Six Years

To my Zachary on the occasion of his 6th birthday.

Six years ago, he was born - our second child, a son, Zachary John, which means “remembered by a gracious God”. We were in awe of this precious boy - crying softly, hand tightly clenching Jerry’s finger. He cooed and sighed in his sleep foreshadowing the loud, joyous, boyish sounds we now hear every day.

He preferred one of us snuggling him to sleep instead of a lovey, thumb, or pacifier. A whole year of nights he only wanted Jerry. He smiled at everyone, everywhere, always looking for a smile back. Every picture in his baby book is a grin. To my astonishment, he laughed at 10 days old, on Valentine’s Day. A precious love gift for this exhausted mama. I’m still in love with him today.

His first steps were terrifying to him, but that dimpled smirk and sigh of relief boosted his confidence. Now, he never stops running.

When I’m angry and tired, he gently comes to me and says, “I love you, mama.” My heart melts. He likes to listen to us read to him, but yesterday he read his first sentence.

This mama aches for that little baby boy, but loves this delightful, six year old boy in front of me. Time marches forward, ignoring my pain, but gifting me with the joy and discovery of my Zachary.

Subtle Deception

I finally started reading my first C.S. Lewis book – The Screwtape Letters. I’ve often wanted to read his classic works about Christianity and haven’t had the chance. I’m only a few chapters into this tale of a senior demon mentoring a junior demon and am struck with the simple deceptions used against humans.

This (just a few short pages into the book) made a huge impression on me: “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.” Wow, yes, it is the things we forget that often are our downfall. It is God’s truths kept from our minds or replaced with deliberate lies that take us down the wrong path.

How many lies have we believed in this life?

1. I’m ugly, stupid, no one could love me.
2. I’m afraid of _____.
3. This will never work.
4. I could never do ______.
5. I will just get sick like everyone else.

Several years back, I started keeping a notebook with two columns in it. The first column listed the lies and the second column listed God’s truths and what he desires for my life. The second column to the above lies looks something like this:

1. I am a beautiful, intelligent child of God loved by God and by my husband and family.
2. There is no fear in love for perfect love casts out fear. (rough paraphrase of 1 John 4:18)
3. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
4. I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me. (rough paraphrase of Philippians 4:13)
5. I am healthy and strong and my body works the way God intends.

Reading The Screwtape Letters reminds me that when the enemy is keeping the good, right, honest, and true thoughts from our heads, we must bring God’s truths back into the equation.

What truths do you believe are kept from your mind?

Not Safe

Three years ago, I witnessed a horrible tragedy that caused the death of a friend.  The incident replayed over and over in my head in those dark days afterwards and I pleaded to God saying, “If this is how life is – ending in a twisted moment where one human attacks another and it is over in an instant, I don’t want to live safe anymore.  I don’t want to make decisions that are predictable or expected.  I want to live a different life – a life where I’m stepping out into what you want, God.  Into what I cannot see or understand – a dangerous, jumping off a cliff kind of life for you.”  I was terrified of what I had just seen, but this prayer was definitely the most dangerous prayer I had ever prayed. 

It was a prayer of despair and I didn’t fully realize it then, but it changed my mind – how I thought about everything; transformed how I wanted to live.  I remember later that day at home feeling frozen, unsure of how to move forward, what direction to take. 

I remember praying again, “God, I am terrified to pray this, but please take this life and this fear and I will do whatever you ask.  I don’t know how and why and when, but I will do it.”  I didn’t know if I could follow through, but I knew that God was with me.

Months later, I left my job under circumstances I never could have predicted without financial plans to make that reality work.  For the first time, I was living that “unsafe” life.  I wrote here about free falling.

As I look back three years later, I see that God has allowed me to “jump off my cliff”.  I have a new, calm rhythm to my life.  While from the outside, it looks ordinary, quiet, and predictable.  Back then, today’s reality was unthinkable, scary, undoable. 

 

I’m grateful for that “unsafe” prayer that I prayed.  I believe it opened a door for God to work in my life in ways I never imagined possible.  I am humbled and honored that God brought me to this place. 

   

What “dangerous” prayer have you prayed and how did God change your life because of it?

Facebook Fast – Thirty-One Days

I wake up blurry eyed and foggy and fumble to turn the alarm off my phone.  Before I even sit up, let the silence sink in, or turn on a light, I login to Facebook.  What am I missing that happened in the five hours since I last logged in?

One of the kids asks me a question, but I don’t hear them as I scroll through the newsfeed – blue and white glow discoloring my face.  She asks me three times more, “Mom, mom! Can you hear me?  You need a time limit for your phone, just like you give us.”  I hear her this time and put it down.

It’s October 1 and I’m reading the latest rant over the government shutdown and Obamacare as my federal government employed sister sits at home wondering her fate.  Suddenly, a wave of anger envelopes me.  Livid that I’m wasting time reading garbage from arm chair “politicians” insisting on an opinion they know nothing about. 

I leave a couple of posts on groups and my wall that I’m logging off – for the whole month of October.  I sign off cooling my heels over ice water. 

Oh, I’ve logged out before for a whole month – did it just last June, but it didn’t lose its hold on me.  I logged in ravenous consuming Crackbook oblivious to the dissatisfaction and frustration that continued.  I trudged on for more than a year, unchanged and unrelenting.  I meant to write about it back then – to share with the world the revelations uncovered from a month “disconnected”.  The truth was the epiphany never came.

This time was different.  The first couple of days, I pondered my struggles with the blue and white frames.  I remember signing on for the first time over four and half years ago under the guise from family and friends to stay “connected”.  It was fun finding old college friends and grade school pals that I had not spoken to in over 30 years.

Months go by and our third child is born.  While I wish I could remember vividly the times I snuggled close and gazed into her perfect sweet face, I barely can.  The memories I recall are thumbnail pictures scrolling by, blue letters, red notifications delighting me.  I’m ashamed at these cheap excuses for memories.

When I stopped working to be home with our kids, I craved any type of adult interaction.  My phone stayed logged in, I stood at my laptop in the kitchen until my legs ached, relentlessly scrolling, devouring “social interactions”.  In reality I was feeding my addiction, barking at the kids when they interrupted me, recoiling at my shallow existence.  I was terrified to admit it – I envisioned the audience at a 12-step meeting.  I stand trembling before them.  “Hello, my name is Jennifer and I’m a Facebook addict.”

The vision fades and I step away for short bursts…a week here, a week there, holidays, birthdays, many Sundays.  But I always wake up the next day and I log back in – as if I had never left - returning to where I left off. 

After the first few days of this fast, I get an email from my “dealer” – I am missing notifications.  Sorry Crackbook, I can’t do that.  I delete the message.  Again, an email – two days later.  I ignore it.  After day five, I get an email every.single.day.  On day eight, I unsubscribe.

By day 15, I don’t think about Facebook anymore.  I have a big announcement I want to share, so I login quickly to post it.  I do not look at notifications.  I do not look at the newsfeed.  I realize in despair that I don’t ever want to login again and that soon I will have to decide how to manage this.

The world seems brighter and calm and there are no distractions to keep me from reading a book or playing a game with my children…some of them old enough that they have stopped asking me to do those things.  Is it because I hardly reciprocated?  Because I wasn’t listening?  I shudder at the thought.

My eight year old asks me to sit with her and talk.  I’m floored and honored and my phone is not on my person and I do not hear it and I am fully here with her in this place.  I hug her and count her freckles while I tell her that I will always listen and for once I really am and please tell me God that I have not missed too much!

October 31 rolls around and I wait.  I do not login until nearly 11pm on November 1.  Most of the notifications are not worth reading and I can’t get past the second item in the newsfeed.  I start hiding things like mad in a desperate attempt to focus on those people that drew me to this “connecting” tool in the first place.  I don’t login again for a couple of days and I don’t think about it and I’m not drawn in and is this what normal life is like?

I close up my laptop having spent just a few minutes – but a few minutes more than I wanted.  I walk out into the living room where my sweet four year old is singing and dancing and I take her hand and join in. 

When God Changes Our Plans

The last few weeks have been taxing.  Kids have been sick, the weather has been stinky and I’ve had my fair share of waiting on things unmanageable and unrestrained. 

I’m a planner and when plans go askew due to forces out of my control, I become undone.  In the past, this moved me to anger, discomfort and utter frustration.  While today, I still deal with those same feelings, I’ve learned that having three kids and staying home lends itself to a certain percentage of uncertainty.

Circumstances have caused us to stay at home quite a bit over the last week.  I don’t mind being home in general – it’s my job really – the physical aspect of being home is not a serious issue to me.  What I’ve struggled with is getting through the illnesses and changes and asking myself, “Why do we need to get through this?  Why us?  Why another derailment – especially so close to the last one?”  

A wise friend asked me recently, “Why does God want you home, Jen?”  I couldn’t answer the question.  But doesn’t God know best?  If these interruptions are what have forced us to stay home and embrace the serenity (if you want to call it that) of this gift of home and the resources we have, then maybe that is fine.  

We had one of the best weekends I can recall in a long time – all because we had to stay home and enjoy each other’s company.  The kids spent both days outside nearly all day.  I sat on the deck and drank iced coffee and read.  Jerry and I conversed.  We ate every dinner outside.  Without trying, we made the best of the change in our plans and somehow we are better for it.  

While I don’t always like it, I’ve come to realize that when God changes our plans it is always for our good.  From the simple, but mind blowing leaving the house too late and realizing that you would have been in that serious car accident, to the weighty life-changing pregnancy that you weren’t sure about.  And now you look at your sweet daughter and realize that life wouldn’t be this rich, crazy, bundle of goodness without her.  

We go kicking and screaming when our plans change, but if we can find the gratitude and lose the attitude, God always shows us that his ways are so much better.