Walking right

I gave up watching Law & Order about two years ago. A few weeks ago, however, Johnny was gone, and I turned on L&O: Criminal Intent. I like the characters, and I thought it would be a good way to pass the time. The opening portrayal of evil was a little shocking to my spirit, and it occurred to me that this might not be the healthiest thing to set before my eyes. Then my oldest daughter came in and plopped on the couch. I thought, "Well, we're through the worst part. The rest is just a puzzle. It will be okay if I watch it with her." Then my youngest needed me, and the television just had to be turned off. This scenario demonstrates that when faced with evil, the Lord will make a way of escape. Every time, however, we must choose to walk through the door He's opening up for us...or continue in the evil.

It doesn't seem that Facebook or Seinfeld or Super Mario Galaxy can really be called evil, but it very much depends on my state of mind. My entire being is made to respond to God. I am alive to Him, and He is everything to me. He is the Vine; I am the branch. He is the Good Shepherd; I am the sheep. So when He calls to me, and I don't come, isn't the not coming quite evil? If I hear His voice, and I do respond, and then choose later to spend some time on Facebook or the Wii, it is not sin. Living the Christian life is really quite simple: respond to God.

Just because something is easy to grasp does not always mean it is easy to do. If you are reading this, I pray that you will be strengthened in your inner being, that "from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit" (Ephesians 3:16) and that your heart "will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those He called" (Ephesians 1:18). May you walk closely with Him today.

My universe

Parenting is like creating your own universe. You decide the rules: bedtime, when to get up, when and what your kids eat, what is okay and what is a no-no. Your children see you as omnipotent and omniscient. You are the world to them. This seems a little daunting sometimes, but I kinda got used to being in control of the world. I made a pretty good world.

Then my kids got older. Last week I confiscated all the cell phones in the car just because they were annoying me. I needed five minutes without texting. When my fifteen year old handed hers over, I realized that she was obeying me not because she thought it was a good idea, but because it was my universe. I saw myself as a very fickle god.

Our family vacation was great, but I still struggle with seeing the glass half empty sometimes. Noticing the problems is natural to me. I saw a lot of things in me that were petty or small or less than I would like. In my own family, the world of my own making, these things were amplified. My flaws are picked up in my children's behavior; they are reflected in the rules that I make that govern my family. Now that my kids are older, my flaws are very often pointed out to me. Eek.

Not to switch the subject, but have you noticed God's universe? He created a world with boundaries (the sun rising & setting, the food we have to eat, the seasons). He created a world with rules. He disciplines and acts in a way that magnifies who He is. But God managed to create a universe where He looks good (hmmm...maybe because He IS good?). When given the opportunity, I didn't pull things off quite so well.

Warping our kids

I often joke with my friends about all of our kids needing therapy, as if there is nothing we can do, they will somehow be messed up by our behavior. This joke started out intending to communicate mercy: we all mess up, everything is okay. But one day it hit me that I was completely wrong. In fact, I wrote it on a Schlotzsky's napkin: we are not warping our kids. (I also wrote on the same napkin, "Coreopsis is a cool word." I'm random like that.)

My parents did not warp me. I was born warped, into a warped world. Something inside me is just a little twisted, just a little off, and things don't go like they should. It's true of every single one of us, and when we get in a group (ie, Planet Earth), that warpness can get amplified. Had my parents been completely perfect in all of their words and actions and thoughts toward me, I still would have issues. The fact that my parents are not perfect is like saying, "The sky is blue."

And so it goes for my kids. One of my very dear friends has a daughter who is like me. Her home life is different than the one I grew up in, and yet some of the characteristics I would attribute to my childhood look the same in her, without her having my experiences. So I would have turned out that way, regardless? Who knew.

I don't give my kids permission to blame me in their therapy sessions. I think it's great if they want to talk with someone about how something I have done has hurt them or confused them or made them angry. It's fine if they think I have sometimes been unfair. I'm really sorry, and I hope they can forgive me. Instead of convincing my kids that I am doing the right thing, I think while they are living with me, I will try to communicate that I love them. I really, really love them.

I know people who came from the same home and see their upbringing in completely different ways. I know people who show their parents grace, and people who almost make up things about how bad their parents were. Part of how my kids see me will be their choice. It would seem that neither they nor I can truly judge my parenting correctly. It would seem that I should leave it to God to judge me (after all, He has plans to judge me, right?).

I hope that my kids will realize that I love them. I hope they choose to see the best in my heart. May God surround them with all kinds of people who will show His love to them, and may they learn mercy and kindness and how to deal with the warped-ness inside us all.

ta da

The Matrix and hope

I watched The Matrix with my oldest daughter last week. Sometimes the language made me flinch; the violence often did. And I also winced inwardly because she was apparently unbothered by it all. I watched the scene of Neo and Trinity storming the building to rescue Morpheus and thought of Columbine. But despite all of my reservations, I like The Matrix for its blatant philosophical musings. I love the picture it gives of a false reality and a hidden truth. I love being able to pause the tape and explain how the statement Morpheus just made has qualities of Eastern mysticism and explain what Christianity teaches. (She has learned not to roll her eyes at me too much. Such a good girl.)

When Morpheus is captured, Smith tortures him for the codes to Zion, and in the process the agent explains the origin of the Matrix. At first, the machines created a program that made everyone perfectly happy. Human minds wouldn't buy it and "entire crops were lost." Smith concludes that humans require misery...and although I didn't pause the dvd, my brain paused on this thought. I have often heard people argue that sin is necessary to the human condition, and something about that argument bothers me.

I thought through Smith's "perfect matrix." What the machines actually created was a world where people had everything that they thought they wanted. How deceptive our hearts are. I thought about how much I love expensive coffee drinks, but how horrific it would be to be given one at every turn. You can see the phenomenon of someone getting everything their heart desires in our pop culture stars: the athletes, musicians, and actors who "have it all" and seem so miserable.

We were created by Someone to need Him, to desire His purposes and His ways. Even if we don't recognize that hunger, it is real, and we think that we can fill it with things that this world offers. But the world doesn't satisfy, and when we have everything the world offers, if we are unaware of our true spiritual need, we think there is nothing else to attain. Having it "all" and still being unhappy leaves us without hope, and without hope we die.

Few of us reach the point where we have everything. Sadly, we are often content with hoping for the things of the world to satisfy us: a better job, more pay, more vacation, a new something, more expensive coffee drinks. We die without hope, but beware being tricked into mediocre living by being offered hope in something false.

To be on the list

"Afterward, Jesus went up on a mountain and called out the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him." - Mark 3:13

Have you ever wondered who the twelve apostles actually were? We have the list of names and we speak of them as the Twelve. As a group they show up with Jesus all the time. However, in the history of the church, recorded in the New Testament, these men seem irrelevant. Sure, Peter is important, but what about the other big NT leaders? Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Stephen, James, Timothy, Priscilla & Aquilla, Apollos...if Jesus chose twelve men to be with him, what did they DO? Surely, these were the men he would build the church upon. For the most part, however, the Bible is silent about them.

I think God might be making a point in this silence. Jesus called these men to be with him. To be with him. In fact, Jesus calls you and I to be with him. What we do is perhaps irrelevant. The closest men to Jesus, his best friends, have a few quotes, a few failures...and otherwise they are just names in a list. Jesus is stirring my heart to be part of a list like that: people that be with Jesus.

Chaos and provision

This summer has been chaotic: adjusting to the kids being older and having more of their own ideas, trying new activities, Abby working more regularly, Johnny's family moving to town, my mom recovering from her chemo. Everything seems to be shifting. I used to be able to lay down and go to sleep. It was a matter of training, will power, and (as I have discovered) routine. Now that my routine is shot, my discipline is failing me. I have had several nights lately where I am awake in the wee hours, when nothing makes sense and demons come out of odd corners to mess with my mind. No wonder darkness descended during the final hours when Jesus hung on the cross. Darkness is the playground of the devil.

One of the things I find I am lacking is social time with peers. I need time with other moms to center myself: yes, it is okay to say no. Ah, someone likes being with me. Look, she laughed at something I said, instead of something I'm wearing. Today, I discovered something else about God. He truly is a provider of all things. This summer, my family has witnessed a lot of monetary provision. There have been times He has provided rest for me, or answers to issues with my kids. Today, He provided conversation. I was working at a friend's desk, making phone calls at church, and a woman wandered in, one of the secretaries in the office that I know. She asked me how I was and since I didn't sleep last night, I unloaded a bit. She made a point to sit down on the couch and listen to me, for fifteen minutes. It was just the fifteen minutes I needed.

I used to arrange time in my schedule to get together with friends (another loss in the summer chaos). What a lovely surprise to find that God knows about this need, and is able to meet it. It is rather lovely to receive from His hand, instead of my own efforts.