Imagine for a Moment...

Girls, imagine with me, for a moment, that you were engaged to the best guy around. Now imagine that he's not only a great guy, he's royalty. He's not just Prince Charming, he's The King. Your betrothed has more power than most guys will ever even dream of. The best part is that you didn't have to change who you were or be someone different or grow your hair or cut your hair or even shave your legs to catch this guy. He's handsome, powerful, rich beyond measure and he loves you. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this paragon is head-over-heals beyond measure stupid in love with you. How would you live your life differently?

I'm not talking about the surface things like not having to worry about car payments and grocery money anymore. (Although it would be a nice side benefit.) I'm talking about how you'd walk through your life. If your fiance were that powerful, would you be fearful? Me, personally? I think I'd probably have a little more swagger and wouldn't worry about walking alone after dark. The bad guys would know whose I was and they'd never even think of touching me. They'd KNOW my boyfriend would kick their butt. I wouldn't be afraid to try new things because I'd know he was there to catch me if I fell. I think I'd walk in a lot more freedom.

I don't think I'd care if petty people didn't want to be my friend because my clothes aren't designer or fancy and my hair looks funny and I have a gap in my teeth and I'm not that pretty. If I were about to marry a guy like that? Who looked at me like the sun, moon and stars couldn't come close to touching my worth to him? Yeah. The opinions of petty people wouldn't count for much in my book.

The best part? We've all got a guy like that. Jesus wants to be your "King Charming." When we were dating, my boyfriend (now husband) told me that he'd die if it was necessary to keep me safe. My young, naive, over-committed little heart went pitty pat like crazy, let me tell you. Thank goodness he's never had the opportunity to prove it. The thing is, Jesus had that opportunity and when it came down to it, he gave his life in exchange for mine because he loves me. He is head-over-heals beyond measure stupid in love with me and I didn't even have to shave my legs.

**swagger**

Where are you planted?

Conner was helping me do something today beside the shade garden under the tree in our backyard and asked about the honeydew seed he had planted there this spring. "Why doesn't it have honeydew on it? Why is there only one flower?" I had to explain to him that different kinds of plants need to go in different places and he should have planted his honeydew in a place that gets more sun. His honeydew grew a plant in that location but it would never reach is full potential because it wasn't meant to be in shade.

I have some plants that just love the sun. I have them in a sunny place on the west or south side of our house and they just grow like crazy. They are plant superstars. I have to keep cutting them back because they get too big for their britches and need a little discipline.  Then I have other plants that just love the shade. They go in the plot beside our garage that gets almost no sun or under the tree that only gets a little dappled sun and they quietly grow and thrive and do their plant thing.

I had some hostas (shade lovers) planted in the wrong spot in the front yard and they were getting eaten by bunnies and didn't have enough shade.  I had to transplant them for their own good or they would have withered and died. I'm sure they didn't like it. They kind of threw a plant fit and refused to grow for a while. They sulked and complained and hung their leaves. I'm sure in plantese they were asking, "Why me, Dianne? Why do bad things happen to good plants? Haven't I done everything you asked of me? How is it my fault the bunnies were eating me? I don't have any natural defenses against bunnies. Am I not a good plant? Do you not love me anymore? Why have you forsaken me, Dianne?!" If they could have understood me, they would have heard me say that I was moving them to a place where their potential could be realized.  They would have understood that I was doing what was best for them in the long run. If they had trusted me, they would have realized that a little pain in the short term is worth being rooted in a much healthier place for them.

I get it. Sometimes change seams really hard. Really, really, really hard. As in, difficult, tough and just all-around stinks and we don't like it. Change can sometimes seem like a step back and a bad thing. A little over a year ago, God called me to leave a church I had been attending for about 12 years. This was a really small church and they were like family to me. I fought it for a long time thinking, "There's no way that's what God's saying. Can't be. I don't wanna." Finally God kicked me in the butt AND gave me confirmation from a mentor that I trusted a lot. I finally obeyed. I had to drive by a church close to my house quite often and I just felt a pull. I prayed and felt that's where I was supposed to attend so I decided to go.

The first Sunday after I left my small, intimate church family, I ended up on the floor of my closet. I was a sobbing mess in a puddle of my own misery. I didn't want to go somewhere else! I didn't want to have to start all over making new friends and getting to know people. For an introvert, meeting new people and making new friends is a gargantuan undertaking. This new church was big and I was intimidated by it. I had NEVER been to a church that big. I had been on the praise team at my old church and kind of felt like I was a part of things there. I felt ownership there. Now I was back to being the new kid who no one knew.

I realized that I had a choice. I could complain to God and ask "Why me?" and throw a fit and refuse to grow, or I could trust that God had me in a new place for a reason and put down some new roots. I started getting involved, made some friends and volunteered for things. Then, a miracle happened. My husband, who has refused to attend church with me for 15 years, started attending church out of the blue. He's been coming every week for two months now. My old place must have just been too sunny. It hurt being transplanted but it was worth it to move to a place where we can both thrive.

A new place being better for you doesn't mean the old place was bad. Maybe you were in the shade and God wants you to be in the sun because that's what you need to thrive. Maybe you are withering in the sun and God's trying to let you rest in the shade for a while. It's possible the old place was the right place at the time. The shady spot under the tree in our back yard wasn't a good place for hostas 5 years ago because the tree wasn't big enough. Now it is and it was the right time to move them. Maybe I'm the only one who hates big changes like that but I don't think so. If that's you, too, try trusting God that (in His timing) he's putting you in the right place to reach your potential. Enjoy the shade!

A Death in the Family

We have a funeral tomorrow.  My step-father-in-law's step-father died.  I know.  That's a lot of hyphens.  That's enough hyphens that he probably doesn't even count as family by most measures.  However, family is who you spend holidays with and care about so no matter now many hyphens were needed to introduce him, Jess was family.  So tomorrow we are going to put on appropriately somber clothes and sit in the funeral and get teary and listen to a lot of people say a lot of really nice things about a very good man that none of us said to him when he was still alive when it really would have mattered.

None of us had the vulnerable heart to sit on the couch beside Jess and hold his hand and look him in the eye and say "Jess, you are the best man I know.  I aspire to be a Christian like you.  You epitomize the love of Christ to me. Your soul is solid gold, Jess.  You are the kind of man I hope my daughter marries.  We are blessed to have you in our family."  None of us did that because it just isn't done.  We are not raised to be vulnerable like that until its a funeral and they can't hear us anymore.

The thing is, I can see Jess saying something like that to someone.  Maybe that's what made us love him so much,  Like Jesus, he never seemed to feel that having a vulnerable heart made him weak. On the contrary, he was a very strong man.  He was a powerful man who empowered others.

So I am reminded yet again to say what needs to be said now rather than later and this shell that I hold around my heart isn't really protecting me.  It's making me lose out on what really matters while it matters. Lord, teach me to have a vulnerable heart.

Though She Be But Little, She is Fierce!

So my second little darling just turned 3 today.  I guess it's normal for a mother's thoughts to turn to the birth experience on the anniversary of her child's birth.  With the plethora of videos all over Facebook right now showing a couple of men going through a simulated birth experience, I automatically thought of my own not simulated birth experience. I couldn't help but feel sorry for them.  While it was funny (to women) there was always this thought for me that these poor guys are experiencing all of this pain but they don't get the joy at the end.

Don't get me wrong; my daughter is a pain in the butt a lot of the time. She's loud.  She goes through about 10 pairs of pants per day.  She has no respect for the starving children in Africa because there is constantly a  pile of food under her chair at the table and in her car seat.  She constantly loses her Blankie and Pink Kitty and Pacie and she REFUSES to go to sleep without them.  She still doesn't sleep through the night all the time.  She is very curious and tactile so taking her to the grocery store is an adventure in "look with your eyes not your hands!"  Things get broken around her an awful lot.  Magically.  It's always an accident.  The poor dog is going to get a complex if she doesn't stop trying to poke its eyes just to see what happens.  All of her friends her age are boys and she seems to make them cry every time they play together.

With all that said, she is a great joy to me.  She says or does something heartbreakingly cute every single day.  She went to school in the backyard yesterday with one of Conner's old backpacks.  Apparently her school only lasts two minutes and she got a "green day."  She goes through her day singing.  It's usually the wrong words but it's cuter that way.  She's an awesome mix of girly-girl and tomboy   She wants me to call her Cinderella while she plays with her brother's Iron Man toy in the mud.  She's stubborn and opinionated.  Even though that can be a source of great annoyance to me there's a part of me that kind of loves it.  Kalen won't ever be called a pushover.  Peer pressure?  Kalen is the peer that puts on the pressure.  Kalen wants to know how everything works.  Sometimes I think that's so she knows how to break it more efficiently but that's neither here nor there.  She has Daddy wrapped around her little finger.  She knows the exact cute look that just melts his heart.  I love that she's smart enough to know when to use it and not to use it too often or it loses impact.  She has funny little names and sayings for things.  It's not "I don't want that" it's "I can't want it." Cupcakes are shortcakes.  She disciplines herself.  She was LOSING HER MIND in the back seat of the car one day because of some disappointment or other and was just inconsolable.  She smacked herself across the face and calmed down.  Weirdest thing ever.

When I was going through childbirth for my daughter 3 years ago today, I had a baby and all this joy to look forward to. It was pain with purpose.  Happy birthday, my sweet girl.

From the Other Side of the Desert

Man.  We sure do our best to screw up our kids, don't we?  I recently read a post made by someone in an alumni group for the "small private religious college" that I went to.  She referenced how afraid she was in her childhood because of the ... pardon my French here but I can describe it no other way... complete and utter bullshit that was crammed down our throats by the cult in which I was raised.  There was just enough truth thrown in to make you think it was real but it was absolute shite intended to gain wealth, power and God knows what else. 


I had similar experiences.  She referenced crying at school because she was afraid that she wouldn't be "chosen" like the rest of her family and she would be left alone to fend for herself when the rapture came.  She was in 2nd grade.  I never cried in public but I had the same fears of not be good enough and therefore not worthy of salvation.  I remember being threatened with "the lake of fire" when I was bad.  Apparently, I was headed right to it.  I used to pray that I would die in a long fall so I'd have time to repent before the end came so I wouldn't end up in Hades.  (We weren't allowed to say Hell.  How's that for hypocritical?) God was vengeful and angry and I was probably the one who made him mad more than most because I was such a bad little 8-year-old.
I could spend days listing all of the legalistic crap that was required of us to be a member in good standing but I won't.  Believe it or not, it wasn't all bad.  Because of the down right crazy nature of the religion I was in and some unspoken rule about not having good friends outside of "the church," we tended to bond rather closely with the other people in our church.  I know this is a symptom of cults that outside influences are discouraged because they might actually wake you up from your kool-aid drinking tendencies.  Still, it created a lovely sense of community that I still miss greatly to this day. 
I made many life-long friends, some of whom I haven't seen for years,  who were closer than a brother. Not everyone's experiences were as bad as mine and some were WAY worse and not everyone has dealt with it in entirely healthy ways. Most of them no longer believe the way that we used to and all of us have spent years working through all of the baggage that came with our upbringing but we have, in even small ways, had each other to lean on through it.  However bad it may have been, I wouldn't give up the friendships I made through that experience for anything.
These experiences also created in me some pretty loud legalism alarms in my head.  Mankind seems to naturally gravitate to rules.  It's what we know.  It's orderly and makes sense to our flesh.  It makes it easy to separate the "good" from the "bad." Rules are much easier than grace.  Rules don't require love.  Modern Christianity is RIFE with legalism.  We have separate sects of Christianity because we can't agree on what to be legalistic about.  My early experiences have really caused me to search for the "basics."  I resolve to know nothing more than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That has become my Truth.  I'm not saved by my works or condemned by my sin.  Jesus's sacrifice on the cross has made me unpunishable.  With the fear of ultimate punishment that I and everyone around me grew up in, I cannot convey to you how freeing it is to be told that.  Freeing isn't even a good word for it.  It's not strong enough but I can't find a better one.
So what's my point?  I guess it's this. I wouldn't wish that upbringing on my kids.  However, I can't regret it.  I fully believe that my experiences will prove useful. "If I can survive that, I can survive anything" is my mentality, I guess.  Plus, I'll probably meet someone along the way who will benefit from some knowledge of someone who has been in that circumstance and lived to tell about it.  There's no benefit to living with bitterness and allowing it to poison the rest of my life.  Was what was done to us wrong?  Absolutely!  However, I refuse to allow the men responsible any more place in my life than they've already taken.  Forgiveness has been released for my sake and for the sake of my children because I needed to get past it so I could grow.  Time to move on.

In His Image

Some friends and I were talking last week about how many of us were raised with a very harsh image of God.  He just sat "up there" in my childhood waiting for me to mess up and then he was going to smite me.  I lived in fear of being smitten.  Smited?  Smote?  The rod in Psalms 23 was not a comfort to me.  It was hanging over my head.  I imagined God as a mob boss and the angels were his enforcers.  This wasn't a correct image of God (obviously) as the Song of Songs says that I am his Beloved and Zecharaiah says I am the apple of his eye.

Perhaps in response to this oh so negative image, an entire generation is being raised with "Jesus is my homeboy" t-shirts and an idea that God is just okay with everything.  He's now the "whatever" God.  This doesn't ring true, either.  I don't know any of my homeboys who can create an entire universe just by saying, "Make it so."  (Yes.  I had to get a Star Trek reference in here somewhere.)  Exodus says God is a jealous God.  Numbers mentions again and again that the "anger of Jehovah" was kindled against Israel for their sin.  Neither of those things makes it sound like God is just okay with "whatever" including sin.  There is no absolute truth anymore.  God just holds us accountable for what we believe.

I'm thinking the truth is more somewhere in the middle.  If we were created "in His image" as it states in Genesis, then He's probably somewhat like us.  Now, bear with me here.  I'm not saying that we are gods or that He somehow has arms and legs and gets cramps every 28 days.  However, the anger of Mommy is kindled against my kids quite often lately and I haven't "taken a hit" out on either of them.  My enforcers haven't made them any offers they can't refuse or taught them to swim with the fishes.  Neither am I okay with everything they do.  They are held accountable for the boundaries of our household.  For instance, there is no talking before 7 am (and this is for their own safety.)  You may not talk to Mommy or Daddy or each other with a disrespectful tone. If you want your laundry done, you'd better have it in the laundry hamper on laundry day.  I am not a "whatever" mom.  

This is a pretty revolutionary concept for me.  I'm still kind of working on it....

Swing

While the kids played
On a slide streaked black by children's shoes
I rode the swing
For the first time in years.
The clouds swooshed by
Under the last gasp of a summer sun
Before a cold front roared through
With Autumn in her teeth.
It was a moment full of sugar
That instant of belly dropping thrill.
Rhythmically the ride swung
Forward and back through the sticky air
While my hair brushed the wood chips
And my eyelids enjoyed a solar caress.
Higher! I tell myself
As my legs pump the swing
To new heights while the ground falls away
Along with my maturity and reputation.
Children's laughter rolled through the playground
And some of it was mine.