Oh, the Places We Don't Want to Go

Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed might cross over? Isaiah 59:10 NIV

This last week I had an experience that was pleasant and rather thought provoking. My husband and I packed up the kids and visited a city we lived in nearly two decades ago.

We spent two glorious days relishing the cooler mountain temperatures and behaving like tourists. We explored some fantastic art galleries, bought some cute stuff, enjoyed a blues festival and indulged in some of the best Mexican food we’ve eaten in years.

The trip eventually morphed into a journey down memory lane. We drove past the Church we attended while we lived there, ate in some restaurants we used to enjoy, and drove the kids past the tiny house in the horrible neighborhood we lived in back in the day. The sights, sounds and smells of our old city brought back a lot of memories.

Silver City, New Mexico was not a place I wanted to go when we went there twenty years ago. It was a place I knew we needed to go, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

Prior to our move I was pretty content with my life. We lived in an area I loved, went to a Church I was happy in and had lots of really great friends who were very much like me in every way. Life felt safe and comfortable and I liked feeling safe and comfortable.

All that aside, our situation was less than perfect. The kids were small, our marriage was relatively young and my husband was in a dead-end job. And we were broke.  We were too-much-month-at-the-end-of-the-money and searching-the-sofa-cushions-for-change-the-day-before-payday broke. Our financial situation colored every other aspect of our lives.

Opportunities were essentially nonexistent in the town we lived in. So when a job opened up in a little town in New Mexico we knew in our hearts it was the stepping-stone to the bigger and better things that we had been praying for.

I would love to tell you that I joyfully leapt at the opportunity that God graciously provided and embraced the experience with an open heart and splendid attitude. I won’t tell you that because I refuse to lie.

 I whined and grumbled like an overindulged six-year-old. I focused entirely on the negative and took complaining to heights that would have shamed the Israelites wandering in the desert. Eventually, I did come to accept the changes, but sadly I failed to really embrace or welcome the experience.

It wasn’t until many years later that I finally understood how deeply I was impacted by those years. Silver City was a delightfully diverse little town. For the first time in my life I was exposed to all kinds of different people from all kinds of different races and backgrounds. We joined a wonderful Church with a Pastor who was not afraid to explore tough issues or confront wrong thinking.

The believers we met in that little community of faith forever changed my understanding of what it means to be a Christ follower. Their commitment and passion was something I had never really witnessed before. They challenged me in a million different ways to think about life and God and faith in ways that I had never considered before.

 Growth and change is nearly always awkward and uncomfortable, and those years were frequently both. Two decades after the fact I can clearly see that I came away from that brief period in my life a richer person with a deeper faith and better understanding of how the world works. I sometimes wonder what I would have gained if I had embraced the changes fully and sought to grow through the challenges rather than simply endure them.

 As I mulled this over I was reminded of other places I’ve gone that I did not wish to go. It’s all too infrequent for me to voluntarily go to the places that are painful or where I am required to confront the foolishness of my own choices. I sometimes avoid going to a place where I can forgive my enemies. After all these years I still resist going to the places where I have been asked to take on a task or an obligation that feels hard or unpleasant.  

God reminded me this past week that change seldom occurs in the comfortable, easy places. It’s the difficult, painful and uncomfortable places that bring the greatest prospects for spiritual growth and the development of maturity and wisdom. I will try to remember this the next time I find myself in a place that feels safe and comfortable.

  

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance~ Psalm 16:6 NIV

Book Review: How to Love Your Crazy Family

You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence~ Acts 2:28

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary a family is defined as…

 A group of people who are related to each other

Nice try, Merriam-Webster, but your definition utterly fails to capture the beautiful and occasionally chaotic nuances of family.

Family is where we learn to navigate the complexities of life and relationships; it’s the place we learn to give and receive love. Family is where our most fundamental beliefs and values are formed and where much of our future purpose is determined. Whatever we learn about God from our families will either be the bridge to a healthy future relationship with God or an obstacle we must overcome to have a meaningful connection with Him. 

 Family is our first community and, as in every community, there are joys and frustrations. There is joy because family is where we know and are known. Within marriage and family there is the potential to be loved and understood on a level that is impossible in any other setting.

 Any scenario with so much potential for intimacy is bound to have its share of irritations and frustrations. It is within the boundaries of marriage and family that our flaws are exposed and our rough edges (hopefully) smoothed away. This process of growth inevitably creates opportunities for tension to develop.

I recently read a book that beautifully captures the joy as well as the challenges of family life: How to Love Your Crazy Family: 52 Quick Reads for No Ordinary Days by Angela Howard. The book is a delightful and easy read that takes an honest and refreshing look at nearly every aspect of marriage and parenting.

The first half of the book is dedicated to parenting. Angela shares authentically and sometimes hysterically about her own experiences as a Mother of two. Angela deals with issues every Mom can relate to. She writes insightfully on the difficulty of letting go as kids approach the teenage years and comically portrays the ongoing battle most of us mothers have with perfectionism. She strikes an excellent balance between the need to improve our parenting skills and accepting the reality that no earthly parent is going to get it right all the time.

The second half of the book is dedicated to the subject of marriage and was my favorite part of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed Angela’s honest approach to some of the challenges she has faced in her own marriage, including the ins and outs of two imperfect people creating a life together and her husband’s diagnosis with bipolar disorder.

Healthy families are the cornerstone of a healthy society and a thriving church community. An endeavor as worthwhile as family is worth whatever effort it takes to get it right. I highly recommend Loving Your Crazy Family as a great read that will empower and encourage you to be the best parent and spouse you can be.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it~1^st Corinthians 3:10 ESV

Angela's book is available for $4.99 from the Amazon Kindle store. 

The Worst Thing

 So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image~ 2^nd Corinthians 3:18

On Tuesday afternoon, while Chandler, the seven-year-old boy I tutor, quietly finished a project, my daughter Abigail and I had a brief discussion regarding this week’s blog topic. I threw out a couple of possibilities for subjects and she responded to all my ideas with….well, let’s just call it tepid enthusiasm.  I finally suggested writing about “the worst thing you can do.” Chandler’s eyes got wide, his head shot up, and we had the following exchange…

Chandler (excitedly): I know what is the worst thing you can do.

Me: Oh, really, what is that?

Chandler: Ignore your teacher when he talks.

Me: Why is that the worst thing, Chandler?

Chandler: Because when you ignore your teacher you will have no idea what’s going on. Then you might accidently do the wrong thing and get a time out for not listening. And then you might yell at the teacher because it’s not fair and get sent to the office.

Me: All that happens just because you ignore your teacher?

Chandler: Yes.

Me: Has that ever happened to you Chandler?

Chandler: I don’t really want to talk about it…

Abigail: I think you have a blog topic, Mom.

 Chandler’s take on the “worst thing” is both precious and amusing. I truly treasure the chance to get a peak into his view of the world, but his conclusion is a bit naïve. Ignoring a teacher is without question a foolish thing that has the potential for many unpleasant consequences, but there are lots of “worse things.”

There are the really nasty worse things. The offenses that all decent people everywhere agree are wrong: the big sins of murder, theft and adultery. Then there are the lower-level worse things that all of us are guilty of from time to time but nobody likes to be a victim of. This list would include every behavior and attitude found in the Apostle Paul’s description of the kind of conduct we should expect as we approach the last days…

People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God~ 2^nd Timothy 3:2-4 NASB

Self-centeredness, greed, lack of gratitude, adultery, arrogance, murder, gossip, brutality, immaturity, irascibility, and lack of concern for others are vastly different worse things with vastly different consequences, but they are all fruit from the same foul tree (sin). At the root of all of these actions is the very worst thing...

Unwillingness to self-examine and make changes

No normal person relishes self-examination because it inevitably leads to the exposure of attitudes and behaviors that are unpleasant to acknowledge. As uncomfortable as self-examination can be, it is essential because it is how we begin to see ourselves as we really are. Seeing ourselves clearly is the first step toward spiritual growth and the pursuit of holiness. Christian growth and the pursuit of holiness is not about perfect church attendance, giving gobs of money to worthy causes, how we look, or even about helping poor people.

Those are all good things, but they are not the goal. The aim of Christian growth and the pursuit of holiness is inward transformation. Inward transformation requires a willingness to look at the ugly parts of ourselves honestly before a wrong attitude hardens into a wrong action.  

The Bible is clear on the need for routine bouts of self-analysis. 2^nd Corinthians 13:5 says…

 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?

 Eugene Peterson paraphrases this verse eloquently in The Message….

 Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.

The hazard of self-examination is that we get stuck there, turning healthy self-examination into unhealthy naval gazing. Navel gazing can easily morph into a pity party where we regularly wallow in our imperfections and inadequacies rather than move forward. Self-examination becomes a powerful tool that God uses to form us into His image when we take the information we discover and parlay that self-discovery into transformation.

I am confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus ~Philippians 1:6

Motherhood and Beyond...

Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands~ Psalm 112:1

Last Saturday, after a long day of preparing for a house full of company, my husband and I loaded the kids up in the car and took them to dinner at a buffet. After a bit of a wait we were seated next to a family with three children who all appeared to be under four years of age. I hate to admit this, but I was far less than thrilled to be seated next a family with little kids. After a long and stressful day I was really looking forward to some peace and quiet.

 I needn’t have worried. The kids were sweet, super cute, and very well behaved. But it was the Mother who captured my attention. She was absolutely amazing with her kids. She was cheerful and calm as she held the two-year-old on her lap, talking to him quietly about table manners and trying new foods while still managing to keep an eye on the baby and calmly direct the older boy. 

Watching that amazing young woman for an hour reminded me that Mothers are really the unsung heroes of human history. If it were not for the sacrificial contributions of women throughout history, no great civilizations would have been be constructed, no books would have been written, no masterpieces crafted and no righteous causes fought for because no people would be around to do any of those things.

A good Mother appears to be nearly superhuman. She requires practically no sleep to survive. Her hearing is so fine-tuned that she can identify the subtle sound of a two-year-old sneaking into a bathroom cupboard at the other end of the house with the TV on.

Her powers of perception are so highly refined that she can accurately sense when a child has had a bad day and needs to talk or when a teenager is plotting something shady. A mother’s ingenuity knows no bounds; she can produce a tasty feast from the weird stuff in the back of the pantry and create an award winning science project out of an empty soda bottle and an old poster board.

 A mother’s influence is perhaps the most powerful force on earth. Every person on earth has been shaped in a significant way by the impact of his or her Mother. Perhaps the most striking proof of a Mother’s importance is how drastically we feel the loss at a Mother’s absence.  For those of us who are lucky enough to be mothers, we too have been shaped by the experience. Mothering is a powerful act that effectively changes the destinies of all involved.

Nurturing children is a mission that all Christians agree is crucial. In recent years churches and Pastors have gone to great lengths to underscore and celebrate the importance of Motherhood. This is a very good thing. In a society that has devalued the art of mothering it is vitally important that Christian leaders encourage women as they nurture and train up the next generation.

For women without children Mother’s Day can be tough. In our eagerness to promote the importance of parenting, we subtly send the message that Mothering is the only really important thing that women can do. This message is a dangerous one that hurts all women, especially those without kids and those older women who may feel that their value has been diminished once their children are grown and gone.

 As valuable as motherhood is, it is essential for all of us to remember that there is more to who we are as women than whom we parent.  On this day that we rightfully set aside to celebrate the countless contributions Mothers make in this world, I want to remind women that motherhood is not the end of our journey towards biblical womanhood. It is simply a step that many of us take in the journey.

God has called Christian women to be…

In a constant pursuit of wisdom and knowledge~ Proverbs 4:7, Proverbs 2:6

Courageous~ 1^st Chronicles 28:20

Able to teach and pass on wisdom~ Proverbs 31:26, Titus 2:3-5

Loving and respectful towards our husbands~ 1^st Peter 3:1-8

Building up the Body of Christ~ Ephesians 4:11-13

Using our unique gifts for the betterment of others~ Proverbs 31: 8-9, Proverbs 31:20

A woman’s greatest power is found in her ability to influence other people. The quality of influence a woman has will largely depend on the quality of her relationship with God. A women who is seeking to be and do all that she has been called to be and do, regardless of the stage of life she finds herself, will become a powerful force for good in this world and a blessing to those whose life she touches.

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised~ Proverbs 31:30