my friends and those whose company I really enjoyed, not necessarily for what they could do for me but how well I got along with them.  How nicely they treated me, how much we had in common, how well we “clicked.”  Everybody else that I either didn’t know or didn’t WANT to know was just kind of doing their own thing in life, and they were on the periphery.  Let them figure their own selves out, I’ve got enough on my plate, thanks ever so.  There was no animosity, really, just an absence of close interest.

But I have come to see the profound and tragic error of that, and remember when I said if you can’t be a shining example, then be a horrible warning?  Well, I’m your horrible warning.  Let me tell you, when God says “love them” He does not mean “love them the way you think they ought to be loved.”  He means “love them the way I love them.”  There’s a difference.  There are people in this world that I found I could. Not. Stand.  They annoyed the poo out of me and it wasn’t because they were obnoxious people, it was because they didn’t rise to the standard to which I thought they ought to adhere, given what I thought was expected, based on my experience, be it taught from snazzy advertisements, well-meaning adults, or my own narrow-mindedness.  You’re a grown man; act like it.  You’re an elected official with years of experience, why are you acting like you don’t have to obey the same rules we all do?  You’re a wife and a mother and this is how you should be expected to behave in this setting, so why are you not?  You’re a perfectly intelligent coworker with a college degree, why are you not understanding this concept that is so clearly laid out before you?  You’re in customer service, for pete’s sake, why are you not just bubbling over with joy at the anticipation of serving this morose and ungrateful line of patrons before you?  Want me to respect you?  Do something worthy of respect and then we’ll see about it.

Seriously is that not just a delightfully charming perspective?  Who would NOT want to be my close and personal friend?  Yes, when you lay it out like that it sounds just exactly about like what it is; pure, unadulterated snottiness.  I liked what I liked and whatever I didn’t like I had no use for.  Just go away, I’m busy living my life over here.  I had such derision for people who did not act the way I thought they should, based on what my perception was.  In some cases to the point of unbridled hostility, and while I shudder to admit that, now I see it for what it was.   God truly convicted me of this, and I prayed, “Lord, help me love them the way you love them.  Help me see what you see.”

People, I have missed so much, for so long, and it breaks my heart.  By focusing on what people were NOT, I missed what they ARE.  I missed who God made them, with His clear intentions and perfect plan.  When I worked at the homeless shelter, I ceased to see people who had deliberately made unfortunate choices in life, who’d succumbed to temptations and hurt themselves in the process, and I saw THEM.  I saw people who’d been mistreated, who’d been weak, who’d endured hardship and unkindness and yet were still getting up each day ready to face whatever comes next.  People who weren’t afraid to be humbled and admit they’d screwed up and needed Jesus in their lives.  People in whom I invested because I truly cared about their story, their wants and needs, their hurts, these people that God made EXACTLY THIS WAY ON PURPOSE and that God had allowed to go through who knows what horrors, just to teach me a lesson in love.  I began to see what a prideful wench I was, and how much I had missed out on.

Do you ever fold laundry and leave it in nice piles to be later taken to drawers and closets?  Do you ever see trash cans full of trash, ready to be taken out and dumped?  Dishes ready to be washed, lawns ready to be mowed, steps ready to be swept?  Boys can’t.  I’m telling you, this is a uniquely female thing, to be able to see a dishwasher full of clean dishes ready to be emptied.  They also don’t see dirty floors or socks that need to go in the hamper.  The little pile of dried jelly on the counter?  Completely invisible.  The dry laundry on the line, ready to be brought in?  Purely there for ornamental reasons, and isn’t it lovely, wafting there in the breeze?  Children and teenagers also possess this unique blindness, this ability to remain completely unaware of the blatantly obvious things that need to be done around the house.

When we were newly married, and for a long time after, I held this blindness firmly against Dallas with a mighty hand and not-so-gently encouraged him to change this inescapable quality about himself, which clearly he’d developed intentionally purely as a way to torture my type-A tendencies, with all the compassion and understanding of Thor whacking with a hammer bluntly about the head and neck.  Let me tell you how this did nothing but confuse and stun the poor boy, who could not understand why his usually kind and loving wife (heh) would throw a rod and spiral into a meltdown over a pile of laundry.  It’s laundry, not a toxic waste spill.  I’ve learned that he just doesn’t see it.  Only girls see things like this; other women have confirmed my hypothesis.  Ask him or the kids lovingly, “Would you mind putting the clothes away or washing the dishes?” and they do it immediately and with a song in their hearts (kinda).  Maybe not that far, but not begrudgingly and not with the malice they might otherwise have toward me had I bullied them into it.  The difference is that I began to see him as he is, not how I wanted him or expected him to be.  Of course I see something that needs to be done and so I do it, doesn’t everybody?  Well, no.  They don’t.  Because God made them different from me, with qualities so perfectly unto themselves as to make them wholly unique and to be treasured.  Do I treasure this laundry-blindness in my husband and children?  Not necessarily, but I accept it.  They aren’t oblivious to the things I think are vitally important, purely in their malevolent intentions to annoy me and make my head spin 360 degrees; they’re just not always on my wavelength because THEY’RE NOT ROBOTS.

God has made each of us just exactly the way he wants us.  Teachable, malleable, unique, wonderful masterpieces of biology, whom He knew before He formed us.  Our life experiences have shaped us, but nothing comes to us that hasn’t touched the hands of God first, and God works everything for good, even the awful things of which you think nothing good could possibly come.  Did Leah, or Jesse, or David know that the SAVIOR OF THE WORLD was going to come from their lineage?  Well, probably not; they certainly weren’t around to see it.  But He did.  God had a unique purpose for their lives that was unlike anyone else’s in the history of time.  Did Leah have this chewing problem where she sounded like a cow masticating a sticky pile of cud when she ate?  Maybe.  Did Jesse pick his nose and wipe it on his shirt right in middle of pleasant conversation?  I don’t know.  David screwed up righteously, repeatedly, and with abandon.  And yet God made them all just how He wanted them, and used them for His glory.

I have missed the beauty of each person’s uniqueness in my life.  I have not loved them the way God loves them, and I regret it profoundly.  Don’t let this be you.  Have they sinned against you?  Forgive them as He forgave us.  Don’t just forgive their sins against you, FORGET THEM.  That’s what God chooses to do with our sins; He very purposefully forgets them.  He knows what they are just as well as we do; He just chooses to forget them, to erase them and let them go (LET IT GOOOO, LET IT GOOOO…. Elsa moment).  Don’t just look at people, SEE them.  Look at the wonderful qualities they have that God has placed within them, instead of focusing on what you think they’re missing.  Are they the most brilliant of creatures, the most socially pleasant and accommodating?  Probably not but neither are you (face it).  Are they far too dependent, far too oblivious, far too selfish for their own good?  I’d be willing to bet you can be a wee bit tad selfish as well. 

Really look at the waitress next time.  She’s somebody’s mother, sister, or daughter.  Yes, she might have every square inch of her body covered in tattoos and piercings, but God made her and He loves her.  Look at the customer service person next time you go shopping.  Is she a royal snot-and-a-half and would you like to poke her in the eye with a fiery torch?  Yes.  And she probably deserves it for not letting you use two coupons in the same transaction (I’m lookin’ at you, Michael’s).  But God made her and He wants to redeem her, and if you don’t show her Jesus she may never see Him.  Can Dallas not see a pile of laundry until it’s sat there a week?  No, he cannot.  But he has a million beautiful songs in his head, he understands things about politics I can’t or don’t care to, he loves flowering plants and trees and knows exactly where they’re going to go best, he loves his children with all that he is, he is the only one on this earth who is going to love me even as rotten as I am, and GOD CHOSE HIM FOR ME.  Therefore, I’m going to cut the boy some slack and ask him lovingly if he’ll put that laundry away for me.  I’m going to respect him as the head of our family and support him in the choices he makes even if I don’t always agree with him.  I’m going to submit to him in the way God intended wives should do, not by blindly accepting every decision he makes with ignorance and a lack of interest and fine-do-it-your-way-but-I-don’t-like-it, but by presenting him my opinion, my thoughts, and my advice in a loving way, speak up when I think he’s wrong, and not leave him to flounder by himself… but then TRUST HIM to make the best decision for our family and allow him to lead it.  I’m going to pray for him and love all the parts of him, forgiving the parts that rub me wrong. I’m going to tell him how I feel about things, not let them fester inside and grow into resentment.  Talking is hard.  Admitting you screwed up, you’re wrong, you’re unkind, you’re just as much as fault… it sucks.  No, it SUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKSSSS.  But it’s necessary and it’s what God always wants us to do, to ask for forgiveness when we screw up, to love our neighbor just as he is, and to forgive when others screw up.  It’s not easy, it’s humbling, it’s embarrassing, it’s against your better judgment as far as self-preservation of the ego goes.  Will I always get it right and have the right response to people?  Nope, I will consistently over-react, under-react, be selfish, be petty, be a snot.  But then I have to say I’m sorry, and ask for forgiveness, and truly try to love as God loves.  I’ll never really get there, but that’s what God has asked us to do while we’re on this earth, and nothing else.  He didn’t say “judge this sin worse than that one and treat this person accordingly,” He said “love them.”  He didn’t say “By your actions show this person the error of his ways so that he will realize he’s a blithering idiot and act completely different to please whatever ludicrous expectation you have in your head about how he’s supposed to act,” He said “love him the way I love him.” 

I’ve missed so much and I can’t get it back.  I can’t take back hurtful words I’ve said in anger, or dirty looks, or the way I’ve treated people unkindly.  I can’t erase the fact that I didn’t forgive them their slights against me and forget their sins when I should have, and I held on to the hurt.  All I can do is what God asks of us – say I’m sorry, ask for forgiveness from those I’ve hurt, repent, and ask God to help me love them.  If I ever made you feel less than you were, or not good enough, or not just exactly what you were meant to be, I’m sorry.  Please forgive me.  There, you can use that, you don’t even have to come up with your own.  You can write it down if you can’t speak it.  You can say it in the dark where you don’t actually have to look them in the eye.  You can write it in icing on a cookie cake to make absolutely sure they see it.  But the people that God has brought into and out of your life, even for a nanosecond, God made them and he loves them.  He wants you to love them too, and in order to do that you have to see them as the wonderful, purposed creations they are.  They aren’t here to lick the peanut butter knife and put it back in the jar because they know that will completely wig you out (not to say I know anybody who does this; I’m just sayin’).  They aren’t here to ask you repeatedly what you just said because they know that will drive you insane and make you want to whack them with the nearest blunt and/or pointy object.  They don’t strew their dirty clothes around the house purely in a calculated mission to make your OCD buttons blink red at a panicky tempo.  Love them for the disorganized and germ-laden person they are and hire a maid.  Does she have this annoying tendency to not get ready until the last possible second and make you late to every function you have ever been to or will ever attend (read: not me.  Maybe.)?  Tell her you have to leave half an hour before you really do and get on with life.  He can’t find his own butt with both hands and a flashlight?  Draw that boy a map and LET IT GO.  He’s that way.  Barring a lab accident that may also have the effect of changing him into a supervillain, at this point he isn’t going to change.  He is what he is, now love him for what he is and forgive him for what he isn’t, and move the heck on.

Do I mean that for people whose husbands are abusive, or whose wives spend every dime they make with reckless abandon, or whose parents are alcoholics and drug addicts?  Love them for the whack-jobs they are and leave them to go to Hell in a handbasket or similar containment device?  No.  Use your brain, that’s what God gave it to you for.  Use social services, ask for help, go to counseling, get exercise, eat right, make a move.  Toxic relationships have no place in a healthy life. Don’t just sit there and accept it and endure it.  But oh, don’t MISS it.  Don’t miss loving the people God brings into your life.  Make today your turning point and ask God to help you; you can’t do it on your own.

So that is your horrible warning for the day, my friends.  From the bottom of my biscuit to yours.

Epiphany

I hate my body. Except I love it.

These are the warring factions that have been inside me for pretty much ever. I know there’s a whole movement about body image. I get that. I don’t really care because I’m talking about me. And you, because you feel the same way I do, you know you do. All my life I’ve struggled with my weight. When I’m overweight, I let that fact dictate how I feel about everything. And I do mean everything. What I weigh impacts whether I want to go out or stay in, participate or not, get naked or not.

And don’t even get me started on the self-loathing that goes along with it; the running commentary in my head. I don’t want you to see me naked, I’m fat. I can’t wear that dress, I’m fat. Why do I have no self-control? Why am I eating this again? Well, I’ve already ruined today, I might as well really ruin it. Why can she eat anything she wants and I can’t? I wish my stomach looked like that. These pants used to fit. Dangit. I’m worthless.

That was in my head for about 25 years. Until, by the grace of God, I came to understand the value of myself in a different way. It took a loooong time to get here. I’m not “there” yet. But I’m not where I used to be, which you might recognize.

I was a chunky kid. Big thighs, big ankles. Not athletic by any stretch of the imagination. I’d rather read. I don’t know when I started eating to feel happy. I just remember doing it. And yet eating makes me big and being big makes me sad so I guess I’ll eat. Why not, let’s just throw in the towel. WHY is the way I feel about myself tied to my body? Why should it be? It makes no sense.

I have a scar on my right hand where I was getting my bike out of the shed one day when I was probably 12, 13, something like that. The shed was really just a lean-to; covered on the sides and top with corrugated tin because we stored firewood and the mower under there. And the bikes, to keep everything out of the rain. Anyway I was getting my bike out one day and sliced my hand down the corrugated tin and it eventually healed into a perfect little raised line about a centimeter long. I remember it very clearly for whatever reason; maybe because it sliced my skin so perfectly (up until then I’d only scraped knees and elbows; no real injuries) and it was kinda fascinating to see inside there, and maybe because it happened before I’d really even realized it. My Uncle Hubert and Aunt Marcelle were over for coffee that evening. Mom and Dad used to have them come over for coffee every so often and they would sit and chat and it made me happy to know that they were happy. Sometimes I’d listen to their conversation, even if I didn’t understand it, and sometimes I’d stay in my room and just hear them laughing and talking, and sometimes I’d go outside and leave them to it, like that evening. They were good friends and it was comfortable, hearing them laugh and talk together.

I tell you this because it’s part of me. I look at that scar and I remember Uncle Hubert and how I loved to smell him smoking his pipe, before he got smart and quit. It’s not pretty, but it’s me. I have a spot on the bottom of my right foot that hurts sometimes when I step on it wrong; it’s from when I stepped on a cigarette butt in front of the old Kmart one night while Mommy was shopping and Daddy and I waited outside so he could smoke. It wasn’t his cigarette butt; he was still smoking his, but somebody else had thrown theirs to the ground and I walked my little bare feet right over it. I cried and Daddy picked me up and held me and I could smell his t-shirt with the dirt and oil and grease on it from having changed the oil in the blue truck earlier that day. He let me “help” him do that; crawl underneath the truck and watch the black black oil drip down into the pan.

Carter asked me what the scars were on my hip last week. They’re stretch marks and they are totally unfabulous. If he’d come out when he was supposed to come out, a week and a half earlier, I wouldn’t have had them. But he didn’t, and I got bigger, and bigger, and I have the stretch marks to prove it.

My mother makes carrot cake like you have never tasted carrot cake. Seriously, whatever way you think yours is good, hers is SO SO much better. She does this thing where she sugars the pan, and then when the cake bakes it comes out all wonderful and sweet, and then the icing. Oh. My. Gosh. The icing. Only Mom can make cream cheese frosting like this, and you put it with the carrot cake, and it’s unreal. I eat far too much of it, and I can’t resist it when she makes it. She makes me this fudge-ribbon cake for my birthday that’s all chocolatey goodness and cream cheese ribbon (holy cow, maybe there’s a theme here) and I can eat that whole thing with no help. My thighs are a testament to that carrot cake, and that fudge ribbon cake.

These hands have caught vomit, wiped away tears, checked for fevers, and sewn Halloween costumes. My boobs are pathetic floppy reminders that I couldn’t breastfeed my own children, yet they drive my husband out of his mind. My booty is rife with cellulite but my booty has sat on hard bleachers through baseball games, and on horses, and through cold nights around bonfires. My tummy has rolls. So. Many. Rolls. My rolls actually have rolls. My children made those rolls and stretched out my tummy and left their mark, and they lay their heads on my soft tummy now when we snuggle in the bed reading books. The skin under my arms? My bat wings. Flap flap flap. These arms have held cranky babies, crying loved ones, and toted groceries to feed my family. They’ve hauled firewood to the truck from the woods and they’ve had kitty cats fall asleep in them.

My body has stories. My body has been USED, people. It’s not pretty. It’s not skinny. It’s too lumpy in places, too fat in places, too wrinkly in places, too rough in places. But it’s beautiful, because it’s what God gave me to walk around in, to love in, to help in, to comfort in, to be happy and sad in. Love your body too, no matter what shape it is. Stop trying to make it fit into whatever size you think will make you happy. If it feels good to exercise, then do it. If you have a few more pounds this year than you did last year, then so be it. Buy bigger pants. Look at what God has given you in this body and what you’ve done with it. It's a beautiful, strong, amazing body.  It doesn't need to "look good" in pictures.  It's too busy living life.

Absorbing the Blow

As a mom, and a daughter, and a female, all of those things put together, I’m continually struck by how much we as our gender in each role, endure. How much we balance, and juggle, and attempt to be all things to all people; especially to our own families. I’d like to say “well, that’s just how it is in my family, we ladies are very giving people,” except that I see it in all of my women friends, relatives, co-workers… I think it must be a singularly female thing, or maybe it’s maternal, since a lot of the women I can think of who are like this are moms, or maybe it comes with age. Like mold. I don’t know. Maybe boys are like this too, or would be, you know if they didn’t have penises that took over their brains and laser-focused their entire existence down to a razor-sharp pinpoint of hormonal urgency.

I have always heard it said that you should “turn the other cheek.’ Yes I know it comes from the Bible, I even Googled it so I could tell you where it was. Matthew 5:39: “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” God said it so you have to do it. But if that’s not enough, if Kenny Rogers can put it in a song then there’s probably something to it that should be heeded, much like knowing when to hold things and fold things.

But with me, and some other females I know and love, I don’t think it’s so much turning the other cheek as absorbing the blow. We aren’t solid, steadfast pillars who take adversity and unkindness and ingratitude with no discernible surface impact; it’s more like we’re air bags. We kind of catch the unkind remark, the additional burden, the carelessly-tossed backhanded compliment like a football, absorbing that impact of that blow instead of having it glance off in a funky-angled trajectory to ricochet into somebody else. And it might leave a mark.  Not to say all women are like this, or that we’re like this all the time. You do have your Jerry-Springer-tennis-players who take every insult, perceived or otherwise, and fling it back toward the sender with equal fervor and vitriol. Everybody has one of these inside them, the knee-jerk reaction of “you hurt me, I’ll hurt you,” the toddler-mentality of “if you break my toy, I’m breaking yours.” I’m talking about the kind of catch that comes with age, maybe with mommyhood, maybe just as your relationships stretch from grades to years to decades and you realize what really matters in life.

It’s a kind of grace, really. When I was a teenager in the throes of my hormonal angst and I would rail against my mother’s carefully constructed safety barriers, she would endure my blasts, buffeting them off to the side like ineffectual clouds. She’d stand there weathering the storm until I blew myself out, realized she was right to begin with, and moved on. Not saying anything about it, just gathering herself quietly, knowing there was going to be another onslaught at some point for which I would not apologize, but taking a breath after having withstood this one in preparation for the next. It’s kind of like how you envision following a toddler around when they’re learning to walk – you’re right behind them, ready to catch them if they fall, but not actually touching them. Even as they grow, not offering any advice (unless they ask) or guidance (unless they ask); your arms are out wide to keep them on the path and prevent things from ramming into them, but they’re going in their own direction and all you can do is follow and hope they remember all the good advice you gave them, back in the beginning when they actually thought you knew what the heck you were doing. Before they figured out that you’re winging it like everyone else. That’s one of the things I imagined would be hardest about being a parent, based on how I saw my own parents as I grew into adulthood. How do you walk the line between being there when they need you, but not parenting them? Catching them when they fall – letting them hit to see what it feels like but not so hard that it leave scars – after all, that's your baby - and setting them back on their feet, but not carrying them forward? It’s a narrow line, people. A line my parents somehow managed to navigate throughout my life but one which mystifies me as much now as I walk it as it did then, watching them walk it.

I wonder how we get like that. There are so many beautiful women I know that have endured such trying circumstances (read: having me for a teenager) and yet still come through it with this patient, beatific look on their face like, “Yeah, I got that one, what else you got? I can take anything you dish out, and I’ll still be standing here, and I’ll still love you afterward.” I’m not even talking the big guns -- ladies who’ve been left without moms too young and had to pick up the slack; had to deal with poverty, alcoholism, and abuse. I’m only talking about the day-to-day minutiae of LIVING. We take on school PTOs, handmade Halloween costumes, the pain-in-the-butt project at work THAT WILL NEVER END, the laundry, the ring in the toilet that. Will. Not. Come. Out, no matter what caustic military-grade solvent you put on that sucker. The dog with the bee sting who can’t breathe and has to be rushed to the vet and the little soul that needs to be soothed because the birdie fell out of its nest and “we just found it like that.” We take on the smart mouths, the eye rolls, the hair that gets dyed pink and green and then has to be fixed at the salon, the questionable fashion choices, the sarcastic comments, the judgment in that other mommy’s eyes because OUR yogurt is SMACK DAB FULL of red #5 and HERS was organically grown in a star, nay, coaxed to life fairly nestled in a fairy’s bosom. We endure the “we didn’t do it like that in my day” and the “give that kid to me for a week, I’ll straighten him out.” We deflect well-meaning comments from friends and relatives that we take wrong; surely they didn’t MEAN to make me feel like an ineffectual dunce who can’t connect two bumps on a pickle, and WHAT THE FRESH HELL IS THAT SMELL COMING FROM THE WASHER?!   I didn’t mean for something to come across that way – and holy hell they are totally letting me have it and I didn’t mean that at all but can’t they see I frickin’ LOVE THEM?

And there you have it. There are so many women that I know that love even when it isn’t deserved the tiniest bit. Who keep taking what gets dished out, absorbing blow after blow from every conceivable direction, and are still standing there ready to pick up whatever pieces fall and hand them back over whenever the circumstances dictate. They get their feelings hurt and they swear they’re not going to fall for that again; they’ll be tougher next time and they WILL NOT be there to catch the next free-fall… and still there they are. Right when you need them before you even knew it.

If you are one of those women who are patiently buffeting blows or waiting to catch the next stumble, understand how much you’re appreciated even if you never hear it. Seriously, you may never EVER hear it. Understand how WE are able to toddle off into the great unknown because we know you’re right behind us. If you’re one of the toddlers who are railing against someone who’s in your face and up in your grille and has GOT A FRICKIN’ OPINION ABOUT EVERY LIVIN’ THING YOU DO – take a minute and be grateful for their interest and concern. It is so good to be loved. To be loved and watched from afar, but also to be smothered under the 3-inch quilted cotton oxygen-sucking monstrosity that is whatever your most difficult relationship is right now. God made us to love each other but He in his infinite yet unfathomable mind-numbing wisdom didn’t make us all the same way and so we love each other differently – and that is also why there are bell-bottoms and gauchos. Because somewhere out there some idiot thought they were beautiful fashion choices to be embraced. Go embrace all the strong women in your life today and tell them you appreciate them, and thank them for loving you when you were a pain in the arse.