Who Goes to Church?

Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else:  "Two men went to the Temple to pray.  One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector.  The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: 'I thank you God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else.  For I don't cheat, I don't sin, and I don't commit adultery.  I'm certainly not like that tax collector!  I fast twice a week and I give you a tenth of my income.'

"But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed.  Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, 'O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.'  I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God.  For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted."   Luke 18:9-14

I think the Church needs a new PR campaign.  It seems to me that the wrong message has gone out to the world about who is in the Church.  (Let me take a minute to clarify that the Church refers to the people who claim belief in Jesus, while the church is any number of buildings where people meet to talk about Jesus, have AA meetings in the basement, and Cub Scouts on Mondays.)  Too often, we are seen as the Pharisee standing in front of a TV camera declaring some righteous and others doomed to hell.  Too often, we are thought to be sharing one semi-functioning brain and unaware of what is really going on.  Too often, we are portrayed as a little club with unknowable rules of order.

Let me shed some light on the Church.  We are a Body made up of many parts, with differing looks and opinions and interests, but with Jesus Christ as our Head.  We are represented on every continent, and our Bible has been translated into 531 languages, with parts of it translated into 2,883 languages. The Church comprises of men and women (and if you're struggling to identify your gender, take heart because Paul said there is no more male or female but all are one in Christ), young and old, and every color imaginable on the beautiful spectrum of skin colors available.  The Church has doctors and lawyers, teachers and coaches, students and retirees, managers and custodians.  The Church has members who are described as liberal and conservative, born-again, evangelical, Catholic and Protestant, Presbyterian, spiritual, Baptist (although I can't say if the Westboro Baptists are part of this...), Calvinist, Weslyan, theological, permissive and legalistic.  We are families and foster parents, adoptive parents, and not parents at all.  We are married and single and desperate for love and not interested.  We are healthy and ill, mentally and physically.  We live with disability, we are able-bodied.  We are a diverse People, but we are one Church.

On the inside, we are all the tax collector.  We are sinners, and we bring our sinful, imperfect selves to church, where sometimes we pray for mercy and sometimes we make a big mess.  But I would rather be in Church with people who are willing to let their outsides match their insides.  For instance, this is me:  I desire to be right, I love to talk, I smile...a lot, I like to learn new things, I struggle to control my anger, and I love to spend time with kids.  All of this comes with me to church (and Church), and I think it's obvious that sometimes I am not a fun person to have as part of the Body.  But I'm here, and there's a place for me.  There's work to be done, and often God likes to use the weak and sinful among us to do His greatest miracles, because His glory shines all the brighter when His Church isn't perfect.  The Church is comprised of doubters and those of great faith, often one person bearing both descriptors simultaneously.

So why is there a disconnect between what we experience at church and who is the Church?  Why is church dry or inaccessible or unwelcoming when the Church is capable of life and growth and action and is available to everyone?  Is it because we gather on Sundays and act like the Pharisee?  Is it because we show up thinking that it isn't okay to be real or honest or that other people expect us to put on our "church face" because they can't deal with who we really are?  What is the point of church?  I want to return home justified before God, not buoyed by the tinny applause in my own head for how great I am.

What if we walked through the door and admitted the truth?  What if we admitted that we are all idolators and immoral, that we are liars and cheats and drunks and adulterers, that we are nothing without the grace of God and the redeeming blood of Jesus?  Would we be less tempted to link arms and block out the "undesirables"...the lesbians and the homeless and the autistics and the weird charismatic girl and the old lady who sings off key and the felons and the strippers and the addicts?  Would we see them as covered by the same blood that washes us clean and declares us a Bride, without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish, holy and without fault?  Would people stop being afraid to come to church because they are so terrified of the Church?  Would we finally stop being known for our looks or our professions or our family names, but instead be known by our fruit?  Would we be described as loving, joyful, patient, kind, good, faithful, peaceful, gentle, or self-controlled?

I see us, Church, for what we could be.  I see a huge smile on the face of Jesus as he looks down at his arms and legs and rock-hard abs, as he flexes his joints and muscles and sees us all working together, following his commands.  I see holes in the Body being filled by those we once tried to cast out.  And the blood of Jesus, running over all of us as we embrace who we are called to be.

On Memory and Mystery

I was looking through photos on my mom's flash drive the other night. (The full story is that she loaned me the flash drive months ago to print some pictures for Christmas presents, and I promptly lost it, was unable to give the presents at the appropriate time, and my husband just found it the other night while digging through the couch cushions for the TV remote that we lose every other day.  There.)  This is what she takes pictures of: her grandchildren, flowers people send her, scenic views from trips she takes, and her grandchildren.  I was delighted at the photos of my boys spanning several years.  Sometimes I forget in the hustle of our days and the thinning, almost-pre-adolescent faces that they were each babies.  I forget about their wispy blonde hair and chubby cheeks, the stumpy legs and tiny clothes.

New baby, New Daddy March 2007

Matching jammies, Christmas Eve 2010

Elmo's World!

I paused at the pictures of James, the preschool years.  Part of me "aww"-ing over his cute baby face, but part of me remembering.  I was the person who knew this child best, after spending each day with him, but even to me, he was a mystery.  I spent so much time deciphering gestures and hoots and squeals.  I watched him so closely after the doctor gave him the autism diagnosis, searching for any clue that he'd been wrong, and equally wondering if maybe he was right.  Were James' needs met?  I think so.  But I couldn't be sure; even now I'm not certain if I chose well or completely missed the mark. (Maybe he'll tell me one day.  Kiddo, I'm listening, I promise.)

"James is flying!"

My balloon boys, Fall 2010

Dressed as his second favorite food while collecting his third favorite food
Halloween 2013

I know he liked to be outside.  This was evident even when he was a month old.  Something about stepping through the door from the closed-in, warm house into the chilly spring night air calmed him.  I know he liked to watch Elmo.  From the first time I popped an Elmo's World DVD into the player and that high-pitched fur ball began to speak, my son was riveted.  He quickly figured out the symbols on the machine for play, open, skip.  I regretted exposing him to it when I lost the ability to watch my own shows and movies during the day (a right I am just now regaining...everyone has to be quiet and go play somewhere else so Mommy can watch Downton Abbey!).  James was also a fan of simple $1 pleasures.  A small fry from McDonald's...and OH BOY if we didn't stop at any of the four we passed on the way to speech therapy, I heard about it from the backseat.  Not in words (hence the speech therapy), but his point was clear.  A red balloon from the grocery store...how our trips were transformed from short-term family torture to quick and *almost* easy when we tied that balloon to the front of the cart and plunked him down in the seat.  He would stare up at it, pull on the ribbon, watch it float back up.  I can't even remember when we stopped doing that, when he no longer asked for it by halting and gazing longingly behind the floral counter.

I have heard grumblings in the autism community against the use of the puzzle piece to represent the disorder.  I think one of the points is that a puzzle represents children, who only make up a small percentage of people living with autism (clearly people who haven't done a 1000 piece puzzle like the one I helped my parents complete in December).  But mostly I think it's that the metaphor doesn't hold up.  See, when I do a puzzle, I start out with all the pieces, and the goal is to fit them all together correctly.  When that is accomplished, I have a finished puzzle.  I can see the image clearly, and I'm done.  I used to look at James like a puzzle to be solved.  I was flipping them over, searching for edge pieces, grouping the greens and the purples and the reds and the whites.  I rearranged the pieces and changed my seat and sat back with a cup of tea, desperately hoping that a change in perspective would make a difference.  Lately, Autism Speaks has tried to promote this idea that something is "missing" in autistic people, autism research, the elusive autism answer.  If my son was a puzzle, then that would seem likely.  If my son was something to be figured out, if he would someday be a clear and complete picture, then I would agree that some of the pieces must have fallen on the floor or been eaten by the dog.

My boys: Mikey trying to be like his brothers even though his balance is not as good as theirs,
Winston sitting in the middle not needing his parents' touch
James taking refuge in my arms from the heat and the photo session

But I tend to side with the autistics.  I no longer see my son as a puzzle, nor is it my job to solve him. Instead, as I look back through these photos, I think of a mystery.  Isn't every person a certain amount of mystery to those around them?  What secret memories do they hide?  What unfathomable depths form their soul?  What are they thinking when they tap their chin, look out the window, at this very moment?  The best part of any relationship is unraveling the mystery.  And that's what I am doing with my son.  The little boy in those photos has a terribly choppy buzz cut, because he shrieked so loudly and protested so vehemently every time we took him to a hair salon and the lady approached with scissors, that I started cutting it myself.  It would take a long time, sometimes even an hour, but if I perched him on the bathroom sink and let him splash naked in the water, he would hold his head still-ish for me to buzz off the overgrowth of hair.  It wasn't always easy for me, but it was the only solution I could find.  I don't cut his hair anymore.  Now we look through "Going Places" on the iPad and talk about what is going to happen and then we walk into the hair salon and he sits in the chair and plays some version of Angry Birds and holds relatively still for about 10 minutes while the lady quickly cuts and trims.  And after 10 minutes he begins to squirm and slide and removes his cape and tells me "All done Mom" and I tell the lady "Good work, we are finished" whether she thinks she is done or not and we pay and leave.  Oh, and he gets a sucker.  I fully expect that in another five years, hair cuts will look different from now, just as now they look different from five years ago.  Because unlike a puzzle, a mystery has the ability to change.  A mystery is a fluid, ethereal secret.  A mystery has no end date, no final picture, no completion.  As soon as one question is answered, a dozen more need to be asked.  Sometimes we have to just accept that we can't know everything.  But I understand that there is no easy, pleasant bumper sticker picture to accompany calling our loved ones a "mystery".  Maybe a door?  Or an image from the Hubble telescope of space (I know James would like that one)?

College Memories

"Failure. Anyone working toward meaningful change will taste it often. When that happens, the frustration we feel turns inward, and suffocates. Self-loathing and a toxic sludge of shame can follow.

If frustration is the fuel for the engine of change, then grace is coolant that keeps the thing from exploding. When we fail on the path to New, extending grace to ourselves is vital. It is only with grace that we can stand back up and keep walking, smiling and laughing at how we fell."  -"Science" Mike McHargue

Commencement May 2002

I have an uneasy relationship to my alma mater.  I am a college graduate, which makes me proud, but I don't use my degree, which makes me feel bad.  I am an alumni, but not one who is able to make generous financial contributions.  And because I don't have a "job", I don't really need to network or make connections through mixers and alumni events.  But I still read the magazine that comes in the mail and check the emails.  It's how I got this lovely computer that I am typing on.  With that positive experience in the recent past, I decided to accept an invitation to bring my family up to Kent for the annual "Tray Fest" aka sledding down the hilly Front Campus.  This sounded fun.  And since I didn't do social activities when I was actually a student, it would give me the opportunity to create memories with my kids.

But the yucky feelings began as we loaded up the car with gloves and sleds and extra clothes.  I got on the familiar road that I traveled so many times alone, this time with my whole family.  And I felt a sense of dread.  It has been almost 13 years since I graduated, and at least 10 since I've been on the campus.  College was easily the worst few years of my life.  It was a time when I was the least healthy version of myself, when I was chasing all the wrong things and dissatisfied with what resulted.  I lost myself in the crush of brick buildings and well-dressed girls and heavy books and emptiness inside.

Apple Hall girls

Why was my reticence so linked to this place?  I mean, it's not the location that caused my depression or deprived me of friendship.  It's not like anyone actively sought to destroy my happiness and peace of mind.  It was merely the setting, the backdrop of my misery.  I ran through the usual list of regrets, all the things I should have done differently.

Upon arriving, there was a jarring sense of worlds colliding: thirty-something me with kids in tow revisiting where young adult me used to walk.  My irresponsible and immature past overshadowed by the people who depend on me everyday.  And, inexplicably, a fear that no one would talk to me or even say something mean.

Daredevils January 2015

Then my kids worked their magic.  They eagerly climbed aboard their sleds and shrieked and laughed and hollered as they rocketed down a very slippery and very steep hill.  We took turns riding down with them and helping them mount their plastic chariots.  People talked to us, mostly to comment how much fun was being had and how determined and brave the boys were. (They really are. Wow. So proud of these kids.)  By the time our fingers and toes and noses were red and stiff with cold, I was enjoying myself.  I was filled with a sense of nostalgia, remembering the classes I took in the buildings around us.  I found myself wondering if the boys would come back here someday as young men.  I pointed out the places I used to go as we drove around the campus.  I showed them the library and the parking lot that I was only lucky enough to use about four times, as it filled quickly each morning.  We passed the massive gym, "the Rec", and they begged to go inside.  Chris told them they would have to grow older and become students for that to happen.  It didn't fill me with fear for their tender hearts.  I think these kids are going to be okay.  Sure, they will struggle and fail at times, but their struggles and failures will be their own; they won't be mine.

We drove home with french fries and laughter, and I felt my memories reset.  Yes, I could have done things differently...but I know that now, only because of the pain I experienced to learn about myself. Is it fun to be lonely?  NO.  But it helps point me in the direction of healthy relationships.  Is it exciting to feel your mind sink into despair and lose sight of the future?  NO.  But I am grateful for each day since then that has dawned and the life that continues to grow and evolve out of that desperate place.  Is it pleasant to grasp at the pieces of yourself as they disappear and realize that you are left with nothing?  NO.  But sometimes we need to empty ourselves for better thoughts and ideas to take root and grow.  My years in college were miserable, but my college didn't make me miserable.  I was suffering the pains of growing and becoming something new.  And you guys, I love who I have become.  I am so glad to be the woman sledding down the hill with her wonderful boys and laughing with her husband.  I love the friends who surround me and encourage me and redeem all the hurt from toxic relationships in the past.  I'm glad for the distance from who I used to be, and the promise of who I am becoming.

Future student? January 2015

Let me end with a quote from Mikey, who is very eager to plan his future and experience EVERYTHING:  "When my teeth fall out, I get big, and I grow tall, then I can go to the gym and be student at college."

In My Place

I was making communion bread the other night.  It's something I enjoy doing, something I volunteered to do a while back.  That's where I like to be.  I like baking in my kitchen.  I like playing with my kids.  I like listening to sermons in my pjs while I fold laundry.  That's how I like serving God, serving my church.  I want to be the proper church lady who bakes food for Sunday morning and teaches the three year olds about Moses and listens attentively as her pastor preaches.  That's what I can offer, that's my place.  Or so I thought.

This past year, our church went through a transition and we got a new pastor.  I was excited to meet him, to learn more about him, to hear him speak from the pulpit.  Imagine my surprise when our first conversation involved him asking if I preach.  Um, NO.  Not at all.  So I invited him over to the house for dinner.  So he could see me in my place.  So he could eat the food that I cooked, so he could meet the children I chase around all day.  But he came with other plans, and that night, he gave me a date, told me to get ready.

Well, okay, maybe, I thought.  Maybe I could get up on a Sunday morning and talk about orphans or why it's so important for adults to care about children.  I told my pastor that if he ever wants to address those issues, I'd be happy to help.  A few weeks later, he called with my first topic: giving.  He asked me to talk during the time of offering, something about why we give money at church.  Again, I thought, Um NO.  I don't even have a paying job, I have no income.  What could I possibly say about giving money at church?

Our pastor came over to the house again.  It was after I began talking during the offering; he wanted to make a video about our family.  And once he'd gotten the footage, he turned to me again with a date and told me to get ready.  He wanted me to do a *sermon* (cue fainting and hysterics) on prayer.    All I could think is, Why me?  What do I have to say?  What could I teach?

There are two ways to learn something: school and experience.  I love school.  I love sitting in a  classroom and taking notes and reading books.  I love the smell of libraries and the quiet of study halls.  I went to school for years, excitedly shopping for new folders and notebooks every August.  I went to college and studied political science with an international focus.  I briefly minored in French but dropped it to graduate early.  I never studied the Bible in a classroom.  I was never in a theology class, or even a philosophy class.  When I left college, I started working.  I took a job as a flight attendant and later at a bank, and I received on the job training, since my degree had little to do with either position.  When I became a wife and later a mother, I tried to learn from books.  I studied for these new roles, ones I wanted to badly to succeed at.  But in both situations, experience proved the better teacher.  Our families are ridiculously unique and personal, and we just have to figure it out as we go, what works best for us.

For me, it turns out that life has been a much better teacher about God too.  In the last ten years, He has become real to me in a way that I doubt I could have been taught.  Apparently God has more He wants me to learn, from a new place in His church.  The time has come for me to get up from my seat, and not just receive, but to give, to instruct.  I took the advice of my friend, Mandy, to talk about my experiences.  I don't know the big, theological words for this stuff.  I've never read the Bible in its original languages.  And maybe that's better.  Because no one can argue that my experiences are wrong the way we disagree over ideas.

So I stood before my church, the people who have loved and supported me and become some of my closest friends, and I talked about the changes in my heart.  I talked about who I was before, the events in my life and the reactions I had that put distance between me and God, and how it was hard to pray.  And then I talked about what happened to change my thinking, how Jesus became real to me in my early twenties and over time prayer became an easy and integral part of my life.  This experience is echoed in a book I'm reading called "The Way of the Heart" by Henri Nouwen.  He writes,

 "Real prayer comes from the heart...The prayer of the heart is a prayer that does not allow 

us to limit our relationship with God to interesting words or pious emotions.  By its 

very nature, such prayer transforms our whole being into Christ precisely 

because it opens the eyes of our soul to the truth of ourselves as well as to the 

truth of God.  In our heart, we come to see ourselves as sinners embraced by the 

mercy of God.  It is this vision that makes us cry out, 'Lord Jesus Christ, son

 of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'  The prayer of the heart challenges 

us to hide absolutely nothing from God and to surrender ourselves unconditionally

 to His mercy.  Thus the prayer of the heart is the prayer of truth."

And in this way my experience has taught me and my studying merely reinforces (and much more eloquently so) what I know to be true.

Ready to leap

On Holiness

I recently shared how much I love to read the Bible.  Since September, I've been part of a women's Bible study group at a local church and together we have read through the book of Exodus, which tells the thrilling story of Moses, Pharaoh, and God, and how God's people were set free from slavery.  The Bible study continues this month as we jump into Leviticus, which is the not-so-thrilling list of rules and guidelines for the newly formed nation of Israel.  Bo-ring!  I have read through this before and struggled to get from page to page, sentence to sentence.  Most of it no longer applies to modern readers, as we don't present animal sacrifices or live in a desert climate and have access to, you know, modern medicine.  And yet, this time, Leviticus seemed to come alive for me.  Instead of reading through a bunch of stuff I don't have to do, I saw each description as a picture of God.  God is not diseased, and so his people need to be purified from their disease to live with him.  God is incapable of sin, and so his people need to be purified from their sins to live with him.  God is honest and fair, and so his people need to be honest and fair so they can live with him and each other.

I think the Old Testament, and especially Leviticus, gets a back rap (I have personally complained about both).  But when I got to chapter 19, I had to stop and reflect.  The chapter is a list of rules and commands that don't necessarily seem to go together.  The chapter is titled "Holiness in Personal Conduct".  It includes:

• "Each of you must show great respect to your mother and father, and you must always observe my Sabbath days of rest." verse 3
• "Do not steal.  Do not deceive or cheat one another." verse 11
• "Do not defraud or rob your neighbor." verse 13
• "Do not insult the deaf or cause the blind to stumble.  You must fear your God." verse 14
• "Do not twist justice in legal matters by favoring the poor OR being partial to the rich and powerful.  Always judge people fairly." verse 15
• "Do not spread slanderous gossip among your people.  Do not stand idly by when your neighbor's life is threatened." verse 17
• "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself." verse 18
• "Do not defile your daughter by making her a prostitute." verse 29
• "Stand up in the presence of the elderly, and show respect for the aged." verse 32
• "Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land.  Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself.  Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt." verses 33-34
• "Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight, or volume." verse 35

I know what you're thinking...this sounds like every Christian I know, right?  We do such a good job keeping these commandments.  Oh wait, no, no we don't.  But like I said, Leviticus doesn't say as much about me and where I fall short, as it points to who God is.  What I learn about God by reading through this chapter is his commitment to equality.  Don't treat people differently because they are old, or poor, or rich, or blind.  Don't cheat each other.  Be honest.  Love each other the way you love yourself.  And I also learn that God knew what we would actually do.

If there is one thing that all people have in common, it's this tendency to constantly rank ourselves according to the people we know.  Like, they have a bigger house than me, her kids are better behaved than mine, but that person doesn't dress as nicely as I do.  We tend to bow to those we perceive to be "better" or "higher" than us, and to look down on those "lesser" or "below" us.  We derive our worth from our ranking.  I know striving to be better than everyone else characterized most of my teen years, and carried over a little into my twenties.

Take my friend Liga, for instance. She is much prettier than me.  She has a bigger house.  She has beautiful, special kids (and more than me).  Most days, I feel like she's a better mom than me.  She takes her kids on outdoor adventures and makes art with them on snow days.  She is more generous than me.  When we first met, I didn't think we would become friends.  I looked at how she was just so much MORE than me.  I felt self-conscious and inferior.  I needed to find some flaws to level the differences between us.  Instead, what Liga offered me was a grace to transcend our differences.  We became friends not because I was able to lower her to my level, but because she sees worth in the way that I do things.  And so I have found myself in this new kind of friendship where I tell her she is an amazing mom and then she tells me that I'm an amazing mom.  It doesn't matter what our houses or cars or clothes look like.  There's an equality that doesn't insist on all things being equal, but delights in the differences.  It's a blessed relief from the "mom-petition" (like competition, but when moms do it to each other).

It's a Levitical relationship when we stop trying to match up and accept each other for who we are.  For instance, there wasn't much that a blind person could offer to society at large, certainly not in comparison to someone whose vision was intact.  But we are told not to hurt them anyway.  A daughter wouldn't be worth as much as a son thousands of years ago, but parents were told to offer them the same protection anyway.  Foreigners have never had rights or power ever in human history, but we are to treat them with dignity anyway.  Jesus even taught about this in Luke 14:12-14 when he said, "When you put on a luncheon or a banquet, don't invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors.  For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward.  Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind.  Then, at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who cannot repay you."

I think we should take Jesus literally.  Not only will God be pleased by opening our homes and sharing our meals with those who don't "rank" as our equals, but we can be pleasantly surprised to find new friends where we hadn't thought to look.  Because when we stop measuring a person's worth by what they can offer us, or by their sameness to ourselves, we can look at people with eyes wide open and realize that we are all equals as human beings and children of God.

At Just the Right Time...

I'm on the left, 18 and ready to take the world by storm

Who has two thumbs and a 10 year plan?  THIS LADY.  I am a planner and a serial list-maker.  I like for everything to be prepped and laid out and ready to go well ahead of time.  (This is the point when Reality sticks its head in and asks, "How's that going for you?" To which I reply, "Shut up, Reality.  My lists and plans have nothing to do with you.")  I know my capabilities and I know my limits, and I have sought repeatedly to arrange my life accordingly.  It doesn't happen.

My plans leave no room for error.  My plans leave no room for other people.  (Just ask the man to whom I showed my 10 year plan, who gently pointed out that it left no room for him.  That man is now my husband.  Honey, I'm sorry it took me SO LONG to abandon that list.)  My plans are made to fit me, and me alone.

Prom 2001, Smiling because we are oblivious to the future

All my adult life, my plans have been disrupted and subsequently abandoned.  This used to throw me into a tailspin.  I would sit in the dust of my unfulfilled goal and wail.  At 22, as I was planning a wedding and preparing to marry the man who didn't fit into my plans, I was also returning to church.  I was coming back with fresh eyes and an open heart and the message I heard was one of surrender.  Stop trying to force my way and my vision (it wasn't working anyway), and join God's plan.  Connect in my time and place with the Way that has spanned all of human history.  Learn God's heart and see God's vision of what life is all about.

Romans 5:6 "When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners."

This is one thing I've learned about God:  He's an "at just the right time" kind of guy.  He's not a "plan ahead" fellow.  He's not a "10 Steps to a Better You" list maker.  He is the Creator of the Universe and He reveals Himself along the way.  And for good reason.  If I could see my entire life played out at the age of 16 or 20 or even now, I would run and hide and scream and cry.  I wouldn't want to go through the hard times.  I wouldn't want to bury the loved ones.  I wouldn't want to open myself up.  The life I live now would have terrified me at 16.  Everything needed to happen at just the right time.

My plan: Family picture
Reality: Tears and Gnashing teeth

At just the right time...I opened up.

At just the right time...love came in.

At just the right time...I became a wife.

At just the right time...I became a mother.

At just the right time...I realized my purpose.

At just the right time...I was called out of the pew and into the front.

God's timing is NOT my timing.  But God's plan is becoming my plan.  God's heart is becoming my heart.  And He is calling not just me, but YOU.  He is ready if you are willing.  He will meet you...at just the right time.

IF: LoveCanton

Mother Teresa and Me

There came a time in my life, just about 10 years ago I believe, when I just got fed up with myself.  I took an honest look in the mirror and I didn't like the person there.  So I decided to change.  I looked around at what everyone else was doing; if I wasn't going to be me anymore, who should I try to be like?  I focused in on Mother Teresa (aim high, right?).  Although she passed away while I was in high school, I don't know if anyone has yet to cast their shadow over her reputation as a humanitarian and a living saint.

Okay.  So I sat on my mattress (it took getting married to finally start sleeping on a bed frame again) and tried to think where I could go and how I could be the next Mother Teresa.  She had cared for lepers in Calcutta, breaking the social mores of a society that cherished its hierarchy and really looked down on touching diseased, poor, unworthy folks.  Well then.  I could, I don't know, go to Africa and care for people dying of AIDS?  Except, um, I didn't know where exactly I would need to go, and I didn't know what qualifications I had or could get quickly to make myself useful.  And I was engaged.  I was pretty sure my fiancé wouldn't be excited about this change of plans (CORRECT!).

Okay.  So I planned my wedding and continued working and sat with this tension about who I should become and who I was.  A few months after I got married, I was hanging out with some friends.  One of them told me he was going to a poor neighborhood in the area every Wednesday and helping some people serve dinner to the families who lived there.  My husband and I were working different hours, meaning I came home four days a week at 5pm and sat around our apartment (reading, cleaning, napping) until he came home around 9pm.  I thought about Mother Theresa.  I thought about Africa.  I thought, maybe I can't be her and do great things, but I can do this thing right now and maybe make a positive difference right now.  The following Wednesday, I met up with my friend at the appointed time.  And I found out that he had left out some details.  Like that he went to this neighborhood with our church's youth group, and by showing up to go with them, the assumption was made that I wanted to help lead the students, not feed the neighborhood.

I kept going, even though my husband said "You went where?!" with a freaked out look on his face after the first night, even though I didn't want to be a youth group leader, even though serving dinner to strangers is kind of uncomfortable and I didn't really think I was making a difference.  After the summer ended, the Wednesday nights continued.  I was given a group of sixth grade girls to visit patients at the local hospital and organize stuff at Goodwill.  But some nights we just stayed at the church and talked about God.  Then it was my task to sit with the girls and generate discussions about whatever the youth pastor taught.  I remember facing a line of 11 year old girls and drawing a complete blank, so I just started babbling about baptism.  I figured out that I didn't need to stick to a script or ask the right questions, or even stay on topic.  I just needed to get them talking.  We got to know each other, and I was surprised to find myself kind of being a leader.  The next summer, I went with the girls to camp, and I found myself in a super awkward conversation with a girl from another church who had some pretty serious questions about boys and sex and, while I hope I handled it well, my 11 year olds did not prepare me for that.

When the girls were in 7th grade, I had my first baby.  I was still able to come on Wednesday nights (mostly), but I wasn't able to help chaperone trips and my priorities had changed a little.  Still, I wanted to do something.  So taking what I had learned so far, that I understood middle school girls and enjoyed spending time with them, I signed up to be a Big Sister.  I was matched with a 10 year old girl who liked to play basketball and didn't live too far away from me.  It was no Calcutta slum, but then again, Mother Teresa didn't have a baby at home.  So I spent a year picking D up and trying to find thing to do together.  She liked more active stuff, so we played basketball at the park and had a snowball fight after Christmas.  She came to my house and we baked cookies and we went to Steak and Shake and shared a plate of fries.  As our match year came to an end, I was about to give birth to my next baby, and she decided she didn't want to continue with the program.  I was relieved, because, although I liked hanging out with her, it was hard to make separate time for this girl and take care of my kids at home.  I found myself thinking that it would be easier if I could mentor a kid who lived with me instead.  And that's how I became a foster parent.

The idea had been germinating when I happened to meet a lady who had adopted her three daughters through foster care.  I was supposed to have a quick 10 minute meeting with her about a completely unrelated matter, but we ended up talking for close to two hours, as she described the process of getting licensed, told me the stories of how she'd gotten her daughters, and talked about life as a family.  I went home that night and told my husband we had to do it.  He wasn't so sure (but at least we didn't have to go to Africa...).  A few months later, our church arranged a weekend service trip to a local children's home for their annual fundraising carnival.  I used a little coercion to get my husband to come with me and we left the kids with my parents.  We drove out on Friday night, my husband gritting his teeth and not saying much, and we drove home Sunday overwhelmed with the desire to get licensed.  We just had to do it.  A year later, we were approved and our next son was born to another woman.  We brought him home and fell in love.

In the last year or so, I've been given some opportunities to speak and teach.  It's not something I've sought out or felt prepared to do, but it continues to happen.  I'm still not caring for the dying in a developing country on the other side of the world, but I look back at the past decade and I see the steps I've taken to distance myself from that selfish, miserable 22 year old.  Have I made a difference?  Am I getting close to Mother Teresa status?  I don't know.  I don't know how many people remember me after our time together ends.  I don't know whether I've influenced people to live better lives or care for the poor, but I know that I've changed.  I know that these experiences have transformed me.

And let me tell you something I learned recently about Mother Theresa:  it took her decades to become the woman serving the lepers in India.  She left home at 18 to begin her life as a nun, and studied and trained and spent the next two decades teaching in a school not far from where her better-known ministry would launch.  She was almost 40 when she finally left the safety of her convent and began working directly with the poor and sick.  She spent the last 37 years of her life building her Sisters of Charity from one person (herself) to a network of more than 5,000 nuns and priests operating more than 600 facilities for the "poorest of the poor".  I find this very encouraging.  There's still time.  I'm not Mother Teresa...but maybe someday I'll be known as Mother Rachel.

If we want to reap a harvest, first we have to plant.  If we want to be known for something, then we have to get off our butts and do it.  If we want the world to change, then we have to follow Ghandi's advice and be the change.  My heart breaks for orphans and vulnerable children.  My hands are itching to hold them close and keep them safe.  And my mouth can't stop telling people to join me.

2014 is Finished

Instead of making New Year's Resolutions this past year, I chose a word that I wanted to weave it's way throughout the year and define how I spent my time.  The word was finish.  In July, I wrote, "Because I'm good at quitting.  I've done that my whole life.  This is too hard.  This is confusing.  This is potentially great, which is even scarier than hard or confusing.  So I quit...It's time to stretch and be someone who can be counted on.  It's time to do the showing up, especially when it's hard.  It's time to stay engaged with my family, with my friends, with my passions."

2014 is over.  How did I do?  Well, I can honestly say that I finished.  I stuck with some things that were hard, I followed through with things that were scary, and I don't feel like a quitter anymore.  I finished a writing project and started a new one.  I ran/walked my first 5k.  I kept taking care of my foster daughter until the county decided to move her back with her birth family.  I read several books.  I hosted an If:Gathering.  I dyed a chunk of my hair blue.  But if I could pick a word for the past year with my hindsight glasses on, I would choose the word growth.  Because guess what happened when I resolved to finish?  I grew.  I learned more about myself, I realized that I can do some things I didn't know I could, I discovered those reserves that people always talk about.  And I learned how to refill myself after pouring it all out.  I learned that I needed to give and then retreat to a quiet place to receive.  I'm claiming victory over this year.

Dare to have blue hair

Now, what to choose for the new year...

Lately I've been kind of frustrated with myself.  I've been engaging in that negative self-talk that mental health professionals discourage.  Have you ever been advised to talk to yourself like you would a friend?  Because we'll be unkind and abusive and neglectful of ourselves, but when we talk to our friends we are encouraging and protective.  I've been thinking about that as I berate myself.  See, the new thing is I've made these realizations about the person I want to be, the way I want to live.  But it's been hard to change course and act on it.  But I'm a person of action, I tell myself.  Once I make up my mind, I follow through.  I want to eat healthier, but I still am drawn to that daily Coke and cupboard of candy.  I want to spend less on stupid stuff and save for the important things, but the savings account keeps losing money each month.  I want to live in a clutter-free house, but those hoarding genes stop me from throwing away the 20 drawings Winston made yesterday.

How would I talk to a friend who confessed this to me?  Certainly not how I've been talking to myself.  I would tell my friend it's okay to fail sometimes.  I would tell her that every day is another chance to get it right.  I would tell my friend that some habits are harder to break than others.  I would tell my friend to look at how far she's come already.  Because a year ago, I drank 3 (or more) Cokes a day.  A year ago, every stress in my day drove me to Sonic for a half-price soda or Wendy's for chili cheese fries or Walmart to make a frivolous purchase.  So I'm down to significantly less pop (and sugar and calories...) and about once a week I manage not to drink any at all.  When I feel stress, I practice deep breathing and pray and count to ten and walk away (mostly).  Most weeks I've stuck to my budgeting trick of only using a small amount of cash for fast food purchases, and then stopping once the money is gone.  So that's progress.  That's better than what it used to be.

Out with the old, in with the new

I would also tell my friend to look at my wonderful son James.  I would tell her about how we took him to the dentist for the first time about a year ago, because he really struggles with stuff that happens around his face and head (hair cuts, teeth cleaning, etc).  But we found a dentist willing to work with him to get the cleanings done and help him be comfortable.  That dentist found a cavity in one of his teeth and pulled it, as well as giving us orders to take better care of his mouth.  She asked us to: 1. Help him brush every day, 2. Use a fluoride rinse after brushing, and 3. Floss regularly.  I literally had to force the fluoride rinse in his mouth the first time.  My husband held him upright and I pinched his nose so he would have to open his mouth and then we dumped the rinse in, and he promptly spit it out.  We didn't give up, because it was more important that his adult teeth (growing in NOW) last and help him eat food for the next 70-80 years.  He used his fluoride rinse every day, and I kept battling him to floss.  And today?  He voluntarily brushes his teeth (mostly) and rinses, and he has even started helping me floss.  That's progress.  With consistency and continuity, good oral hygiene will be something he owns someday.  If a 7 year old is capable of changing over time and developing new habits, then so is his mother.

And this is how I came up with my word for 2015: habit.  Finishing and growing was great, but it's so last year.  Now I want to develop good habits.  I want the good things I know I should be doing to become regular parts of my life.  A year from now, I want to say that eating healthy foods and drinking water are so common place that I don't have to think about it.  I want to say that spending wisely is the only way I know to use my money.  So here we go...