i wanna start swinging

You know the list you have of the things your parents were right about? Like, for me- my dad was right that my red tights, red skirt, and red sweater from Benetton in eighth grade did make me look like a tomato. Well, I am finding out that God has been right all along, too. I mean, I have always agreed in my head that God is right, and that his ways are best. But after nodding along during sermons, I often turn around and live very differently from the truth I just affirmed.

I get paralyzed by perfectionism.  I suffered from that pressure long before Pinterest raised the bar.  So the gospel- the idea that God loves me BEFORE I am perfect, just-as-I-am, not for what I do but for who I am- that news frees me like nothing else. But sometimes I get stuck there, and miss a big chunk of God's plans for my joy. Like, I read Bible verses like, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters" (Colossians 3:23) and "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48). And I don't see how that meshes in a live-it-out way with the gospel of freedom, so I kinda ignore those ideas. 

Well, at my mom group the other week, we were talking about whether Christians are called to excellence in different areas of their life. And during the discussion, an idea that had tickled my mind in the past took root. Like many Biblical concepts people mistake for burdens, God's call to excellence is a gift! I have told my kids (students in my classroom, and biological children both) that trying hard is a present to yourself. I've asked kids, can you imagine playing on a baseball team where no one is really trying? The pitches make it halfway to the plate? People shuffle instead of run? No one gets out because throws are lazy tosses, and half-hearted swings never make contact with the ball?  Everyone on the team would be bored and miserable.  It would be worse than trying hard and losing. I'm preaching to myself here when I repeat: it would be worse than trying hard and losing. It would be boring. It would suck the life out of the players and they would hate the game.  Well, that's how I approach my tasks as a wife and mom more often than I care to admit. I resent the pressure to be perfect, and I am aware that God's love does not depend on me dazzling the world with my skills. So, I shlep through my days halfheartedly. I do what I have to do, but don't push myself to do more.

What a recipe for depression and disillusionment!  Kids constantly in front of the TV, kitchen in a shambles, time wasted online. I have so much more fun on days when we swing for the stands (to keep the baseball metaphor going). Moving from a "have to" to a "get to" mindset has been a game changer.  God doesn't ask us for our best efforts because he is some school marm from 1853 with a ruler in His hand, ready to smack our knuckles when we fail! He is like Willy Wonka, with a twinkle in his eye, pulling back the curtain to a land of color and joy that comes when we go for it! 

Now this is long post, I know, but there is another part I can't detach from this. Effort takes energy, and trying hard to engage with my kids and keep up with my housework and also share life with my husband takes a lot out of me. I feel like I am pouring out for much of the day. But my half-hearted days don't leave me more energized either. Instead of wandering through my days on autopilot, which leaves me discouraged, if I run through my days as "on" as I can be, I reach a time where I must stop and truly rest.  The Bible, of course, calls it Sabbath. True life and true rest leaves me so much more satisfied than disengaged life, never truly off and never truly on. In a nutshell, I am learning that my best efforts at an excellent life paired with Sabbath leads to amazing peace and joy, whereas trying to muddle through with as little effort as possible leaves me drained, tired, and stuck. 

There is so much more I could say, about how a life of excellence (while still free from the pressure to be perfect) is what I want for my kids to know, so I'd better model it. About how our witness to the world as believers is so hurt when we muddle through life, detached and vaguely bored. About how God's rhythms are beautiful and life-giving, and we are silly to think they are only "rules" that we "must" follow. That this idea of laying your life down so you can find it, giving up our way of seeing things because God's is better- this works out to be true in how we eat, physical exercise, friendships, marriage, parenting, career dreams... 

Some of you have been operating this way for a long time. You "got this" long ago. Bless your heart. Be patient with those of us slow learners. At any rate, I'd better go. I need to go pick up my bat, get my eye on the ball, and start swinging. #rainyday #gameon #sendmorelegos

mom, part two

Last year on Mother's Day, I wrote a blog post letter to my mom.  In it I wrote about little things I remembered from my childhood.  While I wrote it I cried, feeling such big feelings for my mom.  I wanted her to know that I valued her and my memories of her.  It was a sentimental and awkward attempt at a tribute.

Well, I reread that post today, a year later.  And it seems incomplete.  It's still just as true that I appreciate the pot roasts and the permission to make blanket forts, but there is a deeper layer of thanks that I missed.  Or maybe a couple.  And although I'm sure this will be incomplete, too, I want to try to do better. So here it is: more of what I learned from my mom.

My mom was patient with me, but when it came to me experimenting with being snarky, mean, or judgmental of my peers- well, she had no patience with that.  I remember writing a letter to a pen pal at a young age, and mentioning in it something about an annoying geeky girl in my class.  Well, my mom saw it and gave me a piece of her mind.  I would be rewriting that letter, thankyouverymuch.  My mom takes very seriously the axiom, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." And although she, along with all the female members of my extended family, loves a good bit of gossip- coffee and coffeecake optional- any stories of a person's misfortune were told in somber, sorry tones.  There was grace and suspended judgment even while heads were shaking back and forth, for all but the most heinous crimes.  Her attitude of grace and mercy is an example to me.

So what I'm saying is that Mom would get me to stop crying, and
Dad would walk me through how to best dig the grave. Hypothetically.

One result of that attitude, is that my mom is the safest person I know.  If I killed someone, and needed advice on hiding the body, I would ask my dad.  But first, I would call my mom, and tell her everything, and get her sympathy.  Once I knew she still loved me and understood, then I would tell her to put dad on the phone. When I need a listening ear, she's the person I think of first.   She is for me, in the best way possible.  And when we close our phone conversations, she says, "I love you," four or five times.  It's the best.


My mom is a "get it done" person.  Yardwork.  Housework.  Homework.  She tackled tasks and kicked their butts.  She would touch things in the sink with her bare hands that I wouldn't look at with both eyes.  Digging out dandelions.  Squashing spiders.  Holding garage sales.  Done, done, done.  She is still that way.  Having her physical presence near me is all I need to feel a burst of super-charged energy, and suddenly cleaning out the back of the fridge seems like a winnable battle.  I grew up seeing her get things done.

Along with most kids who grew up having a stay-at-home-parent, I assumed a lot about them.  That it was easy, that it was always what she wanted to do, that being with my exalted presence all hours of the day was enough reward for anyone.  Ahem.  Now I am in the trenches of that same gig- home with the littles, trying to mind the children, the house, the laundry, the shopping.  And I know that my mom must have sacrificed more that I knew- or know- for me and my brother.  She sacrificed the big- career perks of lunch with the girls, money, measurable and attainable goals.  She sacrificed the little- being able to have a couple moments of privacy to go pee, not having kids slurping on your (glass) bottle of Pepsi without asking, reading Ten Apples Up On Top ad naseum when you had a new Stephen King tempting you from the bookshelf.  But the beautiful thing- the amazing miracle of motherhood- is that as a kid I was oblivious to her sacrifice.  She was no martyr, no complainer, no bitter ranter.  Even as I got older, old enough for her to tell me that we couldn't afford whatever random Esprit or Benneton swag I was begging her for, she never breathed a word about her own sacrifices.

My mom loves others well.  All my growing-up years, she always made birthdays and holidays seem like days covered in fairy glitter.  She sends cards, gifts, personal notes.  I remember the lengths she went to, trying to get my grandma- her mother-in-law- the perfect gifts.  She prays for me, without fail.  She prays for my friends.  I've seen the patient brushstrokes that make the masterpiece of a wife's unconditional, unwavering love, by observing my parent's marriage.

I could go on, and perhaps next year- or next week- I will.  But the true letter to my mom about the fruits of her labor- pun intended- are my brother and I.  Our lives are not a nice and neat report card of her success and failure as a parent.  But, to really see how far the reach of her love extends, look at us.  Many of my stumbling efforts at being kind, patient, and giving, are echos back to what I grew up knowing.  So thank you, Mom. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

hey, girl!

When we started our family, I was prepared to have all boys.  Even planning on it.  I'd kinda started thinking that way when I used to babysit, and I loved spending time with a family of three boys.  Then I married Craig, a man with two brothers- and no sisters.  Our firstborn was a boy.  When we went through the brief but emotional season of trying for our second child, which took about eight months longer than we'd expected, we were sad thinking that our chance to have two boys close in age, and thus relationship, was slipping by.

When we found out, many pregnancy tests later, that number two was cooking, the ultrasound could not come fast enough.  We held hands waiting to see our son floating on the inky screen.  So it felt like a bit of a shock to hear the technician's voice pronounce that our little one was... a girl.  And not in the "we can't for sure see any man parts, so it's a good chance it's a girl" way; it was more of a "look- she's a girl, all right." And I am a little embarrassed to admit that I mourned a little- I had to say goodbye to the little brother so that I could welcome the little sister.  

Because I never had a sister, I had plenty of experience being a girl, but not much relating to a little girl.  And of course all my parenting at that point had been with my boy. I'd bought into all the worry about boys being easy, and girls being difficult, emotionally speaking.  So this felt like new territory, and in many ways the learning curve was steep.  

My little girl has big feelings.  Like, BIG FEELINGS.  She is so sweet and shy around others, that people who have not been the caretaker of a little girl recently do not believe me that she is capable of crazy tantrums.  I cannot bear to tell you details, lest you, dear reader, go from nodding sympathetically to carefully and quickly clicking away in fear.  Suffice it to say, girl has some lungs and the ability to flail on the floor.

The flip side to all the terrifying drama is, of course, the beautiful side of those feelings and drama.  She is so intuitive and has such a high emotional IQ, she brings a little healing to this too-long-surrounded-by-testosterone heart.  And girl loves to treat life like a musical- breaking out into narrative song at any moment.  It drives her older brother nuts.  The back seat of our minivan is often full of high-pitched, wandering tunes, punctuated with the fierce brotherly refrain, "STOP SINGING!"

This week was a high point for me in mothering my little girl.  We went, just the two of us, to her first movie in the movie theater.  It was Disney's "Frozen," and it was perfection.  I tried to get a picture of her face lit up by the screen as she bobbed her head to the music, but the light was too dim for iphone captures.  Halfway through the movie she climbed onto my lap and we snuggled until it was over.  The next morning we put on the Disney Pandora station and sang along to musical after musical.  I got a vision of she and I going to Wicked together in years to come, and the ballet, and... all the other things my man's man of a husband either won't do, or suffers through, for me.  My love of musical theater- born on a kindergarten age trip to see "Annie" on broadway- can still be not just enjoyed but shared with someone I love.  And isn't that the best enjoyment of something- in the sharing?

So here's to God's plans- He knew I needed a girl when I didn't.  And what a girl I got!  Now excuse me while I pretend to be Cinderella whilst cleaning the house.