Word Therapy

2 Ways to Care for Your Soul in a Time of Isolation

With nearly the entire planet on some form of lockdown, shelter-in-place, social distancing, isolation, or quarantine, life as we know it, has ground to a halt.

For many people and many reasons, this presents incredible challenges. There are literally life and death scenarios being thrown to the forefronts of many peoples’ lives right now, and the gravity of that must be appreciated by everyone whether or not this current disaster affects you in a magnitude of ways, or in ways that are merely more subtle.

 

Already, I have a sense of “privilege guilt” going on. This is not unusual for me, but it’s particularly intense right now. I have so many stabilizers in place, simply by the grace of God, that many people do not. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and rather than just feeling bad about how good I have it, I’ve been pondering what it looks like to harness these circumstances in a way that is not wasteful.

 

Over the past several years I’ve been on a journey of soul reformation. This has taken many forms by way of books, therapy, prayer/inner healing ministry, writing, etc. One clear theme throughout all of this has emerged: In order to understand why we do and say the things we do and say, we must understand our own hearts. I think all of us have relationships that could be improved and often the best place to start is with ourselves. When we improve our relationships, we improve our world. Trying harder and doing better to be more kind, more patient, more forgiving, more gracious, does not work. It may work for a short time but eventually it will crack.

 

What I’m getting at is this: We have a rare opportunity to have all of the layers peeled back and many of the distractions of life momentarily paused; and what will we find when we peer behind the curtain of our own soul?

Now, it is entirely possible to fritter away this opportunity with endless consumption of social media, news, netflix, and the distraction du jour (guilty, as charged!)

 

OR we can choose to sit with the pain. Sit with the fear, the grief, the angst, the uncertainty and begin to unravel the threads that will lead us back to our core feelings. 

 

For example (and yes, this is a trivial matter, but it illustrates what I'm talking about): 

 

This afternoon I walked through the house and noticed that it was rather messy and I also noticed that I wasn’t that bothered by it (that is NOT my normal response). So, I took a moment to think about why my reaction was different than normal. As it turns out, I wasn’t bothered because I know that tomorrow presents the same opportunity as today: An empty schedule with plenty of time to pick things up and vacuum. Also, I was aware that I have no impending visitors, so there was not the hidden-back-of-the-mind stress of needing to “get ready” for someone to come over, whereupon I will feel self-conscious about my untidy house with peeling wallpaper and too much pet hair. (Sidenote: I love people, so I do often like to invite people over, but I remain painfully self-conscious about my living space. I’m working on it).

 

Now that I have these two motivations for stress uncovered, I have a clearer picture of what trips me up in the day to day around this particular issue when we are living “normally” (as opposed to apocalyptically. Just kidding, sort of).

 

I frequently tend to over schedule myself and so then feel short on time, which leads to feeling overwhelmed about everything that has to be done at home, and then feel even more frantic when I realize that so-and-so is coming over on Thursday and I’ve got a LOT to get done by then. 

This is helpful for when we re-enter normalcy, if I manage to remember these things and factor them in when I start to re-engage with a more normative schedule and set of expectations.

Then again, what is normal? Maybe we will experience a permanent shift as a society, where we stop expecting so much of ourselves and each other and quit scheduling the heck out of ourselves and our families. Maybe not. But we all get to decide those things for ourselves, which is awesome!

 

So, in this time I am encouraging you to do these 2 things with me:

 

• Pay attention to makes you feel stress or sadness or angst

 

• Pay attention to what makes you feel happy or peaceful or relieved

 

As we do this, we may discover hidden parts of ourselves that have previously been obscured by a busy schedule and a loud world.

 

The busy schedule part has been mostly taken care of for us, but we can still allow the world to be really loud right now if we aren’t careful. 

 

Embrace this gift of time. Get down into the weeds of how God created you, and I pray that you would take what you find, and allow yourself the space to be the most fully alive you, and by doing so that you would emerge from this time of rest, ready to bless the world more spectacularly than you ever have before.

Turning Pages & Trading Numbers

I set a goal this year. Well, a few actually, but one was very specific.

 

I decided that instead of continuing to say that I’d become too busy to read, while frittering away the hours reading news articles, status updates and tweets in 4 (or 14 or 40!!) minute increments, I was going to sit my butt down and get some reading done of good old fashioned books.

 

I decided to go full paper, because I miss the tactile experience of turning pages, and I don’t always like to be tethered to a device. There is something so freeing about grabbing an actual book, putting your phone in a timeout, and turning some pages.

I didn’t even set sub-categorical goals with regard to fiction or non-fiction or genre, I just said I wanted to read 25 books this year.

 

I did a little check in back in June to see if I was near the halfway mark, and I was pretty close. 

 

Here’s what I’ve read so far:

 

Non-Fiction:

 

Lost Boy-Greg Laurie  

This was an autobiographical look at Pastor & Evangelist Greg Laurie's life. 

Jesus Revolution- Greg Laurie

Kind of a "Part 2" to Lost Boy. Greg Laurie's beginning years as a pastor and what God did in the 70s in California.

Irresistible-Andy Stanley

A very interesting (and sometimes controversial) book about why our faith as Christians has become unappealing, why it should not be that way, and how we move forward. I would say this is a good read for anyone who is currently in ministry or if you are raising kids and hope that they will follow Christ.

The Road Back to You-Ian Morgan Cron

The Enneagram. Some people love it, some people hate it, but it's fast gaining traction in all kinds of spaces as a tool for helping people to develop self awareness, others awareness, and cultivate healthy growth in relationships. It's an ancient personality typing system that is surprisingly accurate.

Here Now-Kate Merrick (This one made me ugly cry a few times)

This is a memoir about Kate's family's time with their daughter during her cancer treatments. It's such a good and poignant reminder that we live with actual people who are incredibly precious, and we would all be better off if we took the time to be more intentionally present.

Educated-Tara Westover 

A page turning memoir about a girl from Idaho who was raised sort of off the grid. It's full of stories involving alternative lifestyles, mental illness, and the grit necessary to overcome an extremely dysfunctional childhood. 

Chasing Slow-Erin Loechner

This was a fun read. Her writing style is humorous and the book is peppered with anecdotes, pretty pictures, recipes, etc. It's got some depth as far as her personal story, but overall it's a pretty easy read.

The Tech Wise Family-Andy Crouch

A good resource to have in your home regarding good boundaries with technology

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You-Tony Reinke

A look at what our constant use of smartphones is doing to us. (Spoiler alert: It's alarming. For about 5 minutes. And then I was back on Twitter)

 

Fiction:

Where the Crawdads Sing-Delia Owens (I wish she would hurry up and write more! SO GOOD)

The Great Alone-Kristin Hannah 

The Shack-Paul Young

 

 

Historical Fiction: 

The Nightingale-Kristin Hannah (I must visit France now that I’ve read this book)

All The Light We Cannot See-Anthony Doerr

Before We Were Yours-Lisa Wingate 

 

I had kind of given up fiction over the past decade. I was in a state of feeling like my life was in perpetual chaos, for which I was woefully unprepared, so I spent the bulk of my time reading books on how to improve myself, improve my relationships, deepen my connection with God, and generally how to have better skills in marriage and parenting. This was a valuable time of growth for sure, but I didn’t realize how much I missed fiction!

 

There is something amazing about getting sucked into a good story. It’s become sort of an escape for me this past year. As it turns out, I lean toward fiction that tends to be on the darker side of things; whether that is a book that is historical fiction based on events where the author crafts a likely narrative of what could have actually happened and tells the story through the eyes of fictional characters, or I lean toward fiction that contains a lot of deep emotional turmoil and traumatic twists and turns throughout the characters lives.  A few times now I’ve been told by friends to whom I’ve recommended books: “Kristi, that book was really good but it was just so sad!”

 

In a weird way those are the books that make me feel the most alive. There is something in me that likes to remain connected to the suffering of the world, and books like the Nightingale and All the Light we Cannot See, which both were set in WWII, remind me that life on earth is fleeting, suffering is real, injustice is horrific, and we should be careful not to waste our precious lives on things that are inconsequential.

 

Of course my melodramatic flair may be due to the fact that I’m a 4w5 on the Enneagram…yeah. If you read my earlier blog post where I self-declared as a 3, well I was wrong. One thing I’ve been learning about the Enneagram is that many people go through a process of identifying themselves as the wrong number, often multiple times, until they really figure out their true number. What a relief! Maybe I’m not crazy after all. Or maybe I am. Anne Lamott says it well: "It's okay to realize you're crazy and damaged. All the best people are.”

 

If you would like to learn more about the Enneagram, check out the book I listed above called The Road Back to You. It’s an incredible resource that discusses how to find your type, and then gives you a healthy overview of all 9 types. It’s not an overly cerebral read, and the author is funny so it’s not torturous like many self-help/self-discovery books tend to be.

 

As for hitting my 25 book goal, I think I can do it. Now that school is back in session, I am hoping to pick up the pace a bit with more structure and rhythm in our lives. Whoever talks about summer being a great time to get all the reading done, maybe doesn’t have young kids?? My reading pace slowed to a crawl over the summer. I’m in the midst of 3 books right now and I have a huge stack that I hope to get to by the end of the year. Maybe I’ll even pass 25!

 

I’ll recap my others at the end of the year, and if you’ve read this whole post, congratulations! You must also REALLY love to read!

How Not to Be Selfish

 

Navel Gazing.

 

The first time I heard that term, I was baffled. I must have taken it really literally because I got this immediate visual of a bunch of people walking around looking at their bare midriffs. I guess it’s not that far off the mark from what it means. Turning your focus inward so much that you you can’t un-fix your gaze from your own fleshly consciousness, which I would assume, results in all kinds of disasters as you lose complete awareness of what is happening in the world around you as you perpetually gaze inward.

 

This term is used almost exclusively negatively, and for good reason. The kind of self-focus that renders us unable to look up and pay attention to any person or circumstance outside of ourselves, is inherently toxic. It’s toxic to us, and it’s toxic to the world. We are to be living in a very interconnected system that’s built on a foundation of each-other-ness, love, mercy, kindness, and shared experience.

 

I’ve been thinking lately about our current cultural trends of self-focus (which by the way, are not a novel idea. For all of history, humans have a track record of ruthlessly guarding and protecting our own little hunks of real estate in both body and land). Selfishness is not a new thing.

 

If you’ve known me for 5 minutes you probably have heard me talk about the Enneagram. It’s the latest personality tool dú jour, and it’s the one that I’ve spent the most time studying recently. Podcasts, books, conferences, team-training events, they are all abuzz with chatter about the enneagram and how it can help every human become more self aware, and in turn, become healthier, more empathetic people who make space for others who see the world differently.

 

I’ve talked with a few people who have little-to-no patience for this “nonsense”. It’s written off as a waste of time, an overindulgent venture into the land of self-reflection that only results in people spending too much time in self-examination, thereby resulting in increasing selfishness. 

 

I would like to propose that it results in the complete opposite effect, when kept in it’s proper place.

 

I believe that through increasing our levels of self-awareness, we can become more loving. When someone fails to show love, it usually comes from a place of fear, a wound, or a lack of understanding. 

Photo by Jordan Sanchez on Unsplash

Let me share a personal story to illustrate my point:

 

Once upon a time, I accused my husband of being lazy. Yes, lazy. Now, if you know Kevin, you know he is not lazy. The guy works a full time job, runs an orchard on the side, and is a great dad to 3 kids. He also just got his pilot’s license. He does other things too, but you don’t need his full resumé to see that I was WAY off when I accused him of being lazy. I imagine my accusation arose out of frustration on my end that he was not bending to my request that we make plans, commit to things, and get them on the calendar.  Perhaps because the poor guy was TIRED. And as I’ve come to now understand about him, because of the way he is wired, he does not think weeks into the future and look forward to having a full calendar of events. He just doesn’t. That doesn’t make him lazy, that makes him different than me in that regard. But not lazy.

 

On the flip side, he called out my FOMO wayyyyyy before that term was even officially coined, back when we were dating in High School. I have this deep need to fill our time with adventure and to maximize every opportunity. Being slow and still and feeling like we have possibly wasted an opportunity is terribly hard for me to accept. So, as it was, we spent the first decade of our marriage continuing to butt heads about this (and sometimes we still do), each thinking the other was “wrong” and not realizing that we just had very different fundamental wiring. 

 

Now that I understand that Kevin is not trying to be lazy or make me mad by his reticence to commit to a multitude of plans, I don’t take it personally. I just back off and sometimes do stuff without him. Or I just learn to live with the disappointment of not always doing what I want to do. 

 

That’s just one example of how coming to understand each other can go a long way toward avoiding or diverting conflict and disappointment. But you can’t do it if you’re unwilling to consider that maybe *you* are not the normal, and everyone else is weird. Incidentally it seems like many of us operate this way in the world. We believe that the way we think, live, and believe is the norm, and everyone else is a deviation from our norm, and when confronted with these deviations, we have no skills with which to come to a place of understanding; rather we continually try to convince the other person how wrong they are, how right we are, and how they need to be more like us.

 

I think this explains a lot about why we are so polarized as a society, why marriages and relationships suffer catastrophic irreconcilable differences, why churches split, and why racism, nationalism, ageism, classism, and every kind of “ism” continues to persist. We have a lack of understanding. 

At the end of the day though, the Enneagram, or any other way of better understanding your own personality and the personalities of those in your life, do not hold the trump card over God’s call to us to lay down our lives for each other. The highest aim of faith working itself out through love, is to love God and love people. 

 

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.-1 John 3:16

 

This means that we don’t get to use our personalities as a cop-out.  I don’t get to sign up my family for everything under the sun under the guise of “staying true to myself”. I don’t want to be true to myself, I want to be true to God. But I must know myself, because if I don’t, then I don’t know about those areas that are still offensive to God and people, and if I don’t know what those are, it’s very hard to offer them up in humility to His refining hands. 

 

In A.D. 400, St. Augustine wrote, “How can you draw close to God when you are far from your own self? Grant, Lord, that I may know myself, that I may know thee.”

 

So I believe that with the right spirit, increased self-awareness can actually be a really beautiful, useful discipline that leads us into greater selflessness, rather than a life lived perpetually staring at our own spiritual midsections.

 

 

 

 

 

In the Footsteps of a Friend

 

Yesterday I said goodbye to a dear friend. I didn’t realize how much I treasured our friendship until these last few months when the departure date loomed imminent on the calendar. Every time I thought about it, that old song “Don’t know what you got, til it’s gone” would run through my mind. I am for sure a child of the 80s.

My friend Kaye is leaving this place to step into the new place that God has called her to. She is moving to Spring Arbor Michigan to be the Lead Pastor at a church there. I’m simultaneously excited for her, and yet filled with grief that the person who has walked with me through so much over the past 7 years will no longer be available for a quick coffee date, a long lunch, a face to face delivery of wisdom for a marriage crisis or a parenting meltdown, or an in-the-flesh exemplar of the most stunning shoe collection I have ever laid eyes upon.

 

When I think of how we became friends, I’m increasingly blown away that she even made time for me. I basically targeted her with an email that went something like this: “I have no idea how to raise my kids and you seem really smart, so will you help me?” At the time she was the interim family ministries director at our church and she had recently spoken at MOPS and seemed to have some high level wisdom that I was sorely lacking. 

 

I showed up to our first “friend date” with not the first clue that my first presentation in the days of “Kristi at 29” was rather off-putting. I’m not sure if I would have been friends with me. We met at the Anjou bakery just outside of Cashmere (if you haven’t been there, you have to try it. Get the ham and butter sandwich) I came with a literal list of questions, and most of them were about theology & parenting. I guess I was sort of brand-new in my faith and had massive theological questions and Kaye seemed like the one to ask. At the time, I was of the persuasion that women were not to be pastors, according to the bible. Since I did not possess an abundance of tact, and primarily saw things through rigid dichotomies of black and white, I went on to basically ask her how & why she was pursuing ministry, since she was a woman. The question from my end was innocent at the time, but now that I’ve lived a few more years, I can see how incredibly offensive that must have sounded. And yet, she agreed to meet with me again.

 

Over the years we hiked miles together, drank many cups of coffee, prayed together at the pinnacle of some of the most stunning places you can find in this valley, and with the graces of time and a patient friend, my rough edges were somewhat sanded off (notice I said *somewhat*)

(My first & only paddle boarding experience to date. She let me have the board that's promised to be un-flippable. It was a legit, white, inflatable barge that made me feel incredibly proficient as I nervously traversed the bird sanctuary in the Columbia)

Of all of the friends I’ve have through the years, Kaye has definitely challenged me the most. She is that person who asks questions that poke at your worldview and undermine your carefully curated presuppositions. She is the one who hears the grand plan and can see the potential landmines or areas that need further exploration. She has a knack for sending me on the hunt for more information after I feel like I’ve finally landed the plane on a particular issue.

Sometimes this has frustrated me because there’s a big part of me that wants someone to cheerlead me regardless of the amount of tomfoolery I’m engaging with, but the more refined part of me understands that feedback from a friend, given in a spirit of love and leadership, is seriously one of the best, most underrated gifts in life.

Because of Kaye’s leadership, I have learned to live in a way that invites curiosity; she has exemplified the confident faith that knows that all truth is God’s truth, so we don’t have to be afraid to ask questions and re-examine long held tenets that are more tradition than sound doctrine—like my formerly held view that women can’t be pastors. She was one of a few people who helped me to come to a better, more biblical understanding whereupon both men AND women are called and gifted by God for doing the work of ministry. She helped me climb out of the narrow, partisan boxes I was living in with regard to a multitude of different social and political issues, and to see that as a follower of Jesus, there are areas of nuance that cannot be tidily shoved into the corners of Right or Left.  She helped me to rethink what it means to follow Jesus and to let him really inform EVERY area of life. She helped me to develop an attitude of grace that doesn’t write people off when they become too _________. (frustrating, annoying, addicted, irritating, stupid, inept, you get the picture)

 

In a word, she discipled me.

She pastored me. She was a friend to me. I know that this friendship isn’t ending, it’s transforming. We will lean heavily on technology to be the path where our witty banter and theological musings can traverse back and forth from Washington to Michigan.

 

She has left her mark on me, our church, and this valley, and I’m incredibly grateful to get to walk in her wake. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that on our last lunch together, we showed up wearing the same shoes. 

I’ve always loved her shoe collection, and I hope to walk worthy, just like she’s been showing me how to do for all these years. I love you, Kaye!

 ^"Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ."- 1 Corinthians 11:1

 

 

*If you would like further resources on why I believe that its part of God's redemptive, good plan to have both men and women leading and shepherding His church, see below:

Defusing the 1 Timothy 2:12 Bomb

Ordaining Women by B.T. Roberts

How I Changed My Mind About Women in Leadership-multiple authors

The Blue Parakeet by Scot McNight

 

Safe Kids & Wise Parents

 

I'm sharing this week a little recap of last week's Tech-Savvy parenting group, and a preview of what we are covering tomorrow. Also, if you can't tell, I feel strongly about this subject! If you are a 21st century parent, acting as the gatekeeper for your kids in the online and digital world is your J.O.B. Thanks for watching!

 

 

 

 

 

HGTV & Eternity

 

 

“When you think of our time here in light of eternity, spending your life trying to perpetually upgrade your home, is like deciding to install granite countertops during your weekend stay at the Holiday Inn.” -Paraphrase Joby Martin, Church of Eleven22

 

I’ll never forget the first time I heard that sermon illustration. It made so much sense and felt like somebody had just lifted a lead blanket from my shoulders.  So much of life for the modern American middle-classer is directed toward self-improvement, status-improvement, and home-improvement of all kinds. NONE of those are bad aspirations, but if they are to be pursued, they definitely must be pursued in light of context, and rightly-ordered priorities.

 

Before I became a Christian and realized that this life a vapor (something I still struggle to remember!), I had a lengthy and detailed map for my road to the pinnacle of American success. I would be perpetually upwardly mobile, never settling for less than I could achieve should I increase my level of diligence. Success was well-defined and measurable based on income level, number of vacations taken, career position, and of course for our HGTV beholden culture, it would have to include a house that was LEGIT.

 

I’m sure many of you have found yourselves in lives that don’t reflect what you had planned for yourself in high school, or am I alone in this? Through several turns of events and unforeseen forks in the road, I have now spent a decade as a stay at home mom, living the orchard life, and gazing at peeling wall paper in my kitchen while I tirelessly try to pitch and re-order enough stuff to make our family of 5 feel as un-suffocated as possible in our home. Once I found the freedom to get rid of all KINDS of stuff (including some of those precious preschool papers and junk toys and sentimental gifts), it became much easier to create a home that feels just right for our family.

 

At the risk of sounding terribly self-absorbed (I mean, it’s actually true but now I’m just telling all of you), I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life over the last 10 years examining myself and our life and trying to figure out how to feel more content in all of it. The fight for contentment is a battle that I have to wage daily. I want to be the mom that enjoys the chaos because the kids are having fun, but I’m not wired that way.

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

What makes me the most frustrated about my own unceasing internal dialogue, is that my life is GOOD and I have to constantly fight to embrace it. To so many people I am living the absolute dream. And when I take a second to really look at everything I have to be thankful for, I actually feel really silly considering all the things I still focus on and find lacking. I am frustrated that I seem to give into the temptation to believe that newer, bigger, better will somehow make me happier. It is SUCH a lie. I’m not even kidding, about 4 years ago I just had to shut off HGTV for good. I found that every time I watched it I felt “less-than” or discouraged because I know that no matter how hard I try or how creative I get, this place will never look like “that place”.

 

Does this confession make me sound like the most shallow person ever? Maybe so. But I’m risking sharing my ridiculousness in the hopes that it will set someone else free. I don’t want to live a life enslaved to making sure my paint colors are up to date, my spaces are fresh and modern, and my kids’ rooms resemble a pottery barn catalogue. Instead I want to remember that I am to: “live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ”. I can live this way, focused on the temporary nature of my life here and the great calling that I, along with every other believer have been given, when I remember this truth from the Apostle Peter: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!. In his great mercy he has given us new birth into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you.”

When I spend all my days trying to earn and grab an “inheritance” of earthly things that will ultimately break, decay, and lose their value, it makes me take my eye off the ball. I want to live in a way where I’m absolutely convinced that my inheritance is already secure and I don't’ have to work for it or manipulate the people and variables in my life in order to ‘get mine’ in the here and now.

 

And it is for such a time as this that it’s vital that we live this way. This world is full of so much confusion, chaos, and brokenness. If I have a light, I want it to shine. I don’t want it to stay trapped under heavy load of self-imposed pseudo-priorities that will matter zero percent in 100 years. I’ve got to be after the eternal things; hearts and souls. Everything else will disappear. Including my peeling wall paper and short countertops.

 

 

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” Matthew 6:19

Photo by Milivoj Kuhar on Unsplash

Mind & Soul Growth (even for the super-busy)

 

“I just don’t know how you have time to read!'

“How in the world do you find time to listen to all those podcasts?!”

 

As an information hound and someone who loves to learn, I’ve heard both of these statements numerous times in the past decade. For 10 years now, I’ve been a stay-at-home mom. Prior to that, I worked full time as a nurse, and prior to that I was in college full time, and previously my K-12 education. My brain did not get the memo very well, that it was time to shift gears into changing diapers, fetching another snack, mopping and vacuuming for the millionth time, and engaging in yet another small-talk chat at the park.

 

Motherhood has been challenging for me on a number of fronts, and I think one of the primary reasons has been because I do so love to learn, and not necessarily always about the latest and greatest ways of teaching phonics to my preschooler.

 

Sometimes when I’ve been asked how I “find time” to read or listen to something that’s interesting to me, I feel guilty. As if I “should” be making more play dough or figuring out how to weave in a world history lesson over breakfast. I do those things too, but they aren’t what get me out of bed in the morning or occupy any small smidge of white-space left in the margins of my brain. I do love being a mom, but I’ll be the first to admit that I would make a terrible homeschool mom, and I’m finally okay with that.

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a voracious reader. In this phase of life, with little time to actually sit down and turn pages, I listen to a lot of audiobooks and podcasts. In my very earliest parenting days, my quest for information was primarily focused on navigating the many options of every facet of parenting. Attachment parenting vs. Babywise. Vaccines or Not. Breastfeeding vs. Formula. Baby-led solids vs Rice cereal at 4 months. To Spank or not to Spank. Co-sleeping or Sleep training….blah, blah, blah. I voraciously perused every source of information I could find, usually ending up feeling more overwhelmed than anything, and COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE JUST TELL ME HOW NOT TO RUIN MY KID?????

 

So, fast-forward a couple of years to when I was captured by the grace of God and developed an insatiable appetite to know Him more and understand why he put me on earth, and hello Podcasts! Preaching, teaching, exchanging ideas, leadership development…there is an infinity of podcast options depending on what you are going after.

 

But still, the question that often comes up is “yeah, I know there are great resources, but as a mom how do I actually have time to get any of them into my brain?”  On a really practical level, this is what it looks like for me:

• I rarely watch TV. Sitting still is too boring for me and I get way more information retention when I’m moving.
• Redeem your time. Do you drive? Cook? Wash dishes? Vacuum? Do yard work? These are the primary times I’m listening. I have a phone and I plug my earbuds in and if the kids are home, I’ll put in ONE earbud so I can still hear when I need to with the other ear. Also, my iPhone earbuds have a mic and controls that hang right by my face so if someone wants to talk I just hit that pause button.  Typically I don’t listen much in the car unless I’m alone, or I need a bit of a “mom-break”. 

 

Now, a word of caution.

 

I can get straight up ADDICTED to information and having a constantly busy brain. It’s something I’ve learned about myself, and I know the warning signs for when I need to disengage and let my brain be bored.  Sometimes its good to give your brain white space when you are just doing mundane things, but overall I’ve found that I fold clothes much more quickly and stick with it longer when I’m listening to a captivating audiobook or podcast.  But there are times when I hear God say “Shut it down, your soul is chaos and you need to listen for my voice right now.” That’s when I need to have the self-discipline to disconnect and be still. Sometimes it’s hard. Honestly because it’s sometimes hard to face what’s going on inside of us, and filling our lives with noise can mask our real problems and pain points. It’s important to be aware of when that is going on and act accordingly.

Just get to know yourself, your desires, your limits, what you want to learn, how you want to grow. What has been piquing your curiosity? I’d encourage you to dive into it with whatever slice of time you can find! 

 

I’d love to know what works for you as well, and please feel free to share any favorite podcasts or books you’ve been loving!

Lessons from my Grandpa

It's been almost a month since we said goodbye to my Grandpa, and I'm thinking about him today. I shared a few things at his funeral that he taught me, and I noticed that two of these legacy points showed up in our lives today.  Namely, butter and saltines, and little girls going to work:

 

Here is the comprehensive list I shared at the funeral of things that my grandpa taught me:

• A well-oiled quartet is one of the most beautiful sounds that will ever reach the human ears.
• A little raw hamburger straight from the grinder never hurt anyone, as long as it comes from your own shop and a local cow.
• It’s more interesting to ask questions about the happenings of other peoples’ lives rather than talking about yourself all the time. Maya Angelou said: “People won’t always remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel.” I remember feeling valued  because my grandpa showed a genuine interest in who I was becoming as a young person.
• Kids can work too. Whether stamping packages of freshly wrapped meat, hauling cattle at the ripe age of 3 years old in the old truck with no seatbelts or carseats in sight, or just sitting on the counter marveling at the steady stream of “worms” coming out of the hamburger grinder, don’t be afraid to introduce your kids to your culture of work.
• Differing political views create opportunities for vigorous and robust dialogue that sharpens the mind and doesn’t need to be a force that drives a wedge in a relationship.  We can love fiercely those with whom we disagree.
• Cultural literacy is best handed down by someone who has “been there and done that”. My grandpa would often stump me with weird euphemisms that were brand-new to my young mind. He would insert some funny old saying into our conversation that left me scratching my head, my face wrinkled in confusion. He would silently laugh at me, his face twisted up in his unforgettable grin, just before he would explain what he had just said, giving me wisdom beyond my young years.
• Saltine crackers with butter is a Grade-A snack.
• Whistling is a totally viable option for a second language.
• Don’t neglect the lost art of communication and following through. Looking back over old emails between my Grandpa and I, I re-discovered that he was recruiting people to pray on my behalf when I had a cancer scare in my 20s, and then taking the time to pass along to me all of the prayers and well-wishes that his friends offered.
• Jag ska gå i skolan imorgon. My one Swedish sentence that I know, I learned from him. Don’t let google translator replace your ancestral heritage! Learn from those who have immigrated here.
• Picking up a slug with your bare-hands in order to win a scavenger hunt, is a sure way to amaze and win the heart of your granddaughter.
• Showing up in the lives of your grandkids matters. I have all of these memories of my grandpa because he made it a point to spend time with all of his grandkids.
• A legacy of faith is an unfathomable gift. The building blocks of my faith were laid here at this church, where I saw my Grandpa faithfully attending and serving every Sunday. This is the greatest gift of all.

 

Older generations, take time to invest in the next generation. Next generation, put your phones away for 10 minutes and glean from the overflow of wisdom and experience that the older generations have to offer. And above all, trust in Jesus more than you trust in anything on earth, as we look forward to the day that He returns and makes all things right.

A Letter to my Elders; Bring Back the Village!

“It takes a village to raise a child”

 

A proverb we’ve heard numerous times.  We nod our heads in agreement, or maybe we pull back from that mentality thinking “If I let the village raise my child, I’ll end up with the village idiot!” Depending on where you live, that’s definitely not outside the realm of possibility.

 

We aren’t just looking for any old group of people to help us rear our families, right? We know that perhaps one of our biggest prizes in this life could be to raise kids who become productive adults; blessings rather than burdens to society; emotionally healthy individuals who contribute to the world in unique ways of beauty, career, relationship, and influence.  But I don’t know if you’ve looked around lately and noticed what I’ve been noticing? Families are strained. Marriages are fracturing.  Kids are breaking on the inside and no one notices until the devastation of their souls is manifested in ways of suicide, addiction, anxiety, depression, or violence.

 

We are quick to point the finger as to what is causing this.  I’m in the midst of the generation trying to raise kids in what can feel like a scary, new day. I hear the commentary from those who have gone before, sometimes gracious but often full of condemnation: “Snowflakes! They are raising a bunch of snowflakes!” “When I was a kid we were taught to shut up and obey and that’s why we turned out so good!” “Kids these days get everything they want and they never learn the value of a hard day’s work!”

Now, is there any merit to any of these and other kinds of accusation that seek to assign blame to our current generation of parents? Probably.  We are not doing it right. But then again, neither did the generations before us. We can look around and see the divorce culture birthed out of the 80s’ and 90s. Or go back further and look at the Great World Wars. Or how about the sexual revolution that led to the destabilization of the family structure? How about the rampant pornography industry that grew and metastasized with the generations of our fathers and grandfathers hiding their playboys in the backyard shed, but now shows up in the pockets of our elementary school boys on their smartphones?  So, I would contend that YES our generation has it’s faults and blindspots, but we are not the first and nor will we be the last.

What I’m asking, no BEGGING, is that the generations that have been there and now feel spent and are looking forward to a relaxing retirement, would give up or at least modify the plan of coasting through the last few decades of life and instead, turn and look back at us who feel like we are being crushed, and give us a hand-up.

I don’t know if you are a Christian or not, but if you are I would encourage you to study the scriptures and see the many examples of the generations banding together to build up and strengthen both families, and the local church. One thing that jumped out to me recently was when Jesus’ parents LOST HIM on the way from Jerusalem. 

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual. After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends.

 

When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there. Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions. All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. Luke 2: 41b-47

 

Are you seeing what I’m seeing here? Their culture was such that they regularly did things with family and friends.  They don’t see their kid all day and assume everything is fine because he’s probably just with relatives or friends.

 

Contrast this with how we do it now. We rush in and out of church on sunday because we have other stuff we need to get done. We don’t linger and rest and hang out. We build our tiny kingdoms on our own property to insulate ourselves from the inconveniences of other people messing with our lives.

There is a multitude of reasons that our society is the way it is now. One that is obvious is that we’ve displaced the worship of God with the worship of money and the American dream.  The sacrifice that those gods require is our time.  More time to earn the money and build the things means less time in the presence of God and the people He loves and has given us to enjoy relationship with. 

 

It’s so sad. We have given up the best things, the eternal things, for a hollow shell of life that is focused on getting all that we can out of our brief 80 years here, if we are lucky to even get that long. Why not rather focus on the eternal things? The souls that inhabit this space with us will live forever, and you could have PROFOUND influence on they turn out.  The young mom who needs a sanity break, the young boy who won’t listen to his parents because he’s too smart for them, might listen to you. The marriage that has been battling to stay together through multiple rounds of betrayal and heartbreak might need the very practical gift of TIME just to keep going, and when there are babies and toddlers and school aged kids, time is very elusive.

 

Several of my friends and I have amazing support networks, but I also know some who don’t. We’ve basically made a pact with each other, that when we get older we will remember these hard years of raising a young family, and hold each other accountable to reach back and show up in the lives of the next generations.  

If we want to see the world change for the better, this is a very practical way that everyone can help. Be a mentor. Volunteer at school to listen to kids read. Babysit for a mom. Babysit for a couple so they can get a date night. Offer to take the kids for the whole weekend so they can get just a taste of what it’s like to be in love again without a million demands coming every second of the day! Instead of telling them what they are doing wrong, tell them what they are doing right, and then pray for an opportunity to offer some loving coaching on areas where you see weakness.  But do please step in and say something when you see us acting like fools. Sometimes we don’t know any better.  

 

We love you and we need you. If you’re 75 years old you still have incredible potential to change the world.  Maybe you’re already engaged in this hard work, and if you are, we thank you! Don’t quit because we need you! Maybe you’re not and you’ve been coasting, relaxing, enjoying doing what you want to do when you want to do it.  If that’s the case, today is a really good day to pick up a phone and possibly change a life!

 

Thanks for reading!

Scary, Honest Friendship

Day 17 of Write31Days

 

Oops, I missed a few days.  I will chock it up to sheer exhaustion from a weekend full of football, church, and hosting a cider press/kid birthday party.  Sometimes you just pass out on the couch at 9:00 pm and all your writing intentions get lost amidst your snores.  It’s okay though. The achiever in me would like to write every single day of the challenge, but the part of me that’s still learning that people are always the priority, is taking solace in the fact that I was tired because I was busy being with and loving my people all weekend.

 

Anyway, something I wanted to talk about during this series about the surprises of adulthood, is the sometimes tender, land-mine filled territory of adult friendships.  I’ve had friendships that just sort of fizzled after mutual connection points changed, or as we changed as people and found that we just didn’t really relate all that much to each others’ stories anymore. There are also the usual culprits of busyness, stress, selfishness, fatigue, and a million other reasons why it can be hard to make and keep friends.  It’s not like in school where you had this habitat that put you together multiple days per week, where you could gravitate toward all the ones that were like you.

 

In adulthood, I’m finding that friendship, like everything good and worthwhile, takes effort.  You actually have to call people, or if you’re my friend, text people.  I’m much better on Voxer and texting that I am talking on the actual phone.  You sometimes have to get a babysitter if you want to get beyond talking about the weather, how crazy your kids are driving you, and what you are making for dinner tonight.  If a babysitter isn’t an option, you might have to find a time when you’re down a kid or two, so that actual conversation might be more of a possibility.  Then you have to find a day and time that works for both of you, which can be difficult, as I’m finding out as the kids get older and more busy.

 

Sometimes it can seem like more effort than you can handle.

 

But, as it turns out, it’s all very worth it.

 

This afternoon I got to sit across the table from a friend who gets me.  I confessed some stuff to her that has been weighing me down.  She knows my chronic struggles, and I can shoot really straight with her, without taking a ton of time to catch her up to speed and plead my case, hoping she will still love me.  She knows my weaknesses and reminds me of grace, every time. Sometimes she gives me a little truth nudge too when I need it. I told her today how thankful I am that we have this relationship where we even confess the ugly thoughts we have, the pride, the selfishness, and all the things no one writes about on their own Twitter account or plasters atop a beautifully curated instagram photo.

 

Freedom, laughter, and a deep sense of joy come from this place of being known AND accepted. I think every human heart really longs for that.  A lot of the time we settle for being accepted, but we can’t really ever let ourselves be known because then the acceptance might be retracted.  There might not be an atmosphere of grace where we can be raw and real and still find a friend who won’t shrink away in terror when we get really honest.

(photo credit: Alex Wong on StockSnap.io)

Our souls get bound up so tightly by our facades, our masks, and our hidden failures that we are afraid to let out into the open.  We weren’t made to live in secret, living superficial lives.  We were made to be first, fully known by God and loved in spite of ALLLL the dirt that covers our souls, and then to turn to each other and allow our friendships and honest spaces to give our stories a safe place to land.  Be brave, go first and you’ll be surprised how disarming honesty can be!