On Choosing to Play Not Pout

Sometimes I feel stuck between regrets of my past and the hopes battling my fears for the future, unsure of what to do with today. The choices I make to appease my fear are starkly different than the attempts I take to achieve my hopes. Time passes (too) quickly, I age, and making the best of my ride in its ever-forward trajectory is an urgent concern for me. Juggling my plans with others’ needs and the certainty of unexpected variables has me wobbling on the tense high-wire stretched between what’s behind and what’s ahead. 

I trust the Lord directs my path, and He has always knit the good and bad into something more beautiful than I could ever imagine; but I wear the responsibility of my freewill in the meantime. So rather than a question of trust, this is more a question of action, even if it’s waiting peacefully for direction, when I am not sure where that faithful step into the dark will lead. 

I started this post before my husband and I rented the movie _Passengers_ last night, starring Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. The story was a provoking metaphor for the feelings and thoughts that inspired this post. The premise of the movie is that in the future luxury space travel allows people to move to a new planet to start a new life. The catch is that it takes one hundred and thirty years to get from Earth to the new place, so they must travel in hibernation stasis pods to halt aging. Two passengers (out of five thousand, plus the ship’s crew) mistakenly awake ninety years before they were supposed to. The acting and directing did well to catalyze all the thoughts and feelings one would have in such a devastating situation. They are thirty years away from all the friends, family, and experiences they left on Earth, and ninety years away from their hopes of new friends, family, and experiences. It’s a hopeless situation for a human lifespan. What are they going to do with all that time, trapped alone on a traveling ship; dwell on the past or future they can’t and don’t have, or make the most of what they do have? I don’t want to spoil it all, but the characters have to choose how to use years that they initially saw as a heartbreaking waste...

“Pout or play.”

My husband said this to our 4yo last week. Something happened during a ball-tag game, either a personal mistake or an unfair effect by the older brother, not sure as I was in the other room making supper. My husband masterfully, as always, acknowledged the disappointment and gently communicated reason with our two older boys. The 4yo wanted to wallow. He did have that choice. But I am thankful he chose to enjoy the rest of play time before supper because of my husband’s simple way of presenting the fork in the road: Pout or play.

Those options have been ringing in my head as a guide since. 

Most days, the two extreme parts of my identity are arguing with each other, paralyzing me in doubt about how to proceed. Psalm 90:12 is a prayerful plea for God to help us number our days and be wise with our time. Past 30 and having babies who grow too fast, I comprehend how fast time is passing; and I want my time and relationships to hold great meaning.

All day, every day, my mind is sifting the possibilities, overwhelmed with all the granules of possible defeat or glory. 

The conversation is between

• My past and future

• My most despicable failures and greatest potential

• My traditional roots and progressive branches

• My paralyzing fears and motivating hopes

• My most hateful resentment and merciful forgiveness

• My sin-captive temptations and untethered freedom

• What I know about myself and what I am afraid others think

• My limited, tiny-perspective self and all-powerful, -knowing, -creative Him

This is where the story is written. 

Life is practiced as it happens, not performed when ready.

Choices are made.

Relationships are formed.

Paths are forged.

Wisdom and knowledge can help us grow.

We may have to wait or prepare, but what happens in those wings holds the transformational meaning that gives purpose to the stages we cross.

I don’t want to be cowardly by giving into fear; but I don’t want to be reckless with blind optimism. 

I mustn’t be paralyzed in the meantime. Steps are falling into place, even if I don’t know where they lead, as I am anchored by foundational wisdom to defy gravity and stretch toward the skies.

Some scriptures ring in my head as I balance the truth that my heart can be deceptive and weak (Jeremiah 17:9) and that I was created in Christ to do good works (Ephesians 2:10). 

Genesis 1:27 — I am made in God’s image.

Galatians 5:1 — FREEDOM in Christ.

Romans 8:2

Romans 8:11

Romans 8:14-17

John 16:7 — Having the Spirit’s inner help is better than having Jesus here, His own words.

2 Timothy 1:7 — God gave me a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline, not timidity.

Mistakes will happen, but two steps forward will always beat one step back, even if less convenient or urgent than I’d prefer. 

Simply take the next right step.

Contemplation of Snow Day Smallness for Real Day Purpose

West Tennessee got more ice and snow than usual this month, and we were “snowed in” for the better part of a week. My husband works remotely for an online university from his home office, and I homeschool our first-grader, while keeping his 4yo brother meaningfully active, and the baby out of choking or icky places while he explores. The week had our typical household responsibilities, but it was more peaceful than usual, so much less stressful. I’ve been contemplating boundaries my whole life, somehow maturing as I discern and decide how to healthfully engage with the world around us, without losing control of when yes should be yes and no should be no, for my well-being as it affects the well-being of others. 

I have sensitively finite soul energy, which helps to make the mistakes more acutely effective for growing in what’s best. But I have to do a lot of solitary reflecting to manage it.  And I have to constantly ask God to help me grow as a healthy vessel of His purpose, instead of retreating into a totally self-centered safe place. Relationships with healthy boundaries are a dynamic, fluid process — this exchange of skills and resources, personalities, as we empower ourselves to empower those we love and the ones God calls us to help, can't be a concrete system of static answers.

We love so many and are loved by so many. And so many people we love are dealing with emergencies of various sorts in this season of life. Death, surgery, illness, moving, finances We are in those moments at times, and we could never make it through them without the support of our village. We have a strong desire to pay forward what we could never have made it this far without. 

What I am trying to discern is the boundaries. Because not only could we spend 24/7 keeping our own four walls strong, but we could also run to the edge of the endless Earth helping people we love. 

How do we commit to what’s best when the overgrowth of needs makes it impossible to see clearly?

On top of the personal, practical love to do in our own spaces, we also have the rest of the globe at our texting/social media-ing fingertips, worrying how to deal with the needy from sea to shining sea, the ones across the oceans... and how to communicate with the people “in charge” as they don’t handle their control the way that we would. 

It’s exhausting. I go on a few hours of broken sleep, literally run a few miles a day, and keep up with my babies. My physical body I enjoy pushing. But my inner heart is just exhausted and lost. I am sure they’re not unconnected. But my point is that my compass, my purpose, feels faint and undetectable because the battery is so drained as the shell vibrates in unrest, wanting to connect but not sure how.

The snow days kept the world small, assured me of my responsibilities, affirmed what mattered. I didn’t have to spend any energy doubting. And I realized just how much energy that is when the snow incubated it from the outside. 

I am praying to discern my motivations for helping. 

If it’s because we are the first line of support in a close matter, then God give us the courage to help.

If it’s because God has answered the questions for matters close to our hearts, then please ready our feet to take the steps down Your path.

But if it’s because I want the other rats to see me trying to win the good deeds race of checked marks, then please help me let go as I trust you’ll entrust other more appropriate helpers for those situations.

If it’s because I am a smothering busy-body, wanting to care for the needs across town or the ocean, instead of the trash in my own backyard (mostly just figurative), then please help me to remember you have each body part in its place to do its part in this turning world. Our role/space matters, not more or less than anyone else’s.

Father, please show me which body part I am so I can wholeheartedly fill my role and not exhaust useless energy on these flailing worries about a world too complex for me to manage on my own.

Please simplify my purpose as you humble the control-freak, wannabe hero inside... with the intention of empowering the God-made instrument for Your Kingdom.

My husband, an adult child of an alcoholic, tells me the whole serenity prayer when I am (often) overwhelmed by all the needs within and without. Here it is. Say it out-loud. How peacefully it soothes the irritated roots of this heart issue:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference,

living one day at a time,

enjoying one moment at a time,

accepting hardship as a path to peace,

taking, as Jesus did, the sinful world as it is, 

not as I would have it,

trusting that you will make all things right,

if I surrender to your will, 

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with you forever in the next."

Reinhold Neibuhr