Summer Daze
Chalk it up to the latent truancy that exists in parent and child alike, but I've been less than motivated these last few weeks. From the middle of May onward, I found myself slogging through the final projects, class picnics, and end-of-school year programs. I bought the ice cream, clapped for the perfect attendance awards, and sniffled through fifth-grade graduation. When the last bell rang, my kids weren't the only ones ready to be done.
No more lunches to pack...
No more homework to muddle through...
No more waking up in the middle of the night to remember what I forgot...
At least for the next 104 days or so.
I grew up in a teacher's home; in fact, it was a two-teacher home. Both my mother and father spent their days schooling future generations in the finer points of history and science. For our family, life existed in discreet increments of 9 weeks that gradually worked their way toward the ultimate goal of summer vacation. Dad often had to take odd jobs during his months off to make ends meet, but occasionally, every so often, there was a glorious summer when we had enough. He could stay with us, tend his garden, putter in his orchard, and simply enjoy working at home.
Of course, we still had responsibilities, even as children; but there was something marked about the sense of freedom we felt when school wrapped up. Instead of lesson planning and testing and grade books, our days were filled with berry picking, camping, ice cream, and lounging on the couch watching cartoons. We might go on vacation or travel to see relatives, but the joy of summer was directly tied to the fact that we didn't HAVE TO. Dewy June mornings evaporated into hot July afternoons which eventually gave way to the muggy nights of August. And all of them blissfully unscheduled.
At least, that's how I remember it.
Later in life, I learned that this wasn't exactly the norm. My sense of extended vacation was, in many ways, the result of both my childhood naivete and my parents unusual work schedules. Most of my friends didn't experience summer the way I did, especially if both their parents worked and they ended up at grandma's or in multiple sessions of day camp topped off with nightly VBS. In many ways, our family lived in a world apart, moving to our own rhythms, resisting outside forces. We did participate in church activities, offering up our service at Bible school or youth group camping trips, but for the most part, my parents felt no need to live their lives the way everyone else did.
For me, this meant that I carried some interesting expectations into adulthood, particularly that the world should slow down during the months of June, July, and August. In these times, you'd need only do the bare minimum outside your home. Certainly you must work. Those afternoons in front of the television often included snapping green beans, but somehow it was different. We were working for ourselves. We were investing in our own home and family. We weren't obligated to anyone else.
Eighteen summers of this will shape a person. So that even today, my heart seems to skip a few beats faster when June rolls around. June means freedom. June means family.
At dinner the other night, after a discussion of loose teeth, why ice doesn't sink, and the obligatory knock-knock joke, I leaned over to my husband.
"You do realize," I said, looking conspiratorially into those brown eyes that got us here in the first place, "you do realize that we are living in a Beverly Clearly novel."
A Beverly Clearly novel set smack-dab in the middle of summer.
I tell you all this to explain where I'll be for the next few months. The last bell has rung, and I'm taking the summer off. I might pop in now and again, but don't expect to see much of me. There may be some previously scheduled posts on FB or Twitter, and I might work up the effort to record a podcast or two, but for the most part, it's going to be quiet.
Somebody's got to teach these kids how summer's done.
Home, Sweet, Home
Two weeks ago, my kids headed off to school. One week later they were back home, sick with the first round of school-bourne illnesses. I got the call from the school nurse around 11:30. My eight-year-old son had a fever—slight—but just enough to send him home. By bedtime, the rest of us were beginning to show signs too. Unfortunately, it was the kind of sickness that was just bad enough to make you miserable but not bad enough to knock you out completely. The kind where you can’t muster enough energy to go about your normal routine but you’ve still got enough energy to bicker and fight. The kind that brings out the worst in you—irritability, whining, helplessness.
And that was just me.
As difficult as last week was, I found that it reminded me of the importance of home. Stripped of the externals--the housekeeping, the pinterest projects, the car pools–the purpose of home became clearer; the fundamental purpose of the home is to teach us how to live in relationship with God and with each other. Every day, as we interact with our spouses, parents, children, aunts, and cousins, we are learning the basics of how to interact with other human beings. So when my family is at our worst; when we are not loving or kind or patient; when we have “one of those” weeks, I remember exactly what I am fighting for.
In philosophy, there is a concept called “moral proximity.” Moral proximity says that we owe our greatest responsibility to those closest to us. So when the Scripture says you are to “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” it is teaching you both how to love and who to love. You are to love whom ever God has providentially placed in your life. The genius of Home is that it teaches you how to do this by putting you in close (difficult, irritating) quarters with people who are committed to loving you as well.
Because here’s the rub: Loving people close to you, loving your neighbor, is often more difficult than loving those at a distance. It is easier to love those whose quirks you don’t have to live with, whose Legos weren’t left all over the family room floor (again), who don’t take your hard work for granted. Learning to love those close to you means learning to love in the face of frustration. For my children, this means figuring out how to love their siblings who irritate them and learning to love mommy and daddy who tell them to do things they don’t like.
When the young lawyer asked “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered with the story of the Good Samaritan, a parable about moral proximity. In it, both the priest and the Levite fail to show true love because they fail to love the person right in front of them. But the opposite is also true. If today, we learn to love our closest neighbor, the people in our own homes, chances are we’ll be able to love another neighbor when we pass him in the road.
Trust me, our family has our share of bickering and meanness. This last week proved it. But every time I find myself refereeing, every time I get overwhelmed by the work, the sheer work of discipline and correction, I think about my kids’ futures. I remember that the boy who dismisses his mother and sister today will likely dismiss his wife some day too. The girl who pouts and whines to get her way will likely grow up to be a woman who manipulates others in her workplace and church.
But.
But children who learn to love today, children who see grace and kindness and peace modeled, children who are expected to offer grace and kindness and peace in return—these children will flourish. They will flourish because by learning to love the people closest to them they will also learn to love their neighbor as themselves. So that when they finally do fly away, when they leave the safety of home for broader society, the world be a better place because of them.
Beautiful in His Time
Just a few minutes ago, I sent all three of my kids off to school together. Yes, my baby officially packed up his book bag and shipped out to Kindergarten. And while this does nothing to change the fact that I am still (and will always be) their mother, it does signal a change of season for me. At least for this year, between the hours of 8:00-2:15, I will not be accompanied by the constant presence of someone under four feet tall. This has not happened in ten years.
Truthfully, though, I'm not exactly sure what to do with myself.
One thing I do hope to do is catch up on some quiet space. For the last decade, I haven't been able to give myself to prayer or Bible study without half-listening in the background for “Mommy, I need….” This isn't problem--life naturally cycles through different stages--and I've learned to I take great comfort in what Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once told a group of medical students who complained that they didn’t have time for prayer and Bible Study:
I am a doctor. I have been where you are. You have time for what you want to do. I make only one exception: the mother of preschool-aged children does not have time and emotional resources.
But now, I am officially no longer a mother of preschool-aged children. (*sniff*) And that means learning to steward my time in different ways. In fact, I won't be surprised if it's as much a learning curve for me as kindergarten will be for my son.
Still, I want to say something to all you mothers who do have preschool-aged children: Stay strong in your love. Love these little ones and these little years because they slip by more quickly than you can imagine. Your life is very full right now. So full that you can hardly see the road ahead over all the sippy cups and diaper bags and potty charts. But this too will come to an end, and when it does, you will be thankful for these years.
Don't get me wrong, there will be plenty of "could'ves, would'ves, and should'ves." These are the natural result of caring as much as you do. But when it is time, when you start giving away the baby paraphernalia, it will be okay. It will be okay because you know that something--Someone--greater than you has been directing these seasons. And just like you're ready for autumn after the joys of summer; and just like you can't wait for the first winter's snow fall, you will be ready for the next season. You'll be ready for it because You know the faithfulness of the God who brings it.
So embrace the time at hand, whether that means sending little ones off to their first day of kindergarten or sending them off college. Embrace the time at hand because you know it comes from His hand. Because when you know this, you will be free to live fully in it, hallowing it as a sacred gift. You will be free to look to the past with joy and look on into the future with hope--the hope that the One who created time makes it all so very, very beautiful in His time.
The Education of a Parent
Today my daughter turns 10.
It’s quite a milestone for both of us. For her, it means finally passing into “double digits” –that mysterious world that few of us ever pass out of. For me, it signals a decade of motherhood. When my Phoebe came into the world a little after 3:30 on a rainy South Carolina Thursday, it wasn’t simply the beginning of her life; it was the fundamental altering of mine.
Looking back, I can see how much motherhood has changed me, how much it has forced me to grow beyond myself. I realize now that when folks spoke of me as a “young mother,” they weren’t talking about the age of my daughter so much as about the fact that I was new to the game. I had a lot to learn.
Those first few years were spent learning to make the “right” choices; choices about... feeding and sleeping habits, immunizations, potty training, and pacifiers. And once I’d figured how to actually keep her alive (and not alienate all my friends and family in the process), it was time to learn how to “train her up in the way she should go.” Suddenly the questions were about when to let her to use electronics and where to send her to school.
Ten years later, I’m still not sure of the best way to get toddlers to eat their food; I never really figured out how to potty train in a day, and I’m pretty ambivalent about whether or not kids should watch television when they’re two. But I have learned one thing:
Parenting is as much about the education of the parent as it is about the education the child.
If you talk to seasoned parents, they’re likely to tell you that parenting (like marriage) is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. Young parents often think that the difficulty lies in finding just the right path, in navigating the narrow way, in discerning between good and evil. To them, the challenge of parenting comes from a lack of knowledge, not from a lack of wisdom. But after ten years, I can tell you that the thing that makes parenting so difficult is realizing how immature you actually are. The hardest thing about parenting is coming face to face with your own weaknesses.
One of the remarkable things about children is that they reflect the nature of the adults around them. It’s like having a 4-ft-tall mirror walking around in front of me. As quickly as I see flaws in my daughter’s life, it’s certain that those same flaws are present in mine. When I point my finger in the mirror, it’s pointing right back at me. So that while books and theories and schooling choices and finding just the right church do shape children’s development, nothing shapes them more than the character of the adults they live with.
- If a parent is undisciplined, all the chore charts in the world won’t teach his child to be disciplined.
- If a father lacks self-control, don’t be surprised when the son throws a temper tantrum.
- If a mother doesn’t speak kindly about the people in her life, her daughter is likely to be the “mean girl” on the playground too.
- And if you are not pursuing God, odds are that your children won’t either.
Once you understand this truth, it’s natural to become discouraged. It’s humbling to realize that your flaws are being exposed. And if you’re like me, you may want to just give up altogether. How can we call our children to maturity when we ourselves are not mature?
But before you throw in the towel, remember this: While nothing shapes our children more than their mother and father, nothing shapes us more than our Heavenly Father. Because as much as we are parents, we are also children. We are children of a perfect Father who is faithfully parenting us. A Father who is kind and generous and just and wise. And just like our children will reflect our character, we are destined to reflect His.
This will happen the same way it happens in our homes. How do our children end up as little carbon copies of us? By spending time with us. By living in the same space we do. By sitting down and rising up and walking and talking with us. So that as you spend time with our Heavenly Father, as you live in His presence, you will become like Him as well.
And as you do, as you grow, your children will grow too. As you model His character, they will model His character because they have seen it in you first. And as His Holy Spirit wells up inside of you as a fountain of life, it will overflow, bringing life to all those around you. So that, in the end, the best way to learn to be a good parent is to learn to be a child who reflects the goodness of our Heavenly Father.
Little Golden Book of Theology
I’m entering a stage of life where my hands aren’t quite as full as they once were. Almost ten years into this adventure called “parenting,” I rarely deal with diapers and midnight feedings; but yesterday, when I watched a friend’s three-year-old and one-year-old for a bit, it all came rushing back.
The irony of small children is that they have absolutely no ability to entertain themselves and yet every ability to be destructive and bring harm to themselves. So during this season, parents learn to never look away. You learn to get down on the floor and build train tracks and play princess. You learn to put lesser things aside and grab a pile of books to read about Horton andLlama Llama and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Well, at least, that’s what we did yesterday. One of the books we read was the story of Tootle by Gertrude Crampton. Tootle is a young train who dreams of becoming the Flyer on the New York-Chicago line. But in order to do this, he must attend train school. He takes classes in “Not Spilling the Soup in the Diner” and “Stopping at Waving Red Flags.” But, according to the headmaster Bill, the most important class, the one that every little train must master, is “Staying On the Rails No Matter What.” Tootle must get a 100 A+ in this class.
Things are fine for a bit, but eventually the lure of the meadow is too much. Day after day, Tootle sneaks off to dance in the daisies and frolic with the butterflies. Bill becomes aware of what Tootle is doing, but instead of reprimanding him, instead of insisting on obedience, Bill makes a plan. He gathers all of the townspeople, gives each of them a red flag, and then hides them in the meadow.
Eventually Tootle comes to the meadow again to play. But as he’s enjoying himself, he suddenly sees a red flag in front of him. He stops and turns to the left. But there is another red flag. And then there is one on his right. Soon the only thing he can see are red flags. He is caught and helpless. The one law he knows to obey--the law of Always Stopping for a Red Flag—has trapped him.
But then he sees it. A green flag! A green flag means freedom. A green flag means “Go!” A green flag means race. A green flag means he can fly. Bill is standing on the tracks, waving a green flag with all his might, beckoning Tootle to come to him.
To our modern sensibilities, the moral of Tootle’s story—Stay on the Tracks No Matter What—could sound a lot like conformity. Won’t this make children feel guilty about pursuing what they love? Doesn’t this reinforce legalism? Shouldn’t we teach children to think outside the box? But the moral of Tootle isn’t quite that superficial; it isn’t about conforming to societal expectations and it isn’t about legalism. In fact, the moral of Tootle is deeply teleological; it’s rooted in who Tootle is. Tootle has to stay on the rails, not to please Bill, but because he is a train and he is destined to become a Flyer. The horse can run in the meadow. The bees can buzz around the flowers. But a train stays on the rails.
A lot of times we can believe that God’s standards are a barrier to our happiness. Like Tootle, the idea of “Staying On the Rails No Matter What” can feel unnecessarily confining. Worse still, some of us have been taught that we have to choose between making God happy and making ourselves happy. So when we do conform to His standards, they weigh heavily on us and we can begin to believe that we’re missing out. But we trudge on, committing ourselves to keeping “the rules” out of fear or self-righteousness. Some of us can’t handle that kind of pressure and eventually end up rushing off to the meadow.
But the truth is that neither of these paradigms is right. A train is not made for the meadow, but it not meant to trudge down the track either. A train is meant to fly down them with joy.
In Made for More, I write about this tension:
Because God's boundaries reveal His nature, they also reveal our own... Instead of a barrier to keep us from being ourselves, God’s law is intended to guide us back to our true selves… Apart from God’s law, we would ruin ourselves because we would keep living in direct opposition to what we were made to be.” (53-54)
But as we all know, and as Tootle learned, a standard by itself is not powerful enough. We need Jesus. Just like Bill stood on the track to guide Tootle back to where he belonged, Jesus stands waving the green flag, inviting us to the abundant life that only He can offer.
But it takes faith to live in our true identities. The world tells us that we will only be ourselves when we do what we want, when we do what we love. Faith tells us that we will never be more fully ourselves until we live as image bearers of God. But when this happens, when we are conformed to His Image through Christ, we are free to race. We are free to run. We are free to fly down the tracks.
We are finally free to be who we are meant to be.
To the Universe and Back
My seven-year-old son is a bit of a mystery to me. I’m beginning to suspect that he always will be. He’s more like my dad--a man you could easily believe just stepped from the pages of a Wendell Berry novel—than either my husband or me. Like my dad, he’s quiet. He holds his cards close to his chest, preferring to take everything in and let very little out.
His first grade teacher calls him an “old soul.”
He loves music and is the only one in our family willing to dance around the kitchen with me while Pandora crackles from the computer. But he’s also a worrier, and recently told me that he’s decided not to be President after all because the President has "a lot of problems to solve." When he shows me his schoolwork topped with 100%s and glowing comments, he flashes a crooked grin but then drops his eyes, almost embarrassed. He is proud of himself and he’s eager for me to be proud of him too, but he’s unsure. His confidence is fragile, as if he’s afraid that something will sweep in and steal it away.
If anything, these last seven years with him have forced me to think outside my own personality—to learn to love outside my own personality. My husband and I try to meet each of our children where they are, to learn them, to receive who God has made them to be. We rejoice in their uniqueness and assure them that God has made them exactly who they are for His purposes. But the other night when I was tucking him into bed, my son asked me something that made me doubt all of my parenting to this point.
“Mommy, do you love me to the end of the universe?”
I was stunned. How could he not know? How could he not know that every time I looked at him I saw my father? How could he not know that I secretly preferred the strong, silent type—the personality he intrinsically possessed? How could he not know that I had dreams of him becoming that kind of steady, stable, loyal man that any mother would be proud of? How could he not know that I loved him?
But then I realized. This was not about whether I knew I loved him but whether he knew that I loved him. And if he needed to hear it again, I needed to say it again.
“Oh honey, I love you to the end of the universe and back again. I love you more than you know. I love you just because you exist—it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, I will always love you. No mistakes you make, no bad things you do can stop me from loving you.”
His lips slowly formed that signature lopsided smile, and he looked at me with blue eyes that seemed to beg me to confirm that what he was hearing was true. He sighed and simply said, “Thank you for telling me that.”
And then he rolled over and went to sleep.
If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you know that we talk about love a lot. When we’re young, we sing “Jesus Loves Me;” and when we grow up, we sport bumper stickers and wear t-shirts that say “God loves you!” For those of us who take love at face value, all these affirmations can easily sound a bit trite. We're bored with it. Yes, yes, I know already. God is love. God loves me. Can’t we move onto something more profound, even something more practical like five easy ways to disciple children?
But some of us… well, some of us are like my son. Some of us are still wrestling, still struggling to believe this simple truth: Jesus. Loves. Me. Not because of what I do for Him; not because of what I didn’t do. He simply loves me.
If life with my son has taught me anything, it’s that some of us need to hear this again and again. And if some of us need to hear it again and again, then the rest of us need to say it again and again. So to you--you with the lopsided grin and expectant eyes--let me say this: God loves you to the universe and back.
To Have or Not to Have: Childlessness and Imago Dei Identity
This past week I found myself cuddling the newest member of our church--a sweet, Dreft-scented little girl named Hope. As I held her in my arms, I have to admit that I felt the ache of maternal longing well up inside me. The memories of my own children at that age and the sheer wonder at new life were almost too much. And yet, my husband and I are not presently pursuing any new members of the family. For us, as it is for many couples, the question of when and whether to have more children has been a complicated one, one that has forced us to wrestle through desire, calling, and limitation. On the other hand, for an increasing number, the question is not when or how many children to have; the question is whether to have them at all.
Last month, Time magazine explored this phenomenon in their cover story entitled, "The Childfree Life: When having it all means not having children." And then earlier this week, Emily Timbol wrote a piece for Her.meneutics, a blog of Christianity Today, explaining why she and her husband do not intend to have children (and why she’d appreciate you not judging her for it.) Now, couples choosing to not have children is nothing new; but what I do find interesting is why they are choosing this. The current argument seems less rooted in the classic appeal to overpopulation or the desire to commit oneself to extreme callings or even a worry about bringing children into a terribly broken world. Instead, it seems that more and more couples are choosing to not have children in order to pursue certain lifestyles and careers unhindered. And while it’s easy to chalk this up to Millennial selfishness, (see here for a piece that rightly challenges the temptation to make Millennials the scapegoat for every societal ill), I don’t think it’s that simple. At the same time, the question of whether to have children is going to be increasingly pesky one for Millennials for a couple of reasons:
- 50+ years of reliable birth control has successfully divorced children from sex and created an entire generation that is functionally illiterate about reproduction and child-rearing. We may know how NOT to have children, but we have not been schooled in how to have them.
- A growing Gnosticism that separates gifting from biology and links it to intangibles like personality and intellect. We simply don’t view gender and the capacity to have children as gifting in itself.
- The belief that aforementioned intellectual gifting is somehow necessary to the. future. of. civilization. Getting sidetracked by mundane things like children wouldn’t be in the best interest of greater human flourishing.
- Increasing inability to think generationally. In a society obsessed with youth, we don’t have categories for aging--whether that is our parents' aging or our own future aging. This means that we also don’t understand children as the bridge that connects generations, stretching back to the past and on into the future.
Among Christians, I think it’s also fair to recognize that that the question of childlessness is heavily influenced by the gender debate. Since 2nd-Wave Feminism, conservative Christians have responded by elevating the calling of a wife and mother. But because this sometimes came as a reaction to feminism, it also sometimes devolved into an idolization of motherhood and wifery, of understanding women only in terms of biology. To be fair, conservative Christians aren’t the only ones capable of this. In this brave new world of IVF, surrogacy, and egg donation, we brazenly reduce women to their reproductive capacities at every turn.
So how should we navigate the choice to have or not have children?
The first thing we must do is clarify what we are actually talking about. When we broach the subject of human reproduction, we are not talking about “babies” or “children” as if they were pets or diminutive, lesser versions of adults. When we broach the question of human reproduction, we are discussing the unique capacity of human beings to create new image bearers of a transcendent God. By definition, this is not reproducing the same way plants and animals do. And the difference lies, not in the mechanics of reproduction, but in what we are creating in our procreation.
Ironically, one of the arguments in favor of childfree living is that we need to view women first as people, as image bearers, and not simply in terms of their reproductive capacities. And while I understand this impulse, I’m concerned that it is often based on a one-dimensional understanding of imago dei. Instead of some nebulous, idealized autonomy, imago dei is better understood as the convergence of the relationships in which we live. We must understand ourselves, as Anthony Hoekema suggests in his book Created in God’s Image, through 1) our relationship with God; 2) our relationship with each other; and 3) our relationship with Creation as its steward.
What that means for the question of children is that we cannot properly discuss the how and when of having them apart from these relationships. Unlike we've been taught, this is not simply a matter of personal choice. Consider how the very act of conception mirrors a relational understanding of imago dei. When 1) a man and woman unite their bodies in dependence on 2) God’s sovereign will, they act as His representatives in 3) stewarding Creation by being fruitful and multiplying. Here in this one moment, the three planes of imago dei identity align and allow God’s nature to shine through their lives like light through a prism. What before was invisible to the naked eye, suddenly bursts forth in a rainbow of color, incarnated through the very process of conceiving, birthing, and nurturing new life.
Of course, this is not the only way human beings image God, but we cannot continue to talk about reproduction apart from it. Unfortunately, in our culture, babies and children are more associated with the cutesy-ness of baby showers, miniature haute couture, and the tallying of “firsts.” And parenting is reduced to a sort of pastime that some couples undertake. Worse still, babies and children, when not wanted, are seen as barriers to self-fulfillment and personal goals. So the message that many young couples receive is that having children is something that you can pick or choose if you like it or not. And if you’re not quite ready to pull the trigger, get a puppy. Because, after all, there’s not much difference between human child and canine one, right?
But what if procreation isn’t simply a hobby but as the Scripture actually speaks about it, the creation of new image bearers? What if, when Adam fathered sons and daughters in his own likeness, he mirrored God’s first fathering man and woman in His own likeness? And what if, bringing a life into being and sustaining that life is one of the most God-like things human beings could ever do?
I don’t think this demands that every individual become a parent—clearly some will not and are no less capable of experiencing imago dei—but I do think that it changes the tenor of the discussion and how we view children. So that ultimately, the decision to have children is not one we make simply because we “feel” like it or don’t. It’s not a choice we make out of sentimentality (maternal ache notwithstanding); and it is not one we avoid out of fear or the desire to be unhindered.
Instead, the choice to produce and nurture a new image bearer is directly tied to our own status as image bearers, and as such, it is a choice that we make in context of relationship not stark autonomy. It is a choice made in prayerful dependence on God, in loving relationship with others, and as a steward of Creation who rules with the same life-giving authority and the same open-hearted generosity that God Himself does.
"A Heaven in a Wild Flower:" Discipling Children through Awe
It was one of those moments when I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So I opted to just shrink lower into our second-row pew, stifle my giggles, and hold my seven year-old son close, thanking God for him and all his glorious honesty.
If you are a regular reader, you know that my husband pastors a rural church; and while we do our best to keep our kids out of the fishbowl, we do expect them to participate in the full-scope of congregational life. Including our mid-week service. This isn’t usually a problem, but like all of us, there are those days when they’d rather stay home. Perhaps they're tired, busy doing other things, or in the case of my seven-year-old son, simply find Legos more interesting than having to sit still for an hour.
On this particular Wednesday night, we had dealt with the standard objections over dinner, and by 7:05, everyone was safely ensconced in our normal pew with our heads bowed as one of the deacons opened the service with prayer as only a deacon from a rural Baptist church can. About half way through, he asked God to touch the hearts of “those who could have come tonight but chose not to.”
Not missing a beat, my son piped up, “Well, I didn’t want to come, but I HAD to.”
To be fair, my son’s resistance to church is not the only discipleship hurdle we face with our children. It is easily matched by his older sister’s recent acknowledgment that she finds God's eternality “weird” and the fact that their little brother regularly asks to pray at meal time for the sole purpose of being able to control the length of the prayer. (“Dear-God-Thank-you-for-this-food-help-us-to love-each-other-Amen.”) If success is measured by religious conformity, we’re batting 0 for 3 here.
Still, these kinds of situations have the potential to worry Christian parents who desire to pass faith on to their children. With the reports of widespread Millennial angst and stories of even apologists’ daughters rejecting Christianity, it easy to lose heart. And when we do, it’s even easier to respond by simply doubling our efforts to force faith into them through more catechism, more Bible memory, more “church.”
We do this because we are conditioned to think that discipleship is primarily the accumulation of religious knowledge. A quick Google search for “children’s discipleship” brings back resource after resource—everything from catechisms to Bible memory systems to pint-sized devotional books--all promising to produce the next generation of believers. What I rarely hear discussed is the necessity of discipling our children through “natural revelation.” When theologians use the term “natural revelation,” they are referring to what God has revealed about Himself through the world around us. “Specific revelation,” on the other hand, is what God has revealed about Himself through the Scripture—and what is often the mainstay of our efforts to instill faith in the hearts of our children.
And while I believe Scripture is essential to the process of belief, Scripture was never intended to be engaged in a vacuum. Instead, faith happens as the Holy Spirit impresses the truth of God’s Word (specific revelation) onto a heart that has been primed to accept it by experiencing the truth of God in the world around it (natural revelation). Like a pair of chopsticks, the two must work together.
The Apostle Paul understood this and it’s precisely why in Acts 17—that famous Mars Hill sermon—he begins by appealing to what the Athenians already know through their experience of the world. They already believed in some “unknown God” because they could see His works both in them and around them. So too, most of us already understand the importance of this approach in evangelism; we craft winsome arguments and appeal to the nature of the cosmos and the intrinsic code of right and wrong that seems to be written on every human heart. What fewer of us understand is that we must evangelize our children this exact same way. We must disciple our children through wonder as much as through catechism. In Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton, that great British philosopher of the last century, writes that he gained his understanding of the world as a child:
“My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery… a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by mere facts.” It is this “certain way of looking at life” that many Christian parents neglect—or perhaps have never even acquired for themselves. We are not merely stuffing our children’s heads with facts; we are shaping hearts to believe that certain realities are true. So that when they do finally encounter the facts of faith, they will already have hearts that can recognize them. When they finally memorize “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” it will find lodging because they have already gazed up into this same heaven and marveled at its brilliant stars; they have already let the sand from this same earth slip through their chubby fingers and work its way into every nook and cranny of their tiny bodies.
So that in the end, they don’t believe there is a Creator simply because Genesis 1 tells them so; they believe there is a Creator because they have seen His Creation. As you go about discipling your children, as you teach them their Bible verses and correct them when they disobey, do not neglect the sacred discipline of awe and wonder at God’s creation. Take them to the mountains to walk forest trails in search of the millipedes and butterflies that are the works of His hands. Take them to the seashore to be knocked over by the power of a wave so that one day they’ll know how to be knocked over by the power of God. Take them to the art museum to thrill at the colors, shapes, and textures whose beauty can only be explained by the One who is Beauty Himself. Take them to the cities to crane their necks to the see the tops of sky scrapers and shiver with anticipation at God’s miracle of physics that keeps them from tumbling down.
And then take them to Church.
Take them to Church to bow their heads and receive the Word that gives them the ability to know the God behind all these wonders personally. Take them to Church to let the joy of their little hearts overflow in worship of the One through whom all these things consist. And take them to Church, so that in the midst of other worshipers, in the midst of other image bearers, they too will eventually be able to find their place in the great, wide world He has made.
Rest for Your Souls
The last several weeks have been perfect for nurturing a martyr’s complex.
Truthfully, it's my own fault. As careful as I am to protect my husband’s schedule and ensure that he takes time away from his pastorate, I’m not as careful to protect my own. So that when we have several busy weeks like the ones we’ve had recently, I often feel a martyr’s complex creeping up; and more often than not, it’s directly related to the fact that I haven’t taken time to rest.
If you know me, you will know that I am by no means a perfectionist. (If you don’t know me, one unannounced visit to my house and you will quickly agree with those who do.) But despite having zero OCD tendencies, I do have a tendency to be busy all the time. I have a hard time saying no, a hard time winding down, and a hard time truly resting. Multi-tasking is a virtue, right?
Over the years, I’ve had to admit that this inability to stop is a weakness and have had to commit to cultivating quiet space in my life. I’ve had to learn that rest is an act of faith and accept that I can stop working precisely because I believe that God will work for me. What I hadn’t understood until recently—recently being just this last weekend—is that rest is also an act of self-control. It’s a way exercising dominion over your own schedule and your own body precisely because you are made in God’s image.
The first time that the Scripture mentions the concept of rest is when God rested after creating nothing less than the entire universe. Most of us understand that in doing this, He wasn't resting because He was tired, but He rested in order to model rest for us. And yet, something more was happening. By resting--by abstaining from work--God was also expressing a form of mastery, of purposefully limiting His creative power. He rested to show that He is not mastered by anything—even His own creativity.
Simply put, just because He could have done more didn’t mean He had to.
So that for us, His image bearers, resting is not only a form of trust, but it is also a way to reflect God’s own control. Resting is a way to express the freedom and power that He has given us through the gospel. Because when we actively stop, when we purposefully abstain from work, we declare that we are mastered by nothing but Him; we declare that we are no longer slaves to our baser selves. We are no longer driven our desires. We are no longer driven by our fears. We are no longer driven by the demands of those around us. Because unlike slaves, who have no control over their work or schedule, we can rest precisely because we serve only Christ Himself.
And His yoke is easy and His burden is light.
So when those feelings of helplessness, those feelings of being used, those feelings of martyrdom creep up inside you, you must not push them aside and soldier on. Instead you must take the opportunity to evaluate whether or not you have subjected yourself to something other than His kingship. Whether or not you have become enslaved to something or someone other than Christ Himself.
Because more often than not, this is precisely what we do and it is precisely why we don’t rest like we should. Often we don’t rest because we are driven by other people’s expectations or our own sense of perfectionism; and when we are, even our good works can become a form of slavery--with bitterness, discouragement, and martyr’s complexes the reward for our labor.
But this is not the call of Christ.
When Christ calls, He calls us to full-humanity--to be conformed to nothing but His perfect image, to allow His nature to mold and shape our own. So that when we follow Him, He promises that our souls—just like His--will be free from the weight, free from the strain, free from the feeling of being driven like a pack-animal. Instead He will replace our spirits of fear with spirits of power and love and self-control. And in this new-found freedom, when we are no longer mastered by anything but Him, we will finally and truly find rest for our souls.
When Less Is... Less
If you’re not among the mommy set, you may not have heard about Hattie Garlick, the UK mom who has vowed not to spend a single pound on her two-year-old son for the next year. Hattie's decision is part social rebellion, part necessity. She credits a growing distaste for “kiddy consumerism” and the fact that she was recently laid off (or as our British cousins say, “made redundant”). Ultimately, her decision is rooted in the ideas of minimalism and thrift--that we don’t need what everybody says we need and what we do need, we can find more cheaply.I know a bit about this kind of counter-cultural lifestyle. I grew up in a family of seven with an extremely limited income. We gardened, canned, and wore hand-me-downs, not because my parents were making a public statement, but because they were trying to clothe and feed us. Even today with a smaller family and a decidedly larger income, I still buy most of our clothes at Goodwill, we hunt, garden, and can, and my idea of a good time is shopping at Aldi. And yet, even I am skeptical of frugality for frugality’s sake. (If I’m honest, I suppose I’m also a bit of a curmudgeon. Whenever being counter-cultural becomes trendy, I immediately get suspicious--I don’t make a very good hipster.)
Because even while those of us enmeshed in consumerism might need to cut of our hand to save our souls, minimalism can have as many pitfalls as materialism. It’s entirely possible to trade consumerism for a Gnosticism that elevates efficiency and thrift above everything else. Just because we might be counter-cultural doesn’t mean that we don’t have our share of sub-cultural baggage. See if any of this luggage is yours:
- You don’t buy what you need. You skimp. Of course, the difficulty lies in determining the difference between a need and a want, but when thrift becomes your predominant value, it’s common to overreach on the definition of “want.” Toiletries are not wants, people.
- You get angry when the manager’s special corner is empty. Another pitfall is that you begin to feel entitled to a discount. You get addicted to “the deal” and refuse to pay full price for anything. You believe that the Sunday paper exists for the sole purpose of protecting your coupons and you feel cheated when there are none inside.
- You buy cheap instead of good. While the culture of advertising does ratchet up prices, a cheap price isn’t necessarily a bargain. Not all products are equal--there are reasons why the dollar store can sell dish detergent for a dollar. Any of which might be that it doesn’t work, it was produced with slave labor, or it includes toxic chemicals.
- You never throw anything away because “you never know.” Strict minimalists will have less of a struggle with this, but it is a significant problem for those of us devoted to thrift. I once had a great aunt who washed and dried paper towels. And Styrofoam meat trays. And plastic wrap. After all, you never know…
- You hear your children talking about life in terms of money. When you are uber-frugal, you begin to evaluate things by how much they don’t cost. Designer brands aren’t your status symbols; how cheaply you bought something is. When your children see this, you teach them that the value of something is directly related to its cost. This could come back to haunt you down the road--like when they’re choosing your nursing home.
- You become cheap with other people. Once you being to elevate thrift above your other values, it’s hard to contain it to your immediate family. While I love re-gifting as much as anyone, we must not forget that giving requires sacrifice—not on the part of the recipient but on the part of the giver.
- You judge other people who use money and space differently. For me this exhibits itself in suburbaphobia—the clinical fear of suburbia. I literally shut-down in malls and hate myself after eating at chain restaurants. And yet, I have to admit that this is simply another form of elitism; it’s the snobbery of thrift.
I wonder how we frugal-types will react when we finally reach heaven and God showers us with abundance. “I’m sorry, God, no mansion-- I’ll just take that cottage over there. And I’m not sure if I can make it to that marriage-supper thingy…don’t want to have to buy a gift. But while you’re here, where can I get the Sunday paper?”
This is not a rant against thrift but a caution about not letting our thrift and minimalism become the defining factor of our lives. Because even as our budgets shrink, it’s entirely possible that our souls could shrink right along with them. Our thrift can quickly become parsimony and our frugality, stinginess. We must remember that the problem isn’t how much money we have; it’s how much we love the money we have. So that while we steward our blessings, we don’t for one minute believe that our stewardship provided them in the first place. Or that our stewardship could ensure that they will be there in the future.
Only God can do this. And He can do this precisely because He is a thrifty God—He doesn’t waste anything and has the power to make even our suffering work out for good. And ultimately, He can do this because He is a generous God—He doesn’t spare expense and has bought us for Himself with nothing less than the precious blood of his Son. And if He didn't spare Him, how shall he not with Him freely give us all things?
What to Expect
(Hungarian National Gallery)On Monday, Britain’s Royal Family announced that Prince William and his Princess Kate are expecting their first child. Apparently the announcement came sooner than planned because Kate had to be hospitalized for dehydration and exhaustion–simply put, she is in the throes of severe morning sickness and is puking her guts out. And suddenly we realize that all it takes to shatter the illusion of a fairy tale life is a bit of hyperemesis gravidarum.
But this level of devotion is rare, and Advent is usually reduced to simply a time of busyness and holiday preparation--a seasonal nesting syndrome if you will. Still, even in secular society, there are remnants of the expectation and longing. There are still the Advent calendars dispensing their tiny bits of chocolate each day and what child can’t help but be filled with anticipation at the promise of coming gifts.
This year, the juxtaposition of these two events—the beginning of Advent and the hospitalization of a princess for morning sickness--once again reminded me of how very earthy, how very real this whole season is. So rather than feeling compelled to create some spiritually serene, mystically enchanted Christmas season, maybe it’s time that we remember the realities of the first Advent. For Mary at least, the weeks prior to Christ’s birth were anything but peaceful or silent. For her, the coming of the Savior was marked by swollen ankles and the longing to be delivered—not only from sin but from the weight of pregnancy itself.
It’s been over three years since my last pregnancy so I dug out my What to Expect When You're Expecting in order to remember what those weeks prior to Christ’s birth would have been like. They would have included:
>Changes in fetal activity (more squirming and less kicking, as the baby has less room to move around) >Constipation >Heartburn, indigestion, bloating >Occasional headaches, faintness, dizziness, >Nasal congestion and occasional nosebleeds; ear stuffiness >Bleeding gums >Leg cramps at night >Increased backache and heaviness >Pelvic discomfort and achiness >Increased swelling of ankles and feet, and occasionally of hands and face >Itchy abdomen, protruding navel >Varicose veins of the legs >Hemorrhoids >Easier breathing after baby drops >Increased pressure on bladder after baby drops >Increased difficulty sleeping >More frequent and more intense Braxton-Hicks contractions >Increasing clumsiness and difficult getting around >Fatigue or nesting syndrome (Oh yeah and an 80 mile walking trip. And a stable.)
So often during the Christmas season, we’re looking for some kind of transcendent experience; we’re looking for some deep mystical truth; and we become so fixated with finding the wonder that we end up missing the reality. We end up missing the wonder of the reality, we miss the joy of the mundane. By sanitizing Advent in our minds (and our practices), we miss the beauty that God used a bloated, tired, moody, helpless, pregnant woman to bring His Son to this earth.
And suddenly there's hope for us--especially when you remember that (according to What to Expect) Mary's emotional state would have included
>More excitement, more anxiety, more apprehension, more absent mindedness >Relief that you’re almost there >Irritability and oversensitivity >Impatience and restlessness
Now we begin to recognize ourselves. Now we see the true emotions of Advent. Because as any woman can tell you, this is exactly what prepping a family for the holidays feels like. The same excitement mixed with anxiety, the same irritability mixed with joy. And yet remarkably, in His wisdom, these may be the very emotions that we need to experience in order to truly desire the coming of the Christ Child.
Because when you find yourself exhausted in the preparation, when all the baking and the buying and the cleaning and the visiting and the wrapping and the decorating suck the last of your energy and you find yourself physically, emotionally, and spiritually drained; when you reach this point—here in your weakness, in your inability, in your desperation, in your limitations, in your longing to be delivered from it all--you’ll finally experience Advent as Mary once did. And here, you will finally understand why we long for Emmanuel to come, why we long for Him to deliver us, why we need Him to give rest to our weary bodies and our even wearier souls. And maybe it's here, in the longing and the expectation that comes only from human weakness and from having spent our last reserves, that we can truly find meaning in the birth of our Savior.
On Being a Stay-at-Home Mom
This is not our family.
Gaps the size you can read between.
So I want to write a follow-up post to tighten up those lines and explain some of my assumptions when I talk about motherhood and domesticity. And I figured one way to do that is to talk about being a SAHM myself. Let’s start off simply,
1. I stay at home with my kids because I can and I choose to. It really is that basic. Sure there are values and opinions that undergird this choice, but in the end, it is a personal choice that we have made as a family.
2. And the primary reason that I choose to this is because of the freedom it gives me. Freedom to devote myself to my family’s well-being without the obligation of a boss or an office. Freedom to pursue without distraction the values that my husband and I want for our lives together. These values include not only supporting each other in our God-given callings, but also nurturing the gifts of every member of the family. For me, that means being at home; here, I am actually more capable of pursuing the things that I’ve been gifted to do--not only to love and care for those closest to me but also to write and study and dream.
3. At the same time, I understand that this freedom, that this liberty to be in control of my working hours, comes because I have been blessed. In staying at home, I am giving up the extra income that some families need to accomplish these very same life goals. (Believe me, if your children are not warm and fed, it doesn’t matter how gifted they are—no amount of love and time will fill their bellies and help them become what they were created to be.) At times, this process has included sorting through our priorities, tightening our belts, even getting help when work wasn’t available; but always, in the end, it has been the result of abundance—an abundance that in this age is really only accessible to a certain class of people living in a certain western paradigm.
4. Because the truth is that not all women who want to be SAHMs can afford to be. I’m thinking of the single mother whose has been abandoned by a man who, after bringing children into the world, has left her with no way of raising them. I’m thinking of my friend whose husband has suffered long-term illness and when work became available, they didn’t think twice about who did it—they were just thrilled that God sent it. I’m thinking of the immigrant family struggling along on (below) minimum-wage jobs, happy to have the opportunity to put food on the table and clothes on their backs in peace. I’m thinking of my sisters across the millennia that have been caught in slavery and have never imagined the possibility of being able to devote themselves exclusively to the interests of their families. And I’m thinking of the whole host of other individual circumstances to which I’ll never be privy.
5. And since staying at home is a privilege, it is also a gift that I am responsible to steward for the benefit of others. I must be diligent to use my freedom to bless my husband and my children and my neighbors and my friends and even my enemies. And here’s a twist: I must use my ability to stay at home to serve others mothers who do not--whether that means helping them with their own children, making an extra meal so they don’t have to, or simply praying that God would give them the strength they need. You see, the danger for those of us who do stay at home is that we can very quickly use our independence for self-absorption instead of service. And like jewelry on a pig, selfishness looks worst on women who assume that they couldn’t possibly be, simply because of who they are or what they do.
Because ultimately, even as I stay at home, I’m not “at home”—not on this earth anyway. My mind and heart and emotions and gifts are all directed toward building that greater home, toward nurturing that larger family—a family that includes not only my own husband and children, but one that spans gender and age and race and time. A family where we are all brothers and sisters caring for each other simply because our Father has so generously cared for us. In this sense, I guess we’re all homemakers, we are all nurtures—it’s just that some us do it by picking up wooden train sets and making peanut butter sandwiches and spending our days quietly within our own four walls. And some of us do not.
Mercy That Endures
This last Sunday was no exception. My husband was preaching from Psalm 136 and one of his points was that God’s mercy endures forever. (This was the point that had been immediately preceded by a small delay when the congregation realized that a lizard was darting in and out of the pews and which ultimately resulted in several smartly-dressed parishioners on their hands and knees trying to catch the terrified creature.) But as he was unfolding the idea that God’s mercy endures, somewhere in the quiet place of my heart I heard another voice.
I heard it asking,
Daughter, how often do you endure? How often do you expect mercy to come easily? How often do you give up too soon--especially when it comes to your children?
Immediately my defenses went up.
“But you don’t understand,” I answered. “You’re God—mercy comes naturally to you. And my children? Well, they’re so foolish—they are messy and disorganized and lazy and I have to yell at them or they won’t get the point. I have to become exasperated or they just keep doing what they're doing.”
Yes, they are foolish, but do you endure?
“Oh, you have no idea how much I endure.”
No, do you really push past the barrier of your frustration, do you let your love soften your anger, do you endure? Like I do?
And I knew, of course, that I didn’t. I knew that too often I confused childishness with disobedience. I knew that even as I found characters like Anne of Green Gables and Tom Sawyer endearing, I simultaneously found their traits, once actualized in the bodies of my children, infuriating. And I knew that I all too quickly embraced my “righteous anger.”
But this Sunday, I also realized something about God. Too often I think that we imagine Him as a fixed character in a cosmic drama—He is the constant to our development, the foil to our inconstancy. And while it is true that He never changes, we must not confuse His faithfulness with being flat and static, almost as if He were a cardboard cut-out. Because if we ourselves are not one-dimensional, how could the very God who made us in His own image be otherwise?
No, He is not a force or a concept or a paradigm. He is alive--He is a living God. And being so, He exists in all the complexity that any other living being does. He exists in a kaleidoscope of love and justice, of mercy and holiness, with nothing but His own divine power to hold the tension that allows Him to be all in all--all at the same time.
So when David says in Psalm 136 that God's mercy endures forever, perhaps it does just that. It endures. It endures our foolishness; it endures our stubbornness; it endures our weakness. Like a long-distance runner or a mountain climber, His mercy pushes past the comfort zone of His justice and keeps going until it reaches the goal--the goal of forever. So that with lungs bursting and sweat dripping, His longsuffering becomes true suffering, and through Christ, His mercy willfully and strongly holds back His very reasonable frustration.
A lot of times we talk about mercy falling “like the gentle rain from heaven.” And to us at least, it seems to--it feels like rain, like cool, calming, life-giving rain on our parched souls. But we must not think that what comes down to us so easily has been bought or won easily. Mercy freely given does not mean that it was mercy freely obtained. No, as I learned this past Sunday, mercy doesn’t simply fall. Mercy fights. Mercy struggles. Mercy endures.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ * Carl Trueman related the following anecdote that encapsulates the unique position pastors' wives often find themselves in. "Talking to a colleague the other day, he told me how, on one Sunday, he preached an absolute stinker of a sermon. After the service, he said to his wife, `That was the worst sermon I have ever preached.' `No it wasn't.' she replied `Be encouraged. I have heard you preach much worse.' That is a truly great preacher's wife for you."
On Being a Chaos Muppet
Richard Termine/PBS.org
This realization came when I discovered the concept of Muppet Theory a couple months ago A friend posted a link to this article, and since then, it has redefined my understanding of human interaction and heightened my awareness of myself. In short, Muppet Theory has changed my life.
Muppet Theory classifies individuals into two essential groups—Order Muppets (those controlled, steady, responsible characters like Bert and Kermit) and Chaos Muppets (their eclectic, unpredictable, cookie-crumbed counterparts in the likes of Gonzo and Grover). My husband is the classic definition of an Order Muppet, and I suppose, if I’m entirely honest with myself, I’m not so much Cookie Monster as Miss Piggy to his Kermit.
It has taken me a lifetime to understand and finally accept this about myself.
I’ve always been the messy one, easily inspired and just as easily distracted. Today I’m experiencing a type of karma as I live through my daughter’s same penchant for a messy bedroom that doubles as a gallery for half-completed projects. (I must confess that even as I write, I have a vintage dress--bought on a whim at Goodwill—waiting for me to remake the skirt so I can wear it to a wedding this weekend. Here’s betting that’s not going to happen.)
So growing up I always chafed when I heard people say that “God is a God of order.” I remember distinctly the discomfort that started at the top of my spine, ran the length of my body, and finally settled somewhere in the pit of my stomach. “God is a god of order. God is god of order. God is a god of order. And you, my dear, simply are not orderly.” The weight and judgement hung over me and rather than rejoice in this aspect of His character, I always found it a condemnation of mine.
You are a messy. You don’t measure up. You are a failure.
To resolve this conflict, I instead found comfort in being eccentric and reveled in poems like Robert Herrick's Delight in Disorder. After all, who wants perfect when you can have alluring? Why be on time when you can be interesting?
But a funny thing’s happened since my then, since living with my organized husband for eleven years, since having children and trying to run a household. I have come to love order. We moved recently and, in the process, lost all identifiable structure--believe it or nor, I’m going crazy. Today, I crave schedules and systems precisely because I know how much I need them.
In coming to understand the value of orderliness, I’ve also come to understand the value of a God who is orderly. Now instead of finding it a judgment, I find it a comfort. Because as much as His character calls me to be like Him, even more, it compensates for me when I am not. And so just like my husband takes care of me when it comes to paying bills and making sure that I’m in the right place at the right time; God’s orderliness takes care of me in a much more profound way.
Because there is no such thing as being misplaced by an orderly God. There is no such thing as His mercy showing up too late. And there’s no way He’s going start a project—like the remaking my soul—only to leave it lying around forgotten and undone.
He is a God of order, after all.
Now We Are Six
This is the child who…
measures the circumference of his drinking glass to make sure there is enough room to dunk his Oreo (graham cracker, sandwich, carrots, whatever) into his milk.
assures me that he has two different sides to his belly--one side for good food and one side for dessert and that the side for good food is already filled up.
when the visiting preacher has us bow our heads in a moment of spiritual reflection and asks for people to raise their hands, lies with on his back on the pew and raises his… foot.
has an uncanny resemblance--both in attitude and propensity to danger--to Bill Waterson’s Calvin.
can barely contain himself during a movie when one of the characters asks whether you would pick between animals and people and blurts out “Animals!”
He also the child who confuses me the most.
When I was younger (read:naïve), I always thought I wanted a whole passel of boys because they “were easier to understand than girls.” But ever since this little man entered my world, he has done nothing but stymie me. Despite our distinct physical resemblance, we are nothing alike. He is quiet, shy, and reserved. He is happiest at home and needs very few people in this life but needs them to love him unreservedly and forever. He also never seems quite comfortable expressing his pleasure and only lets you know he’s thrilled by that ever so slightly turned-up corner of his mouth.
It makes my heart ache just thinking of it.
And yet, as each year passes, I find myself having to let go of who I thought he should be and learning to love who God has made him to be. To embrace the quirks and challenges along with the blessings and trust that in the Heavenly Father’s wisdom, they are all well within His plan. To ask, not that my dreams for him, but that His dreams for him will come true. And to pray that even now He might be crafting the perfect little girl—a girl who knows how to make blackberry pie and likes animals and loves to cuddle—to love him when I finally can’t.
Dinner Date
Now before you brand me the world’s worst mother, let me say a few things in my defense. I spend a tremendous amount of time with my children, homeschooled my daughter for two years, and even let her sneak into my bed while my husband’s out of town. But as far as dedicated, one-on-one time, I have to admit to being pretty delinquent.
I think it’s a combination of her being the oldest, the most competent, and quite frankly a girl--in a world where the squeaky wheel gets the grease, her brothers definitely get my attention. But when she “squeaks,” my first response is usually to want her to buck up, dig deep, and be a strong woman. At seven.
I suppose it’s also that I never was much of a girly girl myself, so I hadn’t thought to incorporate something like diner and shopping into our relationship. (For me, shopping carries overtones of Inquisitional torture. Forget the rack or burning at the stake, simply put me in a strip mall, with limited funds, and the need to find the perfect dress for a wedding. Yeah, the Spanish had no idea.)
But over the last few weeks, I began to notice that I was saying “no” to her more often than “yes.”
Her: Mommy, can we bake cookies? Me: Not right now, honey… Mommy’s busy. Her: Well, then can we watch a movie together? Me: Tonight’s a school night. Her: What about a craft? Me: It would be too messy.
Ad infinitum.
So with daddy out of town (and little brother with him), I decided I needed to finally make a date with my daughter. When I told her my plans, she melted and grinned from ear to ear in disbelief at her good fortune. I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t felt so guilty that it took so little to make her that happy.
So after school yesterday, we picked out our outfits, did our hair in hot rollers, and pulled out the Lip Smackers. Once we dropped littlest brother of at a friend’s house, we were on our way. Now, I completely left the agenda and restaurant choice up to her, but to be honest, I did try to guide her to something a little more elegant than McDonalds. After significant discussion about the pros and cons of fast food, dine-in restaurants, and buffets, she solved our dilemma with one question: “Where can I get a hot dog?”
We ended up at Steak ‘n Shake.
This wasn’t what I had in mind. I’d have preferred someplace where I could have at least entertained the thought of a nutritionally balanced meal—if not for her, for myself. I wouldn’t call myself a whole foods freak, but after a breakfast of greek yogurt, fresh mango, and tea; a lunch of European multi-grain bread slathered in homemade hummus, cantaloupe, and a handful of raw almonds, my psyche wasn't exactly prepared for a double steak burger with a side of fries. But this was her choice. So we went.
Once we got there, she ended up picking the macaroni and cheese plate, baked beans and a chocolate-chip cookie dough milkshake. I resigned myself to a burger, arguing to my thighs and stomach that they shouldn’t hold it against me because I was doing it for the right reasons. I also promised them that I would feel guilty the whole time.
But the funny thing is that I didn’t.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, the moment when I let go of my food insecurities. Maybe it was when she asked me to help her with number #2 of the crossword puzzle on her place mat. (“What do you use to carry water and sand at the beach?—Mommy, I can’t figure it out--the word “pail” doesn’t fit. The word has to have a “U” for the second letter.) Or maybe it was when the waitress brought our food and she dove into her (obviously boxed) macaroni and cheese, declaring it the best thing she had ever tasted (“Oh, Mommy, you have to taste this *reaching across the table to put a forkful up to my mouth*—it’s just sooooo good!”)
But somewhere along the way, I decided to put aside my nutritional angst and receive that burger and fries with thanksgiving. Not because they were healthy for me, but because they enabled me to be with her. All that salt and fat and carbs—even those sips that I stole from her milkshake—allowed me to sit and experience joy with her. And in those moments, I finally understood how a simple prayer of thanksgiving can sanctify any food. Because although it wasn't what I would have chosen, it was good for me. And it tasted good too--like love and joy and blessing. So I savored each bite the same way she savored her institutional mac and cheese.
Because it was just sooooo good.
Mothering
It took me a while to figure this out, but I don’t think I’m alone in this. On Sunday, after I had fed, dressed, and dragged three children to church--only to have one of them wildly run down the hallway screaming “NOOOOO!!!!” as I tried to deposit him in the nursery--I found myself talking with two friends who are also mothers of young children. I asked what they had planned for the day and the first said she was hoping that the ground beef had thawed out because she was going home to make dinner; the other had a sick husband and child, was juggling two other children, and trying to figure out how to attend a family funeral over two hours away.
But no on seemed to care. None of us seemed put out that our Mother’s Day was spent mothering.
Don’t get me wrong—we were all tired. We would have loved to have had breakfast in bed, a spa retreat, or even the day to ourselves. But somewhere on the road to becoming the mothers we were, we had learned something. As wonderful as those things are, they really aren’t the point. You don’t mother to be praised, you don’t mother to be rewarded, you don’t mother for the recognition. You mother because you love.
But unlike common wisdom, this love doesn’t magically appear when you hold your first child. No, becoming a mother that loves happens incrementally, it happens through the sleepless nights, the temper tantrums (yours and theirs), and shared joys. It happens through the daily grind, from changing out winter wardrobes for spring, and extracting chewing gum from baby-fine hair. And through it all, motherhood changes you—in the sacrifices, you become braver and in the loving, you become kinder.
My sister-in-law and I were talking about this a couple days ago—we’ve been friends since college, friends before husbands, friends before children. So we’ve seen a lot of changes in each others lives, and we definitively, undeniably agreed that being a mother has been the most excruciating, most productive spiritual exercise either of us had ever experienced.
I think it's because mothering forces you to recognize things about yourself that you’d rather not have known: your helplessness, your inconsistency, you selfishness. All in one typical day, you discover that you can't make the fever break, you can’t make this child obey you, you are feeding them chicken nuggets while reading the blog post telling you how terrible chicken nuggets are, and you routinely think about all the things you’d rather be doing than cleaning up poop.
And in these moments, you have to cry out for something bigger and better than your own ability to be a “good’ mother. You have to cry out to Him. You have to find His strength and His patience and His love. You have to have His courage and His determination in order to parent like He does.
And that is what changes you. He changes you. He uses this temporary relationship with your children to produce eternal and lasting joy. He uses it to make us like Himself. So that in the end, I don’t know if I can guarantee my children will be better people because of my mothering. But I do know this—mothering them has made me a better one.
Of Boys and Men (and Mothers Too)
Yesterday my youngest son turned 3.
Our Peter has lived these last three years the same way he came into the world--bold, loud, and larger than life. He’s the family clown willing to do anything for a laugh. He refuses to let his age or size leave him out of what the rest of us are doing. And at three, he already knows two-column addition… as long as the answer is always “69”.
Peter: Mommy, let’s do numbers. Mommy: Okay, Peter, what is 5+64? Peter: 69! Mommy: Good! What is 33+36? Peter: 69! Mommy: What is 27+42? Peter: 69!
I have to admit, it’s pretty rewarding for everyone involved.
And while these last three years have often been tumultuous for us as a family, our Peter has always been a source of joy and comfort. Even in those moments of colic and RSV, he has forced us to take our attention away from external pressures and focus on what really mattered. And in these last three years, he’s stolen my heart just like his older brother did.
There’s a bond between mothers and sons that’s hard to codify. The closest I can get is the memory of breaking down and crying the day after my first son was born nearly six years ago. Blame it on hormones if you like, but I felt a distinct desolation at looking down into those blue, blue eyes and realizing that one day he would love another woman more than he loved me.
Then there’s what happened just a couple days before Peter’s birthday. A close friend got news that her son’s platoon serving in Afghanistan had just lost two guys--her son was okay, but he lost two strong, brave friends. And two mothers lost their strong, brave sons. When I initially heard, my heart was heavy for them but it completely broke in two when Peter came rushing into the kitchen a few moments later to retrieve a toy car he and his brother wanted to play with. In the moments that followed, all I could do was stand my kitchen bawling and thinking how only twenty-odd years earlier those sons had probably been doing the same thing.
People often say that if women ruled the world there would be fewer wars. That somehow our love for our families and our ability to talk through a problem would supersede the testosterone-laden response of military involvement. Apparently those people didn’t go through junior high. But I think this sentiment misses something else as well.
Women already rule the world.
We rule the world every time we love and correct our children. We rule the world every day as we guide them to who they will one day become. We rule the world when we teach them to love others and fight to protect the weak. We rule the world right from inside our own walls. And that’s why despite the politics and the questions surrounding this current war—trust me, I have plenty—I’m grateful for these kinds of moms. I’m grateful for mothers who have raised their boys, not to go looking for a fight, but to have the courage and fortitude to stand their ground when the fight comes. Mothers who have raised their boys to serve and not simply to be served. Mothers who have raised their boys to sacrifice for the good of others. Even if that means losing themselves in the process.
I don’t know what God has planned for my boys— at a three-year-old birthday party, I like to imagine a bright, pain-free future full of joy and dreams fulfilled. But realistically, it’s probably not going to be that way. Probably throughout their lives there will be many times that a sword will pierce my heart too. Especially if I’ve done my job well. Because if by God’s grace, these boys become strong, good men, they will chose to sacrifice themselves--both in little and great ways--for the benefit of those around them. They will stand up for the weak and suffer because of it. And they will serve others, not because they are forced to, but because they understand that this is what real men do.
And then, if our boys grow up to be men like that, we will have changed the world.
Spoiled Daughters
Big, brown, eager, expectant eyes. Eyes that melt a daddy’s heart.
Now, I wouldn’t say that my husband plays favorites, but that--just like any daddy who loves his daughter--he has a particular weakness toward her and those brown eyes. And she, as a result, has a particular confidence and boldness that comes, not from being spoiled, but from knowing his love.
This confidence is a beautifully engaging thing. She comes to him, climbs into his lap at no invitation, and draws him into her world of fairy princesses and delightful impossibilities. She knows no fear, no boundaries, no limits to his acceptance. And why should she? Isn’t this the man who comforts her, carries her on his strong shoulders, and works to fulfill her needs? Isn’t this the man who rescues her from bugs, big dogs, her brothers, and thunderstorms? Even his correction confirms that she belongs to him.
But I’ve seen others who do not have this confidence. Girls and women who are sometimes shy and awkward and other times angry and defensive--often an inscrutable mix of both. Women whose girlish eyes never moved their daddies’ hearts, whose pleading eyes made no difference, whose tears one day simply ran dry--emptied, drained, exhausted. Women who would give anything in the world to have the kind of eyes my daughter does.
But then maybe they do. Maybe we all do.
While it’s easy for us to focus on the roles we play, we must not forget that none of us ever became wife, sister, aunt, teacher, mother or confidante without first being a daughter.Without first being His daughter. I don’t mean this in a primarily academic, theological way. I mean it the way C.H. Spurgeon did when teased his wife Susannah after she had received something she had been secretly praying for. He said, “I think you are one of your Heavenly Father’s spoiled children, and He just gives you whatever you ask for.”
What if you could know, believe, and embrace that reality? The reality that the Father has drawn you to Himself, wrapped His arms around you, looked deeply into your eyes and said, “I love you.” That your Father has chosen you to be His daughter and has moved heaven and earth to make that a reality. That He is a good loving Father who can’t ignore your pleading eyes.
Few of us can imagine this. Fewer of us are crazy enough to believe it. But for those of us who do, this father-love births a deeply rooted, flourishing confidence that comes when you know you’re loved. It’s a confidence that lets you climb into your daddy’s lap uninvited and share your dreams. It’s a confidence that lets you pursue those dream with Him as your guide. And it’s a confidence that explodes when you realize that your daddy is as delighted in your fairy princess kingdom as you are.
God's Dolls
“Why are we here? I mean, why are we made the way we are—why do we have hands, why do we have feet? Why do I have to go to school? Why do we sit in seats? I mean, WHY?”
He’ll never make that mistake again.
As long as I can remember, she’s been this way, and whether it’s nature or nurture or some complicated interplay between the two, I don’t know. But just like me, she prone to distraction and going “off with the faeries.” A couple years ago, while she was swinging, gazing up into the sky, her baby-fine hair blowing in the wind, legs pumping against the air, she abruptly exclaimed: “I know-- maybe… maybe the world is like a great big dollhouse. And people are God’s dolls. Maybe we’re just God’s dolls!” Or maybe, like her mama, she needs to learn how to have a little fun now and again without over-analyzing everything.
But what if she’s right—are we just God’s dolls?
Over the last few years, many of us have gained a renewed vision of God’s sovereignty and His overwhelming majesty. We’ve
And it’s wonderful. That is, until life gets difficult, until suffering comes. And then suddenly we have to wrestle with a God who would allow our pain for His own glory.
But we know enough to be consistent and our theological construct has taught us that our good comes from pursuing His glory; so even in life’s soul-wrenching moments like the death of a marriage or losing a child we never even had the chance to hold, we say to each other, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” We sing "I long for nothing else as long as You are glorified” and we bless the name of the Lord even as He gives and takes away.
But I’ll be honest, I find those kinds of things very hard to say and even harder to believe without sounding somewhat insincere and inhuman.
The tension comes, I think, not from our talking about God’s glory but from our talking about it about in isolation, apart from everything else that He has revealed about Himself. In this one-dimensional approach, if we’re not careful, we can quickly make Him out to be some kind of cosmic bully that we have no choice but to submit to. He’ll be just like all other pagan gods who use people to make themselves look better. And we’ll end up dehumanized in the process because in order to embrace this kind of god—who would glorify himself at his creature’s expense—we’ll have to cauterize our own hearts against suffering and ultimately become callous to the pain of others. It will simply be “God’s will” for their lives.
But this is not our God.
He is not one-dimensional, and neither are we. We are not His pawns; we are not stock characters in His drama; we are not His dolls. The deeper magic is this: While our good is found in seeking His glory, it is His glory to bring about our ultimate good. This is what makes Him distinct, this is what sets Him apart—He chooses to glorify Himself by loving His children.
This does not mean that He will always shield us from pain or that we won’t endure the trials of this life. But it does mean that in them, He has an overarching purpose and that in them, He Himself will walk beside us. We may wrestle with Him at Peniel, but He won’t walk away until He blesses us.
And ultimately this is why we trust Him—not only because He has the power to work all things out for His own glory—but because it is His glory to work them out for our good. So when the trials come, yes, we should sing “as long as you are glorified," but only because we know that what glorifies Him most is loving us in ways that we can’t even begin to imagine.