No Show

I celebrated Christmas with my side of the family this weekend and my brother and his family no showed.  No call, no explanation, no apology. 

Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time.  You'd think I wouldn't have been upset because I half expected it.  But it hurt so much it was a physical pain. 

Perhaps you join me in thinking my brother is any number of not nice things.  I cannot justify or excuse his behavior.  But as I cried out to God for comfort, He reminded me that although I have never no showed for my family Christmas, I have no showed Him just the same.

There were the years that I no showed God at church.  He was there and I wasn't.  There were the decades that I never read His letters to me (the Bible). Then there are the countless times that I've promised to have special time with Him, but I don't show up.  How much my failure to show up must hurt Him.  How gracious is our God that He welcomes me back with open arms no matter how many times I no show.

I Hate Painting

Today I did one of my least favorite things; I painted with my children.  We made pottery as part of our study of the Indians of the Southwest.  I have been putting off painting these pottery pieces, but since the Lord gave us a beautiful summer-like day, I figured we could do it outside.  So I brought out the acrylic (no, not the washable) paints, brushes, water, and pottery pieces and we got to work. 

I thought maybe this time the process wouldn't make me crazy, but I was wrong.  Painting, no matter how you do it, is messy.  I had made a little piece of pottery myself and of course that was the piece the three-year-old insisted on painting.  Before long, no matter what I said or did, he had a pool of black paint in the bottom of his bowl.  And he had it on himself and the table and the deck.  And when I told him to be sure not to wipe his shirt that was the first thing he did.

In the midst of my extreme discomfort, though, I was reminded how thankful I am that we have a God Who lets us paint.  We make an absolute mess of what He's created, but He still lets us paint.  We disobey the simplest of commands, but He lets us keep the brush in our hands.  We never seem to "do it right," but He lets us keep practicing.  And He's willing to get a little messy Himself just so we have the opportunity. 

Just Obey

Lately I have been struggling to keep my home as clean and organized as I'd like it to be.  I have some great excuses in that I no longer have a housekeeper and I'm 9 months pregnant with my 6th child.  But I could tell that there was something more going on.  My homeschooling has never been more organized, praise the Lord!  So why was I having such a hard time with the house?

The Lord gave me an insight the other morning.  I have taught my children what I have learned about obedience from wonderful Christian teachers -- that it means to obey all the way, right away, with the right attitude.  I know that God has asked me to be a keeper at home, but night after night I was not obeying all the way, right away, or with the right attitude.  Instead, I was doing as little housekeeping as I could get away with each evening.  I was tired and pregnant, so why should I do more than the minimum?  I was definitely not obeying right away.  Instead, I was slipping back into my old procrastinating ways.  "I'll do that tomorrow," I thought.  Well, tomorrow always has enough trouble of its own, so I would either NOT get the work done or I would be stressed and crabby trying to get caught up.  Then there was my attitude.  "Why on earth should I have to do this work each evening?  I do everything for the family all day long.  I should be able to kick my feet up and enjoy some time for me!"  As I reflected on my attitude (which quite honestly had seemed legitimate to me until that point), I wondered how I would feel if my children responded this way when I asked them to do chores.  I certainly would not want to bless them for their lack of obedience!  I realized that God may have been withholding His blessings of a fully ordered home from me as I had been withholding my full obedience.

That very day I vowed to do what I knew the Lord wanted me to do to keep my home in order.  As I worked, I imagined what life had been like for my grandmother who fed a huge group of men who worked their farm for them.  She cooked and cleaned during the day and then baked in the early hours to have goods to sell at the local bakery.  I could not imagine her whining that she had no time for herself.  I was determined to work as for the Lord.  I was amazed that once I chose to obey, I had more joy and my house seemed to be ordered and clean in no time at all.  In fact, I DID have time to enjoy chatting on the phone and scrapbooking because everything was done. 

Now when things aren't going my way, I will ask for forgiveness and just obey. 

You Can't Hide Your Pride

I am in the middle of reading Nancy Leigh DeMoss's excellent book, Holiness.  It's part of a series of excellent books that also includes Brokenness and Surrender.  I am also doing a Bible study on humility by Reb Bradley. 

In the last year, the Lord has made my problem with pride clear to me.  Pride is much more difficult a foe than I first thought.  I was at the gym the other day when I had the following series of thoughts:

You look pretty good.  You have kept yourself in pretty good shape for a mother of five.

Ooh!  That's not right--that's pride!  Really, you don't look good at all.  Everything on your body has gone south since you've had kids.  Every other woman here looks better than you.  

Doh!  That's pride, too.  Bashing myself means I'm still thinking about my favorite subject -- ME.  Okay, okay, I won't think about myself at all.

Hey, I'm doing pretty good!  I'm really being humble now.  OH NO!!  That's STILL pride!

After this psychotic conversation with myself I realized I could not escape pride.  It's like a cancer that has permeated every sinew in me.  Once again, I realized my need for a Master Surgeon to come and cut this killer out of me. I simply do not have the heart to kill it myself.  Oh I love others' admiration.  How I love to join people in thinking well of me.  And yet when I do, I rob the only One Who deserves glory.

My sweet brother-in-law tells an amusing story about humility.  He said he elicited great teasing by telling someone once that he didn't struggle with humility.  Humility, he said, came pretty easy to him.  My brother-in-law IS a humble man, but true humility never acknowledges itself.  If you and I think to ourselves, "Yep, I'm pretty humble,"  we probably aren't.  Praise be to God that He is patient and merciful with us prideful people.     

Time for Me?

Recently I shared with a group of fine women the title of what used to be one of my favorite books: How to Have More Time for Yourself Every Day.  I loved it.  The book gave me permission to get rid of things and relationships that just didn't "work," so I could have more time for all the things I wanted to do.  That was my goal.  I wanted more time to play piano and do crafts and call friends and exercise and watch TV.  If I could just learn effective time management skills, I could have a lot more time for these things and more! 

But alas, I continued to struggle to efficiently handle my "have to's" so I could devote myself to "want to's."  The reason it wasn't working was because I felt too tired to do laundry every day.  Frankly, gabbing on the phone and reading a favorite book were a lot more appealing.  I almost never had a nice meal planned because I enjoyed watching my soaps and surfing the Web instead.  My room was never tidy and organized because I was working and hey, I wasn't the only one living in there!  Besides, I was called to do more important things than housework.

As I continued to flounder in a sea of disorganization, people would often tell me, "You need more time for yourself!  You do too much.  Slow down and just enjoy."  Yes, that was the problem, I thought.  I am just working so hard for others that I have no time for myself.  If I had more time for me, I would have the energy to control everything else.  So I spent more time on things that made me happy and in the process tore down my house with my own hands.

As a psychologist, I have seen too many families destroyed with these words, "It's time for me now."  Mothers who decide that they are fed up with picking up after everyone and that a divorce with weekends free sounds mighty good.  Dads who get tired of the obligations of family and would rather engage in a more exciting career whether it provides any income or not.  Despite the destructiveness of these words, even those in the Christian leadership often encourage us to make time for ourselves.  I know I've given the same advice.

In discussing my big family, someone suggested that people may be thinking, "Isn't it time for YOU now?"  Oh, I've had plenty of time for me.  It's safe to say my life has been about almost nothing else.  I've done just about everything that people say makes for a good life.  I've been to Europe (as a single woman), I've been to Hawaii, on a cruise, I've been published in a major magazine, I've been on the radio, in the newspaper, on television.  I've even met the First Lady!  And oh wasn't it grand.  In so many ways, I have it all.  In an interview on her generosity to the children of Africa, Oprah related that the joy she experienced in this nearly overwhelmed her.  There is no joy in time for "me" that can compare to the joy in giving time for Him. 

The greatest joy I have ever known is being in God's will for me.  Much of the time the Lord chooses to strengthen me so that I can give to others.   And there is great joy in giving to others!  Whereas I used to seek to do the things I wanted to do, now I seek to want the things I've been called to do.  Even as I am serving, sometimes the Lord, in His love and mercy, gives me time for things that I enjoy.  I just want to praise Him for that!  I am so unworthy and so self-centered.  Yet, He still gives me time for myself.  But if time for me is what I'm seeking first, I will never find it. 

  

I Wanna Be a Good Mom

Tonight my son asked why I couldn't be more fun.  Oh.  Well, gee.  Hm.  Okay, that hurt. 

My first reaction was to defend myself.  What on earth are you talking about?  I am not serious all the time.  I laugh.  I tease you.  I tickle you.  I play with you. 

My second reaction was to be crushed by the realization that I'm a lousy, serious, no fun mom.  I'm hopeless.  Try as I might I will never stop being a self-centered woman who doesn't play with her kids enough.

Finally, I cried, "I wanna be a good mom."  My son cried, "I wanna be a good kid."  And then it hit me.  We can't do it.  Only Christ can do it in us and through us. 

So tomorrow I am not going to try to be a good mom.  I'm going to ask Jesus to be a good mom through me, so my boy and I can have some serious fun.

Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar

Woody Allen said this years ago and I once gave an impromptu speech on this quote. 

Our minds crave completion.  Show someone a picture of disconnected lines and our brains fill in the missing space to see a shape.  We do this with personal experiences, too.  Schacter and Singer's classic experiment showed that people interpreted their body's response to injected adrenalin as either joy or anger depending on what others were expressing around them.  I once behaved just like one of Schacter and Singer's subjects.

I was 17 and had been having unexplained headaches.  The doctor had me go to the hospital for a CT-scan.  The technician told me what to expect and warned me not to move.  I was an explicit, law-abiding kind of gal, so when I began to experience severe itching and difficulty breathing, I did NOT move.  I was in a CT-scan machine, notorious for producing claustrophobic anxiety.  I didn't "feel" scared, but I assumed my anxiety was producing my symptoms.  I worked hard at relaxing and breathing deeply. 

The exam seemed to last hours.  When I was finally allowed to sit up, the technicians laughed and said I'd had a "little" allergic reaction.  They gave me an antihistamine and told me to sit in the waiting area until I felt well enough to go home.  Before leaving the room, the technicians had me look at my face in the mirror.  I couldn't believe what I saw.  My face was so swollen I had five folds of flesh in my cheeks.  I couldn't breathe partly because my cheeks had swelled so that my nostrils were closed.  My eyes were barely visible beneath the puffy skin and my ears were the size of my palms.

When I walked out to the waiting room, my parents didn't recognize me.  When they did realize who I was, they were horrified.  My mother took me to the bathroom where I nearly collapsed.  Afterward I still sat dutifully in the waiting room.  Fortunately, the ER was right next to the CT lab.  An ER doctor saw me and asked me what happened.  He insisted on examining me.  I had hives 12 inches long and my blood pressure was almost non-existent.  I was rushed into emergency and treated for an anaphylactic reaction.  I lost my memory of some events following and was in the hospital for five days recovering.

What's my point, you ask?  We all know people who turn every psychologicalissue into a physical one.  But it's just as likely that people are turning physical problems into psychological ones.  Thousands of people are treated for depression and anxiety disorders that have a physiological basis.  All depression and anxiety disorders have physical symptoms, but some physical disorders have psychological symptoms, too.  If, for example, you're suffering with fatigue, you might not be depressed or stressed.  Maybe you have a thyroid disorder or anemia.  Or, if you're me, you might be pregnant. 

Just remember...sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Out With the Old, In With the New

I have written before that I am on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (see http://breakingtheviciouscycle.info).  The principle behind it is that harmful bacteria proliferate in the gut.  In order to get well, you have to starve the bad bacteria by cutting out certain carbohydrates and by giving your body plenty of good bacteria in the form of yogurt. 

This is a principle for healing in every area of our lives.  Do you want to lose weight?  You can't just cut out the unhealthy, too big portions.  You have to add in nutritious foods in normal portions.  You can't break an addiction to alcohol by avoiding bars and ending friendships with drinkers, unless you also add in healthy habits like going to AA and making friends who are supportive of your dry lifestyle. 

At some level, I believe we all know it isn't just out with the old or in with the new.  It's both!  But cutting off and growing are both parts of life that consume enormous energy and attention and sometimes pain, so we try to get by with just doing one.  Many people with digestive disorders would like to get well by just eating yogurt or acidophilus supplements.  Many people who want to lose weight hope they can just start exercising and keep their old eating habits.  But changing halfway never results in full deliverance.

I can think of old habits I am trying to eliminate without replacing them with new ones.  I can also think of new habits I am trying to add without eliminating the old.  Can you?

There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build..."                                           Ecclesiastes 3:1-3

All Inclusive

I just returned from vacationing in a fabulous all-inclusive resort.  I was greeted with a glass of champagne and was treated like royalty.  I kept feeling like I needed to sign for something, at least tip!  But no, everything was included in the price that was paid.  That kind of freedom was hard to believe at first, but once I did trust in it, I was overcome with joy!

Jesus says He has gone to prepare a place for us--many mansions!  I know that heaven will be even more fabulous than the resort I just enjoyed.  But heaven, like a great vacation, isn't free.  Someone had to pay the price.  Someone did.  Jesus paid the debt we owed for our sins with His own blood.  The price He paid was all-inclusive.  The sins of our past are covered.  Our current misdeeds and neglected tasks are covered, too.  Even every future failure is covered.  It's hard to believe that all we have to do is trust that our debt has been paid by God's own Son, but it's true.  That knowledge should overwhelm us with joy each and every day.