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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.

Bad Words

Yesterday we were on our way to school in the car, it’s about 7:30am, and Carter says from the back seat, “Mama, is F@#K a bad word?”

Um.  Yeah.

So I said, “Well, it’s not a nice word, so we don’t say it in conversation.”

“What does it mean?”

Well, I didn’t go THERE.  But I said people use it all kinds of different ways; as a verb, a noun, an adjective… you have to admit, you can't beat it for versatility.  Personally I say it quite a bit, usually in my head, occasionally alone in the car, but not within earshot of the kids.  I find it very satisfying and at times, the only word that fits the situation perfectly.

“Well, is sith a bad word?  Siht?  Something with an S.”

“S@#T?”

“Yes, that one.”

“That’s not a very nice word either, so we don’t use it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s rude.  Remember how I told you that holding up your middle finger means that you’re telling someone they’re useless, they’re lower than dirt, and that’s why we don’t do it?  Using those words make people feel like that too sometimes.  So we don’t use them.  You’ll probably hear other people using them, though.”

So I asked him if he’d heard someone saying those words recently.  He said there were two boys in his class that were talking about it at lunch and they were trying to think of all the bad words they knew.  “They said there was an f-word, two s-words, three e-words, and a c-word.”  Little boys, you BETTER NOT teach my kid the c-word.  (I can't think of what the e-words must be.)  I’m not upset that he knows those words.  I knew it was just a matter of time and I’m amazed we made it this long.  I learned the s-word earlier than he has; in second grade when Justin Lavoie wrote it on a desk.  It didn’t mean anything to me then, just like those words don’t mean anything to Carter now, he just knows they’re “bad.”  But, he said, “I didn’t like that conversation very much.”

I’m not thrilled he knows those words now, just like I won’t like it when he no longer believes in Santa or the Tooth Fairy.  But I know those days are coming too.  In some ways I wish I could keep them both little forever, homeschool them and control everyone they meet and insulate them from all the bad in the world.  Last week these same boys asked him if he was friends with another kid they thought was weird.  Carter struggled with that, because he thought the weird kid was just fine, friendly even.  But he could see what those boys were asking, “Are you friends with the weird kid?  Because if you are, you’re weird too.”  We talked about that, and I told him he’d face that problem all his life.  Even as an adult you face that, adults are just more subtle.  “I don’t like that person, so you don’t need to like that person.”  

He asked me what he should do about it.  I asked him if he liked the “weird” kid.  He does, so I asked him if he thought it was a good enough reason to not be friends with him just because the other kids thought he was odd.  And I told him that if he stopped being friends with the odd kid, it would probably hurt his feelings.  But I didn’t tell him what to do; I asked him what he was going to do.  He said he was going to invite the boys to play with him and the weird kid, and they’d see how much fun he was. 

Yesterday I asked him what happened with all of that.  He said he introduced them all, and they played tag, and he doesn’t know if they all like each other but they all played together.  My boy the peacemaker.  I asked him what he’d do if those boys started up the “bad word” conversation again.  He said he sat with somebody else at lunch so he wouldn’t have to be a part of that conversation.

I’d really like to save him from that crap.  The peer pressure garbage and the do-you-like-me-I-like-you-but-different-is-bad idiocy.  There were some people I was friends with in school that weren't exactly scholars, nor were they the best-behaved people, but there was something to them I liked.  One girl had (and still has) the absolute best sense of humor; she wasn’t exactly brilliance personified but dang, she could make me laugh.  Another girl I knew used every expletive there was in every sentence she spoke – but she WAS brilliant and probably one of the kindest people I’ve had the good fortune of knowing.  I’d hate to know I’d have missed out on them if I’d been “saved” from the peer pressure of being friends with them.

I don’t know how I’m going to help these kids navigate this world.  It’s ugly.  As Christians, we need to be in the world and not of it.  That’s hard.  When you’re in the world you see all the ick and you have to deal with it.  People will hurt you, influence you for good and bad too, make you uncomfortable, and force you to make difficult decisions.   They make fun of you for being different.  You get labeled as a prude because you don’t do the same things they do; if you do the same things they do to “fit in”, you’re a hypocrite.  I don’t want anybody to teach my kids the c-word, offer them drugs, or tempt them to steal.  I don’t want them to be put in the morally-questionable yet socially-defining position of “let me copy.”  But neither do I want to completely insulate them from it, because the awful people of the world, that’s who we’re instructed to tell about Jesus.  To show them Jesus, because that might be all they ever see of Him.  How will they ever understand what people are going through, the temptations they face, the trouble they’re in, if they never have to see it?  How do they ever have an “I’ve been there, and this is how my faith in God helped me through it” conversation? 

I’m trying very hard not to keep all the bad things from reaching my kids; I AM trying very hard to warn them before they get blindsided with something, and to help them face the tough stuff.  To know where they stand on things before they’re challenged, so they’re confident about their opinions.  I worry those challenges will come before I’m ready.  I want them to be able to make good decisions when I’m not around to tell them what to do, and to know that awful things are out there and will have to be dealt with, one way or another.  I shudder at the mistakes they’re going to make, the temptations they’re going to fall prey to, and the horrible things that may befall them.  I can only pray that God will protect them and save them from themselves and the myriad bone-headed decisions they will inevitably make.  When I think of all the times I did something that could’ve gotten me maimed, beheaded, or killed… well, they say God protects fools and children and at any given time in my life, I’ve been one or the other.

So as much as I totally didn’t want to have to explain the word f#@k to my 8-year-old with my 5-year-old in earshot, at least we got the chance to talk about it.  Frankly I’m just glad he didn’t hear it from ME.  

Conflict Sucks

I can be a weepy. sobby, emotional mess.  I know this.  But let me just tell you what these past few weeks have been like. 

Week before last, I was at the rescue mission and I stopped by the men's side to drop off some sugar in the kitchen.  I said hello to one of the guys.  One of the directors saw me, called me into his office, and proceeded to rail at me, basically accusing me of trolling for dates.  I left in tears and didn't go back to the mission, and I was miserable for a week.  I finally decided the next week I had to talk to him.  I had to confront his accusations because what he said wasn't fair.  He didn't even know me.  Everyone I've talked to, except him of course, appreciated me being there, and since I go with my entire family, they know I'm not trying to hook up.  So I called every day and left a message.  I never could get him on the phone.  By the end of that week I was a basketcase.  So the next week, I showed up on his doorstep, even though I was scared to death about how this next conversation would go; the first one had tanked in the first 10 seconds.  We ended up having the type of discussion I think God had in mind in Matthew:

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.” (Matt. 18:15-17)

I REALLY just wanted to walk away and not talk to this guy again, like ever.  But the people who would be hurt by that are the people we were both (theoretically) trying to help, and I can't help anyone if I'm not at the mission.  So I walked in his office and sat down, and we prayed together, I told him how hurt I was by his statements, he apologized all over himself for hurting me, and then he told me what he'd REALLY wanted to say and failed miserably at.  During all of this of course I was a weepy mess again, 'cause I'm a girl, and I'm embarrassed at not being able to control myself, but here's the thing.  I was proud of myself -- of US -- for handling a conflict the way God intended.  It wasn't pretty.  It made me vulnerable and it made him have to step up and admit he was wrong, and ask for my forgiveness.  It required me to be brutally honest to a virtual stranger and set myself up for probably being hurt again, since I didn't know how it was going to turn out.  At the end of the discussion we parted as friends, brother and sister in Christ, and partners in the effort to help people who are going through the worst challenges of their lives.  The crapstorm of the week before was gone.

I wanted to tell you this because if you're struggling in a relationship, I want to encourage you to speak up.  I want to encourage you to resolve the conflict and go to the person and say, "You hurt me" or "I know I hurt you and I'm asking for forgiveness."  The conversation I had required that I bare myself and confront someone I barely knew about an incredibly sensitive situation.  I hate confrontation.  When I first married Dallas, I couldn't talk to him about anything emotional unless it was in the dark and I couldn't think too hard about what I was saying -- I just had to blurt it out real fast before my brain could catch up.  (You'll be glad to know I'm past that; yes, over the last 12 years I've improved.  Slightly.)  Suck it up, buttercup, and say it and let the chips fall where they may.  God wants us to resolve conflict, admit when we're wrong and ask for forgiveness.  

So what do you do when your situation doesn't turn out like mine?  When the person you're confronting says "I didn't do anything wrong, I'm not admitting to anything, and I don't care whether you're hurt"?  Beats the heck out of me.  I don't know where you go from there, I guess it depends on whether you have a blunt object in your hand and whether they'll fit in your trunk.  All I'm saying is that if you want to have a relationship with someone, you've got to at least try, do your part, and be honest with them.  All you can control is your own actions.  When you've hurt someone, you've got to acknowledge it, however difficult it is to admit you're wrong (and believe me, it's difficult).  I respect the man I argued with for owning up to handling the situation badly, and repairing the relationship in a Godly way.  He said he respected me for coming back to confront him and not running away with my tail between my legs, badmouthing him to everyone else.  I screw up so often it was nice to feel like I was doing something the right way for a change.

Unfortunately I have other crapstorms I'm currently dealing with, where I feel like I'm being treated unfairly.  I desperately want to call up some people and give them what for, use some very satisfying words, throw things and stomp my feet.  However, I'm trying to handle it like an adult (being an adult sucks) and like a Christ-follower should.  To be a doer of the word and not a hearer only.  I don't know if these other situations will turn out as well but I'm just praying for some divine guidance, as usual, and trying to do the best I can.  Onward and upward, as Mom says.

And the Mother of the Year Award goes to....

Yesterday I was in Target, and I was right behind a lady and her son in the checkout line.  This lady was BEAUTIFUL.  I mean visually stunning; somewhere a magazine was missing its cover model.  Her son was freaking adorable, in a little jon-jon and saddle shoes (SO CUTE!).  She was dressed to the nines and had perfect hair.   And I was thinking, "I bet she's patient too, and never yells at her kids."  And sure enough, here she goes, "No, buddeeee, we're just going to give all these things to the nice lady here, not throw them, okayyyy?"  While her son continues to throw all the things she's brought to the checkout out of the cart and onto the floor.  Fling.  Fling.  Flingy fling.  So then she starts looking around at the cashier, and then me, and then the lady next to her, and then the other cashier, and everywhere but this little boy.  Like any of us are going to do anything; heck, we're waiting to see what SHE'S going to do.  Maybe we'll learn something.  And he's just happily throwing things to the floor while she's flipping out.  She's smoothing her hair and crooning to him, "Now let's just let Mommy have that, okayyyy, honeyyyyy?" while he's totally getting into the flinginess and is now jumping up and down vehemently in the back of the cart. In the middle of all this she stops to tie his little saddle shoe that's come untied and smooth his hair back down, because believe me, he's totally feelin' the moves.  And this goes on and on until she and the cashier finally retrieve everything, she pays for it, and off they go.  

Here is the time where I judge.  But no, I'm not judging HER.  I'm busy judging ME.  Seriously, if that was my kid, I'd 'a whacked him on the behind LONG AGO, maybe 2nd fling.  And I think, "Geez, could I really be that patient, as patient as HER, with my kids when they're misbehaving like that?"  The answer is no.  And I know, I've read all those articles about how mommies should stop judging each other and give each other a break, we need to lock arms ladies, SOLIDARITY 'TIL EIGHTEEN, we will prevail, these children will not break us.  But the thing is you are CONSTANTLY comparing yourself to each other and your kids to each others' kids, to figure out if yours are average, or above average, or freaks of nature.  You can't help it; it's ingrained in you from grade school when you all start comparing report cards.  It's like that in adulthood, only your kids and the way you keep your patience is what you're grading each other on.  Old ladies judge you.  People without kids judge you.  And even if they don't say it, you KNOW they're thinkin' it.

So compared to this lady, I'm wondering about myself.  You know I'm not a fashion plate.  If I never had to wear a dress again that would be A-OK.  I will take my jeans and my Converse ANY DAY.  She's fashionable AND in public.  WITH a kid.  I run to Target in mini-bursts when I don't have a child with me, even if it's 8:45 at night, if that's what it takes.  I have got the speed trip DOWN.  Plus she's totally not losing her temper even though her son is acting like a rabid animal.  People, I just cannot put up with crazy.  If my kids can't behave in public, we are totally leaving, I don't care where the cart has to go, we are GONE.  But the thing that gets me is that in the middle of this awesome display, she's worried about his tiny little SHOE and whether his hair is in place.  NOW I feel like a jackalope, because MY kids ate dinner butt naked last night at the dinner table because they'd just gotten out of the pool and we hadn't yet made it to the bath and everybody was hungry.   Sometimes I KNOW they forgot to brush their teeth but I'm just too freakin' tired to get everybody out of the bed again.  I've fallen asleep in the middle of a story.  I've fallen asleep in the middle of a story I WAS MAKING UP.  I've let them swim when the pool was green.  They've had processed, sugary, diabetes-inducing sugar-crashing powdery-heaven donuts for breakfast BECAUSE KRISPY KREME.  I've let them run around the yard in their underwear in a rainstorm and jump in puddles probably full of every horrifying microorganism there is, even the ones with fangs.  I HAVE FORGOTTEN THE TOOTH FAIRY.  

But I am seriously learning to embrace all the differences between us mommies, and when I hear of a cool new idea that I think could really help me, I give it a whirl.  When somebody lets their kids talk to them in a way that I know I would have gotten the crazy-eyes-defcon-8-look from my mother for, I just tell myself, "nope, couldn't take that, but you do your thing, girl."   I AM NOT OPEN TO CRITICISM, lady in the bathroom with the opinion I didn't ask for.  The answer is, "You're doing a beautiful job."  That is always the answer, lady.  Just like when you're pregnant.  "You got a basketball under there?"  I'M TRYING TO STEAL A BAKED HAM AND THANKS A LOT FOR DRAWING ATTENTION TO IT.  "You are beautiful."  THAT is the answer.  I try to keep them from breaking necks and having any organs visible on the outside, but I also try not to hover or gasp audibly every time they jump into the pool or balance on the curb.  It's a fine line, people.  I have children with no fear, no visible trepidation of any kind.  I'm trying to not impart my crazy on to them but let them take their own path to the therapist.  We are stringent about the basics but we're a little lackadaisical if nobody's eyes are going to get poked out.  I try to let them reason out how to handle things on their own and I try to think of times growing up when I had a similar problem, if it'll help.  And sometimes I lay down the BECAUSE I SAID SO because that's the answer.  

So I snapped out of my Target envy and got up to the cashier, and she said, "Can you BELIEVE that lady?"

Sigh.  I am so FREAKIN' glad I left my kids at home with Daddy.

Rachel and Leah and Goats

So much of the Bible is weird to me; talking donkeys, people cutting off ears, people dropping dead, people being turned to pillars of salt.  Half the stuff, I’m looking in the notes trying to figure what the heck that was I just read.  “Life Application” my butt.  If anybody comes looking to cut off my ear, I’m running. 

But I had another a-ha moment the other day where I finally understood something. We were reading the Jesus Storybook to the kids; we do that every night, and woe be unto you if you are tired and want to skip it. This story happened to be about Rachel and Leah.  It's in Genesis 29 and it talks about Jacob, who goes to work for his Uncle Laban.  Jacob works for Laban, and in return, Laban asks him what he wants for wages; he wants to marry Rachel because she's just so beautiful, he can’t stand it.  "²⁰ So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her."  Men are like that.  Wave some booty and they fall apart.  Ask me how I know.

So Laban says “Work for me for seven years and you can marry Rachel.”  Jacob does that, he works for seven years, and on his wedding night Laban sends Leah to his tent, not Rachel.  Now I guess it's pitch black dark in there, I don't know, and nobody talks (which I find hard to believe), but somehow he doesn't realize that it's Leah that he got, not until the early morning, after they've already done the nasty. And then Jacob goes to Laban all worked up, saying, “I served you for Rachel!  What the heck?”  (This is kind of like the Message.  “Dude, what up, you jerk!”)

Laban says, “We don’t give the younger daughter away first.  Work for me another seven years and I'll give you Rachel.”  No explanation for why he couldn't have said that up front, why he sneaked Leah in there.  No Steve Urkel, “Did I do thaaaat?”  Seven MORE years until Jacob gets Rachel, like Laban couldn’t have ever MENTIONED the fact that the oldest goes first?  For Pete’s sake, I’d have given you an extra cow if I’d known that, you know? 

The Bible says that God saw that Leah was not loved. Now it doesn't say what's wrong with Leah, other than she has “weak eyes,” it just says that she wasn't loved.  And we already know that Jacob didn't want her. I don't know if she had horns or was just butt-ugly or had some giant disfigurement or what her major malfunction was.  Apparently the main issue was that she wasn’t Rachel.  I try to imagine what she must have felt like; not being loved or wanted, married to her cousin (ew).  I don't think I'd have a happy life if I married somebody who straight up said he didn't want me. But the thing that I'm struck by is that through Judah, Leah’s son, came the line that would give us Jesus Christ.  How crazy is that.

I’ve heard that when we suffer or when bad things happen that we can't see the big picture; that only God can knows the purpose of our suffering.  Sometimes bad things or disappointing things happen in your life and you’re crushed, and maybe later you see how that worked out for good, days or years or whatever.  Example.  When we were just moving back to Jax, Dallas was promised a job. Then suddenly they decided to offer that job to someone who had less experience but also was cheaper. At the time, and for a few months later, he was devastated because he was counting on that job and he was really looking forward to working there.  But out of that disappointment came the job he has now, which he absolutely loves.  And through which we've been blessed to meet some very special people.  Later he was fine with not getting that job, because he enjoys what he's doing so much; God had something better.

But Jesus came through the line of Judah, and obviously Leah had no idea about that, that was WAY down the line.  She spent her entire life knowing she wasn't loved, with her weak little eyes and her horns and whatever.  The most awesome thing that came out of her life, and she never saw it!  She never had a clue, she’s just living her unlovable life, popping out a bunch of children and selling herself for mandrakes.   It's just one more reminder that even though I don't always see it and I can't understand it, I have hope that there's a larger purpose at work.  Ya just never know.

Minor epiphany aside, I'd like to leave you with a conversation between my three children. Yes I said three.  Eli is half mine, just like mine are half Sandy and Ron’s.  Eli came to spend the night the other night and on the way home they were all just being crazy, so I told them they should play the alphabet game.  We do this a lot in the car, mostly just to keep the kids occupied in the car so they don't drive me crazy, and here's how it goes.  For each letter of the alphabet, you have to think of an animal you're going to ride on, a place you're going to go, and something you're going to buy when you get there. This is the conversation.

Carter:  I'm going to ride a...

Eli:  Goat!

C:  No, hush, I’m thinking. 

Lots of giggling.

C: I'm going to ride a…

E:  GOAT!

C:  No, I don’t want a goat, I’m going to ride a….

E:  GOAT!

Hilarity ensues.

C:  Hush, Eli, I’m going to ride a gorilla.  And I’m going to go to…

E:  Georgia.

C:  Not Georgia.  G…g….g….guh guh…guh…

E:  GEORGIA!

C:  NO!

E:  GEORGIA!

C:  FINE!  I’m going to Georgia.  Mama, Georgia is G, right?
Me:  Yes, you can go to Georgia.

C:  Eli won’t hush.  Eli, hush.  *sigh*  I’m riding a gorilla and I’m going to Georgia and I’m going to buy a….

Sarah Cate:  A GOAT!!

Extemporaneous jocularity commences.

Randomosity

Good grief.  It's about a thousand degrees.  I'm hahhht.

One week Dallas was off, so we took the kids downtown to ride on the sad little Skyway that cost the city 40 quadrillion dollars that nobody ever rides.  But they love it, and it's kinda handy, but it doesn't go anywhere but downtown.  How pathetic is that.  We got to eat lunch at the Southern Grille, where our beloved Miss Jill works.  On the way Carter and Sarah Cate peppered me with questions:

"How many wheels do really big trucks have?"

"Why do they have two wheels next to each other?"

"Is that a Z or a U truck?"  (I used to work for CSX, and we learned that trucks with codes on the back that end in a U are containers; Z means a trailer.  Ever since I told Carter that, he is obsessed with finding the codes on the back of big trucks.)

"How many cylinders do cars have?"

"What's a transmission?"

"Why do trains have so many cars?"
"Why isn't the caboose red?  It should be red."

"I love this bridge!  Can we turn around and go back over it?"

"How do helicopters turn?"

Constant questions.  Some of the car questions, I'm like, Can't we just call Papa and ask him all these?  I don't know how cars go or what a carburetor does or why gas stinks or any of the other myriad of questions I'm asked on a daily basis.  The best I can do is, Let's Google it.  Dear Lord, we thank you for Papa and Mr. Google and the internet.  Amen.

I'm going through a mid-life crisis.  Since Carter was born I've been doing volunteer work somewhere; first it was with Department of Children and Families, a few in the middle, and now the mission I told you about.  I know my job is important to companies, they need what I do, but I feel like I'm not doing enough for people who really need a hand up.  Not that I think I can save the world or that I want a career in social work so other people's problems can suck the life out of me; I just think that the work I do that really counts is about at 5% vs. the paycheck I bring home is 95%, and I need it to be more like 50/50.  Over the last year or so, it's really become a compulsion.   I'm a relatively intelligent person, I got MAD SKILZ, surely I can find a position somewhere at a non-profit or a hospital or something; I don't have to be a missionary in Outer Slobovia.  But, I love the people I work for.  Seriously, there are not better bosses out there; I have the absolute best.  I don't particularly want to leave them.  And I still need a paycheck.  But I've got to do something or I'm gonna DIE.

So I'm looking into other avenues.  I don't know what that is, or what it's going to look like, but I'm hoping I'll know it when I see it.  I don't know how long it'll take, to find that THING.  But I'm willing to wait for the right THING, whatever that is. 

I met some more folks at the mission that I can tell you about.  There's Mike -- he was in phase 2, where they go to work on the farm, and he got colossally drunk one night and they kicked him back down to Start.  At least he's stayed in the program.  I sat down to talk to him and a guy named Bo, and Mike said, "I feel like I recognize you."  So I was like, "Really. I must just have a familiar face."  And he goes, "No, you look like my buddy's old lady."  Seriously?!  Who says that any more?  I gotta check with the old lady before I go out drinking tonight.  Isn't that from like, the 1950s?  I look like somebody's old lady.  How NICE.

I  met Joseph.  He told me he doesn't want to talk to anybody else about why he's there, but he wants to talk to me because he can tell I'm a Christian.  How he can tell that I don't know; I slop food around and clean tables, the hallmark of every God-fearing person, I guess.  He told me he's drunk most of the time and he finally decided he can't take it anymore.  His girlfriend tells him he comes home and yells at her and throws stuff around, and he doesn't remember any of it.  But he told her he was going to the mission, and she's so proud of him so he's trying to stay.  He said, "Look at my eyes, can't you see the bags under them?  I can never sleep when I'm drinkin'.  They're usually worse than this."  So I told him he has to stay, his girlfriend knows what she's talking about; he needs to be here.  He said, "yeah, okay, I might do that."  And I'm like, "NO.  I mean it.  YOU HAVE TO STAY.  I'll be here next week, I expect to see you.  If I don't see you I'm gonna hunt you down."  And he gets this huge grin on his face and he says, "Yes ma'am."   Guess what happened the next week -- no Joseph.  No Joseph since.  His girlfriend took him back.

Matt (the one that said his big belly was prettier than having track marks) went to the hospital for a week; I don't know for what, but Nehemiah said he called every day, so I was hoping he'd come back.  Not only did he not come back, he took somebody in the program with him.  Grrr.

And still no Cameron or James.  *sigh*

Next time I'll tell you about Cowboy, because he's had an amazing life.  And Nehemiah, because he's embarking on an amazing life.

But let me tell you what happened today.  I went to a volunteer project management class through one of the local service organizations.  I walked in to the class, and it was in a conference room with only one other girl.  Another girl came in, in a black dress.  Then a few minutes later a guy in an orange shirt came in.  Then two guys who were leading the class came in.  And we all sat there chatting before the class was supposed to begin, until Black Dress says, "I have to tell you about the weirdest thing; I was coming here, looking for a place to park, and there was a lady walking around the parking lot.  I stopped to ask her if she needed anything, and she said 'I'm looking for a way to kill myself.'"  We all just looked at her, and then Orange Shirt says, "Yeah, I saw her too, right out front.  I asked her if she needed anything but she said no."  So here I am thinking, I must have misunderstood.  So I said, "She's out there, wandering around, and she said WHAT?"  Black Dress repeats her story, and I said something like, "We've got to go get her."  I don't remember exactly what.  So I stood up, grabbed my phone, and went off into the parking lots looking for her, and the rest of them are just kind of following me around.  Long story short, we couldn't find her, and I couldn't find her later just driving around in the parking lots after the class, but WHO DOES THAT?!  Who talks to someone who says "I'm looking for a way to kill myself," and DRIVES OFF!  Then you sit in room full of people for 10 minutes before you say something?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME??

People are INSANE.  Freakin' insane.