In Search of The Real Thing

One Sunday at church, my daughter snagged a toy army helmet from the children’s minister. It is flimsy and plastic, but carries the mandatory camouflage pattern marking it as a serious tool of war. When my little girl got tired of wearing it and plopped it on the kitchen table, I noticed something on the inside that made me laugh out loud. There, on the bar code sticker, was a warning: This is a toy, does not provide protection.

I shook my head in amazement. Is it not painfully clear that this plastic helmet is just a toy? Is it not obvious that this flimsy thing wouldn’t protect against an older sibling’s play attack, much less anything threatening serious injury? Would someone actually make the mistake of thinking this phony little thing was the real thing, placing on it the responsibility of saving one’s life? Could that be possible? The whole thing struck me as riotously funny and yet, simultaneously, really sad.

And then, later that same week, during my morning quiet time, I encountered this passage:

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “O Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made. At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention. (1 Kings 18:26-29)

I read that, and again, I laughed out loud. Can you even imagine it? That many men – 450 in all – dancing and shouting and cutting themselves and acting generally ridiculous, all in the name of worship and calling on a god that does not exist? I’m afraid that had I been there, I would have shaken my head in disbelief and laughed a pitying laugh. Hilarious, yet somehow strangely sad.

To be so misguided…..so lost…..

The thing about it, though, is that today, we can see this same scene played out all over again. Likely as not, you won’t see a crowd of 450 people dancing in the streets, chanting the name of a bizarre deity and slashing at themselves with knives.

You may, however, walk down a street in the business section of town and see people marching, briefcases in hand, eyes glazed over, silently worshiping the gods of success and status.

You might see throngs of people crowding a shopping center on a random Saturday, trying on clothes they don’t need and shelling out money they don’t have, diligently pursuing the god of stuff and possessions….striving for wholeness and a filling of the emptiness inside.

You might see young people revealing fake identification cards to purchase alcohol, hoping to numb the ache they can’t seem to heal…dying to find rest…desperately pursuing the god of who knows what.

Are those things funny, or just really, desperately sad?

The tough thing is that unlike cheap toy army helmets, the things of the world don’t broadcast clear warnings that they aren’t quite what you’re looking for. They don’t tell you up front that though they look good and real and enticing, they are not going to do the job. They aren’t going to fill the void or provide the protection or build you up in the way you need.

No, they don’t have stickers on them letting you know that you’re about to be disappointed. Rather, they draw you in…and then drop you.

Those gods in the world….the ones we all eagerly dance to and shout to and give offerings to….they aren’t quite what we think they are. They look like the real thing just long enough – just convincingly enough – to get your attention. What they lack is the power and the substance to carry you any further forward than you are right now.

Thankfully, though, there is a God who amounts to more.

At the time of sacrifice, Elijah stepped forward and prayed, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord – he is God! The Lord – he is God!” (1 Kings 18:36-39)

There is more out there that we are willing to experience. We bow down and cry out to the fake things the world offers us, while the Real Thing stands and watches, waiting for us to turn.

What’s Left Behind

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about legacy…..about being intentional about what kind of heritage we leave for our children and for the people who will come after us. Some of that is because of a book I’ve been reading and a series we’re in at church. Some of that is because of these:

Cicadas. This year is a particularly bad one for cicadas here in the south, and we’ve had some extraordinarily noisy days lately as millions – literally, millions – of these little guys have emerged from the ground for the first time in 13 years. They camp out in the trees and do a little flutter dance with their wings, making a ridiculous amount of noise. Their festive celebration of freedom, though, is not the reason I connect them with my thinking about legacy. I do so because of their molted shells.

They leave them on the trees when they come out of hibernation, and most years, this is all we see. We hear their ruckus as they do what they do in the trees, but rarely do we actually see one of the bugs themselves. All we know is that they have been here, and we know they’re out there somewhere because we still hear them. They are kind of elusive, and because of that are almost mythical. Visitors from other regions of the country come, and we can’t show them a bug, but can say, “This is one of their shells…..and that sound is a bunch of them in the trees……” That’s all we can do to describe the weird little things. If they didn’t leave something behind, we’d have no idea what they were really like.

And that, friends, leads me to my thoughts on legacy. I, too, want to leave something behind. When I’m gone, be it from a room or from this life, I want those who are left to know what I was like….what I stood for….what was important to me. I want to raise my daughter in a home that teaches her who and Whose she is, in order to give her something to cling to when things get hard. I want her to have the truth of God so firmly embedded in her heart that there is no distinguishing where she ends and He begins. I want everything she experiences in this home as she grows up to lead her to the Lord…to the cross…to a place of worship and relationship with her Creator. As her mom, I have the power to do that. I can point her to eternal things, or I can point her to things that will fade.

These things, I am realizing, do not happen on their own, but through intentional, daily effort.

I’m still learning all that it means to lead her to Jesus. I’m still trying to figure out how to do it.

We sing songs about Him. She’s memorizing scripture. (Amazing to witness.) She knows who Jesus is and that He died on the cross because He loves her a lot. (She knows, too, that He woke up after He died.)

I’m teaching her, yes. Her head is learning, and I only hope that in so doing, I’m teaching her heart.

One day, she’ll be set free in this world, and mama won’t be there to walk her through her verses. One day, she’ll face things that are more difficult than I can bear to think of for my little girl. She’ll be out there on her own, and she’ll need a foundation that will stand firm when things get stormy.

My prayer – with everything I have in me – is that the Lord will have worked through me to equip her for life. My prayer is that somehow, her time here at home will never fade, but that it will go on forever in her heart and in her life as the eternal things we meditate on sink deeper and deeper into who she is.

My prayer is that my legacy will be one she’ll be proud of, and one that will launch her into the plans the Lord has for her.

We’ll all leave something behind when we’re gone. We leave something behind with the people we know…with every person we encounter. What will it be?

Broken in Secret Places

The other day as I was emptying our dishwasher, I pulled a glass out that was in much worse condition than it had been when I put it in. Strangely, part of the glass had just broken off. It was not shattered into a million pieces, but had simply come apart. (Adding to the peculiarity was the fact that the cups around it in the dishwasher had all been plastic, making all obvious scenarios as to how the glass had broken highly unlikely.) When I showed it to my husband, he said something that got me thinking.

“It might just have been a weak place from where it was made. We couldn’t have known it was there until it broke.”

And then I began thinking about something…….

Several years ago, when I was in my worst place emotionally and mentally, I made a trip to Wal-Mart. It should have been a routine trip to the store, and most people in the world would have thought it was. For me, though, it was difficult and devastating and enough to crumble an already unstable little world. Something was said to me in the store that, again, would not have affected most people to the extent it did me (if at all). For me, however, it was the end of the world; I literally retreated to my car, where I sat and cried and pounded the steering wheel and trembled and screamed for at least half an hour before regaining my composure enough to drive safely home. I remember saying to myself, “If she knew what I deal with, she wouldn’t have said that to me. If she knew how hard it was for me to even leave the house this morning, she would have been nicer about that. If she only knew….. If she only knew……” Rattled and teary, I drive home and tried to continue with my day. (I never did accomplish what I set out that morning to do. In light of the attack I felt I had received, it was unimportant.)

As I type that last sentence, I again see the truth of what happened.

I felt I had received an attack, so the attack was real. I perceived what had happened as terrible and hurtful and personal, so for me, they were. The woman who said the offending words to me did not mean anything by them, and I’m sure she had no idea the effect they had on me or that I am thinking about them over five years later. The problem, I realize, was in my perception of the words, and in how the lenses through which I see the world tint all that I experience. In a counseling class years ago, we learned that perception is reality. If I perceive something as offensive, it doesn’t matter the intentions behind it. If I perceive it as being offensive to me, it is. Period.

The Wal-Mart incident is not unique in my life and, maybe, in yours. Maybe the offending blow came from a friend, rather than a stranger. Maybe it came at home, rather than in a public place, and maybe instead of crying in solitude you reacted with a harsh word.

Regardless of the circumstances, though, the attacks come, and they can break us. Maybe they have broken you, and maybe instead of friendly understanding, your brokenness was met with criticism and more harshness.

Because of my own experiences, God has gracious allowed me to see something clearly that helps me to process those things when they do happen.

Those issues I have – the ones that are so vulnerable to idle words and casual remarks – are my secret broken places. Those are the places in my heart and my soul and my past that have left me scarred and, perhaps, weakened.

No one sees the cracks in my exterior….the weak patches in my makeup that threaten to give way at any moment.

They don’t know, for example, that if they comment jokingly on my clothing, that I spent an inordinate amount of time considering what to wear and that, as I did so, I dreaded and even anticipated the remarks and thoughts others would have about my outfit.

They have no way of knowing that, and don’t know that the next day, as I dress, I will be thinking of their words and trying to fight back tears and the certainty that someone that day will think something badly of me, too.

No can knows about the cracks in my carefully assembled exterior unless I am willing to expose them…and that, in a real way, makes the exterior unnecessary. When there is nothing on the inside that we feel we have to hide, there is no need for a perfect facade. Vulnerability can be the most liberating exterior.

No…I should not walk around exposing every weakness at every opportunity, making people feel as though no subject is safe for conversation with me lest something offend my delicate makeup.

But yes…..I should realize that what someone says to me is, most likely, intended harmlessly and that I, because of my weak places, perceive them otherwise. Perhaps the other person is thoughtless in the way they speak to people, and perhaps their words are spoken with a little more sting than sweetness. I can have no control over that.

I can, however, control how I receive what they say. I can allow myself to be crushed and broken and devastated by words, or I can choose to see them differently…to guard myself from attacks, real or perceived…to understand that as I am not responsible for the words coming from someone else’s mouth, they are not responsible for how I receive them.

Yes, people should be sensitive to the power their words have on others. We should all realize that words carry with them the power of life and death. We should take our words and our actions seriously, because we don’t know what brokenness someone is carrying with them today.

However, because we are human, words will fly carelessly. Words will be slung that should never be allowed to see the light of day. Tone of voice is hard to control, and in bad moments words seem get lives of their own. It is true, and even as I can bear witness to the pain words can cause, I know that my words have inflicted pain on others.

Much talk is given to how each person should have a filter to control what words are allowed to leave their mouths. What if, just as well, we all have filters whose sole purpose is to regulate what can come into our souls? What if we took responsibility for what comes in just as much as what goes out? How different would all of our lives be?

A Targeted Audience

It happens to me every month. My husband brings the mail in and hands me my Parents Magazine for the month. I sneak a peek at the cover and, upon seeing the featured articles, I laugh a little. They are always – always – somehow eerily relevant to what we’re going through in our family. Bedtime struggles, suppertime aversions, taming temper tantrums…whatever it is that has been on our minds, that is what the magazine editors have chosen to feature.

It struck me as odd, really, until I thought about it recently and realized that there’s a reason for the correlation. The magazine business knows their audience, and knows what they need to read and hear. My concerns are not unique, and most likely, other parents think the same things when they see the covers every month.

“They did it again! How did they know?!”

“Oh, thank goodness…..what page is that article on?”

“Honey, I’m going to be in the living room…..I’ve got to read this NOW.”

There is a sense of community, too, when I read those pages. As a stay-at-home mom, I get the reassurance I need. I see that I’m not the only one doing this. I’m not the only one feeling what I’m feeling and struggling with what I’m struggling with. Raising a child is not unique to any person, nor are the troubles and strife that come with this, the most satisfying and fulfilling job in the world.

I’m struck by what happens with my magazine every month, but something much deeper happens on a daily basis (when I allow it to). Has this ever happened to you?

You sit down for your quiet time, or even flip to the assigned passage for a group discussion or devotional. Perhaps you scour your concordance, looking for something – anything – to speak to the ache your heart is feeling. As you read, you think, “Wow. Thank you, God. Thank you for that message. I needed that.”

It may not happen every time, because let’s face it – there’s a lot contained in those leather-bound pages. However, when it does happen – and the more you read, the more often it will happen – it is deep. Soul touching. Heart wrenching. Exciting to the point of tears. Intimate and personal.

“He wrote this for me. He knew somehow…. I’m not the only one…..”

What a gift….a blessing….a treasure….to know that the One who sculpted your life has not forgotten about you. He knows you, right where you are, and knows what you need. He hears your cries, even when you don’t know you’ve uttered them, and He sees you when you are convinced you’ve done a great job of hiding.

He knows, and He cares. He cares enough to address everything you feel in a personal, specific letter He has written to you. What’s more…..someone else has been there. Someone else, too, has felt what you’re feeling.

He knows me. He cares about me. And…..as precious as anything…..I am not the only one who has ever felt this way. What a treasure.

Heartstrings

I don’t know what to say. I’ve been home from Belize for nearly a month already, and I’ve yet to write much of anything publicly about it. Believe me – it’s not because I have nothing to say, but because my mind is still reeling and processing all that the Lord did while we were there and all that He continues to do.

That country and the people there have my heart. La gente de Belize son como nada del mundo….y tienen mi alma para siempre. I cannot sever my heart’s connections with the people of Belmopan, nor do I ever want to. I’ve been twice, and I have every intention of going as often as I am able. The Lord has made it abundantly clear that He has a place and a plan for me there, and I am not about to run from that.

I think that one of the most phenomenal things about our church’s connection with the church in Belize is the effect it is having and will continue to have on the children of our community. My daughter is two, and she already knows that there is a place called Belize that is important to Mommy. She knows that there are children in Belize who look different from her but who are not otherwise all that different from the way she is. She knows that Mommy goes there to tell the children of Belize about Jesus, and she knows the names of the kids she sees in my pictures. (She even pretends to call some of them on her little play phone.) She has met the pastor of our sister church in Belize, and she talks about him all the time.

My daughter is only two, but she is already beginning to grasp that the world is bigger than her own experience.

I cannot express how that touches my heart.

I don’t know how long I will feel called to Belize, nor do I know what role I will serve on subsequent trips. I know, though, that I will go, and I know that when I do, I will be no less in awe of my experience than I have been twice before.

Flying into Belize felt surprisingly like flying home….and the reason for that is simple. The Lord is here, but He is also there. He is working here, and He is working there. When people – regardless of how physically distant – are connected in the Lord’s name, one word to describe it is “home.” Wherever we go that we find those joined to us in the name of Jesus, we will be home.

Belize – for me – is home, and I’ll go as many times as He asks me to.

To you…to me…to anyone who will listen.

Can I confess something?

Before I became a mother, I was a terrible judge of others’ mothering. I mean that in both ways it could be read.

1)I was bad about judging how mothers did things with their kids.

2)I was not a very good judge of what I saw.

I cringe to look back now and remember the things I thought and even said about the moms I saw in my life. I didn’t know. I had no grasp of what they were going through. I had no right to even HAVE an opinion, much less one so ill-informed…and I certainly didn’t have a right to give that opinion a voice.

I should have just turned around and kept quiet.

There is one issue, in particular, that brought on much negative thinking. I saw moms around me spending what I thought was an awful lot of time away from their children, and I thought it was just that: AWFUL. “Why would a mother want to be away from her child so much? Why would a couple choose to take a vacation away from their kids? Why would a working mom voluntarily be away from her kids on a weekend, when she’s already been away from them during the week?”

Yes. Honestly, painfully, truthfully….those were my thoughts.

I could just cry now at the memory. I feel like a multitude of apologies would never cover the wrong I did by thinking that way and – so much worse – by sharing those thoughts with others. I did no one any good by doing that. In fact, I contributed to the problem and was a voice in the crowd chanting against the solution.

Moms need time away.

We do. It is not a want. It is a need. A deep need engraved into our hearts and our souls and our very existence as women first and mothers second. We need to be away from our children sometimes.

This is in no way a reflection of our feelings about our kids. Or perhaps I should say it this way…..sometimes, it is a reflection of how we feel about our kids, and about how we see ourselves and our roles as moms to those precious little people.

When we are tugged on and called for and sometimes yelled at for hours a day, it is easy to lose our grasp of who we are and what we are doing. Taking care of our children becomes just one more thing on the unending list of things we have to do, rather than a God-given calling that we embrace and enjoy. Their sweet faces become too familiar when theirs are the only ones we see in a day, and their little voices become grating when the only conversations we have had today have been about Elmo, gummy fruit snacks, and Dora the Explorer. We need more. We embrace and cherish our roles as mothers…but that is not all we are.

Before we were mothers, we were women. Before we were Mommy, we were a best friend…a sister…an employee…a daughter.

Before I was Leah’s mommy, I was Jessica, and I understand now the need to reconnect with that person. I get it now in a way that I never could have gotten it before. I need time to myself, and that time spent recharging myself is good for my family. When I reunite with my daughter, I am more enthusiastic about being her mama and am more eager to engage in her antics. When I have had some time away, I have had the opportunity to miss her and to appreciate her more, which makes me a better mama when I get back to her.

There is a balance that must be struck, yes, and sometimes that balance is challenging and elusive……but yes, mothers need time away.

Can I challenge you, if you are a mother, to find a way to make this possible? Yes, it may require getting a babysitter or spending money you don’t feel like you can afford. I ask you this, though….can you afford to let yourself get lost? Can you afford to permit yourself to be anything less than the best mom you can be?

Take some time to work in the yard. Go shopping, by yourself and without a diaper bag on your shoulder or a child constantly begging for a snack. Sit in a favorite restaurant, by yourself, with a good book and a journal. Take a walk, plugged into your iPod playlist of music other than toddler tunes. (Or better yet, don’t listen to music, and allow yourself to enjoy the sounds of silence!)

It’s about quality over quantity. The important thing is that it happens, and that when you are finished you feel a little more like yourself and less like the harried, frazzled, worn-out, banana-smeared mama you were before. The important thing, really, is that you get a chance to find yourself. That is a gift to yourself and to your families.

Take that time for yourself, and encourage the moms around you to do the same. Help each other to make it happen, and hold each other accountable. You’ll be glad you did.

And do you know what else I have found? A little bit of time away from you is good for the little ones, too….and aren’t we, after all, always looking for ways to take care of them? Trust me. It’s a good thing.

REPOSTED: The Game. (An oldie but goody.)

I wrote and posted this for the first time about a year and a half ago. Due to some recent events in my life, it became relevant again and I thought, perhaps erroneously, that someone out there might benefit from reading this again along with me. Join me….and please comment. I’d love to know what you think.

This is the first time I’ve written about this; in fact, I spoke about it for the first time just the other night.

It was Saturday night, and I was getting my clothes ready for church Sunday morning. I had done some laundry, but not enough, and my already diminished post-partum wardrobe was even more slim (no pun intended) than usual. In addition, my big toe had been smashed my by vacuum cleaner a couple of days earlier, making it nearly impossible to wear any closed-toe shoes. With these limitations already put on my selection, things were further complicated when my brain kicked in.

“You wore that color last week.”

“She will be in something nicer than that. You have to do better.”

“Adults don’t dress like that. They’ll laugh if you do.”

“If you want to fit in, you’ll need to wear something trendier than that.”

“That makes you look too fat. Everyone will notice your bra and panty lines.”

“That makes you look too thin. You’ll look sick.”

“That is too old. They’ll think you never buy anything new.”

“What do you think she will be wearing?”

“She would never wear something like that. Pick something else.”

My husband came in, wondering what was wrong, and all I could say was, “I don’t want to play The Game anymore. I just don’t want to play.”

On and on it went – and on and on it always goes. Every. Single. Day. Every thought I have is measured against an impossible standard set out for me by the world. Every idea, every article of clothing, every word must be carefully measured to see if it fits what I would be expected to be as a player in The Game.

What is The Game? I think you know. Here are the rules:

1 – Look like everyone else.

2 – Talk like everyone else.

3 – Act like everyone else.

4 – Second guess everything you wear, say, and do, asking yourself constantly, “What will they think?'”

5 – Compare yourself to what you see in everyone else.

6 – Work at being like everyone else, or at being someone everyone else will approve of, and beat yourself up if you “fall short.”

When you no longer know who you are and couldn’t be “you” if your life depended on it, you’re on your way….not to winning, but to perpetuating the cycle. At that point, you have to constantly wonder what someone else would do or think or say or wear because you, as you were born to be, no longer exist.

I’ve been playing The Game for far too long, and I have no interest in playing any more. I quit. In fact, let’s all quit, shall we? Let’s all resign from this pointless, meaningless endeavor, forcing The Game out of business due to a lack of players. Join me, won’t you?

Actually…..if you have any idea whatsoever on how to quit The Game…..enlighten me. If I knew how to do it, I would have done it a long time ago.