The NO Phase.

Today has been one of those days when humanity is exhausting.

And AG has entered the 'NO' phase.

The combination of these things led me to letting AG play in the dog bowl for 20 minutes because I just didn't have the energy to re-direct her and she was quietly entertained and  amamajustneedsaminute sometimes.

And if you were wondering if my child ever wears clothes in our house... the answer is no.  It's our little way of keeping some Hawaii in this mainland girl.

As I watched this sweet difficult human find her voice (which now only consists of NO and DOGGIE) while playing in dirty water, I thought of today's battle with humanity.  

Today's battle: not everyone is as open, loving, and accepting as the people that I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by my entire life.

I am pushing up against situations that I have never experienced before, situations where all I want to say is:

NO (while pointing my finger) 

and YOU ARE STUPID (because I'm not very eloquent when people make me mad)

and START LOVING LIKE JESUS OR GOD IS GOING TO SMITE YOU (because sometimes I want the Old Testament God to enforce New Testament rules like loving EVERYONE)

note:  I realizing hoping for smiting is unChristian... I'm working on it.

I have been trying to reach back and find a situation in my life where someone else was unable to show inclusive love in a difficult situation.  Truth be told, I can't.  My entire life I have been immersed in communities that said:

YES

YOU ARE WORTHY

YOU ARE ONE OF US

YOUR DIFFERENCE IS BEAUTIFUL

and 

WE BELONG TO EACH OTHER

Where the hell did I grow up and go to school and work?  Points for my mom because although life has been hard, and scary, and brutal, I have never lived in a world without unconditional love.  

As an extremely overweight teenager I had friends who celebrated my gifts and supported me as I grappled with unhealthy habits.

As a daughter I was told that I was enough; grades, accomplishments, and honors were not icing on the cake, they were THINGS that did not define me. If I got them, great, if I didn't, great.  

As a wife I have been shown worth, and care, and compassion and that no matter how hard I try... Jay isn't going anywhere (divorced kid problems!)

And now, at 28 years old, I am facing situations which make me feel like a 18 month old, just learning how to be.  It's a foreign universe to me, this place where judgement is cast without considering compassion.  

Maybe I'm glad I'm being stretched.  Maybe I'm not.  I can't quite decide.

A friend told me today, "not everyone lives in the bubble of love that we do"

Well that stinks... because this bubble is pretty rad.  

So as I watched the puddle grow bigger and bigger on our kitchen floor (remember, I was thinking all this during my minute when AG was making a complete mess) I realized that smiting would never be allowed in our love bubble.  

But... more people are totally allowed.  

Those people who I'm pointing my finger at and saying NO to.  They are welcome.  They need to be shown with compassion how transformative life is when you choose love.  And that, my friends, is my challenge.  It's my call to joyfully clean up the  mess before me.  If only I could look as cute as this kid does when doing it.  

Temperance

As I work through (and boy, do I need to take it all in slowly) Mere Christianity I found Uncle C.S was writing the words of my heart.

"One great piece of mischief has been done by the modern restriction of the work Temperance to the question of drink.  It helps people to forget that you can be just as intemperate about lots of other things.  A man who makes golf or his motor-bicycle the centre of his life, or a woman who devotes all her thoughts to clothes or bridge or her dog, is being just as 'intemperate' as someone who gets drunk every evening.  Of course, it does not show on the outside as easily: bridge-mania or golf-mania do not make you fall down in the middle of the road.  But God is not deceived by externals." 

C.S. Lewis

First off... I am an idiot and do not think drink when I see the word TEMPERANCE... I think of the character on Bones, but maybe that's a personal problem and an issue I will deal with in the week I give up TV.  

It is that last phrase that, God is not deceived by externals, that frightens me and calms me all at once.  This week I am giving up sweets, treats, and extras.  It's a little cliche but I am glad it is where I am starting because it is making me aware of the moment.  Making me aware of my own hunger, my own needs, my own life.  When I threw in "extras" I was pretty vague with myself.  I now know that for me it is all those moments I feel something and decide to turn to food to feed it.  Joy.  Fear.  Anxiety.  Love.  I feed each with carbs and chocolate.  Target also fell into the world of extras.  Don't ask me how, but you probably get it... roaming those clearance end-caps lets me turn off the world and escape.  I've found that as life has gotten crazier the Target charges have gotten more frequent.  But a little extra chub and lots of Target bags are par for the course for a new mom.  I'm not falling in the street drunk.  I'm buying cheap groceries and clearance linens so to the world I just look like another mom sucking down her soy latte decorating her house.  

But God is not deceived by externals.

I know that God laughs at it, that She rubs my back and says, "Nice try, Emily, but no clearance end-cap is going to fill that hole.  Just invite me in a little more often.  Sit with me.  Feel that hunger and react to it don't feed it.  It's a comfort to me that God is not deceived by my armor.  It comforts me that I can't trick God in to thinking I've got it all together or that I know what I'm doing.  It's freedom.  It's knowing that it is okay to be hungry.  It is okay to feel like being a mom is just the hardest most beautiful thing that you can't handle and want more of all at the same time.  It is okay when you don't have the right words for that students or you have to tell their parents a hard truth that will be good for them in the long run... promise.  It is okay to be lost and question and celebrate and know all at the same time.

Just

BE

BE LOVE & 

BE BELOVED.

I find true calm when I dwell in the knowledge of being fully known, loved, and celebrated by my Creator.  That to be fully loved, to be beloved, I don't need to change a thing but I need to simply BE, and more often than not I need to just BE STILL and stop running from the powerful love of the one who can love me perfectly.  

So today I say 

thank you 

thank you 

thank you 

to my fellow lay minister and anglo/episco friend C.S. Lewis for speaking the words that ring true in my heart today and reminding me that even when the world may be fooled, our God is not deceived by externals!

Lenten Fast Week #1... fail?

We make plans and God laughs.

Or give us an ear infection?

One of the two.  As Saturday rolled around I looked at my fancy calendar all blocked off with a week by week of my Lenten fast.

Week 1: Stay up till 11pm each night.  

I was actually excited to snuggle on the couch with the dog, hot cocoa, and Mere Christianity for six nights in a row.  I already had my favorite highlighter laid out.

Then it happened... that bug that has taken down AG and Jay finally hit.

And I slept... all day Sunday.

And Monday happened and our amazing nurse practitioner laughed at the severity of my ear infection and told me to 'take it easy' and 'get good rest' and gave me horse pill antibiotics.

And I came home and cried.  Isn't that what everyone does when their sweet husband stays home from work to help with the little so you can lay in bed and watch HGTV for 12 straight hours?

Or it's just me.

BUT MY PLAN I pleaded to God.  My plan to let you move more in my life by giving up planning has failed!

Silence.

It was the silence my mom gave me the day I died my hair blonde and came home and told her that I had just spent the whole day in the sun.

So this week it looks like God is already doing His thing in my life instead of MY thing.  There is no possible way I can be staying up till 11pm each night, I'm having a rough time making it through bath time.  After crying, and sleeping, and some great medication, I realized that this is small stuff.  That I can easily move things around.  That God is already showing me that my inability to be flexible makes life much harder that it needs to be.  It also confuses Jay (why was I crying anyway!?)

So a new plan...

Week 1: No sweets, treats, or extras!

You may think that sickness would make this fast easier, but people, sickness does not stop this girl from dessert.  In fact, when I am feeling sorry for myself I often feed that feeling.  With chocolate.

But more on that tomorrow.

The Mailbox Chronicles

I grew up on a very busy street with neighbors on either side who we often had to call the police on.  We once had a transient man make his home at our front door.  We didn't even live in a sketchy part of town, but we most certainly did not live an neighborhood.

In August when we moved to the 'burbs I am fairly sure Jay wanted to cry and I wanted to meet every person who walked past our house.  This is no different that most social situations we encounter.

We are the first house in Pleasant-ville and the communal mailbox is about 200 feet from our front door and thus we are the freaking welcome wagon.  Because of the unfortunate prestigious placement of our starter home we meet new neighbors daily.

Yesterday:

AG and I walk out to the mailbox and an adorable family is a few feet behind us.  I am wearing compression pants, an old hoodie, TOMS, and haven't showered since my early morning workout... it's a cute look.

I check our mail.

I introduce myself and AG, apologizing for how shy she is as she stares at them.

AG then crawls into this woman's arms with a please save me from my abusive mother face.  Awesome.

Then we small talk, I meet their sweet little girl, and notice her pregnant belly.

Me: Do you know what you are having?  
Her: I actually just gave birth.  We got back from the hospital today.
Me: (to myself) Crap... fail.  That's what a new mom wants to hear.  You pushed a human out and look pregnant.  Recover, Em, recover.  She isn't offended but don't say anything else stupid.
(outloud) CONGRATULATIONS!  It's amazing that you could leave your house and on top of it, not be crying uncontrollably.   

I am considering only checking our mail under the veil of darkness from now on.

Bring it, Brene.

Fasting.

Does that word make you as hungry as it makes me?

It's that beautiful time in the liturgical season when Lent is so close you can taste it and you start eating everything you are contemplating giving up in mass quantities just in case you decide to give that thing up.

But then if you are like me, you never actually give it up.

I have been of the I don't give something up for Lent because I choose to take something on club for many many years. What that has really meant for me is I love excess and have horrible impulse control so instead of doing something difficult like fasting from any part of my fluffy life, I will just add more to my overcrowded plate... but I will phrase it in a way that makes me sound spiritually evolved.  

Guess what, friends.  I am not spiritually evolved.  I am spiritually numb.

I am reading Brene Brown at the moment and she speaks about the importance of vulnerability so I am practicing it now.  This Lent.  With you watching.

“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy—the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.” ― Brene Brown

So this Lent I am saying... Bring it Brene!

Vulnerable confession: My life is so loud that I am having a really hard time hearing God lately.  The loud is my own doing, my own planning, my own turning on when I should be turning off.  I have felt  both numb and dumb to the movement of the Holy in my life.  This disconnect is both embarrassing and real for people working in ministry.  It's the unspoken demon that many of us battle with.  The battle of our own faith when we spend day in and day out working to nurture, reflect, and honor the faith of others.

As Lent has drawn near I know that it is time I get real with myself and my relationship with God.  It's time I start giving up some of the things that I enjoy (and that temporarily fill the hole in my soul that God desires to occupy permanently) and make room for the spirit to move through me and use me.

It's time I give something up.

A few years ago I left Facebook behind.  It was the one and only time that I have given something up for Lent and it was hard and beautiful and needed.  I am in desperate need of something hard and beautiful right now.

A few weeks ago Jay asked me, why are you never happy anymore?

Ouch.  And true.  And pretty painful.  I mean he is the grumpy one and I am Miss Mary Sunshine.  How dare HE call ME out on being down.  

Once I stopped being angry about what he said (only furthering his point, which was more annoying than anything) I started to take a good look at me.  This life of mothering and ministering should bring me much more joy than it is... but because I have packed it so full there is no ROOM for joy but only room for the next thing.  There is no room for Holy because I'm not giving the Holy room to move through me.  There is no room for the unknown because I've tried to schedule the unknown right out of my life. I have found that God tends to draw closest and move most powerfully through the unknown.  I have basically been boxing God out of my own life while try to infuse Her in to others' lives.  

When I give up control, when I stop planning every minute, those are the times in my life I feel a deep sense of the presence of God, yet those are also the times I feel most uncomfortable vulnerable.  

So, I am planning for a Lent of vulnerability   

I am FASTING.  I am cutting out one thing each week of Lent. One of my major time suckers.  I am seeing what happens when I remove all the little gods from my life and give God a minute to move in me.  

What are my little gods?  I bet you can guess them...

Gym 

TV

Spending

Internet

Sweets/Treats/Extras 

Sleep 

Note: I am not saying that sleep or the internet or working out are bad things, but in my own life they become things that take away from the Holy.

From Monday-Saturday each week during Lent I will eliminate one of these things.

Pray for Jay.  And AG.  And maybe for yourself if you cross my path on week I give up going to the gym.  

I will be writing about my experiences through the week.  Why those things hold so much weight in my own life.  What spaces are being opened up and doors are being open and how God is using my fasting to feed me, which I know She will, she is only waiting for the opportunity.  I am praying that this the numbness fade and my eyes open again to the presence of Christ in my life.

Life Lesson: No one cares about your stupid Pinterest project, Emily!

God has been pretty awesome lately*.  I had been praying a good long time for a few things:

1. Friends (my own age!)

2. A bible study that AG could be with me for. Since it would have to be on my day off I didn't want to lose out on an entire morning with her.

*note: God is awesome all the time, I know this, but I am selfish and often His awesome makes stretches me and I HATE CHANGE.  

So through the many ways and channels that God works a group of young mamas was assembled for a bible study book club.  There are four of us with 6 kiddos (5 of them are two and under).  Our first meeting was last Thursday.  I cleaned my house.  Like really cleaned it, I even mopped my floors which only happens 3 times a year.  I decorated for Valentine's Day with Pinterest crafts that made me look straight Martha Stewart.  I even washed the dog pillow.  Really people... I was on a roll.  As I set out snacks and made coffee waiting for my doorbell to ring I looked at my house and thought... 'Oh yeah, Emily... you are TOTALLY a grown-up and your house looks adorable'.

Enter women and kiddos and diaper bags.  It was an hour and a half of talking about JESUS and how to be a woman of God in this world.  An hour and a half of loving on other mama's babies. An hour and a half of hearing each other's stories. An hour and a half in the presence of other women walking this hard path of raising little people and loving our husbands and trying to somehow hold on to ourselves in the process.  For me, it was an hour and a half of overflowing grace.

Then babies were packed up and plans were made for next time and my dog got to come back inside.  

I sat in my kitchen feeding AG lunch and a thought occurred to me... no one said anything about my adorable Pinterest decorations!   In that moment I knew that God had brought together the perfect group of women for me. The ones who won't feed my ego but will nourish my soul.  The ones that won't perpetuate my desire to be the perfect mom/wife/daughter/Christian but who will remind me that we are broken people trying desperately to serve Christ.  The ones that care much more about my heart than my house.  

His providence continually humbles me.  I hope this week God's providence is revealed to you in a new and surprising way!  I also hope you don't waste too much time on Pinterest... apparently that crap won't make you friends!