The One About the Girl With the Sharp Tongue Who Sometimes Cuts Her Own Throat...

OK, so… Boy, I seem to start a lot of my writings that way :-) 

But anyway…

Yes, it’s been a long several months since I last published anything; no, I’m not going to go into a lengthy explanation of the whys and wherefores of where I’ve been.  I will say this, though: Several months back, I read a blog post that a friend of mine shared about being careful not to spend so much time blogging about our lives that we forget to live them, and it really hit home for me.  So, I’ve been taking some time off from blogging and just kind of focusing on simply living life each day with my family and friends.  And life has been exceptionally busy this year, so… Yep.  That’s where I’ve been :-)

So, tonight, I was sitting here on the couch in our new apartment (we moved over the summer… yeah, that was actually one of the more fun parts of the busyness :-D ), listening to iTunes and working on my mental list of people I now owe apologies to for running my mouth (What?  Don’t tell me I’m the ONLY person out there who does that every once in a while… ^_^ ), and this song came on:

I’m like a promise, I’m like a promise
I’m like a promise broken every time I open my mouth
Open my mouth, I open my mouth

OK, yeah… That’s me, right there, encapsulated in a single sentence.  It’s like I know I’ve got so much potential in me to do good, to do the right things, to love people and treat them like I want to be treated….

And then I open my mouth and all that promise just gets hurled to the ground and shattered into shards of glass that fly everywhere and cut the people who most need me to be gentle with them.  The Bible says in James 3 that the tongue steers our life like the rudder of a ship, that unlike any other wild animal, we cannot seem to tame it, no matter how hard we try.  The human tongue is like a flame that sets the forest ablaze; in my case, it seems more like a scalpel that strips the skin away and leaves the nerves frayed and loose and open to all the grit of daily life…

Under the surface, under the surface
Under the surface sometimes I wanna slip right out of my skin
Out of my, slip right out of my skin

Sometimes, when I hear the words that come out of my mouth, all I want to do is find a way to pretend that I’m really someone else, a good twin who can deny all knowledge of anything “that other person” has said.  I wish there was someone else that I could shrug my shoulders for and say, “No, that wasn’t me… Must have been that other chick who just happens to look like me and live around here.  I think I saw her go off in that direction…”  Maybe, just maybe, 38 years ago, my mom actually gave birth to identical twins in secret, and then the government wiped her memory and took one of the twins away to train her as a black-leather-and-spandex-clad secret assassin, and now there’s some kind of super-secret spy agent out there who looks exactly like me (only in leather and spandex... which I, for the record, would never wear together...) and is now running around all over the Chehalem Valley doing whatever she can with her words to mess up my life and my relationships and my reputation so she can murder me and bury me under the new patio in the backyard and then seamlessly take over my life…

No, wait… that’s a show on Netflix.  Never mind.

Well, until my clones start showing up on my doorstep, I guess I’m stuck with the knowledge that, nope, it’s just me using my own tongue as a weapon of mass destruction to take out half the population of Newberg.  Sigh…

And tell all my secrets
And open my scars
Break into pieces
Cause at the end of me, at the end of me
That’s where You start

Now there’s the hope in the situation…  God doesn’t expect me to be perfect all the time.  God doesn’t expect me to be perfect any of the time.  Which is really good, because I’ve always sucked at perfection (just ask my sister… the real one, not the long-hoped for evil twin one ^_^ )  But when I get to the point where I’ve completely FUBARed things, that’s where God can come in and make the biggest difference.  Not that I should go around trying to screw everything up… but since I seem to be so darned good at it sometimes, it helps to know that God can salvage anything and turn it into something beautiful in His way and time :-)

Do you remember, do you remember?
Do you remember when I was young and I knew everything?
I knew everything about everything

(Yes, before she even comments, my sister will definitely confirm that this was totally me when we were growing up... and that at least 2 of my 3 kids take after their mother in that regard... and that she was NEVER like that at ANY point in HER youth... ;-D )

Such a long time, such a long time
Such an uphill climb just to finally get over myself
Over my, I’m so over myself

So tell all my secrets
And open my scars
Break me to pieces
Cause at the end of me, at the end of me
That’s where You start

I don’t know where, I don’t know how
Maybe a prayer, maybe a cloud
I don’t know where, I don’t know how

So tell all my secrets
And open my scars
Gather the pieces
Cause at the end of me, at the end of me
That’s where You start
                     --Bebo Norman, "At the End of Me"

You see, that’s what I absolutely LOVE about God: He takes us right where we are, and then moves us forward from there.  His grace isn’t about making me feel really crappy about the stupid thing I’ve just said— I already feel crappy enough about that already, thank you very much :-P  God’s grace says to me, “OK, yes, you messed up here, I concur.  Now here’s what we’re going to do about it… You go and do what you can to apologize and make things right, and meanwhile, I’ll go and take care of the rest of it.  Then we can leave this in the past and move on to our next crazy adventure…  Hurry up, gotta dash. Things happening. Well, four things. Well, four things and a lizard...”

(OK, so I'm still waiting for one of God's plans for me to include a lizard... Darn you, Netflix...)

I find that, when I’m stressed, I tend to lose what little control I have over my mouth, and then out come all sorts of sharply sarcastic, mean-spirited, “I was just joking…” sort of comments, armed and loaded and just ready to take flight and stab people straight in the heart.  And yes, I’ve been stressed recently… There’s a lot of stuff going on and way more running around and trying to fit everything everyone wants to do into the schedule somehow than I ever expected going into this school year.

But…

If I know that being stressed makes me more of a sharp-tongued shrew, then I have an obligation to try harder to keep it under control when I am stressed.  Because honestly?  None of the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time comments that come flying out of my mouth ever seem to make life easier or less stressful for anybody, myself included.

So this is why I’m writing this now…

First off, if you’re at all like me and you find yourself at times mistaking your tongue for a Ginsu...

... Don’t beat yourself up.  God loves you, He’ll forgive you if you ask Him to, and then He can help you get up and move on.  Apologize to the person you’ve hurt and ask for their forgiveness; they might forgive you, they might not, either way, you’ve done what you can to make peace (Romans 12:18, one of my favorite verses :-D ) and now all you can do is move forward anyway.  Maybe if I’m honest about the fact that I screw up waaaaaaaaay more often in this area than I’m proud of, it can help someone else too.

Second off (Second on?  Secondly?  Maybe it’s just Second…), I’m writing this to ask for people to help hold me accountable.  Sometimes (as God has been pointing out to me recently), I say things in the moment and then just kind of walk away thinking everyone’s laughing and every thing’s fine and everyone understands what I really meant… and I have absolutely no clue until days later that someone’s been lying on the ground behind me bleeding out from their soul because of something stupid that I said.  And let me tell you, that is one sickening realization to come to, especially when the person bleeding to death is someone I love almost more than life itself.

So, the next time I say something (or write something, or you’ve heard that I’ve said something) and it hurts, tell me.  I can’t do anything to make things right and try to bandage up the wounds I’ve caused unless I know about it.  And as a Christian, I want to make things right,  I want to heal wounds and make things better…  Just as I’m supposed to be an ambassador for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20) and help to bring peace and healing between God and people, I need to do everything I can to bring peace and healing between myself and those that I have hurt.  Even if it’s embarrassing, even if it’s awkward, even if people never forgive me and I end up alone in some cave somewhere waiting for my evil clone twin to show up and finish the job I’ve started… 

No, wait… Too much Netflix is apparently bad for my blogging life :-P

My most recent parenting fail... Sorry, but it's not a funny one this time :-/

I'm beginning to think that the hardest part of raising kids is letting them go.  Now, none of mine are quite old enough to leave the nest yet, so I'm not talking about the big, scary, drive them halfway across the country and then leave them there so they can attend the college of their dreams sort of letting go (though a dear friend of mine just got back home from doing that very thing with her oldest... you are one brave woman, Melinda :-D ).  No, I'm talking about the kind of letting go that comes from realizing that the time has come to step back as a parent and trust your kids to make their own decisions, even if and especially when you're not there to make sure that they do, in fact, make the RIGHT decision.

Today, one of my kids made the wrong decision, and I was at work in another town and completely unable to do anything about it.

Now, before any of you who know me start emailing me with questions of "OMG!!!!!  WHICH KID WAS IT AND WHAT DID THEY DO???  HOW MUCH BAIL MONEY DO YOU NEED AND HOW MANY MONTHS UNTIL YOU WANT TO HAVE THE BABY SHOWER AND WILL YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE COVER DETOX OR WON'T THEY???", let me just assure everyone that no, none of them are pregnant, all of them are home and not in jail, and they've all already finished their homework and are currently already in bed-- each one by themselves, too, just in case some of you (really, seriously?) were going to go there :-P  What happened this morning was in all actuality a very minor thing, with no foreseeable long-term damage done.  And I'm pretty certain that it's not an ominous harbinger of an oncoming storm of teenage rebellion either.  But it DID bring me to a place of questioning whether or not we've been making the right decisions all along the way and discovering that, honestly, I'm not as great a parent as I thought I was :-/

As parenting goes, I've always been a big fan of natural consequences-- sometimes parentally engineered "natural" consequences, but more-or-less natural, logical, reason-led ones all the same.  Toddler daughter refuses to pick up the pieces of her puzzle in a fit of "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO I'M ALMOST FOUR AND SO I'M ALMOST ALL GROWN UP AND YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF MEEEEEE!"; toddler daughter watches as said puzzle pieces are thrown into the trash can along with the rest of the garbage on the floor.  Son #1 decides to throw wet paper towels all over the school bathroom to see how far up the wall he can get them to stick and whether or not he can actually get them to defy gravity and cling to the ceiling; son #1 gets to spend an afternoon helping the custodian clean up said bathroom.  Son #2 decides to ignore the warning about coming home before curfew from his friend's house (which, incidentally, is only 100 yards down the street, so he theoretically could have just hollered to say he'd be late); son #2 finds himself grounded and disallowed to go by himself to a friend's house on his own for the rest of the week.  Basically, you make your choice, you evaluate the consequences, and then you decide if it's really worth making that same choice the next time... pretty simple, no?

We Christian parents especially like to put a hedge of protection around our kids by making sure they only watch the right shows, listen to the right music, read the right books, hang out with the right friends, etc.  We figure that if we only give them good role models to follow and we shield them from negative examples, then they won't know to choose the wrong and will generally make the right decisions all throughout their lives.  We bet that if we raise smart, moral, good church-going kids, we can help them to avoid so many of the pitfalls of secular life... and it's actually not all that bad of a parenting plan, to be honest.

The downside is that we often end up sheltering our kids' decisions so that they only have good options to choose from and gentle consequences to remind them of the unconditional love of God.  And that, as I look back on things tonight, has been the parenting road we ended up on; I'm hearby pleading "GUILTY" to trying their whole lives to protect them from the consequences of their own native stupidity :-(  As kids get older, though, we as parents need to give them more responsibility for their own actions and more freedom in taking those actions.  And sometimes, this means letting them step out of our sight and hoping, with fingers crossed and eyes closed, that they'll have learned enough to not choose the door labeled (in big red, dripping, invisible letters) "This Is the STUPID Option... STAY AWAY!"

It was hard this morning to drive away, knowing that, though I had given my child specific directions and a definite answer to their question of "So, Mom, can we...?", I was leaving them in a position of temptation with no way to enforce my will and preferences in the matter.  And I knew that, theoretically, my child might choose to disobey and do what they wanted to do, hoping that I wouldn't find out.  But because love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things, I trusted that my child, whom I love with all my heart, would resist temptation and do the right thing simply because I had asked them to.  I honestly thought that, because I said "No, you can't... Sorry...", it would be enough to ensure that they actually did what I wanted them to do.

Not only did my child do what I had specifically forbidden them to do, but I had to find out about it from a sibling who couldn't keep their mouth shut.  (Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's going to be some holy Christian smackdown going on as soon as they all head out the door in the morning...)

But you know what?  This is a part of letting go.  At least it was a little mistake, and not one that's going to shape future generations of our family.  At some level, I needed to realize that my kids are not just extensions of my own self-worth, reflections of my ability to parent like a boss.  Each one of my kids is their own independent human being, with their very own imperfect nature and their very own will, with just as much of a right to be wrong as I have.  They're going to go off and make their own choices, and sometimes those choices are going to be "Screw that, Mom, I can make a better decision on my own, thank you very much."  And when those decisions have been ripped out of my grasping, clawing hands, then sometimes the consequences are out of my hands as well, and I won't always be there to catch them when they fall broken to the ground.

This time, though, my husband and I have to-- get to-- assign the consequences.  And we have to walk the fine line between realizing that no lasting harm has been done and not wanting that harm to come knocking at our kids' doors in the future.  How do we assign a consequence for disobedience that's fair and proportionate to a (really pretty minor) offense but still teaches them that, hey, Mom and Dad aren't idiots and you really should listen to them sometimes?  How do we make sure that we don't overreact and punish them too harshly simply because our feelings are hurt and our trust broken?  Or how do we make sure that this consequence gives them something positive that they can hold on to for the rest of their lives and pass on to their own kids someday (who probably won't listen to or obey them any better than they do us right now...)

To make the situation even stickier, tonight I had to admit to myself and to my husband that I've been making parenting decisions all along that have helped to create the situation that tripped my child up this morning... How do I go now to my child and apologize for my own parenting fail and still expect them to respect my wisdom and authority as their mom?  I'm really, really hoping for and counting on the fact that the Bible says that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5), because I'm really going to need His grace tomorrow as I share a big ol' slice of humble pie with my child :-/

Actually, strike what I said in my first sentence... maybe the hardest part of raising kids is the not knowing how badly you're screwing them up until it's too late to do anything about it :-/

(I seriously need to start cruising Facebook or hanging out with my daughter's genius friends again... This blog and my sanity are both looooong overdue for a funny post for a change... o.O  But for now, I think I'll just head to bed with this song running through my head; I'll probably end up playing it tomorrow for my kid and pretty much every time I screw up again from now until forever...)

I Do Not Want to Be Upgraded...

(OK, so here's the post I was intending to write on the 13th... If I'm very very clever I MIGHT actually get it published by the 14th... ^_^)

Kitty corner across the street from our apartment building, there is a church that offers a free breakfast on late-start Wednesdays for the students at the high school.  I've seen the sign, and I think it's a great idea, because even if they've already eaten at home, teenagers will inevitably be hungry again by the time they drive across town to get to school... and by offering breakfast on a late-start Wednesday, they're still leaving kids with enough time to grab a snack out of the vending machines on the way to first period as well :-)

Tuesday night, my daughter's boyfriend was apparently telling her that he wanted to stop by the church and get some food on their way to school the next morning.  Which makes sense except for the fact that... well, it's at a CHURCH.  My daughter's boyfriend is a brilliant guy and very sweet (especially to her), but he's not a Christian.  In fact, he dislikes church (for a lot of the same good reasons I hated churches and so-called Christians growing up), and pretty much refuses to go.  So, when my daughter told me (with a perplexed expression) about her boyfriend's plan for the next morning, I was both confused and intrigued.

Well, my daughter overslept, and so they didn't make it to the church breakfast thingy after all, but as he and I were waiting for her to finish getting ready, I asked him what he was thinking.  Which led to an interesting conversation about all manner of things religious, but what caught my imagination and hasn't let go of it all day was something that he told me his mom had told him about the church breakfast thing:

"'You do know that they're going to try and convert you, right?'"

Now, I don't know for sure if this church is one of those that feels the urge to convert everyone who walks through their doors, or if this is one of those seeker-friendly places that encourages every visitor to "find their own path to enlightenment."  But what his mom told him to watch out for (boy, it gets complicated trying to write without using names ^_^) just kind of resonated with me, because isn't that exactly what we as Christians do sometimes?  We get in the mindset that it's our job to "convert" people to Christianity, and that if we try to "share the gospel" with them and they DON'T get saved, then we've either not tried hard enough, or else we've done something wrong, or else they're just unrepentant sinners who are destined for hellfire and there's nothing we can do but simply wash our hands of them.

As I've mentioned before, I didn't grow up in a Christian home.  My mom told me as I was growing up that, because we have some Jewish blood in our grandmother's lineage, we were part of "God's Chosen People" and, therefore, we were automatically going to Heaven to be with God no matter what we did.  God simply gave us His commandments to tell us what to do and what not to do, and then He sent Jesus as a living example of how we were all supposed to live our lives.

This confused me.  On the one hand, God gave us a bunch of rules and filled in the gaps with some pretty scary consequences if we didn't obey (try reading through Exodus and Leviticus as a precocious 7 year old sometime... o.O).  On the other hand, it really doesn't matter whether we obey the rules or not, because if we're lucky enough to be Jewish, we're all going to go to Heaven anyway...?  By the time I was 10 or so, I figured that there really was no God, because either He was powerless ("Hah!  I broke all Your puny little commandments but You STILL have to let me in because I'm JEWWWWW-ISHHHHHHH!  Nyah, nyah, nyaaaaaahhhh!"), or else He must hate everybody and delight in torturing them ("You thought about stealing a pencil once because it was purple and sparkly, and since to think of breaking a commandment is the same as committing it in your heart, you are hereby sentenced to BUUUUUUUURRRRRNNNN... Thus saith the LORD!").  On top of that, I just didn't see how it would be fair to have an afterlife (i.e. Heaven) where EVERYBODY would get in no matter what they did or who they had a feud with on earth (I mean, my mom's parents were divorced... logically, then, how on earth could it be Heaven for either one of them if they were BOTH there?)  By the time I started junior high, I was one confused and, frankly, ticked off young lady-- all these years, and everyone who kept inviting me to church and Awanas and Neighborhood Bible Club had been LYING to me?

Because I used to get invited to a LOT of Christian events by well-meaning people at school and in my neighborhood.  And this is where the comment about being "converted" really hit home for me:  Every time I would get invited to a church or a Bible club, it was always the same bait-and-switch technique:

"Hey there, little girl... Do you like cookies?  Would you like to come over and have some cookies and milk after school.  We'll have a story, and some songs, and if you want, you can even play some musical instruments.  There will be other kids there... We'd LOVE it if you came!"

"Um... OK.  I like cookies, I guess..."

**arrives at house at right time, knocks on door timidly**

"Oooooooh, you CAME!  Hey everyone, look who's here with us today!  It's that one little girl from down the street!  You know, the one with the greasy hair and dirty clothes and holey shoes who OBVIOUSLY COMES FROM A PAGAN AND UNBELIEVING HOME..."  (OK, so no one ever actually said that last part out loud in front of me, but 1) it was always there in the pitying gazes of the adults in the room and in the snickers and haughty looks of the other kids, and 2) as an adult, I've heard those words come from the mouths of other church workers in reference to some of the kids we've had at VBS and Bible Clubs.)

"Um... Hi?"

"Oh, sweetie, we're so glad you're here!  Come on in and have a cookie..."

**comes in and stuffs face with cookie, completely oblivious to the quiet locking of the door behind her and the ominous music that really should be playing under a scene such as this...**

"Now, let's see... Where were we...?  Oh, yesssss... DO YOU KNOW FOR SURE IF YOU DIED TODAY THAT YOU WOULD GO TO HEAVEN???  WOULD YOU RATHER GO TO HELL???  OH NO, YOU WOULDN'T, WOULD YOU???  IF YOU ASK JESUS TO COME IN AND LIVE IN YOUR HEART RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, TODAY, THEN YOU WILL GO TO HEAVEN TO BE WITH GOD FOREVER AND NOT ONLY THAT, BUT YOU WILL NEVER BE SAD OR LONELY AGAIN BECAUSE YOU WILL BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY GHOST AND JESUS PROMISES HE WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU OR FORSAKE YOU AND SO YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A FRIEND IN JESUS WHO WILL LIVE IN YOUR HEART FOREVER IF YOU JUST SAY THIS SIMPLE PRAYER WITH ME... Wouldn't you like that, little girl (whose name I can't remember right now)?  Wouldn't you like to go to Heaven and be with Jesus and God and be in-right out-right upright downright happy all the time?"

Um... WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY TO THAT WHEN I'M SITTING THERE WITH MY MOUTH FULL OF COOKIE AND A LOCKED DOOR BETWEEN ME AND THE OUTSIDE WORLD???

So, of course, I do what we all would do... I nod my head and, after swallowing the wad of cookie-mush that's now lodged in my throat, I dutifully echo whatever words of whatever prayer the nice Bible teacher wants me to say (most of which makes little to no sense whatsoever... but hey, now I've got a bearded dude in a white robe living in my left ventricle and some creepy ghosty-thing living in my right, and all of my synapses have been washed away with a whole lotta sheep's blood so as soon as I step outside, nothing bad will be able to touch me because I've got a nice leafy hedge to protect me, so it's all good, right?)  And then everybody sings a happy song, and everyone congratulates me on becoming a Christian-- while making sure not to touch me or get too close because, hey, I'm still wearing the same dirty clothes and holey shoes and greasy hair that I came in with.  And then they show me to the door and off I go, waltzing happily right back into the same messy world that I woke up in that morning.  And the next day, life is just as miserable as it was before I "asked Jesus into my heart" and "became a believer", and I'm left going, "Um... What's going on?  Where's my fabulous new life and all the riches of being a child of God?"

So the next week, I go back and start asking questions.  And what I'm told is that, in order to KEEP the blessings of God, I have to start making changes in my life.  I need to stop watching bad TV shows.  I need to stop listening to the devil's music.  I need to start dressing like a good Christian and not like the world, and most of all, I need to stop cussing, start going to church every Sunday, and get to work sharing the good news of Jesus with all of my friends and/or invite them to Bible Club too.  Never mind that 1) I don't have any control over the TV set or what we watch on it, 2) All of the "Christian" kids' music out there is boring and repetitive and seems to be written by aliens from the planet HappyHappy, 3) I have no money to go out and buy the clothes that all the "Christian" kids at school are wearing, 4) my mom works Sundays and so I have no way to get to church... besides, that, we're JEWISH, if you remember, and 5) at this time, I had no friends at school to share the "good news" with, much less any who would willingly go anywhere after school with me.

"So," I would finally ask, "What you're telling me is that God loves me, but now He wants to change everything about me?"

"Oh, yes... He loves you right where you're at, but He loves you too much to leave you that way."  (Worst mis-use of the truth of God EVER, right there, IMHO... :-/ )

"So... Why would God want me to be His kid if He doesn't even LIKE me?"

"Oh, sweetie... Um... Uh... Well, of COURSE God LOVES you...!"

"But does He LIKE me?"

"Well..."

"Do YOU even LIKE me?"  (I was a pretty messed up kid with a pretty big reputation for getting into arguments and cussing people out, even the teachers.  I was a hard person to like... I didn't even like me, so I totally understood why nobody else did either...)

"Well... Of COURSE we like you..."

"Really?  What's my name, then?"

"Your what?"

"My name.  Do you even remember my name?"

They usually didn't.  I usually didn't go back.

I got older and became your stereotypical Goth teenager; I hated everything, made everyone miserable, did everything I could to tick everyone off just to see what would happen.  Sophomore year, I tried to flunk out of Spanish class after scoring 2nd in state on the National Spanish Exam and then threatened to kill myself... just to see which one would get the bigger rise out of my mom.  Junior year, I wrote an essay about terrorizing the school counselor with tales of dismemberment and nearly got suspended.  Senior year, I tried to set up a "satanic ritual" at the lunch table using black plastic garbage bags, some table sugar, and a glow-in-the-dark skull candle; I also nearly got arrested for threatening a police officer with a knife because I was mouthing off to him while chopping up potatoes for dinner (now, WHY there was a police officer in my house while I was making dinner, that's a WHOLE other story altogether...)

And of course, for every crazy thing I did to try and prove that I really was a bad seed (one of the terms a VBS leader had used to describe me when I was 7 and throwing a mega-tantrum in her church), there was at least one well-meaning soul at my high school each year trying to convert me.  Why they wanted to convert me, I had no idea...  These people certainly didn't LIKE me, and they NEVER bothered to actually get to KNOW me before trying to "fix" me.  Maybe it was the idea that because I was so bad, I would make a more beautiful trophy on their spiritual wall, perhaps?  I don't know.  All I know was that it was always the same rigamarole, over and over again...

"Do you know for sure if you died today that you would go to Heaven?"
"I don't believe in your 'Heaven'."
"Oh, well then... I guess that means you're going to Hell, then."
"I don't believe in your 'Hell', either."
"Oh... Well, don't you believe in God?"
"Nope."
"But... Certainly you MUST believe in SOMETHING???"
"Nope... Not really.  Life sucks and then we die."
"But... but... Jesus, and... God, and the Holy Spirit, and... FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH IN HIM SHALL NOT PERISH BUT SHALL HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE!  If you pray and ask Jesus into your heart then..."
"Been there, done that.  Didn't work."
"Oh.  Well, then, I guess you're going to hell, then.  Have a nice life anyway!"  And then they would scurry away, off to find one of their fellow "believers" to commiserate with about how the world was going to hell in a handbasket and how "that one girl" with the skull candle and all the chains was boldly leading the way.

And if I could have told them one thing, it would have been this: If your God is so small that He can't handle one scared, confused little girl wrapping herself in chains to defend herself, then your God is not one that I would want to serve anyway.

For those of you who still don't get why a non-Christian would ever turn down the chance to be "led to the Lord" in such a way, let me share with you what I've found to be the best pop-culture analogy to hit-and-run evangelism EVER...

(If the video above won't play, the entire Doctor Who episode I'm referencing is Series 2, Episode 5, "Rise of the Cybermen", and is available on Netflix and elsewhere; the specific scene takes place at about 37 minutes or so into the episode.)

Now, I am not trying to condemn Christian evangelism.  I'm not criticizing Christian missions in general, and I'm not saying that Christians should just give up and leave everyone else alone.  I'm sure that there are some of you reading this who think I'm attacking you, because you recognize some of the things I've quoted as coming from your own flyers and handouts.  My aim is not to attack anybody personally.

My aim is to make a point.

Non-Christians do not want to be converted. We do not wish to be "upgraded" against our wills.

We want to be loved.  We want to be respected.  We want to be treated as human beings, with names and stories, minds and souls.

Because here's the thing: If God actually is who you say He is, then He is big enough to handle all of the scared little kids out there who lash out at a cold and punishing world.  If your God is real, then He chose to create each and every person on this earth... every person who ever lived, who lives now, and who ever will live.  Each unique combination of sperm and egg, with its specific genetic code and one-of-a-kind life story... Your God knows each one, He chose each one, He placed each on in his or her specific time, place, and family... and He knows each and every one of the struggles that they will go through in their life before even one of their days comes to pass (Psalm 139).  If you're reading this and you're not a Christian, I'm not saying this to convince you to become one.  That's not my job.  I'm saying this because what I have seen and what I have lived through has convinced me that it is true.

All those years, all those people who only wanted to convert me so that they could add another tally mark to their weekly list of souls, all those people who gave up on me and told me I was going to go to hell...

They were wrong.

Because when I was 20, I encountered a God who actually knows me and loves me... and not only that, He actually likes me too.  I didn't become a Christian because somebody bullied me into it or forced me to convert against my will; I am a Christian today because somebody took the time to get to know me, to see me as a human being with value and a purpose, and to love me like God loved me all along.  I was able to contemplate God as a real possibility only after someone actually did for me what they said God already had been doing all along-- looking out for me, caring what happened to me, liking me for who I was, and loving me more than I loved myself.  I've already told bits and pieces of my story elsewhere on this blog (here and here and here and here), so I'm not going to make this post any longer by retelling you all exactly how I became a Christian and why.  But I do want to finish with some advice from someone with a foot in both camps:

To the Christians out there reading this:  Stop trying to upgrade every "unbeliever" you meet in your own image.  Start actually seeing us as people first instead of candidates for conversion or potential tally marks on your spiritual scorecard.  Because honestly, this is what your hit and run, win-'em-at-the-door evangelism style looks like to us.  If you're wondering why people don't want to hear your gospel, take a good look at your approach...  Do you actually like the people you're trying to save?  Would you be happy to sit next to them in church just as they are?  If they never decide to become Christians, would you still consider them your friends?  Do you know their names, their kids' names, their brothers' and sisters' names?  Do you know what makes them laugh, what makes them cry?  What their hopes for the future are and what keeps them awake at night?  If not, then you don't love them... and they will know it.  And why should we believe that your God (who supposedly knows all about us) loves us if you yourself (who don't know us from Adam) can't love us?  Finally, don't give up on us... You can't possibly know what's going to happen in 2 years, in 5 years, in 20 years, or on our deathbeds; for all you know, we may someday change our minds and decide that maybe there IS a God out there after all.  Or we may not.  God calls you to love your neighbor as yourself, not predict his or her future and bestow your affections accordingly.

To the non-Christians out there reading this:  Please don't judge all Christians by the actions of some.  Not every Christian you meet is out to grind you up and turn you into a Cyber-Believer.  You don't like it when we judge and condemn you without actually knowing anything about you; please don't do that to us either.  Be honest with us about what you do believe (because everybody believes in something); be willing to share your thoughts and listen to ours in return.  Don't be as big a snot as I was, because looking back, I can now see that some of the people I thought only wanted to convert me actually did care and actually were trying to help... and all I did was brush them off and make myself even more miserable.

OK, so now that I've probably managed to tick people off on BOTH sides of the fence... Any thoughts to share?

Is there anybody listening?

OK, so I know it's been a while since I last posted (or at least it feels like a long while, anyway...), and it was a while before that post as well...  Life has been busy and I've been subbing a lot, but honestly, that's not reason enough to go so long between posts and it's not the main reason that I have :-/

Truth is, I'm not struggling much with finding something to say, but with believing that anything I have to say is worth listening to.  Sure, I've got ideas and find myself thinking "OMG... I SOOOOO need to blog about THIS!  It's gonna be EPIC!!   Best blog post EVER!!!"  And then I start writing the post...

...And then I stop, because something in me starts to wonder, "Why do I bother with this?  Is this really worth writing about?  Is this really worth READING about?  C'mon... you know no one's going to read this crap, and even if they do, they're just going to click away and go find something worthwhile and meaningful to read to cleanse their minds of this nonsense that I've been spouting."  And so I stop, save the draft (I have 6 drafts currently on my Blogger homepage... 7 if you count this one...), and go back to cruising my Facebook feed, hoping for some sort of connection with somebody.  I feel like I'm actually living this old Queensryche song from my middle school years...

(Wow... Geoff Tate in a tank top... That's kind of an "Ewwww... What were we all THINKING back then???" sort of a moment... o.O  But anyway...)

Why do I bother speaking if no one is paying any attention?  It's like living with my kids... I've lost count of the number of times where I've made some sort of announcement or asked a question ("Dinner's ready...", "Time for bed...", "Why are you all singing 'The Star Spangled Banner' to the tune of 'The Narwhal Song'?"), only to be completely ignored or else stared at like I've just sprouted a third nose in the middle of my forehead.  I know, I know, this is normal... the kids-not-listening part, not the third nose part... but as any parent can attest, it's really, REALLY frustrating :-/

I think each of us has a very human need to be heard and to be noticed...  We want people to listen to us and to tell us we're worth listening to; without that, our souls starve and wither a little each day.  We are the only creatures on earth with a voice, a language, and an innate drive to communicate, and I don't believe that's an accident or a side effect of evolution... When God sent Jesus to earth, He was called the Word made flesh (John chapter 1, specifically verse 14) for a reason; when God wanted to get our attention and be noticed, He did what we would do and used not a gesture, not a glare, not an interpretive dance or a game of charades, but a Word.

People need to speak, to listen, and to be heard... And we never realize how much we need all of those until the silence overwhelms us.

Supposedly, I've had 672 visitors to my blog since I started writing in 2011... And from all those, only 2 people (other than me) have made any sort of comment or left a footprint to let me know they were here.  It's kind of discouraging, because I start to wonder...

Is it that I'm not saying anything worth commenting on?
Is it that I'm saying something so distasteful that no one wants anyone else to know they were here?
Is it that no one likes me, everybody hates me, and I guess I should go eat worms?  (As long as they're sour gummy worms, I might actually be OK with that... ^_^ )

Maybe no one's actually reading my words at all, and all 672 of those hits were just Googlebots after all...

But... If you ARE actually reading my words, thrown out into the cyber-void for who-knows-what purpose, could you do my poor battered self-esteem a favor and leave a comment to let me know you're there?  Who you are, where you're from, how on earth you stumbled across my odd little internet soapbox here... and whether you agree with me that sour gummy worms are way better than the rainbow gummy ones :-)

If something I've said in a post has struck a chord or a nerve with you, tell me so and why.  If you've got a question for me or a counter-argument to something I've said, let me know.  If you're thinking I'm a self-absorbed idiot who really should go back to answering the phones at Wal-Mart... well, try and break that to me gently and with nice words, please ^_^

To sum it all up: Talk to me, because the little voices get really strange notions when I start talking to myself... :-D

(OK, hopefully that was the end of my itty bitty pity party...  And then this song came on my iTunes and suddenly I felt much better...)

Contentment vs. Happiness...

(I was totally expecting that my next post would be the continuation of "Faith Is...", but right now, I'm kind of frustrated about a situation and feel the need to try and get my thoughts out in a more... constructive manner.  More constructive than beating my head against a brick wall until reality fades away, anyway...  Let's just call this one a teaser for "Top 10 Myths of the Christian Life" and call it good, 'K? :-D )

---------------------------

Our world tells you that the most important thing in life is to be happy.  Whatever you do, do what makes you happy and tell the rest of the world to go to Minnesota.  (Which, in my opinion, is a phrase that Tim Hawkins left out of his list of 101 Cuss Words for Christians... Here's the video, courtesy of my daughter's completely awesome boyfriend who first showed it to me...)


But anyway...

Our culture tells you that if you're unhappy, there's something seriously wrong in your life that needs to be fixed.  If your husband/children/teachers/friends make you unhappy, ditch 'em and find someone who makes you feel happy again.  If you're unhappy all the time for no apparent reason, take this pill so you can feel happy.  It's all about being happy, happy, happy all the time.

And that, my friends, is a lie.

Happiness is based on situations.  If it's my birthday and my husband takes me out for dinner at Olive Garden, I'm happy.  If I get a paycheck in the mail, I'm happy.  If my kids bring home all As on their report cards, I'm happy for them.  If my best friend's boyfriend asks her to marry him, I'm happy for her.

All that happiness, however, is based on an "if"; remove that "if" and the happiness goes away... If my hubby forgets my birthday, I'm unhappy because it implies that something else is more important to him.  If my bills come due and I don't get a paycheck to cover them, I'm unhappy because I now have to call and ask for payment arrangements so they don't shut off the electricity.  If my kids hide their report cards and the teacher has to call to find out why my son didn't return the Discipline Referral slip she sent home three days ago, I'm unhappy because now I have to deal with whatever it was he did AND with the imminent grounding he has just earned.  If my best friend's boyfriend breaks up with her over Facebook, I'm unhappy because now she's miserable and because he has destroyed part of my faith in "nice guys".

Life is full of situations, both good and bad... Every day is a new situation, and every day we have things that make us happy and things that make us unhappy.  There is simply no way to get around that.  And when we have one of those days where our emotions are being yanked up and down and all over the place by situations, we end up exhausted and miserable and sick and confused as heck about what we're supposed to be feeling.  If life is all about being happy, then there is really no point to any of it because, as soon as something happens to make us happy, something else always seems to come along to make us unhappy and we end up forgetting the happiness we had at the beginning.

I don't believe that life is supposed to be about being happy.  I choose instead to believe in contentment.

Contentment is not about being happy all the time.  It's not like that old Sunday School song about being "in-right, outright, upright, downright happy all the time" (The only Sunday School song that I can say I actually, really, truly, completely HATE... here's a video of it in case you don't know it by heart already...)



(Note: I have nothing at all against the people in this video or against anyone who uses this song in their children's church or Sunday School program... I just really think the song itself is horrible and misleading to children of all ages because it tells them that, if they become a Christian, their life will be all wonderful and they will be happy all of the time.  Which, as anyone who has been a Christian for more than a week or so can testify, is simply not true :-/ )

But anyway... Contentment is knowing that, whatever happens and however the situation you're in turns out, you're going to be OK.  It's knowing that no matter how bad your day is going and how scary the pit you're standing at the edge of looks, tomorrow will be a new day and it isn't the end of the world.  It's knowing that what you're feeling isn't the be-all end-all of what you are, and that even in the deepest, darkest depressions of the night, you are still a beautiful creature with the right to have hope and a future.

For the Christian, contentment is knowing that there is no situation coming over you that wasn't allowed for and prepared for by the Maker of the universe Himself.  It's knowing that no matter what happens next, God Himself knows the number of your days (Psalm 139) and the plans He still has for you to fulfill (Jeremiah 29:11).  Contentment comes from knowing that each and every situation will either 1) make you stronger and give you yet another glimpse of how God is working in your life, or 2) kill you and therefore transport you into His presence in Heaven, where there are no more crazy situations to have to deal with :-)  (OK, so maybe that either/or was a wee bit extreme... Oh, well, that's just how we roll here, I guess... ^_^ )

Even though I am a Christian, if I'm going to be honest and have even a shred of integrity, I have to admit that here are a lot of situations in my life (and in the lives of a lot of my friends and family members) that I am most definitely NOT happy about.  I am NOT in-right, outright, upright, downright happy all the time :-P  But... I can be content knowing that, no matter how unhappy I feel or how frustrated I am with what's going on, it's not the end of the world.  When things are fantastic and everything is coming together and it all works and I'm in love with the world and everything in it, I can be content to not cling to what's fleeting and to just bask in the glory of a rare good day.  When things are going badly and life just kind of sucks and I feel like blasting my frustrations all over Facebook just to get them out of my head, I know that this is not how my story (or the stories of all those hurting people I love) ends.

That's what contentment is.

Don't strive and work and chase after and exhaust and starve yourself trying to find happiness, because even if you do catch it, it will fade and drift away.  Look for contentment, and in those moments when you realize, "Hey, I'm actually happy today!", you will be able to stop and relax and enjoy and savor it :-D

Faith is...?

First off, my apologies to anyone out there who was paying attention and noticed that I haven't posted anything since April... I've been super busy spending time with my family, which has included:

• Subbing... and more subbing (the end of the year is generally like that, as teachers need time off to plan for the next year and whatnot),
• Working with my freshman to plan the rest of her high-school coursework,
• Helping her prepare for and then watching her perform in her first high-school drama production,
• Getting my 8th grader graduated from middle school and ready for high school,
• Chaperoning his end-of-the-year band festivals and field trips,
• Keeping my 4th grader from driving his older siblings completely bonkers (partially bonkers or almost-totally bonkers is OK though... it helps keep them from getting bored ^_^ ),
• Coordinating with various and sundry friends and family to get all 3 kids to their assorted scouting activities and camps,
• Dyeing my daughter's hair bright orange so she could portray Lucille Ball for all of the little Brownies and Juniors at Girl Scout Day Camp (it's still streaked pink in spots where the cherry Kool-Aid took more deeply to her hair than the Ion Color Brilliance Semi-Permanent Orange did),
• Spending 4 days camping at the coast (and being entertained by watching my daughter trying to find cell phone reception on the beach... "Wait!  Stop walking!  I've got bars now!  Just so long as I don't move off of this rock right... here... Oh, hey, he's calling me back! Hi there, handsome... Drat!  Gone again... Grrr... CURSE YOU T-MOBILE!!!!")
• Welcoming my baby nephew (the first child for my sister and her hubby :-D ),
• Hosting my niece from Virginia and watching as much Doctor Who as physically possible in 5 days time... which just proves the wisdom of images such as this:

... and probably half a dozen other things I've already forgotten about but that most likely seemed critically important at the time :-)

I've also kind of been suffering from a bit of writer's block... It's not that I have no ideas for what to write about; it's more like none of the ideas go very far before I lose interest or get frustrated with the tone my writing seems to be taking.  So I've been taking a bit of a break from the blog and refocusing on what's really important :-)  And now that the summer is winding down, I'm feeling the pull back into writing... which makes me happy :-)

__________________________________________

Once again, I've been inspired by conversations with my daughter's friends, particularly those who are the staunchest non-Christians.  It always intrigues me to hear what they think of my chosen religion; I'm fascinated by how they can be so totally off and yet so right on about it at the same time :-)  So... One of the ideas I've been toying with is the concept of "The Top 10 Myths of the Christian Life."  Except that now I'm up to 20...  10 myths that we Christians seem to hold and 10 myths that non-Christians seem to hold about us.  So, since that post may take a while to fully come together and might well take up billions upon billions of bytes of web data, I figured I'd start with an idea from one of those lists and just kind of run-- or more like sprint, since I'm hoping this will be a relatively short post-- with it...  Though at the moment, I fear this is going to take a LOT longer than I intended it to, mainly because my beautiful and brilliant daughter is sitting three feet away from me and going on and on about the fascinating history of Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII, and the Holy Roman Empire o.O  Which is just a wee bit distracting, especially when she keeps referring to the King of England as a narwhal (our pet term for hyper-hormonal teenaged boys)...

__________________________________________

There seems to be this idea out there of "faith" being this nebulous set of standards that religious people use to justify their behavior.  If I don't let my daughter or son go to see an R-rated movie, it's because such things "go against our faith."  If I vote for candidates who support limits on or the abolition of abortion, I'm doing it "because of my faith."  If I choose to homeschool my kids or put them in Christian schools, I'm doing it to "defend their faith."  And if I listen to Christian radio or watch Christian TV, I hear constantly about the dire need to "fight for the faith."

But what IS this "faith"?  And what does it mean to "have faith in" something?

The Bible says that faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1, New King James Version).  It is (as my 10-year-old's Bible phrases it) being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you can't see.  For me, this puts that grand notion of "faith" into a concrete, tangible form that I can totally grasp.

We live about 100 feet from a 4-way intersection in our small college town; whenever I leave to drive pretty much anywhere, I pretty much always drive through this intersection.  When I approach the intersection, I hope that my brakes are going to work; when I press my foot down on the brake pedal, I'm pretty certain that it's actually going to do something to help stop the car.  I don't know for sure that the brakes are going to work; I can't see whether or not the brake lines have been cut in the night or if the bolts that connect the various parts of the brake system have snapped (can you tell yet that I'm really not a car person? ^_^ )  But still, I stomp down on that brake pedal as if my life depends on it... especially at about 2:45 in the afternoon, when all the crazy teen drivers are leaving the high school that's about 2 blocks further down the road o.O  Basically, I have enough faith in my brakes to put them to use and trust that they're going to keep me from slamming into the side of that jacked up Toyota pickup filled with a half-dozen teenaged boys who seem to forget on a daily basis that that funky red octagon does not mean "Gun it!"

Some of the other things I put faith in are a little less mundane.  I have faith that, if my home gets broken into, I can and should call the police and have them investigate; I also have faith that, if the burglar is found, he will be prosecuted in the court of law.  Why do I have this faith in our police and legal system?  Not because it always works the way I expect it to or because it's always worked perfectly in every circumstance, that's for sure o.O  But I do have faith in it because it seems that, more often than not, it does work, and I have never found myself shortchanged by it.  If I ever do find myself on the losing end of the legal system or end up being ripped off by the cops I assume are going to protect me, I might change my point of view on the system.  But for now, based on my own personal experiences, I choose to have faith in the system.

And then there are the big-picture things of life that I also put my faith in.  I have faith that, if I raise my kids to respect others, work hard, be obedient to parents, teachers, employers, and police officers, and think critically, then they will be successful in their lives as adults.  I have absolutely no way whatsoever to prove now that they will end up that way; in fact, there are countless examples in the world of kids whose parents did everything "right" but who still ended up shipwrecking their own lives as teens or adults.  I choose to have faith in the belief that we're raising our kids right because to not raise our kids this way seems to be begging for trouble.  And as we raise our kids and watch them become respectful, smart, responsible young adults, I see confirmation that my faith in their upbringing is valid.

Brake lines... law & order... good parenting: These are some of the things I choose to have faith in...

And so, I suspect, do you.

We all have faith in all kinds of stuff... Faith is simply believing in something strongly enough to put it to use in our daily life.  We have faith that the sun is going to come up tomorrow; when we lay down at night and close our eyes, we have faith that we're going to wake up in the morning.  We have faith that, when we walk down the sidewalk, all the cars are going to stay in their lanes on the road and not hop the curb and mow us down like unruly blades of grass.

As a counterexample, just try to imagine what your day would be like without faith in any of these things...  Imagine that, once the sun drops below the horizon, it might or might not rise ever again.  Imagine, as you tuck yourself into your bed, that you might stop breathing and die at any point after you fall asleep.  Imagine walking along the roadside and expecting every car to veer off course and crush you.

You'd be scared to death of living at all... And so would I, without faith.  Faith is being sure of what we hope for (that the cars will stay in their rightful lanes, that our lungs will keep inhaling and exhaling even as we're dreaming of our Language Arts teacher waxing our feet, that the sun will come up tomorrow... bet your bottom dollar that tomorroooooow, there'll be suuuuunnnn...) and certain of what we cannot yet see (the unbroken brake lines in our car, the integrity of the police and the judges in their courtrooms, the future of our children).  We all have faith in something, and that's an undeniable fact of life.

The question, then, that divides Christians and non-Christians is not "Do you have faith?"  It's the question "What do you put your faith in?"  And that, in the interest of keeping this post short, is a topic for another day :-)

...Whether we want it to be or not...

I guess this is kind of a Part 2 to my last post ("For some of us, every day is April 2nd..."), which was basically all about being autistic and learning to embrace it.  And about 95% of the time, I do embrace it and I'm proud to be me, for better, for worse, and for crazy-weird fun :-)  But then again, there are those days like today that make up that other 5%...

Is it OK to admit that I'm struggling?

As Christians, it seems we're always told to glorify God with our words and with our testimony, and that if we sometimes question why He made us this way or is letting us go through something, we're just walking in doubt instead of in faith.  And somehow, even without saying it explicitly, the message is communicated that this is sinful and disobedient to the God who fearfully and wonderfully made us.  But at the same time, I know that as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:10, the times when I am weak as a person are the times when I am strongest as a Christian, because then God can work most visibly in and through me.  So...

Is it OK to admit that I'm struggling?

The past month or so has been crazy busy, what with my husband and 2 of my 3 kids having birthdays, a couple rounds of the Creeping Lung Crud, several subbing jobs, a 1980s-themed Sadie Hawkins dance at the high school (funny how I don't remember the 80s looking quite that bad... then again, I grew up in the 90s, so... o.O), car troubles, job changes, a heart attack scare, and about half a dozen other minor disasters thrown in for comedic effect... oh, and Spring Break too, for that matter.  And this past Saturday, we wrapped up our annual Month of Chaos with my daughter's 15th birthday party, where about a dozen of her best friends crammed into our little apartment to watch Literal Trailers videos and Princess Bride, play Apples to Apples, and take crazy pictures of themselves to post on Instagram.  It was actually a lot of fun, and nothing got broken or thrown this time, so I'd call it an unqualified success :-D

When I made it through Saturday night and all day Sunday without a meltdown, I figured everything was fine, great, dandy... Hey, maybe I've finally developed enough coping skills to actually manage my autism and screen out all of the excess stimuli created by 6 straight hours of 12 hollering teenagers... Maybe I'm finally cured of my autism and my world will actually turn into something normal and I can go on and give my kids the normal life I've always wanted for them...  Maybe this is the start of a new and glorious chapter in my personal history; the Fourth Great and Bountiful Beautiful-Letdownian Empire!  (See... anything can be turned into a Doctor Who reference if you try hard enough... ^_^)

And then... today hit. And the firecrackers started going off in my brain and haven't yet stopped.  And every little tick of the clock and whirr of the fan and beeeeep of the washer makes me want to scream and throw them out the window, the window, the second story window (and I'm betting that you were just there singing along with me, weren't you? ^_^)  And the only way to cope with my daughter's missing cell phone and my son's field trip permission slip and my husband wanting to spend some quality time with me was to go completely numb and just keep repeating the same semi-helpful statements of fact ("No I don't know where it is the last time I saw it you were turning it off at church...  I'm going with your brother on his field trip that day go ask your father if he can chaperone for you... I guess I'm still just really tired from the party and cleaning up afterwards...") over and over again until whatever the issue was resolved itself.  And my 10 year old fell down while selling candy bars for Cub Scouts and scraped up his knee and elbow, and a 14 year old girl disappeared on her way to school in Utah, and someone set off bombs at the Boston Marathon, and so help me, I just didn't care.  And I sat in my car while waiting for my 13 year old to come out of his Boy Scout meeting and just cried and begged God to help me get it together so that I wouldn't scare the living bejeebers out of my kids by having a nervous breakdown in front of them or running my car into a tree for no reason other than to end the madness.

Some days, I hate being this way.  

And on days like this, with the knowledge that April is Autism Awareness Month... all month long... what I wish for most is an Autism Unawareness Day.

One day where, for once, I feel like I'm completely normal and acceptable just as I am.

One day where I don't have to struggle to find the right word and people know what I mean from the words that actually come out of my mouth; a day where, when I'm trying to identify that long thin thing in the conductor's hand as he waves it over the band and I call it first a "stick", and then a "wand," nobody leans over with a snicker and says "Mom, it's Harry Potter that has a wand... That's called a baton."  I know it's a baton, dear... I just misplaced the word for a moment :-/

One day where nobody gives me the Icy Stare of Death because I've described something exactly as I see it and thrown all tact to the wind without even realizing it.

One day where I don't have to wonder what I'm supposed to feel or what I'm supposed to do when something horrific happens in a faraway place like Boston or Manhattan or Newtown, where I can understand why everyone around me is freaking out and holding candlelight vigils from 2000 miles away.

One day where I can feel like I'm fully a part of the world around me, fully engaged and fully equipped to cope with whatever happens... without having to pay the inevitable price of a day like today.

One day where I can be myself, without a mask or a persona, and know that  I won't be shattered beyond repair by the words, the gaze, or the touch of others.

What I want is one day, even if it's just one day, where I can forget completely that I'm autistic and just feel normal for a change, where I and everyone else around me can be totally unaware of my autism and not think instead that I'm just another freak.

Sigh... Yes, I know I'm whining.  I know I'm venting, and I'm using my blog as a place to do it so that maybe someone else out there who struggles with this stuff will realize they're not alone.  I'm venting here so that people will know that, maybe, sometimes, it's OK to admit that we're struggling with the role God has given us to play in this life, because when we admit how weak we are and how dark our world may seem at times, we can see more clearly what a strength and a light our God is.

Even when I'm thrashing about in the midst of a verbal temper tantrum, kicking and screaming at God and asking Him "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO GO AND MAKE ME THIS WAY????  DON'T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I *%#*@&* HATE THIS????  DON'T YOU CARE???", I know that He made me this way for a reason because He doesn't screw up.  And I know that when I'm all cried out and ready to listen, He'll show me something to make me realize that He's got something bigger in the works than just making me feel "normal"... which is another word for average, which is another word for mediocre, which is just not acceptable for a hyperactive overachiever like me anyway ^_^

So... Is it OK to admit that I'm struggling today?  Yes, I think so.

Am I ever going to get my Autism Unawareness Day?  No, probably not.

Am I ever going to be "normal" or even feel "normal"?  Nope.  Normal is highly overrated anyway.

But hey... At least I don't have to worry about anyone impersonating me or replacing me in God's crazy plan.  Supernatural job security... I guess I can live with that ^_^

And now for today's video...  This has been one of my all-time favorite songs for about 17 years now, one of those songs that just makes me stop whatever I'm doing and just shut up and listen (thankfully, it doesn't often come on my iPod while I'm driving...)  It just seemed like a good note to leave this post on, so...

What Salvation Means to Me...

As Christians, we hear a lot about salvation (i.e. "being saved", "getting saved", "leading someone to salvation" "being washed by the blood of the Lamb", etc.)  Some of us even take what we hear and then go out and talk to others about salvation... and we call that "leading people to Christ", "soul winning", "leading them down the Romans Road", etc.   I wonder though, sometimes, if maybe we talk so much about "salvation" that people who aren't already Christians have learned to just tune us out like so much noise.  I mean, we use all kinds of simple-yet-abstract phrases to dance around the topic... "just ask Jesus into your heart", "get right with God", "save your soul", "become a believer", "meet Jesus", and on and on... and I'm not saying that there's anything wrong or false about any of those words or approaches at all; each one explains a certain facet of salvation, and who knows which phrase will be the one that totally makes sense to someone who's searching for the truth about Jesus Christ?

But I wonder if maybe we spend so much time trying to find the right words to say it and the right phrase to summarize it that we never actually get around to explaining what salvation could actually mean to the person we're talking to, and we end up just adding to the noise instead of helping anyone.  And if we're all just so many noisy clanging cymbals, is it any wonder that, when the topic of religion comes up and we say, "Well, I'm a Christian...", no one ever follows that up with "Oh, really?  Why are you a Christian, and what is it like to be a Christian?"  Unless of course they're just looking for reasons to dismiss you as an idiot, lunatic, or fanatic... and if that's the case, then they're going to find reasons to do that no matter what you say, so what you say really doesn't end up mattering in the first place :-/  But that's a whole 'nother topic, and not one worth going into at the moment anyway, so... :-)

So, basically, if you have no interest in my answer to the question of "Why are you a Christian and what is it like to be a Christian?", and/or you don't care to read about what salvation means to me, then that's just fine... you can skip the rest of this post and read about some of my other, less "religious" soapboxes.  No offense taken :-)

But... if you're curious or if you really want to know more about why I am the way I am, then here we go:

What "Salvation" Means to Me

We all strive to fill our days with stuff to keep us busy, to keep us interested, to keep us from getting bored.  We go to school and/or to work, we come home, we eat our meals, we go to sleep.  We read books, watch TV, listen to our iPods, look for YouTube videos, play Minecraft.  We play in bands, compete on teams, work on projects, spend time with our loved ones, relax with friends... well, we try to relax when we're not busy doing all of the other stuff, anyway....   Sometimes we go places to worship those things that are bigger than us... whether they're worthy of our worship or not.

But then, there are those times when we're all alone, when the work is done, the friends have all gone home, the loved ones are all asleep, when the computer is off and the TV is silent.  Those times when we have nothing to distract us from that gigantic gaping hole in our souls that keeps us awake, whispering in our ears...

You.  Are.  Alone.

And we realize that not only are we alone and feeling kind of lonely in that moment, but we are undeniably, painfully Alone as well.  Because there is a difference between simply being lonely and being Alone... Lonely is what we feel when we think no one is around and we wish that someone was; we know that it is temporary and that we will survive.  When we are Alone, we're not so sure about either.  We spend our days trying to convince ourselves and others that that hole isn't there, that we are complete and that we have it all together... but when we are Alone, we look it in the face and know that we are liars.

(OK, so maybe you're sitting there reading this and thinking to yourself, "Oooooh-KAY then...  Let me know when Reality comes calling again, and until then, just keep your little CRACKED self over in that corner way, way away from the rest of us, 'kay?  Thanks..."  And that's fine... I'm not likely to come after you with anything but a dull pencil, so you're most likely safe where you are ^_^  But next time you're alone, and you're thinking about all that big dark Meaning of Life stuff... I'll bet you'll remember this and start to wonder why... o.O)

So, what is this hole in our souls and why is it there?  I would say that it's the spot where our spirit should be, and that it's been carved and shaped and left empty by God so that we would look for Him.  You see, we're like little kids with a jigsaw puzzle... We've got most of the pieces together, we know what our lives should look like, but there's just that one spot we can't seem to find the right piece for.

So what do we do?

We take all of the pieces we've got left and try to fit them into that spot to see which one is the right one.  Trouble is (and I'm sure we've all run into this at least once in our lives...  I know my kids did a LOT when I was still running my day care :-D ), all of our puzzle boxes have gotten spilled a time or two, and with this particular puzzle, there's one piece missing.

So, what do we do now?

Well, we can try to keep cramming random pieces into the hole, and get more and more frustrated with each one that doesn't fit.  Hey, we can even go and get all of the other puzzle boxes out, dump them all over the floor, and then try all of those pieces in the hopes that one of them will fit.  Just imagine all the super bonus frustration that you can have with that approach ^_^  And then when none of the pieces fit, we can get all mad and throw all of the puzzle pieces all around the room before setting fire to them in the bathtub.  And then try to explain the reasonableness of our decision-making process to the nice firefighters and the insurance adjusters when they come to call...

Or... We can go to the adult of the house and ask them if they know which piece goes there and where that piece might be.  And if they would be so kind as to help us find it and put it in its place.

See, this is the situation I found myself in when I was 20.  None of my pieces were fitting together, and I knew that I had great big gaping holes in my life where things like hope, security, and a will to live should have been.  I had been trying for years to put myself together and keep myself there, but no matter what I did, nothing seemed to work for very long, and as soon as I thought I had it figured out, another piece would fall to the ground and my whole puzzle would shatter.

I was Alone.

But then God was there, and He offered me the piece I'd always been missing.  And once that piece was in place, all of the other pieces made more sense.  Of course, it helped that now I could ask God for help putting the pieces together... "So, hey, Lord... How does this piece with the iguana in polka-dot boxer shorts balancing on a beach ball fit into the whole picture?  Oh, wait... What do you mean it's really a red carnation balanced on the steering wheel of a Toyota Camry?  Well, I guess that does make a little more sense, especially when you put it between those other two pieces..."

But still... What does any of this have to do with salvation?

Well, salvation is the name of that missing piece to my puzzle... No, not the iguana one, the other, analogy-type one, smart-alecks :-P  You see, I needed a savior, someone to rescue me and help me put the pieces of my life together, because as long as I was trying to put myself together on my own, I was doomed to failure.

But what did I need saving from?  What super-scary threat did I need to be rescued from?

Now, this is the part where a preacher would talk about eternal punishment for sins, the death of the soul, separation from God and light and all things that are Good, and unending punishment in a lake of fire.  And all of those things are in the Bible and all of those are gigantically big, end-of-the-world, Meaning-of-Life kinds of things that I am fantastically grateful to be rescued from.  Because it is a huge relief to know that I don't have to worry about any of those things when I die.  But, it seems to me that there should be more to salvation than just the things I won't have to worry about until after I'm dead.  And I'm really not much of a preacher anyway, so...

I think we all get the concept of being saved from a white slavery ring by a devoted father (a la Taken), or being saved from genocide like in Schindler's List, or being saved from a sinking ship like in Titanic, or even being saved from Loki and the Chitauri by Nick Fury and the Avengers.  We totally get that, and we even pay a good chunk of money to see those stories play out on the big screen.  And in Christian circles, we hear all the time about people being saved from addictions, saved from prostitution, saved from disease or infirmity or financial difficulties... which are all amazing and fantastic, but not something we've all gone through.  Most of us live pretty mundane lives, with few or no tales of sinking ships or bank robberies to tell.  But that doesn't mean we don't need someone to save us sometimes.  Here are the mundane little things that I needed saving from:

The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I was too stupid to know any better.
The shame about all of the stupid things I did when I really did know better.

The worry that no matter what I did, I would always be a failure.
The worry that everyone was about to find out that I would always be a failure.

The pressure of trying to be good enough for people to finally accept me for who I was.
The pressure of just trying to be better than I was.
The endless work of getting up every morning and still just being... me.

The suspicion that my existence and my life really was just a random collection of chances with no bigger meaning or point to it.
The fear about what if it would mean if that suspicion turned out to be true.

The frustration of going to work and to school each day and wondering why on earth any of it even matters.
The added frustration of being told that it all should matter by people who couldn't seem to explain why it should matter.

The realization that everyone I knew and everything I had was, at one point or another, going to leave me.
The panic in realizing that there was nothing I could do to stop them.

The terror of feeling lost and knowing that I had no idea where I was going, what I was doing, or how in the hell I'd gotten where I was.
The quiet certainty that all of that was my fault.

The knowledge that with every day I lived, I risked hurting the people who loved me and the ones that I loved back even more than I had the day before.
The knowledge that even if I tried to explain that to them, they'd deny it to my face and tell me I was just being melodramatic.

The loneliness of being completely, utterly Alone in this world.

The understanding that the only way to end that loneliness was for me to die.

The pain that I knew it would take to get myself there.

The damage I would do to myself if I didn't succeed.

The uncertainty of what was actually behind the dark veil of death.

To sum the whole list up in 7 words or less:

I needed to be saved from myself.

All my life, I had been hoping and waiting for my Bryan Mills, my Oskar Schindler, my Thor, my own personal superhero to come and rescue me from myself so that I could go out and finally be everything I always wanted to be.  None of them ever came.

Jesus Christ did.

And in asking Him to rescue me and trusting that He actually would, I finally found the peace I had been missing.  Which was followed by the hope, the security, and the will to live that I so desperately wanted.  And He has never left me, even in my craziest, my darkest, and my scariest times... and I won't lie, there are still times like that, even now that I'm a Christian.  The difference is that, when things get dark and no one is around, Jesus is still there and I'm not alone anymore.  

I will be the first to admit that I'm not some well-read theologian; I know that there are a vast number of different theories about the afterlife, the soul, the "true" meanings of heaven, hell, grace, justice, redemption, propitiation, atonement, and so on-- even within Christianity alone.  And I don't know much about most of those theories, much less about what other religions and worldviews have to say about such things.... and not knowing much means I should probably not say much, lest I sound even more like a total idiot than I already do ^_^

But what I can talk about is what I know from my own life and what it has convinced me of.  And so, this is what I mean when I talk about "salvation"... I'm talking about the peace I have that comes from being saved from my own self-destructive impulses.  The hope I have that comes from knowing I'm going to be all right after all.  The relief that comes from knowing I have a Superhero who will come to either rescue me from whatever trouble I get myself into or stand guard over me as that trouble blows over.  The joy that comes from knowing that whatever crap may be going on in my life right now, there is something 3 million times better waiting for me once it's over.

So, maybe you're asking:  What on earth brought this particular train of thought roaring through the station at 3:30 in the morning on a night when my youngest child is home sick with the flu?  (Well, maybe you weren't asking, but now that I've brought it up, just go with me on this one, OK?  If for no other reason than sympathy for a sick kid... ^_^)

I've been thinking a lot recently about someone I know who doesn't see the same things I do when they think about God, the universe, the meaning of life, and a lot of that stuff.  This person has become one of my very favorite people in the world, and I care a lot about them and what they think and feel and believe, even if we agree to disagree on some of the Big Picture Stuff.  The thing is, because I care about this person, I want them to be more settled and feel more at peace than they are right now, and all I know is that I've found that kind of security, peace, joy, and meaning in my relationship with Jesus.  What I don't want to do is to preach at them or make them feel like I'm lecturing or threatening them, because I remember what that feels like and I absolutely hate, hate, HATE that feeling... that feeling that because I'm not a saved believing Christian, I'm somehow subhuman and therefore not worthy of value unless I get my act together and get "saved."  But, how do I talk to them about salvation without them thinking I'm trying to change them into something they're not or puff myself up into something I'm not?   And I know that, as I go through this life, I'm going to meet more and more people like this, and I'm going to find myself over and over again in this same situation of wanting to speak but not feeling welcome to... and that doesn't even begin to count all of the people I'll never meet who will get to know me by reading this blog.  The possibilities here actually hurt my brain o.O

So maybe I'm kind of hoping that, even if I never get the chance to tell them my story in person, they'll read this blog, and hopefully, they'll actually listen to what I have to say without shutting me out.  In the meantime, my job is to love them right where they're at, whether we agree or not.  Because really, it's not up to me to "save" them... that's between them and God.  All I want to do is tell them what I know so that they can hear the truth about being a Christian from someone who's been there and has finally found what they are still so desperately looking for.

Broken Stained Glass Candles... Like Me

So... The holiday season is now over and things are about to go back to "normal"... well, at least as normal as it gets around these parts o.O

For Christmas this year, my youngest gave me this stained glass candleholder made of grout and bits of broken blue glass...

He didn't make it himself (I know this because I was with him at Goodwill when I picked it up and commented on how cool it was... which was about 3 aisles before he told me "Mom, DON'T LOOK... I'll be right back!" and then took off running ^_^), but all the same, I love it just as if he did because of what it says about life and about me.

Allow me to explain.

Once upon a time, I was created as a beautiful, unblemished piece of art, without understanding of life or sin or failure.  Granted, I had some structural flaws-- mainly health issues and a family background that would make life difficult for anyone-- but as far as I could see with my newborn eyes, I was perfect, lovely, and loveable.

http://supercleanpr.com

But then, life happened.  Over time, I was bumped, dropped, knocked around, fractured, and crushed by circumstances.  In response, I lashed out, cutting myself and others with the sharpened edges of my shattered innocence.  My flawless surface began to show cracks where I had been hurt, dribbles of glue where people who loved me had tried to fix me, and scraps of cellophane tape where I had tried to heal myself.  Bits and pieces of me were broken off and embedded in the hearts of those who tried in vain to understand me, just as pieces of them were left buried in me.

http://tektites.co.uk

As I began to see the power that I could have by hurting people, I became not a piece of art but a weapon, wielding my damaged pride like a knife and using my bloodied edges to slash at others before they could pierce me with their own.  Yet the blood was not just theirs, but mine; for every wound I inflicted on them, I took two of my own.  While the damage I did to those around me was spread out among dozens, the damage I did to myself landed only on me.  Every cruel word I spoke, every bruise I left, every vicious tirade I inflicted echoed in my mind, and each word came back to haunt me as I realized that everything I said had been true... about me.  I cut others so that I could forget that I had been cut myself.

Once I was an innocent; now I was a monster.

Once I was whole; now I was deformed.

Once I was beautiful; now I was broken.

My original form was lost, my once-shiny colors and designs covered by dirt and shattered by situations and choices.  Like broken glass littering the midnight street, I had become ugly and useless, a cruel glittering of danger waiting only for the distracted feet of my next victim to tread upon me.

http://westoftheimagination.wordpress.com

But then...

God steps in.

And bit by bit, He begins to gather up the broken pieces of me.  He cleans them off and sets them aside, separating them by color, shape, and size.

http://earofthewind.com/about

Some pieces He refines, rubbing off the sharp edges and rendering them harmless; others He leaves sharp to be used as tools for His work.

http://boehmstainedglass.blogspot.com/2011/07/octagonal-window-glass-cut.html

Slowly, one by one, He takes each of the broken pieces and places them into a mold.  At first, the design makes absolutely no sense to anyone but Him; in time, however, glimpses of the bigger picture become visible.

http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com

I write these paragraphs in the present tense because I am still a work in progress; God isn't finished putting me together yet.  I still have some sharp edges and many missing pieces; I still have great big gaping holes where the pieces of my soul aren't quite ready to be put back in yet.  I still feel lost and broken sometimes, and every so often, I accidentally slice open the hands of those who reach out to touch me.  I am flawed and I am broken, and I know that, until the day God puts the final piece of me together and I see Christ face to face, I will always be flawed and broken.

But...

If by my brokenness, other people will see that there is a God and that He is the one who saves me from myself, then it is worth the pain.  If by my flaws, other people can see that God is real and that if He can love a person as messed up as I am, He can love them too, then it is worth it.  If my struggles and my shortcomings and my failures-- and the hope I still have in spite of them-- can show people that no situation is hopeless, then they are all worthwhile.  If my weakness shows God's strength to carry me, then by all means... bring it :-)

Day by day, piece by piece, reminder by reminder, God takes the broken pieces of my life and puts them together into something beautiful again.  Not the same as I was before... that design has been crushed and obliterated beyond recognition, and will never, ever be made whole again.  But all the same, the end result will be breathtakingly beautiful... and like my broken stained glass candleholder, I think I will love it all the more for the work that He has put into it :-D

And now, for the musical interlude part of the blog...  Here is someone else's video for a song that perfectly captures what I'm trying to say here, only in a more poetical form :-)  Lyrics are below for anyone who needs them...

"Art in Me" by Jars of Clay

Images on the sidewalk
Speak of dreams' descent
Washed away by storms to graves
Of cynical lament
Dirty canvases
To call my own
Protest limericks carved
By the old pay phone

And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
See the art in Me
See the art in Me.

Broken stained glass windows
The fragments ramble on
Tales of broken souls
An eternity's been won
As critics scorn the thoughts and works
Of mortal man
My eyes are drawn to You
In awe once again

And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
See the art in Me
See the art in Me.

And in Your picture book I'm
Trying hard to see
Turning endless pages
Of this tragedy
Sculpting every move
You compose a symphony
And You plead to everyone
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)
See the art in Me
(See the art in me...)