Measuring With The Wrong Stick

Ok, so I know I’ve been absent for a while. I could give you all kinds of excuses about how we went on vacation for Fall Break, and how it rained for what seemed like a million days straight and I couldn’t get my head right, and how I’ve been distracted from just about everything by just about everything else (is that even technically possible?), but if you’re anything like my high school band director, you don’t want to hear any excuses. So, just in case you’re one of those who don’t like them: No excuses. I’ve been gone, and today I’m back.

I think I’m going through another one of those weird seasons in my life where I’m just not sure what to think about myself from day to day. I don’t know why I go through these cycles, but this latest one is particularly…well, personal. I don’t know, is it strange to take your own self-criticism too personally? Well, strange or not, that’s where I am.

It’s just that I’ve always been an achiever. For so long my life was measured in milestones and accomplishments, and then I began to live my life for something else. Suddenly the achievements didn’t matter so much. I began to realize that my GPA or class ranking really wasn’t the most important thing about me, and that my greatest attribute didn’t really have anything to do with me at all. Christ became the best part of me, and I let it rest in that. I knew that He must become more and I must become less.

So how is it that now, some 16 years later, I’ve once again returned to a place where I’m measuring my life with a sad ruler marked by other people’s accomplishments? Lately all I seem to be able to think about is the fact that I’m 31 and I haven’t even come close to “arriving” at the same place as other people my age. This one has a PhD, that one is a doctor. She has twins, is in ministry, and still has time to do all the things I’ve said I can’t do because I have children and am too busy with youth (and she does them very, very well). She’s written a book, he owns a business. I look at that, and I feel like I’m watching a ship sail away from the dock where I’m standing, knowing that everyone on board is headed for something I’m going to miss.

How dumb is that?

I mean, really?

And yet I let it get to me. I argue that I wish I just knew something – like really knew something on a very educated, expert level – that could actually help someone. After all, that’s the way I’m wired. I love to learn, and I love to help people. And right now, I feel like I’m doing neither of those things. I’ve backed off from working with youth (unintentionally), and I’m not studying a thing. It just makes me feel stagnant. And then it makes me feel sub-par on some level. And then I look right back to that ugly ruler filled with other people’s lives, and it makes me feel lost.

I had been marinating in these thoughts for a while, when I stood in my kitchen and looked out a rather dirty window the other day. It was then that things began ever so slightly to change.

You see, fall is in full swing here. I can’t believe that I grew up thinking my grandfather was nuts for driving all the way to Tennessee just to see “some dumb leaves”. Oh, had I known what I was missing, I believe I would have hitched a ride. I love fall. I love hillsides blazing with reds and oranges and yellows. I love the crispness in the air and the total change in atmosphere. I secretly even love football season (but DON’T tell my husband…). I love fall!

So the other day I took just a second to peek out my kitchen window and look at the mountain behind my house. This time of year that mountain is like something from a painting, with its dusky browns and bright patches of life-giving orange and red. But for some reason, that day it wasn’t quite as beautiful as it could have been. Something was muted about it, flat and not at all what I remembered that mountain looking like before. What could have possibly happened to an entire mountain in its annual prime to make it so boring and average?

It took me a second to figure it out, but I finally realized that the problem didn’t lie in the mountain at all. Instead, as I pulled my gaze back to something a little closer, I realized that my window had become horribly dirty. Spider webs clouded it from the outside, and something had obviously splashed against it from the inside, leaving a map of filmy white drips when it dried (I can probably thank a certain 4 year old for that, but I digress…).

Then it hit me. There wasn’t a thing wrong with that mountain – it’s still perfectly beautiful, just as God intended it to be. What was blemished was my point of view. I was instantly struck with the realization that my life is no different.

God doesn’t see me as sub-par, or lost, or stagnant or left behind. He sees me as perfectly beautiful, just as He intended. I may not be a medical doctor or using a master’s degree to counsel people with serious issues, but I’m who I am because this is the life God has for me. I’m the mom of two kids and the wife of one man, and the sound tech and taxi driver for the youth. I’m an occasional speaker and a wannabe writer, and child of the living and active God. I’m just what He created me to be in this season, and He isn’t done – I might not have even hit my “fall” yet. If I can’t see that, it’s because I’ve allowed something to cloud my point of view. It’s my eyes that aren’t measuring up, not my life.

So I’m vowing to do two things in my near future, and the first is to break that stupid ruler I’ve been using. I want to get back to a place where I’m really living like Jesus is the best part of me and that I don’t need anything else to make me whole. I realize it might take a little time to stop comparing, but I’ll get there eventually.

And the second thing I’m going to do?

Clean that nasty kitchen window.

Happy fall, y’all!

L is For...

I think I’m having a low self-esteem day. It’s hard to say because it’s only 7:00 in the morning and I’ve only really been awake about 45 minutes, but it definitely feels like a low self-esteem day already.

I kind of go through seasons like this, where, if we lived back in the days of The Scarlet Letter, I’d be wearing frocks embroidered with a giant, bright red letter “L” for “Loser”. Or at least that’s how it feels, anyway. I just can’t seem to get much of anything right, no matter how hard I try.

Most of it comes from opening my big, fat mouth. Oh, how the world would be better off some days if I were struck mute for a moment or two! I am Queen of the Awkward Word, Master of the Misspoken, Grand Duchess of Things Better Left Unsaid. I know this about myself, and still I insist on exercising my voice. When will I learn?

It seems, on days like this, like an impossible trait to escape. I want to do better, to be more honorable with my tongue, to be a few leagues closer to “faultless” in my speech, but it seems like something so engrained in my make-up that getting rid of it would be about as easy as scrubbing off freckles.

Oh to be rid of this sin! To be free from this fault! To be able to walk into a room of women and breathe easy knowing that I’m not about to verbally lay waste to all I’ve ever thought well about myself!

The only thing I know to do today to rise above it all is to pray for forgiveness and help from my one and only Savior, while remembering words He has just recently whispered my heart: You have been saved from bigger things than this, and you have been saved for better things than this.

Those words are taken a little out of context in this situation, but I think they apply all the same. He has plans for me – plans that go well beyond being a big-mouthed loser – and He won’t let anything stand in the way of them, not even me.

So, in light of that reminder, I’m going to get off this couch in a few minutes and get started with my day. I think I’ll choose to live with the knowledge that in Christ I can overcome anything – even something as big as my tongue – and not let it hold me hostage today. I might even wear something other than a red-lettered “Loser” shirt (I’d have to do laundry to wear one anyway….I’ve pretty much exhausted my supply lately). But, if it’s all the same to you, I think I might take a break from phone calls and knitting circles for a moment…

…after all, silence is golden.

Sometimes Hyenas Are No Laughing Matter

Monday was a teacher work day at school (otherwise known to my son as a “get out of jail free” day), so my man took a much-needed personal day and the four of us spent some family time together at the zoo. Though we’ve been to the zoo many, many times and I’ve never noticed this before, I discovered something interesting about myself this visit: I think I have a lot in common with hyenas.

Now I wish I could say that I came about this comparison because I laugh a lot, or because I can be pretty rambunctious and playful. But I’m afraid the analogy runs to a deeper, more primal place of animal behavior, and I can’t say I’m proud of it.

In my ladies’ Bible study right now we are going through Beth Moore’s study on the Patriarchs (I highly recommend it, by the way, but then again – it’s Beth Moore….I highly recommend anything God shares through her). Last week during the video session, Beth spoke about how we, who are fully and purposefully blessed by God, tend to always want someone else’s blessing instead of our own. We have a great family, but hers is bigger. We have a ministry God has called us to, but we wish there was a little more to it. Our house is nice, but… You get the picture.

Beth encouraged us that while this is a common human experience, we need to confront this kind of spiritual jealousy head-on and get rid of it, because it gets in the way of us accepting, appreciating and participating in the call God has specifically placed on our lives for His purposes. Her words pricked my heart, and I began to see that I had a lot of work to do in this area. I vowed to think more about it later, and then tried to let it slip my mind so I wouldn’t have to.

Then I found myself standing in front of the hyena and wild dog exhibit at the zoo Monday morning, and it all came to me in a way I couldn’t avoid.

One of the zoo keepers was preparing to feed them a treat as we got there, so we stuck around for a minute to see what would happen. She threw three boxes about the size and shape of a to-go box from a chicken place into the pen – one for each hyena present – and let them go at it.

Immediately the youngest two hyenas dashed for the prizes. They each grabbed a box and started to tear into it to find the meat, but then one of them realized there was a third box that the older hyena hadn’t gotten to yet. He then left his own box to steal the unclaimed one, and the real games began.

Both of the younger hyenas would only spend a few, short seconds trying to get to the meat before they would realize that the other one was either making progress on his box, or had left the third box completely unguarded. Then they would once again abandon their own box to try and steal another. This went on and on until eventually they had pecked at some of the boxed enough that there was actually some meat exposed. Wanna know what they did then? Did they give up the fight and enjoy the spoils of plunder? No way! They left the meat on the ground and kept trying to steal more for themselves!

I watched their silly little antics unfold, and realized that in my spirit lately I haven’t behaved much better than them. You see, I have my blessings – blessings that God has given just to me for a very specific purpose according to the things He desires to do through my life on this earth. He has been so good to me in so many undeserved ways, and yet I sulk and pout about what it is I think I don’t have.

I know the ugly truth of my hyena heart every time I find it hard to rejoice with my friends over the great things the Lord has done in their lives, and all too easy to sit back and wonder how great it would be if that happened to me instead. I know that sounds horrible, and I’m really ashamed to admit it, but it is the naked truth in my life right now. I’ve been given a perfectly good box with a delicious piece of the Lord’s blessing inside, but instead of enjoying it and digging in, I’ve been chasing after the boxes of others I somehow hope have been left unguarded.

Now I’m not trying to say that I’m a vicious opportunist, or a lying manipulator or anything. I’d like to think I’m pretty good about keeping my sin to myself, and I hope I haven’t outwardly hurt anyone with my ambitions. The truth remains, however, that I have been ambitious in things that aren’t my own to pursue. I have had my eyes on boxes that don’t belong to me, and because of it I’ve overlooked my own blessing and have dared to leave it even partially unguarded.

Lysa Terkeurst says that whenever you find yourself wishing you had another’s blessing instead of your own, you should remind yourself that you aren’t equipped to handle whatever it is she faces on a daily basis, both good and bad. I believe that. God has equipped each of us to respond to His specific call on our lives, and we will only fail if we abandon His perfect plan and try to fill someone else’s shoes. I know this, but I’m looking forward to the day that my heart finally catches up with my head.

Anyway, I hope to encourage you today to look at the state of your own heart. Are you content with your “box” of blessings from the Lord? Or do you too struggle with a hyena heart that seems to always grapple for what your neighbor has? Ask God to show you by way of helping you realize all He has given you in this life. Take some time today to breathe in the joy of undeserved blessings, and to rest in the knowledge that God has a plan for this life that is just for you.

Thanks for reading, and for letting me have a moment of confession. I hope you have a truly blessed week.

King Me

Ok, folks. I've found it: The secret to actually getting work done around my house. And it comes from a very unlikely source.

Do any of you out there watch the show Kings on NBC? Well, I was just introduced to it, and in a way it's revolutionized my housework schedule. For those of you who aren't familiar with the show, it's a modern kingdom setting loosely based on David and Saul from the Bible. It's really fun to watch it and see where it parallels the Biblical story and where it strays. Not to mention that it's just plain good.

I've just started watching it from the beginning on the internet, but here's the thing: Season one is only available on Hulu until September 20th. That means that I only have a few days left (relatively) to finish out all 12 episodes before they're gone. You would think this would cripple my life to that of a couch potato, but amazingly it hasn't. It has, however, provided me with an odd sense of motivation.

Little Man is a bit under the weather this week, so I knew we wouldn't be heading out today. I had resigned myself to housework and Spongebob for the afternoon. But after starting Kings last night when the boys were in bed and my husband was at Bible study, I came up with a new plan. Watch Kings for a few minutes, then pause it and tackle something in the house - the kitchen, laundry, trash. The anticipation of getting back to the show was more than enough motivation to get the jobs done quickly. I dare say I did more cleaning this way today than I would have otherwise!

So a couch potato I am not. I'd like to think that, instead, I'm a much more productive vegetable. Maybe a carrot? Carrots are good for you, right? That's it - I'm a couch carrot. And my house is all the better for it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some chores to attend to so I can figure out what's going to happen between David and Jack...

Taking Another Route

I learned a very important lesson yesterday. Well, I guess you could say it took me a good part of the weekend to actually play it out, but yesterday I finally “got” it.

It all started with a new wireless router. The one we had been using was a hand-me-down and worked just fine for what we needed, but now that I’m working from home it has become increasingly necessary to encrypt my network (or in other words: make my neighbors start paying for their own internet service). So I went online, found a great deal on one, and ordered it without hesitation.

It got here late last week, so I set aside a few minutes Saturday to install it. Notice I said a few minutes. I’m sure you could probably guess it took a little more than just a few minutes. Yeah, try more like five hours.

Between my techy brother-in-law and I, we worked on that thing all Saturday afternoon and finally gave up. The reviews had said “easy, quick installation”, but we didn’t happen to agree. Nothing about this was easy or quick.

Monday I called the tech support number on the company’s website and was told that Timmy (THE tech support guy) wouldn’t be in for a couple of hours. I figured at this point I was in trouble, and began researching the steps I’d have to complete to make a return to an online store. It didn’t take much to lead me to believe that my new lesson to learn was somewhere along the lines of either “Don’t buy equipment online” or “Don’t buy anything from a company you’ve never heard of”. But then I called Timmy.

After all that work and manipulating of things I can’t even pronounce that we had tried on our own, Timmy had me go to one little page in the router’s program and change one little number. Seriously – just one digit of an address, and boom! I was connected to the internet and all was once again right in my ridiculously techno-dependant world. It was such a simple solution, but there was no way we could have found it on our own because we weren’t privileged to the same information as my new best friend Timmy.

That’s when the real lesson hit me – if I had just gone to the maker of the product when I realized I was in over my head, I could have saved myself (and my brother-in-law) a lot of frustration.

That whole situation seemed irreparable to me – I was more than certain that there was something unfixably wrong with my computer or that bargain basement router I bought. I was ready to give up on it all and cash in more of the money I already didn’t have to buy a more expensive, just as capable model. It just seemed impossible to get around any other way. In reality, however, the solution was simple for the one who actually knew what he was doing.

How many times in life are we ready to just give up on something (or someone) and cut our losses because we just can’t see how to make things work? If you’re anything like me, you’ve been at that point many times. I often find myself ready to give up on things like family situations, or “ministry opportunities” (isn’t that a nice way to to say “situations that you really don’t want to be involved with”?), or even just my daily grind of life. There are just days when it would be easier to walk away from it all because it seems impossible to find any peace or resolution.

But if I’ve learned anything in my life lately (and yesterday was just a good reminder), it’s that I have got to stop trying to fix those things myself, because I’m just not equipped with all that’s needed to get the job done. There is One, however, Who knows the perfect solution, and He’s always on call.

Jesus is the Rock to which we can always turn, and there is absolutely no situation that could ever present itself in our lives that’s beyond Him. He is all knowing, all seeing, all powerful and totally capable, and with Him nothing is impossible. That’s our God. That’s the One who knows you better than you know yourself, and the One who has the answers to every question you could ever ask. And He’s closer to you than your own breath.

So before you give up on whatever situation is on the last nerve of your heart, turn to the Lord and ask Him for help. He might not always help in the way you expect Him to, but He always has a resolution to every seemingly impossible thing we encounter. Don’t keep beating your head against the wall trying to fix it yourself – turn to the One who made you and has the answers you could never find on your own.

I promise, you’ll never find better “tech support” than Jesus.