Butterfly, Caterpillar, or Dementor…which are you?

This week I found myself thanking God for my pain. I found myself thanking him for the suffering I have lived through. I found my heart overflowing with gratitude that he didn’t leave me in my comfort and mediocrity, thankful that he had pulled me into the deep and submerged me in a sea of suffering.

I’m not a masochist or anything. I hate pain just as much as the next person, but I have learned something about pain.

It’s our cocoon.

It is the key ingredient in our metamorphosis.

It is through pain that we emerge either in our splendor or…in a crippled and warped version of ourselves.

And the difference is all in our attitude.

One of my friends always throws a big halloween party, and I was excited to go this year as a bunch of my old gang, many who I hadn’t seen in over a year, were going to be there.

One of the things I hadn’t thought through was the fact that, the intervening year had been one of the hardest and most humiliating of my life. And of course, every single one of them was going to ask me how I was doing.

That was a loaded question.

How was I doing?

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not one to just answer with the lame (and typically untrue) “fine.” One of my core beliefs is living with my life wide open. I don’t mean emotionally vomiting all over people (be honest, you just had someone’s face or name flash though your mind. We all have that one person). I mean being authentic and real.  Admitting to my struggles and open with my failures. No photoshopping my life to make it look better than it is. Just being me, in all my imperfection.

So if I was going to answer how I was doing and be real, I needed to do some real reflection. How was I really?

With a little bit of surprise, and a feeling of intense gratitude, I realized I was good, really good.

Wow.

Last year at this time, I was still feeling the ache (and sometimes sharp agonizing pains) of betrayal. I was still fighting the battle of humiliation. I was still battling (sometimes hourly) the fear of how I was going to make it as a single mother in an expensive city with zero child support.

Last year was a battle in faith. It was a battle in truth. And it was a battle of trust.

I put my stake in the ground, my hands up in surrender, and I threw myself in the arms of my savior.

Nothing made sense. Nothing was what I had planned. I didn’t know how tomorrow could possibly work.

But I knew my God. And I trusted that He had a plan.

Not despite the devastation I was experiencing, but through it.

There were times I begged God to take the pain away. Times when I thought this life was just too hard. Times when the very idea of living made me feel weary.

But, beneath those times, and far deeper, was my knowledge, my unshakeable faith that, if I let him, the work He would do in me would be well worth the pain. All I needed to do was hold on. And hold to him with everything I was worth.

And here, only a year later, I realized that I had come full circle.

His promise to comfort was filled. His promise to heal was answered. His promise to provide was fulfilled.

And I found myself filled with gratitude for my suffering.

Because here I stand, not just a survivor, but an overcomer. Stronger than I ever imagined. Independent. More sure of who I am and whose I am than ever before. And it never would have happened if He hadn’t led me through the fire.

Many people have often told me how strong I am. But, I don’t think that my strength is exceptional. It’s just that suffering and heartache have burned away my weakness and revealed what was already there–I just didn’t know it.

I’m not stronger. I just let pain do it’s work.

See, growth is often not about growing, as much as it is about chiseling away the excess and revealing what is already there, buried beneath the surface.

The Bible calls it the refiner’s fire, burning away the dross.

And we have so very much dross.

We tend to see the fire as an attack from the enemy, or an injustice, or the unfairness of fate, but I believe that God is not just in the good parts of my life, but also in the storms, the disasters, and the darkest nights of our soul. They are a holy fire, a gift, yes a gift, and an answer to our prayers to be more like Him.

So many times, when I tell someone about Serena and what I lived through with her loss, they say they could never have done that, they never could have survived such a loss. But here’s the thing, I would have said the same thing if I hadn’t been forced to live it.

We simply don’t know what we’re capable of until we’re forced to it. Until we’re stretched and pulled and thrown into the fire we just don’t know what we’re capable of. Only then do we find out just how strong we really are.

If I have learned anything from this crazy, and heart-wrenching journey called life, it is this: Though our instinct is to run from pain, we should meet it with our arms open wide and embrace it, knowing that, if we let it, transformation is on the other side.

If we fight it, if we run, or if we hide, pain warps and it cripples, but when embraced, we are re-made.

The thing about pain is, it catches us all. There is no escaping it. It is part of the human experience.

No one gets to stay a caterpillar.

The decision we each have to make it who we want to be on the other side of it.

There are no short cuts when it comes to pain. There is no getting around it. Not tunneling under it. No hiding from it.

There is only getting through it.

When we hide from our pain, ignore it, or when we allow it to consume us, it turns us into something ugly. It is a poison that steals and maims.

And these people never emerge as who they were intended to be.

In truth, these people tend to become inflicters of pain. In their brokenness, they leave pain in their wake. They suck life from those around them, a real-life dementor.

 

But here’s the thing, it’s totally up to you.

You are stronger than you know. Are you willing to find out how strong?

You are capable of more than you ever believed. Will you dare to find out just what you can do?

And you are more amazing, more beautiful, than you can imagine. Are you willing to be transformed?

I won’t lie to you. It won’t be easy.

But it’s worth it. You can trust Him. He’s got you, and He’s got this.

 

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What kind of neighbor are you?

Do you know your neighbor? Do you? Do you know what’s going on in his world? Do you know the difficulties she faces? If they were in an emergency situation, could they come to you and ask you to watch their daughter for a couple of hours?

Perhaps you say hello when you walk your dogs in the morning.

Perhaps, when you meet across the mailboxes in the afternoon, you chat casually.

But do you know your neighbor?

I can’t say that I really do. As I get ready to leave this home I have lived in for three and a half years, I find myself convicted. I don’t know my neighbors–not really. We’re friendly. We say “hi” and “how are you,” but with the exception of one (and I’m so glad we became friends, Tianna!), the truth is, I’d be hard pressed to tell you their names.

Shame on me!

My whole life I have dreaded living what I have coined the “treadmill existence.” To me, this is the daily grind. We wake, we go to work, we come home, we sleep, we wake, we go to work . . . over and over again.

To avoid this, I thought I needed to do something exciting. I needed to live overseas and be a missionary. Or I needed to be a best selling author. Or I needed to find something other than this ordinary, soccer mom (or in my case football/gymnastics mom) existence.

Ironically, God seemed to determined to keep me in that soccer mom sort of existence–and if so, either he was okay with the treadmill existence–or (much more likely) I was missing something!

No, huge surprise here, but I now realize, I had it all wrong.

The treadmill existence is not about the job we do or where we live. It’s not about a great list of accomplishments or a wall full of awards.  You don’t need to be the Dos Equis’ most interesting man alive to get off the treadmill.

It is about our mindset. It is about seeing the opportunity for the divine, for change, for influence in every moment.

Perhaps it’s a little easier for me to see this than most. Being a psychology professor, I see how the impact of what I teach has the possibility to change lives, and it transforms the way I look at those moments in the classroom. They are loaded with possibility, potential. What I say today has the potential of altering the course of a life (in a positive way, or possibly, even in a negative way–very humbling thought!)

But the truth is, every moment of our lives is filled with that same potential.

The other day, I was cleaning up after my work out at the gym. I was in a hurry. I was running late for a conference call, and I needed to get ready to meet one of my friends for a night out. Just as with my neighbors, though I’m friendly with several people at the gym, I don’t really know anyone by name or well, so nothing should have gotten in the way of my mad dash for the door.

But there was this woman, a woman I had never seen before. And she sighed. Not just the “I’m tired” sigh. Not the, “this has been a really long week sigh.” No, this sigh was something different, and I couldn’t resist commenting on the weight of her sigh.

She responded that her workout had knocked her on her butt.

I made some comment about that being the sign of a good workout.

To which she responded, “No, you don’t understand. It literally knocked me on my ass. I have MS. This is my therapy, and I can’t even do it.” And she sat down and started to cry.

I didn’t know this woman. If not for my inane comment about her sigh, I would have walked right on past, and never known the despair that was eating her up inside. I would have made my conference call, hung out with my friend, and this woman would have left with her burden of despair still firmly on her shoulders. Instead, I found myself with an opportunity of helping a fellow human being. It was time to get off the treadmill.

I didn’t know this woman, but I knew her pain. And I knew that I needed to stay and listen, and offer what comfort I could, conference call be damned!

That moment was one of possibility. It was an opportunity to be God’s hands’ extended. And I could easily have missed it.

How many times have I missed those moments, caught up in the hustle and bustle of the treadmill life, the relentless daily grind? How often, with my eyes focused at the task at hand, have I missed the divine, the chance to get off the treadmill, and to make a real difference in someone’s life?

Too often I fear.

Which of my neighbors has cried out to God for help? And I could have been part of the answer. Who has needed to know that they aren’t alone, but I’ve been too wrapped up in my own world to see?

I despised the treadmill existence, and yet I have had opportunity to get off that treadmill,  time and time again, but I have been too blind to see the opportunity.

In his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted, John Ortberg put it this way:

And Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” Everything turned on Moses’ being willing to turn aside–interrupt his daily routine to pay attention to the presence of God. He didn’t have to. He could have looked the other way, as many of us would. He would have just missed the exodus, the people of Israel, his calling, the reason for his existence. He would have missed knowing God. But he didn’t miss it. He stopped. He “turned aside.”

I don’t want to miss the reason for my existence. I don’t want to miss my calling because I can’t see what’s right in front of me.

I need to live my life in this way. I need to have my eyes open so that I see the burning bush moments, the moments when I get to be the arms, and the voice, of God.

I need to get off the treadmill.

And it starts with seeing.

Seeing our neighbors and their pain. Seeing our coworkers and their struggles. Seeing the needs of our community and stepping out of our daily grind enough to be the one to meet those needs.

Our society, according to a recent gallup poll, is one third Christian. Nine out of ten Americans say they pray everyday. And yet, we are notoriously bad about living with our heads in the sand, being too consumed with our own lives to see the struggles of those around us.

This is what Jesus means by reaching the lost–and most of us are failing.

It is time for us to embrace our purpose. To see that each moment is heavy with possibility. To get our heads out of the sand, and to see.

Will you join me?

We don’t want to miss our burning bush–because that is what it’s all about.

 

A New Definition of Good

A friend of mine received bad news the other day. She has had a lot of bad, difficult, and painful things happen in her life. More than the average person for sure.

She was angry. She was angry at the world, and most of all, she was angry at God. She publicly questioned the goodness of God. She pointed out the inconsistency, the unfairness, the disproportionate pain and difficulty even among Christians. Her conclusion, in that moment, was that God was not good.

Last week was my daughter Serena’s birthday. She would be fifteen years old this year. She’s been gone for fourteen years, and I still miss her every day. I too, most certainly have, at times, questioned the goodness of God.

Like my friend, I have not failed to notice the disproportionate amount of suffering some have to walk through when compared to so many others. Like my friend, it has caused me to question the goodness of God. But unlike my friend, despite the pain and suffering that I have walked through, that I am currently walking through, and that I, no doubt, will have to walk through in the future–still I say–God is good.

God is good all of the time.

It is our definition of what “good” means that has to change.

As human beings, we have an inbred sense of fairness, of justice. Jung liked to call them archetypes. It is the idea that if I do good things, good things will happen to me. Evil deeds on the other hand will be punished. If I treat people fairly, I will myself be treated fairly.

The problem is, despite these deep-seeded instincts, that’s not the way the world works.

And it’s not the way God works.

As I mentioned in my last blog, God is not all that concerned with our comfort. In fact, the Bible is abundantly clear that a walk with Christ is a walk of suffering. He talks of refiner’s fire, and he talks of needing our roots to go to deep to find the streams underground so that we can survive the times of drought. He talks of making a way in the wilderness–he doesn’t say he’ll remove the wilderness, but that He will make a way through it.

And yet, the Bible also says that God is good. His goodness is not altered, affected or diminished by the suffering we walk through.

How can that be?

Logically, it must mean that the suffering itself is good for us. Remember, God’s goal is not our comfort, our prosperity, or our happiness. His goal is our transformation.

Our transformation happens in the fires of suffering.

It’s easy to say. It’s easy to preach the necessity of suffering. It’s easy to see the truth of it–but it’s mach harder to do it. To not only walk through it (often we have little choice in the matter), but to embrace it.

My personal world is in upheaval right now. The truth is, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself the other night. I don’t deserve what I’m going through. I was a good girl, who made good choices. I’ve always sought God’s will. I’ve never done drugs. I don’t get drunk. I didn’t have sex before marriage. I don’t lie, cheat, or steal. I am a basically good person who has tried to help people in need. Sure, I lose my temper sometimes, and sometimes I can be selfish, and sometimes lazy, but in the scope of things, I am a good person and I don’t deserve all this pain.

Like my friend, I was feeling full of self pity. My pain was unfair. Since I was twenty I have walked through one difficulty after another. It was unjust. Poor, picked on me.

But that same night, my daughter began to cry. She opened up about her own struggles with the goodness of God. She didn’t understand why she had to walk through this, when her friends didn’t have to walk through anything. She always tries to do what’s right, and yet, instead of being rewarded, here she is having to walk through a season of suffering and her friends don’t, even though her friends so often make wrong choices. Such hard truths to struggle with at the age of ten!

It’s hard to explain what I felt in this moment. I felt a little bit like God had called me on the carpet. The truth is, I knew exactly what God would say to this–we should not compare our lives to the lives of others, because what God has for us is not what He has for them. That God is not concerned with our comfort or our happiness, but rather our transformation. That life isn’t fair, that God never said it was, and He isn’t concerned about the “fairness” of it at all.

Shame on me for wallowing in self pity when I know the truth!

And shame on me for not living it in a way that my daughter can see the truth through my life.

I held my daughter as she cried, and I explained these hard truths to her, and I prayed with her.

I didn’t pray for her comfort or for her protection, though my mother’s heart very much wanted to do just that.

I prayed for God’s will in her life. I prayed that God would give her strength in the difficulties. Faith in the darkness. And the eyes to see the goodness of God even when all around her seemed to call that very goodness into question.

I prayed that God’s will would be done. And I know what that means.

But, I want the best for my daughter, not the easiest–just like God does for me.

The easiest is very rarely the best. The best takes work. The best is hard. It is often painful. Sometimes it’s downright awful.

But, just as my prayer for Arabelle, God wants the best for me–for us.

And doing what’s right, even when it hurts, that is the definition of good.

I’m pretty sure it hurts God’s heart, just like it hurt mine, but he knows it’s best.

And yet again, I need to trust that my Father knows best.

So yes, God is good–all of the time.

God, help me to see your goodness, not as a measure of what you’ve done for me, not as a measure of what I have or do not have, but for who you are–a God who walks with me through my pain and through my suffering so that I can get to the other side and be transformed.

What’s Your Standard of Measure?

Our society has it totally wrong. (No surprise there–oh, let me count the ways it has it wrong!)

No, I’m not talking the current political mess (though I easily could, and just might, at some point, dip my toe in those waters).

I’m not talking about the government, or the establishment, or of race and gender equality, or the many topics and ways that society as a group gets it wrong.

I’m talking about us. We, the society of individuals, we have it totally wrong on a fundamental level.

Case in point, I want you to think back to your last class reunion. What thoughts occupied your head prior to attending?

I can tell you what occupied mine.:I need to drop the last of that baby weight. I want to look good. . . which dress should I wear…and then I started cataloging my accomplishments. How much had I accomplished? Would they think me successful, or would they think I was a massive under achiever? Had I done enough, accomplished enough?

My guess is, most of you would have had a similar train of thought. And it shows an inherent flaw in how we approach this wild and wonderful journey we call life.

We are preoccupied by the doing–but what we need to embrace is the becoming.

As I approach the ripe old age of forty, I’ve been taking stock, and I haven’t liked what I’ve tallied. I’ve been left with this disappointment, this sense of dissatisfaction that it isn’t enough–that I haven’t done enough–that I’m not enough.

But I’ve got it all wrong. My standard of measure is off. My worth as a human being is not weighed by the things I’ve done, the mountains I’ve climbed, the awards I’ve won–it’s much more simple than that. My worth is measured by how well I have allowed God to make me into the person he wants me to be.

Just as yours is.

Lynne Twist, in her book The Soul of Money refers to something she calls the scarcity principle which is her term for this “never enough” idea that seems to eat away at most of us these days. She calls it the”great lie.” In reference to this concept she says:

Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack.”

She pegged it. She pegged me. I’ve been buying the lie that society has been selling and I’ve been allowing it to tell me that I’m not enough.

My to do list, my already done list, my list of accomplishments, is not the embodiment of my worth.

So often, we look at where we thought we would be, where we think we should be, and when we’re not there, when life doesn’t look like we thought it would look, we feel like we’ve failed. But we’ve missed the fundamental–God was never concerned with our destination, he was concerned with who become on the journey.

Youth Groups all around the country can be blamed a little bit for this misconception. Every youth group I know used to sing the song “I’m gonna do great things, accomplish great things, climb every mountain with God.”

That sounds great. It gets us jazzed. It imbues us with a great sense of purpose–but it also causes us to misconstrue what this journey we call Christianity is all about.

Christianity is not about doing great things, it’s about becoming who we are meant to be–and who we are meant to be is not made on the mountain tops, but rather in the valleys.

My standard of measure is not what I’ve done, but how much I’ve allowed God to transform me.

This disappointment I feel in myself is not really about the list of things I haven’t done and accomplished. It’s about how I’ve not yet become who I am meant to be.

John Ortberg in his book The Life You’ve Always Wanted puts it this way:

Sometimes, although I am aware of how far I fall short, it doesn’t even bother me very much. And I am disappointed by my lack of disappointment…the older and wiser answer is that the feeling of disappointment is not the problem, but a reflection of a deeper problem–my failure to be the person God had in mind when He created me.

Yikes. I’ve been worried because my tally of accomplishments is to short and paltry, but what I should have been worried about is that innate lethargy that seems to find all of us as we leave our youth behind. Too often, as life takes on its treadmill quality, I have gotten lost in the details, and have had too little motivation to focus on the becoming–therein lies the real issue.

Ortberg calls it being dis-appointed with God, as in, missing the life that I was appointed by God to live.

My life might never look how I thought it should look when I was twenty. I might never do the great things I thought I would do. But the more important question is, will I become who He wants me to be?

Will you?

That’s all He ever asks of us.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes that includes doing, and sometimes it even includes the mountain tops, but more often than not, the work is done in the anonymous seasons of life, and in the valleys–and it’s important to remember that. These are the seasons that, if we allow Him to work, He will look at us one day and say, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

And that’s the only standard of measure I need.

Father knows Best–and it’s time we start believing it

My son is 12. (any of the parents of difficult tweens out there, you felt the sympathetic wince that statement elicits)

Yep, he’s twelve–and it’s been baptism by fire.

You see, he’s our first, and our most difficult. And this year has been hard.

I was a teacher, now am a professor, and I have a graduate degree in Psychology, so I should have been ready for everything this year and this stage were going to unload on me–right?

Sadly, no.

I have been pushed to the limit of my parenting skills and my psychology skills. It’s just been plain hard.

You see, my son is hard-headed (that’s the understatement of the century!) He might only be twelve, but he thinks he knows better than everybody else. And the kid has always known what he’s wanted and has had the stubbornness and tenacity to go after it. The combination of these two traits has been a nightmare.

In one of our most recent battle of the wills, we tried another tact. Instead of addressing Gavin’s behavior (which was mean, spiteful, and disrespectful), we addressed it’s effectiveness.

We pointed out that his approach was not meeting and gaining his objective. In other words,

“You’re not getting what you want when you act this way! So why not change your behavior, and see if that gives you the pay out you’re looking for?!!”

I wish that my son would choose to do the right thing, because it is the right thing. That’s what I want, but sadly, he’s not there–yet.

But when we pointed out that what he considers his shortcut, is not only not a shortcut, but is preventing him from the desired end all together, he finally started paying a little bit of attention.

As I explained to him that my desire is not to hurt him, but to ensure his well being and his happiness…when I explained that we correct his behavior because we see and know more, and that he just needs to trust us, even if he doesn’t see how it makes sense or why it should work that way…I couldn’t help but see the correlation to my own relationship with God.

We know where we want to go. We see what we want.

And we see the quick route–the direct route–to our destination.

But most of the time, that’s not the route we find ourselves on. We find ourselves on what appears to be a circuitous route, one that sometimes seems to go backwards, wanders to rabbit trails, and even sometimes seems to end in dead-ends. Much of my life I have felt like Moses wandering around in the desert, knowing where I need to be, but unable to get there. Or like David, the anointed King of Israel who, instead of ruling as was his right, finds himself moldering in a cave for years.

When there is a disconnect between the life that is, and the life that we feel like we should be living, we become confused, disgruntled,  angry, and often bitter.

“Why, God? Why?” we rail.

He gives us the dream, He sets our path, but instead of the path leading to our expected destination, we find ourselves in the desert, or hidden in a cave, forgotten, moldering away into anonymity.

I’ve had lots of these moments in my life. Moments when it seems like God stopped listening, stopped caring, and certainly stopped guiding.

But as I talked with Gavin, I was convicted.

That was the child’s response, and I am not a child. It is time to put away childish things.

Just as I am asking Gavin to trust that my way is better, I need to trust that God’s way is better.

Just as I tell my son that I am looking at the big picture that he cannot know, I need to trust that God is seeing the big picture that I cannot see.

This place, where I’m at, this isn’t what I wanted. Or at least, this was not the way I wanted it to be.

I thought I’d be much farther by now.

Next year I turn 40. By 40, I thought I would be established.

I’m not.

I have a fledgling writing career.

I am an associate professor, not a tenured one.

I’m not in the ministry.

My goal to change the world and help people in some large way, has translated into a much smaller sphere of influence than I anticipated.

And it’s taken me almost 40 years to get here.

But, I think I’ve been missing the point.

I’m a writer and a professor, and that’s what I always wanted to be.

And occasionally, God has used me to touch a few, not as a missionary, not in some defined role, but as I rub shoulders with people in my daily life.

The road was not the road I would have chosen, but, I have to believe, it was the road I was meant to take–the road I needed to take. God sees the big picture, the destination and the necessary journey.

It’s time I started giving God the trust He deserves. I need to have faith in a Father who loves me and who knows more, sees more, than I do.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

A Lot Less Commercialism… and a Little More Christmas, Please!

Christmas seems to have snuck up on me–again.

I don’t know if this is a result of living in Texas where December is more in line with the fall of my childhood, or perhaps it’s from the general chaotic pace my life has taken on, or maybe it’s some other factor that I have yet to identify. Whatever the reason, I’m staring Christmas in the face, and I feel totally unprepared.

I used to put my tree up on November 1. I figured that, so long as we had passed Halloween, it was fair game. It wasn’t a matter of finding the time, but more a waiting a respectable amount of time before putting up that first sign of Christmas. I was ready and waiting, a runner poised for the blast that singled “Let the games begin!”

My Christmas shopping used to be done by December 1, and the only thing I needed to scramble for were a few extra stocking stuffers. I leisurely wrapped the gifts while listening to Bing croon about the white Christmas I could already see outside my window. I savored the season: enjoying the moments, admiring them, fingering them one by one.

Now it’s more of a mad scramble, a dash from one event to the next–a chaotic sprinting, not a leisurely stroll.

The tree is put up in stages. First there is the bare tree, then days later it acquires some lights and maybe a ribbon or two. Finally, when we can all fit in a spare couple of hours together, we add the ornaments. And then at last the tree bedecked in all its glory to remind us that, yes, Christmas is coming (like a freight train), despite the blue skies and sunshine outside my window!

Gifts are bought in a helter-skelter, often last minute fashion these days. Presents are wrapped only to be opened moments later–literally moments later. No enjoying that pretty wrapping paper peaking from beneath the tree branches. No children having days to wonder about the mysteries wrapped and waiting beneath the tree. There’s no shaking of the boxes, wild guesses, and the peeled back corners of gifts that sit under the tree to tantalize the little people in my life. Nope, there is a still puffing Mama who did a wrapping marathon only to thrust the presents into the eagerly waiting hands. I barely wipe the sweat from my fevered brow before the little people are tearing that pretty paper off and all my efforts are now crumpled in a heap on the floor…

And then there is the Christmas baking…don’t let me get started on the Christmas baking!

I used to love the smells wafting through my kitchen, the strains of the Trans Siberian Orchestra in the background, and the cup of Joe or the glass of red in my hand (depending on what strikes my fancy at the moment). I relished my role in my husband’s family as the maker of delectable desserts (it probably helps that their idea of a Christmas spread is cookies and pie bought at the local supermarket, but never mind that, I relished my role as the Martha Stewart of Christmas yumminess). They waited with anticipation for me to walk in with my homemade oreo cookies, my peanut butter bonbons, and what ever else I decided to throw into the mix that year.

They start anticipating early, at Easter, throughout the summer (never mind that I have spring and summer versions of dessert decadence), already anticipating the Christmas treats that are to come.

Oh, the pressure! I created this beast and now I have to feed it!

And the baking, no longer the savored Christmas experience, is something that I smoosh into my hectic Christmas Eve morning somewhere between the candlelight service (which they now have early in the afternoon which allows us to maintain our scavenger hunt tradition in the evening) and the scant few hours of sleep I’ve managed to cram in with all those last minute Christmas errands the day before the stores begin to close up shop and tell us procrastinators to “go the hell home! We have families too!”

Ah, Christmas. Still my favorite time of year, despite how quickly it comes and how quickly it’s over! How I miss the time to savor you as you so deserve!

My house may not be decorated to perfection, my array of treats might be appallingly scant, and the gifts might yet be crammed in shopping bags in the corners of my closet, but somehow, I don’t think that is what my children are going to remember (I know that’s not what I remember, though I’m pretty sure my mom was probably the chaotic, sweating, marathon running mess that I am today!).

My children will remember, not the presents or decorations, but the time spent together. They will remember the traditions, the games, and the warm fuzzy feelings that Christmas will bring their way for years to come (until they have kids of their own and the chaotic insanity becomes their very own!).

I find myself reminding myself that it’s not about perfection. It’s not about a beautifully set array of cookies and perfectly wrapped presents. It’s not about the perfect kids’ craft that results in perfect little treasures for grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles.

The kids won’t notice the clutter around the house. They won’t notice that there are only two kinds of cookies this year. They won’t notice that the handmade presents are a bit less spectacular this year.

And I shouldn’t either.

It’s time to stop running around like a crazy person and settle in and just enjoy being with my family.

And it’s time to remember what this season is really all about. Not the great commercial rush it has become, but something so much more–infinitely more.

Sometimes I need to remember that.

You can only do what you can do, and really that’s not the point of it all anyway.

Merry Christmas from my chaotic family to your own! May it be perfect in its imperfection!

Sometimes No Answer is Exactly the Answer We Need

As most of us tend to, I find myself reflecting on what I’m thankful for as we approach Thanksgiving Day.

There are many things I’m thankful for: my family (near and far, big and little), my country (and all the freedoms that come with it), safety and security in the light of the turbulent world we live in (I think of Syria, and Paris, among far too many others), my health (in a time when I hear about a new person with cancer at least once a week), my family’s health (which I know only too well is a gift), enough food to fill our tummies and then some (I’m thinking turkey and stuffing right now)…

There are so many things I am thankful for, likely we have more to be thankful for than any previous age of man, and yet, the thing I find myself reflecting on the most this Thanksgiving season is Unanswered Prayers. I am thankful for so many of my unanswered prayers.

Wait a minute…what?!

There are certainly many prayers that went unanswered that I am not thankful for–the top of the list would be those for my beautiful daughter, Serena–but there are so many others that I am grateful that God did not give me what I asked for, and it is for those I find myself thankful today.

As so many from my era, when I think of the phrase “unanswered prayers” I can’t help channeling my inner Garth. Garth hit the nail on the head with that song. Sometimes, the best answer God can give to our prayer, is to not answer it.

The twenty something Heather had no idea who the almost 40 Heather would be, much less what she would need. I am glad that young, naïve girl wasn’t the one calling the shots for the map of my life. She would have gotten it all wrong.

There are so many places in my life where I find myself thankful that God did not give into my pleas. So many times when He, knowing me better than I know myself (both the person I was, and the one I would become), did not answer, not out of malice or indifference, but because He saw the me then and the me to become. He saw my life both today and tomorrow, and He knew what the end result could be.

Had He given me what I so diligently prayed for, I’d be married to a man who, though a good man, was very ill-suited for me. My life would have likely headed in a very traditional direction, which, though there is nothing wrong with that, again, it doesn’t really fit me.  I would have lived a life that I could imagine in my finite humanity.

My prayers would have had my life follow the lines of a DaVinci, beautiful, amazing even, but one that fits my scope of imagination.

But God had something else in mind, more of a Picasso, vastly different than I could have imagined, sometimes, jarring, even bordering on discordant at times, but somehow coming together to make something unique and moving and utterly different.

I am thankful that God does not cave to my whims like a weak-willed parent, but that He holds out, that He withholds, that He stretches me–sometimes even prods me–to be the best version of myself that I can be and to live a life that He envisions rather than allowing me to be limited by my own powers of imagination.

I am thankful for the husband God led me to, who, though we have had more than our share of struggles, has helped me to believe that I really can achieve this dream of being a writer, who pushes me to not give up. I am grateful that he not only accepts my inner geek, but brings it out and encourages it. I am grateful because he challenges simple minded thinking and makes me consider life in all its facets: God, philosophy, science. I am grateful for his out of the box thinking that challenges me to look at life not within the confines of practicality, but instead to push the edges of the box and look at the possibility for life beyond the normal limits. Had God answered my early prayers, I would not have him in my life, and I would not be me. I would be less than I am today.

I am thankful for this crazy journey that God has put me on. Many times it has felt like wandering in the desert. Often I have felt lost at sea. But just as the analogy I heard as a child, I have only seen the underside of this tapestry–my understanding is so limited. God has begun giving me hints of what the full pattern might look like (or at least, a part of it) and I find myself once again grateful for unanswered prayers. What He planned, when it is done, will be something so much more than I had planned.

We all have our unanswered prayers. We tend to feel abandoned, forgotten, or ignored when God doesn’t answer. But we’re not. He’s in the unanswered prayers as much as the answered ones.

Whatever your unanswered prayer is, be it big or small, know that it is not indifference that keeps God from answering.

Some, like the death of Serena, we may never understand or even fully accept–but if I can see God in so many of my unanswered prayers, I have to believe He is there, somewhere, even in those.

And with so many others, if you have eyes to see, you will see God’s hand in the silence, in his withholding. Take heart. He knows you better than you know yourself. He knows what He is doing.

He is devoted, not to your comfort, not even to your happiness, but to you becoming who He has planned for you to be from the beginning of time. His plan is bigger than your plan. It’s more.

That unanswered prayer is not a mistake. It’s part of the plan.

Know that, take heart, and watch and see what He will do.

What do you do with your cookie, and what does that say about who you are?

We’ve all had that moment when we’re about to take a bite of the last chocolate chip cookie, and we’re anticipating the burst of flavor that will come with it when our sister/brother/friend/son/daughter/etc. comes on the scene and says, “Oh! A chocolate chip cookie! I want one! Where are there?!”

What we do in that next moment is a window into who we are, a window into how we live our lives, and it is a window into our heart.

Do we, scarf down the cookie quickly, and only then admit it’s the last one?

Do we shrug and say “last one” and then take a huge bite from the cookie?

Do we break the cookie in half and cheerfully offer the other half?

Do we offer the other half, but feel a tug of reluctance, begrudging the loss of half of the cookie?

Or do we cheerfully hand the last cookie to the person we love because we’d rather make them happy than have the cookies ourselves?

It’s such a simple thing, a simple test, and we have moments like these every day of our lives. How we respond in these moments defines who we are on a basic level.

I’ve watched this played out among my children. Gavin would scarf the cookie down without a thought, fearful that I would tell him he had to share. Arabelle would hand you the cookie. Lily would struggle somewhere in between.

Every year for Halloween (or almost every year–we made an exception last year) the kids pick a theme and we all dress up, even mom and dad, according to that theme. This year the kids chose Wizard of Oz, or rather the girls did, and Gavin graciously deferred to them this time. We spent weeks discussing who would be which character from the very first days of October.

Lily wanted to be Glinda, the Good Witch, so Arabelle agreed to be Dorothy. I went online and found a Glinda costume, purchased it, and two days later Lily excitedly tried it on. She postured through the house, admired herself in the mirror–she was thrilled.

But then, a couple of days later, she changed her mind. She didn’t want to be Glinda anymore; she wanted to be Dorothy. Arabelle graciously said she would be Glinda (luckily the costume also fit her) so that Lily could have what she wanted. No harm, no foul. Great.

But then a couple weekends ago, I promised Lily that we would go to the store to buy her Dorothy costume, and as we were browsing the costumes, we came to a beautiful Wicked Witch of the West costume. Arabelle’s eyes lit up. “Mom, can I be the Wicked Witch instead?”

I was stuck. We already had the Glinda costume (and Lord knows I can’t fit into it!). I had promised Lily the Dorothy costume…

“Well, hon, I guess that’s up to Lily. If she’s willing to be Glinda, you can be the Wicked Witch.” Remember, just a few days before, Lily was thrilled with the idea of being Glinda.

When Arabelle asked Lily if she wouldn’t mind being Glinda as they had originally planned, Lily started balling, “But I want to be Dorothy!”

Arabelle patted Lily on the back and put her arms around her. “It’s okay, Lily. You can be Dorothy.” Great response from Arabelle. I wwas so proud of her, but…

But it wasn’t okay. I watched as Lily, without a thought, accepted her sister’s change of heart. And I watched the disappointment bloom on Arabelle’s face.

I pointed out to Lily that she hadn’t even considered for a moment what it was her sister wanted and whether or not she should let her have what she wanted instead of Lily getting her way.

She began crying again, “But I want to be Dorothy!”

“Yes, I understand that. But Arabelle wants to be the Wicked Witch. Why should you get what you want instead of Arabelle getting what she wants?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need to think of what your sister wants too, Lily; you’re being selfish.”

There in the middle of Target she started wailing, “You called me selfish!”

“No, Lily, I said you were being selfish. You have a choice in whether you are selfish or not.”

But the problem was, she didn’t want to choose to not be selfish. Though Arabelle tried to pretend that she was okay with it, she had gotten quiet and was obviously sad. Lily cared enough to ask her what was wrong, but when Arabelle told her, Lily would start crying again, stating, “But I want to be Dorothy.” She didn’t want Arabelle to be sad, but she didn’t want to give up what she wanted to take away that sadness either.

The whole exchange really bothered me, and stuck with me. Later that night, I pulled Arabelle aside to tell her how proud I was of her, that her heart, her love and care of people, was something rare and beautiful. I marveled at how she always put others before herself.

Her response humbled me. She said, “If I have a choice between someone else crying, or crying myself, I’d rather be the one crying.”

Wow. I felt like that statement shined a light on my own shortcomings, my own failure to live up to the example of my nine year-old daughter.

Would I willingly take on pain and hurt to spare someone his/her pain? I would do it for my family. I would do it for my husband, my children, my nieces and nephews, my brother and sister, but would I do it for anyone? Arabelle would. I’ve seen her do it. And even if I was willing to do it, would I do it with the grace and openness of Arabelle, or would I begrudge the action and feel resentful?

I fear it would be the latter.

And then I thought more of Lily and her reaction. She doesn’t want people to hurt, but she doesn’t really want to give up her wants and needs to take away the hurt of someone else. She feels compassion, but it doesn’t translate to action.

How often are we like that? We see the pain of others, we feel badly, but we don’t reach out to them, we don’t try to ease their pain. We see what ISIS does to children, and we feel awful about it, but not enough to try to find a way to help. We know that there are motherless and fatherless children all over our own country, and we feel so badly, but we don’t want our lives rocked or altered by the needs of a troubled child in our own home.

Compassion without action is nothing but a mask concealing selfishness.

And my little daughter has held a light up to my own selfishness. I am humbled.

What kind of person are you? Do you give the cookie away or do you keep it for yourself?

I fear that I split it in half, but give it away with a twinge of regret or even resentment.

I need to do better. I need to learn the lesson my nine year-old is teaching me.

Thank you, Arabelle, for your kind and generous spirit. I am so grateful God put you in my life.

 

Today is not filler–so why do we treat it as if it is?

I have spent a lot of time lately reflecting the course of my life.

Whether it is the fact that 40 is quickly approaching (like a Mack truck ready to hit me head on) or whether it is listening to the dreams and aspirations of my students as they neared the end of their high school journey or perhaps it is the reality of my own children who are leaving childhood behind one by one to enter this new world of tween-ness and adolescence–whichever of these is the catalyst, I have found myself reflecting in depth my early dreams, where I thought I would go, and where I instead am, and where it is I want to go from here.

I had a plan, and that plan is most certainly not where I am. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, had a lot of unique experiences. I’ve traveled the world, mothered orphans, taught basic hygiene in remote villages. I’ve had a daughter of my own, loved her unconditionally, and a year later buried her in the cold, hard earth. I have counseled the mentally ill, talked the suicidal down from the ledge, and tried to help the abused piece their lives back together. I’ve taught little children, and big children–and changed a few of them forever. I have done lots of things, but none of these is what I planned to do.

By my own measuring stick of success, I should have been living internationally for a couple of decades by now. Whether Saipan (as we first intended) or China (plan number 2) or somewhere else entirely, I should not have been stateside, living in suburbia. So, despite all I have done, all I have not done weighs heavily on me. The road I was to have taken has not been taken, and with that comes a measure of failure, a sense failed opportunity that begs me to ask, why? Why has my life gotten so off course? Why do I find myself here, when I was supposed to be there? Why does my life today not look how I pictured it oh so many years ago?

I think we all go through these moments and these struggles, and though I am far from having all the answers, I am slowly, over the decades, piecing together an answer with help from many others.

There is a disparity between where I am now, and where I feel I should be. It makes me by turns angry, frustrated, or depressed. Sometimes God Himself takes the brunt of these emotions–why has He allowed this? Why does He not do something? At other times I turn them on myself–what is wrong with me? Am I weak and undisciplined? Can I not hear the voice of God? Or sometimes they turn on fate itself–why is the world against me? Fate has conspired to keep me from my path! Regardless of who I focus this angst on, the reality is that the angst is there, it is real, and at times it is palpable.

I don’t like being angst ridden, and I don’t like not having answers (though I have consigned myself to sometimes not getting them) so I have spent a long time wrestling with the whys, and I think I’m beginning to piece together part of the why.

Patience. It is something that I have always lacked. Why put off for tomorrow what you can do today? (That’s not to say that I don’t have a procrastinating streak a mile wide for the things I don’t want to do)

I have always struggled with being content in the now. I am a mountain top person. I am always looking ahead for the next mountain to climb. As soon as I get to the top of my current mountain, I am ready to tackle the next one. I am always looking ahead–restless.

It so happens that my son is the same way, and in watching him, I have understood myself better. No matter how good the moment, Gavin is always thinking ahead to the next moment. He seems to lack the capacity to take each moment and get the most out of each of them, because he is not focused in the now, but in the tomorrow. And how much he misses because of it!

As I have watched my son, I have begun to understand what it is I’m doing. I look at my now too often as a filler, something to get through so I can get to the next big moment. And the twenty years since my dreams were derailed, have often been just that to me in a lot of ways–filler.

There is a little book called “Anonymous” by Alicia Britt Chole that I have read and re-read many times over the last few years. I have found myself drawn back to this book in my recent reflections, and I found myself hit anew by several of the things she says:

What grows in that underestimated gap between God’s calling and others’ perceptions, between our true capabilities and our current realities? Most of us struggle if our dreams are delayed one year, let alone twenty! We find God’s pauses perplexing. They seem to be a waste of our potential. When those pauses extend beyond what we can comprehend or explain (say, for instance, three days), we often spiral into self-doubt or second-guessing…Father God is neither care-less nor cause-less with how he spends our lives. When he calls a soul simultaneously to greatness and obscurity, the fruit–if we wait for it–can change the world.

This is a truth that I’m trying to wrap my mind around. The journey in getting somewhere is at least as important as getting there. The journey is what changes me, and makes me into an individual who is capable of doing what I’m supposed to do, and the journey is full of friends and moments that are worth having, that can be life altering.

I think of Moses. He had a destiny–to free the Israelites from slavery. He knew his objective, so, one day, he sees an Egyptian beating a slave and he thinks to himself, “This is my opportunity!” and he kills the Egyptian, and in so doing he thinks he will begin the revolution that will free his people–only it didn’t. In fact, instead, he had to flee (what to his mind probably felt like abandoning his people all together–not to mention his destiny) and live in virtual obscurity for the vast majority of his life. He was living in the gap–in the place of disparity between what is, and what he thinks should be.

Were all those years wasted years? They probably often felt that way to Moses. Was Moses wrong about his calling? Absolutely not. But he was wrong about the timing.

There are moments in our lives when we feel like Moses. When we feel as if we have failed our dreams, we have lost our destiny. There are moments in our lives when we look at our now and see nothing but filler–but we’re looking at it the wrong way. There is no such thing as filler–not where God is involved.

Alicia Britt Chole puts it this way:

We have a tendency to think that “main” is out there, not right here. Main is on hold. waiting to appear until after…we finish our education or get married or find that dream job or start a family or resolve that conflict or complete that task or get out of debt or retire or slow down…[but] I hear a gentle whisper from God in my soul: Child, I am the God who waste’s no man’s time. To me, every course in your life is main. 

That rings as true to me. No moment in our lives, no season, is filler. It all has purpose. If we are too busy looking past this moment to the next one, we’re going to miss what it is
we’re supposed to do, see, become…

Embrace your today for what it is–life.

Today, how will you become more than you were yesterday? Today, how will you give back? Today, what is it you need to learn? Today, who needs your help?

As for myself, I’m going to stop looking so much at what I’m not doing, and start looking more at what I can do, right now, right here, in this season of my life.

“My doubtful heart, which trembling scarce believes…”

When I was younger, I thought I knew the voice of God.

As I’ve gotten older, I realize that the voice of God is easy to misconstrue. There were many things I attributed to God that were merely my own desires. We have a tendency, as human beings, to hear what we want to hear, and too often, I heard God saying what I wanted him to say–whatever it was that would make me believe that what I wanted was going to happen–almost like He was a fortune teller, or a wish-granting fairy.

For instance, there was a boy I liked. And, of course, I was looking for hope that he would like me too, and even more than that, that we were “destined” to be. I wanted to believe that he was the one, and so I convinced myself that God wanted it to be.

When it never happened (Thank God!! He’s a great guy and all, but we definitely were not a good match!), let’s just say I was a bit disillusioned. It was my first realization that maybe some of what I attributed to God was just my own inner dialogue. How could I tell the difference?

Other times, I heard him, but I misunderstood him. I drew the wrong conclusions.

When I was in the eighth grade, I had a life changing moment. It was in the middle of my World Geography class of all places. We were talking about current events, and a cyclone had just devastated Bangladesh. In that moment I felt something stir inside of me. I needed to go there. I needed to help. I felt it as strongly as I have felt anything.

I interpreted this to mean that I was going to be a missionary to Bangladesh. I believed that for a long time. I now know that I misinterpreted what God was saying.

I did go to Bangladesh, for three months as my internship in college, and it changed me forever. It was one of the most life altering experiences of my life. Not only that, it was the door through which I met my husband (a much better fit for me than the guy I was so convinced I was supposed to be with btw!). I was meant to go there, just not when and how I thought I was.

These experiences changed me, and they changed my understanding of God. I had been naive, and it was good to know the truth, but now, I find it hard to know when to trust God’s direction. How do I know it is him? Is it really Him guiding me, or am I looking for divine intervention in random circumstances? Is it His voice guiding me, or simply my subconscious hearing what it wants to hear?

These questions are crippling and they leave me wracked with indecision.

I always believed I was meant to live overseas. So did my husband. As he finished up his undergraduate degree, we prayed and contemplated. We waited for a sign, and when none was forthcoming, we made plans to move to Saipan to teach in a school there.

Instead, we got pregnant with Serena, and the timing was such that we couldn’t go. We unpacked our stuff and decided to wait a year.

When Serena was about six months old, we resurrected the dream of teaching overseas, and this time we were in conversation about positions in China. We were hammering out the details when we found out Serena was sick and our lives were sucked into a whirl pool.

In the aftermath, this dream laid dormant.

I thought about it often, wondering if that dream had “shriveled like a raisin in the sun.” Had it run its course? Was it just another example of my penchant to misunderstand the voice of God? I thought about it, but felt no inclination to pursue it.

For years, we were wracked with grief. Like a leaf caught in an autumn wind, we were dried out, brittle, damaged. We were blown wherever circumstance chose to take us. We could barely keep our heads above water much less think about going overseas.

Eventually, we felt less brittle, but the dream of moving overseas was replaced with a need for safety and security. Losing Serena had taught us of the transience of life, the unfairness of it. The hand of fate could reach down at any moment and tear our world apart. So we attempted to fill this lack of control with things we could control.

We surrounded ourselves with stuff–stuff that gave us the illusion of permanence. We got a big house in the suburbs complete with pool and hot tub in the backyard. We got a shiny new SUV. I decorated my house with care and creativity to resemble the houses in “Good Housekeeping” and “Better Homes and Gardens.”. I signed my kids up for football and baseball, ballet and gymnastics. I dressed them in trendy little outfits from the Gap and adorable outfits by Matilda Jane. In essence, we became the typical suburban family, living the stereotypical suburban life.

I feel like we have been in stasis the last three years, a holding pattern. We have lost the brittleness. The desperate need for security has lessened. Don’t get me wrong, we have not healed–I don’t think we ever will really heal. My heart is a web of cracks, any one of them can start throbbing or even begin bleeding again with the slightest of pressure. My daughter is not with me. I buried my first born–time cannot completely heal those wounds. But I am not a whirlpool inside any longer. I don’t feel the emptiness, the black hole, within me. I don’t need to try to fill it with “stuff.”

Instead of feeling sheltered by the “stuff,” I feel as if I am a mouse on a wheel, running, running, always running, but nothing ever changes. I am on a treadmill, the suburban treadmill, and just as I always knew, I do not find it satisfying. It leaves me feeling vaguely empty and unsatisfied.

And so I feel the dream stir.

Where in this broad world can I go? What places can I see? What adventures can I have?

I want to make a difference. I want to, at the end of my life, know that I have truly lived, that I’ve given back, that I have made this world better for having existed. That I have not simply gone through the motions.

But I question.

Is this stirring I feel the hand of God or is it merely my own thirst for adventure and meaning?

Am I going to step out, and reach for this dream knowing that the last time I did so, fate crushed me? Am I tempting fate by daring to dream this dream once more?

Or is it the voice of God I hear whispering in the corners of my mind? Is this not a dream that “fester[s] like a sore” but instead one that has spent the intervening years as a chrysalis–waiting to emerge as something I never could have imagined?

Did I hear the voice of God, but misconstrue the form it would take?

Is it the same dream, evolved, reformed, reborn?

How do I know the difference?

Do I wait until I know that it is God’s will?

I fear that, if I wait, I will never move, because I will never know for sure if it is His voice or my own. And it is safer, more comfortable, to do nothing.

But I can’t. Though my heart quakes, I think I would rather risk it, than grow roots and never move at all.

I think I’d rather hope for the butterfly, than settle for the treadmill.

I don’t know where,

I don’t know when,

and I don’t know how,

but for the first time since my world fell apart, I am ready, and willing, to leave comfort and security behind, and to see what else there is in this world of ours, and to see if, perhaps, this dream, rather than being a “heavy load,” might instead provide me with wings that will take me far from the treadmills of life.