The Forgiveness Challenge

My list was longer than I thought and it's taking some time. I also procrastinated for almost a week, looking at my legal pad, which is practically attached to me everywhere I go, looking at my pen, also attached, and avoiding them like the plague.
In my mind I could easily list the small wounds; there was the girl who's name I can't remember who was mean to me in Kindergarten (I've also realized through this process that I'm incredibly petty), a rude comment made by my grandmother when I was a teen, several years of verbal abuse from a relative that I wasn't that close to anyway, all the millions of mean things my brother did to me as a child which have resulted in a fear of stair cases and severe claustrophobia, etc. Those things were easy.
But when I thought about the truly difficult things; the way my father left, old rejections that truly, deeply wounded, a bitter and recent betrayal by someone I trusted wholeheartedly, and a few others- I came up against a wall which loomed hugely in front of me. It was a wall of fear...and of pride.
Fear because in order to really forgive someone, you have to take an honest look at what the hurt really was, realistically look at your own feelings, and those things are scary. They hurt, so it makes sense that we avoid them.
And pride because I felt I had the "right" to hold onto my anger and resentment like a hot coal in my hand, yelling, "I won't let go! You can't make me!! It's mine!" Well, yes, it is. But it's also continuing to wound me, debilitating me, with each passing moment. And who's really suffering here? Not my father. Not those who rejected me. Certainly not that mean girl from Kindergarten who I'm sure is a lovely individual now.

In the words of C.S.Lewis, "Forgiveness is a beautiful word, Until you have someone to forgive." and he's right, as he so often is. Forgiveness is not a choice we make once. It's a perpetual release, over and over, for what can often be many years or perhaps a lifetime. My father left when I was sixteen and then disowned me in an email because " if you're the kind of daughter I'm going to have, then I'd rather not have one." I remember those words as if they are engraved in stone, which in a sense, they are. They're written on the granite tablet of my heart.
His rejection is probably the most minor in the list of "impossible forgives" which I have been called to do. This is not to say that I have more of a right than anyone else to hang onto my bitterness, because certainly I do not, but only to say that I have a deep and personal understanding of the battle that we all face when asked, either by our God, or by the mere penalties we face in our lives for hanging onto those coals, to release others from the prison we think we've placed them in.
And, as my dear friend Nancy stated in her comment to The Root of Bitterness, Forgiveness is entirely a personal matter. It's not something we will succeed at simply by advertising that we've done it. We can ask and answer that question only for ourselves.
Last summer, I had a strange experience involving my anger towards my dad. Very randomly, on a day when I was busy doing other things and not really thinking about him at all, I felt a very real prompting to write him a letter. To which my response was, "Are you kidding me?! No way!"
I delayed and delayed, that feeling of prompting getting heavier and heavier, the way it does when you KNOW you're supposed to be doing something and you are NOT doing it. When the constant prompting became too annoying to continue ignoring, I sat down with pen and paper, gave myself a pep talk, and tried to write. Nothing happened. I'm a writer. I can write just about anything because for some reason, that's the way God made me, and I tell you, I could not write that letter.
I started over and over, Dear.....who? Not 'dad' certainly. And 'father' was way too weird. I tried his given name and that looked ridiculous, but a better choice than the familial, so I went with it. And then, where do I start? "Hey, nice to finally be writing. Been awhile. How are things?" Nope. I couldn't even put the words on the page without the anger boiling up inside me. I didn't know what to say. I could imagine him sitting there reading it and picking up the phone. I didn't want him to pick up the phone. I didn't want to talk to him. I didn't even want to be writing that stupid letter to that man! I was furious with him and I refused to be polite! I started again and again, but my letter always turned angry and bitter, full of resentment and accusations, and I couldn't send that! My dad had to know that I'd grown beyond that and that he no longer affected me. That would give him too much power and I wouldn't do it. I just wouldn't!
But I'd been asked to write the letter and that feeling wouldn't let me go. In frustration, I tore off the millionth sheet from my trusty legal pad and wadded it up, an action I loathed because it indicated failure, and I started over. My way. Obviously I had writers block and just needed to get the emotions out of the way before I proceeded.
I then spent the next hour writing the most scathing letter I've ever written to anyone. Obviously his given name was replaced in the introduction for a pronoun more appropriate to my feelings at the time. The rest of that literary masterpiece followed suit. Four pages, front and back. Later, I set my pen down and leaned back in my chair.
"Well." I said belligerently to that still, small voice who had prompted me to write it in the first place. "There it is. I wrote a letter, just like you said." and dripping with sarcasm and hurt, I added, "Shall I send it????"
I didn't really expect a response, but He surprised me with one anyway and said, very simply, very clearly, in the way He does that is unmistakably His own, "I didn't tell you to send a letter. I just told you to write one." ............oh.

And there it was. All my anger and bitterness and rage and rejection, all the words the child was never able to say to the parent that left them, written plainly in pen and ink, in my own words, undeniable. I hate it, though it's obviously needed, when The Lord reveals the contents of my heart. Especially when I'm trying so hard to hide them from myself and everyone else. I just hate it.
I hate it because it makes me weep. Because it causes me to look closely and realistically at the pain I feel, and not just the anger. I hate it because it makes me vulnerable to a God I don't fully understand and never will and because looking at who we really are is often gut wrenching and horrible.
I sat there that day last summer and cried for that child that I used to be. And I suppose that was when I was truly brave, when I accepted that he hadn't just wronged me when he left and said those terrible things. He had hurt me. He'd broken me. And part of me was always afraid that I'd never be put back together.

Now, was I supposed to restore the relationship with my father? Nope. Because forgiveness does not always equal reconciliation. Again, it's not about the other person. It's about us. I was only supposed to release him, and I am still in the process of doing that. I'm not where I want to be, sure. But I'm definitely not where I was! That day was a miraculous day in my life and I'm so thankful that The Lord did what He did, though it was painful at the time, because I have been slowly able to release that hot coal from my hand. And as I am able to do so, my heart is changed. My father's hurtful words are not what I want written on my heart when the book of my life is at it's end.
Forgiveness is a life giving process in the same way that it is a life giving process when someone is released from prison. The doors swing open, the light shines in and eyes that have not seen freedom in ages, look to the sun, the sky, the world, and it is full of possibilities, endless roads that may be traveled now that freedom has been won.
I. WANT. THAT.

"For where the Spirit of The Lord is, there is freedom..." 2 Corinthians 3:17

The Root of Bitterness

The Root of Bitterness

It's been a week and I'm already hoping I can survive this search for Value. In many ways I feel like I'm in rehab, learning my 12 steps to a full recovery from not really knowing who I am or what I'm about. This is going to be more than learning cute little lessons and then writing about them, I'm discovering. It becomes clear that as I ask God to teach me where my value truly lies, he surprises me by showing me where it is not, as I wrote last week. And this week, revealing the condition of my own heart in response to people who've hurt me, showing me my lack of response when someone does or says something which causes me pain.
I assumed that those behaviors; the calm acceptance of others rudeness, the silence with which I met comments that demoralized or humiliated me, the way in which I picked up everyone's image of me, especially the negative ones, and placed them squarely on myself, absorbing them totally, would eventually fade away or perhaps even be snapped away in an instant the moment I realized the origin of My Elusive Value. All I had to do was figure out the One Word answer to why I don't value myself and that would instantly solve these little annoyances.
However, it becomes evident as I proceed, even in these early stages, that while Christian doctrine would give a simple, decisive and cliche answer to that question; which is obviously, "you must find your identity in Christ!", the answer in my own life is more complicated than that and cannot be defined in one single word, even if that word is Jesus.

Quite possibly, the answer to this quandary shares characteristics with the quantum sciences in that it is many things at the same time, all equally possible yet wholly individual and happening simultaneously. And my responses to people who have hurt me are just one tiny facet in the gem of self evaluation. This is incredibly frustrating.
You see, I assumed that my answers would be found at the end of my search, packaged neatly and ready for printing by the end of the twelve months I've predestined for myself to finish this endeavor. As I said, it becomes clear to me that my answer, indeed my many answers, are going to be found within the journey itself, within the God who leads me through this maze, and will never be neat, tidy or even really ever 'finished'.

I watched my life carefully this week, waiting for another 'basement breakthrough' to occur so that I could quickly grasp it, write it, and add it to the file of research I find myself doing daily. The element that I didn't expect, perhaps stupidly, was that when examining my own life, I would find things that deeply hurt me. I assumed this project would be all about research, interviews with other women, mass amounts of reading. But apparently, the search for True Value is my own individual search and is between myself and my Creator, and has little or nothing to do with the experiences of anyone else. It is not comparable. This weeks lesson has been centered on the contents of my heart, something only He can advise me on.

I have always thought of myself as an outspoken person. But I don't think that's an accurate statement. I can be outspoken, but more often than not, I opt to just take people's rudeness or insult and say nothing. Again, this begs the question why? Perhaps the solution is not in whether or not I address their rudeness or criticism or insult, but in whether or not I accept it internally and what I do with it from there.
My habit has always been to take their words in, mull them over, allow them to sting and then to harbor a deep and perpetual dislike for that person forever after. I marry this reliable tactic with gossip, avoidance and withdrawal, which is really a form of assault as it's delivered with the same intention, which is to hurt.
I can guarantee with eerie certainty that I can remember every insult or bullying remark I've ever received. I cannot remember my responses, probably because there were none, at least outwardly, but the names of those who hurt me will be forever engraved on my heart. I carry them still, those old wounds, and they never fail to reinfect the other areas of my life, other relationships, with their poison.

If you had asked me a week ago if I was a bitter person, I would have given a resounding "NO!" in response. After all, it's not like I constantly think about those incidents or even really remember them unless I try. But bitterness is more than persistent emotion at remembered pain, it's all the ways we allow our life to be different, in ways it otherwise would not have been, ways that harm or otherwise inhibit us and take away our freedom, as a result of that pain. Under this new definition, I must look back and reexamine. Am I a bitter person? Yeah, I think I am.
I have considered that perhaps changing my response to people when they are critical or rude or judgmental and simply telling them off might be successful at deflecting what they're saying. If I could just snap back at them then I'd be good to go. Unfortunately, my hang up here is that when we're openly rude or critical or judgmental to others, we look really, really ugly. And I would rather be the one who says nothing in response to the person who looks so ugly rather than the sort of person who gets sucked in and responds in kind. But it still hurts and I still want to say mean things to them and you can bet, I can still remember everything they said to me years later. So I don't think my silence is really working for me.

How in the world does this interface with a search for Value? I asked myself that question as well and even questioned whether or not this was worth writing about. But after experiencing FIVE different people saying or doing openly rude or humiliating things just this last week alone, a record high even for me, I had ample opportunity to examine my responses and my heart. I was disappointed and surprised to find bitterness there.
It appears that cleaning up my life, sorting the garbage from the treasures, is going to be happening internally, too, not just in the basement. And it's going to have to start with forgiveness.
My value isn't expressed or honored when I choose to respond to someone's rudeness or insensitivity with rudeness of my own, even if that rudeness and pain are kept to myself. It's not just honored, but also radiated, when the only response my heart is capable of offering is one of love.
In Renovation of The Heart, Dallas Willard states that
"Actions are not impositions on who we are. They come out of our heart and the inner realities it supervises and interacts with."
What's he's saying here is that we behave exactly like the kind of people that we actually are. My responses to people are not accidental, they don't have excuses to justify them, they aren't just 'bad choices' as our culture is so fond of saying. We choose them because we are the kind of people that would choose them.

And my response to that is; uh oh.
And my prayer along with that is, Lord, change me. Make me the woman that you want me to be. Because I can't just magically stop being bitter and I certainly won't pretend that those feelings aren't there if they actually are. What good would that do me? My life would still express who I was in the choices I'd make, according to Willard. So the only solution is that God himself do the work required to transform my inner person into Christlikeness.
But I can be obedient. I can choose forgiveness. And, one memory, one hurt at a time, "take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ." I can make the choice to love God and love others (and there's a reason that love for God comes FIRST here.) sincerely, from the depths of my heart and not just in shallow action occasionally.

So, I'll be spending some time this week making a list of those individuals who have wounded me in various ways. And then I'm going to choose to forgive them and let it go. I'll do this for as long as it takes until forgiveness moves in to the place where bitterness used to live because, apparently, finding value is more than introspection at what's already there, it is the willing participation in the change and growth from what's already there to what we will become as He changes us.

"I am confident of this; that He who began a good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ." Phil 1:6

A One Year Search for True Value

The Great Purge

As many of you know, what started as a fun travel blog (and a place to randomly post pictures of my life when NOT traveling), has morphed into a weird, sporadic sort of journal centering on my personal journey...to....somewhere. I've gotten multiple emails, phone calls and comments about my writing and what I'm finding is that this as yet unnamed process of self-discovery is really pretty common among women. I'm also realizing that other people find it entertaining to read about someone else going through it so that they all feel more normal. So, why fight destiny?
The truth is that I don't really know who I am. The truth is that I don't have it all together and probably never will. The truth is that I struggle with understanding who God is to me, what having faith really means, what my calling in this life is to be and what kind of woman I really am. The honest to God truth is that I experience times of deep loneliness and isolation and don't always know what to do about that. My role as a mother and wife is not ultimately fulfilling and quite often I feel very wasted and taken for granted. In short, my life thus far has been pretty unsatisfying and I refuse to live like this for one more minute.
Unfortunately, my identity up until now has not supported this new philosophy of accepting truth for what truth is, and admitting that my roles do not fully satisfy me. My identity and actually, my religious views too, have confined me to this strange and scientifically unfounded expectation that I should be utterly joyful doing the laundry and wiping little noses and that searching for more than that is a betrayal of some kind.
Well. Sorry. But I'm doing it. I might be a stay at home mom. I might not have finished that degree I started on all those years ago. I might be living in a tiny orchard town in the middle of nowhere, but that doesn't mean that I can't have an amazingly fulfilling life, full of richness and beauty and one which will be deeply satisfying to me, regardless of the season of my life. I want joy. I want happiness. I'm going to get my six thousand dollars worth out of these braces and smile more often and with actual sincerity.
My first step a few weeks back was realizing that I'm captive to the opinions and expectations of others and that I can't be free to love God or myself or anyone until I find freedom from those chains. This realization begged the question, why? Why do I allow myself to be taken captive by these things? And the answer is value. Or rather, a lack of value, a lack of meaning.
And so for the next twelve months I'm pursuing true value, where it comes from, what it means and what difference it can make in the life of an ordinary woman. I'll be posting my experiences here weekly, partly to share my thoughts with you, but also to help me keep my goal in mind. I not only welcome your comments, but I hope you will comment. Comment, criticize, encourage, make suggestions, share your own experiences, tell me what books you've read that have helped you, give your opinion. I'm deeply curious about any and all information I can gather on this subject.

My journey has begun already, and unexpectedly, with a surprisingly profound purging. For those of you who have basements or garages, or God forbid, perhaps you're like me and you're cursed with both, this post is going to terrify you. But at least you'll have the benefit of having had warning whereas I went into it naively, thinking I was simply organizing the store room.
My husband and I committed this last weekend to finally go through the boxes we had placed on the storage shelves in our basement three years ago when we moved into this house. We're planning on remodeling our unfinished basement this next year and needed to get the useless stuff out of the way and sort the things we wanted to keep before the usual remodel calamity strikes.
And so, in our stupidity, we blithely made a pot of coffee, filled our respective mugs, and headed belowstairs to conquer our foe bright and early Saturday morning. The plan, and this only showcases our lack of foresight, was to sort out the boxes, tidy up a bit and then head outside to take down the Christmas lights. We assumed this little 'Salvation Army Donation' project would be finished up by noon, the Christmas lights would be down by one and we could be happily tinkering with our remaining electrical work (left over from last summers rewiring project) by late afternoon. Yeah. Not so much.
We enter our storage area, which had become a catchall for everything that was displaced when we started the LAST remodel in August, and are faintly surprised by the sheer amount of stuff we've accumulated in the 12x8 foot area. Not to mention the other storage area on the other side of the basement which is equally full of our prized possessions, which we could certainly not inventory if asked to do so by memory. The reality is that we had no idea what was down there, nor did we care. It was our stuff.
You know, the legions of things we keep just for the sake of keeping. Our old elementary school papers, stuffed animals that meant everything to us when we were five, ugly old candles that I would never use, but couldn't justify throwing away because they'd never been lit, pots and pans who's non-stick coating was scratched away but might still work if I used enough oil and if I had nothing else and was in a pinch, Ryan's karate trophy's and awards from FedEx and all the kids baby clothes that someday I might want to look at again. And on top of all of this was an enormous pile of toys that hadn't seen the light of day in possibly years; Megan's old rocking horse, plastic children's chairs long outgrown, every HappyMeal toy that we'd ever received and never thrown out, all in bags and boxes and crates, collecting dust and housing arachnids.
We began happily enough. We strung up work lights and got the broom. Ryan turned on the stereo and we chatted and sipped our coffee's and pulled down one box at a time and started to sort. After the first box I realized I was going to need a garbage bag. I was delighted that that box had had next to nothing in it! Hurray for me, at least this one was easy. I fetch the garbage bag which I believe will be far too big for this job and sit back down with another box.
Broken tile pieces, ugly Christmas ornaments that I'd never put out, old grapevine wreathes that were long past their glory, broken lamps, picture frames with broken glass, rickety tables, an old chair, a clock that Ryan made in shop class when he was in high school which is now missing it's works.
I went for another garbage bag. And several boxes to put all the things that were too good to throw away and could be donated to charity. Soon, I had cleared an entire shelf and felt so proud! I turned around to start replacing all the things that we'd decided were worth saving and would go neatly back on the storage shelves...but there was nothing to put back.
I shrug. On to the next shelf and probably to all the good stuff, I think. But box after box after box were empty of anything worth keeping. At first this process was liberating. The space! I think. The storage for all the good stuff! I am someone who likes things simple and tidy, but it has been very easy for me to avoid dealing with the basement because, well, because it's the basement and I don't have to look at it unless I purposefully go down there. And why would I? The place was a mess!

By the end of the day, we were exhausted. We never did make it outside to take down the Christmas lights and we certainly didn't 'tinker' with the electrical work which is also long overdue for attention. We collapsed into bed and knew we weren't even halfway done with our 'little project'.
Sunday morning we stayed home from church and headed back to the basement, coffee in hand again, but with less determination, like the last day of a battle that has not gone well thus far. We were losing heart and a deep sense of loss and frustration was settling on me which, at the time, I didn't understand. I thought I was just sick of being down there. Sick of the dust and the spiders and the mess and the hopeless pursuit of tidy.
We finished the store room by mid day on Sunday and slowly made our way to the 'storage area', i.e., the other side of the basement where we dumped all of the junk we didn't want to deal with right away. The better junk was kept here; old greeting cards that were too meaningful to toss, books we hadn't read in a decade or more but can't get rid of because someday we will build a library somewhere in our tiny house, the fishbowl now devoid of fish, the telescope that Ryan loves but has used exactly once in our entire marriage, stacks of our old love letters and boxes and envelopes of pictures.
I sat down in the middle of the mess on Sunday afternoon and started sorting every loose piece of paper I could find. That sense of loss and frustration got heavier and heavier. I made a pile for recycling, a pile for the shredder and a pitifully small pile of keepsakes. Ryan, meanwhile, sorted through his own things and the kids toys and finally tackled the monstrosity that was his workbench.
We worked until well past evening and in the end gathered together twelve boxes and/or bags full of garbage and five boxes and/or bags of things good enough to donate. What was left was an apple box of keepsakes, two medium sized rubbermaid containers full of baby clothes, some of which were antique and passed down generations, and a respectable pile of camping equipment.

I look around in confusion. Where is all of our stuff?? I ask myself. I look at Ryan. Where's our stuff?? He too is depressed about getting rid of things he cannot justify keeping any longer, things with no real meaning that he has hung on to for lack of things that did have real meaning. I'm shocked at all the garbage and the piles of donations, things I don't even recognize, things I don't even care about anymore.

I've been harboring a bad attitude all morning and it finally gets the better of me. I bite Ryan's head off about something trivial and stomp up the stairs. He finds me in the car a few minutes later, engine running. I'm leaving.

"What's the matter?" He's deeply concerned and thinks perhaps two days in a dark basement with a woman who is essentially solar powered might not have been such a good idea. "Do you need to get out for awhile?" He thinks he's struck a chord here even though I'm gazing like a catatonic person out the front window. "I know! We'll all go. Let's just get out for a bit. I need it too." At this he rushes back inside and comes out a moment later with our kids in tow. They all pile into the car, I move into the passenger seat so Ryan can drive, and we begin the trek westward. We're not sure where we're going, but we need some space from the project and the emotions it tills up. I still don't know what my problem is but am so desperately sad I can hardly stand it.
We weren't yet to Hood River when the tears came. I just sat there in the front seat, weeping soundlessly. Ryan says nothing. He's waiting and knows I don't want him to bother me about it. When I've gotten enough distance from the dark clutter of the basement and had enough time to process what's happening in me, I can finally diagnose the cause of my grief and I say to Ryan,
"There's nothing left! All those boxes were supposed to have our life in them and they were just...empty. Where did our life go?"
But the reality of the situation is that we have spent the last ten years of our marriage investing in things that don't matter and then storing them on the shelves in our basement. We've hung on to things that weighed us down for fear that giving them up would leave us without our memories, without our pasts. And when we went back to look at those things, it was a bit startling to come to understand that everything we thought we had was meaningless junk.
I saved the most important things, the love letters, the pictures, some of the greeting cards that meant something to me. But we are, more or less, starting over.
This is, at once, terrifying and exciting. We have purged our house of all those old trappings. Now to purge the idea that our value is in what we possess. Easier said, I'm afraid, this idea which is so thoroughly ingrained in our western way of thinking. Even this last Christmas serves as an example of how consumerism has put it's slant on my thinking.
I don't even want to know how many thousands of dollars worth of stuff will be housed on the shelves of the Salvation Army by the end of the week, and all from my house.

In his book The Call, Os Guiness states, "The overall lesson of insatiability is that money alone cannot buy the deepest things we desire. Money never purchases love, or eternity, or God. It is the wrong means, the wrong road, the wrong search."
I suppose the same thing can be said of all the stuff we acquire with our money. It will not bring us closer to loved ones, give us satisfaction or bring us meaning. It's just the junk in our basement.
And so, on my search for true meaning, January's lesson for me has been one of materialism, finding value by discovering what has no value. It's also been one of finding room for what's really important. It's not the telescope, it's pouring a glass of wine and spending an easy evening in the backyard with my husband, gazing up at the stars and hearing him talk about the constellations.
It isn't the photographs, it's an afternoon with Megan, building them into an album of her favorite memories.
And it isn't even about de-cluttering the basement, taking loads of used goods to the salvation army. It's about putting together a basket of our best stuffed animals and taking them personally to the kids at the Providence Children's Hospital and spending some time with people who aren't fortunate enough to be able to go about their day as we do.
Lesson #1. It's not about things. It's about life. I want less of the former so that I can have MORE of the latter.

It Is For Freedom...

There are no words to express what the last three months have been like in our family. Rather than share the details, I'll just say a quick and heartfelt thank you to those who were praying and supporting us through this very difficult, sad time in our life.

The Lord has used this time in tremendous ways to grow my husband and I individually and as a couple, drawing us ever nearer to Him. I wish I could say that I've taken every opportunity to build my faith or 'do the right thing', but that's just not reality. I am imperfect, totally.

But this time has been one of change and growth, as I said, and in a conversation with a close friend recently, the question was asked (I paraphrase here), "Why is it exactly that you haven't done anything with your life?" Said friend proceeded to say, "You're a treasure! You're freakin' brilliant and I want to know why you're wasting yourself doing laundry when you have something to say to the world!"

The answer S., is captivity. Which is what got me thinking. What am I captive to? What am I a slave to? From what do I need independence?

This brings me right back around to Proverbs 31, which I talked about last time, because while so many women interpret Proverbs 31 as a beautiful picture of what a woman can be, there are plenty of women, such as myself, who read it as an impossible list of qualities we can never hope to fully attain no matter how hard we try.

My captivity, in spite of my new understanding of this one scripture, stemmed from this same manner of thinking. I have been captive to my own expectations of what my life is supposed to look like, captive to a deep need to meet the expectations of others,

captive to an ideal, captive to a standard, captive to imagined perfection, captive to the approval of others.

And what I find now, is that I have backed myself into a prison cell of self-criticism and self-doubt, knowing that I can never become the impossible ideal I had created in my own mind.
I've spoken before about non-conformity, about my desire to 'take off the hats' of all the personas I was trying to portray, 'perfect wife', 'perfect mother', etc, but clearly this process is more long term than I previously thought and is a journey which must be made with the God who designed me in the first place, pre all my ridiculous interference in the process.

I have since asked myself the question, What if I were free? What if I no longer needed to prove myself to everyone around me? What if I could forgive people? And truly love people? And have a soft heart full of compassion and mercy and the ability to use my gifts without a debilitating fear of failure? What then?

Well then I would write. And I would love fully, expecting nothing. And I could dream impossible dreams without fear of them never coming true. I could cry when I was hurt and laugh when I was filled with joy and release all the painted and wild hopes that have been corralled within me for all these years, waiting and watching for liberty to dawn.
I have spent most of my adult life trying to become something I was never meant to be, trying to conform to an unspoken standard, trying desperately to make everyone proud by attempting to become a quiet-spirited, humble, sweet 'lady' or else meet some specific guideline of perfection for the group that I was in.

But beneath all of my clamoring for perfection and admiration, there was a frustratingly loud voice that would start singing at the most inappropriate times. It sang of courage and love, dignity and hope and honor. It sang in the night when, as a little girl, I listened to my parents fighting. It sang as I wept in the recovery room of an abortion clinic in '98. It sang and sang and sang as I said my wedding vows and held my children in my arms for the first time. And the song that it sang was freedom.

I've said before that my number one rule is Love God and Love Others. Can I be free to do that if I'm trapped in a debilitating cycle of trying to please the people around me, trying to avoid failure and in the process failing utterly? What else holds me captive? To what am I a slave? What keeps me from reaching for the dreams that He has placed in me? He came that I might have life, and life abundantly, so...why don't I?

Because I have never fully understood my value. Not the value in who I would someday be when He was done changing me, the value in my potential; but the value in the person that I am right this minute with no make up on and yesterday's mousse still in my hair. I have been so easily able to see it in everyone but myself and this must be the day when that begins to change because all those wild and painted hopes crave freedom, and so do I.

I can, even now, hear that voice rising up, singing it's song of freedom- and the voice that sings is His.

"The Lord, your God, is with you, He is mighty to save, He takes great delight in you, He will quiet you with his Love, He will rejoice over you with singing... ." Zeph 3:17

Proverbs 31

I found it very interesting that there would be such vibrant viewpoints regarding this scripture on one of my previous posts and so I'm hoping to dig a little deeper and add some fact to what, to me, has always been perception only.

I have to be honest and say first, I've always hated this scripture. It brought to mind a few women I've known or counseled with over the years who took it to a very extreme place. A place of timidity, rigidity of opinion, lack of thought and creativity and moreover, a place where freedom and strength, also known as feminism in some circles, were shunned. As someone who takes great delight in the freedoms of women, the strength that we can and do exhibit so often and with such greatness, the beauty and power that women like Maya Angelou have embraced with such grace, I have often been quite offput by this scripture and it's detailed and exhausting description of what I 'should' be doing at every given interval of my day.
Knowing that only truly remarkable fakes could pull off even a vague impersonation of this 'ideal woman', I gave up entirely, a surrender to failure which is undoubtedly more common than the lovely ladies in the church pews would admit. I also quietly allowed a large and imposing CANYON to spread between myself and the God who inspired such ridiculous and impossible instruction to be penned as a 'gift' for women. This is obviously not something we can agree on, God, so let's just not talk about it, shall we?
Having discovered relatively recently that in fact there IS a God, and knowing that He is wholly loving, failed to make a difference in my mind for this controversial passage. There are things I can never understand and never be, lets just leave it at that. In other words, 'Look, God, we just started speaking again. Let's not dredge up all that old stuff again, hm?'
But He has a way of doing just that, bringing up all those old things that we've tucked away to be dealt with later. So this is my later.
Here's the way I, and so many other women around the world, read Proverbs 31. And please note here- this is not the actual passage, but one woman's interpretation- and before you judge, understand also, that I know this isn't REALLY what it says.

"A wife of perfect character and form, who can find? God values her the most because she's better than you. Her marriage is completely happy 100% of the time and her husband is proud of her perfection. She never says or does anything against his will or opinion and is a bright blessing to his life because of it. She labors constantly within her home and never sits down to read a book or take a bubble bath or smoke a cigarette. She is wealthy enough to have servants and she's nice enough to treat them well. In spite of this wealth and service, she still makes all her own clothes, cooks all her own meals and never actually sleeps because she's made of sterner stuff than that. She is so industrious that she has enough for her family and the family next door as well, clothing and feeding all their kids too.
Her husband is a hunk and spends his considerable free time on currency trading. He has a lot of friends and they're all jealous of him.
She is a seamstress, a merchant, a trader and a vintner all at once and makes a considerable fortune on each vocation.
On top of all of this, she is also incredibly wise and intelligent and many come from far and wide to hear her speak. She is completely secure in the future because she knows how amazingly capable she is and because they're wealthy after all, so what's to be afraid of?
She never sits, never sleeps, never worries, never weeps, never yells or spanks or fails to read all the labels on her groceries to make certain they're all organic and don't contain red 25. And of course, because of all of this, her teen children, who are pimple free and full of peace, love and harmony, rise up and tell her what a bang up job she's done on every darn thing. Her husband never has an affair with a coworker, develops an addiction to pornography or beer or is ever late for dinner because this wise, beautiful, intelligent, smoldering woman is waiting at home with a meal made from scratch on a table she carved from the oak out back.
Many women do good things, but only the one who matches this description is worthy of love and due respect.

I imagine that for those of you who love Proverbs 31, seeing it butchered this way is a bit annoying. But you have to understand, there are those women out there who read it just this way, as a judgment on us, a hopeless task that we can never fulfill and one that would change us, mold us, into a cookie cutter Christian female without personality, practically without personhood at all. This verse is not beautiful to us, but damning, depressing and frankly, boring.

I came across a piece recently, which puts some of the actual proverb (not my parody) into a clearer perspective, at least for me. This is a character sketch of the proverbs 31 woman, taken from the Woman of Faith Study Bible


" Ahh, the noble wife. Busy, Busy Busy! How does one woman find time for so much?
That's it! She is not one woman. She's all of us- and none of us. In a time when most women were not taken very seriously apart from childbearing, the writer of this proverb dared to present a picture of a woman as a glorious, vibrant, competent and intelligent creation of God. The imagery is as relevant today as the day he wrote it. As we put some of the noble wife's talents into a modern context, we recognize her in ourselves and in our sisters.
Some women might go after quality clothing for their families and shop at several supermarkets to find the best buys. They fill their houses with plants. Their pantries are well stocked, their bathrooms are laden with plenty of toilet paper and fresh towels.
Some women contribute clean used clothing and food to the poor. They give birthday parties for disadvantaged children and tutor slow learners. They rock newborn babies at the hospital, wash windows for the elderly and take in foster children. Their homes are gathering places for neighborhood kids.
There are women for whom no job is too challenging or too niggling. They chop wood for the fireplace, mow the lawn and shovel snow. They repair the toaster, put up shelving, balance the budget and debug the computer. They also dress attractively, quilt and sew and sell homemade gifts on consignment.
A Godly wife may impress her workplace with her good judgment and reliability. She plans the weeks activities to make sure the important things come first, both at home and at work. She prays and sets family goals with her husband. She encourages him, asks about his day and shares her insight. On special occasions she may invite friends from his or her work to dinner.
A wife of noble character wears many faces and fills many roles- roles that can change with the seasons of her life. In essence, she draws her strength from The Lord to lay down her life for those she loves. Her creative industry may fill her day with countless activities or only one or two to which she gives herself deeply. Her reward? Her children adore her. Her husband cherishes her company, trusts her judgment and brags about her to all of his friends. She will be remembered- long after she is gone- not as a woman who beautifully knit a sweater or successfully balanced a budget, but as a woman who sought the Lord first of all."

Reading Proverbs 31, I have to assume that it isn't a to-do list of virtues or I'd be overwhelmed before I even began. It simply isn't possible to be all those things at once, or even a fraction of all those things, really. But as is often the case with God, quite often when I believe He's speaking judgment on me, He's actually speaking Mercy.
This passage needs to be exclaimed in every church, from every pulpit and spoken to every woman we meet. And it needs to be spoken in this way; not as an impossible task or a divining rod of spirituality, not as a measuring stick to gauge our failures and successes- but this; as an endless list of possibilities for who we are and who we can be.
This is not a passage of condemnation- or at least I've found a way to read it so it no longer strikes me as such- but one of limitless possibilities for freedom in who we are as women, to be whatever we're gifted to be in whatever way we're able. It isn't describing one single woman who miraculously accomplishes so many tasks, but describing all of us, living such vastly different lives, using our myriad talents and loving within our own individual marriages/ relationships. We are each of us so different, so purposefully different, that it would be a cosmic waste to conform to one rigid standard or tradition of living.
I believe this passage is a great and wise instruction on how to use our talents to make a way for ourselves in this world, and also a reminder that we aren't all the same, but are each so valuable to Him for those differences. Where one can sew, another might build, and still another write or sing or bake or rockclimb or sail or play drums. And all are 'worth far more than rubies' to the One who formed us, who gave us our gifts and who is always so faithful to provide ways of using them.
I've come to discover that these verses are not a means of separating the wheat from the chaff, the spiritual giants from the poor losers, as I have often seen myself, who can't get their act together in the wife/mother role- but rather a celebration of all of our differences and the beautiful tapestry we can become if we choose to love one another beyond those differences, and actually, love because of those differences. In terms of a 'to-do' list for my spiritual life? My number one rule of 'Love God and Love Others' still stands firm.

What Summer?

On reclaimed Weekends

It seems that about every 6 months I pass by my calendar in the dining room- look at the mess of appointments, playdates, church obligations, BBQ's, small group nights, volunteer stuff- and then, in a frenzy of rebellion, I cross out about half of what's on there, cancel appointments, drop off comittee's, refuse to attend one more BBQ no matter how fun it might be. My friends have most certainly been the victim's of these schedule clearing shinanigans and while I hate to disappoint people, I also have to go " STOP!!! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!" Which is where I find myself today.
And without fail, liberating my schedule always leaves me feeling FREE and able to breathe. I have a friend who shall remain nameless, and she's the worlds-best-multitasker. She cooks for potlucks, plays in the worship team, has a bazillion friends that she makes time for regularly, works part time, has two kids and one on the way...and she's still nice!! Give me 1/2 of that schedule and I'd be climbing the walls or running naked through the woods. So, I ask you, HOW does she do it?? If you're out there C., I'll just ask you- HOW DO YOU DO IT!?
Here's a brief recap of our life since March:
T-ball Tues and Thurs with games on Fri and sometimes Sat, gymnastics on Mondays, ladies bible study on Monday nights, small group with some friends on Wednesday nights, church on Sunday during which Ryan does sound, back to church Sunday night to help with sound and set up for the dinner they did for those who came for the Sunday night service, Ryan's truck's clutch goes out...two days later the tranny is discovered to be 'siezed up' and needs replacing also, too expensive, scrap the truck, borrow the Honda from Father in Law, air conditioning goes out, temps climp to the high 90's (of course they do), school's getting out, 2 parent's nights which Ryan and I split up for because they're also t-ball nights, gymnastics performance night, engine on my new-to-me Subaru goes out and needs to be replaced, put new engine in, IT goes out...ahem, right...put NEW new engine in car, all of this resulting in 3 weeks with only one pimpy Honda to drive the family around in...I score a landscaping job, do another pro bono for a pal and get another one from those two, Subaru goes back to the shop, I do a 4th landscaping job free of charge (it was for my mother)- all of this while; planning a trip to Mexico for August 1st, caring for 9 Scottish Terrier pups, cleaning up after a city sewer main breaks outside our house and floods our basement with poo, dealing with a refrigerator and washing machine which go out within a week of one another.....the list goes on. Seriously, it does.

All of this to say, I WANT MY WEEKENDS BACK. Starting Saturday. You're all my witnesses. I vow to pack a picnic and head to the zoo with my family. I will stroll, not run, through the exhibits and make time to stop and see the primates AND the bears. I will eat lunch on the grass with my husband of 9 years and watch the kids play unhurried. I will. I will. I will.
I will not forego the zoo trip to 'squeeze in' a coffee date with friends, a quick shopping trip or a bit of work on someones yard. I will not look at C.'s life and wonder why I don't have her energy and spunk and niceness, because realistically, it doesn't matter. I need more down time than the average person and this last 6 months proves it because I'm half crazy, I can feel it. *sigh*

Except for that appointment with the optometrist, I really should do that on Saturday. But I bet I can sqeeze it in in the morning...

On prayer

Alright, I have to tell you- I thought I knew this and perhaps you did too- which is why I'm announcing it like this. Because it hit me like a baseball bat a few weeks back and has radically changed my life, this unparalleled discovery, this unbelievable happening.
Did you know...get ready for this, people. You may want to sit down here...Did you know that

God is Actually REAL?

Wait, wait- don't hang up...this isn't preachy, I promise.

I'm not playing around here, honestly. And I certainly don't want to get 'religious' because as most of you know- that's really not what I'm about. But apparently I'd been going along thus far in my life really thinking that I knew this, when in fact, I did not. Not really. My prayer life sucked, to be frank. I just didn't do it unless I had to. Big investments, big problems, enemies that I wanted God to smite...or is it smote?...whatever, the point is that I approached prayer with the same hopeful, yet doubting regard, that I used to approach my magic eight ball when I was a kid.
Does Bobby like me???? *pleaseohpleaseohplease* shake the fabulous eight and wah lah! Yes, Bobby does like you and you will live happilyeverafter in a condo in Malibu.
Enter religion and the system changes to...
God, please keep the kids safe at school today and protect Ryan as he travels and pleaseohpleaseohplease let us be able to support our family this month... *shake the magic eight translates to 'say the magical phrase 'in Jesus name' at the end* and wah lah! Sometimes yes...sometimes no...sometimes wait. Just like the ball. And your odds are just about as good in prayer as they are with the little floaty triangle that HOLDS YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IN ITS INANIMATE HANDS!
I am reminded of our trip to Reno a few years back and my brief stint on the penny machines. I prayed more on that trip than ever. Put in my crisp one dollar bill and, you guessed it, *ohpleaeohpleaseohplease*...push the button and...darn it. Another dollar, another button push...disappointed again.
My prayers were EXACTLY like this with the same warning going through my head- 'prayers are based on chance and are for entertainment only. They are not intended for investment purposes." And do you know why? Because my belief in God was about as authentic as my belief in the floaty thing in the magic eight ball. I wanted to believe. But I just couldn't. I didn't know how to make myself believe in something that sounded too good to be true. so-
I asked God to introduce himself to me, to prove his reality if He was willing. And I went on with my life as if nothing was different, just waiting for the moment when He'd speak or one of the shrubs in my yard would catch fire...something, anything...that would tell me that he heard me.
In the meantime, I cared for my children, cleaned my house, went on playdates, did the laundry and I spent a week house sitting for my mom. It was during this time that I accidentally spilled a bottle of bubble bath in her jacuzzi tub. Everyone knows what happens when you do that right?

So there I am, bubbles literally over my head thinking it's awesome and laughing so hard I can hardly stand up. Ryan hears the laughter and comes to investigate. Bubbles everywhere...over the bath edge, all over the floor, up to the windows. We had to scoop them up and pile them in the shower to wash them down. Clean up was horrible- but the experience was so FUN, so full of innocent delight.
You think I'm getting off track, don't you? I'm not. Keep reading.

The following week my friend Holly suggests a prayer time with she and her friend Shelly. This particular time would be spent focusing on my 'original design', my internal makeup as God intended it when he created me. Skeptical? I was too. Because how do they know, right? Supposedly they ask God and He tells them. Even more skeptical? Me too. Because they could easily make something up. But I love Holly and I trust her in spite of her weird prayer life in which she actually believes she can hear from God. Shelly I don't know as well, but that worked out in my favor as I was about to conduct a very unprofessional scientific experiment.
I asked myself what I hoped to receive from this process and the answer was simple. Undeniable PROOF that God exists. Didn't have to be real to anyone else, but it needed to be absolutely clear to me. And it had to come from Shelly. I didn't know her as well, she didn't know me or my life- so I reasoned that if something personal, something she had no way of knowing, came about in this prayer meeting and came only from her, then that would be enough for me.

I began the time with my usual humor, cracking jokes, making fun- but trying to be as sincere and humble as I possibly could. This seemed silly to me, but I was willing to listen because who knows, right?

We're in the middle of praying, Shelly and Holly are saying words like jovial, spoken for, ingenious, justice, imperial.... All supposedly from God as He speaks it to them...words that were for me, my design as He intended it...sounds pretty good huh? and then Shelly stops and says "Lord, don't make me say it. Please don't make me say it."
uh oh. What does that mean? I'm getting pretty concerned and Shelly's holding her head in her hands....this is bad, I can feel it.
"ok, Melissa. I don't know what this means. And it sounds totally silly and I really don't want to say it, but I'm going to anyway."
Holly and I are looking at her suspiciously, looking at one another...and Shelly says,
"Bubbles." Long pause and we both ask simultaneously, "Bubbles??"
"yep. That's it. I don't know what it means, but that's it. Bubbles. Oh, and He delights in you."

I'll be honest people. I didn't get it. It wasn't until a day or so later, making a bath for my kids, pouring their bubble bath into our tub at home and watching the bubbles spread over the water, that I remembered that incident when we were housesitting. The spill, the laughter, that delighted, indulgent experience and in that moment I knew....undeniably, without a doubt, that HE had spoken to me. I sat there on the edge of my bathtub and laughed with joy. It caused me to draw all my wondering and exploration and questions into one reasonable conclusion; yes, people, there is a God. And he can see you in the bathtub. He delights in your laughter and finds joy in our play.

There is a God. This is HUGE. This is why they call it the good news. You know that feeling that you get when you're looking at your life and saying, "There's GOT to be more than this." Well, I'm here to tell you, yes, there is. We were designed to search for that, created to wonder if there wasn't more to it than just our own for-the-moment happiness. We were designed to search so that we could find what we ultimately need.

I've begun to pray about EVERYTHING. I prayed for strawberries the other day. I'm not kidding. I don't even know why I did it. I just had a craving for strawberry shortcake and right in the middle of the very brief, random prayer I get a knock on the back door. I was expecting my mom, so no surprise there- what WAS surprising was the giant bowl of garden grown strawberries in her arms. THIS KIND OF THING KEEPS HAPPENING TO ME! It's unnerving and cool at the same time.

So I'm just telling you- that if you have doubts or are just one of those people who says, No way- I'm not buying into the whole organized religion thing...that's ok. But I'd recommend this simple test. As sincerely as you can, ask God to prove his reality to you, to make himself known to you, to make it undeniable (if only for you). Think of it as an experiment. If nothing happens, you've lost nothing. If something happens, you've gained everything. These are much better odds than the penny machines in Reno or the magic eight ball. God is not silent, he is not absent, he is not an uncaring entity removed from humanities suffering and pain. He is real. He is real. I have to keep saying that over and over because it's so amazing, so life changing, so incredibly beautiful; this good news. He is not an inanimate object who's answers to our prayers are at His every dictatorial whim or which are so carelessly random that they have no impact on our lives.

And finally, in light of this, I have found one thing to be absolutely true; there is no trial so great, no pain so disabling, no wound so deep that His great love, his mercy and his ultimate realness are not more powerful and beautiful than those things which we encounter day to day. Why did it take me so long to get this??

"I lift my eyes up to the hills. Where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip- He who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you- The Lord is your shade at your right hand;
The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all harm, He will watch over your life;
The Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forever more."
Psalm 121