I never thought I'd be able to...
drink cold coffee
drink red wine
hang underwear on the clothesline
use OB tampons
enjoy pulling weeds
go a whole summer without turning on the AC
enjoy the fantasy genre
bite my tongue
spell the word tongue
let them believe what they want and not worry about it
see their point of view
keep girlfriends for more than a few months
keep order in my class and my cool simultaneously
work harder
let it go
talk to my kids about sex
feel peace
be a work out 3-4 times a week kind of person
admit that I'm wrong
be one of the cool kids
not care if I was a cool kid or not
let go of my cynicism.
I guess you just never know, do ya?
Friday, May 29, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Coming Back Around
I couldn't make it to church that Sunday morning three years ago. I was exhausted, crushed in spirit and with no strength of any kind left. I had gotten home at one or two in the morning from spending hours, days even, at the hospital. On one hand all that time was not worth it; there was no happy outcome. On the other hand I knew, unfortunately from past experience, that I would never be sorry that I had been there, that I had had the privilege of sharing that grief, of crying together, of taking my one and only chance to hold that baby. When I finally did get up and get going on Sunday, I could still feel the weight of her in my arms.
Later, in the evening, I decided that I actually needed to go to church. I felt a pull that I couldn't fight, and so, by myself, I drove out to Grandville. I don't remember who the teacher was, what he taught, whether we sang at the beginning or at the end. I only remember one moment. At some point the worship team began the song, "How Great is Our God." I was sitting at the start of the song, when the words call, "All the world rejoice." It was a fork in the road. Would I, could I rejoice on this day? I know, "No," seems kind of obvious, but in another corner of my mind I knew that if I could choose to see God as great, I would be headed down one path over another, that I would be choosing one faith over another.
For the first verse and chorus, maybe even into the second verse, I wrestled.
I felt guilty, "Is it right for me to make this choice when those I love are in despair? How can I say this, live this, without seeming like I mock their pain?"
I felt how impossible the choice was. "How can I face the parts of my own heart that ask how a great God, the one who 'formed you in the secret places,' put a baby together wrong, so wrong that she can't live?"
Yet, "How can I call it faith at all if I only believe God to be great when life is great? Do I really believe in a God whose business is making my world right, to my specifications?"
Still, "How can I be a comfort to my friends if I take the side of the God who seems not to have come through for them?"
And finally, "How can I have the strength for the coming days, weeks, years, on my own? I need a great God. Desperately."
So I stood; I sang; I took the path of belief. I decided that I would lay myself in all my weakness before that great God, just as I was. I would hold out my friends in my hands and plead for His greatness to fall on them. I would do it often, crying for many months and years as I did so. I felt like I came to that same fork in the road time and again, that I wrestled that same argument in my head time and again, and for some reason I kept choosing the path of belief. The evidence was never clearly there, the questions never clearly answered, the doubts sometimes deafening, but a still, small voice called with such encouragement down that path of belief, that I had to keep taking that path.
That path, I now see, brought me to yesterday. Yesterday my husband, son, and oldest daughter were all baptized at that same church, not the kind of baptism where you reach a certain age and that's just what you do, but the kind where you make a choice for yourself. The kind where you declare a chosen path. I was moved by my children's statements in particular that I (and their dad) had been important in teaching them the way of Jesus.
After the baptism there was one more song, and of course (or why would I be posting this?!) it was, "How Great Is Our God." As has happened every time we've sang that song over the last three years I was instantly transported back to That Sunday, and That fork in the road. This time though, I could actually to see how great is our God. This God had carried me and my extremely fragile faith with such tenderness and protection, that somehow he could still speak to my children through me. Instead of having my anger and bitterness eat away at their faith, somehow that faith had grown to a place where they could trust Jesus enough to make a public declaration to follow him. Instead of becoming a cynical house, we had been a house of faith. I didn't do it. I was carried. I let myself be carried, true, but my involvement ends there.
"Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing how great
Is our God." -Chris Tomlin
Later, in the evening, I decided that I actually needed to go to church. I felt a pull that I couldn't fight, and so, by myself, I drove out to Grandville. I don't remember who the teacher was, what he taught, whether we sang at the beginning or at the end. I only remember one moment. At some point the worship team began the song, "How Great is Our God." I was sitting at the start of the song, when the words call, "All the world rejoice." It was a fork in the road. Would I, could I rejoice on this day? I know, "No," seems kind of obvious, but in another corner of my mind I knew that if I could choose to see God as great, I would be headed down one path over another, that I would be choosing one faith over another.
For the first verse and chorus, maybe even into the second verse, I wrestled.
I felt guilty, "Is it right for me to make this choice when those I love are in despair? How can I say this, live this, without seeming like I mock their pain?"
I felt how impossible the choice was. "How can I face the parts of my own heart that ask how a great God, the one who 'formed you in the secret places,' put a baby together wrong, so wrong that she can't live?"
Yet, "How can I call it faith at all if I only believe God to be great when life is great? Do I really believe in a God whose business is making my world right, to my specifications?"
Still, "How can I be a comfort to my friends if I take the side of the God who seems not to have come through for them?"
And finally, "How can I have the strength for the coming days, weeks, years, on my own? I need a great God. Desperately."
So I stood; I sang; I took the path of belief. I decided that I would lay myself in all my weakness before that great God, just as I was. I would hold out my friends in my hands and plead for His greatness to fall on them. I would do it often, crying for many months and years as I did so. I felt like I came to that same fork in the road time and again, that I wrestled that same argument in my head time and again, and for some reason I kept choosing the path of belief. The evidence was never clearly there, the questions never clearly answered, the doubts sometimes deafening, but a still, small voice called with such encouragement down that path of belief, that I had to keep taking that path.
That path, I now see, brought me to yesterday. Yesterday my husband, son, and oldest daughter were all baptized at that same church, not the kind of baptism where you reach a certain age and that's just what you do, but the kind where you make a choice for yourself. The kind where you declare a chosen path. I was moved by my children's statements in particular that I (and their dad) had been important in teaching them the way of Jesus.
After the baptism there was one more song, and of course (or why would I be posting this?!) it was, "How Great Is Our God." As has happened every time we've sang that song over the last three years I was instantly transported back to That Sunday, and That fork in the road. This time though, I could actually to see how great is our God. This God had carried me and my extremely fragile faith with such tenderness and protection, that somehow he could still speak to my children through me. Instead of having my anger and bitterness eat away at their faith, somehow that faith had grown to a place where they could trust Jesus enough to make a public declaration to follow him. Instead of becoming a cynical house, we had been a house of faith. I didn't do it. I was carried. I let myself be carried, true, but my involvement ends there.
"Name above all names
Worthy of all praise
My heart will sing how great
Is our God." -Chris Tomlin
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Classists
JD was tortured at school a few weeks ago by, "classists." I know this because he announced it emphatically as he banged into the house one afternoon. Further questioning revealed that classits are people who are prejudiced against people from other classrooms. An example of this is when the group playing kickball shouts at those approaching to join kickball, "Don't let anyone from Miss S's class play!"
Don't you wonder where the kids got the idea that a whole classroom was bad? Some of those same kids had been their classmates last year, with no problems that I was aware of. What is it about human nature that makes us want to carve the world up into acceptable groups of people and unacceptable groups of people?
I might even know a few adults who are still classists. Sometimes it's kids from other classrooms, and sometimes it's kids from other neighborhoods, but either way, they still shout, "Don't let them play kickball!" You like to think people outgrow cooties, but they don't always.
Don't you wonder where the kids got the idea that a whole classroom was bad? Some of those same kids had been their classmates last year, with no problems that I was aware of. What is it about human nature that makes us want to carve the world up into acceptable groups of people and unacceptable groups of people?
I might even know a few adults who are still classists. Sometimes it's kids from other classrooms, and sometimes it's kids from other neighborhoods, but either way, they still shout, "Don't let them play kickball!" You like to think people outgrow cooties, but they don't always.
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