Defender of the Week

So we're playing word games this morning.

Conner had his last soccer game of the season last night. The entire season he scored exactly zero goals. Not one. My heart broke for him because I want my son to feel accomplished and successful. Then, I realized that my son really enjoyed his last game because he found his niche. His forte. His modus operandi. He was the Defender of the Week.

All season long he's been focusing on trying to make a goal because that's the stuff people cheer for. And who can blame him? We all want to be the one with the sexy job. We want to be the receiver making the cool touchdown in the end zone. We want to be the cop who saves the people who are being robbed. We want to be the fireman who rescues the toddler from a burning house. No one cheers for the front line that protected the quarterback so he could make that beautiful pass that was caught in the end-zone. We don't see the dispatcher that took the 911 call that got the cop to that robbery and the fireman to the burning house.

All season my son has been much bigger than the most of the kids on his team (or any of the other teams for that matter.) He's not as fast or as agile as the other kids he's played with. He was the moose to their antelope. This last game, he did a lot of getting in the way. Our coach was the referee for the game (that's how we roll when it's 4-year-olds.) He laughed after the game and said the other team tried several times to push him out of the way with their bodies and just bounced right off. When everybody got tied up in a scrum in the middle of the field, Conner would just wade right into the middle and kick the ball out to one of the superstar strikers who got about 15,000 goals this season. When a member of the other team was going to try to steal the ball from one of our guys, Conner just stood in his path and, of course, the kid just bounced right off. He raced around the field just looking for somebody to frustrate. And he had an absolute blast. He got a couple of yellow cards in the process but who's counting? As one of the parents said, "It's not holding unless the ref calls it." Just call him "Moose McBride."

I guess the lesson here is "play to your strengths." The front line of the offense may not get the cheers but they still get an NFL-sized paycheck. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Defender of the Weak

Man! I have so much racing through my head right now I'm afraid I won't be able to type it fast enough before it leaves. I woke up at 4 am (thank you, 5-month-old) and couldn't get back to sleep. I started thinking about how God is the Defender of the Weak. I sort of had an "Awwww. Isn't that sweet?" moment thinking about how He takes care of all those weak people out there. "Itn't that special?" (Insert Dana Carvey reference here.)

Then I sort of got hit between the eyes with the fact that sometimes I'm "the weak." ugh. I hate thinking of myself as weak. I'm the self-sufficient one. Toilet guts need to be replaced and sprinkler system repaired? I'm your girl. You need to store up enough food in the freezer to feed Cox's Army? Call on me. New chocolate chip cookie recipe and made up pumpkin cranberry bread? I can do that. You want a new bookcase, tile in the kitchen and new concrete counter-tops? Sure. I can do that. Probably. Just because I've never done it doesn't mean I can't.

But.... Sometimes I've been cheated and cheated on. I've been betrayed and lied to. I've been stolen from and wrongfully accused. Someone who for one reason or another had power over me decided to use that power to their advantage and my disadvantage. I was the weak.

So what God was dealing with in me this morning when my mind was racing at 4:30 AM was the fact that when I do not choose (it's a choice not a feeling) to forgive the guilty party in those situations, it's because pride has risen up in me. I would rather be angry and bitter about those things than admit that I was weak. Ouch.

Then I had to get past that point to the fact that when I can't admit that I'm weak it's because I don't trust God to be my defender. Double ouch.

Thankfully there were no more points. I think that's enough for us to deal with for the next few weeks. Or years....

A Little Bit O'Hope

It's interesting how just the smallest glimmer of hope can change your whole situation. I had a friend talking about that this weekend so it's been rolling around in my brain like a loose marble for a few days and I think it finally fell into a hole last night.

People go through some really bad experiences. You've just been diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. Your husband has just confessed that he's been involved in an affair for the past year with a 60 year old prostitute/afghan crocheter. You have a 4-year-old with an attitude problem. Your daughter is about to marry a serial killer. The toilet in your guest bathroom is overflowing, your dishwasher is broken and your mother-in-law is on her way over. How does hope change my situation? The answer is this: From the outside looking in, it doesn't. I still have breast cancer, a weird cheating husband, an attitudinal 4-year-old, an evil son-in-law, broken appliances and an over-involved mother-in-law.

From inside my circumstances, however, hope makes all the difference in the world. Suddenly breast cancer is beatable. My husband is truly repentant and with a lot of work we'll end up with a really good strong marriage when we're old together. My four-year-old will be five next month. Maybe my daughter will see the light and break up with the jerk that she's been dating. The plumber is on his way over and the dishwasher will be fixed because my best friend's husband "knows a guy."

It all comes back to perspective. Someone else looking at my situation might not see hope make a difference but it makes a difference in my attitude which makes all the difference in the world.

I Hate Snakes!

What a beautiful day it was today! If you live in Texas, you live for days like this. Sunny, slightly breezy and mid-70's. (That's low to mid-20's for my Canadian friends who live in Celciusville.) It was a perfect shining jewel of a day. To enjoy it, I opened my back door and my front door propping the laundry room door with a brick to keep it from blowing shut and scaring the bejeebers out of the whole family. I opened the garage door and let the refreshing breezes blow through. I finally had fresh air in my house!

After an entire summer of avoiding going outside because of searing heat and glaring windshields, I felt reborn. I actually cleaned out my fridge and enjoyed it. I rinsed out the science project containers with a smile on my face and loaded the dishwasher while I did a little happy dance on my freshly swept kitchen floor. I was freaking June Cleaver. I whisked through the house; a virtual tornado of happy and contented productivity. Ah, the wonders of fall in Texas.

As I waltzed through my yet to be swept breakfast nook, I glanced under the table to see what had my cats so fascinated only to discover... a snake. Yes, you heard me correctly. A snake. A creepy little slithering unnatural mutant of nature. Have you ever wondered how they move with no feet or legs? It's just not right.

Now, I consider myself to be a pretty down-to-earth and reasonable woman. I'm not a girlie girl who screams at mice and spiders and bats. In fact, I think bats are pretty cute and I once had an earthworm for a pet when I was a kid. Snakes are my downfall. I embarrass myself with how freaked out I am about snakes. They send my blood pressure into the stratosphere and I suddenly become a quivering mass of squealing girlishness.

My husband thought it was hilarious that I emailed him that a snake was waiting under a hastily (and quite expertly, I might add) tossed Tupperware container for him to come home and liberate. Preferably in someone else's yard. He never got the chance. The darn cats would not leave that Tupperware alone. They batted at it and shoved it and were doing their feline darnedest to push over that container. Apparently they were just as uncomfortable as I was with leaving a live snake in our house. Then again, maybe they just wanted to torture it for hours until it finally died because cats think that kind of thing is fun. You never know.

Finally I put Kalen on the bed in my room, made Conner stand back and I released the freak of nature from its dishwasher-safe plastic prison. I was ready for anything. I had the dustpan held in front of my because I was just sure that undoubtedly poisonous snake would slither right for me and bite my toe. I imagined flashing red lights and an ambulance ride in my near future. (You see how illogical snakes make me?) The Tupperware flipped back. The snake froze. I banged the dust pan by the snake and herded it out the open door where it disappeared in the grass of my back yard. Anticlimactic, I know. No one was more disappointed than the cats, trust me.

Needless to say, all my doors and windows are now closed. Air conditioning is a good thing. I am no longer June Cleaver because I've gotten nothing accomplished since "The Snake Incident." Although, to be honest, June Cleaver probably would of freaked a little, too, so I don't feel so bad.

Chains vs. Snares

So, I've been thinking about what it is that traps us. The big stuff is easy to see. Abused as a child? A big chain around your waist. Raised in a cult? Huge and heavy shackles clamped to your ankles. These things clank and draw attention to themselves every time you walk. You can see these things and they are something that you OBVIOUSLY want to get free from.

The harder stuff for me is the little things. Those little foxes get me every time. I see those little things like, for instance, just a slightly skewed image of God because of who your dad was or wasn't, as more like fishing line than chains. Fishing line is sneaky. It's silent and nearly invisible. It's not something that's immediately obvious to you or anybody else. You don't know you've even been caught until it's wrapped around and pulled so tight that you're losing circulation to one of your legs. You look down and can't even remember when you picked up that tangled stuff.

I'm going to start praying that God will show me those snarled nests of invisible fishing line before I step in them and lose a leg. I'm also going to start asking for some scissors.

Letting Go

Why is it so hard for me to let God handle my stuff? In my head I know that He's infinitely bigger than any problem I have so why do I still worry and stress? I get so frustrated with myself because I just keep coming around to the same place again and again. I'm the guy who said "I do believe Lord. Help my unbelief." My head believes but my flesh doesn't.

It doesn't help that my bank account is in the negatives and my 4 year old son is driving me crazy. It's getting harder to combat that voice that screams, "See? You can't afford to stay home. You're not really cut out to be a stay-at-home-mom anyway. Your kids are probably better off with someone else." Seriously?! I wanted to be able to stay home more than anything and now that it's happened I'm scared to death.

Plus, my support base is shaky because a lot of my friends are from work so they are all busy and have no concept of what this is like. I don't blame them for not being sympathetic. I wouldn't be either. It's just hard to feel like I've kind of lost 3/4 of my friends because of the whole "out of sight out of mind" thing. But I digress.

I think part of the reason I have a hard time just letting God handle things is because in my life I don't let ANYBODY just handle things for me. I have the hardest time accepting help when it's offered much less asking for it. It's a tough habit to break. (If you offer to help me and I turn you down, call me on it!)

I keep reminding myself to take baby steps but I'm pretty impatient. I want to be fixed and refined RIGHT NOW. I don't want to have to go through the process. Lord, give me perspective.

In Defense of Mother-in-Laws

So it's been a while since I'm posted anything. I've been busy. I went to Asheville, North Carolina with my mother-in-law to see Biltmore House. Yes, that's right. I went on vacation with my mother-in-law.

Even as I write, I realize how utterly weird that sounds. Mother-in-laws have gotten kind of a bad rap. Most of my friends don't have an evil mother-in-law. In fact I can't think of one who doesn't at least like her MIL. Sure, we all have our issues. A lot of mother-in-laws don't like to share those special recipes that their sons like because they want them to have a reason to come home even if it is just for that special macaroni or their famous roast beef. Sometimes they don't want to give up the secret ingredient in their chicken and dumplings (chicken stock) because they have taken a long time to be famous for those chicken and dumplings and why should we have it easy? Still, all in all, most mother-in-laws are really not too bad.

I happen to be blessed with an exceptional mother-in-law. She shared her macaroni recipe right away. It's Kraft. Her chicken and dumplings recipe was an open book. It was just too big of a pain in the butt for me to want to fuss with. She spilled my husband's favorite dessert recipe without my even hinting or prompting. I just hardly ever make it. So we both win. I feel welcomed and loved and Lee still has to go home for her cut-it-with-a-fork roast beef.

My mother-in-law and I don't just get along, we love each other. My mom is about 18 bazillion miles away so it's nice to have a second mom about 20 minutes away. I call her when the kids are sick or when I can't get a recipe to work or I need advice about my job. She calls me to complain about her job or her husband and gossip about people we both know. We both like to garden and hate to shop. We both come from rural backgrounds. We enjoy each other's company. It's a nice place to be.

We didn't get here overnight. This relationship that we enjoy is the product of 12 years of hard work and tears and forgiveness. We've had our share of arguments and hurt feelings and pettiness. It's been worth it. Not only do I have a mother-in-law that I like, I have a friend that I can go on vacation with and actually have a really good time. I'm hoping that I'm sowing some seeds into my future here. I hope that I can have a good relationship with Conner's someday-wife even though there is no woman out there who is good enough for my little boy. And don't think I'm just going to hand over that chicken and dumplings recipe. Why should she have it easy?