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.

A Few Good Men

I overheard a conversation a while back (I do that a lot because I seem to be inherently nosy) in which a couple of women were discussing a friend's husband in not-so-glowing terminology.  A third woman piped in, "Well, what do ya want?  He doesn't beat on Lisa or the kids, he holds down a job and as far as we know, he's never cheated on her."  It started my brain down one of those mental paths I go on every now and then that takes a while to get back.  What is a good man?  Has the idea of "a good man" really deteriorated to the point that the best we can expect for a husband is a job-holding no-beating probably-non-cheater?

I refuse to believe it.  Surely there is more to a good man than that. 

So, again, what is a good man?  Obviously he wouldn't beat on his wife and kids and he'd provide for his family and the no-cheating component is a no-brainer.  However, I can't help but think those things are really the bare minimum.  Non-beating no-cheating job-holders get skinned in divorce settlements every day.  Why?  What more are we really expecting?

Good Man Requirements

1.  Integrity  I don't know about every woman out there but I've got to be able to respect my man and a man with no integrity is pretty darned hard to respect.  If he's a man who is siphoning money from his employer or cheating on the taxes and buying things for free at Target with stacked coupons only to immediately return them for cash he's a man without integrity in my book.

2.  Speak Life  Back me up here ladies:  We will do just about anything for a man who makes us feel treasured.  Love is spoken in many different ways so figure out how your wife, kids or friends need love and give it to them. It can be in the form of compliments, a simple touch, a look, a smile, a gift, you name it.  Some ways to subtract from this bank account of love is to make your wife, friends or children feel diminished, unimportant or unappreciated.  This might be in the form of words, a touch, a look or just plain lack of attention.

3.  Listen  I know we harp on this a lot but that's because it's important and we have to keep harping on it because so many men don't do it.  There are few things that will make a woman feel more minimized than a husband who tunes out his wife when she speaks.  Granted, sometimes we could find better timing but that's a whole other blog.

4.  Don't give us a reason NOT to trust you Last year, I was at a block party wherein our neighbor, Bob (name changed to protect the guilty,) had a few too many beers and made an inappropriate suggestion to me right in front of my husband and his wife.  My husband responded, in that way that men have of sounding like they are joking when they really aren't, that if Bob followed up on that suggestion, the next sound he'd hear would be a shotgun cocking.  Everyone laughed, Bob backed down and the party went on.  I couldn't help but think about how incredibly insulting this was to his wife.  What kind of man propositions another woman right in front of his wife?! An about to be divorced one, apparently.  Bob's wife has now left him and taken their son with her.

I don't know for sure whether Bob ever cheated on his wife.  Maybe he started propositioning women who weren't right in front of their husbands and eventually got lucky.  Maybe he never went past the flirtation.  I don't know.  I do know that what Bob did was the epitome of disrespect not only to me and my husband but especially to his wife.  If I were in her position and my husband were flirting with another woman, I'd have to wonder if this ever went anywhere when he was out of my presence.  A husband who flirts with other women, even if he thinks it's all in fun, isn't laying a foundation of trust for his wife.

5.  Apologize  We don't expect men to be perfect.  We'd like it if they were but we know better.  It sounds so simple but it's important.  Don't just come downstairs the next day and pretend that everything's fine and try to just move on with life.  When you screw up (and you will, it's a given) apologize.  It won't kill you, I promise.

6.  Engage  No I'm not quoting Captain Picard.  When you are home, be truly with your family.  Your mere presence in the house is not enough.  Not that you shouldn't have some time to yourself.  Everyone needs a little alone time and we understand this but it shouldn't be ALL your time.  If you find yourself spending most of your time at home watching TV or trolling eBay your family is being shortchanged.  Make an effort to find something you can do together.  Go for a walk, play soccer in the backyard, ride bikes, play baseball, play Chutes and Ladders or Candyland.  It doesn't matter what you do so much as doing it with your family.  Don't underestimate for a second how much that time means to your wife and kids.


7.  Helpful  Overwhelmingly, women love that their husband helps out both around the house and with the kids.  It doesn't matter how your dad did it, you won't earn brownie points by shaking your tea glass at your wife in this day and age.  Get up and fill it yourself and fill hers up while you're at it.  Help get the kids put to bed.  Pick up the living room for her while she puts the kids to bed so she can relax in a clean room when she's done.

Just a side note here: For those of you men for whom sex is important, we women find it a lot easier to be "in the mood" when you do these things.  It's kind of tough to get worked up about a guy who sits on the recliner all night and ignores his wife while she cleans up supper, cleans up the kids and puts everybody to bed by herself.  Just something to think about.

8.  Honesty  Most of my friends agree that one of the things that drew them to their husband in the first place was his honesty.  This kind of goes hand in hand with integrity but it's an important distinction.  I'm not saying that you should say yes when your wife asks if her butt looks big in that dress.  That's just asking for a lesson in number five.  What we mean when we say honesty goes beyond the obvious sort of things like lying about where you've been, who you've been with and what you've been doing.  Honestly communicate with your wife. I have a friend who said, "Say what you mean and mean what you say."  We have to be able to count on your honesty. Be willing to talk things through when there are problems (and we all know there will be.)  I know this isn't always your first instincts. Some of you would rather just ignore it and hope it'll eventually go away.  Some guys get the communication gene naturally and some don't. If you didn't inherit that gene, it isn't an automatic "out" for you. Your marriage (and all relationships) will be much happier if you are willing to work on this.

9.  Generosity  This doesn't necessarily mean money.  If someone needs help, a good man is one of the first to step up.  He's always the guy helping people move and helping the neighbors replace the fence.  He's the guy that mows the grass at church and empties the trash can without being asked.


This is what I've come up with so far based on my own observations as well as the opinions of some of my friends.  What's your opinion?

Long Time No Write

It's been a really long time since I've carved a few minutes out of my day to write something.  I could say I've had a lot going on but how would that be different from any other time?  Who really doesn't have a lot going on, for Pete's sake?  The truth is, it just hasn't been a priority and that's sad because I really enjoy the process of writing.  I love words and how the right ones when put in just the right order work together to paint a picture in the mind.  It just makes my brain feel good to write a well-crafted sentence.  I think I might be a little OCD or something but I'm okay with it.

I've been dealing with a lot of junk that is rising to the surface in my life and I've been experiencing growth pains.  Just when I thought I was over my childhood need to please others in order to get approval, I find out that's not the case at all.  I might be better but I am in no way cured.  I've always admired my friends who just seemed to know who they were and didn't care what anybody else thought about them.  People called them rebels and troublemakers but I saw them as free.  They didn't bother to think about how other people were going to view them before they made a decision.  Granted, they had other problems but not that one.  As I've grown and worked at it, I'm better about just being me and even though I'm not always okay with the hurtful things that others might say and think about me, it doesn't drive my decisions like it used to.

The root of that drive was in the fear of rejection that I've struggled with my whole life.  My father deserted us before I was even born and even as a little kid it bothered me that before he even knew me, my father decided I wasn't worth it.  I was already displeasing before I even had a chance to try.  My step-father is a good man but I still always felt like I had to work harder for approval because I wasn't really his.  Not necessarily his fault but it was still there.  I always felt that I never really fit in to my family and wasn't really accepted because I was different.  I always like to read and write and play my piano.  I didn't see it as the epitome of a good time to fix fence and drive the tractor.

I didn't fit in in high school because I was weird.  I like to read and I enjoyed science and school just came easy to me.  I didn't enjoy drinking parties (and let's face it, what else is there to do in P-burg?) so I wasn't part of the in-crowd and they made fun of me for my weirdness.  I pretended not to care but it hurt a lot to be rejected day after day.  From my grown-up perspective, I know how threatened children are by someone who is different and many of them were probably just glad it wasn't them who was being teased on a daily basis.  Still it was just another layer that I added to the armor around my heart to avoid that rejection.  I stopped trying to make friends (outside of a very precious few that made life bearable) and just cocooned myself until I could leave.  I lived for the future and it never even occurred to me to live in the moment because the moment was hell.

Finally, I got to college and found a core of friends who liked me despite (and for a lot of them probably because) of my weirdness.  I guess we were all weird together and found value in each other that was outside of the clothes we wore and how much make-up I wore (or didn't wear.)  It was in that safe haven of accepting friends that I was able to begin that growth process of accepting myself for who I was and not on the basis of how many people liked me.

I can never be ________ enough to earn the right to be loved.  The bar will always increase and I will consistently fall short on somebody else's scale.  I might as well fall short just being me as trying and scrambling to be someone I'm not to earn approval.  Only on God's scale do I always measure up.  His scale is based on who He says I am and not on how skinny I am or pretty I am or how long or blond my hair is or how good I am or how smart I am.  It's not based on my bust-size or my butt-size or my dress size.  I am accepted and loved solely because when He sees me he doesn't see everything that's wrong with me.  He sees a beloved child, a beautiful bride. I am gradually working to accept that and live like I  believe it.

It's been a long road just to even get this far and it's always disappointing when I feel like I've gotten there only to have something happen that stirs up all those old hurts and fears again. I am reminded that life and growth are constant journeys with no actual destination in this world.  I will try to remember that when I'm tired of growth pains.

Me, Myself and I

I had to leave my son at Kindergarten for the first time yesterday.  It was difficult because he's my first-born and I feel like I just haven't had enough time with him.  I wasn't the only one.  I happened to know another mom who was dropping off her son for the first day as well.  This is her only child so she was experiencing everything I was times three.  She was trying valiantly not to cry because she didn't want to upset her son.  Her red eyes were a little more watery that they probably should have been but she was doing pretty well, I thought.  Her husband was being VERY insensitive to how emotional this was for her making comments like, "Oh Audrey, honestly!" in a tone that pretty much said "Just suck it up and get over it."  I'm working on having grace for others so I was able to restrain myself from clocking him in the face but I still felt bad for her.

I retold this story to a friend of mine this morning and she shared that she's working on overcoming fears that have followed her throughout her life.  She said that she would have felt sorry for that lady but her fears would have kept her from knowing what to do to help.  It came to me right then and there that I was unable to help, not because I was afraid, but because I'm selfish.  There.  I said it.  I'm selfish.  Self-centered, ego-centric, thoughtless, insensitive, you name it; that's me.  

I never saw it that way before.  Maybe I never wanted to.  Here's the thing: I'm not being what I always considered selfish.  I saw that grieving mom's plight and thought, "Oh.  Poor lady."  (In Texan that would be, "Awwwwweeee.  Bless her heart."  The word "heart" would be two syllables.)  In hindsight I should have asked her out for coffee or something just to give her a chance to talk to someone who would understand where she's coming from but I didn't.  Not because I thought about it and purposefully decided to go do my own thing, but because it never even occurred to me .  Lots of things never occur to me because I'm too busy dealing with my own crap. 

You see, I always thought that selfishness was choosing to think of yourself when others needed you more.  In my case, it's not a choice.  It's a habit.  My selfishness has become something that I just fall into without even trying or making a conscious decision.  I know for a fact that mom dropping her only child off at Kindergarten yesterday needed me a lot more than I needed to go spend money at IKEA.  If I had invited her for coffee she probably would have said no but she would have at least known that someone saw her in her pain and cared.

I have become obsessed with personal growth and becoming a better person that my kids can look up to and I have completely forgotten to love the people around me.  That's not true.  I haven't forgotten.  I just don't do it as much as I would like. How many times has someone needed me and I simply breezed on past them without even giving them a thought because I was so caught up in what I was doing at the moment?

The hard part is that I knew she was suffering and it never occurred to me to do anything about it.  Even when Jesus was mourning the horrific and senseless death of John the Baptist he had compassion for the crowds around him and fed them.  I think that maybe the issue here is not so much a lack of seeing as a lack of compulsion to do anything.   I think that's my problem more than anything else.  Most of the time I see others' pain and my heart is moved but not usually enough to do anything about it.  I think I often don't believe that anything I can do would be effectual anyway.

I guess that's my next project.  Realizing that I do have the power to do something to help; even if it's just inviting someone out for coffee and making a conscious effort to actually follow through.