The Facade

 Far too often I have stomped my foot and said “I will never”.  No one has ever said to me, “You know, you need to be more decisive.” But through these last few years I have discovered a beauty and growth that changing my mind can bring about. 

At the ripe old age of ten, I thought it would be beyond horrible to live in a stucco house. Then my family moved to New Mexico. Since then I have been blessed to live in many stucco houses including the one I live in now. Looking back I see how silly I was. I see now how my own rules and preferences limited my choices for no reason. How many blessings have I missed because of my silly personal rules and pig-headed mindset? 

In the Bible, being stiff-necked is not a desirable attitude. So why do we often see flexibility and changing our mind as a personality flaw? We unflatteringly label those who change their minds as wishy-washy. We forget that listening to the Holy Spirit to guide us requires a pliable mindset. Instead of drawing so many lines in the sand maybe we could open the door to be blessed with friendship, joy and new perspectives. 

We laugh about the ridiculous number of rules that the Jewish Pharisees followed but how many do we try to follow to live in polite society? Never double dip; always answer I’m fine how are you; answer yes ma’am and yes sir; wipe your feet before you walk in the door; tip the wait staff; wipe down the shower door after you use it; pick up the dog poop when you walk your dog; open the door for people; offer to help in the kitchen; give your seat to those who are elderly and this list could continue to well over 613! Rules we follow in polite society can be overwhelming. But these are not the rules that this blog is about. It is about those personally chosen inner rules. 

It is about the ones that sound like “I won’t ever”. The “I won’t evers” cover choices about what we eat, drink, drive, and where we live, what we do for a living, who we hang out with, church attendance, schools we attend, clothes we wear and our favorite pastimes. All of these things are legitimate choices we have to make. 

What if we removed all the “I will never” lines we made in the sand? Would we turn into a bunch of liberal hippies living in a commune or would we be more open to what the Holy Spirit has in store for us? What if we considered eating something that we have sworn we would never eat? What if we considered going to a church we said we would never attend, going to a school that is not special or elite, wearing an outfit that doesn’t suit our age, hanging out with someone with whom we wouldn’t normally associate, driving a vehicle from that company that we don’t like or taking a new job living somewhere we never would consider. Would that make us out of control or would that allow the Holy Spirit to shine through making us happier people with lots of choices? Many times the rules we make for ourselves are the toughest ones to break. They are a prison of our choosing. 

Blessed, broken and forgiven: These are the actions Jesus made when he initiated the covenant of the last supper. He does the blessing and forgiving. Maybe we need to spend a little more time on the truth of our brokenness. If, like me, you have always seen changing your mind as a weakness, maybe it is time that you take the first step to stop the facade of strength, and begin living in truth as flexible, broken, forgiven and joyful. 

Let It Be

 This time of year a picture of “happily married with two kids and a golden-doodle all in matching pajamas by a roaring fireplace” runs around in our heads and we measure how badly we miss that ideal, making ourselves miserable for all the shortfalls. “Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year” is the biggest lie we tell ourselves in Western culture. Yes, the music is heavenly and the lights are glorious but beyond that, there is life as usual. Actually, life as usual is amped up and stress to fit the mold is heightened. We feel we must keep everyone happy-clappy and when we fall short, and we do, we have to deal with unmet expectations.

So what if we put an end to the need to measure up to that impossible picture of perfection? What if we take a step back and not. Not make all those expected treats and not wring our hands over missed loved ones and not set the bar at an unattainable level? What would that look like? It may look like no Christmas cards, empty chairs, fewer stocking stuffers, or fewer lights on the house. 

Or maybe it would look like missing your mom and being alone away from family and friends with a new spouse in a dirty lonely dark cave used for animals while preparing a place for a newborn baby from a slobber covered feed trough and the smell of manure all around. There is no clean water, no comforts of home and no one believes your story of an angel and virginity. The birth is painful and the baby is born. What next? The birth of the King is celebrated not by authorities and leading rabbis, but by handicapped smelly, thieving sheep-herders who claim to have been heralded by a host of angels. Is this what the God of the universe intended?

So maybe it is time to let the cliche picture in our heads go. Maybe the best gift we could give ourselves this Christmas is to not expect anything out of the ordinary but to let it be as Mary did so long ago. 

G-Rated Prayers

 Pain happens in all of our hearts. Some days you wake up to a gnawing feeling that things are all wrong. Then you have to deal with it. You have a choice. My usual choice has been to deny it, ignore it and push it down. Then when it works its way out, I feel guilty about it. That is not honest or healthy.

For example, when I am lonely, I shove it down thinking, “other people are so much worse” and successfully shame myself for feeling lonely. This is how I deal with every other feeling that is negative. I shove it down then shame myself into faking it. I know I am supposed to be honest and often apply this to everything except honesty with myself and God.

You don’t have to read very far into Psalms to see the authors dealing with bad feelings in a much different way. They let it all out! In Psalms you will find the authors dealing with anger, sadness, blame, depression, sleeplessness, mistreatment, abuse, sickness, and injustice to name just a few issues. They even go so far as to wish their enemy’s children dead! This can’t be right. But seriously, it is in the Bible. We are taught that it is evil to express feelings like this. And we suppress it. We never admit it, we never deal with it and we shame ourselves for it. Well, it is the human condition. We are ALL sinners.

We all have bad thoughts and if we don’t deal with it we eventually act on them. The Psalms show us how to deal with it. The Psalms show us that we should pour them out to God. This is anything but denial. This is dealing with the negativity in a healthy way. Take it to the Lord in prayer. You can even write it out to him and let him know how you feel. He won’t be shocked. He loves you and he created you and he has done time in flesh-and-blood in this evil world. He gets it.

Check out this Psalm dealing with social injustice:

Psalm 12:1-5;7-8 MSG Quick, GOD, I need your helping hand! The last decent person just went down, All the friends I depended on gone. Everyone talks in lie language; Lies slide off their oily lips. They doubletalk with forked tongues. Slice their lips off their faces! Pull The braggart tongues from their mouths! I’m tired of hearing, “We can talk anyone into anything! Our lips manage the world.” Into the hovels of the poor, Into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks: “I’ve had enough; I’m on my way To heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.” GOD, keep us safe from their lies, From the wicked who stalk us with lies, From the wicked who collect honors For their wonderful lies.

So I need to quit praying G-rated prayers. I need to get real. I need to learn to express my issues to my Father and Friend. I won’t shock Him. He already knows but I need to express it. I need to write it, vocalize it and sing it out to God just like the Psalmists.

Keys, Phone, Wallet and Puppies

 I have nightmares about forgetting appointments and arriving late. Along with that goes my fear of Alzheimer’s. Forgetfulness is one of my biggest sources of anxiety. It comes from a lifetime of ADHD(don’t ask me where my phone is) and years of dealing with a mom with dementia. Should I get dementia, I have given my children orders to put me in a care center and for my oldest to bring me chocolate, my middle child to smuggle in wine, and my youngest to bring me puppies. Yes, I have issues.

by Pexels from Pixabay

As a small child, church attendance for me was not an option. At least three times a week I faced the pulpit looking at a table carved with the words, “Do This in Remembrance of Me.” I don’t think remembering what God has brought us through and remembering what he has done for us was a suggestion. If you have endeavored to read through the Bible you have found many instances in which God tells his people to remember what he has carried them through. I don’t think that so much of our Bible is dedicated to remembering by accident. In the stories of the Old and New Testament, our God is a God who reminds us. He knows our penchant to forget and he is a patient Father.

I believe God wants us to remember in honesty and not put lipstick on the pig. The history in the Bible isn’t shined up the way we shine up our history, telling the story from the perspective of the victor and not the victim. The Bible gives an honest account of God and his children without polish, applause or idolizing. People in the Bible are just like us. They are victors and victims. They abuse and are abused. They make stupid mistakes and they pay dearly for them. Yet when they turn to God, he shows them the path back into his loving arms. He didn’t just tell us to remember the good stuff. He told us to remember when we rebelled and went through hardship. I have to remember my stupid decisions based on my own inflated ego. I must remember what happened because of my rebellion. I also remember how God gently brought me back into a relationship to him.

Proper remembrance requires honesty that may be painful. We must take a path down memory lane even if it is a filthy alley, a lonesome road, or a dark valley with no end in sight. I realize that trauma makes it hard to remember. If you have suffered trauma, ask God to reveal his hand holding you through the trauma. He was there in ways you didn’t recognize at the time. I know He rescued you because he rescues me. And He asked us to remember. So here is your reminder. You are welcome.

Tired of Being Watched?

 Ad nauseam, I hear an ad that asks if I am tired of Google tracking me. Well, it is not just Google, my friend. It seems like we are tracked everywhere we go, with every move we make.(The song is going through my head right now.) We miss the freedom of “Be back home before the street lights come on.” Recently I sat and talked with a group of ladies who quickly recited four or five ways their husbands could track them when they were shopping. I was amazed. Then when I thought about it, nothing they mentioned was out of the ordinary. Holy Cow! What kind of world do we live in? Well, we live in a super safe world. We maintain contact, minimize risk and reduce our worry load with all our devices. 

                         

As I thought about the motivation of these husbands tracking their wives, I realized it came from insecurity, fear, lack of trust as well as love. Our obvious knee jerk response to being tracked is to throw out all our devices and move off the grid. But that is not realistic. 

If you have ever been a parent of a teenager, you know this issue from the other side. We worry about what they are up to and if they are safe because normal teenagers usually don’t tell us what they are thinking or why they are thinking it. As a parent we have doubts about what our child is like when we are not around so we resort to tracking them with technology because this world IS a dangerous place. We wish we understood what motivates them and we do not intend this to be punitive. We only want the best for them and it is our job to protect them in this world.

So what if we did with our spouses and close family exactly what we wish our teenage kids would do? What if instead of becoming more sleuth and secretive, we become more transparent and leaned into it? By transparent I mean honest. What if we told our loved ones the moves we make before we make them? And what if we shared our motivation behind our choices in a conversation instead of forcing our loved ones to depend on technology to figure out what we are up to? Of course that would involve taking the time to sit and talk, which is a whole other subject. And to set an example for our kids we need to be transparent ourselves. Ouch!

Here are a few ideas to get us started. 

1. Post some not-so-flattering honest moments of your day on social media.
2. Tell a loved one about a really stupid thing that you did that makes you anxious when you think about it. 
3. Call or text your love one before every impromptu choice you make in your day.
4. Make sure your next of kin has access to ALL your accounts. 
5. Let your significant other know what you are buying and why before you make your purchases.(This is not the same as asking permission to do so.)

If this list makes you very uncomfortable, you are not alone. I believe that transparency is the key to freedom in our technologically advanced world. Take baby steps to be more transparent and I believe you will find that with honesty comes peace.