Kids kids

It was about 1994. My two children, barely aged 5 and 2, were running around the church sanctuary as the worship team was practicing the songs. I let them run because nobody else was there yet for the service, but as people started to file in, I began to tighten the reins.

"People are coming in," I told them. "Time to stop running and play quietly."

They listened - for as long as small children's attention span lasts. Especially when one of them has undiagnosed ADHD. 

So they started making noises and playing under the seat. Their giggles mingled with thumps their feet made on the underside of the pew as they lay on the floor. Occasionally one of them would run around and I would have to go and catch the offending one (usually the youngest) and cart them back. 

I was getting more and more frustrated as more and more adults turned toward me and glared.

Free Image courtesy of chriswolf at Pixabay.com

One of the greeters at the entryway was a large, jovial man named Blair.  He watched the kids and saw my frustration. As I was carting my toddler back for the fourth time (it felt like the tenth), Blair touched my arm. I stopped, still holding the child under my arm like a football. By this time, the oldest was coming closer to investigate.

Blair smiled at me. "I'm going to tell you something that my kids' Ukranian grandmother said to me when our children were their age," he announced, jerking his head toward my children. He looked me straight in the eye and said slowly, "Kids kids."

I stared back at him quizzically, confused by his statement. "Kids kids?" I queried. 

He chuckled. "She didn't speak English all that well. What she meant was that children are going to be children no matter where they are. And they are children for such a short time. So let them be children." 

He grinned as I slowly grasped his meaning. He was encouraging me as a mother - saying that it wasn't so horrible of me to let my kids play - because after all, they were children! To let them be children was the best gift I could give them.

That statement helped form my (and our) parenting decisions from that time onward. If they wanted to play at church, I'd take them into the foyer (or outside if I could) and let them play themselves out, rather than subject a teacher to them fidgeting and their excess of energy. 

If they wanted to go into Cubs instead of Brownies, into Cubs they went - and excelled! The oldest wanted to go into Scouts - so we supported her when the time came. And when she decided on her own that it wasn't for her, we supported that too. 

We encouraged each of them to plunge into whatever they wanted and we didn't force them into activities they had no interest in. As a result, they decided to take swimming classes together - something their mom had never had the courage to do! The oldest was in her junior high school band for a little over three years, learned to play the flute, and dropped out of senior high school band when she got a "creepy teacher" (who eventually was discovered to be too "friendly" toward some of his girl pupils...) and the youngest discovered she had a gift (among the other gifts she had) for using her hands. She developed an interest in carpentry and welding before she passed away in 2013 in a car crash. 

Each person has unique gifts and fills a special place in the world that only they can fill. And it all came into focus for me that day when a man named Blair took the time to encourage a young, harried mother. 

He also had another saying, which he said quite often: "It's nice to be nice."  And he lived by it.  Thank you, Blair. Thank you.

 

Mothers Day

For all of my adult life, I have dreaded Mothers Day.  I thought of it as a day where people were gushing on about their mothers, how wonderful they were, how lucky they were to have such wonderful people who loved them unconditionally.

And I would compare their experience to mine and come up WAY short. Not everyone's mother is a saint, I would say. Of course nobody would believe that my growing-up years were so awful, especially after they met my mom. But the woman they met was not the woman I knew. They were totally unaware of what happened behind closed doors, and she liked it like that. And that, as Forrest Gump said, is all I have to say about that.

All that aside, soon after the death of my youngest daughter in a car crash, I started to rethink Mothers Day. This time, I started thinking about it from the other side - instead of me gushing on about my mother, I could look at it as my family honoring me AS a mother. 

Image by Liz Noffsinger at www.freedigitalphotos.net

That changed my perspective a bit. Especially when I look at how my relationship with my daughters changed after I got into therapy - hard to believe that was over 10 years ago!! - and I started to understand about personal boundaries. 

What I mean by personal boundaries is how everyone has them (including me), how I need to take a step back and not try to control everyone's thoughts, beliefs, and actions, and just let life happen, let people be who they are, and allow them to bear the consequences of their own actions without trying to fix them. 

That realization that everyone has boundaries (see my page on "What is Codependency?" on this blog) literally revolutionized my life and my relationships with my husband and my kids! I learned a whole new way of living life, and I would never go back to the way it was. That new lifestyle was a gift; it gave me another four and a half years of good relationship with my youngest before she passed away, and it has allowed me to grow and become a better person and a better mom. 

So instead of looking at Mothers Day as a time to honour my own mother (thus living a lie in my own mind - she was my abuser, not what everyone thinks of when they think of the typical concept of motherhood) I started to see the day differently: it became a way to celebrate the mom I am becoming. It became a means to let my children express their gratitude to me, and not robbing them of that experience like I did before. 

And instead of spouting all sorts of platitudes about HAVING a mom and feeling resentful of those people who had that gift in their lives, I could literally celebrate BEING a mom, breaking the cycle of abuse, and starting a new, gentle, accepting, and loving legacy. And that shift in focus helped me survive the annual dread-fest in the month of May at the beginning, and actually (as time went on) look forward to the second Sunday of May.

It's been a slow and sometimes painful change at times. As my own mother ages and gets further into her age-related dementia, she has already completely forgotten the things she did and said to make my life a living hell when I was growing up. And - though it surprises me to say it - it's become less and less important to me to have people believe my story, and more and more important to BE the kind of mother that I wish I had, the kind who showed her love in private instead of just in public, who supported me and who believed in me. She was rarely like that with me because she didn't want me to become prideful, but that fact doesn't keep me from choosing to be that loving, caring, accepting person with my loved ones. I can give them what I never was allowed to have: a chance to believe in themselves, to take pride in their accomplishments, and to have their own voice.

I've also been rethinking my reaction to others' desire to honour their mothers on Mothers Day. Before, I would roll my eyes or just want to stay away from folks who do that. I would hide in my house that day, want to pull the covers over my head, and reject any effort made to spoil me on Mothers Day. Honestly. What that did was steal something very important from my children, and make others who had good relationships with THEIR mothers to feel guilty for having something so wonderful.

Now, I'm more inclined to just say "Happy Mothers Day" to them.  But not only to them!  Now, I say it to women who - because of trauma - don't feel good on that day: women whose mothers were mean to them, women who never could have a child of their own, women who have miscarried, aborted, or lost a child to tragedy, women who never had the opportunity to have grandchildren, and also women whose children (and/or grandchildren) have walked away from everything they tried to teach them. Those are the hearts that hurt and weep on Mothers Day. And those are the people I think deserve to hold their head up and say that yes, I AM A MOM. I am worth something.

And we are.

Forget it.

There is an expression and a teaching in most Christian circles which, I believe, has caused a lot more harm than the good that it tries to do. It is also based on a misunderstanding of human nature and of the omnipotence and divinity of God. 

That saying is, "Forgive and forget."

I'm all for forgiving, when forgiveness isn't a substitute for the real thing. It isn't excusing the person because he was mad or she was having a rough time. It isn't saying it was nothing. It isn't saying that what the person did was okay. And it is definitely NOT forgetting.

I was in my forties before I learned what forgiveness was. When I was growing up, nobody apologized for anything ... and if someone did, the one receiving the apology was expected to pooh-pooh it and make the one apologizing feel better by saying it wasn't anything. Plus, in our family, apologies didn't say, "I hurt you. That was wrong. I'm sorry, and I'll try not to do that again," and leave it at that. No, the apology started with the I'm sorry part, skipped the hurting and the wrong part, and then included an explanation of why the person did whatever it was that hurt them. Or (which often happened) the person didn't say anything at all and just did something nice for the person they hurt.

Photo from Pexels at
https://www.pexels.com/photo/baby-child-close-up-crying-47090/

Only recently have I learned that neither of these is the way to apologize. This is a way to justify the original hurtful action and sometimes even make it the other person's fault. Or in not apologizing, the "good deed" is a thinly disguised bribe, which looking back, seems like the ultimate in avoidance. That realization was hard to accept. Very hard. 

Just as hard to accept for some is that when the Bible talks about forgetting sins, it's not talking about US forgetting them, but it's talking about GOD forgetting them when He forgives. This is not because He is forgetful but because He chooses not to remember them. Let me repeat this for emphasis: forgetting sins is something that ONLY GOD can do. Expecting humans to do it is unfair because it is beyond our capability to remove a memory once it's been made, especially a traumatic one. It might be possible with a mild infraction, I'll grant that. But trauma? Nope. Not happening, because trauma hard-wires itself into our brains; it is a survival instinct to remember in great detail something that will hurt us in the future. 

I have talked before in this blog about what forgiveness actually is: a process that starts with feeling and admitting the hurt, calling it wrong, and choosing not to make the person pay for what he or she did. And sometimes it needs to be repeated (especially in cases of trauma / long-term abuse). Often. Healing is possible. It is. But remembering serves the purpose of being able, once we are healed from the hurt, of being able to walk someone else through that process of healing.

That being said, never has human forgiveness been about forgetting. It is literally physically and emotionally impossible for us to forget being traumatized, unless we lose that part of our brain by accident or disease. And neither of those options is anything we would want... neither brain injury nor dementia is pleasant. "God understands our frame. He remembers that we are only dust."

We can be grateful that God is not like us, and that He chooses not to remember our sins for the sake of close relationship with us. In fact, our sins were ALL forgiven AND forgotten (past, present, and future) thousands of years ago, as all of eternity hinges on the sacrifice of Jesus, which in the spiritual realm sent tsunamis of forgiveness in every direction and in every possible timeline from the moment of the Rebellion in Heaven onward. Not convinced? How about "... chosen in Him before the foundation of the world...."? How about "It is finished!" 

But even though we as humans cannot forgive AND forget, we can be free of the nasty side-effects of holding a grudge... as hard as that is sometimes and as good as holding a grudge can feel (it feeds our pride and justifies our behavior toward that person or people who are LIKE that person). We can be free, I say. We can choose to begin to forgive. Let me explain what I mean.

Forgiveness is a choice, but it is also a process. We needn't beat ourselves up for not being able to let go of the hurt the first time we make that choice. It might take many times, depending on the depth of the hurt and how long it lasted. But forgiveness works best by going through the process I mentioned earlier: (1) not denying that you were hurt, (2) allowing yourself to feel that hurt, and exploring how it has affected you in the present day, (3) placing the blame on the person or people who hurt you and not on yourself, and (4) [and this could take some time], realizing that the person can never repay you what they took from you (for example, your innocence or your sense of safety), so it is time to not try to make them pay, time to stop wishing that they'd apologize or change.  THAT is forgiveness. It doesn't make what the person did all right (because it was wrong), but it does free you to move on with your life. 

And never mind that you can't forget. That's not your job anyway. It's God's.

The serpent in the pew

Recently I was at a gathering where a list of 'ungodly' behaviors was read out. Among them were such things as gossip and slander and witchcraft, among others. The person reading the list said, "Of course we know there's no witchcraft in the church..." and went on to discuss the idea that there are no little sins and big sins to God. They're all sins. 

Hmm. Yes, yes all sin is sin in God's eyes. There is no difference. Gossip and murder are on a par. Lying and idolatry are all the same to Him.

But dismissing a particular sin because it's not obvious or doesn't fit the current definition of what the world thinks something is? 

I received a teaching on this particular practice (of witchcraft) a few years back. Basically the teaching went back to the original root words that make up the term for witchcraft. It is a compound word meaning control, manipulation and intimidation. WELL then! I believe we have a serpent in the pew, because I can't count the number of times I (and others in the church) have used manipulation and intimidation to control other people in the same family ... the family of God. 

It starts with the word "should." (Oh how I HATE that word!) We SHOULD be living holy lives. Our lives (i.e., the end product of our lives) SHOULD be this or that way (we do this with everything, even things like what folks should eat, wear, listen to, etc.) 

Photo "Blue Butterfly" by
dan at
www.freedigitalimages.net

And then it morphs. Our own pet beliefs (which have nothing to do with the Gospel) start infringing on it, and we start thinking that they are part and parcel of "the whole counsel of God." This particular person SHOULD be letting me do what I feel I am called to do, and I SHOULD have the right to influence this or that person's behavior because it's obviously flawed (because it's not the way I would do it). 

It's like this. The desire to control other people comes from an inborn need to feel safe and comfortable. The problem arises when we think we can do something to cause that change - enter manipulation (for example, guilt trips). And intimidation (for example, [adult] temper tantrums). The end result of this is that we get to thinking that it's our responsibility to change others. So we use those tools (er, weapons) and try to do the job that only the Holy Spirit is qualified to do. 

That's witchcraft.  That's the serpent.

Knowing that there is such a thing can help us identify it in ourselves and agree with God that it is not something we want in our lives. Not because we need to "toe the party line" but because Jesus has given it all for us, and through His death God declares us NOT GUILTY. That (and that alone) kills the serpent. We are transformed.

We are made free.

Through gratitude, then, we offer our lives up to Him to do with as He wills, to worship and adore Him in spite of our own perception of our failings. Others' failings will not matter. Our focus is Him. And no matter what the problem is, HE is the answer. Even if it's the serpent in the pew.

The Relatable Jesus

You know, I've seen so much in my lifetime that passes for the way Christians think they are supposed to act and speak. This has produced a subculture where a certain lingo or jargon starts to overtake the person's interactions with people. I've seen them tilt at windmills and go on crusades to try to make other people behave according to Christian principles when quite frankly, it's only an illusion that we live in a "Christian society." All the while, some Christians will hang out together and shut out the world, developing a "siege mentality" (us vs them) and reject anything and anyone that doesn't look like them.  

At the same time, I've watched unbelievers laugh up their sleeves at such believers for years and years, (and learn to discount everything that every Christian tells them). And I've watched those same believers be mystified by that reaction (or worse yet, chalk the reaction up to 'persecution' and keep behaving in the same way). 

And even the term "unbelievers" is so ... prejudiced, isn't it? It panders to the myth that there are only two types of people in the world - people who are 'believers' (i.e., fundamentalist Christians) and people who aren't. 

Which brings me to the topic of this post. 

"White Mask" photo by podpad at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I don't remember ever reading about Jesus turning anyone away because that person was a drunk, a prostitute, a Roman collaborator (i.e., tax-collector), or non-Jewish, or who had hair that was too long (or short) or body odour. I don't recall Him leading protest marches, burning Roman bath-houses, heading up petitions, or insisting on a dress code. People who were looking for something more in their lives flocked to Him, and He loved them all. True, He didn't participate in their dysfunction, but He also didn't shut Himself away from them and reject them just because they didn't act or think like Him. He spoke the language of the common people. He told stories that people [and not just the elite few] could relate to; He didn't (although He could have) expound at length about the ills of His society. 

He accepted people. He really cared about them. About the only thing that He came out against was the very kind of thing that I was describing in the first couple of paragraphs of this post: hypocrisy, and cruelty in the name of God. 

He didn't come to change society. He didn't come to change systems. He came to love people, to show them what God was really like. You see, people in His day had gotten it into their heads that God was all about following rules and pounding you on the head if you didn't follow them. Jesus came to change all that. He came to make a way for people to have a relationship with God. Pure and simple. Not to solve the age-old question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (and why would they want to?) ... and not to exclude people on the basis of their differences. He came to demonstrate to the world what they never knew before He came: that God is love. He's not about punishment; He doesn't need to be appeased. Jesus appeased Him. Jesus took the punishment for us. Period. And that is the Good News.

Maybe it's time that Christians remembered that, because it seems that a lot of us have forgotten. We put on masks. We hide behind the denominational label, behind the church pews, and we take pot shots in frustration at the world and the people in it. We make ourselves unapproachable by the very things that we do that we think show others that we are dedicated followers of Jesus. 

Yet Jesus was the most relatable human being ever. 

If we are un-relatable, if people can't relate to us or don't want to be around us, it doesn't mean that we're "doing something right." It means that we are doing something wrong. We are (in our efforts to show the world that we're His) excluding them and pushing them away from our lives, ruining every opportunity to be the salt and light that Jesus said we already are just because we hang around Him. 

What I'm suggesting is not that we stop standing for what is right. What I AM suggesting is that we take a good, long, hard look at ourselves, that we open our hearts and ask God to show us how we are keeping or driving people away from Him by the way we act, the people we hang around with (and don't hang around with) and the language that we use without even being aware of it. If we ask Him to show us those blind spots and to make us more like He is, I think He will be delighted to show us - and love through us, mask-free - without us getting in the way.

Asking permission

"Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands ..." - I Timothy 5:22(a)

It's happened to just about anyone who goes to a church that believes in the laying on of hands (either for healing or for authorization for ministry, ... there are more instances.)

There's something wonderful about the support that is expressed by touch. It can be a great source of comfort. 

However, it can also be a great source of DIScomfort. It all depends on who you talk to. 

I've lost count of the number of times and situations in various denominations where I've felt the need to go to the altar to pray. And within seconds after I get there, only wanting to kneel and talk to God ... I have gotten pounced upon by some well-meaning extrovert who only wants to impart some spiritual energy. 

Hmm. That kind of assumption has the opposite effect, quite frankly. Nobody ASKed me if they could do that; nobody ASKED me if I wanted to be alone; I had thought that by kneeling, it was an automatic gesture that I need to meet with God. Not His people. At least, not in that instance. However, I guess the one with a hot hand heavy on my back and shouting in my ear (oh, sorry, praying over me....) didn't get the memo. If I had wanted someone else to pray for me, I'd have gone up and stood in front of someone and ASKED. 

Not that I would. At least, not often. 

Asking for prayer opens me up to the personal opinions and pet doctrines of the person I ask to pray for me, because being "prayed for" or "prayed over" puts me in a very vulnerable position. Therefore, I need to implicitly trust that person. I don't usually trust people who assume that because they would like to be prayed for, that I would as well. Besides which, I've had too many people go all "Christian commando" on me ('taking authority' and 'binding the enemy' and all that stuff, stuff I used to do and sometimes still do - in private!) And then they get a whole group of people involved (as if by joining forces they can better twist God's arm). At that point I start to panic, and my simple need gets to be broadcast all over the place without my consent, when all I originally wanted to do was get alone with God and seek His face.

If I refuse their offer ... somehow that's not well-received.

I'd really like to be asked for permission instead of being TOLD to submit to some person's idea of "ministry." Just saying.

The same thing goes for legislated love. ("What in the world is THAT?" I hear someone saying...)

I like to hug people; I like to express my affection for someone, and I like it to be spontaneous. And most of all, REAL.  But an enforced hugging (that is, being told to hug or "love on" someone just because he or she is a believer) is, to me, like a social violation. Quite frankly, I usually absent myself from such exercises.

I'm kind of particular about the person or persons with whom I share personal space. To me, any social situation is riddled with risk. The only reason I go to church gatherings is to obey Hebrews 10:25 - not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.  I am still SO not comfortable with mandated mingling. So I duck out. Or I stay in my seat. Or I go get a drink of water ... or go to the washroom or something, ANYTHING to keep from engaging in meaningless (and by meaningless I mean without meaningfulness) social babble.

Photo "Blue Butterfly" is used
with the kind permission of "dan"
at www.freedigitalphotos.net

 Let me contrast that with something that happened last Sunday morning. 

It had been a particularly rough week emotionally for me; I was (and still am) concerned about the health and safety of someone I love ... and the emotional pain and sense of helplessness has been excruciating. I was totally spent; I had nothing left emotionally, physically, even spiritually. I was exhausted in every way. 

And it was Thanksgiving. It sure didn't feel like Thanksgiving. 

Before the service, while the worship team was practicing, I saw someone I knew and chatted with her a bit. She asked about how I was doing and I knew that she really wanted to know. So I told her. Warts and all. She didn't judge me. She encouraged me, cried with me and hugged me. When she prayed, it didn't sound like she was blaming me or coming up with answers of her own, but just loving me and bringing my situation to Someone who loves me.

It meant so much.

During the service, the music was uplifting (even if it was bittersweet to listen to through the pain), and after the worship time, I leaned heavily on my husband's shoulder while there were some administrative things like announcements and offering, and then someone preached a very short but well-articulated sermon. When hubby left to go back up on the stage and finish up the service with the music ministry team, I let the music wash over my soul again. 

And as I got up afterward, another woman from our assembly was standing there in front of me - and she let me know that she had been praying for me and for my situation, and that she would continue to do so. It was very low-key, and very sincere, and it touched my heart. She asked about that situation (in a way that told me that she cared and that this wasn't a fact-finding mission to fuel gossip later) ... and I shared some information. Then she asked me if it would be okay with me (!!!) if she contacted a friend who might be able to help in some practical ways. 

I was blown away by her respect, by her genuine concern, and by her compassion and gentleness.

Other things happened that day ... among them, the choice of a particular song by a worship leader to sing in practice, specifically to speak to our needs - regardless of  whether we did the song in the service or not. 

Again, so special!

I'm still so thankful that every once in a while, God touches me in unexpected ways and shows me that He is still at work in His church -- that it isn't all about who can show to the most number of people that he or she is most spiritual. God uses real people to minister to real people who have real life issues. Hurting people want ... no, NEED ... that kind of reality. 

If only it wasn't so rare. 

God willing, maybe it won't be.

Entering Into Rest

I had a strange spiritual experience last night. It wasn't in the realm of the bizarre - because I've been present when others have had similar ones - but this was the first time it had happened to me.

Let me back up a bit. For the past few weeks, my almost-21 daughter has been in a relationship with a young man which she INSISTS isn't sexual but which is, by all observations, obsessional in nature. Six months ago she didn't even know him; now, she declares that he is her best friend. 

This young man has a past that includes a conviction in a court of law for dealing drugs. He maintains relationships with the people he knew while he was in that life, and in the past few weeks, our property has been vandalized, money has been stolen from our house, and narcotics - prescribed for our other child after a major surgery - were stolen as well. He left our house that day and hasn't been back, but she continued to spend time with him. We set down more and more limits - and slowly it became painfully clear that she was choosing her new friends over her family. 

This hasn't been the first time that she has obsessed about a member of the opposite gender. Ever since before she turned 14, this has been happening. As soon as her hormones turned on, there's been a growing fascination with the world that we tried so hard to protect her from - first nicotine and then alcohol, then the lifestyle of the drug addict and the pusher. Of course that lifestyle doesn't just include the acts themselves, but a whole host of destructive behaviors - violence, theft, verbal and physical abuse, pathological lying, riding the edge of the law, cop-baiting, and (needless to say) disrespect of anything or anyone that insists on the truth. 

It was when this young man used her phone and texted me all sorts of obscene insults, accusing me of the most unthinkable things - and then she defended HIM - that I realized that the child I knew, the beautiful, loyal, caring person I had helped to raise, was dead. She had died seven years ago and had been replaced by someone who now had no moral compass. Her toxic behavior and attitudes poisoned relationships with all who cared about her; her friends (the ones who really DID care - one even told me, "She's changed. I don't even know who she is anymore") didn't want to spend time with her anymore.

It was at that point that I allowed myself to grieve.

The pain was beyond anything I had ever felt. And it's not over; it comes in waves.

Anyway, this past Thursday night, after being used as a human ATM for what seemed like the millionth time, we had a conversation with her in which we calmly but firmly told her that she was not allowed back into our house any more. She had made her choice and she couldn't eat her cake and still have it. 

I talked with our pastor about the situation and how I was - we were - reacting to it emotionally. He affirmed our decision - which he said was really the only decision we could have made - and it helped to know that we had his support. Yet there was an ache in my heart and a big heavy ball in my belly that made it difficult to take a deep breath. I would reach down and it would be rock-hard. It never left... it was always there, even in the night.

"Sleeping Baby" photo courtesy of Dynamite Imagery at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

Which brings me to last evening at church. In intense prayer for my daughter, and in prayer as well for relief / respite from the pain, Pastor came up behind me and a couple of ladies from the church were there, each holding a hand. I won't go into the details, but my heart felt like it was in labor, the emotional pain was so severe. For well over ten minutes, it was as if I was giving birth to her all over again. I was wet to my shoulders with tears, my breath coming in gasps. All the anguish I had been holding in so as to "be strong" came out ... and I ended up limp, weak and sobbing as prayer continued on behalf of our entire family.

It was exhausting. I had a sense, however, of laying my head on Jesus' shoulder, hearing His heartbeat, and feeling His arm around me as if I were an injured lamb and He the shepherd ... and He was carrying me until I was strong enough to walk on my own.

A fresh wave of tears came welling up, later, as Pastor came over again after my husband was able to come off the stage (he'd been on worship team) and sit beside me. Pastor began to intercede for my husband - our pastor is a true shepherd; he has the ability to sense the emotions people are hiding or even unable to feel - and he began to groan in empathy as he prayed. And suddenly a dear friend was sitting there beside me on the other side, with her arm around me, weeping with us. 

It was a blessed and precious (if strange) time of true openness and fellowship - unlike anything I'd ever experienced in that place before. 

When we got home, I came to my computer and spent some time on Facebook, even crocheted a bit, and tried playing a computer puzzle-game. I think I remember watching some of the national news program on TV.

My husband had to wake me up an hour later to get me to go to bed and sleep. I stumbled through my nightly routine and went to bed. 

When I awoke, something felt different. I was laying on my belly, something I have not been able to do for months but especially for the last few days, because of that heavy, hard ball in my belly. 

It was gone.

I reached down to my belly and pushed. It felt spongy - pliable - just like the lower abdomen feels after one has delivered a baby. 

And I could take a deep breath without any pain at all. 

The scriptures talk about "laboring to enter into rest" - and although I know that has a deeper spiritual meaning, I believe that is exactly what happened. 

I had labored, given birth, and now I could rest. 

Just rest - trust - and let Him hold me.

In Direct

I'm learning something new. Well, actually it's old - but it's new to me.

I'm learning how to cope with being hurt by someone - whether inadvertently (which is usually the case) or on purpose.

I've always known THAT I was not supposed to go blabbing my stuff to other people and participate in the most common church activity there seems to be: backbiting, gossiping, and spreading discord. 

Yet it seemed to be the only way for me to get the message out without actually confronting someone - something I dreaded, so I just didn't do it. I didn't know how, and I didn't care to know either. After all, it would mean that I would have to change. And I didn't want to change; they were the ones who were supposed to change, not me. 

And people got hurt; their reputations got hurt. 

And I stayed hurt, too. Nothing got resolved; as a matter of fact, it usually got worse over time as I built my imaginary castle of perceived slights, false assumptions and expectations of being hurt further, and I thickened the walls with other people's opinions, people who already had axes to grind.

I raised the passive-aggressive approach to an art form. All that did was isolate me and attract more of the same sort of treatment - this time for real.

Learning how to put my head down, brace myself, burrow in and go directly to someone instead of to everyone but that person - that was hard. It was hard because I was ... terrified. 

Two friends spending happiest time together - courtesy of
imagerymajestic at www.freedigitalphotos.net

Even after I'd learned to be honest with myself about how I was feeling, even after I had learned to set boundaries for myself with others, and was even starting to set boundaries around myself in some situations, the direct approach was something at which I quailed. I ran from it at every opportunity. 

Until I couldn't anymore. 

Until I didn't have the luxury of talking trash about someone because I really, truly liked - even loved - that person, and I didn't want to run away anymore. Not from my friend. Keeping the relationship alive was more important to me than my fear. 

But I wanted to be honest too. If my perceptions were correct, we needed to work things out. And if they weren't - I needed to know instead of assuming wrong things about my friend. 

So ... I wrote an email.

Hey - I write. I'm a big believer in the backspace key - and I was afraid of spilling out words I could never un-say. 

So anyway, I wrote - told my friend how I felt, how I was hurting - and left the door open for a response.

And the response came, tempered with gentleness. As I had hoped, my perceptions were wrong, based on my own feelings of inadequacy, and the door to restoration had been opened. Before the end of the day, we worked out our differences. 

Love won over fear. 

And nothing awful happened. Huh.

Over Looked

Ever been the one left standing by yourself when folks are picking teams?

I have. It's not a nice feeling. It's like the team captains saw you, but didn't want you. Or perhaps they just picked their friends - or the ones who were the best at scoring goals. Being small in stature (as I was and still am, obviously) was a liability. I always got the impression they were looking over my head - like I was invisible or something. At any rate, I spent a lot of time on the sidelines when I was a kid.  

Being overlooked sucks. 

I thought high school was a thing of the past.
Just saying. 

"Teenage Girls Gossiping" courtesy of Ambro at
www.freedigitalphotos.net

I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm under five feet, and I've been treated like a non-entity so many times (people looking past me at someone else who's taller, better looking, or older - or younger), that I'm more sensitive to it today. It's a deeply wounded place for me. And - it seems - when there is such a place that's raw and hurting, it turns into a magnet for more of the same. People can be cruel without even meaning to be. 

And when they actually MEAN to be - it's even worse. Especially ... especially if it comes from someone whom you like, whom you wish liked you. Even a little. Or who (worse yet) has told you that you're special to them - but who chooses to be around others when the crunch comes. 

I've been in situations where I've been right there - RIGHT THERE - when someone needed something I had to offer, something I had offered to provide  on many occasions. And ... they picked someone else. Right in front of me. 

Over and over again. I get so sick of it happening time after time, every time. I try to be gracious about it; I try to follow the advice of those who blithely offer it: "Don't let it get to you." The truth of the matter is that it hurts.

It hurts a LOT. And it happens most frequently ... in the church. The sense of being betrayed that rises up in me is hard to escape - and hard to stomach. In fact, it feels like someone took a good running start, and kicked me in the gut.

The psalmist wrote about this phenomenon.

"It is not an enemy who taunts me; I could have borne that.
It is not my foes who so arrogantly insult me - I could have hidden from them.
Instead, it is you - my equal, my companion and close friend.
What good fellowship we once enjoyed as we walked together to the house of God." (Psalm 55:2-14, NLT)

The psalmist then prays for nasty things to happen to folks like this. I can understand that sentiment all too well! Treatment like that makes me want to blow this pop stand ... sky high. Many times, I've wanted to just walk away and never look back.  Oh no, not walk away from God - don't misunderstand me. I just get so tired of ... being overlooked, taken for granted, ignored. 

And it's not that I'm after any kind of recognition or applause, or for people to call attention to me and tell me how wonderful I am just because they think that this is what motivates me. It doesn't.  Sometimes, though, I feel like the person who's been at a company for a long time and the younger, better looking people come in and rise to the top, even though that person is just as qualified for a promotion. Nobody even thinks to offer it to him. After all, that's the way it's always been. And hey, he might even turn such a promotion down - but how would they know if they never asked? it never even crossed their minds.

So ... more and more, I've been choosing to be around people who like having me around, people who appreciate my contribution. Tragically enough, that seems to be those who are NOT in the church. Either the church people don't like me, or they have no clue how to show love and consideration. Or maybe they don't want to be associated with someone who freely admits that she doesn't have it all together. It messes with the "Christians are supposed to be perfect and mature at all times" fallacy.

You can only take so much pain before it gets to be too much. At that point, you start to shut down, shut people out, shut up, and shut off.
 
So ... if anyone wonders why I hesitate to volunteer for things anymore in the church - perhaps it might help if they stepped inside my size 7 footwear for a while. I'm sure they wouldn't want to stay in my shoes for very long.  

I know I don't. 

Slings and arrows

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly I forget and need to re-learn lessons I thought I've already taken and gotten a passing grade on.

Lesson 1: God is far better able to handle things than I am.
Lesson 2: After a victory comes a period of testing.
Lesson 3: Letting go is still the best way to handle both.

After the MRI miracle (that's a link to my previous post) - our daughter called the specialist the following morning to book a consultation to discuss the results. They booked it for March 8 - just a little over 2 weeks from the day she called. We felt indeed blessed. 

Doubly so when the surgeon's office called her the FOLLOWING morning to say that they had received the results of the MRI and that they wanted to see her THAT DAY to discuss. Less than 2 days after the MRI!!

The discussion ended with him writing a requisition for surgery and putting on the requisition to place her on the cancellation list - in other words, the sooner this surgery happens (see my post about this on Get Unwrapped!) the better! 

WELL. I forgot lesson 2. 

Flushed with victory, I felt confident enough this morning to invite my daughter to a special service at church this morning led by the children. We enjoy these services because the kids don't just "perform," they MINISTER; they LEAD. Of course it's a bittersweet thing for me because it's something we feel that we will never be able to experience as parents, to have our kids involved in such things. Water under the bridge, too much water under the bridge to go into right now. Suffice to say that their experience of the church is far less stellar than we would have liked. Part of that is our fault in our insistence on rules and such, but another part is the fact that as much as WE were about rules growing up, the church atmosphere was even more so, and they almost always felt shunned by the people who were supposed to love and nurture them. 

Anyway, I thought she might enjoy seeing the kids in charge for a change; they really are wonderful when they lead the service. 

She turned me down flat. Thinking she might be doing so because of how she feels every time she goes to our church (crowded, judged, etc.) I suggested she catch it on UStream.

She made a face - clearly disgusted. "It's about ... God ... isn't it." The way she looked when she said His Name ... like it was the most distasteful thing she'd ever had to say ... cut me to the quick. 

"I ... see your point," I said to her, and walked away numbly - as if I'd been shot - through my soul - with an arrow: one that pierced straight through and that was still there, sticking out at both ends. 

I managed to make it to our bedroom and close the door before the grief overwhelmed me. Wave upon wave of remorse, shame, and sadness washed over the inside of me; I felt like a total and complete failure as a Christian, and as a mother.

My husband, my very best friend in the whole world, held me, let me sob, and then "talked me down." He reminded me of a couple of things I'd already learned ... but forgotten to remember in my sadness and hurt. Lessons one through three, above, to be exact. Plus a number of other things that had to do with letting go and trusting God, that it wasn't my job to rescue her, that she needed to come to Him on her own and I'd spent too much time (pre-recovery) trying to make it happen already (and all that did was have the opposite effect!!)  Without saying it, he reminded me that the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit; it's HIS job to bring people into a relationship with God, not mine. 

He let me pray all I could manage to pray (something like, 'Oh Gawwwwwd' - not very imaginative, but heart-felt!) He let me feel what I felt, and he helped me let go ... or start to ... and to trust God for the outcome. He did not judge me; he supported me and held me up when I couldn't hold myself up, and he turned my face toward the Source - until I found my Center again. 

"Two are better than one," the preacher wrote, "because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up the other ... and a threefold cord is not quickly broken." (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

Have I mentioned that (among other things) I'm so grateful that God in His wisdom and mercy, brought my husband and me together?

Quiet: Testing in Progress

Have you ever seen these signs on a door when in an office building or a campus? "QUIET: TESTING IN PROGRESS." I have, frequently. I've even been behind a few of those signs - the one being tested, either individually or in a group of people writing the same test. 

From a site selling
all kinds of safety signs

Can I get away with saying that it's a lot easier being outside the door than inside? Can I even venture to say that it's a lot easier grading the tests (well of course it is: the grader has all the answers!) than it is taking them? 

It's so natural to slip into the role of grader - the one with all the answers, and therefore able and willing to point out another's mistakes - than it is to be the one taking the test and making the mistakes. I know; I do it all too frequently, and the results are ALWAYS bad. My problem is, I tend not to tell the person directly. I handle things in a couple of different ways. One is that I tell someone else and hope word gets back to them so they'll stop doing [fill in the blank]. If it does, by the time it gets there, it's all blown out of proportion - and feelings get hurt on both sides. Another way is that I don't say anything for a long time, and I let things build up and up and up ... and then one day I can't take it anymore and I say something snarky, and the person's feelings get hurt - and I end up looking like the bad guy. (Yes, I know that "snarky" is not a word. But it should be: snide remark = snark.) Plus ... that person never speaks to me again and gets others to see things his/her way, and a whole pile of people prejudge, and stop talking to me. This has happened most often in Christian circles (probably because that's where I spend most of my time outside work and family), but it's not limited to that part of my life. I have to conclude, then, that the problem isn't with Christians or with non-christians; the problem is with me. 

You know that moment before you give in to the temptation to justify yourself and make the other person look bad? Yes, I know it's temptation (which is never God's fault - it's the other guy's, you know, with the horns and the pitchfork - haha), but in a sense the circumstances surrounding that situation also constitute a test. I have a choice - call it multiple choice if you like - as to how to react to any given situation. The more I realize that, left to my own devices, I will ALWAYS choose the wrong thing ... the more I will leave the choice of what I do to God and follow what He wants me to do rather than what comes naturally. And therein lies the test part. It's not a test of character; it's a test of helplessness and dependency. As a human being, I like to run things. When I do, I inevitably mess up. It's as simple as that. 

I think that part of the answer lies in the first word of that sign I mentioned at the first of this post. Quiet. I think it was Solomon who said something like, "Even a fool, when he keeps quiet, is considered wise." The French people have a proverb or saying that sort of goes along with that: "Il faut y penser deux fois avant de parler" - which means, "Think twice about it before speaking." In this type of test, that's good advice for people on BOTH sides of the sign - inside (the one being tested) and outside (the one who is passing by, or passing judgment.) Quiet - think - pray first. I'm talking to my self here - the part of me that has to have her own way. I am so quick to react, to shoot first and ask questions later. 

King David prayed once, "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips." (Psalm 141:3) If that prayer is not a great signpost, a reminder to be quiet, I don't know what is.

When it comes right down to it - the "testing in progress" is taking place on both sides of the door, just from different perspectives. Perhaps it's time to give each other a break and just ... do what the Sign says.

Say it. Today.

Last night our pastor preached on creating a culture of prayer based on loving each other and cooperating with the Spirit... among other things. It dovetailed perfectly with our associate pastor's message yesterday morning on approaching God in humility instead of haughtiness, meekness instead of manipulation. Then pastor gave us an opportunity to put into practice what we'd been taught - to seek out someone as God would lead us, and pray with that person. What followed can only be described as a manifestation of tenderness. 

People left their pews and sidled into others - one by one - to touch someone on the shoulder, or to sit with him or her in the pew. Some had left their seats and were praying alone at the altar; others joined them - one to one - and prayed with them. I was on the platform in music ministry, sitting on the edge of one of the platform tiers, singing. Most of the time my eyes were closed, so what I saw was mostly in short 'vignettes' - snippets of time. 

It was beautiful. 

Praying for someone else builds unity
and relationships. Image source

I felt an arm across my back and a hand on my shoulder. Someone had taken a seat next to me. This person began to pray for me - and try as I might, I could not continue singing. The microphone - still in my hand - dropped to my lap. My tears started to flow, because I could tell through tone and through the sincerity of the grip on my shoulder that this person loved me ... a lot. 

The words were nice - but they weren't the main thing. The main thing was that this individual cared. Cared about me. Cared about my life. Cared about the people I loved, the things that mattered to me. Cared enough to talk to the Almighty One on my behalf. 

I'd been feeling like my efforts - at home, at church, with friends and family - sometimes were for nothing; I was starting to lose hope that the things I was hoping and praying for would come to pass. This person's prayer (and it wasn't to me; I just got to listen in!) renewed my faith, bolstered my belief. I needed that ... so much.

The prayer over, my benefactor squeezed my shoulder again and left to follow God's leading somewhere else. After a minute or so, I was able to mop up my face and resume singing.

After another few minutes, another person approached me with words of encouragement and affection expressed for both my husband and me. It was so very touching, and it met an inner need I didn't even know I had; I felt (and feel) so blessed, so grateful.

In that whole sanctuary, there was no gossip, no condemnation, no animosity or frustration with each other. The whole place was transformed.

The love in that room was tangible. Everyone felt it; I could tell by the looks of awe and peace that I saw on their faces as we gathered in a final circle to pray together as a group. 

This - this is community. This is a glimpse of the Church at her finest, realizing the grace of God and passing that grace along, building each other up, coming alongside each other, supporting and loving each other. 

I issue a challenge to you as a member of the community of faith. Ask God to bring someone to your mind who needs some encouragement, who is struggling and needs prayer. It might even be someone you think has it all together; trust God's leading on who it is. Pray for that person, pray in as many specifics as you know how - and then contact and encourage him or her. 

SAY it. Don't just think it. TODAY, not tomorrow, not next week. You never know when someone might need to hear something from your heart. 

You just never know.

How to really love your neighbor

"Love thy neighbor," quips the old T-shirt, "but don't get caught."

We may find this amusing - or scandalous - but the kernel of truth in this is that a lot of people think that expressions of love are this great taboo.

I've heard so many sermons on love, how God is love, what the attributes of love are, the fact that we are called to love, that we should love everyone and pay special attention to loving our brothers and sisters in Christ (more about that in another post).  But nowhere have I heard any sermon on HOW to love. You know, the kind of love where the person you love KNOWS you love him or her.  And I don't mean romantic love or erotic love - I mean a fellowship of spirits, where each can be him or her self and feel safe in the other's presence.

There was a Christian doctor who wrote a book called How To Really Love Your Child - followed by the sequel, How To Really Love Your Teenager (Dr. Ross Campbell, ©1977 and ©1981) and I remember reading those books and thinking how the techniques he talked about could apply not just to children and teens but everyone we claim to love unconditionally - and that only a heaping dose of God's presence could ever give us the power to do it.

Because let's face it - as much as we want to love unconditionally, we just can't do that in a sustained manner in our own strength.  We are human, after all.  But God can give us that love for people, because He loved us first.  Because He IS love. 

It's not an original idea, but I keep telling anyone who will listen that we absolutely CANNOT give away what we don't have.  Trying to love someone will never work, no matter how much we think (or are told that) we "should."  Unconditional love, explains Dr. Campbell, works on a 'tank' principle, much like a gasoline tank in your car, except with emotions.  If a person's emotional tank is full, he or she is able to act in an appropriate and responsible way toward other people.  But if it's running on empty, that's when mistakes are made, and problems can start and can get out of hand. 

I would add that God IS unconditional love; it has its source in Him.  Paying attention to deepening our relationship with God is the first step in the process of loving others: it starts with letting Him love us, and trusting that love. I only say that because I've heard so many people skip over that crucial part and then wonder why "it" doesn't work for them. When our own tanks are full from God's inexhaustible reservoir, we have something to give to others, without becoming depleted ourselves. Filling someone else's tank out of a place of abundance is one of the most remarkable experiences there is.  I've used that one principle of "filling the tank" time and time again with my children, with amazing results.  It works - and it's awesome. 

Photo found at
http://bullysmarts.info/making_difference.html

Sometimes, though, there's a disconnect between actually loving someone from that fulness, and being able to express that love in a way that the other person can understand and access.  In essence, there's lots of love in the tank but the gas line is plugged. This is where the rubber meets the road - where we get to participate in God's plan.

Dr. Campbell also talked about that at length in his books and suggested a three-pronged approach to communicating love (in a nutshell: eye contact, physical contact, and positive focused attention).  This idea is very similar to a book that Dr. Gary Chapman wrote some thirty years ago, describing five love languages.  Learning what primary love-language the other person speaks can go a long way to knowing how to communicate the love that we have for that person in a way that he or she will understand.  The five love-languages (or the five ways people understand that someone loves them) are: 
(1) Words of Affirmation, 
(2) Quality Time, 
(3) Receiving Gifts, 
(4) Acts of Service, and 
(5) Physical Touch.  

I'm primarily a Words of Affirmation person.  My husband, on the other hand, is an Acts of Service type.  He had to learn to affirm me with words (which he used to feel were not necessary, just "fluff") so that I could appreciate his expression of love for me in other areas (in his own love-language, like when he does the housework, the yard work, and so forth.)  And - though it has taken me many years to "get" this, and I still have to work at it because I'm basically um, you know, lazy - he believes the affirming words I say to him much more when I make the effort to get up off my duff and do the dishes with him, or help him put together a BBQ or a piece of furniture. 

The bottom line is that expressing love to someone takes an investment that a lot of us don't think that we have: time.  Time to get to know the person, time to discover what makes him or her tick, and time to spend with him or her.  

And we never need to despair.  We have help.

Incognito

Psychologists tell us that people are motivated two ways: extrinsically and intrinsically.  They all agree that intrinsically is better, because it doesn't depend on circumstances.

Someone who is EXtrinsically motivated gets his or her reason for doing any behavior from outside him or herself.  Here are some examples of outside reasons: a paycheck, a performance review, a gift used as a bribe, applause, or guilt.

A person who is INtrinsically motivated does things because he or she wants to, and that person does not have to rely on the reward or threat of another person or institution to do those things.  Love, high self-esteem, compassion ... these things come from inside - and when people don't notice what that person does, it might hurt occasionally, but it isn't the be-all and the end-all.  It's not a deal-breaker. 

An extrinsically motivated person needs recognition. All the time.  Every day.  Continually.  Kind of like an addict needs drugs. There's an incessant craving for affirmation.

And not only that, he or she thinks that recognition and applause motivates everyone.  So that person is always wanting to point out the accomplishments of others so as to make them feel good and want to do more.  And he or she points them out in public, usually. After all, if the appreciation of one is good, then the adulation of hundreds is worth more, right? 

An intrinsically motivated person prefers to be "incognito".  Calling attention to something this person does is extreme motivation to give it up, not to continue.  There is an inner bubbliness, a secret delight in doing a task well, whether anyone sees or not.  Don't get me wrong: paychecks are kind of necessary in today's world, and once in a while it's nice to hear encouragement (just privately, not in front of a whole crowd of people) - but the primary motivation is in knowing that the person has helped some people and made their life better.  

There is a part of me that is extrinsically motivated.  I guess there is - or I wouldn't have a blog, I guess.  But a much larger part of me prefers to go "incognito".  That part of me cringes when there's that "Oh everybody look!  Isn't that person (or group of people) amazing?" thing going on.  That part of me wants to just disappear - or to scream out, "I didn't do it for YOU!"  (Of course, that would be rude. True, but rude.)  

I just have to let it go.  And offer any external praise - or criticism - up to the One to whom I live my life. I can't live in a box or in a cloister.  I  need to understand that if I am living a life that puts God first, then there are going to be people that are affected.  Some are going to like it - some aren't - and it doesn't matter what they say because in the final analysis, after all the clapping and booing stops .....

.... it matters what only One says.

Dig Down

The year was about 1985 or 1986.  Some of my relatives had come over to visit us at our house where we lived previously.  We decided to take them on a trip to a "must see" excursion to a large village about twenty miles away, to spend the afternoon.  There, they had paddleboats, a petting farm with baby farm animals (including puppies and kittens to give away), a mini-roller-coaster, and novelties like life-size checkerboards and live mini-theatre.  

There were a lot of people there that day.  We had a lot of fun - one couple even came away with a puppy!  It was a hot summer day and we were thirsty.  Some among us whet our whistles at the snack shack.  Others drank freely from the water fountains - after all, water was the only thing that was free, and it was SO cold!  

The day ended and people said their goodbyes, and each went his or her separate ways.  

The next morning, very early, we both awoke violently ill.  Over the next six to eight hours, we spent the vast majority of our time hunched over a toilet bowl.  Neither my husband nor I had ever been that sick.  After we got a little bit of respite from the waves of nausea - and started taking an interest in the world, we first checked with our relatives - and some of them had been just as sick as we.  

We watched the news to distract ourselves and it was then that the mystery was solved.  The afternoon prior to us being at the park, there had been a troop of boy scouts there, most of whom had come down with the same symptoms.  Some of them ended up under medical care.  It was then that the truth came out.  They had salmonella.  And, as we figured out from that, so did we. Every person who was sick had one thing in common: the water fountains at the park!  

A very rapid investigation resulted and the owners of the park discovered, after opening up the cover and passing a camera or something to the bottom of the well, that a rat had gotten in there and drowned.  A rare occurrence to be sure, but there you have it.  As it um, decomposed, the bacteria passed into the water, and thus, to all those fountains.  They closed the park for a whole day, removed the rat (of course) and disinfected the whole system.  From that day until the day it closed, there was never again another problem.  

Image source (via Google):
http://appropriateprojects.com/node/51

Now - I tell the story to ask a question.  What if those people had found that rat, and said, "Oh no.  Just knowing it's there is enough.  We don't need to dig that up.  It'll settle.  It'll be fine"???  You got it.  Nobody would have been able to drink that water as long as that animal stayed where it was.  They HAD to dig down. They HAD to remove it. 

This is one problem with a lot of Christians.  Yep, know that's there, prayed that blanket prayer (however that sounds, whether the same prayer every time or a different one) and whatever you do, don't dig that thing up because then you'd have to deal with all those messy things again, feel all those nasty feelings, and then there's the cleanup.  

Yes.  Yes there is.  And it won't go away until you do.  It will always have power over you.  Always.  It will sit there and rot until you dig down and bring that thing up and dispose of it properly.  And then go back down and clear up the damage it did.  Yes, it's messy, and yes, it will take time.  And no, you can do NOTHING on your own to get rid of it.  (That's God's thing - He has the BEST disinfectant!)  But if you are willing to face that awful thing (whatever it is), honestly face your feelings about it and any part you played in it, and make restitution wherever possible, IT WILL LEAVE.  

Guaranteed.