Swim

 "Feed a cold, starve a fever. So I'm giving notice here to all of you nagging fears. This is the plan: when the world starts feeling a bit undone, I will feed my faith. Starve my fears. Fear can be what we feel, but brave is what we do." Ann Voskamp

We began our summer with two weeks of swim lessons (with a week break in between).

Peanut has always loved being in the water. IN the water. Not UNDER the water.

Last summer we tried swimming lessons and didn't make any progress. She wasn't ready.

On the last day of swim lessons, we decided that she would jump in off the side and the teacher would catch her BUT allow her to go under water. It was discussed ahead of time (with me) and we both thought if she just did it once, she would see that she was okay. That we weren't going to let her drown. That she would come back up.

Peanut came up from under the water coughing and screaming.

At the time I thought she was upset that she had gone under water.

We damaged her comfort in the water and her enjoyment of it that week. Which was not our goal.

It wasn't until a full year later, at the end of the first swim lesson this summer that I realized that she was angry her trust had been violated.

She thought she would be "caught" and instead was tricked into doing something she most definitely did not want to do.

She trusted, and came to love her swim teacher, and she felt hurt.

She spent the entire two weeks of swim lessons this year in full panic mode. Constantly afraid that the instructor would let go of her - because in the past, she had been let go of.

Over and over again she repeated "Don't let go."

Trust is a complicated beast.

It's not easily repaired.

Peanut made incredible progress for Peanut in her two weeks of swim lessons but I think our biggest hurdle was mending what she viewed as a trust issue.

She couldn't focus on swimming because her mind and body would only allow her to focus on what she perceived to be a safety issue.

That the swim instructor would let go of her and she would not be safe.

Each afternoon as I watched her practice her swim lesson homework in the comfort of our own pool, where she can easily touch, I pondered this idea of being so consumed with control that you can't focus.

What does it say about my trust in God if I can't focus on the path He's laid out because I'm too busy saying "Don't let go" over and over?

Once Peanut accepted she was safe, she did big things.

She conquered going under water.

She learned to swim across the pool in her own way.

She remembered that swimming is fun for her.

Mama Warriors, what big things could we do if we accept that we are safe?

If we trust the Creator of the path?

What if we relaxed and remembered life is fun?

Father's Day

 "Suffering is the universal experience of all humanity. Suffering doesn't mean you're cursed, it means you are human. The question isn't " Why is there suffering in my life?" but "Why wouldn't there be suffering?" Because such is life in a broken world. The question is "But what way will you BEAR your suffering?"

This picture was taken in October of 1975. In the search for pictures of my father and I, I found very few.

I noticed in this picture that he's not even holding me. Without context, a small thing I guess. I don't remember ever being hugged, held or comfortable in his presence.

I'd wager my mother set him up to feed me just so she could take this picture.

As I have gotten older, I've learned that relationships are tricky are best.

As much as we think we love our people unconditionally, I find that human love is never really unconditional.

There are always conditions.

We get to decide what our boundaries are and what conditions we can live with. And what conditions we can not.

The lesson my father taught me by default is that I am worthy of being loved.

Not because he loved me in a way I understood, but because I learned what love doesn't look like for me.

Having grown up with both great grandparents and grandparents, I knew my father loved the way he was loved.

And I knew that wasn't how I wanted to love or be loved.

Mama Warriors, for many of us Father's Day is this tricky thing.

Maybe your father relationship is/was a tricky one too. Maybe your kids are navigating a tricky relationship with their own father.

Maybe you too struggle with the idea of unconditional love of a Father because you've never seen anything like it in action.

Gift yourself space today to grieve what wasn't/isn't.

It doesn't make you any less grateful for the positive father mentors in your life.

It just makes you real.

Bread

 "Life comes in waves, and the way to live is to find a way to ride waves."

Last Sunday we had the opportunity to visit Xman's church to pray over him, and the others, that are traveling to Puerto Rico on the mission trip.

It was uplifting to see him in HIS element. Loved. Seen. Accepted.

Okay, there was also this Mama Bear moment of needing to shake the hands of the adults I was sending him across an ocean with.

When it came time for communion, he says to me, "Mom - be careful when you open it. I've had it spill before."

Oddly I had the exact opposite problem.

I could not get to that piece of bread that is in the top layer of the little cup. The pull tab would not pull.

SD tried to help me as now it was hard to focus on the prayer because I'm trying to get to the bread.

No luck.

Not to worry as there were several extras around us and I successfully managed to partake in the body and the blood in remembrance.

I brought home that little cup that wouldn't open and have been thinking about it this week.

How sometimes what seems so easy - the route to Jesus - can be so challenging.

Everyone around me seemed to be able to open theirs. Why couldn't I?

I've been thinking about those obstacles to seeing Jesus this week, to getting to the bread.

I haven't been able to write since our community lost an amazing 17 year old in the last few weeks.

I have no words.

As I stood in the funeral home for his visitation, I remembered to be careful with what words I shared.

You see, I believe that it's in those hard moments where religion does the most damage.

Who wants to hear a Jeremiah 29:11 verse when you are standing next to the casket with your baby in it?

I believe we, with the best of intentions, become the reason others can't open their communion cup. The reason they won't.

In the hard, I believe that Jesus calls us to show up.

Not to preach or offer sympathies that will never touch the pain.

But to show up and say "I see you. You are loved."

And then we stay.

In all the moments before the hard, Jesus sits in the quiet. With His Father, so He's not alone.

The best Jesus we can show folks in hard times is to make sure they do not feel alone.

We show them Love.

If we provide the cup, they'll be able to open it when they are ready.