My Coke Commercial Revelation

Several days ago, Green Peace stopped me at Trader Joes and asked if I would join their movement and commit to $15/month donation. He kept saying, “You know about the whales, right? You know about the endangerment of many of our large predators in the ocean?”'

While in college, I was invited by a friend to attend a showing of An Inconvenient Truth and my life was never the same. It was a cause I could lay my life down for. Shortly after this I learned that UNCG professors were trying to pioneer an Environmental Studies program and I jumped in headfirst. I changed my major the next day to a Bachelors of Science. I braved statistics for the whales I was going to save! One of my professors was a specialist for sea turtles and I was in love with this cause. A whale scientist came to speak in one of my classes and encouraged the students to join his company on a research gathering tour off the coast of South America. It was all I wanted out of life. My favorite professor would show us videos of rebels handcuffing themselves to cattle trailers on their way to being slaughtered inhumanely and I was ready for it. I worshiped Rachel Carson. When I mentioned her name to visitors and no one had heard of her, I started volunteering to host tables around the campus, handing out brochures I had made highlighting her accomplishments. She was a woman. She was a fighter. She made a difference. That is all I ever wanted to do.

     As I slouched before the Green Peace guy, growing tired of his speech, I read his “STOP GLOBAL WARMING” sticker plastered on his notebook and smiled. Because I’ve been there, I wanted to do what he is doing. I wanted to save the world, and I was going to do it one regulated buffalo reservation at a time. Or whatever. Most of you know I became pregnant just before my senior year of college and dropped out before the baby came. Just like that. All of my dreams of growing dreads and sailing the seas with scientists wearing cool visors became just a mystical fantasy. That side of me never came alive again.

I have children now. Three of them. If life goes my way, I will have another one next year. Sometimes in the day to day grind of dirty diapers, fifty thousand million snacks served up, and sleepless nights like a single person cannot and should not imagine, I wonder why I gave up my dreams for this. I wonder why I exchanged my dream of studying animals abroad to being the most domestic person I know. I have been sort of sold out to this new Coke commercial that gives a quick glimpse into  the lives of naive parents that celebrate a positive pregnancy test. The baby comes, their life gets messy. The baby becomes a toddler, chaos ensues. At the end of the commercial, the mother holds up another positive pregnancy test and just when you think the parents are going to freak out, they are instead completely elated. It’s how I feel because parenting is so hard. I cannot even began to convey how difficult my days are sometimes. Yesterday I was jealous of the Wal-Mart cashier because he smiled at me and asked about my day. I realized I hadn't made anyone's day better, myself least of all. I whined in the car, I love to talk to people. My goal this weekend is to finish folding laundry, and there is a possibility that Y2K will regenerate itself if I actually get these three loads put away in their designated places before Sunday. It never happens. I managed to cook a healthy, filling dinner tonight. And I made cookies. Nasty, sand tasting cookies stuffed with raisins. I try so hard for my kids and usually my baking experiments make me laugh. I am good at laughing at myself. There are so many learning curves. Today I thought, “I am doing such a good job with my kids, they are well behaved and well adjusted. Go me!” But two days ago, I was weeping because I felt so inadequate. I am inadequate. I couldn’t do it without the reassurance that God really does pick up my slack, a lot. My point is, like the commercial, no matter how crazy and quite unpleasant life gets with young children, I can’t ever go back. Yes, they are needy, loud, and little anomalies that don’t seem to need sleep to function.
But…

There so many butts…to clean. No, no, I mean to say, they are amazing. They have stolen my heart and it takes a Green Peace guy with a global warming sticker in my face for me to even remember what I once wanted because this takes up all of me. Having children is the most life changing, life course altering, amazing- just amazing experience in the world. I always wanted to be a mother, but I had no idea what that really meant. I had a smidgeon of an idea concerning what would be required of me physically and emotionally. Let’s just add here, intellectually, because the amount of brain power it takes to dissolve sibling spats is far beyond my capacity. Those little people though, they have wrapped me around their fingers and it makes no sense how they do it, for they are only 2-3 feet tall. They push, push, push me to my personal edge every single day, to the point where I am questioning my identity, questioning my sanity, questioning what on earth God put me on this earth for. Still, at the end of the day I find myself curled up in their beds, pulling their sweet smelling faces up to mine and whispering in their ear, “You are the best thing that ever happened to me.” And they truly are.

The Pages Within: An Early Marriage Memoir

 

  I really love my husband. We met online and knew weeks into our phone relationship we would get married, and 6 months later we were. I don’t think being married for five years makes me an expert at marriage by any means. I just wanted to be real and honest about marriage, about my marriage in specific. First off, my husband is awesome. I tell him all the time, and still not enough. We have scaled giant mountains together, not literally. Our marriage is full of public displays of affection, love letters, back rubs, and early mornings of playing footsie in bed just because. Over the years we have fought for, and cultivated a very healthy and busy intimate life together. We thoroughly enjoy one another's company.

So many Christian marriages are like the covers of  a magazine. We see them on the outside, but wonder what’s written in the pages behind those pearly white smiles and intertwined fingers? In seasons of struggle I’ve looked to them and thought, “Well, we’re just different than they are,” or “They were meant to be together, and Paul and I aren’t.” So these are my pages for whoever is interested [and I have my husband's permission to share].

I have pondered divorce because my heart has been so broken by something said or done. I have felt like the loneliest woman in the entire world. I have been depressed. I have been bitter that my husband would not take me seriously, especially while sick, tired, or afraid. I have been bitter, period. I have been whisked away into the empty words of another man, simply because he called me beautiful and wanted to hear my story. I have pondered in my head what would happen to my kids if I just gave up one day and flew off to be me, to be the person I might have become had I not married Paul. I have cried myself to sleep, imagined myself jabbing a butter knife into the disc drive of his PS3 because I was so jealous of it for his time and attention, and begged God as I screamed into a pillow, “why did you choose Paul for me?”

And I’m not innocent, by any means. I could find a fault in the Mona Lisa if I wanted to. I have criticized constantly, glared, been passive aggressive, and exploded. I have nagged. I have been a master manipulator, gifted at guilt trips like you cannot imagine. I have faked headaches so I didn’t have to go to bed with my husband. I have clung so tightly to him, literally strangling his independence and forcing him to just be who I wanted him to be. When he refused, I made sure he knew what a weak man he was. I crafted my words into shiny daggers and sent them flying. I leaned into the comfort and spoils of my family during difficult times, and made sure my husband knew he wasn’t enough. I pushed him away, and wondered why he would not fight for me to come back. If he tried to romance me, I would use it against him to get my way. I would keep a wall up over my heart so when he came to me, I could not feel just enough to give him what he wanted and get what I wanted too, with no strings attached.

I could give you the right answer and say that we just chose to stay married. Or we are so holy that we submitted to God’s will and that’s the only reason we stayed together. Neither of those candy coated answers are entirely true. The truth is, we just held on for dear life. Sometimes it was because I thought it was the right thing to do, and nothing more. Mostly though, we just learned to repent well. We sought help at the end of our rope. We kept telling ourselves that we didn't believe in divorce, even if it felt like a prison. We have tested so many marriage books and theories on our problems and the most useful wisdom we found was to submit our partners to God, but mostly to submit ourselves to Him. We don't have a perfect marriage, or even a completely hostile-free one, but it is no longer destructive. It is no longer combustible. For quite some time now we have been purposeful with our love and in pursuit of full freedom and identity in Christ. From there we have enjoyed the fruit of a functioning, happy marriage. Yeah!!

 If you have found yourself unhappy in marriage, but determined to make it work, figure out what needs you have as a human. This is what has literally saved my life, not just my marriage. Start praying through what God must satisfy, what you need from your spouse, and then what friends can offer. There will be skeletons in the closet clouding your judgement. When little light bulbs start flashing all over the place, “I’ve been expecting my husband to determine my worth, and that’s God’s job!! No wonder I got snappy when he said my soup I made for dinner wasn’t the best he’d ever tasted. That really hurt my feelings. It’s a good thing I know who I am in Christ, I’m awesome!” [true story] Then you get to repent for tossing that skeleton on your husband and hoping he’d sort it out for you. It’s not your spouse’s job to figure you out, I have learned. Once repenting, someone will need to forgive. Remember, forgiveness is more about what is happening in your heart, not the debtor.

These ideas are really the culmination of multiple marriage books, conferences, and classes. One time we were asked to be the table leaders at a marriage conference because we had been married longest in our group. I whispered to Paul, "We have been married the longest, and that means we enjoy being married the least!" So you see, our marriage has ebbed and flowed through and around many trials. It reminds me of those awesome men who live in the wild with nothing but a knife, we've just gathered tools and wisdom along the way and figured out how first to survive, and then, how to survive really well. It's really hard to get your love tank full if you don't think you deserve to be loved. It's really hard to respect a man if you were exposed to abuse at the hands of a man as a child. Someone can tell you it's a Biblical mandate all day long, but the first step is being free. As Paul and I have pursued freedom first and foremost, we have found tremendous breakthrough in our marriage. There is a depth to our love for one another that we've never before experienced, and it has flowed from vulnerability, willingness to accept responsibility for our [sometimes negative] actions, and a repentant heart. I thank God every day now that He gave me Paul, for his the greatest gift I have ever been given besides my own salvation.

Here’s the fast track of our not-so-flawless, but functioning wisdom for marriage issues:
               
1) YOU FEEL ANGRY (Sad? Lonely? Afraid?)

2) Ask yourself, WHY? If you’re not getting anything, ask God why you feel this way.
     Did your spouse do something wrong, or did he/she just poke some playful jabs at your skeleton? Be sure to dig deep, usually the answer exists somewhere far away, like when your mom told you to wait in the car as a child while she ran into the bank, and got stuck in line and didn’t come back for 30 minutes and you were terrified you had become an orphan. Ah, now it makes sense why you freaked out when your husband went out to buy milk and saw an old friend and didn’t let you know he would be 30 minutes behind schedule. [That is not a true story]

3) If your spouse did something wrong, you might approach him/her kindly and mention that what he/she did was truly hurtful, and in the future you’d really like to handle the situation “this way.” No accusing, just guiding and reassuring that he or she is not “in trouble” with you. This step is not my strong suit, but we all have permission to be in process sometimes.

4) Most of the time. For me anyway, it’s usually a skeleton acting up. So I get to REPENT for blaming my husband for my fear of men. Or blaming him for my fear of finances not coming through. Or blaming him because I am scared of not guarding my heart. Oh, so many skeletons.

5) Once you’ve repented, it’s time to ask FORGIVENESS. Sometimes I forget to do this, but it’s really important. Please forgive me for attacking you over our finances. I trust God to provide for us. 

6) You can do what you want after all has been said and done, but I generally recommend time together, in bed. Sometimes people will pick fights just for this one thing. I’ve never done this, or anything…

I’ve come to terms with the fact that sometimes people really don’t want to be married. These people have given a marriage their all for many, many years and drawn from empty wells within themselves to give towards someone who is totally unresponsive. My heart goes out to them! I’ve known women (not as many men…probably because I am a woman?) who were so precious and beautiful, I couldn’t imagine how they survived in such ruthless marriages. I just have to add that because I’m not perfect, or holier, or more special to God, or anything like that. I don’t deserve a trophy because I chose to love, and you don’t get yours rescinded because you chose to love and it didn’t work. What I have learned in my experience, in a marriage where both of us have a lot of baggage to work through, but neither of us are so hardened beyond repair or abusive to one another, is that it’s so worth it. Those mountains we once scaled are now the backdrop to our marriage. We can sip on a cup of tea and look out over the view, “Remember when that mountain owned us?” Now we celebrate them because they make us who we are. Each and every one has paved the way to our very satisfying love life, the romance, the cheesy jokes, and most of all, a safe place in the arms of one another. I love my husband. Marriage is truly worth the fight.

We highly recommend books: Love & Respect, Keep Your Love On, and Sheet Music
Marriage Class: We have taken 2-3 classes through church and enjoyed them, but LAM definitely impacted our marriage by teaching us about vulnerability and addressing our needs.

Letting Jesus be Enough

Yesterday morning I was making breakfast, feeling hopeless, and the thought popped into my head, “What happens to people like us?”

“Us” is my family but also a generous handful of others. We left everything to move to Redding, to learn and grow under Bethel's umbrella. Hungry people desperate for just a crumb of hope throw themselves at the altar and are fed. Why here? I don’t know. People travel from all over the world to get healed here. I’ve seen people healed and wept with them as they realized the pain is gone.

The truth is, I don’t want to live a normal life. I don’t want my husband to work 40 hours at a job he hates. I don’t want to look normal on the outside if I’m not happy on the inside. I want to be here.
But what happens to us, all of us?
A lot of us are broke. We can barely afford food to feed our families. We are selling our possessions on eBay, Craigslist, habitual yard sales so we can survive. We dream of thriving. All the while we declare His provision over our home, “He WILL provide for us.” For my family, anyway, we ALWAYS have our needs met. But need gets put into perspective.

Do we need two vehicles? Do we need one vehicle?
Do we need meat at every meal?
Do we need a three bedroom house for a family of 5?
Do we need our privacy?

Despite all the sacrifices my family has made for this season, I cannot complain. Because I love it here. We chose to move here. We chose, though we are way below the poverty line, to not have food stamps or financial aid from the government because we also choose to keep having babies. So we wait on the Lord, trying to just do what He is doing.  So often, I have been in a place of waiting on the Lord to provide. I've seen His provision time and time again, but because I've been there I get weighed down by all the help needed by people in the church. People are straight up struggling.

        By the way, I am not talking about people who choose not to work ever. I'm talking about people who are solidly on the path God has chosen for them and it's an uphill climb. Sometimes they're not working. Sometimes they can't work. Most of the time they are looking for work.

So what happens to us? Do we ever get ahead? Do we ever find ourselves leading a successful ministry that actually creates income so we’re not eating brown rice for the fourth night in a row? I guess in my situation, we're smack dab in the middle of a sowing season. We are investing in our future. This isn't an end all, be all. But I have to ask, do we ever have a house that belongs to us? Furniture that doesn’t fall apart at the seams? Or generate an atomic bomb of dust just by patting it down? I’ve heard Kris Valloton say that in order to plow or labor through a season, we really need to have a vision. Oh boy, how I have conjured up visions for my family. To survive this season mentally I have just told myself that it will not always be like this. One day, oh, one day…houses, mini-vans, a play room, an office....it's all there in my head.

Last night I was reading the kids the Christmas story and I was really struck by something I’ve never thought of before. When the angel met Mary, he told her that she was a “highly favored woman of God.” I love that. I hope God thinks of me that way. As the children’s rendition of the story continued, it highlighted Mary and Joseph searching for “housing” before the baby came into the world. She was a highly favored woman of God, carrying the Messiah, and there was not a special grace for her to deliver Jesus into a suitable inn. There was grace to do it in a cave/stable (depending on what your research turns up). As far as I know, there were no creative miracles of food appearing or the straw already being plumped up into a comfy bed. No, they scrounged. They made a way where it looked like there was no way. Not to mention, this is old covenant, so it’s not like they could check in with the Holy Spirit if they were in the right place at the right time. They just trusted God. As the years went we have a small window into their lives with Jesus. For one, they lost him and were absolutely terrified. Then he preached in Nazareth, and his own brothers didn’t believe he was the Messiah while the others in the community shamed him for being “just Joseph’s son.” Then she watched her son brutally murdered on a cross. I was reading this Christmas story thinking, highly favored woman of God????
What????

It really got me thinking about what it means to serve God. To fight through seasons of absolute drudgery, imagining an end in mind. I thought about all of my dreams that I have for me and my family, and it’s not that I think they won’t happen. I believe in His promises, that as we delight ourselves in Him, we will have the desires of our heart. That we will be given, in this lifetime [along with trials] 100 times more than we have had to give up. I’ve read all that.

My point is, is the simple pleasure of having relationship with Jesus enough? Like Mary. Like John the Baptist [whose parents saw that he had a very special call from God on his life]. Like many others who chose Jesus, and that's all they got. What if the vision that I am pressing towards is JUST JESUS. Is that enough for me to keep pressing on?

I began expressing some of my thoughts to Paul, and he pointed out that Mary was highly favored because God knew He could trust her to trust Him. He knew she would persevere. He knew she would love Jesus with an abandoned heart. That was enough for her. And she was warned up front by Simeon, "This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, but he will be a joy to many others. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul." Oh Mary, courageous Mary.

     It helped me decide that I just need Jesus. Whatever happens to us, I don't know! I really think we can struggle, and still be highly favored. In fact, maybe God chose this to be our route because He knew we could do it. Just because we’re not skipping down a well-marked, yellow brick road with a giant arrow reinforcing “THIS WAY!”. Instead, we’re just taking one day at a time, keeping our eyes on Him and asking “now what?” There’s glory in that, even if we're scared. Even if we choose the more difficult route by faith alone. There is always glory in trusting God. I've been thinking that maybe stewarding favor is just kicking the butt out of anything that threatens to take our eyes off God, no matter what.

    I know I've already said it, but allow me to reiterate that I know God wants to bless my family. I'm still dreaming of my "stuff," but that can't be what fuels me. Jesus fuels me, beautiful Jesus. Every struggle we overcome with Him brings Him glory and proclaims the truth that He really is enough.