I’ve been so stressed this week. Frown line, headache, TMJ, knots in my neck, upset stomach, tossing and turning type of stressed. With PMS and no chocolate. Sad life.
Right now, though, I feel content. I had a really great time shopping with Gesika today, and sometimes best friend time is all you need. She was in a bad mood too when we first set out, but we were able to turn it around with the help of some chai and retail therapy.
Ahhhh…I feel better.
Finally!
There’s something that’s going around on Facebook that makes me extremely angry. This is being posted by teenagers and girls in their early 20s who got knocked up:
“There’s a new group of real live super heroes & they’re popping up everywhere. They can easily do the work of two people all on their own. They’re strong & determined, yet gentle & sensitive. They can kiss away boo boos & scare away the boogie man in a single bound. Millions of kids everywhere look up to them. They’re called single moms.”
HA, I say. HA HA HA.
I was raised by a single mother. A woman who had me at 23, stayed with my grandma for two weeks after I was born because she nearly bled to death, and then moved into her own place and never once went back to live with anyone else. I can’t tell you how many girls I’ve known over the past couple years that had kids and are still living with their parents or living off of welfare and buying themselves sparkly things just because they can. And they’re being celebrated for it.
Rubbish.
I saw my mom not know where money was going to come from and get on her knees to pray for an answer. I saw my mom work her fingers to the bone so that we could get OFF of welfare and even when we qualified for it, she refused to take it as soon as we could survive. We always had cable, our utilities never got turned off, and I wasn’t allowed to get a cell phone or internet before she knew we could afford it. We drove horrible cars that were falling apart. I was made fun of into college for not having nice things. I’m still emotionally scarred from my horrible relationship with my horrible father. My mom has always been the person in the background picking up slack for the prideful, showy, lazy people and asking for no recognition in return.
Being a single mother is not fun. Being the child of a single mother isn’t fun either.
A child is NOT a doll, prop or accessory. It’s not like a small dog you can carry around in your purse. It’s a human being, and a single mother (or father!) is totally responsible for that human’s life. It should be terrifying and it should terrify these girls into action- not into lazing around on Facebook patting each other on the back. A babysitter can kiss booboos and scare the boogieman. Guess what? My mom raised me entirely on her own and never once enlisted the help of a babysitter. My grandparents watched me on very rare occasions. Before I started school, we would sit at home for days because we had to walk everywhere and couldn’t really afford to do anything.
She washed all of my baby clothes in the bathtub and hung them up to dry. She said that moving a mile and a half from our old place into a two bedroom apartment in town when I was a year old was such a blessing that it made her cry. She could finally walk to get groceries rather than ask for a ride.
We had little…but we had traditions and did special things. Every Sunday we went roller skating. When I started piano lessons, we went to Taco Bell and bowling after my lesson. We did what we could and eked out every bit of fun we could. We didn’t have much, but she instilled in me to keep the little that I had in good condition and cared for.
The kind of single mother that deserves to be lauded is too busy to ask for recognition.
She sat at the table and recounted a story that is the closer to hell than anything I’ve ever experienced. Her straight posture and matter-of-fact manner didn’t welcome pity for her pain that she hid well behind a mask of cynicism and wit and bluntness. Yet as we sat there, my heart broke for her. It was too late for me to do anything about her pain, but I knew it was tangible and wondered if I could have done anything beforehand to help her through it. I even realized that such thoughts were useless, but it all felt so real in that moment that I could barely hold myself together.
And then when we were alone, she had the audacity to apologize for possibly offending me with her tale.
It was an issue that countless people have underwent, even in the church, and it’s something that usually results in immediate condemnation. Yet condemnation was the farthest thing from my mind. I haven’t known her for very long, but I can honestly say that I love her. And in that love there was no judgment. Only deep regret that I hadn’t been there to support her. That she had to endure it alone.
The thought that she could have kept her story to herself out of fear of offending me made me feel a whole host of negative emotions toward myself and the religious community in general. Yet it felt so powerful because she chose to tell me and my first response was grace.
This isn’t a post to talk about how fabulous I am. The desire to extend grace was the most humbling thing I have ever felt in my life. I realized that grace means you’re aligning yourself with someone. It’s not showing that you’re condoning their actions but rather that you see them as they were made to be and are willing to help them close the gap from there to where they currently are. Extending grace means that you might receive condemnation simply from associating with them. It doesn’t mean that you’ll receive grace in return and almost certainly guarantees that enemies will rise up immediately to punish you for daring to give them a free pass.
I would never presume that I’ve made any impact on her life at all. If you could write a life story that was exactly the opposite of mine, hers would be it. But I’ve learned so much from her. Even if we never spoke again, I will forever remember her as striking. Her appearance, her wit, her ability to cut through all of the crap in a situation or a person and call them out on it. Her tenacity is unparalleled and the way she can rebound from a bad situation and push through everything life throws at her is remarkable. She warns and even apologizes for her brashness but refuses to curb herself to fit a mold. She’s the type of person that everyone wants to tame but she’s exactly what we need to make us realize that molds are completely useless.
She’s changed my life.
We’d be offended by her story, and that’s exactly why we need it.
When you first start playing trumpet, you’re told to buzz your lips to make sound. Eventually, it sounds less like buzzing and more like a tone. Right around that time, if you have a good teacher, then you’re told….not to buzz your lips anymore.
It’s confusing, at first. But the point is to let the pressure of the air being pushed with your diaphragm to actually buzz your lips for you. It’s amazing if you can actually master it. It’s what lets you play wicked high notes and hours long concerts- or in my case, church services, without getting tired.
If, you know, you can pull it off.
I’ve never really mastered it. I don’t know why. I’ve felt what it’s like before but it hasn’t become habitual. And without this skill, you can’t become great. You can be decent or even good, but greatness is unattainable unless you can utilize the force of the air.
Kind of like God’s power.
We can coast on grace for a while and get to a certain point. We can rely on His hand to help us through trials and to even give us blessings. But until we make it habitual to completely rely on His awesome supernatural power, we’ll never be able to fulfill what He’s called us to be.
Yesterday, the worship service seemed to drag on. The lights were hot and bright and the music blasting through my earbuds was loud. I had been working and getting up early for days and I was so tired and just wanted to sit down for a while. And rest, because isn’t that what Sundays are about?
Except in my type of church, we get a little overboard with worship sometimes and we keep going back into the same song over and over and over and over….and you wonder, “When will it be OVER?” I love Jesus, but after a while, well, I believe I’ve been set free. Can we move forward? Because I’m also standing up there in four inch heels. I know, I know, it’s my choice…but I don’t own flats.
Then I realized that my playing felt a little different. It felt easy. Effortless. Like the air was just floating. I wasn’t doing as much work as usual.
Without even thinking about it, I’d utilized a skill I didn’t even know I had.
When I was too tired to put forth the effort that the task normally would have required. When I was not concentrating. Not feeling up to it. Not being a very good person because I didn’t want to be there.
It happened. I did it. It was amazing. It was easier. Although Angelina Jolie lips are unavoidable after hours of playing, they didn’t feel like they were elastic or overworked. What normally would have exhausted me didn’t take its usual toll. When it was necessary, I finally performed like I needed to.
When it’s necessary, do you believe that God will perform for you?
I haven’t been blogging much because I’ve been struggling. And when you’re someone who claims to have faith, you feel like you shouldn’t be struggling at all. I think I’ve become so dependent on actually writing out my faith to remind myself that I really do believe all of this, that everything is going to get better and that I am going to prosper, and when I don’t have time to write it makes me not feel so convinced about it anymore.
This verse in Luke is most quoted around Christmas, from the King James Version:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. (2:13-14)
Yet I read it this way, from the English Standard Version:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
And in the Amplified:
Then suddenly there appeared with the angel an army of the troops of heaven (a heavenly knighthood), praising God and saying,
Glory to God in the highest [heaven], and on earth peace among men with whom He is well pleased [men of goodwill, of His favor].
We have such a problem reading the Bible correctly. We squabble over translations and original context and cultural clues and significance and we totally miss out on so many of the basic things. This verse has been so overquoted that I never realized how spectacular the “multitude of heavenly hosts” really would have been. An army of the troops of heaven. How terrifying would that display of power be, even knowing that it’s on your side. Every time angels appeared to someone in the Bible, they’d have to say, “Fear not!” because they’re so mighty and we’re so doubtful. We’re skeptical that someone would be willing to do something for us.
So we read “peace on Earth, good will toward men” as a commandment or a hopeful statement. That’s always the message I got from it. Be good to people, especially around Christmas, and hope people are good back to you. If not, suck it up.
Yet in other versions it is stated as a promise from God that we will have peace. Simply because He loves us and He gives us favor because we love Him back- and even if we don’t. Even caught up in our selfish ways, He finds something to love and bless. Because He’s just that good.
If a multitude of angels appeared in front of me, telling me that I was going to receive peace and favor from God, would I believe then? Maybe for a while. Then something decidedly unfavorable would happen that would try to steal my peace, and I’d get caught up in the dichotomy of what is promised and what I feel.
Instead of punishing me for my lack of faith, God designed the whole system, the entire story, to meet my faith. He didn’t do it all in one act. He wrote a continuing saga that is everlasting, and is still commanding the army of heavenly hosts to battle for me. He is funneling peace into my life and showing favor because that’s what He does and who He is. When I stop feeling it, He doesn’t give up and He doesn’t toss the story out and start over. He simply finds a new way to show me and starts a new chapter.
I haven’t blogged in forever, but I’m so excited to write again. Even logging in was soothing.
I want to do nothing more with my life than write, but for some reason I’m chasing a bunch of other things that feel much more attainable. In my head, I’m without a doubt a future author. But when I think about putting it in practice there’s an element of terror because I mean, there’s no way I can do this….yet I’m always thinking about it. Wondering when my next burst of inspiration will hit. If anyone will actually like what I’m writing. If an agent will listen to me and if a publisher will listen to her. If the public will allow my words to soak in and change them or fight the message that they offer.
Christmas is such a weird time. Some people celebrate the joy and being thankful for the past year and looking forward to the next one with no thought of Christ. Some people suspend the joy completely for the sake of religiously harping on the point that “JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON” and church marquees go overboard with cheesy and not-at-all-helpful lines that make drivers roll their eyes as they pass right on by.
And then you have the people in the middle. Who remember Christ as the center of the holiday but who celebrate Him at all times because He is the center of our lives. Who take joy in buying gifts for their loved ones and little things like eggnog (which I personally hate but whatev) and getting packages in the mail and opening Christmas cards and decorating trees and watching cheesy Hallmark movies and the million other things that are just fun and may not even have anything to do at all with Jesus directly. Yet Jesus came to give us life more abundantly, peace and joy and love and everything else that is and should be abundantly celebrated not only in this season, but in our lives.
The thing that I think a lot of Christians forget about is that Jesus doesn’t need us to defend His place in Christmas or in our lives. He refuses to be removed, by default. The best illustration of this, I think, is when Mark Driscoll updated Facebook and Twitter and said something about “Xmas” in his update and everyone on Facebook got riled up commenting about it and HOW DARE A PASTOR REMOVE CHRIST FROM CHRISTMAS!! Um, yeah, Twitter has a 140 character limit, don’t you know? But through all of the brouhaha, I found out that the abbreviation of using X for Christ originated a very long time ago, and it began because the Greek letter chi is the symbol of X and the first letter in the Greek word….Christos.
So I logged into my work e-mail this morning as usual, as they tell us to keep it open at all times while we’re there. I had a couple e-mails, and thinking that they were just the routine stuff that the new hires get, I clicked through them pretty quickly to skim over. I mean, it was 8 AM, and nothing gets more than a cursory reading before lunch.
Until I read an e-mail that said this:
Please know that God is using you for good.
Sometimes, God will put a light in a dark place,
not to enlighten the lost,
but to serve as a beacon,
to lead someone who has strayed from the fold and forgotten his way.
I have no idea who the sender is. I tried looking up his company profile, but I haven’t seen him. He’s not in my class, at least, I’m pretty sure he’s not. I’m COMPLETELY stumped. Oddly enough, though, I’m comforted.
Even if what we get isn’t what we really wanted, God will do small things to let you know that you are where you need to be for the time being. For instance, there are two guys in my class that I’ve really hit it off with and they’ve been my buddies from day one. Our collective sense of humor goes well together and even though we have completely different backgrounds and personalities, we really get along well and that is what actually makes me look forward to going to work. I know that I’m going to be cracking up within 10 minutes. But the funniest part? There are several shifts to choose from, and we all chose even before we started our training classes. One of the guys has the same shift that I do, and the other is only working one different day than both of us.
We didn’t know each other before we started. But I believe that God caused us to request similar shifts….which means we’re going to be working on the same team after training.
The job itself? Snore. Totally not what I want to be doing. It’s teaching me a lot, though. If I’m there, I might as well work hard at it and learn as much as I can. Including how to bring joy to other people, because the people there that bring me joy totally make it worth getting up at 6:30 in the morning.
Okay, so that’s a stretch. It definitely makes things a lot easier though.
Who are you bringing joy today? In your job? In your household? Your barista at Starbucks? I mean, he makes you happy by giving you a caffeinated drink. Can’t you return the favor?
I went to orientation for a new job Friday morning and I officially start training on Monday. I’m thankful to have an opportunity to make money, don’t get me wrong. It sucks to have no income. But it’s one of those “in-between” jobs, where you are just doing it because you have to while being sort of terrified that you’ll still be there ten years down the road. They hired a bunch of people seasonally and it’s definitely a motley crew. I am thankful that I get to wear what I want to work and be comfortable, but the lack of a dress code doesn’t really promote professionalism, especially when the people in charge are walking around in sweatpants and Ugg boots. I felt myself sliding into the old habits of putting forth a half-hearted effort, not trying to excel but rather to just get by with what I can do. Trying to avoid standing out.
Then I went to get my hair cut, and she had fun with it and gave me what I called movie star hair. It was fabulous and I felt like a million bucks when I left. Then I bought some awesome new shoes that I’d had my eye on, really gorgeous ones from Macys that were overpriced but so hot that I didn’t even care. Hairstyles and shoes don’t define me, but I realized when God started speaking into my spirit that the extra boost of confidence and vitality that I felt after getting them is how He made me to be.
There are some people who are totally content with little and only do what they need to do to get by and lead simple lives. Honestly? I think I’d tend to be one of those people, if God would just leave me alone. The price of trying to drag yourself out of that kind of life is very costly because it can lead you astray and get your focus off of what- well, Who, matters. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to seem discontent or ungrateful. But God seared that feeling into my spirit because He wanted me to know my calling. To know that I’m constantly supposed to have my eyes upward and to continue to progress. It’s something that he has instilled in me, and He is showing me more and more that I don’t have to make it all happen. That He will do it, but I have to be willing to put my own effort into it when the time comes to step up and carry it all out.
I’m alive for a reason. If I don’t step out when He calls, I might as well be slipping a noose around my neck. He wants me to accomplish great things. To be an example. If I only obey Him with my body by keeping myself alive that way, but don’t commit my entire being to what He wants, that’s not true obedience.
I still have days where deep sadness tries to overwhelm me. I wonder what the point is. I wish the journey could just be over. It has been two weeks since I found out the worst news of my entire life and I’m surprised about how well I’m doing, honestly. Before the whole thing even sank in, I was absolutely terrified about what would happen to me when the impact finally hit me. Surprisingly, I can get up and smile and rejoice and praise. But that doesn’t mean it’s all gone, and although I totally and completely believe in deliverance, I’m not sure it will ever truly be erased. Simply because I’ve had to learn to cope with it. I think it has made me a stronger person overall.
In the middle of all of this mess, God is showing me the kind of life that He has designed for me. And there’s some part of my soul that is so determined to not miss out on it that I’m convinced I will give it the best effort I have. Period.
Things can get really bad.
And then one good event happens, one good conversation takes place, and really good food is eaten. There are jokes and laughter and good music.
Even though things are still really bad overall, and the good times and laughter will fade and you’ll have to go back and face the whole big problem again sooner or later…it’s still nice to remember that things can be good. You can enjoy them, and be happy for a time, even though it doesn’t feel real because what IS real is hanging over your head.
Just for a minute, I substituted reality…and it was great.
I haven’t listened to much music lately. Don’t get me wrong- I love music. It’s a beautiful expression of emotion. But I think we use it to express concepts that we can’t quite understand. It reduces these overwhelming feelings to something that we can control and manage and withstand. Songs to the beloved, praises to God, laments of hard times. The reason that they’re still written and performed is a testament to how little humans have advanced since creation. We haven’t figured out why bad things happen, how to understand God, or how to manage our emotions. I write to understand and to learn, and I will never be able to stop writing something, somewhere, because I will never have all of the answers.
Expressing emotions and thoughts brings relief. Sometimes so much relief that things become mundane. Sing the same song in church over and over and the soaring melody becomes boring, the high praises seem to be mere compliments. Demonstrate love in the same way repeatedly and it becomes habit, no longer providing the same thrill. You forget how worthy someone is to receive what you’re giving, and how much you actually enjoyed giving it in the first place.
Since I’ve been living in relative silence for a couple weeks, it has made a huge difference in the way I see things. Rather than singing about how great God is without really feeling anything other than a release and an absolving from a duty of worship for a day, I have felt the greatness of God. His Spirit and power are so much stronger and mightier when we calm down, shut up, and allow ourselves to feel it without so quickly trying to express it. Rather than trying to break down that power into something that I think I can handle, into a smaller dose so that it is easier to stomach, I have basked in His glory. Then when it’s time to pray or worship, I do so with a whole new appreciation for who He is.
Rather than constantly bombarding yourself with reminders of how awesome God is or how much you love your significant other or how much you enjoy spending time with your friends or need your parents to stand behind you…be silent for a little while. Rather than constantly fueling it, step back and observe it. Don’t be so caught up in making it happen, but watch it and feel it and let it or them or Him remind you of what drew you there in the first place. Then let your expression of love be stronger than ever.Sto
Hey there! Glad you stopped by to read my genius musings. Just kidding. Sort of. I plan to review books, expound on life with sage wisdom, and rant like a redhead here. I can be quite practical and objective, yet I'm a huge dreamer at the same time. Hence the heading and subtitle of the blog. Leave me a comment and a link to your own blog!
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