What if?

 "God's love isn't based on me. It's simply placed on me. And it's the place from which I should live.........loved."

One of my favorite movies is Parenthood. For me, the movie parallels much of real life.

How we do life with people who are in different seasons- some with younger children, some with older children, some with empty nests, etc.

We have something to offer each of those AND something to glean.

We are in an interesting season of parenthood as we have a 22 and 20 still at home (let's blame the economy) and also an 11 year old. Most people we encounter who are parenting an 11 year old aren't knocking on 50's doorstep. And most people parenting a 22 year old, aren't uber driving an 11 year old around and walking adolescence. Again.

One of my favorite scenes from the movie is where Grandma (Grandma's are often my favorite character in a movie) is sharing about a time her late husband took her to the amusement park.

"You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."

I've lamented in my ramblings over the years that I am a merry go round gal. Give me a good carousel. I'm a google calendar notifications, likes to know what to expect, home body.

However, I've found that life continues to find me stuck on the roller coaster.

There seems to be a constant "one thing after another" theme.

Over the years I've leaned in and tried to reframe this roller coaster in many different ways.

I've tried the "this too shall pass." It doesn't. Or maybe the "this" does but another "this" arrives in its place.

I've tried the "what do you have me learn from this." I often am not sure. Then I'm just overwhelmed and frustrated.

Recently I've stepped out of my comfort zone (off the merry go round, onto the roller coaster) and joined a new bible study that is digging into the history of the bible.

If you've been around for a while, you know that I've been on this digging and wrestling journey for about a decade now.

Stepping off the merry go round of the things I was taught and riding the roller coaster of asking the big questions. Making space to look at theology versus doctrine. To think about the bible as illustrative not prescriptive.

This week we explored multiple old testament stories. With a "consider this" mindset.

What if we read the bible and asked ourselves what does this tell us about ME? Where am I in this story? What does it say about God's relationship with His people?

In each story, we circle back to the idea that God's people wobbled.

And he stayed consistent.

In each story, God's people wandered.

And he welcomed them back.

Sometimes I think we get too caught up in the details to appreciate the illustration.

In trying to determine what the "rules" are, we lose the character of God.

Mama Warriors, sometimes I'm too caught up in the bumpiness of the roller coaster to appreciate the view.

I'm holding on. I'm closing my eyes. I'm waiting for it to be over.

What if instead I learned to embrace the wobbling?

What if I remembered that I only appreciate the merry go round because I know what the roller coaster feels like?

And in a merry go round moment instead of bracing myself for the next roller coaster, what if I exhaled and enjoyed it?

What if?

I broke the plate...

"I wanted to love my kids as only God can love them. Either I was setting up rivals for God or I was trying to compete with God- both efforts are doomed to failure."

I heard the crash in my kitchen last night before I heard the child yell "MOM." The combination is never good, right?

I entered the kitchen and said child was already rambling "YOU left YOUR plate on the kitchen counter. If it had been in the sink, it wouldn't have broken when I dropped a cup."

Sometimes I have to take two steps back and a deep breath to address the nonsense that comes out of my children's mouths. 

So - when YOU were unloading the dishwasher and YOU dropped a cup out of the cabinet and broke a plate, it was somehow MY fault? Because rather than being in the living room where everyone else's plate was, I had properly returned my plate to the kitchen. It was MY fault.

Um, no sweet child of mine. No. 

Yes, it was an accident BUT your first response should have been "I'm sorry Mom I broke a plate when I dropped the cup."

Not some diatribe about how it could not possibly be YOUR fault that the plate was broken. 

I left that plate on the counter in pieces as we were worked through the idea of accepting our role in brokenness. 

I've been soaking that today. The idea that we have to take ownership of our part in our own brokenness.

"Every problem must find its owner before we can ever offer a solution."

I've been pondering - perhaps God is waiting for me to own my own responsibility for my brokenness before He is going to offer a solution?

Just like we had to reach an agreement that this child of mine was in part responsible for this broken plate, I have to reach an agreement with God that I am responsible for my continued brokenness. 

I think we've become a society of problems without owners. 

People are shouting and complaining about the lack of solution but no one has stepped up and taken ownership for the problems. 

We are a society of broken people who can't admit we're broken. Or are just sure our brokenness is someone else's fault. 

 From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48

Mama Warriors, we've been given much. We've been entrusted with much. These little souls that we birthed, they are "much." We can't teach them to be the hands and feet of Jesus without showing them how to NEED Jesus. We can't be their constant refuge - we MUST show them that we are not their solution offerers. He is. 

And for them to gain solutions, they must take ownership of their own problems. They must be able to say "I broke the plate."

Still There

"Jesus takes the Resistance beyond prophecy, beyond songs of hope and lamentation, beyond satire and mockery, and beyond apocalyptic visions to declare the inauguration of a new kingdom. With his birth, teachings, death and resurrection, Jesus has stared a revolution. It just doesn't look the way anyone expects."

Earlier this week, Xman ran into Kroger with me on the way to drop him off for his classes. 

We were on the same aisle and I sent him further down the aisle to grab something. 

I had my back turned, and while he said "Mom" a few times - I didn't recognize his voice. 

If you haven't heard him speak recently, that deep tone is far from the little boy voice that has always been my baby. 

There are many times now that if I close my eyes, I don't recognize him. His voice is new and not familiar. 

I've been pondering this over this week. 

How someone can be so familiar, but then not at the same time? 

I've been feeling that way about God recently. 

How I can't seem to be still. How I can't hear Him. 

I got to thinking - maybe it's just His voice has changed in this season. 

I'm the kind of girl would like an email from God or a google calendar update on the changes. 

But sometimes, His voice is just the provision in a tight moment. Or the mechanics of a day working out okay. Or an illness that comes and goes. 

Sometimes it's the song on the radio, or the quote in a book. 

It's the friend who texted at just the right time. The card that shows up in the mail. The lady who lets you go first at the store. 

It's the little reminders that He cares about YOU. 

Mama Warriors, maybe you, like me, find the voice of God changing in this season. 

Maybe you hear a voice, but you don't recognize the tone. 

Maybe it's time to recognize that His voice is changing because your relationship is growing. 

Maybe He doesn't need to shout at you anymore, He knows you are ready to lean into the soft whisper. 

Tune into the tone difference. 

He's still there.

Granola

 "Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves." Brene Brown

In the Winter of 1998 I was student teaching in a middle school classroom. Which basically meant I was consistently sick.

I came home from a long day in a classroom being eaten alive by sixth graders, with a fever and cold symptoms.

For you youngins - in 1998, you made phone calls from your home on a phone attached to a wall with your voice. I called SD, who I had been dating merely months at this time, and shared I was sick, coughing and sniffling the whole time. I was going to spend the evening in watching TV.

At the time I lived in Athens and he lived in Atlanta. This was a weekday and he had already spent his day in classes, and then working.

I dozed off and on and awoke to a knock on my apartment door.

SD had driven from Atlanta to Athens to bring me soup and cupcakes. Campbells chicken noodle in the red can (that's what moms fed their kids in the 80s and thus my comfort sick food ) and vanilla buttercream cupcakes.

Only to turn around and drive back because he had class again the next morning.

He had a full plate of responsibilities that he had paused because I was sick. He brought my favorite things, made me soup and hot tea and turned around and drove back to Atlanta.

I decided then he was marriage material. I wasn't sure if it was for me yet, but definitely someone should marry him.

Saturday I went to book club where I was very much looking forward to the cinnamon streusel coffee cake I order two mornings a month. And the company of my book club girls. But also the coffee cake.

When I got home, I was telling SD how they've ruined my coffee cake this month by making it one of the many pumpkin themed options. (no offense to you pumpkin loving folks)

This morning I woke up to cinnamon coffee cake sitting on my counter waiting for me.

I listened to a sermon yesterday on marriage. In the sermon, the priest tells a story about a woman whose husband always went to this specialty store to replace her favorite granola anytime it was out. Without her asking. He just did it because he noticed and he knew it was important to her.

One day he stopped replacing the granola. That's how she knew their marriage was ending.

I've been thinking about the woman and the granola today.

I think we all agree it's not that he didn't buy the granola.

It's that he quit doing the small.

He quit seeing what was important to her and prioritizing that.

He quit showing up for her in the daily.

SD and I have 27 years invested in our relationship, 30 if you count the best friend status for the 3 years prior to that.

There have been seasons of granola buying and seasons of not.

Because marriage is this journey of choice where everyday you wake up and you decide. "Today I will buy the granola. "

Mama Warriors, many of our seasons of "not" were in hard parenting times. Seasons of kids who didn't sleep at night. Seasons of teenagers who fought us on everything. Seasons of change.

I wish I had known then it was important to do the small even when it felt like I didn't have the small to give.

Especially when I didn't have the small to give.

We have to buy the granola even if they aren't. Especially if they aren't.

Because we're called to love them as He loves them.

Because "I do" included the granola.

History

"Loneliness isn't the physical absence of other people.....it's the sense that you're not sharing anything that matters with anyone else. To end loneliness, you need to have a sense of mutual aid and protection. " 

In 1993 when you applied to live in the dorms at college, you got this little postcard in the mail with your room mates contact information on it. 

When mine came, it turned out that we lived about 30 minutes apart. So we met at Northlake Mall in the food court (that dates me right?). 

I'm pretty sure we both left there thinking we couldn't live with the other person. We couldn't have been more different in every way. 

Or so I thought. 

A funny thing happens when you are far from home for the first time. You are surrounded by more people than you have ever been in your whole life but suddenly you are also the most lonely you have ever been. 

So this roommate slowly becomes your person. You eat cheap mac n cheese and Jiffy corn bread muffins and watch whatever is on the common area TV. You race buggies through a Walmart in the middle of the night. You both get each other to do things you never thought you would. You stay up too late, you miss classes, you make bad boy choices. You talk too much, you study too little. You figure out who you are. And who they are. 

And you find out........you aren't so different after all. 

You both leave that college and go separate ways. You road trip to see each other. She walks the treadmill with you at the YMCA and assures you that someday, yes that boy who says he never wants to be married will marry you. When he does, she shows up. She gives a toast you still have in a frame. She shows up, newspaper in hand (turns out reading is one of those things you have in common) the day your first child is born. She shows up when you have two kids toddling and writes books with you. She meets you for coffee and lets you linger forever with real adult conversation. 

At some point, you've known each other longer than you haven't. 

I haven't seen her weekly since 1993 - and then last fall, our kids started taking classes at the same spot and we had these beautiful 15 minutes every week where we got caught up. 

This year, that 15 minutes has become a full hour. 

It's the highlight of my week. 

You see sometimes you don't realize you miss something.

 Sometimes you don't know something is missing. 

I'm reading this book called Lost Connections and it's making me think about how disconnected of a society we've become in a virtually connected world. 

I've been pondering how there is something to having history with people. 

When you have history, you share what matters. 

There are no gaps to fill in during a story because they do remember when that horrible thing happened, they can picture all of your relatives and the stories that go with them, they know the names of your other friends. 

History connects us. 

But history takes time. 

I shared with a friend lately that I'm not good at friend making. 

I'm friendly but I don't have the time in this season of my life to make new history with folks. 

History gifts us the one thing I think is critical in any relationship - trust. 

History tells us that these people are our safe peeps. 

History lets us be vulnerable, open and authentic. 

History connects us. 

Mama Warriors, I think one of the biggest challenges of parenting is that it often DISconnects us from others. 

Our kids become the axis that all revolves and we let the relationships that feed our soul fall by the wayside. 

I encourage you today to prioritize connections. 

We are meant to be a body that does life together. We are meant to be a people who show up for each other. 

It's through our connections that we stay grounded. 

We are made for history.

Connections

 "Connected yet alienated - that is the paradox of our global digital culture. We have access to so many things, yet we are increasingly incapable of seeing those things, or ourselves, in any meaningful context." Skye Jethani, The Divine Commodity

It's no secret that one of my favorite bible studies is the story of Mary leaving Jesus at the temple. Three days.

For 3 days, she walks without realizing she doesn't have her child. Not just any kid, but the son of God.

Anyone who has walked through the middle school years knows that maybe a few days without a surly 12 year old seemed okay.

I'm feeling a whole lot better about the time we lost Xman at the ballfield for 10 minutes.

Whenever I read that passage, I can clearly hear God say "I've got your kids."

I don't have to hold them so tight. I have to let them find their path, wander.

I have to trust that growing up requires some risk.

It requires some uncomfortable stretching for us both.

I have to lean into the stretching, the growing. Not try to shield both of us from it.

I've listened to numerous sermons on that passage.

Not once has any preacher/priest/leader said that to me. Not once.

Each time I listen to a sermon on that passage the "message" is very different. Some assert that this story teaches you that its our job to follow Jesus. Our responsibility to stay close to him. Sometimes a female will share that we aren't perfect mothers. That we make mistake. That there is grace and forgiveness in that.

Regardless, what I clearly hear when I study that passage on my own is never what a sermon is about.

I feel like this is where religion gets tricky.

It's where we tend to say "this means that." The end.

Turns out I've been circling this struggle since the 10th grade. In a literature class, my teacher asked "What did the author mean when he said ....?"

Let's all recognize I did not raise my hand, but when I was selected I answered with what I thought was a thoughtful response.

To which my teacher said "No - that's not what he's saying here."

It's *possible* I may have replied "Did you have lunch with him? Do know that for sure?"

At that point, I believe I was asked to leave the room. Because teachers in the 90s weren't a fan of being questioned.

While adult me knows I could have approached that conversation more respectfully - I still stand by the premise of my question.

How do we know for SURE what an author wants us to get from a passage?

Just because the author of the teacher guide, probably an English major in college, said it was "X" - was it?

And was it for EVERYONE?

We've removed the very thing that early educators knew worked.

The ability to ask questions.

To ponder, to wonder, to make space for connection.

By asserting that any one bible verse or story means ONE thing.......we've removed the Holy Spirit from the reading of the bible.

We've removed the ability of Jesus to connect to us.

We've chosen information over context.

Mama Warriors, I hope we are making space for kids who ask hard questions.

For kids who challenge the norm.

Could we not say Jesus was one of those kids? Asking hard questions? Challenging the norm?

Rather than absolutes, let's make space for "consider this."

Rather than alienating each other, let's make space for connections.

Be Quarters

"Make prayer both your lifeline and your lifestyle."

Out of the two of us, me and Sweet Daddy, I'm the "messy" parent. So far today, I've made slime, had a kool aid and baking soda explosion on my driveway, watched as Peanut then used her squirt bottle to drench herself, painted the driveway with sidewalk chalk, and had a baking mess with one 3 year old and chocolate chip muffins. I embrace rain, sand, mud, paint, colored spaghetti.

Life is messy. 

It's in the mess, that you discover things about yourself. 

One of the messiest parts of life are relationships. 

I think until you walk a trial, it's tough to know how to support someone who is. If we were honest with ourselves, I think most of us are decent at the "quick trials." We can bring you a meal when you have a new baby, we can show up the visitation of your deceased loved one, we can send a nice card once you make your first appearance on the prayer list.

But then over time, it's where the hundreds of pennies of friends become the four quarters that are still around. And sometimes, you're blessed that you get a new quarter through your journey. 

Sometimes it's because you're carrying your own heavy load and don't have room to help someone else carry theirs. Sometimes it's because you're so busy treading water with your own people, then you are already taking on too much water. You're drowning. 

But often, I think it's because we aren't empathetic that sometimes people need to hunker down and tote their own load. We don't know how to respond to turned down invitations, lapses in time between phone calls, or the change in friendship norms. In THEIR trial, we think about how WE feel. Our feelings are hurt. 

Hebrews 10:24-25 New International Version (NIV)

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

We are called to encourage one another. 

Relationships are messy. We are called to crawl into the mess with our friends. Sit in their closets with them. 

We are not called to judge how their walk their journey. 

We are called to be a quarter in the world of friendships. 

Mama Warriors, let us be quarters. I'm thankful for my quarters. I'm thankful for the new quarters God has given me through this journey. Those who walk the gastro madness, who support and encourage me. Those who walk the wee ones who won't sleep madness and encourage me. And those who don't walk either, but know what it's like to walk something for a LONG time - and who hang in there with me. Who respect my radius. Who understand my limitations. Who support me anyway. 

We're lucky to be given "people" who love us well.

Let us be people who love others well. Let us be quarters.