"You Deserve It."

I spend all day fighting to un-learn the American dream. "America" says that we are entitled to, have earned and deserved bigger, better. Always more, never enough. I seriously hate pity parties but I threw myself one that lasted all afternoon. It was pretty pathetic, friends. Just because I had been up the night before late moving, a storm and crazed cat had encroached on my less than full nights sleep, and my kids were crazy, I suddenly was having these thoughts, and maybe you can identify, like:

"I deserve a break."
"Someone should really recognize all the hard work I'm doing."
"I have earned these kids respect and they should pull it together and stop ruining my day."

First of all, number two on that list is totally bogus because I receive constant recognition and gratitude for my work. No one feel sorry for me and think I'm getting ignored because I'm the furthest from that. Second, while I was eating lunch with a co-worker, she told her thoughts on getting birthday wishes telling her to "enjoy your birthday, you deserve it." What she said, while I wish I had changed my attitude but tomorrow is another day, has kept me thinking...

"Thanks for all the birthday wishes friends!! It was so humbling as I read all the posts and text messages. As I read the comments I was feeling so loved! A couple people had wrote on there have a great birthday you deserve it. As I thought about those words I realized nothing in me "deserves" a great birthday. I am a sinner simply just as broken as the next person. Yet God chose me, loves me, and gives me constant grace. See Jesus "came to give us life and life to the fullest" and I love that when he said that he didn't mean a new car, a huge house or even a huge amazing birthday party. But when he promised to give us life and life to the fullest he meant we can have endless peace, love, joy, grace and forgiveness! And as I sit and reflect on turning 26 I praise God for those gifts he freely chose give me!"

Talk about a change in looking at the world around you - I agree whole-heartedly with what she said, and thank goodness God put us on lunch together so she could remind me of that before I spent the rest of my week being and making those around me miserable. 

I don't deserve or earn anything, but boy, am I thankful today for a God that gives me unending gifts of love, joy, peace, patience, grace and forgiveness. 

ISIS, Robin Williams & the Power of Choice

I've been gearing up all week to write a post and blast people for being so fixated on Robin Williams. Please don't get angry yet, listen to my reasoning. In no way do I want to downplay the seriousness of depression, suicide, loneliness, his contribution to many of our lives. Honestly, I'm upset because all week long Facebook has been trending about Robin Williams, one person, and there has not been anything in my top three visible trends about ISIS. Nothing.

If you are saying - "ISIS?" - that is exactly my point. Maybe you haven't heard what's going on over in Syria and Iraq. Maybe you didn't hear about 'a big protest outside the capitol' a couple weeks ago. Google it, do something to teach yourself about what is happening. I'm upset because children, men, women are being beheaded and paraded around and yet, Robin Williams trends.

Beyond that, I'm not going to say anything else because I'll regret it. I try to avoid speaking out of anger and that's what I would most surely do. As you learn about what is happening with ISIS, you, like many, may find yourself asking - "Where is God?" Perhaps you look at Robin Williams and ponder his situation, his death, and wonder - "Where was God?"

An excellent question. One I don't know if I have an answer for, but as I was journaling, words found their way onto a page that seemed to make sense in light of that question. Since I have nothing else to offer you but my thoughts and words, I share. I offer no concrete why or why not, I do not claim to fully understand or understand at all. I will simply share and allow you to take it however you will.

"I see the hurt and terror in Iraq and Syria - and I wonder why. Why would You let people rape, behead, and torture others; children, babies, men, women. Then I realize that like Your love, free will does not discriminate. You let every one of us choose our own actions. You let us choose whether or not to love You in return, You do not force us to love or serve You, just as You do not force us to love others. We all make choices; I don't pretend to understand how or why people choose what they do - to love You or behead a child. All I understand is that we are all free to choose our actions. Just as we are free to choose our response to the actions of others."

So Your Children Make You Want to Rip Out Your Hair?

My roommate, Erica, also works in child-care and our snapchats
consistently look like this. 

If you are a parent or your job works directly with children all day long - this is for you. Read and be encouraged that what you are doing day in and day out matters.

Working at Behaven, I've decided this must be a glimpse into the world of parenting; you literally pour your blood, sweat and tears into a child, have conversations with them about choices, give them the tools to do well and then watch them look you right in the eye and completely blow it on purpose. Utter disregard for conversations and good choices of moments ago - the next thing you know they're throwing a cup of milk at your face, running away yelling "STRANGER!" and pointing at you and screaming that they hate you and you've ruined their life. If you have kids - you know. And if you don't know yet because they are still infants and can't talk - you will.

While that is all a bit disheartening (and also startlingly similar to how Christ loves us despite our constant stupid choices even as adults), take heart! Parents, myself, and those who work with children know that you live for tiny moments of breakthrough - maybe you see them use kind word or share a toy (something you've been practicing over, and over, and over for the last three years, and usually they just choose to throw the toy at the other person, anyway), perhaps they give you a hug and say 'I love you,' maybe it's something bigger.

Life is made up of lots of little moments, not one giant piece of a child behaving well. Besides? Where are the stories in little Gracie behaving well all the time? "Oh, today Gracie ate every single one of her peas again and told me she loves everything I cook, she also made her bed, only played with one toy at a time and then put it back before getting another one, and managed to change her own diaper!" No one wants to hear about little Gracie because she's a freaking robot.

Oh, right. The encouragement! Here we go:

He [Jesus] told them another parable: 

"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the bird come and perch in its branches."

He told them still another parable: 

"The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough."

You are planting seeds, you are adding the yeast to the bread. You are growing them, and, like trees, it takes a long time and a lot of elements to nurture that growth. You are equipping that little piece of hell on two legs to be able to make good choices, healthy decisions.

Your job is not to make choices for a child their whole life, but rather to guide them and teach them that they have more than one choice to make and equip them with the wisdom to choose a good one - but ultimately, your child, like you, has free will to decide in the end what they choose to do.

But be encouraged! You are planting seeds that last a lifetime - so hang in there, drink some wine, share when your kids throw poop at you or stick rocks in their ears (You: Why did you stick rocks in your ears? Child: I don't know.) and be encouraged that you are laying a foundation for your child to build on.

Confidence

GREAT NEWS! We found a house! After an orchestration by God to bring together the four of us who are going to be living together, He has pulled together yet another miracle and after a month and a half of frustrating, pain-staking house-hunting - something better and cheaper was literally handed to us yesterday. 

There's no long story behind this post at all - yesterday before looking at this place I got coffee with two of my newmies (new+roommies = newmies) and Kate drew this portrait. We had some wonderful conversations, and while Kate drew, I wrote a verbal portrait to illustrate the process of being, well, illustrated! Once in awhile something comes out of my pen that actually sounds somewhat worthwhile, which is all I really had to pass on to you this morning. Thanks for bearing with me through two paragraphs of context. :)

To know your flaws and be fearless to expose them openly is confidence, not being confident because you are flawless.

Happy Monday!

A House With Open Doors

"If everyone knew who I really was, they wouldn't want anything to do with me."

I've thought it, you've thought it, I think deep down if we're completely honest everyone feels this way. If people knew all your secrets, who you are when you're alone, what you think deep down in your heart, what you've done in your past, what you're doing now that no one knows about - admit it - you think that people would reject you as too much of one thing or not enough of another. I struggle with this every single day. It is constant. 

The weird part is this - for some weird reason, I can completely accept that God knows all of that stuff about me and loves me unconditionally despite all that, but because people sometimes do love with conditions? It is really hard and scary to be honest with people sometimes. Like, stupid hard.

In the last couple weeks this has been a recurring theme among some friends and co-workers in our conversations. We feel insecure sharing ourselves wholly with others because ourselves are, let's face it, messy. There's no getting around it. I'm getting some new roommates here in the next month and we talked about this over the past weekend - we struggle with different issues. All of us have messy family backgrounds, all of us have messy struggles with emotions, our psyche's. We are all messy. We've been joking around a little about coming up with a name for our house, once we all move in, and one of the ones I threw out there was 'The House With Open Doors.' It digressed from 'The House With NO Doors,' because two of us work in childcare, but it turned into something deeper than a joke about tantrum privacy.

These ladies and I want to live in a house, in community with each other without doors. Without trying to hide or apologize for who we are and where we've been when there is no need to apologize for the mess. God has taken care of all of us before, in, and now after those circumstances. It is scary to share ourselves. But all four of us have learned time and time again that when we step out in faith to share those messes in our lives, God has blessed that. When I've shared about my struggles with depression, an eating disorder, porn addiction, relationships, when I've been real enough with people about the struggles I've gone through or am going through, instead of running people have opened up and been able to say - "Hey, I have a lot of struggles, too. Can I be real with you, too?"

But everything exposed by the light becomes visible -- and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Ephesians 5:13-14

You are a mess. I am a mess. But Christ makes beautiful things out of the dirt, the dust, the chaos of our lives. He takes all those cracked pieces, all those dirty, damaged feeling parts of you and can put you back together and shine through you - it doesn't matter who you've been, it matters who you are. YOU are a child of God.

When my roommates and I share about our dark places? That is what shows. God. Healing, restoration, beautiful things out of horrible ones. That was not any of our own doings - if we had kept going the way we were to try and be better, to fill all the places in our hearts that were longing, were sad and hurt - we would still be in those same dark places, slaves to trying to fulfill ourselves.  We are houses with open doors by choice, and believe me, Christ shines through those open doors. I know you might be afraid to open your doors, but trust me, what's outside those doors is so much better than staying shut up inside.