Grief comes in stages. Sweet grace from the moment we needed to say goodbye but the dull ache we have felt for weeks is turned into a throbbing pain as the reality of the "new normal" sets in and his chair stands empty. His quiet prayers for his grandchildren go unspoken now waiting for the next generation to pick up the mantle of intercessor.
The Bible says in the book of Matthew, "blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted". I never understood that verse. It seems very obvious to me... sure, if I mourn, I will be comforted, I will pick up the pieces, I will move on. However, I realized this truth that is a reality for me isn't necessarily a reality for many. It takes vulnerability to allow yourself to be comforted. I've seen people who have experienced bad things that never, ever recover. They wear their pain like a badge and grow bitter, resentful and impossible to live with. Then I've seen people live through the most impossible circumstances imaginable and they come through it and not only live, but learn to love again, and truly be alive! What is the difference? I'm convinced it was the process of loving, losing, grieving, and then being comforted.
The feeling in our hearts after Dad died was similar to the physical pain that happens when you wear a bandage on an open wound too long and the bandage actually sticks to the wound and once removed, makes the wound bleed a new and have to heal again. There was a ripping that happened when we released Dad to the LORD. In fact our hearts and lives were ripped in a way that will never be the same again. It hurts! A LOT! Do I want to hide from the pain, sometimes. Do I want to risk loving again, yes! Part of me wants to cling tightly to my husband, mom, kids and family members. I want to be with them all the time as if my very presence will keep them here. Then the Holy Spirit slowly pries my fingers off and lovingly reminds me that I'm delusional and only He can protect like that.
Then He reminds me of Psalm 62 "one thing have you spoken, two things have I heard. That you O God are loving and that you O God are strong." If we trust the LORD because He is loving only we will still live with the delusion that we are the protectors. If we only understand that He is strong then we will be prone to blame him for the bad things that happen declaring his goodness is tainted with a sick power trip. One without the other will only cause us to become disheartened. BUT, when those two truths are married, we become an unstoppable force with the LORD.
The world hates pain. We dull pain in every way imaginable because pain is horrible. But God designed pain to be married to love. He made it so the one goes with the other. With great love comes great pain. Love and Pain are the two strongest emotions of a human being. They both indicate that we are alive. I never understood why someone would start cutting themselves. Now I know that some of these people who hurt themselves intentionally are so full of the dulling influences of our culture and so devoid of true love that the next strongest sensation is pain, it hurts but at least they feel alive.
Many sabotage love at every turn because in essence they are afraid to feel pain. As a result they never truly live and experience the fullness of life. They settle for an imitation that isn't even close to the real thing. This is one reason abortion is so common in our culture.
I admit I'm not a fan of pain. I'd rather not hurt. But in this season where grief is my cloak, I wear it not for attention, not because I'm morbid, but because I loved well and was loved well in return.
True love feels pain.
Our pain is good because it means we have experienced the closest thing to heaven on earth.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Where do I begin?
There are weeks where we live day in and day out and nothing seems like it will ever change. Same old routine, same schedule, same meals to plan, same plans to fulfill.... Then there are those days that are game changers. We usually don't get to know they are coming or even that they have arrived until they are upon us and we find out what we are really made up of.
We will all face these kinds of days. Days that start out ordinary, just getting up, beginning the routine but eventually a wrench is thrown in the plans and the day quickly shifts to something different, something FAR from ordinary. Those are the days where you will quickly find out if you are a wise steward of your inner life or a foolish one.
One of those days happened to me just 11 short days ago. My Dad has battled cancer very bravely for 7 years and although he was declining we were still filled with great faith that the end of the battle would look a certain way. When a battle ends and it looks quite different than you imagined it would, what do you do? Where do you put your feet? Who do you look to?
Just 11 short days ago I got to sit beside my Dad as he was quickly and painlessly ushered into the presence of the LORD. I have never been with someone when they died. Never seen the process end so suddenly. I can say without reservation it was the single most amazing experience of my entire life. Too precious to discuss in detail here.
Although the battle ended much differently than I imagined we were struck with the amazing peace we had. There is something incredibly wonderful about seeing someone who was suffering so terribly for so long, peacefully walk from this world into the next.
Several things have happened in this process.
First of all, I have never felt such a clear shift from one season to the next as I did that very moment. It was as real as if I had seen a hand move to the page of my life and turn it, writing the title of the next chapter on the blank sheet in front of me. I knew we were facing something brand new and nothing would ever be the same. Not good, not bad just very, very different.
Second, there were scripture verses that came to life in ways I've never experienced. Ones I had memorized and quoted at different times all my life that became more real than ever. "The peace of God that passes understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus"... That scripture became like a blanket wrapped around us.
Third there was a sweet sense of peace because the LORD walked with us so closely. As the battle for Dad's health began intensifying I told the LORD, no matter how this battle ends, I don't want to have any regrets. So I made some intentional decisions in that season that kept me constantly living in the moment, pressing in for healing for my Dad. When it was all said and done I was able to say with intense peace that I have no regrets because we lived everyday in relationship with the LORD.
Heaven is more real to me now than ever before. I can't explain it. I just know I want to go, when it's time and I want to take as many people with me as I can. I find myself thinking of things that were foremost in my mind a day or two ago have now moved off the front burner and been replaced by things that didn't occupy more than a passing thought before.
We are on a journey. One that has just begun. It's thrilling, uncertain, overwhelming, but ends in the best possible way if we choose to do it right. Everything has been flipped and turned and scattered and rearranged and it is the sweetest chaos I've ever experienced.
We will all face these kinds of days. Days that start out ordinary, just getting up, beginning the routine but eventually a wrench is thrown in the plans and the day quickly shifts to something different, something FAR from ordinary. Those are the days where you will quickly find out if you are a wise steward of your inner life or a foolish one.
One of those days happened to me just 11 short days ago. My Dad has battled cancer very bravely for 7 years and although he was declining we were still filled with great faith that the end of the battle would look a certain way. When a battle ends and it looks quite different than you imagined it would, what do you do? Where do you put your feet? Who do you look to?
Just 11 short days ago I got to sit beside my Dad as he was quickly and painlessly ushered into the presence of the LORD. I have never been with someone when they died. Never seen the process end so suddenly. I can say without reservation it was the single most amazing experience of my entire life. Too precious to discuss in detail here.
Although the battle ended much differently than I imagined we were struck with the amazing peace we had. There is something incredibly wonderful about seeing someone who was suffering so terribly for so long, peacefully walk from this world into the next.
Several things have happened in this process.
First of all, I have never felt such a clear shift from one season to the next as I did that very moment. It was as real as if I had seen a hand move to the page of my life and turn it, writing the title of the next chapter on the blank sheet in front of me. I knew we were facing something brand new and nothing would ever be the same. Not good, not bad just very, very different.
Second, there were scripture verses that came to life in ways I've never experienced. Ones I had memorized and quoted at different times all my life that became more real than ever. "The peace of God that passes understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus"... That scripture became like a blanket wrapped around us.
Third there was a sweet sense of peace because the LORD walked with us so closely. As the battle for Dad's health began intensifying I told the LORD, no matter how this battle ends, I don't want to have any regrets. So I made some intentional decisions in that season that kept me constantly living in the moment, pressing in for healing for my Dad. When it was all said and done I was able to say with intense peace that I have no regrets because we lived everyday in relationship with the LORD.
Heaven is more real to me now than ever before. I can't explain it. I just know I want to go, when it's time and I want to take as many people with me as I can. I find myself thinking of things that were foremost in my mind a day or two ago have now moved off the front burner and been replaced by things that didn't occupy more than a passing thought before.
We are on a journey. One that has just begun. It's thrilling, uncertain, overwhelming, but ends in the best possible way if we choose to do it right. Everything has been flipped and turned and scattered and rearranged and it is the sweetest chaos I've ever experienced.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Baby Steps
I was hoping we could title this edition "epic, giant, huge, amazing, steps" but there aren't many moments like that in the lives of families that we get to say those words.
Our fast has ended and my kids are amazing. They learned everything I wanted them to learn. They now care for the house almost completely, they are all self sufficient, even my 11 month old and they are kind, respectful, diligent, thoughtful, compassionate, self less, perfect children that wake up longing to do everything they can to make the Burgess home peaceful and wonderful....
Oh yeah, that would be amazing. Then again, maybe not. Part of me wishes that this experiment caused that to be true, but then when I think about it, I realize part of the joy of being a parent is seeing these perfectly individual people become gradually more amazing each day. Their worth isn't measured by my idea of what they should be, but the joy is in the journey of discovering who they are and why God gave them to our family, because they will each add something epic, giant, huge and amazing to our family if we choose to embrace each others awesome-ness, warts and all.
The experiment itself was totally worth it!! We started out heading in one direction, but surprisingly ended up somewhere totally different.
Back at the beginning of the year when we began talking about doing this experiment our lives looked a certain way. We were living in relative peace, we noticed some troublesome patterns in our kids, and ourselves and we thought gallant thoughts and dreamed giant dreams about how to make ourselves better. Then the LORD stepped in and when we began the journey we thought we were headed north but we ended somewhere totally different.
When we began compassion was one of the issues we wanted to emphasize. We thought a 3rd world country would be a logical place to explore as an outlet for our experiment. As we got caught up in the daily in's and out's of the experiment another place of need began to arise and just like good sailors we had to adjust our sails to catch the wind of the season we are in.
You see, we began to see that compassion starts here at home. My Dad has been battling a giant for over 7 years now. He has bravely faced cancer, a giant that took his Dad home, and one that millions of others face every year in our world. When it attacks someone you don't know very well it's a shame, when it attacks someone close to you it becomes personal. Isaiah 58 says that a true fast is not just giving up food and being hungry, but actually doing something to help others (my paraphrase). One of the most important ways to fast is to "not turn away from your own flesh and blood"vs. 7. That seems pretty easy for most of us, but when your own flesh and blood is fighting something bigger than yourselves, something that has stolen millions of lives over the years.... it seems impossible. YET we still don't get to turn away.
So, we fight! We put on our compassion and we say "this seems impossible, but we won't back down, we fight!!!" What in the world does that look like???? Well for us, it looked like praying daily for my Dad. Not just Daniel and I, but bringing our kids into it. We believe the Word of God is powerful and effective, so we read the Word and proclaim scripture over my Dad. We believe we serve a good God, who is rich in compassion and mighty to deliver. We haven't seen cancer defeated very often, but we have seen it, so we grab a hold of those testimonies and we pray from a place of hope that causes our faith to grow. Our kids got it!!! They went after their grandpa's healing in prayer right along with us! Have we seen a full healing for my Dad? Not yet, but we aren't done! The fact is we were able to quiet the noise of our lives enough to go after something together as a family that was worth going after! That was unifying, it was compassion in action and it was epic.
Now I know what some of you are saying. "What if it doesn't work, what if you don't see the fulfillment of your prayers?" I still say, it was well worth it!!!! We aren't telling our kids this will look a certain way, but it is breeding hope in my parents, in my kids and in people that are watching. When hope is born we always win because it causes each day to be easier than it would without it! When the next battle comes we will stand up again and say, "we serve a good God who is rich in compassion and mighty to deliver" and we declare that the outcome isn't in our hands but His. Success isn't measured by our standards. I know exactly what will happen if we don't pray. You never know what could happen if you do!
We learned as a family what it was like to go after something together. The Bible says that "one can put a thousand to flight and two can put ten thousand to flight". There is something really important about the issue of agreement that is so world changing. NOTHING gets done in this world for good or bad without agreement. My kids felt the joy of going after something as a family and they really got it! The battle isn't over. We aren't fasting food or TV anymore, but we also aren't ever going to go back to how we used to be. We know what it looks like to fight for something worth fighting for. Our next battle may be even more personal, I want my kids to know they CAN do something instead of feeling powerless. The world tells us we can't do anything, the Bible tells us something different.
We've given ourselves a mindset that declares success isn't the outcome, but the process. When the doctors gave up on my Dad's case we started saying "alright, who can we call to help us?" We can't just throw this in God's "lap" and say heal him or else I'm going to be offended, hurt and angry at you. He welcomes us to agree with His Word and partner with Him in this battle. I know He doesn't "need" us, but He's chosen to use us and I love that! So if you develop a need that is too big for the doctors and they send you home to die peacefully saying "hope you have an easy time of it..." we want to be ones that you call for hope. Our world looks really different as a family when we clothe ourselves with compassion and say, "let's do something about that!"
Hope is born and that is always a success.
Our fast has ended and my kids are amazing. They learned everything I wanted them to learn. They now care for the house almost completely, they are all self sufficient, even my 11 month old and they are kind, respectful, diligent, thoughtful, compassionate, self less, perfect children that wake up longing to do everything they can to make the Burgess home peaceful and wonderful....
Oh yeah, that would be amazing. Then again, maybe not. Part of me wishes that this experiment caused that to be true, but then when I think about it, I realize part of the joy of being a parent is seeing these perfectly individual people become gradually more amazing each day. Their worth isn't measured by my idea of what they should be, but the joy is in the journey of discovering who they are and why God gave them to our family, because they will each add something epic, giant, huge and amazing to our family if we choose to embrace each others awesome-ness, warts and all.
The experiment itself was totally worth it!! We started out heading in one direction, but surprisingly ended up somewhere totally different.
Back at the beginning of the year when we began talking about doing this experiment our lives looked a certain way. We were living in relative peace, we noticed some troublesome patterns in our kids, and ourselves and we thought gallant thoughts and dreamed giant dreams about how to make ourselves better. Then the LORD stepped in and when we began the journey we thought we were headed north but we ended somewhere totally different.
When we began compassion was one of the issues we wanted to emphasize. We thought a 3rd world country would be a logical place to explore as an outlet for our experiment. As we got caught up in the daily in's and out's of the experiment another place of need began to arise and just like good sailors we had to adjust our sails to catch the wind of the season we are in.
You see, we began to see that compassion starts here at home. My Dad has been battling a giant for over 7 years now. He has bravely faced cancer, a giant that took his Dad home, and one that millions of others face every year in our world. When it attacks someone you don't know very well it's a shame, when it attacks someone close to you it becomes personal. Isaiah 58 says that a true fast is not just giving up food and being hungry, but actually doing something to help others (my paraphrase). One of the most important ways to fast is to "not turn away from your own flesh and blood"vs. 7. That seems pretty easy for most of us, but when your own flesh and blood is fighting something bigger than yourselves, something that has stolen millions of lives over the years.... it seems impossible. YET we still don't get to turn away.
So, we fight! We put on our compassion and we say "this seems impossible, but we won't back down, we fight!!!" What in the world does that look like???? Well for us, it looked like praying daily for my Dad. Not just Daniel and I, but bringing our kids into it. We believe the Word of God is powerful and effective, so we read the Word and proclaim scripture over my Dad. We believe we serve a good God, who is rich in compassion and mighty to deliver. We haven't seen cancer defeated very often, but we have seen it, so we grab a hold of those testimonies and we pray from a place of hope that causes our faith to grow. Our kids got it!!! They went after their grandpa's healing in prayer right along with us! Have we seen a full healing for my Dad? Not yet, but we aren't done! The fact is we were able to quiet the noise of our lives enough to go after something together as a family that was worth going after! That was unifying, it was compassion in action and it was epic.
Now I know what some of you are saying. "What if it doesn't work, what if you don't see the fulfillment of your prayers?" I still say, it was well worth it!!!! We aren't telling our kids this will look a certain way, but it is breeding hope in my parents, in my kids and in people that are watching. When hope is born we always win because it causes each day to be easier than it would without it! When the next battle comes we will stand up again and say, "we serve a good God who is rich in compassion and mighty to deliver" and we declare that the outcome isn't in our hands but His. Success isn't measured by our standards. I know exactly what will happen if we don't pray. You never know what could happen if you do!
We learned as a family what it was like to go after something together. The Bible says that "one can put a thousand to flight and two can put ten thousand to flight". There is something really important about the issue of agreement that is so world changing. NOTHING gets done in this world for good or bad without agreement. My kids felt the joy of going after something as a family and they really got it! The battle isn't over. We aren't fasting food or TV anymore, but we also aren't ever going to go back to how we used to be. We know what it looks like to fight for something worth fighting for. Our next battle may be even more personal, I want my kids to know they CAN do something instead of feeling powerless. The world tells us we can't do anything, the Bible tells us something different.
We've given ourselves a mindset that declares success isn't the outcome, but the process. When the doctors gave up on my Dad's case we started saying "alright, who can we call to help us?" We can't just throw this in God's "lap" and say heal him or else I'm going to be offended, hurt and angry at you. He welcomes us to agree with His Word and partner with Him in this battle. I know He doesn't "need" us, but He's chosen to use us and I love that! So if you develop a need that is too big for the doctors and they send you home to die peacefully saying "hope you have an easy time of it..." we want to be ones that you call for hope. Our world looks really different as a family when we clothe ourselves with compassion and say, "let's do something about that!"
Hope is born and that is always a success.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Midway
We have reached the halfway point through our experiment. I began by saying that I would update my blog weekly to let you know how we are doing, but obviously that hasn't happened.
Our experiment to begin ridding our family of the entitlement mentality began two weeks ago. We are starting at the very basic level of everyday comforts. The food we eat, the entertainment we give ourselves to the "rights" we feel are ours simply because our culture declares they are ours. My main goal in this isn't to take away comfort so we can associate with another culture that is less affluent than ours, that is one aspect, but to open our eyes as a family to all that we have and the mindset we have settled for that gives our bodies comfort but takes away from us in so many other ways.
Here are some of my observations.
First of all entertainment in the form of screen time has been eliminated almost completely. No movies, no TV shows, no DS gametime, no computer time. Now there are exceptions. (We listen to music through our Wii on our Youtube playlists and some of those come with pictures etc.) The first thing I noticed is that our home became instantly more peaceful. Neither my 10 year old or my 11 year old are asking for it. They are old enough to understand the journey we are on and they are willing to go there with us. Not only is the noise gone from the entertainment devices, but my children are actually more peaceful.
One of the main purposes here is to cause our minds to become more creative. I wanted the entertainment devices to be replaced with imagination, creativity that comes from using their brains. It took a week but it worked!!!
I am calling the first week detox week. This is what it looked like:
- First few days were painfully boring. They couldn't figure out what to do with that extra time. Lots of whining. "I'm bored" was met with the response, "ok, you find something to do or I will find something for you to do." I explained the list of jobs I had in mind and they quickly decided they would find their own fun.
- The fun they found to do at first was very minimal. They were shocked at how long the hours were and how short lived the fun they came up with lasted.
- The first few days were hard but by the end of the third day there was so much more peace in our house. The kids were playing together more, lego creations became more elaborate. My son that isn't drawn naturally to being creative with legos or art became more entertained by them and able to sit and create more freely. By the end of yesterday, two weeks into our experiment they played for about 4 hours with just creative game after creative game, almost no fighting, lots of laughter, they were able to include their sister in some ways instead of being impatient with her level of play. I've seen the friendship level increase between my kids that hasn't been there in a long time.
The second week was pretty loose in terms of our diet. My family had a family reunion with my brother and his family coming from Virginia for several days. We enjoyed lots of food and family time. We knew at the beginning of this experiment that this was coming and that we would take a break from the limited diet. We have been eating mostly rice, some pasta, tons of veggies and fruit and a limited amount of meat, but not sugar, processed food or sugary drinks. Even with just one week on that diet and our bodies reacted poorly to sugar when we enjoyed some at our reunion. It was eye opening for my kids to feel poorly after eating what would have been normal for us before. I found both boys limiting themselves after that realization which is exactly what we were hoping for.
The best part of what we've seen though isn't the self control they are exhibiting with food or the even the increase of sibling love, but the agreement we have seen in all three of our oldest kids. They see the value in this lifestyle. They have seen firsthand the value in doing something as a family and the peace it has brought- agreement, not because we told them to agree with us, but because they want to.
Agreement is the only way things get done. I didn't expect that to be the lesson we pull out of this experiment, but it is quickly becoming apparent that it is the number one benefit.
Each of us identify who we were created to be and then we find out who each other is and we weave our giftings and identities together into a tapestry called the Burgess family. We understand that who I was created to be needs the elements of who the others were created to be in order to be complete and vice versa, we can go a lot further together than we ever could by ourselves. That is agreement at it's core and that is why family is such a good idea.
Our experiment to begin ridding our family of the entitlement mentality began two weeks ago. We are starting at the very basic level of everyday comforts. The food we eat, the entertainment we give ourselves to the "rights" we feel are ours simply because our culture declares they are ours. My main goal in this isn't to take away comfort so we can associate with another culture that is less affluent than ours, that is one aspect, but to open our eyes as a family to all that we have and the mindset we have settled for that gives our bodies comfort but takes away from us in so many other ways.
Here are some of my observations.
First of all entertainment in the form of screen time has been eliminated almost completely. No movies, no TV shows, no DS gametime, no computer time. Now there are exceptions. (We listen to music through our Wii on our Youtube playlists and some of those come with pictures etc.) The first thing I noticed is that our home became instantly more peaceful. Neither my 10 year old or my 11 year old are asking for it. They are old enough to understand the journey we are on and they are willing to go there with us. Not only is the noise gone from the entertainment devices, but my children are actually more peaceful.
One of the main purposes here is to cause our minds to become more creative. I wanted the entertainment devices to be replaced with imagination, creativity that comes from using their brains. It took a week but it worked!!!
I am calling the first week detox week. This is what it looked like:
- First few days were painfully boring. They couldn't figure out what to do with that extra time. Lots of whining. "I'm bored" was met with the response, "ok, you find something to do or I will find something for you to do." I explained the list of jobs I had in mind and they quickly decided they would find their own fun.
- The fun they found to do at first was very minimal. They were shocked at how long the hours were and how short lived the fun they came up with lasted.
- The first few days were hard but by the end of the third day there was so much more peace in our house. The kids were playing together more, lego creations became more elaborate. My son that isn't drawn naturally to being creative with legos or art became more entertained by them and able to sit and create more freely. By the end of yesterday, two weeks into our experiment they played for about 4 hours with just creative game after creative game, almost no fighting, lots of laughter, they were able to include their sister in some ways instead of being impatient with her level of play. I've seen the friendship level increase between my kids that hasn't been there in a long time.
The second week was pretty loose in terms of our diet. My family had a family reunion with my brother and his family coming from Virginia for several days. We enjoyed lots of food and family time. We knew at the beginning of this experiment that this was coming and that we would take a break from the limited diet. We have been eating mostly rice, some pasta, tons of veggies and fruit and a limited amount of meat, but not sugar, processed food or sugary drinks. Even with just one week on that diet and our bodies reacted poorly to sugar when we enjoyed some at our reunion. It was eye opening for my kids to feel poorly after eating what would have been normal for us before. I found both boys limiting themselves after that realization which is exactly what we were hoping for.
The best part of what we've seen though isn't the self control they are exhibiting with food or the even the increase of sibling love, but the agreement we have seen in all three of our oldest kids. They see the value in this lifestyle. They have seen firsthand the value in doing something as a family and the peace it has brought- agreement, not because we told them to agree with us, but because they want to.
Agreement is the only way things get done. I didn't expect that to be the lesson we pull out of this experiment, but it is quickly becoming apparent that it is the number one benefit.
Each of us identify who we were created to be and then we find out who each other is and we weave our giftings and identities together into a tapestry called the Burgess family. We understand that who I was created to be needs the elements of who the others were created to be in order to be complete and vice versa, we can go a lot further together than we ever could by ourselves. That is agreement at it's core and that is why family is such a good idea.
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
On our way
Well here we go! We've had so many of you ask "so how is the rice and beans experiment going".... :o) I have to say I'm surprised so many are interested, and to answer your questions, we started our month long mission to rid our home of entitlement yesterday and so far, it's going well :o)
We announced a couple months ago that we were going to be beginning this fast with our family and our intention was to begin sooner than this, but we have hit some speed bumps and so we are only now beginning.
First of all I want to tell you what we are doing and bring you up to speed on our adventure.
Several months ago we came to the painful conclusion that our home had an infestation of entitlement that hadn't just infected our children, but Daniel and I as well. We had bought into the lie that we need and deserve certain comforts all the time and that without them we had the right to go and get them, and if getting them wasn't possible then being miserable and irritable was our right.
So we began thinking and praying about what our family truly needed and we felt like we got a clear idea about how to help all of us have a better perspective on the life we were supposed to lead.
Daniel and I decided a missions trip for our family would be the perfect thing. We'd take the kids to a foreign country and they could see the poor and needy for themselves. They could see the kids that had been born into extreme poverty and were destined to live there their whole lives and probably die prematurely.
The country of Cambodia came up several different times in our recent experience. My niece just took a trip there to work with the poor for 2 weeks. We were also just made aware of an orphanage that is run by a foursquare missionary and we decided this would be a perfect experience.
Unfortunately for several reasons beyond our control our lives won't allow us to physically take a trip there right now so we decided that we would take the month and live like we would if we were in Cambodia on a missions trip.
Now for those of you who are truly a black and white personality you will see many, many holes in our experiment. Of course we are still going to live in our home, enjoy our beds, turn on the lights and use the toilets with toilet paper. We are going to drive our car and visit our library and bask in the warm Oregon weather without the hideous tropical insects. But we are going to deny ourselves many of the luxuries that we have access to in order to open our eyes to those who have less, much less than we do.
The way this will look:
- No screen time. We will listen to music, but no TV, no movies, no DS or Wii. No facebook. We will be checking our emails daily but only for contact purposes.
- Our original plan was a basic diet of beans and rice and whatever we could grow in our garden. Unfortunately we have had a pitifully cold spring and our garden is lacking.... extremely lacking, so we've had to adjust. One of our main goals originally was to save money to send us to Disneyland. After much research it doesn't seem that saving money will be a logical goal. Although our diet is limited, we will be buying all the fruit and veggies we can handle and since our garden isn't providing those for us, we will be purchasing them. Disneyland will have to wait until another year. We are not discouraged, only more purposeful.
- The boys will be reading more, practicing their God given gifts. Micah is an artist and will be spending time refining his art skills and learning more about the keyboard. Ethan will be practicing drums and exploring the world of photography.
- We are allowing leniency for special occasions. The kids will eat freely at other peoples homes when we go out. They will enjoy the 4th of July family reunion we have planned without restrictions and sampling at Costco is always a highlight. We want to be purposeful not strict.
Since we've been talking about this for so long the kids are ready. They were excited yesterday when we began and not only was the arguing and complaining minimal, but creativity increased, and so did compassion.
Our missions statement for this month is Isaiah 58: 6-7 The Lord is speaking to a group of people that have been very "religious". They were told that they needed to fast but they basically just gave up food and continued to act like lunatics, fighting, and making a mess of things. The Lord said "no, I don't want you to just stop eating, that doesn't do anything." (my paraphrase) he said... this is the kind of fast I want you to do ...."loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke."... I want you to "share your food with the hungry, and provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, clothe him, and not turn away from your own flesh and blood."
We will be studying Cambodia and looking at some of the lives of the young children in the orphanage there. This ministry is doing just what Isaiah 58 says, they are feeding, clothing and sheltering these little ones and I can't think of any more practical way to help my kids realize what they have been given than to expose them to the lives of these precious little ones. We will be supporting this ministry as a family and praying for them and hopefully some day we will get to take a trip together as a family to do with our hands and feet what we can only do with our dollars and cents right now.
I plan to blog weekly about how the experiment is going. The ups and downs. The struggles and joys. So far I am more than impressed with the peace and tranquility that has descended on our home. Just turning off all the noise has caused a greater sense of peace and I love seeing my kids growing in creativity.
Here we go. Our motto this month and for the rest of our lives is something we got from our pastor a couple months ago..... "Do what is RIGHT not what is EASY"
We announced a couple months ago that we were going to be beginning this fast with our family and our intention was to begin sooner than this, but we have hit some speed bumps and so we are only now beginning.
First of all I want to tell you what we are doing and bring you up to speed on our adventure.
Several months ago we came to the painful conclusion that our home had an infestation of entitlement that hadn't just infected our children, but Daniel and I as well. We had bought into the lie that we need and deserve certain comforts all the time and that without them we had the right to go and get them, and if getting them wasn't possible then being miserable and irritable was our right.
So we began thinking and praying about what our family truly needed and we felt like we got a clear idea about how to help all of us have a better perspective on the life we were supposed to lead.
Daniel and I decided a missions trip for our family would be the perfect thing. We'd take the kids to a foreign country and they could see the poor and needy for themselves. They could see the kids that had been born into extreme poverty and were destined to live there their whole lives and probably die prematurely.
The country of Cambodia came up several different times in our recent experience. My niece just took a trip there to work with the poor for 2 weeks. We were also just made aware of an orphanage that is run by a foursquare missionary and we decided this would be a perfect experience.
Unfortunately for several reasons beyond our control our lives won't allow us to physically take a trip there right now so we decided that we would take the month and live like we would if we were in Cambodia on a missions trip.
Now for those of you who are truly a black and white personality you will see many, many holes in our experiment. Of course we are still going to live in our home, enjoy our beds, turn on the lights and use the toilets with toilet paper. We are going to drive our car and visit our library and bask in the warm Oregon weather without the hideous tropical insects. But we are going to deny ourselves many of the luxuries that we have access to in order to open our eyes to those who have less, much less than we do.
The way this will look:
- No screen time. We will listen to music, but no TV, no movies, no DS or Wii. No facebook. We will be checking our emails daily but only for contact purposes.
- Our original plan was a basic diet of beans and rice and whatever we could grow in our garden. Unfortunately we have had a pitifully cold spring and our garden is lacking.... extremely lacking, so we've had to adjust. One of our main goals originally was to save money to send us to Disneyland. After much research it doesn't seem that saving money will be a logical goal. Although our diet is limited, we will be buying all the fruit and veggies we can handle and since our garden isn't providing those for us, we will be purchasing them. Disneyland will have to wait until another year. We are not discouraged, only more purposeful.
- The boys will be reading more, practicing their God given gifts. Micah is an artist and will be spending time refining his art skills and learning more about the keyboard. Ethan will be practicing drums and exploring the world of photography.
- We are allowing leniency for special occasions. The kids will eat freely at other peoples homes when we go out. They will enjoy the 4th of July family reunion we have planned without restrictions and sampling at Costco is always a highlight. We want to be purposeful not strict.
Since we've been talking about this for so long the kids are ready. They were excited yesterday when we began and not only was the arguing and complaining minimal, but creativity increased, and so did compassion.
Our missions statement for this month is Isaiah 58: 6-7 The Lord is speaking to a group of people that have been very "religious". They were told that they needed to fast but they basically just gave up food and continued to act like lunatics, fighting, and making a mess of things. The Lord said "no, I don't want you to just stop eating, that doesn't do anything." (my paraphrase) he said... this is the kind of fast I want you to do ...."loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke."... I want you to "share your food with the hungry, and provide the poor wanderer with shelter- when you see the naked, clothe him, and not turn away from your own flesh and blood."
We will be studying Cambodia and looking at some of the lives of the young children in the orphanage there. This ministry is doing just what Isaiah 58 says, they are feeding, clothing and sheltering these little ones and I can't think of any more practical way to help my kids realize what they have been given than to expose them to the lives of these precious little ones. We will be supporting this ministry as a family and praying for them and hopefully some day we will get to take a trip together as a family to do with our hands and feet what we can only do with our dollars and cents right now.
I plan to blog weekly about how the experiment is going. The ups and downs. The struggles and joys. So far I am more than impressed with the peace and tranquility that has descended on our home. Just turning off all the noise has caused a greater sense of peace and I love seeing my kids growing in creativity.
Here we go. Our motto this month and for the rest of our lives is something we got from our pastor a couple months ago..... "Do what is RIGHT not what is EASY"
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Please.... fence me in!
My house has a really nice fence, but only in the backyard. It's tall and sturdy and keeps us from curious neighbors and stray dogs. I love my fence.
My front yard, however, lacks a fence.... it also lacks grass in large patches, but that is mostly because there is no fence. You see the neighbor kids love our yard because it's a great place to play football, so they've worn down the grass. There are days where I will drive around and drool over beautiful homes with sweet little fences that clearly mark their boundaries and admire their luscious grass and sigh....
I love fences.
We used to live in a neighborhood that had common grounds throughout. No fences, anywhere. It caused a beautiful open feel to the neighborhood and really nice people came through once a week to mow our lawn. It had it's perks, but if you wanted to grow a garden you were basically out of luck unless you got your own planters. Telling our kids to go play in the yard got tricky too. Where the boundary lines began and ended were totally obscure and up for debate. On good days it was strange on bad days it was troublesome, especially if your neighbor didn't want your kids playing in their yard.
I heard of an experiment done a while back on elementary aged children. They sent the children out to play on a playground without a fence and no clear boundary lines, the outcome was very interesting. The children tended to congregate toward the school or in the center of the playground. Very few wanted to wander to the edges.
Fences mark safety.
In ancient times when our ancestors were establishing a new land they would mark their land with stones. Deuteronomy even lays out the punishment if someone were to move a boundary stone. The use of the singular in this scripture causes me to think that it was nothing more than four stones marking the four corners of ones property. In times of peace I'm sure that was all that was needed. As time went on however the people began inhabiting lands that were in the midst of their enemies and so their simple boundary stones became insufficient in keeping them safe. The stones became high, thick walls with barred gates that were virtually impenetrable. Whole cities were surrounded by these walls and they were very effective in keeping the inhabitants safe.
All of us have boundary stones around our lives. Every single relationship you have has a boundary. Some boundaries are simply stones that mark your comfort zone. Those you love the most and are closest to you know those stones well and will respect them and love you within those boundaries.
There are other relationships that require a fence.
Some fences are short and you can see over the top of them and have a decent conversation around them. They don't keep out prying eyes, but they do require a little more effort to cross.
Then there is the tall fence you can't see over with a locking gate. One can only gain access by asking the other to unlock the gate from the inside. These fences are more common and I think most of us have these fences around most of our relationships.
Then there is the wall. The high, thick wall with barbed wire and armed guards. These are also necessary. Hopefully not as common.
Each relationship will have a constant re-evaluation of it's boundaries. Some may require a smaller fence as time goes on. Unfortunately the opposite is true as well.
Now if you are a healthy person you take good care of your boundary markers. You foster your relationships and are clear about where your boundaries are and where they are not. But many times our boundaries fall into disrepair and it becomes very unclear to others as well as ourselves where our boundaries are. When this happens we feel very out of control and quite easily overwhelmed. No one knows where your boundaries are so they may accidentally step over the line or stub their toe on a hidden marker and cause distress to the relationship unintentionally.
Learning about healthy boundaries requires clear communication.... sometimes.
I'm teaching my three year old about creating her own healthy boundaries. There are two elements to this task with kids. Understanding that they need proper instruction as to what a healthy boundary even is is key, but letting them express those boundaries in an individual and healthy way is such an important element in raising healthy, creative, thinking individuals.
Grace has a very clear "I do it myself" boundary. Something neither of my boys had. I cherish this about her. Today her "I do it myself" attitude came out with her princess dress on backwards. I had to decide if I would cross that boundary line and "fix" it or let her sweet independence shine through and protect our relationship enough to let it be. I decided on the latter. I want her to know I care more about the fact that she did it herself than I do about looking like the most together mom. After informing her that it was backwards and her shoes were on the wrong feet she politely told me she was ok with that... I got to be ok with that too.
There is another element to boundaries. Psalm 16 says "Your boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places"... this indicates that the LORD marks our boundary lines for us too. Children have to be taught where the boundaries are. If they aren't taught they will make unclear, irrational, and unhealthy boundaries. We've all seen that way too often. Many parents fall victim to the lie that clear boundaries for our kids creates clone like children and in order to foster their "free spirit" we need to just let them come up with all their own boundaries, eventually.... the illustration of the fenced playground is a clear picture of how unprotected that makes kids feel.
The balance between teaching clear boundaries and letting them figure it out is such a sweet part of the parent / child relationship. Just as our Heavenly Father marks some things very clearly and others he lets us figure out... what better teacher is trial and error.
There are parts of me that wishes He would lay out every decision I have to make and just tell me what to do everytime. He graciously says "I don't know what do you think you should do?" After I freak out and express my fear of making the wrong decision I realize as a loving Heavenly Father he is letting me grow up and I have to trust his silence as much as his instruction.
Sometimes wisdom is loud and clear.... Sometimes it is quietly watching in anticipation as we take a step of faith and trust the silent, watchful eye of our loving Father.
My front yard, however, lacks a fence.... it also lacks grass in large patches, but that is mostly because there is no fence. You see the neighbor kids love our yard because it's a great place to play football, so they've worn down the grass. There are days where I will drive around and drool over beautiful homes with sweet little fences that clearly mark their boundaries and admire their luscious grass and sigh....
I love fences.
We used to live in a neighborhood that had common grounds throughout. No fences, anywhere. It caused a beautiful open feel to the neighborhood and really nice people came through once a week to mow our lawn. It had it's perks, but if you wanted to grow a garden you were basically out of luck unless you got your own planters. Telling our kids to go play in the yard got tricky too. Where the boundary lines began and ended were totally obscure and up for debate. On good days it was strange on bad days it was troublesome, especially if your neighbor didn't want your kids playing in their yard.
I heard of an experiment done a while back on elementary aged children. They sent the children out to play on a playground without a fence and no clear boundary lines, the outcome was very interesting. The children tended to congregate toward the school or in the center of the playground. Very few wanted to wander to the edges.
Fences mark safety.
In ancient times when our ancestors were establishing a new land they would mark their land with stones. Deuteronomy even lays out the punishment if someone were to move a boundary stone. The use of the singular in this scripture causes me to think that it was nothing more than four stones marking the four corners of ones property. In times of peace I'm sure that was all that was needed. As time went on however the people began inhabiting lands that were in the midst of their enemies and so their simple boundary stones became insufficient in keeping them safe. The stones became high, thick walls with barred gates that were virtually impenetrable. Whole cities were surrounded by these walls and they were very effective in keeping the inhabitants safe.
All of us have boundary stones around our lives. Every single relationship you have has a boundary. Some boundaries are simply stones that mark your comfort zone. Those you love the most and are closest to you know those stones well and will respect them and love you within those boundaries.
There are other relationships that require a fence.
Some fences are short and you can see over the top of them and have a decent conversation around them. They don't keep out prying eyes, but they do require a little more effort to cross.
Then there is the tall fence you can't see over with a locking gate. One can only gain access by asking the other to unlock the gate from the inside. These fences are more common and I think most of us have these fences around most of our relationships.
Then there is the wall. The high, thick wall with barbed wire and armed guards. These are also necessary. Hopefully not as common.
Each relationship will have a constant re-evaluation of it's boundaries. Some may require a smaller fence as time goes on. Unfortunately the opposite is true as well.
Now if you are a healthy person you take good care of your boundary markers. You foster your relationships and are clear about where your boundaries are and where they are not. But many times our boundaries fall into disrepair and it becomes very unclear to others as well as ourselves where our boundaries are. When this happens we feel very out of control and quite easily overwhelmed. No one knows where your boundaries are so they may accidentally step over the line or stub their toe on a hidden marker and cause distress to the relationship unintentionally.
Learning about healthy boundaries requires clear communication.... sometimes.
I'm teaching my three year old about creating her own healthy boundaries. There are two elements to this task with kids. Understanding that they need proper instruction as to what a healthy boundary even is is key, but letting them express those boundaries in an individual and healthy way is such an important element in raising healthy, creative, thinking individuals.
Grace has a very clear "I do it myself" boundary. Something neither of my boys had. I cherish this about her. Today her "I do it myself" attitude came out with her princess dress on backwards. I had to decide if I would cross that boundary line and "fix" it or let her sweet independence shine through and protect our relationship enough to let it be. I decided on the latter. I want her to know I care more about the fact that she did it herself than I do about looking like the most together mom. After informing her that it was backwards and her shoes were on the wrong feet she politely told me she was ok with that... I got to be ok with that too.
There is another element to boundaries. Psalm 16 says "Your boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places"... this indicates that the LORD marks our boundary lines for us too. Children have to be taught where the boundaries are. If they aren't taught they will make unclear, irrational, and unhealthy boundaries. We've all seen that way too often. Many parents fall victim to the lie that clear boundaries for our kids creates clone like children and in order to foster their "free spirit" we need to just let them come up with all their own boundaries, eventually.... the illustration of the fenced playground is a clear picture of how unprotected that makes kids feel.
The balance between teaching clear boundaries and letting them figure it out is such a sweet part of the parent / child relationship. Just as our Heavenly Father marks some things very clearly and others he lets us figure out... what better teacher is trial and error.
There are parts of me that wishes He would lay out every decision I have to make and just tell me what to do everytime. He graciously says "I don't know what do you think you should do?" After I freak out and express my fear of making the wrong decision I realize as a loving Heavenly Father he is letting me grow up and I have to trust his silence as much as his instruction.
Sometimes wisdom is loud and clear.... Sometimes it is quietly watching in anticipation as we take a step of faith and trust the silent, watchful eye of our loving Father.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Confessions of a wannabe perfectionist
In our house we strive for perfection.
This may surprise many of you that know me because I am not a perfectionist in most senses of the word. My house is hardly ever totally clean, I will gaze at a dirty sink for days before I get fed up and clean it, I can turn a blind eye to the stains in my carpet for months and I don't even remember the last time my boys made their beds. As for ironing.... that happens maybe twice a year... sorry mom.
My house is not perfect, my appearance is not perfect, my children are not perfect, my husband is not perfect. I'm not striving for outward perfection but an inward perfection.
Let me explain.
We are facing quite a storm in our family. One of our most important members is battling for life. It's a battle that has lasted for years. The battle ebbs and flows. Sometimes it is extremely intense, sometimes we feel a bit of relief and can take a breath. Somedays it feels so intense like one wave after another pounding our boat.
Our story is not unique. Everyone faces storms. Guaranteed. If you are alive and have been alive for more than a few years you have faced storms. Some storms are bigger than others. Not many people like these kinds of storms. They are hard, exhausting, overwhelming and sometimes debilitating.
I've come to have a different view of these kinds of storms.
James 1 in my bible says: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds...."
Ummm.. Joy? Really James? Joy? Didn't you mean consider it pure torture? Maybe pure frustration? Pure hell? Surely you didn't mean Joy!
Yep, Joy!! I'm getting there.
As you read further in James 1 he explains why trials = joy.... "because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
This word trial is closely related to the word temptation but with a very important difference. I found this quote as I was studying this.
"The difference between a trial or test and a temptation is found in the testers motivations and expectation; the devil tempts that the believer might fail God's standards of faith and so sin; God tests that he might determine and sharpen true character, with no focus on making the believer fail."(zondervan exhaustive NIV concordance)
James goes on to say later in chapter one "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
You see this word perfect can also be translated "mature". These storms are good!!! They are developing one of the most profoundly effective and important skills any human can acquire, perseverance!
To stay, remain, live, dwell, abide.... to have the ability to stick around, to see something through to the end, even if the end is no where in sight. It's the stuff of headlines. No one wants to stick around anymore. Hollywood has decided to immortalize these people whose lives are a picture of anything but perseverance, both on and off the screen. Their lives show it too! They are selfish, living from one shallow relationship to another. They are longing for pleasure but never truly finding it because they are deceived into thinking pleasure is found in serving yourself. They lack maturity in every way.
Then there are these stories of people who stuck around. Heroes! The ones that stayed with their spouse who was suffering a terrible disease that left them incapacitated. The soldier that wouldn't leave their dying friend on the battle field. The mother that chose life for her child that would be born without limbs even though she knew he would face incredible odds and now her full grown son is changing the world with his message of hope.
I'm not afraid of these storms anymore. They are hard, they are life draining, they are exhausting. BUT they are also perfecting! These trials are making us perfect and the Lord is using them to make us mature, to sharpen us so that when we come out the other side we will actually have something to give the ones around us who will surely face their own storms.
That is heroic, that is the perfection I am striving for.
This may surprise many of you that know me because I am not a perfectionist in most senses of the word. My house is hardly ever totally clean, I will gaze at a dirty sink for days before I get fed up and clean it, I can turn a blind eye to the stains in my carpet for months and I don't even remember the last time my boys made their beds. As for ironing.... that happens maybe twice a year... sorry mom.
My house is not perfect, my appearance is not perfect, my children are not perfect, my husband is not perfect. I'm not striving for outward perfection but an inward perfection.
Let me explain.
We are facing quite a storm in our family. One of our most important members is battling for life. It's a battle that has lasted for years. The battle ebbs and flows. Sometimes it is extremely intense, sometimes we feel a bit of relief and can take a breath. Somedays it feels so intense like one wave after another pounding our boat.
Our story is not unique. Everyone faces storms. Guaranteed. If you are alive and have been alive for more than a few years you have faced storms. Some storms are bigger than others. Not many people like these kinds of storms. They are hard, exhausting, overwhelming and sometimes debilitating.
I've come to have a different view of these kinds of storms.
James 1 in my bible says: "Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds...."
Ummm.. Joy? Really James? Joy? Didn't you mean consider it pure torture? Maybe pure frustration? Pure hell? Surely you didn't mean Joy!
Yep, Joy!! I'm getting there.
As you read further in James 1 he explains why trials = joy.... "because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
This word trial is closely related to the word temptation but with a very important difference. I found this quote as I was studying this.
"The difference between a trial or test and a temptation is found in the testers motivations and expectation; the devil tempts that the believer might fail God's standards of faith and so sin; God tests that he might determine and sharpen true character, with no focus on making the believer fail."(zondervan exhaustive NIV concordance)
James goes on to say later in chapter one "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."
You see this word perfect can also be translated "mature". These storms are good!!! They are developing one of the most profoundly effective and important skills any human can acquire, perseverance!
To stay, remain, live, dwell, abide.... to have the ability to stick around, to see something through to the end, even if the end is no where in sight. It's the stuff of headlines. No one wants to stick around anymore. Hollywood has decided to immortalize these people whose lives are a picture of anything but perseverance, both on and off the screen. Their lives show it too! They are selfish, living from one shallow relationship to another. They are longing for pleasure but never truly finding it because they are deceived into thinking pleasure is found in serving yourself. They lack maturity in every way.
Then there are these stories of people who stuck around. Heroes! The ones that stayed with their spouse who was suffering a terrible disease that left them incapacitated. The soldier that wouldn't leave their dying friend on the battle field. The mother that chose life for her child that would be born without limbs even though she knew he would face incredible odds and now her full grown son is changing the world with his message of hope.
I'm not afraid of these storms anymore. They are hard, they are life draining, they are exhausting. BUT they are also perfecting! These trials are making us perfect and the Lord is using them to make us mature, to sharpen us so that when we come out the other side we will actually have something to give the ones around us who will surely face their own storms.
That is heroic, that is the perfection I am striving for.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Teaching them to fly!
This experiment we are venturing on to rid our home of entitlement is hitting very close to my heart because as much as I see it in my kids I see it all the more in myself.
I'm greedy, covetous, immature, selfish and lazy. I want my own way when I want it and how I want it and because I am an "adult" I've learned to mask it in a socially acceptable way and declare it as "my thing".... Oh the disgusting nature of my own humanity.
We just recently had very dear lifetime friends visit us. They have just returned from living in a 3rd world country where they resided for more than 5 years working and living with the native people. When they moved there they were going with their two small boys, the youngest turned a year old on the plane ride over. They were leaving a very successful job, many, many friends, and family, a comfortable home, beautiful furnishings, a nice car and relative comfort. They were moving their family of 4 to a country that lacked almost all of those things. They were going where it was not uncommon to face disease, malaria was rampant in parts of this nation. The lack of running water and electricity was common, and physical safety from thieves and dangerous situations was not guaranteed.
They were literally laying down their lives for something they felt was worth dying for. They were truly living.
While they were there they didn't live in a posh apartment, or enjoy luxury, they lived with the native people. They ate like the natives ate and lived like they lived. Their children were not immune to the environment, they faced life threatening illnesses manifesting in their bodies. At times it was a true struggle of life and death, literally! You might expect their kids to come out of something like that and be scarred, but the life we saw coming out of this family was powerful. The children were confident in their parents love. They were very loving toward each other. The husband and wife were solid in their relationship, but even more importantly they were made strong in their trials.
Our kids face a different life. A life we as a family have been called to. Our life will look different but if I may be so bold, we are facing a giant of our own here in America and although it looks quite different from the giant they faced overseas, it is just as deadly.
As a new mom I thought it was my job to protect my child from as many of the hard knocks of life as I could. I thought that seeing my child struggle was a bad thing and I needed to smooth out the road ahead of him to make sure he didn't have to struggle the way I had struggled. Now some of that is true. A good decision often makes our lives easier than a bad decision, but like just about everything we take it too far. I don't want my child to get hurt so I make them wear elbow, knee, shin and head gear so that he won't hurt something, scrape something or break something. We jump in and settle every dispute between siblings and friends so that no one gets their feelings hurt.
Personally I think a skinned knee and some "skinned feelings" are far better teachers than any "protection" I could offer as a mom.
I want to propose that just as a butterfly must struggle out of it's cocoon in order to work up the "muscle" it needs to fly once it's out, we as parents need to have a healthy sense of pulling back and letting our kids make mistakes, get hurt, and banged up. I propose that these daily struggles in the safe environment of a healthy home is more than just good, it's essential!
One way we do this at our house is by presenting choices at every single turn. Everyone who can walk and speak in our home gets to make a million decisions everyday and if I make all those decisions for them they will be great followers, but poor leaders. "Do you want ice cream or brownies?" "Do you want to go to bed now or in 5 minutes?" "Do you want to sweep or vacuum?" "Do you want to decide or do you want me to decide for you?" We have found that it not only limits my work, but it causes my kids to begin thinking for themselves. It takes the drill sergeant roll out of my repertoire and returns me to the place of helping grow thinkers instead of robots.
I want my kids to learn how to fly and to help others fly around them.
I'm greedy, covetous, immature, selfish and lazy. I want my own way when I want it and how I want it and because I am an "adult" I've learned to mask it in a socially acceptable way and declare it as "my thing".... Oh the disgusting nature of my own humanity.
We just recently had very dear lifetime friends visit us. They have just returned from living in a 3rd world country where they resided for more than 5 years working and living with the native people. When they moved there they were going with their two small boys, the youngest turned a year old on the plane ride over. They were leaving a very successful job, many, many friends, and family, a comfortable home, beautiful furnishings, a nice car and relative comfort. They were moving their family of 4 to a country that lacked almost all of those things. They were going where it was not uncommon to face disease, malaria was rampant in parts of this nation. The lack of running water and electricity was common, and physical safety from thieves and dangerous situations was not guaranteed.
They were literally laying down their lives for something they felt was worth dying for. They were truly living.
While they were there they didn't live in a posh apartment, or enjoy luxury, they lived with the native people. They ate like the natives ate and lived like they lived. Their children were not immune to the environment, they faced life threatening illnesses manifesting in their bodies. At times it was a true struggle of life and death, literally! You might expect their kids to come out of something like that and be scarred, but the life we saw coming out of this family was powerful. The children were confident in their parents love. They were very loving toward each other. The husband and wife were solid in their relationship, but even more importantly they were made strong in their trials.
Our kids face a different life. A life we as a family have been called to. Our life will look different but if I may be so bold, we are facing a giant of our own here in America and although it looks quite different from the giant they faced overseas, it is just as deadly.
As a new mom I thought it was my job to protect my child from as many of the hard knocks of life as I could. I thought that seeing my child struggle was a bad thing and I needed to smooth out the road ahead of him to make sure he didn't have to struggle the way I had struggled. Now some of that is true. A good decision often makes our lives easier than a bad decision, but like just about everything we take it too far. I don't want my child to get hurt so I make them wear elbow, knee, shin and head gear so that he won't hurt something, scrape something or break something. We jump in and settle every dispute between siblings and friends so that no one gets their feelings hurt.
Personally I think a skinned knee and some "skinned feelings" are far better teachers than any "protection" I could offer as a mom.
I want to propose that just as a butterfly must struggle out of it's cocoon in order to work up the "muscle" it needs to fly once it's out, we as parents need to have a healthy sense of pulling back and letting our kids make mistakes, get hurt, and banged up. I propose that these daily struggles in the safe environment of a healthy home is more than just good, it's essential!
One way we do this at our house is by presenting choices at every single turn. Everyone who can walk and speak in our home gets to make a million decisions everyday and if I make all those decisions for them they will be great followers, but poor leaders. "Do you want ice cream or brownies?" "Do you want to go to bed now or in 5 minutes?" "Do you want to sweep or vacuum?" "Do you want to decide or do you want me to decide for you?" We have found that it not only limits my work, but it causes my kids to begin thinking for themselves. It takes the drill sergeant roll out of my repertoire and returns me to the place of helping grow thinkers instead of robots.
I want my kids to learn how to fly and to help others fly around them.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Epidemic
There is an experiment brewing in our house. If you are a parent of any child older than the age of 3 you have probably heard the "buzz" word that is floating around among parents, psychologists, teachers, really anyone that has regular interaction with young people.
Entitlement.
It's the new epidemic that is sweeping a whole generation, possibly more than one generation, and causing widespread concern. It's truly as lethal as your dreaded diseases. The symptoms are clear and can be deadly. Thankfully there is a cure.
Now before I lay out the problem, let me brag about my kids for a minute. My boys ages 11 and 9 are very kind, loving kids. They adore their sisters ages 3 and 8 months. The boys regularly pick them up, play with them and help feed them. They have begun to learn how to recognize what needs to be done and then do it. They have been known to go above and beyond the call of duty when asked to clean their room they have actually cleaned several rooms without promise of reward. I am immensely proud of my children, but I also understand that we are swimming upstream in this culture. and our goal isn't just to raise responsible adults, our goal is to raise world changers.
As parents of 4 amazing creatures we have seen this ugly monster in our home. Our 11 and 9 year old are affected by it more than our 3 year old. As I watch my 8 month old, helpless, adorable, totally dependent on us for everything from getting from here to there, to filling her belly with good food, it dawns on me that my other three are oddly similar to her with some minor differences. For the sake of this blog we'll focus on the older two.
The epidemic of entitlement causes these able bodied young men to quake with fear at the idea of having to help around the house in most ways. Cleaning their own room sounds like a death sentence, (I tend to agree with them on that one) having to do anything "extra" above the two or three assigned chores is unbearably brutal after a grueling day of sitting in the classroom and playing at recess. The thought of having the precious screens that they bow down and pay homage to regularly unplugged, turned off, or destroyed completely is akin to being sentenced to having ones limbs removed with a butter knife.
As loving, remarkably amazing parents we refuse to let this epidemic proceed any further in our home. Therefore we are embarking on a daring, ground breaking, possibly insane adventure. Our goal is to rid our home completely of the entitlement epidemic and hopefully come out of this adventure with all 4 kids alive, healthy, and ready to be loving, thinking, self motivated, participants in society.
I'm going to venture to lay down the groundwork for our experiment. I'll explain the symptom and then the possible solution:
Symptom #1- Laziness. The idea that only adults have to work and everyone that is called a child, tween, teen or even young adult doesn't have to do anything but be served.
Solution- WORK! Seems pretty simple. They will learn how to do laundry, including folding and putting the clothes away. They will learn how to properly wash a car, mow a lawn, sweep a garage. They will know how to vacuum the entire house and mop a kitchen. Essentially, if the experiment works, they will be self sufficient in many ways. They will go from being takers, to being givers.
Also, the term "tween" is illegal in our home. I find that the common use of this term is used not just to refer to an age but to describe a time in life that is filled with self serving laziness. Most of the time when I hear this term it is used to describe a time in life where the bearer of the said title wants more freedom but not more responsibility. Therefore, we will only be known as children who have very limited freedom and responsibility or young adults who have more freedom but also considerably more responsibility.
Symptom #2- Somehow thinking it is their "right" to get to have fun regardless of cost. Our kids want to go to a popular theme park this summer, one that every child dreams of going to, one that every parent would love to take their child to, the only problem is that we would only be able to take one of them because the other 3 would have to be sold in order to pay for the first child to go.
Solution- Increased awareness of the cost of everyday living. We are going to put our children in charge of their own garden this summer. We are going to create an environment similar to a 3rd world country. A substantial part of our income goes to food. Our kids are great eaters, I'm not complaining about that at all, the only problem is they think it is their duty, and right to eat not only when they are "hungry" but to also eat when they are bored, sad, lazy or undistracted. We are therefore going to save money and raise funds to go to our desired theme park by cutting down on the grocery bill.
The proposal: We expose our kids to the true needs of a family in a 3rd world country. We associate with their lifestyle in a limited way for a whole month. We only eat rice and beans and whatever the kids can grow in their garden for one month. We take the money we will save on groceries and we divide it in half. We use half of the money to give to the family we are associating with and then our family will use the other half to earn part of the money we need to get into the theme park. We will cut out all the "extras" all month. No special treats, no eating out, we will finish the food in our cupboard and then eat only what is grown along with rice and beans.
Problem #3- The incredible dependence on electronic devices for entertainment and the insane lack of ability to use their imaginations.
Solution: To save brain cells and create the ability to think, dream and imagine again. All screen time will disappear for the month. No DS games, no computer time, no movies, no video games of any kind and no TV! The kids will have to play with their non - electronic toys. They will be challenged to build with real tools and to practice instruments. To draw with paper and pencil and fine tune artistic skills. The words "I'm bored" will be banned from our home and if used will be punishable by more work.
I am guardedly excited about our experiment. I know the withdrawals will be intense. The whining, tears, regular complaining will increase for a time. We are prepared for that. Our goal isn't that this would just last for a month and then life as usual would return, but that we could inspire our kids with true life heroes that didn't settle for status quo and relegate their lives to look like the rest of their generation, but that they can actually look different, act different, be different and become world changers.
I think we might do just that.
Entitlement.
It's the new epidemic that is sweeping a whole generation, possibly more than one generation, and causing widespread concern. It's truly as lethal as your dreaded diseases. The symptoms are clear and can be deadly. Thankfully there is a cure.
Now before I lay out the problem, let me brag about my kids for a minute. My boys ages 11 and 9 are very kind, loving kids. They adore their sisters ages 3 and 8 months. The boys regularly pick them up, play with them and help feed them. They have begun to learn how to recognize what needs to be done and then do it. They have been known to go above and beyond the call of duty when asked to clean their room they have actually cleaned several rooms without promise of reward. I am immensely proud of my children, but I also understand that we are swimming upstream in this culture. and our goal isn't just to raise responsible adults, our goal is to raise world changers.
As parents of 4 amazing creatures we have seen this ugly monster in our home. Our 11 and 9 year old are affected by it more than our 3 year old. As I watch my 8 month old, helpless, adorable, totally dependent on us for everything from getting from here to there, to filling her belly with good food, it dawns on me that my other three are oddly similar to her with some minor differences. For the sake of this blog we'll focus on the older two.
The epidemic of entitlement causes these able bodied young men to quake with fear at the idea of having to help around the house in most ways. Cleaning their own room sounds like a death sentence, (I tend to agree with them on that one) having to do anything "extra" above the two or three assigned chores is unbearably brutal after a grueling day of sitting in the classroom and playing at recess. The thought of having the precious screens that they bow down and pay homage to regularly unplugged, turned off, or destroyed completely is akin to being sentenced to having ones limbs removed with a butter knife.
As loving, remarkably amazing parents we refuse to let this epidemic proceed any further in our home. Therefore we are embarking on a daring, ground breaking, possibly insane adventure. Our goal is to rid our home completely of the entitlement epidemic and hopefully come out of this adventure with all 4 kids alive, healthy, and ready to be loving, thinking, self motivated, participants in society.
I'm going to venture to lay down the groundwork for our experiment. I'll explain the symptom and then the possible solution:
Symptom #1- Laziness. The idea that only adults have to work and everyone that is called a child, tween, teen or even young adult doesn't have to do anything but be served.
Solution- WORK! Seems pretty simple. They will learn how to do laundry, including folding and putting the clothes away. They will learn how to properly wash a car, mow a lawn, sweep a garage. They will know how to vacuum the entire house and mop a kitchen. Essentially, if the experiment works, they will be self sufficient in many ways. They will go from being takers, to being givers.
Also, the term "tween" is illegal in our home. I find that the common use of this term is used not just to refer to an age but to describe a time in life that is filled with self serving laziness. Most of the time when I hear this term it is used to describe a time in life where the bearer of the said title wants more freedom but not more responsibility. Therefore, we will only be known as children who have very limited freedom and responsibility or young adults who have more freedom but also considerably more responsibility.
Symptom #2- Somehow thinking it is their "right" to get to have fun regardless of cost. Our kids want to go to a popular theme park this summer, one that every child dreams of going to, one that every parent would love to take their child to, the only problem is that we would only be able to take one of them because the other 3 would have to be sold in order to pay for the first child to go.
Solution- Increased awareness of the cost of everyday living. We are going to put our children in charge of their own garden this summer. We are going to create an environment similar to a 3rd world country. A substantial part of our income goes to food. Our kids are great eaters, I'm not complaining about that at all, the only problem is they think it is their duty, and right to eat not only when they are "hungry" but to also eat when they are bored, sad, lazy or undistracted. We are therefore going to save money and raise funds to go to our desired theme park by cutting down on the grocery bill.
The proposal: We expose our kids to the true needs of a family in a 3rd world country. We associate with their lifestyle in a limited way for a whole month. We only eat rice and beans and whatever the kids can grow in their garden for one month. We take the money we will save on groceries and we divide it in half. We use half of the money to give to the family we are associating with and then our family will use the other half to earn part of the money we need to get into the theme park. We will cut out all the "extras" all month. No special treats, no eating out, we will finish the food in our cupboard and then eat only what is grown along with rice and beans.
Problem #3- The incredible dependence on electronic devices for entertainment and the insane lack of ability to use their imaginations.
Solution: To save brain cells and create the ability to think, dream and imagine again. All screen time will disappear for the month. No DS games, no computer time, no movies, no video games of any kind and no TV! The kids will have to play with their non - electronic toys. They will be challenged to build with real tools and to practice instruments. To draw with paper and pencil and fine tune artistic skills. The words "I'm bored" will be banned from our home and if used will be punishable by more work.
I am guardedly excited about our experiment. I know the withdrawals will be intense. The whining, tears, regular complaining will increase for a time. We are prepared for that. Our goal isn't that this would just last for a month and then life as usual would return, but that we could inspire our kids with true life heroes that didn't settle for status quo and relegate their lives to look like the rest of their generation, but that they can actually look different, act different, be different and become world changers.
I think we might do just that.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Translation please?
We have a TV in our house.
We have this awesome TV. It's big, not really really big, but big. It's got a great picture, good color, and it's perfect for us. Our TV is old. It's really old in TV years which is equivalent to dog years I'm pretty sure. Since I'm not sure what our TV's exact birthdate is I couldn't tell you how old it is exactly, but for sake of not exposing our TV to utter embarrassment we'll just leave it's age a bit ambiguous.
Even though our TV is old it's basically awesome. My husband is especially fond of our TV, not because he likes watching TV, on the contrary, he actually watches almost no TV, but he is especially fond of this TV because, like all good bargain hunters, he got it for a steal. A couple summer's ago at the height of garage sale season here in Bend (which, for those of you who don't know, is the other summer past time in our fair city) our previous TV bit the dust. It went out quite dramatically one day. I'll spare you the details but it was ugly. Daniel, however, saw this as a Divine excuse, I mean opportunity, to go garage sale-ing. Off we go in our Volvo station wagon to hunt for the perfect TV. Our standards for TV's aren't what most people have as standards. It doesn't have to be big, or pretty. It doesn't have to mount on the wall or even have the right color picture. If it doesn't smoke when you turn it on, then it's the one for us. Most of all however, it must, must, must be cheap. That is the number one quality he was looking for in a TV.
After a little looking around, maybe 2 or 3 sales, we happened on one. There it sat. The biggest, ugliest TV I'd ever seen. It was a monster and heavy!!! When Daniel asked the magic words "how much do you want for the TV", he almost fell over when they said "Oh how about $7!". Like any good bargain hunter he never let his eyes betray his excitement, he just nodded and got in the car and we drove on. I'm wondering what in the world we are doing. He wanted to see if there was any better offer anywhere else. We drove to a couple other places, never found anything better, go figure. As we headed back to the place of destiny, he was praying the TV was still there, I was praying another bargain hunter had snatched it away. As we pulled up, he was delighted to see it sitting there.
It was quite a sight seeing the two of us wrestle that gigantic TV into our car, but like all good bargain hunters, you do whatever you can to make it fit. Fit it did, barely, and after shelling out an enormous amount of $7 we were the proud owners of a new TV. To his joy and my dismay, we got it home and it actually worked, an added bonus.
Now that our TV has been a part of our family for a while we are beginning to notice some of it's idiosyncrasies. My daughter has a musical playlist that we run through our Wii and she loves listening to all the princess songs from the Disney movies. Some of these movies have an automatic link to put up the words on the bottom of the screen so you can read the words as well as hear them. This is where the joy of our TV comes in. Our TV is so old that this feature was probably fairly new when they made our particular model, so new that they hadn't worked out all the bugs and translating correctly wasn't a necessity, making for some hilarious bloopers.
As Gracie enjoyed Beauty and the Beasts song "Be our guest" the rest of us that can read were laughing at the translation. If you've enjoyed this movie you will know that the french candlestick sings this song. He's got a thick accent and if you aren't listening carefully you won't understand him. Well, our TV seemed to think it understood him perfectly and boldly declared the lyrics to us without even questioning their validity.
For instance - the song declares - "Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test"
TV translation - "Beef is laugh, dust is best, calling you to test."
As we laughed at the absurdity of many of the lyrics I realized a not so hilarious similarity between me and the TV.
You see, the TV was boldly proclaiming what it thought the song was saying. Many times I refuse to stop and really hear others. I choose to put on my translators and "hear" what I want to hear others saying. If they are saying something I don't necessarily want to hear I just switch on my translators and voila, instant relief as I enjoy what I want to hear instead of what is really being said.
I see this in my kids. This is one of the reasons it's so fun to hear a 2 year old sing a favorite song with their version of the lyrics. They are often silly and non-sensical, cute, worthy of recording, sending in to America's Funniest Videos, maybe even worth $10,000!! However, not so cute when you are 37, grown and fully capable of listening and understanding.
How often do we hear only what we want to hear and not what someone else is saying. I'm desperately desiring to be a better listener.
Adjusting my hearing today.
We have this awesome TV. It's big, not really really big, but big. It's got a great picture, good color, and it's perfect for us. Our TV is old. It's really old in TV years which is equivalent to dog years I'm pretty sure. Since I'm not sure what our TV's exact birthdate is I couldn't tell you how old it is exactly, but for sake of not exposing our TV to utter embarrassment we'll just leave it's age a bit ambiguous.
Even though our TV is old it's basically awesome. My husband is especially fond of our TV, not because he likes watching TV, on the contrary, he actually watches almost no TV, but he is especially fond of this TV because, like all good bargain hunters, he got it for a steal. A couple summer's ago at the height of garage sale season here in Bend (which, for those of you who don't know, is the other summer past time in our fair city) our previous TV bit the dust. It went out quite dramatically one day. I'll spare you the details but it was ugly. Daniel, however, saw this as a Divine excuse, I mean opportunity, to go garage sale-ing. Off we go in our Volvo station wagon to hunt for the perfect TV. Our standards for TV's aren't what most people have as standards. It doesn't have to be big, or pretty. It doesn't have to mount on the wall or even have the right color picture. If it doesn't smoke when you turn it on, then it's the one for us. Most of all however, it must, must, must be cheap. That is the number one quality he was looking for in a TV.
After a little looking around, maybe 2 or 3 sales, we happened on one. There it sat. The biggest, ugliest TV I'd ever seen. It was a monster and heavy!!! When Daniel asked the magic words "how much do you want for the TV", he almost fell over when they said "Oh how about $7!". Like any good bargain hunter he never let his eyes betray his excitement, he just nodded and got in the car and we drove on. I'm wondering what in the world we are doing. He wanted to see if there was any better offer anywhere else. We drove to a couple other places, never found anything better, go figure. As we headed back to the place of destiny, he was praying the TV was still there, I was praying another bargain hunter had snatched it away. As we pulled up, he was delighted to see it sitting there.
It was quite a sight seeing the two of us wrestle that gigantic TV into our car, but like all good bargain hunters, you do whatever you can to make it fit. Fit it did, barely, and after shelling out an enormous amount of $7 we were the proud owners of a new TV. To his joy and my dismay, we got it home and it actually worked, an added bonus.
Now that our TV has been a part of our family for a while we are beginning to notice some of it's idiosyncrasies. My daughter has a musical playlist that we run through our Wii and she loves listening to all the princess songs from the Disney movies. Some of these movies have an automatic link to put up the words on the bottom of the screen so you can read the words as well as hear them. This is where the joy of our TV comes in. Our TV is so old that this feature was probably fairly new when they made our particular model, so new that they hadn't worked out all the bugs and translating correctly wasn't a necessity, making for some hilarious bloopers.
As Gracie enjoyed Beauty and the Beasts song "Be our guest" the rest of us that can read were laughing at the translation. If you've enjoyed this movie you will know that the french candlestick sings this song. He's got a thick accent and if you aren't listening carefully you won't understand him. Well, our TV seemed to think it understood him perfectly and boldly declared the lyrics to us without even questioning their validity.
For instance - the song declares - "Be our guest, be our guest, put our service to the test"
TV translation - "Beef is laugh, dust is best, calling you to test."
As we laughed at the absurdity of many of the lyrics I realized a not so hilarious similarity between me and the TV.
You see, the TV was boldly proclaiming what it thought the song was saying. Many times I refuse to stop and really hear others. I choose to put on my translators and "hear" what I want to hear others saying. If they are saying something I don't necessarily want to hear I just switch on my translators and voila, instant relief as I enjoy what I want to hear instead of what is really being said.
I see this in my kids. This is one of the reasons it's so fun to hear a 2 year old sing a favorite song with their version of the lyrics. They are often silly and non-sensical, cute, worthy of recording, sending in to America's Funniest Videos, maybe even worth $10,000!! However, not so cute when you are 37, grown and fully capable of listening and understanding.
How often do we hear only what we want to hear and not what someone else is saying. I'm desperately desiring to be a better listener.
Adjusting my hearing today.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Cast
We have broken bones in our house.
I'm just going to be really really vulnerable here. This morning I have a cast on. It's not a cast you can see, it's an internal cast on my heart. Here is the analogy.
My son broke his leg a couple years ago. At first we weren't sure it was broken because he seemed to be ok after the initial pain was gone, but after a few hours we realized he was favoring it a bit much and we needed to take him in. He had never broken a bone, so he couldn't communicate that he thought it was broken and being only 7 he wanted to continue playing. Finally we got him into the ER and after x-rays we discovered it was indeed broken. Now there are two things that happen when you get hurt physically. 1- It feels like that one part is 5 times larger than life and pretty much all you can think about. You eat, sleep, play and rest differently than you otherwise would. 2- It seems to be the part that gets bumped more often than it otherwise would. Whether that is true because it is extra sensitive or because it is being used awkwardly doesn't really matter, all that matters is that it hurts, like the dickens and even more so because it is injured.
Now with a broken leg like Micah's you can do two things, you can tell everyone around you about it, making sure they take extra precautions around you, you can hang signs around your neck declaring your injury and eliciting attention, sympathy and usually drawing out in other people the stories of their injuries and painful experiences which leads to a retelling of the incident and proper responses on both sides. After such an interaction the two parties depart leaving each other temporarily relieved that they got to find common ground in their pain, and got to tell their story, but nothing has changed, no healing has happened, in fact it usually leaves the two parties even more sensitive to the existing pain and although the relief can feel temporary it often leaves them more hurt than before because the problem wasn't dealt with, only remembered. Misery loves company.
The second thing you can do is go to the physician. Get an xray, allow the Dr. to see past what we can see with our physical eyes and see what is really going on so that a proper diagnosis can be made. Once the problem has been properly diagnosed then a regimen can be prescribed and true healing can begin. In Micah's case a cast was put on, allowing the offending part to be protected from his environment and his 7 year old lifestyle. He returned to a somewhat normal life with relatively normal activity. Although his cast drew attention it was healing properly and after a while didn't hurt. I have heard that after a bone is broken and healed properly that specific part is actually stronger than before.
The same is true for our hearts and emotions. After years of life and experience (almost 40) I realize everyone has places of wounding, pain, raw insecurity. I even want to be so bold as to say most of us have become experts at ignoring those offending places. We protect, ignore, try to control our environments so that we can keep those hurt places "safe", but life happens and unfortunately we have to live with other people that can't read our minds, remember our places of pain or watch out to keep us pain free.... It's like being in a room with a whole bunch of wounded people and trying to move around without bumping someone's broken leg, arm, head or toe... it's impossible.
Many of us try hanging a sign around our necks declaring our place of pain. This feels so good because we think "if people only knew what I've been through they would treat me differently" or "no one understands my profound pain, it's worse than anyone else's pain and the life they have lived is nothing compared to mine". We reason that we have a "right" to be treated with extra care. When we try to get the proper care from others we find they are also injured and literally incapable of properly caring for our needs. There is wide gambit of dysfunctions that come with this kind of thinking, way to many to get into in depth here, we've all seen the effects.
However, there is a better way. Every once in a while we meet someone that has seen the Physician about their pain. They have gotten a proper diagnosis, have had the root of the pain revealed and a regimen of healing prescribed. They have allowed themselves to be set in a cast and protected like only a Dr. can. Although the cast itself will illicit some attention for a time after a while the healing takes place and when the cast is removed the internal healing has happened and the injury is removed. It has healed properly and can become a place of greater strength than ever before.
I need to go to the Dr. often. I'm getting good at it. If you see me don't ask how I'm healing. My cast is doing it's job and I'm under expert care.
I'm just going to be really really vulnerable here. This morning I have a cast on. It's not a cast you can see, it's an internal cast on my heart. Here is the analogy.
My son broke his leg a couple years ago. At first we weren't sure it was broken because he seemed to be ok after the initial pain was gone, but after a few hours we realized he was favoring it a bit much and we needed to take him in. He had never broken a bone, so he couldn't communicate that he thought it was broken and being only 7 he wanted to continue playing. Finally we got him into the ER and after x-rays we discovered it was indeed broken. Now there are two things that happen when you get hurt physically. 1- It feels like that one part is 5 times larger than life and pretty much all you can think about. You eat, sleep, play and rest differently than you otherwise would. 2- It seems to be the part that gets bumped more often than it otherwise would. Whether that is true because it is extra sensitive or because it is being used awkwardly doesn't really matter, all that matters is that it hurts, like the dickens and even more so because it is injured.
Now with a broken leg like Micah's you can do two things, you can tell everyone around you about it, making sure they take extra precautions around you, you can hang signs around your neck declaring your injury and eliciting attention, sympathy and usually drawing out in other people the stories of their injuries and painful experiences which leads to a retelling of the incident and proper responses on both sides. After such an interaction the two parties depart leaving each other temporarily relieved that they got to find common ground in their pain, and got to tell their story, but nothing has changed, no healing has happened, in fact it usually leaves the two parties even more sensitive to the existing pain and although the relief can feel temporary it often leaves them more hurt than before because the problem wasn't dealt with, only remembered. Misery loves company.
The second thing you can do is go to the physician. Get an xray, allow the Dr. to see past what we can see with our physical eyes and see what is really going on so that a proper diagnosis can be made. Once the problem has been properly diagnosed then a regimen can be prescribed and true healing can begin. In Micah's case a cast was put on, allowing the offending part to be protected from his environment and his 7 year old lifestyle. He returned to a somewhat normal life with relatively normal activity. Although his cast drew attention it was healing properly and after a while didn't hurt. I have heard that after a bone is broken and healed properly that specific part is actually stronger than before.
The same is true for our hearts and emotions. After years of life and experience (almost 40) I realize everyone has places of wounding, pain, raw insecurity. I even want to be so bold as to say most of us have become experts at ignoring those offending places. We protect, ignore, try to control our environments so that we can keep those hurt places "safe", but life happens and unfortunately we have to live with other people that can't read our minds, remember our places of pain or watch out to keep us pain free.... It's like being in a room with a whole bunch of wounded people and trying to move around without bumping someone's broken leg, arm, head or toe... it's impossible.
Many of us try hanging a sign around our necks declaring our place of pain. This feels so good because we think "if people only knew what I've been through they would treat me differently" or "no one understands my profound pain, it's worse than anyone else's pain and the life they have lived is nothing compared to mine". We reason that we have a "right" to be treated with extra care. When we try to get the proper care from others we find they are also injured and literally incapable of properly caring for our needs. There is wide gambit of dysfunctions that come with this kind of thinking, way to many to get into in depth here, we've all seen the effects.
However, there is a better way. Every once in a while we meet someone that has seen the Physician about their pain. They have gotten a proper diagnosis, have had the root of the pain revealed and a regimen of healing prescribed. They have allowed themselves to be set in a cast and protected like only a Dr. can. Although the cast itself will illicit some attention for a time after a while the healing takes place and when the cast is removed the internal healing has happened and the injury is removed. It has healed properly and can become a place of greater strength than ever before.
I need to go to the Dr. often. I'm getting good at it. If you see me don't ask how I'm healing. My cast is doing it's job and I'm under expert care.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Beginnings
I remember when I first heard about blogs. I couldn't understand why people would want to journal for everyone to see and then post it so that they were never sure who was reading, who was making judgements, who was totally relating and who was tuning out.... Then I had a crisis. A health crisis. My normally healthy body, never a broken bone, cavity, braces or eye problems and all the sudden I was faced with a life threatening health issue. I was scared to death, two small boys just 6 and 4 years old, a loving husband who was also my best friend, an incredible family and group of friends that were my support and life line. I soon discovered how cathartic blogging could be. All of a sudden I didn't care who was reading, or not reading, who was relating or tuning out, and I really didn't care who was making judgments because this was my journey, my story and it was therapeutic just to tell it.
This blog isn't about that. If you want to read that you can do that here www.hbstory.blogspot.com. That is part of my history, it's part of my story, but it isn't all of it. My story continues from there and expands to today.
A friend of ours was sharing with us a few months ago and asked "what is in your house." He was referring to the current economic situation and encouraging us to think outside of a normal 9-5 job, to think about what is in our house, our life, that could possibly sustain us in way we hadn't thought of.
I took a deeper meaning to it. Not just what talents do we have that might bring in extra income, but what life lessons have we learned or experiences have we gained that would bring some kind of freedom to someone else. I think there is so much value in age. With age comes wisdom that is usually gained by trial. If you haven't lived through a trial, just wait, it will come, and when it does what are you going to do with it? Are you going to hunker down and hope you just "get through it". Are you going to stand up and embrace it and allow it to change you? I can't say I've "sailed" through my trials but I do know how to weather them better than I used to and now I don't see them as trials anymore, instead they are just another chance to become more of who I'm really supposed to be.
So I'm going to be sharing what is in my house......
I'd encourage you to think, what is in your house?
This blog isn't about that. If you want to read that you can do that here www.hbstory.blogspot.com. That is part of my history, it's part of my story, but it isn't all of it. My story continues from there and expands to today.
A friend of ours was sharing with us a few months ago and asked "what is in your house." He was referring to the current economic situation and encouraging us to think outside of a normal 9-5 job, to think about what is in our house, our life, that could possibly sustain us in way we hadn't thought of.
I took a deeper meaning to it. Not just what talents do we have that might bring in extra income, but what life lessons have we learned or experiences have we gained that would bring some kind of freedom to someone else. I think there is so much value in age. With age comes wisdom that is usually gained by trial. If you haven't lived through a trial, just wait, it will come, and when it does what are you going to do with it? Are you going to hunker down and hope you just "get through it". Are you going to stand up and embrace it and allow it to change you? I can't say I've "sailed" through my trials but I do know how to weather them better than I used to and now I don't see them as trials anymore, instead they are just another chance to become more of who I'm really supposed to be.
So I'm going to be sharing what is in my house......
I'd encourage you to think, what is in your house?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)