I have decided to be a little bolder. This may rock (pun intended!) the boat in the parenting sphere but I am getting old and tired and more and more convicted that, just as God does not make cookie cutter children, He does not make cookie cutter parents.
Earlier this morning I was thinking in the shower. I do my best thinking in the shower, which is unfortunate because by the time I get out of the shower I have forgotten everything I was thinking about. Maybe I should check into a waterproof voice recorder and rant along with the soap and shampoo and listen later and see if anything of substance was going on between my brain and my mouth. But I digress....
I was thinking in the shower and ranting to my husband, who is an expert ranter himself. We were talking about all of our regrets as parents. The list is endless and could likely circle the globe a time or two or four.
One of the biggest pressures that we have felt over the past 23 years of parenthood is that of structure. In our culture, structure seems to be the foundation of all competent parenthood. We are told how how children need structure and thrive in structure and if we do not give them enough structure they will turn into tiny despots or quivering, insecure waifs, or totally government dependent deadbeats. The lack of structure seems to be the root of all developmental evil.
Now I understand that children need to have the security of knowing that they will get loved and fed and clothed and bathed every so often. They need boundaries. They need to know where their power starts and stops and all. There is an element of basic structure that is inherent to survival.
To be sure, I nursed my babies when they were hungry and picked them up when they cried and bathed them so that they wouldn't be sticky and crusty. We slept when other people slept and woke up in the morning and toiled with the rest of the world.
But anybody who is a parent knows what I am talking about. There are the basic rhythms of life and then there is structure with a capital S. And, well, we (both Matt and I) suck at that kind of structure. I mean really, really SUCK. I have complained in other blog posts that I have no managerial skills whatsoever. NONE. I don't tell people what to do. Even it they are short. I guess most people would see this as a problem when you have four kids in six years. I KNOW people saw it as a problem. I felt horribly guilty that I didn't have designated nap times and reading times and homework times and chore times (chores? bwahahahaha!) and family worship times and family reading times and family tell-me-about-your-day times and family dinner times and play times and tv times all set out. We didn't have charts and written out rules. We didn't require certain levels of performance. We just, well, did life. Frankly, we were happy to survive.
Oh, I felt plenty guilty about this. I would try to read books and follow the rules but I always ended up hating my children and hating myself. It was like it went against everything in me to try and be something I was not in order to fit into the Good Parent category. Sometimes I feel that, based on what is required to be a Good Parent, I probably should have never had children at all. But, DANG! I love them so.
Our kids are older now, 17-23 to be exact. The past few years have been rough. I am sure that a lot of people would say that is because we were not structured enough as parents when they were younger and if we had done it right things would have gone along just swimmingly. They might be right. All I know is that we are worn out. Yet, looking back, our biggest regrets are the times we spent trying to structure our children instead of trying to love them. I have always felt that I could only parent in good conscience if I err on the side of grace. I wish I had erred more often.
I know there are plenty who will disagree with me. I fully expect an all out assault. That's ok. I know I have failed plenty. But God has called me to love MY children the best way I can. And that may mean, for me, a little less structure and a lot more grace.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
Before You Say "I Do"
It's that time of year again. When the bridal showers begin for all the spring and summer weddings. I've already been to one. Every shower is the same. Yummy food. Polite women, usually dressed more formally than I am. Loads of presents. And The Book. This is a book that is to be filled with advice for the bride-to-be by us, the veteran shower-goers.
It seems like a lot of women come to these events chock full of godly wisdom as to the ins and outs of marriage and can fill pages with words, like a sanctified Dear Abby. I'm not one of them. You stick me with a pen and a blank page and my brain screams a gleeful "adios" and goes on vacay.
Now my husband and I have a pretty good marriage. It is by no means perfect (I'd call it a 9.3 on a scale of 1 to 10) and we had some really, really rough years where I wanted to run away and be young and beautiful and maybe work on a ranch and find me a cowboy—but we got through those and I love him now more than ever. He is my best friend and the person I trust more than anybody else on the planet and I cannot imagine spending one single day without him. We will have been married 25 years this May.
That being said, when it comes to giving trite, open-book, fit for a wedding shower (though the more "polite" ladies may beg to differ) advice, this is all I've got.
#1. If you and your new husband want to take a shower together, make sure there is plenty of water pressure and the bathroom is warm. Back when Matt and I were engaged, people kept telling us about our honeymoon "You've GOT to take a shower together. It is the BEST!" so we figured we had to give it a go. So on our wedding night we turned on the shower in the Hyatt in Knoxville and hopped in. In our anticipation we had failed to notice that the room had been prepped for us with the AC turned to the Arctic setting. The water meekly dribbled out of the shower head and we began to shiver. We politely took turns standing under the pathetic stream until desperation set in. Before long we were soapy and cold and ready to elbow each other out of the way for a chance to bask in the limited warm spew and de-soap ourselves. It was wholly unsatisfying.
(I'm a realtor. Every so often I go in a big, fancy house where the shower is the size of our bedroom and there seem to be a gazillion shower heads and I squeal with glee, "Now THAT is a shower I could share!" Nobody ever seems to understand what I am talking about.)
#2. Rock, paper, scissors solves a host of decision making problems. This one is short and simple and to the point. I know those marriage books talk about establishing roles ahead of time so as to cut down on those newlywed spats. We must have missed that part so we established our own system. Rock, paper, scissors. Always quick, Always fair. Who's gonna make the coffee? Get a shower first (by yourself, of course!)? Change the baby's diaper? No problem.
#3. "The benefit of putting off motherhood is far overrated. Have them while you're young." This was the advice a kind lady gave to me a few weeks before our wedding. This was so unexpected because this was in the 80s when financial security and planning your perfect future and achieving uber-maturity were required BEFORE even thinking of parenthood.
We took her advice anyway, mainly because I really, really wanted babies. I don't consider that I was actually YOUNG when I had my spawn—26, 28, 30, and 32—but I guess I was younger than many. I have never, ever regretted not waiting but I have wished that I could have started motherhood earlier. Much earlier.
Motherhood is a hard, hard job. Physically, mentally, emotionally. It takes its toll and it takes everything in you to get through each day. The needed energy can be hard enough to come by in your 20s, it starts to peter out in your 30s, and by your 40s it has been put on the Endangered Species list.
Add to that the issue of hormones. Perimenopause can start a good 10 years before menopause, meaning that the ups and downs and ins and outs of hormonal fluctuations have you on some evil carnival ride for close to a decade. What happens to most of us, if we have girls, is that our hormones are going out just as our daughters' are coming in, resulting in exponential hormonal mayhem.
I guess there is really no solution to the above described conundrum except, of course, starting your family while a teenager, which comes with its own set of problems. But what I am saying is don't underestimate the fact that your body will change over the years and that will affect your motherhood. If you have a choice, you might want to go for the kids while you are young and perky.
Now I don't write the entire back story to each of these nuggets of highly practical, but not so pious, advice when I'm filling out those wedding shower books. But I will share the story if anyone asks me. And sometimes even if they don't.
Now go warm up your bathroom.
It seems like a lot of women come to these events chock full of godly wisdom as to the ins and outs of marriage and can fill pages with words, like a sanctified Dear Abby. I'm not one of them. You stick me with a pen and a blank page and my brain screams a gleeful "adios" and goes on vacay.
Now my husband and I have a pretty good marriage. It is by no means perfect (I'd call it a 9.3 on a scale of 1 to 10) and we had some really, really rough years where I wanted to run away and be young and beautiful and maybe work on a ranch and find me a cowboy—but we got through those and I love him now more than ever. He is my best friend and the person I trust more than anybody else on the planet and I cannot imagine spending one single day without him. We will have been married 25 years this May.
That being said, when it comes to giving trite, open-book, fit for a wedding shower (though the more "polite" ladies may beg to differ) advice, this is all I've got.
#1. If you and your new husband want to take a shower together, make sure there is plenty of water pressure and the bathroom is warm. Back when Matt and I were engaged, people kept telling us about our honeymoon "You've GOT to take a shower together. It is the BEST!" so we figured we had to give it a go. So on our wedding night we turned on the shower in the Hyatt in Knoxville and hopped in. In our anticipation we had failed to notice that the room had been prepped for us with the AC turned to the Arctic setting. The water meekly dribbled out of the shower head and we began to shiver. We politely took turns standing under the pathetic stream until desperation set in. Before long we were soapy and cold and ready to elbow each other out of the way for a chance to bask in the limited warm spew and de-soap ourselves. It was wholly unsatisfying.
(I'm a realtor. Every so often I go in a big, fancy house where the shower is the size of our bedroom and there seem to be a gazillion shower heads and I squeal with glee, "Now THAT is a shower I could share!" Nobody ever seems to understand what I am talking about.)
#2. Rock, paper, scissors solves a host of decision making problems. This one is short and simple and to the point. I know those marriage books talk about establishing roles ahead of time so as to cut down on those newlywed spats. We must have missed that part so we established our own system. Rock, paper, scissors. Always quick, Always fair. Who's gonna make the coffee? Get a shower first (by yourself, of course!)? Change the baby's diaper? No problem.
#3. "The benefit of putting off motherhood is far overrated. Have them while you're young." This was the advice a kind lady gave to me a few weeks before our wedding. This was so unexpected because this was in the 80s when financial security and planning your perfect future and achieving uber-maturity were required BEFORE even thinking of parenthood.
We took her advice anyway, mainly because I really, really wanted babies. I don't consider that I was actually YOUNG when I had my spawn—26, 28, 30, and 32—but I guess I was younger than many. I have never, ever regretted not waiting but I have wished that I could have started motherhood earlier. Much earlier.
Motherhood is a hard, hard job. Physically, mentally, emotionally. It takes its toll and it takes everything in you to get through each day. The needed energy can be hard enough to come by in your 20s, it starts to peter out in your 30s, and by your 40s it has been put on the Endangered Species list.
Add to that the issue of hormones. Perimenopause can start a good 10 years before menopause, meaning that the ups and downs and ins and outs of hormonal fluctuations have you on some evil carnival ride for close to a decade. What happens to most of us, if we have girls, is that our hormones are going out just as our daughters' are coming in, resulting in exponential hormonal mayhem.
I guess there is really no solution to the above described conundrum except, of course, starting your family while a teenager, which comes with its own set of problems. But what I am saying is don't underestimate the fact that your body will change over the years and that will affect your motherhood. If you have a choice, you might want to go for the kids while you are young and perky.
Now I don't write the entire back story to each of these nuggets of highly practical, but not so pious, advice when I'm filling out those wedding shower books. But I will share the story if anyone asks me. And sometimes even if they don't.
Now go warm up your bathroom.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
Ladder to Nowhere
A
couple of days ago I posted A Letter to Young Mothers and it seems to have gone viral. I guess it
struck a nerve. So I have fleshed out a little bit more of my thinking
below.
Ever since I can remember I have had the tendency to compare myself to other people. Maybe we all do that to some extent, but I had gotten a PhD in the process before I could ride a bike. Now I was by no means a popular kid or a superstar or even terribly attractive. I didn't make the teams or the clubs or anything with any social currency.
This tendency toward comparison naturally led to what popular culture calls "poor self esteem." I was the poster child. I thought I was fat. I thought I was ugly. I thought I was a failure. Enter the gospel. 1981. God took hold of my life and began to give me hope. But the comparisons continued.
Now we know how hard it is to be a woman in our culture . . . to be compared to or to compare ourselves to models that don't even look that way in real life. Blow that up and out and that is what all of us face on every level in every aspect of life. And if you are prone to comparison, like I am, well . . . you're toast.
There is no better stage for the comparison drama to play itself out than motherhood. I thought I wallowed in feelings of inadequacy and failure before! Motherhood managed to grind me down, chew me up, and spit me out.
I seemed to be AWOL when God handed out managerial skills and parenting know-how. There was not a gene in my body that was comfortable with calling all the shots and barking orders and scheduling activities and refereeing arguments and training in righteousness and being tidy and artsy. I could not be Captain Kangaroo, Elisabeth Elliott, and Martha Stewart rolled into one.
Last week something happened that I can only liken to having scales fall from my eyes. I am currently enrolled in an online class from the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation and was listening to a lecture by Dr. David Powlison. In this lecture he talks about the very basic issue of human differences.
We all are different. This is the reality. God is exceedingly creative in how He creates human beings. These differences can be found on a horizontal spectrum. These differences run that gamut of the physical and temperamental and even situational. Tall vs. short. Old vs. young. Athletic vs. clumsy. Extrovert vs. introvert. Artsy vs. engineer-like. Male vs. female. Organized vs. scattered. Quiet vs. talkative. Smart vs. intellectually challenged. Rich vs. poor. And so on, ad nauseum.
These are just differences. That is all. But we, or our culture, turn the horizontal vertical and once vertical, the differences are assigned value. Good, better, best—or bottom of the heap. This is where the comparison game hits home. "That mom over there is more organized than I am and that is up the ladder from me. Therefore, I am a bad mom." "That woman has a perfect figure and is 44 years old . . . and I look like a Weeble. I am lesser of a person." "That person's kid just got a scholarship to an Ivy League college and mine is struggling to finish high school. I am a failure as a mother."
Do you see what is happening? We, the created, are assigning value to things that our Creator never intended. We can panic and climb and step on one another to drag ourselves to the top of the ladder but, as Dr. Powlison points out, it is a ladder to nowhere. It is a lie.
As Ed Welch says in his excellent book, Shame Interrupted, "The fact that we don't compare well to other people is not a sin. It is the result of limitations we all experience."
We are finite people created by a loving and highly creative God. Who do we think we are to establish our own pecking orders and ranks of righteousness? There is no need for self-exaltation. There is no need for us to build a Ladder to Nowhere. He already came to us and redeemed us, differences and all.
Ever since I can remember I have had the tendency to compare myself to other people. Maybe we all do that to some extent, but I had gotten a PhD in the process before I could ride a bike. Now I was by no means a popular kid or a superstar or even terribly attractive. I didn't make the teams or the clubs or anything with any social currency.
This tendency toward comparison naturally led to what popular culture calls "poor self esteem." I was the poster child. I thought I was fat. I thought I was ugly. I thought I was a failure. Enter the gospel. 1981. God took hold of my life and began to give me hope. But the comparisons continued.
Now we know how hard it is to be a woman in our culture . . . to be compared to or to compare ourselves to models that don't even look that way in real life. Blow that up and out and that is what all of us face on every level in every aspect of life. And if you are prone to comparison, like I am, well . . . you're toast.
There is no better stage for the comparison drama to play itself out than motherhood. I thought I wallowed in feelings of inadequacy and failure before! Motherhood managed to grind me down, chew me up, and spit me out.
I seemed to be AWOL when God handed out managerial skills and parenting know-how. There was not a gene in my body that was comfortable with calling all the shots and barking orders and scheduling activities and refereeing arguments and training in righteousness and being tidy and artsy. I could not be Captain Kangaroo, Elisabeth Elliott, and Martha Stewart rolled into one.
Last week something happened that I can only liken to having scales fall from my eyes. I am currently enrolled in an online class from the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation and was listening to a lecture by Dr. David Powlison. In this lecture he talks about the very basic issue of human differences.
We all are different. This is the reality. God is exceedingly creative in how He creates human beings. These differences can be found on a horizontal spectrum. These differences run that gamut of the physical and temperamental and even situational. Tall vs. short. Old vs. young. Athletic vs. clumsy. Extrovert vs. introvert. Artsy vs. engineer-like. Male vs. female. Organized vs. scattered. Quiet vs. talkative. Smart vs. intellectually challenged. Rich vs. poor. And so on, ad nauseum.
These are just differences. That is all. But we, or our culture, turn the horizontal vertical and once vertical, the differences are assigned value. Good, better, best—or bottom of the heap. This is where the comparison game hits home. "That mom over there is more organized than I am and that is up the ladder from me. Therefore, I am a bad mom." "That woman has a perfect figure and is 44 years old . . . and I look like a Weeble. I am lesser of a person." "That person's kid just got a scholarship to an Ivy League college and mine is struggling to finish high school. I am a failure as a mother."
Do you see what is happening? We, the created, are assigning value to things that our Creator never intended. We can panic and climb and step on one another to drag ourselves to the top of the ladder but, as Dr. Powlison points out, it is a ladder to nowhere. It is a lie.
As Ed Welch says in his excellent book, Shame Interrupted, "The fact that we don't compare well to other people is not a sin. It is the result of limitations we all experience."
We are finite people created by a loving and highly creative God. Who do we think we are to establish our own pecking orders and ranks of righteousness? There is no need for self-exaltation. There is no need for us to build a Ladder to Nowhere. He already came to us and redeemed us, differences and all.
Monday, March 11, 2013
A Letter To Young Mothers
Dear Young Mothers Everywhere—
I was one of you once and I know how hard it is.
Motherhood has to be the hardest job on the planet but I think it is getting harder. Not harder in the it-hurts-to-push-this-baby-out sort of way. Not harder in the must-lug-gallons-of-water-to-the-stove sort of way. Not harder in the pray-my-children-survive-the-
I had my first child in 1990. Back then I was faced with a few choices: Natural childbirth vs. intervention, breast vs. bottle, stay-at-home vs. work, and cloth vs. disposable. That was it. For me, the choices were easy. There were not categories and subcategories and sub-subcategories. There was no internet to tell you the pros and cons of each decision you made. You just did life. You just lived.
Even then, in these most basic of decisions, people could get defensive. It wasn't all fun and games. There were awkward moments. I held to my mothering principles with much more vigor than I should have. I failed to be as gracious to those who chose a different path . . . or had the path chosen for them. But looking back that seems rather mild compared to the coming storm.
Fast forward a few years and the Great Parenting Debates took over. For the first time I started to see parents treating each other with absolute scorn. No longer were women just a little defensive over their choices. What came next was out and out war.
Parenting programs took over churches. Cultural cliques were formed overnight. Parenthood, and motherhood by extension, became a matter of "doing it right." Schedules and disciplines and programs ruled the day and your success was judged by the behavior of your children. Those who succeeded at the program gloated in their success and gave out exhausting and exalted advice, all with an air of superiority and self-righteousness. Those who just couldn't get with the program were left feeling like desperate failures as parents.
By 1996 I had 4 kids who were as poor at following programs as I was at implementing them. Our life was just . . well . . . chaos. But it was fun chaos, most of the time. I do remember on more than one occasion being totally overwhelmed and wanting to run off to Montana . . . ALONE, and even once when I actually wished I were deaf, but looking back, I do not have one single regret that I failed to get with the program.
Fast forward to today. I have lots and lots of friends on Facebook who are young moms or young moms-to-be. The choices they have before them are astronomical. The websites, the mommy blogs, Pinterest (oh EVIL Pinterest). The stakes are high. The expectations are huge. The consequences of every little decision are supposedly so dire. At least that is what they say.
Somewhere along the way we began to believe a lie. And it is a LIE FROM THE PIT OF HELL. The lie that there is one right way to be a mother. The lie that we must make every RIGHT decision or the consequences will be catastrophic. The lie that we can control our children's lives. The lie that being a failure as a mother is a fate worse than death.
Run, I say, RUN to pick up your Bible. Turn to Micah 6:8 and read aloud what it says. "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does The Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
No mention of childbirth techniques or clever birth announcements. No mention of diapers, cloth or not. No mention of schedules. No mention of highchair manners. No mention of education. No mention of medical advances or food sources. No mention of anything specific at all.
God does not require of you to be a perfect mother. The minute you begin to gloat over your successes or wallow in your failures you are using the wrong measuring stick.
So if you want to put your baby in all organic diapers and grow and make your own baby food, go right ahead. If you just gave your toddler a can of cold Spaghetti-os for lunch, no problem, you are in good company (even if no one else admits it). If you can homeschool with delight and your kids thrive in the environment, good for you. If you feel that a professional teacher may be a better choice for your child, you may be right. If you are concerned about vaccines and decide to withhold them, fine. If you are concerned about communicable diseases and feel that having immunizations are in the best interest of your children, go for it.
We are limited and finite and can only do so much. God created us with different strengths and weaknesses, gives us different resources, places us in different circumstances. This one-size-fits-all-robot-
With sympathetic love-
P.P.P.S. (3/25/13): Two weeks ago, I had this little blog which was read mostly by a small group of friends and acquaintances. Then I posted the above "Letter to Young Mothers." A couple of those friends shared the link on Facebook, as did some of their friends, and so on... As of this morning, this post is closing in on 211,000 pageviews. My little blog has almost 256,000 pageviews overall, and the Cheetos for Breakfast Facebook page already has 837 'Likes'... To say this is humbling is an understatement. And all the kind comments! (Well, most of them anyway.) What more can I say but THANK YOU! And maybe... gulp! :)
I was one of you once and I know how hard it is.
Motherhood has to be the hardest job on the planet but I think it is getting harder. Not harder in the it-hurts-to-push-this-baby-out sort of way. Not harder in the must-lug-gallons-of-water-to-the-stove sort of way. Not harder in the pray-my-children-survive-the-
I had my first child in 1990. Back then I was faced with a few choices: Natural childbirth vs. intervention, breast vs. bottle, stay-at-home vs. work, and cloth vs. disposable. That was it. For me, the choices were easy. There were not categories and subcategories and sub-subcategories. There was no internet to tell you the pros and cons of each decision you made. You just did life. You just lived.
Even then, in these most basic of decisions, people could get defensive. It wasn't all fun and games. There were awkward moments. I held to my mothering principles with much more vigor than I should have. I failed to be as gracious to those who chose a different path . . . or had the path chosen for them. But looking back that seems rather mild compared to the coming storm.
Fast forward a few years and the Great Parenting Debates took over. For the first time I started to see parents treating each other with absolute scorn. No longer were women just a little defensive over their choices. What came next was out and out war.
Parenting programs took over churches. Cultural cliques were formed overnight. Parenthood, and motherhood by extension, became a matter of "doing it right." Schedules and disciplines and programs ruled the day and your success was judged by the behavior of your children. Those who succeeded at the program gloated in their success and gave out exhausting and exalted advice, all with an air of superiority and self-righteousness. Those who just couldn't get with the program were left feeling like desperate failures as parents.
By 1996 I had 4 kids who were as poor at following programs as I was at implementing them. Our life was just . . well . . . chaos. But it was fun chaos, most of the time. I do remember on more than one occasion being totally overwhelmed and wanting to run off to Montana . . . ALONE, and even once when I actually wished I were deaf, but looking back, I do not have one single regret that I failed to get with the program.
Fast forward to today. I have lots and lots of friends on Facebook who are young moms or young moms-to-be. The choices they have before them are astronomical. The websites, the mommy blogs, Pinterest (oh EVIL Pinterest). The stakes are high. The expectations are huge. The consequences of every little decision are supposedly so dire. At least that is what they say.
Somewhere along the way we began to believe a lie. And it is a LIE FROM THE PIT OF HELL. The lie that there is one right way to be a mother. The lie that we must make every RIGHT decision or the consequences will be catastrophic. The lie that we can control our children's lives. The lie that being a failure as a mother is a fate worse than death.
Run, I say, RUN to pick up your Bible. Turn to Micah 6:8 and read aloud what it says. "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does The Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
No mention of childbirth techniques or clever birth announcements. No mention of diapers, cloth or not. No mention of schedules. No mention of highchair manners. No mention of education. No mention of medical advances or food sources. No mention of anything specific at all.
God does not require of you to be a perfect mother. The minute you begin to gloat over your successes or wallow in your failures you are using the wrong measuring stick.
So if you want to put your baby in all organic diapers and grow and make your own baby food, go right ahead. If you just gave your toddler a can of cold Spaghetti-os for lunch, no problem, you are in good company (even if no one else admits it). If you can homeschool with delight and your kids thrive in the environment, good for you. If you feel that a professional teacher may be a better choice for your child, you may be right. If you are concerned about vaccines and decide to withhold them, fine. If you are concerned about communicable diseases and feel that having immunizations are in the best interest of your children, go for it.
We are limited and finite and can only do so much. God created us with different strengths and weaknesses, gives us different resources, places us in different circumstances. This one-size-fits-all-robot-
With sympathetic love-
A Worn Out Mom and Kindred Spirit
P.S. (added 3/14/13): Wow! This letter has been read by more people than all my other posts combined—and then some! Thank you to so many who have passed it along. (If you found this post encouraging, you might also read Broken Mother's Day. And my previously most-read post, No Words, Just Tears.)
P.P.S. (3/22/13): With the overwhelming response to this post (thank you all!) I've decided to add a Facebook page for my blog. If you'd like to see links to new posts in your Facebook news feed, you are cordially invited to 'Like' my "Cheetos for Breakfast" page, here. Or click on the link I've added in the right-hand column.
P.S. (added 3/14/13): Wow! This letter has been read by more people than all my other posts combined—and then some! Thank you to so many who have passed it along. (If you found this post encouraging, you might also read Broken Mother's Day. And my previously most-read post, No Words, Just Tears.)
P.P.S. (3/22/13): With the overwhelming response to this post (thank you all!) I've decided to add a Facebook page for my blog. If you'd like to see links to new posts in your Facebook news feed, you are cordially invited to 'Like' my "Cheetos for Breakfast" page, here. Or click on the link I've added in the right-hand column.
P.P.P.S. (3/25/13): Two weeks ago, I had this little blog which was read mostly by a small group of friends and acquaintances. Then I posted the above "Letter to Young Mothers." A couple of those friends shared the link on Facebook, as did some of their friends, and so on... As of this morning, this post is closing in on 211,000 pageviews. My little blog has almost 256,000 pageviews overall, and the Cheetos for Breakfast Facebook page already has 837 'Likes'... To say this is humbling is an understatement. And all the kind comments! (Well, most of them anyway.) What more can I say but THANK YOU! And maybe... gulp! :)
Friday, February 8, 2013
On Snowstorms and Sacrifice
Anybody whose has known me for more than five minutes knows that I love weather. Mainly exciting weather. Rumbly, bumbly, blowing, snowing, Weather Channel newsworthy sort of weather. I have been this way as long as I can remember.
The problem is that I live in a place that parcels out such weather as if it were the rarest and most precious of resources so that every few years we actually get what I consider an exciting weather event. Severe storms and snow are the nuggets most precious to me and I can find myself seething with frustration and even rage when everyone else is getting them but us. It sounds silly, but I do believe that it is a spiritual problem.
Last night I had a heart rending and quite unsettling dream. Like all my dreams, it was a jumble of familiar and unfamiliar people and places and circumstances and none of it made any sense (do dreams ever make sense?), but the crux of the matter was that someone I love dearly had accidentally run over and killed a man and might be sentenced to death for it. I knew that I needed to offer to die in her place but my emotions wouldn't get with the program. It made all the sense in the world and it was the right thing to do, it was just the hard thing to do. I didn't want to die.
Then again, Jesus didn't want to die either. He fell to the ground and prayed and three times asked to have the cup pass from him. So even Jesus knows the anguish and raw emotion of sacrifice.
Strangely enough, my passion for weather and my hesitance to give all for those I love have an awful lot in common. ME! It really is all about me. There is so much ME at the center of everything I do and everything I am. I want snow. I want people listening to me. I want a world according to my order. I want to control when I live and when I die.
It is terrifying and wearying to be the god of your own universe, yet it is so hard to give it up. Everything in me claws for control. Everything in me pushes and shoves to get my needs met my way. Do I really not trust that there is a God out there who created me for so much more than this grabbing and striving and controlling and worrying and coveting and navel gazing?
There is nothing left to do but to bring these shattered pieces of my self-centered life to Jesus. I plead for forgiveness and beg for faith to trust in the God who has my good and his glory so totally wrapped up. Dying to me and what I want is hard but so very good.
As I write this the northeast is set to get upwards of three feet of snow. Today it will be a foggy 55 degrees here. I can rest assured that God is ruling the weather pattern and I don't have to know why. In the mean time, I will wrestle with what it means to truly sacrifice for those I love without my self-centered agenda getting in the way.
Monday, January 28, 2013
It Is Worse Than I Thought
This morning was not a good morning. I was on Day #5 of the Migraine From Hell and I was heading to the MD for my annual exam and labwork, which means that I had no breakfast and (cue Psycho theme) no coffee. To add to the the melee, I was battling a number of personal demons.
You know these critters. The beliefs and insecurities and obsessions and pathologies that rage within you year after stinking year and you cannot put those puppies to bed and move on with your life. Or you think you have done so only to find one rear its ugly head out of nowhere and you feel stripped of everything you are and all the ground you've covered and you wonder how somethimg so little can still be so big in your life after so long.
Anyway, I was facing down my demons in the car and getting really up close and personal with God and feeling like I was actually making some strides in the demon bashing department. I got kind of excited thinking how I was growing in grace and maturity and maybe people would one day look up to me and think I was wise and BAMMO! Like a 2X4 smaccked between my eyes. I was totally laid low by my self-centeredness.
I've never been good at anything but I seem to be good at this. Somehow I managed to turn a raw and real moment of struggle into race for self-improvement. I wasn't, deep down truly in my heart, interested in dying to my idols and resting in the arms of Jesus. I was interested in moving one more rung up the ladder of the Ginny Turns Into The Wise Woman That Everybody Admires Plan. It wasn't about my worsiping God. It was about wanting others to worship me. Plain and simple.
Tonight I found my problem while reading Tullian Tchividjian's "Glorious Ruin". It is called the theology of glory.
"In the theology of glory, life becomes a ladder. Each little victory or improvement brings us one rung closer to the top--which is always just out of sight........we communicate that God exists for our benefit, happiness, self-fulfillment, and personal transformation. These aren't necessarily bad things, and God isn't necessarily opposed to them, but God in Christ cannot be reduced to a means to our selfish ends. He is the end Himself!"
I may be the only person on the planet that can turn repentance into a self-improvement plan. I am so thankful that the gospel is big enough and deep enough and wide enough to cover this as well.
You know these critters. The beliefs and insecurities and obsessions and pathologies that rage within you year after stinking year and you cannot put those puppies to bed and move on with your life. Or you think you have done so only to find one rear its ugly head out of nowhere and you feel stripped of everything you are and all the ground you've covered and you wonder how somethimg so little can still be so big in your life after so long.
Anyway, I was facing down my demons in the car and getting really up close and personal with God and feeling like I was actually making some strides in the demon bashing department. I got kind of excited thinking how I was growing in grace and maturity and maybe people would one day look up to me and think I was wise and BAMMO! Like a 2X4 smaccked between my eyes. I was totally laid low by my self-centeredness.
I've never been good at anything but I seem to be good at this. Somehow I managed to turn a raw and real moment of struggle into race for self-improvement. I wasn't, deep down truly in my heart, interested in dying to my idols and resting in the arms of Jesus. I was interested in moving one more rung up the ladder of the Ginny Turns Into The Wise Woman That Everybody Admires Plan. It wasn't about my worsiping God. It was about wanting others to worship me. Plain and simple.
Tonight I found my problem while reading Tullian Tchividjian's "Glorious Ruin". It is called the theology of glory.
"In the theology of glory, life becomes a ladder. Each little victory or improvement brings us one rung closer to the top--which is always just out of sight........we communicate that God exists for our benefit, happiness, self-fulfillment, and personal transformation. These aren't necessarily bad things, and God isn't necessarily opposed to them, but God in Christ cannot be reduced to a means to our selfish ends. He is the end Himself!"
I may be the only person on the planet that can turn repentance into a self-improvement plan. I am so thankful that the gospel is big enough and deep enough and wide enough to cover this as well.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Gotta Get a Meal Ticket
Yes! I do! The above title was the name of a song in Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album. I have not the foggiest what the it was actually about and I didn't listen to it much seeing how I didn't care for the tune (my only real criteria), but I find the title rather catchy and fitting for my predicament.
I was telling my husband just yesterday that if there was a responsibility, anything at all, that I could hand over forever to someone else, it would be meals and all that they entail: planning, shopping, prep, cleanup. Give me laundry. Give me yard work. Give me windows. Yes! Windows! Have me scrubbing toilets daily with a toothbrush or scooping poop in the yard. Reroofing? I don't care. Give me just about any domestic responsibility on the planet but just don't make me have to decide, day in and day out, what is for dinner.
It is all so wearying and I can't stand it. I cannot think of any other daily or weekly (or monthly even) activity that requires so much decision making, financial outlay, and energy output that produces such little reward. Think about it. On the most basic of scales you still have to do this. You have to decide WHAT you want to eat, the angst of which will be described in great detail below. You have to go to the store and purchase the necessary ingredients and, if you are anything like me, you will come home minus one key item, necessitating either another trip to store or a foray into your noncreative culinary skills. THEN you have to prep the stuff. Cutting and chopping and sizzling away, dirtying dish after dish. Next comes trying to get it on the table in a timely fashion at an appropriate tempererature for people who may or may not even be at home, much less have any desire to consume the fruit of your labor. A few blinks and a couple of mumbles later the food is gone (or the eaters have gone to Burger King in lieu of tonight's bizarre concoction) and you are left holding the bag......er .....dishes. Next comes putting the leftovers away, which means you have to venture into the bowels of the pantry for Little Plasic Containers That Have No Lids. Then it is dish after dish after dish, easier when the dishwasher is empty but, more often than not, it is full of clean dishes resulting in another wearying postprandial activity so that you can just tidy up and be done with the entire ordeal. It is completely unsatisfying.
Why...why....WHY is this so hard for me? I think part of it has to do with my history. I did not grow up with fond memories of Norman Rockwellesque family meals where we helped with the cooking and sat around the table, exchanging stories of our day, and gleaning wisdom from the pater familias. From the time I was 14 on I pretty much ate meals by myself, living on whatever was the diet food of choice until Lean Cuisines came along. Thank you, Stouffer's.
As a full fledged adult (at least they say I am), it is now my duty to feed my family, only any meal planning turns into a schizophrenic-like event. Holly Homemaker meets Frugal Franny meets Vegan Vanessa meets Paleo Paulette meets Organic Olivia. In the words of H.I. McDonough in "Raising Arizona", "Now there's what's right and there's what's right and never the twain shall meet." How on earth to even plan meals that appeal to my family and fit into our rather stringent budget, all the while satisfying the often conflicting opinions of the loud and incessant voices of the Virtuous Eaters, is totally beyond me. Even with my underutilized 4 year degree in nutrition from a large accredited state university, the buffet of sensibilities and options is disorienting and overwhelming.
The shopping may or not be an issue, given the day. Coupons are virtually impossible for me to track down, clip out, get in my pocket, and then actually remember to use. About halfway through any shopping trip I get tired and overwhelmed and hungry and have to pee and then feel guilty about all the money I am spending and bail on the entire excursion, arriving home with an odd assortment of things like bouillon cubes, kidney beans, cereal, and instant coffee.
Meal prep is an adventure. I have about 2 squre feet of counter space and no knife skills. Suffice it to say that it is a miracle that I still have ALL of all of my digits. The meal itself produces little stress for me, as long as it is just our family. It is when we add non-family guests that I really freak out. What if they don't like it? What if the food isn't "right"? Have I offended them by serving tub margarine rather than real butter or conventional veggies rather than organic? Is it bad that my spaghetti sauce isn't organic or my salsa comes from a jar? Are they disgusted that I didn't spread the hot dog buns in a decorative fashion on a nice pottery platter? Are paper napkins an affront to their aesthetic sensibilities? What if we don't have the right manners or pass food the wrong direction? And are we supposed to wait until somebody (I've never figured out who) takes the first bite? Maybe I was raised after wolves after all.
Cleanup isn't so much of an issue. If I don't have to do all the former, the latter is a piece of cake. You really can't screw up cleanup, unless you break the dishes, but since they are my own dishes I really don't care. But you can screw up food storage. And this is where I fail again. Leftovers get left over for weeks. Spilled jars leak sticky fluid in the fridge, gluing the gallon of milk to the shelf. The hot dogs get poorly wrapped and wind up resembling petrified sticks of dynamite. And let's not forget all that produce that grows into a fuzzy, liquified goo in the back of the produce bin.
I could go on and on. You get the picture and is precisely why I say I hate, HATE meal responsibilities. Either it is cereal and milk from now on or I just gotta, gotta get a meal ticket.
I was telling my husband just yesterday that if there was a responsibility, anything at all, that I could hand over forever to someone else, it would be meals and all that they entail: planning, shopping, prep, cleanup. Give me laundry. Give me yard work. Give me windows. Yes! Windows! Have me scrubbing toilets daily with a toothbrush or scooping poop in the yard. Reroofing? I don't care. Give me just about any domestic responsibility on the planet but just don't make me have to decide, day in and day out, what is for dinner.
It is all so wearying and I can't stand it. I cannot think of any other daily or weekly (or monthly even) activity that requires so much decision making, financial outlay, and energy output that produces such little reward. Think about it. On the most basic of scales you still have to do this. You have to decide WHAT you want to eat, the angst of which will be described in great detail below. You have to go to the store and purchase the necessary ingredients and, if you are anything like me, you will come home minus one key item, necessitating either another trip to store or a foray into your noncreative culinary skills. THEN you have to prep the stuff. Cutting and chopping and sizzling away, dirtying dish after dish. Next comes trying to get it on the table in a timely fashion at an appropriate tempererature for people who may or may not even be at home, much less have any desire to consume the fruit of your labor. A few blinks and a couple of mumbles later the food is gone (or the eaters have gone to Burger King in lieu of tonight's bizarre concoction) and you are left holding the bag......er .....dishes. Next comes putting the leftovers away, which means you have to venture into the bowels of the pantry for Little Plasic Containers That Have No Lids. Then it is dish after dish after dish, easier when the dishwasher is empty but, more often than not, it is full of clean dishes resulting in another wearying postprandial activity so that you can just tidy up and be done with the entire ordeal. It is completely unsatisfying.
Why...why....WHY is this so hard for me? I think part of it has to do with my history. I did not grow up with fond memories of Norman Rockwellesque family meals where we helped with the cooking and sat around the table, exchanging stories of our day, and gleaning wisdom from the pater familias. From the time I was 14 on I pretty much ate meals by myself, living on whatever was the diet food of choice until Lean Cuisines came along. Thank you, Stouffer's.
As a full fledged adult (at least they say I am), it is now my duty to feed my family, only any meal planning turns into a schizophrenic-like event. Holly Homemaker meets Frugal Franny meets Vegan Vanessa meets Paleo Paulette meets Organic Olivia. In the words of H.I. McDonough in "Raising Arizona", "Now there's what's right and there's what's right and never the twain shall meet." How on earth to even plan meals that appeal to my family and fit into our rather stringent budget, all the while satisfying the often conflicting opinions of the loud and incessant voices of the Virtuous Eaters, is totally beyond me. Even with my underutilized 4 year degree in nutrition from a large accredited state university, the buffet of sensibilities and options is disorienting and overwhelming.
The shopping may or not be an issue, given the day. Coupons are virtually impossible for me to track down, clip out, get in my pocket, and then actually remember to use. About halfway through any shopping trip I get tired and overwhelmed and hungry and have to pee and then feel guilty about all the money I am spending and bail on the entire excursion, arriving home with an odd assortment of things like bouillon cubes, kidney beans, cereal, and instant coffee.
Meal prep is an adventure. I have about 2 squre feet of counter space and no knife skills. Suffice it to say that it is a miracle that I still have ALL of all of my digits. The meal itself produces little stress for me, as long as it is just our family. It is when we add non-family guests that I really freak out. What if they don't like it? What if the food isn't "right"? Have I offended them by serving tub margarine rather than real butter or conventional veggies rather than organic? Is it bad that my spaghetti sauce isn't organic or my salsa comes from a jar? Are they disgusted that I didn't spread the hot dog buns in a decorative fashion on a nice pottery platter? Are paper napkins an affront to their aesthetic sensibilities? What if we don't have the right manners or pass food the wrong direction? And are we supposed to wait until somebody (I've never figured out who) takes the first bite? Maybe I was raised after wolves after all.
Cleanup isn't so much of an issue. If I don't have to do all the former, the latter is a piece of cake. You really can't screw up cleanup, unless you break the dishes, but since they are my own dishes I really don't care. But you can screw up food storage. And this is where I fail again. Leftovers get left over for weeks. Spilled jars leak sticky fluid in the fridge, gluing the gallon of milk to the shelf. The hot dogs get poorly wrapped and wind up resembling petrified sticks of dynamite. And let's not forget all that produce that grows into a fuzzy, liquified goo in the back of the produce bin.
I could go on and on. You get the picture and is precisely why I say I hate, HATE meal responsibilities. Either it is cereal and milk from now on or I just gotta, gotta get a meal ticket.
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